October 22, 2023 • 34 mins
This week Cal talks with John Lemkuhl of the Washington state game commission. We shine some light on the subject of "What's going on in Washington?"
Connect with Cal and MeatEater
MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube
Shop Cal's Week in Review Merch
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
From Mediators World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This is
Cal's weekend review, presented by Steel. Steel products are available
only at authorized dealers. For more, go to Steel Dealers
dot com. Now here's your host, Ryan cal Callahan.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Seventy three thousand dollars worth of Maryland blue crabs were
recently stolen out of the back of a truck in Philly,
which makes this the only group of people in Philly
actively trying to get crabs. That's just a short intro
to this week's episode, Ladies and gentlemen, because it is
a special addition. If you've been listening to this podcast
(00:44):
or following hunting related news, you know about the controversy
surrounding the Washington State Fish and Wildlife Commission. Much of
this controversy stems from the commission's decision in twenty twenty
one to suspend the spring bear hunt. The commissioners said
they couldn't rely on the bear population numbers provided by
the Department of Fish and Wildlife, and they felt it
(01:04):
was wise to end the hunt until they had a
better handle on those numbers. Hunters were understandably pretty darn upset.
They argue that the bear population was healthy and the
small number of bears taken during the spring had little
negative impact. They accused the Commission of being anti hunting,
and some of the commissioners haven't done much to dissuade
(01:25):
them on that notion. Commissioner Melanie Rowland, for example, said
that Hunter's quote should be nervous about the changes coming
down the pike. We covered her entire statement in episode
two twenty six if you're curious. Rather than speculate on
what the commissioners believe about hunting and wildlife management, I
wanted to get the straight skinny from the horse's mouth,
(01:46):
so to speak. Thanks to one of you who sent
in some contact info, we were able to get in
touch with Commissioner John Lemcule. John agreed to speak with us,
and I'm grateful that he did. We didn't agree on everything,
but he was at least willing to engage, which I
can't say about some of his colleagues. Several, including Melanie Roland,
declined our invitation. Before we got in touch with John.
(02:07):
We covered tons of topics, including the spring bear hunt,
how to manage non game species, and whether the Commission
plans to limit hunting opportunities in the future. If you've
been wondering what the heck is going on in Washington State,
this isn't an episode you're going to want to miss.
So John, Yeah, thank you very much for joining us today.
(02:28):
As we briefly mentioned prior to this, we've had a
lot of listener feedback regarding Washington Fishing Game, the Fishing
Game Commission, policy regulation changes, or frankly, a lot of
speculative guesses as to what policy changes or regulation changes
(02:50):
are going to be coming in the near future. So
thank you very much for joining us to shine some
light on what is going on. If you'd like to
just kind of give us a background, and certainly what
seat you sit in on the committee or maybe subcommittees
(03:12):
that you were a part of, would would certainly be
appreciated too.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yeah. Great, Thanks, I appreciate the opportunity to talk to
you guys. I think one of my issues I've been
on the Commission for a year and three quarters or
so January last year, I started. Yeah, and I get
people calling me all the time saying, oh, can we
talk about stuff? But I haven't in the past gotten
a lot of and except for the last several months,
(03:38):
getting a lot of calls from the hunters since let's
talk about stuff. So I really want to. I want
to talk to all you guys and try and understand
where you're at and explain where we're at just a
little bit myself. You know, I sent you I've been
crazy about wildlife and hunting since I was a kid.
You know. I think I had a subscription Outdoor Life
when I was twelve or something like that. You know.
(04:01):
So I decided I wanted to be a wildlife biologist,
and so I went to school wildlife biology and studied
at Humboldt State in California and University of Montana, where
I studied elt for a master's degree, and I got
a PhD from in forest science and wildlife from University
of Washington. I studied mostly sort of grassland ecology and
(04:21):
large herbivores, and then I worked for the for Service
for I had a career with the Force Service for
about thirty years as a wildlife mostly as a research
scientist and mostly in winatche here in central Washington. Studied
mostly forest management and the impact on wildlife, and a
lot of that had to do with forest restoration and
(04:41):
spotted around, spotted ols and spotted out prey, but we
had studies on birds and small mammals, and I participated
with the department here on elk study. I did a
lot of landscape scale analyses and those kinds of things.
And I retired in twenty thirteen and did a lot
of other voluntary things, and somebody suggested I apply to
(05:01):
be on the commission. I thought, yeah, that'd be interesting.
I thought I had something to contribute because, like I said,
I've hunted and I've been a while AFE biologist. So
here I am.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
What I'd speaking off off my perspective here that I
certainly appreciate the background and the diversity of the background,
all very consistent topics here on the week in Review.
So do you have a highlight of your hunting career
or an example of your your hunting background.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Oh? Yeah, I've hunded in oh California, Montana, New Mexico,
and Washington here since I lived here these days, probably
the last I don't know, fifteen twenty years or something.
I'm only I mainly do bird hunting, you know, dozants, chruckers, quail.
I've kind of gotten out of deer hunting. I used
(05:58):
to hunt deer and elk in Montana when I live
there in New Mexico, So that's sort of my focus.
I probably, you know, I have pretty much have a
license fishing and hunt lice hunting license every year and
sometimes I go turkey hunting. Sometimes I don't, but I
usually have the license anyway, and so that's sort of
my background for hunting. So I'm you know, I'm very
(06:20):
keen on hunting, and I think I understand hunters and fishermen,
and from my for service work, I think I sort
of understand the other side of the coin, the people
that aren't hunters and fishermen and what they're where they're
coming from. And I kind of look at myself that's
sort of in the middle, hopefully a centrist sort of
a person who can see both sides of the issues
(06:40):
and help broker some conversation between both sides of the
issues so that we can all sort of work together.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
This will lead us into the topic that certainly our
listeners have written in the most about, which is why
be a centrist on a fishing game commission? At the
end of the day, who cares what that other side
that isn't buying fishing and hunting licenses cares about? The
(07:12):
hunters and anglers are the vested interest when it comes
to a fish and Game commission. So can you expand
on why you think it's important to be a centrist.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yeah, I think it's important because, you know, our mandate
in the law is to and I can sort of
paraphrase what it says, is that these are the words
something like protect, preserve, enhance, and manage wildlife, fish and
wildlife in the state. So it's not and at the
same time maximizing or creating opportunity for people to hunt
(07:47):
and fish and to recreate, birdwatch and all kinds of things.
