00:00:02 Speaker 1: From Mediators World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This is Cal's weekend review, presented by Steel Steel products are available only at authorized dealers. For more, go to Steel Dealers dot com. Now here's your host, Ryan cal callahan. While the two thousand twenty one drought continues to punish the West, cool and wet conditions have made this summer a mushroom bonanza for the Northeast, especially with Hurricane Slash Tropical Depression Henry or Henri. However you want to go a couple of weeks ago in the end of Hurricane Ida. This past week, along with the bumper crop mushrooms, has come a corresponding spike in mushroom related poisonings. The Northern New England Poison Control Center has seen a near fifty percent increase compared to a typical year. Dr Karen Simone, director of the center, told New Hampshire Public Radio, oh the majority of these cases involved people who didn't even try to identify the mushroom. They just saw it on their lawn, thought it looked interesting, and brought it in a NATA. I do love that adventuresome spirit. I'm sure we have like minded ancestors to thank, but only a few don't eat lawn mushrooms. Kids. There's nothing like catching sight of a promising shape through the underbrush and having it resolved into a bona fide morale or head of the woods. But if you're just starting out, join the mushroom hunting group to learn from an expert. If you are that type of adventuresome good news. Mushroom clubs are thick on the ground, at least one in every state, six different clubs in Pennsylvania alone. You were almost guaranteed to meet some interesting people by joining up. Some notable mushroom hunters from the past include the following Ralph Philip Haines, Jr. CEO of the Haynes Underwear Company and chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts, who bought fourteen thousand, three three acres of woodland with his own money and donated them to North Carolina to create Stone Mountain State Park. That sounds like some comfortable support in you know, the world of conservation. Ellen true Blood and her husband Ted, the legendary writer for Field and Stream and other publications who helped establish the Idaho Wildlife Federation and organized the campaign to stop construction of the nez Perse Damn on the Snake River, saving a key salmon migration route in the process. Is another mushroom hunter and John Cage, avant garde composer who's piece four thirty three involves musicians not playing their instruments for four minutes and thirty three seconds so that audiences here the ambient noises in the room. I'm just going to suppose that the relationship between this piece in cages mushroom hunting is not coincidental. You know what I'm saying. It's exploratory. Anyway, this week we got venom, politics and fire. At first, I'm gonna tell you about my week. In my week, friends and neighbors, has been one wild ride, and like the Robert Earl Keen song, the road goes on forever and the party never ends. As I mentioned, I prepped hard to go deep into the Wai wilderness. I'll tell you that was possibly the understatement of the century. Never in my life have I driven so far on a dirt road in one direction only to unload another smaller, much more comfortable vehicle. The Defender series can am and continue that drive further in a singular direction than I have ever driven one of those things. I prefer the single cab with the six ft bed tons of storage. Great for sleeping also. Anyway, I got on the road late and ended up hitting the trail with the can am put twenty seven miles on trails uncomfortable for the savvaest of dirt bike riders in order to meet up with my buddies who had the sheep tag. They'd already gotten there and packed in ahead of me, so Snort and I were glassing for sheep the next morning after spending night trying to be helpful. When a rifle shot cracks off somewhere in the canyons below. I have a radio and a satellite transmitter called somewhere device, pay off a text on the transmitter to a friend who maybe heard what happened before I could, and send out a call on the radio. Kind Of broken hearted at this point that I missed the sheep hunt. Happy for my friend, but kind of sad to miss out. So I really didn't want to miss out on the pack out. Snort, on the other hand, was elated at the fact that we traveled so far to spend the night and be woken up by her favorite thing, a gun shot. Unfortunately, a return call on the radio said, ah, that was a miss, and friends and neighbors for Snort and I that was our last really good morning, which brings us to the Snort report. About eleven am last Tuesday, Snort found or intercepted a west stern rattlesnake who, instead of buzzing its tail, struck and connected with the leading edge of her left or let's say, driver's side. Here we were about a mile and a half from the Canam, returning from our beautiful morning hike in which we had successfully found sheep using lambs, but very fun. Had that feeling of some accomplishment in the morning, and you know it's important out there in the big and vast Wahi country. That fun, accomplished feeling was replaced with a dread filled triage mindset. What are our options? My long lapsed backcountry medicine courses said keep the victim cool, calm, and keep the bite area, blow the heart. As Snort, who had yelped and sprinted the heel at my side, stared up looking at me like what the hell happened? A singular, bright red drop of blood started form on her ear and I could just think nothing, but well, little girl, we are screwed. Well, older dogs of my past I could tell to sit and they would sit until I returned. But Snort is not quite there yet in her training, so to keep calm option was out, so we casually as we could walk to the canam. I thought