Ep. 882: Cyanide Bombs, New CWD Research, and F%ck Data Centers

Steven Rinella https://www.instagram.com/stevenrinella/?hl=en and the MeatEater crew discuss: New research about CWD that you really need to hear; bear spray vs. pistols; are cyanide bombs really bombs?; wolves in the Greater Yellowstone Area; how the Alaskan Arctic might be getting a data center, plus the rapid spread of data centers across the country; and more. Thanks to our partner: Mountain Dew. Enjoy Mountain Dew, an American Original Connect with Steve https://www.themeateater.com/authors/steven-rinella and The MeatEater Podcast Network https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork Steve on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/stevenrinella and Twitter https://twitter.com/stevenrinella?lang=en MeatEater on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/meateater, Facebook https://www.facebook.com/StevenRinellaMeatEater/, Twitter https://twitter.com/MeatEaterTV?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor, and YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A plus by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 0:32Speaker 02

  Hey, it's Covino and Rich Davis from Covino and Rich. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability, and it starts with a great deal on an off-road ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's most capable and longest-lasting trucks. Combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. Built on reputation for quality and reliability, Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which can mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.

• 1:06Steven Rinella?

  If you've ever wanted to try on First Lite gear before buying it, well, now you've got a whole lot more places to do it. For the first time ever, you can find First Lite at every Shields location and select Academy Sports and Outdoor Stores, plus retailers across the country. Try it on, get your sizing right, and find the gear that works for you before hunting season. Head to firstlite.com/stores to find the First Lite retailer closest to you. First Lite, go farther, stay longer.

• 1:42Steven Rinella?

  Welcome to the news show, mother linkers. This week, we've got some research about CWD that I really need to hear about. The debate about bear spray versus pistols, as bear defense rages on, are the cyanide bombs you've been hearing all about actually bombs? Whoa! In the greater Yellowstone area are getting whittled away in numbers by hunters? No, trappers? No. But don't worry, we'll tell you what it is later on in the show. The Alaskan Arctic might be getting itself a data center, which I generally kind of hate the idea of generally. And Spencer, never one for a controversial subject, has another softball, yet uplifting story about fishing records.

• 2:28Steven Rinella?

  But first.

• 2:34Steven Rinella?

  That's good. I'm not looking around, but I'm saying like, but first.

• 2:37Speaker 04

  You're waiting for someone to jump in. First hour news.

• 2:40Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 2:41Speaker 04

  Steve.

• 2:41Steven Rinella?

  Well, no, I'm up.

• 2:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:42Steven Rinella?

  My daughter got her first black bear. Nice. She's a very competitive hunter. Is not interested in, uh, doesn't like, is not interested in any kind of duck hunting. Nothing. It's gotta be a turkey or bigger. It's gotta be where you set your mind on getting a thing. There's gotta be a question of whether you'll get it. Like going duck hunting, be like, man, it's gonna be a lot of ducks. Could, doesn't care. Doesn't care. She's into the. Like she's into the like, can it be done? Kind of hunting. And you have to be cruising all around. She's not gonna sit somewhere.

• 3:27Steven Rinella?

  Doesn't want to sit nowhere. It lends itself well to. Yeah.

• 3:30Speaker 04

  She doesn't, she won't sit in glass during youth.

• 3:33Steven Rinella?

  Oh, no, like that.

• 3:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:35Steven Rinella?

  But she's, if you said, hey, we're gonna go sit in the tree stand for a long time. That's not what she wants to do.

• 3:38Speaker 04

  Gotcha.

• 3:39Steven Rinella?

  She likes to be mobile. She likes to be looking around on the ground for rocks and whatnot. Um, but got, so we had four, we had kind of like four full days to hunt. Bears. And then we had a day. That we could kind of hunt a little bit if need be. And by the end of the third day. She was getting real antsy.

• 4:03Speaker 04

  Cause you weren't seeing bears or you weren't seeing like nice bears?

• 4:06Steven Rinella?

  Well. I mean, she's not listening. She don't listen to the show. A little slower to the trigger.

• 4:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, that happens.

• 4:12Steven Rinella?

  So it's kind of like.

• 4:13Speaker 04

  That's a hard thing to get over when you're a parent, man.

• 4:16Steven Rinella?

  And yeah, real slow to the, not, not a little slower to the trigger.

• 4:19Speaker 04

  Cause he can't get mad at him.

• 4:20Steven Rinella?

  Bless her heart. He just yells, shoot, shoot. I get mad at my boys, I'll get mad at my daughter. Um, I might get mad at her now and then, but I'm like way nicer to her than anybody else. Yeah. Like I would be, my boys, I'd be smacking them aside of the head, back of my hand. Shoot, shoot. But no, her, I'm like. God, it's okay.

• 4:36Speaker 04

  When you're ready.

• 4:37Steven Rinella?

  When you're ready, sweetie. So.

• 4:41Steven Rinella?

  Like one time we, we went after a bear and, uh. It's just sitting there playing his day, you know, and it's facing toward us. And, you know.

• 4:53Speaker 04

  You had gotten out of, like, you were in the process of trying to kill it. You were out of the boat.

• 4:57Steven Rinella?

  We got out of the boat, way a few hundred yards downwind, worked up. I'm like, once we get to that, there's sort of a tree laying there. Like, once we get to that tree, we get to the tree, we get her set up on the tripod. It's just sitting there. Meanwhile, I would have put a box of shells into it, but it's like, but you know, I mean, it's just different. And then I talked all about, like, she, she likes to run through all weeks leading up to going hunting. She likes to run through all things that would go bad. And then before she shoots, she likes to do a final run through of all the things that could go bad.

• 5:33Speaker 04

  Like, what do I do if?

• 5:35Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, like, what if the, I'm like, just at, at a point where there's a element of this that is a roll of the dice. How, as much as we try to rule all that out, there's an element to it that there's a dice roll. Right? And we try to wait the dice and all that, but like, there's a dice roll. And she doesn't like the dice roll part. She wants to be that when she touches that trigger, she wants it to be that it's like God strikes it with a bolt of lightning.

• 6:06Speaker 04

  That's not up there.

• 6:07Steven Rinella?

  She wants it to go flop.

• 6:09Speaker 04

  Up there, because like, if you wound one, you're done up there, correct?

• 6:13Steven Rinella?

  That's right.

• 6:14Speaker 04

  So.

• 6:14Steven Rinella?

  Yep, in this region, in this reason, I'll ask if you nick one, you scratch your tag.

• 6:23Steven Rinella?

  So that, and if they get, when they go into the rainforest, it's difficult stick. Anyway, she likes to do a quick run through of all possible scenarios that could go wrong. And then we kept talking about like broadside, broadside, broadside, and it's not broadside. And, um, and I'm like, do I really want to like, open up this whole can of worms and introduce the idea that one could feasibly? You know, and it's just not the moment for it.

• 6:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:45Steven Rinella?

  Not the moment to be like, you know, I hadn't mentioned this, but in a scenario like this, I could see a pathway toward. Anyways, it went from facing us to just walking into the woods. She was bummed, bummed. Um, but we persevered.

• 7:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:02Steven Rinella?

  Persevered.

• 7:02Speaker 04

  It's great.

• 7:03Steven Rinella?

  Uh, it was great.

• 7:04Speaker 04

  Competitive. Get that rug put in her room?

• 7:06Steven Rinella?

  She will.

• 7:08Speaker 05

  Competitive bear hunter like competitive with the bears, competitive with her brothers, competitive with you?

• 7:13Steven Rinella?

  No, it competitive, yes, a little bit competitive with her brothers, but mostly it's competitive. Maybe that's not the right word for it, but it's, she has a, um, a, a challenge accepted.

• 7:29Speaker 06

  Yeah, she's got, she's got a tag, she wants to fill that tag.

• 7:32Steven Rinella?

  It's, it's, we're doing this and it's like, okay.

• 7:34Speaker 05

  She's motivated.

• 7:35Steven Rinella?

  Let's go.

• 7:36Speaker 06

  What was her, uh, on the, on the ride home, was she like, I can't wait to do that again? Or was she like?

• 7:44Steven Rinella?

  Didn't come up. Very happy with, very happy with the results, very happy with the results. And it's this bear, um,

• 7:55Steven Rinella?

  had, uh, we saw some ones that were a little rubbed. This bear has almost like an electric blue. It's not, I wouldn't call it a glacier bear. Not that area, but has almost, when it was just laying there, has almost like an electric blue, black color to it. Gorgeous. We're having John Hayes. John Hayes is gonna do it. Bear man.

• 8:21Speaker 06

  Rugging?

• 8:22Steven Rinella?

  He's gonna rug it.

• 8:22Speaker 06

  Nice. Make a bunch of sausage with it?

• 8:26Steven Rinella?

  Hot Italian and sweet Italian.

• 8:27Speaker 06

  There you go.

• 8:29Steven Rinella?

  And I kept the backstraps for regular eating, but mostly sausage.

• 8:33Speaker 06

  Gonna do the Clay Newcomb, uh, heavily salt and throw it in a wood stove for 25 to 30 seconds? Treatment?

• 8:42Steven Rinella?

  No, not his, not Clay's recipe. The funniest thing, we'll move on, but the funniest thing that came out of that meal you're referring to was Clay was telling us how he doesn't like, uh, he doesn't like

• 8:57Steven Rinella?

  fresh ground pepper.

• 8:58Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 9:00Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 9:00Steven Rinella?

  He says, I like pepper.

• 9:01Speaker 04

  Never heard that.

• 9:02Steven Rinella?

  Out of those tins, he says, I like it. So when you, he says, I like it to work like a wind indicator.

• 9:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:10Steven Rinella?

  He does not like a grainy.

• 9:12Speaker 04

  Stale, old.

• 9:13Steven Rinella?

  Yep.

• 9:13Speaker 04

  Powdery pepper.

• 9:14Steven Rinella?

  Stale, old powdered pepper. He does not like any kind of like.

• 9:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:20Steven Rinella?

  Fresh ground crunchy pepper.

• 9:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's stuck between your teeth.

• 9:24Steven Rinella?

  He likes those McCormick tins and when you turn it upside down, it like blows away.

• 9:29Speaker 04

  It's like charcoal dust. It's just the restaurant pepper, like the diner pepper.

• 9:34Steven Rinella?

  It's so funny that he's got like an opinion on that.

• 9:38Speaker 04

  It's just the essence of pepper at that point. You're not actually getting pepper. Yeah, like I would, I wouldn't blink twice if someone handed me his favorite pepper. You know, like it's not like I'm just kind of, it's pepper. But he had this very strong, very strong opinion on it.

• 9:58Steven Rinella?

  Uh, bro, you been walleye fishing walleye dogs?

• 10:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's late start for, normally I'd had boat out by now, but it was the first time this past weekend.

• 10:07Steven Rinella?

  Because of all this running BS on jogging.

• 10:09Speaker 04

  Yep, that takes up a lot of time on the weekends. Um, but yeah, we got out there on Saturday. We went to Canyon Ferry close by here and normally this time of year, the south end of that lake where the river dumps in would just be chocolate milk and mud, but there's no run, no snow runoff this year, so it's clear. Yeah, we tore up the little, little walleye, little walleyes dragging crank baits around like eight or 10 feet of water.

• 10:35Steven Rinella?

  But it's like perch, that, that lake right now, and that's like, that's a dynamic lake. It's always changing, always changing.

• 10:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:42Steven Rinella?

  Right now it's like perch fishing for walleyes.

• 10:45Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 10:45Steven Rinella?

  Cause it's a bunch of walleyes the size of big perch.

• 10:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, the, the, there's not a good like forage base of, of like minnows or whatever for those walleye. So they, they eat a lot of insects and so there's a whole bunch of small ones and a few really big ones that eat other walleyes.

• 11:04Steven Rinella?

  But there's a lot of age classes missing.

• 11:06Speaker 04

  Yep. Yep. But they've, they've changed the management strategy. So people are. Keeping more of those small ones and there's a cutoff. You can only keep one over fifteen inches, I think. Um, to get those, those bigger age classes coming back, but we had, we had a great, you know, we caught enough for a fish fry. It was fun. You know.

• 11:25Steven Rinella?

  It's a weird deal. It's almost like some more else gotta get, I don't know.

• 11:28Speaker 04

  But dude, like, we put the boat in and it's like, where do we go? And then you look to the South Lake and there's like a cluster of thirty boats, like kind of in one corner.

• 11:37Steven Rinella?

  Fishing Wally dogs?

• 11:38Speaker 04

  Yeah. And it's like, oh, we'll go check there. Sure enough.

• 11:40Steven Rinella?

  And they were all catching those twelve inches.

• 11:42Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 11:44Steven Rinella?

  Huh.

• 11:44Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 11:45Steven Rinella?

  Huh.

• 11:48Speaker 04

  So, yeah.

• 11:48Steven Rinella?

  Dynamic lake.

• 11:49Speaker 04

  Mm hmm. Yeah, I like, I, it's not my favorite one. I, we usually hit another lake in the summer, which, and we'll start hitting that one too, but it's close by, so it was fun.

• 12:00Steven Rinella?

  In, in my lifetime, like I started, I started fishing that lake in the mid nineties.

• 12:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:05Steven Rinella?

  And at that time, um, you could get

• 12:12Steven Rinella?

  a mountain.

• 12:13Speaker 04

  Well, I remember you saying you, you and your brothers used to catch a couple hundred in one morning.

• 12:17Steven Rinella?

  Eight, nine, ten inch yellow perch. Now, there's a couple perch in there.

• 12:21Speaker 04

  That are bigger than the walleye.

• 12:23Steven Rinella?

  That are bigger than the walleye.

• 12:24Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 12:25Steven Rinella?

  So it went for being that you went for being swarms of eight, nine, ten inch perch. No walleye to speak of, except for like a normal walleye fishery. To being that the small perch are gone. It's giant perch and perch sized walleyes.

• 12:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:40Steven Rinella?

  But this is the, this is what happens in reservoirs. And this is what happens when you have a fishery dominated by non-natives.

• 12:46Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah. It's just hard to control what happens.

• 12:49Steven Rinella?

  And yeah, there's no equilibrium.

• 12:50Speaker 04

  The walleye blew up, but they ate all the perch. So, you know, that's what it is there. That lake also has like, in my eyes, it's a problem. Like the, the, the, the, the large percentage of the biomass in that lake seems to be carp.

• 13:04Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 13:04Speaker 04

  Right now.

• 13:05Steven Rinella?

  My boy and his buddy put on wet suits and took spear guns.

• 13:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:10Steven Rinella?

  And he said, without going under.

• 13:15Steven Rinella?

  I gave him a couple pins.

• 13:16Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 13:17Steven Rinella?

  And I'm like, you want to dive down to the drop? He said, we never went underwater. And he said, we laid on the surface and shot thirty four.

• 13:24Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy.

• 13:28Speaker 04

  I don't know what you do about it like.

• 13:29Steven Rinella?

  Nothing. Yeah. He thinks he's helping. You ain't helping.

• 13:34Speaker 04

  When you get up to thirty four thousand then.

• 13:36Steven Rinella?

  I'm like, he's like, hey, we're gonna go carp spearfishing. But what do you do with all this carp? I'm gonna flan. Not my freezing out.

