August 25, 2025 • 23 mins
This week, Cal covers a fascinating Ice Age technology, a giant deer smuggling operation in Texas, a plumbing problem in Minnesota, and new legislation you should care about.
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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. This
is Cow's Week in Review with Ryan cow Calaian. Here's cap.
A family of three found themselves stranded and cold in
the National Forest near West Yellowstone, Montana, last week when
their e bikes ran out of battery. It's unclear exactly
(00:31):
where they were or how far it would have been
to walk out, but local media reports they were approximately
twelve miles west of town near the two top trails.
They called nine to one one to reports that they
were cold and needed help, and local search and rescue responded,
along with members of the Hebgen Basin Rural Fire District,
Custer Gallatin National Forest law enforcement, and deputies from the
(00:52):
Gallatin County Sheriff's Office. For those counting, that's four different
agencies that were forced to use time and resources on
this quote rescue effort. They used side by sides to
drive up the trail and pick up the family along
with their bikes, and carry them back to safety and civilizations.
It seems like you can't throw a rock on a
(01:12):
public hiking trail without hitting someone on an e bike
these days. I'm not saying you should throw rocks at
e bikers, by the way, but for some reason, that's
just the first expression that comes to mind. Anyway, e
bikes are popular because they make it easier to access
back country locations. You'll get there faster. But there's also
a downside a lot of people don't know about, and
I'm talking about short battery life. Unlike dirt bike riders
(01:36):
and ATV aficionados, e bikers don't pay back into the system.
That's because even though e bikes are motorized bikes, they
have a motor motorbike. Most regulations don't require e bike
riders to get an off highway vehicle sticker. That means
they're out there clogging up the trails and getting themselves
stranded without throwing in a couple of bucks to the
old trail maintenance pot. They aren't willing to do that.
(01:58):
Let me suggest that they keep their e bike where
they belong, on the streets and sidewalks around town. And
that especially goes for folks who can't pedal when the
batteries quit. Let me know if that sounds harsh to you,
Ask c Al. That's Askcal at the meeteater dot com.
This week, we've got Neanderthals, cats, drones and pipes. But
(02:18):
first I'm going to tell you about my week. And
my week was spent right here in the Montana heat. Well,
I suppose I started in Connecticut with my buddy Brent
Reeves and the good folks at can Am. We got
spoiled driving around the brand spanking new Defenders, which I
really have got to admit are very impressive. Biggest thing
I can say, and this is a serious compliment. Can
(02:39):
Am listened to the customer made this new version high
performance while at the same time more user friendly, as in,
you can take it apart and modify it at home
and put it back together. It's wrenchable. Some of us
like to get a long way from the dealership, don't
you know. Other fun thing about Connecticut was I did
(03:00):
a super fun round on the trails through this chunk
of woods owned by a boarding school. I explained to
the guy who drove me that in Montana we have
boarding schools, but they are the type that you either
picked to go to that school or go to jail.
These ones, from what I hear, are a little different.
I'm not sure if you've ever seen scent of a woman,
but that's the type I'm talking about who. The woods
(03:23):
were awesome. High humidity, stifling hot deciduous forests are pretty
darn cool for a Montana kid. The path went down
to a lake, so I stripped down to my shorts
and jumped in for a swim. Was really getting the
exercise in great little solo trip. On the way back,
I thought it would be best to keep my shirt
in my hand and let the old beer gut swing,
(03:43):
mostly because I brought it with me and putting a
shirt on when you're all wet is a real pain
in the butt. So there I am in Parts Unknown,
huffing and puffing up the rolling hillsides and the creek bottoms,
and for the first time I see a person who
looks like they're ducking down under a bridge. I'm about
to cross this bridge, but it's on the other side
of this little crest of a hill. And as I
(04:04):
cress that little hill and pop out onto the bridge,
I see there's about thirty women in their bathing suits,
all hanging out in the creek bottom, completely out of sight.
