Speaker 1: Smell us now, lady, welcome to Meat Eater Trivia Podcast. Oh,
Speaker 1: welcome to Meet Eater Radio Live. It's eleven am, Montana time,
Speaker 1: and you're back in the Meat Eater studio. Joining me.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, by the way, Joining me today, Brody Anderson,
Speaker 1: hold Seth, Morris Aldi, lots of energy, Keep it up, guys,
Speaker 1: Corey Calkins and Phil is running this whole gig as
Speaker 1: you are ready. No, Today, we have a very special
Speaker 1: Meat Eater Radio Live where we're focusing on a near
Speaker 1: and dear to all of our hearts, which is public lands.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about state lands and federal lands and
Speaker 1: get a general idea of what the heck is going
Speaker 1: on out there in this crazy world. We are going
Speaker 1: to check in with an EXBLM a recently XBLM the
Speaker 1: Body Still Warm Folks, BLM rangeland ecologist to talk about layoffs.
Speaker 1: Then we're gonna talk with our buddy David Wilms, who
Speaker 1: is our go to legal source for all things public lands.
Speaker 1: Then we're gonna have some fun with a hot tip off,
Speaker 1: and finally we're gonna wrap up with another guest who
Speaker 1: is the CEO of Floating Island International International Bruce Kanya,
Speaker 1: who is going to talk us about talk to us
Speaker 1: about methane, specifically in regards to the ice house explosion
Speaker 1: that we covered on the Meat Eater dot com. First,
Speaker 1: before we get into all of this, uh, I guess
Speaker 1: we're gonna call this like cal unleashed. I just want
Speaker 1: to like set the stage on on what we're tackling.
Speaker 2: I actually made a drop for this, if that's true. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know if you're gonna like it or not, but.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, perfect?
Speaker 2: Whoa what was that at the end? That was system
Speaker 2: of a down. That's that's kind of kind of a
Speaker 2: deep cut. The ones hit me up.
Speaker 4: I was sitting in my office and heard film making this,
Speaker 4: and I was just like, you know what, just just Fill.
Speaker 3: Doing his thing in there. I'm not gonna be worried.
Speaker 2: I gave Chili a warning, but not Seth. I probably
Speaker 2: should have given the whole office of warning.
Speaker 1: So, you know, the Mountain Tough Fitness guys used to
Speaker 1: be like my next door neighbor where I lived before
Speaker 1: they moved into their their new facility. And I'm gonna
Speaker 1: early riser right, And I had to tell those guys
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, if you guys didn't play that
Speaker 1: type of music, I'd probably come over and work out right.
Speaker 1: I'm like, hey, you do like BBC News or something
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, So we've been listening to a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of feedback and tip of the hat
Speaker 1: here there are people who read the comments on the
Speaker 1: YouTube channel and read it and all the other places
Speaker 1: including email that you send in. So we recently did
Speaker 1: a it's a State of the Union type of podcast
Speaker 1: that we always do with TRCP. We have a new
Speaker 1: president's CEO at TRCP, Joel Peterson, who's a fine human.
Speaker 1: And the timing the news cycle right now is very
Speaker 1: very fast paced, so anytime you put something out, you
Speaker 1: risk it being dated by the time it actually really right.
Speaker 1: The gap between the recording time and the release time,
Speaker 1: a lot of things can happen. And we were in
Speaker 1: a spot where we were i'd say we were like
Speaker 1: kind of speculating on if there would be any more
Speaker 1: federal layoffs at the time of recording, and by the
Speaker 1: time that recording came out, there had been a lot
Speaker 1: of federal layoffs. So we want to tackle that head
Speaker 1: on today and I'll just tell you right now, Public lands,
Speaker 1: access to public lands, access to public wildlife. Those are
Speaker 1: absolutely core to meat eater, to everybody who works here,
Speaker 1: and they just shouldn't be screwed with man. And we're
Speaker 1: gonna get into this deeper with our first guest, but
Speaker 1: there's no slippage in those values here. And we cared
Speaker 1: deeply about the stewards of the land who often sacrifice
Speaker 1: at low pay and very little thanks to go out
Speaker 1: there and clear trails and clean up you know, government houses,
Speaker 1: those nice square government houses with the little pebble walls,
Speaker 1: they do a lot more than that. And the drop toilets, yes,
Speaker 1: a lot more than that. So hopefully we'll get into
Speaker 1: more of that, I would say, and fellows please chime
Speaker 1: in here that I don't think it's unfair to say
Speaker 1: that there's like a general attack on public lands right now,
Speaker 1: and it is widespread. Well, it's coming from both the
Speaker 1: state side of things and the federal side of things.
Speaker 1: And the only kind of disclaimer I would put in
Speaker 1: there is, like public lands as we know them so
Speaker 1: right now, with the layoffs that just recently went through,
Speaker 1: like the group of people that those layoffs affected in
Speaker 1: Bureau of Land Management, US Forest Service land that we
Speaker 1: use heavily here in Montana and throughout the West. Those
Speaker 1: are the folks that are are doing the trail maintenance
Speaker 1: and the general cleanup that you see like covered in
Speaker 1: the news, Like the it ticks me off that, Like
Speaker 1: the scariest thing that some of these news outlets can
Speaker 1: come up with is like, so don't be surprised if
Speaker 1: there's trash at your campground when you show up.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean there's also habitat work going on, research
Speaker 5: going on, Like it trickles down to every facet of
Speaker 5: hunting and fishing, right, like everything, and other forms of
Speaker 5: outdoor recreation that are important too. I mean, look like camping, rafting,
Speaker 5: what whatever like there right affects everyone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like you're off road vehicle, the stamp that you
Speaker 1: get like that goes directly to trails and campground maintenance.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, it's it's probably be a little beefed if
Speaker 1: you're an ATV or single track writer and those trails
Speaker 1: aren't maintained and your campgrounds are don't have to worry
Speaker 1: about trash blowing around because you're not gonna be able
Speaker 1: to get into one. Period. So without further ado, I
Speaker 1: think and like we want to get into how you
Speaker 1: can wade into this this situation here. Certainly at the
Speaker 1: state level, you have every right and ability to contact
Speaker 1: all of your lawmakers, from the governor to your state representatives,
Speaker 1: to your congressional representatives. And if you're concerned about this stuff,
Speaker 1: you absolutely should be writing in right. Like in the West,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you that small town economies are greatly impacted
Speaker 1: by USDA for a Service Bureau of Wreck BLM employees.
Speaker 5: That shouldn't be about the West, though, no, you know,
Speaker 5: because back east there are millions of people that live
Speaker 5: within spitting distance of national forest, national parks, you know,
Speaker 5: all kinds of federally managed land. So it's it's not
Speaker 5: just a Western issue.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you can absolutely agree, like we're based
Speaker 1: on having your cake and eat it too. Here in America, Okay,
Speaker 1: you can agree on some things our elected officials are
Speaker 1: doing and be diametrically opposed to other things that they
Speaker 1: are doing. And that is absolutely okay. In fact, it's
Speaker 1: completely normal. So when you call your elected representatives, when
Speaker 1: you hold their feet to the fire, you can say, hey,
Speaker 1: I love what you're doing over here, keep it up. However,
Speaker 1: what you're doing over here has giant negative impacts that
Speaker 1: you don't even understand, and you need to stop or
Speaker 1: you need to change the pace at which you're pushing
Speaker 1: this stuff.
Speaker 5: So, yeah, how'd your day go yesterday?
Speaker 1: Cal Oh, that's a good question. Yeah. So we did
Speaker 1: a rally for public lands at the Montana State Capital, Helena, Montana.
Speaker 1: I always like to point out when I go up there,
Speaker 1: that behind Capitol Hill in Helena is a chunk of
Speaker 1: BLM and my grandpa, he grew grew up there at
Speaker 1: the base of that BLM chunk, and that was his
Speaker 1: last trap line. Nice was on that chunk of BLM
Speaker 1: up above the capitol. Big crowd there, Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: allowed crowd, you know. Unfortunately we didn't see a whole
Speaker 1: lot of lawmakers in the room, but I guarantee you
Speaker 1: they could hear us. So we had some really killer
Speaker 1: speakers and just a really good show of support for
Speaker 1: our public lands here in Montana, both state and federally managed.
Speaker 1: So that was really cool. And Gang, I gotta tell you,
Speaker 1: like showing up physically and being in these places when
Speaker 1: there's a call is really really important. I mean, it
Speaker 1: makes a big impact. It's a very hard thing to ignore.
Speaker 1: I told the crowd yesterday that if I was a
Speaker 1: anti public lands representative, I'd be scared shitless of being
Speaker 1: in that room. Like, I mean, you're talking about some
Speaker 1: dedicated people and you look in their eyes and you
Speaker 1: just know this stuff's important and you shouldn't mess with it.
Speaker 6: Yep.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Hard to replace that. So are you guys ready to
Speaker 1: get to our first interview here?
Speaker 7: Sure?
Speaker 6: All right?
Speaker 1: So Ryan Schroeder is a fella that I've met a
Speaker 1: handful of times over the years and real interesting story.
Speaker 1: But he caught old doctor Randa Williams attention the other
Speaker 1: day because he posted on on Instagram about being laid off,
Speaker 1: and I think it's a story worth hearing. So we'd
Speaker 1: like to get Ryan. Well, there he is, there, I am.
Speaker 8: Can you see me, guys?
Speaker 1: Yeah, we got you.
Speaker 8: Awesome. Good to see you, guys. Thanks for thanks for
Speaker 8: having me on. I really appreciate the time and and
Speaker 8: your willingness to talk about this, so thank you.
Speaker 1: Where are you at?
