In this episode of NDO Podcast we visit with Kent Luttschwager, Department wildlife resource management section leader, about the diverse work a district biologist does, how WMA management has changed throughout his career and utilizing cattle grazing to accomplish our goals.
(Intro music)
Cayla: Welcome to episode 86 of the NDO podcast. On this episode, we have Kent Luttschwager back with us. He's been on one other time. Did I get it right.
Kent: Yeah. That's right.
Cayla: Uh, Department wildlife resource section leader based in Williston. Um, but yeah, we're going to talk about WMA management. So last time we kind of talked about rules and regulations on our wildlife management areas. But, um, this time we're going to kind of dig into the weeds on management, how that's changed over the years, um, kind of what we have going on now. Yeah.
Casey: But so, so maybe, Kent, you can remind people exactly what your job is now like. Okay, well, you know, do you.
Cayla: Do you know what your job is now.
Casey: Yeah.
Kent: Well, um, and some history to it, too. No, I'm a district wildlife supervisor, first and foremost. And there was six districts. Now we actually have seven. So we have seven districts, and I'm one of the seven district supervisors. And then as an add on duty, I'm also the section leader, which then coordinates the efforts and the budget and some of the reports and stuff like that, and the the joint supervision. I coordinate that with the other district supervisors. So I'm a district supervisor and then also the section leader. Um, and uh.
Casey: So when you say district supervisor, what I mean, what does that person do? Because that's what we're going to get into here.
Kent: Okay. As a district supervisor, a substantial portion of our time and effort. It's usually a district office. And we have the district offices at Jamestown, Devils Lake, Dickinson, Riverdale, Williston. Um, and then one here in Bismarck. And so it's a district office running a district. And, you know, we we sometimes just get labeled wma wildlife management area managers, but we're really district supervisors because we got our fingers in a lot of different things. Um, but about 50% of what we do is wildlife management area. So public land management that we manage department wildlife management areas. And then the other thing we do a lot of is surveys. So all the you know the duck numbers are up, the pheasant numbers are down. The deer numbers are up. You know that's done by a lot of us district staff. And then we get that to the game management species biologist. So we all fly deer surveys and fly moose surveys, and do the grouse counts and the pheasant crowing counts and the duck surveys and stuff like that. So that's a big part of what we do. And then we also work with our private lands folks. Um, so as district supervisors, we jointly supervise the private lands biologist.
Kent: And, uh, you know what the emphasis that's been in our PLOTS program, how well that's going, um, and then the winter months, sometimes if winters are bad, we do a lot of wildlife depredation response to to animals that are causing damage to, to livestock operations. Um, generally it's deer in the haystacks, but every once in a while it's elk in a cornfield, it's turkeys on the hay bales. Um, and so we got our fingers in a lot of different things. And then you can just answer the phone every day. Um, you know, how old is my kid? Have to be to have a hunting license. And when does he need hunters safety? Um, where's the best place to take my kid hunting? My wife and I are coming in from out of town. Where should we go hunting? Is there any landowners that, you know asking for hunters? And we've got a moose tag. We've never been up here. Where do we go? Moose hunting, you know. And what can we do on our wildlife management areas? What can't we do, you know, so there's just a lot of a lot of things that we're involved in.
Casey: Yeah.
Cayla: Just on the last episode, you guys also take care of the shooting ranges that are on.
Kent: Yeah, yeah. Shooting ranges. And then right now our district is big into the chronic wasting disease because we're surveying a fourth of the state and we're in the district, Williston district. So Monday I was on the road picking up deer heads from the barrels that bring them down here to be tested. So we just, you know, a district presence, you know, and most of our district supervisors districts cover 6 to 18 counties, you know, so a fairly large we used to be 11 in the district I was at, but I'm down to five now. So um, but anyway so.
Casey: Mhm. Well yeah. And partly we split that district because we had got some additions in wmas and stuff. More to the south where we already had an office building in Dickinson, but we didn't, we didn't have an official district there and.
Kent: Right.
Casey: And uh, but yeah, we've added some WMAs down there and workload and so.
Kent: Yeah. So that's kind of what I do. It's a lot of different things, which is really interesting because we have some people that work on very specific things day after day after day. And my job and the district jobs are very varied, but a lot of things you only get kind of half done and then you're off to the next project, you know, and you wish you could be more thorough. But on the other hand, that's long enough to work on that project. I just as soon go do something else. So.
Casey: Well, I think you're right too. I think people don't realize, like, like you said, that it's not just wildlife management areas, the the lands that we own and lease, but I would even say depending on the office you're in, you get involved in coordinating with fisheries to get work done, fisheries projects, whatever. You might not be actually pulling nets and stuff, but sometimes you're sharing equipment and things like that. So.
Kent: Right. Yeah. There's a lot of and then, you know, the nuisance wildlife or the question wildlife or, you know, um, there's just lots of that stuff that goes on, you know, that they call in and ask for help. They've got a raccoon in their garden or a muskrat in their window well, you know, how do we get it out of here?
Casey: And or worse, the skunk in their window.
Kent: Well yeah. Mhm.
Casey: Yeah. Yeah. So you're kind of the, I mean you're the department presence in your counties. Yeah. You are in a lot of cases you, you and the wardens and the, and the fisheries folks are kind of that you know.
Kent: Yep.
Casey: Touch board for locals.
Kent: Yeah. So good job. Good. Um, for me there's some history to this. We're going to talk about some, some historical WMA management. But I've been around a long time.
Cayla: I was gonna say, you guys were seasonals together.
Casey: Kent's way older than me.
