Popular searches
Articles
Series
Topics
Shop
Recipes
The MeatEater Podcast
Ep. 267: Smolt to Adult
Play Episode
2h06m
Steven Rinella talks with Congressman Mike Simpson, Eric Crawford, Ryan Callaghan, Chester Floyd, and Phil Taylor.
Topics discussed: Phil's parfait and Cal's Covid shot; Buck Bowden's burl bowls; energy consumption and Bitcoin; would someone just give Chester a free boat already?; a reminder to get all the right permits and licenses and extra stuff when you hunt, fish, or trap; caught on (trail) cam; the prevalence of same sex behavior in the animal kingdom; icy hotspring monkeys as kind of gross creatures; Rep. Simpson's proposal to remove dams along the Columbia and Lower Snake Rivers; bear with salmon DNA in them; where the opposition lies and how Rep. Simpson would never screw agriculture; and more.
Shop MeatEater Merch
00:00:08
Speaker 1: This is me eat your podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening podcast. You can't predict anything presented by first light. Go farther, stay longer. All right, everybody, we're here, Ryan Callahan. This goes out to Yanni's dad. Yanni's dad. Yanni. We are joined by Phil, who's having a little parfait. How is How is it? Phil? It's always delicious? Yeah, smacking your lips over there? You turned your mic off? Yeah, so people can't listen to you smack. Some people love this kind of thing. Most people hate it. I'm gonna turn it off. Uh, Chester, who's here for a guest appearance? Uh? Today's installation of the adventures? What is the what's the what's the show called? Turn your thing back on? In the middle of a bite? Here? Uh? The Continuing Adventures of Chester. The investor UM. Ryan Callahan is here, fresh off his first I mean, like literally, it's probably I mean, it's probably hasn't even it's probably still percolating through your for sure COVID vaccine first round fighter. That's not an endorsement, that's just what I got. You'll know how it works, you, Um so you weren't. Did you have like, uh, you know about getting the vaccine? Were you afraid that, um, you know, the government was going to put a tracking device in you and all that kind of stuff. What's the main argument against the vaccine that? Well, that's a big one and and the whole thing is made up? So why I do this anyway? And um, you know it's weird though, like, amongst a large part of my family, we've never ever had flu shots. I've never had a flu shot in my entire life. But I wouldn't call yourself an anti vax no. But I just ran because I don't get the flu, right, I didn't as far as I know. As far as we know, we've done a bunch of COVID tests. Um, but I guess I haven't had an eye anibody test. But I didn't get COVID either, So maybe you did, but maybe I did. But you did, you've ast late on getting the vaccine. There was part of me that was like, self, do you find it odd that you've never had the desire to get a flu shot or felt like it was irresponsible to not get a flu shot? But here you are really chomping at the bit to get a COVID nineteen shot. Yeah, I had those thoughts. Yeah, there are notable. I mean, there's more incentive to kind of wrap this up. If we can, then there is the wrap up the flu. I don't really know why that's true, but it's like I don't know. Yeah, it's like maybe it's acknowledging a little bit of frailty in your cell. I'm tougher than the flu didn't get COVID, but yeah, I don't know, but yeah, i'd had some like huh, like, well, you know, don't feel sick. Maybe I just have the good stuff already so I mess with it. Were they friendly to you down there? Very friendly, very thankful, Jeff, take your shirt off. No, I just peeled gave her a little shoulder, a little taste of the shoulders, and they were acting like they were acting like you were doing them a good turn. Yes, very much. So we're just so happy that you came in, like giving blood or something. What shoulder would you like? You know, like A, I'm my left shoulders closer to you about that one. I'll get up and move. I'll get up and move if you want it in the right shoulder, do you want Bugs Buddy or camel uh band Aid want Bugs Bunny. So there's enough camera in my life, ma'am. And then how do you go about? Um, I'm gonna introduce un s second Eric. Uh. We're joined by podcasts alum Eric Crawford, who's wearing a new hat. I don't mean that literally, I mean figuratively wearing a new hat. But how do you know when it's tigned to go in for your other one? They right now, they're really encouraging you to preschedule your second shot, but they're doing it in blocks. So it's like the block that I'm a part of right now that got signed up and and got vaccine slots for today. Well, we'll all be getting their second shot. A but uh, we're all on the road April. Uh. But I had a long talk with my Conciguliari Phil podcast producer over there with the yogurt yep yogurt guy. I mean, look at him, he's working on his gut health. He's already got a round a vaccine in him. He's pretty liable source. So um, and you're saying, just get it and figure out the second one could be a week early, week late, but got it? Yeah, so that's that's my program? Got it? Yep? Eric Crawford, Well, was the last time you were on the show you were a game warden? I was? I was, Gosh, was it was that? Could that be? When the heck was it? It was a long time ago. God, we're just young pops back then, some of us. Yep, what are you doing nowadays with yourself today? I worked for Trout Unlimited as a North Pudeo field coordinator is what my official title is. Did you know all along you're like, man, someday when I'm not a game warden, I'm gonna work for Trott Unlimited. I didn't know that, you know. It's just a kind of a right, you know, set of circumstances. Quite honestly, got burned out being a game warden after twenty plus years of doing it. But at twenty plus years, don't it, I meanears with the same agency, right, Yeah, so we kind of like look out for you after that, Like there's some retirement stuff and all that. Oh yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, straight up. Yeah, I got a pension and everything. Yeah, but I feel like you're not Are you older than me or younger me? No? I think we're the same age. That's not really fair. You're one year older me. Now you're like you can tell people you're retired. Well, yeah, I still work though. That's a good point. Yeah, so I don't draw in my retirement um with the state. But yeah, it was just a good transition from doing you know, conservation law enforcement and conservation for that matter, to now focusing on in on you know, salmon and steelhead and cold water species throughout the state. Idea. Were you torn about retiring? I wasn't. I wasn't at all there there was so well, well, I will say this, there is a day as I drove drove to the office that I worked out of in Lewiston that it really hit me that I was losing my identity if that makes sense, Like, yeah, I was a game warden for twenty years, Like that's packing the pistol line your hip and yeah no, not wearing body armored to work or wearing a side yeah no. But it was just like, hey, that's who I am, that's who I identify with, And then one day it was gone. Are your neighbors a lot more forthcoming with you now? About like what they've been up to? Uh? Um? I have one neighbor that I think he's even more apprehensive now because then he he doesn't know what I'm up to, and like he's an avidly he used to know what not to tell you. Now he's like, I don't even know anymore, not even know Cal's aware of this. But last two weeks ago, last week, last weekend, it was, um, there was three moose in my yard and so no, no alive, Yeah, eat my shrubs. So I called the damn game department, told me get their moose out of the yard, like literally called my old neighboring officer. I was like, hey, these moose are back, what are you doing? But that same neighbor had just evidently just been bitching like crazy about him, like eating his apple trees, and he's happy to see him. Gone, yeah, Um, are you admiring that bowl right there? I am. The thing is, it's hard to talk about. People can't see it, but it's gorgeous. That's called a Bucky bowl. It is amazing. The inside of it literally looks like polished stone rather than would it's unbelieable. It's a birch, a birch burrow. That Buck Bowden, who's also a podcast a lum um Buck Boden goes out and hunts him down out in the woods out in Alaska. Obviously, Chain saws off the burl and then takes a like an angle grinder with this little wood fitting on it and cuts away everything that doesn't look like a bowl. So how many hours of effort goes into that? Because it takes them about ten million hours. I thought it'd be way more. It's gorgeous. I feel in the walls are in that thing. It's beautiful. It is um. The reason I bring this up is, uh, we're gonna make one. We're gonna make one of these Bucky bowls. It'll be a while, so we'll stay tuned, but we're gonna we're gonna have a way to make one of these Buckey bowls available, and we're gonna raise some uh conservation money by having a auction house of oddities. So you're saying that I should start saving my money so I can save the money now, because that big ass bowl, you could pretty much Jester goa damn you take a bath net thing. That bowl is gonna Bucks got one that looks just like that. He's sending it to us that we're gonna make available through an auction house of oddities. Uh, lots of pictures of those things. Um, yeah, ten hours is all I bet you if you went to do it well. In fact, one of our camera guys took from Buck's collection. Have did you ever asked Lauren to hear from Lauren? You know, Lauren, how long it took him to do it? He did it. He did it. I don't know how long it took him, though, but he was asking me a bunch of questions about it with like the angle grinder, with the wood bits and stuff. Yeah, because you're a little b crafty with wood. Chester. Yeah, it used to be like what you mean he can still be crafty, be tired, but I still work. You can still be crafty with wood. I mean, come on, it's not hard to be crafty with wood. Well, the talking about Oh yeah, so we're gonna have Phil hit the hit the Chester and the Investor um soundtrack, The Continuing Adventures of Chester the Investor. Come that's it, come off, it's right, come to pop um on um. What's going on lately? Chess has been getting so much feedback about his bitcoin operation. Yeah, a lot of people writing in which I was surprised with advice. You have advice, here's one. It's not quite advice. We know what you're talking about. I started my coin base account back when bitcoin was like ten k. They gifted me ten free dollars a bitcoin. That money has now grown to thirty eight dollars in one cent. If it keeps growing, I'll be able to buy those new sweet first light pants all without ever putting in my own money. Suck on that Chester, Austin out of Arizona. How is the How is the investment sitting right now? Um? It's kind of like just been stagnant since the last time we talked about it. Really, yeah, it hasn't. I mean it's gone up and down, but not huge swings A sorry. Yeah, do you guys feel like your conversation has kind of stagnated the marketplace a little? Like introduce some investor uncertainty because we might be we might be tanking, influencing it, influencing the market. You might be doing insider trading. Game stop, he's doing trading because he knows when we're gonna talk about it. Are you regretting your investment? You wish you put it into real estate? No? I still made money on it, and it's it's I haven't lost any money. It's just it's hard to put a few thousand bucks into real estate. Oh yeah, like I need a very small piece of land. Yeah. I mean to be clear, I'm not like, I don't have a ton of money in bitcoin. Just trying to get just trying to get a wife, trying to get Someone wrote in this this is some feedback that I got. I don't know if you got it. Um, this guy hates bitcoin. Okay, he doesn't like it. He doesn't like bitcoin. Um because of this, there's no social, tangible, utility or value to it. He goes on to say that, which is that's all. That's all subjective, right. What's not subjective is this uses insane amounts of real energy. Okay. The University of Cambridge suggests the bitcoin network uses more than one hundred and twenty one tarawatt hours of electricity annually. Now are you you've met with this chapter. There's about a hundred eight countries in this world. Yeah, okay, if bitcoin was the country, it would be thet is that a word? Yeah, the thirtiest most energy sucking country on the planet. That's how much electricity electricity those suckers are using. The cost doesn't end there, Okay, familiar with there's a bitcoin mining operation in in Milltown, Montana right there, you know, like on the mill property. When they shut the mill down, and uh, they seek out places to mine bitcoin that I have a relatively low temperature because they got a cool cool all the computers and all the computers are Yeah, but the facility also creates like an audible hum, and you can hear that hum for miles really like once you like, you know, it's that thing like you, once you become familiar with it, you can hear it for a long long way, and then eventually you're so familiar with it you can't hear it anymore. But yeah, it's gone now. Um for this could have been part of the reason. But um their studies coming out suggesting that this audible hum could make people tone deaf to that pitch people and then uh also was having all sorts of effects on like bats and birds and stuff like that. Jeez, Chester, Yeah, well dirty money, Chester feel like this is all It's like Chester is holding the Walleye boat industry hostage. He's basically saying, you could end this global environmental catastrophe just by giving a walleye boat, bats birds that I'm into it for the boat. If I get a boat, I pull out. If not, I'm in killing bats, killing birds, and may your children go tone deaf. However, there's some pretty interesting stuff going on by you know, these mining operations using energy, excess energy from UM fossil fuel mining like oil rigs. I know you'd like to say this, but I don't really know what this means. It means to see what mining means, because they're thinking you're digging a hole. Basically, a mining metaphor mining is solving a long math problem, and once they solve it digital, it's digital. It comes up with basically a number that cannot be replicated. It's really difficult to replicate that number because you'd have to go through the exact same steps you