Ep. 910: Steve Eats Narwhal, Wetlands in Distress, and Wag Bags!

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Moultrie's new and improved battery life on their Edge 3 and Edge 4 trail cameras keeps them running all season long. Use promo code MEATEATER for a free rechargeable battery pack when you buy an Edge 3 series camera at Moultrie.com. Hey, your neighbor, you know that guy, your neighbor? He's been out there all summer. He's hanging cameras. He's watching the photos roll in. He knows where that buck is bedding, where he's feeding. He's got a camera. He's got a camera. He's got a camera. He's pinpointing where he needs to be on opening day. You've seen the pictures, and you know the deer is there. The question isn't whether that buck gets shot this fall. The question is whether it's your story or his. So tip the odds in your favor with the OnX Hunt app. Trail camera analysis, hyper-local wind and weather forecasts, and the insights to act on what you're seeing. Don't show up to opening day empty-handed. Bring OnX Hunt. Welcome to the news show. Today, we're going to make Nate read a correction on his wolf coverage. Then we're going to get into a big change for game wardens in Pennsylvania. Randall is going to explore people packing out their own poop. Cal is here to talk about some big trouble with wetlands. And finally, we're going to hit a possible expansion to a controversial pheasant stocking program here in Montana. With that, we're on to the news. News. Okay. You might have noticed that Steve Rinell is not sitting in this seat. Thank God. Oh, yeah. We don't know where he is. Actually, Steve is off doing a super cool filming project way up north. So he's going to miss the next couple of shows. But he did send us a video to check in with us and let us know what's going on up there where he's at. Phil, you got that video? Yeah, take a look. Okay. We have a news flash from none of it. I'm here with Dirt. And our friend Avery is cutting up. Hello. Explain what you're doing, but tell everybody the Inuit words. So I'm cutting up alanguak, or two garlic, which is narwhal. And this was caught a couple days ago in Pondonlit, North Baffin. So now. But look at the skin on that thing. Nice. You would think that was, like, made, like a marble countertop. The skin on that thing. And you're cutting it. Sorry, but I just wanted to comment on the wildness of that skin. So now I'm just cutting off the fat, the blubber. Because if you have too much, you might get a stomachache. Oh, really? Yeah. And then I'm cubing it. And I prefer to cut smaller. I find it tastes better but everyone has their own preference. You're almost cutting through. So I'm just cutting the hard part. People prefer to cut different depths. Yeah. Or do you mind telling everybody, do you mind telling everybody what that is? This one's the skin and the blubber. And that's a, that's a frozen chunk of caribou, which you just eat like that. Yeah. And they're cooking up. Can you go check out those seal ribs, Lauren? Yeah. These are clams and that's the artichoke. Wow, they got it all there. We're back. Oh, this is the only man in the planet who I have ever met who had a king eider for a pet. P, no. Yeah. And that refers to, it's dried Arctic char, but that refers to how it's cut. Steve speaks Spanish the same way. Okay. So that doesn't mean that it's cut that way. Smoked Arctic char? That's Arctic char. That's a big Arctic char. Yeah. Okay. And that. And caribou fat. Caribou fat. And some more over here. And this is a crazy one right here. Get a look at that. That's broccoli. They're, they have a, do you need help with anything? They walk down our, our, our host here. They can walk down and they run a net across that little bay, that little inlet right there and catch char out of a little gill net. We were down there last night and they had six char, which is, that's the ones you have, right? From that, from that net there. Okay. You ready, Dirk? Yeah, let's go. I already tried it. You already tried it. I haven't tried it. Okay. What is it? Narwhal. Oh, Dirk's not the most adventurous eater either. Yeah. Kind of chewy. Chewer than I was expecting. But really good. That's good. That is really good. Can I try just a pure chunk of that fat? How bad could it be? Yeah. I don't know. What's that going to do to anybody? Ignoring the warnings of locals to not do it. To not do it. Yeah. He's going to poop his pants. Yeah, but I mean, what would be, something bad would happen? Just eat that tuna. Well, if you have a lot of it, you're going to get a stomachache. Well, I can picture that. That is good. That's better. Straight up. Try that, man. Can I get a little sliver? Yeah. That's good. Dirk is going to try just the pure fat, which I think is the good way to go. Narwhal whisking was good. If it's better than that, hot dog. Or do you mind, while we're making this news segment, if we try the beluga, a little piece of beluga? This is breaking news. Steve's right. That is delicious. That's better. Are they dipping it in soy sauce? I think so. Well, no, but that just like, like, melts. Melts in your mouth. Chad was saying it's good, like, thawed out, but I feel like that's just me. Do you like it raw? Oh, look at that. Okay. Beluga. You like the same cutting method? Mm-hmm. Okay. Do people, like, is it generally accepted that narwhal is better or beluga is better, or is it just up to you? It's up to the person. Growing up, I loved beluga more than narwhal. Okay. But now, I prefer narwhal more than beluga. Because of what happened? Just, I like the taste better with narwhal. Okay. For me, I like narwhal more because in my hometown, we have deeper waters, and we don't really get belugas, so it's, like, different. When you're used to narwhal, like, you become proud of it. It's like, oh, that's from our home. Oh, I see. And so, like, last, a few summers ago, they had a bunch of belugas come into our bay, which is rare. And hunters caught them, but they were, like, of the meat, so they sent it all here. What? Because they're used to narwhal. Yeah, I got it, yeah. It's just what they're used to. Got it. You know, baby? We're getting a whole dang meat-eater episode here. Mm-hmm. He wants amoleo? Big time. His favorite. Yeah, if you're listening to this, you should just hop on YouTube and watch it. Yeah? Can you taste the difference? The more fat? While you're driving. Oh, okay. That's tough. Both are very good. But there is more fat. Am I right that beluga's softer? Well, this one is softer because it's not an adult beluga. Oh, so there's variability from age. Mm-hmm. What are you working on there? This is the kuluk. So I'm just going to light it to welcome you guys. And so this was our main source of heat and light. Also to dry the men's clothing. And it's seal oil? Yeah, traditionally it would be with seal oil or beluga. Okay. You would render it down. And then. Yeah. So. Now we just use whatever oil is available because it's easier and it's less stinky. Oh, there you go. I see you guys are going out. Ladies and gentlemen, that's the news flash from Nunavut. And can you guys teach us how to say so long, suckers, or goodbye in a nook and tuck? There's no real word for goodbye. There's like, see you later. Yeah, hit us with that. Like, see you in the future. See you in the future. All right, see you in the future. Yeah, that's good. Okay, this is a second, this is a long goodbye. It's a long goodbye. I was trying to understand, like, I'm trying to understand how to say, how to name the language. Inuktitut. Inuktitut. Yeah. Okay. So to say goodbye in, one more time, to say goodbye in Inuktitut. Inuktitut. Titut, oh, titut. Inuktitut. Yeah. Say goodbye. See you later. See you later. So what was the one? Come to Tokyo. See you later. Goodbye. See you later. See you later. All right, there you go. There's the news. From the Great White North, from old Steve Rinella. Cal. Brody. You've been a dad for a couple months now. What's that like? You got some advice for our soon-to-be dad, Nate, over there? Well, yeah. You know, today's a good day to do it, because my morning started at 3.45, my day. I'm well into my day. It's around 3.45 a.m. And my biggest, so everybody's a wealth of knowledge, right? And they're always like, oh, yeah, here's all the things. But don't worry about it. You'll be fine. I forgot all the baby stuff. I can't remember any of it. Phil, can you remember any of the baby stuff? Oh, no. Wiped it from my mind. Yeah. My thing that nobody mentioned, and I was not prepared for, but this is all like, well, of course, that's the way it is, stuff. But, like, I've run into many people who are, like, baby crazy right now. And they're like, well, this is how it's going to be. And I'm like, oh, that's funny. The thing that you need to have, like, just be mentally prepared for, Nate, is the fact that you are going to be fully consumed with this little parasite. And it is demanding. And you have very little grace as to when this thing needs what it needs. And you'll be consumed with, like, satiating those needs. there will be zero recognition of you whatsoever. So it's not like you're not being thanked. It's like, you, you're just a non, you're just a thing that shows up and does the thing. And there is no recognition of you at all. Not for a while. Not at all. By the wife, by the baby. There's no recognition of mom from the baby. Right. And, and like we're full breastfeeding. So you would think that there would be like some recognition and there's just not like the kid doesn't nod and say like, appreciate you. Yeah. That was a good one. I imagine there's something going on in there that the baby is not capable of communicating at this point, but I see what you're saying. But there's no, like they can't even hardly see, right. They're like not really, they're seeing like shapes and some colors and things, but they're not seeing, they're not going to give you a dad. You're the best. Thanks. Thanks man. And which right. Is like, Oh, of course they're not going to do that. But like being able to be like, Oh, you would kind of be nice. Right. And all the, all the girls that are all like Twitter painted with having babies. They're like, Oh, well we read that there's this bond that's established. And I'm like, cool. You can't see it. You can't smell it. But if that book tells you it's there, you better hang on to it because this thing, it's going to like, it's going to chew you up and spit you out. Yep. And then about nine days ago, it was like almost like a call and response. Like the kids like, Oh, I'm tracking you. And here's a smile that is not related to the kid taking a poop. And you're like, Oh, I needed that. And it's like, Oh, it is. There is a human in there. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Cause I'm fully like never had anything against kids. Right. But like the whole time thing, I'm like, I'm like, I'm just not impressed with the human child. Right. I'm like, antelope can get up and sprint in, you know, 12 hours. Like, like this thing is so helpless. Yeah. Like the only thing it's got going for it is it is portable and packable. I think that's how, that's how we got to where we are today is you can pick up, pick it up and run. There you go, Nate. What do you think about that? That's good advice. I had not read that yet. Yeah. So that is, that is the thing. You just need to be mentally prepared. Like there's a lot of like wonderful things about it, but just be prepared for the fact that for the sheer ingratitude. Yeah. This child. Yep. There is no recognition whatsoever. Yep. Yep. Okay. And you're going to be doing all this, you know, you'll, you'll do whatever it takes to like soothe that thing. And you know, you get way down the no sleep trail and it's, you're like, I'm putting in serious effort here. And this thing is only going to respond negatively the next time it needs something. Right. Yeah. Right. And then you get smiles and then eventually, you know, I think we'll get some laughs, which will be super cool. And we were just talking this morning that like, I'm really looking forward to this thing, tasting real food. Hmm. Yeah, man, that I, I know it's cliche, but time flies. Like I, I can't even like, I can hardly like remember the details of the baby thing, but like now I got a couple of hunting buddies. Yeah. And pretty soon those hunting buddies will be off to college. Sad man goes fast. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm looking forward to like the teaching. Yeah. Moment. I think it's fantastic. To have a puppy at the exact same time, which everybody's like, Oh, you guys are stupid. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, the puppy is instant gratification, right? Right. You get that puppy home, you feed it one time and it is like, Oh my God, I love you. You're the best thing ever. You teach the puppy. It's like, Oh, this is great. And then there's the baby. And you're like staring at you with dead glassy eyes. One day this'll pay off. Like, so it's instant gratification. Next to long, long-term payout. That's that's it's like diversifying. Yes, exactly. There you go. That's great advice. A hot take. I like it. Thank you. Cow would have a unique take on that situation. All right. It's time to move on to your news. There we go. I like that sound. Pigeon flying into a bar. That's what I was going for. Or does the jail door just clanks your news brought to you by these here banished suppressors? No, we talked a little bit about these in the last show. Maybe these things, speaking of kids, like these things are awesome. If you've got, if you've got some youngsters shooting big game rifles the noise, the recoil reduction, it's, it's just makes life a lot easier for kids shooting, shooting a big game rifle. So another reason to get one Nate, you've got some you've got some explaining to do on your coverage. I do. Phil, if you don't mind pulling up that chart for our listeners, what we're looking at is the Dunning Kruger effect or Dunning Kruger curve. And on the Y axis, you've got confidence from low to high and on the right axis or the X axis, you've got competence from knowing nothing to a guru. And essentially what this curve is showing is that when you first start learning about something, you have extremely, extremely high confidence. You think you know what you're talking about, but you actually don't. And then you reach this peak, which labeled here is the peak of Mount stupid. When you realize you don't actually know anything and you go down that curve to the valley of despair and you realize I don't know anything about this situation. And I'm going to try to learn now, are we talking about you here? Yes, I am on this curve. What are you, uh, where are you at? I would say based on the listener emails we got on my wolf coverage, I'm slowly cresting the peak of Mount. Stupid. And I'm realizing I don't know anything about this topic. I thought you're in the valley of despair. Yeah. That's what I entered the valley of despair over the last couple of days. Yeah. Um, so not even climbing out of it yet, just starting to climb and it's a, it's a tall mountain and so we got a bunch of emails. I think the best one was from Dave and I'll read it out. Hello there. My name is Dave. My father and I were the first to have wolf depredations in Colorado. I enjoy listening to your podcast and I believe you do a very good job of being as accurate as possible regarding your conversation. Yeah. about wolves frequently predating on cattle where a "credible source" claims that the ranchers were baiting uh john smith not his real name let's be clear he's talking about baiting wolves in causing intentional conflict is what i said to get a depredation claim on on yes cattle john smith not his real name is who i assume your source is as he's the one who started that rumor did a site evaluation on the ranch that he accused of baiting prior to those accusations and said they were taking all necessary steps to avoid conflict he later changed his opinion when he was unable to reduce conflict as he was hired by the state to do so i can say from personal experiences that with with that individual that he was only interested in getting us to stop talking to the press and not so much about conflict mitigation i will admit he was handed an impossible task but he handled the failure poorly furthermore the copper creek pack showed a much larger interest in cattle than other packs in the state they continue to do so when they were moved to another part of the state unless your stance is that the ranchers are only baiting this pack everywhere they go and not other packs it's fair to assume some packs have developed a preference to livestock thank you for reading this and for your and despite my disagreement with this statement please keep up the good work over there immediate i think this is a great note um all i know to explain this disagreement with this statement what's he disagreeing he's he's disagreeing with the fact that i said that cat that certain wolf packs do not seem to develop a taste for cattle um all i know is that the copper creek pack which was brought from oregon killed cows in oregon and they killed cows in colorado and that's all i know about that that's kind of a correction and a kind of an apology but i don't know i i do i think the the curve your graph there is important right because uh there's people who will cling to mount stupid and work their butts off to justify their once previously confident position instead of going down into despair and digging out through enlightenment and then adjusting their position and saying hey here's what i know now which and and you're beginning the journey towards the plateau sustainability it's so dude i have no idea what's going on with wolves i'll try i'll keep working on matter what they eat cows no matter what we talk about on this podcast i always know that there's someone out there who knows way more about it than me and i probably sound dumb unless we're talking about things like guns what you personally did last night yes what happened to me in the bathroom last night we try to do our best we're gonna make some mistakes we'll we'll do our best to correct them and if we need to you know take a dive down into despair and then climb back out we'll do it and just so no one gets the wrong idea there was a momentary scare last night when i thought i might be the latest victim of taco bell's well we're gonna get to that yeah we'll get to that later but put spoilers i just didn't want i didn't want to be too vague about what i did last night there's a fascinating topic thanks for writing in um appreciate the great corrections and keep them brief they're more likely to get aired if they're brief you yeah this is steven ranella from the meat eater podcast life moves fast at american military university they're ready to help you keep up amu's flexible affordable online programs in cyber security it space studies and more are designed for service members veterans and their families amu provides the support you need to take the next step wherever life takes you american military university made for what's next learn more at amu.apus.edu slash military summer's here i'm already thinking about fall and man i'm excited to get some cameras out in the woods i got a couple out now that i've been watching but i'm gonna get some more out there moultrie cellular trail cameras are 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conservation fund secures the irreplaceable lands we love learn more at conservationfund.org like this this next one's pretty short so uh we've got we've got someone who he's got some concerns about hunting and cwd cwd zones which um is there's not many places that aren't cwd zones these days he writes my family does all of our own butchering and processing that's great um and over the years we've invested a lot of time money and effort into becoming efficient