Speaker 1: From Meat Eaters World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This
Speaker 1: is Cow's Week in Review with Ryan cow Calaian. Here's
Speaker 1: cal It's a sharky summer. Scan the news headlines of
Speaker 1: the past couple of weeks and you'll see reports of
Speaker 1: sharks popping up close to popular beaches across the East Coast.
Speaker 1: In Queens, a suburb of New York, Rockaway Beach has
Speaker 1: recorded sixteen sightings this month alone, and twenty three since
Speaker 1: late May, which officials say is a record for this
Speaker 1: time of year. Meanwhile, over in Rhode Island, a fifteen
Speaker 1: plus foot great white was filmed feeding on a dead
Speaker 1: humpback whale. Scientists say it marks one of the only
Speaker 1: times of great white has been spotted in Rhode Island's
Speaker 1: coastal waters. But are there actually more sharks and is
Speaker 1: it becoming more dangerous for swimmers and surfers? Perhaps not,
Speaker 1: at least according to a recent report in The Guardian,
Speaker 1: in which experts say that the surge in sightings is
Speaker 1: most likely the result of increased technological surveillance through drones
Speaker 1: and tagging efforts involving acoustic receivers, not a greater presence
Speaker 1: of sharks this summer. Greg Schoemel, senior fishery scientists with
Speaker 1: Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries and one of the leading
Speaker 1: white shark experts, said quote, the truth of the matter
Speaker 1: is the number of sharks may not have increased, but
Speaker 1: certainly the fear factor can go up. He added that
Speaker 1: both tags and drones are far from perfect surveillance tools
Speaker 1: and can provide beachgoers with a false sense of security
Speaker 1: as safety devices and simultaneously increase people's fear by thinking
Speaker 1: there are more sharks around than ever. So when you
Speaker 1: hear reports of increased shark sightings at a beach near
Speaker 1: you take it with a grain of salt. This week,
Speaker 1: we've got deer sniffing dogs, monuments, the EESA, and so
Speaker 1: much more. But first, I'm going to tell you about
Speaker 1: my week. In my week has been packed, as per usual,
Speaker 1: I really want to tell you about a field fix,
Speaker 1: or really, more accurately, a patch job that I did
Speaker 1: on my old truck way back in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 1: I snapped tyrod right in the middle of the threads,
Speaker 1: which is where the tirod itself or inner tirod connects
Speaker 1: to the outer tirod or tyrod end if you will.
Speaker 1: This chunk of metal is what steers your tires or
Speaker 1: keeps them in tandem and aligned the truck. Do not
Speaker 1: go without it. I took all the box and wrenches
Speaker 1: out of the toolbox and duct tape the hell out
Speaker 1: of them, as you would have splint around a major break.
Speaker 1: But the bone in this case was the snapped tyrod.
Speaker 1: That mess got us to a wide enough spot in
Speaker 1: the road almost three quarters of a mile of heinous, rutted,
Speaker 1: potholed old forest service road, at which point I could
Speaker 1: get out of everybody else's way and call out and
Speaker 1: have a new tyrod inner and outer delivered. It pays
Speaker 1: to know retirees kids. Then I did the replacing of
Speaker 1: that situation in the field, which wasn't horrible. Took about
Speaker 1: three hours, plus some additional time to stop an eyeball,
Speaker 1: my tire alignment and just as needed. But instead of
Speaker 1: telling you that big story, I want to tell you
Speaker 1: about our first date night with the baby boy. It
Speaker 1: was the lady's birthday and we headed out to a sexy,
Speaker 1: romantic four thirty pm dinner, slightly anxious about ruining everybody
Speaker 1: else's evening if it were in fact evening by you know,
Speaker 1: having that fussy baby in a fancy restaurant. But the
Speaker 1: boy did fantastic. We had a great meal, lots of compliments,
Speaker 1: wonderful evening until dunk dunt dum. On the way back
Speaker 1: to the car. Blocking the sidewalk was our local Bosangelis
Speaker 1: Sierra Club. They had signs up saying stop logging trucks
Speaker 1: up Highlight Canyon, which is a major recreation area and
Speaker 1: our unicipal watershed. It's not quite the urban interface, but
Speaker 1: it's not quite not either. As I could not get
Speaker 1: around these people, I was easily stopped. And mind you,
Speaker 1: I'm toting a month old child in a car seat.
