#383: Mike Phillips — How to Save a Species

Optimal minimal. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. So then I'll see you personally quite. Now it is. A cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal empty scale. No

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Well hello, boys and girls, dingoes and wombats. Ladies, this is Tim Ferris and welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show, and I am mentioning more animals than usual for a reason. My job every episode. as some of you may know, is to deconstruct world class performers and or people who are extremely well known in their respective fields to deconstruct How they do what they do. behaviors, influences, and so on that make them different. And my guest this episode is Mike Phillips.

And there's really something for everyone in this episode, whether You want to get a better understanding of the natural world in ecology, or you just want to avoid being mauled by bears if you're in bear country. There's something for you. Mike Phillips. Mike has served as the executive director of the Turner Endangered Species Fund and the advisor to the Turner Biodiversity Division since he co-founded both with Ted Turner in June of nineteen ninety seven. Before that, Mike worked for the US Department of Interior, leading historic efforts to restore red wolves to the southeastern U.S.

and Grey Wolves to the Yellowstone National Park. If you've seen the video online. How wolves change rivers on YouTube with 40 million plus views. That is a short story or reflection of those efforts. He also conducted important research on the impacts of oil and gas development on grizzly bears in the Arctic, predation costs for gray wolves in Alaska, and dingo ecology in Australia in two thousand six. Mike was elected to the Montana House of Representatives. He served there until elected to the Montana Senate in 2012. His service in the Senate will extend through 2020.

And Mike received his master's in science in wildlife ecology from the University of Alaska and his Bachelor's of Science in Ecology from the University of Illinois. So this episode And past conversations with Mike. have led me to find the opportunity that I'm currently most excited about. Aside from

psychedelic research at places like Hopkins and Imperial College and elsewhere. This has become What I'm most excited about. And uh we'll get to what that is in the episode. But I had the same feeling with this, and it's not a common feeling, but the same tingle in the belly.

feeling that I had When I was first looking at getting involved with some of the startups that I've been involved with in early stages, Duolingo, Facebook, Twitter, Shopify. So when you say engage Or meet, I should say, a small team. like the Shopify team at the time, which was something like

Ten or twelve people. There's sometimes a tingle in the belly. that reflects the feeling, the realization that this could be really, really big.

This could really be huge and it makes sense. And so we will talk about in this episode something that triggered that same response in me where I'm gonna be applying a lot of focus. And without further ado. Please enjoy.

A At times very hilarious. at times very profound and certainly wide ranging conversation with Mike Phillips. I

Mike, welcome to the show. Well Jim, it's my pleasure to be here. I I couldn't remember that I'd done all those things. So thank you for reminding me of where I have been in the past. Well, I I may do more of that. Uh One of those Those old memories.

that I I thought we might stoke. is related to grizzly bears. And you and I connected through another scientist who recommended we speak, which came about because long ago I saw a video and we'll probably talk about this, but how wolves change rivers, which led me to reach out to my friend Sanjan, who's been on this podcast before, Conservation International, and he led me Kevin, who led me to you. And

That's the background for people listening. Grizzly bears, I'm looking at one of these bullets. And it says That their muzzles are bloodstained, but their teeth are green. Could you

Explain why that why why why that is. That's a great start, Tim. Thank you. Well, many years ago I was uh studying grizzly bear behavior and habitat use in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. in anticipation of oil and gas development. But for a period of time I was part of a A capture crew. We would

We would dart grizzly bears from helicopters, the the drug would take effect, the bear would lay down and go to sleep, and and my job on the capture crew was to was to extract a primolar. If you if you take a tooth from a grizzly bear or m many other animals for that matter, You can section the tooth very finely, and just like with a tree. you can come up with a good estimate of age by counting annually uh yearly

Growth rings. So my job was to be the local dentist and pull a tooth from this grizzly bear. Uh every bear that I handle, Tim. The Mosuls were bloody. uh dried blood or wet blood and the muzzles were bloody because at that time of the year grizzly bears were making extensive use of caribou calves.

The porcupine caribou herd. A hundred and forty thousand animals strong. They calve en masse on the coastal plain of Northern Alaska. Well grizzly bears know this and interest in a pulsive animal protein in early summer, so they go out to the coastal plain and they They hunt these caribou calves and you know quite successfully for at least a few days. So every one of these bears had a bloody muzzle.

And you think, well, this is a what a fantastic carnivore, bloody muzzles. But every bear that I handled that I pulled the tooth from when I would pull the the the lips of the bear back to get at the teeth Their teeth were all green. The teeth weren't bloody, the teeth were stained a deep green. And the message to that story or the lesson from that story is looks can be deceiving.

Grizzly bears all over the world. mostly subsist on vegetation. They eat so much vegetation. that their teeth are stained green, at least uh animals I handled in the Arctic. In contrast That flash of animal protein in the form of a few caribou calves across a few days gives you this dramatic portrayal of predation with blood on the muzzle.

Ah, but she was for the ecology of the great bear. They're mostly living on plants. Sometimes things aren't as they seem. Yeah, I uh I I may share some

some grizzly bear stories later, but I've I've spent some time in the Brooks range in Alaska. And Uh always wondered about that because I've I've been to the Brooks Range during caribou migrations and have seen grizzly bears, which at least the locals uh sometimes referred to as barren ground grizzlies because there's there's almost no tree cover. At least where I was. And uh it seemed very, very, very difficult for them to

Uh to catch caribou. Uh in in in which case what's left? It's green. Yeah, the i it is tough. It is barren ground country. There are there are no trees. You're well north the tree line. There's some of the shrubs. are big enough they begin to resemble trees. This work was done in the Brooks range, so y you and I spent uh time in the same country. It is a tough place to make a living. The the bears don't have access to a long growing season. They've gotta be smart about what they do.

And the the smart bear understands that while I might kill a a few caribou calves over the course of a couple of days, and when you understand caribou, caribou give birth to what would be called uh followers. The caribou calf would in short order. A day or two is able to follow the herd. Without any problem.

In contrast, other ungulates ho hoofed mammals. Uh like white tailed deer. White tailed deer. uh give birth to hiders. It takes a white tailed deer fawn longer to mature, so their strategy is to be very good at hiding.

Caribou calves. Without a lot of country to hide in. Oh boy, they give birth to followers and those calves get up and go and in short order are very capable at following the herd. So capable. Oh, they they can outrun a grizzly bear at two or three or four days of age. And and so the bears have this very narrow window of opportunity as that calf is beginning to get his hooves underneath him, so to speak. You you could have taken so many different

career paths. You could have studied so many different things. How did you end up Focusing so much on predators. Well, I'm I'm intrigued by rareness. as an ecologist, I'm intrigued by raress and and by definition just the way every natural system is structured.

The way energy flows through a system, carnivores are always relatively uncommon. certainly far more uncommon than the prey that they consume, and of course the prey are more uncommon than the plants that they consume. So so I've I've been intrigued by predation for a long time I'm intrigued by carnivores because of rarity and early in my career, Tim Uh even before I did grizzly bear work.

I was deeply uh situated in the world of wolf conservation. And and while grey wolves are fantastic and I'm fascinated by grey wolves, I'm fascinated by lots of native life forms. Grey Wolves gave me the chance to focus on restoration. Because when I started Grey Wolf work Uh back in nineteen eighty.

Yeah, I've been working on wolf recovery nearly Daily now since nineteen eighty. When I began, uh grey wolves were very, very, very uncommon. And and I was seduced. I was seduced him by this notion of restoration. Taking something That was a mis.

and putting it back together again. That that's that's what uh kept me fixated. if you will, on on carnivores and and restoration. And why not become an attorney or a math teacher or a uh an Instagram model? Why did you choose Why did you choose nature? Why did you choose ecology? Was there any Formative experience.

or conversation fork in the road that led you into that world to begin with. Yeah, well dude, I would be a lousy model. So that's not on the that that ain't gonna happen, buddy. Now, teaching is valuable and important uh serving As an attorney, we're a country guided by laws, that's important too. Those are wonderful ways to contribute. But I am at at my core.

an outdoor guy. I I I knew when I was twelve years old, back in nineteen seventy, I saw on my parents little black and white TV. You know, back in the day you got A B C, C B S, NBC, or PBS. That was it. I saw In nineteen seventy on that little black and white TV, the National Geographic Special

on the pioneering grizzly bear research being done in Yellowstone Park by John and Frank Craighead. And I said to myself, at twelve years of age, I wanna do that. And and I would have you believe, Tim, that I might have bested the Craig Edge about eighteen years later. I was in Yellowstone National Park. I was studying a large carnivore, but not one that was naturally occurring, but uncommon. The Craigheads and Grizzly Bears, I was actually working to restore A species that had been extirpated. So this was a fire in my belly since I was twelve years of age.

And we are gonna talk about wolves, but I wanna get their vis vis A few other species, or at least one other species, and maybe some macro issues. You mentioned twelve years of age. You've obviously done a lot since age twelve. And we won't be able to cover all of the stories and all of the studies, but I have some notes Yeah.

And I have bullets for prompting certain things, and I actually don't know any of these stories. So there's one that clearly popped out and caught my eye because it sounds so odd. And I quote, I'm sure that the students in the dorm would be willing to donate used tampons to grizzly bear research. What what is the context on this? Well, now Tim, we are talking about women in Alaska, so Yeah.

But back in the day, back in the early nineteen eighties, there was this sense that Menstrual. Odor menstruating women shouldn't hike in grizzly bear country. And interestingly enough, there was some research that showed that menstrual fluid, uh actually the blood from menstrual fluid elicited as strong a response in polar bears as the odor of their primary prey, the ring seal.

