Ep. 918: Eric Odell, The Man who Ran Colorado’s Wolf Reintroduction

This is an I Heart Podcast, Guaranteed Human. Hunting season is right around the corner, and first light season opener sale kicks off August 18. You can save up to 40% sight wide, and this year they're rolling out new 24 hour daily deals throughout the sale, so it's worth checking back every day, because those deals are going to change. There are also a few pieces I really like that are on sale for the first time ever, including the 308 pant and navigator hoodie. If you've been waiting to replace some worn out gear, fill a hole in your system, or just get ready for the season, now's the time. Head over to firstlight.com and gear up for the season. This is the meat eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bugbed, and in my case, underwearless men. 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 firstlight.com. That's F-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E.com. Oh, man, folks, we got a good one today. I've been wanting to talk to this guy for a long time. I'm sure this is going to get a lot of attention from people who follow wildlife politics and intrigue and everything. We're speaking with Eric Odell, who is a veteran wildlife biologist who's spent 20 years of Colorado Parks and Wildlife, serving as the state's first wolf conservation program manager. Back following the passage of Proposition 114, which, as our guests will explain, basically brought on the Colorado wolf introduction. His position was created to execute on that directive. Beyond wolves, Eric led restoration efforts for other key Colorado carnivores, including Canada links, wolverines, black-footed ferrets, earning a reputation among ranchers and conservationists alike for his pragmatic field-driven approach to wildlife management. And he retired on Friday. Retired on Friday. Now I want to set this first question up, but I'm going to try to give a little background. You ran, you ended up running the project that became the Wildlife News story of not just a year, but of a couple years. It became an international news story, right, because a big national news story, every person who feels that they have an opinion on natural resources management, wildlife management, every hunter, every rancher has expressed an opinion on the Colorado wolf reintroduction. It was discussed, like the biggest podcasts in the country being Joe Rogan experience. This issue was discussed, probably came up, I would guess, scores of times on the biggest podcast in the country, like it's a thing. It remains a thing. It was a thing. Tell people how it became, how it came to be that one day they, they, how do you know who they are? You can explain to their, that they're like, Eric, this is your baby, bring wolves back to Colorado. Yeah, well, yeah, it's a, it's a long story, but the short of it is wolves were, were reintroduced in the state because of a ballot initiative and, and most recently, the, the, the whole interest of reintroduction of wolves to Colorado goes back a long time in the early, in the 1980s people were thinking about what, what would wolf reintroduction before Yellowstone, before Idaho, and for a variety of reasons that never happened. And so then starting about 2019, there was a group that started to collect signatures and understanding that there's this way in Colorado that you can get an initiative on the ballot for the voters to go. If you get enough signatures on the, on the, these petitions, it will go to the voters to, to make that decision. And, and so that's what happened. And they, they collected enough signatures, 200,000, some signatures of, of people throughout the state to say, should this be on, on the ballot and in November 2020. It, I want, I want, as you do, this is great. Keep going. You don't mind as you do this, if you can just check in on, on your individual, like, you know what I mean? Are you like watching this? Yeah. This ballot thing. Are you watching this? Knowing this is going to become a thing of, that's going to impact my personal world and my family. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. For sure. So you knew, you saw that. For, before, before, before all this, I've been involved with the agency for a bunch of years. Like you said, working on a bunch of other projects, other, other non-game, non-hunted carnivore species. So primarily folks on links and, and Wolverine's potential for, for Wolverine reintroduction, been involved with Mexican wolf recovery planning efforts as well. And so the whole idea that if, if this comes up, if, if this passes as a, as a ballot initiative, then it becomes my responsibility. Okay. So I, you had a, I had an inkling that this was going to be, got a, a major player. Yeah. So keep, please keep doing the timeline. I just want to know. Yep. At what point you saw it and then like, oh, no, this is interesting. Yeah. It was, it was election night that we knew that it was going to happen, right? And so, so yeah. So leading up to this, there's, there's, you know, this is not a state-led effort, right? This is not the agency saying, hey, we don't want to reintroduce wolves. This is the citizens and, and groups saying, hey, should, should this become an issue that the voters make a decision on first time that any, any kind of ballot initiative to look at any kind of reintroduction, much less wolf reintroduction. And the first time that wolf reintroduction would be put in the state's hands, right? When it was done in Yellowstone, that was Park Service. When it was done in Central Idaho, that was through the tribes and, and through the state to, to do that, or through the tribes to do that, sorry, not through the state. And so this was, this was unique, right? And so, they got enough signatures 2019, very different time, right? Before COVID, before, you know, all these different kind of things that were happening. November 2020 presidential election, anticipating a big turnout, there'd been a lot of polling going into, into the election to say, what's, what's the likelihood that this initiative is going to pass like they do with all kind of political efforts? And, you know, initially it was expected, this was going to pass overwhelmingly 60% 70% percent. Oh, that's how it was polling. Yeah, it was polling waypods. I knew at the time I'd kind of forgot. Yeah. So it was, it was, it was expected to have a wider margin. For sure. And, and so, you know, and as the state, we were limited in terms of what we could or couldn't say, but just by statute, as, you know, we can't take a position on, on a ballot initiative as a state agency, we, we didn't produce a lot of materials or, or, you know, we didn't get involved to try to influence the decision one way or the other by, by statute, by policy. And so, but, but explain that a little bit to me. Yeah. Who, who was supposed to sort of opine, um, right, who, who would, who was, who was doing, who was doing the role of saying, here's what that would look like. Yeah, just politicians and private individuals, private individuals, private, you guys were, you guys had, as a, and I get it, I'm not questioning it, but I get it like, it was, stay out of this. That's right. And it, not by choice. That's the department's directive. That, that's statute. That's a, we can't get. You cannot say as a department, we think blank. Right. That's right. And so, well, then I've seen people break that. Yeah. Maybe so. Maybe so. Not, not in this case. But in other cases, I've seen people break it. Yeah. And it may be specific to Colorado. I'm familiar with the other states and, and how it works there. But yeah, so we were, we were limited in terms of what we could say, what we could do. Got it. And how we could say that this is, you know, wolves could or couldn't, these will be the conflicts. These will be the challenges. You will be the opportunities. We didn't, we didn't have that opportunity to say those kinds of things. And so, um, so we watched, essentially sitting on the sidelines, watching how, you know, the, the, those that were supportive of Proposition 114, those that were opposed to Proposition 114, we saw lots of television ads. We saw lots of billboards on the highways and vote no vote. Yes. All of that kind of stuff that you would expect leading into an election. And um, election night term comes up and, and, you know, the group of us that within the agency are texting back and forth, it looks like it's, you know, as, as results are starting to roll. Yeah. And sure enough that the story is well told that it passed just barely 51 to 49 percent. And it does matter. Right. Yeah. It doesn't matter if it's 51 to 49 or 80, 20. It still passes. Sure. I'll give you, if you don't want to answer this, yeah, like I get it. Um, the first one is easy questions, two questions. The first one is, you know, it's a presidential election too. Yeah. Was you, was, was more of your mind space, um, the wolf question than the president question? But for sure. It was more, more directly impactful. Right. Yeah. So like when you talk about election, election results, most people think like, oh, who's gonna be the president? Yeah. But you're thinking is the wolf thing going on? And it got a lot of attention, like looking at the media, the, the, I mean, it was, it was a big deal. Like in Colorado at that time, it was, like you say, it got all kinds of attention locally. It got all kinds of attention nationally and even internationally. And so yeah, it, it became a really, really big deal. So the second part of that, and I totally get it if you don't even want to say, but did you have a hope? You know, I don't really want to say how I voted on it or what my thoughts were on it. I think that it's, I respect that. Yeah, I mean, I think that it's, it's a, it's a unique way to make a decision. What I'll say is that it's a very unique way to make a political decision on, a unique way to, to pose that question to the voters. "Should this be something for the state agency?" That's full of professional wildlife biologists. - So the next morning, you guys wake up and proposition one, 14 passes, right? And so then it's like, wow, now what do we do? We've given some thought to it. Like we had some plans within the agency kind of sketched out plans as to what if, and we had scenarios about if this passes, if this doesn't pass. But you know, the other unique thing about this is that at this point in time, wolves were federally listed in Colorado. So they're not even in what that means is that they're listed under the endangered species act. And so when a species, regardless of whether it's wolves or growls or whatever species it is, when a species is listed under the endangered species act, federally, Fish and Wildlife Service has management authority for that. So our federal partners have that. And here it is that we're now being tasked with this reintroduction of a species that native to the state historically, and we don't have the direct management authority. So we've got to work with Fish and Wildlife Service on this process too. And so we have all of these different scenarios laid out as to what could happen if this does pass, if this doesn't pass, and sure enough it did. And then we began the process to think about, well, how do we execute what the statute now says, right? Yeah, there's a little bit of confusion on that. Yeah, I'm sure you know it by heart. Can you say what the statute said? 