This is the Pepperwood Podcast, a production
of Pepperwood, a nonprofit conservation organization
based at a 3 ,200 -acre nature reserve near Santa
Rosa, California, in the heart of the traditional
homeland of the Wappo people. At Pepperwood,
we aim to inspire conservation through science.
And on this show, we talk to scientists, stewards,
and environmental educators about what they do
and how they do it. We hope to give you a glimpse
into the real experiences of folks who devote
their lives to taking care of local ecosystems
and sharing them with others. Welcome back to
the Pepperwood Podcast. In our last episode,
we got to know Ryan Farrell as a scientist and
a conservation professional. Today, we're going
to learn about his experiences as a hunter. This
conversation is... not so much about hunting
at Pepperwood. That's not a publicly available
option that we're inviting folks to experience
at Pepperwood. Hunting activity at Pepperwood
is limited, and it's carried out by specific
staff members, like Ryan, and members of the
Native Advisory Council that have a historical
relationship with this land. Ryan will share
some information about the small amount of hunting
that takes place at the reserve, but more to
the point, he will describe his philosophy and
his practice of hunting, how it relates to conservation,
and how hunting is managed on a statewide level.
Speaking of the state, in this conversation,
Ryan and I fall into the habit of using an acronym
again and again, CDFW, and that acronym refers
to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
That's the state agency that manages California's
natural resources following a public mandate
which includes distribution of hunting and fishing
licenses, for sure, but also large -scale restoration
projects and an immense amount of ecological
research. CDFW employs a small army of scientists,
some of whom we have partnered with at Pepperwood.
For instance, we recently provided access and
support for CDFW scientists to collar two black
bears to monitor their movements. CDFW also funds
research at organizations like Pepperwood. For
instance, Pepperwood's forest monitoring plots
that we discussed with Michaela Freed on a previous
episode of the podcast were established with
the support of a CDFW grant. Ryan will discuss
how the practice of hunting is closely related
to CDFW's quantitative monitoring of large mammal
species. And there I just went, saying an acronym
over and over again. So, again, that refers to
the California Department of Fish and Wildlife,
and much respect to that agency. In fact, I started
my career as an environmental educator working
for CDFW, teaching elementary school students
about the work that they do to support salmon
populations. So it is an agency very close to
my heart. Let's hear more about them and about
hunting in general from Ryan Farrell, Pepperwood
Sentinel site manager. I started Ryan off with
a somewhat cheeky question. Who are... hunters
like are they people that hate nature and are
trying to kill it oh not at all i mean i always
you know i think like hunting like the true conservationist
and um i don't know in my upbringing it felt
like there may have been more animosity around
like oh you hunt and you kill things and like
well yeah but then i kind of feel like in the
last few decades and maybe that's just me getting
older that like and working at pepperwood definitely
like you know conservationists on both side of
the hunting aisle really come together and be
like and recognizing like hunters do a whole
lot for this and understanding that what hunters
do and what they harvest if they're lucky enough
you know it's never a done deal um you know how
much money and effort goes into that and that
money isn't just gone but you know you buy tags
or licenses even ammunition um A lot of that
money and revenue goes right into supporting
conservation, whether that's your national wildlife
refuges or your state refuges. Sure. Like, you
know, CDFW is a lot of case who's giving you
those those tags and they're funding all the
science that they do. Exactly. And, you know,
so when this argument comes up, like, oh, you
go out there and you you shoot so many animals
or this and that, like, well, one, no, it's not
so many animals in all of those bag limits. are
backed up by science coming from the california
department of fish and wildlife so i sort of
lean on them you know when they say and it sounds
pretty crazy hey you can you can harvest up to
30 geese a day that sounds insane i agree it
is but it's backed up by the science so we're
talking snow geese and your canadian geese that
you might see around here um there are so many
snow geese out there and they're doing so well
um that they are basically rooting up the arctic
tundra and destroying that ecosystem and the
ecosystem will be okay but there's this idea
of a carrying capacity whether hunters take those
birds or the natural world does it there's only
so much food and space and water and resources
to go around and so if they have an overpopulated
