The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 267: Smolt to Adult

Episode Date: April 9, 2021

Steven Rinella talks with Congressman Mike Simpson, Eric Crawford, Ryan Callaghan, Chester Floyd, and Phil Taylor.Topics discussed: Phil's parfait and Cal's Covid shot; Buck Bowden's burl bowls; energy consumption and Bitcoin; would someone just give Chester a free boat already?; a reminder to get all the right permits and licenses and extra stuff when you hunt, fish, or trap; caught on (trail) cam; the prevalence of same sex behavior in the animal kingdom; icy hotspring monkeys as kind of gross creatures; Rep. Simpson's proposal to remove dams along the Columbia and Lower Snake Rivers; bear with salmon DNA in them; where the opposition lies and how Rep. Simpson would never screw agriculture; and more.Connect with Steve and MeatEaterSteve on Instagram and TwitterMeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeShop MeatEater Merch Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. Welcome to the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. The Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. Presented by First Light.

Go farther, stay longer. All right, everybody, we're here. Ryan Callahan. This goes out to Yanni's dad. Yanni's dad, Yanni. We are joined by Phil, who's having a little parfait. How is it, Phil? It's always delicious.

Yeah. Smacking your lips over there. You turned your mic off. Yeah. Some people can't listen to you smack. Some people love this kind of thing. Most people hate it. I'm going gonna turn it off that's good uh chester who's here for a guest appearance uh uh today's installation of the adventures what is the what's the what's the show called turn your thing back

on swallow your yogurt in the middle of a bite here uh the continuing adventures of chester the investor that's right um r Ryan Callahan is here. Fresh off his first, I mean, like literally, it's probably, I mean, it's probably hasn't even, it's probably still percolating through your veins. For sure. For sure. COVID vaccine, first round Pfizer. That's not an endorsement. That's just what they got.

You don't know how it works yet. No. Um, so you weren't, um, did you have like a, you know, about getting the vaccine? Were you afraid that, um, you know, the government was going to put a tracking device in you and all that kind of stuff? What's the main argument against the vaccine? That, well, that's a big one and, and the whole thing's made up. So why do this anyway? And, um, you know, it's weird though, like

amongst a large part of my family, we've never ever had flu shots. I've never had a flu shot in my entire life. But I wouldn't call yourself an anti-vaxxer. No, but I just ran because I don't get the flu. Right. I didn't, as far as I know, as far as we know, we've done a bunch of COVID tests.

Um, but I guess I haven't had an antibody test, but I didn't get COVID either. So. Maybe you did. But maybe I did. Did you, did you vacillate on getting the vaccine? There was part of me that was like, self, do you find it odd that you've never had the desire to get a flu shot or felt like it was irresponsible to not get a flu shot, but here you are really chomping at the bit to get a COVID-19 shot.

Yeah. I had those thoughts. Yeah. There are notable, I mean, there's more incentive to kind of wrap this up if we can, then there is the wrap up the flu. I don't really know why that's true. But it's like, I don't know. Yeah.

It's like, uh, maybe it's acknowledging a little bit of frailty in yourself. Like, oh, I'm tougher than the flu. Yeah. Didn't get COVID, but. Uh, yeah, I don't know. But yeah, I, I'd, I'd had some like, huh? Like, well, you know, don't feel sick.

Maybe I just have the good stuff already. So I mess with it. Were they friendly to you down there? Very friendly. Very thankful. Did you have to take your shirt off? Nope. I just peeled, gave her a little shoulder, a

little taste of the shoulder. Juan, they were acting like, they were acting like you were doing them a good turn? Yes. Very much so. Huh. We're just so happy that you came in. Like giving blood or something.

Yeah. What shoulder would you like? My left shoulder's closer to you. How about that one? I'll get up and move. I'll get up and move if you want it in the right shoulder. Do you want Bugs Bunny or Camo Band-Aid? I want Bugs Bunny. So there's enough Camo in my life, ma'am. the right shoulder do you want bugs bunny or camel uh band-aid i want bugs bunny

so there's enough camel in my life ma'am and then how do you go about um i'm going to introduce you in a second eric uh we're joined by podcast alum eric crawford who's wearing a new hat i don't mean that literally i mean figuratively wearing a new hat but uh how do you know when it's time to go in for your other one? They, they, right now they're really encouraging you to, uh, pre-schedule your second shot. Um, but they're doing it in blocks. So it's like the, the block that I'm a part of right now that got signed up and got vaccine slots for today. Well, we'll all be getting their second shot April 21st.

But, uh, we're all on the road April 21st. Uh, but, uh, I had a long talk with my consigliere, Phil, podcast producer. Over there with the yogurt. Yep. Yogurt guy. I mean, look at him, right? He's working on his gut health.

He's already got a round of vaccine in him. Oh? He's working on his gut health. He's already got around a vaccine in him. Oh. He's a pretty reliable source. So, and he was saying, just get it and figure out the second one. Could be a week early, week late, but. Got it. Yeah. So that's my program.

Got it. Yep. Eric Crawford, when was the last time you were on the show? You were a game warden back then. I was. I was. Gosh, was it 2015? Could that be?

When the heck was it? It was a long time ago. God, we were just young pups back then. Some of us, yep. What are you doing nowadays with yourself? Today, I work for Trout Unlimited. As a? North Idaho Field Coordinator is what my official title is.

Did you know all along that you're like, man, someday when I'm not a game warden, I'm going to work for Trout Unlimited? I didn't know that. No. You know, it was just kind of a right set of circumstances. Quite honestly, got burnt out being a game warden after 20 plus years of doing it. But Matt, 20 plus years, don't it, I mean,

20 plus years with the same agency, right? Oh, yeah. Don't they kind of like look out for you after that? Like there's some retirement stuff and all that. Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Straight up. Yeah. Got a pension and everything. Yeah. But I feel like you're not, are you older than me or younger than me? No, I think we're the same age. Older.

48? 48. Okay. You're one. That's not really fair. You're one year older than me and now you're like, you can tell people you're retired. Well, yeah, I still work though. That's a good point.

Yeah. So I don't draw on my retirement with the state, but yeah, it was just a good transition from doing, you know, conservation law enforcement and conservation for that matter to now focusing on, in on, you know, salmon and steelhead and cold water species throughout the state of Idaho. Were you torn about retiring? I wasn't. I wasn't at all. Well, I will say this. There was a day as I drove to the office that I worked out of in Lewiston that it really hit me that I was losing my identity, if that makes sense. Like, hey, I was a game warden for 20 years. Like that's what anybody. You're not packing a pistol on your hip and. Yeah, no, not wearing body armor to work or, or wearing a sidearm.

Yeah, no, but it was just like, Hey, that's who I am. That's who I identify with. And then one day it was gone. Are your neighbors a lot more forthcoming with you now about like what they've been up to? Uh, um, I have one neighbor that, uh, I think he's even more apprehensive now Are your neighbors a lot more forthcoming with you now about like what they've been up to? I have one neighbor that I think he's even more apprehensive now because then he doesn't know what I'm up to. And like he's an avid hunter.

He used to know what not to tell you. Now he's like, I don't even know anymore. Well, not even though Cal's aware of this. But last two weeks ago, last week, last weekend it was, there was three moose in my yard. Dead? No, no, alive. Yeah. Okay.

Eating my shrubs. So I called the damn game department, told them to get their moose out of the yard. Like literally called my old neighboring officer. I was like, hey, these moose are back. What are you doing? Yeah. But that same neighbor had just evidently just been bitching like crazy about him. Like eating his apple trees and he's happy to see him gone. Gotcha.

Yeah. Are you admiring that bowl right there? I am. That thing is beautiful. It's hard to talk about it because people can't see it, but it's gorgeous. That's called a Bucky Bowl. It is amazing.

The inside of it literally looks like polished stone rather than wood. It's unbelievable. It's a birch burl that Buck Bowden, who's also a podcast alum, Buck Bowden goes out and hunts them down out in the woods out in Alaska. Obviously chainsaws off the burl and then takes a, like an angle grinder with this little wood fitting on it and cuts away everything that doesn't look like a bowl.

So how many hours of effort goes into that? He says that takes him about 10 man hours. That's it. I thought it'd be way more. Yeah. So did I. It's gorgeous. Feel how thin the walls are in that thing.

It's beautiful Feel how thin the walls are in that thing It's beautiful It is The reason I bring this up Is we're going to make one of these Bucky bowls It'll be a while so stay tuned But we're going to have a way to make one of these Bucky bowls available And we're going to raise some

Conservation money By having an auction house Of oddities we're going to raise some conservation money by having an auction house of oddities. So what you're saying is I should start saving my money so I can bid on it. Start saving your money now because that big-ass bowl, you could pretty much, Chester could damn near take a bath in that thing. That bowl is going to, Buck's got one that looks just like it that he's sending it to us that we're going to make available

through an auction house of oddities. Uh, lots of pictures of those things. Um, yeah, 10 hours is all. I bet you if you went to do it. Well, in fact, one of our camera guys took from Buck's collection. I don't know. Did you ever ask Lauren or hear from Lauren? You know, Lauren, how long it took him to do it?

He did it. He did it. I don't know how long it took him though, but. He did it. He did it. I don't know how long it took him, though. But he was asking me a bunch of questions about it with the angle grinder with the wood bits and stuff. Yeah, because you're a little bit crafty with wood, Chester. Yeah, I used to be. Yeah.

Well, you mean you used to be a month ago? He hung it up. He retired. He took his retirement. He could still be crafty with wood, though. Retired, but I still work. Boy, you could still be crafty with wood. I mean, come on. It's not could still be crafty with wood, though. Retired, but I still work. Boy, you could still be crafty with wood. I mean, come on.

It's not hard to be crafty with wood. What was I talking about? Oh, yeah. So we're going to have Phil hit the Chester and the Investor soundtrack. The continuing adventures of Chester the Investor. Come to Papa Moon. That's it. Come on.

That's it. Come on. That's right. Come to Papa Moon. What's going on lately? Chess has been getting so much feedback about his Bitcoin operation. Yeah, a lot of people writing in, which I was surprised. With advice. Yep, advice. Here's one.

It's not quite advice. We know advice. Here's one. It's not quite advice. We know what you're talking about. I started my Coinbase account back when Bitcoin was like 10K. They gifted me 10 free dollars of Bitcoin. That money has now grown to $38.01. If it keeps growing, I'll be able to buy those new sweet First Light pants,

all without ever putting in my own money. Suck on that, Chester. Austin out of Arizona. How is the investment sitting right now? It's kind of like just been stagnant since the last time we talked about it. Really? Yeah, it hasn't. I mean, it's gone up and down, but not huge swings. talked about it. Really? Yeah, hasn't. I mean, it's gone up and down, but not huge swings.

Are you regretting it? Oh, sorry. Yeah, do you guys feel like your conversation has kind of stagnated the marketplace a little? Like introduced some investor uncertainty? Oh, we might be tanking. Influencing it? Influencing the market. You might be doing insider trading.

Game stop. He's doing insider trading because he knows when we're going to talk about it. Are you regretting your investment? Do you wish you put it into real estate? No, I still made money on it. And it's, it's, I haven't lost any money. It's just.

Plus it's hard to put a few thousand bucks into real estate. Oh yeah. Yeah. Like I need a very small piece of land. Yeah. I mean, to be clear, I'm not like, I don't have a ton of money in Bitcoin. Just trying to get a... Just trying to get a walleye boat.

Just trying to get a walleye boat. Someone wrote in this. This is some feedback that I got. I don't know if you got it. This guy hates Bitcoin. Okay? He doesn't like it. He doesn't like Bitcoin because of this.

