Speaker 1: From Meat Eaters World News Headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This
Speaker 1: is Col's Week in Review with Ryan col Klai. Here's
Speaker 1: cal we hear it, cals we can review. Know that
Speaker 1: it's easier to pay attention to the segments about assaults
Speaker 1: on public land and federal spending bills when there's an
Speaker 1: outlaw squirrel story in between. If you laugh at this
Speaker 1: comic relief, new research is showing that you are part
Speaker 1: of a grand tradition. Hominids have been laughing at each
Speaker 1: other for a very very long time. English anthropologists recently
Speaker 1: compared the vocalizations of all the great apes, orangutans, gorillas,
Speaker 1: Bonobo's chimpanzees, and humans and found that when we're tickled,
Speaker 1: all of us have a repeating encyclical vocal pattern known
Speaker 1: as isochronous expression. To translate for the layman, we all
Speaker 1: go ha ha ha ha ha, short staccato exhalations in sequence.
Speaker 1: The researchers conclude that if all those species have the
Speaker 1: same vocal plasticity to enable laughter, our last common ancestor
Speaker 1: must have had it too. We began to diverge from
Speaker 1: that common ancestor about fifteen million years ago, so we
Speaker 1: know that we were yucking it up that far back,
Speaker 1: and likely further that means we're not likely to stop
Speaker 1: joking around anytime soon. As for the quality of the
Speaker 1: humor on this show, as you know, I recently became
Speaker 1: a dad, and so things are not likely to improve.
Speaker 1: And what's the only thing worse than a dad joke?
Speaker 1: Not just a granddad joke or a great granddad joke,
Speaker 1: but a six hundred thousandth great granddad joke. There's math
Speaker 1: involved there, but you get what I mean. This week
Speaker 1: we've got fireflying, illegal stewardships, Sunday hunting, and beach fishing.
Speaker 1: But first I'm going to tell you about my week.
Speaker 1: And my week has been packed with puppy training, diaper swapping,
Speaker 1: and digging in deep on what the heck is happening
Speaker 1: here on the verge of our shared Independence Day. I'm
Speaker 1: writing this on the third Tomorrow will be the fourth,
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking hard on how we are still working
Speaker 1: on providing equitable access to public land from public land
Speaker 1: via corner crossing, and how a state like Colorado or Illinois,
Speaker 1: which are flush with well documented navigable rivers and streams,
Speaker 1: are still places where freedom loving American can't legally float
Speaker 1: or wide most of those well documented navigable rivers and streams.
Speaker 1: How is it we are working our butts off to
Speaker 1: have wilderness and roadless areas where Americans will have the
Speaker 1: opportunity to pursue deer, elk, moose, all the iconic American
Speaker 1: megafauna in perpetuity, so long as we all stand up
Speaker 1: right now and demand it. And how if we don't,
Speaker 1: we just won't because it is the opinion of some
Speaker 1: that those unbelievable American assets have matured and should be
Speaker 1: disposed of. Forget this our benefit. It's like those cult
Speaker 1: leaders who say, hey, last night I had a dream,
Speaker 1: and material wealth as well as physical pleasure are just
Speaker 1: holding you all back. So I'm gonna do you all
Speaker 1: a favor and take on the burden of your cash
Speaker 1: and your spouses. I know, I know you are right
Speaker 1: to be grateful. Now, if that sounds negative, I do
Speaker 1: believe this is the time to be optimistic and nationalistic,
Speaker 1: to recognize that all this awesome embarrassment of riches, our
Speaker 1: public lands, waters and wildlife are here simply and not
Speaker 1: by accident or mistake, but because those that came before
Speaker 1: us recognized that the wild parts of America would only
Speaker 1: increase in value, would only continue to shape and provide
Speaker 1: for our country if we were willing to self regulate
Speaker 1: and demand a system of regulation that set lands aside
Speaker 1: and manage them in such a way the land of
Speaker 1: many uses renewable and responsible use. Pack it in, pack
Speaker 1: it out. Know before you go. Not everything everywhere, all
Speaker 1: at once. Is our system of public land and public
Speaker 1: resource management perfect well in comparison to a lot of
Speaker 1: countries and caliphates and kingdoms. Yes, but keeping things purely domestic. No.
Speaker 1: Things can be improved and advanced and made to function better.
