00:00:00 Speaker 1: M all the things that it takes to be a really good dirt lion hunter. Warner is all of those. Everyone on this episode of the Bear Grease Podcasts, we're back in the open country of southeast Arizona. This is part two in our series on the life of a living legend, Warner Glenn. We're also going to learn more about Kelly Warner's daughter in her life in movies and modeling. Will dive in deep into dry ground lion hunting, which I believe will aid us in getting our pH ds as knowledgeable American woodsman. You gotta know something about dry ground lion hunting. Will also learn about when Mr Warner almost went to prison and how it impacted his life, including his involvement in the founding of a very influential conservation group called the Malpai Borderlands Group. You're not gonna wanna miss this one. I think if a person going anyway he likes to do, that's the big head to his heart board. My name is Clay Nukelem and this is the bear Grease Podcast where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of Americans who lived their lives close to the land presented by f HF Gear, American made, purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. Guys, we've got an exclusive bear Grease discount code for f h F Gear that's Fish Hunt Fight Gear. I've been using their products for the last year and I love carrying my gear in a chest rig or my binos and their bin no harness. It's easier and more accessible than a backpack and it doesn't get in the way when I'm riding my mule. For a limited time, you can head over to fh F gear dot com forward slash bear Grease and listeners to this here podcast get a discount on purchases for your f h F Gear system and you can see how I build my gear system. So go to f h F gear dot com forward slash bear grease for a special code. If you're buying stuff from f h F Gear, check it out Fish Hunt Fight f h F Gear. We've again found ourselves on the borderlands of the Southern United States in southeast Arizona. On the lavelast episode, we were introduced to Warner Glenn. He can see Old Mexico from his house. He's eighty five years old and lives the life of an authentic American cowboy with a heavy dose of mountain lion hunter. Lion hunting and ranching, you see, go hand in hand and have since this part of the country was settled by cattle ranchers. Right this morning, Rosalie, that's the name of the meal you're putting me on. Rosalie? How old is this meal? That to any problem with her? She's about seven. It's too bad you hate you do We walk over to a bigger bay colored mule, a brown mule. So this is your go to meal. This is what this name? Vivian, how old is she? Dan, you got to be fifteen years old? This is your This is the one you go to when you gotta Well, usually I'm right differently, at least every other day. I've got three on right, regular Bridger and Vivian in breyer So and Kelly. She got Rosalie, even Pete and some of the others. When when does a mule get just right? And that depends depended long But but I'll tell you what. As far as being demo and trustworthy and everything, I would say like six or seven to where you could trust him with anybody, right, and you can. You can ride him two or three, but you better be ready for a little wreck if it should have. You know, they're just not used to everything. And he's mountains. I tell you they're hard. Yeah. Mr Warner threads of leather pistol holster onto his belt. He carries a three fifty seven revolver. So every day when you're just out riding, you're carrying a side arm. I do and what do you I tell you never know when you're gonna need need one for it could be some kind of bombardment. But most of these rancher's not Dave. The drug traffic through here and all shoulder. What do you never know? Sure it doesn't hurt that one. We're now out by the dog kennels. In part one, Mr Warner told us that he's got sixteen hounds, and he told us about his best hound hook. What's what's this Dog's this? You tracker? He's a young one. He's only year and acho being in on about three three when he's gonna make I've it really got high hope for him. In the big old athletic dog. He's only two. Oh, he's the number two dogs. With sixteen dogs scattered in front of us, we make a five mile loop, giving him some exercise. On our ride, we can look into Old Mexico. We can see the border wall, and I'm amazed that an eighty five year old man is still going like he's forty five. Warner's father, Marvin, started lyon hunting in the nineteen thirties when their horse, colts, and cattle were being killed by mountain lions. It wasn't their fault, the lions were just being lions. And it really wasn't Marvin and Warner's fault for becoming lion hunters. It's just what they had to do to protect their way of life. In nineteen seven, Marvin had become an expert at what we say in the business catch in lions. The American economy was booming after World War Two. People began to have disposable income, and Marvin turned his craft into a business and started outfitting the Glens became nationally renowned as dry ground lion hunters. In Warner and his daughter Kelly still hunt the same dirt as Marvin, with some of the same lineage of dogs and with the same unique mix of integrity, genuine hospitality, and toughness that defines this desert and the people that make a living off the land. Here, before we dive into lion dogs and fist fights, I want to talk about Kelly Glenn, Kembro Warner's daughter. She has lived a very interesting life. We heard about her mule wreck and helicopter rescue, and about her getting bit by a lion. Go check that out in part one if you hadn't listened to it. I'd like, though, to hear her about two parts of her life that went beyond ranching and hunting. I bet you won't be able to guess what they are. If you're over thirty five years old and a gun enthusiast, you've probably seen a picture of Kelly. We were always a part of the hunting, so my dad and my grandpa Marvin hunted all winter. They hunted a lot of lions and deer. We guided for custier, mule deer, Hamelina and Lyon and it was a busy. It was just what I thought life was about. It was either cooking, fixing lunches, feeding mules, guiding. I guided from the time I was seventeen with them, I did not want to go to college. I loved it. I craved guiding. I loved guiding for Custier especially, and hunting mountain lions and so and they embraced that. And it was kind of a man's world, you know. I was a little girl growing up wanting to learn how to track the lion and wanting to go glass for deer. I didn't have any reason to go to town when I went up to go off to college. My grandpa got me a new rifle, a parka, all these things to make my life more comfortable as a guide here. So he didn't want me to go. Yeah. Anyway, Mom and Dad raised us and my grandparents to work really hard. We always had guests. We either had hunters, or in the summer we had kids. So I went to college and then I came back and went into the movie industry, and I did casting in locations for eight years out of Tucson. And