Ep. 635: Working on Grizzly Bears

Summary

Title: Ep. 635: Working on Grizzly Bears
Podcast: The MeatEater Podcast
Host: Steven Rinella
Guest: Dusty Lassiter, Former Wyoming Game and Fish Bear Management Specialist
Release Date: December 9, 2024

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Introduction

In Episode 635 of The MeatEater Podcast, host Steven Rinella engages in an in-depth conversation with Dusty Lassiter, a seasoned bear management specialist from Wyoming. The episode delves into the complexities of grizzly bear management, conservation policies, and the practical challenges faced by wildlife officials and hunters alike.

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Guest Background and Career Overview

[03:09] Dusty Lassiter: "I started in 2010, and I was initially supposed to be here for just one fall and one spring. But due to high demand, I ended up staying on for eleven years."

Dusty shares his journey, highlighting the intense workload during his tenure, including handling up to 67 grizzly bear captures in a single year outside Yellowstone National Park. His expertise grew rapidly, culminating in managing over 1,200 bears by the end of his career.

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Bear Trapping and Relocation Methods

[03:54] Dusty Lassiter: "We used culvert traps, which are large square-box traps. Pulling a bear in and out of them was a real pain."

Dusty explains the primary methods used for trapping grizzlies, focusing on culvert traps and the challenges they present. He discusses bait strategies, such as using roadkill deer and specific lures like beaver caster, apples, and watermelon to attract bears effectively.

Notable Quote:
[10:46] Dusty Lassiter: "A lot of times, we make a drag, and they'll follow a drag for a long, long way."

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Infamous Bear Cases: 399 and 104

[13:08] Dusty Lassiter: "Bear 399 became a polarizing figure. Some loved her, some hated her, but she was still a grizzly bear."

The discussion shifts to specific bear cases that have become symbols within the conservation community. Bear 399 and Bear 104 are highlighted as examples of how individual bears can influence public perception and policy. Dusty critiques the emotional attachment to these bears, which often complicates objective management efforts.

Notable Quote:
[19:06] Steve Rinella: "When you say people hated that bear, do you mean because it was a symbol for something?"

[19:12] Dusty Lassiter: "I think people would make comments that really ruffled feathers, like saying they'd hunt that bear out of spite."

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Delisting Grizzlies and the Endangered Species Act (ESA)

[41:07] Dusty Lassiter: "The ESA is supposed to help recover species, but it's been weaponized to block delisting efforts."

Dusty provides a comprehensive overview of the grizzly bear delisting process under the ESA. He explains how distinct population segments (DPS) are designated in specific ecosystems, such as the Northern Cascade and Greater Yellowstone Ecosystems (GYE), and the political and legal battles that often thwart delisting efforts.

Notable Quote:
[116:13] Steve Rinella: "2% of the things that go on the ESA come off because of recovery. Why is it not celebrated?"

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Population Estimates and Management Strategies

[39:00] Dusty Lassiter: "In the Rockies, a big bear is 500 pounds. The biggest I caught was 624 pounds."

Dusty delves into the challenges of accurately estimating grizzly populations. He discusses the evolution from the early Chow 2 model, which underestimated populations due to large home range assumptions, to the more recent integrated population models that provide estimates around 1,030 bears in Wyoming.

Notable Quote:
[64:35] Dusty Lassiter: "Bears are solitary but not territorial. Their home ranges overlap, making them hard to count."

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Bear Safety: Bear Spray vs. Firearms

[26:02] Dusty Lassiter: "Without a doubt, bear spray."

The conversation turns to bear safety measures. Dusty advocates strongly for bear spray over firearms, citing its effectiveness and lower risk of accidental injury. He shares anecdotes highlighting the pitfalls of firearm use in bear encounters, including accidental shootings and ineffective responses.

Notable Quote:
[28:08] Dusty Lassiter: "A lot of people just aren't good shots. Bear spray creates a four-foot cloud, so you don't have to be accurate."

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Handling Aggressive Bears and Conflict Scenarios

[73:13] Dusty Lassiter: "Most bear mauls are surprise encounters, often involving sows with cubs."

Dusty recounts various conflict scenarios, emphasizing that most aggressive encounters occur when humans inadvertently surprise bears, especially mothers with cubs or bears defending food sources. He offers practical advice on preventing and managing such conflicts, including the strategic use of bear spray and environmental deterrents like fires to mask human scents.

Notable Quote:
[84:25] Dusty Lassiter: "If a bear is intent on hurting you, their head is as low to the ground as possible. Aim low."

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Conservation Policy Critique

[96:11] Dusty Lassiter: "State management coupled with regulated hunting could better manage bear populations and reduce conflicts."

Dusty critiques the current application of the ESA, arguing that it has been misused by environmental organizations to block effective bear management strategies. He suggests that state-managed hunting, when properly regulated, can coexist with conservation goals, fostering greater public support and reducing bear-human conflicts.

Notable Quote:
[117:00] Steve Rinella: "My advice to people who support the ESA is to stop weaponizing it."

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Personal Insights and Future Directions

[120:02] Dusty Lassiter: "I think hunting is a positive because it creates advocates for wildlife."

In the final segments, Dusty shares personal reflections on his transition from wildlife management to guiding, expressing a desire to continue contributing to wildlife conservation in more supportive roles. He emphasizes the need for pragmatic approaches that integrate hunting with conservation to maintain balanced ecosystems.

Notable Quote:
[104:17] Dusty Lassiter: "It's the best thing to keep states in managing bears, which is probably the best thing for the people on the landscape."

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Conclusion

Episode 635 of The MeatEater Podcast offers a nuanced exploration of grizzly bear management, highlighting the interplay between conservation policies, hunting regulations, and practical field challenges. Dusty Lassiter's expertise provides listeners with a comprehensive understanding of the issues surrounding grizzly conservation and the importance of balanced, pragmatic management strategies.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• [10:46] Dusty Lassiter: "A lot of times, we make a drag, and they'll follow a drag for a long, long way."
• [26:52] Dusty Lassiter: "Without a doubt, bear spray."
• [41:07] Dusty Lassiter: "The ESA is supposed to help recover species, but it's been weaponized to block delisting efforts."
• [64:35] Dusty Lassiter: "Bears are solitary but not territorial. Their home ranges overlap, making them hard to count."
• [84:25] Dusty Lassiter: "If a bear is intent on hurting you, their head is as low to the ground as possible. Aim low."
• [117:00] Steve Rinella: "My advice to people who support the ESA is to stop weaponizing it."
• [104:17] Dusty Lassiter: "It's the best thing to keep states in managing bears, which is probably the best thing for the people on the landscape."

---

This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in wildlife conservation, hunting ethics, and the intricate balance required to manage grizzly bear populations effectively.

Transcript

[Steve Rinella]

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[Dusty Lassiter]

Listening. We hunt the Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything.

[Steve Rinella]

The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light. Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for elk, First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at first light.com f I r s t l I t e.com joined today by Dusty Lassiter, former Wyoming Game and Fish bear management specialist. The key word there being former. Yeah, I love the agency guys, but the problem with having agency guys on to talk about wildlife management is they got to worry about them getting in trouble.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, I don't have to worry about getting in trouble anymore.

[Steve Rinella]

Just no trouble. Nothing they can do to you. Let the air out of your tires.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, write me a ticket, I guess.

[Steve Rinella]

No, again, I have nothing. But, you know, I have, like a lot of respect and admiration for agency biologists and game wardens. Like, you know, I love it. So many of them are driven by passion and a desire to do good. But when talking about policy just gets tricky. For them because, you know, like, they get reprimanded.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. You get muzzled a little bit and, you know, you're trying to walk the party line a little bit, you know, the department line.

[Steve Rinella]

So give everybody a run through of what you've done in your career around grizzly bears and wolves and.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Oh, man. So I started in 2010, and I was just supposed to be on for one fall, and one spring, I got hired on because one of my coworkers was going back to college. And that was the busiest year that we'd ever had. We caught 67 grizzly bears in Wyoming outside of Yellowstone National Park. And then in that year, so.

[Steve Rinella]

Damn, man.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

It was all in barrel traps.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, we. We call them culvert traps, but they're really big square box traps. Now, the Montana guys still use those culverts, but it's a pain in the butt to pull a bear in and out of them.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. Remember. Remember that video? Callahan climbing in there, climbing one of them tubes? That bear's basically, like, laid out on it.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we. I think we dealt with enough bears, we came up with a better trap design. Honestly.

[Steve Rinella]

What do you. What were you guys. Man, I got so many questions. Go on. I just remember that later I want to ask you about what kind of how you like what your favorite bait and stuff is, but keep going.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

So you got on. You guys started just hammering bears.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, it was just call after call. I would try to go home just to take a nap, and I would get flagged down on the road by somebody being like, I got a. I got a bear. Actually, one of those guys was Jim Zumbo.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah.

[Dusty Lassiter]

You know, he flagged me down on the road and he's like, yeah, I just got back from Alaska. I killed my 20th black bear. And he was. He was smoking some salmon, and a grizzly bear came by and smashed his salmon smoker.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, I got it.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Huh. So, yeah, So I started Jim Zumbo. Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Came home from Alaska, was smoking salmon that he brought home from Alaska, and a grizzly showed up and smashed Jim Zumbo smoker.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, exactly. Yep. Yep. So pretty legit, kind of funny. Yeah, yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

And I want to one up him with my George Bush story.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Oh.

[Steve Rinella]

But go, Joe.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. So that was just a really busy season and there was a need for more help, so they hired me on another season. And.

[Steve Rinella]

Because you were a big game guide.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, I was. I, you know, I. I went to the University of Wyoming, got a finance degree, came home and just loved where I Lived. And when I came home, I was working in the thoroughfare as a guide and, you know, just doing construction, trying to make ends meet.

[Unknown]

And home is Cody.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Home is Cody. That's where I grew up. And I was just wrong place, wrong time, honestly, because there weren't a lot of people that went to college and came back. And I had a lot of knowledge and skill about horses in the back country. And, you know, my life was immersed in wildlife and bears growing up. And my parents worked for outfitters and, you know, they were stopping in at the house and telling crazy stories, and I was just sucked in. So that's why I came home. And I wasn't intending to get into bear work and I just fell into it. And the timing was right. And yeah, they hired me on. And, you know, that first year I saw 25 bears. And then that next season I was in on another 25 grizzly captures and had 50 under my belt in a pretty quick, you know, amount of time.

[Steve Rinella]

So were you doing all the. Were you doing all the relocations on those too? Like how many are you euthanized and how many are relocated?

[Dusty Lassiter]

So at the time, my boss was a guy named Mark Pursino, and we were really still in the recovery phase with these bears. And. And we probably only euthanized one out of five when I started, and they were in really bad shape. You know, they. They'd been repeat offenders. Never. It's never the three strikes and you're out. People say that all the time. And I get so sick of that.

[Steve Rinella]

That's not true.

[Dusty Lassiter]

No, that's not true. It's not California. So. But yeah, there were some bears that, you know, had been in multiple livestock conflicts that we were removing or I caught a female that year that her back leg was broke and it was 6 inches shorter than her other back leg.

[Steve Rinella]

Okay.

[Dusty Lassiter]

And I had the bone in my office. And it's just a, you know, melded piece of calcium.

[Steve Rinella]

How do you think she broke her leg?

[Dusty Lassiter]

No idea. Always wondered that, you know, so on.

[Steve Rinella]

A bear like that, on a grizzly like that, it's in heart, it's in bad shape, it's desperate, and it's not gonna. You're not gonna, you know what the word to use. You're not going to rehabilitate it?

[Dusty Lassiter]

No, it just wasn't going to be successful relocating that kind of bear.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah.

[Dusty Lassiter]

And she was emaciated and she actually had a yearling that we didn't know about at the time. You know, she was. She was trying to orphana a yearling bear, because she was not even producing milk. She was in such poor physical shape.

[Steve Rinella]

Got it. You say she was trying to orphan it?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. I mean, it was, it was following her around, but it. I. She's not providing for it at all. And we ended up catching that bear too. And, and we relocated that bear, but she just wasn't a good candidate for relocation.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. And when you relocate the grizzlies, how do you, how do you figure out where to try? Because you got to put them so far away from. You got to put them so far away to reduce the temptation. They're going to get in trouble again. And that's. And that's got to be like very time consuming.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, it definitely takes some manpower, but you're trying to take it as far away from the conflict as possible. And there's really about six relocation sites in Wyoming that we use. Um, you know, and that kind of had changed over the time that I'd been at the department. We started doing some relocations that weren't.

[Steve Rinella]

As far and use helicopters to dump them off.

[Dusty Lassiter]

We don't. We. We had one bear trap that you could take off the. The wheels and haul with a helicopter. But in the time that I was there, the 11 years I was there, we never did that.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. Now tell me how you catch one.

[Dusty Lassiter]

So most of the time you're using a culvert trap and you want to get that thing as low to the ground as possible. You want to set it as close to the conflict as possible. And you just put a piece of bait in the front of that thing. Usually a road kill deer with a string that goes up the front wall, around the top. And then it's sitting on a pair of vice grips and the door is sitting on those vise grips. So bear comes in, pulls that bait, springs the vice grip, springs the vice grip, and the door shuts and there's a pin that shoots. Yeah. A lot of times we use beaver caster is always my favorite thing to use.

