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: You've heard of cat naps, but what do you know about penguin naps? Turns out penguins may be better at micro napping than cats or even college students, and they definitely aren't culpable in the eradication of any other species on our planet. Kim here, little kitty, Kitty, kitty. According to a new study published in the journal Science, penguins can take as many as ten thousand naps per day, and these small sleeps last only a few seconds. Researchers implanted devices into the head and neck muscles of fourteen breeding chin strap pengu ones nesting on King George Island in Antarctica. They combine this information with video recordings of the birds, which makes this data especially robust. They found that penguins knotted off more than ten thousand times per day for an average of about four seconds. That equals more than eleven hours of sleep in every twenty four hour period, which is pretty good. For any kind of bird or mammal. Humans are also able to sleep for only a few seconds at a time, as you've experienced if you've ever knotted off while driving. But before you start planning micro naps as a strategy for getting through Finals week, you should know that researchers discourage drawing conclusions about how humans rest. From this study, five or ten minute naps have been shown to benefit people, but it's unlikely we get much out of the seconds long snooze. Penguins, on the other hand, can stay rested using micro naps because, like those cute little tuxedos they wear, they don't really have any other choice. Sleeping for only a few seconds at a time allows them to be watchful of predators, which is especially important when they're staying put for weeks at a time on top of a clutch of eggs. So the next time you toss and turn all night and your better half asks how'd you sleep, you can say, just like a penguin, No living. 00:02:13 Speaker 1: Creature has survived except the Fengland. 00:02:20 Speaker 2: Hey, I know it's December twenty fourth when this episode releases, so I just want to get some thank yous in there. Some well wishes for a happy holiday. Hey, I really do hope that you folks out there with families have a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful Christmas and New Year. Happy holidays to you. I truly wish that you all get to have the joy and happiness that I get when I stare into the beautiful brown eyes of my bird dog when she retrieves a rooster, a goose, or a duck. Many of you may not get there, but I do hope that is something that comes true for all of you. Big, big, huge thank you to Phil Taylor, a man who's unbelievably talented and chooses to spend those talents on us and the Week in Review. Big huge thanks to Phil, And big huge thanks to Jordan Sillers, the guy researches rights. He's interesting, smart as a whip, and his work is extremely prominent here on this podcast. So big thank you to Jordan, big heart on that fellap, big brain to match and get stuff done. So thank you both a ton, and thank you to all the listeners out there who subscribe to this here podcast and want to learn more every week. Couldn't do it without you, huge part of the show, and keep writing in we really appreciate it. So Okay, enough with this stuff. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, or whatever it is you celebrate, and on with the show this week, the Crime Desk, Wolves Legislation, and the Mail Desk. But first I'm going to tell you about my week. 00:04:02 Speaker 1: In. 00:04:02 Speaker 2: My week was interesting, as always found out that the tour bus life is not a great life. That's right, I flew into Cleveland to join the Meat Eater Live Tour. If you attended a show, thank you very much. You were awesome. But the cycle of ending the show climbing on the tour bus, which starts moving about one am and stop sometime around five am, is not real conducive to sleep or general health. Pretty conducive to beer drinking, which, as we all travel independently so much, was a major plus. Being trapped in a bus with a bunch of your buddies is a great way to catch up on thanks. Makes me really rethink the long held dream of mine to have an autonomous vehicle that would transport myself and the dog to hunting grounds. I'd be able to catch up on my reading, make good meals, get a full night's sleep, and arrive at the pre set destination, rested and ready to hunt before shooting light. And that's why they're dreams. Big highlight of the tour, aside from the ghost stories that go with each venue that I've always been, you know, keen on picking up was Lake Erie Walleye fishing Pretty darn wild. How close to downtown Cleveland a fella can pick up a limit of large walters. I bring this up because that famous guy Jason that we fished with who yelled out we got weights and fish famously at the Lake Erie Walleye Attorney anyway, that that dude, one of the pair of cheating Walleye anglers, Chase Kaminski, was just sentenced up to twelve months in jail plus four months on parole, and his son earned a year of parole for passing off movie money as in not legal tender at the ten Pin Bowling Alley there in Cuyahoga County forget an irrelement. More on that later, because we're moving on to the crime desk. A Montana sheriff fled guilty this month to illegally killing a mule deer buck. Treasure County Sheriff Eil Seastrom killed the white tail buck earlier in the season and tagged it with his general