There's no social, tangible utility or value to it. He goes on to say that, which is, that's all subjective, right? What's not subjective is this. Uses insane amounts of real energy. Okay. The University of Cambridge suggests the Bitcoin network uses more than 121 terawatt hours of electricity annually. Now, are you familiar with this, Chester? There's about 108 countries in this world?

Yeah. Okay. If Bitcoin was a country, it would be the 30th, the 30th, is that a word? Yeah. The 30th most energy sucking country on the planet. That's how much electricity those suckers are using. The cost doesn't end there. Go on, Cal.

Familiar with, there's a Bitcoin mining operation in Milltown, Montana. Right there, you know, like on the mill property when they shut the mill down and, uh, they seek out places to mine Bitcoin that, uh, have a relatively low temperature because they got a cool. Cool all the computers. All the computers or, uh, yeah. yeah uh but the facility also creates like an audible hum and you can hear that hum for miles really like once you like you know it's that thing like once you become familiar with it you can hear it for a long long way yeah and then eventually you're so familiar with it you can't hear it

anymore but right in milltown yeah Yeah. It's gone now. Um, for this could have been part of the reason, but, um, the, there were studies coming out suggesting that this audible hum could make people tone deaf to that pitch people. And then, uh, also was having all sorts of effects on like bats and birds and stuff like that. Jeez, Chester. Yeah. What have you got us? Well. Dirty e-money like bats and birds and stuff like that. Jeez, Chester. Yeah. Dirty money. Well.

Dirty e-money. Chester, I view it like this. This is all so he can get a walleye boat. It's like Chester is holding the walleye boat industry hostage. He's basically saying you could end this global environmental catastrophe just by giving me a walleye boat. Bats, birds, global warming. He's like, I'm into it for the boat. If I get a boat, I pull out.

If not, I'm in. Killing bats, killing birds. And may your children go tone deaf. However, there's some pretty interesting stuff going on by these mining operations using energy, excess energy from fossil fuel mining, like oil rigs. I know you like to say this, but I don't really know what this means. Can you tell people what mining means? Because they're thinking you're digging a hole.

Basically, mining is solving a long math problem. And once they solve it, it's digital. It comes up with basically a number that cannot be replicated. It's really difficult to replicate that number because you'd have to go through the exact same steps. You know, these mining operations that have to do to come up with that n number that n number is a bitcoin and um so the mining is just computations very complex computations with computers that that require lots of energy yeah and make our children not be able to hear certain sounds possibly okay but i don't know i don't know that's

why he's so that's why he has that's why he's so unconcerned with this no i'm i'm concerned i'm but there's like most of bitcoin is mine in china um and a lot of it is coming they're setting up these operations in dams and stuff where there is excess energy so like where in like low population areas where the these electric these uh hydroelectric dams are creating too much energy they got nowhere to put it so essentially it would just be they're taking this excess to mine bitcoin also in the united states oil rigs you see them all over produces natural gas so you see flares yeah so they're basically tapping in to these flares and trying their best to use excess energy which that that energy would be going to nobody you know it wouldn't they're not using it they're just burning it off how much do you believe that cal

on a scale of one to ten oh i believe it like you you lose energy when you move energy that's that's part of the deal so i can i can see that making sense think about this the u.s dollar is backed by the u.s government uncle sam uncle sam which i'm not hating on the u.s dollar i'm just trying to yeah yeah um we need the u.s dollar but uh it is backed by the u.s government which is essentially backed by the military and think about how much gasoline the military uses every day to protect our dollar. Jeez, Chester's going deep. It's deep now.

I can't even retort. I'm going to have to come back for the next time we do this segment and think of a retort. Well, and it's all for a walleye boat. That's the most striking thing here. Think about it like this. Imagine if the military

would just give Chester a walleye boat. They wouldn't even feel it. Their budgets. Fell off a train somewhere. And they'd win him back over to the U.S. dollar, and he'd be back a fan of the U.S. dollar. They'd get that customer back, and he wouldn't be putting his money in some crypto-terrorism deal.

Chester. So let me tell you another. Here's another possible retort,ester for you not for me but for you would be um that if you didn't buy it someone else would buy it yeah i don't know i mean like you getting out of this walleye boat business isn't going to make or break bitcoin absolutely not yeah uh what's your timeline like at what point would you be frustrated if you didn't have your walleye boat? A couple months. Oh, you want, like, he wants that boat.

Because you know what? Cal and I got to go walleye fishing. Well, his buddy Seth just went out and bought a boat the old-fashioned way. He's working. That military money. You just work and take your money and buy a boat. Now, he's out pounding walleyes, and Chester's just sitting around hitting refresh on his Bitcoin account. I went with him.

You got a taste of the good life, did you? I got a taste, and that was all I needed. Yeah, you got to pace yourself, though. You don't want to make the wrong purchase. That's true. And right now, it's really hard to fight the find. As a guy that has done that myself. Well, what Chester's thinking about doing in all honesty, Chester's thinking about selling his drift boat.

Oh, yeah. Putting the drift boat money toward the walleye boat and then promptly getting back into Bitcoin just to make, just to make screw you money. Yeah, smart move. I did something similar. I had a raft with a fishing frame, sold that, upgraded to a drift boat.

But that was when I moved to the Lewiston, Moscow area where I live now, realized I couldn't get to where I needed to, to fish salmon, steelhead, sturgeon, kokanee, you name it. And now I have a powerboat. Hmm. What happened to the other boats? Sold them.

So you just opted. Upgraded. What's that the other boats? Sold them. So you just opted. Upgraded. What's that drift boat worth? 95 probably, a hundred bucks. Dude, buy a nice motor with that. I'm torn because, you know, right now I'm, I'm not the kind of guy who probably should be buying a walleye boat, you know, just.

Yeah, but you're going to earn it like this way that doesn't have any impact because this is money you found in a drawer. True. Well, I didn't find it. You were storing it in a drawer. I worked for it. Yeah.

The, we were just talking boat, boats are a hot topic because there are no boats on the market right now. Like it's very, it is a seller's market, you could say, right? It is. Low inventory, lots of demand. Now's the time to get top dollar for that drift boat.

And I have a raft you can borrow anytime you want. Thanks, Cal. Yeah, it's nice. Everybody wins. With a condition, Cal gets invited on every walleye trip, I suppose. Oh, I'll invite him every time I can. I told him if he needs to drive to Wisconsin and get a sweet walleye boat, he can take my truck. Ooh.

Because one factor he's not talking about is if he ends up with a big lake walleye boat, he also needs a vehicle to tow that boat. Yeah. And then later, years from now, you'd be like, how'd you get that boat out here from Wisconsin? Oh, that's right. You took my truck. That's right. Whew. my truck. That's right. A lot of wear and tear. That was a lot of wear and tear on my truck.

Can we ask you a question? Can you put your former game warden hat on? And I want to run a question by you. This is a hard question to ask. Just in fairness to the audience, I teed it up. I asked if it was okay to ask it. Our governor here in montana there's been some articles written uh with the what i have found to be a decidedly um misleading collection of headlines about the governor sort of like illegally

uh you know like illegally kills a Yellowstone wolf. So I can't remember the exact headline. It was such that I thought when I saw the headline, I thought, man, it's so ungoverned like to go into Yellowstone National Park and shoot a wolf. That's what I thought reading the headline. I was like, this is a big deal, you know? And I read the article and I'm like the third or fourth paragraph of the article.

I get to what, like what happened actually transpired. So not to make an apology for it, but it was just, it was like, it was funny that, uh, in,

in searching for a headline, people that wanted to make it something like you put down like dead, killed, Yellowstone wolf. It's like, you know, it's going to be sticky. Right. What did happen was if you go online here, you're from Idaho, but you go online in this state and buy a trapping permit. There's a season to trap wolves. Your trapping permit is good for all trapping activities with the exception of one thing you need to do an online certification like you need

to take an online course there's a there's a quiz in it i don't know must be some kind of thing to make sure you were actually paying attention yeah i gotta I got to believe there's, because we in Idaho has a similar trapping ed course specific to wolves. Okay. The wolf trapping course. Above and beyond trapper education. Yeah. So we don't, we were going to in this state, but we don't have trapper education. I think that it came down to, this is a tangent.

I think it was something like the state, the state agency was going to put it in place, but it realized it was more, it needed to be kind of like a game commission decision or somehow it got put off. We still don't have the trapper education course, but they were able to do it with wolves.

If you've bought another thing, be similar to this is when you buy a, you know, when you buy a deer hunting license, you don't need to take a test that shows you can tell the difference between a whitetail and a mule deer. Sure. Um, but when you buy a bear license here, you need to go on and take this little primer

that helps you distinguish a black bear from a grizzly. So people don't accidentally help prevent people accidentally shooting grizzlies. Similar thing like that. Um, and it's pretty clear, like it's, it's clear that you you need to take this thing i've been on there and looked at the whole deal uh so he trapped a wolf like otherwise legally trapped wolf it was not in yellowstone park it was private property on a ranch trapped wolf i don't know what happened but it turned out that um uh it turns out that he had not turned out that he had not done the online certification. Had a license, did all the other stuff, but didn't have that online certification.

Didn't take the free course. And then there's been a, and was issued a warning. What do you kind of imagine about, like, what would be your line of thinking in a situation like that? Like, if we remove the title. Yeah. And that's the important part. I try to strip away the title that you have someone who look, you know, it's quite clear when you go on the website, you're supposed to do this thing, forgot, meant to get to it later, hadn't read that part, who knows? How do you view something like that? Yeah. So I think that's a key part of it is removing the title as though it's just a regular person.

And then you got to look at, well, what was their intent? Were they trapping with MB750s? Were they absolutely targeting a wolf or was it incidental to coyote trapping? So once you get to the bottom of that, and if it's as simple as a hunter ed or a trapper ed or wolf trapper ed equation, you know, I think it depends on everything leading up to that. Like I said, the whole, the situation in all the circumstances. But, you know, a warning for doing something like that, it's in season. You could legally harvest it. It just, the problem was that he didn't have the necessary trapper ed or wolf trapper ed certification.

And so, you know, yeah, it's reasonable to get, get a warning and, you know, forfeit that wildlife since you didn't have, you know, the necessary certifications. So you, you feel that in, in a, in a interview situation, when all the facts are presented, you could see a scenario in which a warning is. Yeah. And I mean, what you're looking at, you know, was the individual's intent to really buck the system and not take the trapping course? I mean, how long does it take? Does anybody know? Oh, five minutes. Yeah.

And it's online, you know, in Idaho, it's, gosh, is it a 12 hour course? You know what I'm saying? It might even be eight hours. Interesting comparison, right? Because it's like a two out of three thing, right? He had his trapping license.

Mm-hmm. He had his wolf tag. Mm-hmm. But he didn't have the online certification. Yeah. Um, what I have seen like down at the Hagerman boat ramp in Idaho, waterfowl scenario, right? Yeah. What I have seen like down at the Hagerman boat ramp in Idaho, waterfowl scenario, right? Yeah.

Idaho has the migratory bird, like the state migratory bird endorsement. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Migratory bird. Right. So you have your hunting license, you have your federal migratory duck stamp.

But you don't have the $2 permit. But you don't have the $2. $2. The least expensive thing, the $2 thing. Yeah. Right? And I don't recall anybody's ducks being taken. I've seen many people get ticketed on that boat ramp for that.

I don't recall anybody's ducks being confiscated. Having their stuff confiscated. Yeah. An example this I always bring up is, and I feel like I've mentioned it three times, but I think it's, it's ill. How do you say, what's that word? Illustrative. Less. I don't know.

Illustrative. Yeah. I think that's right. I'm using that. Well, let's hear what you have to say. Then we'll decide. It was a guy. Uh, and I remember he, he does some, he does hunting media.

