Latest / The MeatEater Podcast / Ep. 666: MeatEater Radio Live! All Hands for Public Lands!

Transcript

Ep. 666: MeatEater Radio Live! All Hands for Public Lands! · The MeatEater Podcast

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Smell us now, lady, welcome to Meat Eater Trivia Podcast. Oh,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: welcome to Meet Eater Radio Live. It's eleven am, Montana time,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: and you're back in the Meat Eater studio. Joining me.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, by the way, Joining me today, Brody Anderson,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: hold Seth, Morris Aldi, lots of energy, Keep it up, guys,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Corey Calkins and Phil is running this whole gig as
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: you are ready. No, Today, we have a very special
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Meat Eater Radio Live where we're focusing on a near
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: and dear to all of our hearts, which is public lands.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about state lands and federal lands and
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: get a general idea of what the heck is going
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: on out there in this crazy world. We are going
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: to check in with an EXBLM a recently XBLM the
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Body Still Warm Folks, BLM rangeland ecologist to talk about layoffs.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Then we're gonna talk with our buddy David Wilms, who
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: is our go to legal source for all things public lands.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Then we're gonna have some fun with a hot tip off,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: and finally we're gonna wrap up with another guest who
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: is the CEO of Floating Island International International Bruce Kanya,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: who is going to talk us about talk to us
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: about methane, specifically in regards to the ice house explosion
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: that we covered on the Meat Eater dot com. First,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: before we get into all of this, uh, I guess
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: we're gonna call this like cal unleashed. I just want
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: to like set the stage on on what we're tackling.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: I actually made a drop for this, if that's true. Yeah,
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you're gonna like it or not, but.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, perfect?
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Whoa what was that at the end? That was system
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: of a down. That's that's kind of kind of a
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: deep cut. The ones hit me up.
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: I was sitting in my office and heard film making this,
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: and I was just like, you know what, just just Fill.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: Doing his thing in there. I'm not gonna be worried.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: I gave Chili a warning, but not Seth. I probably
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: should have given the whole office of warning.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: So, you know, the Mountain Tough Fitness guys used to
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: be like my next door neighbor where I lived before
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: they moved into their their new facility. And I'm gonna
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: early riser right, And I had to tell those guys
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, if you guys didn't play that
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: type of music, I'd probably come over and work out right.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: I'm like, hey, you do like BBC News or something
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, So we've been listening to a lot
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: of a lot of feedback and tip of the hat
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: here there are people who read the comments on the
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: YouTube channel and read it and all the other places
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: including email that you send in. So we recently did
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: a it's a State of the Union type of podcast
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: that we always do with TRCP. We have a new
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: president's CEO at TRCP, Joel Peterson, who's a fine human.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: And the timing the news cycle right now is very
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: very fast paced, so anytime you put something out, you
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: risk it being dated by the time it actually really right.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: The gap between the recording time and the release time,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: a lot of things can happen. And we were in
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: a spot where we were i'd say we were like
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: kind of speculating on if there would be any more
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: federal layoffs at the time of recording, and by the
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: time that recording came out, there had been a lot
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: of federal layoffs. So we want to tackle that head
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: on today and I'll just tell you right now, Public lands,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: access to public lands, access to public wildlife. Those are
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: absolutely core to meat eater, to everybody who works here,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: and they just shouldn't be screwed with man. And we're
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: gonna get into this deeper with our first guest, but
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: there's no slippage in those values here. And we cared
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: deeply about the stewards of the land who often sacrifice
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: at low pay and very little thanks to go out
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: there and clear trails and clean up you know, government houses,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: those nice square government houses with the little pebble walls,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: they do a lot more than that. And the drop toilets, yes,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: a lot more than that. So hopefully we'll get into
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: more of that, I would say, and fellows please chime
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: in here that I don't think it's unfair to say
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: that there's like a general attack on public lands right now,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: and it is widespread. Well, it's coming from both the
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: state side of things and the federal side of things.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: And the only kind of disclaimer I would put in
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: there is, like public lands as we know them so
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: right now, with the layoffs that just recently went through,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: like the group of people that those layoffs affected in
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Bureau of Land Management, US Forest Service land that we
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: use heavily here in Montana and throughout the West. Those
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: are the folks that are are doing the trail maintenance
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: and the general cleanup that you see like covered in
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: the news, Like the it ticks me off that, Like
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: the scariest thing that some of these news outlets can
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: come up with is like, so don't be surprised if
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: there's trash at your campground when you show up.
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean there's also habitat work going on, research
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: going on, Like it trickles down to every facet of
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: hunting and fishing, right, like everything, and other forms of
• 6:38
  Speaker 5: outdoor recreation that are important too. I mean, look like camping, rafting,
• 6:44
  Speaker 5: what whatever like there right affects everyone.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Like you're off road vehicle, the stamp that you
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: get like that goes directly to trails and campground maintenance.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah right, it's it's probably be a little beefed if
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: you're an ATV or single track writer and those trails
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: aren't maintained and your campgrounds are don't have to worry
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: about trash blowing around because you're not gonna be able
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: to get into one. Period. So without further ado, I
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: think and like we want to get into how you
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: can wade into this this situation here. Certainly at the
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: state level, you have every right and ability to contact
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: all of your lawmakers, from the governor to your state representatives,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: to your congressional representatives. And if you're concerned about this stuff,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: you absolutely should be writing in right. Like in the West,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you that small town economies are greatly impacted
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: by USDA for a Service Bureau of Wreck BLM employees.
• 7:59
  Speaker 5: That shouldn't be about the West, though, no, you know,
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: because back east there are millions of people that live
• 8:06
  Speaker 5: within spitting distance of national forest, national parks, you know,
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: all kinds of federally managed land. So it's it's not
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: just a Western issue.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you can absolutely agree, like we're based
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: on having your cake and eat it too. Here in America, Okay,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: you can agree on some things our elected officials are
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: doing and be diametrically opposed to other things that they
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: are doing. And that is absolutely okay. In fact, it's
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: completely normal. So when you call your elected representatives, when
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: you hold their feet to the fire, you can say, hey,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: I love what you're doing over here, keep it up. However,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: what you're doing over here has giant negative impacts that
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: you don't even understand, and you need to stop or
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: you need to change the pace at which you're pushing
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: this stuff.
• 8:59
  Speaker 5: So, yeah, how'd your day go yesterday?
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Cal Oh, that's a good question. Yeah. So we did
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: a rally for public lands at the Montana State Capital, Helena, Montana.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: I always like to point out when I go up there,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: that behind Capitol Hill in Helena is a chunk of
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: BLM and my grandpa, he grew grew up there at
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: the base of that BLM chunk, and that was his
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: last trap line. Nice was on that chunk of BLM
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: up above the capitol. Big crowd there, Yeah, it was
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: allowed crowd, you know. Unfortunately we didn't see a whole
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: lot of lawmakers in the room, but I guarantee you
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: they could hear us. So we had some really killer
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: speakers and just a really good show of support for
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: our public lands here in Montana, both state and federally managed.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: So that was really cool. And Gang, I gotta tell you,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: like showing up physically and being in these places when
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: there's a call is really really important. I mean, it
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: makes a big impact. It's a very hard thing to ignore.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: I told the crowd yesterday that if I was a
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: anti public lands representative, I'd be scared shitless of being
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: in that room. Like, I mean, you're talking about some
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: dedicated people and you look in their eyes and you
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: just know this stuff's important and you shouldn't mess with it.
• 10:30
  Speaker 6: Yep.
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Hard to replace that. So are you guys ready to
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: get to our first interview here?
• 10:39
  Speaker 7: Sure?
• 10:39
  Speaker 6: All right?
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: So Ryan Schroeder is a fella that I've met a
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: handful of times over the years and real interesting story.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: But he caught old doctor Randa Williams attention the other
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: day because he posted on on Instagram about being laid off,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: and I think it's a story worth hearing. So we'd
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: like to get Ryan. Well, there he is, there, I am.
• 11:08
  Speaker 8: Can you see me, guys?
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we got you.
• 11:11
  Speaker 8: Awesome. Good to see you, guys. Thanks for thanks for
• 11:13
  Speaker 8: having me on. I really appreciate the time and and
• 11:16
  Speaker 8: your willingness to talk about this, so thank you.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Where are you at?
• 11:20
  Speaker 8: I am in Mancus, Colorado, So just between Cortes and
• 11:24
  Speaker 8: Durango right now, Yeah, far southwest Colorado. Earn round. I
• 11:30
  Speaker 8: think hunting units seventy two, seventy one and seventy one
• 11:33
  Speaker 8: to one. So for those of Colorado folks, I know
• 11:36
  Speaker 8: you brody, so I'll do my best just a time
• 11:41
  Speaker 8: or two. Yeah, so, yeah, thank you guys for having
• 11:43
  Speaker 8: me on.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: What's the population of Mancus, Colorado?
• 11:47
  Speaker 8: Oh gosh? Are we including cattle in that population too?
• 11:51
  Speaker 8: Or and meal deer? Oh gosh? I think Mancas is
• 11:54
  Speaker 8: right about eighteen hundred folks. Last I checked. One. Yeah,
• 11:57
  Speaker 8: I just moved well plus two now I just moved
• 12:00
  Speaker 8: here back in December from from Missoula. Actually, so saw
• 12:03
  Speaker 8: you guys have me? Did your live when you came
• 12:05
  Speaker 8: last year?
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 12:06
  Speaker 6: Thank you?
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Uh so, let's just get down to it. What what
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: made you go down the path of being a parasite
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: on the government payroll?
• 12:17
  Speaker 6: Geez?
• 12:18
  Speaker 8: Yeah, Well to correct first, I see in the news.
• 12:22
  Speaker 8: Yeah I supposedly. Yeah, so I was. I don't know
• 12:26
  Speaker 8: the right tensing to use, uh because I was fired.
• 12:29
  Speaker 8: I've never been fired before, but was fired on Tuesday.
• 12:34
  Speaker 8: But I was a arrangeling management specialist, not arrangelment to collegists.
• 12:37
  Speaker 8: Those are two different job series titles uh for the
• 12:40
  Speaker 8: Bureau of Land Management uh here based out of the
• 12:43
  Speaker 8: Trace Rios Field office uh here in Dolores, Colorado.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: That's three rivers south.
