Speaker 1: From Meat Eaters World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This
Speaker 1: is Col's Week in Review with Ryan cow Calahan. Here's
Speaker 1: cal The Conservancy of Southwest Florida announced a record hall
Speaker 1: of invasive pythons. Biologists from the conservation group removed one
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy seven pythons totaling eight thousand to eighty
Speaker 1: pounds of pure serpent mass during the previous breeding season
Speaker 1: of November twenty twenty five to April twenty twenty six,
Speaker 1: and they did it all in a two hundred square
Speaker 1: mile area in Collier County. The group says it's quote
Speaker 1: the greatest biomass of invasive Burmese pythons removed in a
Speaker 1: single season by the Conservancy's python tracking team and volunteers
Speaker 1: since the program began in twenty thirteen. Some of the
Speaker 1: snakes hauled in were pretty darn big, with the average
Speaker 1: female python weighing ninety five pounds and the biggest one
Speaker 1: being a one hundred and fifty three pounds seventeen foot bohema.
Speaker 1: Perhaps more importantly, biologists and volunteers blocked and estimated forty
Speaker 1: one hundred python eggs from getting into the world of
Speaker 1: the captured snakes. Females carried an average of seventy eggs apiece,
Speaker 1: and a quarter of them had eaten the remains of
Speaker 1: a native white tailed deer. What's particularly impressive about the
Speaker 1: four ton haul is how it happened. The Conservancy employed
Speaker 1: the help of forty male scout snakes. Those snakes were
Speaker 1: tagged with radio telemetry devices, then researchers relied on the
Speaker 1: male snake's desire to find a female. Once the male
Speaker 1: snakes slithered into a nest site, which are otherwise typically
Speaker 1: well hidden in thick brush, they reported to the scene
Speaker 1: and removed the females before they could breed. It's a
Speaker 1: big win for native wildlife, as invasive pythons, as well
Speaker 1: as other species are known to be hell on all
Speaker 1: kinds of native gritters, such as raccoons, poss and bobcat,
Speaker 1: marsh rabbits, cottontails, and more. While the invasive reptiles will
Speaker 1: likely never be eradicated from the Sunshine State, removal efforts
Speaker 1: are important for mitigating their impact. Quote. Without the conservancies
Speaker 1: continued removal efforts, these invasive predators would still be out there,
Speaker 1: decimating native wildlife and reproducing across the landscape. Said Rod Moore,
Speaker 1: president CEO of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida. This week,
Speaker 1: we've got hunting rights, technology regulations, and so much more.
Speaker 1: But first I'm going to tell you about my week.
Speaker 1: And my week has been filled with puppy and child rearing,
Speaker 1: on top of working hard to spread the word on
Speaker 1: threats to our public lands, the weaponization of the word access,
Speaker 1: and reminding folks how awesome our shared public resources, our
Speaker 1: public lands, waters and wildlife are and why they are
Speaker 1: also ours to lose. The puppy is closing in on
Speaker 1: ten weeks old. She already knows the place, command and sit.
Speaker 1: She's also mostly successfully broken down the old dogs in
Speaker 1: the house. She's made contact way less snarling and nipping
Speaker 1: than the was a week ago. Big changes having a
Speaker 1: human baby and a puppy in the house for a
Speaker 1: nine year old Border Collie and a six year old
Speaker 1: lab Big changes for Mom and I too. We're getting
Speaker 1: the hang of things and for the most part, getting
Speaker 1: to bed a lot earlier, calculating heavily what type of
Speaker 1: adventures we can pull off and if the baby juice
Speaker 1: is worth the squeeze. I guess by the time you
Speaker 1: hear this, maybe July, which is wild. A little fellow
Speaker 1: was born May twenty two, and May seems like a
Speaker 1: different planet. Not a month and change day has gone by.
Speaker 1: The little boob beater is strapped to my chest, lightly
Speaker 1: fussing as I record this. If you hear a little
Speaker 1: baby squeal, you know why. Sportsmen and women in Colorado
Speaker 1: are pushing to get an initiative on the ballot this
Speaker 1: fall that would enshrine the right to hunt and fish
Speaker 1: in the state's constitution. The measure is being pushed by
Speaker 1: a collective of hunting and fishing conservation groups, including Policy
Speaker 1: and Coalitions for the International Order of t Roosevelt, Colorado's
Speaker 1: for Responsible Wildlife Management, and Howl for Wildlife. These groups
Speaker 1: have garnered nearly one hundred thousand signatures. They need one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty five thousand verified signatures to meet the
Speaker 1: threshold required to get the measure on the ballot. The
Speaker 1: initiative is nearly identical to one that recently passed in Florida.
