October 13, 2025 • 20 mins
This week, Cal explains how wind farms harm earthworms, how beetles stay cool, why Floridians are opposing a new national park, and so much more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
From Meat Eaters World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This
is Cow's Week in Review with Ryan cow cal I.
Here's Cow. Regular listeners know that right now I'm up
in Alaska on a bucket list hunt for grizzly bear.
Very excited, but also apprehensive, not just because I hope
the hunt goes well, but also because, as I've mentioned,
(00:32):
if you kill a bear that has been feeding on fish,
especially scavenging dead fish, the meat of that bear can
be tough to take, smelling wise and tasting wise, just
like those rotten fish. Of course, I really want to
find a bear that's been gorging itself on blueberries, but
that's not always possible, and no matter how bad it tastes,
you got to eat that meat. Often people will use
(00:54):
fishy bear meat and heavily spiced sausage or similar, but
it can still be quite slog well. Listener Dominic Simpson
wrote in recently with a scorching hot tip for this problem. Apparently,
there is a Filipino fruit called the tabon tabon used
in the traditional raw fish dish kinilaw. Similar to savice,
(01:15):
the tab on tab on tenderizes and controls bacteria, but Also, crucially,
it removes any fishy taste or smell from the kinilaw.
You scrape the fruit out of its shell, mix it
with vinegar, and cure the fish in the mixture, and
just like that, your meal just got a whole lot
more appetizing. So why couldn't you do the same thing
with the fishy bear? Brilliant? A quick Google search tells
(01:37):
me that it's pretty hard to find tab On tab
On in the US, even through mail order. But if
I'm lucky enough to get a bear and unlucky enough
to open that bear up and smell rotten salmon, I'm
going to be very, very motivated to get my hands
on some tab On tab On. Big thanks to Dominic
for sending that one. In jumping right over to the
money desk, the Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency is in a
(02:01):
bit of a pickle. Agency officials say they're facing a
twelve million dollar deficit this year, which could lead to
staffing reductions in wildlife law enforcement and fewer public land acquisitions. Normally,
a wildlife agency in this situation would raise license fees,
but that plan stalled before we get off the ground.
The TWRA announced earlier this year that they would increase
(02:22):
hunting and fishing license costs by thirty percent, but they
abandoned that plan after facing backlash from hunters and legislators.
Now they're asking the Tennessee state legislature to come up
with a plan to increase revenue. Local media reports that
agency leaders went to the state capitol last month to
plead their case. They say that higher salary expectations, increased
(02:43):
land management costs, and declining revenue from license sales are
behind the deficit and they need some way to make
up the difference. Some lawmakers have suggested that the state
can sell public land to address the funding shortfall, but
fortunately for volunteer state hunters, that won't work. Tennessee date
law requires the TWRA to replace every acre of public
(03:04):
land it sales, which would increase the deficit rather than
decrease it. Others have floated the idea of putting sales
tax revenue towards wildlife management and conservation. The idea has
been successfully deployed in other states, but famously in Missouri,
there are one tenth of one percent of sales tax revenue,
which is just the crown jewel of wildlife funding. In
(03:25):
regards to state agency envy that one tenth of one
percent sales tax goes to the Missouri Department of Natural
Resources to fund state parson historic sites along with soil
and water conservation efforts. The fund was first approved all
the way back in nineteen eighty four by a constitutional
amendment and has been reapproved about every ten years since then.
(03:47):
It has also been fought damn near every year. Some
warrant that divorcing game management from hunting license sales gives
anti hunters an opportunity to throw their weight around. After all,
if all Missourians can tree to the DNR, shouldn't we
listen to the taxpayers who want to ban hunting. Ah
No is the answer. I get the argument, but it's
(04:08):
disapproved by the facts on the ground. Missouri hasn't become
a hotbed of anti hunting sentiment, and I don't see
the state trending in that direction. If Tennessee adopts a
similar policy, I would expect a similar result. Plus, the
volunteer state passed a right to hunt fish amendment in
twenty ten, which will make it even more difficult for
anti hunting groups to dictate policy. Whatever the solution, the
(04:30):
TWRA is not alone. State wildlife agencies across the country
are struggling to generate enough revenue to accomplish all the
work that needs to be done, so we'll have to
come up with some creative solutions to address this issue.
