Ep. 354: If There's Lead In The Air, There's Hope In The Heart

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is me Eat podcast coming at you shirtless, severely
bug bitten, and in my case, underwear. Listening to huntcast,
you can't predict anything presented by First, like creating proven
versatile hunting apparel from Marino bass layers to technical outerwear
for every hunt first like go farther, stay longer. Hey there,

(00:36):
I'm Janice, but tell us and I'm here to read
an ad for you today because Steve is up at
the fish shack having fun with all of his friends
catching salmon, spear and salmon, diving for scallops, trying to
catch halibt um, just general, you know, a good Southeast
Alaska fun, but not I mean, I'm here in the

(00:59):
podcast student, you know, reading this ad for you. Alright,
but listen up, very serious. You should get fired up
because this is big, this ad here that I'm about
to tell you. Are you're listening all right? It's the
first ever organization wide meaning everything under the Meat Eater
umbrella meaning the Meat Eater Store, Phelps, f HF, and

(01:23):
First Light. It's all on sale August second through the fourth. Okay.
What's cool about this is that now under the new
shopping experience that you can find on our website. You
can do all your shopping in one place, put it
all into one car. And the big hicker here is
that you only pay for shipping one time. Um, I've

(01:45):
done a little bit of surfing on the new media website,
but phil Um says he's been down in the rabbit
hole a few times? Why do you like that new website? So,
I mean, I think listeners know. I'm usually not the
one to be able to speak to this the stuff
that we sell on selling website. I'm a relatively new hunter.
You know, I'm not too deep in the waters. But man,
if you if you have not been to the website

(02:06):
in the last few weeks since it's been updated, I
maybe the last time you shop was before last year's
hunting season, check it out. It's great. It's very aesthetically pleasing.
Like I'd say, if you had a choice to take
a plane to New York to visit the Museum of
Modern Art or go to the meat Eater dot com
and check out our new store, that's a toss up.
I'd say check out the store. It's way cheaper, way easier. Okay,

(02:27):
I was gonna say, like, go shopping on Amazon versus
shopping on media at the meteat store. Oh no, I
don't want to compare us to Amazon, comparing us to MoMA. Okay, Okay,
A couple of the items that you can find that
will be for sale is going to be, uh Like,
let's let's start with a meat Eaters store. I want
to mention that everything that we that is on there

(02:48):
is curated by the team. Okay, Cal helps, Seth Morris Chester, myself,
even Steve Ways in a little bit on what we
should be carrying in that store. Okay, but it's all
like really solid stuff. And even though I might not
like use every piece that's on there, somebody in the
company has said, I love that gear. I want us

(03:09):
to sell that. Okay. At the meter store, there's Vortex Optics,
trauma kits, Booze, cutting boards, and our logo where you're
gonna buy the trauma kit first and then the cutting board,
but when you're at home, you're probably gonna be using
the cutting board and then need your trauma kit. So
think about that. Be prepared first. Light off almost everything,

(03:35):
including percent off the uncompagrade two point oh jacket, which
is probably the piece that I use the most out
of the whole first light lineup f hf percent off.
The Biny Harness phelps up to fifty off select items,
including off all renegade bugle tubes. So if you're not
ready to go metal yet, get yourself renegade bugle tube.

(03:58):
It almost half off. This might entice you to buy
a medal to a regular price and then get off
ending gave you go to and try and boat side
by side. All right, so remember you got three days
August two, third, and fourth. You can buy it all
in one place, pay for shipping only once four brands,
one card. Get it. It's gonna be the season opener

(04:21):
sale of all season opener sales. That's a tongue twister.
All right, thank you for listening. All right, everybody, you
know we go, we go all the way to the top,
go all way to the top on this show. And
that's why we have the president and CEO, the lead

(04:42):
figure of the Peregrine Fund here with us today, Chris Parrish. Uh,
before we get into it, Chris Krin, I gathered you
can test the idea that D and D is the
primary driver of falconry. We just gotta put this thing
to bed now. I let me tell you my evidence. Okay,

(05:03):
my evidence is this, Well, you asked me, Now you're
gonna love your question. My here's my evidence. Do you
not listen to the shallow crest? I do? I have
a family member. Um, I'm trying to keep it distance
so the person. If the person is listening, they don't
know I'm talking about them, like the person that I'm
gonna get to in a minute. I have a family
member who had a roommate who they were way into

(05:25):
D n D and that involved them first having like
a lot of serpents, horrible roommates. They had serpents and
that was like a D and D thing, and then
pretty soon they graduated the falconry because they wanted to
look like a wizard. And I heard that was a
pretty common path, and then UM developed my theory that

(05:48):
the bulk of falconers outside of the Middle East, American
falconers are driven are are driven down that path through
D n Well, I'm so glad you asked because um, Well,
to be fair, I mean, I've been with the Paragrine

(06:10):
Fund for twenty two years is founded by falconers. Falconry
is a huge part of the way and how we
do our business. But um, I had to ask her
in what D and D is. So let's start there
and dragons. You know what I'm talking about, right, I
know about I know that the word, yeah, the phrase.

(06:32):
But all your members aren't into that. I don't think
any of them are. And falcony community is right now
a plotting Yeah, no, the falconry community. If you look
at the history of falconry and you want to talk
about the US is history in falconry, you have to
go back to UM the conservation movement and how that's

(06:54):
tied to falconry, because falconry of three four thousand years ago, Yeah,
that's Turkey series. I ran what we call it today
and it's in all the as soon as art and
any art form, whether it's written or pictographs, petroglyphs, anything
like that. You see falconry, you see depictions of of
husbandry of animals that are depicted as being used to

(07:17):
catch prey. Were the Egyptians into it absolutely because they
got a lot of falcons and stuff in there. Yeah, No,
they're highly Do they have do they have hieroglyphics that
suggests that's what they were doing with them? Well, not
just that they were keeping them as part of a menagerie. Yeah,
because they're on the fist. In many of these the
birds are on the fist and the quarries hanging from
their gloves, much as you see. Those guys are big

(07:37):
into D and D form of a many sided die,
of many sided die. I'm not following you. That's a
that's okay. I only just put that together right now
because I'm not familiar. Well, I remember there was like
certain dudes in high school. I don't want to name them,

(07:57):
certain dudes of high school of which I was friends.
I was friends with that. You know, you got like
your jocks, right, your stoner's head bangers, um ranch kids.
Well we have farm kids. Yeah, D and D guys
who crossed over with head bangers weirdly, but not stoners. Well,

(08:19):
I'm I'm betting that Elder Leopold probably didn't know about
D and D and he said falconry was the perfect sport.
Come on, really really held Leopold? Yeah, well he's you know,
there's a there's a dark side to Elder Leopold that
people don't realize. So taking like seventy five yard hail
Mary's with his bow was with his like seventy five
yard hail Mary's with a long bow at deer and

(08:41):
like just kind of shooting over that way to see
what happens and stuff. People hunted different back then. But
he liked falcony. Yeah, well, I mean he said it's
a perfect the perfect sport. Um fran Hammerstrom one of
his uh I think she was a PhD student. She
became one of the one of the very first ladies
in conservation and was awarded by the National Wildlife Federation

(09:06):
or whatever it was before it became in WF in
UH in Wisconsin for her work. And she was a
falconer and had great writings about it. And I'm surprised
that that given uh, you know, the your literate nature
of understanding and looking at all these things that that
you didn't have more of those you know, early falconers
in the US and and understood what that was. Craigheads,

(09:28):
for example, you talked about you both an Indian prince.
I'm gonna send you a book, do you know that.
I think it was under the Clinton administration they considered
hitting Ben Ladden at a falconry camp m but didn't
because there were there were certain uh, like high level

(09:48):
Saudi Arabian people present in that camp, and they didn't
hit the falconry camp. I could be messing up a
small part of this, but I don't think I'm messing
up a big part of it. Well, I tell you
as much as you guys travel when you're three boys
in Idaho, come to the World Center for Birds of Prey,
and on that campus, we share it with the archives
of Falconry, and we can tell you everything about falconry
as far back as you want to go. Do you

(10:09):
think that? And there's not a single not a single
piece of evidence about, not a many side of day
in the building, not a mini I have you been?
Have you changed your mind? I'll never changed my mind, man,
I mean, do you think perfect? Like they don't want
to admit there into D and D it's like or

(10:31):
something like that. Like this little bit of evidence here,
this little bit of Evans doesn't look well. But I
need to do my counter research now, okay, check out.
Am I in a strong position right now? No, never
stopped you before. The good thing is here. Follow up

(10:52):
argument can come after Chris has left. So yeah, well,
there's a there's a quote I heard from someone who
once said, Um, Okay, so I'm wrong, but am I right? Uh?
Oh oh, here's I want to talk about this real quick?
Did you just saying, Pat durkinsent Um, there's a study

(11:13):
Frontiers and Sustainable Food Systems. Okay, look, here's the name
of the here's the name of the study, Locally Procured
wild game Culinary Trends in the US, A study of
the rough grouse as entree and accompanying nutritional analysis. And

(11:34):
this paper in the in the heading gets into how uh,
people who are into wild foods or eyes extolling the
virtues of wild foods, but oftentimes their claims are not
well substantiated in an academic sense, meaning like what is
actually in gaming is a different right, Like you might

(11:54):
be like eating rough grouse better and eat chicken man,
you know. Um, And the u U s d A
has this thing that's like massive thing of all the
new like mineral composition, calories, makeup of all these foods.
And these guys did the work to add the rofed grouse,

(12:15):
so now you'll be able to find all the nutritional
data of roughed grouse in this U s d A
database of foods. I'm just gonna give you a high,
a high level thing. So rough grouse compared to highly
consumed domestic boneless here's where it gets okay. Compared to

(12:38):
highly consumed domestic boneless skinless chicken breast meat, rough grouse
has more protein per serving, less calories, and significantly less
total fat and saturated fat. The cluss draw A content

(13:00):
of grouse is also lower than domestic chicken. Much of
the vitamin and mineral content of rust grouse of rough
grouse compared to chicken were similar, with grouse having slightly
higher amounts of iron, magnesium, phosphorus, saudi and rival flavan
and nyasin. Chicken meat had slightly higher amounts of potassium,

(13:23):
zinc in, vitamin A, and nichols on. But what it
gets into, the main thing, is it gets into the
health implications of hunting rough grouse. Of the people who
participated in the survey. This makes hunting rough grouse seems
like a daunting thing, and it is depending on your approach,
depending on your approach the particulars of the year, But

(13:45):
so so the people that participated in this survey. Hunters
participating the survey logged twenty five hours afield during the season.
They on average took about nine trips of field for
the season and has spent about three hours of field

(14:06):
per trip. So that's like the rough breakdown about so
the average rough grouse hunter is spending twenty seven hours
tis hunting rough grouse. Uh You generally each outing for
rough grouse is four point five miles of walking. Now,

(14:29):
if you ran all those stats on eating chicken, we
would be a different nation. The here's the thing about
the toughness of grouse hunt. Uh So in New York State, Okay,
this is the New York State, and the hunters spending

(14:51):
average of nineteen hours hunting per bird harvested. Wo A
lot of that is some damn ass growls hunt. That's
why a lot of people aren't drawing the upland Game
hunting checker will carry you. They have burns people out
real fast, like and then when they get something, they're

(15:12):
like all of that Like calories lost to calorie games
less than a pigeon worth of meat burn away. I
asked more calories than that rose. But that's like averages
and you know you know what I mean, who knows
um and right? I think you could run it in
different places, like you could run that for the western
up of Michigan, the western upper Peninsula of Michigan, and

(15:35):
I think you'd wind up with some highly some very
different statistics. That just makes me question, though, my dedication
as a hunter, because man if I went out and
I got one grouse in nineteen hours on average, because
I mean, what you're hunting for maybe like with dogs,
like five or six maybe hours, so what that'd be
four days? One growl? No, I feel like here, yeah,

(16:02):
oh if people remember um So me Eater camp Fire
Stories close calls volume two, and I'll point out that
book that that that audio project accomplish something particular for
a genre because normally, when the book goes the audio,
like nomoany, when you buy an audio book, you're buying
an audiobook of a book that exists in print. So

(16:22):
when you look at the audio book best seller list,
like the New York Times best seller list for audio
books is typically audio books that wore books, So does
the awareness of the book as a print edition, and
it makes like an audio edition. But Campfire Stories debuted
and stuck there as a New York Times bestseller and

(16:42):
audio even though it wasn't even a damn book. Volume
two is out now. Uh It releases August sewo but
of course you can go and preorder the thing right now.
And it's uh me eater stories, narrow misses in more
close calls and and again it's like an immersive audio

(17:03):
experience better than the first one. Um we have on there.
Our friend Kimmy Werner, who tells the story that involved
her and a mentor of hers and she violates a
pact because they had agreed to never tell the story.
That's my favorite one. There's a phenomenal story, a near

(17:25):
death experience from our very own Clay nukelem Me and
my son have a story. We also have stories from
a guy who saved his friend's life by shooting at him,
a guy who got into hand and hoof combat with

(17:46):
a buck in a corn field, a guy who damn
near died after shooting himself in the leg duck hunting,
which is a crazy story, and his life was saved
by his dog. You're in that killian I did hear that?

(18:07):
If you're listening, snorts you on after that rattlesnake and
a sheep hunter who got h so horribly Cliff hung
in California, that near very near death Cliff hung Experience.
Just a really really great collection. The guy who almost
died from his own error. It's hard, hard, Yeah, I

(18:32):
gotta tell you this some hard ship to listen to
check it out. But no, it's like it's just like
it's a lot of it's just skin crawling, but then
you know the amount of it's like tart. It's like
a quick Yeah, it's called narrow mrs More close calls.
If it was just everybody died in the end one,
it would be hard to get the stories right then,

(18:54):
being all dead and everything. But the amount of blood
shed in here is it is it's like it's like
watching it's like watching kill Bill. Yes, some stories I
don't want to spoil anything about it, but that one
that you mentioned where someone had to shoot at his
friend to save him, just listen. It was hard for
me to listen to that one. But just a great story,

(19:14):
really just interesting. So that's out Mediators camp Fire Stories.
What we're gonna do to get a taste for the series.
Last time we released the camp Fire Stories, we put
Sam Lowries the mud puddle and just like built it
on the end of the show. So, in keeping with
that tradition, we're gonna do the best shot of my life.
That's a spear fishing one. Cam Kirkconnell about the guy, Well,

(19:38):
I don't want to spoil it. Yeah, just stay tuned
till the end because it's it's awesome. It's got everything
in it. You're gonna hear um, Yeah, we're gontack it.
On the end of the show. You'll be so titilated
by this little freebee that you'll run out and want
to get the whole damn things. You can have all
those hours and it's it's an hours of phenomenal stories,

(20:01):
polished and really like experiential kind of musical score, and
you're you're immersed, Yeah and polished, not like some dude
up there him and in Han like we we we
like obsess over every minute of the content. Yeah, yeah,
we do. We really did. Everyone. Our good friend Jason
Phelps over it. Phelps game calls just came out with

(20:25):
I'll tell you this at one time or another, like
I kind of pointed this out, like driving around and
like friends cars and you you know how everybody has
a bunch of junk in their car on the dashboard
of the glove box. I have experimented with probably every
every elk call, every cow call I'm not saying mastered

(20:45):
or like even made a passable sound. I have experimented
with probably every cow call on the market at some
point or another over my lifetime. I think that, uh,
in my view, Phelps is easy to sucker. Is the
easiest cow call I have ever used. Under this category
that makes a wide variety of sounds. I probably need

(21:09):
to get one because I have a hard time listen.
I don't understand. I don't get the mechanics of it.
But normally so like over the years, people come out
with bite and blow calls that are like monos. They
make a sound, and everyone that uses them all makes
that same sound. It becomes something of a joke, like
a good call will come out. Then a couple of
years later people laugh about when you make when you
blow that call the alcohol goal the other direction, because

(21:30):
you're like ship. It's one of those dudes. That one
call um where you lose that problem is with diaphragm,
because you have like like a tremendous vocabulary with a diaphragm.
But this one is like one of the problems. A
lot of bite and blow calls to or exposed read
calls is it's so hard to get like the pressures

(21:52):
of how much pressure with your lips or teeth you're
putting on it, how much air you're putting through. It's
just a pain in yass. And it's coming from guy
who thinks game calls are painting he has in general. Uh,
holy sh it, dude, Cal's gonna Cal's gonna suck on it. Steven.

(22:14):
It's like you don't know, you don't you don't blow
on it. You're just like and it's not even like
you're sucking. You're like it's like a like an inhale.
Do you like hyperventilate? It's like inhale and and like
and it's hands free. It's just it's like a green rubber.