Casey: Well, you used to when you were a seasonal. Were you working with Ken?
Casey: I was gonna I was going to go up there and spend depredation winter up there. But then Schultz called me down here.
Kent: So. And then you did come up and do some signing. So I kind of did supervise him and now he's was my boss.
Casey: Careful what you wish for.
Cayla: You just trained him so well.
Casey: Yeah. Right. So all the training and then.
Kent: Well then Jeb, he came over and so he spent a lot of time on the phone trying to get him up to speed. And then Casey and then Levi, and then Bill Haase came over and I trained him and supervised Bill and supervised Casey. Now they're all supervising me.
Casey: You better get under Kent’s supervision before the rocket takes off.
Casey: But, yeah. How have how have things changed from when you.
Kent: Well, yeah, that's a great question. And, uh, when I was hired in 91 and the game and fish was really at that time just starting to transition to some changes, we had historically managed a lot of wildlife management areas with very limited funds. Did not have a lot of money. We used a lot of cooperators, farm cooperators that would farm 70% and then leave us 30%. Um, and sometimes that 30% that we had, we, we left standing as food PLOTS. But a lot of times we sold it just because we didn't need that much. But we but we did not have the wherewithal, meaning both staff, equipment and money to convert some of that cropland into wildlife habitat on our own wildlife management areas.
Casey: Well, and realistically, when you think of the the landscape, then too, the landscape was we had a lot more habitat on the landscape outside of our management area. So a lot of times it was attracting the critters there so that the public could hunt on a public place.
Kent: Yep.
Casey: And I think we've gotten to the point now where it's now producing the critters.
Kent: Yeah.
Casey: To have some on the landscape in some places.
Cayla: Yeah. And even if it was a farm, it still might have had. Yeah. More habitat. We like everywhere. Tree rows, breaks, grassy edges. Uh, compared to now.
Casey: Right.
Kent: So the game and fish kind of transitioned from these things. Wildlife management area is kind of paying for themselves to. Now we spend a fair amount of money to have them really productive for wildlife, because there's two things that we try to do. One is produce wildlife and two provide hunting opportunities. And if it doesn't fit into that category, then we try to reject that request, you know, type of thing. So anyway, but years ago, not a lot of staff and not a lot of money. And fast forward 30 years, not much more staff, but a little more money and a little bit better equipment and a little more focus on what we're doing. Yep. Um, and so the equipment has been a big it's expensive, you know, it's expensive, but it's what we've needed, and we've slowly built up our budgets to have decent tractors and decent grass drills and stuff like that.
Casey: I, I remember when I started in 2001, you guys were just going through some of the really like intensive management area specific planning. I remember Dan Halstead, who it still is and was a district supervisor when I was up in Riverdale, was going through all those. And I think that kind of changed how we looked at things too, instead of trying to be everything for all critters. We went, you know what? This whether it was 160 acres, 2000 acres, I can do better things for different species by concentrating how we do stuff.
Kent: Yeah, and part of that goes back to a learning curve and probably making some mistakes in our planning. I'm trying to do everything for every different critter, you know, and uh, I think what are they is one of the, of the things that I would be looking back concerned about is how we probably mismanaged our native prairie, and how treasured of a resource that really is. And, you know, some people think, well, it's just pasture. Just grass. And yeah, it is, but it is truly, really unique stuff. And so we planted some trees because, you know, we thought that would be good for some species. And then we did some other things and planted some invasive trees.
Casey: Yeah.
Kent: You know, in or adjacent to our native prairie. And then we had effects on sharp tailed grouse that weren't positive, but maybe it was positive for white-tailed deer. But, you know, so we were kind of, you know, trying to do a little too much for. And so. Yeah.
Casey: Or the managing native prairie for non-native bird. Yeah. The pheasants like that probably damaged a lot of our native prairie because we are now kind of idling it essentially for too long.
Kent: Yeah, I think that's one of the other things that we learned. Um, uh. Really was, was our native prairie management was really. I'm not going to throw any of those old guys under the bus because I'm one of the old guys now, and they're going to throw me under the bus.
Casey: That was the way it was supposed to be done.
Kent: Yeah. But, um, you know, we were pretty as an agency. We were very anti grazing, you know, and made them a lot, a lot of mistakes there. And, uh, the grazing science has really changed. Um, timing, duration and intensity are things that we talk about now when we graze. And so um, but just yeah, it was a different time. Limited equipment, limited manpower, um, you know, and we got such big districts that we got a, I call it Party Mobile. We have to be able to drive 90 miles and establish habitat. Well, you need good trailers and good trucks. And when you get there.
Casey: Don't need your tractor breaking down either.
Kent: And but when you get there, then you got small equipment because that's what we haul it on. You know, it'd be great to have a great big four wheel drive and 80 foot tillage equipment, but we just don't have that and we can't go from 1st May to the next with that big stuff. So we're kind of party small and party mobile and, uh, get a lot of, get a lot done on the, on the landscape. Proud of our guys and proud of what they get done.
Casey: And maybe talk to some of the shifts. So we did a very large native prairie inventory, which essentially what we're calling native prairie is unbroken, never been farmed, as far as we can tell, and maybe talk about like, you know, that and how we've kind of started to work that into our management.
