November 10, 2025 • 27 mins
This week, Cal tackles a positive development out of our nation's capital, a controversial wolf cull, the world's dumbest salmon poachers, and a voicemail message you won't want to miss.
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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 Col's Week in Review with Ryan cow Calahan. Here's
cal I'm no fan of artificial intelligence, mostly because of
all the water and energy it needs to operate, which
is substantial. It's already an issue. It will become a
(00:32):
bigger issue. Pay attention, But now we have another reason
to be skeptical of the technology that will supposedly change
the world as we know it. Several states are reporting
that hunters are getting in trouble for relying on aipowered
answers to questions about hunting rags up. In Idaho, a
duck hunter got in trouble because an AI bot told
him the season started a day earlier than it actually did.
(00:55):
The wardens found that the search gave him an answer
that pulled information from a fail proposal, not the agency's
final decision or its regulations book. Wyoming Game and Fish
also told local media that they're concerned about hunters relying
too heavily on Google or Chat GPT before going out
into the field. An agency spokesperson told The Cowboys State
(01:16):
Daily that they've noticed AI generating incorrect answers about fish
and game regulations, and they encourage hunters to consult the
official rule book or just call and ask. I know
I'm speaking to the choir here, but I thought this
PSA might be useful. Also, if you've ever had trouble
figuring out how to hunt or fish without breaking the law.
If it feels wrong, it probably is. Supercomputers have trouble
(01:40):
making sense of game and fish rags, but they don't
know the feeling, nor will they be able to accurately
describe a crisp November morning in the woods waiting on
the sun to rise, the not knowing of what it
will shine upon big ol' antlers. Ideally, what could become
of a precious morning of your hunting season in the
woods does not know, so it cannot know how to
(02:03):
properly interpret those rigs. Get yourself an official rule book
and be sure you understand where you are at, what
you can do, and when you can do it before
heading out in the field. This week DC News, the
Crime Desk, Wolves, and listener Mail. But first I'm going
to tell you about my week, and my week has
been slammed. Gang First in local News, happy to report
(02:27):
that the Old Roadkill Cafe and McLoud Montana is in
new ownership and doing bustling business. Food was great. And
before someone writes in and says, stay out of my
hunting zone, chill baby. I was taking a rare November
afternoon off of hunting to take my aunt out for
her birthday dinner. Then I dedicated, not intentionally, but what
(02:49):
turned out to be the rest of the darned weekend
cleaning up for my past excursions. I pulled all the
grizzly bear meat out of the freezer and defatted it
properly packaged it made it look all nicey nice as
Steven Ronella would say. I'm worried that the fat is
going to turn sour before I can eat it all.
And I think I'm correct as that fat, to me anyway,
(03:12):
is a little more fishy than it was back on
the old Alaska Peninsula. Stirfry last night, kids, grizzly bear stirfry,
you know, like many of you are having at home.
Holy CAFs man, that is good, good stuff. I was
doing all my work calls and stuff while I was
defatting the big ham that I brought back and in
(03:34):
the meat eater kitchen, and then I prepped stirfry with
all the little off pieces, you know, stuff that you'd
typically throw in the grinder. But I'm just not gonna
have enough stuff to throw in the grinder, and you
don't want to waste grizzly bear meat. Right, It's gonna
be a long time before I get any more of
that my freezer. So yeah, just nice, simple stir fry.
(03:55):
Big on throwing corn starch into my stfry saw so
I just feel like it coats that meat a little
bit better, making a huge mess when you cook too.
So like get that walk out, get that oil super hot,
and you're like flash frying, trying to get like a
little bit of char and caramelization out of the sugars
(04:16):
in there when that meat hits the pan, and then
you know the balance, right is like you're steaming veggies.
You're taking a little bit of the bite out of them,
but you still want them snappy. Is your mouth watering yet? Anyway?
It's beef right, Like it's just good beefy like meat.
There are a couple of bites in there. Like you
(04:37):
said that we're a little fishy. I anticipated this and
didn't put any fish sauce or oyster sauce in my
stir fry concoction, which you know, Gang is typically just
salt and sugar makes the world go round in the
stir fry game, and slight variations on that, but that's
your base anyway. On top of the stir frag game
(05:01):
and the freezer rearranging and the cooler cleaning and the organizing,
I put up something like thirty quarts of antelope and
pheasant stock, which, my friends and neighbors, you can hustle
all you want, but you cannot hustle along the old
pressure cooker. Takes time, but I should be able to
get back into the woods or brush or pick your
(05:24):
riparian habitat for another adventure. Shortly, Old Snort is a
Jonesen and so am I damn responsibility Gang, big, huge
thanks to everybody. I really cannot believe the votes of confidence,
support appreciation that I've received regarding the announcement of CEO
(05:44):
incoming backcountry hunters and anglers and a lot of you
want to know what's next. Well, oddly enough, nothing radical.
We're going to keep building and growing our networks, meaning
broad diverse coalition building. We want to represent hunters and
anglers who were big, wide open public lands, waters and wildlife.
When you just can't be there yourself. It's an important role.
(06:07):
Nothing's guaranteed right now. Remember the lesson we learned over
the summer regarding public land sales in the budget reconciliation
fight the Big Beautiful Bill. I truly believe that hunters
and anglers led the way, but we won on that
particular issue because all the stakeholders came to the table
and demanded it. The sell off individuals were so far
(06:28):
in the minority that they scattered apart like leaves in
the wind, no friends to turn to. Remember we are
right to demand our public lands, waters and wildlife responsible
access to them, as well as the fact that we
are right to demand responsible management of these places and resources.
We are playing this for the long game, not the
(06:49):
next three years or the next four after that. I
believe America is going to go the distance. We want
our most valuable resources to do the same. Provide the
opportune unities we have today for those down the road.
