Ep. 950: Getting Paid to Hunt Deer on an Island

Steven Rinella and the MeatEater Crew Discuss: a West Virginia Ginseng poaching bust; Nantucket will pay you to kill (and donate) deer; Trump copied our Land Access Initiative concept (just kiddin’); Turns out green decoys are real; New Mexico is gonna change who gets elk tags and who don’t; and more! 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

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• 0:04Steven Rinella?

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• 0:45Steven Rinella?

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• 2:14Steven Rinella?

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• 2:41Steven Rinella?

  Welcome to the news show, everybody. This week, we've got bubbly Doug Durn on a Wisconsin David versus Goliath powerline story. We've got Nantucket will seriously pay you to hunt deer, seriously. We got the Trump administration is taking steps to increase access, so that's good. We got Spencer digs in.

• 3:04Speaker 02

  Nice, you already got it?

• 3:06Steven Rinella?

  Spencer digs in on ginseng poachers.

• 3:12Speaker 02

  Good ones, dude.

• 3:13Steven Rinella?

  An interesting legal argument about elk tags has emerged in New Mexico. Randall and I signed our first doctor's note getting a kid out of school and more.

• 3:26Steven Rinella?

  Okay, I'm gonna skip our news, because what I was gonna talk about in our news. No, I'm just gonna talk about it right now. Phil, play the thing.

• 3:34Steven Rinella?

  This is a dumb one.

• 3:37Steven Rinella?

  This is a dumb one, but hear me out. The reason it's our news is because the other day I was driving down the road with my friend Jeremy Romero. And he brought up an issue that he found a solution toward that is always, this is an issue that's always chapped my buns. And he kind of solution for it, but I gotta give a little background.

• 3:58Steven Rinella?

  First off, Jeremy's from New Mexico. New Mexico, they don't, they do not do a thing called bonus points. So just to step this back for a minute, if you imagine, you know, in most of the country, like if you want to go deer hunting, you go to the gas station or the sporting goods store and you like buy a deer tag. There's no limit on how many deer tags are available. Anybody that wants one can get one. But when you get into certain things where you have more certain areas and certain wildlife species where you have more demand than supply, you need to create a system by which you award hunts, right? Like if everyone that wants to go hunt a bighorn in Montana went and shot a bighorn,

• 4:39Steven Rinella?

  they'd all be gone and we'd be in the hole of a million bighorns. So you gotta like, you gotta have a system by which you hand these opportunities out. And they, there's these things called tag draws, okay? So let's say you live in, uh,

• 4:56Steven Rinella?

  you live in.

• 4:57Speaker 02

  Nevada?

• 4:58Steven Rinella?

  Wyoming. Arizona. Wyoming, you live in Wyoming, you want to hunt Wyoming.

• 5:02Speaker 02

  Alaska?

• 5:03Steven Rinella?

  You want to hunt Wyoming and Wyoming, they say like, hey, we got, there's 100 elk tags for this mountain range. And you know, a couple thousand guys put in for them. So most of those people, let's just keep the number simple. There's a single tag available for a mountain range in Wyoming, one tag, 100 guys want it. 99 of those guys are, they come up empty-handed. So what the state does to reward them, at least for their efforts, is they give them a thing called the bonus point. So then the next year, keeping it as simple as possible, the next year, those previous 99 guys, now their name is in the hat two times. Right? This is how this whole preference point, bonus point thing generally works.

• 5:46Steven Rinella?

  What can happen to a fellow is you can play the game for so long. I've played this game for a very, very long time that you wind up with enormous amounts of bonus points. So you get where you have, like, I have some, for some draws, I have 20 bonus points. And so you want to get the best, most premium hunt you can get because you've got so much invested in all these damn points. And now and then it'll happen that you realize you could go hunt elk in some other mountain range.

• 6:20Steven Rinella?

  And it, and, and if you have five points, you're gonna draw it. Is this, you got, it makes sense, you guys already know all this. But you'd be like, you'd be like, it only takes five bonus points to win that elk permit. And then you wind up being like, well, I'm not gonna do that because I have 20 bonus points. I'd be like, in your mind, psychologically, you're thinking, I'd be wasting all this.

• 6:46Speaker 02

  So you want to keep your 15.

• 6:47Steven Rinella?

  And so you don't do shit. You don't do anything because you'd like, you look at it like money.

• 6:52Speaker 02

  Some cost fallacy.

• 6:54Steven Rinella?

  But here's Romero's, the Romero proposal. He thinks states, so if you work at a state wildlife agency, hear me out. He thinks it should be, your bonus points should be like poker chips.

• 7:07Steven Rinella?

  When you're playing poker, you don't always take all your chips and slide them out.

• 7:15Speaker 02

  It seems to me like this.

• 7:17Steven Rinella?

  I'm not done laying the proposal out.

• 7:19Speaker 02

  I think I know where it's going.

• 7:21Steven Rinella?

  We'll just have a little patience.

• 7:25Steven Rinella?

  Instead of you needing to be, it's binary. It's like, it's like all your chips are in or none of your chips are in. He feels you should be able to have 20 bonus points. He feels you should be able to slide five out and make a bet.

• 7:43Speaker 02

  This seems like it'd be a very popular idea among people with 20 bonus points.

• 7:48Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. That's what I'm talking about.

• 7:50Speaker 02

  More and more premium opportunities go to fewer and fewer people. Yeah, what would this solve for?

• 7:56Steven Rinella?

  It would solve for a problem I'm having right now.

• 8:00Steven Rinella?

  Where I'm eyeballing, where I have a thing, and it actually is Wyoming. I have a giant pile of poker chips. But there's a thing I want to go do that I would be effectively for, once I have to slide all my poker chips in on a small bet and, and like, I'm, so picture that the state is my opponent. I'm sliding 20 out.

• 8:33Steven Rinella?

  And he's like, I'll put out five.

• 8:40Steven Rinella?

  Do you follow me?

• 8:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, we're, yeah.

• 8:42Steven Rinella?

  It's called the Romero.

• 8:43Speaker 03

  So Jeremy came up with this just for you.

• 8:45Speaker 02

  And this is how you solve point creep.

• 8:47Steven Rinella?

  He wants it for him. He plays the game. He plays the game and he's like, this is what's chappin'. My buns, like mine, our buns are chapped by the same thing is we want to be able to play a couple chips.

• 9:00Speaker 02

  Would it, would it change your opinion on this if I told you that this would make things exponentially worse for your kids?

• 9:06Steven Rinella?

  No.

• 9:07Speaker 03

  Would it though?

• 9:09Speaker 03

  I'm not sure that it would.

• 9:11Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, it would.

• 9:11Speaker 03

  Like, I think we need a statistician in here to tell us like if it actually would make it worse.

• 9:15Speaker 04

  It would make it harder.

• 9:16Speaker 02

  It, it would definitely, I mean, I shouldn't say exponentially.

• 9:19Steven Rinella?

  Yes, because I draw that tag and I'm still sitting on 15 points.

• 9:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. So he'd draw, he'd draw four premium tags.

• 9:27Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Cause if I like that hunt, if I like that hunt, the next year.

• 9:30Speaker 02

  And meanwhile, all the people with four points are never gonna get, you know, like.

• 9:35Speaker 05

  If you look, I think you, the question could be answered by how many points are people dying with? Cause that'd be the only way to like, like that would be the delta.

• 9:42Steven Rinella?

  Oh yeah. Where do all those points go when you die?

• 9:44Speaker 05

  I don't know.

• 9:45Speaker 02

  We need a statistician to write in.

• 9:48Steven Rinella?

  In a little grave?

• 9:49Speaker 02

  I don't think we need, I don't think we need a statistician to write in.

• 9:52Steven Rinella?

  I'm gonna die with so many points. They're gonna have to put a grave next to my grave to hold all my points. It's like, I'm gonna have a headstone.

• 10:00Speaker 02

  Let the highest.

• 10:01Steven Rinella?

  It's gonna be like his points.

• 10:02Speaker 02

  That's the highest point holders.

• 10:04Steven Rinella?

  Get more tags.

• 10:05Speaker 02

  Family and stuff.

• 10:06Steven Rinella?

  I sort of see that as.

• 10:07Speaker 05

  How many points you died with?

• 10:09Steven Rinella?

  Instead of year, instead of like what year you died and were born and all that, it'll just be like the points you've accumulated that you died, you took to the grave.

• 10:17Speaker 05

  We'll get Brianna on that.

• 10:18Speaker 04

  And to be clear, while 20 points is a lot, there's a lot of Steves and Jeremys out there who like have 20 points to use somewhere.

• 10:24Steven Rinella?

  And we want to find a way to hoard even more.

• 10:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:27Steven Rinella?

  And we want to have our cake and then we want to be able to eat it too.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  And a little bit of your cake.

• 10:35Steven Rinella?

  I wouldn't mind. Matter of fact, I'm just gonna have some of your cake, I think.

• 10:40Speaker 04

  That's clever.

• 10:41Steven Rinella?

  The Romero, the Romero proposal. I wish you guys hadn't shot it down. Cause I feel like I had a lot of state directors excited about implementing this and then you guys started shooting holes in it.

• 10:50Speaker 03

  I had a, I don't know if it's quite at proposal stage yet, but I had an idea to help, you know how we're discussing what the proper age is for youth hunting? Or like to be a, a mentored hunter?

• 11:04Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 11:06Speaker 03

  Cause I was noticing that, uh, with my kids, the weight of the gun gets very heavy after a while. And I was thinking, well, I wonder if that could be like a solid threshold because we also have this like three-year-old that supposedly wielded a, a 12 gauge and, and thought it was shooting at a turkey, right? Well, it, the, the person should be able to display like the ability to carry and handle said weapon.

• 11:37Steven Rinella?

  Man, Yanni's gonna have the ADA.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:40Steven Rinella?

  Compliance people after him. Bad.

• 11:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:43Steven Rinella?

  I can't even imagine the mean things he's gonna be hearing about himself.

• 11:47Speaker 03

  Okay. Well, it's just an idea.

• 11:48Speaker 02

  It was not yet at the proposal stage to be clear.

• 11:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, just an idea.

• 11:52Steven Rinella?

  Someone, you know, writing in to their little boy's got like only one arm, something they're gonna be mad at Yanni.

• 11:59Speaker 05

  He needs pistol brace.

• 12:00Speaker 03

  Well, there's, there's always exceptions, you know? You get a special, you get a special permit for that.

• 12:04Steven Rinella?

  That's true. That's true. So yeah, you gotta be like, hey, when you can carry that thing three miles up and down, come talk to me about hunting.

• 12:15Steven Rinella?

  Your news, Phil?

• 12:19Steven Rinella?

  That's right. Your news brought to you by banished suppressors. Holding my hot little hand. And we just, um, Yanni wanted to talk about this, but I nixed it, but we just did the youth hunt.

• 12:29Steven Rinella?

  Lot of quiet rifle firing at youth camp.

• 12:32Speaker 03

  Yeah. I don't think I heard, heard another shot.

• 12:34Steven Rinella?

  In the old days, you'd be like, oh, there's Yanni ripping. Or Yanni's kids are ripping, but now you don't know nothing. You gotta wait till you get back to camp. Cause everybody shoots suppressed.

• 12:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:44Steven Rinella?

  Everybody comes back, their ears aren't ringing.

• 12:46Speaker 03

  When you hear gunshots, it's usually a volley and I think it's usually upland bird hunters.

• 12:52Steven Rinella?

  Um, here's what we're gonna do. We gotta, so one day it occurred to us, no, a guy wrote in, I think.

• 12:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:59Steven Rinella?

  Saying, well, you guys are doctors. Randall's a doctor. I have an honorary doctorate.

• 13:04Speaker 03

  Which is doctor.

• 13:05Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Which, you know, let's just cut the, shorten that up.

• 13:10Steven Rinella?

  You know, abbreviate that to doctor. A guy wrote in, he's wondering if we could write him a doctor's note.

• 13:16Speaker 05

  Yeah. Episode nine 30, he wrote in. Uh, Steve said he'd happily give him a doctor's note or anyone else who needs time off for school or work. So a bunch of folks wrote in. Um, I was gone for a while, so we missed a bunch. I'm sorry for that. Hopefully it worked out with your boss.

• 13:31Steven Rinella?

  Nate had a baby. His wife had a baby.

• 13:32Speaker 05

  Yeah. Um, here's one from Jacob Flora.

• 13:37Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 13:38Speaker 05

  Steven Randall, you want to read his situation? Well, I'll read it and then you diagnose.

• 13:42Steven Rinella?

  Well, I like how he spelled my name off right off the bat.

• 13:45Speaker 05

  He spelled a lot of things, interestingly. He said.

• 13:47Steven Rinella?

  He spells everything wrong.

• 13:48Speaker 05

  Dear Mr. Rennell, on the most recent episode of the new show, you guys were talking about being open to writing doctor's notes for absences from school. Well, my school only allows five absences a year without a doctor's note. This season I'm supposed to go on a black bear hunt in West Virginia, but I would still like to hunt the Ohio rut. I was wondering if you and Dr. Randall would be Randell would be willing to sign one for me.

• 14:11Speaker 02

  It's a mistake many have made.

• 14:12Speaker 05

  The dates would be November 2nd to 5th. Thanks.

• 14:15Steven Rinella?

  No problem. So I'm sitting here on our new form.

• 14:19Steven Rinella?

  Steve Rinella, honorary D and Randall Williams, PhD. Meat eater, occupational health.

• 14:29Steven Rinella?

  To whom it may concern, this letter is to certify that, what's this kid's name?

• 14:33Speaker 04

  Spell it wrong.

• 14:33Speaker 05

  Jacob Flora.

• 14:34Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do them dirty just back again. Oh, this is the pen you gave me?

• 14:40Speaker 02

  Oh no.

• 14:40Speaker 05

  Oh, it's got a cap on it.

• 14:41Steven Rinella?

  Isn't like a pen. Oh.

• 14:43Speaker 05

  That's brand fresh new pen. You know how they do that?

• 14:46Steven Rinella?

  No, I've never seen that before.

• 14:48Speaker 05

  When they're signing something fancy.

• 14:49Speaker 04

  First one.

• 14:50Steven Rinella?

  His notes gonna look like shit.

• 14:52Speaker 02

  According to AI.

• 14:54Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 14:54Speaker 02

  Simply lying about being a doctor in casual, everyday conversation is not a crime. However, the moment an impersonation crosses into advertising services diagnosing illnesses.

• 15:07Speaker 05

  It's very clear on this form.

• 15:08Steven Rinella?

  This letter's not, here me out.

• 15:10Speaker 05

  I'm not worried about it.

• 15:11Steven Rinella?

  To certify that Jacob Flora was obsessed by our offices on, what's today's date?

• 15:17Speaker 05

  21st of October.

• 15:19Steven Rinella?

  10, 21, 26. Diagnosis, cervid fixation syndrome. Acute.

• 15:30Steven Rinella?

  Barometric sensitivity, pre funnel.

• 15:34Speaker 03

  Are you checking these or are you just reading them off?

• 15:36Steven Rinella?

  Trying to think. Photo period related loss of indoor tolerance.

• 15:39Speaker 04

  What did that last one mean?

• 15:41Steven Rinella?

  Barometric, the paramet, the barometers.

• 15:43Speaker 04

  Good weather?

• 15:44Steven Rinella?

  He knows there's good fishing weather coming up. Cold water onset fever.

• 15:50Steven Rinella?

  Dietary wild protein deficiency. Unsuccessful prior season unresolved. Pre-seasonal hyper arousal.

• 16:01Steven Rinella?

