Ep. 168: Looking for Leaders, Aldo Leopold's Green Fire, and Wisconsin's Wolf Hunt Drama with Patrick Durkin

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
I guess I grew up on a row. Hey, everybody,
welcome to another episode of The Hunting Collective. I am
Ben O'Brien. We're at one sixty eight episodes of this
year program, and for almost all of them, or at
least half of them, I have had Phil the Engineer
at my side. Phil, how are you, sir? Hey, how

(00:35):
are you Ben? I'm great, I'm a little I'm not
just gonna get into We've got a good conversation today
with with Pat Durkin. And if you don't know Patrick Drk,
and you should Patrick Dirk and outdoors dot com and
the media dot Com holds his writing. He's one of
the best writers in our space. He's one of the
more thoughtful dudes that you'll ever meet. And he is

(00:56):
a native of Wisconsin and has been writing on the
outdoors and outdoor issues in Wisconsin for many, many, many years,
probably longer than he'd like to admit. But he is
a man you want to go to if you want
to get a good long look at the Wisconsin wolf hunt.
Had happened earlier in February, and uh, it's quite the

(01:19):
sacer field. You know much about this wolf thought and
how it went down. Have you been seeing it around
since you're now like in the community. I just I
just on the peripherals. I don't really know much about it. Yeah,
well it's it's an interesting tale. It certainly has intrigue.
It's got politics, it's got uh, courtroom issues, it's got
social and political aspects, it's got cultural aspects. It's got

(01:42):
wildlife manages, it's got ecosystems, It's got almost everything that
you'd want to have from any story. It's almost like
it could be like a Netflix documentary. So hopefully me
and me and Pat did a good job of putting
it out there for you. But there's it's more than
meets the eye in terms of of this wiconsin will fund.
We'll talk a little bit before we get there. We'll

(02:03):
set that up for you so you don't see you
hit your ground running when Pat and I get into it.
But um, it really is a good way to pick
up on where we left off last week talking about
animal rights and animal welfare and all the things that
go into that ideology, because it does come up with
within the opposition to wolf hunting altogether, and it does

(02:24):
come up in this particular Wisconsin case that we we'll discuss.
So I'm excited for you to hear that. We'll keep
this intro brief just so you guys can get to
that conversation because it's um Pat does a wonderful job
a lot of really good ways to contextualize wolf hunting itself. Uh,
the kind of like the politics of Wisconsin and how

(02:46):
everything came to be what it was over there. So hopefully, Phil,
you feel you're excited for it. Now you're intrigued, you're
gonna stick around for it. Oh yeah, for sure. Unfortunately
you give me no choice, but yeah, you have to
stick around for it. So I'm not going to apologize
for that, all right, So Phil, Phil, listen man, we

(03:06):
gotta talk about something. We got a really important Like
what we're talking about today is very important to the
hunting community. It's very important to the overall future of
what we do in the viability of of the North
American model of conservation. So I don't want to downplay that,
but there may be a bigger issue at hand here.
UM th HC is moving like the regional chapter movement

(03:31):
of the th C call is gaining steam, and I
think it's a little bit out of our control right now. Uh,
by my account, there are already half a dozen Facebook
pages that exist as th C regional chapters, and we
have an we don't know what it is yet. We
don't know what a TAC regional chapter even is. But um,
they're they're being formed. What do we phil? What do

(03:52):
we do as as my Sage Council on all things
life and podcasting? Have we gotten? We're gotting ahead of ourselves,
haven't we been? This is this is bad, this is
really bad. I don't know. I don't know what else
to say. I would just like to throw out now
that whatever is happening on these Facebook groups, it does
not represent me at all. Um that being said, you

(04:15):
can use my face for merchandise. Um, you know, I'd like, yeah,
if I get like a ten percent cut or something,
you know, you can put me on a T shirt
or like a pin something like that. I don't know
what do you think? I mean? Listen, I think we're
sitting on sitting on the most unintentional conservation organization ever created.

(04:35):
When they look back in the annals of time, they're
gonna be like, how did the th HC cult really
get its start? And people will say I'm pretty sure
it was by accident. Uh. They started calling it a
call it as a joke, and then eventually people caught on.
There were membership cards, and then there were regional chapters.
All of those things were jokes, but then they became

(04:56):
real and the next thing, you know, the world has
changed and indelibly forever. Um. That's kind of where I'm
at with this, and so I'm not sure to whether
it to be excited about that, Phil, to be hesitant
to can move forward? I just need I wanted to
have this conversation in public, so people could, you know,
listen to us will work through what I think is

(05:17):
a crucial issue in the history of th HC, the
Grand Old history. Uh. They call us the GOP, the
Grand Old Podcast in a lot of circles. Um, Phil,
if stop laughing, it's serious, Phil, What are we gonna do? Ben,
I I don't know. I mean, do you think you
should get involved? Yeah? Listen. I spent all last night

(05:39):
reading everybody's emails. So thank you to everybody the road
into th HC, at the media dot com not to
you know, some of you wrote to discuss the very
important topics of racing the outdoors and animal welfare versus
animal rights. Uh, and even this topic we're talking about today,
wolves and how to manage them, what to do? Some
of you wrote in about that, but most of you

(05:59):
wrote it in about starting your own chapter or wanting
to join a chapter. Um. And so I guess I
will start by saying Phil very seriously that, Uh, it's heartwarming.
It's it's something that I didn't never expect for so
many people to be out there to want to kind
of join together. Um, but it's something we definitely recognize. So, um,

(06:20):
we gotta think on our feet here though. We don't
want to get any are we? Do you think we're
getting some legal trouble here? Like where are we at?
We need to apply to be a five and one
seed three? Uh? Yeah, I mean you know, if this
merchandise idea takes off them, probably I think for now
you're fine though, I think you're fine now. A right, Well, listen,
here's what I want to do. And um, as if

(06:41):
you can't tell out there and listening, and I am
shooting from the old hip here and so Phil, as
always is my confidant, and he'll tell me live on
the air whether you think this is a good or
bad idea? UM, because we do do we do this
live every week. If you didn't know, UM, here's what
I want to do right now. As it stands, we

(07:02):
have at least fourteen proposed regional chapters of the Hunting Collective.
We have Blue Ridge, which is our founding chapter by
the great Eric Hall, Colorado, Wisconsin, Southwest Michigan, New York, Illinois, Oregon, Alaska, Missouri, Maryland, Florida.

(07:27):
So that's a good smattering across the country of people
that are willing to take on the great, great responsibility
of being a THHD regional chapter leader creator. How does
that make you feel? Phil, I mean tell you like,
this is yours too, You've done this, Uh really sits
at your feet and in all honesty, I mean it's

(07:47):
it's it's it's really cool. You know these people who
like clearly have similar interests because they enjoyed the same podcasts. Um.
They can get together in these groups and they you
want to grab a beer at this place, or you know,
go shed hunting here, go hunting here, like whatever. I
think you know, yeah's it's I think it's a it's
it's great. It has nothing to do with me. I
think most people who listen to the show are like,

(08:09):
why is the why is the non hunter talking again?
I don't think so, Phil, Only a smattering of our
audience absolutely hates you. But everybody else that's a smaller
than I thought. So that's great. Yeah, it's a smattering.
I think we're gonna call the Blue Ridge Chapter the
Phil Taylor Inaugural THHD Blue Ridge Chapter of the Hunting

(08:30):
Collective Cult. It would be hard to We'll have to
make an out uh an acronym for that. But in
all serious this's just's what I want to do. Gape.
So Eric Call reached out and he said he had
already created a page on Facebook. Other people have done
this as well, already created their own pages, multiple of you.
I don't know how many have already been created. I

(08:51):
lost counted about I don't know how many, six or
eight of them. Um, here's what I want to do.
I want to take a step back from this, because
we were a little bit surpris eyes that this was
even a thing. I take a step back from this,
and UM, we're gonna do the first thing we're gonna do.
And again I want to state like we're actually doing this,
why the hell not is my philosophy. And what we're

(09:14):
gonna do is we're gonna come up with two things.
One leaders of the cult, right, we gotta get leaders going, Phil,
Do you have any people in mind that you would
like to nominate for these leadership positions within the Hunting Collective? Oh?
I don't know. I mean we've we've got some some
frequent writers in some frequent contest entry. Um, you know

(09:39):
people you know, people like A. A. B. Rich Maybe
would he be interesting? I don't even heard from him. Um, yeah,
we should reach out to him. I hope he's okay.
I'm gonna heard people like Luke Reeves. Oh that's a
good one. I don't even think about him. Sure, Nebraska chapter.
But he's married now, he's not gonna have time. Yeah,
I ever told him to give it? Whoever told that

(09:59):
guy to get get married? Idiot? And you know, if
if it happened on a podcast, I would go as
far to say that podcast is bad. Yeah, that podcast
is actually responsible for whatever happened in his life. Um.
But I do have a list here that I've made,
and I'll say that like everybody that wrote in for
each chapter, I've logged your emails and a little spreadsheet
on my computer. And I'm not kidding. It was the

(10:21):
most I've wrought Like this is the most satirical, ironic
thing for me to spend last night for like an
hour making a spreadsheet of regional chapter leaders for some
damn podcast. It was the most hilarious. It was like
I was on an episode of that What's that Larry
David show. Uh, It's like I was. I was writing

(10:43):
my own episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm last night as
I was doing this. But anyway, we're doing it. So
screw you, Larry David. Don't try to satirize my life.
Um So right now I wanna. I want to pick
some leaders of this whole thing. And obviously, Phil, I
mean there's there's gonna be no surprise to you that
air Hall is amongst the original leaders. No surprise to you. Also,

(11:08):
Ben Upton wrote in to express his excitement about this.
He obviously we know him from his many contributions to
the show. He connected with another, He's had a Colorado
connected with another member of our our little call here
earlier in the year, to give us a nice moment um.
We have lots. Ryan subpoena and Mike Peterson. Mike Peterson

(11:30):
didn't ask for this, but I'm gonna give it to
him anyway because I like him, and uh, I feel
like you do a good job. He's formerly in the military,
so he might do a good job. So we're gonna
pick a few of you guys and email you about
this um and then others have have emailed and we're
gonna ask you to nominate yourselves and join us in
doing this. But here's what we're looking for, people who

(11:50):
want to help us establish these Facebook pages and help
us establish a set of guidelines and community standards and
value systems that we're gonna put on these pages. We're
to create a Facebook page that phil and I are
part of for just the leaders of each one of
these chapters, and then we're gonna let those leaders go
out in the world create cool Facebook pages, and I
hang out with people around them that like to do

(12:11):
what they do. So pretty simple, try not to make
it too self important. But hey, I'm me, so that's uh.
There's only so far we can go in that game.
So Philip, you can feel confident about this plan, particularly
yes I do. I think yeah, as I I think
these groups will stay kind of close knit and compact.
I think, uh, I think they'll be good little communities

(12:32):
for people to get together and it's great. Yeah. I
mean right now, the Colorado chapter has already has four
people in it, the Blue Ridge chapter already has seventeen,
so I think, and Oregon we're up to two. So yeah, yeah,
so in your face, Washington, Um, yeah, I mean, I
think it'll be something fun for us all to do.

