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Speaker 1: If this is the me Eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,

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Speaker 1: bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening podcast, you

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Speaker 1: can't predict.

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Speaker 2: Anything brought to you by first Light. When I'm hunting,

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Speaker 2: I need gear that won't quit. First Light builds, no compromise,

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Speaker 2: gear that keeps me in the field longer, no shortcuts,

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Speaker 2: just gear that works. Check it out at first light

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Speaker 2: dot com. That's f I R S T L I

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Speaker 2: T E dot com. All right, Join today by Solomon David,

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Speaker 2: the gar guy who has a Garassic Park sticker. See,

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Speaker 2: I was sitting here thinking you were a big Jurassic

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Speaker 2: Park fan.

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Speaker 3: I mean that too as well, But.

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Speaker 4: Then I realized it's Garassic Park.

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Speaker 3: Why not vote Steve.

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Speaker 2: We're gonna get into that. We're gonna get into That's

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Speaker 2: gonna be my first quest, but I don't want to

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Speaker 2: ask it yet. Solomon David is an aquatic ecologist an

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Speaker 2: assistant professor, works on fish biodiversity, conservation, science, communication, and

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Speaker 2: runs the Garlab. It's like a colloquial term. Garlab focuses

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Speaker 2: on the ecology of migratory and ancient fishes and how

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Speaker 2: that research can help us better understand and conserve aquatic ecosystems.

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Speaker 2: Additional projects involve conservation of Great Lakes migratory fishes. I'm

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Speaker 2: assuming you mean the native ones. Yeah, Yeah, ancient sport

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Speaker 2: fish e g. Guards, bowfins. We're gonna talk about what

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Speaker 2: that means. Insert We're gonna talk about terms rough fish,

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Speaker 2: trash fish, how those terms aren't really doing the best.

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Speaker 2: They're doing a little bit of a disservice to some

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Speaker 2: fish species. I'm going to call for you know what,

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Speaker 2: you know what Brody does, the indefensible law thing. I'm

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Speaker 2: going to call for a new law, and I'm gonna

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Speaker 2: tell you why people think it's a bad idea, and

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Speaker 2: then I'm going to refute that and explain why it's

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Speaker 2: actually not, why it's good. It'll be how could people

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Speaker 2: tell the difference? And I'll say between a game and

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Speaker 2: that's what will happen. And I'll say, I don't know,

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Speaker 2: how can we How can they tell the difference on ducks?

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Speaker 2: Why is that? Okay, That's what I'm going to use

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Speaker 2: on them. People. No one knows what I'm talking about.

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Speaker 5: Ex I know exactly what you're talking about.

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Speaker 2: You know where I'm going with this. So I'm going

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Speaker 2: with this. Oh, here's a good one. A gar. A

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Speaker 2: gar comes into a bar. Bartender says, why the long

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Speaker 2: face classic? I didn't make that up. It's in my note.

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Speaker 2: Is that your joke?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I kind of you made that up. Yeah, for

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Speaker 3: the moviet.

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Speaker 6: Other people of its crowdsourcing too, so you know, people

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Speaker 6: do the punts for me these days.

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Speaker 3: But started off artisanal.

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Speaker 2: I'm holding in my hand an alligator guard. We're gonna

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Speaker 2: talk about alligator guards too. And I read the thing

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Speaker 2: that Krinn put down. I had no idea about. Don't

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Speaker 2: answer this yet, you can answer like a little.

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Speaker 5: Bit, all right.

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Speaker 2: I had no idea that alligator guys were uping louis

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Speaker 2: or up in Illinois.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, they're trying to bring them back they used to be.

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Speaker 2: Had no idea. I think of that as like strictly

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Speaker 2: like East Texas, Louisiana, no idea.

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Speaker 7: That's almost an ice fishing state.

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Speaker 8: And they even go further than Illinois.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we're gonna talk about that. I didn't know any

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Speaker 2: of that. We're gonna talk a little bit about buffalo,

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Speaker 2: not the animal, the fish. We're gonna talk about the fish. Buffalo.

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Speaker 2: Here's what, here's what, here's how this whole thing came

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Speaker 2: to be. There was an article like, I can't you know,

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Speaker 2: I can't police everything that happens. I can't police everything.

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Speaker 2: Now a little bit, I'm gonna complain about you fair enough.

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Speaker 2: I'm gonna praise you and complain about it.

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Speaker 3: Sounds about right.

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Speaker 4: There was an article on.

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Speaker 2: Our website on the meeater dot com and it was

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Speaker 2: a bowfishing article and it use terms like rough fish

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Speaker 2: as a catch all, which as a catch all like,

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Speaker 2: and we were using that like. We didn't say trash

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Speaker 2: fish as a kid. We used rough fish meaning non

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Speaker 2: game fish, unregulated fish. So if you had if I

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Speaker 2: was going to categorize and I think most people in

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Speaker 2: the country would understand I'm tom about here. If I

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Speaker 2: was going to categorize fish like in the most basic

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Speaker 2: general terms would be uh, someone might be familiar with

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Speaker 2: this lingo game fish okay, which would be like regulated

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Speaker 2: fish that people sport fish for. Then there'd be a

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Speaker 2: fish that they don't really have a word for, but

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Speaker 2: it's like the no touch fish in my area stir okay,

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Speaker 2: grown up Michigan and be like, no one would call

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Speaker 2: a sturgeon a rough fish, but they're not a game fish.

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Speaker 2: They're like no touch fish. And then rough fish would

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Speaker 2: mean any fish that there's no regulatory structure in place,

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Speaker 2: no close season, no bag limit, and method of take

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Speaker 2: would be least regulated. And that's kind of what you

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Speaker 2: would use the term for. It didn't mean you didn't

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Speaker 2: want it, It didn't mean you didn't eat it.

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Speaker 4: It just meant like.

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Speaker 2: Wide open shad.

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Speaker 7: Cart, you want to hear the orders.

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Speaker 2: One of the rough fish term hell yes man.

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Speaker 9: Originated in mid to late eighth nineteenth century commercial fishing

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Speaker 9: practices to describe less valuable fish that were rough dressed,

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Speaker 9: gutted but non flayed, and often discarded from river boats

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Speaker 9: to reduce weight and prevent spoilage.

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Speaker 4: Go back to the rough dress that's great.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, gutted but not filaid.

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Speaker 2: That's whe that comes from.

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Speaker 7: And then it I'll buy that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I was thinking about that this morning. Well, it

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Speaker 2: wasn't showering.

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Speaker 7: I thought it was like I thought it was a

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Speaker 7: term that came from like English.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean they've got a term over there. I

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Speaker 6: mean they used rough fish in a different context. It's

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Speaker 6: not as negative as it here.

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Speaker 3: What's that?

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Speaker 2: Oh, they use they use it, Yeah, but they fish

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Speaker 2: for they like name their cart Yeah yeah, yeah, well

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Speaker 2: carper native departs of Europe too, so you know.

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Speaker 6: But yeah, it's like with the here when they had

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Speaker 6: the river boats, and they had the fully dressed fish,

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Speaker 6: so that was full aid, the fish that had higher value,

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Speaker 6: and then you've got the rough dressed fish, which I said,

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Speaker 6: the guts taken out.

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Speaker 3: And then when they had to make it, you know,

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Speaker 3: to market in time.

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Speaker 6: And navigate shallow waters and hot summers, they had to

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Speaker 6: discard some of the catch and so they ditched the

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Speaker 6: rough dressed fish first and they kept the you know,

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Speaker 6: the fully dressed fish.

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Speaker 2: Where was that?

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Speaker 7: Oh?

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Speaker 4: So we had this article.

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Speaker 2: Come out and and and uh Solomon uh took a front.

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Speaker 2: He wrote a mean email.

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Speaker 3: The email.

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Speaker 2: He wrote a mean email, being like, you're just contributing

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Speaker 2: to the negativity. You're taking away from fish conservation, not

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Speaker 2: respecting fish right your email.

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Speaker 6: It's a I mean, that's all go to hell and die.

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Speaker 6: That was in the post script that was in PS.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's how he ended it. I hope you

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Speaker 4: go to Helen die. And he offered to.

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Speaker 2: He said, sometime we should get together and talk about

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Speaker 2: some of these issues. Now I trust I haven't looked

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Speaker 2: by trust. You wrote very flattering nice emails when we

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Speaker 2: publish things like gar recipes. Yeah yeah, okay, we didn't

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Speaker 2: dig those up. But no, And in all fairness, uh,

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Speaker 2: in all fairness, Solomon David, the guard guy, wrote in

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Speaker 2: saying talking about a lot of his work doing with

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Speaker 2: native fish that get from from the perspective of like

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Speaker 2: guys that grow up bowfish and guys that grow up

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Speaker 2: whatever they get, a lot of these fragile native fish

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Speaker 2: get kind of rolled into this category of trash fish

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Speaker 2: or this category of rough fish. And we have these

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Speaker 2: very loose regulatory structures, and people think they're out doing

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Speaker 2: the world of favor by getting carp like non native

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Speaker 2: carp out of a system or whatever. They think they're

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Speaker 2: doing the world of favor. And meanwhile they are also

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Speaker 2: unknowingly or knowingly laying waste to like pretty sensitive native

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Speaker 2: fish and throwing them up on the bank and thinking

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Speaker 2: that they're somehow helping it the world out. And it's like, uh, people,

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Speaker 2: it's time for people to get a little more of

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Speaker 2: a nuanced perspective of what fish are in their waterways.

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Speaker 2: And I would argue it's time to get a little

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Speaker 2: smarter about how we regulate these things. Let's start out.

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Speaker 2: There's a lot of folks here, so we're gonna take

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Speaker 2: turns asking questions. Let's start out by what what help

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Speaker 2: tell people what the gar lab is?

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Speaker 5: Right?

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Speaker 2: And within that I got that, there's a second question.

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Speaker 2: Aren't you making the same mistake because you're saying gar lab,

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Speaker 2: but you're talking about stuff besides gar right, so you're

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Speaker 2: lumping everybody into a GAR.

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Speaker 6: Well, Steve, if you look at the Big ten conference,

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Speaker 6: are we more than ten teams?

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Speaker 2: Now?

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Speaker 3: It's more of a name? You know, Well, you're a Michigan, right,

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Speaker 3: you know we're.

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Speaker 6: Now like, yeah, yeah, it's not ten, it's like eighteen

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Speaker 6: teams now, so stupid, you know.

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Speaker 2: It's more than we were straight honest, Yeah, you knew that.

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Speaker 5: I knew that ten years. I didn't know how many

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Speaker 5: exactly I knew the Big ten was.

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Speaker 9: I went to Penn State, which was the first school

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Speaker 9: that made the Big ten more than ten teams.

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Speaker 8: There's also a conference called the Big twelve. That's not

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Speaker 8: twelve types.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll look it up.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, sure, So Big ten started with ten. Gar Labs

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Speaker 6: started with guard But you know, now we're expanding there's

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Speaker 6: a lot of non game native fish that you know,

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Speaker 6: we want to work on, but.

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Speaker 4: It started out working on guard.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's still the flagship group.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So talk about the scope of the Gar.

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Speaker 6: Lab, right, So we want to use these sort of native,

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Speaker 6: non game fish, these underappreciated fish to answer questions about ecology, evolution,

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Speaker 6: sustainable managements, just informing our understanding of conservation of aquatic

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Speaker 6: ecosystems and also increasing our knowledge and also sort of

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Speaker 6: sharing the value of freshwater biodiversity. So it's kind of

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Speaker 6: a multifaceted thing. We use a small group of fish.

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Speaker 6: I mean, there's only seven species of Gars, which is

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Speaker 6: why we figured we had.

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Speaker 3: To expand now.

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Speaker 6: But in order to show that, you know, you can

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Speaker 6: look at things like fisheries management, conservation, uh, native fish

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Speaker 6: angling and consumption from just looking at some of these species.

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Speaker 3: People who working on trout and walleye for ages. That

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Speaker 3: stuff is being done. It's been done.

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Speaker 2: So this is kind of a lot of money there. Yeah.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, there's there's a lot more money there than there

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Speaker 6: isn't Garn Boffen.

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Speaker 2: Funding funding on Gar and Boff and work's got to

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Speaker 2: be a bit oh for sure, for sure.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, trying to get by.

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Speaker 2: There's no like gar fishermen of of Michigan. Yeah.

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Speaker 9: Yeah, but I feel like alligator gar have a good

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Speaker 9: thing going.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 3: That's that's one of that's kind of been improving for sure.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a that's become a destination fish. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, all over the world, Texas and Louisiana.

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Speaker 2: Oh seven gar. Let's play a game, all right, you

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Speaker 2: can't play Okay, all right?

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Speaker 8: Alligator gar spot like short nose, long nose.

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Speaker 4: Oh, we got alligator spotted.

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Speaker 8: Short long nose. I just ran out Florida Cuba. I

227
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Speaker 8: can't think of what the last.

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Speaker 2: I don't know about.

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Speaker 8: Florida and Cuba are Florida and Cuba one.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Florida gar and Cuban gar.

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Speaker 8: Yeah, I don't know what the last one.

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Speaker 6: There's one that runs from Mexico all the way down

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Speaker 6: to Costa Rica. So you might call that range. What

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Speaker 6: kind of range?

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Speaker 3: Got temporary trol you got?

236
00:12:24,960 --> 00:12:26,199
Speaker 7: You got tropical?

237
00:12:26,280 --> 00:12:29,439
Speaker 3: Tropical? Yeah, tropical, yep, tropical gar.

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Speaker 9: Do any of the none of the other ones get

239
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Speaker 9: close to the size of this.

240
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Speaker 2: No, yep.

241
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Speaker 6: Even as far as what we know in the fossils,

242
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Speaker 6: alligator gar a is still the.

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Speaker 10: Biggest and then short nose compared to long nose, Like

244
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Speaker 10: how many inches off are away from the max?

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Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean short noses they max out around maybe

246
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Speaker 6: thirty six inches. Long noses can get up to sixty

247
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Speaker 6: inches sixty Yeah.

248
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Speaker 4: That's our gar.

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Speaker 9: What percentage of that long noses is?

250
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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, the long nose.

251
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Speaker 6: The nose makes up you know, quite a significant amount that,

252
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Speaker 6: So i'd say, you know, it's it's not twenty five percent,

253
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Speaker 6: but it might be like ten or fifteen percent. Yeah,

254
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Speaker 6: decent size. But even a short nose gar has a

255
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Speaker 6: long nose, So it's all relative.

256
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Speaker 5: Right.

257
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Speaker 2: I want to get into what makes gar garden, why

258
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Speaker 2: they're why they're special in what they do. But let's

259
00:13:14,240 --> 00:13:16,679
Speaker 2: let's just pasture this whole. Let's let's talk about some

260
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Speaker 2: terminology for me. Trash fish, rough fish, non game fish. Right,

261
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Speaker 2: like in the sort of do you do you have

262
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Speaker 2: any idea and it doesn't matter what state you draw

263
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Speaker 2: from in the regulatory structure, like.

264
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Speaker 4: How did that come to be? Do you understand?

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Speaker 3: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: Like like like take Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, whatever, Like how

267
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Speaker 2: did it come to be that they that they create

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Speaker 2: the categorization?

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Speaker 6: Yeah, well, you know, we just we value some fish

270
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Speaker 6: more than other fish, And so I think, yeah, I

271
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Speaker 6: got to look at when you think about historical perspective,

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Speaker 6: it depends on where you're starting your history, right, So

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Speaker 6: when you're thinking about maybe modern fisheries management, what's been

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Speaker 6: going on for the past I don't know, fifty hundred years,

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Speaker 6: we're looking at largemouth bass and trout and salmon. Those

276
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Speaker 6: fish are valued because those are considered sport fish. People

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Speaker 6: like to eat them, maybe a significant portion of the

278
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Speaker 6: population likes to eat them. But there are other fish

279
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Speaker 6: like suckers and gars and bowfins that were eaten by

280
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Speaker 6: indigenous peoples for a long time before that.

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Speaker 9: What about like colonial a Maria recons or you know,

282
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Speaker 9: not even that, did they have a different view of

283
00:14:31,160 --> 00:14:35,160
Speaker 9: those fish or like, yeah, what we'd call rough fish?

284
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Speaker 6: Yeah, for sure, I think it's it gets kind of foggy,

285
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Speaker 6: you know, it is more of a colonial perspective when

286
00:14:40,320 --> 00:14:43,200
Speaker 6: you think about the fish that we value now, especially

287
00:14:43,200 --> 00:14:45,400
Speaker 6: if you look at a European influence, like they've got

288
00:14:45,440 --> 00:14:47,720
Speaker 6: trout over there, they've got fish that are kind of

289
00:14:47,720 --> 00:14:49,800
Speaker 6: like perch, fish that are kind of like walleye and

290
00:14:49,800 --> 00:14:51,800
Speaker 6: even walley took a little bit of time before people

291
00:14:51,920 --> 00:14:54,800
Speaker 6: saw those as a game fish, so that definitely had

292
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Speaker 6: an influence, whereas these other fish, people hadn't seen a

293
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Speaker 6: gar before before they came to North America, and they're

294
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Speaker 6: looking this like what, we can't filly this like you

295
00:15:02,080 --> 00:15:04,520
Speaker 6: would a walleye or a trout. You got to use

296
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Speaker 6: some sort of hatchet or you know, ten snips now

297
00:15:07,080 --> 00:15:10,080
Speaker 6: to do that. So those other fish kind of fell

298
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Speaker 6: by the wayside, and we value these, you know, the bass,

299
00:15:13,520 --> 00:15:15,360
Speaker 6: the trout, the salmon more and that just kind of

300
00:15:15,360 --> 00:15:17,960
Speaker 6: got wrapped up into fisheries management. So it started, like

301
00:15:18,000 --> 00:15:21,360
Speaker 6: we talked about with let's, you know, fully address some

302
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Speaker 6: of these fish that are considered valuable and some of

303
00:15:24,160 --> 00:15:26,240
Speaker 6: these other fish might be less valuable. So we're just

304
00:15:26,280 --> 00:15:27,840
Speaker 6: gonna take the guts out and if we got to

305
00:15:27,880 --> 00:15:29,880
Speaker 6: get rid of some of them, then we will. And

306
00:15:29,960 --> 00:15:32,600
Speaker 6: you know, you kind of follow the money. That's where

307
00:15:32,680 --> 00:15:35,440
Speaker 6: you know, we valued them. We didn't value others. And

308
00:15:35,760 --> 00:15:38,960
Speaker 6: you know, we did research that looked at even the

309
00:15:39,080 --> 00:15:42,760
Speaker 6: science behind these We've got way more research on steelhead

310
00:15:42,800 --> 00:15:45,360
Speaker 6: and largemouth bass and chinook salmon than we do on

311
00:15:45,520 --> 00:15:48,640
Speaker 6: even some of the sturgeon or the suckers. So we

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Speaker 6: like to think that science can attempt to be objective,

313
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Speaker 6: but we got to follow where the money is. Right,

314
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Speaker 6: We've got way more money to look at these game fish,

315
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Speaker 6: and now we're trying to play some ketch up here.

316
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Speaker 6: So that's been going on, you know, hundred years back,

317
00:16:00,840 --> 00:16:03,320
Speaker 6: two hundred years back, when you're thinking about what was

318
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Speaker 6: historically valued by different peoples and what is now being valued,

319
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Speaker 6: and now we're just trying to make it a little

320
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Speaker 6: bit more you know, inclusive as far as biodiversity is considered,

321
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Speaker 6: Like why not you know, take care of all the

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Speaker 6: fish from a holistic ecosystem perspective, because when you do that,

323
00:16:18,080 --> 00:16:22,280
Speaker 6: that's good for everybody when you think about waterways, water quality, habitat,

324
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Speaker 6: that sort of thing.

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Speaker 2: Do you see if you ever visited with any archaeologists

326
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Speaker 2: on this issue, do you see much evidence of Native

327
00:16:34,440 --> 00:16:39,600
Speaker 2: American use of again, to define our terms, Native American

328
00:16:39,720 --> 00:16:43,000
Speaker 2: use of gar? Absolutely, suckers, I know that, But like

329
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Speaker 2: Native American use of gar and bowfin her dogfish.

330
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Speaker 6: Oh yeah, I mean you can look at even early illustrations,

331
00:16:49,680 --> 00:16:52,880
Speaker 6: you know, when we had you know, colonial explorers coming in,

332
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Speaker 6: I mean they sketch those out there are some early

333
00:16:55,920 --> 00:17:00,120
Speaker 6: documentation of indigenous people is actually sharing those fish, and

334
00:17:00,160 --> 00:17:02,360
Speaker 6: there was some I can't think of the reference right now,

335
00:17:02,360 --> 00:17:04,280
Speaker 6: but some of the colonists actually thought that, like, wow,

336
00:17:04,320 --> 00:17:06,600
Speaker 6: this fish actually is pretty good. But that switched or

337
00:17:06,680 --> 00:17:08,679
Speaker 6: you know that, we moved away from that pretty quickly.

338
00:17:09,000 --> 00:17:12,040
Speaker 6: But as far as archaeology, yeah, you find arrowheads that

339
00:17:12,119 --> 00:17:13,720
Speaker 6: were made out of gar scales. I mean, you look

340
00:17:13,720 --> 00:17:14,760
Speaker 6: at a big alligator guard.

341
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Speaker 3: They can use that. Those scales are basically made out

342
00:17:16,720 --> 00:17:17,399
Speaker 3: of tooth enamel.

343
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Speaker 6: So that's the hardest, you know, substance that our bodies produced,

344
00:17:21,200 --> 00:17:23,159
Speaker 6: so it's not like other fish. So yeah, they've been

345
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Speaker 6: part of human culture here in North America for a

346
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Speaker 6: long time. And what about both in though both in

347
00:17:28,320 --> 00:17:30,919
Speaker 6: as a food fish for sure. Yeah, even you know

348
00:17:31,080 --> 00:17:31,720
Speaker 6: that's a rough one.

349
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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you know it can be. It can be.

350
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Speaker 2: I eat gars, no problem, Yeah, I like them.

351
00:17:36,040 --> 00:17:37,240
Speaker 4: Yeah, both and s tough.

352
00:17:37,440 --> 00:17:39,879
Speaker 6: Really, I look at Louisiana for six years. We ate

353
00:17:39,920 --> 00:17:42,399
Speaker 6: them all the time down there. Folks down there eat them.

354
00:17:42,480 --> 00:17:44,280
Speaker 6: I was able to try them, but people fish for

355
00:17:44,320 --> 00:17:47,360
Speaker 6: them alongside the roads. The big cane poles flip them

356
00:17:47,359 --> 00:17:49,879
Speaker 6: across the road. When they're getting them out of the bodyos.

357
00:17:49,920 --> 00:17:51,719
Speaker 6: But you can drive down the road and you can

358
00:17:51,760 --> 00:17:54,600
Speaker 6: see shoepick patties on the signs, So they call them

359
00:17:54,600 --> 00:17:56,280
Speaker 6: shoe pick down there, which is kind of a French

360
00:17:56,320 --> 00:17:58,919
Speaker 6: and Indigenous name for him. So it's a very popular

361
00:17:59,000 --> 00:18:00,760
Speaker 6: food fish down because.

362
00:18:00,840 --> 00:18:09,560
Speaker 2: The yeah, they're just like they just they have like

363
00:18:09,640 --> 00:18:13,119
Speaker 2: an over I find relative to other fish, they have

364
00:18:13,160 --> 00:18:15,520
Speaker 2: an overpowering flavor. Well.

365
00:18:15,560 --> 00:18:17,879
Speaker 6: They also they do turn to mush pretty fast, so

366
00:18:17,920 --> 00:18:21,280
Speaker 6: they call them cotton cotton fish because you know, they

367
00:18:21,320 --> 00:18:23,560
Speaker 6: got a bunch of different names, but because that flesh

368
00:18:23,600 --> 00:18:25,520
Speaker 6: turns to mush because they got these enzymes and just

369
00:18:25,520 --> 00:18:27,359
Speaker 6: start breaking it down. So when I was down in

370
00:18:27,359 --> 00:18:29,840
Speaker 6: Louisiana for the one of my first times down there,

371
00:18:30,680 --> 00:18:32,639
Speaker 6: went with a couple of professors there, they you know,

372
00:18:32,720 --> 00:18:33,720
Speaker 6: cook up anything.

373
00:18:34,040 --> 00:18:35,639
Speaker 3: Shout out to quent and fond and who can do this.

374
00:18:36,119 --> 00:18:38,040
Speaker 6: They got boffin put them in a bucket their air

375
00:18:38,080 --> 00:18:40,200
Speaker 6: breathers so they can survive the trip, you know, from

376
00:18:40,240 --> 00:18:43,080
Speaker 6: where we were back home to their place. One of

377
00:18:43,119 --> 00:18:45,280
Speaker 6: them got the fryer going. The other one took the

378
00:18:45,320 --> 00:18:47,399
Speaker 6: bowfin out of the back of the truck.

379
00:18:48,359 --> 00:18:48,840
Speaker 3: Still alive.

380
00:18:48,840 --> 00:18:51,320
Speaker 6: Because it can breathe there wax the head on the

381
00:18:51,359 --> 00:18:52,959
Speaker 6: back of the you know, on the tailgate, and then

382
00:18:53,000 --> 00:18:55,439
Speaker 6: immediately starts flaying that and then takes that flay and

383
00:18:55,440 --> 00:18:56,240
Speaker 6: throws into the fryer.

384
00:18:56,280 --> 00:18:57,960
Speaker 3: And that's basically what you have to do. You have

385
00:18:58,040 --> 00:18:59,720
Speaker 3: to basically process.

386
00:18:59,320 --> 00:19:02,399
Speaker 6: Them as as quickly as you can after you've you know,

387
00:19:02,440 --> 00:19:03,320
Speaker 6: dispatched the fish.

388
00:19:03,359 --> 00:19:04,200
Speaker 3: Otherwise it just.

389
00:19:04,119 --> 00:19:06,240
Speaker 6: Starts turning into goo. You can't throw that filet in

390
00:19:06,280 --> 00:19:08,200
Speaker 6: a freezer or anything like that. And it was delicious,

391
00:19:08,240 --> 00:19:13,919
Speaker 6: it was yeah hmm, try that. Yeah, I recommend it.

392
00:19:13,960 --> 00:19:14,560
Speaker 4: Why don't live in.

393
00:19:14,600 --> 00:19:16,359
Speaker 2: Both in country more? But we grew up in it,

394
00:19:16,400 --> 00:19:16,520
Speaker 2: you know.

395
00:19:16,640 --> 00:19:18,800
Speaker 6: Yeah, Michigan, Minnesota's got both, and I mean you don't

396
00:19:18,800 --> 00:19:20,720
Speaker 6: all you got short nose gar out here though.

397
00:19:20,600 --> 00:19:21,679
Speaker 7: So are they?

398
00:19:21,800 --> 00:19:24,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't get excited about short nois not to

399
00:19:24,359 --> 00:19:25,040
Speaker 2: disparage them.

400
00:19:25,080 --> 00:19:28,159
Speaker 6: Yeah yeah, like along those guards, yeah.

401
00:19:28,080 --> 00:19:30,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, along in those gars like you can see like

402
00:19:30,280 --> 00:19:32,440
Speaker 2: along those guards and impressive fishes. Yeah. Yeah.

403
00:19:32,560 --> 00:19:35,000
Speaker 9: Are both end kind of self contained as far as

404
00:19:35,040 --> 00:19:35,920
Speaker 9: like it's just them.

405
00:19:35,960 --> 00:19:37,840
Speaker 7: They don't have other relatives.

406
00:19:38,480 --> 00:19:41,480
Speaker 6: There used to be way more and then recently as

407
00:19:41,520 --> 00:19:43,600
Speaker 6: part of a study where we actually split them into

408
00:19:43,640 --> 00:19:46,720
Speaker 6: two species. So but then I know, a hundred years

409
00:19:46,760 --> 00:19:48,760
Speaker 6: ago they thought there were maybe ten of them, and

410
00:19:48,800 --> 00:19:51,480
Speaker 6: then they're getting back to how understudy these fish are.

411
00:19:51,840 --> 00:19:53,879
Speaker 6: Scientists back then said, nope, there's not ten, there's just

412
00:19:53,920 --> 00:19:56,760
Speaker 6: one with no evidence whatsoever, like, yeah, ten's too many,

413
00:19:56,800 --> 00:19:59,680
Speaker 6: so we're going to condense that down. And then over

414
00:19:59,720 --> 00:20:02,480
Speaker 6: the year we found evidence from their morphology like their

415
00:20:02,480 --> 00:20:05,600
Speaker 6: shape and their genetics that there's actually evidence for two species.

416
00:20:06,359 --> 00:20:07,480
Speaker 3: And they're both pretty similar.

417
00:20:07,520 --> 00:20:09,639
Speaker 6: But one's more on the Atlantic coast down to Florida,

418
00:20:09,640 --> 00:20:12,680
Speaker 6: and when's from Michigan, Minnesota all the way down to Louisiana.

419
00:20:12,840 --> 00:20:15,560
Speaker 6: So we are still finding out new stuff about bofen

420
00:20:15,680 --> 00:20:17,840
Speaker 6: from what you can you know, eat, you can fish

421
00:20:17,840 --> 00:20:21,240
Speaker 6: from on the fly. They fight really hard to and yeah,

422
00:20:21,280 --> 00:20:22,760
Speaker 6: now there's two species instead of one.

423
00:20:22,800 --> 00:20:24,600
Speaker 5: How old are those species of gar?

424
00:20:24,840 --> 00:20:29,200
Speaker 6: They go, Gars go back to Jurassic era, Jurassic period stuff,

425
00:20:29,240 --> 00:20:32,160
Speaker 6: so one hundred and fifty million years for gars. That's

426
00:20:32,160 --> 00:20:34,320
Speaker 6: for the family like long nose gar, short nose gar,

427
00:20:34,359 --> 00:20:36,400
Speaker 6: they're about two and a half to five million years old.

428
00:20:36,520 --> 00:20:39,200
Speaker 5: And how much have they changed since then?

429
00:20:39,640 --> 00:20:41,639
Speaker 6: Very little, very little. So if you're to look at

430
00:20:41,640 --> 00:20:44,080
Speaker 6: a fossil garb and looked at a living guard. They

431
00:20:44,119 --> 00:20:45,200
Speaker 6: basically look the same.

432
00:20:45,400 --> 00:20:48,360
Speaker 2: Yeah. Same, That's a question I had, and I want

433
00:20:48,359 --> 00:20:50,639
Speaker 2: to spend some more time on that. People will point

434
00:20:50,640 --> 00:20:55,040
Speaker 2: out like, well, let me start with one that's annoying.

435
00:20:55,960 --> 00:20:59,000
Speaker 2: People will say that's an ice age relic. I'm like,

436
00:20:59,160 --> 00:21:02,960
Speaker 2: you're an ice age like mice er. Yeah yeah, yeah,

437
00:21:02,960 --> 00:21:05,159
Speaker 2: I mean it's like a dumb thing to say, like

438
00:21:05,280 --> 00:21:07,600
Speaker 2: humans are around during the ice age. Yeah yeah, like

439
00:21:08,040 --> 00:21:10,720
Speaker 2: everything the name something that's not an ice age relative.

440
00:21:10,760 --> 00:21:13,399
Speaker 2: It's not like as a bunch of new species emerged

441
00:21:13,600 --> 00:21:16,480
Speaker 2: since the ice Age. Yeah yeah, so that's dumb. But

442
00:21:17,359 --> 00:21:23,080
Speaker 2: people will say that's from the dinosaurs. Yeah, Like what

443
00:21:23,080 --> 00:21:25,439
Speaker 2: what does that mean when we say the fish is ancient?

444
00:21:25,480 --> 00:21:28,000
Speaker 4: What do we mean that it's ancient? Like is a

445
00:21:28,080 --> 00:21:28,760
Speaker 4: walleye is not?

446
00:21:29,080 --> 00:21:29,280
Speaker 5: Yeah?

447
00:21:29,359 --> 00:21:30,920
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know what I mean, Like, help me understand

448
00:21:30,920 --> 00:21:31,960
Speaker 4: the relative quality here?

449
00:21:32,119 --> 00:21:32,960
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah.

450
00:21:33,200 --> 00:21:36,840
Speaker 6: So some fish, you know, and some organisms change at

451
00:21:36,840 --> 00:21:39,080
Speaker 6: a faster rate than other organisms. So when we think

452
00:21:39,080 --> 00:21:42,680
Speaker 6: about mutation, mutations what leads to evolutions. So organisms changing

453
00:21:42,680 --> 00:21:44,639
Speaker 6: over time, but some of them change slow, some of

454
00:21:44,680 --> 00:21:47,959
Speaker 6: them change fast, while I change faster. There was that

455
00:21:48,080 --> 00:21:50,160
Speaker 6: group of modern fish we're kind of lumping together called

456
00:21:50,160 --> 00:21:53,440
Speaker 6: tea lass, so walileye perch swordfish to another all part

457
00:21:53,440 --> 00:21:56,920
Speaker 6: of that group haven't been around as long as sturgeons

458
00:21:56,960 --> 00:21:58,919
Speaker 6: and gars. And that brings in this idea of a

459
00:21:58,920 --> 00:22:01,160
Speaker 6: living fossil, which sounds kind of paradoxical, right.

460
00:22:01,080 --> 00:22:03,320
Speaker 2: That's that's the one.

461
00:22:03,320 --> 00:22:05,879
Speaker 4: I'm talking about living fossil term. What the hell people mean?

462
00:22:06,040 --> 00:22:08,600
Speaker 6: Yeah, And so I feel like most people can kind

463
00:22:08,600 --> 00:22:11,320
Speaker 6: of get an idea of what that means, but evolutionary

464
00:22:11,320 --> 00:22:13,840
Speaker 6: biologists hate that term. They're going to, well, actually that

465
00:22:13,920 --> 00:22:15,720
Speaker 6: all the time because they'd be like, well, that means

466
00:22:15,760 --> 00:22:18,719
Speaker 6: that these animals haven't been evolving or anything like that.