snow goose population they're all competing for
that resources and then things like in the natural
phenomenon you know disease or starvation you
just have weaker animals and mother nature comes
and takes those animals regardless so cdfw has
this kind of data and does this kind of science
to recognize like hey there are so many snow
geese out there right now that like we're gonna
up the limits here because every snow goose that
i am fortunate enough to harvest is maybe one
less that like dies of starvation out there on
the tundra because there are so many and they
deplete the resource um that's great so on a
day when when you catch uh you know 30 snow geese
which is in a pretty amazing day um you know
you're out there like um competing maybe with
a lynx or something else but it's not like a
lynx can harvest 30 snow geese either like between
the two of you maybe and i gotta pause here i
know those limits are up there like that um You
know, you can harvest 30 geese and up to seven
ducks in the state of California every day, and
you can't have more than three times that amount
in your possession, right? So you can't go day
after day into the fourth day and just pile up
that many birds. I have never in my life, and
I've done a lot of duck hunting and a lot of
chasing every critter out there, never even come
close to shooting 30 geese. strictly it's 20
light geese or white geese. That's your snow
geese, your Ross, your lesser snow, stuff like
that. And then 10 dark geese, which would be
your non, well, your Canadian geese, but around
here they're often non -migratory. And so they're
like, hey, they're just kind of not migrating.
They're overpopulated. They're sort of ruining
their own environment. doing what we expect them
to do right so they probably don't have their
natural predators either yeah exactly i mean
that's probably a big part of it too is humans
get involved in the natural world and we tend
to like oh we better for whatever reason and
these aren't hunters you know i think there's
a bad rap if you go back in history and it's
never looks good in history i mean well when
you look in retrospect at a lot of things in
life but you think of like the railroad going
in across the united states like oh buffalo stampede
and all these dummies jump out let's see how
many we can kill and just cut their tongues out
and harvest their hides that's not hunting that's
just like free -for -all shenanigans and terrible
that's not conservationist stuff at all and so
i think that that history and legacy is for a
while followed hunters and then um you know conservationist
got in there said like hey this isn't sustainable
this isn't gonna work that this is ridiculous
and started to put limits bag limits daily limits
how much you can have possession in there and
methods of take so you can't just like you know
you can't take a cannon and i'm not joking when
i say cannon you can't put a cannon on the front
of your boat and paddle up to a whole raft of
ducks and and maim all these birds right you
know they're very strict methods of take unfortunately
rules like that exist because at least one market
hunting back in the day right you know think
of the gold rush and we live right here you know
we are in the center of the gold rush area around
here in san francisco bay so you had miners and
you know all kinds of stuff going on in this
area a lot of people and so market hunting was
a very profitable business back in the day you
just you go out on the bay kill as many ducks
as you can bring them to all these hungry people
coming through san francisco in this area whether
it's logging fishing mining you name it um so
well that so that story's kind of reminding me
of the story of grazing and kind of how we've
re -approached it right where it's like yeah
there's a history of really terrible grazing
practices things that they didn't know were maybe
terrible at the time or maybe didn't look that
hard into it but then that doesn't mean grazing
is always a bad thing right like if you use it
properly if you think about it as a tool or you
know even without you thinking of it as a tool
even if it's recreational like you can you can
approach it in a way that's like much more in
line with ecological health i mean i don't know
when the word sustainability was invented but
You know, I think when you showed up in California,
you know, as a European settler, a white person,
because I realize people have been here for thousands
of years and there's a history long before our
short memories of it. But you show up and like,
oh, my God, look at these hundreds of thousands,
millions of birds. No doubt about it, because
I've seen them in the Central Valley and like
it's still impressive. But I try to always think
back like, man, what did this look like 200 years
ago? Yeah. You see all this sustainable. You
would never think in a million years like, oh,
I'll just shoot as much as I want. This will
never run out. But. You know, that goes on for
a while. And then all of a sudden, people start
to look up and go, uh -oh. It is having an effect.
