Speaker 1: From Meat Eaters World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This
Speaker 1: is Cow's Week in Review with Ryan cow Klahan. Here's cal.
Speaker 2: A new development with a now famous Montana man just
Speaker 2: popped up. This is a little roundabout, so stick with me.
Speaker 2: John Edward Luten is a licensed big game outfitter here
Speaker 2: in the home state. According to our friends over at
Speaker 2: the Missoulian, his case dates back to an October twenty
Speaker 2: nineteen public land hunt for a Rocky Mountain big horn
Speaker 2: sheep in the famed Missouri Breaks. The hunter client in
Speaker 2: this case has not been disclosed, but he did kill
Speaker 2: a Ram and Luton the guy had pocketed the rams
Speaker 2: testicles or testes. Luton then went on to sell the
Speaker 2: Rocky Mountain sheep oysters to a fellow by the name
Speaker 2: of Arthur Jack Schubart for four hundred. That's a classic
Speaker 2: four hundred for the set price. No news as to
Speaker 2: what a single big horn test he would run. Shoe
Speaker 2: Barth is the famous one. If that name rings a bell,
Speaker 2: This guy has already been sentenced to twenty five thousand
Speaker 2: dollars and fines in six months in jail. His case
Speaker 2: garnered national attention, not just because of his crimes involving
Speaker 2: native wildlife, but because he illegally imported parts of Marco
Speaker 2: polo our golly sheep from Central Asia and then was
Speaker 2: cloning them to create a purebread our gully sheep. He
Speaker 2: called quote the Montana Mountain King. He went on to
Speaker 2: cross breed the sheep to create Frankin sheep. That's a
Speaker 2: terrible name to create a breed a sheep that would
Speaker 2: live behind tall fences. Of course, you may have heard
Speaker 2: this before right here on episode two sixty recorded that
Speaker 2: one back in March at twenty four Shoe Barth extracted
Speaker 2: the semen from the testicles of the big Horn sheep
Speaker 2: and sold it to exotic game farm owners in Texas.
Speaker 2: As you know from listening to the show, the trade
Speaker 2: of wild game across state lines is banned under the
Speaker 2: Lacy Act. In this case is a pretty cut and
Speaker 2: dry violation of it. Looting pled guilty in US District Court,
Speaker 2: and the maximum punishment for his crimes include a year
Speaker 2: of prison and up to one hundred thousand dollars in fines.
Speaker 2: I expect he'll get a much lighter sentence, and I'll
Speaker 2: probably start eating those sheep testicles instead of trying to
Speaker 2: sell them sliney satisflid. This week we've got coyotes, wolves, ticks,
Speaker 2: and smoky mountain bears. But first, I'm going to tell
Speaker 2: you about my week, and my week has been a cranking.
Speaker 2: You got a bill out of Wyoming that would not
Speaker 2: only end the roadless rule but make road building mandatory.