Kent: Okay. Well, yeah. Virgin sod, native Prairie, um, has never been cultivated, never been touched by never been turned over. And, um, I think one of the things that we learned is the species diversity in those, in those, those areas, um, you know, maybe 80 different species of grasses and forbs versus if we plant something 5 or 6 or 10 or 12, you know, um, so a lot of native forbs, native plants. But the idea was, is, you know, if they were taller and thicker and ranker, they would produce more wildlife. So we have letters in the old files that say, you know, dear sir, we have purchased this property for wildlife management. Come and take your fence down because we're never going to use cattle on it again. It's going to be a wildlife management area. And so we took the fences down and we didn't graze, you know, for years. Um, and then, oh, we started to see this really bad invasion by Kentucky bluegrass and brome. And then you'd go on to neighboring places or state school lands, and they had much more higher biodiversity than what we had. And it's like, well, what? Well, we were idling our properties to death, our wildlife management areas to death. So it was um, and part of that, too, was in the old days when you leased something to be grazed.
Kent: We just leased out. Okay. Dear cattle operator, you can graze on this. Here you go. And he would make the decisions on when the cows went in and how many and how long. And a lot of times that led to overgrazing year after year after year. And so as the sciences. Grazing sciences have evolved and duration and timing and intensity. We now work with the operator, but we dictate the days of which days the cows should go in, how many? And then when they come out. And that's a that's an art and a science. It's not all that easy. But and we generally confines with them. But you know, some days it's 21 days AUM an acre for 21 days and get them out of there. And some days it's rotate to a different pasture. And sometimes we do it twice over. It kind of depends on. So your your comment that we were doing an inventory is something that I guess maybe is I'm kind of winding down my career, but um, what is the condition of the of the native prairie that we have? And going forward, like I said earlier, I'm not going to throw the old guys under the bus for, you know, now we can maybe call it mistakes, but they didn't know that then.
Casey: Can’t learn if you don't make mistakes.
Kent: Right, and so, but the only way you know that you're having an impact on habitat is to monitoring. And so we would like to do vegetation monitoring every year. But we don't have the staff or time to do that. But we did do a fairly large effort to go out and grab a baseline data on all our native prairie, and we worked with the Fish and Wildlife Service. Jennifer Zorn, we worked with Elicia Mueller here with the department to set up a monitoring system that's going to be repeatable going into the future. And as we're grazing, we think we're grazing and trending in the right direction. But we may be doing something wrong, but the only way you could ever figure something out is go back and look at the trends and the information.
Casey: And hoping to hoping to be able to notice that before it gets way far gone. Like, notice that you need to make a change right before. I mean, that's I think one of the biggest things in monitoring is like, you can do it for a really long time and then 40 years later go, oops, right. Or you can monitor it and in between go, hey, we're starting to go the wrong way.
Kent: Right.
Kent: And I think a lot of this vegetation management and encroachment and things like that is a slow burn. You know it just but it. Yeah. Okay. How do we get to this state. Well you have to go back and look and do some comparisons.
Casey: And well, I think to to the defense of some of those folks, you know, long past that didn't allow grazing because of wildlife management. Well, I, I think that was much more doable because the 20 years before that. Right. Because when they learned it, because we didn't have the invasive problem, we didn't have the Kentucky blue and the brome problem that crept in during that period. Right? That they that they were doing that practice. And so, yeah.
Cayla: How has it been for like finding cooperators kind of willing to work with that or like, yeah, this is our goal and it's a little bit different obviously, than what they're probably trying to do on their operation.
Kent: Um, that's actually going fairly well. Um, and I think that like for the grazing stuff, the grazing sciences have evolved and they're listening and implementing that kind of stuff on their own operation. You know, so generally when we have like a new one that we're going to do some grazing on, we kind of sit down with them or visit with them. And this is our goals and this is our objectives. We need to have something out there in the fall when the hunting season. So we want to get you in early. We want a treatment. You know, we don't necessarily care what color your cows are if they're blue, green or purple or Charolais or Angus or, you know, but we want them as a tool to manipulate the vegetation. And these are our goals and these are our objectives. Now, we want to work with you if you're willing, but you have to understand that then most once we get that out early in the A conversation, then it goes really pretty well, I think.
Casey: Two the other thing we've done is we've put a lot of effort into infrastructure to make this fairly easy for folks to be able to do with developing water, you know, and good water and fences. And I mean, we've got some that we're even pumping rural water into for, for cattle water, you know, and so it's, it, it makes it not only fairly easy, but, you know, when you think about like, okay, at my place, they're drinking out of the water hole. If I go over here, they're drinking rural water, right. Like it might even be actually be better, you know, in some cases for a period of time for those folks and utilize that.
Kent: That started for us probably 15 years ago. We had we had prairie that we could not graze, and we might have had neighbors that were interested in grazing it, but we didn't have water. There's always a limiting factor on something the fence, the water, whatever. So when well, let's get rural water there. And it was like, wow, is that thinking out of the box? Yeah. You know. And now let's drill wells. And so we drill water wells. So we have water. And then which results in good distribution of the livestock. Because if you don't have water, you're done. You can't graze, you know, livestock and their needs.
Casey: So or it's too intensive for them to want to do it, haul water or whatever that is, you know, and then then to have these kinds of, of demands of what we need on there.
Kent: Right.
Casey: It's like if I gotta haul water and then move it every ten days, it's like, you know, I'm out and I get that, but. Right. Mhm. So yeah. And, and we've hired the last two summers some folks to help us do some of that inventory and run around the state. So we've got a pretty good baseline now on some of that.
Kent: Right. And that's that's going to be crucial I think going forward you know type of thing. So anyway we've got it. It's a good baseline information for us so.
Casey: And then we've obviously got a lot of a lot of our wildlife management areas that had some previous cropping history on it. And so just tell us maybe a little difference now that we know kind of a little bit better picture of where some of that unbroken sod is and where the previously cropped stuff, what our management looks like on both of those.
