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. If you love running trail cams, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation needs your help. The agency just launched a new program they're calling Snapshot New York. This program asks hunters, wildlife watchers, and other outdoor enthusiasts to upload photos from their trail cameras. State biologists will use this data to better understand wildlife populations and make well informed management decisions. They're particularly interested in getting data from private land. Over sixty percent of the state is private, so biologists aren't able to access a majority of the wildlife habitat. They've divided the state into about forty five hundred grids, and they're hoping they'll get enough volunteers to have as many cameras in each cell as possible. If you don't have your own trail cam, the program will offer cameras you can rent. All you have to do is download the Snapshot New York app and upload your photos every two weeks. That will hopefully generate millions of photos, and I assume the New York Department of Environmental Conservation will analyze them using some kind of AI software. Anyone can participate, even if they have no prior experience using trail cams, though I imagine they're really counting on hunters to step up. If you live in New York, I'd encourage you to participate. This is a cool opportunity to be a part of what could be a groundbreaking way to collect data on a massive scale. I'll be very curious to see what the New York Wildlife Agency is able to find out in the months and years ahead. Big thanks to listener Ryan Sinclair for sending that one. In This week, we've got cutbait. Diamonds aren't forever, but the chemicals are. Utah lawsuit update and so much more of it. First, I'm going to tell you about my week, and my week was totally different. I was in class, which is odd for me, especially when it's not like a policeman. Dated this time in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, I was attending a few days of Army War College. My buddy and fellow BHA board member Jeff Jones, very soon to be Colonel Jeff Jones, and Brand Spank, a new graduate of Army War College asked if I'd be interested in attending. There's an application process, a selection process, background check, and then you're in. I should also mention there's a dress code, which you may imagine I don't do well with. My interpretation of formal business, casual and casual is not that of others. I've come to realize the heavy lifting of two years of class is essentially wrapped up for the students. Graduation is at the end of the week. We the civilian guests, dropped in the Sunday prior to the week, and then we popped out Thursday, which happens to be today. Got up at three forty five Pennsylvania time, recording here from sunny Bos Angelus. During these couple of days, we got to quote, get to know the Army and each other, lots of great discussion. In the seminar I attended Seminar twenty four, we had primarily colonels and soon to be colonels, many of which are Army, but also a marine, a Space Force soldier which is called a guardian, and airman nsa State Department Foreign Services, and then you know the couple of US civilians sitting in I should also point out that in other seminars there'd be like some foreign students Allied nations in attendance for War College as well. The whole purpose of this, well, I guess the whole purpose of a civilian in attendance such as myself is you get to get a little visibility behind the curtain, so to speak, some transparency into our quote war machine or peace machine, whichever way you choose to look at it. Specifically, why I was selected could be a diversity answer. You know, they want primarily civilians without prior military experience to attend, who may you know, provide some perspective in class they wouldn't typically get. And then ideally, you know, fall goes well you speak favorably of your experience there at Army War College. You know, they depend on funding as well. There's a huge professional networking opportunity here. There's definitely a bunch of active duty officers I met that are going to be retiring soon, so it's good for them to rub elbows with some civilians, right, And the group of civilians or very impressive in their backgrounds and careers just kind of a funny deal. The very first two people that I met, we were on the super late flight getting in together. You get picked up by military personality, you know, they take you to the hotel. And one fellow was a professor through the BYU system who had written a dissertation on the probability and likelihood of Russia taking over Crime and the Baltic States. And he said, yeah, so I wrote that seventeen years ago, and for the last two years I've been very popular, and that's why he was there. And then very impressive person from South Dakota who was in cyber defense, civilian. She was actually living, working and I think from South Dakota, cybersecurity, cyber defense, lots of accolades in her background. And then when they were so why are you here? I was like, boy, after meeting you two, I really do not know. But I was there and it was great. The other networking part of this would be I guess internal, right, So if you think there's nsa state department, Department of Defense, your military branch is all represented in these little broken out classrooms, these seminars, that type of connectivity can really come in handy down the road. So the war college, right, is like you're teaching future leaders, you're investing in future leadership, and then all that brain power gets split up once again to the different branches, and they're