Speaker 1: From Meat Eaters World Headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This is
Speaker 1: Col's Week in Review with Ryan cal Callahan, presented by
Speaker 1: First Light. Here's cal. If you're going to criticize the
Speaker 1: conservation community for something, it might be nimbiism. We hunters
Speaker 1: and anglers can be quick to say no to a
Speaker 1: new energy development, or a mining project or condo expansion
Speaker 1: on our favorite piece of land. But no matter how
Speaker 1: oppositional we might be, another community has beat us by
Speaker 1: a mile. Across the Atlantic, activists defeated the routing of
Speaker 1: an electrical transmission line from England to Ireland through Freshwater
Speaker 1: West Beach in Pembrokeshire. That's in Wales. Now you may
Speaker 1: be asking what are they trying to protect? Does the
Speaker 1: beach hold a fragile population of seabirds? Are there archaeological
Speaker 1: artifacts beneath the ground? No, this is where the fictional
Speaker 1: character Dobby was buried in the fictional movie Harry Potter
Speaker 1: and the Deathly Hallows. That's right. The UK National Grid
Speaker 1: decided to reroute the very real Green Link Interconnector power
Speaker 1: line with the cost of five hundred eighty one million dollars,
Speaker 1: so that it won't go underneath a pile of rocks
Speaker 1: Harry Potter fans have stacked on the beach to commemorate
Speaker 1: the make believe resting place of a house Elf from
Speaker 1: a children's novel. After a project manager mentioned the route
Speaker 1: of the interconnector on an energy and industry podcast, the
Speaker 1: utility provider was flooded with protest calls. Planners created a
Speaker 1: new route for the line that passes close to a
Speaker 1: Bronze Age archaeological site that exists in reality, where real
Speaker 1: human remains are buried. I'm no Harry Potter scholar, but
Speaker 1: researching old Dobby on Wikipedia, I'm seeing that he was
Speaker 1: a pretty selfless fellow who saved Harry and the crew
Speaker 1: from a horde of death eaters. If you know any
Speaker 1: of that was real, which it is not, you know,
Speaker 1: there could be some consideration for his fictional resting place.
Speaker 1: Maybe we can use this as an example of people
Speaker 1: coming together around real things in the real world and
Speaker 1: emphasizing habitat and wilderness in the long term over the
Speaker 1: short term gains. Maybe even just go out and pick
Speaker 1: up some trash off the ground, you know, probably a
Speaker 1: little more productive than rerouting a cable around a fictional
Speaker 1: house Healthscrave, Dopey hash no Masta Dopey is a free LM.
Speaker 1: This week we've got bears, We've got the Public Lands Desk,
Speaker 1: Dog Hunting Update, NASA and what is it worth? But first,
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you about my week. And my
Speaker 1: week was spent in the smoke of the fire season
Speaker 1: working on my public comments to submit for the wilderness
Speaker 1: review being conducted by the BLM, US Fish, Wildlife Service
Speaker 1: and National Park Service. We are not told why this
Speaker 1: review is happening, but it does provide an opportunity for
Speaker 1: us to weigh in now. Comments were due last Friday,
Speaker 1: the fourteenth, and there's a ton of speculation out out
Speaker 1: there as to why this administration is conducting the review.
Speaker 1: Here are the titles of the policies reviewed again BLM,
Speaker 1: Bureau of Land Management, US Fish and Wildlife Service, and
Speaker 1: the National Park Service are the agencies. The policies in
Speaker 1: question include the management of Wilderness study areas that's BLM,
Speaker 1: Considering lands with wilderness characteristics that's BLM, Management of Designated
Speaker 1: Wilderness areas BLM, Wilderness Stewardship, National Park Service and Wilderness
Speaker 1: Administration and Resource stewardship that's Fish and Wildlife Service. It's
Speaker 1: vague and with a broad deregulation agenda that the intent
Speaker 1: here is to get public comments supporting dismantling wilderness basically
Speaker 1: in the name of access. So as we've talked about
Speaker 1: many times on the show and many times here in
Speaker 1: the last six months. Access is great, but it comes
Speaker 1: in many, many forms, and we lose if we let
Speaker 1: one form of access become the definition for all access.