Kent: Yeah. You know, I think part of this when we did our monitoring was to really identify where our native prairie was. And some of it are very small parcels, you know, because they got farmed around a hilltop or something. But still, that's really important, five acres of native prairie that we have. And then we've got planted cover, um, that former crop fields that we've planted. And so as for a manager, you have to make that decision. Do you want to plant something temporary, 5 or 10 years of grass, you know, and then go back to agriculture and rotate it. So keep your grass really early stages of development. Or do you want to plant natives? And because what are you going to use to manage it going forward? The idea that you're going to use grazing or fire or haying are kind of your options, and if that's where you may want to be, you know, planting the right species, the right mix if you're going to use livestock as a treatment tool.
Casey: And one of the, one of the things that you guys had talked about, I know was like, okay, you've got a 50 acre piece of unbroken sod or native prairie, and then you've got a ten acre piece of cropland that's next to it. Well, maybe it'd be easier to just plant that all the natives and manage it as natives versus trying to do some of the stuff, so.
Kent: That's exactly it. So if we're managers, we need good maps, good tools, we need good inventories, you know, type of thing.
Casey: And did you ever think you'd be a, uh, guru at GIS making maps by the time you're done with your career?
Kent: Still not
Cayla: I was like, is he?
Casey: Yeah. You know, a lot more than you used to.
Kent: Well, yeah. But that's crucial, you know, going forward and, you know, and we manage about, you know, each district somewhere in that 35 to 40,000 acres. And that's a lot of land. Yeah.
Casey: And it's not all together like you said.
Kent: No.
Kent: Scattered all over.
Casey: Yeah, yeah. To the point where some of these wildlife management areas are starting to get to be the only game in town, right? In certain areas, like there, this little postage stamp of of habitat out there that everybody in the area is relying on wildlife to either come off of there or be able to find it on there.
Kent: Right.
Casey: So the demands are getting higher and higher, I think. And we're seeing that we're seeing that with questions of are there too many people running on some of these or not? You know, and when does public land become, you know, crowded.
Kent: Right.
Casey: And I think states across the nation have been wrestling with that for many years. But we're starting to get there a little more and more.
Kent: And I think that's why we try to safeguard ours from all the other.
Casey: Yeah. Impacts.
Kent: You know, potential uses. A nice gentleman called me the other day and he says they were interested in doing a fundraiser next year. And could they use our woods on one of our wildlife areas for a Halloween haunted woods? Haunted Halloween site facility. And I said, uh, using a WMA in October in North Dakota. Yeah,
Cayla: It might be haunted.
Casey: Yeah, it might be haunted.
Kent: Yeah. He didn't think that through. Yeah, yeah, I said, that's just not the kind of stuff that we just allow.
Casey: Yeah. Or we get requests for, you know, trails or whatever else it might be.
Kent: Paintball club.
Casey: Other uses.
Kent: Yeah, sure. Hikers and bikers and trails and. Yeah.
Casey: Well, like we talked about on the, on the, uh, shooting range one, it's like we've gotten to the point now where we're we're probably not putting any more shooting ranges on existing wildlife management areas because we it it takes a stamp of wildlife production off the landscape.
Kent: Yeah. Exactly.
Casey: You know and so.
Kent: So.
Casey: But yeah, that was something Cayla brought up. You guys manage those shooting areas and, uh, they, they take time to I mean.
Kent: Yeah, they're, uh, but.
Casey: It's a good spot.
Kent: Yeah.
Casey: The mess is concentrated maybe, so to speak.
Kent: That and you know, it's a it's a service that people need. They need a place to go get their rifles sighted in. And as an agency, we want high quality marksmen out there. You know, type of thing. And so, um, we do have a couple of shooting facilities, you know, as always, requests for more, you know, type of thing. But, um, so we do have some ranges and, you know, we, we built them with specs that are designed that are approved by other groups that have shooting ranges. So they really nice facility. And then generally we have somebody hired to try to work on them to maintain them. But we have to do a lot of the work ourselves, you know, and they are expensive to upkeep, but they generate a fair amount of income because there's an excise tax for all the ammunition that's shot off on them.
Casey: So which is one thing to bring up all this work or the majority of this work is done on WMAs is 75:25 cost share with Pittman-Robertson dollars and and license fee dollars.
Kent: So and that's that's really critical for the average person to know. And certainly the sportsmen to know is that when they purchase a gun or ammunition. There's there's an already predetermined excise tax that goes on that. Then it comes back to the states to to fund Fish and Wildlife management. And so everything that we do on our management areas gets 75% cost share by that. And that's really crucial. And it's a user paid. And the visionary people Dingell and Johnson and Pittman and Robertson put that together in the 30s was very visionary.
Cayla: Well you knew them, right?
Kent: Yeah. Not quite that old, but yeah.
Casey: I was going to say if you didn't know all this, this is a good way to talk your spouse into buying another gun.
Kent: Yeah. There you go.
Cayla: It's also a good excuse when you just keep missing.
Casey: Yeah.
Kent: I'm paying my salary darling. Absolutely. Yeah, but very visionary. Um, and, uh, it's a user based system. And that's why when we get requests for other things that aren't necessarily by our users, um, no, our sportsmen have paid for the management of these properties, you know, and it isn't just public land for all things public to use. We have very specific uses that we allow.
Casey: So maybe Kent get into a little specifics about your district that you manage that northwest corner out of Williston, the WMAs there and, and the difference between, you know, we're not all just managing a way that looks the same shape, the same.