(22:35):
It's called the easy sucker. Do you like it? Steve?
Screwing this up a little bit? Okay, go ahead, Okay.
So the more complex and called the wider range and
noises you're you're gonna be able to make, but the
more time you need to get into it and uh
and really started playing, because they're like a musical instrument,
a kazoo in the hands of someone who actually has
messed around with a kazoo, a bunch can make that

(22:58):
sound appealing. People who really pay after you get um,
after you get Rhonda Santis and Chris Pratt, Chris Press
and uh, you know who's the galph Meds NBC. I
always want to get on the show, Rachel Madden, get
us a good kazoo player. Thirty five minutes of pure

(23:21):
kazoo easy listening. Uh, this is a dog inhale calicoll,
but it's got a bite component to it, so you
can actually create some different tones and pitches. Volumes. Is
that included in tones and pitches? Well, I think there's

(23:42):
you know, there's a limitation on this, which is good
as far as like your overall volume. I was messing
around with this, and you can do like some some
little bowl sounds too, and and some Phelps can Phelps
can do, but he doesn't like to say. He doesn't
like to wreck amend it for bowl like, Oh, he

(24:07):
was way out there. I think I need to get
myself one of those. I can't play time with that one.
And volume, you can actually get a different insert, right
like I think Phelps has a different insert, So yeah,
you can get a different like a louder call. She
can switch mountain and you can take the biggest jackass

(24:27):
on the planet there trying to segue into my kids
on the end of that, you can take my children
and they can make cow calls with it, Steve saying
they have the experience level of jackasses or my children. Yes,
that's like you're go for them. You can do a

(24:49):
lot of playing around with the wraps, the kids, the
monotone do everything yourself. Cow calls are the ones that
I certainly stay away for m and I like to
pick up one new col call a year, yep, and
just mess around with it and try to find something different.
And everybody has like a different read, thickness of read,

(25:14):
length of read, et cetera. That makes a different pitch
and call. So um, yeah, I need that one. And
I feel like we all have that hunting buddy too
that you just know you're gonna have to call for
all the time, right, Like you're always going to be
the guy in the back calling for him because he's
just not gonna call. Like I brought that home, gave

(25:34):
it to my wife, and it was like within just
related to what you're just saying. I wouldn't say it's unrelated,
but like within or take my wife friend. But in
like a two minute time frame, I'm like, you're gonna
be able to call for me, Like you're legitimately going
to be able to call for me. Now that's awesome.

(25:56):
I love it, dude, I'm throwing other ship in the
garbage or in a box. Well, I do point out,
since this is an inhale cow call, there's definitely room
for an exhale cal call, of which Phelps makes several
external read calls that are understand if you want to
pick up a call, if you want to pick up
a call and make a like and make very passable

(26:18):
cow calls very quickly and not just one sound, but
a variety of sounds, I would be like this and
then just waste your breath exhaling for no reason. And
I would say that if I thought Phelps was the
was the biggest asshole in the world, I still say
the same thing, because it's like an objective reality. It's
it's a good one. I like, I like a minimum

(26:40):
of two external read calls because you can definitely jam
them up with with gunk and spit and you know,
dirt and all the pollen and bugs. And I can
keep going on with this list um and about this
this this is a fun one. That's a fun one
to add to the land yard. Cal do do do uh.

(27:03):
I don't want to say one last land access initiative.
So here's the deal, folks. We've been running the land
Access Initiative for quite a while. It's a sweet program.
We've had some success under our belt with the Shiloh
Pond project. We're looking for the next one. We're still
in the active looking phase. We've gotten a lot of suggestions,

(27:26):
but honestly, very few out of probably six or seven
hundred submissions at this sex of like of like solid
this is the place, this is what we want to do,
like like a project. We've we've had ideas of projects
that frankly, we just don't have time for. You're looking
for a whole nonprofit organization that can focus their time

(27:48):
on this, of which there are so many, So get
off your key, star and and I've forward these on
to my friends in those positions. But we are looking
for a place that is open to an easement outright purchase,
something that will provide more public access to hunting and fishing.

(28:09):
We got a lot of awesome stuff in the works.
We got some cash on the fund right now. We
got a lot of partners on board to make this happen. Um,
we had we had an amazing donation offer. We have
people that want to help so bad that they're giving
away houses, little tiny ones that you can trap out. Yeah,

(28:31):
super super awesome. Um. So go to the conservation page
at the meat Eater dot com, click on land Access
and submit a. The phones are ringing off the hook
over here. Okay, okay, get in lines right now, click

(28:54):
a submit to the Land Access Initiative and we want Yeah,
we want to find that that perfect thing where we
can jump in and help create more access to hunting
and fishing. Garrett's only about a couple of the ones
that are in there. We have, we have several very
good ways to spend money, I think, Um, you know,

(29:19):
we just just want to find like the perfect thing.
But there's we have an absolutely phenomenal project here in
the state of Montana and Northwest Montana that the Trust
Republic Lands is working on, which would be at a
system of ease months that would provide access for the
myriad of land of many uses activities from firewood cutting

(29:43):
to fishing to snowmobiling. In perpetuity, which is super cool
and attractive. There's some incredible projects that Ducks and Limited
is working on in in Iowa for instance, that are
it would be money well spam. So if you have

(30:07):
something that you just want to get active on, please
submit it to the mediator Land Access Initiative. I want
to give the dude to plug even though we're not
we haven't moved on yet. Naughty log homes k n
A U g h t Y naughty log homes. They
want to donate a log trapper's cabin. I can't remember

(30:28):
the dimensions of it. And they're I mean, they're donating
a log trapper's cabin to the to the auction House
of Oddities. They are one of a kind log home.
That's a really cool name. They're just saying, you see, Sean,
not sisters sister's organ donate the whole damn thing. That's cool. Yeah,

(30:56):
that's big. No, it's a great offer. Uh oh, Sean,
you're ready to lay out this. Uh about talking about
Delta Waterfowl, Yes, sir, yeah, uh and Cal can speak
to this too, but we are First Light is partnering
with Delta Waterfowl for Camo for conservation as a lot

(31:19):
of you probably well you've probably heard on the last
podcast and seeing on social media and all that that
first lights Waterfowl Pattern TYFA is out and a portion
of the sales from that are going to Delta Waterfowl UM,
which you know, I'm stoked about because I love Delta.
I've talked about Delta a lot in these Duck Reports

(31:41):
and they've been information with you on the Duck Reports. Yeah, yeah, there,
And I mean the big reason those guys love help
and so much is their duck hunters. I mean, they
call themselves the duck Hunters Organization, but they really are.
They are Their organization is about helping duck hunters. And

(32:02):
there's still research organization. They have their four pillars duck
production are three, habitat, conservation and research and education. Um.
But like their research and education stuff is really keyed
and focused on applicable science right ways that they can
actually um you know, benefit duck habitat, duck numbers, the

(32:26):
whole bit. So it's nice to be working with them
to go buy some TYFA, kick some money toward Delta.
We're just gonna make a donation to Delta two. Yeah, yeah,
I mean I think every duck hunter should be with
what the two big duck hunting orgs have done for
water fowlers. Every duck hunter should be a member of

(32:46):
both anyway, So so Campbell for Conservation first Light right now,
prior to TYFA, if you bought a specter, anything in
the specter camouflage pattern which is is our can mover
folks who like to hide in trees, a percentage of
every sale goes to NDA, which used to be q

(33:10):
d m A National Lines and now and NDA and
now it's just National Deer Lines. Uh. On the water
foul side of things, any thing in the type of patterning,
a percentage of that purchase goes to Delta water Fowl.
So you're gonna feel real good about buying some unparalleled

(33:35):
duck hunting camouflage and just stuff that's gonna keep you
warm and dry when you need to be warm and dry.
But you're gonna feel doubly good knowing that that cash
is going to go make more ducks. And one of
the coolest things about Delta that they talked about all
the time is it was founded with the idea of
I want to replace times two or times three every

(33:58):
duck I take off the lance gate. And so you're
buying clothing that you're ideally going to go out and
remove some ducts from and some geese from the waters
and in airways of America. But with with that purchase,
you're gonna slide some money back to putting them back

(34:18):
out times two or three good? Good? Okay. We got
a guy rolled in from Alaska. So he said he
has this say he wants people to weigh in on this.
Just to give some background, I am in the military,
stationed in Alaska and work for a three letter organization
that I will omit from this email. Boy, that makes

(34:41):
you really start thinking, I'm starting to think of them,
ain't I r s? Anyways, recently this spring I was
successful in a brown bear hunt and have since updated
my Skype pro file of course on our classified computers

(35:02):
with a photo of me kneeling next to my bear pictures.
Very tasteful, not displaying any blood, gods, etcetera. Well, on Fridays,
he goes on to say, we use Skype to conduct
virtual meetings weekly to highlight mission successes for each work
center in the building. I am currently the highest ranking
enlisted person in my work center and am in charge

(35:25):
of the missions we conduct, so I was speaking on
my team's behalf and obviously my profile photo popped up,
indicating who is speaking. No video on these skype calls.
Shortly after the meeting, my three letters civilian boss came
down to talk to me about mission related stuff. When
he was pulled aside by another three letter civilian. She

(35:48):
instructed him that he needs to speak to his team
about displaying profile photos with dead animals and that it
is offensive to people. He spoke to me about this
instructed me not to change the profile as my photo
is not offensive and I am not displaying the bear
in a disrespectful way. My question is if this escalates

(36:12):
into something bigger down the road, do I stand my
ground and try to push back or do I simply
just give in and change it. He goes on to say,
in my opinion, I don't understand how this photo is
offensive when my profile photo for the last year has
been a photo of me holding a big silver salmon
I caught with my fly rod. At what, at one

(36:32):
point does a dead bear trump a dead fish? Is
that the anthropomorphizing of bears and not salmon. Meanwhile, we
all walk around and kyote brown suede leather boots. The
military is literally walking around with dead animals on our feet.
Half the civilians sit in luxury leather chairs at their desks.
I'm just trying to figure out if it's something I

(36:53):
should stand my ground on or just be the bigger
person and change my profile. Now here's my take on it.
I have a take to after you. If there was
a rule, if there was a pre existing rule dictating
guidelines for your profile picture, and this broke a pre

(37:15):
existing profile picture guideline rule, then you should change your rule.
But if you're being singled out for this and nothing else,
I would fight back on it. Yeah, my my take
is a little more broad like in scope than that.
You're in the military, which is purpose is to conduct violence,

(37:37):
yet we're like offended. I don't understand how people in
the military are offended by a dead animal in profile picture.
But the whole point in the middle, if you don't
get like, culturally, why that would that that's surprising to me. Culturally,
it's surprising you well, and it's a little bit ironic
to think about an organization that exists for like violence.

(38:00):
I think all great points, but um, I would take
it down. I would put up something very very milk
toast that is mildly appealing to everyone who sees it.
If it's the three letter organization we're talking about, um,
we're talking about regime changes. We're talking about the ability
to impact gross national product of any country on the planet.

(38:24):
We're talking about zero dark thirty. You're an enlisted man,
change your profile picks not worth its like this bigger
fish to fry. Yeah, they're they're the organization fry the fish,
bigger bear, bigger bear meat to fry. Yeah, here's why
I think you're wrong, cal Um. That was so matter

(38:49):
of fact. I don't think this is an issue of
like compliance. I don't think it's like an issue of rules,
like I think this is kind of semantics and like
one of the things we deal with a lot on
this podcast when we bring up is like different predator
hunting getting closed down for no reason at all all
over the place, And I feel like, uh, one of

(39:12):
our jobs is that normalize it a little bit, right, Like,
so it's not just so you know, like toxic whenever
you do see it. I feel like folding on something
like this, taking down the picture or not being able
to embrace something that's a huge part of your life.
It detracts from the normalization of something that then we

(39:33):
come on here and we tell people like, no, it's
a thing that people do and should be respected. And
there's a key in the language used here is the
individuals claiming not that it violates protocol or not that
it violates picture rules, They said it is offensive. And
I think that allowing people just to run around really
nearly declaring yeah, like to declaring something that might offend

(39:57):
me as being categorically offensive, are they is running rampant.
I mean, like you can declare people things that the
people would never even agree with, so to say, like
it's offensive, Like, let's let's let's be clear. You find
it offensive, but there are probably things about you it
would be deeply offensive to me. You have a picture

(40:19):
of your third wife on your profile picture. That's offensive
to me. Why why have you been married three times?
I find that very offensive? Take that down. No one
would ever ask that of somebody, right, Or like I
see that you have a picture of yourself, um not
at church on Sunday, that's deeply offensive to me. Yeah,

(40:41):
you can make this encrypted channel. That's that's like a
language thing. That's people stating as fact. So it's used
to use the eye word everybody. But that's my point.
Cal is like, it is insane that the people who
exist to swap out dick to waters are getting offended
by a bear picture. I think we're obviously I mean

(41:09):
your computer, cow oh, because I'm I'm well read up
on this crab situation, but you weren't on the other situation.
I was working on some other things from the crab
come for everybody. I want to tee up the next
this next segment. If there's one thing the media loves,

(41:30):
not TV, but there's one thing newspapers and magazines love,
it is a story about someone utilizing an invasive species
as a for something or another. Hit it cow, Yes,
that I mean, that's that's a great There's a good
couple of question marks in this story. So this distilling

(41:50):
company in conjunction, I guess I'm not all that right
up on this anyway. He's quietly quietly opening I could
peer back up. So there's this green crab, this invasive
green crab. They came over in the eighteen hundreds, we think,
in the ballast of boats. Never heard of this crab

(42:11):
and the things years of being here. When you do
hear about it, though, they're like, they are horrible. They're
horribly destructive. On Mola's they eat clams and and muscles
and stuff like that, so obviously it's dipping into some
other folks pocket books there. They are prolific and they're

(42:33):
they're an edible crab, but they're so small the yield
is really bad. So if you ever gone to a
crab house and started picking crabs, eventually you might get
sick of picking crabs. And that's why folks aren't eating
a lot of these green crabs. Well, in this case,
New Hampshire Distilling took up the problem and turned and

(42:56):
this is where I really had. Here's here's what I
don't like the language I'm worth distilling. It's not taking
up the problem. Like it's not taking up the problem capitalizing.
I mean it's like, okay, so I mean I thought,
it's what do you mean by that? It's not taking
up the problem. It would be like if I started

(43:18):
eating let's say I eat dandelion salads. He took up
the problems dandelions. He's been eating a dandelion salad at night.
But take up the problem of dandelions, or might eating
a dandelion salad? I get what you mean anyway. Um,
they started with the bourbon base and then they added

(43:41):
in this green crab stock are along with like bass
seasoning and kind of classic crab stuff. And what you
end up with is what they call something better than um.
What the hell is the fireball? But it doesn't know

(44:04):
now I'm not interested before. I can't even smell fireball,
crab trapper green crab flavored whiskey. Wait, where does it
say that that's the comparison? Fireball is nasty? Just eat
a stick of like Big Red. I was just back
at my hometown. I went to my hometown gas station,
and the guy in front of me, which made me
feel so much like I was in my hometown. The
guy in from me bought a fistful a lotto tickets

(44:26):
and then asked for a bottle of fireball, and they
asked if he wanted it chilled or room town, and
he was able to walk out. He's able to walk
out with a fistball lot of tickets in a cold
bottle of fireball. I can go cup. I can't even
stomach drinking that in the summertime either it's like maybe

(44:47):
in january ice fishing. But there's a there. It still
is a bar called do drop you outside of West
Glacier and they did off, you know, off say a liquor,
so you could buy a bottle of liquor there. And
this is the only place that's ever happened to me.
But if you go in there and buy a bottle

(45:08):
of liquor at the bar, they say, would you like
cups and ice with that? Not? In addition to have
you been on the on the kaibab right there in
fre Donia you come down the hill off the Kaibab
plateau and it's the center of the universe. Judd otto, guns,

(45:31):
m o lotto and beer. Okay, So there is a
good snippet here on on the green crab. They are
probably one of the most successful invasive species that we
have in North America, at least in the marine world.
They can eat about forty muscles a day, just one crab.
Each bottle has a pound of green crabs. And that's impressive.

(45:53):
That is impressive, and in my immediate d I sent
this to some folks in the in the culinary world
because I to understand if there's what is the demand
for like a good crab stock, so you know, you
you don't go through the worry of picking everybody, just
turn it all into a giant bats and crabstock. If

(46:14):
there would be like a you know, canned crab stock
type of market, I imagine there is, and that seems
a hell of a lot better way to go than
making it into something better than I wonder what the
hangovers are like, Like you got feeling crabby, broa wake
up in the morning, feel like you're rolling on a boat. Yeah,

(46:34):
except for your walking sideways everywhere you go. We probably
can't get this here in Montana if anyone at tam
tam Worth Distilling wants to send us a bottle at mediator,
uh A marine Bio just goes on to say, like,
you know, it's unlikely that this whiskey, this whiskey bottle
and enterprise is gonna have a serious impact. But she says,

(46:57):
someone goes on to point out, I'm not reading it carefully.
Know who points out? They go on to point out,
if you factor in producing fishing bait with green crabs,
whiskey with green crabs, fish sauce of green crabs, and
just more and more incentivize the use um. It could
be good. You know, one of one of the invasives
that I felt that you could most like kind of

(47:19):
get after in a way that felt productive is shooting
lion fish. Yeah, because you go like in the Bahamas,
we just ran a boat and go out and cruise
for coral heads and it's just sand, sand, sand sand,
and then there's coral heads. You've see him from million
miles away on a sunny day and you go to
a coral head and every coral head to go to
the be like o lion fish or to lion fish.

