00:00:10 Speaker 1: From Meat Eaters World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This is Cow's Week in Review with Ryan cow Calahan. Here's cal In a triumph of practicality over public relations, A zoo in Denmark put out a call on Facebook this week for donations of anyone wanted live pets to be fed to the zoo's predators. The public can bring in up to four chickens, rabbits, guinea pigs, or other small prey per day to the Alborg Zoo, two hundred miles northwest of Copenhagen. Horses are also welcome, provided that they meet sized guidelines and have not been treated for diseases in the previous thirty days. The comments section on the Facebook post was, of course calm and measured, with everyone respectfully discussing the plan's nuanced pros and cons. Several comment are also asked whether they could donate children to the program, which indicates that at this point in August, the start of school cannot come soon enough. Back in my seasonal employment days, we refer to this as angry August. The zoo clarified that it doesn't feed live animals directly to lions or bears unless you are willing to pay extra I'm kidding. Instead, the zoo is skipping over an obvious revenue stream by euthanizing the pets before they go to the predators. While animals are important for zoos because carnivores can't just eat backstraps and sirloin the way many humans do, they also need the hide, feathers, organs, fat, and bones to keep their digestive systems healthy. Zoos in the US almost never accept these kinds of donations, relying instead on breeding supply companies to deliver the same chickens, guinea pigs, rabbits, rats, and other animals that Alborg is accepting at no cost. However, the Oregon Zoo has in the past accepted road killed deer in the Minnesota Zoo will sometimes take deer killed through color programs. Notably, the Alborg Zoo specifically states that it does not accept donations of other predators as feedstock. Well, there goes a good idea on how to replace those trap newter release programs for feral cats, doesn't it. Side note and not completely unrelated, We have an interview segment coming up with Jenny Luciitre, who with twenty years experience in the wild Horse and Burrow program does point out that zoos in the US currently pay to have horse meat shipped in from other countries to feed caged carnivores. Dial into that one and please write in to askcl that's Ascal at meeater dot com. This week, we've got the wolf Desk, Don't Eat the blue Meat, Government overreach, Nova Scotia style, and so much more. But first, I'm going to tell you about my week. In My week, well, hot dang always interesting. Let me tell you right in this I am high in the sky above Minneapolis and smoke is in the air. The only reason this surprises me is that my home state verbial hotspot for forest fire has been pretty darn calm. We've had plenty of lightning strikes, but nothing has taken off this season, But Septembers have been hot and dry. Fire on the landscape is a good and natural thing, but just like every other nimbi out there, I'd rather have it not interfere with my elk season. And speaking of elk season, we're gonna hit our next round of listener hunt prep emails. Rich rites in pretty excited to follow along on your brown bear adventure. Hey me too, Rich, thanks myself and three buddies from here in Wisconsin drew Wyoming deer tags. Our first time hunting in grizz Country. Any tips for how to get to our glassing knobs safely before daylight, make extra noise, use white lights over the red and green lights, camp closer to our hunting area, et cetera. And just to add another wrinkle, one of the guys is a warden here and he just tore the cartilage and his knee while on the job. At least we all know who we have to run faster than well. Rich. There are spots where the hair on the back of your neck stands up and the cover is thick. Maybe the wind is rustling the foliage overhead, and you're trekking up a little babbling brook so nothing can hear you coming, and you got the wind in your face. In those circumstances, you want to have your bear spray ready, You can have your headlights on. You might want to chat back and forth outside of those situations. However, if you're not encountering bear sign, you should just move easy and focus on the deer. If you want to take extra precautions, you can swing around and get the wind at your back on your approach. The more wide to open the better, so you should be all right. Just be bare aware, keep a clean camp, look for tracks, scat and carcasses. Listen to yourself. If something tells you the situation isn't right, believe it. Come up with the new plan. A lot of it's just common sense, man. You guys will be fine. Clean camp, have the wind at your back, Be on the lookout for bear sign. If you encounter large amounts of bear sign, avoid that area. If you're going out with the group and everybody's probably like your warden friend is thinking about packing a side arm, I suggest having people who do not pack side arms. Bear spray is a great tool. And between I'm assuming it's mule deer rifle season. Don't even need side arms, just have rifle with you. But having that bear spray is a great option. And you might end up coughing, but you're not gonna shoot your neighbor. Another rich writes in this fella has just moved to a very popular dare I say, hip mountain town and is wondering how to tackle local hunting as it seems everyone else has gotten to this place before him. Additionally, he's got an actual job that limits his hunting