I loved it because I could go work on a show for thirty one days, come home and hunt. So I kind of you. They would tell you what they were looking for for scenery and was. It was always Western top films, not necessarily, Um, I did thirty three films. It was we did Terminal Velocity, was Jerry Lewis, Johnny Depp, Fate Donaway, Paulina Poroskova, and then we would do young guns and young writers, and sometimes it was scenery and then sometimes it was years. Did you do that from eighty five to about ninety three? I got married ninety two and I kept doing it for a moment after that. That's so interesting your family's connection to two movies. Yeah, Well, first started a long time before with your dad in the movies. He was in your Grandfather. I now asked Kelly about a very interesting job she had for thirty one years and how her presence in the position was groundbreaking. So in J. J. Sarry came. He was a good friend, you know, and he asked, He called me and he goes. Kelly Ruger called and they want me to photograph a girl or a woman that lives a western life, carries a gun and uses it, you know. So I said, okay, you know, and I had gone right out of college. I went to plase A three modeling in Tucson because a lot of my family, distant family, said you've got to be a model because I was six ft tall and skinny. That was their basis. After a few weeks of that, I figured out I didn't want to be a runway model. But so we went down here and took a mule and I had literally, my husband calls it my corrective shoes because that's all I wear is ugly shoes. I had on my brogans and a gun and braids, and I was who I was and we took the picture. Well, they loved it. Bill Ruger Sr. Was very skeptical because he was a man's man and he really didn't want his company represented by a girl that would have been fairly Yes, it was new thinking. So it was a trial run that first year, and there was a full page in the Wall Street Journal there was. It just blew up and went really good as Austin Nation, and the Ruger followers loved it. So you were on. You were on a lot of their advertising posters. They did a poster every year. You stayed the Ruger Girl for thirty one. Yeah, and just on on our way here, my uncle told me that he had seen your picture in a small town in Arkansas and a pawn shop from a poster from years and years ago. Ye, So I would do two shows a year, the n r A Show and the Shot Show. The Shot Show was more dealers international, national, you know guys in business suits. The n r A Show was Americans. It was it was coon hunters, farmers, guns store owners that would come with their family because they could. So my job at those shows was to sit in the ruger booth and they would put a stack of posters in front of me and I'd sign and they tell me who signed to. The man would stand there and say my store is you know B and B Guns or what? And I signed to that store. When they all figured out, all those people figured out I was a hunter for real, they loved it. And then they would like flock around and we'd talked about trailing dry ground hunting lions. But it was great. I have. I kept a lot of things that I got a lot of letters. You could tell a person, a woman who wanted to become a shooter and a hunter. She would timidly stand over there and listen, and when finally they kind of broke up, then she'd step up and she said, is there any way you could we could talk about this again? And so I share my address and and or nowadays it lately, you know, the last twenty years it was an email, but and we'd visit back and forth and I'd recommend what firearms she should buy. So I coached unplanned. I coached a lot of women and kids. Kelly was a pioneer for women in the hunting and shooting industry. Today, women are the fastest growing group in the hunting space. Fist bumped Kelly. Dry ground lion hunting. We've said it over and over, and I plan to devote some time to try and to understand what this means, and I hope you'll join me. Despite your perceived interest in the topic. It's a nuanced and important cog in the wheel of North American hunting. I believe that the characteristics that it takes to be a darned good dry ground lion hunter are the marrow of American ruggedness. I'm not saying it's the only thing that carries that, but I'm quite certain that it does. Gary Nuclem instilled in me the desire to be a well rounded woodsman and to get a PhD in woodsmanship. I believe that to be a true contosseur of North American hunting. You need to understand something about dry ground lion hunting. You don't have to do it most probably never will. You don't have to like it. You probably wouldn't. But I feel like my insides are expanded when I talk to people who dedicated their lives to a craft, and being a successful lion hunter requires the dedication of a lifetime. Shorty Gorham is one of the world's best bullfighters. He's worked for the PBR Professional Bull Riders for seventeen years and his dedicated his life to his craft. His job is to protect bull riders once they've come off of the bull's back and are on the ground. They basically run interference, distracting the bull while the rider gets away. They used to call these guys rodeo clowns. I find that people who are among the best at what they do are good at spotting others in other fields who are like them. Shorty is also a dry ground lion hunter. I wanted to see what he had to say about Warner Glenn being from the Southwest and and hunting lions on dry ground. If you ask around, ask very many questions, you're gonna hear Warner's name and so that's that's how I had heard of him, just trying to learn as much as I could and read as much as I could. And when that topic comes up, warners one of the one of the big names. You know, he's he's one of the best dry ground lion hunters in the in the world. And you could say, of all times, you know, they all the well known, big time dry ground lion hunters, no respect and love Warner lends. So it's just a household name, you know. So when I got to go to his house, it was it was quite the experience, you know, I'll never forget it. I pulled in, I had flown there to Arizona from a straight from a bull ride and drove a couple of hours to the house, pulled in in a rental car, and and Warner comes, well, Warner was out feeding his mules, comes over and shakes my hand, and he's a very tall man. So I'm looking up at him, and and the from that point till I felt like I had known Warner all my life was you know, ten to fifteen minutes. Maybe it's just a just a great guy, just a genuine man. And it's interesting to me how there's some people that have that quality, and in your experience with him was very similar to my first meeting him. What is it that makes a person be able to have that kind of connection with people? I don't, you know, I don't know. I really don't. You know. The thing is, I've met a lot of his clients that have hunted with him, and Warner's return clientele is just massive. Like I know, guys that have hunted with him for twenty years, every single year