Ep. 493: A Yosemite Land Swap, Feral Cats Trash Houses, and the Sage Grouse Decline

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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. On August 28, a jury convicted a Louisiana duck hunter for some atrocious behavior. According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Louisiana, 23-year-old Carson McCoyne was found guilty in federal court for assaulting federal fish and wildlife agents. Here’s what happened. On the morning of January 19, 2024, McCoyne was hunting with some buddies when they heard the motor of an approaching boat, which McCoyne thought was likely a group of hunters infringing on their duck hole. Now, keep in mind they’re hunting public land, so, um, you know, the implication of ownership isn’t quite right, but you get the gist here. Anyway, Instead of trying to defuse a potential situation, McCoy actually fired off a shot in their direction, which, you know, is reckless and illegal. And also a testament to territorial duck hunting culture, which does exist someplace. McCoy didn’t realize that the folks in the incoming boat were actually federal wardens performing their official duties, and now he is facing the consequences. McCoy was found guilty of assaulting, resisting, or impeding federal wildlife agents and could serve up to 20 years in federal prison, a $ 250, 000 fine, and three years of supervised release. He’ll be sentenced in December. Louisiana, long known as the sportsman’s paradise, is blessed with one of the richest outdoor traditions in the country, said U.S. Attorney Zach A. Keller, but that tradition only succeeds when hunters exercise due care and responsibility with firearms. Reckless actions put lives at risk and are taken seriously. Very seriously. This week, we’ve got land swaps, the Arctic, cats, and so much more. But first, I’m going to tell you about my week. With the exception of a surprise drop-in by my friend Kimmy Werner, who just released a really gorgeous new cookbook you should check out. And Kimmy’s awesome little fam, Justin and Buddy, swung in. We got to hang out with them for a beat, do some long overdue catching up, and share our equal FOMO. Mine of the ocean, theirs of hunting on land. Grass is always greener, I guess. But outside of that, and taking care of the boy and the puppy, and managing to throw some food together every night, we, as in myself and the larger conservation community, are working hard on making sure people know what the heck is going on with our public lands right now. So I’ll take a moment to hit on a couple of categories. immediate impact and actions that can open the gate for near-term impact. As I’ve said previously, and I’ll stand by this, if you were to take the roadless rule rescission to the extreme, which would be it’s rescinded and there’s immediate building of new roads into currently unroaded areas, and the extreme implications of not even extreme implications, just the immediate implications of what is outlined in the changes for the travel management rule, in conjunction with the OHV executive order that came out earlier this year, public land hunting will change forever. It will be altered from this point forward forever. We will be able to look back on this moment, almost as we do with the atomic era, how nuclear testing and nuclear fallout reset radiocarbon dating to, you know, basically like, well, before this date and then after this nuclear anomaly, you know, reset how radiocarbon dating works. Just like that, we folks who like to hunt and fish and pay attention to the biology, we’re going to be able to look back on this moment and be like, oh, that’s when it changed. This is that time. Lucky us. There’s opportunity here, gang. Don’t be down in the dumps. You just got to get your public comments in, all right? Folks don’t have time, by and large, to read a 300-page DEIS, Draft Environmental Impact Statement, which is something that we do for you at Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, and we cite our sources, just like people used to do in the olden days, so you know where it’s coming from, so you don’t have to result to, quote, research that you found on Facebook from your uncle. This comes directly from the USDA, the Forest Service. Their draft environmental impact statement, they released it with the public comment period, which is ongoing. This is the analysis of the historical data and projections of the implications of rescinding. Now, Brooke Rollins, Secretary Rollins at the USDA is like, we’re going to do this, right? which everybody should be pissed about because really she should be asking a question. Should we do this? We are all public landowners. This is our public lands. We do have a say in how they’re managed. And the rollout of this implies that we do not. And that’s wrong. Doesn’t matter what side of the political spectrum you are on, or even if you’re dead in the middle, you should be pissed about that. So I’m going to read through a few of these. We have them printed over at BHA as well. And like I said, you get the source of where these things came from in case you don’t trust us. And you shouldn’t. Don’t trust us. Which is why we provide the source material so you can go look at it for yourself. Roadless areas. Now