ability to a maximum amount of time of three days in a row. So in other words, he just a normal person working a normal job. For those of you who don't know, if you can scrape together more than three days of hunting in a season, you're beating the national average. Anyway, it's the little stuff that counts. The folks that make a habit of getting out in those small windows of time, those small opportunities before and after work are the ones that do the most hunting, not the folks that get out for a week. And that's the whole hunting enchilada. As far as hunting pressure goes, yeah, it's real. But use ignorance to your advantage. You don't know what you don't know. Expect to see people around every corner. But if you don't see people, stop and go on a little hunt. Check that spot out. I guarantee you'll find some worthwhile places and they'll be quote yours won't have that guilty feeling that somebody told you to go to a spot and then you're like, boy, I want to go back, but I don't want to keep bothering the person who told me about the spot. Find them on your own. It's really not hard. Lastly, observe the local courtesy. Don't park on top of people. Use your maps to guess where folks may be hunting depending on where they are parked. Then find another pull out that puts you in a different drainage. Be courteous, talk to people, offer to help pick up trash. Take those side adventures to kill a couple of grouse or pick up some fall mushrooms. It's your time outside, have fun, and again, don't write off those little increments of time. Have your hunting stuff in the truck, be ready to move when you get those opportunities. Most learning happens when you are not in the animals. Moving on to the wolf desk. Last week of federal judge in Missoula, Montana, vacated a twenty twenty four ruling by the US Fish and Wildlife Service that refused to relist the Northern Rocky Mountain population of gray wolves under the Endangered Species Act. Already, a coalition of sporting groups have appealed to judge's decision, adding another couple chapters in the seemingly endless story. Of the battle over wolves in the West, a quick refresher for those just joining the story. In two thousand and nine, after almost forty years, gray wolves were delisted from the Endangered Species Act after their numbers rebounded from almost nothing in the nineteen seventies to well pass their target number of four hundred and fifty in the northern Rocky Mountains by the mid two thousands. In twenty eleven, Congress turned over management of this population of gray wolves to five states, Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming, as well as Oregon and Washington in the eastern one third of their states. Wolves are still listed as threatened in Minnesota and remain endangered in the other forty four states, as all lower forty eight keep in mind, Montana waste no time in establishing wolf hunting and trapping seasons with the objective of reducing the state's population of around eleven hundred wolves to five hundred, a number mandated by the Montana state legislature in twenty twenty one as a quote unquote sustainable level. Despite hunters and trappers taking significant numbers of wolves every year, including three hundred and twenty six and twenty twenty and two hundred ninety seven. Last year, populations have remained steady around the one thousand griitter mark. Those healthy populations are what led the US Fish and Wildlife Service to reject the relisting writing quote. We concluded that the gray wolf in the Western United States is not in danger of extinction or likely to become in danger of extinction in the foreseeable future, throughout all of its range or in any significant portion of its range. But those same stable populations have led the Montana state legislature to consider even more aggressive wolf reduction measures, including a possible unlimited quota to get to that target number of five hundred wolves. A recent proposal by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks doesn't go that far, but it would significantly expand wolf hunting and trapping, increasing the state wide wolf quota from three thirty four to five hundred and liberalizing bag limits to allow fifty teen wolves to be taken with a single hunting or trapping license. That means one person could theoretically take a total of thirty wolves per season. Although that's likely to increase the annual wolf harvest, those changes still aren't likely to creator this population of wolves. Very few people take wolves in the state of Montana take some dedication or just sheer luck, and everybody in between the sheer luck and the dedicated only take a handful. So there's probably a couple of people in the entire state who could even come close to getting thirty wolves. However, when you read regulations like this, you know, I think it's fair to say that most people would be like, oh my god, everybody can kill thirty wolves anyway. Old Dan Malloy, US District judge in Missoula struck down the Fish and Wildlife Determination site of the Montana Legislature's mandates his justification for his ruling, agreeing with the plaintiffs that the state laws are quote politically motivated the legislative interference with agency discretion and management authority. He also ruled that states are not using the quote unquote best available science required by the ESA to arrive at their estimations of wolf populations. Montana uses hunter surveys and statistical models rather than direct observation of animals in