Ep. 320 The Extinction of Caribou on the Lower 48 and Are Mountain Lions a Threat to Humans?

Written By Hoksey Native Seeds

Bart George, Caribou and mountain lion expert, and his wife Dr. Brook Lang sat down with us to discuss the wild west. Bart goes over his unsuccessful attempts to save the caribou in the lower 48 and his efforts to help human cohabitate with mountain lions. Bart is a true expert with cougars, and he has spent thousands of hours outside tracking and studying them and caribou. You won’t want to miss this Prairie Farm Podcast episode.

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  • Dr. Brook Lang (00:00.078)

    My name is Dr. Brooke Lang. I'm a board certified neonatologist.

    Bart George, I'm the wildlife program manager for the Kalispell Tribe of Indians.

    and this is the Prairie Farm Podcast. I'm Dr. Julie Meachin. I'm Steve.

    Mark

    I'm Hanson. I'm Jill Bebout. Chad Gravy. My name is Jeremy French. Laura Walter.

    Kent Boucher (00:17.646)

    Carol Hochspurian, owner of Hoxie Native Seeds, and this is the Prairie Farm Podcast.

    Skip Sly, Iowa Whitetail, Valerie-

    VanCotin State Historical Society of Iowa. Dr. Matt Helmers, Iowa State University.

    My name is Kyle Laubarger with the Native Habitat Project. I'm Judd McCullum. I appeared out of the wilderness and this is the Prairie Farm Podcast.

    Welcome to the Prairie Farm Podcast.

    Dr. Brook Lang (00:47.918)

    So we're initially a pediatrician and then we specialize in taking care of critically ill infants.

    Wow. Yeah. And you do that for a day job. Yeah.

    Yes.

    That's right, you were telling me about this on the phone. right. My wife is a labor and delivery nurse. Yep, yep.

    That's what he said. Because he's talking about what time you were going to be able to get off work. And I was like, we get it.

    Kent Boucher (01:12.374)

    Yeah, I two babies born last night for the you know, well one at midnight one at 5 a.m. So the first baby. Yeah

    The New Year's babies!

    Kindred soul the first time we talked on the phone he was Taking care of four kids and his wife was fixing to go to for a night shift. It's like, yeah

    Yeah, that's right. He gets it.

    That's crazy. I think Kent's bringing us in, but I'm going to pull your mic closer to you. Otherwise, Brooke, you're doing perfect. All right.

    Kent Boucher (01:46.254)

    Okay, I'm going to copy something I heard years ago. I'm just gonna be honest here I heard this on the meat eater podcast maybe five years ago and it was somebody that you know Jim Hansen right is is his name Williams Jim Jim Henson, that's the Henson Jim Williams was uh, I was on there he is a Mountain lion biologist, right? Yep, biological research

    Jim Williams.

    Bart George (02:04.014)

    You're the cartoonist, yeah.

    Kent Boucher (02:16.27)

    And they started the podcast out going around the table listing all the names for mountain lions. I've always thought that's so interesting because it's one of their unique things is they have like a million different names. So Nicholas, because you're unaware of this, we'll let you start out.

    okay. I, I... I know, but that's so terrible and boring. I feel like Cougar is a different thing.

    Just use the one I just said.

    Kent Boucher (02:43.638)

    cougar? Yep, that works.

    Sweet!

    took mine.

    Panther

    Panther good.

    Dr. Brook Lang (02:54.742)

    I don't know. It's... What's the one in Patagonia? What is it? Puma. Puma, right?

    You're right.

    Kent Boucher (03:02.166)

    Yeah, yeah good

    These aren't all different cats? These are all the same cats? Yeah.

    Catamount.

    out

    Leopard is different, isn't it? Isn't leopard just isn't Puma kind of leopard?

    Kent Boucher (03:16.238)

    It's a mountain lion.

    It's a mountain lion? Yeah. heck yeah, dude. We always do these and I always lose.

    Well, she already said Puma though. said... Leopard. No, Leopard does not count.

    Okay, that's what I was asking. okay. Okay, then I'll just go mountain lion. I don't know.

    I don't

    Bart George (03:33.528)

    Yeah, no hasn't been said, but I just call him a lion like

    Yeah, a lot of people. In fact, when I was looking up last night prepping for this, I was going back to the old country so full of game just because I wanted to see what the historical documentation was on on mountain lions in Iowa and I had to look it up by lion was in the in the index. So I guess it's Brooks term.

    out. You're out? Okay. I think the only other one I can think of is painter.

    Interesting.

    I've never heard that one.

    Bart George (04:14.758)

    Yeah, but they're well, I mean it makes sense though. There's a cat with the broadest distribution in the world from You South America all the way through to now Alaska

    I guess I didn't realize that it had it has the broadest distribution. Well, the whole base of the whole Western Hemisphere.

    Yeah.

    Bart George (04:33.795)

    Yeah.

    Is it because they're just really versatile? their form is a very versatile form?

    Yeah, they can live anywhere. me think about the Florida Panthers, right? Such a different place than where we're at in Eastern Washington. And they do well either places eating snakes down in the Everglades or eating deer in the Cascade Mountains.

    That is very interesting. So they're in Alaska as well?

    They have never been until only recently there was one up in southeast Alaska. So Brooks from Alaska and her brother is a keen hunter up there and he's always sending me stuff and he heard about it and sent me an article that somebody had found this lion up there.

    Nicolas Lirio (05:18.423)

    Is that a good thing?

    Was it, well, I just want to hear Brooke's perspective on this. Was that kind of like a, you know, people, when I was a kid, you'd be like, I know I saw a wolf, you know, here in Illinois. And, and be like, no, you didn't. But then somebody would just swear they saw one. Was that a thing in Alaska where people were like, I think there's a mountain lion living up over there.

    Never ever ever heard that until this like till really my brother called us about it. Yeah

    That's interesting. You'd think with such a huge...

    But everybody's saying the wolf thing. Yeah, I always call their bluff on that one. It's usually a big dog.

    Kent Boucher (05:52.054)

    Yeah.

    When you see when you finally see a real wolf you're like, whoa that is My my grandma and sister to this day swear they saw a lion in Iowa they like came back from the grocery store and my sister was like in College and she's quite about she's nine years older than me and I was a little kid. So I just like ate it up

    There's no doubt.

    Kent Boucher (06:15.594)

    isn't a mountain lion or like an escape from the zoo?

    They said they said mine and I think they knew it wasn't like it didn't have a main but my my my assumption always was that they saw a big bobcat and they saw it close enough where it was like that is shockingly large you know but I don't know I that my sister today is like no it was not a bobcat I've seen pictures of Bobcat it was much bigger than that and I kind of wonder but I don't even know if mountain lions are ever found really in Iowa

    yeah.

    They are. It's funny you say that. I was in high school and I saw a lion down by Easter Lake actually, South of Des Moines. Yep. My family had a farm there in this course of now it's all sub development, right? But Ag Field right against the public land and I was mowing the backyard and I watched it for five minutes. Wow. And you know, I'd never seen one before in my life, but I knew what they were, right?

    pretty interested in.

    Kent Boucher (07:16.14)

    your your what do they call it for superheroes origin stories yeah is that that where you were like man I could get into keeping an eye on these things for a while

    I know it was far before that I was I mean it was exciting to see it was really interesting thing to spot one there but it's also it'd be like me saying I saw a Bigfoot in Washington, know, you can't really like Of course, we didn't have social media then or anything else, but I couldn't just run around like I saw a lion people wouldn't believe me Yeah, there's no evidence of that. But I mean, I'm sure that's what it was and I don't know where it may have come from

    pocket to get

    Kent Boucher (07:55.362)

    What's interesting is, and I think it has to do with just the amount of forest still in, because that's Madison County, right?

    That's actually southern Polk County. It's like, yeah, that's right on the edge.

    Even still I mean get to southern Polk County. There's there's quite a bit of forest down there Yeah, and even up where we're sitting now, which is Marion County. There's Through that in Warren County those counties kind of are one of the biggest I guess you'd say most sprawling pieces of forest left in Iowa and Almost every year on like the different

    Social media pages, but one of the biggest ones for Iowa's trophy bucks of Iowa people are always putting trail camera pictures up on there and

    They're always the same, like five counties.

    Kent Boucher (08:45.118)

    Yeah, and mountain lions and elk you they're almost always there's one in Madison County and so it's it's interesting that you know from not obviously yours it was in Polk County, but not too far away and

    Yeah, it wouldn't mean anything for that cat to be in Madison County the next day. Yeah, they travel.

    Yeah, they're incredible animals, the distribution of them. And I think what maybe keeps, well, first of all, anything dangerous, that's ancient. They're on the front of our minds when we think about wildlife. And not just like in a, ooh, I'm scared of that. There's a natural intrigue there, too. Probably kind of like when you get caught staring into the...

    Campfire, you know, it's like this is something powerful. This is something that you know brings a lot of excitement and good but also burns your house down if you're not careful and and When you when you think of that and think of the Intrigue that's around mountain lions. I think that's part of it But I think the other part is there's they they're just so good at going undetected hmm and

    I remember reading in Jim's book that there would be times where he had a cat that had a collar on it, radio collar on it, and he had the, what do call them, the receiver.

    Bart George (10:14.292)

    Yeah, the old VHF.

    He's like I know the thing is within yards of me, but I cannot get eyes That's crazy. mean what what is it about them that Another story that I'll tell a friend a good friend of mine. He's a rancher out in central, Nebraska I was telling you about this he he was able to participate in a coloring of a lion that was on their ranch and the next time When they checked in on that lion, this was within weeks

    Wow.

    Kent Boucher (10:45.44)

    It had made it from Valentine, Nebraska area to Springfield, Illinois. I mean, it had crossed undetected the entire state of Iowa, which is not a small state and all the way into the heart of Illinois before it got picked up again. What is it about them that they're able, is it just because they're so nocturnally active or?

    I mean, that's a part of it, right? They're, they're moving around mostly at night, but, they can, they can walk a long ways, right? They can make a kill and feed and, then walk away from it and travel, you know, potentially a hundred miles before they need to eat again. They are the animal that's going to walk from Nebraska to Illinois is a dispersing animal. that, that's one that's looking for another population to settle into, right?

    So they're

    Bart George (11:36.83)

    Suitable habitat and space And he's gonna be walking for a while because he's not gonna find any more cats probably mm-hmm So probably a young male if I had to guess yeah, like like a two-year-old male. That's just kind of setting off on his own

    Are they so I've also heard that sometimes those young males will keep bouncing out further because they are coming across other more dominant males territory is that is that also Yeah possibly part of it

    Oh, yeah for sure But you know, think that cat he's not getting bumped. Let's say he's not walking across central Iowa and getting bumped out of habitat by a Lion, he's just looking for a population. Yeah

    He's the

    Kent Boucher (12:20.972)

    Is there like a finish line kind of idea where if a cat was to move from the West, which happens every year in Iowa now, either from South, you know, Black Hills or Nebraska or wherever, are they, if they keep pushing far enough East is like Missouri, is there enough of a population of Missouri or Arkansas or that, okay, now that cat is going to end up there. He's going to spread his jeans down in that part of the country or are they

    Finally, do they hit a point where they're there's nothing here and I'm looping back.

    I don't know the answer to that. think they tend to get themselves in trouble before they reach that spot, right? Sure. You have to keep in mind. This is still a young animal. It's still a two year old predator out on the landscape that's exploring new territory and crossing roads and doing all these things that are pretty dangerous. I don't know the answer to that. I don't know if anybody could guess that the finish line in my mind would be when he happens upon a dispersing female and like all the, they,

    They're in place that has prey and then they can set up camp.

