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Okay people listen up here we go This is nature's
secret service the podcast that puts you in the
room with the men and women of wildlife law enforcement
I'm your hosted newcomer and We are in the middle
of season three about wolves and I'm happy to
welcome back former US Fish and Wildlife Service
special agent Corky Roberts. You might remember
Corky from episode eight of season one. He's
a former state officer with the Washington Department
of Fish and Wildlife, and then for many years
was a special agent with the U .S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, former supervisor, agent, all around
great guy. Corky, thanks for being back on the
podcast. I appreciate it. That's great to be
here, Ed. Looking forward to it. Yes. And one
of the great things about having great former
agents on the show is that they often are involved
in multiple good cases. So back in season one,
you were on and you talked to us about that amazing
case that you had in Washington involving a woman
who smuggled a live monkey into the US from Thailand
in a pregnancy prosthetic. And that was like
the bread and butter of what I was used to working
on in los angeles but the cool thing about where
you were is you got a really interesting diversity
of cases and yeah you worked on a smuggling case
involving a monkey but you also worked on a wolf
case and that case is what we're calling today
the omac wolf case before we jump into that corky
i want you to tell the story but i just want
to remind listeners and watchers that We have
been talking a lot about the reintroduction of
wolves into the lower 48 United States in 1995
starting in Yellowstone National Park, but it's
important to always remember that Wolves have
been protected under the Endangered Species Act
going back to the earliest days of the act they
were listed in the 1967 version and then when
the Act was amended in 1973 they were also listed
as threatened in the lower 48 then. So even prior
to reintroduction in Yellowstone, wolves, if
a wolf somehow appeared in the lower 48 United
States, it had protection under the Endangered
Species Act. So I think that's an important thing
to remember because the protection didn't just
magically appear when they were reintroduced.
And there were occasions where wolves did naturally
come in to the United States from Canada, particularly
into the northern areas of Washington and things
like that. Let me ask you something. As an agent
who was working up there, what would happen if
a wolf crossed the border? I've already mentioned
that snapping your fingers, they have protection.
When you were working up there, what were the
rumors, what were people saying about wolves
that were naturally migrating down into the U
.S. from Canada? You know, when I worked, when
I was a state game warden, the late 70s, or I
would say the late 80s and early 90s, I was in
the far southwest corner of the state. But there
were still, there were rumors of wolves, you
know, in the northern cascades. Which is right
in this area where we're going to be talking
about later. That's some remote country. You
have British Columbia right above that and beyond
parts of the earth. Wolves there for sure. They
have hunting, season, swarming, everything. But
once that wolf steps across that border, he or
she is protected. They have that endangered species
that kicks in and you know, it's forbidden to
take one. great, I was pretty good ways to move
through this. And there's before email and text
messaging and all that. And so I didn't really
hear things about people being angry about it
or right, you know, alarmed that the wolves are
coming to steal all our livestock. I just, you
know, there's wolves there. Right. About the
extent of it. Yeah, you know, also during that
time there were not like game cameras everywhere.
Camera traps were like not even invented yet.
Yeah, exactly. It was a picture you took. They
were all based on maybe sightings of tracks or
scat or maybe some isolated sighting by somebody
who knew what they were talking about. Howling.
Yeah, howling. What was the reaction of like
the responsible agencies at the time? Like if
they heard a rumor. That a wolf, you know, wolves
or a wolf had crossed the border. You know, we're
talking about Washington Department of Fish and
Wildlife or US Fish and Wildlife Service. What
was their reaction? Back then. in the late 80s
and early 90s, I don't know, I had no clue. We
didn't have like the biologists calling us on
the phone or sending out an email, oh my God,
wolves are here. Later on, when I moved back
to Washington in 2006, there was a little bit
more of a reaction when you had a report from
either the public or state officer or police
officer, whatever. It was quite a, I would get
a call And, you know, from a state game warden
or something, hey, it's kind of reported with
dead wolf up on the highway, such and such near
Colleville. And of course, I was down southern
part of the state. On several occasions, I'd
call up a contact deal with the ecological services
office in Spokane. That's a hybrid. Well, how
do you know that? Because there's no wolves here.
How do you know that? I just know it's a hybrid.
And I mean, that was a pretty routine answer.
And I don't remember there being, I mean, I know
they were hybrid wolves in Washington. People
had them, you know, but yeah, I was like, no,
you got, you got these wolves that were just
released over in Idaho and they're multiplying
over there. I don't think Washington has an iron
curtain that prevents them from coming over here.
But, you know, what did I know? And, but it was
several times I got that standard answer. It's
a hybrid. Yeah, kind of the knee -jerk answer,
right? Yes. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Now, it's my
fault. I never went up and tried to find this
thing, and I never got a sample from them, so
I really can't say for sure at that point until
this time. Yeah, until this case. But, you know,
in the same sense, they weren't going out to
take a sample. They were just making a guess.
Right. So before we get on to the case, though,
this is kind of an interesting thing because
when you say ecological services, what you're
talking about is ecological services within the
U .S. Fish and Wildlife Service. So same agency
that you and I were in. But these are like we
were the law enforcement. Those are the biologists.
And for anybody who's not an employee of the
service, you might not kind of intuitively know
those those divisions are different. They they
have, you know, we had line authority, which
means our chain of command was only law enforcement.
They had their own chain of command and they
were often physically located in different offices
than we were. So we actually didn't normally
interact with the biologists of the service.
Right. So all in the same team, but not working
together every day. Why? What was the motivation?
See, I think what you're getting at here is.
My sense is that what you're saying is ecological
services like almost didn't want to be in Washington
Why why do you think that was? You know, I should
clarify when I say it There was just mainly a
couple of three biologists that I Knew well enough,
you know had on speed dial for life with better
time, right? And I can't say the entire division
was going down. Oh, there's they're all hybrid
wolves But I know these two or three were like,
yeah, they're hybrids. And I think a lot of it
was. They didn't want to deal with it, you know,
if there were wolves here, that was and it's
not that they were afraid of work. It's just
it was very controversial work. Yeah. And then,
you know, then you got the press and you got.
You're going to have people knocking on the door
and phone calls all the time to answer, and it
would it would have been an increase in workload
dramatically. Yeah, that's kind of what that's
my guess, too, is what you were, you know, hinting
at is that, like you said, they weren't afraid
to work, but it's just like they knew what was
happening over in Idaho and Wyoming and Montana,
where Wolf reintroduction was getting controversial,
or at least there were wolf haters out there.
And yeah, I mean, you know, nobody wants to come
to work and take those angry phone calls, right?
We've all had them. Anyway, so let's jump now
to, I believe, December, late December 2008,
and let's talk about this case you did that we're
calling the OMAC wolf. Interestingly, I remember
that when you were on the podcast the last time,
it was around a holiday that you were working.
Yeah, this was a year, almost a year to the day.