the wild. mLOY went on to state that the US Fish and Wildlife didn't adequately consider recovery of wolves across their entire historical range in their decision. Of course, if wolves return to their full range from before European contact, you'd be running into them down at your local Starbucks, public library, and baseball diamond, which might cause a bit of a stir. Montana Governor Greg Janforte's office responded immediately to the rulings, say quote, Montana has a healthy, sustainable population of wolves. While we are reviewing the decision, it will not implicate our states management efforts or our wolf season. Judge mlloy's ruling would send the decision about whether to relist wolves back to US Fish and Wildlife, but the counter appeal filed by these Sportsmens Alive Foundation, Safari Club International, and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation will hold that up even further. Wildlife management by elected officials and lawsuits isn't anyone's idea of a good time. That's what we're likely going to get for the foreseeable future. If we remember way back when same judge, same town, Missoula grizzly delisting, there's a lot of overlap here, So Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, we're all able to submit grizzly bear management plans, and Wyoming took a ton of heat because the way that they wrote their management plan, kind of similar to their wolf management plan, didn't seem very bare friendly. It was perceived by many to be too aggressive, and that management plan was then politicized as a show that these states were not ready to manage grizzlies. So a lot of the same vibes here. There's a lot of opportunity to manage wolves in the state of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming. The fact of the matter is hunters might slow a few wolves down, trappers will put a larger dent in them. US Fish and Wildlife Service if they're out there. Aerial gunning can put a hurt on certain packs in certain places, but if folks aren't using poison, wolves are very resilient and we're going to have them. Plenty of room for some middle area here gang. The USDA has recently deployed a new tool in the fight against wolf depredation of livestock a wicked fight between Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver from the twenty nineteen movie Marriage Story. More specifically, the agency has been using drones equipped with loud speakers playing stressful recordings to haze the predators away. As reported in The Wall Street Journal. Since twenty twenty two, the USDA has been running a study to determine the effectiveness of the drones, and several recent flights have taken place in southwestern Oregon and northern California, places where wolves are still listed under the essay and therefore off limits to hunting. The team recently responded to the situation in the Klamath Basin, where a rash of eleven cow killings over twenty days took place this year. Another single farm in the area, owned by Jim and Mary Rickard, lost twenty cows in twenty twenty four, as well as forty calves that were either eaten or miscarried after wolves chased their mothers. The USDA technicians began patrolling the area in the spring with the specialized drones, each of which comes with the thermal camera to locate the wolves, a spotlight to dazzle them, and a speaker to stress them out. In addition to the marriage story argument or, researchers have had success with sounds of gunfire, the song Blue on Black by the band Five Finger Death Punch acdc's Thunderstruck, and simply yelling at the wolves through microphones included with the drone controllers. I have to say I'm a little worried that the most awesome wolves are actually going to be attracted to the sounds of thunderstruck. Maybe the team should try blasting baby shark instead and just irritate the world wolves away. Results, however, have been promising. Over the eighty five days that the drones patrolled the Klamath Basin area, only two cows were killed, and the records reported that their herd has been much more relaxed and productive. Still, there are complications. Each drone cost twenty thousand dollars, which sounds like a lot, especially when one hits a tree. Has happened during the study. However, California spent three million dollars compensating farmers for lost livestock between twenty twenty two and twenty twenty four, and several states have even set up so called pay four Presents or P four P funds, which give farmers tens of thousands of dollars a year to just offset the risk of having livestock in wolf habitat. Now I know what you're thinking. If the animal rights groups spent less money on billboards and more money deterring wolves by dumping them into these predator de terrence funds, they might make an impact. The drones also only have about a twenty minute flight time because all of that advanced tech drains their batteries really fast. There are indications that the wolves are already getting acclimated to them. One wolf was even recorded by a drone putting its front legs out straight and dropping its head as though to play with another dog. It's also unclear what happens after the drone team has to move on to another location. Farmer Jim Rickert said of the program, quote, Hopefully they're going to be successful, but I'm kind of betting on the wolves truth be known. A flying fish sparked a small fire in British Columbia last week, prompting the social media manager of Ashcroft Fire and Rescue to issue what I can only take as a tryout for Col's We