Speaker 1: Also media, Hello and welcome. It could happen here a
Speaker 1: very special episode today because I am lucky enough to
Speaker 1: be joined by Molly Konga.
Speaker 2: Hi Molly, Hi James, thanks for having me. I'm excited
Speaker 2: to hear about today's topic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, today's topic is buffalo. If this just came up
Speaker 1: on your phone without you clicking in, so, I guess, look, buffalo.
Speaker 1: When people imagine the great planes before European colonization, I
Speaker 1: think buffalo are the fauna that they particularly imagine being present. Right.
Speaker 2: It's such a romantic image, right, and they're gone now,
Speaker 2: but they were one so many. Like every time we
Speaker 2: drive through southwest Virginia. I'm in central Virginia, so when
Speaker 2: we drive through southwestern Virginia, my husband always brings up
Speaker 2: this account that he read of someone witnessing the buffalo
Speaker 2: stampeding through the Cumberland Gap. Like we're oh wow, yeah,
Speaker 2: right down on the tip of southwestern Virginia and just
Speaker 2: looking at that place and imagining buffalo there, like you
Speaker 2: have to romanticize it.
Speaker 3: That's incredible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's sick. One of the coolest like American experiences
Speaker 1: I've ever had. Maybe seven or eight years ago. Now,
Speaker 1: I was bike packing in the Colorado Wyoming border up there,
Speaker 1: and I was with some friends. We've been like maybe
Speaker 1: we're like three or four days in, you know, like
Speaker 1: where you kind of hit the sweet spot at that
Speaker 1: point when you like have it showered for that long
Speaker 1: and you're just kind of disconnected from the world. That's
Speaker 1: when it starts to get Molly's making a face you
Speaker 1: can't see.
Speaker 2: Just four days of human stink, it really starts to
Speaker 2: get good.
Speaker 1: That's when it gets good because you're just like, that's
Speaker 1: how long it takes to disconnect, right, something at your
Speaker 1: phone and like worrying about not smelling the.
Speaker 3: Stuff, becoming a beast of the outdoors.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you just returned to your feral self. I'd like
Speaker 1: to return to my feral self as often as possible.
Speaker 1: But we're like riding. I get where we're going at Walden.
Speaker 1: Maybe we're coming off this big plateau dropping into this
Speaker 1: big kind of like where it gets kind of more plane,
Speaker 1: e big big kind of meadow plane. And we're coming
Speaker 1: down there and it's a few of us and these
Speaker 1: buffalo just come like from the side of us and
Speaker 1: they're running alongside us, right, and we're riding you and
Speaker 1: we're cooking, going twenty twenty five miles an ho or
Speaker 1: something like that, and these buffalo were just cruising next
Speaker 1: to us because they're just trying to get like trying
Speaker 1: to check out, like what are these weirdos doing? And
Speaker 1: they're just like why the fuck would you put all
Speaker 1: your stuff on a bicycle and go ride around like this?
Speaker 1: And then we're like, oh, it's a fucking buffalo, And
Speaker 1: like for like maybe a mile, they just kind of
Speaker 1: wanted to keep this thing that they just wanted to
Speaker 1: keep tabs on us as we're going down this dirt
Speaker 1: road and then like they were getting really close, right,
Speaker 1: so they're like kicking up all this dust, and you
Speaker 1: got to feel like you were like almost one of
Speaker 1: the buffalo. You know, you're like in the herd traversing
Speaker 1: the planes.
Speaker 2: I think you're supposed to keep your distance from them, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: they were.
Speaker 3: We didn't have many choice at that point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when they're like do not approach, Yeah, they were
Speaker 1: approaching us. We didn't stop. I was like pretty pretty
Speaker 1: keen on not stopping. And Molly is right, they look
Speaker 1: so pettable, but they're really not. They're really Yeah, despite
Speaker 1: their fluffy appearance, it's it's advised. Like any time in
Speaker 1: the Yellowstone pretty much, especially in these summer months, you
Speaker 1: will find a video tourist approaching a buffalo and regretting
Speaker 1: that decision. But pretty big. I've been going by a
Speaker 1: bowl before, and I would like to keep it to
Speaker 1: a one.
Speaker 3: Going for me, one is all most people get.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah it is. I was pretty let me tell you,
Speaker 1: I thought that one was all I was going to get.
Speaker 1: I was I was ready to make my peace with
Speaker 1: the world. Luckily I got a second chance.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: People kind of focus on a buffalo, right, They ignore
Speaker 1: many of the other species that we lost during dis
Speaker 1: intent period of ecological destruction, right, And I can see why. Really,
Speaker 1: you can find images of piles of dead buffalo skulls.
Speaker 1: There's that like really haunting image of the idea of
Speaker 1: killing animals only for their capes or their tongues. Often,
Speaker 1: this period of genocidal violence is referred to as a
Speaker 1: buffalo genocide, and I think that encapsulates, right, not just
Speaker 1: the destruction of the buffalo population, but also of the
Speaker 1: indigenous cultures that relied on that buffalo population and of
Speaker 1: the ecology they went with. Obviously, when I say destruction.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying they're gone very much till here till present,
Speaker 1: but the attempt by the government in capitalism to remove
Speaker 1: those people from that land. But yeah, it is a
Speaker 1: shame that these other animals don't get a fatcha. Have
Speaker 1: you ever seen a blackfooted ferret?
Speaker 2: When you said there was going to be something about ferrets,
Speaker 2: I was thinking about it and I realized all domesticated
Speaker 2: animals were wild animals, and it never occurred to me
Speaker 2: that a ferret could live outside.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a ferret thrives in the outdoors. I really wanted
Speaker 1: to have ferrets when I was younger, Like, I enjoyed
Speaker 1: the presence of ferrets. I enjoyed working with ferrets.
Speaker 2: Oh he's kind of cute in a way, he's gross.
Speaker 1: The ferrets are very sweet. Yeah, we had we had
Speaker 1: friend with ferrets growing up, so we would use them
Speaker 1: to They use them to catch rabbits in the UK, right. Oh. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The reason that these guys struggle to get back on
Speaker 1: the landscape is because they need massive prairie dog towns
Speaker 1: to feed of.
Speaker 2: Oh do they live in like societies? Do they live
Speaker 2: like a prairie dog's So the ferrets live in like
Speaker 2: ferret villages.
Speaker 1: The ferrets predate the prairie dogs.
Speaker 2: But do they live in like a village.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they live in like I don't
Speaker 1: know what their social structure is. In Colorado, there's a
Speaker 1: National Blackfooted Ferret Center where you can go and see them.
Speaker 1: I've cycled past it, but I regret not going in.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll make a special trip reach out if you're
Speaker 1: with the ferret people.
Speaker 3: Sorry, I said, he looks gross.
Speaker 1: Yeah, please don't counsel us. Because the prairie dog towns
Speaker 1: can collapse, right, Really, their populations can collapse pretty easily.
Speaker 1: They get like infectious diseases. So they need like a
Speaker 1: massive number of prairie dog towns in order to have
Speaker 1: a sustainable, genetically diverse ferret population.
Speaker 2: Oh, I get it.
Speaker 1: I get it. And because we don't have those, right,
Speaker 1: because they are not generally amenable to agriculture, and then
Speaker 1: the ecosystem is very different from it what it's naturally worse.
Speaker 1: That means I don't know if there are any there
Speaker 1: are when they're not extinct genetically but ecologically in terms
Speaker 1: of their participation in the ecosystem, I don't think there
Speaker 1: are any very fair I think there are some in
Speaker 1: the Charles Russell Wildlife Refuge, but very few blackfooted ferrets,
Speaker 1: which is a shame because they're cool little guys.
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess, given what we did to the
Speaker 2: landscape of so much of the country, I'm sure there
Speaker 2: are other animals that just like their niche is gone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that is exactly what I want to talk
Speaker 1: about today, right, Like, specifically, I want to talk about
Speaker 1: buffalo because of the canceling of some public land grazingly
Speaker 1: since for buffalo, before we do that, Molley, we should
Speaker 1: talk about the terminology, right, the buffalo bison discussion.
Speaker 2: Right, because they're not folow their bison bison.
Speaker 1: And as we are, what five minutes into this, someone
Speaker 1: has already logged onto Reddit.
Speaker 2: They have opened, already made the threat already exists. It's
Speaker 2: already that address. It's too late.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we should have moved this to the to the
Speaker 1: front of the episode again and that if that is
Speaker 1: you redditing, please stop. I am aware that scientifically we
Speaker 1: should call them bison. I don't care. English speaking people
Speaker 1: have been calling these animals buffalo since English speaking people
Speaker 1: came to this continent. They did so because the animals
Speaker 1: reminded them of cape buffalo. I actually have had a
Speaker 1: frame gored by a cape buffalo as well. We're going
Speaker 1: through most of my goring experience.