• 12:51
  Speaker 8: I got, yeah, I guess see, but yeah, so uh yeah,
• 12:57
  Speaker 8: Arrangeling Management specialist out of the Trace Rios Field Office,
• 13:00
  Speaker 8: but also had duties with the Canyon of the Ancient
• 13:03
  Speaker 8: National Monument. So that's just north of Cortes, Colorado. And
• 13:08
  Speaker 8: so yeah, gosh, we're to start why I got interested
• 13:12
  Speaker 8: in wanting to work for the federal government and the
• 13:14
  Speaker 8: Bureau of Land Management in particular. You know, I always
• 13:18
  Speaker 8: wanted to serve my country. When I was in high school.
• 13:21
  Speaker 8: I wanted to end up wanting to be in the
• 13:23
  Speaker 8: Marine Corps or the army, but I ended up being
• 13:27
  Speaker 8: medically denied when I was getting out of high school
• 13:30
  Speaker 8: and wanted to go down that path, but still like
• 13:35
  Speaker 8: was interested in agriculture, habitat, hunting, fishing, et cetera. And
• 13:39
  Speaker 8: so went to school at Purdue University, did kind of
• 13:42
  Speaker 8: a generic natural resource environmental sciences degree, but got specialized
• 13:47
  Speaker 8: in soils and vegetation things like that, and I got
• 13:53
  Speaker 8: introduced to hunting out So I grew up in Indiana,
• 13:56
  Speaker 8: so you know, corn, soybeans, agriculture, thickets with trees with
• 14:01
  Speaker 8: good white tail populations, and frog ponds for fishing. But
• 14:06
  Speaker 8: I had a friend of my dad's friend had a
• 14:08
  Speaker 8: group on a ranch out by Reid Point, Montana, and
• 14:10
  Speaker 8: took me out there hunting when I was like eight
• 14:12
  Speaker 8: ten years I think ten years old and killed my
• 14:15
  Speaker 8: first year out there, and I was like, oh, I
• 14:17
  Speaker 8: can see further than like around the next cornfield and stuff.
• 14:20
  Speaker 8: So that always was trickling in the back of my mind.
• 14:23
  Speaker 8: And in high school went out hunting around Laramie and Wheatland,
• 14:26
  Speaker 8: Wyoming a lot for pronghorn. That's twenty thirteen pron corn
• 14:31
  Speaker 8: up there behind me out of Wheatland area, and yeah,
• 14:37
  Speaker 8: I was just like, wait, people manage this stuff? Like
• 14:40
  Speaker 8: I don't know, like do people do anything with this
• 14:42
  Speaker 8: or can Like it's not like roe crop bag. I
• 14:45
  Speaker 8: don't know, what do you do other than ranchet and
• 14:46
  Speaker 8: how does that work? So doing work at Purdue University,
• 14:52
  Speaker 8: got introduced with a couple of land trusts with habitat
• 14:54
  Speaker 8: work on restoring prairies and oak savannahs. Then got a
• 15:00
  Speaker 8: chance to work for the US four Service and the
• 15:02
  Speaker 8: Bighorn National Forest out of Buffalo, Wyoming as a range
• 15:06
  Speaker 8: tech as a seasonal position twenty sixteen twenty seventeen. I
• 15:09
  Speaker 8: thought it was chaos in twenty sixteen or twenty seventeen
• 15:13
  Speaker 8: getting back to work with them, but that got me
• 15:17
  Speaker 8: just so induced, like this is range. Range is at
• 15:20
  Speaker 8: the top of the stove. Range is habitat work, is
• 15:25
  Speaker 8: livestock is wildlife? Is this nexus of agriculture, conservation and
• 15:29
  Speaker 8: wildlife issues figuring out how to plants and soils and
• 15:33
  Speaker 8: water and animals interact on the landscape. How can we
• 15:37
  Speaker 8: manage it to achieve the objectives that we want out
• 15:42
  Speaker 8: on the ground and do good habitat work to be
• 15:44
  Speaker 8: able to have all these different things out on the
• 15:46
  Speaker 8: ground and do all these different you know, recreation, hunting, fishing, hiking,
• 15:52
  Speaker 8: and also other extractive uses like livestock raising is an
• 15:55
  Speaker 8: extractive use. You've got mining, oil and gas exploration, et cetera.
• 16:01
  Speaker 8: And so I ended up doing my masters at Colorado
• 16:04
  Speaker 8: State University doing work funded by the Bureau of Land
• 16:07
  Speaker 8: Management and the US four Service in western Colorado up
• 16:10
  Speaker 8: by Grand Junction and a couple of the National conservation
• 16:13
  Speaker 8: areas over there, as well as up north of Hayden, Colorado,
• 16:18
  Speaker 8: northwest of Steamboat Springs, in a beautiful area that I'm
• 16:21
  Speaker 8: not going to say the name of it.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: Don't say it.
• 16:24
  Speaker 8: You know what, you know what I'm talking about. Teddy
• 16:26
  Speaker 8: Roosevelt was there. But yeah, so working in beautiful landscapes
• 16:33
  Speaker 8: with amazing people who cared about stewardship of our public resources. Because,
• 16:37
  Speaker 8: like I said, I grewup Indiana, I was surrounded by
• 16:39
  Speaker 8: private land and got exposed to, you know, all the
• 16:43
  Speaker 8: lands that were lands and resources that we all own
• 16:46
  Speaker 8: as Americans. And just like, oh man, these people do
• 16:49
  Speaker 8: cool work and are doing good, important work to steward
• 16:53
  Speaker 8: our lands. And so did my masters at Colorado State.
• 16:58
  Speaker 8: Then want got funding from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation
• 17:02
  Speaker 8: Service to do a PhD. Started it down in New
• 17:05
  Speaker 8: Mexico State University in twenty twenty, working on the Hornaut
• 17:10
  Speaker 8: Experimental Range down there, as well as working with the
• 17:14
  Speaker 8: NRCS to develop a tool on the web soil survey.
• 17:19
  Speaker 8: It's a soil interpretation to help us better restore rangelands
• 17:22
  Speaker 8: through active seating and rangeland seating activities. And so been
• 17:28
  Speaker 8: in academia. I've been in school for eleven years and
• 17:32
  Speaker 8: working with agencies to get out and do work on
• 17:34
  Speaker 8: the grounds. Like I don't want to be an academy.
• 17:36
  Speaker 8: I don't want to be on my computer as much
• 17:37
  Speaker 8: as I have in the past so many years, and
• 17:40
  Speaker 8: my interactions with our public land stewards and the private
• 17:44
  Speaker 8: people that we work with or that public lands stewards
• 17:47
  Speaker 8: work with, just maybe want to get in to do
• 17:50
  Speaker 8: that hands on on the ground work, not being here
• 17:53
  Speaker 8: as like, oh, I'm here the government to tell you
• 17:54
  Speaker 8: what to do. I am here to help you solve problems,
• 17:57
  Speaker 8: help us steward our nation natural heritage for current generations
• 18:04
  Speaker 8: and for the future from this multiple multiple use mission
• 18:08
  Speaker 8: that the different agencies have from Federal Lands Policy Management
• 18:12
  Speaker 8: Act FLIPMA. And yes, that's having those skills, that knowledge
• 18:20
  Speaker 8: in rangelantcology, soils, vegetation, et cetera.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: And when you talk about range land right like that
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: that term is particular to grazing allotments. It's not like
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: range land for dr and L you're out there exactly. Yeah,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: like that NRCS funded Receding project that's to put more
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: grass on the ground for cattle, for private enterprise for that.
• 18:49
  Speaker 8: But also just for keeping our lands and soils healthy,
• 18:52
  Speaker 8: for keeping our soils where they're supposed to be and
• 18:54
  Speaker 8: managing for the watershed resource managing for all these different
• 18:58
  Speaker 8: resource ranges such an inner dispinary program and that yeah,
• 19:01
  Speaker 8: our mission or our project area program, area and range
• 19:06
  Speaker 8: has been for first and foremost because of the Tailor
• 19:09
  Speaker 8: Grazing Act that was passing nineteen thirty four to help
• 19:12
  Speaker 8: solve some of the issues that had happened from the
• 19:15
  Speaker 8: eighteen hundreds and westward expansion and the overgrazing of just
• 19:20
  Speaker 8: open range. We now have grays back in thirty four
• 19:24
  Speaker 8: nineteen thirty four, soon enough to be twenty thirty four, geez,
• 19:29
  Speaker 8: but to at least permit and authorize and have terms
• 19:32
  Speaker 8: and conditions set out for private citizens to through a
• 19:39
  Speaker 8: reg regulated way, graze domestic livestock, whether that be cattle
• 19:44
  Speaker 8: or sheep. Primarily in my field off in the field
• 19:47
  Speaker 8: office I've been working with, was primarily cattle. Was primarily cattle.
• 19:52
  Speaker 8: Was to get produce food and fiber for the American
• 19:56
  Speaker 8: people on our public rangelands. But do it in a responsible,
• 20:00
  Speaker 8: a balanced way to do to look at other resources
• 20:04
  Speaker 8: and make sure that we minimize conflict, mitigate and minimize
• 20:10
  Speaker 8: negative environmental impact of this of this of this primary
• 20:15
  Speaker 8: use that's you guys have talked about before within multiple
• 20:18
  Speaker 8: use missions of grazing as as one of those primary
• 20:22
  Speaker 8: tenants of a authorized use or a use on public lands.
• 20:28
  Speaker 8: But it's so much more than just grazing and keeping
• 20:31
  Speaker 8: grass on for cattle. It's for soil health, it's for
• 20:34
  Speaker 8: wildlife habitat. I mean we we are here to advocate
• 20:39
  Speaker 8: or we were. I don't know what the tends to
• 20:41
  Speaker 8: use because I was fired so recently terminated, and if
• 20:44
  Speaker 8: not laid off, I was a termination is how it
• 20:47
  Speaker 8: is written in my termination letter. And can you I'm
• 20:51
  Speaker 8: sorry rying to interrupt you there, but you know we're
• 20:53
  Speaker 8: hearing the terms terminated.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Layoff, furloughed. What's the difference between terminated and.
