June 30, 2025 • 47 mins
The North American black bear remains one of our continent's most fascinating and misunderstood predators. In this revealing conversation with expert bear hunter Heather Aldrich, we explore the complex world of bear hunting, conservation ethics, and the science behind sustainable wildlife management.
Heather shares her remarkable journey from hesitant hunting companion to passionate predator specialist, describing the moment she realized bears would become her lifelong fascination. After an "epic failure" on her first Washington fall bear hunt, she committed to understanding bear behavior through scientific research rather than hearsay or online forums. This analytical approach transformed her hunting strategy from random encounters to targeted pursuits.
The conversation takes a serious turn as we examine the controversial 2022 ban on spring bear hunting in Washington State. Heather expertly dismantles common misconceptions about bear populations and hunting impacts, explaining how emotional arguments often override scientific evidence in wildlife management decisions. With approximately 27,000 black bears in Washington and only 1,800 harvested annually, she makes a compelling case for sustainable hunting as a conservation tool.
"I am not trying to eradicate the bear from the landscape. I am a conservationist," Heather emphasizes, highlighting the important distinction between conservation (sustainable use) and preservation (hands-off approach). Her explanation of carrying capacity and habitat-specific management needs provides listeners with a nuanced understanding of wildlife ecology rarely found in mainstream discussions.
For both experienced hunters and those curious about wildlife management, this episode offers valuable insights into predator behavior, conservation organization work, and the importance of hunter advocacy. Heather's passion for bears shines through as she describes not just the hunt, but her deep appreciation for these magnificent animals and their role in our ecosystems.
Whether you're planning your first bear hunt or simply want to understand the scientific principles behind wildlife management, this conversation provides the perfect foundation. Join us next week as we continue our four-part series with Heather, diving deeper into bear hunting techniques and strategy.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to the Blacktail Coach podcast.
I'm Aaron and this week we haveHeather Aldrich and we are
going to talk about bear hunting.
So this will probably turn intomulti-weeks of talking about
bear hunting, because you know alot about bear hunting and I'm
long-winded.
And we want to encourage bearhunting.
You know, especially with oursystem, it tends to bring in
(00:21):
bears.
Probably not as much nowbecause of the laws against
baiting, but there's still bearin the area that we're hunting
and bear they're delicious, soyou know very, very much so and
you can have a rug, oh, yeah oryou know, mount or decorations
for the home anyway.
So why don't you start off?
(00:42):
Tell, tell us, like yourpersonal hunting history.
What got you into hunting?
Where did you get your start?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
So I grew up with five brothers and my family
fished, but they were nothunters by any stretch of the
imagination.
My mom gardened and so thatlove of the outdoors was kind of
started there.
I married my husband and heowned Bravo Wall Tents and so I
got my beginning into theoutdoor world.
And his big deal was, even ifyou don't want to hunt, if you
(01:09):
just go with me.
And I said, sure, I love to beoutside, you know, let's go do
it.
And at that time I wasn't surethat I was going to be able to
go out and harvest an animal.
That was a big choice for meand I got into it.
And very first time he took meon was an elk hunt.
And they kept going by allthese elk, and I thought, man, I
don't get it, I don'tunderstand the rules.
And finally I asked him I saidwhat is wrong with the elk?
(01:30):
And he said what do you mean?
I said well, like that bull wejust passed, is there some
reason why you didn't want him?
Like I don't know what therules are?
And he said elk, yeah, youdidn't say anything.
Well, I thought you saw him.
He goes for the love of God,woman.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
So he immediately says okay, that's it, you have
to have a tag.
So we had been on the horsesriding by all these animals.
I had no idea and the guyshadn't seen them.
They're just, they're going totheir end goal, and I learned
really quick that we hunted verydifferently, and so that was my
(02:07):
start and from there he startedtaking me coyote hunting and
that was the beginning of mebecoming a predator hunter.
Okay, everybody finds theirniche I think, yeah, and, and
what it is that they love?
And that sparked something inme that it was just so much fun.
You sat there and you called,and the coyotes come running in
and then you bark at them andget them to stop, and and it was
just fascinating to me.
Plus Plus, they had claws andcanines and I was like those are
I like them.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
I like the sharp things.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
I like the sharp things so much to his chagrin,
you know, because he wouldprefer.
When you own a tent company, itlooks the best in your
marketing photos if you havethis massive elk in front of the
tent, right.
Yes, yeah so here, his wife goesout to the field predators, and
so I'm like no, no, no, sir,we're going to have massive
bears in front of the tent.
(02:49):
That's going to be ourmarketing photo.
So that was kind of thebeginning of me getting into
this.
And then many years ago at thePuyallup show we met an
outfitter who has since becomefamily to us and he had just
bought his guide territory andhe wanted some tents and we had
(03:10):
never been to Canada and heinvited us up.
He says let's do a swap.
I'll take you spring bearhunting and we'll swap for tents
.
And I said, deal.
And so John and I went up thereand I've never seen so many
bears in my life.
They were like fleas.
You could not go anywhere in BCand not see a bear.
So I said, oh my goodness, thisanimal's phenomenal.
(03:30):
I just fell in love with them.
And of course we both got ourbears and we came back and so I
told my husband I says this isgoing to be the animal that I'm
going to study and learn about.
I really like this.
And so it went from justpredator in generality to bears
and specifics.
You know I still hunt all thosethings, you know when forced
I'll go out and deer hunt.
(03:51):
But I got a bear tag in mypocket, you know so.
But that's just where it allbegan.
And so I came home from Canadaand I told my husband I said
let's go bear hunting this fall.
And he said well, as long as itdoesn't interfere with my elk
hunt.
So we set the tent up, we didall the things and I have never
been so epically frustrated inall my life.
(04:11):
Everywhere I went I did all thethings because my father is a
geochemist and so he taught thatscientific method to us right.
So I had paid very carefulattention to the guide and where
he was taking us that springand how we looked for animals
and where we were looking forthese bear and why they did what
they did.
And then I tried to take thatinformation and put it into the
fall and I epically failed,completely epically failed, and
(04:34):
I had to realize really quicklythat I knew nothing about bears,
like not just like there'sdiddly squat and then there's
like a lower level below diddlysquat.
That was me.
So I came back to the camp andI told my husband I said do
bears exist in the state ofWashington?
Because I don't think they doand it gets some big lie.
You know, I said they'rehanging out with Bigfoot
(04:55):
somewhere, like I can't findthem.
And so I decided right then, andthere I am going to research
the crap out of this, I'm goingto learn what makes these
animals tick and I'm going tounderstand them.
And so, like I said, with myfather and his background and
bringing that love of scienceand just realizing I needed to
have a starting point.
And that's not always likegoing on Facebook or a social
(05:18):
media site or reading a forum orwhatever.
Although those things arehelpful, I prefer reading the
biology papers and researchingas best I can how that animal is
using the habitat.
Why are they doing what they'redoing?
You know all the things andthen you can put all that math
together and get to the end ofsuccess in the field.
It changes it from anincidental take.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Right To a on-purpose , targeted approach to getting
that specific bear.
So some people huntgeneralities.
Right, I'm hunting bearpopulation.
I like to target a specificbear and then dog his butt until
I get him.
That's just how I play.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah.
So I know from listening to theway Dave has hunted in the past
that bears not targeting bears,but he's hunted bears quite
often.
But a lot of it came from likein Eastern Oregon.
They would go out elk huntingand harvest an elk and they'd
come back a day or two later andsit on the remains of that
(06:18):
harvested elk because afteryou've gutted it out and stuff
and wait for a bear to show upand typically a bear often would
show up and he would get a bear.
And that was the approach.
And you know if it's notnecessarily a focus, that would
be a good.
I imagine that would be, for ifyou're not going to put a whole
lot of effort into it.
(06:39):
But that also requires yougetting an elk or a deer during
a season where you can actuallyalso shoot a bear as well.
Now, before we move on, ifsomeone wanted to study if there
were like are there names ofpeople, previous hunters, who've
like written books or oh sure.
Yeah, what are some of the names, if people want to start doing
(07:01):
their own research.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
So there's some really good books out.
I mean, well, there's atremendous amount of books out
on black bear hunting.
Some of my favorites are goingto be the Education of a Bear
Hunter, and then also DouglasBowes wrote a book Actually he
has a couple out and he is thepresident of our Washington
chapter of American BearFoundation.
So that's a good resource tohit up and to read if you like
(07:23):
to read books I love to read,that's what we grew up doing,
reading all the time.
So those are great tools.
And then there's specificorganizations that you can touch
base with that kind of help alittle bit with that, like the
American Bear Foundation.
Oh, howl for Wildlife is good.
They have some information on.
There is good, they have someinformation on there.
I do caution people to becareful, not with those
(07:50):
organizations but when you startresearching bears, there's a
lot of nonsense online.
There's a tremendous amount thatis put out by the anti-hunting
community.
So there'll be misinformation,misdirection, et cetera.
Even if you take the most basic, basic math, which is the
conservation status,conservation status of the
American black bear is at leastconcern.
So when you see things wherethey're endangered and you say,
(08:12):
well, no one believes that Ihave been at a game commission
meeting where that word was usedseveral times by people that
were talking to the commissionyou know that the black bears
were endangered.
So we need to make sure we'reeducated.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
And I've heard that recently because I know that
they've worked towards takingaway spring bear here in
Washington.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
And somebody had floated some idea that the
population of black bear wasdwindling here in Washington and
it's like, well, you can't runhounds on them anymore and you
can't bait.
You haven't been able to baitfor years, right, which
discourages some people fromjust hunting them all together.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Well, it seems like the numbers would go up if
there's nothing else.
So it sounded yeah, like you'resaying, like there's some
people have an agenda becausethey don't like hunting, don't
like hunters and it comes fromthat perspective.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
I think, if they really listen, when we start
talking about the North Americanconservation model, the whole
idea behind that is to allow forconsumptive use.
So consumptive use means I goout and I take a bear.
That does not make me aneradication specialist.
I'm not trying to eradicate thebear from the landscape.
(09:22):
I am a conservationist.
I want to conserve the resourceso that, you know, 100 years
from now, my great-grandchildrencan go out and harvest a bear.