They may not take advantage of those opportunities, just like
many do not today, but they'll have the choice, and
that's what matters to me. One thing you can do,
(07:13):
and one of the things BHA will continue to work
on is corner crossing. If you are using that method
of legal access, do so by foot only and as
expeditiously as possible. No loitering. Cross at the corner only
and keep it moving. We don't want any bad examples
to come out of this hunting season. All Americans won
(07:35):
a silly yet important fight at the Tenth Circuit. And
then when the highest court in the land scot Us
Supreme Court of the United States, essentially said corner crossing
has already been settled. We don't need to hear it
just a couple of weeks ago, that was another big win.
But nothing is guaranteed. Behave like access is ours to
lose because it is way back in the start of
(07:59):
the corner crossing fight, when old Fred Eshlman decided to
push the local county attorney there in Wyoming to prosecute
our Missouri hunters. It was a very important distinction to
make then as it is now that that is one
bad apple, one sour individual who wanted to put his
(08:23):
thumb in the eye of the American people and say
you can't walk from public land to public land. Eshelman
Ironbar Holdings is not representative of every land owner in
the US, not by a long shot. I'll tell you
the vast majority of folks I know in Montana. You know,
(08:44):
and I'm talking about like Montana folks, the multi generational
family ranchers, farmers. They allow access somehow, some way through
block management, our state private land public access program, plus
the old fashioned way knocking on doors, families, friends, trusted individuals.
(09:04):
I was just talking to a rancher last night who
guesses that he'll have over twenty successful non ranch owning
cow hunters on his place this season, but that place
isn't enrolled in block management. So my fear here, and
I see it. There's inklings of it that people who
(09:27):
aren't thinking are lumping all landowners together, and by so doing,
they're creating a public versus private thing, which is not
how wildlife in America works. And good old common sense
tells you that there's a mix of private and public
in your hunting and fishing life every year. So let's
(09:49):
be careful with our words and make sure that when
we talk about corner crossing, we are not talking about
all land owning individuals out there, many of which hunt
there's a hell of a lot of hunters out there
who happened to be landowners right in Rocket Science, my
home state. I would have loved for the state of
(10:09):
Montana to be proactive and be prepared for this and
have a statement ready to go this year. Unfortunately, Montana Fish,
Wildlife and Parks came out and said, in the eyes
of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, corner crossing is still illegal. However,
they really just turned every county attorney into a scapegoat,
and they said, well, it's up to the county attorney
(10:31):
to prosecute. And is that county attorney going to look
at ultimately three Supreme Court decisions, the ninth, the tenth,
and then Scotus's decision not to hear the corner crossing
case and say this is worth my time to prosecute.
I can't tell you the answer to that, but I
(10:52):
would think it would have to be a pretty damn
slow day in that county. However, just like our hard
working agricultural community out there, hunters don't want to see
trucks backed up at corners, impromptu parking lots, crowded rural roads.
We don't want to advertise spot burn corners to access
(11:16):
places that have been in dispute. We just want this
to be simple and normal, no fanfare. We got to
work together to make that happen. Obviously, there's some folks
here in the state of Montana who are a little
nervous about this, So we got to keep working. Form
those coalitions, talk with their friends in the AG community,
and see what type of language we need to make
(11:39):
those folks feel good about this means of lawful public access.
Moving on to the DC desk, there's not a whole
lot of good news to report out of our nation's
capital these days, but I am pleased by the launch
of the Senate Stewardship Caucus. The Senate Stewardship Caucus was
launched by one of my own Montana senators, Republican Tim Sheehey,
(12:01):
alongside a stalwart defender of public lands, New Mexico Democrat,
Martin Heinrich. According to Senator Shehey's office, becaucus aims to
drive bipartisan efforts to protect and expand access to public lands,
promote common sense land management policies, and support economic growth
in rural communities. Other inaugural members include Democrats Catherine Cortes Masto,
(12:22):
John Hickenlooper, and Chris Coons, as well as Republicans Tom Tillis,
Steve Daines, and Katie Britt. That's not a huge number
of senators, and I hope others will join, But considering
how divided the Upper Chamber is, it doesn't take a
whole lot of legislators to block bad legislation. Remember just
a few months ago, when Utah Senator Mike Lee tried
to sell off millions of acres of public land. That
(12:42):
bill was stalled in the Senate by just a few
Republicans joining their Democrat colleagues and refusing to vote for it.
If these four Democrats and four Republicans on the Senate
Stewardship Caucus hold fast to their commitment, they can block
a lot of the worst ideas from the folks who
care more more about their bottom line than protecting our
public land and all that they provide. We'll see what
(13:06):
happens here with this here caucus. I may not agree
with everything that they do or say, but the founding
members have approven track record, and I'm very glad to
see a formalized resistance to Mike Lee and those who
agree with him. Moving on, to the crime desk. The
main Warden Service is offering a three thousand dollars reward
(13:28):
for information of whoever killed the Canada Links in the
town of Perim last month. The dead cat was found
on October fifteenth on Mouse Island Road, and an investigation
revealed that it did not die of natural causes. Someone
shot it within twenty four hours of it being found,
and officials have described the killing as unnecessary, which means
it wasn't done in self defense or to protect livestock
(13:50):
or property. Links are a federally protected species, so it's
a federal crime to grass, trap, hunt, or kill one.
Maine has more Links than any other state in the
lower forty eight and it's the only state in the
Northeast with a breeding population. That's due in part to
extensive cutting of spruce and fur in the nineteen seventies
and nineteen eighties following an insect outbreak twenty five years later.
(14:12):
This widespread cutting created a young, dense conifer forest, which
is ideal habitat for snowshoe hair, a Lynx's primary food source.
