Ep. 645: You Are Four Fifths A Grizzly and I Am Too with Douglas Chadwick

Welcome to the Wire to Hunt Podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyon, and this week on the show, I'm joined by wildlife biologist and author Douglas Chadwick to explore the current state of wildlife across the world today in a new way of thinking that might just save those preachers and us. All right, welcome back to the Wire to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light. It's me

Mark Kenyon. I am back in the saddle. Here. The Taylor Swift concerts, the Yoyo competitions, the rock collecting, exploits with Spencer, whatever it is, those crazy things that's been filling your head with, They're all done. I'm out here, back in the saddle, back here on the podcast. Hope you enjoyed Tony's guest hosting over the last month, exploring all sorts of different offseason projects that I think will help all of us as we lead into this next season.

But here I am, and we are kicking off a new series. This is a series we've done for the past couple of years. It's one of my favorites that we do every year, and that's Conservation Month. We are going to take a step back from you know, deep hunting conversations and tactical hunting conversations and instead have some have some conversation around the thing, the resource, the creatures

that allow us to enjoy this hunting lifestyle. There wouldn't be any deer chase, there wouldn't be any wild places to chase them on, there wouldn't be any beautiful Mountain Vista's Crystal career streams of these things that we enjoy so much as hunters and anglers if there weren't people thinking about and working for the conservation of wild animals

and places. And that's what this month is all about, is stepping into that world and exploring, you know, what kind of impact we might be able to have there, what's going on in the wilder world. What should we be excited about, what should we be concerned about, and what's our role to play? And you know, I gotta tell you, just on a personal note, that this kind of stuff can be fun. This kind of work, these kinds of conversations. It does not have to be dreary,

it does not have to be a drag. This kind of stuff is fun. And I have a personal, real world example of this just from last week, because as some of you might know, give my little updates here. The Working for Wildlife tour kicked off at the end of March. We had our first event outside of Boston, Massachusetts, and me in dozens and dozens and dozens of many of you and others came out to a wildlife management

area like I mentioned in Massachusetts. We got together on a Sunday and we picked up a whole load of trash, like literally entire dump truck load. More than one thousand pounds of trash were picked up by folks out there that day. We put up I think six different wood duck boxes. We pulled out of there, all sorts of shotgun shells, tires, beer cans, you name it. I mean, there's a whole lot of crap that was out there, you know, fouling up this beautiful piece of public land

that is no longer there. It was good work. It was just rewarding to do something like that and to immediately see and in some small way things get a little bit better by way of our of our handiwork

and our time. But what stood out the most, maybe, and I guess I should have known this coming in, but when I was really reminded of coming out of it, was just how much fun it is to do that kind of stuff, To get out there with other people that care about wildlife, that like to hunt or like to fish, and who also like to keep these things around,

who also want to give back. Just being around other people that cared about those same things and all kind of joining in to do something good and worthwhile was

really fun and re energizing and uplifting. So I came out of that just you know, more charged up than ever to just do more of those kinds of things, to you know, to step away from the words of things, you know, worrying about what you read on the news, or you know, even being on a podcast like this talking about ideas of what to do, and actually getting into the world of action, actually doing something that is good, that felt great, and that that's got me more excited

than ever to do this series this month exploring different ways we can all take action to make sure that you know, our kids and grandkids do still have public land to explore, do have wild, quiet, clean places to explore that do have great hunting opportunities or wildlife viewing opportunities or phishing opportunities, that there's still some wild creatures run around out there that we all enjoy and making

sure if things are better for the future. That's the kind of stuff that I'm excited about talking about this week. And we're gonna kind of go all over the place with this series. We're gonna have, you know, some episodes that are very high level looking at the worldwide state of nature, what's going on, that's that's gonna be today. Really we're gonna look at different ideas about how to

think about ourselves and relationship to nature. But we're also going to zoom really tightly into things like you know, we're gonna have some episodes of very specifically focused on white tail deer and others that are focused on all

sorts of things. We're gonna have some episodes that go, you know, right into the nitty you're witty, for example, of one specific piece of conservation legislation that will have huge impacts on whitetailed deer and private land conservation and hunter access and habitat protection, all kinds of stuff like that.

We've got a conversation next week on that topic. We're going to reach out to a couple of folks and get into all sorts of different ideas for you know how we and as hunters and anglers, can be more

effective advocates for these things that we care about. So we're gonna be all over the place, and today, as I mentioned, we're starting out at this high level thirty thousand foot overview of nature and wildlife and where things stand today, and not just when it comes to deer or wild game here in America, but across the world. And our guests today is going to help us explore that and also consider, you know how, how we might be thinking about our relationship or obligation to these wild things.

So our guest today, as I mentioned at the top, is Douglas Chadwick. He is a wildlife biologist. He's a widely published writer, frequently seen in the pages of magazines like the National Geographic and the author of I believe more than fourteen books, including The Wolverine Way, Tracking Gobie Grizzlies, and most recently four Fifths a Grizzly, a new perspective on nature that just might save us all. And Doug has he has lived an incredible life. It seems he

has seen some amazing things. He's traveled the wild world, gotten up close and personal with grizzlies, whales, mountain goats, and just so many other fascinating wild creatures. And over the course of those years and expeditions, Doug has seen a diminishing world. He has had this firsthand experience seeing wild places wink out and wild creatures pushed to the brink.

And all of this has seemed to have led Doug to a realization that maybe it's time we rethink our place alongside these animals, or at least rethink how we think about her place with these animals. Doug, it seems began to think that we might have more in common with these animals than we once thought. And if that's true, if we do have more in common with these animals, what does that mean for how we live with or

conserve wild places and animals. These are the thoughts and ideas that eventually led to this recent book by Doug, Four Fifths of Grizzly, which, within its pages explores the real and widespread threats currently facing wildlife all across the world today, what we might be able to do to address it, in some great examples of successes that we

are seeing today in that pursuit. That is that's what made this book so interesting to me, and that is why I was so excited that Doug was willing to come on here and talk to us about a new way of seeing ourselves as a part of nature, not apart from nature, but a part of nature. This fundamental shift in how we think about ourselves that I think

can help us become better hunters. I think it can help us become happier humans, and I definitely think it can help us become more effective stewards of these wild things.

And so if we can, if we can process some of this and think about this and maybe reconsider where we stand in relation to the deer that we hunt, the turkeys we chase, the fish we catch, the bears we watch when we drive through Yellowstone, whatever it might be, maybe all of that can help us take these next couple of month s worts of conversations and put it into action, leading to better things for us in our outdoor pursuits leading to better opportunities for our kids and

so so much more so. That is the game plan today. Thanks for being here, Thanks for tuning in. Let's get to my chat now with Douglas Chadwick. All right now with me on the line. I'm really excited to have mister Douglas Chadwick. Doug, thank you so much for being here. Oh, I'm happy to be here, of course. And you're in Bozeman, aren't you. So the company Meetator is based in Bozeman, but I actually split my time between Michigan and Idaho,

so I'm kind of all over the place. Well, I was gonna I was gonna try to console you because I think they got almost two feet in so snow em Bozeman yesterday. Yes, because spring of going rapidly backwards in some parts of the Rockies look good today on the west side. Yeah, A lot of my friends and Bozeman have been sharing pictures of that dreaded two foot snowfall when they're hoping to see some kind of green growth again. I think at my place in Idaho there's

something like four feet still. So I'm gonna be digging my way into the driveway here in a few weeks when I get out there. But I'm sure you've had a lot of that snowfall up in your neck of the Wits two. Huh, we have. It's been good. I do a lot of cross country stand and just animal tracking getting out and of course all of us in Montana well and a lot of the country. You know, we're praying for more and moist here and save us from once again having a wildfire season start a month early.

