Ep. 444: Shipwrecked Cats, Wolves, and the Crime Desk

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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 Calahan. Here’s cal We may be getting closer to finding patient zero of one of the most consequential outbreaks in human history. In this case, I’m not talking about the bubonic plague. I’m talking, of course, about cats. A recent study in the journal American Antiquity has identified the remains of what might be the earliest domestic cats in the Americas. They were discovered in the wreck of the Immanuel point two, a Spanish ship that was run aground by a storm in fifteen fifty nine near what’s now Pensacola Bay. This proves that cats were aboard the earliest ships to reach our shores, and now we know a lot about how they lived and what brought them here. Isotopic analysis of the cats bones tell us that their diet was mostly fish, either fed to them or scavenged from the sailors on board, and not the rats and mice that were also found in the shipwreck. This confirms something we know about contemporary cats that they typically don’t hunt out of desire for food, but rather for the thrill of the hunt. The authors of the study also suggest that the cats were maybe so good at killing rats that there weren’t enough of them left on the ship to subsist on. Of course, the cats weren’t so good at killing rats that they prevented rats from leaving European ships and spreading throughout the Americas. One other interesting tidbit from this study, the authors conclude that these cats were not brought along as a food source, despite the existence of a Spanish cookbook from the year fifteen sixty that includes a recipe for roast cat. Now, listen, I know the idea of establishing a regulated cat hunt in the US is a real uphill battle, but all the pieces are there. All of our songbirds and lizards would get a break, and we could all have some delicious cat paiea. You don’t have to say yes right now, just think about it. Okay, that’s a joke. We don’t want regulated cat hunting in America because they are, although you know, entertaining, devastating to native wildlife wherever they roam. This week, we’ve got wolves, bears, wildlife crime, and so much more. But first I’m going to tell you about my week. In my week, man lots catch up on. So I am five days in to my official gig as CEO and President of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. Oh so much to learn and tell you about. Fantastic people. The crew at BHA, at the staff across all levels is just fantastic. And I gotta say, it’s just like lots going on, but so pleasant and dare I say easier than I expected because everybody’s such an ass kicker, which is such a fun and environment to be around. Heading to d C next week, unexpected trip, but I’ll be testifying in the House Natural Resources Subcommittee and Fish and Wildlife. I believe that we’re going to be talking about refuges, but I’m geared up to let folks on Capitol. He’ll know how important public lands, public wildlife, and public waters are to the American people. And it’s it’s just important that all of you understand that it’s still waterfoul season and I would rather not be there. So once everybody listening tells everybody they know to stick up for this stuff all the time, I won’t have to go to DC. And that’s my goal. Let’s see what else snort and I had a phenomenal, phenomenal couple of duck hunts, one of which was just very fun. We didn’t quite shoot great and we didn’t bring home you know, the limits of birds, but it was a great day with doctor Randall Williams. He got to have some furs, which you know, his history of duck hunting has been past shooting or jump shooting, so decoying in some ducks was a first for him and super super fun. Snort had a couple of great retrieves. And then I noticed on that outing that a bunch of ducks were dumping into this private ground spot and got a hold of the landowner, made it out there again, got out super early. It was real quiet, but in the moonlight I saw some ducks kind of pick up and then shuffle around and reset back in, and I knew where to set up, so we slogged on over there, almost went over the top of my waiters twice and kicked probably fifty green heads off of this beaver pond. Then pitched some decoys out, found that where the ducks wanted to be there was absolutely no cover, so we ended up laying on the downs stream side of the beaver dam. So the duck decoys were at a little above head level if you sat straight up, like if you sat up in a shooting position from laying down, and just had my you know, my first light waiters and jacket on in that Taypha pattern, the grassy pattern, and laid down in the little bit of grass that was there but underneath, you know, the level of the beaver pond, and oh my gosh, that was a fun experience because the ducks were like literally landing at face level, and I just don’t recall having that experience before. It was great. I didn’t shoot super awesome, but I was still limited. Out By five o’clock, Snort was just running her own program, Bad Dog Ownership. But man, so fun to watch that girl work. She just rips around, marks those birds perfectly and is real efficient. She’s way more interested in getting set up again and watching for the next bird to drop than any sort of messing around out there. So that