just because they want to go spend time with Warrener Glenn. But they just want that connection with Warners, so they keep going back year after year after year, you know, and there's a real rough and tough lion hunter. He he once said. He said, when I when my time comes to an end and I and I go off to the other side, he said, if if I look around and in my second life and I don't see Warner Glenn, I'm gonna know I really screwed up. Because we all know Oraners going to heaven. That just describes Warner. John Blosier has known Mr Warner for twenty plus years and as professionally hunted lions on dry ground for over thirty by professionally. I mean he worked for the state of Oregon managing livestock killing and nuisance lions. In eighteen John was called to ply his craft in a tragic situation. He and his dogs tracked down the first wild mountain lion in modern times in Oregon that killed a human wild stuff. But his hunting wasn't just a career. He loves what he does and is a lifelong student of it. He's one of these guys that's done whatever it took to put himself in relationship with the best in the world in his field, one of which is Warner Glenn. I asked John to define for us what dry ground lion hunting is. Hunting lions dry ground would be without the aid of snow for cutting tracks and tracking conditions. The reason that makes that easier is if you have country that's got roads in it that you can go and cut a lion track in the snow at a you know the age of it because you know when it quits snow one and be you know the direction it's traveling. So those two things are two of the more difficult things in lion hunting. And you have both of those taken care for, you a lot of the dry ground lion hunting that goes on in the United States is in the Southwest United States, Arizona, New Mexico, southern Utah, southern Nevada, places like that, And uh, I guess one or many reasons that would be harder as a when you dry ground lion hunt. Most of the time, many of the mountain ranges in the Southwest that lions live in are only accessible by horse back or afoot, so your dogs have to be freecasted and be able to start a lion track on their own. Anybody that's hunted with hounds very much, or even dealt with dogs very much, would know that it would take a little more or worked to be put into your dogs to have them where they would only start a lion track, because hound dogs, by their very nature, kind of like to trail things, and many times there's a lot more smells out there than just a lion track. John, tell me about Tell me about Warner glenn Um. That's a big question. Yeah, So I've known Warner for over two decades. I met him in my quest to kind of learn how to be a dry ground lion hunter. That was what originally sparked Warner and Ice connection and has kept that, you know, the Glenser. I consider him family. They're very close. There's certainly not a lot of people like that. You know, Warner as a cowboy and a lion hunter and a family person. I don't really think. I mean, I've spent quite a little time around him and got the opportunity to hunt with him numerous numerous days, and uh, you know, there's just not a lot of people like that that have dedicated their whole life to something. And I might be a little bit off, but I think I believe the time Warner started lion and he was around seven or eight years old, and he's now closing in on eighty five, and that's a that's a pretty long career as a dirt lion hunter, and there's not been any gaps to speak of, and that he was in the military for a very short time, but he's pretty well spent his whole life in those mountains, you know, in the desert Southwest mountains, chasing those things. You've had it with a lot of people. What what stands out to you? What have you learned from Warner? Oh? Boy, that would be Uh, I've learned a lot from Warner. I think Clay maybe one of the big things about that is that when you go with someone that is truly at the top of their of their game, which it's not hard to tell when you go do that if you you know, you have a little background in it, and stuff is uh, you know, Warners, Warners just one of those rare people that you know, dry ground lion hunt doing the stuff that we do is a lot of work. And in Warner it he still goes out that like he's hunting snakes, and that's pretty impressive the amount of work it is and stuff that is just an extremely good track reader and is just really good at reading his dogs and telling you exactly what they're up to. And he's a cowboy deluxe, I mean, to travel in bad country. I mean, you just don't get any better than that. And he just uh, but you know, Warner just all of the things that embody somebody to be a lion hunter. You know, he's tall and athletic and tough and and can get around and and just all the things that it takes to be a really good lion hunter, a really good dirt lion hunter. Warner is all of those. Everyone there are two overarching factors that make this hunting difficult. Number One, it takes place in rugged regions without many roads. Lions can travel incredible distances on a daily basis, so it's got to be an extremely mobile hunt. A hunter has to become an expert at wilderness travel, and it's typically done with Equin's. Secondly, the arid nature of the land makes for difficult conditions for holding scent. It's really that simple. Dry ground lion hunting is all about scent. Scent on dirt doesn't hold well and it makes for some of the most difficult trailing conditions for dogs. A good dry ground lion dog is a phenomenal creature. It may just look like a scraggly old hound to somebody, but in my opinion, they're the Olympians of the hound world. In humans are ola factory strength is minimal compared to many other animals, so it's hard for us to understand how a dog interprets the world. I think we've got to nerd out for a minute to really understand the currency of the hound, which is sent I asked my buddy Chris pal for his insight. He's a lifelong houndsman, a former law enforcement canine handler and the host of the Houndsman XP podcast. Here's what he had to say about scent. So sin is one of the things that is key for Houndsman, but it's also one of the most misunderstood parts of how our hounds work and sent You know, it's a living thing. When an animal walks through the landscape, it is shedding cells at the rate of about fifty thousand per minute. And as those cells are shed it's coming out through being there exhaling, and they're losing it that way. When they brush up against plants and vegetation, they're shedding cells in that instance too. And when you look at the composition of a cell, it's eighty percent water. As this animal moves through its environment and it's shedding these cells either through exhaling or it's called scurf. The it's actually got a scientific name. When those cells are shed it's called scurf. It comes off of this this animal, this living being, and it's it's falling onto the landscape. It acts differently in the different environments that it falls in. So