Ep. 212: BEAR GREASE [RENDER] - New Pup, Clays Unconventional Farrier Skills, and Mississippi Bears

Published May 8, 2024, 9:00 AM

Fresh back from the MeatEater Live Tour, Clay Newcomb is joined by the Render Crew and Anthony Ballard, Bear Program Leader for the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks. He discusses the history, research, current status and developments of the black bear population in the state of Mississippi. Bear Newcomb talks about his new Mountain Feist puppy, Osage. Misty Newcomb shares about her new website, thenewcombfarm.com.  Josh "Landbridge" Spielmaker and his wife, Kristie Spielmaker, tell about their experience attending the MeatEater Live Tour in Anaheim, California.

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My name is Clay Nukeleman.

This is a production of the Bear Grease podcast called the Bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual bear Grease podcast, presented by f h F Gear, American Maid, purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the place as we explore. Bear pick up that dog, just let bear have it. I don't think she's gonna let me have it.

Jesus, tell us about your dog.

This is o sage and calling her sage. She's a tree and feist. I got her yesterday. So this little dog is probably like ten pounds nine weeks old.

It's a small dog yep.

Max max weight might be a twenty eight to thirty dog. But he said that she's gonna between twenty and thirty pounds pow like test and tim. So, uh, what are you plan to do with this? This fis bear squirrel hunt? Squirrel hunt?

Yep. How are you gonna train them? Well, I'm gonna let her run loose for the test.

Yeah, just run.

Don't think for a minute that I don't know what you should be doing.

Go ahead, Well, I'm gonna let her run loose for the first six months, just out in the yard or their squirrels, and then I'll just start taking her out in the woods with Test and Tim and kind of trying to hone in her instinct to specifically squirrels, because I mean, I think, you know, she'll naturally want to go after stuff. Man, Anthony, We've had incredible We've been incredibly surprised with these feists. Yeah, these two that we have out here, the first two that we've had, and Tim, one of the ones out there, is like probably the smartest dog I've I've owned in terms of just human relatability and intelligence. So they're they're fun little dogs.

Are they Are they those that just have to be doing something all the time, they have to beaged all the time.

Oh, they're they're Yeah, they're high energy. Yeah.

Tim is middle aged right now.

He's he's coming on five years old.

Yeah, and he's, uh, you know, he's getting a little bit grumpy, a little bit older. I mean, you can tell he's kind of irritated with life a lot, and this addition has not been He's not impressed. You know, he's not me but he's definitely and he just kind of like stares at it when it comes near it.

He kind of like, what is this about?

Is this gonna last?

Yeah?

Well it's a good name, O sage. I like it.

I like it, especially with the new bow building stuff you've been doing. Yep, it's a natural name.

That's good.

Well, welcome to the Bear Grease Render. We have a I'm very excited today. We've got Josh Spielmaker with us, Josh's wife, Christy with us.

Christy.

Christie's like the commentator you bring in for like real, like when you need the heat, you know, when you need the interrogation.

I got it.

Christie's there, Bear, John Newcomb's here, can see you, bear, doctor? Mister Newcomb's here. Guest of honor, Anthony Ballard, Who is the bear? What's your official title down in Mississippi?

Black Bear Program Leader, black Bear.

Program Leader for the Mississippi Department of Wildlife.

And Fisheries' that's a mouthful. Yeah. They couldn't think of anything else to add to it. I guess they stop there. Yeah.

Well, man, it's so Anthony and I have a day of history together. I was down in Mississippi back in early March and went on a bear den study with him of Mississippi yep. So we're going to talk a ton about Mississippi Bears later, Okay, but first.

I just got back from the live tour.

He just flew in and boy or his arm's tired.

Yeah yeah, yeah from all the all the music playing man. So Josh and Christy y'all came to the Anaheim show we did which.

Not to not to I know you didn't like it, right.

Well, of all the shows, yeah, that was the the smallest crowd. It was the smallest crowd in the and the venue was kind of like to me, it was like a cafeteria.

I felt like I was playing it like a cafeteria.

Like cabbatorium. Yeah, elementary and the cafeteria.

It was like people had those little separated plates and there, and they were like janitors walking around.

Sha. No, it was.

It was a great venue. It was like a nice venue, but it was modern. Probably seven of ten venues that we went to were these like old theaters. The last one we played in Tacoma two Nights Ago, was a theater that had been built in nineteen fifteen. Oh wow, just ornate. It just it looked like I don't even know how to describe it. But you know the architectural style of that time for these theaters, and they were built. The theater held twelve hundred people, but it was like super compact. Balcony was like right on the stage, and they had these little uh boxes, little boxes, you.

Know, right here. And I roasted some of those guys. I'll tell you about that. But most of most of the theaters were like that.

The one that you got, So Josh Christy came to Anaheim, California. Yeah, Josh played. Josh played the mandolin with Phil and I I did.

It was great?

Yeah, And so did y'all have a good dild response.

Oh man, I had so much fun. I just I don't you know, we get to go to like the o goodness, what is it when we have it here? The Black Bonanza Bonanza. It's just fun to get to spend a day with like minded people, you know.

Big bear hunters like you.

Yeah, like the big bear hunters like me.

No.

I mean, I just love it. And I think I was entertained from start to finish. Music was great, lots of fun, and then just the stories and the way the whole team talked and told stories. I just thought it was. It went by really fast.

I love the people too, because you know you're you're in Anaheim, California, which is basically la I hope I'm not offending anybody from Anaheim, but it's basically.

La Creator and it's you.

Don't expect that there's going to be people who are the demographic of what meat Eater is reaching out to. But I mean seeing some of the folks that were there, I mean guys that you would not expect to be into deer hunting. I mean, it was. It was awesome, man, it was. It was really really really cool the response that people had, people doing their their best al hoots.

Yeah, it was.

It was no offense, but it was pretty rough.

It was pretty rough, Anthony. You would be you'd be proud of your state.

Should I should be a representative, I should be on the marketing team for Mississippi state whatever. Because everywhere I went, we had we had an out hooting contest. We gave away a genuine coonskin had at each one. It got stronger the more the more I did it, Like I told it the story more, but I said, I would hoot for the people and I would say, Okay, these are the things I'm looking for in a hoot cadence, natural tone, volume, and trill at the end. And I said, I'm going to hoot for you just to kind of give you something to go off of. And I said, if this contest were going on in Mississippi, and I was in a room of you know, eight hundred people, and I said, stand up if you want to out hoot, you know, and.

Obviously you would only stand up if you thought you had a chance.

Ants I told him, like I wouldn't stand up in Mississippi.

It's it is.

Yeah, are you a bart out hooter?

Yeah? I got asked to uh when I when we did the d in check Actually, oh yeah, I came with you.

Yeah, yeah, we heard And how was it, Clay?

It was? It was pretty good. He's no Lake Pickle, but uh.

Look, I'll tell you this. Mine is just good enough not to get ruthlessly ridiculed by the people that I work and hunt with.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's barely over the threshold. There are some very convincing how hooters in Mississippi.

Wo.

Yeah, So the ol hooton was a lot of fun.

Oh, let me tell you about my best so as as the as the live tour went on. I didn't realize it, but I have a great skill at roasting people for their out hooting.

So as a live tour went on, he got increasingly Yeah.

Yeah, I got increasingly emboldened by the team mainly and uh no. There was the fire night and Tacoma. There was a So there's these people that are in the balconies. I hope this guy's listening, because it really wasn't personal I was gonna do. If he'd have been the best out hooter in the room, I would have done this to him. But early on in the in the deal, I asked the people from the stage, like, hey.