You know, the bigger picture of things here is there's a lot of transition going on. I'm looking at the Continental Divide from my home in white Fish, and I've hiked out all my life, and I'm watching glaciers literally shrink in front of my eyes and trees marching up the slopes into the tundra. And you know, it's it's

a real phenomenon, that UM effects. I used to study mountain goats and in the park as well as in the San rang Von, Canada, and and uh, you know, the use high altitude critters have got a whole new um center rules to survive by. So um anyway, lots of snow is good. Let the glaciers grow bigger. Yes, yeah, we need we need the snow, the moisture, the coal. That's going to be good for some critters out there,

will be good for the fish and the rivers. Uh, it'll be good for exactly like you said, hopefully not as bad of a wildfire season. So yeah, I think I'm sure all my buddies in Bozeman, uh can handle a little extra snow in their hopes for spring because of the greater good. Um yep, So you mentioned the work you used to do with mountain goats, and um, you know, I've I've become relatively steeped in your history

preparing for this and reading your works over the years. Uh, You've you've lived, and I guess I'm speaking for you, so correct me if you think I'm wrong here. But it seems like you've lived a fascinating life. That you've been able to go to some wild places, you've got to study such charismatic animals, You've you've been able to

travel the world and just see and experience unbelievable things. Um. And and I'm sure it's it's obvious to me about you know, why you would want to do these things and why you why this I'm sure self fulfilling for you. But what my question is, to a degree, is is when did those things? When did those travels in your work as a biologist and a writer, When did all that shift for you from just adventure seeking or curiosity satiating.

When did it shift from that to advocacy? When did you shift from me a consumer of these wild experiences to then wanting to protect them or advocate for them. When did that happen for you? How did that happen for you? Well, boy, us along and complex question. I'll try to keep it short. It actually started pretty early, mark, because I did my graduate work and wildlife biology studying mountain goats, and I studied them in an area that

was back in the day. I'm getting kind of antique, And this was back in the seventies when mountain goats were being hunted unlimited. They didn't know anything about them and didn't recognize them as a whole different kind of critter than say, deer and elk, their closest relative in North America, as the Muscos and other relatives are all found on the east coast of Asia, and they have a whole different social system and slow reproduction and all

kinds of things. So Anyway, I was up studying mountain goats, and I was watching new roads going to the back country, and grizzly bears were essentially being on being hundred unlimited in those days too, and there were very few regulations on logging and road building. So I kind of got activated early on because I was watching goats disappear and that was happening throughout the large choke of the goat range,

and I was also watching grizzly bears disappear. They were listed as threatened while I was still on the job of being a goat boy, and so I struck me, well, wait, use their public resources. And they're both committially inspiring in their own way. I mean, we all know about grizzlies and the emotions they evoke, but mountain goats kind of sentinels of the high country and live in one of the highest steepest niches ever invented for a warm blooded mammal.

And anyway, I just thought, this is silly to be having the youth vanish at this rate. What can I do? And so I did start writing for you know, popular magazines looking to do how to affect public policy. I don't clam to be any good at that. I just got activated, So that took place early. And then I did get lucky and latch onto a kind of a career with National Geographic as an independent writer. But I worked for him for many, many stories and books, and

that's got me sent out around the world. And it turned out that everywhere I went us started looking better and better. And I'm watching animals disappear around the globe, and I'm talking about up to and including the giants I work with, elephants, I work with great whales, and or I should say I volunteered as a researcher when I could, but a lot of time I was just tagging along after the experts in the area where I was trying to figure out what would work and what

wouldn't for conservation. So a lot of good, I'd say, blind luck plus passion to be in wild places among inspiring wildlife. Yeah, going to all those places dug in and being with so many people working towards either researching these wild animals or you know, actually working to protect them in one way or another. You've seen all these things firsthand, You've been with people working on these problems

and issues. Do you feel having that set of experiences and being exposed to all of that all over the world, both here at home and elsewhere. Has that made you more worried about the situation at hand and disheartened? Or or has that given you hope and confidence because you see the good things being done? Where have you landed after being exposed to the reality on the ground in so many places? Okay? Can I tell one quick story? Yeah, yeah,

please do. I was working with people who were studying the vocabulary, basically the songs, the vocal messages of humpback whales, and we were allowed to swim with them by special permission because there are protected species. But you know how we all go out to have wildlife adventures, and the bigger, the better the critter. And I remember a whale that came over to me and I was, you know, really steaming along, you know, full speed, headed straight for me.

This is a humpback and it and then it put out these big fins it has called pectoral fins and just acts as instant breaks and stopped about two feet from my nose, and you know, I felt like, now, this critter has a brain about three times my size, and it lives as long or longer than team minutes, and it sings the longest song in the world, and

it came over to see me. I felt like a little bug that someone bent down to look at, you know, And you can just imagine the presence of a thirty five foot forty foot long animal being nose and nose with an underwater and I mean, back up onto the boat. My first thought was, damn, what now? What? How can I ever get any better than this? You know, I'm far venturing, but I guess I'm trying to lead into say,

working with elephants. I was. My first introduction to them was during the late nineteen seventies early eighties, and they were all being slaughtered void, just at a mass level for their ivory, which at the time was worth more than the third tusks had been made of solid silver. So you can't stop a market like that in countries with very little law enforcement and corrupt governments. And I'm

just walking from dead elephant to dead elephants. So I guess I'm working my way towards saying that the activism part the passion to God, Chadwick gets smarter, do something, figure out something to help here, and if you're talking about authors, you're talking about whole landscapes it takes to support them, and also the welfare of the people that live there, and the economics of tourism and all kinds

of things that some countries rely on. So if I'm looking at let's say tropical for us, and I'm watching them, I've been in the Amazon on the Congo and watch the forest, you know, being transformed into palm oil plantations and that sort of thing. I don't go there looking for problems. I don't go there all fired up and I'm going to go out and be an environmental activist frame of mind. I just go to learn about the animals and what I see keeps do keep me what

motivated to to figure this out? What groups? Okay, so that's the bad part. I mean, there are eight billion people in the world. It's not real apparent when you live in the mountains of Montana, but that's almost three times as many as we're around on this planet. When I was learning how to do biology and conservation and cool. Right, it's a whole new ball game, and I don't think most people are at the speed on it unless they

travel a lot. In parts of Asia, and Africa where the animals are simply running out of room, especially big animals. And I guess I could put it this way. If you take the living weight of all the land dwelling mammals on the planet, about oh twenty two three percent of that is humans all but a little slice of the remaining percentage is our livestock. It's like seventy six percent and or seventy three percent, I don't know, somewhere in there. And there's a little little slice of the

pie left that is four percent. And that's all the wild animals that remain on Earth today. Okay, all the while, I'm sorry, well I'm talking about mammals, but what you know, I gotta get my terms right. But that's all. That's it. And so you know, people try to compromise, and the

compromise is lung has been made in my experience. And so even as I get more motivated to try to do something, and you know, I have been yeah, near to despair, outright despair in some places, just people everywhere doing everything and the animals losing and losing and losing. But the other motivation is to go out and find projects and programs that are working and I'm especially intrigued by ones that. Again, I'm a biologist. I love working

with animals. I didn't plan to work with people. But now it's really key to go out and find communities that are working together to keep the health of the land and the wildlife communities that they all share, and that means protecting their water and the quality of their land and for grazing or whatever it is, what's working,

that's what peop I want to know. It's I mean, environmentalists and pretty good at alarming people and coming up with some pretty hard you know, you go to a party and pig and hold people and say, here's another terrible thing you might not know about. Sound fun, here's another awful statistic. But I want to be able to say, look, here's a program where the people are doing better. They're getting you know, more stable environment for their other activities.