And I remember that he, you know, all of a sudden you see these articles that he was like um hunting without a license or poaching an elk or whatever right and it gets presented that way because that's splashy but i remember the thing being that he had his several hundred dollar non-resident elk tag but hadn't gotten the five dollar bow hunter stamp in a case like that i'm not excusing it like you need to have you need to have like you know you're responsible to know all this like absolutely but you look and you when you look at the intent thing i can't picture someone being like and i know how to save five bucks yeah and that's not like it has to be another explanation besides someone uh you look be another explanation besides someone.

You look for another explanation besides someone just pulling a fast one. Yeah. And you would see that, you know, that's a really good example because in Idaho and Cal, you're probably familiar with this is that you now need archery ed to get your archery permit, your validation. And so it could be a system now where people are in that age class that they would have to take archery education to get that permit that they don't want to take. They don't want to waste the time to take however many hours of archery it is.

Gotcha. You know, you just got to look at all the circumstances. To find a lesson here, i would point out um i'm finding a lesson imagine the uh imagine the embarrassment and distraction that one goes through in a situation like this it's really just pays it really pays to when you're engaging in a new activity, when time's gone by and the rules might've changed on you, it pays to, I'll put it this way. I sometimes, when we're going to a new state, I'm learning to have it be a practice to lay out to someone like, here's the things I have. Here's what I want to do. Am I missing anything in my pile of stuff here?

Like, am I getting this right? And a big part of solving that is getting also getting licenses from places where the vendors are familiar with the rules. Oh yeah. This is not to dog on Walmart, but I've had to go into Walmarts where they have a sporting goods section. And I've had to go in and argue with people about what I need. Right. It's nice to go to a place where, again, I'm not trash and provides great service. People can go buy stuff there.

It's wonderful. Yeah. to go to a place where you have more subject matter expert, more likely to encounter a subject matter expert, and take the time to be like, at the end of your transaction or middle of it, be, okay, I'm doing this, but I might do this. And what if this happens? Like, am I, is my situation dialed? Yeah, and more times than not, I would see that a lot is that, well, Hey, I bought,

I bought my stuff at this vendor and they said I had everything I needed. And it was, you know. And what do you say then? It's just like, well, you don't have everything. Please go back. Please go back and get your archery validation. Like I'm telling you, you don't have it, you know, and it's a simple fix, you know, but very good point, Steve. I mean, you got to go to the subject matter expert and, and choosing a place like that, or maybe a gas station may not be the right place. No, you got to go to the place where it's like the crusty old guy who is not going to let you purchase anything until you've heard the 15 minute history of the

game unit lines being redrawn and it's not the way it was when he was a kid and here's how he knows and then you can get down to actually giving that person money and getting out the door yeah as opposed to the just give me the thing. With the right stuff. Yes. Okay. The, a little bit more on the, we covered, were you there, Chester, when we covered the hairy eyeball disease? Yep. Fascinating, man. What's it called?

Weird stuff. Corneal dermoids. Are you familiar? No. I didn't know about this until very recently. There's a, it can hit humans, Hits all manner of mammal species where somehow your eyeball becomes hairy. Like the hair making stuff. basically your eyeball somehow turns to basically skin and then it starts growing hair like yeah crazy if you're a human you can imagine probably you know all kinds of ways to fix it but this this

deer turns up blind like his problem in each eye both both eyes, probably got worse and worse and worse and worse until one day the deer was flat out blind and its eyeball is just hair. Yeah, I think the case that's being referenced is they were, I think they determined that this was something that came, that evolved over time versus the deer being born with hairy eyeballs because of the way that they're like, there's some learned behavior here. How would it have gotten that old? Right. There's some learned behavior here that probably couldn't have come about any other way than if the deer could see up to a certain point. Yeah.

And then it haired over. Well, then plus the helplessness of it. But the reason I bring this back up is this guy a listener the show sends in a picture from a cow elk from new mexico um it's on my instagram so if you go to at steven ranella you'll find the um make sure to hit follow while you're there you'll find the a picture of this one this hairy eyeball and this is an elk. His buddy shot it. And he says the funny thing is his buddy who shot the elk is blind in the

same left eye. So the hunter and the elk have a bum eye, left side. And this elk has hair, it's like as long as Phil's hair. Way, way longer than Cal's hair. It's pretty gross. Let me see how long your hair is, Chester.

Eh. I'm losing it. About the length of Phil and Chester's hair. Sticking out of his eyeball. Ugh. Ugh. I honestly can't believe those pictures weren't flagged for sensitive material

because some stuff on your Instagram has it I thought shouldn't be, but the gross hairy eyeball is still wide open to all viewers. Someone was telling me that there's a medical Instagram page that gets flagged all the time. Yeah. So you can be trying to be constructive and helpful and educational and still get flagged. People really don't like looking at these hairy eyeballs. That's what I say when I see that, Phil.

You find if we keep going, talk about a couple more things here? Yeah, absolutely. Before we talk about what we're doing here. Yeah, I think I like the next one, honestly. You're into this one? Oh, yeah. How do you know what we're going to about a couple more things Yeah Before we talk about What we're doing here Yeah I think I like the next one Honestly You're into this one Oh yeah

How do you know What we're going to talk about I know Really Yeah Someone leaked it to you Leaked Talks to Corinne

Corinne Who's not here Because she's in Texas Not here evidently No she'd normally be here She's not here She's in Texas Corinne just told you

What we're going to talk about I'm pretty sure I know her Does it feel like You're kind of watching The sausage get made When you have our, when you have our stuff? There's a little bit of sausage making. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. How would you rate Corinne as a producer? Oh, she's top notch. Yeah. Yeah. I really, I gave her kudos the other day for that Preston Pittman piece.

Yeah. That was fantastic. Oh, she does? Yeah. It's spring and, but you know, just he's always, I always admired him when I was younger. Oh, okay. Oh, cool was fantastic. Oh, she does? Yeah, in the spring. But, you know, just he's always, I always admired him when I was younger. Oh, okay. Oh, cool.

Yeah, love, you know, as a young turkey hunter. And he was, you know, it back then. Been shot twice. Can't argue with that. Oh, boy. But then it's also his, you know, his sage advice at the end. Oh, I like that. That was really great.

He's a class act. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join,

our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown

land hunting zones aerial imagery 24k topo maps waypoints and tracking that's right you were always talking about uh we're always talking about on x here on the meat eater podcast now you um you guys in the great white north can can be part of it be part of the excitement you can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service that's a sweet function as part of it. Be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services

handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. Phil, you know what you ought to think about uh i like i like trail cam so much and trail cam

picture so much that um if we had a a opening like a like i don't know what it would look like oh you know what we could use? Remember Jay Guile's band? Freeze frame. Centerfold. Yeah, sure. Freeze frame. Maybe a little something with that maybe? Uh-huh.

To intro the segment. Caught on trail cam. So it'd be like, tonight on caught on trail cam. Freeze frame. Two bucks mounting each other. This is interesting. Cal's going to give us a report on this. So a guy sent in some pictures of a buck

mounting an other buck. So a buck mounting a buck for about six seconds. Turns out there's this whole world of, it's an obvious question. Why? How'd'd that come to be and there's even like an acronym for it ssb ssb stands for it should be sssb it stands for same sex sexual behavior in wildlife. Yanni's opinion, Yanni had always thought it was related to, like his guess was it was related to dominance. You know, they're always like fighting and posture and doing all kinds of stuff. And it's like a dominance thing.

One day I was turkey hunting my kids and we were talking to a cattle rancher because all of his cows were all mounting each other. And for the life me i cannot remember what he told me hopefully a cattle guy can write and we should have called one i think he had just maybe weaned no you wouldn't be turkey season you're not weaning them no not yet no there's a thing he told me how long is their gestation period gal you're not you're not pregnant yet they don't have 11 month gestation period no they have a brand new calf yeah but they're all mounting each other those would be probably the steers from the year before right

it's not what that would be oh yeah gal Yeah. God, I should have been paying more attention. I usually see it in steers. Yeah, my kid was real curious about all the mountain going on. He told us, and I must have been distracted by something because for the life of me, we got great people. There's a big cattle man I email with down in Florida. He's the head of the Florida Cattlemen's. He'd tell me.

Doug Dern, damn sure, no? What's that, Cal? Gestation period, 283 days. Doug Dern damn sure would know. What's that Cal? Gestation period, 283 days. That's an average between like our most common domestic cattle breeds. I bet you it's a yearling. It's the yearling that's doing it. Particularly a yearling steer.

I bet you. I got a turkey 100 yards from there where I had that conversation. After. Hunting turkey winter had that conversation. After. Hunting turkey winter range. Yeah. Yeah. Big time.

I probably shouldn't tell people that. That might dispel some of my perceived expertise. Well, what Eric's referring to there is that in the Intermountain West, where winters are very severe and where there were they're not historic populations of turkeys they have a way of in the winter finding their way down to a cattle graining operation find the biggest feed lot you can and disperse and then migrate like considerable distances from those places big time but you'll have you might have a rancher that's feeding cattle and all of a sudden come february he's 300 turkeys. Yep. He's got every turkey within 20 mile radius. See it all across the West. And then as soon as things started to green up, they just get bored and leave.

Then they go off and do turkey stuff. Yeah. Everybody talks about how important, you know, mule deer winter range is and what we need to do to protect them. Jeez. Those turkey winter ranges. Yeah. It's pretty valuable. It should be like, if you love turkeys, hug a feedlot, hug a feedlot manager.

All right, Cal, lay it on for us. Well, I think the, it's interesting that this topic also popped up, right? Because Corinne and I were talking about Preston and he was talking about the homosexual turkey he's like there's two two things that the turkey's either homosexual or the turkey's like been shot out before or something like to account yeah to account for why i would have no interest in the calls of a hen in coming in yeah and um we there was a discussion that followed of like is that correct is that just like an off the cuff type of, this is my reasoning and there's no reason for it.

It's a good observation from a woodsman. Right. Trying to find an excuse for a long beard not coming in. Right, exactly. Right. But I was like, well, homosexual behavior in a huge variety of animals is very well-documented stuff. I mean, it is a plausible and it is a peer-reviewed possibility,

you could say, right? People have written papers on this. And then you can go even further and there is the sexual, uh, God, what's the sexual gynandromorphism? Sexual dimorphism? Not dimorphism. That's just difference in size. Oh yeah, there it is.

Bilateral gynandromorphs or half-siders. Uh, and I did enough digging around on this. Oh, this is fascinating, man. Super fascinating. But it's odd that it's the most apparent in birds. And you can have a true 50-50 split and a... Down the middle. Down, yeah, down the middle. Down, yeah, down the middle.

And there's a guy in Pennsylvania who got a couple of good pictures of a bilateral gynandromorph, a cardinal in Pennsylvania, which is, you know, split directly down the middle, red male resembling cardinal on one side, female resembling cardinal on the opposite side. And this is documented enough to where he didn't turn the bird, you know, didn't kill the bird in and dissect it. But, uh, science would say that this bird has both, uh, ovaries and testes. That's incredible.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, there's the word. Bilateral ginando, ginando, ginandromorphs, half-siders. Yeah. That's really something, man. Yeah. I mean really something, man. Yeah.

I mean, I thought so. One of the reasons people struggle with this, with like same sex behavior in animals is because you want to look and be like, well, everything they do must, right. Has to be reproduction. Has to be reproduction. Or else it doesn't make any sense.

Right. So if that's the case, then you have two deer, two male deer attempting to mount one another uh there's no point so they're not reproducing so you're like well that shouldn't happen right that's not reproduction yeah and then you can go way down the rabbit hole and and there's all sorts of papers of all sorts of animals performing sexual acts that have, that do not relate to reproduction. Worms.