Speaker 2: Nobody's saying who's going to pay for that? We got
Speaker 2: folks pushing like hell to start ripping up tundra to
Speaker 2: build a two hundred and eleven mile road across caribou
Speaker 2: migration corridors and spawning streams. And for those of us
Speaker 2: who were dancing a jig over the reauthorization and fun
Speaker 2: a VPA hip, which is the voluntary public access and
Speaker 2: habitat improvement program commonly found associated with the farm bill, well,
Speaker 2: as it turns out some of the provisions in this
Speaker 2: new version are so restrictive states will not be able
Speaker 2: to apply for those funds. In other words, we got
Speaker 2: a lot of work to do if you like your
Speaker 2: hunting and fishing and access to it just one small
Speaker 2: example of what VPA hip funds do. And since we've
Speaker 2: been bringing up Texas a bunch already, we'll just stick
Speaker 2: with that as an example. One hundred percent of the
Speaker 2: public river access programs which are through private ground are
Speaker 2: funded through VPA hip. That's roughly half of the usage
Speaker 2: in the whole state goes to providing public access to
Speaker 2: rivers across private ground. So Texicans, if you're feeling like
Speaker 2: your public access is scarce, might be good to ask
Speaker 2: your senator to contact the Egg Committee and nrcs to
Speaker 2: tell them that this new language around the VPA hip
Speaker 2: program requires state agencies to submit to such intense eligibility
Speaker 2: requirements that many states aren't actually allowed to disclose that
Speaker 2: level of financial information, such as adjusted gross income from
Speaker 2: individual landowners. Not only that, but there's a twenty five
Speaker 2: percent admin fee attached to applications, which kicks back to
Speaker 2: the Fed. The whole program was only funded at fifty
Speaker 2: two million dollars. We're still digging into this one. It
Speaker 2: may be a clerical error, it should be. It's typically
Speaker 2: a pretty non partisan type of deal. But nonetheless, hunting
Speaker 2: season is right around the corner. Plus I hear it
Speaker 2: just gets hot in Old Texas in the summer. Would
Speaker 2: be a real bummer to only stare at that river
Speaker 2: just for fun. I also looked real quick at Iowa,
Speaker 2: another great hunting state with very little public land. Iowa
Speaker 2: typically draws one point five million dollars out of VPA
Speaker 2: hip for that state's private land public access program. Now,
Speaker 2: you'd typically have groups like Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever,
Speaker 2: National Wild Turkey Federation, Ducks Unlimited that would have people
Speaker 2: on the ground doing technical assistance to help individual operators
Speaker 2: work through the bureaucracy and apply for these funds. But
Speaker 2: that technical assistance funding has also gone out the window,
Speaker 2: so in many cases those staffs just don't exist anymore. Still,
Speaker 2: great folks over there, it's worth giving a call if
Speaker 2: you want to try to work through this stuff between
Speaker 2: tariffs and the price of diesel. Our friends on the
Speaker 2: egg side of the fence could use an easy button,
Speaker 2: not a fifty two million dollar pot minus the juice,
Speaker 2: of course that they can't access, or perhaps instead of
Speaker 2: juice here you're familiar with the vig anyway, Arkansas Senator
Speaker 2: Boozeman or Bozeman is the chair of the Senate agg Committee,
Speaker 2: may be worth giving his office a shout and asking
Speaker 2: politely for them to check into this. You razorbacks pulled
Speaker 2: two point one million dollars out last cycle for private
Speaker 2: land public access in Arkansas. Moving on or backwards rather
Speaker 2: in time, Remember Wayne's world when they did like the deli. Anyway,
Speaker 2: all the way back to January, the beginning of the
Speaker 2: year bright Eyed Bushy tailed first down the job as
Speaker 2: the new President CEO of b H A whole world
Speaker 2: ahead of them. Anyway. Back in January, surveillance video out
Speaker 2: of none other than the Rock Alcatraz captured a coyote
Speaker 2: climbing out of the water onto the former prison island.
Speaker 2: Alcatraz is, of course, famously the most secure and miserable
Speaker 2: penitentiary in history. It's a mile away from the closest mainland,
Speaker 2: and that coyote had to navigate notoriously cold and fast
Speaker 2: running currents to get out there. Biologists, of course, were fascinated,
Speaker 2: speculating that the coyote had made the swim to try
Speaker 2: to find a mate after getting boxed out of a
Speaker 2: home pack in San Francisco. They collected scat samples and
Speaker 2: sent them out for analysis at UC Davis Veterinary Genetics Laboratory.
Speaker 2: When those results came back, they revealed something even more incredible.
Speaker 2: This Michael Phelps of cannids did not come from San
Speaker 2: fran but was instead part of the pack from Angel
Speaker 2: Island further north in the Bay, which means that this
Speaker 2: coyote swam almost two full miles through some of the
Speaker 2: most treacherous water in North America to get to Alcatraz,
Speaker 2: which is not a destination pretty good for a dog paddler. Two.
Speaker 2: Angel Island itself is three quarters of a mile away
Speaker 2: from the nearest land mass, which scientists at one time
Speaker 2: thought was way too far for coyotes to make that huck.
