Gary Koehler Item Info
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Gary Koehler:Yeah, well, I'm Gary Koehler and I got involved in actually, I started dreaming about big Creek and that Taylor Ranch probably after 1969 when Maurice wrote the article about the coolest cougar study in the National Geographic. I had a copy of that, and I think I still have that copy and it was enchanting to me to be in the midst of that such a huge wilderness area and to do the work that he did, he and Wilbur were doing on cougars or mountain lions, as they're referred to here and and Idaho.
And I remember this picture in the National Geographic of Wilbur lowering this cougar that had been mobilized and and this big Ponderosa pine tree. I mean, and that just kind of set the I still have that image in my mind, that beautiful big Ponderosa in particular and the cat and the fact that Wilbur was up there and luring this cat out of this tree and so I had that in the back of my mind that, you know, this is what I it planted the seed, I think, in me about something to aspire to.
And I had worked in the North Cascades since 1965 on trail crew for the Forest Service and when what was called the North Cascades primitive area and and I kind of followed I wanted to see the whole North Cascades. So I worked on different Ranger districts in that backcountry. And I was kind of running out of room. In 1969, a big chunk of the the heart of the North Cascades was Mid North Cascades National Park spent a year there and didn't really like the bureaucracy.
And so I think it was about that time too, that Morris's article in The Geographic came out. So I thought, that might be kind of fun to explore. The the Northern Rockies area, particularly the backcountry of Idaho. And so I headed that way again with the vision of Wilbur coming out of that big Ponderosa with that cat and I ended up working for the Forest Service as a wilderness ranger in the Selway Bitterroot.
And then flew into Moose Creek and for a detail or training session. And that's on the Selway Bitterroot are in the Selway River and fell in love with that place. I mean, a ranger station out in the middle of an immense wilderness like that is pretty enchanting. So. So I applied and got a job the next year at Moose Creek as a wilderness ranger.
And then after stumping around that country, exploring and surveying for outfitter camps, I was in the higher elevations of Fish Creek or Fish Lake on the divide into the loch saw drainage. And I thought, I'd like to spend the winter up here. There was an old cabin back there, so I kind of knew nothing about Pine marten.
I thought, this might be kind of fun to do a Pine Martens study up here, having no idea what a pine marten did. And so some colleagues at the Forest Service fire science lab there in Missoula approached Maurice about taking me on as a grad student. And so that was kind of my first official introduction to Maurice.
And and he supervise my work and me in the Selway Bitterroot wilderness doing the winter work on on Pine, Marten and, and, and so after that, I was kind of after I got my master's degree, I was kind of footloose and not fancy free. I just kind of wandering lost. And a couple of years later, Maurice called and he says, Do you want to do a Bobcat study?
And and Taylor actually said, Yeah, that sounds interesting. And mainly my interest was in just being back there in the wilderness and I spend a couple winters back there again, being under the tutelage of Maurice Hornocker, the I mean, he was the top carnivore ecologist in North America or one of the and I mean, couldn't pass up an offer like that.
So so I embarked on a four year study back there out of Taylor Branch looking at Bobcat and also it evolved into looking at the interactions of the other top predators back there and and that's the coyote in the mountain lion or the cougar. And so I spent four, four winters four years back there collecting data. And I didn't come out that frequently.
Mona was back there with me at that time, and we lived in one of Jess Taylor's cabins and spent four years working there in the winter time, which was a neat time of the year. That's obviously the the epic wilderness experiences being in an area like that in the winter and got my Ph.D. on Bobcats wrote a couple of papers on that, and as well as the interactions of bobcats and coyotes and cougars.
And so it was about 20 years after Maurice did his work in Sixties there. And so I was in there in the eighties, and I and so that's how I got involved with Maurice and that's how I got involved. The Taylor Ranch kind of not by design, but just kind of stumbling into those opportunities. And they've obviously planted a seed for me to continue to work more with the top carnivores, top predators in on the planet.
