Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 12-08-25_MONDAY_7AM

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

Open phones and topics, then Capt. WIlliam E. Simpson from WIld Horse Fire Brigade - Wolf predation...is the problem really a lack of deer, and should we focus on that?

Bill Myr's show podcast is sponsored by Klausur drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about it. So great having you here, 770563-770 KMED. I was looking at the social media feeds over the weekend. I pretty much stuck close to my home over the weekend and I ended up doing some. Well, Christmas lights did some Christmas light put a timer in so I could just have it go on, dusk to dawn, all that kind of thing. and taking care of mom and taking care of business around the house

and taking care of the third boss that I have at the house. And who is the third boss? Why that would be Punky, the outdoor feral cat, who has decided that I am now his servant. I was telling you about the feral that came up, showed up at our house, and he was so ripped up and looked like he had been attacked by a coyote is the way he looked like. And it was tail all chewed up.

I thought it was broken. but it now you know all that half the half of the fur was missing off of his tail and he had a bad bum rear leg so look that he got attacked by a coyote is what it looked like and we felt really badly for him so we started feeding him and then we got him a heated house online one of those things you get it that has a little

low wattage heating pad in the bottom of it because I'm thinking boy he needs him help and so he figured that out really quick And then it's kind of like, you know, I walk into the kitchen and he's able to see me through the window. And then you see him going, the first thing he always says to me is a hiss. He greets me with a hiss always. And then it's meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, but he always starts off with a hiss. I'm going, oh, hush, I'm bringing you food. I'm going to work to buy your expensive kibble.

You, gosh, I guess we're engaging in. and voluntary socialism, I guess, you know, at the house, you know, taking care of the neighborhood strays. But it's so funny, I'll get in there, and it's almost like he's demanding. So he's going to go, you're going to sit in front of the door and hiss. It always starts off the hiss. He hisses at me first and then he meows. And then with Linda, he doesn't hiss at Linda any longer. He's figured out that Linda's no threat, but for some reason, I guess my size is what gets him.

But I just have to laugh every time. Got to keep doing it. Got to keep doing it. But anyway, I was talking about having looked at what's going on with social media over the weekend. There were some great, beautiful pictures from the Metford Winter Lights Festival, which was on Saturday. And they had some drone footage, really interesting, really great footage. And then I saw Medford, and for the first time it sort of struck me, Medford Winter Lights Festival. I didn't realize when I was going out to my

No July Christmas rhododendron that I jokingly refer to that I put my Christmas lights on to that I was putting winter lights on it. Where else have we seen that here in southern Oregon in which the de-christmising or the de-Christianizing of our holidays? Well, in fact, they don't even call this a holiday. It's just a 2025 Medford Winter Lights Festival.

What to do in Southern Oregon. It was over on that website. I metford Winter Lights Festival. Has it always been the Winter Lights Festival? Did it ever used to be the Christmas Lights Festival? I'm asking for maybe people who lived in Southern Oregon for a longer time than me. I've only been here since the early 1990s. So I'm a long-term transplant, but I've been here for a while.

Did we ever use to call it the Christmas tree lighting or the Christmas lighting? or was it always a winter lights festival? Back in the 1940s, did they have a winter lights festival in Medford in the 50s or the 60s? Does anybody know, anybody who perhaps has spent more time than me? 770563. I didn't realize all this time that I was putting out lights to celebrate winter or the winter holiday. That's the other good one you'll hear. the winter concert.

Oh, okay. Well, what are we celebrating in the... Oh, we're celebrating sleigh rides in snow and Chris Kringle and Ho, Ho, Ho, and Rudolph the Red Nose Rander. You know that kind of stuff? Hmm. I've noticed a bit of this time coming into our culture a long time ago. Gosh, I want to see.

What was it? Late 90s when I was at a Christmas concert in Ashland. And it was for Briscoll School, the old Briscoll School, the kids put on a Christmas concert. And I will always remember the band teacher, or maybe it was the band and choir teacher. I don't know who she was, but she said, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to play some music now, which is some of the most beautiful music ever composed and recorded. and but I want to warn you that these are religious songs or she said words to that effect

and this was in the late 90s maybe about 28, 29 years back and that kind of really struck by heart it's like we had a teacher who was recognizing the beauty of the Christmas music of the, you know, the hallelujah chorus and all the rest of it that they ended up playing, and the kids who ended up singing it, but she felt the need to apologize for the Christian nature of it.