These days, there are likely over one thousand Links living
in northern and western Maine, though now there's one fewer
than there should be. If you know anything about what happened,
get in touch with Operation Game Thief at one eight
hundred alert us, or submit a tip online at MAINEOGT
(14:38):
dot org. A pair of salmon anglers in Washington State
are in the running for dumbest wildlife criminals of the
Year when they live streamed themselves committing multiple fishing violations.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Police said in
a press release that they got a tip about the
live stream from the Killeute River. Officer Macomber logged into
(14:59):
the street and sure enough, he saw two unidentified individuals
illegally removing salmon from the river and showing them to
the camera. The officer drove out to the scene, found
the boat, and ordered them to shore. The live stream
cut off in short order, but it wasn't enough to
save these geniuses from some pretty serious citations. Along with
using a barbed hook, one of the anglers had continued
fishing even after reaching his daily limit. This is illegal
(15:22):
by itself, but it's even more illegal to remove the
salmon from the water after you've reached your limit. Because
he did this to show off for the camera. He
was also cited for violating this rule speaking of doing
bad things on video. A South Dakota father is facing
three felony counts after a video went viral of him
berating his son during a hunting trip. The video shows
(15:44):
Corey Cummings cursing, yelling, belittling, and threatening to leave his
twelve year old son while the two were supposedly trying
to hunt pheasants. I'm not gonna play the video because
it's a bummer. It's tough to watch. Can't imagine why
Cummings posted it in the first place. He claims you
he was trying to get attention using quote rage bait.
But even if that's not true, he's still an idiot.
(16:05):
The video shows him possessing a firearm on the pheasant hunt,
but he's prohibited from doing so thanks to a twenty
twenty three marijuana conviction. He's been charged by state authorities
with two counts of possession of a firearm by a
person with a prior felony drug conviction, and one count
of child abuse, which is also a felony. You'll be
unsurprised to hear that this isn't old Corey's first run
(16:26):
in with the law. The Mitchell Republic reports that the
fed's rated comings home and roofing business back in twenty
twenty three, where they found over one hundred firearms and
ammunition which he is prohibited from possessing. He pled not
guilty prior to his trial in December, but he's facing
fifteen years in the FED if he's convicted. Moving over
(16:46):
to Wyoming, an eight year investigation has resulted in charges
for ten people for lying about their residency to get
cheaper big game tags. Sean Thomas of Farson was sentenced
last week for making false statements and illegally killing black bears,
pronghorned deer, elk, and other wildlife in southwest Wyoming. Thomas
was joined by four members of his family and five
(17:06):
friends from Utah and Minnesota. They were charged with everything
from illegally taking elk calf to hunting without a license
to hunting from a vehicle. Their monetary penalties range from
nine thousand dollars to a couple hundred bucks, and many
faced multi year hunting licensed suspensions. Almost all had to
forfeit the trophies secured from their illegal hunts. Lying about
(17:27):
your residency is nothing new, but I wonder if it
will become more common as states continue to jack up
non resident prices. If the difference between a resident tag
and a non resident one is six or eight hundred dollars,
the incentive to cheat the system becomes a lot greater
than it was in decades past. The last one, an
(17:47):
eighteen year old in Illinois is being charged with killing
at least thirteen deer from a roadway and leaving them
to rot. Authorities have accused Ashton MacArthur of Clinton County
of spotlighting the animals at night and shooting them with
a twin twenty two caliber rifle. It's unclear if he's
shot all the deer on the same night, but a
press release from the sheriff's office says the investigation stemmed
(18:07):
from an incident on October twenty four in which multiple
deer were killed from a roadway. MacArthur is facing multiple
wildlife charges along with other criminal charges. Over to the
wolf desk, the California Department of Fishing Wildlife late last
month killed four wolves in the Sierra Valley after intensive
hazing efforts failed to reduce the wolf's predation on domestic
(18:30):
cattle and sheep in the area. Of course, this is
a big deal because wolves in California are listed as
endangered at both the state and federal level. But the
CDFW justified the extraordinary intervention because this small group of wolves,
known as the Bam Sao Pack, had been responsible for
a whopping seventy total livestock losses between March twenty eight
(18:51):
and September ten of this year, meaning that they were
at all time peak value, especially prior to President Trump's
excit reupdunts of Argentinian beef once again Knucklehead, and they
killed another seventeen cows by mid October. That's eighty seven
total animals killed by just three adults and six juvenile wolves,
(19:12):
more than Oregon's two hundred wolves killed during an entire year.
Over the summer, we told you about drones being used
to scare wolves away from livestock in the nearby Klamath
Basin in northern California, including recorded arguments from movies, the
sound of gunshots, and the song baby Shark played at
full blast. That one's more of a suggestion, but it
would work. Fish and Wildlife employed the same kind of
(19:33):
drones with this pack, as well as several other interventions
and here I'm reading from the state's press release. Quote
non lethal beanbags, all terrain vehicles, foot presence, diversionary feeding,
flatterrey installation, and field presence twenty four hours a day,
seven days a week unquote. Flatry, by the way, is
a very old technique of hanging flags from a line
(19:54):
that forms a boundary around livestock. When it works, predators
are unsettled by the unfamiliar flags moving the wind and
don't cross the boundary. But flattery usually only works for
a matter of weeks, and if the flags coil around
the line at any point and form a gap in
the series of flags, predators quickly pass through, realize they
have nothing to fear, and then cross the boundary everywhere
without a care in the world. There's also turbo flattery,
(20:16):
which is a very cool name for adding electricity to
the line, which lengthens the effectiveness of the technique to
a few months. Anyway, none of these interventions, amounting to
eighteen thousand total work hours a combination of federal and
state agencies worked on the Baymso pack Biologists concluded that
these wolves had become fully dependent on livestock for their
(20:39):
daily calories and that they were also training their young
to disregard all deterrence and also be dependent on livestock
if they remained on the landscape. Officials worried the young
wolves would eventually teach their own offspring to be brazen
livestock killers specialists we would call them. CDFW staff are
therefore now trying to capture the two remaining juveni wolves
(21:00):
in the Bam Sao pack so they don't teach any
other wolf whipper snappers that those drones overhead are nothing
to worry about. California has now started to reconsider its
wolf management policy, and of course that should go over
easy with animal rights groups in the general public. Stay tuned,
we'll be hearing a lot more on this one in
the future. But before we get to the future, we
(21:21):
have even more wolf news for you from right here
in the present. The Trump administration is throwing its weight
around with Colorado's own ongoing wolf reintroduction. We reported on
Colorado wolves back in late twenty two and early twenty three.
