Ep. 491: Travel Management, YouTube Poachers, and a Python Pyromaniac

00:00:09
Speaker 1: From Meat Eaters World Headquarters in Bozeman, Montana, this is Cal’s Week in Review with Ryan Cal Callahan, presented by First Light. Here’s Cal. Florida finished its annual Python Challenge in July, and one fellow went absolutely berserk. Tom Rahill won this year’s challenge with a record-breaking 96 pythons. For those of you who are uninitiated in the ways of the Sunshine State’s invasive species management tactics, the Python Challenge is an annual 10-day event that provides incentives for both novices and professionals to find and remove as many invasive pythons from the Florida Everglades as possible. The event has two main purposes, to raise awareness of the issue and to make a dent on the alien serpent population, which is known to devastate native critters in the area, especially mammals like marsh rabbits and foxes. Rahill won this year’s $ 10, 000 grand prize with the next best python hunter managing only 36 snakes. Rahill also set a single competitor record for the event. How did Rahill manage to blow the competition out of the water? He did what any serious hunter should do and got off the beaten path. To do so, he put an e-bike to use to get away from the well-trafficked roads. On an old jungle road, he found a big 17-foot female, as well as her nest full of baby snakes, which allowed him to rack up his fat tally. And so Ray Hill won the competition on only one good night of hunting, despite the competition lasting for 10 days. Big congrats to Ray Hill for successfully getting after these invasive snakes, and it’s great to see that a ton of folks participated in the challenge and directly contributed to the conservation of native species in the process. One of these years, I’m going to get down to old FLA, try my hand at wrassling some pythons. All right, gang, it’s another big week here at the conservation desk. We got python pyromaniacs, duck hunting border disputes, Michigan deer feeding again, and F around and find out, which apparently is a, I hear it’s a new parenting style, which is something I never knew went out of style. But first, I’m going to tell you about my week. And my week has been jam-packed. You know, I’m balancing the kiddo, trying to be a good dad, trying to be a good partner, trying to do some dog training. Puppy’s growing like a weed. Carp is her name, for those of you who forgot. Great recall, great listening skills. We’re building that trust. She still would rather listen to the big dogs than me, which is something we’re going to work on, but got to get a little separation from the crew. which is pretty hard these days. Old mom and I are passing the baby boy back and forth in between calls as child care here on the greater Bozangeles ecosystem is A, extremely hard to find, and B, wickedly, wickedly expensive. Higher than any mortgage I’ve ever had. But we’re making it happen. Can’t complain too much. Been cooking up food like crazy. We did grizzly bear gyros the other day. That’s from my coastal brown bear, so… Don’t let anybody tell you you can’t eat those things. It was delicious. We did wild turkey piccata. We did a really, really yummy turkey stir fry. Turned out killer. And used a bunch of cornstarch in the stir fry marinade. And that meat turned out like that weird, silky, smooth texture that you get at bad Chinese restaurants, which to me is exactly what I’m gunning for. Even broke into a pound of ground meat because I read that in areas of the country, ground beef is totaling seven bucks a pound. So, you know, I was like, oh, this is fancy. $ 14 chunk of tuba elk meat. Outside of that, we have two big public comment periods, one for roadless rule rescission, one for travel management rule revision. And let’s not forget Executive Order 14408 regarding expanding OHV use. All of these things need to be seen as one big thing because they are all eating our public lands elephant one bite at a time. Now, as per usual, it’s not all bad, necessarily. There are areas that could see expanded motorized use, and there are communities that want that. That’s great. However, we already have a system in which local input is the driving force behind travel management plans. And as we talked about many, many times prior to this, these plans are put together on the land of many uses, where we all have a stake in the game, and when they’re done right, nobody gets all of what they want. For hunting and angling, we know that the distance from easy-to-get-to places creates areas of rest, breeding, calving, spawning, and sanctuary for a lot of the critters we pursue. We as hunters and anglers have already invested many, many millions of dollars to conduct studies as to the impacts of different types of travel on the landscape and to