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 as though public land employees don't have it hard
Speaker 1: enough these days with staff cuts and slashed budgets. Two
Speaker 1: seasonal workers with the Forest Service were kidnapped and held
Speaker 1: at gunpoint last week in the shaft at Trinity National
Speaker 1: Forest in northern California. According to authorities, forty nine year
Speaker 1: old Joseph Charles Henrickson and his twenty three year old
Speaker 1: son Phoenix, were motivated by extreme anti government sentiment, which
Speaker 1: you know, even if you're on that path, I think
Speaker 1: you might agree that a couple of kids doing trail maintenance,
Speaker 1: I believe they were biologists looking for frogs. You're not
Speaker 1: exactly hitting the tippy top anyway. July sixteen, Forest Service
Speaker 1: law enforcement officer called in the kidnapping to the local
Speaker 1: Sheriff's office, saying that the two workers were being held
Speaker 1: in zip ti restraints inside a trailer near Gumboot Lake.
Speaker 1: More than two hundred police personnel made the trek up
Speaker 1: the one lane road into the remote forest, including a
Speaker 1: swat team, snipers, hostage negotiators, a bomb squad, and it
Speaker 1: sounds like a whole lot of backup. Things got extremely
Speaker 1: tense during the standoff, as when the hostage takers told
Speaker 1: negotiators that they had quote unquote live rounds ready for
Speaker 1: anyone who got too close, and when they cut off talks,
Speaker 1: retreated into the camper and covered all the windows. But finally,
Speaker 1: after fifteen hours, the Hendricksons finally accepted that there were
Speaker 1: no good outcomes for them and they released the hostages
Speaker 1: and surrendered. Several air fifteens and grenades were seized from
Speaker 1: the scene. Father and son faced the possibility of life
Speaker 1: in prison if convicted. This is, you know, unfortunately, something
Speaker 1: that our civil servants get exposed to all sorts of threats,
Speaker 1: you know, most of them not legit, but there are
Speaker 1: examples of things being more extreme than this. So from
Speaker 1: everybody out here at the Cow's Week in Review World,
Speaker 1: I just want to say thank you to everybody who's
Speaker 1: out there still doing the work, keeping the lights on
Speaker 1: for those threatened and endangered species, picking up the trash,
Speaker 1: pumping the toilets, and ensuring that some of the coolest
Speaker 1: stuff this country has to offer is accessible for all Americans. First,
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you about my week, and my
Speaker 1: week has been packed, biggest thing on the list, And
Speaker 1: I have to preface this with the fact that I'm
Speaker 1: working on information that has not officially been released yet.
Speaker 1: The information that hasn't been released is if this news
Speaker 1: is going to come out tomorrow, not if everything else
Speaker 1: I'm about to say is actually true, because this analysis
Speaker 1: has been ongoing here. If you have ever purchased a
Speaker 1: duck stamp, part of what you are funding is habitat
Speaker 1: in the form of conservation easements. The other part is
Speaker 1: our refuge system. Refuge system, of course, was one of
Speaker 1: the first big conservation moves this country made because we
Speaker 1: were damn near out of ducks, out of geese, out
Speaker 1: of crans, and many other migratory birds, a lot of
Speaker 1: which we wouldn't call game species today. Several months ago
Speaker 1: it became known that there was a movement afoot in
Speaker 1: DC to try and convert all US Fish and Wildlife
Speaker 1: Service wetland easements to conform to the NRCS Wetland conservation Easements.
