00:00:10 Speaker 1: From Meat Eaters World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This is Cow's Week in Review with Ryan Cow Klaan. Here's cal A school district in the northern California town of El Dorado Hills issued a shelter in place order this week after officials received a report of two mountain lions wandering around near the campus of Oak Ridge High School. Students stayed in their classrooms and law enforcement searched the area on the ground and via a helicopter. The intrepid journalists at the local media station KCR were also on the scene. They published an exclusive photo that they said depicted one of the mountain lions walking near the school, but they soon realized that they'd been had fooled, deceived goosey let us string. According to a message sent by the school district to parents and forwarded to me by a listener named Kevin, the picture was a fake quote. Unfortunately, an Oakridge student found a fake picture of a mountain lion on the Internet and showed it to the KCRA reporters. KCRA ran with the story without verifying it. We have examined the photo and it is an obvious fake. We apologize if this is confusing and upsetting. This student's name has not been released, but the school says he admitted to his mistake. My theory it was no mistake at all, great prank by whoever this kid was. The mistake was made by the news station. Whatever the scenario, however it plays out, he'll be the hero at the ten year reunion. Good ONNYA. This week We've got bears, wildlife, crime, legislation, and so much more. But first I'm going to tell you about my week. And my week well, I just don't even know where to start. Just got back from about three weeks in the great State of Wyoming. Scenery was awesome, full of potential, but also just chock full of hunters and just like the trail density and supposed backcountry areas was dense, you know. Unfortunately, my big deer hunt that I was quite secretly getting really excited about six years of applying two thousand dollars deer tag was mostly spent trying to just get away from people and not really deer hunting. I did pick up several balloons, though some bottles, a couple of cans, and I did come up with this idea for you know, Wyoming fishing game. Since you guys are already into laws that restrict Americans from enjoying wilderness areas, I think you would also be interested in adding this regulation to your books. An ammunition restriction, just like if you're a waterfowl hunter in certain Southern states you can only bring a limited number of shotgun shells onto a state wildlife management area, or you know, I believe some of the federal refuges in California you can only have so many shells with you too. I think some of the behavior I witnessed would be reduced if Wyoming onerously imposed a maximum allowable amount of rifle ammunition in possession while big game hunting regulation. If you're having trouble reading between the lines, I heard a lot of shooting, not a lot of single shots over the eight days I hunted. Had folks shoot in my general direction, not like you know, like directly in the path of the bullet, but just in a very loud way. Had folks shoot over the top of my head. On top of that, there was a lot of cell phone service on top of the mountains, which just sucks. Unfortunately, this hunt just was not my cup of tea Cowboy state. I love hunting mule deer, but not when I worry about the other people in the woods more than the This was a general unit hunt, so even though it took me, a non resident, a lot of time and money to draw, it was absolutely chock full of resident hunters. I had a lot of time to talk to other hunters, you know, because there's just a lot of people in the woods. All of the resident folks I spoke to said that this is the most pressure they'd ever experienced in that unit. So bad timing on my part. I went into this hunt with more information than I typically ever have for a new area. I felt really good about my plans, but my big screw up where I failed but you can succeed. Point that you should listen to is even though I had plans ABCDEFG, they were all kind of in the general zone right, like in one general area. And again, unfortunately, like everybody else and their dog decided that that was the general area that they needed to be into. So what I should have done, in hindsight is have a plan B that was in just like a total relocation, like a totally different area, because that's just like what it takes sometimes and and I didn't have that, and just so you can have like a little bit of a peak behind the curtain. One of the reasons that I really didn't have that is when you're applying for film permits, because we filmed this old old dirt myth and I, you got to be pretty specific as to your location. So we didn't permit like a totally different area as a plan B and honestly didn't think that we needed to. And so, you know, technically, like we didn't need to, Like I found a BGB, which is a Doug Durham term, a big giant buck, big giant, huge mule deer right there on public land, and so I had that opportunity, right, So technically it was a success. I would just never pay to have that type of experience, you know, like eugh. But if you want to talk about experiences too, like I got a bunch of killer exercise, lots of fresh air, lots of bugling bowls around, lots of time outside, probably drop fifteen pounds that I probably needed to lose, got my hiking legs underneath me. So lots of positive things don't dwell on the negative. Right. Also, if you want to check out some other stuff you want to be in the know, which I'm sure you do because you're listening to this here podcast. Go check out the meat Eater YouTube channel Jason Phelps and I check out hoof disease in Washington State. It's something you have got to be aware of. And I will get doctor Wilde here on the show to answer all the questions you can come up with. So watch that video and shoot me some some questions that ask calaskcl at the meat