Ep. 947: Are You Happy to See Me or Is That a Bird in Your Pants?

This is an iHeart podcast, Guaranteed Human. Hey, you might ask, do you need camel on your feet in camp? And I'd say need probably not. There are generally no deer in camp. If you got deer in your camp, I want to hear about it, because that sounds like a sweet camp. But still, we made two shoes with Haydude in first light specter camel anyway, not because you need it just because it's cool. The wally funk and the wally slip camp, because it's the pattern we love and we wanted something comfortable and ultra light weight for when we're done hunt, okay? Out now at haydude.com and the meat eater store. It's a limited run, so get your feet cozy now. Welcome to the news show, everybody. This week we've got Jordan Cillars here at the news desk, which is news in and of itself but he's going to cover some news too. We got a bobcat poaching ring of criminals who desperately need to sharpen their pencils. What happens when a youth deer season hunting team starts losing some of their senior talent? Where are you most likely to get killed by hitting a deer with your vehicle? It's Delaware's turn to deal with CWD, so get ready for that Civil War. Bird smugglers stuffed birds down their panties. I feminized it. That's fun. Yeah. Underwear. No one cares about that story. More interesting. Yeah. Briefs. Yeah. Let me try this. We should A, B test this. Bird smugglers stuffed birds down their briefs. That's alliteration. Versus bird smugglers stuffed birds down their panties. That's going to do way better. Yeah, I think panties will hit harder on for the SEO. One more. But first, Operation Nightcat. Now before I get into Operation Nightcat, I always thought I always was on the impression that when you name an operation, you use code language. Right. Yeah. Like my favorite while my favorite by far of all time, poaching bust was Operation North Shore. That was the one in Ohio. It was the giant deer meat, smoky, taxidermy, walleye tournament ring, racketeering, everything you'd love. Racketeering, wire fraud. All the bad sounding crimes, but then when you get into it, it is basically dudes were shooting deer making smoky sticks, selling smoky sticks in bars and then taking that money to pay their taxidermy. And then one day, one of them runs off and catches a bunch of walleye somewhere, goes off to another state, joins a walleye tournament at a gas station, wins. And so then he had like all these fraud and racketeering charges. The wire fraud was because one of them, a guy poached a deer and he had a girlfriend call the hotline to report the deer. When you read it, it was like reading Al Capone's rap sheet, but it was like this big venison smoky ring. Anyways, they didn't call it Operation venison smoky. So Operation Nightcat, I feel that if you, let's say you were a bobcat poacher and you're poaching them at night and someone's like, "Hey man, I heard that there's this operation brewing called Operation Nightcat." One might go, "Geez, I better be careful. I wonder if that involves me." That's why you can't do that. I wonder honestly though, if they just make those up for the press release afterwards and if they actually use the operation name when they're talking about it. I don't know. I don't know. But you would think it's only internally that they're using it, so they have a word to do it. They're kind of like the case about the bobcats. That's probably what they, when they're talking to each other, like, "What do you work out with that?" I'm sure we can get a law enforcement or a game word to write in and by the way. If someone in New Hampshire can write in and we'd mind you appreciate it, were you guys just admit it? You shouldn't have called it Operation Nightcat because you're going to tip off the offenders. I just like to know who gets to choose that, like, there's someone that gets to pick the name. Like a bunch of people put names in. I would have called it Operation Rolling Thunder. They already use that. Wasn't that? Yeah. Okay. Epic Fury. There you go. Desert Storm. I don't know. I don't come up something novel and call it that. Now, anyways, here's what Operation Nightcat is all about and it's like, well, it's one of these ones. I don't, and I'm not in any way shape or form down playing the crimes that we're going to get into these are serious wildlife crimes. But what I like is when a poaching ring winds up racking up a lot of terminology that makes you feel like it's something much worse, you know, like this is an international poaching ring. But what happens is this, well, first of all, let me tell you why we're talking about it. Just right now, a bunch of these guys, three of these gentlemen involved in this bobcat poaching ring in New Hampshire, they've already pled guilty to state charges, but now they're dealing with their federal stuff. Okay. And they're going to be sentenced in October 20 and just now this month, they pled guilty so some federal stuff and they got sentencing coming up in January. But here's what these guys were up to. It's kind of an interesting deal that these guys have going on. I didn't know this till this came out. I had no idea. New Hampshire is one of these states and it's a dumb rule. They have a dumb rule and I didn't break the rule so I can say that it's a dumb rule. They have a dumb rule where they have no bobcat hunting in New Hampshire. I had no idea. I learned yet our day. I saw a headline. This is something we can you add this for the news show? California. There's a little movement in California about bringing bobcat hunting back. Wow. That never happens. So for some dumb reason that I don't understand, New Hampshire has no bobcat hunting season. No bobcat trapping season, no bobcat hunting season. So these dudes in New Hampshire are licking their lips about how they can be making all this money trapping cats and hunting cats. All of them are all of them are New Hampshire state prison corrections officers. Some retired and some not. The main ones is this dude, Sherwood Dubrie Dubrie. Out of drop the R follows him just to be Sherwood Dubrie. Randy Inman, these two are 48 and 49. So these are like dudes I'd be hanging out with age wise, right? They're in my little pocket. And Sherwood Dubrie senior who 72 so you got these two guys, one of them's dad, all corrections officers. And they want to start getting into the bobcat trade, but they live in a state where they can't trade in bobcats. So between 2018 and 2022, they're trapping and hunting cats and they get like a little bait station going. They got thermal scopes. They got traps out and they start harvesting bobcats and they harvest a total of 41 bobcats during the period that they're looking at these guys activity. But bobcats are a sighties species. The reason bobcats are a sighties species isn't because bobcats are threatened or endangered by any stretch, they're just they're not, but they're spotted cat and many cats around the globe that are spotted are threatened and endangered. And so in order to monitor bobcat movements, you put a sighties tag on them to and it's meant to avoid confusion between other endangered spotted cats. And the state like the states issue those sighties tags, yes, no, no hamster does not issue those tags. There are a handful of things like this like like we've talked about this in the past, but just as an example, in Texas where Jordan Sillers comes from, that's right, great state of Texas. In the great state of Texas, check this out in the great state of Texas. There is no closed season on bobcats. There is no bag limit on bobcats. There is no salvage requirement on bobcats, meaning 365 days a year, you could shoot bobcats in Texas and throw them in a ditch, no problem or not even pick them up or not even go even move them. Yeah. You don't even need to do the work that would require to put them in a ditch, just not even go over there. You don't even need to go over and even look to see if you got it or not. And you're a okay in Texas, but if you want to sell a Texas bobcat or move a bobcat from Texas to the Oklahoma Panhandle, you got to go get a sighties tag on it because they're very interested in how spotted cats move. When you say move, you mean cross state lines, right, and they're, they're the product or for whatever human, human's moving, human's moving the hides and you're like, well, are bobcats endangered? No, not at all. They're like, the IUCN has them listed as a species of lease concern. But there are many very imperiled spotted cats like the snow leopard, for instance. And so when you see them, you'll see that there's a lot of people in Texas who don't know what they're going to do. is spotted cat on the market. It's just calling out, yo, this is a bobcat and not some crazy spotted cat that's in danger. So they can't sell their cats, not only are they illegal getting them a new hamster, but they can't sell them, they can't send them out a new hamster legally to a fur market. If they were in a situation where let's say they weren't allowed to get muskrats or something like that, who are not a sidey species, this whole thing probably would have never been detected. But what they had to do is they had to get their cats and send them to a buddy, who's in a cat state. So they sent them to their buddy in New York and their buddy in New York goes down and he's like, hey, yo, I caught these in New York and he gets sighties tags on them. Then they sent them to a Canadian auction house and sell them. When I heard this, I was like, oh, I could see that they were tempted. I said, they were licking their lips at the cat market, but it turns out that the cats these guys are dealing with are cats caught between 2018 and 2022, meaning these 41 cats they got were worth the do a drum roll, Phil. That's pretty good. 65 bucks a piece. That's what I'm saying. This is a potion ring that you need to sharpen your pencils because when you get into like the fines that these guys have generated about something so stupid. What I did a little I did a little calculation. During these four years, these three guys who have good jobs or corrections officers, these four guys have made a grand total before they divided up their earnings. They've made themselves 2,665 bucks over four years. For four years divided by four, what's that per year? That's not in a good hour. 500 bucks a year I'd say. So they're making 500 bucks a year, not a lot. Buy something cool. But that's just then that's split it up. So each of them, yeah. But the idea of friend of mine observed to me, I have a diesel truck. He has a diesel truck. He observes to me every time I fill my truck. I could have bought a Ruger 1022. That's depressing. He's like, I just stand there watching that thing go, oh, wow, I could have bought a 1022 or I could have bought a break open shotgun. So yeah, they're making a little scratch. Now that's good, but I didn't mean it. Did you catch that, Phil? Not at all. I missed it. I wasn't there. They're making a little scratch off the cat under cat solid. It's pretty good. Cat scratch. Now have they done it at last year's prices? Had they done all these 40 cats at last year's prices, they able to pull in 8,200 bucks. Not bad. Because last year cats and their surrounding states, like basically any cat walking last year was worth 200 bucks. So they would have made 8,200. Had they done it all last year, they would have made 8,200. So for their crime that brought them in 2,665 dollars, they are now on the hook for 20,500 dollars in restitution and fines. Is that just the state stuff because the federal stuff hasn't done? Yeah. Here's the deal about, here's the where you got to start. If you're a poacher, here's where you got to start thinking. The state vet, you know, there's a thing in wildlife law where the state will have a restitution thing. Like, let's say you were to come to, let's say you came to, well, we're sitting in Montana. So we'll do Montana. Let's say you come to Montana and you kill a, a boon and crock at big horn sheet. You poach a boon and crock at big horn sheet. The state is allowed to say, well, what's that worth? Well, the governor's tag for big horn sheep and a guy buying the governor's tag is anticipating getting a boon and crock at big horn sheep. Those governor's tags will go for $250,000, $300,000. So the state assigns a value to the wildlife. A small ram has a restitution is different than the big ram and a lot of states build in these like trophy restitution fees, meaning if you kill a giant trophy, the restitution goes up. The state restitution in New Hampshire on a bobcat that can't be monetized anyways is 500 bucks. So if you get caught poached, if you catch a bobcat and sell for 65 bucks and you get caught poaching for it, it's $500 in