The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 584: Are Governor’s Tags Un-American?

Episode Date: August 12, 2024

Steven Rinella talks with Mark Kenyon, Ryan Callaghan, Brody Henderson, Randall Williams, and Corinne Schneider. Topics discussed: Don’t perpetuate the misinformation spread; more of “Steve Reads Books So You Ain’t Got To”; can you really breed CWD-resistance into deer?; the importance of a healthy, balanced deer population on the hunting experience; more arguments for and against governor's tags and raffles; equal right vs. equal opportunity; grease; are governor's tags un-American?; what's actually better for the resource; no more auction allocation for tags in Arizona; Cal's mic drop; and a sneak peek story from our new Campfire Stories 3: Discoveries, Revelations & Near Misses. Connect with Steve and The MeatEater Podcast Network Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now 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. You can even use offline maps to see where you are

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. We hunt 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. The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light.

Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for elk, First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at firstlight.com. F-I-R-S-T-t-l-i-t-e.com hey steve calling in from alaska i'm here to announce that the latest volume of meat eaters campfire stories is available now this volume is is called Discoveries, Revelations, and Near Misses. So the volume is a little twist on our normal format. It includes all of those near-death

escapes in the wild that really define our other two volumes of Meat Eaters Campfire Stories. But this includes something added and special, which is a few stories about life-changing discoveries and revelations in the wild the one you're going to hear at the end of this podcast involves a guy whose friends refer to him as black cloud bob because this guy has a cloud of bad luck that follows him and this story you're going to hear is like a terrible near-death experience that kind of bleeds into another terrible near-death experience to make sort of like a duplex of near-death experiences.

It's a horrendous story, and it's at the end of the podcast. You'll listen to that. If you enjoy, you can go anywhere audio books are sold and get your latest volume of Meat Eaters Campfire Stories. I hope you enjoy. Yeah, go on! All right, we're recording from the Meat Eater flagship store in downtown Bozeman, Montana, and I am right below the buffalo skull that now has its sign, stick finger here. People have been sticking their finger in that hole, Mark, have you? I have not yet.

Apparently I should. You worried it's going to get all greasy and dirty there? No, what I would like to do is make like a, I don't even want to tell you what I'd like to do. Although I'd like to build in a little surprise. Stick your finger in that hole. People come by. They send pictures of themselves with their finger in that hole. That and all kinds of other oddities and great products down here

at the Meat Eater Flagship Store downtown Bozeman, Montana, where we are recording right now. Come on down and say hi. Also, major importance, if you like to watch podcasts from our podcast network on YouTube, you

have to do something. We're moving all of these, all of our podcast videos are moving to a new YouTube channel, which is called, very simple, MeatEater Podcast Network. So if you subscribe to the MeatEater YouTube channel, you will no longer be seeing our podcast videos popping up. You got to go to this new channel, which is all podcast video going forward on the new channel. So just take a second right now.

Go to YouTube. Search MeatEater Podcast Network. Click subscribe. And you will then be served all of our podcast videos there. And you won't miss anything. You know what we're so late on discussing? First off, I'm joined by Brody, Cal, Mark Canyon, and Dr. Randall. Corinne's here, but she doesn't say much.

We're so late on talking about it because I meant to talk about it that we got to talk about it now for a minute, that we're so late on talking about it that we got to talk about it now for a minute that we're so late on talking about it all the the flurry the flurry of news about the colorado deer hunters two old-timers that uh two old-timers that died of Crosfield Jacobs? Yes. And some researcher, who it turns out

it was not really, pointed out that these two guys hunted deer together, were consumers of deer in Colorado, and then happened to develop Jakob Kreutzfeld. And he was saying, hey, heads up. They deer hunted.

There's a possibility that they got this disease from eating deer. That was quite irresponsible thing to pump out there. How much do you guys know about this? I'm the only one who knows about this? No, I know about it. Totally tracking. You're just on a roll.

I haven't messed anything up too bad. Now I've got to jump in and find some stuff. I'll say that the one thing that happened here was that he made this little bit of conjecture, which then got picked up as a soundbite

across the media outlets. Which turned into a headline. It became a headline and blew up into hysteria, and they looked past the point that this was not stemming from some peer-reviewed study, but this was just a piece of, again, conjecture. It was a question. It wasn't a question. Yeah.

Yeah, it wasn't a study. And the implication is that they got Creutzfeldt-Jakob from, or Jakob from... Deer. Deer. Yeah. From CWD. Crossing the species barrier. Yeah, the implication is that CWD is crossing the species barrier.

Yeah. Now, there was a version of this years ago, equally irresponsible, where they had a guy that had Jakob Kreutzfeld and in his personal history had eaten a squirrel brain. What was the headline everywhere? Man got it from eating a squirrel brain. When in fact, it was simply that in his personal history, he'd eaten a squirrel brain. Jim Heffelfinger, when this came out, this is a long time ago now, when this came out from Jim Heffelfinger, he said, in talking about this little flurry of news activity,

he pointed out that he doesn't even want to post a link because he doesn't want to perpetuate a spread, the spread of this misinformation or information he said this is not a study and this is not a scientific paper the whole thing is 344 words and is simply a mention about two hunters that died of cjd and both of them ate deer from the same deer population there is no evidence evidence of CWD infecting hunters. There are clusters of CJD throughout the country, some in CWD areas and some outside CWD areas. With the spread of CWD nationwide,

it is not very noteworthy, meaning that now, I don't know, 30 states, 30-some states have CWD? With the spread of CWD nationwide, it is not very noteworthy that two CJD victims in the same rural area may have both eaten venison. He points out, we have to be vigilant about the possible jump of a prion disease from deer to hunter

i couldn't agree more this is the thing much to doug duran's annoyance this is i don't want to say the only thing it's the primary thing that worries me about cwd is the possibility that it would jump the species barrier and go to humans if i knew if god came down and said steve there is no chance cwd can jump to humans i would care this is going to really piss off doug 85 less about CWD? I think that the human jump is a step too far, really. I think people should be way more concerned. Deer hunters should be way more concerned with CWD jumping to any sort of domestic livestock.

That's what blows my mind is why the USDA isn't more worried. Yeah. I could weigh it. I mean, like, I don't know if you guys know. I'm no infectious disease specialist. But I'm worried as a person. How are they not worried about cattle? Oh, yeah.

They look a hell of a lot more like a deer than I do. The USDA response to domestic livestock with these types of diseases is severe and final. It's full eradication. So, yeah. Which is what makes it so scary. If ever it does jump to humans,

it's going to be the end of our lifestyle or that beginning of that end. Yeah, that's right. It's not going to be as simple as turning a fan off in a chicken house. You guys are just fueling the fire now. Drunker in a boil out. Boiled out. Now, here is from a peer-reviewed paper.

This is from a peer-reviewed paper. This is from a peer-reviewed paper. In Colorado, I want to point out to people, Colorado, I'm very reluctant to get into this right now because I don't want this to be mistaken. I don't want this to be taken wrong. I am an individual who is concerned about CWD. I think that we should be testing robustly. I think we should be investing a lot of money into researching

cwd i think we should find out everything we can find out about cwd and i think we should be taking reasonable steps to slow the spread of cwd me saying me jumping on someone for claiming that cwd has jumped into the human population is not because i'm trying to think that CWD is going to go away or I'm trying to whitewash the risk of CWD. It's because I don't think that you should go around saying crazy shit to really upset people based off no evidence. Let's have good, clean material, good, clean science around CWD and not hysterical hogwash around CWD. A problem, I'm still ahead of what I'm going to read you next. A problem I have found, even within the CWD spectrum, the CWD spectrum being CWD deniers

who once upon a time, a CWD denier was someone who said, there's no such thing as CWD. The same way early on, a COVID denier was someone who said, there's no such thing as COVID. Eventually, a COVID denier became someone who said, sure, there's COVID. I just don't think it's that alarming, which puts me in COVID denier, which COVID deniers have caught up to where I'm at, where it's like, sure, it's there. I just don't think it's enough. I don't think it warrants shutting people's businesses down.

A CWD denier at a time said, there's no such thing. It's all a lie. Now they say, oh yeah, it's real. I'm just not alarmed. Well, it's real. I'm alarmed. But don't go running around saying crazy shit that's not true. Especially knowing what's going to happen in the media after you say it.

Yes, and they play into that. And there are people on the spectrum. I was trying to get into the spectrum. On the spectrum of CWD believers, whatever, you have deniers who at this current stage are like, yes, it's real, but it doesn't matter. Two people saying, if you so much as put a piece of deer meat on a stainless steel table, you could then drop a nuclear bomb

on that steel table, and that steel table's still going to give you Jakob Kreutzfeldt disease. There's this spectrum. The people on the far end, the super alarmists, also need to chill out. And I've told some of them face-to-face, please chill out with the zombie deer disease, all that garbage. From a peer-reviewed paper, okay? Here's this passage from a peer-reviewed paper, okay, here's this passage from a peer-reviewed paper. Oh, I also got to back up.

A lot of background here, people. I'm sorry. Colorado was where CWD was first identified. CWD was first identified in Colorado at a deer and elk breeding facility, a research facility. That's ground zero for CWD in terms of identification. That they identified it there does not mean that it emerged there. It was identified there. The date they identified it in the 70s

does not mean it was born that day. The more you look for it, the more you find it as we're seeing. Meaning, as more and more states find CWD, it's often that more and more states are looking for CWD. We don't know where it came from. We don't know when it first emerged. It was the first identified in Colorado. Back to this peer- paper. In seven Colorado counties with high CWD prevalence,

75% of state hunting licenses are issued locally, which suggests that residents consume most regionally harvested game. So here all they're trying to establish is that if you're looking at CWD prevalence and who's eating CWD-infected meat, let's look locally. We'll go to these counties in Colorado with a lot of CWD, and we're going to look at locals, making the assumption that locals are eating most of the local deer meat. It goes on to say, we used Colorado death certificate

data from 1979 through 2001 to evaluate rates of death from the human prion disease Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

Am I saying that right? It's a bitch. I have no idea. I'm going to say CJD, so I don't have to feel like I'm messing it up every time. There you go. The relative risk of CJD for CWD endemic county residents

was not significantly increased, and the rate of CJD did not increase over time. In Colorado, human prion disease resulting from CWD exposure is rare or non-existent. The reason they're saying is rare or non-existent is because they haven't found it. Then it goes down to say, however, there's a lot we don't know. The other piece of this is, even after this news came out

implying a correlation between consumption in these two cases, after this news came out, statistically, those two cases happening to come from that area was not an outlier. You have about a dozen cases a year that we found. It was like a giant nothing. And like everything, like the guy that got it from eating squirrel brains, you wind up being that when a news story like that comes out, got so worked up, got to take my glasses off.

When a news story like that comes out, the retraction never gets the retraction never gets the traction. You're following this repeated use of the retraction never gets the traction. Wish I could keep it going. That the initial action Ah!

The retraction never gets the traction that the initial action had on the perfection. From the initial action had on the perfection. It just doesn't. CWD scares the shit out of me.

Don't be doing stuff like that. I'm already scared. Is it worth talking about the Oklahoma thing then? Yes. Would you like to? I could. I don't know if Steve wanted to lead that off or not. Can we get into it in a minute?

Yeah. I'm here to talk about that. That, I think, like, that, God bless him for trying to find a thing. You listeners have no idea what we're talking about. God bless him, but come on. Yeah. We've covered this heavily on the week in review.

Because again, when I first saw it as a little blurb, I was kind of like, ha ha. It can't be. Nothing can happen. Little did you know. Oh my God. Maybe we don't even get into Randall Hoffman. Well.