Moving on to a fishing addition of the legislative desk,
fishing seasons are wrapping up in northern states, but our
(04:52):
friends over at the American Sport Fishing Association are highlighting
a potential threat to anglers in all fifty states. A
citizen's was recently proposed to the Colorado Parks and Wildlife
Commission that would ban the importation of live bait into
the state. The petition was led by an outfit called
Upstream Policies, but it was also signed by Living Rivers
(05:12):
and Colorado Riverkeeper, and six or seven individual fishing guides.
Notably absent from this list are any of the organizations
I look to to help me understand the issues that
impact anglers, such as TU That's Trout, Unlimited PHA, or
the TRCP. The petition claims that imported baitfish threatened native
species by potentially escaping into the waterways and introducing pathogens
(05:37):
that harm native fish. They call on the Commission to
ban the importation, sale, and purchase of any aquatic wildlife
used as bait. This would mostly impact minnos used to
target walleye, lake trout, and bass across Colorado's front range. Now,
I'm not sure about the pathoge inside of things, but
it is true that when you move live fish from
(05:59):
one body of water to another body of water and
those fish escape and propagate, it can cause serious damage
to systems. However, there is a wrinkle in this group's argument.
They are associated with groups that have called using live
bait a borrent and archaic. There's an animal rights twist.
(06:20):
Their website is, however, suspiciously free of specific policy proposals.
Banning live baitfish would obviously be a big hit to
Colorado anglers in the economy that generates two and a
half billion dollars in the state every year, and it
would be almost totally unnecessary. I haven't seen any state
biologists connecting live bait fish with disease outbreaks yet, and
(06:40):
Colorado already has safeguards in place to protect the health
and safety of its native species. Current law prohibits the
importation of live wildlife into the state without a valid license,
and a health certificate from the source facility. Anglers purchasing
live bait are required to purchase baitfish from a licensed dealer,
and anglers are required to keep proof of purchase with them,
(07:01):
ensuring transparency to mitigate aquatic invasive species risks throughout the
supply chain. This you might say, is a solution in
search of a problem, but that hasn't stopped upstream policies
from proposing similar legislation and rules in other states. Earlier
this year, legislation proposing to ban the importation of baitfish
(07:21):
was introduced and defeated in New Hampshire and New York.
I have no doubt they'll continue to push these proposals
as long as they can find donors willing to fund
their efforts. Moving on to the public land desk, a
Florida representative to the United States Congress has proposed a
build to consider whether a national forest should be turned
into a national park in the ideas, sparking backlash from
(07:44):
an interesting coalition. Back in August, Representative Randy Fine introduced
a build dubbed the Path to Florida Springs National Park Act.
It wouldn't create a national park by itself, but, as
its name implies, would start that process. It directs the
Secretary of the Interior to conduct a special resource study
to determine the suitability and feasibility of establishing Florida Springs
(08:06):
National Park in Central and North Florida. Why does the
congressman want to turn an area already under federal protections
into a national park? Here he is speaking at a
press conference announcing the bill.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
So having visited Yellowstone in Yosemite, and the Grand Canyon
and so many of these amazing sites. As I ran
for Congress just a few months ago and I visited
the Springs, I thought, why are these not protected?
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Fine argues that the springs in the National Forest don't
enjoy high enough level of protection to keep them pristine
in the face of increasing development. Thousands are moving to
Florida every year, and he worries that influx will result
in a degradation of these areas. His idea might be
well intentioned, but he's facing stiff opposition. Locals worry that,
rather than protecting these areas, creating a national park will
(08:56):
increase the human footprint, namely the footprint of tourists. As
find himself admits, national parks are tourist magnets. They attract
far more visitors than national forests do, and even though
they're strictly managed to protect wildlife habitat, they also generate
development in areas around the parks. A petition outlining these
concerns has garnered nearly ten thousand signatures as of this recording,
(09:18):
and I have yet to see Representative Fine respond directly
to these concerns. I also heard from some of you
who worry that a national park designation will limit hunting opportunities.
Listener Carter Ulman wrote in and said quote, this would
block out one of the largest, possibly the largest accessible
track for hunters and general outdoor recreationists in the state.