Speaker 1: That one was called Amendment to and passed with sixty
Speaker 1: seven percent of the vote. In total, around twenty four
Speaker 1: states already have the right to hunt and fish somewhere
Speaker 1: in their constitution. Enshrining these pursuits in a constitution can
Speaker 1: help fend off attempts by localities to restrict hunting and fishing,
Speaker 1: though it wouldn't revive any currently prohibited hunting or fishing
Speaker 1: seasons or change any existing CPW that's Colorado Parks and
Speaker 1: Wildlife Regulations. Travis Thompson, director of Policy and Coalitions for
Speaker 1: the International Order of t Roosevelt, told our friends over
Speaker 1: at Field and Stream that cementing the right to hunt
Speaker 1: fish in a state constitution is an important safeguard to
Speaker 1: these traditions. Quote. This puts a lock on the door.
Speaker 1: The lock's not perfect. Someone could still kick it in,
Speaker 1: shoot it off, or come in through a window. But
Speaker 1: it's just common sense to at least have a lock
Speaker 1: on the door. Or Dan Gates of Colorado's Responsible Wildlife
Speaker 1: Management and I had talked about this on through the
Speaker 1: Gates Podcast, which is the CRWM podcast hosted by Dan.
Speaker 1: Even if you're not in Colorado, there's ways for folks
Speaker 1: who vacation, travel, hike, bike, fish, recreate. Even if you're
Speaker 1: not doing it now and you want to in the future.
Speaker 1: You can weigh in on stuff like this. You can't
Speaker 1: go sign that petition because it's for residents, for legal
Speaker 1: voters of the state of Colorado. But what you can
Speaker 1: do is you can call Colorado Parks and Wildlife, you
Speaker 1: can call the governor, you can call state representatives and
Speaker 1: just let them know that hunting and fishing is the
Speaker 1: reason that you travel to other states such as Colorado
Speaker 1: and spend your hard earned bucks, and you would love
Speaker 1: to see something like this past. Again, that won't necessarily
Speaker 1: translate to signatures on a petition, but those types of
Speaker 1: moves shown and that populous support does give our elected
Speaker 1: officials a little more backbone in these cases. Jumping over
Speaker 1: to Iowa the Tech Desk, Earlier this year, we talked
Speaker 1: about efforts to update technological hunting aids in Idaho, which
Speaker 1: included restricting the use of cellular trail cameras on publicly
Speaker 1: accessible lands there. A cellular trail camera is something that
Speaker 1: transmits images directly to you in real time while you're
Speaker 1: at your desk, and that cameras in the field. And
Speaker 1: the argument, right is like that thing, because it's transmitting
Speaker 1: in real time, is kind of like doing the hunting
Speaker 1: for you. Now, Iowa is looking to change its trail
Speaker 1: camera rags except this proposed change would impact standard trail cameras. Essentially,
Speaker 1: the Iowa Natural Resource Commission is looking to ban them
Speaker 1: on state managed land. Cell cams are already prohibited for
Speaker 1: hunting on both private and public land in the state.
Speaker 1: Chris Ensminger of the Iowa D and R says the
Speaker 1: proposed ban would quote protect the recreational experience of sportsmen
Speaker 1: and sportswomen and other visitors to these wild areas, and
Speaker 1: it ensures that hunters don't gain an improper or unfair
Speaker 1: technological advantage over game animals. Unsurprisingly, not everyone is on
Speaker 1: board with the change. Listener nick Bach wrote in to
Speaker 1: let us know his stance, and he made some reasonable arguments.
Speaker 1: Quote this would only affect guys on public and have
Speaker 1: no implications on private I personally don't really use trail cams,
Speaker 1: but I have a lot of friends who do and
Speaker 1: get good data out of them. I think this is
Speaker 1: unfair that they are imposing this only on state land.
Speaker 1: If they pushed this statewide and made it equal for everyone,
Speaker 1: I would support this. Do you have thoughts on the
Speaker 1: viability of trailcams on the private and public land in
Speaker 1: Iowa or elsewhere? I'd love to hear what you think
Speaker 1: at askcl that's ascal at themeteater dot com. More importantly,
Speaker 1: if you hunt in Iowa and have a stance on
Speaker 1: the subject, they are accepting public comments until July twenty eighth.