  Seasonal migratory restlessness, salmanted emergence response. Adverse weather, water foul dependency. Fluorescent light intolerance, occupational. Under harvest chronic, stage three.

• 16:18Speaker 05

  Oh, that's tough.

• 16:19Steven Rinella?

  What would this guy?

• 16:20Speaker 02

  I think he's got cervid fixation.

• 16:22Steven Rinella?

  Ohio rut. I think a pre-seasonal hyper arousal.

• 16:25Speaker 02

  Can we, can we fill in some sort of split personality?

• 16:29Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. He's got a disorder. There's no other on here.

• 16:31Speaker 03

  Oh, he could, he could certainly have.

• 16:34Speaker 02

  You could write that in.

• 16:35Speaker 03

  Multiple diagnoses.

• 16:37Steven Rinella?

  But I think pre-seasonal, cause this is all coming up, pre-seasonal hyper arousal.

• 16:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:43Speaker 02

  Clearly.

• 16:43Speaker 03

  Well, photo period related loss of indoor tolerance certainly fits.

• 16:47Steven Rinella?

  He's got some of that. I'm gonna put him in there and he's got like a little trace of that pre-seasonal hyper arousal. You get with that? That gives him like two things.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, I concur.

• 16:55Speaker 03

  I like his dates. I like his dates that he's picking.

• 16:59Steven Rinella?

  He needs to be skewed some school for the period of.

• 17:01Speaker 05

  Second to the fifth.

• 17:02Steven Rinella?

  November 2 to 5.

• 17:06Speaker 03

  And then now you can see the long range forecast. It looks like November 2 through 5 in the Midwest is gonna be pretty good.

• 17:12Steven Rinella?

  It's got right here, honorary doctorate of forestry and conservation. I'll sign that.

• 17:18Steven Rinella?

  And then Randall, doctor of history. I don't think he's gonna be having any problems down there at the schoolhouse.

• 17:24Speaker 02

  No.

• 17:24Speaker 05

  Nope.

• 17:25Speaker 02

  You should also tell your school.

• 17:27Steven Rinella?

  Listen, man, I'll tell you, listen to me, Jacob. Whatever class is spelling, do they still have, if they got spelling class, you might want to visit them on lunch break a couple of times.

• 17:38Speaker 02

  I, I would tell your school that this seems like an unusually conservative, uh, absence policy. And had we had such a policy in my school growing up, I never would have graduated.

• 17:52Steven Rinella?

  School, man. You'd think a school that strict, that kid would be spelling like a madman, don't you? I mean, he does spell it. He wouldn't be spelling like a, you know, trying to get.

• 18:01Steven Rinella?

  Oh, check this. Oh, let's hit the news, Phil.

• 18:04Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 18:09Steven Rinella?

  So you know how we have Meat Eaters Land Access Initiative? Well, Trump stole that idea.

• 18:13Speaker 04

  Son of a gun.

• 18:14Steven Rinella?

  Some people are mad about Iran. Some people are mad about diesel prices. Some people are mad about Kimberly Guilfoyle. Some people are mad about peddling influence. I'm mad that he stole our LAI idea.

• 18:28Steven Rinella?

  In all seriousness, we recently covered

• 18:33Steven Rinella?

  Trump's executive orders on hunting and fishing. And here is where one of those, this is an interesting email floating around, where one of those is where the rubber, you know, the old, the old term, where the rubber has met the road. In that analogy, the rubber would be, scrap that analogy.

• 18:50Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 18:51Steven Rinella?

  We're seeing, here, here's a first little emergence of, public emergence of those executive orders coming into play. And check this out. So this, this is an email floating around. Someone forwarded it to me. The email reads, "In September, President Trump signed Executive Order 14429,

• 19:14Steven Rinella?

  titled, 'Reinvigorating America's Hunting Heritage,

• 19:20Steven Rinella?

  Directing Federal Land Management Agencies to Quote, 'Improve Public Access to Difficult-to-Access Federal Lands and Waters By Prioritizing Practical Access Opportunities.'"

• 19:34Steven Rinella?

  So, the letter goes on to explain, I'm pair, I'm jumping between paraphrasing and reading. "In line with this, the Bureau of Land Management is currently seeking Land and Water Conservation Fund acquisition projects, including easements, that open up Dingle Act-nominated lands and other landlocked public parcels to more hunting and fishing opportunities." I'm gonna step away from the reading and just explain this from this point forward. This letter is going out to, you know, folks like us, folks like you,

• 20:13Steven Rinella?

  seeking out parcels that you're aware of, landlocked parcels or difficult to access parcels you're aware of, where you might have identified, and they point out this has to be the case, where you may have identified a willing seller.

• 20:29Steven Rinella?

  So let's say there's a lake, there's no public access on the lake,

• 20:34Steven Rinella?

  right? Or let's say there's a chunk of, there's just a chunk of state land, there's no way to get on it without trespassing. It's asking people, if you know a willing seller, a property owner, who might be interested in an easement, or who might be interested in outside sale, they are actively looking for those opportunities to take land and water access fund money, which comes from offshore oil leases,

• 21:01Steven Rinella?

  to take that money and secure those parcels to open up access.

• 21:07Steven Rinella?

  We've solicited these, when I, when I joked about them stealing our idea,

• 21:12Steven Rinella?

  we've solicited these, we've looked for these tips before. We're not the only ones. Us, other organizations have looked for tips like this before. I'm like, hey, if you ever find, you know, some little 40 acre chunk, or a 10 acre chunk, or a five acre chunk, that if, if it was turned into an access point and easement, it would get you onto a lake, it would get you onto a river, it would get you onto public land, let us know, because we raise funds and have funds to go help purchase those parcels. But here, they're actively, the administration

• 21:47Steven Rinella?

  through the BLM is actively seeking out these chunks of land. So if you have one of these spots.

• 21:55Speaker 04

  What's new about this?

• 21:57Steven Rinella?

  That there's, that they're actively soliciting it?

• 21:59Speaker 04

  But the, the Dingle Act is 2019.

• 22:04Steven Rinella?

  I'm aware.

• 22:05Speaker 04

  And that's part of the Dingle Act.

• 22:07Steven Rinella?

  I know.

• 22:07Speaker 04

  But it's the active solicitation?

• 22:09Steven Rinella?

  But the executive order points out to prioritize it. And upon that executive order, here is emails going out.

• 22:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:19Steven Rinella?

  Actively hunting for such opportunities. Part of the thing we brought up when the, part of the thing we brought up when the executive orders came out, is a lot of this stuff sounds great, but what do you do?

• 22:29Speaker 04

  Right.

• 22:30Steven Rinella?

  You know, with, with language like prioritize.

• 22:33Speaker 04

  Right.

• 22:34Steven Rinella?

  Or, you know, um, consider prioritize. So one might ask, well, what does all that really mean in the end? To prioritize or consider? So it's an ongoing thing, but it's just, I, I found it interesting that, that there's active solicitation to the public trying to hunt down opportunities. These kinds of things have always happened. It's not like, it's not like there's this new mechanism, but it's saying, we have direction to get serious about this. Do you have potential opportunities?

• 23:04Speaker 04

  Gotcha.

• 23:04Steven Rinella?

  In mind. But in keeping, like, all through that executive order was a lot of stuff like, no big government, no big government. So it's funny, is in this, there's this flyer, in this flyer, it says, "If they are not a willing seller," it basically says, "If the person you're looking at is not a willing seller, stop now, leave them alone."

• 23:28Steven Rinella?

  It's like an all caps.

• 23:31Steven Rinella?

  It's like a, it's like a Trump Truth Social post where he uses all caps. It says, it says, "Find a landowner, step two, find a landowner that is willing to sell BLM, Bureau of Land Management, legal rights for public access." This is direction to the public. If the landowner is not willing to sell land and/or water or interest therein, then all uppercase, stop.

• 24:00Steven Rinella?

  The BLM cannot proceed without a willing seller.

• 24:04Speaker 04

  It makes it look like an acronym, because every other all caps in this is BLM, LWCF, SDOP.

• 24:12Steven Rinella?

  Yep. Steve Tops Out.

• 24:18Speaker 04

  Bezzin's.

• 24:18Steven Rinella?

  Pipe.

• 24:22Speaker 05

  I'll call the merge.

• 24:23Steven Rinella?

  I don't do that.

• 24:24Speaker 05

  Merge people now.

• 24:28Steven Rinella?

  So there it is. Dig in, man. Here's your, you know, here's your call to action. Find those parcels. You don't even need to tell us about them. Tell damn government about them.

• 24:38Speaker 04

  Is it, are other agencies besides BLM in, BLM in on this?

• 24:43Steven Rinella?

  I don't know. This is just the only one I've seen where it's like floating around, where they're, they're like taking an active step to seek this out, and also to educate people about this being a thing.

• 24:53Speaker 05

  We want to throw out the contact that they have on here?

• 24:55Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Yeah. Cause maybe you own the spot.

• 24:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:59Steven Rinella?

  Maybe you own a spot that you're like.

• 25:01Speaker 04

  And you're willing to sell.

• 25:02Steven Rinella?

  And you're willing to sell. Cause if you're not, listen, I'm not here to pressure you. I know when to stop.

• 25:08Speaker 04

  It's also not, it's not just sales.

• 25:09Steven Rinella?

  Who do they reach out to?

• 25:10Speaker 04

  It's access, not to like oversimplify it, but like access easements, yeah.

• 25:14Speaker 05

  Robert Wandel, Wandle, R. Wandle at BLM.gov.

• 25:21Steven Rinella?

  He's the Public Land Access Program Manager and LWCF Lead, R. W A N D E L at BLM.gov.

• 25:32Steven Rinella?

  I get sent all kinds of products and snacks, and the truth is, most of them come and go. Every once in a while, though, I find something I keep reaching for, and Wiley Wallaby is one of those things. I first tried it because someone just handed me a bag and said, "This isn't like any other kind of licorice you've had before," and they were right. Wiley Wallaby makes authentic Australian-style licorice that's incredibly soft and chewy. It's not like that weird, tough, waxy, cheap junk you get. And it doesn't have that artificial taste that turns a lot of people away from licorice in the first place. It's one of those products that's hard to explain until you've tasted it yourself. I keep some in my truck, I keep some in my fish shack, I keep some in my camper. They've got more than 10 flavors.

• 26:13Steven Rinella?

  And whether you like classic flavors or something a little different, there's probably one you'll end up keeping stocked around the house. Plus, it's made in the USA by a company that's been committed to quality and hometown values for over six decades. If you haven't tried Wiley Wallaby yet, pick yourself up a bag. Use code MEATEATER at shop.wileywallaby.com for free shipping, and you can try it yourself. I think you will be pleasantly surprised. When you're outside cleaning fish, working in your garden, or just grinding through a long day of work, your hands take a beating. Dry, cracked hands can be brutal when you need to get work done. O'Keefe's Working Hands Hand Cream. Get your hands back and work in order. This stuff is the greatest stuff in the world.

• 26:58Steven Rinella?

  Like, most hand creams, you put them on, and then you're all kind of greasy and slimy, and you can't grab stuff. You put the stuff on, your hands are ready to get back to work. It absorbs fast, creates a barrier to lock-in moisture, and doesn't leave your hands greasy at all. Do yourself a favor. Next time your hands feel like dried-out fish scales, get O'Keefe's Working Hands. I'm telling you, this stuff is amazing. Go to o'keefescompany.com to get yours today. That's O-K-E-E-F-F-E-S company.com for guaranteed relief. O'Keefe's Working Hands. It works good. The fall hunting season is finally upon us. I love this time of year. Me and my kids got trips coming up for pronghorn deer, moor deer, cow elk.

• 27:39Steven Rinella?

  We got all kinds of stuff coming up. We're about ready to trade out summer sleeping bags for cold weather down, pack up a food bin and a cooler, and we'll throw in a couple Mountain Dews for a little reward and boost after those long mountain marches. There's nothing better. It's my favorite time of year to spend time with my family. Born in the foothills of Tennessee, Mountain Dew was made for a damn good time outdoors. The bold taste you know and love has proud American roots dating back to 1948. Mark your best fall memories with the crisp, refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew from hanging out around the bonfire to just hopping into your friend's truck and cruising the woods. Get out there and enjoy the outdoors of Mountain Dew, an American original. Tasting great since 48. Look for Mountain Dew in stores near you.

• 28:26Speaker 05

  What do you, Spencer?

• 28:27Speaker 04

  The National Park Service announced a few weeks ago that Rangers in Great Smoky Mountains National Park confiscated 700 ginseng roots from two poachers. We've got a picture there of the stack of roots that they took. They, they piled them up like how you'd see, you know, some officers show you the incredible drug bust that they had, where it's just like an overwhelming mountain of roots.

• 28:53Steven Rinella?

  For you people that aren't watching and are only listening, if this wasn't, this looks remarkably similar to the Crown of Thorns.

• 29:04Steven Rinella?

  What's that creature in Harry Potter?

• 29:07Steven Rinella?

  Sorry?

• 29:07Speaker 03

  Mandrake?

• 29:07Steven Rinella?

  Yep, that's what I was thinking.

• 29:09Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:10Steven Rinella?

  Nice spell.

• 29:10Speaker 04

  The roots of ginseng, which are sometimes referred to as green gold, currently sells for about $800 per pound. And it takes about 200 roots to make a pound. So these poachers had roughly $3,000 worth of ginseng. Most of it was likely headed overseas. Officials estimate that 85% of North America's ginseng harvest goes to Asian markets. China is specifically the world's leading consumer of the plant. They use it in teas, soups, alcohol, cosmetics, supplements, and more. The list of supposed benefits include increased energy, immunity support, heating and cooling effects, sharpened focus, lowered blood sugar.

• 29:52Steven Rinella?

  Like HVAC?

• 29:52Speaker 04

  Reduced inflammation, and it's supposed to solve erectile dysfunction. Here is a picture of one of these pills.

• 30:01Steven Rinella?

  Oh yeah, the man root.

• 30:01Speaker 02

  Ginseng Power X.

• 30:03Speaker 04

  Uh, this is the ginseng male enhancement pill that the FDA put out a PSA for in 2016, advising Americans, do not buy this. It's a giant yellow pill that the label says is quote, "for your ultimate sexual pleasure, powerful libido, natural vigor, and effective enhancement." And then here's the really alarming one, lasting five days, it says.

• 30:28Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  Have you ever tried it?

• 30:31Speaker 03

  Has anybody here tried it?

• 30:32Speaker 04

  I've not tried it, but in high school, you know, we'd buy horny goat weed from the gas station bathroom that they would sell in the thing there. It didn't seem to have any effect on, you know, like a thriving 17 year old.

• 30:43Steven Rinella?

  But here's the thing I don't understand about this. Just, do you want to keep going? Can I ask you my questions?

• 30:48Speaker 04

  What's your question? Yeah, go for it. I got a lot more, but we can pause.

• 30:52Steven Rinella?

  Let me write them. Okay, let me just wedge one in here.

• 30:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, please.

• 30:57Steven Rinella?

  Why would someone want to want something more than they do? If someone was selling a pill that says, "This pill will make you want a nicer car."

• 31:10Steven Rinella?

  You'd be like, "I'm not gonna take that pill." Like, "I don't want to want a nicer car."

• 31:16Speaker 04

  Maybe it's like.

• 31:17Steven Rinella?

  Like, why would you, why would you want to want something more?

• 31:20Speaker 04

  Maybe it's like, "That's an enjoyable thing. So like, uh, this pill will make you want to cook really good meals." I don't know, I think I'd have that pill.

• 31:29Steven Rinella?

  But, but, yeah, that's interesting. Cause if it was a pill, "This pill will make you want to cook." You'd have to be like, "Do I wish I wanted to cook more?"