'Cause the statute wasn't Colorado needs to immediately release wolves into Colorado. It was something different and more confusing. It was, yeah, so it was, it said a lot, but fundamentally what it said is that we needed to reintroduce wolves west of the continental divide, right? The continental divide is that North-South line in the state, Pacific and Atlantic watersheds, had to release wolves west of the continental divide. We had to develop a plan, we had to do that. How would we do that? We had to develop a method for compensating landowners that were experiencing conflict. We had to develop some recovery goals, state recovery goals. So not only federally listed species, but also it's also a state listed species. We didn't develop any kind of federal recovery goals. That's for the Fish and Wildlife Service to do. Our role was to develop the state recovery goals. And then we had to do what it says is take the steps necessary to begin reintroductions by December 31st, 2023, right? So November, I forget, 4th or 5th, 2020, till December 31st, 2023, a little bit over three years to do all of that. Develop a plan and develop all the compensation programs. All of those different kinds of things. So it was very prescriptive. It was very prescriptive. Yeah, I mean, it was prescriptive in the sense that it said, this is what you have to do. It didn't say this is how you're going to do it, right? That became our role, our responsibility as the state. And so it wasn't something that they said, you will reintroduce this many wolves, these locations, those kinds of things. That became the process that we then developed, our staff, myself primarily leading the development of what we call our wolf restoration and conservation restoration plan. Some wolf restoration management plan is what it's called. And so that's what we've put together. And there's a long process to do that, right? We began pretty much immediately after the ballot initiative passed, we can talk more about that process, but it involved the public, involved tribes, involved stakeholder groups, involved technical groups, really to try to put together, what's the best way to do this? This is a task. This is what you have to do. You have to reintroduce wolves. And you have to address these points, but how are you going to do that? And so lots and lots of meetings, lots of discussions about these are the kinds of things that need to be incorporated into what's going to be a good management plan, knowing that we're not going to get it right exactly the first time. There's going to be-- this is the plan for 2020 to 2023 and beyond. And at some point, we're going to have to revise this plan as things go on. And so help me understand what prevented you guys from being smart asses and saying, OK, we'll put two out. Yeah. Because part of the statute said that we have to develop a self-sustaining wolf population. So that is what-- So there isn't as well as spelled out, OK. Right, so I didn't elaborate on that. But yeah, we couldn't do that. We couldn't just say, OK, here's one wolf. We've reintroduced wolves. So it was defined enough that everyone knew what it meant. That's right. Yeah, I mean, it was a serious effort. And it was state law. It is state law, it remains state law. And so that's what drives what we do as an agency is the state laws. We have to abide by that. And so we took that very seriously, but you took that responsibility. And then at what point did they create? Because what was your job on the election night? What was your job title? Yeah, it was Species Conservation Program Manager, right? So more general working on all these other species that we've talked about, links, wolverine, otters. And on what day did they come and go forget all that, you're the wolf guy? Oh, it was-- I mean, it kind of became-- it's so for a while I was doing both. I was trying to do all the species conservation program stuff and the wolf stuff. And it became pretty clear pretty quickly that you couldn't do both. It really was-- that was two separate jobs, both really high demand jobs. And so then I moved into the wolf job. That was a new job that was created, a new position that was created. And I moved into that. And then we've since backfilled that position to do all the other species. It seems to me that if you'd gone out and done a call for applications to come run Colorado's wolf reproduction, re-introduction, you would have had a boatload of applicants. We might have. Yeah, we might. Well, I mean, were you dying to get it? Like, did you want it? I look forward to the challenge. I thought it was-- You work in wildlife conservation. I've been there for 20-- at that point, 20-- 20 years, 20-- 24 years. Wow, 20 years, I guess, at that point. And yeah, here's this opportunity to do something pretty historic, pretty kind of setting a legacy for the work that this agency is going to do. And yeah, I was excited to just take it on. And did you know that you were going to become like-- I don't want to draw too much parallel, but you were going to become like this Fauci character that almost everybody was going to have an opinion about? Yeah, I tried to avoid that. I tried to make it not about me. I tried to make it about the program and the agency. And yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I wanted this to be the success of the program. And this is the success of the agency. And as you decided, you wanted to keep low profile. Yeah, I wanted to do the job. And I wanted to do it well. And I think that it isn't just me that did the job either. I've gotten a lot of attention for it. I've gotten-- my name has been associated with it a lot. And I take a lot of pride in that. I did that well. And you had to get threats and stuff, too, though. Oh, there was times when it was very tense. We would have meetings at our commission meetings. We had discussions about if things go south, this is what you do, and that kind of stuff. Nothing ever personal. But was it-- oh, it was nothing personal. Do you feel-- I don't want to dwell on this too long. I just want to kind of understand for you personally. Do you feel that the public understanding was there that like, you're a guy. You have a job. This is coming from the voters. And you're there to execute on the job. Not that you're some-- not that you were the one that was like, hey, I got an idea. Yeah. Like, that was understood. Yeah, absolutely. We made-- I mean, any time I had the opportunity to talk about this in front of a producer group, or even the Wolf Advocates, or our commission, or just to the general public, we made the effort to say, we're doing this, and we're going to do a good job at this, and we're doing it because-- probably there's 114. Yeah, I understand. And this is what the law is. This is what we have to do, right? I mean, this is-- and so we did not-- and I think in some ways, that helped us. If we go into these small, west-loop communities and say, hey, we're the agency we want to reintroduce wolves, that's not a winning conversation, right? If we say, hey, state laws is that we have to do this. And in fact, this was a major point that the chair of our commission at the point was saying is that even though the vote was carried on carried largely by the front-range counties, right? The population centers for Colorado, Fort Collins down in Colorado Springs, Pueblo, the Bass majority. And remember that the initiative said that we'll reintroduce wolves west of the continental divide, very much the rural part of Colorado. Her statement was, we want to do this with the west-loop and not to the west-loop. And that was-- that rang really, really true, right? We really wanted to incorporate their opinions. And we have to look for positive outcomes. We can't just say, it's a terrible idea. We're not going to do it. It's a good idea. And we have to do it. Then we have to find some on the wood. Right. Exactly. And so working with the west-loop, trying to find-- understand what their concerns were, understand how we can address what they want to see in wolf restoration. What kind of-- considering, again, a federally listed species, how do we manage this federally listed species that has certain prohibitions? And how do you work on that? And we found really good tools to do that kind of stuff. And so yeah, it was a long process. And having that back to your question, like being able to say, this isn't an agency initiative. This is an agency. We're driven to do this by state law, by the voters. That was very helpful for us to be able to do that. So you had a three-year, roughly a three-year window to get this on the ground between election night and wolves around the ground, roughly three years. I felt-- in watching this play out, it was very interesting to me that during that three years, like something totally unprecedented happened. And wild wolves on their own four feet walked into Colorado. That's right. Out of Wyoming. Well, even before election night, that had happened. Oh, before, OK. And I get-- like, I totally get that the piece of legislation that passed did not contemplate that. That occurrence didn't affect-- didn't negate it. It wasn't written in that all this doesn't matter if a wolf walks in on its own four feet. But it complicated stuff. Yeah. Can you speak to that? Yeah, I mean, so two different things And two different scenarios happened. One was in an extreme northwest Colorado, Moffat County, right? I'm truly right on the board of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, right in that little tri-state area. We found a carcass, our field staff found a carcass of an elk that had been killed by wolves. Wolf tracks were there, wolf scat was there. We collected that wolf scat, ran some genetics on it and discovered that it was not just a wolf, but it was several different wolves that were related, right? So meaning that there had been some reproduction. There had been a wolf then someplace. Nobody ever found it. - And how far into Colorado's this? - Miles. Not far at all. So it's very likely that this pack of wolves, and it was a pack because there were-- - Just flirting with the border. - Right, it was flirting with those three borders. Somewhere, Idaho home, sorry, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado. - Yeah. - And never heard, never saw those wolves again. We get reports from them from time to time. We would see individuals, and then those wolves, in Wyoming, wolves are not federally listed, right? They are under state management. And especially in that predator zone, they can be shot at any time. And that's what happened ultimately to those wolves. - Oh, okay. - And so that's one scenario, the Moffat County scenario. In North Park, we had a black female wolf, we get these reports from time to time, and a very clear photo of a, a lot of the times those come back as like a German chap or a Malamie, or something, right? Somebody mistakes it, clearly not a wolf. This was clearly a wolf. Black-cainted, you see a caller on her, talked to my colleague in Wyoming, got the radio frequency for her, and started to monitor her from the air, and we were flying for her. - Just a lone female. A lone female, right? And so this was, when was this, I think spring of 2019 is when this happened. That fall, and so as we're leading up into a lot of the ballot initiative stuff, in 2021, towards the end of 2020, we saw a gray male, or another gray animal with her. And so then in early 2021, we captured that animal, put a caller on him. And so that was the first time, so this is 2021, right after the ballot initiative, and put a caller on him, and they paired bread and reproduced and produced the first litter of Pops in Colorado. - And they had, do you feel that those two wolves knew each other? - No, I don't think they did. - I think they came, they came separate, like a freak deal. There's possibly at that time, two wolves in the state of Colorado, and they found each other. - I think that's right. - And we had had other wolves that had come down from the Yellowstone system, from Montana Idaho Wyoming, and they've come into that same general area. So there's some way, I don't know how the wolf sees, or how it sees the landscape, but that general area, that North Park area is where they had come, we had reports from them from I think 2007 that we had had individual wolves. And so, yeah, certainly from time to time, wolves are gonna naturally migrate into the state, and it's a gauntlet, you know, getting through Southern Wyoming is tough for a wolf, but it happens, right? And they've done that. And so, those wolves that reproduced in North Park, we called them the North Park Pack, that was the first time that we had had a documented reproduction of wolves in 80 plus years. - Yeah. - And then, you know, you had the same kind of thing happen, they go up into Wyoming, and they can get shot there at any time. And so, there's still a few members of that pack that remain, but for the most part, that pack didn't persist long-term. - It fizzled, yeah. - I'll just do, yeah. - And again, it just had no bearing in what you needed to do, right? - It wasn't enough, right? Yeah, so a few individuals from time to time is exciting from a wolf restorations perspective, but it's not, it doesn't meet the letter of the law in terms of what the ballot in this, that, it says. - Meat eater season opener sale is live. And if you've been waiting to gear up for your hunt, now's the time. Buy one, get one free on all meat eater teas and hoodies. 