Now I was only guessing that this piece of property
was friendly to trespassers. I did not confirm with anyone
that it was, so I wasn't gonna stop half naked
to find out. Instead, I picked up the pace, crossed
(04:27):
that little bridge lickety split, and made her back into
the woods, just in time to hear a lady yell, hey,
there's a guy. After that, I hopped on a plane,
made her home just in time to make the typically
six hour drive out to Glendive, Montana, but with Montana
road construction, it was about I don't know seven and
a half for a friend's wedding and Glendive Dinosaur capital
(04:48):
of Montana. Go Red Devils. Congrats Jana and Nick. Over
to the Neanderthal desk. Researchers have long known about the
ability of ice age humans to render essential fat from
the bones of the animals they hunted. They split the
bones into pieces, boiled them, most likely in hide bags
(05:10):
filled with heated rocks, then skimmed the fat off the
surface of the cooled liquid. This helped them stave off
so called rabbit starvation, which sets in when people only
have protein to eat After about three hundred grams a
day of the human liver can't process additional calories from protein,
so without carbohydrates or fat, even a person with all
(05:31):
the backstrap in the world is in trouble. But scientists
had never been able to document intensive fat rendering operations
any earlier than twenty eight thousand years ago, leading some
researchers to conclude that Neanderthals, who went extinct about forty
thousand years ago, didn't have to know how to harvest
calories this way. However, a site recently uncovered in eastern
(05:52):
Germany now shows evidence of a fat rendering operation from
one hundred and twenty five thousand years ago, well before
anatomically modern heath humans even reached Europe. Scientists at the
Newmark Nord archaeological site recovered over one hundred thousand bone
fragments from one hundred and twenty seven different animal species,
all of which had been crushed to access fat rich
(06:13):
marrow inside them, as well as the evidence of the
fires used for the rendering. The list of species show
that the Neanderthals were extremely impressive all purpose hunters, bringing
in critters like bears, foxes, deer, horses, and wolves, but
also ancient two horned rhinos, giant cattle known as oros,
and even several straight tust forest elephants. The largest terrestrial
(06:37):
mammal of the era at thirteen tons. The site's shattered
bones all became covered in sediment very soon after they
were used, which told researchers that the animals had been
brought to the location all at once for the purpose
of large scale fat rendering, rather than ending up the
site over a long period of time. The team also
found five stone anvils and fifty eight hammerstones, which which
(07:00):
together are known in the archaeological biz as a quote
unquote percussive toolkit. This supports the theory that led Zeppelin
drummer John Bonham was in fact a Neanderthal. Now, I'm
not going to give up buttering my toast anytime soon,
and I've certainly used a heck a lot of bone
marrow on toast points and shoot my finger from time
(07:22):
to time. But I wudn't mind trying to pi acrest
made with some rendered or rock lard. That would certainly
set your pecan pie apart this upcoming Thanksgiving. Moving on
to the feral cat desk, this week, we have another
strike against the domestic cat as possibly the worst invasive
species in North America, making spotted lantern flies and zebra
(07:43):
muscles look like bison and prairie grass. This time, the
evidence comes from Fire Island, a roughly one thousand foot
wide barrier island running thirty miles along the south side
of Long Island in New York State. Fire Island has
the only federally designated wilderness area in New York and
is extremely important habitat for the piping plover, a sparrow
(08:04):
sized shorebird that's threatened up and down the Atlantic coast
despite intensive conservation efforts. Plovers aren't your typical threatened native species,
as they actually thrive in disrupted habitat. They are, in fact,
quote unquote disturbance dependent. Plovers have to lay their nests
in open sand that must nevertheless be far enough away
(08:24):
from the ocean to stay dry year round. The only
places that fit the bill are recently flooded zones where
lots of sand has washed inland. This means that, ironically,
as coastal regions have been putting more and more effort
into flood resistance and response to climate change, plovers have
lost the disturbance habitat they need. Anyway, the wide, regularly
(08:47):
flooded beaches of Fire Island are perfect plover habitat. Which
also makes them perfect habitat for plover predators. One of
the most fearsome has historically been the red fox, which
ten years ago had reduced Fire Eye Island's population of
piping plovers to only around twenty mating pairs. But twenty
fifteen brought a bit of relief in the form of
(09:07):
sarcoptic mange, a highly contagious infestation of skin mites that's
fatal for wild cannids and knocked back the Fire Island
foxes significantly. As the foxes died off, the plovers thrived,
but a vacuum was left at the top of the
food chain, which, wouldn't you know, it has now been
filled by feral cats who are doing a better job
(09:28):
eating plovers than the foxes ever did. Longtime listeners to
this show may be able to predict that trap newter
release programs have been tried in the area to very
limited success. Those efforts are even less useful because trap
neuter release is actually prohibited on federally protected parkland. Scientists
(09:48):
who have been documenting the transformation over the past ten
years have even been calling for the cats to be removed,
but I'm not confident we'll see a regulated cat hunt
anytime soon. I'll admit that I do have a glimmer
of compassion for the feral cats. It's on Fire Island.
It's impossible to see a piping plover chick and not
want to eat it. They look like little fuzzy dumplings,
complete with tooth pick legs for you to pick them
(10:10):
up with. And remember, trap new to release does not work, because,
as the old joke goes, the cats aren't trying to
have sex with the plovers to death. They're trying to
eat them over at the drone desk, A federal Court
of Appeals has upheld a lower court's ruling against a
company seeking to use drones to recover wounded deer in Michigan.
(10:32):
Mike Yoder, owner of Ohio based Drone Deer Recovery LLC,
filed the original suit in US District Court against the
Michigan Department of Natural Resources after the DNR advised him
that he was violating the state's ban on using drones
in the take of wild game. Yoder argued that the
ban was in fact violating his First Amendment rights, preventing
him from communicating the location of a dead deer to
(10:55):
his client. Michigan won that round when Judge Paul Maloney
wrote in his twenty twenty five ruling, quote, Plaintiffs are
free to track down to deer in a different manner
and relay their findings. Plaintiff's ability to relay location information
is not regulated by the drone statute just flying the drone.
Yoder then appealed his decision to the Federal Sixth Circuit
(11:16):
Court of Appeals. The higher court took Yoda's side on
the speech issue, disagreeing with the lower court that using
a drone and communicating about down deer had nothing to
do with each other. The Court of Appeals wrote, quote,
the availability of other ways of creating and sharing location
information does not negate plaintiff's First Amendment interest in using
drones to do so. Translation, because a drone collects information
(11:40):
about where dead deer is in a completely different way
than blood tracking or using dogs, that distinct kind of
information could be considered speech as defined in the First Amendment.