(09:40):
The O'calla National Forest is also one of the last
places where hound hunting is allowed on public land in Florida,
largely due to the size and logging road networks. Still
the early days of this process, we don't know how
large this national park would be, what rules would govern
access and recreation, or whether scientists will find that a
park designation would to actually help preserve the springs. Representative
(10:02):
Fine love so much, but there's no doubt that creating
a national park would have major local impacts. So if
you live, hunt, or fish in central Florida, this is
a story you'll want to keep an eye on if
you want a good, hard fought story of hunters and
anglers standing up for traditional access and representing themselves extremely well.
(10:27):
During the National Park setting process, turn two, West Virginia BHA,
West Virginia BHA did a great job in making sure
hunting and fishing was well represented and managed to maintain
hunting and fishing rights in that state despite having a
brand new National park. Over in Wyoming, a landowner opposing
(10:52):
a wind farm development is appealing on behalf of one
of the humblest affective parties, the earthworm. At a Laramie
County Planning Commission hearing last month, community member Ryan Schneider
contended that the Laramie Range wind project that was planned
for the Horse Creek area would cause significant round vibration
that would damage the functioning of nearby worms. The Laramie
(11:14):
Range project plan included one hundred and seventy turbines, which
would cover an area three times the size of Cheyenne
and produce six hundred and fifty megawatts of energy, about
as much as a mid sized nuclear reactor and enough
to power two hundred thousand homes in the state. Schneider's
advocacy on behalf of the worms might sound far fetched,
but he had the science to back it up. In
a twenty twenty one studied, Dutch scientists at Vreia University
(11:38):
did in fact find that wind turbine vibrations reduced earthworm numbers.
The author's right quote, Larger soil animals such as earthworms
are particularly likely to be impacted by the low frequency
turbine waves that can travel through soils over large distances.
As an aside, I think he'd do a lot worse
for a band name than the soil Animals or large
(12:00):
soil Animals LSA, But I digress anyway. The authors go
on quote when comparing the nearest sampling points in proximity
of the wind energy turbines with the points furthest away
abundance dropped on average by forty percent. Translation. Although there
are still worms near wind turbines, they do tend to
(12:22):
move away from them. This could of course affect soil
health and all the other biological processes that depend on
good soil. As Charles Darwin said about worms, and may
be doubted whether there are many other animals which have
played so important a part in the history of the
world as have these lowly organized creatures. Charlie Farthing, the
(12:43):
owner of the land where the wind farm was planned,
argued that the income from the project would allow his
fifth generation ranch to continue to operate through the region's
continuing drought. Apparently the worms won out, because on September sixteen,
the Laramie County Board of Commissioners voted three to one
against allowing their project to go forward. Although the Spanish
(13:03):
power company sponsoring the project, REPSOL, can appeal the decision,
it looks like this project, at least in this form,
is cooked. In voting for the project, Commissioner Troy Thompson
told Wyoming News quote, if we have rules and a
private property owner wants to do something on their property
and does it within our rules, then we are obligated
(13:24):
to allow them to do that. And these folks went
through our land using regulations and did everything that our
regulations require. Commissioner Linda Heath, who voted against the plan,
said quote, I just don't want to sacrifice our natural
Wyoming beauty that we have here in the state of
Wyoming for wind towers and solar fields. One of the
problems in situations like this is that renewable energy projects
(13:47):
are sometimes sold as being not just preferable to fossil
fuel projects but virtually problem free. Then the public examines
them and feels betrayed when they discover drawbacks. But of course,
all building projects have down sides and detrimental effects on wildlife.
For example, if you're doing a Google scholar search for
studies on the impact of energy development vibrations on animals,
(14:09):
you will find that twenty twenty one Dutch study on worms.
But you'll also come across a twenty twenty one study
by scientists at the University of Manitoba studying the effects
of oil well drilling vibrations on birds. The study finds
that the drilling vibrations significantly affected the abundance, nesting success,
nesting body condition, and clutch size of the ecosystem songbirds.
(14:34):
But knowing that everything has downsides lets you compare your
options more clearly. For example, we've all heard that collisions
with wind energy turbines kills birds, and that's true, hundreds
of thousands of birds die this way in the US
every year. But according to scientists at Airhouse University in Denmark.
Fossil fuel plants kill seventeen times as many birds as
(14:56):
windmills do. In fact, if you look at birds killed
per yuar unit of energy, wind and nuclear power plants
each kill about zero point three birds per gigawatt hour
of electricity, while fossil fueled power stations kill about five
point two birds per gigawatt hour. Per scale, a gigawatt
hour is about the amount of electricity you'd use to
(15:17):
power a million US homes per one hour. And let's
not forget how many birds glass windows and housecats kill
every year. And we're not talking about getting rid of them.
