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Speaker 1: From Meat Eaters World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This is Cow’s Week in Review with Ryan cow Calaian. Here’s cal It’s a sharky summer. Scan the news headlines of the past couple of weeks and you’ll see reports of sharks popping up close to popular beaches across the East Coast. In Queens, a suburb of New York, Rockaway Beach has recorded sixteen sightings this month alone, and twenty three since late May, which officials say is a record for this time of year. Meanwhile, over in Rhode Island, a fifteen plus foot great white was filmed feeding on a dead humpback whale. Scientists say it marks one of the only times of great white has been spotted in Rhode Island’s coastal waters. But are there actually more sharks and is it becoming more dangerous for swimmers and surfers? Perhaps not, at least according to a recent report in The Guardian, in which experts say that the surge in sightings is most likely the result of increased technological surveillance through drones and tagging efforts involving acoustic receivers, not a greater presence of sharks this summer. Greg Schoemel, senior fishery scientists with Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries and one of the leading white shark experts, said quote, the truth of the matter is the number of sharks may not have increased, but certainly the fear factor can go up. He added that both tags and drones are far from perfect surveillance tools and can provide beachgoers with a false sense of security as safety devices and simultaneously increase people’s fear by thinking there are more sharks around than ever. So when you hear reports of increased shark sightings at a beach near you take it with a grain of salt. This week, we’ve got deer sniffing dogs, monuments, the EESA, and so much more. But first, I’m going to tell you about my week. In my week has been packed, as per usual, I really want to tell you about a field fix, or really, more accurately, a patch job that I did on my old truck way back in the middle of nowhere. I snapped tyrod right in the middle of the threads, which is where the tirod itself or inner tirod connects to the outer tirod or tyrod end if you will. This chunk of metal is what steers your tires or keeps them in tandem and aligned the truck. Do not go without it. I took all the box and wrenches out of the toolbox and duct tape the hell out of them, as you would have splint around a major break. But the bone in this case was the snapped tyrod. That mess got us to a wide enough spot in the road almost three quarters of a mile of heinous, rutted, potholed old forest service road, at which point I could get out of everybody else’s way and call out and have a new tyrod inner and outer delivered. It pays to know retirees kids. Then I did the replacing of that situation in the field, which wasn’t horrible. Took about three hours, plus some additional time to stop an eyeball, my tire alignment and just as needed. But instead of telling you that big story, I want to tell you about our first date night with the baby boy. It was the lady’s birthday and we headed out to a sexy, romantic four thirty pm dinner, slightly anxious about ruining everybody else’s evening if it were in fact evening by you know, having that fussy baby in a fancy restaurant. But the boy did fantastic. We had a great meal, lots of compliments, wonderful evening until dunk dunt dum. On the way back to the car. Blocking the sidewalk was our local Bosangelis Sierra Club. They had signs up saying stop logging trucks up Highlight Canyon, which is a major recreation area and our unicipal watershed. It’s not quite the urban interface, but it’s not quite not either. As I could not get around these people, I was easily stopped. And mind you, I’m toting a month old child in a car seat. And I am told that the project is a clear cut and needs to be stopped, and that if I am opposed to this project, I am therefore in favor of destroying old growth forest. And it was implied that I would be in favor of destroying the world’s old growth forest, and most impressively, that when the trees are cut, they will never grow back. In response to a serious eye roll like I have not personally performed since I was an angsty teen, the petitioner said, well, not for thousands of years things do grow slow in Montana, friends, but most of our old growth has been cut. You know, we’re not that far down the road from all butt America, where most of our big trees got cut into mind shaft timbers and stuck underground. In this particular area, very little of what you would call old growth remains, and where it remains not coincidentally tends to a butt really fancy houses or places that are just like you’re not going to get to with equipment. Now, upon requesting of an inspection of the forest management plan and a reminder here, a forest management plan or a resource management plan, or a travel management plan right now, and I do say right now involves a public process. Okay, everybody gets to look at it. You get a public comment period, doesn’t matter who you are. And if they’re done right, probably nobody goes away thinking that they got everything that they wanted. Land of many uses. Remember now the