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The MeatEater Podcast Presents: Cal's Week in Review, Episode 2 · The MeatEater Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, if you're wondering why this episode of Cow's Weekend
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Review has been served up to you when you thought
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: you were just subscribing to the Meat Eater podcast, it's
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: because we're playing dirty pool in the podcast space. I
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: promised to never do this to you again for the
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: next year. Let's say, uh maast six months year, I
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: won't do this to you again. Well, all I'm doing
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: is we're serving us in here even though you don't subscribe,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: because I honestly believe that you will be glad to
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: find out about it. So I'm violating some trust by
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: wedging in a show you don't subscribe to into here,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: but I'm doing it with your own best interest because
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: I think you're gonna come out thinking like man, Cal's
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Weekend Review is the perfect compliment to the Meat Eater podcast.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Cal being Ryan cal Callahan, who's always on the Mediator
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: podcast anyway. So if you like media podcast, no one
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: probably like Cal. Right, Cal, I hope. So he's sitting
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: right here playing dirty pool with me, So tell them
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: what they ought to do. Cal, Like, you're gonna listen
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: to the show. It'll start in a minute. You'll know
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: it starts because it's like a Newsy sound intro, and
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: then you'll listen to the show and you'll be like,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: holy smokes, this is the greatest show I've ever listened to.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: And then you will you will track that show down
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: wherever podcasts are available to be streamed or downloaded, same
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: way you track down the Meat Eat podcast. And you're
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: gonna subscribe and leave me a review. Yeah, click the
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: right most star. We're getting write whatever the hell you want.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Just make sure you click the right most star and
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: then say whatever you Felix and we don't care about
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: that part, uh is it? Enjoy Cal's We Can Review,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening from me to
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: do his World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This is
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Kel's We Can Review with rutting Kel Kelly and now
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: here's Kel. This week we're talking about, among other things,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: copper lights. A copper light is a classy name for
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: old poop fossilized feces. If you are the issuer, the
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: layer downer of a copper light, you are its author.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Biologists and anthropologists are interested in copper lights because they
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: are evidence of the animal's behavior rather than morphology, as
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: in you can tell what it's been eating, which is
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: telling in addition to old, dried up dumb. Today, I'm
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: going to touch on fish, birds, poachers, snakes, ticks, getting drunk,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: and general outdoors goings on. But before we get into
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: the news from the big wide world. First, I'm gonna
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: tell you about my world. How As it turns out,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: I'm still recovering from my turkey hunt in the spring
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Green Hills outside of Nashville, Tennessee. I woke up the
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: other morning with a Tennessee tick, a hitchhiker, if you will,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: embedded in my armpit. This was troubling for a number
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: of reasons. One is being in your mid thirties, it
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: just doesn't feel great to question your ability to clean yourself.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: And then there's the simple creepy feeling of discovering parasites
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: on yourself. On my way home from Tennessee, um sitting
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Nashville Airport, this is where it gets real exciting. Hacking
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: away at my emails and the Delta lounge, I feel
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: an itch and find a tick embedded on the back
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: of my arm. Thought, man, that sucks. Then I felt
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: another drop out of my rapidly receding hairline and onto
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: my shoulder. This was enough tick activity to get me
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: fully grossed out, up out of my seat into action.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: So there I am completely stripped naked in the bathroom
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: of the Delta Lounge performing a full on tick check
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: where I find a tick embedded in my screw them.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: I only bring this up because I am big on
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: honesty and quite sincerely. When a man finds a disease
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: carrying parasite and what the old timers would call your
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: soft parts, it's a real sinking feeling. Ticks attached themselves
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: to hosts by questing, which is climbing to advantage point
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: that allow them to either grab or drop onto an
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: animal as they pass by. Ticks can carry a number
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: of diseases, most notable being limes disease and Rocky Mountain