    Hmm. Are they, are they one season maters or do they, stay together for life or.

    Bart George (13:30.73)

    No, they don't stay together for life. But the way the territory works, you know, the, the male might have this great big territory, you know, hundreds of square miles and the females will set up a smaller territory within. And you know, as that changes over time, then they get bred by a different male. So a female may get bred by the same male a couple of different times, but once he starts to kind of age out, another Tom will come in and, and replace him in that territory or he'll get

    killed or whatever. And then that Tom will come in and I think at that point that female sort of beholden to that cat that's gonna be in the territory.

    Is there a place like Iowa where there are so few of cats and I don't know that the I should have reached out to Jace and well, I think the guy who's in charge of the the fur bearer

    We group them by cervids and fur bears and then I can't remember what what the other Category is maybe like reptiles and fish, but I think his name is Scott Evelsizer Maybe who's here in Iowa. We need to interview that guy. We're good friends with Jace who's in charge of all the

    and spray.

    Kent Boucher (14:51.446)

    I don't know that the DNR has ever said we have any permanently established cats living in Iowa. But the frequency in which we're seeing them makes me think that maybe in some of our more remote counties, maybe get down to like Ringgold County where there's very few people, but a lot of habitat still, maybe could be.

    In that kind of a situation, not necessarily specifically to Iowa, but areas where there's just low frequency of cats, maybe in Alaska like you're talking about, is there quite a bit of inbreeding that goes on with those cats? I think of the Isle Royale situation with the wolves. Basically these wolves become landlocked. Wolves do not have the adaptation to where they can, when they hit a barrier like that, they're kind of stuck. They don't hack away out of it super well. So they get...

    just compounding inbreeding. Does that happen with mountain lions or because of their adaptation that they range so many thousands of miles even that that they it's kind of a built-in protection against that?

    The that just dispersal right? That's the protection against it. So when Cats are isolated obviously it does become an issue and there are instances of that happening now already and in California the Santa Monica Mountains There's a whole bunch of noise right now and I'm not the right person to go in depth in it. But California has tons of mountain lions from north all the way down to Mexico, right? It's full of mountain lions. Yeah, they don't hunt them

    I'm almost seeing something in the news or a video posted of a negative human interaction, which we're gonna get into that for sure, because that's your research. In California though, I'd say once a month.

    Bart George (16:39.594)

    it's more frequent than that. That's probably what you hear about here, right? Yeah, right. But those populations that are kind of separated by the I-5 corridor, this human development that, know, cats are pretty sporty about going through cities and they don't need a lot of cover to make that walk. But it's so developed in some of those places that they just can't. So those populations are sort of starting to have a genetic bottleneck.

    And the state of California is talking about listing, putting them on the endangered species list, which I don't know what that changes. There's already a moratorium on cougar hunting. don't know what difference are going to make. I don't know what that would mean, but it does happen when they just physically can't leave an area. So, mean, that's essentially an island at this point. There's a little bit of talk about that on the Olympic Peninsula. So out west of Seattle, the peninsula that

    Come, you the I-5 corridor separates that from the rest of the state There's still some wild country but that the highway and the development that has you know sort of happened along I-5 has separated those animals and now in the West there's a big push for Wildlife crossings on those highways. Of course, that's huge huge money expensive to build but they work and So yeah, they they'll use them. Yeah But it's you know, it's not just a bridge

    Hmm, do they?

    Thank you

    Bart George (18:05.848)

    It's also miles of high fence and all this other stuff that needs to happen.

    them into the

    Doesn't that create like other issues for the wildlife when you create these funnel crossing points? Like I just imagined intelligent prey would just hang out there.

    Good spot for a truce.

    Yeah, yeah. Is there there documented behavior from from lions or wolves or bears just hanging out near those crossings because there is such a

    Bart George (18:34.454)

    traffic. Not that I know of, but they'll learn that. Like they'll figure that out.

    Yeah, that's somebody's new PhD study, right? You heard it here on the Prairie podcast.

    Yeah, that'd be... They put trail cameras at the crossings and we see, know, on social media, whatever, pictures all the time. Actually, the Washington Department of Transportation will put pictures out of the different things crossing is kind of fun. Yeah.

    yeah, it's super interesting and and I know they have different styles of them I I don't know I just kind of like the big overpass ones where it's like a land bridge going over I just think they look nicer, but a lot of them just like giant Tubes right that go under the road

    Right. And I have to think a lot of species just aren't going to want to walk through that tunnel.

    Kent Boucher (19:21.528)

    Can't imagine it like a big antlered animal. I think they would just feel like they're gonna get stuck, tangled or something.

    Right. And we have mostly well-trained horses and mules that like trying to walk them into a horse trailer is a huge hassle. Like imagine you're grabbing a wild elk and trying to drag them into a tube.

    love it. That's crazy. All right. and before our, listeners kill me, I totally derailed us from why are they impossible to detect? and I was also curious about that question that Ken had asked earlier about like, why? Cause they really do. They just go unseen, unnoticed and very hard to

    Don't some people refer to them as ghosts and things like that ghost cat or something like that

    They're so quiet. The first time I saw one, I was so excited, but I had to see it. I couldn't hear it at all. And the only reason I could see it was because we had it on the tracker. And he was just right there. just they walk. mean, they're... Oh no, he was walking.

    Kent Boucher (20:26.245)

    Was he still on the ground?

    It's just their paws are so padded that you

    Make a noise unless they want to I mean, they're really impressive. Yeah

    I had, so at that ranch I was telling you about, the closest that I know of that I've ever been to a cat, we were out there shed hunting on this guy's ranch, beautiful, just untouched prairie and so many, I mean it's grazed, but just so much intact short grass, mixed grass prairie there, it's like heaven to me, right? And.

    It had snowed right when we pulled in, and great shed hunting conditions, Fresh six inches of powder, you couldn't see a thing. But we still just had a blast walking around. And that was kind of our time stamp. It snowed to like, I don't know, maybe nine in the morning or something like that. And we got up on this hill at like 11.

    Kent Boucher (21:20.896)

    And there were fresh tracks. mean fresh. No snow had fallen in them yet. And there's all these ponderosa pines around. And so he could have easily been in any of those trees. And it was just such an eerie feeling walking around in there like, yeah, there could be a big Tom that's just sizing me up and deciding, you know, maybe today is the day I should eat, you know? And but I, you know, I'm looking for him. I'm following his tracks and I never could could lay eyes on him.

    Do you think it is likely that he was aware with those tracks being that fresh, even if he wasn't up there on that on that plateau, maybe he was, you know, a couple hundred yards away? Would he do you think he would have been aware of us hiking up there and?

    Yeah, I mean they're pretty watchy right they it's it's pretty tough to sneak up on one Not impossible, but pretty tough and they pay attention they've put themselves in a place You know, they pick a daybed similar to the way a deer would or okay They find a spot where they they can smell they can see they can hear and that stuff So I and I'm sure you guys weren't being silent, you know, if you're walking and talking you're not you're not sneaking up on anything You're looking for antlers So yeah, he probably knew you're there

    And they'll let you get pretty close. It was startling. So the research that we finished up last year, we were kind of trying to come up with a way for to do a control portion of this project. And one of the only way we could really come up with was to approach a cat without doing anything other than just walking up to it and seeing how close it let us get with this podcast playing talk radio at 80 decibels, which is pretty loud.

    So we weren't sneaking up on it. We were just walking straight at it. And those cats that, you know, we hadn't messed with at all, got pretty used to us pretty fast. By the third or fourth time we approached about half of them, let us walk right up to them. So we'd stop at 10 meters. That was as close as we get to their day bed.

    Bart George (23:30.1)

    About half of the time we'd walk up and just be looking at the cat and we you have the advantage We have a GPS collar on it. So we know right where it's at. It's not not even the old It was wild yeah, we had Yeah, know and jim talked about seeing them, you know using the the yaggy antenna and the wand thing Yeah, like the old fashion

    I'm fine to know that.

    The old-fashioned what? It's not the old-fashioned.

    Dr. Brook Lang (23:50.83)

    Radio frequency one where you use three points to triangulate where it is.

    you're good. You're OK. But they still had a caller on them. Yeah. OK. OK.

    You have to find him first, him, and then he does the control.

    Yeah, so they're going back to refine the same cat is what they're doing.

    Yeah, I, and I, I get that. I don't know how you find them to begin with. And then are you tranquilizing them?

    Kent Boucher (24:17.634)

    That's the other part of his job. we got I want to hold off. Talk about the house. I still want to talk.

    Yeah, we're getting ahead of ourselves. I want to talk. want to circle back to the question that we've twice now. They are I mean, they are hard to find because they move around at night. They're quiet. They're you know, they're mostly secretive. They're not like a wolf that's out there howling or anything else. It's kind of giving themselves away.

    They're easier to find in the winter, obviously with snow and in Iowa with deciduous forest and and row crops and things like that. Like your amount of cover drastically decreases in the winter time. But imagine an animal that's, you know, a big Tom might be three foot high at the shoulder walking through a cornfield. I mean, he may as well be in a rainforest like seven or eight foot tall corn. Like there's no detecting that animal in the summertime. Now in the winter.

    you know, the odds of seeing them go way up, but, where we are at in, you know, pine forests and big sort of connected habitat.

    A lot of our sightings are coming now from trail cameras and ring doorbells. You know, they end up on somebody's porch or stuff like that. you know, we get snow and somebody calls and they get cat tracks in our driveway or something like that. So.

    Kent Boucher (25:38.754)

    Yeah, this was really interesting. You brought up a great point there too. And I mean, just in the timing, things have changed so much technologically in your, your career. mean, you were so you're not that much older than I am. You when you were coming into your work, trail cameras are definitely around. But the quantum leap they've made in the last 10 years with cell cameras and, just the number of people deploying them into the

    you know, not just their hunting properties, but even on public land that the exponential increase in surveillance. then there was another one, which is half the old ladies in this country now have ring doorbell cameras and the amount of things being caught just by people who couldn't care less. They don't have it there for the wildlife. They got it there for the porch pirate. And and I got to imagine that's been almost

    Good thing and a bad thing for you guys because you're probably getting a lot more data But you're probably getting the same cat 500 times now as opposed to five times in the past

    Yeah, well and it's hard to identify an individual, right? If they don't have an ear tag or something else. So they kind of all look the same. Like there's big cats and small cats and medium cats, but you can't. Like if you get a picture on a doorbell at one house and then next door another picture, it's like you kind of have to assume it's the same cat. Yeah, yeah, but it might not be. So yeah, there's a whole bunch of this sort of anecdotal.

    data being generated. Luckily it's all getting posted on social media and like everywhere. Right. So, I don't, it has been helpful for, for our research. It was helpful, because we were focused on sort of that sort of cat, right? The cat that's on a porch, the cat that's hanging around somebody's home or livestock or something like that. in general, I don't know how helpful it is that, there's a group out in Washington that's, you know, they're concerned about the cougar population.

    Bart George (27:46.158)

    you know, growing and whatever, taking too many deer, whatever the concern might be. They're trying to sort of compile cougar sightings. it's like, well, sightings are a dime a dozen. That's easy. And if you put a social media post out there, put a, you know, send word like, hey, let me know if you see any cougar signs. your phone's just gonna be blowing up. Cause all of a sudden every bump in the night turns into a cougar. Every flash of brown is a cougar sighting.

