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. 00:00:22 Speaker 2: A new study from researchers at the University of California has found that lab grown meat could produce between four and twenty five times more atmosphere carbon dioxide than meat grown by traditional methods, also known as just meat. Just Meat. Reduced carbon emissions are one of the main selling points of lab grown meat, doing away with millions of farting cows by growing meat in a sterile lab environment must mean less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, right not, According to this particular study. To grow meat in the lab, you need a growth medium, but this medium must first be refined to eliminate endotoxs that can inhibit cell growth. These researchers claim that this refinement process produces far more CO two emissions than has previously been acknowledged. They asked me that current refinement processes produced between five hundred and forty two pounds and three three hundred and twenty five pounds of CO two per kilogram of lab grown meat. Now, if that doesn't mean anything to you, there's roughly two point two pounds per kilogram, So you're exchanging two point two pounds of lab grown meat substitute for somewhere between five hundred and forty two pounds and three thousand, three hundred and twenty five pounds of CO two, whereas regular meat produces thirty six kilograms of CO two per kilogram of regular meat. That data, mind you, is from our world in data dot org. Now I should note that this particular study that we've referenced has not yet been peer reviewed. It's been submitted to a journal and published online, but the study has not been subject to criticism from other scientists yet. Reading between the lines, there also appears to be some disagreement about exactly how much CO two is produced by the medium refinement process. Still, I think these researchers are asking an important question. There are costs to every benefit. Lab grown meat seems like it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but there may be hidden costs and unintended consequences most people don't think about, you know, very very similar to electric vehicles. The end product, sure, but getting to that end product has a heck of a cost associated with it. Starting out heavy on the week in review, there's that word again, heavy. 00:02:40 Speaker 1: Why are famed for heavy in the future? 00:02:42 Speaker 2: Is there a problem with the earth gravitational pull? This week we've got Scotus Wotas, the crime Desk, and crossing Corners. But first, I'm going to tell you about my week in My week was a whole lot of fun. I loaded the dogs up into the Black Series hit the road in an attempt to fill my last three turkey tap before the season ended, along with the month of May. As I've said before, hunting turkeys with the dogs is almost equal parts fun and frustrating. All of the uncontrollable dog movements are easily picked up by the keen periscope of the tom turkey, especially one that has been hunted for over a month at this point. Wary wary birds. The last week of the season here in Montana, however, with my newly run over shotgun, I was able to beg a big bird I intercepted on his way back to the roost. Not the way I liked to do it, but it was all the schedule would allow, and Montana is a big state. In order to harvest all the birds available in the spring, you must cover hundreds of miles going from region to region to region where the tags are available, which takes a lot of time. Our next tag and challenge lay in a heavily populated area of the state inhabited by a strong population of turkeys and unfortunately turkey hunters. After identifying some areas on the ol on X, the dogs and I took a long hike off a steep mountain attempted to call two toms off of private land. It was no fun and there were no gobbles after the fly down kind of opening sequence. So back up the mountain and onto the next stop. We hiked a small hill, found fresh turkey poop, and my spirits lifted just until Snort, being the bird dog she is, found the hen turkey and sent her god knows how far down the mountain across a river. Anyway, no gobbles the next morning, but we did call in a bearded hen, which is legal to kill in this particular region. Yes, if it meant meat on the table versus none, I would happily kill a tom out of a tree, But I just can't kill a hen. That's like killing sixteen turkeys. Upon packing up and scratching my head as to where the next option is, I realized that I hadn't tempted fate enough in this location. So I pulled over at the next wide spot on the map, grabbed diaphragm, call the dogs and not my shotgun or my boots, and headed up the trail and my flops or you know, slippers if you prefer. Sometimes you have to tempt fate. I think you probably know what I'm talking about here. You have to put yourself in a stupid enough situation that you dare the hunting gods to put their thumb or spurs in your eye? Was that a gobble? The dogs