467
00:22:18,760 --> 00:22:21,800
Speaker 6: Like everything's evolving constantly, as your DNA is replicating past

468
00:22:21,840 --> 00:22:25,520
Speaker 6: from one generation the next, but some change slower than others.

469
00:22:25,760 --> 00:22:27,240
Speaker 6: And so if you were to look at a gar

470
00:22:27,280 --> 00:22:29,720
Speaker 6: in the fossil record, looking the same as what the

471
00:22:29,760 --> 00:22:31,960
Speaker 6: shape of a gar looks like now, they have a

472
00:22:32,080 --> 00:22:35,639
Speaker 6: very slow evolutionary rate. So you go back to the

473
00:22:35,720 --> 00:22:38,720
Speaker 6: drastic period, they look basically the same as they do now.

474
00:22:38,960 --> 00:22:41,399
Speaker 6: If we're to look at something that might be Walleye's

475
00:22:41,480 --> 00:22:43,680
Speaker 6: early ancestors, they're going to look different than.

476
00:22:43,600 --> 00:22:44,159
Speaker 3: What a walleye.

477
00:22:44,200 --> 00:22:45,199
Speaker 2: They're not going to recognize them.

478
00:22:45,280 --> 00:22:46,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're not going to recognize them as much.

479
00:22:46,840 --> 00:22:48,960
Speaker 2: But I could be standing there, like at the same

480
00:22:49,000 --> 00:22:51,480
Speaker 2: time when there's a at the same time when there's

481
00:22:51,480 --> 00:22:53,879
Speaker 2: a Trannosaurus Rex on the planet. Yeah, I could be

482
00:22:53,880 --> 00:22:57,240
Speaker 2: staying there in my flashlight, yeah, shining into a marsh.

483
00:22:57,280 --> 00:22:59,960
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I'd be like, holy a gar Yeah yeah, yeah.

484
00:23:00,200 --> 00:23:03,480
Speaker 6: It does the same basic whereas look what happened to

485
00:23:03,520 --> 00:23:05,560
Speaker 6: t Rex. I mean their pickens are the you know.

486
00:23:05,840 --> 00:23:06,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, chickens.

487
00:23:07,680 --> 00:23:08,080
Speaker 5: Yeah.

488
00:23:08,240 --> 00:23:10,960
Speaker 8: I've dug around for fossils in the Green River formation

489
00:23:11,280 --> 00:23:14,160
Speaker 8: in Wyoming, found a lot of different fish there. Most

490
00:23:14,160 --> 00:23:17,959
Speaker 8: of what you're getting are extinct species of herring and shad.

491
00:23:18,640 --> 00:23:21,440
Speaker 8: But sometimes you'll come across a gar scale that looks

492
00:23:21,480 --> 00:23:24,560
Speaker 8: just like a gar scale today. You also come across paddlefish,

493
00:23:24,560 --> 00:23:27,440
Speaker 8: these are fifty million year old fossils. You'll come across

494
00:23:28,200 --> 00:23:31,280
Speaker 8: skates that look like our skates today. But there's like

495
00:23:31,280 --> 00:23:33,280
Speaker 8: a handful of fish that when you see it, it's

496
00:23:33,359 --> 00:23:35,439
Speaker 8: it's just identical to what you would catch today. And

497
00:23:35,480 --> 00:23:37,040
Speaker 8: that's fifty million years old.

498
00:23:37,040 --> 00:23:41,560
Speaker 4: And at that time there was not a bluegill.

499
00:23:43,119 --> 00:23:45,159
Speaker 6: There might have been bluegill like fish, but definitely not

500
00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:47,359
Speaker 6: bluegill like we know them today.

501
00:23:47,440 --> 00:23:49,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, sun he's spawning off them.

502
00:23:49,800 --> 00:23:50,680
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.

503
00:23:50,760 --> 00:23:51,040
Speaker 5: Yeah.

504
00:23:51,080 --> 00:23:52,720
Speaker 3: The dock probably wasn't there either, But you know.

505
00:23:54,760 --> 00:23:59,119
Speaker 2: Uh, they're a bone fish gar all the things we're

506
00:23:59,119 --> 00:24:01,160
Speaker 2: talking about, our bone cartilaginous fish.

507
00:24:01,280 --> 00:24:01,440
Speaker 7: Yeah.

508
00:24:01,520 --> 00:24:07,600
Speaker 6: Yeah, sturgeon and paddlefish are primarily cartilaginous fish. But that's

509
00:24:07,640 --> 00:24:09,720
Speaker 6: different from like the sharks and the raisin skates. So

510
00:24:09,760 --> 00:24:12,320
Speaker 6: you're all in that bony fish branch.

511
00:24:14,760 --> 00:24:16,560
Speaker 2: Can you real quick just because you know all this

512
00:24:21,200 --> 00:24:22,879
Speaker 2: like I know, it's not it's not we're here talk

513
00:24:22,920 --> 00:24:24,760
Speaker 2: about what I ascott a question? Yeah, can you explain

514
00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:27,119
Speaker 2: the fish to have like the nodo cord?

515
00:24:27,320 --> 00:24:31,160
Speaker 6: Yeah, like talk about that, yeah, explain to people. Yeah,

516
00:24:31,160 --> 00:24:34,639
Speaker 6: I mean notochords kind of an early it goes along

517
00:24:34,680 --> 00:24:40,080
Speaker 6: with your vertebral column, the spinal cord. So some early animals,

518
00:24:40,080 --> 00:24:42,400
Speaker 6: when you think about the lancelets of chordates, they had,

519
00:24:43,840 --> 00:24:45,760
Speaker 6: they had a note achord, but they didn't have a

520
00:24:45,800 --> 00:24:49,199
Speaker 6: true vertebral column. So for a while, there was this

521
00:24:49,280 --> 00:24:52,679
Speaker 6: idea that hagfish and lambreys didn't have what would consider

522
00:24:52,800 --> 00:24:56,359
Speaker 6: be vertebrae. So we didn't consider them vertebrates. We consider

523
00:24:56,400 --> 00:24:58,439
Speaker 6: them a little bit off from that. But now the

524
00:24:58,480 --> 00:24:59,600
Speaker 6: new research going back to the.

525
00:24:59,600 --> 00:25:03,200
Speaker 3: Fossil records suggest that hagfish and lamp ray are also vertebrates.

526
00:25:03,280 --> 00:25:05,800
Speaker 6: So the note achord sort of thing is an you know,

527
00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:09,320
Speaker 6: early structure, but now we're we're kind of past that.

528
00:25:09,359 --> 00:25:12,040
Speaker 6: So some fish, let's say, when you do talk about notochordscars.

529
00:25:12,280 --> 00:25:14,800
Speaker 6: When they're little, they've got a notochord that turns into

530
00:25:14,920 --> 00:25:17,000
Speaker 6: extends like a filament off the back side of the tail,

531
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:19,479
Speaker 6: and they use that like little helicopter rotor. So when

532
00:25:19,520 --> 00:25:21,520
Speaker 6: they're little, they move like little sticks.

533
00:25:21,160 --> 00:25:21,760
Speaker 3: Through the water.

534
00:25:21,960 --> 00:25:22,760
Speaker 4: That's the notochord.

535
00:25:22,880 --> 00:25:25,639
Speaker 6: Yeah, but it's basically an extension of the notochord, and

536
00:25:25,680 --> 00:25:27,959
Speaker 6: as they get older that reduces down. They don't keep

537
00:25:28,040 --> 00:25:31,080
Speaker 6: that longer than their first year because eventually the physics

538
00:25:31,080 --> 00:25:31,840
Speaker 6: of water changes.

539
00:25:31,880 --> 00:25:32,040
Speaker 5: Right.

540
00:25:32,040 --> 00:25:33,679
Speaker 6: You kind of think of it as moving with a

541
00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:35,960
Speaker 6: little propeller. You're moving a little animal through there. As

542
00:25:35,960 --> 00:25:38,520
Speaker 6: they get bigger and bigger, that doesn't you can't propel

543
00:25:38,560 --> 00:25:40,320
Speaker 6: that through that anymore. And by then their scale is

544
00:25:40,359 --> 00:25:42,440
Speaker 6: hard and they're able to eat fish, but they move

545
00:25:42,440 --> 00:25:45,000
Speaker 6: their pectrol fins beating back and forth really rapid. Least

546
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:46,320
Speaker 6: I've every got a chance. I think we got some

547
00:25:46,600 --> 00:25:48,440
Speaker 6: video we can send you too. But they move that

548
00:25:48,520 --> 00:25:51,680
Speaker 6: little notochord, that extension like a film it there. So

549
00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:53,520
Speaker 6: a lot of those early fish you can see them

550
00:25:53,560 --> 00:25:56,000
Speaker 6: both in even in pike they have a little one.

551
00:25:56,040 --> 00:25:57,560
Speaker 6: They don't use it the same way gars do, but

552
00:25:57,640 --> 00:25:59,720
Speaker 6: you will see a little bit of a note achord extension.

553
00:25:59,800 --> 00:26:01,800
Speaker 6: So you see that in early development of a lot

554
00:26:01,840 --> 00:26:05,600
Speaker 6: of vertebrates. But eventually that kind of goes by the wayside,

555
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:09,000
Speaker 6: and you know, gets kind of overpowered by a lot

556
00:26:09,040 --> 00:26:09,840
Speaker 6: of other structures.

557
00:26:10,080 --> 00:26:12,280
Speaker 2: One of the more impressive things I've seen is I

558
00:26:12,359 --> 00:26:15,920
Speaker 2: was with my friend Kevin Murphy and we're fishing calfish.

559
00:26:15,960 --> 00:26:19,159
Speaker 2: But here comes a big paddlefish and got hit by

560
00:26:19,160 --> 00:26:22,840
Speaker 2: a boat prop kind of half dead, so I shot

561
00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:24,640
Speaker 2: it with my bow. I mean it was already a mass.

562
00:26:24,720 --> 00:26:28,600
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was fresh when he caught it, And.

563
00:26:30,320 --> 00:26:30,920
Speaker 2: That was a noise.

564
00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:34,280
Speaker 4: Pulling that note chord out to that was unbelievable site.

565
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:35,560
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, and.

566
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:36,560
Speaker 7: It looks way longer.

567
00:26:36,880 --> 00:26:40,600
Speaker 2: Just draw it out. You seen that before, Yeah, yeah, it'll.

568
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:42,600
Speaker 8: Come out like five times longer than the fish was.

569
00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:46,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was an unbelievable site, and that made me

570
00:26:46,160 --> 00:26:48,120
Speaker 2: think that that was like a very different kind of thing.

571
00:26:48,320 --> 00:26:50,960
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, they you're also you know, you could

572
00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:53,159
Speaker 6: be pulling the spine like out of your pulling that

573
00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:56,359
Speaker 6: spinal cord out of the actual spinal calm. I'd have to,

574
00:26:56,560 --> 00:26:59,200
Speaker 6: you know, look into that for with the paddlefish and

575
00:26:59,240 --> 00:27:00,399
Speaker 6: the sturgeon, they're very similar.

576
00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:02,800
Speaker 3: But yeah, how long was that? Would you say?

577
00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:05,960
Speaker 2: Oh man, we got it on video? Long?

578
00:27:06,400 --> 00:27:07,199
Speaker 3: How did it taste though?

579
00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:08,600
Speaker 5: Fish?

580
00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:12,159
Speaker 2: Man? When you trim them up, When you trim them up,

581
00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:14,359
Speaker 2: they're good, but you gotta trim them carefully. It's like

582
00:27:14,480 --> 00:27:16,920
Speaker 2: shark and stuff, like, you gotta trim it all that red,

583
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:19,159
Speaker 2: all that red. The fat's not good. You gotta get

584
00:27:19,200 --> 00:27:21,080
Speaker 2: the fat off. I think when you trim them up,

585
00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:21,400
Speaker 2: they're good.

586
00:27:21,920 --> 00:27:23,320
Speaker 3: I've had sturgeon, I haven't had paddle fish.

587
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:25,440
Speaker 4: Now, shovel nose surgeon. That's not a good fish.

588
00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:27,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're they're pretty spiny.

589
00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:30,240
Speaker 2: You know. The yield is low. Yeah. Yeah, like you

590
00:27:30,359 --> 00:27:32,520
Speaker 2: clean it, there's nothing left. You feel bad you killed

591
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:34,040
Speaker 2: the thing in the first place, and then you fry

592
00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:35,919
Speaker 2: it up and it's not good. Yeah. Yeah, that's been

593
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:36,560
Speaker 2: my finding.

594
00:27:36,840 --> 00:27:39,640
Speaker 6: They form a white sturgeon though those are yeah, yeah,

595
00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:40,600
Speaker 6: that's a real good fish.

596
00:27:41,240 --> 00:27:49,560
Speaker 2: Uh okay, we're all let's talk about these ones for

597
00:27:49,600 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 2: a minute, because he's the big Like how alligator are

598
00:27:54,480 --> 00:27:58,520
Speaker 2: are becoming fashionable?

599
00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:03,120
Speaker 4: You would, yeah, I agree, Like your work is complete.

600
00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:07,879
Speaker 2: On alligator guard. And I recently saw that they're making it.

601
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:09,760
Speaker 2: I think who was it, what state was trying to

602
00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:11,440
Speaker 2: make it that you can't shoot an alligator gar with

603
00:28:11,480 --> 00:28:12,119
Speaker 2: a boone anymore?

604
00:28:12,280 --> 00:28:12,399
Speaker 3: Oh?

605
00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:14,280
Speaker 4: Really, huh we're pushing for it.

606
00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:18,080
Speaker 2: Huh. And I remember being like, oh, brother a little bit.

607
00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:22,800
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, I think they've definitely had a reputation improvement.

608
00:28:23,320 --> 00:28:26,160
Speaker 6: You think about shows like River Monsters that came out,

609
00:28:26,240 --> 00:28:29,080
Speaker 6: you know, almost twenty years ago now, Jeremy Wade going

610
00:28:29,080 --> 00:28:31,720
Speaker 6: out there. I remember yelling at the TV when that

611
00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:34,159
Speaker 6: episode was on because like, picture isn't right, that's not

612
00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:36,280
Speaker 6: the right thing. But you know, overall, I think that

613
00:28:36,440 --> 00:28:38,920
Speaker 6: was a win because you've got these big river fish

614
00:28:38,960 --> 00:28:41,480
Speaker 6: that people weren't paying attention to, and you had this

615
00:28:41,760 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 6: idea of the habitat's important. You can go and catch

616
00:28:44,520 --> 00:28:47,160
Speaker 6: these fish. They're not you know, monsters that are eating

617
00:28:47,200 --> 00:28:49,480
Speaker 6: people or anything. Like that, so I think that the

618
00:28:50,480 --> 00:28:53,920
Speaker 6: reputation has definitely improved. We went fishing down in Texas

619
00:28:53,960 --> 00:28:56,560
Speaker 6: with a Bubba Bedrie, you know, number one guar guide

620
00:28:56,600 --> 00:28:59,600
Speaker 6: in the world. He you know, took Jeremy Wade out

621
00:28:59,840 --> 00:29:02,160
Speaker 6: and he used to be a bowfisher, and he realized that,

622
00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:04,520
Speaker 6: you know, over the years, these big fish were going away.

623
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:06,960
Speaker 6: He wasn't seeing nearly as many as they were out there,

624
00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:08,959
Speaker 6: and he realized, you know, if his livelihood is going

625
00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:10,760
Speaker 6: to depend on these fish, he's got to put him back.

626
00:29:11,240 --> 00:29:13,240
Speaker 3: And then, you know, now they're even more.

627
00:29:13,200 --> 00:29:15,280
Speaker 6: Valuable because people are coming from all over the world

628
00:29:15,400 --> 00:29:17,920
Speaker 6: to fish for them, catch them, and then also release them.

629
00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:20,400
Speaker 2: Yeah. One of my buddies in Michigan went down to

630
00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:24,600
Speaker 2: Texas to for a catch and release alligator.

631
00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:27,040
Speaker 6: Gar Yeah, yep, that's that's what most people do now.

632
00:29:27,080 --> 00:29:28,719
Speaker 6: I would say the majority are doing that. I mean,

633
00:29:28,840 --> 00:29:30,960
Speaker 6: there's still people at harvestom. They've got a one fish

634
00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:33,120
Speaker 6: per day limit that Texas Parks and Wildlife has put in.

635
00:29:33,400 --> 00:29:37,480
Speaker 6: They've got probably some of the most conservation oriented regulations

636
00:29:37,680 --> 00:29:40,240
Speaker 6: in Texas. You say that the job is done, I

637
00:29:40,240 --> 00:29:42,640
Speaker 6: don't think, you know, neuro joking, but the job isn't done.

638
00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:45,720
Speaker 6: You look next door in Louisiana also arguably one of

639
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:48,560
Speaker 6: the healthiest gator gar populations in the world. There's no

640
00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:51,320
Speaker 6: regulations on them, so you can shoot as many as

641
00:29:51,360 --> 00:29:53,640
Speaker 6: you want. And the thing is these are giant fish.

642
00:29:53,720 --> 00:29:55,880
Speaker 6: We work with the fish rodeos there and we.

643
00:29:55,960 --> 00:29:57,280
Speaker 2: Shoo as many as you want. You can choose as

644
00:29:57,280 --> 00:29:58,120
Speaker 2: many of these as you want.

645
00:29:58,320 --> 00:29:59,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, there's still limit.

646
00:30:00,040 --> 00:30:04,200
Speaker 9: Yeah, how long if someone's killing say one hundred pound

647
00:30:04,920 --> 00:30:07,680
Speaker 9: alligator gun, which is not nearly how as big as

648
00:30:07,720 --> 00:30:10,160
Speaker 9: they get, but one hundred pound er, Say, how long

649
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:13,240
Speaker 9: does it take to replace that fish if someone kills one?

650
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:16,200
Speaker 3: It depends on where you're coming from Texas.

651
00:30:16,280 --> 00:30:19,560
Speaker 6: There's different populations in the Trinity River versus coastal population.

652
00:30:19,640 --> 00:30:20,760
Speaker 3: So I've had students work on this.

653
00:30:20,840 --> 00:30:22,400
Speaker 6: When I was down in Louisiana, I'd lived there for

654
00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:25,600
Speaker 6: six years, and so those coastal populations have access to

655
00:30:25,680 --> 00:30:27,960
Speaker 6: different kinds of food, right, and gars can live in

656
00:30:28,040 --> 00:30:30,240
Speaker 6: full salt water. You'll find them with bull sharks and

657
00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:33,200
Speaker 6: sea turtles, you know, way off the golf there, so

658
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:35,160
Speaker 6: they have access to food, but they can also go

659
00:30:35,200 --> 00:30:35,800
Speaker 6: into fresh water.

660
00:30:35,840 --> 00:30:37,040
Speaker 3: They mainly need the freshwater to.

661
00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:39,120
Speaker 8: Spawn or off the golf where you find them.

662
00:30:39,200 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 3: I mean you can find them.

663
00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:42,440
Speaker 6: Miles off the golf really yeah. Yeah, you go to

664
00:30:42,520 --> 00:30:44,720
Speaker 6: the aquarium, the Autumn Aquarium in New Orleans. They've got

665
00:30:44,800 --> 00:30:47,120
Speaker 6: them at sea turtles and tarpin of course, and then

666
00:30:47,280 --> 00:30:48,800
Speaker 6: all kinds of sharks, sand bar sharks.

667
00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:49,640
Speaker 8: What are they doing out there?

668
00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:51,640
Speaker 3: Is there like a motivation can forage out there?

669
00:30:51,640 --> 00:30:54,240
Speaker 6: I mean, it's other food that they can go after, so,

670
00:30:54,680 --> 00:30:56,600
Speaker 6: you know, if they can tolerate it, which all gars

671
00:30:56,640 --> 00:30:57,120
Speaker 6: can tolerate.

672
00:30:57,200 --> 00:30:59,120
Speaker 3: Saltwater for the most part. Long noses you can find

673
00:30:59,200 --> 00:31:02,760
Speaker 3: miles off the coat too, so highly adaptive.

674
00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:04,880
Speaker 6: And you know, I think some of the latest research

675
00:31:04,920 --> 00:31:07,400
Speaker 6: suggests that guards probably originated in salt water made their

676
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:08,120
Speaker 6: under fresh water.

677
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:08,800
Speaker 2: But is that right?

678
00:31:08,920 --> 00:31:11,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, that sort of paleontology gets flip flopped all the time.

679
00:31:11,440 --> 00:31:12,800
Speaker 5: Can they live in salt their whole life?

680
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:13,560
Speaker 3: They can't.

681
00:31:13,960 --> 00:31:17,640
Speaker 6: They theoretically could, but they couldn't reproduce. They need that

682
00:31:17,720 --> 00:31:22,000
Speaker 6: fresh water for reproduction. Alligator gars in particular need submerged

683
00:31:22,240 --> 00:31:25,480
Speaker 6: terrestrial vegetation to spawn on, so they need that big

684
00:31:25,560 --> 00:31:28,560
Speaker 6: flood pulse. And you don't get those big floods every year,

685
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:30,520
Speaker 6: so they have to take advantage. Think about the flood

686
00:31:30,560 --> 00:31:31,320
Speaker 6: nineteen twenty seven.

687
00:31:31,320 --> 00:31:35,240
Speaker 2: I think he needs he needs a dry land plant

688
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:39,080
Speaker 2: that happens to be underwater to spawn.

689
00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:41,440
Speaker 6: Typically, and a lot of the rivers in the floodplains

690
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:45,520
Speaker 6: where they spawn, they basically are spawning on submerged terrestrial vegetation.

691
00:31:46,320 --> 00:31:48,440
Speaker 2: Because to dry out for a while or what is it.

692
00:31:48,600 --> 00:31:51,360
Speaker 6: It's just that's kind of indicative of the floodplain being

693
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 6: submerged for a decent amount of time. Those eggs hatch,

694
00:31:54,200 --> 00:31:56,600
Speaker 6: They hatch in like maybe a day or two, depending

695
00:31:56,640 --> 00:31:58,480
Speaker 6: on water conditions and temperature, and.

696
00:31:58,560 --> 00:32:00,440
Speaker 3: Then they'll move out within that season.

697
00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:03,640
Speaker 6: But we've had alligator guards they hatch out about, you know,

698
00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:06,720
Speaker 6: less than half an inch long within a month, month

699
00:32:06,760 --> 00:32:08,600
Speaker 6: and a half. They can be twelve inches long within

700
00:32:08,640 --> 00:32:10,640
Speaker 6: their first season. Yeah, they grow fast.

701
00:32:11,680 --> 00:32:14,440
Speaker 9: Yeah, I want to get back to the age thing. Yeah,

702
00:32:15,280 --> 00:32:17,960
Speaker 9: like in the Trinity River in Texas, how old there

703
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:18,840
Speaker 9: is one hundred pounder?

704
00:32:19,080 --> 00:32:20,640
Speaker 7: This is like a multipart question.

705
00:32:20,800 --> 00:32:23,040
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, how old is it?

706
00:32:24,400 --> 00:32:27,760
Speaker 9: Have you seen like the average size of these things shrinking?

707
00:32:28,760 --> 00:32:32,160
Speaker 9: And then and then like how do they deal with

708
00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:35,040
Speaker 9: eating a chunk of dead cart with a treble hook

709
00:32:35,120 --> 00:32:37,360
Speaker 9: that goes way down its throat, like and you cut,

710
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:39,720
Speaker 9: if you cut the line, does that thing do just fine?

711
00:32:39,920 --> 00:32:40,880
Speaker 5: Right? Right?

712
00:32:40,960 --> 00:32:42,040
Speaker 3: That is a serious questions.

713
00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:46,240
Speaker 2: I get it.

714
00:32:46,360 --> 00:32:47,959
Speaker 3: Yeah, get them in while you can.

715
00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:51,480
Speaker 6: Yeah, So, like one hundred pound fish might be something like,

716
00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:53,520
Speaker 6: you know, five feet six feet long.

717
00:32:53,600 --> 00:32:54,640
Speaker 3: It depends so more.

718
00:32:54,800 --> 00:32:56,760
Speaker 6: We mainly go by length because depending you know, if

719
00:32:56,760 --> 00:32:59,480
Speaker 6: it's a gravid female, it's way way more. You could

720
00:32:59,480 --> 00:33:02,920
Speaker 6: be looking at a gravid's that means got lots of eggs.

721
00:33:02,960 --> 00:33:04,720
Speaker 7: Have you ever heard of that for egg wagon?

722
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:07,360
Speaker 4: Yeah, there you go, that's what gravid means.

723
00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:08,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what gravid means.

724
00:33:08,600 --> 00:33:10,640
Speaker 2: Never heard that word. I didn't hear that word before.

725
00:33:10,760 --> 00:33:13,120
Speaker 8: I worked at a fish Yeah, that's work with Solomon

726
00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:13,840
Speaker 8: for a decade.

727
00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:17,920
Speaker 2: That's right. For a minute, you heard that word brody yep,

728
00:33:18,680 --> 00:33:20,360
Speaker 2: doubt so.

729
00:33:20,520 --> 00:33:22,960
Speaker 6: Yeah, So you know, we go by lengths more than weight.

730
00:33:23,560 --> 00:33:25,080
Speaker 6: But that could be twenty years old, it could be

731
00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:25,880
Speaker 6: forty years old.

732
00:33:26,520 --> 00:33:28,560
Speaker 7: And that you're not talking like a hundred year old.

733
00:33:28,920 --> 00:33:29,800
Speaker 3: It could be so.

734
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:32,480
Speaker 6: Males, if you got an alligator guard that's over six

735
00:33:32,560 --> 00:33:35,280
Speaker 6: feet long, that's typically going to be a female. Males

736
00:33:35,320 --> 00:33:38,320
Speaker 6: don't tend to get that big, so you could get

737
00:33:38,360 --> 00:33:40,560
Speaker 6: males that live for that long. But if you're talking

738
00:33:40,680 --> 00:33:42,320
Speaker 6: just six foot fish that we don't know what the

739
00:33:42,360 --> 00:33:45,160
Speaker 6: sex of it is twenty forty, but if it's an

740
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:46,600
Speaker 6: old male, it could be sixty eighty.

741
00:33:46,640 --> 00:33:48,160
Speaker 3: We know they can live for over one hundred years.

742
00:33:49,440 --> 00:33:51,080
Speaker 2: I thought you're gonna have saying a lot older.

743
00:33:52,280 --> 00:33:53,840
Speaker 6: We don't know when you said they can hit twelve

744
00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:57,120
Speaker 6: inches how fast within a month and a half. But

745
00:33:57,200 --> 00:34:00,040
Speaker 6: if they're fed, they can reach two feet within that

746
00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:04,160
Speaker 6: first growing season. They can get big fast. Yeah, they

747
00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:06,520
Speaker 6: get huge. Even long nose gars can reach about We

748
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:10,600
Speaker 6: got some out of Minnesota about fifteen inches long that

749
00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:13,239
Speaker 6: were born, you know, hatched out this year, and they

750
00:34:13,320 --> 00:34:15,839
Speaker 6: hatch out in May. You know, Michigan, Minnesota, it doesn't

751
00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:18,759
Speaker 6: stay warm that long, so I would have hatched out

752
00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:22,080
Speaker 6: in May. We caught one in August and it was

753
00:34:22,080 --> 00:34:23,560
Speaker 6: already about fifteen inches long.

754
00:34:23,680 --> 00:34:26,360
Speaker 9: And then does it slow way down after their first year.

755
00:34:26,800 --> 00:34:29,040
Speaker 6: In sort of temperate regions it slows down a bit

756
00:34:29,080 --> 00:34:31,319
Speaker 6: because of winter. But what we found in our work

757
00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:33,400
Speaker 6: is that they've actually evolved a faster growth rate in

758
00:34:33,440 --> 00:34:35,759
Speaker 6: the north than they are in the South, but they

759
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:37,640
Speaker 6: live a shorter time in the South. If you're looking

760
00:34:37,680 --> 00:34:39,759
Speaker 6: at fish that are from the north versus the South,

761
00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:42,640
Speaker 6: alligator gars is a little bit different. So they can

762
00:34:42,719 --> 00:34:45,680
Speaker 6: live a long time, and they grow super fast because

763
00:34:45,680 --> 00:34:48,400
Speaker 6: they're eating fish. Gars switch to eating fish faster than

764
00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:51,439
Speaker 6: any other North American fish, faster than musky, faster than pike,

765
00:34:51,560 --> 00:34:52,279
Speaker 6: faster than fast.

766
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:54,960
Speaker 3: They also like to eat each other. A good gar

767
00:34:55,080 --> 00:34:57,160
Speaker 3: shaped you know, fish to eat is another gar.

768
00:34:57,280 --> 00:34:57,600
Speaker 2: Got it?

769
00:34:57,880 --> 00:34:59,760
Speaker 5: What are they eating on that first day of life?

770
00:35:00,680 --> 00:35:03,479
Speaker 6: Yolk sack stuff, So I mean that's they've got the yolk,

771
00:35:03,600 --> 00:35:06,720
Speaker 6: which is also somewhat poisonous. So gar eggs are poisonous.

772
00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:08,680
Speaker 6: You're not going to find people making gar caviars. So

773
00:35:08,719 --> 00:35:10,279
Speaker 6: if you ever prepping that, I might have heard that,

774
00:35:10,440 --> 00:35:13,799
Speaker 6: Yeah forget it. Yeah it's pretty toxic. So they're they're

775
00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:16,719
Speaker 6: toxic for you know, the first few days, and then

776
00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:18,920
Speaker 6: once they absorbed that yolk sack, then they're eating plankton.

777
00:35:19,080 --> 00:35:21,239
Speaker 6: So usually like you know, daphnia, that sort oft of

778
00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:23,880
Speaker 6: a zooplankton. But what we found is what might actually

779
00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:26,600
Speaker 6: lead to the gars, alligator gar growing so big in

780
00:35:26,680 --> 00:35:29,080
Speaker 6: their first year is that their gills are a little

781
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:31,439
Speaker 6: bit different than long nose gars and short nose gars.

782
00:35:31,640 --> 00:35:34,800
Speaker 6: They actually have a filtration aspect to their gills. And

783
00:35:34,920 --> 00:35:36,920
Speaker 6: we actually found an alligator gar that was about this

784
00:35:37,080 --> 00:35:40,880
Speaker 6: big down Louisiana and its stomach was full of plankton,

785
00:35:41,360 --> 00:35:44,080
Speaker 6: and so like balen Way, just yeah, exactly, it's like

786
00:35:44,120 --> 00:35:46,680
Speaker 6: imagine like a great white shark eating krill, which is

787
00:35:46,680 --> 00:35:47,920
Speaker 6: what you're looking at, because you don't think of an

788
00:35:47,920 --> 00:35:49,840
Speaker 6: alligator gar as a as a film theater.

789
00:35:50,360 --> 00:35:52,560
Speaker 2: And so my students, how's it getting from because that's

790
00:35:52,600 --> 00:35:54,120
Speaker 2: like feeding into his blood stream.

791
00:35:54,160 --> 00:35:58,160
Speaker 4: How's it getting like he's like raking it out?

792
00:35:58,360 --> 00:36:00,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then it somehow is getting as esophagus.

793
00:36:01,160 --> 00:36:04,279
Speaker 6: Yeah, yep, just like you know, paddlefish are filter feeders, right,

794
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:07,360
Speaker 6: So alligator gars and the cuban and tropical gar have

795
00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:09,800
Speaker 6: gill rakers that work kind of like a sieve, and

796
00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:12,480
Speaker 6: so they can actually filter out the plankton and that

797
00:36:12,560 --> 00:36:15,200
Speaker 6: goes down their esophagus, like you said, whereas long nose

798
00:36:15,239 --> 00:36:17,279
Speaker 6: and short nosed gars, we got spoted gars the same day.

799
00:36:17,320 --> 00:36:19,880
Speaker 6: The gill rakers are very different. Nothing in their stomach,

800
00:36:20,040 --> 00:36:21,440
Speaker 6: but we didn't know what it was. We had this

801
00:36:21,520 --> 00:36:23,400
Speaker 6: frozen fish, and my students brought it up to me.

802
00:36:23,440 --> 00:36:24,640
Speaker 6: It's like, we don't know what this is in the

803
00:36:24,680 --> 00:36:26,880
Speaker 6: stomach because I'm always doing paperwork. So I tell the

804
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:28,560
Speaker 6: students and they're doing dissection, let me know if you

805
00:36:28,600 --> 00:36:30,680
Speaker 6: find anything cool. We found half a giant rat in

806
00:36:30,719 --> 00:36:33,440
Speaker 6: a bofend once. We found all kinds of stuff, but

807
00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:34,920
Speaker 6: they said, we found some in the stomach.

808
00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:35,640
Speaker 3: We don't know what it is.

809
00:36:35,719 --> 00:36:37,359
Speaker 6: It looks like a popsicle, and so I'm like, well,

810
00:36:37,360 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 6: there's a frozen fish. So I said, let's take a

811
00:36:40,040 --> 00:36:42,239
Speaker 6: look at it. We dissected it and I was they're

812
00:36:42,320 --> 00:36:44,200
Speaker 6: chopping it up. I'm like, this looks really weird. Reminds

813
00:36:44,280 --> 00:36:45,719
Speaker 6: me of some fish food I used to feed to

814
00:36:45,760 --> 00:36:47,920
Speaker 6: fish at home. I have gars and aquariums at home too,

815
00:36:48,200 --> 00:36:50,480
Speaker 6: And so Ransom water over it and started like melting

816
00:36:50,520 --> 00:36:52,560
Speaker 6: into these particles and that this is really weird. It's

817
00:36:52,600 --> 00:36:56,360
Speaker 6: bright orange too. I'm kind of like Kriller crotenoid organisms orange.

