MeatEater, Inc. is an outdoor lifestyle company founded by renowned writer and TV personality Steven Rinella. Host of the Netflix show MeatEater and The MeatEater Podcast, Rinella has gained wide popularity with hunters and non-hunters alike through his passion for outdoor adventure and wild foods, as well as his strong commitment to conservation. Founded with the belief that a deeper understanding of the natural world enriches all of our lives, MeatEater, Inc. brings together leading influencers in the outdoor space to create premium content experiences and unique apparel and equipment. MeatEater, Inc. is based in Bozeman, MT.

Cal Of The Wild

Ep. 59: Independent Female Goldfish, MeatEater’s Land Access Initiative, and 373,456 Pounds of Turkey Meat

Ryan Callaghan with yellow Labrador, 'CAL OF THE WILD' title and side 'PODCAST MEATEATER NETWORK'

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24m

This week,Caltalks about how carnival stands that give away goldfish are invasive species proliferation hot zones, checking up onland accessin Maine, 2020 as a bad year to be a turkey, Alaska gaining back management of state land, how not to let the GAOA die, and so much more.

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00:00:09 Speaker 1: From Mediators World News Headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This is Kel's we can review with Ryan kel Kell in now Here's Kel the Prussian carp or goldfish can reproduce without a male. You will never look at goldfish the same way after you hear all this, or more accurately, you may look at the old carnival stand that gives bags of them away, you know, after fleecing kids for a few bucks, not as a fun harmless fish dispensary, but as an invasive species proliferation hot zone. As stated, the goldfish is just a member of the carp family, the Prussian carp to be exact. These fish can spawn without the help of a male. A female can produce fifty eggs year after year without the help of a male pression carp. I hope you heard that a female goldfish can produce in legs without a male goldfish. Instead, she will collect the sperm of minnow species from the same body of water and self deposit that sperm over her eggs, which oddly enough, does not fertilize the eggs. That would just not be crazy enough. Instead, the collected sperm stimulates the non fertilized eggs to divide producing clones, not true offspring. These are independent females we're talking about. Additionally, this means that the non threatening goldfish is a major threat to fisheries in which they have the ability to thrive. North of the US border. They have been found in the Bow, Red Deer and South Saskatchewan River basins. Another recent Canadian case, this one in Dragon Lake, located in Kessnel Beasts, is home to a unique strain of trout, the Blackwater rainbow trout. Black water rainbows, originally from the Blackwater River, are planted into Dragon Lake as a free swimming broodstock. They're important because they're a fast growing rainbow with a wild heritage, which basically means they'll get to eating size fast, they'll be disease resistant and put up a good fight. The black Water rainbows are caught again out of Dragon Lake and the females are milked. Then those eggs are then used to supply blackwater trout in a bunch of other stock lakes in BC. But if you haven't figured out this by now, the other thing that Dragon Lake has is a problem in the form of goldfish. Now keep in mind these are the same fish you let your kid pop a balloon to win at the fair that live for like a day and then are so easily flushable the next However, these goldfish that haven't been in a small tank are weighing one to five pounds in Dragon Lake, as in, they'll clog your pipes. Aside from the goldfish's ability to reproduce any way that is convenient, they are also adapting to their new surroundings by losing their highly visible gold coloration. The goldfish are turning the same color as the lake bottom. The same reason a goldfish can survive in a plastic bag at the fair is another factor in their out of doors survival. These fish are capable of surviving long periods of time without oxygen, much longer than their native competition, which basically means Mother Nature is probably not going to help this situation out. Aside from putting serious competition on the preferred inhabitant of the lake again, the black Water Rainbow, this invasive is starting to cost money, not only in the fact that the presence of goldfish could reduce the amount of trout being planted from Dragon Lake, but fisheries biologists are now spending their time electro shocking the lake waters, locals are spending their time spear fishing and even hand netting goldfish. If you haven't heard it here before, folks, let pets go, don't acquire them if you aren't prepared to hang onto them for the long haul, or maybe, in this case, aren't prepared to come up with a new fried fish recipe. This week, we've got North Carolina turkey stats, main game wardens, Land Access Initiative updates, and so much more. But first, I'm gonna tell you about my week. I traveled to the great State of Maine, got a lobster roll, and couldn't help but notice that the average yard had an above average stack of firewood, mountains of firewood across the state of Maine, and not coincidentally, quite a lot of steel chainsaw signs, the world's foremost purveyor of chainsaws, and not to mention just the best. I would have stopped in and showing those bellas a thing or two, but time was short, and I'm not sure how anyone who grew up like I did could teach anyone who's grown up like they did about chainsaw work. I would have got my butt kicked. Is what I'm saying and what I was really there to do was check up on one of our land Access initiative submissions. If you