And I think that she was doing this out of realizing that it could be her head or her job. Only for her that she recognized that it was beautiful, that the music is beautiful, that the sentiment is beautiful, but I don't know if they call that a winter. concert or not. I looked back at my high school band and high school choir days. I still had a couple of memorabilia sitting in a box, you know, with, you know, old school newspapers, you know, things like that. And I looked at it and said, okay, what was it?

Oh, okay, it's the 1977 Christmas concert. They said Christmas concert in 1977. Oh, and here, here it is, 1978 Christmas concert. And yeah, we sang hallelujah chorus. We had the band playing songs, including Slay Ride and everything else, and then we did this. But it was a mix, but it was mostly from the Christian perspective when it was religious. I don't recall us playing, you know, any Jewish Hanukkah songs, but very few Jewish folks in Ohio, you know, at that point when I was growing up just saying the way it was. But when did that start, you know?

It was Christmas concert when I was a kid, and now we're apologizing for. for a winter concert, and now it's the Medford Winter Lights Festival, and I never realized that our festival was to celebrate Winter Lights. You strike you that way, or maybe not? I'm happy to take your call on that. 7705-633. The Winter Lights Festival returned, and hey, it was beautiful. They're going to be wrong.

Those winter lights really were something. Hi, good morning. This is Bill. Who's this? Hey, this is Logan, Bill. Hey, Logan, what's you thinking this morning, huh? Hey, I agree with you completely. You know, they were set of happy holidays.

They could have made those drones say Merry Christmas, but we know where Medford's leadership stands on the issue, obviously. But the person of my, purpose of my call is I want to just, I haven't heard this story cover, but this happened in Portland just this last week, is officially in the state of Oregon, or at least the city of Portland, your words are more dangerous than a knife. What happened? I don't know.

A man back in July, a jury just acquitted this man of, he stabbed, this black guy, stabbed this white guy because he called him the N-word. And the jury acquitted him. And the jury acquitted him because of that. I did not see that story. Yeah, check it out. It just shows how we have completely lost, Portland's completely lost their mind. So a murderous response to a personal slight is what we're looking at here.

Hmm. Apparently our words are more dangerous than nice now. Yeah, I'll remember that. So certain folks out there that if you disrespect me, that I can kill you. Yeah, and I just want to encourage people, you know, while we have this right of freedom of speech to the limited ability that we have, but I want to encourage people to use it. I'm one of those people that will always speak truth no matter what. Even when it becomes illegal, you will still hear me speak in the truth, Bill,

and we need other men and women to continue to do so. So stand up and use this right while we have and teach your kids to do the same. Yeah, and also stand up to say that you don't knife somebody for insulting you, okay? That's not what this is about. It's logic. We need to start teaching logic. We need to have a logic class in school again because apparently we forgot logic. Well, apparently the Portland jury.

that you were referencing didn't have much logic on this, too. They were going from the fields, weren't they? They feel, oh, well, he shouldn't have called him that. Well, he deserved to die. Well, it's the same sort of people that, you know, Trump's a Nazi, too. All right. Same sort of people. All right. Logan, I appreciate

the call. 770 KMED. Kind of a pulperie of whatever we feel like talking about, but the Medford Winter Lights Festival. Do the name strike you wrong, or am I reading too much into this? Hi, good morning. Who's this? This is Minor Day.

A, Day, what's going on in your world today, huh? I have a suggestion for a movie for you. I've seen the first one, but the second one I've just seen, and it's called Red, retired and extremely dangerous. It's with Bruce Willis, and it's a spy, CIA, adventure kind of love story. Oh, yeah, I saw Red a number of years ago. Great movie. Yeah, well, they got part two out.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was a few years ago that came out. one of my one of my favorite spy movies and who is the uh the female lead you know the grand dumb i'm trying to remember her she's a great actress her name just escapes me you know right now but but john malcovitch is john malcovich is in that too right isn't it right john and the first one uh what is named preton guy was in it the second one it's got a bunch of different actors, but yeah, it's an all-starcast, and both of them are really good. No, it's way fun, both of them.

