Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
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No shortcuts, just gear that works. Check it out at firstlight.com. That's F-I-R-S-T.com. L I T E.com. All right, man. Joined today by Matt Scoglin from North Bridger Bison, a private, uh, like a, like a, a, a Buffalo rancher. Exactly. Yeah.
I'll tell you the first thing I want to tell you about is, um, dude, the, the, the, the hanger stakes that you gave me, you give me off those animals is like, is I hate to say it because, uh, I should be saying this about deer meat or something, but dude, that is some of the best stuff in the world, man. I know.
It's so good. We eat a bunch of them, and it's like the flavor, texture. Yeah, they're just so good.
Hey, tell people, because that's not... If you're cutting up a deer, hanger steak isn't on the menu. You know what I mean? Tell people what... It's an off cut.
Yeah, so it's funny. So it's this... It's this steak that hangs suspended right in front of the tenderloins. And so early on I would, you know, I'd kill a Buffalo, got it, take it to Amsterdam meat shop, our butcher. And they'd be like, where's the hanger? I'd be like, guys, like, what are you talking about? And they're like, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, right here.
And I'd be out there by myself. I'd be like, I'm like, are they messing with me? Like, I cannot find this thing. And I had to YouTube it, but so it's, it's hanging and it's suspended and it's, um, it's covered in like fascia skin. It doesn't look like anything. And if you didn't know, it just comes out with the gut pile. Um, and it's kind of like attached to like the liver and the lungs.
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Chapter 2: What unique qualities make bison meat special?
You know what I didn't hit you up for? Is it some tails, man? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yep. So, He gave me some marrow bones. Yep. Okay. Some hanger steak, heart. I'm trying to think what else we had in there. Some shank pieces. Oh, yeah. Some shank pieces. And we cooked all this stuff up. So we did this big meal of all sort of the non-typical, non-standard things from one of your animals.
And the hangers, we just marinated them. Yep. And grilled them, and then kind of cut them against the grain. Dude, it is the... Yeah. Like, it is a perfect food.
Yeah, 100%.
That's amazing.
And the thing that's cool, I mean, you can... I've done it multiple times where I'll kill a buffalo, gut it, and just grab the hanger for us, and we'll eat it for dinner, you know, six hours later. Perfect. Like, so good.
Yeah. Yeah. Tell people specifically what you do. Like, what your business is. Yeah. Like, how you make your living.
Totally. So... Pretty straightforward. So, um, my wife, Sarah and I, and our kids, Otto and Greta, we started our bison ranch, North Bridger bison. We started it from scratch eight years ago and we're located.
Is that all it's been?
Yeah. You're kicking ass for eight years.
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Chapter 3: How did Matt Skoglund transition from lawyer to bison rancher?
The best example I can give was that the horse Butte peninsula, north of west Yellowstone is this peninsula that goes out into Hebgen lake. And on the east side is bordered by Yellowstone park. 25 years ago, there was a public grazing lease and a private cattle ranch on horse Butte.
The, the federal grazing leases have been permanently retired and that private ranch was bought and the cattle are gone. But so you have this peninsula. that never has a cow on it ever. And we were still using taxpayer dollars to haze bison back into the park to protect cattle that literally don't exist. And everyone agreed. We're like, this is crazy.
And so it was stuff like that that we were able to agree on, present to the partners, and they expanded the tolerance. And that was really satisfying work. And I would say, but now I feel like you know, I feel like we accomplished all the low hanging fruit and now it's just, it's tough. It's a tough issue.
Yeah. Yeah. When you mentioned that, that I don't want to spend too much time on this subject, but you mentioned that like joint management, there has been for sure. Like the, um, bringing in public hunts. Yep. Right. So, so there are, there are like, there are of the animals coming out of the park in the winter. There are tribal hunts. Yep. There are public draw hunts. Yeah. I put in for, um,
one of the i i put in for there's three there's three different hunt codes or hunt availabilities yeah i put in for the one that you're never going to draw yeah every year i put in for that one yeah nice so there are and like and guys here in the office have drawn have drawn the tags and so there is a there is an increased management perspective yeah but it is not as clean as um it's not as clean as what say elk and joy oh yeah no not even close yeah yeah no it's a
It's a, it's a complicated issue with unfortunately no, no clear end in sight. Yeah.