And I've spent some time in Kenya teaching at a university there developing a a program, wildlife program and a graduate program. There, and also spent some time in later years, well after that, working for the Department of Fish and Wildlife and Washington State, doing black bear studies, doing cougar research, and also Canada Lynx up there in the Okanagan.
And after I kind of mingled that with a little bit more international work, spent some time working with snow leopards in Mongolia and Nepal and India, Himalayas and so and during that, prior to that, I also did some surveys for tigers and central China, south central China. And so I was intrigued by cats. And Maurice obviously helped found that interest.
And so I kind of hung around Maurice and, and his philosophy, I think the probably what you may hear you've already heard from Maurice because that's the way life works. You know, he was my mentor for a good number of years and still is.
Unknown:Also is great. Let me just back.
Gary Koehler:You about back.
Unknown:To say biographer by trade.
Gary Koehler:Thing I stumbled into yeah kind of like me life.
Jack Kredell:You know it's none of our trade.
Gary Koehler:Making do yeah.
Jack Kredell:Or it's not our trade by choice.
Gary Koehler:Yeah.
Jack Kredell:To go back to that that idea of a kernel and this image of of Morris climbing up a Ponderosa to winch your rope down this, this tranquilized cat. What, what is that the essence of this kernel for you do you think is it about like what is it something to do with with predators and just this this idea of wilderness or what Like what do you think is at the center of that kernel?
Gary Koehler:That's a great question. And it's something that I really haven't thought about before. But I think that now that you've got that image of that Ponderosa pine in that cat coming out of that tree in the middle of the what was then the Idaho primitive area kind of encapsulated everything that I and I had spent my life in the Forest Service working in wilderness areas in the North Cascades and and so I was really always stimulated by wild areas and kind of fancied myself as a devotee or this is what I want to do with my life.
And I met a lot of interesting folks in those wanderings. And so I think it was the mix of the wilderness, the wildness. I mean, in the basically the pureness of the planet in that area. And also with the cat. The cat is the quintessential predator on this planet. And, you know, we humans are predators, too. And I think that and I like to hunt and I like to fish.
And the cougar is the ultimate predator. And so perhaps in some ways it was kind of understanding myself, you know, as a hunter, as just a place on this planet, and where a better place would be to make that discovery in a wild place like the river of no return wilderness, or at that time the ideal primitive area. And so I think it was that mixture that it was kind of a mixture of kernels that kind of enticed me into that area and being attracted by Maurice's legend and Wilbur's legend in that area.
And just to be around that, that philosophy and I have long since left the the wild areas, you know, the wilderness areas, but I'm still engaged quite a bit, mainly with carnivore conservation and management and not so much in the wilds anymore, but doing a lot of politicking and lobbying for them in amongst particular our state agency Fish and Wildlife.
And so I'm trying to give a voice to the cats and the carnivores, the predators, because I've learned that they need a voice.
Jack Kredell:Yeah. I was going to ask if you if you found what you were looking for or encountered that that sense of self. Well, out there, those four years. and if that thing was was what you anticipated and maybe, maybe it is related to, to this idea of providing voice on behalf of something which is not human and not concerned at all.
I don't know. Did you find what you were looking for?
Gary Koehler:I think in part, I think my role now is, is my feeling to give back to the planet, give back to predators, to carnivores. And because it's been an intriguing experience in my life and they too, are kind of mentors in my life and how they can live amongst humans and be undetected and and and travel with a soft paw on this planet.
So I think from those treks in the wintertime, you know, in the wilderness areas, I think that I've I've gained something by following their tracks. And now it is my role to get back to them are what I have learned from them and try to be an advocate for them in wild places. But but mainly my focus is is on carnivores and in how we live with them or how we don't live with them.
So and I think that I'm trying to do payback. And that's kind of the way I feel about hanging around. Maurice. You know, he's been a friend, he's been a mentor, and now I'm kind of his sidekick, you know, following him around on his exploits and desires and travels and wanderings. And so I'm kind of, in a way, a partner of his just making sure that he gets to the gate on time, you know, doesn't miss the gate and etc..
And spending time with him. And in the backcountry.