Speaker 1: The best and I think, really, in my opinion, like
Speaker 1: the only reasonable argument for trail cameras is back in
Speaker 1: the day, it was a means of like motivation for exercise,
Speaker 1: and folks loved going out with their kids and pulling
Speaker 1: cards and you know, kind of like unwrapping Christmas presents
Speaker 1: seeing what they got on those cameras, you know, And
Speaker 1: I think, is that the only way to get outside
Speaker 1: with the family and get pictures of critters? Absolutely not,
Speaker 1: but it seemed to be a very good way of
Speaker 1: motivating the fam to get get out there on the
Speaker 1: trail with you. For the same purpose. Right of regulating
Speaker 1: our public wildlife, those regulations only apply to those of
Speaker 1: us who are hunting on public land. Again, the wildlife
Speaker 1: is public if it's on the private side of the
Speaker 1: fence or the public side of the fence. However, often regulations,
Speaker 1: many of which we've cover here on this podcast only
Speaker 1: apply to us on the public side of the fence,
Speaker 1: and as we see the Center for Western Justice, I
Speaker 1: think is what it is, which is the law firm
Speaker 1: that's going state to state and trying to get rid
Speaker 1: of the open fields doctrine, which is a tool that
Speaker 1: our game wardens and law enforcement officers can use to
Speaker 1: help enforce game laws on private land. So as this
Speaker 1: open fields doctrine starts getting repealed or rescinded from state laws,
Speaker 1: there go more tools in our wildlife managing agencies ability
Speaker 1: to regulate our public resource when it is on the
Speaker 1: private side of the fence. If the open fields doctrine
Speaker 1: is not perfect, then let's find something more fitting. Ideally
Speaker 1: before we get rid of it. Can new AI powered
Speaker 1: technology help prevent bear conflicts? Conservation group called Polar Bears
Speaker 1: International thinks so. The group recently partnered with military tech
Speaker 1: companies Spotter Global on a project that uses medium range radar,
Speaker 1: camera and artificial intelligence to detect and identify polar bears
Speaker 1: near remote communities and bases in the Arctic. The technology
Speaker 1: can then alert people and also potentially trigger a remote
Speaker 1: deterrent like a strobe or sound. The system apparently works
Speaker 1: so far, at least on an Arctic landscape. Polar Bears
Speaker 1: International recently released a YouTube video showing the so called
Speaker 1: beardar Alert staff at a remote research station of a
Speaker 1: female polar bear and cubs. The staffers then used vehicles
Speaker 1: to haze the bear away from the base, and apparently
Speaker 1: they show the bears successfully hunt seals on sea ice
Speaker 1: the next day. It remains to be seen how widely
Speaker 1: this technology will be adopted in the artic and if
Speaker 1: it could be applicable in different landscapes. It's a neat
Speaker 1: idea and it seems to be working well so far.
Speaker 1: See how we showed a balance of a negative spin
Speaker 1: on technology and here's a possible positive spin. Moving on
Speaker 1: to the state news desk. First up, we're going over
Speaker 1: to the Keystone State, where local hunting an outdoor rerecordation
Speaker 1: groups are sounding the alarm about Senate Bill eight five seven,
Speaker 1: which would require all land acquisitions by state agencies to
Speaker 1: pass a county government approval process. The sponsors of this
Speaker 1: one oppose more land going into the public trust, and
Speaker 1: so they want to throw up one more obstacle. But
Speaker 1: the process in place now works great. Private landowners who
Speaker 1: want to conserve their properties work with civil servants at
Speaker 1: Wildlife agencies to transfer over the land and manage it
Speaker 1: accordingly to scientific principles, no political middlemen. By routing this
Speaker 1: process through county governments, we all of a sudden inject
Speaker 1: politics into private property rights, essentially creating an unnecessary veto
Speaker 1: The sponsors of the bill contend that once these lands
Speaker 1: go into conservation, the local areas lose tax revenue, but
Speaker 1: the state's payment in lieu of taxes program already routes
Speaker 1: money to localities to overcome that issue. Furthermore, public land
Speaker 1: access drives Pennsylvania's outdoor economy, which generates a whopping twenty
Speaker 1: point four billion dollars for the state. Far from starving
Speaker 1: local areas of revenue, publicly accessible land in fact funnels
Speaker 1: money to those areas. The last thing we need are
Speaker 1: more barriers to conservation and public access. So Pennsylvanians, call
Speaker 1: your state senators and tell them to vote against SB
Speaker 1: eight five seven. You can also head over to the
Speaker 1: Backcountry Hunters in Angler's website and navigate to the Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: chapter page and you'll find a handy dandy mailing tool
Speaker 1: to send your opinion right to your state senator. Let's
Speaker 1: not break the process in Pennsylvania people moving on to Indiana.
