00:00:10 Speaker 1: From Meat Eaters World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This is Cow's Week in Review with Ryan cow Calahan. Here's cal Police in the town of Brookline, Massachusetts issued a warning to residents last week, advising them to stay away from wild turkeys during mating season. Gobblers can get especially frisky during their yearly mating rituals, and officers don't want locals accidentally getting into a tussle with an offended tom. Most Americans don't have to worry about being jumped on by a twenty pound bird on their way to the supermarket, but residents of Brookline do. The town hosts its own population of wild turkeys, and if the city website is any indication, they're proud of it. They used COVID relief money to install ten turkey statues in a public art displayed dubbed turkeys around town Catchy. Each statue in the town's commercial district was given a name that reflects the theme of the artist who designed it, such as Eedy the Educator, Bird of Harmony and Love is Love is Love. Leaning into your town mascot is one thing, but I have a feeling Brookline PD would prefer the birds move somewhere else. Attacks are a regular occurrence, and the department is constantly asking residents not to feed the animals. The even made national news when in twenty seventeen they told residents that quote, wild turkeys have a pecking order, and people who act fearfully will be treated as subordinates. Being aggressive toward wild turkeys is recommended by state wildlife officials. So the question residents of Brookline have been asking is do we erect statues in order to then kick them in the beak. This week, it's turkeys, Turkeys, turkeys at the meaeater dot com and we have a schm moortgasbord of turkey stories for you here at meat Eater. So if you're listening to this, we have a turkey photo contest weird Wild. It will all be considered. You're gonna win a bunch of cool stuff that we're going to announce on meat Eater Radio Live next Thursday, including the brand spanking new first light Turkey vest that everybody's super excited about, a bunch of cool, awesome Phelps game calls, and you know you need another DSD turkey decoy too, So check all that stuff out Aside from that. We got all sorts of good stuff going on on the show this week. But first I'm going to tell you about my week. And it's a little bit of a doozy here, so very important public lands update. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals published their decision on the Wyoming corner crossing case. And no real surprise, walking from one piece of public land to the next is legal. I know it's not. It's kind of an anti climax. It was legal from the very beginning. It is still legal now. Forty eight page decision, super good reading, great history. Lesson, we'll get that up on the website. A couple of awesome quotes in there. Just remember your intent matters, which is to go from public land to public land. You can't physically touch private land. And it's the Tenth Circuit Court that made this decision. Their decision applies to Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and oddly enough those bits of Yellowstone National Park that kind of kick into Montana and Idaho. But this is the only court case that answers this question nationwide, meaning that a good lawyer will look a litigious person in the in states outside of the Tenth Circuit and say, well, here is a Wyoming court case and Ninth Circuit Court and a Tenth Circuit Court decision, So how much time and money do you want to spend challenging this? Ideally, that same lawyer is also going to say, and remember that we're talking about a person physically stepping from one piece of public ground to another piece of public ground. It's common sense. Huge thanks to BHA and Wyoming BHA for making sure those Missouri elk hunters knew that all the rest of us would pony up some cash to help them out with their legal fees. Without the fast action of Wyoming BHA, we would not be here celebrating common sense. If this is confusing to you, please check out the on x corner locked reports. Super easy to find. Just pump that sucker into the Google machine on ex corner locked report. Now again, we wouldn't be here if it weren't for the willingness of the Missouri four Bradley Cape, Zachary Smith, Philip Yeomans, and John Slowinski to take this case to trial as a special treat. You're going to hear about this victory for public access on public land from their attorney, Ryan Samard. 00:04:57 Speaker 2: Today the Tenth Circuit issued its decision in corner Crossing and unanimously held that the district got it right and landowners and the checkerboard have no right to obstruct people from crossing peacefully from one section of public land to the next section of public land. It was the unanimous decision. It was written by Judge Tim Timkovich, who I thought hated us. There were no descents we won forty eight pager. It chronicles the history of the settlement of the American West, from pre American times to the various factions who claimed ownership to all sorts of sections of the American West, the various treaties and conquests that landed us where we're at, the construction of the trans Continental Railroad, the various efforts to create peace on the range. The case law from the late eighteen hundreds through the nineteen eighties, our case, and throughout that. He again, I haven't finished reading it, but he situates our case comfortably in saying from a federal law perspective, he did not decide this on Wyoming law. He decided it on federal law nationwide lot and said this is not an actionable trespass. This is not how we cooperatively share and enjoy our public lands. You cannot appropriate for yourself a monopoly of those lands there for all of us. It's great, it's great. I've never read something and smiled the whole time. It couldn't have gone better. 