I mean I could hear of the cats though, you
know what I'm saying. These local fights over wind farms
and other energy developments are happening against the backdrop of
the current administration absolutely going to war with the renewable
(15:40):
energy industry. One interesting front of that war is the
EPA clawing back funds that were allocated by the previous administration,
including seven billion dollars for the Solar four All program,
which aim to bring solar power to about nine hundred
thousand low income households across the US. An issue like
that might seem far away from US hunters who just
(16:01):
want to think about the Boundary waters or the Brooks Range.
But the more that cities and towns can generate their
own electricity, the easier it is to cover every parking
lot in this great country with solar panels. The fewer
wind farms and natural gas turbines there need to be
out there on the landscape. Last thing on this for me.
In twenty twenty four, as US Congress Rep. Mike Levin
(16:23):
of California introduced Hr. Nine zero one to two the
Public Land Renewable Energy Development Act aka Plarretta. This bill
would prioritize hunting, fishing, and conservation in sighting wind, solar,
and geothermal development on public lands, making sure that infrastructure
would go into places with high energy potential and low
impact on wildlife and habitat, usually areas that have already
(16:46):
been disturbed by previous uses. PLARDRA would also establish a
fund that would take a portion of the revenue generated
from renewable development and dedicated to fish and wildlife conservation
and public land access, exactly the way the LWCF uses
offshore drilling revenues. One of the real blind spots of
renewables has been not dedicating money in this way like
(17:08):
fossil extraction has done. In the current political climate, it's
not very likely that Hr nine zero one to two
will be signed into law. But call your reps anyway
and tell them about PLREDA will throw a link up
on the CALT action page. It's something to examine. I'm
not saying it's perfect, but it is an example of
something different out there. Sticking with a large soil animal's desk,
(17:33):
entomologists at the University of Montana recently discovering an incredible
adaptation in a beetle native t Yellowstone National Park. These
scientists had noticed that the wet salts tiger beetle was
able to withstand the intense heat of mammoth hot springs
and other geologically heated water features in the park. Being
able to hang out in these places allows the tiger
beetle to be the only predator of other insects lower
(17:57):
down on the food chain that can also survive there. However,
Yellowstone tiger beetles were able to survive the high temperatures
without many of the heat shedding behaviors that similar tiger
beetles display elsewhere in the world. One of the authors
of the study, Neon Higley, told the news outlet Cowboy
State Daily quote, many tiger beetles will run into the shade,
(18:18):
dip their abdomens in water, or use their legs to
raise their bodies above the ground, called stilting to regulate
their temperature. But yellowstones tiger beetles don't do that. Looking closer,
these scientists noticed that despite not displaying these behaviors, the
yellowstone beetles were still able to hold droplets of water
on the underside of their abdomens, which conducted heat away
(18:38):
from their bodies. It almost appeared that the water was
soaking through the exoskeletons of the beetles, but that would
be impossible, as tiger beetles are in fact covered in
the same waterproof wax that protects many other insects. Next
time your waterproof in your boots like I just did
with wax, remember that you're borrowing the technique from our
(18:59):
hard shelled friends, tiger beetles. So how were the yellowstone
beetles holding the water against their bodies. Putting them under
a microscope, the scientists noticed a network of shallow grooves
on their undersides studded with tiny spikes. These structures significantly
increase the surface area of the beetles abdomens and the
surface tension of the water. Then it hears moisture to
(19:20):
that structure, even though the exoskeleton is still waterproof. When
air moves across that water, it conducts heat away like
the world's tiniest air conditioner. This is a completely novel discovery,
meaning that no other animal, soil or otherwise has ever
been observed with this similar adaptation. It also means that
the University of Montana team were able to patent the
(19:41):
discovery for use as a quote micro grooving that allows
wetting of otherwise water repellent surfaces. The team isn't quite
sure what the technology would be used for, but maybe
someday all of our homes, cars, and beach chairs will
be cooled with microgroove technology micro groops technology. Maybe it
(20:01):
will also become a new kind of music which people
really really dig but only dance to using extremely small movements.
That's all I got for you this week. Thank you
so much for listening. Remember to write into a sk
c a l let's ask out Themeeeater dot com let
us know what's going on in your neck of the woods.
