Our Wild Lives
Our Wild Lives takes listeners into the heart of wildlife conservation, sharing compelling stories from wildlife professionals doing critical work around the world. Your hosts Katie Perkins and Ed Arnett, of The Wildlife Society, bring you thought-provoking conversations with leading experts and emerging voices. Each episode dives into the wild lives of diverse species, explores complex ecosystems, and unpacks the urgent issues facing wildlife conservation.
Our Wild Lives
Lessons from a Conservation Pioneer, Cliff Bampton
Cliff Bampton’s career in wildlife management traces the origin of the profession. From graduate school dropout to chief of the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission's Division of Game, Bampton helped define modern wildlife management.
In this episode of “Our Wild Lives,” host Katie Perkins sits down with long-time TWS member, Cliff Bampton. The conversation spans from his early adulthood experiences trapping black bears (Ursus americanus) in the Adirondack Mountains to his decades of experience at the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission and Ducks Unlimited.
Despite the challenges he faced, such as trouble in school, color blindness, office politics, and more, Bampton leaves a legacy rooted in hard work, compromise, and cooperation.
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Before one life management had all the technology and tools we know today, it had people who learned by doing, failing, adapting, and sometimes getting drunk for the woman's baby. Cliff Brampton built a career in conservation long before the field even knew what it would become. From life trampling, more than a hundred months areas in the books. Helping redefine refuses of management areas in the lemon. Cliff's career spans the evolution of woman's conservations. He helps build agencies, mentor generations of professionals, and let's put a philosophy rooted in hard work, compromise, and cooperation. In our conversation, Cliff reflects on the winding path that took him from a struggling student to a leader in state wildlife agencies and Ducks Unlimited. He shares lessons for young professionals, stories from the field that sound almost unbelievable today, and why community and the wildlife society kept him engaged long after retirement. I'm your host, Katie Perkins. Welcome to the Our Wildlife podcast brought to you by the Wildlife Society. So Cliff, let's take it all the way back. And can you just tell me a little bit about your upbringing and how you found yourself working in wildlife conservation?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I didn't do very well in school. And I uh spent more time trapping and doing everything I shouldn't be doing in that, but they finally kept me back in fourth grade, and that didn't help either, and that by the time we got to eighth grade and we're going to go into uh high school or trade school, whatever, Miss Kelly was our eighth grade teacher. And at that time I had a big desk in the back. I didn't set a regular desk where the students were. And so this particular day we were getting to the point where you had to decide what you're gonna do. And she went down the different rows asking what each one of them was gonna do, and one would say they're gonna take the college course in high school or another course, and it finally got to me and she asked me, and I said, Miss Kelly, I'm going to go to high school and take the college course, and of course everybody in the room busted out laughing.
SPEAKER_01:Oh no.
SPEAKER_00:And uh so she said, I don't think you're gonna be able to do that. And because I hadn't passed anything for eight years. I had to get my parents in to talk to Mr. Stevens, who was the principal, and uh they they agree with me that if that's what I wanted to do, and I had already signed up to go to trade school to become a carpenter. That's what my intentions were. And so uh at that point I decided that I was gonna go to high school, I was gonna take that college course, and I was gonna do everything I could. And so uh I did. And when I turned 16, I started working at a grocery store for four Jewish brothers, and they were real good to me. And I also, in the winter time, I ran a trap line in that and uh at that time muskrats and raccoons and skunks all of them bring a real good price. This brings back memories in that after skinning these muskrats, I would take the carcasses out, and they were really good to bring the skunks in. And so uh, and again, what I'd do after I catch a skunk, I would just go up to it and pick it up. And of course I always get sprayed. So then I go to school, and as soon as I went in, they turned me right around the door and sent me back home. Uh so all those years, and I started out trapping probably seven, eight years old.
SPEAKER_01:The poor grades are making sense now.