Speaker 8: I am in Mancus, Colorado, So just between Cortes and
Speaker 8: Durango right now, Yeah, far southwest Colorado. Earn round. I
Speaker 8: think hunting units seventy two, seventy one and seventy one
Speaker 8: to one. So for those of Colorado folks, I know
Speaker 8: you brody, so I'll do my best just a time
Speaker 8: or two. Yeah, so, yeah, thank you guys for having
Speaker 8: me on.
Speaker 1: What's the population of Mancus, Colorado?
Speaker 8: Oh gosh? Are we including cattle in that population too?
Speaker 8: Or and meal deer? Oh gosh? I think Mancas is
Speaker 8: right about eighteen hundred folks. Last I checked. One. Yeah,
Speaker 8: I just moved well plus two now I just moved
Speaker 8: here back in December from from Missoula. Actually, so saw
Speaker 8: you guys have me? Did your live when you came
Speaker 8: last year?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 6: Thank you?
Speaker 1: Uh so, let's just get down to it. What what
Speaker 1: made you go down the path of being a parasite
Speaker 1: on the government payroll?
Speaker 6: Geez?
Speaker 8: Yeah, Well to correct first, I see in the news.
Speaker 8: Yeah I supposedly. Yeah, so I was. I don't know
Speaker 8: the right tensing to use, uh because I was fired.
Speaker 8: I've never been fired before, but was fired on Tuesday.
Speaker 8: But I was a arrangeling management specialist, not arrangelment to collegists.
Speaker 8: Those are two different job series titles uh for the
Speaker 8: Bureau of Land Management uh here based out of the
Speaker 8: Trace Rios Field office uh here in Dolores, Colorado.
Speaker 1: That's three rivers south.
Speaker 8: I got, yeah, I guess see, but yeah, so uh yeah,
Speaker 8: Arrangeling Management specialist out of the Trace Rios Field Office,
Speaker 8: but also had duties with the Canyon of the Ancient
Speaker 8: National Monument. So that's just north of Cortes, Colorado. And
Speaker 8: so yeah, gosh, we're to start why I got interested
Speaker 8: in wanting to work for the federal government and the
Speaker 8: Bureau of Land Management in particular. You know, I always
Speaker 8: wanted to serve my country. When I was in high school.
Speaker 8: I wanted to end up wanting to be in the
Speaker 8: Marine Corps or the army, but I ended up being
Speaker 8: medically denied when I was getting out of high school
Speaker 8: and wanted to go down that path, but still like
Speaker 8: was interested in agriculture, habitat, hunting, fishing, et cetera. And
Speaker 8: so went to school at Purdue University, did kind of
Speaker 8: a generic natural resource environmental sciences degree, but got specialized
Speaker 8: in soils and vegetation things like that, and I got
Speaker 8: introduced to hunting out So I grew up in Indiana,
Speaker 8: so you know, corn, soybeans, agriculture, thickets with trees with
Speaker 8: good white tail populations, and frog ponds for fishing. But
Speaker 8: I had a friend of my dad's friend had a
Speaker 8: group on a ranch out by Reid Point, Montana, and
Speaker 8: took me out there hunting when I was like eight
Speaker 8: ten years I think ten years old and killed my
Speaker 8: first year out there, and I was like, oh, I
Speaker 8: can see further than like around the next cornfield and stuff.
Speaker 8: So that always was trickling in the back of my mind.
Speaker 8: And in high school went out hunting around Laramie and Wheatland,
Speaker 8: Wyoming a lot for pronghorn. That's twenty thirteen pron corn
Speaker 8: up there behind me out of Wheatland area, and yeah,
Speaker 8: I was just like, wait, people manage this stuff? Like
Speaker 8: I don't know, like do people do anything with this
Speaker 8: or can Like it's not like roe crop bag. I
Speaker 8: don't know, what do you do other than ranchet and
Speaker 8: how does that work? So doing work at Purdue University,
Speaker 8: got introduced with a couple of land trusts with habitat
Speaker 8: work on restoring prairies and oak savannahs. Then got a
Speaker 8: chance to work for the US four Service and the
Speaker 8: Bighorn National Forest out of Buffalo, Wyoming as a range
Speaker 8: tech as a seasonal position twenty sixteen twenty seventeen. I
Speaker 8: thought it was chaos in twenty sixteen or twenty seventeen
Speaker 8: getting back to work with them, but that got me
Speaker 8: just so induced, like this is range. Range is at
Speaker 8: the top of the stove. Range is habitat work, is
Speaker 8: livestock is wildlife? Is this nexus of agriculture, conservation and
Speaker 8: wildlife issues figuring out how to plants and soils and
Speaker 8: water and animals interact on the landscape. How can we
Speaker 8: manage it to achieve the objectives that we want out
Speaker 8: on the ground and do good habitat work to be
Speaker 8: able to have all these different things out on the
Speaker 8: ground and do all these different you know, recreation, hunting, fishing, hiking,
Speaker 8: and also other extractive uses like livestock raising is an
Speaker 8: extractive use. You've got mining, oil and gas exploration, et cetera.
Speaker 8: And so I ended up doing my masters at Colorado
Speaker 8: State University doing work funded by the Bureau of Land
Speaker 8: Management and the US four Service in western Colorado up
Speaker 8: by Grand Junction and a couple of the National conservation
Speaker 8: areas over there, as well as up north of Hayden, Colorado,
Speaker 8: northwest of Steamboat Springs, in a beautiful area that I'm
Speaker 8: not going to say the name of it.
Speaker 3: Don't say it.
Speaker 8: You know what, you know what I'm talking about. Teddy
Speaker 8: Roosevelt was there. But yeah, so working in beautiful landscapes
Speaker 8: with amazing people who cared about stewardship of our public resources. Because,
Speaker 8: like I said, I grewup Indiana, I was surrounded by
Speaker 8: private land and got exposed to, you know, all the
Speaker 8: lands that were lands and resources that we all own
Speaker 8: as Americans. And just like, oh man, these people do
Speaker 8: cool work and are doing good, important work to steward
Speaker 8: our lands. And so did my masters at Colorado State.
Speaker 8: Then want got funding from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation
Speaker 8: Service to do a PhD. Started it down in New
Speaker 8: Mexico State University in twenty twenty, working on the Hornaut
Speaker 8: Experimental Range down there, as well as working with the
Speaker 8: NRCS to develop a tool on the web soil survey.
Speaker 8: It's a soil interpretation to help us better restore rangelands
Speaker 8: through active seating and rangeland seating activities. And so been
Speaker 8: in academia. I've been in school for eleven years and
Speaker 8: working with agencies to get out and do work on
Speaker 8: the grounds. Like I don't want to be an academy.
Speaker 8: I don't want to be on my computer as much
Speaker 8: as I have in the past so many years, and
Speaker 8: my interactions with our public land stewards and the private
Speaker 8: people that we work with or that public lands stewards
Speaker 8: work with, just maybe want to get in to do
Speaker 8: that hands on on the ground work, not being here
Speaker 8: as like, oh, I'm here the government to tell you
Speaker 8: what to do. I am here to help you solve problems,
Speaker 8: help us steward our nation natural heritage for current generations
Speaker 8: and for the future from this multiple multiple use mission
Speaker 8: that the different agencies have from Federal Lands Policy Management
Speaker 8: Act FLIPMA. And yes, that's having those skills, that knowledge
Speaker 8: in rangelantcology, soils, vegetation, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And when you talk about range land right like that
Speaker 1: that term is particular to grazing allotments. It's not like
Speaker 1: range land for dr and L you're out there exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like that NRCS funded Receding project that's to put more
Speaker 1: grass on the ground for cattle, for private enterprise for that.
Speaker 8: But also just for keeping our lands and soils healthy,
Speaker 8: for keeping our soils where they're supposed to be and
Speaker 8: managing for the watershed resource managing for all these different
Speaker 8: resource ranges such an inner dispinary program and that yeah,
Speaker 8: our mission or our project area program, area and range
Speaker 8: has been for first and foremost because of the Tailor
Speaker 8: Grazing Act that was passing nineteen thirty four to help
Speaker 8: solve some of the issues that had happened from the
Speaker 8: eighteen hundreds and westward expansion and the overgrazing of just
Speaker 8: open range. We now have grays back in thirty four
Speaker 8: nineteen thirty four, soon enough to be twenty thirty four, geez,
Speaker 8: but to at least permit and authorize and have terms
Speaker 8: and conditions set out for private citizens to through a
Speaker 8: reg regulated way, graze domestic livestock, whether that be cattle
Speaker 8: or sheep. Primarily in my field off in the field
Speaker 8: office I've been working with, was primarily cattle. Was primarily cattle.
Speaker 8: Was to get produce food and fiber for the American
Speaker 8: people on our public rangelands. But do it in a responsible,
Speaker 8: a balanced way to do to look at other resources
Speaker 8: and make sure that we minimize conflict, mitigate and minimize
Speaker 8: negative environmental impact of this of this of this primary
Speaker 8: use that's you guys have talked about before within multiple
Speaker 8: use missions of grazing as as one of those primary
Speaker 8: tenants of a authorized use or a use on public lands.
Speaker 8: But it's so much more than just grazing and keeping
Speaker 8: grass on for cattle. It's for soil health, it's for
Speaker 8: wildlife habitat. I mean we we are here to advocate
Speaker 8: or we were. I don't know what the tends to
Speaker 8: use because I was fired so recently terminated, and if
Speaker 8: not laid off, I was a termination is how it
Speaker 8: is written in my termination letter. And can you I'm
Speaker 8: sorry rying to interrupt you there, but you know we're
Speaker 8: hearing the terms terminated.
Speaker 1: Layoff, furloughed. What's the difference between terminated and.
Speaker 8: Furlough So furloughed is so, say, March fourteenth, Pie day,
Speaker 8: we've got coming up, the continuing resolution that we're currently
Speaker 8: acting under ends And so say if I was still
Speaker 8: if I were to be furloughed, I would still be
Speaker 8: on paper an employee of the Bureau of Land Management.