• 20:59
  Speaker 8: Furlough So furloughed is so, say, March fourteenth, Pie day,
• 21:04
  Speaker 8: we've got coming up, the continuing resolution that we're currently
• 21:08
  Speaker 8: acting under ends And so say if I was still
• 21:12
  Speaker 8: if I were to be furloughed, I would still be
• 21:15
  Speaker 8: on paper an employee of the Bureau of Land Management.
• 21:18
  Speaker 8: And anybody who working for the FAIL government who is
• 21:22
  Speaker 8: not a essential employee as designated as such, would be
• 21:29
  Speaker 8: not able to work, not permitted to work. Can't touch
• 21:32
  Speaker 8: a dang thing. Your government phone, your email account, et cetera.
• 21:37
  Speaker 8: But then once funding would be restored, they would be
• 21:41
  Speaker 8: paid for you know what they did for. They would
• 21:45
  Speaker 8: be paid and still stay on with the agency that
• 21:48
  Speaker 8: they're working for. I, as of Tuesday, February the eighteenth,
• 21:53
  Speaker 8: was terminated after less than sixty days of being with
• 21:57
  Speaker 8: the Bureau of Land Management here in Colorado. I by
• 22:01
  Speaker 8: the end of the day on Tuesday, like two hours
• 22:04
  Speaker 8: after I got the notice from my supervisor, I lost
• 22:08
  Speaker 8: access to a work email, I lost access to my
• 22:12
  Speaker 8: work phone. I had to turn all of my badges
• 22:15
  Speaker 8: and everything back in. I was the letter was actually
• 22:18
  Speaker 8: dated for February the fourteenth, everything out, like everybody, like
• 22:23
  Speaker 8: a lot of the other people who were terminated in
• 22:26
  Speaker 8: this way. So and I was terminated because I was
• 22:29
  Speaker 8: a probationary employee. I had less than a year in service.
• 22:33
  Speaker 8: I had started with it started on December thirtieth, twenty
• 22:40
  Speaker 8: twenty four, and after finishing.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sorry, I mean, you're you're a highly educated, dude,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: motivated guide going you know, learning a lot. You got
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: a lot of credentials behind you. I mean, far more
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: than I ever will if I'm being frank, But they're just.
• 22:55
  Speaker 8: They're just they're just letters and it's just experienced. So
• 22:58
  Speaker 8: it's a school of hard knocks and whatever.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: So I mean, you're you're going to find another gig,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: another job.
• 23:04
  Speaker 8: I hope.
• 23:05
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 23:06
  Speaker 8: I want to be reinstated. I want to get like
• 23:08
  Speaker 8: I'm trying to appeal this to get reinstated because the
• 23:11
  Speaker 8: reason that they used in my termination letter is like
• 23:17
  Speaker 8: apparently my skills and qualifications do not meet the needs
• 23:21
  Speaker 8: of the department. Is what it is, how it is
• 23:22
  Speaker 8: stated in my termination letter.
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: What Ryan can I like, I don't know if you
• 23:29
  Speaker 5: can speculate or not, but what would what do you
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: see like high level? Like easy to explain the impact
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: of not having range managers on the land.
• 23:42
  Speaker 8: So yeah, gosh, that's a big question, high level. So
• 23:48
  Speaker 8: our primary focus in the range group is to use
• 23:52
  Speaker 8: science and the law to administer grazing permits on public lands,
• 23:56
  Speaker 8: so working with private citizens, like I said, and private
• 23:59
  Speaker 8: ranches to raise livestock on public rangelands. And there's a
• 24:03
  Speaker 8: whole set of terms and conditions and a whole process
• 24:07
  Speaker 8: administrative process that that goes through to make sure that
• 24:10
  Speaker 8: we go through the NEPA process, the National Environmental Policy Act,
• 24:13
  Speaker 8: for it is a proposed action on public lands and
• 24:16
  Speaker 8: could have environmental impacts. So we bring in wildlife managers,
• 24:21
  Speaker 8: recreation folks, hydrology, et cetera. Whenever we go through and
• 24:25
  Speaker 8: we renew fully process a grazing permit. And that's so
• 24:30
  Speaker 8: to be able to adapt to whatever the conditions are
• 24:32
  Speaker 8: out on the ground. These permits renew are supposed to
• 24:36
  Speaker 8: be renewed every ten years or whenever a permittees basely expires.
• 24:41
  Speaker 8: And so where there's also an opportunity an option based
• 24:45
  Speaker 8: upon I think a law passed in the nineties that
• 24:49
  Speaker 8: we are legally we where the BLM is sorry, BLM
• 24:55
  Speaker 8: is legally obligated to authorize or to an issue grazing permits,
• 24:59
  Speaker 8: and so there's is a way to just renew the
• 25:01
  Speaker 8: prop renew the renew the permit without changing anything, which
• 25:05
  Speaker 8: is all well and good. But what if that land's
• 25:07
  Speaker 8: not meeting land health standards.
• 25:09
  Speaker 5: That's kind of what I was getting at, Like, is
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: there a situation in which this would result in not
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: only degraded yes, raising conditions for cattle, but also degraded
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: wildlife habitat re mule, deer, an elk and sage grouse
• 25:24
  Speaker 5: and b like on and on and on.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 25:27
  Speaker 8: So like for example, we were bit, I'm sorry, I'm
• 25:29
  Speaker 8: getting fired up here. I'll calm down. I wonder why
• 25:33
  Speaker 8: I'm fired up? So we in my office, so was
• 25:36
  Speaker 8: myself and another new range management specialist who he had
• 25:40
  Speaker 8: just started in October but had come over after two
• 25:44
  Speaker 8: years within being a range management specialist in Nevada, and
• 25:48
  Speaker 8: we were working up addition to our permanent range technician
• 25:52
  Speaker 8: prioritization plans to go do land health assessments and figure
• 25:56
  Speaker 8: out and develop a prioritization strategy for the grazing permits
• 26:00
  Speaker 8: that are expiring this year, to renew them and fully
• 26:04
  Speaker 8: process as many of them as we could, but also
• 26:06
  Speaker 8: do that, you know, no change in termining conditions where
• 26:09
  Speaker 8: it made sense. We have a two because the person
• 26:13
  Speaker 8: who I fill it or was hired for, retired a
• 26:18
  Speaker 8: year or two ago. It took the office at least
• 26:21
  Speaker 8: a year and a half to fill my position. And
• 26:24
  Speaker 8: there's a year, there's two years worth of backlogs of
• 26:28
  Speaker 8: land health assessments and grazing permit renewals that we were
• 26:33
  Speaker 8: getting geared up to do this year. It was going
• 26:36
  Speaker 8: to be forty thirty more days or more days in
• 26:39
  Speaker 8: the field, bringing out also our wildlife folks, our hydrology people,
• 26:43
  Speaker 8: et cetera, in our this interdisciplinary team that we have
• 26:47
  Speaker 8: to have out in the field to look at land health.
• 26:49
  Speaker 8: Is grazing a cause of if land health standards are
• 26:53
  Speaker 8: not being met if not great? If so, how can
• 26:56
  Speaker 8: that change be mitigated? And go through that that need
• 27:00
  Speaker 8: the National Environmental Policy Act process. It is down to
• 27:03
  Speaker 8: one person, one one range and management specialist and one
• 27:08
  Speaker 8: range technician to try to fill that bat that two
• 27:14
  Speaker 8: years worth of backlog. I mean it with three of us.
• 27:16
  Speaker 8: It was going to be a daunting task with two
• 27:19
  Speaker 8: of them. And I don't like they are the next
• 27:21
  Speaker 8: ones on the chopping block because we hear that this
• 27:24
  Speaker 8: is not the end of what is to come well and.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Like to point out like the other side of this
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: is is the quote unquote consumer right, Like folks want
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: those grazing leases badly because they're the cheapest grazing lease
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: you can possibly get. Right, it's like a dollar to
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: thirty five per au m.
• 27:44
  Speaker 8: It's the one thing that has not changed with inflation
• 27:46
  Speaker 8: and has not changed since nineteen ninety six. About as
• 27:48
  Speaker 8: old as I am, I'll be uh I was born
• 27:51
  Speaker 8: ninety five.
• 27:51
  Speaker 5: So there's a lot of people in this country getting
• 27:53
  Speaker 5: their steaks from that land, so to speak, you know
• 27:56
  Speaker 5: what I mean, Yeah.
• 27:58
  Speaker 8: Yes, sir, and not just beef burgers, but venison, elk, everything.
• 28:05
  Speaker 8: And so we were working up. We had new direction
• 28:07
  Speaker 8: as of October to start prioritizing grazing permit renewals, fully
• 28:11
  Speaker 8: processed renewals, and gunnis and sage grouse habitat because here
• 28:16
  Speaker 8: over in Canyon of the Ancient National Monument and up
• 28:19
  Speaker 8: north at Disappointment Valley Naturita Area, there's a lot of
• 28:25
  Speaker 8: there's gunnis and sage grouse habitat and grazing permits in
• 28:29
  Speaker 8: those areas that we were given direction from from the
• 28:33
  Speaker 8: last minute, or we were given direction from to begin
• 28:36
  Speaker 8: prioritizing catching up with land health assessments, grazing permit renewals
• 28:41
  Speaker 8: to be able to adaptively manage grazing permits. Helped work
• 28:47
  Speaker 8: with the private permittees to adaptively manage to make sure
• 28:50
  Speaker 8: that those species are not further imperiled by what's happening
• 28:54
  Speaker 8: out on the ground.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: And so it's interesting, I mean, every program that you've
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: mentioned has been at minimum put on funding freeze and
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: RCS is you know that really if you looked at
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: at NRCS it it wouldn't be disingenuous to call it
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: the largest conservation program in the world, not just the
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: United States or North America, but like the world. And
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: that's something that that helps out people on the private
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: side of the fence tremendously, just like we talked about
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: grazers right here. So we got to get going just
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: out of curiosity. And if you're not willing to share this,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: it's a little bit like looking at you with your
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: pants down. But what what were you getting paid as
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: a new rangeland specialist?
• 29:45
  Speaker 8: Yeah, so I was brought in as a GS eleven
• 29:48
  Speaker 8: step one, brand new federal employee. I was making about
• 29:53
  Speaker 8: seventy three thousand. If I would have seventy three thousand
• 29:56
  Speaker 8: dollars annually would have been my salary.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, so, and and what what's next next for you?
