Ep. 417: Snarge

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is a me eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,
bug bitten, and in my case, underwear. Listening to us,
you can't predict anything presented by First Light creating proven
versatile hunting apparel from Marino bass layers to technical outerwear.
For every hunt, First Light Go Farther, Stay Longer, Phil

(00:35):
Turn the Machinity. I got a I got a medical
hot tip that I want to share. Go Ahead is
already on its on. So years ago I had a
very convoluted health problem that had like a lot of
steps to it. Reboard like will this happened? And I
ate that you know? And then this happened? And I

(00:56):
got sick of telling when you go to the doctor,
how everybody wants you to tell happened, And then they
don't talk, and then another person comes in and you
got to tell the story again. The other day I
had to take my kids down. It was a very
convoluted story about who had strap win and what happened
to them, okay, and then what happened after that, and

(01:17):
then what happened after that. So the first person that
comes into the like and I knew they weren't the person.
They're the person that weighs your kid and she said,
so tell me what's going on? And I said, it's
a long, complicated story. Can I just tell the next person? Yeah?
So my whole life, I've been doing that, not knowing

(01:40):
that you could just skip the part. You know what
I'm saying. It's like, yeah, it's like being like hitting
zero with a person manager yas, I'm like, there's no
point in me telling you all this because I get
someone else is gonna come in the door and they're

(02:02):
not gonna know. Yeah, that's smart, and you're not gonna
do anything about it. Why do I have to tell you?
You don't the person way and your kid just has
a fetish for the stories red It's like, doesn't go
beyond that, Like, oh I heard a good one today,
a twenty two pounder. Can I tell a funny doctor
visit story? Please? It's from our buddy Jake. Did he

(02:27):
tell you this already? Nobody know he's got the He's
got the West Nile, West Nile. Yeah, he's on he's
on the man. Now. I think he's back. He's back hunting.
But as they were trying, where did he Mississippi? When
you told me that, I feared he had to be
somewhere because it's like the wintertime here. Okay, Yeah, So
he's going through the process trying to figure that out,

(02:48):
probably retelling his story over and over. Oh yeah. Finally
gets to the infectious disease doctor and uh. He sends
me a text says, the infectious disease doctor just asked
me if I had if I've had contact with any
wild animals over the past thirty days. I listed Bobcat's,
mountain lions, elk, wild pigs, coyotes, ducks, and deer. Her response,

(03:09):
you're weird. Had a very similar conversation with the Montana
State Game Harvest Survey the volunteer lady who called me yesterday. Yeah,
She's like, upland birds and I was like, well, yeah,
but like you want to be more specific because she's like,

(03:30):
well what region. I'm like all of them, you know,
and it's like, well, how many an eat? And then
she's like, well, what do you do with this? We
had an equally long conversation about cooking various birds, what
I do with them, and at the end she's like, well,
thank you so much. This has been great, awesome because

(03:53):
most people are like, didn't make it out, She's like, hey,
can I just piggyback on that. I got a lovely
call from our local fishing game office the other day
doing like a postseason survey, and we had a lovely
conversation and he was like so thankful for taking time

(04:13):
to answer his questions. And I asked him, like if
that was rare and apparently a lot of people are
really mean and hang up right in their faces, and yeah,
so if you're no, he wasn't hitting on me. But
if your local fishing game calls to add you know,
it's not like they're trying to find out uh right,

(04:38):
like like secrety stuff that you've done right exactly, Like
it's not like they're not like if you didn't poach creature,
like you've got nothing to hide, Like that individual's not
trying to find out your hunting spot. Like they are
just taking dad and information and collating that and passing
that along to you know, volunteers. To keep in mind too,

(05:03):
that when you buy a license, you agree legally that
you would escort someone to the kill site. If asked,
I didn't, like, you don't use surrender your right to
have it be a secret. We so, uh the um lady.
I was speaking too. She's like, well, you drew this
antelope tag in this region. I'm like yep. She's like,

(05:26):
were you successful? I said yep, So how many days?
I said? I was probably out there six days. It's like, okay,
and what region did you harvest the animal in? Oh?
She was trying to catch. It's like the one on
the tag. They are just playing a sting Join a
Day by Megan Baker born in Michigan. Yeah, so's Megan Denin.