(47:41):
They're easy to get. They're like they just stand the ground,
like they don't it's not in their mind to get away.
They stand the ground, and so you shoot them. And
he'd be like, this coral head is free of lion fish.
And then you move on to the next one and
shoot those, move on the next one and shoot those.
And it seemed like guy, he seems to be able
to kill them all. But man, they haven't gotten that
problem solved yet. The incentivize that. That's when Steve started

(48:03):
the intro to this segment here he is correct, like
we love talking about like good uses for these invasives.
And the one that they've gotten the most use out of,
by and large, of something that we see as a
real problem. Or it would be the Asian carp species.
And so there's some school, some collegiate school programs that

(48:25):
their culinary programs utilize you know, several thousand pounds of
fish every year, UM in their their meal halls, and
they're making actual, you know, tasty stuff. But then in Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio,
there's some actual per pound incentivized fisheries and and processing

(48:46):
facilities for these fish where they've actually there's enough incentive
government incentive that folks who commercially harvest catfish or buff
flow or paddlefish do they call spoonbill out there um
can switch over net sizes and start targeting specifically the

(49:11):
Asian carp, which there are some food markets for, and
there's some fertilizer markets for and stuff like that. Uh.
And it's definitely something that we we need to get
ahold of, which is why you know, crabby whiskey, get
some get some headlines, and it says that there is no,
uh no real market around green crabs. So if something

(49:37):
got started, it would be the first ever. Uh, I'm
gonna give you some very dated insight into the carp problem,
the Asian carp problem, and differentiating it from the common
European carp which fast of our waters, many of our waters.
I spent some days with a guy that was a
commercial netter okay, um. He was doing allow stuff that

(50:02):
would wind out. He was catching a lot of those carpon.
His primary buyer was using them for making a filter fish,
so like canned fish preparation. And they're very concerned in
those waterways about not catching like the native fish. I'll
add that we caught a beaver, but that's just a
side note. And so they'd regulate mesh size, okay. And

(50:24):
he had to use whatever like an eight inch mash
or something like a huge mesh that way all the
bass right, like large moths, bluegills, crop ease, everything can
get through the mesh. But it was a big enough
mesh you kept it really catch a really big carp.
And he said you could go into a stretch. The
commercial guys could go into a big stretch of river
with that high, that big mesh netting and really get

(50:46):
it where you're not catching carp anymore. Like you catch them.
It's it's just very the the way they use these
saints very effective. Oh, after they come through, you're not
catching they can work an area. Let's say you use
an eight inch man, you can work an area with
an eight inch mesh. Where you're like, we're does not
catching them like we did, we must be having a

(51:07):
positive impact. But then researches will point out the bio
mass of the cart doesn't change, like the poundage per
mile of carpon these stretches doesn't change. It's just not
comprised of big ones, right, And so they'd be like,
we need to be able to use smaller mesh. We
need to be able to use do a six inch mesh.

(51:28):
And then people be like, well, you know it could
have ramifications for bass or whatever, and they use a
sitien and then you kick ass with the new mesh
and then you're catch slows. Meanwhile, per mile same pounded
of cart, which which is why you see it's carrying capacity. Right.
In this conversation around carbon specifically, you see a lot
of prevention in the form of how do we get

(51:52):
these fish to not spawn where you see like those
bubble curtains and narrators and stuff that try to divert
fish from areas where they would spawn. Yeah, it's a
hell of it. I visited that electrical barrier on Lake Michigan.
We're trying to keep him from entering the Great Lakes.
I don't know if that's still up and running or not.

(52:12):
A guy when out when I was sawing the people
on that cart problem, he was saying like, I was like,
what would actually fix the thing? And he said, what
would actually fix the thing? And we'd never use it
or be able to use it, and you wouldn't have
public appetite for it because he goes. I could imagine
there's gotta be some kind of virus or something that's particular.
But who's gonna be the guy that pours out of

(52:34):
the you know, who wants to play with the virus?
Like he's like like path They're like there's They're like,
if you really like there's maybe some pathogen or controlled
studies say that nothing, nothing will go wrong, nothing bad
app alright, Sean, we're gonna segue into raptors, uh, I

(53:02):
mean lead ammunition yep. And we're gonna kick it off
with Shawn's duck report. Got anything else to shape. You
bet you had mentioned I don't know, a month ago
or something, do a duck report, arm do a duck

(53:24):
report on lead points, the lead shot band, what led
up to it, whether it was successful. So, Chris, if
I get something wrong here, which I'm pretty sure I
don't have anything wrong, You're gonna have to correct me
because this comes from your world. Really, I was raised
at a time, o't Do you remember what year happened? Yeah,
they tried several times, but when it ultimately happened was

(53:47):
because you know, it's interesting, My first legal duck season
was in six and there were people that were not
duck hunting. They were they were like quitting duck hunting
out of protest. Yeah, and that that some of them stuck,
some of them just never came back, which is wild. Okay,
So the lead shot ban um was a gradual crescendo.

(54:13):
Late eighteen hundreds there started being reports of lead poisoning
and waterfowl late eighteen hundreds. Yeah, they had a mass
kill because guys like me and Spencer with them punt guns. Yeah. Well,
it was mostly like commercial market areas that were punt
gunning whole lakes um Texas seventy four they really started

(54:38):
reporting it, and then in the early nineteen hundreds it
turned into mass die offs because smoking wasn't even bad
for you back then. It's just surprising. I don't need
to be glue about. It's just surprising that at that
time there was like the level of sophistication to take
dead waterfowl and determine cause of death right and related

(55:03):
to a related to a heavy metal and some of
them weren't even making the correlation necessarily right away. They
were like, there's a bunch of dead ducks here, and
then they do a knee cropsy and find they just
also happened to have letting their gizzards go out, and

(55:23):
that's that's really where it started. Um, then you get
into the early nineteen hundreds and they started having like
mass kills, um hundreds and hundreds of birds on a
single body water repeatedly seasonally. Yeah, and yeah, it definitely
kept going faster and faster and more and more. Uh am,

(55:45):
I correctness that the issue with ducks is that ducks
are as they gather grit for their gizzard, they are
finding lead shot and ingesting the lead and like ingesting
the lead for grit for their gizzard. This isn't that

(56:06):
they're all carrying around stray pellets. Well, it's no, it's
not from It's definitely not from wounder wounded, hunter wound.
It's it's mostly ingestion. They're like picking they see something like, oh,
that makes a piece of great piece of grit from
my crop. Yeah. And I mean they're getting it in
both their gizzard and their stomach. It's not like just

(56:28):
as they're picking up while they feed. They're picking it
up while they feed. And people think, oh, how are
they picking up that tiny little pellet in this big
lace home? But it has it doesn't get to their
stomach without going through their gizzard. Well what I'm what
I mean is like that they're finding the lead shot
in both places. It's not just poisoning them in the gizzard,

(56:49):
it'll pay. It's passing intact, yeah, and into the gut.
And there's a lot of comparison photos that the Fish
and Wildlife Service had that shows like a normal ducks,
how healthy stomach and healthy gizzard to uh a lead
poison one. Um. But you know, one of the big
pushbacks from hunter and I did not realize how controversial

(57:11):
this was until I started really digging. And see this
was interpreted by a lot of outdoorsman as a anti hunter,
anti Second Amendment government overreach movement. Was not positioned as that.
The hunter thought that's what it was, right, um. But

(57:34):
and you know one of their big arguments was how
is a duck picking up stray pellets? You know they're tiny,
a little pellet because I've never seen it, because right, right,
But well that's We've had a lot of people right
in and be like I have checked every stomach and
every gizzet of every duck and they killed law ducstion,
like and I found a pellet mm hm. So you

(57:56):
know it's anecdotable, but we hear that, right right, yeah. Um,
but when you start breaking down like how much leads
being dispersed on the environment, you know there's half pounds.
So the average back then was a half pound of
shot being you know, shot by a hunter per bird bagged,
which comes out to four hundred pellets of number six lead.

(58:21):
And you know that's per bird you shoot. Overall, their
estimate was tons of lead shot being put into wetlands
a year by waterfowl hunters. And there was that that
was in the fifties. I think, um, this is got
The guy that did this big study on this was

(58:43):
a guy named Frank Bell Rose and he was the
one that really brought it into like we got to
do something about this. We need a management plan about
lead shot. And that was in nineteen Yeah, like one
of these things you have here. In one Lake, Michigan
blue bill die off, ten stomachs were examined that held
any were from forty eight lead pellets per bird. But

(59:04):
I'm not saying that this guy was cooking the books.
Boo boom. People are still hunting ducks. Yeah, but there's
not like why is the why are the crops and
stomach is not full of shot? I think one thing
that would be really interesting to look at here would
be your your hunter distribution, right like in methods of

(59:27):
hunting during this study time, because I do have to
wonder if there's higher concentrations on certain Martia's bodies of
water than than we could have, how that distribution of
actual hunting activity varies from then until today. Well, Sean
hit him with that little detail you got near that

(59:47):
little detail about a heavily hunted wetlands. Yeah, so and
and that was a big part of it. You know.
The argument is now a lot of that lead shot
has been covered up by sediment because that So they
did a bunch of sampling of major wetland areas that
were like huge waterfowl hunting destinations, and they found some

(01:00:08):
of those to have over a hundred thousand pellets per
acre in the top three inches of the bottom sentiment,
which is so man, see Sean did a good job,
because he's not that I'm looking in here, Okay. From
nineteen thirty eight to nineteen fifty four, they examined thirty
six thousand gizzards six point six percent. Between nineteen thirty

(01:00:34):
eight nineteen fifty four, thirty six sample size of thirty
six thousand gizzards six point six p ingestion right had
led in them with mallards seven. So there you go,
go kill a hundred. So here's the tests for someone,
now who someone who's like going to be like bullshit it, man,

(01:00:56):
get a hundred ducks, especially if you hunt like a
social hold, like a refew, like like you hunt a
place that gets hunted, Go to a place it gets hunted.
Shoot a hundred docks and see if you find seven
percent to gotta steal or bismuth, pellet or gut be
interesting if if it's constant through time, yeah yeah, and

(01:01:18):
so okay. So where where it kind of like really
got to the point of people having to do something
about it was these die offs started becoming highly visible.
Right you had TV and UM one that like was
right perfect at the kind of the right time in

(01:01:40):
the seventies when this was getting talked about more and more,
and I think it was the National Wildlife Federation had
already started trying to push for a lead ban. Fish
and Wildlife Service wanted a lead ban, but they couldn't
get it done. Um Lake Puckaway, Wisconsin. They end up

(01:02:01):
with like over three thousand geese dead that we're winnering there.
And the what ultimately what they said happened was that
these geese winnered on a part of the lake that
was shallow and had a lot of hunter um hunter use.
And what year was this, m I can't remember exactly

(01:02:22):
what year that was. It was either of the late
seventies or early eighties, but it was right dear in
the peak of the discussions. So the debate was heating up,
and then there's all of a a sudden on TV. You
know that a bunch of volunteers collecting thousands of dead geese,
three thousand dead geese in a lake that had a
eighteen thousand lead pellets per acre and three inches top

(01:02:45):
three inches just so wild. It's a lot of dead geese.
I'm trying to picture, like, um, an acre's good sized,
chunker grown. I'd think to see a density map, like
if you did a one hand, if you took your
two hands and did a scoop of muck, you're probably
grabbing one. And I'm sure yeah, and I'm sure it

(01:03:07):
would probably be there would be something about how it
lays out right, There would be areas probably with a
lot of higher density just by how someone hunts the
area or whatnot. Um, But you know, yeah, prevailing wind
right just like I mean, just like if you're someone
who knows where to look on an old pond for arrowheads,

(01:03:30):
for bird points, it oftentimes has a lot to do
with the prevailing wind in the area. Find your shotgun
pellets around that same spot too. So But you know,
bell Rose's point was not that these mass die offs
are like a population threat. It's that there's so many

(01:03:51):
other factors that come in Once waterfowl start dying from
lead poisoning um, for example, take some two weeks to die,
they start getting weird, isolating themselves, hiding in the weeds,
making themselves more susceptible to predators. In addition to that,

(01:04:12):
then you have you know, he he even pointed to
like you can't even really count or no exactly how
many baculi is um outbreaks, for example are because a
lead poison duck dies and then you end up with
a botulism outbreak because well just ultimately, if the more

(01:04:34):
you know, the more you have waterfowl dyeing in random places,
increased abundance of carrying, okay, overloading the system where scavengers
are cleaning it up. There's great examples about that, but
different and uh So, they tried to try to ban
lead in seventy six. The Stevens Amendment blocked it, kicked

(01:04:55):
that back to the States, and then that's where raptors
came in and bald eagles in what happen, Well, they
had sixty bald eagles from nineteen eighty to ninety five
died from lead poisoning, and the National Wildlife Federation was

(01:05:19):
um sued, fish and Wildlife Service for a ban on
lead shot, referencing bald eagle deaths, and they actually blocked
this suit because then fishing once that suit was like happening.
Fish and Wildlife Service said, okay, well band lead, so

(01:05:39):
this court case doesn't happen. The National Wildlife Federation led
the suit, yep, and it never it got dismissed. But
I got that because bald eagles at that time, we're
in e s A. They were in dangerous that same
year they got kicked too, threatened I think, But yeah,

(01:06:00):
they were on the essay still. And of course why
do people care because the replacement was steel shot. It
didn't work as good as lead shot. Yeah that's what
people said, right, but um, okay that steel shot. There's
stuff now that works phenomenally well. But I think, like

(01:06:22):
any you know, you had to switch to bigger pellets, right,
so you you used to use sixes and leads and
also using twos and fours. So you're throwing I want
to say, less lead out there, less material out there.
You're throwing out less material per shot with with a
smaller number of lethal things flying towards the target in

(01:06:45):
their Yeah, this is it, just this is a whole
another Duck report though, Um, it's talking about like the
steel shot lethality table and all the work Tom Roster
did going in you showing that steel is far more
effective than it gets credit for, well in the heart

(01:07:06):
and wounding loss and harvest rates. Actually, while they did
decline initially after the ban, the the what they posited
was based on their observations is as hunters learned how
to use the new tool, wounding loss actually was less
with steel than it was because they're like, I can't

(01:07:28):
take that hill Mary anymore. Yeah, And a big part
of that is, you know, lead and steel shoot differently.
See everything about how you shoot as a shooter is different. Um,
and it was not you know, like one of the
things that when people talk about Pittman Robert's act, it

(01:07:50):
really likes to point out that people were like really
excited about it. Hunters wanted it right when they don't
maybe some don't now according to what the Clyde and
Georgia so, but it's it's like part of the part
of the story of Pittman Robertson and the excise tax
and ammunition that it was brought by the rod and

(01:08:11):
gun clubs of America like they wanted this, They willingly
did this right, and um, this was not we lose
sight of it now. But this was not a popular
thing now. I mean, there was definitely some waterfowl hunters there,
you know, there was appetite for it with some, but
not everybody, not even close. Um, some people welcomed it

(01:08:35):
and didn't want I didn't want to see lead poisoning
and waterfowl and and you know, bought in on the
Bell Rose study and seeing how how bad lead shot
could be on waterfowl numbers. But also there was a
lot of people that just don't want to quit shooting
Grandpa's gun with the fixed full choke and the thirty
inch barrel. Right, Oh, you know, real quick, tell me

(01:08:58):
about the guy that tell us the story out, the
guy you know that was jailed for shooting a red tail. Well,
hold on, I think that Sean's point there is is
a great one that doesn't get brought up hardly at all,
is the fact that not only were you forced to
use a different ammunition, there is a ton of guns

(01:09:19):
in use, like heavily in use that could not shoot steel,
couldn't shoot a pellet. That that's hard too. Hard on
the barrel at that time, at that time because the
loads hadn't been developed. I mean, you look at what
they've done in Europe in the last ten years. They
are shooting steel out of parkers and parties, but they're
adjusting the loads. So by adjusting the loads and decreasing

(01:09:39):
the pressures, you can still you It's not that you
can't shoot them. You can't shoot the loads that they
had then. Well, I mean here in America is bigger
is better? Okay, two and a half loadger better? Thing
is uh? I was talking to uh, a guy called
the Jazz Doctor, and we're talking about I was having

(01:10:01):
a problem matching a jet outboard to a flat bottom boat.
You remember my whole trial Tralation and I one one
day it was entertaining over the phone with the jet Doctor,
the idea that perhaps there's like, is it perhaps too
much engine for the boat? And he said, I've been
in this business forty years. I've never had a guy

(01:10:22):
come to me and tell me he wants he needs
a smaller motor. Yeah. Now you see boats with four
hundred horsepower racing motors on them. Unbelievable. All right, talk
about the redtail dude, real quick um or slow, I
don't care. Oh, there's not much to it. I was
a little bit wrong on that. It was not one

(01:10:44):
red tail. It was one. It was it was one
red tail with a game warden with him, was the problem. Yeah,
so he uh he was working at a pheasant hunting farm,
you know, in South Dakota, like a lot of people do,
and was shooting red tails while he was out guiding