[Steve Rinella]

A little lure.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, a little bit of lure in there. If it's keyed in on fruit, we'd use apples and watermelon.

[Steve Rinella]

Things like that stick that back of the trap.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, even like a trail into it. A lot of times. A lot of times you make a drag and they'll follow a drag for a long, long ways.

[Steve Rinella]

Like drag a roadkill deer, Right?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yep.

[Steve Rinella]

How far might you drag that deer to make a scent trail?

[Dusty Lassiter]

I mean, my old boss had done it a couple miles and caught bears running a Couple miles on them. Yep. And they're finding now with these GPS collars that a bear can smell a carcass 10 to 15 miles away. And we'll just start beelining it for a carcass. Yeah. I followed a grizzly bear track and the bob once, nine miles to a. I don't know how far he started, but I followed the tracks for nine miles in front of me to a moose carcass. Yeah. That was impressive. Yeah, they got a pretty good sniffer.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. I've told the story to anyone that'll listen to it, but we were one time camped up on the Arctic Slope on, you know, off the. Off the north slope of the Brooks Range.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

And we were camped where a creek came into a bigger river. And one morning we got up and walked three miles up that tributary and killed a caribou. Okay. Spent the day up there. Carried it down that tributary to our camp. That night we're sitting in our camp and here comes a grizzly down the gravel bar digging roots. You see him moving, digging, moving, digging. He gets to the mouth of that tributary. It's kind of like a slight little canyon. He gets to the mouth that tributary and stands up like someone shocked him.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Wow.

[Steve Rinella]

Waves his nose in the air and took off at a full run. So I don't. I can't tell you for sure, you know what I mean? But it was like. There was no discussing. It was like that son of a. Smells that caribou.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, I'm sure that's exactly what happened. Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Coming down that. Coming down that creek, and that's only three miles. And you're talking about how far GPS.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Collars, they're saying 10 to 15.

[Steve Rinella]

What do you. What do you see on a GPS collar that suggests to you that a grizzly is on to something?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Well, it's meandering. And then all of a sudden it's a straight line. You know, it's like, just like you're talking about. There wasn't any second thoughts in that bear's mind.

[Steve Rinella]

Got it. And then he's just going.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Now he's going.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, there's a lot of. There's a lot of bruja in the news right now. There's always been a bear. There's always been a very polarizing bear.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

In the polarizing bear in the Yellowstone national park area.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Goes by the handle 399, which I always like because I like it when they, you know, when they give the animals like a name, like petals or something. Then, you know, it's trouble. So if it has its research number.

[Unknown]

There's some clinical detachment there.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. A research number allows the citizens at large to stay a little. Usually allows citizens at large to stay a little chilled out about celebrity animals. But 399 it was. It might as well have been named Cookie.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Right.

[Steve Rinella]

Right. It just got really famous. And the American public particularly those who are very unfamiliar with wildlife will have this view that. That they look at an individual animal and they see it with like. Like crystalline clarity. That one. And they. They cease to view it as in context of its like species at large. Meaning you could have 800 Grizzlies in the area and it's kind of whatever. But that one nothing better happened to.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Right.

[Steve Rinella]

Right. They're not as. Sorry, is there like. It's not like they don't have an awareness of the population at large. They have an awareness of that one. I'm not lecturing you. I'm just trying to update listeners.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

When making an analogy about it. I'll make the analogy of that someone like a hunter, someone in the concert like someone in wildlife hunter based wildlife conservation might view habitat as an apple tree. And if this apple tree is taken care of it will continuously produce apples. And the apples are somewhat expendable. Some get eaten. Some die and rot. Take care of the tree in perpetuity. It'll put apples out. Animal rights people and preservation minded, preservationist minded people aren't that interested in the apple tree. But now and then there's an apple that really catches their eye.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

And they are very concerned about what happens to that apple.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. It's a good analogy.

[Steve Rinella]

I guess this bear became that apple.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Bear399 it's usually an apple that photographs well and photographs a lot.

[Unknown]

It's pretty dependable.

[Dusty Lassiter]

It doesn't rot.

[Unknown]

It's an apple that shows up again and again.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

You know, or it'd be like a.

[Steve Rinella]

Moose that's pie bald. So because moose, you know, generally people aren't able to distinguish one from the other. Then you'll get a moose in some neighborhood that has a white splotch on it. And then people are able to put individuality to it. And then someone gets that moose and it causes a whole show. 399 the bear had books written about it. It just got hit by a car.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

In our little preamble chat I brought up to you that it's. That bear now is getting its final. It's being put to rest with much fanfare and consternation.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

I mentioned it to you, and you had a comment about your view on this particular bear. You didn't deal with it professionally, correct?

[Dusty Lassiter]

No. I know her type, though.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. Tell me about that bear. You mentioned a thing about management.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, yeah. I think that's poor wildlife management. And we learned this lesson early on with A bear named 104. So before 399, there was a bear named. The number was 104.

[Steve Rinella]

It was a celebrity bear.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Celebrity bear. Another shiny apple, if you will. And my predecessors tried to relocate that bear mover. She got so. Not trap shy, but trap savvy. Not savvy like she enjoyed traps. You could. You could drive down the road with the door open, and she'd come running down the road and jump in the trap and you would catch her. You know, she was that kind of.

[Steve Rinella]

Freaky, like, just associated it with food.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. Because there were so many positive experiences jumping in traps and just you eat.

[Steve Rinella]

The whole damn deer and some guy lets you out.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, exactly. And you walk back home.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, I get it.

[Unknown]

I get it.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. So we just learned early on that those habituated bears aren't successful. And she also got hit by a vehicle. 104. And, you know, I always thought that was going to happen to 399. It took longer than I would have guessed.

[Steve Rinella]

You pictured it getting struck by a car.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. And one of her cubs got hit by a car, you know, and really, the park service could talk about more. They probably know all the individual cubs that she had. But as far as I'm aware, there's only one of her cubs that's still alive and existing because they just get so habituated to people. They don't learn normal bear manners is what I call it. So, you know, one of her cubs got shot by a guy who he was hunting, and he's in his camper, and this bear's walking right at him like it's coming to eat him, you know, but that bear is used to getting its picture taken. And that guy's scared for his life because he thinks this bear is going to hurt him.

[Steve Rinella]

And you don't think it was.

[Dusty Lassiter]

It was so used to people. It was smiling the whole way it was coming in, I'm sure, you know, So I just don't think it sets bears up for success. And 399 was really polarizing. I mean, some people loved her, some people hated her. I think people forget that she mauled a guy years ago. So, I mean, she was still a grizzly bear.

[Steve Rinella]

And when you say people hated that bear. Do you mean that they hated that bear because what. It. Because it was a symbol for something?

[Dusty Lassiter]

I think so. I think. I think people would make comments that I would see, and it would really ruffle feathers where, you know, if they would say things like, if they d list grizzly bears and I can hunt, I'm gonna shoot that bear. And that just. That. That really affected people negatively. So.

[Unknown]

Well, that Shane. Shane, who got scratched up by the.

[Steve Rinella]

Bear, he sat right in his chair and he.

[Unknown]

He had good reason to believe that it was 399. That's what he'd said.

[Steve Rinella]

Well, they. How would they not know for certain.

[Dusty Lassiter]

That he was scratched up by.

[Unknown]

Yeah, that's. That was one of the things that he said.

[Dusty Lassiter]

And, yeah, she was in the vicinity.

[Unknown]

She was in the vicinity. But it was like, if 399 was the one that did this to you, we don't want to know about it was that kind of a thing. So it's. I mean, that was. That was one of the things that he mentioned sort of offhandedly, and he's like, if it was 399, I don't think anybody would come out and declare to the world that 399 had done this and needs to get destroyed because it would just cause such an uproar.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

So it was kind of like there were. There's like a buffer zone built around this bear to protect it from the consequences of its bad behavior once people get so attached to it.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, I got you.

[Unknown]

But he. He post. I think when 399 died too, he posted something again to the effect of, like, there's a good chance that this was the bear that did it.

[Steve Rinella]

Wow. Let me ask you another one.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, that was. That was a hard question. I'm sure people are gonna cry over that. So 399 was just touched a lot of heartstrings, RIP. Yep.

[Steve Rinella]

Rest in peace.

[Unknown]

399 was never gonna die, you know, in a warm bed with a roaring fire, surrounded by loved ones. Right.

[Steve Rinella]

Like. Yeah.

[Unknown]

I always think that's the craziest part is, like, getting whacked by a car is not the worst way to go if you're a wild animal.

[Steve Rinella]

Cal went out. Cal did. There's a Cal in the field about this on YouTube. If you type in Cal in the field grizzly bear, you'll see this one. But there's a cow in the field where he goes out with some Idaho guys and they work and they culvert trap a grizzly and work up the grizzly. So they culvert trap a grizzly and it's got a lip tattoo. So they like an identifying marker.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Right.

[Steve Rinella]

They call in the lip tattoo and they're like, oh, we know that bear. They had had a collared female grizzly in the park. She found a carcass, she found a buffalo carcass and was on it. And they get a mortality signal and they go there and there's their sow with the collar dead on top of the buffalo carcass and standing on top of the both of them is this male bear.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, right.

[Steve Rinella]

But man, you could explain that kind of stuff all day long like that the number one cause of death of Yellowstone wolves is wolves. Like you could explain that stuff all day long but it is never gonna, it just doesn't resonate. You know, people will look at certain causes of death. Like if 399 had been killed by a male grizzly, I don't think people would be upset. You know, I mean, yeah, I mean people, they're upset because it's, it's, they're upset because it's human caused.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, people put different values on different animals and, and they even, yeah, even at the individual level put values on animals and yeah, people just really valued that bear.

[Steve Rinella]

So this show is sponsored in part by Better Help and we're coming up into the holiday season and listen, during the holiday season like we're going to go visit the grandmas, everything. I love spending time with family. I like to cook for family and friends. It's a great time of year. But I'm not the first one to point out that the holidays can bring on a lot of stress. It can bring up a lot of family dynamics that are hard to deal with. And maybe you will come into or out of the holiday season thinking that you might like to have someone to talk to and try to run through some of the things that are going through your mind. Someone who's impartial. It can help you work through some issues. Well, that's the case. Give Better Help a try. Okay. It's entirely online therapy. It's designed to be convenient, flexible, suited to your schedule. You just fill out a brief questionnaire and get matched with a licensed therapist. Then you switch therapist anytime for no additional charge. So find some comfort this December throughout the holiday season with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com meat you get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H E L p.com meat eater there's nothing more important than spending time out in nature, Pendleton is bottled to honor true Western traditions. And there's nothing more Western than supporting organizations like RMEF and their work in conservation. That's what you're toasting every time you raise a glass of Pendleton whiskey. The official whiskey of the after the hunt moment. It's not just poured, it's earned. Pendleton Distillers, Lawrenceburg, Indiana. Please drink responsibly. Pendleton is a registered trademark of Pendleton woolen mills. When I was in college, I lived for a while in this old kind of rundown house, and I lived up in the attic. And you had to sort of crawl through a little hole to get into my area. And the only thing I could fit in there for a mattress was that old orange shipping foam that little kids always pull little chunks out of. That was my mattress. And let me tell you this. Now that I'm grown up and I got my own bedroom and my own Helix mattress, it's a hell of a lot better than it used to be. Love that thing. I landed in a better place than I ever thought I deserved when it comes to mattresses with my Helix mattress. Now, if you want to get one, find out what a real comfy mattress feels like. When you're a real grownup. You can take the Helix Sleep quiz. Come straight to your door for your charge. Just shows up, bring it in your room, open it up, poof. Sweet mattress. During the month of November, get 25% off site wide plus two free dream pillows with any mattress purchase at helixsleep.com meteor plus you'll get a free bedding bundle, which is two dream pillows, a sheet set and mattress protector with any luxe or elite mattress order. Let's go to helix sleep.commeeter to get this new deal. Let me hit you with another. Easier to answer one, but you'll get. This will make other people mad.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Good.

[Steve Rinella]

Now you're gonna. Now you're gonna. We have. We know we have a full spectrum of listeners.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Sure.

[Steve Rinella]

We got. We got the horseshoe. You got. We got. We got left. We got righties, lefties, and then we got where the righties and the lefties meet, which is crazy redneck hippies.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Sure. Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

So no matter what you say your eyes and get. Someone's gonna get mad. And this will be a thing where the right bottom of the horseshoe get. Will get very irritated no matter what you say. Bear spray or pistols for like when you're out.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Knowing what you know, Having dealt with as many grizzlies as you dealt with and been to as Many conflict sites as you been to and touched as many of them as you touched to.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

And talked to as many people have been messed up by grizzlies as you've talked to.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Bear spray or pistol?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Without a doubt, bear spray.

[Steve Rinella]

Really?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. And tell me more.

[Steve Rinella]

Now I'm mad.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

You did promise.

[Steve Rinella]

He's a gun grabber.

[Dusty Lassiter]

I knew it.