So as I was building out my graduate research, I thought well maybe ja I could somehow test this on grizzly bears. And I thought if I could get women to help me, they would donate used tampons. I would then take the tampon and I would distill from that. Uh m mostly blood, but the m menstrual fluid. And then I I would take that fluid and I was gonna create these little It the story gets more interesting as we go. I was gonna take that uh and and with a small rock, I was gonna take a small rock and I was going to affix to the rock a uh a pr an a proper amount of s sphagna moss, something that would or or cotton, something that I could then dip in paraffin and and and create a small waxy ball that I could then take the menstrual fluid and inject into the small ball

That was designed to be fired from a crossbow so that when hit the ground near the grizzly bear, the little uh ball would the paraffin would blow up and expose the So and of course we'd have we would have had placebos and we would have shot water and we would have shot uh you know there was concern that toothpaste. uh got grizzly bears all excited. So it was an attempt to see uh just what kind of behavior could be elicited uh from grizzly bears odors from non food items. Uh and we were most intrigued about uh whether menstruating women should hike in Grizzly Bear country. As it turned out

Uh I wasn't able to get funding for the study. There was some concern that I wouldn't be good enough with my crossbow. I love that that was the concern. And it w the work would have been done in Denali Park, uh and and there was some you know concerned that visitors would see me shooting crossbows at grizzly bears thinking I might be trying to hurt him when when in fact I was So probably I would have done the work deep in the backcountry and And then there was some concern about safety because uh you know, a crossbow's a pretty powerful weapon and could be a pretty good delivery tool, but still I'd have to be relatively close and I'm purposely sort of agitating the bear to see if I can't elicit a bay. Anyway, to make a long story short, the study never got funded. What what what is the what is the

In your mind The The craziest study that you have gotten funded. Oh, the craziest study? Oh Tim, that's easy buddy. So when we let Red Wolves go back in the mid nineteen eighties Uh these were all captive born animals. And I was intrigued by the notion how would they transition to life in the wild. How would they transition from uh a life in captivity where they were fed, for example, to a life of self sufficiency in in in the wild.

And so I got up with the nuclear regulatory commission and a friend of mine, and we developed these uh radioactive shards. radioactive shards, it looked like a little piece of glass. that we could implant subcutaneously between the shoulder blades of the red wolves, just a small incision, tuck it under the skin, sew up the incision. And so we were making the red wolves radioactive so that when they would shit on the road and and I pick up their scats, I could I could identify a scat to an individual based on the radioactive signature. And I could look at how individual wolves, males and females with a known history coming out of captivity, how they individually transitioned a life in the wild to a life of self sufficiency, how did they sent mark Uh we we know grey wolves are so very social, they'll advertise their presence through scent marks, either urine or or feces, scats, or you know, shit.

And so I I purposely made Red Wolves radioactive. So I feel like in the f in the study that didn't get funded, you're trying to be some type of e ecological ninja with the crossbow. And here in in this one you're you're turning animals into X Men. Yeah. Yeah.

And we got that. We got that. I'm I may be the only wildlife biologist well, not but one of the few wildlife biologists that had Radioactive material showed up on my doorstep in this lead box with a permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. That's incredible. Yeah, it was a good study. I I'd like to test a uh

what might be an urban myth on you, but having spent some time Alaska and so on. Very common. for people to Uh

Pack. A firearm of some type. For defense with a grizzly. I had I had heard A

A story could be made up, but that at some point they took Rangers, I'm really struggling for vocab here, but they took something like six or ten of them and they had a barrel that they affixed to a line in a shooting range, if this is making any sense. So they could have the barrel go from far away Toward the person. with say a a 40 caliber handgun. And it's something like nine out of ten missed this barrel when it was sent straight at them. And then they

Did they replicated the experiment with a large canister of bear spray. And perhaps not surprisingly, everybody managed to hit this barrel that was that was careening towards them.

Uh what are the most effective Deterrence. uh or or defensive tools. With respect to grizzlies. Yeah, you know when I did my work with Chris Lee's

in the far Arctic, it was back in the eighties, there was no bear spray back in the day, but w we wouldn't carry handguns. We carried shotguns and On more than one occasion I should have been killed by Grizzly Bears. I'm really fortunate to be here. I got lucky. Uh I got lucky'cause I I I I made some bad decisions and put myself in a compromise position and if the bear had beat me up it would have been completely my fault.

Uh, and and it was such a remote study area that I wouldn't have been Ah shoot, man, I probably never would have been found. But nonetheless, so today here's what we know. Here's what we know about Grizzly Country. Uh. Bear spray works.

You gotta keep it at the ready. So you want it holstered on your belt, y you want to practice with some Uh Placebo can, so'cause when when when the shit goes down and you gotta act, y you don't wanna be acting for the first time. Novelty can kill. No.

Uh you wanna you wanna hike with an awareness, you wanna pay attention to where you are, you wanna pay attention to your surroundings, you wanna be cautious when you go into an area where the view shed is limited. There's great value in hiking in a group. Uh I I don't know of any cases where a group of hikers that's four strong or more has has been uh uh has been confronted with a physical encounter with Grizzly Bears mindful. Most of these encounters, nearly all of them. It's not the grizzly bears' fault. They're startled, they're scared, they're frightened, they just react. And so y you should be mindful that you're probably at fault.

Use your bear spray. If if there's gonna be physical contact, you do not want to fight back in a case like that, you wanna protect soft parts. And y you want to lay still as hard as you can. You don't want to move, you don't want to fight back. Uh almost all the time, Tim, the bear will beat you up a bit and they'll leave you alone. And he'll leave.

The exception to that is uh if the bear comes into your tent. If if the bear's coming into your tent That's different behavior. That could be considered predatory behavior. You want to fight as hard as you can fight in that situation,'cause that bear has a different motive. But the fact is, folks, grizzly bears are no reason not to go enjoy your great big wild country. They're a magnificent part of the world. You give'em half a chance they're gonna avoid you. Uh they don't want anything to do with you. You don't represent anything but trouble. So for heaven's sake's hike smart. hike in groups, be prepared with bear spray. But for heaven's sakes, above all else, go hike.

So if you're hiking, just to clarify. And you startle Say. A female grizzly with a cub and you get charged.

Is the move to just Drop and go into the fetal position. Uh Is is that the most appropriate response? If if if you don't have bear spray. Let's just Yeah, if you don't have bear spray and she's coming.

Get it down. Yeah. No. Yeah. Bearish will false charge.

I've been party to that, the false charge they'll stop. They'll start stomping on their front legs, they're clearly agitated. They'll start They'll start woofing at you and chomping their gums. When they do that, they're really upset. They're really frustrated and and and

Lots of times these false charges, Tim, while serious. don't result in physical contact. But what you just described. You wanna get down. You wanna accept whatever's coming. Protect your soft spots to the best of your ability.

And and and if the data mean anything. She'll give up. And and and she'll she'll leave you alone and and you can wait and she'll leave and you can get up and go get help. Yeah. Just one more thing, Tim, if people are hiking in Grizzly Country, another thing that is always a good idea. Uh if you stay on established trails.

The the grizzly bears know where those trails are. They they know where the people are. They know that you don't represent anything but a bunch of trouble. Uh and and so if you're where you're supposed to be and they know it, that's another way to hedge your best. My Lord, my family and I have camped along Yellowstone Lake in the park and We'll wake up in the morning and Move out of camp to the main trail.

thirty yards away and there's fresh grizzly bear tracks right on the trail and The bear the bear knew we were in camp and knew that there was nothing there. We that people have for a long time now kept clean camps. And if you do go off of the established trails. If you're excited by bushwhacking, I know I am, uh then I'm especially careful to keep an eye out. I listen I look.

If I'm in a restricted view shed, I go slow. I sometimes sing. I got a Jerry Jeff Walker tune that I sing in Grizzly Bear Country that would scare anything away. Very good advice. And I've been taking notes.

because I do spend time in bear country, but I think I've taken enough notes for now on bears specifically. Now I'd like to segue back to large predators and ecosystems in general. I'll mention also to people listening just a little bit of context, which is That I wanted to be a marine biologist for fifteen years or so. And grew up on Long Island. where the at the time the rod and reel Record.

For Great white sharks had been set. And in fact The crazy shark Hunter in Jaws was based on a guy named Frank Mundus.

Who lived out on the east end in Montauk. With with sharks specifically and spent a lot of my time looking at sharks. Which later.

Much after I decided to take different career path. Uh Remurged. Uh uh and or re emerged rather with introduction to scientists.

uh operating mostly off of uh different Caribbean islands who were doing shark tagging and looking at uh the effects Like

Top down effects. Apex predators on various ecosystems. Uh could you talk to us just a little bit about the the effects? And some of these get exaggerated. Um but by some folks on the sort of conservation front, but nonetheless Could you describe what role

large predators or predators have in an ecosystem. Where do they fit? What happens if you extirpate, as you said, if you if you wipe out uh any Apex predator in an ecosystem. Well, the system becomes seriously compromised. And and here's why and we don't have to make reference to complicated science. We we can just make it simple.

Common sense. really matters. So let's let's uh let's start with the premise That life is the most important force in the universe. It seems like a reasonable thing to

to uh to assume We we know life is powerful, we we we know we know that. We know it has this great drive to find its way forward. Well if that's the case. Then death. Has to be almost as equally powerful.

And if you are А спеці, на організм, юрниу. That survives by delivering death. You have to кат, де ж нове. It works it works otherwise.

No. Now that said. For some of these ecological effects to be manifest. The carnivore in question, whether it's a great white shark or a grey wolf. for for for them to serve as ecological engineers, for them to perform this mighty important role of delivering death

They have to be common enough. For a long enough period of time. To matter. Just quite simply, Tim. One grey wolf.

In Yellowstone National Park. For one day does not make a whit of ecological difference. But but now imagine Oh, about a hundred grey wolves in the park? over the course of twenty plus years that begins to create this

S uh change this change that cr leads to a s system that's healthier, more resilient, more diverse, more capable of perpetuating itself. Going forward. If life matters Then so too does death. And if you are a deliverer of death.

You have to matter. What is what is Uh trophic cascade. And uh and I and then I I'd I'd like to go from that to discussion of

the reintroduction of Grey Wolves to Yellowstone National Park. Um And uh perhaps you could just give us a basic overview of of of what that is. And then Mm-hmm.

Uh. A tropic. J just a word that refers you can imagine the the the food pyramid. Uh and and a and a a tropic cascade is when Oh.

species at the top of the pyramid. relatively uncommon animals like grey wolves. Begin to have such a profound effect. On the next uh section, next layer.