Jack Kredell:He told me there's nothing left for him to fish except carp.
Gary Koehler:Yeah, that is getting the way it is here. You know, unfortunately, I just came down the the Clearwater and the Salmon River country from McCall. And to think that, you know, these rivers were teeming with fish, with salmon, with steelhead varieties of salmon and in fact, sockeye salmon, you know, making their 500 mile journey all the way to Redfish Lake in the Sawtooth is epic.
And we have stopped that. We have plugged the river with dams. We have pumped chemicals in the river. We have drained it. We are dehydrating the landscape and so that trip down the salmon and along the snake was kind of bittersweet for me because to think about the history of that in the salmon runs in that area and think about the way it is now is absolutely tragic.
And something needs to be done if we're going to save here we are, Maurice and I, wandering all the way up to the Alaska Peninsula, is out, out all the way to the Aleutian Islands, casting for Chinook salmon, what used to be prolific in the snake and in just a mere, several decades, that has been the fate of the steelhead runs as well.
And that is a tragedy. And we need to stop this. We need to do something if we're going to have salmon in our future, in our children's future, we need to do something now.
Jack Kredell:You could probably argue that what you and Maurice were were after in Alaska was really just the Salmon River in Idaho. Yeah. Prior to its development and its colonization.
Gary Koehler:That that is true. I think that what we're was searching for is just a little glimpse of what it has been in the past. And now, I mean, historically, it was tremendous Chinook runs in the salmon, the Snake River, all of the tributaries of the Columbia River. Now we have to go all the way into Alaska, into the Bering Sea, to chase these just to get a glimpse of this fish that were once plentiful here and to cast them, look at them, appreciate their beauty, and release them back into the wild.
And just getting a glimpse of what I think this planet has experienced and what maybe the last hopefully not the last glimpses, but could be the last glimpses of some of these species. And I'm hoping that that's not the path of our carnivores, our predators, too, because there is a serious onslaught of the predator control days of the early 1900s in the West against wolves, against cougars, against bears.
Their role in being predators and it's it's a tragedy what we're experiencing.
Jack Kredell:What do you think is at the root of that desire to to eliminate these top carnivores from the landscape?
Gary Koehler:I think that a lot of it is human greed. You know, we want the game for ourselves or by game, I'm talking about elk and deer in particular. And I don't mean to demean them by calling them game, but that's been a part of our lexicon. Or take care in the West for eons, if not decades. And I think I think it's it's competition, too.
And competition is part of life. You know, people we compete against each other for jobs, people on the landscape, people that are natural resource users and compete against carnivores for what they perceive their share of the of the resource. And so we cannot tolerate our competition. And so I think in trying to safeguard to what we perceived our right from a biblical sense oh, and manifest destiny and all of those, Yeah.
I So there's competition and competition isn't a natural thing, but also we are smart enough to see what's before us in the future and we have to come to realize that if we want a planet for our kids, we have to realize that we can't go and unfettered in our competition and to control it and or to control the planet, because all we've got to do is look around us now and the effect that we've had in this era of climate change to see the effects of how we influence this planet.
Jack Kredell:Your you're, your Big Creek Predator study found that that predators are actually quite okay with a fair amount of competition until maybe the winter. Yeah, but for the most part, there's there's there's not a lot of conflict is there.
Gary Koehler:There isn't. There's like you say, even in the winter time, you know, that's how species evolve. That's one of the, the forces that influence evolution is competition and predation. I mean the beautiful elk and the deer that we so much admire are crafted by and part by the forces of predation. Deer wouldn't be as fleet deer wouldn't be as astute in hearing, listening, seeing, smelling if it wasn't predation.
And so this is something that they evolved as part of the craftsmanship of the carnivore community, you know, influencing that part of evolution. So everything we really admire about Deer Gnome is thanks to the carnivore, the predator, its craftsmanship and evolution.
Jack Kredell:Yeah, And I would say that if you disrupt that relationship or that that craftsmanship, as you put it, then you really don't have deer.
Gary Koehler:Or you don't.
