00:00:02 Speaker 1: From Mediator's 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, a dentist from Pennsylvania, is being charged with murder after prosecutors say he killed his wife on a hunting trip in Africa, somehow covered it up and collected five million dollars in life insurance. You have a talents thing. Back in two thousand sixteen, sixty seven year old Lawrence Rudolph and his wife Bianca took a trip to Zambia so Bianca could hunt leopard. While they were there, Bianca was shot in the chest with a twelve gage Browning shotgun. According to reporting People magazine, Lawrence told the police it was an accident. He was taking a shower when it happened, and he said his wife shot herself while trying to put the shotgun in its case, which had been loaded from the hunt the previous day. At the time, Zambian police, as well as insurance investigators, determined that the doctor's story checked out. But that's not where this story ends. Lawrence had his wife's body cremated right away, which, according to one of Bianca's friends, was against her wishes as a strict Catholic at the time. This friend asked the FBI to investigate Bianca's death because she suspected foul play. She claims Lawrence had been cheating on his wife and was verbally abusive. The situation also aroused the suspicion of the consular chief at the U. S Embassy and Zambia. He told prosecutors he had a quote bad feeling about the situation, and he took photos of the body before Lawrence had a chance to cremate it. He didn't ask the husband's permission, and Lawrence was quote livid when he found out. Investigate ters have also cast out on Bianca's ability to shoot herself. With the shotgun question, a Colorado medical examiner said it would have been quote physically impossible to fire this particular shotgun from its case and produced the wound seen on the body. In addition, the consular chief who examined the body told the FBI the wound did not appear to have burn marks on it, meaning the shotgun was fired from some distance away from the body. As you might imagine. Doctor Lawrence had vociferously denied these allegations. He's pointed out through his lawyers that none of the initial investigators accused him of anything. He called the current investigation outrageous prosecution and accused the government of manufacturing their case against him. Lawrence is being charged with foreign murder and mail fraud, and the case has been filed in a federal court in Colorado, where one of the insurance companies has an office. The trial is scheduled for February, and remember innocent until proven guilty. In related news, cat loving animal rights groups are strangely silent about the dental profession after this trip to Africa, which is odd. Sure, no lions were killed, but you know a sixty ish year old lady would qualify as uh. I mean, I'm not gonna say it. This week we've got salmon legislation and monkey business. But first I'm gonna tell you about my week. And my week included ripping a ramp off of Stephen ronnella snowmobile trailer. Blame it on supply chain or COVID or who knows what. I cannot find a replacement. I hate borrowing things and messing them up, returning them worse than how I got them. So if anyone has or knows of a caliber V front ramp shield, please let me know. In other trailer related news, a couple of the wires and the four flat connector corroded off during my long, long night drive from Cascade, Idaho to Bozeman, Montana. So I did a bunch of driving with my hazards on, which is you know, makes you feel like a jackass. But when I got home, I did manage to wire up a new four flat connector before I had dropped it off, which is a small victory, but I'll take it. After I successfully dropped off the snowmobile, trailer and snowmobile full of gas and oil, I might add, I headed out shared in Wyoming to visit with the crew at Weatherby and check out their new property at the edge of town. We had a great visit and we gave the dogs a really good workout chasing some planted birds out on the new place. Planted birds, if you are unaware, are pen raised birds that you literally go out and plant in the grass or whatever cover you have, then come back a while later after the birds have relaxed a little bit and uh and hunt them. You flush them up, shoot them. If that sounds a little, you know, strange to you, I'll admit it is a little bit, but it's fantastic for training both new shooters and new dogs. And you got to eat the targets. We had a great time and Snort was an incredibly tired girl at the end of the day. And lastly, before the news, The Cal in the Field YouTube series was devised about three years ago to tackle topics that all of you folks listening here at the Weekend Review wrote Ian about and you want to know more about, Okay, invasive carp grizzly bears, fisheries management, c w D, just to name a few. If you were dying to know more about a topic. Heck, if you even feel like you could co host something that is near and dear to your heart right in to a s k C a L that's asked Cal at the Meat Eater dot com and well, you know, we'll give you a shout, maybe cover it on a future episode of Cal in the Field. Sound good? Yeah? Moving on to cover over at the Salmon Desk, We'll do the marginal news first. As many folks know it was an extremely tough year for winter run chinook in northern California Sacramento River. Just two point six percent of the hatch survived long enough to leave their spawning area, and only half of those fish