(12:54):
They're not gonna be you know, there's not millions of
us out there. There's only a small number of us
trying to do this for real. Um. And and you know, listen,
the best things in life started off as a joke,
So why not why not fall fully into Uh well,
we're up to here so that this is what I
need from you guys. All, if I mentioned your name
as part of a leadership, email me and we're gonna

(13:14):
set up a little call to start talking about this.
Phil will join us, right, Phil, Yes, we're gonna start
talking about this. See I may I forced him to
say yes because we're recording. Um. And we'll start talking
about how we want to do this, make a little
kind of community guidelines thing, and then we'll start and

(13:36):
from there, it's just about anybody who wants to Anybody
who's a new hunter who needs a mentor, who is
a mentor that needs a new hunter. Any of you
that want to join shared links, shared advice, meet up,
go hunting together. Um, there's a place for pretty much
anybody who wants to get in and and do this. So,
like I said right now, Um, we got offers from

(13:59):
a lot of people will to do this already. So
if you're in Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Illinois, Oregon, Alaska, Missouri, Colorado,
if you're in the Blue Ridge Mountains, like I said earlier,
you have a Perspective chapter near you. I think so. Um, alright, Phil,
we did it as much as I as buch of
my personality only wants to make fun of this. It's

(14:21):
also a big deal, man, because it just it's I
know that we're in the pandemic. I understand that it's
hard to find somebody that shares your values to do
something as serious as hunting, and it's it's sometimes you
need a variable place to gather around. So if it's
not a conservation group, why not this year program? So
we're gonna give it a try, um, and the worst

(14:44):
worst thing we could do is fail. Yeah, I'd say here,
here's here's Ernest Fell again. Here we go, ready, three
two one. I think by branding at a cult as
a joke earlier, it kind of makes me want to
laugh about this even more. But I think we should
just set the cult joke thing aside for a set
gonna be like this is pretty cool. So I'm gonna
go ahead and do that right now and say this
is pretty cool. Yeah, Because being phil like, I thought

(15:06):
we might have this conversation in private and then and
then seem like we're really buttoned up when we came
on the air today. But then I thought, I, what
the hell, Let people listen to what our own thought
process is about this and our introspection about this. So anyway,
that's that's what we're gonna do th h C at
the media dot Com. If you're in a state that
I named or I didn't name, and you would like

(15:28):
to lead a chapter of this th h C cult,
then let us know. Let us know quickly, put your
hand up and I will call on you and we'll
see what we can do in terms of getting all
fifty states um to at least have one person out
there who's willing to have the conversation and willing to
line up hunts with someone. Like I said, two people

(15:48):
meeting up VI this podcast was cool for me. Let's
see if we can and challenge ourselves to really create
community in a time where community is absolutely void and
a lot of our lives. So that I all about that.
I will push to the ends of the earth and
Phil and I will fight for you out there right
Phil here here, I'm serious, serious, Yeah, I'll fight for you.

(16:14):
See there it is. Yeah, all right, Now onto the
matter of hand wolves in Wisconsin. I said earlier that
that this really, this story about the Wisconsin's wolf hunt
that happened in February really does have a lot of
threads that we've talked about prior. It has a lot
of It has obviously anti hunting sentiment. It has the

(16:36):
politics of polarization involved. Um it has legislation. How how
legislatures state legislature specifically in this case, work within conservation
and can impact it positively and negatively. UM it really
is a story that encapsulates, much like the bear story
in California encapsulates much of what we've talked about over

(16:59):
the weeks, uh last many months here that we've been
been covering all those myriad of topics kind of this
this kind of condenses them and gives them a real
way to see why all these kind of ancillary topics
within hunting, like animal rights or animal welfare, or when
we have talked about the taiebi paradox with Miles Nulty,

(17:19):
like when we start to roll all that together into
to one package, you can see that reflected the importance
of each one of those little pieces reflected in these
very uh you know, high stakes political social um games
around hunting bears, hunting wolves, whatever it might be. All

(17:41):
of that becomes apparent in his laid Bear in these situations.
I don't want to give any of the details out
about this story. If you don't know anything about it,
you're gonna be interested. Pat Dick is gonna take us
through it, Um and Phil as always, I want to
give you a chance to just talk about what you
think about wolf hunting, because we do talk about a
lot of a lot about the non hunter perspective in

(18:03):
this But do you, um, you would never want to
hunt a wolf? Would you? Like? Am I? Am? I? Correct?
In saying that, yeah, I don't have any urge to
whatsoever I mean, but you know that that that could
change after a while, after I go hunting one time,
probably for turkeys. Should probably do that first before I
have any opinions on on hunting wolves. But yeah, well

(18:26):
but that's it. Man Like non hunters are going to
be the ones that sway this and and are and
are very involved and obviously, um this story in and
of itself, so I know, and I'm giving you guys
a lot of like little hints of what what this entails,
but it is, um it is an interesting, interesting story.
Let me before we get into Pat Dirk and Pat
Durk and his Wisconsin guy and another very famous Wisconsin

(18:49):
guys out of Leopold and he had a lot of
famous quotes about a lot of things, but he did
talk about wolves in one of his most it was quote.
So I'll read it to you just to give you
a little perspective because I think we all have, you know,
kind of special relationships with wolves. We all, you know,
we have dogs. A lot of us have dogs. I don't,
but a lot of people have dogs. Phil has mango,

(19:12):
and so people have very special relationships with their canines,
and I think a lot of times that that bleeds
into what we think of. But there's also just a great,
great misunderstanding of our own emotional connection to wolves and
where that comes from. So this quote is from Aldo Leopold.
So we reached the old Wolf and time to watch
a fierce screen fire dying in her eyes. I realized then,

(19:36):
and have known ever since, that there was something new
to me in those eyes, something known only to her
into the mountain. I was young then and full of
trigger it. I thought that because fewer wolves meant more dear,
that no wolves means hunter's paradise. But after seeing the
green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf Northern

(19:56):
Mountain agreed with such a view. I right, get chills
up your spine that I did, because I've read that
quote so many times. Phil, Do you feel it feeling
out the emotion of of the moment, Yeah, of course
it was mainly because of the narrator just did a
stellar job. I'm just trying to do as good as
Steve Ennell. So let's let's find what you'll hear. All right,

(20:18):
So here comes Pat Dirk. All right, Pat Derek, and
we've just been talking for twenty minutes. We forgot to
hit record, and so we're gonna have to recreate some
of the good stories that were telling. Because with all
the serious things in the world, uh, just talking about
fatherhood is uh is one of the things, one of

(20:42):
the things that allows us to laugh at ourselves the most,
I think is as what we do and don't do
in the in the realms of fatherhood. You were you're
just telling me that that you look on the young
fathers like me with with some I don't know, why
would you describe with confusion or like self reflection. Yeah, amusement,

(21:02):
but also respect where I've been there, I had my chance,
and I like to think my daughters are all doing
well despite me. And so it's fun to see now
how you guys handle things and how my daughters handled
their kids. Noah, Yeah, now right, it's a it's interesting

(21:23):
even you know, talking to my dad about it too,
and thinking about you know, the things that you do
that you think are normal you kind of in your
own head as a parent. Um. Anyway, it's it's it's
fun to look back and laugh. But I was telling
you that I I'm not sure that I'm too strict
or not strict enough on my kids. Sometimes it's hard
to gauge, you know, were you vary? Were you strict

(21:44):
when your kids growing up? Maybe too strict you think,
or not you're not enough. I um, I like to
think I struck a good balance. You know, I was strict,
But I really have no doubt in my mind that
my daughters knew I loved them. You know, there was
never that dull were because I remember as a child
growing up in the sixties. I think parents um were

(22:06):
a little more detached back then, and definitely a lot
more disciplinarians, and you did questions sometimes where you stood
were I don't my daughters ever adulted that I think
they knew how that I might be a real real
prick sometimes, but that it might make them do things
a mother wouldn't make them do. But I really have

(22:27):
faith that they knew I loved him. Yeah. Yeah. And
I even look back at my own child and and
I think, well, I guess I turned out pretty good.
And I love my parents with all with all that
I am, And I don't you know, I was pretty
laid back kid, I think, so maybe I had a
little smoother experience than others, But I certainly, like I
told you, my mom called me doing something I should

(22:47):
in one time, and uh back then she chased me
down the street pretty far. I feel like she chased
me like a half of my I don't know, it's
a long way she chased me, And so I certainly
had those uh those moments where I was rebelling and
doing my different things. But you know, you just wonder,

(23:07):
is it is it how your kids were predisposition, you know,
high strung, laid back? You know, do you handle each
one differently? Around my house? But pretty I like to
think we're pretty strict, although like you were telling me, like,
I think a lot of millennial parents are probably pretty
more laid back than than you were. Maybe even your
parents were for sure, mhm, Like I am, I do

(23:29):
ensure the fact that you know, I don't. I should
say first, I really do not like it when people
um unless I know them really well. I really don't
like when people bad molt their parents because I think, well,
you know, maybe your parents weren't great, but they did
the best they could, at least mine did, and so
I never questioned um the the end results, I think, well,

(23:52):
dad might have been um, not the kind of dad
I tried to be. But I look at he produced
and where we all ended up, and I think that's
a pretty nice success rate he had. So he could
have been doing everything wrong. And I I find self
quoting him a lot as I gotten older, because I
realized the dumbsun of a bitch knew something, and he

(24:16):
knew people really well, and he could really size people
people up quickly, and I really came to respect that.
In these days as a parent, I um, my daughters
make it sound like I was a real ogre, but
then I just tell them, well, I must have been
doing something right because you're all, all three of you're
doing very well. You show his good husbands and I

(24:36):
can't complain, So yeah, it's it's um. I think the
human spirit is such though that it can overcome a
lot if you if you're willing to devote yourself, you know,
to it and take responsibility for your own life at
some point. Yeah, yeah, I would be honest to as
a young father having to adjust to that commitment to

(24:58):
be to really be good at at it, you know,
because it isn't there isn't just one way to do it.
You have to know your children and try to adjust
to them and adjust to the environment that they're in
and and really give them a chance to be who
they are, you know, um, while also sending some pretty
serious rules sometimes for for for these little people. I

(25:20):
was just telling you, like, I look like I look
like I just got in a fight with Mike Tyson,
because both my kids have been recently like jumping on me,
sponging me and scratching and stuff. So I look like
I've been through it. Yeah, and yeah, I'm sure to
you appreciate the fact that this won't continue. That at
some point they'll get too strong to do that, too

(25:40):
big to do that, and they can't knock down around
anymore because the actually will hurt you. And I tell
myself that, and I put the kids in my back
and hold upstairs at night to put them to bed.
That he won't be able to write in my back,
um a whole lot longer once they get to a
certain size, at least not very far. So you appreciate
why you come, Yeah, exactly, And like you're saying that,

(26:02):
it becomes it's an it's all an iteration of the
thing that happened before, right, It's like it's all time
repeats itself, you know, And that's what I'm sure you know.
You as a grandfather, you get to see that now
and you get to see time. And I think my
dad does that quite a lot with me, where it's like,
you know, we he sees kind of the iteration we
were talking about. I took my kid out to Nature

(26:23):
Sanctuary over the weekend. We did. We were trying to
find twelve different bird species and we were going around
and it was fun. And my dad is the type
of person who knows every bird in the woods and
spend a lot of time as a young person hiking
around in the winter and just looking at birds, you know,
just looking around and and finding uh himself in nature.

(26:45):
So I think that's something that I want to follow.
And I'm sure he could probably see me trying to
instill that of my kids. You know, even if I
didn't understand, I don't think I understand it until I
had kids. I didn't look at my dad and say, like,
how amazing it is to have being an encyclopedia of
the outdoors what he is until I had my own kids,
and I'm like, I better, I better give that to them.