Speaker 2: You got to leave these big cow type creatures alone.
Speaker 1: He was ambushed that my my going was entirely my fault,
Speaker 1: like you shouldn't be unkind to animals, and I deserved it,
Speaker 1: and it was a good learning experience for me. It wasn't.
Speaker 1: I think it's just a bad overall experience. Being God
Speaker 1: wouldn't recommend it.
Speaker 3: I'm avoiding it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've got this far, you're probably good. I think
Speaker 1: men in their twenties are probably like Peaple.
Speaker 2: I doesn't say. I think once you hit thirty, your
Speaker 2: odds decreased dramatically.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're out the wind unless you're working with cattle,
Speaker 1: like my dad got pretty close a couple times when
Speaker 1: I was a kid. I remember jumping over a fence once,
Speaker 1: but I think that was more of a professional hazard
Speaker 1: than like a lifestyle choice. So here's the deal, Right,
Speaker 1: there are many species in the USA which have names
Speaker 1: similar to species on other continents that they are not
Speaker 1: the same European blackbirds and American blackbirds. Right, Robins would
Speaker 1: be another example, there is a different sheep's headfish. Almost
Speaker 1: everywhere I have gone underwater, everyone has a sheep's head.
Speaker 1: The coolest sheep's head for people wondering is California sheep's
Speaker 1: head because it undergoes a sex change, making it a
Speaker 1: pretty cool fish. Also, it gets really cool after it transitions.
Speaker 1: It gets like these black and red stripes. It's like
Speaker 1: one of my favorite fish. If you want to be
Speaker 1: censurious about buffalo names, I would suggest picking one of
Speaker 1: the many indigenous words that have been used to refer
Speaker 1: to this animal for far, far longer than or bison. Also,
Speaker 1: buffalo is one of the cooler words in English language.
Speaker 2: Buffalo, Buffalo, buffalo, buffalo.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. Yes. It is the longest single word sentence
Speaker 1: because it's a down and a verb and a proper noun, right.
Speaker 2: Right, So it's it's buffalo, the city, buffalo, the animal buffalo,
Speaker 2: the verb meaning like what like to bully or something
Speaker 2: to like.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know if you've been around them, but
Speaker 1: they do do this. They sort of bother the push
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, yeah, I'm making, of course at motion with
Speaker 1: my neck and shoulders. That not one apart from Molly
Speaker 1: can see that. Yeah, they're they're they're just kind of
Speaker 1: aggressive in a sort of pokey and yeah, like it's
Speaker 1: a good verb. I don't know, hang around what you
Speaker 1: watch a buffalo, you'll get it. Yeah, it's buffalo, the
Speaker 1: proper down buffalo, the down buffalo, the verb buffalo, the
Speaker 1: proper nown buffalo, the verb no buffalo, the noun.
Speaker 3: You're gonna have to diagram this one.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, bison from upstate New York are bullying other bison
Speaker 2: from upstate New York.
Speaker 1: Yes, that is the the breakdown of the buffalo sentence.
Speaker 1: Fun trivia for everybody. Yeah, that's yeah, they will do
Speaker 1: that at the end of the year. Will quitz you?
Speaker 1: Why are we talking about buffalo today? I can't remember,
Speaker 1: I can, let me tell you. And it's because the
Speaker 1: Bureau of Land Management has canceled grazing rights in seven
Speaker 1: allotments public land in Phillips County, Montana, privately owned bison.
Speaker 1: And there's been a bunch of reporting on this, like
Speaker 1: when this stuff happens, when stuff the Trump administration does
Speaker 1: with public land the outdoors, they're they're like Democrat blue
Speaker 1: wave fake news panic accounts really really go kind of
Speaker 1: wild with it. They did with this one, right, I
Speaker 1: think people running whatever, like you know, occupy Democrats and
Speaker 1: suit Nation for change? Yeah whatever, Yeah, ocup by Democrats.
Speaker 2: I forgot about pantsuit Nation. Wow, that's a real throwback.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I never forget about the pantasuit Nation. They live
Speaker 1: forever in my mind. What I think, like the people
Speaker 1: of that tendency have not realized, is that these are
Speaker 1: not per se wild buffalo. It's not like these buffalo
Speaker 1: have individually, like or as a population, survived the genocide,
Speaker 1: been holding out in this land of Phillips County for
Speaker 1: more than a century. Right. That doesn't mean that we
Speaker 1: should be like callous about this. We shouldn't, But I
Speaker 1: just want to explain a more. I guess there are
Speaker 1: still thousands of buffalo across the West on federal and
Speaker 1: private land. Some of them have been raising on public
Speaker 1: land with permits for more than four decades. Having them
Speaker 1: on the landscape is a good thing, right, We need
Speaker 1: the genetic diversity even if they're privately owned.
Speaker 2: Right. So it's not just like I don't know knowing
Speaker 2: very little about this. I think a lot of the
Speaker 2: discourse around these like permits for grazing on public land
Speaker 2: it's like, well, why should these farmers get to use
Speaker 2: our public land for their property for their cattle. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I don't know enough about that to care about
Speaker 2: that at all. But in terms of what buffalo do
Speaker 2: to the grassland, like just walking around on it and
Speaker 2: eating it is part of the maintenance of that grassland. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 2: Like the eradication of the buffalo in the Midwest caused
Speaker 2: ecological havoc because we need them walking around and shitting
Speaker 2: on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Specifically what we need is them coming in,
Speaker 1: eating everything, trampling around, shitting everywhere, and then leaving, right,
Speaker 1: because that is what like so many indigenous cultures had
Speaker 1: these like these like traditions that the buffalo go away
Speaker 1: in and we do a tradition and they come back. Right.
Speaker 1: This happens for a lot of migroratory animals. It's not
Speaker 1: just buffalo, right, because it gave shape to time in
Speaker 1: people's lives. That's how they impacted the landscape, right. They
Speaker 1: didn't stay in one place, They moved through spaces. So like,
Speaker 1: if we want to restore this short grass prairie ecosystem,
Speaker 1: which is as it turns out, why people are putting
Speaker 1: buffalo on this particular land. Then we need a lot
Speaker 1: of space to do it, and we need the buffalo
Speaker 1: to be able to move around. Right, So people who
Speaker 1: own these particular buffalo are an NGO called American Prairie.
Speaker 1: You head of American Prairie used to be American Prairie Reserve.
Speaker 1: No American Prairie Foundation. Okay, great?
Speaker 2: Are they the villains or the heroes?
Speaker 1: Neither? I mean the Trump administration is the villains. Doug
Speaker 1: Bergham specifically, I guess is always God.
Speaker 2: I forgot about Doug burgher Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Fortunately Doug is now Interior Secretary, thanks to ARII
Speaker 1: for signing a letter endorsing him. Also, fuck you. American
Speaker 1: prairie is interesting. I guess, like It's not what I
Speaker 1: would want, but I don't think it's evil.
Speaker 3: Sounds like most NGOs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds like most of the world as it exists.
Speaker 1: Not Yeah, then how I would do it. American prairie
Speaker 1: is a is a big engine. They've been trying for
Speaker 1: about a quarter of a century to buy up private
Speaker 1: land adjacent to public land around the Charles M. Russell
Speaker 1: National Wildlife Refuge and the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument.
Speaker 1: So the goal is to create like by by like
Speaker 1: bridging these two pieces of public land to create a
Speaker 1: massive reserve where like one of the things with with
Speaker 1: bison specifically, right, they need a lot of space and
Speaker 1: very few bison can cross like political boundaries.
Speaker 2: They don't have passports.
Speaker 1: They don't. Yeah, this is one of their issues. They're undocumented,
Speaker 1: you could say. But think about the Yellowstone. People get
Speaker 1: really mad about the Yellowstone bison leaving the park. This
Speaker 1: is a big deal. This has been a big deal
Speaker 1: for it. Yeah yeah, yeah, people like what.
Speaker 2: Like they're Disney cast members, Like they're not allowed to
Speaker 2: leave in costo.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, they have to return.
Speaker 3: Take that off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, take the body off and just wear their head.
Speaker 2: They can't be walking in the parking lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't see Mickey Mouse at vonds Like that
Speaker 1: would really ruin the magic. Yeah, people get mad at them,
Speaker 1: right for a number of reasons.
Speaker 3: The bubble don't know about the park that this is.