made it all the way down to the San Joaquin Delta, where they can access the Pacific Ocean. Sacramento chinook are divided into four species by what time of year they run or migrate from the ocean to the upper reaches of their native river to reproduce. Winter round chinook typically leave the ocean into San Francisco Bay around November, then spend December through early August swimming north until they reach the gravel beds where they spawn in late summer. Winter run sounds cold, but the embryos and juveniles of this species have to endure the hottest time of year. Chinook salmon need the water temperature to stay at about fifty seven degrees or below to survive, and these days that can be a tall order. Not only have water temperature has been rising year after year, but the severe drought in two thousand twenty one meant that Shasta Lake, the man made reservoir that feeds the rest of the Sacramento River reached one of its lowest points ever and demand for its water was extremely high. Salmon advocates accused the state Water Resources Control Board, which oversees releases of water from the dam, of prioritizing agricultural interests in the area over chinook sanna and providing much less cold water than the fish needed. Winter run chinook were placed on the endangered species list as a result. Their survival is supported by complex reintroduction plans, intense hatchery efforts, water temperature control devices on the dams below Shasta Lake, and you can be sure more legal fights about who gets what share of the dwindling water supply in the area. Moving on, a separate run of Sacramento chinook has been using delayed migration, which sounds like a tactic you pick up off the shelf, but this is just a human name for something that the fish did on their own. This variety of spring run chinook typically leaves the ocean in March and spawns in the fall. After spawning, juveniles either migrate right away as young of the year, or they remained near their spawning grounds and start heading towards the ocean as year links. A recent study in the journal Nature looked at spring run chinook from the Mill Creek and Deer Creek tributaries of the Sacramento. In these areas, the late migrators represented only about ten percent of outgoing juveniles, but they were about sixty of the returning adult fish. Amazingly, they made up more than nine of the surviving adults from the most severe drought years. This strategy worked for these particular fish because they were able to wait in the cold water of these upper tributaries before making a break for it, But dams in the area have cut other salmon off from similar tributaries where they used to spawn. I gotta tell you that last paragraph, with all the percentages made me think of that famous line from our good good friend Todd Schneider. I can't remember it exactly, but it's something about like of all statistics are made up on the spot the time, it works every time. Anyway, how do scientists track these fish travel so precisely, you may be asking. The answer is the fishes earbones called odalis, which add a new layer of very thin tissue every day, like rings on trees or sheep horn annuli, just much faster. These layers consist of minerals from the water the fish are swimming in. Scientists identify the minerals from a particular river or stream, and each layer of a fishes odo lith and that lets them trace exactly where that fish went over the course of its migration and how long it stayed in each place, from natal tributary to the main stem of the river, to estuary, to ocean and back again. The odal if is like a passport with a stamp from each body of water, kind of like identifying what happened to you this week by looking at the dust in your ears or the dirt under your fingernails. Further northern California, the dump of precipitation late last year and earlier this year came right on time for the co Ho salmon of the Tamales Bay Watershed. A quick dip into salmon distinctions, co ho and schnook appear very similar to the entrained eye, but because season's limits and length requirements can be very different for each species, telling them to apart is a big deal for anyone catching them. The best way is to take a look into the fish's mouth. Co Hos salmon show a distinct banding pattern on the lower jaw. There's a dark band outside the base of the teeth than a white band or very light band right at the base of the teeth, than another dark band just inside the base of the teeth. On the other hand, chinook have one uniform dark color across the entire lower jaw, though occasionally it's a little modeled. But back to the Tamalus Bay coho, Preston Brown, the director of conservation for the Salmon Protection and Watershed Network, said, we've seen fish in places they haven't been for almost twenty five years. The precept came just as the coho we're running, allowing some to reach tributaries in Lognitas Creek thirteen miles inland. Salmon preferred to get way into these small bodies of water where temperatures are cold from nearby snowpack, and the gravel beds are wide, shallow, and relatively clean. Salmon can reach these beds incredibly quick once obstacles are removed, and after the San Geronimo Creek dam was removed in this area last year, some coho were tracked a mile above where the dam had been, which again is awesome. Moving on other good news, came recently for the salmon and steelhead of the Columbia River basin. That's water from Idaho, Montana, parts Alberta, and Washington