Ep. 851: The Promise and Controversy of American Prairie

Steven Rinella https://www.instagram.com/stevenrinella/?hl=en talks with Alison Fox, CEO of American Prairie https://americanprairie.org/. Topics discussed: The history of American Prairie and its aim to create one of the largest land preserves in the country; plains for buffalo; land acquisitions; funding structure; grazing permits and the BLM; block management, hunting on American Prairie lands, access; and more. Connect with Steve https://www.themeateater.com/authors/steven-rinella and The MeatEater Podcast Network https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork Steve on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/stevenrinella and Twitter https://twitter.com/stevenrinella?lang=en MeatEater on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/meateater, Facebook https://www.facebook.com/StevenRinellaMeatEater/, Twitter https://twitter.com/MeatEaterTV?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor, and YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:03Speaker 02

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• 1:05Speaker 03

  And Joel Larsgaard.

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• 1:39Steven Rinella?

  What you're about to listen to is a conversation with Allison Fox, the CEO of American Prairie. For 25 years, American Prairie has been executing on an ambitious and highly controversial plan to buy hundreds of thousands of acres of ranchland in the vicinity of the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge in north central Montana in order to ultimately compile a contiguous block of private and public lands that are 50% larger than Yellowstone National Park, all open to the public. So far, they've managed to buy 169,000 acres. Their aim is to manage the land to maximize wildlife habitat health

• 2:20Steven Rinella?

  and restore a grassland ecosystem inhabited by a full suite of native wildlife, including the American buffalo. Fans and supporters of the plan see a Yellowstone of the Great Plains, or to steal a term from the historian Dan Flory's, an American Serengeti. Opponents see an evil land grab that poses an existential threat to the American cowboy.

• 2:53Steven Rinella?

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• 3:27Steven Rinella?

  All right, everybody. I'm joined today by Allison Fox. She goes by Ally.

• 3:31Speaker 05

  Yes, I do.

• 3:32Steven Rinella?

  Correct. The CEO of American Prairie. You may have known, and I didn't even catch when this happened. American Prairie at the time was American Prairie Reserve.

• 3:41Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 3:42Steven Rinella?

  But became American Prairie. How long ago?

• 3:45Speaker 05

  2021.

• 3:47Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 3:47Speaker 05

  And before that, we were American Prairie Foundation.

• 3:49Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 3:49Speaker 05

  It's been a journey.

• 3:50Steven Rinella?

  All right. So now landed officially on American Prairie. She's been the, she's led the organization since February 2018 and has been with the organization in very role, various roles since 2007. Here in the state of Montana, they're, they're based here in the state of Montana, primarily in north central Montana. I'm gonna let you explain what the mission is. Okay. But it, but American Prairie is, and we'll get into what it is and what it's been interpreted as and controversy surrounding the organization. But it is a one of a kind effort.

• 4:32Speaker 05

  That is true.

• 4:33Steven Rinella?

  It is a one of a kind habitat restoration effort going on and it presents certain challenges. But I would like you first to lay out, like lay out for the audience, lay out for me. What is the American Prairie vision?

• 4:49Speaker 05

  Okay, let me start with what American Prairie is today.

• 4:52Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 4:52Speaker 05

  So, American Prairie is a nearly 25 year old conservation organization. We are based here in Montana. We are a team of Montanans leading this organization and today we manage 605,000 acres of habitat, of deeded and leased public lands, lands that are open to the public and are all located around the Charlie Russell National Wildlife Refuge up in north central Montana. The ultimate vision is to, using private philanthropy, purchase private lands to link together existing public lands around the Charlie Russell National Wildlife Refuge for eventually a landscape of about 3 million acres.

• 5:34Speaker 05

  So, we've assembled 605,000 acres toward 2 million acres next to the 1.1 million acre Charlie Russell National Wildlife Refuge. These lands are-

• 5:44Steven Rinella?

  Back those numbers up, Mick, I want to follow this.

• 5:45Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 5:46Steven Rinella?

  The current Charlie Russell land, so this is like BLM public land.

• 5:55Speaker 05

  It's US Fish and Wildlife Service.

• 5:57Steven Rinella?

  That's US Fish, okay, I'm sorry. So, the actual CMR proper is how many acres?

• 6:02Speaker 05

  It's 1.1 million acres.

• 6:03Steven Rinella?

  1.1 million acres, okay.

• 6:05Speaker 05

  And it's along the Missouri, for those who are not familiar, it's a long and skinny wildlife refuge along the Missouri River.

• 6:11Steven Rinella?

  Got it.

• 6:12Speaker 05

  So, it's river, river bottom, steep breaks on either side, down to the river.

• 6:16Steven Rinella?

  I guess when you were saying that in my head, I'm mixing up the National Wild Scenic River. Designation, but you're talking about the, the CMR, the, the, the reserve.

• 6:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, the refuge.

• 6:29Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 6:30Speaker 05

  Second largest refuge in the, in the lower 48.

• 6:32Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 6:33Speaker 05

  And then what you're referring to is the, is the Missouri River portion, the, the White Cliffs portion.

• 6:39Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 6:39Speaker 05

  That, um, that has Wild and Scenic River designation and that goes through the monument.

• 6:43Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 6:43Speaker 05

  The Upper Missouri Breaks National Monument.

• 6:45Steven Rinella?

  And that's, that's a huge complex of public lands extending off.

• 6:48Speaker 05

  Exactly. It's somewhere around 400,000 acres.

• 6:51Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 6:51Speaker 05

  450,000 acres.

• 6:53Steven Rinella?

  Okay. So the, so the refuge is how many acres?

• 6:56Speaker 05

  Uh, 1.1 million.

• 6:57Steven Rinella?

  Okay. Just for con- for, for context for people, Yellowstone National Park is about 2 million acres.

• 7:03Speaker 05

  Exactly. Glacier is about a million.

• 7:05Steven Rinella?

  Okay. Got it.

• 7:06Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 7:06Steven Rinella?

  All right. So there's, so the ultimate goal you're saying is make like the shooting for 3 million contiguous acres.

• 7:13Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 7:13Steven Rinella?

  Um, and, and how many so far?

• 7:16Speaker 05

  So 600 and 5,000 next to 1.1 million acres.

• 7:19Steven Rinella?

  Okay. Okay. Um, there's a huge buffalo component to this thing.

• 7:25Speaker 05

  There is.

• 7:26Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Let's, let's explain that to folks.

• 7:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 7:29Steven Rinella?

  This is where, this is where I get interested.

• 7:32Steven Rinella?

  I'm interested in the whole thing, but this is where I have like a more detailed fine point interest.

• 7:36Speaker 05

  Real tattoo or not?

• 7:37Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Fake tattoo.

• 7:38Speaker 05

  Fake tattoo, yeah.

• 7:42Speaker 05

  So, so let's just start with what this landscape looked like, what our Great Plains looked like for, for thousands and thousands of years. And that, as you know, as you've written about, was, um, tens of millions of bison out on this landscape or buffalo out on this landscape, um, in a very, very short time. And, and Dan Flores care, um, talks about this in, in, in his book, American Serengeti, as the greatest loss of wildlife at the, that had human hands in, in sort of modern human history, documented human history, that we went from. Thirty plus million animals to less than a thousand in Yellowstone National Park. So, good conservation has been happening to, to return bison.

• 8:26Speaker 05

  I think there are about a half million in both conservation and production herds in the country now. And I think it's less than 20,000 that are in conservation herds. You, you may know that exact number.

• 8:38Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, it's like about 90. I mean, well, just kind of the, a good way to understand it is about 95% of them are privately owned.

• 8:45Speaker 05

  Okay, yeah, so that number's about, that number's about right. And so, from the, American Prairie is not a buffalo or bison project entirely. We are a full ecosystem, full conservation and public access. And I hope we talk a lot about public access too.

• 9:00Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, we will, sure.

• 9:01Speaker 05

  Public access project. But from the beget, from basically American Prairie's start, we recognize that bringing bison back to the landscape was a, was an important part of demonstrating the ultimate vision and bringing that native grazer back to the land. So, American Prairie has grazed bison on our lands since 2005. We bought the first property in 2004. This was a few years before my time, but that early team was, was brave and intrepid. And they brought 16 animals in from Wind Cave National Park in 2005. And we have been growing this conservation herd ever since. It's about 940 animals now on two, two of our 12 units.

• 9:44Speaker 05

  So, the, the 600, 5,000 acres is split up into, into a number of units based on what, which properties were available for, for purchase.

• 9:53Steven Rinella?

  Mm-hmm. You know what I didn't know till the other day? I'm, I'm writing a, I'm writing a, like an updated afterword for my buffalo book because it's been 18 years. And, and so I'm doing a, I'm doing kind of a snapshot of, I, I don't talk about American Prairie animals, but I'm doing a snapshot of what I define as like really truly free range herds that can move across jurisdictions.

• 10:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, which there are a few.

• 10:25Steven Rinella?

  Very few, right? Very few that can move across jurisdictions.

• 10:28Speaker 05

  Henry's Mountains, Book Cliffs.

• 10:30Steven Rinella?

  Um.

• 10:32Steven Rinella?

  One that, but that discussion brought, in that discussion, I'm talking about the ones that live on the North Rim, and there's a population on the North Rim that can move, that can move across jurisdictions.

• 10:42Speaker 05

  Of the Grand Canyon.

• 10:42Steven Rinella?

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

• 10:57Speaker 05

  Yes, probably.

• 10:59Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, I was reading about that.

• 11:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:01Steven Rinella?

  So that that was used as a foundation herd for, for other conservation herds.

• 11:05Speaker 05

  Yeah. We have, you know, we have 940 animals today. We have raised more than 2,000 animals in this 20-year history of bison on the landscape, and north of 650 have been distributed to other conservation herds, and we've helped start a number of herds. Many of those are tribal herds, but some of them are federally or state managed herds.

• 11:28Steven Rinella?

  You know, years ago, we did an interview with Sean Garrity.

• 11:34Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 11:35Steven Rinella?

  Is Sean Garrity, like, how do you describe what his role is in, in American prairie?

• 11:41Speaker 05

  Today?

• 11:42Steven Rinella?

  Or just historically?

• 11:43Speaker 05

  So, so Sean, Sean was the founder of American prairie. He, this idea was not his, it, it came, and we can talk about where the idea originated, but he was the first CEO, and

• 11:54Steven Rinella?

  Oh, so he did hold the CEO position?

• 11:55Speaker 05

  He held the CEO position, and he, he started with the organization, I mean, he built the entire organization. He came from business, he came from a consulting background, he knew a lot about organizational management and design, and it was, you know, he was, he was the entrepreneur who built the organization. So Sean was the CEO, president CEO for 17 years, and then I, I took over, I worked for Sean for 10 years, and then took over in 2018 from Sean, and then he continued to serve on the board for a bit, and is now an emeritus director.

• 12:31Steven Rinella?

  Got it. What?

• 12:36Steven Rinella?

  A thing that we had talked about when I spoke with him and it surprised me is I sort of, maybe other people do, I used to have an association between American Prairie, like conceptually, between American Prairie and the, remember the sociologists that had this idea of Buffalo Commons?

• 12:54Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 12:54Steven Rinella?

  He didn't like the, he didn't, he was uncomfortable with the relationship. But it felt like, to me, like, like, if it, if not intentional, such an interesting, it was like an interesting point of comparison or an interesting coincidence.

• 13:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 13:13Steven Rinella?

  Do you know, because, and I want to like, explain to listeners quickly, like, a thing that, what I'm talking about is, I think it was like Frank Popper, Mary Pop, Poppers was her last name?

• 13:24Speaker 05

  Deborah, I believe.

• 13:25Steven Rinella?

