Ep. 462: Neanderthal Doctoring, Idaho Crime, and Legislation

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Speaker 1: From Meat Eaters World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This is Col’s Week in Review with Ryan cow Calai. Here’s cal. I’ve got some good news and some bad news. Good news, it’s spring again. Time to go after turkeys, find some morells, and just soak in the sun after a long dark winter. Bad news. The ticks are out in full forest, and more of them than ever are carrying the alpha gal carbohydrate, which causes a severe allergic reaction to red meat. Last year, we brought you news that an airline pilot in New Jersey had died of alpha gal syndrome or AGS, after eating hamburger, and according to reporting by The New York Times, cases of AGS have absolutely exploded recently. According to one study analyzing three thousand blood samples from Arkansas, Kentucky, and Missouri, almost thirty percent of the samples tested positive for AGS. In hotspots like Virginia, Long Island, and North Carolina, those numbers might be even higher, and the hazards for people with AGS aren’t just limited to tasty carnitas tacos. Lots of medical interventions depend on products derived from mammal tissue, and those can cause adverse reactions as well. Stitches made of beef or sheep and testine, animal derive, blood thinners, and even transplants using human tissue can cause dangerous or even fatal reactions. So if you’re getting an upset stomach after eating mammal meat or having skin reactions or feeling flushed, go to your doctor and get tested for AGS. If you do test positive, don’t despair. It seems that people overcome the issue over time. And hey, maybe you change up your outdoor routine and pick up more time casting a fishing lure, and you may want to stick with those whitefish. In the meantime, keep spraying your outdoor clothing with permethron. I’m also tempted to get a tick eating guinea hen as a pet snort. Would have some fun with that. This week we’ve got Neanderthal doctoring, Idaho news, legislation, and so much more. But first I’m going to tell you about my week in My week has been spent in and near a convention center in Columbus, Ohio for a meeting of state and federal agencies and wildlife conservation groups. My first year at the North American as it’s referred to, it’s been a great place to connect with professionals managing our public resources like fish, wildlife, land, and water. Good ideas are happening now, we just got to implement those good ideas. Now, let’s jump back to the tick front. We found our first one in Montana, crawling on the Old Border Collie during an active spring snowstorm. It’s gross because it’s a tick, but the creepy little parasite is also a harbinger of spring and Turkey season, which we are really looking forward to. It’s been a long, lame winter in the West and unless things change moisture wise, that is our fire tot in humans and lightning. Unless they decide to skip the state this summer, we’re gonna have some air quality issues, water quantity issues, and fire that may just not be manageable because of managerial changes to fire suppression starting last season, and according to individual forest districts whom I spoke to directly across the Rockies, we put out a lot of what we would call good fire last year, fire that started in remote areas that would have aided forest health, but we put them out instead of letting them run. Now onto this year, with our lack of snowpack, a lack of moisture in the ground, and an earlier than ever fire season which has already started. We’ll just obviously have to see how it shakes out. Everybody keeps talking about healthy forest management. Healthy forest management includes prescribed fire, putting fire on the landscape and letting it do its work, as well as timber management mechanical. But let’s pay attention this year because it’s going to be a reap what you sow season. I’m just hoping that after this one, the old management pendulum doesn’t swing in a crazy fashion and we just implement the good ideas that we already have. In other news, I met up with Backcountry Horsemen in Montana over the weekend. This is a national public land and trail organization. Great community. If you’re interested in learning more about stock and packing, look them up. Very inclusive group. That group does a lot of education and as part of their volunteer commitments, they pack in gear for trail projects. We at backcountry Hunters and Anglers are hoping to identify some crossover opportunities this summer. They’ll bring the ponies and pack in the gear. We’ll do the work. Also for all of you residing in the Greater bos Angeles metropolitan area. We’ll be doing a BHA pint night at the Meat Eater store or on Main Street in Bozeman this Thursday, April ninth, five to nine pm. Come on down. I’ll probably bring a little snort. We’ll get caught up on all things BHA and have plenty of time for questions. Plus we are giving away a bunch of stuff, so bring cash for raffle tickets. A new study from a team of German and British scientists has turned up more evidence that Neanderthals were smarter than we thought, and they may have used birch tar to prevent wounds from becoming infected. The scientists started from two premises. First, we know that Neanderthals had mastered the complex process of heating birch bark under controlled