00:06:45 Speaker 1: Next on the public lands docket, and for this one, you're going to need to get your acronym hat on, because we are dealing with DI C, EQ AN E, PA, fl, PM, HUD and whatever else we can come up with. The joint statement was issued Monday by a Department of Interior Secretary Doug Bergham and Housing in Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner, announcing a plan to inventory and select underutilized federally managed public lands for sale in order to address America's housing shortage. This is a quote from that statement. The Interior Department oversees more than five hundred million acres of federal land, much of it suitable for residential use. Streamlining the regulatory process is a cornerstone of this partnership. Historically, building on federal land is a nightmare of red tape, lengthy environmental reviews, complex transfer protocols, and disjointed agency priorities. This partnership will cut through the bureaucracy. Interior will reduce the red tape behind land transfers or leases to public housing authorities, nonprofits, and local governments. Housing and Urban Development HUD will ensure these projects aligned with affordability goals and development needs. This isn't a free for all to build on federal lands, all though we recognize that bad faith critics will likely call it that it's a strategic effort to use our resources responsibly while preserving our most beautiful lands. Well, a little trick for you if you're in the writing or public speaking biz, if you don't want to encourage quote bad faith critics, don't tell skeptical people that much of the five hundred million acres of public lands are suitable for housing while telling them that you're removing the regulations such as environmental reviews and oversight and gang. You don't have to care, but if you like public freedom in the out of doors, you should at least be informed. And here's where more of the acronyms come in. Right now, the National Environmental Policy Act NPA is moving towards the end of a thirty day public review period, at which point it will be as the Secretary has stated reduced NEPA exists for accountability purposes, to show that anything the government does has been accounted for. We do an environmental review. We are aware of what's on the ground and what the consequences are in this case of selling that ground or developing it. That's it. That's all NEPA does. Now, on top of that, our next acronym CEQ, Council for Environmental Quality, that exists to inform and advise the executive branch as well as other agencies as to how NEPA should be interpreted and as to what those NEPA findings are. Now an executive order came out regarding CEQ, the Council for Environmental Quality, which again interprets NEPA and helps other agencies interpret NEPA, and then it reports back to the executive branch the President and says, hey, this is the situation. They don't have the power to regulate themselves. It's just advising what NEPA found. Well, CEQ just got an executive order informing them that all these agencies need to take NEPA for what they think it's worth and go through each project with the mission of expediency, efficiency, and certainty over any other policy objectives. And to prioritize environmental documents by the entity proposing the project, which means, right, if I'm a a housing developer and I want to develop something on public land, I can say, forget your government environmental impact analysis, I have my own. Further, it tells CEQ to advise to implicitly ignore the cumulative nature of reasonably foreseeable effects, establish a minimum federal financial threshold for what constitutes major federal actions warranting NEPA review, exclude environmental justice analysis, exclude methodologies that are arbitrary or ideologically motivated. That's an interesting one, right, because depending on who's in office and who's running the show, we have examples of science being flipped on its head and said it's an ideological argument, not science. And to get to the good part, guarantee that all executive departments and agencies provide opportunity for public comment and rigorous peer reviewed scientific analysis. I agree with the last part, but it doesn't exactly match up with the stuff in the middle. Doesn't When we consider these things, and they get reasonable to ask the question if five hundred million acres of our public lands are suitable for housing. How do you know? Right, you're saying it's suitable for housing, but you're also saying that our process to determine if the land is suitable for housing doesn't really need to go through that process. Now, I don't like the idea of selling off public lands right like, you're probably smelling what I'm stepping in on that one. Okay, The reality is we have always had an ability to sell certain sized parcels of public land. Enter our next acronym, which is FLIPMA FLPMA the Federal Land Policy Management Act of nineteen seventy six, which outlines the process of