Ep. 851: The Promise and Controversy of American Prairie

00:00:00
Speaker 1: What you’re about to listen to is a conversation with Alison Fox, the CEO of American Prairie. For twenty five years, American Prairie has been executing on an ambitious and highly controversial plan to buy hundreds of thousands of acres of ranch land in the vicinity of the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge in north central Montana in order to ultimately compile a contiguous block of private and public lands that are fifty percent larger than Yellowstone National Park, all open to the public. So far, they’ve managed to buy one hundred and sixty nine thousand acres. Their aim is to manage the land to maximize wildlife habitat health, and restore a grassland ecosystem inhabited by a full suite of native wildlife, including the American Buffalo. Fans and supporters of the plan see a Yellowstone of the Great Plains, or, to steal a term from the historian Dan Floores an American serengetti, see an evil land grab that poses an existential threat to the American cowboy. If this is the me Eater podcast, coming at you, shirtless, severely, bug bitten, and in my case underwear listening to podcast, you can’t predict anything brought to you by first Light. When I’m hunting, I need gear that won’t quit. First Light builds, no compromise, gear that keeps me in the field longer, no shortcuts, just gear that works. Check it out at first light dot com. That’s f I R S T L I T E dot com. All right, everybody, I’m joining today by Alison Fox. She goes by Ali, Yes, thank you. Correct the CEO of American Prayer. You may have known, and I didn’t even catch when this happened. American out of Time was American Prairie Reserve, Yes, but became American Prairie how long.

00:02:04
Speaker 2: Ago twenty twenty one, and before that we were American Prairie Foundation.

00:02:10
Speaker 3: It’s been a journey, right.

00:02:11
Speaker 1: So now landed officially on American Prairie. She’s been the She’s led the organization since February twenty eighteen, and has been with the organization in very roll various roles since two thousand and seven. Here in the state of Montana, they’re they’re based here in the state of Montana, primarily in north central Montana. I’m gonna let you explain what the mission is okay. But but American Prairie is and we’ll get into what it is and what it’s been interpreted as and controversy surrounding the organization. But it is a one of a kind effort.

00:02:52
Speaker 3: That is true.

00:02:54
Speaker 1: It is a one of a kind habitat restoration effort going on, and it presents certain challenges. But I would like you first to lay out like layout for the audience. Layout for me, what is the American Prairie vision?

00:03:10
Speaker 2: Okay, let me start with what America Prairie is today. So American Prairie is a nearly twenty five year old conservation organization. We are based here in Montana. We are a team of Montana’s leading this organization and today we manage six hundred and five thousand acres of habitat of deeded and least public lands lands that are open to the public and are all located around the Charli Russell National Wildlife Refuge up in north central Montana. The ultimate vision is to using private philanthropy purchase private lands to link together existing public lands around the Charlie Russell National Wildlife Refuge for eventually a landscape of about three million acres so we’ve assembled six hundred and five thousand acres toward two million acres to the one point one millionacre Charlie Ussell National Wildlife Refuge.

00:04:03
Speaker 1: These lands are back those numbers up, mix. I want to follow this, yep, the current Charlie Russell Land. So this is this is like BLM public land.

00:04:16
Speaker 3: It’s US Fish and Wildlife Service.

00:04:17
Speaker 1: That’s US Fish. Okay, I’m sorry, so you so, so the actual CMR proper is how many acres?

00:04:23
Speaker 3: It’s one point one million acres.

00:04:24
Speaker 1: One point one million acres, okay.

00:04:25
Speaker 2: And it’s along the Missouri For those are not familiar, it’s a long and skinny wildlife refuge along the Missouri River. So it’s river river bottom steep breaks on either side down.

00:04:36
Speaker 3: To the river.

00:04:37
Speaker 1: I guess when you were saying that, in my head, I’m mixing up the National Wild Scenic River designation. But you’re talking about the CMR the reserve.

00:04:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the refuge. Yeah, the second largest refuge in the in the lower forty eight Okay. And then what you’re referring to is the is the Missouri River portion, the White Cliffs portion that has wild and see Nick River designation, and that goes through the monument.

00:05:04
Speaker 3: Yep, Missouri breaks now.

00:05:05
Speaker 1: And that’s that’s a huge complex of public lands extending off exactly.

00:05:09
Speaker 2: It’s somewhere around four hundred thousand acres okay, fifty acres.

00:05:13
Speaker 1: Okay, So the so the refuge is how many acres?

00:05:17
Speaker 3: One point one million?

00:05:18
Speaker 1: Just for for context for people, ye Alstoe National Park is about two million acres exactly.

00:05:24
Speaker 3: Glacier is about a million.

00:05:25
Speaker 1: Okay, got it, all right, So there’s so the ultimate goal you’re saying is make like the shooting for three million contiguous acres exactly, and how many so far?

00:05:36
Speaker 3: So six hundred and five thousand next to one point one million.

00:05:40
Speaker 1: Acres Okay, Okay. There’s a huge buffalo component to this thing, there is. Yeah, let’s let’s explain that to folks. Yeah, this is where this is where I get interested. I’m interested in the whole thing, but this is where I have like a more detailed, fine point interest.

00:05:57
Speaker 2: Real tattoo or not, yeah, fake tattoo tattoos. So let’s just start with what this landscape look like. What are great planes look like for thousands and thousands of years, and that, as you know, as you’ve written about, was tens of millions of bison out on this landscape for buffalo out on this landscape in a very very short time. And Dan Flores’s talks about this in his book American Serengetti as the greatest loss of wildlife at they had human hands in modern human history, documented human history. That we went from thirty plus million animals to less than a thousand in Yellowstone National Park. So good conservation has been happening to return bison. I think they’re about a half million in both conservation and production herds in the country now, and I think it’s less than twenty thousand that are in conservation herds.

00:06:57
Speaker 3: You may know that exactly, it’s.

00:06:59
Speaker 1: About ninety I mean, well, just kind of a good way to understand it is about ninety five percent of them are privately owned.

00:07:06
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, so that numbers about that numbers about right. And so from the American Prairie is not a buffalo or bison project entirely. We are a full ecosystem, full conservation and public access. And I hope we talk a lot about public access too, will public access project. But from the beginning, from basically American Prairie start, we recognize that bringing bison back to the landscape was an important part of demonstrating the ultimate vision and bringing that native grazer back to the land. So American Prairie has grazed bison on our lands since two thousand and five. We bought the first property in two thousand and four. This was a few years before my time, but that early team was brave and intrepid, and they brought sixteen animals in from wind Cave National Park in two thousand and five, and we have been growing this conservation heard ever since. It’s about nine d and ay animals now on to two of our twelve units. So the six hundred and five thousand acres is split up into into a number of units based on what which properties were available for purchase.

00:08:15
Speaker 1: You know, I didn’t know till the other day. I’m writing a I’m writing like an updated afterward for my Buffalo book because there’s been eighteen years and so I’m doing I’m doing kind of a snapshot of I don’t talk about American Prairie animals, but I’m doing a snapshot of what I define as like really truly free range herds that can move across jurisdictions.

00:08:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, which there are a few, very.

00:08:46
Speaker 1: Few, right, very few. They can move across.

00:08:49
Speaker 3: Henry’s Mountains, Book Cliffs.

00:08:53
Speaker 1: One that but that discussion brought In that discussion, I’m talking about the ones that live on the North Rim, and there’s a population the North Rim that can move across jurisdictions.

00:09:02
Speaker 3: The Grand Canyon.

00:09:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, well they move from from the park onto the Kaibab, they can move onto state lands up there. So I was talking about those and I didn’t realize that that at one point in time American prairie animals I think some excess American prairie animals went to Arizona.

00:09:19
Speaker 3: Yes, probably, I’ve read about that.

00:09:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. I mean so that that was used as a foundation herd for other conservation herds.

00:09:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have.

00:09:27
Speaker 2: You know, we have nine hundred and forty animals today. We have raised more than two thousand animals in this twenty year history of bison on the landscape, and north of six hundred and fifty have been distributed to other conservation herds, and we’ve helped start a number of herds. Many of those are tribal herds, but some of them are federally or state managed herds.

00:09:49
Speaker 1: You know, years ago We did an interview with Sean Garrity. Yes, Shaun Garrity, like, how do you describe what his roles in American Prairie today or just historically.

00:10:04
Speaker 2: So Sean was a founder of American Prairie. He this idea was not his. It came and we can talk about where the idea originated. But he was a first CEO.

00:10:14
Speaker 1: And so he did held the CEO.

00:10:16
Speaker 2: He held the CEO position, and he started with the organization.

00:10:20
Speaker 3: I mean he built the entire organization.

00:10:22
Speaker 2: He came from business, he came from a consulting background. He knew a lot about organizational management and design, and it was you know, he was he was the entrepreneur who built the organization. So Sean was the CEO President’s CEO for seventeen years and then I took over. I worked for Sean for ten years and then took over in two thousand and eighteen from Seawn. And then he continued to serve on the board for a bit and is now an emeritis director.

00:10:52
Speaker 1: Got him what the thing that we had talked about when I spoke with him, and it surprised me, is I sort of maybe other people do. I used to have an association between American prairie, like conceptually between American prairie and the the member of the sociologist that had this idea of Buffalo commons, he didn’t like the he didn’t like he was uncomfortable with the relationship. But it felt like to me, like like if it, if not intentional, was such an interesting it was like an interesting point of comparison or an interesting coincidence. Yeah, it was because and I want to like explain to listeners quickly, like a thing that what I’m talking about is I think it was like Frank Popper and Mary Pop Poppers for the last name, there’s these sociologists. Nate looked at this idea. Well, let me let me back up even further to a different part of this, just for listeners understanding. If you think of when you think of like big national forces in the West, a lot of times national forests in the West, they were had always been set aside as forest reserves, they were undeveloped landscapes. In the east, you had this thing east of the Mississippi, a lot of these big national forests like the one I grew up near. I grew up near the Manistee National Forest, the Manisteine National Forest was assembled after the fact, like much of the Manistee National Forest had been homesteaded and people bought it for agriculture after the big logging era. But a lot of that land couldn’t be made to pay and people bailed on it. They bailed on back taxes, they just walked away from the land. And over time they had this there’s this whole story where they had the Weeks Act. They made money, like the government had money, and they started to reassemble abandoned landscapes into the national forests that are in the eastern US. Years ago, it was in the seventies, maybe someone brought up this idea that these sociologists were looking at areas on the Great Plains that they that they would see that what over time had less and less population, and they put forth this side. You know, it was just like this kind of observation that if if landscapes, if landscapes depopulated, would you see, like you know, would some sort of new like after the fact wilderness emerge and depopulated landscapes. And that I think that when they were looking, they were sort of like happened to be looking in this particular era area of the state as great planes became, as portions of the great planes became less populated. I think I remember reading about this in Ian Fraser’s book Great Planes. Yeah, and ultimately that’s kind of where this idea e merged. But it’s not but it’s not like a reflection of that. But I think that people hold that in their heads maybe. Yeah.