Speaker 8: And anybody who working for the FAIL government who is
Speaker 8: not a essential employee as designated as such, would be
Speaker 8: not able to work, not permitted to work. Can't touch
Speaker 8: a dang thing. Your government phone, your email account, et cetera.
Speaker 8: But then once funding would be restored, they would be
Speaker 8: paid for you know what they did for. They would
Speaker 8: be paid and still stay on with the agency that
Speaker 8: they're working for. I, as of Tuesday, February the eighteenth,
Speaker 8: was terminated after less than sixty days of being with
Speaker 8: the Bureau of Land Management here in Colorado. I by
Speaker 8: the end of the day on Tuesday, like two hours
Speaker 8: after I got the notice from my supervisor, I lost
Speaker 8: access to a work email, I lost access to my
Speaker 8: work phone. I had to turn all of my badges
Speaker 8: and everything back in. I was the letter was actually
Speaker 8: dated for February the fourteenth, everything out, like everybody, like
Speaker 8: a lot of the other people who were terminated in
Speaker 8: this way. So and I was terminated because I was
Speaker 8: a probationary employee. I had less than a year in service.
Speaker 8: I had started with it started on December thirtieth, twenty
Speaker 8: twenty four, and after finishing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sorry, I mean, you're you're a highly educated, dude,
Speaker 1: motivated guide going you know, learning a lot. You got
Speaker 1: a lot of credentials behind you. I mean, far more
Speaker 1: than I ever will if I'm being frank, But they're just.
Speaker 8: They're just they're just letters and it's just experienced. So
Speaker 8: it's a school of hard knocks and whatever.
Speaker 1: So I mean, you're you're going to find another gig,
Speaker 1: another job.
Speaker 8: I hope.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 8: I want to be reinstated. I want to get like
Speaker 8: I'm trying to appeal this to get reinstated because the
Speaker 8: reason that they used in my termination letter is like
Speaker 8: apparently my skills and qualifications do not meet the needs
Speaker 8: of the department. Is what it is, how it is
Speaker 8: stated in my termination letter.
Speaker 5: What Ryan can I like, I don't know if you
Speaker 5: can speculate or not, but what would what do you
Speaker 5: see like high level? Like easy to explain the impact
Speaker 5: of not having range managers on the land.
Speaker 8: So yeah, gosh, that's a big question, high level. So
Speaker 8: our primary focus in the range group is to use
Speaker 8: science and the law to administer grazing permits on public lands,
Speaker 8: so working with private citizens, like I said, and private
Speaker 8: ranches to raise livestock on public rangelands. And there's a
Speaker 8: whole set of terms and conditions and a whole process
Speaker 8: administrative process that that goes through to make sure that
Speaker 8: we go through the NEPA process, the National Environmental Policy Act,
Speaker 8: for it is a proposed action on public lands and
Speaker 8: could have environmental impacts. So we bring in wildlife managers,
Speaker 8: recreation folks, hydrology, et cetera. Whenever we go through and
Speaker 8: we renew fully process a grazing permit. And that's so
Speaker 8: to be able to adapt to whatever the conditions are
Speaker 8: out on the ground. These permits renew are supposed to
Speaker 8: be renewed every ten years or whenever a permittees basely expires.
Speaker 8: And so where there's also an opportunity an option based
Speaker 8: upon I think a law passed in the nineties that
Speaker 8: we are legally we where the BLM is sorry, BLM
Speaker 8: is legally obligated to authorize or to an issue grazing permits,
Speaker 8: and so there's is a way to just renew the
Speaker 8: prop renew the renew the permit without changing anything, which
Speaker 8: is all well and good. But what if that land's
Speaker 8: not meeting land health standards.
Speaker 5: That's kind of what I was getting at, Like, is
Speaker 5: there a situation in which this would result in not
Speaker 5: only degraded yes, raising conditions for cattle, but also degraded
Speaker 5: wildlife habitat re mule, deer, an elk and sage grouse
Speaker 5: and b like on and on and on.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 8: So like for example, we were bit, I'm sorry, I'm
Speaker 8: getting fired up here. I'll calm down. I wonder why
Speaker 8: I'm fired up? So we in my office, so was
Speaker 8: myself and another new range management specialist who he had
Speaker 8: just started in October but had come over after two
Speaker 8: years within being a range management specialist in Nevada, and
Speaker 8: we were working up addition to our permanent range technician
Speaker 8: prioritization plans to go do land health assessments and figure
Speaker 8: out and develop a prioritization strategy for the grazing permits
Speaker 8: that are expiring this year, to renew them and fully
Speaker 8: process as many of them as we could, but also
Speaker 8: do that, you know, no change in termining conditions where
Speaker 8: it made sense. We have a two because the person
Speaker 8: who I fill it or was hired for, retired a
Speaker 8: year or two ago. It took the office at least
Speaker 8: a year and a half to fill my position. And
Speaker 8: there's a year, there's two years worth of backlogs of
Speaker 8: land health assessments and grazing permit renewals that we were
Speaker 8: getting geared up to do this year. It was going
Speaker 8: to be forty thirty more days or more days in
Speaker 8: the field, bringing out also our wildlife folks, our hydrology people,
Speaker 8: et cetera, in our this interdisciplinary team that we have
Speaker 8: to have out in the field to look at land health.
Speaker 8: Is grazing a cause of if land health standards are
Speaker 8: not being met if not great? If so, how can
Speaker 8: that change be mitigated? And go through that that need
Speaker 8: the National Environmental Policy Act process. It is down to
Speaker 8: one person, one one range and management specialist and one
Speaker 8: range technician to try to fill that bat that two
Speaker 8: years worth of backlog. I mean it with three of us.
Speaker 8: It was going to be a daunting task with two
Speaker 8: of them. And I don't like they are the next
Speaker 8: ones on the chopping block because we hear that this
Speaker 8: is not the end of what is to come well and.
Speaker 1: Like to point out like the other side of this
Speaker 1: is is the quote unquote consumer right, Like folks want
Speaker 1: those grazing leases badly because they're the cheapest grazing lease
Speaker 1: you can possibly get. Right, it's like a dollar to
Speaker 1: thirty five per au m.
Speaker 8: It's the one thing that has not changed with inflation
Speaker 8: and has not changed since nineteen ninety six. About as
Speaker 8: old as I am, I'll be uh I was born
Speaker 8: ninety five.
Speaker 5: So there's a lot of people in this country getting
Speaker 5: their steaks from that land, so to speak, you know
Speaker 5: what I mean, Yeah.
Speaker 8: Yes, sir, and not just beef burgers, but venison, elk, everything.
Speaker 8: And so we were working up. We had new direction
Speaker 8: as of October to start prioritizing grazing permit renewals, fully
Speaker 8: processed renewals, and gunnis and sage grouse habitat because here
Speaker 8: over in Canyon of the Ancient National Monument and up
Speaker 8: north at Disappointment Valley Naturita Area, there's a lot of
Speaker 8: there's gunnis and sage grouse habitat and grazing permits in
Speaker 8: those areas that we were given direction from from the
Speaker 8: last minute, or we were given direction from to begin
Speaker 8: prioritizing catching up with land health assessments, grazing permit renewals
Speaker 8: to be able to adaptively manage grazing permits. Helped work
Speaker 8: with the private permittees to adaptively manage to make sure
Speaker 8: that those species are not further imperiled by what's happening
Speaker 8: out on the ground.
Speaker 1: And so it's interesting, I mean, every program that you've
Speaker 1: mentioned has been at minimum put on funding freeze and
Speaker 1: RCS is you know that really if you looked at
Speaker 1: at NRCS it it wouldn't be disingenuous to call it
Speaker 1: the largest conservation program in the world, not just the
Speaker 1: United States or North America, but like the world. And
Speaker 1: that's something that that helps out people on the private
Speaker 1: side of the fence tremendously, just like we talked about
Speaker 1: grazers right here. So we got to get going just
Speaker 1: out of curiosity. And if you're not willing to share this,
Speaker 1: it's a little bit like looking at you with your
Speaker 1: pants down. But what what were you getting paid as
Speaker 1: a new rangeland specialist?
Speaker 8: Yeah, so I was brought in as a GS eleven
Speaker 8: step one, brand new federal employee. I was making about
Speaker 8: seventy three thousand. If I would have seventy three thousand
Speaker 8: dollars annually would have been my salary.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, so, and and what what's next next for you?
Speaker 3: Rabid season?
Speaker 8: It's wrap rabbit season. Here's wrapping up.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 8: I've been trying to figure out when to get use
Speaker 8: some of the little leave that I had accrued over
Speaker 8: my short less than sixty days to figure out when
Speaker 8: to go down to hunt my Havelina tag down in
Speaker 8: southern New Mexico. I think I might be able to
Speaker 8: do a little bit more planning to go down and
Speaker 8: hunt that tag after that. I just I want to
Speaker 8: get reinstated. I want to appeal this. I don't think
Speaker 8: this is right. I'm worried about the mission of I mean,
Speaker 8: if I get, if I get, if I don't get rehired,
Speaker 8: so be it.
Speaker 3: Keep fighting, man, I worry you guys.
Speaker 8: Keep fighting to hold the line. This is it, we
Speaker 8: need it, This is important, and this is not the
Speaker 8: end of it. And things need to People need to
Speaker 8: know what is happening out on the ground. It's not
Speaker 8: just trash, it's not just whatever.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 8: Our habitat, our public resource, our natural heritage at risk
Speaker 8: for a mission that is supposedly changing that is not
Speaker 8: due to the public's will, at least not being played
Speaker 8: out in a public process right now. And I worry
Speaker 8: about what has to come next for my for my
Speaker 8: co workers, if they're going to if more people are
Speaker 8: going to get laid off like they're already on a
Speaker 8: skeleton crew. What's going to happen if more people get
Speaker 8: get terminated, or people lose faith in the agency. And
Speaker 8: and go what does that mean for the next That's
Speaker 8: what worries me. I I'll be okay, I think I
Speaker 8: don't know what this sets up for the future of
Speaker 8: our public resources and our natural and national heritage in
Speaker 8: our stewardship of these lands.