know, these mining operations that have to do to come up with that end number. That end number is a bitcoin and UM. So the mining is just computations, very complex computations with computers that that require lots of energy and make our children not be able to hear certain sounds. Possibly, but I don't know that's why he has that's why he's so unconcerned with this. No, I'm I'm concerned. But there's like most of bitcoin is mine in China, um, and a lot of it is coming. They're setting up these operations in dams and stuff where there is excess energy. So like where in like low population areas where these electrics these hydroelectric dams are creating too much energy, they got nowhere to put it, So essentially it would just be they're taking this access to mine bitcoin. Also, in the United States, oil rigs you see them all over produces natural asides. So they're basically tapping into these flares and trying their best to use excess energy, which that that energy would be going to nobody, you know it wouldn't. They're not using it, they're just burning it off. How much believe that a scale of one to ten. I believe it, Like you lose energy when you move energy. That's that's part of the deal. So can I can sense think about this. The US dollar is backed by the US government, Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam, which I'm not hating on the U s dollar. I'm just turning yeah, um, we need the US but it is backed by the US government, which is essentially backed by the military, and think about how much gasoline the military uses every day to protect our dollars. Is going deep? Is deep? Now I can't even tort I have to come back for the next next time we do this segment and think of a retort. Well, and it's all for a Whileye boat, that's the most strike, you know what I'm here? Think about like this magic. If the military would just give Chester a Walleye boat, they wouldn't even feel it their budgets fell off a train somewhere, and they'd win him back over to the US dollar and he'd be back a fan of the US dollar to get that customer back, and he wouldn't be putting his money in some crypto terrorism deal Chester. So let me tell you another. Here's another possible retort Chester for you, not for me, but for you. Would be um that if you didn't buy it, someone else a buy it. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, like you getting out of this Walleye boat business isn't gonna make or break Bitcoin, absolutely not. Yeah. Uh, what's your timeline? Like, at what point would you be frustrated if you didn't have your Walleye boat a couple of months Oh, you like he wants that boat because well his buddy Staths just went out and bought a boat the old fashioned way work and that military just work and take your money and buy a boat. Now he's out pounding wall eyes and Chester's just sitting around hitting and refresh on his bitcoin account. I went with him. You gotta tasted a good life. I gotta taste and that was all I needed. Yeah, you gotta pace yourself though, you don't want to make the wrong purchase. That's true, and right now it's really hard to find as a guy that has done that myself. Well what Chesters think about doing it all? Honesty? Chesters thinking about selling his drift boat, putting the drift boat money toward the wall eye boat, and then promptly getting back into bitcoin just to make just to make screw you money. Yeah, smart move. I I did something similar. I had a raft with a fishing frame, sold that upgraded to a drift boat. But that was when I moved to the Lewis and Moscow area. Now realized I couldn't get to where I needed to to fish salm and steelhead, sturgeon, cocone, you name it. And now I have a power boat m sold them, so just often upgraded. What's that drift boat worth? Probably Hunterbucks motor that I'm torn because you know right now, I'm I'm not the kind of guy who probably should be buying a wallet boat. You know, just you're gonna earn it like this way. That doesn't have any impact because this is money you found in a drawer. True, well, I didn't find it storing it a drawer. I worked for it. The we were just talking. Boat boats are a hot topic because there are no boats on the market right now. That's very It is a seller's market, you could say, right, low inventory, lots of demand. Now is the time to get top dollar for that drift boat. And I have a raft you can borrow any time you want. Thanks Cal, Yeah, it's nice. Everybody wins with condition. Cal gets invited on every Walleye trip. Oh I already decided. I told him if he needs to drive to Wisconsin and get a sweet Walleye boat, he can take my truck, because he's not talking about as if he ends up with a big lake Walleye boat, he all of a a sudden needs a vehicle to tow that boat. And then later years from now, you'd be like, how did you get that boat out here from Wisconsin? Oh, that's right, you took my truck. That's right, tuck um can can we ask you? Can you put your your former game warden hat on? And I want to run a question by this. This This is a hard question to ask. I just chooing fairness to the audience. I teed it up. Yeah, I asked it was okay to ask it um our governor. Here in Montana, there's been some articles written, uh, with what I have found to be a decidedly um misleading collection of headlines about the governors sort of like illegally uh you know, like illegally kills a Yellowstone wolf. So I can't remember the exact headline. It was such that I thought when I saw the headline, I thought, man, it's so ungovernored, like to go into Yellowstone National Park and shoot a wolf. That's what I thought. Reading the headline. I was like, this is a big deal, you know. And I read the article and I'm like, the third or fourth paragraph or the article, I get to what like what happened actually transpired? Not to make an apology for it, but it's just it was like it was funny that in in searching for a headline, people that wanted to make it something like you put down like dead killed Yellowstone Wolf. It's like, you know what's gonna be sticky? Right? Um? What did happen was if if you go online here and you're from Idaho, but you go online in this state and buy a trapping permit, Um, there's there's a season two travels. You're trapping permit is good for all trapping activities, with the exceptional one thing you need to do an online certification, like you need to take an online course. There's a there's a quiz in it. I don't know, mostly some kind of thing to make sure you were actually paying attention. I gotta believe there's because we in Idaho has a similar trapping ed course specific to wolves. Okay, the wolf trapping course above and beyond trapper education, so we don't we were going to in this state, but we don't have trapper education. I think that it came down to this is a tangent. I think it was something like the state the state agency was going to put it in place, but it realized it was more it needed to be kind of like a game commissioned decision or somehow it got put off. We still don't have the trapper education course, but they were able to do it with wolves. If you've bought another thing to be similar to this is when you buy um. You know, when you buy a deer hunting license, you don't need to take a test that shows you can tell the difference between a white tail and the mule dere um. But when you buy a bear license here you need to go on and take this little primer that helps you distinguish black bear from a grizzly so people don't accidentally, help prevent people accidently shooting grizzies. Similar thing like that. Um, and it's pretty clear, like it's it's clear you need to take this thing. I've been on there and looked at the whole deal. Uh. So he trapped wolf like otherwise legally trapped wolf was not yelloso on part. It was private property on a ranch. Trapped wolf. I don't know what happened, but it turned out that um. Uh, it turns out that he had not gotten his Uh, he had not done the online certification, had a license, did all the other stuff, didn't have that online certification, didn't take the free of course, and then there's been a um and was issued a warning. Hmm. What do you kind of imagine about, like what would be your line of thinking in a situation like that, like if we if we remove the title? Yeah, and that's the important part. I try to strip away the title. Yeah, that you have someone who looked you know, it's quite clear when you go on the website you're supposed to do this thing forgot meant to get to it later had read that part. Who knows, Um, how do you view something like that? Yeah, So I think that's a key part of it, is removing the title as though it's just a regular person. And then you got to look at well, what was their intent? Were they trapping with NB? Seven fifties? Um? Were they absolutely targeting a wolf? Or was it incidental to kyo trapping? So once you get to the bottom of that, and if it's as simple as a hunter ed or a trapper head or wolf trapper head equation, um, you know, I think it depends on everything leading up to that. Like I said, the whole the situation, in all the circumstances. Um. But you know, a warning for doing something like that, it's in season. Um, you could legally harvest it. Uh. It just the problem was that he didn't have the necessary trapper ed or wolf trapper ed certification. And so you know, yeah, it's reasonable to get get a warning and you know, forfeit that wildlife since you didn't have, you know, the necessary certifications. So you feel that in in a in an interview situation, when all the facts are presented, you can see a scenario in which a warning is yeah, and I mean what what you're looking at, you know, was the individual's intent to really buck the system and not take the trapping course. I mean, how long does it take? Does anybody know? Oh? Five minutes? Yeah, and it's online, you know, in Idaho it's gosh, just a twelve hour course. It might even be eight hours. Interesting comparison wrap because it's like two out of three thing. Right, he had his trapping license, he had his wolf tag, but he didn't have the online certification. Yeah. Um, what I have seen like down at the Hagerman Boat Ramp in Idaho waterfowl scenario. Right, Idaho has the migratory bird like the state migratory Bird endorsement. Yeah, yeah, yeah, migratory So you have your hunting license, you have your federal migratory duck stamp, but you don't have the two dollars permit. But you don't have the two dollars the least expensive thing, the two dollar thing, right, And I don't recall anybody's ducks being take. I've seen many people get ticketed on that boat ramp for that. I don't recall anybody's ducks being Yeah. An example this is always bring up is uh. And I think I've mentioned it three times. A don't think it's it's wherew do you say? What was that word? Illustrative? I don't know illustrative just right, I'm using that. Well, let's hear what you have to say that it was a guy uh. And I remember he does some he does hunting media, and I remember that he you know, also, you see these articles that he was like, um, honey, without a license or poaching an elk or whatever. Right, and it gets presented that way because that's splashy. But remember the thing being that he had his several hundred dollar nonresident ELK tag but hadn't gotten the five dollar bow hunter stamp. In a case like that, I'm not excusing it like you need to have you need to have it, like you know, you're responsible to know all this, like absolutely, but you look and you when you look at the intent thing, I can't picture someone being like and I know how to save five bucks, Like it has to be another explanation besides someone you look for another explanation besides someone just pulling a fast one, you know, and you would see that, you know, that's a really good example because in Idaho and Cali you're probably familiar with this, is that you now need archery d to get your archery permit, your validation. And so it could be a system now where people are in that age class that they would have to take archery education um to get that permit that they don't want to take. They don't want to waste the time to take however many hours there it is. You know, you just gotta look at all the circumstances, uh to to to find a lesson. Here, I would point out, I'm finding a lesson. Imagine the uh imagine the embarrassment and distraction that one goes through in a situation like this. It's really just pays. It really pays to when you're engaging in a new activity, when time has gone by and the rules might have changed, an it pays to Uh, I'll put it this way. I sometimes when we're going to a new state, I'm learning to have to be a practice to lay out to someone like, here's the things I have, Here's what I want to do. Am I missing anything in my pile of stuff? Here? Like? Am I getting this right? And a big part of solving that is getting also getting licenses from places where the vendors are familiar with the rules. This is not the dog on Walmart, but I've had to go into Walmart's um where they have a sporting good section, and I've had to go in and argue with people about what I need. Right, It's nice to go to a place where and again I'm not I'm not trashing. It provides great service. Right, if people go buy stuff there, it's wonderful. But um, to go to a place where you have more subject matter expert, more likely to encounter a subject matter expert, and take the time to be like at the end of your transact in the middle of it, be okay, I'm doing this, but I might do this and what if this happens? Like, am I is my situation dialed. Yeah, I would see that a lot. Is that, Well, hey I bought I bought my stuff at this vendor and they said I had everything I needed and it was you know, and what do you say that. It's just like, well you don't have everything. Please go back, Please go back and get your archery validation, Like I'm telling you you don't have it, you know, And it's a simple fix, you know. But very good point, Steve. I mean, you gotta go to the subject matter expert and and choosing a place like that or maybe a gas station may not be the right place. You got to where it's like the crusty old guy who is not going to let you purchase anything until you've heard the fifteen minute history of the game unit lines being redrawn and it's not the way it was when he was a kid, and here's how he knows. And then you can get down to actually giving that person money and getting out the door, as opposed to the just give me the thing and with the right stuff. Uh