And if you're looking for a little bit of that, hey, watch this kind of movie. That's what you want. That was Bruce Willis before his decline, and it's one of his best. Yeah, it's way before, because it's from, I think they're from the 90s, the first one, second one's from the 2000. Yeah, appreciate the call, Dave. Thanks for that. you know the problem with Bruce Willis films though folks is that if you have streaming like you like you got Amazon Prime or you have Netflix or any of those other streamers that are out there before Bruce went into his decline he made a lot of movies even as he was going into it and the later output was just like oh my gosh they were also most of them the vast majority and I think Cherry Cherry our resident movie critic would be one of the first ones to say

that some of those latest Bruce Willis movies near the end before his diagnosis of his aphasia, I think is what he has. I forget exactly what that was. Oh, my gosh, they were horrible. And yet we would always look at the streaming thing. Oh, it's a Bruce Willis movie we haven't seen. And if you go, wow, you know, Bruce Willis makes even a bad movie better. Unfortunately, near the end, it was just a made a bad movie bad.

But so you have to be sparing on what you choose. 723. Let me go back to the phones here. Hi, good morning. This is Bill. Who's this? Bill, it's Jerry. Jerry, how are you this morning? What's on your mind, huh? I'm doing well. Well, hey, quickly, I'm going to say two things, but first, I just wanted to say I did go to the Providence Festival of Trees this weekend and did like it. And now, were they celebrating trees or were they celebrating Christmas? Did they ever mention Christmas there? Just curious. You know, gosh, Bill, I don't recall. I was focused on Christmas.

Yeah. There were trees there decorated with themes that I thought weren't really appropriate for Christmas, but... Oh, really? Well, that's just my opinion. Okay, can you give me an example of one that you think didn't necessarily jibe? well uh i as i recall there you know there was a disney tree and uh i don't know i'm going to assume over its history maybe disney has put out some christmas type movies but it was you know and i don't know everything that was on the tree it was a disney tree i guess they were looking for a different

way to uh to attract attention right that kind of thing yeah and the and the the English movie with a young kid, Harry Potter, I think that there was a Hogwarts tree, I think. You know, maybe I'm a weirdo on this. I'm just going to ask you this. Sure. I've always hated Harry Potter. I have always despised Harry Potter.

I hated the books. I hated the movies. Is there something wrong with me? Well, you know, Bill, I haven't, like you, I can't say that I hate it. I just could say that it never interested me. Well, to me, though, it was always, I mean, I knew adults that were all into this. Adult, just tons of adults were into this, too, and I never understood that.

And I don't know, maybe there's a gene in me that rejects the Harry Potter wizardry type thing or something. I don't know, but there was something about it that always bugged me. And I have an irrational hatred of Harry Potter. I just do. Right. Anyway, I don't want it to sound like I hated the part of it's dustful. Oh, no, I wasn't trying to say that, but I couldn't help but notice that the city of Medford has to call it winter lights because I didn't realize that we had a holiday and a day off a national holiday to celebrate lights.

You know, the winter, like the winter solstice, the winter holiday. I've been around here a long time, Bill, and I honestly can't recall whether it was ever referred to. to as Christmas lights or what. I don't know the history of your question. But anyway, the festival was nice. I did appreciate, regardless of the themes, the people who took the time to design the trees and purchase the trees, there were a lot of timber companies who bought trees and who sponsored this event.

So a lot of beauty then from the timber people, the tree producers. Good. And anyway, I did appreciate. two trees that I do believe were in remembrance of people who are no longer with us. I thought that was appropriate. And I did, I just wanted to say, for me personally, this was a smaller tree, not a big one, but I did appreciate the, there was an east-to-west theme tree on Christianity. Really?

Now, are you talking about like Orthodox Church when you're talking about? east-to-west or something else? Well, that was the theme. It had some of the Christian saints on there, like St. Augustine, St. Ambrose. And anyway, it was from Chesterton Academy, which I don't really know a lot about. But anyway, I just appreciated that theme. I'm so glad you enjoyed that. And by the way, I wasn't knocking it, but it's always been Providence Festival of Trees.

I was just kind of curious if they ever mentioned Christmas, or maybe this was something that everybody, well, you know, if you want to have the maximum impact on an event, you don't bring the actual reason for the holiday in ever, if you can help it. You only go in kind of at the side, like a side view kind of thing. Right. Hmm. Appreciate the call. 770 OK MED, but we were celebrating winter lights on Saturday in Medford. By the way, it was a lot of beauty. He saw the drone footage, really something. But the winter lights, it just kind of hit me all of a sudden, gosh, they've been doing this for years. Did they ever call it Christmas lights at some point?

Maybe they did. Maybe not. Hi, good morning. This is Bill. Who's this? Hi, Bill. This is Red from the Hills. Hi, Red from the Hills.

