October 8, 2023 • 25 mins
This week Cal talks about Northern Flamingos, keeping up with turtle crime, and Manhattan Rhino powder.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
From Mediators World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This is
Cal's weekend review, presented by Steel Steel products are available
only at authorized dealers. For more, go to Steel Dealers
dot com. Now here's your host, Ryan cal callahan.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
If you ever find yourself feeling lost, just remember that
you're not as lost as five wild flamingos recently spotted
in Wisconsin, Home of the Badgers. I believe badgers and
flamingos don't typically overlap. The gangly pink birds were seen
in Lake Michigan, near the southern Wisconsin town of Port Washington,
and biologists say this may be the farthest north the
(00:44):
birds have ever been recorded. Let me jump back here, okay.
Caribbean birds in Wisconsin, near the town of Port Washington
in a lake named Michigan copy Great. Wisconsin. Department of
Natural Resources officials who spoke with local media say the
Caribbean birds were likely disoriented by Hurricane Idealia in late
(01:06):
August and pushed north to Florida. These five individuals kept
flying until they arrived at Lake Michigan, which is a
long way from Florida. Locals wasted no time capitalizing on
the bizarre site crowds gathered to take photos. A local
bar rolled out the Pink Port Washington Flamingo Cocktail, and
a cupcake joint started selling pink Flamingo cupcakes. There's even
(01:27):
talk of renaming the beach Flamingo Beach, very very creative,
and the access road Flamingo Drive. As for the fate
of the birds themselves, by alogists say they may not
make it. Flamingos don't migrate thousands of miles like other birds,
so it's unclear if they'll be able to figure out
how to get home. The hope is that they'll fly
south once the weather starts getting colder, but no one
(01:49):
can say for sure. Thanks to listener Scott Koons for
sending us that story, and listen not out of the
realm of possibilities that this is how it starts huntable
flamingo population. I imagine if they spend the winter in
Lake Michigan, those legs are going to have some hair
on them. Though there's another joke there, but we'll skip it.
(02:10):
This week, we've got the End Sinking Reality, cognitive corvids,
and so much more. But first I'm going to tell
you about my week. In My week was spent getting
prepared for the kickoff of rifle seasons as well as
the pheasant opener here in Montana. Picked up one of
those new weatherby three oh seven's super cool. That being said,
(02:31):
I did get a wild hair this weekend, Muskie Chet
and I headed out for a last ditch spearfishing adventure.
Chet packed up the Walleye boat, I packed up the
Black Series camper. All of a sudden, a heater is
very nice thing to have here in Montana, and I
wish we could say we were successful. The reason for
the motivation behind using an incredibly valuable fall weekend for
(02:54):
spearfishing instead of elk or deer hunting or grouse is
that the water clarity in the fall here in Montana
just gets better and better. Typically, what we found though,
was dirty water and cold, windy rain above it. I
froze my tail off and dove while Chester locked into
fish on the conventional tackle. By the time we wrap
(03:16):
that up, we had just enough time to filay some
fish and get that little lab out into the field.
Chet and I had just talked about one of my
frustrations with Snort, the fact that once she determines there
are no birds in the field. She'll just kind of
half asset, just kind of trot along. She's only three,
(03:36):
you know, and she just cruises. This could be seen
as a smart dog way of conserving energy, but it
can also be seen as a little lazy. She doesn't
know for certain that there aren't birds there, but it's
plain to see that she's confident in her decision. Anyway.
That's the dog we got on the very first walk
(03:57):
we did. Human hubris is definitely present here. The person
wants the dog they are proud of to perform, work hard,
heck even show off when their hunt was somebody new.
On the second walk, when the sun was low and
rosy gray in the sky, Chet Andni's vests were barely
on our shoulders as we left the truck, guns still
(04:19):
broken open in our hands, that little dog was tearing
it up like a brand new dog. She ran one
hundred and twenty five yards latterly for every five yards
of forward progress. There was zero doubt as to the
existence of birds in that strip of grass. The only
question here was when would we bump into them and
would it be before we ran out of good shooting light.
(04:43):
This particular evening was one where we had plenty of
legal light, but not much actual shooting light. I'll be
honest here, I was so wrapped up and watching that
dog work old Chat off to my side, whistling and
giving thumbs up and acknowledgment of that dog working so
hard and fast, fast, like she knew the clock was
(05:03):
ticking that I missed the first bird, a sharp tail snort,
jumped right at my feet. I missed it twice. Thank
goodness for muskie Chat who knocked the rest off his
shotgun on the second bird, who flew on its own
after a big delay. Is a surprise bird snapshot, great
shot a couple minutes later, on the edge of questionable light.
(05:26):
I did manage to redeem myself kind of Your second
barrel is nothing to be proud of. Kids. We wrapped
the weekend with Walleye filis a sharp tail piece and
another good adventure in the books. Moving on to the
Apocalypse desk, It's never a party at the Apocalypse desk,
(05:46):
but I have two reports today that are especially worrisome.