Speaker 1: And I am told that the project is a clear
Speaker 1: cut and needs to be stopped, and that if I
Speaker 1: am opposed to this project, I am therefore in favor
Speaker 1: of destroying old growth forest. And it was implied that
Speaker 1: I would be in favor of destroying the world's old
Speaker 1: growth forest, and most impressively, that when the trees are cut,
Speaker 1: they will never grow back. In response to a serious
Speaker 1: eye roll like I have not personally performed since I
Speaker 1: was an angsty teen, the petitioner said, well, not for
Speaker 1: thousands of years things do grow slow in Montana, friends,
Speaker 1: but most of our old growth has been cut. You know,
Speaker 1: we're not that far down the road from all butt America,
Speaker 1: where most of our big trees got cut into mind
Speaker 1: shaft timbers and stuck underground. In this particular area, very
Speaker 1: little of what you would call old growth remains, and
Speaker 1: where it remains not coincidentally tends to a butt really
Speaker 1: fancy houses or places that are just like you're not
Speaker 1: going to get to with equipment. Now, upon requesting of
Speaker 1: an inspection of the forest management plan and a reminder here,
Speaker 1: a forest management plan or a resource management plan, or
Speaker 1: a travel management plan right now, and I do say
Speaker 1: right now involves a public process. Okay, everybody gets to
Speaker 1: look at it. You get a public comment period, doesn't
Speaker 1: matter who you are. And if they're done right, probably
Speaker 1: nobody goes away thinking that they got everything that they wanted.
Speaker 1: Land of many uses. Remember now the old growth forest
Speaker 1: is identified, and it is not the forest that would
Speaker 1: be a misnomer, But there are older trees are identified,
Speaker 1: and they are part of an attempt to address a
Speaker 1: request for fire mitigation. Right so they'll be selectively thinned
Speaker 1: and logged. There is zero percent of the entire project
Speaker 1: scope slated to be clearcut. I was unhappy. I found
Speaker 1: this to be appalling behavior. I don't like being lied to.
Speaker 1: And there's plenty of reasons why people could oppose this project, right,
Speaker 1: And one of those reasons just like it said on
Speaker 1: their signs, just stop logging trucks a highlight canyon. Right.
Speaker 1: And let's say you're like a road biker or somebody
Speaker 1: who just likes driving up there. You still have a
Speaker 1: legitimate claim to be like, you know what, I don't
Speaker 1: like logging trucks up here, and you can register that claim.
Speaker 1: But the claim that this is a clear cut, and
Speaker 1: certainly that if you don't oppose the clear cut, which
Speaker 1: isn't actually part of the proposal, you are therefore in
Speaker 1: favor of killing all old growth arrest on the planet.
Speaker 1: Just not the way to do business. Game. I really
Speaker 1: could not think of anything, despite having a great night
Speaker 1: out with the lady and the brand new baby. First like,
Speaker 1: go sit down to dinner thing and dinner was awesome.
Speaker 1: Could not think but Jesus, where we have an administration
Speaker 1: that wants to roll back all regulation, why can't you
Speaker 1: just tell people the facts and let them make an
Speaker 1: informed decision. Now fast forward to the latest executive order
Speaker 1: out of the highest seat in the land. Our president
Speaker 1: is informed live, as they say, in front of God
Speaker 1: and everyone, that the executive order he's going to sign
Speaker 1: is because you can't After some prodding, he picks up,
Speaker 1: you can't hunt, you can't fish, you can't even hike
Speaker 1: on it, you can't even set foot on most of it.
Speaker 1: So he's going to rescind or sorry, redraw the lines,
Speaker 1: shrink Grand Staircase and Bearsier's National mind which are in
Speaker 1: the state of Utah. We're looking at current size a
Speaker 1: little over three million acres and future size or according
Speaker 1: to the executive order, just a couple hundred thousand, and
Speaker 1: it needs to be set again. Those statements you can't hunt,
Speaker 1: you can't fish, you can't even step foot on it,
Speaker 1: those are not true. They are untrue statements. They are false.
Speaker 1: And again I thought, Jesus, this is why we are here.