So we have a very broad mandate. It's not just
all about hunting. And in fact, many states different and
different in how they fund fishing wildlife departments like this
or fishing game departments as they call them. In some states,
some states like Arizona, their funding is solely on hunting
(08:10):
and fishing licenses and revenues and excise tax you know
Pittman robertson on on firearms. But in Washington State, because
we have such a broad mandate, probably about seventy percent
of our funding comes from the state legislature from state taxes,
and thirty percent comes from hunting and fishing revenues, license sales, Pittman, Robertson,
(08:33):
Dingle Johnson for fishing. So you know, we have a
very broad source of funding for what we do, and
a lot of what we do is directed by the
legislature of how we can spend our money in some cases,
and just for example, we got in the last legislative
session Washington, we got about thirty million dollars of new
(08:56):
funding for biodiversity conservation. We have a state Wildlife Action Plan.
Every state has a state Wildlife Action Plan. It's sort
of a federal program. And we have like two hundred
and fifty six species of conservation concern These are things
like spotted owls, burrowing owls, Martin fisher links, things like that,
(09:19):
none hundred species, salamanders, butterflies, all kinds of things. So
those are the things that we have to look after.
And so it's not just a question of you know,
who pays the most and who gets the most attention.
I think from my point of view, and I think
probably this commission as well. You know, hunters and fishermen
(09:40):
are important constituency, you know, for our department, and I
don't see any time in the future where we're hunting
and fishing is not going to be available in Washington State.
And I think I read the comments, and we hear
comments at all the commission meeting. We have look input sessions,
(10:02):
and just last week we had one and my comment was, well,
you know, in Washington State, since I've been on the Commission,
the hunting seasons except for this spring bear issue. We
can put that off to the side. The hunting seasons
haven't changed, the deer and elk seasons, small game, fall, bear,
cougar hunting, everything has basically been unchanged from previous years
(10:27):
except for small minor changes that depend on, you know,
how the deer out population is doing in different areas,
and so you know, we haven't reduced the hunting and
fishing opportunity in the state except for the spring bear thing.
And so I don't see that happening. And we get
accused of not following the science of our staff. Well,
(10:49):
in fact, we approve all those hunting and the fishing
seasons that are based on the scientific work that they're doing,
So I think we do follow the science. So I
think a lot of people the spring bear issue was
something that I mean, gosh, it was discussed by the
Commission even before I got on it.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
And so you said you joined in January, and I
know your op ED. That's that's referenced quite off on. Yeah,
I came out in February, so you were jumped right
into the spring bear debate or however you want to
put it. But would you like to expand on that
(11:29):
a little bit.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Well, yeah, my op ED came out in February this year.
You know, the debate started in actually at the end
of twenty twenty one before I got on the Commission.
And what I tried to do, I mean, it was
a very difficult process. And what I tried to do
in that op ED was sort of summarize what I
(11:50):
think are the differing positions on the hunt and you know,
how people viewed it and how they voted on it.
And I tried to do that in reference to the
North American model of wildlife management, because we got a
lot of we get a lot of comments about, well,
the North American model wilife management has been very successful,
(12:10):
and so why are you going away from it? You know,
we should be hunting and fishing and we can solve
all the problems management problems that you have to deal with,
and so I tried to use that model to frame
that question, the spring bear question. And I think if
you read that, you can use the principles in the
North American model to come up with either outcome, either
(12:34):
have the hunt or don't have the hunt. So I
think it's not so cut and the point was it's
not so cut and dried of an issue.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
I do think John I apologized for cutting you off there.
I do think I certainly appreciated your point by a
point on the North American model in the op ED.
And I think, like you know, like a lot of things,
certainly not specific to the hunting and fishing world, there's
a lot of phrases that get thrown around without any
(13:07):
deeper understanding of what they actually mean. And the North
American model certainly is one of those things. People know
that it exists, and typically we like to talk about
it when it's serving our best purposes. Right, I do
understand that. I think my listener base will certainly also
(13:31):
understand that the science can work for and against us.
So the interesting piece of the op ED and this
certainly goes into like the Colorado example of wolves that's
currently going right now and Colorado in general. Is this
citizens initiative where you know, in your op ed you
(13:56):
said the question of whether or not to have a
spring bear season was solved by this citizen's initiative. By that,
I think you mean it was just taken off the
table from the legislative side of things, and then the
game Commission didn't have to actually make that decision. But
(14:16):
with your background as a biologist, do you think that
that is a way to solve things through citizens initiative?
Speaker 3 (14:27):
No, I don't think initiatives are a good way to
solve any problem, whether it's you know, a wildlife problem
or any magic mushrooms anything. Yeah, I don't think it's
the solution because I don't think it promotes a good
discussion of all the issues and the different parties coming
together and trying to come to a solution. So what
(14:49):
I've said in relation to these kinds of issues, I said,
you know, we need to be able to discuss the issues,
look at the pros and cons of all the issues,
and come up with some sort of a solution cells
Because if we can't do that, then you know, somebody
will come up with an initiative or the legislature will
pass a law, or some judge will make a ruling
(15:10):
that says you can't do this, and so it's basically
taken out of our hands. And I think initiatives are
a very imperfect way of making decisions because you have
I think most people that vote on them don't vote
based on sort of a reasoned analysis of all the issues.
They just sort of vote on sort of emotion. Well, yeah,
(15:31):
it sounds good. I don't like bear hunting, so I'm
going to vote against it. They don't think of all
the nuances. So I think that we need to try
and come together to figure out how we can come
up with solutions or management solutions that address all of
our concerns, you know. So it's like Colorado is an
(15:52):
example of the way I read the series is that
the issue was that the people that were against spring
by hunting and running bears with hounds. They approached the
Wildlife Commission in the department saying, we think you need
to change the seasons or you need to do something different.
They had some negotiation and the non hunting group says, well,
we're willing to have a spring bear hunt, but we
(16:16):
don't want to hunt bears with hounds or have baiting,
and the Department and the Commission disagreed among themselves and
they couldn't then come to an agreement with the non
hunting group, and so the non hunting group just said, Okay,
you guys can't agree, we can't come to a solution.