818
00:36:56,760 --> 00:36:58,239
Speaker 6: And so we liked under the microscope and it was

819
00:36:58,239 --> 00:37:00,320
Speaker 6: all copa pods and the stomach was all of this.

820
00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:03,200
Speaker 6: And so up until then it only been anecdotal, you know,

821
00:37:03,600 --> 00:37:07,000
Speaker 6: stories about them, maybe filter feeding in Mexico and other places.

822
00:37:07,320 --> 00:37:09,480
Speaker 6: So we think being able to take advantage of those

823
00:37:09,560 --> 00:37:11,880
Speaker 6: other food types allows them to grow that big. I'm

824
00:37:11,920 --> 00:37:14,440
Speaker 6: thinking about whales, right, they're getting that big, you know,

825
00:37:14,560 --> 00:37:16,000
Speaker 6: eating those smaller food items.

826
00:37:16,040 --> 00:37:18,359
Speaker 3: So not only are they eating shad and mullet.

827
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:20,000
Speaker 6: But they're actually able to eat these other fish too.

828
00:37:20,080 --> 00:37:23,040
Speaker 6: So there's a lot left to be discovered about these fish.

829
00:37:23,239 --> 00:37:24,160
Speaker 2: Well that's pretty crazy.

830
00:37:24,560 --> 00:37:27,360
Speaker 9: So how do they deal with like as far as

831
00:37:27,480 --> 00:37:30,719
Speaker 9: mortality and stuff with a great big rusty because when

832
00:37:30,760 --> 00:37:33,520
Speaker 9: people are fishing for them, they're letting them chew on

833
00:37:33,680 --> 00:37:37,680
Speaker 9: that chunk of dead bait for a minute, then they're in.

834
00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:40,719
Speaker 3: I don't know, usually they try to retrieve it.

835
00:37:40,840 --> 00:37:43,120
Speaker 6: I know that a lot of anglers now are trying

836
00:37:43,120 --> 00:37:45,440
Speaker 6: to use just circle hooks or jay hooks as opposed

837
00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:48,279
Speaker 6: to the treble hooks. There's even when I included a

838
00:37:48,360 --> 00:37:50,520
Speaker 6: picture of this, they come up with a gar saver

839
00:37:50,680 --> 00:37:53,399
Speaker 6: rig which actually has a bar so the gar can't

840
00:37:53,440 --> 00:37:56,000
Speaker 6: actually take it down into its stomach.

841
00:37:56,040 --> 00:37:57,800
Speaker 3: Oh, really keeps it in the jaws.

842
00:37:57,880 --> 00:37:58,080
Speaker 2: Yeah.

843
00:37:58,160 --> 00:37:59,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like a crossbar.

844
00:37:59,239 --> 00:37:59,439
Speaker 5: Yeah.

845
00:37:59,680 --> 00:38:01,480
Speaker 6: So that way it allows the you know, hook to

846
00:38:01,480 --> 00:38:03,560
Speaker 6: get stuck in the jaws, which are easy to retrieve,

847
00:38:04,320 --> 00:38:05,920
Speaker 6: but it doesn't go all the way down to the stomach,

848
00:38:05,960 --> 00:38:08,400
Speaker 6: because yeah, you could gut hook a fish and that

849
00:38:08,520 --> 00:38:10,080
Speaker 6: could be you know, problematic.

850
00:38:10,800 --> 00:38:11,719
Speaker 3: It's it's hard to say.

851
00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:14,239
Speaker 6: We know so little about these fish that even looking

852
00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:16,200
Speaker 6: at catch and release mortality with the hooks like that

853
00:38:16,400 --> 00:38:18,920
Speaker 6: is understudied. We know it's you know, less mortality than

854
00:38:19,040 --> 00:38:22,320
Speaker 6: you know, bowfishing or bowfish catch and release, which does exist.

855
00:38:22,440 --> 00:38:25,840
Speaker 4: But so that exists, Yeah, yeah.

856
00:38:26,719 --> 00:38:29,520
Speaker 2: But it exists, but it doesn't exist where they're picturing

857
00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:31,000
Speaker 2: that it's going to live to be shot.

858
00:38:30,800 --> 00:38:32,440
Speaker 4: Another day, believe it or not.

859
00:38:32,600 --> 00:38:35,879
Speaker 6: In eight states catch and release bowfishing. Shoot and release

860
00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:37,120
Speaker 6: bowfishing is legal.

861
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:42,160
Speaker 2: And that's not that just de burdens them to deal with, right.

862
00:38:43,920 --> 00:38:47,600
Speaker 6: Well, that's when there's been conversations about changing that regulation,

863
00:38:47,719 --> 00:38:50,520
Speaker 6: like let's make shoot and release bowfishing not legal, which

864
00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:53,360
Speaker 6: seems reasonable. Would you shoot and release the you know,

865
00:38:53,520 --> 00:38:55,560
Speaker 6: a deer duck or something like that and just kind

866
00:38:55,600 --> 00:38:56,200
Speaker 6: of leave it behind.

867
00:38:57,160 --> 00:38:59,520
Speaker 3: The argument is that all those fish are okay.

868
00:39:00,040 --> 00:39:02,400
Speaker 7: Because they're just so tough, like they just hard.

869
00:39:02,280 --> 00:39:04,520
Speaker 6: To you know anecdotic like, oh, you know, I've shot

870
00:39:04,520 --> 00:39:07,520
Speaker 6: a bunch of fish you know, and I'm paraphrasing, overnight

871
00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:09,960
Speaker 6: the next day we shot maybe one hundred two hundred

872
00:39:10,280 --> 00:39:12,480
Speaker 6: fish suckers are and the next day there weren't any

873
00:39:12,520 --> 00:39:15,320
Speaker 6: of them around, So they must have been fine or

874
00:39:15,320 --> 00:39:15,799
Speaker 6: they all sunk.

875
00:39:15,840 --> 00:39:18,719
Speaker 2: To the most people they get shot by a gun

876
00:39:19,200 --> 00:39:22,600
Speaker 2: don't die, right, right, But it's not like it's not

877
00:39:22,800 --> 00:39:25,040
Speaker 2: like when you shoot people. It's not like a shoot

878
00:39:25,080 --> 00:39:28,560
Speaker 2: and release. Yeah, what you're not thinking of it that way, right,

879
00:39:28,719 --> 00:39:32,960
Speaker 2: and so like, yeah, chances are that's weird. Yeah, I

880
00:39:33,040 --> 00:39:35,239
Speaker 2: don't think that the shooter is thinking a bit like that.

881
00:39:35,400 --> 00:39:37,279
Speaker 2: I think the shooters like, oh sweet, I don't need

882
00:39:37,320 --> 00:39:39,879
Speaker 2: to even deal with it, right, Yeah, it's a it's

883
00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:42,120
Speaker 2: they shake it off the air up there.

884
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:42,960
Speaker 3: And then they kind of leave it.

885
00:39:43,040 --> 00:39:45,200
Speaker 6: But then they've done studies to look at shoot and

886
00:39:45,239 --> 00:39:47,439
Speaker 6: release mortality where they've you know, shot them and looked

887
00:39:47,440 --> 00:39:50,479
Speaker 6: at them. Depending on where the you know, animal gets shot,

888
00:39:50,600 --> 00:39:52,520
Speaker 6: that depends on how it's going to survive, how long

889
00:39:52,600 --> 00:39:54,880
Speaker 6: it's going to survive. Within twenty four hours, if it's

890
00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:57,160
Speaker 6: in the head or the spine, that fish is dead, sure,

891
00:39:57,280 --> 00:39:59,719
Speaker 6: but even after that, if it's somewhere else. It was

892
00:39:59,760 --> 00:40:03,000
Speaker 6: over fifty percent, you know, seventy two hours later, So

893
00:40:03,400 --> 00:40:04,360
Speaker 6: that's one of that's.

894
00:40:04,200 --> 00:40:08,080
Speaker 4: True, but that's true of like most not on my yeah,

895
00:40:08,360 --> 00:40:08,959
Speaker 4: most deer.

896
00:40:09,120 --> 00:40:15,719
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, well okay, Spencer, what percent of deer that

897
00:40:15,840 --> 00:40:17,640
Speaker 2: aren't this is impossible to answer.

898
00:40:17,719 --> 00:40:18,960
Speaker 4: Yeah, what percent of.

899
00:40:19,040 --> 00:40:24,480
Speaker 2: Deer that aren't recovered archery shot white tails that aren't recovered?

900
00:40:24,560 --> 00:40:25,479
Speaker 2: What percent do you think.

901
00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:30,480
Speaker 8: Die that aren't recovered? What percent die in like the

902
00:40:30,600 --> 00:40:34,200
Speaker 8: next couple of days. I would say fifty percent. By

903
00:40:34,360 --> 00:40:37,719
Speaker 8: like the end of that following winter, probably another ten

904
00:40:37,840 --> 00:40:40,320
Speaker 8: or twenty percent, So that leaves like thirty percent to

905
00:40:40,400 --> 00:40:42,280
Speaker 8: survive for the next hunting season.

906
00:40:42,520 --> 00:40:46,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, just to guess. My only point being, I think

907
00:40:46,800 --> 00:40:49,080
Speaker 2: that anyone that acts like they're shooting that air under

908
00:40:49,120 --> 00:40:50,759
Speaker 2: that fish as a way of letting it go is

909
00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:51,880
Speaker 2: being cute with themselves.

910
00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:52,120
Speaker 10: Yeah.

911
00:40:52,200 --> 00:40:55,399
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree, it's like absurd, and I think that's

912
00:40:55,440 --> 00:40:56,640
Speaker 3: what you know you.

913
00:40:56,600 --> 00:40:58,640
Speaker 4: Said about everything. But hey, sometimes you hit a duck

914
00:40:58,680 --> 00:41:01,040
Speaker 4: and it doesn't die. Yeah, this is no different than that.

915
00:41:01,640 --> 00:41:02,560
Speaker 2: Well, no, it's different.

916
00:41:02,800 --> 00:41:03,000
Speaker 3: Yeah.

917
00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:05,520
Speaker 6: Well, ducks are managed, right, deer managed, So that's part

918
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:07,440
Speaker 6: of the reason why we're looking why not just manage

919
00:41:07,480 --> 00:41:09,880
Speaker 6: these populations put a limit on it, you know, as

920
00:41:09,920 --> 00:41:12,680
Speaker 6: opposed to shoot a thousand and then there's you know,

921
00:41:12,760 --> 00:41:13,600
Speaker 6: what are you doing with them?

922
00:41:13,640 --> 00:41:16,120
Speaker 3: If you're eating a thousand gar? Like, my hat's off

923
00:41:16,200 --> 00:41:16,360
Speaker 3: to you.

924
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:18,719
Speaker 6: But even as much as I like eating gar, I'm

925
00:41:18,760 --> 00:41:21,080
Speaker 6: not eating a thousand car But not to not to

926
00:41:21,160 --> 00:41:22,120
Speaker 6: digress too much from that.

927
00:41:22,239 --> 00:41:24,680
Speaker 2: No, no, are you question good?

928
00:41:25,719 --> 00:41:25,959
Speaker 5: Okay?

929
00:41:26,040 --> 00:41:27,239
Speaker 2: I think so I.

930
00:41:29,440 --> 00:41:30,319
Speaker 7: Could go on all day.

931
00:41:30,440 --> 00:41:31,960
Speaker 2: I was thinking of a different parallel. I was trying

932
00:41:32,000 --> 00:41:33,279
Speaker 2: to think of this morning. I was trying to think

933
00:41:33,320 --> 00:41:39,360
Speaker 2: of different parallels in the bird world and bird management.

934
00:41:39,920 --> 00:41:44,160
Speaker 2: We've accounted like, we've accounted for all birds in bird

935
00:41:44,239 --> 00:41:48,000
Speaker 2: management because we have the migratory and song bird treat like.

936
00:41:48,200 --> 00:41:49,960
Speaker 2: We have a couple non native.

937
00:41:50,320 --> 00:41:55,080
Speaker 4: We have a handful of non native deleterious English sparrows,

938
00:41:55,520 --> 00:41:59,520
Speaker 4: European starlings, Colombo Olivia, the street pigeon.

939
00:41:59,880 --> 00:42:01,480
Speaker 7: You can kill as many as you want, but no

940
00:42:01,560 --> 00:42:01,960
Speaker 7: one does.

941
00:42:03,040 --> 00:42:06,600
Speaker 2: Collared dove. Okay, we have a handful of like Dela teers,

942
00:42:06,680 --> 00:42:09,880
Speaker 2: so like very much deleterious non native.

943
00:42:11,400 --> 00:42:14,160
Speaker 4: We have all our game birds. We don't have loose

944
00:42:14,360 --> 00:42:17,560
Speaker 4: ends in the bird world. But then I start thinking

945
00:42:17,600 --> 00:42:20,279
Speaker 4: in the mammal world, we have a lot of loose

946
00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:24,640
Speaker 4: ends in the mammal world, where you have there's a

947
00:42:24,800 --> 00:42:29,880
Speaker 4: host of like non game species that are some of

948
00:42:29,960 --> 00:42:33,000
Speaker 4: them are desired, Like most states will run a possums,

949
00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:36,200
Speaker 4: Most states are gonna run skunks. Most states are gonna

950
00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:40,239
Speaker 4: run short tail, long tail, least weasel, non game. Those

951
00:42:40,280 --> 00:42:41,880
Speaker 4: are all native animals.

952
00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:44,440
Speaker 2: Right, So there's a parallel there where you just have

953
00:42:44,600 --> 00:42:47,759
Speaker 2: this kind of like loosey goosey configuration and.

954
00:42:47,840 --> 00:42:49,000
Speaker 7: It varies by state.

955
00:42:50,120 --> 00:42:53,440
Speaker 9: Oh yeah, like there's animals here that would be fur

956
00:42:53,560 --> 00:42:55,600
Speaker 9: bearers and other like highly regulated.

957
00:42:55,680 --> 00:42:58,359
Speaker 2: Yeah they run they run red Fox in this state.

958
00:42:58,480 --> 00:43:01,520
Speaker 2: They run Red Fox is an on game, no close season,

959
00:43:01,640 --> 00:43:05,960
Speaker 2: no bag limit. They're tightly regulated in other states. So

960
00:43:06,080 --> 00:43:10,439
Speaker 2: it's like, so with birds, we've kind of like sort

961
00:43:10,480 --> 00:43:15,040
Speaker 2: of made every bird has its area of regulatory structure.

962
00:43:15,200 --> 00:43:20,360
Speaker 2: With animals, we don't, and with fish we definitely don't like.

963
00:43:20,920 --> 00:43:23,640
Speaker 2: And with fish, I think the problem is with fish

964
00:43:23,719 --> 00:43:27,000
Speaker 2: is we don't even have there's not even like a

965
00:43:27,120 --> 00:43:32,879
Speaker 2: native non native distinction like you would think a state

966
00:43:32,920 --> 00:43:39,239
Speaker 2: would say, ah, well, this gets so complicated because in

967
00:43:39,320 --> 00:43:42,080
Speaker 2: my notes, you know what I wrote my notes bowfishing

968
00:43:42,160 --> 00:43:47,760
Speaker 2: conundrum and the Ranella solution a nice part of the problem.

969
00:43:49,239 --> 00:43:51,080
Speaker 2: Part of the problem is in a lot of the

970
00:43:51,239 --> 00:43:54,680
Speaker 2: big bowfishing states, they made it a long time ago

971
00:43:54,840 --> 00:44:02,040
Speaker 2: that you can't hunt the good eating fish everybody to hunt.

972
00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:04,480
Speaker 2: They're not good eating fish. In South America, they bowfish.

973
00:44:04,560 --> 00:44:06,719
Speaker 2: Like I've been out, both fished South America. You're after

974
00:44:06,800 --> 00:44:09,600
Speaker 2: the best fish in the in the river. Because they

975
00:44:09,719 --> 00:44:13,080
Speaker 2: bothfish the really good ones. So they've boxed dudes in

976
00:44:14,400 --> 00:44:16,719
Speaker 2: and like, you can't bothfish this. You can't both fish that.

977
00:44:16,920 --> 00:44:18,960
Speaker 2: You can't both fish this. So it is putting a

978
00:44:19,080 --> 00:44:23,160
Speaker 2: lot of emphasis on these other things. But I do

979
00:44:23,440 --> 00:44:26,320
Speaker 2: think it's ridiculous to me that a state agency wouldn't

980
00:44:26,320 --> 00:44:28,840
Speaker 2: come in and say, if they're gonna be like that

981
00:44:28,920 --> 00:44:30,680
Speaker 2: and they're not gonna let you both fish the good stuff,

982
00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:34,200
Speaker 2: a state agency see would come and say, non native

983
00:44:35,200 --> 00:44:39,440
Speaker 2: deleterious fish are open all the time, and there's a

984
00:44:39,640 --> 00:44:42,319
Speaker 2: you can there's no close season, there's no bag limit,

985
00:44:42,400 --> 00:44:46,400
Speaker 2: and there's a very loose method of take structure. Native

986
00:44:46,480 --> 00:44:50,839
Speaker 2: fish have bag limits. Yeah, But like they're what they're

987
00:44:50,880 --> 00:44:52,840
Speaker 2: gonna say is people can't tell the difference.

988
00:44:53,160 --> 00:44:53,279
Speaker 5: Right.

989
00:44:53,400 --> 00:44:54,839
Speaker 2: This is when I was talking about this earlier. They're

990
00:44:54,840 --> 00:44:56,560
Speaker 2: gonna like, well, how could you expect someone to tell

991
00:44:56,560 --> 00:44:59,600
Speaker 2: a cart from a buffalo. I'd be like, I don't know.

992
00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:03,200
Speaker 2: How can you expect them to tell a pit a

993
00:45:03,320 --> 00:45:05,920
Speaker 2: wigeon from a gadwin exactly, from a mautland from a

994
00:45:06,000 --> 00:45:09,960
Speaker 2: wood duck? Right? How can you? Like, you you're obligated

995
00:45:10,000 --> 00:45:11,879
Speaker 2: to tell all kinds of shit? How can you tell

996
00:45:11,920 --> 00:45:14,799
Speaker 2: a deer's antler is over or under three inches long?

997
00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:17,920
Speaker 2: I don't know, Like you figure it out.

998
00:45:17,960 --> 00:45:19,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.

999
00:45:19,239 --> 00:45:21,080
Speaker 6: That's what we'd like to do, is just let's get

1000
00:45:21,160 --> 00:45:24,400
Speaker 6: some at least attempt at some equal application of that

1001
00:45:24,960 --> 00:45:27,800
Speaker 6: onto fish. And I will say that Minnesota very recently,

1002
00:45:27,800 --> 00:45:31,399
Speaker 6: in twenty twenty four, enacted the most comprehensive Native Fish

1003
00:45:31,440 --> 00:45:34,080
Speaker 6: Conservation Bill and put it into law where they did

1004
00:45:34,160 --> 00:45:34,879
Speaker 6: one of the first things.

1005
00:45:34,960 --> 00:45:36,880
Speaker 3: Are you the lobbyist on that, you know, I'm one

1006
00:45:36,920 --> 00:45:37,840
Speaker 3: of the advocates for it.

1007
00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:40,880
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, I did that even from down in Louisiana

1008
00:45:40,960 --> 00:45:43,040
Speaker 6: before I had any inklings of coming up to Minnesota.

1009
00:45:43,160 --> 00:45:47,480
Speaker 6: But so they did separate common carp from the other

1010
00:45:47,880 --> 00:45:49,560
Speaker 6: native non game fish. That was one of the first

1011
00:45:49,560 --> 00:45:51,879
Speaker 6: things they did, because they call him now native rough fish,

1012
00:45:51,920 --> 00:45:53,839
Speaker 6: which are like it's the least worst name because he's

1013
00:45:53,840 --> 00:45:54,880
Speaker 6: still got the rough fish.

1014
00:45:54,680 --> 00:45:55,240
Speaker 4: But at least.

1015
00:45:57,800 --> 00:45:58,319
Speaker 2: Where it came from.

1016
00:45:58,360 --> 00:46:00,439
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, yeah, And I'm not I'm not worried about

1017
00:46:00,440 --> 00:46:01,640
Speaker 6: the names much as now that we can get the

1018
00:46:01,680 --> 00:46:04,359
Speaker 6: work done. So if we've got the separation there, I'm

1019
00:46:04,440 --> 00:46:07,640
Speaker 6: not as concerned at least on some level, with the

1020
00:46:07,800 --> 00:46:11,280
Speaker 6: naming so much as we've got a category that separates

1021
00:46:11,320 --> 00:46:14,600
Speaker 6: the common carp the other invasive carp from our buffalo,

1022
00:46:14,760 --> 00:46:17,160
Speaker 6: our gars are boffins. And it's allowing us to then

1023
00:46:17,280 --> 00:46:21,239
Speaker 6: have restitution values. So if you have wanton waste, there's

1024
00:46:21,320 --> 00:46:24,000
Speaker 6: a penalty for walleye and bass. I think it's like

1025
00:46:24,120 --> 00:46:26,279
Speaker 6: something like thirty bucks a walleye if you have, you know,

1026
00:46:26,480 --> 00:46:28,320
Speaker 6: want and waste for walleye and a lot of the

1027
00:46:28,360 --> 00:46:32,080
Speaker 6: game fish. So even if they had like a negligible

1028
00:46:32,120 --> 00:46:34,800
Speaker 6: amount for you know, buffalo or bofen or gar, I

1029
00:46:34,840 --> 00:46:35,960
Speaker 6: mean that would start racking up.

1030
00:46:36,200 --> 00:46:36,399
Speaker 2: Sure.

1031
00:46:36,880 --> 00:46:40,440
Speaker 6: So we've got some regulation there and we're going in

1032
00:46:40,520 --> 00:46:42,440
Speaker 6: the right direction. And so Minnesota's kind of leading the

1033
00:46:42,480 --> 00:46:44,560
Speaker 6: charge with that. I've got colleagues in Michigan that want

1034
00:46:44,600 --> 00:46:47,840
Speaker 6: to do the same thing. Wisconsin. We've got colleagues in Oklahoma.

1035
00:46:47,920 --> 00:46:50,160
Speaker 6: So I do think it's something that's going to start

1036
00:46:50,320 --> 00:46:52,960
Speaker 6: catching on. We know that it's already catching on. And

1037
00:46:53,040 --> 00:46:55,760
Speaker 6: these native fish have been here for you know, longer

1038
00:46:55,800 --> 00:46:58,239
Speaker 6: than we have. So I think if we can get

1039
00:46:58,280 --> 00:47:01,160
Speaker 6: past the sort of human construct of this game fish,

1040
00:47:01,239 --> 00:47:03,279
Speaker 6: this is the valuable one and this is not the

1041
00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:06,239
Speaker 6: valuable one. And just look at a base level, let's

1042
00:47:06,239 --> 00:47:07,480
Speaker 6: apply what we do to duck.

1043
00:47:07,400 --> 00:47:10,000
Speaker 3: Hunting to fish. You have to be able to tell

1044
00:47:10,040 --> 00:47:10,480
Speaker 3: the difference.

1045
00:47:10,560 --> 00:47:12,880
Speaker 6: Like, sure, a buffalo, you know, looks similar to a

1046
00:47:12,920 --> 00:47:15,600
Speaker 6: carp i'll, i'll, you know, agree with that, but we

1047
00:47:15,719 --> 00:47:17,200
Speaker 6: hear from both fishers. Well, it takes a lot of

1048
00:47:17,239 --> 00:47:20,040
Speaker 6: skill that you know, you know, over a company excuse me,

1049
00:47:20,120 --> 00:47:23,560
Speaker 6: a comb accommodate for the refractive index of water. Right,

1050
00:47:23,840 --> 00:47:25,640
Speaker 6: so you already have to pay a lot of attention.

1051
00:47:26,040 --> 00:47:27,960
Speaker 6: How about we apply that to just look, does it

1052
00:47:28,040 --> 00:47:30,040
Speaker 6: have barballs? Is the scale type different? What does the

1053
00:47:30,239 --> 00:47:33,320
Speaker 6: dorsal fin look like? Apply that and then also just

1054
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:35,759
Speaker 6: these wanton waste limits, like I mean, is there really

1055
00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:38,800
Speaker 6: a reason to shoot a thousand gar, hundreds and hundreds

1056
00:47:38,800 --> 00:47:40,920
Speaker 6: of buffalo if you're not eating them? You look at

1057
00:47:40,960 --> 00:47:43,680
Speaker 6: the you know, North American model for wildlife conservation. That third,

1058
00:47:43,880 --> 00:47:46,600
Speaker 6: you know point there of like not a frivolous use

1059
00:47:46,719 --> 00:47:48,120
Speaker 6: for you know, killing the animal.

1060
00:47:48,320 --> 00:47:50,640
Speaker 3: And I've had buffalo ribs of at garave at bofen.

1061
00:47:50,680 --> 00:47:52,839
Speaker 6: Hopefully you try that sometime soon, but there are uses

1062
00:47:52,920 --> 00:47:54,239
Speaker 6: for that, right, So it's sort of an eat what

1063
00:47:54,280 --> 00:47:55,640
Speaker 6: you kill and be able to identify it.

1064
00:47:56,040 --> 00:47:57,759
Speaker 2: I won't be clear. I've tried it, yeah, yeah, but

1065
00:47:57,840 --> 00:47:59,799
Speaker 2: I think I might I might have waited too long.

1066
00:48:00,239 --> 00:48:04,920
Speaker 9: Right, Is there a lot of evidence for non native

1067
00:48:04,960 --> 00:48:10,800
Speaker 9: species like common carp, Asian carp impacting or other non natives,

1068
00:48:10,880 --> 00:48:14,760
Speaker 9: non native game fish like impacting these native rough fish species.

1069
00:48:15,080 --> 00:48:18,120
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean the the non native Well yeah, so

1070
00:48:18,200 --> 00:48:20,200
Speaker 6: we can take that as the the invasive fish, right,

1071
00:48:20,239 --> 00:48:22,280
Speaker 6: I mean because you can. Non native is a pretty

1072
00:48:22,400 --> 00:48:24,520
Speaker 6: you know, interesting term, you know. Right, you look in

1073
00:48:24,560 --> 00:48:26,279
Speaker 6: the Great Lakes Range and we've got steelhead, we got

1074
00:48:26,280 --> 00:48:31,719
Speaker 6: shinok sanmar but those aren't invasives, right, yeah, it's like, yeah,

1075
00:48:32,000 --> 00:48:34,080
Speaker 6: so carp and you know, like so common carp and

1076
00:48:34,120 --> 00:48:36,440
Speaker 6: the invasive carp like the silver carp and the big

1077
00:48:36,480 --> 00:48:38,560
Speaker 6: head carp, especially the silver in the big head they

1078
00:48:38,640 --> 00:48:41,120
Speaker 6: eat planktons, so they're actually attacking the food web at

1079
00:48:41,160 --> 00:48:43,440
Speaker 6: the bottom of the food web, and that's what all

1080
00:48:43,480 --> 00:48:46,319
Speaker 6: the little fish, whether they're game fish or other native fish,

1081
00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:48,239
Speaker 6: they need to eat to grow, and so they are

1082
00:48:48,360 --> 00:48:51,360
Speaker 6: actually you know, opening up for a potential trophic cascade

1083
00:48:51,440 --> 00:48:53,680
Speaker 6: from basically the bottom up. So they are problematic and

1084
00:48:53,800 --> 00:48:56,680
Speaker 6: they reproduce very fast. They get really big, really fast.

1085
00:48:57,680 --> 00:49:00,399
Speaker 6: Common carp they you know, they stir up the water,

1086
00:49:00,560 --> 00:49:04,600
Speaker 6: they remove vegetation, and they're super durable fish. So, I mean,

1087
00:49:04,640 --> 00:49:06,879
Speaker 6: those are problems that we've let in and we can't

1088
00:49:06,920 --> 00:49:09,239
Speaker 6: eradicate those. It's all about control there. So they do

1089
00:49:09,400 --> 00:49:11,440
Speaker 6: affect the native fish. Now on the other end of

1090
00:49:11,440 --> 00:49:13,799
Speaker 6: the big mouth buffalo is a plank tivorous fish. It's

1091
00:49:13,840 --> 00:49:16,400
Speaker 6: one of our biggest plank divors. They actually compete with

1092
00:49:16,800 --> 00:49:19,360
Speaker 6: the silver carp and the big head carp. So, you know,

1093
00:49:19,600 --> 00:49:22,279
Speaker 6: as we work on controlling for invasive pieces, but also

1094
00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:25,560
Speaker 6: just bolstering and maybe protecting some of those native fish.

1095
00:49:25,640 --> 00:49:28,839
Speaker 6: Maybe if if it's just limits, you're actually creating more

1096
00:49:28,880 --> 00:49:31,479
Speaker 6: resilient system to buffer against those invasive pieces.

1097
00:49:31,560 --> 00:49:35,279
Speaker 9: So there's no like advantage either like carp or I mean,

1098
00:49:35,400 --> 00:49:38,959
Speaker 9: gar aren't taking advantage of all these little Asian carp.

1099
00:49:39,880 --> 00:49:40,480
Speaker 2: They are. They are.

1100
00:49:40,600 --> 00:49:42,359
Speaker 6: There's been a study down I think it was out

1101
00:49:42,360 --> 00:49:44,839
Speaker 6: of Indiana or Illinois which actually showed that shorten noes

1102
00:49:44,880 --> 00:49:47,480
Speaker 6: gar were one of the few native predators are actually

1103
00:49:47,520 --> 00:49:50,239
Speaker 6: we're selecting for invasive carps. So they were eating the

1104
00:49:50,280 --> 00:49:52,200
Speaker 6: silver carp in the big head carp. The thing is

1105
00:49:52,400 --> 00:49:54,680
Speaker 6: those are top predators, right. There's not going to be

1106
00:49:54,920 --> 00:49:58,200
Speaker 6: enough gars to eat all of the invasive car so

1107
00:49:58,400 --> 00:50:00,400
Speaker 6: it helps. It's a nice story when you got a

1108
00:50:00,520 --> 00:50:02,759
Speaker 6: native fish that can help you out against invasive fish.

1109
00:50:02,800 --> 00:50:04,360
Speaker 3: Whitefish like whitefish.

1110
00:50:03,960 --> 00:50:06,120
Speaker 6: And like michigan eat zebra muscles, but they're not going

1111
00:50:06,160 --> 00:50:08,960
Speaker 6: to solve the zebra muscle problem. There was a story,

1112
00:50:09,080 --> 00:50:10,960
Speaker 6: you know, that came up back in twenty sixteen where

1113
00:50:11,080 --> 00:50:14,360
Speaker 6: that really was starting to rehab the gator gar reputation

1114
00:50:14,560 --> 00:50:17,800
Speaker 6: was like a way to control invasive carp was alligator gars.

1115
00:50:17,840 --> 00:50:20,600
Speaker 6: And this gets to them restocking them in Illinois. It's like, well,

1116
00:50:20,640 --> 00:50:22,200
Speaker 6: we get the alligator gars, that's going to be our

1117
00:50:22,239 --> 00:50:24,840
Speaker 6: silver bullet. There was nowhere near enough alligator gars there

1118
00:50:24,920 --> 00:50:27,239
Speaker 6: never will be to control for the silver carp. And

1119
00:50:27,360 --> 00:50:29,320
Speaker 6: those of us that were you know, interviewed for the

1120
00:50:29,360 --> 00:50:31,560
Speaker 6: story that said like, eh, you should probably pump the

1121
00:50:31,600 --> 00:50:33,759
Speaker 6: brakes on that. That was kind of left out of

1122
00:50:33,800 --> 00:50:36,080
Speaker 6: that story because the AP ran with it. It went

1123
00:50:36,320 --> 00:50:39,000
Speaker 6: everywhere Washington Post, La Times, and they eventually had to

1124
00:50:39,040 --> 00:50:41,200
Speaker 6: do retractions along with the Illinois DNR that had to

1125
00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:43,360
Speaker 6: walk it back. Illinois d and rn't realized that this

1126
00:50:43,560 --> 00:50:45,080
Speaker 6: is not the story we want to tell, like this

1127
00:50:45,200 --> 00:50:46,960
Speaker 6: is what the science says, So you know.

1128
00:50:47,080 --> 00:50:50,040
Speaker 2: We kept that kind they kept run away with like

1129
00:50:50,280 --> 00:50:53,320
Speaker 2: these books, like guys will do a book like or

1130
00:50:53,520 --> 00:50:58,000
Speaker 2: I'd eat nothing, but I eat nothing but non native species.

1131
00:50:58,200 --> 00:51:01,600
Speaker 2: As a conservationist, it's like, well, you're not gonna eat

1132
00:51:01,600 --> 00:51:03,080
Speaker 2: your way out of it, right right, Yeah, yeah.

1133
00:51:03,160 --> 00:51:03,319
Speaker 7: Man.

1134
00:51:05,840 --> 00:51:10,040
Speaker 8: Gar are also, in my observations, pretty inefficient predators, at

1135
00:51:10,120 --> 00:51:12,080
Speaker 8: least short nose and long nose. I used to have

1136
00:51:12,160 --> 00:51:14,600
Speaker 8: to take care of them at our aquarium at the

1137
00:51:14,640 --> 00:51:17,560
Speaker 8: fish Atry Aquarium, And when you dump minnows into like

1138
00:51:17,640 --> 00:51:20,280
Speaker 8: a gar tank, they'll roll up next to the minnow

1139
00:51:20,680 --> 00:51:23,160
Speaker 8: and then they'll like do a very sudden swipe in

1140
00:51:23,239 --> 00:51:25,200
Speaker 8: them and it would be like fifty percent of the

1141
00:51:25,239 --> 00:51:27,440
Speaker 8: time they would get their meno. Now, a bass does

1142
00:51:27,520 --> 00:51:29,640
Speaker 8: not miss like that. A walleye doesn't miss like that,

1143
00:51:30,280 --> 00:51:33,759
Speaker 8: but like long nose gar especially, we're very bad at

1144
00:51:33,840 --> 00:51:35,160
Speaker 8: catching a healthy manuow.