when it falls in moist environment, it doesn't dehydrate as quickly. So therefore the scent exists for a longer period of time, and when it falls into dry, arid conditions, just simple evaporation causes that scent to not be able to exist for his long. Now, in the case of dry ground, you know rock, those sort of things, it's it's a deal where if the rock's got a crack in it, the least bit of shade will actually shelter that thing from direct sunlight and arid conditions just for for a little bit, and that enables a hound to be able to smell that scent that's deposited there. I asked Chris about another component of scent and trailing that doesn't involve the actual scent of the animal, but rather ground disturbance. So when an animal walks through an environment or across the landscape, he is actually disturbing natural bacteria is in the soil, and he uses the combination of animal scent the bacteria. Fresh earth has a distinct smell that we can smell as people, a dog's nasal pluming, and the role factory is able to pick that up at I mean, compounded seventy five times greater than what we can. So as an animal walks across this landscape, and he's he's disturbing leaves, and he's kicking over rocks and and different things like that. It's activating the natural world right there and the microscopic organisms and that. Then the animal scent falls in that same scent picture, and now he is he is able to develop what we call a scent picture, and all that stuff is mixed together, it's all brought together. What you're telling me is that a dog is not just trailing the scurf of a lion. He's trailing ground disturbance. He's trailing ground disturbance of where that lion's foot touched the dirt and made the ground smell different. It's like if you tell the soil it has a it has a scent. I heard a good analogy once comparing the dog's nose to humans. It went like this. A human may walk into a house and smell lasagna cooking in an oven and think, man, that lasagna smells great. A dog walks into the house and he smells layers. He smells the Italian pork sausage starting to crisp, roasted tomato, sauce, fresh mazzarella, cheese, basil, ricotta cheese. He smells the individual components with extreme precision. If you haven't listened to episode twenty two, you're missing a bunch of background information that will give context to Warner's life. I'm assuming you know how a series works, and ultimately we're in pursuit of getting a glimpse into his world. I wanted to ask Mr Warner specifically about his hunting. Well, I tell you it's it's kind of a tough ole life. To be a drunk round, you gotta really like it. I like being out in the country course and and watching those dogs work good. We're riding to get mule in that rough country. And of course we're working cattle a lot of there's probably eight months out of the year we're working cattle, but we have those dogs year around, and if the line comes in and kills a calf or cold or whatever, then we go and try to catch that line. But usually the line h we do, which is mostly on dry ground and that and it's called that because we very seldom get snow in this country. We just wanted a while in the wintertime we'll get a snow, but we do that about four months out of the year. We would take clients and then the rest of the time, and it's just when we had a fresh killed, you know, neighbors wanted to catch one or something like that. But that dry ground lines are different because you do a lot of riding and those dogs. Before you ever pick up a track, you you got to find a trail and then you gotta find which way it's going. And in snow it's pretty easy. You didn't see the tracks. But in this country out of here, just play grass or dirt, pine needles or whatever you're in. Usually that track is pretty hard to find perspective, a pack of hounds already trenilant, muffing that tracks out. So you just gotta ride and see you find that track. If you're going the wrong way on it, you gotta get them turned around, and they had and right, or you're gonna see a lot of country that old line. Let's left. You thought they were gonna be teching to But if you're going the right way, you're in good shape. Then you just go on and concentrate on them. And I tell you you've got to help your dogs. In this country, it's a ruffle, rugged, rim rock country, and there's a lot of country looks like that. Line goes through that. The dogs can't go there bluffier, bigger rims. You got to take them around and yeah, hit it on the top of that type of thing. So there's quite a bit of footwork that goes in. Somebody's got to be with those dogs the foot to help them. Now, you were known and there all known, even in your latter years here, of being able to follow these dogs on foot. Yeah, I don't do that. I can't do that anymore. I wish I could. And that's one thing I really enjoyed about with following those dollars foot y. Yeah, I could do it. I was lucky I was physically able to do that for several years. And and uh, it's it's a wonderful way to see what dogs are doing what. It doesn't take very long to learn who's the cheerleaders in the bucket. Yeah. Actually, and you were doing this too before there were GPS collars and you were able to track. You had to somebody had to stay with them to hear the dogs. Yeah, I just stay within hearing if you could. And I couldn't stay right with them on on the good I could if they were just coltrained and not just be right with him. But what take out that land movement got a joke track and what we call they go past? I could, but I would I would take the time climbing about. But on the other when we started down, I could really smoke it. But I had to be of course in those days. I can hear it good I hear. And now Kelly has been pounding around with Mr Warner since she was a little girl. Here's what she had to say about dry ground lion hunting. So I love dry ground lion. There's every challenge there. There's you know, you have your hounds and you hit a canyon going at an angle, you're either going up or down it. And if there's a track there, they're gonna hit it and they're gonna go down. If it's if they're pointing down, they're gonna go down. The hound can't tell what direction the line's going by sight. So the first challenges we get in there and we find that track and then turning them around. And then there's in this country we have so many conditions and we always say we have more excuses than team Ropers. There's there we're always in a drought. It's how much moisture content is in the soil, the wind, the heat. Were hunt in a lot of warm temperatures and evaporation, and this is really bad for scent conditions. That's right. People don't even realize the menuscule moisture that's still in the soil even if you haven't had rain, and we're used to not having rain. When you look at a track, a lion track on a cow trail, it'll still have if it's fresh, like an hour old, it will still have color in it. So the track is still a different color than the soil. So the soils faded out and the track will