• 31:38Speaker 04

  Yeah. This will make you go to the gym and run. That's what this pill will do. I think it's, uh, imagine it's like that.

• 31:44Speaker 03

  Like pre-workout.

• 31:46Steven Rinella?

  Well, no, no, you're not. I can't explain.

• 31:48Speaker 04

  So this is the ginseng male enhancement pill. We're looking at a picture of it right now. Uh, an FDA lab analysis.

• 31:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, I understand what you're saying.

• 31:54Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 31:55Speaker 02

  I understand what you're saying.

• 31:56Speaker 03

  You're, you're.

• 31:57Speaker 04

  It's a pretty strong market, though.

• 31:59Steven Rinella?

  It is, but I don't understand why. I'll say it one more time, same way I said it before. I don't understand wanting to want something more.

• 32:09Speaker 03

  No, you, where are you getting that from that label?

• 32:14Steven Rinella?

  I think.

• 32:14Speaker 04

  He's, he's saying, "You don't want to have sex." Why would you take a pill that makes you want to have sex?

• 32:19Steven Rinella?

  It's like, it's like to have a powerful libido. It'd be like, let's say you had.

• 32:24Speaker 02

  Maybe it's causing an issue in your personal life.

• 32:26Steven Rinella?

  Oh, that could be.

• 32:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, maybe your wife wants to buy a new car.

• 32:28Steven Rinella?

  Cause I just can't picture.

• 32:30Speaker 02

  Your wife is gonna leave you if you don't buy a new car.

• 32:33Steven Rinella?

  I wish, I wish I'd chase my wife around the house even more.

• 32:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. Your wife, your wife is gonna have someone else buy a new car for her.

• 32:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, your current car just ain't cutting it.

• 32:46Steven Rinella?

  You know what I wish? Uh, anyways.

• 32:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, now the FDA, they did a lab analysis on this pill and they said structurally very similar to Viagra. So that's like a minor endorsement, but it also contained a pile of undeclared ingredients that can lower blood pressure to dangerous levels. So, don't, don't eat that pill.

• 33:03Steven Rinella?

  Ginseng Power X.

• 33:04Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm. Now, this relationship between North American ginseng pickers and Asian consumers is an old one. Frontiersmen such as Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett both supplemented their income with ginseng harvest with their roots boarding ships that were bound for China. One Daniel Boone story tells of the time that he was headed up the Ohio River with 12 large barrels of ginseng. Uh, it said that he hired sangers, which are ginseng diggers, to gather a large supply for him, uh, which he then planned to sell to merchant ships in Philadelphia. But disaster struck near Point Pleasant, West Virginia, when his boat capsized. Boone did manage to recover most of his roots, but they were no longer dry.

• 33:48Speaker 04

  And because of the water damage, he only received about half of the market value for them. Uh, the location for where that happened is somewhat disputed, uh, but, but some folks say it was on, it was at Point.

• 33:59Speaker 02

  The Mothman might've had something to do with it.

• 34:01Speaker 04

  Maybe. Uh, Steve has a question he wrote down. Do you wanna, you wanna ask it?

• 34:06Steven Rinella?

  This is for later.

• 34:07Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 34:08Steven Rinella?

  I don't want to derail you.

• 34:09Speaker 04

  Ginseng is of course native to North America with its historic range being basically everything east of the Mississippi River. Uh, where it really thrives is in the Ozarks and Appalachian regions. Those dense forests have the perfect ginseng growing conditions with mild temps and above average rainfall. Now, the reason that it's so valuable is because of its scarcity and it's so scarce because it takes about 10 years for a ginseng plant to reach maturity, uh, and they can live to be 75 years old. Their greatest threats are poachers, habitat loss, invasive species, climate change, and get this one, whitetail deer. Uh, ginseng leaves are a preferred food source among whitetails. And because deer populations in the east are about twice the size they were pre-European contact,

• 34:54Speaker 04

  whitetails require more food than ever. So they get some of the blame for disappearing ginseng populations. Now, back to our Great Smoky Mountains poachers, uh, this sort of headline is surprisingly common there. And it's not just a matter of the National Park Service being overly protective. Just in the state of North Carolina, this year alone, officers have charged 71 people for illegal ginseng harvest, leading to more than 6,400 plant seizures. Uh, residents are allowed to pick it, but just like game and fish, it is heavily regulated. You can only harvest ginseng from September 1 to December 31, making their ginseng season shorter than their deer season. As for those.

• 35:34Steven Rinella?

  Is there a daily bag limit?

• 35:36Speaker 04

  Um, it, I, I didn't see one on that. Um, their rules, it's basically like you can only pick between here and here. You have to have landowner written permission. And then it seems like everything else is a suggestion. It's like, don't take it from plants that are immature. Uh, don't take it from this kind of landscape. So I didn't see anything about a daily limit.

• 35:53Steven Rinella?

  Good.

• 35:54Speaker 04

  Uh, I'm getting to the end here. As for those confiscated roots, rangers will attempt to replant them. It's estimated that about one third of them will survive. No news yet on what specific charges or penalties the Great Smoky Mountain ginseng poachers will face. What do you got, Steve?

• 36:10Steven Rinella?

  Who, who exactly are they selling these to? Had, did they release that?

• 36:14Speaker 04

  No, they haven't even said the names of these folks. Uh, this, this news out of the Great Smoky Mountains was from September 30th. Uh, they haven't even said what charges they'll face yet. So it, it's not clear to me what the, the market is to get it from some, you know, blue jean shorts well-wearing fella in Great Smoky Mountains to the Chinese market. I don't know.

• 36:35Steven Rinella?

  Well, I have an idea. Um, first I want to clarify. This is embarrassing to say. I have never looked down on the ground in all of my life.

• 36:46Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 36:47Steven Rinella?

  And said, "Oh, there's a ginseng plant."

• 36:49Speaker 04

  We lived in the wrong areas.

• 36:50Steven Rinella?

  I know, yeah. But, but I've hung out all over and I've never been with a buddy of mine, like a Kevin Murphy type, who damn sure knows ginseng.

• 36:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 36:58Steven Rinella?

  He's never said, "Oh, hey, look." So, uh, on my life's to-do list, I'm like a travel for this.

• 37:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:04Steven Rinella?

  I would like someone to someday go, "Hey,

• 37:08Steven Rinella?

  that's a ginseng plant."

• 37:09Speaker 04

  I'm with you.

• 37:10Speaker 03

  That might point to its rarity.

• 37:12Steven Rinella?

  Mm-hmm. Now, if you, if you, like in Trapper magazines.

• 37:16Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 37:17Steven Rinella?

  When you get to the back of a Trapper magazine, there's always a lot of ads. Often you will see ginseng buyers.

• 37:23Speaker 04

  Really?

• 37:24Steven Rinella?

  But what I'm guessing is.

• 37:25Speaker 04

  I think you answered your question.

• 37:26Steven Rinella?

  These poachers, it's, well, I'm saying it's probably that they're, it's probably very seamless. It's, it's like, you collect in an illegal spot. But it's probably very simple. Like, once you, once you leave and you're on the road.

• 37:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:43Steven Rinella?

  I wonder if you're just fine.

• 37:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, possession.

• 37:45Steven Rinella?

  Because you'd be like, you know, it's, it's not that you can't have it. You can't have it from there. So when you go sell it.

• 37:51Speaker 04

  Totally.

• 37:51Steven Rinella?

  You'd just like, you know, if you're selling, yeah, you're selling like elk sheds. You're not gonna say to the buyer like, "Oh, hey, and by the way."

• 37:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:59Steven Rinella?

  "I, I stole those off some guy's place."

• 38:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:02Steven Rinella?

  You're just gonna sell them like you sell everything.

• 38:03Speaker 04

  And while it's heavily regulated to gather them from the wild, you can legally grow these things and sell them on your own. And there is like a whole industry around that, but the value is so much less. I think it's like $30 a pound, um, compared to $800 a pound for the roots. So just the market in general is not interested.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  It makes you less lustful if it's.

• 38:23Speaker 04

  It must, yeah.

• 38:24Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. If you wish you wanted something that you don't want, but you just wish you wanted a teensy bit more, you might consider domestic. Yeah. Ginseng.

• 38:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:36Steven Rinella?

  If you just wish you wanted a little teeny bit more. Here's my question for you.

• 38:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, okay.

• 38:41Steven Rinella?

  This is an interview question.

• 38:43Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 38:43Steven Rinella?

  I'm interviewing you. Um, I love it that you do. Why do you like poaching stories?

• 38:50Speaker 04

  This one was given to me.

• 38:52Steven Rinella?

  But you like, but you like a poaching story.

• 38:54Speaker 04

  Well, this one, this one hits a lot of, this one checks a lot of boxes.

• 38:57Steven Rinella?

  Keep telling me.

• 38:58Speaker 04

  I think the poachers are interesting. So that, that.

• 39:01Steven Rinella?

  Just generally you like poachers.

• 39:02Speaker 04

  I'm interested in them. Foraging, I, I like foraging. I like national parks. Um, so that's like three things that I'm like, hmm, yeah, that's.

• 39:09Steven Rinella?

  Oh, brings it all together.

• 39:10Speaker 02

  History?

• 39:11Speaker 04

  History, yeah.

• 39:12Steven Rinella?

  But you were, you were doing a poaching story the other day that did not involve a national park.

• 39:15Speaker 04

  Uh, no, but endangered species. I really like endangered species. I, I share, uh, you know, any sensibilities. It talks about like the protection, uh, or the, the not protection in the case of poachers of endangered species.

• 39:28Steven Rinella?

  Do you ever think in the back of your head, you're not like thinking in the back of your head like, "Man, I wish I had." Speaking of wishing you had things you don't, that you're like, "I wish I had the gumption to go be a poacher."

• 39:38Speaker 04

  No, I'm, I'm too nervous for it. I get, I get, I'm just too nervous to, to be that guy.

• 39:44Steven Rinella?

  You like everything above, you like everything on the open up.

• 39:47Speaker 03

  Oh, man. That was me too. Oh, go ahead.

• 39:50Steven Rinella?

  Oh, no, go ahead.

• 39:51Speaker 03

  I was gonna say, I jumped a couple fences back in my day following friends and boy, I couldn't handle it.

• 39:57Steven Rinella?

  Just takes all the fun out of it.

• 39:58Speaker 04

  He still loses sleep over it.

• 40:00Speaker 03

  No. And I sleep great now.

• 40:02Steven Rinella?

  The older you, I find the older you get, the less you like looking over your shoulder.

• 40:07Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 40:07Steven Rinella?

  You know?

• 40:08Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 40:11Steven Rinella?

  Considering what he just said and what I said.

• 40:13Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 40:14Steven Rinella?

  We have a guest coming up. You should see if he wants to come and hang out.

• 40:17Speaker 03

  That sounds good.

• 40:18Speaker 04

  We should go ginseng foraging too. I've never seen the stuff.

• 40:21Steven Rinella?

  I'd like to do it and I'd like to eat some.

• 40:23Speaker 03

  We have another guest, uh, Tiger Lady. That'd be another good one.

• 40:27Steven Rinella?

  He might like that.

• 40:28Speaker 04

  And once it gets outside of North America.

• 40:30Steven Rinella?

  Oh, that's true. This is, the other one's very North America.

• 40:33Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 40:33Steven Rinella?

  You'll like it.

• 40:34Speaker 04

  Count me in.

• 40:34Steven Rinella?

  Um, yeah, I need a little bit of that. Cook it up.

• 40:39Speaker 04

  Real blind spot for me.

• 40:40Steven Rinella?

  Uh, have you, have you ever laid eyes on a plant?

• 40:43Speaker 04

  No.

• 40:44Steven Rinella?

  It's embarrassing.

• 40:44Speaker 04

  No. No, you look at the, the range map and it's just like, you know, like I said, yeah. Everything east.

• 40:50Steven Rinella?

  Not our zone. Not in Florida, I noticed.

• 40:52Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 40:53Steven Rinella?

  That's my zone. Over to you, Yanni. Colorado.

• 40:57Speaker 03

  In Colorado, a group of people masquerading as hunters and anglers oppose Amendment 83. The ballot measure which aims to make hunting and fishing a constitutional right in the state. A group called Colorado Hunters and Anglers for Sensible Wildlife Conservation is spending big bucks to fight Amendment 83. The majority of the funding for the group comes from Wayne Pacelli's Center for a Humane Economy. Pacelli, am I pronouncing that right?

• 41:25Steven Rinella?

  Man, I don't know.

• 41:26Speaker 03

  All right. Never mind.

• 41:28Steven Rinella?

  Sounds good. Pacell?

• 41:29Speaker 04

  You say it with confidence.

• 41:30Speaker 03

  Pacelli served as president.

• 41:32Steven Rinella?

  I bet he's Pacell.

• 41:33Speaker 03

  Of the HSUS.

• 41:35Steven Rinella?

  I can tell. I just do not like this guy and he don't like me.

• 41:38Speaker 03

  Which is the, yeah, you guys would be good, good for a debate. Uh, he was the president of the Humane Society of the United States for 14 years as an outright anti-hunter.

• 41:50Steven Rinella?

  Clear up, that does not mean he likes dogs.

• 41:53Speaker 03

  That is true.

• 41:54Steven Rinella?

  Society is an anti-hunting organization. HSU, HSUS.

• 41:59Speaker 03

  US, that's right.

• 42:00Steven Rinella?

  They raise a lot of money.

• 42:01Speaker 03

  Same thing as the Humane Society in your neighborhood.

• 42:04Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, they raise a lot of money from people thinking they're doing a solid for dogs. But then they turn and use it for, for animal rights activism.

• 42:14Speaker 04

  Are they, are they like cousins or anything, those two organizations?

• 42:17Steven Rinella?

  No, there's a split. So your local Humane, your local Humane Society shelters are no longer HSUS.

• 42:24Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 42:25Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 42:25Speaker 03

  Yeah. Um, he's an outright anti-hunter having helped ban dove hunting in Michigan. The Center for a Humane Economy was also one of the largest donors to the 2024 group, Cats Aren't Trophies, that tried and failed to pass Proposition 127 in Colorado, which would have banned bobcat and mountain lion hunting in the state. Now, the group's main argument against Amendment, Amendment 83 is that it would, under the wording, "traditional methods", allow for the re-institution of hunting practices banned in Colorado such as the use of steel-jawed leghold traps, spring bear hunting, baited bear hunting, and wildlife killing contests.

• 43:09Speaker 03

  This is far from the truth. To make these activities legal would require the voters to vote at a 55% threshold in favor of.

• 43:16Steven Rinella?

  But I wish they were, I gotta butt in. I wish they were right.

• 43:20Speaker 03

  Please do.

• 43:21Steven Rinella?

  I, if you told me that passing this amendment.

• 43:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know.

• 43:25Steven Rinella?

  Would provide an avenue to undo those bans, that would make me like it more.

• 43:30Speaker 03

  You know, it's interesting because when I had that long chat, I think I told you guys, I sent out that text to my family group and friends in Colorado and then on the heels of that, I had a, about a 90-minute conversation with my aunt who wanted to know what, how I felt about 83. And, um, in there, we had to discuss a lot about like, like, I, I think I told you this about like what she thinks poaching is, right? I said, well, no, not what poaching is.

• 43:58Steven Rinella?

  Trophy hunting.

• 43:58Speaker 03

  Trophy hunting, right? And she's like, well, that's just when people just take the head and take it home, put it on the wall and just leave the meat. And I said, well, that's illegal, you know?

• 44:05Steven Rinella?

  You gotta be like, well, you gotta get stuffed first.

