September 17, 2023 • 26 mins
This week Cal talks about landlocked dive training, Texas CWD, South Dakota Hounds, and whether bears like booze.
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Episode Transcript
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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.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
The French Agricultural Ministry issued at Cree banning quote meaty
names from being used to describe plant based foods, which
may be the best thing France has done since democracy.
Naming mushed, dyed and molded plant product as steak is
not a victimless crime people in two ways. Actually naming
(00:42):
your vegetable goo in a meaty way, such as ribs, turkey, burger,
et cetera, is like depriving someone of responsibility. It's saying
you don't need to know what's in this, and isn't
responsibility at the base of the vegan argument anyway. The
other way this mislabel as a crime would be if
someone who shops online were to door dash or instacart
(01:06):
and get the wrong product. Imagine a hardworking individual covered
in the day's layer of hard rot, sweat, and grime,
coming home unpacking their groceries, maybe cracking a cold beer.
It's late for dinner. Eight thirty pm or so long,
nasty commute home and the heat. And when this hard
(01:26):
work and Joe or Jane gets to the protein portion,
they don't find pig or cow. They find the steak.
That is not. As I said recently on the Mediat podcast,
if this is what government overreach is, I'll support it.
According to the Guardian UK, the draft decree, which applies
only to products made and sold in France, not European imports,
(01:48):
bans a list of twenty one meat names to describe
protein based products, including steak, escalope, spare, ribs, ham or butcher.
More than one hundred and twenty other meat eat associated
names such as cooked ham, poultry, sausage, nugget or bacon
will still be authorized, but only if the products do
not exceed a certain amount of plant proteins, with percentages
(02:12):
ranging between point five percent and six percent. This would
effectively mean that products marketed with labels such as vegan
bacon or vegan cocktail sausages would have to change their name. Now,
I truly have no interest in knocking the way anyone lives,
which may not seem genuine. At this point in the
opening used to be article and now as a monologue apparently,
(02:34):
So let me finish the braze on this carrot and
play it for you. Knowing where your food comes from
is very important to me. Whether you grow it in
a garden or get it from a garden or a farmer.
You know, this is critically important as we humans grow
in population. If we lose the knowledge of where food
comes from, whether it moves, oinks, or makes the creaking
(02:58):
popping sound of corn grows one on a hot July day,
we will lose the land, that viable, life giving land
that we all depend on. Our farms and ranches make
up a greater total acreage than all of our public lands. Combined.
Agricultural lands in the United States total about eight hundred
(03:18):
and ninety three million, four hundred thousand acres, which, just
so you know, is a downward trending number. Food is important,
where it comes from is more important. This week, we've
got regulations CWD, follow up the BLM, bison, radioactive pigs,
and so much more. But first I'm going to tell
(03:39):
you about my week. And my week well, it will
be spent on a boat by the time you hear this.
I'm going spearfishing for bluefintuna again, hoping to report on
next week's podcast that I got one and now have
to suffer through the burden of one hundred pounds or
(04:01):
so of delicious blue fin tuna in my freezer. In
order to prep for this trip as a landlocked citizen
of the US, I've been running the local trail systems,
trying to tackle altitude and vertical with a high heart rate,
lifting weights, which I have avoided for a lot of
years because I find gyms to just be depressing places,
places where humans who work for a living should not
(04:22):
have to visit. Damn you computers, Damn you term Anyway,
once again, trading away a week of September, which could
be elk season, could be spot in stock mule deer season,
but I'm trading that week for diving in southern California.
(04:43):
We'll see if it pays off. The reality is it's
worth it. The ocean is a heck of a place.
For those of you thinking is it smart or ethical
to kill a blue fin tuna, well the answer is
I can't say for certain, but information from the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Association states that while the population is
(05:05):
believed to be overfished, it is at a sustainable and
growing rate. The reason for the you know vagary here
that I don't knows is A it's the Pacific Ocean,
which has an area of over sixty three million, eight
hundred thousand square miles that's more than all of Earth's
land mass combined. And B a significant portion of the
(05:28):
Pacific bluefin tuna population migrates from the Western Pacific to
the Eastern Pacific, or let's say fifty five hundred nautical
miles from offshore California to the Sea of Japan, a
journey blue fan have made in like fifty five days,
and that migratory population is actually pretty much fished the
(05:49):
entire way. Blue fan can live up to twenty five
years of age and get huge topping scales at over
nine hundred pounds, but it takes them five years to
hit sexual maturity, which means they are relatively slow to reproduce.
And as we've said many times on this show, that's
recipe for overfishing, depleting your resource, and this particular resource
(06:11):
us people who want to practice responsible fishing. We only
have a small impact on that resource as it travels
into other jurisdictions, let's say, so a lot more to
report on the back end of this one, and again,
why does all the good stuff happen in September and October?
Moving on to the Regulations desk, South Dakota Game and
(06:36):
Fish is voted to essentially table the idea of expanding
hound hunting for mountain lions in the Black Hills until
further review and revision. At the end of twenty twenty three,
hound hunters had expressed a need for increased opportunity, but
what appears to be a fairly liberal take of female
allions already has the population in check, and it seems
like a fair amount of people who wrote in actually
(06:59):
enjoy thebility to chase lions without dogs once the snow hits. Now,
we're gonna move on. We're going to tackle some CWD
questions in Texas. As we reported on a couple weeks ago,
the folks over at the Ox Ranch made the news
for defying Texas Parks and Wildlife Divisions order to euthanize
(07:21):
deer on their property, this time in McLennan County. There's
two deer breeders that were issued kill orders from the
Texas Department of Fishing Wildlife for a shipment of deer
consisting of twenty nine animals reportedly worth one million dollars.