hunters and processors between the cost of a lease equipment fuel processing supplies and the added risk of cwd i've started asking myself whether hunting is still the most practical and economical way to fill the freezer uh financially it almost seems like it would be cheaper to buy quality meat from a local butcher so here's my question how would you approach hunting economically if you lived in an area where cwd is in endemic um meaning it's like high prevalence rates you got a good if you kill a deer get it tested there's a decent chance it's going to come back uh positive for cwd um uh where would you start traveling to hunt in areas with lower cwd prevalence even if it means spending more on fuel and time and at what point does traveling become the more economical option both financially and in terms of confidence that the meat you're bringing home will actually fill the freezer that's come that comes from kyle um god if you're hunting economically you're doing something way different than i've ever done yannis or someone actually did a this came up this economically like sustainably hunting thing came up in a recent episode and i'm like oh my god i'm not going to be able to do that i'm not going to be able to do that in this episode i think it might have been yannis was covering something but basically like the only way you're going to like like save money or break even is by hunting in your backyard right like like hardly any driving processing your own meat like this guy's doing um so that's kind of like not investing in new gear yeah it's kind of like the whole like saving money thing as much as much as it gets talked about it's not really a thing um it's just like you're choosing to eat wild game over domestic meat is basically what it comes well i think the other thing too right is like this is my entertainment dollar like the we had an offline conversation about things the lady wants to do for her entertainment and i'm like well that's not where my entertainment dollar goes right it also goes into hunting yeah as does my mental health dollar my physical fitness dollar some people spend money on going to the beach or disney world or whatever we spend money on going to the beach or whatever we spend a little money on going on um like i get the like the debate over like should i even bother because of cwd um there are some areas where like you know in doug dern's zone of wisconsin like you're rolling a dice if you shoot a deer right and it can start to feel frustrating when you get that test result back and it's positive and you can't eat the thing um you got to make a choice like if it's worth it to you and you're not going to be able to eat the thing um you got to make a i i would hate to see people like deciding just to hang it up because of chronic wasting disease we've got it here in the valley it's it's maybe not as high prevalence as some areas but it's concerning you know i shoot deer here it's a it's actually a very cheap economical way for me to kill a couple does close to home i get them tested i've been lucky and haven't had any positive results and i'm going to keep doing it um like i don't know if you're going to be able to do it but i'm going to know if you've got anything more for this guy like i just think it's it's like a reality for hunters that all hunters get like kind of got to confront how they're going to approach it these days yeah and i think there's not really enough if we're actually running the numbers and trying to figure out if it makes sense financially to travel more to areas with lower prevalence does that mean driving an hour or does that mean driving five hours exactly there's not really anything to go on there but i guess like and also the comparative rates of infection in those two places yeah do you have a one in three chance if you drive an hour versus 120 versus 120 you know but i don't know i i think like your larger point that you'd hate to see people hanging up because they're frustrated by not being able to eat what they kill that's that's that is just the reality of where we are right now yeah and it might people might not like it but you are kind of still helping out by shooting deer that are cwd tags and licenses yeah yeah and cal you made a good point that maybe what wouldn't be here or it wouldn't be quite as bad if if people were actually out there harvesting does yes it's not going to get any better if people who live in c to high cwd areas all decide to heart hunt yeah exactly outside of those areas you're just going to get a higher and higher prevalence rate um so i don't know if we answered this guy's questions or not keep hunting keep keep hunting yeah um and yeah i mean be great if doug published all of his data because i think they're at like an 80 prevalence rate so it's like yeah it's i mean you are far more likely to kill a deer with cwd than not yep yep but they are are still getting uh non-positive deer out there and the population in in richland county over there is i think that's it yeah um like does not seem to be going down right right so there you go kyle uh keep shooting those deer thanks for eating those deer all right we're ready for the news that's it that's all you got phil what happened at the end well i got eaten by some sort of animal presumably a cat of some kind yeah yeah and the dude doing doing morris code we don't know what happened to him one of life's mysteries he probably died 40 years ago to be fair all right we're going to talk about this big uh pennsylvania supreme court decision that rejects the opens field doctrine for game wardens um okay before i get into that i'm going to explain open fields in the fourth amendment real quick for people who aren't familiar uh we've talked about open fields before but i'll give you the quick rundown it's a open fields doctrine is a law established by the u.s supreme court that allows law enforcement officers to enter and search privately owned open land without a search warrant applies to fields forests pastures and undeveloped land even if the property is posted with a no trespassing sign it does not apply to a home's curtilage meaning the immediate area surrounding a residence like outbuildings things like that they remain protected by the fourth amendment the fourth amendment protects people from unfair and unreasonable searches and seizures by the government it also states that with certain exceptions police need a warrant to search or search your property or take take things um so pennsylvania got rid of it um recently there's a lawsuit and before we get into that um game wardens and states that operate under the open fields doctrine they typically have more leeway they operate with more leeway than than other law enforcement personnel might that's like open to interpretation but it's i think that's a generally like correct statement um if you think i'm wrong you can write in about it or these guys will correct me if i'm wrong um basically what it means is like let's say a game warden's driving down a country road 30 minutes before shooting light here's some gunshots let's just before or after legal shooting light here's some gunshots um sounds like a rat-a-tat-tat kind of shotgun shooting thing um waterfowl season's open he knows there's a pond next to a cornfield on this piece of property he's driving by he could then walk in there and see what's going on correct like is that fair to say um just from the sound i thought it was i don't i thought they had to see stuff going on yeah that's a that's a tough one on anyway maybe i've already screwed this up but okay let's say well so the the thing that i know to absolutely be true right is if your state operates with the open fields doctrine yep it's still up to your game agency or and law enforcement to do that so i think that's a tough one i think that's a tough one i think that's a tough one and law enforcement agency to say how that's going to be interpreted in your state yeah and so there there's states that have a more liberal interpretation of how they're going to operate and then you know the crazy thing like idaho just lost open fields and they had a very narrow yeah it's like unless it is like egregious in your face that law enforcement officer is not going to walk across private property without yeah we'll talk a little more about that but um not to not to yep further confuse things but i've often heard when examples are given about open fields i've often heard a gun the sound of a gunshot as being no no sort of no no like being the the instigating that's what i've yeah so that's i would agree with you that another example might be like game wardens driving down the road sees a deer hanging in a garage deer season's not open yes something like that yep or a bull elk in the case of montana sure yep yeah he doesn't need to go to a judge and get a search warrant yeah to go investigate that um now before we get into this pennsylvania thing i want to make something really clear in covering this story we're like in no way trying to portray game wardens or conservation officers as the enemy because they're they're not they're doing a vitally important job protecting people and wildlife and they're also performing difficult sometimes dangerous law enforcement duties like catching poachers that are stealing wildlife from you and me um and i'm willing to go way out on a limb to say that like when it comes to like private property rights um most game wardens in most places like by necessity um have worked really hard to cultivate a good working relationship with the private landowners in the area they patrol like it's just like they're not operating in a way where they're going to have these antagonistic relationships with landowners it's just like they're not going to have these antagonistic relationships with landowners it's just like they're not going to have these antagonistic relationships with landowners it's just going to make their job impossible so i just want to like