Speaker 1: The fifty thousand acre Big Oaks National Wildlife Refuge is
Speaker 1: in danger of closing its gates due to federal budget cuts.
Speaker 1: Thanks to all you listeners who sent this one in.
Speaker 1: Big Oaks is a fascinating place. It was an originally
Speaker 1: an air to ground gunnery range during and after World
Speaker 1: War Two. That means they tested out different kinds of
Speaker 1: bombs by dropping them on this patch at Indiana. Eventually,
Speaker 1: the military only needed a small part of the total property,
Speaker 1: and so people at the state had a bright idea
Speaker 1: why not managed the former bombing range as wildlife habitat
Speaker 1: and publicly accessible land. So in the year two thousand,
Speaker 1: the US Fish and Wildlife Service began to manage the
Speaker 1: property as a so called overlay National Wildlife Refuge. The
Speaker 1: Army still owns the land, but Fish and Wildlife takes
Speaker 1: care of the land and coordinates public access. It's been
Speaker 1: a wild success. In a true example of turning lemons
Speaker 1: into lemonade, the existing bomb craters have created what former
Speaker 1: refuge manager Joe Robb called quote, a mosaic of ephemeral
Speaker 1: wetlands used by endangered crawfish, frogs, salamanders and other frog species.
Speaker 1: Big Oaks is now a sanctuary for over one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty birds, including the endangered henslow sparrow, and the
Speaker 1: Audubon Society has named it a quote unquote globally important
Speaker 1: bird area. As the second largest parcel of public land
Speaker 1: in the Hoosier State, it also is a keystone of
Speaker 1: public access there. Six thousand, hundred and anglers come to
Speaker 1: Big Oaks every year, along with nine thousand other visitors,
Speaker 1: including bird watchers who travel from all over the world
Speaker 1: just to see that particular species. But the refuge's history
Speaker 1: makes it a bit more complex to access than some
Speaker 1: other places. Certain areas still contain unexploded ordinance and are
Speaker 1: therefore off limits, so every visitor has to go through
Speaker 1: a simple orientation and must sign in and out of
Speaker 1: the property. That means that although staffing wildlife refuges is
Speaker 1: important everywhere, it's essential to access in Big Oaks, someone
Speaker 1: has to be on site to conduct the orientation. At
Speaker 1: the very minimum, maintaining the world class habitat also demands
Speaker 1: prescribed burns and other essential maintenance. However, the federal government
Speaker 1: recently cut all five on site employees at Big Oaks,
Speaker 1: and now the entire refuge is the responsibility of one
Speaker 1: official based in southern Illinois. Big Oaks is currently only
Speaker 1: open a few days a month, and now the US
Speaker 1: Fish and Wildlife Service is considering a one hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty day notice to terminate the memorandum of understanding with
Speaker 1: the Army, which would close the refuge entirely. You may
Speaker 1: remember back in January when we covered a memo that
Speaker 1: Brian Nesvik, director of the USA Fish and Wildlife Service,
Speaker 1: posted to internal department staff ordering a quote unquote comprehensive
Speaker 1: review of all national wildlife refuges to identify quote refuges
Speaker 1: established for a purpose that no longer aligns with the
Speaker 1: mission unquote. The review also requests quote opportunities to achieve
Speaker 1: efficiencies in the areas of governance, oversight, and span of control. Now,
Speaker 1: on paper, closing refuges like Big Oaks fits right into
Speaker 1: this plan. That's only, however, if you're just looking on
Speaker 1: paper and you fail to see the context of what
Speaker 1: public access means when it's extremely limited, such as in
Speaker 1: the state of Indiana. This is an absolute gem of
Speaker 1: an opportunity for hunters and anglers in the Hoosier state.
Speaker 1: Last week, there was an in person rally in Madison,
Speaker 1: Indiana to save Big Oaks. There's also an online petition
Speaker 1: to restore funding and uphold the management agreement with the
Speaker 1: US Army. Our Indiana Chapter of BHA is working on
Speaker 1: this issue, and we've been in touch with US Fishing
Speaker 1: Wildlife Service, who has already expressed the fact that they
Speaker 1: do not want to see a loss of access and
Speaker 1: opportunity in Indiana, and we're certainly looking at a more
Speaker 1: complex refuge situation. As a reminder, not every refuge out
Speaker 1: there has unexploded ordinance. We'll stick with this one get
Speaker 1: to the bottom of it, but please check out change
Speaker 1: dot org save Big Oaks National Wildlife Refuge, and run
Speaker 1: on over to Backcountry Hunters dot org and check out
Speaker 1: what the Indiana chapter is up to. Moving on to
Speaker 1: the Feds, the specific example of cutting the budget of
Speaker 1: Big Oaks is a good indication of the wider issue
Speaker 1: of public land funding nationally. Last week we highlighted the
Speaker 1: America the Beautiful Act, which would reauthorize the Legacy Restoration
Speaker 1: Fund and dedicate one point nine billion dollars per year
Speaker 1: to maintenance and improvement of public land across the country.
