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 The country of my ancestors is trying to ban fox hunting, and I'm sorry to say that one of the band's chief proponents is a distant relation. The lower House of Ireland's parliament, which is known as Doyle Arn, recently voted to advance a bill that would outlaw fox hunting and related practices. The bill would amend the Animal Health and Welfare Act of twenty thirteen to ensure such activities quote cannot be considered as lawful hunting. The bill passed the first stage on a one thirteen to forty nine vote, and now it moves on to the second stage for further debate. If this bill passes, Ireland would join its neighbor England in a banning the traditional hunting practice. England band fox hunting with hounds all the way back in two thousand and four, but it has remained legal in Ireland now thanks to animal rights activists who wreck characterized the practice as cruel and inhumane. The Emerald Isle looks like it's going to follow suit. One of those activists. I'm ashamed to admit is a representative named keen Oh Callahan. O'Callahan told The Irish Times that all blood sports are barbaric and cruel, and objected to his colleagues who tried to stop the fox hunting band moving forward. O'Callahan is entitled to his opinion, but from one Callahan to another, you should try something to yourself before you ban it for everyone else. If old Kean ever finds himself in the land of the Free, I'd be more than happy to host him on a hunt. I'd be the best kind of family reunion. You know that was just written just for fun. I don't believe going back through my ancestry that o callahan's and Callahan's necessarily had to be related, but you know it's fun writing. This week we got legislation, crossbows in the public lands, battle what's now and what's to come? So gang, as we keep saying over and over again, I have no idea what the reality is going to be by the time you hear this. As of right now. Senator Mike Lee of Utah, also the chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. His original language that would pull around three million acres of public lands out of public hands to be sold off out of a possible two hundred and fifty million acres. And as we've covered here on the Week in Review, the way that language was written, there's no real way to say where exactly that land would be. It could be land in a checkerboard pattern, land next to a town, land far away from a town. It was pretty darn sloppy and extremely concerning. Well, that language was pulled due to not making the Bird rule surviving the bird bath, as some folks would call it. Bird rule comes into play when one party has a super majority, like the Republicans do now, so they controlled executive and the House in the Senate. Somebody can jump in here and straighten me out. It may just be the House in the Senate. Well, you can pass things faster with not as many votes when there's a super majority. The bird rule is kind of checks and balances to make sure that, like in this budget process, for instance, that they're not just cramming in a bunch of stuff because everybody's in one room trying to get things done. It's got to pertain to the budget. So Lee's original language was pulled because it did not meet the bird criteria. He immediately started working on another version that would meet the bird criteria. He also openly admitted that he has been listening to all that the public land advocates out there, of which there are many, because I'll tell you, I've been all over this country and not a lot of people like the idea of having something taken away. Doesn't matter if you're a bread truck driver, a little old lady counting birds at the bird feeder, or a hunter, an angler, or a shooter or whatever. Right, we got it, why would we let them take it. Lee's revised language attempts to placate some people by removing US Forest Service lands from the chopping block, so the ONUS is placed squarely on BLM lands. And then there's some additional funding that would come from the revenue of those sales going back to counties and some conservation work. Again, the guy's just toned deaf. He's trying to get his own agenda across, and he's not listening to the American people or his colleagues. Land sales for infrastructure needs or affordable housing they're provided for already in Flipfah and Flint m It's a legal framework that already exists. It passed through a voter approved process, nonpartisan, and land sales have been enacted have gone through this process prior to this administration, during the Biden administration, had Harris won, she would have tried to get through a land sale using that process. So we're just being sold to bill of goods. If you can't tell, I'm a little tired. We've been pounding the drum on this topic and I've been blown away by the response from you know, Billie Eilish, who I know through Saturday Night Live. I'm told she sings as well fantastic. I'm a big fan of her album, Don't Sell Our Public Lands. And then Sidney Sweeney from Spokane, Washington, which is a town with mixed memories for me because I us to get drug over there by some over zealous ants to go school shopping and that may be the source of my childhood trauma and possibly my current ward drove choices of wearing T shirts until they fall apart. Thank you, Bridget and Kelly. I know you meant good, but here we are regardless anyway. Sidney Sweeney from Spokanistan. She also has been on Saturday Night Live. And I believe she did a great job actress, I believe. And she came out for public lands, as have birders and dog walkers, old people, young people, queer people, straight people, people across the