The breeders of the deer successfully won a restraining order
against TPWD. It seems one individual tested positive for the
(07:42):
always fatal disease and the state requires post mortem testing
of all of the associated deer from that facility. The
breeders are angling for live testing and in a written
statement say the fawns have been bred to be CWD resistant.
I'm gonna put an asterix next to that and we'll
get back to why. Here are a couple of quotes
that came in from our last Texas CWD article. I'm
(08:07):
from Texas and i don't have a problem with the changes.
I'm interested to see the backlash from hunting operations if
they can't remove the ear tag from deer they buy,
meaning that the breeding facilities in Texas, once they transport
deer to the high fence facilities where they can hunt,
they can remove the ear tags. And one of the
(08:28):
changes that's proposed would be to keep those tags on
these deer for tracking. This fellow goes on to say,
seems like that may deter clients from hunting because an
ear tag would remove more of the quote hunt from
their high fence experience. Another quote for you here, the
deer breeder high fence game is definitely a pay to
play thing and not something that is going to help
(08:50):
wildlife as a whole, but it could make you rich.
I just have to believe that captive deer sure aren't
helping the CWD thing. Signed just Texan's thought on this
whole thing. Then another you know, great and well written
email citing a bunch of people Ox Ranch as an example,
(09:12):
again stating CWD resistant deer seemingly low transmissibility rates of
CWD in some of these captive facilities, namely the Ox Ranch,
who may have had a CWD positive deear on site
for two years while no other deer tested positive for CWD.
How could this be so? So we're gonna just quickly
(09:34):
answer that one first. If you had a deer on
site that tested positive for CWD and then none of
the other deer it was around tested positive for CWD
in two years, you know, CWD takes a long time
to build up, which is why deer aren't tipping over
right away. So as the preons build up and up,
(09:56):
they become easier to detect later on in life. Consequently,
they are harder to detect earlier on in life, and
there's always the super fun possibility of a false positive
on that positive deer at the ox ranch. In regards
to the claims of CWD resistant, so far, CWD resistant
(10:20):
doesn't mean that these deer aren't getting CWD. What it
means is it's taking longer for the deer to test
positive for CWD. There have not been any known case
studies of infected deer not dying from the disease. Furthermore,
(10:42):
what we know from similar diseases such as a scrapie
in sheep, for example, is when sheep breeders tried their
best to breed for scrapy resistant sheep, they were actually
pretty darn successful, so much so that a new scrapeye
(11:03):
prion popped up, which is now called atypical scrapie. And
that is the fear of captive breeding facilities breeding for
deer that are resistant to these prions. Currently, they're somewhere
between nine and twenty different pryon strains of CWD that
are recognized. So as we know right like as we
(11:26):
build up these resistances to any disease, it takes generations
and generations and generations, and while the affected animal or
human or whoever whatever changes, so does the disease. If
you are interested in checking that stuff out, reference would
(11:47):
be the USGS March twenty twenty three update for the
North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference from the USGS
National Wildlife Health Center, and a super fun paper titled
Accurate Genomic Predictions for Chronic Wasting Disease in US White
tailed Deer. The last question that I want to tackle
(12:10):
is one that comes up a ton. CWD takes so
long to kill a deer in the wild, sometimes longer
than the average deer survives in the wild. Anyway, why
is it something that we should worry about? And the
answer is, and this isn't like a blanket answer for
(12:30):
all deer, right, but the deer that are alive and
positive for CWD but aren't exhibiting symptoms, aka they're not
stepping in front of trucks or hunter's bullets because they're
not thinking, well, they're still spreading these preons around even
though they're exhibiting healthy behavior. So, yeah, you're right, there's
(12:52):
a lot of things out there on the landscape that
are very confusing. It's very daunting as well, because these
preons are moved around by people and other animals to
a certain degree and quote unquote healthy deer. So the
fight against CWD for wild populations is the same for
(13:14):
these private populations, right, It's like, try not to move
them around. Why help it out? Hunters, That just means
butchering your deer in the field, getting a tested, testing
a deer, whether you want to consume it or not,
does help our agency officials figure out how dense CWD
is in a lot of areas and if it's popping
(13:36):
up in new areas. So it's all good data, citizen science.
Embrace it, don't be afraid of it. Moving on to
the bear desk, the three legged bear desk to be exact.
In Florida, a three legged bear was caught on camera
last week breaking into a home and helping himself to
(13:58):
adult beverages. Locally known as tripod, this thirsty bruin ripped
through a screened in patio and made straight for the
mini fridge. The homes owners say he helped himself to
three white claws, and he seemed to prefer mango and strawberry.
He also sampled some of the fish food that was
left next to a fish tank and left a happier
and maybe less socially awkward bear. In case you're wondering,
(14:22):
and I know you are, Bears probably don't go after
booze on purpose, though their powerful noses can likely smell
the alcohol in the can. A Florida Wildlife biologist told
local media that the white claw choice was probably random. Quote.