That win is likely cold comfort to Yoder. However, because
that appeals court went on to write, it is enough
for the Michigan Department of Matter Resources to show that
(12:01):
prohibiting the use of drones to take game furthers Michigan
stated important interests. Essentially, if Michigan wants to protect fairchase
by banning drones, they are within their rights to do so.
Even if drone information can be called speech, Shouting fire
in a crowded theater is also speech, but the government
can say you just can't do that. These might seem
(12:23):
like technicalities, but if Yoder decides to take this case further,
another court could decide that his drone speech is more
important than the effect of drone recovery on fair chase.
The advocacy group behind Yoder's case, the Pacific Legal Foundation,
called the Michigan dn r's policy quote unquote government overreach,
(12:43):
but that term is often thrown around when the government
does something that someone just doesn't like. Part of the
government's job is to protect our shared resources, which we
have to remember the public at large has a hell
of a track record of taking whatever the hell they want,
especially if they think somebody else is going to get
it first, which is how we end up with quote
(13:04):
unquote government overreach. In a lot of circumstances, it is
absolutely the right call to keep more tech out of
the back country. When possible, especially tech that has so
much potential for abuse. Yoder's company requires hunters to sign
a document stating that they believe a lost deer to
be dead. It's not hard to imagine hunters and other
(13:26):
for profit companies getting very loose with those definitions. Once
drones are tracking animals. Even if there are regulations in place,
it would be extremely difficult for law enforcement to determine
who was doing it ethically and who was bending the rules.
You can imagine how it would go. I wasn't using
the drone to scout Officer. I was just looking for
this deer I wounded further. Sometimes the risk of fair
(13:49):
chase hunting is losing an animal because you took a
bad shot. You might not get the meat, but the
scavengers definitely will. If you want a different take on them,
head over to the meadeater dot com and check out
Eli Fournie's excellent twenty twenty three article on Yoder's suit or.
Tony Peterson, a guy who before I read this seemed
(14:13):
like an ethical person to me, comes down in favor
of drone recovery. This is something that we're going to
be hearing more and more about, for sure, to me,
this is an example of one person's feeling about their
high and mighty rights could lead to no more deer
in the woods, or for people like me, no interest
(14:35):
in hunting deer anymore, because everybody else thinks it's a
computer game. If you want to hunt deer with drones,
you don't even have to leave your couch. That doesn't
sound like hunting to me. Moving on to the paranormal
deer desk, Texas wildlife officials have named the suspects at
(14:56):
the center of a massive smuggling operation to illegally trans
that'sport whitetail deer across the state, and one of the
alleged smugglers is on the board of the Texas Deer Association.
These ghost deer, as they've come to be called, were
allegedly transported between breeding facilities in an attempt to skirt
the rules designed to limit the spread of chronic wasting disease.
(15:17):
They're called ghost deer because the smugglers tried to make
them disappear, at least in the eyes of wildlife officials.
You may remember a few months ago when Texas Game
wardens announced that twenty two suspects had been charged with
a total of twelve hundred charges in connection to this scheme,
but none of the suspects were named, which indicated that
the investigation was still ongoing. Then last week, the agency
(15:39):
revealed that the investigation had reached a possible conclusion after
two additional suspects turned themselves in on felony charges. Ken Schlout,
the owner of four deer breeding facilities and one release site,
along with facility manager Bill Bauers, surrendered to the Travis
County District Attorney's office on charges of felony tampering with
a government record. Schlout is a prominent deer breeder and
(16:01):
had until yesterday been listed as a board member of
the Texas Deer Association. They have been accused of entering
false information into the Texas Wildlife Information Management System to
facilitate illegal smuggling of white tail breeding deer. They also
face more than one hundred misdemeanor charges related to unlawful
breeder deer activities in tom Green County. You can read
(16:22):
all the details in an article by Jordan Sillers over
at the meeater dot com, but I'll give you the
spark notes. Basically, the Texas Deer Association is the advocacy
arm of deer breeders in Texas. They lobby the state
legislature to ease back on restrictions for breeders and allow
them to more easily transport deer across the state. Slout
was a board member for this organization, though his name
(16:44):
has since been removed from the website. For his part,
Slout believes this investigation is an effort to target TDA
board members and others who have lobbied against Texas Parks
and Wildlife on the captive deer issue. He told us
they haven't run wild deer on their ranches in nearly
ten years. He's confused as to why he was included
in the investigation. Of course, Texas game wardens aren't claiming
(17:05):
that these twenty four suspects only smuggled wild deer. They
also smuggled captive deer, and Schlouts Ranch has those in spades.
Rockinness Ranch in San Angelo, Texas bills itself as a
prime location for hunting, sight seeing, and premium exotics and
whitetail genetics. They say they breed for big, typical deer,
but the sires they brag about are anything but typical.
(17:26):
These grotesque bruisers have been dubbed Gunslinger, Freeze Frame, high Heat,
triple Crown, and max Bow. And keep in mind, they're deer.