(20:22):
You know we appreciate it. Thanks again, we'll talk to
you next week.
From Meat Eaters World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This
is Cow's Week in Review with Ryan cow cal I.
Here's Cow. Regular listeners know that right now I'm up
in Alaska on a bucket list hunt for grizzly bear.
Very excited, but also apprehensive, not just because I hope
the hunt goes well, but also because, as I've mentioned,
(00:32):
if you kill a bear that has been feeding on fish,
especially scavenging dead fish, the meat of that bear can
be tough to take, smelling wise and tasting wise, just
like those rotten fish. Of course, I really want to
find a bear that's been gorging itself on blueberries, but
that's not always possible, and no matter how bad it tastes,
you got to eat that meat. Often people will use
(00:54):
fishy bear meat and heavily spiced sausage or similar, but
it can still be quite slog well. Listener Dominic Simpson
wrote in recently with a scorching hot tip for this problem. Apparently,
there is a Filipino fruit called the tabon tabon used
in the traditional raw fish dish kinilaw. Similar to savice,
(01:15):
the tab on tab on tenderizes and controls bacteria, but Also, crucially,
it removes any fishy taste or smell from the kinilaw.
You scrape the fruit out of its shell, mix it
with vinegar, and cure the fish in the mixture, and
just like that, your meal just got a whole lot
more appetizing. So why couldn't you do the same thing
with the fishy bear? Brilliant? A quick Google search tells
(01:37):
me that it's pretty hard to find tab On tab
On in the US, even through mail order. But if
I'm lucky enough to get a bear and unlucky enough
to open that bear up and smell rotten salmon, I'm
going to be very, very motivated to get my hands
on some tab On tab On. Big thanks to Dominic
for sending that one. In jumping right over to the
money desk, the Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency is in a
(02:01):
bit of a pickle. Agency officials say they're facing a
twelve million dollar deficit this year, which could lead to
staffing reductions in wildlife law enforcement and fewer public land acquisitions. Normally,
a wildlife agency in this situation would raise license fees,
but that plan stalled before we get off the ground.
The TWRA announced earlier this year that they would increase
(02:22):
hunting and fishing license costs by thirty percent, but they
abandoned that plan after facing backlash from hunters and legislators.
Now they're asking the Tennessee state legislature to come up
with a plan to increase revenue. Local media reports that
agency leaders went to the state capitol last month to
plead their case. They say that higher salary expectations, increased
(02:43):
land management costs, and declining revenue from license sales are
behind the deficit and they need some way to make
up the difference. Some lawmakers have suggested that the state
can sell public land to address the funding shortfall, but
fortunately for volunteer state hunters, that won't work. Tennessee date
law requires the TWRA to replace every acre of public
(03:04):
land it sales, which would increase the deficit rather than
decrease it. Others have floated the idea of putting sales
tax revenue towards wildlife management and conservation. The idea has
been successfully deployed in other states, but famously in Missouri,
there are one tenth of one percent of sales tax revenue,
which is just the crown jewel of wildlife funding. In
(03:25):
regards to state agency envy that one tenth of one
percent sales tax goes to the Missouri Department of Natural
Resources to fund state parson historic sites along with soil
and water conservation efforts. The fund was first approved all
the way back in nineteen eighty four by a constitutional
amendment and has been reapproved about every ten years since then.
(03:47):
It has also been fought damn near every year. Some
warrant that divorcing game management from hunting license sales gives
anti hunters an opportunity to throw their weight around. After all,
if all Missourians can tree to the DNR, shouldn't we
listen to the taxpayers who want to ban hunting. Ah
No is the answer. I get the argument, but it's
(04:08):
disapproved by the facts on the ground. Missouri hasn't become
a hotbed of anti hunting sentiment, and I don't see
the state trending in that direction. If Tennessee adopts a
similar policy, I would expect a similar result. Plus, the
volunteer state passed a right to hunt fish amendment in
twenty ten, which will make it even more difficult for
anti hunting groups to dictate policy. Whatever the solution, the
(04:30):
TWRA is not alone. State wildlife agencies across the country
are struggling to generate enough revenue to accomplish all the
work that needs to be done, so we'll have to
come up with some creative solutions to address this issue.