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: Rabid season?
• 30:08
  Speaker 8: It's wrap rabbit season. Here's wrapping up.
• 30:11
  Speaker 6: You know.
• 30:11
  Speaker 8: I've been trying to figure out when to get use
• 30:13
  Speaker 8: some of the little leave that I had accrued over
• 30:17
  Speaker 8: my short less than sixty days to figure out when
• 30:20
  Speaker 8: to go down to hunt my Havelina tag down in
• 30:22
  Speaker 8: southern New Mexico. I think I might be able to
• 30:25
  Speaker 8: do a little bit more planning to go down and
• 30:26
  Speaker 8: hunt that tag after that. I just I want to
• 30:31
  Speaker 8: get reinstated. I want to appeal this. I don't think
• 30:35
  Speaker 8: this is right. I'm worried about the mission of I mean,
• 30:39
  Speaker 8: if I get, if I get, if I don't get rehired,
• 30:41
  Speaker 8: so be it.
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: Keep fighting, man, I worry you guys.
• 30:47
  Speaker 8: Keep fighting to hold the line. This is it, we
• 30:51
  Speaker 8: need it, This is important, and this is not the
• 30:55
  Speaker 8: end of it. And things need to People need to
• 30:59
  Speaker 8: know what is happening out on the ground. It's not
• 31:01
  Speaker 8: just trash, it's not just whatever.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 31:04
  Speaker 8: Our habitat, our public resource, our natural heritage at risk
• 31:10
  Speaker 8: for a mission that is supposedly changing that is not
• 31:12
  Speaker 8: due to the public's will, at least not being played
• 31:16
  Speaker 8: out in a public process right now. And I worry
• 31:20
  Speaker 8: about what has to come next for my for my
• 31:24
  Speaker 8: co workers, if they're going to if more people are
• 31:26
  Speaker 8: going to get laid off like they're already on a
• 31:28
  Speaker 8: skeleton crew. What's going to happen if more people get
• 31:33
  Speaker 8: get terminated, or people lose faith in the agency. And
• 31:37
  Speaker 8: and go what does that mean for the next That's
• 31:41
  Speaker 8: what worries me. I I'll be okay, I think I
• 31:46
  Speaker 8: don't know what this sets up for the future of
• 31:49
  Speaker 8: our public resources and our natural and national heritage in
• 31:55
  Speaker 8: our stewardship of these lands.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: It's hard to hear man. I think. I appreciate you
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: coming on. I appreciate you guys asking tremendously, and we'll
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: keep sending you good thoughts and hope you do get reinstated.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: You know, it's a good example of what's going on
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: right now. Things are moving really fast. Uh And and
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: I think at the end of the day, people just
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: need to understand that no matter how you voted, the
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: vote's over right. What matters is what you do from
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: now forward every single day. And it's absolutely absolutely okay
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: and within your power to say, hey, this particular thing
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: I do not agree with. Right, So thanks a bunch, Ryan,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: and keep me posting. Hopefully we'll have you back on
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: with some good news at some point.
• 32:48
  Speaker 7: Well.
• 32:48
  Speaker 8: See, like I said, I'm speaking into personal capacity right now.
• 32:53
  Speaker 6: Once.
• 32:53
  Speaker 8: If I were to get brought back on, I have
• 32:55
  Speaker 8: to run it by my soup. Yeah, shit, you guys
• 33:00
  Speaker 8: have me on Brodie Seth. Good meeting you, guys.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: Philby, thank you.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: You know, I hate asking a fellow how much he makes,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: but when you're in a town of eighteen hundred people,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: that's a that's a significant salary to remove out of
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: that economy.
• 33:17
  Speaker 5: Sure, yeah, and I mean there's more to it than that,
• 33:21
  Speaker 5: even you know.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Oh absolutely.
• 33:27
  Speaker 6: So.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Running a little bit behind schedule, but we're gonna get
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: to the hard facts of the law with David Wilms,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: who's our very next guest. He forgot his hair jail today.
• 33:41
  Speaker 7: I did, No, it's I've got lots of it in Yeah,
• 33:46
  Speaker 7: I'm just glad.
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: I'm just glad I have hair.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: So David, if it's all right with you, I'd love
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: to just get an update on what the heck's going
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: on with the Utah lawsuit and then go from there
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: and just kind of talk about where this land transfer
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: sell off movement is. I can give you some feedback
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: on the Montana side of things, but I know Wyoming,
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: where you are a resident, has some stuff in motion,
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: and I think starting with Utah would be a great,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: great place.
• 34:22
  Speaker 7: Sure, I'm happy to do that, and thanks for having
• 34:24
  Speaker 7: me on. I appreciate it so last time I was
• 34:28
  Speaker 7: with you guys, the Utah lawsuit was still active, right,
• 34:32
  Speaker 7: meaning they had this case before the United States Supreme Court.
• 34:35
  Speaker 7: They were asking for the Supreme Court to accept jurisdiction
• 34:38
  Speaker 7: of the case, and we were talking, we were speculating
• 34:42
  Speaker 7: what might happen. Well, in January, the United States Supreme Court,
• 34:47
  Speaker 7: in a twelve word order, declined to accept jurisdiction of
• 34:52
  Speaker 7: the case, which all that really means is they said,
• 34:54
  Speaker 7: it doesn't warrant us taking on what's called original jurisdiction.
• 34:57
  Speaker 7: It doesn't warrant us taking the case. Yet they didn't
• 35:02
  Speaker 7: say that there was no case there. They didn't say
• 35:06
  Speaker 7: that they might not hear it again in the future.
• 35:09
  Speaker 7: They just said, in twelve words, not now.
• 35:14
  Speaker 6: Case.
• 35:15
  Speaker 7: We declined to exercise jurisdiction. So because of that, that
• 35:19
  Speaker 7: case goes away. But the way I've described this to
• 35:22
  Speaker 7: people to use a bit of a football analogy, which
• 35:25
  Speaker 7: might be a little late now that we've passed the
• 35:27
  Speaker 7: Super Bowl, but I think it works, was that Utah
• 35:31
  Speaker 7: threw their Hail Mary on the first play of the game, right,
• 35:35
  Speaker 7: instead of the last play of the game, meaning they
• 35:39
  Speaker 7: took a run at the Supreme Court knowing very well
• 35:41
  Speaker 7: that the likelihood of the court accepting the case was
• 35:43
  Speaker 7: exceptionally low. And all that means now is if they
• 35:47
  Speaker 7: want this lawsuit to proceed to go forward, they're going
• 35:51
  Speaker 7: to have to file it and go through the normal
• 35:53
  Speaker 7: course and procedure, which means filing it in federal district court,
• 35:56
  Speaker 7: which is what we really expect will probably happen in
• 36:00
  Speaker 7: the coming months, weeks, months, don't know how long it'll take,
• 36:04
  Speaker 7: but would fully expect that that at some point we'll
• 36:07
  Speaker 7: see a new lawsuit filed in federal district court and
• 36:11
  Speaker 7: then we're just operating under the playbook.
• 36:14
  Speaker 6: Now.
• 36:14
  Speaker 7: Now the game's happening, Like to use that football analogy, right,
• 36:17
  Speaker 7: we had the we had the hail Mary, it dropped
• 36:20
  Speaker 7: in complete in the end zone, and now they're going
• 36:22
  Speaker 7: to the playbook and they're playing the game. And that's
• 36:24
  Speaker 7: what I would expect would happen going forward, is we'll
• 36:27
  Speaker 7: probably see a new lawsuit filed in federal district court
• 36:31
  Speaker 7: and then we'll have to go through the normal process
• 36:33
  Speaker 7: of emotions to dismiss motions for some rejudgment and you know,
• 36:38
  Speaker 7: all the things that come with with litigation.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: And is there there any expected timeline on them supplying
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: that to the lower court, and.
• 36:50
  Speaker 7: They can really do it whenever they want. When I
• 36:52
  Speaker 7: say it could be weeks or months, I mean it
• 36:54
  Speaker 7: really can be any time. I don't think I've seen
• 36:56
  Speaker 7: anything publicly indicating when that might come. It's just when
• 37:01
  Speaker 7: they're ready.
• 37:02
  Speaker 6: They'll have to you know.
• 37:03
  Speaker 7: I suspect they learned some things, and they floated some
• 37:06
  Speaker 7: legal theories.
• 37:08
  Speaker 6: Uh.
• 37:08
  Speaker 7: And I think some of those legal theories, folks were
• 37:11
  Speaker 7: able to poke some holes in uh and you know,
• 37:14
  Speaker 7: in that Supreme Court filing, And so I could see
• 37:16
  Speaker 7: them going back and making some changes to that complaint
• 37:19
  Speaker 7: and maybe pleading this case a little bit differently. I
• 37:21
  Speaker 7: don't know what I mean. The end result would be
• 37:24
  Speaker 7: asking for roughly the same thing I suspect, but the
• 37:27
  Speaker 7: legal arguments to get there might they might tweak those
• 37:30
  Speaker 7: a little bit. So it just depends on how long
• 37:31
  Speaker 7: it takes for them to do that and uh and
• 37:35
  Speaker 7: and when they decide that timing is right for them
• 37:37
  Speaker 7: to refile.
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: Dave, is there any former.
• 37:42
  Speaker 5: Former examples of these kind of cases where we can
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: like kind of base what we think should happen in
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: the next round, not necessarily what will but what should
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: based on what's happened in the past.
• 37:59
  Speaker 7: You mean, like, sorry to ask it another way, but
• 38:02
  Speaker 7: you mean like an attempt to get to the to
• 38:06
  Speaker 7: the Supreme Court that being denied.
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: Or in a federal district court just another an example
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: of another lawsuit like this that turned out a certain way.
• 38:17
  Speaker 5: Or is this just like who knows what's going to happen?
• 38:21
  Speaker 7: I like, I view this as a I mean, you
• 38:23
  Speaker 7: don't know what's going to happen. Although I would say
• 38:26
  Speaker 7: that there's a lot of federal case law out there
• 38:29
  Speaker 7: talking about the ability of the federal government to own
• 38:34
  Speaker 7: and manage federal lands, Like there's two hundred years of
• 38:38
  Speaker 7: precedent out there that Utah is going to somehow have
• 38:41
  Speaker 7: to explain away. And I think we talked about it before.