looked in the same direction. Up the trail, we advanced to a small opening about seventy five yards across, and equal parts elation and depression. As I know I have to now run the mile or so back to the track to get the rest of my garb. As you diehard turkey hunters know, locating with a diaphragm is not the best option. You can strike a hot bird that cools off very quickly if left unattended, wondering what the hell happened to that hymn as you, you know, get your situation in order. But that's what I did now, Huffing and puffing in the hot sun of the now early afternoon, I grab my highly experimental FHF turkey pack shotgun and decoy, stare at my boots and think better not. You have a three o'clock meeting you have to be on and being overly serious hasn't been working. So back up the trail we go, free towing it as it were, all the way to the little picturesque meadow where the turkey had been. It is now hot, still and silent, which I knew would happen, and being as I was naked from the ankles down, I should turn back for the truck right unless I went a little further and higher onto the ridge and into the next saddle, which I made just twenty minutes late for my three pm meeting. But there were two bars of reception on this ridge. Thirty minutes later, about to wrap up my work call, two big horn sheep walked into my meeting space, oblivious to my impromptu office situation. Ten minutes later we were back on the hunt off the ridge out of cell reception that glorious dead spot of being bothered. We worked into the next little mountain meadow, quietly approaching in my slippers, and let out a casual hen kind of on the mosey type of call sequence, A little schmash smash map mi shmap two birds and they were coming our way. I got the dogs hidden, I staked decoy on the little knob that we were on, slid into position on a tree, and over the next two hours the birds worked in really tight, then wandered away, and then really tight, and then wandered away on three different occasions. They do not trust us, so I made the decision to aggressively cut the distance the next time I hear the gobbles wander off, which is always a risky call. In fact, it flies right in the face of my favorite turkey hunting saying, which is, of course, you kill them with your ass, not your feet. But the dogs and I moved up quick, and as luck would have it, the Thomises were still tall talking to each other. We pushed right up to the edge of this little ridge let out one little yelp yep. It was as inquisitive a yelp as I could make. Like you boys still here. Instantly two redheads appear, and only one ran away. On a whim and test of fate, we struck the birds at twelve thirty and we were plucked and packed and gutted and heading slowly down the sheep trail to the truck by six pm, only one tag to go before Turkey season ends. Moving on to the legal desk. By now, you've probably heard about the Supreme Court ruling that significantly reduced protections for wetlands in the United States. The Court ruled unanimously that the land belonging to the plaintiffs in this case does not include federally protected waterways. However, and this is a big however, they disagreed on what kinds of wetlands should receive federal protection through a permitting process overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency. As with most Supreme Court cases, this one gets into the weeds, or in this case, the cattails. But I'll do my best to hit the highlights. Under the Clean Water Act, the federal government has jurisdiction to regulate Waters of the United States or wotas. The controversy stems from disagreement about what is and what isn't a water of the United States. According to Congress, navigable waterways at the time of statehood are considered waters of the US. Nearly everything else is up in the air. In practice, this means that landowners and developers who have to apply for permits if they want to dredge or fill in these waters or put in drain tile that sort of nonsense, which is a headache for those folks, and sometimes their permits are rejected. But I don't think anyone can deny that the Clean Water Act has been a huge benefit to everything that relies on clean water to survive, which, as it turns out, is everything. In this latest ruling, the Supreme Court tried to define which water should be covered under the Clean Water Act. Various presidents and courts have tried to answer this question over the years, but the last major development came in two thousand and six, and that year the Supreme Court issued a ruling that established the significant nexus test. Under this test, a body of water is considered waters of the United States if it constitutes a significant nexus to waters that are either navigable or could reasonably be made So everyone agrees that this standard is vague and unworkable, but it maintained the EPA's ability to protect wetlands that did not connect on the surface to a navigable body of water. Most believe that the Court