This week, Cal talks about brooding anorexia, egg-sucking bobcats, why you should check your exhaust manifold (or risk having a bad drey), and so much more.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
From Mediators World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This is
Cal's weekend review, presented by Steel. Steel products are available
only at authorized dealers. For more, go to Steel Dealers
dot com. Now here's your host, Ryan cal Callahan. A
couple episodes ago, we called on scientists to genetically engineer
(00:26):
a vegan cat for the sake of all the songbirds
out there. Unfortunately, that one's going to remain a fantasy.
Scientists have long known that cats are obligate carnivores, meaning
they have no alternative to eating meat. Without the vitamins,
meno acids and fatty acids and animal tissue, felines will
lose their eyesight, shed their hair, lose the ability to
(00:47):
clop blood and fight off infections, will suffer brain damage
pretty soon die. I'm no fan of cats, but I
don't wish that on them. However, in a recent study
that old Snortokus is been working to suppress, researchers found
that quote the healthiest and least hazardous dietary choices for
(01:07):
dogs are nutritionally sound vegan diets. We'll dive into the
study in a moment, but first some background. Although dogs
are passionately devoted to carnivores. They're not obligate carnivores the
way cats are and human beings are the reason. About
forty thousand years ago, Homo sapiens in Europe began a
shifting away from so called hyper carnivory and began to
(01:31):
incorporate more and more plants into their diet. Then, around
sixteen thousand years ago, the first intentional dog breeding began.
Humans started selecting for genetic traits that had already started
to separate the canines following human migrations from the wolves.
The wolves may have been seeing into a future where
(01:51):
miniature pugs where sunflower hats and decided to keep their distance.
Will never know. Disney Pictures presents Bitli. One of the
genetic signatures that scientists use to determine the age of
this split is the mutation that allows dogs to digest
starches and vegetables in a way wolves cannot. So snort.
(02:14):
I'm sorry to say that this new study does have
a leg to stand on. However, the paper in question
doesn't have me convinced to switch all snort to tofu
and kale just yet. Here's the problems with this so
called study. It was funded by an outfit named pro Vege,
a vegan lobbying group that aims to reduce the global
(02:34):
consumption of animals by by the year two thousand forty.
Strike two. The study was based on survey answers from
participants rather than direct lab trials. No pun intendent, I
don't know about you, but I always answer a questionnaire
to make myself look a little bit better or so
than I really am. And Strike three controlling for age,
(02:57):
weight and other factors. The study also found that a
raw meat diet and a vegan diet were about the same. However,
both were better than conventional dog food. So at least
one thing we can take from this maybe toss the
dog a few more scraps and dial back the food
from a bag when possible. If you don't want that
corn cob let us stump or all those little eyesy
(03:20):
gouge out of potato, I know someone who definitely definitely does.
This week, we've got more Land Access Initiative, eggs sucking bobcats,
and earthy house moms who deplete white sage. But first,
I'm gonna tell you about my week. If you were
watching the Old Meat Eat or YouTube channel, you may
(03:41):
have caught an episode of cow in the Field where
I get my butt kicked diving for white sea bass. Well,
right now I'm out diving for them again. I may
in fact be getting my butt kicked again. But this
time around I convinced my friends Kimmy Werner and Justin
Turkowski to come down and join a local white sea
bass obsessive, My grabe and myself. With this crew, we're
(04:02):
definitely gonna put some sort of meat on the table.
It is, of course, my first diving session of the year,
breaking out from landlocked Montana. And speaking of landlocked, help
us open up landlocked public land to the public by
checking out the meat Eater Land Access Initiative found at
the meat eater dot com, where you can submit properties
(04:23):
that may need an easement or an outright purchase in
order to permanently provide access to our shared heritage of
public lands. Now Here are a few examples of reasons
for this program. First one is an oddball. Designated wilderness
areas are public land that are free for non residents
to utilize much of the year. However, requiring a resident
(04:45):
guide for non residents to hunt that public land is
potentially more absurd than the battle to allow Sunday hunting
in my home state of Pennsylvania. Seasonal restrictive access on
public land based upon residency creates perhaps biggest legislative driven
access issue in the country. That person is referring to,
of course, Wyoming, where the state of Wyoming somehow is
(05:09):
getting away with preventing non residents who draw tags in
that state to hunt designated wilderness areas, which I agree
is absolutely ridiculous. Every day I watch beautiful wildlife habitat
get turned into slabs of concrete and homes all across Florida,
and I need to try and help preserve some parts
of natural Florida. The Tampa Bay Area is one of
(05:32):
the fastest growing areas in the entire country, and development
continues to spread well beyond the immediate areas of Tampa,
which has continued to fracture Florida's shrinking wildlife corridor. Two
large tracts of public lands, Citrus Wildlife Management Area and
Croom Wildlife Management Area are each areas of concern, along
(05:53):
with a couple of smaller tracts of preserve lands in between.