Damn it. I want to get into randall hoff well damn it i want to get into it a couple things real quick i put this in the notes and everybody got mad i wrote in the notes trump is right about voter fraud hear me out hear me out i didn't hear a single person in this room get mad. Not mad. We mostly... No, no, no, not mad. They were like, what? They were eyebrows raised. What? I just wanted to be briefed in general

about your approach. I thought the whole... I'm on date night. I'm on date night. Not on date line. I'm on date night with my wife. And I'm trying to listen to what she's telling me. But you're not. But there's something way more interesting going on. Something way more interesting going on. and I'm trying to listen to what she's telling me, but I can't.

But there's something way more interesting going on. Something way more interesting going on. I come into a restaurant, and there's a big group of people. A bunch of funny-looking people. Look like a corporate function. And I said, that's weird. What are these guys doing in town?

Something didn't fit. Turns out, I don't want to trivialize. They're from World Wildlife Fund. I don't want to trivialize They're from World Wildlife Fund I don't want to trivialize World Wildlife Fund But of the many things they do One of the things they do is they are a thorn In the side of hunters So they do a lot of

Things for wildlife, positive things for wildlife But anytime, they're always litigating against hunters In cases where I don't think It has anything to do with Preserving biodiversity Am I fair? I think that's totally fair hunters in cases where i don't think it has anything to do with preserving biodiversity it's just they gotta is this am i fair i think that's totally i think you're being yeah overly fair center for biological diversity world wildlife fund are always going to litigate against hunters and they're always going to sort of um even with stable wildlife populations they're

going to kind of come and act like hunting is somehow imperiling stable wildlife populations and it'll come out. I picked this up. I hear a story about Cory Booker. He was a senator. Yeah. And someone's telling the story as a way to demonstrate how nice Cory Booker is. And I'll point out, Cory Booker's a vegan. Telling how nice Cory Booker is. Is that relevant to the story? Yeah. By recounting an interaction that Cory Booker is having with

a flight attendant. I'm hearing it and I'm like, that's him scamming on a flight attendant. This is just my, like, the story I hear. I'm like, that's not nice. That's scamming. Not to say he scammed on a flight attendant, but just that caught, that's what caught my attention. Okay? I'm not coming here and saying he did.

I'm saying an individual is telling a story. And then the individual tells a story about fixing to commit voter fraud. And the whole time, your dear, beautiful, sweet wife is talking, and you're going, uh-huh. With my left ear, I'm listening to her. With my left ear, I'm listening to her. With my right ear, I'm listening to this voter fraud plan. There's an individual in Chicago. And you're pretty deaf in that left ear. I'd love to hear Katie's perspective on this.

Should I cut all this off for legal reasons? How bad is it that I overheard something in a restaurant? Are you allowed to do this? Yeah, you're totally allowed to do this. You think I'm in the right? Yeah. Well, I mean, something in a restaurant. Are you allowed to do this? You're totally allowed to do this. You think I'm in the right? Yeah. Well, I mean, the right would be... The individual's talking lives in Chicago.

He lives in Chicago. Now, he did not say who he's planning on voting for this fall, but he's explaining to everyone that he knows how Illinois is going to go on this fall's presidential election. Okay. He owns a cabin in Michigan. He wants to be able to vote in a battleground state this November.

So he went and got a Michigan driver's license. When he asked about the legality of what he's doing he was told you're supposed to spend a majority of your time in the state where you're registered to vote but they said they only really care about that with rich people and since he works for an ngo he felt that this did not apply to him. Wow. Just overheard. How do you do the right caveat? Overheard in the restaurant. Yeah.

I thought the whole disquisition about the CWD Colorado Hunter scare, but you need evidence. I thought that was all a setup for this anecdote no it's just something i overheard yeah no no i think if you if you were to say that bleep that whole thing out because overheard at a restaurant right like yeah we have been talking the town uh approached by a police officer in my younger years uh because during our late night dinner we thoroughly ran through all the ways we could have uh dined and dashed right eaten and eaten and left without man right as just a fun way to pass the time where you're having dinner right so you're at dinner you're discussing

ways in which you could get out of paying for said dinner. Right. Which at that point in our lives was the perfect crime. Right? That's how you would really stick it to the man. Probably the first people to ever pull that off at a Denny's. Oh, I know why I brought this up. Because Cal was laying out for me, someone laying out for him, a way in which you could get a resident-res,

a way in which you could get a resident hunting license that you weren't allowed to get. Yes. They were sort of saying a fella could. Yeah. And Cal was saying, or a fella could just buy the non-resident hunting license. Yes.

Instead of setting, purchasing a piece of land, getting a PO box, setting up an LLC. I'm like, boy, that sounds like dude we used to see like very well off second homeowners in colorado do like try to bend over backwards to get a resident

fishing license instead of a non-resident which is like a 50 difference yeah but you know what they're doing though they're're chasing the high of sticking it to the man. Well, it's not necessarily sticking it to the man. It's like the same people who have coupons. It's like, oh, I'm saving money and that's what really gets them.

Gets them going. Love coupons. Well, that's your heritage. 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, we're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast. Now you, you guys in the Great White North 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 your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services

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to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com onxmaps.com onxmaps.com Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. We should start, you know,

Corinne, Corinne's not going to like this because Corinne doesn't like when we think of ways in which Corinne could get more email. But if you want to send in an email saying, here's a wild-ass idea in the subject line, and you got a wild-ass idea, go ahead and throw it in. Send it to Corinne. Here's a guy who wrote in a wild-ass idea. In talking about live sonar and the controversy surrounding live sonar, he's saying, well, think about Dingle Johnson.

Some old-timer who's digging worms out of his garden and using the same bag of Eagle Claw hooks he bought 20 years ago, fishing on a resident license. A senior license. Yeah. Fishing on license Resident lifetime license That he bought 60 years ago Digging worms out of his garden

Bought a bag Of 300 eagle claw hooks At a sportsman show two decades ago Out of some old ass rowboat That he bought at a yard sale Right What is he doing for Dingle Johnson? He's taken, not given.

There's your enemy. He's saying a live sonar guy is not the enemy. Because this guy, think about the amount of money this guy's pumping into conservation through excise taxes on fishing equipment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting angle.

I added all the stuff about the old guy. To this guy's credit, he didn't call anyone the enemy. He just said it was sort of a thoughtful... That's why I didn't use his name. Yeah, yeah. I was kind of filling out his argument. Growing up, how long you would have a box of large caliber ammunition right i mean like the box would corrode yes exactly the green and yellow yeah right yeah the folds on the box would give

out and you'd have to tape them back together before it was gone right and there's all kinds of corrosion on the the cartridges themselves exactly when my dad died and i was able to raid his ammo bin i thought at that time that i would never buy ammo again i was like well shit here's 40 remington core locks that's like you know 20 deer and then 20 shots to make sure I'm still on. Still good. It would be really interesting though to try to run the numbers on the increased

funds that we're getting in from increased purchase and folks becoming more and more fervent about this pursuit. If you were to compare that to the negative pressure outcomes of it and try to see how does that...

Yeah, is there a balance there? Here's a $4,000 purchase with excise taxes at 11%. 11%. That makes me feel bad for yelling at my kid about buying worms. Got a whole garden out there you could have dug up. Oh, I'm not going to do one

because we haven't found out if people like them or not. Play the drop, Phil. I liked the previous one. It just went on a little too long. I didn't get to half of the things. I kind of liked that because it's awkwardly long. That was kind of what made it so great.

Play the drop, Phil. Ready for this one? I think this should be an alternating host deal too because I got a bunch. Or do you? So you ain't got to. Okay. This is a teaser for a future installment. Alaska Tracks.

Life stories from hunters, fishermen, and trappers of Alaska. There's a Randy Zarnke. He's the president of Alaska Trappers Association. He's doing an oral history. Talking to old timers. I'm just going to share two quick ones for you. I put my damn glasses back on.

I would have never started making a podcast if I knew I was going to lose my reading vision. Listen to this. Very quick. From the time I was about 10 years old, I had to make a living for the whole family. His dad got to where he couldn't work anymore during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, which hit Alaska hard.

From the time I was about 10 years old, I had to make a living for the whole family. The Smithsonian had been paying my brother $45 a piece for black bear skulls and $75 for grizzlies. If I could get one bear a month, that was pretty good money. I'd sell the feet to the Chinese. You listening, Corinne? I still have never eaten

a barefoot, though. I'm looking forward to the time I can. And I got $7 a piece for the galls. So if you add it all up, one bear would bring in quite a bit of money. Jumping ahead. This is from a different fella. Duke Short

out of Cake, Alaska. I hunted eagles for bounty. If you tell people that now, they think you're a really bad person. We got two bucks a piece for eagles. The biggest day I had was during a herring run.

The eagles were eating the herring and I killed 33. Oh my. The only reason I didn't get more was I ran out of bullets. Ladies and gentlemen, that's today's installment of Steve Reads Books so You Ain't Got To.

Now, something you didn't do in the first one, but I wanted to know, was just, do you recommend the book? Like, is this something other folks should, even though they ain't got to read it, but they could. Well, let me put it to you this way, Mark. Guess how far I had to read for those tidbits. Not very far. Page 14 is all I'm talking about.

I didn't even read all the good stuff. Steve reads the first 15 pages of a book. No, I'm going to do a full report. And Cal just announced that he's going to do a full report. I look forward to it, for sure. Full of juicy tidbits. Yeah. I think we should buy a timer maybe corinne yeah

figure out the section what what's a reasonable length for let's say cal reads books that you ain't got to i mean a couple minutes no a couple minutes i think it should never mind i think it should end with a couple minutes. Like, buy it or don't. Yeah, there's got to be an assessment. But we should work in bang for your buck so we can have a sound effect. I think a solid 25 minutes. Well, then we should just start a new podcast.

I was thinking 15. We get a timer, and when you present a great book, you got 15 minutes. I like it. New podcast. We can have it. That's I like it. Can we get that machine back out used to rate how much you like something? Oh yeah.

We'll bring that back. I don't know. You tell me Mark. 14 pages and I found that. That seems like a hell of an hour. Then I fell asleep last night. Not because the book was no good. You get to a point where you're just going to go to bed. Shooting eagles.

Three bucks a piece. Randall, can you talk about the breed in Mule Deer in Mexico? We keep wanting to get into this. Did you get boned up or not boned up? I familiarized myself with the case a little bit but did you know about it prior to this no i didn't are those knockoff nikes because the thing's backwards no they're real nikes these are uh oh they're limited a dish these are the yannis antetokounmpo immortality threes got them at uh

famous footwear for49.99 because I think they're a few generations old. I love them. Sorry. I just got distracted. It seems so unlike you. I mean, you put a pair of shoes in front of me, a new pair of shoes for $49.99,

I'm going to have a hard time walking away. Okay. Someone walked me through the breeding mule deer in Mexico. Because I used to like to say, I think I mentioned this before. I used to like to say the thing I love about mule deer is you can't buy a big one. Which is not true. Yeah.

I mean, my understanding of the case was that it's an American citizen and he's in business with two Mexican citizens who own a ranch in Mexico and he'd been working with them to improve mule deer genetics. And he grew the business and then got the first permit to bring those genetics across the border. And then in-

In the form of semen. in the form of semen. In the form of semen straws. There was a note in here about how many semen, 1,460 semen straws. And those are coming from- More than I've ever seen. Those are coming from like a captive breeding facility. Yeah.

And 269 embryos, mule deer embryos. Wow. And essentially, the case is that the guy's partners in Mexico, he claims, became jealous of how successful this guy had become as a result of their joint business. And he says that they uh they started threatening his life and um tried to take some of this stuff back and have engaged in defamation against him and so he's he's trying to get some of that uh genetic material back from

them because it's a it's a partnership gone wrong. Got it. Yeah. I didn't really care about all that. I didn't care about them fighting about whatever. Mm-hmm. It's just whatever. Yeah, yeah. I don't mean to be callous. No, but I guess this guy got the-

What was interesting to me was that this is going on in the first place. Well, he got the first ever permit to move, as I understand it, he got the first ever permit to move as i understand he got the first ever permit to move mule deer dna genetics embryos across the border yeah that was the part that was interesting yeah and what's like what's happening that stuff after it crosses the border yeah it's you know it's i think it was in a lab in in uh in tex Texas or at a breeding facility in Texas, the facility that does both livestock and apparently mule deer. Yeah, that was the part that was surprising me because I have been noticing on social media accounts

of some of these ranches in Mexico that are offering these really high dollar mule deer hunts, the staggering numbers of 200 inch, just one after the other, after the other. And I'm like, how could this be true?

