June 23, 2025 • 26 mins
This week, Jordan Sillars guest hosts while Cal is in the Arctic and covers what happens when a dog tries to answer the call of the wild, the biggest human-killed grizzly bear ever, and a new helicopter hunt in Texas.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
From Meat Eaters World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
This is Cow's Week in Review with Ryan cow cawaan
Here's cal Dog lovers in Yellowstone National Park were treated
to a stomach churning few moments as a German shepherd
launched itself from the window of a moving vehicle and
made a beeline for a gray wolf. The incident was
(00:34):
caught in an amazing series of photos by a Yellowstone
tour guide and posted on Facebook. In the photos, you
can see a long haired German shepherd running at what
looks like full speed down a paved road as a
young gray wolf lopes away. The dog had apparently seen
its ancient ancestor from its perch inside a JPSUV. Whether
(00:56):
it was answering the call of the wild or just
looking for a night, it snuck out an open window
thanks to a poorly conceived child safety device. The wolf
increased its speed from a lope to a trot, but
then suddenly turned and faced its long haired assailant. At
that point, the shepherd was almost literally the dog that
caught the car. It pulled up about fifteen feet from
(01:19):
the wolf to reconsider its life choices, but at that point,
its owner had gotten out of his car and was
yelling at the dog to come back. The German shepherd
made the wise decision to heed its owner's advice and
return to its life of luxury. It may have rejected
the call of the wild, but it can console itself
with the fact that, unlike that wolf, it doesn't have
(01:40):
to scavenge dead animals from the side of the road.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Serve your dog, Chuck Wagon, chances are he's already waiting
for it.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
In Jack London's famous novel, the protagonist Buck is a
mix between his saint Bernard father and his Scotch shepherd mother.
Buck weighs about one hundred and forty pounds, which he
even for a wolf, is a big boy male. Gray
wolves can weigh as much as one hundred and eighty pounds,
but most are closer to one p forty. Buck, in
(02:09):
other words, had a decent shot at becoming an alpha.
I can't say the same for the German shepherd in
this incident. It looks like it outweighs the yearling wolf
by a bit, but not that much. He probably made
a good choice getting back in that jeep. Now I
should address the elephant in the room. I am not
as eagle eared listeners have likely figured out Bryan Callahan
(02:34):
CAL is somewhere above the Arctic Circle in Alaska, and
so was unable to record an episode this week. But
the news doesn't stop, and neither do we. I'm Jordan Sillers,
writer and producer for Cal's Week in Review, managing editor
at the Meteater dot com, and host of our new
true crime podcast, Blood Trails. You're stuck with me for
this week, but don't worry. It's a good one. We
(02:57):
have a record breaking Grizzly, a new hellic hunt in Texas,
and a major lawsuit against Major League Fishing. Plus our
fearless leader will be back next week and I'm sure
he'll have some amazing stories from his time in the
Great White North. He also called me from an airport
in Alaska because he had a message he wanted to
(03:17):
deliver that you're not going to want to miss. Here's Kyl.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Hey gang, welcome to another episode of Cal's we can review.
If you're hearing this and you're like, boy, that quality
is not great, it's because I'm sitting on my butt
and at the Everett Air Center here in Fairbanks, Alaska,
getting ready to go up to the Artic National Wildlife Refuge.
There is so much going on that I'm having like
anxiety leaving for this week in a place that I've
(03:47):
always wanted to go and see and I've never been.
So my right arm, Jordan Sillers, is going to take
over this week's recording of the podcast. I'm calling in
this intro because as per usual, I'm trying to make
it all work, and some things are falling through the cracks.
But your coverage of what's going on out there is
(04:09):
absolutely critical. Right now, about three million acres of easily accessible,
open to the every day outdoors person public land is
on the chopping block. And the reason that it is
is because this is an experiment. There's a few people
(04:31):
who despise the fact that we have the freedoms that
we do, and these people have found an opening and
budget reconciliation process to run this experiment of We're going
to see how many people lay down on the job
and how easy it is to take three million acres
so we can come back and take five the next
year and ten the year after that. This is not
(04:54):
an exaggeration, it's not a drill. This is what's happening,
and if you don't, get off your butts, free loaders
and start writing emails and making phone calls. And I'll
give you a good example of how to do this.
My Senator Steve Dance has a solid position on public
lands and American freedom are access to these lands. I say,
(05:17):
Senator Dance or staffer that is listening to me, I
appreciate your position on public lands. What I need you
to do is contact Senators Crapo, Senator's Rish, Senator's Thune
and tell them what public lands mean to the people
who actually use them, and they are not to be
(05:38):
included in the budget reconciliation process. I'm going to call
back tomorrow and ask how those calls went. I'm also
going to remember that staffer's name, so when I do
call back, I can be like, oh, Katie, Ryan Callahan,
we spoke yesterday. Great to hear your voice again. How
things going. I'm going to break the monotony of that
(05:59):
job because is right now. Advocates just like yourselves are
calling and emailing constantly, which is great, but we got
to keep on the pressure and we've got to ask
for more. It's appropriate to ask for more, right now,
and you've got to remember that the context here is
when you show up to a river in Montana, there's
(06:21):
a lot out of state plates. And it's not because
they don't understand the value of public land. All of
these Western states, eleven Western states that are going to
lose access to public lands, which by default is going
to concentrate more outdoors people on the lands we have left,
i e. Removing the front country, what happens to the
(06:43):
back country. You got to remember that all these states
are in the process of regulation battles to address overcrowding
on public lands. As is, do you really want to
lose two million, three million, four million and eight, especially
in a manner that does not refill the pot, which
(07:05):
is what the budget reconciliation package does. Man, we lose
something and we don't get it back forever. That is
what's on the line. This is not hyperbole. And again,
like I say, don't listen to me, get off your butts,
go to the Federal Register dot gov and you can
see the land sales. They're real. Get a hold of
(07:28):
your duly elected right now, and do not complain to
me if you don't do this. The last bit that
I want to lay out there for you before I
drop off the soapbox and mister Sellers can get onto
the real news. Here is quit shooting holes in the boat,
take your personal baggage and put it behind you. There
(07:49):
is a fire on our front door and it is
public land sales. We have a bucket brigade running water
to that fire on the front step through the house.