    So some of it's useful, some of it's real anecdotal, and some of it's just a waste of time.

    Before we move on from the behavioral and anecdotal to more of the research or not anecdotal the behavioral physical adaptations of of these cats one of the things that I find so Puzzling maybe is the all of the large cats that existed here during the pleistocene That these cats

    Or in some way competing with and and functioning in an ecosystem with you know things like saber-toothed cats, American lions, American cheetahs. I feel like I'm missing another main one there. And of course all the other more canine type of large predators. But yet, lions are the only ones to survive out of that.

    At least here in North America. As far as the big cats go. The bobcats, I guess, in links.

    Nicolas Lirio (29:25.806)

    enough.

    There seems to be a size percentage, like correlation, everything about like wolves to dire wolves, and, or even coyotes to dire. Like it seems to be like a certain size and smaller survived. And the other ones just didn't seem to, make it. don't know.

    I'm interested in your kind of answer though. So this is good. This means you've thought on this a lot. What is it? Why did they continue but these other cats just seem to cease to be around?

    They didn't actually. So cougars were gone from North America for a period of time. They went extinct here. There's a pretty strong body of evidence that our cougars repopulated from South America. Really?

    That is fascinating. they would have, whatever that bottleneck event was, it got them.

    Bart George (30:30.167)

    They fell into

    Any idea what the speculation is on to why all those large predators blinked out like that?

    No, I have no idea what I mean. I'm not, I'm not boned up on that stuff that much. I know, I did a whole bunch of work on caribou in the lower 40, like lower 48 had a caribou population until only a couple of years ago. that population has existed in, you know, the Rocky mountains, Selkirk mountains for 70,000 years. So it didn't go away as a pretty big speech.

    And nobody cares about that for whatever reason. Nobody talks.

    And that's what's fascinating.

    Nicolas Lirio (31:15.114)

    That's she saw me. What? Just a couple of years ago. What happened? Just habitat or

    Nobody talks about why that

    Bart George (31:28.838)

    We know what caused that. Yeah, habitat change. man. You know, we've converted a bunch of that habitat. We've built highways and done these things. that like when you when you walked across that landscape, it still seems big, right? But now there's a highway going across it and with a with a species that can't survive a whole bunch of mortality, like a couple of animals getting hit by a car every year.

    You know, that matters over 50 years. You know, a change in predator stuff, a change in forest type, those things all kind of chipped away at it.

    over the, Man, this is. Why don't people I didn't expect to go down this road.

    That's amazing. Because a lot of people don't know.

    Why do think people is I'm assuming that there's not a bad actor somewhere suppressing the information. feels more like it's not the butterfly. We really care about monarch butterflies. We don't seem to care that much.

    Kent Boucher (32:28.244)

    elk maybe? it just the attention that elk get from hunters and...

    I mean, that's part of it. They're not a species that anybody's been able to, you know, sort of take advantage of or hunt for decades. But Teddy Roosevelt hunted in North Idaho for caribou. Yeah. He hunted out of Sandpoint. Like Brooke and I spent last weekend there hunting. Like it's a, they were there. Like people hunted them and I think, I think the population was small enough and in an isolated enough place.

    that it kind of got overlooked. And then you think about caribou, like there's whatever, 40,000 animals in the porcupine herd in Alaska and people are like, oh, I don't know, they're doing fine. It was a different thing, right? It's like.

    So is it more like and to me it's just so hard to picture Western wildlife populations because in many cases we have just fragments of I mean What are the highest amounts for bison was 60 million or something like that in the American West at one time and elk they I've heard from multiple places that they were really more of a well in Iowa there were more elk than bison in Iowa in a tall grass prairie state and

    So they're more of a plains animal, but now we view them as a mountain animal. Was it the same thing for caribou where there would just be vast herds in the lower 48 at one time, but they went through that same market hunting, exploitative, bottlenecking that happened to elk and bison. And then they just kind of lingered around kind of almost like a shearest moose, you know, one in a million chance of seeing one of those.

    Dr. Brook Lang (34:12.366)

    They a plains animal. Big time in Alaska. Yeah, and they move like crazy in Alaska. So every herd that you talk about then becomes a herd in a different spot. So where it was when you wanted your tag one year, you have to move to a different area to get that tag. Yeah, they move a lot.

    Well in Alaska, yep

    Yeah, they never stop walking.

    Bart George (34:33.934)

    So they yeah, the mountain caribou They're in Alaska also a different animal than the barren ground caribou and they would the adaptation that made our like southern mountain caribou so interesting is that they actually move up in the wintertime and Everything comes out of the mountains of the wintertime. Mm-hmm, including all the predators

    But the caribou would go up into high elevation basins and they would eat the lichens out of the tree, like the old man's beard. Yeah. Lichens hanging, arboreal lichens and that mechanism sort of kept them away from predators.

    Who is that guy that he won't? think it's I'm talking about the same guy. He was on Rogan like seven years ago. He won the show alone by killing him. And then he was like he was like a missionary to people to like people who followed the elk and elk herder.

    Jonas.

    Kent Boucher (35:32.526)

    No, no, reindeer. Reindeer was. Over in like Siberia, think.

    Yeah. And he just like hung out with these people that just followed the reindeer population around as like almost like pasture raised animals, but they just followed them through the forest or whatever. I can't imagine like my daily life. I mean, yours does a little bit revolving around a ginormous animal that isn't in offense. Like I just couldn't even imagine like, what do they do? Do they need water?

    Like they're kind of integrated with them and kind of family. also, by the way, a couple of times a week, we're going to take one of you guys and eat you. You know, it's just like such a bizarre way of life. But with the the caribou, it's just it's interesting that no like nobody, nobody cared. Nobody talked about it. Nobody said anything. But we've had people talk about conservational or ecological grief on the show. And I'm curious, was that

    Yeah.

    Nicolas Lirio (36:36.29)

    Was that a big deal for you when the caribou, when it was like official, okay, they're not here anymore?

    Oh yeah, was, mean, personally, like I said, I had invested 10 years of my career working on these things and doing all I could to make noise and gather funds and get partners and do all the things we could to save them. Um, but for the tribe, you know, I remember I worked for the Kalispell tribe and that's a, that's a group of people that, that ate caribou for the last 70,000 years also, like they've been there for the same amount of time and they've been sharing that landscape and that was a food resource that they could count on.

    most of the time. so, you know, when the caribou went away, sort of, you know, the Calisbo people sort of lost a piece of themselves and that landscape and the, you know, the landscape is different. Now it's a, that's the kind of an interesting part of our country where we have almost a complete suite of species. We still have, you know, remnant links and Wolverine and grizzly bear and all these really cool charismatic

    species but for one. Northeast Washington, North Idaho Panhandle, the Selkirk Mountain Ranger.

    Where are we talking about?

    Kent Boucher (37:49.678)

    Yeah, so that in my mind it seems like there's been now thankfully there's been in this expansion of these populations again Since well, what was the low point probably late 1800s for for bison elk and a lot of these these iconic megafauna of the West But since that time, you know, Teddy Roosevelt John F Lacey who did you know John F Lacey is from Oskaloosa

    Not for us.

    Kent Boucher (38:19.318)

    That's where he had nice. Yeah, that's where he lived. And thankfully, that legislation came in changed how people viewed wildlife, how they could use wildlife. And there's since then has been this expansion back out, not even close to what it was, but to where we have huntable, sustainable populations. But where you guys are located, it seems like you're almost the Eden of

    Yeah, except for

    Kent Boucher (38:48.942)

    of where you can get maybe as close to what healthy a healthy ecosystem was with these animals for millennia. And it almost still seems to this day now the new threat really being development and changing climate. Things are more filtering into where that part of the country that Northwest Montana.

    Washington, little bit of Idaho there. It's almost like this epicenter of the last good spot. Is that an accurate understanding of how things are kind of transpiring today or is it different?

    Well for the lower 48, you know, I'm thinking like this is all different for Brooke For the lower 48 I think that's true It's a pretty resilient landscape for climate change. It's got a you know, lot of elevation and different things So, you know

    as the climate changes, there's a potential that a species could maybe move up a little bit or do, you know, adjust in some way, but stay on the landscape.

    The changes there happened later than, you know, the Midwest, obviously, and it wasn't necessarily conversion to agriculture, you know, forest products and things like that. But what really sort of started, I think, the decline of the caribou was development in the river valley. So there's a couple of big river valleys on each side of the Selkirk and those animals used to move across the river valley and, you know.

    Bart George (40:40.886)

    that was okay. Now there's, you know, damned rivers and railroad tracks and a highway on each side and homes and, you know, 25 fences that they would have to cross and cattle pastures and all this other stuff. Right. So they, I mean, that genetic bottleneck happened decades ago. And I think that probably started the process for a lot of those species. Now a cougar or

    Grizzly bear or some of those species they can they'll find their way through that stuff. They're smarter They're sneakier. They're not traveling in a herd so they can work their way across those valleys more easily than a caribou could

    Sure. So were these herds, were they like what Brooke's describing in Alaska, where tens of thousands of animals, I mean, even at their peak, more like hundreds, dozens.

    No, hundreds. Yeah. Smaller groups, more spread out. Definitely not the densities.

    Alaska doesn't have those densities now. It's changed a lot.

    Bart George (41:45.152)

    No, it's change.

    They've declined even in Alaska quite a bit. Why?

    We actually don't know and the mulchatna herd is gone. So the biggest herd is gone.

    The biggest hurt is gone. Is that, I mean, does development a part of that too? Or not really? Nothing there.

    Nothing!

    Nicolas Lirio (42:05.564)

    Interesting and I assume they're big.

    The is they think they moved, but I don't know.

    I can't.

    Portion of it went and joined this herd and another portion that was so they kind of interspersed with other herds

    Looking at the wildlife, I mean, I just know from growing up and I would go with my dad because he was a hunting guide. And so I would I would tag along and be a packer. And they just eventually now are kind of not there.

    Bart George (42:20.659)

    If I hit, I mean.

    Kent Boucher (42:33.998)

    So you guys were actually able to hunt that herd there was

    yeah, my gosh, yeah.

    That's a man.

    That is wild and they're just kind of gone and someone whose dad's livelihood was there isn't sure what happened and what I mean by that is it's not very publicly known what happened to him. That's so crazy.

    Think I mean do you think that given another thousand years we have this possible predict what all happens on a global scale in a thousand years But the trends that we're seeing but you're Yeah, I want you to try but if I mean is it following the same trend that happened to so many of the other? Places to see megafauna to where thousand years from now be like yeah, found a You know, found an elk or not an elk a caribou fossil

    Kent Boucher (43:25.576)

    And I mean, do you think that's going to happen with caribou or will it be like a mammoth? I guess is what I'm saying.

    I hope not and I think there's enough people now trying you know to save species to protect habitat to identify you know sources of mortality and everything's like that. I don't think that'll be the case.

    Did caribou coffee ever donate money to the caribou cause? they're just using it for clout. Can't believe it. Man, I thought, I thought maybe they were kind of missionally. I haven't.

    They are from, aren't they from Washington, Caribbean?

    I think northern Minnesota.

    Kent Boucher (44:03.924)

    They would have had caribou too, right? Wasn't like again our Royale was was it a Lynx caribou? dominated Island before it's moose and wolf. Yeah, and there's so I mean through the Great Lakes there were even

    Minnesota

    Nicolas Lirio (44:19.01)

    Sorry, I'm so to all our listeners, I apologize. I'm so uneducated in this topic we're talking about. feel like I'm just asking the silliest questions, but it is it is fascinating. It's just not something I hear about a lot. And so I guess when the caribou that you were following, what habitat did they like?