What's going on? Yeah, kind of like dumping things
in the ocean. Like, no, actually, there's not
an endless supply of space and time. Yeah, and
same with grazing. You know, it's like, oh, look
at these never -ending green fields. And I'm
the only one here with cattle. Let them go for
it. Right. Well, more people show up. You put
more cattle on the land. You keep pushing it
and pushing it and pushing it. And pretty soon,
you go, uh -oh. uh why isn't the grass growing
like it used to and why is this not as profitable
and it does add up if you think about things
as infinite it's like well no that's almost never
true yeah no and then oh We need to do this sustainably.
Otherwise, we're not going to do it at all. And
sometimes it's carrot and stick. Sometimes, you
know, you have to have regulations put in from
agencies top down. Or if you're just a true conservationist
and you care about the land and what you're doing
in generations to come, whether it's farming,
grazing, ranching of any sort or hunting. Uh,
you're invested in it. I, you know, you don't
want to deplete this resource and this opportunity
and the thing you love. So that's great. So to,
to like dive even deeper in, like who are the
kind of people you, you know, as a hunter, like
who are the kind of people who are like, you
know, on your team who go out there and hunts?
Like, I know we can't make any generalizations.
Of course that's the point, but I'm curious,
like, do you notice any patterns with them? All
right. I'm going to start like high level here.
And zoom into like the hunter I like and like
I like to be around and that I help create. So
just like any group, there's a wide variety of
people who participate in hunting. Some I cringe
like, man, I don't want to be associated with
that guy. But, you know, for example, like these
national wildlife refuges. And here's I guess
I should clarify this. It's a national wildlife
refuge. And typically everything like it's a
wildlife refuge. How can you hunt there? Right.
Well. what pays for all of that is the fact that
you can hunt there or whether it's tax dollars
or just the revenue you make from hunters i mean
you have to put in for a lottery system this
for example this may be uh delavan sacramento
calusa there's a whole chain of wildlife refuges
running down the central valley and they're kind
of like these last holdovers uh where these migratory
birds can hop from one to the next to the next
because right now because most of it has gone
into agriculture and like the They don't let
the birds hang out in the rice fields or your
ag fields and grub it all up and eat it. So it's
really nice to, it's critical to have these refuges.
So in these refuges, they're ginormous. Most
of that is a closed zone. No one can go in there
and hunt or do anything. And a very little part
of it is a zone where you can hunt. And so you
can perhaps get a duck hunting blind in there
and hunt, but you pay an awful lot and then you
compete with everybody and it's... It's not always
easy going. And the birds quickly figure out
right where the closed zone is versus the hunting
zone. And it's like an invisible wall. I don't
know what movies there are, but you've seen those
movies that have that like invisible dome. And
I've been there. Like a force field. Yeah, exactly.
All the birds get up and they start coming your
way and like, oh my God, I'm going to get an
opportunity here. And they hit this invisible
wall and somehow they go straight up another
50 yards. And you're like, there's no way I can
reach him now. Oh man. Okay. So getting back
to, I was a tangent there, but who are hunters,
right? There's all kinds. There's real goofballs
and yahoos out there. And there's people who
do, or more ethical hunters, not as ethical hunters.
But what I try to do, and certainly the people,
other hunters that I associate with, I mean,
it's honestly, it's all about the pursuit. It's
not about filling the freezer for me. I mean,
honestly. I mean, I tell my wife when I go deer
hunting, more often than not, like, all right,
I'll do my best to hide from them. It's like
the work begins once you, you know, you harvest
an animal. Oh, sure. And I approach it, honestly,
like every time. And it's sort of, I don't know
if it tempers your expectations or whatever,
but I love being out in nature and in the woods.