could do away with the significant nexus test, but no one was quite sure what they'd replace it with. Now we have our answer. In a five to four majority decision, the Court ruled that wetlands are only protected by the Clean Water Act if they have a continuous surface connection with a larger navigable body of water that makes it quote difficult to determine where the water ends and the wetland begins. In other words, even if a wetland is separated from a navigable waterway by a man made structure, it wouldn't count as waters of the United States. Justices Alito, Thomas, Roberts, Gorsuch, and Barrett voted with the majority, while Justice's Kavanaugh, Kegan, Sodomyer, and Jackson constituted the minority. It's unclear right now to what extent this ruling will impact hunters and anglers, but I think it's safe to say it won't be good. By some estimates, this new definition would eliminate Clean Water Act protection for over half of our nation's wetlands and eighteen percent of the nation's streams. That amounts to about twenty million acres of wetlands without federal protection. Now here's an interesting insight from a duck hunting buddy of mine down in Arkansas who was nice enough to write in and point out that a lot of the Dike Levy weir pump situations that they use, not this guy specifically, but a lot of duck hunting operations, farms, et cetera in that neck of the woods have been hesitant to develop more waterfowl habitat by flooding timber field edges, et cetera, because they didn't want to create an adjoining waterway to a navigable waterway that could then be considered in theory water under federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act, or considered you know, waters of the United States. So, with this new interpretation of waters of the United States, those farmers in those areas who have the inclination to create more wetland habitat will be able to do so without the idea that somebody's gonna come knock on their door and say, Hey, I got to tell you what I'm gonna do. With your private property. Peeche you got it good. Anyway. What I think about is driving through like North and South Dakota, where you see a lot of active farm operations out there laying drain tile to drain these intermittent wetlands, which are of course incredibly incredibly vital to all sorts of migrating birds, but not to mention our native upland birds and you know, deer and analope species as well, so hunters and anglers understand how important these habitats are. Ducks, geese, fish, and a host of other animals and plants. A twenty eighteen pole conducted by the TRCP found that ninety two percent of sportsmen and women want the federal government to strengthen or maintain current standards for clean water protections, and ninety three percent believe that the Clean Water Act has been a positive thing for our country. Will continue tracking this story as it progresses. The Biden administration just issued a new rule in January that clarified which wetlands are federally protected. But because Fresh Case Law Trump's an administrative rule, they'll have to go back to the drawing board. I imagine they'll try to write that rule to maximize wetland protection under this new standard, but I'm not sure how far they'll be able to go. States will also continue to maintain permitting processes for construction on wetlands, but obviously those standards will differ significantly from state to state. For now, I think we should renew our efforts to conserve the wetlands we have left. Get in touch with your local chapter of Ducks Unlimited, Delta Waterfowl Trout Unlimited, and see how you can help. You may not be able to influence a Supreme Court decision, but you can pick up trash down at the local lake. Those habitat improvement projects and fundraising efforts are more important now than ever. If you're not into picking up trash, and you know, maybe you see your local neighbor there who's out there with the back home and they want to dig a big long line and drop some drain tile in, And you could mosey over there and say, hey, what's it worth to you to keep that thing producing waterfowl and invertebrate life and all the things that make nature happen. You could have your own little stewardship project. What do you think of that moving on to the crime desk. A Pennsylvania man is going to prison after he accidentally shot his elderly neighbor while trying to kill a deer. But this wasn't your typical case of mistaken identity in the woods. Forty one year old Michael Lloyd had returned from a hunting trip in December of twenty one when he stopped in his neighbor's driveway and popped off two rounds from his forty five handgun at a deer. Lloyd missed the deer, but he did hit his eighty three year old neighbor, who was standing in the bushes behind the deer. Lloyd stayed at the scene to render aid, which is probably why he's only spending less than two years in jail for reckless endangerment rather than a much longer stint for