How'd y'all get those fancy seats up there?

And one of the guys did his fingers like this, his index finger and his h his pointer finger and his.

Thumb like money, like he paid for these seats. And I was like, oh, I see what's going on.

When we did the al hoot and one of those guys, not that guy, but a guy buy him stood up to alhoot and I.

Was like, oh, okay, go ahead.

Called on him and he out hoots, and like I said, I said, bro, you may have enough money to buy a really good seat, but you ain't got enough money to buy a chance of coming down here.

That is terrible, or you know, said something like that.

It wasn't quite that hard and all everybody just like erupted, you know, but I totally roasted him. Sorry, buddy, if you're out there, I didn't really mean it. You just happened to be the guy.

So sitting out there is with a complex of clave just being like, oh that's cute, go ahead and sit down. Everyone else keep saying.

It yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well I as the first night that I actually like roasted some people. I came back to the team and I was like, man, I kind of felt bad. I hope those people aren't their feelings aren't hurt, like being publicly humiliated, and they were like keep doing it. So in the VIP line beforehand, when I would meet really nice people that I liked, I would be like, hey, are you gonna al hoot? And a couple of them would be like yeah. I was thinking about it. I was like, I'm probably gonna be real mean to you. Just just be ready.

I just just just.

But honestly though, I mean like if you're gonna if you're gonna stand up you'll put yourself out there. I mean, you gotta be ready for it, yourself up a little bit.

People people got the vibe and it wasn't me. It was a lot of fun. It was.

It was a ton of fun, especially for Clay, not as much for the other average It was very funny.

Anyone on stage was having a great.

Yeah.

By the end of the tour, Ryan Callahan just jumped up like it was like right beside me being like he would be like, sit down.

It was great. It was great.

But probably the most the most the best thing that happened on the entire live tour was I was approached by a professional ferrier oh on tour in Tacoma, Washington, and he he comes up to me and he says, Clay, I'm a professional fairer, been af fair for twenty five years. And he said, I've it's it's come to my attention that how much public ridicule that you get. I thought you need help by ferriers when you show your mule trim and stuff online. And he said, now, Clay, I'm really critical of fairiers and I have some input for you. And I was like, here we go. Place turned to get roasted Clay's turned to get roasted and he said, now I'm not just saying this because I'm standing here looking at you, I mean convincing little pream that he was about to give it to me straight and he said, mark this down, all of you people out there. He said, your your your methods are unconventional, but you actually do a really good job of triming meal feet.

Oh okay, okay.

And so the unconventional methods was a little bit of a like, you know, you're not doing it exactly right, but the end product.

So if you were to weigh your skill between being a ferrier or operating a dozer, that's what I say, where would you feel like the strength would lie equal.

Unconventional method I was going to say, job, Clay, he's been home less than twenty four hours. I've heard that twice. Now, well I've already heard this twice. Like the bulldozer, it was, he doesn't know what kind of monster he's unleashed.

The guy.

Uh he he said, Clay, I have a gift for you, and they wouldn't let him bring it in the theater.

These theaters they're like frisking.

People, like wanding them, you know, making sure they don't have guns and stuff, and people brought guns.

To the shows.

Yeah, and when you come in the back, so.

He was like, uh, it's like, I got some stuff I want to give you. And I was like, meet me at the bus after and so we met out and he gave me, uh, two hoof knives, a very nice set of refurbished professional nippers. Okay, he was pretty disappointed with my nippers. Okay, so he gave me some nippers and then he gave me a brand new rasp. So, oh yeah, I've forbade Baron Nucombe from ever touching that rasp.

Bear.

I don't know what it is about, bear, but if there's a rasp around, the boy is just like, stay away from my rasp.

Okay.

I just bought a new one for making bos, so you can stay away from.

That one too. So anyway, that was probably the best thing that happened on the live tour.

It was you got some affirmation aside.

From launching my career as a traveling musician. I mean, after like a week, I felt like Merle Haggard. I mean I woke up and I thought about the music. Just the passion overtook me. Wow, I just woke up. I was Merle Haggard on that tour. So anyway, I'm waiting for the calls to come in.

You know, show opener play Newcombe.

I thought the music was great. I mean not just because I was playing with you when I was there, well, but I thought the music was great.

We played, We ended up playing a with with the some real professional musicians. Oddly. Uh yeah, so it's the band Typhoon. So Steve likes the band Typhoon, which I'd never heard of him.

Uh, they're from Portland. Oh. I got lots of stories, and.

Steve messaged them like the day of the show, and it was like, hey, do y'all want to come play music with Clay and Phil and Marco?

And they were able.

To Marco start playing with you.

Yeah, Marco started playing the drum.

And so anyway, this professional, these professional musicians came and they practiced one time, we played through the song two times and then they got on stage with us and.

The word on the street.

Uh, she didn't say it to my face, but yeah, I don't blame her. I don't blame her all. I kind of so. The the the fiddle player wonderful, very sweet, lady, incredible musician. She was supposed to I was supposed to kind of like lead and there's some like chord changes, kind of like freestyle, and she's gonna fiddle, and I messed her up. I messed her up. So her part like uh. She told Shannon, if you're listening to this, don't be embarrassed.

This is great. I loved what you said.

She told Steve that my literally the same day as the Farrier, she said, plays a little hard to follow.

Unconventional.

Literally, because I told that to Steve or now about my mule trimming, and he said she said the same thing about yours.

To be a T shirt like unconventional.

Exactly.

Yeah, I can I can echo that.

Having played with Clay a lot, I can echo he unconventional.

You know what, me and Merle may have been a little unconvention Yeah, you and Merle? Yeah, okay, enough about the live tour. You have a new website.

I have a new website. Yes.

It was just stumbling around on the internet yesterday and you.

Just came across it.

Yeah.

What are the chances?

Yeah, what are the chances?

So what is what is your about?

Well, so, for for a long time, We've had this Instagram that was just sort of an overflow of like the hobbies that I have, gardening, cooking, things like that. And but that's not a lot of people know me from that Instagram page, and there's.

Like a whole lot of misty that's not included in there.

In fact, I would say that that Instagram page got really popular during my while I was writing my dissertation because it was a welcome wait, procrastinate, yeah, from writing the dissertation. So it was probably really hoppin' uh during that time. But you know, over the last couple of months, I graduated about a year ago now and finished school, and I've had a little more time to do some of the things.

That I love and being your PhD. Not high school.

Yeah, no, I did not graduate high school a year ago.

I did graduate high school.

I did graduate high school. But I graduated college with a PhD a year ago.

And and so since that time, I've been able to do like writing for pleasure or reading for pleasure instead of just you know, on assignment, and that has.

When you're when you coon hunt and not in a competition hunt, they call it pleasure hunting.

Okay, Yeah, So I'm pleasure writing. Yeah, yeah, got it and so h So anyway, so I get asked.

Questions all the time I've been writing, having a lot of fune in that, and decided to put together some of like all of these things that this is misty, unfiltered.

Oh wow, social social commentary.

So the so there's three parts of it. There's perspectives that's more like social commentary. Those are like deep dives. It's not something you read on a weeknight. It's something you like on the weekend when you've got some time. They're ten to fifteen minute reads. Yeah, they're deep dives into research on different topics that I think impact families, which is the main thing that I've spent my life doing.

What are the what are the three things that are on the website? So that's the first home career. Yeah.

Yeah.