okay, the a little bit more on the we covered the We're there Chester when we covered the hairy eyeball disease. Yeah, fascinating, man, what's it called weird stuff corneal dermoids. I don't know until very recently there's a it can hit humans. It's all manner of mammal species where somehow you're eyeball becomes hairy, like the hair making stuff basically your eyeball somehow turns to basically skin and then it starts growing hair. Like yeah, crazy. If you're a human, you can imagine it's probably you know, all kinds of ways to fix it. But this this deer turns up blind like his problem in each eye. Both eyes probably got worse and worse and worse and worse till one day that deer was flat old blind and its eyeball it's just hair. Yeah. The the the I think the case that's being referenced is they were I think they determined that this was something that came that that evolved over time, versus the deer being born with harry eyeballs. Because of the way that they're like, there's some learning how would have gotten that old, right, there's some learned behavior here that probably couldn't come about any other way than if the deer could see up to a serious point and then and then it haired over. Well, then plus the helplessness of it. But the reason I bring this back up is this guy, a listener of the show, sends in a picture from a cow elk from New Mexico. Um, it's not my inst Graham, So if you go to add Stephen Roanella you'll find the um. Make sure to hit follow. Are you there you'll find the a picture of this one. This Harry Eyeball, and this is an elk shot. His body shot it, and he says. The funny thing is his body who shot the elk is blind in the same left eye. So the hunter in the elk have a bum eye left side. And this elk has hair. It's like as long as Phil's hair, way way longer than Cal's hair. It's pretty gross. Let me see how long your hair is. Chester. Yeah, I'm losing it about the length of Phil in Chester's hair sticking out of his eyeball. Oh oh, I honestly can't believe those those pictures weren't flagged for sensitive material because some stuff on your on your Instagram has it. I thought shouldn't be. But the cross Harry, you can see an argument CROs Harry Eyeball, it is still Yeah, wid wide open to all viewers. Someone's telling me that there's a medical Instagram page that gets flagged all the time. So you can be trying to be constructive and helpful and educational and still get flagged. It's people really don't like looking at these hairy eyeballs. Yeah, that's what I say when I see that, phil Um, if you find if we keep going, talk about a couple more things, Yeah, I like. I think I like the next one. Honestly into this one. You know, we're gonna talk about really to talk to Karin, who's not here because she's not here. Evidently, No, she'd normally be here. She's not here, she's in Texas. Crint just told you we're gonna talk about I'm forty sure, I know. Does it feel like you're kind of watching the sausage you get made when you have our when you have our stuff, there's a little bit of sausage making. Yeah. How would you eight Karin as a producer? Oh she's a top notch Yeah, I really. I gave her kudos the other day for that Preston Pittman piece. Yeah that was fantastic. Yeah, it's springing, but you know, just he's always, always, admired him when I was younger. Yeah, I love you know, as an young turkey hunter and he was, you know it back then been shot twice. Can't argue with that, oh boy. But then it's also his you know, his sage advice at the end. It was really great. He's a class act. Phil, you know what you ought to think about? Uh? I like, I like trail camps so much, A trail camp pictures so much that, um, if we had an opening, like like, I don't know what it would look like. Oh, you know what we could use is, um remember J Giles band centerfolds? Yeah, standard entertaining. Maybe a little something with that, maybe to intro the segment caught on this is caught on trail cam. Um, so I'll be like tonight on caught on trail cam. Two bucks mounting each other. This is interesting. Cal is gonna give us a report on this. So a guy sending some pictures of a buck mounting another buck. So buck mounting a buck for about six seconds. Turns out there's this whole world of it's an obvious question why how'd that come to be? And there's even like an acronym for it, S S B S s B stands for it should be s S s B. It stands for same sex sexual behavior in wild Yanni's opinion, Yanni had always thought it was related to like his gas was, it was related to dominance. You know, they're always like fighting and posture and doing all kinds of stuff, and it's like a dominance thing. One day, I was turkey out with my kids. We were talking to a cattle rancher because all of his cows were all mounting each other, and for the life of me, I cannot remember what he told me. Hopefully a cattle guy can write it, and we should have called one. I think he had just maybe weaned. No, you wouldn't be turkey season. You're not weaning him. No, not am No, there's a thing he told me, how long is our gestation period? Cal you're not you're not pregning them yet. They don't have a leven month gestation period. No, they have a brand new calf. Yeah, but they're all mounting each other. Those would be probably the steers from the year before, right, It's not what that would be. Oh, yeah, I should be paying attention. Yeah, my kid was real curious about all the mountain going on. He told us, And I must have been distracted by something, because for the life meeting, we've got great people. There's a big cattleman I email with down in Florida. He's headed like the Florida cattleman's he'd tell me, damn sure, what's that count? Gestation period? Two three days? That's that's an average between like our our most common domestic cattle breeds. I bet you it's a year ling. It's the yearlying that's doing that, particularly year linter steer. I bet you I got a turkey hundred yards from there. We had that conversation after hunting turkey winter range. Yeah, yeah, big time. I probably wouldn't tell people that that might dispel some of my perceived expertise. Um, well, he's what what Eric's referring to. There is it in the inner Mountain West where winners are very severe and where problem that were they're not historic populations of turkeys. They have a way of in the winter finding their way down to a cattle graining operation, find the biggest feed lot you can, and disperse and in migrate like considerable distances from those places, but you'll have it. You might have a rancher that's feeding cattle, and all of sudden, come February, he's got thys. Yeah, he's got every turkey within twenty mile. See it all across the west. And then as soon as things start to green up, they just get bored and leave. And then they go off and do turkey stuff. Yeah, everybody talks about how important you know, mule and their winter ranges, what we need to do to protect them. Geez, those turkey winter ranges. Yeah, it's pretty valuable. It should be like if you love turkeys, hug a feed lot. Hug feed lot manager. All right, I'll lay it on for us. Uh. Well, I think the It's interesting that this topic also popped up right because Krant and I were talking about Preston and and he was talking about the homosexual turkey. He's like, there's two who thinks that the turkeys either homosexual or the turkey's like being shot out before or something like to account to account for why I would have no interest in the cause of a hen in coming in and um we there's a discussion that followed of like is that correct? Is that just like an off the cuff type of this is this is my reasoning and there's no reason for it. Good observation from a blitzman trying to find an excuse for a long beard not coming in right, exactly right. But I was like, well, homosexual behavior in a huge variety of animals is is very well documented stuff. I mean, it is a plausible and it is a pure reviewed possibility. You could say, right, people have written papers on this. Um. And then you can go even further, and there is the sexual Uh what's the sexual ginandromorphism? Sexual dimorphism, not dimorphism that that's just a difference in size. Oh yeah, there it is. Bilateral ginandromorphs were half siders. Uh. And I did enough digging around. Super fascinating, but it's odd that it's the most apparent in birds. And you can have a true fifty fifty split and a um down the middle down, yeah, down the middle. And uh, there's a uh guy in Pennsylvania who got a couple of good pictures of a bilateral ginandro morph a cardinal in Pennsylvania, which is you know, uh, split directly down the middle, red male resembling cardinal on one side, female resembling cardinal on the opposite side. And um, this is documented enough to where he didn't turn the bird. You know, I didn't kill the bird in and dissect it. But ah, science would say that this bird has both ovaries and testes. That's incredible. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, there's the word bilateral jnando in jnando ginandral morphs half siders. That's really something, man. Yeah, I mean I thought so. But one of the reasons people struggle with this with like same sex of behavior and animals because you want to look at it like everything they do must right, has to be reproduction, has to be reproduction, else doesn't make any sense, right, But so that's the case, then you have to d um to male deer attempting to mount one another. Uh, there's no points which are not reproducing, so like that shouldn't happen, that's not reproduction. Yeah, and then you can go away down the rabbit hole. And and there's all sorts of papers of all sorts of animals performing sexual acts that have that do not relate to reproduction worms from worms to drafts, including dolphins, lions, bison's, walrus, many birds. Yeah, there's a paper out of Japan those cool looking snow monkeys that oh I don't think those monkeys are cool looking. Ice coated monkey, icy monkey in the hot spring is too much for me, Icy hot spring monkey. There's a lot for me to handle. They there is a paper out there that has there, you know, as all papers do, started with an observation led to a question of is this a one time thing or does this happen all the time? But those uh monkeys hop on top of the deer that come down to the hot springs and eat And maybe we did cover it on the Meat Eat podcast that the female of female monkey would hop on a deer and then and ride the deer until it found some sexual release and then you know, I head back to the hot spring. Yeah. Incredible, Yeah, which might be something somewhere you've seen in your time in law enforcement around hot springs and a lot of geothermal over there. What's what's more remarkable than that the monkey does it is that the deer tolerates it. Yeah, that the deers like do they tolerate or do they seem too? Yeah? I forgot about that story. Did you cover that on Cale's weekend review? I think so? It's hard hundred episodes. Yeah, who the hell knows what you covered? We we just just finished a hundred episodes. Phils nodding. Yeah, that's right. We can kind of off our regularly scheduled programming the last for we're gonna get back to the news hard news cycle here on one on one. Uh, how do you get I want to talk about this, this explanation for what's this what's the an acronym SSB same sex behavior, Same sex sexual behavior one explanation, I should say it's an explanation. But like a thing to think about is that you have to imagine like life in all of its forms UM and when you had life forms that had you know, but not that we don't anymore. We still do life forms that have UM less pronounced sexual dimorphism appearances side whatever that UM. Maybe at a time when you encountered or maybe amongst some species, you encounter a look alike and the one organism doesn't know about the other organism what it is male female, right, Yeah, and they just they couple. Well. I think that where you're going with it is the fact that this has been happening for a long time in a number of species. But the fact of the matter is that it is self limiting because there is no reproduction. Yeah, that that's the part that I found so interesting about it, says, And so we hypothesize that present day diversity and sexual behavior and animals stems from an ancestral background of you'll like that, you'll appreciate this indiscriminate mating among individuals indiscriminate may indiscriminate mating among individuals of all sexes, and some branches of the animal tree of life, where SSB is actually quite costly, this behavior might be selected against. Yeah, takes energy, takes energy, takes a lot of energy. You think about a lot, Cal, Oh, yeah, no, it's yeah. I mean, we're facts of life stuff. There's just a lot of life out there. Is this kind of funny when people talk about this stuff. Was if they've got like lab coats and clipboards. But maybe I'm being basic and crude here, but it's sort of like it's like why are we all kind of wondering why why these animals have these same sex interactions when we we just have to like look at each other and look at humans, like, because we're not the same films, we didn't come from No monkey, Yeah that's true, Cal, But I mean, like maybe maybe I'm just maybe Occam's Razors and the way to Go. But I'm just kind of thinking, like, well, maybe they're just horny and sexuality is a weird, complex spectrum. There's something I'm attracted to. God, yeah it is is, but you know, and that's like the odd thing, right. It's like there's gonna be a chunk of the folks listening who are like, hey man, it's not Adam and Eve. But the thing is, it's like, well, boy, it's weird that birds do it, and bees do it, and and worms do it and do it to do it and they've been around, they have a long time. Yeah. I don't look at it as I don't look at it is? Should they? I just look at it as huh okay, yeah yeah yeah. But I mean it's it's just kind of funny. We're like wondering, well, like why would they expend their energy if the whole thing is to reproduce? And like I totally understand that, but how many animals when they engage in is it called coitus when it's animals when they have sex, how many of them have I know that they are they have a chance to reproduce and create another just acting on instinct, like I have this weird urge to do this, and I'm gonna do it. That's we're intelig enough to teach our kids and we know what will happen if this happens. Animals c cucumber saying here's what I'm gonna do. Yeah, I'm gonna make a lot more