draining into the Pacific. And although we've been talking about the importance of conditions on the inland part of a fish's life cycle, what happens out in the ocean is just as important. And last year we saw an enormous swell in cope pods, a staple of the salmon and steelhead diet in the Pacific off the west coast of the US. Cope pods are crustaceans so small they don't have a heart, gills, or circulatory system. They just absorb oxygen directly through their exoskeleton. That name cop pod means or feet, and they're proportionately giant flippers and extremely quick nervous systems help them evade predators. But cope pods can only evade so much, and when their numbers boom, fish further up the food chain flourish. The last time we saw such a big jump in cope pod populations was two thousand eight, and the following season more than three hundred thousand steelhead were counted at Lower Granite dam on the Snake were in Idaho. That is way upstream for these fish, close to where they reproduce. To give you an idea of how great the two thousand eight boom was, in two thousand one, there were only fifty six thousand, thirty two steel head counted at Lower Granite and the average from the previous five years was just over sixty thousand, So two thousand eight was an exceptional year. Biologists are very hopeful that will have similar booms in the near future. Of course, we have no idea what the future will bring for all these fish, but one thing we know for sure, they are resilient if they can catch a break. Now, I would be doing a serious disservice to all of you if I did not mention some historic figures prior to the Lower Snake River dams and estimated two million steel head and salmon would pass through this same stretch of river. So when we talk about how resilient these fish are when they get a little break, that his historical context is key. Moving on to the ever popular legislation desk. In Washington State, hunters are working to reinstate the spring black bear hunt that was suspended last year. The hunt, as I covered an episode one seven, was not canceled based on science or good conservation policy. Instead, anti hunting groups fostered a groundswell of emotional opposition to a hunt they characterized as cruel and inhumane. Now, hunters and conservationists are pushing back Meat Eater, joined back Country Hunters and Anglers, Blood Origins, Safari Club International, and several other groups and filing formal petitions for the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission to reconsider their earlier decision. Those petitions were successful, and on January one, the Commission voted for three to begin a rulemaking process that could lead to a vote in March to reinstate the season in May. Stay tuned for the latest updates that story, and if you live in Washington and would like to get involved, send a message to the Commission today. Staying on the black bear beat, North Carolina is considering a proposal to allow bear hunting in three of the state's mountain bear sanctuaries. The policy change was requested by the US Forest Service in response to increase bear human interaction as bears become more habituated to getting food from sanctuary visitors. The North Carolina Wildlife Commission supports the proposed change, and there's currently accepting comments from the public. If you think this is a good thing, you had better comment. There's probably going to be a few comments that don't agree with you. In Louisiana, the Wildlife and Fisheries Commission is asking for public input on a slew of new changes to turkey, migratory bird, and other hunting policies in the state. Among the list of changes, the Commission would allow electronic tag and validation procedures for deer and turkey hunting, been hunting in some wildlife management areas, restrict hunting in other areas, and open all of Cato Parish to turkey hunting. To check out the full list and submit your own comments, visit w LF dot Louisiana dot gov. On the federal level, Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana and Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois are proposing new legislation to curb bear poaching. The bill would ban the importation, exportation, and interstate trade of certain internal organs poached from eight species of bears, including brown bears, black bears, and polar bears. Bear gall bladders can sell for thousands on the black market, and one bear poacher in Montana recently got busted for exactly that. If you want to hear more about that story, checkout episode Finally returning to Washington, State County, commissioners in the Blue Mountains are asking the Washington Department of Fishing Wildlife to extend mountain lion season in their area. They argue that the elk heret is far below population goals, and they hope that killing more lions will help more calves survive. If you live in Washington's Astan Garfield, Columbia, or Walla Walla Counties, reach out to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and let them know what you think. Next up, we have a non legislation issue, but one that you know already. New Mexico more of a back room dealing kind of situation. Governor Michelle Luhan Grisham recently dismissed a member of the state's Game Commission, Jeremy Vestbach, and stream access seems to be the cause for a full rundown of this issue in New Mexico. Scroll back and listen to episode number one, but as a refresher. Several large landowners have applied to the New Mexico Game