manslaughter. The elderly neighbor survived but has been reportedly struggling to recover, as you might imagine. Along with his prison sentence, Lloyd will have his hunting license revoked for five years and will pay twenty nine thousand dollars in restitution. He also apologized multiple times before the sentencing, claimed to have given away all his guns and says he'll never hunt again. Not that I think he was hunting. When the incident occurred, Yellowstone National Park caused a minor firestorm on social media after they posted an image of a man trying to carry a baby bison. That's actually not what got everyone so upset. Park officials explained that after the calf became separated from herd crossing the Lamar River, the man pulled the calf away from the river and pushed it back onto the road. Park rangers later tried to reunite the calf with its mother, but the mother rejected it, presumably because it had been handled. Some folks were upset at the man for interfering with Yellowstone wildlife, but even more people were upset because park rangers had to euthanize the calf after they were unable to reunite it with its herd. Social media users wondered why Yellowstone did not care for the bison or send it to another facility. Park officials explained that federal and state regulations prohibit the transport of bison out of Yellowstone unless those bison are going to meet processing or scientific research facilities. The park has a quarantine facility, but officials decided that a newborn calf abandoned by its mother was not a good candidate for quarantine, but a great candidate for the smoker. That's a joke, but I mean that's what I'd do. Come on, park employees. It sounds like the calf wasn't likely to survive no matter what the rangers did, so they killed it and left its body on the landscape because quote National Parks, Preserve and natural processes. The man who one of you pointed out looks exactly like Mike Ermantrot from the TV show Breaking Bad has been identified as Clifford Walters of Haaii. He pleaded guilty to one count of feeding, touching, teasing, frightening, or intentionally disturbing wildlife. The US Attorney's Office for Wyoming said he was ordered to pay around one thousand bucks in a fine and payment to the park's wildlife fund. Pennsylvania game wardens busted six individuals last week for allegedly poaching more than one hundred white tailed deer over the last six months, in what officials are calling a complete disregard for our wildlife resources. These six yahoos left most of those deer to rot after killing them last fall and winter. Three of the individuals, Hunter Atherton, Abigail Hoover, and Kayu Patterson were twenty years old. The other three were juveniles. Witnesses reported dead deer in their yards and fields, and wardens observed the poacher's spotlighting deer at night and shooting them with a twenty two magnum rifle. When asked, they told wardens that they shot the deer quote just for fun. They likely won't be having much more fun for a while. Some of their charges are felonies, carrying a maximum sentence of thirty six months in jail and a fifteen thousand dollars fine. Let's hope the court opts to teach these youngsters a lesson and nip these budding poachers before they blossom. I'd probably get them jobs in a meat processing facility. Up in Washington State, another poacher got busted after hunters reported seeing them on their trail cameras in real time. Thanks to Alex Young for sending us this story. Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife police reported that they received a call from a hunter who had seen a man with a rifle on his cellular trail camp. The hunter saw a pack of dogs chasing a bear, and then the man walked by. About twenty minutes later, a game warden was dispatched to the area, and it wasn't long before she met the thirty one year old suspect walking out of the woods. He at first claimed that he was just exercising his dogs and he was no longer carrying his rifle, but the warden noticed fresh lacerations on the dog's faces, and the man soon led wardens to the dead bear, his rifle and handgun. He will be facing charges for closed season bear hunting, unlawful use of dogs to pursue bear hunting while trustpassing, and waste of game. The stars lined up on this case, said Captain Dan Chadwick. We were fortunate that this crime was captured by a cellular trail camera that alerted the owner, who then quickly called it in. All the poachers and charges except hunting while truspassing, are gross misdemeanors, punishable by up to one year in jail and up to a five thousand dollars fine plus a two thousand dollars criminal wildlife penalty. A Colorado man spent three days in jail and was forced to pay over a third thousand dollars in fines and court costs after he released a bobcat from a trap. Back in November, forty year old Adam Reich posted on his Facebook page that he had released a bobcat from a leg hold trap and had been injured in the