sale, specifically what lands are eligible, why they would be considered for sale, and how much. For those of you scratching your heads, yes, it does take an Act of Congressional approval to sell public lands, but only in parcels over twenty five hundred acres. And this is where it gets scary to me. Right now. The government is in flux, It is trying a lot of new things out, and I believe that this is one area where the American public needs to know what they are giving up for what they are getting. Yes, there are our original lands in our big portfolio of public lands right now on the Federal Register, which is something you should really get familiar with. Okay, this is like source material. It's literally what's happening in our government every single day. The Federal Register dot gov can look it up anyway. If you go there, you can find examples of past and present land sales, most of which don't really raise my hairy eyebrows. But those lands went through an environmental review process that determines they aren't critical for endangered species or migration corridors or even rainwater collection. Do you know how little rainfall these Western states get. It takes a lot of acreage, a lot of matriculation to fill our aquifers and reservoirs, And gosh, maybe that's part of the reason that a lot of these federal lands aren't part of the private portfolio already. Remember, it wasn't all that long ago that people didn't build places where it took five hundred foot way well casing to produce water, or in places where fire meant loss of property in life. Secretary Bergham is correct. There is a lot of red tape bureaucracy within NEPA, which is why there currently exists the ability to carve out parts of the NEPA process in streamline sales and transfers when those lands are determined to be in the best interest of the American public to be sold disposed of. So why aren't these carve outs enough? They already exist. NEPA and the CEQ do not have the power to stop anything. It's just an assessment of what is at risk due to government action. We've already seen the Elon musk doze effect of swinging the fancy chainsaw around this area, like all areas of government or business, could use reform and improvement, for sure, but let's make sure it's done with care, not the axe or chainsaw. The scalpe or maybe just like a little shoulder massage would be more beneficial in this scenario. Once our public lands are gone, they are gone. As a final word on the National Environmental Policy Act, which started as a four page document which is insanely efficient four pages, okay, written back in nineteen seventy, Senator Henry Jackson said, mister President, it is my view that NIPA, has passed by the Senate and now has agreed upon by the Conference Committee, is the most important and far reaching environmental and conservation measure ever enacted by Congress. He further elaborates that NIPA is a congressional declaration that we do not intend, as a government or as a people, to initiate actions which endanger the continued existence or the health of mankind. That we will not intentionally initiate actions which will do irreparable damage to the air, land, and water which support life on Earth. Now, jumping all the way back, this action is regarding affordable housing. People need places to live. I'm one hundred percent down with that. I'm one hundred and ten percent down with affordable housing. I want to know, as just a citizen of the United State, it's a tax paying citizen that wherever public lands are considered for sale, that the nearest community has already done its due diligence and done everything that it can do to provide affordable housing. This is, after all, a massive government handout. So we want accountability, right. This is one like one of the biggest topics that I appreciate that the old Trump administration is brought up. We don't want waste, we don't want fraud, we don't want theft. We need more accountability. I want a full report from each sale adjacent community documenting how that county has a tempted to provide affordable housing, What land and infrastructure currently would be classified as underutilized, What county or city ordinances have been enacted to promote affordable housing? What amount of county or city dollars have been spent to address affordable housing needs? Right? That sounds reasonable. No more fraud, no more waste. I just want proof that this option of developing public land is needed, and it's needed right now. Keep in mind, our population is growing. This conversation will never go away, so when it pops up, I think it's only right that we are darn sure that we know what we're losing and what we are gaining. Seems reasonable, all right? Stepping off the soapbox, getting back to the news, Moving on to the off colored turkey desk. Twelve year old Addy Windham was excited to chase her first gobbler during Mississippi's youth season earlier this month, but the hunt turned out to be even more special than she could have thought. She was hunting with her sixteen year old brother on her family's property, and the pair had called in a bunch of hands. They assumed a gobbler would be with them, but when they saw it, they almost couldn't believe it. That Tom was a rare silver colored bird that they'd seen on trail cameras several times before, but it had been hopping from property to property, so they weren't sure that they'd been able to get it. I don't know