  There was these sociologists and they looked at this idea, well, let me, let me back up even further to a different part of this, just for listeners' understanding. If you think of, when you think of like, big national forests in the West, a lot of times, national forests in the West, they were, they were, had always been set aside as forest reserves, they were undeveloped landscapes. In the East, you had this thing, east of the Mississippi, a lot of these big national forests, like the one I grew up near, I grew up near the Manistee National Forest. The Manistee National Forest was assembled after the fact, like, much of the Manistee National Forest had been homesteaded and people bought it for agriculture, after the big logging era.

• 14:08Steven Rinella?

  But a lot of that land couldn't be made to pay. And people bailed on it, they bailed on back taxes, they just walked away from the land. And over time, they had this, there's this whole story where they had the Weeks Act, they made money, like, the government had money, and they started to reassemble abandoned landscapes into the national forests that are in the eastern US.

• 14:30Steven Rinella?

  Years ago, it was in the seventies, maybe, someone brought up this idea that these sociologists were looking at areas on the Great Plains that they would see that would, over time, had less and less population.

• 14:46Steven Rinella?

  And they put forth this idea, you know, it was just like this kind of observation that if landscapes, if landscapes depopulated, would you see like, you know, would some sort of new, like, after the fact wilderness emerge in depopulated landscapes? And that, I think that when they were looking, they were sort of like, happened to be looking in this particular area of the state, as Great Plains became, as portions of the Great Plains became less populated. I think, I remember reading about this in Ian Frazier's book, Great Plains.

• 15:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 15:25Steven Rinella?

  And ultimately, that's kind of where this idea emerged, but it's not, but it's not like a reflection of that. But I think that people hold that in their heads, maybe.

• 15:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, and the idea was called Buffalo Common, so it was particularly looking at what the decimation of buffalo on the landscape and where could buffalo come back. I think Sean's point, and it's a good one, is that they were just one of many who were looking at our Great Plains, at, if you even look at a global level, at temperate grasslands, and saying, where could you restore that full ecosystem? And so, you know, I like to point out that it was the American painter George Catlin in the 1930s, 1830s, excuse me, who called for the establishment of a nation's park on our grasslands.

• 16:15Speaker 05

  He was just, as he was coming up the Missouri River, he was just, you know, astonished by the numbers of animals that he saw. And he has this great quote about being lifted up on... Upon a pair of imaginary wings and seeing just endless herds of buffalo below him and calling for the establishment of a nation's park for man and beast.

• 16:39Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 16:39Speaker 05

  Uh, which of course never happened and we never set aside a large portion of our grasslands.

• 16:46Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, why, why was that? Like, they, they went out, they, they got to Yellowstone, you know, like you hear all the stories, the conservation history stories, like someone's like Yosemite, now there's a place.

• 16:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 16:57Steven Rinella?

  That should be, we should save a chunk of that. And they go to Yellowstone like, man, we should save a chunk of this. But on the, on the, the grasslands, it just didn't occur to anybody.

• 17:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think in part it was, it was timing, you know, we were, we were settling the grasslands and of course, you know, with the, with the extermination of, of the buffalo, we were pushing indigenous nations off and into, onto reservations as well. Um, and so that period from 1872, when we established Yellowstone through kind of the, the mid 20th century, uh, we weren't viewing that, the, the wildlife was gone from the grasslands and we weren't viewing that as, as something to be protected. And I think there's also the sort of scenic bias, right? Like we like really tall mountains and we like, um, and we like deep canyons and, you

• 17:49Speaker 05

  know, geysers and, uh, and, and the subtlety, you know, that you know, you know this landscape. It's, it's vast and complex and beautiful, but you don't, um, that's not, it, it's not, it's dramatic in a different way.

• 18:04Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, you get something you gotta learn to love.

• 18:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 18:06Steven Rinella?

  When, when I think about the timeline, you know, like, like, early conservationists, a, a way to understand how quickly early conservationists recognize certain things like Yellowstone and, and Yosemite, these like very, almost, um, like, like two, like so obviously scenic, right? That Yellowstone was a protected park. Yellowstone had tourists.

• 18:35Steven Rinella?

  When, when they were, we were still fighting the Indian wars.

• 18:38Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 18:39Steven Rinella?

  When the Nez Perce fled reservation confinement

• 18:44Steven Rinella?

  in, in, uh, e- eastern Washington.

• 18:47Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 18:48Steven Rinella?

  Western Idaho, when the Nez Perce were fleeing reservation compi- confinement and the Nez Perce war started.

• 18:56Steven Rinella?

  Part of their, a part of their retreat led them through Yellowstone. And they're having like shootouts in the park while there are tourists there. It was like that early, that early in the history of the West, but it was just like not.

• 19:12Speaker 05

  The wagons were already going from.

• 19:14Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, and if at that point in time, someone had come in and said, man, you know, let's do a couple million acres too out on the Great Plains. They would be like, they would be as celebrated today for that decision as we celebrate. You know, the people that were involved in Yellowstone.

• 19:34Speaker 05

  And those were the decades where we were really decimating those herds.

• 19:38Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 19:38Speaker 05

  Eighteen seventies, eighteen eighties.

• 19:39Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 19:40Speaker 05

  Um, those were, you know, those were the years where, you know, that we were just slaughtering these, these animals. So.

• 19:47Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. When, when did the, when did the idea of American Prairie first take shape? Like, like, how did it take shape and, and when?

• 19:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, there were a number of conservation organizations and coalitions in like the late nineties. Yeah, the late nineties, basically, who said, uh, we're looking again at, at temperate grasslands across the globe and particularly the northern Great Plains. And recognizing that, um, we didn't, we, we didn't have those, uh, those large protected areas.

• 20:19Steven Rinella?

  Mm hmm.

• 20:19Speaker 05

  And it was, it was World Wildlife Fund was the, the, the organization that founded American Prairie from the beginning as a independent 501(c)(3). With the the model that we now have today, which is private philanthropy to purchase private lands to link together existing public lands. And so that this region in Montana, they recognized for its wildlife history, they recognized it for the abundance of public lands, and they recognized that, you know, well over 90% has is intact, Native Prairie has not been plowed, and it's been well stewarded.

• 20:51Steven Rinella?

  Oh, okay.

• 20:52Speaker 05

  So the habitat is is in is in good shape. And that those were really the factors that led them to choose this area. There were there are other, you know, bigger protected grassland areas in South Dakota and Colorado and Wyoming, but American they they chose this area for American Prairie to to do its work.

• 21:11Steven Rinella?

  When did you first find out about it? Like, how'd you first get turned on to it personally?

• 21:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, personally. So I moved I'm from a small town in Vermont, and I spent a summer up in Glacier National Park and College. And that was the beginning of my time in Montana. I met a Montanan, who's now my husband, and just completely fell in love with the the big landscapes of the West, big tracts of public land. I grew up hiking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and the Green Mountains in Vermont. But these these really, really big expanses of public lands were were relatively new to me. So I would have probably come into Montana anyway. So I moved to Bozeman right after college and worked for a software company for a few years. And while I was here, met a college classmate of mine, whose parents were involved with American Prairie. And

• 22:00Speaker 05

  that's how I learned about it. So I when when after I went to graduate school, we moved back to Bozeman. And that's when I got involved.

• 22:08Steven Rinella?

  When when American Prairie was taking shape, like, it was called American Prairie Foundation at the time.

• 22:14Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 22:15Steven Rinella?

  What was the first step? Like, the first step had to have been like a piece of land acquisition?

• 22:21Speaker 05

  I mean, the first step was building a board of directors.

• 22:24Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, I guess the first tangible step.

• 22:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, first, yeah, so first step was building, building a board, starting to, to raise money. Um, and then, and then, yeah, and then acquiring property, the first property was the end of 2004. So that, we were founded in 2001. That was a pretty quick turn to get the, to get the organization up off the, off the ground.

• 22:48Steven Rinella?

  You know, the thing that like, on that property, I want to talk about that property purchase for a minute. Cause this is the thing that always puzzles me about the conversations that, that people have around American Prairie. Is it like,

• 23:04Steven Rinella?

  you, you guys have always been like willing seller, willing buyer.

• 23:08Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 23:10Steven Rinella?

  Okay. It's like, if, if someone owns land, like most Americans, most Westerners would agree. That if someone owns a ranch and they decide, their family decides that it's time to sell the ranch, that that would be their business.

• 23:27Steven Rinella?

  Most people would agree with this. That it would be that when you want to sell a ranch,

• 23:34Steven Rinella?

  that's your call. That there wouldn't be like a government entity would come in and say, you cannot sell that ranch. You must hold on to that ranch. People would agree that you should be able to do what you want. So you list it. And you have a price and no one's holding a gun to your head. And you, as a free American, like a, a free Westerner, takes their offers.

• 24:00Steven Rinella?

  And you consider the offers that you have, you consider the bids that you have. And you sell to the one, um, generally speaking, I think most people are going to sell to the highest bidder. And they're going to sell to, to, to who they choose.

• 24:15Speaker 05

  Right.

• 24:16Steven Rinella?

  And I would feel that most Americans, most Westerners would be like, that makes sense to me.

• 24:25Speaker 05

  I think they do.

• 24:26Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, they do.

• 24:26Speaker 05

  No, I think they do.

• 24:27Steven Rinella?

  But oftentimes not if you guys buy it. Which to me is so weird because people like get it. It's an app like, like, I mean, just like frankly, anyone doing any kind of major thing like it becomes controversial. Like frankly, like you guys, I mean, you can't deny it like you guys are a, a like somewhat controversial organization.

• 24:52Speaker 05

  I appreciate that qualifier. Yes, yes, no, we are absolutely.

• 24:55Steven Rinella?

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

• 25:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, I, I agree with everything you've said.

• 25:32Steven Rinella?

  Like if I sold my house.

• 25:33Speaker 05

  Forty nine times now.

• 25:34Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, if I sold my house and someone bought my house that later someone would be mad. I'm like, dude, mind your own business.

• 25:40Speaker 05

  Well, I think two things can be true though. Steve, I think they can say, they can say, well, good for my neighbor. My neighbor found a, a buyer who will pay fair market value. My neighbor might have found a buyer who has, has agreed to lease back to them for a number of years so they can have some transition their family or transition their operations somewhere else. They can say, can think, yes, good for my buyer, private market transaction, willing buyer, willing seller. They can also be disappointed and wish that their new neighbor was, you know, was going to be, was, was a cattle rancher or was, or was a different buyer, right? And was not American Prairie.

• 26:22Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 26:22Speaker 05

  So it's, it's change and.

• 26:24Steven Rinella?

  It is change, but if you were, if you were buying for a data center, then I would understand people being pissed.

• 26:31Steven Rinella?

  More, I would better understand people being pissed. But if you imagine that there's like, there's a spectrum. Okay, there's a spectrum being like on one end of the spectrum is data center. Right?

• 26:43Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 26:44Steven Rinella?

  Or like, I don't know, uh, um, a data center, a, a nuclear power plant, like whatever, there's a spectrum

• 26:51Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 26:51Steven Rinella?

  Of refinery.

• 26:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 26:53Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 26:54Speaker 05

  Even a large residential development, maybe.

• 26:55Steven Rinella?

  A big, a big residential, big residential, uh, development. Yeah, whatever. That's on one end would be like, oh, man, that's a bummer. Right? On the other end would be, on the other end would be like habitat preservation and restoration, which is kind of like, oh, more of a like, it's more of a like doing of not doing on one end.

• 27:20Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 27:22Steven Rinella?

  And then over here is like data center. And I would say that like running cattle sits very close to the habitat thing. I'm a cows, not condos guy.

• 27:33Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 27:33Steven Rinella?

  So I would put like running cattle over in this area. Data center over in this area, develop like housing development. This, right?

• 27:43Speaker 05

  Right.

• 27:43Steven Rinella?

