MeatEater, Inc. is an outdoor lifestyle company founded by renowned writer and TV personality Steven Rinella. Host of the Netflix show MeatEater and The MeatEater Podcast, Rinella has gained wide popularity with hunters and non-hunters alike through his passion for outdoor adventure and wild foods, as well as his strong commitment to conservation. Founded with the belief that a deeper understanding of the natural world enriches all of our lives, MeatEater, Inc. brings together leading influencers in the outdoor space to create premium content experiences and unique apparel and equipment. MeatEater, Inc. is based in Bozeman, MT.

Cal Of The Wild

Ep. 10: Tasty Babies, Rainbow Trout, and Independence

Ryan Callaghan with yellow Labrador, 'CAL OF THE WILD' title and side 'PODCAST MEATEATER NETWORK'

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17m

This week, Cal talks about the tasty offspring of catfish and chickens, rainbows in Idaho, and the new land speed arctic fox record, as well as other fun facts from the conservation world.

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00:00:09 Speaker 1: From Mediators World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This is Kel's we can review with Ryan Kell Kell and now here's Kel and Alabama's meth fueled attack squirrel has been safely released into the wild. Of course, it doesn't look like the squirrel was given math. If you've been following the story of a multi felonied man in Alabama, you know all about D's Nuts, which is the name of the pet squirrel in question. Fun side note, I actually have a friend whose email account, far into adulthood was D's Nuts at hotmail dot com. If he's still got that email, please write him and tell him to grow up. You've got mail anyway. The Associated Press interviewed the felon while I was on the loose somewhere in Limestone County, Alabama. Limestone County is just on the outskirts a Huntsville, Alabama. If geographical marker is needed. Local officers were warned ahead of executing a search warrant to look out for the man's meth dosed pet squirrel trained to attack on command. Authorities were unable to confirm that the squirrel was fed meth, and oddly enough, the previous owner denied the allegations of feeding the squirrel meth on a Facebook video taken while he was still on the lamp. He was apprehended after eventually ending a high speed chase by ramming another vehicle with a stolen motorcycle. If having multiple felony warrants, high speed chases, and possible animal cruelty doesn't sound bad enough, it is illegal to keep a squirrel as a pet in Alabama. As a kid, we're always told smoking pot was the gateway drug to meth. Now I guess we know what meth is, the gateway drug to illegal possession of a squirrel named des Nuts. This week we're gonna talk about rainbow trout, Arctic foxes, foo goo, and some really cool stuff about wildlife and Independence Day. But first I'm gonna tell you about my week. I went down to that big, awesome Snake River country just south of Yellowstone National Park and met up with some friends to celebrate the willful giving up of independence, freedom and general care free living to marriage. You know, a bachelor party and not mine, a friend of mine. We had a great crew, great camp site. We cooked up crispy Mountain lion carnetas paired with some fine Portuguese wines, wines imported by the bachelor himself. So you know, check out Osito Wine distributing here in the state of Montana. If you do, maybe I won't have to buy a wedding gift and remember enjoy responsibly. On top of the food and wine, we fished hard for two days at the boat launches at the South Fork. We noticed freezers tricked out as rainbow trout fish head receptacles. The story behind these nifty setups is this Idaho Fishing Game would like anglers to kill rainbow trout in order to give the native cutthroat trout some room to breathe or reproduce. Rather, and order to incentivize anglers to kill rainbows, IDFG captures and estimated six percent of the rainbow trout population. Each winner implants tags in their heads and then re releases them. Think of those tags as winning lottery tickets. Any angler who turns in the tagged head of rainbow trout to Idaho Fishing Game wins between twenty and a thousand bucks. In turn, those collected trout heads give up a lot of important information to the biologists at Idaho Fishing game, so everybody wins except the rainbows. Of course, Idaho fishing game also coals rainbows by a fish weirs and shocking anglers are only a piece of the puzzle. The cutthroat trout is one of the very few native trout species in the US, and the Snake River variation, the fine spotted cutthroat, is in a bit of trouble. Remember the movie Braveheart when King Edward the First says the problem with Scotland is it's full of Scots. If we can't get them out, will breed them out. That's an abbreviated version of that quote. That's basically what's happening down on the South Fork of the Snake. Instead of English lords trying to breathe the Scots out of Scotland. Here, here you've got rainbow trout breeding the cutthroat trout out of the South Fork of the Snake. Rainbows are prolific and they hybridize with cutthroat, producing lots of rainbows and lots of hybrids or cut bows. When I say the lots, The two thousand eighteen fish count came in at an astonishing six thousand, two hundred and fifty three fish per mile. That's more than a fish per foot. Of those, about half were rainbows or cut bows. This is an abbreviated synopsis of the South Fork situation here on the Weekend Review. Please check out an in depth article written by meat eaters own Sam Longdren called Shock and Awe Suppressing rainbow trout on the South Fork of the Snake River. The issue I want to address here is a social one, not so much about fish, but about fisherman. I spoke with a bunch of anglers on this trip, and if you were none too pleased with