It's a new adventure every time you go. It's
a different time, season, and you just... You
don't know what's out there until you go and
see it. And that combination of season and time
and what you see only exists for that instant
and you've got it all to yourself. And so there's
no disappointment in coming home empty -handed.
It is always a great day to walk in the woods.
Because you've been out there and you've gotten
to experience it. Yeah, it was your excuse, right?
Yeah, and it makes it that much more exciting
and sweeter when you've paid your dues. For every
deer I've harvested or pig I've harvested, how
many miles and days and trips. You could call
them unsuccessful, but I wouldn't. They're just
time down field, and you're just exploring and
seeing cool things. You know, and if it was easy,
and I've had easier hunts, you know, in certain
places when the ducks are in or something, and
you can go out there and shoot your limit of
seven birds, that's cool. if you do that every
time and some would probably say otherwise, but
if that happens every time it like, it starts
to take the fun out of it a little bit. It's
just like too easy. It wasn't a challenge. You
know, I really want to, I want to work the birds
and like select which birds I want to shoot.
And like, you don't have to make. make some good
shots and really think about how i place my decoys
and what's the water doing the tide doing the
wind doing where other people do i call too much
too little so there's so many things that go
into um hunting whether it's waterfowl or turkey
or not deer hunting for me just you know you're
walking through the brush and eventually you
look up and go oh my god there's a deer um and
and that you don't ever want to be in a rush
to harvest an animal And that's one of the lessons
that's taken me the longest to learn. And it's
so tempting. You know, your adrenaline's going
and like, oh, here comes the duck. It's out there.
People would debate this. It's out there. 50
plus yards like that's i'm not going to pull
up and try to hit that bird at 50 yards because
by the second shot it's going to be at 60 yards
and the effective range of my gun and effective
doesn't just mean the ability of your gun but
your own ability to make that shot which you
got to get to know from yourself yeah you got
to practice a lot of money a lot of rounds downfield
i mean you have to know your gun and yourself
and your ability to make that shot and that's
an ethical decision that you have to make in
the split second because Yes, I've killed birds
that far away, but more often than not, I miss.
And between hitting them and missing outright
is you wound birds at that range. And so, you
know, I see, I've seen plenty of other hunters
at the refuges who put the biggest shells they
can in their gun and they're pulling up on geese
at like 60 plus yards. You maim birds like that.
And then you see it. You see the birds just sailing
off into the horizon, crippled to starve and
die. And they're lucky. if they just get eaten
by a coyote pretty soon, which is neat because
nothing goes to waste in nature, okay? And so,
you know, that's something, is solace the right
word? Something that I appreciate is like, you
know, when you gut out an animal and you skin
it or whatever, you go, God, that's an awful
big pile of what looks like waste right there
that I'm not using. You know, I'm not tanning
the hide or eating the brains or the tongue.
You're kind of quartering out the animal a lot
of times. and taking that and that's what most
folks do but nothing goes to waste in nature
i mean that is a feast for all those coyotes
out there raccoons and skunks and bears and possums
every little critter and i've seen it firsthand
i mean i see it happen but um you know i'll harvest
a pig out here at pepperwood and i might shoot
early in the day and like get it taken care of
and like get back to work and i'll be downfield
and i'll hear the ravens screaming and running
around like oh those guys are busy and i see
them streaking through the trees chasing each
other holding gobs of fat because they found
the carcass already and they're just having a
feast because that's kind of neat to see yeah
that's not that's not the same as you know the
the waste from your pot roast that ends up in
the you know landfill yeah or even yeah even
in the compost you know yeah nothing goes to
waste and it goes quickly a lot of critters come
out at night and i've gone back to piles like
where'd all that go disappeared in 48 hours So
there was a reference made to hunting at Pepperwood.
Again, a very limited practice carried out by
a small number of people who have previously
established relationships with Pepperwood. As
one of those people, Ryan can provide a little
insight into that activity. Specifically, which
species are hunted at the reserve and what kind
of impacts does it have? And I should mention...
about what we hunt around here. It's just pigs
and turkeys. And those are thought to be invasive,
non -native species around here. And in some
places, especially in like all the neighboring
properties that are vineyards, pigs are a big
problem. You know, they get in there and they
root up the crops and they're destroying stuff.