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: spotted fever, which are both bacterial infections that are introduced
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: to humans through contact with the offending tick. Ticks need
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: to be attached for twenty four hours or longer in
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: order to transmit so catch Mearly prevalence of tick born
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: illnesses is steadily increasing in the US. For instance, there's
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: been an over three x increase in confirmed limes cases
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: since now onto fish yea For those of you waiting
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: on the Minnesota white fish record to be broken, it's
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: been a long time of coming. Quick facts about the
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: Lake white fish is it is the most commercially valuable
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: freshwater fish in Canada. Here in the States, it's sometimes
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: regarded as a trash fish, but Europeans are mad about
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: the row. Commercial white fisherman who harvest the fish trip
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: with trap nets can make as much or more from
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: exporting caveat as they do selling filets. Anyhow, the Minnesota
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: white fish record from has been busted by a first
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: time ice angler. His thirteen pound, nine point one ounce
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: whitefish came in at almost thirty inches in length and
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: twenty two inches and girt. In Montana, we'd call that
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: a big whitey. While the angler was new to ice fishing,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: he's an old hand at noodling. For flathead catfish, noodling
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: or tickling is when you catch a flathead by inserting
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: a hand into their mouth and allow them to bite
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: down on your hand. When the cat bites, you haul
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: it from the water. The catfish noodling record is eighty
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: five pounds two ounces. The all time flathead record for
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: regular fishing with your standard old rought and real set
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: up is over a hundred and twenty three pounds. That
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: fish was from Kansas. If you think pulling fish through
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: the ice or grabbing them by the mouth sounds cruel,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: or if you think who cares, it's just a fish,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: take a look at the case of Michael ray Hinson,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: not to be confused with the wonderful Texas musician Mike A. P. Hinson.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: Michael ray Hinson was charged with one count of abandonment
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: of an animal and three counts of misdemeanor cruelty to animals.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Hanson was evicted from his home in New Hanover County,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: North Carolina, and left behind a neglected six in oscar fish.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Authorities found the oscar in deplorable conditions with parasitic hole
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: in the head disease. Yes, hole in the head ease,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: apparently a common problem encountered by aquarium enthusiasts. Good thing
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: for handsome. New Hanover County District Attorney Ben David determined
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: that animal cruelty statutes don't apply to fish. As the
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: d A stated, we take a very dim view of
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: anyone who would abuse any creature, great or small. Think
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: about that the next time you see a bunch of
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: goldfish and plastic bags at the fair or Heaven forbid
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: in the bottom of your fishing bucket. Speaking of protections
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: for fish, check this one out. It probably goes without
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: saying that fish in the desert are rare, but would
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: you guess that Death Valley is home to the rarest
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: gnome fish on Earth. The Devil's Whole, located not all
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: that far from Las Vegas, Nevada, is part of the
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  Speaker 1: Ash Meadows Complex, which is in turn part of the
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Death Valley National Park. Complex is comprised of seeps and
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: springs that bring fossil water, which is water that seeped
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: into the aquifer millennia go to the surface. What could
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: be more tempting than water in the desert? Right right,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: the Devil's Hole is a series lee protected place ten
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: foot fences, highly controlled, highly monitched. In two thousand sixteen,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: small group of board drunk and armed desert dwellers decided,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: for reasons unknown, to go for a swim. The boys
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: get through the fence and in short order we've gotten
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: the illegal Skinny Dipper and Devil's Hole. This Skinny Dipper
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: is a convicted felon in possession of a shotgun. During
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: a swim, he manages to step onto the small shelf
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: of rock that is the epicenter of life at Devil's Hole.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: When the National Park Service crew is made aware of
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: this violation, they show up to investigate. As it turns out,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: and it looks as though the disturbance of the pool
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: and Devil's Hole resulted in the death of a rare
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: pup fish. When I say rare, I mean the Devil's
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Whole pupfish is one of the rarest fish on the planet.
