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Hunting, Fishing & Farming: Was Oregon About to Ban Them? · The PNW Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_01: I will tell you that a year after that ballot measure passed, my dad was sent a picture of a young adolescent cougar with its paws on the screen door of a farmhouse that we go out to hunt that property all the time.
0:15
SPEAKER_01: We hunted ducks, geese, deer, and elk out on that property.
0:19
SPEAKER_01: And now, because this cougar is hungry, because they're overpopulated and it's young, it doesn't know what to do, it has gone to a person's house and tried to get in.
0:29
SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you something, Portland, Gresham, maybe, since it's the fourth largest.
0:34
SPEAKER_01: How would you feel if tomorrow you woke up and you went to let your chihuahua out and you heard a squeak and you looked out the screen door and there was a cougar eating what appeared to be a Snickers bar that was actually your Chihuahua?
0:47
SPEAKER_01: That shit was happening in my hometown.
0:50
SPEAKER_01: I could see from my house where they were spotting cougars and reporting it in the in the local newspaper, less than a mile away from where I grew up and where I slept at night.
0:59
SPEAKER_01: And we had wiener dogs, Drew.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: It was a serious worry.com.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: It's a great place.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: If you work out of your house and you uh constantly have like kids crawling up your back, or you got that dog or your wife or your husband yapping at you to do something, maybe you just get away.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you come up into the suites here and you can actually be at work.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: Because when you work from home, are you really working, or do they really think you're working?
1:55
SPEAKER_00: That's the tough part.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: So you can do that.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: You could also, when you're done, recovery lounge downstairs, hit a massage chair, maybe go head out to the pool, grab a little sunshine.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: Uh my wife keeps telling me, you need to spend a little bit more time in the sun.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: You're looking a little pasty.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: So maybe when we're done here, Marcus, I'll go down there and try and uh, you know, tan this bad boy up a little bit.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: But for now, I am enjoying the fact that I have peace and quiet here with you.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: If you want the same thing, Staffordhills.com, tell them Drew sent you for half off your initiation.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: Uh, so there's a lot going on um with when it comes to voting and you know, different ordinances that are gonna pass or not pass, and uh one that has made a lot of headlines and has kind of been a head scratcher for people, and really a lot of confusion surrounding what it actually means is this thing they call the Peace Act.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: Now, for people who don't know what the Peace Act is, Marcus, why don't you tell them what it is and where it stands now?
2:57
SPEAKER_01: Well, the petition titled the Peace Act.
2:59
SPEAKER_01: Uh, Peace is an acronym for People for the Elimination of Animal Cruelty Exemption Act.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: And um, this obviously was a petition brought before uh the voters of the state of Oregon.
3:12
SPEAKER_01: Um, they needed to get signatures to get this on the ballot.
3:16
SPEAKER_01: And uh a lot of us in the state of Oregon, myself included, were uh turning a little bit of an eyebrow up at this once we actually started to read it.
3:25
SPEAKER_01: Because Drew, on its face, the Peace Act sounds like a good thing, right?
3:30
SPEAKER_01: We all want to be peaceful.
3:31
SPEAKER_01: We don't want any violence.
3:33
SPEAKER_01: Um, sounds like a good thing.
3:35
SPEAKER_01: And I I actually was approached by people looking for signatures for this act, and the way that they would approach you is they would come up and say, Are you against animal cruelty?
3:45
SPEAKER_00: Well, who's gonna say anything other than of course I'm against it?
3:50
SPEAKER_01: Yep, because my mind goes to these two little corgis that are sitting downstairs, Detective Elliott Stabler and Lieutenant Dan.
3:56
SPEAKER_01: Who could be mean to such an adorable little creature?
3:59
SPEAKER_01: Well, that was a thinly veiled um misdirection, Drew, because what the Peace Act would actually do is it would criminalize hunting, it would criminalize fishing, it would criminalize responsible animal husbandry, like I have with my two little corgies, it would criminalize aspects of ranching, it would criminalize farming, it even sought to criminalize insecticides and things like that, Drew, harming insects.
4:28
SPEAKER_01: This was a complete wash of all of the things, or not all of the things, but a lot of the things that those of us here in Oregon hold the state very dearly for.
4:39
SPEAKER_01: If you're listening to this from the Midwest or the Eastern Seaboard and you don't know much about our great state of Oregon, there's one thing about it that a lot of people don't know from outside the state is, and that is that we have like three population centers along I-5.