• 13:46Speaker 04

  Get him his own freezer.

• 13:47Steven Rinella?

  Helps the lake. I'm like, okay.

• 13:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:49Steven Rinella?

  Oh, I'll tell you, like, let's agree on this. It doesn't hurt the lake.

• 13:52Speaker 04

  Right.

• 13:54Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, it doesn't hurt the lake. Uh, yeah, Spencer, gardening?

• 13:59Speaker 05

  Gardening, but not gardening.

• 14:00Steven Rinella?

  You're an orchardist. Is that a word?

• 14:02Speaker 05

  Um, I, I don't know if I, that's probably a word. I think like the gardening version of an orchard though is orchardy. Orchardy, something like that. It's like orchard R Y. So I've been orcharding.

• 14:14Steven Rinella?

  I can't be right.

• 14:14Speaker 04

  No, I bet you.

• 14:16Speaker 05

  I think that's like the gardening equivalent. It doesn't matter. I've, I've spent my spring digging holes. Um, I'm trying to start an orchard, uh, where I live. I'm now up to sixty fruit bearing trees, dwarf trees and shrubs. On my property from sixteen different types of fruit. Phil has a, a graphic for us there. I got.

• 14:35Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 14:36Steven Rinella?

  Go to a, who made that graphic?

• 14:37Speaker 04

  Cracker barrel.

• 14:40Steven Rinella?

  Oh, it actually is. It's personalized. That's just a generic.

• 14:45Speaker 05

  No, I asked a data center to make it for me.

• 14:47Steven Rinella?

  Right next to you.

• 14:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 14:49Steven Rinella?

  Live, laugh, love pillow.

• 14:50Speaker 04

  My grandma has this wallpaper. Five gallon bucket of water down the drain.

• 14:53Speaker 05

  Apples, blackberries, buffalo berries, choke berries, choke cherries, currants, crab apples, cherries, plums, pears, peaches, raspberries, rhubarb, saskatoons, thimbleberries and honeyberries.

• 15:03Steven Rinella?

  Why are you rolling rhubarb into that?

• 15:06Speaker 05

  Uh, I didn't know where to put that at. It's a, it's a perennial.

• 15:09Steven Rinella?

  No, it's gardening.

• 15:10Speaker 05

  Fruit bearing.

• 15:11Steven Rinella?

  Asparagus and rhubarb, perennials. Yes. Gardening. Yes.

• 15:13Speaker 04

  You make a pie with it.

• 15:16Steven Rinella?

  Listen.

• 15:17Speaker 04

  You make a pie in a crisp.

• 15:18Steven Rinella?

  You might as well put spinach on there.

• 15:20Speaker 05

  Take, take rhubarb off, ignore rhubarb.

• 15:22Steven Rinella?

  Please.

• 15:23Speaker 05

  I have, I have two rhubarb plants going.

• 15:25Steven Rinella?

  You're shooting another gallon of water by removing rhubarb.

• 15:27Speaker 05

  And then I've got a 16 foot asparagus trench that I, that I've got going as well.

• 15:31Steven Rinella?

  But that didn't make the list.

• 15:32Speaker 05

  That, I, you know, that didn't feel like an orchard thing to me.

• 15:35Steven Rinella?

  But why didn't rhubarb make the list?

• 15:36Speaker 05

  That did feel, yeah, that felt like a fruit bearing thing.

• 15:39Speaker 04

  What are you most excited to eat on that list?

• 15:42Speaker 05

  Most exciting?

• 15:42Steven Rinella?

  I like to focus on the negative.

• 15:45Speaker 05

  You? Yeah, okay, what, the most excited?

• 15:48Steven Rinella?

  Good to be self-aware.

• 15:48Speaker 04

  Probably, is anything producing yet? Are you still years away from?

• 15:52Speaker 05

  Well, rhubarb, I made a, I made a cake with my rhubarb this last week, but that doesn't count in this whole thing. No, no. Uh, the thing I'm probably most excited for is peaches because that's the one that they tell you not to grow here. They're like, peaches, they don't grow in region four.

• 16:05Speaker 04

  You're like, I can do it.

• 16:06Speaker 05

  I'm trying it. Well, if we had this winter, we had this last winter, you could grow coconuts in the valley here. Um, so the peaches, I'm very bullish on, and I now have some peaches forming.

• 16:16Steven Rinella?

  Throw them on the grill with oversized pork chops?

• 16:18Speaker 05

  Those, those I'm excited about.

• 16:20Speaker 04

  Bring on that global warming.

• 16:21Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, I like what you got going for the most part.

• 16:25Speaker 05

  Okay, what, what, what don't we like besides rhubarb?

• 16:28Steven Rinella?

  Your cur, I think your currents are gonna tear it a new one.

• 16:31Speaker 05

  They're doing good. I only planted two of those.

• 16:33Speaker 04

  Why crab apples?

• 16:34Steven Rinella?

  Choked cherries will tear it a new one.

• 16:36Speaker 05

  Crab apples, uh, well, one that they're native, which I really like. 12 of my 16 things are native to North America. Uh, the other one is they are a phenomenal pollinator for your other apples. Apples are one of those trees that you need to have multiple varieties and crab apples are one of the strongest for helping pollinate your apples.

• 16:52Steven Rinella?

  Oh, you know what you might enjoy?

• 16:53Speaker 05

  Wanted to have a crab apple.

• 16:54Steven Rinella?

  We have the author of a new book about Johnny Appleseed.

• 16:59Speaker 05

  Oh, I would love that.

• 17:00Steven Rinella?

  He's coming on, not only is it about Johnny Appleseed, but he, he, he goes and does Johnny Appleseed's. Yeah, goes and does his route and talks to people and.

• 17:11Speaker 04

  Johnny Appleseed got any scandal in his life?

• 17:14Steven Rinella?

  I don't know, we'll find out. You should join when we have that later on.

• 17:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, Johnny Appleseed not wouldn't be scandalous to us to maybe his religion. He was like a very conservative like Quaker type.

• 17:27Steven Rinella?

  Can you go back to that because I got some feedback.

• 17:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, anyway, he hid the trees that he was planting were largely called spitters, which you don't eat those fresh, you make them into hard cider. And so he's sort of betraying his religion by planting all these hard cider brewing trees.

• 17:44Steven Rinella?

  It's like if you went around just throwing beers in people's yard.

• 17:47Speaker 05

  Yes, it's exactly like that.

• 17:49Speaker 04

  You're gonna have to get real good at canning, Spencer.

• 17:51Speaker 05

  I plan to, yeah. What else you got, Steve?

• 17:52Steven Rinella?

  Honey berries?

• 17:54Speaker 05

  Honey berries, are you familiar?

• 17:55Steven Rinella?

  Try something new.

• 17:56Speaker 05

  Are you familiar with honey berries?

• 17:57Steven Rinella?

  Listen, I got some honey berry bushes, the likes of which would stagger the mind.

• 18:02Speaker 05

  So why don't you like them?

• 18:03Steven Rinella?

  Because kids don't like them. They don't, they're not even, they eat them. You know, no one likes them. I give them to my kids and they're like, that's not a berry.

• 18:12Speaker 05

  Here I think your problem is with honey berries, you don't eat those until like the day they turn ripe. Anytime up until that moment, you have a very poor experience eating a honey berry. So if you were eating ones that weren't ripe, I understand why someone would spit them out and be like, I'm never having that thing again.

• 18:27Steven Rinella?

  Don't come tell me that I was doing it wrong.

• 18:29Speaker 05

  You're, um.

• 18:29Steven Rinella?

  I'm just saying, I would yank your honey berries out.

• 18:32Speaker 05

  Uh huh, it's too late.

• 18:33Steven Rinella?

  I would yank your blackberries out.

• 18:35Speaker 04

  Saskatoons, man.

• 18:36Speaker 05

  Why would you take away blackberries?

• 18:37Steven Rinella?

  I think I would double down on raspberries, lose the blackberries.

• 18:41Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 18:41Steven Rinella?

  Uh.

• 18:43Speaker 04

  Have you dealt with Saskatoons or service berries before?

• 18:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, I've already got, I've had two of those in my yard.

• 18:47Speaker 04

  They're real seedy and mealy. They're not like a pick off the bush and eat.

• 18:50Steven Rinella?

  Again, what the hell are you gonna do with a crab apple?

• 18:53Speaker 05

  I just explained to Brody, those are a phenomenal pollinator. And I'm even, I'm even gonna double down on that.

• 18:58Steven Rinella?

  Forgot.

• 18:58Speaker 05

  Next year, I've got some aspirational things I want to add. You had an apricot tree. Um, it was too late for me this year to get an apricot tree in the ground, so I'm gonna do that. I want to do an apple crab, which is a crab apple, apple hybrid.

• 19:10Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 19:10Speaker 05

  So that it like makes a cute little, decent.

• 19:13Steven Rinella?

  Pollinator and it tastes okay.

• 19:15Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 19:15Steven Rinella?

  I grow, I grow currants. So last year I took all my currants, spread them out on cookie sheets and set them out in the yard and made my own little currant, dried currants.

• 19:23Speaker 05

  Great.

• 19:25Steven Rinella?

  And then the missus, the missus was promising that she was gonna make me something with all those dried currants and them sons of bitches are still in the pantry.

• 19:33Speaker 05

  Uh oh.

• 19:33Steven Rinella?

  I gotta remind, she's, she's pretty reliable about bacon.

• 19:36Speaker 05

  I, I, I'm gonna be up to at some point here, I'm gonna have a harvest six months out of the year from May to October, I'm gonna constantly have my perennials pushing out fruit, um, and then I'm also gonna grow enough that I don't have to be mad at the bunnies and the birds and the bugs when they take some, I can just let them have it, cause I'm like, look at, look at all this delicious fruit I have, take your, take your share.

• 19:56Steven Rinella?

  Not like Randall.

• 19:58Speaker 05

  No, I'm not gonna compete with the wild.

• 20:00Speaker 04

  Randall's out there.

• 20:01Steven Rinella?

  Wakes up just enraged about chickens.

• 20:04Speaker 05

  The other thing is.

• 20:05Steven Rinella?

  Chicken depredation.

• 20:06Speaker 05

  Brody, Brody was worried about my time management, that I'm just gonna spend my time doing nothing but mowing around trees now. But I planted these in a no mow zone, so I have now converted forty percent of my yard to an area that I don't mow. So, that I'm just saving, saving time there, saving water, uh.

• 20:24Speaker 04

  I just hope you don't run afoul of the, the homeowners association.

• 20:28Steven Rinella?

  You know, Spencer, I was, I was, uh, the other day I was asked to Spencer, like Spencer doesn't come to the office a lot of days, and he says, oh, I do my best work at home. Now I know what he's talking about.

• 20:38Speaker 04

  He's a farmer, he's a farmer now.

• 20:40Steven Rinella?

  His orchard.

• 20:41Speaker 05

  It's in my blood, farming.

• 20:45Steven Rinella?

  Uh, okay. Oh, check this out, Mark Kenyon's got a new podcast called Future Wild, launched yesterday, May twenty seventh, drops every second Wednesday.

• 20:55Speaker 05

  Every second Wednesday?

• 20:57Steven Rinella?

  Like every other Wednesday?

• 20:58Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 20:59Steven Rinella?

  Okay, so we've taken, you, you'll see like Cal's Weekend, uh, Cal's Weekend Review, that's the, we had to do a little more shuffling on our, on our feed, so you'll find a feed called Meat Eater Conservation, Cal's Weekend Review, Lives, Meat Eater Conservation, Mark Kenyon's Future Wild, Lives, Meat Eater Conservation, so if you're, when you're, when you're listening to the shows you want, it was formerly the Cal of the Wild podcast feed, but it's now getting filled out with additional shows, so you'll see a name switch there.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 21:58Speaker 07

  This is Colin Cowherd from the Colin Cowherd Podcast. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota Ford-ability. All starts with a great deal on an off-road ready Tacoma or a half-ton Tundra to a Toyota's most capable and longest-lasting trucks. Built on a reputation for quality and reliability, Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. For a great deal today to a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com. Toyota, let's go places.

• 22:30Steven Rinella?

  The latest volume of Meat Eater's American History is out now. The Alaskans, 1896 to 1941. It begins with the Klondike Gold Rush, which lured thousands of young men north with hopes of striking it rich. Most failed, but a few swapped their dreams of gold for a frontier lifestyle, trapping in the Alaskan bush. As America partied through the roaring twenties and agonized through the Great Depression, these frontiersmen lived more like Jim Bridger and Daniel Boone. Hunting and fishing for caribou and salmon, building their own boats and cabins, running trap lines for wolves and lynx on dog sled, and often dying under strange and lonely

• 23:12Steven Rinella?

  circumstances, their story ended only when Alaska was dragged into the modern age by World War II. This is the story of our nation's final generation of frontiersmen and how they carved out a living in a landscape that continues to inspire the American outdoorsman today. Meat Eater's American History: The Alaskans is available now on Audible, Apple Books, Spotify, or wherever you get your audiobooks. Okay, audience emails. Dirk had wrote in.

• 23:48Steven Rinella?

  We were talking about how Michigan...

• 23:52Steven Rinella?

  Michigan has sort of three main game management areas, the upper peninsula, the northern lower peninsula, the southern lower peninsula. The southern lower peninsula had always been ever since I was a child and probably before that, had always been shotgun only. And there was like what we call the shotgun line, below the shotgun line, you can't hunt with a rifle. Bless their hearts, they just, um, undid that.

• 24:17Steven Rinella?

  It's just rifle through and through, whole state now. I was saying how, I think that's a great idea. Um, and, and really liked all that. And I was sort of, uh, this is not a word I use often, but I was poo pooing the idea that it would lead to an increased number of accidents.

• 24:39Steven Rinella?

  Pat Durkin, America's last outdoor columnist,

• 24:45Steven Rinella?

  wrote in to say that he disagrees and he thinks that he's got data showing that he disagrees. Okay. So, Wisconsin, right? Wisconsin, he says, they went through the same debate 15 years ago. Okay. So in 2013, Wisconsin got rid of their shotgun zone. The county, they had counties that were shotgun only. And the thinking is primarily that, you know, shotgun slug doesn't go as far. So it's safer, less likely to hit a home, less likely to hit a person.

• 25:19Speaker 04

  Yeah. Like areas of higher population density, higher home density or whatever.

• 25:25Steven Rinella?

  Cause when you touch off, you know, grandpa's old 30 out six, right? It just can wind up somewhere you don't anticipate. And when you touch off your shotgun, it's going to burrow into the other side of the field. I'm, I'm exaggerating, but you get the point. Center fire, uh, you know, tapered rifle cartridges fly farther. Um, Wisconsin went through this. Durkin made a chart that he compiled last fall for his weekly outdoors column. And he looks into what happened in Wisconsin when they did this. And, okay, he says this, in brief.

• 26:06Steven Rinella?

  I almost hesitate to say this because it makes gun seem like a not good idea, but I'm just gonna, in all fairness, in brief, Wisconsin had 203 shooting accidents. We're not talking about

• 26:23Steven Rinella?

  hitting someone's storage shed. Accidents, human accidents. Wisconsin had 203 shooting accidents during November's Maine gun deer season from 2000 to 2025. So, four a year. Is my math right? No, eight a year.