the critters. And as you may guess, that science does not support everything everywhere all at once. No big surprise. That same old buzzkill of a saying, everything in moderation, still holds true. On this particular topic, you can kind of jump to the conclusion that all the motorized groups and manufacturers are against all the green groups and hook it bullet groups. That’s us versus them. Well, they are not. In fact, I’ve been overjoyed with all the conversations I’ve been having with a lot of the big motorized groups and manufacturers groups on this particular topic. And, you know, turns out they’re not anti-habitat or anti-wildlife groups. There’s lots and lots of hunters and anglers that ride motorized vehicles. Big surprise. None of these groups or manufacturers are advocating for wholesale cross-country travel into or through sensitive habitat. They’re big supporters of responsible use and staying on trail and on designated roads and understanding what a motor vehicle use map is and what travel management plans are. At the end of the day, the public land grazers want some tweaks to the system. The motorized crowd wants some tweaks to the system. And so do most of the hunting and angling groups. So I ask you, where is full rescission coming from and why? Where did the OHV executive order come from? Why was that necessary? Because I can’t find the groups that are asking for it. Again, we know that the higher the road and trail density is in an area, the more roads and trails per square mile, And the faster we move on those roads and trails, the more likely we are to move animals off or out of those areas. Another fun fact that we’ve covered here on this show, wolves love using roads and trails to hunt elk. On the predator topic, I keep thinking about the grizzly bear. I love grizzly bears, spent a lot of time being around them, jumped at every chance I could to get that interaction. And I want to see them return to state management. I think it is a really good thing. And for someone who would love to see a well-managed, sustainable hunting opportunity in the lower 48 for the old grizzly bear, I cannot see how we are ever going to get there if we get rid or transect the last remaining bits of habitat with either new roads or re-established roads open to year-round motorized use. In fact, the roadless rule and roadless areas were specifically outlined in one of the few positives for justifying grizzly bear delisting. So what happens if you take that away? Now, pragmatically, some of the issues that are plaguing the U.S. Forest Service kind of like may work in your favor here. The Forest Service is extremely cash strapped and personnel strapped. So how would we accomplish new road building? Keep in mind, damn near every road that’s out there was government subsidized in some way. On top of that, and again, as we’ve said here on this podcast many, many times, much of our inventory roadless areas, you cannot build a road on period. Either not physically possible, Or it’s not possible to do without rebuilding year after year, making it just like fiscally, grossly irresponsible. And again, we currently have a $ 10 billion deferred maintenance backlog on the current roads that we have. And if you need that number again, that’s 380,000 miles of existing road. 165,000 miles of non-motorized and motorized legal trails. I do say legal because there’s many, many, many user-built trails out there, which would be illegal. 265,000 miles of road just on the U.S. Forest Service side of the fence. So is it like crazy and hyperbolic to be like, oh, they’re going to build new roads? Sometimes, yes, in certain areas. But again, that question of like, well, why the heck are they doing this? if they can’t afford to do what they say in the executive orders and expand roads and trails and all the things, well, it certainly gets into speculation, but it largely falls into two camps. Large-scale mineral withdrawal, right? Critical minerals. So this is about mining, not about logging. And then the other one is there’s an idea that if we just beat the hell out of this land, people are going to look at it and be like, yeah, I see what you mean. Sell it all off. Regardless of whatever the end game is, all I care about right now is that you go to the federal register.gov. Or you use action alerts like we provide at backcountryhunters.org or over at Trout Unlimited or TRCP. And you just weigh in and let people know how important public lands are to you. That’s your civic duty. That’s what you can do. On top of that, write your elected officials. Let them know your thoughts. Ask them to represent you. I do want to hear what you have to say on the subject. I’ve been chatting with a bunch of folks on this from all sides of the spectrum. Let me hear from you. A-S-K-C-A-L. That’s