4:53
SPEAKER_01: And then you get to the eastern side of the Cascade Mountains, and there's largely nothing.
4:58
SPEAKER_01: And not to say anything bad about that area, that's where I'm from.
5:03
SPEAKER_01: But the largest cities out there might not even approach 50,000 people, Drew.
5:08
SPEAKER_01: In fact, they might not even approach 20,000 people.
5:11
SPEAKER_01: So a large portion of our state is made up of farmers and ranchers, people that work the land.
5:18
SPEAKER_01: Almost everybody that I knew from my high school was a hunter or a fisherman.
5:23
SPEAKER_01: In fact, when I was in grade school, Drew, we got a week off in the fall for hunting season because so many kids at school would miss a full week of school for hunting season.
5:35
SPEAKER_01: And what this act aimed to do was make all of that go away in the name of never be mean to an animal.
5:42
SPEAKER_01: And we're we're talking about uh your beef farmers.
5:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean, what are you gonna do with all these cattle?
5:48
SPEAKER_01: We're talking about your pig farmers, your sheep farmers, uh people chickens, all of it, people that grow grass.
5:55
SPEAKER_01: I mean, just hundreds of thousands of Oregonians being affected by this if it gets passed through.
6:02
SPEAKER_01: Fortunately, what we're finding is that only about 70 per uh 3% of the submitted signatures were valid on the first count, and they needed uh, I don't know, an extra probably 13,000 signatures to be verified above that 73% number.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: Um and was it like this, Marcus?
6:22
SPEAKER_00: Or like, um, who is this Mr.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: Git Bent?
6:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure who that is.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: Right.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: Like, uh because it's one of those deals where you probably are like, are you against animal cruelty?
6:32
SPEAKER_00: And as they're talking to you and you're like holding their sheet, you're like, you don't know what to write because it's to me, it's a total smoke and mirror to tell to ask me if I care about animals and then to put that out there.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: Like, sorry, there is some stuff called food chain that goes, I mean, at the at the just the very surface level, like, how are we supposed to protect all animals when the goal is to raise them, kill them, and eat them?
7:00
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
7:01
SPEAKER_01: And uh it's you know, the I like what you say about the signatures because I'm sure you can find Mr.
7:07
SPEAKER_01: Captain Kangaroo probably seven or eight times in that paperwork if you're looking hard enough or ramble and rod himself.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I have a quote here uh from I believe this is from Senator Christine Dresden.
7:21
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I got this quote from uh Coin 6.
7:23
SPEAKER_01: Uh it says, the people behind IP28 will be back, and so will the next extremists and another extreme idea.
7:30
SPEAKER_01: Oregon has paid the price for bad ballot measures before, and we can't afford to make that mistake again.
7:35
SPEAKER_01: Uh, she says, I'm relieved that IP28 failed to qualify for the November ballot.
7:40
SPEAKER_01: However, supporters of IP28 have said, we're very happy because we got your headlines and we started this conversation.
7:48
SPEAKER_01: And that's where my thought goes, Drew, is if you've moved the needle at all on this, then I start to get a little bit clinchy in the jeans because uh this is a huge part of my life.
8:01
SPEAKER_01: You know it.
8:02
SPEAKER_01: I uh I don't eat as much beef as what people think I might.
8:05
SPEAKER_01: I'm a huge red meat fan.
8:07
SPEAKER_01: I love my steak, but you know this about me, Drew.
8:10
SPEAKER_01: My freezer is full of wild game.
8:12
SPEAKER_01: I have three different breeds of ungulates in my freezer right now: antelope, venison, and elk.
8:19
SPEAKER_01: That's what I live on.
8:21
SPEAKER_01: I don't go out to hunt a trophy.
8:23
SPEAKER_01: Have I gotten lucky and taken down one?
8:26
SPEAKER_01: Yes, one in my 30 plus years of hunting, everything else goes in the freezer and not on the wall.
8:33
SPEAKER_01: So I have a lot of thoughts about this, and it would take hours for us to dig through all of them, but I'm glad that it got swatted away like they tried to go to the rack on Dekimbe Matumbo.
8:44
SPEAKER_01: Just no and shake the finger at him.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: But let's think about this in the future.
8:49
SPEAKER_01: What's gonna happen next?