How are you doing this morning? What's on your mind? I'm doing great. Anyways, I just want to speak to the weaponizing of the changing of the meaning of words. Okay. You know, when it comes to free speech and all that, well, there's a lot of where a dictionary definition cannot suffice anymore for the meaning of a word. And they say, no, it means this. And this is like a real problem. Because one of the questions I have, like, for you to see what you

think on this, what is the word Semite means? What is a Semite? You know, as far as the actual, I know what an anti-Semite is, it's being against anything Israel does. but well that that that speaks to what i'm speaking about here the weaponizing of the changing of the meaning of words okay so and i'm sorry and i'm sorry to admit i can't really tell you that i ever studied what the word semi meant but no i never looked it up really i'm i'm not going to tell anybody what it means i want everybody out there in the radio sphere listen to the show to look up the word Semite, the original definition of what Semite means, and then see how they have changed it and weaponized it to blur the actual meaning of word.

Okay, well, I know, I'm looking at one actual definition of Semitic people or Semites, a term for an ethnic, cultural, or racial group associated with people of the Middle East in the Horn of Africa, including Acadians, Arabs, Arameans, Canaanites, and the Hibesha peoples. The terminology is now largely unused outside the grouping Semitic languages in linguistics, first used in the 1770s. So that's where the word came from in the 1770s. Okay? There we go.

Well, it goes even farther back than that, because that's one definition you're looking, but the original definition goes even farther back than that. goes all the way back to Noah and the flood in his three sons. Uh-huh. Okay. So everybody looked that up. All right. We'll do.

Appreciate the call. Thank you with that. Hi. This is Bill. Who's this? Morning, Bill. Lunatic French. Yeah.

Who's this now? I'm sorry. I missed that. Lunatic French. Oh, hi, Lunatic. How you doing this morning? Good to have you back, L.F. Thank you, sir.

I think the lady's name you were looking for earlier was Judy Dench. Judy Ditch, yes. Oh, my gosh. He's a great actress. She's wonderful actress. And the reason I actually called was so that I could help you to understand. Hang on the actual legal, according to the governor's name, and I just lost it. Governor Kotech I saw on a JPR notice, has declared that Christmas is going to be renamed

I've just lost the darn name, and I need to get it right. I apologize. Okay, Lunditik. So Tina Kotech is going to rename Christmas. Is that it? Yeah, it's a blast. I apologize. It's not going to be called, you know, day off for union members' winter solstice day.

I mean, what? Actually, it's a couple of days past the solstice, but, no. Actually, pretty close to that. Oh. Well, if you can find that, could you get it back? to me, email it to me. All right, Lunatic French? All right. Yeah, but anyway, do you know if the Winter Lights Festival was ever called the Christmas Lights Festival in Medford, or has it always been Winter Lights?

I've only been here as long as you have, Bill, since the early 90s. Okay. All right. And I guess I'm becoming more sensitive to such Christ-washing of the language these days. Just saying. Yeah, and so have I. Mm-hmm. All right. 732 at KM.E.D. Planned your holiday. We're here in the Bill Myers Show on 106-3, KMED. We're going to catch up with Captain Bill Simpson here in a couple of minutes.

Maybe more than a couple. We'll get them on here. I always enjoy talking with him. We're going to talk about the wolf kills and wolf predation. A little bit about that, getting his perspective out. Of course, a little bit of wild horse talk, too, for sure. Hi, good morning. This is Bill.

Who's this? Welcome. Hello? One, two, one, two, three. Let me try it again. Maybe they didn't pay attention. Hi, good morning. You're on the Bill Meyers show on KMED. Who's this? Okay, not paying attention. We'll go to the other line.

Hi, good morning. Who's this? This is Minor Dave. Dave. I forgot to tell you about Christmas. Oh, okay. It was always Christmas, except that New Year's Day was, we call it, the winter festival. But Christmas was always Christmas. And you went around wishing everybody a Merry Christmas. Yeah, I don't recall anybody ever saying Merry Christmas.

winter holiday, just saying. No, no, I never heard that. All right. Thanks for the call, Dave. 770KMED. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Welcome. Hello. Morning, Bill. Hi.

This is Bill. I've got an idea or a thought about the Christmas lighting thing. Sure. It probably changed about the same time we all had to stop saying the Pledge of Allegiance and school. Oh. And starting to say happy holidays instead of Merry Christmas. Yeah, happy holidays. Okay, what holiday are we happening, icing? Well, of course, there is, you know, there is, you know, the Jewish holiday within that, too, Hanukkah within that, but the Christmas music is not really about Hanukkah, for the most part. Right. Yeah. I do believe, if I remember correctly, it's about the birth of Christ.