    They like a big tree, old growth forest, which is also something we like, it turns out. But we like it for building homes and things like that. So what happened with the caribou is an interesting story that I described sort of their life cycle. They go up in the winter, they avoid predation that way. They're eating lichens and things like that. And they drop down a little bit, you know, mid elevation, some low elevation in the summertime.

    Okay. Well, there were not that many elk and moose sharing that habitat at that time. You know, I'm talking about a hundred years ago. there were white tail deer and caribou. There were wolves. Wolves have always existed. Cougars have always been there. their primary prey would have been deer. So as we, you know, sort of develop that land, it's not developed as well, still wide open countries, not developed. as we,

    Logged and you know manipulated that landscape right We cut down a lot bunch of the old growth and it was replaced with new growth and brush and things like that that moose and elk and deer Like right so they flourished right? Now all of sudden this sort of habitat gap that predators would have had to travel through you know 3,000 vertical feet of you know kind of a

    extracted from.

    Bart George (46:08.386)

    Biological desert really for as far as prey goes for them now it's full of Moose and elk and other ungulates that they want to eat and the caribou when they sort of drop down and would co-mingle they were just sort of Incidentally taken so they were never a primary prey for these animals But there was just enough mortality that they couldn't sustain a population and the habitat change Was what sort of bridged that gap elevationally for the predators to then co-mingle?

    That's so interesting because you always think of species like any kind of server do you think is having this predator prey relationship? That's why it's in the ecosystem. And it's you know, the deer are there to feed the walls, right? And, and that's not the case here for for caribou. It's purely by losing caribou. There's obviously ecological consequences in open niche, right?

    But it's truly from just a leave science aside, a de beautification of our natural world. Here you have this species that's existing. Not, I'm sure not completely, but largely outside of a predator prey relationship. It's just a part of the, the landscape and it's a giant majestic, caribou have the largest antler to body size ratio and even the cows.

    have antlers as well, right? So truly like the most majestic North American animal and it's eliminated from the lower 48.

    Crazy. And it's sad too, because they're just like, I mean, they're almost like a dodo bird, right? They're so naive. They just they haven't had. Yeah.

    Dr. Brook Lang (47:57.172)

    on our hunt. He walked right up to us, Mr. Boo.

    I just

    We had like a pet caribou on our inside. I mean, if we were carrying on, we would have felt bad. So naive like, oh, yeah, it's just hard. Come on. Yeah. Run away. Yeah. You know, for predators, it's like in lions, you know, a cougar will, you know, if it kills a caribou and another one's standing there, it's like, well, why not? You if you threw a cat in a room full of mice, it's going to stop.

    you

    Nicolas Lirio (48:16.354)

    everything we

    Kent Boucher (48:29.642)

    Serial killing Okay, so that's a that's another unique thing I've heard of them having to do that because of wolf pressure I think where is it is it Idaho that people? Wolf haters in Idaho, that's that's that's an off-sided thing right won't let us manage our wolves and now the wolves they're Driving their force in the they're stealing all the kills from the mountain lions which caused the mountain lions to kill an exponential

    yeah, yeah.

    Kent Boucher (48:58.57)

    increase in the number of mule deer that they're taking. I've heard it from that standpoint. Is that is that accurate? That claim? Because I hear it a lot. mean,

    I mean there might be there there might be some truth to that certainly

    Wolves take kills from lions and lions are probably more efficient and effective predators. So they'll go out and make another kill. Yeah. So that's a fair claim. We don't really know how, what that means on the landscape. We know, I mean, obviously it means more dead, dead deer. But lion, mean a lions.

    They're all they're still individuals and they're still cats right like like I kind of said it a minute ago If you take a house cat and toss it in a shed full of mice, it's not just gonna stop at one Yeah, right kill a whole bunch of mice In the wild, you know that doesn't happen upon a herd of deer and the deer stand around those deer are well adapted to escape a predator so They make a kill in a barnyard

    You know in a pinned up group of sheep or alpacas or something like that. There's a cat being a cat So yeah, they kill a bunch It's pretty unusual and you know, we've walked into you know dozens maybe hundreds of kill sites of cats and you almost never find more than one like animal laying around what we have found this kind of fun is we'll find a deer kill and

    Kent Boucher (50:30.798)

    Sure.

    Bart George (50:37.486)

    buried like on top of it or right next to it. Cause I'll kind of cash a kill away and eat it for about a week. Usually you find a coyote or a bobcat or something that got too close. Oh really? Yeah. I think that lion kind of hangs around. Well, we know the lion kind of hangs around that kill site, but not right on top of it. You know, maybe a hundred yards away. Yeah. And I think they're kind of watching that. And if something shows up and starts picking at it, they'll, they'll wipe it. Yeah. Oh yeah. No lead them. Yeah.

    Wow, that is really interesting. That'd be a lifetime find to see.

    Yeah.

    How often do they have to eat?

    I mean they'll eat daily when they have a kill. okay. A couple times a day, you know, but sort of.

    Kent Boucher (51:18.902)

    Left unbothered. They'll kill a deer.

    A deer a week. Yep, about a deer a week.

    Wow. they don't, so let's say they kill a deer and it takes several days to eat the deer. As soon as they're done with that deer, they go get another one. Right? Yeah. Interesting. Cause I'm thinking like a snake where it eats like once a month or whatever.

    No, they take and I mean you That's the ideal situation right they kill the deer they eat it for a week And then they you know they eat every scrap of the meat and they walk off and look for another Doesn't always work that way you know we still have cats that starve to death

    Okay, so we're talking about prey here just for this I imagine I can imagine this curiosity is arising in Nick's brain, which I also think was probably it's definitely in mine and probably our listeners do let's do like a Five being like that is the filet mignon. That's the that's what they if they could kill this every day That's what they're they're going after and one is like, you know, it's what it's and I'm just gonna kind of rapid-fire some species here. So

    Kent Boucher (52:22.734)

    Mule deer I'm guessing five. Is that? That's their that's their height. Moose. And that can include a.

    Pretty high, yeah.

    Nicolas Lirio (52:31.291)

    Can they kill a moose? Really?

    yeah. They can? yeah. Yeah, we had,

    Are they just calves or will they take down a cow?

    adult moose, yeah. We collared a, it was a big tom, it one of the bigger ones that we collared on a state project. I was helping the WDFW with a collaring project and we put a collar, it was like 175 pound tom or something, he's big. And like a week later, like we almost got no data from this thing and we got a mort signal and I walked up to see what was going on and.

    You know a more signal when that caller stops moving it sends a different tone. Yeah Yeah, so let's you know that the callers stationary for a certain amount of time so I walked up to see what had happened and there was as I'm like Scratching my way up the snowy hillside. I come upon a moose kill Which is pretty neat Buried like obvious obvious lying kill big Tom tracks. I'm kind of deals like man's was it a

    Kent Boucher (53:11.882)

    Yeah.

    Bart George (53:35.982)

    Ty like what happened here and I Had the telemetry and the tracker and got up the hill another 50 or so yards and you could see it was a heck of a fight all the way down the hill there's just the earth's all beat apart and That collar was laying in the ground and the cat was still alive but during this yeah, when he's

    Bury it. you saw the moose buried, where you're like, the cat has to be alive. Yeah, Feeling good enough to

    Somehow during this fight with the moose the the Kevlar strap had busted off of that collars and neck off the cougars neck Which was pretty neat. It's the only time we saw that Yeah, they kill moose and I mean that's like that'd pay dirt, right? That's a buffet for a month during the winter, you know when that move that's not gonna rot So they'll lay around on a moose for a long time Typically, it's Tom's that kill moose

    What would that be on the preference scale? Would be like a two for them to?

    Yeah, I mean it's I think that's something a lot of those cats are going to avoid a moose but but there's yeah

    Dr. Brook Lang (54:40.43)

    your work at your.

    So it's not about taste or nutrition.

    It's about energy out.

    Well, risk, right? Cats aren't like a broken tooth or broken jaw is potentially a death sentence for wildlife. So they, I don't know how much they understand that, but they respect it. so they don't take unnecessary risks typically. Pretty high. Yeah.

    What about elk? They... pretty high. Three.

    Nicolas Lirio (55:03.918)

    Where's the the size of a caribou compared to an elk body wise smaller smaller, okay Are they bigger than a whitetail or mule deer?

    They'd be somewhere in between probably a cow elk and a deer.

    So then where would caribou be on the scale? Just more so because the opportunity to find one to hunt.

    Pretty low. Low, yeah. Although we had...

    Bart George (55:28.13)

    Yep. Yep. the way it's sort of described and I believe it to be true, the, you know, deer are sort of the driving force of pretty much all cougar populations in North America. and then cats sort of become specialists in other areas, right? So an area with lots of, you know, desert big horns, like that lion population down in California,

    Arizona, New Mexico, whatever that's causing trouble with the desert bighorns is probably living off a mule deer but Taking desert bighorns when they get the opportunity But it's enough mortality to to impact that population so Where we're at it's mostly white-tailed like cougars live off a deer, but they coyotes and Porky pines and skunks and

    we're at right now.

    Where we're in Washington.

    I didn't realize there were whitetail deer.

    Bart George (56:38.126)

    Columbia whitetail. that's a, they're rare, but all the way down in the southwest part of the state.

    I lived in Redding. actually I was born in Seattle and I go to Washington every year and and I've never in Redding. We never saw a whitetail. only ever wouldn't there so.

    Interesting so the sort of the Demarcation is the cascade crest. And that's for mule deer and blacktail. Okay, so if you shoot a Buck in the whatever just barely over the line in Western Washington that's considered a blacktail On the other side is considered a mule deer unless it's a whitetail which about

    Okay.

    Bart George (57:21.934)

    Certainly Northeast Washington is dominated by whitetails and they're sort of an aggressive species also. They're kind of expanding into some of the...

    I've heard that's happening in Alaska as well. White tail populations are now starting to crop up in Alaska.

    just because of their reproductive success rate is so I've been

    I think it's kind of tied to a changing climate too, right? Where it's just their habitat is expanding into, you know, new areas where they can handle.

    It's something I've actually, this is a weird correlation, but with seed mixes. So I designed a lot of seed mixes for all over the U S and, and a lot of my time gets spent on that. And you do, we obviously everything gets tested. You get a germination test, right? Well, you also, we do things based on seeds per square foot. I mean, you're familiar with that. We don't, people ask me, how, many pounds do I need per acre? I'm like, well, it depends on the species, you know, and all this stuff. What you want is seeds per square foot. The problem is

    Nicolas Lirio (58:23.124)

    every seed, even if it germs, its success rate percentage is totally different depending on the species, right? You've got quantity versus quality. And then for whatever reason, some plants just have a much higher success rate per seed. so trying to take that kind of like four dimensional aspect into creating the seed, seed mixes is very difficult. And it's made me start to think about just on a fauna side as well. What is

    not just their form when they're alive and how well do they live, but, um, and how often do they breed? But what is the success rate of reproduction and whitetail just do not fail. They just don't. They just have a kid every year. Can and I had a long, we had a long, uh, birds and the bees talk the other day we were driving home from Missouri and Kent was explaining how the cycle of a deer. Uh, and, um, again, I don't really,

    me out there for a minute.

    Ken's oldest kid is eight. You're close. Your time's close.