[Steve Rinella]

He's a gun grabber. The other day Yanni was talking about them needing to ban the Red Rider. I was like, now you're a gun grabber trying to take away people's Red Riders.

[Unknown]

What was his?

[Steve Rinella]

He's got some cockamamie theory that of teaching a kid to shoot on Red Rider to get used to a heavy trigger pull.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, he was bashing the trigger.

[Steve Rinella]

My little kids.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Fair point.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. My little kids shooting Red Riders. I remember they used to shoot him with two fingers because you cannot get that thing to go off.

[Unknown]

I thought it was going to be like he was anti BB gun fights.

[Steve Rinella]

No, he, he thinks, he thinks a Red Rider teaches bad form and I think that's a very un American statement.

[Dusty Lassiter]

But let's return how you shoot your eye out.

[Steve Rinella]

Bear spray Unequivocally.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. I have one caveat to that. If you're really well experienced with handguns, then by all means carry a handgun. But a lot of people just aren't. And I investigated so many cases of self defense defensive life shootings and people are just really bad shots with pistols.

[Steve Rinella]

Okay.

[Dusty Lassiter]

And a lot of times they would even hit the bear, but they don't hit it lethally.

[Steve Rinella]

Okay.

[Dusty Lassiter]

And bear spray, the beauty of it is it makes a four foot cloud so you don't have to be accurate.

[Steve Rinella]

And how much do they hate that bear spray?

[Dusty Lassiter]

I've never seen it not work. Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

You know that Reddit statistic and I didn't really spend a lot of time on it.

[Dusty Lassiter]

If you spray it on the ground, they'll come sniff it though. It becomes an attractant.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh yeah, I got, I'll tell you a good one about that a little bit. But I read a statistic and I never really spent much time on it, but it seemed like it seemed significant that 25% of the time a pistol or sorry, 25% of the time when a firearm is discharged in a bear attack, it hits a human.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, that's the other reason.

[Steve Rinella]

Have you heard that?

[Dusty Lassiter]

No, I haven't heard that statistic. That seems high. There's a lot of not shooters out there.

[Steve Rinella]

But listen, man, like I know. Yeah, I know a bunch of cases where that's happened. And I haven't looked into it. I just read it.

[Dusty Lassiter]

You know, there was a case on the Montana, Idaho border. It ended up being in Montana where a guy was getting mauled and his, his buddy tried to shoot the bear off him and actually killed his friend.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, they had, they had shot that, that bear. They were black bear hunting. They mistook it for a black bear, so they shot it. And the bear runs into the, into the brush. He thinks he hit a black bear, so he goes trailing in there after it and boom.

[Dusty Lassiter]

I just remember it was so close on the border, they didn't know who had jurisdiction.

[Steve Rinella]

Got it. Got it.

[Dusty Lassiter]

So, yeah, so that's, that's why I carry bear spray. And you know, ultimately it's up to people. I know there's gun lovers, they want to carry guns and that's fine. But a lot of people just don't practice shooting pistols enough.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. Yeah. I think it does say a lot about your. The choice might say more about your mind frame than it does your, like, your strat, your sense of strategy.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Right.

[Unknown]

I remember being like up at Sportsman's warehouse in Anchorage and seeing people that just got off a plane and they were going to buy a pistol for their Alaska vacation and then, you know, pawn it off or whatever at the end of the vacation. Like, I think there's like a, there's an assumption that if you, if you believe in the handgun, like, you just go get one, you get a box of ammo and you keep it near you. And like, that's just a recipe for disaster. But I think there's a lot of overconfident and I'm myself, I have no confidence in my handgun shooting ability and I shoot one pretty regularly.

[Steve Rinella]

But I'll tell you my little, my. I'll walk you through my irrational thoughts on it.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

If there's slight risk of first off, I condemn and yell at and harass and tease anyone that carries bear spray where there's no grizzlies, indefensible.

[Dusty Lassiter]

And it works on lions. What if it's just on your bino harness?

[Steve Rinella]

I'll tease you and harass you because.

[Dusty Lassiter]

I'm tease worthy and harassed because bear.

[Steve Rinella]

Spray is not nice to get shot with. And they and it like they go off. I've been in two. I've been never mauled by a bear, Been charged by him, but never mauled. But twice I've been hosed by people's bear spray.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Mine doesn't come off my buying. That's the gift that you.

[Steve Rinella]

So I should start.

[Unknown]

Are you replacing it every two years?

[Steve Rinella]

Yes. Trust me. It's like it happens. Okay, those are not those. The plastic nozzles on those cans are not invulnerable. Okay, one time, unload. Just standing around a car unloading backpacks. Someone stepped on the plastic nozzle everything. And one time I got pickpocketed in the thick in like a willow choked hell hole. And all of a sudden I was like, what is that noise going? All your shit's done. All your gear is gone. You cannot get it out.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Wait, is it bad to keep your bear spray in your car? Yeah.

[Unknown]

Fluctuating temperature.

[Steve Rinella]

It'll total your car.

[Dusty Lassiter]

You don't want.

[Steve Rinella]

And I know, I know people whose car has been told, your car. When that goes off of your car, it will total your car.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Right now temperatures are dropping. I had a friend who did that and he's still driving his vehicle.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, really?

[Dusty Lassiter]

He says it's the gift that keeps on giving. It's just all the time.

[Steve Rinella]

Get a small ammo can. There's one right outside the door of the studio. Get a small ammo can and put it in the ammo can. And then when you're using it, carry it. When you're done using it, put an ammo can. I'm going to tell you my irrational logic. Let me tell my funny story. We had the Ranela family. We went into the summer with two bear sprays. And we have like a little camping spot where there's grizzlies. So when we get there, before I get a sense of what's going on, I'll like, tell my kids, like, take the spray if you're gonna go fish. Or take the spray and bring the dog. And then once we kind of get a sense of what's up, everybody relaxes about it. But at first it's thick. You know, at first I'll be like, take the bear spray. So the end of the summer, we only have. Now there's one bear spray. And of course, no one knows what happened to the other bear spray. Well, me and my wife are up shutting our little camping area down. And here, right outside of our little composting outhouse toilet.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Right outside the door is the can of bear spray. Empty with four holes in it. It got e by a bear.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Got. Yep. Got eaten by a bear. Seen that before. Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Here's my irrational logic.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Okay.

[Steve Rinella]

Slight risk of grizz as I use spray, high risk of grizzlies. I bring my 10 millimeter pistol ultra High risk of grizzlies. I bring my sawed off pump 12 gauge with slugs in it.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. Spray and pray.

[Steve Rinella]

And I always look at it, and I always look at all three of them. I'm like, hey, man, like, what are you thinking here?

[Dusty Lassiter]

That's a. That's a myth I can dispel, too, is people. People take shotguns, and they. They alternate buckshot slugs.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, yeah, because, you know, I know that. No, I think it's supposed to. Brody told me you're supposed to run two bird shots.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Then you start going. Then you start going slug, buckshot. Because it's like you worn it. Boom. You worn it. Boom. Then, like, it's getting closer. Now you hit it with the slug. Boom. Then it's so close, and everything's so chaotic. Then you start going buckshot.

[Unknown]

And most bears are aware of this choreography, this elaborate choreography before they.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. All the time in the world to reload.

[Steve Rinella]

There's the warning shot.

[Unknown]

Yeah, there's the warning.

[Steve Rinella]

He tells his boy, listen, when you're coming in, he's gonna hit you. Two bird shots. Yeah. Then you got to dodge the slug. Watch out for the buckshot.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. A zig and then a zag. Here's my scenario that I find myself in all the time. As most hunters, we don't get to pick our weather, but we do get to pick which direction we walk when we're out hunting. And most of the time, the wind's in my face. And a lot of times the wind's honking. I don't trust bear spray when the wind's blowing. Okay. So I've had that question a bunch over the years. And I had a really good friend who was horn hunting in the spring. It was super windy out. A sow with cubs, real little cubs, charges him, and, you know, the wind's in his face. He sprays bear spray. Half of it goes in her face. Half of it gets in his face. They both ran off crying. So it did work, though. Yeah. The propellant still gets out there, but not as far as it normally would. I'd love to practice in the wind, but I don't want to.

[Steve Rinella]

I'd like to get a case of those inert cans.

[Unknown]

Yeah, I think that'd be interesting.

[Steve Rinella]

I should get a case of those inert cans. Just, like, shoot each other around. Like, laser tag around the office.

[Dusty Lassiter]

That would be fun.

[Unknown]

I tried to shoot a sow and cubs with a can of bear spray out of a window. And the. When I was working in Yellowstone, they were coming in and tearing up our cat. When I was working up in Alaska, they'd come in and tear up stuff on the porch.

[Steve Rinella]

Trying to give them a bad taste.

[Unknown]

And, like, they would come in, they'd get into the fish shack, they'd get into the tool shed. They'd eat rubber boots that do all this stuff. And, like. So I was. I stayed at the main lodge that they kept coming into and opened the window, and they were walking past, and I sprayed. And it might have been just outside of the range, but all that bear spray went along the building. And they, like, went 10ft back and stood up, and then kind of circled around and came right back in.

[Steve Rinella]

I would laugh. Killed you? Yeah.

[Dusty Lassiter]

They're licking.

[Unknown]

I shut the window real quick. And then, actually, we sat around. I was with this kid. We just, like. We were sitting in the cabin, like, later on, like, 45 minutes later, and we were both kind of like, does it smell weird in here? And then we started getting, like, you know, like, licking your cheeks and, like, your lips and stuff, and. And we'd gotten, like, a trace amount inside, and it had been swirling and swirling, and we spent, like, the rest of the night just, like, kind of licking our lips and rubbing our noses and stuff and.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Yeah, that was my one experience actually discharging a Can.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Can I tell you a story?

[Steve Rinella]

Yep. Please.

[Unknown]

That's why you're here.

[Steve Rinella]

I'm jealous of. I was. I was impressed that Randall got to shoot at one with a spray, but. Go on.

[Unknown]

I have a video of it somewhere.

[Dusty Lassiter]

I actually never did get a spray. A bear with one. But I was deer hunting one fall, and I was going in some really heavy, dark timber, and my. My dad always taught me to load around in my gun. So I'm going through the timber, and I walk under this tree, and there's a magpie. It's sitting in the tree. And he's just staring at me. He's just looking right down at me. And I'm looking up at him, and I'm thinking, boy, that's weird, you know, that. That magpie.

[Steve Rinella]

Why is he hanging out?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, why is he hanging out? We're just staring at each other. And I go another, I don't know, 30 yards, and I hear something, and I. I turn around, and there's this boar coming down the hill at me. He's coming right at me.

[Steve Rinella]

How many yards away?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Maybe 20.

[Steve Rinella]

Okay.

[Dusty Lassiter]

I mean, he's coming for me. And I was thinking myself, I got one shot with this rifle. You know, I got one Chance to kill this thing and it's going to be on top of me. And I realized what my dad was trying to teach me was just to be prepared, you know. And I would have been way better off with a can of bear spray in my hand just walking through the woods. And as a guide I do that sometimes. You know, if it's real tight quarters, I don't have a problem walking around with a can of bear spray. Even if you spray yourself, you're going to live to talk about it.

[Steve Rinella]

So what happened?

[Dusty Lassiter]

He. Yeah, I sprayed him and he didn't care. Yeah, I started yelling at him and he was coming down the hill at me and he just kind of did a quarter pass. Which is like a classic bear move, you know, it was, it was a bluff, but I thought it was the real deal. And I just remember thinking like, I gotta wait until this thing is right on top of me before I shoot because I only got one chance.

[Steve Rinella]

So what is after all those bears you worked up? What is a big bear?

[Dusty Lassiter]

In the Rockies a big bear is 500 pounds. The biggest bear I ever caught was 624. In the spring would have been a true 700 pound bear. In the fall when people come in big bear, that's a huge bear.

[Steve Rinella]

Cuz every bear is like thousand pounds, 800 pounds.

[Dusty Lassiter]

I just cut people's number in half immediately, you know, whatever it is, I cut it in half.

[Steve Rinella]

You mean when they tell you how big the bear was?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. Yep. And you know all those bears I worked up, the sows are almost always right around £300. 275, 325.

[Steve Rinella]

Hmm. Okay.

[Dusty Lassiter]

They stop growing when they're about seven to eight years old.

[Steve Rinella]

Okay.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Where the males just keep putting on weight, keep getting bigger. So a 500 pound adult male is a huge bear in the Yellowstone ecosystem.

[Steve Rinella]

That's a huge bear.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

And what's a more typical male? Like, like what is like a four or five year old male, 250, you.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Know, I don't know. 300.

[Steve Rinella]

God, they seem so much bigger and better. I mean they're bad, but they seem so much bigger.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. And people overestimate wolves too. And really, you know, lions are way bigger than wolves. But people, because of the hair, especially in the fall, bears and wolves, but bears especially, they get that, that winter coat on and people just think they're way bigger than they are. You know, they're like it's a sow with a two full grown cubs and it's like no, that thing weighs 150 pounds, but it's got so much hair, it looks like as big as her.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. You were with the agency when the delisting looked like it was going to go through.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Okay.

[Dusty Lassiter]

It did go through.