restitution, not counting your fine. Am I trying to bring a level of like, a level of rationale? He's got real, aren't real bright seems like to me because the other thing I noticed here is one of the reasons they were caught and found guilty is because they're sending text messages back and forth to each other. Apparently some of them said, Hey, I know this is wrong, but we're doing it anyway, you know, kind of stuff. And also videos, it sounds like of them actually shooting the animals. And I know, but here's the thing that demonstrates there that they were rational beings. One of them texts another shows that they're like thinking people. One of these men sends another one of text message saying, I hope they don't start a bobcat season. Because that would lead to a lot of competition. Right. They have monopoly going. He's like, he's like, we're making so much money. We're making so wouldn't suck if other guys could get in on this. And then it was just all legal. Uh, so they got federal sense in coming up and where this, this is the thing we talk about a lot of the news showing. This is like, this is, there's a thing that gives wildlife law. There's a thing that really gives teeth to wildlife law. And it's like, here's, here's a hot tip to poachers. We should do a pamphlet. So you want to be a poacher. I'd be like, number one, the thing, if you are a poacher, if you're like a small scale poacher guy like these guys, there's one thing you got to have like on your fridge on a magnet. Don't send shit to other states. I'm going to leverage the presence of Jordan Sillers, because people probably say you're hearing me talk about this. Jordan Sillers, you're an expert in law because you host blood trails. Yeah, that's right. Now, why would you, if you're a budding poacher, you're an aspiring poacher. Why would you have a fridge magnet that says, don't send shit to other states? Because as soon as you cross state lines, you bring in the feds. And, you know, if you're a criminal, you do not want to involve the federal government in your activities, because that adds another layer of investigative power, but also another layer of penalties, which you're going to get hit with if you are found guilty of federal crimes, as well as state crimes, which is exactly what, what these guys got. Yeah, because of this thing called the lacy act. Do you think these guys are aware of the lacy act when they were there? No, they are now, but were they when they were, I think the last time he used the word lacy was probably lacy lingerie. They're like, you know, whatever. Cagnon lacy, remember that? Yeah, I feel like these guys, they didn't know how bad the punishment could be. So the lacy act stuff, the lacy act stuff came about, I can't remember what year, but it kind of came about it like during the dark ages of wildlife in America, which was late 1800s, early 1900s, when you had this emerging, this emerging group of conservation leaders, including, you know, well-known figures like Theodore Roosevelt and others who are trying to get a handle on that states could make all these wildlife laws, but the states don't get serious about enforcing them, it doesn't matter. Yeah. So a state would come in and they have people, whatever, you know, killing great blue herons and egrids to sell the feathers. And some states says, hey, from now on, you're not allowed to kill great blue herons or egrids, but they don't do anything to stop it. They would pass these laws and then they don't put any money into enforcement, they turn a blind eye. So they came up with this lacy act thing where they're like, the feds are very interested. So the feds are like, hey, if you violate a law and cross states, like we're going to seize authority. And it was the lacy act that really let them start hammering wildlife traffickers and poachers because the feds got serious about it before many of the states did. And it still really stings you today. I brought up really that guy, a guy took wildlife from one state and drove over to do a fish internment in another state, right? A guy like that is like, is innocuous as that might seem. A guy like that's violating lacy act. If you shoot a deer and turn it into smoky sticks and you're selling those smoky sticks in Ohio, but then one day you happen to be over in Indiana and sell a batch of your smoky sticks at a bar. You like to frequent in Indiana. You just got, now you're in trouble with the feds, man. Yeah. And it only takes one. It's not like your whole operation has to be out of state. It's like one violation where you're carrying that poached animal across state lines and the federal government can get involved. I just heard about a great lacy act deal. A guy that got stung on lacy act and it was as simple as this. here. to check this one out. He had poached a deer. I believe in Georgia, but his taxidermist was across state lines. Yep. And bam, federal. Yep. The other thing I noticed with this one is that they shipped him up to Canada. Now, knowing anything about the first, you know, that's the last thing I'll get into. Yeah. Okay. That's the last thing I'll get into. Can I ask a question? Please. How are they? Were they jacklighting these things and killing him at night? Like what they were running traps. Okay. Because one of them mentioned, one of them mentioned choking a cat, which means he trapped it and put a put a new sound at like a dog dog. Yeah. With a catch pole. Yeah. Put a catch pole on it. There is a catch pole called it should probably be rebranded, but it's a very, very good catch pole. And I happen to have one called the death ray. It can maybe use a rebranding, but it's like sort of the gold standard of catch poles. But he, uh, the reason they're sending up to the international for auction, just a bigger market. Yeah. Better, better prices. Yeah. Like a lot of country buyers. Like if you, if you caught bobcats or muskrats, whatever, and you went to a country fur buyer, a local fur buyer, go to a local fur shed and sell your furs. That individual is almost certainly sending them to Canada too. Okay. So they're just sending them up to the big fur auction in Canada, which is where this becomes international. Right. The reason their cats aren't that valuable is that like the colors poor, the fur qualities poor. Like if they had done, do those times, times, uh, 40 times, uh, 1100. Steve says times like an elementary. Why should we call it, man? 44,000 had they done this last year in, let's say Wyoming. They would have made that amount of money. How much money? 44,000. They would have made 44,000 instead of their two grand. So they're also operating in the wrong state. Well, they wouldn't have broke along Wyoming because they would have been allowed to catch cats. So yeah, potions got a sharpener pencils. If in fact, like if in fact, this was all on their minds, but in an interesting case nonetheless, because it brings in so many aspects of wildlife law and I'm a sucker for potion rings. If you ever get tired of doing all those like murders and all that Jordan. Yeah. I'm blood trails. You might just think of one that explains inside the mind like, like, you know what? Mind of a poacher. Mind of a poacher. Yeah, which brings up like, you know, maybe they were thinking they were going to make some money, but I think there's also like this kind of like psychological aspect to where it's exciting to be doing something like, you know what I mean? They kind of get addicted to that part. Listen. Oh, the guys that we've talked to that have busted these rings. AC, that's the number one reason they're in it. Yeah. I'll tell you what it is. Like I feel it because I like, I've been pulled by all these like when I was young, we would thank God and never did it across state lines, but a dollar, let me put this way. A dollar made hunting, fishing, trapping is worth a million dollars made like digging a hole. It's just different. Yeah. The feeling of that money in your wallet is just different. You know, I'm ever selling 40 gallons of smell for a dollar a gallon on the black mark in high school. And that 40 bucks, it was like having helium in my pocket. Like I just felt like, I was like, dude, I'm like, Daniel Boone, dude. And so I think that they're like, they get that money. They're like, I'm old school, Davey Crockett, Daniel Boone, like, like the old hide hunters. It's just, it's just a, it's a kind of money that, to certain individuals, it's a kind of money that just feels different. You're making money doing what you love. And you're pulling a fast one. Oh, I'm not excusing it, man. I'm saying the pulling the fast one thing. That's part of it. It feels to you. They're getting away with something. Yeah. I understand. Yeah. I'm not, I find this is the last thing I'll say on this whole thing, but, but this is, I get in trouble with my wife all the time for this. I'm often interested in, like I'm more, I'm interested in the stories that people tell themselves. Meaning, let's say your wife's saying about two people, you know, and they, and they got a divorce or something. And the one of them did something horrible. I'm often thinking about, well, there's probably two sides of that story. But if you say that to your wife, she gets mad at you. So that, so, but I'm often wondering, like, what is, you know, I mean, so in these guys, my, I'm not forget it's, like, it's, it's bad when they didn't. They're getting their due, but I'm also curious about what is in their mind. Yeah, I feel like you're giving them too much credit. I think we should try to get an interview with them to actually speak to these individuals. But yeah, I feel like you're giving them too much credit. What, what was the credit I gave them? Now, I just, they're like walking around thinking that they're Daniel Boone, because they made some money. Well, definitely word. It'll be a short interview. I don't think they're going to agree to the interview in any case. I don't know. Whether your season's already open, or you're still counting down the days, the meat eater store has what you need to get ready. We're talking first light, F H F, SIG sour, mulchery, felps, the brands we actually run in the field, plus brand new teas, hoodies and hats that just dropped with more drop in every month. Also, check out our new meat eater grocery game bags. These game bags are ultra light breathable nylon. They cool your meat fast and keep it clean from the kill site to the cooler. They got reflective trim on them so you can keep working after dark and find your bags. And if you got them hanging way up in the tree in the middle of the night. And once you've got meat and the cooler, we've got you covered there too. Seasonings, cookbooks and knives to cook up everything you bring home to check it all out. Head to the meat eater store.com. All right. I'm the hard news. Nice. That's you, Jordan. Come on, dude. Pull it together. I'm up now. Am I talking about blood trails? Yes, sir? Wasn't that why you're here? Yeah. You thought you were going to team me up like you're on your own. Yeah. Okay. Over you, Jordan. Thank you, Steve. Yes, blood trails season three is out now. Episode one comes out today. As with the last two seasons, we have eight new episodes that will come out every Thursday over the next eight weeks. So each episode is a different story. I'm really excited about this season. I think we have a nice mix of stories that you may have heard of before, but maybe not in quite this much detail. For example, we're covering the Chai Vang murders from up in Wisconsin from 2004. So we talked with a bunch of game wardens. We talked with some of the families of the victims. We talked with our buddy Yvang. I talked with him. And I think we do a good job really covering all sides of that story. And it's horrible. It's tragic. What's the first episode that's out today? The first episode that's out today is kind of the other end of the spectrum. We cover some other cases that really have not gotten any coverage at all. So the episode that's out today is about a high school kid. He was a senior up in Minnesota. He went up to a cabin with a bunch of buddies. They were going to hunt. They were also going to party a little bit. And he disappeared the next morning and has never been found. No trace of him has ever been found. No, just nothing. He just disappeared. Really? Yep. And so it was kind of chalked up to you. Well, maybe he just felt because it's kind of a boggy, you know, marshy area up there. Maybe he fell in one of those, but he never rose up. His gun was never found. And so they took a pretty hard look at some of the other boys who were at the cabin. And so there's questions even today, you know, who knows what. And so I was able to talk with two of those boys who are there as well as