8:51
SPEAKER_01: Did they move the needle?
8:52
SPEAKER_01: Is this conversation actually starting and gaining steam in the state of Oregon?
8:57
SPEAKER_01: Well, if it is, Drew, I'm happy to say KT uh KTVZ is reporting that a proposed constitutional amendment is in the works for the state of Oregon, protecting hunting, fishing, and other traditional activities.
9:12
SPEAKER_01: This is initiative petition or IP 25 known as the Oregon Freedom Amendment.
9:17
SPEAKER_01: And uh supporters say the measure would protect rights to hunt, fish, farm, ranch, trap, grow food, and manage wildlife.
9:25
SPEAKER_01: Um, and so you know what?
9:27
SPEAKER_01: I I did not sign IP 28.
9:29
SPEAKER_01: You will find my signature on IP 25 if I get so approached, Drew.
9:34
SPEAKER_01: And I'm I'm with you.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: I I think that the reason it's moving the needle at all is just because it's built on a lie and that it's built on going to a farmer's market and asking somebody who's walking their dog if they're okay with cruelty to animals, of course, they're gonna sign.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: I also think it's very important to point out that so much of this state is not a big city.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: So much, in fact, that the fourth biggest city in the state is a suburb.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: Did you know that?
10:02
SPEAKER_00: It goes um Portland, Eugene, Salem, Gresham.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: Gresham's the fourth biggest city in so the a city with half the cars on blocks is the fourth biggest city in the state.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: And so we are a little bit out of touch in where our hubs are of who is voting.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: I think it is super important to have the people who are outside the main cities to be represented as well.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: Do I do a ton of hunting?
10:30
SPEAKER_00: No, but do I respect your right and ability to do so?
10:34
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: I've got, you know, fishing is probably the thing we do the most in my family.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: And my nephews fish every single day.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: It's like uh it's we're back to like huck fin times here.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: And it's and you know, and when they can, they use the fish and you use the meat that you catch.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: And there are people who go for trophy, but this is not the African safari.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: We don't have a dentist from the Midwest coming here to hunt our wild game and to hang them on his wall.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: The majority of the people who hunt here hunt for the appropriate reasons.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: And if you want to go after people, go after individuals.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: You don't go after a group of people and tell them that they can no longer do the very thing that kept us alive for thousands of years.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: Go play the Oregon Trail without the stop for the hunt.
11:25
SPEAKER_00: See how it goes with your measles and your smallpox.
11:28
SPEAKER_01: Oh, dysentery all over your wagon.
11:31
SPEAKER_01: Uh, everybody's gonna have a headstone by the side of the trail, Drew.
11:35
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, it's it's funny to me because that is what it is about.
11:39
SPEAKER_01: Like these these are memories that I have as a child.
11:41
SPEAKER_01: I've made plenty of memories hunting with my family and fishing with my family as an adult, but the true uh gain that I got for from it as a person came with the lessons that I learned: respect for the animal.
11:55
SPEAKER_01: Um, there's one thing that my dad always instilled in me because as a young kid, I did love animals, and I was like, man, I I the it's hard for me to go out and just kill an animal, but I understand why we're doing it.
12:06
SPEAKER_01: And my dad said something to me that has stuck with me for all these years, Drew, and he said, How long have you been hunting elk?
12:13
SPEAKER_01: And at the time I said, I don't know, five or six years.
12:16
SPEAKER_01: So five or six elk hunts.
12:17
SPEAKER_01: How many elk do you have?
12:19
SPEAKER_01: None.
12:20
SPEAKER_01: So what you're learning is that this animal beats you almost every time you come out here.
12:25
SPEAKER_01: You should respect it.
12:27
SPEAKER_01: And if you are going to harvest one of those animals, you should use it to the extent of what is there and what you can use.
12:34
SPEAKER_01: And that's exactly what I do.
12:37
SPEAKER_01: And beyond all of this, the hunting part of it, the fishing part of it, you're gonna tell me as a free red-blooded American that I can't have a dog.
12:45
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna tell me as a free red-blooded American that I can't walk out onto my land and kill the insects that are killing the crop that I want to grow so that I can grow that crop.
12:55
SPEAKER_01: This is patently un-American.
12:57
SPEAKER_01: This is the land of the free and the home of the brave.
13:00
SPEAKER_01: And uh within that, don't tell me what to do, bro.