• 26:44Steven Rinella?

  Is that possibly true? Dirk would know.

• 26:47Speaker 04

  There's a lot of hunters in Wisconsin and an accident, I mean, it doesn't define what an accident is.

• 26:54Steven Rinella?

  203 shooting accidents in 25 years.

• 26:58Speaker 04

  What I would want to know is how many of those were like self inflicted, like, you know, there's like

• 27:03Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, I know.

• 27:04Speaker 04

  all encompassing.

• 27:05Steven Rinella?

  That's when I start tearing Dirk and down.

• 27:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:08Steven Rinella?

  That's one of the things I'm going to use to tear him apart.

• 27:11Speaker 05

  Right. There are 800,000, 800,000 deer tags in Wisconsin. So that's, you know, one accident per 100,000 tags.

• 27:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'll take those odds.

• 27:23Steven Rinella?

  I don't, I've just, I almost want to abort right now because there's parts of this I'm just not feeling.

• 27:31Speaker 04

  I think you gotta keep going.

• 27:33Steven Rinella?

  I'll keep going, but please, if you're a Wisconsin night who's handy with numbers and good on the internet, feel free to write in. Dirk goes on to say this. So then they got rid of the shotgun only counties and went rifle statewide. From 2000 to 2012.

• 27:55Steven Rinella?

  No, I'm giving this wrong. Son of, I should have never gotten into this.

• 28:02Speaker 04

  Well, we screw like

• 28:04Steven Rinella?

  I should have never gotten into this. Let me put my glasses on.

• 28:06Speaker 04

  Initially, you said

• 28:06Steven Rinella?

  I dug a hole for myself.

• 28:08Speaker 04

  The numbers we just quoted, you said were from 2000 to 2025. It was actually 2000 to 2012. Those, those

• 28:16Steven Rinella?

  Well, who put down 25?

• 28:18Speaker 06

  No, no, no, no. This is May I?

• 28:21Steven Rinella?

  Never mind. I'm pulling out.

• 28:23Speaker 06

  May I?

• 28:24Steven Rinella?

  So big picture.

• 28:25Speaker 06

  Story's not ready. So big picture, there's a 25 year span.

• 28:29Steven Rinella?

  Eyes.

• 28:29Speaker 06

  And halfway, halfway through that, it goes to rifles only. So in the first half of this 25 year span, there were 139 of the 203 shootings took place. In the second, in the second half of it, there have been 64.

• 28:46Speaker 02

  I, I respect that, Steve.

• 28:48Steven Rinella?

  I'm pulling out.

• 28:48Speaker 02

  You're not falling into the sunk cost fallacy.

• 28:50Speaker 06

  No, he

• 28:51Steven Rinella?

  No, I've just, I'm pulling.

• 28:53Speaker 06

  He should have, he should have just cut this sentence.

• 28:55Speaker 05

  There's a 54% decline when they switched over.

• 28:58Steven Rinella?

  I am not. I, you remember when CBS?

• 29:03Speaker 06

  I think it's pretty straight. The numbers all add up.

• 29:05Steven Rinella?

  Remember Barry Weiss took over CBS News?

• 29:07Speaker 06

  Mm hmm.

• 29:08Steven Rinella?

  And they had that big story prepared about the El Salvadoran super prison. And they pulled the story and everybody got all mad.

• 29:17Steven Rinella?

  And then she said, it's not that we're pulling it because they were like, oh, you just, you're afraid to be critical of the administration. And she said, that's not it. The reporting's not ready. And then lo and behold, the story came out. That's us right now.

• 29:31Speaker 06

  I think this is pretty straightforward.

• 29:32Steven Rinella?

  Report is not ready.

• 29:34Speaker 06

  Steve, just ignore, ignore the sentence that says in brief, and then just read the last two sentences of the paragraph.

• 29:40Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 29:41Speaker 06

  From 2000 to 2012, 139 shootings. From 2013 to 2025, 64 shootings, a 54% decline.

• 29:49Steven Rinella?

  But I'm still going to tear dirty down when I'm ready because how many of these are self inflicted?

• 29:59Speaker 05

  Do you think that changes the rifle versus shotgun?

• 30:02Steven Rinella?

  Because I don't know. I don't what I I need to parse this out. Like, I don't the 54. I don't know that you could attribute it. It's just not deeply.

• 30:12Speaker 06

  No, but but I think all it shows is that when you switch to rifles, you don't necessarily see an increase in overall accidental shootings.

• 30:21Steven Rinella?

  No, he's that's that's what he's saying. You do see an increase.

• 30:25Speaker 06

  No. No, he's saying you see a decrease.

• 30:28Speaker 05

  Oh, I think the problem is you didn't read this.

• 30:30Steven Rinella?

  I read it.

• 30:31Speaker 05

  Oh, you didn't comprehend it.

• 30:34Speaker 06

  Yeah, so they they switched to rifles and in fact, they've had a decline in accidental shootings.

• 30:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 30:40Speaker 06

  So there's something else that explains the decline, but clearly you don't see an increase.

• 30:45Speaker 05

  The bucks got bigger, the sky got bluer.

• 30:49Speaker 05

  Birds music got sweeter. Everything improved when they switched to rifles.

• 30:55Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 30:57Steven Rinella?

  Durkin does make a good point.

• 30:58Speaker 05

  Maybe he's right.

• 31:00Steven Rinella?

  What he does make a good point about is he's like, here's the other deal.

• 31:06Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, I miss so it's like my fault a little bit. I was.

• 31:09Speaker 06

  I didn't know and said that.

• 31:11Speaker 05

  Okay, Barry Weiss.

• 31:14Steven Rinella?

  I screwed up. I shouldn't have pulled it. I was gonna tear Durkin apart, but.

• 31:18Speaker 06

  I don't think we've pulled it yet.

• 31:22Steven Rinella?

  What Durkin does point out is this, he's doing a little bit of what I wanted him to do more of. He's pointing out that deer drives are kind of going extinct.

• 31:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 31:32Steven Rinella?

  And he's pointing out that people are using more elevated blinds, which is helping to reduce the accidents. But until you pluck out self inflicted

• 31:46Steven Rinella?

  shootings.

• 31:47Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 31:48Steven Rinella?

  Where a guy is like getting his gun out of his truck, right? Shoots himself in the knee or whatever. I would need to like, I would need to parse it out to see what is the result of like bullets flying? And what is the result of of just malfeasance?

• 32:07Steven Rinella?

  What do they say in the military? There is no.

• 32:13Speaker 04

  Accidental.

• 32:13Steven Rinella?

  Accidental discharge.

• 32:15Speaker 04

  There's no such thing, yeah.

• 32:15Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, they don't allow you to say accidental discharge in militaries.

• 32:18Speaker 04

  Negligent.

• 32:18Steven Rinella?

  Negligent discharge. I would need to see negligent discharges pulled out of this for me to start having any idea about it. That's all.

• 32:29Speaker 04

  I think it shows a trend.

• 32:34Speaker 04

  Give them a little credit.

• 32:35Steven Rinella?

  Moving on. A lawyer wrote in.

• 32:40Steven Rinella?

  We covered some people, uh, we covered some crazy North Carolina waterfowl people who have taken it upon themselves to sort of migrate these little ducks and geese around a lake to put them where they feel they're safe and they're sort of loading up wild waterfowl into dog crates and moving it where they want it to be. And this guy was asking, is that even legal? And we were pointing out, that's definitely not legal. Well, a lawyer wrote in about a, a community

• 33:10Steven Rinella?

  in Surfside Beach, South Carolina. And Spencer's going to share some in, some insights about this community.

• 33:17Speaker 05

  Uh, this person says, those crazy North Carolina folks have nothing on this lady. She's a few cans short of a 12 pack. Uh, she is suing Surfside Beach for infringing on her first amendment rights by ticketing her for feeding geese. This lady will stop traffic on the highway to let geese walk across the road. Now that doesn't seem that damning to me. Like what, you're gonna just drive through the flock of geese if they're crossing the road?

• 33:41Steven Rinella?

  No, that doesn't seem damning to me. That you would get cited for feeding illegally feeding migratory waterfowl. And then say it's a violation of your first amendment rights is goofy.

• 33:53Speaker 05

  The, the article that he links explains it a little more that, um, this woman is a part of a group that's called, uh, FIFO, F A F O. Flock around, find out.

• 34:03Steven Rinella?

  That's the only reason this is in this script.

• 34:05Speaker 05

  Uh huh.

• 34:05Steven Rinella?

  Because I like flock around and find out a lot.

• 34:07Speaker 05

  Yeah. And these, these people, I don't think they call themselves this, but the article did. It calls them geese influencers. Um, who are sort of speaking up on behalf of the geese.

• 34:16Steven Rinella?

  They have custom hoodies.

• 34:18Speaker 05

  And yeah, and, and t-shirts and they show up in public wearing them. Uh, it, it sounds like this woman is, is filming other residents and their treatment of the geese, which I assume is just like sort of hazing them to get them to move on.

• 34:32Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 34:32Speaker 05

  And then she is then, you know, spreading those videos and people are saying, you can't do that. You can't film these folks. And she's saying, yes, I can. And that's where the first amendment thing comes in.

• 34:42Steven Rinella?

  Oh, so this lawyer. Why would the lawyer that wrote in have gotten that wrong? Isn't he supposed to be law dogging?

• 34:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, I, I don't know that he got it wrong. He just like skipped like four steps to say she's protecting, she's protecting geese. Uh, and she has now turned it into a first amendment thing.

• 34:57Steven Rinella?

  I said they had hoodies. They in fact have t-shirts.

• 35:00Speaker 04

  You know, I like those things.

• 35:02Steven Rinella?

  Flock around, find out.

• 35:03Speaker 04

  I like those so much. We should meet it or should do a collab with these guys.

• 35:06Steven Rinella?

  It would be great. I'd like a flock around, find out shirt.

• 35:10Speaker 05

  Dead goose instead.

• 35:12Steven Rinella?

  So this is them, this is them riled up at a town hall meeting, apparently?

• 35:15Speaker 05

  It appears that way. Yeah. Uh, and so now it's now turned into a first amendment thing.

• 35:20Speaker 04

  Her attorney says the witch hunt of Maria and the Canadian geese is over. We'll put an end to this.

• 35:26Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm. And that the town is not, um, in her favor. They say that feeding these things is causing issues for their public spaces and the residents. So it's the, the FFO group, uh, versus the town.

• 35:39Steven Rinella?

  Hmm. It's a great story. Guy wrote in. Oh, Brody's gonna talk about a guy that wrote in.

• 35:46Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, this is.

• 35:47Steven Rinella?

  I've been hearing this lately. I've been hearing this lately.

• 35:49Speaker 04

  I've been hearing it for a lot. This is near and dear to my heart, this conspiracy theory.

• 35:53Steven Rinella?

  It's not a conspiracy.

• 35:54Speaker 04

  Listen, it is, it is. I think it is. You don't think it is? Anyway, let's, let's see what. Uh, we got, we got an email from a listener. Um, I listened to your last interview with podcast with Mike Bowden Chuck. That is how you say it.

• 36:10Steven Rinella?

  That's correct.

• 36:10Speaker 04

  On predation. You never mentioned turkeys predating on grouse chicks and eggs. They planted turkeys in northern Wisconsin where they are invasive species. Okay, we'll get to that. Um, people have witnessed turkeys killing and eating grouse chicks. Thirty turkeys will go through the woods, making it look like pigs went through scratching up and eating everything. Turkeys are everywhere now and grouse populations are suffering. Every single person living in once fantastic grouse areas that have been taken over by turkeys say the same thing. Grouse are suffering. This seems to be a taboo subject. I would like to hear your thoughts. Go ahead. I got thoughts.

• 36:48Steven Rinella?

  I was just hunting in Oklahoma.

• 36:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 36:50Steven Rinella?

  Turkeys hunting in Oklahoma. And like every time you go turkey hunting, there's a lot of birds on the neighbor's place. Which is a common problem. So we went and spoke to the neighbor.

• 37:00Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 37:02Steven Rinella?

  He said, kill them all. They're eating all my quail.

• 37:06Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 37:07Speaker 05

  Mmm.

• 37:08Steven Rinella?

  And then we were, we were talking amongst ourselves. Do we dispel him of that belief?

• 37:14Speaker 04

  Or let him just.

• 37:14Steven Rinella?

  Or do we just take the permission?

• 37:16Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 37:16Steven Rinella?

  And we just, we just decided to take the permission.

• 37:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:20Steven Rinella?

  And resist, like every part of me.

• 37:22Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 37:23Steven Rinella?

  Every part of me wanted to say. Well, yeah, I don't know about that.

• 37:28Speaker 05

  Right.

• 37:28Steven Rinella?

  But.

• 37:29Speaker 05

  I've never corrected a landowner who said something, you know, he could tell me black is white. I'd be like, of course it is. Yes.

• 37:35Speaker 04

  This is a thing that's been coming up for years, like in rough grouse country. Um. And you know, the whole like people have witnessed turkeys killing and eating grouse chicks, maybe, I don't know. Um.

• 37:48Steven Rinella?

  I'd have to see where, there's gotta be trail cam footage if this is such a problem.

• 37:52Speaker 04

  But like he's right that nor turkeys were introduced into northern Wisconsin in 1970s. Prior to that. There were not turkeys that far north. They, they planted them. They took off. They did well. I don't think you can call them an invasive species.

• 38:09Steven Rinella?

  Good.

• 38:10Speaker 04

  That's my opinion. During that same timeframe, like throughout rough grouse country since the late seventies, early eighties. Rough grouse have been on a serious decline. Um.

• 38:25Speaker 04

  The fact that these two things happened at the same time, like correlation is not causation, right? Just because the turkeys are there doesn't mean they're the reason grouse are around, are, are hurting. Um, we did a podcast with our buddy Carl Malcolm from the Rough Grouse Society and touched on this a little bit. Um, Carl would tell you it's exclusively, uh, uh, not exclusively, it's, it's mostly a habitat problem. Where grouse are hurting, it's because the habitat isn't ideal for them. Um, like I can't say this guy is, is completely wrong and what he's seeing didn't happen, but yeah, I think it's a. So along the lines of a conspiracy theory, it's something I tell my buddy in Pennsylvania.

• 39:08Speaker 04

  That's hardcore grouse hunter. I say it all the time as a joke, like turkeys ate all the grouse. Um, but it's a joke.

• 39:14Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Well, I would invite this person and I would never want to hack on a guy that's just curious about what's going on.

• 39:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:19Steven Rinella?

  I would invite them to reach out to places that do turkey research.

• 39:24Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 39:24Steven Rinella?

  Okay. Reach out to N W T F.

• 39:27Speaker 04

  Reach out to Carl too.

• 39:28Steven Rinella?

  And, and, and start looking into something called crop surveys.

• 39:32Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 39:32Steven Rinella?

  There have been in a lot of areas, extensive crop surveys.

• 39:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:36Steven Rinella?

  Where they, um, hunters submit in some cases, thousands of samples.

• 39:43Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 39:43Steven Rinella?

  Of turkey crops.

• 39:45Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 39:46Steven Rinella?

  And you could see, you can research about what turns up in turkey crops.

• 39:49Speaker 04

  They eat some odd things.

• 39:51Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 39:51Speaker 04

  Like.