  So like, like the fact that you're, the fact that you guys buy land in order to have it be just kind of like habitat, it seems to me like, sort of like, uh, even like that reinforces in my mind, what would be like a non-issue.

• 27:58Speaker 05

  Well, I'm, I'm really glad you're raising this because I think most of our neighbors, I know most of our neighbors don't mind having us as a neighbor. We have a lot in common and of course what gets, you know, blown up, it's the loudest voices is the, i- is the, the controversy. But whether there are cows on American Prairies lands or bison, and there are a lot more cows than, than bison, and we can talk about that. The, there's a lot of common ground in the way that we're running our operations. There's a lot of common, uh, love and appreciation and responsibility for the stewardship of these grasslands, the stewardship of, uh, these grasslands for a lot of different wildlife species. We're buying the same trucks.

• 28:43Speaker 05

  We're using the same fencing contractors. It is a, there is a lot, a lot of common ground and you don't, you don't see that common ground necessarily in a slogan, right?

• 28:53Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

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• 31:06Steven Rinella?

  What in your mind, like if you had to express it to somebody, what, what in your mind is the,

• 31:14Steven Rinella?

  like what in your mind do people feel is being lost on this? From your perspective, what do they feel is being lost on this like, you know, sizable? Piece of ground, but, but not something on the scale of like, uh, you know, not even on this, it's not even on the scale of what we have agreed to be a wildlife refuge.

• 31:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, I, I think it's, I think it's change and it's change that has been occurring on this landscape for decades and it is, it is perceived as a, a loss of a way of life and there's been consolidation in, you know, consolidation of land ownership over those decades. There has been, uh, you know, public lands ranching is a very, very difficult business. It's a very difficult business and there are a lot of global factors that are, are not, uh, that American Perry has nothing to do with, um, that are putting pressure on the industry. And then an organization comes in and, uh, is

• 32:19Speaker 05

  the, the new kid on the block is, is, uh, has different aims for their, their private lands, um, and is bringing in a, a new species, uh, like, like buffalo and, and, and it represents, it represents change. Um, and I think that's-

• 32:35Steven Rinella?

  New, a new old.

• 32:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. Well, yes, exactly. A, a new old because, because bison are not, of course, um, new to this landscape. But, um, yeah, I think, I think that's, I think that's really at the, the root of it.

• 32:48Steven Rinella?

  Mm hmm. What, what, what do you, how, what would you say in conversation when like, you did a great, I, I appreciate your ability to articulate that. A lot of people I find don't, that aren't comfortable articulating someone else's perspective.

• 33:04Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm not entirely, no, I'm not entirely comfortable too, cause I'm, I don't, I'm, I'm not, um, you know, native to Phillips County and, um, I certainly have spent a lot, a lot of time on that landscape and I've, um, I've, you know, I know a lot of our neighbors, our team knows a lot of our neighbors. I've, I've heard the perspective articulated. Um, so I, I want to be, you know, somewhat careful putting words in people's mouths, but I, I also see- I grew up in a small town and I know how much small towns value, community value,

• 33:41Speaker 05

  tradition and you see the one-room schoolhouses and you see, you know, you hear about the traditions that, some of which still exist that used to happen up there. Like one time we were at one of the community halls and we were having a big community feed. It was really fun. A bunch of American Prairie folks were there and our neighbors were there and kids were all running around and the kids came out with a pole vault.

• 34:07Steven Rinella?

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:08Speaker 05

  We're in the middle of ranch country. I didn't know what a pole vault of all things. And I learned that there used to be an event at these community schools that was a track meet in, or a spelling bee in the morning and a track meet in the afternoon. And like, that's a really cool, that's a really cool community tradition, right, amongst all these country schools, of which there are not many anymore. And so, you know, that human honoring, that human heritage in those kind of lifeways on the prairie, whether they're, you know, indigenous and are for thousands of years, or if, or they're more recent, settling ranching families for a number of generations, like that is important to American Prairie and

• 34:53Speaker 05

  recognizing that everyone's still out there and we together can, can look at what, what is the, what is the future of the landscape? What are our shared values? What do we want this, this place to look like? Those are the conversations that we, that we want to be having.

• 35:09Steven Rinella?

  How many bison do you guys have on the ground right now?

• 35:11Speaker 05

  Nine hundred and forty.

• 35:12Steven Rinella?

  You know how many cattle are in this state?

• 35:15Speaker 05

  Uh, in this, I know it's a lot more than, a lot more cattle than people and I know in the-

• 35:21Steven Rinella?

  There's a couple million, there's a couple million.

• 35:22Speaker 05

  It's a couple million, yeah. I was gonna say two, two and a half.

• 35:24Steven Rinella?

  And you guys have, how many bison?

• 35:25Speaker 05

  Nine hundred and forty. And there are about a half million cattle in the seven counties where we own land. And on American Prairie's properties, there are eight to 10,000 cattle. Cause we're leasing, we're leasing either to the former owner or leasing to a neighbor on 10 of our 12 units.

• 35:42Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Can you remind me again, the, how many deeded acres you have?

• 35:47Speaker 05

  There are about 170,000 deeded acres.

• 35:49Steven Rinella?

  170,000 deeded acres.

• 35:51Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 35:52Steven Rinella?

  And people, you allow people-

• 35:56Steven Rinella?

  People can walk across, like, people can walk on all that land.

• 36:00Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. It's all open. Yeah, that people can walk, they can cross, always cross, with a couple of exceptions, like, right by our staff houses, but they can cross deeded land to get to public land. We have dispersed camping, and we could talk about that, how, how we open access, but, you know, we have 80,000 acres enrolled in block management in, in Montana, in, on those properties, so.

• 36:32Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, I want to talk about that.

• 36:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, we can talk about that, but yes.

• 36:34Steven Rinella?

  I want to talk about the walking part, though, just for a minute.

• 36:36Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 36:37Steven Rinella?

  Meaning, if someone's going along on OnX, they're cruising along on OnX, they see all the land ownership would say American Prairie, right?

• 36:45Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:46Steven Rinella?

  So if you see American Prairie on OnX, you'd be able to park, you can park your car and go walk around?

• 36:51Speaker 05

  Yes, absolutely.

• 36:53Steven Rinella?

  No one's gonna yell at you?

• 36:54Speaker 05

  No one's gonna yell at you, no.

• 36:56Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 36:56Speaker 05

  They're gonna welcome you.

• 36:57Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. On the, on the land that you have grazing leases,

• 37:02Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:04Steven Rinella?

  the only thing you really have access to is you just have the leasing right?

• 37:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's a privilege. It's a leasing privilege, yeah.

• 37:09Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, leasing privilege, meaning if, if you have a lease on BLM land, that doesn't have any factor on someone going hunting birds on the BLM land.

• 37:19Speaker 05

  No, those are our public lands.

• 37:20Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, it's just like regular public lands. So when someone says, when you say you have federal lands that are leased, BLM lands that are leased, what that means is you have, like, you have, like, an exclusivity around grazing livestock?

• 37:36Speaker 05

  Yes, yes.

• 37:37Steven Rinella?

  And that's it? It's not like, you don't have, like, like, it doesn't come with mineral rights, it doesn't come with, with exclusive hunting rights, it just is grazing?

• 37:46Speaker 05

  That's, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. Um, in, in this part of, of, well, across the west, but particularly in this part of Montana, um, most ranching operations are made, their ranching operations are made up of about a third deeded private acres and two thirds leased acres.

• 38:06Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 38:07Speaker 05

  Primarily BLM, but there are state sections in, in there as well. Um, and the, the, the ranching operation depends on, on both that private land and that public land. But as the owner of what's called the base property, you have that preferential grazing privilege on those associated public lands and the 10 year renewable grazing leases.

• 38:29Steven Rinella?

  10 year renewable.

• 38:30Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 38:31Steven Rinella?

  So when you buy a ranch, if that ranch has a, a lease, the lease transfers to the new buyer.

• 38:36Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 38:37Steven Rinella?

  Got it. And that's good until you, if you renew it or not.

• 38:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, you have to be, you have to pay your grazing fees, fees and, and be a good steward of those lands and, and take care of that rangeland. But yes, it, it's, um, it, it, it continues to renew as long as that you meet those conditions.

• 38:52Steven Rinella?

  Can, can you explain for me what? I kinda, I, I mostly understand it, but I'd like to hear you explain it. In the news lately, there's been this, this, this, I don't know what to call it, there's been this like policy shift of saying, um, that if you lease land and run, if you lea, if you have a grazing lease, historically, you would be able to graze, uh, buffalo on that ground. But there's a move now to make it that you cannot?

• 39:28Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm. Yes.

• 39:31Steven Rinella?

  That's gotta be just, that's gotta be just, cause that's gotta be just directed at you, right?

• 39:37Speaker 05

  Oh, yes, it is. Yes, it's directed just at us. So.

• 39:41Steven Rinella?

  Like that would have not come up.

• 39:42Speaker 05

  So going back to.

• 39:43Steven Rinella?

  If it wasn't for you guys.

• 39:44Speaker 05

  Yeah. Going back to, and then we're right in the middle of this, so the final decision has not come out. There's a proposed decision from the, from the BLM.

• 39:52Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, lay this all out. This has been very interesting.

• 39:54Speaker 05

  So this, this grazing regime that I just talked about ties back to the 1934 Grazing Act. Um, the Taylor Grazing Act of, of 1934. And that grazing act was, um, to. To sort of make sure we're taking good care of our rangelands in the West. And that's what established, started this precedent of these grazing privileges tied to base properties. The Taylor Grazing Act and the, and it's to support the livestock industry. And that the Taylor Grazing Act, though, does not say what species and bison have been, bison are livestock in Montana.

• 40:35Speaker 05

  So important thing to say is that American prairie's bison are livestock and they are our private property. We pay the livestock taxes on those. We pay, obviously, the grazing fees and we are not alone in grazing bison on public lands. And so, American prairie has been permitted to graze bison as livestock after environmental assessment is done on the, on the affected lands. We've been, we have been permitted to do that since 2005. So 20 years. And bison have been grazing on public lands for 40 years. And they have been grazing in six states.

• 41:16Speaker 05

  And there are about 40 permates across those six states who are grazing bison on these public lands.

• 41:26Steven Rinella?

  And that's been happening for 40 years.

• 41:27Speaker 05

  That's been happening for 40 years. For American prairie, it's been happening for 20 years.

• 41:30Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. I want, I need to pause on this thing, just to help listeners on, this is a thing I talk about frequently, but just to help listeners understand a thing is, um, we recently covered on the podcast, this interesting move that Colorado made. Colorado passed legislation that says if a, if a buffalo walks into the state of Colorado, like naturally, walks in on his own four hooves, he's wildlife.

• 42:00Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:01Steven Rinella?

  Okay? But that, but that designation of them coming in from a, like, walking in as wildlife, that designation doesn't impact privately owned ones, which are regulated as livestock.

• 42:16Steven Rinella?

  Montana doesn't have an equivalent law. Wyoming doesn't have an equivalent law to that, meaning when they're on, when they're in the state, they're regarded as a livestock animal. This is me talking, not you talking. Like, I wholeheartedly disagree with that. Like, I think that, I think that other states, and again, this is Steve, not Allison saying this. I would love to see,

• 42:43Steven Rinella?

  like, Montana could be doing a lot more, Wyoming could be doing a lot more to create room for buffalo to be wildlife. They could be doing a lot more to create buffalo space for them as a wildlife species, which they are. But they're not legally regarded as wildlife. But your point being, I think, is important to understand is that you guys have animals. You have bison. But your bison are like, they're legally livestock. And so they're registered as livestock. Like, you have to be like, each one is a registered creature.

• 43:21Speaker 05

  Well, we have to meet all the disease requirements and they are fenced, obviously. And we're meeting all the, the requirements of the Montana Department of Livestock.