They're getting water that's healthier for their children to drink, Disease is going down. They've got more money from some tourism for health of children and women and the community as a whole. And they're doing this for their own reasons, not because people are coming from the outside from some rich country and saying here's we're here to help, right. So I'm actually on the foundation. It's an international foundation

that supports community based conservation all around the world. From I was just reviewing plans in Laos in Argentina, you get the idea and these are these are programs that are working. And so you combine more scientific information about animals, and boy has that changed in those that period I mentioned since I was in school. We know cons more

about their behavior, their genetics, and their physiological needs. And we also know a whole lot more about the need to work with the people that live on the land and not and get away from that old idea more than a century old now of we protect animals by declaring an exclusive reserve and sensing everybody out and or limiting an access and and then one of the people who have relied on that part of Asia and that part of Africa, or that part of the US for

that matter, where are they supposed to do? So communities working together, that's that's a big part of the agenda for me now is to explain that to people's working on a larger and more connected scale. And we're used to working on with the old model of conservation. But I think a good point to several projects that do work like that, and I did put some in a reacent book. Um, I'll leave it at that. That's a pretty long answer already. Know you touched on some you

touched on some great things there. And you know, I think one of the one of the things that you do really well in that book you just mentioned is you help reframe how we look at these others, these other species, these other parts of the um natural world. And and you titled the book around this idea. You lad the book with this idea, and I think it's I get why you see it as being foundational to helping us think about how we, you know, live alongside

of these other animals. And this this idea of being that that the old narrative of us being apart from nature, or that nature and us are two separate things. You seem to want to turn that on its head and say, no, not so much. We're all in this together. We are actually four fifths so grizzly. Um, can you can you can you give us a quick cliff notes into what you mean by that and why you think that kind of reshifting our perspective on a relationship with a natural

world matters so much. Sure, well, you know I was raved pretty normal childhood, I guess, And I think we all kind of come away into our older years or the years we start questioning things. We don't really question the idea that we are kind of a supreme species and we're either independent of nature or somehow liberated from it,

separate from it in quality. We have the biggest brain for body weight, and you know a lot of rationales for doing what we've always done with resources, which has claim as much as we want, wherever we want, for as long as we want, and then paid off pretty well. Right, Like I said, there are eight billion of us now, the only other species that have a growth curve like

the human population or bacteria. But again, now we're in a situation very well no other mammal has been in and you know we're changing those the atmosphere, those you know, the water, the land structure, the patterns of habitat, at everything, and so yeah, I think a new view of conservations in order, and that's going to start with I don't

think we'll put it this way. I don't think we're going to save nature as long as we don't see clearly our relationship with nature, and the reason we're at least four fifths of grizzly is that we there are about six thousand and four hundred species of mammals on planet us, and you know, never mind, there are four hundred thousand species of beetles identified and they're probably a million out there, but we focus on the big charismatic critters.

That's natural. And we share eighty to ninety percent of our genes with every mammal out there, and it goes up to ninety eight percent with the great with chimpanzee's and behind nineties with other great eggs. So you know, we are built from the same genes and they, and what we're discovering is a lot about how much we share in terms of behavior, of emotions, of other qualities

built by those genes. And one of the most common phrases I see as I look through research papers on animal behavior is the comment a trait formerly thought to be exclusive to human? Why was it formerly thought to be exclusive to humans? Because it sort of suited our the story we tell ourselves. And the other thing about being part of nature is that and this, you know,

this gets into the geeky part. But you know, we have up three thirty trillion human cells in our bodies, and we have more single celled creatures living within and hon us than that, and they are doing our digesting for us, just like they would in the room and of a white tailed deer can't live without it. They produced satty acids and vitamins we can't make ourselves. They keep us going, and they're fighting off other possible infections,

other single celled triggers and their effect. They're producing hormones that are very much like dopamine and serotonin and other things that influence our mood and our thoughts and our actions. So we're actually a compound creature, you know, we're like resemble a liking, which is, you know, an algae plus a couple of different kinds of fungus plus a bunch

of bacteria. We call it a plant. And I would challenge anyone listening to go find an animal larger than bacteria or a similar group called their KaiA that is actually an independent creature. There doesn't seem to be any such thing. So we're combinations, partnerships, collaborations where we joint ventures.

That's what we are. And you know, you can't be apart from nature, And no matter how badly you want it to be so, um, that doesn't oblige you to go out and start dragging subarus and holding up signs of protests. That means, here, we're not who we think we are. Our nature doesn't work why we like to think it works. And and genetically we've got ken all

over the world. Um, And the last thing I'll add is, I'm look, we're also fifty to sixty percent genetically identical to fish, and we share thirty to forty percent even with some insects and uh with a wine grape. Um, maybe maybe a little more in that some nights, you know the company, right, yeah, um, so yeah, I wonder that's why I wrote four fifths of Grizzly was too. I've been working with single species that represented whole ecosystems.

Grizzly bears. You're taking care of their needs for home, range and habitat and quality of food. You're probably encompassing everything from trout to trumpeter slans to lengths of wolverines and help and deer, but um, you know whales. I worked on grizzly bears in the Gobi Desert anyway, just anyway I could come come at it, But it was always single species. But if you're protecting them, you're protecting a lot of biological diversity. You're protecting a lot of

nature of an ecosystem. And then I thought, well, I haven't written a book like that. I'm still focused on the individual species or special places that need more attention. You know, as a writer, you're sort of an arm waiver or a cheerleader for things people haven't been paying attention to, and you're trying to trying to get their attention. But I thought, no, we need to rethink a lot of things again with the idea of that what your

saving nature mean? And first we have to, I think, have a long and useful discussion about what is nature and what's the nature in us and where do we stand in relationship to it. I heard you mentioned on another show at some point you said that people might say, oh, you know, I'm not that into nature, but nature's into you.

