00:00:09 Speaker 1: From Mediator's World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This is Kel's we Can review with Ryan kel Kell in now Here's Kel. This past January nine, prison staff at Pacific Institution, located outside of Abbotsford, BC, found a carbon fiber arrow with a bag of crystal meth tied to it. The bag reportedly held nine grams of methamphetamine worth Canadian The prison is also home to a rehabilitation facility and there have reportedly been several novel attempts to get drugs from the outside to the inside. But this is the first archery attempt. Now you may be asking, what the heck does this have to do with conservation? In the Pittman Robertson Act was amended to include the sale of archery equipment, all archery equipment sold in the United States in fluids and eleven percent excise tax, with the funds going to things like habitat access and wildlife research. Speaking with a friend of mine, the owner of Day six Arrows, he and his customer base contribute about fifty cents per arrow to Pittman Robertson. The recently past Pittman Robertson Modernization Act now allows for some of those funds to be used to generate more interest in hunting through marketing. Marketing intended to recruit new hunters. Hunter numbers have been in decline, and since state wildlife agencies are funded primarily through license and tag sales, a loss of hunter numbers equates to a lack of funding for our wildlife managers. I personally do not like to see these funds being used in this way, but there isn't any doubt that this is the situation we are in. The fishing equivalent to PR is the Dingle Johnson Act, which is already allowed for a portion of its funds to be used for recruitment purposes, and the marketing has shown success, So fingers crossed. I'm hopeful, as I know we get hundreds of emails and messages from new hunters each week through the various meat eater channels, that this will pay off. But I don't think we should tout the modernization of the Pittman Robertson Act as a great thing until we realize how we got to this point. Now back to the story, This robin hood of the meth trade is in BC, but there is still a good chance that the arrow was made by a US manufacturer. They may not like what you're trying to accomplish, Mr, Miss meth smuggler, but I do appreciate how you're trying to do it. This week wolves in Colorado, CU's deer in Mexico, and mysterious Brazilian tunnels. But first I'm gonna tell you about my week. I headed out on a CU's deer hunt down to Old Mexico, the northern part of the state of Sonora to be exact. CU's deer sometimes called the desert white tail, as they resemble the white tail deer in both the configuration of iraq the white flag like tail and in several of their habits. The CU's deer has long been considered a subspecies of the white tail, as their stature suggests there's something different. They only grow to about a hundred pounds for the bucks and right around sixty five pounds for the does. These deer are tiny, and their ability to hide or disappear is uncanny. However, I think in modern taxonomy this deer that we consider a subspecies, or is widely considered by some to be a subspecies, would only be called a southern white tail anyway, hunting cous deer can be a pretty social type of thing. Having a few friends on the mountain glassing slopes for deer is helpful. A lot of my hunting is very antisocial, so it is a fun kind of change of pace. A good friend of mine, one Brendan Harrington, always repeats the gambler's phrase luck is where skill meets opportunity. This is me. This is how I went in terms of cous deer, as in finding one for me anyways, where persistence in glassing meets movement haven't quite developed. I for spotting those tiny deer without the advantage of them move first. The dear taste great, they're beautiful, and the food and people in Sonora I find to be absolutely fantastic. One thing I kept thinking on is my Spanish is terrible, but almost without exception, everyone I speak to is always happy to help me work through my questions, often helping me increase my vocabulary along the way. I have found that cooking, hunting, and fishing are international languages in a way, and it is relatively easy to work through logical questions or phrases when interacting with others who do not speak your language. But enjoy those activities. That being said, you see these stories in the news of people getting very angry and screaming at people in lying at like Starbucks or someplace for not speaking English. If you're in my country, speak the language. You know that sort of thing. Well, I just have to say, if that was everyone's attitude the world over, I'd probably be dead at a minimum, far less adventured traveled. Moving on to some updates, a listener named Dominic from the UK wrote in with a poem taught to young shooters he thought appropriate to send on the topic of hunting accidents, called a father's advice. It's good if a sportsman, true you'd be listen carefully to me. Never