Speaker 1: It's a great piece of legislation and we should all
Speaker 1: push for it. This is just like common sense legislation. However,
Speaker 1: the total maintenance backlog across all public lands in this country,
Speaker 1: national parks, national wildlife refuges, wilderness areas, and so on,
Speaker 1: has reached a gargange win forty one billion dollars as
Speaker 1: of last year and is growing at about twelve billion
Speaker 1: dollars per year. The Legacy Restoration Fund comes from revenue
Speaker 1: generated from energy development on public land, which is good,
Speaker 1: but it can't replace all other government spending on America's
Speaker 1: best idea. Some politicians are making a big noise about
Speaker 1: supporting the America the Beautiful Act and using it as
Speaker 1: proof that they care about public lands, but at the
Speaker 1: same time they're voting for budgets that starve agencies like
Speaker 1: the US four Service System, National Park Service, the BLM,
Speaker 1: and all the rest. When they slash staff who take
Speaker 1: care of the day to day upkeep of public lands,
Speaker 1: they're accelerating the deterioration that gets more and more expensive
Speaker 1: with every passing day. It would be a great idea
Speaker 1: to write in and remind your elected officials of what
Speaker 1: matters to you. I'm sure you're reading the news and
Speaker 1: you're seeing what our cash gets spent on. Not a
Speaker 1: bad idea to let him know you're paying attention and
Speaker 1: you got some differences of opinion when it comes to
Speaker 1: your choice between ballrooms and big bucks. Jumping over to
Speaker 1: the bear desk. Most of the time, when we talk
Speaker 1: about bears and humans overlapping, things often go bad for
Speaker 1: the people and even worse for the bear, often fatally worse.
Speaker 1: That's why we were relieved to see two stories from
Speaker 1: opposite sides of the country about a happier outcome for
Speaker 1: man and beast. First up, in Portland, Maine, a black
Speaker 1: bear wandered into the historic Old Port neighborhood last week,
Speaker 1: and who could blame him. There's one restaurant there called
Speaker 1: Duck Fat, another one called Honeypop. Police and fishing game
Speaker 1: staff caught up to the bear in the basement level
Speaker 1: of a parking garage. They were able to tranquilize and
Speaker 1: relocate him to the wild. We hear he's planning to
Speaker 1: open his own branch of the Honeypow near Sebago Lake
Speaker 1: this summer. Get in line for that pop up right now.
Speaker 1: Over to Nampa, Idaho, just outside of Boise, you call
Speaker 1: it the Greater Boise metropolitan area. At this point. In fact,
Speaker 1: a young yearling male bear was spotted in a tree
Speaker 1: in a residential neighborhood. Fishing Game Regional Wildlife Manager Ryan
Speaker 1: Walreth said quote often, euthanizing a bear in town is
Speaker 1: our only option, but this particular bear hadn't yet become
Speaker 1: habituated to food and still showed a healthy fear of people.
Speaker 1: Fishing Game staff therefore decided that relocation had a good chance,
Speaker 1: so they darted the bear and released it north of
Speaker 1: town in Ola. Still sightings in Idaho are on the
Speaker 1: rise due to the ongoing drought. Bears are likely to
Speaker 1: keep seeking food and water near people as those things
Speaker 1: get harder to come by out in the woods. However,
Speaker 1: if bears are spotted early before they become part of
Speaker 1: the fed bear to dead bear program, there's a higher
Speaker 1: chance of them living to raid a bee's nest again
Speaker 1: some other day. So as soon as you see a
Speaker 1: bear in town, no matter how cute it is, get
Speaker 1: on the horn with local authorities right away. More importantly,
Speaker 1: make sure that your bird feeders and trash cans and
Speaker 1: garages are secure all right, gang much more common here.
Speaker 1: That's all I got for you this week. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for listening. Remember to write into a s
Speaker 1: k c A L. That's Ascal at the meeteater dot com.
Speaker 1: Let me know what's going on in your neck the woods.
Speaker 1: You know I appreciate it. Thanks again, we'll talk to
Speaker 1: you next week.