conditions to create tar, which they used as an adhesive, particularly for attaching stone points to spear handles. That process is known as hafting. Second, we know that the indigenous mick Mack people of Canada and Sammy of Scandinavia used birch tar as a wound dressing and skin ointment. So to test us, the antibiotic properties of birch tar. The authors made some byhand from the bark of several tree species that would have been present in the Pleistocene, using methods that would have been available to Neanderthals. Then they tested the anti microbial properties of the tar, and sure enough, it produced a statistically significant effect against the staff bacterium. Although the study doesn’t say that the early humans definitely use the tar this way, they make a very plausible case that ancient humans could have built their weapons and treated their cuts with the same stuff, and that would have been really useful given the style of hunting that we suspect Neanderthals used. Nineteen ninety five, the anthropologist Thomas Berger and Eric Trinkus compared the patterns of head and neck trauma found in Neanderthal remains to the injuries of modern rodeo writers and found significant overlap. They saw this similarity as evidence that Neanderthals had quote frequent close encounters with large ungulates unkindly disposed to the humans involved. I mentioned earlier that birch pitch was used by Neanderthals to half their weapons. So there you are an oroc hunter standing over a dead animal forty thousand years ago, and you have a bunch of busted knuckles and a gash across your shoulder from the oroc’s horns. Well, all you have to do is smear some of the pitch from your weapons on the cuts, and voila. Maybe you’re a little more likely to be around long enough to enjoy all that roc meat. And although scientists didn’t draw this conclusion, I have to wonder if the pitch might have also acted like a surgical glue, closing wounds in the age before stitches. Before we move on, one more note about the comparison between Neanderthal hunters and rodeo writers. In twenty seventeen, anthropologists from the University of Missouri revisited that nineteen ninety five Burger and Trica’s study, comparing the existing Neanderthal trauma patterns with improved data sets for injuries related to different activities. They found that, in fact, Neanderthal remains don’t overlap most closely with rodeo writing, but rather with water tubing, throwing boomerangs, and writing in golf carts. Stay tuned next week as we break the news of the archaeological evidence for a forty thousand year old trampoline that’s been found in Germany’s Rear Valley. Moving on to the crime desk, one of Idaho’s seven fishing Game commissioners has pled not guilty to multiple hunting violations after an investigation prompted by a call to the Citizens Against Poaching hotline. Commissioner Brody harsh Burger is facing a rash of misdemeanor charges, including taking game unlawfully, hunting without a valid tag, shooting from a roadway, shooting with the aid of a motor vehicle, not making a reasonable effort to retrieve an animal, and trespassing to hunt or retrieve game. It’s such a long list that it almost seems as though harsh Burger was involved in some kind of role play exercise where an established hunter demonstrates to new hunters all the things you’re absolutely not supposed to do when you’re out in the field or in order to call yourself a hunter. According to court documents, on December twenty of last year, Harshbarger and a hunting partner, Eric Murphy, were out hunting elk near the Spring Hollow Boat Ramp on the Teton River in Fremont County. Idaho. They allegedly shot a six point bowl and an antlerless elk, but Harshbarger had already filled his elk tag for the season. The activity raised the suspicion of a nearby property owner, who called the IDFG hotline. The pair allegedly shot the animals across Spring Hollow Road while harsh Burger sat in his track and Murphy stood beside it. The bull expired over on private property, and the antlerless elk ran onto nearby Bureau of Reclamation land before dying. The charges allege that harsh Burger trespassed to retrieve the bowl and did not make a reasonable effort to recover the other animal. A couple very important points here. Harshbarger is not an employee of Idaho Fishing Game. He is a member of the Fish and Game Commission, the body that oversees the agency, and he was appointed by the governor in twenty twenty three, so his four year term runs through June twenty twenty seven. Harsh Burger represents the Upper Snake region of the state and is a farmer and rancher who has often weighed in on grizzly depredation issues during his tenure as commissioner. According to Governor Brad Little’s office, harsh Burger will suspend his activities as a commissioner until the case is resolved, but there’s no word on whether an interim commissioner might be appointed or how a possible impasse between the remaining six members would be resolved. Harshbarger’s case is a reminder of how important distribution of power is in the state’s government. A few weeks ago, we covered Senate Bill thirteen hundred, which would allow the governor to directly appoint the director of Idaho Fishing Game. Under the current system, the seven Fish and Game commissioners together make that appointment. SB thirteen hundred has