I'm not a preservationist.
I do not believe in, you know,an untouched wilderness, meaning
we had that spoken at thecommission too, where people
were saying you know that theanimals can regulate themselves,
(09:43):
they do not need any kind ofinterference from mankind.
And I'm just cringing becauseif they really followed that
logic and what that looks like,it's quite cruel to what would
happen in nature when thepopulation is.
Therefore, you look at it, it'sgoing to overpopulate and
there's not going to be enoughfood sources, so you're going to
see a drastic drop.
And then you know the wholeidea of preservation is it
(10:06):
doesn't work.
It doesn't work in reality.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
And I think we've seen that, or it's been a little
more, maybe a little morepronounced from what I've seen
with the wolves andreintroducing wolves and the
effect that those have on elkpopulations, deer populations,
have on elk populations, deerpopulations.
So again, knowing people who'vegone to Idaho and Eastern
(10:29):
Oregon that they just don't see,they don't see any nearly the
elk that they used to.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
So, yeah, it's one of those keeping everything in
check, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
And that is the whole point of the North American
model.
It's not to hunt one species toeradication, it's to manage the
landscape for all the species.
You know not this perfect worldcoexistence, right Like it's
predator and prey.
There's going to be conflictthere.
But let's talk about carryingcapacity for just one second,
because this is one of mysoapboxes.
So we're there.
(10:58):
If I look at a piece of landand I'm going to put a box on it
, let's say it's a mile by amile.
When you look at thattopography it can only support
so many of a specific species.
You know, let's say there's amoth, well, there's only so many
moths that can live there andbefore they overpopulate.
And the same is true of ourdeer, our elk, our bears.
And that number, that number,that carrying capacity is not
(11:21):
universal.
So when I look at that one byone, it can't be.
Let's say we want to manage for10% mortality for bears in this
place.
Well, that may not work forothers because the carrying
capacity is more limited basedon the food sources.
Let's say how much humanpopulation is actually in there?
All of these things factor.
(11:42):
So we need to be very carefulwhen we're setting these rules
and regulations and I've talkedto many people about this that
we stay educated and weunderstand universal numbers
sound good and they look good ona page, but they don't apply
across the entire United States.
What's good?
for one section or one unit isnot necessarily good for this
unit over here.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Yeah, well, and that makes sense.
When you consider Washington,there's western Washington and
you know northeast Washington.
While lots of forest andeverything, it's still very
different habitat withundergrowth and food sources,
like you say, or Columbia Basin.
Yeah it's, we have fourdifferent, four or five
different habitats just inWashington State alone.
(12:25):
So yeah, managing themdifferently.
So you're based here inWashington, yes sir, and of
course you hunt Washington, Iassume, for bear.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
I do.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Just the easiest.
It's one of the places, yes,and least expensive way to go.
What other states do youregularly hunt bear?
Or I mean or provinces and orprovinces.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Yeah, so I haven't been to BC for quite a while.
We should probably go backthere.
It's just so much fun.
But so been there many timesIdaho, oregon, I have a couple
other states on the list.
It's just a time issue and ofcourse we have to fit in the
husband's elk hunts, I don'tknow, you know, apparently.
(13:07):
So we try to split it up and befair to each other in the field
, because we both have differentpassions and I support him 100%
in what he likes to do and hesupports me 100% in what I like
to do.
So just being fair, but many,many states and the rules are
different for each one.
But yeah, I don't care whatstate they're in Doesn't matter
(13:29):
to me.
It's just another chess board.
I'll call it that.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
I'm going to learn.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
And I'm going to learn how to get a bear out of
that particular area.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Okay, and we will get into how you approach your
whole hunt and all of that.
But I would think spring bearoffers some opportunities, so
then you don't conflict.
So unless your husband was aturkey hunter, you're pretty
much okay there.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Correct.
So there's usually you know.
Of course we've lost our springbear hunt here in Washington
state and there's many of ustrying to get that back.
It's a sad, sad loss for thestate in general.
There are other states thatstill allow for the spring hunt
and I love spring bear hunting.
I absolutely love it.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Why is?
Speaker 2 (14:13):
that there are so many things happening in the
spring.
I mean, you're going to seebaby grouse.
I filmed some here this spring.
They just cracked me up.
They're little tiny fluff buttsrunning around.
I filmed some here this spring.
They just cracked me up, theirlittle tiny fluff butts running
around and you know the babycalves dropping.
So there's elk running everywhich way and you'll know,
because there'll be a single cowall by herself and I'll start
(14:34):
watching around her to see thebaby.
And oh, there it is.
I just absolutely love seeingall the life coming out, and the
animals are different.
They're not as pressured, so Ifeel like they act more like
themselves.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
So you see a lot more of the game out than you do in
the fall, when the season's openand they're all hiding under a
bush.
So it's just a beautiful timeof year.
I like the weather because it'scrazy.
You don't know what you'regoing to get.
I've had snowstorms, I've hadhigh wind, we've had thunder and
lightning, we've had 90 degreedays.
It's one of those things of I'mnot a super adaptable person by
(15:15):
nature.
I am not Like if there's afurrow, I'm in the center of it.
I'm like touching the wallsgoing yeah, right, centerline,
the whole way, and the wallsgoing, yeah, right, centerline,
the whole way, and you cannot dothat and be a bear hunter.
So it's.
It's been a good growthexperience for me to learn how
to adapt.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
I would think you can't do that and be a hunter.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Right, so it's pretty much yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Yeah, you've, you know, and we talk about this all
the time, you just have topivot.
Yeah, there's all kinds ofthings that that happen.
We actually did an episodecalled when Things Go South, or
when your Season Goes South andyou lose access, or a cougar.
In fact, I was pointing outsome of Dave's son, dj, so he
(15:57):
got his buck last year.
Well, he had to go after thatone.
He had to find that one becausethey were watching a week
before season started and histarget buck, which was a really
nice four by four, was walkingby on camera with its lower jaw
hanging straight down.
So Cougar got a hold of it andhe's like well, it might be
(16:19):
there.
No, it's gone.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
That's a sad one.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
But yeah, there's all kinds of reasons that you have
to be able to pivot.
But when you increase yourknowledge base you're pivoting.
But you're pivoting to afamiliar skills.
You know, oh, this isn't goingto work in this situation, so,
but I know this other skill willwork for this particular
situation.
Or you know habitat or thingslike that.
(16:43):
So, yeah, it's, we definitelytry to drill that into anybody
we work with and you know we tryto teach.
Just, broaden that skill set,you know.
Broaden your knowledge so thatyou know what a smart pivot is,
what a smart move is to the nextthing, because this thing isn't
going to work or doesn't workor you know, for whatever
(17:05):
happens.
So, going back, let's talkabout and you know you can go
back on your soapbox if you needto but why was spring bear
taken away in Washington?
What was the, what was thethought process there?
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Oh boy, I'm going to try to find a way to answer this
without getting too fired up.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
And I had a feeling I might stir some things up, but
I was willing to take the risk.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Did we just step on a hormone?
Yeah, so there is a lot of lackof science, there's a lot of
emotional responses, there's alack of education yeah, that one
really irritates me.
On what bears are, what thecarrying capacity is in
Washington State per unit.
And so people get this idea of,like I said earlier mentioned,
(17:52):
that they believe they'reendangered.
So you know, that's the firstthing.
And then there's this emotionalresponse of not only do we
believe they're endangered,which is nonsense, but you know,
these evil hunters are goingout and they're shooting sows
with cubs.
That is not what's happening.
So there's not a hunter onethat I deal with, and remember,
I'm in an outdoor industry.
(18:13):
I build wall tents for a living.
I deal with hunters every dayof my life.
They are not categorically, arenot going out and targeting
sows with cubs what they'reseeing in the spring what
they're seeing is the naturaldisbursement.
So this is the time of yearwhere the cubs are leaving mama,
the older cubs, not the brandnew ones.
(18:34):
So you're going to start to seethose smaller size bears
running around, running througha clear cut, because they don't
know any better, they justhaven't learned.
And so you see more of them andthe uneducated mind says, oh my
gosh, a hunter's killed theirparents, right they?
killed mom and dad.
They took them.
They just didn't even think,you know.
First off, we shouldn'tanthropomorphize animals you
(18:57):
know, I'm just saying you know.
The second thing is that ifthey were educated they would
understand.
These bears are going through anatural process of dispersion
and they are to be expected tobe seen in the spring, away from
their mother.
And again, I'm not talkingabout some little teeny tiny cub
here, the normal long yearlingsI'd call them, you know.
And mom's had enough of them Iget the point.
(19:19):
You know, at some point you'relike kid get out.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
You've graduated high school, time to move out.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Yeah, you need to get your own groceries.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
And so that's what they're seeing.
So that was one of thearguments made against the
spring hunt was the take of sows, and you know the Bear
Foundation and others weretalking about that and it's like
well, let's follow that logicout in the fall.
So if it's not okay to takethem in the spring, why would it
(19:47):
be okay to take them in thefall?
It's not.
So there's no difference in thepeople in the landscape is my
point.
There's the same hunter whetherhe's out in the spring or he's
out in the fall hunting thebears.
It made no logical sense to meto say we should remove a spring
hunt because of you know, wecould decimate the population.
(20:08):
Well, we've had a spring huntfor a long time and there's
still a lot of bears in thestate.
So your argument is mute.
So that was a big portion of it.
There is a lot of stuff comingout right now.
I mean, if you watch anythingfrom like Sportsman's Alliance
et cetera, they're putting someemails out that came from the
commission that they're not thegreatest things to have out
(20:32):
there.
I would be embarrassed, quitehonestly, to have something like
that.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Just bad information.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Oh, I'm going to avoid some of that.
I think there's going to be alot of things coming up.
There's a lot of stuff beingsaid, said.
I would like to read some moreof it before I make an official
opinion on it yeah but there's alot of things that are just not
good.
That happened with the gamecommission.
In that whole there's a debacle.
It was really what it was,despite what their own
(21:00):
biologists were saying and thechoices that they made.
So there's a lot of bitterness.
There's still a lot of anger inwhen we talk about doing the
bear seminars at the shows.