old growth forest is identified, and it is not the forest that would be a misnomer, But there are older trees are identified, and they are part of an attempt to address a request for fire mitigation. Right so they’ll be selectively thinned and logged. There is zero percent of the entire project scope slated to be clearcut. I was unhappy. I found this to be appalling behavior. I don’t like being lied to. And there’s plenty of reasons why people could oppose this project, right, And one of those reasons just like it said on their signs, just stop logging trucks a highlight canyon. Right. And let’s say you’re like a road biker or somebody who just likes driving up there. You still have a legitimate claim to be like, you know what, I don’t like logging trucks up here, and you can register that claim. But the claim that this is a clear cut, and certainly that if you don’t oppose the clear cut, which isn’t actually part of the proposal, you are therefore in favor of killing all old growth arrest on the planet. Just not the way to do business. Game. I really could not think of anything, despite having a great night out with the lady and the brand new baby. First like, go sit down to dinner thing and dinner was awesome. Could not think but Jesus, where we have an administration that wants to roll back all regulation, why can’t you just tell people the facts and let them make an informed decision. Now fast forward to the latest executive order out of the highest seat in the land. Our president is informed live, as they say, in front of God and everyone, that the executive order he’s going to sign is because you can’t After some prodding, he picks up, you can’t hunt, you can’t fish, you can’t even hike on it, you can’t even set foot on most of it. So he’s going to rescind or sorry, redraw the lines, shrink Grand Staircase and Bearsier’s National mind which are in the state of Utah. We’re looking at current size a little over three million acres and future size or according to the executive order, just a couple hundred thousand, and it needs to be set again. Those statements you can’t hunt, you can’t fish, you can’t even step foot on it, those are not true. They are untrue statements. They are false. And again I thought, Jesus, this is why we are here. Why can’t you just tell people the facts and let them make up their minds. We’re gonna get more into monuments later, but I just want to lay these examples out to you. What to the Sierra Club and the administration have in common and I just want to promise you that we are not playing this game at backcountry hunters and anglers. You get the straight dope, You’re gonna get clearly informed. You’re gonna be told what our position is and why you can hit the action link and do as you will as an informed citizen. This BS has got to stop gang or else the division will not stop. And the only way this is going to change is if you demand it. If you are a member of any organization, you can demand it. If you are a citizen of these United States, you need to make your demands and expectations known to your representatives. I don’t think this is a high bar to shoot for. Moving on to the deer dog desk all the way down South Carolina, It’s one we’ve been hearing from quite a few listeners on. Essentially, the South Carolina Department Natural Resources is collecting input about deer hunting with dogs. As the SCDNRS says, deer hunting with dogs is a long established and culturally significant hunting tradition that has practiced primarily in South Carolina’s coastal plane, and yet the agency is looking for feedback from hunters, landowners, and other members of the public about the practice after receiving complaints and comments about conflicts between user groups. As it stands, the public meetings on the topic are considered preliminary as any law changes will require the South Carolina General Assembly to act on it, but the public comment is important as it could guide recommendations to legislators. Hound hunting groups like the South Carolina Sporting Dog Association are organizing to quote protect the rights of sporting, working, and hunting dog enthusiasts statewide. Listener Madison Sharp shared his thoughts with us via askcl that’s Ascal at themediator dot com. This is a traditional use practice that has occurred for hundreds of years in the state. The new conflict is undoubtedly due to out of state folks move into regions adjacent to tracks where this has been going on for all of American history. This region also has a history of hunting hogs with dogs in a similar manner, which would be next on the chopping block. It’s a slippery slope. If you have more to say, well let me know. I want to hear all about it. Askcl at the Meat eater dot com. Okay, jumping back over for a little more more of the meat that’s left on the bone of this national monument situation. So President Trump issues two executive orders shrinking the size of Bearsiers and Grand Staircase Escalonne national monuments by about ninety little more over ninety percent each. The move is another shot across the bout of years long back and forth over how to best manage those places. Grand Staircase Esclowney was established by an executive order by President Bill Clinton in nineteen ninety six and later