Speaker 1: It's hard to hear man. I think. I appreciate you
Speaker 1: coming on. I appreciate you guys asking tremendously, and we'll
Speaker 1: keep sending you good thoughts and hope you do get reinstated.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a good example of what's going on
Speaker 1: right now. Things are moving really fast. Uh And and
Speaker 1: I think at the end of the day, people just
Speaker 1: need to understand that no matter how you voted, the
Speaker 1: vote's over right. What matters is what you do from
Speaker 1: now forward every single day. And it's absolutely absolutely okay
Speaker 1: and within your power to say, hey, this particular thing
Speaker 1: I do not agree with. Right, So thanks a bunch, Ryan,
Speaker 1: and keep me posting. Hopefully we'll have you back on
Speaker 1: with some good news at some point.
Speaker 7: Well.
Speaker 8: See, like I said, I'm speaking into personal capacity right now.
Speaker 6: Once.
Speaker 8: If I were to get brought back on, I have
Speaker 8: to run it by my soup. Yeah, shit, you guys
Speaker 8: have me on Brodie Seth. Good meeting you, guys.
Speaker 3: Philby, thank you.
Speaker 1: You know, I hate asking a fellow how much he makes,
Speaker 1: but when you're in a town of eighteen hundred people,
Speaker 1: that's a that's a significant salary to remove out of
Speaker 1: that economy.
Speaker 5: Sure, yeah, and I mean there's more to it than that,
Speaker 5: even you know.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely.
Speaker 6: So.
Speaker 1: Running a little bit behind schedule, but we're gonna get
Speaker 1: to the hard facts of the law with David Wilms,
Speaker 1: who's our very next guest. He forgot his hair jail today.
Speaker 7: I did, No, it's I've got lots of it in Yeah,
Speaker 7: I'm just glad.
Speaker 3: I'm just glad I have hair.
Speaker 1: So David, if it's all right with you, I'd love
Speaker 1: to just get an update on what the heck's going
Speaker 1: on with the Utah lawsuit and then go from there
Speaker 1: and just kind of talk about where this land transfer
Speaker 1: sell off movement is. I can give you some feedback
Speaker 1: on the Montana side of things, but I know Wyoming,
Speaker 1: where you are a resident, has some stuff in motion,
Speaker 1: and I think starting with Utah would be a great,
Speaker 1: great place.
Speaker 7: Sure, I'm happy to do that, and thanks for having
Speaker 7: me on. I appreciate it so last time I was
Speaker 7: with you guys, the Utah lawsuit was still active, right,
Speaker 7: meaning they had this case before the United States Supreme Court.
Speaker 7: They were asking for the Supreme Court to accept jurisdiction
Speaker 7: of the case, and we were talking, we were speculating
Speaker 7: what might happen. Well, in January, the United States Supreme Court,
Speaker 7: in a twelve word order, declined to accept jurisdiction of
Speaker 7: the case, which all that really means is they said,
Speaker 7: it doesn't warrant us taking on what's called original jurisdiction.
Speaker 7: It doesn't warrant us taking the case. Yet they didn't
Speaker 7: say that there was no case there. They didn't say
Speaker 7: that they might not hear it again in the future.
Speaker 7: They just said, in twelve words, not now.
Speaker 6: Case.
Speaker 7: We declined to exercise jurisdiction. So because of that, that
Speaker 7: case goes away. But the way I've described this to
Speaker 7: people to use a bit of a football analogy, which
Speaker 7: might be a little late now that we've passed the
Speaker 7: Super Bowl, but I think it works, was that Utah
Speaker 7: threw their Hail Mary on the first play of the game, right,
Speaker 7: instead of the last play of the game, meaning they
Speaker 7: took a run at the Supreme Court knowing very well
Speaker 7: that the likelihood of the court accepting the case was
Speaker 7: exceptionally low. And all that means now is if they
Speaker 7: want this lawsuit to proceed to go forward, they're going
Speaker 7: to have to file it and go through the normal
Speaker 7: course and procedure, which means filing it in federal district court,
Speaker 7: which is what we really expect will probably happen in
Speaker 7: the coming months, weeks, months, don't know how long it'll take,
Speaker 7: but would fully expect that that at some point we'll
Speaker 7: see a new lawsuit filed in federal district court and
Speaker 7: then we're just operating under the playbook.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 7: Now the game's happening, Like to use that football analogy, right,
Speaker 7: we had the we had the hail Mary, it dropped
Speaker 7: in complete in the end zone, and now they're going
Speaker 7: to the playbook and they're playing the game. And that's
Speaker 7: what I would expect would happen going forward, is we'll
Speaker 7: probably see a new lawsuit filed in federal district court
Speaker 7: and then we'll have to go through the normal process
Speaker 7: of emotions to dismiss motions for some rejudgment and you know,
Speaker 7: all the things that come with with litigation.
Speaker 1: And is there there any expected timeline on them supplying
Speaker 1: that to the lower court, and.
Speaker 7: They can really do it whenever they want. When I
Speaker 7: say it could be weeks or months, I mean it
Speaker 7: really can be any time. I don't think I've seen
Speaker 7: anything publicly indicating when that might come. It's just when
Speaker 7: they're ready.
Speaker 6: They'll have to you know.
Speaker 7: I suspect they learned some things, and they floated some
Speaker 7: legal theories.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 7: And I think some of those legal theories, folks were
Speaker 7: able to poke some holes in uh and you know,
Speaker 7: in that Supreme Court filing, And so I could see
Speaker 7: them going back and making some changes to that complaint
Speaker 7: and maybe pleading this case a little bit differently. I
Speaker 7: don't know what I mean. The end result would be
Speaker 7: asking for roughly the same thing I suspect, but the
Speaker 7: legal arguments to get there might they might tweak those
Speaker 7: a little bit. So it just depends on how long
Speaker 7: it takes for them to do that and uh and
Speaker 7: and when they decide that timing is right for them
Speaker 7: to refile.
Speaker 4: Dave, is there any former.
Speaker 5: Former examples of these kind of cases where we can
Speaker 5: like kind of base what we think should happen in
Speaker 5: the next round, not necessarily what will but what should
Speaker 5: based on what's happened in the past.
Speaker 7: You mean, like, sorry to ask it another way, but
Speaker 7: you mean like an attempt to get to the to
Speaker 7: the Supreme Court that being denied.
Speaker 5: Or in a federal district court just another an example
Speaker 5: of another lawsuit like this that turned out a certain way.
Speaker 5: Or is this just like who knows what's going to happen?
Speaker 7: I like, I view this as a I mean, you
Speaker 7: don't know what's going to happen. Although I would say
Speaker 7: that there's a lot of federal case law out there
Speaker 7: talking about the ability of the federal government to own
Speaker 7: and manage federal lands, Like there's two hundred years of
Speaker 7: precedent out there that Utah is going to somehow have
Speaker 7: to explain away. And I think we talked about it before.
Speaker 7: What the narrow angle they were taking was, which is
Speaker 7: you know that that despite this two hundred years of precedent,
Speaker 7: it was all those cases we're doing was confirming that
Speaker 7: the federal government could manage and manage those lands elusively.
Speaker 7: But that maybe there it didn't actually address the question
Speaker 7: of could they hold on to those lands in perpetuity?
Speaker 7: And so that that's the narrow question they're trying to
Speaker 7: force into the discussion. But man, there's a lot of
Speaker 7: case law out there talking about the federal government having
Speaker 7: the absolute authority to manage public lands and to own
Speaker 7: public lands. Well, it's tough. It's going to be a
Speaker 7: tough case.
Speaker 1: One one good thing that I see here is when
Speaker 1: these things come up, they kind of boil over and
Speaker 1: they become so in the past, so socially unacceptable to
Speaker 1: mess with these big chunks of federally managed public lands
Speaker 1: that are managed on behalf of all of us and
Speaker 1: and they're America's playground. Plus it's where a lot of
Speaker 1: Americans make their living, both in the private sector and
Speaker 1: in the public sector. We're seeing efforts in several states,
Speaker 1: states that have joined the lawsuit on behalf of Utah,
Speaker 1: and bills being introduced in different legislative sessions. And to me,
Speaker 1: like the positive there is being able to say, like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's the person that we need to have a good
Speaker 1: conversation with because they are going to be on the
Speaker 1: wrong side of history. So I kind of like when
Speaker 1: this stuff pops up in a way because it flushes
Speaker 1: out folks with bad ideas.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, I think you're right I also think
Speaker 7: there's the timing of this discussion is perfect. So I
Speaker 7: don't know if you've talked about this or seen this,
Speaker 7: but yesterday Colorado College released a Conservation in the West pole.
Speaker 7: They do this poll every year and it's there. They're
Speaker 7: pulling voters in the West, particularly the Inner Mountain West,
Speaker 7: on a host of conservation issues, and one of the
Speaker 7: questions that they were asked was about transfer of lands
Speaker 7: to from states or from the federal government to states,
Speaker 7: and sixty seven percent of respondents oppose that across the
Speaker 7: West in the aggregate, and in Utah it's fifty seven percent.
Speaker 7: So even in Utah that's leading the charge on this. Now,
Speaker 7: fifty seven percent of the voters doesn't matter political party
Speaker 7: oppose transfer. And so to your point of these bills
Speaker 7: coming up in state and you know, seeing who's sponsoring them,
Speaker 7: who's behind the bills, I think that matters because the
Speaker 7: public doesn't want to see this happen. This data is,
Speaker 7: you know, just like I said, just released yesterday, which
Speaker 7: confirms you know, the poll from last year, in the
Speaker 7: poll from the year before, and you can go back
Speaker 7: and look at poles over time, it's pretty consistent. The
Speaker 7: public doesn't want to see federal lands transferred. There's a
Speaker 7: there's an accountability piece here, an opportunity and educational opportunity,
Speaker 7: and accountability opportunity in the states.