Jack Kredell:Know something else.
Gary Koehler:Yeah. And I mean, all you got to do is for us hunters is look at the, the common little snail or the slug. We don't pursue slugs and snails as a sport because they haven't gone through that same evolution. They haven't been crafted by these to, to make them give them that challenge to, to give these ungulates the deer and the elk, that skill, that perspective of their landscape and how they are masters of that landscape.
And that is crafted a lot by their interaction with predators.
Jack Kredell:Let's see, do you see a lot of second? Are there any particular memories or experiences that that stick out to you from your your time at Taylor in the in the early eighties was that or.
Gary Koehler:Yeah it is I think I spent four winters back home and I think it was the camps living in in the middle of the winter there. And I think also I think I like to track I like to observe tracks and try to decipher what's going on when you're tracking an animal. And it's a it's really a storybook.
And I with a lot of a lot of stories, when you're tracking a cougar that's stalking a small herd of elk or something like that, to be decipher, to decipher that it is so and I can still see those tracks to this very day, that impression. And so you don't need to be a wildlife biologist to get that sense of mystery and that understanding of predators.
If you're an astute observer, you can make a lot of sense out of of just tracking an animal in the snow. And I think that those impressions of of tracking the first cougars back there just by their tracks are left an intrigue by me or for me, because I still use those skills. I still use that knowledge. And and it's also, you know, if you're aware of their tracks and if you're aware of other signs like a scrape or a simple scat along the trail, you have an understanding about their presence and the fact that they're there.
You're not seeing them, but you know that they're there because they have left a sign for you to to grasp and to become aware of their presence and that this is their domain because you're not going to see them without, you know, the aid of technology. So I think it's like you said, it's the winter times and because of that slate that it provides for tracking and also the track itself and trying to understand what's going on or interpreting the behavior behind within those tracks.
Jack Kredell:Sounds like a good book. Almost.
It's almost as much imaginative as it is physical.
Gary Koehler:Yeah.
Jack Kredell:Can we talk about or can you talk about the. The bobcat that lived at Taylor for a spell?
Gary Koehler:Yeah, Kamir. That was spelled k a m i r but it derived its name from Come Here because we had no name for it and it was going to come here, come here trying to mimic a cat. But, but it was quite a morris sent it in for us to get some understanding firsthand about just how cats move on the landscape.
You know, in addition to tracking them in the snow, there's a limit to time times for snow. And so Maurice introduced us to this this kitten that he got, I think it was from a zoo in the Utah. I'm not sure Boise one or the other. And we raised it and and and it was it lived with us in the cabin there at Big Creek or Taylor Ranch and and was part of our family.
And, you know, it was well, I hate to say it was our kid, but it was an intriguing pet. And it did give us some insights into cat behavior that you couldn't observe otherwise. And but it was it became a companion and it we would go on hikes with it and and we would follow it around. And mainly, you know, cats are independent and it would not respond to come here even if you called it.
But you know Maurice sent it in there to give us insights into cat behavior and an intimate look at the cats and and because we raised it does not mean that it was a domestic cat and that it lacked all the the skills of a hunter because even your domestic your tabby cat is a hunter. And and those of anybody that has has a house cat knows that.
So it has those skills and those skills are crafted by evolution, years and years of evolution. So it gives you kind of a sense of a little bit of that, a sense of of their evolution and how they become the craftsman that they are on the landscape.
Jack Kredell:Whatever happened to Kamir?
Gary Koehler:We took after we left Big Creek Taylor Ranch and the study was over, Maurice cautioned us about having a basically a tame wildcat in our, you know, custody. And because of you can't take the wildness out of a cat, just as you can't take the wildness out of your domestic house cat and but, you know, so he encouraged us to take it to a zoo or a wildlife park on the peninsula to swim.
And so that's where that's where we left. Come here. It was so sad in particular for my wife, But but he I'm sure he gave a lot of the viewers an the people that came to the wildlife park, some joy, some understanding and give them a perspective. What cats do.
