00:00:10 Speaker 1: From Meat Eaters World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This is Cow's Week in Review with Ryan cow Kalai. Here's caw. As hunters, we probably know more about animal pooh than the average individual. We know the difference between deer and coyote turds, and we can tell you how long one of those nuggets has been in the woods based on its freshness. But researchers in the UK are being tasked with an even more tricky pooh position pooh roblem, if you will. Water vowles used to be common across South Wales, according to the BBC, but they are now functionally extinct. Conservationists are trying to reintroduce them, but they aren't always sure where the small, shy, mouselike gritters live, so they've developed a creative way to track a voles range glitter pooh. Researchers at the Initiative for Nature Conservation in Whales are feeding captive voles apples covered in glitter. This glitter doesn't harm the animal, but it retains its sheen through the digestive tract. The animal generates tiny, sparkly turds that researchers can more easily see in the wild, which will tell them exactly where the rodents are living. This will help managers make their better decisions about where to remove invasive conifers from wetlands or fence off a riverbank from sheep grazing. They still need to figure out exactly how this will work in the wild, but their initial tests shows promise. Or I should say, poor ramus, or maybe hey, if you think your shit doesn't sparkle. This week, we've got the legislative desk corner crossing public land and so much more. But first I'm going to tell you about my week, and my week has been pretty good. Committed to the chore list that had been stacking up all Turkey season for the Memorial Day weekend, clean the truck fixed, busted spear gun or ordered things I need to replace for next Turkey season, organized and donated and threw stuff away. And I know it's a little after the fact, but thank you to all of our fallen heroes who made that all possible. Just a normal, ordinary weekend of doing chores. After that, fellow bhaer and sportsman for the Boundary Waters Board member Ron Monson came into town and we had it East to share it in Wyoming to get Ron set up professionally with a new seven PRC from the good folks at Weatherby who donated that trip, and a meat Eater edition rifle and AMMO to last year's BHA Rendezvous auction. Ron whacked a thousand yard gong on the first shot. Before this trip, he had never shot beyond two hundred yards, but as he said, his bullets have probably gone further. BHA Rendezvous is back in Missoula, Montana, in just a couple of short weeks. We'll be kicking things off Friday, June thirteenth on the University of Montana campus. Come on down, say hello. Lots of great vendors like First Light, and a ton of great public land loving folks are going to come down reb shoulders with you. There's a brew fest, there's all the fun things. And to get your mind right, you should call your senators right now and let them know that you don't want to see public lands in the budget process. The House did the right thing because of you. You made your opinions and your knowledge available to our elected officials, just like you should, and they listened and they took that bad public lands writer out of that bill, so we expect the same out of their senators. You got to call and let them know right email, call in you know the drill. Proud of you, moving on to the legislative desk. In one of the most anticipated meetings of the year, the Board of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission moved the state one step closer to reopening a black bear hunt. Agency staff presented a set of rules that would govern the hunt, and the board to prove them on a four D one vote. The twenty three day hunt will begin in December, and the agency will issue one hundred and eighty seven permits, which will be distributed via a lottery. Tags will be good in one of seven bear management zones, though the agency says hunting will only be allowed in four of those units. A bear tag will cost one hundred dollars for residents and three hundred dollars for non residents. The Commission improved the use of dogs and bait, but will prohibit hunters from killing cubs or sows with cubs. Public comment on the hunt ran for more than three hours, and I was pleased to see plenty of camo and hunters in Orange in the crowd. Those camo clad individuals, as well as agency staff, argued that Florida's black bear population is strong. A complete population survey hasn't been conducted in more than ten years, but at the time, the estimated population was around four thousand bears. In the meantime, wildlife officials haven't had any indication that the population has shrunk or is struggling in any way. Opponents argued that hunting black bears is care and much like in Washington State, we shouldn't call a hunt until we have more data. But the board was apparently more convinced by the hunter's orange crowd, and they plan to issue their final approval at their next meeting. It seems like despite a good showing from hunters at the latest meeting, the commissioners are hearing way more from the anti hunting crowd. I think they're on our side, but it wouldn't hurt to send the commissioners a note thanking them for their support and asking them to stand firm in the face of pressure. You can find a link to contact all the commissioners at once if you head on over to the meeteater dot com. Forward slash cow California is also considering a big change to how it manages a common species, but from a hunter's perspective, they're going in the opposite direction. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife Commission appears open to recategorizing coyotes as a game species, which would significantly restrict how they are currently managed. Right now, coyotes are considered a non game mammal, which means there are no seasons or bag limits. Landowners and livestock producers can kill problem coyotes without a permit, and hunters can shoot them year out. Classifying them as a game animal would allow the Department to impose hunting restrictions and force farmers to get a depredation permit. The Commission says they are not actively considering any specific rule, but they did hold a meeting in February to get public input on this topic. They also heard a presentation from the Department of Fish and Wildlife which tells me there is definitely interest in increasing protections for yodel dogs in the Golden State California. Hunters, this is definitely one you want to keep an eye on. If you want to comment right now, hit FGC at FGC, dot CA, dot gov. Frog hunters in Louisiana will be able to take a gun to the swamp if Senate Bill one oh six becomes law. It is currently illegal to have a firearm while frog hunting at night in the Bayou state. This is to discourage poachers from using a frog hunt as a pretext for being an out at night shooting other thanks, but a recent state constitutional amendment that increased protections for carrying firearms might make that restriction illegal. Rather than go through a costly court proceeding to find out, the state legislature is opting to simply remove the frog hunting firearm ban. SB one oh six passed the Senate unanimously and appears to have similar support in the House. Speaking to guns, the US House sided with gun rights groups and included a provision in its budget reconciliation bill that would make it much easier to purchase a suppressor in the US. You already knew if you listen to this podcast that the bill eliminated the two hundred dollars tax on suppressors, but at the last minute, House leadership took it a step further. The included language that would remove suppressors from the National Firearms Act, which would also eliminate the need to get approval from the ATF before possessing a silencer. There is some debate about whether this was a good idea. That's because the process that Congress is using to pass this bill is only supposed to be used for budgetary matters, meaning money stuff. Taking suppressors off the NFA's list of restricted diet might qualify since that list is partially enforced by a tax, but it might not, which could jeopardize the whole endeavor. There is probably enough support to pass this measure in the Senate, but it will depend on whether the Senate Parliamentarian allows it to move forward. The parliamentarian is like the hall monitor of Senate proceedings. The current parliamentarian is a woman named Elizabeth MacDonough, and she decides whether the Senate is following all the rules. It's unclear right now she's let the suppressor's provision slide or put a stop to it. We also got some clarity from the Trump administration about how it plans to handle the question of lead tackle and ammunition. The US Fish and Wildlife Service proposed a set of regulations for the twenty twenty five to twenty twenty six season that will govern hunting and fishing on National Wildlife Refuges and fish hatcheries. Much like during Trump's first stint in office, these regulations strive to align themselves with the states in which the national refuges reside. The regsay quote the SUS is committed to continuing to align with state regulations with respect to the use of ammunition and or phishing tackle in future amendments. What does this mean? It means you shouldn't expect any more lead, ammo and tackle bands from the FEDS for the next four years. Your state might impose the bands on those products, but they won't be coming in from Washington. Moving on to the crime desk, a self proclaimed hunting influencer and land manager in Iowa is suing an officer with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources for maliciously prosecuting him and violating his Fourth Amendment rights. Mark Luster is a deer hunter with eleven thousand followers on Facebook and a land management company that designs deer Habitat last October, here arrowed a nice buck on a piece of property he owns and posted a photo on Facebook. That same day, DNR Officer Dan Henderson received a tip from someone claiming that Luster has been hunting over bait. It is legal to place for deer in Iowa during the off season, but that bait must be removed at least ten days before the start of the season opener. This informant said he flew