As quote progress bulldozes its way towards this frail and
narrow section of the Florida Wildlife Corridor. Many developers are
rapidly consuming the wildlife habitat on Florida's quote Nature Coast.
Development is inevitable and it will happen in the rural
(06:13):
areas near this Wildlife Corridor. But we must preserve as
much as we can to keep the Florida Wildlife Corridor
intact and keep Florida's Nature Coast. The Nature Coast. Developers
have been trying to get property reasoned for years to
cram a thousand cookie cutter homes in this rural part
of Hernando County. I do not feel we can hold
(06:34):
them off for much longer. There is shady stuff going
on between the developer and the current dairy farm owners.
Maybe you can buy this land to keep it in
part of the Wildlife Corridor. Maybe you can help get
it reasoned into one acre lots with room for wildlife
to pass in between the homes instead of another wall
of concrete. There are no large neighborhoods like the thousand
(06:55):
home plan in the rural Brooksville area, and it gets
reasoned from agriculture land to tiny residential lots than other
areas nearby would quickly sell to developers, fragmenting and destroying
the already thin wildlife corridor in irreversible ways. Now is
the time to act on these properties before they're on
the chopping block and greedy developers come in offering more
(07:17):
money to turn prime wildlife areas into giant slabs of concrete.
Texas is big on private property but small on public land.
We have a growing population with little to no access
to rome for hunting. I would like to see the U. S.
Forest Service General lb J National Grasslands grow in access
(07:38):
and land mass to provide more hunting opportunities to those
who want to provide meat to their families without having
to bump into another hunter. LBJ is increasingly becoming more
crowded with horseback riders and hikers bumping game and harassing hunters,
so having more units restrictly for hunting would be ideal.
There is a rumor going around that horse groups are
(07:59):
pushing for more trade els in hunting units. Hunting rules
and regulations point out that we have to be one
hundred and fifty yards away from any marked trail, road,
or structure. This one and fifty yard rule puts hunters
on tiny, little islands to hunt in units that share
land with writers and hikers. I stumbled upon this piece
(08:19):
of land while searching for pronghorn units in Wyoming. It
is about fifteen thousand, three hundred acres of landlocked public land.
It's a mix of state BLM and national grasslands. In
one location, it's accessible by a corner crossing, but we
are still unsure what will come from that in this state,
(08:39):
and in another it misses a public road by two
hundred and fifty yards. It also nearly connects to another
accessible piece of BLM by seven hundred yards. I'm not positive,
but I think this could be an easy piece of
land to get access to and open up a large
amount of public land. I grew up in Jackson, New Jersey,
(09:01):
and they are taking so much beautiful land away to
build homes, draining lakes, all stuff that needs to be stopped.
Jackson is filled with deer and great fishing. If they
keep building these homes when I have kids, they will
never know what the town was truly like. It is
a great place to hunt for deer, waterfowl, fish, and
upland bird hunting, but it has been made inaccessible except
(09:23):
by the stream access law. This property has been closed
off by sprawling subdivisions and small ranches owned by people
who either don't like hunting and fishing or want the
public land just for themselves. It is becoming all too
common in the Bozeman area, as I'm sure you are
aware of. It seems that you have to drive further
from Bozeman every year to get any conflict free hunting,
(09:46):
and I'm sure this prevents many people with limited time
or those who are just getting into hunting from going
out and enjoying it. I grew up hunting and fishing
on this amazing piece of state forest land. Unfortunately, when
the surrounding lands sold, the new owners put a gate
across the township road about four hundred feet from the
previous parking area. This land is an amazing stretch of
(10:09):
big woods in the River Valley. The views are amazing,
and so is the hunting and fishing. Those are just
examples from one round of submissions to the land access Initiative.
They're coming in from all across the country, and just
like I'm sure you are, these folks are passionate about
access to public lands and they're seeing stuff go away fast.
(10:33):
So let's get on it raise money and provide more access.
