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 Well. Last week news broke of a consequence of a skunk run in a lot worse than getting covered in foul spray. In December of twenty twenty four, in Idaho, man was found dead in his home of a presumed heart attack. Because the man was an organ donor, his heart and lungs went to a surgery training program, his corneas went three recipients, and his kidney was transplanted into an adult male patient from Michigan. For a month, that Michigan man's health was strong, but then he began to suffer from tremors, weakness in the legs, and confusion, followed by fever and inability to eat or drink. After a week, he died and a case of rabies was determined to be the culprit. But the man's family confirmed that he hadn't had any risky contact with animals, and so investigators began looking into the history of the organ donor. Turns out the Idaho man had been flagged for an animal scratch during the organ donation intake, but doctors didn't connect it to rabies at the time. According to his family, weeks before his death, he had been holding a kitten in his backyard when he was attacked by a skunk. He assumed the striped scavenger wanted to make a meal out of the kitten, so he fought off the skunk and knocked it unconscious, receiving a minor scratch in the process. Recent tests of the man's archived tissue did in fact discover a Rabi's infection, and the transmission via organ donation was confirmed, only the fourth documented case ever of the disease being passed by this routine. Just another reason to get yourself checked out anytime a claw or tooth happens to break your skin out in the field, no matter how minor it seems. And remember, in this case, the field could mean your backyard, either from that skunk prowling around or maybe even that cute kitten you're holding in your arms. Don't let this be a warning against organ donation, however, that program saves untold lives enrich as many others. I'm an organ donor, Why the heck not. By the time somebody uses them, you know, I'll be done with them for one reason or another. It's the giving season. Kids. Come on this week we've got international crime, CWD, Cougars, water Wars, and beautiful BC. But first I'm going to tell you about my week, and my week is flying by. I spent a few days in dark, gray, wet Missoula, Montana, at BHA headquarters, trying to get up to date on, you know, office things, in preparation for my January one official start date as CEO. In fact, you may be listening when I'm actually a CEO acronym chief executive officer. I'll just be straight with you, folks. My goal has never to been a chief or an executive or an officer, which I have no slight against any of those things. Just just wasn't in my plan, which was only to spend a lot of time outside. But you know, life throws some curveballs at you, and here we go. I am insanely excited to be in this position, very very fortunate that, you know, my passion for the outdoors somehow lined up with this gig. Yeah. Crazy, how the old world spends. And now, despite Missoula weather being atmospheric river conditions, the BHA crew is always sunny and if you are interested in checking out that crew and becoming one of us. Right now, we have three positions open, one of which is for all you service members out there. There's a DoD Skills Bridge positions open. You'll be working directly with our Armed Forces Initiative a bunch of awesome folks over there. They are quote looking for active duty soldiers, sailors, marines, or airmen who want to spend their DoD Skills Bridge internship as a project manager to support the growth of the Armed Forces Initiative. This individual will work with an AFI coordinator in AFI Advisory Board to support and implement AFI projects. If this sounds like something you dig and be interested in, head on over to Backcountry Hunters dot org. In addition, we have a controller position open for those with the financial chops and fun. Fact, while looking at our careers page at Backcountry Hunters dot org, I saw that our website is down once again, as many of you have also noticed because you wrote to tell me, we have just been like getting like strung out and taken to the cleaners by this web development company who promised so much for this brand spank and new website. So if you have the programming skills and would like to donate some hours and expertise, we could sure use that too. And for you loyal and longtime listeners. I promise this is not going to be the tenor of the podcast from here on out, but you know this stuff is top of mind in me my week section. I'm sure you can tell. Like last week, I would like to bring up the new potential director of the BLM, mister Steve Pierce. Once again, I am just convinced that this is an excellent area for all of us to weigh in. I want to know what you think. This is a big job. So what question would you ask or want your senator to ask during mister Pierce's confirmation hearing, which is like a very public job interview. Mister Pierce will be the top dog overseeing two hundred and forty million acres of our shared public lands. Let's take this seriously right in to askcl that's Ascal at the meteater dot com. Let me know what you would ask the candidate for this office. A lot of hunting and fishing and outdoor freedom happens on those two hundred and forty million acres of Bureau of Land Management Land. Moving on to the international crime desk, two South African men have been sentenced to lengthy stays in the Slammer for murdering an abalone poacher. Prosecutors said Paul Adams and Ishmael Khan planned and carried out the murder of Cameron Mark Padeachi after Cameron refused to pay extortion money to a gang called the Junior Mafia. Believe it or not, the Junior Mafia is pretty much what it sounds like. They're not Italian as far as I'm aware, but they are a youth gang that operates in the central Cape Town area. Abaloni poaching is one of their rackets, and they force