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 Scientists just can't stop giving drugs to fish lately. A couple weeks ago, we brought you the story of researchers dosing salmon with cocaine and observing them unsurprisingly going into beast mode. Beast mode, of course, being the technical scientific term for swimming faster and farther than other fish, as well as wearing blazers with the sleeves rolled up. This week, we learned of a group of much groovy er scientists who administered the active ingredient in psychedelic mushrooms to several mangrove rivolus, a fish species known for its aggression, to study the effects of the compound on social behavior. The makes a good test subject because it can reproduce asexually, resulting in multiple fish with the exact same genetics, which allows researchers to rule out gene variations as a cause of the experiment's outcome. Mangrove rivulus are also extremely cool because they can survive out of water for more than two months straight, breathing air through their skin while eating mosquitos and other flying insects. They travel across land by curling their front halves upward and then flapping their tails down backflipping several times the length of their own bodies. If you're confused by this, you know, watch somebody do the worm on the old YouTube. It's dance move that the kids used to do. Not surprisingly, the psilocybin really enhanced the fish's mellow, making them react more peacefully to other fish they interacted with. The rivulus are also listening to a lot of Jimi Hendrix and really getting into macrome these days. The scientists say the results show the therapeutic possibilities of psychedelic therapy for people. Which, sure, I'm not sure how similar the nervous systems of one inch long brackish water dwelling fish and a human being might be, but it seems like everyone could use a little bit of mental reset in twenty twenty six. Plus, listening to more Jimmy is always the right choice. This week we've got Conservation Landscape, the Crime Desk, Cutlery, and so much more. But first I'm going to tell you about my week and my week Well, she's been busy the baby boy is nearly fully baked. The last ultrasound is very human. Mama is doing great. And we've been eating turkey legs and wings. Now I put turkey legs and wings, and this is a very complicated recipe, So stay with me in the crock pot with water, skin on. That's it. Turn your crockpot on low for like eight hours or more. You can put it on high for six hours something like that. Typically I'll run two at a time so I can get everything in while I'm doing stock or just like processing in general. If I have some bits and pieces that I want to like make for pre made meals, which are making a lot of premade meals right now waiting on this kid to come. But yeah, you know that's right, all of you who just can't or won't imagine eating turkey legs and wings if you put them in a crock pot with the skin on and cover with water for eight hours or so, then shred the meat you have regular old turkey, but it's moist. I'll do this while I'm also making turkey stock. And if you want like a little little extra little trick, when your turkey stock gets nice and cool and all that, fat and oil comes up to the surface. You can dip a ladle in there gently, just breaking the surface tension, and all that fat will fill in the ladle. And you do this three four, five times, depending on how big your stock pot is, and dump that fat back into the shredded leg meat. Anybody who has ever worked with wild game understands that it can dry very quickly, and if you do this, it will just suck up all that moisture and fat. And I swear to God, you don't even need to put salt on this stuff. It is good. You can fry it for carnitas, you can make barbecue sandwiches, you can make a quick vegetable soup this summer out of the garden and drop in a frozen bag of this stuff. At the very end. The sky is the limit with this stuff. I put it in pint bags, vacuum seal it, and throw it in the freezer for later use enchiladas, burritos, you'd have a turkey salad, sandwich, whatever. But it is good. You're gonna be shocked at how much meat comes off of that stuff and how tasty it really is. And the reason I leave the skin on is because that's like there's a little bit of fat in there. It breaks down completely in the slow cooker and I'll just when I'm shredding it, lay all the meat out and kind of just rough chop it all into uniform pieces. You won't even know the fats in there. It's great, And if for some reason it's still like a little tough, you can just put that stuff in the pressure cooker for another eight hours. Doesn't cost you nothing, but what you will gain is the feeling of pride and responsibility, knowing that you have used every bit of your turkey. Once you start doing this stuff, it's going to be really hard to pass up those jakes on public land because you're just like, oh my gosh, this stuff is so valuable. Another piece of news on the backcountry hunters and anglers front, this is not something I take lightly. We have filed a lawsuit asking for declaratory judgment against the State Game Agency Montana, Fish, WILDLFE and Parks. The state has been increasing the language around accessing public land through corners or corner crossing over the last couple of years, which from a state perspective, has always been a gray area, and most typically the agency has recommended that hunters