But it's that they're getting really good. And I'm not saying that, I'm not pointing, I'm not saying that there's something like, nothing criminal. They're getting really good. I'm not saying that there's something criminal. They're getting really good at producing giant mule deer out in the desert by using

tricks of the trade developed through whitetail management, meaning bringing in food, water developments, all that. They're kind of creating a resource of giant bucks that just wasn't there before by employing strategies developed by the Texas whitetail community.

So now they've kind of created the new mule deer. It's like Utah in the 70s down there. What is it happening behind fences? It's got to be. A lot of it is. Because when you see one of these social media pages I follow, when I've seen enough guys standing there with like a beer in each hand and a golf cart.

There you go. And a 220-inch Muley laying there and 16 other guys standing back behind them. I'm like, there's something just like. Yeah. There's something just like... Yeah. There's something that does not make sense. Worked our tails off. Well, yeah. You can take the best areas

in the North... Yeah, I mean, really in North America and to have a success rate of three weeks in a row, six people go and all six get 30-inch wide bucks. It just doesn't happen. No. It just does not happen. It's so weird looking.

And part of the problem, it's a minor problem, but part of the problem with it is it's gotten to the point with whitetails where if you walk into someone's house and there's certain whitetails you'll see and you'll just know it's not a wild whitetail.

You look and you don't even ask the guy, oh sweet, where'd you get that? Because you just know. Like, that's a high fence whitetail. You just know the second you walk in the door. And it winds up being like, I don't want to say ruins looking at deer, but with mule deer, I'd always walked in, and I've always been like, damn!

Yeah, because they were like, they were unsullied by that. It was like, holy cow. Yeah, so does this hurt a little bit more to see this with your beloved mule deer and know that the soul of it's... Whitetail have been tarnished for so long, right?

Yeah. Because those big giants are... Now knowing that when you see a big giant now in the back of your head, you got to be warned about that. The other thing you can just know is when some guy comes back from New Zealand and he's got a 400-inch red stag, you're like, didn't shoot that?

No words. Right? Yeah. But with mule deer, you're talking like, I don't know what the numbers would be in in the united states but like it's almost like a handful of 200 inches get shot in the whole country every year yeah right handful i don't know what it's not more than 50 right so now when 50 are coming back every year it's not more than 20 yeah oh shit i don't know i don I bet it's not more than 20. No, shit, I don't know.

It's not a lot. But now they're just like, all coming north from Mexico. Something is really wrong when I'm more apt to ask, how was the chef? Right. Than about your hunt.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I have been looking. See, I got to admit though, man, looking at those Mexico mule deer, I was licking my lips. Oh, for sure.

Because you don't see those wide ones around. I wouldn't turn it down. I was licking my lips. Still kind of am. I mean, the other thing to think about, Rad, is like, through all the conversations we've had, right? Like, that desert environment for big animals, there's just not a lot of them.

Mm-hmm. But somehow, there's a lot of them. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm just going to sit back in my chair and someone's going to explain everyone besides me

and then I'm going to tell you what I think. It's going to talk about this idea that you're going to breed CWD resistance into wild deer? I can take a first stab at it. Okay, should I give you my comment now and you can weave that in or give me my comment

later? I want to see you squirm in your chair for a while wanting to say it and having to wait. You should just interject naturally. Sit back. I'm going to take my watch. I'm wait. You should just interject naturally. Sit back. I'm going to take my watch. I'm taking my mouth talker. Okay. Wow.

Oh, this is the type of juicy stuff people can see at the new YouTube channel. Meteor Podcast Network. Does Steve really pull his glasses off? Steve squirms. So the cliff notes here is that a peer-reviewed study came out in 2020 or 2021 out of Texas A&M where they had identified genetic markers that can point to the susceptibility of a deer to CWD. Basically saying, hey, these two will tell you whether I think it was 81% rate of accuracy, how susceptible this individual whitetail will be to contracting chronic wasting disease. So with that information in tow, then the next thought that some folks had was, well, if we can identify if a deer is

susceptible or not, that means we should be able to selectively breed for those more resistant traits. So Oklahoma proposed a law recently in which they would develop a program to do just that. So this proposal came out that first said, all right, we want to start this program, which will involve, number one, establishing a genetic baseline of what the wild deer population looks like as far as this uh resistance number two they would then start a captive breeding selective breeding program in which they would try to breed for this and then number three and number three is the real big really big uh concern is that starting in 2026 they may create and open up the ability for private individuals to purchase these supposedly cwd resistant deer and release them and not just on high fence ranches but low fence so any tom dick or har Harry could hypothetically purchase, start buying these captive red deer, and start releasing them into the wild.

But only in Oklahoma. Only in Oklahoma. But to my knowledge, there's no other state in which you can do that. I had to put my thing back just to say it. And those deer will know they got to stay in Oklahoma, right? Right, of course. As most deer do. And so this is like a Pandora's box.

There's all sorts of ways this could go wrong that we can get into. What they're trying to do, right, is speed up natural selection. If it even exists. I got it. Now I put my thing back. Sure. My talker is back in position.

Presumably, if it's in captive deer, there's no reason to think that this disposition this resistance, this natural resistance is also in wild deer it's believed that it is to some degree why would it just be there?

when you have millions of wild deer, how in the world do you think that turning out some small handful of deer with a certain genetic characteristic that already exists in wild deer is going to accelerate the natural selection that if you're right, is already occurring right now. Like if you're right is already occurring right now. Like if you're right that there's a resistance and that that resistance is going to win out through natural selection,

then it already is. You putting one loose? Yeah. I mean, like I'm not even, I'm not even against the idea, like I'm not even going down the path of being against the idea um

because let's say there's a version like this let's say you had some way well sorry the version that um this idea is based off of right is uh the near eradication of scrapey in sheep.

That's kind of what they point to. That's all domestic where you control all breeding. Here's the thing. We've already basically tested this idea in wild populations of deer. That is through the act of trying to

cull for genetics. There's been all sorts of people in Texas and other parts of the country where they have very fervently studied the idea of whether or not you can influence genetics within a deer population through culling. Shooting cull bucks. He's got a wonky right side kill him. He looked at me funny. Yeah. side kill him he's got a long time that was that was yeah he looked at me funny yeah so long story short on that a slew of studies have come out over recent years that have completely disproven that is an effective approach at all you just can't do it because of the very things you're saying

in a wild population it's just impossible to actually influence it enough with our you know degree of effect so if that can't work in impacting genetics of whitetail deer, antler quality, same thing's going to be the case with this. But here's why I don't want to come out and just say I condemn the whole idea of Pandora's box and all that.

Because think about this scenario. Let's say for somehow, I don't understand how, but somehow you're able to sample a deer. You'll be able to shoot it with a, uh, one of those, uh, darts out of a pneumatic gun that they use to shoot tranquilizers. You're able to shoot a deer and pull a genetic sample from it. A little plug, right? Hits the deer, falls off. It's got a little chunk of hair on it and you're able to determine okay that deer um has a genetic resistance to cwd maybe it's that you know maybe you realize that that deer is 11 years old in a area that has high prevalence of cwd so you're like wow that deer for whatever reason

survived um you test it it doesn't have cwd even though you got to test them now dead let's just say scientifically you know that you can um test a deer alive see that it does not have cwd also you can make the determination that it carries this gene that gives it, um, a level of CWD resistance and then someone proposed, well, let's catch that deer and let's pull all of her eggs and go make 20 more. And then turn that group of 20 deer back out on the same landscape where the doe came from. Do you oppose that? Much less so.

Okay. So I'm saying I'm not all the way thinking that this is the worst idea in the world because there's different ways that it might be approached. I just think it sounds silly because there's no reason to think that this resistance is only in captive deer. All captive deer came from wild deer. They're not from another continent. The captive deer industry, its birth was just catching wild deer from North America. So whatever you're seeing represented in that genetic pool of captive deer is going to be represented in the wild.

I would just guess that the same percentage of resistance is out there in the wild. If this whole thing would work, that it's already working or not. And you putting a couple more out there ain't going to make shit for difference. It's going to cost a lot of money. I mean, well't gonna make shit for difference gonna cost a lot of money i mean well and it's gonna make someone a lot of money that was the other part of that article was that captive deer interests are involved in this plan in the in the in the legislature and on the fish and game commission there are interests that yeah it almost seems like an underhanded way of being able to move deer around

exactly and that's where you get into some real sticky worries here is that number one you can't like a cwd can lie dormant can be positive in a deer for several years before we might ever be able to identify that so you can get many false negatives so they're gonna let's have like hypothetically say that a deer tests negative. There are live tests, but they're not terribly accurate. But you could do a test and say, okay, well this deer supposedly is resistant and we tested it before release and it came

back negative. Two years later, that deer could then end up testing positive. And it was positive at that moment, but now we've already released it and transported it across the state, all over the place. But I have to assume they're only going to cut these loose

in areas of high prevalence anyway. Maybe so. If someone was going to do it prophylactically, I think that that would be hugely problematic. People think prophylactics are always... Oh, my robbers. My father-in-law uses the word prophylactically in any number of contexts. A toothbrush is a prophylactic.

To do it prophylactically, no one is going to get into that. No one is going to be for that. 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, 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. We're always talking about OnX 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 your membership you'll gain access to

exclusive pricing on products and services hand-icked 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. OnXMaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. Well, right now, I think a huge thing to keep in mind is there's no consensus on what resistance is. Mm-hmm. resistance is. So is the deer that dies a day after the other group of deer more resistant?

Oh, yeah. To some people, yes. He lived a year longer. Right. Yeah. So that's another huge question mark as to why people who are conservatively approaching this topic are like, well, this step is putting the cart way before the horse because we don't even know what resistance is at this point.

The release program, yeah. But give me the Pandora's box. I'm failing to see it. I can see it as a waste of effort because of, because of, like I said, it's like you're trying to go into a populations that have tens of thousands of animals and you're trying,

you're thinking you're going to influence it with some small number of released animals, but give me the Pandora's box because these aren't GMOs. These are just deer that you've, these are just white tail deer. What are Virginia? Orcholianus, Virginianus. Virginianus. These are just deer that you've These are just white-tailed deer Virgin Orcholeanus Virginianus

They're white-tailed deer from the continent They're not genetically Modified you're not doing gene insertion They're not robo deer They are a deer That you have identified Having some disease Potential disease resistance i'll give you mine

and you let it run out like give me the negative yeah i mean the simple one right now is um i know we we covered like the the first known cwd hot spot but uh we have a lot of other known CWD hotspots. They, for the most part, all tend to be at or very near close proximity to captive cervid facilities. Correct. So haven't we already seen the Pandora's box? Like we have captive cervid facilities, just so happens. Like a new case shows up and five miles away.

So now we're thinking we're going to throw it back into the court of the captive servant facility. Let's see what you guys come up with next. I'm sure it's got to be better than current CWD. And then what about this? What are the chances something like that is happening again? Right. Yes. I got you. And we're creating a, this hypothetically would create a private market for individuals

to purchase captively bred deer and release them into the wild, which we've never done before. And I just can't, I can't imagine a future in which, okay, if we start, if captive breeding facilities can start breeding these animals and marketing them to the general public, right? Trying to convince folks to buy these deer and release these CWD resistant deer. You can't tell me that 10, 20 years down the road, not only will they market them as CWD resistant, but also this came from 180 inch genetics. So you can start releasing your selectively bred mega antler deer. All of a sudden now that's not just a high fence thing, but any could go and start releasing these on their yeah that's pandorian and and it's not the

it's not the same as like introduced i mean obviously it's it's the same species it's a native species but it has like this bucket biology kind of feel to it yeah it's like you know it's just a very slippery slope moving moving wild animals around it's just i like what i think that you you yeah that that was very pandorian of um hey now that i can start buying deer and cutting them loose uh i want that cwd thing you're talking about but like can you send a picture of the buck? Yeah, exactly. For sure. Well, but you just pointed out that that's not actually true.