• 39:52Steven Rinella?

  And, and I can't rule out that it never happens.

• 39:54Speaker 04

  Right.

• 39:55Steven Rinella?

  Cause you can throw a mouse to a backyard chicken.

• 39:58Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 39:58Steven Rinella?

  It'll eat the mouse.

• 39:59Speaker 04

  Now we're talking.

• 40:00Steven Rinella?

  There is, there is trail cam footage of a whitetail deer.

• 40:06Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 40:06Steven Rinella?

  Going up to a robin nest, pulling a hatchling out of the nest and eating it.

• 40:13Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 40:15Steven Rinella?

  Things happen.

• 40:16Speaker 04

  They do.

• 40:17Steven Rinella?

  But is it having a population level impact?

• 40:20Speaker 04

  Yeah. And.

• 40:21Steven Rinella?

  Like I can't tell you that no turkey has never eaten a grouse.

• 40:25Speaker 04

  Sure. I'm sure it's happened. Um, but I would think if this was a major problem that an organization like the rough grouse society might have like addressed this.

• 40:40Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 40:40Speaker 04

  At this point.

• 40:41Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 40:41Speaker 04

  And it does not seem to be a bit of a concern.

• 40:44Speaker 05

  Is, is the idea that they enjoy eating those eggs or are they just trying to eliminate competition from the?

• 40:50Speaker 04

  Oh, no, I think it's like just eat whatever they can.

• 40:53Speaker 05

  I don't, I'm not familiar with this theory.

• 40:56Speaker 04

  I, I, yeah, I think it's just a.

• 40:57Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. The turkeys aren't doing like, they're not doing like what a wolf does when it kills a coyote.

• 41:02Speaker 04

  Right.

• 41:03Steven Rinella?

  I mean, I don't know. I mean, I've never interviewed a turkey, but. I don't buy, that's, this is my guess on it.

• 41:09Speaker 04

  So yeah, sorry, man. I can't, I'm not buying it, but good luck.

• 41:14Speaker 01

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 41:42Speaker 05

  This is Shirley Strawberry from the Steve Harvey Morning Show. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it starts with a great deal on an all-wheel-drive Camry, Corolla Cross, or a Corolla Sedan with the latest features and tech. Or test drive a spacious Grand Highlander or adventure-ready RAV4. And with so many hybrid models available, you can enjoy longer trips without all the stops. While Toyota's legendary resale value means you could get more at trade-in, get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for deals and details. Toyota, let's go places.

• 42:23Steven Rinella?

  The latest volume of Meat Eater's American History is out now. The Alaskans, 1896 to 1941. It begins with the Klondike Gold Rush, which lured thousands of young men north with hopes of striking it rich. Most failed, but a few swapped their dreams of gold for a frontier lifestyle trapping in the Alaskan bush. As America partied through the roaring twenties and agonized through the Great Depression, these frontiersmen lived more like Jim Bridger and Daniel Boone. Hunting and fishing for caribou and salmon, building their own boats and cabins, running trap lines for wolves and lynx on dog sled, and often dying under strange and lonely circumstances.

• 43:07Steven Rinella?

  Their story ended only when Alaska was dragged into the modern age by World War II. This is the story of our Nations' final generation of frontiersmen and how they carved out a living in a landscape that continues to inspire the American outdoorsman today. Meat Eaters: American History, The Alaskans is available now on Audible, Apple Books, Spotify, or wherever you get your audiobooks. In the news, we have a special guest coming on right now from the National Institute of Health. Let me give you a little background.

• 43:48Steven Rinella?

  Guy I used to be buddies with, we didn't have a falling out. We just don't talk as much as we once did. The journalist Jim Robbins did a piece in the New York Times about chronic wasting disease. And what's worked, what's not worked, just kind of your like typical piece that comes up every few years where there's a survey of what's going on in chronic wasting disease research, chronic wasting disease management, attitudes toward chronic wasting disease. It was a well-reported piece and Jim Robbins is pretty great at his, when he does wildlife work, he's pretty great at really getting a disparate collection of voices together on an issue.

• 44:30Steven Rinella?

  I always like reading Jim Robbins journalism and he does a lot of great pieces in the Times and brings a very level-headed look to complex wildlife issues. In this piece, I read about the work of Catherine. Catherine, can you help me with your, how you pronounce your last name? It's Hag. Hag. In the work, Jim mentioned Catherine Hag from the National Institute of Health and that they were, she'll do a much better job of explaining it than me, but they were looking into the likelihood or the probability or what would need to happen for chronic wasting disease to do a species jump.

• 45:14Steven Rinella?

  So just as a quick background, chronic wasting disease is a, is a servid disease. Moose, deer, whitetail deer, mule deer, elk, caribou, members of the deer family. It's a prion disease that afflicts members of the deer family.

• 45:36Steven Rinella?

  And there's this fear that, I'm speaking of me personally.

• 45:42Steven Rinella?

  I've eaten accidentally, I've eaten CWD positive meat.

• 45:48Steven Rinella?

  Uh, I worry, my primary concern around CWD remains that um, a person would get it. And I, and I, it would be devastating for uh, that individual. It'd be devastating for the culture of deer hunting. It would be terrible that you would look at a deer not as this great source of renewable resource of and source of nutrition. Um, and all these family values baked up around hunting and eating wild game and sharing that experience. And you'd look at a deer and think, man, that thing's not safe to eat. It would just be devastating. So with all that said, Catherine, um, can you tell us a little bit about what you do at work?

• 46:31Steven Rinella?

  And what you did at work around your CWD project?

• 46:37Speaker 05

  Um, thank you very much for inviting me on. Yes, I am a prion biologist. My work has generally focused on the human forms of these diseases. So in humans, most of the diseases, uh, they're a bit more like Alzheimer's. Um, they arise for no known reason. They're not all by any means due to infection. That's a very, very small amount.

• 47:00Steven Rinella?

  Oh.

• 47:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, um, there are a very small number that are genetic as well. Uh, so in the focus on human diseases, what we developed was what we call a human cerebral organoid model of disease. And so what that is, is we take a little sniff of skin cells from a consenting donor. And we reprogram them like you would a computer, um, to make them stem cells. And from those stem cells, we then tell them to grow into brain cells. And we create these little balls of brain cells. Once we've done that, we can expose them to those infectious prions. Um, yeah, from a human that died of these diseases.

• 47:45Speaker 05

  And we can have them infected to model the development of disease in a petri dish.

• 47:51Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 47:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 47:53Steven Rinella?

  So, I wanna ask a question, a clarifying question on that. When you say a human that died from those diseases, give me an example of one of the diseases that that might, that, because you know, like, like we said, like, no human has, as far as we know, no human has ever contracted CWD. So what, what human disease did you, would you use in your work?

• 48:16Speaker 05

  We use Creutzfeldt-Jappi disease.

• 48:18Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 48:19Speaker 05

  That's the most common form of human disease. It's still really rare. It's an incidence of about one to three per million. So not common by any stretch. Um, but the people who die of it, the prions that are within their brain are infectious to other human tissue.

• 48:36Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 48:36Speaker 05

  So that's what we use.

• 48:39Steven Rinella?

  And you've been, and you, with the technology you're describing,

• 48:44Steven Rinella?

  you have been able to take the, these prions from a donor, and you've been able to infect the cells in your petri dish. Like you can, you can successfully infect the cells.

• 48:59Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 49:00Steven Rinella?

  Okay, okay.

• 49:01Speaker 05

  Yeah. And we've monitored them for the disease progression, what's changing in the, and the deposition of the misfolded protein that is that causative prion. So we see all of that within the human organites.

• 49:16Steven Rinella?

  Okay, okay. So, so then walk me through what happened when you started looking at CWD, or give me other, any other relevant steps along the way here.

• 49:24Speaker 05

  Well, like you said, the big, the big question, what worries everyone, um, is the potential for a jump from the observance to humans of this disease. And that's a really legitimate worry. I don't know if you have covered mad cow disease on this show.

• 49:43Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 49:43Speaker 05

  But these diseases are in that same group, that same family. So mad cow disease did jump from cattle to humans. It was thought to be through eating contaminated meat. So it's, it's a real genuine concern. So for us, we now have a model of human infection. And we thought we could use this to try and test that species barrier. Um. Our model is somewhat artificial, to be fair. We literally put the mini brains into a deer brain homogen. So those little mini brain organoid cultures swim in the CWD infectious prions.

• 50:27Speaker 05

  It's a massive exposure and it's a prolonged exposure. So it's far more than we would ever expect any human to really meet. And certainly, no human brain would be expected to be in that environment. So we, we give them this massive dose of infectious prions. And then we monitor them over time to see if they develop disease. Um, because the CWD, the deer prions are just a little bit different to the human. We can detect um, the difference between what was the original deer prion? And if a human prion starts to emerge. Um, and the good news for that study was that we did not find any evidence of infection

• 51:12Speaker 05

  of the human organoids.

• 51:15Steven Rinella?

  Have you been able to run the same experiment using? Let's say, run it with cattle. Okay, or run it with horse, or have you done that?

• 51:30Speaker 05

  Uh, we have been doing that. Our difficulty with the BSC has been getting hold of good quality tissues to use. Um, we've had tissues with very low titers that really would be too low for infection anyway. So we, we are doing that, we, we are trying to do that. Um, we have an abundance of CWD tissues, so.

• 51:55Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, I got, I got my, my, I was, my question was confusing, I'm sorry. Um, what I meant was,

• 52:03Steven Rinella?

  so the livestock industry, right, is, is rightfully, has been rightfully concerned about CWD. That we have CWD infected deer and elk

• 52:16Steven Rinella?

  grazing with, coming into contact with cattle or sheep, right? And so imagine from, imagine from our, America's beef producing industry, the, the impacts, right?

• 52:34Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 52:35Steven Rinella?

  That would happen should we find that CWD had somehow infected the nation's beef herds? So would you be able to like, would your experiment work to bathe cattle brain cells in CWD to see if that's a possible jump?

• 52:58Speaker 05

  Yes, it would. So I am aware that the CDC has tissues of CWD that has transmitted to cattle. And we do actually want to look and see if that would be infectious to organize. There are some difficulties with these experiments because I think people worry that they borderline on gain of function, which obviously you don't want to cross into that area.

• 53:26Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 53:27Speaker 05

  Really, we, we just want to screen, is this infectious to the human brain organized?

• 53:33Steven Rinella?

  Yep.

• 53:34Speaker 05

  But I personally think that's a really critical experiment. I think it's far more likely that a CWD that's gone into a cow could be a problem. And I think we do need to know that.

• 53:48Steven Rinella?

  Got it.

• 53:51Steven Rinella?

  That I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask you a question that we didn't tee up with you. It's not like a controversial question. Don't, don't feel uncomfortable, but a, a lot of times when I'm talking about CWD, you know, with other deer hunters and people that eat a lot of deer and elk and, and we have CWD in what's 30 some states now. So most people live in a CWD state. It's better understood on the county level, but, but, you know, millions of Americans hunt deer in areas where CWD is in their county. And a question that comes up or an idea that comes up is maybe we don't have known instances

• 54:33Steven Rinella?

  of humans contracting CWD because these things take so much time.

• 54:39Steven Rinella?

  Right? And it maybe it's just a myth, but but but you hear people say, well, I don't know. In 10 years, in 20 years, maybe there will be many. We just don't know yet. How, as a professional, what are your thoughts on this idea that it would? That you would eat infected meat in in in 20 years? It would emerge. Is this based on anything realistic? Or is this just kind of urban, like a like a not urban, but a rural legend?

• 55:09Speaker 05

  It's not impossible. These are diseases with very long incubation periods. So one comparison you can draw is with the BSE epidemic.

• 55:19Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 55:19Speaker 05

  Now that emerged in the mid 1980s. And we were seeing the first cases in the mid 1990s. I think it transpired that it's about an eight year median incubation. So what we might expect, you know, CWD, we've known about since, I think it's been published since the 60s.

• 55:38Steven Rinella?

  That's correct, yeah.

• 55:38Speaker 05

  So what we might expect is that if that really was the case, that we'd start seeing a tick up in the number of cases of CJD.

• 55:48Steven Rinella?

  Mm hmm.

• 55:49Speaker 05

  And that just hasn't happened.

• 55:50Steven Rinella?

  Got it.

• 55:51Speaker 05

  So I think that is very unlikely. I mean, if the incubation period is so long that it's longer than a human lifespan, that would be irrelevant anyway. But we would be on the lookout for a tick up in cases. Or more likely, like BSE, the form of CJD that it caused was completely different to the forms that we see through natural sporadic disease.

• 56:16Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 56:17Speaker 05

  Um, the biochemical signature of the protein was distinct. So we were able to tell whether someone died of the variant CJD from eating BSE versus of an unfortunate case of the normal disease.

• 56:32Steven Rinella?

  I understand.

• 56:34Speaker 05

  So I, while it's not impossible, at this point, I don't believe there's any evidence to support a tick up in cases or a different disease emerging.

• 56:43Steven Rinella?

  Yep. Now, you're welcome to just to to just take a wild guess here. But I'm going to ask you another question. When CWD was identified, it was identified in a, I believe it was a captive mule deer in Colorado in the late 60s.

• 57:05Steven Rinella?

  Where do you think that came from? I mean, if we had done the amount of testing, like, let's say the amount of testing we're doing now across the country, if we were doing that amount of testing in 1900, would we have found CWD if we were doing that amount of testing in 1900? Or do you think it spontaneously generated somehow in the North American Serpent population?

• 57:34Speaker 05

  It's hard to tell. It may have been around for much, much longer than we know. I believe that there is a isolated herd in one of the Northern European countries where it spontaneously appeared. So it seems most likely that it could have been a spontaneous disease that maybe if the deer weren't in such close proximity, maybe that one deer would have died and it wouldn't have been a particular problem. But I don't know, it could, it could have been just the odd case here and there for a very long time.

• 58:11Steven Rinella?

  And there's no, you know how you could go look at, you can go look at a, an organism, and you could tell from mitochondrial DNA that it went through a bottleneck, or you could get some idea of, I don't know, the longevity of it, like how, by the rate of mutations, whatever the hell, you could tell how long something had been around. But these things, you can't really look at that way, right? I mean, you can't look at them and sort of date,

• 58:39Steven Rinella?

  or look at how they morphed over time, or where populations emerged and spread to, because it's a, it's a protein and not, not a cell. I mean, am I, you know, is what I'm saying making any sense? Like, you can't track its history, or am I wrong?

• 58:57Speaker 05

  That's a little, a little bit you can. So over a millennia of evolution, that gene has persisted in most mammalian species and avian species, I think even in turtles.

• 59:14Speaker 05

  And you can track how the gene evolved by the differences between each species.

• 59:22Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 59:23Speaker 05

  Um, so one of the things we do when we're looking at sort of the risk of transmission is where those changes have occurred in the sequence. We can look at whether that would prohibit the two prions binding. So if a sequence has changed too much, you know, it's like a jigsaw puzzle. It's just not going to fit.

• 59:45Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 59:45Speaker 05

  So, so we can look at that a little bit. And there is quite a lot of work going on in the field to try and look at those structures to determine whether there is a risk of particularly a given strain maybe moving across.

• 1:00:02Speaker 05

  Rather than.