c cucumbers. When I expel exactly, is he just he's just he's just doing what he feels like doing, whether it's a male or a female. So like Darwin had this theory, right, and that was a long long time ago, And like I just read a paper last year on giraffe specifically, right, and it's like old giraffe's like the young bull old bowl thing, right, And there's like young giraffe bowls do a lot of mating, and the ones that made the most do not live as long because they're they're really working hard, and the ones that don't put that much effort into maating live a lot longer. And because they live a lot longer, they end up having more offspring m you know. And it's like, but you gotta work really hard, you know, And you know, there's the observation also of there's all sorts of communities out there that are it's like there, you know, it's a it's a frenzy of sexual activity. And the selection process isn't anything that we kind of come to the conclusion of of like is there actually selection process? If there was, then look at all the connections happening here, and why would any of that make sense? Right? So, I mean it's it's all good questions, but no, like my conclusion isn't like I'll be damned. Yeah. What justifies me in feeling that I can go like, huh, is because they're writing about it in like science and nature. Yeah, so there's still obviously a lot of there's someone like there's some scientific validity, and I don't think it can all be captured. I don't think you'd be like all cases are um pleasure inducing, all cases are mistaken attempts to reproduce, all cases are dominance. I mean could it's probably this giant spectrum of impulses and desires. Uh, and then you like overlay that on what humans do, right, And it's just like until we can figure out a way to start um interviewing all of these species and animals and and get some get some straight facts. Uh, you know what, it seemed like he did this when you were younger. You identified as female when you were younger and had millions of babies, but now you're male. Why did you choose to do that? You know, it's like it's hard to apply it. You know, it's like nature is freaking fascinating and awesome. Yeah. Why is it legal to sell a mounted animals? Not that kind of not anytime amounting situation, but like a shoulder mount right with hide on it, horns on it or antlers on it, whatever the case may be. But it is illegal to trade meat. So stems back to Lacy Act days early early on in the commercialization of wildlife, and so you don't want to profit off of um meat, specifically meat, because there absolutely is a value to wild game meat. You know, you can go to the grocery store and see domestic meat and see what value is placed there. And so if it was incentivized to sell edible portions, it would be a huge problem. And that's what you know, primarily what we saw with the Lacy Act and the development of that and other things, the Migratory Bird Act with trying to take away the value monetary value of specific wildlife and so um, that's why you know the basics of why you can't I'll meet game meat, but you can sell but a lot of times you can't sell of some things and some circumstances. You can't sell raw hides. Yeah yeah, sometimes you processed, Yeah, like you The only way. The only outlet, at least in Idaho, and I'm sure this is consistent across the United States, is you can only sell a green hide. What Steve is talking about, So his Martin hides or his beaver hides that are green haven't been tanned. The only person you could sell that too is a fur buyer that is permitted and licensed. You can't just go out and sell him on the street. Green. Um sounds going to add to that? Oh that you can capes, you know you can make like I've sold cape soft things. I sold a cape one time for a thousand dollars. I was standing right next to a friend who sold a cape one time for six hundred bucks. Or if you have a tax numbers who has a client. Let's say a guys shoots a big something. She's a big but hits it through the neck and he's gonna put all this money in New Mouth, but the next is no good. So they wanted they want the cape, the neck hied off another dude to put the antlers out so it looks normal. Those are canna be quite valuable. You can strip that thing right off and sell it. Yeah. Yeah, And here I thought I was doing good with a forty white tail cape that I'd sell. Well, these weren't white tails. Yeah, but you know, I'm sure something to the right person. But uh, it's just interesting, right, it doesn't How can I sell you that? But but I can't sell you some neck meat too, Yeah, Nope, you can't. Yeah. And I once sold the full cape of a white tail buck, big bodied white tail buck to attack sermist in trade for him tanning my bare hide which you were barbering. Yeah, a little barber. Weren't trained neck meat. No, no, no, no neck meat. So you can see how, without knowing the full story, you can see how people would look at that and be like that makes zero sense. Absolutely, yeah. And it's just about creating a commercial you know, situation and monetizing it. That's the biggest problem. And you do see in commercialization of wildlife cases. You know, it's not always about horns because it's a lot easier to get meat, and so you will occasionally see a case where they're just out you know, spotlighting deer to commercially sell the meat because it it has value. When they put the laws into effect, um, they tailored it like you know. And and one of the things that inspired Theodore Roosevelt to do the conservation work that he did was the what's that word the plant planet? What's that word for hunting feathers? Plumage, plumage mark? What is the word for that? Isn't there like a not plenary but like feather hunters? So oh of shorebirds, yeah, like beautiful shorebirds. You know, people would want the feathers to decorate like like honestly, to decorate hats. And there were people that made living shooting beautiful shorebirds, herons whatever to get togethers um and there they you know, you addressed it specifically, like the market for big game was there was a market for meat. So they're addressing the meat thing. There's a market for feathers on sather things, so they addressed like that market, like, can't sell those feathers because that's what people are after. So it might leave room for like the things you can sell weren't things they were trying to address. Like if deer were being driven to extinction by cape hunters, they probably address selling capes. But this wasn't the case. It could be something to do with meat. Would be harder to track the source. It's just meat. But if somebody's trying to sell up drop double drop time buck, it's pretty easy to be in today's day and age, easier to try and figure out who got that sucker, came for whatnot? That's driving me crazy. It's like plenary plan it's something I'll give. I'll give someone chapters bitcoin to whoever can figure out what the hell that word is. It's not the plumage deal. That's a that's a good word, but that's not the word. Come on, someone find find it. I would type in something along the lines of millinary that it's not plenary specific to you Chester, how much bitcoin you're gonna give kel Well, I think it's specific to hats. Yeah, the feather hats people back then at the turn of the century like feathered caps, and they were shooting shore birds to near extinction. Some of the big places that became like Wetland's refuges were made. Refuges is protected from the millinary what's the word millinary? The millinary trade? Try this went on, you can you can have you can weigh in on this. As a game Ward former game Ward, it was it's pretty caught and dry. But a guy from Maryland rights and this is this is funny. This is a good one got from Maryland. Justin from Maryland writes in about a disagreement between his hunting club members. So when you go, he says, this is true in Maryland, but this is true everywhere. It's called it's something or another. Kell tells if you go, like right now fall comes around, you decide to go hunt migratory waterfowl, you will be presented with a set of questions about what happened to you last year when you went hunting. It'll be like ducks zero to five, five to twenty and higher whatever to help geese, like what you get right, and you get down and you'll get into weird stuff and be like coots and rails, you know, zero to five and you check just trying to get a sense of what all you got. What's that called hip? Yeah, that's the Harvest Information Program. Yeah, yep. Yeah, sometimes have dubs on there too. Any of the migratories, they're just trying to figure out what's going on. But apparently in Maryland they have either either justin here is confusing Maryland's own thing with the federal thing, or Maryland does their own thing. But he says he's belongs to a duck club and Maryland has a questionnaire. He says, in his duck camp, there are two sets of opinions about how to handle this questionnaire. Camp number one is that you lie and say you got fewer than you did, because the DNR, the Department Natural Resources there will look and be, oh, not that many geese got killed last year. Let's allow everyone to kill more. Now. Camp two is you lie and say you got more than you got, because then the d n I will think, geez, if they're killing that many geese, there must be a lot of geese. We should let him kill more. His camp is why not just tell him how many geese you got and we'll let them figure it out. And that's the camp. A guy should be got a game that we don't understand the game or the system, but we got a game to sis. It's clear by that explanation. They don't understand that. It's like, like, the one thing we all agree on here is we're gonna gain the system. How to do that is where we find discord. All right, here's another listener feedback. It's not really a question. It's more like a I don't know what you call it. You can decide eric what we call This guy writes in he lives in Gloucesters. How you say that Gloucester, Gloucester, Massachusetts. He calls it taxi Chusetts. He doesn't taxi Chusetts. And here's this problem, and this is legitimate. Gripe I got his back on this freshwater licenses. So if you're in Massachusetts, historically you need it. You didn't need a freshwater fishing license. The freshwater fishing license sales went to fund the state Phishing Game Agency. And as we've covered a million times, and I'll say it one more time, your state fishing game agencies get their revenue to do all the things they do um ranging from access enhancement, to law enforcement, to disease research, to all the things that go into wildlife, making sure we have wildlife, making sure we can access wildlife, like all that stuff gets funded by and large through excise taxes and license revenues. So the people that buy hunting and fishing licenses, um, whether they're aware of this or even care about this or not, that's what your licensed money does. But massive use. It's recently introduced a saltwater license. Okay, so this is true of a lot of coastal states, a lot of coastal states. Fresh they have different freshwater licensed, saltwater license. They introduced saltwater license. And I can't believe, I can't believe we didn't hear about this before. The saltwater license money goes into the general fund. And let me back up and say the general state fund. I'll back up and say this, when when a state sells hunting, fishing licenses and other permits and stamps and stuff, they're able to take that money and use it for wildlife management? What you the the federal government has the ability to make sure states don't rob that money. Because you could picture to some guy would be like the highway guy in a state is like, well look at those assholes and fishing game. They got all that money, Let's take it and make a highway. What prevents you from robbing the fishing game agency of their money and using it for non mission work is then you'd be come ineligible for federal matching dollars that come from excise taxes on sporting goods equipment. So they got some muscle there. They're like, if you steal money from your fishing if if you the state steals money from your phishing game agency, we're gonna make you regret it by kind of screwing you and not giving you other money that you could have got. So it incentivizes you to leave that money there. But they made a saltwater license and it just goes into the general slush fund. According to this gentleman, it doesn't go into funding fishing game. And he's basically like what gives I don't know what. It sounds stupid to me. You lost, like stay to do this all the time, Like I see this legislation all the time where it's like there's a bunch of money over here that we could be using for all sorts of other things. Why don't we get some of that? And I know what you just explained about that if I haven't read up on Massachusetts, uh uh, this this particular case from Massachusetts. But Yeah, you gotta find yourself a state lawmaker that wants wants to write this situation, because yeah, that that's a bunch of crap. If you're fishing, dollars don't go to fishing, they go to, you know, something like a school lunch program. You're out there catching lunch. Yeah, And I think it comes down to, you know, not every state has a separate A lot of states get their funding through general funds, um state coffers, through general taxes and everything. So it would be curious to know how Massachusetts rates with that, you know, for all, like there could be some complexifying issues like how Missouri has that license plate tax that helps fund wild but yeah, or you know, look at Oregon for a pretty good example. Their fishing wildlife enforcement is under the Oregon State Police, So I don't know what percentage they get from Oregon Fishing Wildlife, Oregon Department Fishing Wildlife. But um, in comparison, you know in Idaho where I worked, there was it was just straight up licensed dollars. There was no general fund money. And so what you were referring to before was PR and DJ Pittman, Robinson and Dingle Johnson, which are those federal excise taxes and usually it's at a three to one. For every one dollar UM the state puts forth, it gets three dollars matching. But pr DJ can't be used for law enforcement. Oh yeah, you have to use your license revenue for law enforcement. Yep. Okay, I'm gonna make a promise to listeners if this is totally If this is totally wrong, you won't be hearing this. If it's at least right enough to warrant the discussion we're