The first comes from the journal Science Advances, where researchers
recently published a study suggesting that humans have crossed six
of nine planetary Boundariesitary boundaries, unfortunately, have nothing to do
with space exploration. Instead, these are the boundaries the researchers
(06:06):
say we shouldn't be crossing if we want to maintain
life on Earth as we know it. Prior to the
Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century, humans had a limited
capacity to affect the entire Earth. But once we figured
out how to burn fossil fuels and more efficiently produce
food and other necessities, the Earth's human population exploded. We
(06:26):
started throwing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, eliminating more
habitat and producing more synthetic chemicals. This was great for
lots of people, but not so great for the Earth
and many non human animals. A two thousand and nine
study first outline nine planetary boundaries or constraints that keep
the Earth's environments similar to what it was prior to
(06:46):
the Industrial Revolution. These boundaries are biochemical flows, climate change,
biosphere integrity, synthetic chemicals, deforestation, freshwater change, ocean acidification, atmospheric
aerosol loading, and ozone depletion. This latest study says we're
out of bounce on the first six of those planetary constraints.
(07:06):
We've put too much phosphorus and nitrogen onto the landscape,
and we've increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to well
beyond what scientists say is safe. Those first two boundaries
get all the attention, but this study points out that
the other boundaries are equally important. Biosphere integrity includes genetic diversity,
which the study says is declining at a far too
(07:28):
rapid rate. We've also introduced far more synthetic chemicals than
were present for most of human history. These include quote
forever chemicals, which we've covered several times on this podcast
and can harm children and pregnant women. The study investigated
what percentage of these chemicals have been tested for safety
before being released, and found that in the European Union,
(07:51):
for example, a little place I like to call the EU,
eighty percent of human made chemicals have been used without
testing for more than a decade. Forestation is another topic
we cover frequently. In this study found that just sixty
percent of once forested land remains forested. They say seventy
five percent marks the edge of safety because of forest's
(08:11):
role in moderating our climate and keeping it human friendly.
The amount of fresh water in the landscape is less concerning,
but it's still one of the boundaries this study says
we've crossed. Some scientists are skeptical about the planetary boundaries model,
and others argue that humans will adapt to a changing
environment even if it's unlike anything we've seen before. But
(08:33):
this is far from the only study warning us that
humans may need to put more constraints on themselves if
we want to keep the Earth healthy. That benefits the
planets and animals we love, and it also benefits us,
and let's be honest, we need all the help we
can get. Another study, this one published in the journal
Nature Geoscience, predicts that mammals have lived half of their
(08:55):
time on Earth and only have another two hundred and
fifty million years to call this planet home. That mass extinction,
researchers say will be driven by several factors. One of
those is the reassembling of the planet's continents into a
new super continent they're calling Pangaea Ultima. Pangaea Ultima will
be uninhabitable by warm blooded animals, largely because it will
(09:18):
be too hot. The energy released by the Sun increases
by one percent every one hundred and ten million years,
which will vaporize more water and create a greenhouse effect. Also,
because the land heats up faster than the ocean, Pangaea
ultima will have large swaths of its interior that are
too hot to sustain life. Volcanoes will throw more greenhouse
(09:39):
gases into the atmosphere, and only the southern and northern
peripheries of the super continent will be mild enough for
mammals to survive. You might ask why we should care
about something that won't happen for hundreds of millions of years,
And that's, you know, I guess a fair question if
you know you're not into working hard, which the New
York Times post to a planetary climate scientist named Eric Wolf.
(10:00):
He pointed out that this research could one day help
us spot life on other planets. As scientists began using
powerful space telescopes to peer at planets in other solar systems,
they may be able to measure their continental arrangements to
infer what kinds of life might survive there. After all,
as Elon Musk might say, if Earth is headed for
(10:20):
the apocalypse, we might as well start looking for another
planet to call home. Moving on to the rescue desk,
a group of anglers are lucky to be alive after
their boats sank earlier this month, seventeen miles off the
coast of San Diego. Aaron Schwartzman and Brayden Bowers told
local media that they were out on the ocean with
(10:41):
three other friends when the incident occurred. If those two
names sound familiar, I would humbly suggest that you rethink
how you spend your time. Schwartzmen and Bowers were both
contestants on the twentieth season of the TV show The Bachelorette.
Schwartzman was eliminated in week three, and Bowers, I'm sure
I don't have to tell you this quit in week four,
(11:02):
and it sounds like they found better ways to occupy themselves.
Do tell I'm sure you're saying. Schwartzman and his perfectly
chiseled jaw told Fox five San Diego that he'd just
bought the boat of his dreams. Apparently not long after
losing out on the woman of his dreams. One of
his friends got his line caught on the engine propeller,
and when they tried to lift the engine to untangle
(11:24):
the line, that boat, like his chance at love, started sinking.
The five men, however, did not panic. I assume they
had some kind of floatation device, so the boat sank
below the surface. They locked arms and started paddling. They
didn't have much hope, being seventeen miles from shore, but
after three and a half hours, someone found them. Chris
Kieran told Fox five that he and his cousin were
(11:45):
out looking for yellow fantuna when they spotted something reflective
in the water. They motored over to see if the
object in the water was hiding any fish, but instead
they found what Kieran described as a quote school of men.
We don't consider ourselves heroes. We're doing whatever any other
fishermen would consider doing, Kieran said, adding that the rescue
mission turned out to be the best catch of the day.
(12:07):
But man, wouldn't have been better if there is just
like a bunch of mahi mahi's swimming underneath these dudes,
and I'd been like, yeah, you guys, keep paddling, gonna
pick up a couple of fish. It is unclear why
the boat sank in the first place. None of the
anglers were injured during the incident, including our bachelorette contestants.