different functions. But you can imagine as time goes on, there's a high likelihood that these people are going to be working together or adjacent to each other in some capacity. Once you get high enough up in the military, it's pretty small from what I've been told. So these connections help a ton and communication and trust building down the road. About two percent of our military achieves the rank of colonel. Less than one percent make it to general. If that helps it all. And yeah, colonel to general is like the progression. In case you're wondering, that's just a little tiny tidbit of one thing I learned at my week in war college. Honestly learned way too much to talk about here. Maybe I can coerce General Hill, the Commandant, to come onto the podcast and do this a little bit more justice. Another fun fact, you know, got to like sit down and you know bs with the two star general, which is not an experience I've had before. General Hill over there is, you know, very gracious with his time. I'm sure he didn't know me from Adam, and a very impressive fella to chat with, and you know, it's his job to talk to the civilians that week and make a good impression. I'm sure so he definitely did it, and it was again super impressive. To keep this shorter, My biggest take home is there's just a bunch of really impressive people assembled there. I can, for the most part, only speak to my seminar again, Seminar twenty four aka the Sickle Cell, which is an inside joke I don't have time for, and then make assumptions that there's a lot of other impressive people and the other seminars impressive. How you may ask, Well, this may not sound like much, but we went to a lot of talks right by folks with serious bona fittis, and then we would get in back to our seminars and getting these big, thoughtful discussions, a lot of thoughtful discussions based on some sometimes pretty prickly topics. And for me, it makes me feel good as a tax paying citizen that the folks getting up near the top of the big brass pile are smart, thoughtful people who have the ability to listen, actually receive information and then offer their own information in not absolute terms, info that comes from experience and education, but also open to the idea that it can and should be peeled apart and examined. Our seminar had achieved a level of trust that isn't very common in my professional experience, and that gives me great confidence in those particular you know, military leaders or foreign affairs leaders. Who knows what the NSA does? You know, Superspy, I'm assuming tons more to say here, but we got to get onto the news. Moving on to the men Hayden desk, a new study is shedding light on the impact of the commercial men Hayden fishing industry on game fish populations along the Louisiana coast. Man hayden, also known as bunka or small forage fish fish that are used to make fish oil, fish meal, and animal feeds. They are caught using sane nets, which catch whatever happens to be in their way. Recreational anglers have long complained how these nets kill the fish thereafter, as in non bunker, and this new study claims to put some numbers on the bycatch problem. During the twenty twenty four fishing season, man Hayden boats in Louisiana were estimated to have killed millions of non target fish species, including eighty one million croker, twenty five million sand and sea trout, at least twenty two thousand breeding size redfish, as well as other species such as black drum and cow No's rays. The report was funded by the Louisiana Legislature and researchers presented findings to the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission. Chris mclouso, director of the Center for Fisheries and Mississippi River Programs for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, told Meat Eater that the results of the study are concerning, particularly for the states and battled red fish, and they confirm the worries of anglers concerned about anecdotal sightings of dead game fish near men haden boats. Quote, It's really hard to think of any other fish and game management system in which things like this are allowed. We knew there was significant by catch, but the industry always downplayed it. Now we have hard numbers. Of course, bycatch isn't the only problem recreational anglers have with the man hayden industry. As I mentioned, men haden are forage fish, meaning their food for other bigger fish, many of which we enjoy targeting and catching. Every man hayden that gets caught by a commercial fishing company, many of which are owned by foreign companies, is one less fish that can feed a red drum, seatrout, croker, heck, marlin, tuna, whatever. The man haden industry downplaying the results of the study, They claimed in a press release that recreational anglers remove nearly ninety seven percent of red drum every year. That's right, the roden real folks catch ninety seven percent of red drum, not the folks with the big giant nets. It is true that recreational anglers in Louisiana catch millions of redfish annually, but those fish are within the slot limit imposed by the state to protect the declining population. The twenty two thousand redfish cop by men haden boats are all breeding size, which have a more significant impact on the fishery. It's also unclear how the men haden harvest impacts the ability of redfish to find food. If there weren't millions of pounds of men hayden harvested every year, would Louisiana's redfish population be doing better. No one knows for sure now It's worth pointing out that the men hayden industry isn't the only or even the primary cause of declining redfish numbers. Chris maclouso told Sage Marshall in an article over