Of the Food pyramid. But Those consequences cascade down through the rest of the pyramid. So for example

If there's enough grey wolves in place Killing enough elk in Yellowstone Park. And causing elk to change their behavior. The reduction in elk numbers and the change in behavior Can

Bring about cascading effects through that food pyramid by changing the vegetative structure. uh you can see more willows in parts of Yellowstone Park, you can see more aspen in parts of Yellowstone Park. Those woody species have had a chance to experience a release. A liberation, if you will, because there aren't quite so many elk. Keeping them at

two or three inches above the ground through heavy browsing, but rather those aspen and willows can grow up. And as they grow up. Sist uh there's other wide effects in the system. Casseran birds become more common.

The neotropics to the northern rockies and back again, all of that woody structure of an aspen forest, for example, provides great habitat for those pasture and birds. The increase in willow can provide forage for beavers that can now make a goal of it when they couldn't before. So because the Grey Wolf. Uncommon. is impacting a relatively more common price species in a manner that causes other parts of the system to change, that's that's where you get this cascading effect. through the trophic system through the food chain

through the food pyramid. That's all it speaks to. There's a rhythm to nature. And if you remove one piece. Uh the rhythm can be interrupted. And the the reason thank you very much, I w the reason that I wanted to To bring that up.

Uh Yeah. Uh well the reason I suppose is is actually a collection of reasons. The first is that Uh I think I, like many people uh w have assumed in the past that a a if you are interested in supporting or restoring ecosystems that

You start from the ground up. Right. So you go from sort of smallest to largest, if that makes sense. And Uh What And I want you to correct me if I'm wrong,'cause I'm gonna work through a lot of stuff that I don't

Yeah to understand, of course, is that where there while there may be uh many valid approaches for, say, restore or restoring soil and so on and working from the ground up that you can also and must also pay attention to the sort of top down effects. That include Carnivores.

Um And the and and like you said, the browsing patterns. Uh the feeding patterns of these herbivores like Elk.

which otherwise might be concentrated in certain areas isn't as concentrated when you reintroduce Uh Mm. Yeah. The

to natively uh previously natively occurring. Predators. Um Is that Accurate. Is that Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, of course it is. You've got it. It's It's pretty logical. Uh one of the reasons that you start with something like a grey wolf, they're they're absent. You know, grey wolves used to be very common in the country. Back in the day, they were the most common large mammal in the United States. You could find grey wolves from coast to coast, east to west, and And north to south. You could find'em on the grasslands, you could find them in the forest, you could find'em. In the swamps, you could find them in the deserts. They were widely distributed and we launched a war.

On the gray wolf that lasted oh gee whiz Tim th three hundred years. Why why why was the why was the war launched? Yeah, I think that that uh or early uh the early settlers of this country uh the European settlers had this So if the zealots embrace of a manifest destiny to tame the wilderness.

We we had to make the land predictable. So it could deliver for us. And one way to promote predictability is to remove those pieces that operate against their own set of sensibilities. You can remove wild and self willed nature from any landscape and it becomes more predictable. Far less Interesting, far less diverse. In the long run, far less capable of supporting humanity, but nonetheless.

In the short run, you might think oh this is better. This is better country now that we don't have grey wolves, and it's better country now that we don't have bison and and better country that we don't have Indians anymore. We we're gonna tame this landscape, we're gonna make it work for us. And that is fundamentally the essence of the manifest destiny that settled this country. We we simply were uh uh zealots, determined. To wring the wildness out of this country. And my gosh, Tim, if you can find a a better symbol of wildness than gray wolves, I'd like to know what it what it is.

So they got rid of grey wolves on purpose. They got rid of Grey Wolves on purpose because it didn't fit their sense of what this landscape this great country should be. How did how did that I mean the numbers I don't know what the numbers are, but they must be staggering. I mean the number of wolves that were killed. How does one

Implement That type of Mass. Extermination. Folks with

Yeah, twenty two. rifles in their backyard picking off one or two at a time. I mean there's there's it was there some systematic approach to it? Uh there certainly was. Now first and foremost, uh the approach was applied with great determination. The approach was durable. It extended across centuries.

And for a long time the approach was supported. and actively implemented by the federal government. And there were a lot of grey wolves shot, hundreds of thousands and probably well into millions of grey wolves were shot. They were trapped. uh dens were located.

Puppies were dragged out of dens and clubbed to death. uh there were lots of murderous means applied to whip the wolf, but what really Push the War.

to conclusion and and push the grey wolf to the brink of extinction in the continental United States. was broadcast use of poison. Grey wolves can get pretty smart and they can avoid traps and they can avoid getting shot and And they can den in tough to find places, but boy you start spreading

poison across the landscape and laced carcasses and my gosh, the grey wolves just don't have a response to that. You know, Tim, by the late nineteen fifties, you'd taken this most common carnivore. That's really quite easy to coexist with. We're taking this most common carnivore and by the late nineteen fifties.

You could only find a few hundred left in the Far northeastern corner of Minnesota. in the superior national forest in the boundary waters canoe area. So when I began my work with Gray Wolfson. Nineteen eighty, uh wasn't long after they had first been listed under the Endangered Species Act in the

The mid nineteen seventies it was nearly a low point when I began the work. My work uh I worked in Minnesota my first. Opportunity there might have been Maybe a thousand grey wolves on the ground. But they were nowhere else.

Since that low point in the mid seventies, many of us have been working tirelessly over the last many decades to restore the gray wolf to suitable habitat. So it's no longer threatened or endangered with extinction. We will definitely have time. to talk about that and uh As uh as as you mentioned

It's it certainly appears to be Yeah. Maybe not the only missing piece, but one of the last missing pieces. And so we are going to circle back to why that's important. And why it's

time sensitive. And I certainly feel strongly about that. And I don't I I have the luxury of of waiting for fat pitches. I don't I don't take a lot of shots, um And I remember a a a f a uh friend of mine who actually

long ago uh worked for uh governor of a large state. He said to me when we were having Pizza and wine one time. uh s as I was feeling torn among many different causes and opportunities and obligations and invitations and so on, he said, You should just imagine that you have

A six shooter. on your hip that has six bullets and you get to shoot six bullets Per year meaning y you get to spend that ammo on things that are on things that are worthwhile. And uh I suppose.

could be pun intended in this case, but I've decided that what you're talking about is is is is how I want to spend. at least one of those rounds. So we're gonna come back to it. But what what I wanna do first, if it's okay with you, is to Uh Wewind the clock just a little bit.

because uh the the video that in some ways led to us talking um has been criticized as as being overly simplistic and so on, which is how wolves change rivers, which people can find on YouTube. It's been viewed more than forty million times, maybe fifty at this point. Ah non the less It it shows visually. uh what you were describing in terms of uh

Tropic cascade. And Uh you are Someone who had boots on the ground. In in the sense that in eighty six

You know, you started serving as the first leader of the Red Wolf Restoration Program, which which we could certainly get to, and then in nineteen ninety four the first leader of the Yellowstone Grey Wolf Restoration Program. How did you end up doing that? And what what happened in Yellowstone? Well, it's a long story as to how I got to lead the Red Wolf program in the south east, which was for folks listening, they should note it was the first attempt in the history of mankind to

restore a carnivore species that had been declared extinct in the wild. It is a fascinating story, but Because uh I had I had done good work. And I had established relationships with people that that came to know they could count on me. And and I'd have you believe, Tim, the best way forward.

in life is to not let people down so they know they can count on you. Well in the Yellowstone project popped. Uh I had friends in high places and they knew they could count on me and so I was able to lead the Yellowstone project, yeah, I didn't even apply for the job. It was simply an interagency transfer. The Fish and Wildlife Service just shuffled me from the Red Wool program off to the National Park Service for the Yellowstone program, both agencies operating under the Department of Interior.

Which helped. And and so we did go forward in nineteen Ninety five we began building that Reintroduction. program. Animals were released in nineteen ninety five, and I can tell you what, Tim When we began the work

Well, there were parts of Yellowstone that were Oh my heavens, they should have just been an elk farm. There were so many elk in the system, nineteen thousand animals to be specific, but On a stretch of the northern quarter of the park that's known as the Northern Range. Entirely too many elk.

I couldn't take a step on the Northern Range without stepping on elk tracks or elk shit. My lord, there were elk everywhere. Too many. For the system. And by the time we began releasing Grey Wolves in nineteen ninety five, and then when the years passed The system began to change.

Because elk became Less common. They started behaving differently. I was in the park just yesterday. Visiting one of the old acclamation pins. Where the ecological consequences of predation are most manifest.

There is an acclamation pen. I apologize. In Yellowstone Park we would bring the wolves from Canada. And in Yellowstone we put them in pins so they could grow acclimated to the release site. It took about eighty or ninety days before we thought they were ready for release. So yesterday I went back to one of these acclamation sites. My lord Tim, it could not be more different than Over the last twenty years, and if it tried, it is now supports this rich, robust aspen forest. It supports a rich robust willow community that lines this active beaver stream. None of that was in place.

twenty years ago. Of course that video has been watched forty million times because you know nature can be pretty dramatic, and that's a beautiful portrayal that largely gets it right. Predators matter. Predators matter now in Yellowstone to be fair. Grey Wolves.

made a a a big contribution, but so do grizzly bears and so do black bears and so do cougars and so do coyotes. Predators matter. And they matter because they help ensure that there's a depth, there's a breath. To any particular system. You can go back one of the greatest ecologists of all time, a gentleman named Aldo Leopold.

And and he he wrote this essay entitled Thinking Like a Mountain. And he was the first to poetically observe. That only the mountain has lived long enough. Only the mountain knows.

That too many elk is a big problem. And the only way to address too many elk is to make sure you've got good predators in place doing their job. If life matters. So too does death.

It's fascinating. It's fascinating the way nature is stitched together. It is redundant. And it is hard to understand. But sometimes it reaches up and smacks us upside the head and says, Holy mackerel, wolves can change rivers. You you uh Yeah. In a leadership position uh with this

Reintroduction. I When did you when did you leave the project, or when did you leave Yeah, uh the the work in Yellowstone National Park. Yeah, that's a great question. Thank you, because it was a very difficult period in my life. I left the park. In the early summer of nineteen ninety seven. And you might think, Well, you tell me you wanted to work there since you were twelve years old.