get adjacent landowner permission before walking from public land to public land, and in the case that a landowner would want to see that person ticketed, it would be referred to the county attorney's office, and throughout state history, that's essentially where it enns. Cases that actually go beyond that are thrown out. Most just do not go anywhere, and there's no ticket if you're truly corner crossing, which is walking from public land to public land without making contact to private land that is adjacent, which means you're not causing damage, you're not loitering or lingering on private property, there is no trespass, or it would be considered what is known as deminimus truspass, which is how we as a society function in every state. For instance, I live in a cookie cutter neighborhood. I have to take care of the sidewalk in front of the house and the little sliver of lawn beyond it which the public uses. Now, we are also a castle doctrine state, so if I feel threatened, I could theoretically shoot someone on my property. But if that person is on the sidewalk and we're to gesture over the lawn, thusly invading my airspace right. And private property law in this country comes from the Romans and the English right. It's called the heaven to Hell doctrine. Whereas my little sliver runs to the center of the earth and to the heavens, And if somebody were to felt threatened, I could shoot them right well, kinda, it is trustpass, but it is deminimous trustpass. And if you were to shoot that person, your butt would be in jail. That's also how like stream access laws work. This is not an agree just taking of private property rights doesn't inhibit a landowner in any way. Currently, there's about eight hundred and seventy one thousand acres of public ground in Montana, so called corner locked or corner accessible, and those acres. For everyone who has come to this state and said, holy cow, public lands are crowded during hunting season and at certain times and in certain areas, you are absolutely right. Those eight hundred and seventy one thousand acres are already in play. They're being used. So what happens if we allow the state to remove those acres from play? That's where we're at the value of a hunting season is so great we cannot allow opinion to remove access and the opportunity that goes with it. As I like to say, every season is some kids very first and an old dog's last. In other words, it's invaluable moving on for kind of a solemn situation. Over there in the Great La States, the end of the Michigan United Conservation Clubs called it quits after ninety years. Back in nineteen thirty seven, hunters and anglers from across the state joined together to speak with one voice on conservation issues, instead of focusing only on trout or deer or one particular watershed. They recognize the need to join all those interests together when advocating for or against certain game laws in lansing. A huge amount of wildlife policy happens in the States, and that's a critical level of power to advance agendas that benefit everyone. MUCC was extremely effective for decades, drawing funding both from individual members and from affiliate clubs. MUCC was instrumental in some of Michigan's signature environmental victories, including establishing the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund, which dedicates resources from oil, gas and mineral extraction to acquiring and maintaining publicly accessible land. Since nineteen eighty four, the fund has granted one point four billion dollars to state and local governments for land in every single county in the state. In large part because of mucc's work, Michigan is one of the best places in the nation to get outside, even though it has so many people. They were a key part of passing the nineteen seventy six Bottle Bill, establishing a ten cent deposit on bottles and cans. After just four years, a study showed that the law had reduced litter by forty percent and was saving fifteen thousand tons of aluminum and sixty five thousand tons of glass every year. MUCC was also an important educator, publishing magazines, holding instructional events, and running summer camps for kids, bringing younger generations into hunting, angling, and advocating for animal species in wild places. They also helped to educate me a whole bunch if you listen back to episode two sixty three, where they take me through all the issues involved with coyote hunting and scientific management in Michigan. Despite all these strengths, the organization ran into funding problems over the past several years and recognized that they couldn't keep the lights. But we need organizations like MUCC, and maybe there's some Michiganders out there who want to start something new that can speak for all hunters, anglers and trappers in the state and bring in new people who want to get involved. There's tons of great organizations that were a part of MUCC, Michigan Backhountry, Hunters and Anglers being one. There's some butt kickers on that crew. I'd strongly suggest you look into our organization there in Michigan. I know Professes Forever is very active in the state, as is DU. We've got to make sure good things fill the void that MUCC is leaving. Moving on to New Jersey, we're issuing another call to our New Jersey listeners to stay on top of an issue we've covered before. Two bills are working their way through the legislature that would change the