I guess it's true what they say San Diego is
(12:29):
a classy place.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
They named it San Diego, which, of course, in German
means a whales.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Moving on to the legal desk, Georgians have an opportunity
to gain access to more streams and rivers in the
wake of a bill passed this year by the state
legislature Senate. Bill one one five clarified that the state
owns all navigable stream beds, which are therefore open to fishing, hunting, passage, navigation, commerce,
and transportation. That might sound cut and dried, but regular
(13:03):
listeners know that river access issues are never simple. First
of all, the landowners who are at the heart of
this controversy say that the new law doesn't apply to them.
A group of landowners along the Flint River in western
Georgia tried to block public access to their portions of
the river. I just is it your river? Is it?
(13:24):
And for how long? Give me the average age of
these people? Please? These folks believed they had a legal
right above everyone else on the planet, and they sued
the Georgia Department of Natural Resources because they said the
dn R failed to enforce their exclusive rights. A court
ruled that people can float the river, but they aren't
allowed to fish. Without landowner permission. Even though the court
(13:47):
made its ruling prior to the new law being passed.
The landowners say that the court gave them permission to
prohibit public fishing on a public river. I'm pausing for effect. Though,
to complicate things even further, it's still not clear which
streams and rivers count as quote navigable. The public has
access to any navigable river, but the state defines this
(14:10):
term as quote a stream which is capable of transporting
boats loaded with freight in the regular course of trade,
either for the whole or part of the year. It
clarifies that transporting wood in small boats doesn't make a
river navigable, but it does not say, for example, how
much of the year a stream would have to flow
for it to meet this definition. Very interesting to me
(14:33):
because as the history of water rights and that crazy
word navigable goes, commerce, friends and neighbors, if you did
not know, started in this country with folks loading up
dugout canoes, very small craft and floating them down very
small rivers, ladened with hides, and we're talking squirrel hides, mink, rabbit, deer, beaver, otter.
(14:58):
Some of this stuff is just not that big, But
it is commerce, and they are navigating a river. And
just to go back to that, listen, it's commerce and
it's navigating a river. And if you want to put
a quantity of whatever good you're talking about attached to that,
you should go down and talk to your local shop owner.
(15:20):
Go to a fly shop for instance, right, and you
get into the weeds on what type of quantities they're
dealing with on downdays, and then you tell them whether
or not you think that they are participating in commerce.
See how that goes? Anyway, Under this statute, the landowner's
exclusive rights to the stream bed extend to the low
(15:42):
water mark. If a stream is dried during the hot
summer months, does that mean that the landowner has rights
to the stream for the entire year. Some folks would
say yes. Here's how the lawyers for the landowners I
just mentioned put it. Quote. The fact that some of
the private property happens to be underwater does not negate
the fact it is private property. And because it is
private property, one has no more right to stomp around
(16:04):
the river property and take fish than one has to
set up a deer stand in a farmer's peak and
orchard or cast a net into a neighbour's coy pond.
I said peak in there because some areas I think
George is a peak and state instead of a Pecan state,
right in, ask Coo at the mediat dot com. The
good news is that the Georgia General Assembly has convened
(16:27):
a committee to study this issue, which gives the public
chance to way in. The House Study Committee on Fishing
Access to Freshwater Resources will be holding four meetings throughout
the state in the coming months. They're tasked with recommending
legislation that will resolve some of these issues, which may
include a clear definition of navigable, a map showing which
(16:47):
streams the public can and can't access, and how much
latitude to prohibit fishing landowners actually have. If you care
about stream access in Georgia, now is the time to
get involved. These committee men need to hear from you,
and I'd also encourage you to find and attend one
of these meetings. We'll post a link at the meat
(17:07):
eater dot com forward slash cow to a list of
the committee members. Big thanks to listener Duncan Connolly for
bringing this issue to our attention. Moving on to the
CORVID desk. A new study published in the journal Current
Biology has confirmed for the first time that crows are
capable of using statistical logic when making decisions. Scientists and
(17:30):
everyday birdwatchers have known for centuries that crows and ravens
are smart. Corvids, as they're collectively known, have a large
brain for their size, in a particularly pronounced forebrain, which
is associated with statistical and analytical reasoning. Crows have been
shown to recognize human faces, speak to each other, and
even use twigs as tools to extract bugs from tree bark.
(17:52):
In one experiment, crows were trained to recognize the difference
between heavy and light objects by observing which one's blue
in front of a fan. This ability to infer weight
without actually handling the object is a skill only associated
with humans, and not usually until those humans are seven
years old. You can find videos of this experiment on YouTube,
(18:13):
and it's pretty darned impressive anyway. In this latest experiment,
scientists wanted to know if crows could use statistical logic
to make good decisions. Statistical logic is a fancy term
used to describe something you do every day. If you're
thinking about where to look for mule deer. For example,
you use statistical logic to predict where the deer might
(18:33):
be congregating at different times of year. If you saw
lots of deer last September in Valley A, but not
as many in Valley B, you use statistical logic to
predict that Valley A will be a good decision this
year as well. To test this ability in crows, researchers
set up touchscreen displaying images and taught the crows that
pecking at those images gave them treats. Once the crows
(18:56):
grasped this concept, they began to introduce statistical logic. The
images didn't yield to treat every time, but some images
yielded treats more often than others. They found that once
the crows had experienced with the various images, they were
able to choose the image with the highest probability of
reward every time. Then, just to confirm that their findings
(19:17):
weren't dumb luck, they waited a month and gave the
crows the same task. Just as before. The crows remembered
the reward probabilities and could pick the highest one. Pretty
cool stuff. I've often wondered whether crows are warning other
animals about a human in the forest. Now, I wouldn't
be surprised if they are. If deer could ever learn
to speak crow, I think we'd all be in trouble.