(01:11:05):
pheasants because you know, pheasant honors eight red tales and uh,
well that's a that's a great you know what I
mean though, like you'll hear stories. I would hear stories
from guys like I would hear stories. Got the generation
prior to me would be like if you hunt on
so and soals farm, he gets mad if you don't

(01:11:26):
shoot the red tails, right, which is like a I'm
sure it's still out there. But I think that there
was a time when well he used to pay bounties
on him, right, there was a time when it was
like you were doing the right thing for the planet
by killing every raptor you saw, because chicken farmers would
thank you, you know whatever, And uh yeah, so I

(01:11:46):
don't I don't know exactly how many he shot, but
he did get six months federal prison time plus three
months probation plus or no not three months house or
plus four years probation. Big fine, Yeah we're talking about this.
You could he could have killed his wife and landed
in jail for last time. Yeah, I mean he did some,

(01:12:10):
He did some. I mean that's serious time. Six months.
What are you in here for? Shot a hawk with
a game warden? And I think what they really got
him on was after he shot it, he then picked
it up, moved it and buried it, Which is like

(01:12:30):
even on top of all that, on top of all
that loss is hunting privileges four years Okay, Well, the
sad thing is for a lot of those things there
there are depredation permits for instances. You know, I'm not
saying that they're justifying the killing of raptors, but where
it does you know, impact an individual's livelihood, there there

(01:12:53):
are ways that for that to be managed. But to
say loosely quote unquote managed is you know, that's different
than wanton shooting that where I grew up to the
same thing. You go out there and every third telephone
pole's got a red tail at it. M right, man,
but that's changed in my lifetime. That's changed drastically. So yeah, okay,

(01:13:16):
give me your spiel on I don't want don't deliver
it like a spiel all right, he never does, he wanted.
I'm trying to think where it's talking to the microphone. Okay,
all right, I can hear myself breathing. I didn't. I
want to. I want to. Let let's approach it this way,
all right. When people are talking about um, when people

(01:13:39):
are talking about leading the environment today from hunters and shooters, Okay,
there is a widespread idea that this has something to
do with the California condo. Oh god, that's okay, that's
the lead in. Raise your hand. I'm trying to find
an avenue. Raise your hand if you feel that if

(01:14:01):
you're made aware of the issue years ago in relation
to the California condor Okay, everybody, okay, even Chris Races.
I'm relatively new. No, okay, well, yes, Unfortunately, unfortunately people
think that this lad issue lad lead from hunting or

(01:14:25):
the otherwise shooting of animals, whether it's depredation, whatever you want,
whichever category it's it's assumed that it's only a problem
because of the condor, and that's that was people's avenue
to introduction, absolutely, and and from a scientific perspective, because
we were focused on the condor because it was a
species at such heightened level of endangerment, only twenty two

(01:14:48):
birds left, and trying to figure out what was going
on with them and saving them from extinction, not just
for the sake of saving them, but for understanding what
the hell is going on because the condor could you
could argue that the condor has been on the road
to extinction since well before the end of the last
ice age, right, that's a that's a point I hear

(01:15:08):
that with Well, you'll get into it, like with with
the mega fauna extinctions o that stuff. Yeah, and the
range reduction that was observed based on the recovery of
of fossilized remains and all that stuff. That's that's what
we use as inference. We don't know that's what happened.
We just have inference that there was a tremendous range reduction.
Condor bones have been found in Florida, Upstate, New York, Texas, Arizona,

(01:15:32):
New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, every all over the place.
But that's a ubiquitous bird. Well, it was widespread. And
when you as you come to know more about the condor,
and this is the key. As you come to know
more about the condor, you come to know more about
the fact that they can fly states away in a

(01:15:53):
couple of days, They can fly up to six hundred
miles in a couple of days, and then by the
time we biologists get up there to go find out
what the hell it's do and it's on its way back.
So that that then tells you it's not that condors
were so dense they were all across the US. Is
they had the ability to travel widely, and of course
it would be seasonal based on all their their biology.

(01:16:13):
Learning about the natural history of a species, a single species,
anytime you study it to the level we've studied condors,
you learn more things about the greater environment. That's the
benefit of the scientific process and what we glean from
studying a species. We did happen to come to find
out that the number one cause of mortality for the

(01:16:34):
California condor range wide in the reintroduction since is lead poisoning.
Now there were there were sufferings in here. How that's
determined well, when birds are tracked with telemetry, when they
are tracked with telemetry, both GPS and VHF telemetry, because honestly,
because there are so few of them, you can track

(01:16:55):
them on individual basis and because they were so endangered
that the birds are monitored individual basis. So when I
came onto the scene as a as a state biologist
fairs on a game and fish, there were six of
us out there in February of watching six condoors and
that was a the first Birds release December twelfth, which

(01:17:16):
I thought was cool as hell because we're out in
there for a million cliffs, which is also a really
cool cheap spot. So you know, like we're gonna scan
for condoors and while they're sitting there, we can scan
for sheep and there's some pronghorn there and we're getting
paid for this. I didn't know you could have this
as a career. But anyway, my point is we had
six people watching six condoors. And while that might seem
crazy because do you really need to study them that

(01:17:37):
much to really, you know, understand well, I would argue
that yes, if you want to know what affects their
survival or lack thereof you do need to study them
that way. So as we study them, and and we
we were able to monitor the way in which a
species that once ranged in the Grand Canyon region, we're

(01:17:57):
not reintroducing them. And there's all these big questions out there.
Will they find enough food because one of the early
posts in the thirties as to why their populations were
declining is because there wasn't enough food anymore. The birds
too big, or the birds too big, or or they
eat too much and they can't fly afterwards, or they
are all these different things that you hear, these old
wives tales. And for me, as you know, look, I

(01:18:21):
I grew up outside of Bakersfield, California, and a little
farming community. So it was the oil field and the
farm and cattle. That's where I grew up. To me,
the way I was introduced to the California condor is uh,
it's an endangered species. It's going to ruin our life, right.
And so as I studied more and more biology because
of my interest in hunting and angling only, and then

(01:18:43):
I found out you could have a career in it.
And the more and more I studied, I realized that,
you know what the problem wasn't the species, and the
problem wasn't us ignorant, you know, hillbillies or rednecks out
in Button Willow. The problem was there's a disconnect between
science the people of the communities, and there's a lack
of trust because of this inability to communicate. Because one

(01:19:06):
of the ranchers that I worked for was the son
of an original homesteader in the southern San Juanquin Valley.
He as a kid saw as many as fifty condors
on a cal carcass. As a kid, he had natural
history in his experience and knew more about condors than
the people who were studying them right as the last
one was taken out the wild in the eighties. And

(01:19:27):
I thought, Man, if we could just get these two
folks talking, there would be a shared understanding of the
landscape and what's happening. That would be far greater than
just science or just somebody who says, yeah, they're on
they're on their way out, because that's the way of
the you know, that's the way of God's creatures. They
go extinct. So we would have thought, had we not
studied the species, we could have thought that they were

(01:19:49):
just on their way out. Hit real quick. You just
said it, but the last one was taken out the wild.
I think it's important people, important point to get that,
like there were so few that they were all the
living ones were collected. Well yeah, because they were declining
so steeply, and that's only been since, you know, since
they started being studied and studied in earnest in the twenties, thirties,

(01:20:11):
and really a pivotal study by Carl Cooeford in the forties.
Well there was a break because he had to go
to war, but when he got back he finished it up.
That's the way folks were back then. Um. Anyway, Um,
the population was in such such deep steep decline, and
there were all these theories. One is there's not enough food.
The other is you know, goofy things, like they're so dumb,
they're just not surviving well. From a biologist, a burgeoning

(01:20:34):
biologists like myself and kind of a kid of the landscape,
I was like, you know when nature really produce a loser,
because it seems to me evolutionary biology hones and polishes
every species to its finest representation as a wild animal.
So why all of a sudden are they struggling it's
got to be a major imposition on the landscape or

(01:20:55):
something that's going on. And then there were people said, oh,
it's it's it's l a, you know, it's uh, they
lost their habitat or condors are so sensitive that if
you if they see somebody and they're sitting on their nest,
they'll abandon their nest. But once again, from just basic
biology and my experiences as a hunter and angler, I
was like, does does nature build something like that? It
doesn't make sense to me, right, or find me that

(01:21:16):
other comparison, because if one behaves like that, there's something else. Well,
there are a host of things that are sensitive to development.
Oh absolutely, yeah, Oh yeah, and there's that little town,
you know, Los Angeles, right there in the core heart
of their range. Right. But if you look at me
that like that, they eat so much and they can't
walk around and get killed. Okay, I'm like, well, but
that would always have been the case. And the idea

(01:21:39):
that habitat, the idea that you had, like a habitat issue,
that doesn't seem to be as silly as like some
other other things. Oh no, you can rank them, you
can rank them, but ill, but I'll tell you. I'll
give you a few examples about how by reintroducing the
birds and studying them to the degree that we have,
we've really narrowed it. Set aside, you know, were also

(01:22:00):
some who said, and if you look at the early
writings and um Audubon for example. I'm not I'm not
bashing Audubon here, but Audbon was against the collection of
the birds and starting a captive flock. And and you,
I know you've probably read this. It was in Matheson's
book America's what was it called Wildlife in America. I
read it, but I don't remember it. Yeah, he talks

(01:22:21):
about that that that, look, we need to to to
conserve these birds and prevent their extinction and then maybe
understand why they were going extinct, because it may not
only benefit that species, it may benefit our understanding of
the ecosystem, which would be far greater used. But you
have to collect these birds and retain them in captivity
so that you can go and figure out what the
problem was. Because by the time they were studied intensively,

(01:22:43):
their population was already in such a steep decline that
a captive population was the only thing that saved them
from extinction. So December Easter Sunday, the last wild condor
was captured and removed from the wild cat Uh, you
gotta go check this out. You guys would dig this
a pit trap, dig a hole, put a netting across you,

(01:23:09):
fill it with debris and things to hide, and put
a dripping rotting and carcass on top of that and
lie under it in weight so when the bird comes
and lands, you can grab it by the legs. Who's
the guy to grab that? I think it was Pete Bloom,
who still is your tombstone. It's one of the same

(01:23:29):
ways that falconers. He's still alive. Yeah, how does he? Yeah,
I don't know. He's like he's the generation. I mean,
he's one of our I look up to him as
one of the He's one of the gods in the
world of conservation biology because of the stuff that they
were doing back then. So so anyway, I find that
feller that bird that was captured, the last one. A

(01:23:51):
C nine stands for adult condor nine because we're into
labeling ship I like all those names. So A C
nine was the ninth condor given a number, and now
every condoor produced since then, and we're up into the
eleven and twelve hundreds now both for birds produced in
the wild end in captivity, every bird has a number,
So a C nine was captured added to the captive flock. Luckily,

(01:24:14):
the people running the captive propagation programs, the ones who
really started it at Los Angeles Zoo in the San
Diego Wild Animal Park or Zoo Global or what they're called,
it's still the same outfit. They just changed their names. Well, um,
that all started and they had that captive flock. A
C nine was put in and paired up with a female,
which again is not natural. And you have to understand

(01:24:34):
two about the reproductive biology. Condors take eight years before
they're able to reproduce in the wild. They're capable of
it at five and six, respectively for males and females,
but they're usually not successful until eight years of age,
so they have a very slow rate of reproduction, which
also lends to why weren't they able to respond naturally

(01:24:55):
in the wild to increase causes of mortality because they
don't produce quickly enough and their long lives species, so
it's a difference between a K and are selected species. Anyway,
go off on all kinds of tangents. So like a
mus grats live a few months. It is throwing babies off.
Oh yeah, but these things got tough at out for yeah,
close to a decade. Yeah, so to replace themselves and

(01:25:16):
they only lay, well, not they, it's only the female.
I don't know if you knew that, but I read that.
I read that. I always say they, and my my
daughter's pointed out, like, dad, the male doesn't lay anything,
Like I know that, Like, yeah, but you say they
the pair, Well, okay, they have an egg that the
female lays and then they incubate it together. It takes

(01:25:36):
like fifty seven days and then the thing hatches and
then six months later it finally is ready to leave
the nest. And the nest for six months six months, yeah,
and then after it fledges, the parents take care of
it for an additional year. So now you really have
the currency of exchange for you know, the the game
of replacing yourself for condors, that's very limiting. But in

(01:25:58):
captivity they could get the it's to read annually. And
not only that, but they could prey upon another thing.
We learned about a lot of different birds. They multiple
clutch if they lose their first egg to predation. In
the wild, the female is able to recycle and lay
another fertile egg. Sometimes that can happen two or three
times if their nest is predated. But of course all
these things in nature, they would have had to elaid

(01:26:19):
it early enough. Anyway, I know I'm geeking out on
that part of it, but we take it. I didn't
want to talk about condors, you got you got it all.
I love talking about condors, but you talked. But you
started it with lead and then condors, which I'll tell
you why that's that's a bad idea. I don't know. Well,
you were getting down to six of you watching six birds. Yeah,
six of us watching six birds. We learned a lot.
So by multiple um you know, um double clutching, which

(01:26:43):
were some of us probably old enough to we think
that has a different all right, Well, double clutching and
birds is getting too in the in the same same year,
same season. So you put the other egg in the incubator,
you raise it up. Well, you don't want it to
imprint on people. So they used the puppet to make
sure that it was fair it and nurtured until it
was then put into a foster care and then you
take those young and you release them too the wild.

(01:27:05):
Then we released into the wild, we put transmitters on them.
We watched them now and back to the six people
watching six birds, and you're like, now, we'll find out
what happens to these sons of bitches exactly. And as
we did, we found out it took them several years
to occupy in behavior and in space what we now
think is natural behavior because it's it's not very you know,
we're seeing like a seventy eighty mile home range. These

(01:27:27):
birds are moving seasonally around following the food. So during
hunting season they eat the hell out of gut piles.
It's a great food source. During calving season, they're eating
the drop calves, the ones that don't survive, they're eating
the remains left behind. All of these things are we're
learning because birds like a C nine last one captured
put into captivity produce so many young artificially enhanced because

(01:27:50):
we left to play with things as we learned about it.
So we've been able to exponentially grow the population a
short period of time to maximize the return on investment
of the cost of this. To pump these birds out
and then monitor them. Well, here's a neat thing about
the testament to the condor's resiliency. A C nine finally
was so well represented, and we have a team of
geneticists that monitor this to make sure that for every

(01:28:11):
release site they have an equal representation of genetic diversity,
so that if we lose one population to some catastrophe,
we still have that genetic stock somewhere, either in captivity
in Arizona and Utah or in California and Baja. Those
are the three main groups, and your dozen egg carton,
you're there's a lot of parents represented in that dozen

(01:28:32):
egg carton, well as many as you could have because
they are only you know, the all time low was
twenty two individuals. So from those twenty two came the
breeding stock for the entire population today, which begs the
question of is there enough genetic diversity for them to
be viable in the first place. Luckily, in avian species
that's not as much of an issue as it is
with primates. So the Mauritius kestral is probably the best example.

(01:28:54):
That was down to four birds in in the island
of Mauritius, and now that bird has been brought back
to over four repairs. It's either fods or four innerpairs. Yeah,
but as you start studying now with our capacities and
science to study that, to look back using genetics, to
look back and see what that bottleneck was and how
many family groups there are. Well, the Andean condor, the

(01:29:15):
closest living relative to the California condor. It too went
through a bottleneck that has like three or four family
groups is all. They have, same thing with California condor. Anyway,
My point about A C nine is he was so
well represented they decided, why don't we rerelease him. He
came from the wild, Let's put him back out there.
Damned if he didn't get back back released and start

(01:29:36):
breeding in the wild again and took a new mate
and continued to produce young. He's probably pretty good at
the reproducing part of this well because he had been Yeah,
he'd been doing an annual basis right. My My point
is people think that the condor is so fragile, and
I think people have that misconception that all endangered species
are so fragile that's why they're endangered. That's not the case.