And then just say it's skeeared more towards women.

I think that women.

Well, I mean I wouldn't not necessarily, I wouldn't say that. Yeah, I wouldn't say that. I think if you're into it's geared towards I would say it's s geared more towards people raising a family. It's definitely geared towards people who are like in the thick of raising kids.

In some of the topics that you would have on here that you have right now, you have an article on why boys are underperforming in school, which is like really interesting.

Yeah, I mean, like at a.

Lot of research based stuff about school system about education systems in the way.

Yeah, very interesting.

Yeah, we noticed a while back at at the school I'm the superintendent of we have like bears about to graduate and his class I think your class is is it seventy percent mail? The class before you is seventy five percent Chef's class was ninety percent mail. So we were trying to figure out why are all these boys coming to our school, like why is and and part of the reason was because some of the different things that we were doing at the school, you know, boys were able to be a little bit more successful, and overall they're not doing great. And so that's really a reflection of just kind of the trial and era of the last twelve years trying to figure out how to get these guys through the school system. But we've got a bunch of girls right behind them.

Now, So in you've got an article here about meat.

Yeah, so it's it's not just about like social issues, but it's a meat's kind of a controversial topic right now. A lot of people are talking about, you know that it's killing the planet and it's not good for you, and that's not true.

Got some book reviews on here.

Get some book reviews.

Yeah.

So there's three types of articles. There's the perspectives, which are the deep dives.

There's short form stuff for just families trying to get through the week. If you look, there's a section called Home and Garden. It may eventually be split up into two sections, but it's assuming that most families don't have time to every day read a long article, but also might want some helpful, constructive trip tips for doing things like we've done it, like with eating kind of healthy and wholesome.

It kind of takes a.

Little bit of time.

Yeah, the bit you can read.

About that in the article or listen on Clay's podcast about the Big Five. But if you're trying to do that, it's hard, and it's especially hard if you have a job and you don't like devote your life to milling your own wheat, because you know, some people do, but not every We didn't, and so it's just kind of like practical tips, and that's usually like punchy lists. That's mainly what you'll find in that section.

Is there a section on there for me?

Would you like to co author some stuff?

Clay?

Okay, give me some examples.

Of things dooser section, but Ferrier, Yeah, I feel like that's relevant to.

Most people raising the family.

Yeah, well, so that's the the new Conform dot.

Com, the new Conform dot Com.

That's that's good. I like it.

Yeah.

Uh, bear, you finished up your auction bow. Yep.

I've got a few little details left, but I'm right now shooting it and.

Uh breaking it in.

Yeah, tell me, because what's what's it made of?

Like?

Tell me? Made of horn beam, which is like a it's not.

A very They have that down in Mississippi.

They pretty common.

Yeah, I've never even heard of it until I got this stave, but hop horn beam and it's got water buffalo horn tip overlays where the string wraps around the.

Those native Darkansas.

Traveled to Australia. Yep.

Nice, it's got coon hide, arrow rest on it, beaver silencers, wide oak candle.

Uh. It's forty five pounds at twenty eight inches. Good looking bow.

So we're gonna ship that out real soon to the to the auction winner. It wasn't finished like he started it, like right when we when we put it up for auction.

Yep, so guy's going to get that bow.

One of the common woods that was used back by the Native Americans was osage orange.

So yeah, yeah, next time you can named after very nice.

Yeah we now do. Y'all have osage downe in South Mississippi.

Most of the state.

Yeah, really, okay, yeah, we have it here too, but it's kind of on the It feels like it's on the edge of its range because there's directions you can go from here where there's.

Not a lot of it. But yeah, yeah, we have some osa George.

Ye Bear John is also about to graduate high school.

He's a week away from graduating and he has spent the last quarter of his school experience a little bit has been a little non traditional. Bear saved up when you at the beginning of the year, they published the parent handbooks and the student handbooks and they say, you know, if you miss more than this amount, you will be reported through it. What Bear did is he said, okay, so that's the amount I can miss for Turkey season spread and he comes out of the woods for like, you know, this is the time of year where there's a lot of senior banquets or presentations or things like that. So he has spent the last month, uh, basically living in the woods, coming out for class. You know, he's he's got a lighter schedule and he's taking some community college classes as well. So he'll come out and do his online classes for a little bit and then retreat back into the woods, come out for a presentation.

And do you recommend.

Let's come back to cicadas here?

Well, I know they can talk about it. Yeah, it's all the raves cicadas, but you could.

Call that dog people are cooking with cicadas. Have you heard that?

I had?

I read an article yesterday in New York Times. Yes, definitely not something I'm interested in.

They say it's they say it's related to a shrimp. They say, John.

The Baptist had it figured out the whole he knew what was Huh.

I've had a cricket bar before, like a like an energy bar made out of crickets.

Like a like all these crickets sitting around drinking.

Yeah, no, oh, I know it wasn't great, but anyway, so bears had a he said, a pretty adventures. Brought home a turkey.

Yep, big turkey, Yep, big one, Anthony, How long have you been the Bear program coordinator down leader, leader.

Leader Tomato tomatow. So I've joined the agency in twenty fifteen and then went over to the bear stuff back in the early parts of twenty twenty three. And so it's been just over a year.

And did you go to school in Mississippi?

I did, Yeah, MISSOSISI State University.

I knew you went Mississippi State.

And then I've.

Learned a little bit about being in Mississippi, about the nuance difference between Mississippi State and uh.

Mississippi. What's the school up north?

So it's probably one of the most bitter rivalries in the Southeastern United States. Yeah, top five in the country probably. Yeah, so it's it's it's uh, well, we had a football coach that actually wouldn't he just called it the school up North.

But yeah, it's Mississippi, no miss That's what I was very clear cut.

Yeah, that's what I was reaching for.

You're either one or the other, yeah, yeahs.

I yeah, I won't name any names, but uh, somebody gave me Lake. That gave me a lot of insight and how you could pick out of a room who went to Mississippi State and who went to Old Miss.

Oh yeah, well, I mean in the wildlife department, you know, in that profession. You know, Missippi State has one of the most respected wilde programs. It's bag engineering and then there's wildlife kind of mixed in with that. And so you know, if you're going to be basically the kind of the stereotype is if you're going to be you know, a doctor or lawyer, you know, golf player, that kind of thing, good Old Miss. And then if you're going to be you know, one of those that's a farmer, engineer, hunter, agriculture that that kind of crowd, that's more of a Missippi State thing.

Go to Missippi State.

I want to know that on the Bear Grease podcast that we are equal opportunity, equal opportunity miss Mississippi College. You know, nothing against Old Miss. But uh, but you went to Mississippi State.

I did. So you you got a degree in wildie biology.

Then yeah, wildife in fisher science and then went to University of Louisiana at Monroe from a master's.

Okay, what you study in your masters so cicadas?

No, I actually study wild hogs. We were doing a research project in southeastern Louisiana, like kind of southwest of Homer in uh Terrebone Parish, and so we did some aerial transects down there and looked at some remote sensing stuff. And so when I first got hired on, that was the position that I went into, was as the nuisance species biologist. Okay, so I did wild hog work there for you know, essentially my whole career except for these this last year. And then our our bear guy retired in November of twenty two, and then I was able to come back over or come over to the bear program after that.

Let me go back to your masters on hogs. How what would the abstract on an academic paper that you'd have written about hogs say about your research?

Like what did you learn?

So essentially, what the main reason for the project was was to look at number one, was it feasible to run aerial transsects? And then what's that?