50% off, select game bags and deals on gear from some of our favorite brands. First light, felps, FHF, mulchery, Yeti, and more. And for after the hunt, we have a limited time offer to save on our most popular seasonings, like Backstrap Brew, Campfire Crust, and Backcountry Barth, or get the six pack to try them all. Our favorite time of year is right around the corner. Head over to the meateaterstore.com to check out our season opener sale. - When you guys had a, I know that they became this big issue about, well, let's say a fellow wants some wolves, how do you go get them? - Yeah. - The legislation didn't contemplate this. - No. - Can you explain? I mean, just like the whole basics of the question is like, okay, we need some. - Yeah. - And they're not here. - Where do you get them from? - Like, how do you get them? How do you ask, like, who do you approach? What are the conversations like? - Yeah, so, well, I mean, there's a lot of, there's a much longer story to the development of the plan and how we came up with what we needed to do. - Yeah, please, go ahead. - To get a lot of restoration to happen. I think one thing that's really important that doesn't get told enough is that there's, because of this federal status, because they're federally listed as endangered, what that means, fundamentally, is that take is prohibited, and take means a bunch of different things legally, and there's been some new kind of interpretation of what that means. - Yeah, yeah. - But fundamentally means that you can't kill an animal. You can't chase harm, harass an animal. - Yeah. - I wanna explain, 'cause you alluded to something really quick. - Yeah. - We've covered this on the news show. It's like, I can't remember what year, some years back, the language of the Endangered Species Act around take was interpreted to mean. Let's say there is an endangered swallow, and it only nests on a cliff. So you'd be like, well, you can't take a swallow, but they define that to be where you can't destroy the cliff, because that's tantamount to taking a swallow. And now the current administration is trying to walk back some of that language and more narrowly define take, meaning if you destroy a bird's nest, did you take a bird, right? - Right. - It's just like a philosophical question, as much as anything. - Yeah, because the take has habitat implications. And so for wolves, that's not really all that, that doesn't really mean that much for wolves, because wolves are habitat generalists. They'll live wherever. But what we've learned in all of these conversations that we had with other states that are managing wolves, we had many, many meetings with current state managers, state wildlife managers that are dealing with wolves, they say you have to have some kind of tools. You have to have the ability to haze and harass wolves that are not behaving in ways that are good, right? That are getting into livestock conflict. And in some cases, even kill wolves. And we've done that as state agency. And so within that confines, within that status of a federally listed species, what we develop was called a 10J rule, with the Fish and Wildlife Service developed. And that's something that they've used for many different species, not just wolves, but it allows take in certain circumstances. - That's the experimental population or something like that. - Yeah, so it's called the nonessential experimental population. - Okay. - And so that was really important. And we spent a lot of money and took, and did this on a very accelerated timeframe to get all of those federal rule making processes in place. It has to get published in the federal register and get all the public comment on there. CPW Colorado Parks and Wildlife paid for the consultants to write those NEPA documents, the EA and the EIS for that work. And it was done on a really accelerated timeframe because it had to be in place prior to wolves being introduced. And fundamentally, what the 10J rule does is that it relaxes those take prohibitions. It allows wolves to be chased and harmed and rubber buckshot and in certain circumstances, even lethally managed, lethally removed. And so that was really important that we did that. And because if we didn't, then we're reintroducing federally endangered wolves with no management tools at all, right? And so that's a really challenging situation. - When you were pursuing that experimental thing that gave greater management latitude, were you at risk of lawsuits from wildlife advocacy groups? - Were they understanding that that would be necessary? - For the most, I mean, it's hard to generalize, right? There's as much as there's a whole spectrum of hunters and there's a whole spectrum of ranchers, there's a whole spectrum of wolf advocate type groups too. Some wolf advocates were absolutely opposed to the idea of the 10J rule, the non-essential experimental rule. Some understood that, yeah, this is how you're gonna buy some tolerance. This is, if you have this ability, then you're gonna have some legal ways to manage those challenging situations that are bound to arise. But that was pursuing that was a decision of the department. - Was it totally a CPW decision? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it wasn't our decision, it wasn't our doing. It was a federal rule-making process and so the US Fish and Wildlife Service-- - Oh, so it was the only way to do it? - It was the only way to do it, right? And so the Fish and Wildlife Service had to be a partner in this. And through that process, we developed an MOU that gives a memorandum of understanding that gives us a status called designated agent. So it allows us, as the state wildlife management agency, to manage wolves in the state. And so what it did, what that 10J rule does is it defines that geographic barrier. It says, from North to Southeast to West, within Colorado, any wolf that's there, whether we reintroduced it or a wolf that comes in from the North will be considered part of that non-essential experimental population. And so that allows that management flexibility for all wolves in the state. - There's no way you didn't need to find out who came from where. - No, exactly. As long as it's within the state borders, we can treat it as a member of that population. - So those wolves that came in from Wyoming, like doing this, all of a sudden their status would change. - Right, well, even without 10J, as soon as they cross that state line in Wyoming, It's a, it's a state-managed species. It's a, I don't know exactly what their status is, but their status within Colorado changed. Right. And then they come into Colorado. They're federally endangered, but within Colorado, now they're considered part of that non-essential experimental population. And so that was good, right? And so that's, as that was one of those things that we really needed to have in place to, to get some of that, that buy-in from, from the states. So back to your question, how do you, how do you ask for, I got a, I got a no one just, just some following in the timeline? Were, during this three-year period when you're working on this, I get this has to be true. Are there political figures or groups exploring some way to undo this? Oh, for sure. To challenge this, to sabotage this. What, what, what, did any of that ever come close? Well, yeah, I don't know that it ever came close, but it, I mean, we had, there were several lawsuits filed. There was, there was a federal lawsuit filed the day that we're driving out of the driveway to go to Oregon, which is where we, we sourced our wolves from the first time that said that we hadn't done the NEPA process to do that 10J rule properly. And, and so, you know, they were, they were trying to shut it down. The litigants in that side, we're trying to shut down wolf reintroduction, because they, the, the, they, on a procedural note. And, you know, we're leaving. We're, we're going up to, to catch wolves to, to do this work. And our agency leadership said, just keep going. We'll, we'll let you know if we, we'll give you a call if you need to turn around. And, no, we didn't, I mean, they, they all got dismissed through the courts and all of that. So there's, there were a lot of diversity. No, there, there never was a delay. No. No. Okay. So no, on the, my, my, my earlier question, like, how do you find one? Yeah. So, um, so what, what our plan said is that we were going to reintroduce 10 to 15 wolves a year for three to five years. We, we passed that plan in May of 2023. And presented to our commission, our, this is kind of an interesting piece of it too, is that when we started this process, we, we told the commission, this is how as staff, we think we should develop this plan. And, and we'll develop a stakeholder group, we'll develop a technical group, we'll have a lot of public meetings, we'll have tribal consultations, we'll have a lot of commission meetings to hear that input. And, and ultimately put all that together, developed a plan. And our commission to broad, broad-based group too, a lot of different representations of hunters and outfitters and ranching communities at large members. And so it parks, you know, we're now parks and wildlife agencies. So we've got some of that representation in there too. When, when it came to vote on the plan, the commission gave us an animus approval. And which doesn't necessarily mean that the commission is all in favor of wolf reintroduction. There were certainly members of that, that commission that were not supportive of wolf reintroduction. But to me, what that said is that we did a good process. You know, the process to develop that plan was thorough and complete and, and really evaluated a lot of different perspectives. And that was, that was important, I think, to, to have that in there. So here it is, May of 2023. The statute says by December of 2023, we got seven months to, to get wolves on the ground. We got a new director that came in right right at that time too. And one of the first things he did was write letters to his counterparts, the other agency directors in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Washington, Oregon, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife was the first agency that that responded positively. That said, yeah, we'd, we'd be a partner with, with you on this. And so that began that process of developing logistics of how do you, how do you do that? How do you catch wolves and transport and release? If you, if you get into the heads of the agencies that said no. Okay. Yeah. The states that said no. You can't have our wolves. Some of these states are not under leadership that wants more wolves. Right. What I didn't get is if someone says, hey, you know these wolves that you guys are somewhat uncomfortable with some, some political figures in these states are uncomfortable with these wolves presence. I would like some one, one, one might think they would go, have all you want? Take them. Yeah. But they, but they were instead were like, no. Yeah. Like, well, what was the game being played there? Yeah. I mean, in these were discussions that happen at the director's level. I think what, I mean, from, from Wyoming perspective as an example, in order for us to take wolves from Wyoming, we would have had to take them from northern Wyoming and release them in northern Colorado. Very likely they would go into southern Wyoming. And the director of Wyoming probably was very smartly said, I don't want to create a problem in southern Wyoming. Right. And so yeah, you need to create potentially like a big population. And then it's going to be you're going to be dealing it from the south. Right. And so that was Wyoming's rationale. Idaho Montana were the other two states that that really have robust wolf populations, big wolf populations. And, and they both said, no, they, they, they very explicitly said, no. I think largely for political reasons, I think that there was some influence that, that they had heard that they did not want. They, you know, that the, some entities within Colorado didn't want to have wolves. And so they had made contact in communications. And, and that, that kind of convinced them from a political perspective that, yeah, we don't really want to partner on this. We're despite the fact that we've got very large wolf populations in these states. Yeah. I read it like, I kind of read it like what you're saying is I read it as a way, it was a way to express disapproval. Yeah. With how this happened. Right. And my way of expressing disapproval is to deny you to deny you this thing that I'm not really happy to have anyway. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And so then, so Oregon, Oregon and Washington and and the other piece of it too is that we had to get wolves from federally delisted areas. Right. And because of, and it's a lot, it's not that interesting with story. But the fact of the matter is that they had in order to take wolves from a listed area where they're federally listed, you have to do more nipple work, you know, more, more of that EIS and environmental impact statement and environmental assessments to look at what the impacts of those populations are going to be. And so that that took a lot of those areas out of consideration. So wolves are federally delisted Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and throughout those states and in the eastern portions of Montana or sorry, of Washington and Oregon. And so, so that was it was really those five states that initially we had that those conversations with and Oregon, like I say, said, yes, you can come and and at that time they said, you can take 10 wolves. We don't want you to take any breeding pairs. So none of the breeders of the packs, but you can take, you know, essentially the yearlings of of the packs. We did not want to take pops, you know, we, and so there's there's a lot of different considerations for what makes a good candidate. What kind of wolves do we want to take down to Colorado? What of this what of this story that first I was going to reminisce because when Montana did, you know, when Yellowstone did it, it was that they that they got stuck with these super wolves. Yeah, which is, you know, whatever pretend, but then they got stuck with these super wolves. And then the the popular narrative that I hear, not from official dumb, but I just hear is that you guys got stuck Colorado got stuck with the cattle killers. Yeah. Is there there's not truth to it? No, it's when you when you hear that, you're like, I don't get where that came from. I get where it came from. I mean, it came from the fact that where wolves and livestock overlap, there's going to be conflict, right? So there's in an Eastern Morgan, there's a lot of livestock and there's a lot of wolves too. And and there's history. You know, all of those packs have had some inner some involvement, some some not good involvement with with livestock. And so that was part of our criteria is that, you know, not only do we want eardlings, we didn't want this super young, we didn't want the super old wolves, we want some of these going to contribute to this population and not be naive to know how to hunt. But we also weren't going to take wolves from an area that was from a pack that was currently depredating in it. Currently depredated. Yeah, right. And so and we did not was fundamentally what that meant is that we didn't want to take wolves from a pack where Oregon or wildlife services was doing wolf control actions. There were a lot of scenarios where we had wolves available to us to capture. You know, they were they were in a geographically just a flat open area, not a treat area. They were on federal lands, but they were wolves that had been involved in very recent depredations. And so we passed on those. We said, no, we're not going to we don't want to take that anticipating that that was going to be the kind of response that we would get is that we're just bringing in these cattle killers. So we brought in wolves from packs that had had wolf livestock history, but nothing that was that was current, nothing that was active. And so that if your challenge had been, if your challenge was to go find wolves that had never to go find wolves in the lower 48. That had no history of cattle, you'd have been so well. There's no way. I mean, that wow, that I mean, the only place is is the park, not Yellowstone, right? And that's not an option for a bunch of different reasons. And so yeah, within the lower 48, that that becomes it becomes nearly impossible to find wolves. And that's a huge reason why we went to British Columbia in the next year, then in 2025. Did Oregon sell them to you, trade them to you? No, given to you. Give them they they wildlife agencies do a lot of that kind of stuff where we we've given as one of the projects I was involved with with Swift Fox. We took Swift Fox and and put them up in North Dakota and on some of the tribal lands there. And so it's it's there's no sale like we are not buying wolves. We're we CPW paid all the helicopter contracts. We paid all of the all the fees, all the costs associated with capture and transport of wolves. But we didn't there's no exchange, no monetary exchange. We're involved in captures. Yeah, how'd you guys do it? So we contracted all that out. We don't do the capture work ourselves, but they're capture companies that that go out and dark from the air and and you know, so Oregon was was great to cooperate with their their wolf program manager was great. She she had a lot of information. She had been monitoring the wolves really intently for the last several years. And so she would tell us about which packs for available, which individuals were available. She knew which the breeders were and could comment on those based on coat color and collar color, and things like that. And so the gunner would go up, the helicopter would go up, dart wolf, and then they would bring those wolves to us in the field, and we would do what we do, measure them, weigh them, process them, put collars on them, and you know how to transport them. - They were transported in the, from the field where they were captured to where we were in the field, was in the helicopter. - Tranquilized? - Yep. - Yeah, absolutely. - I don't want to put a wolf in a helicopter, that's not going to be tied them all up. - Oh, they're hobble, they've got my muzzle on them for sure, they're in transport, but they're out. - Yeah. - And then they're never held anywhere though, right? - So did you put them in an enclosure in Colorado? - No, so in Oregon they would be put in, say we captured them on a Tuesday, they'd get worked up in the field, they get the collar on, and they do what we do, the blood draws, we do all the genetic samples, all that kind of stuff. So they put them in a crate, a large reinforced dog crate, and then they're flown to Colorado, that you probably the next day is they're held overnight in those crates, and then flown the next morning, and then released straight away. - Just flat out route. - Yeah, hot release. - Call that a hard release, yeah, first is a soft release, and both work, you know, those are two different strategies, that's something that we really considered a lot. - So that's something that wakes up, he's just in a new spot. - He's in a new spot, yeah. And so we would release him from Oregon, they were transported three to five animals at a time, and so those animals would all be released together in the same place at the same time. - And they knew each other. - You weren't mixing, or were you mixing animals and didn't know each other? - Yeah, they were mixed. They weren't necessarily all from the same pack. There's probably some that did come from the same pack, I'd have to look back, it precise the relationships, but for the most part they were, we wanted that genetic representation. We didn't want them all to be, we didn't move entire packs together, they were all individual animals from separate packs, and really that's kind of the way wolf biology works. As they get to a certain point, they disperse out of those packs and start to create new packs and become new territories. And so that's kind of what we were trying to mimic in a somewhat artificial way, but to say here's a yearling male, a yearling female from neighboring or separate packs, let's see if that works. And in some cases it did. - How did you pick and did you make a public where you were actually letting them go? - So, yes, we kind of made it public after the fact. This is a sensitive issue, right? We've got to protect the wolves, we've got to protect our staff, too. There were threats that we were getting about, and who knows in some of the social media world, how real some of these threats really were, but that was definitely a concern for us. - That's the man. - This is, again, this is the responsibility that we're given. This is the task that we're given by state law, and we got to make sure that everybody stays safe, and the wolves themselves, too. And so initially we were very secretive about timing, locations, all that kind of stuff. The wolves were released on state or private lands, and so we didn't do it on federal lands kind of coming back, and this is a criticism that we got is that we took short cuts, that we didn't do the nipple, we did not do the nipple work on releasing on federal lands. If we were to release on four service lands, BLM lands, we would have had to do more nipple work. - Yeah, but that takes time. - And that's what's funny, 'cause I mean, come on. Like if you let it go on, I mean, you're effectively letting it go on public land, whether you do or not on federal land. - They're gonna go. - Right, they're gonna-- - The wolves are gonna move. - Hey, stay on this guy's place. - Exactly, there's never the expectation that you open the crate and the wolf is gonna stay on that, 10 acres, 100 acres, 1,000 acres. These animals move, right? - Did you put a collar on every one you let go? - We did. - Yeah, and not only just a collar, but a GPS collar, and so the technology's changed quite a bit, and so we have these collars on that allow us to get points, and they're not super frequent, you can change that, but these catch a point every four hours or so. And so really that the purpose of those collars isn't to say, look, it's going this way, it's going up this drainage, and getting minute by minute kind of action on it. It's really just to say, this is the general area where the animal is. It's still alive. It's still doing this. It's paired with the same as traveling with this animal. Those kinds of things. And so, yeah, so they all have that GPS collar. There's some risks with GPS collars. They're technologically a little bit more sensitive. They've had some collar failures versus the more traditional VHF collars, which is just the signal that you have to be in, either in the field or in a plane, and with the receiver and getting those signals. And so, yeah, every wolf that we released had a GPS collar on it. We will try to keep, what our plan says is that, within each pack, we'll keep two collars active. One GPS and one VHF collar, just for the longevity of it. The collars last five, six, seven years, hopefully, in best case scenario, which is about the life of a wolf. And so, we don't want to be replacing collars that much. Catching wolves, collaring them is expensive for one thing. It's risky. Anytime you open the helicopter, it's risky that people is risky to the animals, too. And so, yeah, so everything had GPS collars on. But back to it, we did not release on federal lands, but knew full well that wolves would go on to federal lands. It's like you say, these things move big distances. Tell me the numbers. So, how many wolves you did in one? Yeah, so in year one, December of 2023, we did 10 animals from Oregon. And then, 14 months later, January of 2025, we reintroduced 15 animals from British Columbia. And then we had plans to do a third year of releases in January of 2026. We would have gone back to British Columbia, and British Columbia was great to work with. The staff there was awesome, that we had great cooperation, great facilities to use there. It worked well for their programs. They were in a predator reduction mode for some of their caribou recovery efforts. And so, it gave them a positive spin to do some of their wolf work. And, based on that criticism that we heard from the animals that we reintroduced from Oregon, there's no overlap with livestock. There are no livestock in northern, central and northern British Columbia where we were getting these animals from. And so, it was, you know, we were addressing that concern that we had heard after year one that, you know, you're bringing in cattle killers. And we brought wolves from British Columbia down and sure enough, they've been involved in some depredations just because, that's just what predators do. Yeah. When the 10 hit the ground, the first 10, what were some of the most of me, what were some of the first things you saw in terms of distances before they settled? I mean, did they wake up and split? Yeah, so by the time they were released, they were out of the effective drugs, right? So they're in the crates, you open the crate. And sometimes they'll take a few minutes, a minute or two to get the gumption to leave the crate. Sometimes they would go right away. And so, and they all, you know, in that first wave of five, I think we did five and then we did two and then we did three or something like, I don't remember exactly the numbers on how exactly that worked, but they, some animals moves, big distances right away. And some animals stuck super close within five, 10 miles of the release sites too. And so they would, they just, they were all in exploratory mode. And some of them I think were probably a little confused. I think they all probably were at least in some way or another confused about what they had just experienced. And you're just flown from, from Oregon, driven in a truck. And then the crates are open and they're in a different, they're in a different place. One of the things that we really wanted to, to kind of mimic is taking wolves from some place that is ecologically pretty similar to Colorado. And so that, that works pretty well. They're in, you know, an elk-dominated environment. We've got obviously huge, ungulate populations in Western Colorado. So that was good. And they, you know, some animals moved quite a bit in some, some stuff pretty close. In that first year, we did have one, one pair in, and they developed a, a litter of pops had produced a litter of pops and started to defend the territory as well. So that was, that was the first, that was in, in the spring of 2024. - Okay. - At that. - What was the, and I know you're only getting a, you're only getting a ping on them every four, four hours? - Yeah. - How long do you have a guess? When they, so they, they cut loose in Colorado. How many hours or days went by before one of them had a successful hunt? - Yeah, great question. So, so we get pings every four hours. We don't get a ping, we don't get the result of that ping every, we get one download a day essentially. So we get, just to understand how that works. The, I don't, that's a great question. I don't know how, how long it was. I don't think it was, you know, wolves don't eat every day, right? They don't, they don't need to have a kill every day. We were probably within the first week that, that we, I don't remember, we were really sensitive to, to not wanting to, to go in, when we, when we would see a cluster of points, we didn't want to go in on that, because we didn't want to scare them off of that. And we create conflict, push them off of that, that kill of a deer or an elk or something like that. - So you're not, yeah, you, I imagine like there's a temptation to go run over there to see what they've been doing every time you get like that he's been in the same place for 12 hours. - That's right. - You're dying to go see what's up, but you would just stay back. - We would stay back and then we would go in afterwards, right after, after they've moved on. When they've moved on, then you can go in and we've got some great research that's happening right now, looking at that, kind of looking at what, what wolf diet it looks like and so that's, that's how we'll do that and go in and look for scat and then you can, can run some genetics on the scat. - How many months went by before you had one kill a cow? - Well, we had a cow, we actually had depredation from the North Park pack. Before we did reintroduction, we had depredation there. There was probably, from the, the wolves that were released in Oregon, I'd have to look back. I don't, I don't know for sure, but months. month, month or a month. Yeah. Yeah. Meet eaters season opener sale is live. And if you've been waiting to gear up for your hunt, now's the time by one, get one free on all meat eater teas and hoodies. 