Matt Skoglund

Yeah, I think it was three meetings a year and they would, and it was like three years they spent talking about finding a way to get more citizen input.

And, and they were struggling with it because you've got state, tribal, federal entities.

And, and I could see it, it didn't, it was, they were acting in good faith.

They were just struggling.

with a mechanism to do this.

And there was this one meeting where the former state veterinarian, Marty Zalewski, who's a really good guy, um, and a good friend of mine.

And, and, and he was frustrated and he's like, look, you know, we're, we've been trying this for three years and we're stuck.

And he's like, there's nothing to stop the citizens, the people that are concerned about this from starting something.

And he said, he goes, you know, if, if Matt Scogland, a bison advocate,

And Ariel Overstreet from the Montana Stock Growers came to me and said, we think you should do this.

He's like, that'd be powerful if you had wildlife advocates and stock growers.

And so after that meeting, Ariel and I and a few others, this great local sheep rancher, Becky Weed, we formed this citizens working group that the agencies all supported.

The former Region 3 Fish, Wildlife, and Parks Director, Pat Flowers, was a huge help.

Mary Erickson from the Forest Service.

And we got this just very diverse group of people.

It was a couple ranchers, wildlife advocates, hunters, local business owners in Gardner and West Yellowstone, landowners.

And we basically, and we spent, it was a facilitated process for over a year.

And we came up with consensus recommendations, delivered them to the agency partners, and they actually acted on it.

And so some of them were like, they were pretty simple.

Like,