• 44:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's poaching. And so then we got to talking about how she's seen that the, the people that are anti-83 are saying that it's gonna bring back all these other things that she doesn't like. And so then I got into, well, why don't you like hound hunting? Why don't you like spring bear hunting? And then, so I had to go through and explain that actually when you're, or let's say baited bear hunting, it's a better way to preserve more cubs' lives because the, the anti say that baited bear hunting in, in the spring, when you, you're gonna end up killing mom and you have orphaned cubs that then just, you know,

• 44:39Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 44:40Speaker 03

  famished. Um, because you can watch these animals, you can see if it's a sow or if it's a boar. You can see if there's cubs or not, et cetera. Same thing with hunting bears with dogs, right? They're in a tree, you can assess the situation. You don't have to make a, uh, so anyways, lot, lot of, uh, lot of misinformation, a lot of propaganda out there.

• 45:02Steven Rinella?

  But I, I need now, before you proceed, I need to now clarify.

• 45:08Steven Rinella?

  But it is correct.

• 45:09Speaker 03

  It is.

• 45:10Steven Rinella?

  That 80, like, passing 83 does not undo any of these ballot initiatives. I'm just pointing out that I, I wish it did, but it's an empty wish because it's, it's, there's no legal avenue for it to undo that.

• 45:24Speaker 03

  No. Interestingly though, there is a legal avenue to undo all those things. But because it's so like implausible that it would pass, no one has tried to do it. But right now, if we wanted to start a group that would try to push for the re-legalization of spring bear hunting in Colorado, there is a process to do it. And then you'd have to get the voters to vote for it. But it's just, it's like, people don't see that as a plausible outcome, so no one has tried it.

• 45:53Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 45:54Speaker 03

  83 would not make that any easier or change any of that. You'd still have to go through the exact same process if you want to try to re-legalize these things. Um, let's see. Uh, so the use of the term "traditional methods", which is what, uh, the people against 83 are saying is the big problem. That wording is in the amendment to preserve the methods that are currently available to hunters and anglers and to prevent further erosion of opportunities. The wording "traditional methods" has been used in 14 other states with constitutional rights to hunt and fish.

• 46:32Speaker 03

  Um, I've said it before, it won't be long until they say it's not ethical to have your lab flush a pheasant. Right now, they take away, um, spring bear hunting. They will come for your pheasant flushing lab.

• 46:47Steven Rinella?

  Uh, there's, but there's been, there's been bills proposed in the past that would remove dogs from, that, that using dogs for hunting is unethical.

• 46:55Speaker 03

  For upland birds?

• 46:56Steven Rinella?

  I mean, it's been, it's been pitched. It hasn't been passed anywhere. But there's been attempts to just bucket all dog activities.

• 47:01Speaker 03

  They've been proposed.

• 47:02Steven Rinella?

  Yes.

• 47:03Speaker 03

  Okay. I hadn't seen that. Um, so I'll leave you with this. Ask yourself why would a group with hunters and anglers in their name take hunz, funds, sorry, not hunz,

• 47:16Speaker 03

  take funds from one of the largest anti-hunting organizations in the country?

• 47:22Steven Rinella?

  There is a dude, you'll see his name pop up in a lot of this. They kind of have this, they have like a stooge

• 47:30Steven Rinella?

  who has a hunting, fishing background. Um, and, and you'll often see this guy's, last name's Washburn.

• 47:39Steven Rinella?

  He's attached to this. He was attached to the Cats Aren't Trophies thing.

• 47:43Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 47:44Steven Rinella?

  And he's this guy that runs around being like, oh, no, no, hunting means all this, he's real important to me. But he somehow, over the decades,

• 47:54Steven Rinella?

  has become a animal rights activist and anti-hunter.

• 48:01Steven Rinella?

  But he still kind of carries the torch as a hunter. Like, he still likes to identify as a hunter to give his perspective some merit.

• 48:10Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 48:11Steven Rinella?

  So Washburn is in bed with these people. What, what's problematic about this individual is you'll often see, this is where it's personal for me. You'll often see that he'll be identified as, as one of the founders of Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. Now, apparently, he clarifies at times, that's not, he, he clarifies that's not true. Other people do that. But this guy, TRCP was founded by a guy named Jim Range.

• 48:43Steven Rinella?

  That's the founder of TRCP. When you see this dude described as some kind of 20-year ago founder at TRCP, he most certainly was not.

• 48:55Speaker 04

  What is his connection? Anything?

• 48:56Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, he had a connection set on the board at a time. But when, when people talk about the founder of TRCP, the founder of TRCP is a man named Jim Range. It is not a split.

• 49:10Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 49:11Steven Rinella?

  There's not like, oh, and other people.

• 49:14Steven Rinella?

  It's Jim Range. Okay, whatever his adjacency was to Range. Um, I've been with that organization as a board member for a great many years and I've been there. I have listened to a hundred stories about the founding of TRCP and Jim Range. And this cat's name has never come up in any of those things.

• 49:35Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 49:36Steven Rinella?

  He somehow has drifted to the point where he aligns himself with these active

• 49:43Steven Rinella?

  anti-hunting orgs. And one, one of his things to say is like, one of his gripes with Amendment 83 is it says that it's like, that it, that it applies the word "management technique" to certain wildlife species. And he's pointing out, well, maybe it's not best to manage them through hunting, meaning like, you shouldn't be able to hunt bears. You shouldn't be able to do this. You shouldn't be able to do that. And so that's his gripe. But he often tries to establish like some teensy level of hunting bona fides that he, that he doesn't have. This dude is in bed with

• 50:17Steven Rinella?

  the animal rights movement. Same thing with the, this cat we used to report on a lot, Samantha Miller. You know, oh, I'm a hunter. It's like, kinda, now and then. Under very, very specific sets of circumstances in order that you can go to these meetings and say that.

• 50:32Speaker 03

  If you were an animal rights person and you wanted to boost your profile and gain a lot of credibility and like

• 50:40Speaker 03

  shape your professional trajectory upwards, the best thing you could do is go out there and shoot a duck.

• 50:45Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 50:45Speaker 03

  Or a pheasant, what?

• 50:46Steven Rinella?

  And then, and then bill yourself as a hunter. Yeah. I think that they like to do that pheasant move.

• 50:51Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:52Steven Rinella?

  Because it's kind of like, they're like, well, it's not native. It probably is brought up in a box.

• 50:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:58Steven Rinella?

  You know, you do that like.

• 50:59Speaker 03

  And then all of a sudden you're like, hey, I'm a hunter.

• 51:01Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. And you like, you go get a pheasant. Some guy let go out of a box. And then you tell your wife, like, your wife's like, I can't believe you did that. They're like, wow, it's kind of like a chicken. I mean, it was raised in a box.

• 51:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, so Colorado.

• 51:15Steven Rinella?

  Don't, if you're in Colorado, don't be fooled by that crap.

• 51:17Speaker 03

  And get out there and vote. Yeah, Colorado Hunters and Anglers for Sensible Wildlife Conservation, uh, be very skeptical of what you see from them.

• 51:26Steven Rinella?

  Just think about it like this. Why would a group of Colorado hunters and anglers oppose codifying the right to hunt and fish in Colorado?

• 51:42Steven Rinella?

  I was gonna make some analogies, but I don't think you need one.

• 51:47Speaker 04

  This is from Eric's bio.

• 51:48Steven Rinella?

  They'd be like weed smokers against legalizing weed, which I could see because you like hiding in the bushes. You like hiding in the bushes and stuff like that. Yeah, I can see that.

• 51:59Speaker 04

  Uh, this is from Eric's bio on Colorado hunters and anglers.com. You were talking about.

• 52:04Steven Rinella?

  Did he say founder?

• 52:05Speaker 04

  He co-founded and led the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. That's the second sentence of his bio.

• 52:13Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, well, okay, so we know where that comes from. Apparently he's tried to create a little distance between himself and that and that descriptor.

• 52:23Speaker 05

  If you want the real dope, go to savethehuntcolorado.com.

• 52:29Steven Rinella?

  You know those snacks that disappear way faster than you planned? That's Wiley Wallaby Licorice for me. I tossed a bag in my truck for a recent trip and before I knew it, it was gone. I ate it, my kids ate it, my wife ate it. We all love it. What sets it apart is the texture. It's authentic Australian style licorice. That's soft and chewy, not hard and waxy like most brands. They've got more than 10 flavors to choose from. I love that it's made in the USA by a company that's been doing things the right way for more than 60 years. Use code MEATEATER at shop.wileywallaby.com for free shipping and try some yourself.

• 53:10Steven Rinella?

  When you're outside cleaning fish, working in your garden, or just grinding through a long day of work, your hands take a beating. Dry cracked hands can be brutal when you need to get work done. O'Keefe's Working Hands Hand Cream. Get your hands back and work in order. This stuff is the greatest stuff in the world. Like most hand creams, you put them on and then you're all kind of greasy and slim and you can't grab stuff. You put the stuff on, your hands are ready to get back to work. It absorbs fast, creates a barrier to lock in moisture and doesn't leave your hands greasy at all. Do yourself a favor. Next time your hands feel like dried out fish scales, get O'Keefe's Working Hands. I'm telling you, this stuff is amazing.

• 53:47Steven Rinella?

  Go to okeefescompany.com to get yours today. That's O-K-E-E-F-F-E-S company.com for guaranteed relief. O'Keefe's Working Hands. It works good. The fall hunting season is finally upon us. I love this time of year. Me and my kids got trips coming up for pronghorn deer, more deer, cow elk. We got all kinds of stuff coming up. We're about ready to trade out summer sleeping bags for cold weather down, pack up a food bin and a cooler. And we'll throw in a couple of Mountain Dews for a little reward and boost after those long mountain marches. There's nothing better. It's my favorite time of year to spend time with my family. Born in the foothills of Tennessee, Mountain Dew was made for a damn good time outdoors. The bold taste you know and love

• 54:31Steven Rinella?

  has proud American roots dating back to 1948. Mark your best fall memories with the crisp, refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew. From hanging out around the bonfire to just hopping into your friend's truck and cruising the woods. Get out there and enjoy the outdoors of Mountain Dew, an American original. Tasting great since 48. Look for Mountain Dew in stores near you.

• 54:54Steven Rinella?

  All right. New Mexico outfitter tags over to Yanni. And then we're gonna get into Nantucket deer. Do we want to go out of order to make it like west, east, west, east?

• 55:03Speaker 05

  Randall, why don't you take New Mexico outfitter tags?

• 55:05Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, sorry. Oh, yeah. Oh.

• 55:09Steven Rinella?

  Oh, you're done. You did your story.

• 55:11Speaker 04

  Johnny's done.

• 55:12Steven Rinella?

  Over and out. Let's, I want to, I want to go out of work because I, you know, like New Mexico and Colorado, you know how they, they touch each other? I want to jump over to Nantucket.

• 55:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:21Steven Rinella?

  And I reminded Nate of that famous limerick. It was a man from Nantucket. Go ahead, Nate.

• 55:27Speaker 05

  Mansions falling into the seas, alpha gal syndrome spreading like wildfire, native plants on the edge of extinction. What's the common denominator?

• 55:41Speaker 05

  Whitetail deer running rampant in Nantucket.

• 55:44Steven Rinella?

  Got it. Did you write that?

• 55:46Speaker 05

  I did.

• 55:46Steven Rinella?

  That's great.

• 55:47Speaker 05

  And now.

• 55:48Steven Rinella?

  Kind of grabbed me by the boo boo there.

• 55:49Speaker 05

  You can get paid 150 bucks for every whitetail deer you kill and donate on one of the ritziest islands in America.

• 55:57Steven Rinella?

  This is incredible.

• 55:58Speaker 04

  Let's go. They always gotta pay to do that.

• 55:59Steven Rinella?

  I know. Now you can make, you can be like Daniel Boone. Now, I'm not talking about digging ginseng. Commercial deer hunter.

• 56:06Speaker 05

  There are many nuances to this. We will try to hit all of them. Uh, this story, James Smith from the email inbox wrote in to alert us. And a few things, there's, there's a lot of elements. So to keep in mind, I just kind of want to bracket this. First off, the Nantucket deer problem is nuts. It's a 48 mile, square mile island with more than 125 deer per square mile.

• 56:30Steven Rinella?

  That is unbelievable. The, can I get just some background, some perspective?

• 56:34Speaker 05

  30 is a lot. 30 is a lot. Most land managers, like 20, most land managers would be like 20? Ooh.

• 56:40Steven Rinella?

  30 is like, damn.

• 56:42Speaker 05

  And, and is that, is that 125 deer for every one of those 48 square miles? Some go up to 150. And there's like, there's the suburban thing. There's like, it's, there are, you can think of it, there are a ton of deer. Um, there's tons of concern.

• 56:58Steven Rinella?

  Many tons of deer.

• 56:58Speaker 05

  Many tons of deer. Thank you. Tons of concern over alpha gal, lime, and also environmental degradation, not just like, you know, begonias or whatever. The second thing is this island is developing a holistic approach. Incoming seeing Massachusetts wildlife, local nonprofits, landowners, alternative funding programs. They've all band together to provide cash incentives for venison donations, unlimited antlerless tags, earn many more buck tags, private land access.

• 57:31Steven Rinella?

  Earn a bunch of bucks.

• 57:32Speaker 05

  Earn a bunch of bucks and other hunter incentives. Finally, the thing to keep in mind is it's actually increasing deer harvest. The venison stays on the island and feeds the local population and wealthy non-hunters that come to Nantucket in the summer are increasingly supportive of these hunters. And in this situation, there's a natural, there's, there's natural barriers that, that can curb the, the concern about market hunting, which is kind of top of mind for all of us. So for anyone who lives, probably not in Massachusetts, you're asking, what is Nantucket? It's, as I mentioned, a 48 square mile island, about 30 miles off the Massachusetts coast. Phil's got a picture. He's going to run for us real quick, just a Google map screenshot. You can see in that.

• 58:17Steven Rinella?

  Great job, Phil.

• 58:19Speaker 05

  There in the Atlantic.

• 58:20Steven Rinella?

  He's even, you notice Phil's hovering his cursor.

• 58:22Speaker 04

  What a guy.

• 58:23Steven Rinella?

  Over the area of interest.

• 58:24Speaker 05

  Technology these days.

• 58:25Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 58:25Speaker 05

  You can see Philly down in the bottom left.

• 58:29Steven Rinella?

  Phil's worked all week hovering that cursor over that.

• 58:32Speaker 05

  That was rude.

• 58:33Steven Rinella?

  He's breaking a sweat.

• 58:34Speaker 05

  Uh, Maine's up there in the top right. You can see Lake Ontario, top left, and then Manch, or Nantucket in the bottom right. Um, approximately 50% of that island is protected open space. The other 50% is pretty developed and most of that is huntable in some form. There's archaeological evidence of deer. They were gone by European contact and, and in some way they were reintroduced in the early 1900s.

• 58:58Steven Rinella?

  Wow, that's, that's nuts. At the time of European contact, if you landed on Nantucket, there were no deer there.

• 59:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, there's, there's some interesting, it's not super clear, but there's some interesting articles that, and there's some genetic testing that there, there's legend that one deer was brought over. He was swimming and some fishermen picked him up and brought him. And then they thought he was lonely and two dudes or people from Michigan brought two does from Michigan and that has created the stock on Nantucket.

• 59:23Steven Rinella?

  You gotta be kidding.

• 59:24Speaker 05

  It's kind of true. It's interesting. It, more deer swam over.

• 59:27Steven Rinella?

  Genetic bottleneck, that must be, man.

• 59:29Speaker 05

  But they're doing pretty dang good.