You land in the park in the fall of ninety four and by early summer ninety seven you're gone. That's not much of a shift. Well here's what happened. I had grown fascinated by uh about the role of private land and private assets to advance the recovery of endangered species, because two wolves

Two Wolf showed me. private land matters. One was a little wolf in the southeastern United States known as three fifty one. The first red wolf born in the wild in decades. And by the time we finally got around to studying three fifty one re realized she spent most of her time Not on the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge.

But rather on private land. And then fast forward to my time in Yellowstone. Uh a another young wolf known as number three. Right after release from the great assemblage of public lands that is Yellowstone and the National Forests.

that surround the park, number three went to private land. And I began to think, holy mackerel, even in the big western public landscapes of Montana and Wyoming and Idaho. Private land. Can matter. And in nineteen ninety five, I had the good fortune of meeting Ted Turner.

Ted is a hero of mine and uh He is a a a great big slice of Americana bigger than life. With a great big heart and even bigger imagination. And Ted and I over the course of about eighteen months. found a way forward.

That together we could illustrate beyond doubt. The power of private land and private assets employed in collaboration with state and federal governments. To advance. The restoration of imperiled species as a bona fide. Redress.

for the extinction crisis, w which is a crisis and we need to speak to that today, Tim, because it's the ultimate backdrop for all of this work. But I left the park in ninety seven to co found with Ted Turner. The Turner Endangered Species Fund. Internal biodiversity divisions. They have from day one stood as the most significant private effort in the world. to use reintroductions

To restore imperiled plants, birds, fishes, mammals, amphibians, reptiles. On and on. I'm so proud to be a member of Team Turner. Well let's let's talk about Let's talk about the the extinction crisis because this is a backdrop, as you said. And You know one of the things that I strive

Very hard to do. is understand multiple perspectives and positions as related to Any issue. And

I When it comes to say predators uh for a whole host of reasons that we'll probably get into the c the conversations can become very heated and very divisive very quickly. Uh so very early on. uh one of the questions that I sent to scientists and uh

That would include you. Is Well, yeah, I'll just read it. I'll I'll just read a couple of the questions, but then we'll focus on one. So I I asked as related to a couple of things, what decisions are time sensitive in the next handful of months that really matter, if any. what the next question what are worthwhile and measurable goals to have like in in the sort of what gets measured gets managed camp of thinking. Then I talked about Points of greatest leverage, impact, long term effects.

I also asked, this is the one I I wanted to highlight, what do well intentioned people on the conservation reintroduction side get wrong or say that makes them look ridiculous or uninformed. And The reason I'm using that as a segue is that Uh As a non

Uh. non-biologist, non-scientist myself. Uh I've heard people say, Well Species go extinct all the time. Which is certainly true, right? So what

What makes What you see in the field. From the data. and so on different from the normal ebb and flow of species just not Hacking it.

in uh the the the broader sweep of of evolution and natural selection. Oh, it's the pace of change, Tim. Of course extinction is uh simply the death of a species. And that's happened since the dawn of time. But

It's the rate of change. And the scale of change. So let let's think about that for but I want to go back, you asked one question. What what do conservationists get wrong and we speak about the extinction crisis? Here's the one thing that everybody gets wrong. That humans could go extinct. Humans aren't gonna go extinct.

Humans and cockroaches and coyotes are going to inherit the earth. No. It it may not be an earth worth living on. And there could be masses of people that lead lives of outrageous desperation. Not not a life that you or I or anyone else would choose to live.

But they're still living, they're still alive, there's still a sentient carbon based organism out there. Trying to make ends meet. I I I I think what we're doing is so deeply fouling our nest that we've got to a a s a serious problem. So that that's that's the one thing that we that we get wrong. But back to your question. But The real startling fact now is the pace of change and the scale of change. So

Across Five hundred million years this planet has supported multicellular life. And across those five hundred million years there have been five previous great extinction crises the first occurred about four hundred and thirty five million years ago during the Ordovician era.

The most recent one occurred about sixty five million years ago. During the Cretaceous era. When uh an asteroid slammed into the planet off the coast of what is now the Yucatan Peninsula. measuring something like six miles across and traveling at something like forty five thousand. miles an hour and in a geological instant, Tim, that asteroid ended the reign of the dinosaurs.

Well now the sixth Great. extinction crisis. Big and during the Anthropocene era, the era of man. And the Anthropocene

began in the late eighteenth century. If not centuries earlier. The the current extinction crisis is Worldwide Species are disappearing at

Probably a thousand times faster than the background rate that you would assume if things were more settled. And in this case, it's not a speeding asteroid that's causing the problem, but rather it's us with this relentless pursuit of dominating the planet for one end. To advance. The cause And the prospects of humanity.

So I would say to you and all your listeners, no matter who you are. The extinction crisis should matter. Let's assume for a moment that you're a person of faith. Uh how can you love the creator? And not love the creation.

And how can you stand by and watch something you love? Be destroyed needlessly. Without rising up in defense. Or or let's assume for a moment that you're a secular humanist.

Facts and data and logic and empiricism that matter. Well, Tim. The best science tells us that That the fate of humanity has always been And will always be decided.

By the health of local landscapes The world over The extinction crisis makes clear Those landscapes are not the least bit healthy. We continue down this path at our great peril.

Thank you. And I I have to ask you Do you ever have days when you are just overwhelmed by The magnitude

and seeming acceleration and growth of behaviors by humans that just seem unstoppable. I mean I I am certainly trying to be a force for good in whatever small way I can be in the world. But it it I I sometimes feel like I'm That uh sort of the girl in the apocryphal story of

Walking down the beach. With thousands of starfish laying on the beach, more and more getting washed up and she's throwing in one at one at a time. Every few minutes and somebody walks by and says What do you think you can save them all? It doesn't matter, and she says it matters to this one and throws the next one in, right? But

There are times when and I know that some of my friends feel this way as well, it's it just seems like a foregone conclusion that we are going to, as you put it, just foul the nest and destroy our environments to the point that it's irrecoverable. And it's like if people continue to have sex, continue to buy Lots of plastic continue to behave in the ways that they're behaving. Which are fairly understandable in some respects because everyone is self-interested in response to incentives, mostly short term.

I how do you how do you th how do you digest that type of feeling or overcome it? Because it is something that comes up for me. I'm not gonna lie. Well, uh a couple of things is a great question. I uh I know from my own work over now. going on forty years that restoration is an alternative to extinction. I I I know that. I know that we can choose

To be different, I know that we often act as misguided gods. But I also know that we can choose to act otherwise. When I was a little kid I was Six and seven and eight and nine, when I was becoming me.

Uh my family really only did one thing. Man, I'll tell you what, Tim, we played baseball. My dad played pro ball before I was born and my brothers and I played baseball. I played baseball until I was twenty years old. I was gonna play professional baseball that was What was gonna move me forward. And when you looked at how I played the game, I was always the kind of kid that helped manufacture runs.

My brothers were deeply gifted athletes. They just showed up and they were rock stars. The only thing the good Lord gave me was the capacity to practice. I could practice the shit out of that game. I'd be out there early and I'd stay late. And I just learned to my own youth. That manufacturing runs. Just working with great determination is a way forward that I found deeply satisfying. You combine that and With my

uh awareness The restoration is An alternative to extinction? And my deep belief that the world is run by those who show up, I wake up every morning ready to go. So you have you have Hope then. I mean you're not I have determination.

I think that's more important than hope. Yeah. But I agree with that. I have some hope too, because I've recognized that if you believe in a God, if you believe in a God, and I know a lot of your listeners are probably people of faith. I think that That that if if there is a god the what she gave us was the this great

right to choose we can choose to be different we can choose to celebrate The importance of wild and self willed nature. We don't have to continue the w the way we've been. We can choose to be different. And that's what motivates me. That's what gives me hope. I know that choice is a reality. Yeah, determination is is more important than hope. I uh remember It's probably two thousand nine.

Or so. I wanna say two thousand nine, two thousand ten. When I r I received as a gift a staff shirt. from the production of the movie Avatar.

And Jim Carman is Uh He's a very smart guy, he's very intense, he's very determined. And known for having grueling.

productions. Uh in part because they're so ambitious. And uh as as he put it He's been on the podcast before. uh that he knew it was gonna be the most difficult movie production in history very m um Most likely. And so he gave

All of the staff shirts which had a quote on the chest and the very first line was hope is not a strategy. There you go. There you go. And uh And So speaking of strategy, right, uh the The way that this conversation came together, the way we met is i i is is pretty wild just given all the factors that that

at play. Let's talk about Colorado for for a minute and we're gonna zoom in and out. So uh we're we're not gonna uh do just Colorado, but I don't live in Colorado. I live in Texas. And I've certainly spent time in the great state of Colorado and I love it. You guys have wonderful wildlife, fantastic skiing. I should also point out that uh

I've I've gone to Colorado to hunt. I do not oppose Um certain types of hunting. Uh that which is also why I was in the the Brooks range. Uh it's a beautiful state. And uh

All of that. As backdrop. Uh I was not aware of the significance. Of

Colorado when it comes to Uh this This uh keystone species if I'm using it correctly. that we call the grey wolf. Could you Could you

Describe why Colorado. is in some ways the the last missing piece. Well because I I I certainly did not know any of this and then

Uh It caught caught my imagination. For a lot of reasons. Well, I I certainly can, and and one reason that you didn't know about it is this story

That is the mother load of opportunity for wolves in Western Colorado has has not been told well uh Uh western Colorado possesses certain characteristics that are Just superbly.

suited for the grey wolf pr principally among those attributes. There's over seventeen million acres of federal public lands in Western Colorado. So Tim, it doesn't matter that you live in Texas. Doesn't matter that your listeners live all across the country, listeners all across the world, at least for folks in this country. What matters those are your national forests. The the the the White River National Forest is just as much your national force, whether you live in Denver or Austin. It doesn't matter. That's the whole point of federal public lands. Western Colorado is graced with over seventeen million.

Acres of federal public lands, and across those federal public lands. Uh they support Oh. Seven hundred thousand. An estimated seven hundred thousand deer and elk after

After the recreational hunter. has removed about eighty thousand deer and elk, there remain on the ground about seven hundred thousand. When you look at what makes wolf recovery successful, You need a big patch of federal public lands, that's the seventeen plus million acres, and you need a big prey population, that's the seven hundred thousand Deer and Elk. It is a biological mother load. On top of that. Coloradans have a sensibility uh uh

that that's different than many states. Coloradans celebrate their wildness. Coloradans have indicated over decades that they would they would willingly welcome the wolf home. And then finally. I would have you believe from an ecological and symbolic standpoint that Restoring the grey wolf to the great state of Colorado does a good job helping to restore that state's natural balance. And it would serve as the arch stone.

