WEBVTT - Ep. 226: Operation Russian Snag 0:00:05.559 --> 0:00:08.400 It is almost overnight, So they just showed up. They 0:00:08.440 --> 0:00:08.959 just showed up. 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:11.200 Were y'all immediately suspicious of that? 0:00:11.360 --> 0:00:12.039 Yeah. 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:15.360 On the last episode of Bear Grease, we learned about 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:19.280 the black market caviar trade in the United States and 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:23.200 how the number one source is the American paddlefish, an 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:26.560 ancient beast older than the dinosaurs that can reach up 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:30.120 to one hundred and sixty pounds, and females often produce 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:33.640 up to twenty percent of their body weight in black eggs, 0:00:34.240 --> 0:00:37.440 almost worth their weight in gold. We've learned about how 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:42.080 the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife created a controversial program that 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:45.559 allowed anglers to donate their eggs to the state. Then 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:49.680 caviar was made and sold on the legal market to 0:00:49.840 --> 0:00:54.120 raise money for conservation, and it raised over ten million dollars. 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:58.320 But this week we're transitioning in the chronology of the 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:03.120 caviar black market, and the players were completely shocking to me. 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:07.120 It was none other than the Russians. This is a 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:10.959 wild story about the cultural value of caviat and what 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:15.039 some people were willing to do to get it. I 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:17.040 really doubt that you're gonna want to miss this one, 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:20.679 and I want to let you know that soon you'll 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:24.480 be able to watch video. That's right, video of the 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:28.039 Bear Grease Render Podcast, which is our every other week 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:31.840 podcast where we dissect the actual bear Grease podcast. I 0:01:31.920 --> 0:01:35.320 know it's confusing. All this you'll be able to see 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:39.600 on meat Eater's new YouTube channel with just podcasts on it. 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:42.360 Brent will be there in his overalls, and I'll probably 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:45.960 be wearing a coonskin cap, probably even have some music too. 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:49.160 It's gonna be a lot of fun. Onto the episode. 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:52.320 They knew we were watching them, We knew they were 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:54.680 watching us, and we'd go down and sit down on 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:56.560 the bank and just talk to them. You know, they 0:01:56.960 --> 0:01:59.120 are jolly people, a lot of them. 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:02.240 It's just a man. They wanted them paddlefree schick. 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:06.240 They wanted that caviar at all costs, and it's kind 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:15.440 of like we ever doing it. Catch us if you can. 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:21.400 My name is Klay Nukem, and this is the Bear 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:26.440 Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:30.160 for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:34.320 story of Americans who lived their lives close to the land. 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:40.720 Presented by FHF gear, American made purpose built hunting and 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:44.280 fishing gear as designed to be as rugged as the 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:56.640 place as we explore. On November twenty seventh, nineteen eighty five, 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:00.760 America's awareness of the Cold War with the then Soviet 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:05.400 Union reached an all time high after almost forty years 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:10.799 of jockeying for global power in this ideological and geopolitical struggle. 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:15.440 That November date was the release of a hit box 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:18.640 office movie, bo Gets out of the Corner Island. 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:19.400 Now, What's moves? 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:22.720 Driver backing Rocky Babo up with a jab, and Balbolla 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:23.680 is not staying on. 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:25.520 That is because in a long job of. 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:26.200 The Russian. 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:40.480 Tiger, Rocky four starred Sylvester Stallone as Rocky, the virtuous, simple, 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:45.640 tough as nails American hero pitted against the villainous antagonists. 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:50.880 Actor Hans Lundgren planned the tall, ridiculously good looking and 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:56.280 jacked Russian boxer Ivan Drago, who had killed Apollo Creed. 0:03:56.960 --> 0:04:01.000 It was an epic battle portrayed as good versus evil, 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:03.760 especially if you lived in America. 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:13.160 Driver, continuing to punish Rocky balbois the throng. Rocky Balboa, 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:16.280 who's on the corner like a rag tod on to 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:19.320 firstwe minutes to Rocky Balboa. He's not only fighting what 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:21.839 appears to be an invincible opponent, he's. 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:24.120 Also fighting a very hostile cloud. It's been a one 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:25.160 sided fight so far. 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:26.080 You need to take more than that. 