Don't know?

Okay, So basically what got in helicopter and flew straight lines in a grid pattern across the you know, the study area, and we had on board avionics that would actually trace out the hog damage into a polygon. And then of course with that polygon, then you could calculate the area and then extrapolate what the hog damage might be over that entire Stuy.

Wow, Oh, so you just taking.

A sampling of hog damage and then extrapolating it out to try to understand how much damage hogs you're doing, Yeah, kind of based on like habitat that was similar.

Yeah, and then we would also we kind of took that step further and also looked at remote sensing. So there's a lot of remote sensing software out there. You can get satellite imagery and then you're essentially training that program to pick out what you deem as in this case, hog damage, It could be any feature, and then it takes those values and based on what you've taught it, it will spit out an estimate, an estimation of how much hog damage is in that area, and then you compare the two and so kind of synopsis of it was the remote sensing part of it. There was too much You couldn't account for the texture in the ground, so you could account for the color and the shading and that kind of stuff, but it would often get it, you know, confused with things like mudflats. So you know, from satellite imagery, what's the difference between a mud flat and disturbed soil from hawks? There's not much other than the texturing, and so you know, clouds, shadows from clouds and that kind of thing would interfere. So it was it was kind of an imperfect thing. And you know, there possibility didn't work. It didn't work great. So the remote sensing would always overestimate the amount of damage there simply because it would it would factor in all that other stuff and add it to you know, and and kind of artificially inflate that number.

But the other transsection what'd you call it?

Trans Yeah, the transects, that was better. It was better, yeah, because you know, essentially, if you if you run your transects correctly, you're going to get a pretty good sample of you know, a pretty good representation of what that study area looks like. And then you can take that and you know, of course nothing's perfect, but she's can't get a pretty good idea.

Well, this really makes me think of when we shift to bears, the studies Steve Ronella talks about on the live tour of how you can correlate bigfoot sightings and black bear populations and it'd be interested in how that works in Mississippi, Jo.

Talking about that.

Yeah, Yeah, apparently there's some real research about correlating what people in a region think about bigfoot and extrapolating that out into their black bear populations. And there's some pretty strong correlations. And basically it has to do with habitat, like wherever you can't see very.

Far bear wants to be, a sasquatch wants to be.

Yeah, pretty interesting study. And so you've been the bear lead for just like less than two years. Yep, right on, So describe do you think most people would be surprised to learn that there are bears in Mississippi?

Most people are, well, I say most a lot of people are still surprised to.

Learn that, like in Mississippi.

In Mississippi, Yeah, And that was one thing that really struck me whenever I first kind of took the program over. And you know, people don't realize we've been doing bear research in Mississippi for twenty years now. The bear program kind of went from the Museum where it was that deals with a lot of the kind of endangered species and you know, reptiles and amphibians, that kind of thing. And then when it went over to Wildlife in two thousand and two and it was under the Wildlife and Fisheries umbrella. You know, we continue that research on and we've been doing you know, research collering and genetic analysis and all that for twenty years in the state. And I would say a pretty good majority, but pretty good percentage of the population don't know that we have black bears in the state at all.

Right, So the big story of Mississippi bears, which a lot of people that would have listened to our whole Collier series we did about two septembers ago. You know, in the in the late eighteen hundreds, much of the Mississippi Delta would have been a wilderness in a way until the railroads came in. Big swamps and naturally very productive bear habitat. I mean, some of the as productive as anywhere in the country really would have been the southeastern part of the United States.

So I mean, if you're going to take the President of the United States hunting somewhere, that'll be a pretty good spot. Yeah, that kind of speaks to the quality of hunting probably more than anything else. Yeah, that was the spot that was selected right there in Mississippi.

Yeah, and so so bear grease folks would remember the whole Caller story and where I went with Anthony to on a dense study back in March was I don't know. I can't remember the exact location, but it was within twenty thirty miles of where Holton Theodore Roosevelt with a hunted bear in nineteen oh two.

I think I know too.

Yeah, just up the road probably, Yeah, you're right, probably fifteen miles or so.

And then after he left, after Belt left, the bear story turns turns pretty pretty pretty bleak because bears were basically extirpated from the state. Do you do you have a sense of were there ever zero bears in Mississippi?

They were never completely extirpated. No, okay, And so that's one kind of misnomer that's out there. People think that they were they were none, and then they were restocked, and now there's bears, and now it did get down very low. I think the I think the lowest estimation was somewhere around a dozen like it was extremely low. Wow, but it was never zero. Where were those bears at right there along the river on the river.

Yeah, so yeah, so the the Mississippi River corridor, and we've you know, done a lot of stuff on it.

It's like a.

Pretty wild corridor right along the river because you can't build on the river because of flooding. So they have now you know, since the turn turn of the century, there's been levees, but inside the levees you basically can't build. So it's maintained quite a bit of its wildness though though it's I mean, it's not like there's not people in there. There are, but that's where the bears held strong, was like right on the Mississippi River.

Yeah, the Batcher Land, Bacher Land.

That's so that's the the genetic studies of bears in Mississippi. Are you able to like, what have they learned about the genetics? Because are the bears? Well I could put words on the table, but I want to hear you where where did they come from?

So, like I said, we had that small remnant population. And when you have any small population like that with few individuals you all have you also have very few or very a small amount of genetic diversity, and that can be a problem in you know, reproduction, you can have inbreeding, you can have all kinds of you know, maladies and reproductive problems as a result. And so what Arkansas and Louisiana did back in those times to supplement the Louisiana black bear population was to bring in American black bears from Minnesota, And so when that restocking effort occurred there, it was not only to bolster the numbers, but it was also to increase genetic diversity. You know, they did the same thing with whitetail deer in the state. I think there was Mexico, Wisconsin, several other states that they are in locations that they brought animals in to make sure that they weren't bringing in that make sure they were bringing the most diverse genetics in to supplement that population as they could to try to avoid those problems.

Did climate have an impact on bringing the bears from where'd you say? Minnesota?

Yeah? I don't know. So there are some there were some places where the introductions went really well and the bears seemed to thrive, and you can still see, you know, those those genetic influences and there are some that it was. It was pretty much a failure. Really, Yeah.

Yeah, did Mississippi ever bring in any bears? Though?

Mississippi tried one time and then night it was either thirty four or thirty five, and it was what the notes that I have is said it was marked as a failure. Apparently there was a pretty few five or less that were actually wait, they get them. I would assume it was somewhere up north, but I don't know that for sure.

Yeah, so in the thirties, so the Arkansas story was in the you know, between like fifty four and the early sixties, they brought in these two hundred and fifty four bears. So you're saying that reintroduction is what is now is influenced Mississippi.

Yeah, so those bears are crossing the river.

Right, So essentially, like the big population sources that you have that Iron State has seen an influx of the White River Refuge around were right there in kind of southeast Arkansas. Yeah, you've got Tensaw National Wilife Refuge, which is a super dense population there and those surrounding areas, and then parts of southwest Mississippi just across the state line, like Tunica Hills WM that that area a chapel I basin, and then you also have a small population and mobile and the Mobile basin in Alabama, and so a lot of our southeastern or southeast Mississippi bears have kind of influxd from it.

So there's bears coming from the east coming into Mississippi.

Not to the extent from from the west because that population is not growing nearly as fast and it's it's not as big of a population source, but there is some influx there.