have some color. There's so many factors and it's such a challenge. We help our dogs. My grandpa and my dad both taught me. You get off your mule and you help them find the track. And that's and that's pretty For other types of hunting, that's not that's not necessarily normal. So there's more human involvement with the actual dogs on the track. These dogs have to be that you have to be able to call them to you. You have to I mean that there's some another layer of complexity with training these dogs. So in every pack, so we only take five or six in a pack. In every pack, you'll have your slower moving dogs, you'll have your strike dogs, and then you'll have a dog that will You can watch them. Dad has a lot of silent dogs. They don't do much barking, but you can watch their body language. And you'll see a dog out there a hundred yards and it's a good dog. You know him. You know he isn't a deer chaser, and you'll see him just working up and you can tell he's just working up in the body language in his tail away. It's wagon. We scoop up our dogs and take them to him. A lot of times one of us will be looking at the track and helping the dogs along, and it's by watching the body language of And that's a challenge because there's rocks everywhere, and in this country, sent whole longer on rock than it does in the dirt it holds. You'll see an older dog going along smelling the underside of leaves in a thicket, and that's where that lion's body and you can and they'll they'll hold, they'll stop. There's a dog named catch It. She'll stop. Her whole body will be frozen in time, and she'll be smelling and you know she's getting she's she that yeah, yeah, and then she'll trop forward and do it again. And I'll tell Dad if catch it, smelled it. And so we go to her with those other dogs, the slower dogs, because if you don't do that in this country, you probably won't get the lion jump how long of a track Let's say, let's say it's just an average day of lion hunting and you find a track early in the morning. We trailed a lion one day, thirty six miles and we jumped him at nine o'clock that night and pulled him off because they were all give out. I mean it was we knew he was jumped because Eve and though those dogs were exhausted, their body language and their attitudes had a second wind. But we pulled them off because we had gotten We were eighteen miles from the truck. We we lead a pack mule with water almost every single day unless we've had a big rain. Water for the dogs and well but ours. You know, normally we can all pack our own water. But those dogs, especially in the Bighorn Sheep area, it's a very dry, rough, rocky, hot, sunbeaten region. When they start trailing. Dehydration is what slows them down. First. A typical week of a lion hunting dry ground lion hunting here, would you catch a lion? When we were guiding all winter, we would average a lion every four days. Yeah, that's that's really good. Yeah that man. Sometimes you caught one day one on a hunt, and then the next time you might have cut it on Dave sit x or whatever. It was kind of an average we booked at hunt, and that's because of the conditions. You know, you just don't know what your conditions are going to be. Freezing thine heat when extreme cold. We've had some cold temperatures down here and no snow. Hunting with dogs is one of the most primitive styles of hunting in terms of deep human history. It's primitive because our connection with canines is undeniably ancient. Long before the modern, politically correct trends began to regulate how humans think about and utilize animals, men and dogs were getting along just fine. The human dog relationship is truly unique in the animal kingdom, and many attribute our success as a species to that relationship. Dad, while I'm on my soapbox, I want to share something with you. I believe that the opposition to the dog thing is much deeper and significant than it seems on the surface. I believe that hunting with dogs inside the boundaries of science based wildlife management is an integral part of the expression of being human. To some people, it seems like our society is very interested in preserving people's rights to express their humanity inside of their culture and in their way, which is a good thing. I believe that by changing the rules on us about dogs and saying it's not okay anymore to use them inside of hunting is to redefine part of our humanity. Hound hunting certainly isn't for everybody, and yes, there are some rugged parts of it that many people aren't used to, but we're not asking them to participate. If my conscience doesn't condemn me, and it's inside the boundaries of the law, and the activity that I'm particip painting in actually helps wild animals and preserves wild places, don't try to take it away from me because it condemns your conscience. That's the only thing I'm asking people to consider. Man, here we go, I gotta say it. I'm sorry, guys, and for the odd hunter that says that hunting with hounds isn't fair. Chase Man, I've got a few questions for you. What are your thoughts on the use of optics that give a person amplified supernatural vision? What about range finders? What about cellular trail cameras, supplemental feeding, food plots for white tails, digital mapping programs on your phone. I'm not suggesting that these things aren't ethical or fair, Chase, not at all. I'm just asking us all to explore a broader way of thinking. Please hear my heart inside of this. My intent is not that this conversation would divide us, but it would actually rather unite us as hunters and allow us to see through the eyes of our brothers and sisters that live life differently and do things different than us. I said all that to say it was a long way to get here. I wanted to ask Mr Warner about his dogs. If you're a hound or dog person, you'll enjoy the nerd out. But if you're not, you're being brought into an intimate conversation. If you'll listen, But I tell you now, I have mostly tree and walkers, and uh, I'm not say they're better. I don't think they're better cold trailers or striped dogs or even tree dogs. But they're ferre at all of that. And they're they're really good catch dogs. They're pushers, will take get a quarry and joke and running both. They they're fast on the track. They're fast on the track. Then I'll tell you they're not really aggressive. Those hands. They may something, but they kind of keep this. They stay back. Yeah, even on the line. That helps. He thinks the most important characteristics of a dry ground line dog for the way that you hunt the doors, good feet, and to have that instinct to run cats. All of them don't like to run cats. But but I'll tell you, uh, they don't necessarily have to be the fastest dog in the block, but they've got to be able to keep that track. Movie. Do you have a favorite hound you've ever had that's kind of like that new deal you asked me about a minute ago. I wouldn't say this in front of the dogs down there, but probably half a half walker and a half black and tan, a