Ep. 66: Trapping Wolves with Justin Webb
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He's the executive director for the Foundation for Wildlife Management. Welcome, Justin. Thanks, Dirk. I appreciate you having me on. Yeah, I've been wanting to interview you for quite a while, even before I got on this podcast. I've found what you and your organization are doing very fascinating, and I think it's important for people to know about it. So anyway, I wanted to get you on here.

First off, tell our listeners a little bit about yourself. A little about myself. Well, I'm a passionate outdoorsman. Grew up off the grid in the backcountry of North Idaho. Spent most of my life hunting and fishing and camping, hiking the backcountry. I raised a family. My kids are grown now. And

I've been able to kind of pour my heart and soul into what has become the Foundation for Wildlife Management and just feel blessed to be able to do something for a living that

I would do for free given the free time. It's really near and dear to my heart, the mission of the Foundation for Wildlife Management. And watching the negative impacts of the overabundance of wolves transpire over a 10-year time frame was really saddening to me.

And it's a travesty in some areas. Some places it's not nearly as impactful, but something I'm very passionate about. I spend countless hours tracking wolves, studying wolves, talking about wolves, seeking out knowledge about wolves.

There's not a whole lot about my life anymore that doesn't involve wolves on some way, shape, or form. But...

I'll say, you know, prior to wolves, the majority of all my time was spent chasing giant mule deer bucks in the backcountry and hunting elk. And that passion has kind of been overrun with my passion for trying to save what elk populations that we have in the backcountry. And that includes managing wolf populations.

And I love that. If you can, can you give a kind of a rundown for our listeners, maybe folks who are not from the West or the Northwest, and kind of give them a brief snapshot of what's all the hubbub about wolves in Idaho? You know, I feel like if you get on social media or any kind of forums, you

You can get a lot of difference of opinion on the condition of how many wolves there are in Idaho and some of these other western states and how they've affected our elk and deer and moose and all the ungulates. Can you kind of discuss where it all started with the wolves and kind of give everybody where it kind of started and where we're at now?

Yeah, you bet. I mean, I can share my own personal experience and my opinions. Um, I can tell you, I mean, I, I had a wolf as a pet when, when I was growing up. Um, we had a seven eights wolf and eight Husky and I absolutely loved that dog. The, the, uh,

You know, the majority of my high school trips into the backcountry, she went with me. Her name was Dakota. Taught her how to pull a sled and drag me around ice fishing. And she spent all sorts of time in the woods with me. But the problem was you couldn't control her. You couldn't keep her home. You couldn't, you know, keep her contained. And eventually things just didn't work out there.

Long story short, when I first heard that we had wolves coming to North Idaho, I was super excited about it. I thought wolves were the most amazing animal on the planet. I grew up watching National Geographic just like everybody else and had this huge fascination with wolves and all that they, quote unquote, stood for. There's all this messaging throughout my life that I had kind of soaked in about wolves being...

not only an apex predator, but some, I don't know, some resemblance of what humanity should have been or should be to some degree. And so I heard we were getting wolves and I thought that was the greatest thing. Couldn't wait to hear a wolf howl in the back country. Couldn't wait to see wolf tracks on the mountain. And then wolves showed up and all of a sudden everything I thought a wolf was disappeared.

I was questioning because everything that I'd been taught a wolf to be was not what I was witnessing in my backyard, in the back country around me, on my elk hunts, you know, on my excursions out picking up shed antlers. You know, everybody talked about wolves being good for the ecosystem and the environment and how

Only the alpha male and female bred, and they only killed the sick and the weak, and they helped keep game herds healthy. Well, when they first transplanted wolves to Yellowstone National Park and to the backcountry of North Idaho, again, I was super excited about it.

They established a goal of 300 total wolves within what they call the Northern Rocky Mountain Distinct Population Segment area. And that area, I wish I could show you a map. It encompasses all of Montana, all of Idaho, all of Wyoming, eastern one-third of both Washington and Oregon, and a section of Utah. Well, as with anything these days,

The wolf topic was litigated from all sides, all directions. It was explored. It was reviewed. It was peer reviewed. It was, you know, basically run through the ringer.

What wolves are we supposed to have? How many are we supposed to have? What impact is there going to be on, you know, our deer, elk, and moose herds? So many different topics and aspects. Well, long story short, after years of arguing about this stuff, they finally settled on 300 total wolves as a recovery goal.

and a management objective of 1,100 total wolves within that entire system. Now, a lot of that management objective, all this data, you can find it in the 2019 listing rule in the Federal Registry. But all of that data, the majority of that data was based on how much suitable habitat that we have for wolves within that NRM DPS area.