(27:05):
I better make sure they have what he has, you know.
So yeah, it's just it's just like a shifting baseline
and it's fun. It's fun too to think back. I
can I can remember, as I pray a four or
five year old, being amazed to hear that as you're
driving passes lake, my dad say that that lake is

(27:26):
deeper than than he can stand tall. And I remember
being just shocked to think that something could be bigger
than my dad, something deeper than my dad. And then
you get to be a little bit older and you
realize no, lakes typically are the most guys. That was
that was That was a learning experience for me at

(27:47):
the time. Yeah. Well, I've recently taken to writing down
my son's at the wise stage of life. Everything's why this,
why this, why that? And so every night I put
him to bed and I at him ask me some questions. Recently,
I've had the limit. I've had to limit it. I'd
like you, I'll give you seven because they could go
could go along to the night. Uh. And I give

(28:09):
him questions and then I write them down when I
go back to my desk and write them down when
we're done. And so I have, you know, a hundred
and fifty questions in this notebook, and it's fun to
to just look back at his progression, even over a
short period of time, of the questions he's asking and
how he's learning taking in the world. You know, it's
it's a it's a special time because you know, eventually

(28:31):
he's not gonna want to ask me anything. He's gonna
be telling me stuff eventually. So it's those little idiosyncrasies. Yeah,
eventually though, it does come back for you once you know, UM,
I always have this um in my mind. I have
a where I divide men from boys. It's about age

(28:52):
twenty five. We're um about sitting around age twenty five
to get their head out of your ass and start
thinking like an adult. And so I just told my
daughter's two things basically is, um, don't get married. Don't
marry a guy until he's at least twenty five, because
that's when he gets his head out of his ass.
And even then, make sure you've done something where you

(29:13):
have your own career. So you know, I's basically tell
anyone in your life, f you, I'm out of here
and not be not be tied down. So I am.
I like to think my daughters took that advice. So
we'll see. Though there's still they're like your age, so
I guess some time ahead of them, they're doing pretty

(29:33):
well though by all accounts, wells, yeah, I mean I
did you feel like the outdoors? Did your daughters do
a lot with you in the outdoors growing up? The
oldest one did. Yeah, My oldest one, Um, she you
could tell at a young age she she was into it.
I mean she could. She understood about listening for geese
off in the distance, listening for turkeys. And I tried

(29:56):
the same approach with all three of them, taking them
out an early age hunting of fishing, especially for like
the so you can just put him in a corner
field and you know, hunker down and wait him out
and listen for stuff and watch for stuff. But um,
the oldest one took to that, and the youngest ones didn't.
To my two younger daughters. But then as now as
young adults there, um it's it's funny like the one

(30:19):
I was telling you earlier about going ice fishing yesterday
with my some of my grandkids and the youngest boy
falling into the hole and that kind of ruined ruined
his day. But it's fun not to see all three
of my daughter is understanding the importance of hunting and
fishing and seeing singing in a bigger picture and getting there.
And you can tell them now they really want me

(30:41):
to take their kids along as soon as possible. Yeah,
that's like I said, that's coming very clearly into my
life right now, seeing what I want my kids to
be and then looking at the other people in my
life and be a man I never appreciated, you know
this about my mom or this about my dad, or
this about my best friend. And I want my kids

(31:01):
to have that part of them, even if I can't
give it to them. You know, it's important to know
your own limitations as a father. I feel like because
I can't. There's just I'm not real handy like and
I can come into my house and be like, hey,
could you fix my pipes? I'd be like, I can
try what's wrong with your pipes? Let's have a discussion.
I'm not you know, I didn't get I didn't pick
that up. But there's other people in my life that

(31:23):
are um and so you kind of like you kind
of carve up those things that you know that that
you need to you know, push your kids towards and
then and once you have your kids, you see that
I think a little bit more more clearly and precisely. Um.
It helps you appreciate the people around you for who
they are, you know, definitely, yeah, I'm sure sure too.
As a father you see a different interests and talents

(31:46):
at a young age of your two boys. I mean
I definitely saw it my girls as they were at
very small ages, the things that caught their interestings that didn't.
It's fun to watch my definite plan. And I think
this goes for a lot of people are listening to
this show, particularly because a lot of emergent hunters, new

(32:09):
hunters out there that are just coming to it at
a at a you know, middle age and a lot
of cases early thirties, late twenties, and a lot of
cases where people are coming to it because they see
a value of it and they have either have kids
or themselves want to you know, find those pathways into
that value set. And it's interesting to see people enter
it that way. And for me, I kind of want

(32:31):
to rewind my clock a little bit and see that perspective.
Like I said, just take my kid. We sat, We
went and sat in a bird blind that was on
this nature sanctuary and we just sat there and we
will and there's bird feeders. These birds started to come in,
you know, black cat, black cap, chickadee comes in. We
get you a western tanager. They'll come in. And it's

(32:51):
like and I'm sitting there thinking this is practice for
the turkey blind. You know, that's in my mind. He
has no idea what but in my mind, I'm like,
be quiet, don't scare the birds away. And and for me,
I'm like looking at my watch to see how long
can we sit here? How long does he is he
interested in the little things about what's going on around him,

(33:11):
and he was, he very much was. So to me,
it's just for a wine and that clock a little bit,
not diving fully into hunting, but taking like the little
micro moments within hunting that that are important and and
presenting them to him in another way, you know, trying
to get him to just go walk around in the woods,
just go look at some birds, Just go you know,

(33:32):
listen for al hoots in the morning, just you know,
just just so he has that appreciation first where it's
not like, you know, like I am like running the
head first into every turkey. I see, let's see what
I can do with them. Yeah, it's a special it's
a special time. And I think that, you know, like

(33:53):
you were saying, girls and boys for sure, we have
these conversations now about how how do we make sure
hunting is a little more accessible to all genders and
anybody that one's in you know, when it's just kind
of breaking some of those barriers down. But it'd be interesting,
as I said, my wife wants to have a third
little one, and I'm hoping for a girl, just so

(34:13):
I can get that perspective, you know, so I can
see both sides of raising a kiddo and then also
just seeing how they go through the outdoors, what they're
interested in, each each one of them. So it's it's ah,
you learn about a lot of like I said, you
learn about a lot about yourself, You learn a lot
about the people around you, ah, as you try to
do this damn hard thing. But I always felt their

(34:36):
their aspect of my life growing up that I never
really thought about it at all when I was young,
was that my dad's fought. My dad's mother lived with
us I was growing up, and she was more she
was much more um aware of the outdoors that my
dad was a dad knew had a hunting fish, just
enough to get me going. Because as far as overall

(34:59):
knowledge of the outdoor is the different birds, different songs
that birds sing, the trees, um, how to judge, how
to identify tree trees, brother bark. I learn that from
my grandmother. And it wasn't like she sat me down
and taught me stuff, just that you hung around her
outside when she was working, and she show show me stuff,
you know, and I remember she learned to that I

(35:23):
was easily entertained. She gave me a hatchet when I
was about five years old and just kind of turned
me loose with it, and I was chopping down everything
that she told me to chop down. But by by
learning that way, she could tell me, um that basically
black black locust trees were fair game. Any black looks
that want to chopped down, have at it, just regrow anyway,

(35:46):
and you know, all these kind of little things, you know,
she taught me that. Years later I realized, God, you know,
granny knew quite a bit of this stuff. Yeah, yeah,
and you just don't know, like there's a lot of
that in my life that if I could rewind the clock,
I'd back and be more interested in and take those
opportunities because you just, man, I don't know how you

(36:07):
foster that in a little person, but I I definitely
missed some things along the way. Now that I have
a child, I'm like, man, if I would have followed,
you know, a little bit closer into the examples I had,
um Man, I would have been would have been a
whole lot better. I've been running a whole lot faster
by now, a lot better at hunting. Even I'm guessing

(36:29):
you made up for it. I try to do my best. Well,
I'm glad we could talk about fathers and sons and
daughters and maybe warm some hearts before we get into
the next topic, because because I guess, I mean, how
we break into you know, there there's the macro issue
of wolves, right you. Wolves are yes, incredibly charismatic, incredibly

(36:52):
important and also incredibly imperiled species on any landscape, you know,
really around the world, but especially in North America. They
found themselves a special place and hearts of of everyone
in this country really and some in some way, shape
or form, whether that's more of a you know, animal
rights perspective, or or you know, our perspective is conservation,

(37:14):
it's and hunters and how we see things. But there's
no one that doesn't have an opinion on this, I think, um,
educated or not. So that's where you know, this Wisconsin
wolf funk comes in. You know. The reason I want
to talk to you is obviously you're you're tuned into it.
But one of the first things I want to kind

(37:34):
of dig into is what you know. The Wisconsin hunting culture,
I feel like is fairly unique. Um. And you know,
I don't know if you would term it as insular
or how you would describe it, but what is the
Wisconsin hunting culture defined? And then how did how do
people there look upon wolves? It's truly um, I think

(37:57):
it's fair to say that, as we always do fall too.
It runs a gamut. Um. I can I can call
a number of people I know and and know that
they individually do not represent the overall Wisconsin experience, the
overall um image we might have of Wisconsin hunters. UM.

(38:20):
I know the wolf especially, I can think, Um, you
get what was in. But I found one of the
things I found interesting about this this particular hunt we had,
you know, was two weeks ago already was that. Um,
you saw a real divide between trappers, fur trappers and

(38:40):
and the hound hunters versus also the guys who are
I'm gonna be calling wolves or else putting out like
sitting over a carcass. Every might be out in the
woods and waiting for him. And so there was some
real friction between especially the trappers and the hound hunters.
We have a really strong hound hunting subculture in Wisconsin.

(39:04):
You know, the guys that hunt bears. They there's guys
that hunt over bait, and there's guys that hunt with hounds.
And we've always had regulate the bear season separately. Basically
were one year reopened the hound hunting first, and when
next year reopened, the bait sitters next first, so and

(39:25):
then go back and forth and the wolf the wolf
season wolf hunting tradition in our state is so short,
so I'm young. We really haven't gotten everything figured out yet.
And so this this thing the way, the way it
blew up on fairly short notice without real in depth planning, Um,

(39:49):
it was almost yeah, it was almost predictable, Like I
were about one of my columns that's something like this
would happen we're just got things did not go off well,
we're not regularly right, and now we have a black eye. Yeah,
and you'd like to think I want to kind of
maybe start in the beginning here and give people the
full the full perspective, but you know, maybe starting at

(40:10):
the end you end up with the arguments or reasoning
we quite often use for predator hunting in our space
that I think you and I would agree on. You know,
hunting is a management tool at the Behasta State Game
agencies and biologists and people that we have entrusted v
our model of conservation to do the work necessary to

(40:32):
understand how to manage these populations correctly. This is a
bit of a black eye on that system. Uh, it's
a bit you know. Would you agree that this doesn't
look great in in terms of the way it was managed, Well,
I definitely agree. I am. I wish it weren't so.
I wish I could act like this is something that

(40:53):
we can just um learn from and live from, learning experience,
move on. But I I don't think it's gonna be
that easy. I think we're gonna have this thrown back
at us a lot. Even though I've written, you know,
I went back this morning before you and I talked.
And I've been writing a newspaper column in Wisconsin since

(41:15):
and I'll always brag about the fact in that time,
I've never missed a week yet I've I've produced a
column every week. Just in the past twenty years, I've
written at least thirty five columns weekly columns on wolves,
wolf regulations, wolf coming in and on and on again,
off again with the endangered species listing. And so we

(41:38):
have all this history with wolves yet hunting them as
really we're still learning it, we're still developing it. And
this last one we can get in all the details.
But you know, the last one we had, it came
on pretty quickly. We um the d n R set
of quota of two hundred. But then um, they have

(42:00):
we have to share that in Wisconsin by treaty regulations.
You know, these are a court ordered the Federal Court
decisions that we cannot just um managed wolves or deer
or bears up north however you want. We gotta do
it basically in collaboration with our Jibwe nation, the Chippewa people.