get that out there first before we get into the particulars of this case um we'll get into the the actual case and then get into the like the pros and cons of it after i talk about what happened in pennsylvania um uh pennsylvania supreme court decision just this month game wardens was must generally obtain a warrant before entering uh posted private posted private property um a supreme court decision rejected the open fields doctrine um the the federal open fields doctrine still exists under the u.s constitution but in pennsylvania it was a 7-0 supreme court decision um punxsutawney hunting club incorporated versus pennsylvania game commission uh so it significantly expands private property protections in the state of pennsylvania the the court ruled uh officers again must generally obtain a search warrant before entering clearly posted fenced gated or otherwise marked private property to investigate wildlife violations um the decision overturns pennsylvania supreme court's 2007 ruling commonwealth versus russo which had allowed game wardens to enter open fields on private land without a warrant now the case background is there's a couple of hunting clubs in pennsylvania the punxsutawney hunting club and the pitch pine hunting club that challenged the game commission's authority to enter posted lands um there's some history here the clubs allege that pennsylvania game wardens entered their posted private posted property dozens of times over several years without permission or a search warrant uh according to court filings they hid and camouflaged on club property and they were not allowed to enter the game commission's authority to enter posted lands conducted surveillance with binoculars installed trail cameras on the club's land without without the owner's knowledge or consent now this is this is like more recent happenings that this all goes back to a 2013 incident um after a game warden confronted a member of the pitch pine hunting club over allegedly feeding bears um the the member later learned that the officer had been secretly observing activity activity on the club's property for several days no citation was issued um but the club members objected to you know the the the activity that was going on um since 2013 uh game commission officers entered the club's posted private property 15 to 22 times i'm not sure about the why there's a number that that number is not exact um i'm sure if you got into the the details of the court case you'd understand why it's not exact but enough times that that they viewed it as a major problem um again without a warrant or probable cause. During some of those entries, game warden Mark Gritzer issued citations to individual hunters or club members for alleged violations of the game code. This Supreme Court opinion doesn't specify how many citations were issued or whether people were convicted or anything like that. The club's lawsuit was not an appeal of those violations or citations. Their goal was to get a declaration that the game commission can't just come onto their property whenever they want. So obviously they won the argument. Pennsylvania Supreme Court ultimately agreed that the state constitution provides greater privacy protections than the federal open fields doctrine and requires warrants. So that's where we're at right now. What wardens can still do, they can still enter unposted or unmarked private land without a warrant in some circumstances. Observe violations occurring in plain view from lawful locations. Rely on recognized exceptions to the warrant requirements such as consent or exigent circumstances. So that explains like how they can still get on private property. Like there's like an emergency situation. So like they're, they're, uh, compelled to go help in a medical situation that they observe or, you know, an active crime that is observable from a County road. Yep. Yep. Um, so largest expansion of private property rights in Pennsylvania wildlife law in decades. Um, it's gonna require, uh, some adjustment for how game wardens and conservation officers do their work, um, investigating suspected hunting and wildlife violations. Um, and it could influence similar legal challenges in other states. Uh, supporters of the decision like are generally like very much in favor of fourth amendment constitutional private property and privacy rights. Um, that's basically it. Uh, what it comes down to get, uh, getting rid of opens fields, treats conservation officers more like other law enforcement officers that when conducting searches. So it's like, it's a, it's a fourth amendment rights argument. The people that are supporting the decision, critics say the ruling, uh, can make it a lot more difficult for game wardens to do their job. Um, requiring warrants slows things down, especially in remote areas where a game warden knows there's a violation going on. He's trying to investigate it, but he can't. So he's got to drive all the way back into town and track down the district attorney, a judge, get a warrant, go back. And by the time he's gone back, you know, any evidence of a crime or, or, or the actual crime is just like not happening by the time they get back. Um, so that's, that's what critics say. Um, so I think that's, that's, that's what critics argue, you know, for the, the open fields doctrine. Um, I, I, I did some research on other States. I kinda like, I didn't, I guess I thought this was almost like a first time thing with Pennsylvania, but there are at least nine to 10 other States that have rejected the open fields doctrine, Mississippi, Montana, New York, Oregon, Idaho, Tennessee, Vermont, Washington, Pennsylvania, South Dakota. Um, they recognize and operate under open fields with very strict limits on what the conservation officers can actually do. And Cal, you kind of alluded to that and that's the way it is in Idaho too. Yeah. I mean, it was prior to this and that's like what was interesting about, I mean, the other interesting thing, um, the, the new court decisions are all, um, being litigated pro bono by Institute for justice. I would really, I don't, this is something that I don't understand is, um, what's their stake in this. Yeah. Actually I spoke with that, that litigator. Okay. He reached out after he saw Steve's video and he is purely a fourth amendment guy. Like this for him, it just happens to be the game wardens are at the crosshairs of this thing. And he's like, if there was a, if there was a DEA agent who was using, open fields doctrine to do something with a drug bust, I would litigate that. Cause I think the fourth amendment is so important. Um, and so he doesn't have a bone to pick with hunters or game wardens. These are just the situations that are arising. Yeah. So he was the one who litigated rainwaters in Tennessee. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and there are, yeah, there's all sorts of instances, right. It's kind of like when we talk about, uh, individual animals, I named this mountain lion. So it's really important. And now it's emblematic of the entire population. Yeah. Uh, there's certain instances where I think most people would all agree, like, oh my God, that is a gross overstep of authority and abuse of power. But, uh, the other thing that we have to balance this is it is all public wildlife and just like a super quick story, Idaho. That one was brutal for me because it is such, it is the most serious migratory state I have ever hunted. Like, you see, you're like, oh my God, this is what a migration looks like. And, um, you know, a state known for big, awesome mule deer. One time I got permission to hunt on this place. The guy's like, oh, you like mule deer look in the shop. And there's this row of dusty, almost forgotten, truly giant mule deer racks. Like, like things today that would just blow, blow people's mind. And it was, you know, generations. And they were like, nobody knows about them. It is safe to say nobody knows about them. There's a whole, uh, Robbie Denning's book on like big bucks, Idaho, that these things aren't in there. Right. But it's because this ranch is in a, and I was hunting birds, right? This ranch, this ranch is in like when it was the heavy snows forever. This is where all the big bucks end up. And it is feasible with the state of mule deer and mule deer genetics right now that if you had bad actors, they could, they could literally eliminate the ability for those types of genes to be passed on. Or at least make some serious bucks killing bucks, like allowing, you know what I mean? Yeah. I mean that, that too, but if it's like, you know, and I was, uh, hunting, uh, turkeys on a place this year, just for instance, it was awesome. It's huge. And, uh, was driving out and, you know, it's like calving season during turkey season. So all the ranch activities on one place, nobody's on the whole rest of the ranch. And I was like, God, you could just live out here and nobody would know about it. And sure enough, I get stopped on the way out. They're like, what are you doing? I was like, oh, I was hunting turkeys. And they're like, oh, okay, great. Didn't know. I was like, yeah, like you get lost back there. Right. So, uh, there are many instances where this isn't just like a crazy theory. Right. And, and part of law enforcement on landscape is wildlife management, which is a public resource. So if it is not your buddy at home, it's a public resource. So if it isn't your buddy at home, it isn't a solve for anything. In my mind, this is like ripping open this can of worms and we need the ability to regulate the take and management of public wildlife. It is a public resource in the United States. Yeah. So if this isn't the answer, what is it? Yeah. I mean, that that's the question is enforcement becomes kind of impossible in certain situations. And like part of the, the, like this kind of gets away from what we're talking about, but part of the, the, the effectiveness of game wardens is, is knowing they could just show up