(19:40):
I do want to let everybody know this is a
late season hunting tactic. Crows definitely tip hunters off as
to where the elk are. Big herds of cows often
have crows and ravens circling above them, so you got
to pay attention to that. They liked the rewards left
over from hunters, the bipedal or fanged, wolfed kind of hunters.
(20:03):
You know what I'm talking about there. Anyway, moving on
to the crime desk, four people are facing charges in
Ontario for violating the province's fishery regulations in connection with
a recent tournament on Lake Nipissing. Now I know what
you're thinking. More anglers got caught stuffing weights into their fish.
(20:23):
This story is actually a little different. The tournament had
a rule that three of the five Northern pike anglers
catch had to have an overall length of less than
sixty one centimeters. These two teams of anglers allegedly trimmed
the tails off their fish to meet that sixty one
centimeter max. They're denying the allegations, according to a press
(20:44):
release from the tournament, and they seemed to be claiming
that the fish had their tails cut at some point
in the past. The winners of the tournament were not
involved in this incident, but the two teams accused of
cheating did qualify for some prize money. Tournament officials say
they won't be paying out that money until the matter resolved.
The four anglers face charges of failing to keep fish
in a manner that allows size to be easily measured,
(21:06):
which comes with a one hundred dollars fine. Thanks to
Dan Brow for sending in a truly unique fishing story.
I mean, whoever thought a fishermen want their fish to
be smaller than they actually are. Next up at the
crime desk and see if you can keep up with
this one. A turtle trafficking suspect in Ohio was indicated
(21:27):
last month for striking a wildlife officer with his vehicle.
Wildlife officials received a tip that two men were selling
ready eared slighter turtles in Cincinnati, and they went to investigate.
Sure enough, they found the men slinging turtles without the
proper permits and they tried to arrest them, but thirty
seven year old Alonzo Oliver Tucker wasn't about to go
down without a fight. He allegedly failed to obey one
(21:49):
of the officer's commands and fled in his vehicle, striking
the officer as he accelerated. Oliver Tucker was on the
lamb for a few days until he was eventually arrested
in Pennsylvania. The officer only sustained minor injuries, but Oliver
Tucker is likely headed to the clink. He was indicted
on a felon account of assaulting a police officer and
another felony count of failure to comply with an order
(22:12):
of a police officer. It is legal for Ohio residents
to sell offspring of wildcot ready or slider turtles as
long as they obtain a forty dollars permit and don't
possess more than four turtles, but according to the DNR,
Oliver Tucker lives in Philadelphia, he didn't purchase a propagation
permit and had over one hundred turtles in his possession.
(22:32):
As with all cases of commercial wildlife crime, it takes
two to tango. If you're wanting to buy any kind
of animal as a pet, be sure you purchase from
a reputable dealer, not some guy selling turtles on the street.
Speaking of commercial wildlife crimes, a Malaysian wildlife trafficker known
as the Godfather was sentenced to eighteen months in prison
(22:53):
for a scheme to sell at least two point one
million dollars in poached rhinoceros horns. Fifty eight year old
tayo Oh Boon Ching was the middleman in the operation.
He arranged a ship four hundred and eighty three pounds
of rhino horns he received from co conspirators in Africa
to buyers around the world. A forensic study by a
US Fish and Wildlife Service laboratory revealed that Ching was
(23:15):
selling horns from both black rhinos, which are listed as
critically endangered, as well as white rhinos, which are near threatened.
He was extra added from Thailand to the United States
because some of his buyers were in Manhattan. Without that
rhino horn going into Manhattan, you could say there's going
to be some people hard up, but that wouldn't be
right because that's not what rhino horn is, you know,
(23:38):
supposed to do for you. Anyway, look it up sixty
percent of the time.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
It works every time.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Idaho game wardens are thanking members of the public for
sending in a tip about a headless buck discovered last
year near Egan. The tip led to a larger investigation,
and officers eventually confirmed that Brad Nicholas Hill had showed
a mature antlered mule deer at night with a twenty
two caliber long rifle during closed season. Hill was charged
with a felony as well as additional fishing game misdemeanors.
(24:10):
He pled guilty to two misdemeanors and was sentenced last month.
He'll spend thirty days in jail, be on probation for
two years, pay over three thousand dollars in fines, and
have his hunting license suspended for life. That's all I
got for you this week. Thank you so much for listening.
Remember to write in to ask c Al that's Asscal
(24:31):
at the Meat Eater dot com and let me know
what's going on in your neck of the woods. On
top of that, go to www dot steel dealers dot com.
Find a local, knowledgeable steel dealer near you. They're gonna
get you set up with what you need and they
won't try to send you home with what you don't.