So it's a serious problem there. Even in a wildland
space, I mean, the rooting that pigs do, right,
that's not necessarily something that this landscape
evolved with. No, it certainly didn't. But that
said, you know, when we think of these pigs as
invasive or a nuisance and we have to get rid
of them, you know, I look at Pepperwood and the
hillsides and pigs can do... a lot of disturbance
we could call it damage but i'll just call it
disturbance that's overnight you know they'll
find an area that's got a lot of grubs or something
or acorns and in three days they'll root up acres
and it doesn't look good but but uh pepperwood
california the natural world is so resilient
like you get a average to decent rain year after
that and you come back in a year's time or even
you know let's say this rooting happened in the
fall before you had a big flush out of new growth
with the spring you won't even know it's there
it just disappears and so you know some disturbance
is fine so i'm you know we chase the pigs and
shoot the pigs but um i don't really think they're
doing all that much damage up here at pepperwood
you know if they get into our native grasslands
that's something that we actively work to restore
and steward is promoting our native grasses and
whether we're planting them or just providing
the right conditions now we certainly don't want
the pigs getting in our new plantings and like
ripping all that up that's disappointing sure
but i don't think that happens as much as we
think it does and i don't know if there's that'd
be really neat but i don't know if there's data
out there that says oh pigs rooting around has
destroyed our native grasslands Compared to,
like, human development? I doubt it. Yeah, compared
to human development or the, you know, fire suppression
over the hundreds of years where all our natives
adopted to having, you know, a pretty frequent
fire regime here. And then we said, oh, no more
fire. And so invasive annuals could get in the
introduction of all those invasive annuals. It's
always a little disappointing. You know, I started
telling people about like, oh yeah, that's our
state grass, that's our native grass, something
like that. And then somehow it'll come up and
I go, 95 % of what you're looking at is non -native
invasive grass. Like, that's just the nature
of California. So, you know, I don't really know
up here if the pigs are hurting anything, but...
They let me harvest them, so I won't argue with
them. And then on to the turkeys. I can never
quite get the story of the turkey straight. I
think they are native to the U .S., but they
may have been more of an eastern species. And
like a lot of things, they were sort of introduced
over here as a game animal. Right. When you look
at their range, they kind of have this big gap
through the Rockies, which makes sense. I can't
really see them persisting. But did they jump
that or did we help them jump that? We probably
helped them, just like we helped the pigs come
up here. Sure. And I mean, what damage are turkeys
doing up here? I don't really see it, but I'm
not going to argue that they taste awful good
and they're fun to hunt. And they're doing great.
I mean, these turkeys and pigs are doing so well
in the state of California. New legislation just
passed. Well, it passed a while ago, but was
enacted this last July. So just last month, you
used to have to buy a... tag for every pig you
shop like 22 bucks. Now you buy one permit at
the beginning of the season for 28 bucks. You
choose as many pigs as you want for an entire
year. And that's California good on them for
recognizing like, okay, we have way too many
pigs. This is a problem. We need to make this
easier for hunters. Nudging that happening. Cool.
But at the same time, it sounds like the small
bit of hunting that's happening here at Pepperwood,
it's not an invasive management protocol. It's
not part of our plan for stewardship. No, not
exactly. It's just like a small form of recreation,
kind of like the way that our stewards are allowed
the privilege of hiking. For people who are kind
of partnered with you, it's a little recreational
opportunity that's neither necessarily a part
of stewarding the property or even it's certainly
not damaging, making any damage to the ecosystem
either. Yeah. I mean, it's right there in the
gray area. some years there are quite a few packs
of pigs up here and it's like if someone goes
out there and harvest a couple they move on and
so it's hard to say like if the it's like this
like balance of the right amount of hunting pressure
not even harvesting animals but if you get into
the pack of pigs there's people running around
they move on and so like in those years if like
no one came out it's hard to say like you know
this could turn into like 10 15 acres entire
drainages oh and here's one certainly our grassland
transects i've seen pig damage in there and that's
not ideal right we want to we're we're trying
to monitor how our native grasses are doing this
and that and now the pigs yes they are a natural
part of it but like we don't really want them
in there destroying our, especially our excluded
transects where we keep the cattle out and we
want to know what happens given grazing versus
not grazing. And then the pigs go under the wire
and root up our control. So, um, so they, it's.