a drone over Luster's property in August and saw bait on the ground. Officer Henderson also saw a photo on Luster's Facebook page that appeared to show a buck standing over a bar patch of ground near a bean field. He felt that the bear patch indicated that bait had been placed there at some point. Henderson got a search warrant for Luster's property and took soil samples from in front of the trail camera. Analysis of those samples found over five hundred milligrams of sodium at the bait site, as well as de t, which is also used in bait. This evidence was enough to hit Luster with three charges, making a false claim for a license, hunting a deer in the presence of bait, and attempting to hunt a deer in the presence of bait. But that's not where this story ends. Prosecutors dropped the first charge because it was based on the false assumption that Luster didn't own the property where he was hunting, but they also dropped the second two charges because Officer Henderson and the DNR refused to disclose the identity of the drone flying informant. The reason for this is unclear, but Luster has a theory. According to his lawsuit, he believes it's a very real possibility that the drone flyer was actually a d NR officer who was illegally surveilling his property. It is illegal in Iowa to fly a drone over someone else's property, which means law enforcement can't do it without some kind of warrant. Luster also points out in his lawsuit that the chemicals found in his soil are within ranges naturally found in Iowa. Lester is no longer being prosecuted, but he claims that Henderson's accusations harmed both his influencer Dreams and his property management company. He's seeking unspecified compensatory impunitive damages for unlawful search and malicious prosecution. We'll let you know if there's more on this story. A British Columbia man was fined thirteen thousand dollars and had his hunting license suspended for three years after he killed the big horn ram in a closed area. Heath Pruel killed the ram in October of twenty twenty three in a wildlife management unit about one hundred and twenty five miles north of Vancouver. He had his ram inspected about a month later, which is required by law, and he claimed to have shot it in a different area. The BC Conservation Officer Service disclosed many details, but they say GPS data proved that Pruel's claims were false. He admitted to his crime when officers confronted him at his home in March of twenty twenty four, and he took a plea deal rather than try to fight the charges. Whatever GPS data BC Game Wardens obtained, it sounds like it was pretty airtight. The fine was based in part on an impact statement by provincial wildlife biologist Chris Proctor. Proctor noted that the value of an opportunity for non resident hunters to hunt a single California big horn sheep has exceeded one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in recent years. Pruel's actions deprived the province outfitters and local communities of all that money, So I'd say he's getting off easy at only thirteen grand. It's also pretty insane how expensive sheep hunting has become. It used to be that hunters had to choose between a new truck and a sheep hunt. Now it won't be long until they have to choose between a ram and a new house. Moving on to the corner crossing desk. If you thought the corner crossing issue had been put to rest by a great decision earlier this year from the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, think again. The owner of the Wyoming ranch that started this entire saga hasn't had quite enough. YO File reported last week that Fred Eshlman of the Elk Mountain Ranch plans to ask the US Supreme Court to review his case. He claims that the Tenth Circuit's decision to legalize corner crossing in six states is quote one of the broadest abrogations of private property rights in American history. His lawyers have until June sixteenth to submit their petition to SCOTUS, and they recently asked for a thirty day extension of that deadline. So we don't know exactly how they plan to counter the Tenth Circuit arguments, but we know they're going to try. If they think this is such an important issue, they might want to think twice before asking the Supreme Court to take it up. Eshlman and company have lost at every level of fees court so far. In their latest loss, legalized corner crossing in Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming. A loss at the Supreme Court would legalize corner crossing nationwide, which would indeed be a major blow not to private property rights but to those who want to restrict access to our public lands. If you want to join this fight right now, donate directly to Wyoming backcountry Hunters and Anglers. Moving on to the hero desk, a shark fisherman is being hailed as a hero after he used a drone to save a girl from drowning off the coast of Florida. Andrew Smith used the drone to target sharks by deploying bait far out into the surf. On May fifteenth, he went out to do a little fishing after work along Pensacola Beach when a stranger ran up to him and asked if he could swim. A teenage girl had been pulled out by a riptide and she was clearly struggling to stay above water. Smith said he couldn't swim, but he figured his drone could do what he couldn't. He hooked a flotation device to the mechanism that usually releases a baited hook and flew it out to the girl in the water. But when he released it, he missed. The wind was up that evening, and he told the CBS Miami that it quote wasn't close at all. But someone found another flotation device and he tried again. 