• 1:00:03Steven Rinella?

  Yep, understood.

• 1:00:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:00:05Steven Rinella?

  Um, I mean, in all honesty, I mostly understand what you're saying, but I get the gist of what you're saying. Can I ask you one last question?

• 1:00:13Speaker 05

  Of course.

• 1:00:13Steven Rinella?

  Okay. Have you followed, um, and apologies, but we're getting into, we, we didn't like pre hit you with these. So if you don't want to answer, don't answer it.

• 1:00:26Steven Rinella?

  Have you followed this conversation and, and some action being taken place

• 1:00:34Steven Rinella?

  around this idea that there's some deer that seem to

• 1:00:42Steven Rinella?

  be less, less susceptible to CWD or CWD behaves in them differently. And it's, it, it lingers longer or whatever. But they're like, they're being billed as a resistant, a CWD resistant deer. Do you, do you have any, do you have any professional awareness of this, of, of this idea?

• 1:01:06Speaker 05

  Yes, it's not, it's not crazy. Um, this mostly comes from the genetics again. So within our own genes, you can have, um, what's called a polymorphism.

• 1:01:17Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:01:17Speaker 05

  Which can just be a single change in the gene. It doesn't cause disease. It's there. It's normal for everyone. It's, you know, just inherited, but those little changes can change your susceptibility to disease. In the world of scrapey, they found that there's a specific, um,

• 1:01:38Speaker 05

  Specific set of these polymorphisms, like I think it's three for the scrapey resistance. But when they have those polymorphisms, they are very unlikely to contract disease.

• 1:01:51Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:01:51Speaker 05

  So that herd becomes protected. And this is of huge interest for CWD as well. Because if you could breed a herd that simply can't get the disease, then it is no longer a problem.

• 1:02:05Steven Rinella?

  I a little bit beg to differ because um.

• 1:02:11Steven Rinella?

  I guess I don't beg to differ on what you're saying. Wh- where I wind up having a hard time, and this is for, this is a different conversation because this is like population modeling and population dynamics is how, I mean, when you have tens of millions of deer out on the landscape. Um, and we have cervids in 50 states, you know. How would you, let's say you found it, how would you ever have meaningful genetic input into a population without starting basically from zero all over again?

• 1:02:48Speaker 05

  It'll take a long time to release a breeding population. So this has also happened naturally.

• 1:02:54Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:02:55Speaker 05

  I don't know if you heard of Kuru, it was a disease of a tribe, for a tribe of Papua New Guinea. So they actually, they, they were cannibals, they were eating um the corpse as part of funeral rite and of course becoming infected. But they actually evolved a new polymorphism to protect them against disease.

• 1:03:16Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 1:03:17Speaker 05

  And I think at the point that they were persuaded to change their funeral rites. It was about 50% of the population that may have this new polymorphism.

• 1:03:29Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:03:30Speaker 05

  Um, so it happened naturally that they. We're evolving this effectively to survive. So with a few deer with those um polymorphisms out there, they may simply out compete the ones that get diseased.

• 1:03:45Steven Rinella?

  Got it. Man.

• 1:03:47Speaker 05

  Over time.

• 1:03:48Speaker 04

  I got a question.

• 1:03:49Steven Rinella?

  Please, yeah, this she's great. If you ever you should come do a residency here.

• 1:03:55Speaker 04

  Catherine, um, what what would you say to a hunter who sees the result of your test? It's like, see, there was nothing to worry about. Like, I can eat the CWD positive meat and it's not like I have no nothing to worry about as far as getting infected. Like, what would you say to?

• 1:04:17Steven Rinella?

  Now you're putting her in a tough spot.

• 1:04:19Speaker 04

  I know. But I think there's an answer. I think like, because I'm guessing like there's no such thing as a negative result, right?

• 1:04:28Steven Rinella?

  Like, you want to see a scientist choose her words carefully?

• 1:04:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:04:32Steven Rinella?

  Get ready.

• 1:04:34Speaker 04

  Because there are going to be hunters who are like, see?

• 1:04:37Steven Rinella?

  Oh, I feel that way.

• 1:04:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:41Speaker 05

  Um, every model is flawed. So that's the first thing to bear in mind in science. Nothing is perfect. So we we have to always take our results with a grain of salt. In our model, uh, we have tested the human polymorphisms that represent only ninety ish percent of the population. So there's still a subset of people we haven't been able to test whether they would be vulnerable. We are working on that now and um, keeping fingers crossed. So I don't think I would be blasé and say, yeah, you'll be fine. Eat as much as you want. I I think I would still recommend to people that they get their meat tested if they can.

• 1:05:24Speaker 05

  I also feel a bit like this isn't something to be losing sleep over.

• 1:05:31Steven Rinella?

  This is the kind of CWD research I like, man.

• 1:05:33Speaker 04

  Don't lose any sleep over it.

• 1:05:34Steven Rinella?

  No, no, just dispassionate that she's dispassionate.

• 1:05:37Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:05:39Steven Rinella?

  Do you know what I mean?

• 1:05:40Speaker 04

  No, I like that answer. Keep it in mind, but don't lose any sleep over it.

• 1:05:46Steven Rinella?

  Catherine, you come on the show anytime, man.

• 1:05:48Speaker 06

  This is great.

• 1:05:49Steven Rinella?

  This is my favorite guest of all time.

• 1:05:53Steven Rinella?

  Thank you very much. Well, thank you for the invite. You come anytime.

• 1:05:59Speaker 04

  We'll get you some.

• 1:06:00Steven Rinella?

  You can have Brody's seat.

• 1:06:01Speaker 04

  We'll get you some of our deer meat to eat.

• 1:06:04Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, we'll cook you some deer meat.

• 1:06:06Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 1:06:07Steven Rinella?

  Oh, you know, I gotta tell you one last thing.

• 1:06:11Steven Rinella?

  I'm just telling you this just to enter, just to be entertaining, um, to give you a little concept to think about.

• 1:06:18Steven Rinella?

  When I used to have an idea that like, I love to talk about CWD. To a fault. It's my favorite subject and I'm open to people's opinions about who, who I'm very open to people who want to say, don't worry about CWD. Or they're like, CWD is a hoax or CWD doesn't matter. It's a conspiracy theory. And my thing is, I used to want to make a burger. I wanted to get a bunch of CWD infected deer, like a dozen of them. And make a batch of burger. With all that meat. And then when someone was coming to tell me that it was a hoax and didn't matter.

• 1:06:59Steven Rinella?

  I would cook them that, a patty of that burger.

• 1:07:04Steven Rinella?

  And if they ate the burger, then I would listen to everything they said.

• 1:07:10Steven Rinella?

  If they declined the burger, then I would say, you see? It's concerning. But I would only believe the hoaxers after they ate my burger. But I haven't made it because I feel like I would be criticized for having that burger around.

• 1:07:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:27Steven Rinella?

  Like I'd write like, don't eat.

• 1:07:30Steven Rinella?

  On the pack. It was the famous clip in the.

• 1:07:33Speaker 05

  UK of the politician giving his little daughter um a burger right in the heart of the BSE epidemic.

• 1:07:40Speaker 06

  Oh, was it?

• 1:07:42Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:07:43Steven Rinella?

  Wow, that's my guy right there. Yeah.

• 1:07:46Speaker 06

  And put your mouth where your money is.

• 1:07:48Steven Rinella?

  And as much as I recently ate CWD infected meat without knowing it and then had like an uncomfortable text message from my friend telling me. And then I had to text my buddy who was with me at his house, right? If someone made me the burger I'm talking about, still today, after hearing your news, still today, I would be like, man. I don't want that burger. I just don't want that burger.

• 1:08:14Steven Rinella?

  All right. Thank you very much for coming on. I appreciate the work you're doing.

• 1:08:19Steven Rinella?

  I'm sure you have all kinds of motivations to do your work, but but on behalf of hunters and on behalf of consumers of deer meat. Thank you for looking into this. This is just the kind of information we need to make responsible decisions. So I appreciate it.

• 1:08:36Speaker 05

  Well, thank you for having me.

• 1:08:38Speaker 06

  Great. Thanks, Catherine. Thank you.

• 1:08:40Speaker 01

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps. OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A plus by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five star TrustPilot reviews. OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:09:08Speaker 02

  Hey, what's up? This is Kelvin Washington from The Odd Couple with Rob Parker and Kelvin Washington. Buy smart, drive for less and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it starts with a great deal on off-road ready Tacoma or half ton Tundra. Two of Toyota's longest lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures and style in between.

• 1:09:28Speaker 05

  Built on a reputation for quality and reliability, Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which can mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.

• 1:09:45Steven Rinella?

  Hey, are you the kind of person whose truck looks like a hurricane rolled through a sporting goods store? When you open the door and when you hit washboard dirt roads, does gear come loose on your console, your binos slide off the seat? Water bottles are rolling around on the floorboards? Well, check this out. Our very own FHF Gear teamed up with X Overland to build a modular system engineered to keep your gear organized while the truck is in motion. The same way FHF solved the problem of how to keep your gear organized around your bino harnessing on your chest. Okay, they're working on rigs now. It's built around a system called the Bulkhead, which is a semi-rigid moly panel that anchors between your truck seats.

• 1:10:29Steven Rinella?

  You snap the Waypoint GP pouch right onto it using the FHF SnapCore Buckle System to keep your optics or your comms secure and accessible from any door. You get the Horizon Visor Panel overhead. You put tags, calls, registration, whatever in there. Then they got the Flex Med Kit, a med kit that mounts on your headrest for instant emergency access. You can just reach through the truck in any window and grab that sucker out of there. It keeps your cab dead quiet and organized while you drive and prepared for anything that comes at you. Check it out at FHFgear.com. Play the clip, Phil.

• 1:11:10Speaker 04

  Oh goodness. Oh, we're just gonna cheat out.

• 1:11:12Speaker 06

  I feel like I need to sit with that for a little bit.

• 1:11:14Steven Rinella?

  Listen, I've been sitting with it. I read Jim Robbins article.

• 1:11:16Speaker 06

  There's a lot of, there's a lot of subjects where you, you, you know, they pop up in the news every now and then. And you're like, I've, I have, I've seen this before. I've seen this before. And then you get that and it's like a, it's like a drug. It's like a new, a new information.

• 1:11:33Speaker 04

  Well, that's truly the new, like, you don't get new information on CWD.

• 1:11:37Speaker 06

  No.

• 1:11:38Speaker 04

  Ever. And we just got some.

• 1:11:39Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, that's like the least full of shit lady on the planet too. That's the vibe I'm getting.

• 1:11:43Speaker 04

  That was electric.

• 1:11:46Steven Rinella?

  Like if you put me like if I was gonna rate people full of shit like I would be like up there. She's like down there, man. Uh, yeah, play the clip. This guy, no, this, just watch this guy for his hosting abilities. I'm not joking. This guy is mesmerizing to me. Play the clip, Phil.

• 1:12:07Speaker 06

  Haunting aspect of the recent bear killing of Anthony Polio in Glacier National Park is that he did deploy bear spray, but it still killed him. I have heard that yesterday from a customer who read an article and today a member of that actually works for Glacier National Park came by and said the same thing. Now, I have made on James Willow's YouTube and I released it here on Facebook, five times when bear spray won't help you. And it would be helpful if you viewed that video.

• 1:12:49Speaker 06

  The guy who worked for the park service came in today and said that when they were searching for Anthony Polio, even though it was two or three days later, part of the way that they found him is that they smelled the bear spray and went over to where the incident occurred and found his body.

• 1:13:11Steven Rinella?

  Great. So, as promised, the pistol v. bear spray debate rages on. A little more background is, you know, we got that gentleman covered it pretty well, but a young man named Anthony Polio from Florida, he lives in central Florida now. I think he's from South Florida originally. I was reading he works as a church deacon.

• 1:13:34Steven Rinella?

  He was killed on the, this spring, he was killed on the way up to the Mount Brown Fire lookout Glacier National Park. Right before he killed, he left his dad a phone message. Um, it's kind of haunting idea. He was killed 2.5 miles from the trailhead.

• 1:13:52Steven Rinella?

  A couple of tidbits here that are worth pointing out before I get into the bear spray idea. When that happened, first it's just an axe to grind. When that happened, it was pointed out the first in the park in 25 years. Like it's like, it's so rare. It hasn't happened in the park in 25 years. But that is a demonstration of what I think of as National Park Syndrome, which is thinking like taking Yellowstone Glacier, whatever Yosemite and, and drawing it off as though that this is a world unto itself. And what happens within these arbitrary borders somehow is different than what happens outside of these borders.

• 1:14:34Steven Rinella?

  Um, so when you're pointing out first in the park in 25 years, okay. But, um, not the first in a while. So you have, you know, a bear killed someone in Montana in 23. A bear killed someone in Montana in 2022. Bears, grizzly bears killed two people in Montana in 2021. Just last year, August of 25. A guy was killed in British Columbia, 48 miles from the border. So by pointing out these things like in the park, as though the park is something that, that, that, that exists in and of itself.

• 1:15:18Steven Rinella?

  Is, is a little like just misleading and goofy. I would much rather speak about these things at an ecosystem layer. The like, and, and I hate the word, I hate the fact that Yellowstone is in this, but it's the best servable, op serviceable words. Like the greater Yellowstone ecosystem, right? Which is a chunk of ground the size of Indiana.

• 1:15:37Speaker 04

  There's definitely probably tourists out there that like, feel much different about walking around in Yellowstone than a solo elk hunter might feel about walking around solo in Paradise Valley. You know what I mean? They're like, oh, it could never happen to me.

• 1:15:53Steven Rinella?

  Because they create this idea, they create this idea that that somehow is a distinct place.

• 1:15:58Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:15:59Steven Rinella?

  That this gentleman that was killed, his father even suggested like, just to kind of give you like, if you think of National Park Syndrome. And I don't mean this to be critical of him, he just lost a son. But he suggested, and speaking to a journalist from the New York Times, he suggested that all of the grizzlies in Glacier should be fitted with a GPS chip. And had they done that, this would have never happened because they would have been able to notify people where the bear was. And like the, that someone would have the idea that that was even possible. Comes from this idea of, of that these parks are these distinct things with hard edges. Rather than the fact that the animals have no idea, they move in and out.

• 1:16:45Speaker 05

  I'm not that bothered with like.

• 1:16:45Steven Rinella?

  These are soft boundaries because you're a big park guy.

• 1:16:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, but like there, Glacier has over three million visitors a year. Those people aren't messing around out on national forests for the most part, maybe a few of them. But like those three million go to Glacier and they recreating Glacier. This is just like a statistic that they're keeping and be like, we had a shooting in Bozeman recently.

• 1:17:07Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:17:08Speaker 05

  You wouldn't like assign that to Belgrade, you know, the town a few miles away, even though you're like, it's all the same community or whatever.

• 1:17:16Steven Rinella?

  Okay. So does the guy that got killed by a grizzly? Just north of Yellowstone Park. So then when someone gets attacked in the park, they're like, no one's been attacked this park for blinkety blank years. You're like, well, guy just got killed six miles from the park.

• 1:17:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's just like the statistic for Yellowstone. Like I'm not, I'm not that bothered by it like, and then I don't know. Again, three million people.

• 1:17:38Steven Rinella?