Speaker 1: But we have to demand that too, And I promise
Speaker 1: you getting rid of all of our regulations is not
Speaker 1: the answer. One thing I noticed and I certainly empathize with,
Speaker 1: is the thought that if we were to deregulate the landscape,
Speaker 1: roll things back to that time, not all that long ago,
Speaker 1: of the copper barns and the timber barons and the
Speaker 1: get it. While the getting's good, there's a thought that
Speaker 1: it's going to be my woodsmanship against yours. I just
Speaker 1: got to beat the other dude or family to the spot.
Speaker 1: And the fishing and hunting and wood cutting and mushroom
Speaker 1: picking is going to be great. Well, I get it,
Speaker 1: but that's just not how it's going to work. If
Speaker 1: there's profit to you made, it's going to be all
Speaker 1: of us putting our get up and go and good
Speaker 1: woodsmanship against each other, plus mega corporations looking to own
Speaker 1: an entire supply chain from beginning to end. The barons
Speaker 1: of this day and age have more money and power
Speaker 1: concentrated than in the turn of the century. And I'm
Speaker 1: just saying us little folks better learn to stick together
Speaker 1: or we're just fighting over the scraps. We've done it before,
Speaker 1: Let's do it again. Join a local rod and gun club,
Speaker 1: join a national conservation group, or three, be informed and participate.
Speaker 1: Make showing up and calling in and writing in just
Speaker 1: what you do, not a special occasion gosh I had
Speaker 1: no idea is not going to cut it. Memberships at
Speaker 1: backcountry Hunters and Anglers make nice midyear gifts. Just FYI,
Speaker 1: sign up, get informed, participate, spread the word jumping over
Speaker 1: to the fireflying desk. If you do a YouTube search
Speaker 1: for the words two thousand and two California Air tanker crash,
Speaker 1: you will find footage of a Lockheed C one thirty
Speaker 1: a soaring through the air, dropping fire retardant on a
Speaker 1: blaze before both wings fold up like a taco and
Speaker 1: detached from the plane. The fuselage then rolls over and
Speaker 1: disappears behind a ridge, where the plane went on to
Speaker 1: crash and kill all three crew members aboard. The plane
Speaker 1: was in the middle of a mission fighting the Cannon
Speaker 1: fire near Walker, California, which burned almost twenty three thousand
Speaker 1: acres in six weeks. This was one of two crashes
Speaker 1: that year of firefighting aircraft owned by the same company
Speaker 1: and contracted by the US Forest Service. The second was
Speaker 1: a consolidated PB four wide Dash two privateer who's left
Speaker 1: wingspar collapsed, causing it to slam into the ground near
Speaker 1: Estes Park, Colorado and kill both of the people on board.
Speaker 1: This all might seem like ancient history, but two disasters
Speaker 1: so close together prompted the Forest Service to implement an
Speaker 1: aircraft inspection process that was finalized in twenty ten and
Speaker 1: continues to this day. It's been extremely effective. Once the
Speaker 1: inspection were put into place, fatalities dropped from three point
Speaker 1: seven per year down to just one point seven per year.
Speaker 1: So it might surprise you that the owners of several
Speaker 1: firefighting aircraft companies started calling for the end of these
Speaker 1: inspections in recent years. They argue that they could fly
Speaker 1: more emissions for less money, while consequently making more money
Speaker 1: if the time consuming processes were discontinued. Instead of having
Speaker 1: Forest Service personnel doing the checks, the companies could just
Speaker 1: do it themselves. I'm flagging this one for you in
Speaker 1: the spirit of deregulation because we recently just lost a
Speaker 1: couple of firefighters, wildland firefighters, the ground kids, and they're
Speaker 1: not the ones making the big bucks. They're making big
Speaker 1: bucks for you know, working people wages. There's always something
Speaker 1: pretty much everybody grown up here in Montana aspired to
Speaker 1: do because man, the fire is hot, but so's the cash. Now,
Speaker 1: this particular story's got a lot of ties to elected
Speaker 1: officials and it can get pretty sticky. But it's in
Speaker 1: here as a reference to those by gone days of
Speaker 1: reduced oversight, regulation increased profits. But you got to ask
Speaker 1: yourself who's behind the stick in this one. It's not