I’ll start by reading the misconception. Roadless areas are largely inaccessible or otherwise unused lands. According to the USDA, the national forests that include current inventoried roadless areas receive about 125 million visits annually, or 76% of the 164 million visits each year to all National Forest Service lands. That’s on page 163 of the DEIS. Additionally, There are 7,201 miles of full-sized motorized trails and primitive roads in designated roadless areas right now. There are 2,494 miles of ATV and side-by-side trails in designated roadless right now. There are 2,167 miles of motorized single-track trails and 1,295 miles of snowmobile trails. Another misconception. Repealing the roadless rule will increase public access. A lot of people think this is the case. It’s interesting to note here that the U.S. Forest Service does not. Under the proposed rule, there could be temporary impacts to recreation and related industry opportunities, including noise, visible infrastructure, and temporary closures. In the long term, Losses in trail and dispersed recreation visits because of changes in the recreation opportunities or desirability of landscape conditions could yield lower aggregate expenditures from trail and dispersed area visitors in the communities around roadless areas. Meaning that they’re projecting habitat loss to a degree in which people don’t want to go there anymore. That’s on page 233. And when they say disruptive to industry, they’re referring to like public land grazing, outfitting, stuff like that. And logging, too, because it’s about development in the mineral resource scale, as we’ve said many, many times. Misconception. Rescinding the roadless rule is critical for fire management. Again, from page 24 of the DEIS. Currently. the number, frequency, and density of wildfire ignitions are lower in designated wilderness and potentially affected inventory roadless areas compared to other National Forest System lands. If there is an increase in public road access, there could be increase in the number and frequency of wildfires as human ignitions are more likely near roads. However, public access could be limited to minimize fire hazard in high-risk areas. Again, Access limited because their option would be to close the roads down during periods of high fire danger. Misconception. Repeal of the roadless rule is fiscally responsible. Page 11. Losses in economic benefit to recreationists could be an estimated $ 6. 1 million annually that’s non-commercial and are most likely to be associated with the operable areas of current inventory roadless areas. If annual timber harvest in all those inventory roadless areas occurred, which is unlikely due to budgets’ unforeseen limits on operability and market conditions, it could result in an estimated 5-10% increase in total annual National Forest System saw timber harvest and $ 5. 2- 11. 4 million per year in revenue to the Treasury and Forest Service, and $ 4. 6 to $ 10. 6 million per year in revenue to the timber industry. That’s on page 10. Any efficiency gains are expected to be incremental and limited by road costs, maintenance funding gaps, and the six-point billion deferred maintenance backlog for roads and bridges. I’m not sure if any of you are familiar with debt, but if you got about $ 7 billion in debt sitting on the books, how far does $ 4. 6 to $ 10. 6 million per year get you? Doesn’t even cover the juice. Another misconception. The roadless rule restricts economic gain from our national forests. Deferred maintenance and management cost increases are likely under Alternative 2, which is the full repeal alternative. Alternative 3, which they call a partial repeal, but it’s really way closer to full repeal. There could be a need to shift resources or funding to account for additional permanent mileage added to the national forest system. Misconception. Repealing the roadless rule will make these public lands more useful to the public. This is regarding Alternative 2, full rescission. Full rescission would have the greatest negative effects to the quality of life for people that hold intrinsic value for the existence of roadless areas, the ecosystem services, and recreation benefit they provide. Page 26. Misconception. Rescinding the roadless rule would positively impact wildlife through enabling habitat restoration projects. The most recent U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service data indicate that the potentially affected environment of inventory roadless areas provides habitat for more than 300 threatened, endangered, and proposed species. Additionally, the potentially affected environment provides habitat for thousands of regional forester-sensitive species and species of conservation concern. Within the potentially affected environment, there are 79 final or proposed critical habitats designated under the Endangered Species Act for species managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and 19 critical habitats designated for species evolutionarily significant units or distinct population segments. Misconception. Roadless areas in their current state pose no economic benefit. Page 212. In 2024, visitors to the national forests and grasslands potentially affected by the roadless rule rescission spent $ 8. 