tag. Later in November, Seastrom killed a mule deer buck, but he tried to use his wife's tag to make it legal. It's not clear how he was caught, but he was ordered to pay a fine of eight hundred and seventy dollars and had his license suspended for two years. He issued a statement that said quote, I, like everyone else, am human and make mistakes as well. What matters is what we do after our mistakes. I have been taking the necessary steps to hold myself accountable for my actions and am accepting the consequences as they come. Seastrom was elected as sheriff earlier this year. We'll see if the voters take part in holding him accountable next time he's up for election. Someone killed two bear cubs last month in Oregon, left them to waste, and now the Oregon State Police are asking the public to help them identify the poachers. Details are still scarce, but the OSP says that on November twenty seventh, a hunter reported finding it dead bear cub just off us for a service Road seventy seven in the Keating Wildlife Management Unit. Anyone with knowledge of this incident is encouraged to contact the Oregon State Police Dispatch. The Oregon Hunter's Association is offering a six hundred dollars reward, and the Department of Fish and Wildlife is offering four hunter preference points for information that leads to an arrest or citation. Last year, two poachers who shot a pair of bear cubs in Oregon were ordered to pay fifteen thousand dollars in damages and lost hunting privileges for three years. In New York, a Sullivan County man and his wife receive citations for illegally killing a buck and then purchasing tags after the fact. Officials haven't released the man's name, but they found him because he posted about it on social media. He shot the four point buck in Wildlife Management Area three K, but that WMA has an antler restriction of at least three points on one side. They tracked the deer to a local butcher shop, and the man admitted to calling his wife to purchase a tag after the deer was already on the ground. It's unclear whether he posted an image of the deer on Facebook before or after calling his wife. Up In Canada, a member of Parliament from Nova Scotia says he's faced death threats for speaking out against an organized elver poaching ring. Elvers unfortunately have nothing to do with Santa Claus. Elvers are baby eels and there's a huge demand for them in Asia, especially in China. They can bring up to five thousand dollars per kilogram, and an estimated twenty five tons have been illegally flown out of Canada, according to the CBC. For those counting, that's over one hundred and thirteen million dollars worth of the small slippery river dwelling creatures. Legal elver fishermen told that Canadian Parliament that they've been overrun with hundreds of poachers who have flooded onto Nova Scotia and New Brunswick rivers. One said he's seen or heard of members of this organized poaching ring commit kidnapping, robbery, assault and gun violence. He's accused government and law enforcement officials of not doing enough to set the theft. For their part, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has said that fishery officers routinely patrol the rivers and have made numerous arrests and seizures. Worth over one hundred million dollars. Apparently it hasn't been enough. A pair of brothers in Massachusetts are in hot water for their alleged roll and poaching a white tail deer and a fox. Police were called after a resident of the town of Coleraine found a dead deer in their front yard. They said it was shot by someone riding inside a gray Toyota Tacoma pickup truck. Officers stopped the truck and detained forty six year old Ira Duel and forty one year old Sef Duel. They found a fox in the truck that had been shot and knocked over the head, along with two rifles, two shotguns, a loaded handgun, four muzzleoaders, and four thermal scopes. I don't know how much you know about Massachusetts, but they don't look kindly on illegal gun possession. Along with hunting from a vehicle and hunting at night. The men were charged with carrying a loaded shotgun or rifle in a vehicle and improper storage of a firearm. Game wardens are also looking into whether the dynamic duo have anything to do with other poaching incidents that were allegedly perpetrated by someone driving a gray pickup truck, shooting muzzleloaders with thermal scopes and shotguns and rifles could be them. Last one for you. Montana game wardens are looking for someone who killed four bowl elk in close proximity to one another, cut off the heads and backstraps, and left the rest of the carcassis to waste. The elk bodies were found on a hunting area of the Yuland Ranch and Arco Block Management area near Anaconda. Game Wardens believe they were killed sometime between Saturday, November eighteen and Sunday, November nineteen. Anyone with information about this incident is encouraged to get in touch with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. I got to say the Uland Ranch has been, or at least this part of it has been in Montana block management for a long long time, and poachers are not hunters, and they don't reflect how much we respect your property there and how thankful we are for the legal means I access. Moving on to the wolf Bachelor at Desk, a Mexican gray wolf he wandered outside the official recovery area in southeast Arizona has been captured and sent to the federal government's