I talked to the management and Isaid let's not talk about
spring in this particular venuebecause there's still a lot of
anger among the hunters about it, and it's rightfully so, when
(21:22):
we are not listened to, when thebiologists are saying here's a
sustainable take, and they'resaying no, no, no, it's yeah,
the whole thing was not good.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
So what do they estimate that the?
And we fall back on Washington.
We're located in Washington andI know other states manage
everything differently, some ofthem probably much better.
Washington has not managedcertain aspects of fishing game
(21:56):
well, but what do they estimatethe population in Washington to
be a black bear.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
So the current estimate that I read was about
27,000 bears.
You know I always take allthose numbers with a grain of
salt.
They cannot be everywhere atevery time when they're trying
to do a population study.
I love reading populationstudies, so they're really,
really interesting to me.
So if you, let's say, we put upa camera trap and we want to
(22:27):
start counting bears, so I putup a camera and you have 10
black bears, go by the camera.
Well, did you have 10 blackbears?
That are individuals, or didyou have?
Speaker 1 (22:36):
one black bear that went by 10 times right.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
So the biologists, being smart, said, oh, we got to
come up with something better.
So they put up these wire trapsand basically they just grab a
little tough to hair as the beargoes by.
So now we can prove right bythe DNA coming off, that that we
did in fact have 10 individualsgoing by, and along with that
(22:59):
is you establish a genetic base.
So you're like okay, we knowthat we have a great population
based on the diversity in thegenetic material.
So you know you don't have abunch of inbreeding, etc.
If that makes sense.
So again it's a science.
I absolutely love that whereyou can prove and I, because I
do hunt other states that havegrizzly bear populations.
(23:21):
I like talking to theconservation officers about such
things and they're always funnybecause at first they're like
you know, they're careful toanswer questions because they
don't want to let you know wherethe grizzly bears are.
And I'm like look, I'm nottargeting your grizzly bear.
You know, we're not that kind ofpeople.
I am genuinely trying tounderstand how they move through
the environment so I canunderstand how they affect the
black bear movements, which aresomething that I'm hunting.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
And understand why they're doing what they're doing
and how these species interact.
So one of the things that theywere doing in the one state they
had collared 30 differentgrizzlies and they took genetic
sampling from each one and ofcourse, the ultimate goal is
eventually this is, I know, ahot button issue, but it's to
open up the grizzly bear huntagain.
Hot button issue, but it's toopen up the grizzly bear hunt
(24:10):
again and to prove that theyhave enough diversity in that
genetic sampling that they cansustainably take X amount of
number of bears from thepopulation and it won't hurt the
population at all.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
And would this be lower 48?
Yeah, okay, is there any?
There's no states that allowgrizzly hunting in the lower 48?
Not yet, okay.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
There was a brief time where, like Idaho had
opened it up they actually did.
Then it was resident only andone guy got the tag and then the
courts of course, shut thathunt down and it hasn't come
back on the table yet, but it'ssomething we're definitely
watching and again it's a hotbutton issue, like the wolf
thing.
But I am not against grizzlybear hunting.
I think it needs to be verycarefully managed and watched
(24:49):
over like any other animal onthe planet.
Again, I'm not for eradication,you know.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Okay, I know that there was a proposal, or at
least I've heard a proposal,about introducing grizzlies back
into Washington, and I knowoccasionally they'll dip down in
the Northern Cascades from.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Canada.
They'll come down Sure.
They don't need visas andpassports and they don't
recognize boundaries.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
So yes, absolutely, they just show up when they feel
like it because they're agrizzly bear Kind of can do what
they want.
Fact the only concern I knowfor introducing grizzlies that
I've heard is like so friendswho might go elk hunting where
there are grizzlies or deerhunting are always head on a
(25:34):
swivel.
They're just very nervous.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
You know potentially?
Speaker 2 (25:39):
And I get that.
So I just got back not too longago from a spring hunt in Idaho
and where I'm at there's a goodgrizzly population.
So I do travel differentlythrough the environment.
I do hunt differently in thoseareas.
I'm way more cautious in how mysetups are done and where I
(26:01):
would take a stand, for example,or let's say where you'd put a
tree stand or a blind, etc.
They definitely affect how Imove through the environment and
that's where my question markcame for how they affect the
black bears and how they movethrough the environment and
there needs to be some studiesdone on how grizzly bears affect
(26:22):
the black bear population.
I think it's really importantbecause when we're reintroducing
a species right, we're going totake this species and we're
putting back on the area Great.
So how is that species going toaffect the rest of them?
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
And how do they all play together?
That's a very importantquestion that has not been
answered.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Well, and it was interesting seeing some stuff
online regarding wolves and youknow people well, they have the
right to be here, but I justkind of had gotten curious.
So at the time Idaho had 1,541wolves that they knew of.
So I just started doing theresearch how many elk will 1,541
(27:03):
?
wolves consume 27,000 a year,and that's not including
anything else.
How many elk will 1,541 wolvesconsume 27,000 a year, and
that's not including anythingelse.
And I'm like, okay, can thepopulation of elk replenish
itself Fast enough?
No and no, no, it can't.
So then it causes, yeah, thingsto dwindle.
So, thinking about so 27,000black bear going back to black
bear now and I think I justpulled up those numbers and
(27:31):
there were about 1,800 harvestedin the whole state for last
year, because we were talkingabout how to look that
information up yeah, so is 1,800out of 27,.
Is that a sustainable, whatwould be a sustainable harvest
rate for 27,000 bear?
Speaker 2 (27:43):
See that's what's interesting when you start
talking about the harvest rates,so you have to factor in not
just harvest rates.
We want to look at totalmortality.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Yes, the total mortality.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
So you have the ones that hunters take, you have the
ones that are damage removals,you have the accidents the bear
that gets hit on the road.
That stuff happens, then youhave predation.
You know the bear that gets hiton the road.
That stuff happens, then youhave predation, right.
So bear on bear, grizzly bearon black bear, I mean wolf on
black bear, cougar on black bearthere's a lot of things that'll
(28:18):
take those cubs.
And then you know grizzlies andfull-grown bears.
It's not a problem there.
There's goodness sakes.
You can see it online all thetime.
There'll be a short video ofsome grizzly bear hauling a big
old black bear up the hill right, he's killed and he's going to
eat him.
So all of those things factorin and, I think, need to be
taken in the totality when westart setting our harvest quotas
(28:40):
.
We'll call it.
One of those things that theytouched on at the game
commission meeting I was on orat, was the amount of sow
mortality.
So that's our future bearsright our recruitment.
So if we take too many sows outthen we're not going to have a
sustainable hunt because therewon't be recruitment in the
future.
So I absolutely agree withthose being set.
(29:02):
I think that's propermanagement.
But what that looks like goesback to that carrying capacity
that I touched on earlier.
That number can't be universal,it just can't.
What is appropriate for an eastside bear population mortality
rate will not be appropriate fora coastal bear range or western
Washington.
(29:22):
Those numbers are significantlydifferent and more research, I
think, should be done.
But is the sustainable numberthat we took last?
Yeah, absolutely, you know,even if you look at, let's say
this is ridiculous.
But let's say 50% of thatnumber of 27,000 is sows.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Okay, let's just cap it at 50% and let's cut it down
again.
Let's say 25% of those areactually of breeding age,
because you figure a three to afive-year-old bear somewhere in
there in the state of Washingtonis when they're going to start
breeding.
And then you figure, you knowtwo to five cubs.
Five is extreme, I have seen it, her paws were full right, but
(30:04):
two is average.
And then you figure inmortality rate on those bears.
You're nowhere near, nowherenear removing 1,800, causing a
problem.
I mean you just the mathdoesn't support the anti-hunters
of.
Oh, we're going to decimate thepopulation, not even close.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Now, do you know or remember when there was a spring
bear hunt?
Oh yeah, you know or rememberwhen there was a spring bear
hunt?
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
I took a beautiful bear.
The last time I drew a springbear tag it was for 49 degrees
north and had a wonderful huntand took a really nice, really
nice bear.
And that's very sad to mebecause I look now and they have
a lot of conflict up in thatunit with bears.
So they have a tremendous ofconflict up in that unit with
bears, so they have a tremendousbear population and now they
(30:50):
have no spring hunt right tohelp keep the numbers in Jack.
So it's a very sad thing for uslosing this hunt.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
How long was the spring bear hunt?
Was it a month-long season oroh?
Speaker 2 (30:59):
goodness it's been so long.
I want to say it was longerthan that.
When did they take away springbear?
That would have been.
Let me look that up for you soI don't give you the wrong date.
I've got so many of them.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Because I remember it was mid-90s when they stopped
the baiting and the dogs.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Yeah, and that was another change.
That was not good.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Yeah, that was right after actually, I met Dave and I
remember they announced that onthe news and he's like, yeah,
you're going to start seeing anexplosion in bear and cougar
numbers.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Yeah, that's a fact.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
And I know he used to go out and rarely, if ever, see
a cougar on camera or anythinglike that, and now it's pretty
common.
You know I've gotten cougar onmy camera.
I always get bear on all of mysets yeah and even if I'm not
running it now, I'm not runningany type of bait, but if you
have any type of lure scent thatmimics the smell of of a bait,
(31:58):
sure yeah, that was a deer, butyeah, you would see you'll have
bear come by and at least checkthings out.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
So that was 2022.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
I wanted to say it was 21, but I was like I don't
think that's right.
It was 2022.
So a few years now without itand, like I said, it's been a
sad loss.
There's a lot of anger aboutthat.
But back to numbers.
So I've been doing somestudying on this for different
units that I hunt in thespringtime, and one of the
things that I do this is part ofmy scouting, but, anyhow, one
(32:29):
of the things that I do is Ilook at the numbers specifically
, like we were just talkingabout the take numbers.
And then some states make iteasier than others to find those
numbers.
Their harvest reports areeasier to come by Some of them
you kind of have to dig a littlebit to get to their harvest
reports, and so when we starttalking spring specifically,
there's two things I'm lookingfor in the unit.
(32:50):
The first is not just the take,but it's the take over several
years, not just one year,because you can have a really
large, for whatever reason.