5 billion in local communities during their recreation visits. $ 8. 5 billion. And the timber industry itself, right, not we the taxpayer, might get an additional $ 11. 5 million if they could log across all freshly rescinded inventory roadless areas. Okay. Oddly enough, this one is like a near-term threat. It’s not like immediate. And the reason for that is even if this Fix Our Forest Act passes, nobody’s come up with a pay for. Nobody’s got the backbone right now to stand up and be like, hey, we need $ 100 billion to go out and do what we say we’re going to do, which would be the fuels reduction, mechanical thinning and fuels reduction. And the reason for that is that that is not stuff that we get paid for. That is stuff we pay for. Right. It’s not marketable timber. It’s interesting that two years ago, this was announced in Viva, which is or was our largest wood pellet manufacturer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Wood pellets, you know, are like, you know, burning your Traeger, Camp Chef, pellet smoker, or some folks use it to actually heat their homes. There’s power plants that use wood pellets in addition to coal and things like that. About 75% of total U.S. wood pellet production is located in the southern United States. Idaho has like the largest concentration of wood pellet manufacturers in the West. Oddly enough, Idaho is kind of exempt because they have their own roadless rule. Idaho has five wood pellet manufacturers. Oregon, which is a real timber state, has five wood pellet manufacturers or wood pellet manufacturing locations, I should say. Washington has two. New Mexico has three. Colorado has two. Arizona has one. Montana has one. Wyoming, oddly enough, has zero. Nevada has zero. And I bring this up because the free market economy is supposed to like kick in and pay for folks going out and cutting non-marketable timber out there, which is what everybody says we’re going to do, and I just do not believe it. Again, somebody’s going to have to have the backbone to be like, yep, we need $ 100 billion to fund both the Forest Service and initiate a buttload of contracts out there across our public lands to do this stuff. Now, immediate threat would be your travel management rule revision. Quite literally, some of the suggested revisions in the travel management rule are immediate because it’s literally taking your steering wheel and yanking it to the left or right on a forest service road and creating your own new road going cross country. We’re going to see erosion, noxious weeds, habitat loss. And as we are in elk season, one of the most magical times of the year, we’re going to see public wildlife pushed onto private land. increasing private land conflict with our agricultural community. And those folks are going to want more depredation tags. And it’s going to be the quote unquote war on elk. And this is where she starts, boys and girls. So get your public comments in. Get read up. Go to backcountryhunters.org. You can see this whole fact sheet. You can jump over and read the entire draft environmental impact statement. And again, you don’t have to listen to me. You know my position. Public land, public water, public wildlife, baby. Some of the greatest gifts we will ever get. And now’s our time to make hard decisions. What are we going to do? And on top of those hunting opportunities, just one last thing. I love grizzly bears. I think they’re just one of the coolest critters on the whole darn planet. I would love, I think it would be a conservation success story. Similar to bringing waterfowl back in the U.S. to be able to have a hunt for grizzly bears in the lower 48. Wyoming, Idaho, Montana. I’m a fan of returning to state management and eventually having a well-regulated, scientifically informed hunting opportunity for the great bear. Not going to freaking happen. It is not going to happen if we get rid of roadless areas and we get rid of of the basic guardrails of travel management. So federalregister.gov. Use those action alerts from backcountryhuntersandanglers.org. I think TU’s doing a phenomenal job on this as well. Lots of good data out there. Moving on to the land swap desk. This one’s a fun one because it’s only getting attention because it’s in Yosemite National Park. You know, Yosemite, home of Yosemite Sam, El Capitan, Half Dome, Yosemite Falls, many more natural wonders. The news was first broken by a digital publication called Notice, which reported that the National Park Service has been working to execute a directive from Trump officials to parcel off a quarter mile strip of the National Park and give it to a private real estate developer known as Kings Barn Realty Capital. Give it, as in, authorize the land swap. The proposed transfer would be executed so that Kings Barn Realty Capital could build a road connecting one of their properties on the western edge of Yosemite to existing road inside the park. This would create a new private entrance, an exclusive experience for folks staying at Kings Barn Realty. And if you’ve ever been to Yosemite, people love that place. It would be an economic boon to this development company. This is not new to this administration. This has been going on through the Bush and Obama and Biden administrations each time it’s been