  You have National Park Syndrome.

• 1:17:39Speaker 05

  Three million people visit, I think you have National Park Syndrome.

• 1:17:43Steven Rinella?

  Oh.

• 1:17:44Speaker 05

  It's like National Park Derangement Syndrome.

• 1:17:50Steven Rinella?

  Yes, I think they should be wilderness areas. Guilty. I have derangement syndrome.

• 1:17:54Speaker 05

  Great.

• 1:17:55Steven Rinella?

  I had some kind of analogy I thought of this morning, but I can't remember what it was.

• 1:17:59Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:18:00Steven Rinella?

  Allow me to think about it for a minute.

• 1:18:02Speaker 05

  I'm just not that bothered by like the stat being like it's the first fatal grizzly attack in glacier in what was it 30 years?

• 1:18:08Steven Rinella?

  I would say the Northern Continental Divide ecosystem. When you say like, oh, it hasn't been happening in Glacier, okay, but a grizzly killed someone in Ovando. Oh, here's my analogy.

• 1:18:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:18:17Steven Rinella?

  A woman was killed. A bike, a bicyclist on a long bicycle trek journey. Stopped and set up a tent near the post office in Ovando. A grizzly dragged her out and killed her. So would I say?

• 1:18:34Speaker 05

  Within the last few years, right?

• 1:18:35Steven Rinella?

  Would I go and say, this is the first ever grizzly bear attack in Ovando? Which is like a couple of miles wide.

• 1:18:43Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 1:18:43Steven Rinella?

  Or would I say? A Northern Continental Divide ecosystem attack?

• 1:18:50Speaker 05

  I don't.

• 1:18:50Steven Rinella?

  Because of course in Ovando, next to the post office, sure, it's the first one in a long time. In fact, I don't know when the last person got killed at the post office in Ovando was.

• 1:19:00Speaker 05

  But who are you specifically mad about? Because like I'm looking at an article right now and they, they give you all that context. They talk about the Ovando thing in here. Uh, they talk about like other attacks that have happened in Canada. Um, so just like who, who is the person?

• 1:19:14Steven Rinella?

  I believe we should talk about grizzly attacks. This is relevant to a very few, small number of people. I would say going forward, if I was the emperor of the world on wildlife issues, a role I would like. I would say, um, from now on. We will speak of these bears. In their DPS terminology, distinct population segment terminology. Which would be the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem, the Northern Continental Divide ecosystem, the Cabinet Yak ecosystem.

• 1:19:54Steven Rinella?

  Northern Cascade ecosystem, et cetera. That is how I would catalog attacks. That is how I would speak about it. That's not the point I'm trying to get to.

• 1:20:04Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:20:05Steven Rinella?

  The point I'm trying to get to is now.

• 1:20:09Steven Rinella?

  It has realivened, like even a friend of mine, a friend of mine texts me, I will never trust. Bear spray ever.

• 1:20:20Steven Rinella?

  Because this guy discharged the spray. If, if you look, this, this, this kid that was killed, Polio.

• 1:20:28Steven Rinella?

  There were accounts that his spray was found nearby.

• 1:20:34Steven Rinella?

  And there were accounts that his spray was found still clutched in his hand, his pepper spray. He definitely discharged the spray. His father, who might have additional information that hasn't been released to the public, because the person from Montana Fish Wildlife Parks who's investigating this incident, isn't talking yet. The kid's father might have more information. The kid's father said to a journalist, he thinks his kid hosed the bear, and then ran. And the bear caught up with him. I don't know where he's getting that.

• 1:21:07Steven Rinella?

  But the idea, so people like, it doesn't work. But here's the point, part of the point. The guy that was killed 48 miles from the USBC border, 48 miles north of the USBC border, shot the bear that killed him.

• 1:21:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:21:23Steven Rinella?

  Shot it in the hip. It killed the bear.

• 1:21:27Steven Rinella?

  It killed the bear, but the bear killed him.

• 1:21:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, there's nothing on a can of-

• 1:21:31Steven Rinella?

  In the words of Hatchet Jack, "It killed the bar that killed me."

• 1:21:35Speaker 04

  There, there's nothing on a can of bear spray that says guaranteed to stop a grizzly from killing you.

• 1:21:40Steven Rinella?

  But that's the way people are treating this.

• 1:21:42Speaker 04

  I know.

• 1:21:42Steven Rinella?

  And I, like, I, I have, I carry a, a, a SIG 10mm when I think there's high likelihood of grizzly action. And I carry spray. This is my own little stupid math problem. I don't know. I don't know why. I can't defend it. I carry spray when I think there's a casual chance of bear action. I don't know why. It's just dumb. This is what I do. It just works in my mind.

• 1:22:04Speaker 04

  Do you remember when that bear was walking up the hill towards us on the moose hunt? And Cook was holding the rifle in one hand and bear spray in the other?

• 1:22:13Speaker 04

  And I said, "You better pick one or the other."

• 1:22:16Steven Rinella?

  This is so funny. We're sitting on a hill. We're looking out. There's this grizzly coming across this flat. And it gets into the willows right below us. And I'm like, "That bear's gonna be here in a second in our laps."

• 1:22:29Steven Rinella?

  So, this, this thing that comes out where it's like reinforcing this idea. But this cuts both ways. Neither of these things are perfect.

• 1:22:38Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:22:39Steven Rinella?

  There was a case, a couple, there was just a few years ago, there's a guy that, two guys are bear hunt, black bear hunt. They miss, they misidentify a grizzly bear. A guy shoots the grizzly bear thinking it's a black bear. The bear runs into the brush. They go in there after it. The wounded grizzly now attacks one of the hunters. The other hunter goes to kill the grizzly off his buddy, but instead mortally wounds the buddy.

• 1:23:13Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:23:13Steven Rinella?

  The buddy dies of a gunshot wound. Not a bear attack. That's why if you go look at bear attack fatalities, he's not on the list. So do you then go, ha, guns don't work? No, because it's like everything. None of this is perfect. None of this is perfect. But the fact that this guy discharged spray.

• 1:23:39Steven Rinella?

  Doesn't, you can't draw a conclusion from this because you go even to other attack. There was another attack in Montana in Yellowstone Park. Well, the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. The woman was scratched up by a bear. Well, why did this, why did the mauling stop? Because her buddy hosed the bear.

• 1:23:59Steven Rinella?

  We've had two people on this show who were mauled by grizzly bears and the mauling stopped when?

• 1:24:06Steven Rinella?

  When they hosed it. One hosed it on purpose. It was mauled in the back of her neck and she stuck it in her face over her shoulder. Without even looking at it and hosed it over her shoulder and it ran off. Another person that sat right in the studio. He didn't hose it. The bear, it was in his hand. The bear went to bite his hand, bit through the can and blew it up in its face. And the, the attack stopped.

• 1:24:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:24:31Steven Rinella?

  All these things are imperfect.

• 1:24:33Speaker 04

  They're saying that he deployed it. It doesn't mean he hit the bear.

• 1:24:36Steven Rinella?

  He doesn't, it doesn't mean he hit it in the face.

• 1:24:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:24:38Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. He could have deployed it with the wind in his face.

• 1:24:42Speaker 04

  Right. He could have been rolling around on the ground with bear spray.

• 1:24:45Steven Rinella?

  Shooting that shit all over the place.

• 1:24:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:24:47Steven Rinella?

  Or he's sitting there in 10 mile an hour wind.

• 1:24:51Steven Rinella?

  And and the wind just sends it right back to him.

• 1:24:57Steven Rinella?

  It could be, I don't know. It could be that he hosed himself.

• 1:25:00Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:25:01Steven Rinella?

  We'll probably know later.

• 1:25:02Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:25:02Steven Rinella?

  I don't know. But to, to, to draw big conclusions from this about the efficacy of spray, or to draw big conclusions about the efficacy of guns from other incidents, they're all imperfect.

• 1:25:16Speaker 06

  Yeah, I think you show me someone who's a very strong opinion, airtight opinion one way or the other. I could find a, uh, one example to support that and I could find another example that would disprove your strategy.

• 1:25:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, the dismissiveness, um, from the video we watched would be like if someone died in horrific car accident. You're like, well, seat belts and airbags.

• 1:25:39Steven Rinella?

  Yep.

• 1:25:40Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:25:41Speaker 05

  They're not cutting it.

• 1:25:41Steven Rinella?

  Yep.

• 1:25:42Speaker 05

  And that happens.

• 1:25:43Steven Rinella?

  Last time I trust those things.

• 1:25:45Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:25:47Steven Rinella?

  Or, oh, well, you can go on all day with this. You can run all day with these now.

• 1:25:51Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:25:51Steven Rinella?

  I've done time out there. That's all.

• 1:25:53Speaker 06

  There's people that, I mean, I have people every now and then ask me, do you carry a gun or do you carry bear spray? And I say both. And I say both at all times. And they say, no, sometimes I carry one, sometimes I carry the other. I can't really explain one way or the other, but I don't feel I'm worse off for having a can of bear spray and my gun. I, I, you know, like, I don't always want to carry my gun. Um, and if I'm in a place where I don't think it's going to be, you know, we're going to have a shootout, I'm not going to bring it. But, and, and it's not, oh, I mean.

• 1:26:29Steven Rinella?

  If I'm in grizz country and I got a elk or a moose or something, half butchered.

• 1:26:34Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:26:34Steven Rinella?

  And I'm going back in the next day.

• 1:26:36Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:26:38Speaker 04

  Spooky.

• 1:26:39Steven Rinella?

  Pistol drawn, buddy. Pistol drawn. Not spray. If I only had spray, I'd have the spray. But again, I can't tell you, it's all like, it's all, um, there's a big amount of mental masturbation in all this. It just makes me feel better.

• 1:26:54Speaker 04

  The only one who knows what happens to bear.

• 1:26:56Steven Rinella?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:26:57Speaker 04

  Right?

• 1:26:57Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. And you can't interview them.

• 1:27:00Speaker 04

  Nope.

• 1:27:00Speaker 06

  If we could get a, if we could get a, some sort of a powder, pistol powder, that also made a big cloud of.

• 1:27:09Steven Rinella?

  Oh. Then when you shoot it.

• 1:27:11Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:27:12Steven Rinella?

  You shoot the bullet and a bunch of spray.

• 1:27:14Speaker 06

  Both worlds.

• 1:27:15Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, let's go. I'm gonna work on that.

• 1:27:17Speaker 06

  And then get residue all over your hands.

• 1:27:18Steven Rinella?

  Never invented anything. I'm gonna try to invent that.

• 1:27:21Speaker 06

  I've got a notebook full of ideas.

• 1:27:23Steven Rinella?

  Of inventions. I'm done. That's all I wanted to say.

• 1:27:27Speaker 06

  Well.

• 1:27:29Speaker 06

  There's a lot of data centers. In the news.

• 1:27:33Steven Rinella?

  My God.

• 1:27:34Speaker 06

  Um, and that's.

• 1:27:35Steven Rinella?

  Never a truer statement was spoken.

• 1:27:37Speaker 06

  And and it's not, it's not because they're, you know, like, there's all this hysteria about it. Like, there's just a lot of data centers and a huge rush of data centers being constructed. Um, so two headlines that are pertinent at the moment to our audience. One is that the Potomac River was named the number one most endangered river of 2026. Um, there was a big sewage spell sewage spill, but. Uh, American Rivers said it would have been number one anyway because of how, uh. Intensely data centers are are operating and being constructed in the Potomac watershed. There are 300 data centers in the Potomac watershed, nine, they use 9% of the water annually.

• 1:28:22Steven Rinella?

  What?

• 1:28:22Speaker 06

  Including 12% of of like water used. 12% in the summer. Uh, Luden County, I'm probably butchering the pronunciation, has the highest concentration of data centers in the world. 199 currently operating. And 13% of the global data center capacity in just one county in Virginia. Um, and so the Potomac being the number one most endangered river is one headline. The other headline is, uh, folks have probably seen the state of Alaska is moving forward. With a 50 year lease for a proposed AI data center on Alaska's North Slope. And, um. This would be, I think, 20 some miles south of.

• 1:29:04Speaker 06

  A lot of the oil infrastructure, so it's it's very far north in Alaska. Um, it's a $500 million development. And it will consume twice as much natural gas as is used for electricity and heating across Alaska's entire urban grid. What? Mm hmm. Um, they haven't. So one, one thing to note about that, the gas, they don't pump natural gas uh, in large quantities or, you know, in any amount off the North Slope. Um, so a lot of that gas wouldn't be used if this thing didn't go in up there and, and burn the gas. I understand. Yeah, it's a byproduct. Yeah. So, so. That's not the part that bothers me.

• 1:29:46Speaker 06

  This is a huge, I mean, basically like this is, the North Slope one is, is sort of an interesting case because um, given the latitude, it's going to use a lot less water than the industry standard. Um, there's some estimates saying 90% less. Because it's cold. Because it's cold. And so the three concerns that, you know, if you're reading about data centers, the three interrelated concerns are water usage, electricity consumption, and the, the actual footprint of the facility. Mm hmm. Uh, the electricity consumption is huge because they're powering all these machines. Then they need to cool those machines because there's using so much energy and that's where the water comes in.

• 1:30:28Speaker 06

  And then the footprint, just for efficiency sake, like they have to cite all of this stuff in a condensed area. But there's also like industrial pollution concerns, isn't there? There's, there's also that. There's also that. Um. So big picture, I guess, the, I, I read something recently and it's that, you know, there've, there have been data centers for a long time, um, that store like the videos you're watching or your Google Drive documents and all that stuff, but AI. Is uh requires exponentially more computer power and all of these companies, the you know, the metas of the world, the Googles of the world, they're dumping all of their chips in the the AI game. And so

• 1:31:13Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, like Meta gave, he gave up on his Metaverse.

• 1:31:16Speaker 06

  Yeah, but they're

• 1:31:18Speaker 04

  But it was so cool.

• 1:31:19Speaker 06

  It was so cool.

• 1:31:21Steven Rinella?

  That was the dorkiest thing in the world.

• 1:31:24Speaker 06

  And the the the growth of these things is just crazy. They're they're they're saying that this is um the largest growth in power demand since post-World War II era in terms of our demand on the grid. Um AI data centers can use as much power as 100,000 homes or more. Uh Metas building one in Louisiana that will draw twice the power of the entire city of New Orleans.

• 1:31:49Steven Rinella?

  My god.

• 1:31:50Speaker 06

  Another Meta facility in Wyoming will draw more power than every residential property in the state combined. Um and we're expected to double or triple energy use in the very near future. So so like there's even if you get beyond the facilities themselves, like the demand that they're putting on for new power plants to come online. Uh nuclear reactors seem to be sort of the what folks are hoping will solve this problem, but in the meantime, a lot of it's natural gas. Um China is it's obviously a race with China. Um their advantage

• 1:32:31Speaker 06

  is in power. They have uh they have a lot more power than us and our you know, we see all these headline like basically every headline that you've seen in the past few years about our grid being outdated or drought. Uh all this stuff like it all ties into this question of of data centers and um they can exacerbate drought, obviously, like there's a huge one going up in Utah that uh Mr. Wonderful Kevin O'Leary is behind. Um it's going to occupy, speaking of that footprint, it's going to occupy 40,000 acres. Um and

• 1:33:06Steven Rinella?