[Steve Rinella]

Well, sorry. When it looked like they were. No, well, it did. And undid.

[Dusty Lassiter]

They were delisted.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. Multiple times.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Okay. So.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Right.

[Steve Rinella]

Help me with the timeline here. Just to give people a rough sense what will happen is. Well, first off, let me say this is not surpr. This is surprisingly not a partisan, like Democrat versus Republican issue. Generally. Grizzly bears. Well, hear me out because, Because I'm going to talk about the D listings. Okay.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

So you can, you can, you can give that. Because there's definitely a tendency and a tendency, but just, I just think that people have the opinion, they have the erroneous idea that somehow like a governor or whatever can just declare.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Right, right.

[Steve Rinella]

That something would happen. Right. That you would.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Right.

[Steve Rinella]

That it's. That it's a simple. That doing this is a simple process. It just takes the right political figure to do it. It's. I'm going to explain how it's a little bit more complicated than that.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Right.

[Steve Rinella]

In 74. 70. 1974. 1975, grizzly bears in the lower 48 were listed as an endangered. They're listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. So they were given federal Endangered Species Species act protection under the ESA. In 7475, Richard Nixon, Dick Nixon.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Don'T remember him, heard of him.

[Steve Rinella]

Okay. Republican signed in. The ESA signed in.

[Unknown]

Nepa.

[Steve Rinella]

NEPA signed in. Then he established the epa.

[Unknown]

That's, that's nepa, the National Environmental Protection Act.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you talked about the native. Nilka. No, sorry. Oh, yeah, never mind. Richard Nixon creates the Endangered Species act. And one of the first, like marquee species to get protection under that is grizzly bears and lower 48. All kinds of years go by and, and wildlife managers kind of look and say, well, the saying the lower 48 is not a great way of looking at this. For instance, Golden Gate park in San Francisco once upon a time had grizzly bears. And I don't. We don't view that Golden Gate park is going to recover, that San Francisco is going to recover its grizzly bear population.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Right.

[Steve Rinella]

Just never going to work. So over time, they establish, they take a look and they go like, where really could we have grizzly bears? Like, where is the right food resources, low enough human population, proper habitat where you could feasibly have a Population of grizzly bears and they come up with six. One is in the northern cask, what they call the Northern Cascade ecosystem. So one is like basically the Northern Cascades in Washington, where you're kind of rolling into BC0 bears. Sometimes one.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Sometimes one.

[Steve Rinella]

It depends on what side of the.

[Dusty Lassiter]

He's Canadian.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, it depends on what side of the border.

[Unknown]

If you're. If you're from Wyoming, it looks a lot like zero bears.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

So yeah, if they, if they have a bear, it's because one walked over there for a minute.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Right.

[Steve Rinella]

Moving eastward, you have the Bitter Selkirk.

[Unknown]

Selwy.

[Steve Rinella]

Selway. None. Kind of.

[Dusty Lassiter]

None Selkirks have bears. The bitter Bitterroot does it.

[Steve Rinella]

The Bitter side. That's one. Oh, I forgot they gave a name to these things that already say the name. They call them distinct, distinct population segments.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Right.

[Steve Rinella]

So they say, okay, we're going to say that there's a grizzly bear population or the possibility of a grizzly bear population in Northern Cascades.

[Dusty Lassiter]

There's another one in Cabinet Yaks.

[Steve Rinella]

That's right. Cabinet Yak has bears.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yep.

[Steve Rinella]

Bitter Selkirk.

[Unknown]

Bitter root Cellway.

[Steve Rinella]

Selway.

[Unknown]

Sorry, selkirk's are in B.C.

[Steve Rinella]

Yep. Bitterroot, Cellway, Northern Continental Divide, which is Bob Marshall, Glacier national park and some other areas up there, all the way out to the Front Range. Then the gye. Did I do them all? Am I missing any?

[Dusty Lassiter]

No, you got mine.

[Unknown]

I think that's it.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. And they go like, so let's stop talking about the lower 48 writ large and let's talk about. Let's get real.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Okay, right.

[Steve Rinella]

And talk about where could we actually have these bears? And then they looked at like, okay, so instead of saying that we're going to recover them across their range in the lower 48, which basically was the hundredth meridian westward, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, into northern Old Mexico, coastal California. Right. Like, let's just look at this. And so they say, let's say that we're going to try to recover and manage these as distinct population segments. And they look and say, if we're going to do that, there's two places, the Northern Continental Divide ecosystem in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem, which is a chunk of ground about the size of Indiana. And they're like, those are recovered. The rest of the lower 48 not, but these areas are recovered. And so let's move those out of the. Let's move those out of Endangered Species act protection. The U.S. fish and Wildlife Service has management. Has management authority. The U.S. fish and Wildlife Service has to come forward and they do this. The US this has happened with Democrats in the White House. This has happened with Republicans in the White House. They'll come forward and say, the U.S. fish and Wildlife Service says we propose that, we propose that we delist the grizzly. Then you have preservationists or like 399 type people. Preservationist organizations will go like, well, Jesus, that could mean that 399 could get hunted. So then they will sue in federal court to block the delisting.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Right.

[Steve Rinella]

So they'll delist and then there's a lawsuit and they'll, they'll never sue on bases they don't sue on. How many bears there are they sue on. Well, we don't think the DPS thing was fair.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, right.

[Steve Rinella]

Because you can't treat them as distinct. Because, because a bear could move from one to the other. So, so we, we're going to attack the logic of the, of the dps or you don't say, well, have you considered white bark pine blister rust and how there's a fungus that's killing white bark pines and grizzlies like to eat white bark pines. And since we don't know what will really happen in the long term to whitebark pines, we're suing to block the listing. Or well, what if cutthroat trout don't do that well in the future and 10% of bears might eat a cutthroat trout at some point in their life. So we're going to sue to block the delisting because we don't really know how well cutthroats are doing the risks.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Because on the population, the Fish and.

[Unknown]

Wildlife Service is required as part of that review process to consider all factors. And they kind of have an impossible job.

[Steve Rinella]

Right.

[Unknown]

I mean like they're supposed, they basically are saying, we did a comprehensive review. Our conclusions are X, Y and Z. And the litigators are saying, well, it's not that comprehensive. You missed this, you missed that. And they're kind of poking holes in the bigger picture.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. And it will be, it will come from anti hunting organizations like center for Biological Diversity, Humane Society, United States, Greater Yellowstone Coalition. Greater Yellowstone Coalition. Who else is a common player here?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Center for Biological Western Watershed.

[Steve Rinella]

Okay. And they'll, they'll do these delistings or they'll, they'll sue to block the delistings.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Last one was the Crow.

[Steve Rinella]

The Crow tribe.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Crow tribe.

[Steve Rinella]

I didn't know that.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

What was the argument there?

[Dusty Lassiter]

That we shouldn't be delisting you know, that's interesting.

[Steve Rinella]

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[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

You were around for all this?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yes. Yeah. Now both of them.

[Steve Rinella]

Okay, what I remember being really interesting about this is the three, the three states that have chunks of ground and what we call the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. A name that I resent because they should call it the greater Cody ecosystem.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. They should call Wyoming bears.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. They should call it the greater Cody ecosystem.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Most of them are in Wyoming.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. The Wyoming ecosystem.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

There's three states, the bulk of it's in Wyoming. But the three states take an attitude where they're like, okay, if delisting goes through and we take. What that means is the states now manage it as a wild as wildlife under their jurisdiction. Idaho says this is 2020.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Is this when this happened last 17?

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. Idaho says we're going to give out one grizzly tag.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Montana chicken shits out.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Right.

[Steve Rinella]

And they say not going to play this game. Not doing any grizzly tags.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Montana actually had to give part of their quota to Idaho so that Idaho could have one.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, is that right?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. Wyoming just lays all on the table.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

And they're going to give out 24 tags.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Right? Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Guys like me who really want, who really think that the grizzlies should be delisted. And I think that state management. And I'm very open and enthusiastic about a very limited grizzly bear hunting season. Guys like me, as part of our rhetoric, if we were being unscrupulous, we would say that by opening up a hunting season, it'll reduce conflict because bears will learn to be scared of people.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Not true.

[Steve Rinella]

That's why I stopped saying it because it was intellectually dishonest.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Talk about that. I just spent like an hour setting up the question. But give me your feelings on all of this. All of this whole deal, all of this. Hunt, don't hunt. The bears need to learn to be scared and respect humans and blah, blah, blah.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. I don't know where you start. You opened up so many holes there.

[Steve Rinella]

I opened up a bait shop. Not just can bait shop.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Do you think grizzlies would be nervous of people? Of we started hunting them again? I, I personally, if Idaho got one.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. If Idaho got one.

[Steve Rinella]

Did you hear about bear422?

[Dusty Lassiter]

I mean maybe at Some level. I, I, I don't know personally, cuz I haven't been there, but they talk about bears on Kodiak island being like, really weary of human scent because they're.

[Steve Rinella]

Heavily hunted and always have been.

[Dusty Lassiter]

And always have been. And, and same with Sweden. So maybe at some level, but the reality is, you know, you have black bear populations all over America that are hunted, and there's still black bear conflicts, so you're still going to have conflicts with bears. Bears do learn on experience with, with humans, if they have a negative encounter, then they're more likely to run away from a human. But I just don't think you'll hunt them at a level that would be. That would change their behavior.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah.

[Dusty Lassiter]

So, you know, they delisted in 2007, and that delisting went from 2007 to 2009 when a judge put him back on the list because it's always the.

[Steve Rinella]

Same judge in Missoula.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Wow. This was a different judge. Yeah, there was Malloy and then Dana Christensen, and we knew we were in trouble when. When Dana Christensen had said, my spirit animal is a wolverine. You know any judge with it.

[Steve Rinella]

That's cultural appropriation anyways.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, I don't know any judge with a spirit animal.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Taking a person.

[Steve Rinella]

They should have gotten him. They should have attacked him from the woke spectrum and said that that's cultural appropriation and you should be fired.

[Dusty Lassiter]

That was before wokeness, I believe.

[Steve Rinella]

Man, my computer was freaking out, man. Yeah, I just dumped another coffee. It just died.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Put some more coffee on that for, for anyone listening.

[Unknown]

Steve spilled a large cup of coffee on his computer moments before we begin recording.

[Steve Rinella]

Phil, do you have the technical capabilities to plug that clip in?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Which clip?

[Steve Rinella]

Well, no, because I was kind of talking about. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, we can do. Cut out me saying that bad stuff about that actor, though. Inspire.

[Unknown]

Oh, oh.

[Steve Rinella]

He's one of those dudes that doesn't really inspire, like, I t guy. Real fandom. No, I was observing that there's an actor that's in a lot of movies, but no one cares about him. And I don't want that to get out of there. I feel like that's, that's the definition.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Of a great character actor.

[Steve Rinella]

No one cares about him. But you're happy to see him, right? I am.

[Dusty Lassiter]

I don't know.

[Unknown]

He always brings it.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. So. So, yeah. So back, back to this. And pardon me for not knowing what I'm talking about. I thought it was the same judge both times, but anyways.

[Dusty Lassiter]

No, you're right. That they do go judge shopping, that that's part of this whole thing. But yeah. 2007, 2009, Wyoming didn't have a hunting season even though the population was recovered. We could have used hunting as management tool. And when they got relisted, I, I think the state's opinion was the next time they get delisted, we're going to hunt these things. And we're. It's not to control the population. It's to create a social pattern of hunting.

[Steve Rinella]

That's what. See, that's. That's a good way of putting it. Yeah, that's what I, I want the states to do it because I want them to quickly exercise the management authority.

[Dusty Lassiter]

And Montana chicken out. Chickening out was a, a bad move in my opinion, because you're setting a precedent that, that you're not hunting them.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. And I remember they were going to chicken out for five years or something like that.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, I think that's true this, this time around too. They've said that recently in recent history.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. I don't know that they would make that choice now, but at the time they were. They had a plan to like formally chicken out for five years.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

You know what's interesting about that? Like when I say like the, Even the Idaho play, as weird as it was to do one the Idaho play of the social maneuver of doing the hunt.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Right.

[Steve Rinella]

I remember I was talking to these guys that were really involved in the elk reintroduction in Kentucky and they were nervous about this. So they. Ever since when they start working on the elk reintroduction, which was state agency, Rocky Mountain Elk foundation, it was like, because of hunting and we'll hunt them, and we'll hunt them. Even though it's years in the future. They baked it into every conversation to not then down the road go like, oh, hey, now that we got all these elk, how about we have a hunting season? It was like they were, they were deliberate about setting an expectation that that's where this would go. And you see when you see signs around any, Anywhere you go around in this area, you'll see signs. Delisting means hunting. And it's, it's meant to be. Delisting means hunting. And it's meant to be like an anti. Delisting.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

They're coming right out and saying, we're not gonna, we're not looking to argue about how many bears there are because no one's gonna argue that bears are stable. They're looking to be like, they're using the esa. They're Using the Endangered Species act not as a management tool. They're using it as a way that they can prevent something from happening that they don't want to happen.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Right.