Speaker 1: The reason being was along the lines of well, on paper,
Speaker 1: it's less confusing, but that conversion what it does is
Speaker 1: give the people who have these ease months on their property,
Speaker 1: many of which were paid for them. The ability to
Speaker 1: reduce the size of prairie potholes and intermittent wetlands due
Speaker 1: to the fact that the restrictive language or permissive language,
Speaker 1: however you may see it, in the two types of
Speaker 1: easement allow for a greater degree of fringe removal. As
Speaker 1: a US Fish and Wildlife servicesman, the fringe, the stuff
Speaker 1: around the edges is, of course the habitat stuff. Now,
Speaker 1: Intermittent wetlands are just that. Sometimes they befall, sometimes they
Speaker 1: be dry, and that's why they work. Dry periods remove
Speaker 1: bacteria and disease factors that can be bad for nesting
Speaker 1: and allow for vegetation growth that breaks down and produces
Speaker 1: the zooplankton and phytal plankton that the invertebrates dig into.
Speaker 1: And that soup is what gets our ducks started when
Speaker 1: they be wet. Additionally, this is not just duck habitat.
Speaker 1: Some of the biggest mule deer bucks I have ever
Speaker 1: chased in my life were drawn to these little dried
Speaker 1: up sud like magnets. It's upland bird habitat, songbird habitat,
Speaker 1: pollinator habitat, and big game habitat too. These easements are
Speaker 1: incredibly successful. They are a huge factor in why we
Speaker 1: have huntable species. But here's the problem. As farm machinery
Speaker 1: has gotten bigger and more advanced, it no longer is
Speaker 1: tolerable to drive anything other than a straight line. As such,
Speaker 1: many of the wetlands that are not under conservation easements
Speaker 1: are no longer there. They have been drained through a
Speaker 1: process called tiling, which is installing perforated pipe subsurface which
Speaker 1: expedites the dispersal of water. Don't frat. The water doesn't
Speaker 1: magically disappear. It often collects in very large amounts in
Speaker 1: very inconvenient areas where tiling is popular. Think low lying towns, farmsteads,
Speaker 1: county roads, highways, et cetera. And you can see a
Speaker 1: lot of this. We did a meat eater duck hunting
Speaker 1: episode way back when in South Dakota and tiling wasn't
Speaker 1: the only factor, but it does play a factor. Checked
Speaker 1: out episode out you'll see a lot of farmsteads underwater,
Speaker 1: a lot of this prairie pothole region. Right. It's like
Speaker 1: big basins that glaciers sat in and then as they
Speaker 1: dried up, you have this big sink with no drain,
Speaker 1: so you get this underground water that supersaturates the subsurface,
Speaker 1: and then as you get additional rain, there's just no
Speaker 1: way for the water to get out. Right, So taken
Speaker 1: care of as in, eliminating these little wetlands that again
Speaker 1: may not be wet may not sound like a big deal,
Speaker 1: and reducing the fringe area around these wetlands may not
Speaker 1: sound like a big deal. But that reduction and surface
Speaker 1: area means we'll lose fifty to seventy plus percent of
Speaker 1: our duck production habitat that still exists. So if you
Speaker 1: believe this was just like a Doze era simplification effort,
Speaker 1: you should write that in there's going to be an
Speaker 1: upcoming comment period and just say, hey, you miss the
Speaker 1: mark on this one. At your desk wherever it may
Speaker 1: make sense, But out here on the landscape it has
Speaker 1: giant repercussions. If you ever go out and drive through
Speaker 1: the Dakotas and flip on your your on X map,
Speaker 1: everybody knows what that little marshy area looks like on
Speaker 1: a map, even you old codgers who think about printed maps.
Speaker 1: It's like the little wispy, green, grassy things. It's not
Speaker 1: quite water, it's not quite land. That's your intermittent wetland. Well.
Speaker 1: Drive around and it will not take you much time
Speaker 1: at all to identify things that are no longer wetlands.
Speaker 1: They were historic. It's there on the map. They range
Speaker 1: from big to small, and they are no longer there.
Speaker 1: It is just a plowed field. Those are areas that
Speaker 1: ideally never had wetland conservation easements. We've lost, according to
Speaker 1: the Wildlife Management Institute, a staggering sixty one percent of
Speaker 1: these wetlands already. It's not hunters killing the ducks, boys
Speaker 1: and girls. Total wetland acreage has been reduced from seventeen
Speaker 1: million to six million acres within the Prairie Pothole region.