Speaker 1: And who's who holds people accountable?
Speaker 7: Voters?
Speaker 6: You've got it.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. So what's happening in Wyoming, David?
Speaker 6: What isn't happening in Wyoming? Geez?
Speaker 7: So I could talk about a couple of the things.
Speaker 7: So there was a bill and this one or sorry,
Speaker 7: excuse excuse me, a joint resolution, and this one actually
Speaker 7: died recently, but it it made it pretty far on
Speaker 7: the Senate side, which proposed transferring all federal lands in
Speaker 7: the state to the state, including Grand Teton National Park,
Speaker 7: so everything except Yellowstone and that that did ultimately die
Speaker 7: in the Senate on second or third reading, and I
Speaker 7: think it was, I mean, it was a narrow, narrow margin.
Speaker 7: Then you have a couple of others. There's been a
Speaker 7: bill there to this one I believe is still alive,
Speaker 7: and it would require if you're a private landowner, you
Speaker 7: own your own property and you want to sell that property,
Speaker 7: and the buyer that's interested in that property is the
Speaker 7: federal government under this bill, the state legislature would have
Speaker 7: to approve that sale. You could not sell your private
Speaker 7: land to the federal government without the state legislature's approval.
Speaker 7: And that bill, to my understanding, is still alive, and
Speaker 7: it's rooted in this concept of the state wanting to
Speaker 7: have a no net gain of federal lands in the state.
Speaker 7: And then there's one other thing I'd mentioned in state
Speaker 7: and this one's not a bill, and this one's pretty quiet,
Speaker 7: And this is like I mentioned this because it's something
Speaker 7: I think people should be aware of because it could
Speaker 7: happen in any number of states. But I'm sure you've
Speaker 7: talked about this before on your podcasts, and I'm sure
Speaker 7: listeners know. There was a parcel of land in Grand
Speaker 7: Teton National Park that was owned by the state of
Speaker 7: Wyoming that late last year was sold to the Park
Speaker 7: Service for one hundred million dollars six hundred and forty
Speaker 7: acres section that was bordered on I think it was
Speaker 7: on two sides by the Park Service, one side by
Speaker 7: the National Elk Refuge and one side by the National Forest.
Speaker 7: So it was just transferred to the federal government, which
Speaker 7: was a great deal for Wyoming to get one hundred
Speaker 7: million dollars out of it, and it was a great
Speaker 7: deal for the Park Service to ensure that that land
Speaker 7: wouldn't be sold or subdivided or developed. Now the state
Speaker 7: wants to package that one hundred million dollars and an
Speaker 7: additional I can't remember the exact number, forty eight or
Speaker 7: fifty million from a sale that occurred about ten years
Speaker 7: ago of another parcel in the park and they want
Speaker 7: to put a proposal on. In fact, I think they
Speaker 7: may have already submitted the proposal to the Bureau of
Speaker 7: Land Management to purchase ten thousand acres of BLM land
Speaker 7: in northeast Wyoming with that money. I think that's pretty quiet.
Speaker 7: I don't think there have been there's been a lot
Speaker 7: of press about that, and it's a It's something I
Speaker 7: note because there is a process under the Federal Land
Speaker 7: Policy Management Act for transferring federal lands or selling federal
Speaker 7: lands if it's in the national interest, and I suspect
Speaker 7: there's going to be a pitch that this sale would
Speaker 7: be considered in the national interest. It's an acreage that's
Speaker 7: large enough that it would require notification to Congress, but
Speaker 7: I don't think it requires approval of Congress. It's one
Speaker 7: of those where you provide a notification to Congress and
Speaker 7: if Congress, if one chamber of Congress doesn't oppose within
Speaker 7: thirty days to the transaction, then they can move forward
Speaker 7: with it. Now, there are other things that have to happen.
Speaker 7: They've got to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act,
Speaker 7: probably have to do an EIS, it could be environmental
Speaker 7: impact statement. It could be years before that happens. But
Speaker 7: it's an example of using existing processes and something kind
Speaker 7: of behind the scenes to affect like pretty significant land transfers.
Speaker 1: And I think I think that's something that everybody needs
Speaker 1: to be aware of, Like land transfers, sales of publicly
Speaker 1: managed ground, they do occur and then they have for
Speaker 1: a long time and and sometimes there's some gains as well,
Speaker 1: But everybody needs to be aware that that they can
Speaker 1: weigh in on those. They have a vested interest in saying,
Speaker 1: whoa that doesn't work for me, or this does in
Speaker 1: in the can frame it.
Speaker 5: In a way that's not it's not like a seizure,
Speaker 5: right Like it's kind of like willing seller willing buyer
Speaker 5: type thing. Like they can frame it that way, and
Speaker 5: you know, it's harder to fight that I think.
Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely absolutely. You want me to hit you with
Speaker 1: some Montana stuff, David, Yeah.
Speaker 7: And then I might punt it right back to you
Speaker 7: to answer it.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean things that I think people should know about.
Speaker 1: Right So, as we talk there, the debate on land
Speaker 1: transfer is I'm sorry, Brody's got party in his pants
Speaker 1: over here. The debate on land transfer always edges towards well,
Speaker 1: the state state will manage it better, and I kind
Speaker 1: of kick that back and say, well, it's not actually
Speaker 1: about management. The fear is that the state will have
Speaker 1: to sell these lands if they were to actually get
Speaker 1: ownership of them, for a bunch of reasons. Most most
Speaker 1: of them are would be just tackling any sort of
Speaker 1: budget deficits that would come up in the future. So
Speaker 1: right now, in the state of Montana, we had a
Speaker 1: and I feel strongly that most of our politicians really
Speaker 1: know that land transfer, land sell off, reducing public land,
Speaker 1: public access is not something that's going to get you elected.
Speaker 1: But we did see a you know, a Montana state
Speaker 1: funded i e. The taxpayer funded program get put into
Speaker 1: place this year that would assess all state lands and
Speaker 1: identify lands to sell. And then right now we have
Speaker 1: what is it, HB three seventy nine, House Built three
Speaker 1: seventy nine, which would essentially just streamline the process of
Speaker 1: selling state lands. And then most recently, and this kind
Speaker 1: of goes into the social side of things, like our
Speaker 1: governor was just quoted in a Wall Street Journal opinion
Speaker 1: piece that is very land transfer privatization adjacent. But just
Speaker 1: the fact that he's quoted in there makes me nervous, right,
Speaker 1: And and it's this I this conglomeration of state lands
Speaker 1: and federally public federally managed public lands are the same.
Speaker 1: And and in a lot of ways, it's like apples
Speaker 1: to comb quats, right, Like we're we're not in the
Speaker 1: same ballpark where they're they're very different. And then on
Speaker 1: top of that, we have a bill that hasn't seen
Speaker 1: the light of day yet, but I think it is
Speaker 1: one of those things that hasn't quite gotten out into
Speaker 1: the light because they're afraid of the social repercussions.
Speaker 5: Rep.
Speaker 1: Tommy Millet of Marion, Montana has LC two nine one two,
Speaker 1: which is a draft, but it would be supporting Utah's lawsuit,
Speaker 1: So straight up support of land transfer going through the
Speaker 1: Montana State legislature, which hasn't been there. Uh, we haven't
Speaker 1: seen it yet. But all of this to say, on
Speaker 1: the federal side of things, we're dealing with some very
Speaker 1: challenging times regarding our public lands and that those challenges
Speaker 1: are going to have repercussions in the way that we
Speaker 1: experience public lands. Right now, the same stuff that we've
Speaker 1: been talking about bathrooms, campgrounds, road maintenance, trail maintenance. Down
Speaker 1: to Ryan that we just talked to is like, it's
Speaker 1: possible that our range land that create you know, tall grass,
Speaker 1: makes fat cattle, but it also makes you know, awesome
Speaker 1: horn growth on big g narley, mule deer bucks. Right,
Speaker 1: it's possible that just that soil and range land could
Speaker 1: be affected, like down down to that level. At the
Speaker 1: state level, we're seeing movement to acquire, slash dispose of
Speaker 1: public land. What's your sense of the landscape right now?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean you summed it up pretty well. There's
Speaker 7: I would say, some antagonistic behavior in various states. Montana, Wyoming, Utah,
Speaker 7: Arizona are right at the top of the list. From
Speaker 7: you know, the state level pursuing policies that would encourage
Speaker 7: federal land transfer. I think you also have to look
Speaker 7: to what's going on in DC as well, the things
Speaker 7: that have happened or the things that haven't happened yet
Speaker 7: but could. And it's sort of a This would be
Speaker 7: a call to say, hey, keep your eyes out for
Speaker 7: some of this stuff. You might have heard. You know,
Speaker 7: everybody's probably seen news reports about, you know, reconciliation and
Speaker 7: what it looks like for pursuing the president's policy agenda
Speaker 7: and getting through this reconciliation process and getting tax cut
Speaker 7: made permanent. I'll use that example because that's the one
Speaker 7: that's directly correlated here. You know, they had the twenty
Speaker 7: seventeen tax cuts during his first presidency, and he wants
Speaker 7: to wants to make those permanent and maybe add some
Speaker 7: additional cuts. And when you have tax cuts, you have
Speaker 7: to be able to pay for that lost revenue. You
Speaker 7: have to offset that revenue. And one of the ideas
Speaker 7: that I've seen floated around is using this you know,
Speaker 7: I think somebody estimated two hundred trillion dollar asset that
Speaker 7: is our federal lands, using some of those to help
Speaker 7: offset the like selling those to offset the tax cuts.