Kent: Right?
Casey: You know, maybe we.
Cayla: We were supposed to go meet you and hunt one of them.
Casey: Were talking about.
Cayla: And then then do this after.
Kent: I'm glad to be in Bismarck to help you guys out. So you didn't have travel.
Casey: Yeah, well we're not.
Cayla: Yeah, yeah.
Kent: No, we. And that that presents a challenge because we have different wildlife management areas for, for for different things. And, you know, and like the Fish and Wildlife Service, they're managing waterfowl production areas, for one thing, waterfowl. Well, but we've got to be concerned about pheasants and whitetail deer and moose and mule deer and elk in some places. So we are varied in our. That means our mission and goals and objectives for each may is somewhat varied as well. Um, so we have everything from the Noonan Mine Hills, which is an abandoned, uh, strip mine that was not reclaimed and actually is pretty productive for wildlife the way that we're managing. We got a little bit of cropland in there. So we do have some food sources in there. There's been years. We wintered up 300 whitetails on that place, you know, type of thing. And then we got some native prairie tracts that are just native prairie, you know, and we use livestock with, with, with grazing on those. And then as we get closer to Williston, we have six wildlife management areas that are owned by the Corps of Engineers and then leased to the North Dakota Game and Fish Department for Fish and Wildlife management purposes. And so those are Antelope Creek Tobacco Gardens, Hofflund Bay, Vanhook, Trenton and Lewis and Clark Wildlife Management areas. And so there we have to work closely with the Corps and our planning, um, and our budgets and the projects that we have intended. Um, and so we we work with them and we submit a plan and, and, uh, they're, they're generally been the corps has been really good to work with. Um, it is another little bit of a layer that we have to go through administrative wise, but that's okay. It's their property. They have the responsibility to oversee that. And so they lease it to us. And we take that responsibility very seriously. And so some of that is adjacent shoreline to Lewis and Clark is truly the headwaters of Lake Sakakawea, you know, and.
Casey: Floodplain.
Kent: Floodplain and fluctuates. And one year is under ten feet of water. And the next year, you know, we're the lake is six miles, 60 miles away. So it's, um, true challenges. And then that's forested bottoms. So that's a Cottonwood Galleria forest type thing. Green Ash Forest. That's way different than managing native prairie, which is way different than managing abandoned strip mine, right?
Casey: Yeah, yeah.
Casey: We've got some of those abandoned mines, or we actually have closed down because of the sinkholes, like, uh, not, uh, not the one you talked about, but by Beulah there. We've got one where a portion of it's still closed and still trying to. It's been how many years we've been trying to figure out how to get rid of some of that so we can open it back up, you know?
Kent: But yeah. So, yeah, lots of unique challenges up at Noonan. We, uh, if they're got a fire started on some of the old coal slag and then it burnt underground. And so the burning coal vein down by Medora is one thing, but we didn't want that on our wildlife management area at Noonan. So we had to bring in cats. And the Public Service Commission abandoned mine lands, and they had to excavate that burning coal vein and then poured a lot of water to it and finally got it. So just just another day for a district supervisor doing…
Casey: That kind of that brings up something to like the, you know, some of the partners that we work with, like you just mentioned, a couple there on a situation and then the Corps of Engineers, and we've got some from the Bureau of Rec that we manage, Wildlife management or Lone Tree. Yeah, the big one.
Kent: New Johns and Ross Stewart are a couple of those.
Casey: Fish and Wildlife Service. We manage a couple for that. Yeah, because of mitigation purposes.
Kent: Yep. And so, yeah. Yeah, the Corps of Engineers actually, out of three different offices, you know, one we Riverdale office, one out of the Jamestown office is the Bowman. Haley actually managed with the Jamestown Corps of Engineers office. And then the ones here at Bismarck are managed out of Pierre in Bismarck here that our managers work on. So you think of the Corps as just one entity, but really it's three, three different entities that we're working with.
Cayla: The Jamestown Corps manages the Bowman haley.
Casey: Yeah.
Cayla: Oh, interesting.
Casey: Yeah, it's a strange one. Yeah, because they got Pipestem.
Kent: And Bowman Haley.
Casey: And Bowman Haley. Yeah.
Kent: So, anyway, when we started working with them in the early 90s, it young Bob Martin was there and it took off and he was really good to work with. And you know, now Jeremy is there. And so yeah.
Casey: Yeah. So and like local partners too. We work with a lot of them on on not only wildlife management areas but just in your district.
Kent: Right.
Casey: I mean, working with the trap clubs to wildlife clubs, to whatever.
Kent: Yeah. Um, like the range that we have in Williston, we work with, uh, United Sportsmen, and then they actually hire a guy to do the cleaning for us and dumping the garbage, you know, type of thing. Um, so, yeah, work with a lot of different clubs, um, organizations, you know, and then when we're getting started on some of these things, um, some of the projects or like some of the land acquisition is paid for by partners such as Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Ducks Unlimited, you know, um, all the, the Pheasants Forever ones, you know. And then there's also the North Dakota Natural Resources Trust, American Foundation for wildlife. So sometimes when you get to putting all that stuff together, you can really build a partnership.
Cayla: I did want to lean into we we briefly touched on it. But just to like the expansion of using a little bit of prescribed fire, and I suppose another equipment hurdle that we maybe weren't, didn't have the stuff for a long time ago.