nobles, brother, and some other folks. So it's a good one. One of the problems I have, and I'm not saying I haven't listened to this episode yet, a problem I have with listening to blood trails. Okay, is oftentimes the guy that did it is it's so clear who did it. All I can think about is how we could go kill that guy without getting caught. Yeah. Or when you got it narrowed down to two people that you'd get them both together, torture them to find out who did it. So one thing is like, it's like I just get so full of revenge. I got his not. I got to not listen. You know that guy did it man. Someone just got to get him. Hey, I get that. And I tell you the families get that too. In this case, I don't know how they live in some of the case, in some of the past episodes, I don't know how the families can live. We're like, yeah, that guy, 100. percent did it. Yeah, but they never found the body so the guy just gets the walk right. Yeah. Do you got to give your brain a break from these stories now and then like all that dark stuff? I don't it doesn't it doesn't seem to I mean I'm when I'm talking with like like just the other day I talked with a mom whose son went missing up in calispell and they never found him and when I'm talking with her I I'm feeling for her because I have kids but I think I'm able to you know compartmentalize a little bit and not let it affect me in the day today. I will say I I have intentionally not covered stories about little kids because there are several pretty famous stories of like you know five little wanders away from camp and yeah it's kind of suspicious. I could see you. I'm as you said. Yeah, we might we might one of these days but I just can't I can't really meditate on that for any length of time. So yeah bloodshed season three out now. Are there some episodes where you just know who did it? There are there are a few where I have very strong suspicions and I'm of course not the only one. Do you have revenge fantasies? I don't personally. You don't get that feeling? No, I don't. I start thinking, but man, I don't want to get trouble. Steve, I've talked about a number of episodes. One of the things I have learned about you is Steve has a very strong sense of justice. Yeah. And when it comes like murder and people, yeah, like the Bobcat deal. That's one thing. So this is all their level. Man, it's it's a good thing. It's a good thing. I think these victims need advocates and a lot of times that's their family. But people with that strong sense of justice. It makes you mad. I got to turn it off. Yeah, well, there will be several. I know who did it right. I will be several. You will not like this season. This first one actually there is there is someone who a lot of people are very suspicious of in this first episode. And there's no smoking gun exactly, but there are state he made some statements that are very concerning about what happened. Do you mind, do you mind backing up? You mentioned that is it Chi of Wang? Sorry, what was the name? Chai Wang. Chai Wang. Do you mind people be familiar? Most people be familiar. But do you mind touching on that? Because it'll prompt people will remember this and write a Nash. It was a national news story. 2004 Chai Wang killed six hunters in Northern Wisconsin and wounded two in a shootout in a shootout. Right. So what happened was he wandered onto some private land. He got up in a tree stand that, you know, it was on private. Guy walks up, says, hey, you can't be here. This is private land. You have to get out of this tree stand. He comes down. He's walking. He's told to go according to the guy who found him. He's told to go one way. He goes a different way, but he's, it's kind of, it's amicable, like there's no yelling or anything at this point. The guy that found Chai Wang radios back to the cabin, hey, I found a guy up here in this tree stand. Some guys at the cabin get on ATV's drive out and confront Chai because apparently this had happened a couple of times before, trespassers on the property. And so they start yelling at him. He probably yells back. There's this confrontation. Everyone agrees it doesn't get physical. There's no shoving, there's no punching, there's no fighting. The guys that come out from the cabin don't have guns. The only people who have guns are the first guy who found him in the tree stand and Chai Wang. And so at this point, this is where the story, there's some disagreement. Chai Wang's walking away, they see his back tag number. So at this, at this point in Wisconsin, you had to wear a tag on your, on your blaze orange with a number that identified who you were. So they see his back tag number, they say, hey, we're going to call that in, you know, you're going to get in trouble for trespassing. Chai says he's walking away. He looks back and sees the guy who had the gun, the original hunter who confronted him. He says that that guy had the gun, was soldering it, and then he hears a shot and sees some dirt fly up. Everyone else who was there says that didn't happen. They say no one shot, no one ever shot at you. And so Chai turns around. He has a military surplus. I forget the exact model, but it's, it's like a AK basically. So it's semi auto has, has 10 rounds in it. He turns around. He unclips his scope from his gun, because he's only 25, 30 yards away from these guys and start shooting. Yeah, but he had fought in the, he had fought in the secret wars. He had not, oh, he had not. So he wasn't from, he didn't fight in line with the Americans. He was too young. His dad did, okay, he was in the Army National Guard in California, where he had a, you know, sharp shooter badge basically, but he never saw combat. So this is something that I assumed when I first heard this story, this guy saw combat, you know, he had some sort of PTSD and he's just reacting in a way that he had before, though he never did. He never saw any active combat. So he starts shooting all these hunters. And not only does he shoot and kill two of the guys there, he then chases after this. There's a father and son who were there. The father runs one way, the son runs the other. He chases after both of them and, and kills both of them. He chases them down, shoots them in the back, kills both of them. And then the cabin, the cabin is, there's more, there's other people at the cabin. They're getting, they're getting radio calls. They hear, hey, someone shooting, send help. So two other people who are at the cabin, get on a four wheeler and drive out. And he also shoots both of them. Neither of them were armed. He claims the one guy was armed, but there was no gun that was ever found. So he shoots both of them in the back as they're driving past him. He shoots and kills both of them and doesn't kill them immediately either. He, he has to finish the job basically on, on both of them. How many people totaled it? Six people died and two were wounded. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So you can imagine, I mean, you can imagine, like, how much attention this got, court TV, like, filmed the whole trial the next year. And so we, we have some of that footage where we play. And you could dig into this whole story. Who did what? Yep. When? Why? Yeah. That's great. So that's episode two. That'll be out next week. Congratulations, man. Thank you. And then we're working on a hot one. Yes. Yes, we have the hottest one. Your passion project. Passion. Yeah. Uh, youth, youth, your season's coming up here. Uh, and youth, your season's coming up. Montana. And it's a big, it's big changes this year because we're losing, we're shedding a lot of senior talent is what's happening. You just get them up where they know, you just get them up where they understand and then, and then they age out. That ends up 15. My kid didn't. Yours did. Mine didn't. Oh, I thought you got, I thought you were aged out. No, he's got a cross country. Me. He's committing to that team. That's right. Remember you were giving him shit about it. Oh, so we only got one age now. Yeah. Well, yeah, but we got a lot of problems. We got one that's into some kind of, we got one that's in a brace, injured, injured from a, from a rock climbing incident. Um, we got one aged out. We got one sticking, staying true to his team. Yeah. And he's got, I don't think he would be doing this, but he's got a, um, you'll their tag and Colorado this year. So he's got to fall back. He's got to fall back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's elder daughter. This is her last year. See, I feel like, yeah, I mean, obviously don't be better after this hunt than they are before this hunt because they'll have more experience. But I feel like I'm coming in right now with my varsity team, and you got season players. Yeah. Yeah. They're, they're, they're, they're going to get the job done. They're going to high card. They're not there. There's going to be a lot less whining. Like we're, we're, I knew they were fired up about this one because when I like a week going on, okay, we need to start packing, right? Like let's get the things, like get them in piles at least, you know, get your, the hot and gear and the clothes and, and just the pile of socks and get in usually three days, usually you're wasting your breath. Yeah. Three days later, you're like, okay, we started. And as of three days ago, I think everybody's pretty much packed and ready to rip. Well, they better be. That's great. Because they only got hours hours. It's kind of nice though, going like after you, you feel, after you build that better and up, it's kind of nice going back to the beginning with the younger, the younger. Yeah. See, I know that's what I'd be all like depressed and everything. Like the idea, I, I knew it, but I didn't really put it together that my older ones are junior. Oh, it was like a gut punch. He's going to move away. Yeah. He was 10 when we start or 10. I know, but now it's like he's going to like go off and, yeah, I don't want him to go away. I know. That's how I feel about my skin. I'm like, are you going to go to school here in town? That's what I was talking about. Yeah. I'm like, why the local school, you can stay here if you want. Dude, like, hippies, we were out, we were out pronghorn hunting all of a sudden, like it never really hit me. Yeah. I was like, he's a junior, man. Yeah. Yep. I'm going to find the way to hold him captive. Yeah, but it was I got so I still got an 11 year old. Yeah, so I got plenty of Here's laugh, man, plenty of that won't be that long. It just be mean Steve and the two young ones. Um, quiet man and quiet camp. But the nice thing is that I was bringing. He's going to be exceptionally seasoned because he for years had to come along. He couldn't even hunt. Yep. He had to just walk along. So we might have to next year introduce him, uh, maybe invite a new family. I was thinking about that. Recruit some fresh talent. Yeah. We need like a tell stories kid. Oh, he's eight this year. So he'll he'll he'll be ready to go in two years. Oh, let's grab that guy. Yeah. Marshall, we should tell him he can come right now and just start the, yeah, what do you call that? Like, uh, what do you call it? He could be like a bench one training. Yeah. A bench warmer. Yeah, we need to recruit talent. It's going to be quiet around her. We bring Marshall. I won't be quiet. Let's grab him. Speaking of kids, the other day I said, this is so funny. The other day I said my boy, I'm like, Hey, go get your sister from school. We had to get a sister from school early. So we're taking off to go hunting. So he takes his body to go. And they go down to the junior high school and they're like parked in the parking lot. They're trying to learn how to blow duck calls and they can't figure out why, but some ladies like staring at him. And they watch her and pretty soon she's over talking to a cop. And pretty soon the cop is over banging on their window. And they roll the window down and he goes, Oh, is that a duck call? He goes, someone said you were in here smoking drugs. So he says the cop then has a laugh and he wants the cop go back over to talk to the reporting, to talk to the reporting party and clear up and clear the air on the evaluation. Too funny, man. Um, one other one. I was at a pancake, a fire department fundraiser of the Aronite and there was a pancake sausage dinner. I'm sitting there and I'm referring to the pancakes on my plate as flap jacks. My kids like, why do you call them flap jacks? I'm like, it's a synonym. It's a pancake synonym. Flap jacks are pancakes. Pancakes are flap jacks. There's this old time we're sitting across from me at the bent folding table. And I said, sir, you probably know the word flap jack. He says, I'm familiar, but those are pancakes. So like what? I don't know. I think you're right. Jack