[Steve Rinella]

It's like, it's the. My favorite animal protection act. It is not the Endangered Species act, and they even know it, and their rhetoric mirrors it. But when I look and I see that sign, delisting means hunting, I always think, I sure hope they're right. Yeah.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Right. Yeah. You're rooting for that.

[Steve Rinella]

And they'll always show a sow with cubs. The. The one they use around here.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Sure.

[Steve Rinella]

They show us. So with cubs. With a crosshair.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

I'm like, but you can't shoot cells with cubs.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. That wouldn't be legal anyway.

[Steve Rinella]

So there's a poacher. They should arrest that person.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. We actually had, like, I remember having fights, talking about how many bears we were going to harvest. And a game warden in a district that has a lot of Bears thought that 24 was, like, not nearly enough and was upset about it. And it's like, we're not trying to manage the population totally through hunting. We're trying to create a social standard for hunting.

[Steve Rinella]

You know.

[Dusty Lassiter]

I say we, but that was past years.

[Steve Rinella]

When we first started this podcast a million years ago in an office where me and my wife. My. Me and my wife had dinner. Not a great one either. Across the road from our original old office. Last night, on our little date night. Anyways, in that office upstairs, we. In one of our early, early podcasts, when we first launched a podcast, we had a guy from the USGS, Frank McMahon.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Van man.

[Steve Rinella]

Van. What is his name?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Van Man.

[Steve Rinella]

Van Man. We had him on. Talk about he. Yeah, he does demographics on grizzly bears.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Sure.

[Steve Rinella]

So the USGS is a. It's a federal organization, and the USGS doesn't do policy. The USGS doesn't manage land. Okay. Like, the U.S. forest Service, USDA, manages land. U.S. fish and Wildlife Service manages refuges. The National Park Service manages parks. You have a bunch of land management federal agencies. The USGS doesn't do land management. They don't do policy. Their mandate is information.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Sure.

[Steve Rinella]

They provide information.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Right.

[Steve Rinella]

So this. This guest we had. It's a great podcast. If you want to go back and listen, a lot of it's still relevant today. This guest we had explained. We got to talk about demographics, grizzly bear demographics. And there's the number at that time. I don't know what the number is now. The number at that time was something like. It was like, fixed it was like carved in stone.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. 700, 740.

[Steve Rinella]

It's okay.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

And it will. And he explained. I was like, where does that number come from? What they had looked at is at time they looked at. Okay. In this ecosystem, how much space does a breeding age female use?

[Dusty Lassiter]

30 square kilometers was the estimate.

[Steve Rinella]

That was the estimate. Okay.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yep.

[Steve Rinella]

And they would draw. What's that little shape you draw on a map? Octagon or polygon? A polygon, yeah.

[Dusty Lassiter]

The. It was actually a grid.

[Steve Rinella]

Okay.

[Dusty Lassiter]

But, yeah. And that was called the Chow 2 model.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. Explain. Yeah. Okay. So you know about this.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Explain how the number was arrived at. And then. And then I'm going to share with you something he told me about the number that I was like. We spent an hour talking about.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Because he would say at least. I'd go, how many? At least. 740. Well, how many? At least. 740.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Well, how many? At Least. 740.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. So that model's been updated twice since then.

[Steve Rinella]

Okay. But explain how. It's like. It's really fascinating how you make a model like this.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Okay. So bears are really hard to count because they're solitary in nature. They're not territorial, Their home ranges overlap.

[Steve Rinella]

So did you say solitary but not territorial?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Right. They like to be individualistic, but they don't have territories. Not like a mountain lion. Solitary. Nature has a territory. It's keeping other cats out of there. So if there's food availability, their home ranges overlap.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, I never even thought about that term. That's a great term. Solitary but not territorial.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Right. And that's what happened with the model. That's what makes them really difficult to count. So the early research showed that a grizzly bear sow's home range was 30 square kilometers. So when they were counting, if you're counting bears and there's. You break the ecosystem up into a grid and there's a sow with cubs and one of those squares you cross off that grid because you don't want to. You want to lean conservative. You don't want to overestimate the population.

[Steve Rinella]

Okay.

[Dusty Lassiter]

The problem with that model is as the population gets higher in density, your model gets more and more biased because of those home ranges overlapping. So that model maxed out at 740. Like, I can't remember, 750, maybe. You couldn't get it. You couldn't shove any more grizzly bears into the ecosystem. In that model, they went back and they looked at collar data and they found out that sow's home range was more like 14 square kilometers.

[Steve Rinella]

You know, I got a. This is great. But I want to add in a thing here.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

That he had explained is be that when they make the model, you're just. You're count. You're trying to count breeding age females, and then you look at females with.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Cubs of the year.

[Steve Rinella]

Okay. And then you look at what you know about the demographics. Meaning that you could go into a. Let's say you could go into a country perhaps and count how many. How many females with children are in this country. And then probably go like, okay, so we know human males and human females are born at a one to one ratio. We know that like a female is most active reproductively between 24 and 38, and that they have on average 2.2 kids. And so we can just look at how many moms there are and make a guess at what the human population is in that country. That's kind of what you're doing with grizzlies, right? You're like, we know that you got males, you got cubs, but if we can know this one number, we can extrapolate outward to get a sense of how many are there rather than mechanically counting them.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. You know that they're the driver of the population. But what you're describing is actually more like a census, and that's closer to what the model is now. It's an integrated population model. But, you know. Yeah. The ratio of bears in the ecosystem, you know, you have however many adult males, you have however many sub adult bears and females with cubs are driving your population. So it's just a multiplier.

[Steve Rinella]

Understood.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Essentially. So it got changed to 14 square kilometers and that made the estimate more like 1200 bears.

[Steve Rinella]

Okay.

[Dusty Lassiter]

And then what you just described is now what they're doing is an integrated population model, and it's more of a census. And you can plug in other factors.

[Steve Rinella]

I got it. So what's the number now?

[Dusty Lassiter]

10, 30.

[Steve Rinella]

How good do you think that number is?

[Dusty Lassiter]

I think that's pretty accurate. I think there's definitely parts of the ecosystem where there's higher densities than other parts. And growing up in Cody, I just assumed everywhere had really high densities. And you go to other parts and they're just not. And this new modeling system is going to incorporate some of that and show you where. Where there's more density of bears. And that's only in the demographic monitoring. Monitoring area. So there's bears that live outside where they're even looking for bears. So that is a Minimum. Because they're not counting bears that aren't in suitable habitat.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, really?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. That might be living year.

[Steve Rinella]

They're not counting bears that don't count.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

So if a bear moves out into like. If a bear moves out of. And moves out into like Fort Benton, out of. Out of the Shoto area and just keeps going east, he leaves the counting area.

[Dusty Lassiter]

If he's there year round, if he's outside of their. Their demographic monitoring area. And I don't know about the. In ncde, but that's how they did it with the gye.

[Steve Rinella]

Got it.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

You got to be in a bear place to be a bear.

[Steve Rinella]

Yep.

[Unknown]

Pretty straightforward.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Don't count outliers.

[Steve Rinella]

So there's about. So tell me the number again. You think 1030?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. And it was as high as 1200 was the estimate a couple of years ago, before they changed to this other model. But it has a lot more factors. It's a lot more accurate is my understanding.

[Steve Rinella]

That's good to know.

[Dusty Lassiter]

I still thought it was that old 740.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. I didn't know that anyone moved beyond that number.

[Dusty Lassiter]

That was laughable. People in my hometown never believe that.

[Steve Rinella]

You know, why do they. Why do they seem to congregate in these little micro areas so much? There's just some like, valleys that are like such hot spots. And then you go to another valley and you could go to another valley and hang out there over the years. 10, 10 years and never lay eyes on one. But then there's like, you can't. It just doesn't. You can't really tell the difference from looking at them.

[Dusty Lassiter]

It's just food availability, food sources, and some of it's learned behavior. And my part of the woods, we have what, what are called moth sites. And there's these bears on moth sites. And you know, I've done flights where I've counted 40 bears on moth sites. So there's a high concentration of food, and that's one of the highest caloric value foods in the ecosystem.

[Steve Rinella]

Explain what that means.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Caloric value?

[Steve Rinella]

No, the water moth I know about. Oh, yeah, I know a little bit, but just tell people what that is.

[Dusty Lassiter]

So there's these army cutworm moths that migrate from the Midwest and they come up in the mountains and at night pollinate flowers. And then in the daytime they get in these talus slopes and they. They use that as a heat refugia. And bears come along and they flip over those rocks and eat those bugs. And they're probably eating 20 to 40,000 of those moths a day, licking them up. Licking them up. Yep. And it's just a really rich food source for bears in the ecosystem. But what I was going to say is there's places in the ecosystem where there's moss sites and there's not bears utilizing them. So they. They think it's a learned behavior.

[Steve Rinella]

Like they know about it, right?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yep.

[Steve Rinella]

Huh. Like if you took all the bears out and put new ones back in, they might not find those moths.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Maybe not for a while.

[Unknown]

Or they'd use different ones.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Or they could use different ones. Yeah, yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Huh. What are some of the other main foods like we are. Everybody likes to think of them just, you know, eating elk calves. But what. When you had to list, like, their main grub sources, what do you think it is?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Vegetation. You know, bears eat a lot of different roots and tubers and corms and that. That's a big one in the spring. Elk calves is a big food source. I mean, that's kind of undeniable. These moth sites. There are a few places in the ecosystem where they eat those cutthroat trout that are spawning whitebark pine. But they did a food synthesis analysis on bears and found that they eat over 260 different plants and animals.

[Steve Rinella]

So, kid.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. In the Yellowstone ecosystem, they have the most diverse diet.

[Steve Rinella]

260 species.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yep. That bear that I caught there was 624. I figured that he was probably eating meat year round. You know, that bear was going from winter kill carcasses to elk calves to moths, to killing cattle in the fall because we'd caught him before killing cattle to eating gut piles. You know, he was eating probably nothing but meat. How old was that bear? I don't remember. I caught another bear that was 520 pounds in the spring, Same exact location. And I caught him eight years later, and he was 28 years old.

[Unknown]

Wow.

[Steve Rinella]

Holy cow, man.

[Dusty Lassiter]

So that other bear could be 30. Oh, I think, I think. Well, when he was 28, that bear was past his prime. Okay, maybe one down. This other bear was probably between 15 and 20. Gotcha. Yeah, man.

[Steve Rinella]

28.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Zach Turnbull caught one that was 32 in the upper green.

[Steve Rinella]

And that's got getting close to Max.

[Dusty Lassiter]

That's the oldest bear they've caught in the ecosystem.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. In your mind, what is the. What is the most common sort of way things play out when people get scratched up by a bear?

[Dusty Lassiter]

What do you mean? Like, how did they record it?

[Steve Rinella]

No, no, no. I'm sorry. If you were going to look at from, from all the things you've heard and seen. When someone gets mauled by a bear, what is the normal scenario?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Surprise encounter. Probably like you're spooking it. Yeah. And probably sows with cubs more than anything else. You know, I see a big adult male track, I'm not nervous. I see a little tiny cub track and I'm like, really looking around. Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

So it's that you, like jump at close range.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, that's the majority of them. You know, there's a lot of cases every year where guys get elk down and, and there's bears coming into those dead elk or they're going back to retrieve a bear or, excuse me, an elk carcass and. And they jump a bear. That's pretty common too. I mean, it's, it's food, cubs and, and personal space. And a lot of times you're getting cubs and personal space at the same time.

[Steve Rinella]

Got it. And that's trouble.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Do you believe. You know, there's like a thing. I don't know if it's a. If it's a. What's the opposite of urban legend? Rural legend.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Rural myth.

[Steve Rinella]

Okay. Like my, my brother.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Country lore. Redneck talk.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. My brother Danny, he now and then goes and hunts Kodiak, but after, you know, he hunts in the winter for black tail deer. Right. And he'll swear, when the bears are down, he'll swear to red fox. No, A gunshot. There's a lot of red fox there. He's like, you shoot a deer and they're just there.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

And he's like, I don't. You know, they're smelling it, whatever, but it's so fast. You can't help but wonder, like, are they like. Oh, they hear that and they're like, ooh, yeah. And go that way. You hear people say this about grizzlies?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, all the time.

[Steve Rinella]

Do you think that's true?

[Dusty Lassiter]

No, not at all.

[Steve Rinella]

You don't think they come to a gunshot?

[Dusty Lassiter]

No. I'll tell you why. Because I have friends that are really poor shots, have guided hunters. They're really poor shots. You sit there for 15, 20 minutes and no bear shows up. We have a shooting range outside of Cody.

[Steve Rinella]

It's not full bears.

[Dusty Lassiter]

It's not full of bears. Even though I've caught bears adjacent to it, but they're not running to that thing, you know?

[Steve Rinella]

Got it.

[Dusty Lassiter]

So it's really. When you get an animal down that blood, that room and smell that guts, as soon as that hits the air, you got a clock on you and What I like to do as a guide is start a fire. You know, as long as there's not a fire ban if I'm in a good location, you know, and started upwind because that kind of masks that scent and fire. The real reason is it, it calms your hunter down because as soon as they kill something, they're like super bear scared.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, we do that fire thing cutting up moose in Alaska, especially when it's real thick. I'll get a fire going. I don't know if it's like my own. I just have, I don't know, I. I like to have the idea that it somehow broadcast the human presence more. Might be total horseshit.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, I think so. I don't think bears want to come into a fire. So that's just something I've learned since after the game and fish, you know.