13:04
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's as simple as it can be.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't it come all the way back to if you're doing this, then I can't spray home defense on my house?
13:12
SPEAKER_00: If I don't spray home defense with a little squirt gun from the home improvement store, screams come from inside at the ants and spiders, and then guess what happens?
13:23
SPEAKER_00: I still have to kill them.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: I can't take them back outside and just keep doing this dance.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: And you know, I'm sorry that I have it in my mind that some soft vegan who doesn't understand is doing this.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: I like a vegetarian option.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: I eat vegan protein bars, but I also respect the food chain.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: And if if you want to talk about a moral dilemma, I love pigs and I love bacon.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: I know it's a tough ride, but it also, I also know where I stand in all of this.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: And this is my given right to eat who's below me in the food chain.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: Don't I mean what are you gonna go put a picket line on a lion?
14:01
SPEAKER_00: This is what it is.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: This is our job, is to eat.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, if you want to present a bill, that's fine.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: That's what we do here.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: But if you're going to do so, don't do it with smoke and mirrors and don't lie to the American people because you're not helping yourself.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: And the second time a conversation comes up when you've already lied to us, it's not gonna go well, and you're not gonna get your signatures that you thought you had, and uh more of them are gonna say, Mr.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: Balls McGriff, and that is gonna be as good of a signature as you're gonna get from me.
14:34
SPEAKER_01: And I also want to bring it to a little bit of history from the state here, Drew.
14:38
SPEAKER_01: Years ago when I was a child, um, one thing that got changed is, you know, cougars are uh mountain lions, whatever you want to call them, are hunted the United States over with bloodhounds.
14:50
SPEAKER_01: And you ask, well, isn't that cruel?
14:52
SPEAKER_01: No, the dogs don't run them down and tear them apart.
14:56
SPEAKER_01: The dogs scare them into a tree, which is where you can harvest them.
15:00
SPEAKER_01: And uh Oregon was uh, you know, we were gonna be a leader in this and no more hunting cougars with dogs.
15:06
SPEAKER_01: And that's what they did in Salem, which is obviously one of our population centers.
15:12
SPEAKER_01: And there was no foresight given to how it was going to affect the people that live with fucking cougars.
15:20
SPEAKER_01: And I will tell you that a year after that ballot measure passed, my dad was sent a picture of a young adolescent cougar with its paws on the screen door of a farmhouse that we go out to hunt that property all the time.
15:37
SPEAKER_01: We hunted ducks, geese, deer, and elk out on that property.
15:40
SPEAKER_01: And now, because this cougar is hungry, because they're overpopulated and it's young, it doesn't know what to do, it has gone to a person's house and tried to get in.
15:51
SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you something, Portland, Gresham, maybe, since it's the fourth largest.
15:55
SPEAKER_01: How would you feel if tomorrow you woke up and you went to let your chihuahua out and you heard a squeak and you looked out the screen door and there was a cougar eating what appeared to be a Snickers bar that was actually your Chihuahua?
16:08
SPEAKER_01: That shit was happening in my hometown.
16:12
SPEAKER_01: I could see from my house where they were spotting cougars and reporting it in the in the local newspaper less than a mile away from where I grew up and where I slept at night.
16:22
SPEAKER_01: And we had wiener dogs, Drew.
16:24
SPEAKER_01: It was a serious worry.
16:25
SPEAKER_01: So when you do stuff like this, because again, I'm the first guy that'll tell you exercise your power to vote, power to the people, let's elect the people that are going to make the right decisions and let's not just make these politicians rich.
16:38
SPEAKER_01: Think about the other guy when you're putting these things together.
16:42
SPEAKER_01: Think about what you're doing to everybody.
16:44
SPEAKER_01: Just the GDP alone that you would take away from the state of Oregon by criminalizing farming and ranching would be devastating.
16:53
SPEAKER_01: This state doesn't last if IP 28 actually makes it through and gets voted across.
16:58
SPEAKER_01: So just a quick little touch on uh, you know, we're the the the comments are gonna be fun for this one, Drew, because I'm sure people have some thoughts.
17:06
SPEAKER_01: And I encourage you, jump in there, tell us what you think.