00:13:55
Speaker 2: And the idea was called Buffalo Commons, So it was particularly looking at what the decimation of buffalo on the landscape and where could buffalo come back. I think Shawn’s point, and it’s a good one, is that they were just one of many who were looking at at our great planes, at if you even look at a global level, at temperate grasslands, and saying where could you restore that full ecosystem? And so, you know, I like to point out that it was the American painter George Catlin in the nineteen thirty eighteen thirties excuse me, who called for the establishment of a nation’s park on our grasslands. He was just as he was coming up the Missouri River, he was just, you know, astonished by the numbers of animals that he saw. And he has this great quote about being lifted up on a pair of imaginary wings and seeing just endless herds of buffalo below him, and calling for the establishment of a nation’s park for man and beast, which of course never happened, and we never set aside a large portion of our grasslands.

00:15:07
Speaker 1: Why was that, Like they went on, they got to Yellows, you know, like you hear all the stories, the conservation history stories, like someone’s like Yosemite, Now there’s a place, Yeah it should be we should save a chunk of that, And they go to Yellowstone, like, man, we should save a chunk of this. But on the on the grasslands, it just didn’t occur to anybody.

00:15:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think in part it was it was timing. You know, we were we were settling the grasslands, and of course, you know, with the with the extormation of the buffalo, we were pushing indigenous nations off into under reservations as well. And so that period from eighteen seventy two when we establigh Yellstone through kind of the mid twentieth century, we weren’t viewing the wildlife was gone from the grasslands, and we weren’t viewing that as as something to be protected. And I think there’s also the sort of scenic bias, right, like we were like really tall mountains and we like and we like deep canyons and you know, geysers and uh and the subtlety you know that you know, you know this landscape. It’s it’s fast and complex and beautiful, but you don’t that’s not it’s not it’s dramatic in a different way.

00:16:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, you get something you got to learn love.

00:16:27
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:16:27
Speaker 1: When I think about the timeline, you know, like like early conservationists wait to understand how quickly early conservationists recognize certain things like Yellowstone and Yosemity, these like very almost like like two like so obviously scenic, right that Yellowstone was a protected park. Yellowstone had tourists when when they were we were still fighting the Indian Wars, when the Nez Purse fled reservation confinement in in uh eastern Washington, western Idaho, when the nes Purse were fleeing reservation confinement and the Nez Perse War started, a part of their retreat led them through Yellowstone and they’re having like shootouts in the park while there are tourists there. It was like that early, that early in the history of the West.

00:17:31
Speaker 3: But it’s just like not the wagons and going from there.

00:17:36
Speaker 1: At that point in time, someone had come in and said, man, you know, let’s do a couple million acres two out on the Great Plains, they would be like they would be as celebrated today for that decision as we celebrate you know, the people that were involved in Millstone.

00:17:55
Speaker 2: And those were the decades where we were really decimating those hurts. Eighteen seventies, eighteen eighties, Yeah, those were you know, those were the years where you know that we were just slaughtering these these animals.

00:18:08
Speaker 1: So yeah, what when did the when did the idea of American prairie first take shape? Like how did it take shape and when?

00:18:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, there were a number of conservation organizations and coalitions in like the late nineties, Yeah, the late nineties basically who said we’re looking again at temperate grasslands across the globe and particularly the northern Great Plains and recognizing that we didn’t we didn’t have those those large protected areas, and it was it was Worldwidelie Fund was the organization that founded American prairie from the beginning as an independent five oh one c three with the model that we now have today, which is private philanthropy to purchase private lands to link together existing public lands, and so that this region in Montana they recognized for it’s wild life history, they recognized it for the abundance of public lands, and they recognize that you know, well over ninety percent is intact native prairie, has not been plowed and has been well stewarded, so the habitat is in good shape, and that those were really the factors that led them to choose this area there where there are other, you know, bigger protected grassland areas in South Dakota and Colorado and Wyoming, but American they chose this area for American prairie to to do its work.

00:19:32
Speaker 1: When did you first find out about it? Like, how did you first get turned onto it? Personally?

00:19:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, personally, so I moved.

00:19:38
Speaker 2: I’m from a small town in vermont and I spent a summer up in Glacier National Parking College, and that was the beginning of my time in Montana. I met a Montana who’s now my husband, and just completely fall in love with the big landscapes of the West, big tracks of public land. I grew up hiking in the White Mountains in New Hampshire in the Green Mountains in Vermont.

00:19:59
Speaker 3: But these these really really.

00:20:02
Speaker 2: Big expanses of public lands were were relatively new to me, so I would have probably come into Montana anyway. So I moved to bozman right after college and worked for software company for a few years. And while I was here, met a college classmate of mine whose parents were involved with American Prairie and that’s how I learned about it. So I went after I went to graduate school, we moved back to Bozeman, and that’s when I got involved.

00:20:29
Speaker 1: When when American Prairie was taking shape, like it’s called American Prairie Foundation at the time, what was the first step, like the first step what had to have been like a piece of land acquisition.

00:20:42
Speaker 3: I mean, the first step was building a board of directors.

00:20:45
Speaker 1: I guess the first tangible step.

00:20:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, first yeah, So first step was building, building a board, starting to raise money and then and then yeah, and then acquiring property. The first property was the end of two thousand for so that we were found in two thousand and one. That was a pretty quick turn to get the to get the organization up off the off the ground, you.

00:21:08
Speaker 1: Know, the thing that like on that property. I want to talk about that property purchase for a minute, because this is the thing that always puzzles me about the conversations that that people have around American prairie. Is it like you guys have always been like willing sell or willing buyer? Yes, okay, It’s like if someone owns land. Like most Americans, most Westerners would agree that if someone owns a ranch and they designed their family decides that it’s time to sell the ranch, that that would be their business.

00:21:46
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.

00:21:48
Speaker 1: Most people would agree with us that it would be that when you want to sell a ranch, that’s your call. That there wouldn’t be like a government entity would come in and say you cannot sell that ranch. You must hold on to that ranch. People would agree that you should be able to do what you want. So you list it m and you have a price, and no one’s holding a gun to your head, and you, as a free American, like a free Westerner, takes their offers, and you consider the offers that you have, you consider the bids that you have, and you sell to the one. Generally speaking, I think most people are going to sell to the highest bidder, and they’re going to sell to the to who they choose right, And I would feel that most Americans, most Westerners would be like that makes sense to me. I think, yeah, they think they did not if but oftentimes not if you guys buy it, which to me is so weird because people like get it’s an ass like like I mean, just like frankly, anyone doing any kind of major thing, like it becomes controversial, like frankly, like you guys, I mean you can’t deny it, like you guys are a like somewhat controversial organization.

00:23:12
Speaker 3: I appreciate that qualifier. Yes, yes, no, they are, absolutely, But it’s just.

00:23:16
Speaker 1: Like and and I have like all kinds of things I wonder about, and I’ll ask you those questions I had thinks that I wont about. But it’s like, foundationally, it surprises me how many people are antagonistic to a principle that they have to broadly support, which is like that that if you want to sell a thing and someone wants to buy a thing, whose business is it besides the seller and the buyer. But people get so worked up about who’s buy It’s like, that’s not your problem, Like that’s that’s kind of a view I have on it is. I’m surprised that upsets people.

00:23:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I agree with everything you’ve said. I’ve got this nine times now to.

00:23:56
Speaker 1: My house and someone bought my house that later someone will be mad. I’m like, dude, mind your own business this well.

00:24:01
Speaker 2: I think two things can be true, though, Steve. I think they can say they can say, well, good for my neighbor. My neighbor found a buyer who will pay fair market value. My neighbor might have found a buyer who has has agreed to lease back to them for a number of years so they can have some transition their family or transition their operation somewhere else.

00:24:23
Speaker 3: They can say, can think, yes.

00:24:25
Speaker 2: Good for my buyer, private market transaction, willing buyer, willing seller. They can also be disappointed and wish that their new neighbor was you know, was going to be it was a cattle rancher or or was a different buyer right and was not American prairie.

00:24:43
Speaker 3: So it’s it’s change.

00:24:44
Speaker 1: And if you were, if you were buying for a data center, then I would understand people being pissed more. I would better understand people being pissed. But if you imagine that there’s like there’s a spectrum. Okay, there’s a spectrum being on one end of the spectrum is data center, right or like I don’t know, a data center, a nuclear power plant, like whatever. There’s a spectrum of refinery.

00:25:13
Speaker 3: Okay, even a large residential development.

00:25:16
Speaker 1: Maybe big a big residential big residential development. Yeah. Whatever that’s on one end would be like, oh man, that’s a bummer. Right On the other end would be on the other end would be like habitat preservation and restoration, which is kind of like a more of a like it’s more of a like doing of not doing on one end, and then over here is like data center. And I would say that like running cattle sits very close to the habitat thing. I’m a Kyle’s not condos guy, So I would put like running cattle over in this area, data center over in this area out like housing development this right right. So it’s like the fact that you’re the fact that you guys buy land in order to have it be just kind of like habitat seems to me like sort of like uh, even like that reinforces in my mind what would be like a non issue.