[Steve Rinella]

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[Dusty Lassiter]

No, I've handled bears that have mauled people.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, after the maulen.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. Didn't you tell me that story about how. Yeah, so the first. Yeah, one of my, yeah, one of my first conflicts that I came on. I wasn't even hired on full time yet. I came in the office, I was just volunteering on my days off and my boss was on the phone and he said, I remember him saying three, maybe four people mauled. I'm on the way to the hospital. And he got off the phone and he said hey, can you help us for a couple of days? And I said yeah. And there was a malling at by Cook City, a campground called Soda Butte.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, I know this one.

[Dusty Lassiter]

There was a human fatality there and ran up there with a trap. And you know, that was obviously in Montana, but we assisted Montana and trying to catch those bears. And they set the traps. They caught those bears. I, you know, set traps but we, we didn't catch anything. And then I was shuttling samples to our vet lab in Laramie.

[Steve Rinella]

What kind of samples?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Well, tissue samples from the bear to make sure that it was a match.

[Steve Rinella]

Okay.

[Dusty Lassiter]

But she had mauled three people. And the first tent was a young kid and his girlfriend and a dog. And she tried to. Sorry, she didn't maul but she, she tried to attack three different people. She tried to come into that tent and the dog started barking and she left it and that kid got so afraid. I call him a kid. He's probably like 18, 19. He packed up all this stuff and left. And that sow went further down the campground and there was a couple who slept in separate tents because the, the husband snored and sure they weren't in a fight, maybe, maybe they're in a fight. And that sow ripped into a tent and tried to grab that woman and she fought it off and it actually broke a tooth out of of the bear's head in her arm.

[Steve Rinella]

Wow.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

It's weird, like all the he bit in his life that that would break his tooth off.

[Dusty Lassiter]

It was. It was a salad. But she was so malnourished that she was desperate and that was. Those are predatory attacks, obviously, which is different than your defensive aggressive attacks. So then she. Yeah, she went further down the campground and she got in another tent and she killed and ate a guy. And there was three other yearling bears with her through those attacks. So I didn't work up that bear personally, but yeah, I've worked up other bears of mauled people.

[Steve Rinella]

Does that give you a creepy feeling?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. I mean, I will never forget the look in that bear's eyes. It so debute. I mean she was so demoralized and.

[Steve Rinella]

Was that right?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. I'll just never forget the way she had her head on her paws and just looked completely demoralized.

[Steve Rinella]

Like. What do you mean demoralized?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Just there was like a sadness in her eyes. I don't know how else to say.

[Steve Rinella]

Is that right?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. And you catch a lot of bears and see a lot of bears in traps and they avoid eye contact. That's really normal. But. But there was just like a feeling about it. I don't know how else to describe it.

[Steve Rinella]

Huh. When they're avoiding eye contact, what do.

[Dusty Lassiter]

You think that is in the bear world? You know, that's aggressive posturing.

[Steve Rinella]

When I was teaching eye contact is aggressive.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. When I was teaching kids, I'd say, you know, especially middle school girls, you know when you see somebody in the hallways and you kind of stare them down.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, that's.

[Dusty Lassiter]

That's aggressive posturing. You know you're being mean, right?

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah.

[Dusty Lassiter]

And they all understand that. And that's the same with bears is they pretty much avoid eye contact until they're ready to rumble, ready to fight.

[Steve Rinella]

So they'll look away from one another.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. Yep. Those big adult males, when you see them fight, they'll circle each other and they'll be avoiding eye contact. And when they finally get the nerve to lock eyes. That's when they're, you know, trying to fight each other.

[Steve Rinella]

Do you think there's a tell if a bear is going to false charge or charge charge? Do you think there's a physical tell?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yep. Head posture.

[Steve Rinella]

Okay.

[Dusty Lassiter]

If they're really intent on hurting you, their head is as low to the ground as possible. They're trying to get there and you see that with self defense shootings. A lot of times guys aim center mass. Center mass is the hump, you know, and it doesn't kill them when they, when they're shooting bears, if it's a bluff charge. A lot of times their head is high, you know, they're kind of high on their front legs and they're not coming as fast as they could.

[Steve Rinella]

Head down.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Head down. Yep.

[Steve Rinella]

Aim low.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Aim low.

[Steve Rinella]

With your spray?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

With your bird shot?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. With your bird, yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

What? Let's say one's coming. You got bear spray. At what distance for you personally? Like at what distance are you touching that spray off?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Oh, 30 yards. Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

And you just let it rip.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Let it rip.

[Steve Rinella]

Don't be like, try to, don't try to conserve.

[Dusty Lassiter]

I would, I'd hold it down for a second and, and spray and you know, if it kept coming, I'm going to keep spraying but yeah, about a second is all it takes.

[Steve Rinella]

What do you think about the wolverine situation? The wolverine delisting or. Sorry, the wolverine listing. Do you think the wolverine listing is warranted?

[Dusty Lassiter]

I think we're living in a time and age where a lot wildlife habitats just getting chopped up and wolverines need a really big home range and there were links in Wyoming and they just kind of blinked out and nobody ever noticed. So I don't know a ton about wolverines, but I think you probably gotta do everything you can to protect their habitat at this point.

[Steve Rinella]

You think so?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, and I, you know, they just have such a huge home range and this was probably furthest south extent of their habitat anyways.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, right. Well, down into Colorado.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. Historically they're probably that far down.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, I think that they're using two, they use 250 square miles.

[Dusty Lassiter]

500.

[Steve Rinella]

500 square miles. It's more than I double that number, we'd hope.

[Dusty Lassiter]

But same thing with lynx. You know, they, they went really far south. And I had a friend that was a trapper and he'd always say it's not like the Canadians are excited every time a bobcat crosses into Canada.

[Steve Rinella]

You know, that's a good point.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Just we have a different mentality because they're coming south.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, that's a good point.

[Dusty Lassiter]

What do you think about wolverines?

[Steve Rinella]

Man, I think that they. I think that we lack any kind of historic reference. So when someone goes and looks and they think that there's a lower number of wolverines, that no one's ever looked at it in a sophisticated sense before. One way you could look at the research they did is you'd say, man, there's wolverines all over the place. Right. Because they go out and do the. They hang the carcasses and do the trail cam stuff and catch hairs.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, I actually did that one winter.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, did you?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

And so you'd look and be like, wow, like one interpretation, it'd be like, huh, that's cool. There's a lot of wolverines out there because no one knew. But instead you take that, you. You realize there aren't many, but you don't know how many there ever were.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Right.

[Steve Rinella]

And then you point to an area, you know, you point to an area in Canada that had seen a decline, but it's not the same kind of area. You're on the southern edge and you just go, like, there aren't many, therefore they must be endangered. I feel like without being able to have a, like a demonstrated decline over time, I'm a little suspect. And I also am a little suspect because I think that they are a. I think that it's a little bit of a red herring. I think that they're being used. That they're being used as a tool to get at something that. To get at something different.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Sure. That's probably saving habitat.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, yeah. And it's like. It's like we want to save habitat, which I totally understand. We want to save habitat. We want to slow certain development. The way to do that is to do the wolverine and get the wolverine listed. But then the wolverine will get listed and it'll wind up being that you'll see that you can't go and snowmobile in certain areas and you can't trap in certain areas. And you'd be like, but running a snowmobile and trapping don't do habitat destruction. If this is all about habitat destruction, why do we gotta do it this way? Well, this is very personal.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Steve's still collecting his thoughts on this subject.

[Dusty Lassiter]

You know, back to the point I made earlier about lynx linking out in Wyoming, there's a chance that part of that was because of snowmobiles. And what that does is creates a path for coyotes to go kill snowshoe hares, which Obviously links are dependent on.

[Steve Rinella]

Got it.

[Dusty Lassiter]

And so, you know, it doesn't seem like snowmobiling has an impact, but it.

[Steve Rinella]

May, you know, one of the weirdest ones of those.

[Dusty Lassiter]

God, I don't want to be like a. You come make me sound very green here.

[Steve Rinella]

That's great. Listen, that, that, that's, that's great for me. I mean, you know, I like. It's a, it's good things to be curious about.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Think about this one time we spent a lot of time years ago on when there were still some caribou that were living in the Idaho panhandle.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

And the efforts to try to save those caribou in the, in the Selkirk range and they would come into Idaho Panhandle.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Sure.

[Steve Rinella]

And that right now there's no caribou in the lower 48.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. Super sad.

[Steve Rinella]

When they looked at that. An interesting thing was that they were seeing so much wolf predation on caribou and it was like, why wasn't there? Like that's nothing new. You've had wolves on the landscape. Right. In B.C. the caribou there. Why wasn't it? It was like white tailed deer numbers like, like certain, certain timber harvest practices.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Right.

[Steve Rinella]

Created a lot of white tail deer and elk and moose habitat.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

As you brought up that number of ungulates. This is a theory. Obviously. As you brought up that number of ungulates at the edge of caribou habitat, it created an incentive for wolves to hunt in the area. And once wolves had taken the habit of hunting in that area, because they're killing deer, they're killing moose, they're getting some caribou, historically there hadn't been enough like biomass on the landscape to warrant them hunting the area and they would just be elsewhere. It's a theory, but it's interesting. And you think of like you do this and coyotes now push up on snowmobile trails and hunt and they got a way to get from spot to spot. And it. Right, right. It's a human cause. It's a human cause. Very like step by step. Kind of hard to track.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. I think the sequence of events, the correlation is probably when snowmobiles got souped up. I'd be curious if that was like the years when those animals behavior started to change.

[Steve Rinella]

Got it. When high marking became a thing.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. Because when I was growing up, you know, you were about a foot off the ground and that thing didn't go very fast.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah.

[Dusty Lassiter]

But now you can, you can go anywhere with a snowmobile.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. So I picked up A wolverine on a trail camera last year.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

And that's cool. Yeah. I felt like I was. I felt like I was real excited. I sent it to everybody. It was like trapping.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. It was like trapping to get one.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

On a camera.

[Dusty Lassiter]

No. We've had some game fish guys get some on cameras, but it's really rare. And when they were doing that population estimate, you know, it was, I want to say, not more than five in the whole state. And they put a lot of effort into trying to identify wolverines. Something that was really cool, though is they had a wolverine that had a white arm with a black spot. So really unique. And she'd actually been caught in the northern part of Yellowstone and had a. Had a number and I think for a while had a transmitter in her. I'm not sure if that's true, but she was 14 years old, I want to say. Wow.

[Steve Rinella]

Right? Really?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yep. She's so identifiable.

[Steve Rinella]

They knew about how many in Wyoming?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Well, through all the. I thought, you know, I think the population estimate is probably 20.

[Steve Rinella]

Is it that low?

[Dusty Lassiter]

It's that low, yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Really?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Cat. I might be misspeaking. 20 to 50. 100. No more than 740. 740.

[Steve Rinella]

We got a lot better tab tat though, here.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

In the northwest part of the state.

[Unknown]

So how far away was she? She said she was. She had been caught in the northern part of Yellowstone. Do you know where she was then? Re identified? How far away?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Fish hawk is probably 80 miles away. Wow. In 21 and 22, Wyoming Game and Fish said approximately 24 Wolverines. Yeah.

[Unknown]

Look at this guy.

[Dusty Lassiter]

It's been a while since I thought about that, man.

[Steve Rinella]

Makes my camera things seem even cooler.

[Dusty Lassiter]

You know who. You know who Osborne Russell is?

[Steve Rinella]

Sure. Man. He calls them common.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. And he talks about them in By Salt Lake. So, yeah, there's a lot of.

[Steve Rinella]

He calls them common.

[Unknown]

There's a lot of car references and in the mountain man journals.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. That oral history stuff does. Because I would not call them common.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Right. So there's got to be more than there is now.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. Osborne Russell. We covered this very. We're working on a thing called the Mountain Men.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, sure.

[Steve Rinella]

Part of our American history series. And the other thing that you just wouldn't believe is the number of big horns.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Oh, yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

In the early 1800s. Like not elk.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Right.

[Steve Rinella]

Big horns. Hundreds. Like hundreds of big horns. I've talked living on bighorns.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, bighorns and deer. I've talked to Larry Todd about this and there's Only two Indian camps in Wyoming that have elk parts in them. So what I don't understand is there's a really big elk migration that comes from Yellowstone and it. It goes to south of Cody. And, you know, I imagine it's been going on for thousands of years, but you think maybe there weren't that many elk back then or, you know, it was more buffalo than elk and.

[Steve Rinella]

Yep. Yeah. Osborne Russell would run into people who were like sheep specialists, sheep eaters.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Sheep hunters.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. We have a bunch of artifacts around us that were sheep eaters. Artifacts. They're. They're part of the Shoshone tribe. But Shoshone. Shoshone.

[Unknown]

We just learned that that's why scratching.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, I asked.

[Steve Rinella]

I actually asked the Shoshone person.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, that's it. Well, I've never known.