expanded to encompass one point nine million acres. Then Bearsiers was established by President Barack Obama in twenty sixteen and at the time of his order encompassed over one point three million acres. Both places are rich in both ecological beauty and ancestral artifacts and sites of indigenous peoples. However, since the beginning, local Utah legislators argued that the designations which increased protections of public land were federal overreach and did not abide by the original text of the Antiquities Act, which requires designations to be confined to the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected. They also said the designations hindered multiple uses of the land. In twenty seventeen, President Trump drastically shrunk both monuments based on those arguments, only for Biden to restore them in twenty twenty one. Now, Trump has again shrunked them through executive orders, this time by significantly more acreage than he did in his first term. His actions will reduce Grand Staircase Esclawe by one point eight seven million acres, leaving only one hundred and eighty one thousand, five hundred acres within the designation. Bearziers will be shrunk by one point three six million acres to approximately one hundred and twenty one thousand, one hundred acres. Environmental groups have promised litigation on the grounds that the Antiquities Act grants presidents the power to establish nation monuments, but not shrink them. Similar litigation was filed back in twenty seventeen, but was not settled in court before Biden restored those monuments. As we’ve talked about here before, conservationists are worried that undoing these protections will open the door for rampant off road use as well as resource extraction, to the detriment of the area’s long term preservation, and consequently hunting and fishing opportunities. This is certainly an issue that concerns the hunting and angling public and it certainly increases instability in the management of these places. Very important to keep in mind here gang. The way this gets spun, as we kind of mentioned before, right is, monuments are this thing, and if you can’t have a monument then I don’t know, it gets privatized or something by some and then others, as we covered before, don’t paint a clear picture of what a monument is. Monuments are individuals. They’re all unique to bear degrees, but most do allow hunting and fishing at some level, some a lot more than others, and traditional uses like grazing, firewood gathering in some cases. In the case of these national monuments, there’s certain restrictions and provisions for historical use by indigenous people, so they can be messy, and I get it. What the hunters and anglers out there need to know if you want the pragmatic middle ground is this the state of Utah currently manages the wildlife, be it on the BLM or the monument. If the monument changes and it gets reduced down to one hundred and twenty one thousand acres and one hundred and eighty one thousand acres respectively. The state of Utah is still going to manage the wildlife on what becomes the monument and the BLM ground that what is no longer a monument, it goes back to just regular old BLM. There’s also some Wilderness study areas out there too, and those are really important to keep in mind because wilderness study area offers a certain level of protection, which is great. But this administration is also actively trying to get rid of all wilderness study areas too, So I would certainly be like, well, hey, wait, can we be assured that these wsa’s remain in place in perpetuity, because that’s what we’re sold as Monument protection is like these things are going to be here forever. Access is a big, big talking point here. Okay, there are some roads that were closed that will become open again to full sized vehicle travel. Some people think that’s fantastic, other people think that is not fantastic. In the grand scheme of things, I want the place to remain public and well manned, and first, allowing full sized vehicle access in any expanded fashion does bring up issues that we’ve covered here before. You have got to pay for road maintenance, culverts, noxious weed mitigation, fire mitigation, trash law enforcement. That’s just part of the deal. Okay. We haven’t seen a management plan provide that yet. It could be coming. Okay. That expanded access is also there alongside expanded access for extractive industry. Namely, there’s a giant coal deposit out there, and there’s a uranium deposit out there. You can’t hunt or fish or be on an active uranium mine or coal mine unless you’re an employee. So these are just things that are out there for your consideration. Everybody got that, I hope. So tags are very limited out there. Pont’s got mule deer, world famous. Part of that herd migrates through bears ears. It’s part of the protective plan for like this unbelievably badass giant trophy mule deer. It’s a desert ecosystem. They’re migratory opportunities there are very low, and because they are big old nightly bucks, everybody applies for those tags, so the chances of drawing them are very low. When we see areas go from let’s call it restrictive access to more liberal access. Again, I’m referencing full sized vehicles, right. That typically