Yeah, did they ever reintroduce bears into Louisiana or is that all from migration of this core? So what's cool to me is that the the well when you look at habitat, the public lands and stuff here in Arkansas have been this like harbor for our bears. Essentially they turn them loose in this stronghold. Is now you know, bears going into southern Missouri, which now has a bear season in southern Missouri, They're coming into eastern Oklahoma which now has a bear season. Are Is that where Louisiana got their bears? Is from migration of our bears south or did they bring them in?

I think they did also bring them in but I don't think Louisiana got down to the same level that we did as far as like their lowest point of their population.

So they always had some bears.

Yeah, so I think they were able to bolster that, but they didn't get nearly to the point that we did to have to supplement.

And Mississippi doesn't have a bear season.

No, now, they're still a state protected species.

Right, And how long has it been since they've had a.

Season, So I know the agency, the Missisippi Wildye Fisheries and Parks. Then the Mississippi Game and Fish Commission was actually formed in nineteen thirty two, and so I would imagine it was sometime.

So it's been gosh, nearly one hundred years.

Yeah, this season, so how many I asked you this before? But how many bears do you think are in Mississippi.

At any given time?

I knew it was gonna happen.

Yeah, I just hate questions like that.

Means, if I could tie Myron Means hands behind his back.

On a chair, rank and serial number and that's it.

And like hook him in the chest, how many bears are in Arkansas? He'd be like, well, I don't know. Quit messed around with me. How many bears are in just say a number.

Yeah. The problem with Mississippi is we have an estimation that is about fifteen years old. That's the most current population estimate that we have. And so after.

He says all this, I'll tell you how many bears are go ahead.

Nobody wants to know more than me, And I cannot tell.

You how to keep the info coming. I'll let you know, I cannot.

Tell you how how how much I'm looking forward to actually having an estimate, because when you talk to people, regardless of how verse they are in the subject, that's what they want to know. How many bears do we have? But so that that's our our old estimation, and the new estimation that we're going to have, I'm hoping is going to be in the next year, year and a half. H We've got a really lot we're collecting a lot of genetics, and we've got a lot of collars out right now, we're trapping a lot of bears and and that's a multi state project too, And so we'll have a pretty good idea of like a good, solid, reliable number and then you know, another question that people have and maybe jumping the gun a little bit, but you know, we'll.

Move on.

I can ask you snatch me right back here.

Remember what you were going to say about the next thing you want to talk about? How so the population study that's going on right now to describe how that works.

So there's been different sections of the state that have been chosen to do bear hair snares. So essentially what that is is you've got a couple of strands of bar are usually around trees and you know, and in the study area bait in the middle, some kind of you know, scent attracting or some type of you know, doughnuts are us pretty commonly, And the idea is to get the bear to navigate that barbed wire into the baited area and snag a small piece of hair as he or she does it, so that we can then get that genetic information. And then once you do that on a landscape wide level, you start to get an idea of what the density might be. You start to get an idea of, you know, what type of genetic influences that that bear has had, so you know where what areas that that bear might have come from as far as a source population, and you can really start to put the puzzle pieces together of you know what that population looks like.

So from from hair collected and and and understanding of where all this stuff came from, you can like triangulate and come to get a number of like Okay, we've got this much habitat, we had this many hairs, this is what the genetics state say, and you can like using some of these data points come up with an estimate.

Yeah, some of the wizardry when you get really into the weeds like that. We rely on Missippi State University. That's been kind of a.

Let them know if they if they need any help with that, I'd be glad that.

Yeah, I'll call them. But uh, anyway, MSU, we've we've worked with them for years and years on studying every critter there is in Mississippi, and you know, when when it comes to actually building the models and analyzing the data, uh and really to a largest collecting the data as well, We've always had a really good relationship with them, and so like when it comes to the like the nuts and bolts of it, that's that's their department. So yeah, I can't get too far into the weeds because I'll start talking over my head.

Play's unconventional, but it works, right.

Yeah.

Now, the old, the fifteen year old, just to give a just a baseline numbers, the fifteen year old estimate is like a couple hundred bears.

One hundred and fifty to three hundred is the old hundred and fifty to three hundred bears?

Yeah?

Yeah, you think the estimate in Arkansas.

That they six and seven thousand?

Oh wow wow yeah, Okay, that's a huge So do you think that the estimate is higher or lower?

I think it's way higher.

Now, yeah, do you think it's close to Arkansas?

No, I don't think it's close to Arkansas.

It's all based on habitat, just like like the amount of suitable bear habitat. So there's places that are just going to have like the carrying capacity is just going to.

Be less and is ours. Do we have so much more habitat because of the mountains? Well, because I don't think Mississippi would be any less hilly rural than we would be.

I mean it's not about rural, it's it's about I mean bears typically, well, like where he A lot of where these bears are is like ag land, Like there's huge chunks of the map that are monoculture just ag which is basically not good bear habitat. I mean, they might munch on the fringes of some soybean fields or something, but it is not gonna hold bears. So when you looked at aerial maps and you see these corridors along rivers and these big blocks that are am I am I right? Yeah, these big blocks of timber basically is what the bear needs.

Yeah, that's what you're looking for. And a lot of those blocks of timber in the Delta and along the Mississippi River have That's why they've been such a stronghold, is because they've got everything that a bear wants, and they're you know, as similar as what that ideal habitat was one hundred years ago. Yeah, you still got a lot of old growth timber, You still got a lot of trees for dinning and all that.

Well, Yeah, that that Bend study you guys did, the soal was in a tree. Yeah, up in a hollow tree.

Bye, before I want to talk specifically about that, before we do, though, talking about bear numbers. Man. So, we were in California just this last week. California just came up with new study, and they think that they're between sixty five and seventy five thousand bears in California.

Oh my, what I mean are intacted in California.

You can hunt bears, but they've basically gutted the management mechanisms in California. You know, seven eight years ago they banned hunting with hounds. They used to have a spring season, they banned that. You know, the political climate out there obviously is not pro wildlife management through hunting.

But is that a concern?

Oh?

Massive, Okay, it's it's it's it's it's eroding the foundations of the North American model wildlife conservation.

I mean for.

People to basically be like, hey, we don't we don't want to manage them in that way, and so anyway, but just to put it in perspective, you know, it feels like a lot of bears, you know, like like I mean to say, there's you know, maybe five or six hundred bears in Mississippi. Sounds incredible, awesome, They're they're coming back. This is a massive success. And then it goes, whoa, there's six sixty five hundred bears in Arkansas. Holy smokes, that's incredible. And then California.

So is that the would you is that the most bare dense.

I think they would.

I mean, I'm pretty sure that California has more black bears than the state in the country.

Wow.

Now the state of Maine they believe has between like last it's been a couple of years.

But I wanted to thirty and forty.

Thousand bears in Maine, you know, like Montana has like twenty five thousand bears. Washington State's gonna have around thirty thousand bears. The Canadian provinces, all the Canadian provinces have just like incredible bear numbers.

So there's roughly.

Some people I've heard it set a million, but actually in the research they say there's between seven hundred and fifty thousand and nine hundred and seventeen thousand bears in North America North America. But I mean, you know, knowing what I know, I think they're a little low. You know.

I want to just I want to become the guy that just makes up numbers.

Yeah, that's great.

I think you're there.

I think when you when you start adding up all the little pieces, you see how you get close to a million bears? You know, in the state Uh, Alaska. You know what, Alaska may have more black bears than California. I think they say there may be one hundred thousand black bears in Alaska.

That makes sense, and it's it's just sheer volume.

So the numbers you're talking about are all black bears, black bears, just black bears, Okay.