(01:29:58):
Species get endangered and we get upity as people when
changes too rapid, because too rapid a change causes us
to get tense about it, which and and too rapid
a change for wildlife interrupts their ability to respond to it,
like if there's a new cause of mortality. And so
I'm prefacing all this stuff because it's gonna matter when

(01:30:20):
we talk about lead. But what I know about lead
is mostly from my work with condors. So we go on,
we're studying these birds. They start, uh, first lead lead
poisoning case comes in, and this gets back to finally
answering your question, I do hear you, and I'm not

(01:30:41):
ignoring you. How do you know about lead? How you
know how many diet birds die of lead? We had
a bird drop out of a tree south ron the
Grand Canyon in the summer of two thousand. They went
and recovered the bird, took it in, They did an
EE cropsy, an autopsy for wildlife did an e cropsy.
Come to find out the bird had lead pellets in
it's digestive system, meaning it had consumed something with digestive

(01:31:03):
in its digestive system and consumed that meat that had pellets,
which is odd because it's summertime and it's a Grand
Canyon that's what the hell is going on there? Well,
I got my ideas and I almost got fired for it.
A game and fish, but that's another story. Um Now
we know that. I looked at the X ray and
I was like, that's number six and sevens. I know
those are sevens because I've reloaded a hell a lot

(01:31:23):
of them, and that's a six and I see some
of those in duck hunting. That's six and sevens. What
in the world's going on there? One bird had thirty
three pellets in its stomach. Turns out, after that bird
we got the diagnosis back to pets, not lead pellets. No,
we're gonna get the fragments. That's a whole another venue
and it's way more conclusive than the where in the
hell these pellets come from? So we um. After that

(01:31:46):
bird gets diagnosed, we see a couple of weather birds
looking lethargic, which is similar to any other vertebrate species
and how they respond with lead poisoning. We're starting to
see it, like, man, something wrong with this bird. It's lethargic,
it's not going anywhere, it's not feeding with the rest
of the birds. You go in and and well, let's
trap the population we found thirteen birds after trapping the
population in two thousand. I can't remember what the total was,

(01:32:08):
but we had thirteen birds that had pellets in their
gut and someone were sick and we had to keylate them.
So luckily you can keylate the same process we use.
Keylating is the is the Basically it's a you inject
a solution and humans they do it through I V
and the root word keel is claw and and it
molecularly binds to the lead and then can be passed

(01:32:28):
through the system. So in condors we just give them
two injections a day and the intermuscular injections in the
pack and then it helps to reduce the lead. It
debriates more quickly because if it doesn't get taken out
of the system like other vertebrate system, lead precipitates out
of the blood stream into the organs, into the bone
and brain, where there's an increasing difficulty of getting rid

(01:32:50):
of it because the half life of lead and blood
is like fourteen days. Half life of lead in the
brain might be forty years. So we can start doing
real damage with accumulations over a lifetime. Can we to
find deporate? Oh gosh, yeah, I can't believe I used
words of that. No, it's cool. No, people get to
learn stuff. Deporation is the ability or the way in

(01:33:14):
which a a an element. In this case, it precipitates
out of the system. So they're different ways. Some of
it is through waste, some of it is through being
locked up into other compartments. So sorry, snort, I thought
that was you for a minute. So um so, So

(01:33:35):
we learned that lead poisoning in fact is something that
reared its ugly head in our reintroduction program in Arizona.
Now this wasn't unknown. There were studies in the eighties
where they found a few birds and this gets back
to another thing I was talking about earlier. They found
a few birds near waterways and they had such huge
crops that it looked like they were they had gorged themselves.

(01:33:57):
But one of the effects that lead poisoning has on
on a condor is, like other vertebrate species, there are
neural neural impacts. They're neural pathways that are blocked and
you get paralysis. And this happens with humans and lead
poisoning as well. Um So, the condor's digestive system is paralyzed. Therefore,
the sphincter that controls the food from the crop that

(01:34:19):
goes down through the proventriculous and ventriculous and into the gut.
It can't function anymore. So they're starving essentially, and they
can't they they they're still eating more and more and more,
and so they're filling up this huge crop. And because
they're in a weakened state because they're not processing food,
they can't fly. And because they can't fly and they're
not processing food, they usually don't need metabolic water because

(01:34:43):
they can I mean, they don't need water because they
can get water through the metabolic processes of processing their food.
So if they're not getting the benefit of their food,
they're eating themselves into this and gorge state and they're
not getting the moisture they need to go to water.
So these birds were found I learned this when I
was doing my dissertation research. And so we found that

(01:35:04):
these birds would be there with this huge crop and
they couldn't fly. It wasn't because they had over eaten.
It's because they were dying lead poisoning, and they'd be
collected near water. Yeah, yeah, and and that's common. So
over like here's where this wive's tail came from exactly,
like exactly, thank you. That was the point I wanted
to come all the way back to. So as I
started researching this, and because you know when birds go

(01:35:26):
go silent on telemetry or GPS, when they're GPS is
moving around as we expect them to, and ban they
stop and they're there for two weeks. Something's wrong. You
go there and and we started putting this together, is
like is there a creek, yep, go to that creek,
hike up that creek. We're gonna find that bird. So
you get your VHF telemetry. You'd either fly at first

(01:35:46):
to kind of narrow it down, and then we'd go
in by by you know, a TV and then hike
in the rest and then we would would find that bird.
And sure enough it's got a full crop. And it
smells because the crop is soured, which is not normal
for I mean it it's when you smell like a
like a paragrine that's just eating, that's just eating a meal.
It doesn't smell what people think. It smells like, oh
it's dead meat or it's red meat. It has a

(01:36:08):
sweet smell, just like a good piece of elk does
you know, and condors when they're scavenging, they're scavenging on
carcasses when they're new because they find them by eyesight,
not by their smell, and so their big bill allows
them to tear into carcasses that other scavenging species like
turkey vultures can't do. So condors are eating fresher carrying,
if there is such a thing. So they usually don't stink.

(01:36:29):
You can smell when they're sick and they have a
soured crop and you can see it because it looks
like a big balloon. Um. So we're so we're learning
all this stuff, and then I start reading these old
papers from the eighties where they said, well, we know
lead poisoning could be a contributing factor. Well, as it
turns out, lead poison is the number one factor. And
so for us, that's how we came to our understanding

(01:36:51):
of lead poisoning and how it could have really contributed
to the steep decline and near extinction. And so rather
than rest thing on that, we went to our partners
that airs on the Game and Fish and Utah Division
Wildlife and said, hey, folks, we've been monitoring these birds
now since and beginning in two thousand two when the

(01:37:11):
condors found the Kaibab plateau and they started feeding on
gut piles in like, this was the seasonal thing you did.
It's like State Fair in Bakersfield, right, everybody goes there. Well,
hunting season on the Kaibab. All the condors. You can
see all their location data if they're wearing gps is
or we're tracking them with VHF. They all go to
the Kaibab and we get a signal in the stationary

(01:37:35):
signal means they're either perched or they're perched because they're
they're feeding. Well, you have to wait awhile because they
stop and rest and then fly quite a bit. But
if they're there for a couple of hours and there's
five or six birds, you go there and you rush
up and there you are at a camp, at hunters camp,
and there's a bloody greasy spot in the pine needles
over there, and there's a bunch of condoors with big
fat crops, and the hunters are long gone, and there's

(01:37:57):
the bones, there's the hide, and the condors are fat
and happy. You're like, great, it's a great food source.
Until we started seeing seasonally high levels of lead speaking
coinciding with the hunting season. So we took and sampled
the bird's blood every time we caught them so that
we could have samples of blood year round. And sure enough,

(01:38:17):
we saw a spike that coincided with October November, which
was when the two deer hunts are in the Kibab.
But you're not seeing deaths at this point, oh no, No,
deaths were creeping along. And then after like two or
three years of consistent use of the kaibab, you could
count on it. We were going to lose six to
ten condors a year to lead poisoning. And that's when
Steve we finally found the pictures in the radiographs. We

(01:38:39):
we got an X ray machine and if a bird
was sick and it had a high blood lead level,
we would X ray it and sure as hell we'd
find fragments. And then we started asking a question of okay,
but wait a second, is this because of wounding loss?
We didn't. We didn't yet understand the relationship between gut piles.
So being lifelong hunters and being you know, the fund

(01:39:00):
is founded by hunters falconers who don't do d and
d uh, so they say, so we said, well, hell,
let's do a study because because wounding loss we know
is only about ten eleven percent in deer hunting, we
looked at studies all over the place and like, we're
not talking about ten or eleven percent of the dear
harvested being the source of lead poisoning that accounts for

(01:39:23):
of the condor flock having high lead levels. We're talking
about something more ubiquitous on the landscape. We've got to
figure out how much lead there can be. So we
did our first study where we went and shot thirty
deer up in Wyoming at one of our our board
members places, and and sure enough, this was another point
in my personal wildlife career is like, are you kidding me?
We're all got five dopon permits and we're gonna go

(01:39:45):
do this study and we're gonna shoot all these deer.
We're gonna x raym hole. We're gonna shoot him with
everything from a two forty three to three wimmag x
ray m hole. Then we're gonna gut them into a
supplement tub. If any of you know what that is.
You know they find them out in the field all
the time. We throw in the supplement tub. Then we're
gonna xtray the supplement tub. It's that thing that you
briefly know as an animal and you throw your binoculars

(01:40:06):
on it. What the hell is a big bucket doing out,
especially when you're hog hunting in California. So so we
started extraying um these carcasses of deer hole at a
with a veterinarian up there, and we put an narrow
shaft through the wound channel so we could hold it
perfectly straight up and down, so that the wound channel
was in a kilumter fashion, so that when we had

(01:40:28):
the x ray, we could also see if fragmentation occurred,
how far those fragments UM got away from the bullets path.
So we would started being blown away with just that alone.
And we're like, man, that's a lot of that's a
lot of lead. But still most we take the deer
out of the we got it in Arizona. We got it,
and we take it out of the field. And so

(01:40:49):
we're like, well, let's do the gut piles. This blew
our minds and we're lifelong hunters. We x rayed those
fragments and and I'll give you I won't say the
names of the manufacturers because I don't pick on anybody.
But anyway, a soft point lead core bullet that everybody
has probably used in their life and most common on
the shelf. It's said to retain sixty four to sixty

(01:41:10):
percent of its mass. Damn sure does. It's perfect. The
mushroom looks beautiful when you actually that gut pile. And
and people say not, probably your listeners. They say, well,
I don't shoot them in the guts. Well, you know
what I mean, everything for and aft of the diaphragm
is what we call the gut. You're leaving on the ground,
but you're leaving on the ground or the grolic if
you're in you know, Ireland or whatever. No, that's that's

(01:41:33):
diaphragm back garlic? Is this diaphragm back? All right? Well
let see there it goes a t question. Yeah, there
you go. Get that in there. I hope he does
ask about that. So anyway, um that when we actually
the gut piles, that's what blew our minds. A single
shot from say a hundred thirty grain two seventy soft
soft lead core tip bullet could produce as many as

(01:41:56):
four fragments from a single shot. Holy cow, it looks
like a snowstorm. And so I started investigating and looking
into the snow storm. You know, I didn't know what
to call it at the time, but I said, well,
there's gotta be fragmentation studies, you know, elsewhere, especially during wartime,
because unfortunately, it's not like you see on the John
Wayne flicks. You know, take a shot of whiskey, bite

(01:42:18):
this dick, I'll get that bullet out. Well, you might
get the core of the slugout, but you're not getting
a let out. And there's what was defined in wartime
as the snowstorm effect, which was the fragmentation that occurs.
And it's basically the stripping off of the front end
of that bullet as it comes in hot with its
highest velocity and as it begins to lose velocity because

(01:42:38):
it's losing mass, little pieces are being stripped off, and
it looks like this little galaxy. And that's what these
X rays look like. Uh, let me hit you with
some what about is ms? You bet? What was going
on like when the hide hunters and the commercial hunters,
we're re shedding like shiploads of condors. I don't know,

(01:43:00):
if you look at the condor's estimated decline, and you
look at our increase in those activities, it looks like
an inverse relationship wine inverse relationship. Well, oh got it? Yeah,
maybe I said that wrong. I don't know, honey, activity
is going up and then the harvest. So someone could
have it. You had the right tool kit, you could

(01:43:21):
have in eighteen seventy gone out and found lead contamination
and condors and might have charted a declining if I
if I was a betting man and I had the
money to bet, I'd be betting on that. Because look,
and that's the beauty of this study. We weren't looking

(01:43:42):
for lead to be the problem. We were looking and
open to the idea of what what are the problems
that contribute to Maybe it is the lack of genetic variability,
stuff like that. We were thinking that. And there were
people who said that all these birds hatching captivity, they're
not going to know how to breed. And I was like, again,
would nature produce something like that in just a few generations?

(01:44:04):
And get this, Some of the birds we released when
they became of breeding age at five and six years
of age, they chose caves in the Grand Canyon that
later through investigation of those caves were used by their
ancestors in the place to see there were fonal remains
that were carried there, likely by condors, because you're not
going to get a Harrison's Mountain goat uh tooth, you know,

(01:44:27):
in in one of those caves on the sheer red wall. Yeah,
it was kind and they found condor remains and those
condors that were hatched in captivity. Who by some people's assertions,
you know, they're not gonna know what to do, Well,
yeah they did, and they did it just like you know,
they're great, great, great great whatever uh did. So we
became we became more and more confident that what we're

(01:44:49):
seeing is more indicative of of what a wild condors doing.
Like people said, well, there's not enough food out there. Again,
I think about that and and a lot of what
I think about as a conversation guys have had on
this podcast. Wait a second, we're at the peak of
productivity on the landscape right now with respect to carrying
the potential for carrying wildlife populations of deer and elk

(01:45:11):
and turkeys and whatever else you want to talk about.
The the the age of conservation has produced an abundance
of biomass of potential carrying. And then you add from
the years of the Spaniards on through to today, the
introduction of domestic stock and having the stocking rates we
use on the landscape, I would posit that there might

(01:45:31):
be more potential carrying today than there might have been
right after the last the end, the less ice age
when you factor in live stock. It's interesting. Oh, absolutely,
Now there's because in a lot of areas you just
you're you're constantly making sure that you're hitting max capacity. Yeah,
and and people have made the argument. I think it's
worthy the most. You know, with the the advent of

(01:45:53):
veterinary care, the loss rates are are much less too,
So one could argue, you know, I'm just saying that
from what you've seen and observing the condors. We put
food out there when we release birds because our management
tool is the release site. If we can't keep them
coming back to the release site, we can't go trap them.
They're damn hard to trap once they're out in the field. Um,

(01:46:14):
we we thought, well, we don't want them to come
dependent on the food that we put out, So like
five six months after you know, this is in the
early years. We put the food out there, we'd move
it every night, make them work for it, make them
have to do what they're going to have to do
in the landscape to survive. And then later we found
that it doesn't matter what you do and how much
foods there come the flying season as soon as March

(01:46:36):
and April hit in northern Arizona and southern Utah and
the winds pick up, Hey fuels cheap. Condors are gliding birds.
They have nine and a half foot wingspan. They're gonna
use it and they're gonna go and they're gonna feed elsewhere.
So they're not dependent on the food. So we're beginning
to answer these original questions. Was that their reproductive biology?
Was it the amount of food on the landscape. And
then you know people saying that they're they they're so uh,

(01:47:00):
they're so vulnerable to people. Does that make sense? For
as long as humans have hunted in North America, condors
have been here, and condors follow scavengers, I mean follow predators.
So I would argue that wait a second, condors aren't
looking at us as a predator. And with the birds
we see produced today, they're not afraid of humans, which

(01:47:21):
is another major problem when it comes to people that
have shot condors, which still happens today unfortunately. But they're
not fearful of humans because we're a predator and they
probably followed predators. Can you imagine in one of those
old buffles, they don't look at us as a predator
of them, of them, but they look at us as
a predator that produces carrying were a food source. So
can you imagine one of those buffalo jumps if there

(01:47:42):
were condors that extended out into the planes, you know,
which is entirely possible, and how that would have supported
a population of condors long after you know, the natives
left and there's there's so many tangents here. Well yeah,
and look, well this this is all great, but in
the interest of time, let's let's up to something. Uh.

(01:48:03):
Out of that research, and I'm sure that there was
plenty of fighting and suing, okay, but out of that
research we get what I brought up initially, hunters and
their ammunition, and we came to know about the condor
recovery area, and folks were introduced to the idea of

(01:48:24):
the FURST, the first widespread ammal restriction since the water
foul the first widespread ammal restriction since the waterfowl. All right,
you're jumping. I'm gonna have to back you up though,
because you're jumping straight to the ban in California. I assume. Yeah,
it wasn't that, Like, well, it's it's spread to other places, right,

(01:48:47):
like portions of Arizona had were in the condo recovery area. No. Yeah,
the recovery, the addressing the lead issue as it was
UM defined by condors. Addressing that began in Arizona and
Utah long before the band in California. Yeah, and our
approach was entirely differently. Okay, well that's always trying to

(01:49:09):
I don't know the history. I just wanted to bump
along and like sending the interest of time. You bet, so,
let me give you the fast track. So from early
two thousand's two thousand uh four or five, we did
the Dear Study. UM put out a few more studies
showing that the coincidence of increased lead exposure and let
cause mortality in the hunting season, And then we went
to Arizona game and fish. We built a program to

(01:49:31):
share this information with hunters and asked hunters that they
would consider using non lead Arizona game, and Fish took
it a step further and said, hey, if you get
drawn for a kaibab tag, which is the one once
a decade thing, if you're lucky, we're gonna also give
you two free boxes non lead ammunition. We need your
help to address this problem for condors. Within three years,
there's on a game and Fish reached voluntary participation within

(01:49:55):
three years. Seeing the reason I back you up is
because nobody knows this part of the Condoran lead story.
All they know is what happened in California, and I'm
gonna get to that for the sake of time. But
for the last twelve years, I didn't know. I never
I didn't know about the ammo. Yeah, yeah, I don't
know that there was a voluntary components, that a voluntary opponent.