And by saying well who did you vote for when
we don't currently have an election, all you're doing is
pulling people carrying water to the fire out of line.
(08:11):
The fight is the fire public land sales, and if
you're not carrying water to that fire, you may as
well just stay out of it. We'll get to the
backyard issues, i e. Elections when the fire is out,
get in line, star carrying waters onto the news.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Moving on to the lawsuit desk, the family of a
man who died in a boating accident is suing Major
League Fishing for what they say were negligent decisions made
during the day of an April fishing tournament in Alabama.
On April sixteenth, twenty twenty five, a competitive angler from
Georgia named Flint Davis struck a fishing boat helmed by
(08:54):
guide Gary Holcombe, the owner of Smith Lake Streper Guide Service.
The accident occurred during the Lewis smith Lake Tournament, which
runs for three days and offers a one hundred fifteen
thousand dollars cash prize. Three of Holcomb's clients, who were
not participating in the tournament, fifty eight year old Joey Broome,
(09:15):
forty one year old John Clark, and the sixty two
year old Jeffrey Little, were all struck and killed. Flint
and Holcombe sustained injuries but survived the accident. Now, Broome's
family is suing Major League Fishing, Davis and Holcombe for
what they say was negligent and wanton conduct that resulted
(09:36):
in Broome's death. The suit reads, quote by organizing and
incentivizing high speed boat operation in foggy, congested conditions on
a public waterway shared with recreational and guided vessels MLF,
that's Major League Fishing created a foreseeable risk of serious
injury and death. The suit also alleges that Davis, who
(09:59):
was driving the boat, acted negligently by operating his boat
at a quote excessive and unsafe speed, failing to maintain
a proper lookout and otherwise navigating in a reckless and
dangerous manner under the circumstances. Broome's lawyers contend that Hulcombe,
the fishing guide whose boat was struck, was also partially
responsible for the accident. Holcombe had set up his clients
(10:22):
near what the lawsuit says as a high traffic area
known as Miller Flats. The pseudo ledges that Holcombe should
have known this was a dangerous place to park his
boat and what it describes as low visibility conditions. Now
Major League Fishing has since responded and a counterclaim filed
in Colman County. They call the allegations quote blatantly false, inaccurate,
(10:44):
and misleading. They point out that the weather was actually
sunny and clear on April sixteenth, and that the accident
occurred in open water with plenty of visibility. It's tough
to know exactly what to think about this because officials
haven't released many details about the accident itself. Flint was
driving a Nitro Z twenty one fishing boat while Holcombe
(11:06):
was operating out of a center console vessel. Clark and
Lyttle were thrown overboard and drowned, according to local media,
while Broom was struck and pronounced dead at the scene.
It's true that conditions were fair on the day of
the incident, but the suit alleges that dense fog, missed
or clouds covered quote parts of Lewis Smith Lake that morning.
(11:29):
I think we all know that a lake can be
foggy in the morning, even if the rest of the
day is bright and sunny at the same time. If
you read Broom's lawsuit carefully, you'll notice that it doesn't
actually say the area around where the accident took place
was covered in fog. It just says that parts of
the lake were foggy that day and Davis was driving
too fast. We reached out to Davis, but he didn't
(11:52):
respond as of this recording. He did release a brief
statement on Instagram following the accident. He said quote, I
want to thank everyone for the thoughts and prayers. I
ask that you keep me and all the other affected
people and families in your prayers. I'll let you guys
know more when I can. He has not posted on
the social media site since the first day of the
(12:13):
Smith Lake tournament. Moving on to the hunting lease Desk,
Alabama made the news a few weeks ago for auctioning
off hunting leases on state owned land. Outlets like Outdoor
Life called this auction unusual, and it is true that
states don't frequently sell hunting leases to the public. But
(12:35):
I was able to get us a little more context
for this program that sheds new light on exactly what
is and isn't going on. The auction was held on
May thirty first. Members of the public were able to
bid on one hundred and forty state owned tracts of
land that ranged from forty acres to over thirteen hundred acres.
(12:56):
A forester with the Alabama Department of Conservation of Natural
Resources told us these properties weren't located on dedicated public
hunting land like wildlife management areas or special opportunity areas.
In other words, Alabama isn't auctioning off exclusive access to
properties that used to be open to the public. Instead,
(13:16):
these tracks are managed for the purpose of revenue generation
for various state entities like school boards and mental health boards.
The money generated doesn't go towards conservation, but it does
generate revenue for the state, which theoretically at least helps
retain Alabama's low state tax rates. This also isn't the
(13:37):
first time this kind of auction has been held. The
state held similar auctions for these five year leases in
twenty ten, twenty fifteen, and twenty twenty, so even though
Alabama is somewhat unique in leasing state owned land, this
isn't the first time they've done this. All told, the
auction generated nearly five hundred thousand dollars for the state,
(13:57):
which will be paid out by the leases every year.