other poachers to give them a percentage of their earnings. Well, Cameron refused to pay the extortion fee, so Adams told Khan and another Junior Mafia member, Ronaldo Vanderberg, to kill Cameron. Vanderberg and Khan found Cameron as he was fixing his vehicle. They shot him eight times as Cameron's children watched from inside the car. All three were convicted and sentenced for the murder. Vanderberg, who was the one who pulled the trigger, will serve thirty years con will serve twenty Adams sixteen. If you're wondering why anyone would commit murder over some abaloni, you should know that the Junior Mafia isn't the only criminal operation making an honest day's work from illegally harvesting the little mollusk. One report found that as many as eighteen eight hundred and twenty five metric tons of illegally harvested abalony were shipped out of the country between twenty eighteen and twenty twenty three. Poaching has decimated the popular and legal commercial harvesters struggle to make a living. A dwindling supply means that the competition for the remaining abaloni is fierce, so it's no surprise that someone would want to kill over it. At least that's what it looks like from where I'm sitting ten thousand miles away. If you live in South Africa and want a way in, happy to hear from you, you don't where to ride in. A man in Northern Ireland has been accused of abusing a yellow lab while at a pheasant shoot in January of this year. Witnesses say they saw a twenty nine year old Kieran McCafferty kick his dog in the stomach, pull sharply on its leash, and even pick up the pooch and swing it around in a full circle by its leash. The dog, whose name is Lily, yelped in paying as McCafferty struck her with the butt of his shotgun. Another witness said they saw McCafferty shoot a pheasant and Lily bring it back to him, but when Lily ran off into the undergrowth, McCafferty quote became angry and was shouting and goldering at the dog until it returned. Goldering is a colloquial word in Northern Ireland that means to shout loudly, yell or bellow, often expressing anger. Lily eventually returned, but rather than praise the dog for obeying, McCafferty punched the dog multiple times with the closed fist. Witnesses say the dog couldn't stand and McCafferty had to carry it away. All his behavior was reported to the local animal control and they discovered that Lily sustained a broken hip from the abuse. When they visited McCafferty's home, they found that Lily was malnourished and there was another dog, a black lab named Flow, who was also in a sad state of affairs. Both dogs have since been taken from McCafferty and re homed, and McCafferty has pled guilty to some of the accusations. He admits to striking Lily, but he says he never swung her around by the leash. Due to this discrepancy, the judge ordered another evidentiary hearing before handing down a sentence. The prosecutor said they would be applying for McCafferty to be banned from ever owning an animal again. And I think I speak for many a dog owner, especially the yellow labrador type, when I say that McCafferty sentence should be a bit more medieval. Maybe the stocks down Times Square jokes aside. This is not the kind of behavior that exists in isolation. If you're willing to do that to a dog, what else are you willing to do to the people in your life? Law enforcement over in Randallstown take note of mister McCafferty. Moving on to the cougar desk, This one from listener Bob Nielsen, who is clearly angling for a job as a writer around Cal's Weekend Review. Nielsen reports. Just two weeks after a group of British Columbia school kids were accosted by a grizzly bear. A mountain lion caused concern for school officials earlier this month in Duluth, Minnesota. Duluth d Duluth is on fire. As the kids say, the two year old male catamount was wearing a collar, which is how we know it hiked up to Minnesota from Nebraska. It eventually made its way within a half mile of Ordyon East Middle School and Calmingdon Park Elementary School, forcing officials to cancel afternoon recess. This seemed a reasonable response since, unlike highly publicized instances of bears entering convenience stores to stock up on highly processed foods and African lions entering grass huts to dine on construction workers, pumas are not particularly prone to breaking and entering. Thanks to good intel on the panther's path, the all clear was given at two pm. Nonetheless, the sudden appearance of the painter pos's perplexing questions great alliteration. Jordan sillers, what's behind this sudden assault on school children? Our North American apex predators planning more attacks. Is it safe to go over the river and through the woods this Christmas an excellent question there, Bob. Christmas will be over by the time you hear this, but when schools reopen in the new year, you might want to start sending kids to school with bear spray. It's a great conversation started at the lunch table and a guaranteed a plus during show and hell. Moving on to the CWD desk, the Missouri Conservation Commission voted earlier this month to approve a plan that would end the state's CWD hunt. This five day hunt was part of Missouri's firearm deer season, and it gave hunters in the CWD management zone and extra opportunity to harvest a deer. The idea is to increase the deer harvest in areas with the high prevalence of the disease and hopefully remove more CWD positive deer from the landscape, but the Conservation Commission found that the special hunt hadn't effectively increased deer harvest. They also say hunters had complained about the complexity of all the different hunting seasons, and this decision was designed to simplify those regulations. Along those lines, the Commission also decided to eliminate the state's CWD management zone. Hunters within this zone were required to have their deer tested for CWD and were prohibited from feeding deer year round. They were also not required to abide by Antler