Can Review quote do you wonder why the power was out in Ashcroft today? The agency posted on Facebook. There is something fishy about this call and we definitely suspect foul play. Post goes on to explain that after putting out a small brush fire outside of the village of Ashcroft, firefighters found something strange on the ground, a fish. This fish appeared to have been flambayed. It was covered in char and missing most of its head. The strain thing was the closest body of water, the Thompson River is nearly two miles away. Investigators theorized that an osprey had caught the fish in the river and then dropped it on the power lines. This caused embers not to mention the flaming fish to drop on the dry grasses blow, which ignited the blaze. We do suspect that the size of the fish and the heat of the day probably caused the rather tired bird to drop its catch, the post continues. Or another suspicion could be that it's tired of raw fish and wanted to give cooked a try. We may never know the answer, but it has been verified that our prime suspects sustained no injuries in the incident and is still flying at large. Couldn't have said it better myself, though I have said something similar Cal's Weekend Review. Listeners may remember that all the way back in episode two twenty seven, we covered a different fish and I assume a different ospray in New Jersey In that incident, the bird dropped the fish on a transformer, which cut power to two thousand New Jersey ins. Birds of prey drop fish all the time, but an expanding human foot is bound to cause this kind of thing to happen more often. Either that or the ospreys are evolving and going after our critical infrastructure. After all, birds aren't real. If that happens, we'll be sure to cover it here on Cal's weeken View. Moving on to the Trail Nazi Desk, Western Canada is experiencing some pretty bad fires this year, and like the fish fry we covered at the top, some have grown to millions of acres and are totally out of control. But the eastern provinces aren't immune from dry heat and high winds, and Nova Scotia has taken drastic steps to make sure it doesn't see its own conflagration. Here's Nova Scotia's premiere Tim Houston telling Canadians no hiking for. 00:18:45 Speaker 2: You, effective four pm today. We're telling Nova Scotians stay out of the woods. We are restricting travel and activities that really aren't necessary for most of us, hiking, camping, fishing, and the use of vehicles in the woods. Are not permitted. 00:19:02 Speaker 1: Houston goes on to explain that while camping is still permitted in designated areas, campers are not allowed to enter the trails through the woods. To find for violating this new prohibition is a whole whopping twenty five thousand dollars. The ban only applies on public land, so private landowners can still walk through their woods without fear of prosecution, but officials are encouraging landowners to follow the hiking ban voluntarily, and guests of landowners can still be fined. There are currently no big wildfires in Nova Scotia, but Houston argues that these prohibitions are necessary to avoid repeating what happened in twenty twenty three. In May and June of that year, wildfires burned twenty five thousand hectors of the small province, two hundred homes were lost, and sixteen thousand people were displaced. 00:19:47 Speaker 2: It's a small price to pay right now to avoid the kind of devastation that we saw from the wildfires in twenty twenty three. Nobody wants to go back there, Nobody wants to repeat of that, and staying out of the woods is what's necessary right now for the safety of your families, your friends, and your neighbors. 00:20:04 Speaker 1: That may be true, but it's a tough pill to swallow for Nova Scotians and local businesses. Summer is the height of the tourist season and many travel to the province to take advantage of its outdoor recreation. Online commenters have taken to social media to voice their frustration, and the CBC reports that there are lawsuits in the works, but so far nothing has been able to change the minds of public officials. Nova Scotians can at least find comfort in the fact that they aren't alone. Listener in New Brunswick, resident George MacGregor wrote in to tell me that this province, just to the north of Nova Scotia has closed all crown land. Crownland is what Canadians call public land, and George told me the closure will keep him from doing much summer scouting this year. Still, he says, quote, I guess it's better to have a forest that he can't go in than none at all. Unlike Nova Scotia, New Brunswick has several large fires, some of which have yet to be contained. The band in Nova Scotia will remain in place until October fifteenth, or weather conditions improve. As of this recording, there still isn't any rain in sight for the record gang. Because several of you asked me to weigh in on this, I do not agree with all out access bands like this. I understand though, why they happen. I have empathy for the fact that the people who regulate these for us have to consider the worst element. Okay, the human who does not care. But are we regulating the human who does not care with bands like this? It's possible because if all the do gooders, the rule followers stay out of the woods, the people who break the rules are going to stick out like a sore thum. Okay. Additionally, most of this comes from like safety standards, So if there is a fire, they're going to have to divert resources to getting people out of the woods. Maybe