17:09
SPEAKER_01: Um, because I know not everybody agrees with me here, uh, but this one touched a chord for me for sure.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: And it's a democracy.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: We you have a right to disagree with us or anyone else, but I I'm glad that common sense comes forward here.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: I'm against animal cruelty, 100%, but I'm also very much a part of what it is that is acceptable when it comes to what happens to an animal.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: Everybody knows when you're having Thanksgiving how that turkey got there.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: Everybody knows that when you go over to a Chick fil A and you grab that spice of chicken, you know what happened.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you can turn a blind eye all you want.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: And and don't think for a second, if you're, I mean, if you're I don't eat meat, you're eating plants, they're alive too.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: So just take it easy.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: You've hurt someone's feelings.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, my kid had a birthday party yesterday and they were swinging a bat at a pinata that was attached to a tree.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: They hit my tree probably five times and blew bark off the side of it.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: It hurt me to watch that thing get hit.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: I know it hurt the tree, but it's also a tree.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: So let's just take a breath and be all right.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: We have to take a break real quick.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but we just urge you not to listen to us necessarily, but to look at the big picture with any piece of legislation and make an educated decision and don't just jump to conclusions because you don't like animals getting thrown in a hot pot of water, because we're with you on that.
18:34
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20:30
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20:33
SPEAKER_00: Tell them Drew sent you for half off your initiation.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: Welcome back into the PW podcast.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we were during the break, we were just discussing how uh we'll have to put shields up in the comments for everybody who wants to get all fired up about our last discussion about the what do they call it, the Peace Act.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the now defunct Peace Act, right?
20:53
SPEAKER_00: Not yeah, exactly.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: The Chill Out Act.
20:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, so from one thing affecting the Northwest to another, of course, we are in wildfire season.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: You've known it from the smoke that's come and gone.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: We've gotten a little bit of relief from all that as of recently until now.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: It looks like we have popped off the state of Washington and Oregon getting lit up by lightning and thunder.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: What happened?
21:19
SPEAKER_01: Uh, well, Drew, getting this report from the Yakima Herald Republic, and I I do want to stop and say here, as we've done this podcast for the amount of episodes that we've done, I just want to say to uh the the news outlets around the Pacific Northwest, uh, you're doing a good job out there.
21:35
SPEAKER_01: Hats off to you.
21:36
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of really good publications in the Pacific Northwest that I had no clue about until I started doing research and seeing who's what's what's in the news and everything.
21:45
SPEAKER_01: And uh I just want to say, I'll always give credit to the people that write these stories and that bring us this news because I think it's very important.
21:53
SPEAKER_01: So, once again, go check out the Yakima Herald Republic for this story.
21:57
SPEAKER_01: But more than 50 wildfires sparked.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: Over the weekend in the Pacific Northwest, Drew, as a result of nearly 700 lightning strikes in a 24-hour period in the state of Washington, and nearly 200 lightning strikes in the same 24-hour period in the state of Oregon.
22:17
SPEAKER_01: Over 50 fires, like I said, one of them includes the Cal or excuse me, coal wash fire, which burned over 60 square miles near Mabton, Washington, and prompted evacuations.
22:30
SPEAKER_01: It was bad.
22:31
SPEAKER_01: It was what they call a one-two punch of lightning followed by gusty winds.
22:36
SPEAKER_01: Most of the fires that started are just under a handful of acres.
22:40
SPEAKER_01: So they're not really as bad as some of the ones that we've already had this fire season, Drew.
22:45
SPEAKER_01: But just when you get some cooler weather and you think that things are going to start tapering off, right back to where we were just a month ago, um, kind of surrounded by fires.
22:56
SPEAKER_01: And it's just uh it's a sad deal.
22:58
SPEAKER_01: 58 new fires over the weekend, just when you thought we were getting some reprieve.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: And this is the most beautiful place.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: I mean, for me in the United States is the Pacific Northwest.
23:08
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, you have little pieces of awesome everywhere, and I'm not going to discount those things, but we've run into a buzzsaw over the last handful of years where we run into August and September and a secret October, which is our secret sexy month.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: People think it uh it rains in October.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't rain until October 30th, really, on a grand scale here.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: And so you have beautiful Septembers, really, where it's the best time to be here.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: It's what you see on college football.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: And if it was like that all the time, this place would be one of the most hustle and bustle uh metropolises you'd find anywhere in the country.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: But because of these fires, the end of every summer, the end of this sexy season is marred by smoke to where we actually find ourselves begging for rain, where we begged for sun for many, many months, and now we beg for rain every time at the end of August into September, hoping to put the fires out because the last thing we want to do is burn the beauty.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: And so I don't know about you, but this feels like a vicious circle.