is just like a flap jacks to freak a pancake. That's a more fun word, I think flap jack. I like that. More fun to say. I'm bringing it big old, the giant bag of crusties flap jack mix to youth camp. So we're going to eat a lot of pancakes one morning. Okay, time for your news. On a recent episode, we discussed this. We discussed speaking of a game laws. We discussed what happens. Let's let's assume you live in a state where you can't shoot deer or the spotlight, which is all the states. And your state spells out legal method of take and legal shooting hours and legal shooting hours. So legal shooting hours is 30 minutes after sunset, legal method of take, meaning it's archery season. So you're allowed to shoot a deer or the bow, whatever, but also you like do a thing that commonly happens where a hunter goes out and a hit a deer. Okay, and they wait an hour. So now it's dark. They're hunting in the evening. They hit a deer. They wait an hour. They go out and they find the deer and lo and behold, you're still alive. It's it's dying, but still alive. Most guys in this situation is you'd shine a light, right? Oh, there he is. He's still alive. And someone's going to shoot him with a bow. Or you cut it short. Well, if you cut it short, you've now killed it with a with something that's not a legal method of take. If you shine a light and shoot it with an arrow, you just spotlighted a deer and shot after legal and shot after legal shooting night. So we were we were wondering why don't more states contemplate these scenarios and clear it up because you could feasibly come across the wound to deer at night and be like, well, it's after legal shooting like I can't shoot. And I was pointing out that that I never even thought of this. And I would prior to this ever dawning on me, I would without hesitation use a flashlight and shine it and put another arrow into it. But without hesitation. So I wondered why like our is this a common violation? Why isn't this contemplated in game laws and the listener wrote in with from North Carolina and in North Carolina, they they've contemplated it with very specific language, which is it, which is I had never I had never heard of this before. In North Carolina, you have until 11 p.m. to dispatch a wounded animal after legal hunting hours. Here's the wording. This is pretty great. If a hunter kills or wounds a big game animal during legal shooting hours, that's that's that's an important detail here. During legal shooting hours, the hunter may use a portable light source and a single dog on a leash to assist the hunter in retrieving the dead or wounded big game animal and may dispatch a wounded big game animal using a 22 caliber rimfire pistol archery equipment or a handgun otherwise legal for that season. You have until 11 p.m. Yeah, it's a great it's a good way to like kind of prevent some malarkey with like high powered rifles and spotlights. Yeah, you know, just short range stuff. No, that's great. I think that that that's the thing. I'd be curious to hear from other game warns about it, but that's just like an interesting wrinkle that just had never occurred to me until I heard of a guy getting a citation for shooting a wounded deer at night with a light. Yeah, I'm surprised someone a game warden would like if it's clear he's not spotlighting. He's not poaching at night. If it's clear, he's shot during legal hours. I'm surprised that game warden would issue a citation like that. My understanding though is that the deer was duking it out with a dog in a pond. So maybe there's a question of like just how wounded was it? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Most lamos in the world get their meat at the grocery store, but we prefer to pack ours out of the field. That's why we made the meat eater grocery bags. Ultra lightweight breathable nylon game bags that cool your meat fast and keep it clean from the field to the cooler with reflective print and features that help you find your game bags in the dark, meaning like reflective stuff. So your flashlight shines off it even when you got to hang them way up in a tree. We have two sets. Okay, we got sets for whether you're packing out a deer or whether you're packing out an elk or moose. And they're reusable season after season. I've had some of mine for many years. I just give them a good rinse, run them through my wash machine, hang them up to dry. These are your grocery bags. These are thinking man's grocery bags. Head over to the meateaterstore.com and get yourself a brand new set of excellent game bags for this coming season. Johnny. Yeah, that's where he gets tricky. Hold on. You want me to read this number two about shooting the buck with the crossbow? No, we can, we're good. No, no, no, no, we're good there. All right. No, but the guy had a specific question. Ryan wrote in just finished watching the white tell rut hunt with Yannis. Yannis mentioned how he was spending 12 hours a day sitting in the saddle. Now I have no saddle hunter. That is a really long time to be up in a tree with no potty breaks. My question for the crew is what do they do for bathroom breaks on those all day sits? I just pee right out of my tree stand and somehow at least for the last six years, I'm very lucky that somehow I just get into a pattern where I literally make it all day and then when I get home, I empty my bowels, I go to sleep, I wake up and I do it all again. So I haven't had to deal with number two in the saddle. If I had to, I would climb down, dig a hole, poop in the hole, and then climb back up in the tree. You're able to take a whiz right out of that saddle, huh? Oh, yeah. Just like normal. Just like normal. I wonder if there's any super hardcore white tell tree stand hunters that wear those adult diapers. Yeah. I haven't heard of that, but there's definitely people that still pee in a bottle. Right. Oh, you know, like Buck man juice, which is Doug Darren's urine, which is Doug Darren's urine. I was helping my boy, my boy was trying to get a white tell doe with his bow and I was taking the whiz down below there and he was like worried about it and I said, man, I do you probably want to come up and smell it and you sat there and he said, sure enough, a fawn came along and smelled that buck man juice. There you go. But yeah, I remember being very, like one of them. But when I did a lot of like growing up, doing a lot of tree tree stand hunting, I remember being that it was a common conversation, people being very concerned about urine, human urine. Like in the, in like the serious white tail world, is that conversation over? No. It's okay. So like guys that really know, still wonder about it. There's still people that tape or caution not to just pee to the base of their tree because they feel that what, that if a deer comes down wind, and for some reason wouldn't smell them, but would only smell the urine, I don't know if you know, higher lower air currents or whatever, but then somehow the urine would spoof the deer. But I've just seen it too many times now where I am on a high ridge and I know my wind's blowing, you know, clearly off the ridge, way down and something disappearing into the atmosphere. But that pee at the base of the trees, like right there and deer come right by it. They stop, they smell it, but I've never had them blow out because of it. I think it just turns to ammonia. Pretty quick. Yeah. Um, this came across my awareness, my desk the other day, that, uh, I was kind of surprised by that. Wow. I don't know. Sort of surprised. No. You got a good one, Phil? Yeah. Every week. Same one every week. Time for the news, dude. I thought maybe you got an air and crashed in the new one. No, I was going, Phil. Thanks, man. Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you. He's what I aim for. Check this out. And this makes sense a little bit. And the state we're sitting in right now in Montana. This is the state where you're most likely to be killed. By hitting wildlife for the car. So nothing. You're going to hit it, but you're going to die hitting it. This is just wildlife, not just, or this is a wild other animal. Okay. Deer. Oh, I'm about to kill deer. And I hit someone's black angus, which blends in, which blends in exceptionally well with a blanket. No, I just asked because Montana has moose and elk and that's why that, I bet you, that's got to be why that's got to be why the fatalities are so high because you're hitting stuff that's big. It comes up into the windshield, man. Yeah. You're knocking the legs off. Let's send it into the windshield. Yeah. So these guys looked at all the whole country dying, dying from hitting wildlife, 2015 to 2024. Hold on. Did it say why play casino dot com was looking into this? Because I don't know, they might just, they might just generate like a bunch of viral statistics stuff, which I'm a sucker for. I don't know why the data experts at play casino. They got their information from like the department, yeah, department transportation. So this is an interesting number, so between 2015 and 2024. So 2024. Yeah. Nine year, during a nine year span in America, 2115 people got killed from hitting wildlife with cars. But here's the crazy deal. Hawaii in that time period, not a single person in Hawaii was killed hitting something. All those hogs, all those chickens, all those access deer, no one gets killed by hitting chickens, but wild cattle scratch chickens. Yeah, an access deer must be like, it just doesn't have the necessary ass to kill a person. No one in Hawaii in nine years died hitting wildlife, but when you're driving around Hawaii, there's junk all over in the roads. Yeah, no one like swerved and like hit a, you know, concrete barrier. I don't know if they count that. So they have to hit the animal. Maybe I get my boy a talk and do the air night. I let him take the wheel driving at night and there's a lot of junk in the road. And I'm like, you know that just like run it over, man, it's sad, but, you know, just how it goes. Interesting thing about it too, is these fatalities, it like, it just makes total sense. These fatalities peak in October, November. It's like the rut, man, like during the rut, Americans die hitting deer with cars. Well, I mean, you drive down 90 here between Belgrade and Yannis's, you know, Bozeman, it's like White Hills dead everywhere. Oh, yeah, all over the roads, man. So this, this data is like, it's like likelihood, right? So it doesn't deal in sheer numbers, but in sheer numbers, the number one hit in state, the number one death state for hit and wildlife is Texas. A lot of people, enormous numbers of deer, fast people, fast people, people, just infused with freedom. And that in an hour's speed limit, those high fences don't make a difference in that case, huh? Just a lust for freedom, a lust for freedom barreling down the Texas highway. That's right. A million of deer, yeah, more deer than we have people by far, 210, Pennsylvania, 135 people dead people killed hit and wildlife, Michigan, 124 from people hit and wildlife. Michigan and Wisconsin are kind of like very much the same place. So Michigan, 124 Wisconsin, 121. I've always made the case. I don't know if this is true, but I feel like it's true. So much to do a poll. I think a person in Wisconsin is more likely than a person in Michigan to know what watershed they live in. Hmm. Well, how do you say that? Wisconsin versus Michigan? Yeah. I think that it'd be like a great way of measuring, this would be a good money for like, if someone wants a researcher, you would do a survey and find out who, what state has the most sort of environmentally aware populace and to measure it, you would just say, if you take a piss, what is your piss's route to the ocean? And if they could do it, right, if they could say Bear Creek into Muskegon River, Muskegon River into Lake Michigan, Lake Michigan into the St. Lawrence out into the Atlantic, you'd be like, cool. Can you imagine calling someone on the phone? I'll also bring that up because they have a remarkably similar number, 124 and 121 people killed hit and deer, California 80 people killed hit and deer. But for statistics, Montana, more than double the rate in the second place Wyoming, more than double the rate of dying hit and deer. I wonder if there are like specific, like specific locations, like in Montana, like specific locations that just like funnel animals and there's a highway, that's a deathbed. Yeah. That's a deathbed. I got a body, he used to work, he was a tree surgeon, we used to work together. Like I'm going to say it, you're going to think that it's a lie, but he showed, we were right where it happened and he walked me through it. He killed seven white tails in one hit. Holy cow. Wow. He showed me where it happened. Yeah, I think I remember you