00:00:09 Speaker 1: From Mediators World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This is Kel's we Can Review with Ryan cal Kell. Now Here's cal Jake Hyles is both the unofficial New State of Virginia blue fin tuna record holder after catching a seven eight pound blue fin tuna, as well as the unofficial robin Hood of the Docks or tuna hood maybe sushi give her guy. Anyway, what I'm saying is he gave the meat away Llagali wood a day. The previous blue fin record six hundred and six pounds, was actually held by Hyles's now deceased friend, Chase Robinson. Obviously, this crew knows where the big fish like to be in order to take home the record. This mass of hall of tuna meat could not be sold, so Hiles and his fishing partner Jeff Landis started carving and giving the meat away. Blue Fin tuna can cost anywhere from twenty to a pound, depending on the time of year, and yes, there's some obsessive, wealthy Japanese restaurant tours that like to make a statement by spending around five thousand dollars per pound in order to take home the first blue fin tuna of the season. The two thousand nineteen first fish was purchased for a mind blowing three million dollars. Just like on any animal, there are different cuts of meat that bring different prices, but anyway you slice it, see what I did there, Jake Hiles distributed some serious wealth at the dock in Rudy Inlet. The i u c N lists the Atlantic blue fin as endangered and the Pacific blue fin as threatened. However, the ocean is a big place, consisting of many different fisheries. According to Noah, the population that Jake Hiles pulled his Virginia state record from is the Western Atlantic blue fin, which is now considered a stable fishery. The Western Atlantic blue fins spawn in the Gulf of Mexico and range up to Newfoundland. They grow more slowly than other tuna and don't reproduce until they hit about eight years old, which is a long time to wait considering they only lived to twenty. Now that we have that covered, here's what I don't get. State waters only extend about three miles off the coast. The quote potential Virginia state record was caught about eighty miles from the vessel's home port, putting it squarely in Federal waters. How is this Virginia state record? The state of Virginia did not grow this tuna. It likely didn't produce the feed for the tuna or provide the habitat. Can I, being from Montana, go fish anywhere in Federal waters and bring home a Montana state record? If so? The races on my friends this week, we've got a goat update, a prowling pinna, ped frozen birds, and so much more. But first, I'm gonna tell you about my week. First, first, I gotta tell you I'm drinking a pike a from Sawtooth Brewery locating Haley, Idaho. I used to go down and be friendly with some of these folks, and some nice character dropped off a six pack of peanut butter milk stout. It's got a flavor that when you taste it, you go huh. The peanut butter milk stout features the pika pikoh. When I very first saw one was up on Mount em Marine, which is a hard to get to spot. There's actually a fire lookout on it and it kind of looks on the headwaters of Rock Creek here in Montana and kind of over in that Scalcahoe area, and uh, he used to burn a lot of shoe leather over there looking for elk. It is a close cousin to the rabbit, but with short, rounded ears. And when I first saw one, the one I saw appeared to kind of have some stripes, and I was very confused, and I thought maybe a rabbit had made it with a chipmunk. That's not the case. They're very cool little critters, and if you ever get a chance to watch them do their thing, I had the suggest you do so. Alright, lots to cover here, as you may have seen from the old Cal four oh six Instagram feed, I took off to do a bit of ice fishing, my first trip of the season. Sadly, the forecast said negative six below zero, which isn't that bad when you're prepared for it, but the actual temp dropped into the negative twenties. Now I don't know for absolute sure, I feel like it wasn't that cold, but I woke up one morning, popped outside the tent and noticed a bottle of eight proof whiskey had frozen solid, which means it was at least sixteen below The nearest town. Temp hit thirty four below zero, so we'll just say twenty below, so I'm not just being a big talker. I pre made also. Buco Meat Eaters director of fishing, made some kind of hardy, awesome soup with sausage and pheasant legs, and we even ate a whole antelope shoulder for lunch meat. You can say we were in fat city. We got all this gear up to a very secluded, snowbound lake using those can am side by side vehicles with the tank tracks on them so they can go through snow, which made life pretty easy, pretty darn good living up until the point that I absolutely buried my can am in a layer of water that was suspended and insulated by two sheets of ice. Shoveling slush water at