increases the amount of people who apply for those tags. Doesn’t necessarily mean that the tags offered will go down unless we see habitat destruction, okay, that impacts that mule deer population, then we would see the combination of increased attention, increased applicant pool for fewer tags. Right. And these are just things that are real. There is no political agenda behind them. They’re just things that need to be considered. And believe me when I tell you, we’ve been in rooms with Congress people and their staff who really support the monument rezoning, let’s call it, and they’re not thinking along these lines, right, because they’re not hunters and anglers game. So I’ll keep updating on this one. It’s a big one. Moving on to the Endangered Species Act desk, the Interior Department and Commerce Department have announced a final rule that has an outsized impact for the Endangered Species Act. The new rule recast the regulatory definition of the word harm. For years, that word has been used to include the modification and degradation of habitat, as well as directly injuring and hurting endangered Wildlife Secretary, Burgham argued that this inclusive definition pertaining to habitat was used to obstruct lawful land use and burdened American families and businesses. In the new rule, harming a species habitat would no longer be considered harming that species. Environmental advocates and even Wildlife Management Agency staffers have come out with concerns about impact of the change, which they say will open the door for resource extraction and development at the cost of recovering endangered and threatened species. As Bruce Kraft, the chief of the Conservation and Communications divisions of the North Dakota Game and Fish Department, wrote, threatened and endangered species are entirely dependent on healthy habitats. He added that the new rule could have quote dire consequences for those species, eroding the tools we have to conserve critical habitat definitively isn’t a good thing as far as I’m concerned, and it’s yet another attack on the wildlife in our public trust to benefit extractive industry. Here’s the example gang and why Bergham said it’s harming families and industry. Spotted owl Okay spotted owl put like the kaibosh on all logging in a huge area basically everything within spotted owl territory. Now, some of this for just cause. However, when we’re talking about population health, not individual health, right, Bob the owl versus the owl, we can look at the landscape with these big lumps of fat on our shoulders and say we can cut over here, not over here, And by the time we get to over here to cut in a responsible and renewable fashion, the stuff that we had previously cut will have grown back into suitable habitat for the owl. Bob the owl may have been harmed, made the management decision not to cut all the habitat, but to do it in a mosaic or alternating pattern, so those animals such as Bob the owl have the ability to move to adjacent habitat. But even knowing that if Bob the owl dies, the population the owl will survive because we are managing the critical habitat that it is attached to. And make no mistake, a lot of these species don’t have the adaptability of the white tailed deer, right, you got to remember that. So it is true that if that habitat goes away, that animal goes away, and I think that is something that we just cannot have, as you know, folks who think so highly of ourselves as Americans. Here the language was often used in a way to stop all extractive use throughout the entire range of the owl, even when it wasn’t going to hurt the owl. When we talk about grizzly bears and we look at what is going on with the administration right now, right we have this rollback agenda that we’ve previously mentioned, where we are fighting to maintain wilderness study areas, proposed wilderness, the Roadless Rule, monument status where appropriate, the guard rails of the OHVRV, previous executive orders from the Carter and Nixon administrations. All of those things are pieces in the puzzle that provide refuge for species that have a hard time adapting. Low fecundady species like the grizzly bear, they just don’t reproduce at a rate that makes them overly tolerant. It has to be a very hands on management animal. So if you were a pragmatic environmentalist, you know, a hunter or rancher, you could say, oh, considering we have the road rule, WSA is the big capital w Wilderness conservation lands on BLM, the assurance that we are going to have these long term connectivity corridors, then yes, please delist the grizzly bear right now. That is a responsible decision. But if you were to say, oh, none of this stuff is assured because the way the administration is acting, I don’t know if I want to take this giant leap, because it is a giant leap now, because you cannot assure me that the habitat that is critical to the survival of this animal is going to be around in the near future. Protect the habitat habitat first, The species gonna survive so long as they have a place to go, that refuge zone. At the same time, we should be able to use the resources that are renewable in a responsible fashion. Both of those things can exist so long as we demand it. Jumping over to one of my all time favorite