SPEAKER_00:So uh but I managed to make the honor roll all four years. I uh was in the student council four years. I was selected to go to the boy states at the University of Connecticut. And so uh anyways, I only applied for UConn. If I didn't wasn't gonna make that, I wasn't going. Luckily I didn't have to take a test. If I had to take a test, I probably wouldn't have got any uh I guess because of all my activities and all that, that they went ahead and uh uh accepted me. And so uh when I got up there, I managed in my life management in minor forestry, and so th that was uh that was real good. And then Dr. McDowell, who was my advisor, he uh he wanted me to go into graduate school and I was really hesitant at that and he kept on me and uh he got it where I went out to Ohio State. And it happened that summer I did research up at Wynice Point Shooting Club, which is the oldest duck hunting club in the United States, and uh I was doing research for Ohio State. We did some tagging of Canadian geese in the joining state. But that fall I uh started classes in that, and I believe I took three classes and I think I ended up with two B's and a C, but I had to take that graduate test and I didn't I didn't pass it. So that that ended my school. So at that point I w went back home and went back to that grocery stone and then I got into the National Guards, and from the National Guards I went into the uh Army at Fort Dix and uh basic training. And I loved the military. And and I remember at that time when the military uh forestry and wildlife, they weren't doing anything on all these federal lands. And uh years went by and they realized that all that land they needed to manage it properly, and of course nowadays they do a lot of good work on these areas uh managing for forestry and wildlife, and and so uh but that's how uh that all came about.
SPEAKER_01:So after you were in the military, how long were you there until you came back and got your job in wildlife?
SPEAKER_00:Let me back up if you don't mind. Yeah. I was real fortunate. Of course, my brother being in the same field and already graduated from Yukon and he got his master's at Yukon, I was smart enough to know that I needed to get as much experience as I could.
SPEAKER_01:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00:And I knew there wasn't much money in it, but I wasn't concerned with the money aspect. Well, I was fortunate that I got up with the Connecticut State Board of Fisheries and Game in in 1957, and uh they hired me for the so I spent the whole summer doing all types of fishery work, be it reclaiming ponds or surveying streams or whatever it entailed in that. So that was a real fine experience. And then the following year, uh Cornell University, a fellow by the name of uh uh Dr. Black, he was getting his doctor's degree at Cornell University, and uh he uh was doing on black bears. And at that time there had been very little work done with the black bears in the United States. And so uh he selected me along with a fellow in wildlife management from Syracuse University, Steve Brown, and he uh also played football, great football player, and then Hugh Black selected Ray Long, who was a uh vet student. So the three of us went in in the Adirondack Mountains in that summer, and we trapped uh 118 black bear alive using oh I can't think of the name but a trap now Blake and Lamb, I believe is what it was called. It was a number 150, a real large trap. And uh we tr we also used the covert trap. So we trapped 118 bears that summer.
SPEAKER_01:So tell me, is it true that you caught all of those black bears before the dart gun was invented?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. What happened on that was yeah, and I got some pretty interesting slides on that, which Colleen has. In fact, she has that black bear trap too. I brought one home. That was one thing that was coming with me, and I let them know that. And uh giving that to Colleen.
SPEAKER_01:You were a collector.
SPEAKER_00:Well, that was quite a summer. And uh we did all this. Steve Brown, like I said, was a football player, and we had a six-foot uh galvanized pipe when they were made real strong, and there was a T handle on it, and there was a chain on the end. And what would happen is once a bear got trapped, this trap had about six-foot long chains with a gamble hook on the end. And uh from my previous trapping experience in that, I was always the one to trace it. And sometimes they'd be real nearby, sometimes they'd be up in the top of the tree with those that trap on them and all that. Other times they may be a mile or more away. And once we found them, I'd go in and make sure that it that it appeared that the trap was uh, you know, that the bear was held good in it. And if not, well, at that point Steve would go away with his choker, and sometimes uh the bear would have Steve on the ground for 15, 20 minutes, and then Steve would have the bear on the ground 15-20 minutes and that. But once he got it down, uh had control of the situation, and I would go in and tie off the leg, the other three legs, to a tree or whatever, and uh and then Ray would go in and we use sodium pinobarbital, and this is where his expertise came in, and he'd have to gauge the weight of the bear and how much C C's he should put in and that. And then at that point, we just had a bucket and we put cotton in it with ether, and then we'd hold that bucket over its head, and that's how we kept it asleep while we did all these different measurements and everything, and tagging and all that, and weighing and that. And uh now on the males, we made a unalicastration and took out one testicle. We want to try to determine what age they started produced a sperm, what age they stopped in that. And then we did take out some females over a year and a half and did a complete autopsy on those.