about how the now eleven am son was getting very hot and the keep the victim cool option would soon be out, as well as the fact that hanging her by her tail to keep the bite area blow her heart was firmly in the dark humor category and just not an option. Then Snort started to leg behind. One step three five. I stopped at a tall sage brush, dropped my pack on top of it. Snort sauntered up with a look of confusion and already swelling ear dripping with blood. She laid down on her own in the shade. As she went down, so did my heart, and I just thought, man, this is not good. I dropped the rest of my gear, filled up a packable bowl with water and told my dog to stay, then turn and ran my fastest mile time and years back to the buggy. At that point I knew that three things were the most likely, and this was judging from the fast reaction I had seen to the venom, One she would be stumbling up the road to me, working more venom through her body. Two she would wander off to find the spot she wanted to die in, and I would have to track her down, which is not impossible but terrifying. And three she would be dead where I left her. I had my money on number two, as I drove as responsibly as possible her direction. Much to my surprise, Snort was still in her place. Her head was up and greeted by the cloud of dust following the stopping of the buggy. Even more surprisingly, she got up and walked to the open door and stepped up on the seat. Found sheep and the dog is snake bit, I said to my companions. They helped me sort my gear from there, and we briefly discussed what was going to happen or what should My friend said, well, you have to try. That's the right thing to do, and you know, labs don't die from rattlesnakes. Drive safe, but haulass, but drive safe. Three miles into the twenty seven, I blow a sidewall on the front right tire. No spare. Snort is lying on an old bath mat. It is soaked in the cold water from the cooler, and she's draped in a pack towel. I also soaked with cold water from the cooler. It's an incredibly stressful spot. I elect to just keep driving on the deflated tire and rim screw it right. Have to get out somehow if you aren't smart enough to navigate hazards and don't bring a spare tire. I had sent a message to a friend on that Anywhere device who's a retired VET, and he responded with, giver Ben a drill. So I'm digging through my first aid kit while driving, trying not to blow anymore tires, and amazed at how crappy the trail is. Can't believe I've got us in such a hole. I came up with one milligram ben and drill type pill. VET says one hundred milligrams would be better, and lots of water, and well this is all we got, Doc, Now, how is that for a cliffhanger. At the risk of this overshadowing the research based news, I'm gonna make the snort report a two parter, maybe even ten parter. I don't know. I'll fill you in next week. Spoiler alert, the story is ongoing, so you know she made it. Moving on to the politics desk, new administrations are often measured by what they accomplished in the first one hundred days, and here we are two forty two days into the Biden administration. But we still thought it would be a good idea to back up and take a look at Biden's conservation record so far and compare it to Trump's out of the gate back in two thousand seventeen. First, we're gonna look at key appointments and nominations. As the saying goes, person now equals policy. At the Department of the Interior, Trump's first pick, Ryan Zinky, was at the helm shrinking national monuments, a highly controversial move which brought the crazies out of the woodwork a monument designation. Monuments themselves are all individuals. What is true in regards to rules and regulations on one monument, which could be you know, Teddy Roosevelt's House, is not necessarily true for another monument like Grand Staircase Escalante. What we were concerned with was, of course, how will this affect our hunting and fishing? While monument designations can bring more general recreationists to an area, which is generally seen as a negative for those of us who like to hunt fish. A monument designation can also protect valuable hunting ground from further development. Yes, you can hunt on some monuments. Other monuments you cannot. Like I say, monuments are individuals. Reduced monument size has led to an increase in available land leases. If you remember, part of Zincy's platform was framed as quote unquote energy dominance, that is, extracting enough oil and gas from public lands to become more independent of foreign energy producers. Energy production is one extremely important priority for the Department of the Interior and public land. In fact, if you ever go have a meeting at the Department of the Interior, there are drill bits being used as decor all over the meeting rooms. In two thousand eighteen, Interior put leases for over four million acres of public land up for sale at the federal minimum of two dollars an acre, way below market value. The effort was so haphazard that many of the least sales had no bidders at all, and almost all of them got hung up in protracted legal battles. After narrowly avoiding the Greater sage grouse being added to the endangered species list. The department's offering of bergen basement land leases and sage grouse habitat is uh risky. Trump's next pick, David Bernhardt out of Colorado, was considerably better, considering the amount of pro hunting and public land legislation that passed dealing directly with lands overseen by Interior. For example, Trump expanded access on our refuge system by two point three million acres during Bernhardt's watch. Biden's pick for Interior, deb Holland of New Mexico, is an enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe, the first Native American to head