eater dot com and I'll get them answered for you. On top of that, by the time you listen to this, it will be white Tail Week, which is like an annual kind of sale that we do a lots of technical awesome hunting clothing, including all the brand new white Tail lineup that we're releasing, will be out. Technically it will not be on sale, but the way this promotional period, if you will, as structured kind of the more you spend, the greater your discount will be. So good time to stock up because you will get significant savings over at the meat eater dot com first light dot com check it out awesome stuff. Moving on to the bear Shooting Desk, a twelve year old boy in Wisconsin shot and killed a black bear that was attacking his father during a bear hunt. Earlier this month, forty three year old Ryan Byerman was hunting with his son Owen when the boy shot and wounded a bear. The pair waited about twenty minutes before leaving their stand to search for it with the help of the tracking dog. Ryan was searching through a thicket when he heard the dog yelp and saw it run past him in the other direction. That's never a good sign, and moments later, the wounded bear charged from only about six feet away. Ryan fired eight shots from his nineteen eleven handgun, but none of them found their mark. The two hundred pound bruin was soon on top of him, and his efforts to hit the bear with the gun were as ineffective as his marksmanship. The bear was biting his head, face and arms, and it wasn't looking good for old Ryan. Fortunately, his son was a better shot than he was. Even though the bear was on top of Ryan, Owen angled himself so that he wouldn't hit his father and fired one shot from his rifle. The bullet found its mark and Ryan was able to push the bear off of him. A neighbor drove the man to the hospital, and he's expected to make a full recovery after getting twenty three stitches on his cheek. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but it's worth repeating. If you shoot at an animal and it runs into the woods, wait a few minutes before trying to find it. For a predator like a black bear, give it an hour at least. I'm not sure where Owen hit the bear on his first shot, but it's pretty likely that the bear would have died how they waited a bit longer. Instead, they stumbled upon an angry, wounded bear that was just waiting for a chance to get some revenge. If it hadn't been for the quick action of a twelve year old, the story could have been a lot worse. On top of that, I see more and more people packing pistols in the woods, including folks here on the Meat Eater Crew. You got to practice with them. You got to practice over and over and over again. Goofy stuff that makes you feel like a nerd on TV, right, like getting that firearm out of the holster. If you're not willing to do this, carry bear spray I carried both. Bear spray is great unless you're in a tent. Right, you're gonna hit what you're ramming at with bear spray, but you gotta practice deploying that as well. Now, this wasn't the only bear shooting that made the news last week. Up in Iceland, a police sniper shot and killed the only polar bear to be spotted on the island since twenty sixteen. Authorities were alerted that the bear had appeared in the northwestern tip of Iceland, and when they arrived, it was rummaging through their trash near someone's home. The elderly homeowner had locked herself on the second floor as the bear helped itself to whatever it could find in her trash. There are no polar bears in Iceland, and it's unclear how this one ended up there. Officials say the swim from Greenland is too far even for the water loving bruins, so they think it hitched a ride on an iceberg to make the two hundred mile trip, much like Rudolph in that strange stop motion movie from nineteen sixty four that we all watched. Anyway, some Icelanders wondered why officials couldn't tranquilize the bear and send it back where it came from. Polar bears had become a bit of a mascot for the negative impacts of climate change. In the US, Fish and Wildlife Service considers them a threatened species, but Icelandic Wildlife officials said the operation would be too dangerous and they doubted whether Greenland would agree to take their bear back. Polar bears are a great mascot, whether a climate change activist or a Coca Cola salesman, but the cartoon versions are quite a bit less threatening than the real thing, and it turns out most people aren't comfortable with a in this case, four hundred pound predator rummaging through their trash. Thanks to Josh Marian for sending us that story. Moving on to the crime desk, former presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Junior confirmed earlier this month that he is being investigated for cutting off a whale's head and tying it to the roof of his minivan. This isn't a news story, but it's gained traction in recent months giving the high profiled nature of RFK Junior's candidacy. The story first appeared in Town and Country magazine All the Way back in twenty twelve. It was related by rfk's daughter, Kick, who told the story as an example of her father's eccentric environmentalism. According to Kick, RFK heard that a whale had washed up on the beach of Cape Cod so he ran down with a chainsaw and cut off the whale's head. Kick said her father liked to study animal skulls and skeletons, so he took the head, tied it to the roof of his minivan with bungee cords, and drove it five hours back to his home in Mount Kisco, New York. Kick said, quote, every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet. We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day to day stuff for us. No one cared when Kick told this story in twenty twelve, but now everyone is big. Matt the Center for Biological Diversity demanded that the fed's open an investigation, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed to the hill that they had done, so it's unclear what laws RFK may have broken or if the statute of