Speaker 1: A thing, right and Buffalo. So as it turns out,
Speaker 1: they love to disrespect a fence, which I respect. I
Speaker 1: like that about them.
Speaker 2: If I had shoulders like that, I would disrespect a fence.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they so like cattle fencing is generally not sufficient
Speaker 1: for buffalo fencing, but buffalo fencing can be built. It
Speaker 1: does exist when people are building it. It's better if
Speaker 1: they are conscious of other worldlife, right, like another of
Speaker 1: the megafauna in the megafauna that has existed here for
Speaker 1: for millenia, but it's now in much much much lower
Speaker 1: numbers are like prong corn antelope.
Speaker 2: We have those here.
Speaker 3: Yes, I guess I don't really. I've never really been
Speaker 3: out west, so you are Molly's out there?
Speaker 1: If you would like us to make a podcast where
Speaker 1: I take Molly camping, yeah, we just look at animals.
Speaker 1: That would be my ideal job, a podcast where I
Speaker 1: just talk to someone about an animal every week, Like
Speaker 1: we go camping, we see an animal, we talk about it.
Speaker 2: I didn't know ferret's lived outside, Like, think of all
Speaker 2: you could show me?
Speaker 1: Yeah amazing, Yeah, god, we could have so much fun
Speaker 1: if we start with the ferrets. Yeah, but prong horn
Speaker 1: are amazing. You've not seen a prong horn.
Speaker 2: They lived in Africa? And what am I thinking of?
Speaker 2: Like an ibex?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I bex does live in Africa. I
Speaker 1: think some of them live on Okay, we're gonna.
Speaker 2: Oh man, everyone's finding out I.
Speaker 1: Don't know anything podcast version.
Speaker 2: I'm googling prong horn antelope. Yeah, you see them, and
Speaker 2: these they're just out there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're just like they live on the landscape. They
Speaker 1: actually were massively numerous, like before the various extinction events.
Speaker 2: So it's like a like a reindeer that lives in
Speaker 2: Colorado a reindeer.
Speaker 1: Reindeer are only reindeer in North America when they're in
Speaker 1: captivity Cariboo, when they when they are wild Picture of Cariboo.
Speaker 2: We don't really have a lot of like wild animals
Speaker 2: out here.
Speaker 1: Really see that. This is yeah, because the East Coast
Speaker 1: is much more urbanized.
Speaker 2: Right, Like every now and again a baby bear will
Speaker 2: wander into town and it's like big micks.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, I like it when a bear there's another
Speaker 1: animal I have massive respect for. I love how they
Speaker 1: don't give a shit. I respect any animal that eats
Speaker 1: in the trash. Yeah. The prong horns actually massive, Like
Speaker 1: I think antello cap pridie is the genus. And then
Speaker 1: there are different species. There were tons like we had
Speaker 1: we at one point had tiny like weien a dog
Speaker 1: sized antelope.
Speaker 2: Oh, like a like a dick dick.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, like a dig dig But.
Speaker 2: That's a cool guy.
Speaker 1: But fast. Oh so, one of the things about prong
Speaker 1: horns is they can jump, like I've seen them jump.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it looks like a jumping guy.
Speaker 1: Well, they don't like to jump. A fence is a thing.
Speaker 2: Oh so then now you have like a problem. The
Speaker 2: buffalo are stuck, but so is the antelope.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because that speed was always their like defense mechanism
Speaker 1: right there, they're super that. I think cheetahs are the
Speaker 1: only land animal that's faster and.
Speaker 2: They don't live in the same environment.
Speaker 1: No, yeah, I knew that different continents yet. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: is not a North American cheetah.
Speaker 3: I mean at this point, you could think there might
Speaker 3: have been a one, tell me there is.
Speaker 1: I think there might have been at one point, like
Speaker 1: a like a prehistoric shooter at ten. They headlick ground,
Speaker 1: slow some things. But yeah, when you're building the buffalo fencing,
Speaker 1: you have to allow the prong horns to go under
Speaker 1: if you're trying to build an ecological fence.
Speaker 2: Oh, I guess, because they could like bend over in
Speaker 2: a way the buffalo.
Speaker 1: Can't exactly, there's just more bubble.
Speaker 2: It's too big.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot of chunk to a buffalo and
Speaker 1: the way it couldn't get under there. Right. So the
Speaker 1: other reason people don't like buffalo is because of brucellosis.
Speaker 1: You know brucellosis.
Speaker 2: Is is it a buffalo disease?
Speaker 1: Well, it's a disease that buffalo can have. Maybe you
Speaker 1: know from the Warren Zevon song don't Okay, this is funny.
Speaker 1: I'm talking to Molly about really American shit to neither
Speaker 1: there's a British person.
Speaker 2: I don't know any of what you're saying.
Speaker 1: Okay. Warren's Evon a very good, famous musician, guy sadly dead, but.
Speaker 2: He has a song about buffalo disease.
Speaker 1: He has a song which in part it talks about brucellosis.
Speaker 1: It says, the cattle will have brucellosis. What a great
Speaker 1: journey we're going on.
Speaker 2: That's the service I provide, does the podcast, idiot? Because
Speaker 2: I know nothing you but you have.
Speaker 1: You have a very deep, very deep well of knowledge.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't extend to Warren's Evon.
Speaker 2: No listener left behind, Like there's no one sitting here
Speaker 2: listening wishing that something had been explained more because I'm
Speaker 2: making you explain what antelope are. Yeah, and what a
Speaker 2: Warren Yvonn is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we could go off on a tangent Higgs. I
Speaker 1: don't know. This song is about the fact that Sweet
Speaker 1: Home Alabama is a deeply, deeply hateful song, but it
Speaker 1: does that does get mentioned quite a lot. But yeah,
Speaker 1: the brucellosis.
Speaker 2: But I feel like once you're touching a buffalo, you
Speaker 2: have worse problems than whatever. This is.
Speaker 3: Oh well not great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it depends. It depends who you are, right, like, Uh,
Speaker 1: what brucellosis does is generally it infects heifer's so like
Speaker 1: young lady cows, it will cause them to abort their
Speaker 1: first calf.
Speaker 2: Sound.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's sad. Also because of the word it's controlled,
Speaker 1: you're heard can get killed out if you have brucellosis, it.
Speaker 3: Would be contagious to people's like cattle.
Speaker 1: Yes, and that would be very bad.
Speaker 2: So Okay, when you see people don't like buffalo because
Speaker 2: they're worried about brusilosis, they're not worried that they will
Speaker 2: get brucellosis. They're worried that it will affect their cattle.
Speaker 1: Yes, I do believe people can get brucellosis. I'm not
Speaker 1: as familiar with.
Speaker 3: That Apparently I'm looking here.
Speaker 2: Apparently, if you do get it, there's a twenty percent
Speaker 2: chance that your testicles are going to swell up real bad.
Speaker 1: So oh wow, I didn't know that.
Speaker 3: I guess that's why they don't want it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that would also be bad, right, like big
Speaker 1: bull brucellosis.
Speaker 3: Paul that okay, so we're talking about the cattle industry.
Speaker 3: I'm on board. I'm on board.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the cattle that they're concerned about, and they
Speaker 1: can take or leave the testicular swelling like they're tough.
Speaker 2: Why are they touching the buffalo in the first place.
Speaker 1: They're not, Okay, yeah, they're not. Okay, Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: a buffalo coming out and causing the cattle to get brucellosis. Right,
Speaker 1: here's the deal. Elk also can get brucellosis.
Speaker 2: I know about elk.
Speaker 1: We have those okay, yeah, you know. Okay, So an
Speaker 1: elk also travels widely, right, and elk it's not generally
Speaker 1: an animal that is kept behind high fences. Sometimes that
Speaker 1: there probably are high fence like game farms where people
Speaker 1: paid to go and hunt elkins.
Speaker 3: We have someone in Virginia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's kind of gross in my opinion, I
Speaker 1: don't like that. But elk also carry brucellosis, right, So
Speaker 1: if we're concerned about brucellosis, we also need to be
Speaker 1: concerned about elk. But it really doesn't get brought up
Speaker 1: in the elk discussion. It gets brought up in the
Speaker 1: in the buffalo discussion. So these are the reasons that
Speaker 1: some of the reasons that people don't like buffalo.
Speaker 2: Right, right, because they carry they carry a cow disease,
Speaker 2: and they don't like to stay inside the park.
Speaker 1: Got it, Yeah, yeah, they don't like to stay inside
Speaker 1: the park. We've talked for a long time, Molly, talking
Speaker 1: of things that might cause your testicles to swell. Here
Speaker 1: is some products and services or maybe it'll help. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe you'll have bought your first calf. Who knows.