    My dad He'll hate me for mentioning is because he doesn't listen to this but he's like he was over at my house at Christmas Day He's like man. I really failed you guys on that conversation. I figured you figured He's like I just couldn't bring myself to do it But no this this could be a whole podcast series Which is why we keep going down these rabbit trails and I really want to go down one and we have to do it

    Kent Boucher (59:51.576)

    But I want to finish doing our prey rapid fire. So we got caribou. What about like

    say with that. Oh, bison. Is there any evidence? Now granted, bison, you know, they're their own rare thing too, in the the Western pockets. But maybe like around Yellowstone, where there are quite a few cats and definitely a huge herd of bison. Are they preying on calves much or is the herd, the herd behavior of, you know, a little bit of not really fight before flight with bison, but they

    you know, kind of like muskox almost where they, don't they kind of, they kind of form a wall around the calves.

    And bison are they're pretty tough. I haven't heard of that. I haven't heard of them praying on bison I'm sure it has happened. I don't but it's not something that I'm

    What was the most shocked kill site you've ever seen? you the most shocked you've ever been seeing a kill site? Whether it was what was killed or what seemed to transpire.

    Bart George (01:00:53.814)

    I mean other cats when they when a lion kills another cat and has it, you know cashed away to eat

    Do think those are territory fights that turn into… or do think it's just one was hungry and…

    I think some of both I don't know When they I mean they certainly kill each other sometimes in a territorial dispute, but I mean that's not good for business to fight to the death anytime you encounter another male It's just not good biologically, but I think when they have one that they've killed and buried is probably just a predatory attack I mean if they get in a fight over territory and one happens to die, I don't know if they would eat it or not. I don't know

    Hmm why is that is very interesting? The do they do any praying on other predators like will they go after a you know a black bear cub or yeah? really?

    Yep. Wild story a couple years ago.

    Kent Boucher (01:01:50.67)

    I mean, there's nothing more dangerous than any kind of sow that's got cubs. I mean, that's a death sentence for most things.

    Yeah.

    Bart George (01:01:59.84)

    Yeah, yeah they and wolves mean that a crazy a single wolf happens upon a lion The lion will kill it a pack of wolves happens upon a lion. They'll treat it and sometimes they kill lions really We had Wild story a few years two three years ago now up in North, Idaho We're a Friend of mine has same group of dogs all my hunting partners all kind of together

    He's turned loose on a female lion track just to train dogs and take a picture. Wasn't going to kill it. Uh, trailed it up the hill and had two dogs trailing and one of them went silent, like radio silent, which is a bad sign. And he hiked up and found the dog dead and partially eaten and found cat tracks everywhere. Like two cats, um, figured it was in a female with a almost adult.

    Subadult hanging around got his dog left and The next day another guy went up and Had the same thing happen like the cat set up an ambush and like learned pretty quick that a Dog doesn't mean that much and they can kill a dog So that cat killed two dogs in two days

    Obviously nobody's gonna run it now like everybody's like scared to death of this thing. It's a weight in the whole area. Yeah, so Bruce the guy that we hunt with He's an outfitter and guide up there hiked up to figure out you know, like what's going on with this like? Went up no dogs or anything and he found what had happened These cats had been kind of living in this area So they're making tracks for the dogs to follow but it was all kind of centered around this spot and is a cedar tree You know huge six foot diameter

    cedar tree, Western red cedars, you know, like 150 feet tall, hollowed out at the bottom. And the whole area was just beat down in the snow with cat tracks. Like they'd been living there for some period of time and they had been working on digging a bear out of a den underneath that tree. Whoa. Which is like the first time we've heard of that happening. And we, I mean, it's one of those things like, yeah, I guess this probably happens.

    Bart George (01:04:22.638)

    but never been documented before. Really interesting thing.

    Yeah, that is fast. Well, I go after grizzly cubs, too. Is there.

    Yeah, so.

    I mean, I suppose I don't know hasn't been documented yet, but just because

    The bears hibernating, it's not a... It's not... A cub, right?

    Bart George (01:04:39.278)

    They wake up pretty quick. Yeah, it could have been an adult.

    That's crazy. That's crazy. You know what else was crazy? That guy who just was like, I'll figure out where they're at by himself.

    You know where the lions and the bears are fighting.

    He's sporty,

    You know where they killed two dogs in two days? That's where you'll find

    Kent Boucher (01:05:00.108)

    That's awesome.

    Bart does the same thing.

    This is a good transition to the last chapter of this show here. I mean, human-lion interactions. Maybe I'll start it by saying this and we can just...

    Have you ever been worried you ever

    Bart George (01:05:18.319)

    Chapter of the show wasn't it? Yeah, we're gonna start with yeah

    There's just so many rabbit trails I want to go down. the one I wanted to go down really bad.

    now made it to the intro.

    Dr. Brook Lang (01:05:31.243)

    You call them rabbit trails. I feel like it's squirreling

    Yeah, I stood up. Yeah. So you said wherever there's an abundance of deer, lions will be there. That's becoming the case in the Midwest. You hear more stories even in the Great Lakes, part of the northwest, and our mutual friend Lindsay and and I don't know, have you met Doug yet? Yeah. Okay, so but Doug and Lindsay are very close. They both

    work together and sharing the land. We're great friends with both of them. Doug, where he is located in southwest Wisconsin, possibly the highest density of deer. I there might be places in Michigan or Pennsylvania, maybe upstate New York, something like that, where they might be higher, but definitely one of the highest whitetail deer density locations in the country.

    With that, they are battling chronic wasting disease terrible. In 2024, the township where Doug is located, the deer tested through harvest that year had a prevalence of 40%. And that's the number one management concern there, right? Well, I don't even think it's been a year, maybe a year. Research came out.

    showing that hey, bobcats and mountain lions, their gut is like the one thing other than concentrated bleach. And I think it takes a heat source that is higher than what is used for cleaning medical instruments. It's like something like 800 degrees or something to denature these prions. Turns out cat guts,

    Kent Boucher (01:07:30.936)

    We'll do it. And if you don't denature them, they can stay viable in the soil indefinitely. They know at least 10 years that these prions can stay viable in the soil and can infect a deer after, know, if it's like in a, say like in a feeding area or something like that. So is it possible that maybe the best medicine for these areas with super high deer densities and super high prevalencies of

    chronic wasting disease that the cat population would be allowed to expand back in there or is it what I wonder is yeah well if you historically look at it there just really isn't much evidence that there were ever a large number of cats in these areas and so what what I'm asking for is not ecologically possible or even best you know case scenario

    Bart George (01:08:30.094)

    Don't know. I mean, I think that area could certainly support a population of cougars social tolerance would be the driving force of that and there would for sure be incidents of depredation like Yeah, there's and cattle are pretty low on the list, you know If you're going back to that cattle be like a one like they don't kill that many cattle Where we're at now in the southwest they do kill

    yeah, tons of cattle.

    Bart George (01:08:59.63)

    some cattle down there. But I mean, they're going to it would be a cornucopia in some of those places for cougars for a long time. Yeah. Right. There's there's small game. There's deer. There's if there's adequate cover would be my concern. then, like I said, social tolerance, if they start killing pets and livestock, which they would, I mean, they're they're still going to kill sheep and goats and things like that. So the the level of outreach to get people to, you know, have

    just because there's so many deer.

    Bart George (01:09:28.972)

    livestock guardian dogs and electric fences and all this stuff that we work on to kind of protect people's property. That would be a big heavy lift in the upper Midwest. Not impossible, but it would be pretty tough. And I don't know if that would, you know, I don't think I'd want to consider that the silver bullet for CWD. I mean, we have lots of cats and quite a few deer.

    Fairly high densities in places and we just started finding CWD in Washington the last two years. Near where we live, it's here.

    So it's right Despite having a healthy cat. Yeah, that's well that I mean that probably

    I mean like Colorado has lots of cats lots of CWD. Yeah, so it's not necessarily the answer. No

    Well, their gut might not be the answer for CWD, but I am curious, Ken, about the whole cat gut thing. How are you enjoying your coffee this morning?

    Kent Boucher (01:10:28.846)

    Hard-standing joke on here. Nick has a coffee shop and Evidently there is a taste out there for cat poop coffee

    Yeah. Well, think it's, it's, I don't think it's technically cats. like some weird. is there? Yeah. I mean, it is like they feed these, these mammals, this coffee and they collect the poop afterwards. Cause I guess it does something to the coffee beans. They wash them off and it's like, like our coffee beans, we sell them for like 19 bucks a pound or something. And this will be like a hundred, $120.

    No, there's both.

    Kent Boucher (01:11:02.254)

    It's some weird like fetishist

    I'm like gonna get Kent to drink. you won't know.

    No.

    Toxoplasmosis, right? That's another cat.

    You can sell cougar poop coffee for it. It'll work out a deal.

    Kent Boucher (01:11:15.95)

    This is our one chance to talk about toxoplasmosis with a neonatal. Is that I mean, I've always here. So I've been roped into cleaning the cat litter box. It's real for three pregnancies. It's real. The fourth pregnancy, my son was old enough that I made him do it.

    Here's

    Kent Boucher (01:11:43.15)

    I mean, like that's a real concern for expected.

    Genital. Yeah, so it's a it becomes a congenital infection for the baby. So yeah, and it's in the cat feces Yeah, so really prevalent. So you're supposed to not change the litter when you're

    Have you have you ever come across that clinically like work or someone has someone has developed talk

    The babies. They usually have like a in utero, you'll notice a small head, small size head and then they have like calcifications on the brain.

    Really?

    Nicolas Lirio (01:12:17.172)

    Is that a high mortality rate?

    Not always a mortality, but it definitely had they'll have disabilities.

    okay. And it's just a cat gut bacteria thing that.

    It's like one of the wildest critters on the planet. Yeah.

    It's not a bacteria, it is a but yeah, I wrote heat or something.

    Kent Boucher (01:12:34.016)

    protest. Like, and it's the other is I used to teach biology. So I'd always talk about talks with my students. I'd be like, it's a I had a way I would say is like, it's a parasitic mind controlling protest. Yeah, because they, they, can only sexually reproduce in the digestive

    is the one that like takes over the, the.

    Small mammals rats and mice eaten by a cat they the Machiavellian microbe because it like makes what is dangerous Seems safe. So it causes like rats and mice to crave the smell of Cat urine hmm, and it it lead like like a zombie before the slaughter that that Mouse that rodent will wander out to where it can be killed. I kind of wonder if that's what happened with that

    Rat in the shop that we had at work that our cat that is named dog It's also named lug nuts for obvious reasons He just showed up one day. He's a great cat, but he He's yeah, he's spoiled and he he peed in the shop the other day and next thing you know There's dead rat so I kind of wonder if that rat was infected with Toxoplasmosis blah Riley cleaned it up, so it's my

    Please spoil.

    Kent Boucher (01:13:56.078)

    But anyways, we're out. We had to we had to hit it while we were on there. But we need to talk about the human, the negative human interactions with cats. Five years ago, I'm an avid hunter. went out, I hunted the West for the first time in 2022. I went on a bear, spring bear hunt, definitely in lion country, lion scat everywhere. That was one of the coolest things like you would. I learned that hunting spring bears is all about elevation here, you know, fall, the snow line, that kind of thing. But also

    You can see where other animals are living based on the scat. Like I think it was around 3000 feet. You'd see a lot of maybe three to four is like a lot of moose. And then you go up to like four to five is a lot of bear. Get up above there. Now you're seeing cat scat everywhere and an elk too. You'd see a lot of elk up high too. I thought it was just cool. You know, it's like, you know,

    There was a mountain lion here. They could be anywhere. This is great. I'm not worried at all. Well, then what was it? Twenty twenty three. Those two brothers, brothers that were in their 20s that were shed hunting full grown men, shed hunting, broad daylight in California. Right. And they both got attacked, one of which was killed. It's like, wow. And then like I've been saying, you start seeing more and more of these occurrences. People get actually getting attacked.