Speaker 1: Should this idea of converting one easement to the other
Speaker 1: take hold and prosper will lose hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 1: acres more and again, if you have ever purchased a
Speaker 1: duck stamp or donated a nickel to Ducks unlimited, or
Speaker 1: paid taxes state or federal, we've paid for these acres already.
Speaker 1: There is or will be a very short comment period.
Speaker 1: You need to loosen your beak and weigh in on this.
Speaker 1: One will have an actional air from BHA heading your way.
Speaker 1: Click it. Remember, many refuges have been pieced together through
Speaker 1: a series of wetland conservation easements, so even though they
Speaker 1: are not on the private land, they can be augmented
Speaker 1: the cornerstone of our conservation history. The refuge system is
Speaker 1: not safe. None of this stuff is here out of luck.
Speaker 1: None of our opportunities exist by chance. This stuff, the
Speaker 1: spoils we enjoy today. They spoiled kids, are abundance of riches,
Speaker 1: the options that we have out our door. It's here
Speaker 1: because people stood up and demanded it. Now it's our turn.
Speaker 1: How are you going to weigh in? Moving on to
Speaker 1: a slightly different atmosphere, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. Several restaurants now
Speaker 1: have ticks on the menu. Okay, A more even handed
Speaker 1: version of that sense is to say that tics have
Speaker 1: gotten so bad add out there that restaurants are including
Speaker 1: dishes specifically for patrons suffering from the tickborn disease Alpha gal.
Speaker 1: Those mammal meat free items are marked on menus with
Speaker 1: the initials AGF for Alpha Gal friendly or AGS for
Speaker 1: Alpha gal safe. You know you're in a new era
Speaker 1: when you're adding these warnings to the list of gluten,
Speaker 1: shellfish and peanut free dishes. In twenty twenty, there were
Speaker 1: only two cases of alf gal on Martha's Vineyard. In
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, there were seven hundred and forty two.
Speaker 1: In response, last month, the island's chefs and tick experts
Speaker 1: gathered for a town hall to deal with the situation.
Speaker 1: Chef Charlie Grandquist has started eliminating mammalian ingredients from the
Speaker 1: meals he cooks for his restaurant staff, and his wife
Speaker 1: recently went into anaphylactic shock without warning after eating a hamburger.
Speaker 1: Martha's Vineyard in general is getting serious about its tick situation,
Speaker 1: and hunting on the beautiful and exclusive island has shifted
Speaker 1: into a higher gear. The organization Tick Free MV was
Speaker 1: established this past December and is working to coordinate all
Speaker 1: the island stakeholders to bring down the number of deer.
Speaker 1: They commissioned an aerial population count at the end of
Speaker 1: the most recent hunting season, showing a minimum number of
Speaker 1: four six hundred and eighty one animals. That means there
Speaker 1: are forty nine deer per square mile, quadruple the ideal
Speaker 1: number for balanced habitat mass Wildlife has therefore recently started
Speaker 1: to issue year round damage permits to property owners. The
Speaker 1: permits required that a professional deer processing facility be an
Speaker 1: operation year round nearby, and several of them have started
Speaker 1: to deliver the meat to local food banks. The organization
Speaker 1: mb Hunt Club is now operating one such facility, and
Speaker 1: the On Island Wampanog tribe has started in another. Landowner
Speaker 1: permissions have historically been hard to come by, and much
Speaker 1: of the land there is also owned by land trusts,
Speaker 1: which have not been a space actually accommodating to hunters,
Speaker 1: but all that might be changing. MV Hunt Club is
Speaker 1: now actively matching landowners and hunters, and several of the
Speaker 1: land trusts seem to be changing their tune. James Lingle,
Speaker 1: executive director of the Martha's Vineyard Land Bank, told the
Speaker 1: Vineyard Gazette quote, the land Bank is involved in tick
Speaker 1: Free's work and wants to do whatever it can that
Speaker 1: may take the form of a deer damage hunt and
Speaker 1: or other forms. We're going to look at what tick
Speaker 1: Free proposes and then take it from there. All this
Speaker 1: means the Massachusetts hunters might be able to squeeze all
Speaker 1: these lemons into lemonade. If you're a listener in a
Speaker 1: cramped apartment in Boston, Providence, or Woosta, google MVY Hunt Club,
Speaker 1: send them an email see if he can get matched
Speaker 1: with a landowner and a couch to crash on and
Speaker 1: enjoy a ferry ride out there this fall. Just remember
Speaker 1: to slather yourself in picarden or promethron and stay safe.