The top property was an eight hundred and eighty three
acre tract just outside of Tuscaloosa owned by the Alabama
Department of Mental Health institution. The winning bid for that
property clocked in at eighteen thousand, five hundred dollars, and
it wasn't the only one to break fifteen k. Another
(14:18):
five hundred and fourteen acre property in Fayette and Marion
Counties went for seventeen thousand, five hundred, while a nine
hundred and twenty acre property in Walker County went for
seventeen thousand, two fifty. Now, you might argue that the
state should grant the public access to these properties free
of charge. I'm sympathetic to that argument, but the state
(14:39):
says agencies like the Department of Mental Health rely on
these leases for revenue. It's also worth pointing out that
not all of these properties cost big bucks to rent out.
Thirty of the one hundred and forty properties went for
less than one thousand dollars, like a thirty six acre
tract in Walker County that went for only two sixty.
(15:00):
Western state listeners might balk at that because they have
free access to millions of acres, But in a largely
private land state like Alabama, spending a couple hundred bucks
to have forty acres all to yourself might not seem
like a bad deal. But we want to know what
you think. How much would you be willing to spend
on a forty or one hundred acre lease? Is this
(15:22):
program in Alabama a helpful way to give average hunters
exclusive access or just another grift on the slow slide
toward the privatization of natural resources? Let us know by
writing in to askcl at the Meat Eater dot com
(15:43):
Over at the Crime Desk, the Pennsylvania Game Commission has
broken up a large poaching ring over in Cambria County,
east of Pittsburgh. The bus began with a routine fishing
license check by a PA Game warden who noticed guns, ammunition,
and a spotlight in one suspects vehicle. The angler in
question later admitted to shooting several deer after dark with
(16:04):
the light. Once that thread was pulled, a much larger
operation began to unravel. The Game Commission issued three search
warrants of vehicles and property, uncovering evidence that implicated a
total of eight people in poaching deer with spotlights. After
a thorough investigation, the Game Commission charged the crew with
the following additional crimes, failing to tag deer, killing bucks
(16:27):
that didn't meet legal antler restrictions, hunting with tags from
states other than Pennsylvania, and exceeding legal bag limits. In total,
eleven deer and a gray fox were killed illegally. That's
a pretty full buffet of bad hunter behavior. Jason Wise,
Sandra Wise, Daniel Wise, Isaac Keith, Dan Sodomont, Marina Morgan,
(16:49):
Dennis Corson, and Levi Corson all pleaded guilty to the
charges and will pay thirty five thousand dollars in restitution
and have their hunting and fishing privileges suspended for a
grand total of seventy years. Let's hope they take that
legal boundary more seriously than the other ones they waltzed across.
Kudos to the game wardens and commission officials of the
(17:11):
Keystone State for seeing this one through Across the world.
We finally have some data on a different method of
deterring poaching. Conservationists in South Africa's Kruger National Park have
been cutting off the horns of rhinos over the past
several years to remove the incentive for poachers to kill them.
We reported on this before. Unfortunately, the intervention affects a
(17:34):
rhino's ability to socialize and reduces how far they range.
You know, it kind of makes them depressed. Like if
someone gave you the worst haircut of your life, you'd
lose a bit of your swagger down at the bar
and likely stay home a lot more often.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
I got a bad haircut right before me and my
big ex broke up, But that was so long ago
now I can barely remember.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Scott is acutely aware that is last a long haircut
in place exactly four hundred and thirty one days ago.
Z So is the chop worth it for the rhinos survival?
Turns out the answer is a resounding yes. A new
study in the journal Science found a seventy eight percent
reduction in poaching among the two thousand, two hundred and
eighty four rhinos that were de horned in Krueger over
(18:16):
the past seven years. Even more eye opening, removing horns
is also by far the cheapest anti poaching intervention. The
annual rhino defense budget in Kruger is almost fifteen million dollars,
which pays for park rangers, tracking dogs, high tech AI cameras, drones, helicopters,
a whole army's worth of gear and personnel. And even
(18:38):
though all this effort does catch hundreds of poachers every year,
corruption and organized crime is so bad at Kruger that
those same poachers are almost never jailed and quickly end
up right back in the park targeting rhinos again. Enforcers
in the park have been targeted with kidnappings, beatings, and
death threats. The problem got so bad that white rhino
(18:59):
populations crashed from about ten thousan six hundred individuals in
twenty eleven to only twenty six hundred and twenty twenty.
That's a seventy five percent drop. That fifteen million bucks
a year didn't even make a dent. In contrast, darting rhinos,
providing them with blindfolds and earplugs, then chainsawing off their
horns and letting them go costs less than two hundred
(19:22):
grand a year. The one flaw with a de horning
approach has been how fast the horns grow back. Park
workers have to repeat the procedure at least every eighteen months,
and some dehorned rhinos were still poached in the study
period because their stumps had started to regrow. So, unless
the market for rhino horn collapses because people wake up
to the fact that they're just paying for keratin, which
(19:43):
is the exact same substance that makes up the toenails
you clip into the trash and the hair your barber
sweeps off the floor, dehorning rhinos looks like the best
approach we've got. And you know, if there was a
hit man after me and I knew I could escape,
if I got a terrible mullet, I would do my
best to embrace the the business in the front, party
in the back. Moving on to the invasive species desk,
(20:07):
Texas is calling in air support, and it has nothing
to do with politics, the military, or drug cartels. Instead,
the lone Star State is combating an invasive species of
barbary sheep, also known as awdads. Big thanks to listener
Leland Hart for sending us this story. Earlier this year,
the Texas State Legislature passed a bill that will allow
(20:29):
hunters to kill awed ads from helicopters. It flew through
the House and Senate on near unanimous votes. Only one
rep from Dallas voted no in the House, and was
signed by Governor Abbott late last month. Here's one of
the bill's sponsors, a Democrat named Eddie Morales Junior, doing
his best Cow's Week in Review impression on the House floor,
which is coincidentally also what I'm doing in this episode.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
We add to twice postpone this because it's not a
bad bill. Now, I'm not pulling any wool over anybody's
eyes either, But seriously, this is an invasive speeches of sheep,
the aud at sheep, and it's causing bacteria that kills
the bighorn sheep. It's important to Texas. What's more liberty
(21:14):
freedom than being able to shoot audit sheet from helicopters.