SPEAKER_01:But anyways, that's so you you were basically building the base knowledge of what we know about black bears.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, at that time we didn't. Oh, back, we'll just jump back to that dart gun. What happened as we're finishing up, Jack Crawford out of Georgia was the one that established this dart gun. And he heard about us doing this, so he got one up to us. Well, so we were sort of experimenting with it. And uh that was pretty pretty interesting. But uh, you know, I I turned 21 years old doing that that summer. And uh we sort of liked the way we we were doing it because we're taking all these challenges and but uh and of course they developed, you know, what it is today, it's really come a long, long way. But he was the one that got it got it going. Yep.
SPEAKER_01:So when you were getting started in, you know, the wildlife career as a wildlife professional, it was still relatively kind of a new idea and concept to like really manage your wildlife for the public.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, it was.
SPEAKER_01:Can you tell me a little bit about that?
SPEAKER_00:Aaron Ross Powell When I got out of the service, I started, I made up 18 applications. This is when you had to do everything hard copy. But I I I I really wanted to go to Alaska, and I knew it wasn't a state at the time. And uh so I sent out 17, and as far south as I was going to go was Virginia. So I had one left. And I said, Well, I went through North Carolina and I said I was pretty impressed driving through, and I'll just go ahead and send it down there. So uh lo and behold, Alaska and North Carolina were the first ones to respond. And so I called my brother. I said, What should I do? And he said, Well, he told me, he said, you know, they're in the prod, they're gonna become a state, but they don't even have a budget yet. And he said, You better go to North Carolina. So I got up with Frank Barr, who was the chief division of game, and uh he wanted me to come down for an interview, and so I flew down, that was my first trip on a plane, and I met with him, and I flew back. I got home, I told my folks, there's no way in hell I'll get that job down there. And lo and behold, about a week to two weeks, I got a letter that I was hired.
SPEAKER_01:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:And I I figured after that interview, you know, that that was all it was all over with. And so I I came to work for the North Carolina Wildlife Resource Commission on December 11, 1961. And I was supposed to report to the Motor Vehicle Building at 9 o'clock on the 11th. And I was there by 9 o'clock that morning, and I uh showed up and he introduced me to the assistant chief Ted Mitchell, and he said, You're going with Ted Mitchell down to at that time they're called refugees, and that's another long story with the commission. And he said, uh your first time is going to be working with him, working at either sex deer hunt down there. And so that that's how I I started out there. And so I I came down as a district game biologist, they were called a hundred counties in North Carolina, and there's uh nine wildlife districts. And so uh, and as a biologist, you uh several jobs that we did. Of course, we did a lot of surveys. We did surveys in regards to deer, turkeys, morning doves, uh quail, woodcock, and all the different things. I had 12 counties that I was responsible for, and we handed out wildlife planting material. And it's sort of funny. One of the items was Motaflora Rose, which was really recommended strongly at that time by the Soil Conservation Service. But that was one of the things as we learned over the years, that that was a big mistake because the birds really worked on that and they spread it all over the farmlands. And that at that time there was over 3,000 farmers in those 12 counties that I was working with. And we had a volunteer in each county that distributed these plants. And we had a nursery down at St. Hills, which was a state home game. We raised all these things ourselves, and then uh we also, the funny thing is, we had a nursery at University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, and that so but the thing about that was I was in that position just a little over a year, and I received a letter from the the chief of the division of game telling me I was now the supervisor of the wildlife refuges, and uh which took me by shock. And the funny thing about the biologists, uh there's only four supervisors in the state, and the biologist, Grady Barnes, the reason they moved him to the coast to take on that position, and we had one in the Piedmont, and then we had one in the northern mountains, and then one in the western part, and that's where I was sent to. So I went out and uh I didn't have any choice on it. So we did all the law enforcement work, and uh back then the fellows did the law enforcement were wildlife protectors. And back before the commission started in 1948, there was conservation and development, and they were known as game warden back then. But every wildlife biologist or district game biologist