saying it was so bad, I don't know if it's still that bad, but it affects like bald, the eagle, the gold, the gold, the gold, yeah, it's a gold eagle migration corridor because the deer, there's so many dead white tails on their road. Over to you, Jordan. All right. Here we have a story, another crime story that caught my attention for reasons that will become obvious because it involves men's underwear in a moment. All right. So a Cuban man, permanent resident in the U.S., but Cuban citizen named Alberto Hernandez Castillo was picked up at Miami International Airport. I think it was last Sunday, Customs and Border Patrol officers noticed what they described as a strange bulge in the man's pants. Now, you might be wondering why they would be interested in such a thing. According to the criminal complaint, Castillo appeared to be nervous and when asked, couldn't offer a believable explanation for what was going on down there. Yeah. It's like, are you happy to see me? Yeah. Or do you have birds in your pants? Exactly. Right. I would love to know what his explanation was. Turns out it was the birds. The complaint says, I'll just quote from it here, the pat down revealed that Hernandez, Castillo was concealing six cylindrical clear plastic containers. So six plastic cylinders, they were each wrapped with tape and then had black mesh material near the opening. And Phil has some photos, I believe. I love the people come prepared for those. Wait a minute. I'll pull up here, Joe. Let's do the one with the pants in question. [BLANK_AUDIO] of these tubes was sewn into his underwear and each tube contained live birds. Now, if you're on YouTube watching this, which you should, you can see this photo here, interesting outfit for someone trying to evade detection. That's just kind of an aside, the gold shoes are bold choice. Yeah, he looks like a dude who's like, he looks like a dude who has in mind that people are going to be like, "What are with that guy's up to?" I don't know, you could go the opposite way and say it's just like so distracting that you wouldn't even think. Yeah, he's like, dude, they're going to be so tripped out by my clothes. They're not going to notice my bolts. Every NBA logo on my shorts. So it's a little unclear. We don't know from the complaint exactly how this worked. We know that these cylinders with birds inside were sewn somehow. There appears to be some kind of mesh situation happening, but in any case, it was probably uncomfortable, but I looked it up. It's only an hour flight from Havana to Miami. So not a hugely long time to sit there with a bunch of cylinders with birds in your pants. I might be getting ahead of myself here. Yeah. What about the noise the birds would make? I was just wondering, that is a great question. So this doesn't specifically mention that, but there are other stories. Similar stories will get to in a minute that mentioned the birds were sedated. So that's probably, yeah, that's probably what he did in this case, because you're right. Though, you know, there are small little sounds. Maybe he could pass that off. We wouldn't hear it. Maybe in the air. I'd be going on, excuse me. You just just watch a video of birds on your phone the whole time and then people will say, oh, let's just eat something that did not agree. So the birds, there were 10 birds. So six cylinders, 10 birds. So some of these had two birds in one. There were eight yellow faced grass quits and two blue grass peaks. And they appear to have survived. Most of them. There's that photo that was up earlier. There's a cage with the birds in it. I count nine. I think eight or nine birds in there. So most of them survived. They seem to be okay. Okay. But here's where it gets interesting. So you're probably asking yourself at this point, why would a man put birds in his pants and try to get into the U S. Can I take a stab at it? Go ahead. Because he's going to sell them into the illegal pet trade. Right. So that is possible. They are kept as pets. Of course, he's a fetishist. I didn't come across that in my research, but possible, possible, anything's possible these days. What I did find though, and this was not something I'm familiar with. And I was talking with Brody about this before the podcast. He wasn't familiar with it either, which makes me feel, you know, less uninformed. But apparently these birds, it's possible they were competitors. So there is a thing called songbird competitions. Popular in the Caribbean, in South America, in certain parts of the U S. And the way these competitions work is there's usually male songbirds and they're naturally competitive. So they'll kind of sing back and forth to each other. It's a bit like glee, the animal version of glee or one of those acapella competition movies, but with birds. And there's, I assume there's different ways of organizing these competitions. But usually it's the first bird to make 50 different chirps or to sing 50 different songs. And so they'll never heard of this. Yeah, they'll put two cages next to each other. And the birds will sing back and forth. Someone will be paying very close attention, I assume. And listening to all the chirps and noises that these birds are making and the first to 50 wins. So it's not like, you know, cock fighting or dog fighting. It's very, the birds aren't being injured or harmed. They're actually very well taken care of. Sure, man. The problem is when. Don't try to excuse this. Don't try to humanize this guy. Okay, fine. Fair enough. But Bob Ketchwell, he is, he is bringing them into the country illegally. And there is a financial incentive here. So he could be selling them into the illegal pet market. However, if they're sold as competitive birds for these competitions. And this is from the US Fish and Wildlife Service. And I couldn't believe some of these numbers. They can be sold for as little as $500. Seems like a lot for a little songbird. But as much as $10,000, people will pay for these birds, which gives you a real good competitor, which gives you an idea of potentially the level of money we're talking about when it comes to gambling. Because that's a whole part of this too, right, is people are gambling on these birds, which that might be illegal. I'm not sure. Can I hit you with a quick question? Yeah. Oh, years ago I was in Hanoi. And I would notice that a lot of old people would go down to parks and they would have songbirds and cages. And they would just kind of, you just see them go to a park with a songbird with a blanket over it. And there would be in groups. And they would just have the, they would take the cover off. And you see like collections of six or eight old people with six or eight little cages with songbirds in them. Yeah. Is that maybe what they're doing? That may, may well be, I've looked up a few videos of these competitions. And that is exactly what it looks like. People have a cage. I don't like what in the world is that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Here we have a family boy. That's my life. This sound means it's done in Guyana. And if it's Sunday, that means that the showdown is not too far off. Bird owners gather across the country to proudly exhibit their birds and have them face off against each other in whistling competitions called Guyana's Speed Singing Contest. Bird for me is not just competing. Here you go, Steve. So there you go. Fascinating. Yeah. Traditional songbird competition in Hanoi take place weekly frequently on Sunday mornings. Damn, that's what I was looking at. Mostly meet on weekends, especially Sundays. Yeah. Enthusiasts assembled coffee shops, lakeside corners and parks. Yes. Average competitor. 70 years or older. Yeah. Wow. So, you know, that's just take me many years. But I've always been like, what's going on with that? Okay. Yeah. Cool. So the next question you might have is, you know, if you were, if you're in Cuba, you know, maybe you have family up here, you want to, you know, continue this hobby that you love. Why wouldn't you just import these birds legally? The problem is the quarantine. So when you import wildlife into the US, it has to be in quarantine for 30 days to make sure it doesn't have any diseases. What these competitive bird trainer say is that that 30 days of quarantine undermines their training, the bird's training. So song out of them. Yeah. They take the, you know, when the bird is young, they put them in a cage in a quiet place and they play recordings of bird song. And so the birds learn the song and they slowly kind of acclimate them to be around people and other noises. And so they don't lose their, their, you know, the songs that they've learned. What they say is the 30 days in a random, you know, US government facility kind of ruins them. It ruins the birds. And if you've, you know, invested a lot of time in these animals, they don't want to do that. So that is potentially a reason why some of these guys, and there are other examples I could cite of people smuggling these little songbirds into the US. Yeah. But drugging them and sticking them down your pants. I mean, there's another knock the song out of his bag. I guess not. There's another guy who wasn't quite as creative. This was just last year. He put two orange fronted parakeets in brown paper bags and stuff those down his pants. So he didn't have the cylinders. Another guy similar. He put them in hair curlers, like women's hair curlers, and put a bunch of those in his carry on bag and was caught for that. And I was, I'm looking at your notes here. That dude was he was fixing to get $3,000 a bird. That's he told authorities. $3,020, $20, $34 birds. Now that guy sharpened his pencil. Yeah, he's, that's like a hundred grand. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's it. That's it. NBA. That's an NBA style wildlife violator right there, man. Right. Yeah. So yeah, the as far as penalties like Max is 20 years in prison, you know, $250,000 fine. Most just get probation, especially if they're a first time offender for something like this. But yeah, I was fascinated. I had no idea about these, these competitions. It makes me, it reminds me of, I believe, I don't I can't remember where it must have done it for life. A member of the story we covered about how the, there was those pigeon trainers that were shooting the hawks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very similar. Mm-hmm. Like a little bird subcultures, man, that lead to subcultures, lead to criminality, and also have a lot of betting involved. Yeah. Most labels in the world get their meat at the grocery store, but we prefer to pack ours out of the field. That's why we made the meat eater grocery bags ultra lightweight breathable nylon game bags that cool your meat fast and keep it clean from the field to the cooler with reflective print and features that help you find your game bags in the dark, meaning like reflective stuff, so your flashlight shines off it, even when you got to hang it way up in a tree. We have two sets. Okay. We got sets for whether you're packing out a deer or whether you're packing out an L. or moose, and they're reusable season after season. Ben a while since we've talked about the on again, off again, off again, off again, saga of the Ambler Road in Alaska. There's an update that just happened, but if you're not familiar, the Ambler Road is a road that's being proposed to be built in the Southern Brooks Range, Northwestern Alaska. It's going to be a 211 mile long industrial gravel road connecting the Dalton highway to the Ambler mining district. The reason that the road is proposed to be built is access to copper sink, lead goal, and other mineral deposits. For mining for foreign mining companies, why is it always foreign mining companies? I'll never get that. The ore from this thing goes over. There's some arguments that it benefits China more than the US. Two companies, Trilogy Metals out of Canada and South 32 limited out of Australia, stand to make $1.5 billion if this road is built, and the road would be restricted to only authorized industrial traffic. The public can't drive down that road. It crosses through all kinds of public lands, including 26 miles of gates to the Arctic National Preserve, and the mines could be active as long as 30 years. More than 80 Alaska native communities have expressed opposition to the road. Obviously, the flip side to that is that this road would certainly provide jobs and economic benefits to local communities in Alaska. There's that to consider. This all started back in 2015 when an application was sent to the federal government. In 2017 to 2020, the Bureau of Land Management conducted an environmental impact study, and in Trump 1 administration, the road was approved and issued a 50 year right away. 2022 Biden administration suspended the authorizations over deficiency in the environmental review. 