And one of my latest talking points, you can talk to an elementary school kid and share with them the concept that every living thing has to have a set amount of food, water, shelter, and space to be able to thrive. And they can understand that. And if you ask them what happens if you have more animals than what you have food, water, shelter, and space, known to biologists as suitable habitat,

Elementary school kid can tell you it's a bad thing and that only negative can come from that. So fast forward, we've gone from meeting our recovery goal in the year 2000 in just four years, basically. It's time for states to take over management of wolves. Lawsuits start to rise up. Takes us nine years to get management of wolves into the hands of the states.

In that time, wolf populations just exploded. Reproduction rates were extremely high, way higher than I think anybody really expected. By the year 2009, when they delisted them within that rule, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service stated that should we maintain the 1,500 wolves that we had at that time, that that would deplete wolves' own prey base and cause chronic livestock depredation.

A lot of people think that, right, well, I should say not think, a lot of people make the statement that nature will balance itself, and I 100% believe that. But what they don't understand is what that looks like. So for those that don't know, you have a prey base and you have a predator base. As your predator populations grow and expand, eventually it outweighs your prey base, causing your prey base to collapse.

Well, then all of your predators die from disease and starvation. In the case of wolves, the majority of them disperse. Most predators don't travel the way wolves do or the distances that wolves do. You know, there's been numbers of wolves that have been documented with collar data having traveled more than 4,500 miles before they take up residence somewhere.

We've got wolves now that started here in Idaho and in Yellowstone National Park that have expanded all the way across Washington to the coast, all the way across to Oregon, all the way down into California. Two wolves have been shot in Texas that came from the North Country. Wolves just travel way farther and way faster than what people realize.

When we obtained the ability to manage wolves in 2009, we arrogantly thought as passionate backcountry successful elk hunters that we were going to go solve our problem as soon as we got a hunting season. And we hunted our casters off that entire first season, foregoing our deer and elk hunts afield just to target wolves. And at the end of the year, we hadn't harvested any.

That's crazy, isn't it? That's very different than what some, the different picture than some might paint. They kind of paint it as a hunting season's a slaughter of the wolves. But I've always had a kind of a standing bet that if anybody can, any wolf activist wants to bring me a really good high quality picture that's in focus within, you know,

archery range or even, you know, short rifle range out of the North Idaho country, if you can bring me a picture of that, I'd probably give you a thousand dollars. And it's almost impossible. I mean, it's almost, you could almost find anything that'd probably be easier to do than that. It's pretty crazy. You know, everybody talks about how we hunted and trapped wolves to extinction. They don't realize that

There was a huge fear of wolves. And so, you know, back when we first decimated their populations, there were full-time, you know, local, state, and government employees that did nothing but pursue wolves. There was such a hatred of wolves that everybody shot them on sight.

Those that didn't hate wolves feared them so much that everybody shot them on sight. And that still wasn't enough to control their numbers. And so they actually poisoned them. That's what happened to the wolves. And they didn't poison them because they wanted to see the animals suffer. They poisoned them because they couldn't figure out what to do to control their numbers that would allow other populations of game and livestock to thrive. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, if you take a, if we look back in the, you know, in history, um, for instance, the, the, the journals of Lewis and Clark, when they came across the Bitterroot mountains, they nearly starved to death. Um, they had to eat their saddles. They ate cattle wax. They ate their horses. Um, they were on death's door by the time they were saved by the Nez Perce Indians. And, um,

That country that they just traveled through back then, if you go there now, it's a very similar kind of country. I mean, there's not a lot of big game in those mountains anymore. Because in my opinion, I think because we let the wolves run unchecked up there for too long without any management practices. And they ate and displaced a lot of elk and deer and moose to where now it's pretty hard to...

hard to find any animals up in that country, you know, and some of the wolf advocates will say, well, you know, it's all about habitat for the deer and the elk and the moose. But I think in 2014 and maybe even a little earlier, we started getting a lot of forest fires up in that country, burn a lot of ground. It's fantastic habitat. It was great habitat before, but now it's even, you know, it's everything an elk could want, but they still haven't came back.

Yeah, you bet. So it's tough. You can have all the habitat that you want. If your predator population is outweighing your prey base, there's not a whole lot that you can do to change that without controlling the predator numbers. And people don't understand that, as you mentioned, Lewis and Clark testimonies, journals, and what they went through. That's what nature balancing itself would look like.