Tell me about that, right.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
The bill doesn't allow just anyone to go up in
a helicopter and start mowing down odd ad sheep. A
landowner or a landowner's agent has to apply for a
permit from Texas Parks and Wildlife, and then that person
can participate in the hunt. The bill adds odd ads
to a short list of animals that can be hunted
from helicopters in Texas, which previously included only feral hogs
(21:40):
and coyotes. In a Texas tale as old as time,
add ad sheep were imported to West Texas by returning
World War II veterans. These gis had served in North Africa,
and they figured the barbary sheep they saw there would
make a great addition to the suite of Texas game animals.
They were right about one thing. Odd Ad sheep thrive
in the mouthinous regions of West Texas and the Panhandle,
(22:02):
and some estimate that there are as many as forty
thousand living in the state. Unfortunately, as is the case
with many invasive species, there were significant downsides. Oddad outcompete
native bighorn sheet for resources, and recent research has found
that they carry a harmful bacteria that has decimated big
horn populations. Odad also harm cattle operations by trampling fences
(22:25):
and causing thousands of dollars in damage. Of course, the
Texas legislature doesn't really want to eliminate all odd ad
from the landscape. Outfitters and landowners make a pretty penny
selling odd ad hunts. There are no bag limits or
seasons on those hunts, and now they have an even
higher dollar option if they can rent themselves a helicopter.
One outfitter who spoke to the Texas Tribune pointed out
(22:48):
that a recreational hunter who spends that kind of money
is looking for an old male sheep. They won't be
shooting females or in the kinds of numbers that will
do much to impact the population. A usdat that he
found that feral hog populations can be reduced by as
much as sixty seven percent after three helicopter flights. But
these hunts were conducted by professionals for the purpose of
(23:09):
population control. Texas Parks and Wildlife already had the authority
to conduct aerial gunning of odd ads, so this bill
is more about recreation than species management. Still, if helicopter
hunting attracts more people to West Texas to hunt an
odd ad, that's probably not a bad thing Meeter's very
own cringe. Schneider recently went to Texas to hunt an
(23:30):
odd ad. She didn't use a helicopter, but it still
looked like a great time. Moving on to the grizzly desk,
a Wisconsin hunter tag what is now the Boone and
Crocket record for the largest grizzly bear ever harvested by
a human. Brian Van Lanen shot the giant bruin last
fall near Norton Sound, Alaska. He knew it would likely
(23:53):
be a top ten giant, but after a sixty day
drying period, the Boone and Crocket Club recently confirmed that
it's the largest hunt killed grizzly in the world. Van
Lannen was hunting alongside Lance Kronberger of freelance Outdoor Adventure.
According to a Boon and Crockett press release, Van Lanen
had been hunting for a grizzly since the spring of
twenty twenty four, but his luck turned last fall when
(24:15):
late in the evening on the second day, he and
Kronberger saw a bear that piqued their interest. It was
browsing along an alder patch, but it was too late
in the evening to put a stock on it. Fortunately,
when they got up the next morning, they saw a
similarly sized bear working along a riverbank. They decided to
make a move, but as they were working down from
their glassing knob, another grizzly appeared. Both boers were about
(24:39):
the same size, and one started chasing the other. The
hunters doubled their efforts to keep the bears in sight,
and suddenly one of the bears emerged about four hundred
yards away. Van Lanen hustled to get his three thirty
eight Lapo a magnum rifle, in position and pulled the trigger.
The hunter shot rolled the bear on its side, but
it got up and headed towards a patch of alders.
(25:00):
Van Lanen sent several follow up shots down range, but
it wasn't until they caught up to the bear near
the river bank that two final shots put the bear
down for good. The head of the massive bore was
covered in scar tissue from years of fighting, Its bottom
lip was split in half, and its teeth were worn
to nups. Kronberger estimated that it was twenty to twenty
five years old, which is the average age most grizzlies
(25:23):
lived to in the wild, but for whatever reason, this
one had grown to be especially large. Its official skull
measurement of twenty seven and nine sixteenths inches makes it
the largest grizz to be harvested by a hunter since
the Boon and Crockett Club began recording skull measurements in
the nineteen twenties. The only larger skull in the B
and C Books was found by a hunter in nineteen
(25:45):
seventy six and measures twenty seven and thirteen sixteenths inches.
Congrats to Van Lanen on an awesome bear. If you
want to see it for yourself, you can head on
over to the meaeater dot com, where we've published images
of the bear, including from our very own Ranch Williams,
who saw the skull in person at the thirty second
Big Game Awards display at the Wonders of Wildlife Museum
(26:06):
in Springfield, Missouri. That's all I have for you this week.
Thank you so much for listening. I had a great
time guest hosting, but I know no one can fill
the shoes of the great and powerful Ryan cal Callahan.
Tune in next week to hear about Cal's trip to
the Arctic, along with all the latest news and info.