If you want a primer on the issue, scroll on
back to episode one ninety one of the Week in Review.
(21:41):
Get yourself up to speed. As a bit of a refresher.
Neither California or Oregon reintroduce wolves themselves. Wolves spread to
these states from an original population that was reintroduced by
US Fish and Wildlife in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem in
the mid nineties. Oddly enough, wolves were doing that in
Colorado two. But the proponents of reintroduction said that it
(22:03):
is impossible for a wolf to survive the Rednecks of
Wyoming and make it into Colorado. What they really meant is,
we're highly incentivized to get this reintroduction, and we have
no patience for Mother Nature to work on her time.
We want it on ours. So the Colorado situation minus hyperbole.
(22:25):
Those wolves from the gye reintroduction migrated through Wyoming and
passed into Colorado as early as two thousand and four,
but in twenty twenty, Colorado voters also passed prop One fourteen,
which was the resolution to introduce wolves in addition to
those entering the state on their own, with the ultimate
goal to bring the state's total wolf population to two
hundred individuals. That effort got underway in twenty twenty three
(22:48):
when Colorado Parks and Wildlife released ten wolves west of
the Continental Divide in the state, and now the state's
population is right around thirty wolves. A major wrinkle in
the plan came recently when the states nearby Montana, Wyoming,
and Idaho said they didn't want to participate in Colorado's
reintroduction plan. Colorado then partnered with the British Columbia Ministry
of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship to relocate wolves from Canada,
(23:12):
a process that was set to continue later this year.
Now a very different US Fish and Wildlife Service due
to a directive that Colorado may not bring those wolves
from Canada and can only relocate wolves from quote unquote
Northern Rocky Mountain states. Hard to see this as a
concern about the genetic makeup of Colorado's wolfpack rather than
simply a convenient wrench in the works of the reintroduction generally, Interestingly,
(23:36):
most of the wolves that Colorado has relocated so far
came from Oregon. Would that count as a Northern Rocky
Mountain state? If not to the FED stand in the
way of two states independently arranging a transfer between themselves.
Maybe we'll find out soon. Luke Perkins of Colorado Parks
and Wildlife said that the state quote continues to evaluate
all options to support this year's gray wolf releases. We
(24:00):
will be sure to bring the updates on what those
options turn out to be. Moving on to the voicemail desk,
a listener from here in Montana wrote in with what
sounds like a wild encounter with some other hunters on
public lamp. This fella was out antelope hunting just south
of Dylan on some blm land. He and a buddy
had set up camp on Friday when they saw a
(24:21):
horse trailer pull up and park about one hundred yards away.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
The dude driving asked you to camp there, not my
choice as public land, said yeah, no problem. Next day
rolls around, end up shooting an antelope in the morning
at about eleven o'clock. He comes over already drinking and
already a little tipsy.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Not a great start. But after they came back from
their evening hunt, things got weirder and.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
This guy is just screaming about how he shot an
antelope in the head at six hundred yards while it
was running. So my buddies and I got a good
little chuckle out of that. And about ten o'clock that
night they're all having this mass bonfire about one hundred
yards away from us and just making so much noise.
(25:05):
Finally get out of the tent, was about to walk
over there and just say, hey, guys, can you quiet
it down a little bit? And they get into a
massive fight, and by fight, I mean two guys on
the ground throwing each other up against horse trailers. One
guy eventually pulls a gun on the other guy. His
wife is sitting there screaming. Everything's super chaotic, and the
(25:27):
dude who has a gun pointed at him just yell,
if you want to shoot me, ef and shoot me,
do it. Guy doesn't shoot him, thankfully, but just thought
that was pretty crazy and I'd share that with you. So, yeah,
it's good luck hunting the season.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
So it's a bummer that this came in during hunting season.
And you know, this is just a good example, right
I brought up you know, big land owners can't all
be lumped in with fred Eshlman, right, because that's just
not accurate or true. Just like the bad dangerous behavior
(26:02):
example of this group. I wouldn't be like, oh, yeah,
those are hunters, right, I'd just be like, oh, those
are jackasses people who have a lot of growing up
to do. It's a real real bummer that they wanted
to camp next to somebody who's already established, knowing full
well that they were going to behave the way that
(26:24):
they behave. I'm sure it's not their first time, but
shame on them won't get us anywhere, right, You just
got to pack up and leave. That's the only thing
you can do. If you want to call the sheriff
in that situation, I probably would have lady screaming guns
drawn alcohol, and that sheriff probably would have showed up
early in the morning hours to handle these folks when
(26:47):
the lack of sleep and high hangover situation made them
a little easier to deal with. It's a good insight too,
because this isn't just something that happens at dispersed campsites, right.
This is something that our BLM employees, and our Forest
Service employees, and our US Fish and Wildlife employees and
our park service employees deal with all the time, domestic situations.
(27:12):
It's not a pretty or promoted part of the job.
I guess you don't see it in headlines very often,
but it is a major thing that these agency personnel
deal with. Another reason to thank them for what they do.
That's all I got for you this week. Thank you
so much for listening. Remember to write in to ask
c Al that's Ascal at the meeteater dot com. Let
(27:35):
me know what's going on in your neck of the woods.