• 59:30Speaker 04

  The, the Nantucket Historical Association says that they were there, uh, but natives drove them to be extirpated from the island.

• 59:38Speaker 05

  Um, so there's, there's between 6,000 and 8,000 deer, 100 to 150 per square mile. Um, like we said, 20 is a lot. Uh, and then the demographics of the island itself, the median home price is $3.5 million. The year round population of the island, think of it as like the working population is.

• 59:57Steven Rinella?

  The townies.

• 59:58Speaker 05

  The townies, about 15,000, and then it spikes to 60,000 in the summer. And there's this huge disparity between the two groups economically, lifestyle, probably culturally and politically. Uh, but there's, there, there are two different groups of folks. Um, the players that are involved in this, this situation, there's, there's four that you need to know. Martin Feehan, he is the Massachusetts State biologist. He managed the herds, managed the extra tags that earn them, earn many more bucks. He oversees the Hunter Share the Harvest program, which is a state-run venison donation program. He's generally a great dude. Talk to him. He's awesome. Uh, the second one, Nantucket Conservation Foundation. This is a nonprofit, private organization focused on the ecological health of Nantucket.

• 1:00:42Speaker 05

  They're the ones running the pilot program that reimburses you $150 per deer for every deer you donate to the Hunter Share the Harvest program. They also are the largest landowner on the island and they own approximately 8,000 acres, largely open, like 7,000 of those are open to hunting. There's a map, uh, if you can pull up that next one.

• 1:01:03Steven Rinella?

  Whether there's some giants on this island or not?

• 1:01:05Speaker 05

  Dude, there's some big bucks on this island.

• 1:01:07Steven Rinella?

  I look forward to that part.

• 1:01:08Speaker 05

  Um, if you, yeah, so this is a map of their properties. The red is closed, the green is open. So it's pretty significant.

• 1:01:15Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:15Speaker 05

  Um, the third player, and just, just to reiterate, that is a nonprofit funded by private dollars. The third player, the Nantucket Land Bank. This organization manages the deer processing facility that turns your donated deer into edible meat. Um, distributes the processed venison to the Nantucket food pantry and nourish Nantucket. And they own about 3,500 acres with hunting access.

• 1:01:38Steven Rinella?

  They own this land too.

• 1:01:40Speaker 05

  They are a different entity that owns the land. They are funded by a tax on real estate transactions with, and those dollars specifically go to, uh, environmental, uh, projects and conservation. Uh, it's like similar to the weed tax we have in Montana. So Phil, if you'll go to that next one, it's similar map. And this is the land bank properties, open and closed to hunting. The dark brown, I think that's brown. Is it red? Whatever the darker color is that's closed, the lighter color is open. And then fourth is ACT Deer, and that is a group of landowners that reimburses ferry costs, provides private access and recruits other landowners to allow hunting on their properties. Okay?

• 1:02:19Steven Rinella?

  These dudes are serious about getting some deer.

• 1:02:21Speaker 05

  They are. And so the problem, if we go back is seventy five hundred deer, they're spreading alpha gallon lime. They're crushing native vegetation and they're actually increasing erosion. Like you, there's all these articles about Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket houses falling in. When those deer walk across, and this is from the biologist, this isn't just like some crackpot. When they walk across those, the edges, they'll create these points like, like a deer trail. And that's where the erosion will, will generally happen.

• 1:02:47Speaker 05

  There, there's seventy five hundred deer, fifteen hundred is the theoretical target population. That's like thirty deer per square mile, basically, twenty, thirty. It's very unlikely they get there just because of the suburban nature and whatnot. They historically kill nine hundred deer a year. And to start moving that number from seven thousand five hundred down to fifteen hundred, they need to kill two thousand. So they need to double their harvest per year, per year. And that's just to start moving in the right direction. They've tried a ton of things and, and the, the incentives that they've, they've tried and that they've found is, is kind of the magic sauce here. Is they have thirty thousand dollars in private money or two hundred, two hundred deer at a hundred and fifty bucks a pop for every donation.

• 1:03:28Speaker 05

  The Hunter Share the Harvest program is free. It's paid for by those, those tax dollars and all that food stays on the island and feeds food insecure folks. If you donate to deer, you earn an additional any sex tag. So your tag, your license comes with two bucks. You can buy an additional doe tag for ten dollars.

• 1:03:51Speaker 05

  When you donate to deer to this program, you get an additional buck tag, basically.

• 1:03:55Steven Rinella?

  Every time.

• 1:03:56Speaker 05

  Every time. You can also, and you can just get, you can get doe tags, you can get antlers tags, pretty much as many as you want on the island. There's unlimited antlers on the island. It's been since like nineteen ninety eight. The seasons have doubled. It goes now from September twenty first to February fourteenth. There's a ferry reimbursement up to five hundred bucks. There's bumper stickers that if you participate, the state sends you a bumper sticker. There's custom hats that the island pays for, that you get a custom hat if you participate in the program. And then.

• 1:04:25Steven Rinella?

  Just gets better.

• 1:04:28Speaker 05

  He, he, because it's a state run deer donation program, he manages, not only can he issue more tags for donations. He manages your contributions and he sends you a report of how many meals you provided to the community from all the deer you donated.

• 1:04:41Steven Rinella?

  I kinda wanna go out here now.

• 1:04:45Speaker 05

  Sounds like a blast.

• 1:04:46Steven Rinella?

  Let's, dude, I'm sure we.

• 1:04:47Speaker 02

  Let's cut this segment out of the podcast.

• 1:04:50Steven Rinella?

  Spies, people always talk about spot burning, spot burning Nantucket, man.

• 1:04:54Speaker 05

  So I'll, I'll get to that.

• 1:04:56Steven Rinella?

  Hauled his meat to town in a bucket. Hauled his hunting gear in a bucket.

• 1:05:01Speaker 02

  Seems like a pain in the ass to get.

• 1:05:03Speaker 05

  Oh buddy.

• 1:05:03Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, but they pay you five hundred bucks back.

• 1:05:06Speaker 05

  You know how much a ferry round trip with a truck is?

• 1:05:08Steven Rinella?

  No.

• 1:05:08Speaker 05

  Six hundo.

• 1:05:10Steven Rinella?

  Okay, so a hundred bucks.

• 1:05:11Speaker 05

  No camping on the island.

• 1:05:14Speaker 02

  I'll find the right landowner.

• 1:05:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, we'll, we'll figure it out. I'm, I'm just saying for the, for the average guy, like the, the obvious criteria. And, and what, what listeners highlighted is like, hey, is this allowed? Are we gonna like whack all these deer? What's gonna happen? You, you cannot make money off this. The pro, what the programs do, because in, in the fall, most of the hotels shut down because it's summer island. Then you're stuck with expensive Airbnbs. Which if there is a hotel open, you probably can't man and mess with your deer there. You can't camp, so you can't take your truck camper. They like explicitly ban truck top camper, stuff like that. And so you're looking.

• 1:05:45Steven Rinella?

  What, they banned truck top campers?

• 1:05:47Speaker 05

  You're looking at a thousand bucks a night to, to stay there and, and hang out.

• 1:05:52Steven Rinella?

  But why can't you camp at one of your landowners places?

• 1:05:54Speaker 05

  You could camp at a landowner if you had a landowner hookup, but for the masses, like it's, this isn't gonna be some giant draw, like there are significant barriers to entry.

• 1:06:01Steven Rinella?

  Who shot this big stack of bucks in this photo?

• 1:06:03Speaker 05

  So I'll get there.

• 1:06:06Speaker 05

  Last, okay, well, let's hit the big stack of bucks. The way most deer are killed is the shotgun season in early December. Where they do like fifty person drives, like the biologist was saying, like I grew up in, he said, he grew up in Wisconsin.

• 1:06:18Steven Rinella?

  Fifty person drive.

• 1:06:19Speaker 05

  You've never seen drives like this.

• 1:06:21Steven Rinella?

  Drive the whole island.

• 1:06:22Speaker 05

  You'll drive. And so there's like these big grassland, kind of these kind of savannas that they maintain. It's, it's a little artificial because it was, it's to recreate the goats that used to run there. Now they mow them and whatnot. And then there's all the scrub oak that they hang out in. And so you just have dudes push this and you will stack deer. I mean, there's pictures like this all over.

• 1:06:38Steven Rinella?

  We could all get out there and have a place to stay. Like, like take advanced deer drive strategies. If you're a Nantucket landowner, take that monocle out of your eye. Put down your money bags. Drive, man.

• 1:06:53Speaker 05

  So.

• 1:06:53Steven Rinella?

  I think we should bring Doug Dern as like the drive master.

• 1:06:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:06:58Steven Rinella?

  Because.

• 1:06:58Speaker 05

  Coordinator.

• 1:06:59Steven Rinella?

  Drive coordinator, because he would wanna make it more of a mooch. Not a drive, a mooch.

• 1:07:06Speaker 05

  I understand.

• 1:07:06Steven Rinella?

  I've got a lot of buckshot.

• 1:07:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:07:09Steven Rinella?

  My house. This would be the most fun thing in the world.

• 1:07:12Speaker 05

  I wanted to.

• 1:07:13Steven Rinella?

  And then all that money we'd make.

• 1:07:14Speaker 05

  I want some of the, I want some of the contributors. I spoke to most of the people at these orgs and they're awesome. They're all, they all like get it. They all care. I think we would do a follow up at the end of the season and see like, what are the results? How did it happen? Is the trend increasing? Are we getting to that two thousand?

• 1:07:29Steven Rinella?

  That nine hundred is gonna go up.

• 1:07:32Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:07:33Steven Rinella?

  I don't know that it'll hit two thousand unless we can get this mooch.

• 1:07:36Speaker 05

  So the, the, you know, they have, they have funds for, for two hundred deer, basically. The residents have already expressed, they want, they have a desire to fund this more because they're seeing it as so successful. But also one thing that Mr. Feehan, Martin, that he highlighted is all these trends were, were going. Most of these incentives existed before the financial incentive that was, is piloting this, this year. So we're like three weeks old on the financial side. He was like, the trends were already going up. All these other incentives were working. So it's not just the dollars. The results so far, last year was a record harvest. Over half the deer killed on the island are being donated and eaten by folks on the island.

• 1:08:18Speaker 05

  Right now for twenty twenty six, they're already above trend for the first few weeks and just archery, they're forecasting another record year. And like I said, deer drives is when you're gonna make your money. That's when you're gonna stack them up.

• 1:08:27Steven Rinella?

  You know how much is sitting right there in bounty money?

• 1:08:30Speaker 05

  Tell me.

• 1:08:31Steven Rinella?

  That was they call it, they're probably.

• 1:08:36Speaker 05

  You, you donate a thing and they will reimburse you.

• 1:08:40Steven Rinella?

  They're not liking the word bounty.

• 1:08:41Speaker 05

  The, but just, just to.

• 1:08:45Speaker 05

  What's the take here?

• 1:08:46Steven Rinella?

  Well, that's.

• 1:08:47Speaker 05

  Twenty three.

• 1:08:48Steven Rinella?

  Thirty six hundred dollars in bounty money right there.

• 1:08:51Speaker 05

  That's what to do it. Cover three nights on the island.

• 1:08:54Steven Rinella?

  Shooting Randall's ammo.

• 1:08:55Speaker 02

  Where are these big mega giants you were talking about?

• 1:08:59Speaker 05

  We'll get.

• 1:08:59Steven Rinella?

  Well, he didn't say mega giants.

• 1:09:01Speaker 05

  There's, there's.

• 1:09:02Speaker 02

  He said something similar.

• 1:09:03Speaker 05

  There's two that are big. We'll, we'll get to it. If I can finish real quick, the things that matter. Actually, Randall, if you'll pull up a big old giant send to Phil. This matters because like it, it's bucking a lot of the trends of issues we're having with whitetail overpopulation. Non-hunter acceptance is increasing. They didn't hire sharpshooters to come in. You know, they're, they're leveraging the hunters that already exist. The private dollars are what's funding this, these financial incentives. You can imagine it's generally a wealthy donor who probably doesn't live there in the fall. And those are benefiting the, the working class that do live there year round. The state managed venison donation program is significantly more effective than nonprofit, nonprofit versions.

• 1:09:42Speaker 05

  Not because nonprofits are bad or anything, it's because the state has the ability to leverage additional tags and additional resources that a nonprofit wouldn't. And then the alternative funding method, which we always love to highlight, through the, the tax on real estate sales is, is what's allowing the meat to be donated and then eventually eaten by folks on the island. And I think the coolest thing to kind of highlight is that venison is becoming and has become a primary protein source for year round residents in one of the richest places in the US. You know, like most people on the island are eating venison in one way or another. In a place you would not expect to be eating venison. And so the real question is like, can this be replicated? Is this a tool we can adopt for CWD? Is this just like a weird thing that can happen on Nantucket?

• 1:10:27Speaker 05

  I, I don't know.

• 1:10:28Steven Rinella?

  No. Not that it can't. I'm skeptical that it would become any widespread model. Cause I think here you have an exceptionally wealthy

• 1:10:42Steven Rinella?

  population of people that are dealing with a very acute crisis. Uh, where

• 1:10:52Steven Rinella?

  their grandkids, their children, whatever, are reluctant to go outside because lime is so prevalent. They're getting alpha gal syndrome, the tick stuff's out of control. You know, like it, it, it's very, very nimby. And I think that there's a lot of areas in the country where you could point and say, hey, we have a real problem with CWD, for instance. And they would say, show, how's that my problem? Show me the problem. It doesn't resonate with them, but I think here on Nantucket, it's resonating with them. The, the, the actual residents are feeling the effects of insane deer densities.

• 1:11:33Steven Rinella?

  So I think that it's personal for them and they are people of means, right? And you have these organizations that own this land that can be opened up to hunt. And that's not always the case. So I would say, I, I would, I would say, cool idea. I don't, and maybe in here and there, maybe on Martha's Vineyard, which has a similar problem, sure. But generally, no.

• 1:12:00Speaker 05

  Martha's Vineyard is, they actually, they created this idea and there's a similar model and, and then tech has taken it. I just, I, I, what I thought.

• 1:12:11Steven Rinella?

  What was it? Do you have an ear tag?

• 1:12:13Speaker 02

  I don't know. I was just going through photos and I didn't notice that. But that was, this buck was spotted just swimming off the coast of Nantucket.

• 1:12:23Speaker 02

  It's a lot of cool pictures of whitetail deer with the ocean in the background.

• 1:12:28Speaker 05

  My, my takeaway to, to respond to your comment, my takeaway is CW, I think to make this effective across more jurisdictions. CWD would have to jump to a person and then people would start caring about it. And that, nobody wants that.

• 1:12:40Steven Rinella?

  Well.

• 1:12:43Steven Rinella?

  Then they would just say, I'm not gonna eat deer meat.

• 1:12:45Speaker 05

  Well, then you'd have to change the donation. It, it, it would, it would get all squirrely, but until that, I just don't think there's an impetus.

• 1:12:51Steven Rinella?

  I think it would work, it would work on really rich islands. Fire Island.

• 1:12:59Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, I can sit and name. I'm, I'm kinda running out of islands, but yeah.

• 1:13:02Speaker 05

  It's a good island play.

• 1:13:03Steven Rinella?

  Would be maybe, it's a good island move.

• 1:13:06Speaker 02

  These deer should pat themselves on the back. It's rare that they become such a problem that they can like get an entire community to agree that like, we gotta get rid of these things.

• 1:13:15Steven Rinella?

  If it gets bad enough there, maybe they'll allow Spencer and his truck camper to.

• 1:13:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:13:20Steven Rinella?