    Yeah.

    Kent Boucher (01:15:25.388)

    maybe dogs getting attacked in someone's yard, killed right in someone's yard or something. And it's like.

    Probably a little bit naive to be thinking you know this is great I would it be awesome if a mountain lion just looking down at me right now and now I feel like almost the only the only other thing I really get worried about would be like maybe stumbled across a sow with cubs man or just any grizzly bear you know I definitely have a little bear in the way when I'm in bear country, but I was not wolves not on my concern list

    And mountain lion, I'd say they were right there with wolves, zero concern. But now I don't feel that way anymore. Has something shifted? Is it just because we've cinched down on mountain lions with our development? More people are in more lion country all the time. Maybe protections like California has on hunting lions, their populations have swelled to a point where you just have more conflict. Or maybe it's just.

    always the same but because people have camera phones now and the message gets you know the bite heard around the world is is is more common. What's going on with these human cat interaction?

    I mean, I think it's a little bit of all those things and certainly the news gets out right like yeah, there's an attack The news is out pretty quick through social media through whatever technology But I there's also a bend and uptick in that sort of Incident with people and I don't know Exactly. Nobody knows what's causing it The idea that we're encountering cougars more frequently

    Bart George (01:17:07.854)

    That's possible. Maybe there's more people out recreating in cougar country. Um, and cougar country may have more cougars than we used to have. Um, I think both of those things are possibilities. Um, you know, I, so let's start back in like 2018 or so. I'll kind of touch on the research that we were working on. Um, that all started because of

    an upswing in cougar incidents, cougar reports and sightings and complaints and different things. It's like 2017 and 18. So no, I've been helping the state for a long time, help, you know, manage cougar conflict in Northeast Washington. So when a cat kills something, the some, whoever has the pet or livestock typically calls the state of Washington and then they call a hound handler to come out and sort of

    your reset.

    Kent Boucher (01:17:45.134)

    Okay, so it's been bit.

    Bart George (01:18:04.824)

    catch the cat and figure out if they're gonna kill it or what they're gonna do. So we went like a decade where we would get five or six calls in a year and have to go out and deal with this. And then that started just like rapidly increasing. 2017 it doubled and 18 it doubled. And by 2019, it was like twice a week we're getting called out. And social tolerance is just.

    plummets, right? When, and again, it's, in the news, it's all over social media and people are talking about it. And it's like, it's kind of at the front of people's minds in these rural communities. and then it's, it's real. It's not, you know, it's not, it's not contrived. It's not made up. they're seeing it. It's happened to their neighbors. but in 2019, the Bruce, the guy that walked up and checked out the bear den,

    Like he and I have worked together real closely on those calls. We killed like almost 70 cats just in this small area. Wow. And you know, three counties in Northeast Washington. That's a lot. and that's like, we figured at that point, like we have to do something. This is a, this is an actual problem. Like how do we address this? What can we do? You know, obviously there's a human element, like people need to find a way to better protect livestock fencing.

    you know, mechanical protection, fencing, whatever electric fence, bringing them into buildings overnight, which is good for like hobby farms. And that's a lot of the places we ended up in, like, you know, 20 acre little sheep farm or something like that, four H animals, and then livestock guardian dogs and like all these things that have to happen, right? Which increases the cost of a hobby farm and you know, the number of sort of souls on board when you have extra dogs to feed and all these other things.

    I like the extra souls on board.

    Dr. Brook Lang (01:20:03.854)

    We have a lot of them.

    Just on the drive over this morning. I said that's like one of these days we need to take inventory and see how many souls we have on board the farm it's getting up there and So we you know, we're trying to like if You always try to address all those other things But there's never been a way to address like the wild component and that the cougar right? How do you figure that out? and that's that was the basis of the research and You know technologies happen to be coming along right at the same time that this problem

    An idea was coming along. So that's what we that's how we developed our, you know, aversive conditioning project. So when we talk about Cougar behavior, my sort of hypothesis, my idea at the time was like, like anything they are, they're going to learn, right? They're smart. If the house cat jumps up on the counter and you spray it with a water bottle a couple of times, it figures out pretty quick. Like, yeah, I better not jump up on the counter or

    At least I better not jump up on the counter while they're around.

    That's right. That's how cats do it. I just know they do.

    Bart George (01:21:11.63)

    Yeah, well, it's an end so then you know, that's kind of what we were thinking with the cougar project as we developed that it's like what can we do to make these cats more afraid of people or Dogs barking or you know sheep whatever noise they make bang So we Set up this project where we call her a cat and we'd put a you know GPS caller on it So I knew right where the cat was and right where

    We were in the dogs and we'd approach the cat with a speaker just playing a human voice. It was like every as a meteor podcast. And I like their podcast is they edit out any like empty space. So it's just constant noise. Right. And that's what we needed. So we'd approach the cat and see how close it let us get. And then once it sort of mobilized and ran off,

    was a Meteor podcast.

    Bart George (01:22:09.538)

    We'd stop and we'd have that distance and I knew like, all here's where I'm at. Here's where the cat was when it ran off. And then I could watch where the cat went. And when it stopped moving, now we know how far it went. Right? So what's the level of concern maybe. then we turned the dogs loose and the dogs would track to me and then I'd put them on the Cougar scent and they'd run it and tree it. And the first time we'd catch it in the tree, we'd shoot it with paint balls and kind of holler at it and leave the speaker going and whatever. make some

    Thanks for

    Bart George (01:22:37.952)

    noise and make this pretty uncomfortable situation. And you have to imagine this cat like it's living out in the silent, right? Right. It doesn't hear a lot out

    They're great at being undetected right it's like the opposite of

    Right and this here comes like it's like cacophony like dogs and people and all this stuff had to be pretty unnerving and then we leave and come back a week later and repeat it and so each cat then would have its own data set and so each week we'd gather a new set of points but that we could compare them back to each other and say now this cat you know learned pretty quick to avoid that human voice stimuli

    Yeah.

    Bart George (01:23:18.728)

    because it knew that this aversive conditioning action was about to happen.

    cat would start running much faster when he'd start approaching with the podcast. That's interesting. So he'd start so the cat, know, initially when he's doing the control, you could approach approach approach and just walk right on top of it. And then as soon as you hazed even after how many times twice, then the cat as soon as that podcast as he's approaching that cat would flee faster. So you'd have a much further distance.

    Yeah

    Nicolas Lirio (01:23:50.998)

    Interesting. Would its level of concern go up in terms of how far it would go? Yeah.

    Really? went up. That's a good question. it's called a flight initiation distance project and they're easy with like birds, right? There's been a bunch of them on crows and ravens and stuff like that, smart birds. But birds are easy because you can see them. They're out on a fence post or something. The technology really didn't exist to do that with cougars until this GPS stuff that we were with Garmin to get developed. But the cats figured out pretty quick, like

    questions.

    Bart George (01:24:26.114)

    that stimuli, that human voice is a concern. And over the course of the project, you know, each cat was collared for about five weeks. So we got four data points on most of them. They figured out pretty quickly to run sooner and run further and get away from that. And then the control cats. So we'd do a control study first, have that collar on for four weeks and we'd approach that cat with no stimuli.

    and those cats distance shrunk. So we're able to see,

    But.

    So you can't train them.

    You can train them, but we also sort of.

    Dr. Brook Lang (01:25:03.702)

    You can reverse train him to like you're at a park and there's no negative stimuli. They're going to let people get closer and closer and closer at that.

    Well, mean, those the cats, their adaptability is so extreme, which we talked about right at beginning of the podcast, just from a form and function standpoint that I'm sure their intelligence and habituation is off the charts on what they're able to be comfortable with or become very uncomfortable with. Here's what I'm curious about. That's great for let's say you did a ton of cats. You 500 cats.

    I mean, that still does not seem like a high percentage of the cats in the area, you know, over several states. You know, do you start then training farmers to go out there and make noise and shoot them with paintballs? And then how do you get them collared to even try that? I don't know. What do you go with that?

    You're onto something actually there. yeah, so we have this, now we're able to demonstrate sort of habituation, right? If this cat is in close proximity to people, you know, frequently with no negative interaction, they become habituated. A habituated animal is more likely to be in close proximity, more comfortable, whatever. So, you know, that's a good question. How do you make this sort of landscape scale?

    I think the easiest solution is to have recreational or whatever management opportunities for people to go use their dogs and train, these cats around. But beyond that is have a proactive response rather than waiting. You said everybody has a ring doorbell or a trail camera. When those cats are hanging around, go chase them.

    Bart George (01:26:52.718)

    Take that opportunity to go chase that cat. It's non-lethal doesn't hurt the cat It's just an opportunity then to hopefully get that cat to you know Be more fearful and respectful of space for people and I think we could have used you know Had this been unlimited time and budget and all the things like what would happen if we'd have used, you know

    recording of a dog barking as we approached or the recording of children playing or any stimuli that you know an engine running anything that a cat might encounter around developed you know a farm or whatever would have been appropriate.

    You guys have established a proof concept.

    Right. would be nice to know if it lasts. yeah. Because that's what, you know, I

    They're never actually hurting me. They're just scaring me. Yeah.

    Dr. Brook Lang (01:27:45.39)

    Like and then you know in six months down the road could we re approach this cat and see do they still have that flight initiation distance like is it is it still far? That's you hope

    What opening like a very controlled hunting season over a long period of time with, that train the cats like, you, got to stay away.

    There yes, so Like California has no cougar hunting right they have a lot of people they have a lot of cats They have a lot of good habitat There's a lot of people out in that habitat too. So encounter rates are pretty high like a place like that could really use Some negative interactions During the project. I got a call from some folks down by San Francisco that their big land managers park. I don't know what

    I don't know what exactly the place was, but it's a park. Um, cats hanging around their picnic areas and rather than, you know, they're like, well, is this something maybe could you come down and haze this cat? And it's like, I mean, yeah, it's like, yeah, it's like, I mean, it's not, not impossible, but, um, you know what? Well, we've, you know, we've got this park closed so that, you know,

    Got a quite a price 15 hours. Quite a price tag.

    Bart George (01:29:09.422)

    So there's no incidents like, well, why don't you grab a paintball gun and go out? Like it's just laying under the picking table right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, well, just go shoot at it. Like just go shoot a flash bang at it. Like what we've been doing with bears and Yellowstone for the last 30 years. treat it that way. Like be mean to that animal. You don't have to kill it, but it needs to know that like something bad's about to happen if I'm that close to people. So that, I mean, I think that's the long-term solution is just that sort of a change in how we.

    Handled those situations and we had I mean it happened this summer. We had a collared cougar over in the Olympic Peninsula attack a child of like a eight-year-old kid And it was a serious attack they got life lighted out Well that cat had been hanging around this trailhead in this recreation area for a couple of weeks and the Park Service had actually closed the park to visitors and

    the cat hung around and when they reopened it, the cat was still there and it attacked somebody. Like what a disaster. And what a simple solution. Like go chase that thing out of there.

    Yeah.