We spent 130 years using the North American model of wildlife conservation to maximize our deer, elk, and moose, our ungulate populations for both consumptive use and recreational enjoyment. And I absolutely love going out and watching the elk calve in the springtime, glassing and watching migrating herds grow.

looking for antlers in the spring. There's so much about wildlife that people think that because you're a hunter that you obviously don't care about it and couldn't be further from the truth. You know, I don't want nature to balance itself. I want to maintain the abundance of wildlife that I grew up with so that my kids and grandkids get to have the experiences that I've been blessed with. Absolutely. Absolutely.

So fast forward to modern day, and since we kind of talked a little earlier about how hunting wolves is just not a very good tool to manage their numbers, but folks have found success trapping wolves, and that's been used as a really good tool to try to keep their numbers in check. Why is it so important that, why is trapping such an effective method versus hunting?

Well, I think to understand the gravity of that statement, that trapping is so much more of an effective method than hunting. It's important to look at the data. So in 2021, I went back and did a bunch of research and looking at tag sales and different things. 74,041 wolf tags were sold in Idaho and Montana in 2021. Wow.

Of that, 411 people actually used their tags and 42 guys took more than two wolves. The majority of those were trappers. So, you know, when you look and compare, let's say a 30 or 35% success rate on an elk hunt, this we're talking about less than one half of 1% success rate on wolves. Now, when I say that, a lot of people think, oh, well, wolves must not get shod. And that's also not true.

because approximately half of the state's harvest is via hunting.

The difference there being the majority of those wolves that are taken while a guy is out deer elk hunting is from just that. They're out deer elk hunting and the wolves bump into them. It's not that there's, you know, a lot of people who have successfully identified the means to get themselves within rifle range of a wolf and be successful harvesting them with a rifle. It's that there's so many people in the woods during hunting

the fall hunting season that wolves end up bumping into people. And so I think that that's one aspect that's important to realize. And the other part of it is folks don't realize how far and fast wolves travel. And more recently, you know, it's almost a daily occurrence. If you follow social media at all, somebody will be on a wolf hunting page or something and they'll say, oh, just go find the elk and you'll find the wolves.

And I wish that that was the case, but that's just simply not how it works. You know, wolves are wolves, specifically in Idaho. We've got an average pack size of six, each having an average litter size of seven. 30% of our packs are having more than one litter because more than one female gets bred.

And, you know, and that data actually aligns right with Yellowstone's wolf report as well. I was shocked the first time I saw multiple size pup tracks within one pack. I did not believe that more than one female would be bred. And, you know, again, I guess that kind of takes me back to the

the reason that when some people get frustrated by folks who are standing up for what they believe in, but they're bashing hunters for harvesting wolves, it's a lot easier for me to have an open conversation and dialogue with those people, you know, and give them some grace because just like them, I believed everything they believed before wolves were in my backyard. So kind of getting sidetracked, but

Bottom line, wolves are running a 250 square mile home range, often on a three to five week cycle. It's real common for them to run 10 or 20 miles in a night. A guy will call me and they'll say, I'm going up Johnson Creek. I heard there were some wolf tracks up there this last week. I'm going to go hunt some wolves. I'm so excited. I'm going to go kill a wolf. I'd

You know, it's hard for me to help them understand that Johnson Creek is 10 miles long and five miles across. And the evening those wolves passed through there, those wolves hunted 10 or 15 basins that size. And, you know, and now they're 75 miles from there.

It's, you know, it's difficult for people to really grasp how far and how fast wolves travel. So that brings me to, you know, back to the topic in your question, why is trapping so effective? Well, if I know a wolf's going to come through here somewhere in this two-mile stretch, at some point in the next three to five weeks, I can set a trap in the most likely location using their instincts against them

namely their territorial instincts, wolves consistently mark the borders of their pack boundary lines. So if you can find one of their P posts and set a trap on it, you know that at some point in the next month, the wolf pack is going to come back through there and one of the mature wolves is going to go over and mark that P post. If they show up at one o'clock in the morning, different than hunting, I have a trap there that's still working.

there's still a trap there waiting for them when they pass by. If I go out and try to hunt a wolf, I'm trying desperately to identify what part of their 250 square miles they happen to be in on that day.

hopefully they're not traveling that day and I can you know try to howl to locate them and then getting close enough to capture their attention and try to call them in but the odds of that are extremely low wolves are the smartest animal I have ever been around and I've been actually putting quite a few trail cameras out over the last several years and

This year I finally got some just incredible video footage of them and it's just been such a learning experience watching them learn from interacting with where mice sign and scent is in the woods. They're just such an amazing animal. But yeah, you know, bar none, trapping is the most effective method that we have to manage wolf numbers.