at the Meat Eater dot Com that habitat loss along the Mississippian overfishing the past decade have also precipitated a decline. But considering these larger problems, by catch by men hayden boats might be the straw that breaks the cammel's back. That's a tough pill to swallow for Louisiana anglers, especially since the latest round of regulations shrank the recreational slot and creole limits. If we have to make sacrifices to keep the fishery healthy, it seems like the man haden boats should have to as well. Keep in mind, these fish get fished not just in the Gulf, but over in the Chest Peak and all the way up the Atlantic. Moving on to the Pea fast Desk, bad news to New Mexico. Your state is home to some of the highest concentrations of forever chemicals found anywhere in the world. Big thanks to Jim Lane for sending this one. In New research from the University of New Mexico has found that Holoman Lake, in the southern portion of the state, contains a massive concentration of forever chemicals, also known as pfasts, which stands for per and polyfloral alkali substances. We've covered this modern pollutant quite a bit on this show. Forever chemicals are found in many waterproofing substances, and they're extremely difficult to get rid of. Holloman Lake has such a high concentration of them because just a little ways upstream, the US military used to operate a firefighting training center there. Fire retardant foam is made from pfast chemicals. The lake was open to waterfowl hunters until last year, when initial research indicated high levels of forever chemicals. And when I say hi, I mean hi. Researchers tested everything the water, the animals, and plants, and the results were troubling. The lake water held the highest concentration of pfasts of any water body in the world, ten thousand times greater than the EPA's drinking water standards. Same goes for the plants, with one plant composite sample earning the record for the highest p FAST concentrations anywhere to date, the animals have been suffering too. Researchers found a kill deer chick dead near its nest, and when they tested it for forever chemicals, found extremely high concentrations in its tissue. And I just got to say, we shouldn't judge things by how cute they are, but that little fuzzy ping pong ball on toothpicks that we call a kill deer chick is pretty darn cute. Concerns about hunters come up quite a bit in this study. I've already mentioned that this lake was open to waterfowl hunters until just last year, but researchers also pointed out that waterfowl downstream of the lake and in nearby areas could also contain high levels of the chemical. As we all know, ducks and geese don't just stay in one spot. I try to put a bunch of them on my barbecue, which is concerning. Scientists also observed a herd of ORX visiting Holoman Lake on a regular basis. ORX can be hunted in New Mexico, so there is the possibility that hunters might ingest contaminated meat. The scientists are working with the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish to evaluate that risk. And that is the million dollar question, what exactly is the risk? No one wants fire foam chemicals in their body, but how much will it actually hurt you? There still aren't great answers as to the long term effects of these chemicals if you ingest them by the flesh of a fish or animal, but I wouldn't eat it on a regular basis or feed it to a child or pregnant woman. It's also important to understand that the highest concentrations of these chemicals are in the liver. I love a liver pata as much as the next guy, but if I harvest an animal near a military base or industrial plant, I'll probably give that one a pass. Moving on to the legal desk. Remember last year when Utah filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court to force the BLM to sell about nineteen million acres of public land. Most hunters and anglers didn't get involved in the public land fight until earlier this year, but if you were listening to this podcast, you know that the lawsuit was really the beginning of this latest battle. The Supreme Court declined to hear the suit, but they didn't weigh in on the merits, meaning they didn't say whether or not Utah had a good legal case. They just said Mike and his buddies couldn't skip the lower courts and go straight to the Supreme Court. The justices advised Utah to refile the case in a lower federal court and allow it to work its way through the process. A lot of us have been wondering whether Utah will indeed follow the court's advice. Will they take another bite at the apple or lick their wounds and go home. We still don't know for sure, but a recent court hearing has given us some clues. As reported in an outlet called News from the States, representatives from Utah said that they may refile the case, but it's not guaranteed. Lance Sorenson, an attorney representing the state, told the court quote, maybe the burning question is when will that case get refiled. I can tell you it's under consideration, but it's not guaranteed that it will even be filed again. And so as we stand here today, there is no federal lawsuit and there may never be one, which I think underscores our argument that there's really no case here. Sorensen was forced to give that non end answer because an environmentalist group called Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance has asked the court to bar Utah from ever filing a similar public land grab ever again. They say the lawsuit violated Utah state constitution, and they want the District Court to rule now, even before the state refiles it. The judge may have handed down his decision by the time you listen to