never let your gun pointed be at anyone that it may unloaded. Be matters not the least to me. When ahead your fence you cross, though of time it caused a loss from your gun the cartridge. Take for the greater safety's sake. If TwixT you and neighboring gun, birds shall fly, or beasts may run, let this maxim air be thine follow not across the line. Stops and beaters oft unseen lurk behind some leafy screen calm and steady, always be Never shoot where you can't see. You may kill or you may miss. But at all times think this. All the pheasants ever bred won't repay for one man dead. Keep your place and silent. B game can hear, and game concede. Don't be greedy. Better spared is a pheasant than one shared. If you don't remember last week's episode, we talked about a New Year's Day hunting accident. In the basic tenants of hunter safety, treat every gun as if it is loaded, identify your target, and beyond always keep your barrel pointed in a safe direction. So thank you for sending that in. As everyone knows, Cal's Weekend review is powered by Steel Power Equipment gear I find dependable and tough, which is why I thought this next listener email, provided by Mike Flynn is so cool. Actually, two things about it are really cool. First, Mike Flynn is my grandpa Jim ak Doc Callaghan's best friend, an old classmate he recently deceased, or he recently just passed away, or rather they were fighting saints at a Carol College located in Helena, Montana, class ninety. But that's a different Mike Flynn than the dude who just rode in this Mike Flynn, It's got a hot tip, he says. Add some oyster and chitaki mushroom spores to your canola oil bar oil. Put the oil in a bucket with some screen over the top, Put the mushroom caps on the screen, and let the spores fall into the oil. Then use that oil as normal bar oil. Cut the stumps a little high for maximum yield, and you have a good chance at producing mushrooms. How's that sounds like a hot tip. I have no idea if this mushroom farming technique is true or works, but I really want it to be. If you try that one out, please let me know how it works. Steel makes a canola oil based bar and chain called Bioplus that could be worth a shot if you're running a commercial saw, if you were like mean or just an occasional chainsaw driver, regular old canola works just fine. One interesting point on mushroom spores. So if you're a mushroom picker like myself, I often use screens like typically, I just take the screen door off the back porch, lay it out so it's elevated and air can travel underneath it, and then I lay all my mushrooms on that screen. And one really interesting thing is when those mushrooms start to really dry out and they get stressed, it triggers this self propagation mechanism and they shoot out all their spores and on the screen can be left a really cool design by those spores shooting off the mushroom and sticking to the screen. Try that one out for a school science class. Now we're gonna make a quick stop the corrections desk, Beetlejuice, the flickering star in the constellation o'riyan is in the Milky Way galaxy, not in our solar system. As I stated, thank you for the correction from a dude named Ali in Ontario. Ali writes his name in a way that he puts a little hyphen behind it and says I am a dude, which is why I included the word dude. Thank you again, Ali. Moving on to the contentious pred at her desk. Wolves are both in the state of Colorado and on the ballot, which is tricky because the ballot initiative is to bring wolves into the state of Colorado. Colorado Parks and Wildlife announced the presence of wolves in northwest Colorado near the Utah Wyoming borders. A few things being considered on this topic. Should wolves be transplanted by humans into other parts of the state, like Colorado's West Slope, or should the wolves just be left to move into the state as the wolves would likely do through natural dispersal and avoidance. And last, should the general public be allowed to vote on game management issues? Being as we are twenty five years down the road from wolf ree introduction in my home state of Montana via Yellowstone National Park, I'll tell you that although I personally do not have any deep seated issues with wolves, I really did not enjoy the process of wolf ree introduction. One very small story I have from this time is I spotted my very first wolf ever in the Anacona Pittler Wilderness about twenty six years ago. If you're doing the math, that is one year prior to wolf reintroduction. It was a really cool thing. I never encountered a wolf before, and it was amazing. I was incredibly excited to go tell a friend of mine's father, who was actually working on the reintroduction of wolves into the state of Montana. I was in high school at the time, and much to my surprise, when I told my friend's father excitedly about my wild wolf encounter, he replied emphatically that I had not seen a wolf, as there were no wolves in the state. This guy wasn't open to any arguing and being as I had no