(42:21):
And so they basically took that quote to them of
two hundred and gave the Chippewa eighty nine of that
based on UM the wolf population off the reservation areas.
So it's kind of complicated, but basically came down to
I think it was a nine wolves for the for
the Chippewa people and then the rest for US hundred

(42:42):
nineteen for UM for UM for eighty one for the
Chippewa for the non tribal people, and went from there. Well,
as it turns out, re shot, you know, two hundred.
I think that the final was too sixteen wolves, so
way over our our quota of nineteen. And you can't

(43:07):
just act like that doesn't matter that we can just
take a Chippawa didn't use because they don't use theirs
that they use theirs to protect the wolf because in
their culture in Wisconsin, it's considered UM the wolves considered
their brother among our tribal people, whereas UM, I think

(43:28):
it's I think it's a navajole out west where they
don't have the wolf. They don't hold the wolf in
that kind of regard. You know, they were more of UM.
I think shepherds and had sheeps. They weren't hurting. I
guess they had heard of something they took care of
and the wolves would prey on them. So they had
a different perspective. But Wisconsin, this is what we have
and we we overshot that. And now, um, what I

(43:53):
find frustrating is that the first three years we had
this season, back in two thousand twelve, two thousand thirteen,
and two thousand and four teen, we did a really
good job as staying within our QUOTEA. We only we're
off by I think two point one percent. Overall, we
went over a little bit, really shut things down quickly
controlled it didn't have these problems with this time. Um,

(44:13):
it's a different situation and the politics were different and
it ended up were Now we have this black guy
we have to deal with on illegal front. I think
I'm sure that Chippewa are going to just let let
us go by. They'll they'll find they'll have to find
some way to get their their compensation for it. Yeah. Yeah,

(44:35):
it's It's one of those I think with with a
lot of these situations, A grizzly bear in the Greater
Yale so ecosystem it had. It is complex. I mean,
it's not as simple as um, we have what is it,
a thousand wolves and this is how many we need
to take off the landscape. You know, we have our
population um thresholds and we know they are just not

(44:56):
that sense, not just a numbers game. There's so many
other things that are involved. Do you I mean, honestly,
quite honestly, when you start looking at this, you have
to and you just said this, you have to understand that,
like we we the numbers that are being given by
the state game agencies are so important to hit because

(45:16):
this is again it's prescriptive. It's not just they didn't
just come up with this number. It's a prescription for
how to maintain a healthy ecosystem and a healthy wolf population,
unglip populations, predator prey dynamic, all the things that are
important for any and cohabitation, all things are important for
that ecosystem function are baked into that number. And when

(45:37):
you miss it, it's a huge You can't understate how
big of a deal it is to miss it and
miss it by that and much um has that felt locally?
I mean, is it you feel like? Uh? For whatever
bars people can go into, are a lot of people
talking about this and hunting camps and and discussing it.
I'm sure it's part of the buzz there. It's been

(46:00):
a NonStop discussion last last two weeks. And again it
very it really varies by which group you're talking to.
But um, I have been really um disappointed by how
many people just think the quota was because you said
the clue it was two hundred. They think that while

(46:21):
it was only sixteen over that quota. But that's not
the reality of it. The way this will break down
in our court rulings, the way it will break down
in the in the I the public opinion, that's not
gonna fly people. You know, I guess the way I
look at Ben, I know we're on under a really
hot issue where people are mad. When I get emails

(46:42):
and text messages from my non hunting sisters in law
one of what the hell has happened here? You have
to go back and explain that, well, yeah, in terms
of wildlife management, wolf management, this did not hurt that
this did not deliver a significant low to the wolf
population in this state. But that's not really what it's

(47:03):
all about. It's a lot, a lot bigger than that,
you know, and I I really have a hard time
when it fits our it fits our narrative to act
like while we stay within this biological goal. I think, well,
that's not how it's gonna be determined going going forward. Yeah,
the social and political dynamics are part of the conservation

(47:25):
game at this point. Can't discount them. It's not just
the numbers game. You have to look at were we
not only were we able to manage the population via
that overall number, but were we able to manage the
social and political dynamics that go along with this particular species.
Because you can't just you can't decouple those things. You
can't take them apart, can you. I mean, there's no way, no, no,

(47:47):
I agree, I um, I find it fastening. How in
some circles this became a political argument too, you know,
we're you know, and some of that are that you
see they keep saying things like, um, while we wanted
to get the season, and now, because the Biden administration

(48:08):
might walk it back and pull this thing off the
endangered species put it back on the endangered species list.
And my the thing I pointed out my column is
that you go back in time, Ben and when this
thing was first brought up, when we first tried to
get wolf de listed in Wisconsin, it was a Clinton

(48:29):
administration pushing the people run in the Fishing Walife Service,
that the Secretary of the Interior, of the Secretary of
the Fishing Walife Service, they were the ones trying to
push early on to get it off the endangered species
list once you met the goals in the Great Lakes,
and we met the goals in the Great Lakes about
over twenty years ago, but still it wasn't until the

(48:50):
Bush administration got it off the endangered species list in
this region. But then um went back on during court fights,
and then the An administration put it put it back
out there again, removed the listing. So we had these
hunts in two thousand and twelve, thirteen four king that
was during the Obama years. So now so when I

(49:12):
hear people's act now like this is a liberal versus conservative,
Republican versus Democrat, I think you don't. You're not being
fair of the history of this that the rule you know,
at a federal level of a hard time believing that
whether it was Clinton, George Bush, Obama or Trump, that
they really had a whole big investment politically and moving

(49:35):
that thing on or off the endangered species list. Yeah,
maybe that speaks to the de evolution of our politics,
you know, or the polar like the extreme polarization of
where we are. Because if you take this back, you know,
in the absence of just like boiling it down to
this situation. You know, if you take this back, you
go back to October of last year, when then Interior

(49:59):
Secretar Air Secretary the Interior David Bernhard announced that UM
the federal government would remove gray wolves from from the
e es A Endangered Species Act in the lower forty
eight and he said at the time, after more than
fort or five years as a listed species, the gray
wolf has exceeded exceed all conservation goals for recovery. Today's

(50:19):
announcement simply reflects that the determination that this species is
neither a threatened nor endangered species based on specific factors
Congress has laid out in the law uh AS specifically,
like we I guess what I think about this is wolves,
you know, they belong in the landscape, and if they're
they're sustainable numbers. It's not debatable that we should have

(50:43):
them in our system of hunting, air, system of wildlife conservation.
To me, it's just not a debatable point. But when
it gets tossed into I guess we should start. Let's
let's just kind of start there and tell everybody the
story from you know, the Trump administration and Secretary Bernhard
remove the wolves from the listing. A lot of people

(51:04):
say it was a campaign initiative to rouse the Republican
base to move on this. Can you take us, you know,
from that point, how we get to what do we
five six months of you know after that? Now we're
we're rushing through a wolf hunt and looking at the ramifications.

(51:24):
But can you take us a little bit through the
history after after that happened? From what I understand, Benum,
the Trumpet Inmistry and the Fisher Walize Service did move
this a little bit faster than normal, probably because it
was an election year. They wanted to get it get
it alter right before the election that they were removing it.
So it probably didn't make some people happy. I guess.

(51:45):
I do argue most people that were really had had
an interest in this, probably had their minds minds me
of anyway, and where they stood on that issue. But
so so they removed it. But they probably removed it
it weren't an election year. They probably we're still within
a couple of months of doing it. It wasn't like,
I don't think the Trump administration was going to reverse

(52:07):
something that the Obama administration it supported, that Clinton supported
that basically a whole list of administrations that really did
want want this thing often endangered species list because it
met the requirements we'd set over twenty years ago in
this region. But UM, once it was removed, that was
like late October the announcement came out, and then I

(52:27):
think it was November three. Is actually put us on
a timetable by things. December six, Wisconsin d and ARE
came out with a notice that in their opinion, we
should hold off and not hold our first season until
the following November, the first Saria November, which would have
been nothing November six this fall. UM. Meanwhile, we should

(52:50):
also point out that this this population of walls in
the Great Lakes, it's basically across the northern tier, northern
parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Upper Peninsula Michigan. There's
no as far as then there's no wolves downe in
the Lord Penninsula. Michigan's all up in the an Upper
Grade Lakes region. But meanwhile, Minnesota showed no move to

(53:15):
UM stood a season this year in Michigan did not either.
They both we're kind of holding back, and when we're
still in Wisconsin now, they're gonna hold one in November.
I think outside of Wisconsin would looked as kind of
a fairly aggressive announcement that we're gonna have our first
wolf season within a year of it being de listed.

(53:37):
And I think, um, based on this my knowledge of
how we've conducted wolf huntson Wisconsin and past and how
we let up to it, I thought it was a
prudent move to let's say, we gotta we gotta get
public hearings, get get getting from the public, discuss this
thing biologically and socially, get the tribes and fallolved, reconvene

(54:01):
our wolf committees, we have the citizen involvement. It really
make sure we think this through carefully and see what's changed,
you know, in the last seven or eight years since
we last had a wolf season. Because the one thing
we know of something like wolves and then something coming
off the endangered species list, I would just think it'd
be real prudent to proceed carefully. There's Noah rush um

(54:25):
let This thing, as I always keep saying, played a
long game. There's you know it won't be our last chance.
That if you do it right, this won't be our
last chance. Let's just take your time with this. But
that didn't happen. The politics got involved, and one of
the really I think um interesting nuances of Wisconsin situation
is when wolves would do list it back around I

(54:47):
think around two thousand and nine, two thousand eleven, so
I his court battles. Well, when they came off the
list in two thousand eleven, one of our lawmakers quickly
passed a law with the number three or four months
to put the all season and make it part of
the state statute. And you know, we don't have We
don't set our turkey season, our rabbit season, squirrel season,

(55:09):
waterfall seasons by statute. We sell them, but we set
up by ministrative rule where the Wildlife agency dictates the rules.
The legislature takes a final look at it. But overall
the Wisconsin dne our works for citizens groups to kind
of come up with the framework and the laws that
will will govern it by and then then we proceed

(55:30):
from there. Well, this one was put in the state statute,
so technically when this thing was when wolves came off
the endangered species less back in the fall. Well, um,
some of the groups pushed quit, bring it back right,
bring the hunt back right away. And we saw what
happened when we did that, because I think things I
think some of the things that happened in this season

(55:52):
would not have happened, would not I've rolled out to
what they did if we're taken a more calm, deliberate
approach to it. Yeah, And that's I mean, when when
this first came out, Um, when when that delisting occurred,
Wisconsin dn R was was basically saying that from the beginning.
There's a quote from from right when this d listing

(56:13):
happened where they they suggest, well they would soon resume
the honey seasons like they had in and the quote
is the Wisconsin Department and Natural Resources welcomes the responsibility
of again managing wolves in Wisconsin. The Department has successfully
done so for decades and will continue to follow the
science and laws that influence our management. All wolf management,

(56:34):
including hunting, will be conducted in a transparent and deliberative
key term deliberative process in which public and tribal participation
will be encouraged. And so this is uh. Again, there's
a lot of nuance here. This is a situation where
you and I would probably agree on the hunt being
conducted right. We're we're happy that for the D listing.