this, But I'm going to go out on a limb and say he'll side with Utah. Judges aren't keen on making a ruling on a case that doesn't yet exist, even if it did exist just a few months prior. I'll also make another prediction. Utah will definitely file the case again. Mike Lee's defeat in Congress may give them pause, but I bet they think the Supreme Court is on their side. If they wait, one of their allies on the bench might die or retire. So I think we'll see this case resurrected before too long. When they do, they'll try to claim again that they want to transfer the land from federal to state ownership. We're not taking away public land, They'll say, we're just letting the states manage it that was a lie, then it'll be a lie in the future. But now Utah has admitted it. Time for another legislative roundup. A lot happening lately as usual. A bipartisan bill titled the Illegal Red Snapper and Tuna Enforcement Act has passed the US Senate and is now on its way to the House. The bill was sponsored by three Republican senators from Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas, major red snapper fishing states. It instructs the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to develop a fast acting test to determine the origin of fish suspected of being poached. Alabama Senator Katie Britt and her fellow Gulf state sponsors assert that Mexican fishing boats are entering US waters to take advantage of the denser schools of red snapper created by fishery protections. The poached fish are then sold into the US market at lower prices, threatening the species, undermining a maria and commercial fishing operators, and allegedly funneling money to drug cartels. The bill references a rapid test recently developed by scientists at Florida State University that confirms whether a fish is a real McCoy red snapper. This test reduces the species testing time from multiple days to under two hours. But this bill might run into a couple problems. First, although the Florida State test could catch other fish species being sold as red snapper, it's not clear whether it's possible for a test to determine where a particular red snapper was caught. The genetics of a fish caught in US waters are likely identical to one caught off the coast of Mexico. Second, the Trump administration has announced plans to cut one third of the annual budget for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, one of the agencies who is supposed to develop the test and guide its deployment. Maybe the Illegal Red Snapper in Tuna Enforcement Act would add ammunition to the ongoing House effort to reduce the NOAH cuts to just six percent of the current budget. No matter what, we'll keep our eyes fixed on the Illegal Red Snapper in Tuna Enforcement Act and see what develops. Staying on the high seas, Florida recently enacted the so called Boater Freedom Act, which ends the ability of state and local law enforcement to conduct routine boat searches unless they have probable cause to do so. Until now, as in other states, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission could conduct cooler checks to make sure anglers were fishing in season and abiding by catching size limits. This is just like a game ward and checking your bag or truck to see, for example, what you have in there lead shot, steel shot, valid duck stamp, or maybe one too many mallards. In defending the law, Florida Governor On DeSantis compared the kind of routine boat check to a violation of personal autonomy, saying, quote, if you're walking down the street, law enforcement can't just go up to you and stop you and search you. Desanta seems to be forgetting about Florida Statute nine oh one point one point five to one, also known as the stop and Frisk law, which allows for exactly that police can detain any person if circumstances quote unquote reasonably indicate that criminal activity might be taking place well short of the voter Freedom Acts probable cause threshold. Now, I'm not weighing in either way on stopping frisk. I'm just trying to see consistency in the application of law enforcement regardless of whether or not a Florida resident owns a boat. Anyway, Critics of the Boater Freedom Act reasonably worry about its effects on fish poaching. Former Florida Wildlife Commission Officer Alan Richard told the Miami Herald quote, bag limits are irrelevant if you can't stop a boat and check them. This one is already law on the books, so it might be a couple of years before we're able to see its effect on Florida fish populations. But taking away a well established tool for conservation enforcement seems like a bad idea. We'll have to wait and see. The seemingly endless saga of efforts to delist the grizzly bear from the endangereds Act added another chapter. This week, the US House Committee on Natural Resources past House Resolution two eighty one, which directs the Secretary of the Interior to remove the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem population of bears from the ESA. That measure will now go to a full vote by the House of Representatives. I'm conflicted here. I one hundred percent agree that the gye populations of grizzlies should be delisted. As we passed the recovery target for bears a long time ago. A population comeback like this is exactly what the ESA was designed to do. States should, of course manage hunts for grizzlies with the same conservation science they apply to any other species. At the same time, I've never been a fan of elected officials enacting wildlife policy through legislation, so this bill would establish a pretty dangerous federal precedent. Still, the sponsors of the bill point to the Shenanigans of twenty