Jack Kredell:To shift gears a little bit here. Yeah. What what would you like to see in Taylor's future? either like recent research foci or just what what, what would you like to see for Taylor?
Gary Koehler:Well, I think they've a lot of structure there that is really make and has been made a teaching institution back there in the midst of this wilderness area to provide facility for young people to get a grasp of a little bit of an understanding and appreciation for what wild, wild places and so it has a really fundamental value, I think, of education, and that's what we really need now more.
So in this planet, as we become withdrawn from wild places, just nature. And I mean it's a real good on real good facility for that. And also there's countless research topics, particularly now with the effects of climate change on our planet, and that is as a laboratory where we know that our influence on the planet is universal, that you can't escape it from even the Arctic is showing signs of our hands.
But also, I think in the wilderness area, you have basically a laboratory where you can control for a lot of other influences. Like here, there's no traffic back there to have to cancel out or wonder about, you know, how did these species evolve, whether it's Idaho fescue or if it's steelhead or bull trout or the red breasted nuthatch, pygmy nuthatches.
You know, there's there's a whole variety of of species there are. And it's interaction into the environment that it evolved in over eons and this laboratory is seeing the effects of our hand as well because this ubiquitous effect of climate change and carbon dioxide poisoning of our planet is we need to get an understanding of the effects and how to turn that thermostat down.
So I think that a place like Taylor Ranch has a possibility of providing an insight into the relationship between a species and its environment that you can't find elsewhere on the planet that is occupied by us -- Homo sapiens.
Jack Kredell:Yeah. Maurice was particularly interested in in the the idea of using Taylor as a launching pad for for research into water systems and water cycles and things of that nature.
Gary Koehler:You know, I think that that's a very important I mean the water is what sustains life. Water is what gives us life. And it's the watershed that provides that water, collects that water for life. And I think that that is a very important element that you can't learn elsewhere where we are present on the landscape. So that has a very important and everything that, you know from the insect life within a stream, the fish in that stream and in the watershed itself, serving as a winter range or forage in the winter time for ungulates and hence the cats and the wolves.
And so so yeah, that is a very elemental part of an understanding that that we need to get a handle on.
Jack Kredell:Do you have any particular big cat memories that that stick out to you from, from your time at Taylor encounters or things you, you witnessed.
Gary Koehler:Yeah, there was one in particular. I mean there were several every, every cat that we marked was unique and there are individuals. It's just not up. You know, we it's a tendency to stereotype everything, whether it's different cultures amongst human cultures or animals, wild animals and the individual behavior of of individuals and how they see the landscape and how they hunt and how they live and how if they're not successful, how they can die from an ill placed stock, a poor attack and but but one in particular, I think what Jimmy and Jim and Hawley were away at that time and they asked us if we could kind of just care, take, you know, we
were back there anyway and just watch the Taylor branch and, and we had these camps, winter camps, tent camps scattered up and down, big group from Waterfall Creek along the Middle Fork to Acorn Creek. And I don't remember how many miles that was, but but anyway. But around Christmas time, my wife was with me and we decided to go and check on one of our camps up above cave Creek on on Big Creek.
And it was cold. It was something like 16 degrees. We had a cold, cold snap and it was in the teens that I remember. We had all this one camp above Cave Creek and where we were spending a couple of nights just kind of thaw things out. And and I got up in the early morning and it was obviously cold.
The stars were just like diamonds up there, twinkling and and there was enough light from those stars that there were just class casting reflections, the crystals on the snow. And I walked out to relieve myself and I saw some fresh cougar tracks in the in right in front of the tent. And I walked back in, stoked up the fire so my wife would have a warm tent to to get out of the sack and and I said, Mona, there's some fresh cougar tracks out here in the snow.
And and I, I, you know, stoked the fire and stepped out again and looked down the trail to where I was and there was a cat coming right towards us. It was like or towards our tent. And it was not more than about 30 feet away and it was just coming, sauntering up like it was not a fear of anything, but it had this real curiosity to it.