Kent: But prescribed fire has been around a long time, and we've tried to use it a long time, and we used to use it. I mean, we've always used it since I've been around. Um, which is like, say almost 34 years. But, um, at various times we make an emphasis to really get it back on the landscape because it's such a great tool, such a great tool, and it's something that naturally occurred in the prairies. Um, and so when I first started, there were some wild guys that were doing some burning and without a lot of planning, without a lot of equipment. And so I was involved in one and we exceeded objectives. And uh, so, um, we realized that that's there's an art and a science to burning and there's technique and there's equipment and there's training that's needed. So we send our people to the training, um, and we get them involved with almost all the federal training that the firefighters are using and like the Forest Service lands in the West. So we've had them all at the basic firefighter training and then engines and pumpers to incident commanders, to the burn boss, to the ignition specialist, to the. So we get to all those trainings and we make sure that we have good equipment and good people trained and ready to go.
Kent: The problem is, is the window to burn in the spring in North Dakota can be very, very tight. And, um, if we don't get any snow a couple years ago, we go right to red flag warnings almost, you know. So and then you put all this time and effort and equipment and training and then you barely get to utilize it. Um, so it's something that we're trying to do more. And then organizationally, you know, there's three of us in Williston and two in Dickinson and four in Riverdale. So when we're going to do it, we need to bring our crews in together and to make an effort and burn with eight, ten, 12 people in the right equipment. And yeah, so organizationally, I wish we could do more. And we actually hired contractors for a while. They're expensive. Um, we wish we could do more. It's such a great tool. And I think this younger generation of guys younger than me now are they they realize how important it is and they're making an effort to get it on the landscape. And so it's something that we'll see continue with the game and fish department.
Casey: Yeah. I don't think some people realize how much effort planning goes into a prescribed burn just to have it all fall apart, because you could never get that right. Temperature, moisture, wind regime that you needed to actually burn. I mean, like some of the stuff is being done in the fall, prepping for fire lines and stuff, and then all of a sudden it's like, well, can't do it. Never got it done.
Kent: Yeah. And some of those burn burn preparation reports are 60, 70 pages long, you know. And you need the right window. Right. Like you said, parameters relative humidity, wind. Because you've got to deal with smoke that you're not putting on a neighbor or a nearby community, you know. So you can only burn with these kinds of winds from this certain direction, not to exceed, you know, 18 miles an hour or whatever it is.
Casey: And it's got to look like they're going to stay that direction for the duration of the burn, you know.
Kent: So we work closely. We actually have the National Weather Service come in and they spend some time with us training, and then we get spot forecasts and you get all that lined up and then it's not it's not going to fit in your window. And you've had people come in from Dickinson and Riverdale to help you. And it's like, well, so yeah, that's it.
Casey: Just well, let's go build a fence. Yeah, since I got you here.
Kent: And so we wish that that that is such a great tool. But it is a little bit limited. But it's so important that we're just going to keep using it.
Casey: Yeah. Sometimes it's I've seen the response on some of those, you know, that you think there's nothing there and you burn it. And all these native plants come up for the first time. You've seen them and you know, and of course, lately we've stressed like you can't just burn and walk away and be done for the next 12 years, right? It's like, you gotta burn. And that's kind of your kickstart. Now, what are you going to do to manage maintain what you've started kind of thing?
Kent: And I think part of it, that's how we got into a little more of the grazing was, is I had I did all these burn plans, I got everybody lined up and then we couldn't burn, you know. Well that resulted in another year of idle. Yeah. Okay. We'll do it next year and couldn't get it done another year. Another year. And it's like, we've got to do something to this prairie. Let's get cows out there, you know, type of thing. And so but cows and burning are very good combination, you know.
Casey: But yeah, a very good combination. And there's a lot of things you could do with cows if you, if you could get it done exactly the way it needed to be done, that you can do with burning. It's got a little limitation there. But but it takes it that takes a little more effort but. Mhm. So maybe I mean we've you talked about prescribed fire. We talked about grazing. You know some of your other management things that we really put an emphasis on and have probably changed over time. I think spraying we do a lot more noxious weed work than we probably used to.
Kent: Yes and no. Um I think part of it probably doing I wouldn't say as much, but the thing that's really changed is the equipment and the chemical.
Casey: The ability to do it.
Kent: Yeah and the advent of some of the new chemistries for some of these new chemicals that we can get and then using us using the right equipment, um, and so we can be because for us there's just when summer hits, spring hits. There's just too much going on. So we need to be really efficient and effective with our time. And so we've made a pretty good effort on the noxious weeds. You know, I'd like to say we're going to be weed free, but that's a challenge.
Cayla: That's your campaign slogan?
Kent: Yeah.
Cayla: Weed free by33.
Casey: Yeah. Weed free by 33.
Kent: Yeah. So. But it's a challenge. And then, you know, we also we have to be cognizant of, okay, we're spraying pesticides out there that aren't necessarily that good for water quality, for the environment. And so there's always some concerns there. And then we have wetlands and we have lakes and we have creeks and rivers and streams. And so it's the right balance, so.
Casey: Yeah you mentioned pesticides. It brings up something else that that we do that, you know, we're a small postage stamp on the landscape and we talk about this and it's costing us more money. But that's the neonic free seed that we're using for our food plots.
Kent: Oh yeah.
Casey: You know, on the landscape. And it's like we always talk about, well, it's more expensive. Actually, we can get we can get leftover treated seed for almost free, right? In some cases. But is it the right thing to do? And we know it's causing some of these. Yeah. You know some of these issues down the line.