Yeah. So when you were doing that and you were involved in, in, in trying to restore the animals as wildlife. Yep. And I think I want to add one interesting point about that is when I first got into the subject all these years ago, someone had mentioned like we had solved the problem of
genetic extinction uh-huh yep right like if you go back to 1900 yeah there was a real risk of the species going genetically extinct or going through like really terror you know it did go through terrible bottlenecks but there was like there was a time when like I've made this point before there was a time when a lightning bolt could have feasibly killed a
A significant percentage of all the animals that existed.
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Chapter 4: What challenges did they face in starting a bison ranch?
Yeah, absolutely. No, very, very well said. And so for me, it was, you know, I, I, I spent 10 years at this organization and just over time, um, the nonprofit environmental policy work, it's, it's frustrating because you, you lack control.
And so like the example I always give, um, you know, there's been this push to restore Buffalo in central Montana in and around the Charles M. Russell national wildlife refuge and the Missouri breaks and blah, blah. And the state did all this work to tee it up with a very, very, you know, start with a very small population. And, um,
And I'd meet with a state agency scientist and a federal agency scientist, and I'd be like, you guys need to do this. And they'd say, Matt, we couldn't agree more with you, but politically that's a non-starter. And you go back to your office and you're like, what are we doing? They have these public meetings, people write letters, they have this whole thing, and it's a dog and pony show.
Because it's a political decision that whoever the power that be is Is at that time is not going to make. And so I just, you feel like you're spinning your wheels. Yeah. And so I just started to get frustrated with that process. And at the same time, I, you know, and I, and, you know, conservation groups are super important. I respect the hell out of that work.
Um, I just, I just found it wasn't for me. And I also found like big picture. I didn't think, I don't think that it, that that work really moves the needle the way people think it does. And I say that cause I, you know, explain that to me. You see these groups that, um, you know, you get these fundraising emails, you know, donate $50 to save the whales, donate $50 to save the elephants.
And so someone, someone writes a check for $50 and they feel like, all right, I did my public duty for wildlife, biodiversity, conservation for the year. And then the rest of their life, they don't really think about it. And so that $50, it's like a giant wildfire and putting an ounce of water on it. It doesn't do anything.
And so if we're really going to protect biodiversity, which we're in the middle of an extinction crisis, it has to come from how we produce things and how we consume things like through the business world. And I, I just, that came, that just became very clear to me. And so I wanted to leave the nonprofit world, go into the for-profit world.
And, and I was really attracted to food because, you know, when you think about it, we have billions of people on the planet. And if you're lucky, you get to eat three meals a day. You fact that out across the billions of people on the planet. And you realize very quickly that the production of food has enormous environmental and social consequences.
Um, and then very simply, I also, I just like, I love all the Leopold. I love land. And so to be able to like work on a piece, a lot, a piece of ground that you can touch, smell, feel. Watch it through the seasons, hopefully improve it, increase the biodiversity and then provide food for people that is, you know, amazing for the environment. Amazing for them. Great for biodiversity.
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Chapter 5: How do pronghorns interact with ranch fences?
Yeah.
So go under, go over, like, like talk about that.
So, okay. So, um, so, you know, pronghorn iconic species in the West that, uh, uh, you know, second, second fastest animal on earth behind the cheetah. They live, you know, their defense mechanism is their speed. So they like to hang out in flat, open country and see what's coming and they'll outrun it. And for whatever reason, they can jump fences, but like a lot of them don't know that.
You see it now and then. Yep.
Very rare. And so they crawl under fences and there's a lot of work being done to remove the bottom wire on ranches because in big winters, they'll find Dozens of pronghorn dead pronghorn piled up in the corner of a, of a ranch or public ground, whatever, because the snow drifted there and they can't crawl under the fence and they don't know then go over.
Um, so our fence, so high tinsel, it's just a smooth wire. Um, and it's got a, a, a flex to it. So, uh, deer, elk, and moose can jump over pronghorn can crawl under. I see mule deer do both. Like they sometimes crawl under and sometimes jump over.