From worms to giraffes, including dolphins, lions, bisons, walrus, many birds. Yeah. There's a paper out of Japan, those cool looking snow monkeys that. Oh, I don't think those monkeys are cool looking. Oh, you don't think so? I think it's the stuff in the hot springs. It's the stuff in nightmares, man.

Ice coated monkey, icy monkey in a hot spring is too much for me. Well, there's. An icy hot spring monkey is a lot for me to handle. There is a paper out there that has, you know, as all papers do, started with an observation, led to a question of, is this a one-time thing or does this happen all the time? But those monkeys hop on top of the

deer that come down to the hot springs and eat the salt, right? Yeah. And maybe we did cover it on the meat eater podcast. Yeah. That, that the female, a female monkey would hop on a deer.

Yep. And then. And ride the deer. Yep. Until it found some sexual release. Yeah. And then, you know, head back to the hot spring.

Yeah. Incredible. Yeah. Which might be something similar you've seen in your time in law enforcement around hot springs in Idaho. A lot of geothermal over there. It is.

What's more remarkable than that the monkey does it is that the deer tolerates it. Yeah. That the deer's like, yeah. Does it? Teach their own. Do they tolerate it or do they run? They seem to.

Yeah. Yeah. I forgot about that story. Did you cover that on Cal's Week in Review? Teach their own. Do they tolerate it or do they run? They seem to. Yeah. Yeah. I forgot about that story. Did you cover that on Cal's Week in Review? I think so. It's hard. 100 episodes. Yeah.

Who the hell knows what you covered? We just finished 100 episodes. Phil's nodding. Yeah. That's right. We've been kind of off our regularly scheduled programming last for 99 and 100. Yeah, that's fine.

But we're going to get back to the news, hard news cycle here on 101. Uh how do you get I want to talk about this this explanation for what's this what's the an acronym SSB? Same sex behavior. Same sex sexual behavior. One explanation or I shouldn't say it's an

explanation but like a thing to think about is that you have to imagine like life in all of its forms. Um, and when you had life forms that had, you know, not that we don't anymore, we still do life forms that have, um, less pronounced sexual dimorphism, appearances, size, whatever that, um, maybe at a time when you encountered, or maybe among some species, you encounter a

lookalike and the one organism doesn't know about the other organism. What it is, male, female, right? Yeah. And they just, they couple. I'm not doing a very good job of explaining this. With no outcome. Well, I, I, I think that where you're going with it is the fact that this has been happening for a long time in a number of species.

But the fact of the matter is that it is self-limiting because there is no reproduction. Yeah. That, that's the part that I found so yeah interesting about it you know it says and so we hypothesize that present-day diversity in sexual behavior in animals stems from an ancestral background of you'll like that you'll appreciate this indiscriminate mating among individuals this goes on to say indiscriminate mating among individuals of all sexes in some branches of the animal tree of life where SSB is actually quite costly, this behavior might be selected against. Yeah. Takes energy.

Takes energy. Takes a lot of energy. You can think about a lot, Cal. Oh, yeah. No, it's, yeah, I mean, we're facts of of life stuff there's just a lot of life out there is this kind of funny when people talk about this stuff as if they've got like lab coats and clipboards when maybe i'm being basic and crude here but it's sort of like it's like why are we all kind of wondering why why these animals have these same sex interactions when we we just

have to like look at each other and look at humans like what because we're not the same phil we didn't come from no monkey yeah that's true cal but i mean like maybe i'm maybe i'm just maybe occam's razor isn't the way to go but i'm just kind of thinking like well maybe they're just horny and sexuality is a weird complex spectrum there's something i'm attracted to god well yeah it is but you know and that's like the odd thing right it's like there's gonna be a chunk of the folks listening who are like hey man it's not Adam and Eve but the thing is is like well boy that's weird that birds do it and bees do it and monkey and worms do it and monkeys do it I don't know I don't know I don't know offense do it and bees do it and monkey and worms do it and monkeys do it.

Elephants do it. And they've been around, they live a long time. Yeah. I don't look at it as, I don't look at it as should they, I just look at it as, huh.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, it's just kind of funny that we're like wondering, well, like why would they expend their energy if the whole thing is to reproduce and like I totally understand that but how many

animals when they engage in is it called coitus when it's animals when they have sex how many of them have know that they are they have a chance to reproduce and create another or are they just acting on instinct like I have this weird urge to do this and I'm gonna do it that's great we're intelligent enough to teach our kids and we know what will happen if this happens yeah how many animals are aware of that cucumber saying here's what i'm gonna do yeah right i'm gonna make a lot more sea cucumbers when i expel exactly and or is he just he's just yeah he's just doing what he feels like doing whether it's a male or a female so like darwin had this theory right and that was a long long time ago and like i just read a paper last

year on giraffes specifically right and it's like old giraffe is like the young bull old bull thing right and there's like young giraffe bulls do a lot of mating and the ones that mate the most do not live as long because they're, they're really working hard. And the ones that don't put that much effort into mating live a lot longer. And because they live a lot longer, they end up having more offspring, you know? And it's like, but you got to work really hard, you know? And, you know, there's the observation also of there's all sorts of communities out there that are, it's like, they're, you know, it's a, it's a frenzy of sexual activity and the

selection process isn't anything that we kind of come to the conclusion of of like is there actually selection process if there was then look at all the connections happening here and why would any of that make sense right so i mean it's all good questions but no like my conclusion isn't like i'll be damned yeah what justifies me in feeling that I can go like, huh, is because they're writing about it in like science and nature. Yeah. So there's still obviously a lot of unanswered questions. There's someone like, there's some scientific validity. And I don't think it can all be captured.

I don't think you'd be like, all cases are pleasure-inducing. All cases are mistaken attempts to reproduce. All cases are dominance. I mean, it's probably this giant spectrum of impulses and desires. And then you overlay that on what humans do, right? And it's just like, until we can figure out a way to start interviewing all of these species and animals and get some straight facts. You know, it seemed like you did this when you were younger. You identified as female when you were younger and had millions of babies.

But now you're male. Why'd you choose to do that you know it's like it's hard to yeah apply it you know it's like nature's freaking fascinating and awesome yeah why is it legal to sell a mounted animal as in a shoulder mount but not that kind of mounted not that kind of mounted. Not that kind of mounted. Not, uh, anytime a mounting situation, but, uh, like a shoulder mount, right? With hide on it, horns on it or antlers on it, whatever the case may be, but it is illegal to trade meat. So stems back to Lacey Act days early, early on in the commercialization of wildlife. And so you don't want to profit off of meat, specifically meat, because there absolutely is a value to wild game meat. You can go to the grocery store and see domestic meat and see what value is placed there. And so if it

was incentivized to sell edible portions, it would be a huge problem. And that's what, you know, primarily what we saw with the Lacey Act and the development of that and other things, the Migratory Bird Act with trying to take away the value, monetary value of specific wildlife. And so that's why, you know, the basics of why you can't sell meat, game meat. But you can sell hides, capes, right? Yeah. Yeah. But a lot of times you can't sell, of some things and some circumstances, you can't sell raw hides. Yeah.

Oh, really? Yeah. Sometimes. It has to be a processed hide. Oh. Yeah. Like you, the only way, the only outlet, at least in idaho and i'm sure this is consistent across the united states is you can only sell a green hide what steve's talking about so

his martin hides or his beaver hides that are green haven't been tanned the only person you could sell that to is a fur buyer that is permitted and licensed. You can't just go out and sell them on the street green. Okay. How was I going to add to that? Oh, that you can capes. You can make good – like I've sold capes off things. Deer, elk, everything. I sold a cape one time for $1,000.

I was standing right next to a friend who sold a cape one time for $600. Or if you have a tax number who has a client Let's say a guy shoots a big something Shoots a big deer but hits it through the neck And he's going to put all this money Into a mount but the neck's no good So they want the cape, the neck hide Off another deer to put the antlers on so it looks normal

Those can be quite valuable You can strip that thing right off and sell it Yeah, yeah And here I thought I was doing good with a $40 whitetail cape that I'd sell. Well, these weren't whitetails. Yeah. But I bet, you know, I'm sure some to the right person, but it's just interesting, right? It does leave like, well, how can I sell you that?

But I can't sell you some neck meat too? Yeah. Yeah. Nope, you can't. Yeah. And I once sold the full cape of a whitetail buck, a big bodied whitetail buck to a taxidermist in trade for him tanning my bear hide. Gotcha. Which is, you know. You were bartering?

Yeah, a little barter. You were bartering, but you weren't trading neck meat. No, no neck meat. You can see how, without knowing the full story, you can see how people would look at that and be like, that makes zero sense. Absolutely. Yeah. You can see how without knowing the full story, you can see how people would look at that and be like, that makes zero sense. Absolutely. Yeah. And it's just about creating a commercial, you know, situation and monetizing it. That's the biggest problem. And you do see in commercialization of wildlife cases, you know, it's not always about horns because it's a lot easier to get meat. And so you will occasionally see a case where they're just out, you know, spotlighting deer to commercially sell the meat. Yeah.

Because it has value. When they put the laws into effect, they tailored it like, you know, and one of the things that inspired Theodore Roosevelt to do the conservation work that he did was the, what's that word? The plenty, plenty. What's that word for hunting feathers? Plumage. Plumage.

Plumage mark. What is the word for that? Isn't there like a, not plenary, but like a feather hunters. Yeah. So of shorebirds. Yep. Punt guns. Yeah. Like beautiful shorebirds. Yep. Punt guns.

Yeah. Like beautiful shorebirds, you know, people would want the feathers to decorate, like, like honestly to decorate hats. And there were people that made a living shooting beautiful shorebirds, herons, whatever to get feathers. Yeah. And there they, you know, you address it specifically. Like the market for big game was there was a market for meat.

Yep. So they're addressing the meat thing. There was a market for feathers on other things. So they address like that market, like can't sell those feathers because that's what people are after. So it might leave room for like the things

you can sell weren't things they were trying to address. Like if deer were being driven to extinction by cape hunters, they probably would address selling capes. Yep. But this wasn't the case. Yeah.

It could be something to do with meat would be harder to track the source. It's just meat. But if somebody is trying to sell a drop, double drop tying buck, it's pretty easy to be in today's day and age, easier to try and figure out who got that deer. Where that sucker came from.

And whatnot. So. That's driving me crazy. It's like plenary. It's something. I'll give some of Chester's Bitcoin to whoever can figure out what the hell that word is. It's not the plumage deal.

That's a good word, but that's not the word. Come on, someone find it. I would type in something along the lines of... Millenary. That's it. That's what it is. Not plenary. Is that specific to feathers, though?

Chester, how much Bitcoin are you going to give Cal? Well, I think it's specific to hats. Yeah. The feather hats. People back then at the turn of the century liked feathered caps, and they were shooting shorebirds to near extinction. Some of the big places that became like wetlands refuges were made refuges to protect it from the millinery. What's the word?

Millinery. The millinery trade. Try this one on. You can, you can have, you can weigh in on this as a game warden. Former game warden was there. It's pretty cut and dry,

but a guy from Maryland writes, and this is, this is funny. This is a good one. Guy from Maryland, Justin from Maryland writes in about a disagreement between his hunting club members. So when you go, he says this is true in Maryland, but this is true everywhere. It's called a something or another.

Cal tells. If you go, like right now, fall comes around. You decide to go hunt migratory waterfowl. You will be presented with a set of questions about what happened to you last year when you went hunting. It'll be like ducks, zero to five, five to 20, 20 and higher, whatever the hell. Geese, like what'd you get, right? And you get down and you'll get into weird stuff and be like coots and rails, you know,

and zero to five and you check just trying to get a sense of what all you got. What's that called? Not HIP. Yeah. It's the Harvest Information Program. Oh. Yeah.