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Now, I've heard you say this before, the average cost out of pocket you have to spend per wolf to trap one. And I'm going to go ahead and let you talk about that. But it's a lot more than the average person that hasn't heard that number may think. Yeah, you bet. So, you know, I'll start off, I guess, just in trapping.

Similar to everyone else, when I first started looking at wolf trapping, I sought out what is the cheapest trap that's big enough to hold a wolf that's on the market that I can get my hands on. I went out and I bought a specific trap.

And I bought three dozen of them. And I went out and I put in a whole lot of effort. I didn't catch anything that year, but I put in a whole lot of effort. I thought, well, you know, cost-wise, I can make snares for relatively cheap. I'll buy the cable. I'll buy the locks. I'll buy the wire. I'll buy the stops and the ferrules and the swager and all these different things to make snares. And I'll try that. It didn't do me any good. I felt like I was chasing my tail for a long time.

Learned some hard lessons the first couple of years. But, you know, one of the best traps out of the box on the market today is it's called a no BS wolf trap. And by the time you get chain and swivels and everything on it set up to go in the field,

You're looking at about $78 probably a piece. And then all of my traps, I actually get them powder coated, which is another $15 on top of that. So you're, you know, you're pushing the a hundred dollar mark by the time you try to put a drag on the end of it, or even buy a cheap earth anchor for it. So you're looking at about a hundred bucks trap really realistically by the time you get done. You know, you have to have baking soda to boil them in, to descent them. Um,

all these things. So let's just say $100 a trap. Right now I've got 109 traps I think that I'm running. So that in itself is a pretty big expense. So in addition to that, fuel is by far the number one expense out there. And one of the biggest reasons is knowing that wolves travel at 250 square mile home range,

my best odds of having wolves near a trap are to get on the boundary lines of multiple packs. And so my trap line consists of about 75 to 80 miles of back country. The majority of that is now run on my snowmobile, but even when I can drive it in the early season, that's a long ways in the mountains, you know, and you're not going to be getting 25 miles to the gallon by any means. So,

By law, in Idaho, I have to be at every trap every 72 hours. During the hunting season, when there's this huge influx of people in the woods, it's really...

difficult, I'll say, not to go at least every other day. And the biggest reason is because people don't seem to understand the importance of trapping. And so they've been tampering with traps. They bump into them in the woods and they're afraid of them. They don't understand how they operate. And so we've ended up with a little bit of conflict, people sticking sticks in traps or

I've had, I don't know, $3,500 worth of traps stolen over the last five years or so. But just the fuel bill alone, you know, I calculated it up. And for each of the 42 wolves I've caught, it's still pushing the $1,500 mark just for fuel.

Because I have to be at every trap set every 72 hours. Well, when that pack comes through and they're not going to be back for three to five weeks, sometimes eight weeks, I still have to be there every third day, regardless of what the pack's doing. And so, you know, a guy that really puts some effort in, if you trap really hard from the opener in September all the way through the end of March, you're doing really good if you pick up five or six wolves.

You know, there's guys out there that are really good at this, but those people are very few and far between. So, you know, the expensive fuel alone is very extravagant. And a lot of people don't understand that. Oh, that's crazy. Now, I've seen some of your posts on social media about folks tampering with traps, stealing traps, taking wolves out of your trap, shooting the wolf in your trap, etc.

That's just not acceptable, is it? Well, you know, everybody... It's kind of interesting, interesting dynamic that we're in right now with how bad everybody wants a wolf and how extremely difficult they are to come by. I genuinely believe that most sportsmen go into the woods with a moral code and some form of ethical belief. And I don't believe that anybody...

out there deer and elk hunting or hunting anything else for that matter would intentionally steal from somebody if they had any idea how much time and how many hours and how much effort was put into establishing a trap set, a trap line, identifying a legal place that you can set a trap for a wolf pack that you can convince a wolf to put his foot

Out of his 250 square mile home range, you're convincing him to put his foot on a silver dollar. And those spots are few and far between.

Now, as a trapper, I go out and I spend all summer running trail cameras, scouting, hiking, howling to locate, GPS and scratch marks, taking my dogs and hiking them through the territory so that they can show me where their territorial P posts are. There's a tremendous amount of scouting time that goes into wolf trapping. I used to think

But I put a ton of time scouting mule deer and elk because that was my passion for a lot of years. I had no idea what a lot of time was until I started trapping wolves. So you put all this time and effort and energy into it. You find the one spot that you can access with all that heavy equipment and get in and out of there every third day.

Wind, rain, hail, snow, blizzard, trees down. I had to cut 408 trees one time to be able to get to my traps. Wow. By law, I still have to be there every 72 hours.