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  Speaker 1: This tiny, shimmery blue fish is only found there in
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: the waters of Devil's Hole. The Devil's Whole pupfish has
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: been on the Endangered Species list since the list was created.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: While we don't know for absolute certain that this fellow
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: killed the pub fish, circumstantial evidence is pointing very decidedly
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: in that direction. So what's the punishment if you learn
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: anything here? Let it be this, don't go drinking and
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: messing with the Endangered Species Act. Our skinny Dipper was
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: finally sentenced recently and got nine months in the clink
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: for the ESSA violation, four months for the trespassing and
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: destruction of property, and has to pay fourteen thousand in
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: restitution to the National Park Service, and to top it
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: all off, the Queen Mother of all punishments. Upon release,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: the devil's whole Skinny Dipper will be forbidden to enter
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: federal public lands for the rest of his life. And
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: this is where I start to feel bad for our Dipper.
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  Speaker 1: This guy and his buddies made really bad decisions. Deplorable
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: when you think about wiping a species off the face
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: of the earth for the sake of drunken, dumbassary things
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: that will likely regret for the rest of their lives.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: And should mind you, but imagine you live in Nevada
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  Speaker 1: and you've been banned for life from eighty four point
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: nine percent of your home state eighty four point nine
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  Speaker 1: as the percentage of federally managed land in Nevada. You've
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: basically been sentenced to live in Las Vegas. And that
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: sounds cruel and unusual to me. In the spirit of reform,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: I'd rather see the Dipper sentence to cleaning up the
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: desert as opposed to being banned from. Let's go from
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: a little blue fish to the big and tooth the
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: alligator gar a couple of guys on brazos who every
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: landed a seven foot seven inch alligator gar, weighing in
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: at a hundred and ninety eight pounds. The head alone
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: weight twenty five. Now this sounds like a beast, but
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: the world record came out of Texas and went two
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: hundred and seventy nine pounds. These creatures date back to
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: the Cretaceous period, meaning alligator gar have been swimming for
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: at least sixty six million years. If you watch the
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: movie Jurassic World, the dinosaur that jumps out of the
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: water and eats the t rex hybrid at the end,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: that's Mosasaur. The mosasaur and the gar swam at the
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: same time. Obviously, the gar is still around and the
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Mosesaur isn't. And that's how we get the term living fossil.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Some of our favorite living fossils horseshoe crabs, snapping turtles, possums,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: and the tastiest evolved, the American prong horn antelope. Here's
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: a few more fun facts about the gar. Scales that
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: stretch are called a lasmoid scales. Scales that don't ganoid
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: scales car have ganoid scales. They can hack a serious
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: bite without effect. One reason the gar may have stood
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: the test time is. In addition to regular old fish gills,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: the gar has a specialized swim bladder that acts like
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: a lung. This specialized swim bladder allows the guard to
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: sit air from the surface. Because of this, the guard
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: can inhabit low oxygen water other fish can't. I just
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: flipped a few flies at another gar species, the spotted
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: gar down in Texas a few weeks ago on the
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Lino River. Really need fish, you should definitely check them out.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: White public lands, as I was saying, Nevada has a
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: good chunk of them. But soon the Sheep Range mountains
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: that is which you can see from the airplane wind
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: when you're landing in Vegas may soon be closed off
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: to the public. Ouch Right now, the US military is
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: asking for an additional two thousand acres of the mountain
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: range for bombing practice. That's the size of two thousand,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty Disneylands if you include the new
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Star Wars expansion. There are a few problems with this,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: one being that these mountains happen to be some of
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: the best desert big horn sheep habitat in the world.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Once upon a time, it's estimated that we had around
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: two million big horn sheep. That's both rocky mountain and
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: desert big horns. Thanks to unregulated market hunting, habitat loss,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: and disease, the ladder of which remains the primary threat
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: to sheep, that number was whittled down to roughly fifteen
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: thousand by nineteen hundred. Now we're back up to around
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: seventy THO. Sure, not perfect, but we're out of the
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: big Horn dark ages and getting there. Any sheep that's
