00:00:09 Speaker 1: From Mediator's World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This is Kel's we can review with Ryan kel Kelly in now Here's kel Are about Us is a nesting process in which a bunch of turtles crawl up the beach and lay eggs at the same time. Synchronized nesting. You could call it probably not a future Olympic event. This type of tactic is used by many species to overwhelm predators. And when I say many species, I'm talking about oaks to elk drop a bunch of elk calves on the ground at roughly the same time, or acorns for that matter, and there is just no way the predators can get to them all before they get into the ground or their wobbly little legs turn into solid muscle and propel hold them away from danger. All of Ridley sea turtles, which is one of the most abundant sea turtles in the world, as well as one of the smallest nests in several locations. When I'm talking about is in Costa Rica right now. They use this tactic synchronized nesting are about us to overwhelm vultures. As many as twenty thousand sea turtles have arrived to nest in a single day. Another nesting site in India called Odisha reported six hundred thousand turtles in only one week. They nest above the high water mark, which means they have to crawl from the ocean up the sand to where the sea resides. Keep in mind, these are heavy creatures made for floating, not crawling. When they get to their spot, they have to quickly dig a hole and deposit their eggs or else the vulture show up to eat them. They'll deposit roughly a hundred eggs per nest or clutch cover them up. Once they're covered up, they're safe from the vultures at least, and then they'll crawl back into the ocean. It took the youngest ones, the first ones to get back, fifteen years until their first nesting cycle. There's an interesting thing here to keep in mind. Due to the sheer numbers involved in these ar botas, you would think that the nesting sites would all be huge, but some are actually quite small, which raises a question for the scientific community as to why would all of these turtles select such a small patch of sand. To shine a little light on the situation and the plight of the olive Ridley sea turtle, which is currently listed as vulnerable by the i u c N or International Union for the Conservation of Nature. The PBS series Spy in the Wild uses incredible lifelike robots sea turtle bot that actually digs and lays eggs alongside real sea turtles. The eggs are also cameras that capture the look on the vultures faces as they hunt out the eggs. It's pretty darn cool stuff. I So I'm just bringing this up to tell you don't forget about your public broadcasting system out there in the mess of media. They're still doing really good work. But I don't need a fishing polbird. How are you gonna catch all these fishes without a fishing call. I have this special fish call and they come right into the boat. This week we've got animal human conflict, black bears, grizzlies, bison, and so much more. But first I'm gonna tell you about my week holy cats, friends and neighbors. I am back in the puppy game. As I record this, I am staring at a hardheaded independent, about eight and a half pound yellow lab who's only about eight and a half weeks old. Uh, so far, she has jumped into the Missouri River unprovoked, retrieved several things, has fearlessly bit, growled, barked, and harassed several full grown dogs. I guess what I'm saying, and as I may be in over my waiters on this one, I haven't come up with the name as of yet, but I am kind of leaning towards steel power equipment. Maybe just steal for short Steel, as you know, sponsors this podcast and makes life in the yard or would lot easy by making super high quality equipment from limb loppers to power sprayers and clean, quiet, lightweight battery power chainsaws that have helped get me out of all sorts of jams that I got myself into. Anyway, back to this little dog, It's been a while since my last dog, whose name was Fisher a K the Big Fish a K Fish. So I'm rereading this fantastic book by Richard Walters called Water Dog. It is a joy to read, full of incredible simple training info. I recommend it to everyone. Walters has several other titles, most of which I've actually read through. In addition to being a dog trainer and author, Walters was, according to the New York time O Bits a chemical engineer, a glider pilot, a parachuteist, a teacher of our history and photography, and he especially admired to laborators for their diligence, devotion, stamina, pleasant temperament, and ability to become family friends. So I guess all I'm saying is across your fingers for me. In addition to the puppy, met up with a few friends over the weekend, fish for walleye and bluegill targeting fish for the frying pan. My walleye hooking to bite ratio is still croppy. That's a pan fish joke for you. But we did manage to get a few, and we actually picked them up on croppy rigs that I got from a croppy master angler named Tony big t Shepherd, who you can see firsthand on Cow's Weekend Review Tennessee carp YouTube series episode, so