Yeah, because you can't you can't hunt brown bears.

California is the bears in Alaska.

You can well, California, California, the state animals California is a grizzly bear.

But then there's no grizzly bears.

There tracks yeah, the extra yeah, yeah, sad story, no man, the whole the uh. I may be working on a little project about this, but uh, you know, the story of black bear in North America is fascinating. It is and a massive success. And I think a story like Mississippi's is a is a pinnacle. It's like a crown jewel of the story. Yeah, because I mean, even though though it's a small population, it's a it's it's significant, you.

Know, very much. So Yeah, And I mean, you know, I'm I'm truly humble to be in the position that I'm in now because it's pretty likely that, you know, during my career, if I if I work all the way to retirement, that I'll oversee the implementation of the first bear hunting season in Mississippi since the days of Dady Roosevelt. You know, like it's just if that's not the conservation dream, I don't know what it is. Yeah, And there's there's a lot of people that don't like the idea of bear hunting. It's one of those that's kind of you've got people that don't like hunting, and then you've got people that don't like bear hunting. And that's not always the same people I've come to find out, But you know, I tell people it's it's the same you're talking about the North American wildlife model, the white tailed deer, the Eastern wild turkey, the American alligator more recently in Mississippi, all of those and and then you know what we hope to be the black bear too. All of those have followed that same trajectory through conservation dollars, through regulations, through the the money that the American hunter has put into the system to bring a species from the brink of extinction up until something that's so ubiquitous that we don't even consider it anymore. Like when you even think about a white tail deer as being a conservation success story, and it is. It's a huge one, every one of them.

Yeah, that's that's awesome. Yeah, it's interesting to think about it. It's such a hard sell to to think about, like what what you're doing and bringing this bear back, and how a hunt season would actually be a sign that it was a massive success exactly, you know, And and how do you think people will respond in Mississippi? I mean, you know, who knows how many years down the road, it's a it's a pretty long ways out, I would guess. But but you know, if there was a limited season there, kind of like they're doing in Louisiana, where you know, there's like this year, this, this fall, this again massive conservation success this year, first year in Louisiana that they're going to have a very limited season, they're going to kill like ten bears. And it's what we saw. We talked a little bit about this, but what we what I observed anecdotally in Arkansas, having gone through Arkansas's transition to having a bear season, that really gave people a chance in two thousand and one, we allowed baiting on private land for archery hunting, and essentially that was kind of the start of Arkansas's bear hunting really be inaccessible to people, though our season started in nineteen eighty. Officially, for twenty years, it was pretty hard to kill a bear, and few people did and fewer people did it on purpose. But what I saw when people started hunting them is that it took some time, but all of a sudden they started having real value because the people had a say and had an incentive to want bears to thrive. But at first people didn't really know how to handle it, Like people didn't know that bear meat was good, like cultural memory is pretty finicky, Like basically, for eighty years, we essentially didn't have very many bears in this state, and my dad, my grandfather, and my great grandfather had no bear hunting in their cultural memory, and so when we showed up and all of a sudden started killing bears, it was like.

What do you do with this? Why is this valuable? This is a you know, this is not something we're used to.

And then it takes like a generation like bear has grown up knowing nothing but that bears are like the crown jewel of this place, you know, And it's just it's really interesting because, you know, like going to Mississippi and seeing the deep, rich history that you guys have in bear hunting and then the idea that there would be this like one hundred year absence of that and then reintroducing it.

What do you think is gonna what's it going to be? Like?

Well, so the good thing about Mississippi is there's a really strong hunting culture and there always has been. And like, as far as the social and kind of political climate, I don't think we would have the same problems that a California, for instance, or a Florida would have. Yeah, and trying to implement a season, and so from from that perspective, you know, I feel pretty good about it. And there seems to be kind of two attitudes about black bears in Mississippi. If people have formed in a pain and it usually falls into one of the two one of two categories, it's either oh my gosh, bears are awesome, we want them everywhere, we want to see them thrive, we love bears as a just categorically we love bears, or it's we categorically hate bears. Because they tear up my feeders, they eat the seeds off my four wheelers, and they get into stuff and they tear everything up. And we don't like the when they're good, no good for anything. And you know what I'm trying to do, and I think we're in a kind of a unique spot to do it is there's a large majority of people out there in Mississippi that a may not even know we have black bears in the state, but b don't really have a solid opinion formed about what having black bears means, and like an attitude toward the end on what itself. And so I think, you know, a lot of other animals, people have their opinions about them and that's pretty much it. But in this I think we have kind of a unique opportunity where we can preemptively, you know, put out some education there and tell people, look, you know, they're they're not the cartoon character that you've seen on the Disney movies. And they're also not the you know, mindless things they're going to eat your kids and dogs. They're they're right there in between. Here's how you live with bears. Here's some educational things, and here's how we're going to transition into this because you know, people want we want people to understand kind of how to make those adjustments before it actually ends up right there and there, you know, on their back porch.

So yeah, yeah, I think that's I like what you're saying is you're you're you're already kind of you're training the the people in a way to understand how to how to have them.

Yeah.

You know, when I first started bear hunting, there really was a vermin mentality.

Before you give people access to an animal.

It's a vermin mentality because it's like, what what good does a bear do me?

Right?

And I think that's a lot of the sentiment down there with some of the big landowners is these there's some areas that have a lot of bears in Mississippi where guys are seeing bears like almost every time they go deer hunting.

Am I right?

Yep?

I mean not everywhere, but there are camps down there where it's just like, oh gosh, well of course I'm going to see a bear, and where there's no reason for that landowner to to no incentive for him to want that bear there, you know, where if you could every couple of years take one have some bear meetings, bear fat and a bear rug, and all of a sudden, there's this cultural value added to the animal.

Yeah, you know, well, and going back to that vermin mentality, there's also a pretty strong contingency of people. I think that their understanding is if we could only get a bear season, then all these nuisance problems would go away, like all this would just be solved because we've got a season now. And you know, the fact of the matter is, that's not the reason that that season is going into place to begin with. The reason for that is to provide opportunity to the landowner, and it's to provide a mechanism for us to accomplish the goals of managing that species. And you know, is it possible, you know, is it possible that it's going to reduce conflict in certain areas. Sure, but that's not the reason that we're putting this all together. And so I think a lot of people kind of get that, you know, conflated in their minds as like, Okay, if we could only get to this point, then all these problems are going to go away. And like I said, that's why this education is so important, is because you know, this is as long as we're going to have bears, you're going to have to know about how to live with them.

Yeah, so this week is is Bear Week.

Yeah in Mississippi. Wow. So you're are are y'all, what what are you doing anything?

Or is it just kind of like you're just talking about it on online social media?

Yeah? So it was. It was kind of organic. It came about last year for the first time, and you know, we're we're told in our bureau, you know, if you've got stuff, pictures, videos, anything like that that you can send to our social media people. You know, they'll put that stuff out there. They're really good at just you know, creating things out of the content that we give them. And yesterday, excuse me, last year, right after Aden season was over, we had a lot of content and we had you know, pictures, videos, that kind of stuff, and the comment was made, hey, well we've got a whole We've got enough stuff here to do an entire week. It's like, well, why don't we just do an entire week? And so Bear Week was kind of formed, you know, organically, we threw everything together and put it out. It was a really big success. This year. We were able to kind of you know, steer that in a more organized direction and actually add some structure to it and and you know figure out kind of the direction we wanted to take. And essentially what it is is, you know, highlighting the research that we're doing in the state, some general knowledge about black bears, and really overall just to you know, to raise awareness of people. It's on Facebook and Instagram. It's on Mississippi Wildlife and Fisheries Facebook.