You know we appreciate it.
From Meat Eaters World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This
is Col's Week in Review with Ryan cow Calahan. Here's
cal I'm no fan of artificial intelligence, mostly because of
all the water and energy it needs to operate, which
is substantial. It's already an issue. It will become a
(00:32):
bigger issue. Pay attention, But now we have another reason
to be skeptical of the technology that will supposedly change
the world as we know it. Several states are reporting
that hunters are getting in trouble for relying on aipowered
answers to questions about hunting rags up. In Idaho, a
duck hunter got in trouble because an AI bot told
him the season started a day earlier than it actually did.
(00:55):
The wardens found that the search gave him an answer
that pulled information from a fail proposal, not the agency's
final decision or its regulations book. Wyoming Game and Fish
also told local media that they're concerned about hunters relying
too heavily on Google or Chat GPT before going out
into the field. An agency spokesperson told The Cowboys State
(01:16):
Daily that they've noticed AI generating incorrect answers about fish
and game regulations, and they encourage hunters to consult the
official rule book or just call and ask. I know
I'm speaking to the choir here, but I thought this
PSA might be useful. Also, if you've ever had trouble
figuring out how to hunt or fish without breaking the law.
If it feels wrong, it probably is. Supercomputers have trouble
(01:40):
making sense of game and fish rags, but they don't
know the feeling, nor will they be able to accurately
describe a crisp November morning in the woods waiting on
the sun to rise, the not knowing of what it
will shine upon big ol' antlers. Ideally, what could become
of a precious morning of your hunting season in the
woods does not know, so it cannot know how to
(02:03):
properly interpret those rigs. Get yourself an official rule book
and be sure you understand where you are at, what
you can do, and when you can do it before
heading out in the field. This week DC News, the
Crime Desk, Wolves, and listener Mail. But first I'm going
to tell you about my week, and my week has
been slammed. Gang First in local News, happy to report
(02:27):
that the Old Roadkill Cafe and McLoud Montana is in
new ownership and doing bustling business. Food was great. And
before someone writes in and says, stay out of my
hunting zone, chill baby. I was taking a rare November
afternoon off of hunting to take my aunt out for
her birthday dinner. Then I dedicated, not intentionally, but what
(02:49):
turned out to be the rest of the darned weekend
cleaning up for my past excursions. I pulled all the
grizzly bear meat out of the freezer and defatted it
properly packaged it made it look all nicey nice as
Steven Ronella would say. I'm worried that the fat is
going to turn sour before I can eat it all.
And I think I'm correct as that fat, to me anyway,
(03:12):
is a little more fishy than it was back on
the old Alaska Peninsula. Stirfry last night, kids, grizzly bear stirfry,
you know, like many of you are having at home.
Holy CAFs man, that is good, good stuff. I was
doing all my work calls and stuff while I was
defatting the big ham that I brought back and in
(03:34):
the meat eater kitchen, and then I prepped stirfry with
all the little off pieces, you know, stuff that you'd
typically throw in the grinder. But I'm just not gonna
have enough stuff to throw in the grinder, and you
don't want to waste grizzly bear meat. Right, It's gonna
be a long time before I get any more of
that my freezer. So yeah, just nice, simple stir fry.
(03:55):
Big on throwing corn starch into my stfry saw so
I just feel like it coats that meat a little
bit better, making a huge mess when you cook too.
So like get that walk out, get that oil super hot,
and you're like flash frying, trying to get like a
little bit of char and caramelization out of the sugars
(04:16):
in there when that meat hits the pan, and then
you know the balance, right is like you're steaming veggies.
You're taking a little bit of the bite out of them,
but you still want them snappy. Is your mouth watering yet? Anyway?
It's beef right, Like it's just good beefy like meat.
There are a couple of bites in there. Like you
(04:37):
said that we're a little fishy. I anticipated this and
didn't put any fish sauce or oyster sauce in my
stir fry concoction, which you know, Gang is typically just
salt and sugar makes the world go round in the
stir fry game, and slight variations on that, but that's
your base anyway. On top of the stir frag game
(05:01):
and the freezer rearranging and the cooler cleaning and the organizing,
I put up something like thirty quarts of antelope and
pheasant stock, which, my friends and neighbors, you can hustle
all you want, but you cannot hustle along the old
pressure cooker. Takes time, but I should be able to
get back into the woods or brush or pick your
(05:24):
riparian habitat for another adventure. Shortly, Old Snort is a
Jonesen and so am I damn responsibility Gang, big, huge
thanks to everybody. I really cannot believe the votes of confidence,
support appreciation that I've received regarding the announcement of CEO
(05:44):
incoming backcountry hunters and anglers and a lot of you
want to know what's next. Well, oddly enough, nothing radical.
We're going to keep building and growing our networks, meaning
broad diverse coalition building. We want to represent hunters and
anglers who were big, wide open public lands, waters and wildlife.
When you just can't be there yourself. It's an important role.
(06:07):
Nothing's guaranteed right now. Remember the lesson we learned over
the summer regarding public land sales in the budget reconciliation
fight the Big Beautiful Bill. I truly believe that hunters
and anglers led the way, but we won on that
particular issue because all the stakeholders came to the table
and demanded it. The sell off individuals were so far
(06:28):
in the minority that they scattered apart like leaves in
the wind, no friends to turn to. Remember we are
right to demand our public lands, waters and wildlife responsible
access to them, as well as the fact that we
are right to demand responsible management of these places and resources.
We are playing this for the long game, not the
(06:49):
next three years or the next four after that. I
believe America is going to go the distance. We want
our most valuable resources to do the same. Provide the
opportune unities we have today for those down the road.