We're just going to put it on the ballot and
(16:37):
have an initiative. And it was probably pretty certain that
they would win, because you know, most of the public
are not hunting and they don't understand hunting. So that's
why I don't think we need I don't think the
initiatives are a good solution for it. I know there's
going to be an initiative in Colorado about cougar hunting
that's going to be coming up, trying to ban cougar hunting.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Yeah, and the power of a couple of teary eyed
cougar kittens on a billboard is typically a lot stronger
for the non hunting public than listening to two people
talk about personal experience. Right right, Since we have this
(17:22):
non hunting topic, John, what type of vested interest do
like the non hunting public hold With the Washington Game Commission.
We covered the funding side of things. So certainly we
can assume they have to be listened to because of
(17:45):
the funding side. But I guess where I struggle is
are they a legitimate user group if they are coming
to the commission just as a non hunting group versus
you know, bird watchers. The Autobahn Society certainly, in my
point of view, has a seat at the table because
(18:09):
they do a lot of refuge work and they have
shown that they are a committed group for birds.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Right, well, I think that, yeah, I think everybody deserves
a seat at the table, people who are interested in
wildlife if we're talking about you know, taxpayer money funding
the department, And I think that the question then becomes
at how much say should they have? Is it just
people that pay have to say or not? And so
(18:38):
then how do you parse out, you know, who gets
the most influenced. And I don't know if that's a
really useful way of sort of trying to figure out
how you make decisions, because it's very difficult to say.
You know, I haven't seen any anything that sort of
describes the different financial contributions to different user groups to
(18:59):
wild life. You know, it's sort of like, you know,
wildlife is a public resource. It's in the public trust,
and so we're responsible for managing it for the public.
So I guess the question then is, you know who
is the public and so you know, this public trust
doctrine is the first principle in the North American model
of wilife conservation. But the difficulty of that is just
(19:23):
as I said, you know, well, does somebody get more
of a say in how you manage that public trust?
And I think in terms of the hunters and fishermen
that their contributions and their content, their past and continuing
contributions are certainly going to be recognized, and I just
can't foresee hunting and fishing going away or being reduced substantially.
(19:46):
There are going to be fights, I'm sure there's going
to be fights, you know, just as they're going to
see in Colorado this year about cougar hunting. There's going
to be fights about whether or how much we should
be hunting cougars or bears, or even elk and deer
for that matter. But I think that's our challenge is
to is to figure out what is best for the
(20:07):
resource for the first the main thing, and then what
addresses the interests of the other of every group, you know,
just sort of sum it up. I really don't see
changes in the hunting opportunity in Washington State. There may
be some changes just in terms of our better understanding
the wildlife populations or ecology, or new pressures that we
(20:31):
haven't had in the past in terms of habitat loss
and population growth. They're a huge in Washington State. In
a way, they're a huge recreational impact on wildlife, particularly
since COVID I had a lot of people deciding that
they like to recreate outside, and so our wildlife areas,
our state wildlife management areas, some of them have a
(20:52):
tremendous amount of pressure, so that has to be managed.
But that's become a new sort of user group. So
how do you balance that use in hunting together. It's it's,
you know, it's quite a challenge. But I mean, the
short of it for the hunters is, I don't understand
why people are alarmed that you know, I've heard these
things that you know, Washington is a hot spot of
(21:15):
anti hunter activism and that kind of thing, and you know, sure,
I think I don't have any real strong data, but
I don't think there's any any more or any less
anti hunting activism in Washington State than there is in
other states. A survey was done by the National Shooting
Sports Foundation, which is you know as a firearms industry foundation,
(21:35):
and of course they support hunting and have found nationally
eighty percent of the population supports hunting as a legitimate pursuit,
and I think of Washington is about the same. I
think of survey that the Department did shows about seventy
five to eighty percent. So I think there's plenty of
support for hunting in the state. It's not like there's
(21:55):
going to be initiative that bands hunting. I don't think,
and you know, I'm not interested in reducing the opportunities
for hunter and fishermen, and I don't think. I don't
think it's going to happen next year. You know, the
controversy one of your questions there is about eliminating cougar
and bear hunting and changing the hunting to permit only
(22:16):
you know, those were just those All those rumors came
out of a couple of comments that were made a
month or two ago to Wildlife Committee meeting as part
of the commission about just sort of a general ideas
of you know, the staff now is revising the game
management plan, which is done supposedly every five six years.
(22:38):
They have new data on cougar on bear populations, and
so there's a question about, you know, are we going
to be changing any management and so then it sort
of spun out of control on the internet that yeah,
we're gonna we're talking about doing that, but we have
not the commission. We haven't received any sort of formal
(22:59):
presentation of the hunting seasons for next year from the staff.
So that was all just sort of conversation before we'd
even seen anything. So I think, you know, we haven't
discussed it. We haven't seen any information from the staff,
the science or the recommendations on the seasons. But I
don't think. I don't know if they're going to change
or not. But I would be surprised if they could change.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Sure, And you know I've I actually got drug onto
a friends podcast last year talking about Washington Spring Bear,
and I agreed with the management aspect of hey, we
haven't done a formal population study, so we don't actually
(23:46):
know what the impacts are of any level of take
from a science perspective, however, I think it would be
very easy to assume that the anecdotal evidence of you know,
black bear conflict in certain counties or statewide, even you
(24:10):
could pull a number that says we could probably have
this much of a hunt. An assumption that I find
non hunters make all the time is that a tag
does not represent an opportunity to legally hunt, but a
tag represents a dead animal. I have a literal pillowcase
(24:34):
full of tags that do not represent dead animals from
my hunting career in my basement right now that I
just kind of keep as a reminder of that. And so,
you know, it is very alarming when you have, let's
call it a centrist perspective in the hunting crowd that says, oh, yeah,
(24:57):
science dictates our management, and then we play. We as
hunters play a role in that management. But there wasn't
a need to say we went from a spring hunt
to no hunt at all, because we have a history
of once we lose something, it doesn't come back, and
(25:18):
plenty of examples of that. So I think, you know,
that was a legitimate cause for alarm. Slash is a
legitimate cause for alarm. Just I would love to know, like,
what is the definition of a sport hunt in the
state of Washington. And does that definition take into account
(25:41):
those people? Birds would be a terrible example, but elk, certainly,
you know that becomes a pretty big knock off the
grocery bill, particularly when you have access to an evy elk. Right,
And are those families, those individuals being taken into account
(26:03):
when we throw that word sport hunt.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Around, right? Well, I guess the difference I see. I
don't think we have any really working definitions of what
is sport hunting or recreation hunting versus the alternative. And
the way I look at it is that you know,
we had a sort of a big conversation around on
disputes around the use recreational hunting. Well, you could look
(26:28):
at it two ways. One, recreational hunting is just basically
doing it for the fun of it, and it's sustainable.
