RodeoProfessor @RodeoProfessor

@the_good_life84 I didn’t realize they had made these, are they available right now? I’ll go get some tomorrow these belong in a frame on my wall!

American Buffalo recovery is possibly our greatest conservation success story that single handedly paved the way for American ingenuity in the field of wildlife conservation. America pioneered large scale, deliberate species reintroductions, I’ll do a few America 250 poasts about those this week. The restoration of buffalo in America was proof of concept that we could bring wildlife back from the brink of extinction through good science, policy, public buy-in, and conservation leadership. In the late 1800s, bison populations dropped from 50 million to 1000 individuals (maybe as few as 300-500). Today we have about half a million in both wild herds and commercial operations. Americans developed a unique breeding/conservation/reintroduction program to bring them back because of their cultural importance to our country, and it’s a cause to celebrate. The story starts with some ranching families who captured the few remaining orphan calves and remnants, sorrowful for the mass slaughter in years past. Especially the Goodnight family of Texas who started one of the earliest private herds that went on to supply Yellowstone. Also a legendary former Buffalo hunter, Jesse Buffalo Jones (first Game Warden of Yellowstone National Park), who got started as one of the hunters who’d take hundreds in a day, had a change of heart, and started focusing on rescuing orphaned calves. Flathead Indians in Montana like Sam Walking Coyote, Michel Pablo, and Charles Allard also formed a sizable private herd that went on to serve as a key source for Yellowstone and a model for the impressive tribal land reintroductions happening today. Yellowstone National Park, the world’s first national park, is the only place on earth where buffalo have lived since prehistoric times, home to the last remaining free range herd. After the Lacey Act was passed in 1894, one of America’s most important wildlife laws, poaching and limitless harvest of American wildlife came to an end. In the 1890s, Yellowstone managers started introducing bison from private herds to the park, they started a captive breeding program, emphasized preserving genetics of the original wild survivors (vs cattle hybrids) and thanks to all that, Yellowstone’s herd today is (ecologically and genetically) the only continuously wild one. Finally, the buffalo never would have recovered without Teddy Roosevelt. TR hunted his first buffalo in Montana in the 1880s, and it was really impactful on him as a sportsman. He took their decline pretty hard and described them as a “doomed and nearly vanished” species. He co-founded the American Bison Society, the group that came up with much of the funding for the restoration while also initiating one of the first mass public education campaigns on wildlife protection in the world. Through actions while president, he furthered reintroduction efforts to public land and also brought American zoos in as major private conservation partners. Organizing and educating people, setting aside public land through legislation, supporting captive breeding and reintroduction, and securing funding for these efforts means that without TR we surely wouldn’t have buffalo around today.

@myboybill1 Sorry I don’t recognize the authority of the Bird Chopper 5000, here’s a hat for you my friend. We are a nuclear nation.

@Merki_Drengr @aidannonx Let us know when QDM makes it out to MN Aiden 😂 💀

Impressive, very nice! Now let’s see the last time Jack (and the other rw binder influencers) drew a tag in a Western state before we take *anything* they say on Western public land and wildlife seriously.

Jack Posobiec @JackPosobiec

a day ago

As amazing as the national park areas of Alaska are, there are massive swaths of terrain that are devoid of anything, craggy or muddy, and prevented from development due to crushing regulations from DC

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@LucasFoxNews @LokiJulianus @caseymurph1 were you there for this? Trying to figure out how jealous in need to be of you brother.

@Merki_Drengr Amen brother amen 🇺🇸

A former student of mine got a job doing wolf stuff in Altyn Emel in Kazakhstan, and I chose between going diving somewhere in SE Asia vs going on some wolf spotting trips with her. I really had a hankering for some good dives that year too so it was a hard choice. Day 1, we see a wolf they’ve been looking for for 2 years. I’m no photographer like you are, I wish I was, but I lack the talent, the photos would have been insane though as it was a black wolf with yellow eyes. Anyways I’m glad I made that choice as she is now back in the U.S. no wrong choice here!

I hate when the question gets turned back on me 😂 There’s no comparable feeling to pulling an endemic cutthroat trout from the water in the Rockies. Some of the phenotypic expression you can only get in certain waterways in UT, WY, MT (as you know already). It’s the closest you can get to heaven. That said, those days when you’re floating and everyone catches 49 fish, you remember that forever and it’s like seeing a jet flyover or something. I guess from the perspective of an individual angler 1, maybe if I were the main manager a mix of 1-2 in targeted waterways where it was feasible to stock YY males. Unlimited money and staff? 1 but done very very expensively !!

This is interesting stuff, the reason they’re trans-ing Colorado brook trout is because they’re outcompeting native cutthroats. They hatch earlier and get bigger faster so they just outcompete cutthroats. They way they do this is by using “Trojan trout” with YY chromosomes, so females (XX) and YY males when they breed can only make regular males (XY). Fisheries managers do this by feeding XY males a bit of estrogen early in life, this makes male fish that can make eggs that carry a Y chromosome within them to ultimately make the YY supermales. This is a very standard technique in aquaculture. Then when you have YY supermales plus XX females, they can only produce males. Eventually after many generations the population becomes entirely male and cutthroats can recover.

The Colorado Sun @ColoradoSun

a day ago

Colorado Parks and Wildlife biologists are slowing the spread of invasive brook trout by feminizing males to eventually cause the species to die out. buff.ly/3s49FTR

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@Merki_Drengr @aidannonx >posts white tailed deer from Midwest state where most harvest happens on private >but muh daddy hunts Alaska >this is why we must pave Alaska/let foreign mining firms go ham lol

@mashmaker4 Turkey 250 coming tomorrow 🤝

@ColoradoJerrry When anyone tells me they’re “torn” about a wildlife decision that means they’re actually thinking about tradeoffs that they’re rather informed about!

@LilJoeWrangler The lolbertarians want to privatize public land because they come from states where there isn’t any and they don’t know what it is. Many such cases.

@aidannonx Glad we heard from the twink contingent about where your family(?) hunts or whatever. 👍

@Kurt_Steiner What you don’t stick your gun to your window like that?!

@ZackVucurevich Damn that is really something thanks for sharing

@williewaylon31 And it’s all yours, isn’t that amazing what we have. Have a cocktail on the deck of the Old Faithful Inn for me.

@ChuckNoble60472 @Sagebrush_Inst ⚰️😂

@FanaticLurker @Tyre_94 Guys like him want to be victims so badly because otherwise they’re the worst thing you could possibly be in America in 2026: dull and uninteresting.