Speaker 1: Access is a management tool, not just in terms of
Speaker 1: where people go, but where people don't go, really efficiently
Speaker 1: and fast, right, So implications as to how we manage
Speaker 1: wildlife and keep wildlife around specifically, we had that great
Speaker 1: example on the Blue Mountains Travel Management Plan last week,
Speaker 1: and we've talked a lot when we've spoken about the
Speaker 1: ESA here. The return to grizzly bears to state management
Speaker 1: for example, which again I think is a great thing,
Speaker 1: and I would be putting in for the well regulated
Speaker 1: opportunity to hunt grizzly bears in the lower forty eight.
Speaker 1: But in order to have that well regulated, sustainable hunt,
Speaker 1: we need wilderness areas, and we need lands with wilderness
Speaker 1: characteristic sticks, inventoried road lists, wilderness study areas, so as
Speaker 1: you can imagine I weighed in on the importance of wilderness,
Speaker 1: both for me and for all of us, and for
Speaker 1: folks who think that wilderness is anti access, good news
Speaker 1: for you. There just is not very much wilderness out there.
Speaker 1: That's the capital w wilderness designation. The United States has
Speaker 1: a little over one hundred and eleven million acres of
Speaker 1: congressionally designated federal wilderness. The National Park Service manages about
Speaker 1: forty three point nine million acres across sixty one locations,
Speaker 1: US four AT Service thirty six point one million across
Speaker 1: four hundred and forty seven units, US Fish and Wildlife
Speaker 1: Service twenty point seven million acres across seventy one areas,
Speaker 1: and the Bureau of Land Management about eight point seven
Speaker 1: million acres over two hundred and twenty four sites. So
Speaker 1: that one hundred and eleven million acres is obviously not contiguous.
Speaker 1: There's little bits of wilderness spread all across the United States,
Speaker 1: and then there's a couple of big, beautiful chunks, one
Speaker 1: of which is absolutely core to grizzly bear and a
Speaker 1: bunch of other species. But that esa conversation, the Bob
Speaker 1: Marshall Wilderness Here in Montana, we would not have a
Speaker 1: sustainable huntable population of grizzly bears if the BOB lost
Speaker 1: its wilderness characteristics. And you know, we talk about this
Speaker 1: relationship between a road and trail density and just how
Speaker 1: fast people move into and out of areas and what
Speaker 1: the implications are for keeping wildlife around. So wilderness is
Speaker 1: absolutely integral to hunting in the United States. Wilderness areas
Speaker 1: create literal reservoirs of habitat and game species. They provide
Speaker 1: a completely different experience than a lot of our roaded
Speaker 1: areas and can be some of the last holdouts in
Speaker 1: terms of areas free of noxious weeds, and just a
Speaker 1: great opportunity to have something where things move a little
Speaker 1: slower and that's a good thing. So I spent years
Speaker 1: and years guiding and running around wilderness areas, and if
Speaker 1: I can do one hunting thing a year, it's a big,
Speaker 1: long backpack trip through wilderness areas, toting and the rifle
Speaker 1: around looking for big old mule deer. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: jump over to Ohio. The Public Lands Desk Federal officials
Speaker 1: have announced plans to open some two eight and forty
Speaker 1: acres of Ohio's only National forest two fracking. According to
Speaker 1: local news reports. The FEDS announced the opportunity for companies
Speaker 1: to bid on oil and gas extraction leases in Wayne
Speaker 1: National Forest on September fifteenth. As with attempts to mine
Speaker 1: the headwaters of the Boundary Waters and the recent reduction
Speaker 1: of the national monuments in Utah, this news is part
Speaker 1: of a year's long back and forth pitting the interests
Speaker 1: of executive industries against environmentalists and conservationists over how to
Speaker 1: best manage our public lands. The first Trump administration first
Speaker 1: approved an attempt to open the wine to increased fracking
Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen, but in twenty twenty a district judge
Speaker 1: blocked it on the grounds that it did not fully
Speaker 1: consider threats to the public health or environment. But a
Speaker 1: new environmental assessment released in twenty twenty five is providing
Speaker 1: grounds of the latest attempt to sell fracking leases on
Speaker 1: the National Forest. Fracking uses chemicals and high pressure to
Speaker 1: remove oil and natural gas from underground shale deposits. The
Speaker 1: practice is known to contribute to groundwater pollution and cause
Speaker 1: dangerous methane leaks. Whether it's a good fit for the
Speaker 1: wain depends on your perspective. Some folks say it could
Speaker 1: be a benefit to the local economy, while others worry
Speaker 1: about its impact wildlife habitats and existing recreational uses. Ohio
Speaker 1: based public land hunter Ricky Jackson told Field and Stream
Speaker 1: that the proposed areas for fracking leases are great habitat
Speaker 1: for white tails and turkeys and hold some of the
Speaker 1: state's last remaining populations of rough grouse. The southern half
Speaker 1: of the state has the most to out of state hunters,
Speaker 1: he added, We're inundated with hunters every year. To lose
Speaker 1: twenty eight hundred acres of habitat, that's going to be
Speaker 1: detrimental for us. The lease sale is the first step
Speaker 1: to fracking, as companies would still need to secure the
Speaker 1: appropriate permits to begin operating. Unfortunately, the public comment period
Speaker 1: has passed, but the BLM, which manages the mineral rights
Speaker 1: of the National Forest, is accepting hard copy written protests
Speaker 1: mailed to its office in Falls Church, VA. I'll go
Speaker 1: ahead and give you the address in case this doesn't
Speaker 1: sit right with you. Bureau of Land Management, Eastern State
Speaker 1: State's Office five two seven five Leesburg Pike, Falls Church,
Speaker 1: Virginia two two zero four to one. That's Falls Church, VA.