check that out on the Meat Eater YouTube channel. We use small croppy jigs and big murky water, which paid off better than the big bay it's I ended up with two big filatable fish and two smaller walleye. I d scaled the smaller ones using old Man Ronella's barrel scaler, which is essentially like running a fish through a cheese grater, then whole fried the walleye. Never have I seen this done before, but it worked out fantastically and as you know, if you hold fry of fish there is very little waste. For folks like myself who are not masters of the flame knife, this is a good way to go the big fish. I used to set of steel pruning shears and took the whole collar off. Then I fried those lots of meat on fish. Callers. Spencer new Hearth, our senior hunting editor at Meat Eater, hit me to the walleye wings, which is just the pectoral fins. But I think callers are the way to go. Lastly, here in my week section, I know this is going to be releasing little late, but I wanted to say Happy Independence Day all of you. I hope everyone made it out to a big, beautiful chunk of public land, maybe picked up some trash along with you know, the normal having fun Fourth of July Independence Day weekend stuff, trying new recipes, learning something new, checking out new spots. Additionally, thank you to all of our service members out there, as well as our first responders. I know this long weekend can be a busy one. Moving on, first stops over at the black bear Desk. You've got a special black bear round up. In fact, Tricia Hurt used her cell phone to capture and narrate the freeing of a black bear on Wisconsin's marsh Miller Lake. This was actually a pretty technical bear release as far as bear releases go, as the bear was not physically held to a spot. It was in fact swimming across the lake with its head stuck inside what appeared to be a plastic like snack mixed jar. I think we can guess as to how the bear ended up put the jar on its head, and it wasn't likely because the bear didn't want to get the top of its head wet. Or check out the scuba scene. Feeding bears, which includes providing the opportunity for bears to scavenge off of you by raiding your garbage cans, cars, garages, or walking around your deck to look for leftovers, often results not in a bear swimming a lake with a snack mixed tub on its head, but in the depth of the bear. By the US Fish and Wildlife Service, black bears have an incredible knack for getting back to where they were caught. So oftentimes releases of trouble bears only end up with that bear getting right back to where they got in trouble, which is why they typically get youthanized, shot, killed, whatever you want to call it. Anyway, the Hurt family use their boat to motor alongside the smallesh black bear, and at great personal risk, grabbed the jar and pulled it free from the bear's head. As Tricia says at the end of the video as the bear swim off into the sunset, this has been a night. I wonder what the sentiment would have been if that bear had made it onto the boat or got a paw in that helping hand. For the record, I probably would have been a tempted to help that bear out myself, But after seeing what plenty of deceased black bear pause can do just with the assist of gravity, I recommend letting that bear get that jar off its head on its own. I've had several pairs of pants sliced wide open during the recovery of bear carcasses. I would encourage again everyone to just leave them alone. They're very good at getting themselves in and out of trouble. And you know, prevent this stuff by not feeding the dang wildlife for letting them get into these situations. Moving over the borders, a black bear has been quite the attraction in Iowa. Iowa currently does not have an official black bear population. According to Jeff Harrison Iowa d n R depart in the Natural Resources, black bear sightings are steadily increasing in the state. The bears move in from neighboring states by feeding on corn and grain barges. Apparently they stay on the barges until they've had their fill and slide back into the river, sometimes in a new state, kind of like ers Sine Huck Finn situation. Although that story sounds really good, I think when you consider the fact that Iowa's in agriculture and almost all of the states bordering Iowa now contain at least some population of black bears, I think it realistic that the state of Iowa has a few more bears than those that are being taught on film, and likely some that were brought in by their own wanderings, not just after waking up after a crazy night on a river barge jump. In the next state line to Illinois, a black bear walked out of Wisconsin no surprise, not even wearing a plastic snack to into Illinois briefly, then into Iowa, then back into Illinois. As reported by across Illinois, three hundred people in Hendersonville County turned out to view, follow, and harass the bear. Must not be a lot going on in Hendersonville anyway. Everyone knows that approaching wildlife is a bad idea, but the people of Hendersonville County couldn't bear to leave their new tourist alone, which is why Illinois