Kent: Which yeah, what you're referring to is neonicotinoid treated seed. And um, so we used to use treated seed, but that was treated with an insecticide that was systemic to the plant. And so any of the pollinators or any of the bugs that are eating on that, and we're, you know, with the idea that they were being treated by an insecticide. And so we thought, well, that's really not the best option on our wildlife management areas. And so, um, we have a lot of pollinators on our wildlife management areas, and they're using some of our food PLOTS, but then we're providing them with a treated seed. And so we have started to go to the non we have gone to the Non-treated seed. And you know, I wish we could measure it and say we've saved the world. But I don't know if we have but or anything, but you know. Well, it's on our property and it's it's a responsible thing to do.
Casey: And it's it's interesting too, because it's, it's one of those things where, like some of the management we're doing is to attract those critters.
Kent: Right.
Casey: And so it's almost like you're going to attract them and then put it on the landscape like, you know.
Cayla: An ecological trap.
Kent: Yeah.
Casey: Ecological whatever you want to call it, you know. And so that not that it's the right thing for everybody everywhere. But it's like it kind of started to look like, you know what, like, this doesn't make sense for us.
Kent: Well, and, you know, we talked a little bit about our native prairie monitoring, but a couple of years ago, um, we're always trying to monitor if we can, but we don't have the staff. But we did work with NDSU, their entomology department, and they came out and monitored our bees and butterflies of all things. And it turns out that we have a lot of different species of bees and a lot of different species of butterflies on our wildlife management areas, but that's because we're around a lot of times surrounded by very intensive agriculture, and we're the last place standing in some of those places. So yeah. Mhm.
Casey: Mhm.
Cayla: Since they, when this airs it'll be open. But you've talked a lot about staff and how we could use more. But uh the seasonal job openings will be coming up um here when this airs. So um, if any of this sounded fun or you want Kent to jumpstart your career?
Casey: Right,Yeah.
Kent: There you go. You work for me? You’ll be deputy director one day. Um, yeah. Coming up. Yeah. We generally the district offices. I mean, the game and fish has several different types of seasonal positions. You know, some are dove banders, some are goose banders, some are fisheries staff. And then, um, some, I guess, involved in our lab. But, um, the ones that we have, we're going to have about 20 different openings for the seven district offices. Um, so 2 to 3 to four per office. Um, that will have and it's mainly working on our wildlife management areas over the course of the summer. So that starts with maybe getting in on some prescribed burning if they get there soon enough. But then it's planning and grass. It's tractor operator on the grass, it's planting food plots. It's um, everything from some fence maintenance and signing, uh, establishing habitat, um, all that kind of stuff. And then we try to get them varied careers so that they're vary, uh, training so that it isn't just one thing. I mean, they have we do have to spray some weeds with them, but then we try to train them in chainsaws. So they're getting, you know, experience with that. We'll get them electrofishing with fisheries crew, um, you know, so they come out of there with a lot of different things. They run a lot of different equipment. And it's a it's a college internship type of level thing.
Casey: Paid.
Kent: Paid. And then we provide housing at all our district offices. So there. And, um, if you're going to get into this career, you're going to need experience behind you somewhere. And this is a great start.
Casey: So I can't remember what the percentage is, but it's high. The number of people that were seasonals that are now full time employees in the department is almost ridiculously high.
Kent: Yeah, it's just under 60%. I think it was like 58%, you know, something really high like that. Yeah. So, um.
Casey: So yeah, that should be open or opening.
Cayla: Yeah.
Casey: Pay attention to that.
Kent: Mhm.
Casey: Um, the other thing we do offer, since we're talking about seasonals, is we offer a scholarship for those seasonals that complete a year or summer with us, um, in good standing and have, you know, done a good job. There's some scholarship opportunities for.
Kent: And at a North Dakota school correct.
Casey: North Dakota School.
Casey: Yep.
Cayla: All right. That was.
Casey: Pretty good. Do you got anything else Kent?
Cayla: You got a favorite WMA?
Casey: Not necessarily to hunt but to manage. Let's go there.
Cayla: Or I was gonna say is you can pick one out of his district?
Kent: Yeah I'm going to pick a clump of them. Um.
Casey: There's one that he probably doesn't manage anymore.
Kent: No. Yeah. The Killdeers is very. Killdeer Mountains are really unique area, and that was really cool. Um, but I think one of my favorites would be the areas that the wildlife management areas that we own at the confluence of the Missouri and the Yellowstone rivers. Um, and there's kind of a unique story on that. Um, a gentleman came by and said, you know, this is such a unique area. We got to we got to really do something to protect this. You know, and, uh, the idea that there was, you know, some day could be a golf course and motel and fast food things at the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone was, you know, kind of concerning. But so it was somewhat bizarre. And I said, well, what do we do? You know, I mean, they're not going to enter into a private lands agreement. Um, you know, and so.
Casey: So we thought anyway.
Kent: Well, yeah. So we really didn't we didn't know how and what to do to preserve this area. And uh, so I said, well, let's let's have a public meeting, you know. And so we held a public meeting. And one of the things that was talked about was something like a conservation easement where stays in private ownership, but they can't subdivide it or can't develop it, you know, but who's going to pay for that? Who's going to hold it? You know, they do those in the Western states, but.
Casey: And legally in North Dakota, we couldn't do one for perpetuity.
Kent: Right. So that was an idea that was, you know, flopped around and there was other things. And can you do a PLOTS tract? But we don't want wide open for hunters. And there's a lot of deer down there. And several areas were already leased to nonresident deer hunters, you know, and it's like, ooh. And so Ed and Tom Ochs said, why don't you just buy it? And I was like, well, blu blu blu…
Casey: That's a great idea, but.