Speaker 1: Two two zero four to one. Jumping over to the
Speaker 1: prairie pothole aka the duck factory. The US Fish and
Speaker 1: Wildlife Service is considering messing with regulations that would impact
Speaker 1: what's known as drain tile setbacks. To put it simply,
Speaker 1: these tile set are part of a nineteen fifty eight
Speaker 1: amendment to the duck Stamp that allowed the Service to
Speaker 1: purchase easements conserving small wetland and pothole areas with one
Speaker 1: time payments. The easements prevent farmers from intentionally draining those wetlands,
Speaker 1: but don't keep them from cropping them if they dry
Speaker 1: up naturally. Cropping is in planning a crop well. Drain
Speaker 1: tile setbacks play a key role in preventing the draining
Speaker 1: of those wetlands, and removing or shortening them could cause
Speaker 1: serious damage to the most significant waterfowl production region for
Speaker 1: the Central and Mississippi River flyways, not to mention the
Speaker 1: fact that it would negate the money that waterfowl hunters
Speaker 1: directly contributed to those conservation efforts through duck Stamp purchases.
Speaker 1: The comment period that the Fish and Wildlife Service held
Speaker 1: on this lasted only two weeks, which didn't even give
Speaker 1: us enough time to cover it here on the podcast,
Speaker 1: the conservation groups including backhuntry Hunters and Anglers, Ducks Unlimited,
Speaker 1: Delta Waterfowl rallied hard to make the voices of sportsmen
Speaker 1: heard on this. According to the Federal Register, two hundred nineteen,
Speaker 1: four hundred and twenty eight comments were submitted, and a
Speaker 1: brief look at some of the comments shows that the vast,
Speaker 1: vast majority were submitted by conservation minded sportsmen and women
Speaker 1: across the country. So we did a good job responding
Speaker 1: to this urgent threat as a community, and we'll see
Speaker 1: what happens from here. If you have more to add
Speaker 1: to this conversation, give me a call four h six
Speaker 1: two two zero six four four one, or leave me
Speaker 1: an email at asksc al that's Ascal at themeaeater dot com.
Speaker 1: This has to do with way, hey, more than our
Speaker 1: migratory waterfowl species. We're talking migratory songbirds and raptors and
Speaker 1: big old narley mule deer bucks and pollinators. These intermittent
Speaker 1: wetlands out there on the prairie are like the biggest
Speaker 1: sources of biodiversity in life. These are willing seller, willing
Speaker 1: buyer agreements, and we're not making any more wetlands the
Speaker 1: small ones are the ones that matter arguably the most.
Speaker 1: So those big wetland complexes are are fantastic, and we
Speaker 1: need those two. But those little guys spread all over
Speaker 1: inconvenient places are where our duck's nest and then go
Speaker 1: to eat invertebrates, so absolutely crucial, and we've lost roughly
Speaker 1: eighty percent of those across the US already. So I
Speaker 1: think only one percent of folks who buy a duck
Speaker 1: stamp took the time to write a comment on this, right,
Speaker 1: I think there's roughly a million duck hunters in the US.