the data over there says that the fire is imminent and it's going to be huge and catastrophic, and spreading resources thin to get a couple of happy campers out of the woods may further endanger others. And I get all that, but I think there's a big danger in being able to close off all access for a what if because the other side of The what if game is what if they don't open it back up, or what if they decide other activities in other times of the year are unsafe. I don't really have a solution for you here. We can't regulate some miscreants doing bad deeds, but just because of that, I don't think we should regulate the folks who are responsible either. So moving on to the poison pig desk, a pig trapper in Monterey County, California, discovered something unusual earlier this year as he was processing one of the pigs blue meat. Bear fat can sometimes have a blue tinge if the bruins have been feeding on blueberries, but the pig's discoloration had a far more dangerous cause. Rodenticide, used to kill rats and other rodents, is often tinged blue for easier identification, and the trapper had observed the pigs feeding at pesticide bait stations. He contacted the California Department of Fishing Wildlife, and sure enough, their testing confirmed that the pork was laced with poison. The agency says that pigs can also be exposed to rodenticide by eating animals that have eaten the poison. That's called secondary poisoning. The meat can sometimes have that blue color, but it doesn't always. This pig isn't an outlier. At twenty eighteen study of anti coagulant rodenticide exposure in game animals across California found anticoagulant rodenticide residue in ten out of one hundred and twenty wild pig and ten out of twelve bare tissue samples. These animals came largely from agricultural or residential areas where rodenticides are commonly utilized. Interestingly, none of the Muleier samples tested positive for the poison. Obviously, if you skin an animal and notice a blue tinge in the tenderloins, take a pay on serving pork chops for dinner. But what if the meat hasn't been dyed blue and still contains traces of the chemical? Can it still hurt you? That's a tricky question to answer. Most of the research on how rodenticides pass through the food chain has been focused on raptors. If a bird of prey or a scavenger eats a rodent that's been poisoned, it can kill those birds. The same is true of mountain lions, bobcats and coyotes, especially if they eat poisoned rats regularly, the poison can accumulate in their bodies and eventually kill them. But as far as I've been able to tell, there haven't been any reported cases of a hunter dying because they've consumed impacted meat. And given the relatively high percentage of pigs and bears that test positive in that twenty eighteen study, hunters likely consume poisoned meat on a regular basis. Now, that doesn't mean hunters haven't gotten sick from eating this meat, and it's definitely not something you want to do on purpose. To avoid accidentally consuming rat poison, be especially careful if you hunt animals that frequent suburban or agricultural areas where rodentis is used. Check the meat carefully for discoloration, and definitely don't eat the livers, which is where the highest concentration of the poison is usually found. And if you're a homeowner or property manager who uses rodenticide, be sure to put it out in a way that keeps non target animals from consuming it. Uses secured bait station that pigs and bears can't access, and monitor those areas for wildlife activity. No one likes rats and mice in the kitchen, but it's also important that we don't accidentally poison the wrong critters. Hunters included last Stop the Attack Desk, a Texas hunter chasing cape buffalo and South Africa, died last week after being struck by one of the animals. Fifty two year old Asher Watkins was hunting with an outfit called Conrad Wehrmach Safaris. The company said in a statement that Watkins was stalking a buffalo with a professional hunter and a tracker when the animal charged. They said the buffalo hadn't been wounded, and they described the attack as unprovoked. Watkins brother mother, and stepfather had traveled to Africa with him, and he had an ex wife and teenage daughter back in the States. Of The dangerous game commonly pursued by hunters in Africa, Kpe buffalo are considered to be the most dangerous. They kill several hunters every year due largely to their unpredictable nature. Most fatalities occur when a buffalo has been shot but not killed, and a hunter is tracking it to make a follow up shot. But as we see in this case, Kate buffalo don't have to be wounded to be dangerous. They can charge whenever they feel threatened, and their six foot tall, two thousand pound frame make them difficult to stop before doing serious damage. We don't yet know all the details of what happened in this case. Maybe the professional hunter made a mistake and allowed his client to get too close. Maybe someone missed a shot or didn't spot the animal when they should have. Maybe the buffalo is just too well concealed and this tragedy could not have been avoided. The Safari company says they're cooperating with investigators they try to figure out what happened, and we'll keep you in the loop. It's all I got for you this week. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to write in to as case c AL that's asking cal to meet either dot com and let me know what's going on in your neck of the woods. Thanks again, we'll talk to you next week.