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 cap. The anti hunting lobby is big Matt that Florida is about to reinstate a black bear hunt. They've devised what I'm sure they think is a brilliant scheme for shutting it down. If they can't convince the Fish and Wildlife Board to stop the hunt, they'll simply ruin it for the rest of us. Led by an outfit called Speak Up Wakiba, the anti hunters plan to buy up as many bear tag entries as possible to win all one and eighty seven permits issued by lottery later this year. If one of these activists wins a permit, they will simply sit out the hunt and save one of the cute fuzzy bear cubs plastered all over their campaign materials. The move has gotten a lot of attention in the and I can see how it would work In theory. Residents and non residents can purchase a hunting license and buy as many of the five dollars entries as they want. If a bear loving fat cat in Lithuania wants to get himself a hunting license and buy ten thousand or a million entries. He could indeed win one of the one hundred and eighty seven permits, but that's just one permit. It's also more difficult to get a Florida hunting license then speak up what Kiva activists would have you believe. That's because, like many states, Florida requires a hunter safety course before buying a license, even if you buy one online. I don't know how many people are committed enough that they'll take an eight or twelve hour course. As we've covered on this podcast. You can do it a lot faster in a lot of places, or shell out one hundred and fifty dollars to get a non resident hunting license and then buy enough five dollars entries to actually win a permit. There's a few folks out there that are going to do this, but I don't think there's as many as the anti hunters are hoping. Way back in the day, Buddy Mine drew a big horn sheep to Rock Creek, Montana. We ran into a father son combo who drew big horn U tags and they were anti hunting activists. They were kind of out there trying to hay sheep off the road and we chatted with them because they had their hunter's orangeohn. They were legally dressed as hunters and they told us that they apply for tags to save sheep. So it's true. This week we've got the Upland Desk, Wildlife Crime, and the Fishing Report. But first I'm going to tell you about my week. In My week was a bit of a whirlwind with the public lands battle in the Senate, which I know everyone listening had a handy and big big thank you to everyone who called, emailed, took action, went through the BHA Action Center, signed form letters from TRCP, NWF, Trout Unlimited, then told your friends about the attempt to steal our public lands over and over and over again, which was spearheaded, of course by Utah Senator Mike Lee. I'm telling you, thank you, but stay in the game. More is coming down the pipe. We have two huge thirty day comment periods coming up that everyone should weigh in on the roadless rule and from the sounds of it, a repeal of the mineral withdrawal which currently protects the Boundary Waters Canoe area, which is of course the lower forty eighth most visited Wilderness Area. Please go check out Sportsmen for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. I know every one of their board members. They're awesome folks, and they are so passionate and dedicated because the Boundary Waters is such an amazing place and that boat based stuff is so family friendly everybody. So Sportsman's for the Boundary Waters. Now, I got to say, I was incredibly impressed and hopeful over the unifying effect of public lands. People from all walks of life, from all over the country came together and told their elected officials and their neighbors that public lands are not for sale, not one acre under budget reconciliation. We need to keep that going at the risk of this sounding like a Kumbaya moment, by giving piece a chance, don't you agree, John Lennon, Yes, Julie Coux, There's no limit to what we can imagine them. If you care about these issues, really care and need them to exist and not be exploited into ecological uselessness, then does it matter who voted for who, so long as they want what you want. The answer is no, kids, it does not. We have future elections that we can worry about, so quit shooting holes in the boat. If you want someone to vote differently the next election, I promise you you will not accomplish that by letting them know how much of an ass they are, while simultaneously showing them how much of an ass you are, then turning around and saying, do what I want. We're not that far removed from the playground gang and the people like Mike Lee who want what they cannot have in order to break it up for development. They feed on division. They sew division in order to reap the benefits when it grows. We are living in this time. The proof is in front of us. Everyone can see it. Pull the cotton out of your eyes and ears or however that's saying goes. This land grab of late was a whole Inchilada type of land grab. It