[Steve Rinella]

He was open to either, but strongly preferred Shoshone.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. What's the river that flows through Cody? Shoshone.

[Unknown]

Oh, that's.

[Dusty Lassiter]

That.

[Steve Rinella]

That's. I know. That's what got. Yeah. So.

[Dusty Lassiter]

And there's. There's a town you sit.

[Steve Rinella]

Right. So you're sitting in.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Okay. Well, he would know Idaho.

[Unknown]

The rivers and the places go by shon, but the people go by shon is sort of.

[Dusty Lassiter]

What.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, no, but he was. He was a rap. Yeah, but he lives with. Lives on. Yeah, lives.

[Unknown]

But that's sort of the conclusion we collectively arrived at.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Have you ever seen the bows that those sheep eaters make?

[Steve Rinella]

No, but I read Osborne Russell's description of the bows.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, they're pretty cool. There's a guy named Bob Lucas that. There's a video of him making one. But they. They take a big horn sheep horn and they reverse the curl and then they glue it and tie it together, and it's basically a recurve bow.

[Steve Rinella]

They steam it and reverse it, Right.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yep.

[Steve Rinella]

Osborne Russell figures very heavily into our. Into the thing we're working on because he did such a good job of documenting stuff. Yeah. Such a phenomenal job of making a journal. Tell me about your guiding business. Who do you guide for?

[Dusty Lassiter]

I've guided for a bunch of different outfitters, to be honest. And I took this season pretty much off because I just had a kid. But I've worked for Yellowstone Country Outfitters, 307 Outfitters, Rand Crick Outfitters, Livingston Outfitters. So I've got to see a lot of country.

[Steve Rinella]

And your specialty is horse pack trips?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, everything's horseback. Horseback and mule sawbucks or deckers saw buck guy. Yeah. I've never understood that. The Montana guys. Yeah. I can't take a toothbrush if they don't man. Yet.

[Unknown]

Yeah, I've always thought the same thing.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, we always laugh at sawbucks. Yeah, you'll have to teach me some.

[Steve Rinella]

All right.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, yeah. Tree seems pretty easy.

[Steve Rinella]

Tell people what you're talking about.

[Dusty Lassiter]

So there's two style of pack saddles. One's what you call sawbuck, which is. Seems self explanatory. Yeah, you just hang your hang bags on it, hang panyards, and then you have a lash rope where you tie a hitch to keep everything pinned down. And Montana guys run what's called Decker pack saddles and they have ropes hanging off the bars on their packs. And then they tie a hitch usually with something that's manied up. So they pack all their camping stuff in a. In a canvas mani and fold it up real nice.

[Steve Rinella]

Like a mani pedi.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, mani pedi, that's right. Sort of.

[Unknown]

You're tracking. You're tracking.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Help me out here. I don't. Yeah, no, that's accurate. I don't know what you.

[Steve Rinella]

I don't know.

[Dusty Lassiter]

My theory is Decker. Like when you lash down a Decker saddle, say with yeti coolers and then you can crows foot it to really lash it down. You can bump into a lot more trees and have it stays stay set compared to sawbuck saddles. Might move around a little bit more or get loose. I don't know. I've never run some pretty steep country. Well, steep maybe. How thick is it? It's pretty thick.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, well, sounds like it's thick and steep.

[Dusty Lassiter]

To each their own, I guess. Whatever style floats your boat. I know that you can pack real awkward loads with Deckers. They're a lot more versatile. Yeah, we would pack raft frames. 16 foot raft frames on them on the uphill side. Okay. Yeah, we just don't take that stuff. So. Yeah, very awkward boats.

[Steve Rinella]

Are you mostly deer? Mostly elk.

[Dusty Lassiter]

I've done it all. Sheep, mountain goat, deer, elk. Not grizzly bear, but everything else.

[Steve Rinella]

Black bears.

[Dusty Lassiter]

No, Never have guided black bears. Actually kind of got burned out on the bear thing, so.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, messing with bears. Like a person gets a job at an ice cream shop. Then you don't like ice cream no more.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Exactly, exactly. Same reason I don't eat Mexican food.

[Steve Rinella]

And you're. And you're looking for. You're between careers now.

[Dusty Lassiter]

You know, I'm doing construction, but I'm definitely open to doing something that benefits wildlife. I don't want the best thing that I've done for wildlife to be catching and Killing bears.

[Steve Rinella]

So what drove you to. Do you mind saying why did you leave the state agency in Wyoming? Fishing game.

[Dusty Lassiter]

I was just really personally conflicted with some of the management decisions that were being made, you know, so there were a lot of reasons. I was. I was super burnout. If I had to give one more bear safety talk, I was gonna suck start a.44.

[Steve Rinella]

Got it. What?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Or bear spray.

[Steve Rinella]

What would be a. What would be an area of management? Like, what would be like an area of management that you would find conflict. You don't need to tell me the exact conflict, but when you say that, what do you mean?

[Dusty Lassiter]

What do you mean? What do you mean?

[Steve Rinella]

Like, do you mean the way they set harvest objectives would. Oh, the way they.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Where I had conflicts or was it.

[Steve Rinella]

Like administrative issues, you know?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, it was leadership and it. I just didn't feel like relocation and removal decisions were really consistent, so.

[Steve Rinella]

God. Oh, on the bear questions.

[Unknown]

Yeah. It's like how you're handling individual bears.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Dusty Lassiter]

You know, I'd had a certain standard with my old boss, and I just felt like it wasn't the same.

[Steve Rinella]

There's nothing more important than spending time out in nature. Pendleton is bottled to honor true Western traditions. And there's nothing more Western than supporting organizations like RMEF and their work in conservation. That's what you're toasting every time you raise a glass of Pendleton whiskey, the official whiskey of the after the hunt moment. It's not just poured, it's earned. Pendleton Distillers, Lawrenceburg, Indiana. Please drink responsibly. Pendleton is a registered trademark of pendleton Woolen Mills. O'Reilly Auto Parts. In the business of keeping your car on the road, O'Reilly Auto Parts offer friendly, helpful service and the parts knowledge you need for all your maintenance and repairs. I was in an O'Reilly Auto Parts not too long ago chasing down a battery for my boat. And also some windshield wiper blades and some gasket sealer and got everything I needed. They got thousands of parts and accessories in stock, either in store or online, so you never have to worry if you're in a jam. The team at O'Reilly Auto Parts can test your battery for free in or out of your car. Need your windshield wipers replaced, a brake light fixed, or a quick service. They'll help you find the right part or point you to the nearest local repair shop for help. Whether you're a car aficionado or an auto novice, you'll find the employees at O'Reilly Auto Parts are knowledgeable, helpful, and best of all friendly. And that is true. They are the professional parts people at O'Reilly are your one stop shop for all things auto. Do it yourself and you can find what you need in the store or online. Stop by O'Reilly Auto Parts today or visit us at O'Reilly Auto.com Meat Eater that's O'Reilly Auto.com Meat eater now a lot of you guys are familiar with the old hunting tradition of eating you know, some organ, the heart or a chunk of liver off the first animal you kill. I had that when I was a little kid and it was a big deal. Organ meats were always prized by frontier people who knew the importance of getting a lot of different minerals and nutrients. And as often is the case, those guys were on to something because organs are among the most nutrient rich foods on the planet. And you can get the same benefits your ancestors craved via convenient daily capsules from heart and soil made exclusively from regeneratively raised, grass fed and finished cattle heart and soils. Unique freeze drying process means all those important nutrients are trapped in ensuring you experience every one of the benefits of nature's superfood in a clean convenient taste free capsule. Find out more at heartandsoil Co and make sure to use code meat eater for 10% off your purchase. That's heartandsoil co. Use the code Me Eater. Do you, this is my last question for you. Do you give me your personal take. I like came in so hot and heavy on delisting. What's your personal take on delisting?

[Dusty Lassiter]

I think it's the best thing to keep states into managing bears, which is probably the best thing for the people on the landscape. And I also think hunting is a positive because it creates advocates for wildlife. Creates advocates for bears. People right now say there's too many bears on the landscape. But as soon as you start hunting them they'll be like I don't know where all the big bears have gone. These guys are hunting too many. It's the non residents.

[Unknown]

Yeah, it'll just be some other boogeyman.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah, that's a good point man.

[Dusty Lassiter]

So but they continue to expand and a big issue that the courts see is that genetic connectivity between the gye and the NCDE. And right now they're only 36 miles apart. And I think that whether you delist or not, I think they eventually make that connectivity. But there was a bear that showed up in the big horns two years ago actually. And you know, that bear was removed, euthanized right away. And I think they're going to continue to expand whether you try to contain them or not.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh, was that a containment decision?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Social acceptance, you know. But we've caught and killed a lot of bears over the years and you're just trying to contain them into the absorbes. This year they'll hit 70 bears have died in the Yellowstone ecosystem and probably 40 of those will be management removals. And you got everything from bears getting killed and irrigation canals. There were bears electrocuted. There's bears that get hit by vehicles like 399 obviously.

[Steve Rinella]

So 70 to one calendar year.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, I think it'll be a record year this year. Montana's at 28 right now.

[Steve Rinella]

Wow.

[Dusty Lassiter]

I don't think it's over yet. There's still bears out.

[Steve Rinella]

One of the, this one of the arguments I heard from when I talked about, I was joking and I half joking about Montana chickening out on the bear hunt. But one of the things they brought up is they had no. They felt that their quota would get hit by non hunting purposes. And if they did a hunt. This is kind of like the logic, right?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

If they did a hunt and killed a couple bears, they would burn up their quota and then they wouldn't be able to do bear management on problem bears because they would already hit their human cause quota.

[Unknown]

Doesn't sound unreasonable.

[Steve Rinella]

Feels more like. Feels more like across that bridge when you come to it.

[Unknown]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dusty Lassiter]

I think again it's what you, what the number you believe is in the ecosystem. And the reason Wyoming was going to be so high is because 12 of those bears were going to be outside the demographic monitoring area so they weren't even counted towards the population.

[Steve Rinella]

Got it, got it.

[Dusty Lassiter]

You know, and the DMA is about 20,000 square miles and bear distribution right now is about 50,000 square miles.

[Steve Rinella]

Oh yeah, there's a grizzly coming to a neighborhood near you.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. So everywhere I would go, people would go, there's kids in the neighborhood. You got to get this bear out of here. You know, and then one lady called me and she goes, there's old people in this neighborhood. You got to get this bear out of here. I'm like, oh, there's no appropriate age to live with a bear.

[Steve Rinella]

There's two things that are going to happen. I like to joke about golfers. And Montana is uniquely a golfer.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Gophers.

[Steve Rinella]

No. I believe that someday Montana will have a golfer get mauled while golfing. Oh, and whitefish.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. Probably at Meadow Lake Resort, Columbia Falls.

[Steve Rinella]

Big Scott, they caught one on a.

[Unknown]

Golf course down the bitter route.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. We will have. It'll be like a. It'll be. I hope he doesn't get it bad. If he gets it bad, I'll feel bad, but I. It'll be an interesting day when we have a golfer get mauled digging through.

[Dusty Lassiter]

The rough, looking for his title.

[Unknown]

Yeah, it's probably not going to be a good golfer because he's going to be.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

Sticking to the fairways and greens.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. He's gonna be down to the D. He's gonna be down to the creek bomb looking for his golf ball.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Another good reason to work on your back swing.

[Steve Rinella]

Y. We're gonna have a golfer get mauled, and that's gonna change public opinion. And then for whatever reason, like, we have a little mountain range right here in town.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Bridgers.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. You know, not right here. I mean, it's way bigger than that, but it toes off like this, you know, toes off into town. And, man, there's grizzlies right across the highway.

[Dusty Lassiter]

I know. 36 miles.

[Steve Rinella]

And it's like at some point in time, there's this. We have this real popular hiking trail called the M. Yeah, it's not out of the. It's not out of. You know, it's like a reasonable thing that someone's going to get scratched up on the M hill. I feel like that'll impact public opinion when a golfer gets it.

[Unknown]

Yeah, I mean, there's. There's. In Missoula, the rattlesnake wilderness right there. You know, you can take a city bus to it. And they had a sow and cubs that set up in one of the first gulches there. That's like a really popular mountain biking area. But I remember going to an event and there's a bear biologist there talking about grizzlies coming into the Missoula area. And he's like, you know, they're in Gold Creek. They're down on the golf courses in the Bitterroot.

[Dusty Lassiter]

They're.

[Unknown]

They're in the rattlesnake. And he said, I would be surprised if in five years there aren't sort of resident known bear families, you know, population groups here and there. In. In the city or around the city, I should say.

[Steve Rinella]

I don't want people to think I'm bringing that up like a golf or getting scratched. I'm not bringing this up as a thing that I'm worried about, and I don't think it's a negative. I mean, not the golf get scratched. I'm not saying I want. I don't want. I think I'd love it if we had bears. I'd like if there's grizzlies all over town.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Like go to Anchorage.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. Oh, for sure. Yeah.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

I, I like them.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

I'm not an anti bear guy whatsoever.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Right.

[Steve Rinella]

I love the bears. I like seeing them. I get excited when I see him anyway. You never, I never meet anybody who's bummed out that they saw a grizzly.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Well, I love them.