You get other benefits like meeting your freezer, you take
your family out and enjoy the opportunity and being out
in nature. That's all good. The difference I think between
and you can use rec the difference is that you
(26:50):
can have a hunt that's meant to address specific management needs. So,
for example, you have elk that are damaging crops nearby,
you know, a fields and such like that. So you
have a special hunt that addresses that management need. You
use sport hunters recreational hunters to achieve a management objective,
but you know, a lot of a lot of hunting
(27:12):
is not specifically designed to achieve us a management objective.
So for like deer an elk, you know, we estimate
the population, we estimate what the what the allowable harvest
could be. We allow hunters who go out there and
harvest those animals. Our management in that case is not
really addressing some specific thing like crop damage or you know,
(27:35):
timber damage with bears or anything like that. It's just
allowing people to go out and have a have a
hunt to do what they like. So that's, to me,
is the essential difference between just a sport hunt and
one hunt that achieves management objectives. It's not to say
that you you you can't. You can use sport hunting
to achieve management objectives, but what is the primary focus
(27:56):
of it.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
I mean, I don't disagree with that, the I guess
the issue comes up right in this broader social narrative
where you have people who associate hunting with the food aspect.
And that eighty percent of support largely focuses on that,
(28:17):
and then you have people who focus on hunting from
the sport aspect and it is not associated with food,
and it can be spun in a million different ways,
with the end result being we don't want people to
hunt furry and cute animals.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
No. I think people going out and hunting for meat
or for just the enjoyment of doing it, those are
all good things. You know. One final thing that I'd
like to say is we the Commission has put up
this policy, a conservation policy, and it's been puzzling to
me why it's so controversial because basically it basically focuses
(28:57):
on what our mandate is. And I think it could
have been written better so that people can read that
and see themselves in there as a conservationists. So, you know,
every group that I talk to, hunters, non hunters, everybody says, well,
we're conservationists and we're working on a revision of this
conservation policy and hopefully when people read it, they'll see
(29:21):
themselves in there as a you know that we're not
forgetting about them, the tribes, the hunters, the non hunters, everybody.
And I think the value of this is that we're
all interested in wildlife. Hunters, non hunters, Lots of people
have a passion for wildlife, right. We all have different
approaches to you know, what that passion means to us
(29:42):
and how we satisfy it. But I think we can
all agree that we we want to have wildlife as
part of our life and we want to have it
sustain it into the future. And I think this conservation policy,
in my mind, is one thing that we can agree
on all the different people people that, yeah, conservation is
our goal. We approach it in different ways. Hunters approach
(30:06):
it one way, the tribes approach it one way, the
non hunters, the bird watchers approach it another way. But
we're all interested in conservation because that's the basis of
sustaining the population wildlife that we know and love. So
that's just my take on this conservation policy, and I
hope that hunters can get behind it, because I think
if we can't agree on that, it's going to be
(30:27):
hard to do anything. You know, we're going to be
fighting all the time. But I'd like to see one
thing that we agree on.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
It's rare to find somebody who really likes to hunt anything,
and they want to see less of it. So to
jump back to one of the things that you said
at the very beginning is you haven't heard a lot
from hunters. What is you know, the best way for
the hunting community to effectively engage with the Washington State
(30:58):
Game Commission.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Well, I think, you know, they certainly can come and
either and give input online at the meetings or attend
to the meetings. And we get a lot of people
that do that.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
You know.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
A few months ago when we had it in Seattle,
like I just I kind of went off the rails
a little bit, you know, and as a result of
sort of challenging the people that were there, the hunters, basically,
that's when I said, well, I never hear from you guys.
You never call me to talk with me. You complain
that I talk to all these other people, but they
call me or they send me a note and say,
(31:34):
can we have a zoom call with you guys the
Seeer Club or watching Wildlife First or whatever. So sure,
I'll talk with anybody. So as a result of that,
a number of them, you know, they I talked to
them afterwards, and they sent me emails and say, hey,
can we have a zoom call just doing exactly what
I'm doing with you today. So I think the best
way to contact me is to send a message to
(31:55):
the Commission, or you can send a message to me
John dot Lemco at DFW dot wall dot com and
ask about having a conversation just like you guys did.
And sure, I'm willing to do that whenever.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
I mean, that really is the bulk of the sentiment, right,
there's some real fear, and I think legitimate in some ways,
of an erosion of the ability of hunters and hunters
families to go out and hunt like they have for ever.
And you have a certainly from a Montana kid's perspective
(32:35):
of a state like Washington, I'd really love to see
it fix all of it and make sure hunters are
happy there because they keep coming over here.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
The thing about Washington is we have the second highest
population of the Western States and the smallest state area,
so we have a pretty high density of people, and
so we have more challenges than Montana and Idaho in
terms of managing wildlife populations, managing growth of you know,
human population in their footprint. So we'll try and fix it.
(33:05):
We'd like to keep them all stay at home.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
But well, I'm going to come over there in December
and participate in the late archery cow El Khan on
the coast for but we're trying to specifically target animals
with hoof disease.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Oh yeah, good. See there's a hunt with a management perspective,
you know, solving a problem using recreational hunters. I mean,
that's I totally agree with that. If we have a
management objective and we can use hunters, let's use hunters
instead of paying somebody to go out and shoot animals
wildlife services or however.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
So all right, well, thank you very much and have
a great rest of your season. Thank you so much
for listening. Remember to write in to ask c A L.
That's ask col the Meteater dot com and let me
know what's going on in your neck of the woods.
We really appreciate it. Would love to hear your thoughts
(34:07):
on the recent interview and so much more. On top
of that, go to www dot steel Dealers dot com
to find a local, knowledgeable steel dealer near you. They're
gonna get you set up with what you need and
they won't try to send you home with what you don't.