AskCal at TheMeatEater.com. And most importantly, get those comments in. FederalRegister.gov. BackcountryHunters.org. T-U-T-R-C-P. If you want some really good data on your public land elk, go to RMEF. Check out their studies. Hunter paid for. Let’s jump on over to the crime desk. A duo in Ohio have pled guilty to poaching charges, and it’s no surprise they did so, considering they filmed and posted all their illegal kills on their YouTube channel. This story comes to us from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which recently announced that 28-year-old William Bethel and 23-year-old Justin Booth of Columbus, Ohio, have pled guilty to charges stemming from their activity on their YouTube account. the wannabe influencers, called themselves Creek Kings Outdoors on the video streaming service. An investigation by Ohio wildlife officers and Columbus Metro Parks officers showed evidence that the pair had poached wildlife by illegally hunting in Three Creeks Metro Park and on other properties without permission. They also turned up evidence that Booth and Bethel had claimed they’d killed a whitetail in Kentucky, but they had actually done so in Ohio. Posting their misdeeds on YouTube seemed to be a motivation for the abysmal behavior. Deer hunting is exciting. It’s exciting to watch Big Buck being taken down on YouTube. A lot of channels have made great names with that, and these guys were chasing that fame. Warden Mark Williams told Outdoor Life’s Natalie Krebs, every deer that they killed on their channel was killed or possessed illegally in some way, shape, or form. This is the modern commercialization of wildlife. Ultimately, Bethel and Booth each pled guilty to 20 charges. They face a total of $ 37, 051. 32 in fines and restitution. and will both serve nine days in jail during the coming deer season, with an additional suspended sentence that would need to be served if they violate probation in the next five years, during which their hunting, fishing, and trapping privileges are revoked. Head over to OutdoorLife.com for the full story. Moving on to a story that reminds me that I gotta order some more duck decoys.

00:13:02
Speaker 2: A cross-border dispute between neighbouring France and Belgium is escalating over duck hunting, with conservationists demanding greater protection for migratory birds. And to protest the hunting activity near the protected Hershey’s Marshes, 700 people gathered near the Bernissat in Belgium, which is near the French border. Now, the campaigners say that the ducks move from the Belgian wetlands into France and they are exposed to gunfire just kilometres from the protected area.

00:13:29
Speaker 1: Well, clearly the European newscaster has a different idea of what a conservationist is. Regardless, it seems like some folks in Belgium are up in arms over hunting just over the border from a protected wetland refuge. The so-called conservationists wielded signs proclaiming that birds have no borders, which I agree with, and called hunting across the border a massacre and have said it’s causing the wild waterfowl population to stagnate. In contrast, the French hunting operations say they have been in place for decades with no ill effects on the region’s overall waterfowl population. The Belgians are pushing not to end duck hunting in France, but to create a 1,500-meter, or approximately a one-mile, buffer zone from Harches marshes. The conflict is reminiscent of anti-hunting campaigns here in the States, but it also highlights something that we’ve got going for us in the North American waterfowl management plan. which is a cooperative and coordinated strategy for the management of migratory waterfowl between the U.S. and Canada, both countries with long traditions of hunting. Across the pond, well, it is different. While there are some international agreements, such as the European Union Birds Directive, there is not the same level of monitoring and coordination of season dates, bag limits, etc. as there is in North America. Part of this discord stems from a different cultural perception of hunting in many European countries. A recent study published in the Wildlife Society Bulletin broke it down, and I found this quote pretty interesting. Despite the very academic jargon, the most profound difference between North America and Europe when it comes to duck research, management, and conservation is philosophical. In North America, waterfowl conservation has been elevated and sustained by the widely shared notion that wildlife are a public trust resource to be managed by the government for the use of people now and in the future. whereas bird conservation in Europe has largely been nature-centric and deontological, which often places human harvest in opposition to waterfowl conservation. Deontological, by the way, is