50% off select game bags and deals on gear from some of our favorite brands. First light, Phelps, F H F mulchery, Yeti and more. And for after the hunt, we have a limited time offer to save on our most popular seasonings, like backstrap brew campfire crust and backcountry bark or get the six pack to try them all. Our favorite time of year is right around the corner, head over to the meat eaters store.com to check out our season opener sale. What's your take? Now that you've looked at this so carefully, we talked about this the other day on the news show, research around this question. But like, what's your take on the degree to which wolves are just opportunistic and remain opportunistic versus they, they hunt elk, they hunt moose, those animals behave in a certain way. You make it a kick to the head, right? They're faster, whatever. And then you discover cattle. And in the wolf's mind, I don't know this true or not wolf's mind. He's like, man, I just prefer to deal with cattle. Like, do you see that switch? No, you don't. In fact, I mean, there were there in one of the the first dens we had in that North Park den, there was, there were yearlings right in the field, right, right below the home side, right below where animals were. And you would see wolves walk right through the cattle. They would not touch the cattle at all. And so, you know, I don't, I think that they, it's not as though they're just bloodthirsty killers and we'll kill whatever. So I think in those animals, we know that those animals were killing native ungulates too. And so, so it's, I don't think that they, they get that opportunistic feel. And I think that a cow is probably much easier to kill for a wolf. Yeah. But I, what I meant more, I didn't do a good job asking the question. What I meant more is do you see that a pack or a pair or whatever will kill a cow? And then do you see that they all the sudden go like that's what they focus on? Or will they kill a cow and not get hazed off it? Just kill a cow and leave on their own. And then go back to elk and deer. Yeah. And never visit another cow again. Or does it seem like once they do it, they're headed down a path toward trouble. Good, good question. I don't think we have the resolution of data on that yet. I think that I, I think that there are scenarios where they will find that situation that they will, they will find a situation that's easy eating, right? And they'll, they will stick with that. And I think that there's other times that they will, they will get involved with livestock deputations and then they'll be gone and they won't come back to livestock meaning that they're going off and eating something else. I know that that both those scenarios have happened, whether they're more inclined to do one or the other. I can't say definitively, yeah, that's the way it works. So that's not the way it works. I think that it's, it's probably a mix. I, wolves are all individuals, right? They do, they're smart animals. They have personalities, they have different kind of traits. And that's part of the reason that that 10J is so important, right? If we can, if we can document that wolves are getting into livestock and we've got raindriders out there, we've got the producers themselves are out there paying attention. If we can see that that's happening and you can try to get involved and try to get some of that behavior modified, you can get in there and hit them with bean bags, hit them with cracker shells, hit them with, you know, noises and different kinds of things that kind of scare them away and let them know that's not the right thing to be doing. There's, there's scenarios where that helps and that can change their behavior and that's really good. That's what we're after. And so I, I wouldn't say that, you know, once a wolf has a taste for livestock that they won't go back to. I don't think that that's a true statement. Yeah. What was the earliest time? What was the first time you guys had to make a decision to go like basically do a recall on one year wolves, you know? Yeah. Were you, were you like, all right, he's, he's coming out. Right away. I mean, right away it was, it was that first spring. So it's spring of 24. We had this scenario where wolves were getting into a lot of livestock. This was right after we had had documented our first den. So lots of attention on this media attention, social attention on the wolf program has renuces wolves. We've got a documented breeding. We've got a documented den and we've got documented depredations and repeated depredations and in those depredations were coming from that den site. We're coming from that group. That group. Yeah. And that was the copper creek pack. And that pack's gotten a lot of attention for, for, you know, a variety of largely for this whole whole effort. And so here we are faced with this really challenging scenario. And we have that 10J rule in there to say that there are, there are situations where we can manage wolves. It was not an intention. I don't think to, to say from, you know, from day one, we're going to start doing lethal management of wolves, right? We had, we had had so much invested in this, so much, work had gone into getting, sourcing those wolves, transporting, releasing, and, and to say, we're going to go in and, and there was calls for us to, you know, people were trying to get us to remove those wolves, remove the pups from that pack. There were the two breeders and I believe there were four pups, the while they were removed. We didn't kill any of them. So this is a scenario where there were four, there were actually five pups in the copper creek pack, but what we ended up doing because they're kind of as, as the compromises that we captured those animals from, from that private land, moved them to a facility, held them there for a bit of time and then released those, released the copper creek packs, those that remained. One of the, the breeder male died, we were only able to capture four of the five pups. We didn't realize that there was a fifth pop at the time. So the, the breeding female and four, and four pups ultimately were at the, at that facility and then they were re-released in, in January of 25 to Colorado. Same into Colorado. Yeah. Well, that had to get a lot of heat. It sure did. Yeah. It did and, and you know, a part of it was some behavior modification work and they were, they were re-released in a different spot, you know, and so it definitely got some criticisms for, for doing that. So what happened then? Did they give up their cattle killing ways when you, when you let them go to second time? Uh, so the, the female then paired again with one of the, the British Columbia males and, and they had another den. It, there's different, different part of Western Colorado and there've been some depredation issues with, with that pack still. What was the first lethal removal you had to do? The first lethal removal was part, was actually, I think part of, of that, um, I'm, I can't remember it off the top. I should know this. It was, um, shortly, it was either in that pack one of the, one of the yearlings that was, was part of that or in another part of the state too. So what would be, what's the decision making process or what are the sort of inputs on that one will catch Yep. And we'll try to dissuade it from wanting to do it to be around people and let it go. That one, we're going to remove is going to, we're going to let you remove that, that, well, to, to go back, that capturing animals, transport, you know, to, to re-release them in another place that we really don't want to do that. That, that whole effort that we did with copper creek, that, that first spring, it was, that was terrible. So that's learning experience. It was a huge learning experience. Yeah. Like it was, it was a lot of work. It was a lot of, there's so many different challenges that, that went into that, that effort. Okay. Wasn't good for anybody. Like it was, it was really challenging kind of thing. So that's not standard protocol for us to, to do that. And so for us to, to consider lethal management, we have a definition for what makes up, we call it chronic depredation. If there's three or more depredations by a, a pack or an individual in 30 days. So three confirmed depredations in 30 days. And, and there's different level, you know, one is, you know, proponents of evidence. So more likely than not. And one is clear and convincing. Like we, there's, there's no room for doubt. A wolf killed that cheap lamb cow cattle calf or whatever. So three, three events in 30 days. And there's, there's been some, some use of non lethal, some kind of deterrence that the producer has done some of that. There's the likelihood that, that depredations are going to continue into the future. And, and also that there's no attractance. Right. So that the producers have removed that and other carcasses on the field too. And so, there's a little checklist. There's a checklist. And, and that's, that's formal, formalized in our regulations and, and how we go about that. And it's, it's a process. And it, it's a conversation that involves the local area staff that are, our local game wardens or district wildlife managers, our, our area managers, our conflict team are either all the way up to our director. It's, it's ultimately the director's call is to, to when and how that happens. And, and, and what, if you have to do a lethal removal, is that, are you contracting that out or are you guys doing it on your own? We do it on our own. Yeah, we, we do it on our own. So, uh, from the air or, uh, no, from the ground, because we're all done from the ground. So that, there's, there is a way that, you know, if, if the agency doesn't have the resources to do it, we haven't run into that situation. Every, every lethal management situation that we've had, you never had, you never had a defense do it. Correct. Right. It's always been our own staff to, to do that. Got it. Yeah. How many to date, how many to date have lethal removals have there been? Uh, I think three or, we just did another one. I'm not full on the details of it. I think just this, this last week too. So I think four, I think, and when you guys do a lethal removal, I'm guessing you just get blown up by certain interests. Oh, for sure. I mean, you, you, you can't make everybody happy with any, any kind of wolf management decision. You're, somebody is going to not agree with with the decision that was made. That's a challenge. I guess it's one of those things that, you know, it's just recognizing that it's the way it is. It's the way it is. It's the way it is. It's the way it is. It's the way it is. It's the way it is. Yeah. of reintroduction. We had anticipated a third year, and the wolf population will grow pretty quick. And as it grows, then we can be much more flexible in our management. And removing an animal, an individual is, you know, there are some that would disagree with that, that's ever appropriate, but it becomes easier to do that. And in the long term picture, the big picture of what we're trying to do is establish a self-sustaining population. That helps us, right? And so we've made the argument a lot that getting packs established makes management a whole lot easier, right? When we've got individual wolves that are moving all around and they truly are moving all around, it's really difficult to predict where that animal is, where it's going to go. And so it's truly needle in a haystack, whereas when they're in a pack, when they're defending a territory, they're still moving big distances, but they're moving in a much smaller geography. And so it becomes a way easier to deploy those tools. I can see it gets easier to get your arms around the whole thing. Exactly. And