Commission to designate waterways that run through their property as non navigable and therefore off limits to the public. Last year, the Commission, including vest Bok, rejected five of those applications, and vest Bak was not shy about expressing his views in the press. It so happens that several of these same landowners contributed to the governor's campaign, and here she is removing an official who voted against them. Does that seem above board? Should similar mechanics determine who the governor appoints the Game Commission in the future. Give a call to the New Mexico Governor's office to let them know your answer, and go back and listen to episode. Okay, stream access is a major, major deal if you like to wander around outside. Despite being a violation of the New Mexico State Constitution, it's just a serious giant middle finger to everybody else on the planet who likes to be outside. That's an opinion ending to that piece. Moving on, Pennsylvania monkeys. A truck and trailer carrying one monkeys crashed into a dump truck last week. In eastern Pennsylvania, resulting in three escape primates and a twenty four hour monkey hunt. In the famous words of comic writer Dave Berry, I'm not making this up. The Cinemamalgus monkeys had been recently imported from overseas, and we're on their way to research facility in Missouri. The pickup truck towing the monkeys made a left turn onto an on ramp directly in front of a dump truck. The dump truck struck the rear portion of the passenger side door and broke the covered trailer housing the created monkeys. Amazingly, none of the monkeys or humans were injured, but three of the smaller primates escaped to the wooded area surrounding the highway. State police warned the public not to search for or approached the monkeys, and asked anyone who spotted a monkey to call nine one one immediately. Cinema august monkeys, also known as long tailed or crab eating macaques, are a little larger than your average house cap and hail from Southeast Asia. They often live in and around towns and cities, and they occupy the second largest distribution of all non human primates They're frequently used in biomedical research because of their nine similarity to and recent evolutionary divergence from humans. According to i Q Biosciences, they're most often used for basic research studies in disease pathology and treatment, vaccine development, immunology, and cardiology, amongst others. Once the three Pennsylvania monkeys escaped their cages, they immediately ran into the surrounding trees. Cal said he didn't see any monkeys running around when he arrived on the scene, and state police posted images of the primates sitting in pine trees. State police brought out a helicopter fitted with thermal imaging cameras to aid in the search. After about twenty six hours, police confirmed that all three monkeys had been accounted for. According to Valley Township fire chief might Call, law enforcement secured two of the monkeys the day of the accident, and the last was taken in after being spotted by a private citizen the next day. All three were euthanized. Why, because nobody wants to turn into zombies. We've all seen that movie. Of course, that's not quite the end of the story. Our friends at Peter put out a statement just hours after the incident, warning that the monkeys quote scattered across the highway would infect humans with disease. Obviously, PETE has seen that movie importing monkeys and tormenting them in laboratories is likely to cause more human illness than experimenting on them will ever prevent. PETE Science advisor doctor Lisa Jones Engle said another PETA article worried about the lack of biosecurity during the incident and lamented how they escaped. Monkeys are undoubtedly terrified and likely injured, and they may be harboring viruses that are transmissible to humans. As evidence, Peter links to a report from the Associated Press with the headline police warned people to not approach lab monkey missing from Pennsylvania crash. In the article, however, police make no indication that the monkeys are contagious, and having covered several of these animal escape stories, I can tell you that it's pretty standard practice for law enforcement to discourage approaching the wild animals, not to mention, you gotta test animals traveling internationally. One woman who was on the scene claims to have developed pink eye like symptoms and is currently taking preventative medicine. Doctors did not diagnose her with anything in particular. Right now, there's no reason to believe that COVID two point oh just took off in Montour County, Pennsylvania. Remember, pink eye like symptoms come from anyone's poop, not just monkey poop. We can get pink eye from farting in a pillow totally. That's awesome. That's all the monkey business I've got for you today. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to write in to a s k C. A L. That's asked cal at the Meat Eater dot com and let me know what's going on in your neck of the woods. Now. Remember, if you're gonna have monkeys dropping into your backyard unexpectedly, you better have it looking ship shape. Go to www dot steel Dealers dot com and find a local, knowledgeable steel dealer near you. They'll get you all you need to trim those trees and make a monkey proof and monkey safe. They'll get you what you need and not send you home with what you don't. Thanks again, and I'll talk to you next week.

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