I thought that was pretty that's pretty funny. I know a lot of those in your audience we're all mediators, and you know, I've never turned down a fresh medicine of my life but while we're still kind of touching on global situation, there's and I don't throw off statistics again to be an alarmist or for rhetoric or slay soone's opinion. It's just the facts based on a tremendous

number of studies. And that's that about sixty percent of all the herbivores or the hooft mammals mostly greater than two hundred pounds are imperiled species these days, and about sixty per of all carnivores that's all non human meat eaters, right, greater than about thirty three pounds are also on the rare threatened or endangered species lists. So it is it's a different world out there than the bubble I live in in Montana, where we've still got a pretty hack

wildlife communities in pretty good shape. Yeah, So that that that ties in really well to a story I wanted to tell you, Doug. I posted a photo on my Instagram page a couple weeks ago of an excert of

your book. On page forty six. There's a like a like an enlarged piece of text where you were talking about kind of this very issue of the biodiversity crisis in the in the quote here that I took a photo of and that I shared was this as the number of people was roughly doubling in the forty two years between nineteen seventy in twenty twelve, the total population count of the planet's wild animals fell by more than half yea. So I posted that picture and I didn't

really add any context. I just said, for your consideration, was my caption and put it out there, and it generated all sorts of questions. There was outrage at like disbelief, like there's no way this could be possible, there's no way anyone could have that kind of data, or that there's no way anyone could actually measure this. There were some people just very despairing of that. There were some folks who had genuine questions about how do we how do we know this, how do we come to these

kinds of conclusions, what can we do about it? There were some folks who said, you know, there are folks who start to point fingers. It's because of this, it's because of this, because of this. It generated a really interesting beginning of a conversation that sent me then down a wormhole to try to answer or at least provide a little more context. So I ended up recording and sharing a fifteen minute video explaining I dove deep into

where that number came from. I did research on trying to understand the Living Planet Report from the World Wildlife Fund, and I read up on how the Living Planet Index is compiled and shared all that and discuss some different things around what we're seeing as far as the larger wildlife,

these larger wildlife trends. So it was a great kind of exercise for me to have to think about think about what these statistics, like these kind of negative, depressing I guess metrics in the world right now, what those things mean, How we can do something with that data. Because it's one thing to just say it, like you said, like you can say this depressing, sad number that does point to a fact and point to reality, But how

do we understand what that actually looks like? How do we get to these numbers and what do we do about it? So this is a long winded way, Doug, of asking you to tell me this that quote that I just shared with you, this idea of this biodiversity crisis, this idea that folks are saying that we are moving towards a sixth mass extinction event. As someone who's been out there on the ground talking to the folks researching these things, studying these things, and you've seen some of

a much of it of yourself. Does this ring true or is it hyperbolic and it's alarmist? It's true? Um. Again, if I'm if I'm in Missouri, or I'm in California, if I'm in Montana, especially if I'm in Montana, I'm Alaska, and I'd read that statistic and I go, what what What in the world are they talk about? This is

more rhetoric, you know, propaganda from the Greenies. Um. But when I'm in Asia and walking through a jungle and there's a snare, you know, every hundred feet and the jungle is lush and intact, but it's empty of big critters, um. If all too clear. And when I'm in situations where I'm carrying a gun in Africa because of the threat of poachers, because I'm with park rangers and we're coming upon you know, freshly killed carcasses all over the place,

It's it's very real. And I I I did read the same report you did carefully, and I would say it was a Worldwhilife Fund planetary evaluation. I think the Solological Society of London and they it isn't like they just went out and did their own surveys in a few places. They wrote to everybody around the world and got all the census stata they could and it's always imperfect, but thousands of studies and put it together and actually

it came out a couple of years ago. I recently saw the figure raised from almost fifty percent to you know, sixty percent plus, and some have The hard part is, you know who's who's out there counting salm every salamander or wizard and that sort of thing. But you can certainly take large sample areas and get those figures. And again, depending on where you are, it makes sense to you or it just sounds catastrophic. But worldwide, that's the situation.

The human footprint now lies across eighty three percent of the land surface of the Earth. Those kind of how long agen throwing out gloomy gloomy stats here. The prediction is that the plastic in the seas, including all the decayed plastic that becomes microplastics, gets into every living thing. It will outweigh all the fish in the world's oceans

by two thousand and fifty. So it's really hard for a single person living, you know, with in a you know, a familiar home with comfortable routines and enjoys getting the outdoors. And Um looks around and says, I don't see anything

much differ from day to day. But where are you if you I'm not sure we're even built you see, you know that far or on that scale, But whenever you put it together globally, with eight billion plus people on the planet in need of resources and with a whole lot more technology to get those resources and change environments to do it, I'm sorry. It's it's what's happening.

And that's why there was a recent meeting to take on to try to get all nations to make a commitment for reserving a certain percentage of biodiversity that they have on their lands and in their waters, much as was done with you know, the international meeting to take on the climate crisis. So I know a lot of people, you know, there's a feeling like you're almost inclined to

reject all this because it's just too much. You're used to people overstating crises and you know, they'll be warnings about some particular chemical and we're all going to die and get deformed. And then you know, two months later they say, oh no, we we we did some more experiments. Turns out it's not a big deal. So it's easy to put these things in that category. But the loss of our fellow creakers is enormous, as unprecedented has been seen since asteroid whack into the planet at the end

of the Age of dinosaurs. But it's slow mow enough by our standards that we don't go running out into the streets. And I wish it weren't true. Yeah, Yet it is hard to face that. It's hard to accept that, both because it seems it seems beyond possible, and it's as you said, in many cases, it's it's hard to see the actual shift happening right in front of your eyes, especially if we're somewhere like in America, where we are relatively at least compared to many other places in the world,

we still have, you know, relatively wild places. We still have full suite of wildlife in some parts of the country. We still have you know, well regulated wildlife management principles in play too. To give us the resources and the opportunities we have to see wild critters out there. But that's not the case in a lot of places. But I think, I think even in each of our own individual lives, on a really micro scale, we can see examples of this. I mean I can. I was just

telling my son. I've got a five year old son who is at this phase in his life where he is fascinated by any of dad's stories. He just wants to hear stories about when I was on some hiking trip, or the day I caught my biggest walleye, or that time that Grandpa pretended to be a black bear and scared my dad, or the time I caught my first snap, like all those things. He just whenever we're driving, he's like, hey, will you tell me a story. We tell me this

story of that thing, that thing. And the other day he was asking me to tell him stories about catching snapping turtles when I was a kid, and so I told him about you know, every day during summer break, I'd go out behind the house and there was this swamp and this pine this pond right next door, and every day in the summer, me and my next door neighbor would go there, and we'd catch frogs all day, and we would catch snapping turtles when they would actually

overnight be crawling across the road to get to another pond. And we'd wake up in the morning and get out and see these turtles crossing the road and we'd go pick them up and take them back or take them across. And that was how we would catch these huge snapping turtles. They would always be crossing. And he said, Dad, let's go there. Can you please take me to go see this swamp and this pond and the snapping turtles. Can

we catch those snapping turtles? And I had to say, Buddy, it's gone, that pond, that wood lot, it's it's houses now. And I don't I don't think there's anyone listening today who can't point to some example like that in their life of some favorite fishing hole or a favorite wood lot, or a field where they used to chase butterflies or hunt for rabbits, or hike or bird watch or something. Well.