Moving on to a fishing addition of the legislative desk,
fishing seasons are wrapping up in northern states, but our
(04:52):
friends over at the American Sport Fishing Association are highlighting
a potential threat to anglers in all fifty states. A
citizen's was recently proposed to the Colorado Parks and Wildlife
Commission that would ban the importation of live bait into
the state. The petition was led by an outfit called
Upstream Policies, but it was also signed by Living Rivers
(05:12):
and Colorado Riverkeeper, and six or seven individual fishing guides.
Notably absent from this list are any of the organizations
I look to to help me understand the issues that
impact anglers, such as TU That's Trout, Unlimited PHA, or
the TRCP. The petition claims that imported baitfish threatened native
species by potentially escaping into the waterways and introducing pathogens
(05:37):
that harm native fish. They call on the Commission to
ban the importation, sale, and purchase of any aquatic wildlife
used as bait. This would mostly impact minnos used to
target walleye, lake trout, and bass across Colorado's front range. Now,
I'm not sure about the pathoge inside of things, but
it is true that when you move live fish from
(05:59):
one body of water to another body of water and
those fish escape and propagate, it can cause serious damage
to systems. However, there is a wrinkle in this group's argument.
They are associated with groups that have called using live
bait a borrent and archaic. There's an animal rights twist.
(06:20):
Their website is, however, suspiciously free of specific policy proposals.
Banning live baitfish would obviously be a big hit to
Colorado anglers in the economy that generates two and a
half billion dollars in the state every year, and it
would be almost totally unnecessary. I haven't seen any state
biologists connecting live bait fish with disease outbreaks yet, and
(06:40):
Colorado already has safeguards in place to protect the health
and safety of its native species. Current law prohibits the
importation of live wildlife into the state without a valid license,
and a health certificate from the source facility. Anglers purchasing
live bait are required to purchase baitfish from a licensed dealer,
and anglers are required to keep proof of purchase with them,
(07:01):
ensuring transparency to mitigate aquatic invasive species risks throughout the
supply chain. This you might say, is a solution in
search of a problem, but that hasn't stopped upstream policies
from proposing similar legislation and rules in other states. Earlier
this year, legislation proposing to ban the importation of baitfish
(07:21):
was introduced and defeated in New Hampshire and New York.
I have no doubt they'll continue to push these proposals
as long as they can find donors willing to fund
their efforts. Moving on to the public land desk, a
Florida representative to the United States Congress has proposed a
build to consider whether a national forest should be turned
into a national park in the ideas, sparking backlash from
(07:44):
an interesting coalition. Back in August, Representative Randy Fine introduced
a build dubbed the Path to Florida Springs National Park Act.
It wouldn't create a national park by itself, but, as
its name implies, would start that process. It directs the
Secretary of the Interior to conduct a special resource study
to determine the suitability and feasibility of establishing Florida Springs
(08:06):
National Park in Central and North Florida. Why does the
congressman want to turn an area already under federal protections
into a national park? Here he is speaking at a
press conference announcing the bill.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
So having visited Yellowstone in Yosemite, and the Grand Canyon
and so many of these amazing sites. As I ran
for Congress just a few months ago and I visited
the Springs, I thought, why are these not protected?
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Fine argues that the springs in the National Forest don't
enjoy high enough level of protection to keep them pristine
in the face of increasing development. Thousands are moving to
Florida every year, and he worries that influx will result
in a degradation of these areas. His idea might be
well intentioned, but he's facing stiff opposition. Locals worry that,
rather than protecting these areas, creating a national park will
(08:56):
increase the human footprint, namely the footprint of tourists. As
find himself admits, national parks are tourist magnets. They attract
far more visitors than national forests do, and even though
they're strictly managed to protect wildlife habitat, they also generate
development in areas around the parks. A petition outlining these
concerns has garnered nearly ten thousand signatures as of this recording,
(09:18):
and I have yet to see Representative Fine respond directly
to these concerns. I also heard from some of you
who worry that a national park designation will limit hunting opportunities.
Listener Carter Ulman wrote in and said quote, this would
block out one of the largest, possibly the largest accessible
track for hunters and general outdoor recreationists in the state.
(09:40):
The O'calla National Forest is also one of the last
places where hound hunting is allowed on public land in Florida,
largely due to the size and logging road networks. Still
the early days of this process, we don't know how
large this national park would be, what rules would govern
access and recreation, or whether scientists will find that a
park designation would to actually help preserve the springs. Representative
(10:02):
Fine love so much, but there's no doubt that creating
a national park would have major local impacts. So if
you live, hunt, or fish in central Florida, this is
a story you'll want to keep an eye on if
you want a good, hard fought story of hunters and
anglers standing up for traditional access and representing themselves extremely well.