Speaker 1: Why can't you just tell people the facts and let
Speaker 1: them make up their minds. We're gonna get more into
Speaker 1: monuments later, but I just want to lay these examples
Speaker 1: out to you. What to the Sierra Club and the
Speaker 1: administration have in common and I just want to promise
Speaker 1: you that we are not playing this game at backcountry
Speaker 1: hunters and anglers. You get the straight dope, You're gonna
Speaker 1: get clearly informed. You're gonna be told what our position
Speaker 1: is and why you can hit the action link and
Speaker 1: do as you will as an informed citizen. This BS
Speaker 1: has got to stop gang or else the division will
Speaker 1: not stop. And the only way this is going to
Speaker 1: change is if you demand it. If you are a
Speaker 1: member of any organization, you can demand it. If you
Speaker 1: are a citizen of these United States, you need to
Speaker 1: make your demands and expectations known to your representatives. I
Speaker 1: don't think this is a high bar to shoot for.
Speaker 1: Moving on to the deer dog desk all the way
Speaker 1: down South Carolina, It's one we've been hearing from quite
Speaker 1: a few listeners on. Essentially, the South Carolina Department Natural
Speaker 1: Resources is collecting input about deer hunting with dogs. As
Speaker 1: the SCDNRS says, deer hunting with dogs is a long
Speaker 1: established and culturally significant hunting tradition that has practiced primarily
Speaker 1: in South Carolina's coastal plane, and yet the agency is
Speaker 1: looking for feedback from hunters, landowners, and other members of
Speaker 1: the public about the practice after receiving complaints and comments
Speaker 1: about conflicts between user groups. As it stands, the public
Speaker 1: meetings on the topic are considered preliminary as any law
Speaker 1: changes will require the South Carolina General Assembly to act
Speaker 1: on it, but the public comment is important as it
Speaker 1: could guide recommendations to legislators. Hound hunting groups like the
Speaker 1: South Carolina Sporting Dog Association are organizing to quote protect
Speaker 1: the rights of sporting, working, and hunting dog enthusiasts statewide.
Speaker 1: Listener Madison Sharp shared his thoughts with us via askcl
Speaker 1: that's Ascal at themediator dot com. This is a traditional
Speaker 1: use practice that has occurred for hundreds of years in
Speaker 1: the state. The new conflict is undoubtedly due to out
Speaker 1: of state folks move into regions adjacent to tracks where
Speaker 1: this has been going on for all of American history.
Speaker 1: This region also has a history of hunting hogs with
Speaker 1: dogs in a similar manner, which would be next on
Speaker 1: the chopping block. It's a slippery slope. If you have
Speaker 1: more to say, well let me know. I want to
Speaker 1: hear all about it. Askcl at the Meat eater dot com. Okay,
Speaker 1: jumping back over for a little more more of the
Speaker 1: meat that's left on the bone of this national monument situation.
Speaker 1: So President Trump issues two executive orders shrinking the size
Speaker 1: of Bearsiers and Grand Staircase Escalonne national monuments by about
Speaker 1: ninety little more over ninety percent each. The move is
Speaker 1: another shot across the bout of years long back and
Speaker 1: forth over how to best manage those places. Grand Staircase
Speaker 1: Esclowney was established by an executive order by President Bill
Speaker 1: Clinton in nineteen ninety six and later expanded to encompass
Speaker 1: one point nine million acres. Then Bearsiers was established by
Speaker 1: President Barack Obama in twenty sixteen and at the time
Speaker 1: of his order encompassed over one point three million acres.
Speaker 1: Both places are rich in both ecological beauty and ancestral
Speaker 1: artifacts and sites of indigenous peoples. However, since the beginning,
Speaker 1: local Utah legislators argued that the designations which increased protections
Speaker 1: of public land were federal overreach and did not abide
Speaker 1: by the original text of the Antiquities Act, which requires
Speaker 1: designations to be confined to the smallest area compatible with
Speaker 1: proper care and management of the objects to be protected.
Speaker 1: They also said the designations hindered multiple uses of the land.