And so I stepped out and I said, Mona, here it is. And it couldn't have been more than about 20 feet away at that time. And it sat down the snow in the middle of the trail and then all of a sudden it got back up and started walking right towards the tent. And it came within right at the corner of the tent.
And to be honest with you, I was a little bit, you know, kind of fearful, not, you know, I've been around cats some, but when you encounter that kind of behavior, it's kind of daunting. And and I and so we got into the the tent and I was expecting perhaps this cat might want to into the tent. And so I grabbed the butcher knife and expecting it to come in the tent.
And it didn't you know, as soon as the the light, it became more light, I was able to stick my head out and discovered that from the tracks that there was three cats there. There was a mother and two year and a half old kittens and then the cougars, the offspring stay with Mom for about a year and a half until you know the females her size.
And if there's a Tom and there was a tom offspring, there is going to be way more than mom is. And she's, you know, hangs under kids and teaches them the trade of being a good predator. And we caught those cats later that winter and put radio collars on them. And sure enough, that's what it was. Was she the mother and a female offspring and a male offspring?
I think he weighed about £140 where she weighed about £80. And the female offspring was similar weight, about £70 or something like that. But we put collars on them and got to follow their travels. You know, once they left Mom and the female, the kittens dispersed from the mother that later that spring, the female went across Chamberlain north of the Salmon River.
It must have crossed the Salmon River in May when the salmon rivers probably at flood stage and let the cat cross the river some point then. And and the Tom moved all the way and was later killed in outer Drummond, Montana, which is like 160 miles away. And so that that little glimpse of their behavior kind of instilled in me the first understand things of cat behavior, their sociology, their social behavior, and in fact, how important that is to have that understanding to in order to if we're going to manage them, we're going to conserve them to incorporate the cat behavior here in that understanding about how to conserve, how to manage fur caps on
the landscape. Because what it means is that, you know, the young males got to get out of the area because the resident Tom, is going to make sure, because if he doesn't, he's going to the probably the young Tom is going to get killed by that by the resident breeding. Tom And, That's life as part of competition. And that also stirs up the genetic part.
You know, where the Tom leaves the home area and takes that little gene pack of the genes and distributes elsewhere in other populations, you know, within hundreds of miles away. And and I've observed this in my further cat studies, cougar studies and Bobcat studies of that. This is an elemental part of their behavior and an essential part of their evolution and a view that we must include in the understanding of managing and conserving these species is that, you know, there's a limit basically to the number of cats you can put on the landscape.
And that is instilled in part by the Big Tom in the area, getting the young Tom to move out and that to minimize competition and to to essentially in the long term is to distribute the seeds from that population to a much wider area and to exchange genetics with with a regional population. So in that experience there, I've seen very clearly from subsequent cougar research that I've been involved with in Cle Ellum, Washington, where we had a Cougar project we called Project Cat Cougars and Teaching, where we involved the kids from the local school into the project.
And we had Mark family groups like that, and the young Tom's half to get out of Dodge, basically. And I mean, they would go hundreds of miles from their place of birth to establish a presence or territory elsewhere. And that territoriality that Maurice identified and described and incurred in the sixties, he was the first to do so, is how important that understanding is and to the management and conservation of cougars and unfortunately, a lot of management doesn't don't take those understandings when they're setting hunting season.
They they don't appreciate the behavior. Those keystone bits of understanding about the evolution of these solitary carnivores and into their management consideration. Because there's a lot of thought now that cougars are overrunning the landscape. And there isn't that in the makeup of the evolution of cougars. They're a relatively low density species and it's thanks to those big toms that keep things the mix going.
And that concept needs to be understood by managers and conservation.
Jack Kredell:That that movement of the young Tom is not unlike your own dispersal to wilderness areas.
Gary Koehler:You know, that's a very good point. And in fact, I've often heard that that's the one thing that characterizes Homo sapiens is the fact that they move like that. I mean, you think about the Polynesians and the Southeast Asians, you know, of exploring and settling amongst these little tiny islands in the South Pacific. How did they get there?