00:26:18
Speaker 2: Well, I’m really glad you’re raising this because I think most of our neighbors, I know most of our neighbors don’t mind having us as a neighbor.

00:26:27
Speaker 3: We have a lot in common.

00:26:29
Speaker 2: And of course what gets you know, blown up, it’s the loudest voices is the is the controversy. But whether there are cows on American prairie’s lands or bison, and there are a lot more cows than bison, and we can talk about that.

00:26:43
Speaker 3: The there’s a lot of.

00:26:45
Speaker 2: Common ground in the way that we’re running our operations. There’s a lot of common uh, love and appreciation and responsibility for the stewardship of these grasslands, the stewardship of these grasslands for a lot of different whys, life species. We’re driving, we’re buying the same trucks, we’re using the same fencing contractors. It is a there is a lot a lot of common ground, and you don’t you don’t see that common ground necessarily in a slogan, Right.

00:27:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, what in your mind, like if you had to express it to somebody, what what in your mind is the like what in your mind do people feel as being lost on this from your perspective, what do they feel is being lost on this? Like you know, sizable piece of ground, but but not something on the scale of like, uh, you know, not even on this it’s not even on the scale of what we have agreed to be a wildlife refuge.

00:27:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it’s I think it’s change, and it’s change that has been occurring on this landscape for decades and it is.

00:28:00
Speaker 3: Perceived as a loss of a way of life.

00:28:03
Speaker 2: And there’s been consolidation in you know, the consolidation of land ownership over those decades, there has been uh, you know, public lands ranching is a very very difficult business.

00:28:15
Speaker 3: It’s a very difficult business.

00:28:17
Speaker 2: And there are a lot of global factors that are are not that America Preer has nothing to do with, that are putting pressure on the industry. And then an organization comes in and UH is the the new kid on the block. Is UH has different aims for their their private lands and is bringing in a new species like like buffalo and and and it represents it represents change.

00:28:45
Speaker 1: And I think that’s new, a new old.

00:28:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well, yes, exactly, a new old because because bison or not, of course new to this landscape. But yeah, I think I think that’s I think that’s really at the root of it.

00:29:00
Speaker 1: Hm, what what what do you how? What would you say in conversation when like you did a great I appreciate your ability to articulate that. A lot of people I find don’t the aren’t comfortable articulating someone else’s perspective.

00:29:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean I’m not entirely No, I’m not entirely comfortable too, because I’m I don’t I’m I’m not, you know, native to Phillips County, and I certainly have spent a lot, a lot of time on that landscape.

00:29:28
Speaker 3: And I’ve I’ve you know, I know a lot of our neighbors, our team knows a lot of our neighbors. I’ve I’ve heard the perspective articulated.

00:29:37
Speaker 2: So I want to be, you know, somewhat careful of putting words in people’s mouths. But I I also see, I grew up in a small town, and I know how much small towns value community, value tradition. And you see the one room schoolhouses, and you.

00:29:56
Speaker 3: See, you know, you you you.

00:30:00
Speaker 2: Hear about the traditions that some of which still exists, that used to happen up there. Like one time we were at one of the community halls and we’re having a big community feed.

00:30:10
Speaker 3: It was really fun.

00:30:11
Speaker 2: A bunch of American praier folks were there, and our neighbors were there, and kids were all running around, and the kids came out with a pole vault, like we’re in the middle of ranch country. I didn’t a pole vault of all things. And and I learned that there used to be an event that these these community schools that was a that was a track meet in or spelling b in the morning and a track meet in the afternoon, and like that’s a really cool that’s a really cool community tradition right too, amongst all these these country schools, of which there are not many anymore. And so you know that human honoring that human heritage in those kind of life ways on the prairie, whether they’re you know, indigenous and or for thousands of years or if were there more recent were settling, ranching family for number of generations, like that is important to American prairie and recognizing that everyone’s still out there and we together can can look at what what what is the what is the future of the landscape, What are our shared values? What do we want this this place to look like? Those are the conversations that we that we want to be having.

00:31:20
Speaker 1: How many bison do you guys have on the ground right now?

00:31:22
Speaker 3: Nine and forty?

00:31:23
Speaker 1: You know how many cattle in the state?

00:31:26
Speaker 3: Uh, in this I know it’s a lot more than a lot more cattle than people.

00:31:31
Speaker 2: And I know in the it’s a couple of million. Yeah, I was going to say two, nine hundred and forty. And they’re about a half million cattle in the seven counties where we own land and on American Prairie’s properties, they’re eight to ten thousand cattle. Because we’re leasing that we’re leasing either to the former owner or leasing to a neighbor on ten of our twelve units.

00:31:53
Speaker 1: Yeah. Can you remind me again the how many deeded acres you have?

00:31:58
Speaker 3: You’re about one hundred and seventy thousd in deeded acres.

00:32:00
Speaker 1: One hundred and seventy thousand deeded acres. And people you allow people people can walk across like people can walk on all that land.

00:32:11
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it’s all open. Yeah that people can walk.

00:32:16
Speaker 2: They can cross always cross a couple of exceptions, like right by our staff houses, but they can cross deeded land to get to public land. We have dispersed camping, and we can talk about that how how we open access. But you know, we have eighty thousand acres enrolled in block management in Montana in on those properties, So I.

00:32:43
Speaker 1: Want to talk about that.

00:32:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, we can talk about that.

00:32:45
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the walking part though, just for a minute, okay. Meaning if someone’s going along on on X, their cruising along and on X they see all the land OWNERSHI would say American prairie. Right, So if you see American prairie on on X, you’d able to park. You can park your car and go walk around.

00:33:02
Speaker 2: Yes.

00:33:02
Speaker 1: Absolutely, no one’s gonna yell at you.

00:33:05
Speaker 3: No one’s gonna yell at you. No, Okay, they’re going to welcome.

00:33:08
Speaker 1: You on the on the land that you have grazing leases. The only thing you really have access to is you just have the leasing right.

00:33:18
Speaker 3: If you have, it’s a leasing privilege.

00:33:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, leasing privilege meaning if if you have a lease on BLM land, that doesn’t have any factor on someone going hunting birds on the BLM land doing whatever. Yeah, it’s just like great, your public lands. So when someone says, when you say you have federal lands that are leased b OLM lands, that are leased. What that means is you have like you have like an exclusivity around grazing livestock. Yes, yes, and that’s it. It’s not like you don’t have like like it doesn’t come with mineral rights, it doesn’t come with with exclusive hunting rights. It’s just is grazing.

00:33:57
Speaker 3: That’s that’s exactly right, that’s exactly right.

00:34:00
Speaker 2: In this part of of well, across the west, but particularly in this part of Montana, most ranching operations are made. Their ranching operations are made up of about a third deeded private acres and two thirds least acres, primarily Beila, but there are state sections in there as well. And the ranching operation depends on both that private land and that public land. But as the owner of what’s called the base property, you have that preferential grazing privilege on those associated public lands and the ten year renewable grazing land renewable.

00:34:41
Speaker 1: So when you buy a ranch, if that ranch has a lease, the least transfers to the new buyer, exactly God, And that’s good until you if you renew it or not.

00:34:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to be a you have to pay your grazing fees. Fees and be a good steward of those lands and take care of that range land.

00:34:58
Speaker 3: But yes, it’s it. It continues to renew as long as that you meet those conditions.

00:35:04
Speaker 1: Can can you explain it for me what I kind of I mostly understand it, but I’d like to hear you explain it. In the news lately, there’s been this this this I don’t want to call it, there’s been this like policy shift of saying that if you lease land and run, if you leave, if you have a grazing lease, historically you would be able to graze, uh buffalo on that ground. But there’s a move now to make it that you cannot. Yes, that’s got to be just, that’s got to be just because that’s got to be just directed at you.

00:35:47
Speaker 3: Right, Oh, yes it is. Yes, it’s directed just at us.

00:35:51
Speaker 1: So that will not come up.

00:35:53
Speaker 2: So going back to going back to and then we’re right in the middle of this. So the final decision has not come out. There’s a proposed decision from the from the BLM. So this this grazing regime that I just talked about, ties back to the nineteen thirty four Grazing Act, the Taylor Grazing Act of nineteen thirty four, and that Grazing Act was to to sort of make sure we’re taking good care of our range lands in the West, and that’s what established started this precedent of these grazing privileges tied to base properties, the Taylor Grazing Act and the and it’s to support the livestock industry. And that the Tailor Grazing Act, though does not say what species, and bison have been Bison our livestock in Montana. So important thing to say is that American Perrie’s bison are livestock and they are our private property.

00:36:53
Speaker 3: We pay the.

00:36:53
Speaker 2: Livestock taxes on those, we pay obviously the grazing fees. And we are not alone on in raising bison on public lands. And so American Prairie has been permitted to graze bison as livestock after environmental assessment is done on the.

00:37:12
Speaker 3: Affected lands.

00:37:13
Speaker 2: We’ve been we have been permitted to do that since two thousand and five, so twenty years. And bison have been grazing on public lands for forty years, and they have been grazing in six states and there are about forty permittees across those six states who are grazing bison on these public lands.

00:37:37
Speaker 1: And that’s been happening for forty years.

00:37:38
Speaker 2: It’s been happening for forty years. For American prairier, it’s been happening for twenty years.

00:37:43
Speaker 1: I need to pause on a thing just to help listeners on this is the thing I talk about frequently, but just to help listeners understand the thing is we recently covered on the podcast this interesting move that Colorado made. Colorado passed legislation that says if a if a buffalo walks into the state of Colorado, like naturally walks in on his own four hoofs, he’s wildlife. Okay, but that but that designation of them coming in from a like walking in his wildlife. That designation doesn’t impact privately owned ones, which are regulated as livestock. Montana doesn’t have an equivalent law. Wyoming doesn’t have an equivalent law to that, meaning when they’re on when they’re in the state, they’re regarded as a livestock animal. This is me talking and not you talking. Like I wholeheartedly disagree with that, like I think that, I think that other states. And again this is Steve, not Alison saying this. I would love to see like Montana could be doing a lot more. Wyoming could be doing a lot more to create room for buffalo to be wildlife. They can be doing a lot more to create buffalo space for them as a wildlife species, which they are, but they’re not legally regarded as wildlife. But your point being, I think is important understand is that you guys have animals. You have bison, but your bison are like a they’re legally livestock and so they’re registered as livestock. Like you have to be like each one is a registered creature.