only came out into the public eye because they thought, now is the time. Neighbor against neighbor, recreation group against recreation group. Let's take it now. Remember this lesson. It repeats itself, I promise you, But now your battle hardened individuals. You made the phone calls, you made the emails, You did it over and over again, got exhausted, but you still made it happen. You got despondent, but you still made it happen. That's how it works. It's tough. Thank you, Thank you, thank you. There's not much I wouldn't give up or give for our public lands, waters and wildlife and holding those things in perpetuity for all American people's generations beyond me. So I can't tell you how much you all mean to me for answering that call. One voice is never going to do this stuff. We the people. Baby. That was freaking transcendent on Paul McCartney. Moving on to the upland desk. For upland hunters, the last thirty years or so have been a real downer. Bird populations have plummeted across the country, and diehard upland hunters are becoming a threatened species themselves. But over the last month or so, I've seen several stories that should give us at least a few faint glimmers of hope. First up, in South Dakota, the Game Fishing Parks Department reports that two thousand twenty four was the best season for pheasant hunters in the last thirteen years. Hunters harvested one point three million wild roosters on public and private land during the three month season, with another three hundred and eighty thousand harvested within defined shooting preserves. That's about nine birds per hunter on average, and the South Dakota Wildlife Agency says their hunters harvested more roosters in the first two weeks of October than any other state during that entire season, which pains me because snort and I I owe that little girl hell of bird season. Get the snort report back in action. Hunters have begged at least one million roosters in the Mount Rushmore state in each of the past five years, but last year was especially productive thanks to a great over winter survival rate. Wildlife managers also credit landowners and egg producers for taking advantage of habitat programs through state, federal, and nonprofit agencies. The Department specifically mentioned the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program on the James River and Big Sioux River valleys. For those of you who don't know, Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program is CREP if you ever heard that term before. This program provides funding for private landowners to set grasslands aside for conservation, but it also ensures access to hunters who want to chase birds. Wildlife managers say that thanks in part to this program, the twenty twenty five season is shaping up to be even better than last years. Of course, while the last few years have been good, they pale in comparison to the height of the South Dakota pheasant population. Nineteen forty five. The boys were just getting back for more, some of them not so much. The state of roughly sixteen million pheasants, seven and a half million of which were harvested that year. Those numbers drop steadily until nineteen seventy six, when biologists estimated that there were only one point four million roosters in the state. But habitat improvement projects and careful management save the species, and the population climb back up to about eight million birds in twenty sixteen. These days, we actually aren't sure how many pheasants there are in the state. The Wildlife Commission decided to end the annual brood count in twenty nineteen for fear that low numbers would discourage out of state hunters. Now, the Wildlife Agency estimates the population based on hunting, harvest numbers and surveys, which they say are also viable means of figuring out if the population is growing or shrinking. If harvest numbers go up year after year, as they have in South Dakota, it's fair to assume the overall population is doing well. That's the theory anyway. For more on this controversy, check out episode two seventy four. You'll enjoy it. South Dakota's pheasant hunters are doing well, but over in Maryland, biologists are trying to revive a much more threatened species of bird, and they're doing a pretty good job. In the Nanticote River Wildlife Management Area in Maryland's Wacoma CoA County, the bob white quail population has quadrupled. Fall quail surveys have revealed an increase from an average of roughly one quail per ten acres between two thousand seventeen in twenty twenty to four quale per ten acres between twenty twenty one in twenty twenty four. According to a report in the Crispfield, Somerset County Times, that improvement was accomplished by planning former egg fields with native grasses, removing in base of vegetation, thinning the forests, and useful prescribed burns. In other words, a lot of hard work, and while it's easier to implement these changes in a small wildlife management area, it gives landowners a blueprint