I've read that someplace. Okay, Bill, you have a good day now. Thank you, Phil. Yeah, I read that somewhere, the winter holiday. Anyway, hi, good morning. Who's this? Good morning, Bill. This is Lunatic Friends again.

Oh, finally found the reference. Oh, did you find the reference to what Tina Kotech wants to change Christmas to? Go ahead. This came from JPR, so it has to be accurate. Oh, well, JPR, it must be good. Okay. Governor Tina Konek has announced Christmas in Oregon will now be known as inclusive winter observance. Inclusive.

Winter Obserance. Are you sure this isn't Babylon, B, you're quoting? Nope, I saw it on the website itself, by JPR, yeah. Yeah, could you send that to me, please? Sure, I will do that. All right, I appreciate that. Inclusive Winter Observance. Okay, hi, good morning.

Who's this? Welcome. Hey, Bill Deplorable Patrick here. Good morning. Good morning, DP. go ahead i'm uh i'm being tortured why's that

well we tune into the bill mire show to hear the truth about everything but right now what we're hearing is people trying to stuff christ into christmas he was never in christmas the bible doesn't tell you to celebrate christmas or anybody's birthday and one of the things i've been asking i can't get anybody give me an answer is what does a jolly fat man in a red suit have to do with the birth of Christ? Well, nothing really. But, of course, you know, he was a real saint, you know, back at the time, or based on a real saint.

So why do we try to pretend that Christ was born in the dead of winter when he was born in the fall and the shepherds were tending their flocks in the fields? Okay, so you don't think there should be Christmas then, in other words. There are no celebration of Christmas, no holiday, no nothing. and because essentially what has been done is that, what was it, Constantine, you know, picked a day, and here is where we are, okay? Yeah, from the Church of Rome, see. I'll bet you were a lot of fun as a kid when you were telling everybody else that, you know, don't do this Christmas stuff. Don't try to tell me this is Christmas.

I have a lot of fun all the time, but I will tell you that when I first learned that Christmas is not Christ's birthday. Back in 1967, I dropped it immediately. I'm not into hoaxes. I just have this curiosity, though, about something. You know, we read rather easily in the Bible that Christ was born in Bethlehem. Well, that's in Israel. And he did a lot of traveling around in Jerusalem. How come all this interest in the North Pole?

Where'd that come from? I can't tell you that exactly, probably with the Santa Claus myth. okay well people just really enjoy a hoax and uh well people also enjoy uh but you know when it comes right down to it though the santa claus the santa claus deal with the north pole a lot of that i will bet you that is from i have not looked this up i am just engaging in conjecture please understand okay i don't have all the evidence but i would be willing to bet you that this is uh uh based on a norse legend norse legend some of the northern people talking about their spirits and or gods back in the days in the pagan world. Okay? How about that?

Well, I will tell you this. There's a lot to think about here, and there's a lot of things have been mixing around together, but I just want to ask you, what if it was your birthday and all your friends bought presents for everybody else except you for celebrating your birthday? Okay. All right. I get it. So, in other words, don't get upset about it being the Winter Lights Festival. I get it, Patrick. Thanks so much. 20 before 8, Captain Bill, standing by. We'll talk with him next.

News brought to you by Millette Construction, specializing in foundation repair and replacement. Get on solid ground. Visit Millet Construction.com. From the KMED News Center. They sold the dream, they cash the claim, now nothing here remains the same. Let's hear it again. you twist and cry under the wheels of a greedy lie once two lanes wide now broken and cold I still hear the ghosts of the lakes you hold oh oh cop go road I love the imagery of that song

the ghost of the lakes you hold cop go road I mean it's just great stuff now it was written by Captain William E. Simpson, we've talked with him several times over the years here from Wild Horse Fire Brigade, and that is, I mean, there are many songs on this, but that's my favorite cut on the last Mustang. The last Mustang is the album. You actually have a full album out there online now, Captain Bill. Welcome back. Yeah, good morning. Yeah, I do. Last Mustang, it dropped on all the streaming platforms, I think it was about 10 days ago. And my, and I actually had it, I mean, I've got so much poetry. written over the years here, I was able to put together another album that'll drop here on Wednesday on December 10th. And it's called Cheers of a Cowboy, and it's got a bunch more of these, I don't know, I guess it's country music. Yeah, but what you've done, though, is now I just want to be, now you're swearing, you know,