00:39:31
Speaker 3: Well, we have to meet all the disease requirements and they are fenced obviously, and we’re meeting.

00:39:37
Speaker 2: All the requirements of the Montana Department of Livestock. Yeah, I think.

00:39:41
Speaker 1: What I think a difference is you got you know what it might be, and I want to continue, but it’s like part of the thing is you guys, uh in my I in my view, there’s a sort of that you perceive of them as like you perceive of them as wildlife, you’re still able to imagine them as wildlife.

00:40:05
Speaker 2: We manage them, and we absolutely manage them. We manage them for their for their wild characteristics, in their display of wild characteristics. But we are disease testing them, we are vaccinating them, we are keeping them home, we are paying attention to stocking rates. We are remote, We’re rounding them up and running them through our handling facility, following low stress techniques for sure, so that both we’re paying a lot of attention to human safety and animal safety, but we are absolutely managing them. But this is you’re getting at the root of what the BLM is now said, which is that our bison are not production animals and they have not defined production they’ve never used a production standard in the past. But they are saying they’re arguing that because our animals are not production animals, that that’s why they’re proposing changing these bison grazing permits back to cattle only grazing permits.

00:41:08
Speaker 1: So just I want to make sure because I kind of like made let’s go off on that little livestock wildlife thing, just just to get to re clarify a point you made that forty years ago someone allowed. It was decided that if you had a grazing a federal grazing least, meaning you have the you have the right to run your livestock on federally managed public land, say BLM BLM ground. The BLM ground stays open to everybody. You still hunt and hang out, do whatever you want to do on there, but someone has the right to graze it with their animals. Forty years ago, you could your animals could be cattle, your animals could be bison, they.

00:41:53
Speaker 3: Could be goats, they could be sheep.

00:41:55
Speaker 1: Okay, yep on that thing. Time goes on and someone right very recently is like, hey, wait a minute, I don’t like what’s going on. I don’t like this whole bison thing going on up here. We should have it be that that doesn’t count.

00:42:18
Speaker 2: Yes, And more specifically, in twenty nineteen, we put we put in for a change of use request to change to bison on six six federal allotments, and the BLM did a three year environmental analysis to determine that yes, American Prairie could have these bison grazing permits on these six allotments. Allotments are what the what the chunks of BLM land are called. And they made that decision in July of twenty twenty two.

00:42:52
Speaker 1: Okay, what did the chatter? What does the environmental impact statement turn up?

00:42:58
Speaker 3: It turned up that the bison are good for the land.

00:43:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know that that that that of course, you know, the environmental impacts are are are good for the land, and that the associo uh, the social and economic impacts are are are good to basically, so they they did a very thorough analysis. There was a public comment period. Obviously, it was a three year process, so it was it was thorough. And then that was immediately challenged by by the Governor’s office and a number of state agencies and the Montana stock Growers. We were winning those challenges in administrative court, and then the Bureau of Land Management pulled back their decision and January said we’re going to reevaluate this. And then the following January, just this year, came out with this new decision, with this new production requirement, with this new way of looking at livestock, and just very clickly nothing changed about our management, nothing changed about the conditions on the ground. They are reinterpreting their own laws and and and with a very thin fact pattern and uh and you know, no legal precedents because this that some of this has been challenged in the courts over that those forty years and bison were an acceptable grazer on these federal lands, and now they’re proposing that they’re not. And I think one of the what we’ve seen is that others are stepping forward to say, wait a minute, what kind of precedent does this set if you are building your business? And American Prairie’s bison program is not inexpensive. We’ve spent, we’re spending We’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on fencing. We’re spending we’ve spent millions and millions of dollars on this program, and it’s important part of our business. But we’ve made a number of business decisions. We’ve made commitments to other conservation herds to distribute animals, and so we’ve built a lot of our We made a lot of business decisions right based on.

00:45:08
Speaker 3: The way things had been.

00:45:11
Speaker 2: And so do you hear people making that slippery slope argument, like what’s to say keep a future administration from just arbitrarily changing the rules and what does this mean for other bison herds? And the Coalition of Large Tribes wrote a compelling protests saying what impact could this have on tribal herds?

00:45:35
Speaker 3: And do the.

00:45:37
Speaker 1: Tribes have herds that graze on federal lands.

00:45:39
Speaker 2: They do, they do, and they recognize that. They also recognize that American Prairie has you know, we’re not an indigenous led organization, but we are part of this brison conservation family right team, continent wide, and we have distributed, as I mentioned, six hundred and sixty bison to other conservation hurts. There’s a lot of exchange of genetics, exchange of animals. We’ve helped start conservation herds. And so if you take you hamstring American Prairie’s ability to do that, the tribes pointed that out. They also pointed out that American Prairie’s management back to your point about the way that we manage our bison, for you know, minimal handling, low stocking, rates as natural the landscape as possible, that that that is in the that is in the indigenous tradition and that and the protest even says that, but that, you know, the American Prairie’s way of managing is similar to the way that tribal herds are managed.

00:46:44
Speaker 1: What uh on? The thing that the productions question and forgive me from not understanding the proposal, the change, like the wording change, is the gripe that it’s is the gripe that it’s or is the gripe that it’s not that it’s not that they’re not being raised with meat production in mind.

00:47:06
Speaker 2: The latter more the latter, Okay, yeah, yeah, they’re saying, yeah, they’re saying that that they need to be production animals, and so their their disregard. So our response to this protest was, this production standard is brand new. It’s nowhere in the regulations or the case law. But if there was a production standard, what is that production standard? Because not only is American Prairie distributing these animals to other herds, other herds, many of whom are are food sovereignty herds, so are absolutely.

00:47:47
Speaker 3: You know, those animals are consumed.

00:47:49
Speaker 2: American Prarie also has a robust public harvest program and we have three hundred and seventy of our animals have been harvested by the public, and that’s.

00:48:00
Speaker 3: Tens of thousands of pounds of meat. And so.

00:48:04
Speaker 2: This idea that the BLM is going to come in and dictate exactly how you manage your animals for production, and they’re only going to do it for this one species, for cows. They’re not going to do it for bison or for excuse me, for bison, They’re not going to do it for cows. Is is really hard to get your head around, right, Calibroducers are like are going some calibrators are reducing their stocking rates for conservation purposes? Right?

00:48:33
Speaker 3: Does that is it?

00:48:34
Speaker 2: Would that make their would they not be meeting some sort of standard? So that’s that’s our argument is this isn’t anywhere in the case law, This isn’t anywhere in the regulations, and what does production even mean?

00:48:52
Speaker 1: So what will happen next on this whole thing?

00:48:54
Speaker 2: So there was a fifteen day protest period. We protested, as I mentioned a number of other organizations, and then the BLM has forty five days to issue a final decision. That final decision could come down any day now, and then we will, you know, assuming that their final decision is the same as their proposed decision, we will we will challenge this in both the administrative and the federal courts.

00:49:22
Speaker 1: What do you think that what do you think the final decision is going to be same?

00:49:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, we think it’s going to be the same.

00:49:28
Speaker 1: Just sticking it to you.

00:49:30
Speaker 2: You know, I, Steve, I what I do want to focus on is that right now those animals are out on the same lands that we have not had to change our operations.

00:49:40
Speaker 3: We have contingency plans.

00:49:41
Speaker 2: We have contingency plans A through F right and they’re expensive and their time consuming, but we have a plan to take care of those animals and to do so safely. And we’re our missions moving forward, right We’re going to continue to buy habitat, We’re going to continue to welcome the public that habitat, We’re going to continue to restore habitat, We’re going to continue to raise bison. So while it may look in the public sphere like this is all American Purrier is focused on right now, it is. It is far from what all we are focused on right now. We’re focused on moving our mission forward. And I think that’s been one of the most comforting things about being part of this organization.

00:50:25
Speaker 3: Leading this organization.

00:50:26
Speaker 2: We get to look decades down the road.

00:50:30
Speaker 1: It’s still a kick to the nuts, though, but I understand you guys still keep looking forward though. Yeah, I mean this has been it’s been fascinating to watch man. Oh yeah, I mean yeah, probably not that’s right the word you would use for it.

00:50:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it’s it’s a it’s a it’s a hiccup, it’s a hurdle, it’s it’s expensive, you know, it’s time consuming, but we’re we’re committed to buy some conservation.

00:50:58
Speaker 1: Let’s talk about the access programming state. Yeah, Okay, I’m gonna tell you a bunch of stuff you already know because I’m just telling the listeners. This. In the state of Montana, like like like, like many states, the state has an access They have a handful of access programs, hunting access programs. One of their hunting access they’re kind of the main marquee hunting access programs called the block management program where you have again, this is like a willing willing seller, willing buyer situation. Uh. The state Fishing Game Agency, they raise funds. They fund their agency through hunting license sales, tags and stamps. Right. Uh, they’re able to take some of that money that they get from selling hunting licenses. I think a big chunk of the funding comes from selling non resident hunting licenses, and they’re able to they make a pool of money. If a landowner is willing to allow hunting access on their land, they can they can get compensated by the state, right, Okay, So then a public hunter can wind up. They’re they’re administered in different ways, like you need to get some of you just go out and hunt. You sign up at a sign up box. Some you need to get a reservation. But however it works. They’re administered in different ways, but however it works. The hunter, no cost to them, is able to go a hunt. These block management lands usually usually some usually a lot of agricultural lands, ranch land, farm country. No cost to them. The state compensates the landowner. You guys, do you guys have some enrollment in black management? What’s like like sort of like organizationally, what is your what is your attitude about the black management program and enrollment, like, like how do you side what’s how do you decide what’s in, what’s out? How much is in? How much is out?