I live in mike Fish, growing rapidly if Ski town and close to Glacier Park and a lot of tourism, and during COVID, it seemed like everybody east of the

Mississippi decided to move here as well as California. But yeah, I could tell you about and you know, my kids know about canoeing the river that runs through town and watching moose and and you know, we still have deer in our yard, but a lot of yards i've also seen him and around me are now hopes and the moose are gone, and the wild turkeys are obvious frequents. And you know, there's just a lot of people coming in and they don't have you know, they don't have

bad intentions. They simply want to live in a nice place. They actually love the outdoors. That's one reason they come. But you know, they don't always come with a commitment to try to find some way to make room for these other creatures as well as for ourselves. It can be done. I mean, there are plans and there are

models for for limiting the pace of habitat change. I know you guys focus often on white tails, right, And um, you're lucky because you're working with a speciesis doing very well yea, and rapidly reproduces, and most of all, it seems well adapted to disturbed habitats. So originally that help fires and floods and and you know other other changes from natural forces, but they do equally well or suburban areas. I'm just telling your your audience things they know very well,

and so that's always heartening. I mean, I when I'm out picking apples in my in my field, um, I've usually got white tailed deer standing below the tree whining for me. I was on kind of butterfingers and I drop a few, and you know, I'll be up on a ladder and I'll feel a ladder shake and say, oh it's a deer, so um waiting. So you know,

it does give you a different view. But if you are looking at other creatures and you're looking at you know, there's been a catastrophic loss of insects in the order of you know, two thirds to three quarters. And all you have to do is occasionally checked the number of bugs on your windshield this summer. It's not like I used to be less place as well. You know, there goes pollination, there go to wildflowers that m all. You know, so much of our wildlife community eeks and who knows

what else. But it just it's well worth paying attention to all the little things that run the world. If you're taught to an insect person or a worm person,

or got to help you a microbe person. I mean they say, look mammals or a side show in terms of weight, in terms of numbers, and to begin with there, they're they're kind of I don't know, um, a little feeling somewhere in the food web, but um, they don't the energy and the nutrients and the things that cycle through an ecosystem to keep it healthy and to help all the animals large and small survive over time and the change of time brings um, most of them are

invisible or require some serious looking. Yeah, it's it's interesting kind of speaking of some of those things. And pollinators are another great example of this. There's you know, there's there's one set of UM, I guess rationale for trying to protect wildlife in biodiversity is like just like the moral imperative of it or just the fact that we as individuals find these animals fascinating and we want to see them around or we feel some connection with them.

So there's that side of things. But then there's also like the practical side of things, the practical argument of the fact that you know, as you mentioned, with pollinators. They provide ecosystem services is this term for what they natural wildlife and wild places provide services. They do things, they support, things that are foundational to human business, economy's life. You said something in your book that I really liked you. You proposed a new golden rule. You said, do unto

ecosystems as you would have them do unto you. And right after saying that, you kind of I guess the way I would you framed it. I guess I'm trying to say, as you framed that, not as like a high minded moral rule, but more as a practical survival strategy. So do onto ecosystems as you would have them do unto you. And that is a golden rule because it is a necessary survival strategy. Can you can you expand on that that you know what that means and what

you think about that. I'll start I'll start with the full golden rule was do into ecosystems as you would have them do unto you. Nurture, sustain, help, allow to flourish. So our health is long term, is indistinguishable from the health of the land, air, and water we we all depend on. Right, And and you mentioned the some of the the more obscure species, the ones we don't pay a lot of attention to, but they're absolutely vital. And I don't I don't you know, it sounds like you're

it's asking a lot of people. Um, you go out and get to know all these varied life forms there are. There are so many as too many and unless you like a geek out on some of the things I do. Um, I mean I say, I've worked with elephants of Wales, also with ants and beetles and even talk toure geographic

in doing stories on them. And because they in Australia, I've been in places where the ants control the whole forest, cannopy and and any cree, kangaroos or koalas or whatever else wants to live there has to deal with it part of their their environment. But UM, I guess the question we're I feel like we're coming to mark is is you know when well, let's just go back in time. And I know hunters are proud of the fact that

you know or see themselves as the original conservationists. And granted it came about in an era when the national philosophy seemed to be if it moves, shoot it and if it doesn't, cut it down. But they were the original conservationists and and continue to be so for a while, and all credit goes to them and and some other four sighted people that maybe looked at some of the

non hunter species, but it was huge. My question, I think to you and some of the folks listening, is who are the leading conservationists today or where do hunters stand reside on that list? Are they still are they still leading? Are they still, you know, by really important to the conservation work that remains to be done, and

what do we do with that? Yeah? Yeah, And I think the answer is from my perspective that there are a lot of hunters and anglers who do care deeply about these things and who are leading, but there's so

much more that needs to be done. There's there's so much more, and I think that there's there's so much more potential good we could do if the hunters and anglers working on these kinds of things are not working on these kinds of things in isolation, but are working with them hand in hand with the non hunters and anglers who care about these things and are leading and

doing great work for conservation. So I one of my big hopes and dreams to the futures seeing these two communities working more and more together, because it's a big number of folks. It's a it's a serious constituency of people and of voters. If you combine those two groups of people, if you combine animal lovers and outdoor recreators, skiers and hikers and bikers and all those folks with all of the tens of millions of hunters and anglers, all these people that love nature, all these people who

appreciate wildlife and fish and open space. And yeah, we might engage with it in different ways. We might live in the city, or we might live in the mountains or in a farm. But I feel like there's so much we could do if we could get better at looking past those differences and instead kind of compound our powers together to tackle stuff like what we're talking about today.

Couldn't agree more. And I know here in Montana the hundreds and anglers are tremendous folks for taking better care of the environment, for public land protection and access and proper access, and and uh, I think it would be wonderful if it could, you know, follow up on that, because I I think we've spend way too much time, you know, discussing, um, how people feel about hunting or one way or the other. And look, we can't make

everybody an ethical hunter overnight. We can't make every conservation to stop acting like holier than now uh or or you know, being annoying. And I think, I think it would be tremendous to bring you know, the different forces who care about the different groups that care about the future of of well life on the planet, but of the wild word the world they go into, and that

they know a lot about. Yeah, And I have great respect for a one of my friends who are both avid hunters and very keeen naturalists, and I think one comes together. You got to know what you're doing out there, um, but not you know, not in all situations, all types of hunts. But really the guys out roaming the woods tend to do it and and and it means a lot when they speak up for protecting the the whole community of wildlife. And you know, I when look, when

I see a deer, um a couple of things. I think every creature out there is the right answer to the question of how best to live in a certain way. A certain place, um or wouldn't be here, I wouldn't have survived over the millennia. But um, I don't know. This is This is a tough one, but I feel like we need to somehow look at the deer and see what shaped it, you know, the vegetation it eats, the animals that competes with for that vegetation, the predators.