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:29.680 If you recall, Rocky had agreed to fight the Russian 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:34.520 in Moscow. Adrian. Rocky's wife knew that that was a mistake, 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:38.160 and most of us did too. The viewer spends most 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:42.279 of the film anxious about Rocky fighting this guy in Russia, 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:45.479 wondering how he's going to pull it off. Now, it 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:48.400 might be a stretch to say that this scene played 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:52.200 out in real life in Oklahoma in the two thousands, 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:55.640 just the roles were reversed. The fight took place in 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:59.520 the USA, But the boxers in the Ring of the 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:03.920 Black the Arctic Caviar World were from the former Soviet Union, 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:07.080 and we'll learn that often the Oklahoma game wardens and 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:11.560 federal agents pitted against these Russians in this boxing match 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:14.280 on the River felt like they were box and Ivan 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:17.960 Drago an almost unbeatable foe. But to go back a 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:22.960 little more into real history, not Hollywood history, the Soviet 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:26.960 Union would collapse in nineteen ninety one, and the ripples 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:29.640 would roll into Oklahoma's fisheries. 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:36.760 Behind me stands a wall that encircles the free sectors 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:40.720 of this city, part of a vast system of barriers 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:46.760 that divides the entire continent of Europe. General Secretary Gorbachev. 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:51.200 If you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:57.120 Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come 0:05:57.160 --> 0:06:07.440 here to this gate, Mister gorba Open this gate. Mister 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:10.920 Gerbashov teared down this wall. 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:21.479 The last thing on Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev's mind 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:24.159 was how tearing down the wall and the collapse of 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:28.880 the Soviet Union would affect the biologically rich American rivers 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:33.640 of the Midwest, teeming with the ancient polydon spathulah, the 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:37.760 majestic spoonbill, or the paddlefish. It seems like it might 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:39.800 have been the first thing they considered, but it wasn't. 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:45.960 I'm joking, But it's interesting when global politics intersect wildlife management, 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:49.360 and it did just that. We learned that a trade 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:52.599 embargo with Iran and the collapse of the Soviet Union 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:57.320 essentially shut down the sturgeon caviar coming into the United States. 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:00.520 Sturgeon caviar is the best in the world. K caviar 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:04.039 had been important cultural staple in much of Europe for 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:08.280 over one thousand years. Their rich, sturgeon filled rivers had 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:12.040 made caviar as common on the tables as butter in 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:15.360 many areas. That's true, and because of that, it made 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:19.600 its way deeply into the culinary and even religious culture 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:25.480 of Europe. But the rivers were overfished, sturgeon populations collapsed, 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:29.920 trade embargoes came on the world, the Soviet Union collapsed, 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:33.360 and the world was now looking for a new source 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:36.680 of black caviar. That is the pivot point of this 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:40.480 whole story, and it didn't take them long to learn 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:46.560 about our unexploited Midwestern rivers rich with caviar. But these 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:50.080 Europeans weren't the first ones to illegally trade paddlefish eggs 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:52.920 in Oklahoma. On the last episode, we heard about a 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:55.840 bunch of good old boys from Oklahoma doing it. The 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:58.320 stuff can be worth up to thirty five dollars an ounce, 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:01.080 which adds up to over five hundred dollars a pound. 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:05.280 This stuff is expensive. We also learned that paddlefish caviar 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:10.000 is in the top three to four caviars in the world. 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:15.440 The demand was there. This black market American story starts 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:19.320 in the late nineteen eighties when paddlefish caviar first began 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:22.960 to be exploited and illegally sold to fill in the 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:27.480 gaps left by this global caviar vacuum. You'll remember game 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:31.320 Warden Keith Green on the first episode talking about catching 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:35.240 Billy Wishart on Fort Gibson Lake and the incredible story 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:39.040 of redemption of Billy later working with the Department as 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:44.040 their lead legal egg producer. That was just part one 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:49.760 of our story. Jeff Brown is a retired Oklahoma game warden. 