recall, all proceeds from Ronella who tell us campaign merchandise, which you can buy at the meat eater dot com, goes to our campaign promise better hunting and fishing for America. Well, a bunch of folks went to our campaign page at the meat eater dot com and filled out our land access survey. One of these folks is a guy, a maner named Brent West. Brent traveled all over the place with the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Eventually he ended up back in his home state of Maine and got a job trying to preserve public ground with the High Peaks Alliance. One of the chunks they are trying to keep from being bought up and posted from tip to tail with no trespassing signs looked like a good place to check out, so it in a couple of things they noticed right out of the gate. In Maine. You do not fish in a creek or a creek, you fish in a brook. If someone says either would you like to take a paddle or I took a paddle that means not that you should just take their paddle. They mean like, hey, would you want to go out on the lake and paddle around. Also, if you were to hear the phrase people from away or freaking things up by buying a Kingdom lot, putting a fancy camp on it, then posting the property all up so we can't go on it. If you were to hear that phrase, that is exactly what this project would prevent. What it would provide is just what we're saying. More. It's just a little more hunting and fishing opportunity. Plus I found some frogs, a bunch of pollinators, some edable plants, and some birds. It's a real cool spot, complete with moose tracks and deer tracks. I also met a town selectman who, upon learning that I was from Montana, he told me about hitchhiking from Maine to California. But he only got as far as Missoula, Montana. What's more, he left Maine with only eight dollars in his pocket. And just so you know, as someone who has driven that distance as fast and economical as possible, it takes a heck of a lot more in eight bucks to traverse the country, even at the time of woodstock. So he's adventurous and care free, is what I got out of that. I told him I grew up in Montana and in Missoula, and I was curious to what he thought, and he said, I spent the night with some friends and headed back to Man the next morning. I asked, why only one night. It seemed like a quick turnaround. He said, uh, I was just done. I'm pretty tired. Thank I'll go home now. Anyway. I will keep everyone posted on the land Access initiative. If you have a cool spot in mind, go fill out the land Access survey on the Ronella Putella's campaign section of the Meat eater dot com. We're just getting started. If you don't have a cool spot in mind, buy some merch and you're harding. Bucks are gonna go to places that are going to provide hunting and fishing for America. Moving on to listener emails, Jacob from Pendleton County, West Virginia rights in with hey cal It's hey season in most of the US, and that also coincides with fawn season. My question is when is the best time to mow hay so that you have less of a chance of disturbing or hurting betted fawns. I feel I see less if I mow at daylight, and for small farmers that's doable. However, I understand a lot of guys have too much going on. I would hate to know the number of fawns hurt and killed by farm equipment each year, and try my best to avoid them. That's a great question, Jacob. Occasionally extra protein makes it into all of our agricultural products are mixed salads and green beans can come with some frog legs From time to time. In the hay fields, particularly in June, it is not uncommon to accidentally incorporate a fawn into a hay bale. A young fawn's best defense is to lie still while mom is out and about eating. You can walk right up to them. Back when I had dogs, I would often come upon my yellow lab the big Fish, while she was thoroughly tongue bathing some frightened fawn. This doesn't mean that they are lost, so leave them alone, unless maybe the alternative is to see that fawn go in one end of a swath or a cute little spotted creature and come out the other round a big green round bail I am not in the farming game. So I called my uncle Jeff and he says, you know, you have to cut hay. When it's time to cut hay. It's three and a half feet tall, and sometimes it's inevitable. However, on years when it has rained too much and the cutting is delayed, the fawns get a bit bigger and have a much better chance of surviving. So for right now, we're just gonna chalk this up to a bad parenting on behalf of the deer. If you were out cutting hay or else, foul fen listening to this right now. If you found a solution, please right in to ask how at the meat eater dot com. Next up Kirkwrights and says lovingly, my h vack guy, put this group together. Trastional Land is a Washington based five oh one c three nonprofit organization dedicated to making a positive difference in recreational target shooting towards the critical goal of protecting and preserving our public lands. What they do is education and awareness of rules, ethics, stewardship, and safety. They promote awareness and seek solutions surrounding responsible shooting on public lands, and they lead clean ups at shooting sites in the forests of Washington, Oregon. They also assist in forest management agencies in the development of quality shooting lanes and enhance their message through their volunteer efforts. So if you remember, we always seem to talk about trash around good areas to target shoot. This HVAC guy started a whole nonprofit around it, trastional land dot org, which is awesome. If you're in the state of Washington and Oregon, check it out. And if not, and you belong to any rotten gun club, you can put a group together and go out and clean one of these areas yourself. You just gotta go do it. Heck, even