process. According to the news outlet Sweetwater Now, the Facebook post showed Reich with cuts to his arm and face and included a photo of the bobcat. The man deleted the post, but not before someone notified officials. Game Warden visited the trap site later that day and found evidence that Reuch had been at the scene. Even though the man pleaded no contest to unlawful release of a fur bearer from a trap, he still maintains the cat attacked him first. He said, quote, this cat jumped on me and chewed me up pretty good. It took everything I had to control this bobcat. During this process, I was able to free the cat from the trap as I really did not know what else to do in the situation. Along with probation and fines, Reuch was also ordered not to go within five hundred yards of any legally set traps. In Texas, a duck hunter was given multiple citations and warnings after game wardens found eighteen holed duck carcasses in the dumpster at his mobile home park. An employee at the park notified wardens about the ducks. Hats off to that employee, and when confronted, the hunter admitted throwing them in the trash. He explained that he had accepted the ducks from two other hunters after attending a guided hunt. He threw those ducks in the bed of his truck and drove somewhere else for another hunt. The next day. He said he no longer felt like cleaning the ducks when he returned home, so he threw them in the dumpster no longer felt like an officer. In a first of its kind lawsuit, the Kentucky Department of Fish Wildlife is suing a hunter for illegally importing a deer head from Wisconsin. The hunter, Nicholas Behringer, already admitted to bringing a deer head back from Wisconsin in violation of Kentucky law, and he paid the fifty dollars fine in addition to court fees. But for the first time ever, the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife is bringing a civil suit seeking nearly nineteen hundred dollars in damages. That amount represents the department's cost of investigation, testing, prosecution, and disposal of the infected carcass parts. Barringer legally checked his eight point bucky in accordance with Wisconsin's regulations. According to a Kentucky DFW press release, he then brought the intact head of the deer into Kentucky four taxidermy, in violation of Kentucky's prohibition on the importation of deer carcasses or high risk parts having tissue potentially infected with chronic wasting disease. The deer tested positive for CWD and still contained the brain and spinal cord, but it remained frozen, supposed no risk of spreading CWD into Kentucky. The main Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife was seeking the public's help identifying a woman who brought a baby raccoon into a pet co in the city of Auburn. The woman brought the raccoon into the story trying to get its nails trimmed, and multiple store patrons handled the raccoon. Some even kissed it. The Main Wildlife Department later posted an update on its Facebook page that the raccoon had been located and did not test positive for raises. No word on whether the woman is facing charges or penalties. And moving on to the latest greatest story, the public land desk. A federal judge in Wyoming ruled last week the public land users who corner cross are immune from civil liability. This isn't the end of the Wyoming corner crossing case, but it's a big step in the right direction in a huge win for public land hunters and anglers. If you haven't been following this story, here's a quick recap. In twenty twenty and twenty twenty one, a group of hunters from Missouri We're going elk hunting and mule deer hunting near Elk Mountain in southeast Wyoming. The public parcels that they were hunting were mixed in with private land in a checkerboard pattern. Instead of walking across private land to reach public these hunters used a ladder to climb from one public block to another at the corner where those blocks meet. Now I have to say they only used a ladder in order to completely not touch the property of the land owner, as one of the land owner's agents had put two te posts in a length of chain at that corner as a deterrent from this legal public access. But even though these guys were clearly doing their best to avoid trespassing, that wasn't enough for landowner fred Eshelman. He pressed charges against the hunters, and when a court found them not guilty of criminal trustpass he sued in federal civil court. He claimed the hunters had damaged his property's value to the tune of seven million dollars, and the case was presented before Chief US District Judged Scott Scavdaal. Eshlman argued that even though the hunters had not touched his property, they still trespassed into his property's airspace. The hunters argued that Eshlman violated the Unlawful Enclosures Act, which prohibits anyone from restricting access to public land. The judge issued a resounding opinion in favor of the hunters. Quote the court finds that where a person corner