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:54.120 He's an incredible guy and a legendary lawman in the 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:59.000 Sooner State. He spent his career protecting Oklahoma wildlife, but 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:02.880 in Eastern Oklahoma, a paddlefish were the dominant player in 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:08.960 his career. Here's Jeff introducing us to Operation Russian Snag. 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:13.600 We really got ramped up and started and started Operation 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:16.080 Russian Snag. That was that was the you know the 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:20.120 federal government, federal agencies, they like to put names on everything. 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:24.320 So we come up with with Operation Russian Snag and 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:27.800 that started in about two thousand and eight. It had 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:29.880 been going on we'd been working on for a couple 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:32.880 of years, so let's say two thousand and five through 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:34.839 twenty fifteen. 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:37.920 So from for about a decade. Yep, it was hot 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:38.360 and heavy. 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:40.960 It was eighteen it was eighteen twenty hours a day 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:43.719 as far as I know, with the exception of one 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:46.559 fishery up on the Missouri River. And there's no other 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:48.880 place you can sport fish for paddlefish like you can 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:49.640 here in Oklahoma. 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:51.600 So it all had to do with the regulation. And 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:54.439 this is kind of the paddlefish hub of the US, 0:09:54.559 --> 0:09:55.040 is that right? 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:58.320 Yeah, at the time, we had a we went through 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:00.800 a progression of limits, so there was a period of 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:02.360 time there where you could catch a fish a day, 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:05.000 so you could care if you fished every day, you 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:08.440 catch three hundred and sixty five fish. Well, they would 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:10.760 show up with ten or fifteen people and that's how 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:11.640 many fish they took. 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:12.199 That. 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:15.080 It was a. 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:18.920 Collaboration between the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:23.640 ODWC Oklham Department Wildlife or Enforcement Division. It was just 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:30.199 a concerted effort to address this group of fishermen and 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:31.640 try to figure. 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:32.880 Out just exactly what was going on. 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:36.840 We knew that there was commercial nexus there, we weren't 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:39.240 one hundred percent sure what it consisted of. 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:44.040 It's tricky business in modern times telling the true stories 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:50.840 of how things actually happen, especially when it involves other nationalities. Oddly, 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:54.520 in twenty twenty four, telling the story that places Russia 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:59.200 in a fairly negative light is socially acceptable because of 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:03.400 the general disapproval in the West of Vladimir Putin and 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:07.360 Russia's war against Ukraine. I've even heard that Brent Reeves' 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:10.480 squirrel hunted with Putin. That's not true, but you should 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:14.440 see my Instagram meme. It's hilarious. But seriously, it's not 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:18.480 lost on me that if this story was about another nationality, 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:22.920 perhaps it would be viewed as inappropriate to directly talk 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:26.680 about the offenders and make assumptions about their culture. I'd 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:29.280 just like to say from the start that I'm certain 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:33.000 I don't fully understand the dynamics of the situation, these 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:37.320 people's culture and their motivations, And my starting place is 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:40.360 an assumption that the majority of Russians residing in the 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:45.360 United States today are hardworking, honest people. But in this story, 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:48.800 a select group of them, we're breaking the law, and 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:51.760 that's an interesting story, so we're going to talk about it. 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:53.040 Here's Jeff. 0:11:56.760 --> 0:12:00.840 I started September one, nineteen eighty five, went to work 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:03.880 as a game warden for the Wildlife Department. They shipped 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:07.280 me to western Oklahoma and I stayed out there five years. 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:10.280 I'm from this part of the state, from down around Tulsa, 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:14.199 So the first opportunity I got, I moved back close 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:18.960 to home. I've been here in this area since September 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:24.400 of ninety and immediately was immersed into the paddlefish wars. 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:25.520 As we officially called them. 