The final piece, Tim. The final piece of the restoration puzzle that connects grey wolves from the high Arctic All the way to the Mexican border. There's no other place in the world when you could imagine restoration of a much maligned Misunderstood, persecuted large carnivore.

over such a continental and sweeping scale. That is restoration magic of the finest kind, both The Wolf Action Fund dot com And the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project dot org are trying to move that idea forward to ensure that the Grey Wolf finds its way back to its ancestral homelands in Western Colorado.

And we'll we'll talk also about the the organizations and I'll link to those in the show notes for everybody. But let me let me paraphrase What? what I heard in that last portion of what you said because it's it's part of what Drew my attention.

Uh Is it s actually I'll I'll ask I'll ask it as a question. Is it fair to say That nowhere else in the world exists. an opportunity to reestablish a major carnivore. at a continental scale, as does

This. opportunity in Colorado. Yes. Is that is that an accurate statement? Yes. Okay. And isn't that exciting. Isn't that exciting? My Lord. It is exciting and I'll I'll tell you

Part of what makes it so uh appealing to me. Uh, so we talked about Trophy Cascade. We talked about the importance of This type of top down impact. Already. uh and and how necessary that is. Uh

We also talked about how as you put it You've been drawn to the rarity. Of of car divorce.

And The the reason that rare Is it draws my attention is is not only because uh there may be a

Yeah, in many instances certainly with the Grey Wolf. A a uh A lack of sufficient numbers. But also that you don't need to reintroduce millions of wolves to have a tremendous, tremendous impact on

uh positive impact on natural ecosystems. You don't need Tens of thousands. Uh a as you put it, if you look at this pyramid. At the very top you have much smaller numbers than at the bottom. So

if we're looking at the opportunity to to reestablish a major carnivore at a continental scale. How many wolves need to be reintroduced over what period of time

For that to stand a very good chance of uh being realized. Oh, not many, Tim. You're absolutely right, buddy. It would be uh over the course of maybe two years, maybe three. Uh if you were to

Translocate. Oh, gee was fifteen, twenty wolves a year. Over the course of a couple of years from say Montana to Colorado. You let him go. Uh they take care of the rest in rather short order.

Let's say within a decade. Uh those twenty, thirty, forty wolves that you move from translocated from Montana, released in Colorado they give rise to a population it would be uh approaching a hundred strong

We could assume for this discussion that a viable population It'll be something like two hundred and fifty wolves. Uh, you you would see that probably within the first fifteen years or so, maybe twenty years after release, and it would get there With a great deal of certainty. We've done this work before. It's exactly what we did in the Northern Rocky Mountains. We know how to do this.

cost effectively, we know how to do it certainly, and most importantly, we know how to do it humanely. Yeah. Wha what do you hope the the ripple effects would be of this if it's done. Right? Because for for a lot of people listening, they might say if they don't have some great affinity for the wolf for some reason, which a lot of people don't.

Uh W what are the what are the beneficial larger scale effects. That are plausible. Uh

Outside of the repopulating of wolves themselves by doing that. If if such an initiative were successful, what would you hope some of the ripple effects to be? Well Jim, thank you,'cause uh ultimately that's why I w wake up, as I said, every day excited, determined to try to do a little more than my fair share. I I I believe that restoring grey wolves to Western Colorado has tremendous Uh power.

provides a a new way of relating to nature а nu way for us to go forward To help end and the senseless destruction of the natural world. Through thoughtful, purposeful, well designed reintroduction projects. As a as a conservation scientist, Tim

Who is keenly aware of the growing m magnitude of the extinction crisis. And we we just spoke to that moments ago. I know that restoration efforts that inspire people to Are essential. to humanity's well being lest we continue to grow

Increasingly Oh. Disconnected from our evolutionary past. En divorce from a relationship with the natural world. Yeah.

promises peace, prosperity and justice for not only human life. But But non human life and and I want to emphasize so you're listeners there's there there's no equivocation here. They should make no doubt that the stakes are high and growing ever more so. We we spoke about the sixth great extinction crisis. It's tightening its grip on the planet. Compromising all that is really important.

But restoration reminds us that we can choose to be Something other than misguided gods. It illustrates How we can change it makes clear. That restoration is an alternative to extinction.

Why why is this controversial? And I I'm I'm Uh Asking uh mostly for people listening, because I've I've looked into this a lot. Uh, but I'd I'd love for you to speak to why

Wolf. recovery is so divisive. I mean, in this day and age, I would hope people to be past The uh little red riding hood image of kind of fairy tale. All powerful

uh evil Wolf archetypes. Uh But It's a carnivore, I get it. Like it I would not want to be eaten by wolves, wouldn't want all my livestock to be eaten by wolves. I mean there are a lot of concerns, but w why is it so charged and so divisive?

And uh could you s could you speak to Uh sort of real versus Justified versus unjustified concerns. Yeah, well, you know it's a problem. Wolf frustration is a problem. Wolf frustration is controversial. It's divisive because people Uh.

Embrace the mythical wolf. People believe that the wolf Far too many people believe that the wolf has an almost supernatural ability to exercise its predatory will on a whim. And consequently

Wolves create this wake of death and desolation and destruction. Wherever they go. And yet, Tim, the real wolf The real wolf is not even a shadow. Of its mythical self.

Unfortunately the Myth is as strong and is as wrong. For the real wolf? Oh my lord, life is a daily struggle to survive. For the real wolf?

Starvation is a common Cause of death. For the real wolf, they're not even built well for the job at hand. Tim, they're they're not well suited. to their predatory lifestyle. Their body's not well built for the job. They always kill things B they live on things bigger than themselves, even a small white tailed deer.

tends to be bigger than a gray wolf, even if grey wolves weight on average a hundred pounds or ninety pounds, a small weight, white tailed deer weighs more than that. Their nose, their nose is not well built for the task at hand. That long nose ensures that the the biting power at the tips of the canines is much reduced compared to, say, a shorter nose of a cougar. Their teeth Ah, she wish you know their teeth uh wear down and break. A a beaver's teeth, you may not know this, m listeners may not know it, a beaver's teeth are ever growing. If you're a gnawing rodent, having teeth that grow the in your entire life, that's that's a good thing. That's not the case for a grey wolf. Their legs their legs are great for traveling. There's an old Russian proverb that says a wolf is kept fed by its feet. Well that that's a it's a good grey wolves can travel great distances, but after that, when you look at their legs Their forelimbs are not heavily muscled in contrast to a cougar or a black boar or a grizzly bear, and the reason being is that

Grey wolf's front legs don't supinate, they can't reach around and grab you. In in contrast, a a cougar or a grizzly bear can reach around and grab you. That's why their forelimbs are so heavily muscled. When you look at a wolf's feet, Uh their their their claws are decidedly Uninteresting. They're always exposed. They wear down. Oh gee whiz a a grizzly bear, black bear, they've got great big claws. A cougar, he's taken the notion of claws to an extreme by keeping his retracted, so that any time they're needed, boy, they're ready to go. They're ready to go. Let me pause you for just one sec. So I I understand uh I understand all of that. But but I I don't want to make wolves sound like they're

They're complete evolutionary misfire. They're pretty well built. Like unlike unlike unlike, say, uh domesticated dogs. I mean the the less muscular chests allow their There are their fore legs to be more closely underneath their center of gravity, right? So there are benefits. But It's not like they just They're not misfits.

No well they're also not supervillains. So it's like out of how many hunts Would a a a A reasonably healthy but not supernaturally powered wolf pack. succeed in a kill.

Is there any data are there any data that's great there's great data on on all these aspects about wolf ecology. The grey wolves one of the most studied large mammals in the world. We know a great deal about grey wolves. Yeah, we and we know they fail. Every time they go hunting, Tim, they come up empty pawed about seven or eight times out of ten. Uh punting is dangerous.

I did a study wolf skulls in Alaska looked at two hundred and twenty five skulls from animals that had been shot by Alaska Department of Fish and Game. To minimize predation pressure on a local caribou population or a local moose herd. So these were animals that had been shot. I was looking at their skulls for evidence of blunt forced trauma. How often they've been kicked in the head by a Moose, for example. Tim fully a quarter. of the skull showed a broken nose, broken jaw, broken skull.

A good friend of mine, Rolf Peterson, has studied wolves and moose on oil oil since nineteen seventy two. Rolf has never done a necropsy. Which is just an autopsy of an animal. Never done a necropy on a wolf that hasn't shown evidence of blood force trauma, broken rib, broken leg, broken nose. Here's the point. Their life is tough. It's difficult to make a living in the woods with your teeth. They got two things going for them. Two things going for him.

That make them. uh wonderfully adapted and successful. I said moments ago they were they were everywhere back in the day. Coast to coast, east to west, north to south. Despite all their liabilities, they have two assets.

That put him in the green. Here are the two assets. They are doggedly determined. They wake up every day and they go to work. And for a grey wolf going to work, that means she's gotta put seven to ten pounds of food in her belly a day. Now they'll go home many, many, many days with no food at all.

There's is a feast or famine existence, but on average They gotta put the equivalent of seven to ten pounds of food in their belly every day. They go to work. They're doggedly determined. The second. Asset.

They are supremely social. There's that Rudyard Kipling poem, Law of the Jungle, and there's two lines in that poem that read The strength of the pack is the wolf. And the strength of the wolf is the pack. They are doggedly determined, they are supremely social, they are successful because of those two asset.

assets despite all their liabilities, but it's crazy for people to think that wolves exercise their predatory will on a whim. They don't. But because people embrace that mythical wolf It's that embrace that gets in the way of wolf recovery. That's why it's so controversial. They're not willing to acknowledge the real wolf. Which the best available science, much of which I've helped collect, says. They're coexisting with the grey wolf. is a rather straightforward affair.