Speaker 7: I'll make it in there. But those conversations are certainly
Speaker 7: happening behind closed doors.
Speaker 5: Well, there's precedent for that at the state level. Right
Speaker 5: like that, there are plenty of states that don't have
Speaker 5: any state owned public land because they sold them all to.
Speaker 1: Every single state has less state land than they started with.
Speaker 5: Right and they use that to do whatever fund the government.
Speaker 5: So it's almost like taking that to the national level, right.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean at the state level. The difference here
Speaker 7: is at the state level, all of these states received
Speaker 7: these parcels of land and were constitutionally obligated to maximize
Speaker 7: the revenue off of those acres, and the maximizing of
Speaker 7: the revenue off of those acres sometimes meant selling those
Speaker 7: I mean the state of Utah still has I think
Speaker 7: every six months they hold sales of state trust lands.
Speaker 7: And the idea is you maximize the revenue for your
Speaker 7: public schools and hospitals and universities. Depending on the state
Speaker 7: and the constitution, So there's this constitutional obligation that has
Speaker 7: led to the selling off of a lot of that
Speaker 7: land estate. You don't have that obligation at the federal level.
Speaker 7: It's it's it's a little bit disconcerning, uh that those
Speaker 7: that we're now talking you know, I don't I'm not
Speaker 7: going to call it mainstream. I don't think it's mainstream.
Speaker 7: I think most people, even at the federal level in Congress,
Speaker 7: oppose this idea of selling off the federal estate or
Speaker 7: transferring it.
Speaker 1: Well, you know what's interesting, though, David, is if you
Speaker 1: look at like Utah is a great example, Like if
Speaker 1: you look at the revenue generated. Uh, you know, Utah
Speaker 1: like taxes as most states do, right, they tax oil
Speaker 1: and gas extraction mining in a much different way than
Speaker 1: the Feds do. And like the income received through extractive
Speaker 1: industry on state land in Utah is significant. So, like
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know much about anything. My life's
Speaker 1: as much of a mass as the next person. But
Speaker 1: I don't see how it makes sense to sell off
Speaker 1: that land. Like it's like male box money to the
Speaker 1: tunes of billions of dollars.
Speaker 7: Well, you pointed out one one big thing, right, Like
Speaker 7: the federal government isn't required to manage public lands to
Speaker 7: generate revenue. They do generate revenue. They sell oil and gas.
Speaker 7: They have grazing leases, and your last guests, you know,
Speaker 7: highlighted the dollar thirty five and aum for grazing leases.
Speaker 7: The states are required to make money off of it,
Speaker 7: as much money as possible, which is why it costs
Speaker 7: in a lot of places one thousand percent more to
Speaker 7: graze on state land than it does on private land.
Speaker 7: Why oil and gas royalty payments to the states are
Speaker 7: higher on state land than they are on federal lands,
Speaker 7: because they're required to generate that revenue. They're not required
Speaker 7: to manage lands with multiple use in mind, including recreation
Speaker 7: and hunting and angling and conservation and all of the
Speaker 7: things that go into multiple lease management. It's different. The
Speaker 7: state systems are just different. And so if you had,
Speaker 7: if you have these transfers, they're going to be managed
Speaker 7: differently than they are currently managed under the federal system.
Speaker 7: And you know when I mean, here's one thing that
Speaker 7: I was faced with. So I used to work as
Speaker 7: you know, I used to work for the governor here
Speaker 7: in Wyoming, the prior governor, and when we were faced with,
Speaker 7: you know, questions about whether we should support public land transfers,
Speaker 7: one of the big reasons we opposed it was the
Speaker 7: cost of fighting fire would have bankrupt the state. We
Speaker 7: couldn't afford to do it. You know. It was so
Speaker 7: so unbelievably expensive and so important to our states to
Speaker 7: have and to have fire crews and equipment and everything
Speaker 7: out there combating these big wildfires. But it's like they're
Speaker 7: just different systems. And so this idea that we that
Speaker 7: we'd would use federal lands to help pay for tax
Speaker 7: cuts by selling them either to either to private landowners
Speaker 7: or to two states, you know, it's so short sighted,
Speaker 7: Like the impacts on that would would be pretty pretty catastrophic,
Speaker 7: hard even hard to describe.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, and I think anybody who's trying to get
Speaker 1: a mortgage in a western state right now understands that,
Speaker 1: holy cow, this land just keeps going up and up
Speaker 1: and up. David.
Speaker 3: I'd love to.
Speaker 1: Talk to you more, but I am running this horribly
Speaker 1: over time.
Speaker 6: You are way behind.
Speaker 1: I can tell yes, yes, all right, day, Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming out Where where can folks way in.
Speaker 7: On which thing?
Speaker 1: On all of it? Like, if you want to be
Speaker 1: a public lands advocate right now, what's what's your top two.
Speaker 7: I will tell you. If you're in one of the
Speaker 7: states we talked about, Montana, Wyoming, Arizona, Utah, you reach
Speaker 7: out to your local legislator, reach out to your state representative,
Speaker 7: send notes to the governor's office. Governors have the power
Speaker 7: of the pen on the veto right. Some of these
Speaker 7: things come through if they pass, So reaching out to
Speaker 7: your local elected officials is really important on some of
Speaker 7: this stuff. On the federal level, reaching out to your delegation,
Speaker 7: your congressional delegation is going to be really important as well,
Speaker 7: especially as it gets closer and closer to this budget
Speaker 7: reconciliation process. You know there are going to be other bills,
Speaker 7: like using federal lands to build homes, like to use
Speaker 7: it for housing in places that don't have housing. That's
Speaker 7: a big debate that has to happen, but you know,
Speaker 7: keep your eyes out for that too, and contact your
Speaker 7: local representats until you tell them how you feel about that.
Speaker 7: I can tell you that Conservation of the West Poles
Speaker 7: has data about that, and most people overwhelmingly don't want
Speaker 7: to see their public lands sold through housing projects either.
Speaker 7: So elected officials are elected for a reason, right to
Speaker 7: represent you, and the only way they are representing you
Speaker 7: as if you tell them what you think.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. And I'll tell you there's nothing
Speaker 1: about the layout of Bosangelus, Montana that makes me think
Speaker 1: that the people who built this place are going to
Speaker 1: do it better. On public lamp.
Speaker 9: Like, I'm not going to argue with you on that,
Speaker 9: all right, Thanks a bunch, David, appreciate it, all right.
Speaker 1: Gig, I apologize for running so high.
Speaker 6: Phil.
Speaker 1: Do you want to do listener feedback?
Speaker 7: Right?
Speaker 2: Here's the convenient thing, cals that are you surprised that
Speaker 2: the live chat has pretty much devolved into an all
Speaker 2: out brawl?
Speaker 3: That's kind of toned down a little bit, But.
Speaker 2: You know, I would say there are some people who
Speaker 2: are level headed and just having a conversation and other
Speaker 2: people who need to get their shit together and grow up.
Speaker 2: Had I had to ban someone for name calling, so
Speaker 2: so you know.
Speaker 3: Don't do that.
Speaker 1: Man, you can't be a good advocate if you lead
Speaker 1: off by telling somebody they're a jerk, and and then
Speaker 1: you're like, but you should listen to me. Just the
Speaker 1: world doesn't work that way anyway.
Speaker 3: I hope it's the last time I have to do it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, we got a couple of let's let's do
Speaker 2: a couple of fun ones, right, Yes, we're having fun today.
Speaker 10: Let's see favorite February outdoor activities. Do you guys have
Speaker 10: anything specific before Turkey season gets gets going and the
Speaker 10: transition period from Caleb Tucker ice fishing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's tough, but even that's.
Speaker 1: Just I haven't drilled a single hole through.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think hard to get motivated this year for some reason.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I mean the skiing is freaking fantastic period
Speaker 1: coming up, just yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: I like shooting guns a lot this time of year.
Speaker 6: Two.
Speaker 3: Make sure everything's dialed in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hard to find a spot to lay down.
Speaker 3: That's true, that's true.
Speaker 2: One more cal I know you're you're a frequenter, Seth,
Speaker 2: you are too. Jordan's going to Hawaii tomorrow. He's wondering
Speaker 2: which islands, Uh, where you guys on? I'm sure you
Speaker 2: visited multiple but do you have any sort of favorite islands,
Speaker 2: favorite spots on certain islands for certain activities.
Speaker 1: You know, the Big Island is is big. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: there's a lot of diversity. Every every island has has diversity.
Speaker 1: But you can get into all sorts of different stuff
Speaker 1: on the Big Island and I'll tell you, nobody's gonna
Speaker 1: stop you for shooting a goat. They've got they've got plenty.
Speaker 4: Big islands cool because you can go from like desert
Speaker 4: to rainforest to sweating your ass to freeze in your ass.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's wild place, it is, it is, it's
Speaker 1: it's really cool. You know, did get into like the
Speaker 1: axis deer. You're gonna have to get over to Lanai
Speaker 1: or Maui, which super super awesome, and certainly love the
Speaker 1: people over there. So best best way to do it
Speaker 1: is get over there, explore and and and make new friends.
Speaker 3: Right on. Cool, That's that's all I've got right now.
Speaker 3: Let's keep it moving.
Speaker 1: Sounds good, okay, keeping the fun going.
Speaker 3: Oh wait, we're doing hot tip hot tip hop. What's that?
Speaker 6: That's all enjoying it.
Speaker 3: That's a great one, Phil, Thank you, man.
Speaker 2: I don't know, philm I gotta you know, I gotta
Speaker 2: do some more modern stuff, Brodie, I can't.
Speaker 3: I can't do that.
Speaker 1: In the seventies, I learned so much. I learned so much.
Speaker 1: Like part of me knows that that's a popular somewhere.
Speaker 5: There's no part of me that.
Speaker 3: It's got the stink on it.