  They really brought the town together.

• 1:13:23Steven Rinella?

  But man, that big buck, that big buck drive dude, if you could drive the whole island.

• 1:13:29Steven Rinella?

  You'd want to bring in some of them dudes that fought on like Okinawa and whatnot.

• 1:13:33Speaker 05

  Snap shooters?

• 1:13:34Steven Rinella?

  Just to be like, hey, man, how do you run like something like this?

• 1:13:39Speaker 05

  Amphibious assault.

• 1:13:40Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. How do you run like just really getting in there on an island?

• 1:13:44Speaker 05

  Yeah. Need some Marines.

• 1:13:45Speaker 02

  Some Zodiacs.

• 1:13:48Speaker 05

  Not calling the army this time.

• 1:13:52Steven Rinella?

  I get sent all kinds of products and snacks and the truth is, most of them come and go. Every once in a while, though, I find something I keep reaching for and Wiley Wallaby is one of those things. I first tried it because someone just handed me a bag and said, this isn't like any other kind of licorice you've had before. And they were right. Wiley Wallaby makes authentic Australian style licorice. That's incredibly soft and chewy. It's not like that weird, tough, waxy, cheap junk you get. And it doesn't have that artificial taste that turns a lot of people away from licorice in the first place. It's one of those products that's hard to explain until you've tasted it yourself. I keep some in my truck. I keep some in my fish shack. I keep some in my camper. They've got more than 10 flavors and whether you like classic flavors or something a little different,

• 1:14:36Steven Rinella?

  there's probably one you'll end up keeping stocked around the house. Plus it's made in the USA by a company that's been committed to quality and hometown values for over six decades. If you haven't tried Wiley Wallaby yet, pick yourself up a bag. Use code MEATEATER at shop.wileywallaby.com for free shipping and you can try it yourself. I think you will be pleasantly surprised. When you're outside cleaning fish, working in your garden or just grinding through a long day of work, your hands take a beating. Dry, cracked hands can be brutal when you need to get work done. O'Keefe's Working Hands Hand Cream. Get your hands back and work in order. This stuff is the greatest stuff in the world. Like most hand creams, you put them on and then you're all kind of greasy and slimy.

• 1:15:21Steven Rinella?

  You can't grab stuff. You put the stuff on, your hands are ready to get back to work. It absorbs fast, creates a barrier to lock in moisture and doesn't leave your hands greasy at all. Do yourself a favor. Next time your hands feel like dried out fish scales, get O'Keefe's Working Hands. I'm telling you, this stuff is amazing. Go to o'keefescompany.com to get yours today. That's O K E E F F E S company.com for guaranteed relief. O'Keefe's Working Hands. It works good. The fall hunting season is finally upon us. I love this time of year. Me and my kids got trips coming up for pronghorn deer, more deer, cow elk. We got all kinds of stuff coming up. We're about ready to trade out summer sleeping bags for cold weather down.

• 1:16:05Steven Rinella?

  Pack up a food bin and a cooler and we'll throw in a couple of Mountain Dews for a little reward and boost after those long mountain marches. There's nothing better. It's my favorite time of year to spend time with my family. Born in the foothills of Tennessee, Mountain Dew was made for a damn good time outdoors. The bold taste you know and love has proud American roots dating back to 1948. Mark your best fall memories with the crisp, refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew. From hanging out around the bonfire to just hopping into your friend's truck and cruising the woods. Get out there and enjoy the outdoors of Mountain Dew, an American original, tasting great since 48. Look for Mountain Dew in stores near you.

• 1:16:46Speaker 05

  Uh, Phil, did you get that picture I just sent you?

• 1:16:48Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:16:48Speaker 05

  That, that's a, this one that's about to pop up is Martha's Vineyard Buck.

• 1:16:52Steven Rinella?

  That is. I don't get it. Oh, yeah. Okay. Cause the, the ear tag buck, I don't know what I'm looking at.

• 1:16:59Speaker 05

  That's a buck. That's a big dog.

• 1:17:01Steven Rinella?

  That's Martha's Vineyard.

• 1:17:01Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:17:02Speaker 02

  Good job, young fella. You're using a, a real bow.

• 1:17:05Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Stand up bow. What do they call them bows?

• 1:17:07Speaker 05

  Vertical.

• 1:17:11Steven Rinella?

  Look at that young guy. That's a nice buck, man.

• 1:17:14Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:16Steven Rinella?

  And he's got 150 bucks land lying in his pocket now. No, cause he might not be from the pay place.

• 1:17:21Speaker 05

  No, Nantucket has a hundred bucks for a buck and 150 for a doe.

• 1:17:26Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. And what's interesting, the last point I have about this, it didn't really click with me. Should you go to Nantucket and shoot a deer and say, I'm going to eat this one myself, you're out. No one's giving you 150 bucks.

• 1:17:36Speaker 05

  Nope.

• 1:17:38Steven Rinella?

  You gotta donate it to get the money.

• 1:17:40Speaker 05

  But do I, especially on those drives, I think you are, there's a guy, there's a guy already. I didn't have a chance to talk to him. I'm hoping to get him on next time. A guy's already killed, donated eight.

• 1:17:51Speaker 02

  Steve, this might be a case where you could have your cake and eat it too.

• 1:17:55Steven Rinella?

  But I think that they should also be, I don't think they should be discriminating against deer meat eaters. I think it should be, hey, man, donate it or bring us like its ear.

• 1:18:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:18:05Steven Rinella?

  Its left ear, its tail, and we'll give you 150 bucks.

• 1:18:09Speaker 02

  So that'll help them avoid the bounty allegations.

• 1:18:13Steven Rinella?

  If you bring us a scalp, we'll give you 150 dollars.

• 1:18:19Speaker 05

  The precursor for this was a private citizen who was doing it. She had a similar program, but she said, your third deer and on, she would give a hundred bucks per deer. And he just didn't move the needle. Um, I think dudes who are whacking all these deer, they're eating, they're eating their deer and they're donating.

• 1:18:35Steven Rinella?

  You can only eat so many deer.

• 1:18:36Speaker 05

  Right. Yeah.

• 1:18:38Steven Rinella?

  If you're like a single guy, I'm kind of out of touch on this issue because we have a family of five. If you're a single guy, how many deer can you eat? If you eat at home every night, how many deer are you going through?

• 1:18:48Speaker 05

  If you're a single dude.

• 1:18:50Speaker 02

  Way more than two or three, I would think. But I don't know what the number is.

• 1:18:55Speaker 05

  I would love if you're a single dude hunting on Nantucket and whacking deer, right in.

• 1:18:59Steven Rinella?

  Tell us how many deer you're eating. That was when we were rich in deer meat as single guys, our mantra was like burgers for lunch, steaks for dinner.

• 1:19:07Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:19:09Steven Rinella?

  Two, two meals a day, not just one meal a day.

• 1:19:13Speaker 02

  Living the dream.

• 1:19:14Steven Rinella?

  That was a great report, man.

• 1:19:15Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 1:19:16Steven Rinella?

  Real good report.

• 1:19:17Speaker 05

  Big shout out, big shout out to all those organizations. Listen back if you want to hear their names.

• 1:19:24Steven Rinella?

  Doing that deer drive.

• 1:19:26Speaker 05

  Nantucket Conservation.

• 1:19:26Steven Rinella?

  Shooting windows out of those sweet houses on accident. Oh, no, people, I mean, I'm not saying that should happen. I'm just saying like, that's a problem I could imagine.

• 1:19:34Speaker 05

  You remember, you remember how we covered Massachusetts, uh, changes of their laws, the Sunday hunting and the 250 foot standoff?

• 1:19:41Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:41Speaker 05

  This has, there's pretty significant impact for this island if that goes through. Talking to, talking to the biologist.

• 1:19:47Steven Rinella?

  It would shut the harvest down.

• 1:19:48Speaker 05

  No, it would increase it remarkably. Cause.

• 1:19:49Steven Rinella?

  Oh, you mean getting rid of it?

• 1:19:51Speaker 05

  No, cause right now the law is being proposed is it would open up Sunday hunting and it would reduce the standoff from 500 feet to 250.

• 1:19:58Steven Rinella?

  Got it.

• 1:19:58Speaker 05

  Huge impact on these two islands.

• 1:20:00Steven Rinella?

  Open up a lot, a lot more opportunity.

• 1:20:02Speaker 05

  You think of like a weekend warrior is going to go there like Friday to Monday or whatever. He can't hunt Sunday. There's no point, you know?

• 1:20:09Speaker 05

  Martin Feehan, Nantucket Conservation Foundation, Nantucket Land Bank and Act Deer.

• 1:20:14Steven Rinella?

  I'm not even gonna, I'm just gonna leave it be there and I'm not even going to get into the, cause like, because I feel that it's so limited. I'm not going to get into the doom and gloom about incentivizing, about making a market dynamic for deer meat. I'm not even going to get into it.

• 1:20:32Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:20:33Steven Rinella?

  What I'm doing right now is an apophysis. I'm bringing something up by saying I won't bring it up.

• 1:20:38Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:20:40Steven Rinella?

  So I'm not even going to bring that up.

• 1:20:41Speaker 05

  Sweet.

• 1:20:42Steven Rinella?

  That I'm not going to bring up what this would mean for wildlife management in America. If you were monetarily incentivized to go out and harvest wild game. Like I don't even want to get into it.

• 1:20:55Steven Rinella?

  Not bringing that up.

• 1:20:56Speaker 05

  Got it.

• 1:20:57Steven Rinella?

  But think about it.

• 1:21:02Speaker 02

  To New Mexico?

• 1:21:04Speaker 05

  Yes, please.

• 1:21:06Speaker 02

  All right. So a couple, I guess it was maybe two months ago, I, I covered a court case in New Mexico that had to do with fraudulent, uh, tag applications. And as part of that discussion, I, I talked about how exceptional, uh, in a bad way, New Mexico is among Western states for resident hunter and tag allocation. Because they have an outfitter set aside. They also have, uh, landowner, transferable landowner tags. Um, and in that discussion, I sort of hinted that this thing was coming. Uh, but the, the headline this week is, uh, I guess it was last week. The Attorney General of New Mexico, Raoul Torres, released his Attorney General opinion

• 1:21:50Speaker 02

  that the 10% set aside of, uh, hunting tags in New Mexico for outfitters is unconstitutional. So he has issued the league, it's the legal opinion of the state's chief lawyer. It's not a binding policy change or anything, but he has looked at the law and he's looked at the constitution. And there's a big, long opinion that you can read.

• 1:22:12Steven Rinella?

  But they don't course correct. You can sue them.

• 1:22:14Speaker 02

  That's right. Um, and so this is, I, I spoke with the AG's office this morning and they, they pointed out, this is not like a, they have an ongoing process where lawmakers can point out things that the state's doing and ask for the AG's opinion. So this was part of a process. It wasn't like a special investigation that they did, right? But it's, it's a part of their, their state governance process. And lawmakers on April 29th of this year sought an Attorney General opinion on two questions, uh, about tag allocation. And they observed that one, there's this, there's this 10% set aside,

• 1:22:54Speaker 02

  uh, of tags for outfitters. And this is, uh, controversial because, especially among state residents, because they believe it's a carve out to wealthy, non-resident hunters. Um, and.

• 1:23:06Steven Rinella?

  Earlier when I was talking about that, that supply and demand issue. Here you have New Mexicans, people from New Mexico, all those trying to get tags coming up empty handed. But meanwhile, they're.

• 1:23:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, and this is

• 1:23:20Steven Rinella?

  Outfitters are getting the tags.

• 1:23:21Speaker 02

  And this is something the, when I spoke to the Attorney General's office, they actually said, you know, the Attorney General wanted to get his son out elk hunting and couldn't get him a tag. And so this is something that had actually affected him personally, you know, like it's not an unfamiliar scenario for hunters in New Mexico to think of tags they want and that other people are getting because of these programs that they have. So the, the questions that these lawmakers asked and Nathan Small, Representative Nathan Small was, was one of those lawmakers who asked for the Attorney General's opinion. They, they asked about the license, the 10% set aside. Um, and then there's also a thing that, uh, New Mexico Department of Wildlife does where they combine units

• 1:24:07Speaker 02

  uh, for bighorn sheep licenses in order to create

• 1:24:13Speaker 02

  essentially more places where you can pull 10% from. 10, you know, create more, more pools where you can pull 10% from. Um, and they, they asked about these questions individually and together, what are the constitutional implications? In relation to a provision in the New Mexico state constitution that, um,

• 1:24:37Speaker 02

  it's called the anti-donation clause, and this bans the state from making gifts or donations to private persons, associations, or corporations. Um, so the Attorney General's opinion is, it's 13 pages, uh, and in brief, they, he, he finds that the anti-donation clause, quote, "conveys exclusive access to a public resource without constitutionally adequate considerations." And then he, that's looking at the outfitters set aside, and then the bighorn hunt lumping is, quote, "infected by anti, anti-donation clause issues."

• 1:25:15Speaker 02

  And eventually, um, the, the, the, the opinion concludes, "A state program that transfers the exclusive right to broker access to a public resource without genuine consideration, and at the expense of the residence that resource belongs to, bears the character of a donation in substance and effect." The New Mexico constitution prohibits it.

• 1:25:39Speaker 02

  And, you know, he's, he was quoted in, in the paper or in a statement, um, he says, "Hunting hasn't just been a sport in New Mexico, it's a way of life that tradition is being sold out from under working New Mexicans. Right now, a broken system lets wealthy out-of-staters buy their way to the front of the line while our own families wait year after year for a tag." Um, so as I said previously, it's, it's, it's an opinion of the state's chief lawyer, it's not binding. But the legislature will convene on January 19th, and the Attorney General's office is hopeful that they will, um, address this legislatively, uh, through statute.

• 1:26:19Speaker 02

  The, Nathan Small is one of the lawmakers who asked the Attorney General to review this issue. Um, he said that they plan to address this, um, it's still, given the election season, they're not really putting draft legislation out there yet, but it's, it seems like everyone in New Mexico that I talked to is expecting that the legislature will take this up.

• 1:26:41Speaker 02

  The, and the outfitter set aside, it seems, really would require, um, really would require statute to change that. The bighorn unit lumping, the department could maybe address through administrative rulemaking, but they really need the legislature to step up and, and address this uh, issue, or else, yeah, litigation either from the Attorney General or private parties could sue and say, "My rights under the constitution are being violated." Um, so this is, I mean, there's a lot of numbers to run through here, um, and I don't know that that's gonna help clarify things, but I think that the takeaways are,

• 1:27:24Speaker 02

  this is really good news that lawmakers and the Attorney General are taking action against, um, this unfair tag allocation.

• 1:27:33Steven Rinella?

  You're gonna opine on this. This is not just the facts.

• 1:27:36Speaker 02

  No, I think, I mean, I'm, I'm prepared to opine on it.

• 1:27:39Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:27:39Speaker 02

  Uh, you know, one of the interesting questions, when I talked to Jeremy Romero, he, he was saying, you know, even if they do away with this 10% allocation, it's like, okay, well, now you have this additional 10% of tags. Do they, do you split those between residents and non-residents? Do you just dump all those into the non-resident pool? I mean, those are all things that'll, that'll be determined down the road.

• 1:28:02Steven Rinella?

  Somehow I thought, and I don't even know why I thought this, I thought it was 6-4.

• 1:28:07Speaker 02

  Um, it could be, but it's not necessarily, yeah, until that's, that's, I, I believe that's what they're anticipating it will be. Um, but it's not in any draft.

• 1:28:18Steven Rinella?

  So a 6% increase, if they did it that way.

• 1:28:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:28:23Steven Rinella?