Speaker 1: In twenty seventeen, President Trump drastically shrunk both monuments based
Speaker 1: on those arguments, only for Biden to restore them in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. Now, Trump has again shrunked them through
Speaker 1: executive orders, this time by significantly more acreage than he
Speaker 1: did in his first term. His actions will reduce Grand
Speaker 1: Staircase Esclawe by one point eight seven million acres, leaving
Speaker 1: only one hundred and eighty one thousand, five hundred acres
Speaker 1: within the designation. Bearziers will be shrunk by one point
Speaker 1: three six million acres to approximately one hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: one thousand, one hundred acres. Environmental groups have promised litigation
Speaker 1: on the grounds that the Antiquities Act grants presidents the
Speaker 1: power to establish nation monuments, but not shrink them. Similar
Speaker 1: litigation was filed back in twenty seventeen, but was not
Speaker 1: settled in court before Biden restored those monuments. As we've
Speaker 1: talked about here before, conservationists are worried that undoing these
Speaker 1: protections will open the door for rampant off road use
Speaker 1: as well as resource extraction, to the detriment of the
Speaker 1: area's long term preservation, and consequently hunting and fishing opportunities.
Speaker 1: This is certainly an issue that concerns the hunting and
Speaker 1: angling public and it certainly increases instability in the management
Speaker 1: of these places. Very important to keep in mind here gang.
Speaker 1: The way this gets spun, as we kind of mentioned before,
Speaker 1: right is, monuments are this thing, and if you can't
Speaker 1: have a monument then I don't know, it gets privatized
Speaker 1: or something by some and then others, as we covered before,
Speaker 1: don't paint a clear picture of what a monument is.
Speaker 1: Monuments are individuals. They're all unique to bear degrees, but
Speaker 1: most do allow hunting and fishing at some level, some
Speaker 1: a lot more than others, and traditional uses like grazing,
Speaker 1: firewood gathering in some cases. In the case of these
Speaker 1: national monuments, there's certain restrictions and provisions for historical use
Speaker 1: by indigenous people, so they can be messy, and I
Speaker 1: get it. What the hunters and anglers out there need
Speaker 1: to know if you want the pragmatic middle ground is
Speaker 1: this the state of Utah currently manages the wildlife, be
Speaker 1: it on the BLM or the monument. If the monument
Speaker 1: changes and it gets reduced down to one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty one thousand acres and one hundred and eighty one
Speaker 1: thousand acres respectively. The state of Utah is still going
Speaker 1: to manage the wildlife on what becomes the monument and
Speaker 1: the BLM ground that what is no longer a monument,
Speaker 1: it goes back to just regular old BLM. There's also
Speaker 1: some Wilderness study areas out there too, and those are
Speaker 1: really important to keep in mind because wilderness study area
Speaker 1: offers a certain level of protection, which is great. But
Speaker 1: this administration is also actively trying to get rid of
Speaker 1: all wilderness study areas too, So I would certainly be like, well, hey, wait,
Speaker 1: can we be assured that these wsa's remain in place
Speaker 1: in perpetuity, because that's what we're sold as Monument protection
Speaker 1: is like these things are going to be here forever.
Speaker 1: Access is a big, big talking point here. Okay, there
Speaker 1: are some roads that were closed that will become open
Speaker 1: again to full sized vehicle travel. Some people think that's fantastic,
Speaker 1: other people think that is not fantastic. In the grand
Speaker 1: scheme of things, I want the place to remain public
Speaker 1: and well manned, and first, allowing full sized vehicle access
Speaker 1: in any expanded fashion does bring up issues that we've
Speaker 1: covered here before. You have got to pay for road maintenance, culverts,
Speaker 1: noxious weed mitigation, fire mitigation, trash law enforcement. That's just
Speaker 1: part of the deal. Okay. We haven't seen a management
Speaker 1: plan provide that yet. It could be coming. Okay. That
Speaker 1: expanded access is also there alongside expanded access for extractive industry. Namely,
Speaker 1: there's a giant coal deposit out there, and there's a
Speaker 1: uranium deposit out there. You can't hunt or fish or
Speaker 1: be on an active uranium mine or coal mine unless
Speaker 1: you're an employee. So these are just things that are
Speaker 1: out there for your consideration. Everybody got that, I hope.
Speaker 1: So tags are very limited out there. Pont's got mule deer,
Speaker 1: world famous. Part of that herd migrates through bears ears.
Speaker 1: It's part of the protective plan for like this unbelievably
Speaker 1: badass giant trophy mule deer. It's a desert ecosystem. They're
Speaker 1: migratory opportunities there are very low, and because they are
Speaker 1: big old nightly bucks, everybody applies for those tags, so
Speaker 1: the chances of drawing them are very low. When we
Speaker 1: see areas go from let's call it restrictive access to
Speaker 1: more liberal access. Again, I'm referencing full sized vehicles, right.