00:15:14 Speaker 2: And I flew it back out, and after the first one, I could kind of tell how wendy it was and stuff. So then I lowered it down and he had to kind of go slower and slower down to her because that was it. That was the last opportunity we were going to have. 00:15:28 Speaker 1: He lowered it until he saw the girl grab it, and she was able to float on it until ems and lifeguards arrived a short time later. Andrews says he was told that if he hadn't done what he did, the girl almost certainly would have drowned. See look at that a good use of drones for hunting and fishing. I don't think we should be using drones to pursue game, but it's great to see a fellow angler step up and save the day. Moving on to the your Neck of the Woods desk, many of you sent me a proposal in Florida that would have swapped six hundred acres of it popular wildlife management area for three thousand acres of fragmented parcels in four counties. The deal was proposed by a mysterious corporation known as Upland LLC, and state regulators appeared to be open to the idea, but hunters, anglers, and conservationists stood up and took action. They organized protests in Florida to oppose the deal, and even Donald Trump's Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles, voiced her opposition to the land swap. The firestorm was so strong that it sent those responsible fleeing for the hills. Upland LLC issued a letter via its lawyer saying it planned to withdraw the proposal. They said they were withdrawing it quote due to public sentiment resulting from misinformation. They don't say what exactly this misinformation was, which is a good sign that it wasn't misinformation at all. They also claimed there was never any intention to develop the land for commercial or community development purposes. This would make Upland LLC the first developer in history to purchase public land and then just leave it alone, if you believe that. I've heard they have nice Bridge in Brooklyn. Florida Governor Around Deasantis is also backing away slowly from this deal. He argued that Upland LLC, not the state, initiated the land swap, which appears to be true. But it's also not the first time DeSantis has come under fire for trying to develop state public lands. As were reported last summer, there was a push to build golf courses and other amenities on state parks, but that was also quickly shut down by residents. The Florida man meme is real, but I gotta say they sure know how to organize opposition to attacks on public land. Good job, everybody. Speaking of controversy, there's another public land fight brewing in Colorado's Route National Forest. There, the Forest Service has proposed a new trails project called Mad Rabbit, which would stretch from Mad Creek to Rabbit Ears Pass. It's been mired in controversy because these trails would also intersect with summer elk range and calving areas. To satisfy the objections of Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the Forest Service agreed to incorporate a special management plan alongside its building efforts. This management plan would, among other things, carefully monitor the elk population to make sure trail construction doesn't harm it. Colorado Parks and Wildlife reviewed the plan and withdrew their objections, and the Steamboat Springs City Council agreed to dedicate one point six million to the endeavor. Seemed like everybody was getting along smoothly, but then the Forest Service publicly released the details of the plan earlier this year. The elk monitoring was nowhere to be seen, along with several other provisions the agency had agreed to. The Forest Service says it never committed to these management provisions, but Colorado Parks and Wildlife was not having it. They reinstated their objections, but it's unclear what, if anything, they'll be able to do in the National Forest now. Opponents to the trail say the only thing left to do is to appeal to the Steamboat Springs City council. The council committed to spending one point six million dollars, but they never took a final vote. That vote is scheduled for June seventeen. So if you live in this area of this centennial state, considered giving those council members a call. I guarantee you there's a public land, hunting access or fishing rights controversy going down right now in your neck of the woods. Join your local hunting or conservation group to get involved, and then tell me about it by writing in to ask c a l at themeeater dot com. That's all I got for you this week. Thank you so much for listening, and remember to write in, like we just told you, let us know what's going on in your neck of the woods, so we appreciate it. Thanks again. We'll talk to you next week.