• 38:44
  Speaker 7: What the narrow angle they were taking was, which is
• 38:49
  Speaker 7: you know that that despite this two hundred years of precedent,
• 38:53
  Speaker 7: it was all those cases we're doing was confirming that
• 38:56
  Speaker 7: the federal government could manage and manage those lands elusively.
• 39:01
  Speaker 7: But that maybe there it didn't actually address the question
• 39:04
  Speaker 7: of could they hold on to those lands in perpetuity?
• 39:08
  Speaker 7: And so that that's the narrow question they're trying to
• 39:12
  Speaker 7: force into the discussion. But man, there's a lot of
• 39:15
  Speaker 7: case law out there talking about the federal government having
• 39:18
  Speaker 7: the absolute authority to manage public lands and to own
• 39:21
  Speaker 7: public lands. Well, it's tough. It's going to be a
• 39:25
  Speaker 7: tough case.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: One one good thing that I see here is when
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: these things come up, they kind of boil over and
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: they become so in the past, so socially unacceptable to
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: mess with these big chunks of federally managed public lands
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: that are managed on behalf of all of us and
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: and they're America's playground. Plus it's where a lot of
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: Americans make their living, both in the private sector and
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: in the public sector. We're seeing efforts in several states,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: states that have joined the lawsuit on behalf of Utah,
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: and bills being introduced in different legislative sessions. And to me,
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: like the positive there is being able to say, like, oh,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: that's the person that we need to have a good
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: conversation with because they are going to be on the
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: wrong side of history. So I kind of like when
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: this stuff pops up in a way because it flushes
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: out folks with bad ideas.
• 40:41
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, I think you're right I also think
• 40:43
  Speaker 7: there's the timing of this discussion is perfect. So I
• 40:46
  Speaker 7: don't know if you've talked about this or seen this,
• 40:48
  Speaker 7: but yesterday Colorado College released a Conservation in the West pole.
• 40:53
  Speaker 7: They do this poll every year and it's there. They're
• 40:56
  Speaker 7: pulling voters in the West, particularly the Inner Mountain West,
• 41:01
  Speaker 7: on a host of conservation issues, and one of the
• 41:04
  Speaker 7: questions that they were asked was about transfer of lands
• 41:08
  Speaker 7: to from states or from the federal government to states,
• 41:11
  Speaker 7: and sixty seven percent of respondents oppose that across the
• 41:17
  Speaker 7: West in the aggregate, and in Utah it's fifty seven percent.
• 41:21
  Speaker 7: So even in Utah that's leading the charge on this. Now,
• 41:24
  Speaker 7: fifty seven percent of the voters doesn't matter political party
• 41:28
  Speaker 7: oppose transfer. And so to your point of these bills
• 41:34
  Speaker 7: coming up in state and you know, seeing who's sponsoring them,
• 41:37
  Speaker 7: who's behind the bills, I think that matters because the
• 41:41
  Speaker 7: public doesn't want to see this happen. This data is,
• 41:45
  Speaker 7: you know, just like I said, just released yesterday, which
• 41:47
  Speaker 7: confirms you know, the poll from last year, in the
• 41:50
  Speaker 7: poll from the year before, and you can go back
• 41:52
  Speaker 7: and look at poles over time, it's pretty consistent. The
• 41:54
  Speaker 7: public doesn't want to see federal lands transferred. There's a
• 42:00
  Speaker 7: there's an accountability piece here, an opportunity and educational opportunity,
• 42:04
  Speaker 7: and accountability opportunity in the states.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: And who's who holds people accountable?
• 42:09
  Speaker 7: Voters?
• 42:10
  Speaker 6: You've got it.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. So what's happening in Wyoming, David?
• 42:17
  Speaker 6: What isn't happening in Wyoming? Geez?
• 42:21
  Speaker 7: So I could talk about a couple of the things.
• 42:24
  Speaker 7: So there was a bill and this one or sorry,
• 42:27
  Speaker 7: excuse excuse me, a joint resolution, and this one actually
• 42:31
  Speaker 7: died recently, but it it made it pretty far on
• 42:34
  Speaker 7: the Senate side, which proposed transferring all federal lands in
• 42:39
  Speaker 7: the state to the state, including Grand Teton National Park,
• 42:44
  Speaker 7: so everything except Yellowstone and that that did ultimately die
• 42:49
  Speaker 7: in the Senate on second or third reading, and I
• 42:52
  Speaker 7: think it was, I mean, it was a narrow, narrow margin.
• 42:56
  Speaker 7: Then you have a couple of others. There's been a
• 42:59
  Speaker 7: bill there to this one I believe is still alive,
• 43:04
  Speaker 7: and it would require if you're a private landowner, you
• 43:07
  Speaker 7: own your own property and you want to sell that property,
• 43:10
  Speaker 7: and the buyer that's interested in that property is the
• 43:13
  Speaker 7: federal government under this bill, the state legislature would have
• 43:17
  Speaker 7: to approve that sale. You could not sell your private
• 43:21
  Speaker 7: land to the federal government without the state legislature's approval.
• 43:24
  Speaker 7: And that bill, to my understanding, is still alive, and
• 43:28
  Speaker 7: it's rooted in this concept of the state wanting to
• 43:31
  Speaker 7: have a no net gain of federal lands in the state.
• 43:35
  Speaker 7: And then there's one other thing I'd mentioned in state
• 43:38
  Speaker 7: and this one's not a bill, and this one's pretty quiet,
• 43:41
  Speaker 7: And this is like I mentioned this because it's something
• 43:44
  Speaker 7: I think people should be aware of because it could
• 43:45
  Speaker 7: happen in any number of states. But I'm sure you've
• 43:50
  Speaker 7: talked about this before on your podcasts, and I'm sure
• 43:54
  Speaker 7: listeners know. There was a parcel of land in Grand
• 43:58
  Speaker 7: Teton National Park that was owned by the state of
• 44:00
  Speaker 7: Wyoming that late last year was sold to the Park
• 44:05
  Speaker 7: Service for one hundred million dollars six hundred and forty
• 44:09
  Speaker 7: acres section that was bordered on I think it was
• 44:14
  Speaker 7: on two sides by the Park Service, one side by
• 44:16
  Speaker 7: the National Elk Refuge and one side by the National Forest.
• 44:19
  Speaker 7: So it was just transferred to the federal government, which
• 44:23
  Speaker 7: was a great deal for Wyoming to get one hundred
• 44:26
  Speaker 7: million dollars out of it, and it was a great
• 44:27
  Speaker 7: deal for the Park Service to ensure that that land
• 44:29
  Speaker 7: wouldn't be sold or subdivided or developed. Now the state
• 44:34
  Speaker 7: wants to package that one hundred million dollars and an
• 44:37
  Speaker 7: additional I can't remember the exact number, forty eight or
• 44:41
  Speaker 7: fifty million from a sale that occurred about ten years
• 44:44
  Speaker 7: ago of another parcel in the park and they want
• 44:47
  Speaker 7: to put a proposal on. In fact, I think they
• 44:49
  Speaker 7: may have already submitted the proposal to the Bureau of
• 44:51
  Speaker 7: Land Management to purchase ten thousand acres of BLM land
• 44:56
  Speaker 7: in northeast Wyoming with that money. I think that's pretty quiet.
• 45:01
  Speaker 7: I don't think there have been there's been a lot
• 45:02
  Speaker 7: of press about that, and it's a It's something I
• 45:06
  Speaker 7: note because there is a process under the Federal Land
• 45:09
  Speaker 7: Policy Management Act for transferring federal lands or selling federal
• 45:14
  Speaker 7: lands if it's in the national interest, and I suspect
• 45:19
  Speaker 7: there's going to be a pitch that this sale would
• 45:23
  Speaker 7: be considered in the national interest. It's an acreage that's
• 45:27
  Speaker 7: large enough that it would require notification to Congress, but
• 45:32
  Speaker 7: I don't think it requires approval of Congress. It's one
• 45:35
  Speaker 7: of those where you provide a notification to Congress and
• 45:37
  Speaker 7: if Congress, if one chamber of Congress doesn't oppose within
• 45:40
  Speaker 7: thirty days to the transaction, then they can move forward
• 45:43
  Speaker 7: with it. Now, there are other things that have to happen.
• 45:45
  Speaker 7: They've got to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act,
• 45:47
  Speaker 7: probably have to do an EIS, it could be environmental
• 45:50
  Speaker 7: impact statement. It could be years before that happens. But
• 45:52
  Speaker 7: it's an example of using existing processes and something kind
• 45:58
  Speaker 7: of behind the scenes to affect like pretty significant land transfers.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: And I think I think that's something that everybody needs
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: to be aware of, Like land transfers, sales of publicly
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: managed ground, they do occur and then they have for
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: a long time and and sometimes there's some gains as well,
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: But everybody needs to be aware that that they can
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: weigh in on those. They have a vested interest in saying,
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: whoa that doesn't work for me, or this does in
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: in the can frame it.
• 46:31
  Speaker 5: In a way that's not it's not like a seizure,
• 46:34
  Speaker 5: right Like it's kind of like willing seller willing buyer
• 46:37
  Speaker 5: type thing. Like they can frame it that way, and
• 46:41
  Speaker 5: you know, it's harder to fight that I think.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely absolutely. You want me to hit you with
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: some Montana stuff, David, Yeah.