• 43:29Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. I think, I think a difference is you got, you know what it might be? And I want you to continue, but it's like, part of the thing is you guys,

• 43:39Steven Rinella?

  in my, I, in my view, there's a sort of that you perceive of them as, like, you perceive of them as wildlife.

• 43:50Steven Rinella?

  You, you're still able to imagine them as wildlife.

• 43:54Speaker 05

  We, we, we manage them and we absolutely manage them. We, we manage them for their, for their wild characteristics and their display of wild characteristics. But we are disease testing them, we are vaccinating them, we are keeping them home, we are paying attention to stalking rates. We are, we're rounding them up and running them through our handling facility.

• 44:21Speaker 05

  Uh, following low stress techniques for sure, so that both we're paying a lot of attention to hu- human safety and animal safety, uh, but we are, we are absolutely managing them. But this is, you're getting at the root of what the BLM is now said, which is that our bison are not production animals and they have not defined production. They've never used a production standard in the past, but they're say, they're arguing that because our animals are not, uh, production animals, that that's why, um, they're proposing changing these bison grazing permits back to cattle only grazing permits.

• 44:57Steven Rinella?

  So just, uh, just, I want to make sure, cause I, I kinda like made us go off on that little livestock wildlife thing.

• 45:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 45:04Steven Rinella?

  Um, just, just to get to re-clarify a point you made, that 40 years ago, someone allowed, it was decided that if you had a grazing, a federal grazing lease, meaning you have the, you have the right to run your livestock on federally managed public land.

• 45:25Speaker 05

  Right.

• 45:26Steven Rinella?

  Say BLM, BLM ground. Um, the BLM ground stays open to everybody.

• 45:31Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 45:32Steven Rinella?

  You still hunt it and hang out, do whatever you want to do on there, but someone has the right to, to graze it with their animals. Forty years ago, you could, your animals could be cattle, your animals could be bison.

• 45:42Speaker 05

  They could be goats, they could be sheep. Yes.

• 45:45Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 45:46Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 45:47Steven Rinella?

  On that thing. Time goes on and, and someone, right, very recently is like, hey, wait a minute. I don't like what's going on. I don't like this whole bison thing going on up here. We should have it be that that doesn't count.

• 46:06Speaker 05

  Yes. And, and more specifically in 2019, we, uh, we put, um, we put in for a change of use request to change to bison on six, uh, six federal allotments.

• 46:20Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 46:21Speaker 05

  And the BLM did a three-year environmental, uh, analysis to determine that yes, American Prairie could have these bison grazing permits on these six allotments. Allotments are what the, are what the chunks of BLM land are called. Um, and, uh, they made that decision in July of 2022.

• 46:41Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 46:42Speaker 05

  It was challenged.

• 46:43Steven Rinella?

  What did the, what did the environmental impact statement turn up?

• 46:45Speaker 05

  It, it, it turned up that, that, um,

• 46:50Speaker 05

  That bison are good for the land.

• 46:52Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, they eat grass, they drop manure, kinda like a cow.

• 46:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, I know, that, that, that, that. A lot like a cow. Of course, no, the environmental impacts are, are, are good for the land and that the, the socio, uh, the, the social and economic impacts are, um, are, are good too, basically. So they, they did a very thorough analysis. There was a public comment period, obviously it was a three-year process, so it was, it was thorough. Um, and then that was immediately challenged by, um, uh, by the, the governor's office and a number of state agencies and the Montana Stock Growers. We were winning those challenges in administrative court and then the Bureau of Land Management pulled back their decision in January, said, "We're gonna reevaluate this."

• 47:35Speaker 05

  And then the following January, just this year, came out with this new decision, with this new production requirement, with this new way of looking at livestock. And I, and just very clearly, nothing changed about our management, nothing changed about the conditions on the ground, they are reinterpreting their own laws and, um, and, and, and with, with a very thin fact pattern and, um, and, uh, and, you know, no legal precedents, cause this, that, that, some of this has been challenged in the courts over that, those 40 years and, bison were an acceptable grazer on these federal lands and now they're proposing that they're not.

• 48:19Speaker 05

  And I think one of the, you, what we've seen is that, um, others are stepping forward to say, "Wait a minute, what kind of precedent does this set? If you are building your business and American Prairie's bison program is not inexpensive, we've spent, we're spending, we've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on fencing, we're spending, we've spent millions and millions of dollars on this program." And, um, it's an important part of our business, but we've made a little number of business decisions, we've made. Commitments to other conservation herds to distribute animals. And so we've built a lot of our, we made a lot of business decisions, right? Based on, on the way things had been.

• 49:00Speaker 05

  And so you hear people making that slippery slope argument, like what's to say? Keep a future administration from just arbitrarily changing the rules? And what does this mean for other bison herds? And the Coalition of Large Tribes wrote a compelling protest saying, what impact could this have on tribal herds?

• 49:24Steven Rinella?

  Do the tribes have herds that graze on federal lands?

• 49:28Speaker 05

  They do, they do. And they recognize that, they also recognize that American Prairie has, you know, we're not an indigenous-led organization, but we are part of this bison conservation family, right? Team continent-wide. And we have distributed, as I mentioned, 660 bison to, to other conservation herds. There's a lot of exchange of genetics, exchange of animals. We've helped start conservation herds. And so if you take, you hamstring American Prairie's ability to do that, the tribes pointed that out. They also pointed out that American Prairie's management, back to your point about the

• 50:08Speaker 05

  way that we manage our bison for, you know, minimal handling, low stocking rates, as natural in the landscape as possible, that that, that is in the, that is in the indigenous tradition and that, and the protest even says that. But that, you know, that American Prairie's way of managing is, is similar to the way that tribal herds are managed.

• 50:32Steven Rinella?

  What, on the thing that the productions question.

• 50:40Steven Rinella?

  And forgive me for not understanding the proposal, the change, like the wording change. Is the gripe that it's, is the gripe that it's bison or is the gripe that it's not, that it's not, that they're not being raised with meat production in mind?

• 50:55Speaker 05

  The latter, more the latter. Yeah, yeah, they're saying, yeah, they're saying

• 51:02Speaker 05

  that, that, that they need, they need to be production animals. And so they're, they're disregard, so, so our, our response to this protest was this production standard is brand new. It's nowhere in the regulations or the case law.

• 51:22Speaker 05

  But if there was a production standard, what is that production standard? Because not only is American Prairie distributing these animals to other herds, other herds, many of whom are, are sort of food sovereignty herds. So are absolutely, you know, those animals are consumed. American Prairie also has a robust public harvest program. And we have, 370 of our animals have been harvested by the public. And that's tens of thousands of pounds of meat. And so this idea that the BLM is going to come in and dictate exactly how you, you manage your animals for production. And they're only going to do it for this one species for cows.

• 52:05Speaker 05

  They're not going to do it for bison, or for, excuse me, for, for bison. They're not going to do it for cows is, is, is really hard to get your head around, right? Because cattle producers are like, are going, some cattle producers are reducing their stocking rates for conservation purposes, right? Does that, is it, would that make their, would they not be meeting some sort of standard? So that, that's, that's our argument is.

• 52:32Speaker 05

  This isn't anywhere in the case law. This isn't anywhere in the regulations. And what does production even mean?

• 52:40Steven Rinella?

  So what will happen next on this whole thing?

• 52:43Speaker 05

  So there was a 15 day protest period. We protested, as I mentioned, did a number of other organizations. And then the BLM has 45 days to issue a final decision. That final decision could come down any day now. And then we will, assuming that their final decision is the same as their proposed decision, we will, we will challenge this in both the administrative and the federal courts.

• 53:11Steven Rinella?

  What do you think, what do you think the final decision is going to be same?

• 53:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, we think it's going to be the same.

• 53:17Steven Rinella?

  Just sticking it to you.

• 53:19Speaker 05

  You know, Steve, what I do want to focus on is that right now, those animals are out on the same lands that we have not had to change our operations. We have contingency plans. We have contingency plans A through F, right? And they're expensive and they're time consuming, but we have a plan to take care of those animals and to do so safely. And our mission's moving forward, right? We're going to continue to buy habitat. We're going to continue to welcome the public to that habitat. We're going to continue to restore habitat. We're going to continue to raise bison. So while it may look in the public sphere like this is all American Prairie is focused on right now, it is, it is far from what all we are focused on right now.

• 54:03Speaker 05

  We're focused on moving our mission forward. And I think that's been one of the, the most comforting things about being part of this organization, leading this organization. We get to look decades down the road.

• 54:18Steven Rinella?

  Sure, I understand. It's still a kick to the nuts, though, but I understand you guys still keep looking forward, though, yeah. I mean, this has been, it's been fascinating to watch, man.

• 54:27Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah.

• 54:28Steven Rinella?

  Probably not, that's probably the word you would use for it.

• 54:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, it's, it's a, it's a hiccup. It's a hurdle. It's.

• 54:37Speaker 05

  It's expensive, it's time consuming, but we're committed to ice and conservation.

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• 57:12Steven Rinella?

  Let's talk about the access program in the state.

• 57:14Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 57:14Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 57:17Steven Rinella?

  I'm gonna tell you a bunch of stuff you already know, because I'm just telling the listeners this. In the state of Montana, like many states, the state has an access. They have a handful of access programs, hunting access programs. One of their hunting access, they're kind of the main marquee hunting access program. It's called the block management program. Where you have, again, this is like a willing seller, willing buyer situation.

• 57:42Steven Rinella?

  The state fish and game agency,

• 57:46Steven Rinella?

  they raise funds. They fund their agency through hunting license sales, tags and stamps, right?

• 57:55Steven Rinella?

  They're able to take some of that money that they get from selling hunting licenses. I think a big chunk of the funding comes from selling non-resident hunting licenses. And they're able to, they make a pool of money. If a landowner is willing to allow hunting access on their land, they can, they can get compensated by the state. Okay? So then a public hunter can wind up, they're administered in different ways. Like you need to get a, some of you just go out and hunt. You sign up at a sign-up box. Some of you need to get a reservation. But however it works, they're administered in different ways. But however it works, the hunter, no cost to them, is able to go hunt.

• 58:39Steven Rinella?

  Um, these block management lands, usually, usually some, usually a lot of agricultural lands, ranch land, farm country, no cost to them, the, the state compensates the landowner. You guys do, you guys have some enrollment in block management. What's like, like, sort of like organizationally, what is your, what is your attitude about the block management program and enrollment? Like, like, how do you decide what's, how do you decide what's in, what's out? How much is in, how much is out?

• 59:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, so, um, you know, philosophically, what we would like to see over time is larger wildlife populations on, on these lands. We, they are not at their ecological carrying capacity. Um, we fully support hunting, we provide a lot of hunting access, and what we're going for is a, is a quality hunt, right? So, so fewer, uh, fewer people quali- quality hunt, right? So, we have a group within the organization, uh, called PARK, the Public Access and Recreation Committee, and anytime, and they, they set, um, they set, uh, or make our public access

• 59:52Speaker 05

  policies, whether that's about what roads are open, what hunting access is allowed, what species are allowed on a particular property, and they're using, uh, a lot of data and input from, from FWP and from others to make those, um, to make those recommendations for those properties, and then those go to the leadership team to, to approve. So anytime we buy a new property, and we bought six last year, um, they're, they, we spent about a year getting to know that property, right? Getting to know the roads, getting to know the infrastructure, working with the lessee, whether that's the existing lessee or, or a new lessee, um, and understanding how we're going to open it up to the public. But within a year, our goal is to open that, that property up to, to the public.

• 1:00:32Speaker 05

  And so each of our units has a, has a different, has a, a different, different management. A lot of it is what's called type two block management. Um, type one is the, the sign in box, type two is call in and make a reservation. So, right now, we have about 80,000 acres enrolled in block management, which makes us, I believe it's the 10th largest participant in the entire state in, in the block management program.