Moving on, smudge stick poachers are doing a number on
the native white sage of southern California, according to a
recent report in the Los Angeles Times. If you're wondering
what a smudge stick is, you haven't been spending enough
(10:53):
time on social media. Smudge Sticks are small bundles of
white sage that members of native tribes have you is
for thousands of years for spiritual and medicinal purposes. The
sages burned slowly and the smoke is spread across a
room or a person to purify them from evil spirits
and energy. The plant is also used for shampoos, calming teas,
(11:13):
and as an antibiotic. Unfortunately, over the last several years,
sage stick smudging has become a global phenomenon. You may
have seen celebrities use smudge sticks on movies and TV shows,
and a quick search on Instagram pulls up thousands of
photos and videos, all with captions promising to cleanse your
home of bad energy and get you in that next
(11:34):
big pay raise. For a while, Urban Outfitters and Anthropology
two of my favorite clothing stores, until they told me
that I couldn't get my jeans any skinnier? Excuse me?
Do these effectively hide my thunder? Both of those outfits
sold smudge stick kits that included white sage. The problem
is with the smudge stick boom. Just like youth sports,
(11:56):
opinionated wealthy moms got involved and ruined it. White sage
is limited to southern California and northern bah It's the
only places in the world where white sage grows naturally.
Inspired by the social media trend white sage, poachers have
descended in droves, and members of the native tribes are
concerned that plants won't survive in the wild much longer.
(12:18):
There's all kinds of areas where white sage was growing
that have now been decimated. Teresa Romero, the environmental director
of the Santa and As Band of Chumash, told The
l A Times. White sage is not officially threatened or endangered,
but members of native tribes don't like where things are headed.
Poacher's target preserves with ideal white sage habitat, like the
(12:38):
North Etan Wanda preserved near San Bernardino. They hike in
at night with big duffel bags, cut the tops off
a plant, and leave with seventy to one hundred pounds
of sage. These poaching outfits make a pretty penny. Wholesale
prices ranged between thirty and sixty dollars a pound, so
one big Duffel bag could be worth as much as
six thousand dollars. Sage poacher don't just disrespect a culturally
(13:01):
important plant to native tribes, they also hurt the ecosystem.
White sage is a cornerstone species of the coastal sage
scrub habitat in southern California, and it's an important food
source for a wide array of animals. Bees, butterflies, and
hummingbirds eat the nectar, not just Gwyneth Paltrow what's in
the box. Small mammals sparrows, grouse, and quail eat the seeds,
(13:25):
and deer, antelope, elk, and mountain sheep brows on the
plant itself. As with most poaching issues, conservationists are trying
to address both the supply and demand side. Nature preserve
managers are working to stop poachers, and groups like the
California Native Plant Society are working to educate the public
about the white sage crisis. They encourage smudge stick users
(13:46):
to purchase sage from Sustainable Farmers order grow their own
at home. It might be more expensive or less convenient
and ordering from Amazon, but that will help dry up
the market for poached sage and hopefully ensure that the
unique white sage habitat survives for years to come. Shut
down your Etsy page, mom. Next up, the squirrel desk.
(14:10):
Some of you might remember the Inconvenient squirrel from episode
who made a habit of filling a man's red Chevy
pick up with walnuts every fall. Well, a listener named
Sean Wohler recently wrote in to tell me about another
inconvenient squirrel. This one nearly got someone killed. Wohler is
an engineer for a fire department in the St. Louis area,
(14:30):
and he got a call last week about a car
on the side of the road engulfed in flames. The
driver appeared to be unharmed when they arrived at the scene,
but as they were extinguishing the fire, the driver said
something to Wohler that made him do a double take.
I heard the car owners say something like, sir, he
was he was all burnt up. I pulled him off
to the side of the road, but I think he's
still alive. He needs help, and obviously that got got
(14:54):
my attention. I had no idea what he was talking about.
Wohler soon realized that the burn victim wasn't a purse,
but a small gray squirrel. The fire truck engineer isn't
a squirrel biologist, but it was obvious to him that
the little guy wasn't going to make it. He said,
the burns looks like third degree burns on a person,
so he took the animal from the driver and put
it out of its misery. Wohler had listened to episode.
(15:16):
When he told his captain about the inconvenient squirrel in
North Dakota, they quickly worked out what happened. The car
was almost entirely burned up by the time they got there,
but it looked like the squirrel had built a nest
near the top of the motor on one of the
exhaust manifolds. The driver said the car hadn't been driven
in a while, which gave the animal enough time to
build the nest. Once the car had stopped and caught fire,
(15:38):
the squirrel managed to escape and crawl out towards the driver,
but not before sustaining some pretty serious burns. The little
thing was just it was hanging onto his arms like
it like it didn't want to let go, So you
tell he was pretty pretty moved and broken up about this.