What do you mean? Oh, well, right. But that doesn't mean people will try. Yeah. I get it. I get it. Here's the biggest thing I can see. I shouldn't say that.

Here's the thing I think that's noteworthy about this issue. Here you have the captive servant industry has been villainized for years around CWD. And imagine how when you're looking at this as a PR problem, that you'd be able to come back around and turn this whole thing on its head and emerge as the savior. That's got to be an intriguing.

That's exactly what's happening. That's got to feel good. Well, I think too, one of the issues with the law that just passed, at least from what I've seen pointed out, is that it's not just like looking at this idea but it's laying out oh it's not only putting the cart before the horse it's like paving that road and there's like a timeline for this to happen and and before it's it's like determined whether or

not this is really feasible there's like uh 2026 a target date yeah like a year and a half out and we didn't we didn't mention this at the beginning uh when i led this off i said uh this law was proposed this isn't just a proposed law now this is a passed and signed law this is happening do you think they could work up a skunk that don't smell and cut him loose he wouldn't be a skunk anymore yeah but yeah they could like when they're marking their their big giant bucks they can be like disease free 250 incher you know sell it that way all right a skunk that just shoots out febreze alright you want to hear a guy's suggestion to the Michigan DNR while we're on the subject of deer

sure do I've heard a few in my day my family owns a farm this is not me we don't own a farm in southern Michigan this is someone who wrote in my't own a farm in southern Michigan. This is someone who wrote in. My family owns a farm in southern Michigan. Every year we require everyone who hunts with us to kill does on our property.

For at least the last decade, there have been multiple processors in our area that would accept cleaned deer as donations free of charge. I would regularly drop off donations throughout the season. I have always made it a habit of regularly calling processors. I should preface this by saying this. The head of Michigan's DNR, was it last year, last fall, the year before, basically wrote a public letter. The deer biologist of Michigan.

Deer biologist of Michigan saying, we need to kill more does and we can't get people to kill does. We reported on that and I got a call from Doug Duren reminding me that I have often said when someone tells you there's too many blank, there's too many deer,

there's too many whatever, there's too many bears, always ask by whose measure. Because I like to point out, I don't know elk hunters. I never hear an elk hunter telling me there's too many elk. People go out, they want to see elk. People go out deer hunting, they want to see deer. So when they hear there's too many deer, it puzzles them. They didn't feel like they saw too many deer.

They want to see more deer. But they feel they have too many deer and they can't get people to kill does. And Chad did a good job in that email and that note articulating the why. I do think he did a good job of trying to explain to the general hunting public of Michigan addressing that question. Like, hey, I understand you want to see a lot of deer but here are the possible negative outcomes of this the situation he goes on to say this year none of our processors accepted donations at all it was explained to me by the processors that the state of Michigan now requires that each donation must be CWD screened, which takes two to three weeks.

Then a random meat sample from every donated deer needed to be state evaluated for metal, bullet fragments. That translates into deer hanging in processors or being stored in their freezers for weeks. Therefore, because of that storage problem, they're not willing or able to participate in the program. He's saying, I can kill 20 to 25 does a year, but without being able to donate the meat, it's almost impossible for him to kill that many does. He also goes on to say,

why are they charging 20 bucks for an antlerless deer tag? You should price them to sell and sell them at $5. He also says, Michigan ends their deer season in January. Won't they let it run into the spring if they really want to get kill does? I'll say, too bad you can't donate your deer. Have you tried this?

Have you tried putting up a sign, just like how normal people put up no trespassing signs, have you tried putting up signs that say, please deer hunt my place? You will get a lot of does killed. Or put up signs that say, if you're interested in harvesting whitetail does, contact me at blank.

Put an ad to local paper. put an ad the local paper would add the local paper if you're looking for a place to hunt does with your kids please contact me at blank I think you will get a lot of does killed even at 20 bucks a piece although I know that sorry it's a problem where he's writing in about it. I think what we found, though, is you almost,

I can't remember if I spoke to, if this was Russ Mason with the DNR at one point, or if it was Chad, but someone I spoke to basically said, no matter how they liberalize the regulations with Dole Harvest, no matter how many tags they give out no lever they can push has been able to significantly increase doe harvest. Okay, let's keep it open until early February. You're not going to kill any more does.

People have a certain number they're willing to. But if this guy wants to kill does and now he can't shoot them because they don't want to accept them at the donation place I have a feeling in Michigan, hunters would be really helpful.

Good old hunters. I don't think that it's a bad idea, though, to consider new ideas, like having a free doe tag with every buck. Or having hunters come. If he opened up his land. Doug Dern wants to shoot does. You know how Doug Dern gets 40 does removed off his place?

Take a guess. Got a lion out the door. Come shoot the does, please. And what happens? People show up and start shooting does. 40 a year. I had an exchange with this gentleman because the first thing I did was recommend

checking out Dougoug's uh organization sharing the land i was gonna say saving the land and that's not sharing the land and he he he's gonna look into that but in the past he shared with me that he has opened up the land to hunters and uh it's just caused some problems. Well, not with Doug's program because Doug vets all the people. That's exactly what I said. You have to go through the application process to participate in sharing the land. That's what I said.

I thought that the bar would maybe be much higher. One of the funniest conversations I had around this issue is Cal and I. This is Cal's. I'm going to steal Cal's joke. Cal and I were hunting on a place in Hawaii, a coffee plantation in Hawaii, where they have a lot of problem with pigs rooting everything up. I said, I'll tell you one way to get rid of these pigs. Put up a sign that says, come hunt pigs.

And he said, do you know what kind of people we would get if we put up a sign like that? And Cal said, barbecuers i am so funny i can see the problem this guy's having becoming more common though with donation programs oh yeah well and then i mean i guess the to the point made by the michigan dnr if he opens up his place, net, there's probably no increased doe harvest in that county. It's like the people that are going to come shoot a doe in his place aren't going to go shoot one somewhere else.

That's not true. I'm just basing that off. There's a person I was just talking with at my mom's where I grew up. This individual, his grandfather hunted, his father hunted. He just didn't get into it. Now he has a boy. And it skipped a generation with him.

Just was never interested in it. His boy is dying to go deer hunting. But here he's sort of missed this whole thing of like he doesn't know how the whole thing works that guy and that kid go shoot a shitload of those does in his mind he's like the more i think about it i would just eat that deer meat yeah i'm just saying the the macro i don't know if it would have the the sort of macro effect that are you thinking like local hunter local hunters equate to doe harvest versus uh the further away you get from the hunting spot people are less interested in traveling to shoot a doe no i'm

just thinking about the i mean the idea that liberalizing dough harvest or liberalizing hunting seasons doesn't seem to generate more dead does i think i think if you give dno if you give people who will shoot those more places to shoot those more does will get shot if you went if you went i if you went to me i didn't say this i didn't say this is like i'm fully convinced of it. I just sort of threw that out as like a... As a Michigander. Yeah. Mark's a Michigander. I'm telling you this.

If everyone in Michigan that wanted to shoot a doe this year had a place to shoot a doe, there wouldn't be no does. Just there wouldn't. I got to tell you about a pretty cool idea. An interesting example of this problem. I've been pretty involved with the Field to Fork program in Michigan and on the Back 40.

A couple of the new hunters that have gone through that program are similar to the type of person you're describing. Somebody who wants more meat. They're getting into hunting. They're trying to find ways to fill the freezer. And the biggest problem they've had is finding places to do it. And so at first, they started trying to hunt public land, and then they've tried to get private access, and they continue to struggle. Like go to a lot of places and there's guys that are already hunting it, or there's people that will let them hunt, but they're

really just focused on bucks. They don't want them in there hunting for does when their guys are there hunting for bucks but they bumped into a farmer and this farmer brought the fact that he gets these depredation permits and he has 25 or 50 doe tags a year and can never get enough people to use them really and he would love these deer get shot but can't get anyone to do it really so? So my two friends said, well, hey, that's all we want. We want to shoot does. And hey, we don't mind doing it in the summer. That's great.

We'll do it. And so they have started, and I'm jumping the gun for them here, but they are going to pilot a program this year in which they try to connect new hunters looking for access, trying to find ways to kill deer, with farmers with depredation permits who want does killed.

So get a bunch of new hunters who want to have an opportunity to do this out there in the summer when nobody else wants to do it. But they don't care that they can't shoot bucks because they don't care about shooting a buck. They just want to shoot some does. So this year, they're going to be doing that. We'll see how it goes.

How low do they want deer? I get a little They're going to be doing that, and we'll see how it goes. Heck yeah. The summer thing is interesting. How low do they want deer? I always get a little, as soon as people come up with great deer extermination ideas, I always get a little nervous. Sure. We've been through this before. Remember, I just read a minute ago, I killed 33 bald eagles in one day. Right.

All of a sudden, you're like, boy, there's not a lot of bald eagles in one day. Right. All of a sudden, you're like, boy, there's not a lot of bald eagles around. And then they got to a point where they had to put them on the ESA, right? What, Doug always brings up earn a buck, but it's... Everybody got pissed. Everybody, it was that,

was it effective though? Yeah, well... Other than making people pissed? I don't know. He had, I wish Doug was here to explain it, but I'm sure this wasn't so widespread that it negated the program, but it spawned this whole industry of can I borrow your dough? But what I do.

Can I borrow your dough so I can cook it? As I understand it, though, the rate of CWD spread during that time period was significantly lower as compared to when they removed that. It's like this kind of trend. Dramatically increased because they were able to slow down. They were able to increase harvest and slow that spread. And when they removed that tool from the toolbox, it changed things. And it also, from the folks I know in Wisconsin who were interested in having a more natural deer herd and balanced age structure, balanced buck-to-dale ratio, things were a lot better during that time period on that front as well.

Deering or buck. Yeah. We should clarify, just in case someone's new to wildlife politics and all that. When we're talking about wanting to reduce deer numbers wanting to lower deer numbers there's historically been a single driver the single driver's been agricultural damage right yep well you're saying why people would want to historically and insurance companies i've heard that that's kind of like, I used to cite that and then I've read in places

where people have tried to go in and search like sort of the powerful car insurance lobby moving to lower deer numbers. I think it's kind of a thing that's not I could be wrong. Someone could write it if they found otherwise. That's been kind of proven as a thing that's like not true. Yeah, the

farm lobby has a lot of pull with I always thought that. The auto insurers someone's like that's been kind of proven as a thing that's like not true yeah the farm lobby has a lot of pool with that the i always thought that the auto insurers someone's like that's that's like an urban legend the auto insurers were leaning on state game agencies to lower deer populations to lower claims if someone can contradict that i don't really know i always cited that and then i can't remember who told me that it's kind of horseshit i don't really know i always cited that and then i can't remember who told me that it's kind of horseshit i don't know um just on the on the doe harvest side of things you know i gotta go hang out with doug for opening weekend and a few days after um i was shocked at the just general buck activity despite despite what, uh, my,

you know, tender Montana ears sounded like an absolute battle going on for three days straight. Uh, more shots opening morning that I would hear walking around in Western Hills in a whole season. And, um, that's the big hunt for you.

Oh, dude. And still seeing bucks running around. And still seeing bucks running around. I shot a really cool bigger buck and went to drag it out to the closest four-wheeler track road and kind of came into this opening where one of doug's buddies had been shooting all morning shooting would be the actual accurate description and

there's it looked like a scene from like the walking dead there were does legs up everywhere you looked in this field to to the degree that i was like, you know what, I'm just going to fade back into the canopy and wait until it's dark, dark before I go walk it out into this field. Huh? Um, and, but the proximity kind of going back to, to this guy writing in to a processor is really close. You know, you start stacking up all those does, it's a lot of work. There's a big part of me that wants to go back, just shoot does, take them to that processor because the bratwurst was so good. Unbelievable.