That requires only a modicum. of accommodation. So let's let's talk about the the people who are or are not actually not the people, but the concerns of the people who are Opposed. to Wolfrey introduction. And I I spent a lot of time

reading up on this, watching videos, because I wanted to understand their perspective. And I should also say That's uh As as as a bit of context for people listening, and I I don't think that you knew this either. that uh I have family in farming.

Uh I have supported American Farmland Trust, among other nonprofits related two thousand eleven or two thousand twelve when the four hour chef came out. And uh as I mentioned earlier, I also hunt.

So the it's it's not as though I Uh have a a uh Stones to cast. At at

at hunters or farmers. And Ranchers, but there's there is opposition. From Uh

From hunters. Outdoors. men and women who are concerned that Wolves will wipe out big game. Or decimate.

local big game populations. Very concerned that Wolves will uh kill their livestock. And

Uh sort of really It devastate them economically. How do you how do you respond or how would you respond to those people? Well h here's what I say, and I've been saying this for a long time, and these statements are backed up by Decades of reliable research. including many papers published in very good journals. So this is really

Very reliable science. Uh first and foremost, we know the grey wolves are not a threat to human safety. And they they just aren't. Yeah. And so we can I never dismiss anybody's fear.

If if they truly uh uh are concerned about their safety because the Grey Wolves Their fear is their fear and they're entitled to it. I I simply say well I I appreciate your fear. It's unfounded.

Yeah. That we know That tells us that. That's a justified concern. And then I can tell him countless stories, and I can tell you stories too today that make clear At least in my life, grey wolves have never

Ever. Been a threat. So that's the human safety issue. Wolves and livestock. It is true, it is just true, again framed by decades of reliable research.

It's the atypical wolf that kills livestock. Most grey wolves don't. The wolf depredations and livestock do not represent a threat. To the livestock industry, the depredation events are just too uncommon. For example, in Montana, with eight or nine hundred gray wolves on the ground in Montana, there's about fifty head of cattle killed a year. Fifty head of cattle.

out of over two million is not a threat the industry. No, I'll figure fifty. Head of cattle, you got a problem. I Acknowledge that. Fortunately.

I know that we have very good tools at the ready. For resolving conflicts when they arise. And very good tools at the ready for ever preventing conflicts from occurring in the first place. And then as it relates to wolves and big game and wolves and big game hunting. I I've been a big game hunter. I understand.

That that recreational pursuit. I get that, but here's what we know. In Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan. Lots of big game hunters there. And Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, lots of big game hunters there. There's been no interruption.

with thousands of wolves on the ground in the Great Lake States and thousands of wolves on the ground in the northern Rocky Mountains, there's been no interruption of big game hunting. in those states. I ha for years, Tim, I served as the ranking minority member of the Montana House Fish and Game Committee and then I was the ranking minority member of the Senate Fish and Game Committee. I saw this not only as a biologist, this issue of wolves and big game, I saw it as a biologist, but also I saw the issue as a as a state representative and a state senator. And most of the time People were coming to our committees to express concern about too many elk.

most of the elk management units in the state of Montana are either at management objective as decided by Montana Fishwife and Parks, or over objective. For heaven's sakes, Tim, you know there's areas in Montana where you can hunt elk six months out of the year because the state is trying to affect a population reduction. And some of those areas with that very liberal Yo hunting season? Is in wolf country.

There are simpli no data. That would support the claim. That grey wolves are gonna kill enough elk or deer. To cause the big game Apple cart to fall over. It's just not true. And I'd finally say to hunters. I can't just celebrate the opportunity to hunt.

big game in country where you have a kindred spirit. Doing the same thing. Don't you find some kindred connection with another great predator, that being the grey wolf, that in contrast to your prospects, if you fail to kill that deer, that elk, you're probably not gonna go home and go hungry. In contrast, that Grey Wolf comes up the empty pod, she's going home and going hungry.

Let's let's talk about a few of the tools. That might Help. With uh reintroduction. Let's let's uh tools which which could be physical could be just incentive structures.

Let's say wolves get reintroduced. Uh wolves have Reintroduced wolves have been Killed in the past. By

Branchers. through trapping. Uh I mean the the wolves have been released and then they've been killed. It doesn't always happen, but it does happen. Uh how do you how How can you minimize The conflict between

wolves and humans. What are what are some of the practical tactical tools uh that you can use To either Keep wolves away from livestock. to incentivise uh people to

not kill wolves or at least be compensated if their livestock is killed. I mean what are what are some of the approaches that you think would be most helpful? Well and nobody will be surprised by this, but we know the shepherds matter. They they were called shepherds back in the day. Now they're called range riders. But having a presence in and amongst your livestock. makes a world of difference. You can affect changes in in wolf movement patterns across short periods of time by just being there. You you can get the wolf to leave.

Your mob of cattle, your mob of sheep, just ride your horse at'em, they're gonna run away. So range riders make a world of difference. You can employ different husbandry practices. You can specifically begin to manage your cattle, for example. in a fashion that promotes uh a greater degree of hurting. amongst the livestock. So they stay in bigger groups. That creates uh defensive opportunities that wouldn't exist otherwise. You can

modify where you're having calving take place. That would Help to minimize the exposure of young cattle. to Grey Wolves. You know, it's certainly a compensation program can take the bite out of a problem, so to speak, if

If you suffer a loss of a valuable calf because of a gray wolf, you could fairly claim the right to be paid. You had your private property taken from you. By by a public asset. In this case it was a grey wolf, and so we know the compensation programs help too. You know, you can even modify grey wolves' movement patterns and their their behavior a bit by hanging strips of flagging. You might find this hard to believe, but it does work. Hanging strips of flagging from a fence. It's called fladry, F L A D R Y fladry.

Lo and behold. Flattery. These strips of flagging hangin' from a fence, flappin' in the wind, uh creates confusion for a grey wolf and they tend not to go through the flattery. So you can encompass a cabing areas with flattery to buy yourself some security as well because the gray wolves are bothered by that. That flapping flagging. There's lots of techniques that can be employed to find a way forward. I I'll say this, and maybe I oversimplify.

We can put an astronaut on the moon and bring her home back again. We can take your heart out of your chest and put it back better than before. I promise you we can figure out how to coexist with Greg Wolves. Uh But

Playing the role of Rancher, let's say. I think humans all humans, including me uh are prone to look for the

Path of least resistance or Uh it the the least amount of work that can do the most, uh whatever the objective might be. So if I if I'm a rancher and you mentioned a few examples of changing herding behavior, calving locations and so on, that sounds like a decent amount of work. Uh and certainly

if the herds are really large, I can imagine if the operations get larger that's that's uh Uh that's certainly gonna be be the case and maybe it's even more of an onus. for the the the smaller rancher without as many hands to help. But

Uh How do you incentivise that behavior? Because if I'm a rancher and I'm not gonna be penalized for shooting a wolf and I do have that fear of a wolf, uh killing my livestock, uh uh a gun and a bullet are a lot cheaper. So and a lot faster, a lot easier. I don't have to think about it as much. H how how do you How do you incentivise

the behavior that you want in this case. Um А водію суст. We approach it, even if it's just forming a group to figure out how to approach it. But I always

try to look at sort of behavioral modification. Failure points. And um I have not. Done this with the Uh.

Ecosystems, but I've certainly done it with tens of thousands of people trying to follow diets or stop smoking or fill in the blank. How do you incentivise the behavior you want if it requires Extra work. Well, that's a great question, Jim. Thank you. And and uh First I would point out, and I admit my bias as a state senator, I

I hold laws in high regard. I recognize that we're a law abiding country. We're a country founded on laws. Laws don't always allow for the path of least resistance to be followed. So f f for for example You just can't go shoot stuff.

You can't just go shoot wildlife. We have laws in this country that say wildlife are a public trust asset. Managed by state and Federal agencies For

The public's benefit. You don't own the elk, I don't own the elk. You just can't go shoot an elk any time you want. You can't shoot a grey wolf necessarily any time you want. That might be the path of least resistance. It happens to be illegal. No, if you don't like that, okay, okay, you could try to change the law. But I don't think anybody would argue that we just abandon laws and begin to ignore them willy nilly.

But nonetheless, I appreciate the path of least resistance. I know I tend to follow that path when I can. I have made the point over and over again. That I would be more than willing to incentivize coexistence with grey wolves. by advocating for very liberal management on private land. It's your ranch. It's your problem.

You take care of it. We want to make sure that your response to taking care of it's back by law, so you're not a lawbreaker, but w we can do that. Shoot the wolf on private land if the laws would allow for that. That's Liberal management. I promise you a dead wolf's not going to get in your chicken coop anymore. They they wouldn't do that much anyway, but you get the point. But in contrast, Tim, if you can embrace the notion of liberal management

On private land, the flip side. The flip side of that He's very conservative management on public land. Now this is land that's owned by you and me and everyone else, those seventeen plus million acres that I made referenced to earlier in Western Colorado, the White River National Forest, for example, we own that land. That land is not owned by any one rancher, and we have subsidized that rancher extensively

To use that resource, we're sharing it with that rancher. by charging that rancher a fraction of what that grass is actually worth. Just to clarify, what you're saying is that Private Ranchers can use public land for grazing.

At low cost. And that's where you would you would want to see. Stronger. uh rules as related to management. Yes. Yes. I mean it it's it's not

It's not any one person's land. It's the public's Land. I I could make a case that there's nothing a grey wolf can do on public land that's wrong. Except threaten human life. Well okay. But if you're there

Subsidized by the American public to be there. You choose to be there, it's a willing choice. Nobody put a gun to your head and said your business model has to rely on Using the public's grass in the national forest. Oh okay, okay, we're already helping by charging a fraction of what it's worth.

Uh the cost of that money? You know, Tim, there's no free lunch, buddy. I've never found a free lunch in my life. The cost of that money, the cost of that subsidy is recognizing that you have less opportunity to follow that path of least resistance. So I'm all in. on finding a way forward the ranchers, I find their concerns to be valid.

Even though and I can share data, th make clear that it's the atypical wolf kills livestock, something like ninety nine point nine five percent of cattle in the Northern Rockies are never bothered by gray wolves. It's a very, very small point zero one point zero five percent. number of cattle. But if you're the one that just lost Two calves last night. You got a problem, and we've got good tools for resolving that conflict. And sometimes I think we can let people follow the path of least resistance on private land. That makes sense to me.