Bears will test foods and bite cans to drink what's inside.
We do not believe that bears choose cans that are
filled with alcohol. It's just a random search for their part.
(14:46):
Local residents, including the owners of the home, appear to
be taking the break in and stride. The owner, whose
son was at home when Tripod broke in, said quote,
I was not scared because we know the bear really well.
He lives here. We respect their habitat as much as
we can. Which is odd, because well, Tripod made your
back porch and fridge his habitat. Florida Wildlife officials have
(15:08):
no plans to catch Tripod at this point, noting that
the bear only broke into a screened end porch and
the fridge was unsecured, because if you leave an unsecured fridge,
you're basically asking for it. I don't know whether Tripod's
lack of limb actually impacts his ability to eat a
natural diet, but it is true that predators who become
disabled often wind up making trouble around towns and cities.
(15:31):
To take a far more deadly example, tigers in India
that become injured can sometimes turn to easier two legged prey.
One of the world's most famous tiger hunters, a man
named Jim Corbett, explains it in his books how he
often found that man eating tigers had some kind of
injury that kept them from hunting their usual diet. This
was sometimes a porcupine quill that got infected in a
(15:54):
cat's mouth or paw. You can read more about Corbett's
life and hunts at the meat eater dot com. Quick hack.
I guess if you will. For securing things. Obviously, big
fan of Yetti coolers, had them forever. In fact, first
YETI cooler in the state of Montana verifiable, no doubt. Anyway,
(16:14):
I've always liked them for the bear security right grizzly
bear state here I have found and this may or
may not be helpful to you, But if you're someone
who gets a lot of guns. New firearms come with
firearm locks, so you can lock up the action or
trigger mechanism. Part of a child safe gun environment at
(16:37):
the home, Well, I have a big lockable wall in
my house that no kid's going to get into or
anybody who isn't willing to like rip through a wall
to get in there. So several of my child safe
locks have become locks for my YETI coolers, so once
(16:58):
pad locks on there, they're safe considered like a bear
proof container, which is a real sweet deal. So just
a little something for you. Moving on to the conservation desk,
the Bureau of Land Management announced last week a twenty
eight million dollar investment in six large conservation projects around
the country. The money for these projects is coming in
(17:20):
from last year's Inflation Reduction Act, and the BLM will
be partnering with several organizations you might recognize. Eight point
nine million. For example, we'll be going to Trout Unlimited
for a large scale watershed and aquatic restoration initiative across
arid landscapes of the Upper Colorado Basin, California Great Basin,
and Columbia Pacific Northwest regions. According to a BLM press release,
(17:42):
This initiative will improve drought resiliency, promote aquatic connectivity, and
conserve ecosystems, habitats and the species that depend on them.
Another three and a half million will be going to
the Mule Deer Foundation to improve and conserve important habitat
for mule deer and sage grouse on BLM line. This
agreement will focus on defending and growing coarse sagebrush habitat,
(18:04):
which provides key winter and migratory habitats for mule deer.
Backcountry hunters and anglers will also be receiving two and
a half million dollars to employ and manage a team
to inventory, modify, and remove fences on BLM lands and
areas of identified need. Be sure to join your local
bhachapter for a chance to join one of these teams
(18:25):
and help remove fences that sometimes injure and kill migrating animals.
These aren't the only projects receiving money. The Nature Conservancy,
the National Fish and Wildlife Federation, and the Navajo Nation
will also be receiving part of that twenty eight million
dollars to fund other conservation projects. Volunteers and responsible hunters
and anglers are a crucial part of conserving our habitat
(18:47):
and wildlife, but sometimes it's necessary to throw a pile
of cash out of problem. When that money is used
responsibly and efficiently, it can be a huge help to
the animals we love and the places they live. On
to the Bison Desk, the National Park Service has published
a draft Environmental Impact Statement for a bison management plan
(19:08):
at Yellowstone National Park. This plan describes three alternatives for
managing bison in the park, including population goals and hunting methods.
Thanks to all of you who sent this one in.
The Park Service says that this plan allows them to
evaluate bison management based on new scientific information and changed circumstances,
explore ways to reduce bison being sent to slaughter, and
(19:31):
to continue working closely with tribal nations and agency partners
in management. The purpose of the plan is to preserve
an ecologically sustainable population of wild, wide ranging bison, while
continuing to work with other agencies to address issues related
to brucellosis transmission, human safety, property damage, and to support
tribal hunting outside the park. The plan outlines three alternatives
(19:55):
for meeting these objectives, and the Service wants the public
to weigh in if you live near Yellows Stone and
are impacted by bison, or you just want to have
a hand in crafting how we manage one of our
country's most iconic animals. Now's the time to get out
a notepad and pay attention. Under the first alternative, the
Park Service would keep the status quo. It would maintain
(20:15):
a population range of bison similar to the last two decades,
which is thirty five hundred to five thousand bison after calving.
It would continue hunt trap coordination to balance population regulation
in the park by using culling and hunting opportunities outside
the park, increase the number of bruce loosis free bison
relocated to tribal lands, and work with the State of
Montana to manage bruce loosis spreading from bison to cattle.