having, you will hear it. It's fair. Okay, yeah, uh, okay. You went to work for Trout Unlimited. I did you got involved in samon sam in a steel Head primary scope of work? Lay it out for me. What does the sculpt work like your job? When you apply for your job, what was the job to script? Yeah, so the job title was North Idaho Field Coordinator. Basically it was just in summary UM policy work, outreach and engagement work all associated with salmon and steel head throughout the snake of a basin. There's a little bit of my work plan, my annual work plan that is dedicated to what we refer to is upcountry UM protections. So part of what UM the portion of trout and limited that I work for is the Angler Conservation Program, and so we do all the outreach and engagement and policy stuff in addition to our other staff. But that's the crux of what we do. So a combination of cold water fisheries related UM policy UM as well as like I said, public lands protections and so those up up country protections would be UM what is affectionately called in the clear Water basin UM the Great Burn, So just an area there and but then primarily my day in and day out stuff is focused on SAM and a steel head throughout the Snake River basin. And of course now there's much more focus with Representative Mike Simpson's recent release of his proposal, the Northwestern Transition. Yeah, and we're gonna be uh in a moment here we're gonna be joined by Congresson Mike Simpson from Idah. How uh He's gonna lay out this very UM ambitious, complicated, costly but I would argue like extremely important to consider and pursue a version of UM with all necessary tweaks made, but like to move to to pursue a version of this meaning UM the Snake River damn dilemma that we I would like to see it that we switched to being um, yes, those damns have to go. How do we do it? Yeah? Yeah, and we do it as painlessly as possible. And I think that this is you know, I'm sure there's any more. He's proposing a version of that, being like, it's got to happen. Um, we're in the driver's seat. Let's make up. Let's make a palpable version for ourselves. How did you before he comes out? How did you like, because you introduced me to this and you you approached us about having this conversation, how how did you guys? Worlds kind of collide on this. Uh so UM trout a limit. It has been dedicated to restoring the lower snakes. So when we refer to the lower snake, we're talking about approximately a hundred forty miles stretch from the confluence of the Columbia River down by Try States Washington up to um the Lewiston Clarkston area of Idaho, h forty aisles of what is now a damned river for UM. Federally UM managed hydro dams create an immense slack water and so way back in the nineties, right shortly after the listing of most of the species within the Snake River basin. So we have saki that are listed as endangered starting in ninety one and then up through with spring and summer chinook and fall schinook in the in the mid nineties, and then ninety seven kind of was the end of it with steelhead being listed in the Snake River basin has threatened and so UM way since that time try to limit it has been UM of the opinion UM and rightfully so or a science based organization that the removal of the four lower Snake dams would provide the best opportunity for recovery and restoration to those some monded species throughout the Snake River basin. So since ninety seven, this is something that we've been dedicated to in a variety of ways. UM. You know, not only the portion of the organization that I work for. UM. We have the water and Habitat program that does a lot of the restoration work. People are very familiar with with with what we do at Trout Unlimited, you know, and restoring habitat throughout the Upper Salmon Basin in particular, and so UM now we have found, you know, a champion, you know, for these fish and Representative Simpson. UM. And I think that the really great part of his proposal is that it's broad. It's not just focused on salmon or steelhead. It's in it's focused on the entire region, you know, looking outside of the borders of his not only is congressional district, but outside the borders of Idaho throughout the Northwest. And how this can benefit everybody that is involved or could be impacted by it. And I think that's the most incredible thing, and that's really important to trout unlimited. You know, yeah, restoring and recovering salmon and steel had throughout that basin, but making sure of that all the stakeholders come out whole. So yeah, do you guys, how many I know you don't know the entire history because you were busy doing your other job. Um, how often do is something like this come along? Like this proposal, a proposal like this, This is a once in a lifetime proposal. Yeah. I mean, here's the fact of the matter. So Ice Horror is the lowest snake or the lowest dam on the Snake River. Um. It was completed in ninety two. The furthest upstream uh damn on the Lower Snake is Lower Granite, which was completed in nine. Through the course of construction on those four Lower Snake River dance, we saw a very um steep declines in salmon populations and steel a populations that are it's clearly correlated to the hydro development, okay, and just have not seen any recovery of those numbers. Despite millions and millions of dollars annually, you know, into um mitigate efforts throughout the hydro system, throughout the basin and restoration, we still don't see it recover. And so here here comes a congressman from Idaho, UM that hopefully will here. You know, he truly is a conservation champion, UM and it's pretty remarkable of his accomplishments already. But here he brings forth this proposal that literally, like I said, encompasses the entire Northwest that quite frankly could be a once in a lifetime opportunity. And it's people, just look, it's a hundred forty miles of river that you know is damned. Well, then we we look what's above those damns, and how huge that landscape is, you know, humongous, humongous, Watershed. When we start talking about the clear water, the lock Saw, the Sellway, the Middle Fork, the Upper Salmon, and and a lot of it is still in Christine habitat are Christine condition about of the historical spawning and rearing habitat is still intact. And the Snake River basin that's something I had thought of. That's a good point. Yeah. And I mean you're like, you're you're you're restoring access to something that's ready to roll. Yeah. And and and Cal's heard me make the comparison, and and it's it's it's my my blind date comparison, you know. Is that Hey man, there's this, you know, I'm scheduled to go on a blind date, you know, tonight, and the place settings is all set, there's beautiful silver, nice bottle of wine. But my date, my date doesn't show up. Well, I'll come back tomorrow. And my date doesn't show up. And the same thing is with the habitat there, you know, and or the table is set, it's beautiful, like it's gonna be a good date tonight, but my partner doesn't show up, you know. And so that's the way you have to look at it, you know. And when you have that much intact habitat, it is beyond approach to not give it the opportunity, those fish the opportunity to really maximize it, you know, And that's what we're looking to do. UM. Much of this based off of when we look at UM, how salmon are doing. And this is where people really get confused. They're like, well, jeez, we're still fishing for them. Man. We had a great run, you know, just a couple of years ago, which we've had our ups and downs. UM. A lot of that opportunity, all of that opportunity is based on hatch reproduction. About thirty three million salmon and steelhead smolts get released into the Snake River basin annually. UM. But when you look at what we refer to as a smolt to adult return ratios, and so that's just the simple idea that a hundred smolts outmigrate to the ocean and one adult comes back. That's the simplest way to do the math. That's one all right, UM, one percent. If you have one of anything, you're not reproducing, right, And so many of our populations are there now throughout the Snake River basin. UM teetering just at you know, UH spring and summer chinook or teaching at point nine percent UM the steel head summer steel head to inhabit the Snaker basin are just over UM one percent, and so we're not making what we refer to as two percent, which is the maintenance level. And so we strive through lots of different UH venues, whether it's the Northwest Power Planning Council UM or recently the Columbia Basin Collaborative, there's a bunch of agreement on what the metrics should be. S a rs are that one metric from two to six percent with an average of four percent is the is the goal? Right down the Stank River basin, we're not meeting that. And when you really start to look outside of the basin and look at rivers that are below the lower Snake and don't and fish that don't have to pass four dams, you see much better s a rs. You know, above two percent, you know, upwards of five and almost close to six percent. So lower in in the Columbia, you know, and this is this goes back to this other idea of well it's all ocean conditions. It's all ocean conditions. Look at every other population throughout the range of salmon and steel heads. Steelhead, well, it is partly ocean conditions. Ocean conditions are something that we as mankind can no longer control. Right now, we can control the hydro system UM, and we have tried to do that to increase s a RS, but haven't haven't figured out that that magic bullet. And so here comes to Representative Simpson with this bold um all encompassing plan, you know that takes everything into account. There's a question that comes up all the time, Like I saw it, a bunch of like why aren't hatcheries uh at performing at capacity? Like we're not running the camp the full capacity of our hatcheries. If we did that, then we'd have enough. Yeah and so, and that comes back to this idea that thirty three million Smoltz isn't enough, right, and that we need more. But hatchery fish underperformed wildfish right now as it is, so they have even lower essa RS than what we see UM in wildfish. Never mind that the the figure that is used to evaluate the productivity of the hatcheries is the adult returns. That is what UM. The funding mexicum mechanism for most of the hatcheries throughout the basin, which is approximately seventeen or so UM. It through comes through Lower Snake camp Um, which is funded partially through Bonneville Power UM, the main electric and entity that operates the whole hydra system. But adult returns are how they are evaluated, and not once have they met their adult return goals. So just by increasing more smolts it's likely because of the essay rs, because of the impact of the hydra SYSM, it's not gonna roof, you know, and it doesn't just by producing more hatchery fish doesn't get us to recovery or restoration, and we can spend a lot of money on hatchery fish. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's annually. Lower snake comp in the Stinker Ever basin is funded at thirty one million dollars annually, and that's just flushing fish down the system, you know, and hope that there's gonna be opportunity, and you just want to be there when they're doing that, because the bull trout fishing is unbelievable. Catch these balls that are just there, uh spewing salmon small and steel had small out when you when you pick them up, it's amazing expensive Belgians. Yeah, I was talking to a a guy in a bar and catch can one time, and he was working at a hatchery, a coho hatchery, and cohoes, you know, they stay in the in the natals spawning stream an extra year, right, so um, when they go out there, pretty big. They spend a lot longer in the river. So when you have a coh hatchery, you need to rear the co host a lot longer than some other salmon's that that that don't need as much time. And you know, and sort of like in stream incubation. He was saying, they'd go out and and uh let some of the release some of these hatchery releases into the ocean, and these humpbacks, humpback of whales would get onto that, he said. You'd see that mouth come up, you know, and he'd be like, well, there goes a quarter million dollars a quarter million dollars or so we're gonna jump over and talk now. And thanks for the introduction here talking now to Congressman Mike Simpson from Ida. Hope, Oh Okay, without much further ado, we are joined to buy Congressman Mike Simpson from Idaho. Uh, Congressman Simthic. You lay out for us a little bit about some of the some of the issues you've been involved in in your career that are pertinent hunters and anglers and and outdoors people like some of the areas in which you've played and influenced the world we live in. Sure, you have to remember that in Idaho, most people live here because they love our outdoors, They love our public lands, They love the fish and hunting and recreate in uh in our public lands. So I've been very active and trying to maintain those public lands. Whether it was through the Boulder White Clouds initiative that created the wilderness for the Boulder White Clouds, it had been wilderness study area for years, and I came to conclusion and somebody need to make a determination what was going to be wilderness and what was going to be released for multiple use. So we passed that bill. It took about fifteen years to get it done, but we got that done. And then one of the things I think I'm proud of Stu is the Great American Outdoor res Act the past just last year or year four last I guess, uh and uh you know that deals with land and water conservation fund and fully funding it. That also maintains access, and that was one of the important parts of this, the access for hunters and anglers and those types of things. You can love the public lands, but if you can't have access to them, it doesn't really mean much. So I think that was one of the strongest environmental bills has probably passed since the Wilderness Acts. So I've been actively involved in these issues for a number of years, both relative to Idaho and the nation as a whole. And now you're setting your setting your sights on um helping us through making a plan about what we're gonna do about some of the damns we have on the major salmon rivers in the West. Uh. I want to get to I want to get through a little bit of history for people first. But can you um, you know, encapsulate what you're what you're proposing, How you became interested