00:00:09 Speaker 1: From Mediator's World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This is Kels we can review with Ryan kel Kellan. Now here's kel A manatee or sea cow dub Molly showed up in Galveston Bay, Texas last week. Oh the manity That manity noise is not an actual manity. That's my good friend and famous wildlife artist At Anderson. A few manities have shown up in Texas waters over the last few years, but they're not full time Texans as. The winter water temps are too cold for their liking and there isn't quite enough sea grass to sustain them. Sea cows need to eat six to eight hours a day every day. The name sea cow starts to make more sense than manatee when you think of them as literal underwater grass grazers. What separates the sea cow from the land cow other than the obvious, is their teeth. The sand on those grasses the sea cow munches wear down the frontal molars on their four rows of teeth. When a tooth wears down far enough, it gets shed and replaced by another molar that erupts in the jaw and gradually moves forward to take its place. Some studies suggest the speed of that dental conveyor belt depends on how fast the teeth are wearing down. Manatees feeding in sandy regions may replace teeth faster than those living in clearer water. Take a look into a one year old land cow's mouth, on the other hand, and you're staring at all the teeth that thing will ever have. Left to its own devices out on the open range. It can live about as long as those teeth do. Once they're ground down by the grit and sand, it's curtains for the cow. That's all. Folks back to Molly the manatee in her appearance in Texas. Now, they've got manatees in Mexico, and they've got manatees and Florida, but they are indeed rare in Texas due to the cold water and lack of grub that I referred to. Texas Parks and Wildlife speculates that this particular animal was attracted to a bloom of water hyacinth. She's been hanging around Galveston, Corpus, Christie Bay and South Padre Island, which is a popular party spot for you spring breakers. So Molly may just be looking for love. Who knows. After all, the manateee or sea cow is speculated to be what those old sailor stories of mermaids were actually about. Got to spend a lot of time at sea or maybe South Padre Island to develop that type of imagination. This week the man who kind of killed the grizz with a pocket knife, eGolf that eats people or is it? And so much more. But first I'm gonna tell you about my week. A few months ago, I went down to Florida to do some fishing. We filmed that fishing for an episode of Listen Up, Dos Boat. Dos Boat is a big, big news as this is first major fishing launch at meat Eater. Dos Boat is a really cool, funny and just playing fun fishing series we put together. You can watch it on the meat Eater YouTube channel. You're gonna see a lot of locations around the South and Southeast that anyone with a cheap boat can fish. On top of that, you're gonna learn about these fisheries and some of the issues we all as anglers and folks who love water, water to play in, fish in, and drink need to know about. So if you have not already, go to the Meat Eater YouTube channel or the meat eater dot com and check out dos Boat. Episode one is up now and you can expect new episodes just about every Thursday. Be sure to let us know what you think. Subscribe and tell your friends, because I really like to fish and I want to go do more of them, all right, One last bit of housekeeping in regards to Cal's Weekend Review and swapping animal noises. If you caught last week's episode of Col's Weekend Review, you may have noticed the bull frog noise of an actual bull frog. And many of you did notice that, and you wrote in and you said thank you, which thank you very hard to get sometimes. Thank you well if you are new to the show or just can't pay attention for eighteen minutes. We had previously and erroneously played the sound of a tree frog when referencing a bull frog. That audio mistake brought in quite a few very serious emails, basically saying, I had my anterior located in my posterior. But one good thing came out of this, which is a story of a similar threat. Let me set the scene by quoting the writer Nick Green, who wrote on the subject of wildlife sound swapping for a publication called Slate. Here's our very own Katie Finch as Nick. To watch the Masters on television is to be transported to the natural, exclusive splendor of Augusta National Golf Club. The verdant course pops in HD and Jim Nancy's dull sit voice wraps you in a cozy cashmere a quarter zip. Adding to the effect are the sounds of birds singing from their purchase just beyond the fairways. Listen closely, and you'll notice that there seems to be a lot of birds at Augusta National, perhaps even a suspicious amount. Could it be that CBS is piping in chirps? CBS Sports was caught using prerecorded bird audio from one state in another damn state. That's right. In one