A large take one year and thenfive years later, you know you
look at it and they're justpitiful.
And it's not because of a lackof bears, it's just a lack of
opportunity.
Because when you think aboutspring, one of the things that
(33:11):
affects us is the weather.
So that will affect where thebears are going to be in the
landscape.
Are they going to be in a placewhere you can actually get to
Burms snow berms are notuncommon and to lock people out
of areas.
So I like to look at weatherpatterns too.
But we'll come back to the bearpopulation.
So I'm going to look at thenumbers of what's being taken
(33:32):
and then hopefully most of themdo.
You'll look at the number ofsows being taken.
That one tells me what I canexpect in the bear population in
the future.
So if I see like a 50%mortality on the sows, my
eyebrow goes up.
That's a lot of sows to takelike.
If they're 50% of the take,that's a lot of sows to take out
of a unit most of them are notthat high.
(33:54):
They're just not, but that'ssomething to factor into your
thinking.
So if this is a unit thatyou're going to study and you
want to be part of and, like thenext 10 years, I'm going to
hunt spring bear here, rightthis, you want to have that good
population basis to sustain thehunt.
For you as a person, it's notthat there's not bears there,
(34:17):
it's that it gives you moreopportunity.
I do a lot of mentoring.
So, if I'm going to takesomebody out, I want to take
them to a place where we havethe opportunity because the
bears present themselves moreoften.
There's enough bears to presentmore opportunities for that new
to the game hunter.
So those are things to thinkabout.
(34:38):
And then a lot of the states doset a limit on their sow.
Take per unit.
Again, I don't like it whenit's a universal number.
I don't think that's goodscience.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
So a limit on sow, the amount of sows that can be.
How do you, how would they goabout limiting the amount of?
It's?
Like the first 50 people whoshow up with a sow and then they
okay.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
So it makes sense if you.
it depends on the state, but alot of them have mandatory
checks, so especially if it's astate that classifies the bear
as a fur bearer if it's a furbearer, there's extra rules, and
so not only are they going totake biological samples from it,
they're going to seal the hide,but they're also going to
record whatever information theycan, and one of those is going
(35:23):
to be the sex of the bear.
So certain states, once theyhit enough of the bears, come in
and they're being checked andthey look and they go okay, well
, we're in unit whatever, pick athing, this is unit abc well
abc.
We took five percent of the takeso far and it's been female.
So they shut the hunt down okaymakes sense, so it's.
(35:43):
It's based on the peoplereporting their take and that's
just the way it is, but that'sto maintain a sustainable
harvest so as a hunter.
I'm for for that because itmakes logical sense.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Will they typically just shut down the hunt entirely
?
It depends on the state.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
So it might be a unit by unit, it could be a specific
region we'll call it which is amix of units.
It just depends.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
And I saw Washington has.
I don't know if they're bear Imight be getting the term wrong
but bear management units.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Oh, is that what they're called?
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Yes, that's what they yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
And it's like there's nine regions and but those are,
they kind of manage all theunits within those regions.
The same, not exactly.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
So there's like don't I?
I want to let me pull this up,so I I keep screenshots on my
phone of papers and studies andwhatnot, but I believe it is
okanagan that's one of them thatthey have limited.
It's definitely one of the oneswith the later opener.
They went from august 1 toaugust 15th I'm looking for the
(36:53):
study for the.
So they have an intrinsicgrowth rate which is 8% in
Washington state.
So what they're getting at iswe don't want to go beyond that
for our female mortality.
So if our female mortalityreaches that in Washington state
specifically, they said the wayI read it was they were going
(37:14):
to close it down two weeksearlier.
But yeah, and again, it's notthat I find fault with the
system of yes, we should have acap because we do want a future
of sustainable harvest.
I just really disagree withthat universality of 8% cap or
whatever.
Pick a number across the entirestate.
(37:36):
That's not appropriate.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Yeah, it should be Different, habitat different.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
It should be different based on the
populations of that.
Because if you think about that, there are certain places where
that might be too much, yeah,might be way too high, and
there's others where, gosh,you're not even in.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
No way too high.
And there's others where goshyou're not even in.
No, and not necessarily justpopulation, but how many hunters
are attracted to thatparticular area too.
So while it might have a reallyhuge population like twice the
population density, we'll say,even though that might not be
the right term, but of bear, butthat particular area attracts
(38:13):
four times the amount of bearhunters than another area.
So yeah, it's factoring.
There's a lot of factors thatwould go into it.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
And to touch on what you just said, there are states
that I've been to that I kind oflaugh a little bit.
I'll know when there's been apush for a specific species at a
specific time, because you'llsee all the out-of-state license
plates in one unit and what hashappened is the game department
has gone out and they'resending all those people to that
(38:40):
one particular unit and I seethat a lot.
So yeah, it's not just apopulation study, it's a of a
social study there too, yeah,who's coming?
Yes.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
So, going forward from here, what in your mind
should be done to protect thefuture bear hunting, to
potentially bring back Althoughit's the government Whenever
they take something away?
They never give it back, butthinking about, we have new
people on the game commission.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Yes, very excited about that.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Who seem I think three people were replaced and
they all seem very pro-hunting.
Yeah, but not.
That's just me reading theirbios.
But going forward, what aresome things that people could be
should be doing too?
Speaker 2 (39:30):
So I think there's several things that we can do,
could be should be doing too.
So I think there's severalthings that we can do.
The first one, the easiest one,is do you belong to some kind
of a conservation organization?
Not all of us have the luxuryof being able to attend game
meetings or other importantvotes because we have to work.
It's a sad reality of life.
I would love to be at everysingle thing, but I can't.
(39:53):
So if I'm not in the shop, themachines aren't going up and
down, the needles aren't goingthrough the fabric and I'm not
making the tents for a guythat's waiting on his tent.
On the other hand, some ofthese organizations have
full-time paid staff and it istheir job right.
That's why we donate to them asa business.
That's why I donate to them.
Job right.
(40:13):
That's why we donate to them asa business.
That's why I donate to them isto then I go to their banquets
and support them is so that theycan support these efforts here
in the state, for not just theconservation of the habitat,
which is absolutely, you know,100% behind that, but there's
legislation that needs to happenas well and our voice needs to
be heard.
So that's that's my first step.
If you can do nothing else,then support these orgs that are
(40:35):
doing the jobs for you, andthat brings me to like.
One of those would be AmericanBear Foundation and specifically
the Washington chapter.
So you'll see them at the gamecommissions or they'll sign up
online to speak to fight for ourfuture of bear hunting online
to speak to fight for our futureof bear hunting.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Now, do they have?
So they have the Washingtonbranch.
Do they have local?
Is it a setup where there canbe local clubs within?
Speaker 2 (41:03):
So it's not that big yet.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Okay no-transcript.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
And so they're stepping up and saying what can
I do?
So that brings us back to yourquestion.
So, first off, you know, belongto some kind of an organization
like that that's going to help.
Howl for Wildlife's a good one.
They are really good aboutposting action items that are
easy for us to get on and, mygosh, I may not be able to be at
the meeting that day, but I canhit a button right and send an
(41:59):
email out.
They make it very simple for us.
And then you know, there's thein-person meaning can you go
like I did here?
And hopefully I want to makethis next meeting?
I really hope to do it and showup.
Show up and use your voice.
I think we need to be respectfulright.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
Yes, we need to be careful because people are angry
, and I get it.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
I get the anger, but I think when we speak with
passion, not emotion, those arevery different ideas.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
With passion for the things we love and we bring
about the science behind it, thelogic behind it.
You can't refute that.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
I mean, the things that they come up with are
butterflies and you know it'sterrible.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
And you know, to support that we, having just
recently gone through the periodwhere we were giving feedback
and we were encouraging ourlisteners to give feedback for
the CWD- yes.
And how that affected the blacktail hunting and statewide.
And we, you know, we kind of,after things settled, we gave
(43:04):
our thoughts about all that.
But yeah, you know, we tellpeople join the Black Tail Deer
Foundation, you know Exactly Ifit's a type of hunting that is
important to you, or even Iwould say, even if it's a mild
interest.
Usually the dues every year are$35.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Right, they're cheap.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
So you know if it's within your budget.
I say join them all, Right,because then they all have money
to go and advocate on yourbehalf.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
And that's what we're paying them to do to go
advocate for a bunch of us onour behalf.
And they are the ones who putmoney into studies or are
looking up these studies thatmaybe different states do.
Going back to the CWD, you knowwhat did this state do?
How was that effective?
Okay, it wasn't effective.
So why are we doing that herein Washington?
You know things along thisstate do.
How was that effective?
Okay, it wasn't effective.
So why are we doing that herein Washington?
You know things along thoselines, and I'm sure that touches
(43:57):
in on Bayer as well.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Absolutely.
And so I think there's the twoparts, like we just mentioned,
you know, belonging to anorganization, going ourselves to
these meetings.
The third part, I think, is apersonal responsibility, meaning
our daily interactions withpeople as we talk to them.
We can carefully you don't wantto be a jerk, right, and I hate
(44:24):
to hunt those people that areso like in your face about every
little tiny thing and maybethat's just not on your radar
but I think we can educatepeople in an appropriate fashion
and just speaking to them aboutwhy we're passionate about the
things we do.
So one of the things that ourcompany participates in is
called Ladies Hunting Camp andwe go there and we teach all
(44:46):
kinds of things.
It's a phenomenal resource forwomen who need a mentor and need
to get out and aren't surewhere to begin.
So there's classes on shootingmany types, so archery, modern
firearm, muzzleloader, pistol.
You know they've got NRAcertified instructors, they've
got all the things there andthen I teach predator hunting,
(45:08):
which is where I'm going withthis.
So one of the things one of thegals was talking to me about
when she came to my class shesaid it just wasn't a blip on my
radar, it just wasn't you know,deer are okay, and she kind of
came into the class with alittle bit of a chip on her
shoulder and you know, like, whyare you taking these barriers?
How could you do that kind of athing?
But she said, man, you were sological and the things that you
(45:31):
said made sense to me.
Where it's a balanced approachto managing our resources, it's
not just about, you know, takinga bear to take a bear.
I love the bear.