makeup of the state's Fish and Game Council, requiring three of the seats on the council to be filled by animal rights activists. The council is the body overseeing the New Jersey Fishing Game Code to protect and develop on wildlife for hunting and fishing, and they help decide which animals and how many can be taken. Currently, the Council is made up of three farmer representatives, six hunting and angling representatives, the chair of the States Endangered in Non Game Species Advisory Committee, and one expert in land use in soil conservation issues. The proposed bills would keep the same number of total seats on the Council, but would replace three of the hunter angler seats with three members recommended by animal welfare organizations in New Jersey. These new bills are the same ones carried from last year and given new titles. We've seen what this kind of takeover can look like in Colorado, for example, when animal rights appointees on the Parks and Wildlife Commission recently approved the petition to outlaw for trapping there, not only would animal rights activists oppose all hunting policy in New Jersey, they're also focused specifically on the state's black bear hunt. The New Jersey bear season is currently authorized through twenty twenty seven, but the Fishing Game Council still has to reauthorize the hunt before the twenty twenty eight season can go ahead. If anti hunters can get onto the Council. They can simply delay the whole process until the hunt authorization expires on its own, which would be disastrous, especially for the bears of the Garden State. Nowhere else in the country has such dense populations of both bears and people lived right on top of each other. In parts of New Jersey, there are two point six bears per square mile. Most biologists agree that a stable carrying capacity for bears is only about one per square mile. Sure, a place like Klamath, California has more black bears than that, but New Jersey has almost forty times as many people per square mile. That means bears getting hit by cars and getting shot after eating from dumpsters and raiding convenience stores. So New Jersey listeners call your reps to vote these bills down in the state Assembly it's built two thousand and five and in the Senate it's built four to seventy one. And will repost these on the cal To action site. Public opinion has really shifted on this and more people in the Garden State are on board with the bear hunt, but it's never a sure thing, and the antis are working hard on this one. An important thing to remember when we're advocating on these issues, is you got to start from the from the beginning and give people the whole enchilada, the whole context, the whole Turkey leg enchilada. The reason being is there's been multiple studies out there, and the person who is adjacent to hunting but does not hunt, has a much lower understanding of how regulated hunting actually works in this country. So they don't know that there's biological surveys and there's an understanding of population health and density, whether it's on the growth or the decline, and then our tags are issued in accordance with those numbers. They furthermore don't understand that tags represent opportunity and they don't just represent a dead animal. So ask people where they're at, what their knowledge level is is. Don't call them stupid for not knowing. You know, I am adjacent to the game of golf. I know people who do it, I have done it on occasion. There are golf courses around here. I don't truly understand the rules and regulations of golf. Okay, just an example. Moving on to the cutlery desk, Chinese scientists have uncovered stone cutting tools that significantly revise our understanding of what our early human ancestors were capable of. The particular hominin in question here is Homo juliensis a species that existed from about three hundred thousand years ago to about fifty thousand years ago, primarily in Asia. This is the same approximate timeframe as Neanderthals, but scientists had until now assumed that life was much more basic for these relatives of ours, and that they hadn't developed sophisticated tool making. This is like a typical human thing where we always like to assume we are so much more advanced than anybody who came before us. Recent discoveries of napped cutting tools right napping is where you're whacking rocks against each other to get a shape and surface to perform the job that you want. Napped cutting tools seemed to disprove this theory, but unfortunately, you can't carbon date stone, and so scientists didn't know exactly when the tools had been made. However, there's more than one way to skin a cat or a Pleistocene cat to tell how old those tool is that may have been used for skin and cats. Alongside the cutting tools, archaeologists found butchered rib bones from an ungulate species. Inside those bones, calcite crystals had grown, and those crystals contain radioactive elements that degrade on a very precise schedule. By measuring the distinct isotopes remaining in those crystals, scientists were able to date the cuts in the bones back to one hundred and forty six thousand years ago. This was the middle of a severe ice age in what's now China, and so along with preparing food to eat, it's possible that these tools were used to make warm clothing out of animal skins even that far back in the place to scene, even for humans other than Homo sapiens, necessity