(56:56):
We feel like that's the right thing to do here.
But that you step to like, how do we implement
this hunt? And that's where things fall apart. And are
you familiar with this group Hunter Nation on what they
did here until until they popped up in this lawsuit UM,

(57:16):
which basically they filled a lawsuit to force the Dean
are to open the season before the end of February
and a judge in Jefferson County. I think it's from
those little ironies you get wagg into the nuance. I
think when the when the ironies of this whole thing
with the lawsuit was at I think people like me

(57:37):
UM have always said, we don't like it when outside
groups sue to bring to to stop wolf's wolf hunto
wolf management. We really don't like it when UM these
different environmental groups sue to get to get these kind
of protections on wolves and shut down any effort that
for state management. We resent that. But yeah, here was

(57:59):
a case where a group comes in from while they're
based in Kansas, but one of their main people. I
think their presidents based it lives in Wisconsin, but then
they take it into court in southern Wisconsin, which is
not wolf country, and get this lawsuit to say that
you know, yeah, the judge says you, by law, Wisconsin

(58:20):
has to hold a wolf hunt before the end of
February because that's what's in your state law. And I
think technically you're right, but you know, it's kind of
a UM, I thought it was kind of when these
I'm sure there was. I can't prove it, Ben, but
I'm sure they charged their judge carefully. Would I would
imagine so a Hunter Nation if folks don't know. And
I don't want to get this wrong, but well, the

(58:43):
specific guy that you're talking about here is the guy
that runs Hunter Nation. And I'm gonna look this up
while we're talking so I get this right. But this
gentleman was formally formally um, let's look him up here.
Luke hill Hilligman is the CEO of Hunter a shan Um,
and prior to working there, he was the chief executive

(59:05):
author of American Americans for Prosperity, which is basically a
Coke Brothers pack and the and when you look at
what Hunter Nation is really it's kind of a It
seems like a right wing advocacy group within the hunting space.
Um they have they do a lot of things that
I agree with in fact, but they have a strong

(59:27):
position on the EESA and it's and its reform. It
says on their website Hunter Nations supports major Endangered Species
Act reform. The s A has become the favorite tool
of anti hunting groups to take wildlife and habitat restoration
efforts away from the state and fish and game agencies
to the significant detriment of hunters and sportsmen and hunting

(59:48):
groups used. The Endangered Species Act has a weapon tying
decision making up in the courts to the detriment of
animals and habitat. It goes on and on. But you
can pick up the drift here and then you get
into this very a ironic happening in this case, and
I guess. But before we get to that, I want
to read to you there uh press release when they
won this lawsuit in Wisconsin, they said this week Hunter Nation,

(01:00:10):
along with the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, won
our lawsuit against By the way, I love the way
these things are always named They're named in the most
pandering way, wisconsinant Institute for Law and Liberty. It's just
like the Wisconsin Institute for Kitties and ice Cream. Who

(01:00:31):
could be against law and liberty? Uh. They won our
lawsuit against the Wisconsin depart of Natural Resources for ignoring
a state law requirement to schedule a wolf hunt this winner.
A Jefferson County Circuit court found that the Wisconsin DNR
violated state law by refusing to schedule a winner one
gray wolf hunt when the wolf was delisted from the

(01:00:52):
Endangered Species Act on January four one. This is a
historic victory for Wisconsin hunters and are constitutionally protected right
to hunt and manage our wildlife here in Wisconsin. The
ruling finally provides clear direction to the administration in Wisconsin
to move full speed ahead with our statutorily required wolf hunt. Um,

(01:01:14):
and it go of course, it goes on. But let
me just point out the irony here and see what
you think. The irony here is that the anti hunter,
according to Hunter Nation, is using the Endangered Speakies Act
as a cudgel with which to beat the hunting and
conservation world right there, using it as a way to
stop hunting right, and this is widely documented with wolves

(01:01:37):
and grizzly bears in the like. So what happens here
is a pro hunting group that believes in this, this
idea that the e s as being used by the
people on the other side, rushes through a hunt to
make sure that that the s A isn't turned over
by the Biden administration. They rushed through this hunt, and
now the hunt itself is a mess, and they have

(01:02:00):
provided an even bigger cudgel for anti Hunderson now beat
us with is that they have basically done the opposite
of what they are attempting to do and what their
mission states in terms of the Dangerous Species Act. I
know that's a complicated web with which to weave, but
that sound about right. I don't think it's a lot complicated.

(01:02:21):
I think it's um this really. If you're designing a
way to to um provide an argument in court that
we cannot provide scientific management of our wolf population in Wisconsin,
well we just we just did. We just created a
huge talking point. And but I can I can also

(01:02:42):
argue that if this had had been left up just
a biologists and wildlife managers and our hunter groups that
are Actually we have a hunter hunter organization Wisconsin called
the Wisconsin Conservation Congress, which is basically five guys, five
people elected by publicly elected to represent hunting interest in

(01:03:04):
each counting the state. If we've been left it up
to that group, which is our traditional way of handling things,
this wouldn't have happened. UM. So now we have the
situation though where every time I read about UM, I'd
say a nationally articles, nationally written article, for like when
the national media of those New York Times or the

(01:03:25):
ganet chain that has Milwaukee Journal in it, various associated press,
they read those articles and they always almost always now
have UH spokesman from the Human Society United States, various
anti hunting groups UM. These UM well, like the basically

(01:03:46):
I called this the Earth first type groups all bashing
away at this UM hunting season the way it was
carried out. So now we have that where this was
not scientifically designed, the way this thing was was was
enacted to get into this in the nuance of Wisconsin politics.
And we have a seven citizen Natural Resources Board that

(01:04:07):
sets policy for our wildlife agency, the Department Natural Resources.
Well during the run up to the season, when it
was dictated by course that we hold a season. One
of the one of the boards members basically set um
the directive to issue twenty times the quota for permits

(01:04:28):
hunting permits, and that was doubling the standard. Before we're
in the first three seasons, Wisconsin issued ten times the
quota to get that harvest. Well, this time he went
for twenty times, and I ran the numbers on basically
when you get down how many permits were sold for
each wolf season we've had all four wolf seasons. In

(01:04:49):
the first three when I actually came time to buy
buy hunting permits, we sold about seven permits for each
wolf in the quota. This time we sold over thirteen
permits for each wolf in that in that quota. So
we effectively doubled the hunting pressure compared to the first
three seasons. And there are a thing that that changed

(01:05:11):
a lot from seven or eight years ago. Is that
seven or eight years ago in Wisconsin? I think I
don't think. Yeah. We did not start registering dear for example,
by by phone or computer until two thousand and fifteen,
and so like when we last had a wolf hunt,
it was still um showing up somewhere getting it registered

(01:05:33):
and doing it that way. Well, now this season we
could do it by by phone and computer, but yet
we stuck with the old twenty four hour timetable for
registering the wolf. So as a result, we ended up
um almost extending the day a full day of hunting
and trapping for wolves during this past season two weeks ago,

(01:05:53):
and we did the first three years. So it was
there's so much nuanced in this that given the UM,
the way things were laid off this year, at the delisting,
the hold run up to this fall, you really have
a hard time looking at this and saying this was
a scientifically driven model that we need to be followed. Yeah,

(01:06:14):
and that's that's it. I mean Wisconsin was unable to
whether you know this was forced by this this judge
and this Hunter Nation lawsuit or not really unable to
manage this UM. And that is that that is I
can't you can't overstate the like how big a black
eye this is for the argument against the anti hunting crowd.

(01:06:38):
H you just can under underestimate. I mean, like you said,
on on a on a smaller level, on a micro level,
those two factors stand out, and you said this in
your article, I think that that allotted like the DNR
allotted a record percentage of kill permits, like you just mentioned.
And then they gave light solars twenty four hours to
register their kill by phone. Well, of course, like of course, um,

(01:07:00):
you're not gonna be able to get a count. And
this was what a three day ended up being a
two or three day hunt? Three day hunt? Right, so
you have a three day hunt. Well, let's say I'm
a guy in uh righting for the New York Times,
which I would never be, but let's say I was,
and I don't know much about this. It is incredibly easy.
The headline rights itself, right, Let's just say then I

(01:07:22):
take it a little bit further. I'm I'm a pr
person for Peter. The headline there rights itself even easier.
Bloodthirsty hunters, you know, slaughter wolves in two day Uh
you know, free for all. That's not managed. You know,
it's it's not regulated. And and a lot of wolves
died that didn't need to or weren't supposed to be

(01:07:44):
based on the allotment in the science. And I mean
that is I mean, like I said, we've handed them
the bat with which to hit us with. Here, Um,
you left out the part about trophy hunter. They really,
Oh I forgot a about that. Yeah, must. Every time
I saw anyone quota from let's just see across the aisle,

(01:08:06):
they always um marked this as a trophy hunt. And
that's just standard procedure. Now, when you want to you
want to make see something bit of a hunting, you
put it down as a trophy hunt. Yeah. And this
would have worked though if we would you think if
we were a wind time and the DNR would have

(01:08:26):
gotten its away, they would have said, let's let's be
transparent and deliberate, Let's make sure we bring in tribal leaders,
Let's make sure we really think this through. Let's hold
the hunt, say next winner or you know, at some
time where it makes sense where obviously it doesn't compete
with other hunting seasons, and we can do it in
a transparent and very safe and you know scientific way. Um.

(01:08:50):
And they would have done what they did in the
past seasons, which was hit the number by three or
four wolves. You know, they would have been two, three
or four wolves over. This would have been a huge
point of celebration for those of us that believe in
our model of conservation. Yeah, you talk about a point swing.
This this was it. We could have gone into the

(01:09:11):
people just going ahead and laid out a real deliberative approach,
set up a season in November, tweaked some of the
things we knew we're going to change from from this
year and seven years before then ruled the season out
the way it had in the past, where you know,
we we should we should probably talk about the fact
that in past seasons, UM this season wolf season started

(01:09:34):
with hunting, just hunting with calls, hunting over a carcass,
you know, and some kind of wolf bait, girl's trapping.
And so we had our first three years ran anywhere
from like about um forty two days to maybe fifty
eight days or something. It was really a long rollout,

(01:09:55):
and we don't know, we do not allow hunting with
hounds for wolves until to our gun deer season ends
in late November. So the first first year we didn't
have the opportunity to use hollands for hunting, and then
the next two years, by time UM hounds were allowed,
UM much of the season really closed down because the

(01:10:16):
trappers had gotten the trappers dominated those first three years,
and then this time around it was just the opposite
we had of the harvest tuisco coming through on the
use of hollands and only five percent from trapping, and
that gets in the nuance to that um. Yeah. You know.
One thing I wanted to say too about the whole
way way media covers this is that we cannot expect

(01:10:42):
non hunters, which is like our population, to understand the
nuance of hunting regulations. It's just our hunting regulations tend
to be pretty involved, um, so for them to understand
the difference between hunting with with halls, trapping with um
like foothold traps, and hunting wolves of the hounds, these

(01:11:06):
are such different practices that hunters are pretty well aware
of them. But even then it's um. Holl And hunting
is not something a lot of a lot of hunters
have any direct experience with. There's so much nuance here
that can be so easily distorted and used in the
wrong way against us that it was just I keep thinking,
just what a wasted opportunity this was by letting this

(01:11:29):
go forward, where now give us some block guys to
the the great um example of what we could have achieved. Yeah, really,
I mean, if you, if you and going back to
what you said. There was an article on March three
in the New York Times. Um, it's not by me,
that's weird, Maria, Maria Kramer or Cramer. And it just

(01:11:53):
starts out by stating the facts, but then, as you said,
quickly moves into doesn't take a whole lot of time
to move right into that humane society United States quote.
So I'll read you a little bit of it said,
Hunters in Wisconsin killed more than two hundred wolves this
last week, far exceeding the state's limit as they scrambled
to take advantage of trump ara wildlife rules that they
worry maybe tightened by the Biden administration. So start start

(01:12:15):
out by the lead, as we call it in the business,
like the lead of this article. The thesis of this
article already begins in this kind of political muck. It
begins with this this, It connects, it does, it does,
takes no time in connecting hunters to the Trump era
and hunters to right wing politics, and it quickly moves

(01:12:35):
into the left wing opposition. At least two sixteen wolves
were killed in less than sixty hours, exceeding the quota
of a hundred nineteen and prompting Wisconsin to end what
was meant to be a one week hunt four days early.
Now it doesn't go anywhere in this into the nuance
of the actual number of one nineteen or anything like that. Again,
it's too easy for somebody for Maria to start out

(01:12:58):
this way. She does get into the details later on,
but it's it's I mean, people stop reading, so it
says environment Environmentalists who fought unsuccessfully in state court to
stop the hunt said the killings that occurred during breeding season,
when gray wolves are especially vulnerable. They said the large
number of wolves killed in such a short time underscored
the need for President Biden to put the gray wolf

(01:13:18):
back on the list of the animals protected under the
Endangered Species Act. So for everyone that was trying to
um tout delisting of wolves is a good thing. You
have now given uh the h s u S an
opportunity to say you were wrong, and in this case, um,
they're not all that far off. They said. These animals

(01:13:40):
were killed using packs of dogs, snares, and leghold traps.
Kitty Block, chief executive the Humane Society of the United States,
said on Tuesday it was a race to kill these
animals in the most cruel ways. Yeah there. And meanwhile,
you know, one of the things that I found in
Trusted by by Coinstance, I had UM interviewed a woman

(01:14:06):
UM at February six and she's a she's a huge trapper,
really gifted trapper. And she had said back in February six,
this is like two and a half weeks before the
season unfolded, that if this season goes forward, she says,
I'll be lucky if I can check my traps in