whether ADDIE's brother had his own turkey tag, but I'd say he did a great thing by letting his little sister take the shot. She told the newspaper, The Clarion Ledger, that she was shaking badly, but she was able to make a good shot on the bird once he got within twenty yards. To make the hunt even more special, she made the harvest with a twenty gage shotgun that used to belong to her grandfather. Her grandfather passed away last year, and he was an avid turkey hunter. I have no doubt he'd be proud that his gun was used by his granddaughter to harvest such a cool bird. Many species of wild animals have genetic variations that give individuals a different color than most of their fellows. There are melanistic white tailed deer that have black coats, for example, and some black bears in British Columbia have white coats. When it comes to turkeys, the National Autobon Society reports that the birds can appear in four alternative color variations smoke, red, black, and white. They are caused by genetic mutations, and some are more rare than others. Smoke is the most common, with an estimated one in one hundred turkeys sporting this plumage. ADDI silver bird appears to be one of these, though I haven't seen a biologist confirm that red varieties are even more rare, and white or albino turkeys are a once in a lifetime occurrence. Scientists estimate that only one in one hundred thousand turkeys are white, which, unless you live where it's snow a year round, makes a lot of evolutionary sense. Moving on to the coyote desk, a Washington State girl was nearly dragged away by a coyote just inches from her front door in the latest such attack in the Seattle suburb of Bellevue. The offending canine was hanging out outside the four year old girls home last week when she pushed open the front door and stepped outside Their father told local media that she just went to pet the dog, but quote with just one second, the coyote bit her hand and tried to drag her away. The father was able to extract his daughter's hand from the yodel dog and take her to the hospital, where she was treated for minor injuries. Washington State Wildlife officials took the incident very seriously. They lethally removed two coyotes from the area and their warning residents to stay away from the animals. This is the fifth reported incident over the last week. In another attack, a coyote went up to a group of children waiting at a bus stop and tried to bite them, ripping some clothing and attempting to take a backpack. Parents responded and chased the animals away, but the coyotes are clearly less afraid of raising a kid's lunchbox than they should be. Suburban coyotes can be a real headache for humans, but the dogs can also be a problem for turkeys. See what I did there, We got right back to turkeys. Coyotes kill both adult turkeys and their poults, and many hunters have observed coyotes coming in to investigate their turkey decoys. Turkey predation is one thing that some point to as the cause of the declining turkey populations we've seen across the country. However, studies done on the stomach contents of coyotes show that turkeys represent a pretty insignificant portion of their diets. They mostly eat rodents or small mammals, or, in the case of the Bellvue coyotes, we just talked about, cheeseburgers, lunchables, pizza boxes, and little kid fingers. Adam Butler, the Turkey program biologists for Mississippi Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, explains that adult turkey mortality is actually pretty low. Adult turkeys are incredibly cautious animals, which makes them a tough kill for coyotes and turkey hunters alike. When it comes to predation, most turkeys are killed as eggs by nest predators like raccoons, skunks, and apossums. On average, according to Butler, between forty and sixty percent of all turkey nests will be eaten before they are hatched. So if you'd like to boost turkey numbers by hunting predators give coyotes a break, you might want to get rid of the highly adaptable canines for some other reason, but they aren't to blame for your lack of success, and the turkey was this year. Especially if those coyotes are feeding on the skunks and a possums and raccoons, then they're actually boosting your bird numbers. Moving on to a lightning round edition of the Legislative Desk. This is that, folks. We're smacking the middle of the hottest time of the legislative year and there's just too much happening for us to cover everything in detail. But we can't let these items slide, which is why we're taking a quick break from our Turkey Week episode to do a quick hitting edition of the Legislative Desk. If you hear your state or a topic that sounds interesting, head on over to the meat eater dot Com forward slash col where you'll find links to each bill and a way to contact your representatives. In Nevada, AB eighty seven would earmark funding for Wildlife cross SB one oh one would require the edible portions of black bears and mountain lions to be removed from the field. SB two one five would create a roadkill salvage permit program. Big thanks to listener Corey from Reno for sending us that update from his neck of the woods. Another listener who wishes to remain anonymous, sent me an update from Kansas. In Kansas, SB two one one would authorize individual Kansas Department Wildlife and Parks commissioners to submit proposed rules and regulations as opposed to going through the normal rule making