    And if you're kind of anti-hunt, you know if you have an area that they don't want hunting you can still open a like What do you call it the pursuit the pursuit ones where they have in Washington they have somewhere you can just run your dogs Yeah, so you don't you tree them you can't shoot them, but you can run You know, there's certain and you could do that things like that

    Nicolas Lirio (01:30:34.877)

    interesting.

    Nicolas Lirio (01:30:41.848)

    paintball.

    So that's illegal to just take a team of hounds and run them on a cat in California. Even though you're not intending to harm the cat, you're just, I just want to have almost like a sporting thing with my dogs.

    Well, it comes down to the definition of like take, right? You know hunting and there's all the legal definition of take is also harassing or pursuing. So yeah, that's illegal.

    What's the you know, huge can of worms have two cans of worms I want to open before we close here the next 10. good. Yeah, but dangerous. I know.

    Yeah.

    Kent Boucher (01:31:25.088)

    Right wing wants to get rid of the Endangered Species Act. It's very. Yeah, that's honestly been mentioned, Doug Bergham, not a huge fan of the ESA, big fan of 3D printing our endangered animals as needed. But then left wing.

    because we can clone animals.

    Kent Boucher (01:31:55.19)

    Like you go to California, absolutely not. There will be no hunting of these animals. I know they're killing people. I know that they're closing down our parks. We're just going to have to we're just going to have to work around that problem. What I understand the right wing mindset, it's exploitative, right? Those animals are in the way of it's a whole spotted owl deal with logging back in the 80s. Those owls are in the way of money making timber, man.

    that's easy to see the motive there. is the, what's the motive for the left wing side of it where, nope, absolutely not. What are they hoping, are they hoping to eventually, if, so be it, if there's more lions living here, then there's deer, then there's English sparrows, then there's people. That's just how it happens when you just totally let go of nature, she'll work herself out. Is that the mindset or is it?

    Is it just, no, we really like lions and we want lot of lions. We really hate hunting and we don't want any of that going.

    It's a combination of all those things probably, right? Like there's

    You care about caribou all of the sudden because now you know something about them and you know that they're imperiled.

    Kent Boucher (01:33:16.558)

    I'm a huge caribou advocate as of today

    Well, that's what I mean. I'm real passionate about caribou. So now here's somebody that, you know, they're getting fed this line that like, cougars are imperiled. Like they're being harassed by these vicious animals, dogs and people. like, it's an easy thing to fall into that trap. all of sudden, well, even though they're

    Bart George (01:33:46.434)

    totally disconnected from cougars. their opportunity to like live among cougars or see cougars or encounter cougars is very low. They care about it. So there's this intrinsic value to them, similar to what you have to caribou, right? But they don't know. They don't know. And they're being fed this line from anti hunting groups and other groups that are, you know, making a bunch of money. So it's also, you know,

    groups make money.

    Yeah, American, what is it the humane side? They've not the American is it's not. They're not the same. Yeah, there's a distinction there. We're not saying.

    Yeah, right. I people live.

    He study USA or whatever.

    Bart George (01:34:35.737)

    So I mean Yeah, and I think the ESA like know, caribou are fantastic example of being a victim of the ESA. Here's a species that's listed on the endangered species list It's the most imperiled mammal in the lower 48 for you know, almost a decade The same time that stuff is happening, you know same time like caribou are going away wolves

    are being reintroduced and wolves are eating caribou. We have documented collared caribou being killed by wolves. We know that that's happening. Wolves are also on the endangered species list so we can't kill them. So we come to this, you know, this place where wolves are on a meteoric increase across the West and caribou are plummeting and it's like,

    Grizzlies too, right?

    I mean, they're increasing, yeah. Not as fast as wolves, for sure, but...

    But definitely past in a lot of areas. Their target population no longer endangered, but they remain on the list.

    Bart George (01:35:40.139)

    in places.

    Bart George (01:35:47.446)

    Yep. But you know, here we're, so now we're handcuffed. We can't remove wolves to save caribou. And when Canada started doing it, know, got Miley Cyrus tweeting, like save the wolves. And it's like, the wolves don't need saved the caribou needs saved. And nobody knows that part of the story. Right. So, you know, I think, you know, the endangered species, I think wolves did more to harm the ESA than almost anything in the West. Cause the people just lost trust.

    And we have all these other success stories, right? Like bald eagles are like flourishing. Remember seeing the first bald eagle of in my life when I was a kid in Madison County and it was a big deal. Like I still remember it, you know, 40 years later, they're doing well and now they're removed from the list. And it's like, that's what that's for. So the, these environmental groups, you know, they're sophisticated and they're well funded and they have probably better lawyers than

    the federal agencies do and certainly better lawyers than our hunting groups do and wildlife advocates do. So they just keep winning and they have, you know, they've got this figured out.

    interesting.

    Yeah, it's it's a it's just so hard to see what the it's to me and maybe I'm just over simple, simple, fine. It's very easy to see the motivation for the right wing side of it. I don't agree with it. But it's easy to detect the left wing, which I also don't agree with. I'm a firmly in the middle kind of guy. Very non committal like to sit on fence. No, just kidding. have strong, Yeah, somewhere in the Yeah.

    Bart George (01:37:22.008)

    the right answers typically gonna fall in

    And but it's just harder to detect what anchoring motivation there is there for for the the hands off and don't you dare even think about, you know, violating that.

    picture. The picture I'm getting as you're talking is a giant puzzle and every font, every floor on every fauna species is a piece of the puzzle. And there's a spot for humans. But the problem is our puzzle piece is eight times the size of that spot and it doesn't match it at all. And we're just trying to jam it in there as well as we can. That's a great, there's just going to be a metaphor, a bunch of collateral on every side of every way. So the ESA well-meaning people, well-meaning conservationists just still

    causing harm at times when they're trying to do good things. And then also on the right wing side, when there are real cases of like, Hey, that, that endangered species lists ruined my family's financial welfare. Now we're, know, and now we're, we really are victims of a system. I understand, but it all just kind of comes back to, just going to jam our way of living into the world around us and it's going to deal with it. You know, and, and,

    We're great at having our cake and eating it too.

    Nicolas Lirio (01:38:40.827)

    we love that. We love cake all around.

    So the last can of worms related to this.

    Thanks for letting us hold you hostage, Amai.

    I'm just I'm worried you like a whole series with you guys. This is This is just fascinating tickled that we got to ask you about toxic. Yeah. I mean

    I'm just having fun listening. It's a lot of fun.

    Kent Boucher (01:39:06.51)

    So the last can of worms related but not cats, grizzlies. I've heard countless times and you've probably heard countless more times. grizzly in Alaska is very different. You know, an inland grizzly or an interior grizzly, Isn't that how you break them down? Coastal grizzlies versus interior grizzlies is very different than a lower 48 grizzly because in Alaska, hunters can

    You can kill, if you want to kill a grizzly right now, I think the only place you can go is Alaska, right? Because didn't, what was the province? BC. BC, they outlawed grizzly hunting recently, within the last 10 years. Because of California, yeah, type of mentality. And people will say,

    Because of population decline or?

    Because of Vancouver.

    Kent Boucher (01:40:02.348)

    Behavior of grizzlies in the lower 48 is much more aggressive towards humans because they perceive no threat coming from humans because they haven't been hunted by humans in the lower 48 for a century plus and the reason I related to this is because you're doing truly a Human animal behavior research showing that yes, if you increase negative pressure

    on a King of the Hill predator, it does change how it views being around humans. Do you think, and obviously cats are not bears and humans aren't either of them. So we can't, Anna, what's the, I can never say this word, anthropomorphize, that's how it is. We can't do that with animals.

    Do you think there's any, just from your observations with lions, do you think there's any credence to that off the site? it's not, I don't hear this coming from biologists. I hear it coming from hunters, right? Do you think there's anything to that? maybe, Brooke, maybe you've living in bear country in both places, maybe this is something you've observed yourself. I don't know that they're different animal because of the lack of hunting pressure, because of protections.

    seen a brown bear in northeastern Washington.

    Well, describe brown bear and grizzly bear in Alaska terms.

    Dr. Brook Lang (01:41:39.326)

    I'm well, I find it really interesting that everyone's scared of bears. I'm not. We run into them a lot. And they're pretty brown bears. Black bears are a little scarier. be honest, because when you run into them, they're a little bit. They tend to be more like a nuisance and they might be hungry.

    in Alaska or something.

    Dr. Brook Lang (01:42:04.386)

    when they're coming, when they're in your area and they're so they're, they're scarier to me. Brown bears, as long as you kind of respect their territory and you're letting them know you're getting out of the way. They tend to be okay. I mean, I've run into a lot of bears, like with my dad and just fishing in Alaska.

    We would go to Kodiak all the time. We every, every Memorial day we'd fish for about a week and Kodiak on this river. we know we, had a very different. Yeah. All we, we were always my dad's a bush pilot and we were always out in the woods. So never.

    pretty hardcore family trip.

    they did.

    Bart George (01:42:46.226)

    Bedtime story to our three boys eight and under last night was about her as an eight-year-old getting lost in the bush in Alaska while they've had flown into some backcountry caribou camp

    yourself.

    Good night, boys.

    Dr. Brook Lang (01:43:04.056)

    was eight, eight, his eight year olds birthday yesterday. And so I was like, well, when I was eight and our oldest son was like, that was really scary, mom.

    then

    Nicolas Lirio (01:43:14.83)

    How did you get found? How did you find your way back?

    I ended up, I saw our airplane that was probably three miles away and I just started running to it. Cause I, I squirreled, like I freaked out. lost binoculars that had been given to me. And so the guy, the client had given them to me to let me use them. And so I was so excited that he let me use them, but then I set them down.

    and came back with my dad and then my dad goes where his binoculars and I'm like, no. And so said, I know where they are, you know, and I threw this little and I took off running and I ran up over the peak. And then when I got over the peak, I must've, I don't know which way I went, but dad came over and I was gone. My dad's like, my God, I just lost my kid.

    And so he's yelling I'm yelling for him I can't find him anywhere and I did totally what you're not supposed to do and just start running Yeah freaking out yikes and then I saw the airplane and I just started running down the mountain and then they saw me finally when I was part way down we did

    Kent Boucher (01:44:22.894)

    Did you find the binoculars? Come walking in like what? told you I was going to get them.

    So Dan calls me back, I'm crying. I get back to my dad and he goes, now let's go find those binoculars.

    Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we got the binoculars and the end of the trip.

    just strolling into camp with a...

    No.

    Kent Boucher (01:44:50.286)

    I I'd do a little scout while I was out there.

    The guy gave them to me, which was really sweet. still have them. And then when I graduated from high school, I remember he wrote me a letter and talked about like going out with an eight year old on a hunting trip and how cool it was to see a girl out there.

    Amazing

    Yikes.

    back. Bears yeah. Yeah let's I'm gonna try to touch on a little bit. Okay for just for the whatever. In Alaska typically they call like a brown bears a bear that's eating salmon. Mm-hmm. And a grizzle. Yeah coastal. And a brand of grizzly. Right well I mean they're whatever it's the same.

    Kent Boucher (01:45:27.997)

    They're all just grizzlies now,

    So

    Every last can I talk to is like no, they're just different animals. Yeah

    are different.

    Dr. Brook Lang (01:45:39.822)

    fossils are big.

    They like 11 feet tall, don't they? Like some of the biggest boars.

    artificial

    I got on yeah That's nine foot

    years ago yeah

    Kent Boucher (01:45:49.966)

    That's the best.