Thanks again, we'll talk to you next week.
From Mediators World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This is
Cal's weekend review, presented by Steel Steel products are available
only at authorized dealers. For more, go to Steel Dealers
dot com. Now here's your host, Ryan cal callahan.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
If you ever find yourself feeling lost, just remember that
you're not as lost as five wild flamingos recently spotted
in Wisconsin, Home of the Badgers. I believe badgers and
flamingos don't typically overlap. The gangly pink birds were seen
in Lake Michigan, near the southern Wisconsin town of Port Washington,
and biologists say this may be the farthest north the
(00:44):
birds have ever been recorded. Let me jump back here, okay.
Caribbean birds in Wisconsin, near the town of Port Washington
in a lake named Michigan copy Great. Wisconsin. Department of
Natural Resources officials who spoke with local media say the
Caribbean birds were likely disoriented by Hurricane Idealia in late
(01:06):
August and pushed north to Florida. These five individuals kept
flying until they arrived at Lake Michigan, which is a
long way from Florida. Locals wasted no time capitalizing on
the bizarre site crowds gathered to take photos. A local
bar rolled out the Pink Port Washington Flamingo Cocktail, and
a cupcake joint started selling pink Flamingo cupcakes. There's even
(01:27):
talk of renaming the beach Flamingo Beach, very very creative,
and the access road Flamingo Drive. As for the fate
of the birds themselves, by alogists say they may not
make it. Flamingos don't migrate thousands of miles like other birds,
so it's unclear if they'll be able to figure out
how to get home. The hope is that they'll fly
south once the weather starts getting colder, but no one
(01:49):
can say for sure. Thanks to listener Scott Koons for
sending us that story, and listen not out of the
realm of possibilities that this is how it starts huntable
flamingo population. I imagine if they spend the winter in
Lake Michigan, those legs are going to have some hair
on them. Though there's another joke there, but we'll skip it.
(02:10):
This week, we've got the End Sinking Reality, cognitive corvids,
and so much more. But first I'm going to tell
you about my week. In My week was spent getting
prepared for the kickoff of rifle seasons as well as
the pheasant opener here in Montana. Picked up one of
those new weatherby three oh seven's super cool. That being said,
(02:31):
I did get a wild hair this weekend, Muskie Chet
and I headed out for a last ditch spearfishing adventure.
Chet packed up the Walleye boat, I packed up the
Black Series camper. All of a sudden, a heater is
very nice thing to have here in Montana, and I
wish we could say we were successful. The reason for
the motivation behind using an incredibly valuable fall weekend for
(02:54):
spearfishing instead of elk or deer hunting or grouse is
that the water clarity in the fall here in Montana
just gets better and better. Typically, what we found though,
was dirty water and cold, windy rain above it. I
froze my tail off and dove while Chester locked into
fish on the conventional tackle. By the time we wrap
(03:16):
that up, we had just enough time to filay some
fish and get that little lab out into the field.
Chet and I had just talked about one of my
frustrations with Snort, the fact that once she determines there
are no birds in the field. She'll just kind of
half asset, just kind of trot along. She's only three,
(03:36):
you know, and she just cruises. This could be seen
as a smart dog way of conserving energy, but it
can also be seen as a little lazy. She doesn't
know for certain that there aren't birds there, but it's
plain to see that she's confident in her decision. Anyway.
That's the dog we got on the very first walk
(03:57):
we did. Human hubris is definitely present here. The person
wants the dog they are proud of to perform, work hard,
heck even show off when their hunt was somebody new.
On the second walk, when the sun was low and
rosy gray in the sky, Chet Andni's vests were barely
on our shoulders as we left the truck, guns still
(04:19):
broken open in our hands, that little dog was tearing
it up like a brand new dog. She ran one
hundred and twenty five yards latterly for every five yards
of forward progress. There was zero doubt as to the
existence of birds in that strip of grass. The only
question here was when would we bump into them and
would it be before we ran out of good shooting light.
(04:43):
This particular evening was one where we had plenty of
legal light, but not much actual shooting light. I'll be
honest here, I was so wrapped up and watching that
dog work old Chat off to my side, whistling and
giving thumbs up and acknowledgment of that dog working so
hard and fast, fast, like she knew the clock was
(05:03):
ticking that I missed the first bird, a sharp tail snort,
jumped right at my feet. I missed it twice. Thank
goodness for muskie Chat who knocked the rest off his
shotgun on the second bird, who flew on its own
after a big delay. Is a surprise bird snapshot, great
shot a couple minutes later, on the edge of questionable light.
(05:26):
I did manage to redeem myself kind of Your second
barrel is nothing to be proud of. Kids. We wrapped
the weekend with Walleye filis a sharp tail piece and
another good adventure in the books. Moving on to the
Apocalypse desk, It's never a party at the Apocalypse desk,
(05:46):
but I have two reports today that are especially worrisome.