twenty below actually keeps you pretty darn warm. Not my proudest moment, but I'll tell you the team effort was something that would make anyone proud. The meat Eater crew rolled into action, shoveling slush, running winch cables, and using those communication skills that are so darned critical in those situations. I am still impressed as the ability for some people to be in that same spot and cuss and generally bring everyone down is very real, and this crew did not do that. They just leapt into action. It was awesome, proud to work with them. One fun bit of product testing, I'll mention I had brought along, no surprise, my steel battery power chainsaw, thinking that there would be some blowdown trees over the trail. There were not, so the battery saw just sat there at double digit below zero for three days. I grabbed it in our stuck situation, not expecting the sat of work at all, and at first it did not because the canola oil I used in place of bar and chain was so solidified it refused to move. Once I finally got that chain limbered up and moving, the saw sprang into life, much to my surprise, and knocked down two dead standing lodge poles, and with the help of the team, we got them under the tracks and shortly had the old can am back in action. It weighed a bit more as the water froze so fast that it didn't really drip off, but froze right into place anyway. Another adventure in a beautiful spot. We even caught some fish. I'll give you one real cold weather tip, though, intimps of that low water is an issue. We had several methods of water purification, but we had to boil everything just to have enough time to distribute water for everyone's bottles. Now, insulated bottles are great in this situation. However, once they freeze, it takes some serious time and ultimately more fuel boiling them back into action. Your regular thin Nalgene type water bottles, however, can be kept next to your armpit, chest or growing area and they will stay liquid. If you bring a spare heavy wool sock, you can stretch that over your bottle. This will insulate your body from boiling water and insulate the water as an ice preventative. And as everyone knows, it is just lovely to have a hot water bottle stuffed in wool sock laying down there in the foot of your sleeping bag on a cold night. That's some cold weather sleeping one on one right there. Moving on, gonna start with our law enforcement desk. This week, UH six to seven hundred pound female stellar sea lion was reported wandering up the middle of Garlock Road in southwest Washington County, Washington. The Cowlitz River is a tributary of the Columbia and a heck of a fishery, which is why this lion was likely there in the first place. When the first call came in in regards to the sea lion stand in the middle of the road, dispatchers were apparently slow to believe the caller. According to The Oregonian, the call went something like this, I'm sorry, a feeline. No, a sea lion. That's understandable. Through Saturday night, Cowlitz County Sheriff's Department monitored the scene. By Sunday, the lion found herself of full two miles from a water source, which is hard for any animal to do in the soggy part of southern Washington. On top of that, this lion was apparently cranky and very aggressive towards anyone who came near. Eventually, she was crawled into a cage, given clean bill of health, and released successfully into the Columbia. Quite the story for the sea lion and the deputies on the scene. You think you had a wild night stellar Sea lions need to eat about six percent of their body weight per day, meaning if this gal was six hundred pounds, she had to consume thirty six pounds of fish per day to stay healthy. The population of sea lions has increased in some parts of their range and decreased in others. This particular population is on the grow and one part of their diet, salmon and steel head, is causing serious concerns as people work to increase salmon and steel head stocks. The male stellar sea lion can wait up to twelve hundred pounds and grow to eleven feet in length. That's seventy two pounds of fish per day. The states of Oregon and Washington have actually increased the amount of depredation tags in order to help curb sea lion populations for this reason. One more quote from this story was interesting to me, and commenting on the aggressiveness of this female sea lion in a deputy stated that she would turn on her flippers and lunge like an alligator at anyone who got too close. If you've ever seen the skull of a sea lion, they have jaws and teeth like a grizzly bear. This one was six or seven hundred pounds, and instead of a bark, the Stellar's lion has a roar. Does it really need to be compared to an alligator for effect? Also in the beginning, I did call this the case of the prowling pinaped. Pinnaped means fin or flipper footed. Walrus's seal sea lions are pinnapeds. The stellar