was a wonderful experience. Then I was out there on this fella’s private ground, all wrapped up with my duck hunt at nine am, so I gave him a shout, and I had noticed all this woven wire, old cheap fence intermingled in the meandering stream there in the series of beaver dams, and you know, said, hey, thank you very much for saying yes to a stranger getting on your property. Is it okay if I roll up this fence? It definitely seems like a hazard. And there’s a little bit of back and forth, which I totally get, and eventually he’s like, I guess if you want. So. I spent about the next five hours three times as long as the duck hunt took to pull and roll up a bunch of old barb wire and woven wire, and everything was super cool in the gang. And then I got home and my neck was like so sprained, and I’ve had three and a half days of almost near immobility. And that’s why I get an old stinks manual good deed, which I would do again, but kind of reinforces those folks who do the New Year’s knew me going to get in the weight room and work on that core type of mentality. But moral of the story is nothing’s free. I could have picked up and went home and everything would have been just fine. But I like to believe that this particular fella will be more inclined to say yes to the next person who’s got the cohones to call a random stranger and say, hey, what about those ducks? So you’re welcome anyway, You know how I’ve been harping on you about the nomination of Steve Pierce for the Director of the Bureau of Land Management. The fella who and it doesn’t have to be a fella. There’s lots and lots and lots of options out there, but we the American people, have not been given anything but a singular option, this guy, Steve Pierce, out of New Mechs. And Steve has this track record that is a real black guy, in my opinion, for this position of being a proponent as opposed to an opponent of selling off our public lands. So this guy has a record of promoting the selloff of public lands all across the federal portfolio as it were. And now he’s in line and likely will be the new director of the Bureau of Land Management. He has what is essentially like a public job interview in a confirmation hearing that will be coming up shortly. And like I’ve been telling you to think, like what would you ask a potential employee, which is what he will be to all of us for that job. If you go outside and you love public lands and clean air and water and wildlife, you’re qualified to ask. So don’t think that you are right in to ask c Al. That’s Askcal at the meteater dot com and let me know what you would want to ask Steve Pierce to gain the confidence to say, Okay, we’re going to give you a shot at this incredibly important job. Over at Backcountry Hunters dot org you will find a form where you can sign up and fill out a survey, and we will make sure that your senator gets the top questions to be asked that they can then ask, oh, Steve Pierce during the confirmation hearing. So get on it. Be engaged. Let’s start right now. We’re only by the time you hear this, we’re twelve days into the new year. This is just a good, good process to be involved in. You can skip what I just said and call your senator’s office directly, particularly the those senators that are on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Make her happen. It’s up to all of us. Let’s hold them accountable. Let’s move on over to the wolf desk. Things keep going from bad to worse with Colorado’s wolf reintroduction effort, and the Feds have opened another front in their war on the program. Back in October, US Fish and Wildlife block Colorado from taking any wolves from Canada. Then all of the so called Northern Rocky Mountain states refused to provide wolves. Washington State also said no, and the Confederated Tribes of the Calville Reservation dropped out as well. Now, as reported in the Fort Collins, Colorado and US Fish and Wildlife Director Brian Neswick has sent a letter to Colorado Parks and Wildlife threatening to quote terminate the memorandum of agreement and take over management of the program, including relocation and lethal removal. The letters ordered CPW to submit a report of all of their wolf conservation and management activities since December twenty twenty three. If that isn’t submitted within sixty days, or if Nesvik doesn’t like the results of the report, then presumably the federal takeover would go through. The letter points to two apparent violations. First, Colorado’s release of fifteen Canadian wolves in January twenty twenty five with quote no notice or warning to its own citizens. This objection seems a bit suspect to me, Colorado’s ballot initiative Prop one fourteen requires the state to release ten to fifteen wolves a year, and the fact that the wolves happen to be from Canada doesn’t seem like a terrible shock to Coloradams. The letter’s second point asserts that in December twenty twenty five, CPW introduced a wolf pack with a confirmed history of livestock depredation. This objection does genuinely seem like a violation of the state’s recovery plan in the yearling wolf in question, Wolf two four zero three also killed the cow that’s a beef cow in November of twenty twenty five, just before it was re released. It’s unclear what it would look like for US Fish and Wildlife under the Trump administration