The first comes from the journal Science Advances, where researchers
recently published a study suggesting that humans have crossed six
of nine planetary Boundariesitary boundaries, unfortunately, have nothing to do
with space exploration. Instead, these are the boundaries the researchers
(06:06):
say we shouldn't be crossing if we want to maintain
life on Earth as we know it. Prior to the
Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century, humans had a limited
capacity to affect the entire Earth. But once we figured
out how to burn fossil fuels and more efficiently produce
food and other necessities, the Earth's human population exploded. We
(06:26):
started throwing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, eliminating more
habitat and producing more synthetic chemicals. This was great for
lots of people, but not so great for the Earth
and many non human animals. A two thousand and nine
study first outline nine planetary boundaries or constraints that keep
the Earth's environments similar to what it was prior to
(06:46):
the Industrial Revolution. These boundaries are biochemical flows, climate change,
biosphere integrity, synthetic chemicals, deforestation, freshwater change, ocean acidification, atmospheric
aerosol loading, and ozone depletion. This latest study says we're
out of bounce on the first six of those planetary constraints.
(07:06):
We've put too much phosphorus and nitrogen onto the landscape,
and we've increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to well
beyond what scientists say is safe. Those first two boundaries
get all the attention, but this study points out that
the other boundaries are equally important. Biosphere integrity includes genetic diversity,
which the study says is declining at a far too
(07:28):
rapid rate. We've also introduced far more synthetic chemicals than
were present for most of human history. These include quote
forever chemicals, which we've covered several times on this podcast
and can harm children and pregnant women. The study investigated
what percentage of these chemicals have been tested for safety
before being released, and found that in the European Union,
(07:51):
for example, a little place I like to call the EU,
eighty percent of human made chemicals have been used without
testing for more than a decade. Forestation is another topic
we cover frequently. In this study found that just sixty
percent of once forested land remains forested. They say seventy
five percent marks the edge of safety because of forest's
(08:11):
role in moderating our climate and keeping it human friendly.
The amount of fresh water in the landscape is less concerning,
but it's still one of the boundaries this study says
we've crossed. Some scientists are skeptical about the planetary boundaries model,
and others argue that humans will adapt to a changing
environment even if it's unlike anything we've seen before. But
(08:33):
this is far from the only study warning us that
humans may need to put more constraints on themselves if
we want to keep the Earth healthy. That benefits the
planets and animals we love, and it also benefits us,
and let's be honest, we need all the help we
can get. Another study, this one published in the journal
Nature Geoscience, predicts that mammals have lived half of their
(08:55):
time on Earth and only have another two hundred and
fifty million years to call this planet home. That mass extinction,
researchers say will be driven by several factors. One of
those is the reassembling of the planet's continents into a
new super continent they're calling Pangaea Ultima. Pangaea Ultima will
be uninhabitable by warm blooded animals, largely because it will
(09:18):
be too hot. The energy released by the Sun increases
by one percent every one hundred and ten million years,
which will vaporize more water and create a greenhouse effect. Also,
because the land heats up faster than the ocean, Pangaea
ultima will have large swaths of its interior that are
too hot to sustain life. Volcanoes will throw more greenhouse
(09:39):
gases into the atmosphere, and only the southern and northern
peripheries of the super continent will be mild enough for
mammals to survive. You might ask why we should care
about something that won't happen for hundreds of millions of years,
And that's, you know, I guess a fair question if
you know you're not into working hard, which the New
York Times post to a planetary climate scientist named Eric Wolf.
(10:00):
He pointed out that this research could one day help
us spot life on other planets. As scientists began using
powerful space telescopes to peer at planets in other solar systems,
they may be able to measure their continental arrangements to
infer what kinds of life might survive there. After all,
as Elon Musk might say, if Earth is headed for
(10:20):
the apocalypse, we might as well start looking for another
planet to call home. Moving on to the rescue desk,
a group of anglers are lucky to be alive after
their boats sank earlier this month, seventeen miles off the
coast of San Diego. Aaron Schwartzman and Brayden Bowers told
local media that they were out on the ocean with
(10:41):
three other friends when the incident occurred. If those two
names sound familiar, I would humbly suggest that you rethink
how you spend your time. Schwartzmen and Bowers were both
contestants on the twentieth season of the TV show The Bachelorette.
Schwartzman was eliminated in week three, and Bowers, I'm sure
I don't have to tell you this quit in week four,
(11:02):
and it sounds like they found better ways to occupy themselves.
Do tell I'm sure you're saying. Schwartzman and his perfectly
chiseled jaw told Fox five San Diego that he'd just
bought the boat of his dreams. Apparently not long after
losing out on the woman of his dreams. One of
his friends got his line caught on the engine propeller,
and when they tried to lift the engine to untangle
(11:24):
the line, that boat, like his chance at love, started sinking.
The five men, however, did not panic. I assume they
had some kind of floatation device, so the boat sank
below the surface. They locked arms and started paddling. They
didn't have much hope, being seventeen miles from shore, but
after three and a half hours, someone found them. Chris
Kieran told Fox five that he and his cousin were
(11:45):
out looking for yellow fantuna when they spotted something reflective
in the water. They motored over to see if the
object in the water was hiding any fish, but instead
they found what Kieran described as a quote school of men.
We don't consider ourselves heroes. We're doing whatever any other
fishermen would consider doing, Kieran said, adding that the rescue
mission turned out to be the best catch of the day.
(12:07):
But man, wouldn't have been better if there is just
like a bunch of mahi mahi's swimming underneath these dudes,
and I'd been like, yeah, you guys, keep paddling, gonna
pick up a couple of fish. It is unclear why
the boat sank in the first place. None of the
anglers were injured during the incident, including our bachelorette contestants.