Speaker 1: Some could have been worse news out of Colorado this
Speaker 1: week on the state's furband saga. The good news is
Speaker 1: that the campaign to prohibit the lawful sale, barter, and
Speaker 1: trade of wildlife for in Colorado is dead. At the
Speaker 1: July seventeen meeting of the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission,
Speaker 1: the commissioners voted six to five to terminate rulemaking for
Speaker 1: the ban, which they had approved out of a citizen's
Speaker 1: petition back in March. The body has had some personnel
Speaker 1: changes since then, and the majority concluded that any ban
Speaker 1: was going to be incoherent and impossible to enforce. However,
Speaker 1: the bad news is that the commission also voted six
Speaker 1: to five to establish a blanket bag limit of two
Speaker 1: animals for all fur bearing species in the state. Colorado
Speaker 1: previously had no limit because Colorado Parks and Wildlife had
Speaker 1: demonstrated that trapping had no effect on fur bearer numbers,
Speaker 1: but just as with many decisions lately, the Commission ignored
Speaker 1: the expertise and science of CPW. They chose the number
Speaker 1: two because that was the average number of animals taken
Speaker 1: per license holder cited by the CPW, but that decision
Speaker 1: disregards the fact that most license holders harvest zero animals,
Speaker 1: and anyone who hopes to make any kind of living
Speaker 1: out of trapping will now likely not be able to
Speaker 1: do that. The animal rights groups recognized that an outright
Speaker 1: ban was no longer viable and expressed gratitude about getting
Speaker 1: half a loaf. Samanth the Miller of the Center for
Speaker 1: Biological Diversity told the Fort Collins, colorad in quote, I
Speaker 1: felt with a win on bag limits, I was more
Speaker 1: okay losing the petition because at least we accomplished something
Speaker 1: for these fur bear species that have been exploited for
Speaker 1: commercial sales. He said. The group doesn't plan to keep
Speaker 1: going with a different version of a ban, and instead
Speaker 1: will advocate for better data gathering on fur bearer numbers.
Speaker 1: And that's where I think we see hope for the
Speaker 1: future on this issue. The Parks and Wildlife Commission is
Speaker 1: obviously very muddled here. Governor Jared Polus, who has appointed
Speaker 1: the commission members most hostile to trapping, is term limited
Speaker 1: this year, and his successor is not likely to be
Speaker 1: as anti tree as he has bent. If the data
Speaker 1: continues to demonstrate that furbars are abundant in Colorado, then
Speaker 1: a future commission could vote to change these bag limits
Speaker 1: to a reasonable number, or to do away with them altogether.