Thanks again, and i'll talk to you next week.
From Mediators World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This is
Cal's weekend review, presented by Steel. Steel products are available
only at authorized dealers. For more, go to Steel Dealers
dot com. Now here's your host, Ryan cal Callahan.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Seventy three thousand dollars worth of Maryland blue crabs were
recently stolen out of the back of a truck in Philly,
which makes this the only group of people in Philly
actively trying to get crabs. That's just a short intro
to this week's episode, Ladies and gentlemen, because it is
a special addition. If you've been listening to this podcast
(00:44):
or following hunting related news, you know about the controversy
surrounding the Washington State Fish and Wildlife Commission. Much of
this controversy stems from the commission's decision in twenty twenty
one to suspend the spring bear hunt. The commissioners said
they couldn't rely on the bear population numbers provided by
the Department of Fish and Wildlife, and they felt it
(01:04):
was wise to end the hunt until they had a
better handle on those numbers. Hunters were understandably pretty darn upset.
They argue that the bear population was healthy and the
small number of bears taken during the spring had little
negative impact. They accused the Commission of being anti hunting,
and some of the commissioners haven't done much to dissuade
(01:25):
them on that notion. Commissioner Melanie Rowland, for example, said
that Hunter's quote should be nervous about the changes coming
down the pike. We covered her entire statement in episode
two twenty six if you're curious. Rather than speculate on
what the commissioners believe about hunting and wildlife management, I
wanted to get the straight skinny from the horse's mouth,
(01:46):
so to speak. Thanks to one of you who sent
in some contact info, we were able to get in
touch with Commissioner John Lemcule. John agreed to speak with us,
and I'm grateful that he did. We didn't agree on everything,
but he was at least willing to engage, which I
can't say about some of his colleagues. Several, including Melanie Roland,
declined our invitation. Before we got in touch with John.
(02:07):
We covered tons of topics, including the spring bear hunt,
how to manage non game species, and whether the Commission
plans to limit hunting opportunities in the future. If you've
been wondering what the heck is going on in Washington State,
this isn't an episode you're going to want to miss.
So John, Yeah, thank you very much for joining us today.
(02:28):
As we briefly mentioned prior to this, we've had a
lot of listener feedback regarding Washington Fishing Game, the Fishing
Game Commission, policy regulation changes, or frankly, a lot of
speculative guesses as to what policy changes or regulation changes
(02:50):
are going to be coming in the near future. So
thank you very much for joining us to shine some
light on what is going on. If you'd like to
just kind of give us a background, and certainly what
seat you sit in on the committee or maybe subcommittees
(03:12):
that you were a part of, would would certainly be
appreciated too.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yeah. Great, Thanks, I appreciate the opportunity to talk to
you guys. I think one of my issues I've been
on the Commission for a year and three quarters or
so January last year, I started. Yeah, and I get
people calling me all the time saying, oh, can we
talk about stuff? But I haven't in the past gotten
a lot of and except for the last several months,
(03:38):
getting a lot of calls from the hunters since let's
talk about stuff. So I really want to. I want
to talk to all you guys and try and understand
where you're at and explain where we're at just a
little bit myself. You know, I sent you I've been
crazy about wildlife and hunting since I was a kid.
You know. I think I had a subscription Outdoor Life
when I was twelve or something like that. You know.
(04:01):
So I decided I wanted to be a wildlife biologist,
and so I went to school wildlife biology and studied
at Humboldt State in California and University of Montana, where
I studied elt for a master's degree, and I got
a PhD from in forest science and wildlife from University
of Washington. I studied mostly sort of grassland ecology and
(04:21):
large herbivores, and then I worked for the for Service
for I had a career with the Force Service for
about thirty years as a wildlife mostly as a research
scientist and mostly in winatche here in central Washington. Studied
mostly forest management and the impact on wildlife, and a
lot of that had to do with forest restoration and
(04:41):
spotted around, spotted ols and spotted out prey, but we
had studies on birds and small mammals, and I participated
with the department here on elk study. I did a
lot of landscape scale analyses and those kinds of things.
And I retired in twenty thirteen and did a lot
of other voluntary things, and somebody suggested I apply to
(05:01):
be on the commission. I thought, yeah, that'd be interesting.
I thought I had something to contribute because, like I said,
I've hunted and I've been a while AFE biologist. So
here I am.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
What I'd speaking off off my perspective here that I
certainly appreciate the background and the diversity of the background,
all very consistent topics here on the week in Review.
So do you have a highlight of your hunting career
or an example of your your hunting background.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Oh? Yeah, I've hunded in oh California, Montana, New Mexico,
and Washington here since I lived here these days, probably
the last I don't know, fifteen twenty years or something.
I'm only I mainly do bird hunting, you know, dozants, chruckers, quail.
I've kind of gotten out of deer hunting. I used
(05:58):
to hunt deer and elk in Montana when I live
there in New Mexico, So that's sort of my focus.
I probably, you know, I have pretty much have a
license fishing and hunt lice hunting license every year and
sometimes I go turkey hunting. Sometimes I don't, but I
usually have the license anyway, and so that's sort of
my background for hunting. So I'm you know, I'm very
(06:20):
keen on hunting, and I think I understand hunters and fishermen,
and from my for service work, I think I sort
of understand the other side of the coin, the people
that aren't hunters and fishermen and what they're where they're
coming from. And I kind of look at myself that's
sort of in the middle, hopefully a centrist sort of
a person who can see both sides of the issues
(06:40):
and help broker some conversation between both sides of the
issues so that we can all sort of work together.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
This will lead us into the topic that certainly our
listeners have written in the most about, which is why
be a centrist on a fishing game commission? At the
end of the day, who cares what that other side
that isn't buying fishing and hunting licenses cares about? The
(07:12):
hunters and anglers are the vested interest when it comes
to a fish and Game commission. So can you expand
on why you think it's important to be a centrist.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yeah, I think it's important because, you know, our mandate
in the law is to and I can sort of
paraphrase what it says, is that these are the words
something like protect, preserve, enhance, and manage wildlife, fish and
wildlife in the state. So it's not and at the
same time maximizing or creating opportunity for people to hunt
(07:47):
and fish and to recreate, birdwatch and all kinds of things.