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:29.640 We spent and I say we, I mean game wardens 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:33.160 in this district overall in the springtime. That's all we 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:36.560 did was paddlefish work. That's all we did. You know, 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:41.839 we'd make literally thousands of cases a year just on paddlefish. 0:12:42.120 --> 0:12:45.280 You know, people not tagging their fish. You have to 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:47.800 tag your fish, you have to fill out a recorded game, 0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:51.200 you have to check in your fish, people catching over limits, 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:54.560 the whole gamut. But most of our work was done 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:58.960 on paddlefish enforcement in this district. At full Staff District one, 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:03.040 which includes northeast Oklahoma. Here ten counties in the northeast, 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:08.320 which ninety percent of the paddlefish resources and where the 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:11.480 sport fishing takes place. At full staff, they're including the 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:15.360 district captain. There was seventeen of us and man, it 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:17.880 was all hands on deck for three months. That's all 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:21.680 we did. There was one one year there where we 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:25.040 I want to say, there was like twenty some thousand 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:28.520 paddlefish permits were issued and the very next year that 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:31.600 doubled in size in the number of battlefish. 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:33.360 In the nineteen nineties and. 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:37.120 Eight it is when we really saw the paddlefish caviard 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:38.880 deal really coming into play. 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:43.560 So in the nineteen nineties, most of your violations with 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:48.840 paddlefish were just just recreational fishermen, just like catching too 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:53.080 many fish. Yeah, then you started to see actual poachers 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:56.199 taking their paddlefish into Arkansas. 0:13:56.960 --> 0:13:59.480 In the nineties, we saw that going on too, but 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:03.800 it was local people doing it. So we started really 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:08.400 paying attention to people poaching paddlefish for their caviar and 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:12.480 caught several groups resident people who were doing just that. 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:17.040 We had some laws introduced and passed that were made 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:20.160 it illegal to possess over so many pounds of caviar. 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:23.040 And when that happened, we didn't have to wait for 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:25.160 them to leave the state. As soon as they loaded 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:27.920 a vehicle up and looked like they were running, as 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:29.720 soon as they got on the interstate like they were 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:33.240 headed out. We would stop them anywhere from an eighteen wheeler. 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:36.480 We've stopped eighteen wheelers and gone through them, and they'd 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:39.480 have the caviar hidden underneath the vegetables and a roofer 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:42.280 truck or whatever. We just unload them on the side 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:45.120 of the highway and take their caviar and ride them 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:47.560 a bunch of tickets and let them go. There's a 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:52.400 whole progression there when we kind of waded through the locals. 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:55.520 We called them above is affectionately, just for lack of 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:59.480 anything else, you know, the local guys we kind of 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:03.000 got all. So that waded through, caught all of those 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:05.760 that we knew the players, and sent some of them 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:09.760 to prison. Some of them were some bad actors, but we. 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:12.840 Went some to prison. So some of these guys were violating. 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:16.720 Oh yeah, yeah, or or put so many restrictions on 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:19.880 them that they couldn't fish anymore, maybe suspend their fishing license, 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:21.960 you know, made it so that if they showed back 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:24.520 up on the riverbank, they could get in trouble. 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:34.920 In the nineteen nineties, most of the paddlefish violators, including 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:39.120 egg poachers, were locals, and the department felt like they 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:42.120 had the situation under control. But in the early two 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:46.920 thousands they took notice of an interesting change in demographics. 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:49.920 In one year, it went from like twenty some thousand 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:53.240 paddlefish permits issued to like fifty thousand. It doubled in 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:56.520 one year. Wow, we went through the through all the 0:15:56.520 --> 0:15:59.800 paddlefish permit holders. It's one thing good about it. We 0:15:59.880 --> 0:16:03.800 go through there and compared our numbers to the number 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:06.760 of Eastern Europeans that had a paddlefish permit, and it 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:08.760 was like at one time its high as like five 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:12.520 hundred Eastern Europeans had paddlefish permits from all from various 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:15.520 states all over all over the United States are coming here. 