little cheek k k. He was probably one of the smartest dogs read but like and he go getting somewhere. He could do it all. He could. He would a strike on the track, he could cold trail. He was good in the bluffs. You got in this country. You've gotta have a dog that's not afraid of heights. He's got to be good in the bluffs. Yeah, he's got all the climb and navigate. That's right, and take some chances. You don't want a reckless I mean the words they're jumping off the forty ft bluffer. I mean, yeah, but you want them to if they come to a ten foot drop, you want them to pile off that tucker and keep going, you know what I mean. And most of them, some of these you need. You need adult and get a good rough country. I want to ask Mr Warner about a wild component of hunting lions in the karst bluffy regions of the Southwest. These lions don't always run up trees. Some of these stories might blow your mind. I tell you a lot in this country you're hoping your tree. One you hope your tree a line or bed out on the bluff. But a lot of times they're they'll get back in some kind of a hole or crevice or crack, or a cave or a shallow cave or a deep cave. Sometimes they get way way back. We've had them get back in my old abandoned mind tonels, and those are danger because you don't know if they're gonna cave in and you're gonna She's so anyway that at the time that mentioned in there telling an hour together and we had that line back in there, and we got her dogs out, and I said, do you want to go in and see the line if you want to hold the dog? She said, not that I hold the dog. So I went in and I did you want to make your shot count? And you've got to It's it's not a danger steel as far as the line goes. But I'll tell you what what you gotta think about in these caves packed in the winter time, or rattlesnakes hibernating because they hybernate and you don't win a belly in there and crawling and get on the top of the day snakes or scorpions or stuff like that, and what you really the danger And also when you fire that shot, and then you gotta have your ears plug But mind here is not too good. But I always really plug them good before I fire shot. And it came and you sure want to make sure that bullet goes into a bottle place. And any hundred knows you can shoot an animal through the heart and they can still run like heck for about thirty forty yard before the drop dead. So that's what happened. I hit the land in the chest with three pistol and boy, he just boiled out. And I did. I would lay on my belly because the cave is only about this high, I mean, and I just dunt and he run on. I don't even remember if he stepped on me. He might have jumped completely old me. But it all it happens so fast and left a blood trail right down your back. Yeah, the blood went right down and I didn't even know that. Kelly told me later, see what did you do to your back? I had a string of and I said I didn't do anything, and she said, you've getten. Then we figured out, yeah, and that's a that's a fairly common. It's pretty common for him, the going caves down here and to go Yeah, and you've got you've had one run between your legs too, haven't you. Yeah. Yeah. The first the first thing you have to do, get all your dogs behind it. You gotta get them all and that's hard because they're all competition for who's gonna get the first bite a hold of the light, you know you got to get and it's noisy, it's dusty, those tabs are it's hard to see it. And you've gotta have a good flashlight. You gotta You're gotta have a good light because that's what equalized. Well, it changes everything in your favor. When Mr Warner wants to tell you a story, you listen. He wanted to tell me this one. It involves a young hound named catch It. I'm gonna tell you a little story about a dog that happened this year. We got a little dog down here to show you in the morning named Catching and she's making a really good dog, young dog. And we went over here in that sheet are you and hit a good track early in the morning and ended up by on this pretty big little tongue. Now I don't out on the bluff, and the bluff was probably where he was back down on. It was probably forty straight down to the lid and then another twenty ft into the big rock slide rock boulder pole and there he was backed up on the edge with a tailor with a and the dogs were all right there there. There was five five dollars and Kelly and I it come in and got off her mules and I advent rifle, and I can see that the dogs were here the linders right here, and I can see it broadside, and so I thought, well, I'm going to go ahead and shoot that thing before it knocks all those dogs off the blood. I am just barely behind the shoulder and I squeezed it off. There's two twenty three. I carry a little to twenty three and I hit it. That's where But it jumped like that and my shot. Those dogs got in a little close to the line, reached out and grabbed cat just like that and pulled it in and went over backwards, and they both then fell off the bluff. It did makes you sick. And there was to the to the first lag and then another, and this was bad stuff. At the bottom. We knew she was did I told Kelln she had gone down there and the dogs were had gone back and were coming around. And I went back to get the mules and she got me on the radio and she said, Dad, catch it's all right. She standing on this land fighting the other dogs off the line was Dad, because she had hit right on top of the lion's body and evidently it broke because while we were skinning the land, oh hook went up hit another track. There's been too light and we didn't know it, and they went on and she was with them, and they bade it three hours. They baid it in another big patch of bluff. And that's another story. That dog was totally fine after of fallen six. Using numbers in hunting is always touchy business, but we use math and every other part of our lives to understand the world around us, so it's relevant in this space too. I asked Kelly if she had any idea how many lions her dad had caught in his lifetime. When Mama passed away. We went through a bunch of books. She had kept records dad dad keeps a journal. My grandpa kept a journal all the way up till the year he died, of every lion they caught, whether it was here or Sonora, Mexico, or wherever. So we counted there's a certain date that they had caught their five hundred lion, and he documented that. Then we went on through all of everybody's accounts and I compared if Wendy wrote my mom, Wendy, if she wrote down they caught a lion and hog Canyon on December twelve. I made sure that I didn't report the same lion out of Warner's journal. We were honest. I had two women help me. We went yeah, and we're right now. We're at about yeah. And that's the ones in the sheep area. That's a lot of lines. It is for a lifetime. When I hear a huge number of animals harvested, my mind doesn't think of a tally mark or hides on a wall. I think about the number of times that he had to hook up his horse trailer in the dark, wake up at