d n R is telling people to keep their paws off. Illinois Department of Natural Resource staff and conservation officers eventually managed to coerce the bear over Interstate I SEV two and into Pike County. Apparently the bears now touring some famous white tail country. The North American black bear was once distributed across the US. However, market hunting and habitat destruction eliminated the bear from huge chunks of its historic range. Recently, however, the bears, who whose population is now back on the sharp or growing side of the curve, are repopulating some of their own stomping grounds. As we reported earlier, Missouri is in the public comment process of reinstituting a bear hunt in that state. Conflict through motor vehicle collisions, urban development, and open garages pose the largest threat to the American black bear. Currently, we have an estimated nine hundred and fifty thousand bears, and that number is growing. Illinois Department of Natural Resources does not think this singular bruin will set up shop in the state, but it looks to me like if you eventually will, the folks in rural and even suburban Illinois should be prepared to welcome them. Man. Moving on, here's a fun fact for you. If you are unaware of shark skin is rough to the touch, kind of like a cat's tongue. To be clear, that's just a more approachable example a cat's tongue. I'm not saying that if you have not felt the skin of a shark or aware that it's rough, you're likely to be a cat person or at anyway. Shark skin is covered in tiny bones called dermal denticles. Dermal denticles are tough V shaped scales that are actually teeth, kind of hence the dentical. So stick with me here. Even though dermal denticles are tough like armor, they are likely on shark's skin not to protect but to help reduce drag, which would allow for stealthier and easier swimming. You can see how that would be important to a shark. Recently, researchers took a look at the eyes of whale sharks, which is our largest swimming non whale species in the world. Whale sharks can reach lengths of up to sixty feet. For comparison, the other big shark that gets talked about a lot, the great white shark, can grow up to twenty feet and weigh in five thousand pounds. Unlike the great white, of course, the whale shark, even though it can weigh beyond twenty thousand pounds and again grow to beyond sixty ft, is a filter feeder. Whale sharks eat primarily tiny things, a wide variety of small fishes, lots of plankton, clouds of eggs, and anything else that's small and edible from the ocean. Unlike that famous aggressive eater, the great white, which only has a measily twenty four or so teeth on its top and bottom jaws respectively at any given time, the relatively passive filter feeder the whale shark has loads of tiny teeth, over three hundred exposed in its jaw toothbrush. Additionally, as we just learned, the whale shark has a lot more skin, and again on its skin are the dermal dentical teeth. And thanks to this recent research project on whale shark guys, we now know that they even have teeth on their eyes, very similar to the dermal denticles on the skin. The denticles on the eyes are also tiny teeth like structures, but these likely have the purpose of protection, not noise reduction. So I guess all I'm saying is, when you think about tooth the sharks, maybe the whale sharks should be at the top of your list. Moving on to the d a C desk, that's the newly formed Department of Animal Contact. Another person got too close to a bison and was gored for it in yellow Stone if you recall, immediately post opening of the park, another park visitor behaved badly which led to a bison bump, which is exactly the same story as this one. We may just have a pattern here, folks. A seventy two year old woman reportedly approached a bison supposedly within ten feet multiple times. The bison eventually became defensive and gord the woman. Not too far from this, near Old Faithful, a park visitor from Missouri, one what we at meat Eater would call the grizzly bear lottery by accomplishing what few do, getting charged and mauled and even scratched, but not sustaining any immobilizing her life threatening injuries. This hiker apparently walked into a sow with cubs on the Ferry Lake trail. The south charged knocked the hiker down before she could deploy her bear spray, but again was relatively unharmed and walked herself back to safety. I found it interesting that all of the news reports on this particular case include the park statement that this incident is the first grizzly bear related injury inside the park since June of two thousand nineteen. Way way back in June of two thousand nineteen, that's only a year ago. It's June sALS around high alert this time of year predominantly in my mind because of that male or bore grizzly who could potentially want to make a meal out of her hubs and let's be honest, keeping track of kids while on a hike isn't easier relaxing for any mother makes some irritable. Next up, and just a little bit further away, but still considered in that g y e