efforts by the state to reduce rainbow trout numbers, and some of these anglers appeared downright displeased with yours truly for vocalizing my desire to help out with those efforts to reduce rainbow trout numbers. They like catching rainbows. I get it. I like catching rainbows. Fish or fund to catch. If you happen to be a fishing guide, more fish provide more opportunity for a successful day on the water and better tips. But think of this, Anglers can go damn near any place in the world to catch rainbow trout. According to the USGS, rainbows have made it to all fifty states, including Hawaii, as well as Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Further afield, rainbows are thriving in South America, Africa, Asia, Australasia which is a nifty term for Australia, New Zealand and those other big gast islands, oh and Europe and all maybe a hundred and twenty countries. The fine spotted cutthroat, however, only exists in the south Fork of the Snake River. So to all my angling friends out there, whether you're in the guide seat or just pitching flies and spoons on an evening float, we as a people have something special with this fish. Step up and protect your resource in the tastiest way possible. Smoke a rainbow or hell fry at. That's what I did, pan fried, But before I did the cooking, I lopped their heads off, put them in a plastic bag provided by the State Idaho, along with my license info and contact information, and dropped all that in one of those aforementioned fancy freezers rigged up as rainbow trout head receptacles. Believe me, you'll know if one of my fish heads brings into cash prize. Moving on a new land speed world record has been set. If you're the competitive type, relax. This record is species specific to the Arctic fox. A young female Arctic fox fitted with a radio collar. I should actually tell you female fox is called the vixen, so you could say a young vixen fitted with a satellite transmitter traveled from Norway to Canada in seventy six days. That's a distance of two thousand, one hundred and seventy five miles. Likely in an attempt to find both food and a suitable mate. The fox averaged about thirty miles a day from Spitzbergen, Norway, to Elsmere Island, Canada. Spitzbergen is located on the small Bard Archipelago for those of you not up speed on your geography terms, and archipelago is a cluster of islands. The longest travel day for this Arctic fox was a big ninety six point three mile push as it crossed the Greenland ice sheet. This is the fastest known dispersal of the species. Previous record was held by a mail fox in Alaska. There are a lot of questions regarding this fox's journey across two thousand, one hundred and seventy five miles of snow and ice, Like, what did it eat? That's a lot of calories burned to travel that far in the cold, and of course why mate the effort. But what I think we should focus on is the fact that we, the United States of America, just prior to the celebration of the birth of our nation, just lost the Arctic fox overland dispersal distance time record to a Norwegian triumph of the female of the species, for sure, but come on, moving onto the Florida desk. Fugu or puffer fish, is a higher risk, high reward type of culinary experience. The reward it's a tasty fish. Supposedly, the risk death In Japan, Fungu sales hit about ten thousand tons annually, and butchers have to study for around two years in order to prepare the fish. Despite rigorous training and tight regulations, around fifty people die in Japan every year from improperly prepared fugu. A couple more fun fugu facts. Fugu is the only traditional Japanese dish that can never be served to the emperor, and fugu roughly translates to river piglet, which actually makes it sound a lot more tempting to me. The puffer fish produces a toxin called tetro dotoxin. Now, we all know potassium cyanide, at least in a poisonous reference sort of way. Well point five five grams or half a gram of potassium cyanide. That's like a dollar bill torn in half. That's half a gram anyway, half a gram of potassium cyanide will kill a hundred and sixty pound person, whereas only two milligrams of tetro dotoxin has been proven to be a fatal dose. So a tablet of this toxin, the size of your average ibprofen pill, will kill twenty five of your buddies, assuming they weigh around a hundred and sixty pounds apiece. Tetro Dotoxin blocks the activation of nerve cells, which causes all sorts of problems but will eventually lead to paralysis and death. Seems like something folks wouldn't want to mess with. Well, Florida man walked into a hospital feeling the effects of both too much fudo and too much cocaine. Fun fact, puffer fish is also known as blowfish, and cocaine can be referred to as you get a Actually, there's another old joke in here. You know how some folks say I treat my body like a temple, others an amusement park. Well, if that's true, this guy treats his body like an old dingy casino. Sure he might have a good time for a while, but you might get robbed on the way out. Anyway. Our adventurous eater slash sniffer experienced chest pains, vomiting, numbness, abdominal pain, weakness. He was placed on dialysis to prevent total kidney failure, developed pneumonia and as lungs attempted to shut down. Must be a tasty fish. When you consider the so called dangerous delicacies, you really have to wonder if the flavor is actually in the risk the height, so to speak. Like when you look at that old hot dog in the back of the fridge, you know what has the potential to cause serious illness. You weigh the severe intestinal battle that could result from its consumption. A voice is telling you know, don't do it. Another voice is saying it's fine and so convenient. Is that mental back and forth? The budget version of Fugu also on the subject of strange foods, and also in Florida. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has declared open season on iguanas. The f WC encourages homeowners to kill green iguanas on their own property whenever possible. Iguanas can also be killed year round and without a permit, on twenty two public lands in South Florida. Green Iguanas are native to Central America and parts of South America, as well as some Caribbean islands. Aside from being non native, these iguanas are extremely destructive. They dig extensive tunnel systems that can undermine the integrity of roads, houses, and sea walls. They're difficult to contain because they can climb, swim, and really haulass on the land. And of course they have such a very diet they out compete native critters. On top of that, they carry salmonella and routinely distribute that nasty bacteria as they shed their skin. The green iguana is just one of foul of invasive plants and animals plaguing the state of Florida. The good news here is the tasty silver lining, so to speak, is in my experience, the green iguana is delicious. From my small dabbling in the back legs, loins and tail meat of these invasive reptiles. The flavor is as if a catfish and a chicken got together and had a seventeen pound, five foot long tasty baby. Just the other day, someone was telling my buddy Steve about the pleasures of heading out in a canoe with his twenty two rifle and coming back with a cooler half filled with crushed ice and severed green iguana tails, then bringing those tails over to a Cuban buddy of his who's got his iguana tail cooking dialed in perfectly. So get to it, Florida. Next time I come down to pester your fish, I want to see a Cuban style iguana food trucker too. But don't get too fired up on eating reptiles just yet, especially raw geckos. The Brisbane Times reported on a thirty four year old man that eight a raw echo at a Christmas party last December. Like iguanas, geckos can carry the Salmonella bacteria, and this party prank backfired to say the least, green vomit, black urine, testicle, swollen to the size of grape fruits, and eventually death. There's nothing funny about this situation. I've certainly done my fair share of stupid stuff. On the subject of dares going wrong, over in the EU, a kid had to have his appendix removed after he had complained of severe stomach pain. When the surgeon removed the severely swollen appendix, they found it full of lead shots. It turns out the youngster described as hyperactive, had been teased by his older siblings into playing a game of eating lead shot left over on the family dinner table after bird dinners. Another case in Australia of eating stuff as a stunt involved a garden slug. This day are taken and completed at age nineteen, didn't catch up with the prankster until age seven. Along with the slug, the young man ingested rat lung worm, which eventually turned into EO sinophilic meningio cephalitis. As a note here, the c d C advises against eating raw or undercook slugs, snails, frogs, shrimp, and prawns personally um with you right up until the shrimp and prawns. Additionally, perhaps the c d C should add something in that warns against eating things on a dare, or perhaps for all you folks listening when you go to put something in your mouth, you should stop and ask could this be considered to pray? Since this is technically the Independence Day issue of Cal's Weekend Review, consider the annual now world famous Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest. Considering the context and the historical reality of what we're celebrating, that just seems like kind of a waste. Think on the folks that volunteered to knock back another invasive species back in seventy eight. The invasive species in this case would be the British. Anyway, these volunteers often went hungry and had to scrounge for whatever they could. Fellow you may have heard of General George Washington understood how to harvest the fruits of the land, even use those fruits to fuel his army. According to the general's journals, he killed five wild turkeys one November day, some deer a few days after, and again after being quote and camped and gone a hunting, killed five buffaloes, wounded some others, and killed three more deer. Another General Montgomery, under Washington's command, marched north in the invasion of Canada. His army quote shot so many pigeons that huge piles of the birds were heaped several feet high before butchering at Valley Forge. The first and second Pennsylvania Brigades, consisting of just under two thousand men, consumed eight thousand, nine hundred and twenty one pounds or four and a half pounds per person of American shad that may have seventy eight excavations of the Valley Forge site. Interestingly enough, turned up more white tailed deer bones in the Virginia Brigades camp than the Pennsylvanians. I'm not sure if there is what state creates better Hunter's rivalry, but that camp evidence could lay a good historical foundation for one. I find it interesting that while Washington was out feeding himself and his men by any means necessary, he chose to express his frustration with the Moderates and the Continental Congress by describing them as quote still feeding themselves upon the dainty food of reconciliation. Anyway, if you need a new independent state tradition, fuel your celebration with some wild game, but not eating as a prank. Thanks for listening. I hope you had a safe and awesome weekend out enjoying our American birthright. Are fantastic and beautiful public lands remember to leave me a review by hitting that furthest right hand star and subscribe. If you want to let me know how I'm doing or how I screwed up, please shoot me an email to a S K C A L that's asked Cal at the meat eater dot com. If you want to follow me the s the time see if I'm totally full of it, you can follow me on the Instagram at old Cow four oh six oh L C L four oh six. I'll talk to you next week.

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