for doing the same on their properties. If they identify a low performing spot and a corn or soybean field, they can transform it using these techniques with the funding from federal and state programs. The unfortunate truth is that upland numbers are probably never going to be what they once were. The transformation of small farms into monocultures has eliminated the hedgerows where these birds thrive. The proliferation of miso predators like raccoons has decimated broods, and urban sprawl has destroyed grasslands. But we can still do the best with what we have, and one of the most important tools in a biologist toolbox is good information. Nate huck, a migratory game bird consulting with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, sent me an email reporting that one hundred and twenty hundreds submitted nine hundred and twenty seven upland hunting diaries last year. We've talked about these diaries before. They're a great idea. We gave some stuff away last year. We'll figure out something this year too. To promote your diaries, because it's just good practice, something to hand off to the kids or grandkids, or you know, maybe some other luddite in your life. Wildlife departments ask hunters to record where they hunted, what they saw, and what they harvested, and biologists use that data to make good decisions. This is the first year the diary program has been operating, and Nate says it's a strong start, but they need more lots more so, if you hunt birds in Minnesota, be sure to submit your hunting diary next year. If you don't, the state you do hunt might also ask for a survey or report, and I encourage you to fill it out. And in I know the state of North Dakota is dying for hunters to report what's happening in their season. It takes a little bit of time. It's just part of your responsibility. Gag make it happen. Moving on to the crime desk, in Idaho, man has been sentenced for his role in a black market scheme to buy and sell big game tags. We covered this story back in episode three oh seven, and you can also check out Jordan Siller's article over at the Meat Eater dot com At the time, we told you about how Carl Stuter had been accused of an enormous number of wildlife violations. He'd killed the bull elk on someone else's tag, He'd taken more elk than he was supposed to, and he'd illegally scouted for elk with a helicopter. He'd shot a pronghorn from he claimed seven hundred and sixty yards, loaded it still alive, into his truck, and taking a video. Most concerning to me, he'd made a habit of buying and selling landowner tags. These tags are available to Idaho landowners via a lottery, and it is illegal to sell or market them, but that market does exist, and Carl has taken advantage of it. We've got an aff David showing hundreds of text messages between him and his buddies proving that he'd spent over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars purchasing landowner appreciation tags in twenty twenty three. The case against him was rock solid, which is probably why you took Amplete deal rather than face a jury of his peers. But the details of that deal have some Idaho hunters up in arms. Student pled guilty to a single felony account of illegally harvesting a moose, in exchange for six other felonies to be dropped for that one felony. Stud was fined one hundred and eighty thousand dollars and will serve five years of unsupervised probation along with fifty hours of community service, twenty five of which must be dedicated to wildlife preservation and or conservation. Studor has also been banned from hunting and Idaho every again, which, thanks to the Interstate Wildlife Violator Compact, bans him from obtaining a hunting license in most other states as well. During his five year probationary period, he cannot accompany any other hunters into the field outside his own property. That's a pretty steep penalty for a poacher. But I know many of you were hoping this guy would get some jail time. We wondered about the same thing, which is why Jordan reached out to Twin Falls County Prosecuting Attorney Grant Lobes, whose office handled this case. I won't get into everything he said, but basically, Lobes argued that this was the highest penalty we could expect for someone without a previous criminal record. Loebes claimed that no first time offender in Idaho's history has ever served jail time for a wildlife violation, no matter how egregious. The fact that he will never again be allowed to legally hunt is a big win. And if he violates the terms of his deal, you can bet he'll see the inside of a cell. He was also fined for each of the animals he poached, not just the moose, which is why his fines are so high. He might not be the outcome we're hoping for, but it's a really good outcome gang, and he was caught. As a great example. Student is still listed as a top exec for an electrical services provider called Quantus Services. Students sold six point three million in Quanta shares in twenty twenty four, which definitely