Speaker 1: What's the deal, gang, Take the rubber band off those bills,
Speaker 1: get in there, make some commotion for what you love,
Speaker 1: or somebody else will. Here's one that's near and dear
Speaker 1: to my heart. Tungsten. If you're anything like me, you
Speaker 1: cringe at the cost of tungsten shotgun AMMO, which I
Speaker 1: use exclusively for turkeys now. For decades, hundreds appealed lots
Speaker 1: of turkeys with a good old fashioned lad But once
Speaker 1: you've reached out a further with super dense TSS, the
Speaker 1: result are pretty fricking fantastic. Tungsten is not just useful
Speaker 1: for killing long beards, of chorus. It's also excellent for
Speaker 1: making high tech cutting and drilling tools, armour piercing artillery shells,
Speaker 1: rocket nozzles, advanced magnets, nuclear fusion reactors, electron microscopes, and
Speaker 1: even ballast for race cars. Unfortunately, not much tungsten is
Speaker 1: produced in the US, which makes US vulnerable to restrictions
Speaker 1: from countries like China and Russia. That kind of squeeze
Speaker 1: earlier this year caused a six hundred percent increase in
Speaker 1: the cost of the metal, and a single round of
Speaker 1: turkey AAMO was selling for as much as twenty two dollars. However,
Speaker 1: a one point seventy eight million ton load of tungsten
Speaker 1: was recently identified in Nevada, five times bigger than the
Speaker 1: next biggest known US deposit, which sounds like a good
Speaker 1: way to get cheap TURKYAMO. But NASA has a land
Speaker 1: withdrawal established over a large portion of the land where
Speaker 1: the tungsten is located. It seems this extremely flat Nevada
Speaker 1: desert is one of the few places that the agency
Speaker 1: can calibrate its satellite instruments. As recently as twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: the BLM removed about seventeen square miles of this exact
Speaker 1: stretch from mining and exploration and NASA's request. I think
Speaker 1: even Turkey hunters can agree that NASA's recalibrating instruments out
Speaker 1: there is also extremely beneficial to habitat, and there's probably
Speaker 1: some quail kicking around out there, So I, for one,
Speaker 1: I'm happy to adjust to that market and keep that
Speaker 1: habitat intack. Moving on to the large cat desk, deer
Speaker 1: hunters tend to have strong opinions about mountain lions, and
Speaker 1: most of them aren't good. If you could just turn
Speaker 1: down the number of lions, you'd turn up the number
Speaker 1: of deer right well. A new study out of Washington
Speaker 1: State puts some very interesting wrinkles in that way of thinking.
Speaker 1: The study analyzed a huge amount of data from lions
Speaker 1: fitted with radio colors on the Olympic Peninsula, then crunch
Speaker 1: those numbers along with similar data on the area's blacktail
Speaker 1: deer population. Clear patterns emerged most dramatically. The study found
Speaker 1: a seventy six percent drop in car accidents involving deer
Speaker 1: in areas with high puma activity. Deer stayed away from
Speaker 1: roads and stuck to more remote areas in response to
Speaker 1: lion pressure, which keeps deer alive and front fenders straight. Further,
Speaker 1: when deer co exists with lions, they shift more of
Speaker 1: their activity to daytime to avoid the nocturnal predator. More
Speaker 1: deer movement during shooting light is definitely a good thing
Speaker 1: for hunters. That also meant that although overall car accidents
Speaker 1: went way down, accidents during the day increased slightly, notably
Speaker 1: through reduction in car deer collisions. Weren't just the results
Speaker 1: of lions reducing deer numbers. The deer were altering their
Speaker 1: behavior because they were living in fear of lions, but
Speaker 1: they were staying alive. Of course, lions prey on deer.
Speaker 1: That's how they make a living. That's not a zero
Speaker 1: sum game, and a lot of these white tails stays.
Speaker 1: There's plenty of deer to go around for both cats
Speaker 1: and hunters, and it seems like we're working together to
Speaker 1: keep those insurance premiums down, which is a good deal,
Speaker 1: a mutualistic relationship, you might say. Also, mountain lion stakes
Speaker 1: are absolutely the other white meat. Moving over to the
Speaker 1: accounting desk, time for me to give credit to the
Speaker 1: team that keeps back country hunters and anglers kicking butt
Speaker 1: In the fight to protect public land. We tend to
Speaker 1: use the same arguments again and again. We say the
Speaker 1: land is priceless. They say the land is just sitting
Speaker 1: there idle instead of generating jobs and revenue. When people
Speaker 1: outside of this world hear both sides, the anti public
Speaker 1: land argument seems to make sense well. To change up
Speaker 1: the debate, BHA commissioned an economic report to quantify the
Speaker 1: money that public lands generate and the costs that transferring
Speaker 1: them to the states or privatizing them would incur. To
Speaker 1: keep it focused, the study shows Idaho as its test case.