• 46:49
  Speaker 7: And then I might punt it right back to you
• 46:51
  Speaker 7: to answer it.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean things that I think people should know about.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: Right So, as we talk there, the debate on land
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: transfer is I'm sorry, Brody's got party in his pants
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: over here. The debate on land transfer always edges towards well,
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: the state state will manage it better, and I kind
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: of kick that back and say, well, it's not actually
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: about management. The fear is that the state will have
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: to sell these lands if they were to actually get
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: ownership of them, for a bunch of reasons. Most most
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: of them are would be just tackling any sort of
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: budget deficits that would come up in the future. So
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: right now, in the state of Montana, we had a
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: and I feel strongly that most of our politicians really
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: know that land transfer, land sell off, reducing public land,
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: public access is not something that's going to get you elected.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: But we did see a you know, a Montana state
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: funded i e. The taxpayer funded program get put into
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: place this year that would assess all state lands and
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: identify lands to sell. And then right now we have
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: what is it, HB three seventy nine, House Built three
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: seventy nine, which would essentially just streamline the process of
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: selling state lands. And then most recently, and this kind
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: of goes into the social side of things, like our
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: governor was just quoted in a Wall Street Journal opinion
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: piece that is very land transfer privatization adjacent. But just
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: the fact that he's quoted in there makes me nervous, right,
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: And and it's this I this conglomeration of state lands
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: and federally public federally managed public lands are the same.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: And and in a lot of ways, it's like apples
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: to comb quats, right, Like we're we're not in the
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: same ballpark where they're they're very different. And then on
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: top of that, we have a bill that hasn't seen
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: the light of day yet, but I think it is
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: one of those things that hasn't quite gotten out into
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: the light because they're afraid of the social repercussions.
• 49:33
  Speaker 5: Rep.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: Tommy Millet of Marion, Montana has LC two nine one two,
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: which is a draft, but it would be supporting Utah's lawsuit,
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: So straight up support of land transfer going through the
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: Montana State legislature, which hasn't been there. Uh, we haven't
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: seen it yet. But all of this to say, on
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: the federal side of things, we're dealing with some very
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: challenging times regarding our public lands and that those challenges
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: are going to have repercussions in the way that we
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: experience public lands. Right now, the same stuff that we've
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: been talking about bathrooms, campgrounds, road maintenance, trail maintenance. Down
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: to Ryan that we just talked to is like, it's
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: possible that our range land that create you know, tall grass,
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: makes fat cattle, but it also makes you know, awesome
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: horn growth on big g narley, mule deer bucks. Right,
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: it's possible that just that soil and range land could
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: be affected, like down down to that level. At the
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: state level, we're seeing movement to acquire, slash dispose of
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: public land. What's your sense of the landscape right now?
• 51:06
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean you summed it up pretty well. There's
• 51:11
  Speaker 7: I would say, some antagonistic behavior in various states. Montana, Wyoming, Utah,
• 51:16
  Speaker 7: Arizona are right at the top of the list. From
• 51:21
  Speaker 7: you know, the state level pursuing policies that would encourage
• 51:26
  Speaker 7: federal land transfer. I think you also have to look
• 51:30
  Speaker 7: to what's going on in DC as well, the things
• 51:34
  Speaker 7: that have happened or the things that haven't happened yet
• 51:36
  Speaker 7: but could. And it's sort of a This would be
• 51:40
  Speaker 7: a call to say, hey, keep your eyes out for
• 51:42
  Speaker 7: some of this stuff. You might have heard. You know,
• 51:46
  Speaker 7: everybody's probably seen news reports about, you know, reconciliation and
• 51:52
  Speaker 7: what it looks like for pursuing the president's policy agenda
• 51:56
  Speaker 7: and getting through this reconciliation process and getting tax cut
• 52:00
  Speaker 7: made permanent. I'll use that example because that's the one
• 52:02
  Speaker 7: that's directly correlated here. You know, they had the twenty
• 52:06
  Speaker 7: seventeen tax cuts during his first presidency, and he wants
• 52:09
  Speaker 7: to wants to make those permanent and maybe add some
• 52:12
  Speaker 7: additional cuts. And when you have tax cuts, you have
• 52:16
  Speaker 7: to be able to pay for that lost revenue. You
• 52:18
  Speaker 7: have to offset that revenue. And one of the ideas
• 52:21
  Speaker 7: that I've seen floated around is using this you know,
• 52:25
  Speaker 7: I think somebody estimated two hundred trillion dollar asset that
• 52:30
  Speaker 7: is our federal lands, using some of those to help
• 52:33
  Speaker 7: offset the like selling those to offset the tax cuts.
• 52:42
  Speaker 7: I'll make it in there. But those conversations are certainly
• 52:45
  Speaker 7: happening behind closed doors.
• 52:46
  Speaker 5: Well, there's precedent for that at the state level. Right
• 52:49
  Speaker 5: like that, there are plenty of states that don't have
• 52:54
  Speaker 5: any state owned public land because they sold them all to.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: Every single state has less state land than they started with.
• 53:03
  Speaker 5: Right and they use that to do whatever fund the government.
• 53:09
  Speaker 5: So it's almost like taking that to the national level, right.
• 53:14
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean at the state level. The difference here
• 53:17
  Speaker 7: is at the state level, all of these states received
• 53:20
  Speaker 7: these parcels of land and were constitutionally obligated to maximize
• 53:25
  Speaker 7: the revenue off of those acres, and the maximizing of
• 53:28
  Speaker 7: the revenue off of those acres sometimes meant selling those
• 53:32
  Speaker 7: I mean the state of Utah still has I think
• 53:36
  Speaker 7: every six months they hold sales of state trust lands.
• 53:41
  Speaker 7: And the idea is you maximize the revenue for your
• 53:43
  Speaker 7: public schools and hospitals and universities. Depending on the state
• 53:47
  Speaker 7: and the constitution, So there's this constitutional obligation that has
• 53:51
  Speaker 7: led to the selling off of a lot of that
• 53:54
  Speaker 7: land estate. You don't have that obligation at the federal level.
• 54:00
  Speaker 7: It's it's it's a little bit disconcerning, uh that those
• 54:06
  Speaker 7: that we're now talking you know, I don't I'm not
• 54:09
  Speaker 7: going to call it mainstream. I don't think it's mainstream.
• 54:11
  Speaker 7: I think most people, even at the federal level in Congress,
• 54:14
  Speaker 7: oppose this idea of selling off the federal estate or
• 54:16
  Speaker 7: transferring it.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: Well, you know what's interesting, though, David, is if you
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: look at like Utah is a great example, Like if
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: you look at the revenue generated. Uh, you know, Utah
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: like taxes as most states do, right, they tax oil
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: and gas extraction mining in a much different way than
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: the Feds do. And like the income received through extractive
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: industry on state land in Utah is significant. So, like
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't know much about anything. My life's
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: as much of a mass as the next person. But
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: I don't see how it makes sense to sell off
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: that land. Like it's like male box money to the
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: tunes of billions of dollars.
• 55:04
  Speaker 7: Well, you pointed out one one big thing, right, Like
• 55:09
  Speaker 7: the federal government isn't required to manage public lands to
• 55:13
  Speaker 7: generate revenue. They do generate revenue. They sell oil and gas.
• 55:16
  Speaker 7: They have grazing leases, and your last guests, you know,
• 55:18
  Speaker 7: highlighted the dollar thirty five and aum for grazing leases.
• 55:22
  Speaker 7: The states are required to make money off of it,
• 55:24
  Speaker 7: as much money as possible, which is why it costs
• 55:26
  Speaker 7: in a lot of places one thousand percent more to
• 55:29
  Speaker 7: graze on state land than it does on private land.
• 55:32
  Speaker 7: Why oil and gas royalty payments to the states are
• 55:35
  Speaker 7: higher on state land than they are on federal lands,
• 55:38
  Speaker 7: because they're required to generate that revenue. They're not required
• 55:43
  Speaker 7: to manage lands with multiple use in mind, including recreation
• 55:49
  Speaker 7: and hunting and angling and conservation and all of the
• 55:52
  Speaker 7: things that go into multiple lease management. It's different. The
• 55:55
  Speaker 7: state systems are just different. And so if you had,
• 56:00
  Speaker 7: if you have these transfers, they're going to be managed
• 56:03
  Speaker 7: differently than they are currently managed under the federal system.
• 56:06
  Speaker 7: And you know when I mean, here's one thing that
• 56:11
  Speaker 7: I was faced with. So I used to work as
• 56:12
  Speaker 7: you know, I used to work for the governor here
• 56:15
  Speaker 7: in Wyoming, the prior governor, and when we were faced with,
• 56:19
  Speaker 7: you know, questions about whether we should support public land transfers,
• 56:22
  Speaker 7: one of the big reasons we opposed it was the
• 56:26
  Speaker 7: cost of fighting fire would have bankrupt the state. We
• 56:29
  Speaker 7: couldn't afford to do it. You know. It was so
• 56:33
  Speaker 7: so unbelievably expensive and so important to our states to
• 56:38
  Speaker 7: have and to have fire crews and equipment and everything
• 56:40
  Speaker 7: out there combating these big wildfires. But it's like they're
• 56:45
  Speaker 7: just different systems. And so this idea that we that
• 56:48
  Speaker 7: we'd would use federal lands to help pay for tax
• 56:52
  Speaker 7: cuts by selling them either to either to private landowners
• 56:56
  Speaker 7: or to two states, you know, it's so short sighted,
• 57:02
  Speaker 7: Like the impacts on that would would be pretty pretty catastrophic,
• 57:06
  Speaker 7: hard even hard to describe.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, and I think anybody who's trying to get
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: a mortgage in a western state right now understands that,
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: holy cow, this land just keeps going up and up
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: and up. David.
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: I'd love to.
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: Talk to you more, but I am running this horribly
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: over time.
• 57:25
  Speaker 6: You are way behind.
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: I can tell yes, yes, all right, day, Thank you
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: so much for coming out Where where can folks way in.
• 57:36
  Speaker 7: On which thing?
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: On all of it? Like, if you want to be
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: a public lands advocate right now, what's what's your top two.
• 57:46
  Speaker 7: I will tell you. If you're in one of the
• 57:48
  Speaker 7: states we talked about, Montana, Wyoming, Arizona, Utah, you reach
• 57:51
  Speaker 7: out to your local legislator, reach out to your state representative,
• 57:55
  Speaker 7: send notes to the governor's office. Governors have the power
• 57:58
  Speaker 7: of the pen on the veto right. Some of these
• 58:00
  Speaker 7: things come through if they pass, So reaching out to
• 58:03
  Speaker 7: your local elected officials is really important on some of
• 58:08
  Speaker 7: this stuff. On the federal level, reaching out to your delegation,
• 58:11
  Speaker 7: your congressional delegation is going to be really important as well,
• 58:16
  Speaker 7: especially as it gets closer and closer to this budget
• 58:19
  Speaker 7: reconciliation process. You know there are going to be other bills,
• 58:23
  Speaker 7: like using federal lands to build homes, like to use
• 58:28
  Speaker 7: it for housing in places that don't have housing. That's
• 58:34
  Speaker 7: a big debate that has to happen, but you know,
• 58:37
  Speaker 7: keep your eyes out for that too, and contact your
• 58:39
  Speaker 7: local representats until you tell them how you feel about that.