(20:38):
Under alternative number two, bison would be managed for a
slightly higher population ceiling, going up from five thousand to
six thousand individuals. This alternative would also emphasize restoring bison
to tribal lands and using tribal treaty hunting outside the
park to regulate numbers. Under the final alternative, the population
ceiling would be raised even further to seventh thousand individuals.
(21:01):
The Park Service would rely on natural selection, bison dispersal,
and public and tribal harvests in Montana as the primary
tools to regulate the population. We'll post a link at
the medeater dot com forward slash cow to the page
outlining these three alternatives if you weren't able to scribble
any of that down in your car. We'll also post
a link to where you can submit a comment if
(21:22):
you'd like to weigh in. The final data submit is
September twenty five. Moving on to the nuclear desk, Why
are Chernobyl pigs still radioactive? I know this is a
question that's been burning at the back of your mind
for years, and I'm here to answer it. Thanks to
listener Solomon Pomerantz for sending this one in. The Scientists
(21:45):
have been wondering for years why wild boars in Germany
and Austria have continued to test positive for radioactive isotope
nearly four decades after the Chernobyl disaster. Other animals, such
as deer have shown decreased levels of radioactivity, but in
what is become known as the wild bore paradox, bores
have maintained high levels of the isotope known as sessium
(22:06):
one thirty seven. A new study released last week may
have the answer to that paradox. Published in the journal
Environmental Science Technologies, the study finds that these wild bores
may not be radioactive due to Chernobyl after all. Instead,
they believe the pigs are still contaminated from nuclear testing
that was conducted before Chernobyl in the nineteen sixties. Working
(22:27):
with hunters collecting wild bore meat across southern Germany, they
measured ccium levels with a gamma ray detector. Only one
researcher was turned into a superhero during the course of
this testing, and that's when zero and the nearly fifty
collected meat samples the team found eighty eight percent of
the samples were above Germany's regulatory limits for radioactive cesium
(22:49):
and food. Calculating the ratio of cesium isotopes in the samples,
they found that the nuclear weapons testing accounted for ten
to sixty eight percent of the contamination. Some of that
candamine nation was from Chernobyl, but even if the accident
had never happened, some of the boers would still have
high levels of radiation. Bores have higher levels than other
animals because they ingest radioactive material from contaminated deer truffle mushrooms.
(23:14):
These mushrooms absorb sessium through the soil like nutrients, and
then the bores dig up and eat them during the
winter when corn and acorns are scarce. Researchers don't point
to one nuclear test in particular, these above ground tests
affected the entire northern hemisphere. An enormous updraft occurs after
an explosion, pushing material higher. By the time the fallout
(23:36):
gets down to Earth, radioactive materials have evenly distributed higher
in the atmosphere to create a truly global fallout phenomenon.
The good news is that, according to these researchers, you
need to eat a massive amount of pork chops to
start glowing green. While technically unsafe to eat, the levels
aren't high enough to actually hurt people. Still, knowing your
(23:57):
wild pig has radioactive material in it probably isn't what
you want to hear. The question for you is would
you rather hear dinners canceled? Moving on to the hellbender desk,
biologists with the Indiana Department Natural Resources and Purdue University
recently documented a very young hellbender salamander in the Blue River.
(24:18):
This discovery is significant because over the past three to
four decades, only adult hellbenders have been documented in the
Blue River. The presence of a young salamander suggests that
conservation efforts and rearing programs are accomplishing their goals for
the recovery of this endangered species. Finding hellbender larvae is
a huge benchmark of the program's success, said d NR's
(24:41):
Nate Ingrecht, the state herpetologist. It tells us that there
has been successful breeding, hatching, and recruitment in the wild.
It's a wonderful sign that captive, reared, and released hellbenders
are doing what we want them to do at this site.
Along with having the coolest name of any salamander, the
hellbender is also the largest aquatic sol in North America.
(25:01):
They can grow as long as thirty inches, though most
are between twelve and fifteen. They're mostly nocturnal and eat crayfish,
regular fish, toads, water snakes, and other hellbenders. Hellbenders have lungs,
but they mostly don't need them. They absorb oxygen from
the water through folds in their skin, and one hellbender
was documented as surviving without any lungs at all. Scientists
(25:22):
think they use their lungs for buoyancy rather than breathing.
Young hellbenders have gills, which they lose after about eighteen months.
It was one of these young guild hellbenders that they
found in Indiana. Hellbenders were listed as endangered in twenty
eleven and efforts are underway to grow their numbers. It
takes seven to eight years for hellbenders to reach sexual maturity,
so finding a young salamander is a great sign for
(25:45):
their recovery. That's why if you ever find a hellbender
on the end of your fishing line, just cut the
line let it go. The salamanders aren't poisonous, but you're
more likely to injure or kill it by handling it. Big.
Thanks to listener Caro Wagner for ascending and that's this story.
That's all I got for you this week. I'll try
to capture something really good from Tune to town and
(26:07):
get back to you next week. Thanks again, and remember
to write in to ask c a l that's an
asscal at the Meat Eater dot com and let me
know what's going on in your neck of the woods.
On top of that, go to www dot steel dealers
dot com. Find a local, knowledgeable steel dealer near you.
We'll get you set up with what you need, and
they won't try to send you home. It's what you don't.