political spectrum. Because public lands are not a part is an issue. They're part of the fabric of America. And just thank you to everybody who's come out and done this. You don't have to have a following to be involved. These are your public lands. Thank you so much for raising a ruckus. I'm confident right now that we're going to come out on the good side of this particular battle, but there's many battles to come. There's a lot of people within this administration that want to see our public lands sold off because they had never gone out there before themselves. They don't know what these lands are good for. They're disconnected. They don't know where their food comes from. They don't know where cattle graze, they don't know where people recreate, they don't know where the mental health of America eyes, which is out in our big wide open space, is the envy of every other country in the world. Tell you that. So I'm hoping this language is dead in the water that we're too close to President Trump's deadline of July fourth to see this thing put back in and possibly delay that signing. But time will tell, and I'll talk to you about that on the next episode. What you got to know, though, is your voice mattered. You weigh in. It's not that hard. You made the phone calls, you hit the email else, but you went to the back Country Hunters and Anglers Action Alert Center, and now you're part of the team. Okay, you cannot sit out until the next election, because if you do, you know what can happen. Okay, elections matter. But our job as citizens of the United States is to weigh in over and over and over again. It's a job, and I know you're up to it. I appreciate you walking with me down this big old conservation path. Voting is not enough anymore, neither is buying your duck stamp or your conservation license or your tags. You got to contribute more because it seems like every year there's more and more people who want to take this stuff away from us. Okay, but your kick ass, and you're awesome. You're doing the work. I see it, and I appreciate it. So let's get on to the legislative desk. The Wyoming legislature is set to consider a bill allowing large landowners to sell their hunting tags on the open market, or should I say reconsider, as a similar bill was rejected by the Senate last session, only to reappear in altered form this month before the Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resources Committee. The proposal would allow landowners with more than two thousand acres to sell the coveted tags at auction, similar to the way Governor's tags and commissioner's tags are currently sold. I've gone on the record with my ambivalents about governor's tags and the like in the past. They come dangerously close to privatizing our shared wildlife resource. But they also generate a ton of money for state game and fish agencies in the essential conservation work they do. In contrast, funds from the sale of the landowner tags in this Wyoming proposal would go straight back to the person who owns the property. Representative Robert Worf and other supporters of the measures say that property owners should be compensated for the food, water, and shelter that animals on their properties are right now getting for free. It's funny that he says that the animals are getting the land for free. I've watched a lot of elk, deer, pronghorn bears for a long time, never seen one reach for a wallet. Of course, the landowner tags themselves are already a pretty good deal for these hosts, as they are valid in areas of the state that general hunting tags aren't selling access to the animals belonging to all of us to the highest bidder is a no go, especially if the proceeds aren't going to conservation. So Wyoming ens Wyoming, heites wyomings call your state reps and let them know they need to kick this one back to the curb. Depending on what generation of ownership we're talking about, chances are if you move to the Cowboys State during COVID, you bought that chunk of dirt because it's got the critters on it, not because you don't like them staying in the Cowboy State. The Wyoming legislature is also mulling an issue that's a little harder to define than a tag auction. How far away is too far away to take a rifle shot at an animal. Long distance shooting has become more and more popular over the past several years, and the meat eater dot Com has lots of great coverage about squeezing the absolute most out of your sectional densities and your focal planes and what have you. However, pushback is growing as the shots on animals get farther and farther away. In twenty eighteen, a hunter in Fremont County, Wyoming recorded to himself killing an antelope from one nine hundred and fifty four yards away, prompting an outcry from the legislature to limit long distance hunting. But how far is too far? Shots that seemed outlandish and unethical with iron sights in nineteen fifty five are layups for many people with magnified optics in twenty twenty five. Part of the issue here is, of course, fair chase, giving an animal the chance to use its senses and wits to stay alive. If a hunter can stay so far away that there's no chance of an animal seeing or hearing anything suspicious, then the interaction that defines hunting breaks down. When does it become just kill them. Part of the skill of hunting, the fun of it, is developing the ability to get in close and a lot can change between when a bullet leaves a muzzle and when it arrives at its destination several seconds later. In the case of our two thousand yard shooter, even if you were theoretically able to hit a tick feeding right over deer's vitals at a half mile, that deer could take a