That animal is fascinating tome and because I love that
particular animal, I've studiedit and I try to support the
(45:52):
organizations that support itshabitat.
But sometimes that meansbelonging to like Mule Deer
Foundation or Black Tail,because they are also protecting
the habitat for the sameanimals, and so I don't
necessarily distinguish betweenan organization for that purpose
.
But I think just being able toturn people's opinion by our
(46:15):
logic and our passion again notan emotional thing, you know,
cry me a river.
No, it has to be.
Yes, I'm passionate about it,but here are my logical reasons
for why I do what I do.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
Excellent, all right.
Thanks for joining us for partone of four of Black Bear
Hunting with Heather AldrichTune in next week and for the
next three weeks.
Excellent, all right.
Thanks for joining us for partone of four black bear hunting
with heather aldrich tune innext week and for the next three
weeks, and we're going to do adeep dive on the how to bear
hunting.
Welcome back to the Blacktail Coach podcast.
I'm Aaron and this week we haveHeather Aldrich and we are
going to talk about bear hunting.
So this will probably turn intomulti-weeks of talking about
bear hunting, because you know alot about bear hunting and I'm
long-winded.
And we want to encourage bearhunting.
You know, especially with oursystem, it tends to bring in
(00:21):
bears.
Probably not as much nowbecause of the laws against
baiting, but there's still bearin the area that we're hunting
and bear they're delicious, soyou know very, very much so and
you can have a rug, oh, yeah oryou know, mount or decorations
for the home anyway.
So why don't you start off?
(00:42):
Tell, tell us, like yourpersonal hunting history.
What got you into hunting?
Where did you get your start?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
So I grew up with five brothers and my family
fished, but they were nothunters by any stretch of the
imagination.
My mom gardened and so thatlove of the outdoors was kind of
started there.
I married my husband and heowned Bravo Wall Tents and so I
got my beginning into theoutdoor world.
And his big deal was, even ifyou don't want to hunt, if you
(01:09):
just go with me.
And I said, sure, I love to beoutside, you know, let's go do
it.
And at that time I wasn't surethat I was going to be able to
go out and harvest an animal.
That was a big choice for meand I got into it.
And very first time he took meon was an elk hunt.
And they kept going by allthese elk, and I thought, man, I
don't get it, I don'tunderstand the rules.
And finally I asked him I saidwhat is wrong with the elk?
(01:30):
And he said what do you mean?
I said well, like that bull wejust passed, is there some
reason why you didn't want him?
Like I don't know what therules are?
And he said elk, yeah, youdidn't say anything.
Well, I thought you saw him.
He goes for the love of God,woman.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
So he immediately says okay, that's it, you have
to have a tag.
So we had been on the horsesriding by all these animals.
I had no idea and the guyshadn't seen them.
They're just, they're going totheir end goal, and I learned
really quick that we hunted verydifferently, and so that was my
(02:07):
start and from there he startedtaking me coyote hunting and
that was the beginning of mebecoming a predator hunter.
Okay, everybody finds theirniche I think, yeah, and, and
what it is that they love?
And that sparked something inme that it was just so much fun.
You sat there and you called,and the coyotes come running in
and then you bark at them andget them to stop, and and it was
just fascinating to me.
Plus Plus, they had claws andcanines and I was like those are
I like them.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
I like the sharp things.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
I like the sharp things so much to his chagrin,
you know, because he wouldprefer.
When you own a tent company, itlooks the best in your
marketing photos if you havethis massive elk in front of the
tent, right.
Yes, yeah so here, his wife goesout to the field predators, and
so I'm like no, no, no, sir,we're going to have massive
bears in front of the tent.
(02:49):
That's going to be ourmarketing photo.
So that was kind of thebeginning of me getting into
this.
And then many years ago at thePuyallup show we met an
outfitter who has since becomefamily to us and he had just
bought his guide territory andhe wanted some tents and we had
(03:10):
never been to Canada and heinvited us up.
He says let's do a swap.
I'll take you spring bearhunting and we'll swap for tents
.
And I said, deal.
And so John and I went up thereand I've never seen so many
bears in my life.
They were like fleas.
You could not go anywhere in BCand not see a bear.
So I said, oh my goodness, thisanimal's phenomenal.
(03:30):
I just fell in love with them.
And of course we both got ourbears and we came back and so I
told my husband I says this isgoing to be the animal that I'm
going to study and learn about.
I really like this.
And so it went from justpredator in generality to bears
and specifics.
You know I still hunt all thosethings, you know when forced
I'll go out and deer hunt.
(03:51):
But I got a bear tag in mypocket, you know so.
But that's just where it allbegan.
And so I came home from Canadaand I told my husband I said
let's go bear hunting this fall.
And he said well, as long as itdoesn't interfere with my elk
hunt.
So we set the tent up, we didall the things and I have never
been so epically frustrated inall my life.
(04:11):
Everywhere I went I did all thethings because my father is a
geochemist and so he taught thatscientific method to us right.
So I had paid very carefulattention to the guide and where
he was taking us that springand how we looked for animals
and where we were looking forthese bear and why they did what
they did.
And then I tried to take thatinformation and put it into the
fall and I epically failed,completely epically failed, and
(04:34):
I had to realize really quicklythat I knew nothing about bears,
like not just like there'sdiddly squat and then there's
like a lower level below diddlysquat.
That was me.
So I came back to the camp andI told my husband I said do
bears exist in the state ofWashington?
Because I don't think they doand it gets some big lie.
You know, I said they'rehanging out with Bigfoot
(04:55):
somewhere, like I can't findthem.
And so I decided right then, andthere I am going to research
the crap out of this, I'm goingto learn what makes these
animals tick and I'm going tounderstand them.
And so, like I said, with myfather and his background and
bringing that love of scienceand just realizing I needed to
have a starting point.
And that's not always likegoing on Facebook or a social
(05:18):
media site or reading a forum orwhatever.
Although those things arehelpful, I prefer reading the
biology papers and researchingas best I can how that animal is
using the habitat.
Why are they doing what they'redoing?
You know all the things andthen you can put all that math
together and get to the end ofsuccess in the field.
It changes it from anincidental take.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Right To a on-purpose , targeted approach to getting
that specific bear.
So some people huntgeneralities.
Right, I'm hunting bearpopulation.
I like to target a specificbear and then dog his butt until
I get him.
That's just how I play.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah.
So I know from listening to theway Dave has hunted in the past
that bears not targeting bears,but he's hunted bears quite
often.
But a lot of it came from likein Eastern Oregon.
They would go out elk huntingand harvest an elk and they'd
come back a day or two later andsit on the remains of that
(06:18):
harvested elk because afteryou've gutted it out and stuff
and wait for a bear to show upand typically a bear often would
show up and he would get a bear.
And that was the approach.
And you know if it's notnecessarily a focus, that would
be a good.
I imagine that would be, for ifyou're not going to put a whole
lot of effort into it.
(06:39):
But that also requires yougetting an elk or a deer during
a season where you can actuallyalso shoot a bear as well.
Now, before we move on, ifsomeone wanted to study if there
were like are there names ofpeople, previous hunters, who've
like written books or oh sure.
Yeah, what are some of the names, if people want to start doing
(07:01):
their own research.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
So there's some really good books out.
I mean, well, there's atremendous amount of books out
on black bear hunting.
Some of my favorites are goingto be the Education of a Bear
Hunter, and then also DouglasBowes wrote a book Actually he
has a couple out and he is thepresident of our Washington
chapter of American BearFoundation.
So that's a good resource tohit up and to read if you like
(07:23):
to read books I love to read,that's what we grew up doing,
reading all the time.
So those are great tools.
And then there's specificorganizations that you can touch
base with that kind of help alittle bit with that, like the
American Bear Foundation.
Oh, howl for Wildlife is good.
They have some information on.
There is good, they have someinformation on there.
I do caution people to becareful, not with those
(07:50):
organizations but when you startresearching bears, there's a
lot of nonsense online.
There's a tremendous amount thatis put out by the anti-hunting
community.
So there'll be misinformation,misdirection, et cetera.
Even if you take the most basic, basic math, which is the
conservation status,conservation status of the
American black bear is at leastconcern.
So when you see things wherethey're endangered and you say,
(08:12):
well, no one believes that Ihave been at a game commission
meeting where that word was usedseveral times by people that
were talking to the commissionyou know that the black bears
were endangered.
So we need to make sure we'reeducated.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
And I've heard that recently because I know that
they've worked towards takingaway spring bear here in
Washington.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
And somebody had floated some idea that the
population of black bear wasdwindling here in Washington and
it's like, well, you can't runhounds on them anymore and you
can't bait.
You haven't been able to baitfor years, right, which
discourages some people fromjust hunting them all together.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Well, it seems like the numbers would go up if
there's nothing else.
So it sounded yeah, like you'resaying, like there's some
people have an agenda becausethey don't like hunting, don't
like hunters and it comes fromthat perspective.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
I think, if they really listen, when we start
talking about the North Americanconservation model, the whole
idea behind that is to allow forconsumptive use.
So consumptive use means I goout and I take a bear.
That does not make me aneradication specialist.
I'm not trying to eradicate thebear from the landscape.
(09:22):
I am a conservationist.
I want to conserve the resourceso that, you know, 100 years
from now, my great-grandchildrencan go out and harvest a bear.
I'm not a preservationist.
I do not believe in, you know,an untouched wilderness, meaning
we had that spoken at thecommission too, where people
were saying you know that theanimals can regulate themselves,
(09:43):
they do not need any kind ofinterference from mankind.
And I'm just cringing becauseif they really followed that
logic and what that looks like,it's quite cruel to what would
happen in nature when thepopulation is.
Therefore, you look at it, it'sgoing to overpopulate and
there's not going to be enoughfood sources, so you're going to
see a drastic drop.
And then you know the wholeidea of preservation is it
(10:06):
doesn't work.
It doesn't work in reality.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
And I think we've seen that, or it's been a little
more, maybe a little morepronounced from what I've seen
with the wolves andreintroducing wolves and the
effect that those have on elkpopulations, deer populations,
have on elk populations, deerpopulations.