Why does the deer as have the senses it does. Why does it have the fleetness, the ability to you know, jump over an eight foot fence of this practical stand still. You know that was the work of you know, predators over thousands of years. And I do know some hunters who you know, pretty down on predators because they see them as as competing for me. But that respect the greater community that made the deer, that may the elk as social and communicative as they are m as you know,

living in groups. Many eyes are better than one, you know, one pair. And what made the moose so strong and able to punch through deep snow and fend off you know, the midsized carnivores. It was just all all these different natural forces and you don't get one without the others. The way I look at it, and if you just focus on one single species, nature doesn't really work that way. It's a process that takes place over time that makes each animal what it is, and that naturally leads you

from whatever animal your favorites are. Could be wild jerkys, could be deer, could be gosh, I don't know. Help here in Montana, certainly, but who else is living there with them? And what are they doing that are we taking care of them? And obviously works they were all here when we invaded this continent, and wildlife management sometimes makes it sound like boys, sure good that we got

here just in time to save all these animals. Well, now, what they were doing just great, and they were diverse or abundant, and nature was at its healthiest and most fertile um. So you know how how much of that has been lost is something we can all debate over,

but it's it's been a lot. And when you asked me earlier about the startling decline in numbers worldwide of vertebrates or animals with backbones forty percent on up to some say sixty percent now and say we don't see it in the US, But that's got to remember that's partly because we don't see bison in the millions anymore. You know, we don't see grizzlies in the tens of thousands. We don't see mountain care to move back. And they were in the forests of Wyoming right and old grow

forests of Idaho farther south and anyway. So it's hard, you know, to come up with these comparisons. What was the natural state, what's here now? How much it's declined. But I think rather than get lost in that, I would just say, here's what we've got. We've done a decent job with the tools we had of conserving it. We can do much more, much better. I mean, I've been out. I was volunteering on a wolverine study just because I realized it's an animal i'd seen but didn't

really know anything about. And then I realized nobody knows much about them, and they were getting overlooked and they were declining. We've probably got three hundred and fifty or fewer in the lower forty eight states, And you know, I just there's a lot of animals and situations like that candidates for listing for protection. If enough people are working together on management of plans and ways to improve

things for those critters. They don't have to get listed, or if listed, they'd be off the list pretty during quicker. If we've made a few right moves, and I that's all worth looking at, it's all worth considering. And if all every animal deserters, I think the same amount of value. And I'm not going to say that deer hunters are going to turn into you know, avid wolverine fans um.

But wolverines are. Wow, what a critter. I followed them up to the tops of mountains that are ten you know, there's ten thousand foot plus and right around here, and they're climbing ice and snow that no human can climber, could get it up. They go forty four hours a day. I mean the custom it's likely they fueled by nuclear energy or something. And they can stand grizzly bears over a carcass. I mean, wow, that's the attitude. Yeah. So,

you know, it's funny. One thing we haven't really touched on, which probably a lot of folks are asking, is what's causing all this other than the other than the overarching umbrella of humans. Uh, you know, there might be people saying, all right, I hear what you're saying, we are losing a lot of wildlife across the world. There's lots of threatened species, there's lots of trends going in the wrong direction.

But what's specifically is making this happen. And as I understand, Doug, in my own reading and research and projects related to this, I've seen most of the causes lumped into five buckets, that being you know, the various forms of habitat destruction, the impacts of climate change, pollution in its many different forms, invasive species, and then you know overkill or overharvest or

poaching of fish and wildlife in different situations. I've seen those as the five main culprits of this overarching biodiversity crisis across the world. Would you say, does that sound right to you, Doug? And secondly, is there any one of those or several of those that, from your work and experience, seems to stand out above the rest? Unfortunately, no, but but there are some we can fix more easily.

And the pollution is that's just heedlessness and it's causing as many look, more people die from air pollution every year than from eggs, malaria, and I forget what else. Certainly COVID combined. It's huge. And if you go to Beijing, or you spend time in Delhi or someplace, you you're gonna get sick if you breathe that airline enough. And millions of people are being affected, and that's just economics. And that change has to come from the people being affected.

And I don't know, man, I rapidly get out of my element because I'm say, I'm just I'm just an ot go boy, a wildlife biologist, and all of a sudden, the the changes that need to occur are social and economic and involved. You know, the resources were taking from the land, and whether it's it's harvesting animals or illegally or in most of the world, illegally or simply because there's no law enforcement. Um, that's one thing, But Jeeves taking on the economics of resource extraction is that that's

above my pay grade. UM. I got to be people, and unfortunately they're not those in power. But the people are being affected often, but they have somehow to get support from other other places, but start making those changes themselves, just as each of us. You know, sometimes you feel silly recycling your pop cans, are doing those little things turning off the lights and all that. But of course if millions we're doing it, it it would make a huge difference. I do it just because it makes me feel a

little better at trouble. But I think the next stage is people taking part of meetings and writing letters all their usual things. But we talk about it, but not that many people do it. And again, if legislators are starting to hear from hunters about a proposed development of some kind, and it doesn't have to be oh, we're going to go lie down in front of the bulldozer.

It's just we looked over your plan and you could do a better job of making sure contamination is limited, or you know something, the facility somewhere else besides the side of that mountain, more elk reader, or put that new subdivision somewhere else people can learn. You know, we can make a big change down at city hall. We can make a big change by going to the county commissioners, and make a change by going to the states legislature

and hollred about things. I'm just saying I'm not here to fight, really, I'm here to make a change that we can all live with. Let's start with that and the being a generation after us I can continue doing that. Does that make sense? Yeah, oh yeah, it does. So I've got a question about maybe one specific example of something like this that hunters have started engaging in and

maybe could do more. And then I think ties into a couple of these larger challenges to wilde being in the form of habitat fragmentation and destruction and the impacts of climate. Let's say, um, there's something I'd love you to talk a little bit about, which is the the island effect and the importance of migration corridors. And this migration corridor push is picking up steam within the conservation community for for many, many years, but now in the

hunting community. There's been a lot of interesting studies over the last five ten years about pronghorn migrations, mule deer migrations that are kind of opening the eyes for people and realizing how far these critters go. And so that's that's I think opening a lot of hunter's eyes to the necessity for connective tissue between different wild places because they're now seeing a species they pay attention to a

lot needs these connections and corridors. But there's a there's a much wider impact to these wider to having these quarters of vailable because we're seeing, you know, whether it be grizzly bears or pronghorn or any number of different species, they need to be able to move, not only because of natural migrations, but also because the temperatures and the climate zones they need to survive are shifting and they're going to have to shift north or up to be

able to continue to have that kind of thing. And this is becoming increasingly challenged because of this island effect. Can you can you tell folks about the island effect, how that impacts wildlife and how we might be able to start dealing with that and creating better corridors and connections to solve for that. Sure, um, and thank for bringing that up, because that's that is key, and because

we're on the solutions and satans right now. And the old bottle of conservation was kind of like the King's Hunting Reserve or you know earlier, where you've set aside a hunk of land that scenic, has recreational values, has wildlife values, and you limit access or put offense around it as they do in some of the African reserves and say, hey, we save nature well the eighties percent.

Almost of the extinctions that have taken place since the year fifteen hundred have been on oceanic islands, and it's because, of course they're isolated. They're subject to whatever comes through disease or invasive species, hurricanes, you know, changing climate in that particular part. But they can't go anywhere, and they can't get replaced from neighboring populations. And the whole time, if they're not a very large population, they're going to

be inbreeding. And the way genetics works is nine times out of ten that specigoes extinct. And that's essentially a model that applies to the way we've done this on land on different continents. We make isolated reserves here and there whereas possible where there was still wild land and still a rich wildlife community and declared a reserve. And now the big push worldwide because of all those factors I mentioned and more studies over the past half century.