• 58:42
  Speaker 7: I can tell you that Conservation of the West Poles
• 58:44
  Speaker 7: has data about that, and most people overwhelmingly don't want
• 58:47
  Speaker 7: to see their public lands sold through housing projects either.
• 58:50
  Speaker 7: So elected officials are elected for a reason, right to
• 58:54
  Speaker 7: represent you, and the only way they are representing you
• 59:00
  Speaker 7: as if you tell them what you think.
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. And I'll tell you there's nothing
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: about the layout of Bosangelus, Montana that makes me think
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: that the people who built this place are going to
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: do it better. On public lamp.
• 59:16
  Speaker 9: Like, I'm not going to argue with you on that,
• 59:18
  Speaker 9: all right, Thanks a bunch, David, appreciate it, all right.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: Gig, I apologize for running so high.
• 59:29
  Speaker 6: Phil.
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: Do you want to do listener feedback?
• 59:31
  Speaker 7: Right?
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: Here's the convenient thing, cals that are you surprised that
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: the live chat has pretty much devolved into an all
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: out brawl?
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: That's kind of toned down a little bit, But.
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: You know, I would say there are some people who
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: are level headed and just having a conversation and other
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: people who need to get their shit together and grow up.
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: Had I had to ban someone for name calling, so
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: so you know.
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: Don't do that.
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: Man, you can't be a good advocate if you lead
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: off by telling somebody they're a jerk, and and then
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: you're like, but you should listen to me. Just the
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: world doesn't work that way anyway.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: I hope it's the last time I have to do it.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: But yeah, we got a couple of let's let's do
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: a couple of fun ones, right, Yes, we're having fun today.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 10: Let's see favorite February outdoor activities. Do you guys have
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 10: anything specific before Turkey season gets gets going and the
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 10: transition period from Caleb Tucker ice fishing.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's tough, but even that's.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: Just I haven't drilled a single hole through.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 4: I think hard to get motivated this year for some reason.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I mean the skiing is freaking fantastic period
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: coming up, just yeah.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: I like shooting guns a lot this time of year.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 6: Two.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: Make sure everything's dialed in.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, hard to find a spot to lay down.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: That's true, that's true.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: One more cal I know you're you're a frequenter, Seth,
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: you are too. Jordan's going to Hawaii tomorrow. He's wondering
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: which islands, Uh, where you guys on? I'm sure you
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: visited multiple but do you have any sort of favorite islands,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: favorite spots on certain islands for certain activities.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: You know, the Big Island is is big. Yeah, so
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of diversity. Every every island has has diversity.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: But you can get into all sorts of different stuff
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: on the Big Island and I'll tell you, nobody's gonna
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: stop you for shooting a goat. They've got they've got plenty.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: Big islands cool because you can go from like desert
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 4: to rainforest to sweating your ass to freeze in your ass.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's wild place, it is, it is, it's
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: it's really cool. You know, did get into like the
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: axis deer. You're gonna have to get over to Lanai
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: or Maui, which super super awesome, and certainly love the
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: people over there. So best best way to do it
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: is get over there, explore and and and make new friends.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: Right on. Cool, That's that's all I've got right now.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: Let's keep it moving.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: Sounds good, okay, keeping the fun going.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: Oh wait, we're doing hot tip hot tip hop. What's that?
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 6: That's all enjoying it.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: That's a great one, Phil, Thank you, man.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: I don't know, philm I gotta you know, I gotta
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: do some more modern stuff, Brodie, I can't.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: I can't do that.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: In the seventies, I learned so much. I learned so much.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: Like part of me knows that that's a popular somewhere.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 5: There's no part of me that.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: It's got the stink on it.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: All right, So ahead of time, we asked you amazing
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: folks listeners watching folks watching a home to send in
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: a hot tip off to radio at themeaeater dot com.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: We have some molten hot tips sent into the inbox,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: but we painstakingly had narrowed down to just two submissions
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: for this week's listener Hot tip off.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: Here we go, Brampton Byer, Welcome to another hot tip
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: off coming to you from twenty below, Minnesota.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 11: No deer hunter should enter the woods without a roll
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 11: of toilet paper. Not only is it great for those
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 11: early morning gas station burritos, but you'll find no better
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 11: tool for blood trailing than a simple role. As you go,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 11: mark your blood with a piece hanging on a tree branch,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 11: throw it on the ground wherever you can see it.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 11: If you lose track of that deer, you can always
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 11: look back at your bread crumbs to see their direction
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 11: of travel. Not only is it's highly visible, but it's
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 11: fio and agreeable. It'll be gone on the next rainstorm
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 11: and you never have to go back and pick it up.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 11: You so toilet paper to help you find your next year.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 6: Richard Chaikowski.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 12: Welcome to another hot tip off. My name is Richard,
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 12: coming at you with this week's hot tip. If you
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 12: ever spent any amount of time outdoors in the cold,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 12: you know keeping the feet warm is always a struggle.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 12: I was a dog sled guy for four years and
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 12: keeping the toes warm was always a battle. So a
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 12: friend taught me this. Take a little bit of cayenne
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 12: pepper and you're just gonna sprinkle some on your toes
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 12: and then your socks. This is gonna act as a
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 12: vaso dilator and it's gonna keep your feet warm all day.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 12: This stuff works pretty much until you wash it off.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 12: I'm not a fan of how toe warmers feeling. My
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 12: boots never got into the heated socks and all that jazz.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 12: So this stuff is an awesome, cheap alternative to keep
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 12: the feet warm. This whole jar cost me four dollars
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 12: your first time using it. Don't go dumping a whole
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 12: jar of cayenne on your feet. Just sprinkle a little bit,
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 12: see how it works for you and go from there.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 12: But try this out, get out there and enjoy toasty
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 12: tolls all year long.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: All right, all right, So here's the fun part. We
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: are going to vote on who won the hot tip off.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: The winner is gonna get this mule tree cell cam Seth.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: You got a lot of experience with stuff like this.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: What are your thoughts here.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: With the moultries?
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, oh they're sweet. I don't use them a whole lot,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 4: But I liked, like we I've went up in Alaska
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 4: just looking over things at the shack.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so you're you're like human surveillance plus anything
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: in a.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 4: Lot of deer on there, and it's just cool to
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 4: see what's going on up there, like when I'm not.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah right, love it. Hot commodity. So boys, we're going
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: Cayenne pepper or TP the kind they're kind of related,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: which is interesting.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 4: Also, I couldn't tell if Richard was like messing with
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 4: us or if that's like a legit, he's not.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: He threw in vasal dilator, Yeah.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 5: I have leg I heard about it before, but I
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 5: had forgotten about it.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna go, Well, if that's the case, I'm gonna
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 4: go with Richard because my feet freeze all the time.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: I struggle with it.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 5: I'm going with Richard too, because even if it doesn't
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 5: keep your feet wet, you got some seasoning for your
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 5: meat when you kill something in your back.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not the same could be said for the TP,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: Like it's not. Even if your primary focus is blood trailing,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: it's good to have it in there, m hm, no
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: matter what.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 5: But I think Brandon's is great I was just the
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 5: whole time, I was thinking, what if it's real snowy
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 5: out you can't see that thing? Mm hmm yeah, but
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 5: then you'd be able to see the blood in the
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 5: snow anyway.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 3: I guess eh, there you are. You know I'm sticking
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: with Richard.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: All right, Richard, congratulations, you edge two real tree mobile
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: cell cam here. Congrats Seth Morris approved.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, your fun with it, all right, gang.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: So at our last interview of the day, Bruce, it's
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: been a long time since you logged on. I'm sure
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: I appreciate your patience. Hopefully you don't think that this
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: is some kind of cockamami show that has no professionalism
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: to it.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 13: I think you guys are doing fine, in fact, enjoying
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 13: the process here the first time with you at least.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 13: But yeah, looking forward to a visit awesome.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: What is Floating Island International?
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 6: We?
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 13: First of all, we're dased here in Montana outside of
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 13: Billings on a place called Shepherd on the Yellowstone and
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 13: go Phillies. We're an invention company. We focus around environmental
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 13: service product technology, including a floating island called the Biohaven.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 13: So that's been our primary business since two thousand and
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 13: five today there's maybe twelve thousand islands all over the world.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: Well, that sounds like an entire podcast on its own,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: so I'm going to rain myself back in here. You
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: how did this work? Did you get in contact with
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: us over the methane ice house explosion?
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 6: I did. I read that article and.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 13: It touched me real directly, because for the last six
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 13: years we've been researching aquatic methane and today we have
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 13: developed a data compendium. If anybody out there wants it,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 13: would like to do background on this topic, just send
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 13: me an email info at Floating Island National dot com
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 13: and I'll provide it.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 6: The bottom line here.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 13: Is that if you remember back what thirty forty years ago,
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 13: harmphology blooms were a rare thing. Water was in reasonable shape,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 13: although I think Cuyahoga River catching on fire stuff like
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 13: that still happened. But since then we've had this incredible,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 13: incredible increase in harmphlogy blooms and other forms of aquatic
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 13: vegetation that can grow explosively, mostly connected with fertilizer agriculture.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 6: Even but today even healthy.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 13: Lakes are experiencing some of these harmphology blooms, and that
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 13: organic material when it does ultimately die subtled into the
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 13: bottom becomes sledge. No oxygen in the sledge. That's where
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 13: methane occurs.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 5: And just real quick, Bruce, what you're talking about is
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 5: like agricultural runoff into bodies of water that bring like
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 5: a load of nutrients that then create a massive explosion
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 5: in a plant growth in plant growth.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 13: Yeah, anything organic nice that ultimately results in sludge build
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 13: up on the bottom of a waterway. And typically if
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 13: this occurs over in a deep water setting, it's even
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 13: more likely to result in methane. The you know, you're
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 13: looking at here a scene of a floating island right
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 13: here at Shepherd, actually on our research reservoir called fish
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 13: Fry Lake. But in that instance, the island is about
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 13: three feet thick. We walk on it, we work on it.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 13: We we rigidified the top of that island, so plants
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 13: aren't happening there. But if you look, you'll see a
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 13: native form of fresh water sponge that did colonize the island.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 13: It's I didn't even know we had fresh water a
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 13: form of sponge here in Montana, but we do. And
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 13: it's a filter feeder. It's helping clarify the water. Of course,
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 13: the fish love it, they love the shade all that.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: Boy, let's just get my mind into a totally different
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: frame right now. This is awesome stuff. So in your
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: interpretation like what happened that that day on the on
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: the lake.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 13: Well, you know, well I can't be one hundred percent.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 13: There's other potential explanations. But from what I understand is
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 13: that there was a surge in organic material in the
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 13: form of leaves that blew into the lake, and they
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 13: may have been the ultimate organic material that cycled into methane.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 13: But the with a lid of ice over the lake,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 13: that methane is it ebulates up in bubble form.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 6: It can collect under the ice.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 13: So if you open a hole in that in the
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 13: wrong spot, you can have a flume of methane.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 6: Ebulating up through the ice.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 13: And if you're in a contained setting like an ice hut,
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 13: and there's any kind of ignition source, all you have
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 13: to be is a half of one percent methane in
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 13: the atmosphere five thousand ppm you know, technically is five
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 13: thousand parts per million to flash, And that may have
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 13: been what happened there. I do know this that this
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 13: phenomenon of methane associated with aquatic sources is the single
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 13: largest source of methane occurring on the planet. Half again,
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 13: more methane comes off of water, then comes from oil
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 13: and gas.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 6: Hey both?