limitations has run out since his incident appears to have taken place at least thirty years ago. Two men in Puerto Rico have been sentenced to jail time fines in probation for trying to build a resort on a protected wetland the Department of Justice and now it's the last week that a fifty one year old fellow named Raphael Carbio Diaz had destroyed, removed, and filled mangrove wetland areas within and around the Jobos Bay National Estuary in Research Reserve in Los Marias, Puerto Rico. He didn't have a permit to do the work in the reserve, but that didn't stop this entrepreneur from chasing his dreams. He filled the area with quarry material, gated the area, placed at least six mobile housing units on the property, and added a pool. He then named the property Cacique Resort, which means Chief or Boss resort, and rented the units online as short term vacation properties. These mangrove wetlands are critical to local infrastructure, economies and ecosystems because they can limit damage from flooding and storms, reduce pollution, and provide habitat for numerous marine and endangered species. This particular reserve was designated in nineteen eighty one in his home to the endangered brown pelican, peregrine falcon, hawksbill turtle, and West Indian manatee. Carbio Diaz since to twelve months in jail, one year of supervised release, and a four thousand dollars fine. His partner in the property, manager, Nathaniel Hernandez Claudio, was also sentenced to a twelve month probation for his role in filling the property. A Michigan man is being accused of killing nine deer with the crossbow and leaving them to waste in and around the town of Cody, Wyoming. Twenty year old Joshua T. Wheelhouer is accused of killing eight of the deer in a single night in late August. He killed mule deer, bucks, does, and fawns without a license and failed to harvest any meat. He came back and killed another dough about a week later. When he tried to do it again in September, game wardens caught him. He fled on foot and escape and then, according to local prosecutors, posted on Facebook, catch me if you can. Wheel Hower eventually turned himself in, but his remorse came too late. It's being charged with eighteen misdemeanors, including nine counts of taking game animals without a hunting license and nine counts of wanton destruction of big game animals. His bond was set at thirty six thousand dollars, or four thousand dollars for each deer he killed. You can read more details in an article over at the Meat. I don't think this story is over. It's unclear why Wheelhower was in cody or why he suddenly decided to go on a deer killing spree. Producer Jordan Siller's track down his Instagram count, which has over twenty one thousand followers and shows Wheelhower traveling the world and camping with friends. Anyone can turn to a life of crime, but it seems like there's more going on here than meets the eye. We reached out to Wheelhower to get a comment, but have not heard back. Moving overseas to North Korea, government officials are warning about a spike in illegal hunting and foraging, and vowing to crack down on the perpetrators. Daily NK reports that the Ministry of Social Security has sent orders to all provincial police bureaus to watch out for residents poaching animals, illegally foraging and exporting plants and herbs to black markets in China. Quote the Ministry of Social Security considers these illegal acts be contrary to the state's policy of turning all the country's mountains into rich havens of natural resources. The Ministry intends to protect the state's resources by severely punishing those who make illegal use of forest resources. In one incident, a shopkeeper who had a perit collect one type of plant was found to be collecting other types of plants and setting traps for animals. I think this is the first time North Korea has appeared on the crime desk, and I don't pretend to know what goes on over there. Now, this is North Korea. I don't know if these folks are just trying to eke out a living or up to something sinister. But we'll let you know if we find out more. Last one for you, a nineteen year old kid in New York is in trouble after capturing wild Canada geese and selling them as domestics. Earlier this summer, a concerned hobby farmer contacted the New York Department of Environmental Conservation to explain that he was in possession of about a dozen Canada geese. It's illegal in the Empire State to possess wild animals without a proper license, but the farmer claimed it wasn't his fault. He said he'd purchase the geese as goslings from a farm in the town of Rose. Officers visited that farm. They spoke with a woman who said that her nineteen year old son had been selling geese a few months earlier. The sun admitted that he'd found twelve goslings near his private pond and captured them with a net. He then sold them as domestic geese, since it's hard to tell the difference when they're just little goslings. He's been charged with illegally taking migratory birds, and the geese have been released on the farm that are now eating a natural diet instead of goose feed. Hopefully it did something clever at least in the Craigslist ad, you know, like advertising honkers or something. Moving on to the legislative desk legislation. Yes, you Michiganders are likely aware of deer hunting controversy that's now made its way to the state legislature. This is the kind of issue that could crop up in any state where their deer population is growing too fast, So if you live east of the Mississippi, listen up. Back in July, the state's Natural Resources Commission decided to make the Liberty and Independence hunts antlerless only. The two day Liberty Hunt is for youth sixteen and under as well as adults with qualifying disabilities. The four day Independence Hunt is reserved exclusively for hunters with disabilities, and both take place prior to the state's regular firearms season. The Commission voted four to three to prohibit