the department, and, as she puts it, a thirty fifth generation New Mexican. Interior oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which makes this very relevant. By her own admission, Holland is not an expert when it comes to federal lands or conservation. However, her deputy, Tommy Boudreau, has served at Interior for a total of seven years, with posts overseeing energy and natural resource management. People I talked to in the conservation community trust Boudreaux and say that Holland is arp. So far, the most significant action of Interior under Holland has been a pause on new oil and gas leases on public lands, though that move was blocked by a federal judge. Holland has stated that there won't be an outright ban on new leases and the existing twenty six million least acres remain as is, but so far it's safe to say that new extraction will be dramatically reduced compared to the previous administrations. Interior also expanded hunting and fishing access on National Wildlife refugees back in May, adding two point one million acres for hunters and anglers to enjoy. The next Biden nomination that's getting the most attention is head of the Bureau of Land Management, Tracy stone Manning, currently senior policy adviser at the National Wildlife Federation. Manning is apparently an avid hunter and angler, and she's had a career full of practical and effective conservation action, brokering agreements between conservationists and industry, lefties and righties. However, the headlines have been focused on a case from when as a graduate student at the University of Montana, Stone Manning typed and sent a letter to federal officials saying that members of the radical environmental group Earth First had driven metal spikes into trees and Idaho's Clearwater National Forest Chainsaw chains can break into multiple pieces when they hit metal spikes, threatening injury or death to laggers using them. The same happens when saw blades at lumber mills come into contact with these spikes, if they make it to that point anyway. Eventually, stone Manning testified against Earth First members in exchange for immunity. But we can't look away from the fact that she was part of an effort to achieve political ends using the threat of violence. But certain aspects of the opposition to stone Manning have gone overboard in my opinion. Firstly, opponents are now claiming Earth first most extremist claims as stone Manning's current beliefs, which is, you know, ridiculous, to be clear, ridiculous on the fact that college was a a long time ago. For instance, let's say you were a way into the band Slayer right out of college. By the time you're fifty, you likely don't blast the album Raining Blood at every opportunity. That part of college does not define you in the present despite hanging onto that really cool T shirt. You are a different person you were nineteen to twenty three ish. No judgment. I have health insurance now I have changed. Secondly, the tree spike incident has been well known for years and was aired when Stone Manning was nominated to work for Governor Bullock here in Montana. No one mentioned tree spiking during the recent BLM hearings, when the senators could have debated whether it disqualified her. Then instead, the incident was brought up after the hearing. This strategy seems designed not to actually scuttle her nomination, but rather to be used to thwart any progress the BLM could make with her at the helm, which would be a disaster. The BLM has a list a mile long that has to be taken care of as soon as possible, droughts, invasive species, feral horses, on and on, and if opponents paralyzed Bureau with this issue, we all lose. Manning's domination potentially brings too much controversy to an already controversial office. It seems certain she will be confirmed. If so, we need to hold her feet to the fire to run the BLM. Well. Trump's initial pick for BLM was no pick at all. The post remained open from two thousand seventeen through nineteen, with four different acting directors over that time, without strong leadership, even more extractive leases on public land where granted well under market value. Eventually, Trump tapped William Perry Pendley, who longtime listeners to this show will remember as w p P. Yeah, you know me, the anti public land activist who was never confirmed and moved the BLM office to Colorado. Pendley didn't really manage to accomplish that much on his anti public land agenda. Doing nothing had consequences. Dozens of valuable people left the BLM during his time, and the list of problems that BLM was supposed to address just kept getting longer. BLM could be whittled down to controversy from Team Biden we'll see where it goes, and starting the agency from Team Trump. There's much more to cover on the Trump Biden conservation head to head. So next time we'll bring you part two. Part two may make you happy or may make you angry, but you'll have to wait and hear. Remember, no matter who is at the helm, it is up to you to write in call and petition to make sure your interests are represented. Moving on to the wildfire desk, what does wildlife do in wildfire? Forest fires are raging across the United States in what has become an annual source of anxiety for Americans out west. Here in Bozeman, the smoke in the air is a daily remind of the ninety three some odd active fires currently consuming over two and a half million acres of lyon from Montana, California. If you want to check on what's going on in regards to fire, check out www dot n i FC dot gov forward slash fire information. Human residents aren't the only ones who have to deal with the ever expanding conflagrations. How's that for a five dollar word? It means big fire. Forest critters must also adapt to the smoke in the heat, but