24:14
SPEAKER_01: It really is, Drew.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: And I know you haven't been drinking, and so I'm going to bring you a sobering fact that's going to double your soberness right now on this podcast.
24:24
SPEAKER_01: More than 3.2 million acres across Oregon and Washington have burned this year alone.
24:31
SPEAKER_01: More than 5,000 square miles have burned, Drew.
24:37
SPEAKER_01: And you want to know the most sobering fact?
24:40
SPEAKER_01: Half of them were set by people.
24:45
SPEAKER_01: Only a third of those left were set by what they call natural causes.
24:50
SPEAKER_01: So this is bad.
24:51
SPEAKER_01: Like we we wouldn't be dealing with what we're dealing with.
24:54
SPEAKER_01: And you and I touched on this a few episodes ago.
24:57
SPEAKER_01: We talked about uh kids burning down the iconic Civic Stadium here in Eugene with a couple of ground bloom flowers.
25:04
SPEAKER_01: Um can we just all join hands across the Pacific Northwest and figure out what the hell is going on?
25:11
SPEAKER_01: Why are people starting fires and burning down thousands of square miles of our timberland in this region?
25:19
SPEAKER_01: I know there's arson everywhere, but it's really, really bad when it happens here or when it happens in a place like California.
25:26
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, we saw that last year, and we don't care about California much on this podcast, but we're having the same problem.
25:32
SPEAKER_01: We got wing nuts out there with lighters, and it's it really is uh tragic, Drew.
25:39
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how else to put it because we're not managing the timber like we used to, which means that these forests are susceptible to the fires, and you see it, they can't contain them.
25:49
SPEAKER_01: I remember when I was a kid, you used to hear, hey, there's a fire at XYZ location, and maybe a couple days would go by and you'd see numbers like 50% contained, 60% contained.
25:59
SPEAKER_01: We don't get off 0% containment anymore for weeks at a time when these big ones break out.
26:06
SPEAKER_01: And uh, we saw it last year, a couple years ago, all the way back to COVID.
26:10
SPEAKER_01: Remember the Columbia Gorge, that whole thing?
26:13
SPEAKER_01: That goddamn fire jumped the Columbia River.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what's going on, Drew?
26:19
SPEAKER_00: And well, part of it is we're not we're not thinning the forests.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I don't want to dig in it too much because we just went off about how I think we should uh still eat the food that we're supposed to and and hunt the animals that we are allowed to hunt.
26:33
SPEAKER_00: But let's just let's just call a spade a spade.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: This is a situation where we have thick forests that are burning down entire forests because they haven't been thinned, and it's causing a problem where, I mean, would you rather it all go up in smoke, or would you rather have wood and supplies for homes and and paper and all the other things that are that we need as a community?
27:00
SPEAKER_00: I just think that's ridiculous.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: And to piggyback it, you know, beyond just uh what's right and what's wrong in the timber industry, I think we need to up the penalties.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: The penalties, if you are caught starting a fire, especially in a forest, I swear to you, you should be going down.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: That should not be a small penalty.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: And I don't care if you're a minor, charge them as an adult, charge the parents.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: We're charging parents of school shooters who neglect the situation.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: You're not teaching your kid not to be a humongous pile of trash.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you kidnap someone, if you if I were to grab you, Marcus, and I was to pull you into my car, even if I let you out in three minutes, that's kidnapping.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: You're going to jail for 20 years.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: Why are we not doing that to the person who sets a fire knowing that the blaze will burn thousands of acres and cause I mean, just because it's a natural forest does not mean that isn't money.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: You're burning down the possibility of millions of dollars worth of timber because you want to get your rocks off staring at a hot flame.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: You're a tool.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: And you're not just a tool, you're dangerous.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm all about throwing the key away on somebody who's gonna start a forest fire.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: I mean, now I know the kid in the gorge didn't do it on purpose, and so it's slightly different, right?
28:18
SPEAKER_00: But if it came out that it wasn't a firework and it was just him trying to burn and see what it's like to burn an entire gorge down, I don't want to see you again.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: I don't care if you're 16 or 15.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: You it's the damage is is beyond a scope where we can fix it.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: Why are we why do we not have a bigger penalty?
28:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't know, man.
28:39
SPEAKER_01: It's it's sad.
28:40
SPEAKER_01: You know, I I actually I know of some kids uh that were shooting propane tanks with uh with with rifles as like target practice and burnt down a pretty large area uh back over in the northeast corner of the of the state of Oregon where I'm from.
28:56
SPEAKER_01: And I think that the whole thing was just like some fines.
29:00
SPEAKER_01: I don't remember any jail time out of any of that.
29:02
SPEAKER_01: But I'll tell you right now, you're out there in July, the driest part of the year, in one of the driest parts of the state, shooting flammable containers of gasoline or or some fuel source propane, propane.
29:15
SPEAKER_01: That to me is gross negligence.
29:18
SPEAKER_01: You knew that how could you not know you're firing a hot bullet at a uh at a can of fuel.
29:24
SPEAKER_01: That's an ignition source.
29:26
SPEAKER_01: We're out here in a place where the place could burn down.
29:29
SPEAKER_01: I didn't agree with it then.
29:30
SPEAKER_01: That was that was probably 20 years ago.
29:32
SPEAKER_01: I don't agree with it now.
29:33
SPEAKER_01: I think you're exactly right.
29:35
SPEAKER_01: The punishments should be severe.
29:36
SPEAKER_01: And I hate to say for the kid at the gorge, like, yeah, was it him trying to burn down a forest?
29:41
SPEAKER_01: No, it wasn't.
29:42
SPEAKER_01: But that might be a make an example of it uh uh chance because again, we talk about the population centers in this state and how there's sort of an entire, maybe two-thirds of the state geographically that are just sort of forgotten by a lot of the lawmakers and the things that go on.
29:59
SPEAKER_01: Maybe that kid was the right one to have made an example out of in the gorge.
30:04
SPEAKER_01: I don't say you got to throw the book at him and throw away the key, but the punishment should fit the crime.
30:09
SPEAKER_01: And the crime was like 80,000 acres of the gorge being burnt.
30:13
SPEAKER_01: There's no coming back for that.
30:14
SPEAKER_01: I drive through it to get home all the time, and it's still trying to come back.
30:19
SPEAKER_01: And it caught on fire last year.
30:21
SPEAKER_01: I drove underneath of a helicopter with a bucket of water in the Columbia Gorge just last summer.
30:27
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, when the big fire broke out in the gorge back during COVID, Ashley and I were one of the last vehicles to drive through before they shut the road down.
30:36
SPEAKER_01: It shut down minutes behind us, Drew.
30:39
SPEAKER_01: And if you've never gone through something like that, imagine driving on what all my friends from the Midwest that have driven it call the most beautiful freeway in the country.
30:50
SPEAKER_01: That is the Columbia Gorge, Interstate 84.
30:54
SPEAKER_01: You're used to seeing these sheer cliffs, this beautiful river, all this old growth timber.
30:59
SPEAKER_01: I have a distinct memory, Drew, of driving through that like I was in that Piers Brosnan movie.
31:04
SPEAKER_01: Uh was it volcano or something like that?
31:06
SPEAKER_01: Dante's Peak.
31:07
SPEAKER_01: Dante's Peak, thank you.
31:09
SPEAKER_01: Everything was on fire around us.
31:11
SPEAKER_01: You could not see more than a mile in front of you, and every place you looked was either ash or still burning.
31:18
SPEAKER_01: It was terrifying.
31:19
SPEAKER_01: We don't want to do that to our state.
31:21
SPEAKER_01: Our state, our region, the Pacific Northwest as a whole.
31:25
SPEAKER_01: Because I include Washington in this too, because in this conversation, Washington's actually had it worse than Oregon has this year.
31:32
SPEAKER_01: And that's worth noting.
31:33
SPEAKER_01: You psychos need to put your goddamn lighters away and go read a book.
31:37
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it is kind of showing the mental health problems that we have, Drew, not just in this region, but across the country.
31:45
SPEAKER_01: And that's a whole different argument and a whole different conversation for another day.
31:49
SPEAKER_01: Um, but it is, I use the word tragic because I do feel like it's tragic.
31:55
SPEAKER_01: And I feel like we're at a critical point at in this tragedy where if we don't do something and do something fast, this keeps happening until we don't have any of this national forest land.