HIP. HIP. Yeah. Well, sometimes have dubs on there too. Yeah. Any of the migratory species. sometimes have dubs on there too. Yeah. Any of the migratory species. So they're just trying to figure out what's going on. But apparently in Maryland, they have either, either Justin here is confusing Maryland's

own thing with the federal thing or Maryland does their own thing. But he says he's belongs to a duck club and Maryland has a questionnaire. He says in his duck camp, there are two sets of opinions about how to handle this questionnaire. Camp number one is that you lie and say you got fewer than you did because the DNR, the Department of Natural Resources there, will look and be, oh, not that many geese got killed last year. Let's allow everyone to kill more now. Camp two is you lie and say you got more than you got. Because then the DNR will think, geez, if they're killing that many geese,

there must be a lot of geese. We should let them kill more. His camp is, why not just tell them how many geese you got, and we'll let them figure it out. And that's the camp a guy should be in. You've got to game the system. We don't understand the game or the system, but we've got to game the system. It's clear by that explanation they don't understand the system.

The one thing we all agree on here is we're going to game the system. How to do that is where we find Discord. All right. Here's another listener feedback. It's not really a question. It's more like a, I don't know what you call it. You can decide, Eric, what we call this. Yeah.

Guy writes in, he lives in Gloucester. Is that how you say that? Gloucester? Gloucester, Massachusetts? He calls it Taxachusetts. He lives in Taxachusetts. And here's his problem. And this is a legitimate gripe.

I got his back on this. Freshwater licenses. So if you're in Massachusetts, historically you needed, you did need a freshwater fishing license. The freshwater fishing license sales went to fund

the State Fish and Game Agency. And as we've covered a million times, and I'll say it one more time, your state fish and game agencies get their revenue to do all the things they do, ranging from access, enhancement, to law enforcement,

to disease research, to all the things that go into wildlife, making sure we have wildlife, making sure we can access wildlife, like all that stuff gets funded by and large through excise taxes and license revenues. So the people that buy

hunting and fishing licenses, whether they're aware of this or even care about this or not, that's what your license money does. But Massachusetts recently introduced a saltwater license. This is true of a lot of coastal states. A lot of coastal states, they have different

freshwater license, saltwater license. They introduced a saltwater license, and I can't believe we didn't hear about this before. The saltwater license money goes into the general fund. And let me back up and say the general state fund. let me back up and say the general state fund i'll back up and say this when when a state sells hunting and fishing licenses

and other permits and stamps and stuff they're able to take that money and use it for wildlife management what you the federal government has the ability to make sure states don't rob that money because you could picture that some guy be like the highway guy in a state is like well look at those assholes and fish and game they got all that money let's take it and make a highway what prevents you from robbing the the fish and game agency of their money and using it for non mission work is then you become ineligible for federal matching dollars that come from excise taxes on sporting goods equipment so they got some muscle there they're like if you steal money from your fishing if you the state steals money from your fishing

game agency we're going to make you regret it by kind of screwing you and not giving you other money that you could have got so it incentivizes you to leave that money there but they made a saltwater license and it just goes into the general slush fund. According to this gentleman, it doesn't go into funding fish and game. And he's basically like, what gives? I don't know. What gives?

That sounds stupid to me. You lost. Like states do this all the time. Like I see this legislation all the time where it's like, there's a bunch of money over here that we could be using for all sorts of other things. Why don't we get some of that? And I know you just explained it, but that if I haven't read up on Massachusetts, uh, uh, this, this particular case in Massachusetts, but yeah, you got to find yourself a state lawmaker that, uh, wants, wants to write this situation. Cause yeah, that, uh, that's a bunch of crap.

If you're fishing dollars, don't go to fishing. They go to, you know, something like a school lunch program. You're out there catching lunch. Yeah. And I think it comes down to, you know, not every state has a separate, a lot of states get their funding through general funds, state coffers, through general taxes and everything. So, I'd be curious to know how Massachusetts rates with that, you know. Oh, like there could be some complexifying issues there. Yeah, or – Like how Missouri has that license plate tax that helps fund wildlife. Yeah, or, you know, look at Oregon for a pretty good example.

Their fish and wildlife enforcement is under the Oregon State Police. So I don't know what percentage they get from Oregon Fish and Wildlife, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. But in comparison, you know, in Idaho where I worked, there was, it was just straight up license dollars. There was no general fund money. And so what you were referring to before was PR and DJ, Pittman, Robertson, and Dingell Johnson, which are those federal excise taxes. And usually it's at a three to one for every $1 the state puts forth, it gets $3 matching. But PR, DJ can't be used for law enforcement.

Oh. Yeah. You have to use your license revenue for law enforcement. Yep. Yep. Okay, I'm going to make a promise to listeners. If this is totally wrong, you won't be hearing this. If it's at least right enough to warrant

the discussion we're having, you will hear it. It's fair. Okay. Yeah. Okay. You went to work for Trout Unlimited. I did.

You got involved in salmon. Salmon and steelhead. Primary scope of work. Lay it out for me. What is the scope of work? Like your job, when you applied for your job, what was the job description? Yeah. So the job title was North Idaho Field Coordinator.

Basically, it was just in summary, policy work, outreach and engagement work, all associated with salmon and steelhead throughout the Snake River Basin. There's a little bit of my work plan, my annual work plan that is dedicated to what we refer to as upcountry protections. So part of what the portion of Trout Unlimited that I work for is the angler conservation program. And so we do all the outreach and engagement and policy stuff in addition to our other staff, but that's the crux of what we do. So a combination of cold water fisheries related policy, as well as, like I said, public lands protections. And so those upcountry protections would be what is affectionately called in the Clearwater Basin, the Great Burn. So just an area there. But then primarily my day in and day out stuff is focused on salmon and steelhead throughout the Snake River Basin.

And of course now there's much more focus with Representative Mike Simpson's recent release of his proposal, the Northwestern Transition. Yeah. And we're going to be, in a moment here, we're going to be joined by Congressman Mike Simpson from Idaho. How, and he's going to lay out this very ambitious, complicated, costly, but i would argue like extremely important to consider and pursue a version of with all necessary tweaks made but like to move to pursue a version of this meaning the snake river dam dilemma that we, I would like to see it,

that we switched to being, um, yes, those dams have to go. How do we do it? Yeah. Yeah. And how do we do it as painlessly as possible?

And I think that this is, you know, I'm sure there's many more of this. He's proposing a version of that being like, it's gotta happen. Um, we're in the driver's seat. Let's make a, let's make a palatable version for ourselves.

How did you, uh, before he comes out, how did you like, cause you introduced me to this and you, you approached us about having this conversation. How, how did you guys worlds kind of collide on this? Uh, so, um, Trout Unlimited has been dedicated to restoring the lower snake. So when we refer to the lower snake, we're talking about approximately 140-mile stretch

from the confluence of the Columbia River down by Tri-State East Washington up to the Lewiston-Clarkston area of Idaho, 140 miles of what is now a dammed river for federally managed hydro dams create immense slack water. And so way back in the nineties, shortly after the listing of most of the species within the Snake River Basin. So we have sockeye that are listed as endangered starting in 91, and then up through with spring and summer Chinook and fall Chinook in the mid-90s, and then 97 kind of was the end of it with steelhead being listed in the Snake River Basin as threatened. And so since that time, Trout Unlimited has been of the opinion, and rightfully so, we're a science-based organization,

that the removal of the four lower snake dams would provide the best opportunity for recovery and restoration to those salmonid species throughout the Snake River Basin. So since 97, this is something that we've been dedicated to in a variety of ways. You know, not only the portion of the organization that I work for, we have the water and habitat program that does a lot of the restoration work. People are very familiar with what we do at Trout Unlimited, you know, and restoring habitat throughout the upper salmon basin in particular. And so now we have found, you know, a champion, you know, for these fish and Representative Simpson. And I think that the district, but outside the borders of Idaho throughout the Northwest and how this can benefit everybody that is involved or could be impacted by it. And I think that's the most incredible thing. And that's really important to Trout Unlimited, you know, yeah, restoring and recovering salmon

and steelhead throughout that basin, but making sure that all the stakeholders come out whole. So, yeah. Do you guys, how many, I know you don't know the entire history cause you were busy doing your other job. Um, how often does something like this come along? Like this proposal? A proposal like this, this is a, a once in a lifetime. Is that right?

Proposal. Yeah. I mean, here's the fact of the matter. So ice harbor is the lowest snake or the lowest dam on the Snake River. It was completed in 1962. The furthest upstream dam on the Lower Snake is River dams, we saw very steep declines in salmon populations and steelhead populations that are, it's clearly correlated to the hydro development. Okay. And just have not seen any recovery of those numbers, despite millions and millions of dollars annually, you know, into mitigation efforts throughout the hydro system, throughout

the basin and restoration. We still don't see it recover. And so here comes a congressman from Idaho that hopefully we'll hear, you know, he truly is a conservation champion and is pretty remarkable of his accomplishments already. But here he brings forth this proposal that literally, like I said, encompasses the entire Northwest that quite frankly could be a once in a lifetime opportunity. And it's people just look, ah, it's 140 miles of river that, you know, humongous, humongous watershed. When we start talking about the Clearwater, the Locksaw, the Selway, the Middle Fork, the Upper Salmon, and a lot of it is still in pristine habitat or pristine condition. About 62% of the historical spawning and rearing habitat is still intact in the Snake River

Basin. That's something I hadn't thought of. That's a good point. Yeah. And I mean, you're like, you're, you're, you're restoring access to something that's ready to roll. Yeah.

And, and, and Cal's heard me make the comparison and, and it's, it's, it's my, my blind date comparison, you know, is that, hey man, there's this, you know, I, I'm scheduled to go on a blind date, you know, tonight and the place settings is all set. There's beautiful silver, nice bottle of wine, but my date doesn't show up. Well, I'll come back tomorrow and my date doesn't show up.

And the same thing is with the habitat there, you know, and or. The table is set. The table is set. It's beautiful. Like it's going to be a good date tonight, but my partner doesn't show up, you know? And so that's the way you have to look at it, you know? And, uh, when you have that much intact habitat, it is beyond reproach to not give it the opportunity, those fish, the opportunity to really maximize it, you know?