All point in this direction is that you have to build in that flexibility for animals to adapt and met you brought up a changing climate here in the continent, they have to move up, maybe north or south, maybe to a moister set of conditions. But they've got to be able to move and flow and swap jeans and meet new girlfriends and party in different places. If I put a I go out with a bare biologist who

flap a radio color on yet another grizzly. It might be a glacier park, but the next week it's in Canada. It's an Alberta nsover in British Columbia. Then just down the National Forest in western Montana, etc. Do you guys do move a lot? I once followed a mountain lion from the Black Hills in South Dakota. I did it indirectly where people had collected scats and done DNA analysis, but from the Black Hills of South Dakota to the edge of a interstate highway in Connecticut, thirty miles from

New York City. Wow, where I got hit by car. Animals can move, and then they're always probing, and that's part of the value. It's like white tailed deer, right. They they produce a lot of the young, and those young have to disperse to find habitat in the stages that they like, the early stages of forest succession with a lot of brush and you know, very grasslands and well a variety of plants that you don't get in a closed forest, as you know, so you know, they're

dispersing all the time. So if they're contained, or they've got potentially a fence in the form of new housing, new agricultural lands or whatever that they're not allowed on, how do they do that? And so if you're in Africa and you're looking at the elephants in Manyara, they've got to get to Ruaha. They have to get from Ruaha to the Serengetti. They have to you know, there's a string of wonderful wildlife parks there, but they are

all islands. And so what they're doing now is going in between those reserves, working with communities and who have problems with wildlife coming through. Sometimes the elephants are eating crops, or the lions are considered dangerous or taking livestock coming up with you know, a whole lot of creative plans that end up making that passageway between the existing reserves termeable to wildlife. You don't have to go and create another park. You don't have to make a superpark over

the whole area. You have to make corridors or wild waves or habitat bridges or whatever you want to call them that allow animals to move and adapt and reproduce, and that is being undertaken in parts of Africa, in parts of Asia. Thailand have some reserves bordering Myanmar, the

old Burma, I guess. And here in the US we've got some landscape level plans taking shape in a number of areas, but actually in reasonable shape in the what it's called the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, which is two thousand miles from south of Yellowstone up to well north into the Yukon, and that they say it is the size and scale of of land nature needs to and wildlife populations need to stain themselves over time. Oh and one thing I'll add, if can I ramble on

and y okay Um. Part of this is because we've got a lot of America is graced with a whole lot of public land that alone distinguishes us from so many countries. And as part of the reason you and I have been pointing out that things are are looking

pretty good here compared to much of the world. Um. But what we're finding now as things get busier, highways get busier, communities grow there's more logging and mining, and you know, road access into the former back country um our parks in the Rockies are turning into um let's call them near islands. But there's a lot of land in between public land that can be managed UM more in favor of wildlife, less in favor of of just

cut and run extraction or big and run UM. And then there's a final key element, and that is private land UM in the areas between wildlife strongholds. If a bear was to get from Yellowstone Park to Glacier Park and the Yellowstone population is isolated, or the elk migrate, or the as you say, the pronghorns, you need to get down into wyoming UM from from the Red Debt, sorry, from from say Teton National Park into the Red Desert one hundred miles UM. You you're going through private lands

and fences, so you can change the fencing rangements. You can put overpasses their underpasses where they have to cross a freeway and occasionally get slaughtered. They many died during storms and they come up against fences they can cross. And then there's still just the land itself. And if a landowner is operating in certain ways of no use

to those animals. If the landowner is willing to keep some of the habitat intact and some of the cover that dear and help need, for example, in just again a corridor a right of way for the four legged critters, that makes all the difference in the world long term. And so the factor I'm trying to put it out is land trusts, by which groups go out and arrange conservation easness with private landowners. And these are willing landowners.

Nobody's regulating anything, nobody's forcing anything. It's a win win deal where they get paid to maintain their land in a wildlife friendly manner. And maybe you've discussed this on previous podcasts and probably have. Um, this has proven to be a key in Montana's a leader in in this. Uh you know this, this what strategy for keeping wildlife able to move and adapt and being done with Joe

Blow next door. You know, the neighbors, the people in the community who what I see that wildlife and have it in your lives and um, it adds up to a lot of acreage in the right places. And because they're you know all this has been pretty well mapped out over time by biologists and ecologists where you can look at a map of a region and say, okay, if I were an elk or a white kill deer or a links, where would I go? Where would I

need to go? And if you're looking at public land management, some pressure from the public to maybe manage it more in favor of wildlife, and then you're looking at private landloders who willingly will take part in this movement pattern. Making a movement pattern available, we can make great strides and we can conserve big nature and that's what a

full wildlife community needs. Yeah. So if IF IF advocating for these kinds of things, such as migration corridors, wildlife passages across highways, helping fund different easement programs, you know on the migration quarteror thing. We have had some good news on that recently. I think there was something like three hundred and fifty million dollars for migration corridor related work in the recent ira UM Flas Reduction Act. And there's a whole lot of dollars in the infrastructure bill

from two years ago. So I think there's there's some steam building there. Yeah, So that's that's exciting. UM. But I guess Doug if if you were too, if you were to have one of my audience members sitting in front of you and the two of you were drinking a cup of coffee right now, and they've just heard everything you had to say. And I think anyone listening to this podcast is already someone who you know has some kind of connection with nature. They're a hunter and

an angler. They appreciate these things. But maybe they haven't zoomed out quite as much as we have today and looked at the larger picture, or looked outside of their favorite species. And maybe they're hearing this and recognizing, Man, I do need to try to do something more than I'm already doing. And you were sitting there across from them, what would be two things that you would tell them now that that you would encourage them to to do. Two actions they could take that you think could make

a difference in some kind of way. Uh Um, okay, I would first, depending on who I'm talking too, but um, settling down and say I don't know what I'm doing, um, and I'm making it up as I go along. And by the way, you don't have to take off your camo and start wearing hemp clothing. You know, um or anything.

You know. Hundreds like to say, there's a there's this weird distinction in our culture where people say, I'm a conservationist, but I'm no environmentalist because they you know, environmentalism means marching on nuclear power plants or uh, you know, whatever is going on and or a big fight over a polluting plant or something. And and a lot of people just don't see themselves in that role. And I don't

see it in my role. Um, So I would say the right now, maybe the most effective thing hunters can do is talk to each other and and come up with their own solution, rather than listen to this guy you're talking to right now and just say, well, look, I know, I know we love hunting together, and um, you know, we've spent a lot of time outdoors together. And by the way, I've noticed you're kind of a U you like to track the other carnivores out there, m or you like you like to spend time, I

don't know, just just seeing what else is there. I mean, that's part of the joy of being out, you know, a day in the woods and and there is a problem going, you know, and and what can we do just to make life a little easier for the critters here and make sure are still around for the next generation. And um, gosh, I don't know what do you think.