at any time, right. Knowing that maybe they won't show up, but knowing that they could be glassing you from a County road and you're two miles up the Hillside or whatever, like knowing that they're out there doing their job, like makes them effective, even when they're not around. It's part of the deterrent puzzle or pie or whatever. Yeah. If you're, you know, completely hidden from view on private property, look, most hunters aren't bad actors, but there are bad actors out there who would take advantage of this situation. I feel like, unfortunately, um, I think one other piece he raised that was interesting is the, the difference between state and federal enforcement, like because of the supremacy clause, the constitution, the fourth amendment, when, when federal officers are enforcing federal statutes, they can still use open fields throughout the U S but state officers cannot, unless they're crossed reputized and that is another thing that's going to get real muddy here now yeah yeah and there are situations where hunters would have to deal with with federal officers for sure on wildlife refugees and things like that but uh private land i'm you know i'm not sure how that would play out um so there you go i i think my if i had a crystal ball like steve would i would say probably more states are gonna go this direction if i if i had to make a prediction this is steven ranella from the meat eater podcast life moves fast at american military university they're ready to help you keep up amu's flexible affordable online programs in cyber security it space studies and more are designed for service members veterans and their families amu provides the support you need to take the next step wherever life takes you american military university made for what's next learn more at amu.apus.edu military summer's here i'm already thinking about fall and man i'm excited to get some moultrie cameras out in the woods i got a couple out now that i've been watching but i'm gonna get some more out there moultrie cellular trail cameras are built to last from summer through shed season on a single battery charge this is true run them and run them you can watch a buck grow his antlers and shed them all without ever swapping out batteries moultrie's new and improved battery life on their edge 3 and edge 4 trail cameras keeps them running all season long it's intel without interruptions use promo code meat eater for a free rechargeable battery pack when you buy an edge 3 series camera at moultrie.com these battery packs are sweet it saves you messing around with all the batteries you need to be with all those double a batteries they work great last a long time i love them moultrie.com for over 40 years the conservation fund has raced to protect at-risk land before it's lost the forest farmland open spaces and places that wildlife call home they believe conservation shouldn't be a choice between protecting nature and supporting people it should advance both in harmony with over 9 million acres of land in the middle of the desert and over 9 million acres of land in the middle of the desert and over 9 million acres of land in the middle of the desert and over 9 million acres protected across all 50 states the conservation fund secures the irreplaceable lands we love learn more at conservationfund.org so we're done with that crap let's move on to randall's crap thanks brody um man i came across this story and i just couldn't look away um there was a uh coverage of a dissertation that was just uh completed at penn state by a doctoral researcher named jack edelson or edelson um and they they looked at public this this dissertation was touted as perhaps the most in-depth coverage of public study of public land pooping habits and i didn't need to know any more at that point i knew it needed to be you were hooked yeah um so so what what this study encompassed was um the the researcher went to three different sites um most of the coverage in the press has focused on what they did at colorado uh at mount albert which is one of the 14ers i believe it's the tallest super busy close to denver gets a lot of traffic yeah it gets it gets 15 000 to 20 000 hikers a year um and it's an eight hour round trip with no bathroom once you leave the trailhead so obviously how do people survive well that's i mean people survive but they also duke along the way um in fact what 11 percent of the people that were contacted during this study which involved reaching out to people at the trailhead asking them about their hike and i'll get to this in a minute encouraging them to adopt new habits when it comes to pooping in the wild 11% of the people that were contacted during this study were seven percent of the people they contacted reported defecating during their hike that's a lot of that's a lot of feasts yeah um and so what the what the focus of this was there was they're trying to encourage people or or understand how receptive people would be to packing out their own waste we're all familiar with the doggy doo-doo bag um and humans you don't necessarily use that it's called a wag bag and here's where i learned something very new to myself it's a little overlap with new dad advice too we do use the dog poop bags for the kid poop diapers do you know what a wag bag would it's an acronym it's way big do you know what it stands for i've i used them back in a past life and i don't know what they stand for i'd never i always thought it was like a slang term it's a waste aggregation and gelling bag huh oh yeah a little powder in there yeah it's a little bag um that usually has a gelling powder with enzymes and it it resent theoretically puncture resistant um that the the purpose of the gelling powder is to neutralize odor um and then it's you can use this just throw it in the trash um so long story short there's a lot of people duking on uh on mount elbert and this researcher set up at the trailhead and they get out uh wag bags to people and they tracked who used it they asked people they asked hikers what would get what would get them to use wag bags because and this was especially i think prominent during covid was the amount of there are certain parts of our public lands that are just so heavily trafficked that it's inescapable that there's going to be you know it's like you go to some place around bozeman and it's covered in dog shit like there's places like mount elbert where where it's it's also inescapable yeah i mean you come across places where there's just toilet paper scattered all over the ground yeah i mean um so so what they found was that people were actually very receptive to using wag bags the big thing was cost and how hard it was to get your hands on a wag bag um so 80 percent of hikers said they would try a free wag bag um they they said it was easy they said and and so essentially they provided people with wag bags and they had a receptacle at the trailhead and people adopted this i think surprisingly well so they just had like a kiosk where you could just grab one before you exactly yeah exactly and and the other the other thing that's interesting about this is that um putting in a vault toilet at a trailhead is huge like it's a huge expense and there's obviously maintenance and upkeep required with that um so i think it's a huge expense and there's obviously maintenance and upkeep required with but if you can um provide people with wag bags at a trailhead and a receptacle to dispose of them there's probably going to be a lot less uh toilet paper scattered around that trailhead if it's a toiletless trailhead and there's going to be a lot less toilet paper and and crap yeah along the trail so you know it's not it's this this isn't a i i would say that's a trend though right like most if you give people a reasonable option there's going to be a high adaptation rate because most people just don't know they haven't taken the time to figure it out right yeah or it's just out of the realm of things that they think about right yeah i can see like i can see it being promising and i can see it working like back when i was guiding um we used to use a couple really busy boat ramps on on the colorado river and they're on blm that like there's campgrounds and and like it was developed sites and the blm took the trash cans away as soon as they did that there was no never any trash laying around at those sites so i could see like a similar thing if you get rid of the vault toilets and like give the maybe give the the wag bags away that it would work better as far as like large-scale use without having access to that free kiosk i'm not i don't know yeah yeah well i mean the dog poop equivalent right like why isn't the adaptation rate higher yeah right like i was at a local boat launch uh throwing for the dog the other day and uh she took off with the with the bumper into the woods and then came back without it and did that like retrieve it yeah i'm like where the hell's the thing this is the puppy you know and uh and i was like oh my god the poop per per square foot yeah here is oh yeah horrifying yeah and i guess you know this is one of those things where the fact that there's a dissertation i feel like there's often when something like this makes the news there's people laughing like oh you can get a doctorate for studying poop but you need this data and this research to get agencies or non-profits or whatever to spend money yeah to try this out because what the data shows is that the assumption that hikers won't do this yeah that assumption is wrong and it's great great making an incremental change in the way that people impact public lands is going to add up in the long run yeah for sure i think there's like i think there's also like just a lack of awareness especially on the part of you know i don't want to put hikers in the crosshair but like kind of day hikers that don't spend a lot of you know as much time outside as us um let's say um just like a lack of awareness that that's even an option you know