Cal's brats. Holy shit. It's nuts. I like making sausage, but that's a lot of work too. Back to this thought for a second historically too many deer meant too much agricultural damage that's still an issue i'm just trying to explain that where are people getting the idea of too many deer where is it coming from now it's that that remains constant agricultural damage and there's this other idea laid on that that too many deer too dense of populations of deer facilitates an accelerated disease transmission and two other things oh please you've got herd health things and you have habitat health as well so

when you have like you know in doug's area so many deer gets a really hard time you know seeing oak regeneration there's many many states across the country where you have these browse lines where it's nothing five feet and down and then you see leaf structure again so we see all sorts of cascading biodiversity effects by these exorbitantly high whitetail deer populations, which then, and this is, I think, where the standard deer hunter becomes interested. When you have a unnaturally high deer population, your deer hunting experience, this might be different than you would imagine, but it's not going to be as great because you're going to see a whole lot of deer, but you're not going to see a lot of natural deer behavior that you would in a more balanced, healthy deer herd. When you have a relatively balanced doe to buck ratio, you are going to see a much more exciting rut. Bucks are actually going to do rutting things. They're going to be chasing, they're going to be fighting, they're going to be doing all that kind of stuff. You're going to have, when you have way too many

does compared to bucks, it's going to stagger and mess up the breeding and the fawn drop and things like that all get out of whack and so you have this kind of cascade of different effects when you do not have the natural balance that you achieve when you have some level of you know it's like 30 does to one buck is just not natural we get that in some of these states in these very very very high deer populations it messes a lot of stuff up that impacts not only the habitat but our experience as hunters too

ok so ag, disease and Mark Kenyon 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 a 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. We're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast. Now you guys in the Great White North 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 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.

Man, we're going to get all into governor's tags. Let's save that, Corinne. You think so? I mean, I've been saving that one for a while. I think if we do it, we're going to generate a longer format conversation in the future. I'd say

we just talk about it because we can do it pretty quick. What's that? Tell me... Let me tee it up. Are we going to give our own thumbs up, thumbs down on our thoughts? How many times have I told the story about the GMO guy that came on? Four.

Four times. Here's the fifth. I'm not going to do it. It's my favorite quote of all time. it's my favorite quote of all time actually my favorite quote of all time was from Ike Turner but I'm not going to tell that quote Governor's tags

alright picture you have a wildlife resource do I really have to do this picture you have a wildlife resource where the demand exceeds the supply wildly exceeds where the demand wildly exceeds the supply in this case we'll talk about bighorn sheep

you have thousands and thousands of people in every western state seeds the supply. In this case, we'll talk about bighorn sheep. You have thousands and thousands of people in every western state want to draw a bighorn sheep tag, but there's only 100 or 200 or 50 available, or in the case of Texas, one available. How do you allocate those tags? Generally, historically, in this country, we have given them out in a democratic fashion, which is consistent with our wildlife management values

where we have lotteries. You send in a few bucks, your name, as we say, your name goes into a hat, and there is a lottery drawing and you pull them out. At some point in time, I was hoping to get a governor's tag expert on to talk about the inception

of governor's tags. At some point in time, I don't know when, someone had the bright idea to say, man, why don't we do that? Give them out to all the little people through lottery, but let's just sell one and see how much it goes for. And then we'll take all that money because that's going to look horrible, but we'll take all that money and use it for sheep habitat. And they said, let's just see what happens. happens well it turns out that what happens is this people are willing to pay a hundred thousand dollars two

hundred thousand dollars three hundred thousand dollars four hundred thousand dollars and now close to five hundred thousand dollars to jump in line a line that you might not ever get to the front of if you're a joe blow most people will never get they'll never get to the front of the line and it turns out that getting to the front of the line on a bighorn sheep tag is worth regularly hundreds of thousands of dollars and it's. And the idea was so successful in raising money that it spread out to a bunch of other species too. Yep. Then they're like, well, shit.

Let's try that with deer. Let's try it without. Try it with antelope. Anything where the demand exceeds the supply. With that said, take it away. Well, there's only a finite number of tags, right? Well, I just said that. So when someone with the money can go in there and win that auction, that tag is coming from a pool of

tags. I don't agree with that. I don't think it comes from the pool. I think they made an extra. Okay. You're laughing. I am laughing. Think of how they did it.

Think of how Arizona did it. Arizona spawned this whole conversation because I'll point out, just a spoiler alert, Arizona's game commission voted to get rid of governor tags. In Arizona, when you get a governor's tag, your tag, like if you draw a bighorn tag in Arizona, you have a season and a unit. When you buy the governor's tag to sweeten the deal, this is insane seeming.

To sweeten the deal, they said,ing to sweeten the deal they said oh and your season buddy 365 days is your hunting season and you can hunt any unit that is open to sheep hunting that tag did not come out of the pool even if it didn't that guy goes let's say you're the one dude who draws the big horn tag in a unit yep the governor's guy goes in there and shoots the big ram in there oh yeah and he's got months right he can do it when you find out if your season opens like september 15th that's a bitch has all summer to hunt that unit. I will say in the state of Idaho, there's a governor's tag for the numbers increased, but

Hell's Canyon, the Hell's Canyon tag, arguably the best bighorn sheep tag in the state of Idaho, is at one. There's one tag. I don't know what it's at right now, but at the time, one tag. And they factored in that there's a 99% chance that if the governor's tag or whoever gets the governor's tag is going to hunt that unit, going to hunt that unit, which is why there's one tag.

Oh, because it would have been two. Because it would have been two. Okay. So there's one extra. Yes. There's, it's not necessarily taking a tag out of the pool,

but there's going to be one more dead ram. Yep. Now I got to, before we even get into some listener feedback on this, I got to say, I am so torn on the issue that it is one of the very few areas of wildlife politics where I do

not have an opinion. Bullshit! Yeah. You can think of a lot of stuff that I don't have an opinion on? This is the one area where you do not have an opinion. Stephen Rinella tattooed on his gravestone. Eh. One area. One of the areas. Steven Rinella.

Tattooed on his gravestone. Can't think of anything good or bad to say about him. No, no. I can think of all kinds of good and bad stuff to say about him. I think. Not that I don't know. I didn't mean that. I have conflicting opinions. Yeah.

Meaning. Okay, you're right, Cal. I'll phrase it differently. If I was emperor of the country and they said, oh, yeah, one last thing. What about governor's tags? I'd be like, I still haven it differently. If I was emperor of the country and they said, oh yeah, one last thing. What about governor's tags? I'd be like, I still haven't decided.

Okay. I got to think about it longer. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I meant. I just, when I think about it, I go back to what,

what's better for the resource in the end? And in the end, governor's tags, the governor's, a million dollars in habitat restoration is better for the resource in the end. And in the end, the governor's $1 million in habitat restoration is better for the resource. What's better for us emotionally?

It's better for the resource, but it's not in line with the North American model in any way whatsoever. It'd be better for the resource if you have 10 governor's tags. If it's simply about maximizing the market value, the economic value of those wildlife resources you'd auction all the tags right I think there's one emails if we I was gonna say that the Arizona the

guy the email from the guy in Arizona I think pointed out something that's relevant to us here in Montana and that is that there are other ways of yes of allocating these special opportunities and one of which is uh because he i believe he pointed out that in arizona they're not doing away with well i'll tell you what he said unless you'd like to read it no no go ahead it was so well worded i think it yeah i think it yeah yeah um this this gentleman describes himself as someone who has been intimately involved in the commission appointments and Arizona wildlife policy. And he wrote in a bullet-pointed email. He goes on to say,

the rhetoric that Arizona votes to eliminate governor's tags is wrong. Okay. How would that be true? Well, he says this Arizona has quote special big game tags, which are administered by the game and fish department along with other tags, rather than the more political administration of governor's tags in other

states. Okay. So he's saying they don't actually have a thing. They don't have a pool called governor's tags in other states. Okay. So he's saying they don't actually have a thing. They don't have a pool called governor's tags. They have special big game tags. He's getting a little bit into semantics here, but that's fine. The Arizona Game and Fish Commission

did not eliminate special big game tags. They voted to phase out the practice of allocating these tags through an auction process in order to rely more on raffles. So he's making a semantic argument. They don't call them governor's tags, but in defense of our language,

they are functionally. Colloquially. They are colloquially, functionally governor's tags. Well, it's not the governor... When you think of a governor's tag, that's what it looks like. It's an auction tag.

Now, is the... Will the raffle... Do they believe the raffle will bring in equivalent funds? What did the Montana... To be determined, I don't think so. But let me go on. Since 2009, this is the same individual since 2009 auction tags

okay so what we've been calling governor's tags auction tags have accounted for 70 percent of the 32.4 million dollars raised by special tags with raffle tags raising 30 percent or nearly 10 million dollars what my question would be how many tags were auctioned and how many were raffled i was wondering the same thing i wish this email got into that but he gives information where you would go find it because he sends in a whole slide presentation on the subject. Now he goes on to say, while the sheep and mule deer tags have generated eye-popping headlines, the department's data shows that for other species, including turkey, bison, coosier, black Bear, Mountain Lion, Javelina, Pronghorn, raffle tags generate more than auction tags. So it's species dependent.

He has another thing. The notion that Arizona, and now I don't think he got this from us, but the notion that Arizona is becoming purple and therefore the commission is being influenced by anti-hunting interests is flat out wrong. Oh, I know where this came from. There's a guy that's coming on the podcast and I'm going to let him put this in his own phrasing.

We have a guest in the future coming on the podcast who felt that the move against governor's tags was a anti-hunting thing. Okay. And I might have quoted him on that. Anti. Like that it's anti-hunters. Oh.

Arguing against governor's tags. Oh, interesting. How dare they auction off the life of an animal. Oh, interesting. But this individual who will be coming on the podcast expressed to me, I don't want to say his name because it was a private conversation and I don't want to quote him on it, expressed to me that he felt like it was a loss to the anti-hunters.

Interesting. This guy says that's flat out wrong. The commissioners very clearly articulated their reasons for taking this step. Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Jeff Buchanan said he understood the argument that the ends justify the means. Meaning he understands the argument that, hey, it's a lot of money, but it's not democratic. And he says, we cannot compromise our values to make money.

Meaning it might be ugly to auction off hunting opportunities when you have people in ways in which it excludes the general population. Sure, but that's true, but it's a compromise of our values. Therefore, the money shouldn't matter. He also cited founding principles of this nation in inserting that we should not be setting aside a special privilege for the rich and elite. He spent 37 years in the military. That's not what he was there defending. He was not there to defend special privileges for the rich and elite.

He was there to defend all Americans, which influenced his decision that governor tags are un-American. Former chair, James, sorry, I'm going to mutilate this name, James Goener, was cited, among other concerns, the concentration of these tags in just a few hands. Meaning, check this out, 36 governor's tags have fallen into the hands of three individuals. Wow. Which is also in this slide.

He goes on to say these individuals are not sympathetic to anti-hunting advocates. Should I keep going about this guy? This guy's good. Yeah, no, I mean, it's all good info. I served as a policy advisor to the previous Arizona governor and was personally involved in the selection of several of these commissioners. I am intimately familiar with the process for the appointment of the others and can state confidently. Yeah, I can state confidently.

Why am I saying it? I'm trying to say confidentially. But he's saying confidently. He can state with confidence. There you go. That the wishes of anti-hunters played no role in these appointments. I was similarly very closely involved in the banning of trail cameras in the state for taking of wildlife, as were a number of these commissioners, I can tell you personally that the decision was driven by hunters

for the benefit of hunters and our model of wildlife conservation. To see either of these actions as being motivated by anti-hunting forces is just flat out wrong. Chuck. I like out wrong. Yeah. Chuck. I like that guy.