00:52:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, philosophically, what we would like to see over time is larger wildlife populations on these lands. They’re not at their ecological carrying capacity. We fully support hunting. We provide a lot of hunting access, and what we’re going for is a quality hunt, right, So fewer people quality hunt, right. So we have a group within the organization called park the Public Access and Recreation Committee, and any time and they they set they set or make our public access policies, whether that’s about what roads are open, what hunting access is allowed, what species are allowed on a particular property. And they’re using a lot of data and input from f to BP and from others to make those to make those recommendations for those properties, and then those go to the leadership team to approve. So anytime we buy a new property, and we bought six last year, they spend about a year getting to know that property right, getting to know the roads, getting to know the infrastructure, working with the less see whether that’s the existing LESSI or a new LESSI, and understanding how we’re going to open it up to the public. But within a year, our goal is to open that property up to the public.

00:54:18
Speaker 3: And so each of.

00:54:19
Speaker 2: Our units has a has a different has a different different management. A lot of it is what’s called type two block management. Type one is the sign in box. Type two is call in and make a reservation. So right now we have about eighty thousand acres enrolled in block management, which makes us I believe it’s the tenth largest participant in the entire state in the block management program. So you can go at our website really clearly spells out which properties you know, what the what hunting is allowed on the properties, how to make a reservation, and F TOPP is a great partner in managing all of that.

00:54:57
Speaker 3: We’ve done.

00:54:58
Speaker 2: We have one property where we manage the hunting access ourselves and we’ve experimented with this in the past and having a partner like F TOBP to do that, to manage it, to take those calls, to make those reservations, let alone to do the the enforcement, have the wardens on the ground. That’s that’s tremendously beneficial to us.

00:55:20
Speaker 1: One of the things that makes one of the things that makes black management work is it gives the a landowner can sign up in degrees. Yes, okay, So let’s say you’re a landowner and for whatever reason you have, you know, you have a thing where you could never imagine any scenario on which someone hurting a turkey was acceptable. You had like a great affinity for turkeys. You could say that, hey, I want to do black management, but here’s the deal, no turkeys, right, and the state’s going to go along. There’s a I believe there’s a point at which the restrictions get so great that they don’t that that is that it’s not worth the participation for them. Yes, yes, but but but you guys are but American prairie though you have a lot of things, like your restrictions are much different than the state’s hunting restrictions, Like you have big areas that are open to black management, but they’re not open to mule deer.

00:56:19
Speaker 3: Yes, I was gonna use meal deer as an example. That’s you.

00:56:22
Speaker 2: I think it was with Saner Heinrich that you were talking about mual deer populations, right, So it’s I believe it’s north of the River region six where we don’t allow any meal deer hunting, and that’s because of what the data says about the meal deer populations. So yeah, we’re making those species determinations on a on a property by property basis, but we’re allowing a lot of access and thousands and thousands and thousands of hundred days each year.

00:56:52
Speaker 1: Okay, go ahead, Oh no, no, I imagine that as you see, like across the West, as we see white tail numbers like just generally broad like wide scale increase in white tail numbers decrease and milder numbers. Most your lands are open for white tails. Most of your lands are closed for meal deer, even if the state is allowing mildier hunts in those areas. Yeah, now what like, is most of the stuff open for pheasant m yep, because that would be easy because it’s a non native bird.

00:57:29
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, yeah, most of the stuff.

00:57:31
Speaker 2: There’s we have some incredible l hunting opportunities, uh in the Larb Hills in Region six. We actually that’s the one we manage on our own.

00:57:41
Speaker 1: We do.

00:57:42
Speaker 3: We do a.

00:57:42
Speaker 2: Special draw that’s a special draw district within for F to BP and then we allow I think it’s about eighteen opportunities and that is a coveted opportunity. There’s some youth opportunities in there. But so yeah, it’s property by property. It is a year, year by year, but it all reflects our commitment to hunting and to public access.

00:58:10
Speaker 1: How does it normally work? How like, if you guys did six land acquisitions last year, what’s your sort of batting average on land acquisitions? I mean, like how many like in the area where you’re operating, how many listings are there in a year? Would you say, yeah, and of those listings, how many are you interested in? And of the ones you’re interested in, how many do you close?

00:58:38
Speaker 3: So six was a lot of transactions for us. That was a very big year.

00:58:43
Speaker 2: We added about seventy eight thousand acres through those six transactions last year. And I definitely want to talk a bit about the Anchor Ranch because that was the biggest of those of those transactions. That sixty seven thousand of those seventy eight thousand acres was the the Anchor Ranch. And you know, I don’t know how to We’re not talking about a lot of properties, right, Like, on average, we’ve probably been adding two three properties per year. There is often competition for those properties. We don’t get every single one of them. And you know, in some cases, these are family decisions that are that are made over whether it’s a resident landowner or an out of state landowner. They’re decisions that are made out over a number of years. Right, So a number of these properties we’ve been talking to landowner for for a number of years.

00:59:42
Speaker 3: So it’s hard to it’s hard to say sort of like you know, the.

00:59:47
Speaker 2: Sample size is so small, it’s hard to say a true batting average.

00:59:51
Speaker 3: But hopefully that’s a little bit helpful.

00:59:53
Speaker 1: But some presumably some don’t work out.

00:59:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, they don’t work out.

00:59:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, the landowner wants a price that we that is not fair market value, and we’re not we’re not willing to pay it.

01:00:02
Speaker 1: How often do you run into a landowner that would be like, hey, your BID’s higher, but I’m choosing to accept less money from a traditional cattle rancher.

01:00:15
Speaker 2: I mean, we don’t because none of this is public information. We don’t know what other people are paying, right right. We know what we know a lot about the market from from appraisal data. We know a lot about the market from brokers. We’re spending a lot of time figuring out sort of what is the the the truth, the fair market value we’re getting appraisals. We have no interest in paying above fair market value because we have more property to buy and we have to raise every single dollar that goes into to each of those of those acquisitions.

01:00:51
Speaker 1: What’s your like, what’s the organization’s like timeline? Like how long you This is going to lead to another question and like what is the plan? But like like how long are you guys? Do you know what I mean? Like, how long can you imagine being solvent and like continuing the mission for do you know what I’m saying.

01:01:15
Speaker 2: I mean we we intend to we intend to fulfill the mission of the organization.

01:01:19
Speaker 1: And yes, like in all seriousness, if you had to say, like it’ll take, it would take like roughly how long.

01:01:24
Speaker 2: Oh, the acquisition phase will be additional decades, more decades, more decades.

01:01:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, more decades. As the land comes available, we will purchase it.

01:01:36
Speaker 2: And in the meantime we will continue to steward and restore and open to the public what we what we have, But there is not you know there.

01:01:49
Speaker 3: I think what what.

01:01:51
Speaker 2: I’ve always appreciated on American period is that there are a lot of ways to measure progress. There are a lot of numbers that I could throw at you, whether that’s you know what the the most obvious, of course is acres added. But we track visitor nights, like we have two campgrounds and a series of public huts. They’re open to the public, and that those numbers are increasing every year we have because last year about six hundred six six hundred overnight visitors at our properties. So we are tracking miles of stream restored, We’re tracking fence removal, and fence conversion. We have we have a staff member who tracks the tonnage of metal that he’s removing from the prairie, right because part of you know, the the d sort of juncifying the landscape. You know, that’s when you’re removing an old dump or you know, you’re auctioning off an old building that’s not needed anymore. Like we’re we’re measuring that. So there are a lot of ways to measure progress, and we’re not holding ourselves. We don’t need to hold ourselves to a firm timeline to complete the acquisition. Obviously, the longer it takes, more expensive it is, and the more money we need to raise. But it’s it’s not like on an annual basis or even a five year basis. We certainly set goals, but but some of those some of those milestones are or target milestones are are not in our control.

01:03:22
Speaker 3: And that’s okay.

01:03:23
Speaker 1: You realize visitation can backfire, right, I mean that was like that like with Yellowstone, Dude, it’s like Yellowstones like a nightmare.

01:03:31
Speaker 3: Oh, I mean I live in the state.

01:03:32
Speaker 1: I know that, but like that needs to be turned into a wilderness area there there every time my whole plan. It’s big, a big trailhead. I’m going to keep anything that any highway that goes through it, I’m going to keep. This is if I’m ever emperor. Okay, the bisecting highways I’ll keep open. I would dismantle all the infrastructure. I would keep the highways that go through open. I would put in large trail heads here and there, and the whole thing be a wilderness area, just unpark it. It’s a very controversial idea, no, I mean very constru I was going to say, my kid’s been yelled at because I have this viewpoint. Your dad wants to but he doesn’t understand what wilderness area is. It would be, it would be it would protect the park more. You follow me. I’m just saying visitation can backfire. I mean that place is a case. Oh oh yeah.

01:04:24
Speaker 2: But there they have four was it five million visitors last year and we’re talking maybe ten thousand.

01:04:31
Speaker 1: So ten billions. Let me know what I might warrant.

01:04:36
Speaker 2: That’s the point you’re making, which is you can be really thoughtful about where you put infrastructure. And you know, I did a tour of Yellowstone, sort of behind the scenes tour, and I was reminded that that figure eight road and the lot the placement of lodge is is because that’s how long a carriage ride was. That was seventeen miles, nineteen miles, And so that part the ark was built for visitors in that way, with the gas stations and the and the and the lodges and the and there are a lot of roads, right, it’s not just a lot of roads, a lot of roads.

01:05:12
Speaker 1: Now I understand when my plan comes in, I’m not going to mess with any kind of flow through traffic. I’m not going to mess with interstate traffic.

01:05:19
Speaker 3: I’m gonna say take take twenty through Idaho.

01:05:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, all that’s gonna be fine. That’s not going to be interrupted. Just so people are clear on this. Do you guys have like a you guys have like you get funding, like you don’t fund Yeah, you have a network of donors obviously probably.

01:05:38
Speaker 3: Globally, right, we mostly in the United States.

01:05:41
Speaker 2: I think three percent of our dollars race have come from outside of the states, really outside of the country. And we’ve had donors from all fifty states. It’s not all fifty states every year, but and about fifteen percent of our money last year came from Montana.