process. SB two one three would prohibit non resident waterfowl hunters from hunting department owned and managed lands and waters from Wednesday through Saturday. HB two zero two eight would reinstate discounted senior resident hunting and fishing licenses and remove the sunset on youth lifetime licenses, and HB two zero nine seven would create a tax credit for wildlife habitat programs and public hunting access. If you live in Kansas, get on the horn with your state legislators about those bills, and you better hurry. Session ends Friday, March twenty eight. In Vermont, H one sixty six would effectively ban hunting with dogs by requiring dog owners to be within hearing distance or visual contact of their hounds and never more than one hundred and fifty feet away. Thanks to listener Tyler Brown for making me aware of that sneaky hound hunting band. Idaho House Built one ninety six would create a five year moratorium on mule deer hunting starting this year within twenty two game management units. Listener Brandon Folks, who sent me this bill, says that while he supports science backed game management, he's filled his freezer with mule deer does from several of these units. I'm breaking my rule here for this legislative lightning round, but it seems to me like if this moratorium was necessary to protect the state's herd, Idaho fishing game would have done it. Texans still have a daze to comment on a proposed change to hunting and fishing rules for the twenty twenty five twenty twenty six season. These include increasing the daily bag limit for pintails, extending the quail hunting season, and expanding the mule deer harvest. You have until March twenty seven to way in. You can also email your lone Star state rep. About SB two one four seven, which would make captive whitetail deer the personal property of a deer breeder rather than a public resource as they're currently managed. Also in Texas HB four nine three eight, which proposes to dismantle the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Rep. Pat Curry is a deer breeder in the state of Texas and he doesn't like the way a TPWD handles captive deer breeding in the state, So why not dismantle the entire agency? This is definitely one four to way in on HB four nine three eight. Jumping over to old Kentuck Senate Bill seventy two would prohibit the Kentucky Department of Fishing Wildlife from imposing a hunter education requirement for anyone over eighteen years old. Why and your guess is as good as mine the way I like to think about it, Friends and neighbors, Your small children who we typically think about going through the hunting education programs that we offer. Their's sphere of influence very very small, especially when they start out. They're kind of tied to mom and dad's vehicle. They're not really making their own money yet. So think about somebody who doesn't know a lick about hunting or fishing or regulations, but they also have at their disposal a credit card and a vehicle, which one's going to do more damage. Washington State residents are dealing with a host of gun control bills. Senate Bill five zero nine to eight prohibits the possession of firearms and parks, government buildings, and locations where quote children are likely to be present. I don't know about you, but I've seen plenty of kids pretty much everywhere, so this one sounds like it needs some work. HB one one three to two restricts firearm purchases to one gun every thirty days and places additional restrictions on the purchase of ammunition. HB one one five to two requires mandatory locked storage of firearms separately from ammunition in vehicles and within your home, and HB one one sixty three establishes a permit to purchase program. Huge thanks to listener Nate Flood for sending me this list of bills and including links to each one, which Jordan Sellers is extremely appreciative of. The Missouri State Senate is considering HB five sixty three, which would remove the requirement that land owners register their properties before hunting on them and reduce the minimum acreage from twenty acres to five acres. The bill has already passed the House by a wide margin. Listener Ross Thomson sent me an update from Georgia, where the legislature is considering several bills that should be of interest to hunters and anglers. House Bill one sixty seven allows a hunter to wear fluorescent pink as well as fluorescent orange. House Bill four three to two requires a person sixteen years of age or older to have a Georgia turkey permit in his or her possession in addition to all other required hunting licenses for hunting turkeys. And House Bill four nine to one extends the use of air guns for hunting big game during primitive weapon hunts, primitive weapon seasons, and firearm seasons. Finally, Wisconsin hunters are excited for Assembly Bill one one seven, which would establish a sandhill crane hunting season. Thanks to listener Jeremy Scot for sending that one in last one for you, and this one is perfect for Turkey Week, so I'll spend a little more time on it. Last week, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Senator Roger Wicker introduced the Forest Conservation Easement Program f SEP Act of twenty twenty five. The aim of this legislation would be to provide incentives for landowners to conserve forest land ecosystems rather than selling or converting them into something else that would protect habitat for a wide range of forest