speed an Locaprio americana, the American prong horn antelope, hopefully their long horn antelope. That’d be great if you ever get tired of your drive to and from work, consider the sublet herd of the American prong horn which has been commuting along the same north South migration corridor in Wyoming for thousands of years. Every spring, the herd moves from the sagebrush plains of the Upper Green River basin one hundred and fifty miles north to Grand Teton National Park. They have fawns along the way, feeding the lush habitat of the park, and then when things start to get cold in the fall, they head south again to avoid the deep freeze. The route is so well established that at a place now called Trapper’s Point, Wyoming, several six thousand year old hunting and butchering sites have been excavated right where pronghorn passed by today, but much more recently. Last month, in fact, Governor Mark Gordon held a press conference at Trapper’s Point declaring it an official quote unquote bottleneck point for the modern pronghorn migration, the so called pas of the Pronghorn. That designation means that the Trapper’s Point area will now be protected from any surface disturbing activity as part of Wyoming’s migration policy, with the idea that the herd can continue to travel this way for another six thousand years. Wyoming Game and Fish have said that the root of the sublet herd is at high risk of being lost and they have identified thirteen specific bottleneck points that have to stay open and protected for the overall migration corridor to survive. The route has been pinched by residential development, highways, fenced off ranchland, and even dense forests growing into the pronghorn’s preferred open habitat. Wyoming’s effort is the first ever planned to protect the full length of a pronghorn migration corridor. It’s been in development for almost twenty years and has often been opposed by energy industry groups wanting access to the oil and gas in the area, but biologists have gathered an overwhelming amount of data to document where the animals need to move, almost two decades of GPS location information and for more than four hundred collared pronghorn. Governor Gordon’s announcement establishing the protection plan is great news, but it’s not a victory lab Nearly half of the identified bottlenecks are on private land, which is exempt from protecting measures, and the plan specifically allows for ongoing development. Still, protecting the parts that we can protect and spreading information about the incredible annual round trip are big steps in the right direction. I shouldn’t say they’re exempt from protection. There’s all sorts of things folks on the private side of the fence can do, such as perpetual conservation easements, agricultural easements, things that keep that land working but free from subdivision and development. Moving on to the classy Kimodo dragon desk. In recent years we’ve seen major revisions and how we understand our ancient ancestors. We used to think that Homo sapiens were the only ones who hunted in coordinated groups, had language, and dulled themselves up with ornamentation. Now we know that Neanderthals did all those things. But one early human, Homo florenciensis, has recently been downgraded. Anthropologists used to think that the hobbit sized hominid native to the islands of Indonesia hunted and cooked their own food, but a new paper in the journal Science Advances argues that the species was in fact simply a scavenger who depended on the kills of Komodo dragons. To test this hypothesis, the paper’s authors fed a dead goat to Komodo dragons at a zoo in Atlanta, Georgia, then studied the tooth and claw marks on the goat’s bones. They compared those marks to grooves in the bones of ancient dwarf elephants that were discovered in caves occupied by Homo floriensis. In both cases, the Komodo dragon tooth marks were close to the large muscle groups of the animal, whereas the marks made by Homo florenciensis were on the grizzly parts like the skull, spine, and feet. From this evidence, they conclude that the dragons were doing the killing in the feasting, and the hobbits were cleaning up the scraps. Still turns out, seeing huge, amazing, venomous lizards and letting them do all the work gathering food was a pretty good strategy. Homo florenciensis thrived for almost a million years through several big changes in climate and their surrounding environments. Homo sapiens, by contrast, have been around for only about three hundred thousand years, so we still have quite a few millennia to go before we can say we’re better than that Indonesian hobba. Swinging back over to America’s public lands, new proposed rules coming out of the Department of the Interior are set to change how grazing works across the West, and this one looks like a very mixed bag. The proposed BLM rules covering the one hundred and fifty five million acres open to grazing were issued in May, and after a public comment period, are now back with DOI for a second review. On the plus side, the regulations would extend the requirements to study environmental impacts to all uses of public land like logging, mining, or recreation. Those requirements currently only apply to the livestock industry. However, almost all the