  So that's 6% increase in tags available to residents, a 4% increase of elk tags available to non-residents.

• 1:28:28Speaker 02

  And, and what's, what's appealing about that scenario is, so right now, there's a 6% non-resident carve out, and then on top of that, there's this 10% of outfitter tags, and then the remainder is resident, or, or I should say, the remainder is divided into other pools, right? Like the landowner tags and all that, but if you were to divide it 6-4 and add that 4% to the pre-existing 6%, it would bring it to 90-10, which is a pretty standard

• 1:29:01Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:01Speaker 02

  ratio for, for big game, uh, across the West, but.

• 1:29:05Steven Rinella?

  And there's some squirreliness with this program that I wasn't aware of.

• 1:29:10Steven Rinella?

  If you, I, I believe that you only need to use the outfitter services for a capped period of time, two or three days.

• 1:29:18Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:29:20Steven Rinella?

  So when you apply and get the outfitter.

• 1:29:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:29:24Steven Rinella?

  If you apply and get the outfitter tag.

• 1:29:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:29:29Steven Rinella?

  If the outfitter like packs you in somewhere and hangs out for a day or two.

• 1:29:33Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:29:34Steven Rinella?

  You then hunt on your own.

• 1:29:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:29:36Steven Rinella?

  It's a two or three day cap. So you could make a two-week, whatever, 10-day hunt, whatever. You're not even with the outfitter, you're not paying for the outfitter the whole time, you're paying for the outfitter for a couple of days.

• 1:29:47Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:29:47Steven Rinella?

  It's a squirrely little detail.

• 1:29:49Speaker 02

  And, and one of the things that the Attorney General pointed out in the, in the opinion is that the, you know, outfitters are paying fees to be licensed or registered, and they're essentially paying collectively $150,000 in outfitter fees as a, as a whole. I think it's $500 to register for an individual outfitter. And then the benefit that they're getting from the state in terms of the value of those tags is $15 million.

• 1:30:20Steven Rinella?

  Wow.

• 1:30:20Speaker 02

  So it's, so it's essentially saying, how can this not be considered a gift or a donation in violation of the constitution? If they're, they're, they're paying in a dollar for every hundred dollars they're getting back from the state.

• 1:30:33Steven Rinella?

  That's interesting.

• 1:30:34Speaker 02

  Um, I, I will point out too, cause I, I also talked to folks who are deeply invested in just the, the broader landscape of this non-resident resident issue in New Mexico. And, you know, the vast majority of those privatized tags are not from the outfitter pool. Like the out, like if you got away, if you did away with all the outfitter tags tomorrow, New Mexico is still like grossly in, uh, it's still like this, this huge exception when you look across western states at the number of transferable tags that are given out to private entities.

• 1:31:12Steven Rinella?

  Well, that's why, that's when I, that's what I'm gonna crystal ball for you.

• 1:31:17Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:31:18Steven Rinella?

  My, uh, uh, this is my, this is my, this is my hypothesis. That this is a, an initial play.

• 1:31:28Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:31:29Steven Rinella?

  And what will come up for discussion next

• 1:31:33Steven Rinella?

  is that in New Mexico, they have these transferable open unit elk tags.

• 1:31:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:31:42Steven Rinella?

  Where a rancher, if he owns a specified acreage, he gets handed elk tags by the state and he can sell those elk tags. But when someone buys that elk tag from that rancher, they can hunt anywhere in the unit. I've bought these.

• 1:31:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:31:57Steven Rinella?

  Bought one of these. So it's like, you know, you could be like, hey, hate the game, not the play or whatever. I've bought these. It is, it's a squirrely system. And it just is.

• 1:32:10Speaker 02

  That's the system.

• 1:32:11Steven Rinella?

  But that's the system. I heard, I, I, I want to cover, I don't know if it's true, like, you know, the Vermejo Ranch, Ted Turner's Vermejo Ranch, New Mexico? My understanding is they, is that, that they are given a hundred.

• 1:32:26Speaker 02

  Landowner elk tags. Yeah, it's, New Mexico issues just under three quarters of all transferable private landowner tags in the West.

• 1:32:38Steven Rinella?

  Seriously?

• 1:32:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:32:39Steven Rinella?

  Can I give you the split from?

• 1:32:41Speaker 02

  And, and one, one more point on this, um, you know, the, the other, when you talk about the two in conversation, the outfitter tags and the landowner tags, I mean, the big difference is there is that the outfitters and guides are, are promote, primarily like working-class New Mexicans, business owners. When you get into the landowner thing, you're talking about some of the wealthiest, like you bring up Ted Turner, some of the wealthiest entities in the state who have a lot more pull at the legislative level. So this is, this is definitely the, the easier of the two hurdles.

• 1:33:17Steven Rinella?

  It's interesting that they would've said, which of these do we bring up first?

• 1:33:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:33:22Steven Rinella?

  And again, it's just my hypothesis, that's gonna be the next discussion, is what do we do about this huge pool of transferable open unit tags?

• 1:33:29Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm. And I, I asked if, I asked, um,

• 1:33:34Speaker 02

  I, I asked whether or not the same argument could be made about landowner tags and, uh, the Attorney General's office basically said, that's, that's not how this works. We were asked to look into two different questions relating to these specific programs, and so they can't really.

• 1:33:52Steven Rinella?

  Very different.

• 1:33:53Speaker 02

  They can't crystal ball it, right?

• 1:33:54Steven Rinella?

  Very different, very, very different things, very different setups.

• 1:33:59Speaker 02

  And they, they derive from different statutes. It's all very complicated, but for people in New Mexico that want an elk tag, that want to hunt elk in their home state, it's the same, it, it's, it's kind of sticks in your craw the same way.

• 1:34:14Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:34:16Speaker 05

  New Mexico Wildlife Federation, 40% of all elk licenses in New Mexico are allocated to private landowners.

• 1:34:23Steven Rinella?

  Wow.

• 1:34:24Speaker 05

  Of those, 75% approximately go to non-residents. And 20% of those are unit-wide tags.

• 1:34:32Steven Rinella?

  Oh.

• 1:34:33Speaker 05

  Which means they can run right.

• 1:34:34Steven Rinella?

  Only 20% of those. I didn't know that.

• 1:34:36Speaker 05

  Still a big, big chunk.

• 1:34:37Steven Rinella?

  Okay, okay. Hmm.

• 1:34:41Speaker 02

  So, yeah, I mean, it's, obviously, this is big news and it's, it's interesting to see an Attorney General's office talking about fairness in tag allocation.

• 1:34:50Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:50Speaker 02

  It's encouraging to see that be taken seriously.

• 1:34:54Steven Rinella?

  That level.

• 1:34:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:34:55Steven Rinella?

  Hmm. I wasn't gonna opine on it, but you opined on it. That's cool.

• 1:35:00Speaker 02

  Op-ed.

• 1:35:01Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, man, stepping in there, getting all controversial.

• 1:35:06Steven Rinella?

  You know those snacks that disappear way faster than you planned? That's Wiley Wallaby Licorice for me. I tossed a bag in my truck for a recent trip and before I knew it, it was gone. I ate it, my kids ate it, my wife ate it, we all love it. What sets it apart is the texture. It's authentic Australian-style licorice that's soft and chewy, not hard and waxy like most brands. They've got more than 10 flavors to choose from. I love that it's made in the USA by a company that's been doing things the right way for more than 60 years. Use code MEATEATER at shop.wileywallaby.com for free shipping and try some yourself. When you're outside cleaning fish, working in your garden, or just grinding through a

• 1:35:50Steven Rinella?

  long day of work, your hands take a beating. Dry, cracked hands can be brutal when you need to get work done. O'Keefe's Working Hands Hand Cream. Get your hands back and work in order. This stuff is the greatest stuff in the world. Like, most hand creams, you put them on, and then you're all kind of greasy and slimy and you can't grab stuff. You put the stuff on, your hands are ready to get back to work. It absorbs fast, creates a barrier to lock-in moisture, and doesn't leave your hands greasy at all. Do yourself a favor. Next time your hands feel like dried-out fish scales, get O'Keefe's Working Hands. I'm telling you, this stuff is amazing. Go to okeefescompany.com to get yours today.

• 1:36:27Steven Rinella?

  That's O-K-E-E-F-F-E-S company.com for guaranteed relief. O'Keefe's Working Hands. It works good. The fall hunting season is finally upon us. I love this time of year. Me and my kids got trips coming up for pronghorn deer, more deer, cow elk. We got all kind of stuff coming up. We're about ready to trade out summer sleeping bags for cold weather down, pack up a food bin and a cooler, and we'll throw in a couple Mountain Dews for a little reward and boost after those long mountain marches. There's nothing better. It's my favorite time of year to spend time with my family. Born in the foothills of Tennessee, Mountain Dew was made for a damn good time outdoors. The bold taste you know and love has proud

• 1:37:08Steven Rinella?

  American roots dating back to 1948. Mark your best fall memories with the crisp, refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew. From hanging out around the bonfire to just hopping into your friend's truck and cruising the woods, get out there and enjoy the outdoors of Mountain Dew, an American original. Tasting great since 48. Look for Mountain Dew in stores near you.

• 1:37:31Steven Rinella?

  Onto that power line. Now, this is one, this is one of those ones where, um, this is a news story where I might not look at it and be like, well, that's big enough for the news show, you know? Right? I might look at it and be like, that seems like almost too local. But a lot of guys, either there's a lot of listeners in the Drift, in the Driftless Area of Wisconsin, or it just is a huge issue, where a lot of guys are writing in about this big-ass power line. They're fixing to cut through Wisconsin's Driftless Area. The lovely and beautiful Phil is gonna pull up, if you're watching. He's gonna pull up a photo.

• 1:38:16Speaker 05

  This is the first I'm hearing about this. Steve, uh, give me one second.

• 1:38:20Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, Nate really shit the bed on this, this particular segment.

• 1:38:23Speaker 05

  It's right there.

• 1:38:24Steven Rinella?

  It's, can you pull it up?

• 1:38:26Speaker 02

  I thought you were just amused by how he introduced you.

• 1:38:28Steven Rinella?

  I wanted a graphic that shows dudes stacked up. You know, like, if you're showing how big a mammoth is, you got like two dudes standing there?

• 1:38:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:38:36Steven Rinella?

  That would show dudes all stacked up, showing how high these things are. This is a huge power line.

• 1:38:43Speaker 02

  Huge.

• 1:38:44Steven Rinella?

  I don't see the image, regardless.

• 1:38:47Speaker 05

  I'll move on. I'll get it up eventually. Nate, can you just send it to me, please?

• 1:38:50Speaker 02

  Imagine, if you will, a power line.

• 1:38:53Steven Rinella?

  Of enormous dimensions. Okay, so it's one of those giant, giant power lines. 200-foot tall towers. The right-of-way strip is just under 100 yards wide. So now picture this sucker coming in through your zone. 100 yards wide.

• 1:39:18Steven Rinella?

  The contested portion of this thing is about 140 miles. It runs from Marion, Minnesota, near Rochester, to Bell Center, Wisconsin, and Crawford County. In Wisconsin, it goes through Vernon and Crawford Counties, crosses the Mississippi River near Genoa, and everybody's arguing about the route this is gonna take. Now, this thing won't be, this thing is so big. This thing won't be cranking electricity till 2034.

• 1:39:46Speaker 02

  Look at that graphic.

• 1:39:47Steven Rinella?

  There, there, there it is. Look at that guy's house. Imagine being that sucker. It's like that power line, if it was animated, that tower would reach down and pick that dude's house up.

• 1:40:00Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:40:00Steven Rinella?

  Picture it as a monster, which it's shaped like.

• 1:40:03Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:40:05Steven Rinella?

  Would pick that dude's house up and throw it if it were animated. Part of the problem with this power line, why is that funny?

• 1:40:15Speaker 02

  I just think that you had to, you had, you had to couch that.

• 1:40:17Steven Rinella?

  Clarify that it isn't actually, if they were to come to life. Yeah, just clarifying for listeners, that as currently configured, it is not capable of picking a house up and throwing.

• 1:40:28Speaker 05

  It has Kaiju energy.

• 1:40:29Speaker 02

  The other type of transformer.

• 1:40:32Steven Rinella?

  Part of what is burning Wisconsinites' asses on this whole thing is this moving power across the region, not to the region. So Wisconsinites, reasonably, they're like, hey, what's in it for me, man? This is bringing power from one set of people to another set of people, mowing through all our area, and it's not even doing us any good. And a lot of opponents are pointing out that Wisconsin's electric demand has been flat for about 20 years, so they're just having a hard time picturing why life needs to now be upended by this power line through an area where it's gonna cross Boku Cold Water Trout Streams, including the Kickapoo watershed, and it's in the Mississippi Flyway, which if you're

• 1:41:14Steven Rinella?

  a duck and goose guy, the Mississippi Flyway is not looking for more problems.

• 1:41:21Steven Rinella?

  Bird flight obstructions.

• 1:41:26Steven Rinella?

  Here to tell us a little more about it, because he's been on the ground, is the, is the most civically-minded individual that I hang out with.

• 1:41:32Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:41:34Steven Rinella?

  Doug, Doug Durren, from Driftless Area, Wisconsin. Doug goes to meetings about stuff. When there's a meeting about deer management, Doug goes. When there's a meeting about big power lines, Doug goes. Um, very civically engaged. And Doug's gonna give us a little local flavor about what exactly is going on and how people are receiving this. Doug, thanks for coming on.

• 1:42:00Speaker 06

  Well, thank you for having me. Um, yes, it's kind of interesting. There's the two segments. There's the BECI line that you're talking about, and then the continuation of that, which actually would go through Richland, Sauk, Vernon, and Monroe County. It's sort of all tied together. And the issue that we're having at this point is that, at the end of the July, first part of August, we, um, landowners found out of it. And, um, they got letters that said, you know, we're gonna be coming through your area, and there are all these proposed lines. And, and then suddenly, it's going to be approved by the PSC early

• 1:42:40Speaker 06

  in 2027. Um, so as you can imagine, there are a lot and a lot of questions about it all.

• 1:42:49Speaker 06

  It's one of those things where you don't want to be that guy who says not in my backyard, but I would say a couple of things about it, about it. One of them is that first of all, there's several power lines that are already going through the Driftless that are transmission lines taking power to other parts of the country.

• 1:43:06Steven Rinella?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:43:07Speaker 06

  And this is a part of the Midwest, the MISO, the Mid-Continent Independent System Operator Grid. So this is a big grid issue, right? And where they're wanting to put it is really a big part of the problem. There's a hierarchy in the state of what you're supposed to be considering when you're doing this. The first one is to use the existing utility corridors.

• 1:43:33Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:43:33Speaker 06

  The second is to use like interstate highways and state highway corridors. The third is railroad corridors, which there are, you know, that are being used, but then also that are decommissioned. And then the fourth one is a new route. Well, when this was proposed and the information came out to landowners, it was like they skipped all the first three and went right to number four. And it feels like there's a steamroller coming through the Driftless. Like, we're gonna do this. This is how it's gonna, how it's gonna happen. And it's been a, interestingly, it's been a real uniting thing in the Driftless area.

• 1:44:16Speaker 06

  You know, there's a lot of divergent ideas about everything in the Driftless area, politics and such, but this is something that people of all political and other stripes have gotten together and are behind, like, not even the, there's a faction that says, no way, no how, no, we've already done our share. We've already got lines going through that are for this transmission grid. There's that faction. And there's others that are saying, let's slow down. Let's take some time to look at this and have a thoughtful plan if this is

• 1:44:56Speaker 06

  going to happen. And it just doesn't feel like that's the interest. I had a state senator stop by the other day to an event that I was at, and I talked to her about it. She said, I found out about it the same day that landowners found out about it.