These are not characters in the Running Man. They're white
tail deer. We'll keep following the story as it progresses.
Game wardens say this is one of the largest deer
(17:47):
smuggling operations in Texas history, so hopefully they'll be able
to bring some of these yahoos to justice when deer
breeders flout the rules for their own profit and endangers
the entire white tail population and all the hunt that
rely on that population to chase deer year round and
eat tasty meals. Moving on to the plumbing desk. An
(18:09):
entire lake dried up in Minnesota last week after a
valve and the dam malfunction, leaving thousands of dead fish
on a drying out lake bed. Big thanks to listener
read Carlson for sending us this story. Alice Lake is
or I guess, was a nine foot deep, twenty six
acre lake northeast of the Twin Cities. It's a popular
fishing destination in Minnesota's William O'Brien State Park, and it
(18:31):
used to be home to bluegil black croppie, largemouth bass,
northern pike, and walleye, among others. It's a man made
lake filled by groundwater, but recent rains had caused elevated
lake levels. Water was beginning to overflow from the lake
into the Saint Croix River, which raised erosion concerns. So
park staff did what I'm sure they've done many times before.
They opened the valve to lower the lake level. Problem was,
(18:54):
when they went back to close the valve, it got stuck.
We discovered the closure mechanism had failed and the valve
was stuck open. This resulted in a near total water
level draw dout. Enterprising anglers rushed to the scene and
tried to save as many fish as possible. The New
York Times published a photo of two fellas and waiters
waste deep in the mud, scooping up fish with nets.
(19:15):
I'm sure locals were able to harvest some fish and
move others to nearby Saint Croix River, but the DNAR
says that most of the fish in the lake died.
The agency is responding to the issue, but it will
take at least four to six weeks to fill the
lake back up. After that, I anticipate it will take
another several years before it becomes a decent fishery again.
The good news is that Minnesota is still the land
(19:36):
of ten thousand Lakes, so there are plenty of alternatives
to choose from moving on to the legislative desk, the
New York Department of Environmental Conservation has released its Wildlife
Action Plan and agency officials are looking for public input.
Thanks to listener Tom Levy for bringing this to my attention.
Wildlife Action Plans are created by every state. These plans
(19:59):
identify speed and habitats of concern, and then they lay
out a strategy for conserving them. The idea is to
be proactive about threatened species before they get placed on
the endangered Species list. At that point it takes way
more time and resources to address the problem. In New York,
the plan identifies five hundred and seventy species of greatest
(20:19):
conservation need, but it also removes fifty species from the
previous list. Some of these animals, like the common loon
or the red shouldered hawk, have recovered or stabilized, while
others no longer have breeding or wintering populations in New York.
New York deer hunters will also be pleased to see that,
despite rumblings about reintroducing wolves to the state, the proposed
(20:40):
plan does not prioritize reintroducing predators anytime soon. Residents have
until September twenty to comment on the environmental strategies planned
in the draft. Will post a link to the proposal
over at the meat eater dot com forward slash col
and you can send comments two and why swap twenty
twenty five. You better be careful with how you type
(21:02):
this into the Google machine. Kids and y swap twenty
twenty five at DC dot NY dot gov. Just down
the interstate, in Pennsylvania, state legislators are introducing bills that
would allow residents to hunt big game with semi automatic rifles.
Semi auto rimfire rifles are already allowed for small game,
(21:25):
but hunters can't bring similar firearms into the woods for deer, bear,
and other large critters. One bill would allow semi automatic
weapons to be used as long as a hunter does
not load more than three cartridges. Another would do the same,
but up that limit to six. These legislators say the
proposals are meant to align with rules about hunting with
semi automatic shotguns and follow pretty much every other state
(21:47):
besides Delaware that allows semi autos in the deer woods.
The Pennsylvania legislature doesn't convene until next month, so we'll
keep track of these bills as they make their way through.
Last on the list and out in the Great Stata, Idaho,
the state legislature is working on a constitutional amendment that
would restrict public land sales. Senator Ben Adams says he
(22:10):
plans to propose the amendment at the beginning of the
twenty twenty six session of the Idaho Legislature, which begins
in January. The amendment is a fine idea, but it's
not quite as good as it could be. It doesn't
prohibit the sale of currently held state land in Idaho,
which numbers about two and a half million acres. Instead,
it requires all new and future lands acquired from the
(22:30):
federal government to be placed in a trust. The land
in that trust would never be sold, and unlike current
state property, there would be no provision for maximum financial
return on those parcels. Instead, they would be managed for
multiple uses. Any revenue generated from grazing or timber harvest
would go to support rural schools in communities that are
surrounded by public lands. The Idaho Constitution can be amended
(22:54):
if two thirds of both chambers of the legislature vote
for a proposal, then a majority of voters must agreed
to it, which would be done during the general elections
in twenty twenty six. While I would have liked to
have seen protections for currently held public land, I'm glad
that politicians are beginning to think about ways to protect
future acquisitions. Now if only the United States Congress would
(23:17):
consider something similar about federal land, the good type of
federal overreach. That's all I got for you this week.
Thank you so much for listening. Remember to write into
ask cl that's Ascal at the meteater dot com. Let
me know what's going on in your neck of the woods.