(26:29):
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.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
The French Agricultural Ministry issued at Cree banning quote meaty
names from being used to describe plant based foods, which
may be the best thing France has done since democracy.
Naming mushed, dyed and molded plant product as steak is
not a victimless crime people in two ways. Actually naming
(00:42):
your vegetable goo in a meaty way, such as ribs, turkey, burger,
et cetera, is like depriving someone of responsibility. It's saying
you don't need to know what's in this, and isn't
responsibility at the base of the vegan argument anyway. The
other way this mislabel as a crime would be if
someone who shops online were to door dash or instacart
(01:06):
and get the wrong product. Imagine a hardworking individual covered
in the day's layer of hard rot, sweat, and grime,
coming home unpacking their groceries, maybe cracking a cold beer.
It's late for dinner. Eight thirty pm or so long,
nasty commute home and the heat. And when this hard
(01:26):
work and Joe or Jane gets to the protein portion,
they don't find pig or cow. They find the steak.
That is not. As I said recently on the Mediat podcast,
if this is what government overreach is, I'll support it.
According to the Guardian UK, the draft decree, which applies
only to products made and sold in France, not European imports,
(01:48):
bans a list of twenty one meat names to describe
protein based products, including steak, escalope, spare, ribs, ham or butcher.
More than one hundred and twenty other meat eat associated
names such as cooked ham, poultry, sausage, nugget or bacon
will still be authorized, but only if the products do
not exceed a certain amount of plant proteins, with percentages
(02:12):
ranging between point five percent and six percent. This would
effectively mean that products marketed with labels such as vegan
bacon or vegan cocktail sausages would have to change their name. Now,
I truly have no interest in knocking the way anyone lives,
which may not seem genuine. At this point in the
opening used to be article and now as a monologue apparently,
(02:34):
So let me finish the braze on this carrot and
play it for you. Knowing where your food comes from
is very important to me. Whether you grow it in
a garden or get it from a garden or a farmer.
You know, this is critically important as we humans grow
in population. If we lose the knowledge of where food
comes from, whether it moves, oinks, or makes the creaking
(02:58):
popping sound of corn grows one on a hot July day,
we will lose the land, that viable, life giving land
that we all depend on. Our farms and ranches make
up a greater total acreage than all of our public lands. Combined.
Agricultural lands in the United States total about eight hundred
(03:18):
and ninety three million, four hundred thousand acres, which, just
so you know, is a downward trending number. Food is important,
where it comes from is more important. This week, we've
got regulations CWD, follow up the BLM, bison, radioactive pigs,
and so much more. But first I'm going to tell
(03:39):
you about my week. And my week well, it will
be spent on a boat by the time you hear this.
I'm going spearfishing for bluefintuna again, hoping to report on
next week's podcast that I got one and now have
to suffer through the burden of one hundred pounds or
(04:01):
so of delicious blue fin tuna in my freezer. In
order to prep for this trip as a landlocked citizen
of the US, I've been running the local trail systems,
trying to tackle altitude and vertical with a high heart rate,
lifting weights, which I have avoided for a lot of
years because I find gyms to just be depressing places,
places where humans who work for a living should not
(04:22):
have to visit. Damn you computers, Damn you term Anyway,
once again, trading away a week of September, which could
be elk season, could be spot in stock mule deer season,
but I'm trading that week for diving in southern California.
(04:43):
We'll see if it pays off. The reality is it's
worth it. The ocean is a heck of a place.
For those of you thinking is it smart or ethical
to kill a blue fin tuna, well the answer is
I can't say for certain, but information from the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Association states that while the population is
(05:05):
believed to be overfished, it is at a sustainable and
growing rate. The reason for the you know vagary here
that I don't knows is A it's the Pacific Ocean,
which has an area of over sixty three million, eight
hundred thousand square miles that's more than all of Earth's
land mass combined. And B a significant portion of the
(05:28):
Pacific bluefin tuna population migrates from the Western Pacific to
the Eastern Pacific, or let's say fifty five hundred nautical
miles from offshore California to the Sea of Japan, a
journey blue fan have made in like fifty five days,
and that migratory population is actually pretty much fished the
(05:49):
entire way. Blue fan can live up to twenty five
years of age and get huge topping scales at over
nine hundred pounds, but it takes them five years to
hit sexual maturity, which means they are relatively slow to reproduce.
And as we've said many times on this show, that's
recipe for overfishing, depleting your resource, and this particular resource
(06:11):
us people who want to practice responsible fishing. We only
have a small impact on that resource as it travels
into other jurisdictions, let's say, so a lot more to
report on the back end of this one, and again,
why does all the good stuff happen in September and October?
Moving on to the Regulations desk, South Dakota Game and
(06:36):
Fish is voted to essentially table the idea of expanding
hound hunting for mountain lions in the Black Hills until
further review and revision. At the end of twenty twenty three,
hound hunters had expressed a need for increased opportunity, but
what appears to be a fairly liberal take of female
allions already has the population in check, and it seems
like a fair amount of people who wrote in actually
(06:59):
enjoy thebility to chase lions without dogs once the snow hits. Now,
we're gonna move on. We're going to tackle some CWD
questions in Texas. As we reported on a couple weeks ago,
the folks over at the Ox Ranch made the news
for defying Texas Parks and Wildlife Divisions order to euthanize
(07:21):
deer on their property, this time in McLennan County. There's
two deer breeders that were issued kill orders from the
Texas Department of Fishing Wildlife for a shipment of deer
consisting of twenty nine animals reportedly worth one million dollars.