1145
00:51:35,000 --> 00:51:38,040
Speaker 2: Or it's because he doesn't have the suction. Yeah, he's

1146
00:51:38,120 --> 00:51:40,120
Speaker 2: he's just like his mouth, he doesn't create a vacuum.

1147
00:51:40,360 --> 00:51:42,719
Speaker 8: It seemed as though he was guessing often where his

1148
00:51:43,680 --> 00:51:45,120
Speaker 8: like rostrum was gonna end.

1149
00:51:45,160 --> 00:51:47,319
Speaker 3: It's just not fair. Go ahead, yeah, yeah.

1150
00:51:47,800 --> 00:51:49,719
Speaker 8: Do you see that with alligator gar You like that

1151
00:51:49,840 --> 00:51:52,760
Speaker 8: thing is not very good at catching like an adult fish.

1152
00:51:52,840 --> 00:51:55,080
Speaker 6: Well, first, I'd say if they weren't good at catching fish,

1153
00:51:55,120 --> 00:51:56,960
Speaker 6: they wouldn't be around for you know, one hundred and

1154
00:51:56,960 --> 00:51:57,520
Speaker 6: fifty millionars.

1155
00:51:57,560 --> 00:51:58,200
Speaker 3: So clear they're doing some.

1156
00:51:58,520 --> 00:52:01,680
Speaker 6: But I agree with you captive situations and we see

1157
00:52:01,680 --> 00:52:03,960
Speaker 6: this in aquariums and and hatter in our tanks in

1158
00:52:04,000 --> 00:52:06,479
Speaker 6: the lab there. You know, it's like the t rex

1159
00:52:06,520 --> 00:52:08,440
Speaker 6: and Jurassic Park. It doesn't want to be fed at

1160
00:52:08,480 --> 00:52:10,640
Speaker 6: once to hunt, and so, like you get used to

1161
00:52:10,719 --> 00:52:13,640
Speaker 6: captivity and so they realize like they don't have to

1162
00:52:13,840 --> 00:52:16,799
Speaker 6: you know, connect every single time. Alongo's got a lot

1163
00:52:16,880 --> 00:52:19,000
Speaker 6: of range. They might be used to, you know, you know,

1164
00:52:19,480 --> 00:52:22,160
Speaker 6: going after fish in the open water, and so it's

1165
00:52:22,160 --> 00:52:23,920
Speaker 6: a little bit different dynamics than if you're in a

1166
00:52:24,040 --> 00:52:26,040
Speaker 6: rounded tank or a raceway and you got all those

1167
00:52:26,080 --> 00:52:27,839
Speaker 6: fish that can kind of navigate a little bit better.

1168
00:52:28,280 --> 00:52:30,239
Speaker 3: So I will agree they do miss.

1169
00:52:30,440 --> 00:52:32,560
Speaker 6: But you know, you watch a wildlife documentary, the cheetah

1170
00:52:32,560 --> 00:52:36,080
Speaker 6: doesn't catch the gazelle every time either, So yeah, take like.

1171
00:52:36,080 --> 00:52:39,279
Speaker 2: A little baby human and lock it up with and

1172
00:52:39,320 --> 00:52:40,640
Speaker 2: then a couple of years later you like, oh, I

1173
00:52:40,640 --> 00:52:42,400
Speaker 2: don't see these things not that smart.

1174
00:52:42,719 --> 00:52:42,919
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1175
00:52:43,400 --> 00:52:46,200
Speaker 8: My takeaway from watching gar feed was that they're picking

1176
00:52:46,320 --> 00:52:48,680
Speaker 8: on not the healthy individual, right, which is.

1177
00:52:48,680 --> 00:52:50,480
Speaker 3: What predators would do in the wild anyway, right.

1178
00:52:50,520 --> 00:52:53,040
Speaker 6: But gars in captivity actually have smaller teeth than the

1179
00:52:53,160 --> 00:52:54,960
Speaker 6: gars in the wild, So when we catch them out

1180
00:52:54,960 --> 00:52:56,960
Speaker 6: of the wild, they got bigger teeth, which makes sense, right,

1181
00:52:57,000 --> 00:52:59,480
Speaker 6: So if you're not using you know that, you know

1182
00:52:59,520 --> 00:53:01,360
Speaker 6: what you're white put energy into sort of you know,

1183
00:53:01,480 --> 00:53:03,080
Speaker 6: generating or growing bigger teeth.

1184
00:53:03,320 --> 00:53:06,480
Speaker 9: Do they scavenge at all? Or is it mostly because

1185
00:53:06,480 --> 00:53:08,840
Speaker 9: I mean for these guys a lot of dead baits?

1186
00:53:09,000 --> 00:53:12,120
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, yeah, cater gars will scavenge. Spotted gars, short nosecars.

1187
00:53:12,719 --> 00:53:14,440
Speaker 6: They'll feed off the bottom. You'll see them even in

1188
00:53:14,600 --> 00:53:17,960
Speaker 6: Indiana and Illinois. They'll go basically a headstand with the

1189
00:53:18,000 --> 00:53:19,480
Speaker 6: tails are sticking out of the water. So whether they

1190
00:53:19,520 --> 00:53:23,799
Speaker 6: eating crawfish or whether they're scavenging, long nose gars more

1191
00:53:24,280 --> 00:53:26,279
Speaker 6: feeding on fish and whatever they can get down.

1192
00:53:26,280 --> 00:53:27,320
Speaker 3: They're more active feeders.

1193
00:53:27,360 --> 00:53:29,280
Speaker 6: It's like they'd be trying to like using four steps,

1194
00:53:29,320 --> 00:53:30,759
Speaker 6: and we already know that you don't have confidence in

1195
00:53:30,800 --> 00:53:32,400
Speaker 6: their ability to eat anyway, so they're not gonna be

1196
00:53:32,440 --> 00:53:33,960
Speaker 6: able to pick stuff out the bottom.

1197
00:53:35,120 --> 00:53:36,800
Speaker 2: I come from a long line of bowl fisherman.

1198
00:53:37,360 --> 00:53:38,560
Speaker 4: My father was a bowl fisherman.

1199
00:53:39,000 --> 00:53:40,120
Speaker 2: That's about the extent of it.

1200
00:53:41,239 --> 00:53:44,440
Speaker 4: That is a long line bullfish. Yeah, yeah, it is,

1201
00:53:45,040 --> 00:53:45,960
Speaker 4: but he was bullfish.

1202
00:53:46,080 --> 00:53:49,000
Speaker 2: Back. When you take a Folger's coffee can, okay, okay,

1203
00:53:49,040 --> 00:53:52,040
Speaker 2: picture you gotta recurve bow. You take a Foldger's coffee can,

1204
00:53:52,120 --> 00:53:56,920
Speaker 2: take a tin snip, and first off, you cut the

1205
00:53:57,080 --> 00:53:59,439
Speaker 2: end off it so you got a cylinder. Now, okay,

1206
00:53:59,640 --> 00:54:02,480
Speaker 2: you take it tin snip and make two flanges that

1207
00:54:02,600 --> 00:54:06,480
Speaker 2: you can hose. Clamp the flanges to your bow above

1208
00:54:06,560 --> 00:54:10,600
Speaker 2: and below the rest. Then you wrap the line around

1209
00:54:10,680 --> 00:54:14,040
Speaker 2: the folders can, pass the arrow through the can so

1210
00:54:14,160 --> 00:54:16,120
Speaker 2: that when you shoot, the arrow goes through the can

1211
00:54:16,239 --> 00:54:18,640
Speaker 2: and pulls the line out, that's all.

1212
00:54:20,320 --> 00:54:21,000
Speaker 3: That's impressive.

1213
00:54:21,080 --> 00:54:24,760
Speaker 2: I'm only setting this up to be that a multi

1214
00:54:24,880 --> 00:54:31,640
Speaker 2: generational bowfisherman. I often find myself criticizing my own kind o,

1215
00:54:32,360 --> 00:54:38,279
Speaker 2: my own brethren, my own bowfishing brethren, who are like, oh,

1216
00:54:38,360 --> 00:54:43,160
Speaker 2: we're doing the world of favor, you know. And I

1217
00:54:43,400 --> 00:54:48,120
Speaker 2: was like, listen, it's fine to go bowfish carp. That's fine.

1218
00:54:48,160 --> 00:54:52,239
Speaker 2: You're not heard anything. You're not helping anything. Like you

1219
00:54:52,560 --> 00:54:59,959
Speaker 2: cannot mechanically remove fish, remove carp from the Great Lakes

1220
00:55:00,120 --> 00:55:04,920
Speaker 2: or whatever watershed, Like, you can't mechanically remove them to

1221
00:55:05,000 --> 00:55:08,799
Speaker 2: a point where you have made any difference. We one

1222
00:55:08,840 --> 00:55:11,160
Speaker 2: time had a guy on the podcast. We had an

1223
00:55:11,200 --> 00:55:18,160
Speaker 2: expert on USGS guy about Burmese pythons. He explained, like

1224
00:55:18,239 --> 00:55:22,279
Speaker 2: all this snake rodeo, this, and that doesn't matter, like

1225
00:55:22,360 --> 00:55:25,120
Speaker 2: when they wind up doing the work on the pythons

1226
00:55:25,360 --> 00:55:28,759
Speaker 2: and how many are there, how many you're catching that

1227
00:55:28,920 --> 00:55:32,759
Speaker 2: whole world. He's like, knock yourself out, have a good time,

1228
00:55:33,040 --> 00:55:36,000
Speaker 2: it don't matter. After that, I was in Florida and

1229
00:55:36,040 --> 00:55:38,080
Speaker 2: the guy's telling me Richard Martinez tell me his buddy,

1230
00:55:38,160 --> 00:55:40,880
Speaker 2: oh he hates you. I'm like, I hear this often

1231
00:55:41,719 --> 00:55:43,719
Speaker 2: and I'm like kind of like anxious to hear what

1232
00:55:43,840 --> 00:55:46,000
Speaker 2: he hates me about. He hates me because that guy

1233
00:55:46,120 --> 00:55:49,600
Speaker 2: said that he's a d he's a snake catcher. He

1234
00:55:49,719 --> 00:55:52,000
Speaker 2: hates me because that guy said that, and I didn't

1235
00:55:52,080 --> 00:55:57,720
Speaker 2: challenge him. But it's like some things don't matter. Shooting

1236
00:55:57,840 --> 00:56:02,280
Speaker 2: cart and the great legs, you are not helping anything.

1237
00:56:02,280 --> 00:56:04,400
Speaker 2: You're not hurting anything. You're not helping anything.

1238
00:56:04,440 --> 00:56:06,720
Speaker 9: So it's not like coyote hunters when it's like shoot

1239
00:56:06,760 --> 00:56:07,839
Speaker 9: a coyote, save a fawn.

1240
00:56:07,920 --> 00:56:10,600
Speaker 7: It's not like shoot a carp save a whatever.

1241
00:56:11,239 --> 00:56:15,239
Speaker 2: Kyotes has been proven to be effective if it's done

1242
00:56:16,239 --> 00:56:22,839
Speaker 2: in a spatially in a temporally and spatially advantageous set

1243
00:56:22,880 --> 00:56:27,319
Speaker 2: of circumstances. So you're not going to get there. Bowfishing

1244
00:56:27,400 --> 00:56:33,440
Speaker 2: carp you're not helping anyone, now, are they? If you're

1245
00:56:33,600 --> 00:56:37,240
Speaker 2: bowfishing gar? Is it also a drop in the bucket,

1246
00:56:37,960 --> 00:56:42,839
Speaker 2: Like you're not actually having population level impacts on gar,

1247
00:56:43,520 --> 00:56:46,360
Speaker 2: just like you're not having population level impacts on.

1248
00:56:46,520 --> 00:56:48,400
Speaker 4: Carp Or is it different?

1249
00:56:48,840 --> 00:56:49,800
Speaker 3: I would say it's different.

1250
00:56:50,400 --> 00:56:52,319
Speaker 6: You look at where they are in the food web, right,

1251
00:56:52,400 --> 00:56:55,120
Speaker 6: I mean, carp are pretty omnivorous, they're eating you know,

1252
00:56:55,200 --> 00:56:58,719
Speaker 6: stuff off the bottom, vegetation, sometimes bugs, whereas gars are

1253
00:56:58,920 --> 00:57:02,200
Speaker 6: more on your sort of predator apex predator level. Right,

1254
00:57:02,560 --> 00:57:05,680
Speaker 6: there's way fewer gars than there are carp So sure

1255
00:57:05,719 --> 00:57:07,520
Speaker 6: you maybe be doing a drop in the bucket with carp.

1256
00:57:07,560 --> 00:57:08,279
Speaker 3: And there's other ways.

1257
00:57:08,440 --> 00:57:10,759
Speaker 6: We work with the organizations out in Minnesota that do

1258
00:57:10,920 --> 00:57:13,320
Speaker 6: carp removals on the inland lakes and they actually do

1259
00:57:13,400 --> 00:57:15,879
Speaker 6: make a difference. But that's like massive carp traps and everything.

1260
00:57:15,960 --> 00:57:18,120
Speaker 6: So you're right shooting the carp. You can feel good

1261
00:57:18,120 --> 00:57:19,720
Speaker 6: about it, you want to. Part of what we want

1262
00:57:19,760 --> 00:57:21,200
Speaker 6: to say is like if you want to shoot something,

1263
00:57:21,360 --> 00:57:23,560
Speaker 6: you know, shoot carp shooting basis past you shoot as

1264
00:57:23,600 --> 00:57:26,320
Speaker 6: many as you want. There aren't limits on those as

1265
00:57:26,360 --> 00:57:30,200
Speaker 6: far as I know. Definitely in Minnesota Michigan. Those places

1266
00:57:30,680 --> 00:57:32,880
Speaker 6: just dispose of them properly. But you know, shoot as

1267
00:57:32,920 --> 00:57:33,640
Speaker 6: many as you want there.

1268
00:57:33,720 --> 00:57:34,720
Speaker 4: That's aesthetically sure.

1269
00:57:35,080 --> 00:57:35,280
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1270
00:57:35,800 --> 00:57:38,480
Speaker 6: And so you know, but the gars, there's fewer of them,

1271
00:57:38,560 --> 00:57:41,200
Speaker 6: there's fewer of the bowfin. Those are your predatory fish.

1272
00:57:42,160 --> 00:57:45,440
Speaker 6: And so when you do sort of take out a

1273
00:57:45,560 --> 00:57:49,360
Speaker 6: large number of these predatory animals that also live for

1274
00:57:49,400 --> 00:57:51,360
Speaker 6: a long time, I know we have disrespect for the

1275
00:57:51,400 --> 00:57:53,200
Speaker 6: short nosed gar, but even they can live for fifty

1276
00:57:53,280 --> 00:57:55,520
Speaker 6: years so and we just found that from our work

1277
00:57:55,520 --> 00:57:58,880
Speaker 6: down in Mississippi. So if the sort of latitudinal differences

1278
00:57:58,960 --> 00:58:01,320
Speaker 6: mean anything, we expect that probably live longer in Montana

1279
00:58:02,160 --> 00:58:04,280
Speaker 6: and in Minnesota than they do down south. If they

1280
00:58:04,360 --> 00:58:06,560
Speaker 6: lived for fifty years down to mississippi's probably even older

1281
00:58:06,640 --> 00:58:08,760
Speaker 6: up here. And I would take an aside to say,

1282
00:58:08,760 --> 00:58:10,880
Speaker 6: I'm really impressed with the Montana's doing. They've got a

1283
00:58:10,960 --> 00:58:12,800
Speaker 6: five gar limit. You have to get a guard card

1284
00:58:12,880 --> 00:58:15,520
Speaker 6: now as of this year to get short notse cars.

1285
00:58:15,600 --> 00:58:17,520
Speaker 3: So I thought that was pretty cool. Got in touch

1286
00:58:17,560 --> 00:58:18,520
Speaker 3: with the fishing wileife fie.

1287
00:58:18,600 --> 00:58:21,480
Speaker 2: The hell's getting after short nosey? You know it's you know,

1288
00:58:22,800 --> 00:58:24,120
Speaker 2: no clue how long nose car.

1289
00:58:24,240 --> 00:58:27,920
Speaker 6: That's I'm glad you're impressed with That was my first

1290
00:58:27,960 --> 00:58:30,120
Speaker 6: fish actually on the Miskigan River in Michigan.

1291
00:58:30,160 --> 00:58:30,320
Speaker 2: I know.

1292
00:58:31,240 --> 00:58:33,120
Speaker 3: I did my master's thesis on the Mskeigan River.

1293
00:58:33,400 --> 00:58:36,680
Speaker 2: It's a boat. We did a bowfishing episode I filmed

1294
00:58:36,720 --> 00:58:39,400
Speaker 2: on the Miskegan River in which we messed around with both.

1295
00:58:39,480 --> 00:58:40,280
Speaker 3: Oh really nice.

1296
00:58:40,320 --> 00:58:42,600
Speaker 7: I thought, didn't you shoot a gard?

1297
00:58:42,640 --> 00:58:43,160
Speaker 2: You shot gar?

1298
00:58:43,280 --> 00:58:46,080
Speaker 4: We shot Yeah, suckers.

1299
00:58:46,680 --> 00:58:48,560
Speaker 6: Yeah, we worked on all those fishes on the Miskeigan

1300
00:58:48,880 --> 00:58:52,000
Speaker 6: on Thesigan. Yeah yeah, two thousand and one to two

1301
00:58:52,040 --> 00:58:54,560
Speaker 6: thousand and five, probably is out there all the time.

1302
00:58:54,720 --> 00:58:56,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We stayed at the old Coast Guard

1303
00:58:56,880 --> 00:59:00,120
Speaker 3: station out on the you know Mona Lakes.

1304
00:59:00,200 --> 00:59:04,600
Speaker 4: Really yeah yeah yeah, yep, more Skegan play.

1305
00:59:04,640 --> 00:59:06,720
Speaker 3: Yeah's a paper mill there, you know.

1306
00:59:07,760 --> 00:59:10,040
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's something. My girlfriend's dad was a mill

1307
00:59:10,120 --> 00:59:12,120
Speaker 2: ray at that paper I want to see him in

1308
00:59:12,160 --> 00:59:13,520
Speaker 2: the Tough Band contest one time.

1309
00:59:13,600 --> 00:59:13,919
Speaker 3: Oh wow.

1310
00:59:14,520 --> 00:59:16,040
Speaker 6: It's one of the only spots you can find chinook

1311
00:59:16,080 --> 00:59:18,600
Speaker 6: salmon and long nose gars in the same river system

1312
00:59:19,200 --> 00:59:21,240
Speaker 6: with the buffalo. And that was only what It's one

1313
00:59:21,240 --> 00:59:23,000
Speaker 6: of the few places you can see chinook salmon and

1314
00:59:23,080 --> 00:59:24,920
Speaker 6: long nose bars in the same river systems.

1315
00:59:25,520 --> 00:59:28,240
Speaker 2: So oh man, we used to hunt that flat for docks,

1316
00:59:28,600 --> 00:59:31,560
Speaker 2: but those are in base of yeah right, yeah, exactly.

1317
00:59:31,680 --> 00:59:34,280
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's let's let's do that for me.

1318
00:59:34,440 --> 00:59:36,600
Speaker 2: Let's play that game for because if you look up

1319
00:59:36,720 --> 00:59:38,800
Speaker 2: like if you look up, let let's say take a

1320
00:59:38,880 --> 00:59:41,520
Speaker 2: turn like weed when you look up weed in a dictionary,

1321
00:59:41,920 --> 00:59:44,720
Speaker 2: but we just means like a non desirable right, it's

1322
00:59:44,720 --> 00:59:50,480
Speaker 2: a non desirable plan, So we say something that's like,

1323
00:59:51,560 --> 00:59:53,760
Speaker 2: here's where gets a little tricky. If you take a

1324
00:59:53,800 --> 00:59:59,160
Speaker 2: fish and you deliberately introduce it usually doesn't carry the

1325
00:59:59,280 --> 00:59:59,880
Speaker 2: non it's not.

1326
01:00:00,280 --> 01:00:02,800
Speaker 7: They can't retroactively call it invasive.

1327
01:00:03,360 --> 01:00:08,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, like does it carry invasive because invasive implies not desirable.

1328
01:00:08,840 --> 01:00:10,320
Speaker 2: But I was reading this book. There's a really good

1329
01:00:10,320 --> 01:00:12,000
Speaker 2: book called Fishing in the Great Lakes. It's a history

1330
01:00:12,040 --> 01:00:13,960
Speaker 2: of commercial fishing in the Great Lakes, and it talks

1331
01:00:14,000 --> 01:00:17,360
Speaker 2: about it's funny because the due's name. There's this ichthyologist

1332
01:00:17,440 --> 01:00:20,520
Speaker 2: named Seth Green. It's hard to look them up because

1333
01:00:20,560 --> 01:00:26,760
Speaker 2: of the other dude. But they were working to as

1334
01:00:26,800 --> 01:00:29,000
Speaker 2: they were collapsing all the native fisheries in the Great

1335
01:00:29,040 --> 01:00:33,160
Speaker 2: Lakes from over harvest and then rafting all those logs

1336
01:00:33,600 --> 01:00:35,800
Speaker 2: and all the spawning grounds. So the bark falls off

1337
01:00:35,880 --> 01:00:37,760
Speaker 2: and you got like thirteen feet of bark laying over

1338
01:00:37,800 --> 01:00:40,800
Speaker 2: the spawning habitat as they're destroying all the native fish.

1339
01:00:40,880 --> 01:00:45,800
Speaker 2: They're in there introducing karp deliberately thinking that people are

1340
01:00:45,840 --> 01:00:47,720
Speaker 2: going to appreciate them as a food fish, the same

1341
01:00:47,720 --> 01:00:51,280
Speaker 2: way they're appreciated in Europe and appreciated in Asia. So

1342
01:00:51,440 --> 01:00:55,080
Speaker 2: there you get like, Okay, so it was deliberately introduced,

1343
01:00:55,360 --> 01:00:59,320
Speaker 2: there was budget for it. We now regard them as

1344
01:00:59,680 --> 01:01:04,520
Speaker 2: della tearious like whatever. Yeah, so does all these like

1345
01:01:04,680 --> 01:01:07,760
Speaker 2: terminologies No one says, like salmon in the Great Lakes

1346
01:01:07,800 --> 01:01:12,000
Speaker 2: are absolutely not native Walleye and the rivers here and

1347
01:01:12,080 --> 01:01:12,880
Speaker 2: then the lakes.

1348
01:01:12,600 --> 01:01:14,160
Speaker 4: Here are not native, but they're not.

1349
01:01:16,440 --> 01:01:17,680
Speaker 7: Like in basive.

1350
01:01:17,960 --> 01:01:19,560
Speaker 4: No, people don't call some people.

1351
01:01:19,840 --> 01:01:22,720
Speaker 9: Some people will try to, right, I mean you'll hear

1352
01:01:22,800 --> 01:01:24,919
Speaker 9: people try to call brown trout.

1353
01:01:25,760 --> 01:01:27,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do that just to be yeah, I do

1354
01:01:27,680 --> 01:01:31,360
Speaker 2: that too, and I tease pheasants too. Yeah, yeah, I

1355
01:01:32,360 --> 01:01:36,120
Speaker 2: tease brown trout, rainbow trout, pheasants. But just to clarify

1356
01:01:36,200 --> 01:01:38,840
Speaker 2: the terminology, Yeah, it's all perspective.

1357
01:01:38,920 --> 01:01:40,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, so introduced versus invasive.

1358
01:01:40,640 --> 01:01:43,240
Speaker 6: That's a tricky thing, you know, And uh so, yeah,

1359
01:01:43,240 --> 01:01:45,040
Speaker 6: we've got to introduced some on it's I think, getting

1360
01:01:45,080 --> 01:01:47,280
Speaker 6: back to Brody's question, like those introduced some on it

1361
01:01:47,400 --> 01:01:49,720
Speaker 6: are problematic in some parts of the Eastern United States.

1362
01:01:49,760 --> 01:01:52,720
Speaker 6: You've got you know, even the the next category there's

1363
01:01:52,760 --> 01:01:54,640
Speaker 6: like non game made of fish, like the shiners and

1364
01:01:54,680 --> 01:01:57,160
Speaker 6: the darters and the minnows. They're problematic for some of

1365
01:01:57,160 --> 01:01:59,120
Speaker 6: those nest building areas, they take up.

1366
01:01:59,080 --> 01:02:01,480
Speaker 3: Space, they eat the fish there, the native species.

1367
01:02:01,520 --> 01:02:05,600
Speaker 9: So have you guys done any like reintroductions of these

1368
01:02:05,720 --> 01:02:08,160
Speaker 9: native fish in places where maybe they were wiped out

1369
01:02:08,320 --> 01:02:09,560
Speaker 9: or they're just not doing well.

1370
01:02:10,200 --> 01:02:13,840
Speaker 6: There's a group called Conservation Fisheries down in Tennessee that's

1371
01:02:13,880 --> 01:02:15,960
Speaker 6: doing that, and so they're doing that with like different

1372
01:02:15,960 --> 01:02:17,760
Speaker 6: types of mad Toms, darters and not.

1373
01:02:19,640 --> 01:02:19,840
Speaker 2: Guard.

1374
01:02:20,040 --> 01:02:24,680
Speaker 3: Well that gets back to Illinois and the alligator gar who.

1375
01:02:24,640 --> 01:02:27,480
Speaker 6: All had alligator gar who well, oh went all the

1376
01:02:27,520 --> 01:02:28,560
Speaker 6: way up into Illinois.

1377
01:02:28,760 --> 01:02:30,920
Speaker 4: So it was all the Mississippi Missouri systems.

1378
01:02:31,000 --> 01:02:31,200
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1379
01:02:31,280 --> 01:02:34,320
Speaker 6: Yeah, And so the damming and the leveing and the

1380
01:02:34,400 --> 01:02:38,280
Speaker 6: eradication efforts. So sure, I mean the looking at them

1381
01:02:38,320 --> 01:02:41,200
Speaker 6: as sort of trash fish and problematic was a problem,

1382
01:02:41,320 --> 01:02:43,360
Speaker 6: but so was the dams and the levees and the

1383
01:02:43,400 --> 01:02:46,440
Speaker 6: modification cutting them off from those floodplain habitats where they

1384
01:02:46,480 --> 01:02:49,120
Speaker 6: can't get to that terrestrial vegetation they need to despawn.

1385
01:02:49,640 --> 01:02:51,360
Speaker 6: And so now a big effort is not only to

1386
01:02:51,440 --> 01:02:54,120
Speaker 6: introduce some of those you know populations to try to

1387
01:02:54,200 --> 01:02:57,200
Speaker 6: recharge those, but also to reconnect the river with its

1388
01:02:57,200 --> 01:02:59,360
Speaker 6: floodplain habitat. And that is research that we're working on

1389
01:02:59,440 --> 01:03:02,160
Speaker 6: with Nature Can Servancy, US Fish and Wildlife Service to

1390
01:03:02,440 --> 01:03:06,040
Speaker 6: make those connections between the river and the floodplaine because

1391
01:03:06,080 --> 01:03:06,800
Speaker 6: that's good for.

1392
01:03:06,920 --> 01:03:08,680
Speaker 3: The gars, it's good for other fish, it's good for

1393
01:03:08,800 --> 01:03:09,360
Speaker 3: water birds.

1394
01:03:09,400 --> 01:03:11,720
Speaker 6: We see thousands of these wood storks down there, all

1395
01:03:11,800 --> 01:03:14,480
Speaker 6: kinds of different animals, but we're using the gars is

1396
01:03:14,560 --> 01:03:16,600
Speaker 6: kind of an indicator of that because they do migrate

1397
01:03:16,680 --> 01:03:20,120
Speaker 6: onto the floodplane. So we've kind of used to try

1398
01:03:20,160 --> 01:03:21,840
Speaker 6: to get some money for the grants, is to show

1399
01:03:21,840 --> 01:03:24,840
Speaker 6: that you can use gars as indicators of this restoration efficacy.

1400
01:03:25,120 --> 01:03:27,880
Speaker 6: If you reconnect that river with the floodplane. The use

1401
01:03:27,920 --> 01:03:29,640
Speaker 6: are fish that move on to them. So do we

1402
01:03:29,760 --> 01:03:31,840
Speaker 6: see the fish moving on there? Do we see those

1403
01:03:32,000 --> 01:03:34,360
Speaker 6: twelve inch young of the year popping out in a

1404
01:03:34,400 --> 01:03:36,520
Speaker 6: month and a half and so far we've seen that

1405
01:03:36,680 --> 01:03:38,919
Speaker 6: success there and we do see tons of crappy there,

1406
01:03:39,680 --> 01:03:41,720
Speaker 6: a lot of other animals as well taking advantage of

1407
01:03:41,720 --> 01:03:42,360
Speaker 6: those habitats.

1408
01:03:42,440 --> 01:03:43,000
Speaker 2: So you'll put a.

1409
01:03:43,040 --> 01:03:44,920
Speaker 4: Tag on a gar and you'll see him travel out

1410
01:03:44,920 --> 01:03:45,520
Speaker 4: into that stuff.

1411
01:03:45,640 --> 01:03:47,959
Speaker 3: We're tagging some of them with Fish and Wiley Service.

1412
01:03:47,960 --> 01:03:48,520
Speaker 3: They're pit tag.

1413
01:03:48,560 --> 01:03:50,600
Speaker 6: They've got an external tag too, but we're also using

1414
01:03:50,680 --> 01:03:52,880
Speaker 6: a fin clip where we look at a chemical signature

1415
01:03:52,920 --> 01:03:55,280
Speaker 6: where we can actually look at we catch you out

1416
01:03:55,320 --> 01:03:56,880
Speaker 6: of the river, do you have a river signature?

1417
01:03:57,040 --> 01:03:58,800
Speaker 3: Do we catch you on the floodplane? Do we see

1418
01:03:58,840 --> 01:03:59,720
Speaker 3: a floodplain signature?

1419
01:03:59,720 --> 01:04:01,320
Speaker 6: And we can look at that by looking at carbon

1420
01:04:01,400 --> 01:04:03,920
Speaker 6: and nitrogen just from the fin clip. At least that's

1421
01:04:03,920 --> 01:04:07,200
Speaker 6: a non lethal way of doing it. So that's been

1422
01:04:07,600 --> 01:04:09,760
Speaker 6: helpful and that's ongoing research. We're going there in October

1423
01:04:09,840 --> 01:04:10,160
Speaker 6: to do that.

1424
01:04:10,760 --> 01:04:13,720
Speaker 2: So they went up that system into Illinois. Yeah, and

1425
01:04:13,840 --> 01:04:14,840
Speaker 2: now how far up are they?

1426
01:04:15,160 --> 01:04:18,520
Speaker 6: They're still up in Illinois. I think Hennepin and Hopper

1427
01:04:18,640 --> 01:04:20,400
Speaker 6: Lakes or some lakes up there. They seem to be

1428
01:04:20,440 --> 01:04:22,160
Speaker 6: doing well there because I guess there's like a nuclear

1429
01:04:22,240 --> 01:04:24,040
Speaker 6: plant or something, so it keeps it a bit warmer.

1430
01:04:24,200 --> 01:04:26,240
Speaker 6: Some of those fish are growing decent, but they don't

1431
01:04:26,280 --> 01:04:29,400
Speaker 6: mature until they're about five to eleven years old, depending

1432
01:04:29,440 --> 01:04:31,480
Speaker 6: on males or females. And we expect those ones further

1433
01:04:31,560 --> 01:04:33,160
Speaker 6: north they're going to take longer to mature.

1434
01:04:33,440 --> 01:04:34,680
Speaker 3: We see that in other gar spie.

1435
01:04:34,720 --> 01:04:37,960
Speaker 7: Are they are they protected like up in the northern extreme.

1436
01:04:37,680 --> 01:04:40,000
Speaker 6: Of their Ragin's that's a great question. I think they're

1437
01:04:40,080 --> 01:04:43,240
Speaker 6: working towards protecting them because that was the issue and

1438
01:04:43,360 --> 01:04:46,640
Speaker 6: we had that maybe five five years ago where bofish

1439
01:04:46,640 --> 01:04:48,640
Speaker 6: are actually shot one of the restocked, you know, one

1440
01:04:48,680 --> 01:04:50,800
Speaker 6: of the little guys that made it to be decent size,

1441
01:04:51,600 --> 01:04:53,840
Speaker 6: and luckily, you know, she reported it, and you know,

1442
01:04:53,920 --> 01:04:55,640
Speaker 6: we're able to see like, well, this might actually be

1443
01:04:55,800 --> 01:04:58,040
Speaker 6: kind of an issue where we might want to protect

1444
01:04:58,040 --> 01:04:59,800
Speaker 6: those fish. But you have to be able to identify

1445
01:04:59,840 --> 01:05:02,520
Speaker 6: the fish as well, and that's tricky with with gars,

1446
01:05:02,560 --> 01:05:05,040
Speaker 6: I get it, but at least being able to you know,

1447
01:05:05,280 --> 01:05:07,800
Speaker 6: then you need some sort of maybe blanket protection or

1448
01:05:07,880 --> 01:05:08,880
Speaker 6: maybe a harvest limit.

1449
01:05:09,080 --> 01:05:10,120
Speaker 3: Right that we are not, I.