seventeen, when they Fish and Wildlife Service ruled that the grizzly should come off the list, just as they are rightfully authorized to do, but was then challenged in federal court and delayed long enough for the Biden administration to come into office, and under new leadership, Fish and Wildlife withdrew the delisting ruling for plainly political reasons. Taking lessons from the court hold up. House Resolution two eighty one would therefore remove judicial review from the grizzly ESA ruling. Again, I am firmly for delisting these bears, but eliminating legal review of wildlife law also seems like extremely dangerous precedent. It's going to be interesting to see what happens when this bill comes to the floor of Congress. Four Republican members of the Natural Resources Committee sat out this vote, which tells you that this issue is a real hot potato for lawmakers in both parties. So it's by no means a sure thing that this bill would become law. Nevertheless, I get a bad feeling about managing wildlife by legislation. So even if you are an aspiring lower forty eight grizzly hunter like myself, you may want to encourage your reps to get the old grizzerbear delisted. The old FACI Way House Resolution to eighty one may not be the right path. Sticking with the bruin beet us. Rep. Shri Tanadar of Michigan has introduced the Don't Feed the Bear's Bill, whose name seems promising. Will this bill prohibit people from feeding bears grain and molasses in their backyards? Will it provide funding for sealed garbage cans and bear hotspot states? Maybe start a children's educational program about why you gotta not leave food out, and you know, teach bears that humans give you food. Alas, No, that's too lofty of a goal. I suppose Tanadar's bill would instead prohibit hunters from setting out food on federal public land with the intent to attract black bears. Tanadar said the bill was primarily a safety measure to prevent bears from getting habituated to human food, but federal public land isn't where bears mainly get into conflict with people. The real drama unfolds in subdivisions around the bird feeders, bulls, dog food, and trash cans. In fact, state fishing game agencies use regulated baiting to successfully manage black bear populations. We talk to Meat Eater's resident bear guy, Clay Nukeom for comment. He said, quote, Baiting bears allows hunters to be selective in their harvest. I see it as a great tool for bear management. They're chipping away at our methods. I ain't for it. Baiting gives hunters time to observe the bears coming into the food source, allowing them to distinguish between a male bear they can target from a female who might have cubs nearby, and states often can't control bear numbers to maintain a healthy carrying capacity without allowing baiting. Tena Doar's bill now heads to the House Committee on Natural Resources, which will probably pose a significant hurdle. Still, we'll keep our eyes on this one and sound the alarm if it gets to a floor vote. Tough news out of South Dakota. After years of declining sagegrouse populations, officials have announced that the native species has likely been extirpated from the state. During its spring population survey this year, the Game and Fish Department was not able to locate a single sage grouse lek. A lek, by the way, spelled l e k, is defined as a group mating display where several males exhibit their genetic superiority for prospective mates. The term comes from the Swedish word lekka, which means the relaxed play of children. The more you know. Through vocalization, streading, chest puffing, even excreting scent chemicals, as in the case of the Mediterranean fruit fly, the fellas in a lek try to convince the ladies to choose them. Lex are distinguished from other mating displays because they don't demonstrate any material benefit to the female, like food or shelter. Female sage grouse raise their young without help from males, so they're just looking for a hunky dance partner, not a long term provider anyway. Because male sage grouse come out in the open and make a bunch of noise and movements, lex are the best place to observe and count them. North Dakota Game and Fish Department upland Game Management Supervisor Jesse Kohlar told Iany News quote, It's not unusual for lex to blip out and reactivate when populations rebound, but with our state population completely drying up, I don't expect we'll experience those rebounds unless sage grouse disperse from Montana or South Dakota. Sage grouse have had a tough go in recent decades as their habitat has been lost and fragmented by invasive plants, energy development, electrical transmission lines, and residential sprawl. We talked about delisting grizzlies earlier, but it could be time to list sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act. Seems like a tall order because sage grouse don't typically go hand in hand with energy development, especially those darn wind towers, transmission lines, tall structures of any kind. They won't nest anywhere near them. For an in depth look at this issue, head over to the Mediator dot com read Sage Marshall's fantastic recent article. Additionally, we'll have my good friend Ted Cook of the North American Grouse Partnership on one of our interview episodes coming up here real quick. As a special sign off, big thank you to all of our men and women in the Arms services. In whatever capacity you serve, you make set a high bar for what a civilians called dedication and commitment. Hats off to you. Appreciate you doing what you do. That's all I got for you this week, right in. Let me know what's going on in your neck of the woods, and I'll talk to you again soon