You know I appreciate it. Thanks again, talk to you
next week.
From Meat Eaters World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This
is Cow's Week in Review with Ryan cow Calaian. Here's cap.
A family of three found themselves stranded and cold in
the National Forest near West Yellowstone, Montana, last week when
their e bikes ran out of battery. It's unclear exactly
(00:31):
where they were or how far it would have been
to walk out, but local media reports they were approximately
twelve miles west of town near the two top trails.
They called nine to one one to reports that they
were cold and needed help, and local search and rescue responded,
along with members of the Hebgen Basin Rural Fire District,
Custer Gallatin National Forest law enforcement, and deputies from the
(00:52):
Gallatin County Sheriff's Office. For those counting, that's four different
agencies that were forced to use time and resources on
this quote rescue effort. They used side by sides to
drive up the trail and pick up the family along
with their bikes, and carry them back to safety and civilizations.
It seems like you can't throw a rock on a
(01:12):
public hiking trail without hitting someone on an e bike
these days. I'm not saying you should throw rocks at
e bikers, by the way, but for some reason, that's
just the first expression that comes to mind. Anyway, e
bikes are popular because they make it easier to access
back country locations. You'll get there faster. But there's also
a downside a lot of people don't know about, and
I'm talking about short battery life. Unlike dirt bike riders
(01:36):
and ATV aficionados, e bikers don't pay back into the system.
That's because even though e bikes are motorized bikes, they
have a motor motorbike. Most regulations don't require e bike
riders to get an off highway vehicle sticker. That means
they're out there clogging up the trails and getting themselves
stranded without throwing in a couple of bucks to the
old trail maintenance pot. They aren't willing to do that.
(01:58):
Let me suggest that they keep their e bike where
they belong, on the streets and sidewalks around town. And
that especially goes for folks who can't pedal when the
batteries quit. Let me know if that sounds harsh to you,
Ask c Al. That's Askcal at the meeteater dot com.
This week, we've got Neanderthals, cats, drones and pipes. But
(02:18):
first I'm going to tell you about my week. And
my week was spent right here in the Montana heat. Well,
I suppose I started in Connecticut with my buddy Brent
Reeves and the good folks at can Am. We got
spoiled driving around the brand spanking new Defenders, which I
really have got to admit are very impressive. Biggest thing
I can say, and this is a serious compliment. Can
(02:39):
Am listened to the customer made this new version high
performance while at the same time more user friendly, as in,
you can take it apart and modify it at home
and put it back together. It's wrenchable. Some of us
like to get a long way from the dealership, don't
you know. Other fun thing about Connecticut was I did
(03:00):
a super fun round on the trails through this chunk
of woods owned by a boarding school. I explained to
the guy who drove me that in Montana we have
boarding schools, but they are the type that you either
picked to go to that school or go to jail.
These ones, from what I hear, are a little different.
I'm not sure if you've ever seen scent of a woman,
but that's the type I'm talking about who. The woods
(03:23):
were awesome. High humidity, stifling hot deciduous forests are pretty
darn cool for a Montana kid. The path went down
to a lake, so I stripped down to my shorts
and jumped in for a swim. Was really getting the
exercise in great little solo trip. On the way back,
I thought it would be best to keep my shirt
in my hand and let the old beer gut swing,
(03:43):
mostly because I brought it with me and putting a
shirt on when you're all wet is a real pain
in the butt. So there I am in Parts Unknown,
huffing and puffing up the rolling hillsides and the creek bottoms,
and for the first time I see a person who
looks like they're ducking down under a bridge. I'm about
to cross this bridge, but it's on the other side
of this little crest of a hill. And as I
(04:04):
cress that little hill and pop out onto the bridge,
I see there's about thirty women in their bathing suits,
all hanging out in the creek bottom, completely out of sight.