Speaker 1: That typically increases the amount of people who apply for
Speaker 1: those tags. Doesn't necessarily mean that the tags offered will
Speaker 1: go down unless we see habitat destruction, okay, that impacts
Speaker 1: that mule deer population, then we would see the combination
Speaker 1: of increased attention, increased applicant pool for fewer tags. Right.
Speaker 1: And these are just things that are real. There is
Speaker 1: no political agenda behind them. They're just things that need
Speaker 1: to be considered. And believe me when I tell you,
Speaker 1: we've been in rooms with Congress people and their staff
Speaker 1: who really support the monument rezoning, let's call it, and
Speaker 1: they're not thinking along these lines, right, because they're not
Speaker 1: hunters and anglers game. So I'll keep updating on this one.
Speaker 1: It's a big one. Moving on to the Endangered Species
Speaker 1: Act desk, the Interior Department and Commerce Department have announced
Speaker 1: a final rule that has an outsized impact for the
Speaker 1: Endangered Species Act. The new rule recast the regulatory definition
Speaker 1: of the word harm. For years, that word has been
Speaker 1: used to include the modification and degradation of habitat, as
Speaker 1: well as directly injuring and hurting endangered Wildlife Secretary, Burgham
Speaker 1: argued that this inclusive definition pertaining to habitat was used
Speaker 1: to obstruct lawful land use and burdened American families and businesses.
Speaker 1: In the new rule, harming a species habitat would no
Speaker 1: longer be considered harming that species. Environmental advocates and even
Speaker 1: Wildlife Management Agency staffers have come out with concerns about
Speaker 1: impact of the change, which they say will open the
Speaker 1: door for resource extraction and development at the cost of
Speaker 1: recovering endangered and threatened species. As Bruce Kraft, the chief
Speaker 1: of the Conservation and Communications divisions of the North Dakota
Speaker 1: Game and Fish Department, wrote, threatened and endangered species are
Speaker 1: entirely dependent on healthy habitats. He added that the new
Speaker 1: rule could have quote dire consequences for those species, eroding
Speaker 1: the tools we have to conserve critical habitat definitively isn't
Speaker 1: a good thing as far as I'm concerned, and it's
Speaker 1: yet another attack on the wildlife in our public trust
Speaker 1: to benefit extractive industry. Here's the example gang and why
Speaker 1: Bergham said it's harming families and industry. Spotted owl Okay
Speaker 1: spotted owl put like the kaibosh on all logging in
Speaker 1: a huge area basically everything within spotted owl territory. Now,
Speaker 1: some of this for just cause. However, when we're talking
Speaker 1: about population health, not individual health, right, Bob the owl
Speaker 1: versus the owl, we can look at the landscape with
Speaker 1: these big lumps of fat on our shoulders and say
Speaker 1: we can cut over here, not over here, And by
Speaker 1: the time we get to over here to cut in
Speaker 1: a responsible and renewable fashion, the stuff that we had
Speaker 1: previously cut will have grown back into suitable habitat for
Speaker 1: the owl. Bob the owl may have been harmed, made
Speaker 1: the management decision not to cut all the habitat, but
Speaker 1: to do it in a mosaic or alternating pattern, so
Speaker 1: those animals such as Bob the owl have the ability
Speaker 1: to move to adjacent habitat. But even knowing that if
Speaker 1: Bob the owl dies, the population the owl will survive
Speaker 1: because we are managing the critical habitat that it is
Speaker 1: attached to. And make no mistake, a lot of these
Speaker 1: species don't have the adaptability of the white tailed deer, right,
Speaker 1: you got to remember that. So it is true that
Speaker 1: if that habitat goes away, that animal goes away, and
Speaker 1: I think that is something that we just cannot have,
Speaker 1: as you know, folks who think so highly of ourselves
Speaker 1: as Americans. Here the language was often used in a
Speaker 1: way to stop all extractive use throughout the entire range
Speaker 1: of the owl, even when it wasn't going to hurt
Speaker 1: the owl. When we talk about grizzly bears and we
Speaker 1: look at what is going on with the administration right now,
Speaker 1: right we have this rollback agenda that we've previously mentioned,
Speaker 1: where we are fighting to maintain wilderness study areas, proposed wilderness,
Speaker 1: the Roadless Rule, monument status where appropriate, the guard rails
Speaker 1: of the OHVRV, previous executive orders from the Carter and
Speaker 1: Nixon administrations. All of those things are pieces in the
Speaker 1: puzzle that provide refuge for species that have a hard
Speaker 1: time adapting. Low fecundady species like the grizzly bear, they
Speaker 1: just don't reproduce at a rate that makes them overly tolerant.