The breeders of the deer successfully won a restraining order
against TPWD. It seems one individual tested positive for the
(07:42):
always fatal disease and the state requires post mortem testing
of all of the associated deer from that facility. The
breeders are angling for live testing and in a written
statement say the fawns have been bred to be CWD resistant.
I'm gonna put an asterix next to that and we'll
get back to why. Here are a couple of quotes
that came in from our last Texas CWD article. I'm
(08:07):
from Texas and i don't have a problem with the changes.
I'm interested to see the backlash from hunting operations if
they can't remove the ear tag from deer they buy,
meaning that the breeding facilities in Texas, once they transport
deer to the high fence facilities where they can hunt,
they can remove the ear tags. And one of the
(08:28):
changes that's proposed would be to keep those tags on
these deer for tracking. This fellow goes on to say,
seems like that may deter clients from hunting because an
ear tag would remove more of the quote hunt from
their high fence experience. Another quote for you here, the
deer breeder high fence game is definitely a pay to
play thing and not something that is going to help
(08:50):
wildlife as a whole, but it could make you rich.
I just have to believe that captive deer sure aren't
helping the CWD thing. Signed just Texan's thought on this
whole thing. Then another you know, great and well written
email citing a bunch of people Ox Ranch as an example,
(09:12):
again stating CWD resistant deer seemingly low transmissibility rates of
CWD in some of these captive facilities, namely the Ox Ranch,
who may have had a CWD positive deear on site
for two years while no other deer tested positive for CWD.
How could this be so? So we're gonna just quickly
(09:34):
answer that one first. If you had a deer on
site that tested positive for CWD and then none of
the other deer it was around tested positive for CWD
in two years, you know, CWD takes a long time
to build up, which is why deer aren't tipping over
right away. So as the preons build up and up,
(09:56):
they become easier to detect later on in life. Consequently,
they are harder to detect earlier on in life, and
there's always the super fun possibility of a false positive
on that positive deer at the ox ranch. In regards
to the claims of CWD resistant, so far, CWD resistant
(10:20):
doesn't mean that these deer aren't getting CWD. What it
means is it's taking longer for the deer to test
positive for CWD. There have not been any known case
studies of infected deer not dying from the disease. Furthermore,
(10:42):
what we know from similar diseases such as a scrapie
in sheep, for example, is when sheep breeders tried their
best to breed for scrapy resistant sheep, they were actually
pretty darn successful, so much so that a new scrapeye
(11:03):
prion popped up, which is now called atypical scrapie. And
that is the fear of captive breeding facilities breeding for
deer that are resistant to these prions. Currently, they're somewhere
between nine and twenty different pryon strains of CWD that
are recognized. So as we know right like as we
(11:26):
build up these resistances to any disease, it takes generations
and generations and generations, and while the affected animal or
human or whoever whatever changes, so does the disease. If
you are interested in checking that stuff out, reference would
(11:47):
be the USGS March twenty twenty three update for the
North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference from the USGS
National Wildlife Health Center, and a super fun paper titled
Accurate Genomic Predictions for Chronic Wasting Disease in US White
tailed Deer. The last question that I want to tackle
(12:10):
is one that comes up a ton. CWD takes so
long to kill a deer in the wild, sometimes longer
than the average deer survives in the wild. Anyway, why
is it something that we should worry about? And the
answer is, and this isn't like a blanket answer for
(12:30):
all deer, right, but the deer that are alive and
positive for CWD but aren't exhibiting symptoms, aka they're not
stepping in front of trucks or hunter's bullets because they're
not thinking, well, they're still spreading these preons around even
though they're exhibiting healthy behavior. So, yeah, you're right, there's
(12:52):
a lot of things out there on the landscape that
are very confusing. It's very daunting as well, because these
preons are moved around by people and other animals to
a certain degree and quote unquote healthy deer. So the
fight against CWD for wild populations is the same for
(13:14):
these private populations, right, It's like, try not to move
them around. Why help it out? Hunters, That just means
butchering your deer in the field, getting a tested, testing
a deer, whether you want to consume it or not,
does help our agency officials figure out how dense CWD
is in a lot of areas and if it's popping
(13:36):
up in new areas. So it's all good data, citizen science.
Embrace it, don't be afraid of it. Moving on to
the bear desk, the three legged bear desk to be exact.
In Florida, a three legged bear was caught on camera
last week breaking into a home and helping himself to
(13:58):
adult beverages. Locally known as tripod, this thirsty bruin ripped
through a screened in patio and made straight for the
mini fridge. The homes owners say he helped himself to
three white claws, and he seemed to prefer mango and strawberry.
He also sampled some of the fish food that was
left next to a fish tank and left a happier
and maybe less socially awkward bear. In case you're wondering,
(14:22):
and I know you are, Bears probably don't go after
booze on purpose, though their powerful noses can likely smell
the alcohol in the can. A Florida Wildlife biologist told
local media that the white claw choice was probably random. Quote.