Now I was only guessing that this piece of property
was friendly to trespassers. I did not confirm with anyone
that it was, so I wasn't gonna stop half naked
to find out. Instead, I picked up the pace, crossed
(04:27):
that little bridge lickety split, and made her back into
the woods, just in time to hear a lady yell, hey,
there's a guy. After that, I hopped on a plane,
made her home just in time to make the typically
six hour drive out to Glendive, Montana, but with Montana
road construction, it was about I don't know seven and
a half for a friend's wedding and Glendive Dinosaur capital
(04:48):
of Montana. Go Red Devils. Congrats Jana and Nick. Over
to the Neanderthal desk. Researchers have long known about the
ability of ice age humans to render essential fat from
the bones of the animals they hunted. They split the
bones into pieces, boiled them, most likely in hide bags
(05:10):
filled with heated rocks, then skimmed the fat off the
surface of the cooled liquid. This helped them stave off
so called rabbit starvation, which sets in when people only
have protein to eat After about three hundred grams a
day of the human liver can't process additional calories from protein,
so without carbohydrates or fat, even a person with all
(05:31):
the backstrap in the world is in trouble. But scientists
had never been able to document intensive fat rendering operations
any earlier than twenty eight thousand years ago, leading some
researchers to conclude that Neanderthals, who went extinct about forty
thousand years ago, didn't have to know how to harvest
calories this way. However, a site recently uncovered in eastern
(05:52):
Germany now shows evidence of a fat rendering operation from
one hundred and twenty five thousand years ago, well before
anatomically modern heath humans even reached Europe. Scientists at the
Newmark Nord archaeological site recovered over one hundred thousand bone
fragments from one hundred and twenty seven different animal species,
all of which had been crushed to access fat rich
(06:13):
marrow inside them, as well as the evidence of the
fires used for the rendering. The list of species show
that the Neanderthals were extremely impressive all purpose hunters, bringing
in critters like bears, foxes, deer, horses, and wolves, but
also ancient two horned rhinos, giant cattle known as oros,
and even several straight tust forest elephants. The largest terrestrial
(06:37):
mammal of the era at thirteen tons. The site's shattered
bones all became covered in sediment very soon after they
were used, which told researchers that the animals had been
brought to the location all at once for the purpose
of large scale fat rendering, rather than ending up the
site over a long period of time. The team also
found five stone anvils and fifty eight hammerstones, which which
(07:00):
together are known in the archaeological biz as a quote
unquote percussive toolkit. This supports the theory that led Zeppelin
drummer John Bonham was in fact a Neanderthal. Now, I'm
not going to give up buttering my toast anytime soon,
and I've certainly used a heck a lot of bone
marrow on toast points and shoot my finger from time
(07:22):
to time. But I wudn't mind trying to pi acrest
made with some rendered or rock lard. That would certainly
set your pecan pie apart this upcoming Thanksgiving. Moving on
to the feral cat desk, this week, we have another
strike against the domestic cat as possibly the worst invasive
species in North America, making spotted lantern flies and zebra
(07:43):
muscles look like bison and prairie grass. This time, the
evidence comes from Fire Island, a roughly one thousand foot
wide barrier island running thirty miles along the south side
of Long Island in New York State. Fire Island has
the only federally designated wilderness area in New York and
is extremely important habitat for the piping plover, a sparrow
(08:04):
sized shorebird that's threatened up and down the Atlantic coast
despite intensive conservation efforts. Plovers aren't your typical threatened native species,
as they actually thrive in disrupted habitat. They are, in fact,
quote unquote disturbance dependent. Plovers have to lay their nests
in open sand that must nevertheless be far enough away
(08:24):
from the ocean to stay dry year round. The only
places that fit the bill are recently flooded zones where
lots of sand has washed inland. This means that, ironically,
as coastal regions have been putting more and more effort
into flood resistance and response to climate change, plovers have
lost the disturbance habitat they need. Anyway, the wide, regularly
(08:47):
flooded beaches of Fire Island are perfect plover habitat. Which
also makes them perfect habitat for plover predators. One of
the most fearsome has historically been the red fox, which
ten years ago had reduced Fire Eye Island's population of
piping plovers to only around twenty mating pairs. But twenty
fifteen brought a bit of relief in the form of
(09:07):
sarcoptic mange, a highly contagious infestation of skin mites that's
fatal for wild cannids and knocked back the Fire Island
foxes significantly. As the foxes died off, the plovers thrived,
but a vacuum was left at the top of the
food chain, which, wouldn't you know, it has now been
filled by feral cats who are doing a better job
(09:28):
eating plovers than the foxes ever did. Longtime listeners to
this show may be able to predict that trap newter
release programs have been tried in the area to very
limited success. Those efforts are even less useful because trap
neuter release is actually prohibited on federally protected parkland. Scientists
(09:48):
who have been documenting the transformation over the past ten
years have even been calling for the cats to be removed,
but I'm not confident we'll see a regulated cat hunt
anytime soon. I'll admit that I do have a glimmer
of compassion for the feral cats. It's on Fire Island.
It's impossible to see a piping plover chick and not
want to eat it. They look like little fuzzy dumplings,
complete with tooth pick legs for you to pick them
(10:10):
up with. And remember, trap new to release does not work, because,
as the old joke goes, the cats aren't trying to
have sex with the plovers to death. They're trying to
eat them over at the drone desk, A federal Court
of Appeals has upheld a lower court's ruling against a
company seeking to use drones to recover wounded deer in Michigan.
(10:32):
Mike Yoder, owner of Ohio based Drone Deer Recovery LLC,
filed the original suit in US District Court against the
Michigan Department of Natural Resources after the DNR advised him
that he was violating the state's ban on using drones
in the take of wild game. Yoder argued that the
ban was in fact violating his First Amendment rights, preventing
him from communicating the location of a dead deer to
(10:55):
his client. Michigan won that round when Judge Paul Maloney
wrote in his twenty twenty five ruling, quote, Plaintiffs are
free to track down to deer in a different manner
and relay their findings. Plaintiff's ability to relay location information
is not regulated by the drone statute just flying the drone.
Yoder then appealed his decision to the Federal Sixth Circuit
(11:16):
Court of Appeals. The higher court took Yoda's side on
the speech issue, disagreeing with the lower court that using
a drone and communicating about down deer had nothing to
do with each other. The Court of Appeals wrote, quote,
the availability of other ways of creating and sharing location
information does not negate plaintiff's First Amendment interest in using
drones to do so. Translation, because a drone collects information
(11:40):
about where dead deer is in a completely different way
than blood tracking or using dogs, that distinct kind of
information could be considered speech as defined in the First Amendment.