were sworn in as a wildlife protector at that time. And he wanted us to work with them close. Uh, most of the guys didn't like it and and they they sort of avoided it, but I jumped right in there and worked with him, and then Piedmont area was a back then it was a real big small game hunting area at that time. We were known for our rabbit population and dove hunting and and other species and that. And so I every Saturday of that, if the weather was right, we would use a plane in that. And I worked with them. Back then, a lot of the people didn't have licenses and that, so I was always the one that you run out and catch these guys. Oh wow. But back out there in the mountains, the uh the the wildlife protector stayed out the areas, and they very devoted. They uh they lived on those areas, they worked seven days, twenty four hours around the clock. And one of the first things that this refuge thing really bothered me in the first regulation meeting, I brought this point up because back at that time a refuge was something you didn't uh you didn't hunt on, and finally got the point across, and the commission was responded quite well, and so at that point we started calling them wildlife management areas. And uh and I ri I really liked it, but the thing that I didn't like was I set up all the hunting on it, and so big game hunting was a big thing, especially the deer hunting and uh wild boar and black bear. And uh so I lay out that schedule first, and then so when you try to put in small game hunting and that, there wasn't a whole lot of days, and I just didn't like this checking in, checking out deal and that. And uh so I kept harping on this and felt that we needed to get away from that and kept bringing this point up. And uh Fish Division, they didn't really have a problem with it, but opening of the trout season was a big thing. And I said, well, you could still do that. And I said, once you open it up, and they could go any day, the pressure's off, and that and I said, it's like a kid, you had a cookie jar in the kitchen, and you said you can't get any of those chocolate chips out of that cookie jar. Well, that kid's gonna try to get in that cookie jar. But once you say you can have all you want, you took away. It was like the time I remember driving into the garage with my dad when I turned 16. He looked at me and he said, Well, he said, uh, anytime you want to start smoking cigarettes, you can. Well, that killed that.
SPEAKER_01:We'll be right back after this short break. Love wildlife? Join the Wildlife Society to connect with a community of professionals working to advance wildlife science and conservation. Membership gives you access to exclusive resources, job boards, publications like the Wildlife Professional, discounts, and networking opportunities across North America. Learn more and join today at wildlife.org/join. So you would end up spending the majority of your career with North Carolina and the Wildlife Resources Commission, right?
SPEAKER_00:I had 20 years with uh with the North Carolina Wildlife Resource Commission. And then what happened on that? Well, the Forest Service kept trying to get me to go to work with them and the Soil Conservation Service. Well, I didn't want to go to work with the federal government because they had a tendency of moving it around all the time, and I didn't want to do that. And I knew I wanted to farm. I wouldn't do that. Well, Ducks Unlimited started on me, and they were out working on getting my brother. And uh I refused Ducks Unlimited twice.
unknown:Anyway.
SPEAKER_00:Anyways, I got a call on a Thursday, and it was Mr. Patton, and I picked up, and it was about 4 30 on a Thursday. I always remember that. He said, This is Mr. Patton. Then he said, Bob, are you there? And Bob said, Yeah. And he said, Dick, are you there? And Dick said, Yeah. And I said, Oh boy. And uh he said, You are now chief division of game. Boy, you could have hit me with a sledgehammer. And I didn't say anything. I I I was lost for word. He caught me off guard because he had two years beforehand, he had called and wanted me to come in as assistant chief. He did ask me that time. Well, I thought about that for eight eighteen hours, and I called him and told him no. And uh I caught him off guard on that, and he should have come back and said, Well, I'm sorry I filled your position, but I caught him off guard. So for two years he'd hardly talk to me. So this time he was prepared. Finally he said to me, uh, Do you want to go back to Connecticut? I said, No, sir. So he said, You'll be down here at 8 o'clock. So that's how I got into the Riley office. And then at that point, a year went by and they forced Mr. Patton out, and uh they put Bob Hazel, who was over the he was assistant director of field operations, and uh and then he wanted me to move into his position in which was field operation, and at that time you were over the five divisions game, fish, enforcement, education, and boating engineering. Wow. And so uh that's how well that's how I got in to there. And then one day we walked in to the office and uh both our positions were were abolished.