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:19.000 So you know, that's something we realized we was up against. 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:22.720 How did you first did you come aware? I mean, 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:24.600 is it just like a game ward and walking down 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:27.440 the bank checking fishing license talking to people And for 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:31.800 decades since the dawn of time, it was people from 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:33.840 Oklahoma that your meeting, and all of a sudden you 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:36.080 shake hands with the guy from Russia. 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:39.280 Yeah, and they and they've got Russian sounding names. I mean, 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:41.240 for lack of a better way of. 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:43.360 Having, did that like phase in or was it just 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:46.520 like all of a sudden, It's just like the officer, 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:49.240 did you realize that half the people we talked to 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:49.960 they were Russian? 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:51.040 It was almost overnight. 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:53.480 So they just showed up, They just showed up. Were 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:55.560 y'all immediately suspicious of that? 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:59.200 Yeah, And it's a cultural thing to them, you know, 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:03.040 it's a big deal. And they they would and we 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:05.760 talked to several of them, and they tell us all 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:09.560 the all the healing properties and and how all the 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:13.399 great things that that, how good they were for your body, 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:17.480 you know, to eat these eat these fish eggs, and 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:18.440 they loved it. 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:21.080 It's just it's clear that it meant more to them 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:22.960 in their culture than it did in ours. 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:23.160 Oh. 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:27.520 Absolutely, So they were willing to sacrifice anything they found, 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:29.960 like a bird nest on the ground when they came up. 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:32.960 And up until then, all the all the local people 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:36.879 we dealt with was taking the pattlefish and and running 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:40.840 it through uh commercial fishermen in other states. They weren't 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:45.239 using it themselves. The Eastern Europeans. Not only were they 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:47.320 catching it for themselves, but they were catching it for 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:51.560 all their extended family. There were there were big Russian 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:54.560 communities and cities. And the way it was put to 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:59.080 us by other federal agencies that we contacted to help 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:02.679 us with this was that you know, they were as 0:18:02.720 --> 0:18:06.840 a community, they were real tight. All the Eastern European 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:10.840 community in Tulsa had real tight connections to all the 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:14.560 other Eastern European communities and vice versa. And when the 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:20.040 when the Soviet Union disintegrated as as a block, a 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:23.800 lot of these people were displaced. They immigrated to the 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:28.520 United States to get away from persecution or whatever whatever 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:31.080 they were doing, and the old Soviet Union wasn't going 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:33.240 to work for them anymore. And they immigrated to the 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:36.959 United States and with that they brought their culture, and 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:40.040 part of that culture was with caviat and they found 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:44.719 a really ready source for it, and man, they started 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:45.920 exploiting it just overnight. 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:48.320 I wonder how much awareness they would have had, because 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:51.240 you know, people coming out of the Soviet Union going 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:54.960 to different big cities in the US, and these people 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:57.800 end up in Tulsa and they and they start working 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:00.760 and doing what they do and maybe have business or whatever. 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:03.919 And then I wonder how aware they were if they 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:08.800 were like, man, spoon bill populations are good in the Midwest, 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:11.840 especially over there in Oklahoma, let's move there, I mean, 0:19:12.320 --> 0:19:14.480 or if it was like they just ended up in 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:17.679 Tulsa by random chance, let's say, and then they're like, 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:20.840 holy cow, the hill abilities aren't using the eggs? 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:23.520 Yeah, you know, no, And that was a big part 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:25.560 of It's kind of like all of a sudden, somebody 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:28.000 threw a light switch on and they realized what they 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:29.240 had or what they were close to. 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:29.920 Yeah. 