32:07
SPEAKER_01: We don't have any of these uh state parks that you and I both love to go recreate at.
32:12
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if the answer is sustainable forage management.
32:15
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if the answer is a change in the way the Forest Service goes about what they do.
32:19
SPEAKER_01: I know that my dad was a Forest Service kid when he was uh young.
32:23
SPEAKER_01: It was one of his first jobs, and he will tell you he used to go mark timber sales.
32:27
SPEAKER_01: That was his whole job.
32:28
SPEAKER_01: Go out into the woods, find trees that logging companies might want to harvest because of their size and scope, mark them, and then we sell that timber to those logging companies.
32:38
SPEAKER_01: Well, now, do you know what the Forest Service kids are doing?
32:41
SPEAKER_01: They're fighting fire because everything's on fire, because we're not selling that timber as much anymore.
32:47
SPEAKER_01: So I don't have an easy answer.
32:49
SPEAKER_01: I know you're gonna flame me in the comments.
32:51
SPEAKER_01: I'm excited about it.
32:52
SPEAKER_01: I would like to see what the discussion is and what people think because 20 years ago this problem was not the problem that it is today, Drew.
33:01
SPEAKER_01: And uh we've all grown up around it.
33:03
SPEAKER_01: We've all seen it get worse and worse and worse.
33:06
SPEAKER_01: I just don't know what the answer is.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's not just an Oregon problem.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: You're right.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: It's an Oregon and Washington problem.
33:13
SPEAKER_00: It's a Pacific Northwest problem.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: The the gorge is one of the most beautiful things in the entire world.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: I'd say behind New Zealand, there really isn't much that holds a candle to it in its scope and how how just it'll pull the air right out of your lungs.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: And while we drive often down the Oregon side, there is the water divides two things, and that is Oregon and Washington.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: It's theirs as well.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: It's both of ours to protect, and it's just one of many places that's beautiful beyond comparison.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: It's the type of thing where you burn it down, we don't get it back for a hundred years.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: We go camping at a place called Trout Creek outside of Sweet Home, Oregon, where you could not replicate the place.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: You couldn't make it on a Hollywood sound stage because of how intricate all of the trees that have fallen on trees that have built these ecosystems and the moss that it works in a circle of life all the way from the top to the bottom, and then you burn it to the ground, it looks like a subdivision.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: So there is there is no going back.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: It's why I often defend the giant Douglas fir trees in my neighborhood because somebody wants to build some swanky new house.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: As soon as you say goodbye to it, remember that it's gone.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: And neighborhood trees are different than trees in a forest.
34:35
SPEAKER_00: You protect a tree in a forest by thinning that forest so that it isn't a walking box of kindling.
34:43
SPEAKER_00: You allow yourself a little bit more grace, and then maybe if it does burn down, you've at least come away with some of the resources.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: But I'm just gonna go back to the fact that if you want something to talk about in Salem, let's talk about the punishment for arson on a national forest or on a state park or anything that is going to affect the overall green space of our beautiful states, Washington and Oregon.
35:11
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
35:12
SPEAKER_01: And also when you're making or when you're drawing up that legislation, keep little towns in mind, like Blue River, Oregon, that was completely flattened by the holiday farm fire.
35:22
SPEAKER_01: Keep Detroit, Oregon, in your mind, completely flattened by a forest fire.
35:27
SPEAKER_01: These are communities.
35:28
SPEAKER_01: They're not only places that you want to go visit because of their beauty, they are places where people live, make homes, and they lost everything due to one of these fires, actually, a couple of them.
35:40
SPEAKER_01: And uh, there's little towns like that dotted all the way across both Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.
35:46
SPEAKER_01: And they're what's in jeopardy when the rural areas start to burn down.
35:50
SPEAKER_01: So can't wait to read the comments after this one, Drew.
35:53
SPEAKER_01: We've really been on a roll lately.
35:55
SPEAKER_00: Hey, do what you gotta do.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: So I really apologize to uh anyone who is mad at us for protecting farmers, hunters, fishermen, and our beautiful forests.
36:07
SPEAKER_00: So enjoy the comments.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: We'll read some of them maybe next week.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: Every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: Anything that affects the Pacific Northwest, we're here, whether that's the outdoors sports or just finding a good place to grab some fish and chips.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: We'll be here for you.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: It's the PNW Podcast.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: Have a great weekend, Marcus.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: You too.