To amaze your friends and astound your enemies, and don't
(26:27):
forget to write in to ask C. A. L At
the meeteater dot com and let us know what's happening
in your neck of the woods. We'll see you next week.
From Meat Eaters World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
This is Cow's Week in Review with Ryan cow cawaan
Here's cal Dog lovers in Yellowstone National Park were treated
to a stomach churning few moments as a German shepherd
launched itself from the window of a moving vehicle and
made a beeline for a gray wolf. The incident was
(00:34):
caught in an amazing series of photos by a Yellowstone
tour guide and posted on Facebook. In the photos, you
can see a long haired German shepherd running at what
looks like full speed down a paved road as a
young gray wolf lopes away. The dog had apparently seen
its ancient ancestor from its perch inside a JPSUV. Whether
(00:56):
it was answering the call of the wild or just
looking for a night, it snuck out an open window
thanks to a poorly conceived child safety device. The wolf
increased its speed from a lope to a trot, but
then suddenly turned and faced its long haired assailant. At
that point, the shepherd was almost literally the dog that
caught the car. It pulled up about fifteen feet from
(01:19):
the wolf to reconsider its life choices, but at that point,
its owner had gotten out of his car and was
yelling at the dog to come back. The German shepherd
made the wise decision to heed its owner's advice and
return to its life of luxury. It may have rejected
the call of the wild, but it can console itself
with the fact that, unlike that wolf, it doesn't have
(01:40):
to scavenge dead animals from the side of the road.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Serve your dog, Chuck Wagon, chances are he's already waiting
for it.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
In Jack London's famous novel, the protagonist Buck is a
mix between his saint Bernard father and his Scotch shepherd mother.
Buck weighs about one hundred and forty pounds, which he
even for a wolf, is a big boy male. Gray
wolves can weigh as much as one hundred and eighty pounds,
but most are closer to one p forty. Buck, in
(02:09):
other words, had a decent shot at becoming an alpha.
I can't say the same for the German shepherd in
this incident. It looks like it outweighs the yearling wolf
by a bit, but not that much. He probably made
a good choice getting back in that jeep. Now I
should address the elephant in the room. I am not
as eagle eared listeners have likely figured out Bryan Callahan
(02:34):
CAL is somewhere above the Arctic Circle in Alaska, and
so was unable to record an episode this week. But
the news doesn't stop, and neither do we. I'm Jordan Sillers,
writer and producer for Cal's Week in Review, managing editor
at the Meteater dot com, and host of our new
true crime podcast, Blood Trails. You're stuck with me for
this week, but don't worry. It's a good one. We
(02:57):
have a record breaking Grizzly, a new hellic hunt in Texas,
and a major lawsuit against Major League Fishing. Plus our
fearless leader will be back next week and I'm sure
he'll have some amazing stories from his time in the
Great White North. He also called me from an airport
in Alaska because he had a message he wanted to
(03:17):
deliver that you're not going to want to miss. Here's Kyl.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Hey gang, welcome to another episode of Cal's we can review.
If you're hearing this and you're like, boy, that quality
is not great, it's because I'm sitting on my butt
and at the Everett Air Center here in Fairbanks, Alaska,
getting ready to go up to the Artic National Wildlife Refuge.
There is so much going on that I'm having like
anxiety leaving for this week in a place that I've
(03:47):
always wanted to go and see and I've never been.
So my right arm, Jordan Sillers, is going to take
over this week's recording of the podcast. I'm calling in
this intro because as per usual, I'm trying to make
it all work, and some things are falling through the cracks.
But your coverage of what's going on out there is
(04:09):
absolutely critical. Right now, about three million acres of easily accessible,
open to the every day outdoors person public land is
on the chopping block. And the reason that it is
is because this is an experiment. There's a few people
(04:31):
who despise the fact that we have the freedoms that
we do, and these people have found an opening and
budget reconciliation process to run this experiment of We're going
to see how many people lay down on the job
and how easy it is to take three million acres
so we can come back and take five the next
year and ten the year after that. This is not
(04:54):
an exaggeration, it's not a drill. This is what's happening,
and if you don't, get off your butts, free loaders
and start writing emails and making phone calls. And I'll
give you a good example of how to do this.
My Senator Steve Dance has a solid position on public
lands and American freedom are access to these lands. I say,
(05:17):
Senator Dance or staffer that is listening to me, I
appreciate your position on public lands. What I need you
to do is contact Senators Crapo, Senator's Rish, Senator's Thune
and tell them what public lands mean to the people
who actually use them, and they are not to be
(05:38):
included in the budget reconciliation process. I'm going to call
back tomorrow and ask how those calls went. I'm also
going to remember that staffer's name, so when I do
call back, I can be like, oh, Katie, Ryan Callahan,
we spoke yesterday. Great to hear your voice again. How
things going. I'm going to break the monotony of that
(05:59):
job because is right now. Advocates just like yourselves are
calling and emailing constantly, which is great, but we got
to keep on the pressure and we've got to ask
for more. It's appropriate to ask for more, right now,
and you've got to remember that the context here is
when you show up to a river in Montana, there's
(06:21):
a lot out of state plates. And it's not because
they don't understand the value of public land. All of
these Western states, eleven Western states that are going to
lose access to public lands, which by default is going
to concentrate more outdoors people on the lands we have left,
i e. Removing the front country, what happens to the
(06:43):
back country. You got to remember that all these states
are in the process of regulation battles to address overcrowding
on public lands. As is, do you really want to
lose two million, three million, four million and eight, especially
in a manner that does not refill the pot, which
(07:05):
is what the budget reconciliation package does. Man, we lose
something and we don't get it back forever. That is
what's on the line. This is not hyperbole. And again,
like I say, don't listen to me, get off your butts,
go to the Federal Register dot gov and you can
see the land sales. They're real. Get a hold of
(07:28):
your duly elected right now, and do not complain to
me if you don't do this. The last bit that
I want to lay out there for you before I
drop off the soapbox and mister Sellers can get onto
the real news. Here is quit shooting holes in the boat,
take your personal baggage and put it behind you. There
(07:49):
is a fire on our front door and it is
public land sales. We have a bucket brigade running water
to that fire on the front step through the house.