And that's what we're looking to do. Um, much of this is based off of when we look at how salmon are doing. And this is where people really get confused. They're like, well, geez, we're still fishing for them. Man, we had a great run, you know, just a couple of years ago, which we've had our ups and downs. A lot of that opportunity, all of that opportunity is based on hatchery production. About 33 million salmon and steelhead smolts get released into the Snake River Basin annually. But when you look at what we refer to

as a smolt to adult return ratios, and so that's just a simple idea that 100 smolts out migrate to the ocean and one adult comes back. That's the simplest way to do the math. That's 1%. All right. Um, 1%, if you have one of anything, you're not reproducing. Right. And so many of our populations are there now, um, throughout the Snake River Basin, um, teetering just at, you know,

uh, spring and summer Chinook are teetering at 0.9%. Um, the steelhead summer steelhead to inhabit the snake river basin are just over, um, 1%. And so we're not making what we refer to as 2%, which is the maintenance level. Got it. And so we strive through lots of different, uh, venues, whether it's the Northwest power planning council or recently the Columbia Basin Collaborative, there's a bunch of agreement on what the metrics should be. SARs are that one metric. From 2% to 6% with an average of 4% is the goal. Right now in the Snake River Basin, we're not meeting that. And when you really start to look outside of the basin and look at rivers that are below the lower snake and don't, and fish that don't have to pass for dams, you see much better SARs, you know, above 2%, you know, upwards of five and almost close to 6%. So lower in,

in the Columbia, you know, and this is, this goes back to this other idea of, well, it's all ocean conditions. It's all ocean conditions. Look at every other population throughout the range of salmon and steelhead. Well, it is partly ocean conditions. Ocean conditions are something that we as mankind can no longer control. Right now, we can control the hydro system. And we have tried to do that to increase SARs, but haven't figured out that magic bullet. And so here comes Representative Simpson with this bold, all-encompassing plan, you know, that takes everything into account. There's a question that comes up all the time. Like I saw it a bunch of like why aren't hatcheries uh at performing at capacity like we're not running the cap the the full capacity of our hatcheries if we did that then we'd have enough yeah and so and that comes back to this idea that 33 million smolts isn't enough, right? And that we need more, but hatchery fish underperform wild fish right now as it is. So they have even lower SARs than what we see

in wild fish. Nevermind that the figure that is used to evaluate the productivity of the hatcheries is the adult returns. That is what the funding mechanism for most of the hatcheries throughout the basin, which is approximately 17 or so, it comes through Lower Snake Comp, which is funded partially through Bonneville Power, the main electric entity that operates the whole hydra system but adult returns are how they are evaluated and not once have they met their adult return goals so just by increasing more smolts it's likely because of the sars because of the impact of the hydrosism, it's not going to improve, you know, and it doesn't just by producing more hatchery fish doesn't get us to recovery or restoration. And we could spend a lot of money on hatchery fish. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's annually lower snake comp and the snake river basin is funded at $31 million annually. And that's just flushing fish down the system,

you know, and hope that there's going to be opportunity. And you just want to be there when they're doing that because the bull trout fishing is unbelievable. Catch these bulls that are just, they're spewing salmon smolt and steelhead smolt out when you pick them up. It's amazing. Expensive belches. Yeah.

I, uh, I was talking to a guy in a barn catch can one time and he was working at a hatchery, a coho hatchery and cohos, you know, they stay in the, in the natal spawning stream an extra year, right? So, um, when they go out, they're pretty big. Like they spend a lot longer in the river. So when you have a coho hatchery,

you need to rear the cohos a lot longer than some other salmons that, that, that don't need as much time and, you know, and sort of like in stream incubation, he was saying they'd go out and, and,

uh, let some of the release, some of these hatchery releases into the ocean. And these humpbacks, humpback whales, would get onto that. He said, you'd see that mouth come up, you know,

and he'd be like, well, there goes a quarter million dollars. A quarter million dollars for the co-host. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Whew, our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of sick of you know sucking high and titty there

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onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. So we're going to jump over and talk now. And thanks for the introduction here. Yeah. Talk now to congressman mike simpson from idaho

okay without much further ado we are joined by congressman mike simpson from idaho uh congressman simpson can you lay out for us a little bit about some of the issues you've been involved in in your career that are pertinent to hunters and anglers and outdoors people, like some of the areas in which you've played and influenced the world we live in? Sure. You have to remember that in Idaho, most people live here because they love our outdoors. They love our public lands. They love to fish and hunt and recreate in our public lands. So I've been very active in trying to maintain those public lands, whether it was through the Boulder White Clouds initiative that created the wilderness for the Boulder White Clouds. It had been wilderness study area for years, and I came to the conclusion that somebody needed to make a determination of what was going to be wilderness and what was going to be released for multiple use.

So we passed that bill. It took about 15 years to get it done. But we got that done. And then one of the things I think I'm proudest of is the Great American Outdoors Act that passed just last year or year four last, I guess. And, you know, that deals with the Land and Water Conservation Fund fully funding it. But it also maintains access. And that was one of the important parts of this, the access for hunters and anglers and those types of things. You can love the public lands, but if you can't have access to them, it doesn't really mean much.

So I think that was one of the strongest environmental bills that's probably passed since the Wilderness Act. So I've been actively involved in these issues for a number of years, both relative to Idaho and to the nation as a whole. And now you're setting your sights on helping us through making a plan about what we're going to do about some of the dams we have on the major salmon rivers in the West. I want to get to a little bit of history for people first, but can you encapsulate what you're proposing, how you became interested in this subject?

Sure. This has been a debate that's been going on for 25 or 30 years in the Pacific Northwest. You're seeing Idaho salmon runs decline substantially. In fact, they're on the path to extinction if we don't do anything else. The other issue is the Bonneville Power Administration and the fact that at one time they were the lowest cost producer of energy in the Pacific Northwest. And so consequently, all your rural electrics and others used Bonneville Power because it was the cheapest they could get. They're no longer the cheapest in the Pacific Northwest.

So on the one hand, how do you make Bonneville Power sustainable for the future and competitive for the future? And one of the things that has to be done is to end the salmon wars, the endless litigation that occurs about salmon recovery in the Pacific Northwest. And to do that, if you're going to return Idaho's salmon runs that are on the endangered list, almost every fish biologist that I've talked to says that you're going to have to remove the lower Snake River dams. So we put out a concept that does that. But of course, once you say you're going to retire those dams or remove those dams. Then you have to look at what are the value of the dams and what does that do to the stakeholders and how do you compensate the stakeholders or put them in a better position than they were before. So if you could do that,

if you could make the stakeholders whole again, if you can remove the dams to help restore the salmon, you can end the lawsuits and if you can make BPA competitive, that's a huge task. It's something that we've been working on for about three years. And we've had about 300 meetings, maybe as many as 500 meetings with different constituency groups

about the issues that surround that. And that's what we've been doing over the last three years. We released a concept in February so that people could talk about it. As I said, this is a discussion that has to happen, and I'm glad we started it. Now we'll see where it goes. Would you mind helping listeners understand why the dams were put in place you know it's one of these things i think we're now there's such a you know a widely

held predominant viewpoint it seems that you know a widespread acknowledgement that they're very problematic um but they were built yes why were they built and then and then what was the conversation about what was the debate when they were being built? Like, how well did people anticipate the, you know, the havoc that would be wrought by constructing the dams? Well, you know, it's interesting. If you go back to the Ice Harbor Dam, which is the first one that you reach after you leave the Columbia and head up the Snake River, the first of the four,

that was authorized in 1945. The Army Corps of Engineers requested funding for it every year in their budget request. Congress refused to fund it. And if you read the statement of the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, when he was asked why they didn't put funding in for the Ice Harbor Dam, he said, because building this dam would be the eventual extinction of a species. And that's something that they couldn't comprehend. So it was known clear back then, or at least suspected, that that would be a problem. But then two years later, two Democratic senators, one from Oregon and one from Washington,

slipped a million dollars into an appropriation conference report, and that started Ice Harbor, and that started the domino of the other four dams. So it's been a challenge from the start. We've known what the consequences were, but we've always thrown up our hands and said, hey, we can replace these fish with hatchery fish and stuff. And now we find out the hatchery fish aren't the same as wild salmon. And returning these salmon is something that is important to me. I think it's important to Idaho. And when I look at the impact that the dams have, they were built for power. That was the reason.

These are not flood control dams. These are just run-of-the-river dams. And they produce power. They also have the benefit of being able to take barging from Lewiston, Idaho, all the way down to Portland, mostly to the Tri-Cities, but then on to Portland through the Columbia River dams. Those are two benefits that the dams have. But when you look at the power production now, there are other ways to produce power.

Someone told me once, and I agree with this, that everything we do on the Columbia and Lower Snake River, we can do differently if we choose to do it. That's our choice. Salmon don't have an option. They actually need a river. Right now, they don't have a river because of the dams. In fact, it's almost a misnomer to call it the Lower Snake River because the river is really just a pool, a series of pools behind these dams, slack water pools, which harm the salmon because of the increased water temperature. The velocity of the water coming down doesn't flush them down to the river. It takes about three times as long for a smolt to get to the ocean as it used to. That puts them in more danger of predators and other factors that affect them.

That's why fish biologists will tell you the only way you're going to restore these salmon is to remove these dams. The way they generally measure the success of a salmon run or the health of one is called the SARS, the small to adult ratio. It needs to be, it would preferably be between four and six, anything above two. A two is a sustainable run. And if you look at the salmon that come up the Columbia River and pass the first three dams and then go into the John Day drainage, their number is about 3.5. That's a healthy run. Once they pass the fourth dam and go into the Acoma drainage, it's about 2.4, which is still healthy and sustainable. But once the Idaho salmon go over those next four dams, their SARS rate is

about 0.8. And that's a path to extinction. And that's something we have not been able to change over the years with everything we've tried. What other industry, like when you mentioned that the dams were put in place primarily for electricity, meaning if it wasn't for the energy conversation, it probably wouldn't have become a conversation, but then the dams get put in place and then it winds up having sort of inadvertent or subsequent effects on things, meaning I'm guessing irrigation probably is a thing. You mentioned barge traffic. How many industries, I don't think it needs to be an exhaustive list, but what all industries would need to make an adjustment or have their concerns addressed in order to begin dealing with this problem? I mean, if we look beyond power, but just other ways in which

communities have grown up around the water's edge, and I don't even really know all the ways in which it could impact industry and people if we were to pull this feet off. Yeah, there are a number of industries. We've tried to look at all of them. Like I say, that's why we've had the three to 500 meetings that we've had with different interest groups and stakeholders about the impact of removing those dams. You know, you look at the Lower Snake River, they have, there's marinas and other types of recreational outfits that operate in those waters. The city of Lewiston has a port there. The port is about, I don't know, it's about a $1.9 million annual budget and employs several people. And so, I mean, that's important industry in Lewiston. But it's mostly the grain producers in the Palouse area

around Lewiston that barge their grain down the river. And it is the cheapest way to transport grain. They can do it cheaper than you can on trucks or by rail. So you'd have to make accommodation for all of these individuals. And what we're trying to do is, what can Lewiston be in the future? How can we make them whole again? And we've thought of some ideas, but mostly it's going to be up to them, their future. And really the question I ask people is, we need to be looking down the road about what we want the Pacific Northwest to look like in 25 or 50 years, because the decisions we make today are going to make those determinations. Do we care about salmon? Do we care if they come back? Now, I will tell you that if you talk to a

lot of Washington grain farmers and others who are affected by this dam removal because they pump out of the Snake River to irrigate fields in Washington and so forth, I can understand why they don't really care about Idaho salmon. It doesn't affect them. Their salmon are back in healthy numbers. It's in Idaho that's paying the cost. And I've said this a number of times. The more I look at this, the more I look at the fact that Idaho is paying all the costs of these dams in Washington, and we're not getting much of the benefit. The benefit is the lower cost transportation, which we can replace and do it so that we can

actually get it down the river or down to the Tri-Cities or to Portland cheaper than they do on barges today, if we're willing to look at a different way of doing it. We get about 8% of the power that's produced of those dams comes to Idaho, and that's all. But yet we flush 487,000 acre feet of water down the river every year to flush salmon past these four dams, and the one thing it's not doing is recovering salmon. That's problematic. That's 487,000 acre feet of water that's not available in Idaho to either recharge our aquifer or additional irrigation or other things that we just flush down the river. How do you account for the fact that there's still dams below the dams?

I mean, I could envision, in my mind, a best case scenario would be that this endeavor is successful, that ultimately we get the public support we need and we get the money we need to begin this very ambitious project of dismantling these things and restoring salmon runs. I'd love to see it. But when I hear this, the first thing that pops to my mind is, well, what about the fact that you still got a whole bunch of them below there? Unless this sets a template or creates a path forward for people to comprehend removing more dams, how can it fix anything when you still have the Columbia, right?