Speaker 1: That analysis found that federal land management brings eight hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty seven million dollars into Idaho's economy. If land
Speaker 1: were transferred to state ownership, that federal funding would be gone,
Speaker 1: and Idaho would also lose nine hundred and fifty four
Speaker 1: million dollars in economic output, over seventy four hundred jobs,
Speaker 1: and around sixty one mins billion dollars in tax revenue
Speaker 1: at the state and local level. All that in the
Speaker 1: state would have to take on all the costs of
Speaker 1: maintaining that land, most notably fighting fires, maintaining roads, managing
Speaker 1: habitat and there's no real way for the state to
Speaker 1: cover those costs. Two very similar reports found the same
Speaker 1: outcomes in Arizona and Montana. One key difference between federal
Speaker 1: and state control is that when a state faces a
Speaker 1: budget shortfall, it is often required to cover that shortfall
Speaker 1: in any way it can, and those solutions usually fall
Speaker 1: into four categories, raising taxes, cutting services, increasing development and extraction, and,
Speaker 1: most importantly for us, selling land. Here I'm quoting from
Speaker 1: the excellent article that BHA's Western Policy and Conservation manager
Speaker 1: wrote on this issue, Old Devin od. When budgets tightened,
Speaker 1: land becomes an asset and assets can be sold. This
Speaker 1: is the part of the story that rarely appears in
Speaker 1: legislative findings or campaign messaging. We need to keep beating
Speaker 1: this drum. Keeping public lands in public hands keeps money
Speaker 1: flowing into the states, keep states from being tempted or
Speaker 1: forced to sell that land. Spread the message to the
Speaker 1: people around you every opportunity you get. Good job to
Speaker 1: the team at BHA for balancing passion with facts. Okay,
Speaker 1: onto the hot topic corner. We covered dog hunting in
Speaker 1: South Carolina. That's hunting with dogs for deer, and this
Speaker 1: week Chris from South Carolina wrote in with a video
Speaker 1: of a huge turnout for a public meeting on the
Speaker 1: issue in Florence. There were trucks parked as far as
Speaker 1: the eye could see so that people could make their
Speaker 1: concerns heard and reach some better solutions. Good participation like
Speaker 1: that is inspiring. We want that in every county. But
Speaker 1: I'm kicking myself a bit that I didn't dig into
Speaker 1: this earlier. The South Carolina dn R recently held three
Speaker 1: public meetings together input on the issue, one in Florence,
Speaker 1: one in Orangeburg, and one in Walterborough. Unfortunately, the last
Speaker 1: one happened on August ten, at least a week before
Speaker 1: you're hearing this. The good news is that you can
Speaker 1: still use the online form that the scd NR has
Speaker 1: set up to gather comments. If you care about dog hunting,
Speaker 1: this is the only way you're likely to see changes
Speaker 1: happen that you care about. The online form is just
Speaker 1: a bunch of random letters, so it doesn't make sense
Speaker 1: for me to read that to you. However, this brings
Speaker 1: me to my final point. We're now going to start
Speaker 1: using the podcast show notes for each episode to include
Speaker 1: details and links for calls to action, So if you
Speaker 1: want to comment on South Carolina's dog hunting rules, scroll
Speaker 1: down on your device and you'll see a direct link there.
Speaker 1: Stay tuned in weeks to come as we put more
Speaker 1: links and info in there. One less excuse to not
Speaker 1: get involved. I'll say it again, just because you're not
Speaker 1: weighing in doesn't mean somebody else who you may not
Speaker 1: agree with won't. Your best shot is getting in there
Speaker 1: and making your opinion heard, passions and facts. Let them
Speaker 1: know where you're coming from, let them know where you're
Speaker 1: spending your cash and your time. Let them know what
Speaker 1: this stuff means to you. All Right, That's all I
Speaker 1: got for you this week. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: listen stening. Remember to write in to a s k
Speaker 1: C A L. That's Ascal at the meeater dot com
Speaker 1: or leave me a voicemail at four oh six two
Speaker 1: two zero six four four one. We love hearing from you.
Speaker 1: Gotta know what's gonna happen in your neck of the woods.
Speaker 1: We appreciate thanks again. We'll talk to you next week.