Speaker 1: It has to be a very hands on management animal.
Speaker 1: So if you were a pragmatic environmentalist, you know, a
Speaker 1: hunter or rancher, you could say, oh, considering we have
Speaker 1: the road rule, WSA is the big capital w Wilderness
Speaker 1: conservation lands on BLM, the assurance that we are going
Speaker 1: to have these long term connectivity corridors, then yes, please
Speaker 1: delist the grizzly bear right now. That is a responsible decision.
Speaker 1: But if you were to say, oh, none of this
Speaker 1: stuff is assured because the way the administration is acting,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I want to take this giant leap,
Speaker 1: because it is a giant leap now, because you cannot
Speaker 1: assure me that the habitat that is critical to the
Speaker 1: survival of this animal is going to be around in
Speaker 1: the near future. Protect the habitat habitat first, The species
Speaker 1: gonna survive so long as they have a place to go,
Speaker 1: that refuge zone. At the same time, we should be
Speaker 1: able to use the resources that are renewable in a
Speaker 1: responsible fashion. Both of those things can exist so long
Speaker 1: as we demand it. Jumping over to one of my
Speaker 1: all time favorite speed an Locaprio americana, the American prong
Speaker 1: horn antelope, hopefully their long horn antelope. That'd be great
Speaker 1: if you ever get tired of your drive to and
Speaker 1: from work, consider the sublet herd of the American prong
Speaker 1: horn which has been commuting along the same north South
Speaker 1: migration corridor in Wyoming for thousands of years. Every spring,
Speaker 1: the herd moves from the sagebrush plains of the Upper
Speaker 1: Green River basin one hundred and fifty miles north to
Speaker 1: Grand Teton National Park. They have fawns along the way,
Speaker 1: feeding the lush habitat of the park, and then when
Speaker 1: things start to get cold in the fall, they head
Speaker 1: south again to avoid the deep freeze. The route is
Speaker 1: so well established that at a place now called Trapper's Point, Wyoming,
Speaker 1: several six thousand year old hunting and butchering sites have
Speaker 1: been excavated right where pronghorn passed by today, but much
Speaker 1: more recently. Last month, in fact, Governor Mark Gordon held
Speaker 1: a press conference at Trapper's Point declaring it an official
Speaker 1: quote unquote bottleneck point for the modern pronghorn migration, the
Speaker 1: so called pas of the Pronghorn. That designation means that
Speaker 1: the Trapper's Point area will now be protected from any
Speaker 1: surface disturbing activity as part of Wyoming's migration policy, with
Speaker 1: the idea that the herd can continue to travel this
Speaker 1: way for another six thousand years. Wyoming Game and Fish
Speaker 1: have said that the root of the sublet herd is
Speaker 1: at high risk of being lost and they have identified
Speaker 1: thirteen specific bottleneck points that have to stay open and
Speaker 1: protected for the overall migration corridor to survive. The route
Speaker 1: has been pinched by residential development, highways, fenced off ranchland,
Speaker 1: and even dense forests growing into the pronghorn's preferred open habitat.
Speaker 1: Wyoming's effort is the first ever planned to protect the
Speaker 1: full length of a pronghorn migration corridor. It's been in
Speaker 1: development for almost twenty years and has often been opposed
Speaker 1: by energy industry groups wanting access to the oil and
Speaker 1: gas in the area, but biologists have gathered an overwhelming
Speaker 1: amount of data to document where the animals need to move,
Speaker 1: almost two decades of GPS location information and for more
Speaker 1: than four hundred collared pronghorn. Governor Gordon's announcement establishing the
Speaker 1: protection plan is great news, but it's not a victory
Speaker 1: lab Nearly half of the identified bottlenecks are on private land,
Speaker 1: which is exempt from protecting measures, and the plan specifically
Speaker 1: allows for ongoing development. Still, protecting the parts that we
Speaker 1: can protect and spreading information about the incredible annual round
Speaker 1: trip are big steps in the right direction. I shouldn't
Speaker 1: say they're exempt from protection. There's all sorts of things
Speaker 1: folks on the private side of the fence can do,
Speaker 1: such as perpetual conservation easements, agricultural easements, things that keep
Speaker 1: that land working but free from subdivision and development. Moving
Speaker 1: on to the classy Kimodo dragon desk. In recent years
Speaker 1: we've seen major revisions and how we understand our ancient ancestors.