turned heads at the publicly traded company. You might argue that a rich guy like Student will have the means to continue his life of crime, but I also wonder if a guy was so much to lose, we'll keep risking it all for another trophy bowl. He might be like that, or he might not want to risk his cushy, high paying job, especially if they keep him on as a convicted felon. The jury's out on whether Oldkarl will make the right decision, but I can say with confidence that a Wisconsin man named Richard Waters made the wrong one. Earlier this year, Waters made waves in the deer hunting world by displaying an incredible forty nine point white tail rack at the Open Season Deer and Turkey Expo in the Wisconsin Dells. The non typical rack was panel scored by the Wisconsin Buck and Bear Club and netted over three hundred and six inches, which sounds too good to be true because it's well ahead of the state standing record a two hundred and fifty three inch deer. If you want the real deeds here, you can go over to the mediator dot com. Sage Marshall did a great rite up here. Now, if you know anything about hunting records, you know that the new record is usually only a little bit bigger than the previous one, especially if it's real, real big. So that was already a red flag. Like I said, too good to be true, As many in the deer hunting world pointed out. The Wisconsin DNR launched an investigation, and what they found surprise to almost no one. Not only was Waters deer from a game farm and not Marquette County as he claimed, he wasn't even the one who shot him. The DNR discovered that Yoder Whitetails Deer Farm had sold the rack to an acquaintance of Waters, who, seeing a potential financial investment, had purchased the rack from that acquaintance. He then had a taxidermis mount the rack using the cape from a different deer, and hired a photographer to take pictures of him holding his new trophy. Ooh, this guy has never seen a crime show on TV. He's got too many loose ends here, kids. He also asked the photographer to photoshop the rack onto another deer's body to try to fool people he'd shot the deer from the wild, but that photog refused to do it. Good for you anyway. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel recorded an interaction between Waters and his wife that may go down as one of the funniest in the history of the crime desk. Quote. God, I thought you were smarter than this, Water's wife, Brenda said, within earshot of a reporter quote. I'm stupid, yes, Her husband replied, at least he's self aware, which is more than I can say for most wildlife criminals. I do need to point out if only we knew the significant others of the rest of these poachers, if they were like Brenda here, I think we could agree that we could put up with smaller fines in lieu of the hell they catch it home. Over the fishing Accident's desk, an unidentified man fishing off the coast of Seaside, Oregon, was swept out to sea and drowned late last month. Seaside Fire and Rescue responded to a distress call at eight thirty eight am on June twenty five, but rescue swimmers were not able to reach the man in time, pulling him from the waves at eight point fifty two and taking him to Providence Seaside Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. That same day, just seventy five miles north in Capolis Beach, Washington, four other people were knocked down by waves and pulled out into the water while surf casting. Two of the anglers made it back to shore safely, but the two others were not so lucky. After a rescue attempt, the Gray's County Sheriffs and Ocean Shores police recovered their bodies from the water and pronounced them dead at the scene. This part of the Pacific Northwest is a huge draw for people going after seafood, both commercially and recreationally. Capolis Beach at the north and Seaside at the south marked the two ends of the most productive Pacific razorclam habitat in the world wide. Stable sandy beaches there contain tens of millions of the bivalves, and ninety percent of each state's annual clam harvest comes from this stretch of coast, which also contains the mouth of the Columbia River. Razor clams are especially fun to go after because they dig down the sand so fast, up to a foot per minute, going as deep as four feet. Once you see the clams characteristic dimple in the sand, you have to shovel as fast as you can to outraise the little guys. Digging for clams and fishing from the shore don't seem like particularly dangerous pursuits, but ocean conditions are always unpredictable. It's not a bad idea to have a PFD with you for when the swells get big, but you still want to take a few more casts from the beach that's a personal floatation device. Meanwhile, across the country, in Varo Beach, Florida, the Indian River County Sheriff's Office also received an urgent distress call in late June from an angler who had sustained injuries and was unable to locate a fishing companion after their fan boat flipped over. Rescue crews raised