It is a management tool for the pigs around here.
So it might facilitate some behavioral change
that might be kind of nice for, especially for
like research, right? We don't want animals,
well, we don't want hunters or animals in there
like damaging all of our sentinel site equipment.
Yeah. Or our transects, right? So it's, yeah,
maybe a nice, there's a management consideration
there. interesting to hear more about what little
hunting takes place at Pepperwood itself. Now
let's zoom out to hear more about general hunting
ethics and the impact of hunting on conservation
on a statewide level. Something I like about
hunting in general, from an ethical standpoint,
you know, if you eat meat or omnivore or whatever,
well, just think for a second, compare This chicken
breast that you've got on your plate that you
picked up at the local grocery store, okay? Well,
don't take that much of an imagination to think
about the life of that chicken. That chicken
lived shoulder to shoulder in a dark house, stomping
in its own poo and getting pecked on by all its
other chickens and was essentially forced fed
to get as fat as possible, as quick as possible.
And then... Life ended when some underpaid worker
probably went in there and just gathered them
all up by the next ring their necks and throw
them in the basket. Now, when I harvest a turkey
in the woods, that turkey has known nothing but
the best turkey life and freedom. And even the
last possible millisecond of his life, he has.
Has no sense of fear, no idea. Matter of fact,
he's probably at his prime and he is super excited
because he thinks he's about to meet a lady turkey
and he is fired up. That is the last thought
going through his mind is like, man, I'm about
to culminate right here where evolution has brought
me. And then it's lights out. Yeah, not a bad
way to go. And, you know, I think, I mean, this
is almost cliche at this point, but people are
so disconnected from where their food comes from.
There's probably this underlying primal thing,
like, ew, blood and guts. I don't want to put
my hands on the animal and be like, this is how
people did it, and someone's doing it for you.
People get over that feeling in a hurry if you
take up hunting, but it just seems, and I'm not
faulting anyone. I eat plenty of beef and chicken
from the store, more than I harvest from the
land here. You know, don't you turn your nose
up? That one gets me. Don't you turn your nose
up when you see me cleaning an animal or whatever?
Because someone else is doing this for you. Yeah.
And from an animal that you don't know how it
lived its life. So you look at me cleaning that
animal. And then you get in there and do it.
I know it'll be squeamish the first few times
you've cleaned an animal. But like, hey, it wasn't.
That long ago. I mean, a handful of generations.
A lot of people grew up on venison or whatever
or had a flock of chickens not long ago. And
you went out there and you participated. You
know, nothing goes nicely in the natural world.
A deer doesn't just get old and its family's
around and say, all right, good night, grandpa
deer. Yeah, totally. Nothing dies of old age.
The natural world could be a very brutal place.
I mean, the deer gets old. Or it gets injured.
It gets weak. It either starves to death slowly
or freezes to death. Or because it can't keep
up or outrun the predator, it gets ripped apart
by a pack of coyotes. Right. Right. So nothing
really goes out nicely in nature. Anyways, I
juxtapose it. Sometimes it seems so brutal for
people like, oh, you could kill an animal, but
they're so cute or this or that. Like, yeah,
but. If you zoom out here, this is a pretty easy
way to go for an animal. Back to that, talking
about ethical shots and knowing your limitations
with your rifle. You do your very best to make
a good shot, but sometimes wounding, particularly
ducks or birds, happens. It's part of the game.