shot down. And it was trending that same way earlier in this year, where an interior secretary, Doug Burgum, pledged to support and protect every single inch of national parkland. Now, land swaps and exchanges can be very beneficial. They’re not all by default bad. And part of the reason why is that they’re set up to where we the people are supposed to derive the greater benefit. Right? So the negotiating party with the true power is going to be we the American people. In this case, the Park Service. So you can’t do an equal value swap. The private entity has to give up more than the public entity. So they’re proposing a chunk of ground not near Yosemite Park. And when you look at what exclusive access to our big national parks would mean for a hotel or a dude ranch or whatever it is, there’s major, major dollar signs involved. So if this is gonna happen, what type of benefit should we the people get out of it? The Park Service has said that there’s no final decision has been made. This is getting a ton of headlines and it should, but it’s also distracting from the fact that these swaps and negotiations are are going on across every single forest that we have and across all of Bureau of Land Management land. Like right now is the time to negotiate and folks know that. So I’ve gotten lots of examples of little tiny land swaps, authorizing roads into mining claims on forest service ground and just things that typically wouldn’t be allowed or wouldn’t be allowed to happen this fast. are getting pushed through. We’re going to try to do like a full analysis of this. So I’m glad you’re paying attention to Yosemite, but don’t be believing it’s limited to just that national park. It’s also happening on places where you can shoot guns and bring your dogs. High Country News and Public Domain are reporting that the Trump administration is fast-tracking drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the National Petroleum Reserve by allowing new winter exploratory drilling to move forward without any kind of environmental review indefinitely. The Department of the Interior is expected to issue a categorical exclusion to the National Environmental Policy Act The agency is pointing toward past environmental reviews, which they say show that winter exploration in the region poses no significant impact to the environment. On the other hand, many conservation groups say that seismic surveys, which involve massive 15-ton trucks, can scar the tundra and disturb wildlife, not to mention the implications of massively expanding drilling operations in the area. They also say that the categorical exclusion is part of a broader sacrifice of the health of our public lands to benefit oil company profits. And on that, that’s how these things are done, for sure. Two things. So the big 15-ton trucks, the things doing the seismic exploration up there, part of the coastal plain, right, is where all of American polar bears den. This is something that can harm polar bears when they’re essentially defenseless. and then that landscape’s always changing, and you can get scars on the tundra, which, you know, for our purposes would be permanent. I’ve flown over it. You can see them. It’s a real thing. You could argue that, boy, there’s a lot of tundra. Who cares? But let’s just leave it at the fact that it does scar the landscape on occasion, and it is a bummer to see it. The other thing, all of this stuff would have been developed already if it weren’t so darn hard to get to, or if it were somehow closer to existing infrastructure. For many of us in the lower 48, the Arctic Plain would be the equivalent of working on another planet for large periods of the calendar year. When it’s covered in snow and ice, that’s the most drivable time to get equipment from point A to B, and people. When it’s not frozen, the ground isn’t stable enough, with the exception of handfuls of relatively small areas Like islands in a sea of tundra and muskeg where you can land a plane. Long way of saying, it’s the government subsidies that make it all possible, right? That subsidies on the front end that actually pay for exploration or road infrastructure or ports or whatever it is, or it’s tax breaks on the back end. But somehow, someway, we the people are helping pay for it. And it’s interesting chatting with Alaska residents on this one. Everyone in Alaska is tied in some way, somehow or another, to cash generated by or in part from oil and gas. There are a lot of mixed feelings. Big operators bring big paychecks for the transport services, and that money can stay local. But so much of the cash generated from these outfits goes out of state or overseas. So much so that it leaves a lot of Alaskans asking, why would we swap the pre-existing jobs in the region, which are based on various forms of tourism and providing services to native villages, where almost all of that cash stays in the local economy? Why would we swap that for these new ones that also have the downside of permanent landscape destruction? The U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife Service has announced the death of a federal wildlife officer game warden, 38-year-old David Taylor of CO, Oregon SCIO. Write in to askcal at themeteor.com and line me out on that one. Officer Taylor