  My

• 1:33:06Speaker 06

  will release the equivalent of 23 atomic bombs worth of thermal energy in a single day. Um a physics professor at Utah State estimates it'll warm daytime temperatures by two to five degrees and nighttime temperatures between eight to 12 degrees. Uh some estimates think

• 1:33:23Steven Rinella?

  Within what?

• 1:33:25Speaker 06

  It's putting off so much energy that

• 1:33:27Steven Rinella?

  Making a microclimate.

• 1:33:28Speaker 06

  It's making a microclimate in the area around it.

• 1:33:31Steven Rinella?

  Oh, in the area around it.

• 1:33:31Speaker 06

  So daytime, I mean, like a pretty expansive area, not just like. So I guess like.

• 1:33:38Steven Rinella?

  You know the term nimby?

• 1:33:39Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:33:39Steven Rinella?

  Not in my backyard. I'm a nimk. I just invented that. A nimk. Not in my country.

• 1:33:46Steven Rinella?

  It's like, I just don't. I, I just want it to go away.

• 1:33:53Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:33:53Steven Rinella?

  I, I was fine. I was fine. I hate the stuff.

• 1:33:58Speaker 06

  I said about.

• 1:33:58Steven Rinella?

  I hate all the environmental destruction for this.

• 1:34:00Speaker 06

  I said about looking into these two headlines and it's like an onion, the more layers you peel back, there's more, there's even more stuff to untangle, right? Not that you untangle parts of an onion, you just.

• 1:34:11Steven Rinella?

  I'm an environmental nationalist.

• 1:34:14Speaker 06

  But yeah, there's, so there's another story in Georgia. Residents in a subdivision complained about low water pressure. The county revealed that two industrial scale water hookups had been connected to the power, to the water supply, connected to a data center. One had been installed without informing the water utility and the other one hadn't been billed. So collectively that drained 30 million gallons in less than a year out of this water supply without paying for it.

• 1:34:41Steven Rinella?

  Here's why I want to.

• 1:34:42Speaker 06

  It's just this unbelievably sprawling concern that, that like will affect habitat and water and all these things.

• 1:34:51Speaker 06

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A plus by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five star trust pilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not.

• 1:35:17Speaker 05

  North Dakota, all loans and amounts subject to lender approval. This is Stugatz from Stugatz and Company Live. Buy smart, drive for less and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability and it all starts with a great deal on an all wheel drive Camry, Corolla Cross or a Corolla sedan with the latest features N tech or test drive a spacious Grand Highlander or adventure ready RAV4 and with so many hybrid models available, you can enjoy longer trips without all the stops while Toyota's legendary resale value means you can get more at trade in. Get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for deals and details. Toyota, let's go places.

• 1:35:58Steven Rinella?

  The latest volume of Meat Eaters American History is out now. The Alaskans, 1896 to 1941. It begins with the Klondike Gold Rush, which lured thousands of young men north with hopes of striking it rich. Most failed, but a few swapped their dreams of gold for a frontier lifestyle trapping in the Alaskan bush. As America partied through the roaring twenties and agonized through the Great Depression, these frontiersmen live more like Jim Bridger and Daniel Boone. Hunting and fishing for caribou and salmon, building their own boats and cabins, running trap lines for wolves and lynx on dog sled and often dying under strange and lonely circumstances.

• 1:36:42Steven Rinella?

  Their story ended only when Alaska was dragged into the modern age by World War II. This is the story of our nation's final generation of frontiersmen and how they carved out a living in a landscape that continues to inspire the American outdoorsman today. Meat Eaters American History, The Alaskans is available now on Audible, Apple Books, Spotify, or wherever you get your audiobooks. Well, I got a question that maybe you can answer this, but this is why I want to get a really good, like a really good, you know, that CWD scientist? I want to get her.

• 1:37:22Speaker 06

  Sure.

• 1:37:22Steven Rinella?

  On data centers.

• 1:37:23Speaker 06

  Sure.

• 1:37:25Steven Rinella?

  We talk about using water, but see, if you're just using water for cooling, you have a discharge.

• 1:37:34Steven Rinella?

  This is one of the problems with like coal fire generator plants or nuclear plants. You're using tons of water for cooling and then the problem, often the environmental problem is you're putting it right back where it came from.

• 1:37:45Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:37:45Steven Rinella?

  But you're putting it back where it came from hot.

• 1:37:47Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:37:48Steven Rinella?

  So you have a hot water discharge or a warm water discharge, which can lead to all kinds of problems. Rough fish like it, sometimes good fish like it, but it can lead to problems because you're changing water temperatures. So the water's not vanishing.

• 1:38:03Speaker 04

  But it could be polluted also.

• 1:38:05Speaker 06

  Yeah, it could be, I mean, any.

• 1:38:06Steven Rinella?

  But is that true?

• 1:38:07Speaker 06

  Well, yes.

• 1:38:08Steven Rinella?

  Is it polluted?

• 1:38:10Speaker 06

  Their case, I mean, any sort of concern that you have, I guarantee you could find a headline in the past two months where there's some instance of this, just because of the scale of change that's happening right now. But some of them have closed systems.

• 1:38:23Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:38:24Speaker 06

  Like they're circulating water through a closed system. I believe the one

• 1:38:29Speaker 06

  that they're talking about doing in the North Slope would be a closed system.

• 1:38:32Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:38:33Speaker 06

  But not all of them.

• 1:38:35Steven Rinella?

  But why are you not, and I'm not asking you to answer this for me, but picture that you're drawing from an aquifer.

• 1:38:44Steven Rinella?

  Do we have the technical capabilities to pull it up, cool and put it back in the aquifer?

• 1:38:53Speaker 06

  I, I can't answer that. I mean, I know there's concerns about contaminating the water that's going through all this piping, leaching.

• 1:39:02Steven Rinella?

  But the water that you drink went through your pipes.

• 1:39:05Speaker 06

  That's true.

• 1:39:06Steven Rinella?

  So I, I don't know. I'm not trying to make a point.

• 1:39:10Speaker 06

  No.

• 1:39:11Steven Rinella?

  I would love to have someone explain this better to me because I, I just need to understand.

• 1:39:15Speaker 06

  I, I also think like one of the concerns with them is that the same time that they need to be cooled the most intensively is during the summer. And that's also a time when water levels are low in rivers and there's also just, you know, irrigation demands and all this stuff. So they, they sort of have this compounding effects on existing water shortages.

• 1:39:37Steven Rinella?

  Yep. And when you're using water to cool, what's happening is you're putting the heat into the water.

• 1:39:43Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:39:44Steven Rinella?

  How if water's coming in into a data center is coming in at I'll just pull a number I can picture is coming in at 50 degrees.

• 1:39:54Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:39:55Steven Rinella?

  Is it leaving at 52? Is it leaving at 102?

• 1:40:01Speaker 06

  I couldn't tell you that.

• 1:40:03Steven Rinella?

  This is I know, I'm not trying to bust your balls.

• 1:40:05Speaker 06

  No, this is one of those.

• 1:40:06Steven Rinella?

  Things I wonder about.

• 1:40:07Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:40:07Steven Rinella?

  This is why I want to get, I need to get someone on the show, on the interview show. I need to get someone that's real solid on this shit.

• 1:40:13Speaker 04

  Well, the, the NIMBY thing that you talked about is well, I'm saying NIMBY with these things like, like you mentioned in Georgia where there was like low water pressure, like that's kind of what scares me. Cause when people get sick of these things being in their backyard, like a logical step could be with the right, like people behind it in Washington, saying like, well, let's put these things on public land, right? Oh, yeah. Away from where people are going to be pissed about it.

• 1:40:41Steven Rinella?

  You know, like Zuckerberg bought that island in Hawaii. He goes out there, surfs around in those goofy glasses and stuff. Do you, uh, I bet he's not putting one on that island.

• 1:40:52Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:40:53Speaker 06

  No.

• 1:40:53Steven Rinella?

  It'll be like, these are the dudes, these are the dudes that they will never even see one of these things.

• 1:40:59Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:40:59Steven Rinella?

  It's not gonna be in their backyard.

• 1:41:03Speaker 06

  I mean, with something like this too, ideally, like the problem is

• 1:41:08Speaker 06

  the best place to put massive facilities like this from a habitat standpoint is on landscapes that are already developed or already disturbed. You know, like the best place to, to do any sort of development is where development has already occurred. So you're not chewing up farmland and you're not chewing up forests.

• 1:41:25Steven Rinella?

  It's like whatever neighborhood in the Bay area, all these houses live in.

• 1:41:28Speaker 06

  Yeah, exactly. So I like walking away from my, my limited research on this. It's one of those things when I see it in the news, I kind of roll my eyes and I'm like, God, I'm sick of hearing about data centers. But

• 1:41:42Steven Rinella?

  I'm not.

• 1:41:43Speaker 06

  The more you, the more you read about them, you, you sort of come to the realization that

• 1:41:49Speaker 06

  it's not stopping. So we just need to be clear eyed about the potential risks for habitat and wildlife, you know? Cause it's just going to be an ongoing conversation that's probably going to get bigger and bigger in the years ahead.

• 1:42:02Steven Rinella?

  We gotta do two quick hits.

• 1:42:04Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:42:06Steven Rinella?

  Uh, we're gonna do two quick hits, cuz then we gotta get into fishing records, which is what we're all here to hear about.

• 1:42:11Speaker 05

  My computer died, so we should just punt that segment to next week, since we're already.

• 1:42:15Steven Rinella?

  See, they took all of his power. The data center.

• 1:42:18Speaker 05

  They did.

• 1:42:18Steven Rinella?

  First casualty right here. This is when it gets real. This is when it gets real.

• 1:42:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:42:23Steven Rinella?

  Okay, so we'll punt on that. Your computer died. Can't plug it in?

• 1:42:26Speaker 05

  I don't see a charger in this room.

• 1:42:28Steven Rinella?

  Oh, you're really gonna quit because your computer died?

• 1:42:30Speaker 05

  Well, no, also, I, before my computer even died, I wrote in the script that I think we should.

• 1:42:34Steven Rinella?

  Oh, that was you that wrote?

• 1:42:35Speaker 05

  That was me. Well, I said my parentheses.

• 1:42:37Speaker 04

  He's just hoping there's another record between now and next week.

• 1:42:40Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:42:40Speaker 06

  But you're Delman.

• 1:42:41Steven Rinella?

  Not, somewhat quick hit.

• 1:42:43Speaker 05

  Try to preserve.

• 1:42:43Steven Rinella?

  If you're a fellow that reads the news, and you're always seeing like, data centers, blah, blah, blah. You're always seeing lately, you've been seeing nothing but cyanide bombs. They're putting cyanide bombs out on public land.

• 1:42:57Speaker 04

  Phil's gonna pull up a picture.

• 1:42:58Speaker 05

  This one here?

• 1:42:59Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:02Steven Rinella?

  Spencer's guilty of this.

• 1:43:03Speaker 05

  I am.

• 1:43:04Steven Rinella?

  They, if you're seeing stuff about the Trump administration's putting cyanide bombs on public land, it's like, hold on a minute. Hold on a minute. A cyanide bomb.

• 1:43:19Steven Rinella?

  It's, it's the same mentality as calling CWD the zombie deer disease. It's the same mentality. You're taking a term in a, okay. It's like, let's say you oppose the inheritance tax.

• 1:43:37Steven Rinella?

  What do you go? What do you do? I'll tell you what you do.

• 1:43:41Speaker 05

  The death, the death.

• 1:43:42Steven Rinella?

  You say, a death tax? They're even gonna tax you when you're dead, cuz you wanna rebrand it.

• 1:43:50Steven Rinella?

  Cyanide bombs are not cyanide bombs. They are canine pest ejectors. Rolls off the tongue.

• 1:43:58Steven Rinella?

  It's just, let's just at least be honest about what we're talking about. There's a, there's a very fine debate to be had about whether they should, they're called M44s. Whether you should use it, whether they should be using M44 devices out on public land. I got a lot to say about it, but please stop with the cyanide bomb thing.

• 1:44:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, there's, there's two like parts of the language you should avoid. We're talking about, one is calling them a bomb. There's no explosion. Um, it's, it's a spring loaded ejector that sends the cyanide into whatever it's, it's hitting.

• 1:44:34Steven Rinella?

  Crystallized, crystallized form.

• 1:44:36Speaker 05

  Yeah. The other one is calling it a cloud of cyanide. That's another thing you don't do. There's no cloud of gas. It's not just like spreading this across the landscape. Uh, it is a solid capsule that is then ejecting the, uh, the, I assume it's like a powder form.

• 1:44:53Steven Rinella?

  Like if you took a granular, it's a granular form that mixes with saliva.

• 1:44:57Speaker 05

  Yeah. And that, that goes directly into the coyote's mouth. There is no, uh, like haphazard green fumes coming from one of these things. So you don't call it a bomb and you don't say it's a cloud of gas.

• 1:45:08Speaker 06

  Our diagram does show gas.

• 1:45:11Steven Rinella?

  No, crystals.

• 1:45:12Speaker 06

  It says hydrogen cyanide gas.

• 1:45:14Steven Rinella?

  That's what it makes when it mixes with saliva.

• 1:45:16Speaker 04

  Powder first.

• 1:45:19Steven Rinella?

  It's like what it makes when it mixes with saliva.

• 1:45:21Speaker 06

  Did I say anything wrong?

• 1:45:22Steven Rinella?

  Did I say anything wrong?

• 1:45:23Speaker 06

  When you open up a box of powdered sugar.

• 1:45:25Steven Rinella?

  In the diagram. When it mixes. If I put powdered sugar in your mouth.

• 1:45:30Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:45:31Steven Rinella?

  What, what's gonna happen to that powdered sugar?

• 1:45:34Speaker 06

  Is it gonna turn into cyanide gas?

• 1:45:35Steven Rinella?

  It's gonna form a liquid.

• 1:45:37Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:45:37Steven Rinella?

  So do you go, that's not powdered sugar, that's a liquid? No, it's powdered sugar. Once it's in your mouth, it's a liquid. Once it comes in contact with your saliva, it liquefies.

• 1:45:48Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 1:45:49Steven Rinella?

  You could, you could dislike M44s all you want, but let's just be clear about what they are and stop talking about them in some bullshit way.

• 1:45:56Speaker 06

  I didn't say anything other than there is cyanide gas at some point in this process. Because it's in our diagram.

• 1:46:02Steven Rinella?

  Yes. Once the crystals come in contact with a liquid, there's a gas produced that is inhaled by the animal and it kills it. I'm not trying to sugarcoat, back to powdered sugar, I'm not trying to sugarcoat anything. Yeah. It's just, stop calling it that, because when you're calling it, not you, people, America. I know. Because when they're calling it that, they're trying to vilify something in a way that, that, that's dishonest. Yeah.

• 1:46:27Speaker 04

  These things are also not.

• 1:46:28Steven Rinella?

  We're supposed to be reporting this story.

• 1:46:29Speaker 04

  These things are also not new, right?

• 1:46:31Steven Rinella?

  No.

• 1:46:31Speaker 04

  Like they've been around forever.

• 1:46:32Steven Rinella?

  Ever.

• 1:46:33Speaker 04

  Um.

• 1:46:34Steven Rinella?