(05:49):
I just got married. I just got married. To name
your email, still, says Megan Baker. I know, I know.
Did you did you debate I'm changing this right here?
Did you debate maybe not taking his name? You know?
I didn't think it would be that hard until now
that I switched it, and I went from a really
basic English name that nobody mispronounces to something that everybody mispronounces.

(06:13):
So it's definitely been a learning curve. How's it spelled?
D E N E A n oh? Yeah? Yeah. Did
he you think if you'd have said that you weren't
going to change it? What he'd have called off the
whole wedding? No, because at first I was like, I
just I don't really don't know if I want to
change it. And he's like, is this some weird feminist thing.

(06:33):
It's like, no, it just seems like a pain in
the butt. Yeah, man, I've told it. Like, that's what
my wife did to me. Is she she said the
weird feminist thing? No, no, no, no, she laid out
the pain thing. She said, well, I'm gonna change it
when my passport expires because I got to renew it anyway,
and I'll just change my name then. So I was like, oh, okay,

(06:54):
so in eight years when my passport expires then well
and then that happened and still has changing name. Yeah,
I should have take in her advice. So now, like
I'll say, um, I'll say the Ronnell's are coming in
Katie too, because yeah, because there's no use dropping that.

(07:17):
That's great. No, keep that one right in my back pocket.
And I don't think it stings at all. You are,
uh you're the first airport biologist we've ever had on
the show. Yeah. Yeah, um. So as an airport biologist,
my job is to reduce damaging wildlife strikes with aircraft.
That's pretty much all of it. Keep planes from hitting critters. Yes,

(07:42):
we had a trivia question one day. God, I can't
remember the answer and I can't remember if I got
it right. I don't think I got it right. I
think it was like, what is the most common Yeah, animal, No,
he didn't say bird, he said animal. What's the most
common animal that a that an airplane runs into? Yeah?

(08:03):
I think it was a morning dove. I think I
got that right now. I think I put down like
crows or Canada geese or something like that. It's morning doves. Yeah,
they're Yeah, they're just everywhere. I think they're just across
North America, So they're just pretty common. Do you do
a lot of that? Um, we're gonna dig way into
your we gotta do some other stuff first, but we're
gonna dig a way into your occupation. But do you
do um, what do you call it? Like? Do you

(08:25):
do any lethal control? That's kind of last resort, but
it does happen? Does that happen? And then real quick,
what's the weirdest thing you've ever heard of a plane?
Has a plane ever hit a turtle? I'm sure that has.
Um the weirdest strikes that we have are there was
a deer that was struck but at thirty thousand feet.
So yeah, so that was that was a real stumper.

(08:47):
So we work with the Smithsonian and when they ran
the DNA analysis on the strike, it was deer and
they called the pilot and he's like, no, I heard it,
like I know it hit at thirty thousand agl and
of ground levels a good one. Yeah, And so someone's
got like, that's what the Chinese are doing with that
balloon deer into plane pads. I can't believe you guys

(09:12):
went there because my mind is at right now that
this fall. I'm gonna be Mark will be like where
you sitting, I'll be like, I'm on the oak flat
about twenty two agl on the ground. You can be
like I saw it from six foot two. Yeah. It
happened around Christmas time and so everyone kind of joked that,

(09:34):
you know, Santa Claus was just doing his last rounds.
So then they took some more of the strike. Um,
we call it snarge. So snargees that's no, it's all now,
and I think I'm looking at it. Yeah, no, I
don't believe two things you told me. So snarge is