species, including turkeys specifically. The legislation offers two options for forest land conservation forest land easements, which are modeled after the agricultural land easements under the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program, and Forest Reserve easements, which are modeled after and are the successor to the Healthy Forest Reserve Program. May not be familiar with these programs, but here's the bottom line. The bill fills a gap in federal conservation programs for forests by allowing state and local governments, tribal agencies, and land trust to purchase and hold conservation easements from landowners. As federal conservation funding becomes more and more tenuous, it's more important than ever that we secure these kinds of programs. Kristen Gillerbrand is a Democrat from New York and Roger Wicker is a Republican from Mississippi. If these two can get together on something, it's probably a good idea. Get on the horn with their US senators and ask for a vote on the forest Conservation Easement program. Moving on to the bird desk, A new report published by a coalition of bird conservation organizations delivered a sobering message last week about the state of birds in North America. The report, titled State of the Birds twenty twenty five, says that two hundred and twenty nine species require urgent conservation action. More than one third of US bird species are of high or moderate conservation concern, including one hundred and twelve tipping point species that have lost more than fifty percent of their populations in the last fifty years. That's on our watch. I'm forty two years old. That includes forty two red alert species facing perilously low populations, such as Alan's hummingbird, tricolored blackbird, and the Salt Marsh sparrow. This is the sequel to the twenty nineteen report that garnered tons of media attention. The report documented the loss of three billion birds in North America over fifty years. Three billion birds over fifty years, driven by habitat loss, predation, feral cats, I'm just saying, and human development. This new paper found that ducks and other waterbirds have increased their population in the last fifty years, but that all other categories of birds have declined. Sea ducks have lost four percent, Western and Eastern forest birds have declined by eleven percent and twenty five percent, respectively, and shore birds have dropped by thirty three percent. The largest drops come from arid land birds, which have declined by forty one percent, and grassland birds, which have dropped by forty three percent. That last stat shouldn't come as a surprise to regular listeners of this podcast. We've covered many times how much degradation our grassland ecosystems have experienced. We're losing two million acres a year. It is the most threatened ecosystem on the planet, and this new report is just the latest data point in that trend. Since I know you're wondering, the report does not mention turkeys Specifically, turkeys would be considered to a forest bird, though they can thrive in areas of mixed open fields and forests. Unfortunately, despite a historic increase in turkey numbers since the nineteen eighties, they don't buck the trend outlined in this latest analysis. The National Wild Turkey Federation says that of the states that have reported data, wild turkey population estimates have declined by about thirty percent. Three more percent. We're at a third. This is obviously not comprehensive, but it aligns with what we've been hearing from individual biologists, hunters, and agencies. Turkey numbers are going down and it's unclear exactly why. And as we also often cover, exactly why is a bit of a misnomer. It's always a combination of things habitat, loss, soiled death, predation, disease. Reversing this trend will require a multi pronged approach that will necessitate lots of state and federal funding along with boots on the ground volunteers. If you're interested in getting involved, join your local NWTF chapter. They'll connect you with local volunteer opportunities, fundraising efforts, and let your elected representatives know that you're concerned about this stuff. Very important. That's all I got for you this week. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to write in to ask c Al that's Ascal at the meeteater dot com and let us know what's going on in your neck of the woods. One last thing for our legislative roundup. There's a bunch of bills here in my home state of Montana HB three seven, which is going to, like I've talked about that a lot, it's going to remove funding for our state habitat and access program called Habitat for Montana. There's also HJ twenty four, which is just so embarrassing I don't even want to talk about it. It's a bunch of people in Montana that think we should join Utah's lawsuit, which is wildly unpopular with the rank and file in my home state. But it pops up and we just don't know why. Anyway, if you didn't hear your state, that does not mean you're exempt. There's just enough info here to where I hope it inspires you to get off your keyster and find out what's going on in areas that affect you. Be concerned, right your representatives and let them know why you're concerned, what you want to see happen part of your duty. That's what we want out of here at the Weekend Review. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next week

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