I mean? I'm not I don't see myself as a letter writer, but I might be able to get down to that city hall meeting about the development going in UM in that area we like to hunt here or that maybe that area we like to hunt in UM and put it in our two cents worth and you know, learn a bit more about it and go in and say, well, here's what the deer need, here's what the you know, the whatever your favorite critter is and our plant um and start at that level rather than me throw out

you know, you should join this group or that group. UM. I would recommend looking into land trusts. They always mean, you know, a few extra bucks and maybe some time from people. And I know, I'm sure some of your listeners are are already active volunteers and going out and restoring some landscapes, restoring, rehabbing trout streams or you know,

their favorite fishing spot. I don't know how many would be looking at the the endangered muscles probably live in that water and filter it and help make it clear and keep pulling this down. But as he's worth getting to know more about UM. I'd start small, and I'd start with like minded people and try to figure out together what difference one person can make. And you know, it's a big global problem. We've got a head start on some of the solutions here in the US. How

can we make them happen sooner and better? Yeah? I think that's pretty va I'm sorry if that, but but great advice, but great advice. I think that there's there's I think it was it was Teddy Roosevelt who said something like he appreciates the man that takes the first step more than he appreciates the man that strategizes about the two hundred steps to come. You know, there's something there's something to be said about just doing what you can right now, like taking doing that one little thing,

starting small, but doing something. And it's so easy to want to just sit around and think, well, jeez, this is so much bigger than me. I don't know what to do, or I could you could do this, you could do this, you could do this, and then never actually take any action. I was just yesterday, you know, this morning I emailed you and told you I was

running late because my flight got delayed. I was in Massachusetts yesterday at a volunteer habitat day on a wildlife management area just outside of Boston, and we had almost one hundred folks come out to clean up, pick up trash, pick up shotgun shells, take all sorts of stuff out of there, put up wood, duck boxes, put up bluebird boxes. It was it was nothing fancy. We weren't doing anything profound, profound,

We weren't solving all the world's problems. But there was dozens and dozens of people out there together in a community, hunters and anglers, people who care about wildlife and wild places. And they were making a difference that day in a small way, but in a tangible way. And I felt this like energy when we were talking, you know, with in different small groups, people could feel the you know, the positive impact of in one small way today putting

a dent in this thing. And I think that there's and I'm curious if you think there's truth this or not dug but I think there's there's power in momentum and if you can take that little step today and and I think it helps form an identity if you act in some ways. So so yesterday I picked up trash all day with a bunch of folks who care

about wildlife, and that steeps into my pores. And now tomorrow I feel more and more like, you know, I'm someone who who works for wildlife, who cares about these things. And so when I get that email from some conservation organizations saying, hey, you know what, we need people to call their senators because there's this thing coming down the pipeline, well, now you know, hey, I just did this thing last weekend.

I can do this thing now tomorrow, and then after that the next thing comes up, and all of a sudden, two months from now, I'm planning trees or whatever it is. I think these things can snowball, and there's momentum that builds with every tiny little step, and eventually all of that adds up. And I think if more and more people start taking these little push the snowball down the hill kind of actions, all of a sudden, we've got an avalanche and we can tackle this thing. Is that crazy? Yes? No, No,

of course that's look you are. You're doing a lot yourself and at a lot of levels, and I certainly thank you for that and on behalf of a lot of overlook critters. But um, and you can tell I'm really reluctant to offer advice and um, and yet that's what people need. And I think you put it. You put it splendidly, and you know, I just feel really good about that sort of thing. And it was not because I feel righteous or or oh boy, am I

a good citizen here. It's just planting trees is a joy in itself, and pulling out weeds is the same way. It's weird, but it works for some of us. And and if that leads to, you know, meeting other people and sharing ideas and seeing what you have in common and then taking some next steps, that's just about perfect. I mean I when you ask the recommendations, and you talked about Teddy Roosevelt, and I'd say, well, I did forget to recommend that somebody out there just needs to

run for president and turn into the next Teddy Roosevelt. Yeah, one of your listeners, Come on, guys, Gallos, Yes, got to step up. We need we do need that. Well, Doug, this is uh, this has been just the conversation I've been needing and been wanting to have so so thank you for for chatting with me about all of this. Um, I would recommend anyone listening to pick up your book

four Fifths at Grizzly. It's it's great. It takes everything we talked about here today and expands on it in a lot of different ways, and it's it's it's a beautiful book, amazing photos. You know. I couldn't recommend it enough. But what I would like you to do, if you don't mind, is is there any other one of your books if you had to recommend one other of your many many publications and things out there that you think our audience might be interested in, or that you're particularly

proud of. That maybe is Collecting Dust in the Archives that you published long ago since you've been you've been at this a while. Is there any other piece of work that you'd like to send folks to check out other than this one that I will shout from the mountaintops for you. Well, yeah, yeah, I'm strictly unbiased here. No, I would recommend The Wolverine Way, which was published by

Patagonia before Four Fifths, so Grizzly. And the reason I'm bringing that out is I just in the course of learning about wolverines and again starting almost in a scrack. Nobody knew much about them at all, and the work we did and I did just as a volunhappy volunteer stand for weeks at a time out and remote outposts and catching wolverines and get radios on. They move like

nobody else stays, social systems all different. It was just a every day brought new discoveries and that is a reward unto itself, and and it also brings up the fact that, look, I love to hunt. I love to you know, stock animals, get close enough to watch them, and you know, I just I'm not so much into taking something home with me. Um. But man, when I'm doing that, all my senses are firing. I'm I'm the

human of the day. But I'm also the human that arose, you know, from our ancestors, with all my nerves and hormones and senses going, and you know, like they're like they're built to be. And I know that's a good White guys like hunting and I like hunting too, just to you know, I come out in a different way. But I'm not going to say I totally get it, but I certainly get that, and I got it with

tracking wolverines and already about them. And you know, on a typical day, I'd be following their tracks past big horned sheep and mountain goats and moose and crossing lion tracks, wolf tracks, kyoats that follow the wolverines to scavenge for carcasses. They leave snowshoe hairs at the kyo veered off on

to go hunt. You know, it's just brought the whole community fully to life, and and I think it gets at the dedication of some of the researchers out there, but mostly at the joy of learning about new species and how they live. And it's a good adventure story too, a lot of mountaineering and pretty tough animal to work with and pretty pretty fierce, but not nothing like it for reputation for you know, being a danger to people

in the woods. But but wow, um uh. Anyway, that would be the one um perfect because it's the closest closest I've written to a hunting book that does that does sound like a good read. That's that's when I haven't read yet, so it's it'll be on my list. The only thing I have against wolverines is that I went to Michigan State University and our arch rivals are the University of Michigan Wolverines. So I will try not to hold that against your book, and uh, and I'll

give it a read. I appreciate that, and um, well, but the other thing I wanted This isn't um shooting my own horn here. I just it's just that that's why I do what I do. I didn't plan at first. I just wanted to go out and learn about wolverines or I like hanging out with the guys. They're all good woodsmen and you know, skiers and and uh, comfortable out in the remote areas. But part way through I realized, God, we don't. We just need to know so much more

about them. We need to manage them differently. And and it's made a difference the age. The wildlife management agencies are paying much more attention now the wolverine than they did in the past, and the wolverines seem to be doing a bit better, and they're expanding their range over in Washington State down into Oregon all looks like. So that is really rewarding. That comes back to, you know, whether it's picking up trash or if you're a writer

like me. You you point and wave and try to spur smarter people or more capable of people to take the next step. So anyway, thanks for asking that, and thanks for gosh, thanks for all the time. This has been great. I really enjoyed it me too, Doug. I hope, I hope we can chat again soon, and I know that our listeners will be looking forward to the next book from you whenever that comes down line too, so we'll be waiting on pins and needles. Get to work, Doug,

thanks much, Thanks for another job. Okay, I'll get on it. Thanks again, and that is a rap. Thank you for tuning in. I can't recommend Doug's book enough. Pick up four Fifths a Grizzly. I highly highly recommend it, and it sounds like the Wolverine Way is is certainly worth our time too. And all that said, tune back in next week. We're diving in deep to a specific piece of conservation legislation that can make a big difference this year and next year and in the future, and we

can help make that come to fruition. So until then, thanks for being here. Keep on doing good work out there for wild places and wildlife and until next time, stay wired to hunt.