And I told you the last monkey case was I was
sitting there in my office, nobody around, my
feet kicked up the phone rings. My life changed.
Right around Christmas. And this was like two
days before Christmas. And I was at home and
I got a call from a from a state game for it.
December 23rd, 2008. And he proceeded to tell
me about a package of the FedEx drop shipment
in Walmart in Old Mac Washington that was bleeding.
This could be interesting. Yeah, the story goes,
he... owner of the FedEx place called the local
police department, the Old Mac Police Department
said, yeah, the FedEx delivery guy or pickup
guy wouldn't take this shipment because the box
is bleeding. And so the Old Mac comes over there
and they look at it. Now, they open up this box
and there's an unknown animal hide in there.
So first person they call local game warden.
Right. He comes out looking at this thing. and
he's like, wolf, and he calls me, he said it
looked like a wolf, and he calls me, and I'm
on the phone, and I said, measure the paws. Oh,
nice. And he says, yeah, they're about three
inches. I said, you got a wolf. Yeah, not a coyote.
No, not a coyote. Yeah. And I said, where's,
you know, he says, can I take it? What? And I
said, where's it going? He says, it's going to
Canada. I said, oh yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean,
I want to say, that's a, you know, that's a...
you know border exception to the search rule
and so here we go and he took it and you know
photographed it and that kind of like I like
you have some of the pictures yeah we'll put
those on the website yeah and he took some samples
from it and things and and uh he interviewed
the store clerk um and he said yeah a lady had
come in earlier that afternoon and wanted to
ship this box to Canada and so He told her, yeah,
it's going to cost this much and it'll go out
now. And she said, you know, I think I want to
go over to the post office to see if I can ship
it there because it might be less expensive and
maybe they can get it out sooner. Okay. So she
goes post office. Well, by the time she got back,
it was too late for that day's shipment, but
she just left it. And the interesting thing was
she put a Canadian address on it to a guy named
Ralph Browson up there in Hardesty, Alberta,
and left the phone number, the name and phone
number. But the shipper on the label was the
guy himself, the guy that runs it. That was easy
to explain away later. And so, of course, Anybody
who thinks they're not under surveillance when
they go in Walmart probably needs to rethink
that because they keep those DVDs. And we got
the game warden got the DVDs. And here comes
a lady walking into Walmart with a white box
and she's got a very distinct ski jacket with
a maroon stripe on it. Now, let me let me back
you up for just a second. Wal -Mart, is there
like a FedEx facility in the Wal -Mart? Yeah.
OK, drop the city. I didn't see him in most.
Yeah. Yeah. There's a FedEx drop spot there.
Then there's a couple of things I think are interesting
here from an in like an investigator's point
of view. So like you mentioned, this border search
exception. So when somebody puts something in
the mail or in FedEx and it's addressed out of
the country, And they relinquish control of it.
It's essentially on its way to that country.
And Fish and Wildlife Service agents do have
customs authority. And so, yeah, we could seize
it at that point if we thought there was a violation
taking place. But for listeners, some of my listeners
are very savvy about this stuff. But what are
the violations you're looking at? What violations
do you think occurred that would give you federal
jurisdiction at this point? First off dangerous
species that wolf is listed as an endangered
animal It's being shipped sent beyond interstate
or foreign commerce, right? You know, so we got
that you got the Lacey act Which is you know,
the act prohibiting the import export of illegally
taken wildlife, right? You have to assume you
could pretty well assume this animals you got
probably call it believe this animal was taken
illegally because it's in a box You know back
and visit through another country You're smuggling
goods out of the United States. False labeling
is another part of the Lacey Act. That was going
there with the names and stuff that the lady
gave. I assume the box did not say contents of
wolf. pelts. First of all, a bleeding package,
that's what we call in the detective business,
a clue. What I think is really interesting about
these cases is right there, just in this moment
of these few investigative steps that have happened,
there's a lot of crimes in play here. right?
And some of them pretty serious. Smuggling is
a serious felony. I think outbound smuggling,
the maximum penalties up to 10 years in prison
and a $250 ,000 fine. So it's really amazing
how quickly, you know, If you're a good investigator
you start like going through the laws that might
be in play here So, you know, you've got jurisdiction,
you know, you have potentially serious crime
and you know, it's an endangered species which
is a very high priority for the US Fish and Wildlife
Service law enforcement because it's a law enforcement
plays a role in recovering these species so I
think that was important to go over because now
we know you're off and running and And the and
the cool thing is, you know these steps that
you're taking to just start system methodically
narrowing it down. So you've got this footage
now shows this woman going in, but there's no
return, there's no sender address on this or
return address. So how the heck do you figure
out who this person is? The return address was
the guy that ran the FedEx place. And he said
FedEx set up his computer to do that, but she
had given him a name of Allison and a phone number.
Okay. But I guess I better go back first, and
we'll come back to this. When the OMAC Police
Department opened that box and they saw it was
being shipped to a guy in Canada, there was a
phone number on there and an address. They called
the guy, which when I heard that, I was just
like... Yeah. Yeah, I know. I know why. But but
why? Why did that upset you? It worked out beautifully.
But you know, it immediately it's like, what
were you thinking? Yeah. So anyway, I've talked
to the officer since then and he's like, I don't
know why. But explain to people why that would
be like for an investigator. Now they know whoever's
supposed to receive this package, you should
presume that he would know that it's coming.
He's going to get on the phone and he's going
to call whoever, you know, shipped it and they're
going to try to go underground, which is really
hard to do when you're on a Walmart surveillance
camera. Yeah. But still, still now if they know
you're after them, you're playing catch up. Yeah.
Okay. Starting to have evidence. Exactly. Exactly.
Is it, you know, we also had her walking out
of the store, getting into a red SUV. This is
another lesson I learned. So red SUV, you got,
yeah, it looks like the Ford Explorer. I didn't
realize how many SUVs look like Ford Explorers.
There are dozens. Oh man, we started. how many
marine SUVs are registered in Okanagan County?
3 ,000. I can't remember what the numbers were,
but it was astronomical. And so we're like, oh
no, here we go. This is going to be a nightmare.
We're getting all this evidence together. They've
collected it all. And then finally, you know,
after the holidays, I can't remember if I had
a vacation plan that they did or something, but
we all got together after the holidays up there
and we had a briefing and we'd go through the
evidence and try and do the transfers of the
hides and the samples and all this kind of thing.
And we're trying to figure out how are we going
to identify these people. And I had called some
contacts up in Alberta. with the Canadian Wildlife
Service at that point, or Environment Canada,
and got some information about the supposed recipient,
Ralph Browsen. Phone numbers matched, everything
matched. He was a hunter. And an interesting
thing is he had a host license in 2007, which
allows a resident of Alberta to take a non -resident
moose hunting, big game hunting, you know, without
having to hire a guide to get your host license.