in this subject. Sure, you know this has been a debate that's been going on for twenty five or thirty years in the Pacific Northwest. You're seeing Idaho salmon runs declined substantially. In fact, they're on the path to extinction if we don't do anything else. The other issue is the Bonneville Power administration and the fact that at one time they were the lowest cost producer of energy in the Pacific Northwest. And so consequently all your rural electrics and others used Bonneville Power power because it was the cheapest they could get. There no longer the cheapest in the Pacific Northwest. So on the one hand, how do you make Bonneville Power sustainable for the future and competitive for the future. UH, And one of the one of the things that has to be done is to end the salmon wars, the endless litigation that that occurs about salmon recovery in the Pacific Northwest. And UH to do that if you're gonna return Idaho salmon runs that are on the endangered list, almost every fish biologist that I've talked to says that you're gonna have to remove the lower Sneak River ams. So we put out a concept that does that. But of course, what you say you're gonna read you're gonna retire those dams or remove those dams. Then you have to look at what are the value of the dams, and what does that do to the stakeholders, and how do you compensate the stakeholders or put them in a better position than they were before. So if you can do that, if you can read, if you can make the stakeholders hold again, if you can remove the dams to help restore the salmon, you can end the lawsuits, and if you can make b P a competitive that's a huge task. UH. It's something that we've been working on, working on for about three years, and we've had about three meetings, maybe as many as five hundred meetings with different constituency groups about the issues that surround that. UH. And that's that's what we've been doing over the last three years. We released a concept in UH in February so that people could talk about it. UH. As I said, this is a discussion that has to happen UH, and I'm glad we started it and now we'll see where it goes. Would you mind helping, UH help listeners understand why the damns were put in place. You know, it's one of these things I think were Now there's such a you know, a widely held predominant viewpoint. It seems that you know, a widespread acknowledgement that they're very problematic. UM. But they were built, Yes, why were they built and and what was the conversation about what was the debate when they were being built, like like, how well did people anticipate the you know, the havoc that would be wrought by constructing the dams. Well, you know, it's interesting if you go back to the the Ice Harbor Dam, which is the first one that you reach after you leave the Columbian Head up the Snake River, the first of the four that was authorized in the Army Corps of Engineers requested funding for it every year in their budget request. Congress refused to fund it. And if you read the statement of the chairman of the Appropriations Committee when he was asked why they didn't put funding in for the Ice Harbor Dam, he said because building this damn would be the eventual extinction of a species, and that's something that they couldn't comprehend. So it was no one clear back then or at least suspected that that would be would be a problem. But then two years later, uh to Democratic sentators, one from Oregon and one from from Washington, slipped a million dollars into an appropriation conference report, and that started iceho Harbor, and that started the domino of the other four damns. So it's been a it's been a challenge from the start, and we've known what the consequences were, but we've always thrown up our hands and said, hey, we can replace these fish with hatchery fish and stuff. And now we find out the hatchery fish aren't the same as well salmon and returning the salmon uh is something that that is important to me. I think it's important to Idaho. And when I look at h the impact that the damn staff, they were built for power. That was the reason these are. There's a not flood controlled dams. These are just uto the river dams and they produce power. They also have the benefit of being able to take barging from Lewis to Idaho all the way down to Portland, mostly into the Tri Cities, but then onto Portland through the Columbia River dams. UH. Those are two benefits that the dams, that the dams have. But when you look at the power production, now there are other ways of produced power. Someone told me once and I agree with this, that you know, everything we do on the Columbia and Lower Snake River we can do differently if we choose to do it. That's our choice. Salmon don't have an option. They actually near river, and right now they don't have a river because of the dams. In fact, it's almost a misnomer to call it the Lower Snake River because the river is really just a pool, a series of pools behind these damns, slack water pools, which harm the salmon because of the increased water temperature. The velocity of the water coming down doesn't flush them down to the river. It takes about three times as long for a for a smoke to get to the ocean as it used to. That puts them in more danger. Are predators and other other factors that affect them. That's why fish biologists will tell you the only way you're gonna restore these salmon is to is to remove these dams. The way they generally measure the success of a salmon run or the health of one, is called the stars the small to adult ratio it needs to be It would preferably be between four and six. Anything above two and two is a sustainable run. And if you look at the salmon that come up the Columbia River and passed the first three dams and then go into the John Day Drainage, there are numbers about three point five. That's a healthy run. Once they passed the fourth dam and go into the Acama drainage, it's about two point four, which is still healthy and sustainable. But once the Idaho salmon go over those next four dams, their stars rate is about point eight and that's a path to extinction. And that's something we have not been able to change over the years with everything we've tried. What other industry, Like when you mentioned that the dams were put in place, um, primarily for electricity, meaning if it wasn't for the energy conversation, it probably wouldn't have become a conversation. But then the dams get put in place, and then it winds up having sort of you know, inadvertent or subsequent effects on things. Meaning I'm guessing irrigation probably is a thing you mentioned, barge traffic. Uh, how many industries you know? I don't think it needs to be an exhaustive list, but like, what what all industries would need to make an adjustment or be have their their concerns addressed in order to begin dealing with this problem. And if you if we look beyond power, but just other ways in which communities have grown up around the water's edge, and I don't even really know all the ways in which it could impact industry and people if we were to pull this feet off. Yeah, there's there are a number of industries and we've tried to look at all of them. Like I said, that's why we've had the three to five meetings that we've had with different interest groups and stakeholders about the impact of removing those dams. You know, you look at the lower Snake River, they have, uh there's marinas and other types of recreational outfits that that operate in in those waters. The city of Lewiston has a port there. The port is about I don't know, it's about a one point nine million dollar annual budget and employee several people, and so, I mean that's important industry in Lewiston, but it's mostly the grain producers in the Poluce area around Lewiston that that barge their grain down the river. And it is the cheapest way to transport transport gain grain. You can do it cheaper than you can on trucks or by rail. So you'd have to make accommodation for all of these individuals, and what we're trying to do is what can loisten be in the future. How can we make them hold again? Uh? And we've we've thought of some ideas, but mostly it's going to be up to them, uh, their future. And and really the question I asked people is we need to be looking down the road about what we want to Pacific Northwest to look like in twenty five or fifty years, because the decisions we make today are going to make those terminations. Do we care about salmon? Uh? Do we care if they come back? Now? I will tell you that if you talk to a lot of Washington grain farmers and others who are affected by this, by this uh these this damn removal because they pump out of the Snake River to arrogate fields in Washington and so forth, I can understand why I don't really care about Idaho. Salmon doesn't affect them. They're salmon are back in healthy numbers. Uh. It's in Idaho that's paying the cost. And I've said this a number of times. The more I look at this, the more I look at the fact that Idaho is paying all the costs of these dams in Washington and we're not getting much of the benefit. The benefit is the lower cost transportation which we can replace and do it so that we can actually get it down the river or down to the Tri Cities or to Portland cheaper than they do on barges today. If we're willing to look at a different way of doing it. We get about eight percent of the power that's produced to those damns comes to Idaho. And that's all. But yet we flush four hundred and eight seven thousand acre feet of water down the year, every down the river every year to er or to flush salmon past these four dams. And the one thing that's not doing it's recovering salmon. Uh, that's problematic. That's four and eight seven thousand acre feet of water that's not available in Idaho to either recharge our aquifer or additional irrigation or other things that we just flushed down the river. How do you account for the fact that there's still damns below the dams? You know? I mean, I could envision in my mind the best case scenario would be that um this endeavors successful to ultimately we get the public support we need and we get the money we need to begin this very ambitious project of dismantling these things and restoring salmon runs like I'd love to see it. But when I hear this, the first thing that pops in my mind is, well, what about the fact that you still got a whole bunch of them below there? Unless this sets a template or creates a path forward for people to comprehend removing more dams, Um, how does it? How can it fix anything when you still have the Columbia Right? Yeah, A lot of people ask me, isn't this slippery slow to remove more dams? What we do in this proposal and the way you end the lawsuits and the endless litigation that goes on as you relcense all the remaining dams for the period of thirty fifty years depending on when their license comes due, automatically re licensed them. Because most of the lawsuits occur around dams and damn re licensing and that type of thing you would you would re license them. They would be exempt from the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, and the environment National Environmental Policy Act UH, and that takes away almost all of the lawsuits and in fact, most environmental groups that are UH. Some of the proponents of the of the lawsuits and have been in the past have said Okay, we can live with that as long as we get rid of these these four dams. But if you look at the numbers, as I said earlier, and the smalls coming up the river, the first four dams on the Columbia River, yes they have an impact on salmon, but they don't endanger them. They still have a healthy stars rate once they passed those four dams. Eight dams is just too many. That's why the numbers fall through the floor on the Snake or or the the Idaho salmon runs. Yeah, that's uh. It's interesting to me, um, the point you just made about trying to in sort of aligning. You mentioned having all these different stakeholders and seats at the table. Um, it's interesting to me that as a way to alleviate concerns that the slippery slope concerns, that you're willing to strike a deal like that, and not only that, but that that you're saying that environmental groups would be comfortable with an arrangement like that, they'd be recomfortable with the idea of tabling conversations about Columbia dams in order to make a deal to do this ambitious plan on the on the Snake, like that that's that there's widespread comfort. Yeah, there is. Most of the environmental community that we've been working with, and like I say, the ones that are generally behind the lawsuits or have been in the past. Both the environmental groups, the state of Oregon, the the Indian and tribes have all said yeah, this is okay. Now, I will have to tell you there are a number of what I call extreme left environmental groups from Washington and Oregon who have come out and said they're they're opposed to this. They want to return salmon, they want to damn's gone, but they're posted this proposal because they don't want to give up their right to suit. Well, that pretty much tells you what their game plan is for the future. Uh, it's gonna be lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit. And I wish we would spend more money trying to restore salmon runs and less money in court. To tell you the truth, even though I understand that attorney's kids still have to eat. Personally, have you did you grow up as a salmon fisherman an angler? No, I didn't. I was never a fisherman. My brother, my brother was the fisherman. He was a fly fisherman used to tie tie flies, you know, and kick over rocks to see what they were eating. And then they take me out and say, man, there's so many fish here. My arm got sore, and I'd go fishing with Eve, and of course there's not a bite. So I decided that that I couldn't trust him. But I was never I was never the fisherman. I love to eat him. He loved to catch him. I imagine that, UM, you can't get away from partisanship on something like this, meaning as I'm sure you know better anybody on the planet, some people are gonna go, um, they're Gonnay're gonna look at it like it is a particular party in support of it. If that's the case, we're into If someone else is behind it, we're going to resist it. Do you find that when it comes to um an environmental issue like this, you know, like fish, um that has an industry overlay to it, do you find that that partisanship gets worse, that it's kind of that it's alleviated. What