You never feel good about that, but you do your
best to follow up quickly and dispatch that animal.
How do you expect hunting to impact conservation
and the kind of work we do here? uh well conservation
in general like um i'm thinking large scale here
you know so i'm thinking migratory pathway so
back to the ducks and the geese um waterfowl
the pacific flyway is one of the world -renowned
flyways and one of the largest ones i mean there's
the mississippi flyway which may or may not be
the same as central flyways there's flyways on
the east coast and certainly there's the pacific
flyway from canada all the way down into mexico
and um I don't know, and I'm going to guess here,
I doubt without hunting and the revenue and money
that comes from that, I doubt there would be
those chain of both national and state wildlife
refuges going all the way from Northern California
up in the Klamath area, all the way through to
the Salton Sea, these protected areas. That,
yes, have some areas open to hunting, but mostly
they're a closed zone, is the word, for these
resting stops for these migratory birds. You
know, I often say, like, the hunter and the duck
can coexist. The duck and the parking lot cannot.
So at least they have a chance with hunters out
there. But if you go to the edge of the San Francisco
Bay and decide to make it a ferry terminal and
put a bunch of houses on it, well, the ducks
can't live in the ferry building. They can certainly
live in the marsh with the hunter. So, yeah,
I honestly think without hunters and the revenue
there, I don't think the Pacific Flyway would
be in very good shape or even some of these other
flyways. And I think it was hunters who recognized,
too, certainly some of them in those early transitional
years, recognized like, hey, this is headed in
a bad way. And we're some of the first to say
we need to put some legislation and rules and
bag limits and seasons behind all of this. Otherwise,
it's going to go away. What makes sustainable
hunting a possibility? I am immediately wondering
if we want to go back to the regulations and
the take limits that you've already discussed.
Is that a component of that? Yeah, certainly.
You know, and I haven't done the research myself
or gathered the data myself, but, you know, we
work enough with CDFW. It's a huge organization
that has a lot of scientists, biologists, and
people on the land that... I believe, are doing
their very best to come up with rules and regulations
and limits and seasons that make sense that will
sustain the population of whatever it is, waterfowl
or deer or bears or anything. Right. You're a
data -crunching guy, but you can't crunch everybody's
data, right? No. That's an important part. At
your basis, you're trusting that the people who
are taking care of that, taking that data and
then crunching it are... you know coming up with
good policies yeah and there's a really interesting
feedback loop in all this in that a lot of that
data they get on populations comes from hunters
you report what you harvest you come back to
a check station they take all the data on your
ducks they may take a blood sample they may take
a wing to test for avian flu or west nile virus
the different things and see how that's spreading
and a lot of that data that department of fish
and game or CDFW uses comes from harvested animals
and hunters reports. Um, otherwise, you know,
it's kind of like aerial surveys and you go,
Oh, there's a flock. I'm going to go, that's
10 ,000 here and 5 ,000 there, which certainly
is a big part of it too. But talk about just
like financial sustainability for CDFW. Like,
can they really, could they hypothetically replace
that data, you know, another way rather than
having hunters. pay cdfw to go out and do the
taking and then give them their data right could
they really hire another like cadre of scientists
to go out there and like do the data collection
themselves that seems like seems like a big challenge
yeah i mean i'm sure there are far more hunters
in far more places than there are cdfw staff
to like go count every duck they can find or
every deer um and so there's a big i think you
know there's a huge science even in the economics
of it all too like what they charge for tags
and they know like hey if we charge this much
for tags well then this many people are actually
going to buy tags at that price point simple
economics and then they also know like we may
issue 10 000 tags for b zone deer season but
we know that the return rate historically are
successful tags is about 60 so they know their
quotas so they sell as many tags as they can
And then they'll either, well, they know, like,
hey, if we sell 10 ,000 tags, it'll probably
mean that 6 ,000 deer are harvested in B zone.