They may not take advantage of those opportunities, just like
many do not today, but they'll have the choice, and
that's what matters to me. One thing you can do,
(07:13):
and one of the things BHA will continue to work
on is corner crossing. If you are using that method
of legal access, do so by foot only and as
expeditiously as possible. No loitering. Cross at the corner only
and keep it moving. We don't want any bad examples
to come out of this hunting season. All Americans won
(07:35):
a silly yet important fight at the Tenth Circuit. And
then when the highest court in the land scot Us
Supreme Court of the United States, essentially said corner crossing
has already been settled. We don't need to hear it
just a couple of weeks ago, that was another big win.
But nothing is guaranteed. Behave like access is ours to
lose because it is way back in the start of
(07:59):
the corner crossing fight, when old Fred Eshlman decided to
push the local county attorney there in Wyoming to prosecute
our Missouri hunters. It was a very important distinction to
make then as it is now that that is one
bad apple, one sour individual who wanted to put his
(08:23):
thumb in the eye of the American people and say
you can't walk from public land to public land. Eshelman
Ironbar Holdings is not representative of every land owner in
the US, not by a long shot. I'll tell you
the vast majority of folks I know in Montana. You know,
(08:44):
and I'm talking about like Montana folks, the multi generational
family ranchers, farmers. They allow access somehow, some way through
block management, our state private land public access program, plus
the old fashioned way knocking on doors, families, friends, trusted individuals.
(09:04):
I was just talking to a rancher last night who
guesses that he'll have over twenty successful non ranch owning
cow hunters on his place this season, but that place
isn't enrolled in block management. So my fear here, and
I see it. There's inklings of it that people who
(09:27):
aren't thinking are lumping all landowners together, and by so doing,
they're creating a public versus private thing, which is not
how wildlife in America works. And good old common sense
tells you that there's a mix of private and public
in your hunting and fishing life every year. So let's
(09:49):
be careful with our words and make sure that when
we talk about corner crossing, we are not talking about
all land owning individuals out there, many of which hunt
there's a hell of a lot of hunters out there
who happened to be landowners right in Rocket Science, my
home state. I would have loved for the state of
(10:09):
Montana to be proactive and be prepared for this and
have a statement ready to go this year. Unfortunately, Montana Fish,
Wildlife and Parks came out and said, in the eyes
of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, corner crossing is still illegal. However,
they really just turned every county attorney into a scapegoat,
and they said, well, it's up to the county attorney
(10:31):
to prosecute. And is that county attorney going to look
at ultimately three Supreme Court decisions, the ninth, the tenth,
and then Scotus's decision not to hear the corner crossing
case and say this is worth my time to prosecute.
I can't tell you the answer to that, but I
(10:52):
would think it would have to be a pretty damn
slow day in that county. However, just like our hard
working agricultural community out there, hunters don't want to see
trucks backed up at corners, impromptu parking lots, crowded rural roads.
We don't want to advertise spot burn corners to access
(11:16):
places that have been in dispute. We just want this
to be simple and normal, no fanfare. We got to
work together to make that happen. Obviously, there's some folks
here in the state of Montana who are a little
nervous about this, So we got to keep working. Form
those coalitions, talk with their friends in the AG community,
and see what type of language we need to make
(11:39):
those folks feel good about this means of lawful public access.
Moving on to the DC desk, there's not a whole
lot of good news to report out of our nation's
capital these days, but I am pleased by the launch
of the Senate Stewardship Caucus. The Senate Stewardship Caucus was
launched by one of my own Montana senators, Republican Tim Sheehey,
(12:01):
alongside a stalwart defender of public lands, New Mexico Democrat,
Martin Heinrich. According to Senator Shehey's office, becaucus aims to
drive bipartisan efforts to protect and expand access to public lands,
promote common sense land management policies, and support economic growth
in rural communities. Other inaugural members include Democrats Catherine Cortes Masto,
(12:22):
John Hickenlooper, and Chris Coons, as well as Republicans Tom Tillis,
Steve Daines, and Katie Britt. That's not a huge number
of senators, and I hope others will join, But considering
how divided the Upper Chamber is, it doesn't take a
whole lot of legislators to block bad legislation. Remember just
a few months ago, when Utah Senator Mike Lee tried
to sell off millions of acres of public land. That
(12:42):
bill was stalled in the Senate by just a few
Republicans joining their Democrat colleagues and refusing to vote for it.
If these four Democrats and four Republicans on the Senate
Stewardship Caucus hold fast to their commitment, they can block
a lot of the worst ideas from the folks who
care more more about their bottom line than protecting our
public land and all that they provide. We'll see what
(13:06):
happens here with this here caucus. I may not agree
with everything that they do or say, but the founding
members have approven track record, and I'm very glad to
see a formalized resistance to Mike Lee and those who
agree with him. Moving on, to the crime desk. The
main Warden Service is offering a three thousand dollars reward
(13:28):
for information of whoever killed the Canada Links in the
town of Perim last month. The dead cat was found
on October fifteenth on Mouse Island Road, and an investigation
revealed that it did not die of natural causes. Someone
shot it within twenty four hours of it being found,
and officials have described the killing as unnecessary, which means
it wasn't done in self defense or to protect livestock
(13:50):
or property. Links are a federally protected species, so it's
a federal crime to grass, trap, hunt, or kill one.
Maine has more Links than any other state in the
lower forty eight and it's the only state in the
Northeast with a breeding population. That's due in part to
extensive cutting of spruce and fur in the nineteen seventies
and nineteen eighties following an insect outbreak twenty five years later.
(14:12):
This widespread cutting created a young, dense conifer forest, which
is ideal habitat for snowshoe hair, a Lynx's primary food source.