Speaker 1: It's roll the dice. All right, we are back. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about the area where this is happening. Right,
Speaker 1: This is happening in kind of northern central Montana around Livingstone.
Speaker 1: There lots of the land in this area has actually
Speaker 1: dropped below the population density that Turner considered to be
Speaker 1: evidence of the closure of the frontier when he was
Speaker 1: developing that thesis, Right, I'm not a big fan of
Speaker 1: the concept of the frontier. If that's another podcast it
Speaker 1: I'll make one day, but I don't like it.
Speaker 3: But there's like no people there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's yeah, there are. There are very few people there,
Speaker 1: in part because cattle farming is hard, in part because
Speaker 1: it's harder in a globalized economy, in part because of
Speaker 1: climate change. There's this theory of the Buffalo Commons written
Speaker 1: by to be called Popper, and they considered like this
Speaker 1: specific area to be a tragedy of the Commons, where
Speaker 1: this beautiful plans ecosystem has been destroyed, and they put
Speaker 1: forward the idea that the presence of buffalo and the
Speaker 1: landscape could return it to a sort of short grass
Speaker 1: prairie commons. This isn't a direct link to the American
Speaker 1: Prairie Reserve, but this is kind of what they're trying
Speaker 1: to do. They're not putting Buffalo on the landscape because
Speaker 1: they are a buffalo organization.
Speaker 2: Right, so they're trying to restore the grassland.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's the idea, because we don't have a prairie
Speaker 1: national park. Right when colonization was moving west, as a
Speaker 1: Department of Homeland Security likes to highlight with its use
Speaker 1: of that image liberty was floating across the planes there. Sorry,
Speaker 1: let's just put an image in my head. Remember when
Speaker 1: the Trump administration is getting very aggressive towards Somali people.
Speaker 1: I guess it still is.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you see the Ai version of that, where
Speaker 1: as a Somali woman like crossing the plains? No, okay,
Speaker 1: it was pretty funny. It was one of there you're.
Speaker 2: Doing an opposed like like like the Mermaid on the
Speaker 2: front of a ship.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, yeah, Like yeah, it was like, this is
Speaker 1: a Somali promised land like they were, like, I guess,
Speaker 1: parodying American rhetoric towards indigenous people and being.
Speaker 2: Like olo, like Somali people can't do manifest destiny. I
Speaker 2: thought we loved that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it was very funny. It was. It was
Speaker 1: kind of amusing to see that American rhetoric reflected back.
Speaker 1: Somali people have incredible posting abilities that HS was not
Speaker 1: ready for. So what the what the APR is trying
Speaker 1: to do is yet use the buffalo here as like
Speaker 1: a landscape engineer, right, like an animal that will help
Speaker 1: return this area to I guess natural state is a
Speaker 1: problematic term, you know, but.
Speaker 3: Like to its pre industrial state.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. When we think about like why isn't there
Speaker 1: a planes national park, we have to consider the role
Speaker 1: the capitalism plates, right.
Speaker 3: Because no one would go visit that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I think they would. The plan would be beautiful
Speaker 1: in their in their way, right.
Speaker 2: But I guess, like you know, just thinking like, is
Speaker 2: the role of the national park to preserve this landscape,
Speaker 2: this ecosystem, or is it to create a place where
Speaker 2: people could go and buy things?
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly right, Increasingly it's the latter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think there is a bias towards preserving Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's like a scenic vista bias. This is an
Speaker 1: area where people could ranch cattle, and so like that
Speaker 1: happened instead, you know, and then we got to a
Speaker 1: point where like no one was going to give up
Speaker 1: their private land to make a massive park.
Speaker 2: Well they didn't want to in any of the other
Speaker 2: times either, So that the.
Speaker 1: Government is to make you Yeah, I think the government
Speaker 1: could force you back in the day.
Speaker 2: I mean, I just can't imagine a new national park
Speaker 2: ever coming into existence. We just don't have that kind
Speaker 2: of political will anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we might get like the Donald Trump's
Speaker 1: birthplace National Park or like something similar.
Speaker 3: You know, like we would never get Yellowstone again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we wouldn't. And like part of that is because
Speaker 1: they violently remove the Indigenous people from those places in
Speaker 1: order to.
Speaker 2: I don't want to romanticize that. Like I live near
Speaker 2: Shenandoa Valley National Park where people were forced out in
Speaker 2: a pretty brutal way. That's a big part of the
Speaker 2: history here, So I don't want to romanticize the creation
Speaker 2: of the national park. I just be like, the government
Speaker 2: is not going to spend a lot of money on
Speaker 2: something that's just for everyone to enjoy.
Speaker 1: Ever again yeah yeah, and they're not going to say, like,
Speaker 1: to an extent, we are removing this piece of land
Speaker 1: from the rapacious capitalism that has destroyed the rest of
Speaker 1: our natural spaces.
Speaker 2: So if somebody's going to eat this grass, it's going
Speaker 2: to be hamburgers.
Speaker 1: We wanted to turn into the cheapest meat possible. Also,
Speaker 1: like I should point out that like land back and
Speaker 1: national parks are very, very very different. I like to
Speaker 1: kind of illustrate this with the idea that during the
Speaker 1: Nez Perce War, as a Nez person like fighting their
Speaker 1: way towards the Canadian border. They are having gunfights in
Speaker 1: Yellowstone National Park as tourists are coming to love Stone
Speaker 1: to like check out the mountains and see the guysers
Speaker 1: and stuff.
Speaker 3: You know, that's that's America.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is It's just perfectly America, right, Like we'll
Speaker 1: look at it. Look, we're preserving this for you as
Speaker 1: we violently remove the indigenous people and just.
Speaker 2: Like coming to spend your tourism dollars, never mind that
Speaker 2: there's a war going on there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just being like just kind of letting that go past.
Speaker 2: Whatever the time period equivalent of a visor and a
Speaker 2: fanny pack was that was cooking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for sure, probably probably a cigar and I
Speaker 1: don't know this trousers to stop past your knee. So
Speaker 1: you'll hear people saying a lot of shit about the
Speaker 1: API of the America Pray Reserve, right, And so I
Speaker 1: did what I should do as a responsible journalist, and
Speaker 1: I pulled their nine nineties.
Speaker 2: That's my favorite thing to do. Yeah, where's the money going? Yeah, well,
Speaker 2: where's the money coming from?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Where the money coming from? You'll hear a lot
Speaker 1: of like anti API stuff, some of it from the
Speaker 1: cattle industry. Right, if you go through that part of Montana,
Speaker 1: you'll see signs say like save the cowboys, stop the
Speaker 1: American Prairie Reserve.
Speaker 2: I think we have a different understanding of what a
Speaker 2: cowboy is me and the sign maker.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, well it is inherently time, I guess, to cattle, right,
Speaker 1: and the idea being that these bison are displacing cattle.
Speaker 1: It's not a direct contract with cattle. In fact, the
Speaker 1: APR has ten times more cattle on its land than
Speaker 1: it does buys it. Like most ranches, the APR has
Speaker 1: deeded or private land that they graze on leasing right
Speaker 1: to adjacent public land. What the APR is spending its
Speaker 1: money on, among other things, among like some staffing costs,
Speaker 1: of its costs, paying consultants, paying fundraisers not to pay consultants.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they're dropping some coin on consultants. Is they
Speaker 1: buy ranches. The way land ownership works in this area
Speaker 1: is kind of like a checkerboard, and you've got public
Speaker 1: land and private land.
Speaker 2: So they're trying to make pathways for the bison by
Speaker 2: buying contiguous plots.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're not all contiguous, but their goal is to
Speaker 1: have a large contiguous area.
Speaker 3: In which right and you just have to buy them
Speaker 3: when they come up exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I think the argument is that they're they're
Speaker 1: pushing up land prices, right, But in reality, this area
Speaker 1: is depopulating rapidly. It might push up land prices a
Speaker 1: little bit, but it's not like there's massive bidding wars
Speaker 1: going on here for each of these ranches.
Speaker 2: Right, because are there new like people seeking new cow
Speaker 2: ranching opportunities who are trying to move in who are
Speaker 2: being prevented from doing that.
Speaker 1: Will be people trying to like either exp I guess,
Speaker 1: if expand their ranch, or if a family is subdividing
Speaker 1: its ranch, or if you didn't inherit your family ranch,
Speaker 1: I guess, and want to buy some land. Generally, how
Speaker 1: it works here is you buy a certain part of land.
Speaker 1: It'll be like sixty forty seventy thirty something like that.