two a m loads sixteen dogs in the truck, and the literal hundreds of thousands of miles he's put while on the back of an equine. And I'm not throwing that big number around lightly. Let's do some more math. Mr Warner is lying hunted since he was six years old. As a conservative estimate, he's ridden on average twenty five hundred miles per year for the last seventy years of his life. And that's a hundred and seventy five thousand miles and he's still counting. He rides every I now want to ask Mr Warner about how they've been involved in some meaningful ways to preserve the open country of the Southwest. This is some legit conservation. Tell me about the Maupi Borderlands group. I tell you what that they were fell out here a good friend of mine named Drummond Hadley that bought a rent over here in New Mexico, a big ranch, a big ranch, and he bought it, actually bought it from the It was owned by Nature's Conservancy, and they were looking for somebody to buy it, to keep it in a viable rent and not develop it. And they didn't want to sell that somebody that was going to break it up before the Aco parcels and that, you know, to tell side. They wanted to keep it in a open country rent can't operating cataract. And they got to talking with the Nature's Conservancy people and they met us. They and they said the renters ought to get together and and former group to keep this country opened and get to where we could buy conservations on some of the dated land of the regis to keep from subdivision. It's what we've been trying to do so that That's what got it together. It was trying to keep these retched and retched and not forigger parcels. Very interesting stuff. Mr Warner and his wife Wendy, who has since passed away, where some of the founding members and Mr Warner is a director to this day. Here's the scoop. The Maupi Borderlands Group is a five oh one c three nonprofit that was started in nineteen as the relationship between ranchers, the federal government, and some environmental groups began to deteriorate. They work with private landowners, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations to help manage over one million acres of unfragmented land in southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico. The group says, quote, our goal is to restore and maintain the natural processes that create and protect a healthy, unfragmented landscape to support a diverse, flourishing community of human, plant, and animal life in our Borderlands region. Together, we will accomplish this by working to encourage profitable ranching and other traditional livelihoods while we sustain the open space of our land for generations to come. End of quote. This is a summary of what these guys do and have done. They've helped acquire conservation easements on seventy eight thousand acres of private land. This basically means that private landowners choose to put limitations on what can be done with their land, like it can't be subdivided when it's sold. Since nine seventy five thousand acres of land have been involved in prescribed fire, which is an important part of what the group originally promoted for ecosystem health. Over the last twenty years is the Maupi group has been involved in efforts aimed at making the protection of endangered species in the area more compatible with rural livelihoods. In cooperation, their efforts on behalf of the jaguar, the leopard frog, the log knows about the ridge nosed rattlesnake, among others, has resulted in a more secure future for these animals, as well as for the landowners whose livelihoods helped maintain their habitats. Here's a great quote that demonstrates the influence of the organization. Quote. Perhaps as important as any single thing we've accomplished, it's the fact that this small group has had significant influence on the way that ranchers the environmental community. The government and the public perceived conservation and ranching. Today, the focus is moving away from confrontation, regulation and litigation toward finding common ground and working together using the best available science, working at the level closest to the ground, and exhibiting real stewardship. End of quote. What you seem to be able to do. And you were able to work with a lot of different groups, Mr, I mean, yeah, and it was it was a pleasure, I tell you. We were Nature Conservatives was a big one to help us get to know the right people, and not only with the environmental type people, but the agency people for service to bill on the state land, Yeah, the fisher will, that service. All of those have something to do with all this country. So if you can get all those people together and degree on keeping it open and keeping it the way it is, I mean for hunters, for ranchers, fragmentation we're trying to keep you know, tell me if if this is a true assessment, and this is partly what I read inside of your book is that and this book was written about you. You didn't write the book, but the author ed said that you had a lot of tact and and wisdom in working with all these different people to bring it in with a lot of people. Maybe some of these groups would have naturally been in conflict with one another, but but you were able to say, hey, we're really all on the same team here, and you were able to bring a bunch of people together for a purpose, which was I mean quite a feat. I was part of it. But I tell you we had We had some other players, our neighbors. Some of these rents were more better that I was. But I helped anyway I could, and we would We would have the We had the head of the forest Service, the head of the billy on the head of all the fish wild up service come from Washington and we put them more mules. That's where I came in. I put on a good mule and take them to top the mountains and show him what we were talking about. We were a part of it. We hosted a lot of it because we had the facilities here in the held meetings and also we could feed groups groups of people that come in. And yeah, we did wi little dinah trying to make them. We we just kind of rewarded them for taking the time to come and look. Yeah, you know, and I tell you we got a lot doing. The fruit of success almost always grows from the seed of failure, and sometimes that part of the journey is overlooked. An influential event in Mr Warner's life took place in the early nineteen eighties, long before the success of the Maupi Borderland's Group, and I want to see if Mr Warner is open to talking about him. You got in a tussle with one of the border agents. I did that change the way you saw that you needed to deal with people? Can you talk to me about that? You bet that? Just tell me that kind of tell me the story and then tell me how it affects. I had a pretty pretty volatile temper when I was younger, and a lot of stuff. But I did then that I wouldn't do that day. I did my butt take out any anyway, I don't know, you still look pretty wiry. That fellow was. That fellow was out of life, no doubt about it. He told me what he could do in anywhere