do you encounter when you're working on this, you know, I I find that the partisanship with environmental issues isn't as strong as it is with some other things, other issues. Now, the one challenge in this is that it's going to cost about thirty three and a half billion dollars is what we estimate to to make the stakeholders hold again, to replace the power to do the other things. That's the value of the dams. We're the first people to recognize, you know, the idea of taking these damns out has been has been considered for by other groups and it's always just either take the damns out or don't take the damns out. And we're the first people to actually put a value on those dams and recognize that they do have a value and you're gonna have to replace that. I think that's what's got so many people that are anti dam removal concerned is that we've actually put a value on it, and they're saying, Okay, how do we fight this. This must be a serious consideration. And I've had a lot of people suggest that I would say that there are not favorably disposed of what we're the concept we put out there, but are coming to the realization that you know, we can either plan our own future and develop our own future, or it can be planned for us UH and it would be better if we if we did it our selves. But I find the partisanship kind of Yeah, Republicans and Democrats have a difference of opinion on how best to manage our public lands and that type of stuff. But when you look back at the Boulder White Clouds Wilderness area that I did, in the end, it passed without a descending vote, without a Republican or a Democrat descending vote in both the House and the Senate. When we did the Great American Outdoors Act, uh, it passed by with bipartis and support. So when we get right down to it, I think Republicans and Democrats want the same thing. We have a different opinion about how to get there sometimes. But but I I, uh, I'm not worried about the partisanship. Really, do you feel that the proposal that you've worked on and we'll we'll tell people how to find the details of the proposal. Do you feel the proposal you worked on um has turned some opinions or have you Do you feel that it winds up being is this the battle line is pretty much the same still or have some people come and said, oh uh, this I can get on board with previous previous proposals, not for me. Yeah, you know, the response we're getting from the public is about what we expected when we released it, and it's the reason we released it as a concept, not a written piece of legislation. When you write a piece of when you say i've got a bill here, it's like saying I'm ready to go with this. I've done all the thought and everything. We released as a concept so that people would have time to consider it put have their input into it. I'm sure there are things that we have not thought about that that others will think about for us. And there are questions that need to be answered that some people have raised. Uh And that's why it's out there as a concept for this public debate that that is going on now. Uh So I, as I said, I think the reaction is kind of about what we expected. We knew that there would be a number of people that it would and and insociations and organizations that would say, hell no, we're never going to really never gonna remove those damps. I understand that I have sympathy with that position years ago, that's the position I was in. But the reality, you know, twenty five years ago, if you read some of the articles. When I was Speaker of the House in Idaho, I said, damn removal is not an option. I said, we ought to try everything else to restore salmon before we ever consider that. Well, in the twenty five years since then, we've tried everything else. And if somebody has an idea of how you can restore salmon without moving those damps, I'd love to hear it. But the problem is is we've tried everything so far. Unless I said, every fish biologist that I've talked to says you're gonna have to remove those damps if you want to restore Idaho salmon runs. So we knew there would be that reaction from the hell no never sort of group. And I'm not critical of them. I just I understand where they're coming from. Uh, But there are a lot of people who are saying to me, this is interesting. Maybe we ought to step back, put the pitchforks down and talk about this and consider the options here. Because as I said, I just talked to a group the other day who I who I thought would have been uh, pretty firmly against it, and they still maybe uh, but they're starting to say, you know, maybe we got to plan on our own future instead of have someone else planned for it. And when I say that, people say I'm trying to threaten people that judge can remove these dams, and that's not true. Judge cannot remove these dams. Only Congress can do that. But a judge can make it so damned expensive to keep these dams that you just have no option but to remove them. They could order draw downs or additional spills and that kind of stuff. Two years ago, a judge ordered forty acre feet of additional water to be spilled over the dams to help salmon recover. Didn't help recover salmon, but it did cost forty million dollars from b p A to to do that. Of lost power generation, that means the rate payers ended up paying that forty million dollars. So, as I said, that's another aspect of this whole proposed It's not just salmon and dance. It's also the b p A trying to keep power rates slow in the Pacific Northwest that have been growing over the years. And uh, and as I said, Bonneville power of power is no longer the low cost power in the in the Pacific Northwest anymore. So we've got to do something to make them u competitive in the future. Let's talk for a minute about the hell no never perspective. Um, if this will demonstrate my bias a little bit, but if I view someone saying, Um, if I viewed someone like like yourself, you're you know, you're not a salmon fisherman, okay, but you're you're recognizing the importance of salmon as a as a wild creature that we're blessed to have on the landscape. Right. It belongs to a system that's greater than any individual, and it has integrity. We want to uphold the integrity. Like I view that as you know that that to me strikes me as um, you know, largely altruistic viewpoint, Like you're looking to future generations. If you talk about the hell no never audience, is there an argument among them that goes beyond anything that might be self serving? You know, I think there's concern. And as I said in our video when we released it, I said, you know, I can't promise you I'm not certain that removing these dams will bring back salmon. It's a complex biological system. You know, when I was a dentist in the real world, some coming to my office with a serious infection, and I could prescribe some antibiotics for him. I couldn't promise them it at work. It would work nine nine percent of the time. You can't promise somebody it's gonna work because it's a biological system and people react differently. The same thing is true with salmon. But it's the best chance we've got of recovering Sam and I think the only chance we've got of recovering these four for salmon runs. But I always get a kick out of people who say to me, you know, I don't think we should remove these dams. Uh, it's not guaranteed that salmon would come back. And I want salmon back as much as anybody else does. What they really mean is, I want salmon to come back, but I don't want to have to change anything that we're currently doing. Uh, you can't have those two things. I don't think you're gonna get salmon back. And I think in in what the fish biologists tell me is within probably twenty years, that's five like life cycles or four life cycles of salmon. Uh, that that these fish will be extinct. And you mentioned the reason for it, as I said, you know, some people want them come back because they want to be able to fish and etcetera, etcetera. I want them back because there are an essential part of our of our economy, and essentral part of nature. Uh. There are over three hundred of three other species of animals and plants that depend on the nutrition that salmon bring back up from the ocean. Uh. There's been studies done that if you look at a stream where salmon uh generally populate versus one where there's no salmon in it, trees actually go three times faster in the in the drainage that has the salmon, just because of the nutrients that they bring back something of the hair of a of a bear in these regions have salmon d n A. And so they're an important iconic species for the Pacific Northwest. I don't want to be the generation that said, yeah, we saw him going away and we didn't do anything to try and stop it. You mentioned only Congress can remove the dams. Uh, why is that? Like, what what is the what is this sort of like the legal the legal framework that that makes that true. Well, there they are federal dams that were put in with federal legislation. So to take federal legislation to h to remove them. That's my understanding of the and I think that's probably true. But like I said, a judge can can make it so damned to expensive to keep him. He could order draw downs where you would actually draw the as of oars down to almost zero, which means there wouldn't be any barging or anything else like that. Or he could order additional spills and guess where that water ultimately comes from. It comes from Idaho because all the water in the Snake River drains out of the Idaho drainages, and so uh and and Idaho. These the habitat that we're talking about in Ido and Central Ido is the high altitude habitat and probably the best and cleanest water and coldest water UH in the in the entire Pacific Northwest for salmon habitats. So UH it is vital that we restore uh store these uh salm into this habitat, and especially in the age of warming rivers because of global global warming and other types of things. UH, it's important that we maintain this cold, high altitude water habitat that we have an Idaho congressman, we've UH we we've talked a little bit about um the argument for removing the dams. We've talked about some of the resistance of doing it and what it might take to ease that resistance. What about just the physical process, Like let's let's say one of Americans and one of the Congress, the US Congress and Senate all said, yes, let's go. Uh what are we what are we looking at? I mean, are we talking about decades of work? ZUI is not like a B fifty two bomber just comes over and it's done right. There's a there's a thing that needs to happen here. Yeah, it's much more complicated. And our proposal to damns don't actually come out until because that's nine nine years from now. You have to have the power replacement in place, you have to have the alternative transportation in place. But then you have to do dredging behind these dams. That's gonna cost you a billion or so dollars to remove the sediment that has accumulated behind these dams, because you don't want them to want it to just wash down the river. So you've got to remove the sediment. And then we don't physically remove the cement. Part of the of the damn. What you do is you remove the earthen berms around the edge to create the natural river flow that existed before. Oh until that'll it stays there. Yeah, yeah, the cement part stays there. It's the it's the earthen berms that that attached on the sides that you'd remove, and then the river could flow around that. And uh. You know, and I've told people listening thirty years of salm and aren't back. This hasn't worked. You could actually replace the earthen berms if you need to. Uh. We've just got to start start thinking outside of the traditional uh ideas that we've had in the past that haven't worked, and say, let's let's look down the road. Let's see how we can make this work. Uh, and let's try something different. I don't know. I know you can't be a slave to polling, but among your constituents, what percentage of your constituents? I think that something's got to happen. Uh. You know, we haven't done any polling on this, so I can't give you an exact answer. The only answer I would have is from the contact I've had with people. As I said, a lot of people are saying, interesting, we ought to consider this. Other people are saying, I admire you for taking on the challenge, and it's a discussion. It's got to be had. But I'm not sure I'm in favor of Damn removal, and other people are just saying hell no. So it's a slow process of giving people a chance to consider this and and think about the options and what and what we might be able to do and if we want to plan our own future. And I think over time over the next few months, if people have a chance to really sit down and talk to talk about it, UH, you'll see more people coming around with the possibilities. And I've I've been doing meetings all over my district in Idaho. We will start doing some more around the Pacific Northwest and North Idaho and Washington and Oregon. Also from the agricultural perspective, Congressman, is the lack of embrace for Damn removal based on the shipping primarily the use of the of the barge system for moving grain or is it due to uh, probably a realistic increase in cost of pumping water out of the snake for agricultural purposes. It comes in several aspects. I think the largest opposition is from the grain grower perspective, because they ship nine million bushels of grain down the river every year, and they're they're afraid that if you added ten or fifteen cents to a to a bushel in transportation costs that put them out of business. It might well, I think we can do it, and they can actually ship per farmer at a cheaper cost than doing it by barging. If we give them the resources to develop this plan. Now we've come up with an idea. It might not be the right idea, but they're the experts in trying to get their grain to the Tri Cities in New Portland, so we're given the resources, they'll come up with a plan. I've been interested though, in the grain farmers in southern Idaho in my district, UH that actually don't use the barge system. They either truck it to the Tri Cities or Salt Lake right now, and UH, the only thing this plan would do for them is make more water available for southern Idaho. When we stopped flushing fo seven thousand acre feet of water down the river, We've got some real water quality issues in the Snake River in the mid snake up by twin falls and so forth, and uh, and this would help improve that