sea lion is the largest eared seal, which is a family. Not that the stellar sea lion has big ears. It's just the largest of the eared seals. Got it. Here's a couple more fun facts while we're at it. A large group of sea lions on land is called a colony. Let's say that colony is in the water, then it becomes a raft. If there are only two lions, you can call that a bob, which coincidentally is also what you call a guy with no arms and no legs swimming. That's an old dad joke. It's probably passed its prime. Moving onto the mountain goat desk, As you may recall, Grand Teton National Park drew criticism for a plan to eradicate invasive mountain goats from sensitive bighorn sheep habitat. Mountain goats, by and large are doing fine and they're not native to this landscape, whereas bighorn sheep, being the sissies that they are when it comes to diseases, are not doing great and needs some help. Lots of folks got up in arms over this decision, including hunters and the state Fish and Game Agency of Wyoming. Despite this, the Park just went through with their first day of aerial gunning, killing around thirty six of the proposed one goats from helicopters. The Governor of Wyoming, Mark Gordon, sent a very stern or to the Park Service, letting them know that they are a bad neighbor with no regard for the wildlife professionals of Wyoming. Soon after this letter was sent, Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt interjected and the Park Service shut down the culling operation after one day of flying and shooting again thirty six goats out of the targeted one. To make this even more unpalatable, the goat meat was not utilized by humans. This situation is obviously not ideal. This is the ugly side of wildlife management on full public display. The intention here is to eradicate a non native species so a native species can hopefully thrive. I have been lukewarm on this subject. To be honest, I was dubious that the park would ever allow hunting to happen. But meat eaters Sam Longren pointed out that Grand Titon does in fact have both an elk and a bison hunt within the park, so a oat hunt would not be out of the question. But those scenarios are different. They are hunts, well, I guess to be fair, I should use park service speak. They're not hunts. They are elk and bison management reduction programs. So there could conceivably be a mountain goat management reduction program. As I stated before, hunters, especially hunters of species like mountain goats, are very selective. They tend to be pretty darn picky about what they are willing to shoot and then pack out of the places mountain goats live. What has been determined to be needed in this scenario is not the hunting of a species, but it's eradication. And I don't have a lot of faith in hunters being on board with hiking into steep, dangerous terrain to shoot Nanni's and kids when the big iconic billies have already been shot. I have a hard time believing that the non hunting public would see this as a good pr move for hunters either. You and though oh we generally eat our kids when it comes to our beef, chicken, and pork products. I hate the fact that mountain goat meat, which I truly love, is going to be wasted on, you know, some wolverine when the goat was killed by man and not by an avalanche. I would love to see regulated and respected hunting within the parks, especially if it were a program where a hunter had to take a non hunting park going outdoors enthusiasts with them. After all, education is a big part of our park system. But again, hunting isn't what this situation is calling for. What would likely solve this unfortunate situation is money, and I have not seen any plans by any agency, state, federal, nonprofit, or private citizen to pay for the capture and transportation of these incredibly cool animals to a new range heading over the Idaho Desk. A group of rock climbers were nearly hit by a falling antelope last week near Boise. The rock climbers, who were on their way up the cliff, narrowly averted the antelope on its way down the cliff. The climbers were alerted by a whistling sound, according to kt v B, and avoided being hit by just ten feet. The pregnant female was carrying twins, which is common this time of year and is suspected to have been run off the cliff by an unleashed dog. To make matters worse, this animal was outfitted with Idaho Fishing Game tracking collar and those things are expensive, not to mention they provide a really important data. This incident took place in the Boise River w m A, where it is against the law to have a dog off leash and probably to kill a rock climber with an antelope. Keep your dog on a leash. Sticking with the state Idaho and one of my favorite subjects, access to public lands. The Public Access Protection Act still lives. That is the bill that got killed in its infancy but now apparently has come back to life. Will