a word for when something’s considered wrong because of the rules, duties, or obligations, but not the actual consequences. Anyway, many Europeans’ alternate views of conservation not only doesn’t foster the kind of healthy wildlife populations we have here in North America, but it also apparently paves the way for international conflict of the avian variety like what’s going on near the border of France and Belgium right now. Jumping over to the Wolverine state, Michigan, where listener Charlie McDonald wrote in with some more great background on HB 4351, the Michigan law that legalized feeding of deer near people’s homes for wildlife viewing. Turns out the law was sponsored by a state rep, Ken Borton, who was motivated to run for office specifically because he was cited by a conservation officer 15 years ago when seed from bird feeder was spilling and being eaten by deer. Borton has said the science on CWD is up in the air, which it’s not as far as like how wildlife diseases are transmitted. and commented on the passage of the bill to Spectrum Local News. Quote, I think it’s going to clear things up and make it easier for conservation officers not to go into Grandma’s backyard and see a deer and ticket her, which, to be clear, is not happening. Although I have to commend Borton’s determination, I wish he had instead focused on some more worthwhile issue. But I’ll turn it over to Charlie McDonald for the conclusion of this email, which I agree with wholeheartedly. He writes, The most important part of this story hitting the media is is the discourse it has ignited among hunters. Please, please, please let us not use this as a justification to challenge the DNR’s credibility and attack the ban on baiting in the Lower Peninsula. One side of the aisle has had the DNR and its budget in the hot seat in recent years, and although this bill passed with some bipartisan support, I think it is a Trojan horse aimed at eroding the public’s trust in the DNR. The ban on baiting is rooted in science and aimed at protecting our opportunity to hunt deer in Michigan. Thank you, Charlie. That’s well said. Just because some dumb bill got passed by politicians over the objections of the DNR, the ban on baiting still makes sense. I love getting educated by all you out there, so keep those messages coming to AskCal at TheMeteor.com and, of course, call me, 406-220-6441. Okay, back to an explosive python story. We have even more concerning constrictor content from Virginia, where authorities are pointing fingers over a fire that broke out this month at the Forest Middle School in Bedford County. Here are the facts. At 1230 a.m. on August 13th, a fire alarm and sprinkler system were triggered on the second floor of the Forest School building. When firefighters arrived, they found not only an active blaze, but also an eight-foot-long yellow python named Nanner roaming loose in the hallway. The firefighters used their hoses to push the python into a corner where they battled the fire, which took the life of another reptile in the classroom, a large tortoise named Bowser. Sources have not confirmed whether the tortoise had been keeping Princess Peach imprisoned in his cage at the time of the incident. Oh, no! The fire damaged several classrooms before it was extinguished, and the Bedford County Chief Fire Marshal, Stephen Whipple, told a local news outlet, quote, the snake contributed to starting the fire by knocking over a heater near the cage. Looked like a real open and shut case, or I guess that would be an open and roaming around the hallway case. But anyway, the snake was the culprit, right? Well, not so fast responded Brittany Jacobs, the teacher whose classroom was home to Nanner. In a 2,300 word Facebook post, Jacobs asserted that the python was innocent. According to her, all the animal cages had been locked at the end of the school day, all the heaters were up to code, and all the heating units were still in place the morning following the fire. She argued that it had been, in fact, a malfunctioning light that set off the blaze, and that the resulting heat had stretched the metal locks and allowed Nanner to escape only after the fire had been started. Who’s right? I know Jordan Sillars has a pretty full plate right now, but maybe the Blood Trails podcast can get to the bottom of this one. In the meantime, I have to ask, could this be Nanner’s revenge for the bumper crop of pythons taken? over the Everglades we heard about at the top of the show? Is Nanner a python pyromaniac, or was she framed by students who wanted to get out of a pop quiz? No matter what the true story is, Bowser the tortoise is dead, and I imagine a bunch of little kids got to share some classrooms. Okay, now we’re going to circle back because I didn’t want to beat you over the head and just