couple steps and walk that tick and its vitals right out of the target area. Still, everything I'm talking about is ethics. It's a different story to codify that stuff into law. Do we say five hundred yards is legal and five oh one is illegal? For you non shooters out there, that's not much of a difference. Require everyone to submit their rangefinder read out with their harvest tags. How do we regulate something like this? States have been trying to do this for years. I'm not sure we'll see good legislation come out of this topic tomorrow, but it's good to be talking about this stuff, figuring out together what our ethics should be. As we've talked about many, many times, this is why you see technology regulation because the people regulation is hard to put in paper. The North Carolina legislature is considering a bill that could have a significant impact on the Tarheel State Fishery House Bill four four to two would do two things. First, it would restore a six week recreational fishing season for southern flounder and allow year round fishing for red snapper. That provision passed the House by a wide margin, but when it was sent to the Senate, legislators added a much more controversial amendment. Their version of the bill bans commercial fishermen from using trial nets to harvest shrimp from any coastal waters within a half mile of the shoreline. Trial nets are large nets that are dragged along the bottom of the ocean. It's an easy way to harvest shrimp, but conservationists point out that tralink can have negative impacts on marine environments. They catch and often kill non target species and destroy the natural habitat on the seafloor. But opponents of the bill say banning the practice will destroy the state's shrimping industry and make the seafood more expensive. The Senate version passed that chamber by a wide margin, and now it heads to the House. Finally, in South Dakota, the Department of Game Fishing Parks has announced a plan to suspend beaver trapping for all of the twenty twenty five and twenty twenty six seasons in the Black Hills Fire Protection District in the westernmost part of the state. Trapping elsewhere will be unaffected. Beaver numbers have historically been thriving in the Black Hills area, but that's changed in the past decade or so. According to the news outlet The South Dakota Searchlight, fifty two percent of watersheds in the Black Hills had active beaver populations in twenty twelve, but that number had fallen to twenty three percent by twenty twenty three. By all, just blame a cycle of habitat damage for the decline. Once cattle traffic breaks down, riverbanks beavers have less willow and aspen trees to depend on. Beavers then build fewer dams, which causes rivers to run faster, which in turn makes it even harder to build dams. The Department of Game, Fishing Parks hopes that the two year pause will allow reintroduce beavers to gain a foothold in the area and start turning that cycle in the other direction. The state legislature's Rules Review Committee still needs to approve the measure, so South Dakotin's bother your reps to have them pay attention to this one. Over to the waterhouserd Desk, a new ultra luxury golf resort has been playing fast and loose with irrigation rules over in the Shields Valley of Montana, just about an hour up the road from Meat Eater headquarters. Crazy Mountain Rancher CMR for short, was purchased in twenty twenty one by Cross Harbor Capital Partners. That's a long name for a local rancher, isn't it, The private equity firm who also owns the Yellowstone Club and other swanky retreats that have transformed the nearby Big Sky Valley. In September of twenty four, CMR had its soft opening where players got to try out the new course co designed by golf legend Ben Crenshaw. Must be a hell of a golfer, but I've never heard of the guy. Sounds like a fun time, but there was a hitch. Crazy Mountain Ranch had installed pipes and we're pumping water out of nearby Rock Creek to irrigate the greens without any of the necessary permits to do so. For folks who don't know why this is the problem? Water flows downhill to your neighbor. The club had applied for water rights from the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation the previous year, but instead of waiting for approval, a process that takes everyone else a couple of years, Crazy Mountain turned on the taps rather than let the sod die. Not only that, but CMR also changed the diversion point of Rock Creek, pumping that water over a ridge to reach their greens, and storing water at Rainbow Lake, which is designated only for wildlife. Again without approvals. The club has even withdrawn its previous water rights applications, and no new applications have been submitted. Why would you need to apply for what you already stole. You'd think this bad behavior would have consequences, but in November of last year, the Park County Conservation District determined that no action was required, that no fine would be levied for the violations. Locals, as you can imagine, are pretty teed off. That's a golf joke. Downstream landowner Tim Sundling told the Billings Gazette. The bottom line is the rules are the same for everybody. It doesn't matter if you're the entitled or simply country folk leaning on their shovel. Neighboring rancher Scott Knutson has gone further, filing an official objection with the DNRC. Right now is prime water demand season in the West for golf courses, for egg land, for ranchers, not to mention for the fish and wildlife who depend on the streams and lakes. We're arguing about there's likely not enough to go around if anyone takes more than their fair share. So what are the