I think Wohler spoke for all squirrel hunters when he
told me that even though he enjoys squirrel hunting with
(15:58):
his son, he hates to see us squirrel in such
bad shape. The story might be a total downer, but
it's not quite over. While Wohler and his team were
extinguishing the fire, the driver found another little gray squirrel
running around the road near the scene. This one was
also singed, but was in much better shape than the first.
The fireman who works in Wohler's truck knew about a
(16:18):
wildlife rehabilitation center nearby, and the driver decided to take
the animal in. Wohler doesn't know whether the squirrel survived,
but he said it looked like it was okay when
it left. I asked Woller whether he's running across any
other arsonists squirrels. He said he's never dealt with the
car before, but he did hear about a squirrel that
got caught in a transformer on a power line. When
(16:39):
the charred body fell to the ground, it started a
twenty acre brush fire. Bottom line, if you leave your
car parked outside for a few days, be sure to
check the engine bay for a squirrel nest. And here's
a fun fact for you. A squirrel nest is actually
called a dre. Dre could also be the nest of
a flying squirrel or a ringtail possum. On top of that,
(17:00):
I really gotta say to the driver, you are a
nice human being. Good on you. You're not concerned about
your car melting down on the side of the road,
but you are concerned about a sin gray squirrel enough
to take them to an animal rehab facility anyway. Good
job to the first responders as well. Moving on, biologists
(17:22):
from the U. S Geological Survey captured footage of a
native bobcat feasting on the eggs of an invasive Burmese python.
Long time listeners will recall our near pathological coverage of
the python's devastating effects in Florida and the various attempts
to control them. Everything from Truman the Sniffing Dog, to
Judah snakes, to the Python bowl hunting competition to high
(17:44):
fashion handbags have been engaged in knocking back the python
situation in Florida, But what if one of the everglades
own native species started adapting to the new animal on
the landscape. In June of last year, scientists studying pithe
on reproduction set up a camera trap near one of
the snake's nests in the Big Cypress National Preserved west
(18:05):
of Miami. To their surprise, the footage revealed a twenty
pound bobcat repeatedly visiting the untended nest, investigating, sniffing, feeding,
and even burying the eggs for safe keeping, a behavior
known as cashing. Even when mama python returned to sit
on the nest, the bobcat didn't give up, not only
prowling nearby, but even trading several swipes with the snake
(18:29):
and living to tell the tale, or at least living
to show up on the camera again. By the end
of the raid, forty two of the sixty four eggs
had been destroyed, and none of the remaining eggs hatched
when scientists brought them back to the lab and incubated them.
The devastation was so complete that the footage ends with
a possum and a hisped cotton rat, two species that
(18:49):
pythons eat like peanuts. Criss crossing over the nest in
what almost looks like a victory dance. There's every reason
to hope that python eggs become a staple of the
Florida bobcat's diet. A feline who's thrived on the eggs
of ground nesting birds is perfectly suited to find and
eat the eggs of ground nesting snakes. Pythons also do
(19:09):
not eat when they sit on their eggs, a behavior
known as brooding time and orexia. They can defend a nest,
but they're not likely to kill predators, which could be
the reason the cats survived in this video. However, our
python problem is not solved yet. Estimates put the number
of pythons about equal to the number of bobcats in Florida,
which seems even, but the most fertile bobcat only has
(19:32):
about twenty kittens a year, while the average python lays
about one hundred eggs a year. Pythons can also thrive
over a much wider range of Florida habitats, and if
you are a hisped cotton rat listening to the show,
it's kind of like a preseason ball game. You don't
really care who wins. You just know the outcomes are
(19:53):
gonna affect you equally. Still, it's encouraging to see at
least some Floridians effectively combat adding these snakes from the
heart of Bozeman, Montana and on behalf of my uncle
Mike cal Callahan, who played on the national championship team
and still has a luscious head of hair. Go Bobcats.
(20:16):
That's all I've got for you this week. Thank you
so much for listening. Remember to write in to a
s k C. A L. That's asked Cal at the
Meat Eater dot com and let me know what's going
on in your neck of the woods. And if you've
noticed that your woods are starting to look pretty poor,
should probably go pick up a brand new steel chainsaw.
Start by heading to www dot steel Dealers dot com
(20:40):
to find a local, knowledgeable steel dealer near you. They'll
be happy to see you, they'll set you up with
what you need, and they won't try to send you
home with what you don't. Thanks again, and I'll talk
to you next week.