Bears will test foods and bite cans to drink what's inside.
We do not believe that bears choose cans that are
filled with alcohol. It's just a random search for their part.
(14:46):
Local residents, including the owners of the home, appear to
be taking the break in and stride. The owner, whose
son was at home when Tripod broke in, said quote,
I was not scared because we know the bear really well.
He lives here. We respect their habitat as much as
we can. Which is odd, because well, Tripod made your
back porch and fridge his habitat. Florida Wildlife officials have
(15:08):
no plans to catch Tripod at this point, noting that
the bear only broke into a screened end porch and
the fridge was unsecured, because if you leave an unsecured fridge,
you're basically asking for it. I don't know whether Tripod's
lack of limb actually impacts his ability to eat a
natural diet, but it is true that predators who become
disabled often wind up making trouble around towns and cities.
(15:31):
To take a far more deadly example, tigers in India
that become injured can sometimes turn to easier two legged prey.
One of the world's most famous tiger hunters, a man
named Jim Corbett, explains it in his books how he
often found that man eating tigers had some kind of
injury that kept them from hunting their usual diet. This
was sometimes a porcupine quill that got infected in a
(15:54):
cat's mouth or paw. You can read more about Corbett's
life and hunts at the meat eater dot com. Quick hack.
I guess if you will. For securing things. Obviously, big
fan of Yetti coolers, had them forever. In fact, first
YETI cooler in the state of Montana verifiable, no doubt. Anyway,
(16:14):
I've always liked them for the bear security right grizzly
bear state here I have found and this may or
may not be helpful to you, But if you're someone
who gets a lot of guns. New firearms come with
firearm locks, so you can lock up the action or
trigger mechanism. Part of a child safe gun environment at
(16:37):
the home, Well, I have a big lockable wall in
my house that no kid's going to get into or
anybody who isn't willing to like rip through a wall
to get in there. So several of my child safe
locks have become locks for my YETI coolers, so once
(16:58):
pad locks on there, they're safe considered like a bear
proof container, which is a real sweet deal. So just
a little something for you. Moving on to the conservation desk,
the Bureau of Land Management announced last week a twenty
eight million dollar investment in six large conservation projects around
the country. The money for these projects is coming in
(17:20):
from last year's Inflation Reduction Act, and the BLM will
be partnering with several organizations you might recognize. Eight point
nine million. For example, we'll be going to Trout Unlimited
for a large scale watershed and aquatic restoration initiative across
arid landscapes of the Upper Colorado Basin, California Great Basin,
and Columbia Pacific Northwest regions. According to a BLM press release,
(17:42):
This initiative will improve drought resiliency, promote aquatic connectivity, and
conserve ecosystems, habitats and the species that depend on them.
Another three and a half million will be going to
the Mule Deer Foundation to improve and conserve important habitat
for mule deer and sage grouse on BLM line. This
agreement will focus on defending and growing coarse sagebrush habitat,
(18:04):
which provides key winter and migratory habitats for mule deer.
Backcountry hunters and anglers will also be receiving two and
a half million dollars to employ and manage a team
to inventory, modify, and remove fences on BLM lands and
areas of identified need. Be sure to join your local
bhachapter for a chance to join one of these teams
(18:25):
and help remove fences that sometimes injure and kill migrating animals.
These aren't the only projects receiving money. The Nature Conservancy,
the National Fish and Wildlife Federation, and the Navajo Nation
will also be receiving part of that twenty eight million
dollars to fund other conservation projects. Volunteers and responsible hunters
and anglers are a crucial part of conserving our habitat
(18:47):
and wildlife, but sometimes it's necessary to throw a pile
of cash out of problem. When that money is used
responsibly and efficiently, it can be a huge help to
the animals we love and the places they live. On
to the Bison Desk, the National Park Service has published
a draft Environmental Impact Statement for a bison management plan
(19:08):
at Yellowstone National Park. This plan describes three alternatives for
managing bison in the park, including population goals and hunting methods.
Thanks to all of you who sent this one in.
The Park Service says that this plan allows them to
evaluate bison management based on new scientific information and changed circumstances,
explore ways to reduce bison being sent to slaughter, and
(19:31):
to continue working closely with tribal nations and agency partners
in management. The purpose of the plan is to preserve
an ecologically sustainable population of wild, wide ranging bison, while
continuing to work with other agencies to address issues related
to brucellosis transmission, human safety, property damage, and to support
tribal hunting outside the park. The plan outlines three alternatives
(19:55):
for meeting these objectives, and the Service wants the public
to weigh in if you live near Yellows Stone and
are impacted by bison, or you just want to have
a hand in crafting how we manage one of our
country's most iconic animals. Now's the time to get out
a notepad and pay attention. Under the first alternative, the
Park Service would keep the status quo. It would maintain
(20:15):
a population range of bison similar to the last two decades,
which is thirty five hundred to five thousand bison after calving.
It would continue hunt trap coordination to balance population regulation
in the park by using culling and hunting opportunities outside
the park, increase the number of bruce loosis free bison
relocated to tribal lands, and work with the State of
Montana to manage bruce loosis spreading from bison to cattle.