(10:27):
During the National Park setting process, turn two, West Virginia BHA,
West Virginia BHA did a great job in making sure
hunting and fishing was well represented and managed to maintain
hunting and fishing rights in that state despite having a
brand new National park. Over in Wyoming, a landowner opposing
(10:52):
a wind farm development is appealing on behalf of one
of the humblest affective parties, the earthworm. At a Laramie
County Planning Commission hearing last month, community member Ryan Schneider
contended that the Laramie Range wind project that was planned
for the Horse Creek area would cause significant round vibration
that would damage the functioning of nearby worms. The Laramie
(11:14):
Range project plan included one hundred and seventy turbines, which
would cover an area three times the size of Cheyenne
and produce six hundred and fifty megawatts of energy, about
as much as a mid sized nuclear reactor and enough
to power two hundred thousand homes in the state. Schneider's
advocacy on behalf of the worms might sound far fetched,
but he had the science to back it up. In
a twenty twenty one studied, Dutch scientists at Vreia University
(11:38):
did in fact find that wind turbine vibrations reduced earthworm numbers.
The author's right quote, Larger soil animals such as earthworms
are particularly likely to be impacted by the low frequency
turbine waves that can travel through soils over large distances.
As an aside, I think he'd do a lot worse
for a band name than the soil Animals or large
(12:00):
soil Animals LSA, But I digress anyway. The authors go
on quote when comparing the nearest sampling points in proximity
of the wind energy turbines with the points furthest away
abundance dropped on average by forty percent. Translation. Although there
are still worms near wind turbines, they do tend to
(12:22):
move away from them. This could of course affect soil
health and all the other biological processes that depend on
good soil. As Charles Darwin said about worms, and may
be doubted whether there are many other animals which have
played so important a part in the history of the
world as have these lowly organized creatures. Charlie Farthing, the
(12:43):
owner of the land where the wind farm was planned,
argued that the income from the project would allow his
fifth generation ranch to continue to operate through the region's
continuing drought. Apparently the worms won out, because on September sixteen,
the Laramie County Board of Commissioners voted three to one
against allowing their project to go forward. Although the Spanish
(13:03):
power company sponsoring the project, REPSOL, can appeal the decision,
it looks like this project, at least in this form,
is cooked. In voting for the project, Commissioner Troy Thompson
told Wyoming News quote, if we have rules and a
private property owner wants to do something on their property
and does it within our rules, then we are obligated
(13:24):
to allow them to do that. And these folks went
through our land using regulations and did everything that our
regulations require. Commissioner Linda Heath, who voted against the plan,
said quote, I just don't want to sacrifice our natural
Wyoming beauty that we have here in the state of
Wyoming for wind towers and solar fields. One of the
problems in situations like this is that renewable energy projects
(13:47):
are sometimes sold as being not just preferable to fossil
fuel projects but virtually problem free. Then the public examines
them and feels betrayed when they discover drawbacks. But of course,
all building projects have down sides and detrimental effects on wildlife.
For example, if you're doing a Google scholar search for
studies on the impact of energy development vibrations on animals,
(14:09):
you will find that twenty twenty one Dutch study on worms.
But you'll also come across a twenty twenty one study
by scientists at the University of Manitoba studying the effects
of oil well drilling vibrations on birds. The study finds
that the drilling vibrations significantly affected the abundance, nesting success,
nesting body condition, and clutch size of the ecosystem songbirds.
(14:34):
But knowing that everything has downsides lets you compare your
options more clearly. For example, we've all heard that collisions
with wind energy turbines kills birds, and that's true, hundreds
of thousands of birds die this way in the US
every year. But according to scientists at Airhouse University in Denmark.
Fossil fuel plants kill seventeen times as many birds as
(14:56):
windmills do. In fact, if you look at birds killed
per yuar unit of energy, wind and nuclear power plants
each kill about zero point three birds per gigawatt hour
of electricity, while fossil fueled power stations kill about five
point two birds per gigawatt hour. Per scale, a gigawatt
hour is about the amount of electricity you'd use to
(15:17):
power a million US homes per one hour. And let's
not forget how many birds glass windows and housecats kill
every year. And we're not talking about getting rid of them.