Speaker 1: We used to think that Homo sapiens were the only
Speaker 1: ones who hunted in coordinated groups, had language, and dulled
Speaker 1: themselves up with ornamentation. Now we know that Neanderthals did
Speaker 1: all those things. But one early human, Homo florenciensis, has
Speaker 1: recently been downgraded. Anthropologists used to think that the hobbit
Speaker 1: sized hominid native to the islands of Indonesia hunted and
Speaker 1: cooked their own food, but a new paper in the
Speaker 1: journal Science Advances argues that the species was in fact
Speaker 1: simply a scavenger who depended on the kills of Komodo dragons.
Speaker 1: To test this hypothesis, the paper's authors fed a dead
Speaker 1: goat to Komodo dragons at a zoo in Atlanta, Georgia,
Speaker 1: then studied the tooth and claw marks on the goat's bones.
Speaker 1: They compared those marks to grooves in the bones of
Speaker 1: ancient dwarf elephants that were discovered in caves occupied by
Speaker 1: Homo floriensis. In both cases, the Komodo dragon tooth marks
Speaker 1: were close to the large muscle groups of the animal,
Speaker 1: whereas the marks made by Homo florenciensis were on the
Speaker 1: grizzly parts like the skull, spine, and feet. From this evidence,
Speaker 1: they conclude that the dragons were doing the killing in
Speaker 1: the feasting, and the hobbits were cleaning up the scraps.
Speaker 1: Still turns out, seeing huge, amazing, venomous lizards and letting
Speaker 1: them do all the work gathering food was a pretty
Speaker 1: good strategy. Homo florenciensis thrived for almost a million years
Speaker 1: through several big changes in climate and their surrounding environments.
Speaker 1: Homo sapiens, by contrast, have been around for only about
Speaker 1: three hundred thousand years, so we still have quite a
Speaker 1: few millennia to go before we can say we're better
Speaker 1: than that Indonesian hobba. Swinging back over to America's public lands,
Speaker 1: new proposed rules coming out of the Department of the
Speaker 1: Interior are set to change how grazing works across the West,
Speaker 1: and this one looks like a very mixed bag. The
Speaker 1: proposed BLM rules covering the one hundred and fifty five
Speaker 1: million acres open to grazing were issued in May, and
Speaker 1: after a public comment period, are now back with DOI
Speaker 1: for a second review. On the plus side, the regulations
Speaker 1: would extend the requirements to study environmental impacts to all
Speaker 1: uses of public land like logging, mining, or recreation. Those
Speaker 1: requirements currently only apply to the livestock industry. However, almost
Speaker 1: all the other provisions of the rule favor wealthy ranching operations. First,
Speaker 1: rules would lock in existing heavily subsidized grazing fees on
Speaker 1: public land, which amount to almost three hundred million dollars
Speaker 1: a year in below market rate discounts. The regulations would
Speaker 1: also allow individual ranchers to continue operating without change. Even
Speaker 1: if the BLM cites them for practices that are damaging
Speaker 1: the landscape. They can simply appeal the rule and keep
Speaker 1: going as before. The proposed changes would significantly decrease the
Speaker 1: ability for the public to comment on and challenge agency decisions.
Speaker 1: Right now, anyone can weigh in, but the new rules
Speaker 1: would limit input to those who can prove a quote
Speaker 1: unquote cognizible interest in the issue. I'm looking at good
Speaker 1: old Merriam Webster for the word cognizable and not having
Speaker 1: much luck. But according to reporting from Pro Publica and
Speaker 1: The High Country News, a former BLM official has said
Speaker 1: that the change will likely include only those with the
Speaker 1: business interest in the land and shut out conservation groups.