You find that one spot. You go in there. You scout it out. You put cameras up. You get the wolves coming through. You learn when they're coming, when they're not. You learn when they're using that terrain. You go in there. You set up. You have descented all your clothes. You've descented all your tools. You've descented all your traps. You've done all of this prep work. You get everything set up just right.

You go in, you set up, you back out, you go back up and you check every third day, every second day while there's people in the woods. And one day you show up and there's a big blood mark. And it's obvious that you've caught a wolf. Somebody has very obviously shot it. There's boot tracks right there and a little bit of snow that's there. There's blood and hair blown all over the ground.

What that person, when they came around the corner and saw that wolf in a trap and freaked out and was so excited to shoot a wolf, what they don't understand is that they just saved the entire rest of the pack. And this is why.

If you get a wolf in a foot trap and it's alive, the last thing the entire pack knew was their buddy was standing right here. And that night and or the next night, they're going to be right there again. The hardest part about trapping wolves is getting them to a set that's still operable while it's still operable. Because the snow, the freeze thaw, the, you know, whatever different conditions and issues that we run into. So...

If I get in there and I'm able to dispatch that wolf quick, clean, without scent, without blood, I reset the trap and I back out of there as fast as I can and leave that area alone. That night when the pack comes down, they're going to wander around and I'm going to catch another one and I'm going to go back and repeat the process.

And I'll catch another one. The most I've ever caught back to back was six in a row. Wow. This year I'm on a pack that's extremely educated. They know my scent personally. I've caught numbers of wolves out of this pack. They've learned to dig up anything where I'm using wax dirt, which is kind of a new challenge. But yeah,

It's extremely difficult. So when I show up and somebody has not only taken this wolf that I've busted my butt for all year to try to get to harvest,

They've taken all that work away from me. And now I have to start over completely from scratch because the pack's not coming back there once there's a bunch of wolf blood all over the place or the pack has come in and seen a wolf dead there. A lot of people think they're doing you a favor. They come up, they see a wolf bouncing in a trap, they get all excited, they shoot it, then they feel bad because then they realize, well, you know, I probably shouldn't have done that.

Well, I'll just, I'll leave it here for the guy. I was trying to do him a favor so the wolf wouldn't get away is what they tell themselves and they drive off. Well, that's just as bad because then if that's not the night that I'm going to be back there, the pack comes in, sees that dead wolf and they leave and they won't come back to that spot. They now associate that area to the dead wolf and it's just eliminated my chance of catching the rest of the pack.

Wow. So, you know, there's a lot that goes into that. And, you know, I'm not going to lie. There's a, there's also a, I mean, there's a sense of accomplishment and an award of such. You do all of that work and that's not the reason that I'm trapping wolves. I'm not trapping it to say, look at me. I'm not trapping it to have a wolf pelt on the wall. I donate most of my wolf pelts to generate funding for the program.

But when the little bit of reward and satisfaction that comes out of all of the effort that goes into it gets taken from you by somebody that you're trying to help by doing all that work, it kind of breaks your heart. Oh, yeah. That would be heartbreaking. So much work. And then finally you get one and somebody took it. Dang it. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's brutal. So...

For our listeners that love a good challenge and they're like, you know, this sounds like something I would really love to do. What's the first step in getting set up to start trapping wolves? Do you have to take any courses with the fishing game? Do you have, you know, what's square one? You do, yeah. So step one would be to get on the Idaho Fishing Game websites, click the education link.

find the trapper education link you have to have completed a trapper education course and you have to have completed the wolf trapper education course so go get on their website sign up I believe the way that that system typically works is once they have enough participants interested in a class at a set area then they hold the class and

So you definitely want to go talk to them at the regional office and get yourself signed up. Second, start saving all of your receipts for anything that is related to your targeting of wolves. You'll need that for your wolf harvest expense reimbursement through the Foundation for Wildlife Management.

Um, then I would do a little bit of research, uh, not only into wolves in the wolves in the area that you intend to trap, but into gear and supplies, the things that you really need. Um, there's snaring and foot trapping, and there's a, you know, a time and place for each where they're each, uh, most efficient and effective. Um, I personally prefer foot trapping and, and, you know, for that very reason, um,

If I get one caught in a trap, the last thing the wolves knew, even if I drive in there and it spooks them when they leave, is that their buddy was standing right there. And so they're going to come back and look for them. If I snare one, I better snare all that I can the very first time that they're there. Because if I don't, odds are they're going to spook and not come back to that location. So I would start doing some research on what you want to be, you know, what your preferred method might be.

um, I can tell you that it's a whole lot more fun and exciting to walk up on a live wolf. That's looking you in the eye than it is to walk up on a dead wolf that's frozen to the ground in a snare. Um, and so, you know, for that reason, I, I typically try to foot trap everywhere that I can. Snares definitely play a big role, especially once a wolf pack is a educator, a certain wolf educated to foot traps. But, um,

And then if I had one tip to give somebody new that's interested in targeting wolves, that's buy enough trap.