the entire meat Eater office is getting out and putting the gloves on to clean up a fishing access site here in town. Just get on, go do it. Moving on to the COVID nineteen desk, North Carolina just released the results of their spring turkey season, and well, it was a bad year to be a turkey or a good year to be a turkey hunter. Within their five week turkey season, North Carolina harvested twenty three thousand, three hundred and forty one birds. Harvest during youth season went up one hundred and ten percent. The nearest highest success rate was back in two thousand seventeen with eighteen thousand, nine hundred nineteen birds. That's a signific a can increase of more than four thousand birds. North Carolina Wildlife Resource Commission stay. It's that the stay at home orders associated with the mitigation of the spread of COVID nineteen provided people with more time in the woods. Now, I think that this can be seen as a bit of an assumption. Looking at just the total amount of birds could be a big population increase and the same amount of hunters that are out there just more successful because they're spending more time in the woods. I think this is an accurate assumption. However, when you look at the youth success increase, it can take some serious time to get first time hunters of any age a bird, and youth success rates increased a hundred and ten percent. Again, Now, another thing I want you to think about is if we were to meet in the middle between a big town and a small jake will call the average bird taken in North Carolina sixteen pounds that's dressed and plucked. The harve of twenty three thousand, three forty one birds would equate to three hundred and seventy three thousand, four hundred and fifty six pounds of meat put in the freezer. That is a productive stay at home North Carolina. Interestingly enough, on this same topic of increased participation, on our way back from checking out the property in Maine, we ran into a conservation officer state game warden, and, being full of questions that I am, I asked him about fishing participation in Maine. He said that he thought in his area fishing was down. I thought this very strange, as they spent a lot of time looking the stuff over and talking to state game agencies across the country. Speaking with these agencies, phishing participation, as well as license sales, hunting draw participation are resoundingly up all across the country. Keep in mind this is anecdotal evidence I have collected, backed up by a few articles. The main game warden, in a very dry way of talking, said, well, we just legalized recreational growing of marijuana. This confused me. What does one have to do with the other. The officer went on and said, uh, well, I used to find a lot of people who were telling their wives that they were fishing, but what they were actually doing was tending their illegal grow operations in the woods, then fishing, hoping that bringing home a trout would cover their tracks. Now that growing marijuana is legal, these folks can stay at home and there's no need for the additional fishing part of their operation. Moving on to the Trump's and some controversy that is old news but is popping up again. We'll start with beauty before Age. I guess Don Jr. Is back in some headlines because his trip to hunt a far off sheep and a strange exotic land has infuriated some people, and it turns out he may have had secret service detail with him. I have no idea how the secret service thing is really supposed to work. From hunting aspect, I would imagine those folks are well trained and can probably carry a big pack up a steep mountain, So it'd be pretty good company to have. From the economics standpoint, I don't think the American people should be uh, you know, paying for your fund trips. Now for the optics of quote trophy hunting, I do understand that the act of going wherever you want to hunt wherever you want, as if money is no option just isn't palatable with some people. The optics don't look right. Well, the reality is that is how hunting has done in a huge part of the world. It is very, very transactional. I think being able to go do those things and see what hunting culture is like is intriguing for sure. Fortunately I don't have the pocketbook to be in those sort of scandals. But it is important to keep in mind that whole state fish and game agencies are funded solely by the hunters and fishers buying stamps, tags and licenses, most of which are at an incredibly small fee. But at the end of the day, we're still paying for the opportunity to hunting fish. That is not paying for an animal. I don't want you to think that it's just an opportunity to maybe you know, eventually get an animal. I do think there's some valid complaints out there in the destination trophy hunting game. Is the money going to conservation or preservation of a species? Is it really helping what the heck is going on? I don't know, but I do know that no other place in the world has the North American model of wildlife management. Every other country is, in fact another country, which is something I feel really gets lost. And it seems like hunting is the only time that the lens of Americans traveling abroad are not seen under the light of like when in Rome, do as the Romans. In other words, it would be extremely appalling for an American to walk into let's say, a French cafe, try to make an order and say, y'all, darn it speak American. So why do we demand American hunters operate as they would under the North American model of game management where they're not in North America. Now, ethics should always prevail. I always tell folks, if it doesn't feel right, it probably isn't, so don't do it. Moving on to our next Trump, President Trump is taking heat over some old news a reversal