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: Uh what.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 5: Like as far as ice fisherman goes like, what kind
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 5: of lake body of water is something like this more
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 5: likely to happen? Like I'm assuming like a large body
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 5: of water with with clear water, rocky bottom, like probably
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 5: not as big of a risk.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 6: I think you're you're right on.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 13: If you you know, high mountain lake or someplace as
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 13: far removed from nutrient loading, you know, it would be
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 13: relatively safe. You can still have, under unusual circumstances a build.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 6: Up, but a build up of methane.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 13: But the point is that in a eutrophic or hypereutrophic
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 13: water body, that's where you're going to have a lot
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 13: more of that organic build up that results in thick
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 13: layers of sludge. Like we have a reservoir here not
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 13: far from us where sludge deposition is over eighty feet deep.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 13: That will be a methane factory.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 5: That's that Like that when you get that real black,
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 5: smelly mud on the bottom of a pond, or whatever,
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 5: that's a problem.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 6: Great point.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 13: Methane is colorless and odorless, but it's usually accompanied by
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 13: hydrogen sulfide, which is the deep swamp biogas that you
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 13: most of us have experienced at some point walking in
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 13: the muck or whatever.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 6: The So if you smell that, be alert.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 13: Yeah, you might very well be in a situation where
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 13: lots of methane is occurring.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 4: So, Bruce, if I was to punch a hole in
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 4: the in a lake somewhere where this could happen. Other
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 4: than like the smell, is there anything else that could
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 4: you know, show signs that there could be methane under
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 4: the ice? Do you have a cigarette in your mouth?
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 6: No?
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 4: Cigarette, okay, but I'm getting ready to light my little
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 4: buddy eater.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 13: Well, start by looking at the ice. If you see
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 13: bubbles in it, big bubbles especially, then be alert to
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 13: the fact that they could be that could be methane.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 13: But and if the ice is murky and cloudy and
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 13: you can't see through it, that's an indication that light
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 13: isn't making its way through the ice. This methane only
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 13: occurs under in the absence of oxygen. So if you've
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 13: got if you're you know, just drilled the hole over
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 13: a deep point in the lake and you've got a
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 13: fish fire. If you can identify fish on the bottom,
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 13: right against the bottom, that's a good sign that you're
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 13: not anaerobic, you're not without oxygen, you're not in a
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 13: methane hot spot. In fact, today there's a sonar technology
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 13: that can actually work through the ice, and that would
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 13: be ideal. I mean looking and verifying whether you have
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 13: fish on the bottom or not before you punch a hole. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 13: that would be the way to go. But ultimately be
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 13: smart about it. Look at the eyes. Let it tell
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 13: you what's going on. You've got clear ice and maybe
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 13: some bubbles, but not many.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 6: You're probably in good shape.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 13: The fact that light is getting through that ice means
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 13: that there's still oxygen being generated by the green algae
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 13: that occurs within the water, the green fidal plank. There
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 13: are good forms of LG as well as negative bunch
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 13: is the message.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: There, kind of like our political discussion. Bruce, thank you
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: so much for being on. I'll let you know and
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: and everybody else that, uh, there is a go fundme.
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: Uh what is it? It's a give send go set
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: up for the family of the recent ice fishing accident
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: Vermont Joel Shepherd and his daughters Kaylee and Emily at
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: Give Sendgo dot com forward slash Shepherd Family. If you
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: got a couple of bucks to push their way that
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: that'd be great. And then Bruce also, uh, my mom's
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: just down the road from you out there in Shepherd.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: So yeah, of this spring, I'm gonna come pastry in
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: and go take.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 13: I'll tell you what I had my brother in law
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 13: who had never caught a fish. He was here last September.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 13: He's from England, and I took him fishing with this
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 13: monster big surface lur and I thought, well, yeah, it
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 13: should be fun. Anyway, he gets the flame this big
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 13: playground and he caught two beasts between four and five
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 13: pumps in the space of an hour and a half.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: But hey, thank you so much for being on Floating
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: Island International. If you have any questions for Bruce and
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: want to learn more, go to Floating Island International dot com.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 2: Correct.
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 13: Yep, thank you guys, thank you.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 3: I love that.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: That's awesome.
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: Phil you want to do another round of you know,
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 2: we we have gotten a lot of questions like we
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 2: did get one regarding the video game stream.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 3: It is happening.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 2: I just don't have I don't have a date yet
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 2: because I want to make sure that's fun for people
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: to watch, not just fun for me. So but they
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 2: keep your eyes posted. It will have than this year
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: at some point. But thanks, thanks for catching up. A
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 2: lot of people say they're gonna try the cayenne pepper trick.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 3: Uh today? Yeah?
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you should right right in before Seth dumps
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 2: it on his on his feet.
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 2: There was a running joke about whose mustache is better,
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 2: Seth's or cows. Do we have an in room consensus?
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: Uh, cows is more seasoned. I think you're talking to
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: two guys who probably don't care that much. Michael Seth
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: is asking how trapping is going. Haven't been trapping. I
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: like to do a lot of my trapping in the
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: either the earlier parts of the winter or in the
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: spring for beaver.
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 3: Ye get going right now.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 4: Everything's just so frozen and covered in snow.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: It's just my hands hurt.
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 3: Pine Martin.
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 4: Trapping would be great right now if you had a
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 4: snowmobile and you know, could get out there. But not
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 4: doing much right now.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 2: Travis is also asking if you'll be back on the
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: Montana Walleye Circuit anytime soon.
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 4: I wish, I wish. If I get time this summer,
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 4: I'll do some tournaments. But I just don't have I'm
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 4: always gone, yeap, just gone too.
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: Hard to get rid of them. Yeah, for sure, for sure.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: I got an update here if folks are interested in
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: helping out some of our former federally employed stewards of
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: the land. Old Doc Randall Williams sent me a go
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: fundme for Rosalie, and Rosalie is was just recently laid off.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: She had just switched jobs in the forest Service, so
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: she was in that probationary period even though she's been
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: a forest service employee for a long time. But she's
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: two months before her due date and just lost income
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: as well as insurance. And I believe Corey and Brodie,
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: you guys can probably talk about the importance of insurance
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: when when mom's about to cave out.
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't you needed not say that like insurance?
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 5: Find another way to put that cal You've got a
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 5: serious girlfriend.
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 3: You need to take that thing seriously.
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: So anyway, if you check out go fund me, there's
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: a support Rosalie go fund me, and folks could could
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: definitely benefit from a couple extra bucks on that one
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: out side of that gang. Remember to come see us
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: at pheasant Fest that's coming up here in March in
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: Kansas City. That's the annual p f q F annual gathering.
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: Always a really fantastic opportunity to get a bunch of
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: people in the room and get just hit over the
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: head with really good conservation work. I'm garn Darntea. There's
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: gonna be a lot of NRCS farm bill talk during
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: the pheasant Fest this year. That Friday, March fifth, I'm
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: gonna be joining Kansas BHA out in De Soto, Kansas
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: for just kind of a big open to the public
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: round table, let you know about what BHA and Kansas
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: BHA are working on. And then Sunday at Pheasant Fest,
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: I'm joining Pheasants Forever plus the North American Grouse Partnership
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: to talk about this incredibly awesome program regarding endangered species
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: called the Lesser Prairie Chicken land Owner Alliance and Lesser
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: Prairie Checking Man. Fantastic game bird that you know, the
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: mountain men folks they used to eat, so many of
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: them get sick of They get sick of them and
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: now they're on the endangered species list and that happened
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: on our watch. Lots we can be doing about that,
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: and that goes into saving America's grass lands. Outro fellas,
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: who I think we just need to hit it again, Like,
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: if you're invested in your public lance that in absolutely
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: no way puts you crossways with any administration. That's your
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: right as an American citizen.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah, stop dwelling on whoops the results of election, and
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 5: dwell on what needs to be dealt with now.
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And there's a lot of folks out there like
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 4: myself who like a lot of what the current administration
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 4: is doing, but when it comes to their stance on
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 4: federal lands, it's just like a a no go.
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you get to say, hey, pump the brakes. Yeah,
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: like what you're doing over here so they can keep
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: it up.
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 4: It's okay to like what they're doing, and it's okay
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 4: to not like what they're doing.
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just not okay to sit on your button
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: do nothing if this stuff matters to you. If you
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: do that, don't write in anymore. I hope you enjoyed
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: the show this week. I know we covered a lot
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: of heavy stuff, but we you know, we're right here
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: with you. This stuff means a heck of a lot
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: to us. I know it means a heck of a
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: lot to you, which is why you watch these fishing
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: and hunting oriented things. So we're gonna stay on top
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: of it as much as we can. Please stay in
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: touch and we will too. So thanks again. We'll talk
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: to you next week.