So again, knowing people who'vegone to Idaho and Eastern
(10:29):
Oregon that they just don't see,they don't see any nearly the
elk that they used to.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
So, yeah, it's one of those keeping everything in
check, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
And that is the whole point of the North American
model.
It's not to hunt one species toeradication, it's to manage the
landscape for all the species.
You know not this perfect worldcoexistence, right Like it's
predator and prey.
There's going to be conflictthere.
But let's talk about carryingcapacity for just one second,
because this is one of mysoapboxes.
So we're there.
(10:58):
If I look at a piece of landand I'm going to put a box on it
, let's say it's a mile by amile.
When you look at thattopography it can only support
so many of a specific species.
You know, let's say there's amoth, well, there's only so many
moths that can live there andbefore they overpopulate.
And the same is true of ourdeer, our elk, our bears.
And that number, that number,that carrying capacity is not
(11:21):
universal.
So when I look at that one byone, it can't be.
Let's say we want to manage for10% mortality for bears in this
place.
Well, that may not work forothers because the carrying
capacity is more limited basedon the food sources.
Let's say how much humanpopulation is actually in there?
All of these things factor.
(11:42):
So we need to be very carefulwhen we're setting these rules
and regulations and I've talkedto many people about this that
we stay educated and weunderstand universal numbers
sound good and they look good ona page, but they don't apply
across the entire United States.
What's good?
for one section or one unit isnot necessarily good for this
unit over here.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Yeah, well, and that makes sense.
When you consider Washington,there's western Washington and
you know northeast Washington.
While lots of forest andeverything, it's still very
different habitat withundergrowth and food sources,
like you say, or Columbia Basin.
Yeah it's, we have fourdifferent, four or five
different habitats just inWashington State alone.
(12:25):
So yeah, managing themdifferently.
So you're based here inWashington, yes sir, and of
course you hunt Washington, Iassume, for bear.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
I do.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Just the easiest.
It's one of the places, yes,and least expensive way to go.
What other states do youregularly hunt bear?
Or I mean or provinces and orprovinces.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Yeah, so I haven't been to BC for quite a while.
We should probably go backthere.
It's just so much fun.
But so been there many timesIdaho, oregon, I have a couple
other states on the list.
It's just a time issue and ofcourse we have to fit in the
husband's elk hunts, I don'tknow, you know, apparently.
(13:07):
So we try to split it up and befair to each other in the field
, because we both have differentpassions and I support him 100%
in what he likes to do and hesupports me 100% in what I like
to do.
So just being fair, but many,many states and the rules are
different for each one.
But yeah, I don't care whatstate they're in Doesn't matter
(13:29):
to me.
It's just another chess board.
I'll call it that.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
I'm going to learn.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
And I'm going to learn how to get a bear out of
that particular area.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Okay, and we will get into how you approach your
whole hunt and all of that.
But I would think spring bearoffers some opportunities, so
then you don't conflict.
So unless your husband was aturkey hunter, you're pretty
much okay there.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Correct.
So there's usually you know.
Of course we've lost our springbear hunt here in Washington
state and there's many of ustrying to get that back.
It's a sad, sad loss for thestate in general.
There are other states thatstill allow for the spring hunt
and I love spring bear hunting.
I absolutely love it.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Why is?
Speaker 2 (14:13):
that there are so many things happening in the
spring.
I mean, you're going to seebaby grouse.
I filmed some here this spring.
They just cracked me up.
They're little tiny fluff buttsrunning around.
I filmed some here this spring.
They just cracked me up, theirlittle tiny fluff butts running
around and you know the babycalves dropping.
So there's elk running everywhich way and you'll know,
because there'll be a single cowall by herself and I'll start
(14:34):
watching around her to see thebaby.
And oh, there it is.
I just absolutely love seeingall the life coming out, and the
animals are different.
They're not as pressured, so Ifeel like they act more like
themselves.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
So you see a lot more of the game out than you do in
the fall, when the season's openand they're all hiding under a
bush.
So it's just a beautiful timeof year.
I like the weather because it'scrazy.
You don't know what you'regoing to get.
I've had snowstorms, I've hadhigh wind, we've had thunder and
lightning, we've had 90 degreedays.
It's one of those things of I'mnot a super adaptable person by
(15:15):
nature.
I am not Like if there's afurrow, I'm in the center of it.
I'm like touching the wallsgoing yeah, right, centerline,
the whole way, and the wallsgoing, yeah, right, centerline,
the whole way, and you cannot dothat and be a bear hunter.
So it's.
It's been a good growthexperience for me to learn how
to adapt.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
I would think you can't do that and be a hunter.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Right, so it's pretty much yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Yeah, you've, you know, and we talk about this all
the time, you just have topivot.
Yeah, there's all kinds ofthings that that happen.
We actually did an episodecalled when Things Go South, or
when your Season Goes South andyou lose access, or a cougar.
In fact, I was pointing outsome of Dave's son, dj, so he
(15:57):
got his buck last year.
Well, he had to go after thatone.
He had to find that one becausethey were watching a week
before season started and histarget buck, which was a really
nice four by four, was walkingby on camera with its lower jaw
hanging straight down.
So Cougar got a hold of it andhe's like well, it might be
(16:19):
there.
No, it's gone.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
That's a sad one.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
But yeah, there's all kinds of reasons that you have
to be able to pivot.
But when you increase yourknowledge base you're pivoting.
But you're pivoting to afamiliar skills.
You know, oh, this isn't goingto work in this situation, so,
but I know this other skill willwork for this particular
situation.
Or you know habitat or thingslike that.
(16:43):
So, yeah, it's, we definitelytry to drill that into anybody
we work with and you know we tryto teach.
Just, broaden that skill set,you know.
Broaden your knowledge so thatyou know what a smart pivot is,
what a smart move is to the nextthing, because this thing isn't
going to work or doesn't workor you know, for whatever
(17:05):
happens.
So, going back, let's talkabout and you know you can go
back on your soapbox if you needto but why was spring bear
taken away in Washington?
What was the, what was thethought process there?
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Oh boy, I'm going to try to find a way to answer this
without getting too fired up.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
And I had a feeling I might stir some things up, but
I was willing to take the risk.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Did we just step on a hormone?
Yeah, so there is a lot of lackof science, there's a lot of
emotional responses, there's alack of education yeah, that one
really irritates me.
On what bears are, what thecarrying capacity is in
Washington State per unit.
And so people get this idea of,like I said earlier mentioned,
(17:52):
that they believe they'reendangered.
So you know, that's the firstthing.
And then there's this emotionalresponse of not only do we
believe they're endangered,which is nonsense, but you know,
these evil hunters are goingout and they're shooting sows
with cubs.
That is not what's happening.
So there's not a hunter onethat I deal with, and remember,
I'm in an outdoor industry.
(18:13):
I build wall tents for a living.
I deal with hunters every dayof my life.
They are not categorically, arenot going out and targeting
sows with cubs what they'reseeing in the spring what
they're seeing is the naturaldisbursement.
So this is the time of yearwhere the cubs are leaving mama,
the older cubs, not the brandnew ones.
(18:34):
So you're going to start to seethose smaller size bears
running around, running througha clear cut, because they don't
know any better, they justhaven't learned.
And so you see more of them andthe uneducated mind says, oh my
gosh, a hunter's killed theirparents, right they?
killed mom and dad.
They took them.
They just didn't even think,you know.
First off, we shouldn'tanthropomorphize animals you
(18:57):
know, I'm just saying you know.
The second thing is that ifthey were educated they would
understand.
These bears are going through anatural process of dispersion
and they are to be expected tobe seen in the spring, away from
their mother.
And again, I'm not talkingabout some little teeny tiny cub
here, the normal long yearlingsI'd call them, you know.
And mom's had enough of them Iget the point.
(19:19):
You know, at some point you'relike kid get out.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
You've graduated high school, time to move out.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Yeah, you need to get your own groceries.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
And so that's what they're seeing.
So that was one of thearguments made against the
spring hunt was the take of sows, and you know the Bear
Foundation and others weretalking about that and it's like
well, let's follow that logicout in the fall.
So if it's not okay to takethem in the spring, why would it
(19:47):
be okay to take them in thefall?
It's not.
So there's no difference in thepeople in the landscape is my
point.
There's the same hunter whetherhe's out in the spring or he's
out in the fall hunting thebears.
It made no logical sense to meto say we should remove a spring
hunt because of you know, wecould decimate the population.
(20:08):
Well, we've had a spring huntfor a long time and there's
still a lot of bears in thestate.
So your argument is mute.
So that was a big portion of it.
There is a lot of stuff comingout right now.
I mean, if you watch anythingfrom like Sportsman's Alliance
et cetera, they're putting someemails out that came from the
commission that they're not thegreatest things to have out
(20:32):
there.
I would be embarrassed, quitehonestly, to have something like
that.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Just bad information.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Oh, I'm going to avoid some of that.
I think there's going to be alot of things coming up.
There's a lot of stuff beingsaid, said.
I would like to read some moreof it before I make an official
opinion on it yeah but there's alot of things that are just not
good.
That happened with the gamecommission.
In that whole there's a debacle.
It was really what it was,despite what their own
(21:00):
biologists were saying and thechoices that they made.
So there's a lot of bitterness.
There's still a lot of anger inwhen we talk about doing the
bear seminars at the shows.
I talked to the management and Isaid let's not talk about
spring in this particular venuebecause there's still a lot of
anger among the hunters about it, and it's rightfully so, when
(21:22):
we are not listened to, when thebiologists are saying here's a
sustainable take, and they'resaying no, no, no, it's yeah,
the whole thing was not good.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
So what do they estimate that the?
And we fall back on Washington.
We're located in Washington andI know other states manage
everything differently, some ofthem probably much better.
Washington has not managedcertain aspects of fishing game
(21:56):
well, but what do they estimatethe population in Washington to
be a black bear.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
So the current estimate that I read was about
27,000 bears.
You know I always take allthose numbers with a grain of
salt.
They cannot be everywhere atevery time when they're trying
to do a population study.
I love reading populationstudies, so they're really,
really interesting to me.
So if you, let's say, we put upa camera trap and we want to
(22:27):
start counting bears, so I putup a camera and you have 10
black bears, go by the camera.