2024, the project just got completely rejected, following a supplemental impact review. Now, this year, or no, last year, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources approved an easement across about 7,000 acres of state land. This will be important later. 2025, President Trump approved the appeal reversing the Biden administration's federal rejection. BLM reissued the federal right away. So just like went back to where it was in Trump 1. This year, Alaska DNR reaffirmed its state land easement approval, and in response, seven conservation organizations filed an appeal in Alaska Superior Court challenging the approval. That's just for this state crossing through this state land. It doesn't have anything to do with the federal side of it. The National Parks Conservation Association announced the lawsuit, alleging that the DNR failed to adequately evaluate environmental impacts. So you've got seven plaintiffs, National Parks Conservation Association, Northern Alaska Environmental Center, Alaska Community Action on toxics, Alaska Wilderness League, Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, and Winter Wild Lands Alliance. Now, you might recognize that some of these groups, a couple of them at least, are like groups that we haven't spoken kindly of in the past. You got anything to add on that? Strange bed fellows, man. This whole thing is being managed for trustees for Alaska, which kind of represents a lot of Alaska native communities. And they're just saying, again, that they failed to evaluate environmental impacts. And again, this is only challenging that state land easement, not the federal stuff. Some potential impacts would be, if the road goes through, would be on the western Arctic care boot herd, the road would pass right through their migration corridor and potentially interfere with seasonal movement. There's a lot of potential impacts on fish and rivers, sedimentation and rivers, altering stream channels, degrading habitat. You know how many streams you have to covert thousand, three thousand. Yeah. Yeah. Across like 11 major river systems and covert three thousand streams. Yep. Obviously, all of those are of concern. One particular concern is the co-book wild and scenic river. Yeah, you're looking at that map there. Do we know how much crosses through state versus federal? How much? I'm assuming not as much state because they only had to get that one state. Yeah, the states along the corridor, the states along the pipeline corridor that they're coming off of. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, care boo, rivers, fish, and all the construction and noise and human activity could also displace other Arctic wildlife species. There's concern about permafrost. Could the road could accelerate thawing and erosion. And it would enable additional mines, gravel pits, and industrial infrastructure. And native Alaskan subsistence communities, like if it affects that care boo herd, it's definitely going to affect their ability to feed themselves with care boo and fish and could just kind of ruin traditional hunting areas. So, where we're at now is the Alaska Superior Court is going to review the challenge to the to the easement. Federal road authorizations remain a separate legal issue. And the proposed mine is entering a new environmental review process that will happen on November 2nd. So, a couple of weeks, I guess. Right now, the road's only proposed. It's not constructed. Yeah. This this this fight is playing out like any other of these like major environmental battles. The pebble mine in the headwaters. One administration next. The mine in the headwaters of the boundary waters. Can you area? Amlar road. These are like these are environmental fights that play out over decades. I think that they are the administration was hopeful that they were going to fast track this thing. But within this within this Amlar road thing is a lot of stuff that just strikes me as a lot of BS. Any talk about this being a 30 year project is it is bullshit. Okay. It's a forever project. It is like no one like if you put people anyone involved in proposing to sing or the financial backers of this thing and these guys have enormous biz dev like that you would enter into a deal like this and spend hundreds of millions of dollars on regulatory stuff. Like the biz dev expense and building this mine is astounding. Right. For for something that might not even go. This is a forever deal. Like no if you put someone on a lie detector test, anyone that really knows what's going on and you said, Hey, is this a 30 year thing? No. Well, I mean it this will it will lead to hundreds of projects. Yeah. And I mean in the I think it was in the Trump one administration. It was a 50 year permit for the road or something. So it's it's a it's a forever product. They're they're going to take every last ounce of the stuff they can get. It'll be like once it's there, it's like it's just there. And then there's the if it ever does close, there's the cleanup that has to happen afterwards. You know, dude, let me tell you something that's not going to happen in Alaska. They're not going to tear up a road. Right. It's like I'm saying the mines. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a forever thing. Yeah. I'll say let me tell you another thing that's a forever thing. Those minerals will be eternally valuable and they are there forever. I don't right now see. I don't right now see any sense of urgency. And going after these minerals as like if you're as someone's coming in an environmental nationalist, let's say, um, should we be in a situation? Should we find ourselves as a nation in a situation is dire as we were in say 1941, right? It might be a different conversation to me, there might be a different conversation about like what we're in an existential crisis, um, we need these things to save the free world. I might be like, let's talk. Sure, but I like, I don't, it's not going anywhere. Well, it's not coming into the United States. That's for sure. It's leaving the United States. And then what's so funny about it, it's going to leave the U.S. as or and then we're going to pay a bunch of goofy-ass tariffs on it when it comes back as a as product. Right. To buy it back. To make other dudes a bunch of money. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, this is you are, you are tapping into one of the, I mean, you are tapping into one of very few of our last vestiges of like pure wilderness, pristine, untouched, and it ain't going nowhere. No. It's like, to me, it's like, why now? For four in my, that's this thing too. Like for four in mining companies, but even if they were U.S. owned mining companies, I still have a lot of questions. But to me, it's like, oh, this is a foreign mining company wanting to save us in the boundary waters. Like, I don't get why is it always that way? And why is it always like shadow investors and stuff? And they build these like, they build these orgs just to front these things where you don't even understand the backing of it. Just the whole thing blows my mind. So I get like, why do we got to basically go in and trash a bunch of our like national treasure at this point in time to benefit other dudes? Well, there's kind of meaning. It'll benefit some Americans too, obviously. And that's why this is getting pushed forward. Yeah. And like, yeah. And they're able to like give a lot of money to politicians and politicians are willing to do their bidding because they're giving them tons of money. Like, like, I get all that stuff. I just, you know, I can't get excited about this damn road. The other question comes up. So they built the the Dalton highway, the Translaska pipeline. They put a road on it. That road's open to the public. And there's a lot of people are like, and they're like, if they build the Ambler road, so 200 miles of road, paralleling the Brooks range, crossing all these streams, there's some people that say, and it won't even be open to the public. But I'm looking, I'm like, man, I don't know. Would it be great if it was? Well, does that make it better for some people it would? That access would be great, right? In all honesty, like in all honesty, I'd be one of the first dudes down that road. Should I be like, Jim, saying like, I don't know if they do cut the road. I don't even know how I feel about it. I don't know how I feel about it. But when people go like, and it morning, be open to the public, I often wonder, like, would that would that really be the best thing to have it be open to the public, right? I believe that it eventually would be open to the public probably. Yeah. But the pipeline would be good for those people that are subsistence, right? If it doesn't open to the public, if they build this road, and it's not open to the public, it'll not be open to the public because of because of native Alaskan resistance to it being open to the public to non-local, non-s subsistence, recreational hunters and anglers, pouring into that area and putting pressure on a resource that they don't want to pressure. I mean, just look at the map. You'd open all that country from fair banks. You drive up there, take a left and you're in there. And to what the only way you could get in there before is by plane, right? Yeah. And people aren't even factoring in the main thing. Once you get into Alaska logistics, okay, here's what happens is when that's open to the public. And again, like I have very mixed feelings about this. Once that's open to the public, that's air, that's air boats on all those rivers. Right. Yeah. You, it's like you have opened up like a pan. Yeah. You're opening up a Pandora's box when you put air boats and jet boats on everything that that thing crosses. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great point. It is just like I can see not not even from the, not even from the not even from the conservation angle of tapping an industrial corridor and putting hundreds of mines in one of our last great wildernesses, not even from that, but from the, from the mind of people that live subsistence lifestyle, native Alaskans that live subsistence lifestyles in those areas from the impact, the eventual impact of air boats and other types of operations coming off, snow machines coming off of a 211 mile, basically a trailhead that runs 211 miles. It's a big, big deal. Yep. It'll be a big, big deal to them. I'm the kind of guy that would be on the receiving end of it because I'm the kind of guy that would be up there pack rafting and stuff. I feel icky, but then I'd see a giant herd of caribou and be like, well, you know, you know what you'd say? Everybody else is doing it. It's the great story from the Buffalo Hide Hunter. I think it was Buffalo Jones who said, many days, he's talking about being on the Texas Plains, he says, many days, I would come home at night and I would want to hang up my rifle. I was so sick and by what I had done all day and I was going to quit. But then I'd wake up in the morning and off in the distance, boom, boom, boom. And he's like, someone else is going to do it anyway. Yep. And I'd head back out and you'd have like that, you know, I'd be like, oh, get yours while they're getting good, you know. I heard it's pretty sweet. But again, this is like a not what I'm talking about is way future. I'll be dead. Because let's say this, let's say it goes 30 years and there's no access. I'm already out. So I'm talking about the future. I'm not even talking about myself. When talking about the future, was that Aldo Leopold quote, I'm glad I will not be a young man in a future without wilderness. I was telling my my 16 year old this quote yesterday two days ago. I was like, I'm glad I'll not be a young man in the future without wilderness. Maybe you will be right. I didn't have to suffer through it. He won't be, but maybe his kids now deeply uneasy personally, me deeply uneasy about this road. And the biggest thing is the shit ain't going anywhere. Yeah. If we really as a country, really, really in the future, you know, are in some spot where it becomes of like existential significance. Let's talk. We'll we'll check back in on it. I'm sure at some point down the road. It's money in the bank right now, bro. Money in the bank. Gold in the bank. Zinc in the bank. Delaware found its first cases of CWD last year, Brody. Was it last year this year? It was last year. It was? Yeah, but this year they're implementing a, yeah, it was last year. Gosh, now you got me tripped up. I think it might have been this year, man. I think it was April of this year. Why were they sampling in April? I don't know. It's just confirmed. You go on and I'll check. I wrote it, right? I wrote it down there. Anyways, they found two in the last year, approximately, and it's prompted an activation of the state CWD plan, which was interesting. Well, two things are interesting. Well, during the 2526 hunting season, they sampled 600 deer and got two positives. Yeah. Okay. The Delaware's the division of fish and wildlife. It's actually the department of natural resources and environmental control division of fish and wildlife. That's a mouthful. Yeah. It is, man. I wouldn't even be able to begin to make one of the macronomes out of that. DNR EC division of fish and wildlife. Anyways, they've been on top of it, man. Since 2003, every single year, about 600 to 650 samples. So that's 13,000 total. So then, yeah, the 2526 hunting season, which they must be talking about last year, came up with two. It says it says it was confirmed in April of this year. So the samples could have come from last year. Yeah. It says they collect them during hunting season. Yes. It's just odd that they throw the 26 in there. This was tripping us up. Anyways. So yeah, they implemented emergency regulations. It basically made a CWD management zone in lower Sussex County, which we've spent some time in. Out there on the Delmarva Peninsula. Just so it happens that this is where most of the deer are in the state, and so it would, you know, you'd go to guess that this is gonna be where CWD would pop up. What's where the most deer are killed? Is down in Sussex County. I was surprised, like, here, these numbers are Delaware. 