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:33.560 Well, then the Eastern European community in Tulsa would bring 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:38.399 in members from other Eastern European communities and other states, 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:42.520 and we started seeing lots of Colorado people, lots of 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:44.440 people from Minnesota. 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:47.840 We made some good cases on those from the Northwest. 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:55.520 These people had relocated in various big cities, and when 0:19:55.560 --> 0:20:00.320 they realized that Oklahoma had caviar and the game was on, 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:01.360 they were on it. 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:02.240 They were on it. 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:05.280 A lot of it was for their own personal consumption, 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:09.119 but then they started peddling it amongst themselves. 0:20:09.160 --> 0:20:09.560 A lot. 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:14.240 We noticed that when they would come here and they 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:17.840 would they would line the bank and be fishing and 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:21.560 say a local person down the creek there, down the 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:24.080 bank there caught a paddlefish, and they'd go over there 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:26.320 and try to buy it from him. We knew that 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:29.040 we had a problem, and we was trying to get 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:32.160 ahead of it, and and it took a long time. 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:34.879 And what we found out is that we were fighting 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:37.159 a losing battle and the only way we were going 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:40.920 to get this stop probably was to legislate it to 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:43.520 the point of where it would make it too hard 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:44.360 for him to do it. 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:54.800 Like Rocky Balboa, by the start of the second round 0:20:54.800 --> 0:20:58.080 with Drago, he knew he was in trouble. So did 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:01.919 the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife. Here's some more details on 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:04.119 how the paddlefish wore proceeded. 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:09.679 Starting out, there were we identified three different groups or 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:12.639 family groups that we felt like we're really involved in it, 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:17.320 and they were in the Tulsa area, and even to 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:20.160 the extent that people would not come, people that came 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:23.440 from out of state would go through them. They would 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:26.680 either either stay with them while they were here or 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:31.760 or took direction from them, and we would we would 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:36.119 just sit and watch them fish. And one particular group, 0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:39.280 there were several family members they would show up on 0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:41.960 the river bank and it was all business. They had 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:45.880 some of the Somebody was in charge of fishing. Somebody 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:48.520 was in charge of checking the fish when they got 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:51.600 it to the bank to see whether it had eggs 0:21:51.640 --> 0:21:53.679 in it or not. Another one was in charge of 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:56.280 ripping the eggs out of the fish. Another one was 0:21:56.280 --> 0:21:58.440 in charge of getting the eggs to the truck. I 0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:01.280 mean it was an assembly line. Once those eggs made 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:07.240 it to a vehicle, man, boom, they're gone. And they 0:22:07.320 --> 0:22:11.040 had counter surveillance. They would have vehicles that would run interference. 0:22:11.480 --> 0:22:15.560 They knew that we were watching them, and they would 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:18.520 have vehicles that would cut us off when we were 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:21.119 trying to follow them. They went out of their way 0:22:21.359 --> 0:22:24.640 not to get caught. When all this started, we went 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:27.320 to the FBI to see if we could get some help, 0:22:28.040 --> 0:22:29.880 and they weren't interested in helping us because there wasn't 0:22:29.960 --> 0:22:30.720 enough money involved. 0:22:31.119 --> 0:22:31.960 It wasn't a big. 0:22:31.920 --> 0:22:34.639 Enough fish for them to fry, so to speak. But 0:22:34.720 --> 0:22:37.320 they did tell us say, look, we're not surprised at 0:22:37.320 --> 0:22:40.439 all because and it had to do with the system 0:22:40.440 --> 0:22:43.080 they were brought up in, you know, the old Soviet block. 0:22:43.560 --> 0:22:46.320 That's how they if they wanted to be affluent and 0:22:46.400 --> 0:22:48.840 have money in the old Soviet block, they had to 0:22:48.920 --> 0:22:52.439 learn how to scheme the system. And they brought that 0:22:52.480 --> 0:22:53.840 with them to the United States. 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:54.359 Wow. 0:22:54.920 --> 0:22:57.520 And you know, and we go back to talk about 0:22:57.560 --> 0:23:00.560 how organized they were. There was one particular ular guy 0:23:01.000 --> 0:23:03.720 that we kind of recognized as the king pin out 0:23:03.720 --> 0:23:06.919 of the whole thing. And there may be some Eastern 0:23:06.960 --> 0:23:09.720 Europeans that would come down here from Minnesota or whatever, 0:23:10.280 --> 0:23:12.840 and so and so would be on the bank down there. 0:23:13.400 --> 0:23:17.720 Every Eastern European who was here fishing would go and 0:23:18.280 --> 0:23:21.000 for lack of a better word, and pay homage to him. 0:23:21.040 --> 0:23:23.800 They would go up to him and someone would bow 0:23:23.840 --> 0:23:26.880 to him. Really yeah, And and come to find out 0:23:26.960 --> 0:23:29.800 that a lot of these people were real big in 0:23:29.840 --> 0:23:33.080 the Russian Orthodox Church. And I think this guy was 0:23:33.080 --> 0:23:33.800