Speaker 2: This mail apparently found out pretty quick that there were
Speaker 2: no dating prospects out on the island, because soon after
Speaker 2: the scientists set up their trail cams and other monitoring equipment,
Speaker 2: the coyote had vanished. So in addition to making it
Speaker 2: out to Alcatraz, he also seems to have escaped. How
Speaker 2: in the name of Zeus's ball did you get out
Speaker 2: of yourself? If biologists are right that this male was
Speaker 2: trying to find a mate, I have to imagine the
Speaker 2: ladies back on Angel Island were very, very impressed with
Speaker 2: this feat of daring. Maybe in a couple of months
Speaker 2: we'll see a litter of coyote puppies born who will
Speaker 2: one day swim the English Channel speaking of disappeared canids.
Speaker 2: The state of Wyoming has proposed cutting its wolf hunting
Speaker 2: objectives in half in response to an outbreak of canine
Speaker 2: distemper affecting the wolves in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem or
Speaker 2: the guye. The distemper virus affects the respiratory, digestive, and
Speaker 2: nervous systems of animals and is almost always fatal for
Speaker 2: juvenile wolves. Sixty four percent of the wolves that be
Speaker 2: Wyoming biologists caught and released last year tested positive. The
Speaker 2: outbreak has led to a significant drop in wolf numbers.
Speaker 2: This year, two hundred and fifty three wolves and fourteen
Speaker 2: breeding pairs retality in the Cowboy State as a whole,
Speaker 2: down from three hundred and thirty wolves and twenty four
Speaker 2: breeding pairs at the end of twenty twenty five. However,
Speaker 2: in the region of Wyoming around a Yellowstone, the so
Speaker 2: called trophy Game area, population counts found just ten breeding pairs.
Speaker 2: The terms of removing this population of gray wolves from
Speaker 2: the federal Endangered Species list included a requirement to maintain
Speaker 2: at least ten breeding pairs in the trophy game area,
Speaker 2: so Wyoming is right up against that threshold. The smaller hunt.
Speaker 2: Wyoming this year aims to increase the number of wolves
Speaker 2: in this zone from one thirty two to one sixty,
Speaker 2: which is the state objective to stay in line with
Speaker 2: the delisting agreement. Wyoming Game and Fish Department wolf biologist
Speaker 2: Ken Mills told wyofile quote, we want to grow the
Speaker 2: population by twenty eight wolves. To accomplish that, Wyoming is
Speaker 2: limiting hunters to twenty two wolves this season in the
Speaker 2: Trophy area, down from forty four last year. Of course,
Speaker 2: some of you listeners out there will say maybe it's
Speaker 2: a better idea to take a hiatus from the hunt
Speaker 2: altogether until the distemper outbreak is over to avoid these
Speaker 2: animals potentially going back on the e SA. Some others
Speaker 2: might say we should keep hunt objectives right where they
Speaker 2: are since hunters haven't hit those limits in the past
Speaker 2: and wolves are extremely difficult to hunt well. No matter
Speaker 2: what you believe, you're in luck, Wyoming Fishing Game is
Speaker 2: taking public comments on these changes through June ten. Head
Speaker 2: over to WGFD dot Yo dot gov to find the
Speaker 2: details about submitting comments online and in person, and if
Speaker 2: you have a take on this one. You'd like me
Speaker 2: to consider right in to ask c Al. That's Ascal
Speaker 2: at the meeteater dot com. And I've been neglecting to
Speaker 2: tell people about the darn phone number, so you you
Speaker 2: don't have to bruise those dainty typing fingers and just
Speaker 2: give me a hauler at four oh six two two
Speaker 2: oh six four four one four oh six two two
Speaker 2: zero six four four one and just leave me a
Speaker 2: message jumping over to the TIIC desk. Last week, the
Speaker 2: state of Pennsylvania began tracking cases of alpha gal syndrome
Speaker 2: after disc covering hundreds of positive tests. The Keystone State
Speaker 2: is absolutely crawling with ticks, so public health officials are
Speaker 2: hoping to educate their populace about alpha gal or AGS
Speaker 2: so it can be treated before people have severe reactions.