enforcement options to get CMR to play by the rules. The DNRC is authorized to fine water use violators one thousand dollars a day, but it's hard to tell if they're willing to do so. Even if they did, a few hundred grand is a pretty minor expense on CMR's balance sheet. A court could issue a cease and desist order, and county attorney or stated journey could sue to halt the unlawful use. But would that ever lead to the authorities sending work crews out to shut off and lock CMR's pipes well. The Montana Free Press interviewed rich Sarazen, a water deputy who travels the county documenting water use and working with the district court to enforce the standing water rights. He said, quote everything will be shut down going to Rainbow Lake, and it'll all be shut down going to the golf course for the remainder of the summer. That's my job. I got to do the dirty work. It's not going to be easy, but they're going to have to follow it. Otherwise I can get law enforcement involved and we can settle issues. That way. Things up there could really end up in the rough this summer. See, I know golf guys try to keep up. Of course, the bigger issue here is precedent. If crazy Mountain Ranch can abuse water rights this way and walk away without a scratch, what's to stop them and other similar developers from doing the same or worse in the future. We don't have good enforcement options to correct CMR's water abuses, in part because the kind of landowner buying properties across the West is changing from mostly agricultural uses to resorts or private hunting preserves. Legacy landowners like farmers and ranchers know they can't step too far out of line on water use without facing social consequences. Because they're parts of the community. They use the same water sources, they call the same fire department, They see each other in church. The landowners like Crazy Mountain Ranch don't have that same interdependence. In fact, CMR has its own separate fire department, even its own private airport. What happens this summer with this local water use issue has implications across the region. Organizations like Trout Unlimited and the Egg Council have been keeping their eye on the issue and working on legislation to strengthen oversight for this newer kind of water user. So as always, it's a good thing to support those folks whose job it is to watch out for the rest of us. Let's just hope those downstream users don't get the shaft all summer long, which is kind of a golf joke. Big thanks to Rachel Penders for sending this one in to Keegan Nation, for speaking to us further, and for the great reporting of Brett French and the Buildings Gazette and Amanda Eggert in the Montana Free Press. Moving on to the survey desk, a brand spank and new survey from the Council to advance hunting in the shooting sports has found that Americans support for hunters remained strong, but there's a catch. The study surveyed a sample of US residents and asked them a battery of questions about their views and opinions around hunting. It found that while seventy three percent of respondent strongly or moderately approved of legal hunting and in general, that support dropped to just thirty two percent if the hunter's primary reason was quote for a trophy. However, if the hunter was going out primarily to acquire meat, get locally sourced food, or help control wildlife populations, support for hunting actually increased to eighty one, eighty and seventy nine percent, respectively. This indicates, as the studies authors point out, quote Americans are generally supportive of outdoor traditions when they serve a clear, constructive purpose. That makes sense, but I was still surprised at a few of the other findings. Only thirty nine percent of respondents said they approved of mount lion hunting, which is actually a lower percentage than for grizzly bears or black bears. I'm not surprised that people opposed mount lion hunting, but at first glance, this number doesn't jive with what we saw in Colorado in November last year, nearly fifty five percent of Colorado's voted against a lion hunting ban. For those counting, that's fourteen percent higher than those who, according to the survey, say they support hunting for cougars. But here's what's interesting. This survey also found that fourteen percent of respondents neither approve nor disapprove of lion hunting. To me, that means the effort in Colorado to oppose the hunting ban convince those people in the middle. These folks might not want to hunt cougars themselves, but our efforts last year were enough to persuade them that they shouldn't ban the practice. For the rest of us, that's encouraging as we try to defeat similar bans in other states, or even the effort to sell off public land. A person doesn't have to be personally invested in something to agree that we shouldn't get rid of it. Anyway, support for hunting in general has declined from a high of eighty one percent in twenty twenty one. The hunting community was still enjoying some post COVID support that year, but it looks like the COVID bump might truly be over. Still, support for hunting hasn't dropped significantly since last year, and we still enjoy broad support from the non hunting public. If you ask me, we should do everything we can in our power to keep it that way. Everything I kill is a trophy, bird, buck, bull fish, whatever, I stick, all sorts of antlers on the wall, most of which I'll tell you your rank and firell member of the real Trophy Hunters Club wouldn't really know what I was doing. That little scraggly buck a first timer kills is a trophy, as are the tenderloins and the heart and the liver and the pan. We've got to do a better