Speaker 1: All right, So ahead of time, we asked you amazing
Speaker 1: folks listeners watching folks watching a home to send in
Speaker 1: a hot tip off to radio at themeaeater dot com.
Speaker 1: We have some molten hot tips sent into the inbox,
Speaker 1: but we painstakingly had narrowed down to just two submissions
Speaker 1: for this week's listener Hot tip off.
Speaker 2: Here we go, Brampton Byer, Welcome to another hot tip
Speaker 2: off coming to you from twenty below, Minnesota.
Speaker 11: No deer hunter should enter the woods without a roll
Speaker 11: of toilet paper. Not only is it great for those
Speaker 11: early morning gas station burritos, but you'll find no better
Speaker 11: tool for blood trailing than a simple role. As you go,
Speaker 11: mark your blood with a piece hanging on a tree branch,
Speaker 11: throw it on the ground wherever you can see it.
Speaker 11: If you lose track of that deer, you can always
Speaker 11: look back at your bread crumbs to see their direction
Speaker 11: of travel. Not only is it's highly visible, but it's
Speaker 11: fio and agreeable. It'll be gone on the next rainstorm
Speaker 11: and you never have to go back and pick it up.
Speaker 11: You so toilet paper to help you find your next year.
Speaker 6: Richard Chaikowski.
Speaker 12: Welcome to another hot tip off. My name is Richard,
Speaker 12: coming at you with this week's hot tip. If you
Speaker 12: ever spent any amount of time outdoors in the cold,
Speaker 12: you know keeping the feet warm is always a struggle.
Speaker 12: I was a dog sled guy for four years and
Speaker 12: keeping the toes warm was always a battle. So a
Speaker 12: friend taught me this. Take a little bit of cayenne
Speaker 12: pepper and you're just gonna sprinkle some on your toes
Speaker 12: and then your socks. This is gonna act as a
Speaker 12: vaso dilator and it's gonna keep your feet warm all day.
Speaker 12: This stuff works pretty much until you wash it off.
Speaker 12: I'm not a fan of how toe warmers feeling. My
Speaker 12: boots never got into the heated socks and all that jazz.
Speaker 12: So this stuff is an awesome, cheap alternative to keep
Speaker 12: the feet warm. This whole jar cost me four dollars
Speaker 12: your first time using it. Don't go dumping a whole
Speaker 12: jar of cayenne on your feet. Just sprinkle a little bit,
Speaker 12: see how it works for you and go from there.
Speaker 12: But try this out, get out there and enjoy toasty
Speaker 12: tolls all year long.
Speaker 1: All right, all right, So here's the fun part. We
Speaker 1: are going to vote on who won the hot tip off.
Speaker 1: The winner is gonna get this mule tree cell cam Seth.
Speaker 1: You got a lot of experience with stuff like this.
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts here.
Speaker 3: With the moultries?
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh they're sweet. I don't use them a whole lot,
Speaker 4: But I liked, like we I've went up in Alaska
Speaker 4: just looking over things at the shack.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so you're you're like human surveillance plus anything
Speaker 1: in a.
Speaker 4: Lot of deer on there, and it's just cool to
Speaker 4: see what's going on up there, like when I'm not.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, love it. Hot commodity. So boys, we're going
Speaker 1: Cayenne pepper or TP the kind they're kind of related,
Speaker 1: which is interesting.
Speaker 4: Also, I couldn't tell if Richard was like messing with
Speaker 4: us or if that's like a legit, he's not.
Speaker 1: He threw in vasal dilator, Yeah.
Speaker 5: I have leg I heard about it before, but I
Speaker 5: had forgotten about it.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go, Well, if that's the case, I'm gonna
Speaker 4: go with Richard because my feet freeze all the time.
Speaker 3: I struggle with it.
Speaker 5: I'm going with Richard too, because even if it doesn't
Speaker 5: keep your feet wet, you got some seasoning for your
Speaker 5: meat when you kill something in your back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not the same could be said for the TP,
Speaker 1: Like it's not. Even if your primary focus is blood trailing,
Speaker 1: it's good to have it in there, m hm, no
Speaker 1: matter what.
Speaker 5: But I think Brandon's is great I was just the
Speaker 5: whole time, I was thinking, what if it's real snowy
Speaker 5: out you can't see that thing? Mm hmm yeah, but
Speaker 5: then you'd be able to see the blood in the
Speaker 5: snow anyway.
Speaker 3: I guess eh, there you are. You know I'm sticking
Speaker 3: with Richard.
Speaker 1: All right, Richard, congratulations, you edge two real tree mobile
Speaker 1: cell cam here. Congrats Seth Morris approved.
Speaker 4: Yeah, your fun with it, all right, gang.
Speaker 1: So at our last interview of the day, Bruce, it's
Speaker 1: been a long time since you logged on. I'm sure
Speaker 1: I appreciate your patience. Hopefully you don't think that this
Speaker 1: is some kind of cockamami show that has no professionalism
Speaker 1: to it.
Speaker 13: I think you guys are doing fine, in fact, enjoying
Speaker 13: the process here the first time with you at least.
Speaker 13: But yeah, looking forward to a visit awesome.
Speaker 1: What is Floating Island International?
Speaker 6: We?
Speaker 13: First of all, we're dased here in Montana outside of
Speaker 13: Billings on a place called Shepherd on the Yellowstone and
Speaker 13: go Phillies. We're an invention company. We focus around environmental
Speaker 13: service product technology, including a floating island called the Biohaven.
Speaker 13: So that's been our primary business since two thousand and
Speaker 13: five today there's maybe twelve thousand islands all over the world.
Speaker 1: Well, that sounds like an entire podcast on its own,
Speaker 1: so I'm going to rain myself back in here. You
Speaker 1: how did this work? Did you get in contact with
Speaker 1: us over the methane ice house explosion?
Speaker 6: I did. I read that article and.
Speaker 13: It touched me real directly, because for the last six
Speaker 13: years we've been researching aquatic methane and today we have
Speaker 13: developed a data compendium. If anybody out there wants it,
Speaker 13: would like to do background on this topic, just send
Speaker 13: me an email info at Floating Island National dot com
Speaker 13: and I'll provide it.
Speaker 6: The bottom line here.
Speaker 13: Is that if you remember back what thirty forty years ago,
Speaker 13: harmphology blooms were a rare thing. Water was in reasonable shape,
Speaker 13: although I think Cuyahoga River catching on fire stuff like
Speaker 13: that still happened. But since then we've had this incredible,
Speaker 13: incredible increase in harmphlogy blooms and other forms of aquatic
Speaker 13: vegetation that can grow explosively, mostly connected with fertilizer agriculture.
Speaker 6: Even but today even healthy.
Speaker 13: Lakes are experiencing some of these harmphology blooms, and that
Speaker 13: organic material when it does ultimately die subtled into the
Speaker 13: bottom becomes sledge. No oxygen in the sledge. That's where
Speaker 13: methane occurs.
Speaker 5: And just real quick, Bruce, what you're talking about is
Speaker 5: like agricultural runoff into bodies of water that bring like
Speaker 5: a load of nutrients that then create a massive explosion
Speaker 5: in a plant growth in plant growth.
Speaker 13: Yeah, anything organic nice that ultimately results in sludge build
Speaker 13: up on the bottom of a waterway. And typically if
Speaker 13: this occurs over in a deep water setting, it's even
Speaker 13: more likely to result in methane. The you know, you're
Speaker 13: looking at here a scene of a floating island right
Speaker 13: here at Shepherd, actually on our research reservoir called fish
Speaker 13: Fry Lake. But in that instance, the island is about
Speaker 13: three feet thick. We walk on it, we work on it.
Speaker 13: We we rigidified the top of that island, so plants
Speaker 13: aren't happening there. But if you look, you'll see a
Speaker 13: native form of fresh water sponge that did colonize the island.
Speaker 13: It's I didn't even know we had fresh water a
Speaker 13: form of sponge here in Montana, but we do. And
Speaker 13: it's a filter feeder. It's helping clarify the water. Of course,
Speaker 13: the fish love it, they love the shade all that.
Speaker 1: Boy, let's just get my mind into a totally different
Speaker 1: frame right now. This is awesome stuff. So in your
Speaker 1: interpretation like what happened that that day on the on
Speaker 1: the lake.
Speaker 13: Well, you know, well I can't be one hundred percent.
Speaker 13: There's other potential explanations. But from what I understand is
Speaker 13: that there was a surge in organic material in the
Speaker 13: form of leaves that blew into the lake, and they
Speaker 13: may have been the ultimate organic material that cycled into methane.
Speaker 13: But the with a lid of ice over the lake,
Speaker 13: that methane is it ebulates up in bubble form.
Speaker 6: It can collect under the ice.
Speaker 13: So if you open a hole in that in the
Speaker 13: wrong spot, you can have a flume of methane.
Speaker 6: Ebulating up through the ice.
Speaker 13: And if you're in a contained setting like an ice hut,
Speaker 13: and there's any kind of ignition source, all you have
Speaker 13: to be is a half of one percent methane in
Speaker 13: the atmosphere five thousand ppm you know, technically is five
Speaker 13: thousand parts per million to flash, And that may have
Speaker 13: been what happened there. I do know this that this
Speaker 13: phenomenon of methane associated with aquatic sources is the single
Speaker 13: largest source of methane occurring on the planet. Half again,
Speaker 13: more methane comes off of water, then comes from oil
Speaker 13: and gas.
Speaker 6: Hey both?
Speaker 3: Uh what.
Speaker 5: Like as far as ice fisherman goes like, what kind
Speaker 5: of lake body of water is something like this more
Speaker 5: likely to happen? Like I'm assuming like a large body
Speaker 5: of water with with clear water, rocky bottom, like probably
Speaker 5: not as big of a risk.
Speaker 6: I think you're you're right on.