Yeah. It's a good email. Okay. Who wants to do email number two? I can read it. I haven't read it before. Ooh, I'm looking forward to email number three. This is from Mark.

Not the guy that's sitting next to me, but he describes himself as a spare time economist and a spare time hunter. The idea that governor's tags or any other market mechanisms to manage scarce wildlife resources counter the democratic allocation

pillar of the North American model of wildlife conservation is a misconception held by many conservationists and hunters. When discussing a scarce resource like a bighorn sheep tag, a random draw isn't democratic in the same way electing a president is. Everyone doesn't vote for who gets the tag. John Stikovich of Cleveland, Ohio, isn't the favorite to win

because he saved an 11 month old baby from a burning building and deserves it. The most parentheses, true stories, random draws are just one imperfect way to allocate resources. When demand exceeds supply, it just so happens that it, that it is an indisputably suboptimal way to do so.

No, he's contradicting himself a merit-based system is not democratic in this case that's merit-based does he really think we're going to hold an election to see who gets the governor's day yeah everybody's essays need to be done do it now the debate's going to be held halfway through? It's democratic in the sense of everyone's equal before the law. Like democratic culture. Not we're voting on who gets a tag.

If the governor was given the tag and the governor could honor a person who deserved it on merit, it would open up big problems with cronyism. Sure it would. Wouldn't raise money either.

Let's hope the guy finishes his argument. He's saying the market will decide who's right or wrong. Mm-hmm. You shouldn't take seriously state game agencies complaining about managing whitetail doe populations while still charging for licenses to hunt them. If they were really felt that there were too many deer on the landscape, they would reimburse hunters for shooting does not charge them. All right. I'm done.

In general, there would be no state agency In general, game agencies' unwillingness To manage the economics That they had to run out of deficit Not that state agencies can get revenue to fund biologists I got an idea, how about the state agency With, now that we've stripped its funding source Anyways

Now needs to pay people to hunt does Yep Email three Email, yeah Now needs to pay people to hunt does. Yep. Email three. The email, yeah. Oh, I am, as Steve put it, a way-ass pro governor's tag person. Who wants to read that one?

I can jump in. There you go, Bro brody while it may be true that people used to have a we're all in it together attitude and that years ago one was not able to pay extra to skip lines at disneyland or board an airplane faster this tier system is most certainly not new an argument could be made that the average American today is today more aware of the financial tier systems that inherently exist in a capital society than they were 30, 40, or 50 years ago. But the fact that rich people are able to buy things that are either coveted or rare and thus expensive, while poor middle-class people are unable to buy such things is in no way a surprise to anyone nor has it ever been a surprise to anyone the foundation of this argument is what

exact is exactly equal opportunity means and where it exists in our north american model of wildlife conservation i'm not following that um regarding the draw system which is integral to our conservation model equal opportunity means that every american has an equal right to apply it does not mean that every american has an equal ability to apply someone who has the financial means to apply across multiple states of which they are not a resident stands a much greater chance of being successful in a draw by virtue of having entered more draws. In the opposite, someone who does not have the financial means has a significantly lower probability of successfully drawing a tag.

There is inherent inequality in this, but it is in financial ability, not opportunity applied. In the very same vein. He's going to get to this. He's going to get to, and since anyone can bid on a governor's tag. Right. In the very same vein, everyone is afforded the equal opportunity or right of bidding on a governor's tag, yet not everyone is afforded an equal financial ability the person with the greater financial means will be more successful in terms of attaining a tag the buck stops here there i

think you know what can you read his last sentence uh there's a litany of other pro governor's tag arguments but i believe this to be the most compelling sincerely saxton now when i hear a name like saxton you're immediately suspicious he's got grease he's got jingle right i'm like of course saxton has like because rich people know how to name their kids to sound rich right i don't get that like this this is a better argument it is a better argument but the the whole like where it exists in our north american model like you know it's not the king's deer so i'm not sure what he's getting well yeah i mean this right is is an argument that you could apply to anything right it's like well the system's messed up yeah so why pick on this part of the system cherry pick this when this is already messed

up over here too if you're really invested in making it equitable and democratic then you need to tear down this part of the system i'm gonna sum up email for yep i'm just gonna sum it up y'all's jealous people jealous about all kinds of stuff they don't realize they're jealous y'all's jealous of people who can buy governor's tags that's what this is all about yep i mean i think the the one of the things that the argument about if you can't afford it you're just whining is that we own the wildlife right right and so it's not the same as like going to disneyland and paying to cut in line it's a public resource and that everyone everybody has a right to say how they think it should be managed this guy goes on here's email number five.

He's like, hey man, I'm torn. Here's a couple questions. Why is it only one tag? If one tag is worth 600, then why not sell two tags for 1.2 million? Two, his second question. Is the amount raised truly the thing that allows this to be considered if the tag went for twenty thousand dollars one year rather than six hundred dollars

six hundred thousand um would it still be worth violating the north american conservation model or is it the amount of money? Yeah, there's definitely a threshold. What's the threshold? Yeah, definitely threshold. All good questions. Here's another question he's got. I believe asking, are governor's tags good hides behind words. The true question then is, are our ethical beliefs for sale

in pointing out this threshold? We'll do it for six. We'll do it. Let's not do extremes. We'll do it for 200. I'm not going to do that for 10. Okay. Yeah.

At what point do we go like, well, for that amount of money? I think there's a movie about this. Oh, yeah, no. Demi Moore, some guy. Woody Harrelson. Right. Yeah, they're like a loyal couple,

but she could get a bunch of grease, which is slang for jingle. Mm-hmm. Which is slang for... Pay a million dollars to sleep with your wife. Scratch. Everyone has a price. Leaving Las Vegas?

Not leaving Las Vegas. What is that one movie that Nick Cage did? Raising Arizona? I think you could see just the opposite, though. If it was only 20,000, people would be like, oh, that's cool, but they wouldn't get so pissed about it. Because of email number four, because y'all's jealous and you're and you're more jealous of a dude with massive grease totally because you're like i know that 700 000 for that antelope island mule deer tag like it's like a drop in the bucket for

that guy he doesn't give a shit what if it went the opposite way though what if what if i told you that such and such a saxton guy was going to put in 30 million dollars enough to pay double the entire saxon bomb bueller the seventh yeah what if it was such an astronaut astronomical amount that it could change everything the state was able to do is there is there a tier where it's like undeniably useful we we have right i mean yeah Oh, yeah. If someone said, hey, man, I'm going to give you a billion dollars, and you can take that billion dollars and spend it on wildlife habitat, but here's the rub. I'm going to shoot one of them sheep. And that sheep would have died that winter anyway.

Right. We're giving Musk some ideas here. Would you have said no? No, no, no. 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 you're irritated well if you're sick of know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada.

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We should introduce into evidence the Montana BHA experiment this year. Then we're going to finish. evidence the Montana BHA experiment this year. Yeah. Then we're going to finish. Yeah. Crin row end.

Which is, which is raffle the auction. Right. And, and I think there's a, a bunch of ways that I find to be like irrefutable. Uh, that this should,

if we're going to do fundraising this way, it should be through raffle, not through auction. Um, and like the wild sheep situation is the, the best example that we have, right? Like there's no data out there that says,

um, you know, a hell of a lot more people would be invested in, um, bighorn sheep conservation. If they had some way to access bighorn sheep or even the opportunity at bighorn sheep. So there's no data supporting that. Right. Yeah. But you're like, okay, you could have your name in the hat for a Bighorn Sheep tag for five bucks, but that chance doesn't really exist, right?

Yeah. But at the same time, like once a year, we all gather in a room and we pat each other on the backs by being like that dude is getting his third world slam of sheep what a conservationist yeah right and he i mean six hundred and fifty thousand dollars ah what a conservationist right right? Mm-hmm. That same conservationist can buy $650,000 worth of raffle tickets, right?

And be like, what a great conservationist. He's just not guaranteed the sheep hunt to go with it. Yeah. Well, here's the thing, though. My wife recently bid on a thing where you get to go get donuts with the school resource officer in a fundraiser for the school. It's like donuts with Tom

the cop. She could have just given that money and not gone to donuts with that cop. But he's super good looking. He listens to her. He's not eavesdropping with that cop. But he's super good looking. But he listens to her. He's not eavesdropping on the neighboring tables.

1,000% attention when she's talking. It was actually the intention was that our kids would get to go get donuts with the cops. I don't like this insinuation. This insinuation that my wife, how good is that cop?

My wife needs to go to Donuts with a cop in order to be heard. Okay, so the Montana example that Randall brought up. Montana BHA gets the statewide mule deer tag this year. And typically the state will give it to different uh conservation groups as that fundraising mechanism yep the the very typical way of fundraising with a tag right the conservation group doesn't get the money from the tag the conservation group gets to use that tag as kind of like the carrot to bait folks into a

fancy banquet where that tag gets auctioned off. Oh, that's how that works? Yep. And then they raffle off a bunch of other things. And then they raffle off a bunch of other things. To make their money. Right, but this... It's a decoy. Yes. Really? Yeah. Yep. Because, you know...

I don't know how I thought it worked but i didn't know that well because arguments like this right these states that have those those tags that money has got to go back to the conservation of that species to for the habitat of that species for the benefit of bighorn sheep or moose or goats or mule deer yeah right uh yeah everything you're saying makes sense i've never thought i think they get a cut or they can take a cut um i think yeah there's like the but it's outlined in here right so it's like you're right it doesn't go into their general fund right the handling fee so you know yeah it's 20 bucks a chance, but your card gets dinged for 2250 type of thing. So,

um, anyway, what was interesting here is like we talked about, like you put in $600,000 at auction, but you could put $600,000 into the raffle. If you really wanted to do that, nobody did that. So,

um, historically the highest price the montana's the statewide montana mule deer tag has ever gone for was forty one thousand dollars a lot of money for a mule deer tag nowhere near the amount of money that mule deer tags and other states go for it yeah we don't have that kind of mule deer. Yeah. Um, because we get to hunt them all through the run. Um, well the raffle version raised $56,620, a 38% increase from the, the all time high. Yeah. Um, and what's interesting is the the mean purchase price

was 43 so kind of on average two two chances two names in the hat per participant yep right so you know very um equitable it was spread really evenly amongst the people who chose to participate tank of gas ranging to two tanks of gas and the guy the guy who actually won the guy who actually won spent like under a hundred dollars or something or he spent a hundred bucks on tickets yeah he spent a hundred bucks the winner i think that that could be the start of the arms i think that in that case you made more off a mule deer on raffle in montana i don't think that you would that that's that's not going to hold true in bighorns yeah but like i would love to see that like so if the marketing mechanism was were to change from curating individual donors with super deep pockets

right like you don't hold a raffle or an auction like that and being like oh my god a totally random person off the street walked in here and bought that thing can you believe that yeah it's not done right you know the yeah person or the top two people who are going to end up with they're in communication with the people that are going to buy it yes yep um so if you took that level of effort and did a nationwide ideally what's 500 000 at 50 bucks an entry yeah that's just a matter of removing some number of zeros and like would you get that many people to do it i bet you would well and you advertise to these areas that are like i am so detached from bighorn sheep i I don't even participate. Right.

And I'm just saying like anecdotally in the state of Montana, as we increased the bar price-wise for these species that are very, very limited. Right. The supply demand that we already talked about i had people within my personal circle that there was never ever a question nor would there ever be a question of how serious a hunter they are but they were just like i'm priced out of the game yeah and they just made that decision early on i can't float 250 bucks out there for a chance i'm just gonna concentrate on other things. Yeah.