water quality and quantity by by you know, stopping the flushing. And I've told these people listen, that flush is going to go away one way or another. It's gonna go away because salmon go extinct and it's no longer necessary to flush sam water for salmon. Or it's gonna go away because the dams aren't there, so you don't need to flush water to uh to uh flush Smoltz over the dams. So uh, it's it's a matter of looking down there. And then I think there is just a natural sort of resistance to say, how stupid is this to take out this infrastructure that we've that we built over the years and stuff, you know, and why would you want to do that? And I understand that because that's as I said, you know, a number of years ago, I probably would have been in that same camp. But you've got to look down the future, and we don't do this for us. We do this for future generations. Both those people that care about the environment and salmon and also agricultural producers try to end these lawsuits that they're facing every single day. And that power companies are facing every single day and try to end the spiraling costs of the power that they have uh in UH if you if you talk to the Washington area growers, they pump water out of these reservoirs behind these dams. Uh and so consequently restoring a natural river means that it would they would have to to alter their their irrigation uh pumps and how they draw water out and probably deepen their wells and a few things. We've put some money into this proposal for them to help do it. They said it probably takes six hundred and fifty million dollars. We've put seven and fifty million dollars into the proposal. So we're trying to address all these concerns that people have. And but but believe me, I understand the concerns, Congressman. I think that as this rolled out, you know, it had a price bat tag of thirty three point five million, and I think there is a little bit of a sticker shock. But yeah, with the billion, yeah billion, and so as it is rolled out, living on the police as I do, UM, I've seen definitely both sides of it. People that support support it for various reasons, Um, But I've been very interested in the fact that the proposal isn't just about salmon, it isn't just about conservation. You took this step to include every industry in almost every community into consideration, and I think that's a pretty striking aspect of the proposal, and and so kudos to you for that. You know, having those three meetings, UM, do you get the sense that, UM, that with those three meetings that a lot of the uh if you will, the leaks and the dam were plugged and and these are small hurdles that you have to jump. Now with the additional five bringing your total up to five. I mean, you think we're getting there as far as buy in in the proposal as broad as it is. Well, I I appreciate comments, And like I said, we tried to take into consideration all the impacts that we could think of, and that's why we talked to so many stakeholders because there were things that we probably wouldn't have thought of had we not talked to a lot of these different individuals and stuff. And so I wouldn't say that that we plugged all the leaks, for sure. There's still some out there that that we need to talk to. But I'd say the conversation is going well. I've actually talked to grain producers in the police, actual farmers, uh and uh they said, well, you know, this is kind of an interesting idea, and yeah, if we could get grain down the river, do we really need to dance and stuff. But as an association, they're opposed to it. And the Washington grain Growers, the Idaho grain growers, the Oregon grain growers all stick together and support one another, so uh, it will be it will be hard to bring them on board. What I'm trying to do is allevie some of their fears that were you know, I've got a history that I've built up over the years of being the leading supporter of agriculture in in Congress, one of the leading supporters of agriculture and Congress, whether it was making sure that they had the resources to do what was necessary. The cattleman, we delisted wolves and a few things like that for for the cattleman and sheep industry, kept the do Boys sheep station open. Made sure that white potatoes and you know, being from Idaho, potatoes are important. We're put back on the wig program and in school lunch program and things like that, and making sure they have the resources for their their research and so forth in the wheat industry and so forth. I've got lots of awards from the agricultural industry. And if I thought for a second that this would harm agriculture in the long run, I'd drop it in a heartbeat. This will not harm app culture, and I think it will place them in a better position in the future. But that takes time to come around to UH, and I understand that, and that's why I haven't gone out and ask anybody to jump on board and support this. I just said, listen, let's all put down the pitchforks, and let's have this discussion of what we want the Pacific Northwest to look like in forty or fifty years. Congressman, would you like to directly address the idea that the suspension of like you mentioned the Clean Water Act d s a M on the Lower Columbia Dams would also allow the building of of new infrastructure that would like go against UH the idea of modernizing like clean or green energy. UM. A lot of people see this as like, oh my god, we're gonna suspend these tools that we use to UH. Fight bad eken or environmental policy um as like a scapegoat type of tool. A trade off. It is a trade off to some degree. But the reality is all of the lawsuits that occur occur virtually all of them occur around the Clean Water Acting in the Nanger Spaces Act. Every time a dam comes up to read license. I'll give you an example, I'd hop Powers Health Health Canyon Complex. They've been trying to re license those damn since I was a Speaker of the House in Idaho. That was twenty five years ago, and they've been trying to relycense. They've spent as much money or in fact, they spent three times as much money re licensing those dams as it did to build the dams, and they still haven't got licenses for him yet. That's what's happening with all of the dams in the Pacific Northwest. And what we've created is a cottage industry with the age of funds that's equal access to justice funds that are paid for by Congress. And what happens is a firm can come up, an environmental group or whatever can come up, file a lawsuit, and if you win, in partner and hold your lot, your fees can be paid for, and you actually make money on these things. And it is a cottage industry that's going on. And so I'm I'm not too happy about that, but I think that suspending the the Endangered Species Act and the and the UH Clean Water Act and the nip A process is vitally important to ending these lawsuits. And it doesn't mean you can go out and do additional things. It just means these damps are re licensed operators they currently as they currently operate and stuff. Uh, this is a little bit of a looking into a crystal ball type of question here. Okay, I I have a lot of respect and admiration for the way you're you're framing it up, that that you're not starting with legislation, You're starting with a proposal. You're bringing it to people, You're inviting comments, you're inviting critiques, You're trying to initiate a discussion. Um, do you feel that in the end, in terms of your involvement here, that in the end that's your goal or do you think that this specific proposal could actually be but you know, a blueprint for action that we take or is it to you is it enough just to start the conversation, trusting that in ten twenty thirty years the conversation advances enough. Or do you think we could be like, you know, at a moment right like, at a moment in time where we're gonna go Uh, that's a good question. I think that this is a blueprint which could start the process of recovering ido salmon, removing dams, and changing the economy and the transitioning of the Pacific Northwest for the future. Whether it would be this specific proposal or not, I don't know, but I think this could be the blueprint for it. We're at a unique time in history. We don't have that long to make a decision on how we're going to recover salmon and whether we're gonna do this. And the Pacific Northwest Delegation is actually in a pretty powerful position when you consider Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee is Ron Wyden from from Oregon. Patty Murray and from Washington is in leadership. Mike Crepo from Idaho is the ranking member on the on the Senate Finance Committee. We've got important people Kathy and Morris Rodgers from Washington, who is not supportive of Damn removal, but is the chairs the ranking member on the Energy and Commerce Committee in the House. I'm one of the senior members on the Appropriations Committee. So when you look at how the delegation is and and uh the chairman of the Pete de Fazio as chairman of the Infrastructure Transportation Committee in the House, so we're in a pretty powerful position. It's also helpful, frankly that the Biden administration is looking at an infrastructure package, because I'd like to get the financing for this in place before we started doing the legislation. You've heard too many times where Congress passes legislation and promises financing for things and then that never happens. Uh. I would like to put the financing UH in place if we could do it through this infrastructure package that the Biden administration is looking at and put it in a trust fund until we had the legislation pass that that we could do this. So it's a it is a long process, it's a cumbersome process, and I will tell you right in the legislation is going to be, for lack of a better word, of nightmare because it involves so many different aspects of of the economy. And the environment of the Pacific Northwest. So but I think, and I and I've told people, I honestly believe that in years those damps are going to be gone. Whether it's because of this or for some other reason, I think those damns will be gone. The question is will it be done in time to say the salmon or not? Uh, I know you've got stuff you gotta go do. I appreciate your time. Uh, anything you'd like to add in? Um at the end here that that I didn't ask you, but you're you're dying to say, I've probably told you more than I know. Well, again, I appreciate taking the time. UM, I'm sure people love to hear it. It's a you know, aspects of this debate I've been exposed to for my entire life. Um, it's exciting to see getting the attention that it's getting now. Best of luck. I appreciate the efforts that you're putting in to try to hear people out on this and in a in a way that maybe is not quite as acrimonious as other efforts, you know, start this conversation about something that's very important. So Congressman Mike Simpson from Idaho thank you very much. Thank you, Steve appreciate it very much. All Right, Phil, we're gonna let's end its show there. Yeah, great guest Chester. You'll come back on for more investor updates. Yea. Hopefully we can just start doing the fishing adventures. Oh, like you want to after you get the boat? Oh? Can we do that, Phil? Yeah, I already made it as a separate jingle for when he gets the boat. Are you already did? Yeah? Okay, I hear it. There's Wallee in the snake right lower snake. Maybe I'll come over there and yeah, it should be like Lie and Chester the Investor, just because you got a Walleye boat when it could just morph. Yeah, money in action, your investment in action, investing in I'm so glad because I was. I was already starting to miss you, Like you get the boat and you wouldn't come into the studio anymore. I was the angler. That doesn't sound good. No, yeah, it can be investing my time in catching Walleye. You probably forgot that you did this, but you asked me to make a jingle. It's the continuing Walleye Adventures of Chester the Investors. You did on on the podcast. I have a tentative hold on Steve's boat right now, Chester for uh a couple of days in April and April first weekend May. The Ginering Ventures of Chester the Walleye. No restrictions or limits on Walleye or small Mouth where you're going. Yeah, he's going. He's going to help salmon. And that's it. You don't like do it, like looking at him, don't like catching him, but you thought long and hard. Somebody's got to do it. That was one of the things we used to laugh about was when people would be like, people to go shoot prairie dogs. You know, well, it's helping the rancher. I'm like, I bet you. I bet you if you went to the rancher and you said, me and my buddies here, I want to help. We just want to help. What can we do? I bet you about fifty on his list of chores would be shooting prairie dogs. He'd be like, see that fence and I'll five miles of it. If you really want to help, that would be helpful. He's liking those prairie dogs. I got this uh chemical dispenser on the front of my four wheeler and I just drive over each hole, hit a button and drops a load of rodents in there, so don't worry about that. Doesn't worry about the facts. Yeah, all right, thanks everybody,
Presented By
Featured Gear
While you're listening
Wildlife Management
Photos: Adult Mountain Lions Cannibalize Cougar Kitten
Survival is not guaranteed in the wild. To borrow a few words from Thomas Hobbes, the life of a young mountain lion can be "nasty, brutish, and short." For cougars, the average litter size is one to four cats; however, only one or two will see the average dispersal age of 15 months. Fewer still will...
Joshua Lisbon
Mar 11, 2022
Read More
Play Now
Small Game
Getting Started: Tips for the Rookie Adult Hunter
At MeatEater, we get a lot of questions from adults about how to begin the process of becoming a hunter. Unlike youth hunters, who often have family members to show them the ropes, rookie adult hunters are often starting from square one without any mentors. And without the guidance of experienced...
Brody Henderson
Apr 28, 2018
Read More
Play Now
Conservation News
Adult Whitetail Have a New Predator, Groundbreaking Photos Show
South Florida deer hunters will tell you that Burmese pythons have done a number on the local whitetail population. However, it’s been unclear whether these snakes, like coyotes, are preying mostly on fawns or if they can fit a full-grown deer down their gullets.
Now, we have photographic evidence...
Jordan Sillars
Nov 1, 2024
Read More
Play Now
Save this episode