(01:50:15):
It was comprised of voluntary activities. And and to be further,
um uh, I hardly know what to say to to
be a better bunch of conservation scientists and wildlife managers
who are all hunters. We said, and if you just
can't get the stuff to shooting your gun, or we
don't have there at caliber, you can still help prevent

(01:50:35):
that potential exposure and that prevents potential poisoning by hauling
your gut pile of the field. And when we first
proposed that, some people like who the hell's gonna haul
a gup pile out of the field, I was like, well,
if you make that Cabella's gift certificate, they might win
big enough. I can tell you a lot of folks
that would. And it worked even with the ammunition shortages

(01:50:58):
of late which I know is something you to talk about,
and the price and price and availability. Even with that
being an imposition last year, the hunters in Arizona continued
to participate and they just transitioned if they couldn't get
the AMMO, they still participated and helped wildlife because they
were asked to do so, and we incentivised it to

(01:51:19):
to say thank you. And even though there was fewer
rounds of non let AMMO available for use last year,
we saw the same annual participation. It's annual over that
twelve year time for it. So nobody talks about that.
And so when when California. It all started in California.
It started because litigious based groups who quote unquote do

(01:51:41):
conservation started with California. Because California was easy pickings because
of the way the politics are there, And so when
those groups started threatening litigation and saying you have to
do a ban or else, I ended up over there
talking to the Commission on two separate occasions, on behalf
of the condor program AM and the research that had
really put a lot of this on the map. And

(01:52:03):
I was there at the Commission meetings saying no, no, no,
I'm We're saying this information is new and it's real
and it's worthy of consideration. But we're saying the assumption
that a ban is the only solution. We're not quite convinced.
And we have a perfect case in point here in
Arizona and later into Utah that shows that you can
work with hunters and ask for their help and share

(01:52:25):
with them the information, and you can seek maybe higher
rates of participation. Then you may even get with compliance
with the law, especially if it comes from the angle
of approach that it's coming. So that the crap deal
for the way that went down in California, and the
crap deal for why I'm hesitant to talk about lead
and condors unless we do it the right way, which

(01:52:46):
sharing our story I think is a better way. Is
that it turned into a political quagmire where if you
were talking about non lead today you're talking about oh,
your condor lover. And I even had a mutual friend
I won't say his name here, but a mutual friend
of ours. He said, yeah, but you're a raptor nut.
I said, no, I'm not. I'm a hunter conservation nut.
The condor or another species is symbolic of what we

(01:53:10):
as a society or capable. The guy we're talking about
real smart. Yeah, I'm smart and very energetic. Yeah. And
you yeah, yeah, anybody. And he'll know that I'm talking
about him, because when he talks about this issue, he
knows I'm gonna call him right after, right after the
the oh, I almost gave too much away, right after

(01:53:30):
some of their media um outputs go go live. God,
I gave way too much anyway, um deep Yeah, there
you go, so so for me. And I told him this,
I said, what I love about this is it the
fact that we can combine hunting and conservation and science
altogether and own it. We can walk away on this

(01:53:54):
issue of lead poisoning and how it affects the condor
or the eagle. Because there's those recent studies that you
reported on col Um, you know, with with the limitations
to the eagle populations and going down those paths of
the arguments, well, eagles are doing eagles are doing great,
so how can let be a problem. It was like, yeah,
humans are too, so COVID doesn't matter, right, just the
logic we use today. We really have to shape this conversation.

(01:54:16):
And if we, as hunters who who believe we are
leading the way in conservation, if we're not out there
in the front talking about it, then it will go
by the wayside of those groups who have the loudest voice,
those groups who spend their money on campaigns and litigation
um and telling everybody they're saving the condor by passing
this law. But the reality of it is, and what
we were guarding against and warning against when they were

(01:54:37):
petitioning and and cowfish and wildlife was put in a
tight spot because they're gonna be suited if they don't
do something. And and I was very proud to be
a biologist to scientists who was there saying, hey, I
did some of that work. I'm my name is on
those papers, and I'm telling you I'm not sure a
band will solve the problem. It'll change the law, which
sounds good. But if people think that it's all um,

(01:55:00):
you know, mocked up and and it's about an attack
on our rights as hunters. I won't say we predicted it.
It was obvious you didn't. Nobody had to predict it.
And when that happened, that what the perception would be.
Oh absolutely, And now guess what, lead poisoning still occurring?
Where it lead his band? And and to those people
who believe that the band was the only solution, I

(01:55:22):
said to them, so if you are successful in your band,
you have your parade in the streets, you say you
solve the problem. You know. The crappy thing for us
who are out there monitoring and watching taking care of
these condors, they're still gonna be lead poisoned. And they're
still gonna be lead poison because people are gonna say, yeah,
I realize it's a law, but I think it's bullshit,
So I'm not gonna worry about it. And it's unenforceable.

(01:55:43):
Can you tell the difference between a polymer tip solid
copper bullet versus a polymer tip lead core copper, Yeah,
you can't tell. So there are all these issues that
we were pointing out and saying, guys, don't get the
cart before the horse here, do what we're doing, and
not because we were right, but because we were seeing success.
Hunters are responding in kind. We're the only people with

(01:56:05):
the study and the study has this type of results, right,
And then we would say and then finally I would
just say, and I know, I'm I'm I'm going on
too long about this too, but um I said, if
hunters are the only ones that can solve this problem,
so do you want to alienate them? That's an interesting
point because that's part of the waterfowl ban was that

(01:56:28):
North Dakota Game and Fish kind of hung their hat
on that. They did, like, uh, they put on shooting
clinics for hunters and they're like, we're gonna teach you
how to shoot with Steele. We're gonna teach you that
Steele isn't some awful thing. And you know, they spent
the time and money to to work with hunters. Put
on today like shooting clinics, show them lead poisoning, all this,

(01:56:52):
and the hunters leave it and there they're positive about it.
So I'm so glad you brought that up, because that
is the foundation that I've laid for you, and what
we experienced in Arizona and Utah is the philosophy and
foundation that gave rise to the North American on lead partnership.
And I hope someday we can come back with my
co founder Leland Brown and talk about that partnership, because

(01:57:14):
that's exactly what we're doing. So state agencies are are
rightfully so they're concerned about the public perception about how
big a deal is this lead thing? Do we need
to do anything? And we're saying, hey, we can help
you with that. We've already done it, and we did
it in the range of the condor where it's even
more contentious. But if you want to have this conversation

(01:57:34):
about the potential for lead exposure and how to prevent
the potential for lead exposure as a as an opportunity
for an ethically minded, uh conservation minded hunter, we can
we can give you confidence that this will resonate well
with him. Let me let me uh, let me lay
one on you. UM. I'll start off by saying you

(01:57:58):
can comment on this comment. Start up by saying this
goes beyond the problem with lead poison, or I don't
even want to use value. I don't want to use
value laid in terminology rafters. Besides condors, cannon do die
from lead ingestion. Okay. Um, people who are uneasy or

(01:58:25):
outright opposed to bands, as we discussed in California, where
moves it beyond hunter choice? Okay, and you just raise
your hand. So so people who oppose lead bands, yeah,
and I don't oppose it, but go ahead, some people do. Yeah, Okay,
I'm very like I'm not. I'm highly highly uneasy with

(01:58:46):
the idea of a lead band when you could get
with compliance and technology gradually land in a similar place.
So to the point where now if you had someone
like if you come to me and said I could
shoot uh letter Bismuth, right, like, I'll shoot business. Well,

(01:59:06):
it's really expensive, but it performs well. So you have
a technology function outside of any conversation, like, outside of
any conversation about lead I know a lot of guys
that shoot copper bullets. Yeah, okay, outside of it, Like
they could be not even aware of the debate, but
they're switching for issues of performance and other stuff. Okay,

(01:59:27):
there's a cost factor, but I'm strange from what my
point is going to be someone who's gonna come and say, like,
I am gonna resist any kind of mandate that tells
shooters what they have to use. And someone says, what
about the fact that that raptors die from lead, They
would say, uh, raptors die from collisions with glass, Raptors

(01:59:52):
die from wind turbans, Raptors get hit by vehicles and die.
Raptors die all manner of ways. They die from lighting
with fences. Um, why is there not a conversation about
we can't have fences, we can't have glass windshields, we
can't have glass sky rises. Why do you seem to

(02:00:13):
not care about all these significant causes of death but
you care about this one. And they'll say this, we're
not talking about population level impact. They might say there's
like this is an argument, and they're saying, sure, some die,
they all die eventually, many die from many causes, but

(02:00:36):
short of their being population level impact, it doesn't matter. Beautiful,
I'm glad you brought this up. Okay, So that's that's
a way of that's a not a fringe, not a
fringe viewpoint. No, And what I would what I would
enter into that because there's there's several things you need
to impact there. Um. The first of which is yes,

(02:00:59):
lead is not in many cases of population limiting effect
for those other raptors. It's only proven to be so
right now. Well, it can affect populations. That's that latest
latest paper in science pretty much nailed that UM, and
the condor is obviously affected a population limit limiting level,
population limiting level. But they're all affecting population. But you

(02:01:19):
can't say it's not either. But the argument it shouldn't
be about that there are programs to educate and mitigate
for all those other cause of mortality. Look at the
stuff we're seeing about Ferrell cats right now, not that
they're out killing eagles. But my point is, UM, there
are programs out there, just hasn't been proven yet, but

(02:01:39):
there are programs that do address it. The sticking point
is are there programs problems and is addressed by let
I won't get into the details of a law enforcement
interview I had one time about the way I learned
to shoot and whether it did or did not have
anything to do with Ferrell cats, But UM, I won't

(02:02:00):
get into that. UM. The point is is we're not
talking about we we at the non the partnership or
the Paragne fundering of our partners, and now we have
over forty partners, including one of your else close outfits,
First Light is one of our partners. We're not out
there saying that the band's a solution. We're out there
saying education, outreach, educating yourself, being able to make an

(02:02:21):
informed decision. We are confident based on our experience in Arizona, Utah,
now Oregon, beginning in Washington for new new partner to
new partners to the two original of state agencies, we
are confident that if you provide that information and you
and you shape a path forward through Yes, incentives work great,
and it's it's fun to maybe win something. Um that

(02:02:44):
you can change people's perceptions, their awareness and that can
lead to changes in behavior without telling them what to do.
And me as a hunter, and that's why I'm so
passionate about this. I want us to have our cake
and eat it too. I want us to say when
we a that hunters the original conservationists, Yeah, are they
continuing to be? I hope what we're doing represents that

(02:03:07):
because I want to be a hunter leading a way
in conservation and far greater than any single species that
we've prevented extinction from or or brought back to take
them off of the endangered species list. All of those
are testaments of what we're capable of. The way in
which we go about it is the process that will
see us through to the challenges in the future. It's
well beyond a single species, and it's beyond a single

(02:03:28):
issue like lead poisoning. There are other issues that are
way bigger on the on the scale of things for
wildlife management agencies to be dealing with. I I understand that.
That's why I think we as a nonprofit, for example
of the Paragrine Fund, that's why we we put our
two cents in. We show our our We lead by
example by saying we'll help you with that. That's why
we co founded the non lad Partnership. You know what

(02:03:50):
I forgot to do when I was laying out my
no thing, I forgot to include this one which winds
up in there and you continue unpacking the whole thing
will be like, uh uh the bald eagle? Yeah, okay,
what was it? What was the thing we did to
save the bald eagle? What was the thing called silent
spring and all that? Oh? Well, you are you talking
about d d T or no, no, what was it?

(02:04:11):
What was then there that made their eggs their eggshells
and d d E, which is the residuees yea eggshell thinning. Well,
I mean the paagrine falcon is probably a better example
of that, but yeah, I mean the paregrine falcon was
was was far greater affected. I mean it was oh yeah,
they the paragn falcon. We we nearly lost because of that,
and that obviously is thus the namesake of our organization,

(02:04:33):
the Paragrin Fund. But that's why we were founded. Those
falconers who noticed that populations of of Paragrine's were plummeting
and wondering why and thought, well, we've we've got to
be able to breathe these birds in captivity and re
repopulate those areas. But we got to find out the problem,
and the d d T was identified as the problem.
And even though the science was there, kind of like
what you were talking about with a hundred years of

(02:04:54):
lead lead information, even though the science was there, one
of the things that put it on the map was
silent spring, you know, and like like Bell Rose, you know,
Bell Rose was the guy who finally got it through
to everyone. He was the Rachel Carson of I would
argue that he was the guy at the time people
finally came around to really accepting what was going on.
He was the expert at the time. But it's never
one person that finally did it, because you don't introduce

(02:05:16):
something that's controversial, controversial that is going to require a
great amount of change in human society's that that is
listened to. They hear the case and they say, yeah,
we're gonna do it, and then they do it. No,
you hear about it, and the first one is called
a radical, and then later on they're they're immortalized and talking,
you know, exactly mountain from making a lot of wilderness,

(02:05:43):
making a lot of forests and wilderness, and then everyone,
every politician since then wants to compare himself to a
guy that was ridicule yeah in his day, and and
that's exactly beat pre hugging to some bitch on the
plane exactly. So, uh, let me finish my bald eagle thing.
I haven't gotten there yet. Sorry. Recently, there's a news
story wing all day man, Well there's a news story.

(02:06:03):
They got all kinds of pressed. I mean, in the
last month or two some about like a prevalency of
leading eagles, and people like, holy shit, these eagles all
got lead at some point out home? Are we talking
about the same bird that we quite famously removed from
the Endangered Species Act protection because it's recovered and now
it's everywhere and you don't even comment on bald eagles anymore.

(02:06:27):
Is this the bird we're talking about that's getting killed
by lead? Well, they do, they do in Alaska. They
comment about that bird. Yeah, like at our fish chack.
I think someone once counted right in a in a
collection trees. But I'm saying that so like, on one hand,
the media is running with this ball eagle thing. On
the other hand, people are like, but hol on man,
I thought that was like one of the great conservation

(02:06:48):
success stories. How bad could the lead be? Yeah? Absolutely,
And that's my point. It's not about does it affect
a single species to the point where they might we
might lose them. That's not the stake of the game.
The game is understanding and having the information to be
able to comprehend the system and be able to make

(02:07:11):
wise choices. Because what's the one of the first tenants
of of hunter education, No you're no your targetget beyond Well,
there's a new dimension of this and I want, I want,
I won't steal this because this is Leland Brown, my
co founder that works for the organ Zoo was beyond
the target. Yeah, this is a new dimension. We own

(02:07:31):
that bullet. We're responsible to make sure it hits the
target we intend to kill. And if we do our job,
and we know our equipment, it does its job. What
about after we leave and the remains of that bullet
are there. All we want to do is make sure
people know that there's a potential potential for that to
poison a bird. Now, if it does poison a bird,
does that mean that we're gonna lose that species that

(02:07:53):
they did? That's not the point, folks. It's like leaving
trash in the forest. Right, We're not telling people. Look,
it's banned. It's it is banned. You can't leave trash
in the forest. It doesn't mean that's what people do.
You know, doesn't mean something's gonna die. Pick up your paper, right.
I mean it's a good thing to do for ecosystem health.
We want people to think about it that way, not

(02:08:14):
that if we don't do it, we'll lose a species.
I think that paradigm of that style of conservation is
over because one, the science is still science, it's still evolving,
and there's still the pera viewed process that that tests
the science and our assumptions of what we know. That's
an ever ongoing thing. But the thing is the way

(02:08:35):
we do conservation, because now people don't trust the science
and they don't know who to trust when they're talking
about whatever. You know, PhD on this side and on
that side of every every issue. Um, we need. This
is a new paradigm of conservation, and I think we
just have to go back and do the hard work
and earning relationships and trust so that you can share
it in the way that in some form or fashion

(02:08:57):
we've been able to share share here today. Um, you've
got to build that that trust before people are going
to change their behavior because once again, just like those
species that don't adapt well to major perturbations in an environment,
we don't adapt well to major change either. Uh, you're
not a physicist, you're not a human physiologist. And that's

(02:09:20):
I know you're gonna ask about human health. Well let's
do it. I'm not gonna ask about it. I'm gonna
comment on it, all, right, Uh, no one has been
able to tie in a way that that achieves some
sort of academic consensus. No one has been able to
tie hunting eating wild game meat with adverse health effects

(02:09:43):
due to lead. In fact, remember they did this thing
where they went and looked at North Dakota hunters to
see how much lead they had, and they're like, oh,
some of these hunters have elevated lead, but the average
they had less. They had less lead in their system
than urban nights who don't eat wild game because exposure
comes from a a ways, lead paint, soil, all the
leaded gasoline burning prologies. Right, So I don't want I

(02:10:04):
don't want to get into the and because you're not
a human physiologist, you can comment on it. But I
think it's like you can comment on it, not that
I need to tell you what to comment on. I
try and put this way. Do you contest? Do you
contest my statement if I say there is no proof

(02:10:27):
that hunters are suffering healthy facts not not leading their system,
are suffering health effects greater than the American public in general. No,
And I would not contest that. But what I would
say is, and this is the way I treat this issue.
Because if you lead with the human health issue and

(02:10:49):
and you try to tell people what's good for him,
but you're not here to talk about human health. I'm
trying to get to a different point. But I don't
want to just leave it. I don't want to drop
a hand grenade here and then walk away, right yeah
atch it? UM? So so yeah, UM do I would
I contest that, um, based on my interpretation the science,

