00:00I've traveled out to Daniel Richen's R&K Ranch in Utah to meet up with a team of biologists.
00:07You know, it doesn't matter where you are in the world, when you're driving around in a fully intact ecosystem, it's a real treat.
00:15We're here in Utah on a magnificent piece of property. It's springtime, there's flowers everywhere, there's birds.
00:22And to think that we're out here trying to catch a bear, that's pretty cool.
00:28In the state of Utah, bears are a fairly common resident in many of the open ecosystems.
00:34They're even a common resident fairly close to human habitations.
00:38American black bears are highly secretive. You're lucky if you see one when you're out in nature.
00:43But they are quite common. The only way to really understand the biology of those bears is to be able to monitor them somehow.
00:51And we monitor black bears by putting a radio collar on them.
00:57You know, the modern day satellite collar is an incredible piece of research equipment.
01:02It's a piece of equipment that will tell us where an animal is, when it's there, how it's utilizing its habitat, what its home range is, and a host of other questions.
01:11The challenge is always, how do you get the collar on the animal?
01:17So after years of experience, there are two ways that we catch bears.
01:21One, we can catch bears in a cage trap. That can take days or weeks, and we often don't get the bear we're targeting that way.
01:28The way to get the bear that we want to target is by using the aid of houndsmen.
01:33Houndsmen are a really effective tool at putting a Pacific bear into a tree that allows us to immobilize and collar that specific bear.
01:45We have a couple of people that we really trust, and they're excellent. They're easy to work with.
01:50We don't pay them anything. They want to know the biology of the bears as much as we want to know the biology of the bears.
01:56And because of that, they volunteer their time, their hounds, their vehicles, and they help us to get bears on the air.
02:08So once we get going, we got the GPS here. Put the collars or link to this.
02:13Dog will have it on them all the time. We'll be able to tell exactly where they're at, and hopefully we'll go and find a bear.
02:22The first step of this whole operation is catching a bear to put the collar on.
02:26And, you know, everybody knows their hounds. They know exactly what it means, even down to how the hound's wagging its tail.
02:32So knowing your hounds, knowing what they're seeing, knowing what they're smelling is a really important part to managing the hounds well.
02:38And a well-managed pack of hounds, that's the start of this. If we can get a bear in a tree, we can get a collar on the bear, and then the science can start.
02:59We'll leave one dog on top, and then we'll roll the other ones in front. And if they smell something, then that way we're covered.
03:05So if they smell something, they'll strike. They'll make a noise, right?
03:08Dogs on the ground will immediately strike, or the one on top sometimes can smell it better up in the air.
03:13Cool. Perfect.
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