Wolf Management Facility. Officials have known for months that the female wolf known as F two seven five four had left Arizona and across the high desert of central New Mexico and the Bias Caldera National Preserve. She spent weeks moving between the preserve and the San Pedro Mountains, but showed no sign of returning to the recovery area, so wildlife officials flew in with a helicopter, shot her with a tranquilizer, and flew her back. Some protectionist groups had spoken out against returning the wolf to the designated recovery area. They say that dispersal is a natural part of finding new mates, and that the wolf population needs fresh genes to survive. That's genes with a G, not a J. Wolves, as far as I'm aware, still don't wear pants. The Mexican gray wolf saga is long and complicated, and if you're interested in learning more, you can listen to the segment we did with biologist Jim Heffelfinger in episode one sixty two. Basically, protectionist groups argue that wolves should be allowed to live in all places they ever have, no matter how it impacts the people who live in those areas, or even the wolves themselves. If Mexican gray wolves were allowed to disperse and breed with Northern gray wolves, we might see the Mexican wolf subspecies drowned out entirely. It's called genetic swamping. Keeping these wolves in the designated recovery area prevents this from happening, and it helps maintain public support for the recovery program itself. It also protects this particular female wolf. A biologist who spoke with the Associated Press pointed out that since there are no other wolves in this area of New Mexico, f two seven five four wouldn't have been successful in her quest to find forever love. If she managed to avoid cars and other predators, she would have likely been mistaken for a coyote and shot. Instead, she's getting to participate in her very own game of the bachelorette. You're probably wondering when I was going to come back to the title of this one, Huh. She'll have a choice between two male wolves who, in a twist worthy of Days of Our Lives, also happen to be brothers. If she fancies one of them and they mate, their puppies will be placed in a litter of wild puppies in a process called cross fostering. Those puppies are way more likely to contribute to the gene pool and grow the healthy population of Mexican wolves than letting their mother wander around Central New Mexico by herself. Good luck f two seven five four. The dating scene can get pretty wild. Moving on to the legislative desk, a bill recently introduced in the Florida legislature would allow residents to kill black bears in self defense. You might be wondering why the Sunshine State needs a law like this, as in pretty much every state, it's already legal to kill an animal if that animal is threatening you with death or serious harm. Earlier this year, a Florida man killed a black bear because he said it charged him, and he did not get in any trouble because it was deemed self defense. This bill sounds redundant, but it actually expands the scope of situations in which Floridians can legally kill black bears. The bill says that the bears can be legally killed quote if a person feels threatened and believes that using force is necessary to protect him or herself. Feeling threatened is a much lower bar than fearing for your life, which is usually the standard. When asked to clarify what he meant by threatened, the bill's author, Representative Jason Chauff, said quote, do you know it when it's happening? And everybody that I know knows when they're being threatened. Animal rights groups have come out in opposition to this bill, and it's easy to imagine someone claiming to feel threatened by a bear who just wanders into their yard. On the other hand, Chauf says his constituents in North Florida are facing an unprecedented number of black bears in their communities. He says that one young girl has been bald, Bears routinely break into homes, and many residents have hit bears with their cars. He claims that attempts to manage the bear population have been unsuccessful, and he's trying to give his constituents a way to protect themselves. The bill expressly excludes those who bait bears or incite them to attack, and it only applies on private property. Residents won't be allowed, in other words, to leave a pile of apples in the woods and then when a bear shows up, claim they were threatened. Those who kill a bear under this statute will also not be allowed to keep any part of the bear, and they must notify the Florida Wildlife Commission within twenty four hours of an incident. I'm sure hunters in Florida would love to step in and help this problem, but bear hunting in Florida is a contentious issue. Bears were removed from the state's threatened species list in twenty twelve, and current estimates put the population at four thoy fifty individuals. The state held a hunt in twenty fifteen, but hunters reached their quotas after just two days. Rather than be encouraged, that the population was even larger than expected, which is a good assumption if a hunt goes well, the general public freaked out, They hammered the commission with angry messages, and the state hasn't held a hunt since. One might argue that bills like this are the result of a refusal to use hunting to manage a wild population. Hunting doesn't resolve all bear conflicts, but it is a useful tool in managing the number of bruins in a