they don't have squadrons of brave firefighters to defend their homes or heat resistant materials to build their nests. They do have millions of years of evolution, which isn't something to sneeze at, the intensity and quantity of wildfires may be increasing with climate change, but animals have been dealing with these fires for much longer than humans have. Their adaptations allow most to survive, and there are no documented cases of a wildfire wiping out an entire population or species. That doesn't mean everything is hunky dory. When of wildfire sweeps through town, young, sick, and old animals are at risk of being caught up in the blaze, and fires often claim otherwise healthy Large animals like deer and bear. Fish can also be affected. Depending on the extent of the fire. Water chemistry, turbidity, and runoff levels can kill some fish and force others to find more suitable habitat, but most animals do alright. Birds can just fly away. Small animals can burrow underground or hiding fire resistant shelters like rocks. Brian Wolfer, the game program manager for Oregon Fish and Wildlife, told me that while especially in tanse or fast moving fires can be dangerous, most large game animals like deer and elk will survive your typical fire. They often simply run away and circle back around after the fire has run its course. They can also hide out in rivers and lakes. Sometimes animals even use fires to their advantage. Predators like bears and raccoons have been observed hunting animals trying to escape the flames, and wolves returned to burned out areas to scavenge anything that didn't run away if you were called the wildfires in Australia, studies found that GPS feral cats moved into burn areas to you know, clean up the ones that couldn't make it. Most animals can escape an advancing wall of fire, but they can't do much to restore their habitat once it's been burned up. Species that depend on mature forest habitat can have a tough time after a fire has burned all the old trees. Animals like the northern spotted owl are especially at risk. Last year, the Labor Day wildfires in Oregon pushed the species even closer to extinction. Spotted owls depend on old growth temperate rainforests, but last year's intense fires burned up even this fire resistant landscape. Other animals thrive following a fire, including most game species, deer, elk, and bare Numbers can actually increase in the wake of a wildfire because these animals depend on young worst habitat rather than large old trees. A heavily shaded understory can reduce forage quality, but fires reset shrub and grass communities, add nutrients to the ground, and open the canopy to allow more sunlight to reach the forest floor. All of this is great for the growth of plants that deer and elk love. Some fires scortch the ground so that grasses can no longer grow, but most forests sea green growth after the first fall rain. Readily available grasses and shrubs help does and cows beef up before winter, which in turn gives them more nutrientsfer milk production. It can take a few years. Elk tend to be slower than dear to recolonize an area, but that increased reproductive potential means more deer and elk on the landscape. It doesn't happen after every fire, but a lot of fires seeing increase in game populations. Oddly enough, invasive plant species pose the most serious threat to a landscape following a fire. Fire creates a kind of survival of the fit environment amongst plants and invasives like cheat grass can quickly move in after fires and replace what was once high quality forage for wildlife. These invasive plants aren't great to eat, and they can keep native trees and shrubs from growing along rivers, which increases the temperature of the water and hurts fish like salmon and steelhead. Game and Fish departments combat these threats by working with private landowners to recede properties with native plants. Last year, for example, Oregon Fish and Wildlife used helicopters to drop about six thousand pounds of native grass seeds along twenty four miles of riparian area. One last note, if you spy an animal wandering through a burned out area, don't assume it's been orphaned by fire. It's probably doing just fine, and trying to feed it or quote unquote save it will almost certainly do more harm than good. Wild animals are better at escaping wildfire than most people. If you want to help, consider donating time or money organizations working to restore habitat The deer and elk will appreciate newly seated grasses far more than the bucket of corn you leave out in your backyard. To make sure you learn something today, what is the difference between venom and poison. We've covered this before. Venom is delivered, poison is consumed. So if you're ever at a dinner party someone eats something and says, I've been poisoned. They're right, but you can still actually say, you know, bro, you did that to yourself. Whereas if you took a fork and dipped it in poison then stabbed that person, you could say to the bro that on the plate it was poison. You en venomed the fork by placing the poison on the fork, and the act of stabbing that person is what turned that poison into venom. Think of that. That's all I got for you this week. Thank you so much for listening. Remember, if you come across it down on tree in the middle of your hunting road this fall, you're gonna wish you had a clean, quiet, powerful steel chainsaw with you. Go to www dot Steel Dealers dot com to find a knowledgeable steel dealer near you. You'll thank me and as always, don't forget to tell me what's going on in your neck of the woods by writing in to a s K C. A L. That's asked Cal at the Meat Eater dot com. Thanks again, and I'll talk to you next week.

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