    Nine foot ten and yeah, something like that.

    I mean, where we're sitting right now is probably roughly directly below the coffee ordering counter. If that thing was standing up, it's headed probably like close to the like the middle of the counter.

    Yeah.

    Yeah, it's skull was 28 27 and 11 six kids or something

    Bart George (01:46:10.584)

    That's huge.

    Yeah, it's a 21 year old bear. no teeth left. Just a really good

    It such a cool story.

    That is so incredible.

    Do you still like every time you see a bear does your heart like, and you're close enough to it. Does your heart elevate or are you super chill where you're just like, all right.

    Dr. Brook Lang (01:46:29.326)

    Oh, I'm so chill. I am the chillest person here. Of course it elevates. They usually respect you. I mean, I'm a lot more scared of sharks. I'm swimming in an ocean than I am of bears. But then you talk to a Hawaiian, right? Like my family lives in Hawaii. We have family in Hawaii and Alaska. And in Hawaii, they don't care about the sharks, but they care about the bears when they're visiting us.

    But I mean, you talk.

    Kent Boucher (01:46:54.83)

    to your use to.

    Yeah, it's like tornadoes in Iowa. You're just like, oh, it's just tornado. What are you doing?

    it asking he's like, we're the tornadoes.

    I think I saw lightning.

    Yeah

    Nicolas Lirio (01:47:09.752)

    They're actually, moving east. I don't know if you guys saw tornado valleys like shifted over. They're moving further east in terms of number of sightings.

    I think our bears, like Yellowstone bears are probably the same as the interior Alaska bears, but for campgrounds and 7 million visitors a year and you know, eco tourism and all the things. Yep. think they've learned. I also think they benefit from

    they've learned.

    Kent Boucher (01:47:45.354)

    say learn they learn that there's there's food there's there's a cooler there or have they learned these people pose no threat to me okay

    Probably both. Yep. They've learned like if there's a cooler there that's not well secured, they can come in and grab it and nothing's going to happen.

    They have been hazed, they've been chased. There's a Carilion bear dog program there. If a bear's hanging around, they get shot with rubber bullets. It's pretty aggressive stuff. And the same with rural Montana and rural Idaho and Wyoming and places around Yellowstone that bears wander out. They're not welcomed in somebody's yard.

    Trash in a tree. They're going to get chased off. There's farm dogs and things like that. So they've learned that through aversive conditioning As far as you know hunter attacks and things like that I don't know if that's dissimilar than what you would see in Alaska if there was that many people in the backcountry in Alaska encountering bears like you're dealing with a Huge elk population a lot of hunters out there sneaking around covered in elk this and you know blowing an elk call right like The incidence rates gonna be higher

    So I don't think it's any difference in behavior necessarily. I mean where we

    Dr. Brook Lang (01:49:06.732)

    I mean, even with one campsite, they still come destroy one campsite. there's no tents anywhere and they'll still come and eat or get any food out of your campsite. mean, they're.

    And their fault, I mean, they just followed their stomach and their nose more than a cat does anyway. Like they're more willing to take a risk for food.

    I had a friend who worked for fishing game in Alaska and would work the fishing weirs out and they would hit them with Not even just rubber bullets But a lot of time to try to because they break the weirs and they climb over and they'd be getting up and they'd come back Every day even with the negative

    Yeah, they'll do a lot for food. They'll put up with a lot of pain for food.

    Interesting. Did you guys see that? Did you see this? The bear with only two legs.

    Kent Boucher (01:49:51.143)

    petals the bear out.

    It is the scariest thing I've ever seen in my life that that bear yeah, it looks like a ghoul or

    be terrified

    That is not the take though. Most people have taken. They think that is the most adorable bear. Yeah. Did somebody, did somebody shoot petals at some point or something? there seems like there was some serious controversy.

    Fine.

    Bart George (01:50:12.578)

    I remember how he ended up that way and I don't know the fate I've seen you know the clip of him walking I agree with you. I it's like grotesque

    Yeah. Well, it chased another Baron.

    The one that we were watching, he walked on two.

    big brown bear that walked around a bit like that.

    Huh.

    Dr. Brook Lang (01:50:29.336)

    Just to get sense.

    But you know, when we landed the so we got Brooks Brown Bear in a spot that her dad duck hunts a lot. when we got there, you know, we were we didn't even have camp set up and there was a bear walking behind the plane, you know, not one that we wanted to kill. But yeah, we couldn't because we'd just landed the plane. You can't shoot the same day as you fly. But.

    that just to make sure you're not scoping them out and then?

    not legal scouting this

    We'll just fire up this whole hunting area real quick.

    Bart George (01:51:02.437)

    But you know and Leonard's like oh those bears aren't gonna cause any trouble they've been like You know we duck hunt here and if a bear comes around there like get a warning shot like so they kind of know to stay away from us

    He came and he checked us out and he's because their vision's not good, right? So he's coming and he's trying and as soon as he got a smell, gone.

    Yeah, they they'll put up with a lot until they smell you and they would I mean we're hunting in a place there's no trees for 50 miles. I mean it's like a it's like a Prairie with two inch high grass in the spring

    like Tundra.

    His on him was neat.

    Bart George (01:51:38.678)

    Yeah, but if you get like, they'll put up with a lot like you walking towards them, but when they get curious, they circle you to get the wind and then the minute they do, they're And that's really, think any one of the bears, even the biggest bear in the valley would have done that just because they're pretty used to like negative interactions with people out there. Even though we were kind of in the middle of nowhere.

    Cause the next day we, we tried to go after him and then when he saw us, he ran parallel to us and Bart was trying to get me on a high point. My dad's running with us cause dad has to be with you. Um, cause he's the, so in Alaska, yeah, so I'm next to Ken, right? So he's, yeah, so he's with me and so we're running along. My dad's 83. That's wow. So you would love it.

    in

    Bart George (01:52:26.542)

    It's done.

    I want to interview your dad

    Except you'd swear a lot, you'd be bleeping things out.

    Yeah

    And so we're trying to get up onto a like a berm basically it's not even six feet you know but we're just trying and the bear is also just trying to intercept us and I'm kind of this is a my heart is just pounding I'm so glad we didn't actually have a shot on this one because I mean I was like

    Bart George (01:52:55.928)

    was like a warm-up.

    And he got Barton dead yelling at me on both sides and all this stuff and and he came around and he comes on the other side of the berm and just gets the wind lifts his head up enough to just get our scent because he was checking us out the whole time to see are they bad or good or what you know it was really interesting and as soon as he got it he was I mean I don't think

    But then when they're on a food source, like that was a bear hunt where we're looking for bears on, you know, this more spread out food source, but on a, we camped on a salmon stream for a moose hunt last year and there's bears everywhere. Like we had bears shake off and get water on our tent, you know, and like bear tracks through camp.

    24 hours we had 18 encounters

    bears every day.

    Kent Boucher (01:53:41.975)

    Goodness.

    Like, like

    Yeah

    It's like we didn't exist. They were there eating salmon and as long as we weren't like right in their way, like they just didn't care.

    mind the boys, there was one Sal, I didn't like her.

    Bart George (01:53:59.79)

    Yeah, there's a sound cut. think they just like they figured it out. They can coexist with people maybe more easily than cats can. And like, think that natural tendency for a cat to want to chase, know, and take, know, like their pursuit predator. If if they see a, you know, if your house cat sees a little Tinkerbell or a ball of yarn, it's going to check it. Right. That natural tendency is

    You know, what keeps cougars alive is also their detriment when there's people around.

    The runner or the bicyclist going.

    Yeah

    Yeah.

    Bart George (01:54:42.484)

    Everybody said I don't know that they're different

    Her teacher's like, they said they're related to pigs and I don't think so.

    Behaviorally, they would be more similar to the pigs probably right diet. Yeah, they spend so much time forging on

    as far as their

    Dr. Brook Lang (01:55:01.004)

    And more of a dog.

    Yeah, they act more like a dog. They're a charming animal. They're easy to like.

    Oh, yeah, you see when it's like, man, I kind of would like to give you a hug. here, tear my face off. Oh, man, this we could go for hours. This has been such an enjoyable conversation. I mean, it's the first conversation of 2026. Yeah, we just did our year in review of podcasts over the last year. And we said what our favorite podcasts were from the year. And this one, I when we get to our 2026. And you of the year, this one might set up.

    Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is fair we'd love to have you guys back on sometime There like I said, we could do like a series with you just going down all these different rabbit trails But we have two true and Everybody we interview as a difference maker to a point, but you guys have through your careers both of you been working in an area of Extreme expertise the highest level of expertise

    Yeah.

    Kent Boucher (01:56:03.414)

    wanting to make a difference. So Nicholas, we need to revive your old ending question that we would end podcast. Yeah. Yeah. We haven't done it in a while.

    Kent Boucher (01:56:17.774)

    And it doesn't have to be within your area of expertise.

    Bart George (01:56:37.271)

    No!

    All the are fine, you might alienate yourself.

    would get caribou back below the lower the 49th parallel. Wow. That's great. And I think that's a that's something that we could see in our lifetime, but it's going to take more than a snap of the fingers going to take some political will.

    But a definite change in mentality of the majority of Americans. Which would be a sign of health in a lot of different ways. Yeah, I like that a lot. Brooke, what do you think? Any single thing.

    Yep.

    Dr. Brook Lang (01:57:08.803)

    Man.

    Dr. Brook Lang (01:57:13.23)

    and change one thing, like if I could snap my fingers.

    Bart George (01:57:21.058)

    guys are asking this to an over thinker like this is

    I got all the time.

    We're gonna be editing out like 15 minutes of silence here.

    gonna be like

    Yeah.

    Bart George (01:57:36.962)

    Damn you!

    No, mine would definitely be medicine related and for the health of the babies and everything. think it would be, man, I'd be helping the moms that...

    The mom's a dependency issues. I don't know how you can do it, but if we could do away with that.

    Drug dependency. That's a major struggle. If you could somehow find people to have another way to cope.

    It's just the way they...

    Kent Boucher (01:58:17.003)

    Is that a bigger occurrence than most of society has an understanding of?

    Yeah, yeah, it's, it's really prevalent. And then, you know, and then they try really hard to keep the, they want to keep, when I first started in my career, you separated mom and baby. If, you know, if mom had a positive urine drug screen or anything, you know, baby went with CPS and went somewhere else. now that might still, maybe still need to be the way, but, we don't have space.

    Yeah. So you're still going with families and you're still, know, and it's, and I just wish there was a way to help out those families. Cause there's a lot of struggles.

    Yeah. That's a great answer. Both of them are great answers. Well, thank you so much for joining us. This is a new year. Happy New Year. We're gonna get more caribou. We're gonna have healthier moms, healthier babies. We're kicking off 2026. Right. Thank you for making make some time on your vacation time to come see us. And normally I offer people hey, if you ever want to come out here and hunt, but you probably have access but

    We got a good plan.

    Bart George (01:59:24.398)

    Of course, our pleasure.

    Bart George (01:59:30.424)

    We have some, but we're always looking.

    We'll talk after we end this episode, but thank you so much for coming out clearly to people who view the world in a way that they see opportunity for improvement and Don't just talk about it. They live it they they pursue it and they make the changes that they can That's the whole point of this podcast whether it's conservation whether it's healthier families whether it's a better education in our

    in our public schools, whatever those changes that need to be to make make this world a better place. That's what we're we're all about here. And it all starts with your mindset. And that certainly is true for conservation. Conservation happens one mind at a time.

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