Speaker 1: going to be a shareholder. Now, we're in the middle
Speaker 1: of a historic drought cross country. If you look at it,
Speaker 1: being in snow here in the last couple of days
Speaker 1: in Montana, which is going to make the fishing last
Speaker 1: for the summer. I'd wager at this point. But there's
Speaker 1: an increased fire activity across the country. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of uncertainty in our federal fire fighting due to staff reallocations,
Speaker 1: we'll call them. Is this the time to deregulate or
Speaker 1: is this just a good example of the path we're
Speaker 1: going down? Moving on to the illegal stewardship desk over
Speaker 1: the UK, an environmental lawyer named Paul Powellsland and a
Speaker 1: bunch of other volunteers recently organized a clean up of
Speaker 1: a river in rural Essex, north of London. They pulled
Speaker 1: out two hundred bags of trash. Sorry we're talking about England,
Speaker 1: so I should say two hundred bags of rubbish, as
Speaker 1: well as fallen tree branches and silt. The group is
Speaker 1: part of an organization dedicated to cleaning up the river Rotting,
Speaker 1: which over the past few decades has faced significant pollution. However,
Speaker 1: instead of cheering on the volunteers, England's Environmental agency sent
Speaker 1: Powellsland a letter threatening legal action against him for carrying
Speaker 1: out the work without a permit. The letter says that
Speaker 1: the cleanup could pose a flood risk, and that any
Speaker 1: significant intervention in the river needs to be done according
Speaker 1: to the Environmental Regulations of twenty sixteen. Powellsland is clearly
Speaker 1: no dummy when it comes to pr because in the
Speaker 1: many articles about the fracas he said quote, after decades
Speaker 1: of ignoring rampant environmental crime on the rotting, the Environment
Speaker 1: Agency has finally decided to act. But it's not action
Speaker 1: against Tame's water for dumping billions of leaders of sewage
Speaker 1: in the rotting, or the waste criminals who have dumped
Speaker 1: thousands of tons of rubbish on its banks, but against
Speaker 1: the volunteers restoring a river without a permit. He's certainly
Speaker 1: right about the other groups messing up the river. The
Speaker 1: English equivalent of the Mafia has dumped a huge amount
Speaker 1: of trash along the country's rivers and Tame's water. The
Speaker 1: privatized suit utility serving the area dumps almost two hundred
Speaker 1: thousand gallons of raw sewage into the river every year.
Speaker 1: Powsland has registered official complaints about the dumping for years,
Speaker 1: but maybe getting a ridiculous ticket and having the whole
Speaker 1: world take notice will get more results. As much as
Speaker 1: I admire this guys Moxie. I will add that it's
Speaker 1: important for volunteers to do things by the books. A
Speaker 1: good piece of legislation champion by Trout Unlimited, as well
Speaker 1: as a broader coalition including back huntry, hunters, and anglers,
Speaker 1: for example, produced the Good Samaritan Act in this country,
Speaker 1: which allows for volunteer orgs to step in and remediate
Speaker 1: disasters without burdensome liability or expensive bonds for a mess
Speaker 1: they didn't create, but are willing to wade into. Creating
Speaker 1: big messes with horrible downstream effects is attradition in this
Speaker 1: country from poor performers in the industry. The good Smaritan
Speaker 1: Act was focused on hard rock minds that had been
Speaker 1: abandoned and were not remediated, causing nasty, toxic downstream flow.
Speaker 1: Good Smeartan Act was a win for sure, just not
Speaker 1: as big of a win as maybe reviewing the eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy two mining law. Jumping over to Sunday hunting down
Speaker 1: in Delaware, Governor John Carney has signed HB two seven eight,
Speaker 1: which repeals all restrictions on Sunday hunting in the state.
Speaker 1: Although the first state allowed hunting for many species on
Speaker 1: the Lord's Day, This new law now permits all hunting
Speaker 1: for all game animals and game birds during established seasons.
Speaker 1: The bills passed with only one nay vote in the
Speaker 1: state House and unanimously in the Senate. Great news for
Speaker 1: all of you trying to squeeze in more time in
Speaker 1: the field up in Massachusetts. Now is the time for
Speaker 1: you all to call your state senators to pass sunday hunting.