1450
01:05:10,080 --> 01:05:14,320
Speaker 2: Would be very careful just as advice. Yeah, I wouldn't

1451
01:05:14,480 --> 01:05:18,520
Speaker 2: use the word protection because you're gonna you're gonna generate

1452
01:05:19,240 --> 01:05:23,320
Speaker 2: too much social friction. I would if I was in

1453
01:05:23,440 --> 01:05:27,920
Speaker 2: your shoes, just long line of bow fishermen, if I was,

1454
01:05:28,120 --> 01:05:31,120
Speaker 2: if I was in your shoes, I would be talking

1455
01:05:31,240 --> 01:05:38,200
Speaker 2: about I would be talking about putting a regulatory structure

1456
01:05:38,200 --> 01:05:41,320
Speaker 2: in place, because people are gonna they're gonna hear protection

1457
01:05:41,600 --> 01:05:45,800
Speaker 2: and their head's gonna go in a certain direction. But

1458
01:05:48,000 --> 01:05:53,520
Speaker 2: a regulatory structure the same way, like the same way,

1459
01:05:54,040 --> 01:05:56,680
Speaker 2: all the other stuff the same way, all the birds

1460
01:05:56,760 --> 01:05:57,560
Speaker 2: and everything like.

1461
01:05:58,480 --> 01:06:00,040
Speaker 6: No, I agree with you, and that's the language we

1462
01:06:00,240 --> 01:06:02,040
Speaker 6: use anyway. You know, I think it depends on the

1463
01:06:02,120 --> 01:06:05,320
Speaker 6: audience we're talking to as well, but yeah, it's definitely

1464
01:06:05,360 --> 01:06:08,120
Speaker 6: more regulation and management, and even from our perspective, it's

1465
01:06:08,200 --> 01:06:11,720
Speaker 6: informing management. Right, we're doing the science and we you know,

1466
01:06:12,040 --> 01:06:14,280
Speaker 6: been lucky to work with Minnesota. DNR has been very

1467
01:06:14,360 --> 01:06:17,200
Speaker 6: receptive to you know, non game native fish conservation and

1468
01:06:17,320 --> 01:06:19,320
Speaker 6: management because they don't have the data. So we go

1469
01:06:19,440 --> 01:06:22,000
Speaker 6: out there and we have that expertise coming off of

1470
01:06:22,040 --> 01:06:25,120
Speaker 6: six years in Louisiana and also several years in Michigan,

1471
01:06:25,520 --> 01:06:27,680
Speaker 6: where to find these fish, where to catch them, how

1472
01:06:27,800 --> 01:06:28,880
Speaker 6: to extract the otel.

1473
01:06:28,920 --> 01:06:30,440
Speaker 3: It's what kind of data we can get from them.

1474
01:06:30,400 --> 01:06:33,640
Speaker 6: Because you know, everybody's strapped for resources, whether you're a state, federal,

1475
01:06:33,760 --> 01:06:34,280
Speaker 6: that sort of thing.

1476
01:06:34,800 --> 01:06:35,640
Speaker 3: So that's been helpful.

1477
01:06:35,760 --> 01:06:39,560
Speaker 6: But we can help again inform that management, give recommendations

1478
01:06:39,680 --> 01:06:42,960
Speaker 6: that you know, might help improve that sort of regulatory structure.

1479
01:06:43,040 --> 01:06:46,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think an achievable goal would be that you

1480
01:06:46,800 --> 01:06:54,320
Speaker 2: would that you would help fishermen, help them understand that

1481
01:06:54,640 --> 01:06:57,560
Speaker 2: that we have this category we use to categorize fish.

1482
01:06:57,600 --> 01:07:00,560
Speaker 2: It's not that's not a great category, and that we

1483
01:07:00,600 --> 01:07:04,000
Speaker 2: should understand that there are these problematic invasive fish that

1484
01:07:04,080 --> 01:07:06,920
Speaker 2: people brought from far away that we wish weren't in

1485
01:07:07,000 --> 01:07:10,880
Speaker 2: the systems. We have these fish that have always been here, right,

1486
01:07:11,320 --> 01:07:13,640
Speaker 2: and we should make sure they're always here. And so

1487
01:07:14,040 --> 01:07:17,840
Speaker 2: we draw a distinction between these and these and with gars.

1488
01:07:18,320 --> 01:07:20,280
Speaker 2: And I don't know what the number is with gars

1489
01:07:20,440 --> 01:07:23,560
Speaker 2: is like you're allowed two or five a night or

1490
01:07:23,600 --> 01:07:26,680
Speaker 2: whatever the hell, just like you're allowed two or five

1491
01:07:26,840 --> 01:07:29,240
Speaker 2: bass a day whatever, And like just start kind of

1492
01:07:29,320 --> 01:07:33,680
Speaker 2: creating this idea that it's not all that these fish

1493
01:07:33,720 --> 01:07:37,160
Speaker 2: aren't damaging to the eco, that they're not all damaging

1494
01:07:37,200 --> 01:07:41,240
Speaker 2: to the ecosystems, you know, and that like the buffalo

1495
01:07:41,520 --> 01:07:43,560
Speaker 2: is like a big sucker that used to be a

1496
01:07:43,680 --> 01:07:46,920
Speaker 2: very soft after commercial fish and it shouldn't be ditched

1497
01:07:46,960 --> 01:07:47,320
Speaker 2: like cart.

1498
01:07:48,280 --> 01:07:52,800
Speaker 9: Is there any like examples of there being like bounties

1499
01:07:52,880 --> 01:07:55,720
Speaker 9: on alligator gar other Did that ever happen?

1500
01:07:55,880 --> 01:07:58,040
Speaker 3: I don't think not. In recent history.

1501
01:07:58,680 --> 01:08:01,640
Speaker 6: You go back to the nineteen thirties, Texas Parks and

1502
01:08:01,640 --> 01:08:04,520
Speaker 6: Wildlife had the electrical gar destroyer that they made to

1503
01:08:04,840 --> 01:08:07,360
Speaker 6: just they thought that I think they were taken out.

1504
01:08:08,600 --> 01:08:10,680
Speaker 6: I want to say it was waterbirds or something. And

1505
01:08:10,880 --> 01:08:13,280
Speaker 6: so you know, they basically raned this rig that was

1506
01:08:13,280 --> 01:08:14,560
Speaker 6: supposed to kill.

1507
01:08:14,440 --> 01:08:15,000
Speaker 3: All the gars.

1508
01:08:15,240 --> 01:08:18,559
Speaker 4: Ye use the term the gar war, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1509
01:08:19,200 --> 01:08:21,240
Speaker 6: So Matt Miller is the director of Science Communications for

1510
01:08:21,280 --> 01:08:23,320
Speaker 6: the Nature Conservancy, good friend of mine, and he wrote

1511
01:08:23,360 --> 01:08:25,960
Speaker 6: this book Fishing through the Apocalypse, which is great about

1512
01:08:26,040 --> 01:08:28,439
Speaker 6: fishing and conservation, and he brought up like this gar

1513
01:08:28,520 --> 01:08:31,720
Speaker 6: wars idea but using that broadly not just gars, but

1514
01:08:31,880 --> 01:08:34,960
Speaker 6: other non game native fish and even non game isn't

1515
01:08:35,000 --> 01:08:38,040
Speaker 6: you know that's relative as well to look at just

1516
01:08:38,160 --> 01:08:42,040
Speaker 6: kind of providing some respect for these fish again looking

1517
01:08:42,080 --> 01:08:45,000
Speaker 6: at the North American model of wildlife conservation where we're

1518
01:08:45,040 --> 01:08:48,800
Speaker 6: looking at, you know, having the best science available and

1519
01:08:48,880 --> 01:08:53,280
Speaker 6: then also not hunting these animals or using them for

1520
01:08:53,320 --> 01:08:55,559
Speaker 6: frivolous purposes. So if you're going to shoot, if you're

1521
01:08:55,600 --> 01:08:57,920
Speaker 6: going to kill it, eat it, and you know they

1522
01:08:58,000 --> 01:09:00,680
Speaker 6: taste delicious. I think with that also we've got the

1523
01:09:00,720 --> 01:09:03,640
Speaker 6: opportunity to reach the next generation, which is important if

1524
01:09:03,680 --> 01:09:06,360
Speaker 6: we want to preserve that hunting and fishing and show

1525
01:09:06,439 --> 01:09:09,479
Speaker 6: that there's value. So there's two directions I want to

1526
01:09:09,479 --> 01:09:11,600
Speaker 6: go with that, But there's opportunity, right, So you go

1527
01:09:11,680 --> 01:09:13,160
Speaker 6: to a spot that may not be the best for

1528
01:09:13,760 --> 01:09:16,800
Speaker 6: rainbow trout or walleye or bass, but a lot of

1529
01:09:16,840 --> 01:09:20,280
Speaker 6: these habitats have plenty of gars, bowfens, suckers. So there's

1530
01:09:20,360 --> 01:09:23,160
Speaker 6: opportunity for fishing that people may not have if they

1531
01:09:23,200 --> 01:09:25,000
Speaker 6: don't have a boat to go after walleye or to

1532
01:09:25,120 --> 01:09:28,680
Speaker 6: go after bass. So we're trying to introduce other opportunities

1533
01:09:28,760 --> 01:09:31,960
Speaker 6: for fishing again to look at, you know, both conservation

1534
01:09:32,080 --> 01:09:34,799
Speaker 6: and management and just better stewardship of our natural resource,

1535
01:09:34,840 --> 01:09:37,479
Speaker 6: but to conserve that recreational way of life. And so

1536
01:09:37,560 --> 01:09:40,479
Speaker 6: if we don't do that, that's going to start slipping away.

1537
01:09:40,600 --> 01:09:40,760
Speaker 2: You know.

1538
01:09:40,840 --> 01:09:42,840
Speaker 6: We can go on and on about how people are

1539
01:09:42,960 --> 01:09:46,160
Speaker 6: you know, on screens more than outside. And one of

1540
01:09:46,200 --> 01:09:48,519
Speaker 6: the ways that we've done that is working with the anglers,

1541
01:09:48,600 --> 01:09:51,400
Speaker 6: whether they're bowfishers or whether they're you know, catching release

1542
01:09:51,520 --> 01:09:54,000
Speaker 6: or hooking line anglers. We did this with a bowfen

1543
01:09:54,760 --> 01:09:57,000
Speaker 6: and my lab just a couple months ago.

1544
01:09:57,040 --> 01:09:57,439
Speaker 3: This summer.

1545
01:09:57,680 --> 01:09:59,559
Speaker 6: We're a bunch of anglers that know how to catch

1546
01:09:59,600 --> 01:10:01,640
Speaker 6: bofen and some of them never caught them before. But

1547
01:10:01,680 --> 01:10:03,559
Speaker 6: they got together and I said, hey, can you catch

1548
01:10:03,600 --> 01:10:05,200
Speaker 6: us some bowfriend that we can use for our research.

1549
01:10:05,479 --> 01:10:07,200
Speaker 6: And I brought my research team with me and these

1550
01:10:07,240 --> 01:10:09,800
Speaker 6: are all you know, undergrads and grad students. They also

1551
01:10:09,880 --> 01:10:11,920
Speaker 6: were able to catch both and they really had a blast.

1552
01:10:12,000 --> 01:10:13,760
Speaker 6: Like some of them, they're from Minnesota. They were able

1553
01:10:13,800 --> 01:10:16,559
Speaker 6: to fish walleye and fish bluegill, but they never caught

1554
01:10:16,600 --> 01:10:18,800
Speaker 6: bouf in before and they really got into that. And

1555
01:10:18,840 --> 01:10:20,920
Speaker 6: then the anglers got to learn about, well, if you're

1556
01:10:20,920 --> 01:10:22,880
Speaker 6: going to help us out, here's what we want as

1557
01:10:22,880 --> 01:10:25,519
Speaker 6: far as a measurement and a photograph and a fin clip.

1558
01:10:25,760 --> 01:10:28,320
Speaker 6: So really building that relationship with the anglers, and we're

1559
01:10:28,320 --> 01:10:30,920
Speaker 6: doing that with the bowfishers too, looking at where are

1560
01:10:31,000 --> 01:10:33,719
Speaker 6: these lakes where you might be doing some bowfishing tournaments.

1561
01:10:34,040 --> 01:10:36,160
Speaker 6: Can we at least use the carcasses to get the

1562
01:10:36,280 --> 01:10:38,719
Speaker 6: data to look at the age structure of those fish.

1563
01:10:39,120 --> 01:10:42,080
Speaker 6: So we're definitely not looking to end bowfishing or to

1564
01:10:42,240 --> 01:10:46,080
Speaker 6: you know, to to stop that sort of recreational aspect,

1565
01:10:46,439 --> 01:10:49,160
Speaker 6: but we're looking to can we manage it sustainably to

1566
01:10:49,280 --> 01:10:52,080
Speaker 6: where we can have the fish and the water doing

1567
01:10:52,160 --> 01:10:55,680
Speaker 6: their jobs. As you know, Ecosystem Services balancing you know,

1568
01:10:55,840 --> 01:10:58,559
Speaker 6: predator prey populations, but then also you can go there

1569
01:10:58,600 --> 01:11:01,760
Speaker 6: and you can shoot the fish hopefully eat them sustainably,

1570
01:11:01,840 --> 01:11:04,320
Speaker 6: so you know, kind of everybody wins, and so far

1571
01:11:04,479 --> 01:11:06,559
Speaker 6: that's we've made progress with that, even with a lot

1572
01:11:06,600 --> 01:11:07,320
Speaker 6: of the boatfishers.

1573
01:11:08,800 --> 01:11:09,799
Speaker 4: Have you guys seen.

1574
01:11:11,400 --> 01:11:15,560
Speaker 2: Besides alligator gar getting extirpated from native range, have you

1575
01:11:15,640 --> 01:11:18,800
Speaker 2: seen any other fish that people categorize as a rough fish?

1576
01:11:20,040 --> 01:11:20,200
Speaker 5: Hell?

1577
01:11:20,280 --> 01:11:22,680
Speaker 4: There are there any records of other fish being extirpated.

1578
01:11:23,360 --> 01:11:26,240
Speaker 6: That's a good question. I think there's plenty. I mean,

1579
01:11:26,280 --> 01:11:29,519
Speaker 6: you've got the spotted guar in Michigan, so that's considered

1580
01:11:29,520 --> 01:11:32,080
Speaker 6: a species of concern. Now it's not endangered or threatened.

1581
01:11:32,120 --> 01:11:35,160
Speaker 6: It is considered endangered in Pennsylvania, So there are places

1582
01:11:35,280 --> 01:11:37,880
Speaker 6: of state by state, there's places where you might consider

1583
01:11:38,200 --> 01:11:41,240
Speaker 6: a spotted guard to be protected, and in other states

1584
01:11:41,280 --> 01:11:42,880
Speaker 6: it's just we don't know enough about them.

1585
01:11:43,720 --> 01:11:45,120
Speaker 3: But now we know that they can live for over

1586
01:11:45,200 --> 01:11:47,840
Speaker 3: forty years, so we've lagged so far behind.

1587
01:11:47,920 --> 01:11:49,559
Speaker 6: So I think that's a great question where we've seen

1588
01:11:49,600 --> 01:11:52,640
Speaker 6: them extirpated. Quite honestly, we don't have enough data in

1589
01:11:52,760 --> 01:11:55,080
Speaker 6: a lot of places to tell are they still here

1590
01:11:55,280 --> 01:11:55,880
Speaker 6: are they gone?

1591
01:11:56,560 --> 01:11:58,000
Speaker 3: Why might they have you know gone?

1592
01:11:58,040 --> 01:11:59,920
Speaker 6: We like to say, like we're about one hundred years

1593
01:12:00,120 --> 01:12:02,759
Speaker 6: behind what we know about trout and salmon and walleye.

1594
01:12:03,280 --> 01:12:04,920
Speaker 6: We don't have to take one hundred years to catch

1595
01:12:05,000 --> 01:12:06,280
Speaker 6: up on that. So what we're trying to do is

1596
01:12:06,400 --> 01:12:09,040
Speaker 6: use those methods that you've all learned about from managing

1597
01:12:09,360 --> 01:12:11,960
Speaker 6: smallmouth bass, largemouth pass. How do we apply that to

1598
01:12:12,080 --> 01:12:15,840
Speaker 6: these data deficient species. So again working together to more

1599
01:12:15,880 --> 01:12:18,720
Speaker 6: sustainable management with that stuff. So honestly, we don't know

1600
01:12:18,840 --> 01:12:21,840
Speaker 6: we could be losing populations and not know it because

1601
01:12:21,880 --> 01:12:23,760
Speaker 6: we aren't accounting for the harvest.

1602
01:12:23,520 --> 01:12:27,000
Speaker 2: Of those fish. You know. That brings up a really

1603
01:12:27,080 --> 01:12:30,160
Speaker 2: interesting a cology point that my brother Danny raised to me.

1604
01:12:30,479 --> 01:12:33,200
Speaker 2: He's with US Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska that

1605
01:12:33,280 --> 01:12:34,800
Speaker 2: works on salmon, and.

1606
01:12:34,800 --> 01:12:39,439
Speaker 4: We're talking about I brought this up before.

1607
01:12:39,439 --> 01:12:41,600
Speaker 2: We're talking about difference between the Lower forty eight and

1608
01:12:41,680 --> 01:12:45,920
Speaker 2: Alaska in terms of we're speaking about fisheries, but you

1609
01:12:45,960 --> 01:12:49,479
Speaker 2: could almost apply it to like conservation in general, where

1610
01:12:50,760 --> 01:12:53,400
Speaker 2: he was just like, not in a publication form, just

1611
01:12:53,600 --> 01:12:57,960
Speaker 2: talking casually. He was saying that, like the Lower forty

1612
01:12:58,000 --> 01:13:01,439
Speaker 2: eight is kind of like in recovery mode, right, Like

1613
01:13:01,560 --> 01:13:04,479
Speaker 2: conservation in lower forty eight is like largely about recovery,

1614
01:13:06,200 --> 01:13:09,080
Speaker 2: he said. In Alaska and big parts of Alaska, we're

1615
01:13:09,120 --> 01:13:13,080
Speaker 2: still in the descriptive phase. We're still trying to be

1616
01:13:13,200 --> 01:13:17,040
Speaker 2: like what's here? Right, there's salmon runs that like people know.

1617
01:13:17,720 --> 01:13:19,200
Speaker 2: It's like people don't don't know. I mean, people have

1618
01:13:19,240 --> 01:13:21,519
Speaker 2: been utilizing the salmon runs for thousands and thousands and

1619
01:13:21,600 --> 01:13:26,040
Speaker 2: thousands of years, but no one's put their arms around

1620
01:13:26,080 --> 01:13:29,640
Speaker 2: it yet. No one's been like, Okay, what does it

1621
01:13:29,760 --> 01:13:32,479
Speaker 2: look like in twenty twenty what does the run look

1622
01:13:32,560 --> 01:13:34,360
Speaker 2: like in twenty twenty one? You know what I mean?

1623
01:13:34,439 --> 01:13:38,200
Speaker 2: Like measuring, trying to put some kind of number around,

1624
01:13:38,400 --> 01:13:40,720
Speaker 2: like what is here? So a lot of the work

1625
01:13:41,439 --> 01:13:45,080
Speaker 2: they'll they'll do work of just trying to describe what's here,

1626
01:13:45,920 --> 01:13:49,160
Speaker 2: which makes the recovery mode it lets you track change

1627
01:13:49,200 --> 01:13:51,840
Speaker 2: over time. But what were you say about gar almost

1628
01:13:51,880 --> 01:13:55,000
Speaker 2: like contradicts that, because if you look, there probably are

1629
01:13:56,000 --> 01:13:58,719
Speaker 2: things down here that we haven't done the discovery mode

1630
01:13:58,760 --> 01:14:02,760
Speaker 2: on because we just disregarded it or lumped it into

1631
01:14:02,800 --> 01:14:06,760
Speaker 2: some goofy classification to the point where you might later say,

1632
01:14:08,439 --> 01:14:12,040
Speaker 2: we don't know where they lived. Yeah. Yeah, there's a

1633
01:14:12,080 --> 01:14:14,280
Speaker 2: lot of old people talk about seeing them, but like,

1634
01:14:14,400 --> 01:14:17,920
Speaker 2: I don't know how accurate is that. Can't find one now,

1635
01:14:18,600 --> 01:14:21,439
Speaker 2: you know, because no one ever measured it, right, right, Yeah.

1636
01:14:21,800 --> 01:14:24,080
Speaker 3: No, I think that's a that's a great analogy.

1637
01:14:24,080 --> 01:14:26,439
Speaker 6: I think we're very much still in the discovery phase,

1638
01:14:26,600 --> 01:14:29,120
Speaker 6: but also in a recovery phase too, because we don't

1639
01:14:29,160 --> 01:14:31,519
Speaker 6: know where they've been, you know, overfished or where.

1640
01:14:32,040 --> 01:14:32,799
Speaker 3: It's a combination.

1641
01:14:32,920 --> 01:14:35,439
Speaker 6: Again, it's not just harvest, but it's you know, the

1642
01:14:35,520 --> 01:14:39,320
Speaker 6: modification of those habits, shaits. So I think we're playing

1643
01:14:39,400 --> 01:14:42,160
Speaker 6: catch up and you know, we're just trying to you know,

1644
01:14:42,280 --> 01:14:43,880
Speaker 6: make the best that we can. And sort of that's

1645
01:14:43,920 --> 01:14:45,440
Speaker 6: why sort of encouraging.

1646
01:14:45,080 --> 01:14:47,360
Speaker 3: The value of these native species.

1647
01:14:48,280 --> 01:14:51,120
Speaker 6: To sort of then promote our ability to research them,

1648
01:14:51,200 --> 01:14:54,920
Speaker 6: to get multiple stakeholders involved, whether it's the beau fishers,

1649
01:14:54,960 --> 01:14:57,360
Speaker 6: the hook and line anglers, the state and federal agencies.

1650
01:14:57,360 --> 01:14:59,760
Speaker 3: And I think there is momentum towards that.

1651
01:15:00,240 --> 01:15:03,120
Speaker 6: And to do that, we want to communicate effectively and

1652
01:15:03,240 --> 01:15:06,360
Speaker 6: want to build those relationships, not you know, shooting people

1653
01:15:06,439 --> 01:15:08,120
Speaker 6: down with like you shouldn't be doing this or this

1654
01:15:08,200 --> 01:15:10,599
Speaker 6: should be stopped. And that's a big part of our

1655
01:15:10,680 --> 01:15:12,080
Speaker 6: sort of science communication.

1656
01:15:11,760 --> 01:15:12,400
Speaker 5: Aspect of it.

1657
01:15:12,520 --> 01:15:14,840
Speaker 6: So we appreciate the work that you all do for

1658
01:15:15,000 --> 01:15:18,479
Speaker 6: that because I think we need a multifaceted approach to

1659
01:15:18,600 --> 01:15:20,640
Speaker 6: make that happen before we, you know, lose what we

1660
01:15:20,720 --> 01:15:21,679
Speaker 6: didn't even know we had.

1661
01:15:21,760 --> 01:15:27,400
Speaker 8: No do you know examples of other parts of the

1662
01:15:27,479 --> 01:15:30,800
Speaker 8: world that are being wrecked by our native rough fish

1663
01:15:30,960 --> 01:15:34,360
Speaker 8: the way carp are like disturbing our waterways, like over

1664
01:15:34,439 --> 01:15:37,000
Speaker 8: in Germany the short head red horses right just ripping

1665
01:15:37,120 --> 01:15:38,479
Speaker 8: up their creeks or something like that.

1666
01:15:38,760 --> 01:15:40,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, well, you know it's funny you mentioned. So

1667
01:15:41,439 --> 01:15:42,360
Speaker 3: there's two parts of that.

1668
01:15:42,760 --> 01:15:45,880
Speaker 6: Yes, our fish are wrecking plenty of habitats in other places,

1669
01:15:45,960 --> 01:15:48,519
Speaker 6: but it's not our native rough fish. It's our game fish,

1670
01:15:49,280 --> 01:15:53,920
Speaker 6: you know, largemouth bass, steelhead, bluegill, I mean, rainbow Trout's

1671
01:15:53,960 --> 01:15:56,640
Speaker 6: one of the most widely distributed species.

1672
01:15:56,240 --> 01:15:57,040
Speaker 3: Of fish in the world.

1673
01:15:57,920 --> 01:16:01,080
Speaker 6: I know, you know fishermen the go down to Argentina

1674
01:16:01,120 --> 01:16:03,080
Speaker 6: to fish for steelhead. I'm like, what, I would rather

1675
01:16:03,120 --> 01:16:04,880
Speaker 6: find out what fish are actually there and then you know,

1676
01:16:04,960 --> 01:16:07,960
Speaker 6: go for those. So it's mainly our game fish because

1677
01:16:08,040 --> 01:16:09,800
Speaker 6: you know, we like to take the fish that we

1678
01:16:10,040 --> 01:16:13,320
Speaker 6: like and take them to other places. Now, as far

1679
01:16:13,400 --> 01:16:17,120
Speaker 6: as gars go, they have been introduced not on purpose,

1680
01:16:17,960 --> 01:16:21,560
Speaker 6: relatively speaking, through the aquarium trade. And so in some

1681
01:16:21,680 --> 01:16:25,000
Speaker 6: places where they've released them. There's a couple parts of India,

1682
01:16:25,080 --> 01:16:27,280
Speaker 6: there's parts of Southeast Asia where they've.

1683
01:16:27,160 --> 01:16:28,960
Speaker 3: They've made their way into waterways.

1684
01:16:29,200 --> 01:16:31,960
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you can go. Dudes in Southeast Asia are

1685
01:16:32,000 --> 01:16:35,080
Speaker 2: buying garsh here, turn loose in their aquarium and then

1686
01:16:35,160 --> 01:16:35,599
Speaker 2: dumping them.

1687
01:16:35,720 --> 01:16:37,679
Speaker 3: They're mainly want to keep them their aquarium.

1688
01:16:37,760 --> 01:16:39,640
Speaker 6: But then when they get too big, because believe or not,

1689
01:16:39,840 --> 01:16:41,880
Speaker 6: you know, as you know, I mean, alligator gars get big,

1690
01:16:42,640 --> 01:16:45,759
Speaker 6: so it's a big aquarium fish. They're super popular gars.

1691
01:16:46,439 --> 01:16:48,519
Speaker 6: And then they've got arijuanas down there too.

1692
01:16:49,720 --> 01:16:51,280
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, exactly.

1693
01:16:51,000 --> 01:16:51,599
Speaker 4: That's a boatfish.

1694
01:16:51,880 --> 01:16:52,080
Speaker 5: Yeah.

1695
01:16:52,280 --> 01:16:54,920
Speaker 8: How are our guar doing in those other places?

1696
01:16:55,000 --> 01:16:57,559
Speaker 6: In most places, they're not doing great because they don't

1697
01:16:57,640 --> 01:17:00,800
Speaker 6: have enough to sort of create a system population and

1698
01:17:00,840 --> 01:17:03,360
Speaker 6: self sustake population. But there are a couple spots I've

1699
01:17:03,400 --> 01:17:05,960
Speaker 6: seen it in India through videos sent me where they

1700
01:17:06,040 --> 01:17:10,439
Speaker 6: have spawned. Now, sure that could be problematic, but it's

1701
01:17:10,560 --> 01:17:13,600
Speaker 6: probably something that's still controlled. I mean, you know, I know,

1702
01:17:13,680 --> 01:17:16,400
Speaker 6: I feel like you know, I also feel like you know,

1703
01:17:16,479 --> 01:17:18,599
Speaker 6: who better to take care of alligator gars in India

1704
01:17:18,640 --> 01:17:20,080
Speaker 6: than an Indian dude you could send out there.

1705
01:17:20,080 --> 01:17:23,679
Speaker 3: So maybe it's just job security. We'll see, but yeah,

1706
01:17:23,760 --> 01:17:24,000
Speaker 3: I think.

1707
01:17:24,120 --> 01:17:27,200
Speaker 6: But in other places they've kind of tracked alligator gars

1708
01:17:27,240 --> 01:17:29,400
Speaker 6: have been released. There was I think a moat around

1709
01:17:29,439 --> 01:17:30,080
Speaker 6: as some.

1710
01:17:30,160 --> 01:17:32,080
Speaker 3: Sort of pas palace or castle in.

1711
01:17:32,160 --> 01:17:34,800
Speaker 6: Japan where an alligator gar was released, and so they had,

1712
01:17:34,880 --> 01:17:37,080
Speaker 6: like I know, their version of fish and wildlife trying

1713
01:17:37,120 --> 01:17:39,080
Speaker 6: to catch this gar out of there for a while.

1714
01:17:39,200 --> 01:17:41,479
Speaker 3: And so you'll hear stories they put it in there

1715
01:17:41,520 --> 01:17:43,560
Speaker 3: to keep intruders out. I know, right, Yeah, it's not

1716
01:17:43,640 --> 01:17:44,920
Speaker 3: gonna I'm not gonna work that way.

1717
01:17:45,160 --> 01:17:48,000
Speaker 9: Is there actually is there, Like I'm sure people have

1718
01:17:48,120 --> 01:17:51,720
Speaker 9: been bitten by mistake, like in muddy Water, right, Like,

1719
01:17:52,080 --> 01:17:54,520
Speaker 9: is there claims of them ever attacking.

1720
01:17:54,400 --> 01:17:58,080
Speaker 6: There's like very very few records of even the mistaken identity.

1721
01:17:58,200 --> 01:17:59,600
Speaker 6: I think there is something that happened a couple of

1722
01:17:59,640 --> 01:18:01,400
Speaker 6: years ago go there was I think a woman in

1723
01:18:01,479 --> 01:18:04,000
Speaker 6: Texas or Louisiana had stepped near an alligator gar and

1724
01:18:04,160 --> 01:18:06,519
Speaker 6: got tagged by it. But that was it and there

1725
01:18:06,560 --> 01:18:09,000
Speaker 6: wasn't It was pretty foggy details around that, but other

1726
01:18:09,080 --> 01:18:11,800
Speaker 6: than that, gars aren't. They definitely are not attacking people.

1727
01:18:11,920 --> 01:18:14,200
Speaker 6: They're very gape limited, so even a fish like that

1728
01:18:14,920 --> 01:18:18,160
Speaker 6: can get this exactly. That was probably about a five

1729
01:18:18,280 --> 01:18:20,760
Speaker 6: foot long fish, you know, give or take maybe four

1730
01:18:20,760 --> 01:18:22,120
Speaker 6: and a half five feet. But you look at that

1731
01:18:22,200 --> 01:18:24,200
Speaker 6: that mouth isn't you know, it's not going to fit

1732
01:18:24,240 --> 01:18:25,200
Speaker 6: anything further down that.

1733
01:18:25,280 --> 01:18:28,000
Speaker 3: Much as far as I mean it can open wide up.

1734
01:18:28,000 --> 01:18:30,599
Speaker 6: And down, but that throat doesn't open up very much.

1735
01:18:30,760 --> 01:18:33,040
Speaker 6: So they're very gape limited, so they're not gonna you know,

1736
01:18:33,160 --> 01:18:34,800
Speaker 6: they can't swallow a person or anything like that.

1737
01:18:34,920 --> 01:18:36,000
Speaker 3: Even a big alligator.

1738
01:18:36,040 --> 01:18:37,800
Speaker 6: The biggest one we've caught in our research is eight

1739
01:18:37,920 --> 01:18:40,160
Speaker 6: feet one inch long, just a couple of inches off

1740
01:18:40,200 --> 01:18:43,479
Speaker 6: of the known, you know, world record fish. But we

1741
01:18:43,600 --> 01:18:45,360
Speaker 6: did pull a three foot long carp out of the

1742
01:18:45,360 --> 01:18:47,840
Speaker 6: stomach of that fish. I've got a picture of my

1743
01:18:47,920 --> 01:18:52,040
Speaker 6: student who, yeah, it was and it was mostly not

1744
01:18:52,120 --> 01:18:54,080
Speaker 6: mostly it was partially digested to where it was just

1745
01:18:54,160 --> 01:18:55,200
Speaker 6: a lump of flesh.

1746
01:18:55,040 --> 01:18:57,719
Speaker 7: Like someone's like house poodle or something.

1747
01:18:57,840 --> 01:19:04,240
Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's kick your dogs on leashes, I guess.

1748
01:19:04,280 --> 01:19:07,520
Speaker 8: But you know, hower gator gar doing in Mexico.

1749
01:19:07,600 --> 01:19:09,839
Speaker 3: They're doing well in Mexico. They're native in Mexico.

1750
01:19:10,000 --> 01:19:12,960
Speaker 6: And in Mexico you've got the alligator gar and the

1751
01:19:13,000 --> 01:19:15,320
Speaker 6: tropical gar, which are big time food fish down there.

1752
01:19:15,400 --> 01:19:19,439
Speaker 6: So you go to the Tabasco region, Tabasco State in Mexico,

1753
01:19:19,520 --> 01:19:21,600
Speaker 6: which they there was a gar conference there. Believe it

1754
01:19:21,680 --> 01:19:24,680
Speaker 6: or not, they do happen in twenty twelve. Tropical gar

1755
01:19:24,800 --> 01:19:28,000
Speaker 6: stuff was, you know, in the little shops there. They

1756
01:19:28,040 --> 01:19:30,720
Speaker 6: were in the restaurants. We had tropical gar and banadas

1757
01:19:30,760 --> 01:19:33,400
Speaker 6: to Molly's. We roasted them to where they were just gutted,

1758
01:19:33,439 --> 01:19:35,160
Speaker 6: but you can put them on the grill and then

1759
01:19:35,200 --> 01:19:39,639
Speaker 6: the scales just flake right off. So those tropic gars

1760
01:19:39,680 --> 01:19:41,760
Speaker 6: on the grill were probably about, you know, maybe foot

1761
01:19:41,760 --> 01:19:43,600
Speaker 6: and a half long, but they get to three and

1762
01:19:43,600 --> 01:19:46,400
Speaker 6: a half four feet long as well, so they're looking there,

1763
01:19:46,960 --> 01:19:49,400
Speaker 6: but not as long as you know, but they're fatter

1764
01:19:49,479 --> 01:19:51,479
Speaker 6: than the longer that's a stouter fish because that's related

1765
01:19:51,479 --> 01:19:52,400
Speaker 6: to the alligator.