call it in an adolescent stage. Go to Idaho Wildlife Federation and sign the petition in support of the Public Lands Protection Act. If it gets enough signatures, this adolescent bill can actually be appropriately called by its acronym PAPA. That's Public Access Protection Act. As a recap. If you love to do anything on those big, gorgeous chunks of public land in the amazing state of Idaho, you need to be aware of the fact that Idaho's current code in regards to both trustpass in the illegal blocking or signing of public property is very vague, and in several documented instances, this vagary has been used to unlawfully thwart the outdoor loving God bless America public from going out and enjoying our public lands. Papa is aiming to fix that, and we all have a vested interest in helping. This is your call to action for this episode, so get on it full. Lying over the really old bird's desk, everyone remembers Wisdom the las and Albatross, our oldest known bird at age sixty four. Well, this newly discovered bird has nothing to do with her. It is forty six thousand years old and quite dead. This frozen horned lark was found by fossil hunters exploring the Siberian perma frost. The nearly intact lark was likely frozen immediately after its death and very gradually covered, leaving it almost completely preserved. These types of discoveries are incredibly important, as researchers can look at ice age animals in a near present tense takes the guesswork out of it, so to speak. The same area where the horned lark was found has produced other ice age critters like Willie, mammas and rhinos, as well as an eighteen thousand year old wolf puppy that is also incredibly preserved due to unconfirmed DNA analysis. There's hope that the puppy could be the so called missing link between dog and wolf. Can't wait to see what else this site produces. Maybe it'll be a leash and we won't have to wait on that DNA. UH. Swarm and bees shut down the Colorado Boulevard and Pacady into California last week. Beans bees the bees. By the time the swarm was removed by a professional beekeeper, five people had been sent to the hospital with bee stinks, including to firefighters and a police officer. This is no laughing matter, as Dr Justin Schmidt, creator of the Schmidt Pain Index, puts the honey bee at a type to pain that's a burning corrosive, but you can handle it. A flaming match head lands on your arm and is quenched first with lie and then sulfuric acid type pain that's right in between a warrior wasp and an unstable paper wasp. For reference. I bring this up both because I just don't get enough insects into the weekend review. And as we all know, honey bees make honey and they are incredibly important pollinators. But besides that, Dr Schmidt was on the Meteor podcast and it is a must listen episode. I feel incredibly fortunate to sit and listen to someone so in love with what they do. I have picked up fantastic be facts, but I'm gonna make you listen to that episode to get them. You'll thank me later. We're going back over to the tire heel state. Orange County, North Carolina just had their third confirmed case of rabid skunk. A Hillsboro residence dog killed the skunk in her backyard that tested positive for the nearly fatal disease. Another two skunks somehow found at or near the same intersection of Walnut Grove Church Road in North Carolina eight six tested positive for rabies earlier in February. Orange County Animal Services had this to say, skunks in the area usually contract rabies vi risk from the dominant host species, raccoons. Other animals that can get rabies from raccoons include dogs, cats, groundhogs, foxes, and bats. Most human rabies cases in the US in recent years have been traced to bats. Animal Services said residents should call them immediately if they find a bat in their home, even if there is no evidence of a bite. Residents should not try to release the bat. That statement confuses me. Weren't we talking about skunks? Skunks and what seems like a very specific area, and if you're gonna play it safe, un list all the other possible animals that could be carrying rabies? Shouldn't we just say, you know, stay away from animals. That's all I've got for you this week. Actually that isn't true. I've got one more quick one. A listener wrote in who had just purchased a Cow's Week in Review T shirt. Michael says, just ordered one of your t shirts. Love the show. My grandfather said, if something's great, it was better than pockets on a T shirt. Go to meat eater dot com and buy a Cow's Week in Review T shirt to see what this fashionable listener is talking about. Thanks again, as per usual, Tell me what I got right, what I got wrong, and what I am missing by writing in to ask Cal at the meat eater dot com. If you're loving the show, leave me a review by hitting the furthest right hand star and tell a friend I'll talk to you next week. Up