16,000 hunters, they kill about 16,000 deer annually. - That's a hot hunting state right there. - Right, yeah. - Like if you, if you're in Delaware hunting, like, hunter, I mean, obviously there's some, there's a few out there that are probably killing two or three or four, I don't know exactly how they're doing. - Yeah, that's extraordinary. - Yeah, it's, it's wonderful hunting. Sounds like, you know, in Delaware, and especially in Sussex County. - Anyway, so they set up a CWD management zone where you got to check deer in during the November shock on season, and they placed a ban on natural urine-based bucklewers, which I know, I know, I know, but they're doing what they can, you know? - Yeah, that feels like really COVID-19 to me. - A little over the top. - It's just a little like what? - And how, I don't know, are they gonna ban selling them? Or is it gonna be like, you know, Wisconsin where you can't bait, but every gas station has bait for sale? - It just, to me, it just seems like that, that one, banning urine-based bucklewers to me seems like just grasping at straws. - They, they have a little explanation here. - Yeah, they have. - On their site. They say, bucklewers, yeah, bucklewers are connected to CWD because infectious abnormal misfolder prion, proteins called prions that cause the fatal disease are shed in animal bodily fluids, and can be transmitted to other deer either from direct contact or in browsing vegetation. So are they saying the product itself can. - Yes, that you would be moving it. - Yes. - Okay, I, I, I get it. - Yeah. - There's a lot of other things going on all the time. Deer are always sticking their noses against each other. There's just, there's a lot going on all the time to go and look and be like, oh, that'll slow the spread. It's like, come on. It's, it's like you're trying to do something. You're trying to be helpful. I understand, you're trying to be helpful. I just think that one is like a little. It always strikes me as goofy, yeah. - They're monitoring it, which is awesome. I'm glad to hear they're so on top of it in Delaware. They're gonna expand the zone if they find more positive deer this year. Brody asked me to give you some stats of where we're at currently CWD. And then in the, and what it was 10 years ago. In the country, we now 37 states. - Yeah, it's like every few months in other states. - Yeah, yeah. - 10 years ago, we only had 24 states. - Whether your season's already open or you're still counting down the days, the meat-eater store has what you need to get ready. We're talking first light, FHF, SIGSHOWER, MOLTRY, FELPS, the brands we actually run in the field. Plus brand new teas, hoodies, and hats that just dropped with more drop in every month. Also check out our new meat-eater grocery game bags. These game bags are ultra light, breathable nylon. They got reflective trim on them. So you can keep working after dark and find your bags. And once you've got meat in the cooler, we've got you covered there too. Seasonings, cookbooks, and knives to cook up everything you bring home to check it all out. Head to the meat-eater store.com. - It's undeniable that it's spreading undeniable. On the interview show, we recently had on the director of Missouri's Fish and Game Department. And you should listen to the whole thing. It was all on the subject. But it seems that there's a percentage. If you do good control efforts, there's a percentage at which you can be effective. They feel, others feel too. That there's a prevalence rate at which you're not going to change, like these kind of management exercises. At, I think it's five and above. At five percent and above, there's nothing you're going to do. You're not going to lower the percentage. You can suppress like one, two percent, whatever. You can take management efforts and suppress. And I wish I remember better all the numbers he gave, but they're starting to come to the conclusion that there's a prevalence rate with CWD at which these like herd reductions stop being effective. But states to get aggressive early sometimes have luck in keeping low prevalence rates. But he, Jason Sumner's, please go listen to the interview because it's much more nuanced than I'm saying, is of the opinion that at a point, these traditional herd reduction strategies and other steps don't make a difference. Is there any, did he say if there's anything that does? No, there are areas, small areas. There are areas in Missouri where they have stopped spending. Because there's no, because there's no return on here. Yeah, I mean, you've got like areas like Doug's place where the prevalence rate is super high. You got some of those areas here in Montana. And you got finite, you got finite resources. You got finite personnel and finite resources. And when you're at 20% prevalence, you're not going to, you can go put all the money in the world in there and you're not going to make it 19%. Yeah. And so they, if there's, and again, dear, don't understand state boundaries. And the thing is too is Delaware isn't exceptionally, you know, extremely small state. So you're not controlling big chunks where your management strategy is acting on itself. Like you have a lot of areas, it's border country, right? With, with deer movie cross borders. And so if you're out of sync with the states around you, this creates complications in the areas that Missouri, in the areas that Missouri is stepping away from on CWD management is border areas. I believe on their southern border. They're like, they can't spend there anymore. They're kind of like circling the wagon where they can. They have some natural barriers, some big reservoirs and other things that form some natural barriers. And they may, and there's kind of a zone where we're done. We're done. Yeah, just from personal experience, it does seem like the, the less deer, the less CWD. Like were we hunting Wisconsin, very low deer density, compared to say we're duck, we're dogs at. And we've yet to have a positive case. We've been testing all of our deer now for, I don't know, probably close to 10 years. And the county has had a few positives, but like we just don't have the spread rate that they do down in dogs, like you do when you get areas where you got like 30 deer per square mile, 40 deer per square mile. I think it kind of blows my mind on the social aspect of chronic wasting disease is when we did that interview with Jason Sumner's recently. And anyone interested in CWD, CWD, I highly recommend that you go and listen to that interview because it's very comprehensive. And it's looking where we stand with CWD management today. There is a faction, like there is a faction of the American outdoor community that that is resistant to even having a conversation about CWD. I was made aware of this ass hat on Facebook, who has all these posts where he's saying that that I'm getting paid. I'm getting paid. Even Ronaldo. Yeah, I individually am getting paid by the government to talk about CWD because I'm an anti hunter and I'm trying to use that big diesel truck and I'm trying to get people to stop hunting because I'm a secret anti hunter. And my way to help the government stop hunters is to spread the sphere about CWD. And this guy's like, follow the money, follow the money. And so I look into him. He's a deer breeder. Oh, I followed the money and I'm at your house. Yes, it's just, it's like how it came to be that that that you are sort of that people want to ostracize people who are having conversations about a wildlife disease. Assigned typically like, like it's, it's real folks and to say, you know, I'd like to follow, I'd like to talk to as many people as I can who have expertise in this field because I want to understand it because I loved deer and I don't like deer diseases. And it'd be like, oh, you're a, I'm going to tell your kids on the youth hunt that you're an anti hunter. You're like, dude, it's like this dude, like this dude, um, well, I was, I was going to like have like a little bona fides tournament with him, but I'm not going to have a bona fides tournament. It just comes down to the fact that you're affecting his pocket, but by what you're saying, follow the money. Okay. - Okay, is he in Texas? - I'm not gonna say. - Okay, 'cause that's, I mean, in Texas, that's like the nexus, right? It's like the deer breeders. - There's a lot of tension. - Yeah. - No, right. - And it's around CWD, it's all around CWD. - And here's the deal. If I view, if you're a deer breeder, I view that as a, I view that as a livestock issue, right? It's a livestock. In most states, they regard it as a livestock issue. - I'm sure most people are familiar with the connection to deer breeding, but if they're not, can you clearly? - Because we put enormous social value on deer, and it's really hard to grow big deer in the wild, and that's why like a big buck is regarded as the thing of extraordinary value, is it's like it's rarity. And so someone long ago had the brilliant idea of being like, man, it's so hard to make big deer in the wild, and it's so hard to get a wild big deer. I can, I can like just grow one. I'll make a fence and grow a big deer, and people value big deer because they're so rare and so cool and so wild, but now also not as have them 'cause I made them. And generally, when you're a deer breeder, your deer are generally regarded as under the purview of your department of livestock, same way that you'd manage sheep, goats, cattle, horses, whatever, it's like you're managed by department of livestock. When we spoke to Jason Summers from Missouri, deer breeders in Missouri are under the purview of livestock, agriculture department, and then you have the wildlife department that works on deer. - And then you have CWD. - Well, yes, and yes, 'cause here's what we're getting to. There is, there are many people in the CWD space who point to evidence asserting that captive deer have at times transmitted CWD to wild deer. If it was shown, if it was shown to me that that's actually not true. Like as we continue to study CWD and we look at these transmissions and we figure everything out and we do it, and it turns out captive deer have never spread a disease to wild deer. I would put the captive deer industry right back in my head where it's always been, which is a thing that I don't have like an opinion about. - Right, but I believe there is a US Fish and Wildlife Service map that you can, I think that's where it's from, that you can look at which shows kind of these expansions of CWD. And often in the center of them is a deer breeding facility. - Yeah. - You know, it's just like, it's the bull's eye and that CWD zone. - The first one ever identified, the first deer ever identified to have CWD was a meal deer in a research facility. So in a government facility, that's important detail. The first one ever identified was in a government facility in Colorado. But people weren't checking wild deer back then. - Right. - I don't know where to, like no one can say where it, anyone that tells you where it came from is just talking. They don't know. It's not known where it came from. You could point to when was it first found, but that doesn't mean that you found the first deer, of course you didn't find the first deer that ever had