I, you know, I started out with the cheapest traps I could get my hands on that everybody said was a good wolf trap. And those traps are, they're great for specific instances. Summer trapping being one of those when you don't have to deal with freeze and thaw conditions where you end up with six inches of snow and then it rains on it and then it freezes.

Those lighter traps with less spring tension are a whole lot more usable. They won't freeze to the ground if you're not dealing with freeze-thaw issues.

that No BS Wolf Extreme Trap is my go-to personally. There's lots of traps on the market. The Alaskan No. 9 is another one that I'm very confident in. Those are a little on the spendier side. There's a new trap made by Duke. It's a Duke 850 Wolf Trap that now that they've got some adjustable pan tension on the new version of that trap, I really think for cost efficiency, that's going to be a really good trap for a guy to buy.

But I'd say, you know, start out with no less than a couple of dozen traps. I tell myself to never set just one wolf trap. If I set one in the ground, I'm putting at least three in that area because wolves are pack animals. And although they may be a mile apart when they come hunt through a basin, oftentimes they're traveling together. And if you catch one, odds are there's going to be others roaming around

um investigating around that wolf that's caught and so um i've caught doubles numerous times just from having more than one trap there so um buy the most trap you can afford buy enough trap you know um something that's that's beefy and gonna break through uh freeze thaw conditions crusts um

And then I'd say take your dog into the mountains and start watching their behavior. Anything your dog pees on, stop and investigate it. My dogs are invaluable on my trap line. I wouldn't know half of my set locations without watching my dog's behavior. GPS, I started GPS and Wolfscat and road systems online.

And it sounds silly at first, but once you have covered enough territory and you start identifying these crossing points where a wolf is actually close to a road, close enough for you to be able to access it with these big, heavy, bulky traps, you'll start noticing a pattern if you put it on a GPS or on a map.

And that's been real valuable too. So those are the things I would suggest doing, you know, to get started, go get your class done, start researching what style of trapping you prefer or would like to do. Talk to some trappers, take a trapping course. We have a F4WM started putting on a wolfer summit. We had one this last July was our first one. And we had 16 of our top producing wolfers from our program and

come and give instruction on how to be productive and on, you know, mistakes that they've made sharing the ins and outs and do's and don'ts and what they believe to have helped them be successful in the woods. And we had over a hundred people attend last summer and our next, next one, next July, it's the weekend of the 19th and 20th, I believe. But, you know, you can look into that and come join us for that.

I learn a lot from YouTube channels. There's a lot of really good YouTube videos out there. Just start familiarizing yourself. But I would have to say probably the largest thing is prepare yourself mentally. The patience and persistence is,

There's nothing that's ever challenged me in the woods the way wolf trapping does. And most people, after a month of not seeing sign of life where they put wolf traps out, give up and throw in the towel. So I would also say, you know, prepare yourself for the long game mentally because it's brutal out there. ♪

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I'm glad you said that because sometimes folks, they have this idea of what it's going to be and maybe they think of some instant gratification like, oh, I'm just going to go out and set some traps and I'll probably catch one because I've seen wolf tracks here a lot. But it doesn't sound like that's always the case. And more often than not, it's going to be the long haul, like you said. So don't get discouraged, you know. That's the nature of the beast. Enjoy the process. Like, enjoy figuring out, you know,

Like what you've been saying, you've been studying wolves, you've been learning everything you can about wolves. Even when you're not catching them, you're still learning and understanding the process. And I can only assume you love the whole process. Yeah.

I, you know, it's work. I'll say that. You know how when you and your buddies are young and you're gung-ho and you found this basin on a map that nobody, you swear, nobody, there's no way any person in his right mind has ever gone there to hunt elk. And you go there and you love the trip and so,

Some idiot, usually me, shoots a bull in this backcountry basin that's five days hike from anywhere. And by the time you get that last load to the truck,

you just looking at each other like you're a bunch of idiots and asking, why did I do this? Wolf trapping is very similar. You question your sanity a lot. Yeah, you definitely do. It's, it's just a lot of work. You know, I've been really blessed in my hunting career and you know, I've, I've taken some, some real unique specimens, deer elk, deer,

bears, you know, for what our ground has to offer. And I'll tell you, there is nothing in our mountains that have ever challenged me the way wolves do. And so, you know, when I say prepare yourself mentally, it,

You know, don't take it lightly. There's a lot of guys, they, you know, the phone call goes the same every year. Man, Justin, I'm so excited. I got some, I got my classes out of the way and I got myself some traps and I've had wolves in my outground every year. We see them every year. I'm going to go catch me some wolves and I tell them, rah, rah, you go get them. I'm so excited for you.