instance, folks watching a golf tournament in Kentucky, we're listening to happy golf course living birds in Michigan. CBS Sports apparently received an outpouring of calls and emails from bird watching enthusiasts who also happened to be golf enthusiasts, calling them out. All I can say is I love it. Not the picture this paints of what bird watchers choose to do with their free time when not watching birds. But for what this all means if you care enough to write in and harass me at Cal's Weekend Review over a bull frog sound that wasn't not a bullfrog, or call CBS Sports to ask them why the hell they're playing bird noises from Michigan while broadcasting Kentucky golf. That says to me, you care, you have a passion for wildlife. Thank you. I recently received an email from a listener notifying me that they were no longer going to listen to Cal's Weekend Review, stating that quote, I gave you a chance, but you just can't help yourself, meaning that this particular listener wanted amusing conservation stories without having to hear about conservation. Well, to clear this up for everyone, it's not that I can't help myself. It's that this is the whole damned point of Cal's Weekend Review. To fuel that fire for the great out of doors. Let everyone know, including myself, that there are a lot of other folks out there who think this conservation stuff is important and interesting, and that we need to step up on occasion and let the folks who manage our wildlife and wild places no week air and value these places and critters, so thank you again and please continue to keep me honest. Reminds me of a funny story told me by Anthony Locata, our editor in chief. He was musing on readers whould get pissed about this or that and demand that the editors cancel their subscription. If the readers were way off base, the editors would right back with an explanation followed by cancel your own subscription. All right, I'm stepping off the soapbox to talk Texas news on with the show. If you, by chance or in the New Bronfells area and happened to run into a zebra, please call nbp D. A pair of zebra escaped to ranch, swam river and ran into town. The pair caused quite the commotion as they alluded capture. As of this podcast, one of the zebras has been tranquilized and recaptured and the other remains on the lamb, so to speak. You know, a baby zebras in a lamb. It's a full like a horse, but remaining on the owl isn't a thing. A person can make a joke about a convict striped outfit and a zebra stripes, but I won't do that because, as I'm sure you know, I'd rather talk about the fact that a zebra stripes are thought to deter flies, who apparently have a difficult time when landing on striped black and white surfaces. They get close, but then they pull back just before landing. Anyhow, zebras are obviously not native Texans. They are native to the continent of Africa. In fact, there are three different types of zebra. The plane zebra lives in eastern and southern Africa, the mountain zebra and Namibia Angola, and the largest zebra, being grevy zebra, lives in the arid grasslands of Ethiopia and Namibia. Had there been a larger group of zebra running around New Brown Fells, Texas, we could have said Texas authorities are dazzled by zebras, dazzle being the name for a group of zebra. Unfortunately, in this instance, there was only two escape zebra running through town, which makes it just another day in Texas. Hopping over to the scientific discovery's death, researchers have recently identified an old fossil of an extinct parent. If you've been listening to the weekend review. Hopefully you have picked up on this recurring paleontological theme. Folks go out and dig up old stuff like the old poop I mentioned in episode two or in episode eleven, the giant jot worm than the catalog to find and forget about it. Eventually, someone else comes along years later and rediscovers the discovery by hanging onto the old specimen. Time and technology pass and sometimes new techniques are developed and voila new species, or again, in the case of the copper light, they discover incredible feats of gastro intestinal fortitude. If you miss that one, trust me and go listen to episode two, and you know, listen about number two. Back to the story. There's the latest rediscovery of an old discovery involved a sixteen and nineteen million year old fossilized leg bone, or since we were talking birds, will just call it a drumstick. This drumstick was misidentified as belonging to a giant eagle, possibly capable of predating on humans. Oddly enough, a human eating eagle, and I am quoting here wouldn't have been groundbreaking in the ornithological world. If an eagle large enough to choose humans as prey isn't groundbreaking, I guess I have a lot more to learn about birds anyway. The noteworthy find was not a human eating eagle, but that the drumstick belonged to the largest known parrot to have ever existed. The three ft tall, fifteen pound