Why did they get there? And Why did Columbus set sail and stumble on to the Americas? Why did the Vikings, you know, set sail and end up in Nova Scotia? It's some young dude that thought that they were curious about what was over the ridge. And it is that maybe that's how seeds get planted, whether it's the dandelion you know in their little drift for, establishing themselves and a new home the cougars that way Homo sapiens showed outward.
Jack Kredell:That night when you encountered the three Cougars. What what do you think the the Cougars were doing that close to you? I mean, while you were studying them, it seems they were also studying you in a way.
Gary Koehler:That's a very good point because the old adage Curiosity killed the cat is so true amongst cats. Trappers use that behavior by hanging a wing or a feather, you know, by a piece of string. Just to get that the attention of a cat. You roll a ball across the your living room floor and the cat's going to charge it.
And and so it cat their eyes, their ears are forward oriented and everything about them is attracting or focusing on a movement. And that's how they become such efficient and effective predators. And so but it's also curiosity and how they learn. And I do believe that that's another aspect of cats that we we need to consider when we're responding to you know so-called threats of cougars is that cats are curious.
I've probably seen, you know, without the aid of hounds trying to capture cats, I've lost track of how many cats I cougars that I've encountered without, you know, just stumbling onto them. And basically that's what you're doing is stumbling on to them. And it's because of their curiosity about you. And, and I've really become to realize how much they know about us because of that curiosity and because of their cryptic behavior, being able to get a a real close view of us, not because they want to make us dinner, but just because they're curious.
And that story about or that old proverb about curiosity killed the cat is probably true. Is true because you know, it's interesting now in the state of Washington, they're killing as many cougars without the aid of hounds as they did when they had hound hunting, and most likely a lot of those cats are killed during their general elk and deer season.
And it's because often cattle step out and an elk hunter or a deer hunter with a rifle is going to shoot a curious cat. And it's not because the cat has designs of attacking, it's the cat is curious. I've had a lot of curious cats Look me over.
Jack Kredell:Yeah, unfortunately for a lot of hunters and in the west it's been like drummed into us that it's your duty, you know, to to control wolves or cougars.
Gary Koehler:Yeah. And, and I think it's in part fear because I think that it's part of our gene pool too. Is that when the days when we were just running around with Stone ax and and and hands and ax ads and stuff like that, living in caves, you know, we had a right to be fearful of large carnivores because we were competing with them, you know, on the plains of Africa.
And, you know, in the the grasslands of Alaska during the beringia period. And so it's probably somewhat in our genes to fear things with large carnivore and large canines and as dogs do, as all the carnivores do have, and including us and so I think it's probably somewhat in our genes, just like our tailbone is in our genes, just like our fingernails, vestiges of claws.
There's a lot of vestiges of of past evolution and amongst us. And I think that fear of the unknown is part of that. And but as long as we have this curiosity ourselves and want to understand more of our environment, I think we can learn and find out that, you know, our fears are often not, you know, justified.
- Title:
- Gary Koehler
- Creator:
- Jack Kredell
- Date Created:
- July 25, 2022
- Description:
- Jack Kredell interviews Gary Koehler, a wildlife biologist, about his experiences with the Taylor Wilderness Research Station. Gary became interested in the research station in 1969 and studied bobcats and their interactions with wolves and cougars.
- Subjects:
- wildlife cougars wolves bobcats
- Location:
- Moscow, Idaho
- Latitude:
- 46.7324
- Longitude:
- -117.0002
- Source:
- Voices of Taylor - Jack Kredell Interview Project funded by the U of I Library and the College of Natural Resources
- Type:
- Image;MovingImage
- Format:
- video/mp4
- Preferred Citation:
- "Gary Koehler", Taylor Wilderness Research Station Archive, University of Idaho Library Digital Initiatives
- Reference Link:
- https://www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/taylor-archive/items/koehler.html
- Rights:
- In Copyright. Educational Use only. Educational use includes non-commercial use of text and images in materials for teaching and research purposes. Digital reproduction permissions assigned by University of Idaho Library. For more information, please contact University of Idaho Library Special Collections and Archives Department at libspec@uidaho.edu.