And his client, or hostee, or whatever you want
to call him, was a guy named William White in
Twist, Washington. That white, there's William
White, no idea. Yep, right, just a name. Yeah,
whatever. So this is where, and then so we're
at this meeting with all these, the local game
board and stuff, and we're talking about these
SUVs and how we're going to figure this out.
And one of the game boards guy named Caltress
who died in twist Barry for, you know, before
it was civilized, I think. Yeah. And, and he'd
been there forever. And he says, Ralph Browson,
he says, you know, I checked that guy several
years ago. He said he was from Canada and he
was up here. How nothing moved guy named Bill
White. He's going to buy some dollars from me.
He knew he remembered the whole story. Here's
Bill White again. Now Ralph's down here. Things
are starting to come together. I cannot tell
you how many times that happened to me in my
career I don't know if it goes back to you know,
that old saying God loves game wardens or what
or whether it's just honestly I don't think that's
a fun thing to say but honestly what I think
it comes down to is good police work because
that happened to me so many times where You're
in a group of law enforcement officers multi
-agency and you're just going over what everybody's
got And inevitably somebody remembers a name
from a year to five years ago and they just are
smart enough to say, you know, I ran into a guy
once and that is the next thing that needs to
be done. It's so amazing how often that happens
that just good law enforcement officers kind
of keep track of what's going on in their district.
And they end up they end up just giving you the
best information that that nobody ever could
have seen coming as important, you know? It is,
and it's just funny to me that most people, both
hunters, fishermen, whatever, go almost their
entire fishing career, life experience, whatever,
hunting, fishing. never get checked by a game
board. And then here we are, we're all together
and these two clowns, they're in the memory bank
of this local game board and then twist Washington.
I just think it, I think it's one of the coolest
things about being in law enforcement. And I
think it really illustrates the importance of
building inter -agency relationships and communicating
and not acting like this is my case and it's
all secret. if you'd sharing information and
talking to other law enforcement agencies and
having a relationship somebody you can call results
in the game warden calling you when they find
a bloody package it results in you finding out
some small piece of information that nobody thought
was important until this very moment you know
i just think that is so awesome anyway i love
hearing about it because It's just that it's
just the thrill of investigations when you hit
those moments. So, okay. So this is kind of sorry
to interrupt. I just had to talk about that.
So Cal, he's talking about this white guy and
he says, yeah, he says, I know Bill. He's a hunter
instructor. He's, you know, I deal with him frequently.
I see him, I drink coffee with him, that kind
of thing. He said, you know, he's the first guy
to ever get wolves on camera on a trail camera
on his property on the lookout mountain. Yeah.
Awesome. He wrote to the, you know, state fish
and wildlife. Yeah, these wolves are evil. They
should deal. I can't remember what all he said,
but he was not in favor of it. Wait a minute.
So Bill White, this landowner, the first guy
to record wolves kind of naturally migrating
back into Washington. Where were they like on
his property or something on his property right
near there? He called it Wichita Mountain ranches
four or five hundred acres there near twist,
Washington And he reported he like puts this
in writing Trail camera photos of wolves. Okay,
that's photos and he wrote he didn't write to
the game part He wrote the prints, of course.
Well bad, you know, right and but then game part
picked up on it He hadn't got ahold of him and
they corresponded a little bit and he was never
favorable. He wouldn't let him on his property
for his service and fishing wildlife and state,
no, you can't come on my property, that kind
of thing. So he was anti -wolf. That was pretty
obvious. Okay. But it started to look, okay,
we're getting close. Well, then Cal said, oh
yeah, he's got a son and a daughter -in -law
that live on the property just up the road from
Tom and Aaron. Okay. All right, Erin. Hmm. Wonder
what Erin looks like. Well, we've got a driver's
license photo and voila. It's the same woman.
Now, here's the term I use. She looked very similar
to the same woman that entered the wall. Okay.
So, search warrant time, you know, and I got
email addresses. I got phone numbers, contact
information from them. And at the same, at the
same, like two days later, the game warden who
called this in to me, I get a call from him,
he was driving up over Luke Pass, which is between
Old Mac and Twist, and he sees a red SUV coming
over the hill with a lady in it, and all he gets
is the first three numbers of the license plate,
and he writes them down. And to his credit, he
called Washington State Patrol and said, hey,
can you tell me how many red SUVs have this?
last September, we were like 3 ,000 or something
in the state. How about in Okanogan County? Three.
Nice. And then the one came back, Lincoln Navigator,
which was not one of the cars we've been looking
at, but similar registered, Detominer and white.
Beautiful, beautiful. And they. So yeah, it's
just starting to look good. So anyway, so look,
I gotta stop you one more time because. Is this
the same game warden who intercepted the FedEx
package? Yes. So that's also cool because you
had a good enough relationship with that person
that they're invested in your case and they're
keeping their eye out. Funny thing though, that
was a game warden named Troy McCormick, right?
I actually, I knew Troy from my time when I lived
in Washington and was an assistant attorney general.
He was a brand new state game warden. He, yeah,
and I, you know, very dedicated. Game Warden
who really? Yeah, it makes me I'm not sure. I'm
not sure either. I'm not in touch with him, but
he was, you know, highly motivated. So it's not
I'm not surprised that he would take the time
to do this extra work. OK, so yeah, so now you're
looking good. You've got a world's tied to Bill
White's property. You know that Tom and his wife
live on the property. His wife drives the same
kind of car that was seen going to and from the
FedEx and the postal and. The photo of her driver's
license, I assume, looks very similar to the
photo from the surveillance camera. That's looking
good. That's looking good. It is. It's looking
real good. And so I shipped the pad and the samples
off to the forensic lab. And it was a pretty
quick turnaround. They got back to me and said,
yeah, that's a wolf. Good. Yeah, that's a wolf.
It seems like it's probably an Alaska. Wolf and
they have ways of the way they do that. Don't
ask me to explain that. They can, they can narrow
down pretty well. And it came back later to something
a little bit different, but not too far off,
but that was months down the road. Okay. Um,
but anyways, so we got a wolf. We got the property.
We got to, we got possible suspects. We got it.
I didn't possible identity search warrant time.
So I did. The email accounts, I did the preservation
letters, you know, to basically what a preservation
letter does is, you know, you send it in to Century
Tale, Gmail, AOL, whoever, and say, freeze this
account. And they don't want to say freeze. They
don't freeze it. They don't say no more. They
just basically take a snapshot of the records
associated with that account. At that time, they
get that letter. Right. And in anticipation,
they're going to get a warrant. at a later date.
Right. And so did all that and got the warrant
sent in and got some phone record requests for
Bill's phone number. And Canada was working on
the Canadian side of this thing. And I get this
warrant, US attorney looks at it and yeah, we're
ready to go. And I take it into the magistrate.