Speaker 1: Earlier this spring, Governor Mora Healy announced her support for
Speaker 1: ending the ban, but anti hunting lawmakers stripped out the
Speaker 1: reforms from a recent budget bill. The provisions have now
Speaker 1: been added back to a different environmental bond bill, S
Speaker 1: three zero six y four. This bill would not only
Speaker 1: open up sunday hunting, it would also allow the use
Speaker 1: of crossbows for all hunters and reduce archery setbacks to
Speaker 1: significantly increase the amount of land where people can hunt,
Speaker 1: especially in the denser eastern part of the state. These
Speaker 1: kinds of reforms are essential if we're going to bring
Speaker 1: people into hunting and create conservationists in the process. Going
Speaker 1: after game has to be accessible, or else our political
Speaker 1: power is going to continue to decline. So Bay Staters
Speaker 1: call your state senators and ask they vote yes on
Speaker 1: S three zero sixty four, the same measure passed in
Speaker 1: the Assembly, So there could be cause for celebrations soon,
Speaker 1: but let's not leave things up to chance. Moving on
Speaker 1: to the fish desk, biologists in Colorado are a celebrating
Speaker 1: progress and recovering native Colorado River cutthroat trout and knocking
Speaker 1: back invasive brookies. The news comes to us from a
Speaker 1: Colorado Parks and Wildlife press release from earlier this spring
Speaker 1: that highlighted population sampling results in Bobtail and Steelman Creeks,
Speaker 1: two remote waterways in the western portion of the state,
Speaker 1: and according to officials, the difference maker there is Trojan trout. No,
Speaker 1: these brookies aren't endemic to the ancient city of Troy,
Speaker 1: but they are inspired by the Trojan horse of Greek mythology. Specifically,
Speaker 1: Trojan trout are genetically modified brook trout that have two
Speaker 1: Y chromosomes instead of one X and one Y chromosome.
Speaker 1: Once released into the wild, the yy brook trout produce
Speaker 1: only male offspring when they spawn with wildfish. This is
Speaker 1: supposed to slowly skew the sex ratio in the wild population,
Speaker 1: until eventually the invasive species is wiped out. The spring's
Speaker 1: news is particularly notable as Bobtail and Steelman Creeks are
Speaker 1: the site of the first attempts to use trojan fish
Speaker 1: to aid in native species restoration in Colorado. Idaho has
Speaker 1: been doing this. I believe it was developed out of Poketello,
Speaker 1: which is what Idaho University idahom. The trojan trout have
Speaker 1: been in the stream system since twenty twenty four, and
Speaker 1: the results are already paying off. According to the most
Speaker 1: recent tally, there were over thirteen hundred cutthroats in the
Speaker 1: two creeks, well above the one hundred and twenty three
Speaker 1: cutthroat count in twenty eleven. The findings are a good
Speaker 1: sign for the novel tactic and are prompting local aquatic
Speaker 1: researchers to consider using genetically modified trojan fish to fight
Speaker 1: other invasives, such as the carp moving on its jaws
Speaker 1: season and In response, on June twenty five, the California
Speaker 1: Fish and Game Commission issued an emergency action that many
Speaker 1: shore and peer based anglers in the Golden State are
Speaker 1: unhappy about. The Commission banned the use of hooks greater
Speaker 1: than one and a half inches and wire or metallic
Speaker 1: lines and leaders when fishing from or within one thousand
Speaker 1: yards of shore. The emergency regulations extend all the way
Speaker 1: from Pigeon Point on the Central Coast south to the
Speaker 1: US Mexico border. You're probably asking why they did this. Well,
Speaker 1: the Commission's reasoning is that this year's El Nino will
Speaker 1: push warmer than usual water up the California coast and
Speaker 1: a bunch of juvenile great white sharks into the area too.