Speaker 1: So you'll buy land, and that would give you the
Speaker 1: privilege to have like first DIBs on grazing on the
Speaker 1: public land that is adjacent to your land. So most
Speaker 1: of these ranches are checkerboarded, right, It's not like a
Speaker 1: big contiguous plot. So not being able to graize the
Speaker 1: bison on the public land kind of fucks that up
Speaker 1: in these plots for the American prairie people, right, and
Speaker 1: like I should say that, like I have some sympathy
Speaker 1: for people ranching in this area, like my family of farmers,
Speaker 1: Like it's got to be really fucking hard right now
Speaker 1: when fuel prices are insanely high to be trying to
Speaker 1: farm on these especially the way that like American people
Speaker 1: farm have massive expanses, right, you have to be in
Speaker 1: a vehicle a lot. When I was reading about the
Speaker 1: brucellosis stuff, and it made me think of foot and
Speaker 1: mouth disease, which happened in the UK when I was
Speaker 1: a child. I remember how traumatic that was for people
Speaker 1: having their whole herds killed. Several people who were like
Speaker 1: within our extended family social circle killed themselves and they're
Speaker 1: horrible when they lost all their cattle. Yeah, Like it's
Speaker 1: really fucked up, Like at least in that part of
Speaker 1: the world, like you might have it might have been
Speaker 1: your great grandfather who started bringing these cattle, right, Like
Speaker 1: it's an intergenerational project that nick joins lying through your family.
Speaker 1: So I do understand these people like deeply tied to
Speaker 1: this land. Also not in the same way as Indigenous
Speaker 1: people I can see that people like you know, don't
Speaker 1: want it to change. I understand that, and like consolidation
Speaker 1: and agriculture climate change, the way our foody consistem works,
Speaker 1: that is an issue we should address if we want
Speaker 1: to take care of the land. What the government is doing,
Speaker 1: it's not how we address that. Sometimes you'll see people
Speaker 1: saying that the APR is entirely a tax avoidance system
Speaker 1: for the Mars family.
Speaker 3: Like the chocolate people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, big chocolate, you familiar. The Mars family are
Speaker 1: rich as fuck.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't know they were involved in the in
Speaker 2: the bison industry.
Speaker 1: Well, they have donated, I couldn't find an exact figure, right,
Speaker 1: like with the change of nonprofit like the reporting laws,
Speaker 1: it's a lot harder now than it used to be.
Speaker 2: So they don't own or operate it. They've just made
Speaker 2: large donations.
Speaker 1: They've made larst donations. There's a unit called Mars Vista
Speaker 1: within the APR which has some private housing on it.
Speaker 1: But like I think people are fundamentally misunderstanding how they're
Speaker 1: super wealthy, Like these people are worth more than one
Speaker 1: hundred billion dollars. Would highly encourage anyone who thinks that
Speaker 1: an NGO which is going through like in the tens
Speaker 1: of millions a year, maybe by twenty fifteen. So in
Speaker 1: the first fourteen years of this project's existence, say donated
Speaker 1: twenty million. That's not touching the edges.
Speaker 2: I'm sure they have a complicated tax shelter system set
Speaker 2: up for themselves that doesn't involve bison. It involves bank
Speaker 2: accounts and countries you haven't heard of.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, Like the Panama Paper's had zero bison in
Speaker 1: it for a reason, right, Like you're just being very
Speaker 1: it's very sweet if you think that. Like the way
Speaker 1: that they are avoiding paying federal taxes is buying land
Speaker 1: to put buffalo on.
Speaker 2: Like all these families have their own whole foundations that
Speaker 2: are just about moving money around in opaque ways. Yeah,
Speaker 2: if you're trying to avoid paying taxes, you don't donate
Speaker 2: to a real charity that's actually doing something complicated with
Speaker 2: physical animals and land. You have a foundation that does
Speaker 2: grants for something obscure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like it's just not it's just just not it.
Speaker 1: Like it's just it's not it. That's not how taxes work.
Speaker 1: That's not how rich people work. So we've talked about
Speaker 1: Brucelosi is going to move past brucellosis. And I had
Speaker 1: a diversion on chronic wasting disease and elk feeding, but
Speaker 1: maybe we'll make that a whole other podcast. So we
Speaker 1: also talked about this, this checkerboarding of public land. Right,
Speaker 1: Lots of these ranching operations that they're buying rely heavily
Speaker 1: on public land grazing. So in twenty twenty two they applied.
Speaker 1: In twenty nineteen, the BLM allowed them to graze bison
Speaker 1: on seven plots in Phillips County. Right, So that's saying
Speaker 1: that you can put your bison on this public land.
Speaker 2: Which is adjacent to the private land which you own,
Speaker 2: and that's standard practice.
Speaker 3: Everybody's doing that.
Speaker 1: It depends on the particular plot, right, So they had
Speaker 1: to apply to the Bureau of Land Management.
Speaker 2: It's like pretty common for people to be grazing to
Speaker 2: get these permits to graze on the public land.
Speaker 1: There have been bison on public land for forty years.
Speaker 1: There remain bison on public land across the West, to
Speaker 1: include some tribes grazed bison on public land as well
Speaker 1: as on tribal land.
Speaker 3: But like the cattle farm are doing this as well.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the cat of farmers are all yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's like.
Speaker 2: So I'm saying, like, if you buy this plot of land,
Speaker 2: it's like kind of common that you would also be
Speaker 2: grazing on the public land adjacent to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's entirely understood, like or not even adjacent to
Speaker 1: but sometimes like interspersed with Yeah. Like so if you
Speaker 1: look at like a sometimes you'll see like a de
Speaker 1: did and a least acreage when you're looking at like
Speaker 1: a land, like if you were if you were interested
Speaker 1: in buying a ranch molley.
Speaker 2: So like when they so, when they bought this land,
Speaker 2: it would be reasonable for them to assume that they
Speaker 2: would be able to use the parcels adjacent and interspersed
Speaker 2: within it.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, okay, yes, and they would have known that
Speaker 1: that would have required in some cases asking the BLM, right,
Speaker 1: which is what they did. And in twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: the BLM said, go ahead, put your bison in this
Speaker 1: on these particular seven plots, right, so they were amended
Speaker 1: to include bison. They've got environmental impact study done, you know,
Speaker 1: they did all the things.
Speaker 2: Is doing an environmental impact study of the presence of
Speaker 2: a native animal?
Speaker 1: Yeah, on its native range?
Speaker 2: What happened if a buffalo lived here. Yeah, we asked
Speaker 2: ten government scientists.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we spent thousands of dollars finding out what happens
Speaker 1: if buffalo lives in buffalo home. Turned out didn't do
Speaker 1: massive ecological damage. So BLM said, let the buffalo back.
Speaker 1: What is interesting about this rule change is the justification
Speaker 1: the BLM is using, and that is the thing that
Speaker 1: people should be worried about. In my opinion, that should
Speaker 1: be the headline. The headline should be, So the BLM
Speaker 1: is trying to regulate these leases that have their roots
Speaker 1: in the nineteen thirty four Taylor Grazing Act.
Speaker 3: I'm not unknowingly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the Tailor Grazing Act a big deal when
Speaker 1: it comes to public land in the West in farming, right,
Speaker 1: it is trying to regulate these leases to quote unquote
Speaker 1: productive purposes. It doesn't say productive purposes anywhere I can
Speaker 1: find in the tailor grazing net. It does use the
Speaker 1: term I guess domestic livestock.
Speaker 2: Iyson could be a livestock.
Speaker 1: Well, they are a livestock.
Speaker 3: I've eaten them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they These bison are vaccinated, they are fenced, they
Speaker 1: are tagged, they'll be handled I'm guessing the way the
Speaker 1: API does it is like a kind of non invasive handling,
Speaker 1: like trying to keep them not acclimated to human contact
Speaker 1: per se.
Speaker 3: But like it's hard to ask. It's a livestock advison
Speaker 3: to human content.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can get like beefalow, right, which is like
Speaker 1: a like a hybridized bison.
Speaker 2: They sell bison that my whole foods. That's livestock.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the APR is not raising them to kill them
Speaker 1: to sell them for meat.
Speaker 2: But they could if they wanted to, Like, because I'm
Speaker 2: I don't think the government is ever going to go
Speaker 2: to a cattle rancher and say you have to kill
Speaker 2: X number of these or they're no longer livestock.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that is the question, right, Like what if
Speaker 1: we choose if you gave me a million dollars today,
Speaker 1: I would immediately cease making podcasts. I would buy a
Speaker 1: large plot land, and I would have an ungodly number
Speaker 1: of rare and endangered domestic livestock species. Right, I'd have
Speaker 1: Jacob sheep. I'd have polyseric sheep with four horns, you know,
Speaker 1: like satan looking sheep. I'd be all about it, and.