(01:14:27):
two days, because for two days that the season probably
over with him two days because she just knew that. Um.
You know, when you get when you get um hounds
out there hunting. But if you have good tracking snow
we have really good We have a good number of
people states who enjoy hunting bears, enjoy hunting podcats, and

(01:14:51):
counties with the hounds. Personally, I have a real hard
time criticizing houndsman, because I think if I were in
the hounds, I'd be in the same thing. I love it. Yeah,
I think I don't do it, but I love it.
I think the sound of hounds baying, whether it's whether
they're baying those beagles being on rabbits or or or

(01:15:13):
hounds baying on raccoons. I think that I think it's exciting.
As how I'm I cannot sit there and act like
we shall be saying, well, it's okay to hunt raccoons,
the hounds are so okay to hunt rabbits with beagles,
but damn, we can't do this on bears and and
and and wolves or bobcats. So I have a hard
time with that one. I'm kind of rambling now a

(01:15:35):
little bit. But um, I just found that when when
this thing was being planned, a lot of trappers we're
not planning to take part in February because they're trappers
tend to be more much more tuned into the fur,
the fur quality and everything I was hearing from the
trappers in Wisconsin. The guys I know was there going

(01:15:58):
to pass up the chance and just go ahead and
by apply for um a preference point for the fall
hunt and let the homes being have have their season
to kind of just take a pass on this because
they knew that basically that the for the for the
fur quality for a wolf peaks in December and then
so it's going downhill and by late February it is

(01:16:19):
not a high quality pelt anymore it's getting matted, the
under first kind of getting loose, all that kind of stuff.
So they were kind of taking a pass anyway. But
still when you when you saw the kind of numbers
were talking about for how many permits to be pushed
out there, how many hunters can be pushed out there,
the people who are like tuned into this, we're predicting

(01:16:41):
before the hunt started that this is not gonna go well,
just gonna be a well cluster, you know, the cluster
f And it sure was yeah, yeah, and it I mean,
there's this is this thing. There's so much baked into
this too. But you just, like I said, you just
know what what it's gonna look like. Um And and look,

(01:17:03):
I don't disagree. I mean, if you look at some
of the language around some of the climate change legislation
that President Biden had in the works, and and Hunter
Nation points this out and I'm not saying I disagree
with it, that that the worry was that the d
n R was going to delay this and then anti
hunting and animal race groups would get in and then

(01:17:24):
canceled the hunt. Right so by the time the hunt
would take place, they would just throw the political football
back across the field and in the hunt would take place.
But that I think just underscores the danger of making
these decisions based on these political agendas, making wolf hunting
in Wisconsin and political football to throw back and forth

(01:17:46):
during a camp during a presidential campaign and then you
know close following afterwards, UM, turning these things into not
very deliberate and and and very thought out, um ecological
and biological benefits to these populations as we as you know,
Shane Mahoney was here. You might say it that way
if it's eloquently than that, but UM, turning this into

(01:18:10):
political football has led to where we are. You know,
do you think there's any way to turn that off
in any way to just try to find a way
to manage wolves and other I would say, like controversial
species on the landscape in a way. Sage grouse are
also this way, It doesn't have to be a predator. Um.
Is there a way to turn this off or at

(01:18:32):
the very least guard against this type of manipulation of
what should have been a very scientific conservation decision. Yeah,
you know you would hope that UM this because this
will you know, there's two core cases alter already before
the before this even happened that they're fighting the the
um the delisting, so you know it's gonna end up

(01:18:54):
in court in front of a judge at some point.
And I still think UM lawyers, a good smart lawyer
with some good wildlife managers helping him out and designed
the case, can still make a very strong argument that um, hey,
look we know what we're doing. We've proven this in
the past. This is not a good example of what

(01:19:17):
we're capable of. And here's here's what we have done
the past, and done it very well, not just Wisconsin,
but also Minnesota in Michigan when they had their seasons.
So we still have an overall strong, very strong record
for controlling the wolf harvest and getting really basically rolling
it out again the next time in a real responsible matter.

(01:19:40):
But so this was really the outlier. This this season
here was nothing like anything else we've seen before, and
unfortunately the way it came out so fast that the
people we were really counting on to bring some sanity
to the process. In my column, I criticized to our
our top breast and our our own department Natural Resources

(01:20:03):
because I thought this was you should have spoken up
why you could and once once this thing has passed.
You can't just go back and rewrite things. You sat
there mute while they were debating some of these questions
like how many promised to put out there to not
say a word, and that was that really, um will
hurt our case when it comes to why didn't you

(01:20:25):
speak up? And so to answer your question, Ben, I
think we can still make a good argument, but we
sure didn't make it easy. Now we really have to
argue from behind. Yeah, you do. And this is such
a critical point, and I mean, I don't know there's
there's a point that this this will ever calm down,
like the boiling point will be taken down. But this

(01:20:46):
this is with a new administration, you know. And we've
seen these We've seen these political footballs go back and
forth before to the detriment of what we're talking about.
And this happened with granted staircase Escalante and bears the years,
to the detriment of the landscape and in this case
a species and it's overall conservation efforts. Anytime these things

(01:21:06):
become these political footballs, it's to the detriment to the
people on the ground. It never works out for the
people managing the landscapes or managing the wildlife. It just
never does. And um, it's hard to understand, you know,
connecting the macro and the micro um and it takes
I think, good writing and good journalism as you've done
to really make those connections. How is this now going

(01:21:29):
to be harder going forward to the people that so
enjoyed this hunt, you know, because it's okay to enjoy
a wolf hunt. I don't have a problem with somebody
showing the wolves that they killed on social media or
talking about it. But again, everyone needs to understand that
we're we're in a very political and very socially charged
environment and everything we do has to be grounded in

(01:21:53):
the things we say we're for. You know, that's a
tough one. I don't think you and I've talked about,
but I know I've. It's been part of my UM
career basically going back in the early eighties that I've
always been fascinated by the fact that you can show, um,

(01:22:14):
a person holding a deer nice buck, um, or a
person holding up a couple of geese, say shot whatever
it might be. But why I remember in my newspaper
days back in the mid eighties, the first time I
showed a guy holding up a coyote or holding by
red fox by its high and legs um for a
winter predator hunt. God, people just called freaking nuts. And

(01:22:40):
there's something about shooting a canaid that really does not
sell with a lot of people. And that's not I
don't think we can ever, um quote unquote educate people
out of that. I think it's something that just in
us as humans that um a lot of people really identify,

(01:23:00):
um something that that resembles what runs around their house.
I think that's why we have problems with moultinlined hunts,
and why we have problems with with wolf hunts and
and and coyote hunts. It's just always something that people
just so many people are so connected to those those animals.
So it's it's tough stuff when you get into the

(01:23:20):
emotional side of of these arguments. Yeah, it's really like
you said, it's it's an emotional topic for people, and
and that's not something we can we can discount as hunters.
We can't say, well, don't get emotional about this. You
know facts, don't care about your feelings. You're never gonna
get if you start talking like that, You're never gonna
get anywhere. Um, you're just gonna create a wall between

(01:23:42):
you and the person who you'd like to understand you. Um,
and that's where and I think this, this situation is
certainly put up a larger barrier. I mean, we certainly
can stand behind that barrier and say how great it
is that there's two hundred less wolves and that's going
to help overall population dynamics, and that, uh, we're celebrating
you know, traditional way methods to take like hound hunting

(01:24:04):
and other things. We can say all those things, and
we're probably right. But at the end of the day, Um,
it only matters what people think about it, you know,
and only really and as we've seen with this, it
really only matters what society at large thinks is good
or bad. And and that's if we get off that track,
then you come you're just arguing with yourself or you're

(01:24:25):
congratulating yourself and everybody else over there. New York Times
Land and New York Times has been known to write
about hipster hunters and the field of table movement. They've
been known to write about you know, cou you putting
sheet back on the mountain like that. It's not that
they're completely against highlighting what's positive here, UM, but they'll
certainly jump all over it when the negative like this perpetuate.

(01:24:49):
And if and I can guarantee, if you UM, if
I would, I shouldn't say guarantee, I'd be willing to
bet that if if a New York Times reporter we're
to show up and I could arrange them to go
um hound hunting with some hounds machine in Wisconsin for
Bobcat up north, but at the same time a year

(01:25:11):
and actually be early in the winter, I'd be a
pretty much a solitary hunt. We have one or two
trucks involved with their hounds, and they probably come aways
really impressed with how these guys operate because it's it's
not a guarantee, it's a it's a tough can be
a real tough slug out there staying after these hounds
in um No, the Wisconsin's deep forest. So but you

(01:25:36):
had this case, we're UM we had so many UM
trucks out there with with houndsman and such. It was
times we just saw like three or four trucks, five
trucks in some cases, and some of these real forest roads.
It really upsets some people who were, you know, kind
of on defense about it. Another hand in hand, as

(01:25:58):
are people driving by who deal with wolves. They live
in a wolf country, they've had pets killed by wolves,
livestock killed by wolves. They go by these same guys
and give my thumbs up. And so you really get
these interesting perspectives on the Wisconsin landscape. To go back
to our earlier discussion about what's the average hunter, well,

(01:26:19):
I would say there's a lot of hunters Wisconsin who
probably really vocally condemning this hunt right now, and it's
just jumping to conclusions about that was just that they're
blaming the Holland hunters for everything. And then there's but
there are some things I think we need to look at,
and one of them is, um, how quickly the successful
hunters registered their their wolves. I mean, by some appearances,

(01:26:44):
by some reports. Talking to retired wardens, I know there
were some pretty pretty um I think nothing like It's
one of those cases where I'm not going to quote
anybody because nobody would go on the record, But I
really got the impression there was some stuff going on
out there were either on social media or through the

(01:27:04):
two way radios, encouraging each other not to register of
the wolf until you had you know, basically right down
to last minute. So you had this big delay and
registration that almost was a full day delayed, that delayed
the season, that ran the season, not a day beyond
where it should have been. So there are some things
that we gave ourselves a black eye on. It's not

(01:27:25):
just all on the political front. Who is that our
our own individual decisions to that could have been better.
We could have been saying that I don't want to
take a chance of something getting getting out of hand
here being a part of that, and unfortunately a lot
of guys did. Yeah, I heard. I've heard so many
rumors and read so many things about this hunt that

(01:27:45):
I like, I hesitate. I'll just tell you some of
the more crazy ones. I heard that people were had
frozen wolves and their freezer that they had shot years ago,
and they were getting them out and checking them in,
and you hear all kinds of crazy things. I have
no idea if that's true. I wasn't there, I have
you know, I haven't seen any proof of any kind
of these crazy allegations about how the hunt went down.

(01:28:06):
But I mean, I always say on this and we've
we talked about wolves here before. Where I I when
you start talking about wolves on the landscape, and we
talked about this in the Colorado ballot box biology, um case,
you know, some weeks back here. I I try to understand,
like I can understand that ranchers, landowners, the people that

(01:28:27):
are really affected by these wolves and rural like rural
and suburban situations, even I think probably in Wisconsin, like
there's two different parts of the state, as you mentioned,
and one of them has wolves and and a lot
of a lot of these parts don't even have them. Um.
And so I do when we're talking about this and
how to regulate and how to think about it, I

(01:28:47):
do understand each side of the fence. You know, you
understand the more urban side in Wisconsin where you might
be thinking like why would you kill a wolf? And
then you go talk to All you have to do
is take that person and introduce them to a rancher
or a far armor and says, this is why you
kill a wolf. Look over here, I'll tell you they're
killing my sheep. They're doing this, they're doing that, They're
impacting my life negatively. Um. And so I always look

(01:29:09):
at it both ways. I understand both. I side with
the rancher. I want that rancher to have that tool
to to manage those those that predation. I've seen it
even here in Montana right close to my house where
uh I have show camera footage of wolves taken down
some guy's cattle, you know, and the the U. S
D a Aphist trappers have to come in and kill
the wolf anyway, So it's a it's a complicated mix.