Speaker 2: According to several recent surveys, most doctors aren't familiar with
Speaker 2: AGS and are therefore unlikely to diagnose it despite warning signs.
Speaker 2: Although Pennsylvania is now collecting this information, the state's blood
Speaker 2: testing labs aren't legally required to test for AGS or
Speaker 2: report positive cases. Arkansas, New Jersey, and Massachusetts are the
Speaker 2: only states that currently mandate reporting of AGS, but we
Speaker 2: will definitely start seeing more states adopt those rules as
Speaker 2: the condition spreads. Interestingly, the problem of AGS today is
Speaker 2: started with the solution to a much bigger problem about
Speaker 2: twenty eight million years ago. According to geneticis our primate
Speaker 2: ancestors evolved this strong immune response to the alpha gal
Speaker 2: compound because deadly viruses and bacterial infections were attacked to
Speaker 2: those sugars to make it past the host's immune defenses.
Speaker 2: Although scientists can't tell what those diseases were, they seem
Speaker 2: to have wiped out the majority of our lineage of
Speaker 2: primates all those years ago. The individuals who adapted by
Speaker 2: rejecting alpha gal particles entirely were able to avoid these diseases. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: that inheritance now ruins eating a cheeseburger once the alpha
Speaker 2: gal sugar enters your system and prompts that same immune
Speaker 2: response to red meat, which is all interesting context but
Speaker 2: doesn't change the game plan for all of you in
Speaker 2: tick heavy states, wear long pants tucked into socks, spray
Speaker 2: all your outdoor clothes with permethron, check yourself and your
Speaker 2: pets once you get home, mention AGS to your friends
Speaker 2: and your doctor, and maybe most importantly, don't let this
Speaker 2: keep you inside. You can still get out there. You
Speaker 2: just need to stay vigilant, on top of your game. Frosty,
Speaker 2: maybe when it comes to those little hangers on who
Speaker 2: think your blood tastes delicious. Jumping over to the DC,
Speaker 2: Trump's number three official at the Department of the Interior,
Speaker 2: Karen bud Fallon, is facing a series of corruption charges
Speaker 2: over her handling of several land use issues in the West.
Speaker 2: First up, while serving at the DOI in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: bud Fallon met with the leadership of a lithium mining
Speaker 2: company that was trying to get a permit for a
Speaker 2: new mine, which it did later receive. However, bud Fallon's
Speaker 2: husband had sold water rights to this same mind for
Speaker 2: three point five million dollars, a sum that would only
Speaker 2: be paid if the approval were granted. Although there's no
Speaker 2: documentation of bud Fallon putting her thumb on the scale
Speaker 2: to push the permit through, it was a clear conflict
Speaker 2: of interest and she never listed that direct financial benefit
Speaker 2: on any of her financial disclosure forms. Additionally, there is
Speaker 2: a recent video recording of bud Fallon where she discusses
Speaker 2: participating in revisions to grazing policy in the West to
Speaker 2: benefit her own ranching operation and those like it. She
Speaker 2: states in the video quote, if you have place, this
Speaker 2: is like in northern Nevada where my father in law's
Speaker 2: place is. We added categorical exclusions so you can move
Speaker 2: cattle in there. According to reporting by the news outlet
Speaker 2: Public Domain, Bud Fallon's father in law passed away several
Speaker 2: years ago, so the ranch she mentions is now owned
Speaker 2: by her husband. She goes on. The thing that probably
Speaker 2: was the closest to my heart was grazing regulations. This
Speaker 2: is an interesting one, right because you kind of want
Speaker 2: people who know what grazing is to be dealing with
Speaker 2: grazing regulations. But the way the system set up is
Speaker 2: you are supposed to put yourself in a position to
Speaker 2: where you aren't directly dealing with things that are going
Speaker 2: to personally benefit you. You just got to abstain, sit back,
Speaker 2: and let somebody else take care of that one. During
Speaker 2: the first Trump administration, when Bud Fallon had a much
Speaker 2: narrower role, she barred herself from working on grazing policy
Speaker 2: or even discussing it due to these severe conflict of interest.