From Mediators World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This is
Cal's weekend review, presented by Steel. Steel products are available
only at authorized dealers. For more, go to Steel Dealers
dot com. Now here's your host, Ryan cal Callahan. A
couple episodes ago, we called on scientists to genetically engineer
(00:26):
a vegan cat for the sake of all the songbirds
out there. Unfortunately, that one's going to remain a fantasy.
Scientists have long known that cats are obligate carnivores, meaning
they have no alternative to eating meat. Without the vitamins,
meno acids and fatty acids and animal tissue, felines will
lose their eyesight, shed their hair, lose the ability to
(00:47):
clop blood and fight off infections, will suffer brain damage
pretty soon die. I'm no fan of cats, but I
don't wish that on them. However, in a recent study
that old Snortokus is been working to suppress, researchers found
that quote the healthiest and least hazardous dietary choices for
(01:07):
dogs are nutritionally sound vegan diets. We'll dive into the
study in a moment, but first some background. Although dogs
are passionately devoted to carnivores. They're not obligate carnivores the
way cats are and human beings are the reason. About
forty thousand years ago, Homo sapiens in Europe began a
shifting away from so called hyper carnivory and began to
(01:31):
incorporate more and more plants into their diet. Then, around
sixteen thousand years ago, the first intentional dog breeding began.
Humans started selecting for genetic traits that had already started
to separate the canines following human migrations from the wolves.
The wolves may have been seeing into a future where
(01:51):
miniature pugs where sunflower hats and decided to keep their distance.
Will never know. Disney Pictures presents Bitli. One of the
genetic signatures that scientists use to determine the age of
this split is the mutation that allows dogs to digest
starches and vegetables in a way wolves cannot. So snort.
(02:14):
I'm sorry to say that this new study does have
a leg to stand on. However, the paper in question
doesn't have me convinced to switch all snort to tofu
and kale just yet. Here's the problems with this so
called study. It was funded by an outfit named pro Vege,
a vegan lobbying group that aims to reduce the global
(02:34):
consumption of animals by by the year two thousand forty.
Strike two. The study was based on survey answers from
participants rather than direct lab trials. No pun intendent, I
don't know about you, but I always answer a questionnaire
to make myself look a little bit better or so
than I really am. And Strike three controlling for age,
(02:57):
weight and other factors. The study also found that a
raw meat diet and a vegan diet were about the same. However,
both were better than conventional dog food. So at least
one thing we can take from this maybe toss the
dog a few more scraps and dial back the food
from a bag when possible. If you don't want that
corn cob let us stump or all those little eyesy
(03:20):
gouge out of potato, I know someone who definitely definitely does.
This week, we've got more Land Access Initiative, eggs sucking bobcats,
and earthy house moms who deplete white sage. But first,
I'm gonna tell you about my week. If you were
watching the Old Meat Eat or YouTube channel, you may
(03:41):
have caught an episode of cow in the Field where
I get my butt kicked diving for white sea bass. Well,
right now I'm out diving for them again. I may
in fact be getting my butt kicked again. But this
time around I convinced my friends Kimmy Werner and Justin
Turkowski to come down and join a local white sea
bass obsessive, My grabe and myself. With this crew, we're
(04:02):
definitely gonna put some sort of meat on the table.
It is, of course, my first diving session of the year,
breaking out from landlocked Montana. And speaking of landlocked, help
us open up landlocked public land to the public by
checking out the meat Eater Land Access Initiative found at
the meat eater dot com, where you can submit properties
(04:23):
that may need an easement or an outright purchase in
order to permanently provide access to our shared heritage of
public lands. Now Here are a few examples of reasons
for this program. First one is an oddball. Designated wilderness
areas are public land that are free for non residents
to utilize much of the year. However, requiring a resident
(04:45):
guide for non residents to hunt that public land is
potentially more absurd than the battle to allow Sunday hunting
in my home state of Pennsylvania. Seasonal restrictive access on
public land based upon residency creates perhaps biggest legislative driven
access issue in the country. That person is referring to,
of course, Wyoming, where the state of Wyoming somehow is
(05:09):
getting away with preventing non residents who draw tags in
that state to hunt designated wilderness areas, which I agree
is absolutely ridiculous. Every day I watch beautiful wildlife habitat
get turned into slabs of concrete and homes all across Florida,
and I need to try and help preserve some parts
of natural Florida. The Tampa Bay Area is one of
(05:32):
the fastest growing areas in the entire country, and development
continues to spread well beyond the immediate areas of Tampa,
which has continued to fracture Florida's shrinking wildlife corridor. Two
large tracts of public lands, Citrus Wildlife Management Area and
Croom Wildlife Management Area are each areas of concern, along
(05:53):
with a couple of smaller tracts of preserve lands in between.