Speaker 1: In case you didn't already know, recreational anglers are not
Speaker 1: allowed to target white sharks, which are a protected marine species,
Speaker 1: but they occasionally catch them incidentally, often when trying for
Speaker 1: other shark species. These are safeguards in place to mitigate this,
Speaker 1: but apparently California officials don't think they're sufficient. They say
Speaker 1: that the emergency action will both cut down on the
Speaker 1: take of white sharks and also improve public safety. Apparently,
Speaker 1: the California Department of Fish and Wildlife would like to
Speaker 1: quote reduce potential interactions between hooked sharks and swimmers. We're
Speaker 1: really worried that someone catches a large shark and is
Speaker 1: fighting it with this heavy metal leader, that the shark
Speaker 1: could wrap itself around a person. Interesting. It's not clear
Speaker 1: that this has ever actually happened to a swimmer, but
Speaker 1: CDFW pointed out an unfortunate twenty fourteen incident in which
Speaker 1: a long distance swimmer was bitten by a great white
Speaker 1: that had been hooked by a shore angler that said,
Speaker 1: the vast, vast majority of shark bites didn't involve anglers
Speaker 1: at all, and the regulations will likely seriously impact the
Speaker 1: ability for local fishermen to target open species such as
Speaker 1: Maco's leopard, thresher sharks, and more. Now public beaches, like
Speaker 1: other public the glands need to be managed for multiple uses,
Speaker 1: and this requires finding balance between recreational users like swimmers
Speaker 1: and anglers and land based shark fishing has caused some
Speaker 1: controversy in this area in recent years, but a widespread
Speaker 1: band that doesn't appear to be based on legitimate science
Speaker 1: or data isn't the way to do that. Regardless, the
Speaker 1: emergency action is valid for one hundred and eighty days
Speaker 1: and can be extended by the Fish and Game Commission
Speaker 1: twice have thoughts on this one. Let's hear them at
Speaker 1: askcl at the meeater dot com. Hunters and anglers provide
Speaker 1: a ton of personal information to fishing games agencies in
Speaker 1: order to hunt fish. We expect that information to be confidential,
Speaker 1: and for the most part, it is. But on Thursday,
Speaker 1: June eighteen, Texas Parks and Wildlife announced that a licensed
Speaker 1: system vendor had been the victim of a data breach.
Speaker 1: As a result, more than three million Texas Hunting and
Speaker 1: Fishing licensed customers have had personal information such as their addresses,
Speaker 1: driver's license numbers, and more leaked to bad actors. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: the agency says that social security numbers and credit card
Speaker 1: details were not obtained by the hackers, nor were customers
Speaker 1: under eighteen involved or any specific group targeted. Still, it
Speaker 1: isn't a good situation, and TPW officials say they were
Speaker 1: working to implement new safeguards and security monitoring for their
Speaker 1: license sales system. Additionally, affected customers are eligible for a
Speaker 1: year of free credit monitoring. Moving on to a quick
Speaker 1: update on a story we talked about a couple weeks
Speaker 1: ago the June one episode. To be exact, I told
Speaker 1: you guys about the hullabaloo over the Montana Landboards overhaul
Speaker 1: of its land swap process. To put it simply, the
Speaker 1: group shook up the regulations in a very expedited manner,
Speaker 1: as well as the process for exchanging state managed public
Speaker 1: lands for private lands. Some local conservation groups supported the change,
Speaker 1: while others worried that the new system lacks transparency and accountability,
Speaker 1: as did its implementation. Now, the Montana Wildlife Federation, Montana
Speaker 1: Sportsman's Alliance, and Public Land Water Access Association have filed
Speaker 1: a lawsuit challenging the process used to adopt the new policy.
Speaker 1: Those groups are arguing that the Land Board didn't provide
Speaker 1: adequate public notice, public participation, or compliance with state laws. Quote.
Speaker 1: If the five member Land Board is going to rewrite
Speaker 1: the rules governing state land exchanges and give itself greater
Speaker 1: authority over those decisions, Montanas deserve to know exactly what
Speaker 1: is changing and have a legitimate opportunity to weigh in.
Speaker 1: They got either, said Montana Wildlife Federation board president Mike Mershan.
Speaker 1: This process needs a do over, one that includes adequate notice,
Speaker 1: transparency and meaningful public participation. Will keep you posted on
Speaker 1: the progress of the lawsuit. One interesting fact here, too,
Speaker 1: is this expedited process notes that if public access is
Speaker 1: not available to the parcel, it becomes a prime candidate
Speaker 1: for land exchange, which may have many benefits in some
Speaker 1: cases it certainly will. However, the state, as we've mentioned
Speaker 1: many times, has increased the rhetoric around corner crossing, the
Speaker 1: act of walking from public land to public land. The
Speaker 1: state is telling everybody and their dog that corner crossing
Speaker 1: is illegal and always has been, despite not having a
Speaker 1: law on the books to which they are involved in
Speaker 1: a lawsuit to determine that. So, at minimum, I think
Speaker 1: the landboard should really probably walk before it runs with this.
Speaker 1: They don't want to be in a position where they're
Speaker 1: exchanging legally accessible land under the guise of inaccessibility and illegality.
Speaker 1: That's all I got for you this week. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for listening. Remember to write into ask c
Speaker 1: Al that's Ascal at the meat eater dot com. Let
Speaker 1: me know what's going on in your neck of the woods. No,
Speaker 1: we appreciate it. Thanks again, talk to you next week.