She reads the entire thing and says, I'm not
going to sign this. That's a first. And I was
like, this has never happened to me. I don't
know what to do here. I mean, it was it was like
devastating. Yeah. I thought, oh, my gosh. And
I said, OK, what's wrong with the judge? And
she said this comment about she closely resembled
the person in the Wal -Mart. That ain't going
to do it. What? Yeah. And anyway, it was just,
you know, grainy photo and stuff from the Walmart.
The driver's license was perfect. So I got a
friend of mine at Benton County Sheriff's Department
helped me put together a photo montage. And I
sent it up to Sergeant Jim Brown up with the
Washington Game Department. I said, can you go
talk to Mr. Ekstrom or the guy at FedEx place
and let's see what happens. Good idea. You know,
I've done several of these. I was always nervous.
You know, they're looking at, well, I don't know,
you know, and they point the wrong one. But Jim
said he laid that thing down. Yep, right there.
That's her. Nice. And like, OK, so we're back
in business. We're back in business. So a couple
of things there. First of all, for law enforcement
listeners, they're going to know to get a search
warrant, you have to have the probable cause.
That's it. That's it. And that just means. Facts
or circumstances that would leave you to believe
that a crime had occurred and that there's evidence
going to be found where you want to search. So
that's not that big of a burden to do. So and
it's unusual that a judge or magistrate judge
would decline a search warrant. But actually,
I think it's kind of good quirky because it reminds
people that there is a check and a balance watching
law enforcement to make sure that we don't just
bust into somebody's home or go snooping around
in their email unless we can show somebody else,
a judge that we have probable cause to believe
we're going to find evidence of a crime there.
So it's not just like Corky Roberts goes snooping
around in somebody's house or their email account
or their bank, you know, you know, you have to
get a warrant. So I think the judge was wrong
there. But it is a it is a nice reminder that
law enforcement does not go unchecked in this
country. And yeah. Yeah, that's important to
us as law enforcement officers. We don't want
to run unchecked. We shouldn't. It is. There's
been enough information out the last few weeks,
months, whatever, about agents serving warrants.
Most people don't understand. Just getting a
search warrant is not like sitting on television.
Oh, we need a search warrant, write it down,
and you're going to get a sign. No, this is weeks.
It sometimes takes weeks to put all this together.
It just took weeks. It's not something that's
very easy to do in the review process. Some of
these are 30, 40 pages long. The review process
is pretty intensive too. So it was a lesson for
me, a good lesson. But in the long run, it also
turned out good because we got to go back and
visit with this guy. and we got some more information
that helped us and further down the road. And
so it was actually a plus to be able to do that.
It tightened up your case and kudos to you for
not just giving up. You're like, all right, well,
I'll show you. I'm going to go get some better
evidence, which is good. And you used what's
called a photo lineup, which like you, whenever
I used the photo lineup, I always had like this
moment in my stomach where I was like, oh my
gosh, am I going to pick the wrong person? But
basically, what you're doing is you're putting
out the picture of this woman, Ms. White, who
you suspect went in there. But you're mixing
it in with this probably driver's license photos
of other people in Washington state who look
similar to her. Same type of haircut, same complexion.
the same details and you put them all in maybe
a six or 12 person lineup and it's called a photo
lineup. Yeah. And yeah, it's always a relief
when your witness positively IDs the person.
But you have to be really careful when you present
it to them. You can't do anything that would
give them a hint. Yeah. Yeah. And your photo
line, like I said, has to be similar. Similar.
You can't have, you know, five African -American.
That was one. You know white female in there.
It's like oh my god They have to be very similar.
Yeah, and it's it is it's scary You start to
look at these pictures going they look alike.
I know I know you start to get nervous like,
you know who she is But you wonder if who if
somebody else might be confused. So that's good.
So he immediately IDs er that goes Now I assume
you've got rock -solid probable cause right?
Yeah now it was it was not an issue and we did
the same because we the You know, most of our
information was for Bill White. Tom White was,
and his wife, she was just the delivery agent
of this thing. But, you know, still, there's
going to be, that could be evidence in our house
of, you know, blood, hair, skinning knives, rifles,
you know, skull, you know, the big one. Yeah.
You know, it could be at either place because,
you know, they got Bill White's place there and
he's been corresponding, you know, back and forth.
And I don't know if I said it earlier, but when
we got the phone records, when that old Mac officer
called the number in Canada and, you know, I'm
like, oh my God, well, guess what phone call
we found about 10 minutes after the old Mac officer
called. Beautiful. We had a number back to Bill
White's house for a phone call. Yeah, it's just
it was like ching ching, you know, here we are.
Yeah, and who'd have thought of that? That actually
is kind of a brilliant outcome, right? That I
was thankful the guy called him. Exactly. Yeah.
Oh, that's beautiful because it definitely kind
of leans toward, you know, culpability there
if the first thing you do after you get a call
from a cop is warn the person, right? Yeah, that's
a little suspicious. There's another clue. OK.
All right. So, yeah. A few days later, we got
teams together and we went and served search
warrants on Tom Light, Bill Light's property,
outbuildings, vehicles, computers. It wasn't
a big one. And, you know, this is one of those
things, you know, there was two fish and wildlife
agents in eastern Washington at that time and
four over in western Washington. There's not
near enough people. We had, you know, the state
game warden, there was three or four of them
in the area, but still. You're searching two
houses, you know, two properties. And so plus
Fish and Wildlife Services, you know, didn't
have a computer forensics specialist. Right.
And so we had a contact I've worked with before
on the monkey case, an ice agent, and he came
along and handled the computer issues. Awesome.
Yeah. Yeah, that was wonderful to have him on
board. But I was on the team that did Bill's
house. And agent for who was also on your season
one stuff was on the team that led the team that
did Tom's house. Awesome. I remember when we,
we drove up to Bill's house, you know, and, you
know, people think search warrants kick doors
and stuff. And that was basically he's standing
there on the porch. Howdy. Hey, how you got done?
We've got a search warrant for your place. Oh,
she's okay. It was, it was just like, like this
happened every day. We would come by for dinner
and except his wife was not too pleased. She
was like, this is because you wouldn't let the
Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Biologists
on your property. It's retaliation, but you know,
she quieted down. And so we, Jim Brown and I
sat down at the table, Bill started talking and
he just, he started talking and... Not a lot
of truths. I was just going to say, did he lie
or did he tell the truth? But it was, it was
great because it's simultaneous. We had Canadian
officers up there viewing the guy in Canada.
Nice. And so, you know, we're a few minutes into
this thing and you know, for a reason, I go outside
and then I come back in and say, do you still
want to stick with that story about not knowing
anything about wolves getting killed? Huh? Yeah.
Cause Ralph just said you did. Oh. Nice. There's
a couple of little finer points in there. The
same thing. You know, we talked to Bill about
one thing and he'd make up a story and then Ralph
would, Ralph was, he was spilling and. Yeah.