That win is likely cold comfort to Yoder. However, because
that appeals court went on to write, it is enough
for the Michigan Department of Matter Resources to show that
(12:01):
prohibiting the use of drones to take game furthers Michigan
stated important interests. Essentially, if Michigan wants to protect fairchase
by banning drones, they are within their rights to do so.
Even if drone information can be called speech, Shouting fire
in a crowded theater is also speech, but the government
can say you just can't do that. These might seem
(12:23):
like technicalities, but if Yoder decides to take this case further,
another court could decide that his drone speech is more
important than the effect of drone recovery on fair chase.
The advocacy group behind Yoder's case, the Pacific Legal Foundation,
called the Michigan dn r's policy quote unquote government overreach,
(12:43):
but that term is often thrown around when the government
does something that someone just doesn't like. Part of the
government's job is to protect our shared resources, which we
have to remember the public at large has a hell
of a track record of taking whatever the hell they want,
especially if they think somebody else is going to get
it first, which is how we end up with quote
(13:04):
unquote government overreach. In a lot of circumstances, it is
absolutely the right call to keep more tech out of
the back country. When possible, especially tech that has so
much potential for abuse. Yoder's company requires hunters to sign
a document stating that they believe a lost deer to
be dead. It's not hard to imagine hunters and other
(13:26):
for profit companies getting very loose with those definitions. Once
drones are tracking animals. Even if there are regulations in place,
it would be extremely difficult for law enforcement to determine
who was doing it ethically and who was bending the rules.
You can imagine how it would go. I wasn't using
the drone to scout Officer. I was just looking for
this deer I wounded further. Sometimes the risk of fair
(13:49):
chase hunting is losing an animal because you took a
bad shot. You might not get the meat, but the
scavengers definitely will. If you want a different take on them,
head over to the meadeater dot com and check out
Eli Fournie's excellent twenty twenty three article on Yoder's suit or.
Tony Peterson, a guy who before I read this seemed
(14:13):
like an ethical person to me, comes down in favor
of drone recovery. This is something that we're going to
be hearing more and more about, for sure, to me,
this is an example of one person's feeling about their
high and mighty rights could lead to no more deer
in the woods, or for people like me, no interest
(14:35):
in hunting deer anymore, because everybody else thinks it's a
computer game. If you want to hunt deer with drones,
you don't even have to leave your couch. That doesn't
sound like hunting to me. Moving on to the paranormal
deer desk, Texas wildlife officials have named the suspects at
(14:56):
the center of a massive smuggling operation to illegally trans
that'sport whitetail deer across the state, and one of the
alleged smugglers is on the board of the Texas Deer Association.
These ghost deer, as they've come to be called, were
allegedly transported between breeding facilities in an attempt to skirt
the rules designed to limit the spread of chronic wasting disease.
(15:17):
They're called ghost deer because the smugglers tried to make
them disappear, at least in the eyes of wildlife officials.
You may remember a few months ago when Texas Game
wardens announced that twenty two suspects had been charged with
a total of twelve hundred charges in connection to this scheme,
but none of the suspects were named, which indicated that
the investigation was still ongoing. Then last week, the agency
(15:39):
revealed that the investigation had reached a possible conclusion after
two additional suspects turned themselves in on felony charges. Ken Schlout,
the owner of four deer breeding facilities and one release site,
along with facility manager Bill Bauers, surrendered to the Travis
County District Attorney's office on charges of felony tampering with
a government record. Schlout is a prominent deer breeder and
(16:01):
had until yesterday been listed as a board member of
the Texas Deer Association. They have been accused of entering
false information into the Texas Wildlife Information Management System to
facilitate illegal smuggling of white tail breeding deer. They also
face more than one hundred misdemeanor charges related to unlawful
breeder deer activities in tom Green County. You can read
(16:22):
all the details in an article by Jordan Sillers over
at the meeater dot com, but I'll give you the
spark notes. Basically, the Texas Deer Association is the advocacy
arm of deer breeders in Texas. They lobby the state
legislature to ease back on restrictions for breeders and allow
them to more easily transport deer across the state. Slout
was a board member for this organization, though his name
(16:44):
has since been removed from the website. For his part,
Slout believes this investigation is an effort to target TDA
board members and others who have lobbied against Texas Parks
and Wildlife on the captive deer issue. He told us
they haven't run wild deer on their ranches in nearly
ten years. He's confused as to why he was included
in the investigation. Of course, Texas game wardens aren't claiming
(17:05):
that these twenty four suspects only smuggled wild deer. They
also smuggled captive deer, and Schlouts Ranch has those in spades.
Rockinness Ranch in San Angelo, Texas bills itself as a
prime location for hunting, sight seeing, and premium exotics and
whitetail genetics. They say they breed for big, typical deer,
but the sires they brag about are anything but typical.
(17:26):
These grotesque bruisers have been dubbed Gunslinger, Freeze Frame, high Heat,
triple Crown, and max Bow. And keep in mind, they're deer.
These are not characters in the Running Man. They're white
tail deer. We'll keep following the story as it progresses.