scouts on, or I don't know if you're ever a scout or not, but you actually wrote the lyrics, right? You wrote the lyrics. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, because there was somebody on the social media page that was just, saying, no, he didn't do that. He just had the AI write everything. And I said, I knew Bill as a poet, but, you know, I've got, I've got the written stuff. I mean, there's a new one out. The media taught you that. It's on Tears of a Cowboy. I wrote that article back in 2016,

and it got published. And what I did the other day is I pulled that article up and then pulled off some key lines and created lyrics out of my article and made a song out of that, you know, so, yeah, people, I mean, there's people out there that tear the wings off a butterfly. Well, you know, the challenge that we find ourselves in is that there is so much that is now created by AI, so much of it is fake, so many of the videos that you're even seeing on a social media feed are fake, that you start getting very cynical and thinking that all of it's fake. Now, you admit, though, that you ended up having AI create the music and the singing or do the singing for you, right? You've always been open about that.

Right, yeah. I have an AI cowboy and an AI cowgirl that I created. You know, I selected the voice and the tenor and all that good stuff. And then I use all the tools, just like a composer of an orchestra, to do my musical arrangement. But it's just like the guys in a band who use an organ as a synthesizer, and they can play all. kinds of sounds, they're using a computer to create the sound they want, right? It's the same thing, only now we're using computer language to do it in a pretty handy app, I would say, but compared to somebody who uses, for instance, an organ to create all these

different synthesized sounds and then record that. So, you know, it's just, it's the next progressionary step, but, you know, the key is all my, all of my lyrics are copyrighted was the, you know, U.S. Copyright Office, and my articles, of course, are all copyrighted, and I've written, I lost track after 150 articles published. There's like, I think, 68 articles just at Ciskew News. I know you're a prolific writer, and you always have been, but Bill, and the reason why I wanted to make sure people know about Tears of a Cowboy and the last Mustang is that all proceeds from people who download it, and or can you actually buy the songs through the thing, or is it just through the streaming that you?

you make money for that. Okay, so it's funny. I use the distribution system called Distro Kid because what they do is everybody has their own monetization model. Spotify does it on streaming, iTunes, and Apple sell the album for $499. And so everybody does a difference. So distro will work with all those people that collect your funds. And then that goes into the all-profit, all-volunteer nonprofit Wild Horse Fire Brigade to help, you know, save wildhorses, our local herd. And this is our heritage herd. We're doing work for this whole community here, Jackson County, Siscuit County. This is our herd. But nobody would step up and take the responsibility. So in 2022, Michelle and I went to the Ag Commissioner and said, look, you know, I've been spending $8,000 a year of my own money up

until 2022 taking care of this herd and that nobody else cared about. Everybody abandoned them. And basically, they were going downhill genetically. And then we stepped in. Yeah, and you've been helping them out. You've been working really hard on this for a number of years. Real passion, a real passion project, Captain Bill. I wanted to get your take on something different, kind of related to the wild horses, but not. There's been a lot of conversation about growing predation of wolves here in southern Oregon and northern California. And, of course, some people, like I said, thought I had a listener last week thought we had a goat attack on my wolves or a wolf attack on goats.

And something was probably more of coyote, according to. the officials, you know, as it were. But are we seeing a growing predation out there with the reintroduction of the wolf? Are you thinking about that? A lot of people wondering. Well, here, it's a combination of things, Bill. Number one, the reporting system for these attacks is much better than it used to be, because we have the advent of the internet and immediate reporting on Facebook pages. And, you know, in the old days, ranchers up in the mountains, you know, they'd get lion attacks, the wolf attacks, and bear attacks. And, And it didn't go anywhere.

You know, they tried to deal with it the best they could, and really nobody knew about it. But today, with the advent of modern technology and the speed of the Internet, you know, and cell phones and all this stuff. And I would also add the proliferation of trail cams, nature trail cams out there, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the aggregation of data and the reporting has gone up exponentially, and it's very rapid. So it makes it, in one sense, makes it seem worse than it was. Now, the fact that they did introduce canis lupus into this area of the United States is somewhat problematic because it is a bigger wolf than the Mexican wolf, which used to be here. Was the Mexican wolf then the native species that used to be here? Is that the one?