01:05:57
Speaker 1: Okay, And when you do an acquisition, you don’t fundraise specifically around an acquisition. You fundraise on the mission.

01:06:06
Speaker 2: Sometimes your fundraised for an acquisition. Yeah, sometimes we fundraise for an acquisition. Yep, we’ve you know, we’re fundraising to support the organization’s ongoing operations and stewarding those six hundred thousand acres and supporting our team of fifty people and all the roles that they play right in keeping a nonprofit going. And then we’re and then we’re fundraising for acquisition, and then we are also fundraising for an endowment because we once we are through with this acquisition phase, we envision and endowment large enough to take care of the basic operations of the place. There’ll be some revenue generating activities, for sure, but we want that endowment to be able to pay the taxes and support the Bison Hurd and take care of the operations.

01:06:59
Speaker 1: One thing I think people under about, and maybe you can’t even answer it. It’s like I think people wonder, like, what what is the ultimate Let’s let’s go forward a century, Okay, what is American prairie in one hundred years? Is it a park?

01:07:21
Speaker 3: No capital p park capital.

01:07:24
Speaker 1: Is there ever point, like, is it ever a point where you’d go like, ha, we’re done, And then and then and then there’s a when there’s a favorable like administration, you’d be like, ha, we’re done, and you’d be like, we now are handing this over. This is this is the national park that we did that they didn’t think to create, but we made it.

01:07:46
Speaker 2: No, we believe that a public private partnership collaboration is the right solution for this landscape.

01:07:52
Speaker 1: We will that would work in perpetuity.

01:07:57
Speaker 3: I think it can work in perpetuity.

01:07:59
Speaker 2: And I think if you book at the condition of our parks in the backlog, I think that there’s a real opportunity to have multiple landowners at the table, meaning a private landowner and these agencies managing toward toward common goals, towards those common wildlife and public access goals.

01:08:23
Speaker 1: What I wonder about, though, is like, because it’s so hard to anticipate right political changes, you don’t.

01:08:34
Speaker 3: Need to tell me that.

01:08:36
Speaker 1: That like, and even if it was the plan, I don’t I think it’d be like hard if you guys talk about it publicly, you follow me, yeah, yeah, because you’d want you’d keep it.

01:08:47
Speaker 2: Secret, right, But I I that is that is not the plan. But do I have a crystal ball for one hundred years? Like let’s talk about bison. Yeah, what are bison going to be?

01:09:00
Speaker 1: Is gonna be? Here’s my prediction. There’s gonna be more in one hundred years. This is my prediction. Karinn and I have been arguing a lot and not arguing, texting back and forth about she hates polymarkets, doesn’t hate them. She just addiction, sure, okay, noth she I don’t want to put words in her mouth. She views prediction markets as a as a very volatile industry. As people are like, there’s this new thing, like, what are the regulations gonna be? Like she it’s taking shape.

01:09:37
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.

01:09:38
Speaker 1: I just feel like I’m kind of curious about them. She’s sort of curious about what their future holds. What they need to figure out is how to do long term wagers like I would make a one hundred year wager that would benefit my children’s children when I won. Mm hmm, right, that’s like the bet I would make. So this is one of those for the when we build like the way ass future prediction market thing, which is like a state planning yes, years. Okay, it’s like a state planning. If I could do that, I would put a lot of money on this. If there was a reliable way to make one hundred year bets that would benefit my children’s children when I proved to be right, Okay, six, Yeah, I would bet there are I don’t want to say a lot. There are quite a bit more. There are quite a bit more wild free roaming buffalo on the landscape that can cross political jurisdictions, that can freely cross political jurisdictions, that are wildlife that are treated as wildlife wildlife. Yeah, there will be more. There’s more of that. There’s more of that.

01:10:56
Speaker 3: It’s our National mammal Steve.

01:10:59
Speaker 1: That was tooless. It came with nothing. It came with nothing. It was the biggest I was glad. I was glad, but let’s be honest. It meant nothing. It meant nothing. It was purely symbolic.

01:11:14
Speaker 3: Yes, but I hope it reminds.

01:11:18
Speaker 2: It reminds our citizens of this natural heritage and of what we had on the landscape.

01:11:27
Speaker 1: You need to be suspicious. You know you’ve been alive long enough to be suspicious. You need to be suspicious of anything that’s frictionless. There wasn’t like like when they were going like, hey, it’s gonna be the national mammal. There wasn’t like an opposition. Yeah, okay, and if there’s no opposition, then you must realize that it means nothing. Yeah, it was cool.

01:11:52
Speaker 2: I was glad, but but you also I don’t know when this study. I don’t think the study was repeated recently, but there was a study looking at Montana’s and that Montana’s wanting to see bison in the way that you are describing in this state, and it was well over sixty percent wanted that. So I do believe that that that people want to see bison back on the landscape.

01:12:18
Speaker 3: Even though leading.

01:12:20
Speaker 2: A private effort, we’re facing this resistance. It could feel like if a private organization raising private dollars to raise a private herd is facing this resistance. Certainly, certainly your dream isn’t isn’t going to happen immediately, but but I hope it would be before twenty one.

01:12:44
Speaker 3: Twenty six.

01:12:46
Speaker 1: Quite a bit more. What did I say, Not a lot, but a bit more, Quite a bit more.

01:12:50
Speaker 3: It was really real squishy, real squishy.

01:12:54
Speaker 1: My view on stuff, my view on things is like I have this sort of deal where like from a professional standpoint, okay, like from a professional standpoint, as someone who advocates about the outdoor lifestyle, hunting and fishing, wildlife conservation. My sort of professional promise is that, like, I look at situations taking place, the political landscape, the conservation world, whatever, and I try to be like, what is in the best interest what is in the best interest of hunters and anglers an outdoorsman? Okay, and no one’s perfect, but I try to strip out and explaining things to people, I try to strip out the other considerations that might come in to being I’ll give you a case in point, talking about an impenetrable border wall between US and Mexico. I would view my professional obligation would be to speak to what it means for wildlife. Yes, my professional obligation is not to talk about what it would mean for employment, what it would mean for the fruit industry, farming industry, hospitality industry, employment, Like right, So I gotta go like, okay, never mind, I got to forget all my opinions about that, and I need to talk about what it means for wildlife and impenetrable walls ain’t great for wildlife. So I have to then say, to be honest with myself and to be true to my mission, I have to say, like an impenetrable wall between us in Mexico is going to impair and impede wildlife movements and be kind of that’s bad for hunters, right. But here’s another thing. It’s also bad for hunters that if we have tons of illegal immigration and you have to have an exaggerated federal state presence on the landscape dealing with all that, that’s an impact on wildlife, right, So that has to be considered. So you know what I’m saying, It gets complicated. When I look at American prairie, you look like you’re uncomfortab.

01:15:28
Speaker 3: No, no, no, I’m settling in for this.

01:15:29
Speaker 1: When I look to American prairie, I just want what I want, what I wish there would be, and I know you can’t do it. I wish there would be that like written in the charter is like a promise to hunters and anglers that it would be memorialized, that there would be a deal codified, right, and that then people would look and be like, yeah, I know, it’s kind of weird what they’re doing. Or whatever. But like they stand and buy hunters and anglers. Yeah, but you can’t because it’s too complicated.

01:16:09
Speaker 3: Well you’re not.

01:16:12
Speaker 2: So where I thought you were going to go is some sort of you know, public access easement. And the reason that the reason that those are tricky for us is because we don’t know what land will ultimately own, and when you put an easement on it.

01:16:28
Speaker 3: You reduce its value.

01:16:30
Speaker 2: And we’re trying to borrow against our our existing properties and we don’t we we could sell something that’s on the you know, if we if we concentration of land ends up over here, we could you could sell something. So I’m not going we don’t want to hamstring a future management team by by doing a an easement. At this point, we do have conservation easements on our property. We’ve inherited conservation easements. We’re not anti easement. We can work with them. But that that that’s sort of the but if and what we say is look at our track record, right like, look at what we’ve done for the last twenty years of owning land, and it’s increased access, it’s increased hunting opportunity.

01:17:12
Speaker 3: That will continue.

01:17:13
Speaker 2: But but but you’re not the first to suggest some sort of contract with Montana or or Charter and that that’s I think that goes beyond a communications tool, right, It’s it’s it is. It reflects a conversation and a commitment. And so it’s not it’s not a terrible idea.

01:17:33
Speaker 1: No, it’s not terrible idea. It’s a great idea. Because that’s like when I was saying down the road, if you viewed it like if if if we started out our conversation we were talking about parks, right, they didn’t do one of those, right. But I think that if there was imagined a if there was a managined a large area, that would be the aim was to make it a increase wildlife, better habitat with like with a open to regulated hunting activities in accordance with state objectives and perpetuity. I think that that that a lot that some of the tension would trickle away.

01:18:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, I hear you.

01:18:38
Speaker 2: I also that that’s kind of what’s happening right now on six hundred thousand acres, right. And And I don’t know if the tension Steve comes as much from that from we are seeing more support from hunters and anglers and less doubt and less skepticism and more appreciation. And I think think you know, there are a lot of conservation efforts in this state. Some of them are species focused, some of them are regionals but regionally focused. Some of them are pay our private lands focused, working private landowners.

01:19:11
Speaker 3: I don’t think there’s anyone.

01:19:13
Speaker 2: There isn’t anyone who is creating the access that we’re creating in every single year, right the access to our deeded land, the access through our deeded land to public lands. I mean, the response to our purchase of the Anchor Ranch was astonishing.

01:19:31
Speaker 1: Well, that was an important thing.

01:19:34
Speaker 2: It was, And for those who don’t know, we immediately opened a three point nine mile private road, the gate to a three point nine mile private road that access fifty thousand.

01:19:46
Speaker 3: Acres the Bulwacker Road.

01:19:48
Speaker 2: That that opened fifty thousand acres of public land that was that wasn’t accessible.

01:19:54
Speaker 3: I mean, it was accessible for the very hardy.