These days, there are likely over one thousand Links living
in northern and western Maine, though now there's one fewer
than there should be. If you know anything about what happened,
get in touch with Operation Game Thief at one eight
hundred alert us, or submit a tip online at MAINEOGT
(14:38):
dot org. A pair of salmon anglers in Washington State
are in the running for dumbest wildlife criminals of the
Year when they live streamed themselves committing multiple fishing violations.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Police said in
a press release that they got a tip about the
live stream from the Killeute River. Officer Macomber logged into
(14:59):
the street and sure enough, he saw two unidentified individuals
illegally removing salmon from the river and showing them to
the camera. The officer drove out to the scene, found
the boat, and ordered them to shore. The live stream
cut off in short order, but it wasn't enough to
save these geniuses from some pretty serious citations. Along with
using a barbed hook, one of the anglers had continued
fishing even after reaching his daily limit. This is illegal
(15:22):
by itself, but it's even more illegal to remove the
salmon from the water after you've reached your limit. Because
he did this to show off for the camera. He
was also cited for violating this rule speaking of doing
bad things on video. A South Dakota father is facing
three felony counts after a video went viral of him
berating his son during a hunting trip. The video shows
(15:44):
Corey Cummings cursing, yelling, belittling, and threatening to leave his
twelve year old son while the two were supposedly trying
to hunt pheasants. I'm not gonna play the video because
it's a bummer. It's tough to watch. Can't imagine why
Cummings posted it in the first place. He claims you
he was trying to get attention using quote rage bait.
But even if that's not true, he's still an idiot.
(16:05):
The video shows him possessing a firearm on the pheasant hunt,
but he's prohibited from doing so thanks to a twenty
twenty three marijuana conviction. He's been charged by state authorities
with two counts of possession of a firearm by a
person with a prior felony drug conviction, and one count
of child abuse, which is also a felony. You'll be
unsurprised to hear that this isn't old Corey's first run
(16:26):
in with the law. The Mitchell Republic reports that the
fed's rated comings home and roofing business back in twenty
twenty three, where they found over one hundred firearms and
ammunition which he is prohibited from possessing. He pled not
guilty prior to his trial in December, but he's facing
fifteen years in the FED if he's convicted. Moving over
(16:46):
to Wyoming, an eight year investigation has resulted in charges
for ten people for lying about their residency to get
cheaper big game tags. Sean Thomas of Farson was sentenced
last week for making false statements and illegally killing black bears,
pronghorned deer, elk, and other wildlife in southwest Wyoming. Thomas
was joined by four members of his family and five
(17:06):
friends from Utah and Minnesota. They were charged with everything
from illegally taking elk calf to hunting without a license
to hunting from a vehicle. Their monetary penalties range from
nine thousand dollars to a couple hundred bucks, and many
faced multi year hunting licensed suspensions. Almost all had to
forfeit the trophies secured from their illegal hunts. Lying about
(17:27):
your residency is nothing new, but I wonder if it
will become more common as states continue to jack up
non resident prices. If the difference between a resident tag
and a non resident one is six or eight hundred dollars,
the incentive to cheat the system becomes a lot greater
than it was in decades past. The last one, an
(17:47):
eighteen year old in Illinois is being charged with killing
at least thirteen deer from a roadway and leaving them
to rot. Authorities have accused Ashton MacArthur of Clinton County
of spotlighting the animals at night and shooting them with
a twin twenty two caliber rifle. It's unclear if he's
shot all the deer on the same night, but a
press release from the sheriff's office says the investigation stemmed
(18:07):
from an incident on October twenty four in which multiple
deer were killed from a roadway. MacArthur is facing multiple
wildlife charges along with other criminal charges. Over to the
wolf desk, the California Department of Fishing Wildlife late last
month killed four wolves in the Sierra Valley after intensive
hazing efforts failed to reduce the wolf's predation on domestic
(18:30):
cattle and sheep in the area. Of course, this is
a big deal because wolves in California are listed as
endangered at both the state and federal level. But the
CDFW justified the extraordinary intervention because this small group of wolves,
known as the Bam Sao Pack, had been responsible for
a whopping seventy total livestock losses between March twenty eight
(18:51):
and September ten of this year, meaning that they were
at all time peak value, especially prior to President Trump's
excit reupdunts of Argentinian beef once again Knucklehead, and they
killed another seventeen cows by mid October. That's eighty seven
total animals killed by just three adults and six juvenile wolves,
(19:12):
more than Oregon's two hundred wolves killed during an entire year.
Over the summer, we told you about drones being used
to scare wolves away from livestock in the nearby Klamath
Basin in northern California, including recorded arguments from movies, the
sound of gunshots, and the song baby Shark played at
full blast. That one's more of a suggestion, but it
would work. Fish and Wildlife employed the same kind of
(19:33):
drones with this pack, as well as several other interventions
and here I'm reading from the state's press release. Quote
non lethal beanbags, all terrain vehicles, foot presence, diversionary feeding,
flatterrey installation, and field presence twenty four hours a day,
seven days a week unquote. Flatry, by the way, is
a very old technique of hanging flags from a line
(19:54):
that forms a boundary around livestock. When it works, predators
are unsettled by the unfamiliar flags moving the wind and
don't cross the boundary. But flattery usually only works for
a matter of weeks, and if the flags coil around
the line at any point and form a gap in
the series of flags, predators quickly pass through, realize they
have nothing to fear, and then cross the boundary everywhere
without a care in the world. There's also turbo flattery,
(20:16):
which is a very cool name for adding electricity to
the line, which lengthens the effectiveness of the technique to
a few months. Anyway, none of these interventions, amounting to
eighteen thousand total work hours a combination of federal and
state agencies worked on the Baymso pack Biologists concluded that
these wolves had become fully dependent on livestock for their
(20:39):
daily calories and that they were also training their young
to disregard all deterrence and also be dependent on livestock
if they remained on the landscape. Officials worried the young
wolves would eventually teach their own offspring to be brazen
livestock killers specialists we would call them. CDFW staff are
therefore now trying to capture the two remaining juveni wolves
(21:00):
in the Bam Sao pack so they don't teach any
other wolf whipper snappers that those drones overhead are nothing
to worry about. California has now started to reconsider its
wolf management policy, and of course that should go over
easy with animal rights groups in the general public. Stay tuned,
we'll be hearing a lot more on this one in
the future. But before we get to the future, we
(21:21):
have even more wolf news for you from right here
in the present. The Trump administration is throwing its weight
around with Colorado's own ongoing wolf reintroduction. We reported on
Colorado wolves back in late twenty two and early twenty three.
