Grizzly Bear Management and the Endangered Species Act with Dr Dan Thompson

Dan Thompson, PHD from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department joins the podcast for a very special show on grizzly bears. Wyoming and the GYE have a large number of grizzly bears. Dan goes in depth on the number of grizzly bears, what they eat, how they act and so much more. He provides resources for hunters and anglers who venture into bear country. He gives insight into what drives bear behaviors and how to avoid a deadly encounter. Grizzly bears defend their young, their food and their space. This episode will help you know how to avoid a bad situation in the backcountry with interior grizzly bears. Dan gives scientific data and time tested advice to help you better understand the Grizzly bears in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem.  Truth about Grizzly Bears and the ESA  [00:00:00] Hey, Radcast  is on.  Hunting, fishing, and everything in between. This is Radcast Outdoors here are David Merrill and Patrick Edwards. All right. Welcome  to another episode of Radcast Outdoors. Patrick Edwards: I'm Patrick. I'm David. And we are here again with our special guest. Dan Thompson to talk about one of our favorite animals to talk about. I mean, it circulates through the community like wildfire. It's grizzly bears. And so we brought Dan back in. Dan is with Wyoming game and fish department and he is the large carnivore supervisor. So he gets to deal with all the big critters  David Merrill: with his hands on them. Yeah.  Patrick Edwards: Trap sedate them, do all those wonderful things, learn about them. So he's got a lot more knowledge than everybody else. Who's kind of like an armchair quarterback on Grizzlies and thinks they know everything about them. So [00:01:00] we've dealt with those  people.  Dr Dan Thompson: Yeah.  Patrick Edwards: So he also gets to work with folks that, you know, have livestock predation, all kinds of different issues. So he's, he's the man who has the knowledge. So we brought him in here to talk about grizzly bears. So Dan, thanks for coming in. Yeah. Thanks for having me guys. Yeah. So just again, give everybody a recap of your background how you kind of got into this job and where you're from.  Dr Dan Thompson: Sure. I grew up in on a farm in Iowa, actually a lot of Midwesterners end up in the mountains cause we want to be here, I guess. You know, I always had a passion for the outdoors, grew up hunting and fishing and trapping. And at a young age, I kind of wanted to work like as a biologist working with wildlife. And went school at South Dakota State and got a degree in that and then bounced around quite a bit and ended up going back to school and bounced around doing wildlife jobs. It's kind of a nomadic lifestyle, working three months here, six months there, trapping mice or doing veg work but there, it, it gets you a lot of [00:02:00] different places. And so and I went back to school I worked on turkeys. And then I ended up working, doing graduate work on mountain lions, which was something I'd always wanted to do. And that's kind of what led me here. I, when I finished that up, I was fortunate enough to get a position in Lander as a, basically as a lion biologist for the state. But all of us large carnivore biologists do a lot of different things. And I did that. For about five years and then put in for the current position as supervisor and sold my soul to do that. I guess. No, but it's obviously less, less field time, but but we got a great crew and I'm just happy to be part of it. So, yeah, that's where I've been. And game and fish for over 12 years now. That's  Patrick Edwards: awesome. Yeah. And it's good to have you on here. Grizzly bears are very popular topic at the moment. We have a number of encounters and we'll focus in on that a little bit today, but we've had a lot [00:03:00] of encounters with folks and grizzlies already. And then not to mention, there's also expansion of grizzly bear range that we're starting to find out about. So we'll have you talk about that a little b