parrot was a native of New Zealand during the Miocene. On paper, the bird is called Heracles, but the identifying scientists have taken to calling it squawk Zilla. Sounds about right to me, and sounds like a good enough reason to not throw anything away. Migration corridors have been in the news lately. In fact, one piece of very good news is the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed legislation that will put two fifty million in dedicated funds over the next five years to construct wildlife overpasses, underpasses, and culverts. This is a great start. The legislation still needs some work that I hope will continue as it goes to the House, like funding on roads through US Forest Service lands. But that's a topic for another show. What I want to point out is the big critters aren't the only ones to migrate. We talked about locust swarms last week. This week it's tarantula's right now, as in this very instant in Southeast Colorado, the yearly migration of large, hairy mail Oklahoma brown tarantula's has started. The Oklahoma brown or Texas tarantula or Missouri brown. If multiple names are an indication of good spider versus bad spider, it's obvious that people don't mind this one, as everyone seems to claim it anyway. The Oklahoma brown tarantula can have a leg span of four to five inches in a way up to three ounces. That's a lot of heft for a spider. In fact, our regulation tennis ball only weighs slightly over two ounces. Female Oklahoma browns can live up to forty years, and the males can have a tenure run at life depending on when they hit sexual maturity. If you aren't a spider fan, don't go to Southeast Colorado this month. If your timing is right or wrong, I guess you will see thousands of tarantulas on the move. If you happen to be there, you can relax knowing that these predominantly male tarantulas out on the prowl are looking for love, not you. Additionally, they will die shortly after mating. That's right, Baby tarantulas are produced through an act called similar parody or suicidal reproduction. Don't get all judgmental and add suicidal reproduction to the list of reasons you may not like spiders. Salmon are a great example of animals on this list of suicidal reproducers or simil pariton maybe, and everyone seems to love that species. Anyway, back to the act. If you think that it takes you or your spouse a long time to get ready for a date night, let me tell you it's nothing compared to what the male Oklahoma brown tarantula goes through. When the male Oklahoma brown gets ready to find a mate, he goes through one last transformative mold mold like he sheds his skin. But it's more than you think. The molting process not only includes the outer skin, but also the shedding of the linings of the sexual and respiratory organs, as well as the stomach and the mouth lining. You could possibly imagine this as the ultimate predate exfoliation ritual or detox maybe. Additionally, the male seemingly transforms or emerges from this final molt as a different spider. He starts out as a sort of squat brown spider and emerges as a long legged, slightly black haired spider, kind of like putting on your best duds before hitting the honky took. When he eventually finds a female after the exhausting act of molding and migrating, he dances a couple of hairy legs outside of her dawn, enticing her to come out. He seizes the female. A kind of standing coitus is performed. If the sexual act is a successful one, the female will lay eggs, defend them, hatch them, and go about her life for another thirty years or so, while the male will die in just a week or two. So if you happen to be in southeast Colorado, watch your step. It's got to be bad karma to crush ten years of hopes and dreams. Moving over to our Canada desk, we're gonna linger here for a bit. British Columbia man fended off and attacking grizzly by stabbing the bear in the neck with a two inch pocket knife. The Campbell River Man was mauled by a three hundred and fifty pound male grizzly while descending a logging road on his mountain bike north of Powell River on the Sunshine Coast. I'm gonna attempt to lay out the happenings around this mauling without sensationalizing this situation. You get enough of that in the mainstream media. Please let me know if I get out of hand, you know where to find me. All Right, here we go. This British Columbia fella is heading for home on a logging road when he spots a grizz moving up the road towards him. I want to point some out here. To be clear, I have not been to this exact spot in BC, but it is safe to assume that the logging road is the only clear area. Thick dense brush build up on the sunny spots the shoulders of the road, and it's thick forest typically on both sides, so you can kind of imagine, you know, basically a tunnel. Continuing on, the grizzly bear continually approached the man, despite the guy shouting and using his bike as both a barrier and a tool to try and keep the bear at a distance. Next, he threw his backpack as a distraction, which worked momentarily, but soon the grizz was back running. Short options The man then channeled his inner Janice Patelis. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check out the famous meat tree episode of the meat Eator podcast. He did that, which is trying to dissuade a bear from coming any closer by poking it on the head with a trekking pole. Stop for a second again and think of how close a grizzly has to be in order to touch it with a ski pole. The bear, unfazed by the ski pole, grabs the man by the stomach with his mouth and dragged him toward the roadside ditch. Hard to tell the exact order of operations on this next bit, but the man then tried to gouage the bear's eyes, peeled the bear's lips back to remove the mouth off his thighs, played dead, then ultimately grabs his knife and stabs the bear in the neck with the two inch blade. Upon being stabbed, the grizzly immediately stopped chewing on the man's legs, backed up from his victim, and gave the man space enough to drag himself to his bicycle. The man cut his shirt sleeve off, fashioned a tourniquet for his bleeding leg and then rides seven kilometers to a logging camp. If you think this story is just a little too unbelievable, I'm right there with you. This is no small feat. The next day, conservation officers were able to confirm the knife wound to the bear's neck because during the investigation of the scene, the officers were forced to shoot the three fifty pound grizzly for once again getting way too close and displaying signs of aggression. As for the guy who got attacked, doctors reported multiple wounds to his hand, torso, legs, and foot. The large cut to his torso left by the grizzlies teeth exposed internal organs, which were visible when medical personnel arrived, and the puncture wounds to his legs ran dangerously close to major blood vessels. In short, this fella had a damned close call. He is currently recovering, but his quote not a huge fan of being solo in grizzly country at the moment. The Andred recommended procedure when confronted by grizzly is to stand your ground, do not run, use bear spray as a deterrent, and in the event that the bear is not deterred, demonstrate that you are not a threat by covering your vital organs or soft parts as I like to call him, and playing dead. The reasoning behind this protocol is that a grizzly will typically want to evaluate whether the person is a threat. Sometimes they do this by a sniff. Sometimes they will roll, bite, and toss the perceived threat. If a person acts dead, then the grizz will move on to more common forage options. This fella did not have bear spray or a firearm that could have been used to deter the bear. Would those items have made a difference or would we still have the outcome of a banged up human and a dead bear. I really don't know. But what I do know is this fella did a great job in trying to prevent the situation without those items, then when the situation went south, he fought like hell to survive. Every situation with a wild animal is unpredictable. I have have been in the grizzly woods and similar situations and have learned my own lessons. I don't go into the woods without bear spray. I'd suggest you do not either. Moving on but staying in BC and sticking with gritter encounter a Vancouver woman used an animal deterrent much different than described above. While hiking on Vancouver Island, she found herself being followed by a mountain lion. At first, the hiker thought, just as I typically do, how cool a mountain lion. Mountain lions are notoriously reclusive and are rarely seen in daylight hours. To record this unique encounter, the hiker pulled out her phone to take a picture when the cat started to advance. With phone in hand technology at her fingertips, she scrolled through her music library and found Metallica and hit play. After the first few intro notes of the song Don't Tread on Me, the then stalking cat leapt from the trail and was gone. Now, I wouldn't take this story as a validation of not carrying bear spray. I would, however, recognize this person's ability to stay calm and think in a potentially deadly situation. I mean, how many of you would have a level headedness to look through your music library and remember that the notorious Metallica frontman James Hetfield is a hunter. That's all I've got for you this week. Thanks for listening to Cal's weekend review. As Per usual. Tell your friends about how popular you've become and how much smarter you are. For listening to Cal's Weekend review, subscribe, download and leave me a review wherever podcasts are streamable and downloadable. Tell me where I've screwed up or got things right, or send any questions you have to a s k C. A L at the Meat Eater dot com that's asked Cal at the Meat Eater dot com, and hunting had been the section of the DA has cover

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