was very much the mother of invention and still is. Moving on to the crime desk, we've been coming across quite a few mind numbing poaching cases in recent weeks. Here's a lineup of what wildlife crooks have been up to around the country. In Montana, Tennessee, resident Jerry tray true At the third received a lifetime hunting and fishing ban after multiple incidents of blatantly breaking wildlife laws in the Treasure State. He pled guilty to the obstruction of justice using someone else's hunting license poaching waterfowl, the unlawful possession of wildlife a turkey and a sand hill crane, poaching a cow, elk and a white tailed dough and more. Lifetime hunting and fishing bands are rare, but in this case it certainly seems well deserved. Not that old Jerry tray true at the third seems to give damn about having a license or not. Hopefully this is a deterrent. Sticking with waterfowl poaching, two endangered whooping cranes were illegally shot and killed by crawfish farmers in Louisiana. If you didn't know, Louisiana is the site of a serious whooping crane reintroduction effort, as the super cool birds are otherwise extremely rare in the wild. The recent incidents put a dent in that effort. However, Considering the poached cranes, which were born in the wild represent two and a half percent of the state's whooping crane population, which is around eighty birds in total, it's a really big deal. This is an ongoing thing in Louisiana. I dug into the let's call it the socio economics of this. The poaching takes place in like extremely extremely economically depressed areas to where there is a real idea of I don't know, admonition adversarial circumstances here, okay, where you have folks who are making a living picking crawfish and that whooping crane is out there picking crawfish that you could be selling, which is pretty trivial, I think it is, for sure. But it's also pretty widespread knowledge that that bird is getting millions of dollars pumped into it to try to make it prolific once again. And I think that just socially really rubs people the wrong way. What they're doing is not right, not justifiable in any way, shape or form. But it's always important to understand where people are coming from, no matter if you're on their side of the issue or not. What has been done in many, many places, because this story is not new. You can take the snow leopard or species like that in pov rister or hard living spots, and it's easy to see why somebody would poach them and try to sell their pelt or meat or whatever it is. The thing that has worked right is finding ways mechanisms to put money in the pockets the of people who are adversarial with this species, and that can be through tourism or providing information on how the species is doing. Little citizen science work, all sorts of things to inject a little bit of humor back in here. There's a great bar or used to be a got swept away by a hurricane. Yeah, I think it was the lazy flamingo or the lazy pelican. But it works here. For storks and cranes. You know how they like to stand on one foot, lazy one stand on two feet. The US Department of Justice announced charges for a Louisiana man who poached and sold over seventeen hundred loggerhead musk turtles, one hundred striped neck musk turtles, and fifteen striped mud turtles. The outlaw took the turtles from the wild in Florida and then quote aided and embedded a co conspirator who exported the turtles to Taiwan, falsely claiming they were captive bred to obtain export permits. In some the totals were estimated to be worth over half a million bucks in the Asian pet trade. The suspect was charged with violating the Lacy Act, which criminalizes the trade and sale of wildlife across state lines. He faces up to five years in jail and two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in fines for each charge. For those who question whether the Lacy Act is valid, great history lesson here, right. This is a fantastic example of why monetizing wildlife is not good. Yeah, I'm talking about transferable landowner tags on the open market. It's not a jump over. In California, wardens thought something was crabby, and they were right. They cited two poachers for harvesting three hundred and fifty one striped shore crabs two hundred and eighty one crabs over the limit from a beach in San Luis Obispo. Neither criminal had a valid fishing license either. They reportedly attempted to hide one of their bags of crabs by wrapping a sweatshirt around it. Suffice it to say that didn't work. Apparently, the word poaching doesn't just apply to fish in animals, but vegetation too. This one comes to us from the San Francisco Chronicle, which reports that park rangers in Humboldt Redwood State Park have made several arrests in recent months of folks illicitly chopping up and removing dead redwood trees from the public's land. A recent case involved a Dodge Ram pickup truck and hasn't been solved, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Quote, in addition to the removal of a log that would provide hundreds of years of crucial nutrients to the forest, the suspects are driving off road to get to the log, causing deep ruts and significant damage to the forest floor. Old growth redwood is extremely valuable and can garner five hundred dollars for a twenty two pound slab. When I was over in Tennessee, I spoke with the landowner who ran into some tree poachers on his property. It's