Yeah. A lot of people ask me, isn't this a slippery slope to remove more dams? What we do in this proposal and the way you end the lawsuits and the endless litigation that goes on is you relicense all the remaining dams for the period of 35 to 50 years, depending on when their license comes due. Automatically relicense them because most of the lawsuits occur around dams and dam relicensing and that type of thing. You would relicense them. They would be exempt from the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act. And that takes away almost all of the lawsuits. And in fact, most environmental groups that are some of the

proponents of the lawsuits and have been in the past have said, okay, we can live with that as long as we get rid of these four dams. But if you look at the numbers, as I said earlier, of the smolts coming up the river, the first four dams on the Columbia River, yes, they have an impact on salmon, but they don't endanger them. They still have a healthy SARS rate once they pass those four dams. Eight dams is just too many. That's why the numbers fall through the floor on the Snake River, or the Idaho salmon runs. Yeah. It's interesting to me the point you just made about trying to, and sort of aligning,

you mentioned having all these different stakeholders and seats at the table. It's interesting to me that as a way to alleviate concerns, the slippery slope concerns, that you're willing to strike a deal like that. And not only that, but that you're willing to strike a deal like that and not only that

but that that you're saying that environmental groups would be comfortable with an arrangement like that they'd be comfortable with the idea of tabling conversations about columbia dams in order to make a deal to do this ambitious plan on the on the snake like that that's what that yeah there's widespread comfort yeah there is Most of the environmental community that we've been working with, and like I say, the ones that are generally behind the lawsuits or have been in the past, both the environmental groups, the state of Oregon, the Indian tribes have all said, yeah, this is okay. Now I will have to tell you, there are a number of what I call extreme left environmental groups from Washington and Oregon who've come out and said they're opposed to this.

They want to return salmon. They want the dams gone, but they're opposed to this proposal because they don't want to give up their right to sue. Well, that pretty much tells you what their game plan is for the future. It's going to be lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit. And I wish we would spend more money trying to restore salmon runs and less money in court, to tell you the truth, even though I understand that attorneys' kids still have to eat. Personally, did you grow up as a salmon fisherman, an angler? No, I didn't. I was never a fisherman. My brother was the fisherman. He was a fly fisherman,

used to tie flies and kick over rocks to see what they were eating. And then he'd take me out and say, man, there's so many fish here. My arm got sore. And I'd go fishing with him. And of course, there's not a bite. So I decided that I couldn't trust him. But I was never the fisherman. I loved to eat him.

He loved to catch him. I imagine that. You can't get away from partisanship on something like this meaning as i'm sure you know better than anybody on the planet some people are going to go um they're going to look at it like it is a particular party in support of it if that's the case we're in too if someone else is behind it we're going to resist it do you find that when it comes to um an environmental issue like this you know like fish um that has a industry overlay to it do you find that that partisanship

gets worse that it's kind of that it's alleviated What do you encounter when you're working on this? You know, I find that the partisanship with environmental issues isn't as strong as it is with some other issues. Now, the one challenge in this is that it's going to cost about $33.5 billion is what we estimate to make the stakeholders hold again, to replace the power, to do the other things. That's the value of the dams. We're the first people to recognize, you know, the idea of taking these dams out has been considered before by other groups. And it's always just either take the dams out or don't take the dams out.

And we're the first people to actually put a value on those dams and recognize that they do have a value. And you're going to have to replace that. I think that's what's got so many people that are anti-dam removal concerned is that we've actually put a value on it and they're saying, okay, how do we fight this? This must be a serious consideration. And I've had a lot of people suggest that I would say that they are not favorably disposed to what were the concepts we put out there, but are coming to the realization that, you know, we can either plan our own future and develop our own future,

or it can be planned for us. And it would be better if we did it ourselves. But I find the partisanship kind of, yeah, Republicans and Democrats have a difference of opinion on how best to manage our public lands and that type of stuff. But when you look back at the Boulder White Clouds Wilderness Area that I did, in the end, it passed without a dissenting vote, without a Republican or a Democrat dissenting vote in both the House and the Senate. When we did the Great American Outdoors Act, it passed with bipartisan support. So when we get right down to it, I think Republicans and Democrats want the same thing. We have a different opinion about how to get there sometimes, but,

but I, I, I'm not worried about the partisanship really. Do you feel that the proposal that you've worked on and we'll, we'll tell people how to find the details of the proposal. Do you feel the proposal you worked on and we'll tell people how to find the details of the proposal do you feel the proposal you worked on um has turned some opinions or have you do you feel that it winds up being that it's this the the battle line is pretty much the same still or have some people come and said oh uh this i can get on board with previous Previous proposals, not for me. Yeah. The response we're getting from the public is about what we expected when we released it. And it's the reason we released it as a concept, not a written piece of legislation. When you say I've got a bill here, it's like saying I'm ready to go with this. I've done all the thought

and everything. We released this as a concept so that people would have time to consider it, have their input into it. I'm sure there are things that we have not thought about that others will think about for us. And there are questions that need to be answered that some people have raised. And that's why it's out there as a concept for this public debate that is going on now. So as I said, I think the reaction is kind of about what we expected. We knew that there would be a number of people and associations and organizations that would say, hell no, we're never going to remove those dams. I understand that. I have sympathy with that position. 25 years ago, that's the position I was in. But the reality, you know, 25 years ago, if you read some of the articles, when I was Speaker of the House in Idaho, I said, dam removal is not an option.

I said, we ought to try everything else to restore salmon before we ever consider that. Well, in the 25 years since then, we've tried everything else. And if somebody has an idea of how you can restore salmon without removing those dams, I'd love to hear it. But the problem is, is we've tried everything so far. And as I said, every fish biologist that I've talked to says, you're going to have to remove those dams if you want to restore Idaho salmon runs. So we knew there would be that reaction from the hell no, never sort of group, but I'm not critical of them. I understand where they're coming from. But there are a lot of people who are saying to me, this is interesting.

Maybe we ought to step back, put the pitchforks down and talk about this and consider the options here. Because as I said, I just talked to a group the other day who I thought would have been pretty firmly against it, and they still may be, but they're starting to say, you know, maybe we ought to plan our own future instead of have someone else plan for it. And when I say that, people say I'm trying to threaten people that a judge can remove these dams. That's not true. A judge cannot remove these dams. Only Congress can do that. But a judge can make it so damned expensive

to keep these dams that you just have no option but to remove them. They could order drawdowns or additional spills and that kind of stuff. Two years ago, a judge ordered 40,000 acre feet of additional water to be spilled over the dams to help salmon recover. Didn't help recover salmon, but it did cost $40 million from BPA to do that of lost power generation. That means the rate payers ended up paying that $40 million. So as I said, that's another aspect of this whole proposal. It's not just salmon and dams. It's also the BPA trying to keep power rates low in the Pacific Northwest that have been growing over the years. And as I said, Bonneville Power is no longer the low cost power in the Pacific Northwest that have been growing over the years. And as I said, Bonneville Power is no longer the low-cost power in the Pacific Northwest

anymore. So we've got to do something to make them competitive in the future. Let's talk for a minute about the hell no, never perspective. This will demonstrate my bias a little bit. But if I view someone saying, if I view someone like yourself, you're bias a little bit, but if I view someone saying, um, if I view someone like, like yourself, you know,

you're not a salmon fisherman. Okay. But you're, you're recognizing the importance of salmon as a, as a wild creature that we're blessed to have on the landscape. Right. It belongs to a system that's greater than any individual. And it has integrity we want to

uphold the integrity like i view that as you know that that to me strikes me as um you know largely altruistic viewpoint like you're looking to future generations if you talk about the hell no never audience is there an argument among them that goes beyond anything that might be self-serving? You know, I think there's concern. And as I said in our video when we released it, I said, you know, I can't promise you, I'm not certain that removing these dams will bring back salmon. It's a complex biological system. You know, when I was a dentist in the real world, someone would come into my office with a serious infection,

and I could prescribe some antibiotics for them. I couldn't promise them it would work. It would work 99.99% of the time. You can't promise somebody it's going to work because it's a biological system and people react differently. The same thing is true with salmon. But it's the best chance we've got of recovering salmon, and I think the only chance we've got of recovering these four salmon runs. But I always get a kick out of people who say to me,

I don't think we should remove these dams. It's not guaranteed that salmon would come back. And I want salmon back as much as anybody else does. What they really mean is I want salmon to come back, but I don't want to have to change anything that we're currently doing. You can't have those two things. I don't think you're going to get salmon back. And I think in 20 to what fish biologists tell me is within probably 20 years, that's five life cycles or four life cycles of a salmon, that these fish will be extinct. And you mentioned the reason for it. As I said, you know, some people want them to come back because they want to be able to fish,

et cetera, et cetera. I want them back because they're an essential part of our economy and essential part of nature. There are over 300 other species of animals and plants that depend on the nutrition that salmon bring back up from the ocean. There's been studies done that if you look at a stream where salmon generally populate versus one where there's no salmon in it, trees actually go three times faster in the drainage that has the salmon, just because of the nutrients that they bring back. Something like 98% of the hair of a bear in these regions have salmon DNA in them. So they're an important, iconic species for the Pacific Northwest. I don't want to be the generation that said, yeah, we saw them going away and we didn't do anything to try and stop it. You mentioned only Congress can remove the dams. Why is that? What is the sort of like the legal framework that makes that true? Well, they are federal dams that were put

in with federal legislation. So it would take federal legislation to remove them. That's my understanding of the law, and I think that's probably true. But like I said, a judge can make it so damn expensive to keep, and he could order drawdowns where you would actually draw the reservoirs down to almost zero, which means there wouldn't be any barging or anything else like that. Or he could order additional spills. And guess where that water ultimately comes from? It comes from Idaho, because all the water in the Snake River drains out of the Idaho drainages. And Idaho, the habitat that we're talking about in Idaho, in central Idaho, is the high altitude habitat and probably the best and cleanest water and coldest water in the entire Pacific Northwest for salmon habitat. So it is vital that we restore, store these salmon to this habitat.

And especially in the age of warming rivers because of global warming and other types of things, it's important that we maintain this cold, high altitude water habitat that we have in Idaho. Congressman, we've talked a little bit about the argument for removing the dams. We've talked about some of the resistance to doing it and what it might take to ease that resistance. What about just the physical process? Let's say 100% of Americans and 100% of the U.S. Congress and Senate all said,

yes, let's go. What are we looking at? I mean, are we talking about decades of work? Presumably it's not like a B-52 bomber just comes over and it's done, right? There's a thing that needs to happen here. Yeah, it's much more complicated. In our proposal, the dams don't actually come out until 2030 because that's nine years from now. You have to have the power replacement in place. You have to have the alternative transportation in place, but then you have to do dredging behind these dams. That's going to cost you a billion or so dollars to remove the sediment that has accumulated behind

these dams because you don't want it to just wash down the river. So you've got to remove the sediment. And then we don't physically remove the cement part of the dam. What you do is remove the earthen berms around the edge to create the natural river flow that existed before. Oh, and so it stays there? Yeah. Yeah. The cement part stays there. It's the earthen berms that attach on the sides that you'd remove. And then the river could flow around that. And I've told people, listen, in 30 years, if salmon aren't back, this hasn't worked. You could actually replace the earthen berms if you need to. We've just got to start thinking outside of the traditional ideas that we've had in the past that haven't worked and say, let's look

down the road. Let's see how we can make this work. And let's try something different. I know you can't be a slave to polling, but among your constituents, what percentage of your constituents think that something's got to happen? We haven't done any polling on this, so I can't give you an exact answer. The only answer I would have is from the contact I've had with people. As I said, a lot of people are saying, interesting, we ought to consider this. Other people are saying, I admire you for taking on the challenge, and it's a discussion that's got to be had, but I'm not sure I'm in favor of dam removal. And other people are just saying, hell no. So it's a slow process of giving people a

chance to consider this and think about the options and what we might be able to do. And if we want to plan our own future. And I think over time, over the next few months, if people have a chance to really sit down and talk about it, you'll see more people coming around to the possibilities. And I've been doing meetings all over my district in Idaho. We will start doing some more around the Pacific Northwest and North Idaho and Washington and Oregon also. From the agricultural perspective, Congressman, is the lack of embrace for dam removal based on the shipping primarily, the use of the barge system for moving grain, or is it due to probably a realistic increase in cost of pumping water out of the snake for agricultural purposes?