If you want a primer on the issue, scroll on
back to episode one ninety one of the Week in Review.
(21:41):
Get yourself up to speed. As a bit of a refresher.
Neither California or Oregon reintroduce wolves themselves. Wolves spread to
these states from an original population that was reintroduced by
US Fish and Wildlife in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem in
the mid nineties. Oddly enough, wolves were doing that in
Colorado two. But the proponents of reintroduction said that it
(22:03):
is impossible for a wolf to survive the Rednecks of
Wyoming and make it into Colorado. What they really meant is,
we're highly incentivized to get this reintroduction, and we have
no patience for Mother Nature to work on her time.
We want it on ours. So the Colorado situation minus hyperbole.
(22:25):
Those wolves from the gye reintroduction migrated through Wyoming and
passed into Colorado as early as two thousand and four,
but in twenty twenty, Colorado voters also passed prop One fourteen,
which was the resolution to introduce wolves in addition to
those entering the state on their own, with the ultimate
goal to bring the state's total wolf population to two
hundred individuals. That effort got underway in twenty twenty three
(22:48):
when Colorado Parks and Wildlife released ten wolves west of
the Continental Divide in the state, and now the state's
population is right around thirty wolves. A major wrinkle in
the plan came recently when the states nearby Montana, Wyoming,
and Idaho said they didn't want to participate in Colorado's
reintroduction plan. Colorado then partnered with the British Columbia Ministry
of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship to relocate wolves from Canada,
(23:12):
a process that was set to continue later this year.
Now a very different US Fish and Wildlife Service due
to a directive that Colorado may not bring those wolves
from Canada and can only relocate wolves from quote unquote
Northern Rocky Mountain states. Hard to see this as a
concern about the genetic makeup of Colorado's wolfpack rather than
simply a convenient wrench in the works of the reintroduction generally, Interestingly,
(23:36):
most of the wolves that Colorado has relocated so far
came from Oregon. Would that count as a Northern Rocky
Mountain state? If not to the FED stand in the
way of two states independently arranging a transfer between themselves.
Maybe we'll find out soon. Luke Perkins of Colorado Parks
and Wildlife said that the state quote continues to evaluate
all options to support this year's gray wolf releases. We
(24:00):
will be sure to bring the updates on what those
options turn out to be. Moving on to the voicemail desk,
a listener from here in Montana wrote in with what
sounds like a wild encounter with some other hunters on
public lamp. This fella was out antelope hunting just south
of Dylan on some blm land. He and a buddy
had set up camp on Friday when they saw a
(24:21):
horse trailer pull up and park about one hundred yards away.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
The dude driving asked you to camp there, not my
choice as public land, said yeah, no problem. Next day
rolls around, end up shooting an antelope in the morning
at about eleven o'clock. He comes over already drinking and
already a little tipsy.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Not a great start. But after they came back from
their evening hunt, things got weirder and.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
This guy is just screaming about how he shot an
antelope in the head at six hundred yards while it
was running. So my buddies and I got a good
little chuckle out of that. And about ten o'clock that
night they're all having this mass bonfire about one hundred
yards away from us and just making so much noise.
(25:05):
Finally get out of the tent, was about to walk
over there and just say, hey, guys, can you quiet
it down a little bit? And they get into a
massive fight, and by fight, I mean two guys on
the ground throwing each other up against horse trailers. One
guy eventually pulls a gun on the other guy. His
wife is sitting there screaming. Everything's super chaotic, and the
(25:27):
dude who has a gun pointed at him just yell,
if you want to shoot me, ef and shoot me,
do it. Guy doesn't shoot him, thankfully, but just thought
that was pretty crazy and I'd share that with you. So, yeah,
it's good luck hunting the season.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
So it's a bummer that this came in during hunting season.
And you know, this is just a good example, right
I brought up you know, big land owners can't all
be lumped in with fred Eshlman, right, because that's just
not accurate or true. Just like the bad dangerous behavior
(26:02):
example of this group. I wouldn't be like, oh, yeah,
those are hunters, right, I'd just be like, oh, those
are jackasses people who have a lot of growing up
to do. It's a real real bummer that they wanted
to camp next to somebody who's already established, knowing full
well that they were going to behave the way that
(26:24):
they behave. I'm sure it's not their first time, but
shame on them won't get us anywhere, right, You just
got to pack up and leave. That's the only thing
you can do. If you want to call the sheriff
in that situation, I probably would have lady screaming guns
drawn alcohol, and that sheriff probably would have showed up
early in the morning hours to handle these folks when
(26:47):
the lack of sleep and high hangover situation made them
a little easier to deal with. It's a good insight too,
because this isn't just something that happens at dispersed campsites, right.
This is something that our BLM employees, and our Forest
Service employees, and our US Fish and Wildlife employees and
our park service employees deal with all the time, domestic situations.
(27:12):
It's not a pretty or promoted part of the job.
I guess you don't see it in headlines very often,
but it is a major thing that these agency personnel
deal with. Another reason to thank them for what they do.
That's all I got for you this week. Thank you
so much for listening. Remember to write in to ask
c Al that's Ascal at the meeteater dot com. Let
(27:35):
me know what's going on in your neck of the woods.
You know we appreciate it.
Host
Cal Callaghan
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