Wag what's your main Facebook page that you created?

So the Facebook page that I created that was on the end of bear Wheat last year, so that was April. The second I think was the what's called It's called the Mississippi Black Bears Mississippi Black Bear. Yeah, it's got a blue background and then a yellow picture of a bear crossing.

So it's really neat.

He posts all the time, like real time stuff when he's out catching bears and when people send him pictures of bears and different stuff.

So he's done a good job of that.

Yeah. So the official thing that we tell people to report sightings is MDDWFP dot com. Go to the Black Bear Program page and there's an option there to report a black bear sighting. It asked for a lot of information. Some people that are not as computer savvy or don't want to go through that, you know, to find it to be a hassle. The thought was, well, if there's a Facebook page, you know, everybody wants you to see their game camera pictures, and so the thought was that they could just pluck it off their phone, put it on a Facebook and that may be a sighting that we don't capture otherwise. And so it was to kind of capture, you know, the stuff that was falling through the cracks the people didn't want to actually report via the website. And as it progressed, it turned more into it did service that as a mechanism, still does, but I also found more and more utility with it because at the time we were moving into southwest Mississippi to try to do a lot of trapping and collar and we had ten plus collars to put out last year, and you know, in the Delta kind of that bread basket area, we had a lot of contacts, We had a lot of people that we've always worked with, and then once we moved outside of that, we were kind of starting from scratch again. And so that social media platform was able to fill the gaps and when people would, you know, put a sighting on there. Again, most of the time it's game camera pictures, so I can look at the time and date, I can contact that person via Messenger. And I gained access to probably ninety five percent of the properties that I was on over the past summer through the Facebook page. And so it's and then you know, as it's progressed, I've also put out some stuff about our research. Here's some bears that we're collaring, here's some stuff that we're doing. And then kind of a continuation of that, you know, with Bear Week, we're also sharing all that content on there as well.

So I want to talk about bears in trees. That's a unique thing for the flood plone prone regions of the Southeast. Uh is that you guys bears. And the reason I'm saying this is is I put a video up on my Instagram.

I think it got a million views, didn't it?

I think so?

Yeah.

I think Brent's got like a million and a half, yours got a million, and there were there's been several others that were really Yeah.

So basically Christy the Bears Bears person and misty the flood the flood prone regions. These bears are in these ancient cypress trees that have big cavities.

So when I was with Anthony.

How tall are these trees? Giving me some contexts?

Uh, the one that we did when Clay and Brent came out was about fifty feet.

Wow, my gosh.

And how big is a cavity?

Like when you it depends, So as the tree grows, they'll have certain spots that kind of ride out, maybe a branch that broke off or whatever, and it leaves a you know, a void there, and so the tree is alive and well, but those cavities start to form, and you know, sometimes it's just kind of a shallow depression that's really not much to it. Sometimes that cavity will go all the way through the trunk of the tree and the bear will literally be on the ground inside the tree.

But he's but he's accessing a hole way up high right.

So yeah, on some of them, you'll have to climb forty feet to get to the cavity opening and then climb forty feet all the way back down to get to the bear inside.

Wow, and you're doing that? Yeah, Well, you're going to get into the cavity of a tree with a bear.

So the bear, the one that I went with him on, he so they have to rip hell. And they're using the techniques that like an arborist would use, like if they were going to cut down a tree that's you know, So they like throw their ropes up and then Anthony's got this little these little climber Yeah, I don't know, there's little mechanisms that ascenders, and so you know, he climbs fifty foot up this tree and the one I saw, the hole was about I don't know, twice as big as a fifty five gallon drum.

Yeah, maybe not quite.

Yeah, And and this tree just kind of like comes up and just has this like open hole at the time, like almost like a.

Just I don't know, you can just cylinder.

Yeah, you could have just stood in it and you'd got rain on your head. And that bear was just dinned up like right in that hole. And so Anthony was peeking over looking at this bear and tell us about that one.

So the thing that made that cabin, like every cavity is different, and so sometimes you're you're whenever you first look over that cavity. You have no idea how far down that bear is. And so in this particular case, when you look over the ledge, that bear is right there, and you are like from me to Christy to the bear and so.

And fifty feet in the air. Yeah, you're probably.

You just cut yourself.

Jerry Cloward to shoot up in here amongst us.

Yeah.

But and and the problem with that tree was the way it was shaped. I couldn't get like I like to get up above the cavity, because that way I can see the bear better, I can take a shot better. And the way that tree was shaped, I couldn't. And so I was basically right there even and so as I would peek over, we're basically face to face. And and that was one and then.

Pretty docile right now, tell me.

You that way when you're fifty shift die side.

Yeah. Being subjective, this particular female, this is the second time that she's been in this same tree. She did the same exact three last year. And she is not dicile. She was very upset that we were there. So one of the first things that I do is I'll screw in the tree spikes to have a platform to stand on. So I can kind of move around and take a shot in the coming and.

The shot means he's trying to put it right.

Yeah, we dart to anesthetize. And then so first we have to figure out where the bear dens. Then we have to figure out how to get into the den. Then we have to figure out if the sal that is supposed to have cubs actually does have cubs. And so all that process happens over the span of a few weeks. But in this particular situation, like whenever I started screwing that first tree spike in, she started huffing and popping her jaws, and it's like she knew I was there, no doubt, and she hid so by the.

First she's like, we've met before you.

Again. So whenever I first peeked over the ledge right there where she was in view, she had already backed up and she was she was facing the back of the cavity or excuse me, to her back to the facing me. Ears laid back and as I would as I would peek over, she would swat at me and she would hit the side of the tree.

We're on the ground watching this, and he's like hanging off this tree and he'll kind of like around and then he'd go jump back.

She didn't have cubs.

Now you'd hear the bear like you'd hear the bear hit the tree.

And I mean, yeah, it was pretty intense. It was good I get that hour out of the tree.

No, so assuming that she had had cubs and we and we had darted her and actually anesthetizer, Uh, the next step would have been to get my little work up kit up into the tree. So I'll screw it and some kind of pulley. The folks on the ground will pull that up. I start them on something medal oxygen in the tree. I'll monitor vitals inside the tree, and then we take the Like I said, as soon as she had a litric cubs, we've taken those. There's little bags that we put them in and lower them down, and the work up on the cubs. The measurements we put pit tags in, put others, you know, take other measurements weight and that sort of thing, general health, age and sex, count the cubs, that kind of thing. And after all that's done, all that data is collected, then they'll get hurt, get get the cubs back up the tree, and then we'll put them back in the thing, back in the den, and then we'll give them the reversal drug.

So quickly tell me this story about the cub, the orphaned cub.

So when you have some type of problems with abandonment, it's generally that first letter that the that the sal has uh. We knew that she was three years old because she was actually caught for the first time when she was a yearling, so we knew how old she was. I didn't know for sure whether she was gonna have cubs or not.

But this is a second bear. So we we went to this first tree didn't have a cub, this mean bear. And then we went to this other there's this is a different sal.

Yep, different sal. And we had the day before that we had actually done the din check itself, so we had gotten everything went super well. We had gotten the cub, did all of our stuff, put her back. Everything was good. We had gotten back to the camp about an hour later and we had set up a cell camera on the tree to look at when the sal comes down, like look at emergent states from from our dens. And we saw that the Sal had gotten out and left. And to make a long story short, she never did actually come back into the den uh into that dent tree she.