Speaker 1: That kind of change is a lot easier than having
Speaker 1: to repeal a complicated ban. Here's hoping that in the
Speaker 1: long term, cooler heads prevail here, and thank you to
Speaker 1: everyone out there who has weighed in again and again
Speaker 1: on this issue. We face some setbacks along the way,
Speaker 1: but ultimately even the most committed anti trapping activists had
Speaker 1: to admit that their aims don't make sense. Lots to
Speaker 1: go here, gang, keep showing up and keep informed. There's
Speaker 1: no telling what the air outside will look like by
Speaker 1: the time you hear this. But over the past two weeks,
Speaker 1: intense smoke from Canadian wildfires has oppressed the most heavily
Speaker 1: populated parts of North America. Toronto, Detroit, Toledo, Philadelphia, New York,
Speaker 1: and Boston all experience some of the worst air quality
Speaker 1: on record. The air quality index of DLUTE, Minnesota hit
Speaker 1: nine thirty four, more than three times over the limit
Speaker 1: for hazardous pollution. Trump and other Republican politicians are charging
Speaker 1: Canada with not managing their forests to prevent fire, but
Speaker 1: almost all these fires are happening in the extremely remote
Speaker 1: Boreal Shield region that have never been managed at all
Speaker 1: and have no need to be managed. The difference now
Speaker 1: in what makes fires more likely are warming temperatures caused
Speaker 1: by climate change. Eleanor Osluski, Canada's Minister of Emergency Management,
Speaker 1: said northern Ontario and Quebec received less than forty percent
Speaker 1: of normal precipitation this June, with temperatures above historical averages.
Speaker 1: But this is not the only smoke activity happening on
Speaker 1: the continent, making the borders between countries irrelevant. Several fires
Speaker 1: out west in the US have sent smoke blowing north
Speaker 1: into British Columbia. There's no immediate fix here and the
Speaker 1: rest of the summer could be rough after record low
Speaker 1: snowfalls across the West, but longer term solutions are advancing
Speaker 1: Martin Heinrich this week introduced a bill in the Senate
Speaker 1: that would require electrical grid managers to adopt a so
Speaker 1: called connect and manage approach to getting new electricity generation
Speaker 1: on the grid, modeled on the system used in Texas.
Speaker 1: By dramatically streamlining the process to allow new power projects
Speaker 1: to get up and running, we can get more clean
Speaker 1: energy projects delivering electrons sooner. This bill is totally neutral,
Speaker 1: meaning natural gas burning plants will be able to connect
Speaker 1: as quickly as solar projects. But Texas leads the nation
Speaker 1: in renewables because a lot of the time, renewables are
Speaker 1: the most economical option, and whenever new nuclear or geothermal
Speaker 1: generation technology comes online, we have to be ready to
Speaker 1: get those projects connected as well. It's time to get
Speaker 1: serious about the work we have to do on climate,
Speaker 1: and Heinrich's new bill is a concrete step in that direction. Colorado,
Speaker 1: a local sheriff's office recently posted about a search and
Speaker 1: rescue effort gon a wire on July seventh. The Sam
Speaker 1: Miguel County Sheriff detailed and incident in which the county's
Speaker 1: search and rescue team responded to a garment SOS in
Speaker 1: a remote alpine area of the San Juan Mountains known
Speaker 1: as Columbine Basin. The SOS was received at two forty
Speaker 1: five pm. The man reported that he'd fallen one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty to two hundred feet and believed he broke
Speaker 1: his leg. Rescuers responded to the scene both on foot
Speaker 1: and with helicopter, but when they arrived they found him
Speaker 1: walking around. He had apparently been injured when base jumping
Speaker 1: off of a cliff and his parachute failed to deploy.
Speaker 1: He then declined assistance from the search and rescue team
Speaker 1: and opted to walk down on his own. The team
Speaker 1: then had to endure a prolonged egress and the mission
Speaker 1: was closed at eleven thirty pm. Apparently, according to the sheriff,
Speaker 1: the man had, unsurprisingly, given his chosen hobby, received the
Speaker 1: help of search and rescue team after a base jumping
Speaker 1: accident in the Swiss Alps. Here's what San Miguel County
Speaker 1: Sheriff Dan Cobalt had to say. This individual chose to
Speaker 1: participate in an extremely dangerous activity alone, and particularly given
Speaker 1: his prior rescue his head. His actions demonstrated a disregard
Speaker 1: for the risks involved and the resources required to rescue him.