And they already have, you know, they know that,
like, that's their target mark. So they'll sell
that many tags. And so they get all that revenue
to keep the science going, keep the mission going,
and protect, you know, conserve and protect wild
lands and the population of these different game
species. Yeah, I'd be interested to know. I mean,
I just have this understanding without knowing
the actual numbers, like the budget of CDFW or
California Department of Fish and Wildlife. How
much of y 'all's budget is backed by hunters?
Yeah, it's a great question. Well, maybe someday
we'll get a CDFW guy who knows that. I'm sure
I'm sure I've probably already met him. We probably
already work with him. I just have to get him
downfield hunting with me and I can ask him.
There you go. There you go. Thank you so much,
Ryan, for taking time out of your incredibly
busy schedule from fieldwork to your own data
analysis. And yeah, really appreciate everything
you've offered. Cool. Well, thanks for this opportunity.
I like talking about this stuff. So this was
cool. A great Friday afternoon activity. Love
it. Love it. Much gratitude to Ryan for spending
these two episodes with us and sharing both professional
and personal experiences. But don't switch off
yet. It's time for this episode's installment
of The Nature Sound Guess Who Game. Each episode,
we play a nature sound for you and challenge
you to guess which critter made the sound. If
you email your guess to podcast at pepperwoodpreserve
.org, you may become podcast famous with a shout
out on the next episode when the answer is revealed.
Today we have our first pair of Nature Sound
Guess Who Game winners, longtime listeners Bruce
and Leslie, who correctly guessed the identity
of the Episode 8 Nature Sound. Congratulations,
Bruce and Leslie. Now, let's reveal what those
listeners so cleverly deduced. Last episode,
I promised you a bird, a pretty commonly encountered
bird, making its most characteristic vocalization.
Let's listen back to that sound now. And that
sound was made by the California scrub jay. That's
right, the California scrub jay, scientifically
known as Aphelocoma californica. Even if you
didn't guess the name, I hope you recognize the
dulcet tone of their call, which Kaufman's Field
Guide to Birds of North America summarizes as
shreep. That's with two S's, two R's. and two
e's. Shreep? Pretty good approximation. How do
you think it compares? The California scrub jay
is one of the three most common species at Pepperwood
in the bird that is blue category. Bird that
is blue is our way of referring to these species
without conflating them all with the species
name bluebird. Kaufman's guide includes them
in the group bluish jays without crests, because
unlike some other blue jay species, they have
sleek, smooth heads. The Audubon Society's field
guide tells us that, despite their reputation
as nest robbers who forage for the eggs of other
birds, scrub jays much more commonly feed on
insects and acorns. In fact, their tendency to
bury acorns for later and leave a few in the
ground to sprout may have a profound impact on
the regeneration of oak forests following disturbance,
and on the distribution of oak trees in general.
Jays have been described as uphill planters,
as their practice of moving acorns around can
counterbalance the tendency of acorns to bounce
downhill. So thanks, California Scrub Jays, and
thanks to Bob Hassanick for recording that call
out on Sonoma Mountain Road and submitting it
to Cornell Lab Macaulay Library, who granted
us permission to share it with you. Now, here
comes a new sound for you to guess out before
next episode. Here it comes in three, two, one.
Second chance to listen in three. There's another
curious challenge to think about, and submit
your answers to us at our Facebook or Instagram
posts, or email it to us at podcast at pepperwoodpreserve
.org. Thank you to all of my fellow Pepperwood
staff members for supporting this podcast project,
including Stephanie Antonoro, our communications
coordinator, Haley Stiskel, our outreach and
event specialist, who manages the social media
posts. And thanks to you for listening. Until
next time, don't forget to keep your ears tuned
in to nature. The California scrub jay is one
of three species of pepperwood in the bird -that
-is -blue category. Bird -that -is -blue is our
way of referring to these species without conflating
them all with the species name bluebird. Kaufman's
guide includes them in the group bluish jays
without crests, because unlike some other blue
jay species, they have sleek, smooth heads.