So we have a very broad mandate. It's not just
all about hunting. And in fact, many states different and
different in how they fund fishing wildlife departments like this
or fishing game departments as they call them. In some states,
some states like Arizona, their funding is solely on hunting
(08:10):
and fishing licenses and revenues and excise tax you know
Pittman robertson on on firearms. But in Washington State, because
we have such a broad mandate, probably about seventy percent
of our funding comes from the state legislature from state taxes,
and thirty percent comes from hunting and fishing revenues, license sales, Pittman, Robertson,
(08:33):
Dingle Johnson for fishing. So you know, we have a
very broad source of funding for what we do, and
a lot of what we do is directed by the
legislature of how we can spend our money in some cases,
and just for example, we got in the last legislative
session Washington, we got about thirty million dollars of new
(08:56):
funding for biodiversity conservation. We have a state Wildlife Action Plan.
Every state has a state Wildlife Action Plan. It's sort
of a federal program. And we have like two hundred
and fifty six species of conservation concern These are things
like spotted owls, burrowing owls, Martin fisher links, things like that,
(09:19):
none hundred species, salamanders, butterflies, all kinds of things. So
those are the things that we have to look after.
And so it's not just a question of you know,
who pays the most and who gets the most attention.
I think from my point of view, and I think
probably this commission as well. You know, hunters and fishermen
(09:40):
are important constituency, you know, for our department, and I
don't see any time in the future where we're hunting
and fishing is not going to be available in Washington State.
And I think I read the comments, and we hear
comments at all the commission meeting. We have look input sessions,
(10:02):
and just last week we had one and my comment was, well,
you know, in Washington State, since I've been on the Commission,
the hunting seasons except for this spring bear issue. We
can put that off to the side. The hunting seasons
haven't changed, the deer and elk seasons, small game, fall, bear,
cougar hunting, everything has basically been unchanged from previous years
(10:27):
except for small minor changes that depend on, you know,
how the deer out population is doing in different areas,
and so you know, we haven't reduced the hunting and
fishing opportunity in the state except for the spring bear thing.
And so I don't see that happening. And we get
accused of not following the science of our staff. Well,
(10:49):
in fact, we approve all those hunting and the fishing
seasons that are based on the scientific work that they're doing,
So I think we do follow the science. So I
think a lot of people the spring bear issue was
something that I mean, gosh, it was discussed by the
Commission even before I got on it.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
And so you said you joined in January, and I
know your op ED. That's that's referenced quite off on. Yeah,
I came out in February, so you were jumped right
into the spring bear debate or however you want to
put it. But would you like to expand on that
(11:29):
a little bit.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Well, yeah, my op ED came out in February this year.
You know, the debate started in actually at the end
of twenty twenty one before I got on the Commission.
And what I tried to do, I mean, it was
a very difficult process. And what I tried to do
in that op ED was sort of summarize what I
(11:50):
think are the differing positions on the hunt and you know,
how people viewed it and how they voted on it.
And I tried to do that in reference to the
North American model of wildlife management, because we got a
lot of we get a lot of comments about, well,
the North American model wilife management has been very successful,
(12:10):
and so why are you going away from it? You know,
we should be hunting and fishing and we can solve
all the problems management problems that you have to deal with,
and so I tried to use that model to frame
that question, the spring bear question. And I think if
you read that, you can use the principles in the
North American model to come up with either outcome, either
(12:34):
have the hunt or don't have the hunt. So I
think it's not so cut and the point was it's
not so cut and dried of an issue.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
I do think John I apologized for cutting you off there.
I do think I certainly appreciated your point by a
point on the North American model in the op ED.
And I think, like you know, like a lot of things,
certainly not specific to the hunting and fishing world, there's
a lot of phrases that get thrown around without any
(13:07):
deeper understanding of what they actually mean. And the North
American model certainly is one of those things. People know
that it exists, and typically we like to talk about
it when it's serving our best purposes. Right, I do
understand that. I think my listener base will certainly also
(13:31):
understand that the science can work for and against us.
So the interesting piece of the op ED and this
certainly goes into like the Colorado example of wolves that's
currently going right now and Colorado in general. Is this
citizens initiative where you know, in your op ed you
(13:56):
said the question of whether or not to have a
spring bear season was solved by this citizen's initiative. By that,
I think you mean it was just taken off the
table from the legislative side of things, and then the
game Commission didn't have to actually make that decision. But
(14:16):
with your background as a biologist, do you think that
that is a way to solve things through citizens initiative?
Speaker 3 (14:27):
No, I don't think initiatives are a good way to
solve any problem, whether it's you know, a wildlife problem
or any magic mushrooms anything. Yeah, I don't think it's
the solution because I don't think it promotes a good
discussion of all the issues and the different parties coming
together and trying to come to a solution. So what
(14:49):
I've said in relation to these kinds of issues, I said,
you know, we need to be able to discuss the issues,
look at the pros and cons of all the issues,
and come up with some sort of a solution cells
Because if we can't do that, then you know, somebody
will come up with an initiative or the legislature will
pass a law, or some judge will make a ruling
(15:10):
that says you can't do this, and so it's basically
taken out of our hands. And I think initiatives are
a very imperfect way of making decisions because you have
I think most people that vote on them don't vote
based on sort of a reasoned analysis of all the issues.
They just sort of vote on sort of emotion. Well, yeah,
(15:31):
it sounds good. I don't like bear hunting, so I'm
going to vote against it. They don't think of all
the nuances. So I think that we need to try
and come together to figure out how we can come
up with solutions or management solutions that address all of
our concerns, you know. So it's like Colorado is an
(15:52):
example of the way I read the series is that
the issue was that the people that were against spring
by hunting and running bears with hounds. They approached the
Wildlife Commission in the department saying, we think you need
to change the seasons or you need to do something different.
They had some negotiation and the non hunting group says, well,
we're willing to have a spring bear hunt, but we
(16:16):
don't want to hunt bears with hounds or have baiting,
and the Department and the Commission disagreed among themselves and
they couldn't then come to an agreement with the non
hunting group, and so the non hunting group just said, Okay,
you guys can't agree, we can't come to a solution.