now passed both houses of the legislature and is now on Governor Little’s desk, so it will almost definitely become the law. Under the existing system, the Fishing Game director would be confident about aggressively investigating a politically connected person like Harshburger, even if the director were going to take political heat for it. He would know we had other commissioners who could support him. But if a future director knows that the same governor who can hire and fire him also appointed all the commissioners who oversee his agency, he would be exposed to a lot more risk. We’re heading into murky waters, said Nick Faciano, executive director of the Idaho Wildlife Federation. Although I don’t see a direct conflict in this criminal case, SB thirteen hundred adds a political aspect to all kinds of decisions, from enforcement to science based policy. Vesting so much power in one person raises significant concerns. And although the current governor is a strong advocate for hunting and fishing rights, the demographics of Idaho are changing. By giving the office of the governor so much power to shape conservation in Idaho, we expose ourselves to a lot of risk if our state moves in the direction of Colorado or Washington. If Harshburger is convicted of all the charges against him, he could spend a three years in jail, oh over seven thousand dollars in fines, and loses hunting license. His first pre trial hearing is scheduled for April twenty nine. Additionally, for folks who didn’t think this was going to affect them, the recision of the open Fields doctrine passed in Idaho, and I think it’s already been signed by Governor Little. This is a classic case of taking an imperfect tool in the tool belt of our law enforcement officers who are charged with taking care of a public resource that jumps the fence frequently between private and public. It does not matter what side of that fence that animal is on, it remains public. Now, due to fears of interpretation of the open fields doctrine, conservation officers in the state of Idaho have lost the ability to enforce game laws on private property. Now, for most folks out there, not a big deal. They adhere to the rules and regulations of their state. There are, however, bad apples, many of which we’ve covered here on Cal’s we can review, who see this as a new open season to privately do whatever the hell they want with a public resource. The legislature of Idaho has only thrown out a rule that came with its own problems, but could have been fixed, and opened the door to just another big problem. As we said here before, if you don’t like that rule, come up with another one that fixes the problem. They opted not to do that, and we the people will pay some consequences for it. Yesh, what a bummer. I feel guilty. I love the state Idaho, spend a lot of time there recreating. It’s just not a good move if you like public wildlife. Ah, sorry for the opinion piece. Their gang moving on over to the ice fishing desk, and this one’s taking place north of the border. The angler, who had been in first place for the eighteenth annual Montreal Lake Walleye Derby one hundred thousand dollars bag, was suspected of using underhanded tactics. The Montreal Cree Nation organized the tournament and hasn’t released the identity of the individual, only that they violated Derby rules. The first nation’s response was ice cold, promptly disqualifying the so called angler and referring the matter to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Saskatchewan’s Public Safety Agency. Those agencies have promised to investigate the alleged fraud. If it sounds familiar, you probably remember the high profile walleye fishing cheating scandal that took place in twenty twenty two, when Jacob Runyan and Chase Kaminski were accused of stuffing twelve ounce led weights into the stomachs of walleye during a competitive fishing tournament. Details are scant about how the recent alleged fishing cheater attempted to deceive the tournament judges, but it probably was not nearly as smart or smart enough or anyway as a cheater. We’ll keep you posted on what’s happening north of the border as more information is released. Moving on to the legislative desk oll, Senator Lee, along with Utah’s entiring congressional delegation, introduced a joint resolution to overturn the management plan for Grand Staircase Escalane National Monument Southern Utah. If you’re unfamiliar with the national monument, and encompasses one point nine million acres of stunning red rock country and is a popular spot for all kinds of folks to recreate, from hikers and backpackers to hunters and anglers. It’s even a sneaky good spot for spring turkeys, which I know are on many of our minds. Jay Banta, former refuge manager for the Fishing Wildlife Service and a BHA life member, gives us the scoop on what it’s like to hunt thunder chickens in Grand Staircase Escalane.

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Speaker 2: I’ve hundred turkeys in a seven or eight states and it’s it’s really unique there because of a couple of things. One there’s no place else I go, or i’m hunting an I see petrick lifts, or I see arches, or I see natural bridges, you know where you’re in the middle of a red rock canyon. Oftentimes it’s simply just absolutely spectacular country. But it’s truly fun and challenging from a hunting point of view.