Speaker 1: His decisions unnecessarily diverted emergency resources, including a care flight
Speaker 1: helicopter that may have been needed for other emergencies. The
Speaker 1: fact that he was able to hike down shows a
Speaker 1: profound lack of respect for the tremendous effort and resources
Speaker 1: devoted to this rescue. It's an interesting take and gets
Speaker 1: at the difficult decisions that CERCHA and rescue teams have
Speaker 1: to make in terms of how to allocate rescue resources.
Speaker 1: I'll just say that while this incident involved someone participating
Speaker 1: in an extremely high risk endeavor, I suspect most search
Speaker 1: and rescue efforts involve unprepared tourists doing relatively mundane pursuits. However,
Speaker 1: the social media post took some heat, and the San
Speaker 1: Miguel County Sheriff's Office eventually amended it, adding that quote,
Speaker 1: we would like to emphasize that people should never hesitate
Speaker 1: to call CERCH and rescue when they are lost, experiencing
Speaker 1: a medical emergency, or have been injured. Right in, let
Speaker 1: us you know what you think about this one. I
Speaker 1: happen to think that unpopular opinion here. Game part of
Speaker 1: the amazing thing at getting out on big public lands
Speaker 1: is depending on yourself. It is up to us to
Speaker 1: be prepared and use the best of our cognitive abilities
Speaker 1: and skills to make simple decisions that avoid it being
Speaker 1: put in bad situations where we then have to put
Speaker 1: a bunch of other people in bad situations. Doesn't always
Speaker 1: work out that way. Best of intentions, as they say,
Speaker 1: But if I could snap my fingers, we'd go back
Speaker 1: to the rotary dial phone. Moving on to the duck desk,
Speaker 1: Louisiana has announced all new duck season, and it's an
Speaker 1: interesting one. This fall, the Sportsman's Paradise will hold an
Speaker 1: experimental special season for black bellied whistling duck. If you
Speaker 1: haven't heard of these species, well, I wouldn't be surprised.
Speaker 1: It's certainly not a good old greenhead, widgeon, pintailed teal,
Speaker 1: black duck, or anything else most people have pursued. In
Speaker 1: North America, the species has goose like long legs and
Speaker 1: chestnut brown and black body. It's found throughout the southern
Speaker 1: parts of the central Mississippi and Atlantic flyways during the summer,
Speaker 1: but most of them typically migrate into Mexico and South
Speaker 1: America by the early fall. At least that used to
Speaker 1: be the case In recent years, the species seems to
Speaker 1: have been expanding its breeding range northward and has established
Speaker 1: year round populations in parts of Louisiana. Local wildlife managers
Speaker 1: say that black bellied whistling ducks can cause damages on
Speaker 1: local egg operations, particularly rice, and that having a special
Speaker 1: season is a win win for sportsmen and rice farmers.
Speaker 1: The first season will run for nine days this October,
Speaker 1: during which no other species of duck will be open.
Speaker 1: There will be a four bird daily bag limit. One
Speaker 1: important regulation to be aware of are the shoot times, which,
Speaker 1: unlike typical duck season, will start at sunrise, not thirty
Speaker 1: minutes before. This is ostensibly to make sure hunters can
Speaker 1: accurately id birds during the season. Have you hunted black
Speaker 1: bellied whistling ducks, we want to hear from you. Askcl
Speaker 1: at the meat eater dot com. If they're eating rice fields.
Speaker 1: I guarantee you can make them taste real good. I'm
Speaker 1: jealous of that new opportunity controversy here in the home state,
Speaker 1: and it has to do with ditch chickens, roosters, cocks.