(20:38):
Under alternative number two, bison would be managed for a
slightly higher population ceiling, going up from five thousand to
six thousand individuals. This alternative would also emphasize restoring bison
to tribal lands and using tribal treaty hunting outside the
park to regulate numbers. Under the final alternative, the population
ceiling would be raised even further to seventh thousand individuals.
(21:01):
The Park Service would rely on natural selection, bison dispersal,
and public and tribal harvests in Montana as the primary
tools to regulate the population. We'll post a link at
the medeater dot com forward slash cow to the page
outlining these three alternatives if you weren't able to scribble
any of that down in your car. We'll also post
a link to where you can submit a comment if
(21:22):
you'd like to weigh in. The final data submit is
September twenty five. Moving on to the nuclear desk, Why
are Chernobyl pigs still radioactive? I know this is a
question that's been burning at the back of your mind
for years, and I'm here to answer it. Thanks to
listener Solomon Pomerantz for sending this one in. The Scientists
(21:45):
have been wondering for years why wild boars in Germany
and Austria have continued to test positive for radioactive isotope
nearly four decades after the Chernobyl disaster. Other animals, such
as deer have shown decreased levels of radioactivity, but in
what is become known as the wild bore paradox, bores
have maintained high levels of the isotope known as sessium
(22:06):
one thirty seven. A new study released last week may
have the answer to that paradox. Published in the journal
Environmental Science Technologies, the study finds that these wild bores
may not be radioactive due to Chernobyl after all. Instead,
they believe the pigs are still contaminated from nuclear testing
that was conducted before Chernobyl in the nineteen sixties. Working
(22:27):
with hunters collecting wild bore meat across southern Germany, they
measured ccium levels with a gamma ray detector. Only one
researcher was turned into a superhero during the course of
this testing, and that's when zero and the nearly fifty
collected meat samples the team found eighty eight percent of
the samples were above Germany's regulatory limits for radioactive cesium
(22:49):
and food. Calculating the ratio of cesium isotopes in the samples,
they found that the nuclear weapons testing accounted for ten
to sixty eight percent of the contamination. Some of that
candamine nation was from Chernobyl, but even if the accident
had never happened, some of the boers would still have
high levels of radiation. Bores have higher levels than other
animals because they ingest radioactive material from contaminated deer truffle mushrooms.
(23:14):
These mushrooms absorb sessium through the soil like nutrients, and
then the bores dig up and eat them during the
winter when corn and acorns are scarce. Researchers don't point
to one nuclear test in particular, these above ground tests
affected the entire northern hemisphere. An enormous updraft occurs after
an explosion, pushing material higher. By the time the fallout
(23:36):
gets down to Earth, radioactive materials have evenly distributed higher
in the atmosphere to create a truly global fallout phenomenon.
The good news is that, according to these researchers, you
need to eat a massive amount of pork chops to
start glowing green. While technically unsafe to eat, the levels
aren't high enough to actually hurt people. Still, knowing your
(23:57):
wild pig has radioactive material in it probably isn't what
you want to hear. The question for you is would
you rather hear dinners canceled? Moving on to the hellbender desk,
biologists with the Indiana Department Natural Resources and Purdue University
recently documented a very young hellbender salamander in the Blue River.
(24:18):
This discovery is significant because over the past three to
four decades, only adult hellbenders have been documented in the
Blue River. The presence of a young salamander suggests that
conservation efforts and rearing programs are accomplishing their goals for
the recovery of this endangered species. Finding hellbender larvae is
a huge benchmark of the program's success, said d NR's
(24:41):
Nate Ingrecht, the state herpetologist. It tells us that there
has been successful breeding, hatching, and recruitment in the wild.
It's a wonderful sign that captive, reared, and released hellbenders
are doing what we want them to do at this site.
Along with having the coolest name of any salamander, the
hellbender is also the largest aquatic sol in North America.
(25:01):
They can grow as long as thirty inches, though most
are between twelve and fifteen. They're mostly nocturnal and eat crayfish,
regular fish, toads, water snakes, and other hellbenders. Hellbenders have lungs,
but they mostly don't need them. They absorb oxygen from
the water through folds in their skin, and one hellbender
was documented as surviving without any lungs at all. Scientists
(25:22):
think they use their lungs for buoyancy rather than breathing.
Young hellbenders have gills, which they lose after about eighteen months.
It was one of these young guild hellbenders that they
found in Indiana. Hellbenders were listed as endangered in twenty
eleven and efforts are underway to grow their numbers. It
takes seven to eight years for hellbenders to reach sexual maturity,
so finding a young salamander is a great sign for
(25:45):
their recovery. That's why if you ever find a hellbender
on the end of your fishing line, just cut the
line let it go. The salamanders aren't poisonous, but you're
more likely to injure or kill it by handling it. Big.
Thanks to listener Caro Wagner for ascending and that's this story.
That's all I got for you this week. I'll try
to capture something really good from Tune to town and
(26:07):
get back to you next week. Thanks again, and remember
to write in to ask c a l that's an
asscal at the Meat Eater dot com and let me
know what's going on in your neck of the woods.
On top of that, go to www dot steel dealers
dot com. Find a local, knowledgeable steel dealer near you.
We'll get you set up with what you need, and
they won't try to send you home. It's what you don't.
(26:29):
Thanks again and I'll talk to you next week.
Host
Cal Callaghan
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