other provisions of the rule favor wealthy ranching operations. First, rules would lock in existing heavily subsidized grazing fees on public land, which amount to almost three hundred million dollars a year in below market rate discounts. The regulations would also allow individual ranchers to continue operating without change. Even if the BLM cites them for practices that are damaging the landscape. They can simply appeal the rule and keep going as before. The proposed changes would significantly decrease the ability for the public to comment on and challenge agency decisions. Right now, anyone can weigh in, but the new rules would limit input to those who can prove a quote unquote cognizible interest in the issue. I’m looking at good old Merriam Webster for the word cognizable and not having much luck. But according to reporting from Pro Publica and The High Country News, a former BLM official has said that the change will likely include only those with the business interest in the land and shut out conservation groups. The rules also remove the requirement to include public feedback and gri raising rules. That means you and me for a comprehensive deep dive on the issue. Pro Publica on HCN have done a really nice job, so check that out separately. The USDA has also instructed the Forest Service to expand grazing on National Forest Service land, including filling vacant grazing allotments, speeding up the permitting process, and using current rules to increase grazing activity. Longtime listeners of the show know that I’m in favor of balance use of the landscapes by ranchers, but that balance has to be maintained, and one group sure seems to be getting a whole lot of say right now. And here’s the thing, in my experience, most of these folks know that you got to treat that land right. If it’s going to provide those dividends year after year after year in terms of big fat cattle, no matter what you’re paying for it. Every group, however, does have its bad actors, and without the qualified individuals on the ground looking at those allotments assessing the health, it allows those bad actors that absence of those individuals, due to lack of funding and workforce reductions, to cause some serious damage to the landscape to the point where it is not a renewable resource and it is detrimental to wildlife and the other users on the ground. But this one’s not baked yet. I’ve been digging in with folks who know the subject well. There seems to be a lot of good, common sense things in here as well as the alarming ones that we just hit two. So we’ll keep you posting. Jumping over to the hey bear desk, there’s a trouble brewin you give it it. Yeah. Out on the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming last week, campers Maggie Bassett and Seanadell were snugly zipped into their tents when they heard a big noise. Bassett told KTVQ news quote, I will never forget that sound of my tent being ripped open. Dell and Bassett did exactly the right thing. In response, they yelled and screamed, fired a gun to spook a bear away, and then most importantly, retreated to the safety of their truck before eventually driving away. The pair described classic predatory black bear behavior, with Bassett saying, quote, it just kind of circled around and came back from a different angle. Might remember last year a similar attack that had much worse and at Sam’s Thrown campground in northern Arkansas. And that incident, a camper took iPad videos of a juvenile bear entering his camp. Later, police found a small amount of blood inside the man’s truck before finding his dead body in the vicinity. Investigators believed that the man was lightly injured by an initial bite or scratch from the circling bear, retreated to the truck to treat his wounds, then returned to camp to pack up, and that’s where the fatal encounter happened. In the case the two Wyoming campers, getting out of the area was the right call. When they returned the next day, of their tents were completely shredded, even though they had responsibly kept their food far away from the campsite in bear proof containers sliding over the Colorado Line near Grand Masa, the body of a person who died from unknown circumstances was scavenged by several animals, including a black bear. In most cases, a bear getting habituated to human food is very bad and almost inevitably leads to more human bear conflicts, but in this instance, officials said there was no danger that the bear would develop a taste for human flesh and attack anyone. To get more, ecologist Chuck Neil spoke to Cowboy State Daily and said that the bears will scavenge any dead meat on the landscape, no matter what the species. This human body would have been quote, just another lump of rotten flesh. I can’t say that exactly makes me feel better. My sympathies definitely go out to the family, But you know, from my perspective, at the end of the day, recycling isn’t a bad way to go. That’s all I got for you this week. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to write in to ask cl that’s Ascal at the meat eater dot com. Let me know what’s going on in your neck of the woods. You know, we appreciate it. Thanks again. We’ll talk to you next week.
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