SPEAKER_01:Oh wow.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so anyways, Bob went to NC State, wanted him to go out there and teach. And uh and Dale Weitzel heard about that and he called and got up with me and and he said, Are you ready to come on board? And I said, I'm ready to come on board. And I said, But where do you want me to go? And he said, I want you back in the mountain. I said, Dale, I can't do it. And he said, by that time I had bought this farm and he uh said, I gotta have you out there. I said, No, I'm not, can't give up my farm. And so uh he said, Well, I hate it. About 20 minutes he called back. He said, if I let you stay where you are or you come on board, I said I'm on board. And so that's how I got out. Ducks Unlimited was established in 1937, but he, like a lot of organizations and through different things, it sort of faded away. And so he decided he tried to get the Ducks Unlimited back on track again. And uh so uh he took some of the biologists that he had went with him to help and start it. And at this point, there's two things I'd like to say. Mr. Patton and Dale Whitzel never got the credit. Mr. Patton for the North Carolina Wildlife Resource Commission and Dale for Ducks Unlimited, they never got the credit. They're the ones that started those agencies and made them what they are today. They were the kinds that did all the hard work.
SPEAKER_01:Well, looking back on your career, what are some like stories or some lessons that really stood out to you that you think are still applicable to maybe new professionals or students that are listening to this episode today?
SPEAKER_00:Well, you gotta work hard. Now I had to work hard for my grades. I wouldn't like my brother. I uh everything I got I worked hard for come hard. And the other thing was, of course, I'm losing my sight now, but I was colorblind and I didn't realize it to one night at the fraternity. Several of the brothers came in and they asked me, they had a book, and they said, What's that say? I said, uh, color. And they looked at me and said, What's it say? I said, color. I said, No, it doesn't. It says onion. I said, No, it says color. Well, what happened was we at supper time we all had to wear a coat and tie and that. And I guess the combinations of clothes that I wore, they knew something was wrong and that, and they and they figured out. And so you can imagine being colorblind, and you take courses like ornithology and game birds and all this, being colorblind, uh, you know, and with forestry and that, you know, I can't see these dead trees that they're dead or everything in that. So that was a real challenge for me back there. But my the whole thing is you gotta work hard. And then the other thing is getting all the experience. You can't forget the money aspect, I know it, but you gotta you gotta manage your money, but you gotta get that experience. It doesn't matter. It may not be in the field you want to go into, but you need to to get all all the experience and learn to work together. And I don't care in life in in here, when we're when I came here as a biologist, worked real close with the county agents, and and the thing that that I saw that you had the two words I always use is compromise and cooperation. I wrote several articles on this in the Wildlife magazine. And I don't care who you're working for or w what your major is or what you're doing, what your job is, those two things you gotta do. You gotta compromise, you gotta, you know, cooperate, work together in that. So those those are things I think that it doesn't come easy. And you just gotta keep going.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So how have you seen the profession and maybe the Wildlife Society as an organization and just wildlife conservation in general really change and evolve over the years since you first got into it, like back in the 50s?
SPEAKER_00:A lot of changes from the way that we did things back then until you know today. The uh wildlife field, uh, I'm so impressed with these young, young ladies and young men that work for the wildlife resources, and I had the opportunity to to uh talk to a lot of them. I met some of them, but a lot of them over the telephone and that, and I'm so impressed how dedicated they are. They don't care about if it's an eight-hour job or they work seven days a week, twenty-four, whatever it takes to get the job done. The degrees that they had in the background experiences and the ones that have succeeded, the ones that I've talked to have all done what I said, uh gotten a lot of experience from different fields, things, and a lot of them by going into those other fields that they really weren't interested at the time, found out that was the field that they they switched fields in that, you know, and went into it in that. But uh but both organizations have come come a long, long way. And as far as the Wildlife Society, Olivia, who did uh a story on me in the Wildlife Professional magazine, at the same time, right after that, she wrote uh a story on her 88 years in the Wildlife Society, and she did a fantastic job of tying that uh together, the 88 years of different magazines and publications that we put out and and how the organization has grown. And with uh Ducks Unlimited, where it was just a few of us we started out. I guess they they're way over a thousand employees now. I mean, and they've got uh in the beginning, you know, we went in trying to keep these lands in wetlands and that, and working with farmers and to get people to donate their lands to different agencies like Nature Conservancy and whatever. That whole thing is just growing mushroom now where they got so many biologists and so many positions working with all the state agencies and federal agencies, it's just blossomed.
SPEAKER_01:Can you look back at your career and re remember a moment that just sticks out as like a really fond memory that, you know, as you age and you just think about all of your life, this this memory keeps coming back. And could you tell us the story of that?