Speaker 1: The rules also remove the requirement to include public feedback
Speaker 1: and gri raising rules. That means you and me for
Speaker 1: a comprehensive deep dive on the issue. Pro Publica on
Speaker 1: HCN have done a really nice job, so check that
Speaker 1: out separately. The USDA has also instructed the Forest Service
Speaker 1: to expand grazing on National Forest Service land, including filling
Speaker 1: vacant grazing allotments, speeding up the permitting process, and using
Speaker 1: current rules to increase grazing activity. Longtime listeners of the
Speaker 1: show know that I'm in favor of balance use of
Speaker 1: the landscapes by ranchers, but that balance has to be maintained,
Speaker 1: and one group sure seems to be getting a whole
Speaker 1: lot of say right now. And here's the thing, in
Speaker 1: my experience, most of these folks know that you got
Speaker 1: to treat that land right. If it's going to provide
Speaker 1: those dividends year after year after year in terms of
Speaker 1: big fat cattle, no matter what you're paying for it.
Speaker 1: Every group, however, does have its bad actors, and without
Speaker 1: the qualified individuals on the ground looking at those allotments
Speaker 1: assessing the health, it allows those bad actors that absence
Speaker 1: of those individuals, due to lack of funding and workforce reductions,
Speaker 1: to cause some serious damage to the landscape to the
Speaker 1: point where it is not a renewable resource and it
Speaker 1: is detrimental to wildlife and the other users on the ground.
Speaker 1: But this one's not baked yet. I've been digging in
Speaker 1: with folks who know the subject well. There seems to
Speaker 1: be a lot of good, common sense things in here
Speaker 1: as well as the alarming ones that we just hit two.
Speaker 1: So we'll keep you posting. Jumping over to the hey
Speaker 1: bear desk, there's a trouble brewin you give it it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Out on the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming last week,
Speaker 1: campers Maggie Bassett and Seanadell were snugly zipped into their
Speaker 1: tents when they heard a big noise. Bassett told KTVQ
Speaker 1: news quote, I will never forget that sound of my
Speaker 1: tent being ripped open. Dell and Bassett did exactly the
Speaker 1: right thing. In response, they yelled and screamed, fired a
Speaker 1: gun to spook a bear away, and then most importantly,
Speaker 1: retreated to the safety of their truck before eventually driving away.
Speaker 1: The pair described classic predatory black bear behavior, with Bassett saying, quote,
Speaker 1: it just kind of circled around and came back from
Speaker 1: a different angle. Might remember last year a similar attack
Speaker 1: that had much worse and at Sam's Thrown campground in
Speaker 1: northern Arkansas. And that incident, a camper took iPad videos
Speaker 1: of a juvenile bear entering his camp. Later, police found
Speaker 1: a small amount of blood inside the man's truck before
Speaker 1: finding his dead body in the vicinity. Investigators believed that
Speaker 1: the man was lightly injured by an initial bite or
Speaker 1: scratch from the circling bear, retreated to the truck to
Speaker 1: treat his wounds, then returned to camp to pack up,
Speaker 1: and that's where the fatal encounter happened. In the case
Speaker 1: the two Wyoming campers, getting out of the area was
Speaker 1: the right call. When they returned the next day, of
Speaker 1: their tents were completely shredded, even though they had responsibly
Speaker 1: kept their food far away from the campsite in bear
Speaker 1: proof containers sliding over the Colorado Line near Grand Masa,
Speaker 1: the body of a person who died from unknown circumstances
Speaker 1: was scavenged by several animals, including a black bear. In
Speaker 1: most cases, a bear getting habituated to human food is
Speaker 1: very bad and almost inevitably leads to more human bear conflicts,
Speaker 1: but in this instance, officials said there was no danger
Speaker 1: that the bear would develop a taste for human flesh
Speaker 1: and attack anyone. To get more, ecologist Chuck Neil spoke
Speaker 1: to Cowboy State Daily and said that the bears will
Speaker 1: scavenge any dead meat on the landscape, no matter what
Speaker 1: the species. This human body would have been quote, just
Speaker 1: another lump of rotten flesh. I can't say that exactly
Speaker 1: makes me feel better. My sympathies definitely go out to
Speaker 1: the family, But you know, from my perspective, at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, recycling isn't a bad way to go.
Speaker 1: That's all I got for you this week. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for listening. Remember to write in to ask
Speaker 1: cl that's Ascal at the meat eater dot com. Let
Speaker 1: me know what's going on in your neck of the woods.
Speaker 1: You know, we appreciate it. Thanks again. We'll talk to
Speaker 1: you next week.