We're just going to put it on the ballot and
(16:37):
have an initiative. And it was probably pretty certain that
they would win, because you know, most of the public
are not hunting and they don't understand hunting. So that's
why I don't think we need I don't think the
initiatives are a good solution for it. I know there's
going to be an initiative in Colorado about cougar hunting
that's going to be coming up, trying to ban cougar hunting.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Yeah, and the power of a couple of teary eyed
cougar kittens on a billboard is typically a lot stronger
for the non hunting public than listening to two people
talk about personal experience. Right right, Since we have this
(17:22):
non hunting topic, John, what type of vested interest do
like the non hunting public hold With the Washington Game Commission.
We covered the funding side of things. So certainly we
can assume they have to be listened to because of
(17:45):
the funding side. But I guess where I struggle is
are they a legitimate user group if they are coming
to the commission just as a non hunting group versus
you know, bird watchers. The Autobahn Society certainly, in my
point of view, has a seat at the table because
(18:09):
they do a lot of refuge work and they have
shown that they are a committed group for birds.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Right, well, I think that, yeah, I think everybody deserves
a seat at the table, people who are interested in
wildlife if we're talking about you know, taxpayer money funding
the department, And I think that the question then becomes
at how much say should they have? Is it just
people that pay have to say or not? And so
(18:38):
then how do you parse out, you know, who gets
the most influenced. And I don't know if that's a
really useful way of sort of trying to figure out
how you make decisions, because it's very difficult to say.
You know, I haven't seen any anything that sort of
describes the different financial contributions to different user groups to
(18:59):
wild life. You know, it's sort of like, you know,
wildlife is a public resource. It's in the public trust,
and so we're responsible for managing it for the public.
So I guess the question then is, you know who
is the public and so you know, this public trust
doctrine is the first principle in the North American model
of wilife conservation. But the difficulty of that is just
(19:23):
as I said, you know, well, does somebody get more
of a say in how you manage that public trust?
And I think in terms of the hunters and fishermen
that their contributions and their content, their past and continuing
contributions are certainly going to be recognized, and I just
can't foresee hunting and fishing going away or being reduced substantially.
(19:46):
There are going to be fights, I'm sure there's going
to be fights, you know, just as they're going to
see in Colorado this year about cougar hunting. There's going
to be fights about whether or how much we should
be hunting cougars or bears, or even elk and deer
for that matter. But I think that's our challenge is
to is to figure out what is best for the
(20:07):
resource for the first the main thing, and then what
addresses the interests of the other of every group, you know,
just sort of sum it up. I really don't see
changes in the hunting opportunity in Washington State. There may
be some changes just in terms of our better understanding
the wildlife populations or ecology, or new pressures that we
(20:31):
haven't had in the past in terms of habitat loss
and population growth. They're a huge in Washington State. In
a way, they're a huge recreational impact on wildlife, particularly
since COVID I had a lot of people deciding that
they like to recreate outside, and so our wildlife areas,
our state wildlife management areas, some of them have a
(20:52):
tremendous amount of pressure, so that has to be managed.
But that's become a new sort of user group. So
how do you balance that use in hunting together. It's it's,
you know, it's quite a challenge. But I mean, the
short of it for the hunters is, I don't understand
why people are alarmed that you know, I've heard these
things that you know, Washington is a hot spot of
(21:15):
anti hunter activism and that kind of thing, and you know, sure,
I think I don't have any real strong data, but
I don't think there's any any more or any less
anti hunting activism in Washington State than there is in
other states. A survey was done by the National Shooting
Sports Foundation, which is you know as a firearms industry foundation,
(21:35):
and of course they support hunting and have found nationally
eighty percent of the population supports hunting as a legitimate pursuit,
and I think of Washington is about the same. I
think of survey that the Department did shows about seventy
five to eighty percent. So I think there's plenty of
support for hunting in the state. It's not like there's
(21:55):
going to be initiative that bands hunting. I don't think,
and you know, I'm not interested in reducing the opportunities
for hunter and fishermen, and I don't think. I don't
think it's going to happen next year. You know, the
controversy one of your questions there is about eliminating cougar
and bear hunting and changing the hunting to permit only
(22:16):
you know, those were just those All those rumors came
out of a couple of comments that were made a
month or two ago to Wildlife Committee meeting as part
of the commission about just sort of a general ideas
of you know, the staff now is revising the game
management plan, which is done supposedly every five six years.
(22:38):
They have new data on cougar on bear populations, and
so there's a question about, you know, are we going
to be changing any management and so then it sort
of spun out of control on the internet that yeah,
we're gonna we're talking about doing that, but we have
not the commission. We haven't received any sort of formal
(22:59):
presentation of the hunting seasons for next year from the staff.
So that was all just sort of conversation before we'd
even seen anything. So I think, you know, we haven't
discussed it. We haven't seen any information from the staff,
the science or the recommendations on the seasons. But I
don't think. I don't know if they're going to change
or not. But I would be surprised if they could change.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Sure, And you know I've I actually got drug onto
a friends podcast last year talking about Washington Spring Bear,
and I agreed with the management aspect of hey, we
haven't done a formal population study, so we don't actually
(23:46):
know what the impacts are of any level of take
from a science perspective, however, I think it would be
very easy to assume that the anecdotal evidence of you know,
black bear conflict in certain counties or statewide, even you
(24:10):
could pull a number that says we could probably have
this much of a hunt. An assumption that I find
non hunters make all the time is that a tag
does not represent an opportunity to legally hunt, but a
tag represents a dead animal. I have a literal pillowcase
(24:34):
full of tags that do not represent dead animals from
my hunting career in my basement right now that I
just kind of keep as a reminder of that. And so,
you know, it is very alarming when you have, let's
call it a centrist perspective in the hunting crowd that says, oh, yeah,
(24:57):
science dictates our management, and then we play. We as
hunters play a role in that management. But there wasn't
a need to say we went from a spring hunt
to no hunt at all, because we have a history
of once we lose something, it doesn't come back, and
(25:18):
plenty of examples of that. So I think, you know,
that was a legitimate cause for alarm. Slash is a
legitimate cause for alarm. Just I would love to know, like,
what is the definition of a sport hunt in the
state of Washington. And does that definition take into account
(25:41):
those people? Birds would be a terrible example, but elk, certainly,
you know that becomes a pretty big knock off the
grocery bill, particularly when you have access to an evy elk. Right,
And are those families, those individuals being taken into account
(26:03):
when we throw that word sport hunt.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Around, right? Well, I guess the difference I see. I
don't think we have any really working definitions of what
is sport hunting or recreation hunting versus the alternative. And
the way I look at it is that you know,
we had a sort of a big conversation around on
disputes around the use recreational hunting. Well, you could look
(26:28):
at it two ways. One, recreational hunting is just basically
doing it for the fun of it, and it's sustainable.
