Tim McGonigal presents his latest "McGonigal's Chronicles" podcast - his guest is Mike Hoggan.
Listen here:
The "McGonigal’s Chronicles: Making Montana Connections" podcast is available on Omny.fm, iTunes, Spotify, Google, and Stitcher.
Previous guests include:
- Jeff Ament of the rock band Pearl Jam
- Sarah Calhoun, creator of the Red Ants Pants Music Festival
- Jamie Ford, Great Falls-based NYT best-selling author
- Nada Bakos, former CIA operative
- John Cameron, retired Great Falls police detective
- Dava Newman, former deputy administrator of NASA
Hoggan spent more than 42 years with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services Program, working alongside sheep ranchers and managing predator populations.
From coyotes and wolves to mountain lions and grizzly bears, Mike Hoggan saw it all in more than four decades as a government hunter.
He has compiled some of his more memorable stories in a new book, ‘Between Predator & Prey: Forty-Two Years a Government Hunter.’
Not only did he help relocate animals; he also helped farmers and ranchers avoid losing livestock to predators.
Mike’s career started in 1978 on a Nevada sheep ranch.
“While I was there, I experienced firsthand what coyotes do, and I met government trappers. So that's what I wanted to do,” said Hoggan.
After 10 years of living in a sheep wagon, he eventually made his way to Valier, where in 1992 he became a wildlife service specialist.
“I always thought that our agency, USDA Wildlife Services, did more for the recovery of the grizzly bear than anything,” said Hoggan.
Since retiring in 2020, Mike has been running a sheep operation with his wife Maureen.
Watch the interview from June 2025:
He came up with the idea of writing a book about his experiences about 15 years ago when he and a friend were discussing a story about a coyote killing a llama.
It got Mike to thinking about all the different encounters he’d had and he decided to start writing them down in a spiral notebook.
When Maureen found he notebook years later, she urged Mike to write the book. While Mike did the writing, Maureen handled the artwork and marketing.
“This book tells a story of wildlife services and one person that worked for them,” said Hoggan.
The book includes about 30 chapters of different experiences in Mike's life, including a chapter on unexplained mutilations.
He noted, “The Rocky Mountain Front is unique. You got it all. You got the grizzly bears, mountain lions, wolves.”