Speaker 2: What has changed, we don't know. Additionally, the BLM has
Speaker 2: just revoked a grazing allotment by an operation here in
Speaker 2: Montana called American Prairie. The owner of one of those
Speaker 2: allotments was a client of Bud fallonce when she was
Speaker 2: a private lawyer, at which time she requested that exact
Speaker 2: permit be revoked back in twenty twenty two. So you know,
Speaker 2: there's just like a lot there that many people would say,
Speaker 2: what's the uh, you know, shame on you, shame on
Speaker 2: me type of thing. It fooled me.
Speaker 1: We can't get fooled again, you.
Speaker 2: Guys, get it. Moving on to the Great Smoky Mountains
Speaker 2: National Park, which has closed down certain trails after several
Speaker 2: visitors had dangerous encounters with black bears there. Access was
Speaker 2: suspended to the Ramsey Cascades trail after two separate incidents
Speaker 2: of bears stealing backpacks and one of a bear chasing
Speaker 2: a group of hikers. The Abrams Falls trail was closed
Speaker 2: after a bear attacked person who had gone into an
Speaker 2: off limits area. Great Smoking Mountains Park is the most
Speaker 2: visited national park in the country and has almost two
Speaker 2: thousand black bears, many of whom know very well that
Speaker 2: where there are people, there are easy calories. Most of
Speaker 2: the time, you don't have to worry about attacks when
Speaker 2: you're in a black bear country because they're much less
Speaker 2: aggressive than grizzlies. But this is an exception. This is
Speaker 2: what you call habituated bears. If you're headed out there,
Speaker 2: stay alert, stay together with your hiking companions, and make
Speaker 2: sure your food is secure. Keep yourself and the gritters safe.
Speaker 2: Moving on to the highway desk, two senators recently unveiled
Speaker 2: a bill that would put an interstate smack dab in
Speaker 2: the middle of one of the most scenic and wildlife
Speaker 2: filled valleys in North America. Submitted by John Cornyan of
Speaker 2: Texas with support from Cynthia Loomis or Lummas of Wyoming,
Speaker 2: the I forty seven Future Interstate Act is a proposal
Speaker 2: to create a four lane thoroughfare that would extend eighteen
Speaker 2: hundred miles from Shoto, Montana, down to the Gulf Coast
Speaker 2: city of Port Arthur. Quote. By upgrading one of our
Speaker 2: nation's longest highways to a future interstate, the legislation will
Speaker 2: increase economic growth and improve safety, all while honoring the
Speaker 2: most consequential president of our lifetime, said Corner. However, the
Speaker 2: impact on wildlife of the upgraded road could be consequential,
Speaker 2: particularly in the Madison Valley of southwest Montana, which is
Speaker 2: considered a critical crossroads for all kinds of critters in
Speaker 2: the Greater Yellstone ecosystem, not to mention the location of
Speaker 2: the world famous trout fishery the Madison River, and in
Speaker 2: that area, some of the wildlife, such as elk, are migratory,
Speaker 2: which could make the potential disruption from the interstate even
Speaker 2: more severe of an issue. As it stands, the proposed
Speaker 2: interstate is a long way off, and as things sit
Speaker 2: right now, I just think, boy, I have a hard
Speaker 2: time seeing folks spending money on something like that and
Speaker 2: knowing all this beautiful country as a mind. Ontana kid,
Speaker 2: I think we're fine without it. Moving on to the
Speaker 2: poison control desk, the Golden State is experiencing an unprecedented
Speaker 2: rash of poisonings from wild mushrooms. According to the California
Speaker 2: Department of Public Health, there have been some forty seven
Speaker 2: poisonings since last November, including four deaths and four liver transplants.