So, I mean, whether you think that's a significant number or not, that is happening. So I want to know if we said, here's the places that don't participate in the conservation of this species. And we put our efforts into saying like, okay, here's a way. Yeah. and we put our efforts into saying like okay here's a way yeah would that then lead to greater participation in the conservation of that species in general yeah right because well i threw five dollars in and then i read some stuff on bighorn sheep and boy i like that idea now i'm just a little more invested than i was you know that you know that sheep day we went to at the hunt expo where we put in our raffle tickets and sat there i've never thought

about and cared about sheep so much as i did for that hour i think it's safe to say this on the raffle front even as you do a bighorn sheep um it's not a question of it's definitely not a question of, do we want $400,000 or zero? Yeah. It's probably some question of, do we want $400,000 or $250,000? Or $400,000 or $250,000? Or whatever the hell it is. To move to a raffle, you're not giving up the whole thing. You're giving up probably something, but're not giving up the whole thing. You're giving up

probably something, but you're not losing the whole thing. And you're gaining a ton of public participation. I believe that Idaho Wild Sheep Foundation for that statewide tag, they switch every other year. I believe so.

One year they auction it, then the next year they raffle it. I could put that Wall Street, Main Street. Ooh, there you go. Branding. But there's no, there's just like,

I feel like by, I mean, look at, look at the state of skiing in the United States, right? These majors, Vail. I mean, look at the state of skiing in the United States, right? These major veil... Well, there's only two ski companies left in the whole country anymore. And they have made a very public decision to raise prices, cater to fewer customers year over year at a higher price to that customer.

And that's just the way skiing is going to be. Right. I mean, I think that that is a very good example of where hunting, at least right now for certain species already is. And it went that way a long time ago. Right. It's like, I always like remind people when I'm in that sheep auction, um, I'm'm like what's fun here is the percentage of people who have ever actually had a sheep tag that are in this room right now this whole industry is here but relative

like the amount of actual sheep hunters very very few yep but see that guy back there he got sex right yeah yeah and we're like and you know and it's this thing that we're expected to celebrate and like are we just so far down the road that we can't go back and be like man we got to try something else because it turns out relatively very few people actually give a shit about sheep because they just will never get one and we talk about so i have a lifetime license in idaho which gives me the privilege of having my name in the sheep draw as a resident which which is, I believe still, if you're applying as a resident in the state of Idaho for bighorn sheep, that is the best odds of drawing bighorn sheep in the U.S. Still, I think, depending on your unit.

Every year I talk about how stupid I am. I should be applying for badass mule deer tags in Idaho every year because mathematically I will not draw that tag, but I know people who have right. And they're at this point, like huge chip on my shoulder. I'd much rather draw a mule or a bighorn sheep tag than buy one. Yeah.

Cause it's like, that's where the hunt is. It's more fun. Oh, it's more fun. Yeah. Cause it's like, that's where the hunt is. It's more fun. Oh, it's more fun. Yeah, for sure. So I don't know.

I, I think the, this is a legitimate issue with the hunting system in America. Like we've already made the decision to just reserve elite opportunities for folks with elite bank accounts. And I don't believe that's right in any way, shape, or form. And we're not exploring ways to change that system. And I think it's going to be at the detriment of hunting.

Because it's like, well, why would I give a shit about that? It's like, I'm not, a shit about that it's like i'm not i lost that game a long time ago ladies and gentlemen ryan calhan amen cal thank you for joining we'll finally have to the uh what the hell is it called mediator podcast network youtube channel youtube MeatEater Podcast Network. YouTube channel. YouTube. Good night. Uncompagre, or The Other Robert W. Service, by Bob Service. This next story came to us through Keith Anspaugh, the manager of the First Light store in Haley, Idaho. Keith received a call from a customer one day who phoned in to tell him about an experience he'd had while wearing a piece of First Light gear, the Uncompahgre Puffy. While I'd argue that the jacket is certainly not the star of the story,

this gentleman had gotten into a very sticky situation in the mountains of northwest Montana. He felt that his survival was due in part to the quality of the jacket he was wearing. As you'll hear, there are a few other pieces of gear that would have served him well, and he readily admits that he should have been carrying them. To be honest, though, what caught my eye about this story wasn't the coat, which is a damn good puffy, but rather the narrator's name, Robert W. Service. As everyone knows knows or at least they better know robert service is the name of the greatest poet of all time if you ask me better than shakespeare emily dickinson and walt whitman all put together known as the bard of the yukon service was born in 1874 and is the author of the greatest poem ever written, The Cremation of Sam McGee. It's the story of a pair of gold miners during the Yukon gold rush,

one of whom, Sam McGee, is from Tennessee. He hates the cold of the North, hates it severely, and it's not until his death that he finally gets so much needed relief the poem begins there are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold the arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold the northern lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see was that night on the marge of Lake LaBarge. I cremated Sam McGee.

You'll have to read it to see how it ends. And then you might want to follow up by reading the second greatest poem of all time, also written by service, called The Shooting of Dan McGrew. Now, what binds these two Robert W. services, one a dead Scottish-Canadian poet and the other living commercial fisherman from Oregon, isn't just their name or the fact that they are actually related. They are bound also by experiences with extreme cold. Only one of them, however, lived through two experiences so harrowing

that they would earn him the nickname Black Cloud Bob. My name's Bob Service. I'm from the Pacific Northwest. I live in a small coastal town in Oregon. The story I'm going to tell you took place on November 15th, 2023 in Sanders County, Montana. I've lived here in Asteroid, Oregon, my whole entire life to make a living at commercial fish and also a member of an operating engineers trade. It's a pretty economically depressed place. So growing up in a small coastal community, even though my parents weren't really hardcore, we spent a lot of time outside and we ate a lot of the fish, crab, deer, elk. It just became a way of life. We lived off the land here and it just kind of morphed into my adulthood and it became what I'm all about. I started hunting when I was 12. I've had horrible luck at it, but it's part of who I am and I love it. People approach me and they're like, man, if you didn't have bad luck,

you wouldn't have any luck. I've been labeled Black Cloud Bob, or I've also been told I'm lucky. I don't know what it is, to be honest with you, but I mean, I was on a crab boat one time that was sinking and we got rescued off that. I've been hit by an Amtrak train. I've had some pretty impressive things happen to me. So I'm still here and there must be some kind of a reason. For the story that I'm about to tell you, which took place in November of 2023, I need to go back to 2010. I had been in a relationship for four or five years. I met this gal and she was like 20 and I was 33. and she came over to my house and she never left she had mentioned that you know she had an interest in wanting to go deer hunting and I'm

like well let's let's fulfill your interest let's let's go so I bought her a deer tag I took her out to a gun range and I let her handle a rifle everything in my mind that you would do to fulfill somebody that hadn't spent much time around guns. You showed them how it works, let them handle the firearm, you let them shoot. So I did all these things and I take my ex-girlfriend hunting about five hours south of where I live. So it was a camping hunting destination trip. Took her out hunting and I found a buck and I said, hey, would you like to shoot this buck? She said yes. And when I first spotted this thing, it was probably like almost a thousand yards away.

So we closed the distance to about 300 yards. I set her up and I'm like, well, here's the deer. Find it in the scope and when you're ready, shoot it. The funny thing about this story is I don't normally bring a dog with me hunting, but I had this little Springer Spaniel. She was about a 35-pound dog, and she went with me everywhere. She was in the back seat, and right when all this stuff happened, she started barking and freaking out.

Looking back, I still think that that dog was trying to tell me that she just had maybe like a premonition that something was going to go wrong that day, and I scolded her for it and I feel horrible about that because I think that dog just had a maybe had a hunch. She shoots this deer. The deer falls down. I rig her up and I put the firearm on her back on a sling. I empty it. I put a pack frame on, bags on my back, and I'm going to bone this deer out. We're going to hike down to it, and I'm side-hilling trying to find it, and we make our way over to the animal. The deer was about 25 feet to my immediate right. The animal is mortally

wounded, but it's still alive. She was up on the hill on the steep bank and I'm directly across from this animal and I said why don't you go ahead and chamber a roundup and dispatch this deer. So she started to cycle around with this rifle. It was my rifle and it had a detachable magazine. The spring had a little bit of slack so when you put a round into the magazine and you went to chamber it to get that bullet to feed into the chamber, sometimes you kind of had to put your hand on the bottom of the clip to raise that spring up. In that action, she was trying to fight it. It was the time I'm like, oh, that muzzle's way in the danger zone of my safe, the gun went off. Boom! And I felt the bullet go through my thigh. And immediately, I remember saying to her, oh, my God, you just shot me in the leg.

And it wasn't like the movies where you fly or fall. I just, I stood there and I'm like, oh my God. I'm like, oh, I got to get out of here. And I took a step and down I went. Just by the pain and the shock and everything that I was going into, I pretty much figured that was time. I was going to say goodbye right there. She called 911 and for about an hour and a half or two hours,

she had first responders, firefighters, EMTs searching this mountain for us. I had told secondhand, you know, the dispatcher that we're on this road. We're at the three-and-a-half-mile marker. It was a one-ton Dodge diesel crew cab truck. And it's super crazy because the dispatcher at the time had enough common sense to reach out to a local there. And this man was like 80 years old at the time. She called him up and she said, Hey, I think there's a hunter behind your house. He's been shot. He's wounded. And this old timer got in his pickup just based off the description and drove up there and found me. I'm sitting there, I'm laying on my back and

things are starting to get slowed down and I'm actually playing like highlight reels of my life. I had all this real super vivid memories of things that happened 40 years ago that were as vivid as something that happened 10 minutes ago. That's when I knew I was probably getting ready to say goodbye. But shortly after that old man found me, he had a bunch of EMTs right directly behind him, and they packed me down to a landing, and I was life flighted to Eugene, Oregon. I woke up two weeks later and my dad was there and he's like, do you know what day it is? And I'm like, no. And he's like, you've been asleep for 10 days. I spent almost 50 consecutive days in the hospital and almost a year of recovery before I was able to walk. But that hunting accident, what I had to go through has been, over the last 14 years as a result of that event,

quite an experience. What I battled and what I went through trying to rehabilitate myself and get myself back to work. Like I said, I work as a commercial fisherman and being a guy in a trade, I worked on a lot of heavy duty construction that required pile driving, dredging, dock wharf construction, that kind of stuff that having some debilitating injury creates a little bit of resentment. We stayed together for five or six years, but I just couldn't get over the fact that she shot me. Even though it was an accident, I tried to put myself in her shoes, think about what she was going through and the trauma that she went through shooting me.

But I just couldn't get over it. I had times where I'd get these staph infections, and it would make me just horribly sick. I got osteomyelitis, which is a bone infection. I had to have my metatarsal bone cut off and the second toe, I think they call it the second distal, they had to clip that one off because I wore the end of it off. I learned a lot about infection and how sick it can make you. I was sitting there stressing and I was watching the money leave my bank account. I'd go for a couple months where I'd be able to work and then I was plagued with an infection. I wouldn't be able to work for months. Even though it was debilitating, once I was upright, there was

no slowing me down. I pedaled in 10 miles to kill a bull elk on a logging road on a bicycle the next year. So I definitely got right back on the bike and ripped the training wheels off. And I tried to be as headstrong as I could be. I actually think it made me work harder than most people because I had this weight of this debilitating leg or this slowed down leg. 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. We're always talking about OnX here on the MeatEater podcast. Now you guys in the Great White North 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 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. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. November of 2023, I had just spent several months fishing every day on a commercial fishing boat in and out of Astoria.

So I was really looking forward to the fall and the year prior, I didn't really get much hunting time in. So after going for a couple years, I wanted to set myself up where I had some time. Our Oregon elk season, which takes place in middle Oregon, is a big part of my life. Elk season is traditional to us as Christmas morning is for some people. There's a lot of families involved and we rely heavily on eating elk meat. I wanted to go hunting in Montana before our elk season started. And I had this idea in my head that I wanted to go and try and hunt for mule deer. Oregon has horrible mule deer hunting, and I wanted to shoot a nice, mature mule deer bug. And I cut some corners. And that's probably another reason why I got in the trouble I got into. It was a

Sunday and I had told my wife, I'm like, dear, I'm going to go hunting. Wanted to utilize some hunting tags in Montana. The person that I was supposed to go with didn't draw. She's a busy woman, hardworking gal. And she's like, well, I can't go. I can't leave. And I'm like, I'll just go over for a couple days and I'll come back. So that's what I did. I threw my stuff in my pickup. I was just going to kind of cruise around and go hunting. It wasn't my first time hunting in Montana. I've probably been there five or six times prior. I went to the area that I knew first and I spent half a morning there kind of cruising around and decided that I wanted to actually go out and just hunt and explore.