particular area. Now it looks like the legislature might step in with their own solution. The Agriculture Conservation Resiliency Subcommittee passed this self defense bill on a twelve to four vote. Now heads to the Agriculture and Natural Resources Appropriation Subcommittee. We'll keep you in the loop there if you live in Florida and would like to weigh in. The bill number is HB eighty seven in the House and SB six thirty two in the Senate. We'll post links at the meeteater dot com forward slash cow. The Massachusetts legislature is once again considering lifting the ban on Sunday hunting. Hunting rights advocates have successfully overturned in other states, but Maine and Massachusetts have refused to budge. But hunters aren't alone. Farmers in Massachusetts are also speaking out in favor of lifting the band as deer densities rise far beyond objectives. They're about one hundred thousand deer in the small state, and some areas are seeing as many as fifty deer per square mile. For context, most biologists consider a healthy deer density to be in the five to fifteen range. Farmers say that this overpopulation, combined with drought, have eliminated much of the forage in the surrounding forests and deer decimating their crops. Opponents of lifting the Sunday hunting band say that hunters can already hunt six days during the week, even though hunting in Massachusetts is limited to archery, shotguns, and primitive firearms. Some say they are afraid of getting shot during the hunting season. They like being able to hike or bike on Sundays without having to be worried about running into someone else trying to stock a deer. They also say that if the goal is to lower the deer population, one extra day isn't going to do much good. Hunters, on the other hand, point out that no non hunter in Massachusetts has ever been injured from archery hunting or killed from hunting of any kind. While one more day a week might not sound like much, it could double the amount of time many hunters spend in the woods. If you're limited to hunting only on the weekends, as many hunters are, adding one extra day could dramatically increase the number of deer taken during the year. Bills to remove the Sunday hunting band come up in Massachusetts almost every year, and they haven't been successful so far. We'll see if anything changes this year. If you'd like to weigh in, there are two bills right now in the House. H eight seven seven and H nine to one to two. Get in touch with your state reps and let them know that it's time to join forty eight other states and let hunters hunt all seven days of the week. Up in Vermont, legislators are considering a bill that would make it illegal to use dogs to hunt coyotes or black bears. Current laws allow hunters to use dogs to go after bold species as long as they obtain a permit from the Game Commission. H three twenty three, authored by Rep. Larry Sakkowitz, eliminates the method of take from state law with no exceptions. Oddly, sack Kowitz's bill still allows hunters to use dogs to go after rabbits, game birds, raccoons, bobcats, and foxes. I guess those animals aren't as important to the legislator. Moving on to the mail desk, Americans aren't the only ones concerned about changes to hunting and fishing regulations. Listener Scott Patterson wrote in to tell me about a new bill in Scotland that ended all closed seasons for mail deer in the country. In other words, Scottish hunters can now legally shoot mail, red seka and road deer year round. Scott is a recreational hunter who manages a small area of a newly established woodland, and he's happy about the rule because it allows him to keep the population on his property in check and control damage from browsing. However, he says that Scottish gamekeepers and landowners are in an uproar, which could be a real joke when you know red snakes roar. Anyway, they're worried that all mail deer will be shot in the name of landscape management. If that happens, it will be more difficult for them to market the guided hunts they sell to make a living. But Scott points out the areas where deer are a problem have always had permits to coal mail deer during the off season. This decision by the government, he says, just reduces paperwork and unnecessary red tape. It also worth noting that this new law doesn't require game managers to shoot mail deer. Sporting estates have already said they plan to continue following the traditional seasons, so those populations at least won't be affected. Good luck to all of our fellow hunters in Scotland. I've never tried hagis from wild game, but I hear it's delicious. Hegus for all you other Callahans out there, is the national dish of Scotland. It's a meat pudding made from a sheep's heart, lungs and liver, mixed with oatmeal and spices. If you've tried it with venison or other wild game, let me know how it was by emailing ask Cal the Meat Eater dot com. For everyone else, don't forget to send me your best wildlife stories, legislation and comments on the show to the same address. That's ask c a l At the Meat Eater dot com. We love hearing from you, so right in and let us know what's going on in your neck of the woods. On top of that, don't forget to visit www dot steel Dealers dot com. Find a local, knowledgeable steel dealer near you. They're gonna get you set up with what you need and they won't try to send you home with what you don't. Thanks again and I'll talk to you next week.