Cause, cause, you know, pretty soon it's like,
well, shut up. Cause Ralph is, you know, he's
just a receiver. What, you know, that one question
that I know people are going to have is, and
I did when I first started hearing about this
case. And then it of course made sense to me.
But why is somebody in the States sending a wolf
pelt to Canada? There are wolves in Canada, so
why would you do that? That was one of the things
that came up in the interview, and we suspected
this anyway, is that they killed this wolf and
they wanted to get it mounted because they liked
taxidermy things. Yeah, there's a few deer mounts
and things around. And you ship it up to Canada,
you're laundering it basically, because it's
legal to do, legal to kill wolves in Canada,
trap them, whatever. And so it's shipping it
up there to get tanned and then it would be imported,
brought back in. I got you. I got you. So then
to be clear on that. At that time, I can't remember,
Corky, were there exceptions in the Endangered
Species Act for people that went to Canada and
lawfully hunted wolves up there? Could they bring
their trophy back? Yeah, you could bring it back.
Yeah. You know, I'm not sure if you needed to
get a CITES II or not, if it was just us. I don't
know. I can't remember right now. So that's an
important thing for people to remember too about
the Endangered Species Act. There are always
going to be exceptions and rules specific to
individual species. So like for example, just
so people know, you know, the Endangered Species
Act can list populations in a particular area
of the country where those animals found in whatever,
the Northwest. Louisiana black bear. Yeah, Louisiana
black bear, perfect example for a long time.
I'm not sure it still is, but for a long time
it was listed as threatened, while black bears
in other parts of the country, of course, were
not at all protected by the ESA. So there always
were rules and exceptions that agents and everybody
else has to be aware of. And one of those, I
believe, was Wolf hunting is legal in Canada
and there are lots of wolves up there. So anybody
who could show that they lawfully went to Canada,
lawfully killed a wolf, they could import it
into the US as long as they declared it properly
at all the right paperwork as a trophy. So that
would make sense what he's trying to do. He's
like you said, he's laundering it. He's going
to send it to Canada, have the taxidermy there.
And then probably, I assume you found out the
plan was He's going to import it back into the
U .S. and make it look like he killed it in Canada,
right? Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty smart. Yeah.
Except for the bloody package. Except being late
for the FedEx delivery. Exactly. Okay. Oh, and
one other thing. I'm just curious. When you would
do an interview at a search warrant, did you
normally Mirandize people even though you weren't
going to arrest them? You know, I normally didn't.
Oh, okay. Yeah, it's just because they weren't
custody. Yeah, you know and but The state if
there was a state officer there, they always
did they always did. Yeah Yeah, I mean I normally
tried not to but you know, it's uh that I always
found that You know, I ended up later in my career.
I did it anytime You know, there was even a remote
impression that they might not be free to leave
which during a search warrant They are free to
leave that you can leave you just can't come
back while we're there but Yeah, I usually did,
but you know, that's agent prerogative. Did you
ever give them, like, before you start talking
to them, did you ever give them any kind of just
informal warning about lying to a federal agent?
Because some agents do that too, you know, because
it's a so we listeners know It's actually if
you lie to a federal agent in the course of an
official investigation. It's a felony That's
how Martha Stewart went to jail. That's how Marion
Jones went to jail You know, they lied the FBI
agents and so it's a great tool because if you're
on an official investigation you and somebody
agrees to talk to you Mirandized or not if they
lie They're committing a felony, a separate thing
you can charge them with. So sometimes I would
warn people, hey, just FYI, you know, you don't
have to talk to me. But if you do, don't lie
because that's a felony. Did you ever do anything
like that? No, I usually, you know, I can't say
I never did talk to hundreds of people probably.
But what I would usually when I approach the
guy, I usually my mind was like, you're allowed.
One lie to try to get yourself out of this pickle.
Everybody allowed one, you get one free, you'll
call it. Then I might slip in, you know, if you
lie to me here, at least you get yourself in
the worst jam. That's a good way to do it. Yeah,
and so sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.
I mean, I charged several people false statements
over the years, but it often did. Yeah, can I?
tell you something else now, you know, maybe
I can change this up a little bit. It usually
works, but I was, I was trying to figure just
be a nice guy, you know, by trying to get themselves
out of a pickle once in a while. You know, my,
my thing was similar. It wasn't like you got
a freebie, but basically you kind of got a freebie.
If you, if I, if I knew you were lying, I challenged
you and then you corrected it. Then I'm like,
okay, I'm not going to charge you yet, but I,
you know, it's funny. I'm sure this was your
experience to warning or not. But it always amazed
me. I would give that warning, you know, hey,
don't if you are going to talk to me, don't lie.
And the very next thing they said was a lie.
You know, it's like I could never believe it.
It's like you've given this nice warning. You're
being such a good guy. You don't have to do these
warnings for them. And they nod and they're like,
I understand. And then you ask your first question
and the first thing they say is a lie. And you
know it's a lie because you're asking questions
that you know the answers to. That's right. So
anyway, so that's such a good setting for where
you are. And you said that when you were interviewing
him, he lied. What did he say? Do you remember?
Oh, he just basically said he did. First off,
he didn't know anything about wolves. He didn't
know anything about. is anybody shooting a wolf
up there and trying to ship a wolf to Canada.
You know, he just flat out denied that. And then
his information started coming in from up north
like, well, yeah, okay, yeah. Yeah, Tom, he found
that wolf in a fence, caught in a fence. It slowly,
slowly eroded to some semblance of the truth.
Okay. And Ernie wrote it evolved to some semblance
of the truth. Which was what? That Tom shot a
wolf and that tried to ship it to Canada. Okay.
And Tom is his son. And somebody else is doing
a warrant at the same time at Tom's house? Yeah,
Agent Farrer and some others are doing the warrant
over in Tom's house. And basically, both he and
Aaron Joe, we give up. Oh really? Yeah, it was
pretty straightforward. And of course, when they
walked in, they see hanging on the coat rack,
a nice ski jacket with a white stripe down it.
It's purple. Yeah, so it was pretty straightforward
where this was going. So they took his computer,
they took I think a rifle or some other stuff,
but couldn't find a skull. Couldn't find any
of the remnants of really the wolf there. And
Tom made the comment that he burned basically
everything associated with that and he couldn't
remember what he did to the skull. Yeah, so it
made me sit on somebody's mail piece around there
somewhere Yeah, it was probably it was probably
buried so a decomposer something. Yeah, it's
sitting on somebody's mantle for sure. Yeah Okay.
All right. So you got a good confession out of
Tom. What do you do next? Of course the computer
forensics. Yep, and Me knowing the computer forensics
guy. I would get pieces and parts as we went
And it was, there was just some gems, you know.
A lot of enforcement, you deal with cases that
are bad and bad things people do to wildlife
and bad things people do to each other. And especially,
you know, the local cops and stuff, they deal
with some moral things. But every once in a while,
you sure find some humor. You know, I was getting
pictures and here's a picture of Tom White and
I've sent you that one too. Holding up a wolf,
you know, yes, I'm down. It's not the one that's
in the that's in the The package this is a different.