maybe a lack of awareness that you should if you do if you wag bags aren't an option that you should get a hundred yards or more off the trail and bury it just you know i think it's kind of like oh i gotta go so i'm gonna go you know we're just just even just pack out like bury it and pack out the paper yeah that's one thing i've been doing a lot more yeah as i always have like in a big gallon baggie dump all my snacks my pack stuff all that paper in there and then uh forget about it and leave your pack in the bed of your truck for four days and then open it up the next time you need to go out and you realize that there's multiple day old feast smear on all that on all that cotton now so back to you brody back to me actually actually we're we're moving on to cal and wetlands aren't we all right um this is good timing because i i i'm down to just a handful of fatty ducks in the freezer and and we had uh two widgeon and two teal last night and my god just so good so good um the u.s fish and wildlife service has opened a 14-day public comment period on a request for information that's rfi government speak about drain tile setbacks um drain tile is a chunk of pvc with holes in it um you you put it subsurface and it uh expedites the drainage of of water um and you can do this on large landscapes uh and drain whole wetlands so if you're if you wanted to if you're let's say a developer and uh you want to build some stuff but there's a there's a pesky wetlands in the way this is how you might this is this would be a tool that you could use um if you are a farmer that doesn't like to make turns around things and loves those straight lines which is the efficiency of farming argument um this would be a tool that you could have in your quiver and uh we have some visuals here phil would you mind pulling up the topographic map so uh doesn't look like much on the map here so uh there's there's your wetland obviously in the middle this is a very emblematic of the prairie pothole region this is the snapshot of south dakota and this is like retreating glacier country so there's a bunch of little holes out there a lot of those holes uh sometimes got deeper because the bison would use them to wallow and uh those fill up with rain intermittently and they boom with life because little grass grasses and stuff and this is like the breeding duck factory of north america it is the breeding duck factory and then it is how these fledgling ducks get all their little invertebrates to become uh big ducks that uh i shoot and snort retrieves um it's a circle of life thing right but it's the the intermittent nature of these things the thing that means that they they're dry sometimes they're wet sometimes often multiple times three times a year and then they're throughout the year that um give people the idea that they don't matter but that in fact is how uh disease issues are mitigated naturally bacteria and you get these little bumper crops of zooplankton and phytoplankton that create the invert invertebrates and then the birds and way more like important way beyond just waterfowl yes pollinators all sorts of migratory birds that we don't consider and um they're magnets for big game back when i was doing a lot of spot and stock mule deer hunting um these little intermittent wetlands and most of these are under half an acre that we're talking about today um are magnets for for big bucks laying laying it out because they can see forever around them and then phil let's flip over to the satellite image here please then you can see oh my gosh the real world view is there's a lot more uh potential habitat out there than what's on the map um so there's different types of intermittent wetlands and what we're coming down to and what they want and this request for information is to weigh in on um if there needs to be any changes and if there's any changes that we need to make to make sure that it's the right way to do it and so we're going to talk a little bit more about that and then we're going to talk a little bit more about what we're going to be doing next and then we're going to talk a little bit more about what we're going to be doing next and then we're going to talk a little bit more about what we're going to be doing next and then we're going to talk a little bit more about what we're going to be doing next and then we're going to talk a little bit more about what we're going to be doing next and then we're going to talk a little bit more about what we're going to be doing next and then we're going to talk a little bit more about what we're going to be doing next and then we're going to we're going to talk a little bit more about what we're going to be doing next and then we're going to does uh wotus or the clean water act come into play at all in this stuff or no well yeah it's a it's a big soup here because wotus and the clean water act have both seen uh revisions here that that help grease the wheels with with some of this the big thing for people to understand is even with the the broader protections of the fringe in the year u.s fish and wildlife service wetland conservation easement um your your farmer or your rancher out there has the ability to um plant grass in there they can hay it they can graze cattle um depending on what agreement you have you can also do row crops in there if you if you want to but you can't burn it or plow it and you know so there's this tapestry of things that you can do and you're paid up front in a willing buyer willing seller agreement and everybody in this room has paid into it even old phil over there so hell yeah phil uh your duck stamp dollars go to conservation easements wetland conservation easements uh as do pitman robertson dollars and if you've ever bought a that's that's where this cash goes a lot of times too um so by converting this to a lesser i would say lesser requirement we stand to lose hundreds of thousands of acres of intermittent wetlands that we've already paid for um and these are they're supposed to be we've lost somewhere in the neighborhood of about 80 percent of our wetlands um throughout the prairie pothole region already um montana has lost over 30 percent um minnesota 50 percent wisconsin 50 percent um and then in the dakotas it's somewhere in there between uh 30 and 50 percent of of pre-existing wetlands so uh this is a big deal and if you like hunting ducks and you like biodiversity out there on the prairie which by the way is one of the biggest factors in having kids come back and work on the farm is if there's actual pretty things to look at and it's not just a flat landscape uh is biodiversity then you got a couple of days left here to write in we have a action alert out at the backcountryhunters.org website ducks unlimited delta waterfowl um we'll all give you the tools to just kind of click we'll give you the language you can uh make up your own mind on whether or not this is a good thing or a bad thing and then you can really really easily weigh in um to our buddy old brian nesbitt there at u.s fish and wildlife service um speaking of brian nesbitt what like did did the u.s fish and wildlife service just kind of come up on this on their own like where did the impetus for this come from who did it come well that is a great question brody because many people have asked hey cal I've read this and read this and I can't see the problem that they're trying to fix because it seems like there's a lot of options out there, including whether or not you would enter into one of these agreements at all is a choice that you can make. Um, and there's, there's a drain tile companies out there that are pushing this pretty heavy. Uh, there's been some, some, uh, statements and some media out there as to why this is a, is a good thing. And it's, it's coming from that industry. It's, is there any congressmen, senators, et cetera, attached to that, this at all, or, um, yeah. Uh, John Thune in North Dakota, who is also the, uh, I want to say speaker of the house. That's not right. He is the Senate. Yeah. Majority Senate majority leader. Thank you. There you go. Yeah. So landowners who sold these months agreed not to, to drain, burn level or fill wetlands, but are otherwise able to work farm, hay and graze any that dry up or drain naturally. Uh, in addition, some, uh, some good neighbor policies were, were adapted. I think back in 2024, um, to address this idea that you might be unfairly prosecuted if you adhere to the guidelines. And you install drain tile, uh, outside of the fringe under either your NRCS or us fish and wildlife service contract. And you do it to the letter of the law. It's called safe Harbor. Um, that, that you are protected. Yeah. If there's for whatever reason, that thing, uh, uh, drains anyway, uh, just basically giving the nod to the farmer saying like, you're not a geomorphologist, a hydrologist. You're, you're a farmer. Um, and mistakes can be made. So, uh, it's a big one. And a big question that we're asking around back country hunters and anglers a lot these days is, Oh my God, what is the impact and what happens to the back country? If the front country goes away. Yep. Yep. And this is a good way to make the front country go away. So you're on X has all these intermittent wetlands out there. Look at the top layer and then just do some driving, uh, around and you can do it very easily in the next seven days, do some driving around and go, okay, I'm going to go see this thing on the map. And it is wild how much of the time you pull up and you're like, Oh, there is nothing there. So we've lost there at the raw. Yeah. You're there at the wrong time of the year or it's in production, or it just does not exist anymore. Hmm. I might just, I might've missed this or just don't understand. Cause I don't know anything about farming and ranching, but what's the, what's the advantage of moving those drain tiles closer? Like that just makes more like arable land. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's something that you don't have to, uh, drive slightly around again. Most of these things, everybody thinks like these big wetland complexes, which are very important to oftentimes for different reasons and different species of, of hunter, huntable waterfowl. But it's these little tiny pockets and puddles. And one of the coolest things like in Montana, um, because we have, you know, a lot of really shallow wetlands. And when those rains come through, it is so cool in the spring to see, um, lots and lots of pin tail, lots of, uh, blue wing and green wing. I was just going to say when I was training for the marathon and in May, um, I was doing a lot of running, you know, north of town out in that farm country here and all those little puddles and seeps and stuff like full of nesting teal, like cinnamon teal, which you don't see. Cinnamon teal. Yes, exactly. Yeah. It was super cool. And just these tiny little spots like you're talking about. And you get to see behavior that you don't see during hunting season, which is really, really neat. Um, so yeah, just quick recap. Montana has lost between 27 and 33% of its wetlands. South Dakota, 35, North Dakota, 50, Minnesota, 50, Iowa, uh, between 90 and 97%. Brutal. Yep. Yep. Yep. And you know, this is one of the things that is like keystone into the recovery of waterfowl and the ability for hunters to get back out in the field. Yeah. If you want to go back to the economics argument of hunting, you know, it's like one of the reasons that we got into this pit is developing, uh, nesting, nesting and, uh, resting habitat along the migration corridors, not understanding that everything's connected. Um, uh, pre, uh, anti-market hunting days, there would be state imposed waterfowl restrictions of a hundred birds a day, 50 birds a day. Um, and you know, eventually we started connecting the dots and we came up with programs that we were able to do. And we were able to do it. southeast or sorry southwest montana and the intent was specifically to bolster pheasant populations i don't know what was going on at the time the the information is not very clear um but that's back when they thought stocking would gotcha and and you know they quickly learned that that it doesn't help wild populations well there has to be an overlap of management right there's got to be predator management there's got to be a habitat management and and a stocking program in order for for those birds to have enough time to adapt and even then the mortality rate is like staggeringly high oh we'll get into it yes please um and so at its peak that operation again which was the intent was population uh stocking was 15 000 birds annually so that runs for 52 years and although we might have learned the lesson quickly it took them 52 years to turn it off that pheasant farm closes uh which was it released about a total of 450 000 birds over the 50-year life which again is about 52 or 15 000 annually and it was cited to be too expensive very inefficient and that fwp themselves found that habitat improvement was a far better use of funds for some some stuff we're going to go into um 1987 they codify the habitat improvement in the upland bird game enhancement program which we'll call ugbep uh which is 1.5 million dollars specifically for habitat for upland birds um and that's through cost share projects where you have a a rancher plant a shelter belt or habitat leases and a few other a few other um habitat improvement options if you guys know anything more about those habitat improvements that'd be great but that's all i found it's like quoted by fwp is yeah and then i mean then there's some federal um that that's where your hip comes in which is now under nrcs habitat improvement uh projects so fast forward uh to 2021 and we're going to take a quick detour to the commercial or i shouldn't say the commercial the prison system i guess we could lump in um crp too yep which is more of a resting thing but does provide a lot of habitat go ahead sorry um but fast forward 2021 and we'll take a detour to the prisons and uh that year a 30-year commercial contract with dairy gold ends um basically cost of the prison system is about $10,000 a year and the prison system is about $10,000 a year and the prison system is about $10,000 a year and the prison stopped buying uh prison milk if you want to call it that um but the the deer lodge penitentiary had a large dairy herd that they used for um that inmates ran and um they they created a bunch of milk and then dairy gold bought that and then sold it to costco um but the cancellation of that resulted in a 1 million budget deficit for the prison system why is that important you ask well that same year right after that cancellation the montana legislature passes house bill 6332 7 which authorizes funny enough 1 million dollars annually for farm raised pheasants with the stated goal of young hunter recruitment those farm raised pheasants would be raised by the same inmates that were just milking cows for dairy gold um the specifics of that legislation is that half the license dollars or half of that 1 million dollars would be licensed dollars and half would be matching pitman robertson funds which was made eligible by the 2019 r3 expansion to pitman roberts um those pheasants that are raised would be planted primarily before the youth opener and the only they were only allowed to release on state land no federal or private um do you guys have any experience do that youth season and the stock pheasants not with the youth season but i feel like i've definitely run into some of those stock birds and some like fishing access yeah that's what i've heard what's that like phil they run under your tires phil had an amazing shot on a stock bird he really did yeah he did phil take us back oh i i think i told you when i was at your house the other day randall that like i haven't gone hunting a lot but most of it's been with cal and my experiences have been wonderful and that was one of them yeah i don't really have a lot of memories i'm glad cal remembers it because i i i felt good about the shot so it was it was a great shot no more color the second time i'd shot a shotgun in my life but i mean that is right there second time he shot a shotgun in his life uh gotta see some some great dog work um the area that we were in has like really wonderful habitat and clearly it lit a fire under you phil yeah it really really activated a hunter back there um and you know i gotta go home with with some pheasants sure um we we uh help clean them and and get them ready to roll and and threw some some recipe suggestions out of them and i think that really is like the r3 argument that's the r3 argument but i would argue the pheasant was only a small part of that you were the larger part yeah you know what i mean yeah yeah so um here's the the idaho runs this in a in a different way where it's like the hunter has the choice to opt in yep and it's basically a state match for outside funding to run this r3 program where these are the areas the wma is where we're going to release birds and if you want to hunt pheasants here you have to buy this stamp yep and they're i love the way that they put it because they will often say like this program's for young kids and old dogs or old dogs and and young kids type of thing um and i think that's a a better way of doing it um because you also as we covered in the wetland conservation easements you get all these other benefits from good habitat right that aren't going to disappear in let's get to that circle back to so so nate can finish up yeah we'll finish up the the history here um so that was in 2021 when they authorized that uh concurrent to this ugbep the habitat program is still running but in 2023 after the fwp themselves asked to eliminate a provision that five percent of ugbep funds were held for private land stocking of pen-raised birds mainly because there was no interest from landowners in stocking those pen-raised birds so it's like it's kind of they're talking out of both sides of their mouth right now because um ultimately what the request is is to increase the the stocking locations from just state land to federal and private and increasing the number of birds see that's that's what's interesting is in in 2021 so 2021 to 2025 there was about 2.5 million dollars that go into the program so instead of that 1 million per year that's authorized only about 500 000 or half of the allocated funds went into the program that resulted in 10 000 pen-raised birds being released per year and so the the question that they're kind of raising through this is we're not limited by the number of pheasants that we can produce we're limited by the amount of land that we can put it on and so we're then we're now we're asking to go out there and put it on private and federal land so that we can fill ostensibly to have more hunter recruitment but really what it seems to be like is to fill that entire 1 million dollar budget shortfall that the prison has sure and it ain't hard to do the i'm no mathematician but 500k budget and you kick out 10 000 pen-raised birds that's 50 bucks a bird 50 bucks a bird which we'll talk about um so i i want to give them the benefit of the doubt and i called fwp um greg lemon over there is great um and and what he clarified is this isn't a request for additional money or and and it's been reported on as we're requesting an increase from 10 000 to 50 000 birds um that's not actually what the change is the change is where those birds can go and so i asked him is there going to be some sort of quid pro quo where if we put state-funded birds on private land well is that going to happen result in more access because that sounds like a great deal for me or at least the silver lining um and he said that is the intent but they're not in conversations with any specific landowners at this point i'm not a great track record today what about stalking those suckers on federal land federal land he didn't address specifically he