Well, did you have 10 blackbears?
That are individuals, or didyou have?
Speaker 1 (22:36):
one black bear that went by 10 times right.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
So the biologists, being smart, said, oh, we got to
come up with something better.
So they put up these wire trapsand basically they just grab a
little tough to hair as the beargoes by.
So now we can prove right bythe DNA coming off, that that we
did in fact have 10 individualsgoing by, and along with that
(22:59):
is you establish a genetic base.
So you're like okay, we knowthat we have a great population
based on the diversity in thegenetic material.
So you know you don't have abunch of inbreeding, etc.
If that makes sense.
So again it's a science.
I absolutely love that whereyou can prove and I, because I
do hunt other states that havegrizzly bear populations.
(23:21):
I like talking to theconservation officers about such
things and they're always funnybecause at first they're like
you know, they're careful toanswer questions because they
don't want to let you know wherethe grizzly bears are.
And I'm like look, I'm nottargeting your grizzly bear.
You know, we're not that kind ofpeople.
I am genuinely trying tounderstand how they move through
the environment so I canunderstand how they affect the
black bear movements, which aresomething that I'm hunting.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
And understand why they're doing what they're doing
and how these species interact.
So one of the things that theywere doing in the one state they
had collared 30 differentgrizzlies and they took genetic
sampling from each one and ofcourse, the ultimate goal is
eventually this is, I know, ahot button issue, but it's to
open up the grizzly bear huntagain.
Hot button issue, but it's toopen up the grizzly bear hunt
(24:10):
again and to prove that theyhave enough diversity in that
genetic sampling that they cansustainably take X amount of
number of bears from thepopulation and it won't hurt the
population at all.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
And would this be lower 48?
Yeah, okay, is there any?
There's no states that allowgrizzly hunting in the lower 48?
Not yet, okay.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
There was a brief time where, like Idaho had
opened it up they actually did.
Then it was resident only andone guy got the tag and then the
courts of course, shut thathunt down and it hasn't come
back on the table yet, but it'ssomething we're definitely
watching and again it's a hotbutton issue, like the wolf
thing.
But I am not against grizzlybear hunting.
I think it needs to be verycarefully managed and watched
(24:49):
over like any other animal onthe planet.
Again, I'm not for eradication,you know.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Okay, I know that there was a proposal, or at
least I've heard a proposal,about introducing grizzlies back
into Washington, and I knowoccasionally they'll dip down in
the Northern Cascades from.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Canada.
They'll come down Sure.
They don't need visas andpassports and they don't
recognize boundaries.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
So yes, absolutely, they just show up when they feel
like it because they're agrizzly bear Kind of can do what
they want.
Fact the only concern I knowfor introducing grizzlies that
I've heard is like so friendswho might go elk hunting where
there are grizzlies or deerhunting are always head on a
(25:34):
swivel.
They're just very nervous.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
You know potentially?
Speaker 2 (25:39):
And I get that.
So I just got back not too longago from a spring hunt in Idaho
and where I'm at there's a goodgrizzly population.
So I do travel differentlythrough the environment.
I do hunt differently in thoseareas.
I'm way more cautious in how mysetups are done and where I
(26:01):
would take a stand, for example,or let's say where you'd put a
tree stand or a blind, etc.
They definitely affect how Imove through the environment and
that's where my question markcame for how they affect the
black bears and how they movethrough the environment and
there needs to be some studiesdone on how grizzly bears affect
(26:22):
the black bear population.
I think it's really importantbecause when we're reintroducing
a species right, we're going totake this species and we're
putting back on the area Great.
So how is that species going toaffect the rest of them?
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
And how do they all play together?
That's a very importantquestion that has not been
answered.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Well, and it was interesting seeing some stuff
online regarding wolves and youknow people well, they have the
right to be here, but I justkind of had gotten curious.
So at the time Idaho had 1,541wolves that they knew of.
So I just started doing theresearch how many elk will 1,541
(27:03):
?
wolves consume 27,000 a year,and that's not including
anything else.
How many elk will 1,541 wolvesconsume 27,000 a year, and
that's not including anythingelse.
And I'm like, okay, can thepopulation of elk replenish
itself Fast enough?
No and no, no, it can't.
So then it causes, yeah, thingsto dwindle.
So, thinking about so 27,000black bear going back to black
bear now and I think I justpulled up those numbers and
(27:31):
there were about 1,800 harvestedin the whole state for last
year, because we were talkingabout how to look that
information up yeah, so is 1,800out of 27,.
Is that a sustainable, whatwould be a sustainable harvest
rate for 27,000 bear?
Speaker 2 (27:43):
See that's what's interesting when you start
talking about the harvest rates,so you have to factor in not
just harvest rates.
We want to look at totalmortality.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Yes, the total mortality.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
So you have the ones that hunters take, you have the
ones that are damage removals,you have the accidents the bear
that gets hit on the road.
That stuff happens, then youhave predation.
You know the bear that gets hiton the road.
That stuff happens, then youhave predation, right.
So bear on bear, grizzly bearon black bear, I mean wolf on
black bear, cougar on black bearthere's a lot of things that'll
(28:18):
take those cubs.
And then you know grizzlies andfull-grown bears.
It's not a problem there.
There's goodness sakes.
You can see it online all thetime.
There'll be a short video ofsome grizzly bear hauling a big
old black bear up the hill right, he's killed and he's going to
eat him.
So all of those things factorin and, I think, need to be
taken in the totality when westart setting our harvest quotas
(28:40):
.
We'll call it.
One of those things that theytouched on at the game
commission meeting I was on orat, was the amount of sow
mortality.
So that's our future bearsright our recruitment.
So if we take too many sows outthen we're not going to have a
sustainable hunt because therewon't be recruitment in the
future.
So I absolutely agree withthose being set.
(29:02):
I think that's propermanagement.
But what that looks like goesback to that carrying capacity
that I touched on earlier.
That number can't be universal,it just can't.
What is appropriate for an eastside bear population mortality
rate will not be appropriate fora coastal bear range or western
Washington.
(29:22):
Those numbers are significantlydifferent and more research, I
think, should be done.
But is the sustainable numberthat we took last?
Yeah, absolutely, you know,even if you look at, let's say
this is ridiculous.
But let's say 50% of thatnumber of 27,000 is sows.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Okay, let's just cap it at 50% and let's cut it down
again.
Let's say 25% of those areactually of breeding age,
because you figure a three to afive-year-old bear somewhere in
there in the state of Washingtonis when they're going to start
breeding.
And then you figure, you knowtwo to five cubs.
Five is extreme, I have seen it, her paws were full right, but
(30:04):
two is average.
And then you figure inmortality rate on those bears.
You're nowhere near, nowherenear removing 1,800, causing a
problem.
I mean you just the mathdoesn't support the anti-hunters
of.
Oh, we're going to decimate thepopulation, not even close.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Now, do you know or remember when there was a spring
bear hunt?
Oh yeah, you know or rememberwhen there was a spring bear
hunt?
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
I took a beautiful bear.
The last time I drew a springbear tag it was for 49 degrees
north and had a wonderful huntand took a really nice, really
nice bear.
And that's very sad to mebecause I look now and they have
a lot of conflict up in thatunit with bears.
So they have a tremendous ofconflict up in that unit with
bears, so they have a tremendousbear population and now they
(30:50):
have no spring hunt right tohelp keep the numbers in Jack.
So it's a very sad thing for uslosing this hunt.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
How long was the spring bear hunt?
Was it a month-long season oroh?
Speaker 2 (30:59):
goodness it's been so long.
I want to say it was longerthan that.
When did they take away springbear?
That would have been.
Let me look that up for you soI don't give you the wrong date.
I've got so many of them.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Because I remember it was mid-90s when they stopped
the baiting and the dogs.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Yeah, and that was another change.
That was not good.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Yeah, that was right after actually, I met Dave and I
remember they announced that onthe news and he's like, yeah,
you're going to start seeing anexplosion in bear and cougar
numbers.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Yeah, that's a fact.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
And I know he used to go out and rarely, if ever, see
a cougar on camera or anythinglike that, and now it's pretty
common.
You know I've gotten cougar onmy camera.
I always get bear on all of mysets yeah and even if I'm not
running it now, I'm not runningany type of bait, but if you
have any type of lure scent thatmimics the smell of of a bait,
(31:58):
sure yeah, that was a deer, butyeah, you would see you'll have
bear come by and at least checkthings out.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
So that was 2022.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
I wanted to say it was 21, but I was like I don't
think that's right.
It was 2022.
So a few years now without itand, like I said, it's been a
sad loss.
There's a lot of anger aboutthat.
But back to numbers.
So I've been doing somestudying on this for different
units that I hunt in thespringtime, and one of the
things that I do this is part ofmy scouting, but, anyhow, one
(32:29):
of the things that I do is Ilook at the numbers specifically
, like we were just talkingabout the take numbers.
And then some states make iteasier than others to find those
numbers.
Their harvest reports areeasier to come by Some of them
you kind of have to dig a littlebit to get to their harvest
reports, and so when we starttalking spring specifically,
there's two things I'm lookingfor in the unit.
(32:50):
The first is not just the take,but it's the take over several
years, not just one year,because you can have a really
large, for whatever reason.
A large take one year and thenfive years later, you know you
look at it and they're justpitiful.
And it's not because of a lackof bears, it's just a lack of
opportunity.
Because when you think aboutspring, one of the things that
(33:11):
affects us is the weather.
So that will affect where thebears are going to be in the
landscape.
Are they going to be in a placewhere you can actually get to
Burms snow berms are notuncommon and to lock people out
of areas.
So I like to look at weatherpatterns too.
But we'll come back to the bearpopulation.
So I'm going to look at thenumbers of what's being taken
(33:32):
and then hopefully most of themdo.
You'll look at the number ofsows being taken.
That one tells me what I canexpect in the bear population in
the future.
So if I see like a 50%mortality on the sows, my
eyebrow goes up.
That's a lot of sows to takelike.
If they're 50% of the take,that's a lot of sows to take out
of a unit most of them are notthat high.