Oh you can tell yeah, you can tell just by looking
at the pictures Yeah, it's just so it's a much
lighter colored wolf and one of the paws is almost
chewed off So it's gotten a trap. Okay, this
or that and it probably got shot Okay, good sitting
there in a trap trying to choose leg off or just
wanted and so that was a You know, and then there
was some more pictures of imposing with this,
this wolf and the paw and the destruction of
the paw was pretty prominent. And so, yeah, okay.
We probably got a couple more here, you know,
at least. And so you got that picture. Uh, then
the Gmail search war started coming in and the
emails were just fascinating. Uh, this was on
bill white stuff and bill was a guy he. was,
is, was, is. He may still be around. I don't
know. But he, uh, he's a smart man. He was, but
he wrote his correspondence in this hillbilly,
cornpwn. Like really conversational, right? It
was just, it was kind of difficult to read at
first. It was almost like reading the foreign
land. And then you start picking up on it. He
just wrote that way. That was kind of his trademark.
Can you remember an example? Oh, yeah. There
was one email that he's writing. I think it was
his brother. And he says, yeah, we was WZ. Seeing
these wolves, these wolves up here, you know,
wolves, wolves up here. They've come in here
now and we've seen nine in one bunch and that
nine turned into seven and then it turned into
five. He said, but you know, I probably ought
to stop. And I can't remember the exact language
he used at this point. I could look them up and
find them. But he said, I read somewhere that
you probably need to stop because I read somewhere.
You don't want to put anything in an email that
you don't want to read about on the front page
of the paper the next morning. Good. That's good
advice, Bill. That's good advice. Yeah, you promised
you would follow your advice. Yep. So I see what
you're saying. So you would like to say he'd
actually spell out was W -U -Z. Oh, yeah. Was,
was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was, was,
was, was, was, was, was, was, He liked to kill
stuff. He was an interesting person. Consequences
catch up to people. They do. Okay, so now you've
got evidence of maybe more than one wolf being
killed up on that property. Pretty clear it's
not a hybrid now. He's saying they're showing
up on camera traps in multiples. That's not going
to be hybrids. Okay, so are you charging anybody
at this point or what's next? Oh no, we haven't
charged anything yet. Okay. The other thing we
got was just dozens and dozens of trail camera
photos of not just wolves but predators in general,
bears, skunks and there was one that is kind
of this forested area, a canopy over it and they
all seem to be in that same area and there was
one picture, there's mountain lions Then there
was a picture of an eagle, looked like either
golden eagle or immature bald, underneath the
canopy in this forested area on this trail camera.
That's wild in the world. Stuff walking by is
one thing, but eagles landing directly in front
of a camera, that's unusual. We got a baited
sight. There's no doubt about it. They were baiting
stuff in for their trail cameras or for... more
sinister reasons, which turned out to be the
case. I assume you're working your way toward
a good case now, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's
pretty, it's pretty apparent that this is going
to, this is going to result in some significant
charges against, you know, everybody involved.
So in the meantime, in the meantime, the press
has kind of gotten wind of this. Oh, okay. The
state, the states couldn't stay out of letting
people know and so other calls are trickling
in. I get a call from a lady, I get a call from
a biologist who got a call from a lady who said,
yeah, I live half a mile from Tom White and I
had a wolf that was licking his paw in my front
yard on May 25th or whatever day it was. She
was pretty close to Tom White's place. I went
up to talk to this lady, because we're still
trying to get confirmation of the second, third,
fourth, who knows how many wolves. Yeah, right.
And so we, I go up and talk to her and she was,
she told me the lady lived by herself up there
in the woods. And she, I showed her pictures
of wolves, like the one that was being held up.
That's not my wolf. She had names and everything.
Oh man. Not much came of that one, except the
trapping aspect was pretty interesting to me
because it was obvious that wolf was trapped.
And did you find traps on the property or any
evidence of trapping? We did. Well, I take that
back. We found one that was fascinating. It was
obviously a large trap. probably an old bear
trap that had been modified was teeth on it.
And I think I sent you a picture of it. Yeah,
it was, and it was in this spot that was later
found to be a bait pile or near there. So whether
it was used or not, I don't know. It was close
when we found it, but it was, it was a powerful,
it was somebody had probably tried to set that
at some point. Interesting. Yeah, it was, it
was wicked looking. It sounds like these guys
kind of had their own little war on wildlife,
not just wolves, but maybe other species too.
Did you find any evidence of that? They had pictures
in this bait pile of bears, wolves, mountain
lions. They'd hunted a lot of mountain lions.
There's a lot of correspondence and pictures
and stuff of mountain lion hunts. They took people
on mountain lion hunts. I don't know if they
were... guided or whatever, but yeah, they didn't
care for predators too much. And they had some
livestock, but not like, you know, they weren't.
Yellowstone showed quantities of livestock, you
know, 25, 30 cows or something. Right, right.
Hunting was a popular activity for them. Gotcha.
Okay. Did they ever try to poison stuff too?
I think you. There was something about poison.
This is what happened next. We ended up putting
another search warrant together. We put together
a search warrant for not just the houses and
the outbuildings and the vehicles. We put together
search warrants for the entire property. You
were talking about 400 acres? 400 or 600. I don't
remember exactly. The entire property. As you
know, there is the open fields doctrine. If I'm
in a place and I see a dead animal over there,
I can hop the fence and go over there and take
a look at it without a warrant. There's no reasonable
expectation of privacy in an open field. Right.
Open fields doctrine, basically, just so people
know, allows law enforcement to go on to private
property as long as it's an open field. And as
long as it's related to a legitimate investigation,
they don't need a warrant to do that. To be safe,
you got yourself a warrant to go on the general
property, huh? I did. We talked about it with
the U .S. attorney and he was initially open
field, sounds like a good thing, but then we're
like, we're going to have horses, we're going
to have four -wheelers, we've got to cover a
lot of ground here. What we're trying to do,
we're trying to match the photograph of this
wolf that Tom's holding up, as well as some other
pictures. We're trying to match those and like
where we saw the eagle in the bears and you know
where the trail can't work. So we got to cover
a lot of ground. Yeah, we have a pretty massive
team of agents to do this and we did. We brought
horses dirt, brought horses over and you know,
I think the horses came from Troy, I believe.
Okay, so we had. Quite a set up. We even had
a command post in TWISP with an old trader. We
set it up and a couple others manned that while
the other agents did the work. I had to write
two search warrants while I was sitting in that
command post for example. We covered that area
pretty well. One of the things we found was the
spot where those pictures of the wolves and the
bear and the eagle and stuff were And the trail
camera mounted on a tree there and there were
bones everywhere Do your livestock Ravens Eagle
skull is probably that same one. It was very
apparent that there had been some some pesticides
used there. And that goes back to those emails
that we got. One of the emails was to a guy in
Southern Washington, and it says, thanks for
the stuff to fight the yachts, Y -O -T -E -S.