  Not ever, but ever.

• 1:46:35Speaker 04

  They were, they're banned during, late in the Biden administration, so they're, whatever, a couple of years, they've been banned. Um, but, but they've been a use for years.

• 1:46:45Steven Rinella?

  But that's a, that's a, that's, that's part of the problem with headline writing in America. They've, they were legal for decades.

• 1:46:53Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:46:54Steven Rinella?

  They had a directive, under the Biden administration, that they wouldn't be able to use them. And these aren't public, these aren't like, Joe Blow don't use these, like.

• 1:47:03Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:47:03Steven Rinella?

  Like Wildlife Services or AFIS is able to use these, they're not like, you know, just buy them at the, you know, you don't go to the hardware store and buy an M44. It's a professional tool for protecting livestock from predators, which you could be for or against, but let's just be honest about what it is. It's a tool like that, that was always legal. And then, under the Biden administration, they put a moratorium on it, and the moratorium's been lifted. So whenever this happens, what happens is you then report Trump wants, um. Cyanide bombs.

• 1:47:33Speaker 04

  There was, and there was an incident, I think, that kind of spurred the banning, like, there was a kid in Idaho was out with his dog. Somehow, they were both inspecting this thing, or looking at it, the dog ended up dying, the kid did not.

• 1:47:49Steven Rinella?

  The dog, it killed the dog.

• 1:47:50Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:47:50Steven Rinella?

  He got a settlement of a hundred and fifty some thousand dollars.

• 1:47:53Speaker 04

  Like, sure, there's a possibility that something bad can happen.

• 1:47:57Steven Rinella?

  Here's the deal on this, here's the deal on this.

• 1:48:01Steven Rinella?

  What kills more dogs? This is like another case of intellectual dishonesty.

• 1:48:06Speaker 04

  Ooh.

• 1:48:06Steven Rinella?

  What kills more dogs? Coyotes or M44s?

• 1:48:09Speaker 04

  Hmm, sure.

• 1:48:10Steven Rinella?

  So, all of these, all of these organizations, Project Coyote, Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, all these organizations that petition against M44s, and they always like to go to the dead dog. But when dogs kill coyotes, where are they? If they are so interested in dead dogs, where are they?

• 1:48:33Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:48:33Steven Rinella?

  They don't have a thing to say about that, because they don't actually care about that dog. They just don't care about the dog. They leverage it. They leverage it because they care about predator control. So just be more honest.

• 1:48:47Speaker 04

  What's pretty interesting is there, um, there's, um, I've got an article here from the Casper Newspaper in Wyoming and, uh, a woman from the Wyoming Wildlife Advocates, which I'm assuming is, is not a pro M44 group. Um, they're indiscriminate. They kill anything that comes across them. There's no way that anybody needs that to protect their livestock. There are other ways to do it. It's cyanide. That's a tool of war, not something that needs to be used to protect livestock. And here's the interesting part, because she's trying to get hunters on her side. They're just asking for sporting dogs to get killed, like, you know, hitting up the, the guys that are out there with bird dogs.

• 1:49:30Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Now by,

• 1:49:33Steven Rinella?

  yeah, this,

• 1:49:38Steven Rinella?

  this directive, the, the, the, the interior department's being a little coy, because they're sort of saying, no, no, no, no, we're not saying go use them.

• 1:49:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:49:45Steven Rinella?

  There still has to be, uh, NEPA and all their steps, but you, they're basically undoing the restriction. They're not mandating that they be used. They're eliminating a barrier to using them. So it's safe to assume that on a case by case basis, they may start using M44s on BLM to protect property. They're supposed to be somewhat canine specific, because there's like a bite and pull. There's a bite and pull function that needs to happen to trigger them. Um.

• 1:50:20Speaker 05

  Another detail, when you're talking about Biden outlawing them or Trump allowing them, that's specific to federal lands. Like, there's still states that throughout the ban were using these things that I don't think were impacted by either it being outlawed or being allowed.

• 1:50:36Steven Rinella?

  And there are states that have state laws that they can't be used in the state.

• 1:50:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:50:41Steven Rinella?

  So, and again, man,

• 1:50:47Steven Rinella?

  I think, you know, not that I'm the arbiter of what should be an allowable debate. There's a lot to debate here. It's just the bullshit gets piled on so thick around this subject that people can't even see clearly anymore.

• 1:51:00Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:51:02Steven Rinella?

  Like, the rhetoric gets so ridiculous. And the posturing gets so ridiculous that people aren't even having a sane conversation about it.

• 1:51:09Speaker 05

  Yeah. And I've also heard that in some of these instances where a human deploys one accidentally, that there's like some missing context there about the person was trespassing, or they are required by certain laws to have two signs within 15 feet of these plungers.

• 1:51:29Steven Rinella?

  Used to be 25 feet, now it's 15 feet.

• 1:51:30Speaker 05

  And they have to be bilingual. And when you hear about these going off accidentally in something that's not a coyote's mouth, like the signs weren't there, or someone was walking in a place that they weren't allowed to be, that's like a common element in this story.

• 1:51:45Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, if you see the setup, I mean, they're marked with a big sign.

• 1:51:51Speaker 06

  They're bilingual, I assume, in German for the attack dogs.

• 1:51:56Steven Rinella?

  Yes. The other thing you gotta look at is you wind up, in this kind of stuff, you always look and you say like, is it a population level impact? So, when you build, let's say you build a data center,

• 1:52:16Steven Rinella?

  and you're putting up a ton of, you're putting a bunch of concrete on the ground, you are absolutely killing wildlife and you're destroying wildlife habitat. The question would be, is it a population level impact? When you put up wind turbines, so wind power generating turbines,

• 1:52:36Steven Rinella?

  they kill birds. But that industry will say, but it's not a population level impact. Cars kill raccoons.

• 1:52:47Steven Rinella?

  But it's not a population level impact. So from a, from a

• 1:52:53Steven Rinella?

  wildlife management view, you would say, yes, it's killing some, but it's not a population level impact. And when you're looking at the M44 stuff, you'll see, oh, wolves could get it or whatever could get it. They're not having population level impacts. So that's another thing to keep in mind. Um, and I keep paying one side of the story, but I'll play the other side for a story. We have a terrible legacy of poisoning wildlife and we poisoned wildlife for over a century and wiped out a lot of species and extirpated a lot of species across native range through poisoning. So, pun intended, it leaves a bad taste in people's mouth.

• 1:53:31Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 1:53:32Steven Rinella?

  Poisoning.

• 1:53:33Speaker 06

  Mm hmm.

• 1:53:34Steven Rinella?

  There's a reasonable, um, the, the, there's, there's reason to recoil at the idea of poisoning predators because the, our legacy of poisoning predators is bad. We did a lot of damage with indiscriminate use of poisons. And so even when it's a discriminate use of poisons, it can rile folks up.

• 1:54:02Steven Rinella?

  I don't know.

• 1:54:03Speaker 06

  Especially if they're not getting the full story from the news coverage.

• 1:54:10Speaker 04

  We moving on?

• 1:54:11Steven Rinella?

  I'm done.

• 1:54:12Speaker 04

  Here's a headline you, uh, you, you, I, I thought I'd never hear Wyoming reducing wolf quotas for 2026. If you're familiar with Wyoming and, and their relationship with wolves, that, that might seem surprising. Um,

• 1:54:28Speaker 06

  Is it to preserve the age class?

• 1:54:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:54:30Speaker 06

  The trophy.

• 1:54:34Speaker 04

  Uh, Wyoming wildlife managers are proposing major reductions to the state's 2026 wolf hunting quotas. Uh, a, a widespread canine distemper outbreak caused one of the sharpest wolf population declines in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem.

• 1:54:50Steven Rinella?

  Nice job.

• 1:54:51Speaker 04

  Since, uh, they were introduced there in the mid 1990s. Um, if you're not familiar, canine distemper is, it's a viral disease affecting. All kinds of canine species, uh, wolves, coyotes, foxes, domestic, domestic dogs. And it's especially lethal to puppies, highly contagious, incurable. Uh, affects the respiratory, gastrointestinal and nervous systems. Most dog, like if a dog's infected with it, it's going to die within two to four weeks. Dogs can survive it, but they generally, um, will suffer from permanent, um, neurological damage like seizures, paralysis. Um, canine December is not new in the Yellowstone area. It has been several

• 1:55:35Speaker 04

  this temper outbreaks in the region in the past 20 years, but they're smaller flare ups. Um, that didn't cause like major mortality events like this, this past winter. Um, and according to state and federal monitoring of Wyoming's wolf population, it declined from roughly 330 wolves in 2024 to 253 entering 2026. Um, breeding pairs dropped from 24 to 14. Um, and the, the Wyoming has two different like wolf hunting zones. One's called the tro, I'll explain this more, but can you pull up that map, Phil?

• 1:56:18Speaker 04

  Um, there's what they call the trophy area in northwestern Wyoming. Um, that declined to 130 wolves. And that area in the northwest part of the state is where they have to maintain a target of approximately 160 wolves, or they get in trouble with the feds and wolves going back on the ESA. Um, so that, that's why this is very concerning to Wyoming's wildlife managers. Um, it's not necessarily that they're worried about this wolf decline in general. It's that if there's not enough wolves in that area around Yellowstone, what you, you, uh, you'll also hear that called the recovery area.

• 1:56:58Speaker 04

  Um, back when the wolves were managed federally rather than, than by the state of Wyoming. Um, so right now it's below that target of 160 wolves.

• 1:57:11Speaker 04

  Distemper exposure was detected and sixty four, sixty four percent of wolves catch, captured during monitoring work. Uh, wolf pup survival dropped dramatically, which affected recruitment into the adult population. Um, an estimated thirty one to thirty four pups out of eighty seven documented pups statewide survived, so less than half. Um.

• 1:57:37Steven Rinella?

  Man, you'd think that the, the people that are so hysterical all the time about a wolf getting killed by a hunter.

• 1:57:44Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 1:57:45Steven Rinella?

  They gotta be shitting their pants.

• 1:57:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. And, and this is the first time they've seen like a population event, like level event like this. Um.

• 1:57:54Steven Rinella?

  What it'd be like really with all the consternation about managed wolf hunting, somehow putting wolves back on the ESA list. Um, th- as much as that was like pushed and pushed and pushed.

• 1:58:09Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:58:09Steven Rinella?

  It'd really be something if it wound up being a, a, a naturally occurring wildlife disease.

• 1:58:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:58:15Steven Rinella?

  Put them back on the list.

• 1:58:16Speaker 04

  Exactly. And, and that like they, in the, the research I was doing, they, they make a point to say that like hunting is not causing population level declines. Like it's, it's in that they're, they're highly managed in that, that, uh, trophy zone.

• 1:58:31Speaker 05

  How many get killed there each year?

• 1:58:33Speaker 04

  Well, it was, it was, the quota was twenty, was forty four. Um, and they didn't even, they only killed thirty one out of forty four last year. So they didn't even meet the quota. They're proposing to drop that quota to twenty two. So they want to cut it in half. Um.

• 1:58:48Steven Rinella?

  Are they fixing to keep the rest of the state as basically like a vermin coyote zone?

• 1:58:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, they don't like, they don't need to manage them for a minimum in the rest. It's only that, that recovery area, trophy game management.

• 1:59:02Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. So if you're not able to look at the graphic Phil has pulled up here, basically the top.

• 1:59:10Steven Rinella?

  Eighth.

• 1:59:12Steven Rinella?

  So the, the, the, the top left or northwest corner of the state comprising about an eighth of the state of Wyoming, which is pretty damn rectangular, is wolf trophy game management area and the rest of the state is just predatory management area.

• 1:59:30Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:59:30Steven Rinella?

  Predator zone where the wolves are open all the time.

• 1:59:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:59:34Steven Rinella?

  They're managed like a coyote in seven eighths of Wyoming, roughly seven eighths of Wyoming excluding the corner of the state which touches on Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park.

• 1:59:49Speaker 04

  Yep. And the state of Wyoming has an agreement with the U S Fish and Wildlife Service to maintain those minimum number of wolves and minimum number of breeding pairs inside that, that, uh, trophy zone.

• 2:00:02Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 2:00:03Speaker 04

  So, um, yeah, they, they took pretty drastic action to make sure that wolves don't end up becoming federally managed and in the state of Wyoming, um, which, which might seem like counterintuitive for a state like Wyoming. It might seem like they don't want any wolves, but they're doing what they need to do to maintain them as a, a managed, state managed game animal, which is, is pretty cool.

• 2:00:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, everybody's fulfilling their role there.

• 2:00:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:00:33Speaker 05

  Like the state is doing their part and the feds are like doing their thing about saying, we expect this many animals. All the numbers you said though are like half as big as I thought they would be.

• 2:00:42Speaker 04

  As far as the total numbers.

• 2:00:44Speaker 05

  Total number of, that are killed, the total number that live there, uh, what the quota is. I assumed, I, I would have put two X on all those if I was just guessing.

• 2:00:52Speaker 04

  Yep. So there you go. If you're looking to kill a wolf in the trophy zone in, in, uh, Wyoming this year, it's going to be a little harder.

• 2:01:02Steven Rinella?

  Okay, everybody. Stay tuned next, next week for Spencer's fishing records report.

• 2:01:07Speaker 05

  And a charged computer.

• 2:01:09Steven Rinella?

  He's gonna charge up. He's gonna be ready.

• 2:01:11Speaker 04

  They might get another record between now and then.

• 2:01:15Steven Rinella?

  Uh, do me a favor as you're wrapping up listening, uh, go, go subscribe to the Meat Eater Podcast YouTube channel, please. Or wherever you listen, go follow wherever you listen to so you can stay up on the news with the news show, Meat Eater's news show. So subscribe, um, on the podcast YouTube channel and follow wherever you listen and stay tuned for more on Spencer's breaking fishing records. Coming soon.

• 2:02:09Speaker 06

  With ChatGPT, you can do more than get answers. You can get things done. Whether you're leading a big project, planning an elaborate trip, or trying to balance work and life, ChatGPT can help. Give it a goal, plus things like files, notes, or project plans, develop a trip itinerary with daily updates, or create a prioritized schedule. So you can spend less energy sorting out the details and more on bringing your biggest ideas to life. Get started at ChatGPT.com. Now more than ever, basketball teams are embracing advanced analytics. Nothing's more popular right now than coming up with a fancy new stat that helps teams gain an edge on the court. And this season, Bet365 is embracing a fancy concept of its own. Bet $10, get $200. Here's how it works.

• 2:02:53Speaker 06

  When new users sign up with Bet365 and place their first $10 bet, they'll get $200 in bonus bets. Fine, maybe it's not that advanced, but an offer this good doesn't have to be. Bet365, where winning is everything. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MYRESSET. Must be 21+ and present in This is Shirley Strawberry from the Steve Harvey Morning Show. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it starts with a great deal on an all-wheel-drive Camry, Corolla Cross, or a Corolla Sedan with the latest features and tech.

• 2:03:35Speaker 06

  Or test drive a spacious Grand Highlander or adventure-ready RAV4. And with so many hybrid models available, you can enjoy longer trips without all the stops. While Toyota's legendary resale value means you could get more at trade-in, get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shoptoyota.com for deals and details. Toyota, let's go places.

• 2:03:58Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.