Game wardens say this is one of the largest deer
(17:47):
smuggling operations in Texas history, so hopefully they'll be able
to bring some of these yahoos to justice when deer
breeders flout the rules for their own profit and endangers
the entire white tail population and all the hunt that
rely on that population to chase deer year round and
eat tasty meals. Moving on to the plumbing desk. An
(18:09):
entire lake dried up in Minnesota last week after a
valve and the dam malfunction, leaving thousands of dead fish
on a drying out lake bed. Big thanks to listener
read Carlson for sending us this story. Alice Lake is
or I guess, was a nine foot deep, twenty six
acre lake northeast of the Twin Cities. It's a popular
fishing destination in Minnesota's William O'Brien State Park, and it
(18:31):
used to be home to bluegil black croppie, largemouth bass,
northern pike, and walleye, among others. It's a man made
lake filled by groundwater, but recent rains had caused elevated
lake levels. Water was beginning to overflow from the lake
into the Saint Croix River, which raised erosion concerns. So
park staff did what I'm sure they've done many times before.
They opened the valve to lower the lake level. Problem was,
(18:54):
when they went back to close the valve, it got stuck.
We discovered the closure mechanism had failed and the valve
was stuck open. This resulted in a near total water
level draw dout. Enterprising anglers rushed to the scene and
tried to save as many fish as possible. The New
York Times published a photo of two fellas and waiters
waste deep in the mud, scooping up fish with nets.
(19:15):
I'm sure locals were able to harvest some fish and
move others to nearby Saint Croix River, but the DNAR
says that most of the fish in the lake died.
The agency is responding to the issue, but it will
take at least four to six weeks to fill the
lake back up. After that, I anticipate it will take
another several years before it becomes a decent fishery again.
The good news is that Minnesota is still the land
(19:36):
of ten thousand Lakes, so there are plenty of alternatives
to choose from moving on to the legislative desk, the
New York Department of Environmental Conservation has released its Wildlife
Action Plan and agency officials are looking for public input.
Thanks to listener Tom Levy for bringing this to my attention.
Wildlife Action Plans are created by every state. These plans
(19:59):
identify speed and habitats of concern, and then they lay
out a strategy for conserving them. The idea is to
be proactive about threatened species before they get placed on
the endangered Species list. At that point it takes way
more time and resources to address the problem. In New York,
the plan identifies five hundred and seventy species of greatest
(20:19):
conservation need, but it also removes fifty species from the
previous list. Some of these animals, like the common loon
or the red shouldered hawk, have recovered or stabilized, while
others no longer have breeding or wintering populations in New York.
New York deer hunters will also be pleased to see that,
despite rumblings about reintroducing wolves to the state, the proposed
(20:40):
plan does not prioritize reintroducing predators anytime soon. Residents have
until September twenty to comment on the environmental strategies planned
in the draft. Will post a link to the proposal
over at the meat eater dot com forward slash col
and you can send comments two and why swap twenty
twenty five. You better be careful with how you type
(21:02):
this into the Google machine. Kids and y swap twenty
twenty five at DC dot NY dot gov. Just down
the interstate, in Pennsylvania, state legislators are introducing bills that
would allow residents to hunt big game with semi automatic rifles.
Semi auto rimfire rifles are already allowed for small game,
(21:25):
but hunters can't bring similar firearms into the woods for deer, bear,
and other large critters. One bill would allow semi automatic
weapons to be used as long as a hunter does
not load more than three cartridges. Another would do the same,
but up that limit to six. These legislators say the
proposals are meant to align with rules about hunting with
semi automatic shotguns and follow pretty much every other state
(21:47):
besides Delaware that allows semi autos in the deer woods.
The Pennsylvania legislature doesn't convene until next month, so we'll
keep track of these bills as they make their way through.
Last on the list and out in the Great Stata, Idaho,
the state legislature is working on a constitutional amendment that
would restrict public land sales. Senator Ben Adams says he
(22:10):
plans to propose the amendment at the beginning of the
twenty twenty six session of the Idaho Legislature, which begins
in January. The amendment is a fine idea, but it's
not quite as good as it could be. It doesn't
prohibit the sale of currently held state land in Idaho,
which numbers about two and a half million acres. Instead,
it requires all new and future lands acquired from the
(22:30):
federal government to be placed in a trust. The land
in that trust would never be sold, and unlike current
state property, there would be no provision for maximum financial
return on those parcels. Instead, they would be managed for
multiple uses. Any revenue generated from grazing or timber harvest
would go to support rural schools in communities that are
surrounded by public lands. The Idaho Constitution can be amended
(22:54):
if two thirds of both chambers of the legislature vote
for a proposal, then a majority of voters must agreed
to it, which would be done during the general elections
in twenty twenty six. While I would have liked to
have seen protections for currently held public land, I'm glad
that politicians are beginning to think about ways to protect
future acquisitions. Now if only the United States Congress would
(23:17):
consider something similar about federal land, the good type of
federal overreach. That's all I got for you this week.
Thank you so much for listening. Remember to write into
ask cl that's Ascal at the meteater dot com. Let
me know what's going on in your neck of the woods.
You know I appreciate it. Thanks again, talk to you
next week.
Host
Cal Callaghan
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