[Dusty Lassiter]

As soon as you get mauled, people's attitude sure changes.

[Steve Rinella]

I love them. I just want it to go. I want it to be that there's a bunch of bears and I want it to be that there's. There's a state manage and there's a tag draw. That's what I want.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. Everybody thinks about their self interest. Right.

[Steve Rinella]

Especially me.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. I think it's the story that you, that you portray into the future here. It's how people paint bears. So 399 is a great example. Like you could paint her as a bear that mauled people or you could paint her as the biggest advocate for bears in the, in the world. So yeah, future bears is up to the public. Really.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. And my, you know, you mentioned like everybody wants what their own self interest is. I should clarify that. I'm not going to draw a grizzly bear tag. I live in a state that one had they done. I don't know that I didn't even put in for the tag.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Okay. We didn't do it. If we did one, you're not going to draw it. I mean, what are the odds you're going to draw it? You know, it's like I've been applying for bighorn sheep tag for decades. Haven't drawn one yet.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Do you think a lot of people would?

[Steve Rinella]

A lot. A lot. No, not, not like. Yeah, you get people. You're not going to draw like the draws are going to be slim. So it's not like, it's not like I feel that this is my pathway.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

I mean I hunt Alaska every year. This isn't my, like I'm not pursuing this as. Because it's my personal pathway to getting a grizzly. It's like it's not going to happen. I'm not going to get a grizzly in Montana. I'm not going to get a grizzly in Idaho. I'm not going to get a grizzly in Wyoming. I don't. This isn't all me, you know, with some like Machiavellian plan by which I'll.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Be able to hunt grizzlies you're just being a realist.

[Steve Rinella]

In my neighborhood, it's like just as an advocate for hunters and as an advocate for state management and as an advocate for responsible use of renewable resources. Here's an animal that, that peep that has. Was historically a game animal that has people, that. There's people that hunt them in other places. There's a desire to hunt them. Hunting them is not incompatible with having a stable population. As we've demonstrated with mountain lions, black bears, whitetail deer, mule deer, elk, moose, bighorn sheep, mountain goats. I could go on and on, right? It's not incompatible. I don't know why this should be any different.

[Dusty Lassiter]

This guy's put in.

[Steve Rinella]

You know what I'll do right now? You know what I'm gonna do right now?

[Dusty Lassiter]

He's gonna make a bet, right?

[Steve Rinella]

No, I'm gonna tell you something right now. I'm gonna tell you something right now. Just because you said that, I, I promise I won't put in.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Okay, for how long?

[Steve Rinella]

Ever.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Wow.

[Steve Rinella]

I won't put it. Wow. I won't put in.

[Dusty Lassiter]

It's a true advocate.

[Steve Rinella]

And you go scroll the records and see if you ever see me put in. I won't put in.

[Dusty Lassiter]

I got friends. I'll call. Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

I said one time before, like, talk about in drilling in anwar.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

And people like, oh, yeah. Just because you hunt up there all the time, I'm like, okay, if I could sign a contract that said they won't drill anwar, but I can't ever go there, I would sign the contract.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Right. Me too. It's like, I'm not going there.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. It's like, okay, fine, I need to go there. Just whatever, that's fine. And if I had to sign a contract, we'll delist and turn over to state management and create a hunting season tomorrow. But you have to agree that you'll never apply for a tag. I'd be like, okay, cool. It's like, it's not. That's not what it is for me.

[Dusty Lassiter]

I think the real question here is can you get bears off the list? Can you have state management without people continuing to sue and tear down the esa? Or do you have to change the ESA in order to get animals delisted? And I think that would be horrible if. If you don't get bears off the list.

[Steve Rinella]

You know, that's why my advice to people who support the ESA is to stop effing around with the ESA quot weaponizing it. Because you're gonna, you're gonna. You're gonna do. You're gonna do to the ESA what they did to the spotted owl. Like the spotted owl used to be an owl.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

And then it became a symbol of overreach. Right. You're gonna now create. You're gonna be like you have here. You sit like. Let's say you were like Joey Essay. Right. You're like the die hard defender of the esa. My advice to you, stop weaponizing the esa. Then delist that bear which is hit recovery, which. Which hit recovery objectives 25 years ago.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, but.

[Steve Rinella]

And move on to what's next.

[Dusty Lassiter]

The reason I brought up that bear in the Big Horns is that's in the DPS and that's unoccupied habitat. So, you know, in theory the ESA calls for bears moving into that suitable habitat.

[Steve Rinella]

But they mapped out when they listed them, they mapped out recovery objectives and they hit recovery objectives 20 some years ago.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, that's true. Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Okay, so why bother. Why bother having an Endangered Species Act? Why bother making recovery objectives if it's just.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

If you don't mean it.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. It erodes public trust. No doubt about it.

[Steve Rinella]

2% of the things that go on the ESA come off because of recovery. Things will come off because they realize it wasn't warranted. Things will come off because they'll go extinct. 2% of the things that go on the ESA come off because recovery. Here you have a recovered thing. Why is it not celebrated?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Right.

[Steve Rinella]

They didn't bitch like eagles came off no problem. Peregrine fought like. But this one, they just got to hold it tight to their chest.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

Because it's not about the esa.

[Dusty Lassiter]

It's a moneymaker is what it is.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah. So forget me saying I'm coming at it from a perspective of 100. I'm coming at it from a perspective of someone that wants to get on with. To like salvage the ESA and not make it that it just is a thing of derision.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Glad I bolstered your argument.

[Steve Rinella]

No, thank you. Cut all that out, Phil. So I can just start saying that like I thought of it? Well, man, thanks for coming on the show.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. It's good to meet you guys.

[Steve Rinella]

Is there anything that I. That you wish you got to talk about that I didn't ask about?

[Dusty Lassiter]

I meant to talk about snaring bears. That's something I didn't talk about.

[Steve Rinella]

Tell me about that.

[Dusty Lassiter]

So another way we catch them is with foot snares. And you use what's called an Aldridge Spring. And you put the spring in A snare loop. And you dig a hole, and then you recreate the surface as though it's just ground. And you try to get a bear to step in that. And that's a fun part of trapping.

[Steve Rinella]

So how do you get a step in there, hanging a bait?

[Dusty Lassiter]

A lot of times you have a cubby set and you're trying to direct them into your set, but you're putting sticks. And bears don't like to step on sticks and hurt their feet. So you can kind of control their foot movement with those.

[Steve Rinella]

When you're doing that. So he actually thinks he's putting his foot on the ground, and his foot breaks through the ground.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. And it hits this. Yeah, it's a pit trap. It. It hits this trigger, and that trigger flings a spring, and that pulls that snare cable tight. And the snare cable just has a little bracket that only slides one way, you know? And you. You caught a bear.

[Steve Rinella]

And can you. Is he too messed up or can you release them?

[Dusty Lassiter]

Oh, yeah. No, you. You release those bears.

[Steve Rinella]

He's gotta be pissed.

[Unknown]

Do you get them on video when you do that?

[Dusty Lassiter]

I got some.

[Unknown]

Sounds like a fun visual.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Got some pictures somewhere, I think.

[Steve Rinella]

But he's pissed.

[Dusty Lassiter]

A lot of times they're trying to run off, and they hit the end of that snare cable and they roll over. And sometimes they are pissed and they try to charge you.

[Steve Rinella]

Yep. In regular trapping, you call that blocking.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

A bobcat. Trapper was explaining one time that people would use blocking for bobcats. But what they don't realize is bobcats want to stand on little things.

[Unknown]

Huh.

[Steve Rinella]

So they'd put little rocks to block or put a log to block. But he wants to be on that.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

So this guy, you know. You know the sycamore. You know, a sycamore ball. They don't live around here, but it's like that little pokey little. It's like a pokey little seed pod. There's this trapper that. He doesn't even live in that area, but he gets big things of those sycamore things because it's real spiky, and the cat don't want to put his foot on it. So then you can actually control his foot placement. But you put a stick there, and that cat's like, oh, sweet. Thanks. And misses the pan because he's standing on your blocking. You know, the stuff that's supposed to keep him from wanting to do it.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah.

[Steve Rinella]

So you want stuff that looks, like, uncomfortable for his foot.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Interesting.

[Steve Rinella]

Yeah.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Keep that in Mind, I might just go trap bears on my own. Just for fun.

[Steve Rinella]

Just catch and release. Bear trap.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah. Whose ear tag is this?

[Steve Rinella]

Well, dude, thanks. Thanks for coming out, man. I appreciate it.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, thanks for having me.

[Steve Rinella]

And good luck on your job hunt.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Thanks. Appreciate that.

[Steve Rinella]

Name. Name what line of work you want. Because maybe someone call you and give you a job.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Land conservation, I think could be up my alley. I think that would be beneficial to wildlife. So should I throw out my email? Can do that. They. They. You can throw out your email if you want a bajillion people messaging you. Or they can email us. Yeah. Yep, that's fine.

[Steve Rinella]

Or they can also go ahead.

[Unknown]

Yep, that's true.

[Dusty Lassiter]

My email is just. Dusty Lassiter. L A S S E t e R10@gmail Looking for work. Looking for work. I got a great job. I have a great boss. But I still want to do something that benefits wildlife.

[Steve Rinella]

I got a construction project I might lay out in front of you too.

[Dusty Lassiter]

I can handle it.

[Steve Rinella]

It's in grizzly country.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Yeah, I'm a mediocre carpenter, but that's what.

[Steve Rinella]

That's kind of what looking for. Yeah, perfect.

[Dusty Lassiter]

More of a painter. Just kidding.

[Steve Rinella]

All right, man. Thanks so much.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Unknown]

Fingers and toes so cold that they burn we stand in the creek in our rubber knee high just long enough for me to warm up and then back to the brush Jason cottontail hides I was just just 10 but I got to join in Carol protested Grandpa's firm I've had him shooting since he was knee high this is the day that year then and it broke loose with the ball on the wind hot on the trail and bringing her round we moved up ahead just into the lane where case colored Stevens put two on the ground the morning turned high and he was singing Game pouches filled as the shot shells all flew headed and I couldn't help grinning My fingers all numb and my lips turning blue. Every year at the end of November the memories all washed over me Bittersweet. Gone is the early morning cotton tail hunting and down afternoon targets and skis dinner feast 40 odd people with cousins and uncles who I have forgotten Grandma all hairy rarely so happy Their house full of burst in and meat in the pie that was a way of it Back in my youth I watched it all change through the year.

[Steve Rinella]

As.

[Unknown]

Time will roll both bedrock and bone and old age wilts even the most fierce grandpa we lost in the cold of December Carol A few turns before I bought the farm when they couldn't remember Nothing's the same anymore.

[Steve Rinella]

The farm.

[Unknown]

Got lean the old home lost its change you can hear the wind whistle a tune she creaks and she moans and it's all overgrown but we'll get her looking brand new Every year at the end of November the memories all washed over me Bittersweet known as the early morn Cottontail hunting and afternoon targets and skeets Dinner Feast 40 odd people Cousins and uncles who I have forgot Grandma all harried rarely so happy Their house full of bursting and meat in the pie cause where I'll raise up a few kids of my home maybe one day grandson or two and I'll walk these same hills with a hand on each shoulder hoping maybe we kick up a few praying Lord they feel this way too Every year at the end of November memories all wash over me Bittersweet dawn is the early morning Cottontail hunting afternoon targets and ski and dinner feast for 40 odd people cousins and uncles who I have forgot Grandma harried, rarely so happy Their house full of burst in and meat in the.

[Steve Rinella]

Sa there's nothing more important than spending time out in nature. Pendleton is bottled to honor true Western traditions, and there's nothing more Western than supporting organizations like RMEF and their work in conservation. That's what you're toasting every time you raise a glass of Pendleton whiskey, the official whiskey of the after the hunt moment. It's not just poured, it's earned. Pendleton Distillers Lawrenceburg, Indiana Please drink responsibly. Pendleton is a registered trademark of Pendleton Woolen Mills.

[Dusty Lassiter]

This podcast is supported by BetterHelp, offering.

[Steve Rinella]

Licensed therapists you can connect with via video phone or chat.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Here's BetterHelp head of clinical operations, Hes Yu Jo discussing who can benefit from therapy. I think a lot of people think that you're supposed to be going to therapy once you're like having panic attacks every day. But before you get to that point, I think once you start even noticing that you feel a little bit off and you can't maintain this harmony that you once had in relationships. That could be a sign that maybe you want to go talk to somebody. There's always a benefit in talking to someone because we can all benefit from improved insight about ourselves and who we are and how we behave with other people. So if you're human, that's like a good indicator that you could benefit from talking to somebody.

[Steve Rinella]

Find out if therapy is right for you.

[Dusty Lassiter]

Visit betterhelp.com today.

[Steve Rinella]

That's betterhelp.com I'm sure a lot of you guys Remember the old ceremonial hunting tradition of eating the heart out of the first animal you kill? Meat from those organs are among the most nutrient rich foods on the planet. You can get those same benefits your ancestors craved via convenient daily capsules from Heart and Soil. Find out more at Heart and Soil Co. And remember, use Code me Eater for 10% off your purchase.