Yeah, yeah, they range pretty far north. I don't think they got up in past Central California, like past Sacramento, that kind of area. Yeah, do they still exist here? Does Mexican wolf still exist, or is it extinct? I'm not a biologist, so I can't tell you for sure on that. I don't think so. I think what's happened, I'll tell you what we do have now is that Canis Lupus, it must have been seven, eight years ago that one of the big males came down from Oregon, tagged Wolf, and he passed through Jenny Creek here, and he bred my coyotes. And so now I have these large-scale coyotes that are, you know,

instead of like a 25, 30-pound coyote, we've got coyotes up here that are 50. 60 pounds. Oh, we have hybrids. We're getting some hybrids here that we're thinking. Yeah, they're about as big as a German Shepherd. And then the wolves, I mean, if you ever see a wolf, they're shockingly large. I mean, the Canis Lupus, you know, most of them are 100 pounds, 120 pounds. They're a big animal. And so, and I've seen them up here on the mountains. But the thing is, is here's the problem, Bill. When there's nothing on the menu, you know, our collapse of our deer population. If you look at that map from the Farm Bureau that I sent with an article from Pitchstone Waters, that's Chris Gill. He's a Texas rancher, oilman, banker. He's

got two ranches, one in Texas, one in Idaho. You know, very, very intelligent man, very accomplished gentleman. He bought the DHL ranch in Idaho. That's how, I mean, DHL airline, you know how big they are. Sure. He bought their ranch. That's how successful Chris is. So anyway, you know, when you look at that map, and you've got all these states in the West that are red and pink. Those are areas where the wolves are causing, according to the Farm Bureau, a lot of damage. But the bottom line is when you look at those same states and you look at the collapse of the herbivore is very, very evident in those states. Now, the herbivory, just to find the herbivory for those who don't understand that term

or no but the term means, Bill. Yeah, so the herbivore are critters that eat grass and brush, okay? So we're talking deer, elk, moose, wild horses, and also, of course, livestock, but livestock, you know, you put them in the wilderness, it's not a good idea. So, you know, cow, sheep, and goats, and there's differences in the physiology and the characteristics of those various herbivores and how they graze and what they do. But I guess kind of reading into, they're intimating what you're discussing here right now, is that the collapse of the herbivory ends up, meaning that since we have less on the menu and we

reintroduce an apex predator, what do we think was going to happen? Is that kind of it? Well, yeah, and we always had predators. I mean, it's not like there was no predators, and suddenly there are, okay, they've always been here. There's always been wolves around. There's always been coyotes. But now we have Canis Flupus that's more prevalent, okay, and they've done very well. um you know they're like any apex predator there they have no natural predators other than lions you know lions and bears may take uh you know cubs and things but um you know and you know it's black on black if you will in a sense um but anyway it's uh you know balance is what what this what we really need we don't need you know unfortunately a lot of people in the ranching industry

think shooting everything is the solution and it's really not it's a bad idea well i know that if Canis Lupus is coming after my cows, I'm not going to be real happy about that, though. Those cows are, you know, two or three grand just on the hoof, just a basic cow right now. Oh, yeah, yeah, no, I get it. The thing is, instead of, like, treating the symptom, okay, you treat the core root of the problem. Why are the question, people need to ask the most important question, why are the wolves coming after my cows? that's that's what people need to be focused on the why why is this happening and it's not because the wolves are introduced the wolves that like i said predators have always been here there's lions

and bears and coyotes and wolves and hybrid coyotes the thing is is there's nothing in the mountains to eat anymore the few deer left have all moved down in the town they're in ashland they're around wierka and montague on people's lawns because they don't want to get eaten they're not dumb so they come in by people and they're bringing because there's so few deer left in California. I think we're under 380,000 now in the whole damn state, and we're 93 million acres. You know, you can do the deer per acre math. You know, there's hardly any deer out there, and you talk to these hunters down here, and I do, I see them every

hunting season, because guess what? I live in the famous C1 unit, and they come up here, and at the end of the season, it's tag soup, because there's nothing to shoot. You know, a few people will get something, and those guys are lucky, But the thing is, if we don't bring back our servant population, there's going to be an ongoing argument, very costly, why everybody's fighting and arguing in a fishing game, does go ahead and shoot a wolf and we'll take your ranch, you know, they'll sue you, they'll put you in jail. You know, instead of fighting that fight, we should be fighting to manage the wildlife better. That's the ranchers need to put their effort. Now, so you think ranchers should then be proposing a moratorium then on hunting, on deer and elk hunting for a few years or one or two years? Ranchers need to get behind my plan, and here's why.