• 1:00:58Steven Rinella?

  Go.

• 1:00:58Speaker 05

  So, you can go to our website, it really clearly spells out which, which properties, you know, what the, what hunting is allowed on the properties, how to make a reservation, and FWP is a great partner in managing all of that. We've done, we have one property where we manage the hunting access ourselves, and we've experimented with this in the past, and having a partner like FWP to, to do that, to, to manage it, to take those calls, to, to make those reservations, let alone, you know, to do the enforcement, have the wardens on the ground, that's, that's tremendously beneficial to us.

• 1:01:34Steven Rinella?

  One of the things that makes, I think, one of the things that makes block management work is it gives the...

• 1:01:41Steven Rinella?

  A, a landowner can sign up in degrees.

• 1:01:43Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:01:44Steven Rinella?

  Okay, so let's say you're a landowner, and for whatever reason, you have a, you know, you, you have a thing where you could never imagine any scenario in which someone herding a turkey was acceptable. You had like a, a great affinity for turkeys. You could say like, "Hey, I want to do block management, but here's the deal, no turkeys."

• 1:02:04Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:02:05Steven Rinella?

  And the, the state's going to go along. There, there's a, I believe, there's a point at which the restrictions get so great that they don't, that, that, that it's, that it's not worth the participation for them.

• 1:02:16Speaker 05

  Yes, yes, but...

• 1:02:18Steven Rinella?

  But, but you guys are, but, but, American Prairie, though, you have a lot of thing, like, your restrictions are, are much different than the state's hunting restrictions. Like, you have big areas that are open to block management, but they're not open to mule deer.

• 1:02:33Speaker 05

  Yes, I was going to use mule deer as an example. That's, I, you, I think you was with Senator Heinrich that you were talking about mule deer populations, right? So, it's no, I believe it's north of the river, Region 6, where we don't allow any mule deer hunting, and that's because of what the data says about the, the mule deer populations. So, yeah, we're making those species determinations on a, on a, a property-by-property basis, but, um, we're allowing a lot of access, and thousands and thousands and thousands of hunter days each year.

• 1:03:06Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:03:08Speaker 05

  Go ahead.

• 1:03:08Steven Rinella?

  Oh, no, no. I imagine that as you see like across the West, as we see whitetail numbers, like just generally broads, like wide scale, increase in whitetail numbers, um, decrease in mule deer numbers. Most of your lands are open for whitetails.

• 1:03:29Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 1:03:30Steven Rinella?

  Most of your lands are closed for mule deer, even if the state is allowing mule deer hunts in those areas.

• 1:03:35Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:03:35Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:03:36Steven Rinella?

  Now, what like is most of the stuff open for pheasant?

• 1:03:39Speaker 05

  Mm hmm. Yep.

• 1:03:40Steven Rinella?

  Because that'd be easy because it's a non-native bird.

• 1:03:43Speaker 05

  Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Most of the stuff there is, um, we have some incredible elk hunting opportunities uh, in the LARP hills, um, in, in region six. We actually, that's the one we manage on our own. We do, we do a special draw. Um, that's a special draw district within, for, for FWP. And then, uh, we allow, I think it's about 18 opportunities. And that is a coveted opportunity. There's some youth opportunities in there, but, um, so yeah, it's, it's property by property. It is a year, year by year, but it, um, it all reflects our commitment to, to hunting and to public access.

• 1:04:24Steven Rinella?

  How does it normally work? How, like, if you guys did six land acquisitions last year?

• 1:04:30Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 1:04:32Steven Rinella?

  What's your sort of batting average on land acquisitions?

• 1:04:36Steven Rinella?

  I mean, like, how many, like, in, in the area where you're operating?

• 1:04:39Speaker 05

  Uh huh.

• 1:04:39Steven Rinella?

  How many listings are there? In a year, would you say?

• 1:04:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:04:44Steven Rinella?

  And of, and of those listings, how many are you interested in? And of the ones you're interested in, how many do you close?

• 1:04:52Speaker 05

  So, so six was a lot of transactions for us.

• 1:04:55Steven Rinella?

  That was a big year.

• 1:04:56Speaker 05

  That was a very big year. We, uh, added about 78,000 acres through those six transactions last year. Um, and, and I definitely want to talk a bit about the Anchor Ranch because that was the, the biggest of those, of those, um, transactions. That 67,000 of those 78,000 acres was the, the Anchor Ranch. Um, and, you know, I don't know how to, we're, we're not talking about a lot of properties, right? Like, on average, we've probably been adding.

• 1:05:27Speaker 05

  Two, three properties per year. There is often competition for those properties. We don't get every single one of them. And, you know, in some cases, these are family decisions that are, that are made over, whether it's a resident landowner or an out of state landowner. They're decisions that are made over, out, over a number of years, right? So a number of these properties, we've been talking to the landowner for, for a number of years. So it's hard to, it's hard to say, sort of like, you know, the, the, the sample size is so small, it's hard to say a, a, a true batting average. But hopefully that's a little bit helpful context.

• 1:06:07Steven Rinella?

  But some, presumably some don't work out.

• 1:06:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, they don't work out. Yeah, the landowner wants a price that we, that is not fair market value and we're not, we're not willing to pay it.

• 1:06:16Steven Rinella?

  How often do you run into a landowner that would be like, hey, your bid's higher, but I, I'm choosing to accept less money from a traditional cattle rancher?

• 1:06:29Speaker 05

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

• 1:07:05Steven Rinella?

  What's your, uh, like, what's the organization's, like, timeline? Like, how long are you? This is gonna lead to another question, like, what is the plan? But like, like, how long? Are you guys, do you know what I mean? Like, how long can you imagine being solvent and like continuing the mission for? Do you know what I'm saying?

• 1:07:29Speaker 05

  I mean, we intend to, we intend to fulfill the mission of the organization.

• 1:07:33Steven Rinella?

  How long would, if you had to guess, like in all seriousness? If you had to say like, it'll take, it would take like roughly how long?

• 1:07:38Speaker 05

  Oh, the acquisition phase will be additional decades.

• 1:07:43Steven Rinella?

  More decades.

• 1:07:44Speaker 05

  More decades, yeah, absolutely more decades. As the, the land comes available, we will purchase it. And in the meantime, we will continue to steward and restore and open to the public what we, what we have. But there is not, um, you know, there, I think what, what I've always appreciated with American Prairie is that there are a lot of ways to measure progress. There are a lot of numbers that I could throw at you, whether that's, you know, what the, the most obvious, of course, is acres added, but, um, we track visitor nights. Like, we have, uh, two campgrounds and a series of, of, um, public huts that are open to the public. And that, those numbers are increasing every year.

• 1:08:27Speaker 05

  We have, I think it was last year, about six hundred, uh, six thousand, six hundred overnight visitors at our properties. So, um, we are tracking miles of stream restored. We're tracking fence removal and fence, uh, conversion. We have, we have a staff member who tracks the tonnage of, um, of, of metal that he's removing from the prairie, right?

• 1:08:52Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 1:08:53Speaker 05

  Like, as part of, you know, the, the, the de sort of junkifying the, uh, the landscape. You know, that's when you're removing an old dump or, uh, you know, you're auctioning off an old building that's not needed anymore. Like, we're, we're, we're measuring that. So there are a lot of ways to measure progress and we're not holding ourselves, we don't need to hold ourselves to a firm timeline to complete the acquisition. Obviously, the longer it takes, the more expensive it is and the more money we need to raise. But, uh, it's, it's, it's not like on an annual basis or even a five-year basis. We certainly set goals, but, um, but some of those. Some of those milestones are, or target milestones are not in our control and that's okay.

• 1:09:37Steven Rinella?

  You realize visitation can backfire, right? I mean, that was like, like with Yellowstone, dude. It's like Yellowstone's like a nightmare.

• 1:09:45Speaker 05

  Oh, I mean, I live in the state. I know that, um, but.

• 1:09:48Steven Rinella?

  Like that needs to be turned into a wilderness area.

• 1:09:50Speaker 05

  There, there.

• 1:09:52Steven Rinella?

  They're telling my whole plan? It's big, a big trailhead. I'm gonna keep, anything that, any highway that goes through it, I'm gonna keep. This is if I'm ever emperor.

• 1:10:02Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:10:02Steven Rinella?

  The bisecting highways I'll keep open.

• 1:10:07Steven Rinella?

  I, I would dismantle all the infrastructure. I would keep the highways that go through open. I would put in large trailheads here and there and the whole thing would be wilderness area. Just un-park it. It's a very controversial idea.

• 1:10:20Speaker 05

  No, I, I mean.

• 1:10:21Steven Rinella?

  Very controversial.

• 1:10:21Speaker 05

  I was gonna say.

• 1:10:23Steven Rinella?

  My kid's been yelled at because I have this viewpoint. Your dad wants to. But he doesn't understand what wilderness area is. It would be, it would be, it would protect the park more.

• 1:10:34Steven Rinella?

  You follow me?

• 1:10:34Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:10:35Steven Rinella?

  I'm just saying, visitation can backfire. I mean, that place is a chaos.

• 1:10:38Speaker 05

  Oh, oh, yeah. But, but they have four, was it five million visitors last year?

• 1:10:43Steven Rinella?

  No.

• 1:10:43Speaker 05

  And we're talking like maybe 10,000, so. But, but, but this is.

• 1:10:48Steven Rinella?

  When you get up into the millions, let me know and I might warn.

• 1:10:50Speaker 05

  What's the important point you're making, which is you can be really thoughtful about where you put infrastructure? And, you know, I did a tour of, of Yellowstone, sort of a behind the scenes tour, and I was reminded that the, that figure eight road and the lot, the placement of lodges is because that's how long a carriage ride was. Those 17 miles, 19 miles. And so that park was, was built for visitors in that way with the gas stations and the, um, and the, um, and the lodges and the and there are a lot of roads, right? It's not just.

• 1:11:25Steven Rinella?

  Lot of roads.

• 1:11:26Speaker 05

  Lot of roads, right?

• 1:11:26Steven Rinella?

  And I want people to understand, when my plan comes in, I'm not gonna mess with any kind of flow through traffic. I'm not gonna mess with interstate traffic.

• 1:11:33Speaker 05

  I'm gonna say, take, take 20 through Idaho.

• 1:11:36Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, all that's gonna be fine. That's not gonna be interrupted, just so people are clear on this.

• 1:11:44Steven Rinella?

  Do you guys have like a, you guys have like, you get funding, like, you don't fund, you have a network of donors, obviously, probably globally, right?

• 1:11:53Speaker 05

  We, mostly in the United States. I think 3% of our dollars raised have come from outside of the state.

• 1:11:59Steven Rinella?

  Oh, really?

• 1:11:59Speaker 05

  I was assuming outside of the country. And we had donors from all 50 states. It's not all 50 states every year, but, and about 15% of our money last year came from Montana.

• 1:12:12Steven Rinella?

  Okay. Um, and when you do an acquisition, you don't fundraise specifically around an acquisition? You fundraise on the mission?

• 1:12:20Speaker 05

  Well, sometimes we fundraise for an acquisition.

• 1:12:22Steven Rinella?

  Is that right?

• 1:12:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, sometimes we fundraise for an acquisition. Yep. We've, you know, we're fundraising to support the organization's ongoing operations and stewarding those 600,000 acres and supporting our team of 50 people and all the roles that they play, right, in keeping a nonprofit going. And then we're, and then we're fundraising for acquisition. And then we are also fundraising for an endowment because we, once we're through with this acquisition phase, we envision an endowment large enough to take care of the basic operations of the place. There'll be some revenue generating activities for sure, but we want that endowment

• 1:13:06Speaker 05

  to be able to pay the taxes and support the bison herd and take care of the operations.