Speaker 13: If you you know, high mountain lake or someplace as
Speaker 13: far removed from nutrient loading, you know, it would be
Speaker 13: relatively safe. You can still have, under unusual circumstances a build.
Speaker 6: Up, but a build up of methane.
Speaker 13: But the point is that in a eutrophic or hypereutrophic
Speaker 13: water body, that's where you're going to have a lot
Speaker 13: more of that organic build up that results in thick
Speaker 13: layers of sludge. Like we have a reservoir here not
Speaker 13: far from us where sludge deposition is over eighty feet deep.
Speaker 13: That will be a methane factory.
Speaker 5: That's that Like that when you get that real black,
Speaker 5: smelly mud on the bottom of a pond, or whatever,
Speaker 5: that's a problem.
Speaker 6: Great point.
Speaker 13: Methane is colorless and odorless, but it's usually accompanied by
Speaker 13: hydrogen sulfide, which is the deep swamp biogas that you
Speaker 13: most of us have experienced at some point walking in
Speaker 13: the muck or whatever.
Speaker 6: The So if you smell that, be alert.
Speaker 13: Yeah, you might very well be in a situation where
Speaker 13: lots of methane is occurring.
Speaker 4: So, Bruce, if I was to punch a hole in
Speaker 4: the in a lake somewhere where this could happen. Other
Speaker 4: than like the smell, is there anything else that could
Speaker 4: you know, show signs that there could be methane under
Speaker 4: the ice? Do you have a cigarette in your mouth?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 4: Cigarette, okay, but I'm getting ready to light my little
Speaker 4: buddy eater.
Speaker 13: Well, start by looking at the ice. If you see
Speaker 13: bubbles in it, big bubbles especially, then be alert to
Speaker 13: the fact that they could be that could be methane.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 13: But and if the ice is murky and cloudy and
Speaker 13: you can't see through it, that's an indication that light
Speaker 13: isn't making its way through the ice. This methane only
Speaker 13: occurs under in the absence of oxygen. So if you've
Speaker 13: got if you're you know, just drilled the hole over
Speaker 13: a deep point in the lake and you've got a
Speaker 13: fish fire. If you can identify fish on the bottom,
Speaker 13: right against the bottom, that's a good sign that you're
Speaker 13: not anaerobic, you're not without oxygen, you're not in a
Speaker 13: methane hot spot. In fact, today there's a sonar technology
Speaker 13: that can actually work through the ice, and that would
Speaker 13: be ideal. I mean looking and verifying whether you have
Speaker 13: fish on the bottom or not before you punch a hole. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 13: that would be the way to go. But ultimately be
Speaker 13: smart about it. Look at the eyes. Let it tell
Speaker 13: you what's going on. You've got clear ice and maybe
Speaker 13: some bubbles, but not many.
Speaker 6: You're probably in good shape.
Speaker 13: The fact that light is getting through that ice means
Speaker 13: that there's still oxygen being generated by the green algae
Speaker 13: that occurs within the water, the green fidal plank. There
Speaker 13: are good forms of LG as well as negative bunch
Speaker 13: is the message.
Speaker 1: There, kind of like our political discussion. Bruce, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for being on. I'll let you know and
Speaker 1: and everybody else that, uh, there is a go fundme.
Speaker 1: Uh what is it? It's a give send go set
Speaker 1: up for the family of the recent ice fishing accident
Speaker 1: Vermont Joel Shepherd and his daughters Kaylee and Emily at
Speaker 1: Give Sendgo dot com forward slash Shepherd Family. If you
Speaker 1: got a couple of bucks to push their way that
Speaker 1: that'd be great. And then Bruce also, uh, my mom's
Speaker 1: just down the road from you out there in Shepherd.
Speaker 1: So yeah, of this spring, I'm gonna come pastry in
Speaker 1: and go take.
Speaker 13: I'll tell you what I had my brother in law
Speaker 13: who had never caught a fish. He was here last September.
Speaker 13: He's from England, and I took him fishing with this
Speaker 13: monster big surface lur and I thought, well, yeah, it
Speaker 13: should be fun. Anyway, he gets the flame this big
Speaker 13: playground and he caught two beasts between four and five
Speaker 13: pumps in the space of an hour and a half.
Speaker 1: But hey, thank you so much for being on Floating
Speaker 1: Island International. If you have any questions for Bruce and
Speaker 1: want to learn more, go to Floating Island International dot com.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 13: Yep, thank you guys, thank you.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 1: That's awesome.
Speaker 2: Phil you want to do another round of you know,
Speaker 2: we we have gotten a lot of questions like we
Speaker 2: did get one regarding the video game stream.
Speaker 3: It is happening.
Speaker 2: I just don't have I don't have a date yet
Speaker 2: because I want to make sure that's fun for people
Speaker 2: to watch, not just fun for me. So but they
Speaker 2: keep your eyes posted. It will have than this year
Speaker 2: at some point. But thanks, thanks for catching up. A
Speaker 2: lot of people say they're gonna try the cayenne pepper trick.
Speaker 3: Uh today? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you should right right in before Seth dumps
Speaker 2: it on his on his feet.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: There was a running joke about whose mustache is better,
Speaker 2: Seth's or cows. Do we have an in room consensus?
Speaker 1: Uh, cows is more seasoned. I think you're talking to
Speaker 1: two guys who probably don't care that much. Michael Seth
Speaker 1: is asking how trapping is going. Haven't been trapping. I
Speaker 1: like to do a lot of my trapping in the
Speaker 1: either the earlier parts of the winter or in the
Speaker 1: spring for beaver.
Speaker 3: Ye get going right now.
Speaker 4: Everything's just so frozen and covered in snow.
Speaker 1: It's just my hands hurt.
Speaker 3: Pine Martin.
Speaker 4: Trapping would be great right now if you had a
Speaker 4: snowmobile and you know, could get out there. But not
Speaker 4: doing much right now.
Speaker 2: Travis is also asking if you'll be back on the
Speaker 2: Montana Walleye Circuit anytime soon.
Speaker 4: I wish, I wish. If I get time this summer,
Speaker 4: I'll do some tournaments. But I just don't have I'm
Speaker 4: always gone, yeap, just gone too.
Speaker 1: Hard to get rid of them. Yeah, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 1: I got an update here if folks are interested in
Speaker 1: helping out some of our former federally employed stewards of
Speaker 1: the land. Old Doc Randall Williams sent me a go
Speaker 1: fundme for Rosalie, and Rosalie is was just recently laid off.
Speaker 1: She had just switched jobs in the forest Service, so
Speaker 1: she was in that probationary period even though she's been
Speaker 1: a forest service employee for a long time. But she's
Speaker 1: two months before her due date and just lost income
Speaker 1: as well as insurance. And I believe Corey and Brodie,
Speaker 1: you guys can probably talk about the importance of insurance
Speaker 1: when when mom's about to cave out.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't you needed not say that like insurance?
Speaker 5: Find another way to put that cal You've got a
Speaker 5: serious girlfriend.
Speaker 3: You need to take that thing seriously.
Speaker 1: So anyway, if you check out go fund me, there's
Speaker 1: a support Rosalie go fund me, and folks could could
Speaker 1: definitely benefit from a couple extra bucks on that one
Speaker 1: out side of that gang. Remember to come see us
Speaker 1: at pheasant Fest that's coming up here in March in
Speaker 1: Kansas City. That's the annual p f q F annual gathering.
Speaker 1: Always a really fantastic opportunity to get a bunch of
Speaker 1: people in the room and get just hit over the
Speaker 1: head with really good conservation work. I'm garn Darntea. There's
Speaker 1: gonna be a lot of NRCS farm bill talk during
Speaker 1: the pheasant Fest this year. That Friday, March fifth, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be joining Kansas BHA out in De Soto, Kansas
Speaker 1: for just kind of a big open to the public
Speaker 1: round table, let you know about what BHA and Kansas
Speaker 1: BHA are working on. And then Sunday at Pheasant Fest,
Speaker 1: I'm joining Pheasants Forever plus the North American Grouse Partnership
Speaker 1: to talk about this incredibly awesome program regarding endangered species
Speaker 1: called the Lesser Prairie Chicken land Owner Alliance and Lesser
Speaker 1: Prairie Checking Man. Fantastic game bird that you know, the
Speaker 1: mountain men folks they used to eat, so many of
Speaker 1: them get sick of They get sick of them and
Speaker 1: now they're on the endangered species list and that happened
Speaker 1: on our watch. Lots we can be doing about that,
Speaker 1: and that goes into saving America's grass lands. Outro fellas,
Speaker 1: who I think we just need to hit it again, Like,
Speaker 1: if you're invested in your public lance that in absolutely
Speaker 1: no way puts you crossways with any administration. That's your
Speaker 1: right as an American citizen.
Speaker 5: Yeah, stop dwelling on whoops the results of election, and
Speaker 5: dwell on what needs to be dealt with now.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And there's a lot of folks out there like
Speaker 4: myself who like a lot of what the current administration
Speaker 4: is doing, but when it comes to their stance on
Speaker 4: federal lands, it's just like a a no go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you get to say, hey, pump the brakes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like what you're doing over here so they can keep
Speaker 1: it up.
Speaker 4: It's okay to like what they're doing, and it's okay
Speaker 4: to not like what they're doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just not okay to sit on your button
Speaker 1: do nothing if this stuff matters to you. If you
Speaker 1: do that, don't write in anymore. I hope you enjoyed
Speaker 1: the show this week. I know we covered a lot
Speaker 1: of heavy stuff, but we you know, we're right here
Speaker 1: with you. This stuff means a heck of a lot
Speaker 1: to us. I know it means a heck of a
Speaker 1: lot to you, which is why you watch these fishing
Speaker 1: and hunting oriented things. So we're gonna stay on top
Speaker 1: of it as much as we can. Please stay in
Speaker 1: touch and we will too. So thanks again. We'll talk
Speaker 1: to you next week.