just said that's part of the request but it it i then called a few senators who had written a local set or state senators who had written a letter against this and they just find it unlikely that the 4.5 million acres of state grassland we have is not suitable enough for even 50 000 pheasants it's like what why do we need to go get more land like what what's going on here and and that's an open question i don't know what the the decision is or the decision making process okay i mean the timing here is not great with like drought conditions across the west we're probably going to see uh open grazing on our state wmas again this year we're like reducing that habitat um that's if if we don't get some more more rain here yeah in august there's that and is there evidence that this results in youth yep so that's what i asked uh the fwp spokesman i said well if this is a whole you know youth hunter recruitment what how are we measuring that are there stats that have brought have have borne this out is there great hunter recruitment and he said that they're they're diligently trying to get better stats but there's not a vehicle in place i mean since that And everybody was screaming about R3, R3, R3. r3 r3 and obviously there's a lot of people who scream about r3 today but it is a failure it just is a failure like r3 is just not as it is as like a federal driven program to the states it is just not the thing that is producing more hunters um having this type of opportunity i i know several people ronnie bame being one he's like if it weren't for pen-raised pheasants i wouldn't be a bird hunter i mean that's the way it was when i was growing up in pennsylvania but you can you can say that all you want mont he didn't grow up in montana yeah montana has wild birds and they got quite a few of them okay so here's the wild bird argument right and this is this is south dakota who is like it yeah the pinnacle yeah and if south dakota is the pinnacle of the wild bird argument right and this is the pinnacle of the south like south dakota would be like the most aggressive uh lover at the bar because they solicit hunters like no other state i've ever seen um their argument to releasing pen-raised birds is after that first week of the season most people if they're having success out there they're knocking down pen-raised birds and it takes the pressure off of those wild birds that are going to winter over and have successful broods and that's why they have their program of like supplementation right and so they you know you have those preserve licenses out there where where the private landowners are releasing tons and tons of birds and that's what the idea is like there's tons of suitable habitat and so the birds they're they're planning on the pen-raised birds to die yeah it's like we know they're going to get killed so we're protecting the wild birds kind of thing when you go out with a bunch of new hunters and they slam their truck doors and you're watching birds fly out the end you're like well there go the the wild birds yeah and the one that one right there yeah um yeah i kind of look at it you know i obviously there's there's some decent arguments for both sides but i kind of in montana i look at it the way i look at how montana decided to manage wild trout so 50 odd years ago montana made the decision that if there's an established wild trout population in a river or a stream we're not going to stock there's no reason to stock trout in those streams right like you have a self-sustaining wild population leave it alone let it do its thing like we may stock like lakes for put and take fisheries but for wild trout populations that are self-sustaining leave them alone that's kind of where i'm at with this pheasant thing you know with the exception of improving habitat sure that's like yeah and i think i think generally like i'm not anti-stocking i just i think that this program could use some tweaking when you get into the the issues with pheasant stocking kind of across the board but also here specifically some stats from pheasants forever is that 40 percent die within a week 75 percent die within a month and 95 percent die before the spring and so you you know your your comments about shooting the pen raised birds those those stand but then when you get in the deal for the actual taxpayer and the trade-off versus habitat uh improvement we are paying like the the between pitman robertson and license sales fifty dollars a pheasant five hundred thousand dollars a year at ten thousand pheasants is fifty dollars a pheasant you can go to pittman robertson and license sales and you can go to pittman robertson buy like a 15 pound organic turkey for 50 bucks you can go to a pheasant farm you can go to miller ranch and buy one for 45 bucks yeah if you want and i do there there was there's one really good study out there and and that's where they talk about like here's what happens if you just stock pheasants here's what happens if you stock pheasants and do like a heavy predator management program here's what happens if if you do the full management sure you know um and i yeah i think there's a significant die-off of birds regardless in the first 36 hours um but isn't it also fair to say that if you've got good habitat like you're already good habitat already in some ways mitigates the impact of predators on wild pheasant populations right yeah it's kind of doing some of the predator management work for you yeah yeah and you know i've joked many many times right if if a montana pheasant knew about south dakota or kansas or iowa state yeah they just wouldn't be here um because the like kansas what kansas does on on their uh uh wma properties i can't remember what their acronym is is unreal there's there's holdover food crops that they plant there's all sorts of stuff and it is gorgeous it is wild to be fair there are some wildlife management areas in montana and fishing access sites in montana where there's fantastic habitat yeah and they're pumping in the cash yeah yeah yeah but we could certainly see a lot more of it because there's there's some places yeah and that's the thing it's like do you want to play the instant gratification game with that what is it 2.5 million uh yeah i mean it's one million a year one yeah okay yeah the instant gratification game with one million or do you want to play the long game with that one million and do what cal suggests and invest in habitat yep and i think that's just just to hit kind of the pro to give it a fair shake the pro stockers um the youth hunter activation i mean just in the room you know we had we had phil not a youth hunter but shot his pheasant that was probably stocked um the inmate skills program that's not pointless you know that's a valuable thing that can that can increase quality of life for people um there is a prison budget deficit and filling that is a good thing i think you should go to the general fund and ask for it that way but this is a method um and then also like those that farm is compliant with all of usda's health health um like the usda's natural poultry improvement plan they they have very strict testing they have very strict protocols they go above and beyond and so there is a disease risk for sure um but they're doing what they can to mitigate it and so it's not like this is just a flippant program where if they're going to release bird flu into the the local pheasant population um i think we've kind of talked about the anti but you know habitat improvement instead of i'm not sure it's a zero-sum game but if i could put those million dollars that are currently going towards stocking into habitat i think every hunter would take that every day of the week um yeah because it's like the byproduct is like big white tails big mule deer sure sure right not just more pheasant yeah and you can keep cranking out um you can keep cranking out stocked pheasants as long as you want and spending that money but like you can't keep cranking out good habitat right like there's only so much land out there so you know you can pay for stock pheasants or you can pay for land that'll be around for the next generation it's kind of the way i look at it yeah and i think ultimately there's there's like decent bones here i think the intent could be good and to your comment about idaho cow that that might be a good tweak to this program i just think as it's being currently executed it's not very well thought out um but the the cool thing was just this is kind of my first experience with like local government and calling my you know you're always telling people to call your local senator and uh pat flowers my my represent or my senator here in belgrade uh had his phone number online i texted him he called me right back and gave me his two cents on it greg lemon at uh fwp he called me right back and and gave me their their take on it and it was super helpful and so go do the same thing in this case public comments open july 1st august 19th um so have at it heck yeah nice work nate um randall you're gonna be hosting next week yes steve's gonna be out for a couple more weeks you're hosting yes i am hosting the news show next week uh i think we have you got any juicy like teasers i haven't given any thought to what i'm gonna do actually and send randall an idea for what yeah yeah uh no that's coming up very exciting very exciting uh i wish i were up uh where steve is right now having the adventure of a lifetime but we must carry on in his absence and so rest assured that we'll do our level best to uh give you once again another great news show yeah and steve will be making an appearance correct nate he's gonna he's gonna cover the the grizzly management thing that's going on where where the feds would like to hand over management of grizzlies to the states steve's gonna weigh in on that via video uh for our next show so tune in for that thanks a lot guys nice job brody thank you Thank you. 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