• 1:13:12Steven Rinella?

  Hmm. One thing I think people wonder about, and maybe you can't even answer it, is like, I think people wonder like, what is, what is the ultimate, like, let's go forward a century, okay? What is American Prairie in 100 years?

• 1:13:33Steven Rinella?

  Is it a park?

• 1:13:35Speaker 05

  No. Capital P Park, Capital National, no.

• 1:13:38Steven Rinella?

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

• 1:14:00Speaker 05

  No, we believe that a public-private partnership collaboration is the right solution for this landscape. We will hold title to those lands.

• 1:14:09Steven Rinella?

  That would work in perpetuity.

• 1:14:11Speaker 05

  I think it can work in perpetuity. And I think if you look at the condition of our parks in the backlog, I think that there's a real opportunity to have multiple landowners at the table, meaning a private landowner and these agencies managing toward, toward common goals, toward those common wildlife and, and public access goals.

• 1:14:35Steven Rinella?

  Mm hmm. The, what I wonder about, though, is like, uh,

• 1:14:41Steven Rinella?

  because it's so hard to anticipate.

• 1:14:43Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:14:45Steven Rinella?

  Political changes.

• 1:14:47Speaker 05

  You don't need to tell me that.

• 1:14:49Steven Rinella?

  Okay. That, like, and even if it was the plan, I don't, I think it'd be like hard if you guys would talk about it publicly. You follow me?

• 1:14:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:59Steven Rinella?

  Because you'd, you'd want, you'd keep it secret.

• 1:15:02Speaker 05

  Right. But I, I

• 1:15:04Steven Rinella?

  Like logically.

• 1:15:05Speaker 05

  That is not the plan. But do I have a crystal ball for a hundred years from, like, let's talk about bison?

• 1:15:11Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:12Speaker 05

  What are bison gonna be?

• 1:15:14Steven Rinella?

  There's gonna be, here's my prediction.

• 1:15:17Steven Rinella?

  There's gonna be more in a hundred years. This is my prediction.

• 1:15:23Steven Rinella?

  Corinne and I have been arguing a lot, not arguing, texting back and forth about she hates polymarkets. Doesn't hate them. She just

• 1:15:32Speaker 05

  Prediction markets.

• 1:15:34Steven Rinella?

  Prediction, okay, not poly, yeah. She, she, I don't want to put words in the mouth. She views prediction markets as a, as a very volatile industry.

• 1:15:44Steven Rinella?

  As people are like, there's this new thing, like, what are the regulations gonna be? Like, she, it's taking shape. I just feel like I'm kind of curious about them. She's sort of curious about what their future holds. What they need to figure out is how to do long-term wagers. Like, I would make a hundred-year wager that would benefit my children's children when I won.

• 1:16:09Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:16:11Steven Rinella?

  Right? That's like, the bet I would make. So this is one of those for the, when we build like the way-ass future prediction market thing, which is like estate planning.

• 1:16:21Speaker 05

  Well, the world end or not.

• 1:16:22Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, this is like-

• 1:16:23Speaker 05

  This is a hundred years, okay?

• 1:16:24Steven Rinella?

  It's like estate planning. If I could do that, I would put a lot of money on this. If there was a reliable way to make hundred-year bets that would benefit my children's children when I proved to be right.

• 1:16:34Speaker 05

  Okay, 2126, yeah.

• 1:16:35Steven Rinella?

  I would bet. There are, I don't want to say a lot, there are quite a bit more, there are quite a bit more wild, free-roaming buffalo on the landscape that can cross political jurisdictions, that can freely cross political jurisdictions.

• 1:17:01Speaker 05

  That are wildlife.

• 1:17:03Steven Rinella?

  That are treated as wildlife.

• 1:17:04Speaker 05

  Treated as wildlife, yeah.

• 1:17:05Steven Rinella?

  There'll be, there's more of that. There's more of that. Um-

• 1:17:11Speaker 05

  It's our national mammal, Steve.

• 1:17:12Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, but that kid, that was toothless. It came with nothing. It came with nothing. It was the biggest, I was glad, I was glad, but let's be honest, it meant nothing. It meant nothing. It was purely symbolic.

• 1:17:28Speaker 05

  Yes, but I, I hope it reminds, it reminds our citizens of, of this natural heritage and of what we had on the landscape.

• 1:17:41Steven Rinella?

  You need to be suspicious. You, you, you know, you've been alive long enough to be suspicious. You need to be suspicious of anything that's frictionless.

• 1:17:51Steven Rinella?

  There wasn't like, like when they were going like, hey, it's gonna be the national mammal. There wasn't like an opposition.

• 1:17:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:57Steven Rinella?

  Okay. And if there's no opposition, then you must realize that it means nothing.

• 1:18:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, that's, that's, I take your point.

• 1:18:04Steven Rinella?

  It was just a symbolic.

• 1:18:05Speaker 05

  I take your point.

• 1:18:06Steven Rinella?

  It was cool. I was glad.

• 1:18:07Speaker 05

  But, but you also, I don't know when this study, I don't think this study was repeated recently, but there was a study looking at Montanans and that Montanans wanting to see bison

• 1:18:21Speaker 05

  in the way that you're describing in this state, and it was well over 60% wanted that. So I do believe that, that, that people want to see bison back on the landscape. Even though leading a private effort, we're, we're, we're facing this resistance. It could, it could feel like if a, if a private organization raising private dollars to raise a private herd is facing this resistance, certainly, certainly your dream is, let's, isn't, isn't gonna happen immediately, but, but I hope it would be before 2020, 21, 26.

• 1:18:59Steven Rinella?

  Mm hmm. Quite a bit more. What did I say? Not a lot, but a bit more, quite a bit more?

• 1:19:04Speaker 05

  It was really, real squishy, real squishy.

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• 1:21:22Steven Rinella?

  My view on stuff, um, my view on things is like, I have this sort of deal where like, from a professional standpoint, okay. Like from a professional standpoint as someone who advocates about the outdoor lifestyle, hunting and fishing, wildlife conservation. My, my sort of professional promise is that, um, like I, I look at situations taking place, the, the political landscape, the conservation world, whatever. And I try to be like, what is in the best interest? What is in the best interest of hunters and anglers and outdoorsmen? Okay.

• 1:22:07Steven Rinella?

  And no one's perfect, but I try to strip out in explaining things to people. I try to strip out the other considerations that might

• 1:22:20Steven Rinella?

  come in to being. I'll give you a case in point. Talking about an impenetrable border wall between us and Mexico.

• 1:22:32Steven Rinella?

  I would view my professional obligation would be to speak to what it means for wildlife.

• 1:22:39Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:22:40Steven Rinella?

  My professional obligation is not to talk about what it would mean for employment, what it would mean for

• 1:22:52Steven Rinella?

  the fruit industry, farming industry, hospitality industry, employment, like, right? So I gotta go like, okay, nevermind. I gotta forget all my opinions about that. And I got, I need to talk about what it means for wildlife. And impenetrable walls ain't great for wildlife. So I have to then say, to be honest with myself and to be true to my mission, I have to say like, an impenetrable wall between us and Mexico is gonna impair and impede wildlife movements. And be kind of, that's bad for hunters, right? But here's another thing. It's also bad for hunters that if we have tons of illegal immigration and you have to have an exaggerated

• 1:23:37Steven Rinella?

  federal state presence on the landscape, dealing with all that, that's an impact on wildlife, right? So that has to be considered. So you follow what I'm saying? It gets complicated. When I look at American Prairie.

• 1:23:54Steven Rinella?

  You look like you're uncomfortable.

• 1:23:55Speaker 05

  No, no, no. I'm settling in for this.

• 1:23:57Steven Rinella?

  When I look to American Prairie, I just want what I want, what I wish there would be. And I know you can't do it. I wish there would be that like written in the charter.

• 1:24:08Steven Rinella?

  Is like a promise to hunters and anglers.

• 1:24:12Steven Rinella?

  That it would be memorialized, that there would be a deal codified. Right?

• 1:24:19Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 1:24:20Steven Rinella?

  And that then people would look and be like, yeah, I know it's kind of weird what they're doing or whatever, but like they stand by hunters and anglers.

• 1:24:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:24:31Steven Rinella?

  But you can't. Because it's too complicated.

• 1:24:37Speaker 05

  Well, you're not.

• 1:24:40Speaker 05

  So where I thought you were going to go is some sort of, you know, public access easement. And the reason that, the reason that those are tricky for us is because we don't know what land will ultimately own. And when you put an easement on it, you reduce its value. And we're trying to borrow against our existing properties. And we don't, we could sell something that's on the, you know, if we, if we concentration of land ends up over here, we could, we could sell something. So I'm not going, we don't want to hamstring a future management team by, by doing a, an easement at this point. We do have conservation easements on our property. We've inherited conservation easements. We're not anti easement.

• 1:25:23Speaker 05

  We can work with them, but that, that's sort of the,

• 1:25:28Speaker 05

  but if, and what we say is, look at our track record, right? Like, look at what we've done for the last 20 years of owning land. And it's increased access, it's increased hunting opportunity that will continue. But, but, but you're not the first to suggest some sort of contract with Montana or, or charter. And that, that's, I think that goes beyond a communications tool, right? It's, it's, it is, it reflects a conversation and a commitment. And so it's not, it's not a terrible idea.

• 1:26:01Steven Rinella?

  No, it's not a terrible idea. It's a great idea. Because that's like when I was saying down the road. If you viewed it like,

• 1:26:13Steven Rinella?

  If, if, if, we started out our conversation, we were talking about parks. Right? They didn't do one of those, right? But I think that if there was imagined a, if there was imagined a large area that would be, the aim was to make it a increased wildlife, better habitat.

• 1:26:40Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:26:42Steven Rinella?

  Um, with, like, with a open to regulated hunting activities in accordance with state objectives in perpetuity.

• 1:26:58Steven Rinella?

  I think that, that, that a lot, that some of the tension would trickle away.

• 1:27:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, I, I, I hear you. I also that that's kind of what's happening right now on 600,000 acres, right?

• 1:27:10Steven Rinella?

  No, I understand.

• 1:27:11Speaker 05

  And, and I don't know if the, the tension, Steve, comes as much from that, from, we are seeing more support from hunters and anglers and less doubt and less skepticism and more appreciation. And I think, you know, there are a lot of conservation efforts in this state. Some of them are species focused, some of them are regionally focused, some of them are pay, are private lands focused, working private landowners. I don't think there's anyone, there isn't anyone, who is creating the access that we are creating in every single year, right? The access to our deeded land, the access through our deeded land to public lands. I

• 1:27:53Speaker 05

  mean, the response to the, our purchase of the Anchor Ranch was astonishing.

• 1:27:59Steven Rinella?

  Well, that was, that was, that was an important thing.

• 1:28:02Speaker 05

  It was, and for those who, who don't know, we immediately opened a 3.9 mile private road, the gate to a 3.9 mile private road that accessed 50,000 acres, the Bullwhacker Road, that, that, that opened 50,000 acres of public land that was, that wasn't accessible. I mean, it was accessible for the, the very hardy, but now it is accessible through this road. And that gate was, those no trespassing signs were immediately taken down and that gate was immediately thrown open.

• 1:28:33Steven Rinella?

  Remember we were talking about the Nez Perce War?

• 1:28:35Speaker 05

  It's right there.

• 1:28:36Steven Rinella?

  They crossed in there.

• 1:28:37Speaker 05

  It's right there. I was standing there this fall with my family. Yeah.

• 1:28:39Steven Rinella?

  There's a Ford there. They crossed. There was a bit of a shootout. Yeah, there was a bit of a shootout down there, but it wasn't that big of a deal, but they crossed there.