And they call me a couple of weeks later and they say, you know, I'm so excited. I went out and I put all this gear in. Oh, you just wait. There was wolf tracks there. I can't wait. When those wolves come back, boy, I'm going to get them. And I tell them, rah, rah, re, go get them. I'm so proud of you. Good job. And then two weeks later, they call me and they say, I don't know what happened.

What do you mean? Well, you know, I bought all those traps and I spent all that money and, you know, I had to wax everything. And now my garage is all covered in wax and dye and all this stuff. And I got all this money. My wife's mad at me. I didn't go hunting. You know, I missed my hunting time with my buddies. I just, I don't know what I did wrong. The wolves didn't come back. And I said, well, how long has it been since you set?

Well, you know, it's been four weeks since I said. I'm like, okay, well, you know, they run a three to five week cycle. That just means you're due. They're due back any day. Whatever you do, don't go pull your gear. Well, I don't know if this is for me. I tell them, just don't pull your gear. Be patient. They'll show up. By the next week, it's the same phone call. It's

Oh, I don't know, man. I'm going to go pull that gear out of there. I got to get back to work. I know I've been going up there every second day and I'm out of gas money and I just don't know what to do. And I'm just begging him, man, if you've waited five weeks, now is the time you're about to catch a wolf. Do not give up. You know, hang in there, hang in there. And then that night I'll get a phone call and he'll say, you'll never know what you'll never guess what happened. I drove up the mountain and there's a wolf standing there in my trap.

And it's, you know, it's the guys that push through, that stick it out through the long haul, that produce every single year consistently. Most guys, by the time they get to that fifth week, throw in the towel. Yeah, I can see. It's a pretty daunting task, really. Yeah, wow. So I have to ask you, big buzz today on social media. Colorado released Wolves.

What's your take on that? Well, there's several different thoughts that go along with that topic. First and foremost, we've got collar data that shows wolves being in Colorado for years. Sure. You know, there's ample amounts of information showing that Colorado already has wolves. So this whole ballot box biology concept, it just blows my mind.

I genuinely think that these people that vote on stuff like this, they're the ones that have it stuck in their head that nature needs to balance itself. Those people don't realize that Colorado has three times the elk population that Idaho had when wolves came here. Right.

And they don't realize that unchecked, unmanaged, that wolf population, once it really gets established, is going to explode and it's going to destroy that elk population. And I don't think that they recognize the gravity of that or what that actually looks like. It's really sad. I was at the NASC summit last year in December.

And it was over in Bozeman. And for those that don't know, the NASCSM, it's the National Association of Sportsman's Caucus, is basically state game management agencies and legislators that deal with natural resources all come together once a year to hash out and discuss issues.

um you know natural resource topics so i'm at this event and uh i'm waiting in line to for for our dinner and i've been talking with the gentleman standing next to me for quite some time it's a long line i get up there and as the guys get in this food after i've been spewing all this information about wolves and wolf issues and the things we've been doing in idaho and all this stuff

I find out the guy is actually the assistant director for Colorado Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, and he's in charge of the whole transplant program. Oh, wow. And, you know, it was interesting just listening to his perception and kind of the somberness in his voice when I asked him what he was going to do. And, yeah.

It, you know, it was kind of an eye opener for me at that point, you know, and again, this was a year ago. I didn't honestly expect this to transpire. I figured that with the devastation that's taken place and the complications with managing wolves in Idaho and Montana.

that they would have paid a little better attention to what's taking place here and how difficult and how much of a task it's been to try to manage wolves and that they would have stopped the transplant program and let them just naturally, you know, become part of it. What Colorado does not have that we're blessed with is the right to trap. And Colorado does not have a mechanism to control wolf populations. Wow. They didn't put it. They didn't.

They didn't get all that stuff figured out beforehand. Well, they lost their trapping years ago. So it's not legal to set a foot trap there. Wow. And, you know, for those that don't know, you think getting a coyote into a cage trap is complicated. A wolf is not going in a box.