01:19:57
Speaker 2: But now it is accessible through this road and gate was there was no trespassing. Signs were immediately taken down and that gate was immediately thrown open.

01:20:07
Speaker 1: War it’s right there. They crossed in there, it’s right there.

01:20:09
Speaker 3: I was standing there this fall with my family.

01:20:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, forward there they crossed. There’s a bit of creek. Yeah, there’s a bit of a shootout down there, but it wasn’t that big of a deal. But they crossed there.

01:20:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, it’s it is tremendous, tremendous country. It is that that that whole Cow Creek drainage and.

01:20:26
Speaker 3: The footholes of the bear’s paw there.

01:20:29
Speaker 2: So ageain not a bad idea, but I but our track record is that was.

01:20:37
Speaker 1: Widely that was in my community. That was that was celebrated.

01:20:43
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, and you know we we It just happened that we made that announcement right before the Choke Cherry Festival in Lewistown and we always have a booth at the Joke Cherry Festival. Our building on Main Street is open, our Discovery centers open during it, and hundreds of people.

01:21:00
Speaker 3: Came by to say thank you. We noticed that, thank you.

01:21:04
Speaker 2: So so that’s what we will, that’s what we’re doing, and that’s what we will continue to do.

01:21:11
Speaker 1: What uh, how long how long will you stick with this? You think?

01:21:16
Speaker 3: I don’t know, I’m still having so much fun, like you enjoy it? Oh, it’s so Yeah.

01:21:22
Speaker 2: First of all, it’s an amazing team, right, We’ve got We’ve got an incredibly talented team. I was up with our our bison team the week before last and I either we have two new team members on that in that group, both females, which is cool. And I hadn’t seen our new handling facility and the new design of the handling facility.

01:21:42
Speaker 3: And they’re world class. They are world class.

01:21:45
Speaker 2: And the way that they’re managing those animals in the the way that they’re adapting the way that our management to to take good care of the animals and make sure people are safe too. So it’s a it’s an incredible team. We’ve got an incredible board. We have supporters around the country who believe in this mission, believe in this idea, care about this landscape, care about the wildlife and the human communities. And I get to interact with all of them. So it’s challenging and it’s a it’s a lot of nights away from home and whether they’re up in whether I’m I’m spending them up in more Central Montana or around the country. But as long as as long as the board wants me, I will, I will be here.

01:22:30
Speaker 1: How big is you, guys? Bored?

01:22:32
Speaker 3: It’s twenty two. Okay, yep, twenty two from all over the country, handful of Montanas.

01:22:39
Speaker 1: You’re gonna bring my suggestions to the board.

01:22:41
Speaker 3: Yes, thank you. They’ll hear you.

01:22:43
Speaker 1: They’ll hear them because they’ll be vetting how well you do? Yeah, yeah, what what did I not ask you about that? When you get vetted? What did I not ask about that? You wish I would have asked you about You can just answer it.

01:22:56
Speaker 3: We’ve covered a lot. We have covered a lot.

01:23:00
Speaker 2: I guess I would just say, come visit us, and you know, we’re certainly we have a lot of people hunting out there. That is our number one recreational activity, but wildlife watching is a close second. Our vice president of Recreation and Access follows all the trends in Montana, and you know, scenic drives and camping and wildlife watching and birding and floating the rivers are all are all incredible activities to do out there.

01:23:28
Speaker 1: So, you know, I thought it was interesting about you guys. You mentioned wildlife viewing. Well, I thought was interesting about you guys. Is like now and then, just for people listening, now and then grizzlies will kind of come out of the grizzlies will kind of come out of the rockies up in the north part of the state and they’ll they’ll strike out east, you know, out onto the great plains, and like what people dose track of, is it historically that was a great planes animal?

01:23:57
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.

01:23:58
Speaker 1: Coster and his chief scout, Bloody Knife. I mean they killed a grizzly out in South Dakota, right, I mean grizzlies were you know, you think of all these big grizzly maulings like Hugh Glass when he got mauled and the story that was told in the Revenant, he got malled out on the plains like they were a plain’s animal. When Lewis and Clark ran into grizzly bears.

01:24:21
Speaker 3: It was out on the plains every day.

01:24:24
Speaker 1: It’d be like you’d be going down these big valleys. You mentioned choke cherries and stuff like you travel in these big valleys and you’d read mountain man accounts they’ll run into like nine grizzlies in a day out on the big valleys out on the plains. People would be like, oh, they got pushed into the mountains. They didn’t get pushed into the mountains, just the ones that were on the plains are gone, and there’s someone they didn’t like migrate to the mountains. That’s like a misconception to be that they were there, they remained there. Where they’re not is on the plains. But now and then one will strike out and he’ll head east. And when that happens, oftentimes people are like, good, lord’s the end of the world. But you guys had a grizzly number of years ago turn up. But I remember you were like a rare voice to be like cool, a grizzly Well, yeah, it amids a lot of like handwringing about what it’s like. The end of civilization as we know is well.

01:25:16
Speaker 2: You know, I think other aren’t. Some of our neighbors were happy to do. But yeah, yeah, and it hasn’t just been that one. We’ve We’ve spotted a number in that area for sure now, like even a mom and cubs. So yeah, I know they’re coming. They’re absolutely coming, and they’re coming exactly how we thought they would come. And that’s why, you know, one of the things we didn’t touch on is the way that American prairie works with neighboring landowners. In one of those ways, I talked about the twenty five families that run eight to ten thousand head of cattle on our properties. But we also work with private landowners through a program called wild Sky where we make payments basically rent for wildlife through a cameras for a conservation program. And so if someone sees a mountain lion on a camera trap, they get a check for that mountain lion and a camera trap. And what we’re recognizing is that this this wildlife is there and in the middle of these working lands, and that these landowners are providing that habitat and we cost share on habitat restoration projects too. Including the reason I brought this up is because we have a range riding program that is right there in the in the breaks where where those grizzly bears were and there haven’t been any issues with those those grizzly bears in the in the Missouri River breaks.

01:26:32
Speaker 3: That was definitely.

01:26:35
Speaker 1: Yeah.

01:26:35
Speaker 2: There, mean, we we where our visitors were seeing, you know, we’re seeing evidence of grizzly bears and that there have been bears in some of the island mountain ranges around there too. But but yeah, we it was a day we celebrated in terms of advocating for bear proof dumpsters and educating our visitors about carrying bear spray and immediately putting bear boxes at all of our public facility is out there, because you know, we don’t we don’t want that any conflict of course, and and and nor do any of our neighbors. So but yeah, they’re they’re moving east.

01:27:10
Speaker 1: And here’s why I didn’t ask about you guys are like you guys are not in like you don’t participate in any kind of predator management programs, Like you don’t. You don’t do any predator management on your lands. You’re sort of like just not comfortable with it. Like what’s the sort of what’s the viewpoint on it? You don’t view you don’t, I mean because I guess because you’re not you’re not in the livestock business necessarily, it’s not a huge issue for you.

01:27:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we and we want to see everything restored to the landscape.

01:27:41
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Do you view that that if you look at stuff like uh, like declining mule deer right or like protecting big horn sheet, do you ever do you ever weigh that out to be like what is that if me, fulder, if you’re taking steps like you don’t want human harvest of mulder, right, so.

01:28:05
Speaker 3: Both those species. Isn’t it disease with.

01:28:08
Speaker 1: Milder, No, it’s habitat, predation and habitat. So if you were looking like, let’s say you were looking at a species of concern, Okay, it would be mule deer harsh winners. That’s an issue. Predation is an issue. Habitat loss is an issue. What if you looked at a thing like Muldier and you thought, like, as a species of particular concern, we want to like help build and recover milder during low points, you would never make the calculation that even if you knew empirically that predation from coyotes on mule deer fawns was having a population level negative impact, you would not participate in predator man. You would not participate in coyote management to bring up Muldier numbers.

01:29:00
Speaker 2: Those are just not conversations that we’re that we’re having. Yeah, those are just not Yeah, those are just not the reality out there on that.

01:29:09
Speaker 1: You’re not looking at it at that kind of like detailed level. Yeah, what else do you want to talk about or things that you wish I had asked you about.

01:29:22
Speaker 3: You know, I think we’ve we’ve covered a good, good range of topics.

01:29:27
Speaker 1: How best do people go find out more about your organization’s.

01:29:30
Speaker 2: Great information on our website and where this year will be improving the visit pages so it’s clearer. How to rent a facility, how to get a hunting reservation, how to go out and experience the landscape.

01:29:46
Speaker 1: One of our colleagues, he’s currently feeding on one right now, and I’ve been eating some of it too. Is he his wife had a permit to hunt? Yes, the buffalo on your guy’s place. Another one of my colleagues. Every year he goes with a veteran. Yep, he partic in a veteran hunt.

01:30:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, we didn’t.

01:30:02
Speaker 2: I mentioned that three hundred and seventy bison have been harvested, but I didn’t. I didn’t go into the details of how popular that program is. And so every year we do have, yeah, a public application, twenty to thirty opportunities every year, and thousands and thousands of people apply. Those opportunities are weighted to Montana’s and they’re weighted to the seven counties that we work in. So harder to get one of those if you’re your if you’re not in the state, but those are immensely popular.

01:30:32
Speaker 1: The other thing we do, but they don’t live here in town. But his wife got one.

01:30:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, well she she was really lucky. Then well, Gallatin County wouldn’t be waited, so she was just one of them.

01:30:43
Speaker 1: No, no, she just got lucky.

01:30:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, she just got lucky.

01:30:46
Speaker 2: And then the other thing we do is we we donate harvest to other nonprofits to auxure them off. So as an example, the Glasgow Reds baseball team up in Glasgow.

01:30:58
Speaker 3: Along with a rifle.

01:31:00
Speaker 2: That was donated by a local rancher, that opportunity to harvest a bison America Brad went for over thirty thousand dollars. Oh really yeah, raising money for that for that organization.

01:31:10
Speaker 1: Our body that works here and it goes with the wounded Veterans. I’m not sure what organization he goes.

01:31:15
Speaker 2: With Wounded Warriors. I think I believe, but could be. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, definitely, definitely.