1766
01:19:52,080 --> 01:19:52,840
Speaker 3: Gar long noses.

1767
01:19:52,880 --> 01:19:55,519
Speaker 6: They're in a different genus, so they're the skinnier gars

1768
01:19:55,520 --> 01:19:57,840
Speaker 6: like your short nose and your spot in but it's

1769
01:19:57,880 --> 01:19:59,960
Speaker 6: as important of a food fish there as salmon are

1770
01:20:00,080 --> 01:20:02,759
Speaker 6: in the Pacific Northwest, so not only have they depleted

1771
01:20:02,760 --> 01:20:05,640
Speaker 6: the wild populations in some places, then they're aquaculturing them

1772
01:20:05,720 --> 01:20:10,160
Speaker 6: to restore those wild populations. So Cuba and parts of

1773
01:20:10,240 --> 01:20:14,080
Speaker 6: Mexico are actually good templates for gar aquaculture and restoration.

1774
01:20:14,160 --> 01:20:16,759
Speaker 6: Everything we know, like through Fish and Wildlife Service, not everything,

1775
01:20:16,800 --> 01:20:19,320
Speaker 6: but the starting to what we know came from those

1776
01:20:19,360 --> 01:20:21,439
Speaker 6: places where people are already culturing those fish to try

1777
01:20:21,479 --> 01:20:24,040
Speaker 6: to restore alligator gar bring them back in certain population.

1778
01:20:24,040 --> 01:20:26,479
Speaker 7: So they're not the term rough fish down there.

1779
01:20:26,680 --> 01:20:28,719
Speaker 3: No, No, it's a big good fish.

1780
01:20:28,800 --> 01:20:29,240
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.

1781
01:20:30,680 --> 01:20:33,160
Speaker 8: You spend a lot of time working in Minnesota at

1782
01:20:33,200 --> 01:20:37,799
Speaker 8: the edge of the Mississippi Watershed, and in twenty seventeen

1783
01:20:37,840 --> 01:20:41,200
Speaker 8: there was an American eel caught at Cottonwood Lake in Minnesota,

1784
01:20:41,439 --> 01:20:44,519
Speaker 8: which was thirty miles off of the Mississippi River. Even so,

1785
01:20:44,680 --> 01:20:47,000
Speaker 8: like it has the potential to collect some fish that

1786
01:20:47,080 --> 01:20:50,360
Speaker 8: are far away from what you'd consider to be their

1787
01:20:50,439 --> 01:20:52,360
Speaker 8: home up there. What are some of the unique things

1788
01:20:52,400 --> 01:20:53,440
Speaker 8: you've caught Minnesota?

1789
01:20:53,640 --> 01:20:55,360
Speaker 3: Gotcha in Minnesota so far?

1790
01:20:55,400 --> 01:20:58,160
Speaker 6: I mean, we're still focusing a lot on the gars

1791
01:20:58,200 --> 01:21:01,679
Speaker 6: and the bowfins because the you know, the DNR typically

1792
01:21:01,720 --> 01:21:03,559
Speaker 6: isn't paying attention in them the same way they're paying

1793
01:21:03,560 --> 01:21:04,679
Speaker 6: attention to the walleye and the bass.

1794
01:21:04,720 --> 01:21:06,320
Speaker 3: So I feel like that's some of our unique fish.

1795
01:21:06,560 --> 01:21:08,960
Speaker 6: We do get the blue sucker, which you know is

1796
01:21:09,000 --> 01:21:10,800
Speaker 6: found all the way down in Texas too, But that's

1797
01:21:10,840 --> 01:21:12,880
Speaker 6: a pretty unique fish. They look kind of like a shark,

1798
01:21:13,240 --> 01:21:15,080
Speaker 6: kind of a grayish looking if you had a shark

1799
01:21:15,160 --> 01:21:16,600
Speaker 6: version of a sucker, that's what they look like.

1800
01:21:16,920 --> 01:21:19,160
Speaker 4: Familiar with fish they get.

1801
01:21:19,080 --> 01:21:21,479
Speaker 6: You know, probably not quite three feet long, but I

1802
01:21:21,560 --> 01:21:24,120
Speaker 6: mean you're yeah, decent size and there's.

1803
01:21:23,960 --> 01:21:26,800
Speaker 8: Deeply blue, especially when they're spawning. Yeah, they have a

1804
01:21:26,880 --> 01:21:27,920
Speaker 8: tall dorsal fin on.

1805
01:21:28,120 --> 01:21:28,240
Speaker 2: Right.

1806
01:21:28,439 --> 01:21:30,320
Speaker 8: They're threatened in South Dakota. We used to raise them

1807
01:21:30,360 --> 01:21:30,880
Speaker 8: at the hatchery.

1808
01:21:31,080 --> 01:21:33,840
Speaker 6: Yeah, very cool fish and uh you know they stay

1809
01:21:33,840 --> 01:21:37,080
Speaker 6: in the midwater, sort of midwater in midstream. A lot

1810
01:21:37,120 --> 01:21:39,639
Speaker 6: of some ichthyologists and also angers call me a unicorn

1811
01:21:39,680 --> 01:21:41,920
Speaker 6: fish because it's very difficult to catch them because it's

1812
01:21:41,920 --> 01:21:43,320
Speaker 6: a sucker. So you got a fish for them, right,

1813
01:21:43,320 --> 01:21:44,360
Speaker 6: They got that ventral mouth.

1814
01:21:44,520 --> 01:21:45,200
Speaker 2: Never heard of that one.

1815
01:21:45,320 --> 01:21:47,080
Speaker 6: Yeah, Yeah, so blue sucker, we can you know, you

1816
01:21:47,160 --> 01:21:48,800
Speaker 6: come up to Minnesota, we could probably show you some.

1817
01:21:49,000 --> 01:21:51,200
Speaker 6: So they're putting trackers in some of them to find

1818
01:21:51,240 --> 01:21:53,760
Speaker 6: out where they go. So DNR is doing that. They've

1819
01:21:53,760 --> 01:21:55,240
Speaker 6: done that with some of the long nosed gars, so

1820
01:21:55,280 --> 01:21:57,120
Speaker 6: it's finding out where some of those fish are moving

1821
01:21:57,160 --> 01:21:59,760
Speaker 6: as well tracking the invasive carp where they're going.

1822
01:22:00,000 --> 01:22:02,200
Speaker 3: I'm trying to think as far as unique stuff we

1823
01:22:02,280 --> 01:22:02,760
Speaker 3: did find.

1824
01:22:02,840 --> 01:22:04,640
Speaker 6: You know through some of those bofen that half of

1825
01:22:04,720 --> 01:22:08,040
Speaker 6: a large rat in the stomach, which shows that bof

1826
01:22:08,120 --> 01:22:11,519
Speaker 6: and will eat just about anything. The I tell the students,

1827
01:22:11,600 --> 01:22:14,599
Speaker 6: just like with the plankton, to let me know when

1828
01:22:14,640 --> 01:22:16,519
Speaker 6: there's something interesting you find in the stomach. And so

1829
01:22:16,720 --> 01:22:18,519
Speaker 6: I I was coming back to the lab and showing

1830
01:22:18,560 --> 01:22:20,120
Speaker 6: somebod of the lab and I said, do you find

1831
01:22:20,120 --> 01:22:21,840
Speaker 6: anything interesting? I said, oh, yeah, we found a rat

1832
01:22:21,920 --> 01:22:23,519
Speaker 6: in the stomach. And I'm like, well, where is it?

1833
01:22:23,640 --> 01:22:25,439
Speaker 6: I said, you know, I need to see a picture

1834
01:22:25,560 --> 01:22:27,439
Speaker 6: or find it. It was already in like the carcass

1835
01:22:27,479 --> 01:22:28,920
Speaker 6: bin and stuff. I'm like, you're gonna have to fish

1836
01:22:28,960 --> 01:22:29,680
Speaker 6: that out of here so we.

1837
01:22:29,720 --> 01:22:31,799
Speaker 7: Can get your muskrat.

1838
01:22:33,240 --> 01:22:35,320
Speaker 6: I mean it was the only post your end of it.

1839
01:22:35,439 --> 01:22:38,000
Speaker 6: So I mean I I couldn't tell you. I'll send

1840
01:22:38,040 --> 01:22:39,880
Speaker 6: you the picture. Maybe you can gain idea.

1841
01:22:39,960 --> 01:22:42,760
Speaker 8: Yeah, you did say what are the little bumps that

1842
01:22:42,880 --> 01:22:45,840
Speaker 8: some suckers get when they're spawning. Blue blue suckers would

1843
01:22:45,840 --> 01:22:47,320
Speaker 8: really get those on there, tubercles.

1844
01:22:47,400 --> 01:22:50,040
Speaker 6: Tubercles, Yeah, yeah, so they got the spawning tubercles on them,

1845
01:22:50,080 --> 01:22:51,120
Speaker 6: and so on buffalo.

1846
01:22:51,200 --> 01:22:53,720
Speaker 3: We'll get those two a lot of yeah.

1847
01:22:53,800 --> 01:22:54,000
Speaker 5: Yeah.

1848
01:22:55,160 --> 01:22:57,479
Speaker 6: So there's there's a lot of interesting fisher I haven't

1849
01:22:57,479 --> 01:22:59,960
Speaker 6: seen any eels there yet. When we're down in Louisiana,

1850
01:23:00,120 --> 01:23:02,479
Speaker 6: sw eels all the time, So I think that's what's

1851
01:23:02,479 --> 01:23:05,439
Speaker 6: been interesting is having stayed and worked in Louisiana for

1852
01:23:05,520 --> 01:23:07,560
Speaker 6: six years. Now being in Minnesota, we're just following the

1853
01:23:07,600 --> 01:23:10,320
Speaker 6: Mississippi River further up to the top. But that's also

1854
01:23:10,360 --> 01:23:12,880
Speaker 6: what some of our research is doing is looking at

1855
01:23:13,120 --> 01:23:16,439
Speaker 6: those gar and buffalo populations down south. We've learned about

1856
01:23:16,439 --> 01:23:19,120
Speaker 6: their life history, some of the population structure, and we

1857
01:23:19,200 --> 01:23:22,000
Speaker 6: can look at gars in Buffalo up north and then

1858
01:23:22,120 --> 01:23:24,880
Speaker 6: compare northern and southern populations. One of the things we

1859
01:23:24,960 --> 01:23:27,320
Speaker 6: want to do is like, can we start forecasting about

1860
01:23:27,360 --> 01:23:29,920
Speaker 6: climate change how that might change things? Right, Because we've

1861
01:23:29,960 --> 01:23:32,320
Speaker 6: got fish that are adapted to a warmer climate down

1862
01:23:32,400 --> 01:23:34,560
Speaker 6: south that we know about, how might the ones in

1863
01:23:34,600 --> 01:23:37,880
Speaker 6: the north start potentially changing but then you know, you've

1864
01:23:37,880 --> 01:23:39,559
Speaker 6: got your cold water fish are can be affected by

1865
01:23:39,600 --> 01:23:41,439
Speaker 6: that as well. But you know, we don't have walleye

1866
01:23:41,560 --> 01:23:43,479
Speaker 6: way down south. So that's why the gars and the

1867
01:23:43,560 --> 01:23:46,120
Speaker 6: bofins and the buffalo can be useful for that kind

1868
01:23:46,120 --> 01:23:48,080
Speaker 6: of research as well. So again we're trying to use

1869
01:23:48,240 --> 01:23:52,000
Speaker 6: them as sort of these multifaceted tools to tackle management, conservation,

1870
01:23:52,120 --> 01:23:53,040
Speaker 6: even climate science.

1871
01:23:53,560 --> 01:23:57,439
Speaker 2: What are these northern gars doing under the ice? Like,

1872
01:23:57,520 --> 01:24:01,400
Speaker 2: I've never in my life even heard of someone catching

1873
01:24:01,479 --> 01:24:02,120
Speaker 2: one through the ice.

1874
01:24:02,320 --> 01:24:04,720
Speaker 6: Yeah, it happens. I've got a couple of pictures that

1875
01:24:04,840 --> 01:24:06,640
Speaker 6: people have sent me. It's still on my bucket list

1876
01:24:06,720 --> 01:24:07,679
Speaker 6: to get a gar through the ice.

1877
01:24:07,800 --> 01:24:09,000
Speaker 4: So you've heard of people getting hit.

1878
01:24:09,080 --> 01:24:09,640
Speaker 3: Oh they're just.

1879
01:24:09,640 --> 01:24:11,759
Speaker 6: They're just kind of chilling under there, no pun intended.

1880
01:24:11,960 --> 01:24:15,160
Speaker 6: But there's places in Iowa where I've got video of

1881
01:24:15,200 --> 01:24:17,720
Speaker 6: that too, where the guy cut you know, made as

1882
01:24:17,760 --> 01:24:19,760
Speaker 6: a you know, cut through the ice drop the can

1883
01:24:20,000 --> 01:24:21,960
Speaker 6: ice hole and it's just his ice hole there, and

1884
01:24:22,040 --> 01:24:24,880
Speaker 6: then just a bunch of short nosed gars just hanging

1885
01:24:24,920 --> 01:24:26,360
Speaker 6: out below there, like I mean.

1886
01:24:26,520 --> 01:24:29,400
Speaker 3: Probably fifty or sixteen in a round. Yeah, just you know,

1887
01:24:29,520 --> 01:24:29,800
Speaker 3: kind of.

1888
01:24:30,120 --> 01:24:32,920
Speaker 6: Slowly waving their fins but you know, metabolism slows down,

1889
01:24:33,000 --> 01:24:35,640
Speaker 6: They're still going to eat, but they're congregating there. And

1890
01:24:35,800 --> 01:24:38,479
Speaker 6: they also are air breathers, but when the water is

1891
01:24:38,520 --> 01:24:40,800
Speaker 6: that cold, as long as they find well oxygen water,

1892
01:24:40,880 --> 01:24:42,960
Speaker 6: they don't have to go up for air there. But

1893
01:24:43,040 --> 01:24:44,760
Speaker 6: so they're there both in or there under the ice too.

1894
01:24:44,960 --> 01:24:48,000
Speaker 6: So that's still still on the list to check out.

1895
01:24:48,160 --> 01:24:50,080
Speaker 2: Can I ask you snap and turtle question? Sure?

1896
01:24:50,520 --> 01:24:52,160
Speaker 3: I was into turtles before I was into gars.

1897
01:24:52,200 --> 01:24:55,759
Speaker 2: Actually, so okay, years ago, I was at the National

1898
01:24:55,840 --> 01:24:59,600
Speaker 2: Trappers Association convention in Iowa, and I went to a

1899
01:24:59,680 --> 01:25:03,200
Speaker 2: lecture by a turtle trapper. Okay, can't there his name is.

1900
01:25:03,280 --> 01:25:06,080
Speaker 2: He had a like a thing hanging from he had

1901
01:25:06,120 --> 01:25:09,320
Speaker 2: like a necklace that was like a pouch made out

1902
01:25:09,320 --> 01:25:12,280
Speaker 2: of a big old turtle foot, big time in the turtles,

1903
01:25:12,840 --> 01:25:16,840
Speaker 2: turtle trapper, but he got into raisin turtles. He was saying,

1904
01:25:17,000 --> 01:25:19,559
Speaker 2: and I've told people, I've told people this a thousand

1905
01:25:19,680 --> 01:25:22,800
Speaker 2: times that this is true. He was saying that a

1906
01:25:22,880 --> 01:25:26,519
Speaker 2: turtle in the winter, so it's iceed over, like you know,

1907
01:25:26,800 --> 01:25:28,280
Speaker 2: Norman comes up and sticks his head out of the

1908
01:25:28,320 --> 01:25:30,800
Speaker 2: water and gets a gold but everything's locked and ice.

1909
01:25:31,040 --> 01:25:32,680
Speaker 3: He was saying, I think I know where this is going.

1910
01:25:33,280 --> 01:25:33,719
Speaker 2: Is it true?

1911
01:25:34,640 --> 01:25:37,680
Speaker 3: Yes, it is if you're talking about clerical respiration.

1912
01:25:37,640 --> 01:25:38,519
Speaker 2: Well, I'm talking about this.

1913
01:25:40,000 --> 01:25:41,840
Speaker 4: He was saying that that turtle can go down in

1914
01:25:41,880 --> 01:25:42,200
Speaker 4: the muck.

1915
01:25:43,080 --> 01:25:45,880
Speaker 2: He can burrow down in the muck and push himself

1916
01:25:46,000 --> 01:25:49,679
Speaker 2: up and it sends bubbles of methane out of the muck.

1917
01:25:50,080 --> 01:25:53,240
Speaker 2: He says he's seen this in a wetsuit. It sends

1918
01:25:53,360 --> 01:25:58,000
Speaker 2: methane bubbles by disturbing the muck and it goes up

1919
01:25:58,040 --> 01:26:01,200
Speaker 2: to the ice. Like he was saying that somehow like

1920
01:26:01,280 --> 01:26:05,479
Speaker 2: the CO two can leach through the ice. Huh. And

1921
01:26:05,560 --> 01:26:08,360
Speaker 2: then he'll wait and eventually he'll go up and sip.

1922
01:26:10,720 --> 01:26:12,960
Speaker 2: He'll go up and sip that bubble. Huh.

1923
01:26:13,920 --> 01:26:15,000
Speaker 4: He says he's watched it.

1924
01:26:15,200 --> 01:26:16,639
Speaker 3: That's That's not what I thought.

1925
01:26:16,680 --> 01:26:19,080
Speaker 6: With the clerical respiration, that's where they just basically breed

1926
01:26:19,160 --> 01:26:20,160
Speaker 6: through their butts and stuff.

1927
01:26:20,200 --> 01:26:22,240
Speaker 3: So that's how they get gas exchange there.

1928
01:26:22,320 --> 01:26:26,200
Speaker 6: But I've not heard about the methane bubble and blow

1929
01:26:26,240 --> 01:26:28,360
Speaker 6: the ice surface, and then what was the advantage there?

1930
01:26:28,360 --> 01:26:30,840
Speaker 3: It would just you get some sort of conversion picture.

1931
01:26:30,840 --> 01:26:32,840
Speaker 2: You stir the muck up, all that gas comes out. Ye,

1932
01:26:33,000 --> 01:26:37,200
Speaker 2: somehow he was explaining, and then you talk like I

1933
01:26:37,280 --> 01:26:39,519
Speaker 2: was hoping you can help me. He's explaining that that

1934
01:26:41,880 --> 01:26:46,679
Speaker 2: certain like some gas goes through the ice. I don't

1935
01:26:46,680 --> 01:26:48,840
Speaker 2: get it. Yeah, but if it waits, he'll eventually go

1936
01:26:48,960 --> 01:26:51,240
Speaker 2: up and he'll sip that bubble. Uh huh. To what

1937
01:26:51,600 --> 01:26:54,639
Speaker 2: end he can't stick his head out of the water.

1938
01:26:55,200 --> 01:26:58,800
Speaker 3: I mean, there's got to be some sort of organic chemistry. Yeah,

1939
01:26:59,040 --> 01:26:59,639
Speaker 3: he was saying.

1940
01:26:59,720 --> 01:27:00,960
Speaker 4: By the I know, but that's why I got to

1941
01:27:00,960 --> 01:27:02,000
Speaker 4: listen to what I'm talking about.

1942
01:27:02,520 --> 01:27:04,920
Speaker 2: He was saying that, like, by that bubble sitting there

1943
01:27:05,000 --> 01:27:09,960
Speaker 2: for some period of time goes through some transformation. How

1944
01:27:10,040 --> 01:27:13,120
Speaker 2: does how is that? How is that stupid? Do you

1945
01:27:13,200 --> 01:27:16,439
Speaker 2: think like a methane bubble will just live there chemically

1946
01:27:16,600 --> 01:27:18,120
Speaker 2: stable for the rest of its life.

1947
01:27:19,720 --> 01:27:27,080
Speaker 9: I don't know, Like, okay, bubble turns into exactly right.

1948
01:27:27,240 --> 01:27:29,719
Speaker 2: I don't know. Maybe we need to have a gas expert.

1949
01:27:30,439 --> 01:27:33,120
Speaker 5: Yeah, some googling going on.

1950
01:27:34,040 --> 01:27:36,120
Speaker 3: You never heard this, Yeah, I'm not. I've not heard that.

1951
01:27:36,720 --> 01:27:43,840
Speaker 2: He was talking about raising turtles and eventually got so

1952
01:27:44,120 --> 01:27:47,520
Speaker 2: into it that he was observing them with a wetsuit

1953
01:27:48,000 --> 01:27:50,880
Speaker 2: in the winter, trying to understand winter behavior and he's

1954
01:27:50,960 --> 01:27:55,839
Speaker 2: talking about them in his mind, deliberately stirring the bottom

1955
01:27:56,400 --> 01:27:58,599
Speaker 2: and then going up and sipping the bubbles.

1956
01:27:59,240 --> 01:28:02,439
Speaker 7: So if you're calling them, I'm not it's not meane,

1957
01:28:02,439 --> 01:28:03,120
Speaker 7: they're kicking off.

1958
01:28:03,240 --> 01:28:07,880
Speaker 10: Maybe it's than can be converted into oxygen and other

1959
01:28:08,000 --> 01:28:12,200
Speaker 10: chemicals like carbon dioxide and water through oxidation, which is

1960
01:28:12,320 --> 01:28:17,840
Speaker 10: often a highly exothermic reaction that requires high temperatures or catalysts.

1961
01:28:17,520 --> 01:28:18,120
Speaker 2: Or ice.

1962
01:28:20,479 --> 01:28:24,120
Speaker 3: Or yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Maybe the turtle's doing something.

1963
01:28:26,479 --> 01:28:28,040
Speaker 2: I never heard that one. Yeah, no, I'm not.

1964
01:28:28,160 --> 01:28:28,760
Speaker 1: You're not heard that.

1965
01:28:28,960 --> 01:28:30,200
Speaker 3: But you know they're surviving somehow.

1966
01:28:30,360 --> 01:28:32,599
Speaker 2: So it's just one of the things that like sticks

1967
01:28:32,600 --> 01:28:34,639
Speaker 2: in your head your whole life, and you just wind

1968
01:28:34,760 --> 01:28:35,880
Speaker 2: up telling everybody about it.

1969
01:28:36,240 --> 01:28:39,559
Speaker 3: Oh, I know, I got But is that yeah.

1970
01:28:41,360 --> 01:28:45,080
Speaker 10: Here inertness of methane. Methane is a very stable and

1971
01:28:45,360 --> 01:28:49,960
Speaker 10: inert molecule, and breaking the strong carbon hydrogen bonds requires

1972
01:28:50,040 --> 01:28:52,759
Speaker 10: significant energy input or specific catalysts.

1973
01:28:57,520 --> 01:28:59,680
Speaker 2: Is there a chance that he's that that is there?

1974
01:29:00,160 --> 01:29:02,439
Speaker 2: It's like when you when you stir in the bottom up. Look,

1975
01:29:02,560 --> 01:29:04,280
Speaker 2: you know, you walk like you duck hunt every step,

1976
01:29:04,400 --> 01:29:07,599
Speaker 2: like bubbles come out of there. Is there a chance

1977
01:29:07,640 --> 01:29:08,519
Speaker 2: there's oxygen high.

1978
01:29:08,720 --> 01:29:10,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the thing. I'm like, it may not.

1979
01:29:10,400 --> 01:29:12,519
Speaker 6: He might be talking about methane, because that's what he knows.

1980
01:29:12,600 --> 01:29:14,760
Speaker 6: But you're probably stirring up all kinds of other gas

1981
01:29:14,880 --> 01:29:17,600
Speaker 6: or byproducts of that, you know, of the bacteria and

1982
01:29:17,640 --> 01:29:18,759
Speaker 6: all the muck on the bottom.

1983
01:29:19,200 --> 01:29:21,840
Speaker 3: So I think the story holds. It just may not

1984
01:29:21,920 --> 01:29:23,320
Speaker 3: be methane that I might have made.

1985
01:29:24,120 --> 01:29:26,960
Speaker 6: So that sounds legit, then, I mean, if you've got

1986
01:29:27,000 --> 01:29:29,040
Speaker 6: your own editions of the story, I can't.

1987
01:29:29,680 --> 01:29:31,400
Speaker 2: I know I didn't make up. What I know I

1988
01:29:31,479 --> 01:29:35,640
Speaker 2: didn't make up is him talking about turtles, Yeah, disturbing

1989
01:29:35,720 --> 01:29:38,559
Speaker 2: the bottom in his mind. And I remember, and I'm

1990
01:29:39,280 --> 01:29:43,280
Speaker 2: the bubbles would come up. He talked about that. He

1991
01:29:43,479 --> 01:29:47,040
Speaker 2: explained something that he thinks happens, but I don't remember what,

1992
01:29:47,680 --> 01:29:48,840
Speaker 2: and then the turtles would sip it.

1993
01:29:51,040 --> 01:29:53,360
Speaker 4: That part sounds We were trying to get that turtle

1994
01:29:53,360 --> 01:29:57,599
Speaker 4: expert on the show Krinn might have been before your time,

1995
01:29:59,200 --> 01:30:00,360
Speaker 4: and we wound up getting a kid.

1996
01:30:01,840 --> 01:30:02,680
Speaker 2: We didn't get his kid.

1997
01:30:02,880 --> 01:30:04,120
Speaker 4: We couldn't get the old man.

1998
01:30:04,160 --> 01:30:07,280
Speaker 10: We could have got that probably wouldn't have gotten teld

1999
01:30:07,280 --> 01:30:09,880
Speaker 10: me the kids said, I like turtles, you do we

2000
01:30:09,960 --> 01:30:11,280
Speaker 10: need it? Do we need to revisit.

2001
01:30:11,640 --> 01:30:15,400
Speaker 2: Well, there's two things that have evaded us. A neanderthal expert,

2002
01:30:15,560 --> 01:30:18,280
Speaker 2: I know, I'm I haven't pitched that on THEO Von's

2003
01:30:18,280 --> 01:30:21,799
Speaker 2: show and got that. One guy reached out a neanderthal expert,

2004
01:30:22,280 --> 01:30:26,800
Speaker 2: and someone who's real good on turtles, like real good and.

2005
01:30:26,960 --> 01:30:30,040
Speaker 3: Understands that I can get you some rex too.

2006
01:30:30,280 --> 01:30:35,599
Speaker 6: Yeah, like real good, especially snapping turtles, even alligator snapping turtles.

2007
01:30:38,240 --> 01:30:44,160
Speaker 10: Okay, okay, I'm talking to a neanderthal guy at some point, hopefully.

2008
01:30:50,560 --> 01:30:53,400
Speaker 2: I'm not going to ask you nanderthal question. So they're

2009
01:30:53,479 --> 01:30:57,800
Speaker 2: active and they feed. Yeah, and then let's take an

2010
01:30:57,840 --> 01:30:59,920
Speaker 2: alligator guard. How many eggs is he kicking out?

2011
01:31:00,320 --> 01:31:04,360
Speaker 3: I mean hundreds of thousands, she's kicking out, you know, sorry?

2012
01:31:04,439 --> 01:31:04,559
Speaker 2: Right?

2013
01:31:05,040 --> 01:31:06,679
Speaker 4: And then how are those getting fertilized?

2014
01:31:06,720 --> 01:31:07,240
Speaker 2: What happens?

2015
01:31:07,400 --> 01:31:10,680
Speaker 6: It's external fertilization, so you know, you get you have

2016
01:31:10,840 --> 01:31:14,240
Speaker 6: what you call polyandrees. That's more males than females. You

2017
01:31:14,320 --> 01:31:16,160
Speaker 6: might have one or two females, it's usually one big

2018
01:31:16,200 --> 01:31:18,200
Speaker 6: female and a bunch of males look kind of cluster together.

2019
01:31:18,240 --> 01:31:21,599
Speaker 6: And that's also usually over terrestrial vegetation. So they need

2020
01:31:21,640 --> 01:31:24,080
Speaker 6: that flood pulse to do that, so they're creating.

2021
01:31:23,800 --> 01:31:26,759
Speaker 2: A cloud of milk. Yeah, and she's laying her eggs

2022
01:31:26,800 --> 01:31:28,439
Speaker 2: and they're just fertilizing by being in the color.

2023
01:31:28,800 --> 01:31:31,879
Speaker 6: The eggs as they are being laid are very sticky,

2024
01:31:32,280 --> 01:31:35,000
Speaker 6: so they actually adhere to that vegetation, so it's not

2025
01:31:35,120 --> 01:31:38,280
Speaker 6: necessarily broadcasts and it's just going into the water column.

2026
01:31:38,360 --> 01:31:41,479
Speaker 6: It's basically attached to that veu she's applying them.

2027
01:31:41,560 --> 01:31:41,760
Speaker 2: Yeah.

2028
01:31:41,800 --> 01:31:44,439
Speaker 6: Yeah, and then you know with that spawning though, and

2029
01:31:44,560 --> 01:31:46,800
Speaker 6: part of our other research is that we found down

2030
01:31:46,840 --> 01:31:49,639
Speaker 6: in Texas and other places, long nose gars, your apparent

2031
01:31:49,680 --> 01:31:52,960
Speaker 6: favorite gar, get into that mix and you get hybrids

2032
01:31:53,000 --> 01:31:56,720
Speaker 6: between long nose an alligator long alligators. Yeah, yeah, so

2033
01:31:56,840 --> 01:31:59,040
Speaker 6: you get an alligator gar that's got a longer snout

2034
01:31:59,439 --> 01:32:01,560
Speaker 6: kind of nickname crocodile gars, you know, because it's a

2035
01:32:01,560 --> 01:32:03,280
Speaker 6: little bit longer snout action there.

2036
01:32:04,120 --> 01:32:05,280
Speaker 3: But that's across genera.

2037
01:32:05,720 --> 01:32:10,080
Speaker 6: So you've got two species of gar that are producing hybrids,

2038
01:32:10,120 --> 01:32:13,559
Speaker 6: which happens in fish. But not only are they two

2039
01:32:13,640 --> 01:32:17,640
Speaker 6: different species, they're two different genera that diverged about one

2040
01:32:17,680 --> 01:32:20,000
Speaker 6: hundred million years ago, so they split from each other

2041
01:32:20,080 --> 01:32:20,879
Speaker 6: a long time ago.

2042
01:32:20,680 --> 01:32:22,800
Speaker 4: And are their offspring sexually viable.

2043
01:32:22,560 --> 01:32:22,960
Speaker 3: That's the thing.

2044
01:32:23,120 --> 01:32:25,720
Speaker 6: So that's what makes it also, you know, unique or

2045
01:32:25,920 --> 01:32:28,400
Speaker 6: relatively unique, is that their offspring are fertile.

2046
01:32:29,000 --> 01:32:31,320
Speaker 3: So you've got these two species that.

2047
01:32:31,600 --> 01:32:35,240
Speaker 6: Can produce fertile offspring that split over one hundred million

2048
01:32:35,360 --> 01:32:38,040
Speaker 6: years ago. The next closest organisms that can do that

2049
01:32:38,200 --> 01:32:41,320
Speaker 6: is two species of ferns that split sixty five million

2050
01:32:41,360 --> 01:32:43,800
Speaker 6: years ago. So what that suggests to us is that

2051
01:32:43,920 --> 01:32:48,320
Speaker 6: their DNA is that compatible over splitting that long ago.

2052
01:32:48,439 --> 01:32:50,960
Speaker 6: So their evolutionary rates being that slow, and that goes

2053
01:32:51,000 --> 01:32:52,719
Speaker 6: into some of the work we've done looking at gars

2054
01:32:52,760 --> 01:32:56,160
Speaker 6: actually have the slowest rates of molecular evolution of any

2055
01:32:56,360 --> 01:32:59,479
Speaker 6: vertebrate with a job. So you rule out your lamp

2056
01:32:59,560 --> 01:33:02,840
Speaker 6: rays and your hagfish slower the next closest to sturgeons,

2057
01:33:03,200 --> 01:33:08,240
Speaker 6: but they are changing slower than seala, cants, lungfish, to titars, crocodilians, sharks,

2058
01:33:08,280 --> 01:33:10,920
Speaker 6: any of those things. So with that hybridization, though, that

2059
01:33:11,040 --> 01:33:14,479
Speaker 6: suggests to us that their DNA is that compatible, So

2060
01:33:14,640 --> 01:33:18,360
Speaker 6: something might be maintaining that compatibility the DNA, something might

2061
01:33:18,400 --> 01:33:21,120
Speaker 6: be correcting it. So you know, evolution happens by mutations, right,

2062
01:33:21,240 --> 01:33:23,640
Speaker 6: so something a couple base pairs change, so changes, you

2063
01:33:23,720 --> 01:33:27,479
Speaker 6: might get something that's advantageous or deleterious whatever. With gars,

2064
01:33:27,520 --> 01:33:31,679
Speaker 6: it seems like that DNA code has been staying pretty

2065
01:33:31,800 --> 01:33:35,320
Speaker 6: consistent for millions and millions of years, and what we

2066
01:33:35,439 --> 01:33:38,160
Speaker 6: hypothesize that there might be something like a DNA repair

2067
01:33:38,240 --> 01:33:42,080
Speaker 6: mechanism that when a mutation pops up, it's correcting that mutation,

2068
01:33:42,280 --> 01:33:43,880
Speaker 6: just setting back to what it's supposed to be. So

2069
01:33:44,040 --> 01:33:45,640
Speaker 6: think of like a game of telephone where you've got

2070
01:33:45,960 --> 01:33:48,320
Speaker 6: message on both ends. One's very different at the end

2071
01:33:48,360 --> 01:33:50,479
Speaker 6: of it from the beginning, right, think of almost a

2072
01:33:50,560 --> 01:33:53,120
Speaker 6: perfect game of telephone where something's correcting it over and

2073
01:33:53,240 --> 01:33:55,200
Speaker 6: over and over again. So one of the things we're

2074
01:33:55,200 --> 01:33:57,640
Speaker 6: looking at is like, can we isolate or identify with

2075
01:33:57,720 --> 01:34:01,479
Speaker 6: these potential DNA repair mechanisms could be because think about

2076
01:34:01,680 --> 01:34:04,120
Speaker 6: even in human health, how many diseases are based on

2077
01:34:04,240 --> 01:34:06,960
Speaker 6: out of control DNA replication or damage to DNA, whether

2078
01:34:07,000 --> 01:34:09,320
Speaker 6: you're thinking about things like even in skin cancer other

2079
01:34:09,360 --> 01:34:12,439
Speaker 6: types like that. So that's very far off in the future,

2080
01:34:12,960 --> 01:34:16,679
Speaker 6: but that hybridization between alligator gars and long nose gars

2081
01:34:16,800 --> 01:34:21,080
Speaker 6: or actually any gar species can hybridize is a potential

2082
01:34:21,120 --> 01:34:22,599
Speaker 6: biomedical value as well.