I guess it's true what they say San Diego is
(12:29):
a classy place.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
They named it San Diego, which, of course, in German
means a whales.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Moving on to the legal desk, Georgians have an opportunity
to gain access to more streams and rivers in the
wake of a bill passed this year by the state
legislature Senate. Bill one one five clarified that the state
owns all navigable stream beds, which are therefore open to fishing, hunting, passage, navigation, commerce,
and transportation. That might sound cut and dried, but regular
(13:03):
listeners know that river access issues are never simple. First
of all, the landowners who are at the heart of
this controversy say that the new law doesn't apply to them.
A group of landowners along the Flint River in western
Georgia tried to block public access to their portions of
the river. I just is it your river? Is it?
(13:24):
And for how long? Give me the average age of
these people? Please? These folks believed they had a legal
right above everyone else on the planet, and they sued
the Georgia Department of Natural Resources because they said the
dn R failed to enforce their exclusive rights. A court
ruled that people can float the river, but they aren't
allowed to fish. Without landowner permission. Even though the court
(13:47):
made its ruling prior to the new law being passed.
The landowners say that the court gave them permission to
prohibit public fishing on a public river. I'm pausing for effect. Though,
to complicate things even further, it's still not clear which
streams and rivers count as quote navigable. The public has
access to any navigable river, but the state defines this
(14:10):
term as quote a stream which is capable of transporting
boats loaded with freight in the regular course of trade,
either for the whole or part of the year. It
clarifies that transporting wood in small boats doesn't make a
river navigable, but it does not say, for example, how
much of the year a stream would have to flow
for it to meet this definition. Very interesting to me
(14:33):
because as the history of water rights and that crazy
word navigable goes, commerce, friends and neighbors, if you did
not know, started in this country with folks loading up
dugout canoes, very small craft and floating them down very
small rivers, ladened with hides, and we're talking squirrel hides, mink, rabbit, deer, beaver, otter.
(14:58):
Some of this stuff is just not that big, But
it is commerce, and they are navigating a river. And
just to go back to that, listen, it's commerce and
it's navigating a river. And if you want to put
a quantity of whatever good you're talking about attached to that,
you should go down and talk to your local shop owner.
(15:20):
Go to a fly shop for instance, right, and you
get into the weeds on what type of quantities they're
dealing with on downdays, and then you tell them whether
or not you think that they are participating in commerce.
See how that goes? Anyway, Under this statute, the landowner's
exclusive rights to the stream bed extend to the low
(15:42):
water mark. If a stream is dried during the hot
summer months, does that mean that the landowner has rights
to the stream for the entire year. Some folks would
say yes. Here's how the lawyers for the landowners I
just mentioned put it. Quote. The fact that some of
the private property happens to be underwater does not negate
the fact it is private property. And because it is
private property, one has no more right to stomp around
(16:04):
the river property and take fish than one has to
set up a deer stand in a farmer's peak and
orchard or cast a net into a neighbour's coy pond.
I said peak in there because some areas I think
George is a peak and state instead of a Pecan state,
right in, ask Coo at the mediat dot com. The
good news is that the Georgia General Assembly has convened
(16:27):
a committee to study this issue, which gives the public
chance to way in. The House Study Committee on Fishing
Access to Freshwater Resources will be holding four meetings throughout
the state in the coming months. They're tasked with recommending
legislation that will resolve some of these issues, which may
include a clear definition of navigable, a map showing which
(16:47):
streams the public can and can't access, and how much
latitude to prohibit fishing landowners actually have. If you care
about stream access in Georgia, now is the time to
get involved. These committee men need to hear from you,
and I'd also encourage you to find and attend one
of these meetings. We'll post a link at the meat
(17:07):
eater dot com forward slash cow to a list of
the committee members. Big thanks to listener Duncan Connolly for
bringing this issue to our attention. Moving on to the
CORVID desk. A new study published in the journal Current
Biology has confirmed for the first time that crows are
capable of using statistical logic when making decisions. Scientists and
(17:30):
everyday birdwatchers have known for centuries that crows and ravens
are smart. Corvids, as they're collectively known, have a large
brain for their size, in a particularly pronounced forebrain, which
is associated with statistical and analytical reasoning. Crows have been
shown to recognize human faces, speak to each other, and
even use twigs as tools to extract bugs from tree bark.
(17:52):
In one experiment, crows were trained to recognize the difference
between heavy and light objects by observing which one's blue
in front of a fan. This ability to infer weight
without actually handling the object is a skill only associated
with humans, and not usually until those humans are seven
years old. You can find videos of this experiment on YouTube,
(18:13):
and it's pretty darned impressive anyway. In this latest experiment,
scientists wanted to know if crows could use statistical logic
to make good decisions. Statistical logic is a fancy term
used to describe something you do every day. If you're
thinking about where to look for mule deer. For example,
you use statistical logic to predict where the deer might
(18:33):
be congregating at different times of year. If you saw
lots of deer last September in Valley A, but not
as many in Valley B, you use statistical logic to
predict that Valley A will be a good decision this
year as well. To test this ability in crows, researchers
set up touchscreen displaying images and taught the crows that
pecking at those images gave them treats. Once the crows
(18:56):
grasped this concept, they began to introduce statistical logic. The
images didn't yield to treat every time, but some images
yielded treats more often than others. They found that once
the crows had experienced with the various images, they were
able to choose the image with the highest probability of
reward every time. Then, just to confirm that their findings
(19:17):
weren't dumb luck, they waited a month and gave the
crows the same task. Just as before. The crows remembered
the reward probabilities and could pick the highest one. Pretty
cool stuff. I've often wondered whether crows are warning other
animals about a human in the forest. Now, I wouldn't
be surprised if they are. If deer could ever learn
to speak crow, I think we'd all be in trouble.