job of telling that story. Gain. Speaking of hunting support, we're gonna stay with shoring up. By returning briefly to the legislative desk, a new crossbow bill has bolted through the New York State Assembly and State Senate and is now headed for Governor Kathy Hochel's desk. Advocates say it's a significant step in bringing more new hunters into the fold. The bill, SO six three six zero, would recategorize crossbows as archery equipment and allow them to be used during all archery seasons in the state. Now I've gone on record with my reservations about crossbows. They are significantly more effective means of taking than vertical bows, which makes me hesitant about allowing them during the longer seasons reserved for archery. Many states have seasons set aside just for crossbows, which is another good option. And you know, personally, a recurve bows as advanced as I get with my aerosol in tech these days, unless I'm out there kicking butt at the Shields Archery event. All you Shields folks can speak up on that behalf. I think I got ten thousand points, which was a big deal because I think three thousand was only possible. It's a talent anyway. Proponents think the bill will give a significant boost to hunter recruitment. Barriers to entry for new hunters are high no matter where you are, but in places like New York City they're even higher. Owning and practicing with firearms is close to impossible, and learning to use a vertical bow is a tall order for any newbie who spends more time on the subway than on the back forty. But getting someone proficient enough with a crossbow to hit a deer's vitals at twenty yards is a lot more doable, and once a mentee has downed an animal, participated in the dressing and butchering process, and eaten that first trophy meal, they're much more likely to take on all the other challenges necessary to become a self sufficient hunter. The mentoring organization Hunters of Color in New York's BHA chapter, were in strumental in getting this bill through the legislature, along with the New York's Crossbow Coalition. I know some of my listeners might not want their city slicker neighbors in their hunting spots, thank you very much. But the more people who get out and use public lands and connect with the wildlife, the more phone calls happen when we have a crisis like the recent land sale fiasco and the One Big Beautiful Bill. If elected officials from cities are hearing from their constituents about these issues, the more they can influence policy for everyone who wants to go outside on land we all own from out in the remote back country all the way down on the stream access point near the train station. If we can accomplish that by loosening the rules on crossbows in this time and place, it might be worth it. So Empire Staters contact Governor Kathy Hochel and make sure your voices are heard either yea or nay on this one bill number so six three six zero. Moving on to the what's that aftertaste desk? Our fake meat desk has been quiet recently, but new developments this month have really made a splash. Lab grown salmon produced by the company wild Type recently received FDA approval and was served to diners at the Portland, Oregon restaurant con wild Type is touting the fact that this isn't any old salmon, but rather quote unquote saku or sashimi grade fish, the real primo stuff. Wild Type's product will be served at four more restaurants this summer. Although other lab grown beef and chicken has received FDA approval in the past, this is the first cultured seafood and we're not talking fish who took art history in college. Wild Type extracts living cells from Pacific salmon, then propagates more cells in a tank through a process they compare to fermenting yogurt. They then use vegetable derived structuring agents to give the proteins something like the structure of fish. There are a lot of unknowns here, and some more fringe outlets have questioned the safety of the process. But it seems like it ain't gonna kill you. You listeners know, I've taken a hard stance skin's lab grown beef in the past. If consumers get even more divorced from where their food comes from plastic cup versus the ocean in this case, then they start caring even less about protecting the land or water around us. Cows not condos, as the slogan goes, but fish present a bit of a different question Overfishing is a significant problem around the world. According to the United Nations, one third of the world's assessed fisheries are now being exploited past their biological limits. Wild caught fish, especially those farther up the food chain, now carry more contaminants and microplastics than ever Aquaculture seafood farming also has significant drawbacks. Fish who live right on top of each other don't end up very healthy and can also carry significant levels of mercury and PCBs. The waste from fish farms is often flushed into local waterways, and the inputs for fish farms. Other smaller fish also contribute to overfishing. It's a tough problem to crack, so maybe another alternative for people looking to eat fish without some of these downsides could be worth exploring. And maybe fish sell slurry bonded to vegetable mesh tastes better than it sounds. Little soy sauce and with sabi can't be all that bad. I want to know what you think about all the above. As per usual, Gang right in to ask c A L. That's asscal at the meat eater dot com. Let me know what's going on in your neck of the woods. Stay engaged, Gang, I'm proud of you. I appreciate you weighing in on this public lands fight. If you got plenty happening, more to go let me know what you want to talk about. Thanks again, I'll talk to you next week.