to take over Colorado’s wolf program, but with quote unquote lethal removal on the table, we know we’ll see more, if not many, more headlines on this issue from the Centennial State. The date of the US Fish and Wildlife letter, December eighteen, is also notable because on that same day, US Congress passed a bill to delist the gray wolf from the Federal and Dangered Species Act and shift management of wolf populations over to states. That bill is co sponsored by Colorado Rep. Lauren Bobert. Because the last effort to delist wolves in twenty twenty one was stymied by a federal judge, this new bill exempts the delisting from judicial review. But if the Senate passes the bill and Trump signs it, then a responsibility for managing Colorado’s wolves would pass to Colorado, which of course has its own state in Endangered species protections as well as the Prop one fourteen reintroduction ongoing. Would a federal ESA dlisting ironically exempt Colorado from federal oversight of their wolf program? Is that the reason why the federal government is threatening to take over Colorado’s wolf program now? Or are the two efforts unconnected. Let’s hear your point of view on this one. Dial in four oh six two two zero six four four one or ask cal tomeeteater dot com. Things are moving fast at the federal level. My two cents is there’s probably no real conspiracy here. I think Colorado’s laying in a very messy bed that they made by bringing out this Prop one fourteen nonsense in the first place, which of course only exists because Mother Nature didn’t move at the pace that the pro wolf movement desired. They love nature, just not when it moves slow. As a reminder, wolves were walking in from Wyoming and California through Oregon or Oregon, California there and entering the state of Colorado naturally. But that was not good enough. So here we are patients, tisk task kids. But uh, you can call me a jackass if you want, just do it four oh six two two zero six four four one or ask cal at the meeater dot com. Moving over to one of the crown jewels of wildlife conservation in North America, the Wildlife Refuge Desk, and again involving Brian Nesvik, director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, posted in December sixteen an order for a quote unquote comprehensive review of all national wildlife refuges and fish hatcheries to identify quote refuges or hatcheres established for a purpose that no longer aligns with the mission. The review also requests quote opportunities to achieve efficiencies in the areas of governance, oversight, and span of control. The initial results of the review were due last Monday, January five. The timing and rollout of this directive speaksvolumes about its intentions, issued the week before employees Christmas vacation, and giving a deadline of the Monday after that vacation. The order gives essentially no time to do the review that suggests that the administration already has refuges picked out for closure or overhaul. There was also no public announcement of the move. The directive was simply posted to an internal message board that seems calculated to push this through without anyone noticing. So what is the administration’s agenda here? Well? According to reporting by The New York Times, officials that Fish and Wildlife might be planning to transfer seven hundred and seventy five acres of the Rio Grand Valley National Wildlife Refuge to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which has a rocket launch pad close by, in exchange for six hundred and ninety two acres somewhere else. You know what, I don’t want six hundred and ninety two random akers, who knows where I want that land to stay where it is in the Rio Grand Valley Refuge. Some other ideas that may resurface are a row through Isembek National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Other new potential selloffs of refuge lands might still be to come. We’ll keep your eyes glued to this one. Let’s make sure they understand that they can’t get away with this stuff in secret again. Time to plug in. This is likely the topic that we’re going to be covering in DC next week on Tuesday two o’clock Eastern time, So one day after this podcast drops should be live on c SPAN. You’ll see me wearing a terrible suit and a tie I learned to retie that morning on YouTube. Florida’s first black bear hunt since twenty fifteen wrapped up on January fourth, with a grand total of fifty two bears killed. First off, congrats to all the Sunshine Staters who got your bear. Enjoy the meat and do yourself a favor and render that fat. You’ll never think about a pie crest again after making one with bear fat. Of course, fifty two bears is about thirty of the quota of one seventy two that the state set for managing the population, so at least in the short term, the anti hunting groups who bought up hunt lottery entries achieved their aims of reducing harvest numbers, but as we’ve mentioned before, the state can now simply adjust the number of tags upward to arrive at the intended quota. Doing a bit of back of the envelope math. Next year, Florida Fish and Wildlife could issue around five hundred and seventy tags to arrive at the harvest objective of one hundred and seventy two bears. Digging deeper, that quota is extremely conservative for the bear population in Florida, which numbers around