(01:29:32):
And as you as you mentioned, um, it's delicate and
we need to treat it as such. You know, we
need to treat this as a delicate situation, not one
to be rammed through. Um. So we feel good about
getting what we wanted. Yeah, I I am remember in college,
well back in my Navy days, I took a a

(01:29:52):
psychology class and when these college classes you could take
um um when your ships deployed, get college credit. I
remember this professor saying that in almost all aspects of
human behaviors, human attitudes about se us fall right in
the middle. You can, we can listen to arguments and

(01:30:15):
basically will always somewhere in that seventy in the middle
and on a one fringe, on the other fringe, and
no matter what you tell those folks, they're going to
stay where they are. They're not going to budge. Well
when it comes to wolves, I think, um, most of us,
most of people I've dealt with in my in my career,
when you explain some of the nuance to them that

(01:30:37):
they have not really been part of before, most of them,
I think, will start understanding that it's not as it's
not maybe as easy as they once thought it was
to break this down and figure it all out. But
when you have something this happened, and you see headlines
that say something like the headline I saw a number
of times in Wisconsin was that hunters kill one fifth

(01:31:01):
of the Wisconsin wolf population, I think, well, yeah, based
on estimates, that's about right. But um, the bigger question
as well, was anning harmed Biologically No? But then you
go back to but biologically no harm, sociologically huge harm

(01:31:21):
and so but for hunters by the same token to
act like because there was no biological harm, therefore no harm,
I think that's that's just not realistic. That's not how
we operate in a free society where we debate these things.
We have to um fight our way through lots of
information lots of different perspectives to come to some kind

(01:31:45):
of agreement, but you can't. My and my little things
in life is that you can't force love, you can't
force understanding. It has to come on its own. And
this is one where I think this one was really
forced down the throats of the non hunting public, even
allowed the hunting public to the point where now we

(01:32:07):
hire ourselves back from the corner we did not need
to be in. Yeah, that's a beautiful sentiment. Man. You
can't force understanding and can't force love. I mean, that's
that's it. You can't, you know, And in this case
it's it. It almost seems like, you know, on a
political level. And I'll just go ahead and say it.
I think Hunter Nation is clearly a like a Republican,
a right wing group. I mean, I think they don't

(01:32:29):
say it out right, but I mean if you look
at who they are and what they do, that's what
they that's what they are. UM. And that's okay. I'm
not saying it's a bad thing. UM. I'm just saying
it's a politically driven advocacy organization and that is is
very dangerous um in and of itself. Within the hunting space,
I feel, and again there's always to take it to

(01:32:50):
the opposite. There's people that would charge UH groups like
b h A for being a left wing, politically motivated organization.
I know that not to be true, just based on
my you know, my time working with them, But those
ideas that we would we would allow those UM forces

(01:33:12):
in our space to work this way to try to
get wins for their side. UM is it's kind of
the antithesis of what you just mentioned there because now
we're not we're trying to get wins, and we're not
talking about understanding, and then we're not talking about what
we can do to win that sociological battle that's out there,
because really the war is for people's attention, right The

(01:33:33):
war is for people to like just pay attention to
us for minutes so we can explain ourselves. That's all.
That's the that's what the the overall battle is here,
UM And the every point like this that's gonna get
raised to a more popular culture level is another chance
for us to get people's attention in a way that's positive. Yeah,
I UM, I guess if I had my UM big

(01:33:56):
wish right now and I had the same wish nine
years ago was that when in two thousand and twelve,
when a Republican lawmakering Wisconsin named suitor Um made this
made the legislation that is now our law. We have
a wolf hunt studying UM. Well, now it would start
in early November and until UM we hit our quota

(01:34:17):
or else hit late February. Well, typically we never made
out of December. My my wish all along this this
past year was that that's someone in our Republican party
in Wisconsin, which controls the legislature, controls both houses of
our legislature, our Senate and our Assembly, that some Republican
would step for step forward and say this is not

(01:34:41):
good president to have a wolf hunting season set by
state statute. This should be in the administrative rules process.
That's that guarantees a lot more discussion publicly among all
the different advocacy groups and then come to us with
your final seasoned proposals and we'll weigh in then. But

(01:35:03):
we're not going to write this for you. You gotta
do it yourself. And so we had this law put
it back out there where it's part becomes part of
the Wildlife Agency's responsibility to make sure we have a
good solid to hearing on this and not not making
this for you where you go to go to one
judge and get this thing enacted like this. Yeah, and

(01:35:25):
we've seen that all over the country. We did a
little bad bill round up was not a bad bill,
but a bill round up here of new state legislature
bills that are being passed um all over the country
and here in Montana, I think we had some kind
of fifty eight I don't I have number in front
of you, but over fifty bills and legislature in since
the beginning of the legislative session here. So you elect

(01:35:48):
a new body um that's dominated by one party or
the other, and they're all immediately enacting their agenda. And
again they're elected for a reason, they know you campaign
them on agenda. So I'm not saying that's a bad thing,
but it is what it is. I think is the
time to have this heightened sensibility as to what's right
and what's wrong right and and in this case we

(01:36:09):
kind of fell flat in it, um. But it's it's
I I do think you know that this is how
the political process works. But as hunters and anglers, this
is you know, we need to start getting back on
this understanding that these are the times when things can
go wrong when we have, you know, the political process
plays out in this very aggressive way, and then we're
settling into the new world and we're starting to pass

(01:36:31):
we want to pass fifty new bills to to reshape
the way, you know, and in Montana like elk tags
are allotted and nonresident tags are a lotted, and how
public land access is used and block management and all
of this starts to change and you start to see
the size kind of crystallize. This is just if you
have a vested interests, this is time to be aggressive

(01:36:53):
and be calling, um, your state legislature, calling your representatives
and just telling them, I get I mean, you guys
are voted in you doing your job. We understand that.
But this is the belief that we have, you know.
And that's where bh A comes in. That's where all
these groups come in. That you can jump on the
t r C, p R M e F in this case,
probably not for Wisconsin, but there's the Prior Wild Chief

(01:37:16):
Foundation either, um, but you can get on this. You
can get on the track where you can be involved
in something like this and you can't understand like when
are the heightened times that the conversation needs to be
you know, pushed forward and maybe this will happen next time.
Well yeah, one of the I think, um, one thing

(01:37:36):
I've been really proud of in Wisconsin for many years
was that back in the thirties and forties, Um, you know,
we had we had all the Leopold here in our state,
and we people should always realize that even although Leopold
did not always prevail in his thinking, he fought a
lot of political battles that he lost in Wisconsin, especially

(01:37:56):
on dear management. But um, through that process us in
the forties, our legislature must have had some very smart
people because they they finally got sick of our deer wars.
Back in nearly forties, we were always fighting about deer management,
and Leopold was leading these these Um basically bus trips
uping in Wisconsin's deer yards is showing what happens when

(01:38:19):
we have an overpopulated deer herd. I think eventually our
our lawmakers realized, you know, this is way too much
Menutia for us to handle. We're gonna turn this over
to the to our conservation department. Let them fight with
the hunters and the and the non hunters, let them
come up with some solutions here, and then bring it
back for our final review, and then we'll either either

(01:38:41):
make them modified some more or we'll check off on it.
And that system worked really well for close to sixty years.
Where things weren't perfect, We still fought all the time.
We still argue all the time, because as I always say,
dear make people stupid, so we always fight about these things.
And but then in the past twenty years, but especially

(01:39:02):
the last ten twelve years, we really went down this
terrible route where lawmakers, it makes they may they make
a good argument for um limiting terms and also um
limiting them time they can actually get together and past
laws and make we should make them part time people again,
because to have the time in their hands to go

(01:39:23):
in there and mess with the wolf season like this
and employs a wolf season that can be so easily
then taken into court and and forced through in this process,
it was it shows you we've swung too far away again,
back into this idea what the legislature is doing everything.
And I think I think we're showing that that system

(01:39:44):
we have to go back and put this more in
the in the scientific um management again. Yeah, and there's nothing.
There's nothing i'dlike more, as you know, like I said
a proponent of wolf hunting, than to have a conversation
based on the science for somebody to come to me
and be like, hey, us, we're not hunting wolves and
here's why, here's the science. UM. I just got finished

(01:40:05):
reading uh Shane Mahoney and Layers guys book. It's not
really title very well. It's called the North American Model
of Wilife Conservation. That's the book title. It's not very intriguing,
but it's descriptive. It's the third time I've read it,
because every time I read it, I kind of look
at the lens of where we are right now, and
and if you start to understand the failings of the model,

(01:40:27):
our model of conservation, it's when, just like you said,
it's when we we kind of stray away from whether
it be by ballot box or by state legislature in
this case, really looking at not not the different parties
and different stakeholders involved, but starting with the science, like
what's the stines of what Bogy say? Then once we
get to where we really know, we want to be.

(01:40:47):
Then we can let kind of the social and political
factors come into play and maybe help us shape a
little bit of how we deliver what the science is
telling us to do, or how we manage what the
science is telling us to do, not the other around.
You can't do it based on political needs and then
re engineer the science like in this case. Um, it's
gonna seem disingenuous because it is disingenuous in a lot

(01:41:10):
of ways. So it's um, I mean, it's it's I
guess it's just part of what we do, Pats, just
like part of being in this uh community, and like
understanding that you're gonna win someone, you're gonna lose some
and almost every every win and loss, it are complex
and have a lot of rights and a lot of
wrongs baked in because I think this situation there's plenty

(01:41:32):
that was done right. Like you said, if you just
if you're just putting a tally on the board, it's
not the worst thing in the world. Um, it doesn't
really impact wolf populations, but um, that's not where it ends.
So you know, I imagine we'll continue to have these
is right, And I I always say, Ben, I'm a

(01:41:55):
Wisconsin Shovanist. I'm also all hunting and North American models
over this. I really do believe we have good systems
in place. We have smart people, We have smart people
in our history, and I really believe, and I really
believe overall that if you have um nice, respectful conversations,

(01:42:17):
you might be arguing, but they're still respectful, and your
in your marshaling information and deploying it in in a
good strategic way that's providing people input from both sides.
I think we can have really a great system here,
But when it comes down to where we have to
win the argument and dominate the argument and basically demonize

(01:42:43):
people who don't see things the way we do and
make this um right left, um liberal conservative argument, I
really like to think that in the course of American
history we've done better than that. You know, we found
we can do better than this, And I really am.