of an Obama eraor rule regarding certain wildlife take er management practices in Alaska on National preserve lands, such as the killing of bears, wolves, and coyotes and their dens, bear baiting, and the taking of swimming caribou. What this rule reversal does is not what every other news outlet is saying. This does not open the door to all of the hunters in the world to converge on Alaska and dig mother bears and cubs out of their den. In fact, I think you would have to dig pretty darn hard and pretty darn deep to find a hunter who is willing to go on a trip to dig a bear out of a dam when you know the alternative is just waiting and shooting one in a spot that requires no shovel work. This is not a trophy hunting issue, is what I'm saying. Alaska, due to its wildness, became a state in nineteen fifty nine, and with its statehood came special provisions considerations subsistence hunting being one, and state management of game species, of which it does incredibly well on all Alaska lands, such as preserves and monuments being another. These practices listed baiting, digging, capturing, swimming caribou were completely legal management tools allowed to be implemented by the State of Alaska prior to two thousand fifteen. It is now only five years later and that management choices being granted back to the State of Alaska. I mentioned that this was only a five year hiatus because that is not that long ago. Search your memory banks and see if you can come up with any stories of den mother bears and cubs being dug out of their peaceful slumber, or wolf pups or caribou lassoed by boat attributed to any sort of trophy hunter. I cannot recall any major stories or find any serious public outcry because, contrary to the current headlines, way way way back in two thousand fifteen, just as they will be in these management tools or cultural practices are part of a tool kit Alaska fishing game can implement at their discretion where necessary and sometimes yes, we're popular, as long as it fits in the greater benefit of the management of that species. Way way back in two thousand fifteen, these practices were allowed in very very limited circumstances, and the people who were allowed to participate typically had the ability to do so through cultural or historical subsist and hunting. To be clear, the current administration has had some rollbacks and implemented some regulations that are bad. They're bad and face value and bad in the practice for conservation. This just isn't one of those things. The optics are bad, I know, but the State of Alaska has no interest in killing off the wildlife. The citizens of Alaska need to survive their states rights guarantee them subsistence hunting. The state of Alaska, furthermore, is not going to kill off the wildlife it needs for the good of the economics of the state. One of their major industries is guiding, outfitting, outdoor recreation, wildlife viewing. Take a step back and just look at this through all the charismatic creatures that we like to fixate on, bald eagles, grizzly and brown bears, black bears, wolves, wolverines. Alaska has been doing fine in the long long ago of two thousand fifteen, and I trust they will continue to do so. Moving on to what you need to worry about, and this is the last time you will hear about this, the Great American Outdoors Act. You are hopefully hearing about this on Sunday or Monday, possibly Tuesday. Call an email your elected officials right now and tell them to vote YEA. Last week, Mitch McConnell introduced the Great American Outdoors Act. The Senate voted seventeen to move to clow tour, which is a good thing. That move to have no debate and move to a vote eliminates the chance of public land and freedom. Despising senators filibustering the package we have. Movement is what I'm saying, poor on the coals. Light a fire under the butts of your congressional representatives and make sure they represent your interests as outdoor and freedom loving people by voting YEA on nine d million annually to the Land Water Conservation Fund is one of our strongest outdoor access programs. It provides green belts, parks, bike paths, fishing access sites. Tell them to vote YEA to nine point five billion to the National Park Service, US Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, and Bureau of Indian Education. That is big money and big jobs in the Great out of Doors. That is your weekly call to action. Get on it now. If the Great American Outdoors Act dies, something that even President Trump called a beautiful bill, and you did not write in or call even once, you may have the same sentiment as seventy three year old Gregory Godar of West Yellowstone, Montana, when just last week he was attacked by a sal grizz who knocked him down, rolled him over, and bit him in the stomach, and his thought was, at least I got killed by a pretty bear. Do not let the Great American Outdoors Act die by not fighting for it. Thank you so much for listening. Quick note, I'm still working on the Bob Marshall helicopter piece, a few more interviews to do. It is a good one. It affects US all justice, travel, public sentiment, federal regulation, Vietnam veterans, mules, fly fishing, socio economics. This piece can knock your socks off. How's that for Cliffhanger. What's more, I have a big giveaway just in time for Father's Day. It's very fitting for the current times as it is an awesome set of stuff that could potentially make you money. And I'm not talking about, uh, you know, a multi level marketing scheme here, folks, go to my Instagram channel at old Cal four oh six o l C L four oh six to learn more. Most importantly, tell your friends about Col's Week in Review. Thanks again, I'll talk to you next week to make a fa

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