Speaker 1: Back in twenty twenty one, state legislators authorized a bill
Speaker 1: providing Montana Fish Wildlife and parks a million bucks each
Speaker 1: year to buy rooster pheasants, bread at prisons and plant
Speaker 1: them in popular public hunting areas. Proponents of the bill
Speaker 1: said it would help with new hunter recruitment, particularly for
Speaker 1: youth hunters, while others say that the program is not
Speaker 1: cost effective or sustainable and that improving habitat to benefit
Speaker 1: wild birds is a better alternative. There is also concern
Speaker 1: about disease transmission from pen raise to wild birds. However,
Speaker 1: on August nineteen, the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission
Speaker 1: will consider proposal to double the number of released birds
Speaker 1: and sites and open up the possibility of stalking them
Speaker 1: on private and state lands, which is ruffling the feathers
Speaker 1: of some bird hunters in the Treasure State to say
Speaker 1: the least. This gets an interesting question about how to
Speaker 1: best allocate resources between hunter recruitment and habitat restoration. Head
Speaker 1: on over for a breakdown by Andrew McKean at Outdoor Life.
Speaker 1: We've covered this topic a bunch long term habitat habitat
Speaker 1: habitat always wins. Stockbirds are more of your instant gratification variety.
Speaker 1: Jumping over for a roadless update our friends over at
Speaker 1: Onax have again put their technological prowess to work in
Speaker 1: the name of conservation. The company recently released a report
Speaker 1: outlining some of the impacts of the two thousand and
Speaker 1: one Roadless Area Rule, which, as you know from listening
Speaker 1: to this very podcast, is under fire after the US
Speaker 1: Department of the Interior recently announced plans to scrap it.
Speaker 1: Well on X analysts cross reference Forest Service boundary file
Speaker 1: with its own outdoor recreation data, US Fish and Wildlife
Speaker 1: Service Wildlife habitat data, and fifty years of National Interagency
Speaker 1: Fire Center records. Some important takeaways. Roadless rule areas encompass
Speaker 1: just twenty seven point seven percent of all land managed
Speaker 1: by the Forest Service. Just three point one seven percent
Speaker 1: of wildfires start in those areas, while ninety percent of
Speaker 1: all fires in the US start within half a mile
Speaker 1: of a road. Inventory roadless areas overlap with key habitat
Speaker 1: and migration corridors four black bears and elk, not to
Speaker 1: mention mule deer. The roadless rule doesn't prohibit motorized recreation
Speaker 1: where it was already allowed, and inventory roadless areas include
Speaker 1: seven thousand, two hundred and one miles of full sized
Speaker 1: motorized trails and primitive roads, two thousand, four hundred and
Speaker 1: ninety four miles of ATV and side by side trails,
Speaker 1: two thousand, one hundred and sixty seven miles of motorized
Speaker 1: single track trails, and one thousand, two hundred and ninety
Speaker 1: five miles of snow homobile trails. Keep all of this
Speaker 1: data in mind and put it to use when the
Speaker 1: US Forest Service releases a draft Environmental impact statement on
Speaker 1: the rule change sometime this year. We're thinking August, and
Speaker 1: a new public comment period opens. On X has also
Speaker 1: put out an interactive map that visualizes the areas covered
Speaker 1: by roadless rules. Head over to on xmaps dot com
Speaker 1: to check this out, as well as their full report.
Speaker 1: It's a critical issue. It's great to have these new resources.
Speaker 1: Thank you on X, Thank you, Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Allowing people to visualize what this is help so much.
Speaker 1: You can only repeat the facts so often. A visual
Speaker 1: is worth, you know, one thousand words. As they say,
Speaker 1: Sun of a gun gang. That's all I got for
Speaker 1: you this week. Remember to write in to ask cl
Speaker 1: Let's ask how at the meateater dot com. If you're
Speaker 1: like me and you want to see a big old
Speaker 1: Grizzly Bear hunt. You're gonna want that roadless rule in
Speaker 1: place because it'll never happen if we don't have that
Speaker 1: habitat protection and remember, head on over to backcountry Hunters
Speaker 1: and English dot org become a member. We need you