• 1:45:11Steven Rinella?

  Doug, why did they skip the one, two, and three? If you'd be like, if you're gonna do a power line, do it where you already have a power line, or do it along the side of a highway, or do it along the side of a set of railroad tracks. Why did they skip all that and just decide that they want to just cut it through a bunch of farm ground?

• 1:45:30Speaker 06

  I wish I knew the answer to that, Steve, and that's why we're asking, that's why the folks at, especially at No765.org are saying, let's take a step back, let's think about this process a little bit more. And that's one of the questions that haven't, that hasn't been answered, along with, you know, along with some others, like me, like you said earlier, that, I mean, this isn't for people of the Driftless area. This is going through the Driftless area. This isn't for us, it's through us, right?

• 1:46:01Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:02Speaker 06

  And that's a problem, you know? I think that you would, you know enough about the Driftless to know that there's some pretty generous people here, and we're willing to help out. But it feels like we've helped out with these other lines, and now they just want to do this again without really much of a deliberative process. And there's big money behind it and all of that. I mean, you know, the other question that I have is why can't they bury this line? Turns out they could.

• 1:46:30Steven Rinella?

  Oh, really?

• 1:46:31Speaker 06

  Yeah. And, well, it's done all over the world and in some places in the United States. There's a big chunk of power going through there. But they could do that. And there just doesn't seem to be any, or if there has been any consideration to that, it's not one that's been made clear to the public or our elected officials. Like I said, my state senator was here, and she's like, I didn't really have any more information than anybody else. So there's a lot of, you know, protesting, and I mean, you can't drive around without seeing signs about it. And people are writing me and saying, why isn't Rinella talking about this? He likes the Driftless area. I'm like, you know, you should

• 1:47:13Speaker 06

  probably ask him that question. So, I mean, I'm directing some of that traffic for you, of course. One of the things that I wanted to point out to you is that one of the proposed lines, remember that first time you came out and you and Mo and Dan Doty came out, we shot that first episode sort of at the end of the season?

• 1:47:30Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:30Speaker 06

  And then we went, we went down to Kiefer's old, well, formerly Kiefer's farm, but we went down to Kiefer's farm?

• 1:47:36Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:36Speaker 06

  And we shot that little PRCP video?

• 1:47:39Steven Rinella?

  Exactly.

• 1:47:40Speaker 06

  About the conservation reserve program, about changing in land use. And look at here, the brook trout have come back.

• 1:47:47Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:48Speaker 06

  One of these proposed lines is right up that valley.

• 1:47:50Steven Rinella?

  Oh, is that right?

• 1:47:52Speaker 06

  Yeah, right, I mean, right through Kiefer's old farm. I mean, he sold his farm, but...

• 1:47:57Steven Rinella?

  Oh, my God, really? God, that changed that place, man. Holy smokes.

• 1:48:01Speaker 06

  I mean, imagine that, right? And, I mean, there's all of these environmental concerns, and none of them seem to be, they certainly haven't been addressed in, to the public.

• 1:48:11Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:11Speaker 06

  And so this just seems like this, we're being steamrolled here.

• 1:48:15Steven Rinella?

  What are the odds, Doug, what are the odds that when something like this is happening, but I don't want to say when something like this is happening, we'll stick to this power line. What are the odds that they sort of imagine this as an initial offer, where they're saying, let's test the waters, man. We'll put it out there and see how much blowback there is, and then we'll land where else, but let's just start by saying the thing that's most profitable, easiest to do, and see if these people fight back or not. But in the back of their minds, they know it's not gonna work the way they want it to work.

• 1:48:51Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's almost like that, this is like their, almost like it's their first position we'll see. And some of the evidence of that is if you, if you flip through the maps and everything of the thing, you'll see that there are like four different routes that are proposed. And it's almost like, let's see where the most resistance or the least resistance is to it. And it's almost like they're, you know, one person, one landowner might say, well, as long as they don't come through mine, it'd be all right. People aren't, they aren't buying that, man. They are united against the idea of it, to begin with. Man, I should, this is a funny thing, you know? I thought it was hilarious. I sat down at

• 1:49:35Speaker 06

  one of these meetings, and sitting next to me is an Amish duck dude. And I'm like, what are you doing here? You don't use electricity.

• 1:49:46Speaker 06

  And I said it just like that, and he looked at me and said, well, they want to put this line through my land. So you can imagine how I feel about it.

• 1:49:53Steven Rinella?

  Oh, is that right? No kidding, man.

• 1:49:55Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:49:55Steven Rinella?

  Dude, the irony of that, talking about not for it, but through it. The irony of that, dude, not even using any juice and having that thing running through his place.

• 1:50:04Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:50:05Steven Rinella?

  Listening to that thing humming and crackling all the time? Yeah.

• 1:50:08Speaker 06

  And those are the, so those are the issues. And at the, at the end of the day, the biggest issue is, the biggest issues are, it's not for us, it's through us. Wisconsin's use has been flat. It doesn't seem to me that it's, or to anybody else, that it's been very well planned. And then, you know, we could get into bigger discussions about, what are we doing about energy conservation? What are we doing about alternative energies? And should we be thinking about more regional generations as well?

• 1:50:40Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:40Speaker 06

  You know, this power's going to Chicago and, you know, east is like, well, put that, that, put it that way. The projected use in Wisconsin is pretty much flat forward, except for one thing. And that is, if there's a bunch, if there are AI data centers built here.

• 1:50:59Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:51:00Speaker 06

  It's already been, one is under construction, and it's, and future ones are being flat. So this stuff is all tied together, you know? I mean, we all want to use electricity. We all got to have electricity. But it's a bigger conversation, and it just seems like, you know, it seems like the, like my friend Ken Bootcher said, if you don't, if if things are gonna change, you can't keep doing things the same way.

• 1:51:25Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:25Speaker 06

  And that's, that's sort of it, you know? Why aren't we, why aren't we thinking about what the other possibilities are here? And it just, I think there's, I mean, obviously, it's like a one point, I think you said, at a 1.3 billion dollar project, there's a lot of steel involved with these things. And I don't know, man, it's, it just seems like, to me, we need to step back, take a break, do some real thoughtful deliberation and some environmental, more environmental impacts. And, you know, think about these, these bigger things. So that's what the group No765.org is all about.

• 1:52:04Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, tell, tell, say that name again for people that live in this area and they want to check this thing out. I mean, you're definitely getting a biased perspective, but tell me the name of the group.

• 1:52:12Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's called No765.org.

• 1:52:17Steven Rinella?

  No765.org. Yeah, I don't think they're gonna articulate the yes side, but I guess the yes side is someone's gonna make a bunch of money, and some dudes far away are getting some power. So this will tell you the local side.

• 1:52:31Speaker 06

  I think if you go onto the website, though, and start, you know, looking around on there, that there are some, there is some discussion about need for power, understanding that there needs to be transmission. You know, it just becomes a question of whether this is the right place or not.

• 1:52:50Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, dude, if you went through life, if you went through life, if people in this country just always took the attitude of, well, we need this, we need that, we wouldn't have nothing but concrete and roads.

• 1:53:01Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:53:01Steven Rinella?

  At this point, there would be nothing left. We're at a point, and, and, and we're at a point in our nation's history, I always talk about this, for a long time, we had wild places because we hadn't gotten around to developing them all yet. And then things shifted, and now we have wild places and, and, and nature and wildlife habitat because people fight for it. Like, our, our focus used to be fighting to conquer it. Now the focus has shifted. Now you got people that fight to preserve it. So, yeah, I get the whole, we need this and need that argument. If they always want, there wouldn't be nothing left anywhere.

• 1:53:40Steven Rinella?

  All right, man, thanks for coming on, Doug.

• 1:53:43Speaker 06

  Happy to do that.

• 1:53:45Steven Rinella?

  Thanks, Doug. Yeah, digging that, digging that Grateful Dead deal you got on there.

• 1:53:48Speaker 06

  All right.

• 1:53:49Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:52Steven Rinella?

  You know like Grateful Dead, what do you normally see inside the Grateful Dead head thing with the skull cut off?

• 1:53:59Speaker 02

  It's a lightning bolt.

• 1:54:00Steven Rinella?

  There's normally a lightning bolt in there? Well, Doug's shirt is the Great Lakes. Kind of. It's heavily focused on Wisconsin.

• 1:54:09Steven Rinella?

  It's like, yeah. Nice shirt, Doug.

• 1:54:13Speaker 06

  Michigan's down there too, Steve.

• 1:54:15Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, a little bit of it is. Where I grew up is, which is cool. All right, Doug, love you.

• 1:54:22Speaker 06

  Yeah, I love you too.

• 1:54:23Steven Rinella?

  Thanks, man.

• 1:54:25Speaker 04

  All right, our last segment is sports ball fights. Football season is here and we are going to predict the winner of some games this season, but we're not basing this on talent or coaching or home field advantage like every other analyst. We are picking based on the merits of their animal mascots. Thanks to DraftKings for sponsoring today's segment. This week, Steve is going to predict how it would go if a Cardinal fought a Bronco, just like is what is going to happen here in week seven of the NFL season, right? Uh, Steve, who would win that skirmish?

• 1:54:55Steven Rinella?

  I don't want to handle it that way.

• 1:54:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, I, I think it should be how many Cardinals it would take.

• 1:54:59Steven Rinella?

  No, I don't want to handle it that way.

• 1:55:00Speaker 04

  All right.

• 1:55:01Steven Rinella?

  We did this before and I was wrong. I'm not going to talk about, I'm not going to talk about between a Cardinal and a Bronco.

• 1:55:08Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:55:09Steven Rinella?

  Who like would win a fight?

• 1:55:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:55:11Steven Rinella?

  That's stupid.

• 1:55:12Speaker 04

  Hmm, okay. Good feedback.

• 1:55:16Steven Rinella?

  Well, it's just not what I want to do.

• 1:55:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, okay.

• 1:55:18Steven Rinella?

  I'm more interested in who should win.

• 1:55:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, all right.

• 1:55:23Steven Rinella?

  Who should win?

• 1:55:24Speaker 02

  From a moral perspective?

• 1:55:25Steven Rinella?

  Yes, moral and otherwise. So as I painted out before, when I had to deal with something with these Broncos before, when I, like, I know the Bronco can mean different things to different people. Hell, some people think it's a vehicle.

• 1:55:38Speaker 02

  OJ Simpson.

• 1:55:39Steven Rinella?

  When I think of, yes, there's one, for instance, the late, the late OJ. Didn't he get in trouble? Um.

• 1:55:47Speaker 02

  The time or two.

• 1:55:51Steven Rinella?

  The kind of Bronco I'm talking about is a, is a feral horse, which is causing enormous, as I mentioned before, causing major wildlife issues in the arid west where we have some poorly crafted legislation that has made wild horse, feral horse management ineffective and our hands are tied and we're losing native wildlife to feral domestics. And that's when I think of Broncos, that's what comes to mind.

• 1:56:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:56:22Steven Rinella?

  I don't like that. I don't, I don't think they should win nothing.

• 1:56:24Speaker 04

  You're always going to pick against the Broncos.

• 1:56:26Steven Rinella?

  Always, always, always, always. I don't care what, maybe there's some situation, like if you were like, who should win? Like famine, global famine or the Broncos? I don't know.

• 1:56:40Speaker 02

  Poachers or Broncos?

• 1:56:41Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, but that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about Cardinals and Broncos. Here's why, here's why a Cardinal should win. This is, I, I like to do a thing. When I'm sitting in the turkey woods in the morning at daybreak. So it's dark, just coming on daylight.

• 1:57:00Steven Rinella?

  And like the world, this is springtime, late April, early May, like the world is waking up. If you're a bird man, you don't need an aide to know what I'm going to say, but if you're not a bird man, download Merlin, the Merlin app and turn it on. And I'm going to make, I don't care where you live.

• 1:57:22Steven Rinella?

  Well, maybe I do a little bit. No, most places that you live, the first thing that's going to happen in the morning before it's even light, when there's just like in, in the cold gray light of dawn, the first thing you're going to hear is a Cardinal.

• 1:57:42Steven Rinella?

  He's always there, ready to start the day. He's an early riser. He's got a beautiful call. If you got your app opened, your bird ID app, and you're just sitting there watching it, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, he's going to beat the crows.

• 1:57:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:57:57Steven Rinella?

  Now, crows will beat a turkey, but no one beats a Cardinal.

• 1:58:00Speaker 04

  Yeah. And that means that there's a dead loved one nearby, I think. That's what they say when you see a Cardinal.

• 1:58:07Steven Rinella?

  Boy.

• 1:58:07Speaker 02

  Way to bring this.

• 1:58:08Steven Rinella?

  Down, I brought that down.

• 1:58:10Speaker 04

  Well, talking about Cardinals.

• 1:58:14Speaker 04

  Now I gotta check.

• 1:58:15Steven Rinella?

  Dude, I was trying to paint a beautiful picture.

• 1:58:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, keep going.

• 1:58:17Speaker 02

  Cardinals, dead love.

• 1:58:19Speaker 04

  There's grandpa just flew by.

• 1:58:20Steven Rinella?

  Oh, that's cool. I like that.

• 1:58:22Speaker 04

  Okay, we're back in on.

• 1:58:24Steven Rinella?

  No, no, no, I'm back.

• 1:58:25Speaker 02

  A red Cardinal, especially shortly after a funeral or during a difficult moment, is often interpreted as a sign a departed family member or friend is nearby.

• 1:58:33Steven Rinella?

  Oh, I love that.

• 1:58:34Speaker 05

  I thought there was like a body behind a tree trunk or something.

• 1:58:36Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, I thought he was going dark, you know?

• 1:58:40Steven Rinella?

  Like I just stepped on something squishy and I don't like it. That's not what he's talking about.

• 1:58:45Steven Rinella?

  Just being greeted in the morning in the turkey woods by that Cardinal, just ambitious. And they're beautiful.

• 1:58:53Steven Rinella?

  Compare that to some Bronco drinking out of some dried up water hole, stepping over the dead bodies of big desert big horns.

• 1:59:03Steven Rinella?

  Who do you think ought to win?

• 1:59:04Speaker 04

  You're going to be in real pickle when we got Colts versus Broncos.

• 1:59:10Speaker 04

  Then what? Tie.

• 1:59:12Steven Rinella?

  I'll tell you, but I'm not going to, I don't want to spoil it. So that's who needs to win this. Now, I'm not telling you who's going to win. A Cardinal needs to win.

• 1:59:19Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:59:19Steven Rinella?

  A Cardinal's a better, it's just a better creature.

• 1:59:22Speaker 04

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• 2:00:13Steven Rinella?

  All right, everybody, see you next week on the news show. Thanks for joining.

• 2:00:42Steven Rinella?

  If you spend a lot of time outdoors, you got dogs, you got kids, you know how hard it is to keep the floor of your rig clean. A thing we do in our, in our little fleet of vehicles that I have at my household, if you go look, open the door on any one of them, they all got WeatherTech. We get a car, we throw the mats out and put in WeatherTech. Cause that way, when there's a mess, it's like your kid's fault, your dog's fault, it's the weather's fault, doesn't matter. You take them suckers out and hose them off and you're back to being good as new. I'm telling you, if you got a vehicle, put WeatherTech in there, you're going to be happy you did it. And check this out, American made floor liners and cargo liners, okay? They laugh in the face of all weather. Go take a look for yourself today at weathertech.com. You know those snacks that disappear way faster than you planned?

• 2:01:25Steven Rinella?

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• 2:02:10Steven Rinella?

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• 2:02:53Speaker 00

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