dig into a couple of points on travel management rule. Adoption of a quote unquote open unless closed baseline versus a closed unless open baseline. This one sounds straightforward, but because again, we’re talking about many hundreds of thousands of miles of road and trail. This is a budgetary measure, right? where instead of going out and signing every single thing, we went to this system of if you are a motorized user, you get a motor vehicle use map, an MVUM, and that is the thing that says what is open, right? Because we’re all responsible adults and we can do that. And it’s less signage on the ground that we pay for that unfortunately gets destroyed all the time too. Another point would be the national minimization criteria. which guide land managers in reducing impacts on soil, vegetation, and wildlife. The proposition is to just get rid of that completely, which in theory would allow for unrestricted motorized use on any sort of trail. Or to flip that sentence a bit, it would not allow for the enforcement of vehicle restrictions on trails. There’s also a provision that would restrict the public participation on rulemaking. a provision that would exclude Class 1 e-bikes from being called motor vehicles and restricted as motor vehicles. More details will be in the show notes on the website. Class 1 e-bikes is an interesting one. They are a motorized vehicle. I think they should have a little sticker on there, a little tax sticker that all the other motorized users have to get. And I think they should be restricted to motorized trails. That’s just my opinion. However… These Class 1 e-bikes, at this point in the game, can be very hard to differentiate between regular old human-powered mountain bikes. And some people are saying that just calling this motorized vehicle a non-motorized vehicle would make it more simple on law enforcement. There’s an old congressman named Sam Rayburn who once said, Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one. Let’s protect the carpentry that the hunters and anglers before us carried out so carefully and participate in this public comment period. All right, we’re going to end with a fun one. It’s called F-Round Find Out. Up in New Hampshire, four teenage hikers from New Jersey are in hot water after forgetting to bring water. More generally, they set out on a seven-hour hike only a couple hours before sunset, had inadequate clothing, no lights, and not enough food and water. One of the four boys also hadn’t adequately trained for the physical challenge. Unsurprisingly, when it got very cold at around 9 p.m., they called 911 for help. Rescue workers had to hike in 4.2 miles to reach them. After delivering food, water, shelter, and warm clothes, they walked the boys back out, reaching the trailhead at 9 a.m. the following morning. After reviewing the case, the New Hampshire Department of Fish and Game has announced that a big thank you is not all the boys are going to give their rescuers. The department will be billing them for the cost of the operation, which could total over $ 1, 000. Interestingly, New Hampshire leads the nation in charging people for rescues in the backcountry. According to the Appalachian Mountain Club, an average of 189 people get rescued in the Granite State per year, and 17 of them will get a bill. In 2015, the New Hampshire State Supreme Court upheld a $ 9, 100 bill that Fish and Game issued to a man with an artificial hip who had to be rescued. Although California, Idaho, Maine, Oregon, and Utah also have rules that allow them to bill people who get in a pickle in the woods, they do so much more rarely. The fear of getting billed keeps a lot of people from calling for help when they probably should, which can make problems much worse, and much worse for the people doing the rescuing. The National Association for Search and Rescue says this on their website, to eliminate the fear of being unable to pay for having one’s life saved, search and rescue services should be rendered disincentive persons in danger or distress without subsequent cost recovery. I’m glad those New Jersey kids are safe and sound. I’m sure they got a lot to think about through this whole experience. But just so you know where I sit on this one, I think search and rescue should be limited by federal land designation. Meaning that if you want to go have yourself a good old-fashioned wilderness adventure, no satellite transponders, no sat phones, Good luck. Godspeed. You got your butt in there. You better get your butt out. That’s all I got for you this week. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to write in A-S-K-C-A-L. That’s AskHowAtTheMeatEater.com or hit that fancy phone number 406-220-6441. Tell me what’s going on in your neck of the woods. Thanks again. We’ll talk to you next week. Thank you.