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: still on the mountain is there because we fought for it.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: That's certainly true of the sheep range big horns. For decades,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: conservation organizations such as Well Chief Foundation have worked their
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: asses off to conserve the sheep range. And it's six
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: hundred desert bighorn habitat improvements, water improvements, and plenty of
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: other hot, sweaty work. We're talking hundreds of regular folks
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: donting time and money on behalf of wildlife. Let's not
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: piss that away. Get off your butts and act now.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Call your elected officials if you care about desert bighorns
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: and public access of wild places. I understand the needs
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: of national defense, but let's play the long game here.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: What's wild should stay wild. We're not going to run
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: out of degraded landscapes, so don't worry about that and
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: the war on wild cheap. Now we're going to talk
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: about things that should be and things that shouldn't be
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: up near our northern border with Canada. Out in Lake
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Superior is Ile Royal National Park. Ile Royal is a
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: remote island chain in the northwest corner of the Lake,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: a car free Michigan wilderness where, at least now days,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: moose and wolves room Somewhat mysteriously. Moose first showed up
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: on the island in the early nineteen hundreds. Either they
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: walked across the ice to get there, or someone brought
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: them out there and cut them loose. Wolves showed up
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: in nine having crossed an ice bridge between mainland Ontario
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: and the island. Things have been up and down since then.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: The wolf population got as high as fifty, but recently
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: dropped to just two in bread as all get out. Meanwhile,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: moose are kicking acts at a current estimated population of
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: around fifteen hundred. The National Park Service recently released four
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: gray wolves to help the wolf population out, and they're
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: preparing to deliver twenty or thirty more Over, the next
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: five years at a cost of two million dollars. You
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: might wonder why we'd be flying animals back and forth
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: to a national park. Parks are supposed to be places
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: where nature is allowed to run a course unimpeded by man. Granted,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: it sounds a little bit like zoo keeping. Well, in
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: this case, it has to be with ice and cold weather.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Ice bridges between the mainland and Ile Royal we're more
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: common in past decades, which allowed some sporadic coming and
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: going of critters, but times have changed now It's seldom
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: freezes good enough. From until two thousand eleven, a solid
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: ice bridge formed only once in two thousand eight. From
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen to two thousand seventeen, Ile Royal was
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: connected to the mainland only twice, and in those instances
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: only for a few days. Somewhat ironically, one of the
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: wolves that was flown out to save the wolves that
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: can't get replenished due to a lack of ice, promptly
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: left the island on you guessed at an ice bridge.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: It's real complicated out there on Io Royl. You want
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: to know something that's also pretty interesting. Up until the
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: twenties and thirties, the island was home to lynx in caribou,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: both of which banished without any restocking efforts from US. Humans.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Are we smarter now? We're just different on the floor.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: According to a two thousand four study of all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: and fish in southern Florida are non native. We're talking iguanas, snakeheads, telapia, parakeets,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: and over a hundred and fifty other species. Florida even
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: has feral monkeys climbing around. It's the non indigenous species
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: capital of the United States. I'll add that Florida means
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: land of flowers in Spanish, so that's nice. Returning to
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: non natives. They've got the Burmese python living down there.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: The biggest has been recorded at over twenty three ft
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: in length and two hundred pounds in their native range
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: of Southeast Asia. They didn't think they could get that
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: big in Florida, at least until now. In Big Cyprus
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: National Preserve, researchers captured a seventeen foot female python that
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: weighed over a hundred and forty pounds and held seventy
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: three eggs. They caught it using the Judas method In
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: the Bible of Judas portrays Jesus in Florida. Judas was
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: a male python with the tracking device that they released
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: so he could go out and do what male pythons
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: want to do, which is fine females, given some time
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: tracking back down see who he's hanging with. In this case,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: it was the hundred and forty pound girlfriend, confirming beyond
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: doubt that Florida can grow a big snake. Big snakes
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: can only get big by eating wealth. According to studies
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: by the U. S Geological Survey and Everglades National Park,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: there has been a ninety nine point three percent decrease