four thousand animals. Bears typically reproduce at around ten percent a year, and so if we think that four thousand is the sustainable carrying capacity of the habitat, the bear hunt quota would be four hundred bears. There’s also good data to suggest that one hundred populations of bears actually reproduce at a higher rate, so pushing that harvest number to around twelve percent can often maintain a healthy population, and that reproductive research suggests another reason why hunting individual bears is good for the wider population of bears. When bear numbers climb above about one bear per square mile, all the bears in that habitat get stressed. They’re competing for food for mating territory. They’re likely getting into trouble with people while eating garbage for the calories they need. This stress reduces their fecundity. Keeping bear numbers well managed through hunting improves the quality of life for bears. It makes them healthier and happier. Obviously not for the ones in the crosshairs, but it’s good data when you’re thinking about wildlife populations. If you live in Florida, New Jersey, Connecticut and all the other places where black bears are kicking butt, but the hunt is contentious with your neighbors, that’s something to bring up. Moving on to the attack desk, a Colorado woman was attacked and killed by at least one mountain lion last month, and officials are still trying to determine exactly what happened. The woman’s age and name have not been released as of this recording, but testimony from local residents suggests that multiple aggressive cougars might be living in this area. The woman was attacked and killed while hiking on a trail on Krozier Mountain, which is about five miles northeast of Estes Park, Colorado. Her body was discovered on New Year’s Day by two other hikers. They noticed a mountain lion near a prone body, and they threw rocks at it to scare it away. When they reached the woman, they found she no longer had a pulse. Officials have already killed two mountain lions in the area with the help of houndsmen, and are working to determine whether those two cats were responsible for the attack. They say they are also tracking a third cat, which might also be euthanized, depending on the results of the tests on the first two. In the meantime, Colorado’s have come forward to tell the media their own stories about being accosted by mountain lions on that same trail. One couple told CBS Colorado that they believe they were hunted by the same cougars that killed the woman. Andrew Diffenbach said he was hiking with his girlfriend in November when they noticed a cat behind them. It was crouching under an aspen tree, but when they tried to scare it away by yelling at it and throwing rocks, it started coming closer. They tried retreating down the mountain, which is when they saw a second lion. This one was also acting aggressively, showing its teeth and slashing towards them. Then yet another lion, this one a juvenile, came up behind them. They managed to make it down the mountain and back to their vehicle while holding the cats at bay. But not everyone was so lucky. Another hiker, Gary Messina, told local media that he was charged by one of the big cats while running on the same trail. It got so close to him that he had to hit it on the head with a bat sized stick before it finally left him alone. Another woman said her dog was attacked and killed by a lion in the same area. The cat came within two feet of her ankle before snatching her pet, and it wouldn’t let it go even though she yelled and hit it with rocks and sticks. Each of these incidents was reported to Colorado Parks and Wildlife. The agency put up signs saying that mountain lions were active in the area and that pets maybe at risk, but they never indicated that humans should be fearful. From one perspective, this makes sense. The New Year’s Day attack was the first fatal mountain lion encounter. We should say first recorded fatal mountain lion encounter in Colorado since nineteen ninety nine, and such incidents are extremely rare nationwide, but there was ample evidence that this area was home to at least one, possibly multiple big cats that had lost their fear of humans. Not only that, but they were acting aggressively towards people who were walking by themselves without a dog. The Associated Press also reported that those signs warning about mountain lions were later taken down, so the woman who died may not have known to be cautious at all, staying at the attack desk, but moving all the way up to Canada. A woman is recovering in the hospital after being kicked in the head by a moose. Courtney de Vaux was in her boyfriend’s cars. The couple were driving along a highway one night in Nova Scotia in early December. A moose appeared on the road in front of them, and Devo’s boyfriend was un aa able to swerve out of the way. The collision peeled back the roof of the Volkswagen Golf as the giant animal tried desperately to extricate itself from the vehicle, but as it did so it struck de Vaux at least twice in the head with the hopes of its front legs. Devau was knocked unconscious, and doctors later determined she suffered a traumatic brain injury. Her jaw and several ribs were broken, and she was placed under a medically induced coma. When she finally made it to the ICU, her family