proof, the conversation was short. I saw a wolf, No, you didn't. There are no wolves at the time. The only way wolf reintroduction was going to happen was if there were no wolves in the state of Montana. My very unscientific finding was not going to change anything. I was just a jacked up kid high on wildlife, and this encounter with a wildlife professional was hurtful. I was not a wolf killer or hater, just an observant outdoors guy. If we had not been trying to reintroduce wolves, this not fun discouraging encounter would have been a fun, encouraging encounter. This is just a very small, insignificant thing. But I never looked at my buddy's dad in the same way. You have to be careful with absolutism and wildlife as we were seeing right now in Colorado. I did not believe that voters should be brought in to decide or influence wildlife management. Opening this door would set a dangerous precedent. Of course, to play devil's advocate, you have to admit that you know, we do a lot of voting on things that most of us have no experience in. I'll tell you I hated it when someone with zero carpentry experience or field dressing experience would tell me how to do things. But then again, I have no experience in foreign and domestic affairs for the entirety of a nation, and I have no problem voting for who should be president. Not exactly apples to apples, I know, but I do wonder if we can get a petition big enough to get the reintroduction of wolves on a ballot. Could a petition get other animals with charisma on the ballot? Especially in a state with legal marijuana and possibly legal psychotropic mushrooms, you may get someone knocking on your door one day with the petition to introduce I don't know, something really wild to the state, snow leopards or eyebex or something, although I don't think that likely. I am saying some things shouldn't be left up to the general voting public. For more on this, subject. Check out Brodie Henderson's article should wolves be reintroduced Colorado Only? At the meat eater dot com. Moving on to the feral cat desk, a study found in Scientific Reports titled extra Territorial Honeting Expeditions to Intense fire Scars by Feral Cats found that feral cats, although typically bound to home ranges two to three kilometers across, will travel up to twelve and a half kilometers to burn areas. The likely reason for travel good hunting in an area with vulnerable animals can cover. Cats fitted with tracking collars and cameras were successful in their hunts seventy percent of the time in burn areas in this study, The cat's average seven point two kills every twenty four hours, which doesn't leave much time to eat. The thirteen cats and this study left their kills uneaten tent of the time. In some areas of Australia, one feral cats per kilometer have been recorded. Taking into consideration the more than prolific fire season in Australia and the chew toy size of some of the continents threatened species, it seems like now is the time to act on the feral cat issue. If not now, when as a reminder, here in the US, outdoor cats that includes the feral cats and those cats he kick outside at night killed possible three point seven billion birds per year and in astonishing twenty point seven billion small mammals a year. Those are catastrophic numbers. For the record has catched that one. Moving on, we have talked about burmese pythons in Southeast Florida several times here on the Weekend Review. Since the year two thousand, the non native python has slithered its way to possibly the top of the growing hit list of invasive wildlife in Florida. These snakes breed prolifically, are incredibly hard to spot, and they like to eat. In response to their growing numbers, state efforts to remove pythons, such as the Python Challenge, as well as cash incentives for captured snakes from the South Florida Water Management District and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. You also get bonus money for big snakes and females bearing eggs. Again, of this should be new to you. All things we have covered, so listen up for your very important public service announcement. They're a handful of high dollar snakes out in the everglades and pine islands that should not be touched. One snake in particular, Elvis, has been slithering through the swamps for seven years carrying a geolocation tag. Elvis has been continuously tracked longer than any other Burmese python on the planet, which makes him the king one who if you think about it, it also makes him and other tagged and monitored Burmese pythons very expensive. One study led by the University of Florida estimated costs of betrayal events. That's when the tracking of a Judas snake led to the capture of other snakes during the breeding seasons of two thousand seven through two thousand twelve at eleven thousand, twenty nine dollars per python. These so called Judas snakes are providing a very important role of seeking out female snakes in a way humans cannot. So if you happen to take that family