Kent: The Game and Fish department had very limited acquisition budget. But it was. It is one of the most culturally, biologically diverse areas that we have. And so we put together 17 partners to purchase that. And that's like herding cats, you know, 17 partners. And they all have different fiscal years and budgets. And so we put that together, and we actually got that done. And we bought the Ochs property at the emails.
Cayla: Like everyone just like emptying their pockets.
Kent: There was a lot of that. And then.
Cayla: 32.
Kent: And then, uh, one of the other neighbors came over and said, I think you're right. And so that was the Neu family. And so we bought the Neus and we were negotiating on the Ochs. And I was out there working one day. And so, you know, it was an old farmstead and it's mostly river bottoms and, but there was some old equipment and some old fence. And so I was cleaning up one day and the neighbor drives up and it was Floyd Sullivan. And, uh, he came up and he says, you know, I just don't think government should own land. And I said, you know what? It's 10:00. I'm just going for a cup of coffee. What do you think? And so he came over and I dropped the tailgate, and I had my thermos with me, and I poured a cup of coffee, and I said, yeah, I understand where you're coming from, but I said, you know, this is pretty unique, pretty special property down here, you know, and, uh, you know, for to be preserved in perpetuity for wildlife, you know, to keep it in a natural wild state. I said, that's that's pretty cool. And I understand where you're coming from. But, you know, talking with the families here, it was they they'd done well on that land. It was maybe time to give something back. And he came back about three weeks later. And I happened to be down there. And he was down there cutting wood. And he sees me and he, you know, I've been thinking about what you're saying. Let's have a discussion. And that ultimately led to the acquisition of that 215 acre parcel, which butted up right to it. And then there was the big Oxbow, which was there, which was an oxbow that you can't really get to because it's surrounded by water. And that was owned by seven different landowners with no fences. And, and they, you know, this makes sense. And so we those wildlife management areas, that was a string of years putting all that together. Um, but that is very, very unique land at the confluence of the Yellowstone and the Missouri River. Everything from moose. A lot of turkeys, a lot of whitetails pheasants. Just really, really unique. And to be involved into the Killer mountains are really cool. But that had been purchased. I just had the opportunity to manage it. But to be involved in the acquisition, working with the families, to working with the surveyors, to working with the neighbors and the county commission, the governor's office, and then just really, really neat properties.
Casey: Yeah, that that was the first acquisition I was, I was involved in. Randy had asked me if I wanted to take over acquisition stuff, and that's probably the most complicated one I ever did, all of them. And that was the first one I, you know, I helped work on and yeah, all the meetings and yeah, it was. And then of course, you got to give a shout out to Merle Bennett. Yeah, he was with the Natural Resource Trust at the time, and he really did a good job of herding cats too.
Kent: Oh, yeah, very much so. And then I also learned a lot about river law. River law is very confusing because there's accretions and relictions and avulsions and as, as land is added because the sandbars change or eroded away. You know, what happens to property, property rights, stuff like that. And one time change of the river. And that made things complicated as well. And we had to kind of.
Casey: Figure all that out.
Kent: Yeah.
Casey: Yeah it's one of those things where you can imagine it at statehood or whenever that was purchased or separated out, they, they always said to the river or to the center of the river was the boundary.
Kent: Right.
Casey: It's like that moves every day, you know. And where like, we've had other issues where we've actually owned a WMA that was like the Southeast quarter and a river cut through it. And we had five acres on the south side. And we've done some we've done some trading to clear some of that up, because those were quarters and out there a lot of the Missouri River, and I think especially the Yellowstone and stuff was like to the river.
Kent: Yeah. And very dynamic. The Yellowstone is a very dynamic river.
Casey: It's one of the only rivers that doesn't have a dam on it.
Kent: Right. And it's a last unregulated great river of, you know, in the United States. And it's the last undeveloped confluence in the United States. I mean, most major confluences are downtown centers for trade you know. And so to be involved in the acquisition and to know that that is permanently protected is pretty cool.
Casey: Yeah.
Kent: Pretty cool accomplishment. And I'm very fortunate to be part of that.
Casey: That was one of the one of the coolest things about working on acquisition. It's like when when one came to fruition, it's like, that's gonna be there for a long time. Yeah. Hunters have put dollars into doing that and.
Kent: Yeah.
Casey: Mhm.
Cayla: All right.
Casey: I think that's pretty good.
Cayla: Yeah. Thanks for coming down Kent.
Kent: Mhm.
Cayla: Okay. We'll get into the department droppings. Uh if you're getting on any late season hunting or some early ice fishing, just a reminder to be safe on the ice. Always checking things. Maybe have spikes with you. Things like that.
Casey: Yeah. And we've got free fishing weekend coming up December 27th and 28th. Couple weeks ago, I would have been for sure that we were going to have ice, but, uh we just keep dragging out the moisture that's been coming. I'm like, I'm glad it's not cold cause it's been a lot of moisture.
Cayla: Uh, and then, as we mentioned in this episode, seasonal hiring should be open now. So if you're interested in our fisheries, wildlife and ANS, the banding technicians, any of that.
Casey: I believe we might have some seasonal warden positions open at that time too.
Cayla: Cool.
Casey: And then applications are open for North Dakota Waterfowl Brigade Camp, which will be held up in Washburn at the 4-H camp.
Cayla: And other than that, I guess just. Yeah. Happy holidays. Um, get outside and enjoy something, whatever it is.
Casey: Yeah. Notice how free fishing weekend is over most kids is Christmas breaks, so get em out. Get fishing. All right, now that we've dropped the droppings, you can get off the pot and get outdoors.