Speaker 2: They would remain legally livestock, even if you had no
Speaker 2: intention of eating them.
Speaker 1: That is the question, right, The productive purposes definition could
Speaker 1: be extremely broad. What if you're doing practice like restorative ranching, right,
Speaker 1: what if.
Speaker 2: The Bureau of Land Management was concerned with the land
Speaker 2: being properly managed?
Speaker 1: Well, at a point, I guess the BLM was right
Speaker 1: because there was a rule. This is actually kind of funny.
Speaker 1: It was called the Conservation and Landscape Health Rule, and
Speaker 1: the BLM rescinded that last week. So previously that was
Speaker 1: one of the considerations for managing land, for managing public land,
Speaker 1: And I guess like we should just briefly say that
Speaker 1: there is no such thing as government land, right, It's
Speaker 1: all native land. And the land which is currently managed
Speaker 1: by the government is paid for by me and Molly
Speaker 1: and everyone else. Doug berghen doesn't own it. It is
Speaker 1: there for future generations, right, Like.
Speaker 2: It's like, what is what are they going to do
Speaker 2: with it?
Speaker 3: If they kick the buffalo off.
Speaker 1: Of it, cattle will be my guest.
Speaker 2: The cattle only leases, so they're just going to lease
Speaker 2: it to someone else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But like, I guess some portions of public land
Speaker 1: in that part of Montana are entirely landlocked by private land. Like.
Speaker 1: One of the things that APR did that made people
Speaker 1: like it there is that the APR bought a ranch
Speaker 1: and then opened up a gated road which allowed people
Speaker 1: to access fifty thousand acres of public land that had
Speaker 1: previously been completely islanded. Right's so like, right, what their
Speaker 1: plan is to do? They have to sell these ranches now.
Speaker 2: So the government is saying, you can't use this public
Speaker 2: the land anymore in such a way that might negate
Speaker 2: your ability to use your privately owned land, because we
Speaker 2: don't think bison our livestock.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because bison awoke. More broadly, like, this Conservation of
Speaker 1: Landscape Health rule with Simpson is worrying, very Amusingly, the
Speaker 1: BLM has forgotten to take down the website that explains
Speaker 1: the value of the rule, so at the time of recording,
Speaker 1: the BLM's website still says quote, the rule recognizes conservation
Speaker 1: as an essential owned a public lands management on equal
Speaker 1: footing with other multiple uses of these habitats. Americans rely
Speaker 1: on public lands to live a food, energy, cleaner and water,
Speaker 1: wildlife habitat and places to recreate. The BLM knows the
Speaker 1: importance of balancing our use of natural resources with protecting
Speaker 1: public lands and waters for future generations. The rule will
Speaker 1: safeguard these lands and waters to protect our way of life.
Speaker 1: Still a bit cringe, But they've now rescinded that rule,
Speaker 1: So I guess our way of life is now under threat.
Speaker 2: Because I just don't understand how this is justifiable at all.
Speaker 2: But I guess that's not really the point.
Speaker 1: For a lot of people. Right Like it sort of
Speaker 1: flies under the radar because it's not, you know, like
Speaker 1: a big Washington thing. I can see how like in
Speaker 1: our major population centers, it can be easily to be
Speaker 1: like the defudg cares where the cows and buffalo go.
Speaker 2: But I think, even aside from an ecological argument, which
Speaker 2: I think is very important, right the rest storation of
Speaker 2: these grasslands, this is the government saying, no, we're going
Speaker 2: to take this public resource away from someone who is
Speaker 2: rightfully using it and paying to use it, and we're
Speaker 2: going to sell that right instead to a capitalist concern
Speaker 2: over a bullshit fake reason.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like not that the APR is not I suppose
Speaker 1: it's not really a capitalist concern. It's like a nonprofit.
Speaker 2: But there has to be some sort of big cattle
Speaker 2: lobbying at play here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there are elements of the cattle industry
Speaker 1: which have been opposed to bison, especially due to that
Speaker 1: departure of bison from the park is really something that
Speaker 1: for years has been like a point of tension in Yellowstone.
Speaker 1: It's worth who is for this and who is against it?
Speaker 1: I guess it is cattle ranchers who are opposed to
Speaker 1: the grazing of bison out here.
Speaker 2: And who specifically is getting those seven specific plots?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think the reason they receded those is
Speaker 1: because they were the seven most recently approved. Okay, because
Speaker 1: there are other plots. I think there are tribes in California,
Speaker 1: for instance, applied for buffalo grazing on public land. And
Speaker 1: I should point out that like a tribal cultural herd,
Speaker 1: a food sovereignty herd is a very different thing to
Speaker 1: the APR. I hope that APR did not exact. I
Speaker 1: know that tribal and traits would, but.
Speaker 2: I guess as far as the government is concerned, it's
Speaker 2: the same that dancwers just know.
Speaker 1: I don't know yet. We don't know yet, right, We
Speaker 1: don't know if those tribal leases have been approved. What
Speaker 1: we do know is that like this production standard is
Speaker 1: a thory of threat to them. The Coalition of large
Speaker 1: tribes actually wrote a letter opposing this decision. Our quote
Speaker 1: from it here. It is offensive and unacceptable that the
Speaker 1: federal government would still seek to keep buffalo off of
Speaker 1: these lands. Chairmen of the shann River Sioux tribe Ryman Lebau, wrote,
Speaker 1: adding that BLM lands are all former buffalo lands. He
Speaker 1: calls the decision a painful reprise the genocide the federal
Speaker 1: government attempted could commit against us and our relative to buffalo.
Speaker 1: They also call it affirmative action for cattle, which is
Speaker 1: kind of funny. Wow. True, yeah, but yeah it's true.
Speaker 3: And it's like saying drink cowdi Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. This is one our one ungular is fine than
Speaker 1: the other one is in I want people to be
Speaker 1: concerned about this because it could be deeply damaging to
Speaker 1: the attempts of tribes to recover their buffalo population. It
Speaker 1: could be deeply damaging to our public lands. I guess
Speaker 1: I want to talk briefly about the buffalo genocide because
Speaker 1: I think it's something that people have like a grasp of,
Speaker 1: but not like a maybe in depth understanding. What I
Speaker 1: want to briefly say is that the government played a
Speaker 1: massive role in wiping out of most of a buffalo. Right,
Speaker 1: we ended up with fewer than a thousand head of buffalo.
Speaker 1: Like there were times when a tree falling down, a
Speaker 1: lightning strike, a bad flood could have significantly altered the
Speaker 1: future of the species because there were so few. Capitalism
Speaker 1: also played a role, though. The idea that the buffalo
Speaker 1: hunters were like just following orders from the government relies
Speaker 1: in part on books written by former buffalo hunters trying
Speaker 1: to absolve themselves. I would suggest that we also look
Speaker 1: at the incentive right to kill the animals and to
Speaker 1: not make use of their remains after people did that, right,
Speaker 1: because like as much as the government did, like the
Speaker 1: capitalism that the government was ringing with, it killed the
Speaker 1: majority of the wild buffalo in this country. And that
Speaker 1: is what's happening again, right we look at public lands
Speaker 1: management today. The glass year I was in chuck O Kanyon.
Speaker 1: Chako Canyon was the site of the biggest building in
Speaker 1: what is now the United States until the eighteen eighties.
Speaker 1: Oh chuck O and civilization built these massive, great houses there,
Speaker 1: really really beautiful amazing place, one of the less visited
Speaker 1: units in the National park system. Gorgeous, amazing. I saw
Speaker 1: some out there too.
Speaker 3: This is all news to me.
Speaker 1: You got to go to Chaka Kanyon.
Speaker 2: We have to find something we can record that gets
Speaker 2: me down to the southwest.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I bet there are some biggots, you know there
Speaker 1: are because they use they appropriate the Zooni sacred Sun
Speaker 1: symbol in some of their Nazi shit. Because have we
Speaker 1: not fucking done enough? Well, apparently not right, because there
Speaker 1: is there is a kind pain to have drilling to
Speaker 1: like dealist areas of Chaco Canyon. I also spent time
Speaker 1: last year in Which in Homeland, with which in people
Speaker 1: they're what's happening is a Trump administration is trying to
Speaker 1: grunt drilling permits in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The
Speaker 1: which and people, I should say, preferred to use the
Speaker 1: term Arctic Refuge, So I'm going to try and use
Speaker 1: that going forward. They don't like anoir just that. So
Speaker 1: what that will do right is on the on the
Speaker 1: plane there drilling is the place where the caribou migrate.