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Speaker 1: Hunting aside. Grand Staircase was designated by former President Clinton in nineteen ninety six in part to block a coal mining project. Since then, it has often been at the center of a back and forth over how best to manage our public lands. The Trump administration slashed its size in twenty seventeen, before the Biden administration restored it to its previous size in twenty twenty one. The BLM implemented a new management plan in twenty twenty five and incorporated feedback from community members, tribes, businesses, and other stakeholders. By most accounts, it’s a good plan with liberal access for hunters and anglers, recreational shooters, and other recreational users, not to mention that it keeps grazing levels stable for ranchers. Now in terms. Monuments have a real strong federal overreach argument around them for people who just don’t like them. Part of the reason for this monument is there’s a lot of tribal interests in this area, special sites and history out there that they don’t want to lose to the idea of development. This is another use of the Congressional Review Act. Historically, the tool has been used only sparingly to address narrow rules issued by federal agencies. In recent months, legislators have used it to go after management plans they don’t like. This is the first time they’re using it to try to strike a management plan for a national monument. This opens a serious can of worms when it comes to politicians interfering with the important work being done by public servants at federal agencies, and we don’t really know what it’s going to look like in practice, if a joint resolution passed under the CRA, the BLM would be barred from issuing a new rule that is substantially the same as the old one. That would mean that they’re going to be on the hook to create a new management plan. So even the good parts of the old one probably couldn’t be used because they’re substantially the same, and this definitely opens the door to a lot of litigation. The joint resolution requires a simple majority vote in the Senate and the House. It is likely to be voted on in the near future. One thing to consider here is there’s this access component. Historically, like monuments are tough to talk about from hunter standpoints because they just don’t understand hunting or how hunting works on monuments. Most monuments are open to hunting. That’s why it’s good to have the words in perspective of Jay Banta in this segment. Now, if a monument, in this case Grand Staircase is rescinded to a smaller size than it reverts back to Bureau of Land Management land and it’s previous management plan. Right, So you’re looking at oh BLM’s a great place for hunters to recreate, but is that previous management plan still relevant. Additionally, there is a large road network there which I know, you know plenty of locals would like to regain access to that road network, which comes with advantages and disadvantages, right, both for the hunting community and non hunting community. My question is we have a fifteen billion dollar deferred maintenance backlog currently, there’s no conversation here about if we open up this big road system, there’s no funding to maintain that road system or maintain the expectations of the road users. As discussed previously, this is a grazing area. Those road systems bring with them noxious weeds and human caused fire. Are we providing the funding to mitigate those weeds and midi gate that fire along with providing the road based access. There’s good ways and bad ways to do all of this, and you’re not going to be aware of any of it unless you listen to this here podcast and dig into sources like www dot Energy, dot Senate dot gov learn more. A new amendment to the Farm Bill could hinder hunting dog training. HR five zero one seven, aka the Greyhound Protection Act, was drafted to end commercial greyhound racing and associated activities nationwide. Greyhound racing is controversial and is already banned in forty four states. What does it have to do with hunting? Not a darn thing, But some folks in the hunting community are rightly worried about some vague language in the bill about the use of live lure training, which is when live animals are used to get greyhounds to chase them. Unfortunately, as written, a ban on live lure training could also prohibit the use of live, farm raised birds and other game to train gun dogs. For instance, pointing dog trainers often placed live pigeons and game birds in the field while working with young bird dogs. The amendment could prevent them from doing that and make it nearly impossible to train gun dogs properly. Some folks in the hunting community have called the vague language intentional given the history of some of the animal rights activists pushing it, even going so far as to say that it is the first shot fired in a long term fight to ban hunting dogs. For what it’s worth, Carrie Teal, the executive director of Gray two K, one of the groups behind the amendment, has come out and said that the amendment was always intended to impact greyhound racing and only greyhound racing. She pledged to clarify the language as necessary to make sure that’s all it will do. Until then, it’s definitely worth keeping your eye on. Check out our friends over at Outdoor Life for a balanced and nuanced look at the issue by Dak Collins. This amendment, aside the farm Bill isn’t just for farmers. It’s one of the most important pieces of legislation for hunters and anglers. In fact, the bill provides the single biggest annual investment in conservation in the United States. It authorizes the Conservation Reserve Program, supports voluntary conservation programs, encourages habitat connectivity, and a whole lot more of good thanks for our fish and wildlife populations. This bill has to be reauthorized every five years, and twenty twenty six is one of those key years. We just need to make sure our elected representatives do so in a way that respects the long held practices of sportsmen and women. That is all I’ve got for you this week. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to write in to askcl that’s Ascal at themeaeater dot com. Write your representatives and senators and just make a habit out of doing it. If you are not representing, we at BHA will be representing for you. And outside of that, you may not like who shows up in your place, but rest assured somebody will give us a call right an let us know what’s going on in your neck for the woods. You know we appreciate you. Thanks Scan i’ll talk to you next week.