As quote progress bulldozes its way towards this frail and
narrow section of the Florida Wildlife Corridor. Many developers are
rapidly consuming the wildlife habitat on Florida's quote Nature Coast.
Development is inevitable and it will happen in the rural
(06:13):
areas near this Wildlife Corridor. But we must preserve as
much as we can to keep the Florida Wildlife Corridor
intact and keep Florida's Nature Coast. The Nature Coast. Developers
have been trying to get property reasoned for years to
cram a thousand cookie cutter homes in this rural part
of Hernando County. I do not feel we can hold
(06:34):
them off for much longer. There is shady stuff going
on between the developer and the current dairy farm owners.
Maybe you can buy this land to keep it in
part of the Wildlife Corridor. Maybe you can help get
it reasoned into one acre lots with room for wildlife
to pass in between the homes instead of another wall
of concrete. There are no large neighborhoods like the thousand
(06:55):
home plan in the rural Brooksville area, and it gets
reasoned from agriculture land to tiny residential lots than other
areas nearby would quickly sell to developers, fragmenting and destroying
the already thin wildlife corridor in irreversible ways. Now is
the time to act on these properties before they're on
the chopping block and greedy developers come in offering more
(07:17):
money to turn prime wildlife areas into giant slabs of concrete.
Texas is big on private property but small on public land.
We have a growing population with little to no access
to rome for hunting. I would like to see the U. S.
Forest Service General lb J National Grasslands grow in access
(07:38):
and land mass to provide more hunting opportunities to those
who want to provide meat to their families without having
to bump into another hunter. LBJ is increasingly becoming more
crowded with horseback riders and hikers bumping game and harassing hunters,
so having more units restrictly for hunting would be ideal.
There is a rumor going around that horse groups are
(07:59):
pushing for more trade els in hunting units. Hunting rules
and regulations point out that we have to be one
hundred and fifty yards away from any marked trail, road,
or structure. This one and fifty yard rule puts hunters
on tiny, little islands to hunt in units that share
land with writers and hikers. I stumbled upon this piece
(08:19):
of land while searching for pronghorn units in Wyoming. It
is about fifteen thousand, three hundred acres of landlocked public land.
It's a mix of state BLM and national grasslands. In
one location, it's accessible by a corner crossing, but we
are still unsure what will come from that in this state,
(08:39):
and in another it misses a public road by two
hundred and fifty yards. It also nearly connects to another
accessible piece of BLM by seven hundred yards. I'm not positive,
but I think this could be an easy piece of
land to get access to and open up a large
amount of public land. I grew up in Jackson, New Jersey,
(09:01):
and they are taking so much beautiful land away to
build homes, draining lakes, all stuff that needs to be stopped.
Jackson is filled with deer and great fishing. If they
keep building these homes when I have kids, they will
never know what the town was truly like. It is
a great place to hunt for deer, waterfowl, fish, and
upland bird hunting, but it has been made inaccessible except
(09:23):
by the stream access law. This property has been closed
off by sprawling subdivisions and small ranches owned by people
who either don't like hunting and fishing or want the
public land just for themselves. It is becoming all too
common in the Bozeman area, as I'm sure you are
aware of. It seems that you have to drive further
from Bozeman every year to get any conflict free hunting,
(09:46):
and I'm sure this prevents many people with limited time
or those who are just getting into hunting from going
out and enjoying it. I grew up hunting and fishing
on this amazing piece of state forest land. Unfortunately, when
the surrounding lands sold, the new owners put a gate
across the township road about four hundred feet from the
previous parking area. This land is an amazing stretch of
(10:09):
big woods in the River Valley. The views are amazing,
and so is the hunting and fishing. Those are just
examples from one round of submissions to the land access Initiative.
They're coming in from all across the country, and just
like I'm sure you are, these folks are passionate about
access to public lands and they're seeing stuff go away fast.
(10:33):
So let's get on it raise money and provide more access.