• 1:28:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's it is tremendous, tremendous country. It is that um that that whole Cal Creek drainage and um the foothills of the Bears Paw there. Um so

• 1:29:00Speaker 05

  yeah, not a bad idea, but I but our track record is absolutely.

• 1:29:05Steven Rinella?

  That was widely that was in my community. That was that was celebrated.

• 1:29:11Speaker 05

  Yes, yes. And you know, we we it just happened that we made that announcement right before the Choke Cherry Festival in Lewistown. Um, we always have a booth at the Choke Cherry Festival. Our building on Main Street is open. Our Discovery Center is open um during and hundreds of people came by to say, thank you. We noticed that. Thank you. Um, so so that's what we will. That's what we're doing. And that's what we will continue to do.

• 1:29:39Steven Rinella?

  What uh how long how long will you stick with this, you think?

• 1:29:44Speaker 05

  I don't know. I'm still having so much fun.

• 1:29:46Steven Rinella?

  It is fun. Like you enjoy it?

• 1:29:47Speaker 05

  Oh, it's so it. Yeah. First of all, it's an amazing team, right? We've got we've got incredibly talented team. I was up with our our Bison team um uh the week before last. Um, and I there we have two new team members on that um in that group, both females, which is cool. Um, and I hadn't seen our new handling facility and the new design of the handling facility. And they're world class. They are world class in the way that they're managing those animals in the the way that they're adapting the way that our management to to to take good care of the animals and make sure people are are safe, too. So it's a it's an incredible team. We've got an incredible board. We have supporters around the country who

• 1:30:31Speaker 05

  believe in in this mission, believe in this idea, care about this landscape, care about the the the wildlife and the human communities, and I get to interact with all of them. Um, so it's challenging and it's a it's a lot of nights away from home and whether they're up and whether I'm I'm spending them up in more central Montana or or around the country, but um.

• 1:30:54Speaker 05

  As long as, as long as the board wants me, I will, I will be here.

• 1:30:58Steven Rinella?

  How big's you guys' board?

• 1:31:00Speaker 05

  It's 22.

• 1:31:01Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:31:01Speaker 05

  Yep, 22, from all over the country, handful of Montanans.

• 1:31:07Steven Rinella?

  You're gonna bring my suggestions to the board?

• 1:31:08Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:31:09Steven Rinella?

  Thank you.

• 1:31:09Speaker 05

  They'll, they'll hear you. They'll hear them.

• 1:31:12Steven Rinella?

  Oh yeah, cuz they'll be vetting how well you do.

• 1:31:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:31:16Steven Rinella?

  What did, what did I not ask you about that, that when you get vetted, what did I not ask about that you wish I would've asked you about? You can just answer it.

• 1:31:24Speaker 05

  Oof, we've covered a lot. We have covered a lot. Um, I guess I would just say, come visit us. And, you know, we're, certainly we have a lot of people hunting out there. That is our number one recreational activity, but wildlife watching is a close second. Our, our Vice President of Recreation and Access follows all the trends in Montana and, you know, scenic drives and camping and wildlife watching and birding and floating the rivers are all, are all incredible activities to do out there, so.

• 1:31:57Steven Rinella?

  You know what I thought was interesting about you guys? You'd mentioned wildlife viewing. What I thought was interesting about you guys is like, now and then, just for people listening, now and then grizzlies will kind of come out of the, grizzlies will kind of come out of the Rockies up in, in the north part of the state.

• 1:32:16Steven Rinella?

  And they'll, and they'll strike out east, you know, out onto the Great Plains. And like, what, what people lose track of is that historically, that was a Great Plains animal.

• 1:32:26Steven Rinella?

  Custer and his chief scout Bloody Knife, I mean, they killed a grizzly out in South Dakota.

• 1:32:31Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:32:33Steven Rinella?

  I mean, grizzlies were, you know, you think of all these big grizzly maulings, like Hugh Glass, when he got mauled and the, the story that was told in the Revenant. He got mauled out on the plains.

• 1:32:45Steven Rinella?

  Like, they were a plains animal. When Lewis and Clark ran into grizzly bears, it was out on the plains.

• 1:32:50Speaker 05

  Every day, in May of 1805.

• 1:32:52Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, you'd be like, you'd be going down these big valleys. You mentioned choke charries and stuff. It's like,

• 1:32:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:32:58Steven Rinella?

  You'd, you're traveling these big valleys and you'd read mountain man accounts. They'll run into like nine grizzlies in a day out on the big valleys out on the plains.

• 1:33:09Steven Rinella?

  People would be like, oh, they got pushed into the mountains. They didn't get pushed into the mountains. Just the ones that were on the plains are gone. And there's some, they didn't like migrate to the mountains. That's like a misconception to be that they were there, they remain there, where they're not is on the plains. But now and then one will strike out and he'll head east. And when that happens, oftentimes, people are like, good lord, it's the end of the world. But you guys had a grizzly a number of years ago turn up. And I remember you were like a rare voice, be like, cool, a grizzly.

• 1:33:37Speaker 05

  Well, yeah.

• 1:33:38Steven Rinella?

  Amidst a lot of like, hand wringing about what it's like, the end of civilization as we know it.

• 1:33:43Speaker 05

  Well, you know, I think I think other aren't some of our neighbors were happy to see them too. But yeah, yeah. And it hasn't just been that one. We've spotted a number in in that area for sure now, like even a mom and cubs. So

• 1:33:56Steven Rinella?

  No, they're coming.

• 1:33:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, I know. They're coming. They're absolutely coming. And they're coming exactly where we how we thought they would come. And that's why, you know, one of the things we didn't touch on is the way that American Prairie works with neighboring landowners. And one of those ways, I talked about the 25 families that run eight to 10,000 head of cattle on our properties. But we also work with private landowners through a program called Wild Sky, where we are make payments, basically rent for wildlife through our Cameras for Conservation program. And so if someone sees get a mountain lion on a camera trap, they get a check for that mountain lion in a camera trap. And what we're recognizing is that this wildlife is there in the in the middle of these working lands and that

• 1:34:39Speaker 05

  these landowners are providing that habitat. And we cost share on habitat restoration projects, too, including the reason I brought this up is because we have a range riding program that is right there in the in the breaks where where those grizzly bears were. And there haven't been any issues with those those grizzly bears in the in the Missouri River breaks.

• 1:35:00Steven Rinella?

  They probably moved down by now.

• 1:35:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, there we we were our visitors were seeing, you know, we're seeing evidence of grizzly bears. And there have been bears in some of the island mountain ranges around there, too. But but yeah, it was a day we celebrated in terms of Advocating for bear-proof dumpsters and educating our visitors about carrying bear spray and immediately putting bear boxes at all of our public facilities out there because, you know, we don't, we don't want that, any conflict, of course, and, and, and nor do any of our, our neighbors. So, uh, but yeah, they're, they're moving east.

• 1:35:38Steven Rinella?

  And, um, here's what I didn't ask about. You guys are like, you, you guys are not in, uh, like you don't participate in any kind of predator management programs. Like, like you don't, you don't do any predator management on your lands.

• 1:35:52Speaker 05

  Mm-mm.

• 1:35:53Steven Rinella?

  You're sort of like, just not comfortable with it. Like, what's the sort of, what's the viewpoint on it? You don't view, you don't, I mean, because I guess because you're not, you're not in the livestock business necessarily. It's not a huge issue for you.

• 1:36:04Speaker 05

  Yeah. And we, and we want to see everything restored to the landscape.

• 1:36:09Steven Rinella?

  Mm-hmm. Do you view that, that if you look at stuff like, uh, like declining mule deer, right? Or like protecting bighorn sheep? Do you ever, do you ever weigh that out to be like, what is the, if mule deer, if you're taking steps, like you don't want human harvest of mule deer, right?

• 1:36:32Speaker 05

  But for both those species, isn't it disease?

• 1:36:35Steven Rinella?

  With mule deer? No. It's habitat. Predation habitat. So if you were looking like, let's say you were looking at a species of concern, okay, it would be mule deer, harsh winters. That's an issue. Predation's an issue. Habitat loss is an issue. What if you looked at a thing like mule deer and you thought like, as a species of particular concern, we want to like help build and recover mule deer during low points. You would never make the calculation that even if you knew empirically that predation from coyotes on mule deer

• 1:37:13Steven Rinella?

  fawns was having a population level negative impact, you would not participate in predator man, you would not participate in coyote management to, to bring up mule deer numbers.

• 1:37:26Speaker 05

  Those are just not conversations that we're, that we're having.

• 1:37:31Steven Rinella?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:37:32Speaker 05

  Yeah. Those are just not, yeah. Those are just not the, the reality out there on that landscape.

• 1:37:38Steven Rinella?

  You're not looking at it at that kind of detailed level.

• 1:37:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:37:41Steven Rinella?

  Hmm. Um, what else do you want to talk about?

• 1:37:47Steven Rinella?

  Or things that you wish I had asked you about?

• 1:37:50Speaker 05

  You know, I think we've covered a good range of topics.

• 1:37:55Steven Rinella?

  How best do people go find out more about your organization?

• 1:37:58Speaker 05

  There's great information on our website. And we're, this year will be improving the visit pages. So it's clearer how to rent a facility, how to get a hunting reservation, how to go out and experience the landscape.

• 1:38:14Steven Rinella?

  One of our colleagues, he's currently feeding on one right now, and I've been eating some of it too. Is he, his wife had a permit to hunt.

• 1:38:20Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:38:20Steven Rinella?

  A buffalo on your guys' place. Another one of my colleagues, every year he goes with a veteran.

• 1:38:25Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:38:27Steven Rinella?

  He participates in a veteran hunt.

• 1:38:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, we didn't, I mentioned that 370 bison have been harvested, but I didn't, I didn't go into the details of how popular that program is. And so every year.

• 1:38:37Steven Rinella?

  There's a public application.

• 1:38:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's a public application, 20 to 30 opportunities every year, and thousands and thousands of people apply. Those opportunities are weighted to Montanans, and they're weighted to the seven counties that we work in. So harder to get one of those if you're not in the state. But those are immensely popular.

• 1:39:00Steven Rinella?

  His wife got one. But they don't live here in town, but his wife got one.

• 1:39:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, she was really lucky then. Well, Gallatin County wouldn't be weighted, so she was just one of them.

• 1:39:09Steven Rinella?

  Does Park County weighted?

• 1:39:11Speaker 05

  No, no.

• 1:39:12Steven Rinella?

  She just got lucky.

• 1:39:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, she just got lucky. And then the other thing we do is we donate harvest to other nonprofits to auction them off. So as an example, the Glasgow Reds baseball team up in Glasgow, along with a rifle that was donated by a local rancher, that opportunity to harvest a bison on American Express went for over $30,000.

• 1:39:34Steven Rinella?

  Oh, really?

• 1:39:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, raising money for that, for that organization.

• 1:39:38Steven Rinella?

  Our buddy that works here that goes with the wounded veterans, I'm not sure what organization he goes with.

• 1:39:44Speaker 05

  Wounded Warriors, I think, I believe.

• 1:39:46Steven Rinella?

  It could be.

• 1:39:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, so.

• 1:39:48Steven Rinella?

  But you go, yeah.

• 1:39:48Speaker 05

  Definitely, definitely put in for that.

• 1:39:51Steven Rinella?

  It's an annual late winter thing that they go.

• 1:39:53Speaker 05

  Yep, yep, there are a couple, there are some organizations that we've partnered with year, year after year like that.

• 1:39:58Steven Rinella?

  No.

• 1:39:58Speaker 05

  But, yeah, I mean, if anyone has an organization that they want American Prairie to support, give us, give us a call and, and also put in for those, uh, put in for that drawing every year.

• 1:40:09Steven Rinella?

  And you, so people should go check out your website.

• 1:40:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, website's the best place.

• 1:40:13Steven Rinella?

  What is your, what is the website?