he wanted on my needed land, and I had I couldn't do anything about it. And I told him I thought I could, and he said, well, you sure can, so I did. But anyway, it got me in a big trouble you one thing about it, even a federal uniformed officer, I don't took him to the ground and rubbers had in the dirt. I mean, it was just how old were you, Mr Warner? Probably forty seven? I could go on and knowing about that, but that that, of course, that's a felony. Anytime you would touch a federal officer, assault a medal officer, that's that's a felly charged. And there's no doubt about it. I did it, it wasn't and I never be any excuses. I just told him why I did it. And I didn't go to prison, but I came that close. And also if if you have a felony charge, you can't have a firearm for so many years, and it affects your way of life. Just taught me, big boy, you better be careful what you're doing. And that they told me there's some of the agents. They had an agent that dealt with things like that, and they came and talked to me and they said, wonder what you should have done. Has gone to his supervisor and let them take care of it. And I said, well, now I can see that. At the time I was hord I was tired, and this guy who was told me one and he was standing on my private land and we were talking about the effect of vehicle traffic over my private land where there was no roads. I just figured that that in my way of thinking, right then I had a right to protect my problem too. But he was but he wasn't a federal I wasn't wrong, no, no doubt, but so was he. And well, the way it turned out, I didn't go to prison and they shipped him out of here. Yeah, and it was but it was a thing that I wished I had gone about it well. But what I take away from it is that later you became very skillful in dealing with these people, and that that event changed the course of kind of how you were and how you worked with these absolutely. Yeah. And and really I respect a law enforcement Yeah I really. There there are some guy who had law enforcement. They probably don't deserve to be there. But by and large I had back to those guys, IM sure. And part of that's just I gotta learned, you know that they've gotta they've got a job to do. Yeah, And it's a tough one thing. Uh. I'm not ashamed that that happened, but it taught me a good lesson. You know, I deeply value that you can say that, because a lot of times negative thing happened to people and it shapes them and makes them bitter and changes their life for the negative. But what I respect about your character is that that you know you can own up to it. And but I think it I think it changed you for the better. I'll tell you a little I would have told Daddy because I knew he was gonna he was gonna find out. And he sat there and listening after the through telling me. He said, I didn't know as she gets a lot of hit a little man, your dad. He was taking your side, wouldn't he. That's all the good dad's supposed to do. That's great. In closing, I asked Mr Warner if he had any advice for life. This is what he said. I tell you it. Reader doesn't pay you to worry about a lot of stuff because you just go ahead and do your best to what you're doing and and don't let you get into your brain that's gonna worry you. But and that's hard to do. It's hard not to worry, but especially if it's family or y under another that it just kind of eat as healthy as you can and stay active. Yeah, you don't sit on your butt. You work very hard, don't you. You know it's hard as I can. Yeah, it's not very hard anymore. Well, you're I know tomorrow morning you're planning to get up at four am, and I know this evening we were with you and you work fell dark. I mean that that's a pretty long day that you're putting in, which is probably pretty average for Yeah. Yeah, I try, I tell you. In summertime, I try to take an hour now in the middle of the day after looks or something like that. But as far as advice, just eat well and of course leave leave any of the substance abuse out of you. I don't think a guy needs to smoke, he thought, Sure, doesn't you have to use alcohol in excess and then just do what you're happy doing. I tell you, I wouldn't. You can make a lot more money if you're interested in monetary type reward doing something besides hunting and rent. And but I love to do it. I mean it's something that I think if a person doing what he likes to do, that's a big thing for his head and his heart both. Why do you why do you love doing what you do? What? What is your reward for the kind of lifestyle that you live? Oh my gosh. Well, it's very few people that get to be out in the Lord's creation every day. A lot of people never have the tempt even think about what I see during the day's time. And you know, I just I pray. And it does you good to pray. I tell you what it does. It doesn't. You may not get what you ask for him, but it's sure at least you know you've done everything you can. But they're daring, sure, and created the world we live in. Yeah, I mean to think about what happened. I mean, there's sudden the moon and thing that are tied to the tide and the oceans, the landscape that a little fun born in, that little sucker jumped up a little while and go to looking for a nipple, you know what I mean. And that's something that the creator had and we haven't figured it all that yet. Sequences of words strung together in English communicated through human vocal cords only carry so much weight by themselves. However, when those words are connected to a robust life, they have the power to truly impact us. I don't have a lot to say in closing, other than I cherished the opportunity to know people like the Glens on a personal level. I was deeply impacted by Mr Warner's humility and how he carried himself despite his accomplishments, which could so easily be translated into pride. On a wider scale, I think the character and value system of the Glens is something that America can look to to remember where we came from. You and I can't change the course of a nation, nor can politicians or man made laws. But you and I can dictate and change how we live, our character and our responses to the things that life will throw at us while we're on this planet. I'm not suggesting lack of civic involvement, but I am saying that real change starts in the heart of man, and that is really the only thing we could control. I love dry ground, lion hunting, mules, and hound dogs. I love everything that the Glens have done for conservation, But what I mostly took away from them was deeper and almost indescribable. Long live the open country of the Southwest and the wild beasts. The cowboys and the lion hunters that inhabit with them. I can't thank you folks enough for listening to Bear Grease. We'll have one more podcast that will involve Mr Warner. On the next episode, we'll be talking about the Borderland's jaguars in the United States. It's wild and interesting stuff, so don't miss it. Please share Bear Grease with a friend this week and keep the open country open.