as that, the number of the population size goes up, when there are problems, it's more palatable. I'm not going to say a lot more palatable, but it's more palatable to say we can remove animals, the population can sustain that from the conflict side of things, especially if that can reduce that conflict. You might not think of it as a problem, I do. But have you had the problem in Colorado of celebrity wolves like we have in the greater Yellowstone area? We've worked to avoid that. We give our wolves at the park, man, they cord it. They love it. We give our wolves a number. There's a four digit number. The first two numbers are the year that it was colored. The next two numbers are, if it was male or female, sequentially. So the first male captured in 2025 would be 2501. Males get the odd numbers, females get the even numbers. And so we have to have that. You have to know individuals that you're talking about. There have been campaigns, some of the advocate groups tried wolf advocate groups tried to have naming and we don't want to do that. We don't do that for any of the wildlife species that we do. There are some interesting behaviors. And we've seen some of our animals make huge movements. There are very interesting things that we're learning, but we're really not into that. Yeah, that like the wolf celebrity thing gets leveraged, right? It gets politically leveraged, because then it becomes, well, you wouldn't want that to happen to old Betty, right? You know, and it brings in this whole other conversation. Makes it much more challenging. What was, did they wind up, maybe I'm wrong, I feel like I remember this. Did it wind up being that there was some legal problem with the feds around the decision to get them from British Columbia? Well, that's their interpretation. Okay. And the state has a different interpretation of it. And it all comes back to that 10J rule, right? So remember that that 10J rule talks about how wolves are managed in the state, North to Southeast to West. They can relax as those take prohibitions. Fish and wildlife services interpretation on it is that the 10J is explicit into where wolves can be sourced from. And we don't agree with that. To us, and generally that the 10J talks about management within that geographic boundary. And so, you know, we don't feel like we anything was violated by us going to to British Columbia. We had all the federal permits from there, there were federal importation permits that we had to get from fish and wildlife service, just like any, any kind of wildlife that comes across international borders. We had to get sighties permits in site, a convention of international trade of endangered species. We had provincial permits. We had environment Canada permits. We had our color department of active. So we were buttoned up, like we had every, we had everything we needed in place. And you know, all the way up until we got back from there in January of 25, we had planned to go back in January of 26, all the way up until October of 25 leading up to it. That was our plan. And then we get the letter from the Fish and Wildlife Service telling us, well, don't you feel that when they pointed that out, that it was probably the result. I mean, however one feels about the reneeduction, but that bit, them calling legal fault on getting them from BC was probably the result of someone saying, I want you to go over every decision that was made and see if you can find me a problem. Yeah. And then they got creative and found a problem. They found what they found what they thought to be a problem. We don't think it was a problem. And then they might even know they're being creative. Right. No, I think that's true. I mean, it was all time. Yeah. You're like, dude, there's got to be a problem. Find me a problem. And to follow up on that, I got it. Well, and to follow up on that, then after that, after we got that season to cis letter, then we had had a wolf. We have, we have agreements with other states, Arizona, New Mexico. If a wolf goes into Arizona, New Mexico or Utah, those wolves can be recaptured and brought back into Colorado. That's really to the long story, but that's fundamentally to protect Mexican wolf recovery, all the investment that's happened there. And so that happened. We had one wolf that that went down to New Mexico, New Mexico captured it, transferred it to us. We re-released that animal in Colorado. I don't, I don't want to get into names. I have, I have some dear friends that that are very invested in the Mexican wolf project. And I understand this, this desire that there's so much time and energy put into recovering the Mexican gray wolf, the New Mexico and Arizona, right? Yep. And Mexico. Yeah. And that, that bringing wolves from BC or bringing wolves from Oregon and putting them into Colorado. And then they're going to go in and and and then by some definition, corrupt these lineages. Right. Down there. Earlier, I used the word like something seeming academic. One would could look and say, well, historically wolves were present on the landscape, yeah, from way into Mexico to the Arctic. That's true. Right. And there wasn't a line anywhere. It was all just bleeding in, right? There was, I mean, there was, there was lines here and there because of desert ecosystems and saying like, any of these populations, I don't, I can't tell you this empirically, but I'm just assuming any of these populations is being infiltrated by individual animals coming from the north or south at any given time, right? They're not like, they're not like fence. There's not walls divide. There's not like, there's a wall that says, okay, this group wolf group is here and then over the wall is the next wolf group and they don't breed, they don't breed. So, so what's your take on that? Like, like what's up with wanting there to be a line now where there probably wasn't a line historically? Is it just because of because of the politics? No, it's not, I mean, it's scientific. There's evidence. I mean, and so wolf taxonomy is super interesting to those that are interested in that kind of stuff. There've been lots of different subspecies of wolves to find over time up to 25. Now there's five different subspecies recognized. And throughout all that time, Mexican wolves, Canis, Lupus, Bailey, I has been recognized as a separate subspecies. They're smaller. They're just, they're different. Like they had a barrier. They're the barrier between northern wolves and as far south as Colorado and Utah, in Arizona, was a substantial desert, right? It's, it is not a great, and across that you feel that it functioned as a barrier. It must have because of, because there is a different subspecies for something that moves so much. The idea of subspecies is that they, they are isolated for a long enough time consistently enough. There's not this infiltration of other genes coming in that they develop another subspecies. And so that's because Bailey, I canis, Lupus, Bailey, I has been recognized as a subspecies for as long as it has, always independent. There's, there is some influx. Northern wolves can breed with, with Mexican wolves for sure. And so it's happened, but they are also unique in their, and there's also the political side or the, the policy side of it is that Mexican wolves are listed separately under endangered species. Yeah, that's what I said. That's what I say. I could see that someone might say, I can see that a manager or a wildlife person might say, I get the point. Historically, they were all over. They're not now. Yep. We have different management practices in place. And for that reason and that reason alone, we don't want them mixed because it's going to cause confusion of management strategy. Yep. Like I'd accept that. Yep. But it does seem to me it's like, if what, if what wolf advocates are striving for as restoration of the wolf, I feel like that would mean that they're striving for a situation where there's just like wolfness, continuity, wolfness running, like running up and down the continent and they just move all over hell. And that in time, that might be the scenario. I'm not the geneticist to ask this question. But you know, there, there may be a point in time when having Northern wolf genetics infiltrate, integrate with, with Mexican wolves, maybe it would be a time when as appropriate. But that's a real, like what they're doing is so intensive with Mexican wolf recovery. They're, they're taking pups that are born in captivity and putting them in water. well-born litters, which it all requires incredible timing and incredible coordination with that. There's huge efforts to do that, that Mexican wolf population, just like a lot of these endangered species stories, started with a really, really small population, seven to ten animals, something like that. And so there's genetic and breeding concerns, and they're very, very deliberate about how that works. And so to have northern wolf genes come into the Mexican wolf population now would undo a lot of that really important work. So that's happened. And so that's an important thing, right? And so I think, I mean, we got off on a little bit of a sidetrack, but that's why when that wolf came down into New Mexico, we have that MOU to kind of keep that from happening the same thing. If Mexican wolves come out of their experimental population area, then they'll be captured with those states and brought back into that area. Meat eater season opener sale is live, and if you've been waiting to gear up for your hunt, now's the time. I won't get one free on all meat eater teas and hoodies. Fifty percent off, select game bags and deals on gear from some of our favorite brands. And for after the hunt, we have a limited time offer to save on our most popular seasonings, like backstrap brew, campfire crust, and backcountry bark, or get the six pack to try them all. Our favorite time of year is right around the corner, head over to the meateaterstore.com to check out our season opener sale. Let's say they go and let's say during the current administration, I'm going to give you my viewpoint. I know it's probably not your viewpoint. I don't know. I'll just tell you mine. From a wildlife, from a wildlife conservation perspective, there's not a ton. This is me talking. I don't want everybody to know this is me talking, not Mr. Odole. There's not a ton that one can be hopeful. From a wildlife and conservation perspective, under the current administration, there's not like a bunch of guy could root for it. But the thing I would root for is I would like to see lower 48 wolves just delisted. Right. There's a movement to do this. For sure. What would that mean for Colorado? It would, what it would mean, well, fundamentally, what it mean is that the Fish and Wildlife Services is no longer a partner. Right. I mean, they're a stakeholder in it, but they're not a man. The MOU that we have that gives us designated agent, all of that kind of goes away. And the wolves are managed like many of the other wildlife species in the state managed solely by the state agents. But there'd be a state endangered. What do you guys call your own endangered? Yeah. It would be state endangered until we meet, and our plan describes what those recovery goals. So it would be state endangered until we meet the threshold, and then it would be downless to just to state threatened, and then it becomes a non-game when it's delisted. Yeah, but don't you feel like this is a crystal ball and shit a little bit here is when we. When we did the Grizzlies and wolves and put them under endangered species act protection, federal, USA protection, and we came up with a recovery objective. There were a lot of players involved in that conversation that were not being honest brokers. Like there were people, protectionists, wolf advocates, grizzly advocates, absolute protectionists, like protectionists, absolutists that gave a verbal sign-off on what recovery would look like. Yeah. But then once recovery was achieved, they reneged, right. And now they sue and sue and sue to prevent delisting, because they're not really interested in the recovery question. They're interested in protecting wolves from lethal removal or recreational harvest, right? And these battles are taking place in states that are politically red or politically purple. Okay. I mean, varying degrees of bluish, Michigan, Wisconsin, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, right? And then you have like very red states, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho. Then you go to like deep blue, Colorado. It just seems to me that whatever was agreed to about recovery in Colorado is lie. And that there are factions in Colorado that will never accept delisting or non-game status. They will never accept it. Well, yeah. So a couple of things about that. There's never been recovery, federal recovery goals for Colorado, right? And so the recovery goals are for other parts of the country. And so that there are not specific federal recovery goals for Colorado. There's some in the style, I'm talking about in the event that the feds, I'm saying like, feds delist. Let's play this out. That's like, it's if on if the feds move and they delist lower 48, okay, remains stateless. And at this point, it's stateless and what I'm saying is, you know, never mind all that. Let me just let me ask what I'm saying more bluntly. Can you picture in Colorado a situation where they are ever in the where there is ever a world where they are issuing like wolf hunting tags, like our issued an Idaho and Wyoming and Montana, like we're issued in Michigan and in Wisconsin and Minnesota, like that ain't happening. I mean, that's my crystal ball. There's a couple of things to that. One is that the statute that the ballot initiative, the statute that passed defines them as state endangered species. And so right now, and there's some uncertainty as to how much influence that has truly on the state status of them. We have another process. Well, because, but so the ballot language didn't spell out how they would become not state endangered. No, it's just definitionally state endangered. Right. I got you. And so our plan, the plan that we wrote has criteria. If we meet 50 animals for four years, it gets down listed to state threatened. We get to 150 animals for two years or 200 animals, maybe come delisted and just have the non-game status. Then if the commission ever, a future commission ever made the decision to change that status from non-game to game, that's that's a decision down the road. And who's to say whether that's likely or not, I'll say it'll never happen. Maybe. I don't know. It's not going to happen right now. I mean, very clearly right now. Every Texan would have to move to Colorado for that. Not just a trick of all the Texans would have to go there. Yeah. It's not. I mean, we're several years away. We just don't know what it's like to live. We know what it's like to live with 32 wolves. Right. That's what we've got right now in the state on our annual report that comes out of each spring. 