(19:40):
I do want to let everybody know this is a
late season hunting tactic. Crows definitely tip hunters off as
to where the elk are. Big herds of cows often
have crows and ravens circling above them, so you got
to pay attention to that. They liked the rewards left
over from hunters, the bipedal or fanged, wolfed kind of hunters.
(20:03):
You know what I'm talking about there. Anyway, moving on
to the crime desk, four people are facing charges in
Ontario for violating the province's fishery regulations in connection with
a recent tournament on Lake Nipissing. Now I know what
you're thinking. More anglers got caught stuffing weights into their fish.
(20:23):
This story is actually a little different. The tournament had
a rule that three of the five Northern pike anglers
catch had to have an overall length of less than
sixty one centimeters. These two teams of anglers allegedly trimmed
the tails off their fish to meet that sixty one
centimeter max. They're denying the allegations, according to a press
(20:44):
release from the tournament, and they seemed to be claiming
that the fish had their tails cut at some point
in the past. The winners of the tournament were not
involved in this incident, but the two teams accused of
cheating did qualify for some prize money. Tournament officials say
they won't be paying out that money until the matter resolved.
The four anglers face charges of failing to keep fish
in a manner that allows size to be easily measured,
(21:06):
which comes with a one hundred dollars fine. Thanks to
Dan Brow for sending in a truly unique fishing story.
I mean, whoever thought a fishermen want their fish to
be smaller than they actually are. Next up at the
crime desk and see if you can keep up with
this one. A turtle trafficking suspect in Ohio was indicated
(21:27):
last month for striking a wildlife officer with his vehicle.
Wildlife officials received a tip that two men were selling
ready eared slighter turtles in Cincinnati, and they went to investigate.
Sure enough, they found the men slinging turtles without the
proper permits and they tried to arrest them, but thirty
seven year old Alonzo Oliver Tucker wasn't about to go
down without a fight. He allegedly failed to obey one
(21:49):
of the officer's commands and fled in his vehicle, striking
the officer as he accelerated. Oliver Tucker was on the
lamb for a few days until he was eventually arrested
in Pennsylvania. The officer only sustained minor injuries, but Oliver
Tucker is likely headed to the clink. He was indicted
on a felon account of assaulting a police officer and
another felony count of failure to comply with an order
(22:12):
of a police officer. It is legal for Ohio residents
to sell offspring of wildcot ready or slider turtles as
long as they obtain a forty dollars permit and don't
possess more than four turtles, but according to the DNR,
Oliver Tucker lives in Philadelphia, he didn't purchase a propagation
permit and had over one hundred turtles in his possession.
(22:32):
As with all cases of commercial wildlife crime, it takes
two to tango. If you're wanting to buy any kind
of animal as a pet, be sure you purchase from
a reputable dealer, not some guy selling turtles on the street.
Speaking of commercial wildlife crimes, a Malaysian wildlife trafficker known
as the Godfather was sentenced to eighteen months in prison
(22:53):
for a scheme to sell at least two point one
million dollars in poached rhinoceros horns. Fifty eight year old
tayo Oh Boon Ching was the middleman in the operation.
He arranged a ship four hundred and eighty three pounds
of rhino horns he received from co conspirators in Africa
to buyers around the world. A forensic study by a
US Fish and Wildlife Service laboratory revealed that Ching was
(23:15):
selling horns from both black rhinos, which are listed as
critically endangered, as well as white rhinos, which are near threatened.
He was extra added from Thailand to the United States
because some of his buyers were in Manhattan. Without that
rhino horn going into Manhattan, you could say there's going
to be some people hard up, but that wouldn't be
right because that's not what rhino horn is, you know,
(23:38):
supposed to do for you. Anyway, look it up sixty
percent of the time.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
It works every time.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Idaho game wardens are thanking members of the public for
sending in a tip about a headless buck discovered last
year near Egan. The tip led to a larger investigation,
and officers eventually confirmed that Brad Nicholas Hill had showed
a mature antlered mule deer at night with a twenty
two caliber long rifle during closed season. Hill was charged
with a felony as well as additional fishing game misdemeanors.
(24:10):
He pled guilty to two misdemeanors and was sentenced last month.
He'll spend thirty days in jail, be on probation for
two years, pay over three thousand dollars in fines, and
have his hunting license suspended for life. That's all I
got for you this week. Thank you so much for listening.
Remember to write in to ask c Al that's Asscal
(24:31):
at the Meat Eater dot com and let me know
what's going on in your neck of the woods. On
top of that, go to www dot steel dealers dot com.
Find a local, knowledgeable steel dealer near you. They're gonna
get you set up with what you need and they
won't try to send you home with what you don't.
Thanks again, we'll talk to you next week.
Host
Cal Callaghan
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