told the CBC that she’s been making a slow recovery. She’s spoken, her eyes appeared to be functioning, and she’s even managed to walk a bit with assistance, but she doesn’t always recognize her mother, and her recovery will likely take several more months, if not years. Moving on to the crime desk, listener Jim Lane sent me the story from Mississippi, where a group of waterfowl hunters dumped over two hundred snow geese in the trash. An off duty deputy with the Yazoo County Sheriff’s office noticed the birds being wasted, and he recorded the incident while noifying his fellow law enforcement officers. Yazoo County Sheriff Jeremy McCoy arrived about twenty minutes later, and sure enough, he pulled two hundred and seven snow geese from the dumpster. All of them had been shot, and some of them were still warm. The hunters have not been identified, but local media reports that they were from Madison County and at least two of them were juveniles. You might think this is an open and shut case of wanton waste, but that’s actually not true. Mississippi law does not require hunters to harvest the meat from game birds. The only wanton waste requirement is that hunters have to make reasonable effort to retrieve down birds and then keep those birds in their possession. But once the hunt is over, they can dispose of those animals however they want. This incident was still submitted to the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, but a spokesperson for the agency told ABC sixteen that the hunters didn’t do anything wrong. At the state level, they said the incident has been quote exaggerated, and that the hunters took the birds on private property with permission. The county sheriff may still pursue an illegal dumping charge, and there’s a slim chance the hunters may have run a foul of federal regulations. If you’re a a US Fish and Wildlife Federal Warden. I’d love it if you’d call her right in and give us two year two cents on this. Even if you’re state rigs so you don’t need to take the meat. Remember this, just because it’s legal doesn’t make it right. Let’s just say there’s two pounds of meat. That’s four hundred pounds of great protein that you could take to a local food bank or barbecue. Some goose legs make apricot, goose sausage, gooseburger. The list goes on and on. Buddy Mine, there’s a guide over there in the Pacific Flyway. He swears up and down that the number one breakfast meat in their house is bacon cured snow goose. His daughter demands it for breakfast every day. Idaho Fishing Same is asking the public for help identifying the person responsible for shooting and killing a big horn cheap in November near the town of Riggins. There is no season for big horn cheap in the area of Unit fourteen where the animal was shot. Whoever did it shot the ram in the head and left it to waste. As of this recording, the Idaho Wild Chief Foundation has put up a forty thousand dollars reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible. That’s a lot of cake. So if you were in the area above Big Salmon Road near Partridge Creek from November twentieth to twenty two, think about whether you saw anything suspicious. You never know what little bit of info might be at the last little bit of the puzzle. So if you can’t remember anything, called the Citizens Against Poaching Hotline eight hundred sixty three two five nine nine nine. That’s eight hundred sixty three two five nine nine nine. A Chinese citizen living in the United States has been sentenced to two years in the Federal Slammer for falsely lifeabling live turtles, snakes, and lizards as toys prior to exporting them in delivery boxes destined for Hong Kong y Shang. Linn lives in Brooklyn, and from twenty twenty three to twenty twenty four he tried to send two hundred and twenty two boxes to China containing about eight hundred and fifty turtles. It’s very illegal to ship turtles internationally without the proper permits, so Linn had a brilliant idea he bound and taped the turtles inside knotted socks and placed them inside shipping boxes labeled plastic animal toys. That way, when postal inspectors and wildlife officials X rayed the boxes, they would just see the outline of an immobile turtle and send it on through. Anyway, it didn’t work. The packages were intercepted, and officials estimate that all those turtles were worth about one point four million dollars on the open market. If my math is right, that’s almost seventeen hundred dollars per turtle. Fortunately, many of those reptiles were still alive and sent to the Buffalo Zoo. Their zookeepers set up the first ever assurance colony for the Cora mud turtle. These turtles are from western Mexico and the individual seized from Lyn’s boxes will be used to repopulate the species if the wild populations ever become too small. That’s all I got for you this week. Thank you so much for listening, and remember to write in that’s as K C. A. L At the meat eater dot com, ask how at the meeteater dot com, or for you truly vocal citizens, please call four oh six two two zero six four four one. That’s four oh six two two zero six four four one. I hope everyone’s have an amazing new year. Let’s plug in and make sure that calling and writing your elected officials is just part of something that you do. It’s not a big deal. Appreciate and I’ll talk to you next week.