Yeah. Cause they'll get little dugout areas and they'll keep using it and using it and it'll eventually get like a little trough under there.
Exactly.
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Chapter 6: What are the challenges of managing bison herds?
Yep. And, um, and then when I say the middle wire is hot, So it's, it means it's, it's electrified. So we, our whole fence runs off solar and that middle wire is hot and it, and, and when a, if a bison touches it, they get shocked and they're super smart. So they learn to avoid it. And then that behavior is passed on down through the herd. So they all avoid the fence.
But I say it's a psychological barrier because if, if they wanted to run through it, they could run through it. Like, like we put our arm through a, through a spider web, you know, it would take nothing. So I always say like, if you, if you really want a Buffalo proof fence, you need like a 14 foot brick wall because any, even if it's barbed wire, woven wire, like they could bust through it.
But the great thing you have going for you with bison is their herd instinct is so is still so strong. You know, it's tens of thousands of years, hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, but have programmed into them safeties with the herd. They always want to be together. And so it ultimately comes down to your management.
As long as they've got plenty of grass and water, they're not looking over the fence line and they want to be together. And it's funny because this time of year is when we have issues because the grass is starting to grow. They're excited about that. And the youngsters like yearlings, they'll periodically get on the wrong side of the fence.
And I would think that they were like, when I was 16, it's like, woohoo, I'm going to raise hell and go explore. And it's the opposite. You can, you can feel their stress. They're, they're walking the fence. Like why back in, how do I get back to the herd? Cause I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm vulnerable by myself.
Um, so yeah, so, so again, and that's like another example of like, people were skeptical of our fencing and now they, they see the bison on the right side of the fence. They're grazing. They see me field harvesting them and they're like, yeah, we're, we're cool with this.
On blood trails.
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Chapter 7: How does bison breeding work in a ranch setting?
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How big is a bull?
So, uh, uh, you know, a big mature bull is, is well over 2000 pounds. Um, they're, they're, they're, they're massive and their heads. I had to, I had to, I had to, I had to field harvest a big bull last memorial last year, Memorial day weekend by myself. And, um, It's it, their heads must weigh like 200 pounds, like just they're massive animals and no separate fencing for those.
No, we just, we, we run it as one herd year round. Yeah. Just cause, and the thought process there is from a, from a land health standpoint, if you zoom out, you know, a thousand years ago, you know, we had tens of millions of Buffalo, tens of millions of elk pronghorn. So the entire west evolved with grazing animals, removing animals from the landscape. Totally unnatural. Yeah.
Like the west evolved with animals. Full stop.
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Chapter 8: What is the process for harvesting and selling bison meat?
Can't argue that. Um, but the way that they, the way that they grazed, like the Gallatin Valley, they, you know, thousands of animals would have come in here and they would have grazed, pooped, peed, wallowed, just, just made a mess of the place. And then left for a long time.
So the West evolved with- To the point where mythologies, like native mythologies- 100%. Were formed- Yes. Around where do they go? Where do they go? And in many cases, if you look at like Plains tribes- Yep. In many cases, you see there are literal interpretations of these, but then there's also these stories as parable, but it's that they went into a hole in the ground. Yep. Yep. Right.
They went into a mountain. Yep. Because they would be so gone. Yep. Yeah. And then all of a sudden they're back.
Yeah. Right.
And yeah. It would inspire like mythologies to explain like, where do they go?
Yeah. No, I I'm endlessly fascinated by that stuff. Like your buddy, Dan Flores been on here, has his own mediator podcast. Like his book, wild new world was like, I just blew my mind.
Yeah.
Like just over and over. And it's interesting. I was just reading, uh, I'm a little late to the game, but I'm finally reading braiding sweet grass, amazing book. And she just, the chapter I just finished, because the other thing with what you're talking about was, it was like, where did they go? And it was like, how do we get them back? Like, what do we do?
And I was just reading that, um, some tribes in the Pacific Northwest had the same thing around salmon where they would light, uh, light, light the grass on fire on a cliff and along the ocean, basically sending a signal out to the salmon time to come back, which I thought was super cool.
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