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: in raccoon observation and ninety eight point nine percent decrease
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: and impossum observations, and an eighty seven and a half
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: percent decrease in bobcat observations. The most recent surveys have
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: shown that marsh rabbits, cotton tail rabbits, and foxes have
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: quote effectively disappeared. Of course, non natives cost us more
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: than just native wildlife. According to the Nature Conservancy, invasive
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: species cost the United States about one hundred billion dollars
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: per year over West to Florida. A few states. You've
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: got Texas, SA they're all proud and beautiful rattlesnakes, oil rigs,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: shipload of tigers. If you don't know what I'm talking
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: about and I mentioned tigers, you should have listened to
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: last week's episode of this show. Also, poachers doing it
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: for the Graham Instagram. That is, deeds done for the
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: Graham might lead a poacher to time behind bars. Recently,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: the Texas Operation Game Thief Wildlife Crime Stoppers hotline started
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: buzzing about an illegally taking wild turkey. The perpetrator spotted
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: the bird, rolled the windows down, squeezed off a shell,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: and ended the life of a spring turk. Apparently, this
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: wizard of multitasking caught it all on video and loaded
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: it up for his I G followers. Common sense would
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: dictate that you, first off, should not roll down the
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: window of your hunting rig to blast a turkey or
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: any animal for that matter. In most states, shooting for
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: the roadway in any fashion is illegal. Secondly, don't post
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: your illegal activity to Instagram and share with the world.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: I appreciate the easy job you were making for the
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: game wardens, but I don't want to be associated with
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: you as part of the hunting community. More from Texas.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Remember that opening bit about copper lights. Here's why I
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: brought that up. In the late nineteen sixties, archaeologists collected
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: over a thousand samples of human produced copper lights at
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: the Canajo Shelter in southwest Texas. Just recently, these samples
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: were re examined by an archaeological team from Texas, A
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: and M. In one of the samples, they found a
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: small road apparently eating a hole, which for the people
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: living around Canajo Shelter was not abnormal. Life in the
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: desert has its challenges, and another sample, the team did
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: get a surprise, a surprise in the form of what
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: appeared to be a whole rattlesnake, including the snake's hide
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: head and a one centimeter long fanct. According to the
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: authors of the report, quote we proposed is that a
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: likely explanation for the ingestion of an entire snake is
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: that the individual did so for a distinctly ceremonial or
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: ritualistic purpose. End quote. You know there's a joke in
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: the archaeological community. Is something you've dug up doesn't make sense,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Call it ritualistic or ceremonial, and move on. The thing
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: is I can think of a few things I've ingested
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: that we're certainly not ceremonial or ritualistic, though they'd still
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: make it tough for anyone to propose a likely explanation
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: for my behavior from our technology desk, engineers at Cornell
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Lab of Ornithology have created, at the request of a
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: professor in the Department of Evolution and Ecology at the
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: University of California Davis, a sage grouse femba. The request
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: for these lovely robotic ladies of the sage was inspired
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: by the desire to understand sage grouse breeding habits, specifically
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: how man made disturbances affect breeding efforts on and around
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: lex which are communal breeding areas where male sage grouse
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: compete for females through elaborate sexual displays. Scientists remotely drive
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: these robotic bird renditions, which sport an external frame that's
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: wrapped with female sage grouse skin and feathers, and further
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: fitted with all terrain wheels. The mechanized love birds are
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: fitted with camera to capture male behavior up close and personal,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: sometimes too close. Streading males have repeatedly mounted and attempted
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: to breathe these female robots. Then again, they've also been
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: reported to mount an old, dried up cow patty, tough
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: times for sage grouse love making. And lastly, a word
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: from that wonderful Texas musician I mentioned earlier, Mica p
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Handsome again. Don't confuse him with Michael Ray Handsome, the
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: guy who neglected his pet fish, Graham Paws born on
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: a cold summer's day. No New Chicago any special place
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: thanks to tuning in next week. Find out more about
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: all this fascinating information at the meat eater dot com
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: and email me at ask Cal at the meat eater
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: dot com