died in the line of duty while helping evacuate residents threatened by the Railroad South Fire in Comanche County, Oklahoma. Before Taylor’s tragic death, it has already been a deadly summer due to fire, with 13 wildland firefighters having perished so far this season. Taylor’s passing is a mortal reminder of the risks that public servants face on the job. Everything we know about Taylor’s actions demonstrate extraordinary courage and selflessness, said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Brian Nesvik. When people were in danger, Taylor was there helping them get to safety. He remained committed to protecting others under the most dangerous circumstances. We mourn alongside his family, friends, colleagues, and we will never forget his service. Keep the Taylor family safe. and the families of all those firefighters in your thoughts as we head into the long weekend, team. There’s a lot of public servants who do a lot of good for us. Jumping over to the iconic Western Species desk, the charismatic Greater Sagegrouse, Wyoming Fish and Game, conducts an annual survey of the average number of males strutting at mating display areas called LEKS, L-E-K-S, great scrabble word next time you’re playing grandma, Sage grouse populations rise and fall on a roughly nine-year cycle, and wildlife biologists compare populations at different points in that cycle to get a picture of long-term trends. 2025 was a peak year for the average number of male grouse at each lek, but that number was 15% lower than the peak in 2016 and 26% below the peak in 2006. You don’t have to have a PhD in math to tell that those numbers are headed in the wrong direction. Still, knowing a thing or two about statistics does help fill out the picture. Although looking at peak numbers gives you one snapshot of population health, looking at the troughs gives a different perspective. During a low point in 1996, there were only 12.5 males per lek, but that number increased in 2013 and went up further to 16.8 males in 2021. Scientists from outside Wyoming Game and Fish criticized this method of tracking of average number of males at each lek, Former director of the Colorado Division of Wildlife, Tom Remington, told the news outlet Wildfile, as populations increase, new leks form, and by definition, they are small. So it tends to bring the average down of males per lek, right? Bigger leks, more birds can fit on it. And as populations bottom out, you’re only left with the biggest leks. But if you look at total population numbers during trough years, you see a less disastrous picture. Scientists counted 15,499 male grouse during the 2002 trough, which went up to 18,274 in 2013, then back down to 16,316 in 2021. That’s a small gain in the last 20 years, but everyone agrees that the trend line is now pointing down and we have to do something about it. The culprits are the familiar combination of habitat loss and habitat fragmentation. Drought and hotter fire scorching sagebrush and allowing for noxious grasses to spread. Holding on to as much intact habitat as we can is key for keeping these amazing birds, and I will say tasty birds, on the landscape. Jumping over to the cat desk, a contractor over in Wyoming is giving a master class on how municipalities should not deal with feral cats. Dustin Crapo of Casper, Wyoming makes his living rehabbing abandoned properties, and he’s been documenting the challenges of one particular vacant house formerly occupied by a cat fancier. Crapo told Cowboy State Daily, quote, There were seven litter boxes in the living room. Moldy cat food was stuffed all the way down the drains and almost made me puke both times I had to pull that out. Things were so bad that the rugs were stuck to the floor with cat pee. Still, Crapo got to work, pulling out damaged drywall, replacing flooring, and scrubbing everything to within an inch of its life. Unfortunately, the problem with this abandoned property was that it wasn’t abandoned enough. The feral cats that had colonized the house kept coming back. As soon as he finished cleaning, cats were back undoing his hard work. The company that owns the house had trapped six cats and brought them to a county shelter, but now Casper County follows a trap-neuter-release program, so those six cats returned to the house… Crapo himself trapped another cat, but when he brought it in to get neutered, he was told that the shelter was full. And nobody was looking for free cats in the newspaper. Crapo has also rehabbed former drug dens containing thousands of used syringes, but he said that at least in those cases, he could just carefully pick up the syringes and get rid of them. According to a new study published in the journal Applied Animal Behavior Science, even something that seems nice about cats might actually be mean. Researchers at Ghent University in Belgium studied video footage of cats from 53 homes across Europe and focused on grooming behaviors, licking, stroking, cuddling, and other forms of body contact. that strengthened social cohesion in many animals. Although some of the cats’ grooming behavior was benevolent, a significant fraction of it was unwelcome, with the recipients yowling, swiping at the other cat, and in general acting stressed and hostile. In these cases, the grooming