2083
01:34:23,280 --> 01:34:27,479
Speaker 2: So what prevents it from becoming a Why hasn't it

2084
01:34:27,600 --> 01:34:29,400
Speaker 2: just become a unispecies.

2085
01:34:28,920 --> 01:34:30,120
Speaker 3: Right exactly? That's a great question.

2086
01:34:30,240 --> 01:34:32,400
Speaker 6: So we kind of joke that like either there's one

2087
01:34:32,479 --> 01:34:35,479
Speaker 6: species of gar or there's maybe a hundred species of cars.

2088
01:34:36,120 --> 01:34:38,640
Speaker 6: But you think about with dog breeds, right, dogs all

2089
01:34:38,720 --> 01:34:41,120
Speaker 6: one species, but look at all the variation there. Gars

2090
01:34:41,160 --> 01:34:44,320
Speaker 6: are just changing at such a different rate relative to

2091
01:34:44,520 --> 01:34:47,679
Speaker 6: our way of thinking that you know, to them, maybe

2092
01:34:47,720 --> 01:34:50,800
Speaker 6: they are one species. They're just slight variations on a

2093
01:34:50,880 --> 01:34:53,639
Speaker 6: basic blueprint. We don't know what that is, but that's

2094
01:34:53,680 --> 01:34:55,519
Speaker 6: just another area of research we're looking into.

2095
01:34:55,640 --> 01:34:57,439
Speaker 3: But that adds value to these fish.

2096
01:34:57,640 --> 01:35:01,160
Speaker 6: You take buffalo, I know you all Alec Lackman on

2097
01:35:01,439 --> 01:35:04,600
Speaker 6: one of the previous shows with fishing and stuff. The

2098
01:35:04,640 --> 01:35:06,880
Speaker 6: buffalo can live for over one hundred years. We know that,

2099
01:35:07,120 --> 01:35:09,599
Speaker 6: but since then, since twenty nineteen when you're O were

2100
01:35:09,640 --> 01:35:09,880
Speaker 6: talking to.

2101
01:35:09,960 --> 01:35:11,679
Speaker 4: Him, Bultiple Soccer could live on hundred years.

2102
01:35:11,600 --> 01:35:13,040
Speaker 3: Rofolo socucer live over one hundred years.

2103
01:35:13,080 --> 01:35:13,879
Speaker 8: Ones at Minnesota.

2104
01:35:14,000 --> 01:35:16,559
Speaker 6: One's in Minnesota, you know, Saskatchewan, one hundred and twenty

2105
01:35:16,600 --> 01:35:17,080
Speaker 6: five years.

2106
01:35:17,760 --> 01:35:18,200
Speaker 3: There's one.

2107
01:35:18,280 --> 01:35:20,479
Speaker 6: So buffalo story I can tell you is that some

2108
01:35:20,600 --> 01:35:23,960
Speaker 6: of the buffalo. During World War One, they wanted to

2109
01:35:24,160 --> 01:35:27,960
Speaker 6: you know, ship more meat products, food products overseas, and

2110
01:35:28,000 --> 01:35:31,240
Speaker 6: so they wanted people stateside to eat less meat because

2111
01:35:31,240 --> 01:35:33,639
Speaker 6: they need all those resources to go towards the war efforts.

2112
01:35:33,680 --> 01:35:35,800
Speaker 6: So they wanted to encourage people to eat more fish.

2113
01:35:36,600 --> 01:35:38,679
Speaker 6: And so in order to get people to eat more fish,

2114
01:35:38,720 --> 01:35:41,439
Speaker 6: they're building all these new reservoirs in the southwestern United States,

2115
01:35:41,520 --> 01:35:45,960
Speaker 6: the you know, Roosevelt Reservoir down southwest, and so some states,

2116
01:35:46,000 --> 01:35:48,960
Speaker 6: including Iowa, shipped a bunch of game fish, including some

2117
01:35:49,040 --> 01:35:52,919
Speaker 6: non game fish like buffalo, over down to the Apache

2118
01:35:53,040 --> 01:35:56,799
Speaker 6: Lake down in Roosevelt Reservoir that area around nineteen seventeen.

2119
01:35:57,360 --> 01:36:00,519
Speaker 6: Some of those fish are still alive today, No, and

2120
01:36:00,600 --> 01:36:02,519
Speaker 6: they've gone back and looked at some of the offspring,

2121
01:36:02,560 --> 01:36:05,840
Speaker 6: which are from born around the nineteen twenties, still alive today,

2122
01:36:06,600 --> 01:36:08,719
Speaker 6: and they've done all kinds of aging with the otol

2123
01:36:08,760 --> 01:36:12,240
Speaker 6: its radiocarbon dating. So sure those are introduced species there,

2124
01:36:12,320 --> 01:36:15,160
Speaker 6: but we introduce them, but some anglers go there. They

2125
01:36:15,240 --> 01:36:17,800
Speaker 6: know them by the different spot patterns and stuff. But

2126
01:36:17,880 --> 01:36:20,480
Speaker 6: what they've also been able to find looking at their physiology,

2127
01:36:20,840 --> 01:36:24,839
Speaker 6: their health has actually improved with old age, their immune

2128
01:36:24,840 --> 01:36:28,960
Speaker 6: system function, sin essence, the sort of DNA breakdown that

2129
01:36:29,000 --> 01:36:29,360
Speaker 6: we all.

2130
01:36:29,320 --> 01:36:31,880
Speaker 3: Have as we get older, they don't show that. So

2131
01:36:32,000 --> 01:36:32,879
Speaker 3: you've got these.

2132
01:36:32,960 --> 01:36:35,479
Speaker 6: Native rough fish like gars that they've got this DNA

2133
01:36:35,560 --> 01:36:38,120
Speaker 6: that's been staying coherent for millions and millions of years.

2134
01:36:38,200 --> 01:36:41,200
Speaker 6: Potentially with the DNA repair mechanism. You've got buffalo which

2135
01:36:41,240 --> 01:36:44,080
Speaker 6: actually are improving with age. You're trying eighty year old

2136
01:36:44,120 --> 01:36:47,040
Speaker 6: one hundred year old fish just kicking as just yeah, yeah,

2137
01:36:47,920 --> 01:36:51,040
Speaker 6: So you know there's a lot to about these Yeah, yeah, exactly.

2138
01:36:51,120 --> 01:36:53,160
Speaker 3: You know, combined the two you can live forever and

2139
01:36:53,200 --> 01:36:54,000
Speaker 3: get better with age.

2140
01:36:54,040 --> 01:36:58,639
Speaker 7: You know, I got an angling question.

2141
01:36:58,840 --> 01:37:01,840
Speaker 9: Sure, maybe not for alligator gar because they have a

2142
01:37:02,439 --> 01:37:05,320
Speaker 9: you know, they have a degree of popular popularity for fishermen.

2143
01:37:05,439 --> 01:37:09,880
Speaker 9: But the other species, if if one was wanting to

2144
01:37:09,960 --> 01:37:12,839
Speaker 9: set a world record, our gar one of those species

2145
01:37:12,920 --> 01:37:14,160
Speaker 9: that just kind of get ignored.

2146
01:37:14,520 --> 01:37:17,879
Speaker 7: And there's a bunch of like open line class records.

2147
01:37:18,040 --> 01:37:18,240
Speaker 10: Yeah.

2148
01:37:18,320 --> 01:37:20,919
Speaker 6: Yeah, even in Minnesota, they've got catch and release records

2149
01:37:21,600 --> 01:37:24,200
Speaker 6: that are open to a bunch of non game native fish.

2150
01:37:24,240 --> 01:37:25,760
Speaker 6: I think the bof in one was just set this

2151
01:37:25,840 --> 01:37:27,719
Speaker 6: past summer. It was like a thirty one incher.

2152
01:37:27,880 --> 01:37:29,840
Speaker 4: Yeah, because no dudes would ever put in for it.

2153
01:37:30,320 --> 01:37:33,080
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, you know, not as much anyway, but yeah,

2154
01:37:33,160 --> 01:37:35,040
Speaker 6: down south you get some big long nose guards. We

2155
01:37:35,080 --> 01:37:37,200
Speaker 6: actually got the biggest long nose I'd ever seen with

2156
01:37:37,360 --> 01:37:39,839
Speaker 6: my students out at Nicols State when I was on Louisiana.

2157
01:37:39,960 --> 01:37:42,160
Speaker 6: It was a sixty incher and later that summer, I

2158
01:37:42,160 --> 01:37:43,960
Speaker 6: think somewhere else in Lousing they got a sixty five inches.

2159
01:37:44,000 --> 01:37:46,560
Speaker 3: But that is right along the records.

2160
01:37:46,160 --> 01:37:48,640
Speaker 9: Because for those guys, some fishermen that just look for

2161
01:37:48,880 --> 01:37:51,800
Speaker 9: unfilled Yeah, yeah, nine class world records.

2162
01:37:51,520 --> 01:37:53,160
Speaker 6: That's a good spot to go for, you know, the

2163
01:37:53,280 --> 01:37:55,400
Speaker 6: line classes, the difference size overall.

2164
01:37:55,479 --> 01:37:58,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's that's worth you know, going after.

2165
01:37:59,040 --> 01:38:01,200
Speaker 6: I would say, if you do shoot it, find a

2166
01:38:01,240 --> 01:38:02,840
Speaker 6: way to get us the odolfth because we want to

2167
01:38:03,000 --> 01:38:04,080
Speaker 6: we want to age that fish.

2168
01:38:04,160 --> 01:38:04,920
Speaker 5: So they got some.

2169
01:38:05,040 --> 01:38:08,240
Speaker 7: Skulls getting their odolith. That's got to be a process.

2170
01:38:08,320 --> 01:38:10,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, to this skull I can't stop messing with.

2171
01:38:10,160 --> 01:38:11,960
Speaker 6: You have to use a hammer and a chisel for

2172
01:38:12,000 --> 01:38:14,320
Speaker 6: alligator gars. I mean, it's just and we're working with

2173
01:38:14,400 --> 01:38:15,479
Speaker 6: skulls that are huge too.

2174
01:38:15,520 --> 01:38:18,240
Speaker 9: It's like, what are your buddy up up at the

2175
01:38:18,320 --> 01:38:21,120
Speaker 9: shack when he was chopping open those yellow eyes to

2176
01:38:21,200 --> 01:38:22,000
Speaker 9: get their lift.

2177
01:38:22,080 --> 01:38:22,679
Speaker 7: That was work.

2178
01:38:23,080 --> 01:38:24,799
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a it's messy business.

2179
01:38:24,840 --> 01:38:26,519
Speaker 2: But let's do this skull the school is amazing.

2180
01:38:26,880 --> 01:38:29,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's with some formalde hyde. You probably get maybe

2181
01:38:30,000 --> 01:38:31,320
Speaker 3: maybe some that's good. That's good.

2182
01:38:32,240 --> 01:38:34,400
Speaker 2: So you did what Now we get the skulls.

2183
01:38:34,439 --> 01:38:37,560
Speaker 3: So we got it from Aligator gar Rodeo down to Louisiana.

2184
01:38:38,479 --> 01:38:39,519
Speaker 2: So that that was great.

2185
01:38:39,520 --> 01:38:41,400
Speaker 3: It's another opportunity to work with stakeholders there.

2186
01:38:41,479 --> 01:38:43,519
Speaker 4: Well, they shoot twenty two because they.

2187
01:38:43,479 --> 01:38:45,360
Speaker 6: Jug line for him first. So when you get the

2188
01:38:45,400 --> 01:38:47,040
Speaker 6: fish and it's live, they want to find ways to

2189
01:38:47,200 --> 01:38:48,559
Speaker 6: dispatch the dark knight.

2190
01:38:48,920 --> 01:38:49,120
Speaker 2: Yeah.

2191
01:38:49,200 --> 01:38:51,439
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm always curious as to how they're doing that

2192
01:38:51,560 --> 01:38:54,000
Speaker 6: on a boat and not misfiring and hitting the bottom

2193
01:38:54,040 --> 01:38:55,800
Speaker 6: of the boat or something. But they use the twenty

2194
01:38:55,840 --> 01:38:57,880
Speaker 6: shoot edge of the boat, I guess, so I've never

2195
01:38:57,920 --> 01:38:59,240
Speaker 6: seen it. We get them where they bring them in.

2196
01:38:59,400 --> 01:39:00,680
Speaker 3: So but you know, oh, you got to figure you

2197
01:39:00,720 --> 01:39:01,439
Speaker 3: got these big fish.

2198
01:39:01,479 --> 01:39:03,439
Speaker 6: You're not usually hanging a big that kind of gar

2199
01:39:03,520 --> 01:39:04,920
Speaker 6: you might hang over the edge of the boat, but

2200
01:39:05,400 --> 01:39:07,280
Speaker 6: for hanging the head of a six foot or seven

2201
01:39:07,320 --> 01:39:08,920
Speaker 6: foot over the edge of your boat, you might.

2202
01:39:09,560 --> 01:39:11,639
Speaker 9: I told you earlier I've got a lying cod head

2203
01:39:12,880 --> 01:39:16,080
Speaker 9: do But like the general public can't just get their hands.

2204
01:39:17,240 --> 01:39:20,160
Speaker 2: Did you buy from aldehyde like a jugger from albehinde?

2205
01:39:20,240 --> 01:39:21,920
Speaker 3: That's a good question. I can buy from Aldie, but

2206
01:39:21,920 --> 01:39:23,080
Speaker 3: I don't know. I think.

2207
01:39:25,040 --> 01:39:28,080
Speaker 8: It once and yet, Yeah, what don't they want people

2208
01:39:28,080 --> 01:39:28,519
Speaker 8: to have from.

2209
01:39:28,439 --> 01:39:31,680
Speaker 6: A I mean it's a it's a carcinogen. I mean,

2210
01:39:31,920 --> 01:39:35,360
Speaker 6: so you take your guard's head fresh off the gar, yeah,

2211
01:39:35,439 --> 01:39:37,799
Speaker 6: and then you do what we Well, those we eventually

2212
01:39:37,840 --> 01:39:39,280
Speaker 6: put on ice. We could storm for a bit, we

2213
01:39:39,360 --> 01:39:41,120
Speaker 6: saw them out, and then I once we thaw them,

2214
01:39:41,160 --> 01:39:43,360
Speaker 6: we pry the jaws open, usually wedge something in there,

2215
01:39:43,360 --> 01:39:45,240
Speaker 6: because you know, the natural state of the gar isn't

2216
01:39:45,240 --> 01:39:47,200
Speaker 6: with the jaws wide open like that, And then we

2217
01:39:47,240 --> 01:39:49,639
Speaker 6: put them in a fromaldehyde bath for like maybe two

2218
01:39:49,800 --> 01:39:51,599
Speaker 6: three days, depending on the size of the fish.

2219
01:39:51,640 --> 01:39:52,400
Speaker 3: And then we take it out.

2220
01:39:52,400 --> 01:39:53,880
Speaker 6: We put in a cooler with water, and we just

2221
01:39:53,960 --> 01:39:56,040
Speaker 6: change that water bath a few times and we just

2222
01:39:56,120 --> 01:39:56,800
Speaker 6: let it air dry.

2223
01:39:57,600 --> 01:40:00,360
Speaker 3: But you can do that with a regular fishing.

2224
01:40:00,360 --> 01:40:03,080
Speaker 2: You could set nail like.

2225
01:40:03,160 --> 01:40:05,439
Speaker 7: I've salted pike cats and let them drive.

2226
01:40:05,520 --> 01:40:07,800
Speaker 6: But that looks that would work way better than piping

2227
01:40:08,640 --> 01:40:10,160
Speaker 6: because pike are still they got a lot of flesh,

2228
01:40:10,320 --> 01:40:12,040
Speaker 6: you know, along the skull, whereas a gar skull.

2229
01:40:12,160 --> 01:40:13,400
Speaker 3: I mean that's yeah.

2230
01:40:15,479 --> 01:40:19,000
Speaker 10: We may have to communicate with Montana State University. So

2231
01:40:19,200 --> 01:40:23,560
Speaker 10: purchasing a jug of formaldehyde solution requires a specialized chemical supplier.

2232
01:40:24,120 --> 01:40:27,200
Speaker 10: It's not available for purchase at retail stores and is

2233
01:40:27,280 --> 01:40:29,640
Speaker 10: regulated by the e p A and OSHA due to

2234
01:40:29,720 --> 01:40:33,960
Speaker 10: health risk, including cancer. We need to demonstrate a legitimate use,

2235
01:40:35,240 --> 01:40:38,439
Speaker 10: so you might need to. Yeah, like anyone at m

2236
01:40:38,560 --> 01:40:41,679
Speaker 10: s U, get some contacts there you go, well trade

2237
01:40:41,720 --> 01:40:42,680
Speaker 10: in formaldehyde.

2238
01:40:42,760 --> 01:40:45,280
Speaker 2: I was gonna bring this up with your cren. You

2239
01:40:45,520 --> 01:40:49,200
Speaker 2: still have those tuna heads in that freezer. You need

2240
01:40:49,280 --> 01:40:52,000
Speaker 2: to deal with them or get your formal I.

2241
01:40:52,040 --> 01:40:55,120
Speaker 10: Thought Alec got some and made made soup with them.

2242
01:40:55,280 --> 01:40:59,240
Speaker 7: Are the collars attached? Yeah, I take I.

2243
01:40:59,240 --> 01:40:59,840
Speaker 5: Don't think no.

2244
01:41:00,160 --> 01:41:02,120
Speaker 2: Is it just the head. We've also got those, we

2245
01:41:02,240 --> 01:41:02,800
Speaker 2: cleaned them up.

2246
01:41:03,000 --> 01:41:05,519
Speaker 10: We've also got those fetuses in there too.

2247
01:41:07,360 --> 01:41:09,960
Speaker 6: This is a work art, I mean, you know, hope

2248
01:41:10,000 --> 01:41:12,360
Speaker 6: you all appreciate that. You know, we couldn't bring a

2249
01:41:12,400 --> 01:41:14,080
Speaker 6: big one in the suitcase or anything. Show me a

2250
01:41:14,120 --> 01:41:15,519
Speaker 6: big one work you know, it was with your hands

2251
01:41:15,560 --> 01:41:16,280
Speaker 6: what's a big one.

2252
01:41:16,479 --> 01:41:18,120
Speaker 3: When you're looking at how about that big?

2253
01:41:18,240 --> 01:41:18,479
Speaker 2: Really?

2254
01:41:18,680 --> 01:41:20,400
Speaker 3: I think we had some pictures in there. I'll send

2255
01:41:20,439 --> 01:41:20,680
Speaker 3: them to you.

2256
01:41:20,760 --> 01:41:23,559
Speaker 6: But that eight footer has a was a pretty big skull.

2257
01:41:24,040 --> 01:41:26,120
Speaker 6: It got trapped in the nets, so that one had

2258
01:41:26,360 --> 01:41:28,160
Speaker 6: unfortunately died. But we're able to get the otolitz I

2259
01:41:28,240 --> 01:41:30,320
Speaker 6: was fifty six years old. But there you're looking at

2260
01:41:30,360 --> 01:41:32,920
Speaker 6: a eight foot long fish that was fifty six It

2261
01:41:32,960 --> 01:41:34,639
Speaker 6: could have easily been one hundred. When they get that big,

2262
01:41:34,680 --> 01:41:38,479
Speaker 6: they aren't growing, you know, very much each year. But

2263
01:41:38,720 --> 01:41:41,240
Speaker 6: this is out of the coastal Louisiana. So we had

2264
01:41:41,280 --> 01:41:44,200
Speaker 6: six footers that were twenty years old. I want to

2265
01:41:44,200 --> 01:41:45,479
Speaker 6: say we probably had a six and a half footer.

2266
01:41:45,560 --> 01:41:47,880
Speaker 6: There might have been, you know, twenty twenty one.

2267
01:41:48,800 --> 01:41:50,400
Speaker 3: So they get they get big.

2268
01:41:50,479 --> 01:41:53,240
Speaker 6: But that's where working with the rodeo was very helpful

2269
01:41:53,280 --> 01:41:55,280
Speaker 6: because we could get all the data we wanted.

2270
01:41:55,320 --> 01:41:56,760
Speaker 3: They let us just have at it. They were cutting

2271
01:41:56,800 --> 01:41:57,600
Speaker 3: the heads off for us.

2272
01:41:57,640 --> 01:42:00,600
Speaker 6: They're getting, as you know, any of the samples of

2273
01:42:00,640 --> 01:42:04,519
Speaker 6: the muscle tissue, the fins, and then they also clean them.

2274
01:42:04,560 --> 01:42:04,680
Speaker 5: There.

2275
01:42:04,720 --> 01:42:06,200
Speaker 6: It was at a bar is at Manny's Bar on

2276
01:42:06,280 --> 01:42:09,519
Speaker 6: the Mara Para off Lake marpod Amy River and people

2277
01:42:09,600 --> 01:42:11,840
Speaker 6: come from all over that general region and they'd be

2278
01:42:11,840 --> 01:42:13,320
Speaker 6: eating this fried alligator gar.

2279
01:42:13,400 --> 01:42:15,760
Speaker 2: They make gar balls, which like hush. That's why I

2280
01:42:15,840 --> 01:42:18,519
Speaker 2: like Cajun's man, those Cajun doozy everything.

2281
01:42:18,600 --> 01:42:20,160
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, but gar's good. They got the

2282
01:42:20,200 --> 01:42:21,000
Speaker 3: big backstraps.

2283
01:42:21,040 --> 01:42:23,040
Speaker 6: And the thing is they invited us back year after

2284
01:42:23,160 --> 01:42:25,800
Speaker 6: year because they wanted to know what we were finding out,

2285
01:42:25,960 --> 01:42:27,920
Speaker 6: and we wanted to you know, work with them and

2286
01:42:28,160 --> 01:42:30,920
Speaker 6: share that info with them too. So you've got multiple stakeholders.

2287
01:42:30,960 --> 01:42:32,479
Speaker 6: We weren't there to say, like you got to stop

2288
01:42:32,600 --> 01:42:35,360
Speaker 6: doing this. We're there to like learn about the resource.

2289
01:42:35,439 --> 01:42:37,360
Speaker 6: How can we figure out about the health of the population.

2290
01:42:37,479 --> 01:42:39,360
Speaker 6: We've been invited back every year. I couldn't make it

2291
01:42:39,360 --> 01:42:41,120
Speaker 6: this year because coming down from Minnesota is a little

2292
01:42:41,120 --> 01:42:43,439
Speaker 6: bit tougher, But next year we plan on going back

2293
01:42:43,520 --> 01:42:46,040
Speaker 6: down there. So if everyone to, you know, send somebody

2294
01:42:46,080 --> 01:42:47,479
Speaker 6: to jump in on a gator gar.

2295
01:42:47,439 --> 01:42:48,880
Speaker 2: Rodeo, you know, we'll be there.

2296
01:42:48,920 --> 01:42:51,720
Speaker 6: But I think that's a good opportunity to again work

2297
01:42:51,760 --> 01:42:53,840
Speaker 6: with stakeholders, work with the people that are using the

2298
01:42:53,920 --> 01:42:56,000
Speaker 6: resource for different purposes.

2299
01:42:57,720 --> 01:43:00,320
Speaker 2: Uh, it's my last question for you. They might have more.

2300
01:43:01,680 --> 01:43:07,160
Speaker 2: You know when you have like like Trout Unlimited, Ducks Unlimited,

2301
01:43:07,320 --> 01:43:12,240
Speaker 2: Rocky Mountain Olk Foundation. Right, Uh, they put tons of

2302
01:43:12,280 --> 01:43:15,160
Speaker 2: money into habitat where they put tons of money into research.

2303
01:43:15,960 --> 01:43:22,640
Speaker 2: Who like, like who out there? What what NGOs are

2304
01:43:23,160 --> 01:43:25,639
Speaker 2: put any money into into GAR? Right?

2305
01:43:26,479 --> 01:43:29,320
Speaker 6: As far as the definite enngy of nobody, I think

2306
01:43:29,400 --> 01:43:31,840
Speaker 6: we're we're lucky that we can try to go after

2307
01:43:31,960 --> 01:43:36,040
Speaker 6: grants from different organizations. Minnesota has a lottery tax that

2308
01:43:36,160 --> 01:43:39,600
Speaker 6: goes into their Environmental and Natural Resources Trust Fund, and

2309
01:43:39,760 --> 01:43:41,760
Speaker 6: so we apply for that. We've been lucky to get

2310
01:43:41,920 --> 01:43:44,519
Speaker 6: support from the state. Then to look at these native

2311
01:43:44,560 --> 01:43:48,040
Speaker 6: rough fish that's been extremely beneficial, and a few other

2312
01:43:48,080 --> 01:43:49,880
Speaker 6: states have you know, stuff like that too.

2313
01:43:50,040 --> 01:43:52,000
Speaker 4: But there's no GAR enthusiastic group.

2314
01:43:52,240 --> 01:43:54,400
Speaker 3: I mean, you're you're looking at it, Steve, I mean,

2315
01:43:54,560 --> 01:43:55,920
Speaker 3: you know, it's a you know.

2316
01:43:56,200 --> 01:43:58,439
Speaker 6: And then there's a Native Fish for Tomorrow, which is

2317
01:43:58,479 --> 01:44:00,960
Speaker 6: a nonprofit group that is promoting.

2318
01:44:00,600 --> 01:44:02,200
Speaker 3: The value of these fish. But we're all going to

2319
01:44:02,280 --> 01:44:03,720
Speaker 3: cobble together out of Minnesota as well.

2320
01:44:03,840 --> 01:44:05,160
Speaker 4: Native Fish yep.

2321
01:44:05,360 --> 01:44:08,960
Speaker 6: So Tyler Winter is one of their main spokespersons. He

2322
01:44:09,040 --> 01:44:13,200
Speaker 6: also had a response to that article, but again promoting

2323
01:44:13,800 --> 01:44:16,719
Speaker 6: eating the fish, fishing for the fish. But again that's advocacy.

2324
01:44:16,760 --> 01:44:19,040
Speaker 6: I mean through the grants that we're getting, we're partnering

2325
01:44:19,080 --> 01:44:21,120
Speaker 6: with them to provide them funding. So we're kind of

2326
01:44:21,200 --> 01:44:23,360
Speaker 6: trying to get what money we can to work on

2327
01:44:23,479 --> 01:44:25,560
Speaker 6: that stuff. But doing things like this, the work you

2328
01:44:25,640 --> 01:44:28,599
Speaker 6: all do gets that message out more about the value

2329
01:44:28,600 --> 01:44:31,160
Speaker 6: of these fish. But again being able to convince it

2330
01:44:31,280 --> 01:44:33,640
Speaker 6: was the National Fish and Wilife Foundation. They support our

2331
01:44:33,680 --> 01:44:36,680
Speaker 6: work down on the Mississippi River flood Plain in Mississippi,

2332
01:44:38,160 --> 01:44:40,560
Speaker 6: working with Nature Conservancy, US Fishing Wildlife. So it's a

2333
01:44:40,560 --> 01:44:43,160
Speaker 6: bunch of partners usually coming together. So I've been kind

2334
01:44:43,200 --> 01:44:44,880
Speaker 6: of selling the idea of like we can use gar

2335
01:44:45,160 --> 01:44:48,120
Speaker 6: to answer these questions or to get this type of restoration.

2336
01:44:48,479 --> 01:44:51,160
Speaker 6: But it really is advocating for the species and then

2337
01:44:51,240 --> 01:44:53,519
Speaker 6: trying to fund the funds to or find the funds

2338
01:44:53,600 --> 01:44:56,200
Speaker 6: to back that research and then show that these are

2339
01:44:56,400 --> 01:44:57,800
Speaker 6: again valuable organisms.

2340
01:44:57,640 --> 01:44:59,760
Speaker 2: Because it's the new fountain of youth, right right, Yeah,

2341
01:45:00,040 --> 01:45:01,559
Speaker 2: figure out a couple of the little trips.

2342
01:45:01,600 --> 01:45:04,679
Speaker 6: I will say that the biomedical value of the fish

2343
01:45:04,760 --> 01:45:08,919
Speaker 6: has bolstered that value. Spotted gar actually out of Michigan

2344
01:45:09,560 --> 01:45:11,400
Speaker 6: is where we looked at that comparing them, and also

2345
01:45:11,479 --> 01:45:15,560
Speaker 6: in Louisiana, the gar genome is actually organized closer to

2346
01:45:15,600 --> 01:45:16,920
Speaker 6: the human genome than it is to.

2347
01:45:16,960 --> 01:45:18,599
Speaker 3: Other fish like your walleye and your trout.

2348
01:45:19,080 --> 01:45:21,800
Speaker 6: So because of that sort of ancient lineage, they've got

2349
01:45:21,800 --> 01:45:23,640
Speaker 6: a lot of stuff that's in common with you know,

2350
01:45:24,040 --> 01:45:25,519
Speaker 6: other sides of the evolutionary tree.

2351
01:45:25,840 --> 01:45:27,880
Speaker 2: Do got one more question, all right? What is the

2352
01:45:28,000 --> 01:45:29,240
Speaker 2: toxin that's in those eggs?

2353
01:45:29,680 --> 01:45:32,040
Speaker 6: That is a great question. We've been trying to answer

2354
01:45:32,160 --> 01:45:34,640
Speaker 6: that for well over a decade. We think it might

2355
01:45:34,720 --> 01:45:38,639
Speaker 6: be sequestered from bacteria, but we don't know exactly. There's

2356
01:45:38,640 --> 01:45:40,640
Speaker 6: actually current work being done at Nicols State and at

2357
01:45:40,760 --> 01:45:43,400
Speaker 6: LSU on that right now. We did some preliminary work

2358
01:45:43,560 --> 01:45:46,519
Speaker 6: on that a few years ago, so we think it

2359
01:45:46,920 --> 01:45:50,599
Speaker 6: comes from bacteria mainly in the eggs. And what's also

2360
01:45:50,680 --> 01:45:54,280
Speaker 6: unique about that toxin is it's toxic to birds, to mammals,

2361
01:45:54,479 --> 01:45:57,559
Speaker 6: to arthropods like crayfish and crickets, but it's not toxic

2362
01:45:57,640 --> 01:46:00,880
Speaker 6: to fish. So really, why you're a fish but you have,

2363
01:46:01,120 --> 01:46:03,320
Speaker 6: you know, eggs that aren't toxic to the other animals

2364
01:46:03,360 --> 01:46:04,040
Speaker 6: that are there.

2365
01:46:03,960 --> 01:46:04,960
Speaker 2: So suck that.

2366
01:46:05,439 --> 01:46:08,320
Speaker 6: I've got videos of bluegill eating long nosed gar eggs

2367
01:46:08,439 --> 01:46:10,800
Speaker 6: as the long nose are laying them. So that kind

2368
01:46:10,800 --> 01:46:12,599
Speaker 6: of brings kind of full circle to like this game

2369
01:46:12,720 --> 01:46:15,879
Speaker 6: fish and non game fish. You're actually supporting these giant bluegill.

2370
01:46:16,120 --> 01:46:19,320
Speaker 6: And what we think is because gars evolutionarily would I mean,

2371
01:46:19,360 --> 01:46:22,360
Speaker 6: they live in these warm waters, right, they breathe air.

2372
01:46:22,920 --> 01:46:26,639
Speaker 6: So most of your regular traditionally respiring fish like bluegill

2373
01:46:26,760 --> 01:46:28,559
Speaker 6: and you know bass, aren't going to live in those

2374
01:46:28,640 --> 01:46:30,879
Speaker 6: low oxygen waters. But you do have a lot of crawfish,

2375
01:46:30,960 --> 01:46:32,120
Speaker 6: you have a lot of water birds, you got a

2376
01:46:32,160 --> 01:46:34,559
Speaker 6: lot of camels. So it'll kill the crawfish, you'll kill

2377
01:46:34,600 --> 01:46:35,000
Speaker 6: the birds.

2378
01:46:35,000 --> 01:46:36,599
Speaker 2: It'll you know, have you ever given have you ever

2379
01:46:36,720 --> 01:46:39,160
Speaker 2: actually given it to a mouse and seen him die there?

2380
01:46:39,320 --> 01:46:41,280
Speaker 3: I haven't given it to him. There are experiments that

2381
01:46:41,360 --> 01:46:41,800
Speaker 3: have been done.

2382
01:46:41,840 --> 01:46:43,800
Speaker 6: They've given it to turtles too, where it's like slow

2383
01:46:43,880 --> 01:46:46,360
Speaker 6: down the heart rate, and so they have none experiments

2384
01:46:46,400 --> 01:46:47,200
Speaker 6: with those eggs.