(01:43:04):
I am kind of surprised so so many times that
people think we have to win, and I think, no,
politics is not about at least it shouldn't be about winning.
It should be all doing what's best for the for
the American public, and our traditions are these kind of
things that I hold dear, and you hold dear, and
I think most Americans do. And but I don't like

(01:43:25):
this idea of intimidating people and um making them basically
conformed of what we think is right. Yeah, yeah, I
mean there's so much of it there. I have. I
don't want to say. I'm not gonna say I have
a dream, but I do. I have a dream, and
I like I wish. I think the best conversation I
could have if we could take like a consumptive and

(01:43:47):
a non consumptive user in this case, say a hunter
or an angler and an animal rights activists or somebody
believes in animal rights, have each of them put together
a model of conservation. Of course, we could just be like,
we got one already, why don't you put one together?
So they and the Analyrights Committee puts together a model
conservation as in depth um as as the one we

(01:44:10):
currently have that was worked out by Mahoney and Geist
back in the eighties and articulated back in the age,
and then we could put them next to each other
and have a good conversation. We could go tenant by tenant,
issue by issue and try to apply they're one model
versus the other, and maybe you get to some sort
of like combined model that takes both of these insights

(01:44:34):
and perspectives and ideologies into into account when we're building
these things out, so we don't have to punch each
other and beat each other over the head with with
our victories and losses. And and so I'm gonna find
I'm find a real smart animal rights person that can
that can read the North American model wildlife conservation, understand
its faults and where it's succeeded, and then say like,

(01:44:57):
now here's a world where we're not killing them, and
here's how we're gonna make this work, you know. And
I'm I think I'd love to have that conversation and
stop just saying you're wrong and I'm right, And here's why.
I'd like to see it written down. So maybe maybe
some animal rights person is listening to this, they start
working on It might take him a while, but and
That's what I'd love to see, because I finally we

(01:45:19):
get after the heart of the matter. We would get
to the heart of is your way better for wolves?
Or is our way better for wolves? But but for
now we're too far separated. Oh yeah, and like we
um we We had a pel discussion a few years
ago in Wisconsin, one of our our our outdoor communicators thing,
and we invited in the Hollinsman. We invited in a

(01:45:41):
wolf advocate and we had a real, really good, our
hour and a half discussion, and we basically got the
point where we um, we realized that no matter what
we do as far as Holland hunting, that will never
get them. The wolf advocate to agree that that's a
good way to hunt bowls, but she she didn't want

(01:46:03):
any kind of hunting trapping period. But but at least
um she got to hear from an actual houndsman how
they go about hunting wolves and and why isn't always
this dog fighting that they're portraying. And I thought was
I felt a healthy discussion. And I think when you
get into the one of the points Steve Ronella makes

(01:46:29):
quite often which holds up for the whole wolf argument,
is that you know, Steep points out that if you
not say that um wolves haven't recovered of the range,
well then well then you gotta also point out that
elk have I want to recovered about eleven of their range.
So where do you draw this line? And and here

(01:46:49):
in Wisconsin, it's pretty clear where um, the the lines
being drawn we have Wherever we have big forest, we
have a wolf, a wolf population. We have a central
force in Wisconsin with a decent wolf population. Then they're
also up north. But then once you get out of
that area, you get these stragglers and these dispersers that
don't really make it. This really is a good environment

(01:47:12):
for them. But I think now in Wisconsin we've gone
from back in the eighties, we're rethought. Back then, the
best available science in the nineteen eighties was that we'd
be lucky to get one hundred wolves re established in Wisconsin.
And they started trickling back in here in the nineteen
eighties and it was kind of fits and jerks, and

(01:47:33):
eventually they thought, well, you probably hold a hundred wolves
in the state. Then by the year two thousand, we
were thinking the best available sciences that well, we'll probably
cap off your out three fifty. Well now we are
here in one and the best available in science is
now showing well, actually, these wolves are more adaptable than
we realized. We learned something. We can now have at

(01:47:55):
least twelve hundred wolves here, and you know that, but
it is but now we're seeing consistent problems with pets
being killed, livestock being killed, and and so I think
the average person could can understand that. Well, if you
have a wolf hunt that's well regulated, chances are you
knock off the wolves that are most likely to be

(01:48:16):
close to people, hanging out in people's um, at the
edge of people's barnyards and fields. Those will be a
little more susceptible because they've gotten too close to humans,
and so we'll probably get them. So, but you have
these nuanced discussions, we really we are capable of doing that.
And that's why I think in this case, I felt like, man,

(01:48:39):
you guys are not giving the American people, the Wisconsin
people enough credit here. You've got to realize we have
unique situations. You can't compare um Wisconsin wolf hunting with
Montana wolf hunting. Ian Wisconsin's forest is pretty well divided up,
lots of trails and roads that you can get a
truck down those vast areas of the West. You do

(01:49:02):
not have that. You cannot put the number of hunters
into some most western landscapes that you can hear in Wisconsin.
So this is these are all tied together. And but
also different. But but you're trying to tell me that
the average New York Times reporter understands those that kind
of nuance. No, and you can't expect them to if

(01:49:23):
you're only covered that story once a year and not
be pounding on that beat ye're in year out. Yeah
and yeah, the first quote the story is going to
be from h s U S right, And the hs
US isn't gonna say, you know what, you know what?
What's different? You know, ecological needs are different states to say.
And you know, I was wading about the North American
wild and wild of conservation. One of the key tenants

(01:49:43):
is that science of biology manager on the state level
is going to really get us to the populations that
we need. That's not going to happen, and it's never
gonna happen unless you push it. But I do think
they're I think right, Um, we just have to we
have to find a way to to learn from this
particular one and move on. And UM, I don't like

(01:50:06):
to get I'm not very argumentative anymore online, but I
think on this one, I would be pretty argumentative if
I saw somebody and I I'm not saying i've seen this.
I don't spend whole lot of time in there anymore.
But if I saw somebody online and I guess if
you're listening to this podcast, I I hesitate. I hesitate,
But I will encourage you to address this directly. If

(01:50:28):
someone is celebrating this wolf hunt in a way is
to say, like we won. You know, whether they're a
Trump supporter or they're not, or you know they're Republican,
don't matter. If they're um celebrating this wolf hunt in
a way that we beat the anti hunters, it's time
to have it. Like I would have a direct conversation

(01:50:50):
with them to say, uh no. I mean it would
start by saying yes and no, but here's the big
no on this one, um. And I think that's important
for our community to be able to be that honest
and with ourselves and with other people around us, to say,
let's talk, let's educate each other, and let's not uh,
let's not do this. Let's not have this this celebratory mindset, um,

(01:51:14):
because we got to kill some wolves in Wisconsin, and
and quite honestly, most people that would be celebrating it,
including Hunter Nation, they don't know the politics like you do.
In the socio economic needs and and again I mean
we might say, hey, you could either pay on a
federal level aphis or pay on a state level or

(01:51:35):
on a municipality level to control these problem wolves. Or
you can have hunters do it as you mentioned, and
they'll pay you for it. Uh, and a lot of hunters.
I don't what what was the number of of tag sold?
I mean, all of that is revenue for the state.
And so you have this idea where where so many
of the things that we value are working. Um, especially

(01:51:55):
you know if you if you're just getting your checkbook
out here and balancing it. This is a a very
positive thing as as opposed to, you know, financially what
would be a negative thing having state and federal governments
have to manage this and and pay people to go
and control predation. So, boy, it's it's a fun one.

(01:52:16):
But I mean, I don't think there's anybody better to
talk about the new pat. I appreciate, um, I appreciate
your your stance on this, and I appreciate you You're
talking about love and understanding in this case because as
its trade as it may sound, it's a hundred percent
right like it just really is. Yeah, I love it.
So you can go read Pat uh Patrick DRK and

(01:52:38):
outdoors dot com. If you go to his blog, he's
got an article there all about this um Wisconsin's wolf
Overharst was predictable and preventable. There's all kinds of other stuff.
So you're posting there weekly, right Pat? Yeh and Um.
As you know, Ben, you guys have been let me
right for you now for almost three years and and
we see it the other way around. You let us

(01:52:58):
publish your material. So yeah, you're doing bi weekly on
the Mediator dot com still these days. Yeah, so you
can every other week. Pat's got a thing on the
Mediator dot com. His last article was about the death
of the deer camp. I love that once. So I
can't wait. What's your next what's the next piece you're
working on? The piece I'll be some name do to

(01:53:19):
you guys today is UM. After you and I get
off the phone, I'm wrapping up an article I wrote
on on Davy Crockett. And I've been when his Davy
Crockett fans since I was a little little boy, and
I always love the fact that he was this big hunter.
But also I was always fascinated by um the stories

(01:53:41):
of his death at the Alimo, And that's kind of
what I'm well, actually, when I'm writing about is he
did Davy Crockett quote on swinging, And that's always this
um interesting historical debate that will never that will never
end and will never solve it. And yet we um
we and away fighting about it. And you watched the

(01:54:02):
hissy fits that have happened in our country the last
oh especially basically since Disney's movie came out about Davy
Crockett m a year before I was born. And that's
what I'm writing about. That. That's one thing I have
to say I really enjoy about writing with for Meat
Eater and work with you guys bouncing ideas around, is

(01:54:22):
that it isn't just how to hunting stuff. It's um,
I think we get into the whole hunting culture or
why people like Davy Crockett Daniel Boone resonate with us
all these years later. Um. Well, my articles I really
enjoyed writing for you guys was about Jeremiah Johnson, that
the Jeremiah Johnson movie, and I just find um, those

(01:54:47):
kind of stories resonate not just with hunters, but but
I'm a much bigger audience and I figured if we
can find ways to um not suck other people in,
but just intrigued them to show them now hunting is
a little more um deep and part of our culture,
then I think sometimes we think about these days. I

(01:55:10):
like the fact that me Eater lets me write about
it because I can tell you, as a as a
career door right now going on almost forty years, that
many hunting markets, you know, those magazines or whatever it
might be, UM don't touch that stuff. Whereas meat Eater
does explore those topics and give you a little more

(01:55:30):
freedom to explore topics that are people don't. Well, I'll
tell I'll tell the guys. If you're a little bit late,
if you're if you miss your deadline, you can blame
it on me. Okay, Brian's Brian's fault. Well that's I
guess that earlier. Man. It's it's we have very brief
moments of attention for people that don't do what we do,

(01:55:51):
and hopefully articles that you write and think in the
work that you produce you work so hard on you know,
people could see it, and those brief moments that we
get their attention, they can be informed and kind of
you know, take a small step forward and to understanding
what we do. And I don't know if we'll ever
get to really track how we're doing on that. I

(01:56:12):
don't think they'll ever be data that. But it doesn't matter.
It's a it's a it's work will continue to do
even if we we can't see the trees or the
forest through the trees, We're just gonna keep on going.
So uh, we appreciate you, and people should. If you're
not reading Pat Durkin, shame on you. Your bastards. Get
to it. Pat, thank you so much. Thanks Ben, good

(01:56:34):
talking to you. That's it. That's all another episode in
the books. Thank you to Pat Durkin, one of my
favorite writers, one of my favorite people. Ah, it's just
it's good to catch up with the guys. It's funny

(01:56:56):
in our in our space, we're so busy. That's something
like Pat. I very rarely get to talk to him
and catch up with him, and so podcasting with him
is one of the only ways we could to spend
time together. And I appreciate him so much. I find
myself falling into those those conversations, just as somebody who
likes to hear from somebody. He really respects and and

(01:57:18):
hopes you can call a friend. So it's good to
have Pat around always, and we'll certainly keep you guys
updated on the Wisconsin wolf funt and kind of the
the fissures in the landscape and some of the astershocks
from the earthquake as it were. To see where this
takes us. But it is um, it's an interesting story
and it happened right under our noses, and um it

(01:57:41):
took and took until it went uh it became even
more controversial, or in my opinion, it went wrong for
us to really focus on it. So next time would
be a little more proactive in discussing it. Um. But
again Pat did a great job in reporting on it.
He has the experience that we needed to hear from
and he cares about, you know, the fabric of the

(01:58:01):
community around Wisconsin in places he lives and he knows
the people. So it was important and good. I'm glad
to have it with old Pat. Thank you, Pat. Uh So,
just to reiterate before we go, UM, if you want
to be a leader th C regional chapter, let me
know th HD at the metator dot com. Let me

(01:58:23):
know where you live, what's what's your interest, whether you
would be a mentor or mentee, whether you get a
lot of time to spend, whether you want to be
a part of the group we put together. So just
as a quick aside, Phil, Um, if you're out there, stop,
don't create any more Facebook pages. We gotta walk that back.

(01:58:44):
We don't want to have like a random so many
random Facebook pages. But I appreciate all the effort that
went into just creating those. In our our behalf. We
gotta get our arms around this thing here, people, and
uh figure out what we're gonna do. So we're committed
to that. Phil especially is committed to that. And um,
we're just about two months out Phil's first hunting experience.

(01:59:05):
So maybe by the time he gets out in the
woods for the first time, we'll have a robust group
of chapters that can share in his adulation of his
hunting success. Okay, Phil, sounds great. All right, say bye
to the people. Goodbye people, you know, because I can't
go a week without doing rong, oh without ranking

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.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}On Purpose with Jay Shetty

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Ep. 168: Looking for Leaders, Aldo Leopold's Green Fire, and Wisconsin's Wolf Hunt Drama with Patrick Durkin

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