point restrictions that were in place in other portions of the state. But what started as a six county zone in twenty twelve has expanded to eighty two counties in twenty twenty five, the entire state only has one hundred and fourteen counties, which means the CWD zone stretched across more than half the state. Eliminating the CWD zone presumably eliminates some of the hunting restrictions as well. However, the Commission will still publish a list of counties each year where testing is mandatory. These moves are understandably concerning to those who want to see Missouri continue its fight to slow the spread of CWD. Jason Summers, the director of the Missouri Department of Conservation, quote, some will say CWD is simply a political disease that has not impacted deer populations, but this couldn't be farther from the truth. Scientific studies have continued to demonstrate that CWD is a fatal disease that, if left unchecked, will increase in prevalence, resulting in increased mortality on local populations that significantly alter buck age structure and the ability of the population to recover from other natural factors like extreme droughts and other disease outbreaks like EHD. Others recognize that CWD is a serious threat, but disagree with the approach we have implemented to address the disease. Regardless of where you stand on the issue of CWD, most share the same goal a healthy, sustainable population of deer in Missouri that can be appreciated and utilized by future generations. That is a fine sentiment, but it's clear that the state is changing how it manages the always fatal disease. In this same letter, Summers announced that his agency is pausing the post season targeted deer removal program. Like the CWD hunt, this program was designed to remove potentially infected deer from the landscape. Now, Summer says the agency will work with hunters and land owners to quote adapt and identify a more sustainable path forward. At the end of the day, wildlife management is determined by the people who show up and speak loudly. The contingent of hunters who don't see CWD as a threat has always been allowed, but now they appear to be growing in influence. Only time will tell if Missouri's moves represent a larger shift in the way states manage CWD, But in the meantime, Missouri deer hunters have a job to do. Members of the public can submit comments on the proposed regulation changes starting January sixteen and running through February fourteen. The Missouri Conservation Commission will then have a final review on the changes, and if approved, will go into effect on June thirtieth. You can head on over to MDC dot MO dot gov to find out more. Moving over to the water war desk, you know how they say there's only two certainties in life, death and taxes. Well is water should be in there too, as it is a limited and much needed resource. There are new developments in the story of the Crazy Mountain Ranch the ultra luxury Montana golf course. We told you about this summer that had been illegally irrigating its greens, golfing greens with water it didn't have permits for Back then, the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservations sued CMR Crazy Mountain Ranch to stop its bad behavior, and when the club continued to use water illegally, the state shut off supplies entirely. Soon, the two parties entered into a consent decree where the state would review the club's standing permit applications and the club would cease illegal water use in absence of those permits. If everything went according to plan, the club could avoid fines for its past indiscretions. In the meantime, the club began trucking one hundred and ten thousand gallons of water in a week, or thirty five round trip tanker rides every day. Before too long, investigators followed the trucks and found that some of them were coming from the nearby city of Boulder. The DNRC quickly discovered that Boulder was selling the water to CMR from a well for which there was no water right, in violation of the Montana Water Use Act. This was also a violation of the consent decree that CMR had signed, and so the DNRC find the club eight thousand dollars. This week, the state announced that they are suing the club again over a refusal to pay the fine. Crazy Mountain ranch is arguing that it wasn't their responsibility to ensure that Boulder could legally sell them the water. You've almost got to admire the boldness here. After regulators extended the club an amazing amount of grace for passed intentional violations. You'd think that CMR would then do careful, due diligence to make sure they were following every last one of the rules. And as they say, ignorance of the law is no defense. We're gonna keep following this one to see if exclusive golf courses and Western water law can get along or not. Now, this is the beginning of a new year here at the Week in Review, so we're going to serve up some positivity here to lead in to January of twenty twenty six. Out in Nevada, a former industrial mineral processing site has been acquired by the Conservation Fund. They intend to transfer the parcel to the surrounding Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, which lies sixty five miles northwest of Las Vegas. Although this site is small, just eighteen acres, it contains the source of a spring which feeds a nearby desert oasis. Wetlands that had been threatened by a pollution from the plant for nine hundred thousand bucks. The mineral company is selling the land and removing all buildings and equipment from the site. This oasis is home to several hyperlocal endangered species, including fauna such as the ash Meadows speckled dace and the ash Meadows upfish, as well as flora like the ash Meadows gum plant. To cope a birdbeak in the spring, loving century hunters may pursue quail, geese, ducks, coots, more hand snipe dove, and rabbits at ash Meadows. If you're tired of playing the slots on the Las Vegas Strip, sounds like a restorative place