(02:11:12):
I would say I don't contest that that that the
studies aren't conclusive that if you hunt and you eat
the meat that you eat, UM, that you are suffering
suffering delitarious effects of lead poisoning. However, I will say
this that the science that goes along with our understanding
of lead and its effects on humans. UM. The the
median allowed blood or the allowed blood lead level when

(02:11:34):
I was a kid and you were a kid I
might be able to older than you, UM was like
micrograms per desolader um. That's that's pretty pretty high the
safe level today. UM. When you look at that CDC study,
the one that followed the when you're talking about they
said zero and so while while the zero how about

(02:11:58):
because really when you think about it, there's there's no
there's no species ever studied organism that uses that that
that lead is a use of except us because it's
great for amals. So when you look at all the yes,
when you look at all the like like magnesium, potassium, like,
there's no, there's no, like you didn't get your daily lead. Yeah,

(02:12:19):
the way I answered that question, and just to to
really and and again, we have some other mutual friends
that have been on the podcast, and they have very
strong feelings about it. Though you can't say that it
is affecting human health. And then I hear the argument, well,
you can't say it's not because when you have a
lead poisoning amount, an amount of measurable lead in your system,
how do you determine where it came from unless you're
doing is topic analyses? And again does it matter? Here's

(02:12:42):
where I go to. But but okay, but you can't
sit here, and like I said, we can't and we
can't be doing we can't be doing the follow the science,
listen to the science. Follow the science. Will say, okay,
let's all agree to follow the science. Okay, if we're
gonna agree to follow the science, there's not a human
health risk. It's supposition. You could argue that. Yeah, you

(02:13:03):
could argue, so let's and people do. Okay, So if
if like if we because I almost roll my eyes
now when someone says they're gonna follow the science or
they don't want to listen to the science, I'm like,
you know why, because science is weaponized. They've burned. Like
if I was gonna look not that the scientific community
is monolithic, if I was going to give advice to
the scientific community as a monolithic unit, I would say,

(02:13:24):
don't let your research be weaponized, because it's so weaponized
that when someone says follow the science, you can reasonably say,
who's exactly? I agree? And what you need to do
is use the products of science as a way of
informing yourself. But it doesn't mean it's the holy grail.
I remember asking research your body mind, he's working on something.
I said, what do you hope happens? Because I don't

(02:13:45):
hope anything. What are you talking about hope happens? Right? No?
And what I was like, man, I would be rooting
for that ship. I would point out to that, like
following the science, if you do want to do that,
that means actually, like clicking the links in the article.
All that grabbed your attention, opening up the actual paper,
and then reading that paper. Yeah, you usually find that

(02:14:08):
the paper there's a lot less explosive than when it
got picked up by the news agents. Sometimes you read
it two or three different times to find out how
that article that you started out with actually has anything
to do with this paper. So, yeah, absolutely, and and
so the way I usually answer that question is like, man,
let me tell you about my experience. I had two

(02:14:29):
youngsters at home when we were doing that deer study.
We're shooting all those deer, and because we shoot eight
or ten deer a day and we processed them all
to take us all day, we wanted their carcass, the
carcasses to be shipped out to the processors to make
sure we had thirty different processors so it wouldn't biased
by the Yeah. Yeah, so that meant we had two
days off from shooting more deer. Well, we had hauled

(02:14:52):
but up to Montana with our bird dogs and shotguns
and go hunt hunt upland birds because it was in
the right season. Let all of our ship up. Well, yeah,
exactly exactly. It's from Arizona, man. Anyway, um, we'd go
do that, and my wife said, I called her. I said, man,
I got not only we're gonna have all the dear
meat from the study, I mean five tags worth the dophons,
and it's all be gonna be cutting packaged professionally, which okay,

(02:15:14):
let's either get or bad. But I like doing my Yeah,
it's easy. We're gonna come home and I've got sharp tail,
I got pheasant, I got huns, and we're probably gonna
kill a few ducks with with falcons too to to
boot and she goes, what do you hunt the uplom
birds with? I was like, what a shotgun? Well, what'd
you use? I was like, well, you use the four
tail on the huns and the twenty on the sharp tails.

(02:15:36):
And and it was at the end of of of
stage grouse seasons and I got a stage grouse in
my twelve. She's like, no, dummy, would you use well ammunition?
I was like, I don't know. They were double as
something good, you know. She goes lead and I was like, yeah,
oh right, well, uh, I have an X ray let

(02:15:59):
me extra car. Because she was put putting it in
my face, that are are you thinking? I was like,
you know, that's a damn good point. I wasn't thinking,
so yeah, maybe I'll try steal. And I tried steal
and I've been using it ever since. Like I said,

(02:16:21):
I'm only saying as to tea something up because I'm
kind of teeing like what, I can't wait till you
get there. Well, it's not as it's not as explosive.
I think. What I'm trying tea up is if what's
your like, what is your ask of your peers, like
your peers being hunters, what is your ask? But I
want you to say that like considering that, um if

(02:16:46):
if if you can't look him in this straight in
the eye, Okay, you can't look at hunter straight in
the eye and say you are imperiling your family's health,
which it's not my business. Okay, I'd never do that.
Well and and you'd have a hard time making the
case you would. Yeah, So I'm not gonna tell you that.
But and I'm not going to tell you that you're

(02:17:08):
having population and I'm not gonna tell you that you're
gonna put the ball ego back on the endangered species list.
But we as hunters are killing some number of birds
by putting let out on the on the landscape, in
gut piles. It's just it's like, it's not a debatable point.
What you want to do about that. It's your business, Okay,
are you like, hey, tough shit? Are you like, well,

(02:17:29):
if I can if it's six and one half, if
it's six and one half dozen the other maybe I
don't want to do that, right, Like, like, what is
the ask? I think the ask is to to one
educate yourself before you make a decision. You want to
make an informed decision, and there's a lot of information
out there to make a decision. I have confidence that

(02:17:50):
when the information is shared with hunters, they make good
decisions for wildlife. M hm so. And and I'll also
add a little another little little salt and pepper here,
a little extra spice that you know the rest of
the world is watching. And if the hunter and you
gave one of these options or these alternative responses like

(02:18:11):
I don't give a shit. Okay, careful, don't say he
don't give a ship, because if you happen to be
the hunter who the rest of the world is watching,
that is not a hunter where ship? If they're an
anti hunter and they can say, well, look he said,
they don't care because it's not population limiting. They don't
care if they kill a few eagles. That's that's a
tough way that that's a tough place to be. So

(02:18:34):
I guard against that by telling people will, well, there's
a great way to representing the conservation ethical hunters if
you say, yeah, I educated myself and I do take
some precautions because I don't want to harm wildlife while
I'm deliberately taking other wildlife. You know that I'm targeting
um that I think that's the norm. Like do you

(02:18:55):
do you feel that hunters would be rewarded in a
legal sense, like rewarded by the legislation if they were
demonstrating a year over year reduction in certain activities, or
do you feel that in the end they're going to

(02:19:16):
get hit by In the end, they're gonna get hit
by bands no matter what they do. I hope not.
I fear that if we don't mobilize and educate ourselves
and come to some consensus about what best practices are
when it comes to the potential for lead exposure in wildlife,

(02:19:37):
I think we're more vulnerable than ever to a band.
I you know, our our statement is we don't support
legislation or litigation to solve this problem. I've had some
good buddies of mine who I would assume that would
never support a band say well, it's just time. I
was like, WHOA, Well, Um, I don't know that it

(02:19:59):
is because I don't have the confidence that hunters understand
the problem. If I thought hunters really understood the potential
for lead exposure and we, as a populacet said we
don't give a ship, we don't care, I wouldn't be
working so hard in this effort. But I don't believe
it's the case because everywhere we go, even wildlife professionals.

(02:20:20):
I'm not picking on them either. You go and talk
about it and they're like, oh, I didn't know that. Yeah,
I think do you mind if I jumped in here
real quick, Steve? Yeah, you gotta pick your moments. Uh.
I think something that would help me, Chris, because I,
first off of preface, I am a I use both

(02:20:40):
copper and lead. Um. I think you know the waterfowl
story going from lead to steel has like man, massive
die offs. We need to stop this now we're going
to steal I think we would help somebody like me
with making these decisions because I have educated myself to
a moderate level on this and I'm not he knows

(02:21:02):
more about guns name than anybody I know, um uh
and um. And I'm not a blatant asshole like I
do care about the wildlife. Right. So when I hear like, well,
if you just educate yourself, like, it's a very easy decision, um,
for me, I have not come to the same conclusion
because part of my decision making has to do with

(02:21:24):
that bullets performance. Can you stop from it, Scarrett long speaking,
Oh yeah, he's just been hanging out. Yeah, I's been
hanging out here. Um. Part of this has to do
with that bullets performance downrange. So a lot of folks
And I'm not trying to make parallels to steal and lead,
right because I know it's like easy to jump there.
But there's like a very very very obvious case with

(02:21:46):
with the water fell side. Um, I know that at
a certain speed my copper bullet isn't gonna do what
it's designed to do. I think a lot of people
don't understand that they get their six five creed more.
A lot of people don't get that a opera bullet
you get beyond depending on the length of barrel and
everything like that. But you get beyond about three hundred

(02:22:07):
ish yards, you're going to have performance. You can have
performance related issues with that bullet, right with any bullet,
but it's it's more likely because of how hard copper
is it, there's a higher likelihood that it's not going
to expand. So for me, when I'm making my kind
of lead copper decision, part of that is mortality rate

(02:22:30):
on the animal I'm hunting and likelihood of recovery, right,
And so I think something that would help folks like
me that are in this position, right that if if
we just had copper and lead animal and it's like
they're equally just as good, and it was like you
choose one or the other. Well, I think you're right,
the decision is a lot easier, but they're not just
like one another. What would help me is what what

(02:22:53):
is the level of risk? Right? When you say, like
Steve brought it up earlier, like we know there's eagles
dying from gut piles right somewhere at some point, Okay,
but like, do we know that frequency in that level
of risk? Because I know that I might hit a
deer on the way home, right, and that's calculated in

(02:23:14):
me driving, right, but it's it's probably not likely, and
I think that would help me come to that decision
a little easier, you know, you know, a good parallel
what you're talking about with the switch, Remember, like b
p A free water bottles, Like you can't even look
and tell the difference between the water balls. They cost
the same ones b p A Free. You made switch.
They made switching so easy. Right, it's like it still

(02:23:37):
holds water, right, costs the same amount of money. I
can't tell if I'm looking at it, but right, it
just becomes like people don't sit around arguing about it, right, right, Yeah,
So so I guess I'm maybe I didn't. Um. What
you point out is is very worthy of you know,
and depending on the bullet and what its composition is

(02:23:58):
copper and whatever, then um, some of them, you know,
the monolithics, the solids that don't have all the pre
scoring and all that stuff. Yeah, you need eight feet
per second to get that boot bullet to open up
like it's supposed to. Um. But now there are other
companies making bullets that that will fully expand, if not
fragment into you know, eight or ten pieces that I

(02:24:20):
would never use on game meat that identity eat. I mean,
those bullets will will do what they're supposed to at
way lower. So you're absolutely right. You have to know
your tools and you have to know the capabilities. The
first time I shot all copper, the first time I
shot an all copper bullet was look a decade ago.
Remember I shot up Stagg with it, or Red Stag

(02:24:42):
with it. He didn't know he'd been hit. He eventually
fell over and it looked like someone like shoved U. Look,
he took a field point arrow ran it through him
and I was six yards away. But just come a
long way since then, it has. And I think something
that would be interesting too is because man, my bullets
at a certain range, like when I'm out of range, like,

(02:25:02):
I know what they're gonna do more than likely, right, like,
and it's gonna be very catastrophic. And we're doing a
test on this actually in a couple of weeks on
different bullet types and how they react to bone and
things like that speed. But like, I would love to
also see the data on a bonded bullet. Right. We
know it's lead, right, but we know it's retention is
a lot higher, right than that of a normal lead

(02:25:25):
softcore bullet. So just be interesting to intertwine that to see,
like what's my level of risk and choosing this, and
how does that compare to you my perceived um potential
of losing an animal, because I, like, I don't have
a massive like I don't have massive ballist sticks expertise

(02:25:46):
just for that sake, but I have, like I do
a lot of big game hunting and shooting like trophy Copper,
Federal trophy copper. I've yet to have what I get
like a handful of big and animals every year, and
I've yet to be like that son of a bit
and both like never in fact, it will usually bring
the opposite where people like hunting Couzi ever, but it's like,

(02:26:08):
can't believe you're shooting right. It makes mushrooms perfectly, makes
a perfect hole through them, things fall over. There's not
a bunch of superfluous damage and a giant wound channel,
but it mushroomed. I just had like, I'm sure you
can find extremes, but in terms of like the performance
thing just me as a dude out hunting and pretty

(02:26:31):
normal Western big game situations, I haven't encountered the issue.
And I think for a guy like you that um
shoots a big gun, a three wind mag that goes
pretty damn fast, and you don't reach outside a certain
yardage like you have a fairly close like like that
makes total sense. That's when I use copper right. I

(02:26:52):
love it. I think it's when you get beyond that
into different caliber types that it matters out to the
shots where I'm like, I hear you. I'm glad you
brought that up, because I wouldn't have remembered to bring
that up. And it's a valid point. And and again
it is to me just as simple as know your tools,
know the information, and make an informed decision. And I

(02:27:14):
think the impact from us just doing that as a
hunting populace um it will make an impact. It will
make a difference, which may make it more defensible. Back
to your comments, Steve, that we don't need to be
told what to do. We can we can operate as hunters,
as the conservationists that we claim to be. We can
do that with all of these things. Tell people ro

(02:27:35):
out of time, tell people I get that all the time.
Where if they want to find out more about the
organizations you're involved, and if they want to read more
about um whatever, uh you think they should go read
about you. I know you've done a bunch of work
on comparative ballistics and stuff. So just tell people to
find what you guys work on. Yeah, I'll give you

(02:27:56):
to UM non Lead Partnership dot org. UM and the
hunting with Non Lead dot org. Those are those are
two of the co founders UM Oregon Zoo because they
have a program there that are co founder Leland Brown
runs UM. Those are three good resources. And you can
get a hold of us and we'll come to a
ballistics demo. We'll bring ballistics. Jael bring a bullet trap.

(02:28:17):
We did one of those years ago. And and I'd
love to talk more more with you offline about the
bonded bullets because yes, they do retain their weight, but
there's some interesting things about that. So Nonlair Partnership dot org,
the Paragrine Fund, any of our other partners. Arizona Game
and Fish is a great resource. They've been at this
long time Utah Division of Wildlife and soft down in Arizona.

(02:28:39):
Yea soft Well you're gonna pay for that one. Yeah yeah,
but um, yeah, I'd say hunting with non Lead dot
Org is probably one of the best resources. And I
also want to plug another another closer to here, um
outfit that started up with a colleague of ours, Brian Bedrosian,
and and they started one up called Sporting Lead Free
in Wyoming. And it's another one that now pushing for bands,

(02:29:01):
pushing forward, sharing information and pushing forward movements that show
we can take that information and make really good decisions
for wildlife. Alright, buddy, Chris Parrish, President CEO of the
Peregrine Fund, thank you very much. Man. You're sticking around
for trivia. Yeah, sure, I think you do good, but
I don't think you'll win. I probably I'm not good,

(02:29:23):
But no, I'm saying that because I think you might win.
Because Brodie's now here. Okay, stick around with here and
don't forget to stay tuned to get an exclusive first
listen to one of the stories on our new Campfire
Stories audio book, Narrow Escapes and More Close Calls The

(02:29:48):
Best Shot of My Life by Cameron kirk Connell. A
lot of the stories we're dealing with in the collection
originally came to us in just little snippets, like little
details of stories in a couple of cases, we would
later find out that the details originally provided to us

(02:30:10):
weren't actually part of the story at all. In other cases,
we might have just gotten a little snippet of a
story that was in fact the most tantalizing bit this story.
Here is an example of the latter. Our next storyteller,
Cameron kirk Connell his friends with the spear fisher woman
Kimmy Werner, who you heard from earlier. And earlier I

(02:30:34):
mentioned how Kimmy keeps a lot of things to herself.
She lets experiences in the ocean oftentimes just stay between
her and the water. Cameron is guided by that same
principle and was not particularly eager to talk about this.
In the end, he decided to tell us his story
because he feels as though it might be helpful to

(02:30:56):
other people who could wind up in a simil really
dangerous position. He is anything but a glory seeker. However,
perhaps to his own embarrassment, I'll point out that his
actions and bravery were recognized by the United States Coast Guard.
I called a little bit of the story, and I
knew that if the part I heard was right, this

(02:31:20):
story just couldn't be ignored. We had to go track
it down, and I'm glad we did, and I think
you'll be glad as well. I'm camera er'connell. I'm a
professional spear fishing guide, and my family is from the

(02:31:42):
Cayman Islands, so we grew up spear fishing and around
the water, and I grew up doing nothing but wanting
to be on the water. At the time this story
takes place, I was working down in book a Grand
as a tarpan guide, you know, helping people catch tarpin.
When whenever I had a chance when I was off

(02:32:04):
of work, I would go and and spear. And I
saw a really good day of weather coming in where
it's gonna be like flat calm, and there were some
other guys at the marina that had a good boat
that we could run way off shot of these really
good spots. So I called a buddy of mine, Steve,
who was up at the University of Florida. I was like, dude,
come down, like it's gonna be like banner conditions, I've

(02:32:26):
got everything, just show up. He was a really good diver,
and it's it's hard to find other guys that are
good at diving, so he drove through the night after
having a pretty big July four and came down and
met me, and I think he probably had about two
or three hours of sleep by the time he got there. Um,
so he was pretty whipped. This day, we were diving

(02:32:49):
about sixty miles off the west coast of Florida on
a spot that was in about eighty feet of water,
and during that time of year, the water is usually
nice and blue. Even in a feet of water, you
can usually see far enough down to see some good fish,
and the fish will come up midwater, so you're not
diving all the way to the bottom on a free dive,
which is breath hold diving, but you're actually chumming them up.