Speaker 1: The Porcupine cariboo herd makes the longest land mammal migration
Speaker 1: in the world.
Speaker 2: So we're just speed running the devastation of every cool
Speaker 2: big animal we have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like we're going to do drilling in the place
Speaker 1: where the caribou carve, right, and if they don't go
Speaker 1: there to carve, then it's over. Yeah. And there are
Speaker 1: so few of these animals left, right, they can cross
Speaker 1: political boundaries, that can travel their great distances unimpeded by capitalism.
Speaker 1: Largely that's because which in territory is not a reservation,
Speaker 1: it's like they own it. So they can go off
Speaker 1: public land onto gwichinland and without the caribou, like the
Speaker 1: Gwichin culture cannot be the same as it is right
Speaker 1: that the caribou is sacred to them, like that culture
Speaker 1: in the distance of the Cariboo I guess, are tied together,
Speaker 1: and like the same could be said for bison, right
Speaker 1: like that it's part of the reason that we don't
Speaker 1: have bison on the planes anymore because indigenous people on
Speaker 1: the bison went hand in hand in the genocide of
Speaker 1: the indigenous peoples. There was also a genocide of the buffalo,
Speaker 1: I guess, and those two things weren't separate or distinct.
Speaker 1: And I think, like there's this idea in the American
Speaker 1: liberal psyche that like bison being on the land constitutes
Speaker 1: a return and like that's not it, right, Like, privately
Speaker 1: owned bison being on the APR is not land back.
Speaker 2: I mean it would restore the grassland to some degree,
Speaker 2: but that's not that doesn't have the same cultural impact
Speaker 2: as returning the land to its natural stewards.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, and allowing Indigenous people to like manage the
Speaker 1: land for future generations in the way that they did
Speaker 1: for millennia before this massive extinction event that the European colonization.
Speaker 2: I hope nobody thinks they privately owned buffalo flock is
Speaker 2: the same as land back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hope not. I really hope not. Like did
Speaker 1: you see like when the folk Pet tribes were like
Speaker 1: killing some of their buffalo to feed people during the
Speaker 1: last shutdown.
Speaker 3: I do remember that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's kind of a strange reaction being like, oh,
Speaker 1: how sad that they have to to kill their buffalo, Like.
Speaker 3: But that's what the buffalo for.
Speaker 1: Yes, So that's why they the buffalo are there. Sort
Speaker 1: of sort of culture can exist and.
Speaker 3: It's not like a sacred cow situation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's sacred to them, but not in that way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like it's sacred to them and that it is
Speaker 1: sustaining to them, right, And like that's my understanding at least,
Speaker 1: and having spent a little bit of time with people
Speaker 1: who have that relationship to other animals like that, when
Speaker 1: I think about like which inference in their caribou, Like
Speaker 1: they will fight as hard as they can to preserve
Speaker 1: their caribou herd. That that doesn't that's not like a
Speaker 1: different thing from them. They also hunt the caribou and
Speaker 1: eat it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Part of the natural relationship with them is sometimes eating them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like they did in that way. The culture
Speaker 1: is sustained by the ongoing presence of the animal.
Speaker 2: Right, I guess, I guess we just I don't know
Speaker 2: the Western mind. We can only hunt something to extinction.
Speaker 2: We can't contemplate, yeah, wanting to coexist with it, a
Speaker 2: symbiotic coexistence where we eat them sometimes, but we don't
Speaker 2: want them all to be dead.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, We're not just going to be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this that was from while it lasted on to the
Speaker 1: next one. Yeah, just do the next species now. So,
Speaker 1: like people should be worried about this. This is not
Speaker 1: the end of bison on public lands. It's not the
Speaker 1: end of bison on tribal lands, but this productivity standard
Speaker 1: should really concern people. BLM is the biggest public lands
Speaker 1: management agency. Sometimes it gets jokingly called the Bureau of
Speaker 1: Livestock and Mining, which is pretty much the way it's going, right, Right, So.
Speaker 2: Is there a legal definition being used here, like something
Speaker 2: from a statute or something from a contract, Like what
Speaker 2: is this?
Speaker 3: What is productive use?
Speaker 1: That's a productive use? Is a standard that they have
Speaker 1: derived from the term domestic livestock in the Tailor Grazing Act.
Speaker 2: And then how is domestic livestock legally defined any domesticated animal?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well they are claiming that it is domestic livestock
Speaker 1: if it is productive.
Speaker 2: But this is circular, right, So productive use means livestock
Speaker 2: and livestock have to be productive, but what is productive?
Speaker 2: It's livestock. Livestock is productively.
Speaker 1: Like, well, there has to be like a cash exchange,
Speaker 1: I guess like they're saying that it has to be
Speaker 1: raised for sale.
Speaker 2: But then like, how exactly are we measuring? That doesn't
Speaker 2: have to be profitable?
Speaker 1: Does it have to be extracting the maximum like output
Speaker 1: out of that given area? Of land.
Speaker 2: Do you have to be exporting something like? Do you
Speaker 2: have to have a government cad?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: What is the threshold here for what's productive?
Speaker 1: Yeah, APR has given by some meat to food banks before,
Speaker 1: so apparently that doesn't meet the standard.
Speaker 2: Right, So like without without a hard and fast, like
Speaker 2: clear written stand this is the government just deciding who
Speaker 2: does or doesn't get to do business with them?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and who who does and doesn't have access. There
Speaker 1: are issues, big issues with grays and cattle on public land, ecological,
Speaker 1: social climate change, animal welfare. There are issues, many of them.
Speaker 1: But the idea that if you wanted to, let's say,
Speaker 1: if you wanted to raise fewer cattle and do what
Speaker 1: they call regenerative ranching to something more sustainable, you couldn't
Speaker 1: because it's not as productive. It's bonkers right on public land.
Speaker 2: Like right, so now you lose, you lose your government
Speaker 2: contract because you tried you try something, try something new,
Speaker 2: try something sustainable.
Speaker 1: You tried to be too nice to the land that
Speaker 1: supposedly belongs to everyone.
Speaker 2: So in order in order to use this land that
Speaker 2: is supposed to be for you know, public preservation, you
Speaker 2: have to be as exploitative and destructive as possible. Yeah,
Speaker 2: a great, thank you, Doug Burgham.
Speaker 1: Yeah cool. Are we going to extend this to like
Speaker 1: not as familiar with mining, but you can stake a
Speaker 1: claim on public land, right, Lots of most mining claims
Speaker 1: are amounted a state on public land and you can
Speaker 1: you can exploit that claim. Is it now going to
Speaker 1: be the case that like you have to exploit that claim?
Speaker 1: Like if we don't have this standard of maintaining the
Speaker 1: land and that it said it's gone now and that
Speaker 1: the only standard is it has to be as productive
Speaker 1: as possible.
Speaker 2: Then how is that land management? This is the Bureau
Speaker 2: of Land Exploitation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the BLM is just and I know the BLM
Speaker 1: has done this for many center negas. This isn't then
Speaker 1: this isn't new for the BLM.
Speaker 3: But having officially rescinded their rule on conserving the land.
Speaker 1: Yeah, then this could be really bad, right, Like the
Speaker 1: massive chunks of the West are managed by the BLM,
Speaker 1: and like the idea that they're only going to allow
Speaker 1: it the most productive uses or force the most productive uses,
Speaker 1: like this is one of the many ways a Trump
Speaker 1: administration is attacking public lands that people should talk.
Speaker 2: About more and again without adequately defining it. I just
Speaker 2: feel like this is another vector for just handing out
Speaker 2: government resources to nurse allies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like without any change in statute. Right, this
Speaker 1: is the law that Bergham is reinterpreting. Here. You've got
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirty four Tailor Grazing Act, and then like
Speaker 1: there's a nineteen seventy six law that that and the
Speaker 1: statutory language is that the BLM should manage the land
Speaker 1: for multiple use and sustained yield. That is broad, but
Speaker 1: like we are not going to get this Congress to
Speaker 1: pass a better one.
Speaker 2: No, And if anybody does try to take this to court,
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court will just say, no, you have to
Speaker 2: strip mine the field.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, like your only choice.
Speaker 2: You have to frack, even whether or not you have
Speaker 2: to set up tracking.