to go down. In South Carolina, the city of Charleston is spending three million dollars to put the five hundred and eighty acre Dill Sanctuary property on James Island into a permanent conservation easement. Land is controlled by the Charleston Museum and has existing limited protections, but those were set to expire in twenty twenty six. Now the land will be protected in perpetuity and public access will be protected even if the museum were to sell the land. The Dill Sanctuary is a great example of the kind of incremental improvements that make a huge difference to conservation. In the nineteen nineties, looking to improve wading bird habitat, Sanctuary worked with the Charleston County to have Phill for a construction project dug out of their property, creating a man made spring fed lake. Three islands were designed with the right amount of cover for nesting birds, and the pond was made deep enough to keep bobcats and raccoons out. Today, the site is essential habitat for the wood stork, which was listed as endangered in nineteen eighty four but then moved to just threatened in twenty fourteen. The Dill Sanctuary is now home to around fifteen hundred pairs of wading birds and boasts around one hundred wood stork nests, so it's a great thing that this spot is going to be around for the long haul. Over in Michigan, the Department of Natural Resources has purchased eight eight thousand, eight hundred and fifty acre property to add to the Pigeon River County State Forest, also known as the Big Wild. The new parcel is home to Black River Ranch, one of the last large tracks of forest on the lower peninsula, and it's just lousy with waterways, including the east branch of the Black River, Stuart Creek, and the Black River itself, which is the only river in the Lake Huron basin managed for native brook trout. This spot is absolutely teeming with animals, including bear, white tails and as many as eleven hundred elk that have thrived there since a reintroduction of Rocky Mountain elk in nineteen eighteen. Several organizations came together to raise the seventeen million dollars for the property purchase, including the Forest Legacy Program, the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund, the Little Traverse Conservancy, the Rock Mountain Elk Foundation, and the Nature Conservancy. The hunting, fishing, and trapping are about as good as it gets in the Pidgin River Forest, along with camping, hiking, birdwatching, cross country skiing, and deep breath taking up in southeastern BC. The Nature Conservancy of Canada, the Canadian government, and the subsidiary of the coal mining company Glencore, as well as a number of smaller organizations, have purchased forty five thousand hectares that's about one hundred and seventy five square miles to US Yankees down here of high elevation grasslands and put it into conservation management as the Cootney forest Lands. The land is entirely within the Tunaha Nation and touches forty two watersheds and conserves almost six hundred miles of rivers and streams, as well as habitat for grizzlies, badger, white bark, pine bowl trout, and bighorn sheep. This is still a new project and exactly what hunting and fishing might be possible there is hard to determine, but public access as part of the purchase, and the fly fishing on the Elk River in this area is world famous. Finally, through Acres for America, a partnership between Walmart and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, a group of projects totaling one hundred and forty five thousand acres will be conserved across five states. In Florida, six hundred and thirty six acres will be added to the Lochloosa Wildlife Corridor in Maine, Seventy eight thousand acres will be protected in the Rangeley Lakes area North Carolina. Twelve thousand acres will be conserved in the Blue Ridge Mountains and South Mountains. This partnership was also one of the groups putting its shoulder to the wheel to buy the Black River Ranch property up in Michigan. So even with all the grim news out there these days, there are some bright spots. Let's keep lighting those candles. And if you know about any acquisition of land for public use or expansion of existing park, wildlife refuge, national forest, or similar area in your neck of the woods, right in to ask cal at the meat Eater dot Com or call our darn number four oh six two two zero six four four one to shout it from the rooftops. We can help in a number of ways, like raising awareness or the Meat Eater Land Access Initiative. Remember, all the good stuff that we have right now is not here by chance or luck or happenstance. It's here because we, gosh darn demanded that it be here. Okay, it was not that long ago that we didn't have the geese or the ducks, or the shore birds, or the elk or the big horn sheep where they exist right now. That stuff is only here because people said, hey, this is important, let's make it happen. Same goes for national parks and national forests. You got to weigh in gang right now. We are at an inflection point in this country. If you don't stand up and demand it, we're gonna lose. Remember, you can have your guns and your public lands, and if somebody tells you how you gotta make a decision between the two, you know that they're full of it. Okay, this is America. We can have it all, so long as you demand. That's all I got for you this week. Have a wonderful new year, Get out there on your public lands, fill your bucket full of appreciation so you have a deep well to dig into for the rest of the year. Thank you so much for listening. Right in. Ask c A L. That's Askcal at themeeater dot com. Call me four oh six two two zero six four four one. I want to hear from you and have a wonderful, wonderful new year. Big huge thanks to Jordan Sillers and Alex Tilney, Phil and Reva. Those are the folks carrying the heavy load over here at Cal's weekend review. Can't wait to see what this new year brings. Thanks again, We'll talk to you next week.