the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. This one happening in Montana Centennial Valley. A US Fish and Wildlife biologist was attacked by a grizzly bear while it work surveying sage grouse activity. This biologist was surprised by a pair of young grizzlies, most likely this is their first season on their own. One bear stood on its hind legs, the other attacked. Bear spray was deployed in this instance, and the use of it may have ended the attack before the other bear could be involved. Human bear conflict is something we see every spring. Often the situations involve humans surprising bears as they were going about their business, but in this last case, the human was minding their own business and the young curious bears, likely making to Asians on their own for the first time. Decided to take a closer look. This last series of attacks, as well as the one in Big Sky involving the mountain biker that we covered previously, all involved individual humans. If you plan on being out, you may want to remember that the math says bears very rarely attacked groups of people. Watch for sign as in fresh bear scat, pop prints, maybe the smell of death from a carcass. Get your bear spray in your hand, then remove yourself from the situation. Be bear aware. As they say, Bear human conflict is something I'm genuinely interested in. So I'm gonna head down to Idaho and meet up with Idaho Fishing Game take a look at what their team is doing in regards to grizz here very shortly, of course, I'll keep you posted on that. Jumping over to the access desk. If you recall several episodes ago, I mentioned this idea that the State of Colorado had floated out for public comment regarding some of the state least recreation lands. They were mulling over requiring all recreational users to have in their possession of valid fishing or hunting license to recreate on lands that use those funds to operate. Well, they did it starting July one, As in last Wednesday. If you find yourself wanting to so much as park your rig or bicycle and take a stroll on state wildlife areas or state trust land, least by Colorado Parks and Wildlife. You will need a valid hunting or fishing license for some reason. If you are under eighteen years of age, you still get to be a freeloader. Lots of folks have written in so far to see what I think about this, So here's my opinion. This is great from what I've seen. If people are made to buy in, they will take more responsibility for their own actions. They will hopefully note us the fact that there are trail crew members working, people cleaning bathrooms, taking garbage from trailheads, and maybe realize, my god, those people contribute to my recreational free time and it costs money. There is a negative side, of course, for all of us long time license holders that you know. Quite possibly these birders or bikers or picnickers may think, well, geez, I bought a fishing license, I may as well try it out. They'll have to pitch in some cash and to the old Dingle Johnson exercise tax pool by buying fishing gear, which in turn pays for habitat by matching funds for state agencies. Then those folks are going to be competing with us on our streams and rivers for fish. Then maybe though they might think, geez, I want more places to fish and we can start working on the strange stream access laws in the state of Colorado or Wyoming or New Mexico. Anyway, Moving on, will Um Perry Pendley, the acting head of the BLM, that's Bureau of Land Management, has been officially appointed by President Trump, meaning that he will have to go up for congressional review, which is something like a in person grilling for your job. William Perry Pendley has a background of being anti public land. Many people are very confused by this appointment because the Bureau of Land Management manages two hundred and forty five million acres. That's one acre out of every ten in the US. So I imagine William Perry Pendley will have to explain why he should be the head of two million acres of public land while he is so publicly opposed to the US even having public land. Well, i'll keep you updated on that. Last, but not least, the Great American Outdoors Act is in the House. Remember when folks used to say that, Ah, anyway, call your congressional representatives this time. Tell them to just pass this thing as it stands. Don't try to attack anything on We'll have plenty of time to work on other things after the Great American Outdoors Act gets to President Trump's desk. This is too important to muddy up. That's all I've got for you this week. Thank you so much for listening. If you're enjoying what you're hearing, tell a friend or two. If you have any news you're dying to share with me from your neck of the woods, or if you need to just send me straight on something, you can always get a hold of me at a s K C A L. That's ask Cal at the meat eater dot com. If this is catching you and the fam on the return leg from your Independence Day weekend, drive safe, Lots more weekends and adventures to be happy. I'll talk to you next week. 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