Speaker 1: You're dure like obliged to do feed lands even though
Speaker 1: you can't. Like, it's just like a really concerning area
Speaker 1: that I think has been approached kind of almost tokenistically
Speaker 1: in some of the press. Like this is bad for everyone,
Speaker 1: right if the government is saying you can only ranch
Speaker 1: this way on public land, like that's also bad for
Speaker 1: ranches all over the West. Right, I don't think that
Speaker 1: like the way that we restore our land to its
Speaker 1: custodians and to like its natural state. It's big private
Speaker 1: parks like APR is like a private national park, right,
Speaker 1: Like you can walk through lots of it, you can
Speaker 1: hunt on it, like public land. In some places, you
Speaker 1: can camp on it. They have dispersed camping. That's nice.
Speaker 1: I don't believe in the benevolence of the rich, because like,
Speaker 1: look how we fucking got here.
Speaker 2: Right, but that half measure was the best thing we
Speaker 2: had at this moment, and now it's illegal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now it's And like I'm glad that these rich
Speaker 1: people are putting buffalo on the landscape because we need
Speaker 1: more of them. Like, if we're ever going to have
Speaker 1: truly wild herds, we need that genetic diversity. Right, They've
Speaker 1: been through horrible genetic bottlenecks in getting up to this
Speaker 1: half a million number.
Speaker 2: Right, It's not like we can just try again later,
Speaker 2: let the number drop back down. We'll try again in
Speaker 2: a hundred years, Like at some point we've missed the boat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And as the climate continues to change, for it,
Speaker 1: we have to think about how land management, food procurement
Speaker 1: plays a role in our future and like this is
Speaker 1: the opposite of doing that, and I think people ought
Speaker 1: to be concerned about that. There's not much you could
Speaker 1: do about it, Like it's these people who weren't elected
Speaker 1: ruling on things that are not saturtary. But it is
Speaker 1: something that I think people ought to add to that
Speaker 1: many concerns with the Trump administration.
Speaker 3: I guess be more worried.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. I don't want you to be
Speaker 1: more worried. I want you to go outside, like see
Speaker 1: a buffalo. It would be nice that.
Speaker 2: Would at least know that I don't know the future
Speaker 2: existence of the world as we know it is being
Speaker 2: intact from all sides, even from directions I wasn't aware of. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there are attack factors that I just had not considered.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a new and exciting way that they're
Speaker 1: making tit worse. So yeah, I hope you enjoyed a
Speaker 1: little diversion about buffalo. Next week, I want to talk
Speaker 1: about bears. I want to tear the bears.
Speaker 2: I'm excited to learn about because I've seen a bear
Speaker 2: and I know they live in the United States, unlike
Speaker 2: they do. I guess I was thinking of.
Speaker 3: Like spring Bok.
Speaker 2: Maybe they kind of.
Speaker 1: Look like that in it.
Speaker 2: I don't know what. I've been to a zoo and
Speaker 2: they of antelope type animals there, so I just I
Speaker 2: don't know. Everything at the zoo must be from far away.
Speaker 1: Now, the prong horn is like it's a there's a
Speaker 1: there's a cool zoo. I'm not a big zoo guy.
Speaker 2: You've got to make sure it's one of one of
Speaker 2: those ones that's a credited zoo. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's one in Palm Springs where you can see
Speaker 1: I've seen big I've been fortunate enough to see big
Speaker 1: horn sheep in their natural habitat. But for most people,
Speaker 1: your best chance again they look at a big horn
Speaker 1: sheep is to get to that one in Palm Springs.
Speaker 1: When you see a prong horn just pronging, you know.
Speaker 3: Like do they like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they bounce alond. They got those giant tendons right
Speaker 1: that they a buffalo can go thirty five miles an hour,
Speaker 1: and they're faster than a buffalo.
Speaker 2: So like, I don't want to see a buffalo go
Speaker 2: thirty five miles an hour. I don't want to see that.
Speaker 1: They can be Yeah, it's like seeing a mini van
Speaker 1: like doing muscle cars. Shit, you know, like they could jump.
Speaker 1: They could. They have this incredible buffalo can like jump
Speaker 1: over stuff. They're they're actually very nimble despite looking you know,
Speaker 1: like a like a cinder block.
Speaker 3: They're so cute. I want to touch one so bad,
Speaker 3: but I don't.
Speaker 1: Vice against it. Yeah, bristolosis is going to be a
Speaker 1: long term issue. It's yeah, it's the trampoline. There'll be
Speaker 1: a short term issue for you. So uh yeah, don't
Speaker 1: touch buffalo.
Speaker 3: Don't touch them.
Speaker 1: Send send Molly pictures of your prong horning counters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you have seen a wild animal in the
Speaker 2: United States, let me see it. I don't know we
Speaker 2: had those.
Speaker 1: Yeah, getting Molly's replies with your raccoons in your trash.
Speaker 2: Raccoons I know about.
Speaker 1: I've seen recy Yeah, yeah it was.
Speaker 2: I was in South Korea many years ago at a
Speaker 2: theme park that had a zoo in it. I don't know,
Speaker 2: it was a while ago. Perfect in the zoo area,
Speaker 2: there was this huge display. Everyone was crowded around the
Speaker 2: very cool zoo animal with raccoons.
Speaker 1: Oh really, they don't have them. Yeah, they play such
Speaker 1: a cultural role in the American cultural hegemony.
Speaker 2: I don't want to see a raccoon but I guess, yeah,
Speaker 2: if you can't see one, that's an intriguing get.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, I remember, I like my initial engagement with
Speaker 1: raccoons was through the movie Pokahontis, which is a whole
Speaker 1: other ship. So when I first saw a raccoon, I
Speaker 1: wanted to visit it, right because you know they have biscuits.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you thought it was gonna be like a chatty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like a little friend. Yeah, it was very aggressive,
Speaker 1: be unnecessarily aggressive friend. Yeah, I was approaching in the
Speaker 1: spirit of kindness. I think, like generally, I also have
Speaker 1: been victimized by a skunk for several years now, so
Speaker 1: I think maybe I just that's not a friend. No,
Speaker 1: it's fine.
Speaker 2: Those ladies on TikTok that have pet ones will tell
Speaker 2: you that is not a friend.
Speaker 1: Apparently they're very nice if they like, can be encouraged
Speaker 1: not to. I don't know, I don't think it. Don't
Speaker 1: please don't capture a skunk, can bring it home with you,
Speaker 1: like it skunk wants to live on its own. But yeah,
Speaker 1: this one skunk will find me every time I'm going
Speaker 1: through that, like I'll be coming out at night.
Speaker 3: He's thinking about you on my head.
Speaker 1: It's like a fucking Exocet missile. I see him coming
Speaker 1: from like two hundred yards away.
Speaker 3: It's that fucking guy again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's pissed at me. I'm pissed at him. He
Speaker 1: turns around, he squares up.
Speaker 3: Did you get cat?
Speaker 1: No? No, he'll show his ass to me, and then
Speaker 1: I'll I'll just kind of give him a wide berth
Speaker 1: and think, oh, that was unusual, seeing it's going to
Speaker 1: be that, And then two weeks later, there he is again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's waiting for you. He does not want you
Speaker 3: to come back.
Speaker 1: No, he doesn't. He's also trying to like exercise control
Speaker 1: over the public land and in aggressive.
Speaker 2: He's doing land management and you're not part of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's returning it to its natural state by keeping
Speaker 1: European people off the land, which I guess is honestly valid, respectable.
Speaker 2: He's heard horror stories from his great grandparents.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can respect that night, you know, I think
Speaker 1: of it in that way. But yeah, I've got some
Speaker 1: good pictures of the back end of him. Well after
Speaker 1: he kept doing it, I thought I may as well
Speaker 1: photograph and document this tendency. So yeah, I have them.
Speaker 1: I'm going to use them for some kind of greetings
Speaker 1: card or something they haven't yeat.
Speaker 3: Perfect for the family Christmas card, I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just keep people on their toes. We've rambled enough. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: please send us your wildlife pictures. We would love to
Speaker 1: see them.
Speaker 3: And next week bears.
Speaker 1: Bears, Yeah money before we go? Do you want to
Speaker 1: plug your podcast about people who probably don't engage with
Speaker 1: animals very much?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you can listen to my show A Weird
Speaker 2: Little Guys. I don't think there's been an animal in
Speaker 2: the show in a while. Well, I guess eventually I
Speaker 2: will get around to those guys that occupied that BLM land.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, that's it.
Speaker 3: But it's that kind of show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I bet they love wolves. I bet I bet
Speaker 1: they like think a lot about wolves even though they
Speaker 1: don't see them.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah yeah. There was a guy who had
Speaker 2: his user name on a Nazi forum was the devis
Speaker 2: a Wolf, which is incorrect German for the white wolf. Perfectly,
Speaker 2: they do love wolves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, could I guess. Thank you very much, Molly,
Speaker 1: thank you James.
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