01:31:23
Speaker 1: It’s an annual late winter thing that they go.

01:31:25
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, there are a couple, there are some organizations that we’ve partnered with your year after year like that. But yeah, I mean, if anyone has an organization that they want America.

01:31:34
Speaker 3: Bread to support.

01:31:36
Speaker 2: Give us a give us a call and also put in for those put in for that drawing every year.

01:31:41
Speaker 1: And so people should go check out your website.

01:31:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, website’s the best place. What is your what is the website America Prairie dot org.

01:31:51
Speaker 1: It’s easy to find Two Eyes and Prairie. Alison Fox, thanks for coming on the show man.

01:31:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you. Really appreciate you having us by.

01:32:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, you well I should. I don’t want to say you can come on any time, but you can come on almost every time.

01:32:05
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you.

01:32:05
Speaker 2: That’s very generous of you, especially the new stuff to talk about.

01:32:09
Speaker 3: We didn’t talk about your bison tattoo though.

01:32:12
Speaker 1: No, it’s fading out, my fake one.

01:32:15
Speaker 3: I really thought that was why that you got that in my honor.

01:32:17
Speaker 1: Well, the deal I’ve talked with this all the time. But the deal is my wife U and I we were going to provide like a service by being the last untattooed American couple.

01:32:29
Speaker 3: Oh, my husband and I are part of that part of.

01:32:33
Speaker 1: The Yeah, yeah, the select the select few American couples.

01:32:38
Speaker 2: And then now you’re telling me my kids are also not going to get tattoos.

01:32:42
Speaker 1: I’ll get into that greater detail. Well, but no, I appreciate you being I mean, you know, coming on and being such a good sport about asking a bunch of questions.

01:32:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, happy to I appreciate. I appreciate the opportunity to tell the story. I guess the other thing I would say is, you know, we in uh one, we opened our Discovery Center in Lewistown and that’s really the headquarters of the organization. We’ve got about fifteen staff based there. That facility is open for public events. There’s an exhibit hall, there’s a children’s area, we have a new blackfooted ferret.

01:33:15
Speaker 3: We have a.

01:33:17
Speaker 2: So go in and visit it, go to an event there and meet our team and ask any question you have about American Prairie. That is, we are committed to being open and transparent and available, and it’s been amazing to see that having that physical place where people can go.

01:33:35
Speaker 3: Call it.

01:33:36
Speaker 2: We called it a discovery center because it’s not quite a visitor center, it’s not quite a community center. It’s both, and that’s why we chose the word discovery. But it’s open and go talk to members.

01:33:45
Speaker 3: Of our team.

01:33:46
Speaker 1: Do you guys have any blackfooted ferrets on the ground.

01:33:48
Speaker 3: We don’t.

01:33:49
Speaker 2: We don’t, so we don’t have the extent of the prairie dog towns are not large enough yet to support blackfooted ferrets.

01:33:59
Speaker 3: There are blackfoot the ferre it’s on Fort bell Nap. That’s the closest population now and they have been there for.

01:34:05
Speaker 1: I would have thought that I would. I would just feel that you have enough prairie dog colonies for blackfoot affairs. So they need huge area.

01:34:11
Speaker 2: They need huge airs, thousands of acres, and we’re working toward that. We’re absolutely working toward that. But but not we don’t have them any now.

01:34:20
Speaker 1: So some little football field sized town isn’t going to do it.

01:34:23
Speaker 3: Nope, Nope.

01:34:25
Speaker 2: You need towns that are big enough so that some plague out they can they can go to other towns connected network.

01:34:32
Speaker 1: Yeah. If he’s like down in the valley floor hanging out and like I said, like maybe something a couple of football fields, but then all of a sudden you realize there’s not one left because they got because they all died. Yeah, that guy’s screw you.

01:34:44
Speaker 2: Other other populations, but we do. We have an ambassador ferret at the Discovery Center.

01:34:50
Speaker 1: You can point him and be like someday, yeah right, No.

01:34:52
Speaker 2: I mean it’s uh the National Blackfoot of the Ferret Center and Fort Collins, uh, which has a captive breeding progra and some ferrets prove themselves able to survive and be reintroduced to some of the reintroduction sites around the around the Great Planes, and some do not. And so our little guy bandit eats two rats a day instead.

01:35:14
Speaker 1: Is that like, is there a permitting problem? Like, let’s say you just wanted to try it out and cut one loose cut, not cut one cut, ten them loose? Right?

01:35:23
Speaker 3: Oh, there are endangered species always.

01:35:25
Speaker 1: Saying like if you’re like, now we’re going to do three males, seven females, We’re just gonna like is that can you not do it? Because it is that a huge permitting permission issue? Yeah? Because they’re an EESA species.

01:35:37
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, and yes, they’re any SA species.

01:35:39
Speaker 2: And of course every America Barry doesn’t have the authority to reintroduce any animals, right except for by But yes you would, yeah, it would be.

01:35:47
Speaker 1: Is it impossible or is it just hard?

01:35:50
Speaker 3: No?

01:35:50
Speaker 2: I don’t think it’s impossible. There are there are reintroduction sites. There are sites in month. There have been sites in Montana, there are sites in South Dakota, and so.

01:36:02
Speaker 1: I guess there wouldn’t be a reason why they Yeah, no, there are.

01:36:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are private land sites there.

01:36:06
Speaker 2: I believe that there are sites that are you know, a mix of public and private lands.

01:36:12
Speaker 1: So I would wonder about the unfaire it’s if if you have if the captive breeding program. This is a whole other conversation with the different guests, but this is what I would ask them if there was a black if you were a blackfooted fair expert, I would say, is the captive breeding program so successful that you can roll the dice now and then? Or is a blackfooted as an individual blackfooted ferret of such rarity and value that you can’t be risky mm hmmm, do you follow me?

01:36:44
Speaker 3: I do follow you. I do follow you. And I don’t know.

01:36:47
Speaker 2: It’s hundreds of animals in the captive breeding program at least and and and so I suspect that they can.

01:36:59
Speaker 1: They can take a chance.

01:37:00
Speaker 3: They can take a chance.

01:37:01
Speaker 1: But because you know, you don’t take a chance with a rhino, you do not take it right. You don’t go out m lose. See what happens but I wonder if you can, like if there’s ever enough ferrets where you get to start trying some stuff you know well.

01:37:18
Speaker 2: And there there’s a concept of kind of like a nursery site where they might be smaller, but you’re training those ferrets to be fair at like in a.

01:37:28
Speaker 3: In a while in a wild landscape. Again, so.

01:37:32
Speaker 1: We learned. The other day we had a rough grouse expert on and rough grouse are not doing well in a lot of the areas in the southern end of their range, and he was pointing out that unlike the wild turkey, rough grouse don’t do well with with spot reintroductions. They have to bleed out.

01:37:58
Speaker 3: Oh interesting, you you.

01:38:00
Speaker 1: Can’t jump ahead like they just don’t.

01:38:03
Speaker 3: They What kind of distances are we talking, I don’t know, but.

01:38:05
Speaker 1: He said that, like they have very poor success rates leap frogging like they need to. They need to bleed from the habit Yeah, they need to be like stable populations and good habitat and they need to spread like that. Putting them in a box and moving them forward and dropping them doesn’t work for them. I don’t know if it’s just that they can’t learn the area quickly enough they make too many mistakes, they’re not familiar. They got to ease into it, they’re too vulnerable or whatever. But it doesn’t work like that.

01:38:38
Speaker 2: So the conservation efforts are focused on expanding habitat off core, as.

01:38:43
Speaker 1: You’re saying, it has to be off core habitat and move it that way, like it doesn’t work to jump to leap frog them. Yeah, but if that was the plan on blackfooted ferrets, it’s gonna be a long road to recovery. Yeah, if you weren’t able to establish.

01:38:58
Speaker 3: Because there aren’t any there’s no place.

01:39:01
Speaker 1: Very few places to start from.

01:39:02
Speaker 3: Right right, yeah, yeah, exactly.

01:39:06
Speaker 1: Well call me when you get a black foot ferret on the ground. I’ll be curious about that.

01:39:11
Speaker 3: I’m rooting for the fierce little animals.

01:39:13
Speaker 1: They’re cool, yeah, cool.

01:39:14
Speaker 2: I mean obviously I did get it the opportunity once to spotlight when there was a there was a sight in the Turley Russell and I got to drive around all night and it.

01:39:24
Speaker 1: Was I’ve seen about I’d like to see like one doing his deal, you know.

01:39:28
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you know the green eye shine in the middle of the night, how they shine. And then you there’s a reader that you put over the hole and you stuff some hay down in there.

01:39:36
Speaker 3: And so you can tell when it’s come out.

01:39:38
Speaker 2: And then you get the reader and they know they’re all chips, so they know. Oh yeah, they’re doing basically a fare. They were doing like a ferret census every fall to see and then capturing the new kits and and tagging them.

01:39:51
Speaker 1: So their eyes show green.

01:39:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, yeah, So you’re driving on out of the spotlight on the top of the car and looking for them on the prairie dog town all night long.

01:40:00
Speaker 3: Are they very cool experience?

01:40:04
Speaker 1: No?

01:40:04
Speaker 2: I mean they’re they’re chill, they’re yeah, no there, yeah, they’re and and they’re small, right, they’re a couple, they’re a couple of pounds, and there their prize a couple of pounds.

01:40:13
Speaker 1: So that’s cool, amazing.

01:40:15
Speaker 3: To think about.

01:40:15
Speaker 2: They eat a prairie the prairie dog going least a couple of days. They eat one every three days.

01:40:21
Speaker 1: No, it seems like there’s plenty of them out there. But I see what you’re saying about eating those huge towns.

01:40:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, we’ll let alone all the other species that the rattlesnakes and the badgers and the burrowing owls and all the other species that depend on on those prairie dog towns, and all the on gillids that are eating that fresh growth, and you know they’re important part of the ecosystem, even though not everyone loves them.

01:40:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right man, thanks again, Yeah, thank you. I appreciate you coming on absolutely thanks for having us