Spent a couple days messing around in country that I hadn't really been to before. I went south about two and a half hours from where I'd normally go hunting and I drove up this ridge and I had got up to this point where I was overlooking this reservoir and mountains. It was beautiful, vast, big country. And I'm like, I'll put a rifle on my shoulder and my little day pack on and I'll just go for a little jawn up this ridge. It's awful weather, raining sideways, nasty. I'm going up this ridge and I guess it was probably around one or two in the afternoon. Over there in that time of the year, I think it gets dark around 4.30 or a quarter after four. It was starting to be that time where the lights were starting to go out and I'm like, well,

I better turn around and make my way back down to the pickup and have some dinner and call my wife and figure out where I'm going to stay tonight. As I did that, I was coming back down the hill and everything just went black. I don't know what happened. I know I fell. All I remember is my legs being above my head and then everything went black. I wake up and it's dark. And I kind of panicked because it's pitch black and I don't know how long I've been out. And my leg is really, really messed up. I mean, messed up bad.

Hurt and bad. And I could tell my ankle was all cocked over and I thought I would expedite things and I would go down this ridge and get down to the road that I had driven my truck up to where I was. Well when I bailed off the ridge I kept on taking it down thinking I was going to cut this road and I never cut it. I was wearing a boa type ratcheting hunting boot. This particular hunting boot had a sole on it that was super hard and slick. I'd walk over low down limbs and it was like walking on a sheet of ice. Everything was just slick and slimy and wet and saturated.

And if it wasn't raining sideways, it was snowing. I would just be walking along and all of a sudden I'd be right on my back, smack. And I don't know how many times I fell because of that. With my experience in 2010, you'd think I'd be pretty set up as far as having some kind of GPS or some kind of transponder type apparatus. My phone battery was dead. I couldn't access any maps, Onyx maps or anything. And I just completely put myself into a situation where I got bit. I had taken compass readings and I knew before I had left where I needed to go to get back to my pickup. However, I just couldn't achieve that. It was very humbling to be a mile or two away from your vehicle

and have a broken leg that you can barely stand on and some injuries that you knew that you might not walk away from. I kept taking this ridge down, and I got down in this creek bottom, and I'm like well I can take a creek to somewhere. The very first night I went through this country where it was hands and knees crawling through and over and I remember getting to this point the whole night I'd been up trying to get out and I was so freaking exhausted. I remember reaching in my pocket. I pulled out my keys and I hit my key fob to see if I was close to my truck.

I remember hearing my horn and I'm like, I'm okay. I can just fall asleep. I was so exhausted. I just fell asleep on this hillside. And I wake up to this mule deer doe blowing and hissing at me and stomping at me and it's sunny I'm looking at her and this deer is just completely agitated that I'm around she's hissing and then finally I kind of shoot her away and I had this little rim rock thing that I was laying next to on this hillside and the sun was beating on me and I was warming up drying out and kind of trying to wake up and I could hear that doe that mule deer doe up there still blowing and and I could hear hooves hitting the ground and the next thing I know she kicked up this boulder directly above me and this rock that

was the size of a basketball or a cantaloupe comes hurling down over this hillside. And I felt the wind of that rock go by my head. And I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, geez, the deer are even trying to get me. Well, her tracks, I kind of noticed that was kind of the direction I needed to go. Well, I ended up running into this deer a couple more times. It was really strange because when I caught up to her, she had a nice, mature mule deer with her, like a four-point that was just a beautiful buck. At that point, hunting was the last thing on my agenda. There could have been a world record deer there and I wouldn't have shot it.

I needed to get out of there. I didn't even know if my gun was operable because it had fallen 20 feet and taken a pretty hard hit and a whole muzzle was fouled. So I couldn't even shoot the gun safely. And I end up running into these deer. And now there's four. There's a mule deer doe, a mule deer buck, and a white-tailed buck, and a white-tailed doe. And they're all hanging out together. And I'm like, man, that is really weird. That is really bizarre. Well, they ended up taking off.

And I ended up making my way down to this road. And I'm like, oh, this must be the road where I drove up with my truck. And so I'm down there all night, pacing around, looking for my tracks on this road. And I literally am just going over the same country over and over again. And I look up this road and I see three kids. And I look over to my right and there's a gate, a farmer gate type thing. And behind that is this massive white-tailed buck. I still can't believe how big it was.

But I saw these, what I thought were three kids, trying to yell at them and get their attention and they're not yelling back at me. Well, the whole time what I'm thinking are kids is a hallucination. I'm hallucinating. I spent four whole nights out in the woods with no food and the only water I was drinking was drinking from, you know, springs in the ground. I was weak. I was tired. I was hurt. Haven't eaten, haven't drank. And I was so freaking exhausted. I'd be walking along and I would just pass out and fall down on the ground. I was in trouble. All I could think about in my head was, God, I missed the check-in last

night. What is my wife thinking? What is my poor wife going through right now? You know, and I'm just trying to beat my way back. Every step I took was like taking five back. Nothing was working out. I was just terrified and worried about my daughter. I knew my wife would be okay, but I just couldn't stomach my daughter not having a a dad so it was it was a hell of a time I mean just the fear and being hurt and the helplessness I don't have any idea how much country I traversed when your legs broke trying to use your gun as a crutch and just trying to transit through that country with all the elevation and it being covered in snow and slick and over blow down trees you can only get around so much but I just never would stop I just kept on trying to beat my way

ahead and through and trying to get out of this situation. This ridge that I was on, it was open on the east-facing slope, and then on the west-facing slope, it was timber terrain and country. I got into these bluffs, and I could see a trail below me, and it was so steep, and it was so sketchy. It was like being placed on a rock wall where you're looking down, where you have 12 or 14 feet where you're going to hit bottom. The very last night, it would have been like the fourth night i was out there i'm laying under this fir tree on the side of this mountain and i found myself over into these bluffs and i'm kind of covered up and i'm soaking wet i'm cold and i've got one of the first light puffy coats on the down

coats and i couldn't believe how tough that was because I thought I would absolutely shred it. I tore it in one spot but the amount of brutality that I put on that coat was incredible. There was one night where it rained almost two inches. I encountered snow, rain, sleet, just about everything you can encounter but it kept me warm and kept me dry but I was wearing like denim jeans and my bottom half was soaked and god it was just a miserable time to never never really warm up or dry out but I had a space blanket and if I would say to have anything in a hunting pack have a space blanket because if you can insulate yourself even after getting wet you'll be all right people ask me did you build a fire and i'm like how do

you build a fire in country and ground that's completely saturated you're so critical that you're now thinking about yourself like your cell phone. It's like, I only have 36% life left. I need to protect that 36%. That's kind of how I viewed my leg and my body in that situation. So I was warm enough with the space blanket, and I didn't see where I was going to benefit from having a fire that I couldn't even hardly start to begin with. Everything was just wet, saturated.

It was more important to keep the energy. And that last night, I'm curled up in a ball under that tree, and I hear a siren. Middle of the night, I have no idea what time it is. I hear this just siren and I'm looking down this ridge and I see what I think is somebody shining a spotlight but they're probably over a mile away and I'm like well that's where my pickup is but I can't get there I was blowing on a whistle trying to get their attention I had a headlamp on this guy that found me later on told me he saw my SOS strobe. So they had me located, and they knew where I was at because they were at my pickup.

And because I was in such a rough spot, they were going to go up there and extract me with a helicopter. The weather had changed, and it was just pea soup fog, and they couldn't fly. They figured that I obviously was injured and that's why I was hung up where I was hung up, but they didn't know how they were going to get me out of there. And I don't think they're expecting what I did. I'm up on this cliff and I'm looking at the shale and it's probably a quarter mile down to this trailhead. And I'm thinking I can't climb 30 feet up a vertical rock face to get over these bluffs so I guess at this point my only option is to slide down this mountain. I just got on my butt and I slid down the hill. There wasn't really much left of my jeans but at that point I didn't care.

I just took it slow and rode her all the way to the bottom of the trail. And I got down to this trailhead and pretty much drug myself out. I didn't know where the trail was going to pop out at, but I ended up encountering this kiosk where this fire had occurred and four or five wildland firefighters had lost their life at this particular spot. And I'm like, well, I must be getting close to some kind of parking lot or something. And I went maybe 100 or 200 yards further and I heard people talking. And that's when Mason, who's head of the search and rescue where I was at, he's like, we've been looking for you for a couple days. They actually had an ambulance there,

and I got up and crawled in the back of the ambulance, and they started evaluating me, and they're like, you're going to the hospital. Your vitals are pretty dangerous. My kidney functions, things were getting ready to shut down, so I was one more day, and I probably wouldn't be here anymore telling you this story. But it was kind of comical. He just couldn't get over the fact that I just went there by myself.

He was certain that somebody had dropped me some info or coordinates or a pin or something. And I'm like, no, I just came here on my own. One of the things that is just everlasting in my head is when my wife got to the hospital, obviously it was a little bit of an emotional thing. So her and my father-in-law are there. Living in a small town when you know everybody, when we got married, it was a big event. We had a lot of people there and stuff. And she said something to me that will always stick. She goes, I didn't know if it would be morbid to have your funeral the same place we got married.

I didn't know what to say. Pretty emotional. My whole ankle was cocked 90 degrees off my right leg. It was completely dislocated from where it was supposed to be. I also had frostbite, hypothermia, and all the emotion. Being in a hospital, the hospital visits, even getting home and transitioning to home. My leg was already damaged before from the bullet going through my thigh. But when I got out of the woods in Montana, I had just worn my right leg down to a... There was just nothing left.

I mean, I was down to bones just trying to beat my way out of there. And I just did irreplaceable damage to it and finished it off. I had this horrible infection in my leg and I went to multiple doctor visits, vascular physicians and whatnot, and they did all this stuff. And they're like, we can preserve your leg, but it'll be a fused joint. You'll have a very noticeable limp the rest of your life. That just didn't really fit into my schedule when they told me that I was going to be close to 14 months with non-weight bearing and pins. I just elected to have my leg amputated. So I had a below-the-knee amputation done on February 14th, and I'm going to be receiving a prosthetic on the 17th of April.

Losing this leg is actually a good thing. It's a positive thing because my leg was so damaged from my hunting accident. My leg would swell up, and sometimes it would be near impossible to get a shoe on or a boot on or anything because my ankle was so swollen. I don't have to deal with that anymore. So I'm actually just grateful to not live in chronic pain anymore. I can go down to the beach and dig a limit of razor clams or drive out to the creek and drift a little salmon egg through a hole and catch steelhead. I mean, I did that the other day on crutches. It's just part of who I am. But it's still a big, wild place, and we just don't want to lose touch

of how quick things can go bad. And that's why I wanted to tell this story. What happened to me shouldn't have happened. I should have had everything on me that I needed. That's what I can't stress enough is if you leave the road, you better be prepared to leave the road. What happened to me is just due to my personality and my ignorance and trying to be in a hurry and cutting corners and just trying to fit too much into one small bag got me hurt and could have got me killed and has now put a real big skew in my life at this age. Last night it was my daughter's birthday and we're singing her happy birthday and I'm looking in that little girl's eyes and I'm just glad to be here, you know? You just don't know when you're going to meet your maker.

So maybe just kind of give everything a second thought. Go, is that a good idea? You can go out there and have a good time, but make sure you have your T's crossed and your I's dotted.