Had she had one cub.

She had a single cub, Yeah, and it was kind of one of those things where you know, you don't want to intervene too early, but you also don't want to let it wait too long and the cub gets dehydrated and there's a lot of other problems that could have arisen. And basically the position that we were in right after y'all left was we had a big storm coming in Friday morning, and you know how hard it was to get back there in quote unquote dry weather, and it was about to be impossible. So it was either take the cub then or had to wait let me potentially another week.

As I began to understand it, so when you're doing these den studies, collared soles, and this is something that's very very understood across the country because almost every state that has bears is going to have some animals collared and do some type of den study. Some percentage of females don't respond well to people coming in and messing with them. It's usually the young ones.

Well, and normally, you know, we have a lot of ground dens and they have a lot more chants obviously of you know, getting out of the den and escaping whenever people come to do the checks, and they'll come right back. I mean, there's you know.

So most of the time it's a non issue.

That's it.

It's intruding on a soul, tranquilizing her, checking her cubs, and then she wakes up and smells humans and knows something back, you know, something happened that you know, high percentage of sALS don't care.

Well, I'll put it this way, this one did. In the twenty years that we've done BAAR research in Mississippi and all the dozens or hundreds of DIN checks that have been performed, I think there's been two other situations of abandonment that whole amount of time. So it is extremely rare for that, yeah happen. Yeah, right, And so once we were able to make the decision of like, hey, you know, we need to go ahead and get this this cub, the standard procedure that we have is if we have another SAL that has cubs, we put them with that, we add the orphan sal to that letter. And you know, almost vast, vast majority of the time there's there's no problem. She'll take them and and raise them as wrong. And so that's what you did, That's what we did. So that was on Friday, excuse me, that was on Thursday night that we went back and got the cub that gave it puppy formula. Actually okay, you know.

To keep keep overnight.

So what happened We just went and messed with this mean bear in the morning, and then by that afternoon, Anthony and his team had been watching on cell camera whether this sal had come back, and she hadn't, and so like all day it's like I heard him talking, you know, it'd be like, man, that's sound steal it and back from the den study of the day before, and it was like, man, what do we do?

What do we do?

And all day.

Anthony was fretting over, you know, should we go, you know, is she gonna come? And then there's a timestamp on how long a couple survive without a nursing cub. You know, we'll survive without milk, they'll you know, dehydrate and what not. And so that afternoon, me and Brent we went back with them to see if the sow was there, and she wasn't, and but we heard the cub crying up in the tree just you know, and.

Uh, and not only that, but you know with that big storm that came through that that cub would have gotten rained on inside where that den was and possibly could have gotten hypothermic as well. Yeah, that was another reason why we made the decision to go ahead and get her.

And so you took her that night. Kepper kept his little male. Cub kept him.

Was a female. I was saying it was a male.

Okay, yeah, anyway, so keper overnight and then Saturday was when we went down to Wilkinson County, which is southwest Mississippi, Woodville area, and we had a sal down there that had three cubs. Come to find out. I knew she had either two or three, and so darted her. Everything went well with that, introduced the fourth cub, and I recently got a picture from the landowner with the sow and all four cub.

That's super cool.

Can you imagine that bear waking up where did you come from?

Waking up and.

Wait and walking into my house and being like having a new kid. Yeah, wait a minute, okay, whatever, I'll take care of you.

She probably didn't go back to sleep after that just in case, right, right.

Oh, that's so cool and and so did y'all lip tattoo that will go.

No, we we kind of moved away from lip tattoos, but we do put in pit tags, which is it's about the size of a grain of rice. It's essentially like a micro chip that you put in dogs and cats, and we do that to every bear that last. Yeah, it's it's injected under the skin and it's it doesn't have a battery, it's just like a scannable barcode almost. Yeah, so as long as it's under the skin.

I've got one.

Yeah, yeah, we need one of.

The fun fact but you know, anything any bear that we get back in hand, that's one of the first things that we'll do with scan them for that pit tag and that way, if we can get that number, then we have a catalog where we can look back and see how many times we've captured that bear. You know, possibly if it's as if it's as a cub, we have a known age and you know, we've got a good profile of the history of the bear.

Be really interesting to follow that bear's life, Ye saved, essentially saved.

It's like, what's the bear's name.

See, I hesitate to name the bears, and that kind of goes back to I didn't.

Know that while we were there, there was a lot of potential names being tossed around, but no, no, I.

Got you know, the name that was put that was put out there was Opie.

Oh how cute. Yeah yeah, I was like, we'll put it in quotes.

I like that name me too. We had a coon dog nam Opie once, terrible dog.

More.

Every morning I woke up and bring new new treasures. Once there was a dead bird, once there was a rock once.

Yeah.

But but kind of going back to, you know, the hunting thing, what I've tried to do was kind of keep it very scientific as far as referring to those those bears, because you know, people wouldn't really mind if if F thirty four got harvested in a hunt, but if Opie got shot.

Oh yeah, scratch up, Yeah, that's good.

And so that's that's one thing that I've kind of tried to change because the naming bears has been really common, especially in a state where you know, you can there's not a whole lot that you're working with. Yeah, but that's one thing that I'm kind of trying to move away from that.

That's a good idea.

What are as we close down here? What are you trap bears a lot? You've been trapping a lot of bears. What's a big one? What's the biggest one you've trapped?

The biggest one over this past year was three eighty four, three eighty four male called one three eighty four and it caught three eighty one. So that was they were both one in Wilkinson excuse me, one in Franklin County and one in Claverant County.

Do you think there's some big five hundred pounders out there?

Yeah, so little little foreshadowing in in bear. We we do have a on Thursday calling it thick Thursday, and we're going to have a fat bear like competition. I guess people can people can post their bears in Mississippi, you know, which one they think is the biggest, and then we'll select a winner at the end of the week. Yeah, there's I've gotten pictures of some of the delta that I have no doubt or in the upper four hundreds at least.

Yeah.

Yeah, our biggest on records for sixty eight that was in Wilkinson County.

Really begins begins. Well, well that's really that's that's awesome, man. Anything else we hadn't talked about that you you want to talk about Mississippi bears.

We cover a lot of it.

Yeah, we covered a lot of it.

Well, you're you're.

Welcome to come back up here anytime, man, you could just join in on a render.

So love too, man.

Man, I love seeing passionate people inside of positions like you're in, that are that really love the resource, that are working hard and uh and and looking long term down the road. So man, you're in a great position and I think you're doing a great job. So that's awesome.

Man.

Well, I appreciate the imitation and the platform to kind of get our story out there and uh, you know, public awareness. You know, we've we have a tracking thing on our website where you know, it's grafted by year of how many bear reports we had. You know, over that year and twenty twenty three, there was a three hundred percent increase in the out of bear reports that we got in the state. Not because it was a three hundred percent increase in bears, but because there were that many more people that were more aware and knew it we with that information, so it's it's a huge like this right here is a huge step for you know, raising that awareness and kind of bringing some knowledge about our program.

Yeah, incredible. Any other questions from the from the team.

No, I loved it. Yeah, also thanks for the swag.

Yeah, really about it?

Excellent.

Well, I'm excited about the next Bear grease that's coming up.

It's gonna be good. Not going to foreshadow an ounce other than just.

It's gonna be very good.

M h wow, we're all in Anthony.

Thanks for coming up here, and uh yeah we'll be hearing more about Miss Stippi Bears.

Cool. Enjoyed it.

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