2385
01:46:48,960 --> 01:46:52,439
Speaker 3: With yeah, yeah, it depends on how much you're consuming

2386
01:46:52,520 --> 01:46:53,000
Speaker 3: with that stuff.

2387
01:46:53,040 --> 01:46:56,120
Speaker 2: But like quicker days later with crayfish.

2388
01:46:55,640 --> 01:46:58,280
Speaker 6: It's pretty quick, like they basically see them eating them

2389
01:46:58,320 --> 01:46:59,840
Speaker 6: and they just slow down and they just stop.

2390
01:47:00,080 --> 01:47:03,439
Speaker 9: What in parts of the country like now, like or

2391
01:47:03,479 --> 01:47:05,320
Speaker 9: the Cajuns are eating these things?

2392
01:47:05,520 --> 01:47:06,360
Speaker 7: Is that like a no?

2393
01:47:06,680 --> 01:47:09,160
Speaker 6: Like people know Oh yeah, yeah, it's a you know,

2394
01:47:09,520 --> 01:47:11,280
Speaker 6: they know how to clean them there. But and it's

2395
01:47:11,360 --> 01:47:13,760
Speaker 6: it's available on the thing called the internet, right, but

2396
01:47:13,800 --> 01:47:14,799
Speaker 6: you'll still see.

2397
01:47:14,720 --> 01:47:16,080
Speaker 3: Pop up every few years.

2398
01:47:16,360 --> 01:47:19,160
Speaker 6: These people got violently ill from eating a bunch of

2399
01:47:19,240 --> 01:47:22,200
Speaker 6: gar eating the row. Yeah, they thought maybe I'm gonna

2400
01:47:22,200 --> 01:47:23,439
Speaker 6: try to eat these because you know, you get a

2401
01:47:23,439 --> 01:47:24,200
Speaker 6: big long nose guard.

2402
01:47:24,200 --> 01:47:25,519
Speaker 3: There's a lot of eggs in there. You can eat

2403
01:47:25,560 --> 01:47:28,559
Speaker 3: both in caviar. They make that. They call it Cajun caviar.

2404
01:47:29,280 --> 01:47:30,640
Speaker 3: I've heard it's not as good, you know.

2405
01:47:31,479 --> 01:47:33,560
Speaker 2: You know I've heard of that too. I forgot about that.

2406
01:47:33,760 --> 01:47:35,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you can't do that with the guards. So

2407
01:47:35,640 --> 01:47:38,519
Speaker 3: I mean, you're not going to die, You're gonna have Yeah.

2408
01:47:39,560 --> 01:47:41,160
Speaker 2: We're trying to get a caviar specialist.

2409
01:47:41,640 --> 01:47:48,840
Speaker 3: Nice specialist. You can double up.

2410
01:47:49,840 --> 01:47:53,559
Speaker 4: I got one question, are you from the north?

2411
01:47:55,600 --> 01:47:57,080
Speaker 8: I got I got two comments from earlier. We were

2412
01:47:57,080 --> 01:47:59,040
Speaker 8: talking about the native range of an alligator guard. The

2413
01:47:59,200 --> 01:48:03,200
Speaker 8: US g S says it goes following the Ohio River

2414
01:48:03,360 --> 01:48:06,439
Speaker 8: almost to West Virginia. What and then the Mississippi almost

2415
01:48:06,439 --> 01:48:08,439
Speaker 8: to Iowa, so like deep into the Midwest.

2416
01:48:08,520 --> 01:48:10,759
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, seriously, they're trying to bring them back in Kentucky.

2417
01:48:10,840 --> 01:48:13,880
Speaker 6: They have found them in parts of Ohio and Indiana

2418
01:48:13,960 --> 01:48:16,240
Speaker 6: along the Ohio River, so they think that the one

2419
01:48:16,360 --> 01:48:18,120
Speaker 6: that was I think found in Indiana is part of

2420
01:48:18,200 --> 01:48:20,360
Speaker 6: restoration either in Ohio and Kentucky.

2421
01:48:20,560 --> 01:48:22,240
Speaker 3: But yeah, they're parts. They're in the Ohio River.

2422
01:48:22,280 --> 01:48:24,679
Speaker 2: Are they maybe just not getting like five six seven

2423
01:48:24,760 --> 01:48:27,800
Speaker 2: feet long? So people just aren't like noticing.

2424
01:48:27,439 --> 01:48:30,080
Speaker 6: That they had big ones down in Horseshoe Lake in Illinois,

2425
01:48:30,240 --> 01:48:31,439
Speaker 6: Like I want to say, it was like it was

2426
01:48:31,520 --> 01:48:34,280
Speaker 6: like early nineteen hundred's that biggest one that they got

2427
01:48:34,400 --> 01:48:36,920
Speaker 6: like towards the end of their run before they're fully extirpated,

2428
01:48:37,240 --> 01:48:38,840
Speaker 6: was like a five or six foot long fish.

2429
01:48:38,880 --> 01:48:39,479
Speaker 3: So they get big.

2430
01:48:39,640 --> 01:48:40,920
Speaker 2: I had just no idea.

2431
01:48:41,080 --> 01:48:43,720
Speaker 6: We've actually found gars in the north get bigger like

2432
01:48:43,960 --> 01:48:46,599
Speaker 6: long term maximum size than the fish in the south.

2433
01:48:46,680 --> 01:48:49,040
Speaker 6: Like that's looking at spotted gars. So they've got the

2434
01:48:49,120 --> 01:48:51,559
Speaker 6: growth rate that has to be able to compensate for winter.

2435
01:48:51,720 --> 01:48:54,040
Speaker 6: But we do find on average they live longer and

2436
01:48:54,080 --> 01:48:56,160
Speaker 6: they can get bigger. Alligator gar we just don't know

2437
01:48:56,280 --> 01:48:57,840
Speaker 6: enough because we wiped them out from the north, so

2438
01:48:57,920 --> 01:48:58,719
Speaker 6: we'll have to see.

2439
01:48:58,880 --> 01:48:59,800
Speaker 5: It's almost like deer.

2440
01:49:00,360 --> 01:49:00,559
Speaker 7: Yeah.

2441
01:49:03,160 --> 01:49:06,120
Speaker 8: Other comment was, Steve, you were asking about traditional use

2442
01:49:06,160 --> 01:49:08,120
Speaker 8: of gar. When I would give tours at the hatchery

2443
01:49:08,160 --> 01:49:09,680
Speaker 8: and we would get to the gar section and try

2444
01:49:09,720 --> 01:49:12,479
Speaker 8: to make people think they were cool. Some native tribes

2445
01:49:12,520 --> 01:49:16,000
Speaker 8: would use their scales for currency or jewelry, and then

2446
01:49:16,080 --> 01:49:19,559
Speaker 8: some of the early white settlers would line the front

2447
01:49:19,600 --> 01:49:22,320
Speaker 8: of their plows with gar skin because it could break

2448
01:49:22,360 --> 01:49:25,960
Speaker 8: through tough dirt. So there's some historical use. It's super

2449
01:49:26,040 --> 01:49:30,639
Speaker 8: tough question, Solomon. What is like an aquarium you really

2450
01:49:30,800 --> 01:49:33,200
Speaker 8: like as a native rough fish man where you walk

2451
01:49:33,280 --> 01:49:35,960
Speaker 8: in You're like, no way, they have a quailed back,

2452
01:49:36,400 --> 01:49:37,640
Speaker 8: they have a river carpsucker.

2453
01:49:37,800 --> 01:49:38,000
Speaker 5: Yeah.

2454
01:49:38,080 --> 01:49:41,599
Speaker 6: Yeah, I would say the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanoogat does

2455
01:49:41,640 --> 01:49:44,960
Speaker 6: an amazing job with freshwater fish. They've got a whole

2456
01:49:45,000 --> 01:49:47,439
Speaker 6: building it's all freshwater. They built another one that's marine,

2457
01:49:47,800 --> 01:49:49,240
Speaker 6: which I think is cool. But I was there for

2458
01:49:49,280 --> 01:49:51,920
Speaker 6: a conference last year. I visited the aquarium three times

2459
01:49:52,000 --> 01:49:54,439
Speaker 6: during that conference, only went to the freshwater one. They

2460
01:49:54,479 --> 01:49:56,240
Speaker 6: loved to feed the gars down there too, So shout

2461
01:49:56,439 --> 01:49:59,680
Speaker 6: Tennessee Aquarium. Shout Aquarium is a postdoc there and so

2462
01:49:59,720 --> 01:50:01,640
Speaker 6: they've we had a good fresh water set up to

2463
01:50:02,080 --> 01:50:05,040
Speaker 6: Tennessee's better. But shed does have some of my gars

2464
01:50:05,080 --> 01:50:06,960
Speaker 6: that I had in grad school that I couldn't rehome

2465
01:50:07,000 --> 01:50:08,720
Speaker 6: when I moved to Chicago. So if you go to

2466
01:50:08,760 --> 01:50:11,280
Speaker 6: Shad Aquarium you see any gars, most of those are

2467
01:50:11,360 --> 01:50:12,240
Speaker 6: mine from grad.

2468
01:50:12,120 --> 01:50:13,479
Speaker 3: School, you know, over ten years ago.

2469
01:50:13,600 --> 01:50:15,760
Speaker 8: No good And I sent him peddlefish to the shah

2470
01:50:15,880 --> 01:50:18,439
Speaker 8: Yah about a death way back in the day. Yeah,

2471
01:50:20,280 --> 01:50:23,960
Speaker 8: in Minnesota. That's sort of like ground zero for these

2472
01:50:24,040 --> 01:50:27,599
Speaker 8: wakeboard studies or wakeboat studies. Have you followed these at all?

2473
01:50:27,760 --> 01:50:28,040
Speaker 2: I've not.

2474
01:50:28,240 --> 01:50:30,160
Speaker 6: I just know it's a it's a topic that's come

2475
01:50:30,240 --> 01:50:32,240
Speaker 6: up when you know they're looking at new management.

2476
01:50:32,320 --> 01:50:33,720
Speaker 3: That's you know, we got to look into it.

2477
01:50:34,040 --> 01:50:36,240
Speaker 4: Well, that's both they weigh them all down with ballast

2478
01:50:36,320 --> 01:50:37,640
Speaker 4: and then make the big waves.

2479
01:50:37,640 --> 01:50:40,000
Speaker 8: Destroy the shore line you surf on them. Well, they're

2480
01:50:40,040 --> 01:50:43,479
Speaker 8: now like putting cameras underwater and seeing what it does

2481
01:50:43,560 --> 01:50:46,280
Speaker 8: to the bottom of the lake. And it appears to

2482
01:50:46,320 --> 01:50:48,439
Speaker 8: be like pretty devastating, like a bomb went off.

2483
01:50:48,640 --> 01:50:50,400
Speaker 7: I love it if they got rid of those things.

2484
01:50:50,479 --> 01:50:52,000
Speaker 8: Yeah, I was going to see if you have any

2485
01:50:52,040 --> 01:50:54,000
Speaker 8: thoughts on what those do to rough fish.

2486
01:50:54,240 --> 01:50:56,640
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think whenever you're taking out habitat like that,

2487
01:50:56,720 --> 01:50:59,120
Speaker 6: that's problematic, And especially since a lot of the native

2488
01:50:59,160 --> 01:51:01,639
Speaker 6: rough fish lake then your shore habitat. So when you're

2489
01:51:01,680 --> 01:51:05,000
Speaker 6: scouring out the bottom increasing turbidity, that's bad for the plants.

2490
01:51:05,760 --> 01:51:07,719
Speaker 6: And even if they're not in your shore, you're creating

2491
01:51:07,760 --> 01:51:11,200
Speaker 6: that wave action that's going to have stronger impacts also

2492
01:51:11,280 --> 01:51:13,080
Speaker 6: on the shore when you've got that vegetation. So I

2493
01:51:13,120 --> 01:51:16,400
Speaker 6: think I mean, again not being an expert on that myself,

2494
01:51:16,520 --> 01:51:19,160
Speaker 6: but I would say if it's damaging the habitat is

2495
01:51:19,280 --> 01:51:21,000
Speaker 6: or describing them, that's going to be problematic for a

2496
01:51:21,000 --> 01:51:21,559
Speaker 6: lot of these fish.

2497
01:51:21,640 --> 01:51:25,960
Speaker 2: Can you imagine can you just imagine the conversation, oh God,

2498
01:51:26,760 --> 01:51:31,720
Speaker 2: in the board enthusiast community when someone says, hey, man,

2499
01:51:32,200 --> 01:51:35,200
Speaker 2: you can't do that anymore because.

2500
01:51:34,920 --> 01:51:35,720
Speaker 5: Of the guard.

2501
01:51:37,320 --> 01:51:37,880
Speaker 2: Set me up.

2502
01:51:37,920 --> 01:51:38,680
Speaker 3: You're setting me up.

2503
01:51:40,400 --> 01:51:42,320
Speaker 2: No, I'd be like, yeah, you can't do anymore because

2504
01:51:42,320 --> 01:51:42,719
Speaker 2: the guard.

2505
01:51:42,760 --> 01:51:44,920
Speaker 7: They just make my boat bounce around a lot when.

2506
01:51:44,840 --> 01:51:45,599
Speaker 2: I'm perch fishing.

2507
01:51:47,240 --> 01:51:50,880
Speaker 4: Yeah, they would be just like, oh my goodness, gracious.

2508
01:51:51,200 --> 01:51:52,559
Speaker 7: I don't think they're listening to this show.

2509
01:51:53,040 --> 01:51:55,000
Speaker 4: No, I don't think they are in Franklin.

2510
01:51:57,120 --> 01:51:59,599
Speaker 2: This is my message to the wakeboard. Good community.

2511
01:51:59,760 --> 01:52:00,799
Speaker 8: Have you delivered a message?

2512
01:52:02,479 --> 01:52:02,960
Speaker 7: Is your first?

2513
01:52:06,120 --> 01:52:07,519
Speaker 4: I need to refine my message.

2514
01:52:08,040 --> 01:52:11,400
Speaker 2: My message is I'm on the lake bottom side.

2515
01:52:11,439 --> 01:52:17,880
Speaker 4: I think, man, who else got a question?

2516
01:52:19,160 --> 01:52:21,240
Speaker 7: Do they regrow their teeth their whole lives?

2517
01:52:22,280 --> 01:52:25,840
Speaker 6: That is a great question. I think they can grow teeth,

2518
01:52:25,880 --> 01:52:27,920
Speaker 6: but it's not like sharks. So we were, yeah, we

2519
01:52:27,960 --> 01:52:30,040
Speaker 6: were at this rodeo and the little kid, you know,

2520
01:52:30,200 --> 01:52:32,760
Speaker 6: parents brought them up to us as we're processing these fish.

2521
01:52:33,200 --> 01:52:36,280
Speaker 6: And I'm there with the persona chocol Bardy, curator of

2522
01:52:36,320 --> 01:52:39,000
Speaker 6: fishes at LSU S and our boath there he's Nick

2523
01:52:39,040 --> 01:52:41,360
Speaker 6: the all just I'm you know, gar person there little

2524
01:52:41,400 --> 01:52:43,160
Speaker 6: kid asks can I have one of the teeth? And

2525
01:52:43,360 --> 01:52:45,639
Speaker 6: so I'm like sure, And so we take the pliers

2526
01:52:45,680 --> 01:52:47,760
Speaker 6: and we go to pull the tooth out of this

2527
01:52:48,040 --> 01:52:50,320
Speaker 6: jaw and it's like really hard to get out of there,

2528
01:52:50,760 --> 01:52:52,720
Speaker 6: and we pulled it out and it just goes down

2529
01:52:52,760 --> 01:52:56,200
Speaker 6: almost like a volcano underneath the water, like and you know,

2530
01:52:56,280 --> 01:52:56,880
Speaker 6: we pulled that out.

2531
01:52:56,920 --> 01:52:57,479
Speaker 3: We're looking at it.

2532
01:52:57,600 --> 01:52:59,800
Speaker 6: Me and persona boath we've been studying fish for most

2533
01:52:59,840 --> 01:53:02,840
Speaker 6: of our lives. We're just like huh, Like we just

2534
01:53:02,960 --> 01:53:04,680
Speaker 6: we had no idea that that's what it looked at.

2535
01:53:04,720 --> 01:53:06,000
Speaker 6: And you know, we gave it to the kid. It

2536
01:53:06,240 --> 01:53:08,439
Speaker 6: made his day, right, and his little brother came up like,

2537
01:53:08,479 --> 01:53:09,760
Speaker 6: I want a tooth too, So then we were starting

2538
01:53:09,800 --> 01:53:12,400
Speaker 6: pulling teeth out of these things. So they do have

2539
01:53:12,920 --> 01:53:15,200
Speaker 6: an interesting structure there, and they do have something called

2540
01:53:15,320 --> 01:53:17,680
Speaker 6: dentine or place of dentine around those teeth, which is

2541
01:53:17,680 --> 01:53:21,519
Speaker 6: similar to the you know, some of the developmental tooth

2542
01:53:21,600 --> 01:53:23,960
Speaker 6: parts that we have as well. So there's a lot

2543
01:53:24,040 --> 01:53:25,919
Speaker 6: of things from the fish that are kind of connected

2544
01:53:25,960 --> 01:53:26,240
Speaker 6: to us.

2545
01:53:26,479 --> 01:53:28,800
Speaker 9: Yeah, because it seems like with those real long ones

2546
01:53:28,920 --> 01:53:32,599
Speaker 9: over time, like fifty years, they'd get broken and need.

2547
01:53:32,720 --> 01:53:34,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, with some of the big fish they get they

2548
01:53:34,800 --> 01:53:35,240
Speaker 3: get broken.

2549
01:53:35,320 --> 01:53:37,800
Speaker 6: But in Michigan, when we'd be doing our spotted guar work,

2550
01:53:38,040 --> 01:53:40,360
Speaker 6: we we would get what we call the crocodile effect,

2551
01:53:40,400 --> 01:53:43,040
Speaker 6: where you'd get gars where the teeth have grown from

2552
01:53:43,080 --> 01:53:45,080
Speaker 6: the bottom jaw and pierced the top of the.

2553
01:53:46,640 --> 01:53:48,400
Speaker 4: Yeah, so he's got tooth holes in his jaw.

2554
01:53:48,560 --> 01:53:50,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well those some of those are nostrils.

2555
01:53:50,320 --> 01:53:52,479
Speaker 6: Yeah, I actually know you're right there, those two where

2556
01:53:52,520 --> 01:53:54,160
Speaker 6: you can see the open hole going all the way down.

2557
01:53:54,280 --> 01:53:56,559
Speaker 6: Those are the tooth holes for those lower fangs down there.

2558
01:53:56,720 --> 01:54:00,040
Speaker 10: Yeah, think piranhas are like rows of teeth in there.

2559
01:53:59,880 --> 01:54:01,280
Speaker 6: Like, yeah, they got they got a lot of teeth,

2560
01:54:01,360 --> 01:54:02,840
Speaker 6: you know, and they don't have a lot of bite

2561
01:54:02,920 --> 01:54:05,559
Speaker 6: force them, so they're more about you know, they grasp

2562
01:54:05,640 --> 01:54:07,479
Speaker 6: and hold and then swallow the food as opposed to

2563
01:54:07,520 --> 01:54:09,320
Speaker 6: piranhas and sharks, which are more of a cutting plane.

2564
01:54:09,360 --> 01:54:11,920
Speaker 6: Barracudas as well, but again, you know, you look at

2565
01:54:11,960 --> 01:54:15,240
Speaker 6: those teeth, that's gonna be you know, intimidating. So there's

2566
01:54:15,280 --> 01:54:18,080
Speaker 6: a you know, an aesthetic to them as well when

2567
01:54:18,120 --> 01:54:20,680
Speaker 6: you think about, you know, getting people interested in them.

2568
01:54:21,520 --> 01:54:25,400
Speaker 8: Alongside trout and walleye pass besides humans, what else are

2569
01:54:25,479 --> 01:54:26,559
Speaker 8: killing alligator gars?

2570
01:54:27,479 --> 01:54:30,439
Speaker 6: Alligators to an extent, depending on the size, Once a

2571
01:54:30,479 --> 01:54:32,800
Speaker 6: gator gar is full size, nothing's really messing with it.

2572
01:54:33,120 --> 01:54:37,600
Speaker 6: Waterbirds will eat gars as well, other fish, other gars

2573
01:54:37,640 --> 01:54:39,680
Speaker 6: will eat them. I mean that's not you know, we

2574
01:54:39,760 --> 01:54:44,040
Speaker 6: find both in inside of bofen too, So typically it's.

2575
01:54:43,920 --> 01:54:47,320
Speaker 3: Gonna be other predatory fish. But usually like a bass

2576
01:54:47,400 --> 01:54:47,520
Speaker 3: or a.

2577
01:54:47,520 --> 01:54:48,840
Speaker 6: Walleye, they're not gonna be able to take them down

2578
01:54:48,840 --> 01:54:50,520
Speaker 6: once they get to once they get to decent sides.

2579
01:54:50,560 --> 01:54:52,280
Speaker 6: Nothing's getting through those scales really either.

2580
01:54:52,520 --> 01:54:52,720
Speaker 2: Yeah.

2581
01:54:53,080 --> 01:54:55,520
Speaker 4: You mentioned being of Indian descent, you're born in the US.

2582
01:54:55,680 --> 01:55:00,360
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, I was born in Washington State of Arlington Water, Washington,

2583
01:55:00,440 --> 01:55:01,440
Speaker 6: kind of farmtown.

2584
01:55:01,080 --> 01:55:02,600
Speaker 2: Out far fish as a kid.

2585
01:55:03,040 --> 01:55:04,920
Speaker 3: I did you know? That's what I was going to ask.

2586
01:55:05,000 --> 01:55:06,760
Speaker 6: He's like, how we all got started fishing. I got

2587
01:55:06,800 --> 01:55:09,640
Speaker 6: started fishing, you know, mainly on non game fish. So

2588
01:55:09,680 --> 01:55:12,680
Speaker 6: I lived in Washington and the North Dakota for eight

2589
01:55:12,800 --> 01:55:14,720
Speaker 6: years as a kid, and then Ohio is where I

2590
01:55:14,920 --> 01:55:18,520
Speaker 6: grew up. Cut creek chubs out of some random creek

2591
01:55:18,600 --> 01:55:20,240
Speaker 6: and we'd tie like ball up a piece of bread

2592
01:55:20,240 --> 01:55:22,240
Speaker 6: on a hook and then catch them that way. But

2593
01:55:22,280 --> 01:55:25,600
Speaker 6: I remember catching some perch in North Dakota going out fishing.

2594
01:55:25,640 --> 01:55:27,240
Speaker 6: That was one of the first fish I remember catching.

2595
01:55:27,480 --> 01:55:30,160
Speaker 6: The state capitol had a big Northern pike taxidermy there.

2596
01:55:30,160 --> 01:55:32,080
Speaker 6: I remember looking down the mouth of that and thinking

2597
01:55:32,160 --> 01:55:35,160
Speaker 6: those teeth are really cool. And I was into dinosaurs

2598
01:55:35,160 --> 01:55:38,320
Speaker 6: as well, so always getting outside. My dad would take

2599
01:55:38,320 --> 01:55:40,600
Speaker 6: me to the Stillguamish River in Washington State, so like

2600
01:55:40,680 --> 01:55:42,600
Speaker 6: we chuck rocks in there. So there was that connection

2601
01:55:42,720 --> 01:55:46,440
Speaker 6: to the water. So I enjoy fishing. I'm not good

2602
01:55:46,480 --> 01:55:49,400
Speaker 6: at fishing. My buddy Tyler Winter takes me out so

2603
01:55:49,480 --> 01:55:50,720
Speaker 6: you can take me. He can get me like, where's

2604
01:55:50,720 --> 01:55:52,160
Speaker 6: the gar spot, where's the boat in spot?

2605
01:55:52,240 --> 01:55:52,760
Speaker 3: So I can do that.

2606
01:55:52,800 --> 01:55:55,040
Speaker 6: He takes my kids out. They've caught red horse and

2607
01:55:55,280 --> 01:55:57,480
Speaker 6: you know, some other non game fish. Of course, my

2608
01:55:57,600 --> 01:55:59,960
Speaker 6: kids know gars, they've known that for their whole lot.

2609
01:56:00,960 --> 01:56:02,680
Speaker 6: But I do think that's an important part of like,

2610
01:56:02,800 --> 01:56:06,240
Speaker 6: you know, getting kids out into nature, getting them outdoors,

2611
01:56:06,280 --> 01:56:08,160
Speaker 6: and so that's also what we want to do. I

2612
01:56:08,200 --> 01:56:10,320
Speaker 6: would be remiss if I didn't say, like, my introduction

2613
01:56:10,520 --> 01:56:13,560
Speaker 6: to gars was through Ranger Rick magazine, which is through

2614
01:56:13,560 --> 01:56:16,600
Speaker 6: the National Wildlife Federation. Y. Yeah, so I got it

2615
01:56:16,640 --> 01:56:18,280
Speaker 6: from my kids too, and so I mean that's what

2616
01:56:18,400 --> 01:56:20,640
Speaker 6: got me started. And you know I thought they were cool.

2617
01:56:20,680 --> 01:56:22,480
Speaker 6: But you know, now we look at that is that's

2618
01:56:22,480 --> 01:56:25,280
Speaker 6: an opportunity to introduce kids to the outdoors. I'm also

2619
01:56:25,360 --> 01:56:27,400
Speaker 6: just getting them outdoors. So again, I like getting my

2620
01:56:27,480 --> 01:56:29,560
Speaker 6: kids out fishing and then you know, helping them maybe

2621
01:56:29,640 --> 01:56:31,640
Speaker 6: reel it in. But I'm not a great angler. I

2622
01:56:31,800 --> 01:56:33,440
Speaker 6: like to you know, count on folks like you all

2623
01:56:33,520 --> 01:56:35,840
Speaker 6: for that in grad school. I'm also not a hunter,

2624
01:56:35,960 --> 01:56:38,080
Speaker 6: but I am a consumer, so I just wasn't good

2625
01:56:38,080 --> 01:56:39,200
Speaker 6: at getting up early in the morning.

2626
01:56:39,280 --> 01:56:41,520
Speaker 3: So they go out hunting, you know, for duck and deer,

2627
01:56:41,640 --> 01:56:43,160
Speaker 3: but I would eat all the food they brought back.

2628
01:56:43,200 --> 01:56:44,320
Speaker 3: We'd have game night and do that.

2629
01:56:44,880 --> 01:56:48,080
Speaker 6: So I'm I'm a participant on some level, but I

2630
01:56:48,160 --> 01:56:52,200
Speaker 6: do recognize the importance. Married nine years as of just

2631
01:56:52,400 --> 01:56:53,040
Speaker 6: a week.

2632
01:56:52,840 --> 01:56:54,480
Speaker 2: And a half ago, same burst.

2633
01:56:54,840 --> 01:56:59,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, we met at shatt Aquarium. So she she was

2634
01:56:59,160 --> 01:57:01,520
Speaker 3: a great writer. She's not a fish person, but she

2635
01:57:01,720 --> 01:57:04,960
Speaker 3: is bought into the gar you know, the the whole

2636
01:57:05,000 --> 01:57:06,520
Speaker 3: gar thing. At our wedding.

2637
01:57:06,920 --> 01:57:09,440
Speaker 6: Instead of escort cards, you know, got the name tags

2638
01:57:09,520 --> 01:57:12,600
Speaker 6: or the table, she made escort guards, which are gar

2639
01:57:12,720 --> 01:57:15,600
Speaker 6: figurines with the name tags. I did not know about

2640
01:57:15,600 --> 01:57:17,280
Speaker 6: it at all, So you know, she has all for

2641
01:57:17,440 --> 01:57:19,320
Speaker 6: She's got the gar earrings. And so again we've got

2642
01:57:19,400 --> 01:57:20,840
Speaker 6: some you know, fish connections.

2643
01:57:20,800 --> 01:57:24,080
Speaker 7: To park on your honeymoon, I know, right, you know, if.

2644
01:57:23,960 --> 01:57:26,400
Speaker 3: It existed, we would do that, Brody. So you know

2645
01:57:26,520 --> 01:57:28,400
Speaker 3: that's where the DNA is really going. We're trying to

2646
01:57:28,440 --> 01:57:30,360
Speaker 3: bring back guars, but then it'll just look the same

2647
01:57:30,360 --> 01:57:33,800
Speaker 3: as what we have now. So it's gonna yea yeah, yeah,

2648
01:57:34,560 --> 01:57:39,080
Speaker 3: millions of dollars. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, it's a

2649
01:57:39,160 --> 01:57:39,800
Speaker 3: gar Yeah.

2650
01:57:41,960 --> 01:57:43,320
Speaker 4: All right, well thanks for coming on the show.

2651
01:57:43,440 --> 01:57:45,200
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me tell people how to find your

2652
01:57:45,240 --> 01:57:46,920
Speaker 2: work if they want to come find her, if they

2653
01:57:46,920 --> 01:57:49,560
Speaker 2: want to send you a weird specimens or whatever.

2654
01:57:49,760 --> 01:57:52,200
Speaker 6: Yeah, if they look up a garlab, garlab dot org.

2655
01:57:52,240 --> 01:57:54,000
Speaker 6: If you just look up gar lab, you'll find us.

2656
01:57:54,160 --> 01:57:57,320
Speaker 6: And we're on the social media platforms, the garlab on

2657
01:57:57,480 --> 01:58:00,960
Speaker 6: Instagram and on all the major platforms there. So if

2658
01:58:01,000 --> 01:58:03,280
Speaker 6: you look up garlab you'll find us. There's not that

2659
01:58:03,400 --> 01:58:05,720
Speaker 6: many of them. I think there's there's just one so far.

2660
01:58:05,920 --> 01:58:07,840
Speaker 6: Come until we expand further, like the big test.

2661
01:58:07,920 --> 01:58:10,440
Speaker 2: So they can get a hold and send an email, yes,

2662
01:58:10,440 --> 01:58:11,160
Speaker 2: say one time.

2663
01:58:11,920 --> 01:58:14,360
Speaker 6: Yeah, tell us the stories if you know, spots from them,

2664
01:58:14,400 --> 01:58:16,360
Speaker 6: if you get a big gar like, we're interested in that.

2665
01:58:16,440 --> 01:58:19,680
Speaker 6: It is again a broad spanning effort, and so we

2666
01:58:19,840 --> 01:58:23,720
Speaker 6: want contributions from the general public place.

2667
01:58:23,880 --> 01:58:27,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, let us know. I'm always up for gar stories.

2668
01:58:27,520 --> 01:58:30,960
Speaker 4: Garlab org. Yep, garlab dot or Is that simple?

2669
01:58:31,040 --> 01:58:33,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, yep, that's simple. There was a lot a competition

2670
01:58:33,200 --> 01:58:33,400
Speaker 3: for it.

2671
01:58:33,480 --> 01:58:37,960
Speaker 4: Step when he did a keyword search, Yeah yeah.

2672
01:58:37,840 --> 01:58:40,160
Speaker 8: Yeah, can I say one last thing. Yeah, we used

2673
01:58:40,160 --> 01:58:42,160
Speaker 8: to do touch tanks at the hand tree a lot.

2674
01:58:42,240 --> 01:58:45,360
Speaker 8: The most popular fish were always garu. They like really

2675
01:58:45,440 --> 01:58:48,440
Speaker 8: appeal to children. There's something like a very basic level

2676
01:58:48,480 --> 01:58:51,720
Speaker 8: we just love about garfish. Yeah, and they handle touch

2677
01:58:51,800 --> 01:58:52,440
Speaker 8: tanks super well.

2678
01:58:52,520 --> 01:58:52,720
Speaker 3: Yeah.

2679
01:58:52,760 --> 01:58:52,920
Speaker 2: Yeah.

2680
01:58:53,000 --> 01:58:55,000
Speaker 8: A lot of fish can't handle that stress. Gar can,

2681
01:58:55,480 --> 01:58:58,920
Speaker 8: So they're great for like introducing kids to cool prehistoric

2682
01:58:59,400 --> 01:58:59,840
Speaker 8: rough fish.

2683
01:59:00,160 --> 01:59:02,520
Speaker 6: One of my favorite pictures that I've seen of kids

2684
01:59:02,560 --> 01:59:05,240
Speaker 6: interacting with gars is one that Spencer took from that hatchery.

2685
01:59:05,280 --> 01:59:08,600
Speaker 3: So I've used that before in outreach activities, but it's

2686
01:59:08,640 --> 01:59:10,760
Speaker 3: like these kids reaching and touching that long nose gars.

2687
01:59:10,800 --> 01:59:13,080
Speaker 3: So I think that's uh, they don't.

2688
01:59:13,080 --> 01:59:14,640
Speaker 6: They don't see it as weird, they don't see as trash.

2689
01:59:14,680 --> 01:59:16,480
Speaker 6: So I think that's that's hope for the next generation.

2690
01:59:18,000 --> 01:59:20,600
Speaker 4: You know what we didn't get into is cleaning them

2691
01:59:21,480 --> 01:59:22,080
Speaker 4: ten snips.

2692
01:59:22,840 --> 01:59:23,640
Speaker 3: Ten snips is good.

2693
01:59:24,280 --> 01:59:27,600
Speaker 2: That's one of our books, isn't it, Brody? Peeling them

2694
01:59:27,680 --> 01:59:29,680
Speaker 2: and you know, pulling their little.

2695
01:59:29,520 --> 01:59:31,960
Speaker 3: Back straps out save the head for us?

2696
01:59:32,000 --> 01:59:34,200
Speaker 2: Maybe well from now on, once we get our once

2697
01:59:34,240 --> 01:59:36,080
Speaker 2: we get a jugger from Albert, all right, it's all

2698
01:59:37,400 --> 01:59:38,920
Speaker 2: thanks a lot man, all right, Thanks for having