(33:54):
They're just not, but that'ssomething to factor into your
thinking.
So if this is a unit thatyou're going to study and you
want to be part of and, like thenext 10 years, I'm going to
hunt spring bear here, rightthis, you want to have that good
population basis to sustain thehunt.
For you as a person, it's notthat there's not bears there,
(34:17):
it's that it gives you moreopportunity.
I do a lot of mentoring.
So, if I'm going to takesomebody out, I want to take
them to a place where we havethe opportunity because the
bears present themselves moreoften.
There's enough bears to presentmore opportunities for that new
to the game hunter.
So those are things to thinkabout.
(34:38):
And then a lot of the states doset a limit on their sow.
Take per unit.
Again, I don't like it whenit's a universal number.
I don't think that's goodscience.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
So a limit on sow, the amount of sows that can be.
How do you, how would they goabout limiting the amount of?
It's?
Like the first 50 people whoshow up with a sow and then they
okay.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
So it makes sense if you.
it depends on the state, but alot of them have mandatory
checks, so especially if it's astate that classifies the bear
as a fur bearer if it's a furbearer, there's extra rules, and
so not only are they going totake biological samples from it,
they're going to seal the hide,but they're also going to
record whatever information theycan, and one of those is going
(35:23):
to be the sex of the bear.
So certain states, once theyhit enough of the bears, come in
and they're being checked andthey look and they go okay, well
, we're in unit whatever, pick athing, this is unit abc well
abc.
We took five percent of the takeso far and it's been female.
So they shut the hunt down okaymakes sense, so it's.
(35:43):
It's based on the peoplereporting their take and that's
just the way it is, but that'sto maintain a sustainable
harvest so as a hunter.
I'm for for that because itmakes logical sense.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Will they typically just shut down the hunt entirely
?
It depends on the state.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
So it might be a unit by unit, it could be a specific
region we'll call it which is amix of units.
It just depends.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
And I saw Washington has.
I don't know if they're bear Imight be getting the term wrong
but bear management units.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Oh, is that what they're called?
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Yes, that's what they yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
And it's like there's nine regions and but those are,
they kind of manage all theunits within those regions.
The same, not exactly.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
So there's like don't I?
I want to let me pull this up,so I I keep screenshots on my
phone of papers and studies andwhatnot, but I believe it is
okanagan that's one of them thatthey have limited.
It's definitely one of the oneswith the later opener.
They went from august 1 toaugust 15th I'm looking for the
(36:53):
study for the.
So they have an intrinsicgrowth rate which is 8% in
Washington state.
So what they're getting at iswe don't want to go beyond that
for our female mortality.
So if our female mortalityreaches that in Washington state
specifically, they said the wayI read it was they were going
(37:14):
to close it down two weeksearlier.
But yeah, and again, it's notthat I find fault with the
system of yes, we should have acap because we do want a future
of sustainable harvest.
I just really disagree withthat universality of 8% cap or
whatever.
Pick a number across the entirestate.
(37:36):
That's not appropriate.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Yeah, it should be Different, habitat different.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
It should be different based on the
populations of that.
Because if you think about that, there are certain places where
that might be too much, yeah,might be way too high, and
there's others where, gosh,you're not even in.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
No way too high.
And there's others where goshyou're not even in.
No, and not necessarily justpopulation, but how many hunters
are attracted to thatparticular area too.
So while it might have a reallyhuge population like twice the
population density, we'll say,even though that might not be
the right term, but of bear, butthat particular area attracts
(38:13):
four times the amount of bearhunters than another area.
So yeah, it's factoring.
There's a lot of factors thatwould go into it.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
And to touch on what you just said, there are states
that I've been to that I kind oflaugh a little bit.
I'll know when there's been apush for a specific species at a
specific time, because you'llsee all the out-of-state license
plates in one unit and what hashappened is the game department
has gone out and they'resending all those people to that
(38:40):
one particular unit and I seethat a lot.
So yeah, it's not just apopulation study, it's a of a
social study there too, yeah,who's coming?
Yes.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
So, going forward from here, what in your mind
should be done to protect thefuture bear hunting, to
potentially bring back Althoughit's the government Whenever
they take something away?
They never give it back, butthinking about, we have new
people on the game commission.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Yes, very excited about that.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Who seem I think three people were replaced and
they all seem very pro-hunting.
Yeah, but not.
That's just me reading theirbios.
But going forward, what aresome things that people could be
should be doing too?
Speaker 2 (39:30):
So I think there's several things that we can do,
could be should be doing too.
So I think there's severalthings that we can do.
The first one, the easiest one,is do you belong to some kind
of a conservation organization?
Not all of us have the luxuryof being able to attend game
meetings or other importantvotes because we have to work.
It's a sad reality of life.
I would love to be at everysingle thing, but I can't.
(39:53):
So if I'm not in the shop, themachines aren't going up and
down, the needles aren't goingthrough the fabric and I'm not
making the tents for a guythat's waiting on his tent.
On the other hand, some ofthese organizations have
full-time paid staff and it istheir job right.
That's why we donate to them asa business.
That's why I donate to them.
Job right.
(40:13):
That's why we donate to them asa business.
That's why I donate to them isto then I go to their banquets
and support them is so that theycan support these efforts here
in the state, for not just theconservation of the habitat,
which is absolutely, you know,100% behind that, but there's
legislation that needs to happenas well and our voice needs to
be heard.
So that's that's my first step.
If you can do nothing else,then support these orgs that are
(40:35):
doing the jobs for you, andthat brings me to like.
One of those would be AmericanBear Foundation and specifically
the Washington chapter.
So you'll see them at the gamecommissions or they'll sign up
online to speak to fight for ourfuture of bear hunting online
to speak to fight for our futureof bear hunting.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Now, do they have?
So they have the Washingtonbranch.
Do they have local?
Is it a setup where there canbe local clubs within?
Speaker 2 (41:03):
So it's not that big yet.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Okay no-transcript.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
And so they're stepping up and saying what can
I do?
So that brings us back to yourquestion.
So, first off, you know, belongto some kind of an organization
like that that's going to help.
Howl for Wildlife's a good one.
They are really good aboutposting action items that are
easy for us to get on and, mygosh, I may not be able to be at
the meeting that day, but I canhit a button right and send an
(41:59):
email out.
They make it very simple for us.
And then you know, there's thein-person meaning can you go
like I did here?
And hopefully I want to makethis next meeting?
I really hope to do it and showup.
Show up and use your voice.
I think we need to be respectfulright.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
Yes, we need to be careful because people are angry
, and I get it.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
I get the anger, but I think when we speak with
passion, not emotion, those arevery different ideas.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
With passion for the things we love and we bring
about the science behind it, thelogic behind it.
You can't refute that.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
I mean, the things that they come up with are
butterflies and you know it'sterrible.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
And you know, to support that we, having just
recently gone through the periodwhere we were giving feedback
and we were encouraging ourlisteners to give feedback for
the CWD- yes.
And how that affected the blacktail hunting and statewide.
And we, you know, we kind of,after things settled, we gave
(43:04):
our thoughts about all that.
But yeah, you know, we tellpeople join the Black Tail Deer
Foundation, you know Exactly Ifit's a type of hunting that is
important to you, or even Iwould say, even if it's a mild
interest.
Usually the dues every year are$35.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Right, they're cheap.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
So you know if it's within your budget.
I say join them all, Right,because then they all have money
to go and advocate on yourbehalf.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
And that's what we're paying them to do to go
advocate for a bunch of us onour behalf.
And they are the ones who putmoney into studies or are
looking up these studies thatmaybe different states do.
Going back to the CWD, you knowwhat did this state do?
How was that effective?
Okay, it wasn't effective.
So why are we doing that herein Washington?
You know things along thisstate do.
How was that effective?
Okay, it wasn't effective.
So why are we doing that herein Washington?
You know things along thoselines, and I'm sure that touches
(43:57):
in on Bayer as well.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Absolutely.
And so I think there's the twoparts, like we just mentioned,
you know, belonging to anorganization, going ourselves to
these meetings.
The third part, I think, is apersonal responsibility, meaning
our daily interactions withpeople as we talk to them.
We can carefully you don't wantto be a jerk, right, and I hate
(44:24):
to hunt those people that areso like in your face about every
little tiny thing and maybethat's just not on your radar
but I think we can educatepeople in an appropriate fashion
and just speaking to them aboutwhy we're passionate about the
things we do.
So one of the things that ourcompany participates in is
called Ladies Hunting Camp andwe go there and we teach all
(44:46):
kinds of things.
It's a phenomenal resource forwomen who need a mentor and need
to get out and aren't surewhere to begin.
So there's classes on shootingmany types, so archery, modern
firearm, muzzleloader, pistol.
You know they've got NRAcertified instructors, they've
got all the things there andthen I teach predator hunting,
(45:08):
which is where I'm going withthis.
So one of the things one of thegals was talking to me about
when she came to my class shesaid it just wasn't a blip on my
radar, it just wasn't you know,deer are okay, and she kind of
came into the class with alittle bit of a chip on her
shoulder and you know, like, whyare you taking these barriers?
How could you do that kind of athing?
But she said, man, you were sological and the things that you
(45:31):
said made sense to me.
Where it's a balanced approachto managing our resources, it's
not just about, you know, takinga bear to take a bear.
I love the bear.
That animal is fascinating tome and because I love that
particular animal, I've studiedit and I try to support the
(45:52):
organizations that support itshabitat.
But sometimes that meansbelonging to like Mule Deer
Foundation or Black Tail,because they are also protecting
the habitat for the sameanimals, and so I don't
necessarily distinguish betweenan organization for that purpose
.
But I think just being able toturn people's opinion by our
(46:15):
logic and our passion again notan emotional thing, you know,
cry me a river.
No, it has to be.
Yes, I'm passionate about it,but here are my logical reasons
for why I do what I do.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
Excellent, all right.
Thanks for joining us for partone of four of Black Bear
Hunting with Heather AldrichTune in next week and for the
next three weeks.
Excellent, all right.
Thanks for joining us for partone of four black bear hunting
with heather aldrich tune innext week and for the next three
weeks, and we're going to do adeep dive on the how to bear
hunting.
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