hunters who qualify for these hunts from taking antler deer. Those who supported the move said they did so to help control the state's deer population in the Lower Peninsula. Taking more does is the best way to stabilize a growing population, and they believe this new regulation will encourage hunters to do that. But not everyone agrees, especially those who participate in these hunts and are now prohibited from bringing home a booner, so State Senator Thomas Albert introduced a bill that would roll back this new regulation. Senate Bill nine ninety six would allow hunters who qualify for either hunt to take does and bucks as long as they have a valid hunting license. This bill would change state statute, which means the Commission wouldn't be able to contradict this policy without the say so from the state legislature. Those who support this bill say it's necessary to correct the Commission's mistake. Prohibiting youth and disabled hunters from killing bucks doesn't mean they'll shoot more doze. It just means they won't go hunting in the first place, which could actually have the opposite effect. Those who oppose the bill say that states legislatures shouldn't be getting involved in these kinds of decisions. The Commission has committed to reassessing the change in twenty twenty five, and politicians aren't qualified to dictate hunting regulations to the commissioners. I reached out to Michigan United Conservation Clubs to get their take. The Hunting in Conservation Group hasn't taken an official stance on this issue, but they say it's the topic they hear about the most from their members. They encourage everyone to get in touch with the Michigan Natural Resources Commission as well as their state representatives and let their voice be heard. I'd say that's a good idea. Things get complicated when the state legislature gets involved in creating laws instead of regular relations. Vermont residents have the opportunity to influence how the state manages three hundred and seventy five thousand acres of public lands. The Vermont Agency of Natural Resources is seeking public comment on a new management plan that will guide decision making for these public lands about issues like recreation, habitat management, and natural resource extraction. Two public meetings were held on September sixteenth and nineteenth, so if you're listening to this, those dates have already passed, but the agency posted recordings of those meetings, which would be a great place to learn more about what's in the new management plan. You can also submit a comment to the agency until November one, twenty twenty four. We'll post a link at the meaeater dot com forward slash col with all that info. The Burley Field Office of the Bureau of Land Management in Idaho has issued an emergency closure of recreational shooting in the Indian Springs area south of Kimberly. The ruling closes thirty seven hundred acres of blm land to recreational shooting, though it does not prohibit shooting on private land or hunting with a firearm. The agency said in a press release that the Twin Falls County Sheriff's Department has received thirty three calls in the last four years about dangerous ricocheting bullets. They've received reports from mountain bikers, hikers, and horseback riders who all claim to have been nearly missed by flying pieces of lead and copper. Livestock, residences and equipment have been struck, and one person was even hit while repairing a fence line. That person was unhurt. What was no doubt upset about the incident. Producer Jordan Sillers, who lives in Texas and must pay to shoot on private ranges, is amazed at the idea that anyone would be allowed to go on public land and shoot wherever they want. It's a great privilege for those of us who live out west, and we should take that responsibility seriously. If you're going to shoot on a down designated shooting range on public land. Be sure you have a good backstop. The woods don't count, and neither does flat ground. A bullet fired at an angle into the ground can skip back up into the air and from there to anybody's guests where I'd end up. If you live in this area and you're looking for another place to shoot, the BLM recommends going to a closed gravel pit south of Filer, five miles west on Highway ninety three. Moving on to the mailbag desk, listen up Windy City residents. You got an email a few weeks ago from a listener named Jonathan's Schlessinger, who serves as the Urban Fishing Program coordinator with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. Jonathan wants to start a group for hunters and anglers who live in Chicago, but he's not sure where to start. Quote there are no hunting groups that meet in the city proper. Nearly all of the fishing groups are located outside of the city. In a city as large as Chicago, it seems like there is not only space for this group, but a need. I couldn't agree more. Our country has become more and more urbanized over the last one hundred years, but that doesn't mean people aren't interested in hunting and fishing. Many are, but they aren't sure where to start. Organizing A group of like minded folks, even in the middle of the city would be a great soar us and something that every city should have. Jonathan wonders if he shouldn't try to start a chapter with an existing organization or do his own thing, and I'd probably recommend the former. Plugging into a group like Backcountry Hunters and Anglers will give you access to their resources and would be the best way to connect with other Chicagoans. If you live in Chicago yourself and want to get in touch with Jonathan, send an email to ask Cal at the meat Eater dot com. We'll hook you up. I know uh Pheasants Forever is very active in uh Illinois as well, and it'd be a great resource for you too. That's all I got for you this week. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to write into ask c Al that's ask Cal at the meeteater dot com. Thanks again, I'll talk to you next week.