I bet their guts are rumbling. The big yachts,
yeah, so the big yachts, their guts are probably
rumbling right now. And that's a pretty good
indication. There was something ingested there.
And for the people, for enlisters that don't
know, sometimes people will salt an area. They'll
put a carcass out or find the carcass, something
like that, and they'll elace it with the various
pesticides. And it basically kills whatever comes
in to ingest feed on that carcass. And as they
die, something comes in to feed on them and it
just expands. It just goes on and on, depending
on what the toxin is, of course. Yeah. And of
course, of course, Yoats refers to coyotes, which,
you know, I'm always appalled by anybody who
still uses poison to kill coyotes in the West
in particular, because it does kill just about
everything else. A lot of protected animals,
including bald eagles, ravens, you know. all
kinds of stuff magpies foxes you know kills everything
indiscriminately it's just a horrible thing okay
and then and a bone pile would definitely be
an indicator that a lot of stuff was dying in
that area did you ever figure out if it was poison
or what kind of poison they were using so we
when we did the search warrant on on on the property
and on bill's house and tom's house we we had
an agricultural inspector with us and we found
the coffee can with some granular material in
it. And of course, we didn't know what it was
at the time, but he later had attested that it
was strict diamond. Obviously not in a labeled
jug, you know, that says Strychnine or Gopher
Bay or whatever. It was just something he kept
in the coffee can somewhere. And I have a feeling
it was probably Strychnine. Most of the animals
were too far decomposed to be able to tell anything
for sure. And we never charged anything with
that, but he did not have a pesticide applicator's
license and it was stored illegally. I mean,
we could have charged him with some state agricultural
violations, but it wasn't needed. Poison is so
insidious because not only will it kill indiscriminately,
but it'll get into the groundwater and things
like that. And, you know, as an investigator,
God, I dreaded running into poison anywhere because
it'll kill you, too. And really scary stuff when
you're out investigating poaching incident and
you realize, oh, my gosh, this is a poisoning
incident, because up to that point, you may not
have thought about it and you may have already
exposed yourself to the poison. Yeah, scary.
Scary stuff. I know the long -term effects of
that. How many agents that we worked with are
no longer with us to die from these horrible
cancers and things like that. A lot of those
guys worked a lot of poisoning cases. It really
makes me suspicious of what they were exposed
to when they were working. Yeah, no doubt. I
remember in my academy class, the lab came out
and gave us a special segment about... Temic
and aldecarb and strychnine and how you know,
you breathe a little bit in or you even touch
it with your hands ungloved Can cause serious
problems for you. Yeah. Yeah, maybe years later.
Maybe years later exactly I was always very nervous
about poisoning cases. Yes. Okay. So So where
we were what's happening next where we going
with this case? Actually, you know, of course
we we get this search warrant done and we never
did find the spot where Tom was holding up that
wall sweet We did identify some people who lived
on the outskirts of the property and I went and
did some follow -up interviews with with them
and they all just spilled their guts. They had
been observers of the whites activity for many
months years and frustrated because they didn't
want to Get their neighbor in trouble and bring
trouble upon themselves, but boy when we knocked
on their door It was like the door and all the
floodgates opened on some of them and one lady
was like, yeah I remember back in December We
were sitting here and we heard this wolf just
howl and said we hear wolves howling a lot But
it was just howling and howling and howling and
howling it was obviously in distress and here
comes The lights pick up up the road next thing,
you know pile and how it stops And I suspect
that was that wolf that that we saw, you know,
Tom holding up interest But sure the dates and
everything, you know match up match up. Yeah
So that would have been Nancy that actually would
have been a great way to start this podcast Corky
is to say You know tell the story about the rep
the information you got in December of 2008.
Maybe I can edit it so it comes out that way.
Interesting. The neighbors are now telling you
hearsay things that are confirming other facts
that you already have. I talked to a couple of
guys who contracted with the Forest Service.
to follow the lookout mountain pack around. Once
it was established there was a pack of wolves
there. Everybody took a lot of interest. Sure.
And they had had run -ins with the whites, you
know. And these guys, man, their notes were just
beautiful. Nice. They had run -ins with the whites
about, well, you're getting close to my property.
You stay off of it, you know, and that kind of
thing, even though the wolves are right there.
Right. Now these guys, they basically followed
them around all winter, you know, with skis and
everything else. Wow, cool. Yeah, it was pretty
neat. Very cool. Wow, that's cool. So these,
was it confirmed that these wolves came down
naturally from Canada or did they come over?
Okay. This is what, this and this is really got
my attention. This was several months, you know,
those DNA tests. especially in depth like that
and take a while to compare DNA from other packs
around. And they were from the archipelago of
British Columbia. So over there on the coast,
these wolves had made their way, a wolf, you
know, cause they get kicked out of the den or
out of the pack and, you know, they'll go on
a walkabout. And, and, uh, this one made it over
the, you know, into the Cascades from the coast
of British Columbia and then down into the twist
barrier. So it was called an archipelago wolf.
Very cool. That is super cool. One of the myths
about wolves in the United States that absolutely
drives me crazy is you hear sometimes the anti
-wolf people talking about how the wolves that
were reintroduced that came from Canada into
Yellowstone were larger than the wolves that
naturally occurred in the lower 48 and you know,
there's so many easy ways for an intelligent
person to just Disavow themself of that Rumor
because first of all, we know that wolves were
killed in the United States the last wolf I think
was killed in the lower 48 in the 1946 or maybe
26 1926 Those pelts are still around you can
do DNA testing on them and prove that they are
the same species that we've reintroduced from
Canada And it's not hard to know that you know
You look at photos you can tell the wolves that
were killed in the early 1900s are the same size
as the wolves that are here today But you know,
what's this is cool one. There's a wolf biologist
that used to work at UCLA as a professor he passed
away a few years ago, but He pointed out this
is this is fascinating. I think you'll love this
the movement of wolves, you know irregardless
of men humans The it was the ice age 10 ,000
years ago pushed wolves Far south into North
America the ice sheet, you know, there was no
habitat for wolves north of North of what is
now the northern part of the United States. So
all wolves were pushed down into so in reality
when the ice age, when the ice sheets retreated,
it was North American lower 48 wolves that repopulated
Canada. So this idea that somehow Canadian wolves
and historic U .S. wolves were bigger, smaller
than each other is absurd. And there's so many
ways you can You can just kind of, if you're
an intelligent person who bothers to do even
a minimal amount of research, you know that that's
natural for these wolves to be moving that way
anyway. So the reintroduced wolves in Yellowstone,
they're no different than the wolves that were
here 100 years ago naturally, you know? And what
happened in NOMAC is the proof positive of that.