Okay, we can immediately drop about 100,000 horses into the remote wilderness here immediately. And that creates prey animals for the wolves, the lions, the bears. that happens immediately because the BLM is hoarding all these horses. Oh, so you're not talking about moratorium. You're saying, hey, just say drop the horses in, let them get eaten? Is that it? No, that's the first step, Bill. Okay.

Step one, because you can do it immediately, okay? Step two, because moratorium, it took 10 years. The last time we had a moratorium on hunting in California was in 1910. It took 10 years to bring the deer population from 500,000 in 1910 back to million in 1927. And where are we right now, right now, according to the estimates? Well, in California, we're about 380,000. We're below the 1910 level. Wow. Okay. So, and so it's a two-step thing. We need immediate relief. See, that's what I'm saying. I'm very sympathetic to ranchers. I, you know, I grew up on a ranch. I had, you know, predators eating our stuff. And so the bottom line is we have

an immediate solution, and that solution is beneficial for the horses. People go, oh, that sounds kind of mean, Bill. Well, guess what? If it wasn't for predators, there wouldn't be wild horses in America today, period. Because the predators weed out the weak genetic, and that's what they need. Yeah, and then the strong horses end up surviving to breed. Okay. Right. All right. So that's step one, and we do that right now, and it gives the ranchers immediate relief, because, like, when I see one of my horses up here have been killed, you know, and the lions and the wolves

and these new hybrid coyotes are vicious. They'll take down an adult horse. I mean, you've seen them taking down elk before. I mean, elk is even bigger than an adult horse, and they got horns. All right. So I just wanted to jump to the kind of like get to the meat of this, no pun intended here, is that, all right, dispatch wild horses into the wilderness. Let them battle it out then with the apex predators, including the, you know, lupus, canis, as you've been talking about, you know, the big wolf. and then let that, let that do happen, but also have a moratorium on hunting of deer and elk.

Let those herds rebuild. That will restore better balance then and less desire for the wolves to then go in and take your cattle because they're going to find just more food around them in different areas. Is that your theory on this one, your plan? Well, it's not a theory. It's a proven scientific fact. If there's a herd of deer nearby, and, you know, the baby deer, the fawns, and the younger deer are easy prey for wolves.

The wolves aren't stupid either. That's the other thing. They know we have guns. They're not dumb. Yeah, but would they, but is they, okay, let's say that you do let the, the deer breed. Wouldn't the deer end up just staying or just overpopulating where we are right now in Ashland and Jacksonville and all the other places where... No.

No, they'd rather be, they're doing, they're coming down. Okay, I've studied fisheries biology, a little bit because I was a commercial fisherman, and I worked with the fishery guys in Hawaii, preserving coral reefs over there, Frank Nita. And at the end of the day, what we find out is when you have a big school of baitfish, for instance, and you got shoals of baitfish, you know, it's like a cloud of fish in the water. And when the big predators come in and gobble those up and there's less fish, they don't just stay out in the open water anymore. They head for the rocks and places to hide. that's the same behavior we're seeing with the deer when there's no big herd when you're in a big herd you feel safe so you can be out in the wilderness you don't have to run into town

ah got it okay and it's because of the thin herding that we find them in the protection okay that makes sense all right and now now you sent me an article on this one and i'm going to post that too and i also want to post a link to where's the best place to i want to make sure because i'm just out of time right now here bill but i wanted to make sure that we get to you where people can actually download your last Mustang and tears of a cowboy. Where would you go first? Well, boy, I don't know. I don't use streaming platforms. Put the music up there. You know, I'm so busy writing, Bill. I hardly, the only time I get to listen to my music is when I'm producing it. But, you know, I have a Spotify account now because I had to have it to get on to load and see what it sounds like and all

that. Okay, but go download and listen to Tears of a Cowboy and also The Last Mustang, both albums. And now Tears of a Cowboy drops this Wednesday and last Mustang already out there with Copco Road. You know, that song really sticks in my mind so much that I want to do a parody of it, Costco Road. Costco Road. Well, you know, your song is so good, I want to do a parody of it, Costco Road where you're broken, tired. because you've spent all your money. Well, actually, by the way, we're doing a video with Copco Road right now.

We're in production, and we're going to have a video for Copco Road. Oh, okay. I look forward to seeing it when you got it out there. I'll post that too. You take care, Bill. Be well, okay? All right. Thank you, Bill.

Thank you. Captain William E. Simpson, Wildhurst Fire Brigade, home of the last Mustang. and Copco Road and tears of a cowboy and so much more. KMED and KMED HD1, Eagle Point, Medford, KBXG grants pass. Well, Burns.