32 wolves was our account last year. What's it look like for 300 wolves, 320 wolves? What do you think is the maximum? It's like a social question. What do you think is maximum? Well, let's look at it. Let's take the social out of it. Okay. Let's just look at let's look at acres and deer and elk. If you had to guess, no one's good old to do this. No, it's thousands, okay. We have the landscape with support thousands. We have a huge amount of public lands, wilderness areas. We have huge native ungulate populations that we so biologically we could have thousands of wolves, but not thousands for a long time. No. I mean, that's what I'm saying is that it's the socially, I'm leaving social out of it. Yeah. Let's explore non-social for a minute. Yeah. Like, you have a ton of elk. Maybe thousands is probably over. Well, you have a ton of elk maybe because you don't have many wolves, right? I mean, what do you think is going to, so just leaving the social acceptance element out of it and just looking at like, let's say Colorado could host a thousand or more wolves. In your mind, does that mean, with your expertise, does that mean that it's elk herd stabilizes that 50% of current, it's elk herd stabilizes at 80% of current? Like, what is it? I don't know. I don't know what that looks like. But you got to have that. I think, I mean, it's wolves eat, right, and any predator eats. So there's going to be, there's going to be some impact to, to ungulate populations. But it's in the Yellowstone wolves get credit or get blamed for all the effect on the northern range. And there's so many different things that are happening at that point that it's hard to, you know, it's impossible really to say it's cause and effect because of the wolves, the elk populations went down. There's so many other things that were happening at that point in time. The more wolves you have, the more prey they're going to consume. That's the fact, right? What it looks like in time, I don't, I don't, I really don't know. It is, it would just be a gas to say what that looks like. Or is it nobody like in Colorado? Is it nobody's job to model out what it might look like for the deer and elk herd? If there are a thousand, 200 wolves, 500 wolves, 1000 wolves, like no one's curious about this. Curious for sure. We're not at that point where we're, we're deep into that. I mean, I think we're, we're many years away from wondering about that. Well, I mean, we're starting to wonder about it, but we're a decade away from the reality of that happening. And so in time, we will get there, you know, we're, and I say we, I'm, I'm not with the agency anymore, but it's, it's, yeah, I think that that's, that's where we, the, the agency will will start to look and say how, how we manage for native. I'm going to the populations. How do we manage for predator populations as well? Let's bring in social. Yeah, the social side of things. So I think that that's part of the reason that it's an interesting question, but I don't think it really matters fundamentally, because socially, I don't think that we can hold that. Yeah, I know. Yes. The non-social thing was a fantastic experiment, right? Yeah, I get it. I get it with social pressures. I mean, and I know you can't put numbers to it, but like you got 36 now, right? 32. Yeah. 32 now. Considering that humans are here too, and people are feeding the country and agricultural interests, right? Not to discredit them, but they have needs and they provide a service to people with producing food and all that. So when you add that in, are you more comfortable with a spitballing a number? As a retired guy. I mean, I have that maybe, maybe 500, 500 do a thousand animals. Somewhere in there, I think is a reasonable population to kind of have a target. If someone said to you, if someone, if someone from the future, from 20 years in the future came to you and said, Mr. O'Dell, there are 500 wolves, and we've been at that for quite some time. We got about Colorado's supports about 500 wolves. You would think to yourself, wow, that's more than I thought. Or you'd think, I thought it'd be more. No, I think that that's probably, you know, we never set an objective in the plan because we just didn't know. We just don't know what it looks like. I think that that's a reasonable number to have in Colorado. I mean, it's crowded. There's a lot of people in Colorado. There's a lot of people that recreate all year round there. It's not the same as Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, where they're here in Montana. It's just much more rural. There's a lower population density. So there are more people in Colorado, but you fly over it. You see the landscape. There's a lot of good wolf habitat. And so I don't totally buy the argument that people say that Colorado is too crowded for wolves. I think that we certainly have the capacity to have a self-sustaining, fairly large, I think self-sustaining wolf population in the state. What number that looks like? It's too soon to tell, especially when you incorporate that social metric into it, but I think it's probably in that 500 to maybe 2,000. I don't know. Something like that. Yeah. When you review the whole thing in your mind, what do you wish would have gone differently? I think one of the things that we learned is the communications and how to outreach, how to share information is really, really critical. And that's one of the things, all different kinds of information, especially from day one, how we share information about how we're doing the releases, where that happens. And so we took a very precautionary approach that first year, and I don't regret that at all. I think that that was very wise of us to do. We see precautionary, meaning undersharing or oversharing. Undersharing. We were very, you know, likewise, we were quiet. We were quiet. We didn't say where we were going to release animals, and we didn't say when we only talked to people after the fact. I think that we learned from that, that that was not acceptable, and we needed to be a bit more, you know, still protecting of really sensitive details, but a little bit more open with that kind of stuff. You feel like that may be lost, that may be cost you politically, cost you publicly. I think so. Yeah, I think so. With voters. I think so stakeholders. I think so. And then, you know, the communications about depredations. We've changed a lot of that. We've gotten a whole lot better at that. Was there a tendency within the department to underrepresent depredations? No. No, never. I mean, we have a website on our page on our CPW website that is very explicit, as soon as we get from frame about that information. If it happened, it was just like, here's the facts. Yeah, I got it. I think one of the things that we could do better is that is the media communications. You look at the media and the local media really emphasizes the negative, right? They, they, you know, local, local, local statewide media that in Colorado, when we get, when something happens about wolves or the personnel, it gets, it gets talked about a lot in the sense of, well, here's another chink in the armor of the wolf program. Here's another example of how the wolf program is failing and it is not failing. The wolf program is doing well. And even with my leaving of the program, I think that we've got a really good strong staff that's there. I think that we've got really good biologists, researchers, field staff that are able to address a lot of those concerns. But the media would have you believe otherwise, right? And so if we could be more proactive in that and tell the good stories and have the media tell those stories. And we've tried that. We've tried to reach out to some of the media and say, hey, look, I get it. That this is what sells a lot of your ads. But there's other sides to that too. And some have taken that opportunity and done well and told some of those good stories. But still, we struggle with that. Well, because the people that announce and amplify the missteps are the people that feel burned. Yeah. They want to find a problem. Right. Right. Like if you're just, if you're just like while the body's in mind, they'd love to hone out. Yeah. And I'm in other social circles to be people that like they love to run cattle. And they don't like it. And they don't like the the came from voters. And they don't like that they feel those crammed on their throat by Denver. Yeah. Right. And so yeah, when something negative happens, they're going to be all over it because they want to amplify it as a way of expressing discontent or a way of hopefully subverting the whole thing because they feel it was an assault on them. Yeah. I mean, one of the one of the most poignant conversations I had was early early on in this process. It was at it. It was at an open house that we had in Boulder, Colorado, very liberal part of the state, very much a pro wolf state. And we had a rancher come all the way from from Western Colorado. He brought his daughter to this. And not because they wanted to fight the whole thing. They just wanted to hear that perspective. And this ranch has been been very involved with with this whole work, the wolf planning work. It's been great, really great to work with in his daughter. I don't know, 20 years old, 25 years old. I got an conversation with her. And she's what she said to me is I don't I don't care about wolves. I don't care if they're here. I don't care if they're not here. All I want to do is ranch. That's what's important to me. And to me, that was that's stuck with me throughout the last six years is like, we have to figure out how to reintroduce wolves. We have to figure out how to develop and maintain a self-sustaining population of wolves by the state law. And we have to work with the people of Colorado. We have to find the way to address those conflicts. And to allow not the idea is not at all to keep ranching from happening or to stop ranching from happening or to stop hunting from happening, not at all. I think that that's that's a misconception that's out there is that wolves are just an avenue to make that happen. And that's that's not the case. That's not the case at all. You're out of it now. And you were never this you were never the mouthpiece. You were never meant to be the guy selling everybody on it. But I think that like if you're curious and you say, you know, you you have opinions about how news is shared. You have opinions about how the public is engaged like a hot tip that if I was going to offer your former colleagues. A hot tip is wolf advocates and protectionists have a bad habit of of I never use this word, but they have a bad habit of gaslighting people to say so when a guy says so there's going to be a lot less elk, right? They don't want to have that conversation. They're reluctant to do it. I think that if they would come and say, you're right, man, you're right. It ain't going to be like it is. Yeah. They can't bring themselves to do it the same way they can't bring themselves to acknowledge to a rancher. This shit's going to come kill your cows. Right. They can't bring themselves to do it. They act like he's a he's a dumb redneck. Yep. The hunter doesn't understand the science. Right. And they cannot just say, buddy, I know it sucks for you. You're losing a lot of these elk. It's going to be harder for you to get an elk tag. I get it. I understand. I don't really care, but I understand you're right. I'm doing what I'm going to do anyways. But the fact that they cannot bring themselves to just say the truth bugs the shit out of people. Yeah. And we try to be straightforward. I mean, I remember at the very beginning conversations that we had with the commission, I said, wherever wolves and livestock share the landscape, there's going to be conflict. But it's not it's not as though they're they're doing all these great things for the environment. And it's there's no challenge to life. That's going to be a challenge. Yeah. That's proven to be true. But the advocates and you're not saying you're one of them, but the advocates and the absolute as protectionists, that's the narrative they spend and it infuriates people. And in some ways, I think that a better strategy or more harmonious strategy or a strategy that would lead to a more harmonious disagreement would be a higher level of acknowledgement about certain realities. And again, just tell them you don't care. Yeah. But don't tell them they're wrong. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's infuriates. I can imagine being it being it I'm not a rancher being in a [BLANK_AUDIO] ranchers shoes and having a wolf advocate say, this is, you're not right. Yeah. There's nothing more in telling them you're right. I don't care. Yeah, he would, he would sleep better at night. Or an elk hunter is going to sleep better at night. If you go, you're right. I don't care. Yeah, you have you see it this way. I see it this way. Right. He's raw. Yeah. That's a hot too. What, uh, when you left on Friday, you retired, like it just so people, I mean, you hit like retirement. That's right. You know, like you storm out, you know, no, it's, no, it's totally, totally might call. There's no political influence. Get a lot of people ask about that. No, it's, it's long career with the agency, very satisfied. And, uh, it was just the right time to get you. Um, because what you been doing is so high profile, man. Did you, did you go home one night and just like sleep? Like what did it feel like to walk out the door? It feels good. Well, it's, it's kind of been a, uh, a process. And we've, we've got, like I said, really great team in there. We've got a backfill in into that position. And so we're, um, you know, it, it, it's been a lot of work to get to that point. And I, you're right. And once you're done with it and you're not thinking about it and you're not get, you don't wake up and have an inbox full of emails about the latest conflict and all of that, that kind of stuff. It's, that's nice. You know, no, no, no, I want to, I want viewers to understand. I'm in no way drawing a parallel, I'm drawing a light parallel. But I'm not drawing a serious parallel between the war in Afghanistan and the wolf war in Colorado. But when we, when we finally pulled out of Afghanistan, I have a friend that did many tours in Afghanistan. He lost friends in Afghanistan. Like he gave a significant, I mean, he went in the military as a young guy and like came of age, yeah, in Afghanistan. And we finally pulled out of Afghanistan. And I texted him, like, what are you feeling right now? He said that we should have left a long time ago. Yeah, right. If, if, which is not what I expect to hear from him. But if all of a sudden there's like some, I know it can't happen. I don't, I don't want, but if all of a sudden there's some referendum, you know, when it comes to vote and they're like scratch the whole thing. And they sent some helicopters out and yeah, all the wolves are gone. What would like? Well, that would be, that would be, I wouldn't want that to, I wouldn't see that. I've got to be like, ah, geez. Where's all that exactly? I mean, there's so much has been invested in, I mean, it, like I say, the conflict is there. If conflict is going to happen, but it, we can also, there's, there's a lot of stories about wolves not getting into conflict. What, what you hear about are, are those scenarios where it's not gone great? But there's a lot of scenarios where it has gone great. That just, that aren't getting that, that story. So I don't think it's necessary. I think it's, I think it would be a bad idea to, to, to kill all the wolves that, that we've introduced. I think that they're, they are doing what wolves do. I think part of what the wildlife agency does is not only manage for deer and elk and trout and, and game birds and waterfowl, but also for all of our non-game species as well. And so this is really important responsibility for, for all state wildlife agencies, but for, for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, I think it's an agency that's really proud of the work that, that we've done there. And so I don't, I don't think, you know, reversing what we've done is, is in the cards. I think wolves are, wolves are going to find their way. They're, they're going to do well and, and the program, the program's going to do well, the species is going to do well. And, and, you know, the people of Colorado will do well with it as well. Like we, we will find ways to make that, that whole, all the, that, that, that challenges that, that go along with managing bears and lions and wolves, all, all of that together is, is part of it. And I think that we'll, we'll get there and we'll do a really good job as the agency will. I went out of my way, not out of my way, but I, I was careful to articulate a perspective held by a lot of hunters that I know. But, um, in all fairness, the perspective I was giving is in the full perspective. And there's the thing I've always observed with people, um, with my, like, you know, my sort of community, right, of outdoorsmen and hunters is, um, no matter how anybody feels about wolf politics. I never meet anyone who isn't really happy to see a wolf. That's right. You never talk to a guy who comes back and he's like, "Dah, damn it. Worst night could have had. So all wolf people come back and they're like, "Dude, I know the song was starting to hear that." Right. And so, so funny is like, it's like, there's, in that way, it doesn't line up with. It's just one of those, it's just one of those contradictions that it doesn't line up. And like, and, and no matter what, someone's stated view is they hear it howl and they get happy. They see it and they get excited. Yeah. And it's like their, their brain isn't totally aligned on what they're after. Yeah. Like, people struggle. Right. Do I hate them or love them? I should hate these animals. I should be afraid of them. But in reality, it's, I mean, and that was very intentional. We, we brought people to, to these releases. We are, you know, to see wolves within the agency that were somewhat skeptical of this. And let's, let's get them exposed. Let's let them see a wolf, handle a wolf, hear a wolf. Like, any of them, and then from the public, we hear those reports too. Like, I was camping. I was hunting. I heard, I heard the howls and the people get excited about it, right? It is, it is even for those, like you say, that feel like for whatever reason they should, should or shouldn't love or hate these animals. It, there's something, there's something pretty magical about it. I remember here in, it would have been 98 or 99, 99, 98 or 99, hunting elk, boh hunting elk and, um, not far from Yellowstone. And thinking at dusk, it registered in my head that I was here in a bugle. Like the second it started off a ways was like, it's a bugle. Then I'm like, oh my god. It's a howl. And, you know, and that being like the first, you know what I mean? People will remember that. Yeah, the first time you hear a wolf, the first time even maybe you don't hear him, maybe you don't see him, you see the track in on the trail. And it's, it's unmistakable. And it's, you know, you, you understand there, and we even hear from hunters that are, that are in some ways happy to be around wolves and say, hey, I'm, I'm hunting in ungulates. I'm hunting elk or deer mousse in, in an environment that has the, the component, though, you know, they added component of wolves to the system. And, you know, it's not everybody that agrees with that perspective. But, but we've heard that. I've heard that, you know, I keep saying it's just, it's just important to me that, that again, I want to return. I don't know why I just feel very compelled to return to a point that I know will come, as it'll come, if it's like you said, and it's a successful program, and they really take off, and it gets to be where there's hundreds. And there's, and like, there's going to be a decline. There's going to be an elk decline. Yeah. I'm wondering if they're going to tell people that that's not what it was. They're going to be like, it was climate. It was, you know, I mean, right, no, they're going to obfuscate it. And they're going to tell them, that's not really what happened. Yeah. It was other factors. I don't know. I mean, I think that we, maybe it's, it's hard to say how, how the story will be told. I'm telling you they'll obfuscate it. It'll be, there was other fact, it was climate. Yeah. It could be like, there's, there's so many things happening here. Prediction. Hey, Nate, go to the, get us on one of those prediction markets and put my bet down. But man, I appreciate you coming on and talking about it all. Yeah, appreciate the interest. Dude, yeah, I mean, I love, like, like wildlife management is, I mean, it's, it's beautiful. So I mean, it gets people around. It's like, it's complex, but just the thing in and of itself is gorgeous. Yeah. It's what we get in this field for. Like we love it. It's biologists. This is, this is so meaningful kind of kind of our country for a long time tried. Well, let's just let everybody go and do what they're going to do and see what happens. And don't go well. So the fact that, I mean, even the fact that, that, even the fact that, like, that there's all these sort of opinions and, and people wanting what's best for animals, you know, we're like spending money on these questions and, and thinking about them. There's like a big positive from where we were. Yeah. In the late 1800s when I was like, do what you want. Guess all that shit's gone. Right. No, it's, there's something to be said. That the, the statewide management agencies have a really important, and the, and the hunters and fishermen too. I think that there's, there's a, all, all of these pieces play together and, and work to, to manage and conserve all the wildlife species that we've got. And I do, man, like, just to close, I, I appreciate the, like, I appreciate the position that you as an individual found yourself in, that, that it was, it was you had a job. You work for the people of the state of Colorado. Voters handed a thing and you, like, in good faith, took the will of the voters and, and put it into practice. Yeah. Right. I mean, that's big. Yeah. That's like, that's public service. I appreciate you saying that. Yeah. I just want to acknowledge that. Like, I don't want you to think that I'm, that I have an adversarial viewpoint in the situation. You as an individual, we're in. We're like, you did your job, man. You know, yeah, appreciate you saying that as handed to you. And the whole department, yeah, we're, I mean, we're professionals. Like we, we take our jobs very seriously. And, and yeah, we have a mission that to, to drive and, and we work, work to get that done. Yeah. It was, at that time, it was the will of the people. Yeah. And you like, did your job as a carnivore guy or, yeah, predator guy and, and, um, I don't know. Thank you for doing great. Thank you for doing your job at a state wildlife age. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks to something. I'm really proud of, you know, it's, it was a great career. It got me to all corners of the state and beyond a travel quite a bit throughout the country. And yeah, it's been, it's been truly a privilege to be able to do that and to call this a career for the last two and a half decades. It's something that's, that I'm really, really proud of. - Yeah, well good luck on what comes next. - Yeah, thanks. - Ladies and gentlemen, again, Eric Odell from a former, I'm saying your last name, Craig, right? - That's right. - Former employee of Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Where do you guys go? - Yeah, Colorado Parks and Wildlife. - Parks and Wildlife, right? Thank you very much, man. - Thanks, Steve. (upbeat music) - Hotting season is right around the corner, and first light season opener sale kicks off August 18. You can save up to 40% sight wide, and this year they're rolling out new 24 hour daily deals throughout the sale. So it's worth checking back every day because those deals are going to change. If you've been waiting to replace some worn out gear, fill a hole in your system or just get ready for the season, now's the time. - This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.