They're extremely smart, extremely cagey, and without trapping, there is no mechanism to control their numbers. And what will happen is their population will grow and expand until which time their prey base collapses, and those wolves will end up dying from disease and starvation, or they'll disperse to new ground. So, you know, to answer your question, what's my thoughts? I think that it's horribly sad that

that ballot box biology is destroying wildlife as we know it. Ballot box biology is destroying 130 years and billions of dollars that sportsmen have spent creating the wildlife that we now have through the North American model of wildlife conservation.

It's devastating that preservation extremist groups have taken our label of conservationists and turned it into what the media presents a conservation group to be today. You and I are conservationists. That's preservation extremism. Man.

Well, I can't thank you enough for coming on here today. I want to see if you can connect our listeners who care about wildlife. They're interested in helping manage wolf populations. How do they get involved with the Foundation for Wildlife Management?

So first thing, if they just go to F4WM.org, stands for Foundation for Wildlife Management, F4WM.org, hop on there. You can join. You can donate. We've got five chapters in Idaho. We've got a chapter in Sandpoint, one in Coeur d'Alene, one in the Clearwater region based in Lewiston. That's where our banquet is anyhow.

We've got one in Salmon. We've got one in the Treasure Valley. That banquet's in Caldwell. Then we also have four in Montana, one in the Flathead Valley there in Kalispell, one in Libby, Montana, one in Trout Creek, the Sanders County chapter. And then we just have a new one that's just started up down on the Bitterroot there in Hamilton.

Each of those chapters has a fundraiser banquet. Our first one is January 27th up in Kalispell, Sandpoint's February 10th. We've got a couple in March and all the way through to I think our last banquet of the year is Libby's May 18th.

Always looking for donors, supporters, assistance, help, gathering donations. Constantly looking for volunteers for each chapter. We challenge all of our chapters to do one of a few different things. First and foremost, the fundraiser banquet is where the majority of the membership comes from. That's where the majority of the income comes from. It also gives us an excuse to advertise regularly.

Kind of gets us out there in the public eye, gives us a great opportunity to always get up on the stage and give a little bit of educational speech during those fundraiser banquet events so that people can come to better understand the wolf problem and what's really taking place out there.

Um, and then we also have a trade show booth seats chapter. I challenge each of them to attend a trade show booth, whether it's at the fair or, you know, their local sportsman show or whatever it happens to be. Um,

Last year we went to Grand Slam Club Ovis, the Sheep Show, the Western Hunt Expo. This year we're doing Sheep Show and Western Hunt Expo. But look us up online. Join. Donate. Our contact information is on there if you click that.

the about section, all of our boards. We've got a board of nine people. The contact information for each of those board members is in there as well. If you have other questions and don't want to listen to Justin's voice, I think a lot of people get tired of listening to me talk about walls once I get started.

But, you know, we'd love to have you be part of a chapter. Like I said, we're always looking for help. It's a pretty amazing program. You know, when I go give a presentation to people that are wanting to start a chapter, I always tell them, you know, share your why. What is the reason that this is important to you? And I'll just tell you and the listeners, you know, bar none, my favorite experience in my life is –

you know, hiking in, in the dark, upper ridgeline, uh, during elk season and sitting and watching the sun come up with elk bugling in the basins below me. And I firmly believe if we don't control our wolf populations, that your kids and mine and their kids will not get to experience that. And, and that I think it would be just devastating. Um,

Our wildlife is a big part of what makes Idaho and Montana what it is. And the reason that I love it so much, I think I speak for a lot of sportsmen that are passionate about wildlife. Yep, yep, I agree 100%. That reminds me, I need to re-up my membership, so...

Super. If you just hop on online there at f4wm.org, click the Join button or the Renew button, either one. I think it'll take you to the same place and get you taken care of on there. But appreciate your support. And a lot of people don't realize that.

We've removed... I don't know. We started this in 2011. We got our 501c3 in 2012, funded our first wolf in 2012, and we've now removed more than 2,100 wolves from Idaho and Montana with roughly $1.9-something million. We're just shy of $2 million that we've generated through memberships and fundraiser banquets. Just...

creating a mechanism that a guy that doesn't have the means to get out there and chase wolves can still be part of the solution. While you and I are sitting on our couch with our kids watching football, somebody is out there married to a trap line through rain, snow, sleet, hail, miserableness. You know, it's those guys need our help and, and covering their expenses is the least that we can do.

Absolutely. Well, thanks so much for what you do and your organization. I appreciate everything they put back into the outdoor community to manage these wolves. And maybe I'll get to see you at Western Hunt. I'll be down there at the Phelps booth. Super. Yeah, you bet. All right. Thanks again, Justin. You bet, dude. Appreciate you having me on.

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