crosses on foot within the checkerboard pattern from public land to public land without touching the surface of private land and without damaging private property, there is no liability for trust pass. The judge relied heavily on a nineteen fourteen case known as McKay v. UINTA Development Company. In that case, a federal court ruled that a sheep farmer could move his herd across private land to access public parcels in southern Wyoming. That court found that individuals quote possess a reasonable way of passage over the unenclosed tract of land without being guilty of trustpass. To answer Eshelmann's argument about airspace, the judge cited another nineteen seventy four case from the Tenth Circuit Court. In that case, the court ruled that for someone to trespass into a property's airspace, they had to in some other way damage the property or interfere with the use of that property. Furthermore, the Wyoming legislature just passed a law this year prohibiting hunters from quote traveling through private property to access public land. But that law clarified traveling through. Traveling through required physically touching the surface of private property, and so would not have applied to these hunters or hunters who cross at the corners. Taking all these things together, the judge came to the common sense conclusion that the hunters have just as much right to the airspace above those corners as Eshelman does. This is a good ruling, but it's not the end of the story. For one thing, it doesn't make corner crossing legal across the country. In fact, it may not even make corner crossing legal in every situation in Wyoming. We spoke with Dave Wilms, who you may remember from episode three to three of the Meat Eater podcasts where we covered this case. Wilms is an attorney hunter, Senior director for Western Wildlife at the National Wildlife Federation, and former policy advisor to the Governor of Wyoming. He explained that while the judge clearly removed civiliability from corner crossers in the state, the judge seemed to limit his decision to land laid out in a checkerboard pattern. This pattern emerged as a result of the westward expansion of the railroad, and the judge only references this type of land in his decision. Here's Wilms, I'm. 00:27:12 Speaker 3: Not actually sure that it would suggest that you're open to corner crossing anywhere in Wyoming. That's not crystal clear to. 00:27:18 Speaker 1: Me when I read the opinion. 00:27:19 Speaker 3: In fact, it seems like it's fairly narrowly tailored to just the railroad checkerboard. 00:27:26 Speaker 2: The judge didn't specifically exclude non checkerboard land, but Wilms points out that this decision leaves the point open for interpretation. The decision may also not apply to other criminal cases. The new Wyoming law I mentioned earlier likely protects corner crossers on all types of landlocked land, but if the legislature changes that statute, it's unclear whether this decision could save them from criminal trespass charges. Here's the bottom line with the covey that I'm not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. If you live in Wyoming, corner crossing is more legal than it was two years ago, but you still might find yourself dealing with trespassed charges. If you live in any other state, you'll have to check with your state's laws. The only thing that can make corner crossing legal across the country is a Supreme Court decision or an Act of Congress, which is a long way from happening. It's more likely that each state addresses this issue based on its own political climate. In the state legislature. Here's Wilms again. 00:28:23 Speaker 3: I've always thought one of the outgrowths of this case, regardless of how it played out, is that depending on what you state you're in and the politics of that state, you might wind up with a different answer in a different state. But the states may step in and say we need to address. 00:28:40 Speaker 2: This so as we're usual. The answer is get involved and stay involved. If you'd like to access landlocked public land via corner crossing, get in touch with your state legislators. Tell them you want them to sponsor a bill clarifying the legality of corner crossing in your state, and that you'll be watching to make sure they follow through. That's all I've got for you this week. Thank you so much for listening, and remember to write in to a s K C. A L. That's an asscal at the Meat Eater dot com and let me know what's going on in your neck of the woods. If you're way behind on those yard jors, you may want to check out www. Dot steel Dealers dot com and find a local, knowledgeable steel dealer near you. Go down there, tell them your issues, your challenges that you're facing in your own back forty and they're gonna get you set up with what you need, and they're not going to try to send you home with what you don't. Thanks again, and I'll talk to you next week.

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