Moving on, smudge stick poachers are doing a number on
the native white sage of southern California, according to a
recent report in the Los Angeles Times. If you're wondering
what a smudge stick is, you haven't been spending enough
(10:53):
time on social media. Smudge Sticks are small bundles of
white sage that members of native tribes have you is
for thousands of years for spiritual and medicinal purposes. The
sages burned slowly and the smoke is spread across a
room or a person to purify them from evil spirits
and energy. The plant is also used for shampoos, calming teas,
(11:13):
and as an antibiotic. Unfortunately, over the last several years,
sage stick smudging has become a global phenomenon. You may
have seen celebrities use smudge sticks on movies and TV shows,
and a quick search on Instagram pulls up thousands of
photos and videos, all with captions promising to cleanse your
home of bad energy and get you in that next
(11:34):
big pay raise. For a while, Urban Outfitters and Anthropology
two of my favorite clothing stores, until they told me
that I couldn't get my jeans any skinnier? Excuse me?
Do these effectively hide my thunder? Both of those outfits
sold smudge stick kits that included white sage. The problem
is with the smudge stick boom. Just like youth sports,
(11:56):
opinionated wealthy moms got involved and ruined it. White sage
is limited to southern California and northern bah It's the
only places in the world where white sage grows naturally.
Inspired by the social media trend white sage, poachers have
descended in droves, and members of the native tribes are
concerned that plants won't survive in the wild much longer.
(12:18):
There's all kinds of areas where white sage was growing
that have now been decimated. Teresa Romero, the environmental director
of the Santa and As Band of Chumash, told The
l A Times. White sage is not officially threatened or endangered,
but members of native tribes don't like where things are headed.
Poacher's target preserves with ideal white sage habitat, like the
(12:38):
North Etan Wanda preserved near San Bernardino. They hike in
at night with big duffel bags, cut the tops off
a plant, and leave with seventy to one hundred pounds
of sage. These poaching outfits make a pretty penny. Wholesale
prices ranged between thirty and sixty dollars a pound, so
one big Duffel bag could be worth as much as
six thousand dollars. Sage poacher don't just disrespect a culturally
(13:01):
important plant to native tribes, they also hurt the ecosystem.
White sage is a cornerstone species of the coastal sage
scrub habitat in southern California, and it's an important food
source for a wide array of animals. Bees, butterflies, and
hummingbirds eat the nectar, not just Gwyneth Paltrow what's in
the box. Small mammals sparrows, grouse, and quail eat the seeds,
(13:25):
and deer, antelope, elk, and mountain sheep brows on the
plant itself. As with most poaching issues, conservationists are trying
to address both the supply and demand side. Nature preserve
managers are working to stop poachers, and groups like the
California Native Plant Society are working to educate the public
about the white sage crisis. They encourage smudge stick users
(13:46):
to purchase sage from Sustainable Farmers order grow their own
at home. It might be more expensive or less convenient
and ordering from Amazon, but that will help dry up
the market for poached sage and hopefully ensure that the
unique white sage habitat survives for years to come. Shut
down your Etsy page, mom. Next up, the squirrel desk.
(14:10):
Some of you might remember the Inconvenient squirrel from episode
who made a habit of filling a man's red Chevy
pick up with walnuts every fall. Well, a listener named
Sean Wohler recently wrote in to tell me about another
inconvenient squirrel. This one nearly got someone killed. Wohler is
an engineer for a fire department in the St. Louis area,
(14:30):
and he got a call last week about a car
on the side of the road engulfed in flames. The
driver appeared to be unharmed when they arrived at the scene,
but as they were extinguishing the fire, the driver said
something to Wohler that made him do a double take.
I heard the car owners say something like, sir, he
was he was all burnt up. I pulled him off
to the side of the road, but I think he's
still alive. He needs help, and obviously that got got
(14:54):
my attention. I had no idea what he was talking about.
Wohler soon realized that the burn victim wasn't a purse,
but a small gray squirrel. The fire truck engineer isn't
a squirrel biologist, but it was obvious to him that
the little guy wasn't going to make it. He said,
the burns looks like third degree burns on a person,
so he took the animal from the driver and put
it out of its misery. Wohler had listened to episode.
(15:16):
When he told his captain about the inconvenient squirrel in
North Dakota, they quickly worked out what happened. The car
was almost entirely burned up by the time they got there,
but it looked like the squirrel had built a nest
near the top of the motor on one of the
exhaust manifolds. The driver said the car hadn't been driven
in a while, which gave the animal enough time to
build the nest. Once the car had stopped and caught fire,
(15:38):
the squirrel managed to escape and crawl out towards the driver,
but not before sustaining some pretty serious burns. The little
thing was just it was hanging onto his arms like
it like it didn't want to let go, So you
tell he was pretty pretty moved and broken up about this.