Speaker 2: The scale of the poisonings is prompting experts to call
Speaker 2: it the largest known outbreak of deadly mushroom poisonings in
Speaker 2: US history. In the past, California typically recorded fewer than
Speaker 2: five wild mushroom poisoning cases each year. There are likely
Speaker 2: a couple factors at play in the recent outbreak. Public
Speaker 2: health officials say that spring rains have created an abnormally
Speaker 2: high amount of aptly named destroying angels and death cap
Speaker 2: mushrooms on the landscape. Those mushrooms can be confused for
Speaker 2: popular eaten mushrooms such as matsutaki, amanita, verna, kokora, small puffballs, buttons,
Speaker 2: and more. Both destroying angels and death caps are known
Speaker 2: to cause organ failure. The increased presence of the mushrooms
Speaker 2: on the landscape likely doesn't fully account for why the
Speaker 2: spate of poisonings is happening at such an unusually large scale.
Speaker 2: Several victims were international visitors who did not have a
Speaker 2: good understanding of English. Additionally, some folks worry that people
Speaker 2: are using AI powered applications to identify wild mushrooms, and
Speaker 2: that those apps are not accurate enough to base life
Speaker 2: threatening decisions on. I'll be darned AI is not here
Speaker 2: to save us. The California Department of Public Health has
Speaker 2: issued warnings urging people not to forage mushrooms, and there
Speaker 2: are many many public lands in the state where mushroom
Speaker 2: foraging is strictly forbidden, ostensibly to prevent poisonings from happening.
Speaker 2: This abstinence only approach reminds me of sixth grade sex
Speaker 2: ed and this tactic doesn't have the best track record
Speaker 2: of success in my opinion. A better approach might be
Speaker 2: to increase access to reputable resources for safe foraging practices. Regardless, though,
Speaker 2: the ration of poisonings is a mortal reminder of the
Speaker 2: risk that you face if you aren't able to add
Speaker 2: accurately identify wild mushrooms before you consume them. We'll keep
Speaker 2: an eye on this outbreak going forward, though hopefully people
Speaker 2: learn from the mistakes of others and avoid chopping down
Speaker 2: on deadly mushrooms in the weeks, months, and years to come.
Speaker 2: Not all smallmouth bass are the same here at the
Speaker 2: fish Desk. This coming from researcher Joe C. Gunn and
Speaker 2: Andrew T. Taylor, who reviewed decades of genetic and genomic
Speaker 2: science on one of America's favorite sport fish. The result
Speaker 2: gun and tailor. That's a G and T by the way,
Speaker 2: So that smallmouth bass should more appropriately be called the
Speaker 2: quote smallmouth bass species complex.
Speaker 1: Fill the engineer here. Cowl's audio recording had a small
Speaker 1: glitch in it, so I'm just going to fill in
Speaker 1: a few seconds of what was corrupted here. Under the
Speaker 1: small mouth bass species complex nomenclature, there are four distinct
Speaker 1: lineages of smallies, the widespread northern smallmouth bass, as well
Speaker 1: as the Neoshio bass, the Watchitah bass, and the little
Speaker 1: River bass.
Speaker 2: Gun and Taylor say that despite serious similarities, the lineages
Speaker 2: started evolving separately over a million years ago. While the
Speaker 2: research likely won't change what most anglers call good olds smallies,
Speaker 2: it may have important implications for conservation practices. Further work
Speaker 2: is still needed before the new taxonomy is officially implemented.
Speaker 2: That's all I got for you this week. Thank you
Speaker 2: so much for listening. Remember to write into ask c Al.
Speaker 2: That's Asscal at the meat eater dot Com. Let me
Speaker 2: know what's going on in your neck of the woods.
Speaker 2: You know I appreciate it. Once again. The number if
Speaker 2: you want to just give me a holler, it's four
Speaker 2: oh six two two zero six four four one. Leave
Speaker 2: me a message. Thanks again. We'll talk to you next week,