But I'm not sure that makes sense on public land. You mentioned something earlier that I want to revisit for a second, which is Uh Say that you can't just

Shoot. Say grey wolves or other species willy nilly. Uh And That's certainly true in a lot of cases.

Yeah. Uh We've been talking about Colorado. Could you talk a little bit About what is happening right now on a national level and tell us what ESA stands for and uh in this case not emotional support animal.

But something else. bedrock foundation for uh the recovery of imperiled species like the Grey Wolf absent the Endangered Species Act, there would be no grey wolves in this country, there'd be no grizzly bears in this country. They also need those big tracts of federal public lands. uh so that the national voice matters in terms of deciding their future, not just a local or a private voice, but we've we've talked about that. Well what the United States Fish and Wildlife Service has recently done is move an idea forward, a proposal. I think it's misguided.

a proposal that would say, uh because of the good work that we've done with Grey Wolves in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan. the work that we've done in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. Uh principally we don't need to do anything else anywhere else. Well, I I think that's a uh uh an odd misguided interpretation of their mandated duties under the Endangered Species Act. I don't think the proposal will be finalized if it is.

I don't think the final version will stand up uh to judicial scrutiny. I think the grey wolf will continue to be protected under federal law in places like Colorado. As I said earlier, the Rocky Mountain Wolf project and the Rocky Mountain Wolf Action Fund both aim to move the notion forward. of recovering the grey wolf to this great big patch of opportunity that is in Western Colorado. Let me ask a just a quick pause and question. How much of its historical range?

Does the grey wolf currently inhabit? In the continental United States. In the continental United States, Tim, d despite decades of hard work, and and I've been honored to be a big part of that. As I mentioned earlier, my work started in nineteen eighty. Uh. Decades of hard work by

Deeply determined scientists and conservationists, the Grey Wolf now still. Only claims. occupation of about fifteen percent of its historical range. The flip side.

It's it continues to be extirpated. extinct from. Eighty five percent of its range. Let me ask you a question that I'd love to hear you Yeah.

Take a stab at I'm sure you have an answer for it, which is Why Are different animals. Proposed for delisting. at different points in their

rehabitation of their historical range. In other words, if you had something like the bald eagle, I'm pretty sure that Of course, it's perhaps an exception because it's the symbol of our nation, but that's not going to be taken off the ESA after it's occupying fifteen percent of its historical range. And there's probably a lot between the bald eagle and the grey wolf, but why why is such a range permissible? I I think with the grey wolf, for example, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service is just exhausted by it. They've had enough of it. They want to be done with it.

So they is that? They're tired. Because it's such a hot topic. Right. It's exhausting. It sucks all the oxygen out of the room. It commands a big budget. They've got other other uh issues to address. Their job is a big job and they find themselves spending a lot of time with gray wolves and and not so much time with other species that are equally deserving. I would have the service belief the solution is not to delist prematurely, The solution is for the United States Congress to properly fund the Endangered Species Act, which it's never done. But interestingly enough, and I've pointed this out to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and I hold that agency, Tim, in high regard.

I was proud. When I work for the Department of Interior's US Fish Wildlife Service, I was proud to wear that brown uniform. But the fact is the Endangered Species Act doesn't say Do this recovery work until it gets hard, then you can quit. That's not in the law.

What the law says is go do this hard work. And for a species like the grey wolf that was very common. Very controversial. For a lot of unjustified reasons. Uh it's hard to achieve recovery. I I've even published in good journals the simple good science journals, peer-reviewed papers, good the simple observation, maybe the way the law is written, maybe the way the endangered species act is written, maybe the way it defines recovery. It's too much.

Maybe it's too much for this country. Maybe we have to dial it back a bit. Okay, that's a fair consideration, but until the law changes The United States Fish and Wildlife Service has to apply a common sense interpretation of the words of the law as it goes forward. That's what you do in a law abiding country. It doesn't always mean you get to follow the path of least resistance. So Mike, I'd love to talk about Strategy.

Solutions. timelines all of that because I As I mentioned. at the perhaps midpoint of this conversation, asked a number of questions to many different scientists, including yourself, and one of them was what decisions are time sensitive in the next in the next handful of months. I said one to three months. But time sensitive in the next handful of months that matter, if any. Worthwhile measurable goals was another one. And then I also asked where could twenty-five to fifty K be applied for the greatest leverage impact or long term effects? And I had a whole host of other questions, but those were a few of them.

What Can people do? What's what is happening right now, what are the deadlines and uh how can people help? And then I'll I'll speak to my own involvement as well. But uh perhaps you could just fill people in as to what can be done and what the time sensitivity is with the opportunity, and just to restate the opportunity.

The opportunity is to Capitalize on our opportunity. That exists nowhere else in the world. other than in that fair state of Colorado to reestablish a major corn of war at a continental scale. I mean that's Really.

Remarkable. Uh just But but I'll let you take it from here. Mexican border by restoring a viable population to Western Colorado. So the listeners understand uh just a little bit of history. A few years ago. An educational effort.

rose up. It's known as the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project. I'm honored to serve on the science advisory team with Other sciences of repute. Uh Eo Wilson's a member of the science team, for example. And the project sits there and it says as a pause, because uh many people might not know Who is who is EO Wilson? Well, as I said, Eo Wilson is also on the science team. Uh I I would have you believe Ed is

Well, he's one of the greatest biologists who's ever lived. His work is Darwin esque in scope. Uh he was a professor of emeritus at Harvard and is d the world's arguably the greatest world the world's greatest naturalist. He's written several powerful books. No. Two two Pulitzer Prizes. Yeah, Pulitzer Prize winner. Uh he has received the I I think it's the the uh the the ecological award equivalency of the Nobel Peace Prize. Ed is

A rock star and a great hero of mine. And and Ed's on the science team, but there's other really good scientists too. So here here's the point of the Rocky Mountain Wolf project. It it just s set out with a simple aim to say I if we can tell the truth about grey wolves, the truth as Defined by decades of reliable research, we we believe Coloradans will conclude that coexisting with the Grey Wolf is a straightforward affair that only requires a modicum of accommodation. That conclusion advances restoration. And and off the Rocky Mountain Wolf project went. It tried to

move the federal government in the position of action it ha had some opportunity to move other conservation visionaries to action and and the project had some good success over the last few years putting out really good information and And telling the truth. Uh well uh not long ago, uh uh early two thousand nineteen, a another group

sprang up. It was considered a sibling organization, if you'd like. uh that uh wants to bring forth change with a great deal of certainty. That that group is known as the Rocky Mountain Wolf Action Fund. And it it's a it's a uh a group of conservation visionaries that recognize the suitability of gray wolves being restored to Colorado as an important part of restoring the state's natural balance. The action fund aims to put

Well frustration on the twenty twenty ballot and let Coloradans decide whether the Wolf has a future in the state or not. The Action Fund intends to use direct democracy be excited and celebrate a f an affirmative decision. Yes, Grey Wolf should be Part of the future. They've got great polling data over the course of decades that show Coloradoans are keenly supportive of this idea.

So if you ask me what can be done, you know, folks can My listeners are are uh like me in the sense that they like numbers. How many y signatures or dollars do you need by when to give the reintroduction effort

Uh The greatest chance. possible of of success. And in this case it it relates to the ballot, but like how many signatures By what date how much money what what is actually needed. Yeah, what I have seen the action fund put forward recently is that there's a six hundred thousand dollar need by the fifteenth of September

to ensure that a sufficient number of signatures are gathered to properly firm the Wolf Restoration Initiative so that it appears on the twenty twenty ballot. Now that is admittedly a lot of money, but there are people all over this country. That might want to rise up and say, I want to do my part to restore the ecological integrity of my national forests. So as your listeners think about this this the the landscape of relevance to that

is a landscape that we all own. Th there there are national forests and and restoring the balance of our national forests is in a is a is an exciting uh inspiring Endeavour. En I believe that if enough people rose up. Uh five dollars here and twenty five dollars there, pretty soon you're talking real money.

So six hundred K By September fifteenth. What happens to that six hundred K? What does it get used for? Well, as I understand it, the uh Rocky Mountain Wolf Action Fund will use that money to offset the remaining costs to ensure that two hundred thousand signatures are collected by the end of the month. Two hundred m which month is that? The end of September. I see. Well, Tim, we have until September thirty to collect two hundred thousand signatures supporting the Wolf.

Restoration initiative. While the official deadline for signature gathering is december twelfth. The self imposed deadline of September thirtieth For ensuring

Кост ефективност And building essential momentum. For the eventual statewide campaign to pass the initiative. Two hundred thousand signatures would be more than enough for the secretary of state. For Colorado. to say, all right, all right, well the Coloradans clearly want this to be on the twenty twenty ballot. These signatures more than exceed

The minimum threshold And and therefore this Wolf Restoration Initiative will be on the twenty twenty ballot, and and then Coloradans will have a chance to vote. Now Folks all over the country. followers of yours in Texas. Might say with Mike, I don't get to vote. And I said, Well that that's true.

But you can still influence the future of your national forests by choosing to support the Rocky Mountain Wolf project or the Rocky Mountain Wolf Action Fund. It's it's a really clear opportunity to illustrate the power of direct democracy, the power of the people to rise up and say, we think this is an appropriate a future for our great public lands in Western Colorado. And and I wanna also just mention a a few things related to this. Number one, I'll reiterate that the the goal is

Six hundred thousand dollars in additional funds. Two The Rocky Mountain Wolf Action Fund, WolfAction Fund dot com Uh in by Sept so six hundred K by September fifteenth, in order to help gather two hundred thousand signatures From Colorado residents.

by the end of September. So that's that's the goal. Uh and Now my interest in this Is

Uh is as a Texas resident uh interested in s ecological restoration Uh

Which by the way we are all part of. And sustained by ultimately Is is of interest because of the Last year

characteristics which define this, which we've already talked about in terms of the continental Connection. Uh for a carnivore of this type.