I think Wohler spoke for all squirrel hunters when he
told me that even though he enjoys squirrel hunting with
(15:58):
his son, he hates to see us squirrel in such
bad shape. The story might be a total downer, but
it's not quite over. While Wohler and his team were
extinguishing the fire, the driver found another little gray squirrel
running around the road near the scene. This one was
also singed, but was in much better shape than the first.
The fireman who works in Wohler's truck knew about a
(16:18):
wildlife rehabilitation center nearby, and the driver decided to take
the animal in. Wohler doesn't know whether the squirrel survived,
but he said it looked like it was okay when
it left. I asked Woller whether he's running across any
other arsonists squirrels. He said he's never dealt with the
car before, but he did hear about a squirrel that
got caught in a transformer on a power line. When
(16:39):
the charred body fell to the ground, it started a
twenty acre brush fire. Bottom line, if you leave your
car parked outside for a few days, be sure to
check the engine bay for a squirrel nest. And here's
a fun fact for you. A squirrel nest is actually
called a dre. Dre could also be the nest of
a flying squirrel or a ringtail possum. On top of that,
(17:00):
I really gotta say to the driver, you are a
nice human being. Good on you. You're not concerned about
your car melting down on the side of the road,
but you are concerned about a sin gray squirrel enough
to take them to an animal rehab facility anyway. Good
job to the first responders as well. Moving on, biologists
(17:22):
from the U. S Geological Survey captured footage of a
native bobcat feasting on the eggs of an invasive Burmese python.
Long time listeners will recall our near pathological coverage of
the python's devastating effects in Florida and the various attempts
to control them. Everything from Truman the Sniffing Dog, to
Judah snakes, to the Python bowl hunting competition to high
(17:44):
fashion handbags have been engaged in knocking back the python
situation in Florida, But what if one of the everglades
own native species started adapting to the new animal on
the landscape. In June of last year, scientists studying pithe
on reproduction set up a camera trap near one of
the snake's nests in the Big Cypress National Preserved west
(18:05):
of Miami. To their surprise, the footage revealed a twenty
pound bobcat repeatedly visiting the untended nest, investigating, sniffing, feeding,
and even burying the eggs for safe keeping, a behavior
known as cashing. Even when mama python returned to sit
on the nest, the bobcat didn't give up, not only
prowling nearby, but even trading several swipes with the snake
(18:29):
and living to tell the tale, or at least living
to show up on the camera again. By the end
of the raid, forty two of the sixty four eggs
had been destroyed, and none of the remaining eggs hatched
when scientists brought them back to the lab and incubated them.
The devastation was so complete that the footage ends with
a possum and a hisped cotton rat, two species that
(18:49):
pythons eat like peanuts. Criss crossing over the nest in
what almost looks like a victory dance. There's every reason
to hope that python eggs become a staple of the
Florida bobcat's diet. A feline who's thrived on the eggs
of ground nesting birds is perfectly suited to find and
eat the eggs of ground nesting snakes. Pythons also do
(19:09):
not eat when they sit on their eggs, a behavior
known as brooding time and orexia. They can defend a nest,
but they're not likely to kill predators, which could be
the reason the cats survived in this video. However, our
python problem is not solved yet. Estimates put the number
of pythons about equal to the number of bobcats in Florida,
which seems even, but the most fertile bobcat only has
(19:32):
about twenty kittens a year, while the average python lays
about one hundred eggs a year. Pythons can also thrive
over a much wider range of Florida habitats, and if
you are a hisped cotton rat listening to the show,
it's kind of like a preseason ball game. You don't
really care who wins. You just know the outcomes are
(19:53):
gonna affect you equally. Still, it's encouraging to see at
least some Floridians effectively combat adding these snakes from the
heart of Bozeman, Montana and on behalf of my uncle
Mike cal Callahan, who played on the national championship team
and still has a luscious head of hair. Go Bobcats.
(20:16):
That's all I've got for you this week. Thank you
so much for listening. Remember to write in to a
s k C. A L. That's asked Cal at the
Meat Eater dot com and let me know what's going
on in your neck of the woods. And if you've
noticed that your woods are starting to look pretty poor,
should probably go pick up a brand new steel chainsaw.
Start by heading to www dot steel Dealers dot com
(20:40):
to find a local, knowledgeable steel dealer near you. They'll
be happy to see you, they'll set you up with
what you need, and they won't try to send you
home with what you don't. Thanks again, and I'll talk
to you next week.
Host
Cal Callaghan
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