(02:33:12):
Chumming What we do is we will take another fish
or a bait fish, cut it up into small pieces,
and slowly toss a couple of pieces out so the
boat was anchored, and we would throw like three pieces
of chum, Wait thirty seconds, three more pieces of chum,
wait thirty seconds. And what that does is it sinks
down and eventually it's going to go all the way

(02:33:34):
to the bottom. You figure if you're a fish and
eighty feet of water and you smell this delicious, you know,
chum coming down the chunks of fish. You're gonna eat
those little pieces and then you're gonna look up and
be like, oh ho, so it's coming from up there.
And then you follow that trail all the way up,
so you can be out in a hundred or two
feet of water and bring fish that are usually bottom

(02:33:57):
fish nearly to the surface, so all the way up
into range of what we can do free diving by chumming.
We had just an epic day, Like the water conditions
were awesome. It was really clear, beautiful blue um Both
of us shot our biggest amberjacks, and the one that

(02:34:18):
I shot I remember distinctly. I dove down and shot
at it about seventy ft and I was in a
hundred fifty water and the fish ended up weighing I
think a hunned five or hundred seven pounds, so I
can remember, like you celebrate with Steve on the surface.
And then he shot another one, his best one. So
it was getting towards the end of the day and
we anchored up on a new spot and we were

(02:34:40):
chumming for a while and getting in in the water
so uh, the current was going straight off the back
of the boat. So for the first thirty ft of depth,
the current was going straight back and there was only
about thirty ft of visibility in there. Uh below that
there was a current that was going exactly ninety degrees

(02:35:02):
perpendicular to it, and it was crystal blue water, and
there was a group of Couberra snappers, which are a big,
powerful snapper that fight really hard and really difficult to
get and they really wouldn't come up over about a
hundred feet. So Steve and I talked about it, and

(02:35:23):
we decided that, you know, because of the rigs that
we were using, which was spear guns with a hundred
foot float line and a buoy, we weren't going to
be able to get him with that rig So a
spear gun is basically a piece of wood with a
trigger mechanism and rubber bands that propel a metal shaft

(02:35:45):
with a barb on it, and when it's loaded, it's
like a rubber band gun. You had a kid except
slings out of a metal shaft. So that spear has
a hole in it and you tie a line off
to that and then you've got about fifteen to thirty
feet of slack line. That's attached to the gun, and
then that is clipped off to a float line, which

(02:36:06):
is a line that goes from the gun all the
way to the surface. And you can have all kinds
of different lengths of float lines and materials, but for
what we were doing this day, we had a hundred
foot float line, and then on the surface we have
a float which is a big inflatable buoy that looks
like a lifeguard float, so that when you shoot a fish,

(02:36:26):
you don't have to fight them while you're down there.
You can shoot them, keep the gun in your hands,
the line comes away from it, and the line is
attached to the buoy, so you can relax get to
the surface. But the problem we were having is because
of the way the currents were in the depths that
we were diving, that boo was coming tight each time,
and I was like just out of range of shooting

(02:36:48):
that really big snapper and the other fish that were
down deep. So we theorized the only way to do
this was to use the fishing reel that was in
the boat clip that off to the gun into the line,
so if that fish came up to a hut, I'd
be able to get to it shoot it and then

(02:37:09):
be able to let go and just free ascend to
the surface without having to fight anything, and the guys
in the boat would be attached to it and be
able to crank it up. So in order to give
me enough slack to go deep enough to shoot one
of these fish, we rigged the line from the spear
actually to the fishing reel. So we talked it over

(02:37:31):
with the guys in the boat and said, look, I'm
gonna go down. I'm gonna make this dive. Steve's gonna
stay on the surface and watch me. I'm gonna shoot
this fish, and when you feel a tug, you guys
crank this thing up. And we all decided this was
a pretty good plan. And up until that day and
until now, I've never done that again. It's amazing that

(02:37:52):
we actually did it on on that occasion. It could
not have been timed better. At this point in the day,
Steve was kind of getting a little bit tired, and
I was the stronger deeper diver. I told Steve, I'm
gonna rest up. You watch me, and I'm holding onto
the back of the boat, currents flowing past and trying

(02:38:13):
to relax every muscle in my body. Every muscle that
you're tensing is burning oxygen. So I'm totally relaxed, chilling
on the surface and just waiting, doing nice relaxed breast
like you do in yoga um to auction date your body,
lower your your heart rate, and then for the last
thirty seconds, I'm doing a series of breasts before my

(02:38:34):
last giant breath, which is belly, chest, shoulder, and then going.
And during that time of waiting for me, I think
Steve got bored and made a dive and I kind
of noticed it out of the corner of my eye
and didn't think much of it because there were pelagic
fish wahoo's and mackerel and rainbow runners and stuff that

(02:38:56):
would come by every once in a while. So I
was like, he's just he's just gonna shoot something shallower.
He's just going to look or whatever. Like I know,
he's focused on watching me because my next dive is
probably gonna be over a hundred foot. So I kicked
down nice and slow. When you make a perfectly efficient
relax dive, as soon as you hold your breath and

(02:39:19):
invert and start kicking down, you can do three ft
per second for your dive, So to get to ninety ft.
It's gonna take you thirty seconds. Then you sit down
there and relax. And my general routine is just about that.
It's like thirty seconds down, spend thirty or forty five
seconds down, and then thirty seconds back up. So my

(02:39:41):
average dive is about a minute and a half minute
forty five. After about seconds, I'm down at and sitting
there waiting, and a nice school of snappers came up.
There was four, like really good fish that at the
time would have been one of my best Kubera snappers.

(02:40:02):
I'm sitting there looking at these snappers, and my mind
has always been so focused on records, and I always say, like,
in order to get a hundred pound fish, you gotta
let all the ninety pound fish swim past. And at
the time I knew the record was a few pounds
off of one that we had seen that had a
huge white mark on its face. So down there, say

(02:40:24):
thirty seconds or so, and I'm drifting, you know, from
seventy down. So it's towards the end of my dive.
I've got this school snapper here, but I still haven't
seen the big one, the big one with the white
spot on his face, and that's the one I really wanted,
so um getting ready ahead the surfings, I was like,
I'm gonna go ahead and shoot one of these other snapper.

(02:40:46):
Just then, out of the corner of my eye, I
catch a glimpse of white and I turned to look,
and in the distance, six year seventy plus feet away
is the white handle of Steve's gun, which still loaded,
heading straight for the bottom like a rocket. And I
was like, oh God, that's not good. And I look

(02:41:08):
and above that, just on the edge of my visibility,
is Steve in a seated position, floating down towards the bottom,
and I immediately know that he has blacked out. When
you hold your breath too long and you're on land,
eventually you're gonna pass out. But on land, your body

(02:41:28):
is going to know that you're outside. There's arroganst your face.
You're gonna take another breath. In the water, your body
also knows that, hey, I'm in the water. Your body
has a kind of a self preservation system that protects
you and your vocal cords closed so you're not taking
in any water. And basically it's like closing your your laptop.

(02:41:51):
It goes into a sleep mode, so you pass out.
You're not conscious. Your heart is still beating, but you're
not breathing. So this is the state that Steve is in.
The water was eight feet deep, and he was sinking
at such a rate that I could not go to
the surface and take another breath and come down and

(02:42:11):
get him, because he would be gone forever. I knew
then that I had one chance, and that was right now,
to try and save him, at the very least recover
his body. We didn't have any scuba tanks on the boat.
We had no way of getting him. I have no
one else on the surface, no one else to help me.
Him and I were the only divers. So I dropped

(02:42:33):
my weight belt and I kicked steadily towards him. He
is maybe sixty or seventy feet away, which is a
huge distance to swim horizontally underwater, even if I had
been planning to do that on a dive, and then
I knew that I had thirty seconds of breath to
get back to the surface. Having to tack on that

(02:42:54):
additional twenty seconds working like having to kick horizontally is
a big deal, and one second makes a difference. Normally,
when you help somebody that is blacked out, you go
and grab them and bring him to the surface. And
you can imagine the exertion it would take to bring

(02:43:17):
someone's body up from seventy or eighty feet, which is
where he would have been. Like when I got to him,
and I knew there was just no way, Like it
was absolutely impossible for me to do that, Like I
would have died too, and no one you know, would
have ever found us. As I'm closing the distance towards him,

(02:43:43):
in my mind, I'm like, the only option I have
here is to shoot him. We had talked, you know,
over the years with different you know, friends around the world,
that in a situation like this, it was totally hopeless
that we would just shot each other, and at least
then you'd be rigidly connected to him. The guys probably

(02:44:05):
be pretty mad at you for shooting him, but at
least he saved his life and you were attached to him.
So I started kicking towards Steve. So now this is
going through my mind in milliseconds, I'm trying to calculate
can I get to him who's pretty far away, and
then from there go to the surface, and in retrospect,

(02:44:29):
I knew that I probably couldn't do it, but knowing
that this was the only chance that I was going
to have to be able to get a hold of
him and secure him kind of overshadowed that, and I
knew that I had to do something. I had to
try because I figured he's gonna die either way. As

(02:44:52):
I got about halfway there, I was like, I'm gonna
shoot him in the calf. I'm a pretty good shot.
I'm gonna shoot him in the calf that way. There's
no major art rereas or anything in there. I can
punch through it and I'll have a good hold of him.
So as I'm getting closer to him, I get about
away and his whole body rotates towards me, and my

(02:45:15):
heart just sank because there's no way I'm shooting him in,
you know, in the chest or the abdomen or the thigh,
and I was worried that the shin bones would be
too hard to punch through at the distance, and I
didn't have any more breath. I didn't have any more time,
so I made a split second decision and aimed just

(02:45:38):
in front of his toes and shot him through the
fin As soon as I shot. I'm like, oh, my
spear gun, and now the line is attached to the boat.
And I looked to the surface and I'll never forget
I'll never forget that feeling when I looked at the
surface and new that I wasn't going to make it either.

(02:46:05):
Just absolutely the most dreadful feeling I've ever felt my life,
seeing the surface, knowing how much air I had, and
knowing there was no way I was going to make it.
I think it was probably eighty ft down at the time,
and I kicked away immediately and thought back to my

(02:46:28):
training and my free diving that I've done and went
into the absolute most efficient, perfect technique I possibly could,
and that is your hands. I love your head tied
against your ears, hands overlapping and just basically making yourself
a perfect arrow. And started kicking steadily up, trying to relax,

(02:46:53):
sniffing the air out of my mask as I went up,
trying to get every little bit of it. And I
hit the surface and if my first breath screamed at
the boat, which is the absolute worst thing to do.
You need to take recovery breaths and get the CEO
two out of your system and get air back in.
So when I screamed like that, I started to pass

(02:47:14):
out myself, and again I remembered the free diving training
and when pilots pulled gs when they're flying their jets.
To keep from passing out, they do something called a
hook breath, which is and you do five of those

(02:47:34):
and it pressurizes, brings out O two back in, gets
the CEO two out. And those breaths saved my life
because when I surfaced, I was more than a hundred
foot behind the boat, down current and away from you know,
the guys and anybody that could help me. So now
I'm I'm conscious, and I'm hauling asked for the boat.

(02:47:56):
I'm swimming as hard as I can for the boat,
yelling at them the whole way. Cut the anchor line,
pull it up, cut the anchor line. Steve's on it.
Those guys are cranking like crazy, they're hooting, holler and
thinking they've got, you know, the fish of a lifetime
that I've just speared, this giant hundred plus colbera snapper.
I climb on the back of the boat, immediately start

(02:48:19):
throwing coolers and bean bags and crap off the back
of the boat to make room and telling him cut
the anchor line, get on the radio, called the coastguard,
crank this up. It has Steve on it. He's blacked out.
We're gonna have to revive him. I need you guys
to help me. And they're looking at me like what
they're they're just they can't even wrap their heads around it.

(02:48:40):
So they're cranking. I mean, this rod is bent like
we've got the fish of a lifetime coming up. And
up comes Steve backwards then first, and we grab his ankle,
grab his arms and pull him into the boat. His
skin was the worst color blue gray of death I've

(02:49:02):
ever seen. He was bleeding from his eyes, his ears,
his nose, and out of his mouth was just orange, foamy,
horrible blood just foaming out of his mouth. He had
a white rash guard on at the time, and within
a couple of seconds, like his whole rash guard was orange.
So we pull him up on the back of the

(02:49:22):
boat and I lay him on the back of the boat,
and you can imagine, like my adrenaline was, you know,
going pretty hard. So I checked to see if he
has a pulse, and he had a very very faint pulse.
He wasn't breathing. I took his mask off, and when
someone does black out, the quickest, easiest way to bring

(02:49:44):
them back is to blow across their cheeks, because you
have sensors in your cheeks that tell you, hey, I'm
I'm in the air. I can breathe. So I blew
across his cheeks, you know, opened his airway, tapped on
his cheek, and I was talking to him, say breathe, Steve, breathe,
You're okay, breathe. So I did two or three cycles

(02:50:05):
of that, and he was unresponsive. In spear fishing, I've
saved nine or ten people. Now, every single other person
that I have helped recover from a blackout within the
first two breaths has come back. They would come back immediately.

(02:50:26):
In my mind, I'm like, this is really really bad,
Like I've never seen anything like this. So I opened
his air way again, nothing's happening. So there's so much
orange foam in his mouth, like this bloody foam. I
was like, maybe I'll roll him on his side. So
I rolled him on his side and just this horrible

(02:50:50):
orange foam is just leaking out of his mouth. And
just as I'm getting ready to do rescue, breaths, which is,
you know, like a CPR breasts. He goes and I
was like, oh my god, that was that was like

(02:51:10):
the death you know, the death breath that you hear
about and you read about. And he did that the
one time, and there was a pause and he took
what I would say as a one percent breath. I

(02:51:31):
blew on his face hard again, said breathe, Steve, breathe. Yeah,
he took a little bit more of a breath, and
that orange foam was just coming out, and you could
hear it like just gurgling in his lungs, like there's
no room in his lungs, you know, for for even
any air. So he started breathing slowly like that too,

(02:51:59):
and five percent breasts and he's still unconscious, and I
got him down into the boat. We got the anchor
line off, we got the coast Guard on on the radio,
and I told the guys, just as fast as you
can go, head towards Tampa, head towards land. Coast Guard
helicopter was on its way. So he's unconscious for fifteen

(02:52:25):
or twenty minutes, still that orange phones coming out, and
finally he kind of comes to and the first thing
he said, is thank you, And uh, that doesn't seem
like a big deal. But when you black out and

(02:52:45):
you're unconscious that you have amnesia. So people that have
blacked out don't remember anything so lasting remembers. He was,
you know, ten fift ft from the surface and then
lights out and this is the next thing is me
holding him in in my arms and I held him
and uh, and we we zoomed in as fast as

(02:53:08):
that boat could go, and the helicopter came when we
were about, you know, forty miles offshore. Lower the basket
put him in the basket, and I'd been on the
radio with them, trying to explain to the coast guard
the whole time he's blacked out, it's a three diving thing.
He needs oxygen immediately, and he just got to get
him to the hospital. So the lower the basket put

(02:53:29):
him in the basket in the front of the boat,
lift him off, put him in, and they just poof,
they're out of sight. They're gone. And I just sat
down in the boat and just totally broke down. And
I couldn't really talk to anybody in the boat, and um,
it was it was tough. So Steve got to got

(02:53:59):
to the hospital. UM, he was in the ICU for
three or four days. His lungs were almost completely full
of fluids and there was a big risk of secondary drowning,
so he was in there for a while. UM he
made a full recovery, no brain damage or anything. He
played football at University of Florida for another two years

(02:54:19):
or so, and him and I are still friends. He's
actually my insurance broker and a and a really good
buddy of mine. We still dive together. The tough thing
about blackouts and free diving is you're basically watching your
your friend die and it's all on you. In that moment,

(02:54:42):
two make the right decisions in a very short period
of time to save their lives. I wish I never
had had to to shoot him in the fin but
I'm glad it turned out the way it did. Obviously,
it's the best shot of my life.

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Steven Rinella

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 354: If There's Lead In The Air, There's Hope In The Heart