And by saying well who did you vote for when
we don't currently have an election, all you're doing is
pulling people carrying water to the fire out of line.
(08:11):
The fight is the fire public land sales, and if
you're not carrying water to that fire, you may as
well just stay out of it. We'll get to the
backyard issues, i e. Elections when the fire is out,
get in line, star carrying waters onto the news.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Moving on to the lawsuit desk, the family of a
man who died in a boating accident is suing Major
League Fishing for what they say were negligent decisions made
during the day of an April fishing tournament in Alabama.
On April sixteenth, twenty twenty five, a competitive angler from
Georgia named Flint Davis struck a fishing boat helmed by
(08:54):
guide Gary Holcombe, the owner of Smith Lake Streper Guide Service.
The accident occurred during the Lewis smith Lake Tournament, which
runs for three days and offers a one hundred fifteen
thousand dollars cash prize. Three of Holcomb's clients, who were
not participating in the tournament, fifty eight year old Joey Broome,
(09:15):
forty one year old John Clark, and the sixty two
year old Jeffrey Little, were all struck and killed. Flint
and Holcombe sustained injuries but survived the accident. Now, Broome's
family is suing Major League Fishing, Davis and Holcombe for
what they say was negligent and wanton conduct that resulted
(09:36):
in Broome's death. The suit reads, quote by organizing and
incentivizing high speed boat operation in foggy, congested conditions on
a public waterway shared with recreational and guided vessels MLF,
that's Major League Fishing created a foreseeable risk of serious
injury and death. The suit also alleges that Davis, who
(09:59):
was driving the boat, acted negligently by operating his boat
at a quote excessive and unsafe speed, failing to maintain
a proper lookout and otherwise navigating in a reckless and
dangerous manner under the circumstances. Broome's lawyers contend that Hulcombe,
the fishing guide whose boat was struck, was also partially
responsible for the accident. Holcombe had set up his clients
(10:22):
near what the lawsuit says as a high traffic area
known as Miller Flats. The pseudo ledges that Holcombe should
have known this was a dangerous place to park his
boat and what it describes as low visibility conditions. Now
Major League Fishing has since responded and a counterclaim filed
in Colman County. They call the allegations quote blatantly false, inaccurate,
(10:44):
and misleading. They point out that the weather was actually
sunny and clear on April sixteenth, and that the accident
occurred in open water with plenty of visibility. It's tough
to know exactly what to think about this because officials
haven't released many details about the accident itself. Flint was
driving a Nitro Z twenty one fishing boat while Holcombe
(11:06):
was operating out of a center console vessel. Clark and
Lyttle were thrown overboard and drowned, according to local media,
while Broom was struck and pronounced dead at the scene.
It's true that conditions were fair on the day of
the incident, but the suit alleges that dense fog, missed
or clouds covered quote parts of Lewis Smith Lake that morning.
(11:29):
I think we all know that a lake can be
foggy in the morning, even if the rest of the
day is bright and sunny at the same time. If
you read Broom's lawsuit carefully, you'll notice that it doesn't
actually say the area around where the accident took place
was covered in fog. It just says that parts of
the lake were foggy that day and Davis was driving
too fast. We reached out to Davis, but he didn't
(11:52):
respond as of this recording. He did release a brief
statement on Instagram following the accident. He said quote, I
want to thank everyone for the thoughts and prayers. I
ask that you keep me and all the other affected
people and families in your prayers. I'll let you guys
know more when I can. He has not posted on
the social media site since the first day of the
(12:13):
Smith Lake tournament. Moving on to the hunting lease Desk,
Alabama made the news a few weeks ago for auctioning
off hunting leases on state owned land. Outlets like Outdoor
Life called this auction unusual, and it is true that
states don't frequently sell hunting leases to the public. But
(12:35):
I was able to get us a little more context
for this program that sheds new light on exactly what
is and isn't going on. The auction was held on
May thirty first. Members of the public were able to
bid on one hundred and forty state owned tracts of
land that ranged from forty acres to over thirteen hundred acres.
(12:56):
A forester with the Alabama Department of Conservation of Natural
Resources told us these properties weren't located on dedicated public
hunting land like wildlife management areas or special opportunity areas.
In other words, Alabama isn't auctioning off exclusive access to
properties that used to be open to the public. Instead,
(13:16):
these tracks are managed for the purpose of revenue generation
for various state entities like school boards and mental health boards.
The money generated doesn't go towards conservation, but it does
generate revenue for the state, which theoretically at least helps
retain Alabama's low state tax rates. This also isn't the
(13:37):
first time this kind of auction has been held. The
state held similar auctions for these five year leases in
twenty ten, twenty fifteen, and twenty twenty, so even though
Alabama is somewhat unique in leasing state owned land, this
isn't the first time they've done this. All told, the
auction generated nearly five hundred thousand dollars for the state,
(13:57):
which will be paid out by the leases every year.