SPEAKER_00:I tell you, everything has been a highlight. I I just it it's uh every one of those experiences I had, uh they've all been fantastic. Uh I've just been so fortunate. I always seem to be in the right place at the right time and all that. It's just like with the fish division in in Connecticut and that, I fortunate to be there. At the time, a fellow biologist by the name of Otis, and I think I'm correct on this, I think he was the one that developed the stream chunker. If he wasn't, he was the one that tried to develop it. But uh one of our streams in Connecticut going into the ocean or into the wetlands, uh, lo and behold, we found out that our brown trout were going out in the ocean spending many years and coming back in. And as a result of that chakra, that's how we found this out. You know, that that was remarkable.
SPEAKER_01:When did you first join the Wildlife Society and what what what was your you know driving force behind that?
SPEAKER_00:I joined it in 1957, and I really don't remember how or why. Uh back then there wasn't a lot of mailing and it 57 wasn't that long, it hadn't been in existence that long. And uh but when I joined something like that, uh, you know, I stayed with it, and I've been with it. And uh and as soon as I graduated from UConn, I still stayed in it. Well, my brother never joined. And it was just like when I came came down here, I was the only biologist, and I could never get anybody to join it. And I finally got one, a fellow by the name A A. E. Amundsen, and uh that became a member. And he worked hard, he worked his way up. He's one of the first fellows I hired out there as a uh area manager for me. And I just when I get with something, I stick with it. I've been with Geichel Insurance since 1960. When I came down here, I asked the biologist I was replacing, and I said, Who do you recommend for auto insurance? He said, Well, I'm with Geichel. I've been with Geichel ever since. The first house I bought out there, I've been with that insurance company ever since. When I get with somebody, I stick with them in that.
SPEAKER_01:What has made you stay so involved even after retiring?
SPEAKER_00:Just saying, you know, and every convention I could go to, or well, the North American or or the Southeastern, if the state wouldn't send me that, I'd I'd go myself on my own. I pay my way, you know. So you get to meet all these other people in that. And and then being out there as a supervisor with all those other agencies there, the Forest Service, they had wildlife biologists, they had all this, the Fish and Wildlife Service. So I got to work with these guys, you know. Uh I remember a fellow biologist by the name of Bob Downing. He and I, this is funny, went out to Biltmore states in front of Biltmore states, because they were having a a lot of problems with the deer on their on all their flowers and or all their horticulture crops and that. And uh and we used the dart gun, and we were wanting to get as many deer as we could because we had very few deer in the mountains, so deer population was low. And so uh we used the dart gun to get them deer and that. And I can remember when those lions said up there is cross-eyed up there at Biltmore States. But so meeting up with these, you know, you were working all the time within again with the Great Smokey Mountains, and as a result of that, I was working with biologists from Tennessee. So I guess it's just because of these contacts and that all you kept up with them in that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, TWS really helped you build this community that's just outlived your professional career.
SPEAKER_00:And my my goal when I came down here, I already had it planned. I always always planned everything out. I was gonna stay till I was 53 years old. I'd been, I'd had my 30 years in. When it hit 53, I was gonna retire. So in other words, I knew what my whole life, what I all my other goals to accomplish. But as far as the jobs went, 53 years old, I was gonna be in that one position 53 years. I had no intentions at all to go like I did. That was something that I never dreamed. Couldn't plan for. I thought we were one of the best in the United States. I preached it to them. I still preach it to the ones that have retired that are still living, and to the new ones, they have this annual get together. And uh you know, all these ones that I I'm fortunate, they all know I don't have a cell phone or computer or anything, I refuse. And they're nice enough to make me a hard copy of the annual report. Uh the various presidents are if one of the people that work below them and uh I always send them a thank you note and uh appreciate and try to encourage them because uh the way this world is going, if we don't take care of the habitat and the the environment, you know, it's gone.
SPEAKER_01:So it I I just uh I just love to give back and that Cliff, thank you so much for being here today and for telling us your story. We really appreciated getting to catch up with you today.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I appreciate you taking the time and coming up. Thank you for coming all the way from the big state of Texas.
SPEAKER_01:Thanks for tuning in to the Our Wild Lives Podcast brought to you by the Wildlife Society. If you're loving what you hear, could you help us out? Rate our show and leave a review, send this episode to a friend, or share your thoughts and tag us on socials at the Wildlife Society. Want to get more involved in the world of wildlife conservation? Head to wildlife.org. We'll catch you next week with more stories from the wild.