I mean I could hear of the cats though, you
know what I'm saying. These local fights over wind farms
and other energy developments are happening against the backdrop of
the current administration absolutely going to war with the renewable
(15:40):
energy industry. One interesting front of that war is the
EPA clawing back funds that were allocated by the previous administration,
including seven billion dollars for the Solar four All program,
which aim to bring solar power to about nine hundred
thousand low income households across the US. An issue like
that might seem far away from US hunters who just
(16:01):
want to think about the Boundary waters or the Brooks Range.
But the more that cities and towns can generate their
own electricity, the easier it is to cover every parking
lot in this great country with solar panels. The fewer
wind farms and natural gas turbines there need to be
out there on the landscape. Last thing on this for me.
In twenty twenty four, as US Congress Rep. Mike Levin
(16:23):
of California introduced Hr. Nine zero one to two the
Public Land Renewable Energy Development Act aka Plarretta. This bill
would prioritize hunting, fishing, and conservation in sighting wind, solar,
and geothermal development on public lands, making sure that infrastructure
would go into places with high energy potential and low
impact on wildlife and habitat, usually areas that have already
(16:46):
been disturbed by previous uses. PLARDRA would also establish a
fund that would take a portion of the revenue generated
from renewable development and dedicated to fish and wildlife conservation
and public land access, exactly the way the LWCF uses
offshore drilling revenues. One of the real blind spots of
renewables has been not dedicating money in this way like
(17:08):
fossil extraction has done. In the current political climate, it's
not very likely that Hr nine zero one to two
will be signed into law. But call your reps anyway
and tell them about PLREDA will throw a link up
on the CALT action page. It's something to examine. I'm
not saying it's perfect, but it is an example of
something different out there. Sticking with a large soil animal's desk,
(17:33):
entomologists at the University of Montana recently discovering an incredible
adaptation in a beetle native t Yellowstone National Park. These
scientists had noticed that the wet salts tiger beetle was
able to withstand the intense heat of mammoth hot springs
and other geologically heated water features in the park. Being
able to hang out in these places allows the tiger
beetle to be the only predator of other insects lower
(17:57):
down on the food chain that can also survive there. However,
Yellowstone tiger beetles were able to survive the high temperatures
without many of the heat shedding behaviors that similar tiger
beetles display elsewhere in the world. One of the authors
of the study, Neon Higley, told the news outlet Cowboy
State Daily quote, many tiger beetles will run into the shade,
(18:18):
dip their abdomens in water, or use their legs to
raise their bodies above the ground, called stilting to regulate
their temperature. But yellowstones tiger beetles don't do that. Looking closer,
these scientists noticed that despite not displaying these behaviors, the
yellowstone beetles were still able to hold droplets of water
on the underside of their abdomens, which conducted heat away
(18:38):
from their bodies. It almost appeared that the water was
soaking through the exoskeletons of the beetles, but that would
be impossible, as tiger beetles are in fact covered in
the same waterproof wax that protects many other insects. Next
time your waterproof in your boots like I just did
with wax, remember that you're borrowing the technique from our
(18:59):
hard shelled friends, tiger beetles. So how were the yellowstone
beetles holding the water against their bodies. Putting them under
a microscope, the scientists noticed a network of shallow grooves
on their undersides studded with tiny spikes. These structures significantly
increase the surface area of the beetles abdomens and the
surface tension of the water. Then it hears moisture to
(19:20):
that structure, even though the exoskeleton is still waterproof. When
air moves across that water, it conducts heat away like
the world's tiniest air conditioner. This is a completely novel discovery,
meaning that no other animal, soil or otherwise has ever
been observed with this similar adaptation. It also means that
the University of Montana team were able to patent the
(19:41):
discovery for use as a quote micro grooving that allows
wetting of otherwise water repellent surfaces. The team isn't quite
sure what the technology would be used for, but maybe
someday all of our homes, cars, and beach chairs will
be cooled with microgroove technology micro groops technology. Maybe it
(20:01):
will also become a new kind of music which people
really really dig but only dance to using extremely small movements.
That's all I got for you this week. Thank you
so much for listening. Remember to write into a sk
c a l let's ask out Themeeeater dot com let
us know what's going on in your neck of the woods.
(20:22):
You know we appreciate it. Thanks again, we'll talk to
you next week.
Host
Cal Callaghan
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