scene, including Sheriff's office personnel, a fire rescue team, and Florida Fish and Wildlife staff, along with the US Coast Guard helicopter that had been scrambled from one hundred and fifty miles away clear across the state. The team was relieved to find the voter, Derek Howard, alive and well, but they were considerably less cheerful when they learned that the distress call had been completely fabricated. Howard's boat had just run out of gas, and he'd invented the wild yarn to get assistants asap. With real emergencies like the ones in Seaside and Capala's Beach happening every day, the authorities charged him with misusing nine to one one and filing a false report to law enforcement that was probably not the expedited attention that Howard was hoping for. He could have killed somebody by diverting law enforcement like that. It's a big deal. Over to the Cathedral of the Forest Desk, the long long battle for Sunday hunting in pennsyl Tucky, Pennsylvania may finally be coming to an end. On July one, House Bill fourteen thirty one reached the desk of Governor Josh Shapiro after passing out of the House and Senate. The bill would lift the ban on Sunday hunting during all hunting seasons in the Keystone State. Right now, Pennsylvania only allows the hunting of foxes, coyotes, and crows on Sundays, and since twenty nineteen they have added three other Sundays in the fall hunting season, one in the archery deer season, one in rifle deer season, and one during rifle bear season. But we know that Pennsylvania has some of the country's most avid hunters, and they've been calling for a full repeal of the ban for more than a decade, led by Chair of the Game and Fisheries Committee, Senator Greg Groffman. Rothman said it's an idea whose time has come. As we've covered in the past, adding this one day to the weekend would double most working people's time in the field, and with participation in youth sports now at an all time high, many kids with games on Saturday have missed out on hunting opportunities altogether until right now. Adding one more weekend day would also be a significant boost to hunter recruitment and retention in the state, where the Game Commission depends on nearly sixty million dollars in hunting license sales every year. The ban has also hamstringed the hunting industry in Pennsylvania, as out of staters have been reluctant to travel for a three day weekend if they have to sit one of those days out. HB fourteen thirty one wouldn't automatically make every Sunday open to hunting. The Game Commission would still need to approve adding specific days to the season, but the bill removes any barrier from the Commission's decision making. Opponents often cite the possibility that birdwatchers, dog walkers, and the like might stay out of the woods out of fear if the ban were lifted. Brook Glenker of The Keystone Trails Association told the Pennsylvania Capital Star, quote, we just feel that additional sundays open to hunting has the potential to erode quality hiking opportunities on Pennsylvania's trails. A lot of hiking occurs on weekends, but accidents involving non hunters on weekends have been virtually non existent across the country. If Governor Shapiro signs the bill, the only two remaining states with total bands on Sunday hunting would be Maine and Massachusetts. But who knows, maybe Penncilvania will be the domino that makes those other states fall. Pennsylvania's blue laws against hunting have their genesis in the Quaker founding of the Commonwealth, when church leaders believe that Sundays should be preserved only for prayer. Just pausing here, because I know all you hunters and anglers out there have done your own form of praying, somehow, some way on a hunt day. I sure have prayer takes different forms for different people. In twenty twenty four, pastor and hunting advocate Ry Bailey told the news outlet the Bradley Era, quote, God has given us the outdoors and hunting to enjoy. His creation and that is meant to be enjoyed each and every day of the week. I once hunted before church shot a deer, left the woods to go to church, then went back and recovered the deer after church. That's a heck of a pastor right there. Huge, huge kudos to the Pennsylvania Chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. Don Rank, who currently sits on the North American Board for BHA, was a major, major champion of this. The rest of the folks in the Pennsylvania chapter Chris Hennessy as well. I mean, you guys crushed it. Well well done. Celebrate this one. Pennsylvanians. Call Governor Shapiro at seven one seven seven eight seven twenty five hundred to get him to sign this one, or you can text him with lots of relevant emojis at seven one, seven seven eight eight eight nine nine zero. That's a joke. Folks, be pro say your thank yous, and share your passions. 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 ask Cal at the Meteater dot com. Let me know what's going on in your neck of the woods. I appreciate you. We'll talk to you soon.