And Uh so that that is reason enough to to support this. Uh And Uh you don't know this, Mike, but I'll tell you now uh what I'm gonna do

is uh I'm gonna offer a hundred thousand dollar matching Grant. And what that means is Uh if My audience. Can provide

A hundred grand. Uh before September fifteenth, and actually we should make it even tighter than that, within a week of this Podcast coming out. I will match that and provide another hundred thousand dollars. So you have that commitment right off the bat. Yeah, ch I I I don't know what to say, buddy. I I I I had never imagined that that

Па таки, а а кін промосю дес. The money will be put to very good use and you're standing on high ground. Well I I appreciate that and I'm not bullshitting people listening. Uh m Mike had had no idea. I've been doing a lot of

additional reading. This has been something that's consumed a lot of my time over the last few months, but especially in the last handful of weeks. And Uh what I've bet on startups in the past when I've made good investments and I've had that sort of gut feeling of importance. There's very rarely been A lot of doubt.

Uh there have been some shared characteristics though. There's been An ambitious plan. Or a uh and or a very Achievable manageable objective with Gigantic.

long term possible consequences, if that makes sense. Because you know, saving the world is not a good goal. Uh stated as such, but in this case you have You have Predators introduced in small numbers.

uh fifteen to twenty wolves per year. Very, very Manageable, very concrete. Which can then Connect a species continentally. Which can affect

uh ecosystems nationally, uh and and beyond nationally. I mean that's that's really incredible. Uh But that doesn't make it. fully actionable until you have Uh

a team on board who can execute With A proven track record. Of doing so. And that's where

uh you Mike, former uh manufacturing engineering runs baseball player and other people involved with this come in. So I really feel like this is a an Archimedes lever where a a relatively small amount of money Can Have And enormously disproportionate.

So suffice to say, I'll just reiterate. If people listen to his podcast Donate at least a hundred K within a week of this podcast coming out. Rocky Mountain, Wolf, Wolfaction Fund dot com. I will match that with a hundred K of my own.

And um What I'll also do, and I'll mention this again at the end, is I'll put together a short link on my site. So if you go to Tim dot blog forward slash wolf. then uh it will take you to a page that has links to all this stuff. So it'll be easy to find.

Uh what what can people do Who don't have Uh two questions. If people want to support in a bigger way. Right. So if they want to d if they want to give thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands.

Of dollars potentially. I W should they still go to Wolfaction Fund dot com or is there uh a better avenue? Well, f first Tim, I I I gotta go back, folks. I I had really no idea. I I'm almost speechless. I I didn't expect this and and as as people think, I I I as I listened to Tim's

Very generous. Challenge. Uh. I was reminded and I am an Oldfield Bologist uh Uh I don't want folks to think otherwise, but I

Poetry and and And I was reminded of an Horton. Stretch of a poem.

That that if you don't mind, Tim, it might It feels appropriate to me, and before I answer what could folks Wolf Action Fund dot com's a good place to go, but I I want to share these lines because you've so

Inspired me. Yeah. Horatius at the bridge. Horatius was a Roman sold who was trying to protect Rome from an advancing army. This was a poem.

Writ in eighteen forty two by Thomas Babbington Macaulay. It's a long poem. I'm not gonna read m uh much of it. I actually am not reading. I've memorized these lines, but they They say simply. Hall down the bridge, sir Council. With all the speed ye may.

I with two beside me. We'll hold the foe in play. In yon straight path a thousand may well be held by three. Now who will stand?

On either hand. And keep the bridge with me. Tim. Thank you, brother. Uh A anyway, uh Wolf Action Fund dot com is a powerful way to get involved. There's links there. You can talk to the people that run the program. I'm honored to be a member of the science team for the Rocky Mountain Wolf Project. That's just Rocky Mountain Wolf Project dot org.

And uh and and those are those are good ways to engage and and if folks wanna really dive into the deep end of the pool They will find willing partners standing off shoulder to shoulder to keep that bridge to make sure That we stop the degradation of the planet and use restoration as a great inspiration to remind folks that we can choose We can choose to live better with the the the world. This is the only world we're gonna get, yeah.

Here. And for people who wanna help, but who don't have uh the the funds currently to donate. Uh Whether they're Colorado residents or otherwise, how how can they help with this? It's time sensitive.

Uh are are there other ways for people to help? Well for your Colorado listeners certainly there there are ways that you could volunteer as a Colorado to become a signature gatherer yourself. I understand the uh website has the instructions on how to become a A petitioner, what a great way to engage in direct democracy. Uh uh I I know as a elected official that what we need in this country is a more engaged electorate.

Signature gathering is a great way to engage. And if you can't volunteer to gather signatures, then of course you can make dog on shore to sign the petition so that you're saying to your Secretary of State I want this on the twenty twenty ballot. I want to I wanna be able to cast a vote for the future of the Grey Wolf in the Great public wildlands of Western Colorado.

And uh I will uh also just answer a question that no doubt many people have in their head because I did, which is can we do this digitally? The answer is no. Unfortunately, there are very strive for what can be accepted in terms of signatures and petitions and needs to be done in person. Uh, so what what I'll do is also uh work with Mike and people Running. the uh wolfaction fund dot com website to ensure That there are instructions.

Whether it's there or on their social media at Rocky Mountain Wolf spelled at R O C K Y M T N Wolf. Uh Which point people to where they can sign or where they can volunteer.

uh for gathering signatures. Um because it is time sensitive. Uh so that's that's part of the reason for And Mike, if there were if there were one

Or two. Books or documentaries about Wolves that really influenced you or that you recommend Most

To people. Do any come to mind? I guess. Immediately one. especially Tim is so very important. And it's not about wolves specifically. Although there is an essay in the book that speaks about wolves. I spoke to about the essay earlier. It's entitled Thinking Like a Mountain.

But the book is a sand county almanac. But how do you spell that the the can you say that one more time, please? Uh a sand county. Almanac. But Separate words sand, S A N D almanac. No sand. No county. County.

Almanac. Yeah. Sand County Almanac. by Alder Leopold. is a uh Fantastic book. that everyone should read. It it speaks to the need for a land ethic. It speaks to the need for us to

recognize we're just as much a part of this planet as the Wondrous diversity of life. that still surrounds us. So I that's what I would recommend folks read. A Sand County Almanac. Great. And I'll link to that. I just found it. Oxford University Press, Sand County Almanac. And sketches here and there, subtitle nineteen forty nine nonfiction book by American Forester and Environmentalist Aldo Leopold.

You will not be disappointed. Wonderful. Yeah. Well let's see. Mike, I think I think this is a sensible Closing spot. I want people while the iron is hot.

To uh consider if they're so inclined helping with this. Uh I don't take a whole lot of shots. And I I pick very, very, very carefully. I don't take the spray and pray approach to causes or uh engaging with uh feel good exercises. I like to feel good, don't get me wrong, but uh what I really like are

Small Targeted shots. with small amounts, relatively small amounts of money that can have Gigantic impacts. over

Not just months, but years, decades. And in this case possibly centuries. Uh I mean it is really a rare rare, rare opportunity. So Uh the

The websites that people can check out and I will put all of these under Tim.blog forward slash wolf, just to make it easy to remember. Uh, but you can also visit The uh Rocky Mountain Wolf Action Fund. That's the most relevant for raising six hundred K by September fifteenth, that's two thousand nineteen, which would then be used to help

gather two hundred thousand signatures from Colorado residents by the end of September. Uh the other website Rocky Mountain Wolf Project, which is just Rocky Mountain Wolf Project.org. And we'll add many others. The social

as I mentioned earlier on uh Twitter and elsewhere is at RockyMTN Wolf. And uh the stands. It is uh a hundred thousand dollars from my Pockets.

to this cause if listeners uh can donate at least a hundred thousand. uh within a week of this podcast going live. Uh so that is that And uh Mike, do you have any other Closing words, recommendations.

uh thoughts you'd like to impart to the audience before We uh Well Tim Powell, let me say again thank you so very much. It's been my high honor. Uh and I I I would say in closing There's just no doubt that the

great public wildlands of Western Colorado need need to have their wilderness soul restored in the form of the Grey Wolf. The lands need us the Grey Wolf needs us. Tim has sketched out a way forward that everyone can contribute. And I'll leave the listeners with one final thought. Uh

Neil Wilson, we spoke about it earlier. So A great man and a kind man and a poet and one of my heroes and Ed wrote many years ago, and maybe this will inspire

Your listeners. Attempt to rise up to your challenge and doctor Wilson simply wrote There can be no purpose more in spiriting. Than to begin the age of restoration.

Reweaving the wondrous diversity of life that still surrounds us. I hope folks will help us do that, Tim. Thank you, pal. Uh by pleasure. And Uh This is uh this is this is very important. Um and it it did uh it did not start as

an emotional impulse for me, it really began as a sort of a consideration of the facts and how much could actually be done on a continental scale with relatively so little. And it is a very small window of opportunity. Uh with a clear deadline, which I like. I I actually Enjoy those types of

Uh but it does mean that Need to get moving. And uh uh I I should also say that I I think in a lot of ways

The The the Grey Wolf. Uh Is Supremely important also symbolically.

And uh I think a lot about symbols. and metaphor, uh, because humans are are really evolved. Two uh use story and metaphor.

And simple. to piece together reality. Uh and This isn't gonna get too abstract, don't worry. But for for I think a a Well.

I don't think for centuries wolves. Mm. The the canary in the coal mine. I mean really f foreshadowing some awful things that have happened over time. Two ecosystems.

uh certainly in the United States and abroad. And Uh I think that it it it could be. really be powerful for uh conversely the gray wolf to become not the canary in the coal mine, but in this case a beacon of hope.

And an example of strategy. That actually worked. for reversing a lot of these trends that uh are are negatively

dramatically negatively impacting. uh the world in which we live. So I I it's it's it's a very clear shot There's a clear strategy, there's a clear objective. There's a good team assembled. It's very concrete.

So I uh I really hope the people listening will will join in. I'll be right there uh on the front line and on the bridge, so to speak, with everybody else. Yes, on the bridge. I'm right there with you, buddy, on the bridge. Yes, sir. So thanks thanks very much, Mike, for taking the time. Truly my pleasure. Thank you, pal. And for everybody listening, as always, we'll have links to everything in the show notes. at Tim.blog forward slash podcast.

at uh Tim.blog forward slash wolf. Thank you for listening. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up. in the uh the world of the esoteric as I do, it could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite. of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up,

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