It comes in several aspects. I think the largest opposition is from the grain grower perspective because they ship 95 million bushels of grain down the river every year. And they're afraid that if you added 10 or 15 cents to a bushel in transportation costs, that'd put them out of business. It might well. I think we can do it and they can actually ship per farmer at a cheaper cost than doing it by barging if we give them the resources to develop this plan. Now, we've come up with an idea. It might not be the right idea, but they're the experts in trying to get their grain to the Tri-Cities and to Portland. So we give them the resources, they'll come up with a plan. I've been interested though in the grain farmers in Southern Idaho, in my district, that actually don't use the barge

system. They either truck it to the Tri-Cities or to Salt Lake right now. And the only thing this plan would do for them is make more water available for southern Idaho when we stop flushing 487,000 acre feet of water down the river. We've got some real water quality issues in the Snake River and the mid-Snake up by Twin Falls and so forth and this would help improve that water quality and quantity by you know know, stopping the flushing. And I've told these people, listen, that flush is going to go away one way or another. It's going to go away because salmon go extinct and it's no longer necessary to flush water for salmon. Or it's going to go away because the dams aren't there. So you don't need to flush water to flush smolts over the dams. So it's a matter of looking down the road.

And then I think there is just a natural sort of resistance to say, how stupid is this to take out this infrastructure that we built over the years and stuff? And why would you want to do that? And I understand that because that's, as I said, you know, a number of years ago, I probably would have been in that same camp. But you got to look down the future. And we don't do this for us. We do this for future generations, both those people that care about the environment and salmon and also agricultural

producers try to end these lawsuits that they're facing every single day and that the power companies are facing every single day and try to end the spiraling costs of the power that they have. If you talk to the Washington area growers, they pump water out of these reservoirs behind these dams. And so consequently, restoring a natural river means that they would have to alter their irrigation pumps and how they draw water out and probably deepen their wells and a few things. We've put some money into this proposal for them to help do it. They said it probably takes $650 million. We put $750 million into the proposal. So we're trying to address all these concerns that people have. But believe me, I understand the concerns.

Congressman, I think that as this rolled out, it had a price tag of 33.5 million. And I think there is a little bit of a sticker shock, but- Billion. Yeah. Yeah, with a billion. Billion. Yeah, billion. And so as it has rolled out living on the police, as I do, um, I've seen definitely both sides of it. People that support, support it for various reasons. Um, but I've been very interested in the fact that the proposal isn't just about salmon. It isn't just about conservation. You took this step to include

every industry and almost every community into consideration. And I think that's a pretty striking aspect of the proposal. And so kudos to you for that, you know, having those 300 meetings. Do you get the sense that with those 300 meetings, that a lot of the, if you will, the leaks in the dam were plugged and these are small hurdles that you have to jump now with the additional 200 bringing your total up to 500? Do you think we're getting there as far as buy-in in the proposal as broad as it is? Well, I appreciate your comments. And like I say, we tried to take into consideration all the impacts that we could think of. And that's why we talked to so many stakeholders because there were things that we probably

wouldn't have thought of had we not talked to a lot of these different individuals and stuff. And so I wouldn't say that we plugged all the leaks for sure. There's still some out there that we need to talk to, but I'd say the conversation is going well. I've actually talked to grain producers in the Palouse, actual farmers, and they said, well, you know, this is kind of an interesting idea. And yeah, if we could get grain down the river, do we really need the dams and stuff? But as an association, they're opposed to it. And the Washington grain growers, the Idaho grain growers, the Oregon grain growers all stick together and support one another. So it will be

hard to bring them on board. What I'm trying to do is alleviate some of their fears that were, you know, I've got a history that I've built up over the years of being the leading supporter of agriculture in Congress, one of the leading supporters of agriculture in Congress, whether it was making sure that they had the resources to do what was necessary. and a few things like that for the cattlemen and sheep industry. Kept the Dubois sheep station open. Made sure that white potatoes, you know, being from Idaho, potatoes are important. Were put back on the WIC program and in the school lunch program and things like that and making sure they had the resources for their research and so forth in the wheat industry and so forth. I've got lots of awards from the agricultural industry. And if I thought for a second that this would harm agriculture in the long run, I'd drop it in a heartbeat. This will not harm agriculture. And I think it will place them in a better position in

the future. But that takes time to come around to. And I understand that. And that's why I haven't gone out and asked anybody to jump on board and support this. I just said, listen, let's all put down the pitchforks and let's have this discussion of what we want the Pacific Northwest to look like in 40 or 50 years. Congressman, would you like to directly address the idea that the suspension of, like you mentioned, the Clean Water Act, DSA, um, on the lower Columbia dams would also allow the, uh, building of, of new infrastructure that would like go against, uh, the idea of modernizing like clean or green energy um a lot of people see this as like oh my god we're going to suspend these tools that we use to uh fight bad or environmental policy um as like a scapegoat type of tool a trade-off is a trade-off to some degree, but the reality is all of the lawsuits that occur, virtually all of them, occur around the Clean Water Act and the Endangered

Species Act. Every time a dam comes up to relicense, I'll give you an example. Idaho Powers, Hell's Canyon Complex, they've been trying to relicense those dams since I was the Speaker of the House in Idaho. That was 25 years ago. And they've been trying to relicense those dams since I was the Speaker of the House in Idaho. That was 25 years ago. And they've been trying to relicense. They've spent as much money, or in fact, they spent three times as much money relicensing those dams as it did to build the dams. And they still haven't got licenses for them yet. That's what's happening with all of the dams in the Pacific Northwest. And what we've created is a cottage industry with the EJA funds, that's equal access to justice funds that are paid for by Congress. And what happens is a firm can come up, an environmental group or whatever, can come up, file a lawsuit.

And if you win in part or in whole, your fees could be paid for. And you actually make money on these things. And it is a cottage industry that's going on. And so I'm not too happy about that. But I think that suspending the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act and the NEPA process is vitally important to ending these lawsuits. And it doesn't mean you can go out and do additional things. It just means these dams are relicensed operators. They currently, as they currently operate and stuff. Uh,

this is a little bit of a looking into a crystal ball type question here. Okay. I, I have a lot of respect and admiration for the way you're, you're framing it up that it, that you're not starting with legislation. You're starting with a proposal. You're not starting with legislation. You're starting with a proposal. You're bringing it to people.

You're inviting comments. You're inviting critiques. You're trying to initiate a discussion. Do you feel that in the end, in terms of your involvement here, that in the end, that's your goal? Or do you think that this specific proposal could actually be a blueprint for action that we take? Or is it to you, is it enough just to start the conversation trusting that in 10, 20, 30 years, the conversation advances enough? Or do you think we could be at, you know, at a moment, right? Like at a moment in time where we're going to go? That's a good question. I think that this

is a blueprint which could start the process of recovering Idaho salmon, removing dams and changing the economy and the transitioning of the Pacific Northwest for the future. Whether it would be this specific proposal or not, I don't know, but I think this could be the blueprint for it. We're in a unique time in history. We don't have that long to make a decision on how we're going to recover salmon and whether we're going to do this. And the Pacific Northwest delegation is actually in a pretty powerful position when you consider chairman of the Senate Finance Committee is Ron Wyden from Oregon. Patty Murray from Washington is in leadership. Mike Crapo from Idaho is a ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee. We've got important people, Kathy Morris-Rogers from Washington, who is not supportive of dam

removal, but is the ranking member on the Energy and Commerce Committee in the House. I'm one of the senior members on the Appropriations Committee. So when you look at how the delegation is, and the chairman of the, Pete DeFazio is chairman of the Infrastructure Transportation Committee in the House. So we're in a pretty powerful position. It's also helpful, frankly, that the Biden administration is looking at an infrastructure package because I'd like to get the financing for this in place before we started doing the legislation. You've heard too many times where Congress passes legislation and promises financing for things, and then that never happens. I would like to put the financing in place, if we could do it through this infrastructure package that the Biden administration is looking at, and put it in a trust fund until we had the legislation passed that we could do this. So it is a long process. It's a cumbersome process. And I will

tell you right in the legislation is going to be, for lack of a better word, a nightmare, because it involves so many different aspects of the economy and the environment of the Pacific Northwest. But I think, and I've told people, I honestly believe that in 20, 25 years, those dams are going to be gone. Whether it's because of this or for some other reason, I think those dams will be gone. The question is, will it be done in time to save the salmon or not? I know you got stuff you got to go do. I appreciate your time. Anything you'd like to add in at the end here that I didn didn't ask you but you're you're dying to say

i've probably told you more than i know oh well again i appreciate taking the time um i'm sure people love to hear it it's a you know aspects of this debate i've been exposed to for my entire life um it's exciting to see the getting the attention that it's getting now, uh, best of luck. I appreciate the efforts that you're putting in to try to hear people out on this. And in a, in a way that maybe is not quite as acrimonious as other efforts, you know, start this conversation about something that's very important. So, uh, Congressman Mike Simpson from Idaho.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Steve. Appreciate it very much. Thank you, Steve. Appreciate it very much. All right, Phil. Let's end the show there. Yeah, great guest. Chester, you'll come back on for more investor updates? Yep.

Hopefully we can just start doing the fishing adventures. Oh, like after you get the boat. Oh, like you want to, after you get the boat. Oh, can we do that, Phil? Yeah. I already made a separate jingle for when he gets the boat. Oh, you already done? I did. Yeah.

Oh, can I hear it? There's walleye in the snake, right? Oh yeah. Lower snake. Maybe I'll come over there and get some walleye out so it'll help the trout. Why end Chester the Investor just because you got a walleye boat when it could just morph? Yeah, money in action.

Your investment in action. Investing in... Oh, I'm so glad. I was already starting to miss you. Like you get the boat and you wouldn't come into the studio anymore. Chester the Angler! That doesn't sound good. No, you.

I could be investing my time in catching walleye. Oh, I asked you. You probably forgot that you did this, but you asked me to make a jingle. It's the continuing walleye adventures of Chester the Investor. ISS?

You did on the podcast. I have a tentative hold on Steve's boat right now, Chester, for a couple of days in April, end of April, first week of May. The continuing ventures, Chester, for a couple of days in April, end of April, first week of May. The continuing ventures of Chester the walleye. No restrictions or limits on walleye or

smallmouth. Where you're going. Yeah. He's going to help salmon. And that's it. Killing a small eater. Don't like to do it. You don't like do it.

Don't like eating them. Don't like looking at them. Don't like eating them. Don't like looking at them. Don't like catching them. But you thought long and hard. Somebody's got to do it. That was one of the things we used to laugh about was when people would be like,

people that go shoot prairie dogs, you know? Yeah. Well, it's helping the rancher. I'm like, I bet you. I bet you. If you went to the rancher and you said,

me and my buddies here want to help. We just want to help. What can we do? the rancher i'm like i bet you i bet you if you went to the rancher and you said me my buddy's here want to help we just want to help what can we do i bet you about 50th on his list of chores would be shooting prairie dogs he'd be like see that fence and all five miles of it if you really want to help that would be helpful he's like in those prairie dogs i got this uh chemical dispenser on the front of my four-wheeler and i just drive over each hole hit a button it drops a load of rodenticide in there yeah so don't worry about that just worry about the fence yeah all right thanks everybody Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that

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