These wolves move anyway. No, no, no, no, no.
Say one of the one of the entertaining emails
and this was not from one of the whites. One
of the entertaining emails is they do some foreign.
They knew where the wolves came from because
he saw this writer saw the game department game
department employee kicking wolves out of the
back of a swan's truck. Okay. That's before marijuana
was even legal in Washington. Yeah. Yeah. You
can imagine I got a chuckle out of that one.
Oh my gosh. The things people will convince themselves
of in order to confirm their own bias is astonishing.
Astonishing. Yeah. Hey everybody. I'm going to
jump in here just with a quick note. When Corky
references a Schwann's truck, he's referring
to Schwann's ice cream. For those of you who
have never lived in the Pacific Northwest, you
might not know what Schwan's Ice Cream is, but
people who live there certainly know Schwan's
because their delivery trucks are very iconic,
painted yellow with a very fancy cursive writing
of Schwan's on the side. That company has since
been renamed Yellow, but I'm sure their trucks
still look the same. Okay, back to Corky. Okay,
so we're running out of time here. We need to
jump ahead. What happened? What happened to these
people? Did you make a case? We presented everything
to the United States Attorney's Office and came
up with some charges and presented it to the
grand jury. The grand jury immediately came back
and, you know, I'd have to look at the piece
of paper exactly, but there was, you know, smuggling,
there was Laciak, Felonies. related to the false
labeling, related to the export conspiracies.
There was a number of charges that came out against
everyone. My notes are you got a 12 -count indictment
out of the grand jury. That's pretty good. Yeah,
that was good. Aaron, Tom, Everybody was initially
charged with felony violations. Had the suppression
hearing on it. Nothing was drawn out. It was
all rock solid. Nice. And eventually ended up
settling on a plea agreement. And Tom Biden did
that plea to misdemeanor. Lacey act? Lacey act.
No, but dangerous species act. Maybe a couple
of them, two of them I think. Aaron played two
Lacey act misdemeanor. Everybody played the misdemeanor
except Bill. He had to take the felony on this,
but you know, and nobody got any jail time. Okay.
You know, but they got some home confinement.
Okay. Some fines, 10 to 20 ,000 bucks in fines,
that kind of thing. That's pretty good. It's
a wildlife crime. Very seldom do people get jail
time for something like this. In fact, you can't
own a fire, can't have a firearm again, can't
vote, those kind of things. Yeah, and I noticed
in the notes you sent me before we talked today
that some of these, you know, there was hunting
privileges restricted for a pretty significant
amount of time. Guns were forfeited. That hurts
people who are interested in hunting. But more
importantly, you got some good finds. Ten, twenty
thousand dollars. I think there was a total of
either twenty or forty thousand as restitution
for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Yeah, pretty damn good. And, and like you said,
you know, there's a record now. So, uh, what
we've talked about before many times on this
podcast is when, you know, you might be a little
frustrated that he didn't get jail time on this
first case you made, but you've laid down the
record. If they show up again with another wildlife
offense, particularly in federal court, that's
when the heavier sentences tend to get laid down.
Cause judges don't like to see repeat offenders.
And like you said, that record follows you around.
And we could have another discussion about how
the sentencing guidelines impact whether or not
somebody goes to jail. Wildlife sentencing guidelines
at the federal level are painfully out of date.
But you know what? Great case, Corky. I think
this is a really interesting case to talk about
in our discussion or overall discussion of wolf
conservation and wolf repopulation of the lower
48 United States. I think great work on your
part. wolves now have kind of pretty much moved
their way back into Washington. Most of them
coming from the yellow, the original Yellowstone
packs just making their way west. But yeah, great
work. Cool case. Anything else you wanted to
say about it? You know, you were going to ask
about, you know, wolf reintroduction. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. What? Let me ask you what?
You know, as an agent, as a hunter, as somebody
who's lived in a lot of the western parts of
the U .S., what's your view on wolf reintroduction
and how it works in the bigger scheme of things?
I think they belong here. Now, do I think that
they need to be coddled and protected and, you
know, look at the nice wolf? No, I don't. I think
that they're a reasonable. Hunting. season, what
have you, an allowance for some form of predator
control for livestock, because they do kill livestock.
Yeah, they do. We're actually should have a right
to protect his livestock. Now, should he be able
to go out and use 1080 or something to do that
anymore? No. There should be some kind of reasonable
regulation, but I think they're here. Now that
we've gotten rid of a lot of the legal... poisons.
They're not going away. It's not just as a hunter,
but I had the privilege of tracking a lot of
these wolves from the air. I was also a pilot.
I followed the one that started in northeastern
Oregon. Eventually ended up all the way over
in California and, you know, or seven, I don't
think it was. And it was watching this whole.
Migration and and developed and it just it was
fascinating to me and I was glad to see they're
here and you know you hear the misinformation.
But then you read the official documentation
and they're saying, oh, they're wiping out all
the elk. Yeah, they're probably moving them around.
Yeah, they're moving them around. Like Idaho
and Montana, the elk populations, the number
of successful elk hunters has actually meant
that elk taken has gone up. Exactly. Since the
introduction of wolves. They keep, they run them
out of the habitat if they're eating too much.
Exactly. It's just part of the cycle of nature.
Exactly. The fact that you can't drive up and
spot a herd of 400 elk anymore and take your
best shot at one of them, that doesn't mean there's
fewer elk. It just means they're changing their
behaviors. That's another thing that bugs me
on the MythBuster thing is it doesn't take much
energy to go check hunter success rates over
the last 25 years. It's all available online
or easily gettable from any of the Western states.
There's no, in terms of hunter success or number
of tags issued, there's either no change or improvement
in hunter success since wolves have been returned.
So yeah, I'm with you, you know, properly manage
them once they're off the endangered species
list. Don't, don't slaughter them. Uh, but yeah,
there's no reason why wolves can't be successfully
hunted. I wish everyone could hear a wolf howl.
Yes. 100%. I agree. Yes. Nothing. I heard it
a few times and it is just bone chilling, but
it's fascinating. And it's just, it's, it's a
real treat to be able to hear it. And I wish
that everybody could hear that. It triggers something
in your ancient DNA, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah.
I've heard it too. And it is a very moving experience
and one that I hope everybody has a chance to
experience at some point. Yeah. Well, hey, Corky,
thank you so much for being on again and telling
us another fantastic story about your great work.
You were an awesome agent and I'm glad we're
still in touch. Thank you so much for being on
the show. Well, my pleasure, Ed. It's great working
with you and we got to work together and I'm
glad we're still able to do it. Me too. OK, everybody,
thanks for tuning in. I appreciate it. We'll
see you next time. Nature's Secret Service is
written and produced by me, Ed Newcomer. and
is co -produced by the DHTV team here at California
State University Dominguez Hills. Follow us on
social media and connect with us online at naturessecretservice
.com.