The top property was an eight hundred and eighty three
acre tract just outside of Tuscaloosa owned by the Alabama
Department of Mental Health institution. The winning bid for that
property clocked in at eighteen thousand, five hundred dollars, and
it wasn't the only one to break fifteen k. Another
(14:18):
five hundred and fourteen acre property in Fayette and Marion
Counties went for seventeen thousand, five hundred, while a nine
hundred and twenty acre property in Walker County went for
seventeen thousand, two fifty. Now, you might argue that the
state should grant the public access to these properties free
of charge. I'm sympathetic to that argument, but the state
(14:39):
says agencies like the Department of Mental Health rely on
these leases for revenue. It's also worth pointing out that
not all of these properties cost big bucks to rent out.
Thirty of the one hundred and forty properties went for
less than one thousand dollars, like a thirty six acre
tract in Walker County that went for only two sixty.
(15:00):
Western state listeners might balk at that because they have
free access to millions of acres, But in a largely
private land state like Alabama, spending a couple hundred bucks
to have forty acres all to yourself might not seem
like a bad deal. But we want to know what
you think. How much would you be willing to spend
on a forty or one hundred acre lease? Is this
(15:22):
program in Alabama a helpful way to give average hunters
exclusive access or just another grift on the slow slide
toward the privatization of natural resources? Let us know by
writing in to askcl at the Meat Eater dot com
(15:43):
Over at the Crime Desk, the Pennsylvania Game Commission has
broken up a large poaching ring over in Cambria County,
east of Pittsburgh. The bus began with a routine fishing
license check by a PA Game warden who noticed guns, ammunition,
and a spotlight in one suspects vehicle. The angler in
question later admitted to shooting several deer after dark with
(16:04):
the light. Once that thread was pulled, a much larger
operation began to unravel. The Game Commission issued three search
warrants of vehicles and property, uncovering evidence that implicated a
total of eight people in poaching deer with spotlights. After
a thorough investigation, the Game Commission charged the crew with
the following additional crimes, failing to tag deer, killing bucks
(16:27):
that didn't meet legal antler restrictions, hunting with tags from
states other than Pennsylvania, and exceeding legal bag limits. In total,
eleven deer and a gray fox were killed illegally. That's
a pretty full buffet of bad hunter behavior. Jason Wise,
Sandra Wise, Daniel Wise, Isaac Keith, Dan Sodomont, Marina Morgan,
(16:49):
Dennis Corson, and Levi Corson all pleaded guilty to the
charges and will pay thirty five thousand dollars in restitution
and have their hunting and fishing privileges suspended for a
grand total of seventy years. Let's hope they take that
legal boundary more seriously than the other ones they waltzed across.
Kudos to the game wardens and commission officials of the
(17:11):
Keystone State for seeing this one through Across the world.
We finally have some data on a different method of
deterring poaching. Conservationists in South Africa's Kruger National Park have
been cutting off the horns of rhinos over the past
several years to remove the incentive for poachers to kill them.
We reported on this before. Unfortunately, the intervention affects a
(17:34):
rhino's ability to socialize and reduces how far they range.
You know, it kind of makes them depressed. Like if
someone gave you the worst haircut of your life, you'd
lose a bit of your swagger down at the bar
and likely stay home a lot more often.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
I got a bad haircut right before me and my
big ex broke up, But that was so long ago
now I can barely remember.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Scott is acutely aware that is last a long haircut
in place exactly four hundred and thirty one days ago.
Z So is the chop worth it for the rhinos survival?
Turns out the answer is a resounding yes. A new
study in the journal Science found a seventy eight percent
reduction in poaching among the two thousand, two hundred and
eighty four rhinos that were de horned in Krueger over
(18:16):
the past seven years. Even more eye opening, removing horns
is also by far the cheapest anti poaching intervention. The
annual rhino defense budget in Kruger is almost fifteen million dollars,
which pays for park rangers, tracking dogs, high tech AI cameras, drones, helicopters,
a whole army's worth of gear and personnel. And even
(18:38):
though all this effort does catch hundreds of poachers every year,
corruption and organized crime is so bad at Kruger that
those same poachers are almost never jailed and quickly end
up right back in the park targeting rhinos again. Enforcers
in the park have been targeted with kidnappings, beatings, and
death threats. The problem got so bad that white rhino
(18:59):
populations crashed from about ten thousan six hundred individuals in
twenty eleven to only twenty six hundred and twenty twenty.
That's a seventy five percent drop. That fifteen million bucks
a year didn't even make a dent. In contrast, darting rhinos,
providing them with blindfolds and earplugs, then chainsawing off their
horns and letting them go costs less than two hundred
(19:22):
grand a year. The one flaw with a de horning
approach has been how fast the horns grow back. Park
workers have to repeat the procedure at least every eighteen months,
and some dehorned rhinos were still poached in the study
period because their stumps had started to regrow. So, unless
the market for rhino horn collapses because people wake up
to the fact that they're just paying for keratin, which
(19:43):
is the exact same substance that makes up the toenails
you clip into the trash and the hair your barber
sweeps off the floor, dehorning rhinos looks like the best
approach we've got. And you know, if there was a
hit man after me and I knew I could escape,
if I got a terrible mullet, I would do my
best to embrace the the business in the front, party
in the back. Moving on to the invasive species desk,
(20:07):
Texas is calling in air support, and it has nothing
to do with politics, the military, or drug cartels. Instead,
the lone Star State is combating an invasive species of
barbary sheep, also known as awdads. Big thanks to listener
Leland Hart for sending us this story. Earlier this year,
the Texas State Legislature passed a bill that will allow
(20:29):
hunters to kill awed ads from helicopters. It flew through
the House and Senate on near unanimous votes. Only one
rep from Dallas voted no in the House, and was
signed by Governor Abbott late last month. Here's one of
the bill's sponsors, a Democrat named Eddie Morales Junior, doing
his best Cow's Week in Review impression on the House floor,
which is coincidentally also what I'm doing in this episode.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
We add to twice postpone this because it's not a
bad bill. Now, I'm not pulling any wool over anybody's
eyes either, But seriously, this is an invasive speeches of sheep,
the aud at sheep, and it's causing bacteria that kills
the bighorn sheep. It's important to Texas. What's more liberty
(21:14):
freedom than being able to shoot audit sheet from helicopters.