behavior was actually a form of bullying. The study’s authors write that if a cat wants to intimidate another cat without getting into a full-on fight, it can use grooming as a quote-unquote subtle antagonistic threat. So maybe the cats who keep breaking into that house in Wyoming are actually just trying to groom old Dustin the contractor. And of course, the relevance to this here podcast is feral cat colonies are no bueno and relate to the death of billions, billions of birds a year and small mammals. Jumping over to the nature versus nature desk. Although it may come as a surprise to our listeners down in the Chesapeake Bay, not everyone is thrilled when they discover blue crabs in the water. Over in Italy, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, blue crabs are an invasive species that were introduced from the U.S. through the ballast water of commercial ships. Over the past 10 years, the crabs have made a feast of local shellfish, throwing the local ecosystem, cuisine, and economy into chaos. Blue crab infestation has been so severe that hundreds of fishing operations have had to shut down. In response, the regional government of Emilia-Romagna in Italy at the University of Bologna are trying out a remedy that many, many others have tried before, introducing a predator species to control another predator species. In this case, the introduced predator is the common octopus, which certainly loves to feed on crustaceans. The Crab Control Project, known as OctoBlue, recently released 130,000 octopi in the pre-larval stage, where each individual is only a few millimeters long. In total, they plan to release 400,000 of the little guys. The project has also installed artificial structures that they hope the octopi will colonize. I know what you’re thinking. Is this going to be like mongooses introduced into Hawaii to control rats and then eating ground nesting birds? Well, the researchers have thought of that. Antonio Casalini of the University of Bologna told Scientific American, quote, we are not introducing a new species, but working on strengthening the population of a native species already naturally present in the Adriatic. Now, lots of people don’t think the octopus are going to make much of a dent. Octopus vulgaris does better than most other octopus species. Its survivorship from the paralarval stage is about one-tenth of one percent. That means that of the 400,000 total individuals that the project aims to introduce, only 400 are expected to reach maturity. Still, if they’re successful at preying on the crabs and continue to reproduce, further introductions could be planned. However, several local fishing operations and restaurants have started to implement another solution to the blue crab problem, a pair of pliers and a slice of lemon. Here’s hoping that all these strategies bring things a little closer to balance. Alright, last but not least on the ticker. The New York Times reported last week that the Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA, is planning to end a federal requirement for states to publish the air pollution permit applications that power plants and data centers submit for approval. Right now, these industrial projects estimate that pollution they will create They apply for a permit to do so, and the public gets to see that information and weigh in on the pros and cons of the project. But by allowing projects to essentially hide the ball, the change would mean that local communities would only learn about the facilities when the bulldozers started moving earth. This is coming during a tidal wave of opposition to data centers and the energy projects needed to power them, including the recent announcement of a power plant exclusively for an open AI data center that would be the largest gas-fired electricity facility in the country. State officials from both parties are rebelling against this trend. Republican Governors Spencer Cox of Utah and Greg Abbott of Texas have both pumped the brakes on new data centers in their states, and Democrat Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania announced requirements for developers to work with communities before moving ahead. On the other end of the spectrum is a quieter law passed recently in Colorado that will make it easier to site solar projects on unused brownfield sites, decommissioned landfills, and former mining locations. House Bill 26-1268 allows municipalities to designate these places as renewable energy investment areas, which then lets them get converted to energy projects more easily. Packing renewable energy projects into places that have no current productive use is a good idea. Producing the electrons we need without affecting wildlife and habitat. More states have started to follow Colorado’s lead. We’ll keep track of this change that we could use more of. That’s all I got for you this week. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to write in to askcal at themeateater.com. Let me know what’s going on in your neck of the woods. You know we appreciate you. Thanks again. Get those public comments in. Only a couple days left by the time you’re listening to this for both the roadless rule rescission and the travel management rule revision. Thanks again. We’ll talk to you next week.