trip to capture pythons, let the ones with orange tags and three digit marks on their sides go and you can pat yourself on the back. You may not have caught Elvis, but you did catch v I. P. That's a very important python. Moving on, the paleo desk, and we aren't talking diet trends. The giant armadillo of South America can weigh up to ninety pounds. They dig burrows that are roughly sixteen inches in diameter and twenty ft long. What researchers are trying to answer is what digs a five foot wide, two fifty ft long burrow. For those of you not hip to the lingo associated with burrowing animals, a burrow typically reference as a whole or a tunnel, a place for an animal to hide, store food, give birth, or just live. In general, rabbits are often associated with burrows. In this case, it would take one heck of a rabbit found almost exclusively in Brazil. Paleo burrows are a real mystery, both in regards to what did the digging and when. Some of the discovered tunnels are straightforward shafts, others have turns that connect to other chafts, forming a network of burrows. Possible culprits for the what and who's doing the digging is the giant ground sloth. The giant ground sloth disappeared around eight to ten thousand years ago. Some of these sloths grew to the size of modern elephants. The other possible excavator has been identified as Gliptodon, the original giant armadillo. This guy was eleven feet long and possibly as heavy as forty four hundred pounds, roughly the size of a black rhino, which brings up yet another question, what are animals this size having to dig burrows? For the first paleo burrow was discovered near Rondonia. This is a branching tunnel system measuring two thousand feet in length with an estimated four thousand metric tons of dirt and rock excavated. That's big. While researchers are trying to evaluate mineral and plant deposits to try and determine the exact age of the caves as well as properly mapped them in order to see if there is a possible pattern that would help identify the former engineer by comparing them to their modern relatives. So far, the only physical evidence, the only sign that remains of what could have dug the tunnels is the large claw marks the original burrowing animals left behind, which, if you track down the photos of these paleo burrows, makes a pretty darned compelling reason to figure this mystery out. Moving on being as a Super Bowl week, I'm gonna talk football, just kidding. This story was brought to my attention by meat eaters own Spencer new Hearth, and it involves the Super Bowl and ice fishing back in the great sportsman state of South Dakota, near the town of Akaska, which you may have previously heard of, as it was at one point the furthest you could get from a McDonald's in the lower forty eight also known as quote mcfarthest. Another quick fact for you, if you are from the town of Acaska, South Dakota, you are an Akaskin anyway, UH d C seven aircraft loaded with bales of Columbian marijuana landed at a pre planned impromptu air strip about three miles from a group of ice fishermen just leaving the frozen Missouri River. The fisherman had come to the conclusion that the d C seven was not making a safe landing in this part of the South Dakota and they promptly went to the rescue. Upon finding the plane, they found three individuals with not even one good explanation as to how they got there. Lying to a fisherman is not the smartest move, as anyone willing to sit on the frozen Missouri at the end of January is likely well practiced in tall tales. Anyway, what I'm saying is the anglers smelled the scent of something fishy surrounded the plane. One angler even let the air out of the plane's front tire. Seeing as the plane wasn't gonna getney traction, the three men took off into the South Dakota night. Eventually, the authorities arrested six individuals, and in doing so found out the original plan, which was to land during the Super Bowl, when surely everyone in South Dakota would be watching the game, not the night sky. A strong tail wind pushed the schedule to coincide with the fisherman leaving the ice. The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Los Angeles Rams thirty one to nineteen, becoming the first team to win four Super Bowl titles, and the ice fisherman became the first in South Dakota to catch eighteen million dollars in marijuana. I'm not sure what happened to the smugglers, but the pot was eventually burned near Pier. I can make a joke here about going up and smoke, but you get it. That's all I've got for you this week. Thanks for listening. As per usual, you can always get ahold of me at ask Cal at the meat eater dot com. That's a s k C. A l at the meat eater dot com. Tell me what I'm missing, what I should be hitting, and what I got wrong. If you're loving the show, tell a friend or two, and you can always leave me a review by hitting that for this right hand start. Thanks again, I'll talk to you next week. M

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