You get other benefits like meeting your freezer, you take
your family out and enjoy the opportunity and being out
in nature. That's all good. The difference I think between
and you can use rec the difference is that you
(26:50):
can have a hunt that's meant to address specific management needs. So,
for example, you have elk that are damaging crops nearby,
you know, a fields and such like that. So you
have a special hunt that addresses that management need. You
use sport hunters recreational hunters to achieve a management objective,
but you know, a lot of a lot of hunting
(27:12):
is not specifically designed to achieve us a management objective.
So for like deer an elk, you know, we estimate
the population, we estimate what the what the allowable harvest
could be. We allow hunters who go out there and
harvest those animals. Our management in that case is not
really addressing some specific thing like crop damage or you know,
(27:35):
timber damage with bears or anything like that. It's just
allowing people to go out and have a have a
hunt to do what they like. So that's, to me,
is the essential difference between just a sport hunt and
one hunt that achieves management objectives. It's not to say
that you you you can't. You can use sport hunting
to achieve management objectives, but what is the primary focus
(27:56):
of it.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
I mean, I don't disagree with that, the I guess
the issue comes up right in this broader social narrative
where you have people who associate hunting with the food aspect.
And that eighty percent of support largely focuses on that,
(28:17):
and then you have people who focus on hunting from
the sport aspect and it is not associated with food,
and it can be spun in a million different ways,
with the end result being we don't want people to
hunt furry and cute animals.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
No. I think people going out and hunting for meat
or for just the enjoyment of doing it, those are
all good things. You know. One final thing that I'd
like to say is we the Commission has put up
this policy, a conservation policy, and it's been puzzling to
me why it's so controversial because basically it basically focuses
(28:57):
on what our mandate is. And I think it could
have been written better so that people can read that
and see themselves in there as a conservationists. So, you know,
every group that I talk to, hunters, non hunters, everybody says, well,
we're conservationists and we're working on a revision of this
conservation policy and hopefully when people read it, they'll see
(29:21):
themselves in there as a you know that we're not
forgetting about them, the tribes, the hunters, the non hunters, everybody.
And I think the value of this is that we're
all interested in wildlife. Hunters, non hunters, Lots of people
have a passion for wildlife, right. We all have different
approaches to you know, what that passion means to us
(29:42):
and how we satisfy it. But I think we can
all agree that we we want to have wildlife as
part of our life and we want to have it
sustain it into the future. And I think this conservation policy,
in my mind, is one thing that we can agree
on all the different people people that, yeah, conservation is
our goal. We approach it in different ways. Hunters approach
(30:06):
it one way, the tribes approach it one way, the
non hunters, the bird watchers approach it another way. But
we're all interested in conservation because that's the basis of
sustaining the population wildlife that we know and love. So
that's just my take on this conservation policy, and I
hope that hunters can get behind it, because I think
if we can't agree on that, it's going to be
(30:27):
hard to do anything. You know, we're going to be
fighting all the time. But I'd like to see one
thing that we agree on.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
It's rare to find somebody who really likes to hunt anything,
and they want to see less of it. So to
jump back to one of the things that you said
at the very beginning is you haven't heard a lot
from hunters. What is you know, the best way for
the hunting community to effectively engage with the Washington State
(30:58):
Game Commission.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Well, I think, you know, they certainly can come and
either and give input online at the meetings or attend
to the meetings. And we get a lot of people
that do that.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
You know.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
A few months ago when we had it in Seattle,
like I just I kind of went off the rails
a little bit, you know, and as a result of
sort of challenging the people that were there, the hunters, basically,
that's when I said, well, I never hear from you guys.
You never call me to talk with me. You complain
that I talk to all these other people, but they
call me or they send me a note and say,
(31:34):
can we have a zoom call with you guys the
Seeer Club or watching Wildlife First or whatever. So sure,
I'll talk with anybody. So as a result of that,
a number of them, you know, they I talked to
them afterwards, and they sent me emails and say, hey,
can we have a zoom call just doing exactly what
I'm doing with you today. So I think the best
way to contact me is to send a message to
(31:55):
the Commission, or you can send a message to me
John dot Lemco at DFW dot wall dot com and
ask about having a conversation just like you guys did.
And sure, I'm willing to do that whenever.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
I mean, that really is the bulk of the sentiment, right,
there's some real fear, and I think legitimate in some ways,
of an erosion of the ability of hunters and hunters
families to go out and hunt like they have for ever.
And you have a certainly from a Montana kid's perspective
(32:35):
of a state like Washington, I'd really love to see
it fix all of it and make sure hunters are
happy there because they keep coming over here.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
The thing about Washington is we have the second highest
population of the Western States and the smallest state area,
so we have a pretty high density of people, and
so we have more challenges than Montana and Idaho in
terms of managing wildlife populations, managing growth of you know,
human population in their footprint. So we'll try and fix it.
(33:05):
We'd like to keep them all stay at home.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
But well, I'm going to come over there in December
and participate in the late archery cow El Khan on
the coast for but we're trying to specifically target animals
with hoof disease.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Oh yeah, good. See there's a hunt with a management perspective,
you know, solving a problem using recreational hunters. I mean,
that's I totally agree with that. If we have a
management objective and we can use hunters, let's use hunters
instead of paying somebody to go out and shoot animals
wildlife services or however.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
So all right, well, thank you very much and have
a great rest of your season. Thank you so much
for listening. Remember to write in to ask c A L.
That's ask col the Meteater dot com and let me
know what's going on in your neck of the woods.
We really appreciate it. Would love to hear your thoughts
(34:07):
on the recent interview and so much more. On top
of that, go to www dot steel Dealers dot com
to find a local, knowledgeable steel dealer near you. They're
gonna get you set up with what you need and
they won't try to send you home with what you don't.
Thanks again, and i'll talk to you next week.
Host
Cal Callaghan
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.