• 1:40:15Speaker 05

  Uh, AmericanPrairie.org.

• 1:40:16Steven Rinella?

  Oh.

• 1:40:18Speaker 05

  Two I's and Prairie.

• 1:40:19Steven Rinella?

  It's easy to find. Two I's and Prairie. Alison Fox, thanks for coming on the show, man.

• 1:40:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, thank you, really appreciate you having us back.

• 1:40:28Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, no, you, well, I should, I don't want to say you can come on anytime, but you can come on almost every time.

• 1:40:32Speaker 05

  Well, thank you, that, that's very generous of you.

• 1:40:35Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, especially there's new stuff to talk about.

• 1:40:37Speaker 05

  We didn't talk about your bison tattoo, though.

• 1:40:39Steven Rinella?

  No, it's fading out. My fake one.

• 1:40:43Speaker 05

  I really thought that was why, that you got that in my honor.

• 1:40:45Steven Rinella?

  Well, the deal, I've talked about this all the time, but the deal is my wife and I, we were gonna provide like a service by being the last untattooed American couple.

• 1:40:57Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 1:40:58Steven Rinella?

  But you might be part of it.

• 1:40:59Speaker 05

  My husband and I are part of that, yeah, yeah.

• 1:41:03Steven Rinella?

  The select, the select few American couples.

• 1:41:06Speaker 05

  And then now you're telling me my kids are also not gonna get tattoos.

• 1:41:09Steven Rinella?

  I'll get into that in greater detail later. Well, that, but, no, I appreciate you being, I mean, you know, coming on and being such a good sport about asking a bunch of questions.

• 1:41:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, I know, happy to, I appreciate, we appreciate the opportunity to tell the story. I guess the other thing I would say is, you know, we, in, uh, 2021, we opened our Discovery Center in Lewistown.

• 1:41:31Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:41:31Speaker 05

  And that's really the headquarters of the organization. We've got about 15 staff based there. Uh, that facility is open for public events, there's an exhibit hall, there's a children's area, we have a new black-footed ferret, we have a.

• 1:41:43Steven Rinella?

  I was gonna ask about that.

• 1:41:45Speaker 05

  So, go in and visit it, go to an event there and meet our team and ask any question you have about American Prairie. That is, we are committed to being open and transparent and available, and it's been amazing to see that having that physical place where people can go. Call it, we called it a discovery center because it's not quite a visitor center. It's not quite a community center. It's both and, and that's why we chose the word discovery. But it's open and go talk to members of our team.

• 1:42:14Steven Rinella?

  Do you guys have any black-footed ferrets on the ground?

• 1:42:16Speaker 05

  We don't, we don't. So we don't have, the, the, the extent of the prairie dog towns are not large enough yet to support black-footed ferrets. There are black-footed ferrets on Fort Belknap. That's the closest population now and they have been there for, for decades.

• 1:42:33Steven Rinella?

  God, I would have thought that, I would, I would just feel that you have enough prairie dog colonies for black-footed ferrets. So they need huge area.

• 1:42:38Speaker 05

  They need huge areas, thousands of acres. And we're working toward that. We're absolutely working toward that, but, but not, we, we don't have them any now.

• 1:42:48Steven Rinella?

  So some little football field sized town isn't going to do it?

• 1:42:51Speaker 05

  Nope, nope. You need a, towns that are big enough so that some plague out, they can, they can go to other towns.

• 1:42:58Steven Rinella?

  I see what you're saying, yeah.

• 1:42:59Speaker 05

  A connected network.

• 1:43:00Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, if he's like down in the valley floor, hanging out and like I said, like maybe something, a couple of football fields, but then all of a sudden you realize there's not one left because they got, because they all died.

• 1:43:10Speaker 05

  Yep, they need to be able to move to other, other populations. But we do, we have an ambassador ferret at the discovery center.

• 1:43:18Steven Rinella?

  You can point at him and be like, someday.

• 1:43:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, right. No, I mean, it's the National Black-footed Ferret Center in Fort Collins, which has a captive breeding program and some ferrets prove themselves able to survive and be reintroduced to some of the reintroduction sites around the, around the Great Plains and, and some do not. And so our little guy bandit eats two rats a day instead.

• 1:43:42Steven Rinella?

  Is that like, is there a permitting problem? Like, let's say you just wanted to try it out and cut one loose, cut a, not cut one, cut 10 of them loose, right?

• 1:43:51Speaker 05

  Oh, they're an endangered species.

• 1:43:52Steven Rinella?

  No, I know what you're saying. Like, if you're like, no, we're going to do three males, seven females, we're just going to, like, is that, can you not do it? Because is, is, is that a huge permitting, permission issue?

• 1:44:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, there's.

• 1:44:03Steven Rinella?

  Because they're an ESA species?

• 1:44:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, and yes, they're an ESA species and of course every, American Prairie doesn't have the authority to reintroduce any animals, right?

• 1:44:12Steven Rinella?

  Understood.

• 1:44:12Speaker 05

  Except for bison. But yes, you would, you, yeah, it would be.

• 1:44:15Steven Rinella?

  Is it impossible or is it just hard?

• 1:44:18Speaker 05

  No, I don't think it's impossible. There, there are reintroduction sites. There are sites in, there have been sites in Montana, there are sites in South Dakota and Wyoming and Colorado.

• 1:44:29Steven Rinella?

  I guess there wouldn't be a reason why they couldn't have a private land site.

• 1:44:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, I know. There are, yeah, there are private land sites. I believe that there are sites that are, you know, a mix of public and private lands.

• 1:44:40Speaker 05

  So.

• 1:44:40Steven Rinella?

  I would wonder about on ferrets, if you have, if the captive breeding program, this is a whole other conversation with a different guest, but this is what I would ask them. If there's a black, if you were a black-footed ferret expert.

• 1:44:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:44:53Steven Rinella?

  I would say, is the captive breeding program so successful that you can roll the dice now and then? Or is a black-footed, is an individual black-footed ferret of such rarity and value that you can't be risky?

• 1:45:10Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:45:11Steven Rinella?

  Do you follow me?

• 1:45:11Speaker 05

  I do follow you. I do follow you, and I don't know, it's hundreds of animals in the captive breeding program, at least, and, and, and, um, so I suspect that they, they, they can.

• 1:45:27Steven Rinella?

  They can take a chance.

• 1:45:28Speaker 05

  They can take a chance, but, um.

• 1:45:30Steven Rinella?

  Because, you know, you don't take a chance with a rhino, like a white rhino.

• 1:45:34Speaker 05

  No, you do not take a chance.

• 1:45:37Steven Rinella?

  You don't go, I don't know, turn them loose, see what happens.

• 1:45:38Speaker 05

  No, no.

• 1:45:39Steven Rinella?

  But, uh, but I wonder if you can, like, if there's ever enough ferrets where you could just start trying some stuff, you know?

• 1:45:44Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, and there, there's a concept of, of, of kind of like a nursery site where it might be smaller, but you're training those ferrets to be ferret-like in a, in a wild, in a wild landscape again, so.

• 1:46:00Steven Rinella?

  You know, we learned the other day, we had a ruffed grouse expert on, and ruffed grouse are not doing well in a lot of the areas in the southern end of their range. And he was pointing out that

• 1:46:12Steven Rinella?

  unlike the wild turkey, ruffed grouse don't do well with, with spot reintroductions.

• 1:46:22Steven Rinella?

  They have to bleed out.

• 1:46:26Speaker 05

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:46:27Steven Rinella?

  They, you, you can't jump ahead. Like, they just don't.

• 1:46:31Speaker 05

  What kind of distances are we talking?

• 1:46:32Steven Rinella?

  I don't know, but he said that, like, they have very poor success rates. Leapfrogging. Like, they need to, they need to bleed from.

• 1:46:41Speaker 05

  Habit.

• 1:46:41Steven Rinella?

  Intact.

• 1:46:42Speaker 05

  Expand their habitat.

• 1:46:43Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, they need to be like, stable populations and good habitat, and they need to spread like that. Putting them in a box and moving them forward and dropping them doesn't work for them.

• 1:46:56Steven Rinella?

  I don't know if it's just that they can't learn the area quickly enough.

• 1:46:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:46:59Steven Rinella?

  They make too many mistakes, they're not familiar, they gotta ease into it, they're too vulnerable, whatever. But it doesn't work like that.

• 1:47:06Speaker 05

  So the conservation efforts are focused on expanding habitat.

• 1:47:10Steven Rinella?

  Off core habitat, as you're saying, it has to be off core habitat.

• 1:47:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:47:14Steven Rinella?

  And move it that way, like, it doesn't work to jump to leapfrog them.

• 1:47:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:47:18Steven Rinella?

  But if that was the plan on black-footed ferrets, it's gonna be a long road to recovery.

• 1:47:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:47:24Steven Rinella?

  If you weren't able to establish new fletching populations.

• 1:47:26Speaker 05

  Right, right, because there, there aren't any.

• 1:47:28Steven Rinella?

  There's no place, there's very few places to start from.

• 1:47:30Speaker 05

  Right, right, yeah.

• 1:47:31Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 1:47:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:47:34Steven Rinella?

  Well, call me when you get a black-footed ferret on the ground, I'll be curious about that.

• 1:47:39Steven Rinella?

  I'm rooting for that one.

• 1:47:40Speaker 05

  Fierce little animals.

• 1:47:41Steven Rinella?

  Man, no, they're cool, man, they're cool. I've never, I mean, obviously.

• 1:47:44Speaker 05

  I, I did get the opportunity once to, to spotlight, when there was a, there was a site in the Charlie Russell. Um, and I, I got to drive around all night and it was.

• 1:47:52Steven Rinella?

  I've seen about, I'd, I'd like to see, like, one doing his deal, you know.

• 1:47:56Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, I know, that, that green eye shine in the middle of the night.

• 1:47:59Steven Rinella?

  Was that how they eye shine?

• 1:48:00Speaker 05

  And then you, you, there's a reader that you put over the hole and you stuff some hay down there. And so you can tell when it's come out and then you get the reader and they, they know, they're all chipped, so they know.

• 1:48:09Steven Rinella?

  Oh, really?

• 1:48:09Speaker 05

  Good animal, yeah, and they're, they're doing a, basically a ferret, they were doing like a ferret census every fall to see. Um, and then capturing the, the new kits and, um, and tagging them, so.

• 1:48:19Steven Rinella?

  They have a, their eyes show green.

• 1:48:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:48:21Steven Rinella?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:48:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, so you're driving around with a spotlight on the top of the car and, and looking for them out on the prairie dog town, all night long.

• 1:48:28Steven Rinella?

  Uh huh, are they spooning?

• 1:48:29Speaker 05

  Very cool experience. No, I mean, they're.

• 1:48:33Steven Rinella?

  They're chill.

• 1:48:33Speaker 05

  They're, yeah, no, they, yeah, they're, and. And they're small, right? They're a couple, they're a couple pounds and they're, they're prize a couple pounds. So.

• 1:48:42Steven Rinella?

  That's cool.

• 1:48:42Speaker 05

  Amazing to think about. They eat a prairie, the prairie dog only lasts them a couple of days. They eat one every three days.

• 1:48:49Steven Rinella?

  Well, it seems like there's plenty of them out there, but I, I see what you're saying about needing those huge towns.

• 1:48:53Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, let alone all the other species that the rattlesnakes and the badgers and the burrowing owls and all the other species that depend on, on those prairie dog towns and all the ungulates that are eating that fresh growth. And they're an important part of the ecosystem, even though not everyone loves them.

• 1:49:10Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. All right, man. Thanks again.

• 1:49:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, thank you.

• 1:49:14Steven Rinella?

  Appreciate you coming on.

• 1:49:16Speaker 05

  Absolutely. Thanks for having us.

• 1:49:44Speaker 12

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