Tell me about that, right.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
The bill doesn't allow just anyone to go up in
a helicopter and start mowing down odd ad sheep. A
landowner or a landowner's agent has to apply for a
permit from Texas Parks and Wildlife, and then that person
can participate in the hunt. The bill adds odd ads
to a short list of animals that can be hunted
from helicopters in Texas, which previously included only feral hogs
(21:40):
and coyotes. In a Texas tale as old as time,
add ad sheep were imported to West Texas by returning
World War II veterans. These gis had served in North Africa,
and they figured the barbary sheep they saw there would
make a great addition to the suite of Texas game animals.
They were right about one thing. Odd Ad sheep thrive
in the mouthinous regions of West Texas and the Panhandle,
(22:02):
and some estimate that there are as many as forty
thousand living in the state. Unfortunately, as is the case
with many invasive species, there were significant downsides. Oddad outcompete
native bighorn sheet for resources, and recent research has found
that they carry a harmful bacteria that has decimated big
horn populations. Odad also harm cattle operations by trampling fences
(22:25):
and causing thousands of dollars in damage. Of course, the
Texas legislature doesn't really want to eliminate all odd ad
from the landscape. Outfitters and landowners make a pretty penny
selling odd ad hunts. There are no bag limits or
seasons on those hunts, and now they have an even
higher dollar option if they can rent themselves a helicopter.
One outfitter who spoke to the Texas Tribune pointed out
(22:48):
that a recreational hunter who spends that kind of money
is looking for an old male sheep. They won't be
shooting females or in the kinds of numbers that will
do much to impact the population. A usdat that he
found that feral hog populations can be reduced by as
much as sixty seven percent after three helicopter flights. But
these hunts were conducted by professionals for the purpose of
(23:09):
population control. Texas Parks and Wildlife already had the authority
to conduct aerial gunning of odd ads, so this bill
is more about recreation than species management. Still, if helicopter
hunting attracts more people to West Texas to hunt an
odd ad, that's probably not a bad thing Meeter's very
own cringe. Schneider recently went to Texas to hunt an
(23:30):
odd ad. She didn't use a helicopter, but it still
looked like a great time. Moving on to the grizzly desk,
a Wisconsin hunter tag what is now the Boone and
Crocket record for the largest grizzly bear ever harvested by
a human. Brian Van Lanen shot the giant bruin last
fall near Norton Sound, Alaska. He knew it would likely
(23:53):
be a top ten giant, but after a sixty day
drying period, the Boone and Crocket Club recently confirmed that
it's the largest hunt killed grizzly in the world. Van
Lannen was hunting alongside Lance Kronberger of freelance Outdoor Adventure.
According to a Boon and Crockett press release, Van Lanen
had been hunting for a grizzly since the spring of
twenty twenty four, but his luck turned last fall when
(24:15):
late in the evening on the second day, he and
Kronberger saw a bear that piqued their interest. It was
browsing along an alder patch, but it was too late
in the evening to put a stock on it. Fortunately,
when they got up the next morning, they saw a
similarly sized bear working along a riverbank. They decided to
make a move, but as they were working down from
their glassing knob, another grizzly appeared. Both boers were about
(24:39):
the same size, and one started chasing the other. The
hunters doubled their efforts to keep the bears in sight,
and suddenly one of the bears emerged about four hundred
yards away. Van Lanen hustled to get his three thirty
eight Lapo a magnum rifle, in position and pulled the trigger.
The hunter shot rolled the bear on its side, but
it got up and headed towards a patch of alders.
(25:00):
Van Lanen sent several follow up shots down range, but
it wasn't until they caught up to the bear near
the river bank that two final shots put the bear
down for good. The head of the massive bore was
covered in scar tissue from years of fighting, Its bottom
lip was split in half, and its teeth were worn
to nups. Kronberger estimated that it was twenty to twenty
five years old, which is the average age most grizzlies
(25:23):
lived to in the wild, but for whatever reason, this
one had grown to be especially large. Its official skull
measurement of twenty seven and nine sixteenths inches makes it
the largest grizz to be harvested by a hunter since
the Boon and Crockett Club began recording skull measurements in
the nineteen twenties. The only larger skull in the B
and C Books was found by a hunter in nineteen
(25:45):
seventy six and measures twenty seven and thirteen sixteenths inches.
Congrats to Van Lanen on an awesome bear. If you
want to see it for yourself, you can head on
over to the meaeater dot com, where we've published images
of the bear, including from our very own Ranch Williams,
who saw the skull in person at the thirty second
Big Game Awards display at the Wonders of Wildlife Museum
(26:06):
in Springfield, Missouri. That's all I have for you this week.
Thank you so much for listening. I had a great
time guest hosting, but I know no one can fill
the shoes of the great and powerful Ryan cal Callahan.
Tune in next week to hear about Cal's trip to
the Arctic, along with all the latest news and info.
To amaze your friends and astound your enemies, and don't
(26:27):
forget to write in to ask C. A. L At
the meeteater dot com and let us know what's happening
in your neck of the woods. We'll see you next week.
Host
Cal Callaghan
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