extremely lucrative, causes a lot of damage, and it's a real crime. There are also a couple of other unsolved cases that authorities are asking the public for help identifying the culprits. In in Michigan, five bald eagles were found dead on the Upper Peninsula and officials say that they were not killed by natural factors, predators, or vehicle strikes. Meanwhile, conservation offers in Saskatchewan are investigating the illegal killing of a black barsow and her cubs, which were all shot and left waste near Lorenzo, which about sixty miles northwest of Saskatoon. A committee in South Dakota recently shook up the state's elk hunting regulations. One of the changes might shock some folks. They decided to issue unlimited elk tags in the entire section of the state east of the Missouri River. If you're worried this would wipe out the entire wapity population there, well that's exactly what the committee is hoping for. The eastern part of the state is almost entirely private land, which is heavily used for agg Officials say that they don't want to have any crop damage from elk there. As a South Dakota Gamefish and Parks spokesperson told their friends over at Outdoor Life, quote, we're issuing the tags to try and nip a potential problem in the bud. Elk or a fantastic big game animal that are welcome in every other part of the state, but the fact is we just can't tolerate having them in eastern South Dakota. As per usual for any of this tickles your fancy and I hope it does right into askcal that's ascaltemeateater dot com. We'd love to hear what you think. Last on today's docket, the New York Times reported on a document that was leaked from the Department of the Interior that showed some potential changes to liberalize hunting rules on some public lands, such as reducing or eliminating prohibitions such as firing guns across trails and cleaning game in public restrooms. The changes were the result of Secretary Bergram's Order three four four seven, which sought to expand hunting and fishing access across public lands. Thinking about how to reduce red tape for hunters and anglers is a good thing, though we also shouldn't rush to eliminate important safety regulations, which you know, there's state regulations in place. There's also the Code of Hunter Ethics and Conduct, right. We cover this all the time just because it's legal domain, right, And this secretarial order typically comes with some language that says you don't like where appropriate. So I know a lot of news outlets are going crazy on this one. Not us, By god. There's a lot of things happening on the federal level. There was the rescinding of the Public Lands Rule, which is a super bummer for everybody out on the landscape, grazers, hunters, anglers, people who just want to know the value of an acre of public land. The Public Lands Rule would have brought. Those conservation values are ecosystem services that are not recognized in the same fashion as oil, gas, mineral extraction are. This is something that's needed, quite honestly, it's a very bipartisan, non partisan ask to properly be able to understand the value of an acre of America's public ground. This is a highly politicized thing that came in under the Biden era and great example of a political football not in our best interest. Additionally, we are getting closer to the public comment period that will allow us to weigh in on the roadless Rule. We've covered the roadless rule many, many times. There's a great interview episode with Chris Wood from tu right here on this year podcast that you should definitely look up. Roadless rule is a fantastic protection mechanism that has not a damn thing to do with lumber or really nothing to do with fire suppression. As long as it works the way it should, I think Montana is a great example of the roadless rule working as it's written, because we do a lot of fire mitigation and habitat work within roadless areas. And the reason that I say like it's not dealing with timber is because a lot of our inventory roadless areas do not contain marketable timber, and a lot of our inventoried roadless areas are in areas that do not have timber. They're above tree line. They also protect typically like those spawning areas, are cool water reserves and areas of rest for a big game species. They do like to bed and chill out away from road and trail traffic. That is an absolute fact and something that we know. So if you're one of these folks who's like, ah, I need more roads for access so I can get to the big critters, I'm putting on my hal herring voice. That's a fun thought, it's just not a practical one. The more roads we punch, the less critters there will be where they'll be moving on to big chunks of private land where they don't get hassled. That's all I got for you this week. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to write in to askcl that's Ascal at the meteater dot com. Let me know what's going on in your next the woods. You know we appreciate you. Do me a big old favor and renew or grab a new membership to backcountry hunters and anglers. That's backcountry Hunters dot org. We got a lot of things that we're working on. We need your voice. Membership is what allows conservation groups to be independent regardless of politics. We focus on the policy attacking the problem is not the people. You know what I mean, Jump in help us out. We'd love to have you. Thanks again, we'll talk to you next week.