it. So, yeah, what do you guys is communicating about? This is just a map from Alex with CWD by state, like which states it's been found in. - Yeah. - There have been some very mysterious, there have been some very mysterious jumps of CWD and Jason Sumner's even talks about it. It is not always edge effect. Meaning you'd have like some center, like let's say, you know, wherever you have like some center and then spreading out from that and concentric rings would be more and more and more and more. Like you imagine, like without air travel and highway travel, the way the cold would just kind of move from person to person and drift out. You do have where CWD seems to go boom and jump. And when it jumps, is it, is it because someone sent a bail of alfalfa? - Or a. - Reader buck. - Yeah, was it a bail of alfalfa that had a bunch of deer saliva all over it and deer hair in it? Was it a guy that went on a hunt and trip? He lives in, I don't know, he lives in Iowa and he went out and killed a big deer and Colorado and took it home and pressure washed its brain all over his, you know, out in his backyard. And he's got yard deer. Is it because someone moved to breeder buck? Like you'll, we'll never know these things. Like you don't know, but people look and there's a lot of attention and focus is fallen on moving live deer that might have diseases. I'm interested in something I'll probably never have, which is like I would love to have certainty. If I knew somehow that that just wasn't a thing, I would put it out of mind. It's interesting that years ago, there was a ballot initiative came up to make it that like in this state, they banned deer captive servant. - I think there's some other states that have too. - It passed by a lot. And this is not a softie anti-hunt state. - No. - This is a state where hunting culture runs deep. Participation is very high and they wanted to open up canned elk hunts here and there was a citizen's initiative that banned it. So is, does that point to an underbelly of anti-hunting sentiment in the state of Montana? I don't think so. I was hunters that did it. I don't know, I don't know, dying for more info. If there's a guy, this is true. If there's someone out there that feels that, if there's someone out there that feels that they have like good empirical evidence showing that captive deer have not spread CWD. And it's hard to prove this, but like good empirical evidence suggesting that something else is at play, I would be very serious about having that conversation if it's out there. - Oh. - Yeah. But it's like, yeah, it's tough in Texas 'cause you mentioned most states, they treat them like livestock. In Texas, they're wildlife still. And so, Texas Parks and Wildlife is over that. And the reason why when you come across someone who is very vocal like this gentleman you're referring to about CWD isn't real, it's not a big deal. Trace it back. - No, there's no one. The denier community has moved on from it's not real. - How do you, what's farther than that? Oh, it's a conspiracy. - No, no, no. - It's real, but it's always been there and it's nothing to worry about. - The denier community used to be that it's fake. They change over time. The leading edge of the denier community now sits at, I think it's that it's agricultural products are spreading CWD. - Is that right? - But it doesn't matter. - Right. - Or something like that. - But it's not that it doesn't exist. - Yeah, but the incentive for the breeders, right, is because when CWD is found in their facility, they have to kill a bunch of deer. - And that pisses them off. So that's kind of the connection where the incentive comes from. And this is a huge fight in Texas. It's been, you know, ongoing for years. There's been pretty famous deer breeders who have refused Texas Parks and Wildlife Order to kill their deer. - Yeah, they view this government over. - Yeah, they eventually have to do it. But it's hard to imagine because then you hear reports of deer getting out of these facilities that have tested positive for CWD. And so it's hard for me to imagine that it's never happened, that one of those deer has never spread it. - Oh, I mean, they don't even have to get out. Knows to nose through offences. - Yeah. - It happens all the time, I'm sure. - Yeah. - I don't, I've never met anyone who's not a hunter. What's funny about this whole thing of it being like that if you are interested in wildlife diseases, you're an anti-hunter. What's funny is, I've never met anyone who's interested in CWD who's not a hunter. - Right, right. - Like make a list. Make a list of the least hunting as people you can think of. In your social circle. This is a real question. Do me a favor. Of the people you text with. Think of who is the least hunting as people you text with. And if you got people that hate hunting, put them on this list. Text them and go, "Hey man, what do you think about CWD?" - Is that that zombie disease I've read about? - Or it'll be what? - So the idea of like being interested in CWD is and I hunting, why are anti-hunners talking about CWD? Only people that talk about CWD are hunters. - Yeah. - Whenever I talk about CWD, I'm talking about CWD. And the people I know that are most interested in CWD have hunted the longest. Like the guys I know that are most like, "Oh shit, this is terrible." It's like, "Let me guess, you've hunted a long time." Do it as it started hunting last year. Don't care about CWD. It's like an old, it's a dude that loves deer thing. It's a symptom of loving deer and being a lifelong hunter is that you're worried about CWD. So to have it be that it's like an anti-hunting thing is so weird. But hunters care about CWD and guys that hunt wild deer, blame people that have captive deer. People that have captive deer blame something different. Well, there's so many baked in self, there's so much baked in self interest. Like, I'm full of it. I have self interest because I love deer and I like eating deer, so I'm worried about CWD. They have self interest because they like selling hunts. Well, and, and, you know, to be fair, it's not just the breeders, right? Because what we were talking about earlier, the ban on buck sent, right? Because when CWD comes in, now we have a ban on, you know, baiting, a ban on. And so there are these strategies people rely on to go hunting, just like average Joe, not a deer breeder. They like baiting deer because it makes it a little easier or whatever. There's also the economic set those products. Yeah. Right. Right. And so they're like, Hey, I don't want to be restricted in the way that I've hunted for a long time. And so, you know, there's an incentive there. Yes. And that one, like, and that one hits more, again, acknowledging the self interest. Right. Right. Right. Right. My self interest is my primary protein source is deer meat. So I'm interested in the health of consuming deer meat and I like to, and my favorite thing to do is hunt deer. So I'm interested in that. Yeah. If you're a deer breeder, you're interested in selling semen and, and stud bucks and you're interested in bottled deer urine and selling hunts and all that. But that's why earlier, remember, when I got prickly about the buck year and thing, I'm not a, I'm not a dough and heat year and guy, deer year and guy. I don't employ that tactic. But then I, just like a deer breeder, I look at that. And I'm like, show me where that's actually an issue. Knowing that since we don't know what spreading it, when you go and say, eh, I'm going to change that. Yeah. You know, I'm going to make that illegal. Yeah. It feels, um, it winds up feeling arbitrary. So if I try to be as big of a person as I can, I could picture that I'm raising deer in a high fence operation. And then someone's like, Hey, you're doing bad that you would say, please show me. Yeah. Show me where, where, where my deer that I have, show me where they're spreading CWD. Yeah. Don't come to me with a hypothetical. Yeah. Which is why agencies, I mean, it's in their best interest, I think, to think about the opinion of hunters and like how they're going to react to whatever policies you put in place. It's not the only thing because sometimes you got to do stuff that people hate. Yeah. And that's just what you got to do. But like, you got to be careful. And sometimes they take a ham-handed approach or it's like, it's like, it's like COVID-19 all over again. Yeah. Where, you know, for one day, it's like, Hey, you know, if Amazon brings a box, your house to leave it out in the rain for two weeks because you're going to get sick off it. Yeah. Um, if you're, if your parents are dying in an old folks home, you can look at them through the window, but you can't go hug them, go buy, right? And you do all this crazy shit. And then later we look at all the crazy stuff we're done and you say, man, I got out of control, you know? Yeah. Like whatever. Vax, Danny, kids, my kids don't get sick from it. All that stuff in the end, you look and it's crazy. Someday we might understand CWD better and we might look and be like, a lot of that stuff was stupid. When Michigan was first trying to figure out CWD response, they came in and they banned putting out deer bait in all kinds of places. Yeah. They later go, oh, you can put out five gallons of bait. Yeah. I was like, oh, so you've discovered that 10 gallons, spread CWD, but a gallon or five gallons doesn't spread CWD. Is that what we're at? You have this data. You can share with the hunters of Michigan and people get like, come on, dude. Yeah. And the reason I bring up that COVID-19 thing is because there's a thing and I harp on this often, there's a thing that happens when you're managing humans is you push humans too far on something and then they go, never mind all of it, which is where you landed. The CWD COVID-19 thing will always feel like a parallel to me because it's where you land when people say, some of this is so dumb. Out of an abundance of caution, I'm not open to anything you have to say anymore at all. Like my friend had to watch his mom, like die in an old folks home through a glass window and couldn't go hug her goodbye. I now, I could be on the most crowded plane in the world. I'm not wearing my mask because I'm done because you push me too far and you run the risk with the CWD stuff, states run the risk of doing that and I've seen it happen again and again where people just get like, man, you guys are nuts. Never mind. Yeah. I'm done talking about it and they've created a lot of that. Yeah. But it's still worries the shit out of me, you know, I don't know, man, that's the end of the show. Oh, you got any more to add? Nope. I'm glad they're there trying and doing something about it than not. Yes. Yes. Yes. I just can't. Yes. Me too. It worries me. It honestly worries me sick. It worries me. Like CWD worries me sick and for the two reasons I always bring up the human health aspect which tends to worry me less over time and then the herd health issue worries me sick because I like deer. I like deer culture. I like deer hunting. I like the whole thing. I like that we're going and taking our kids deer hunting tomorrow. Like love it. Because I worry about it, but at the same time, I worry about when people get and it can happen that people get a little drunk on, I don't want to say drunk on authority, they just get a little bit chaotic. Sure. And we're already experiencing CWD fatigue. Right. Geez, I was testing elk 20 years ago in elk camp. We had to test every single elk that we killed a Colorado. Yeah. You know, so it's like been a major part of my whole adult hunting career. You know, that was when I was, you know, in my early 20s. Did you know that this CWD fatigue, you go to Southwest Wisconsin, do you know how long now CWD has been at the forefront of deer hunting conversations in Southwest 30 years of quarter? A quarter of a century. And a lot of guys are like, we're still shooting big bucks, we're still eating deer burgers. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Worries me sick. All right. Turn it off Phil. Thanks Phil. We'll see you guys next week. See you next week. See you guys next week. Hey, you might ask, do you need camel on your feet? In camp. And I'd say need probably not there are generally no deer camp. If you got deer in your camp, I want to hear about it because that sounds like a sweet camp. But still, we made two shoes with Haydude in first light specter camo anyway, not because you need it just because it's cool. The wally funk and the wally slip camp because it's the pattern we love and we wanted something comfortable and ultra lightweight for when we're done hunting. Okay. At haydude.com and the meat eater store, it's a limited run. So get your feet cozy now. This is an I heart podcast guaranteed human.