(09:55):
the remains of a bird on an aircraft. So that
would be blood, tissue, and feathers, and so when they
collect the snarge off the aircraft. So imagine when you
were driving and you hit a bog against splats on
your windshield. When that's a bird on an airplane, that
is snarche. You want a little history on that. Sure,
In nineteen sixty, Lockheed L one eight eight electric airplane

(10:17):
nose dived into Boston Harbor, killing sixty two people. As
investigators sorted through the rubble, they kept finding globs of
what appeared to be black feathers. Such material came to
be known snarge. There I go, you know, we all
do a far amount of flying, and I'm definitely gonna

(10:38):
be talking to my seat made about that. Hey wings
a little dirty out there. I think that's snarge. But yeah,
to conclude that story, though they did find it, they
did more DNA analysis, took some other samples and found
out it was a vulture. So most likely a vulture
had been eating maybe on a deer carcass. And so
then when it splatted, they actually hit pick up the

(11:00):
DNA from the stomach. But could that thing be that high?
How high? Thirty thousand? Yeah, So when birds migrate, they
migrate really high, and a lot of people don't realize that. Um.
So when you're migrating from North America, South America, Europe
to Africa. Um, they're not flying you know where we
can see them. They're flying as high as they can,
just like how we when we fly, you know, cross
continents and stuff, we try to fly as high as

(11:21):
we can to shorten the distance and looking for the
gray air currents. Ruple's Vulture is the bird that claims
the highest air strike ever recorded at thirty seven thousand,
one h a gl Well, no, because no, she's only
she's down to one line now because the other two
lives weren't lies. She was off by how many feet? Well,

(11:45):
that was just different, right right? That is wild man. Yeah.
They also have fish strikes too, So a lot of
times like your offsprey, bald eagle, stuff like that. Either
they'll get you know, get struck and same thing, the
DNA will be picked up by the fish, or they'll
just drop a fish because they're scared of the aircraft

(12:05):
and splat a fish on your wind shield. Man, does
every strike get a DNA test? Um? So, basically, when
when your aircraft lands, maintenance crews are checking out the aircraft.
If they see us like a snarge, they do collect it.
We work so snarge is uh, it can't be singular

(12:28):
like there can be a snarge. Yeah, because my favorite
smear of SNAr. Yeah. So when we when we collect
all that information, we have a partnership with Smithonia Feather
Lab and when we send in all this material, they

(12:49):
can use their archives of all the carcasses and stuff
they have, so they'll do feather ID so they can
actually compare if there's like a feather, compare with the
feather that's in the archive. Then they can do DNA
analysis and then they also do microscopic analysis as well.
It might hear. We got to cover a couple of things.
But my next question when we come back, it's gonna

(13:10):
be this. I'm not trying to be I'm not trying
to be like a like a smart ass, but after
a strike has occurred, it brings up the question of
I don't want to say who cares? But you know
what I mean, why Like if a strike occurs, why
is it important to know what? Yeah, So as an

(13:32):
airport biologist, that information is really crucial for us because
it'll tell us what do we need to manage. For so,
if we're hitting a lot of water fowl, then we
know that. We look at the habitat and we'll go, oh,
there's a lot. Maybe there's a lot of water on
an airfield or near the airfield, and can we manage that?
Can we change that habitat or modify it to keep
these waterfowl out? So we knowing what we hit is

(13:52):
going to help us manage the air feel better. Like
you see a spike in some type of strike and
you gotta be okay, what are these what are these
doing hanging out here? So bad? Uh, you're not going anywhere?
Can you can you alter your flight paths though, like
like can that be a solution versus like altering a
wetland like certain times a year? Right, you have different

(14:14):
migratory species moving in, they fly at certain altitudes or
certain times of the day typically, and you can suggest
that the seven thirty sevens go yeah, so that fun
word AGL A can so um seventy percent of our
birth strikes will hop in below seven hundred AGL and
so that is within that air fills your takeoff and

(14:35):
landing areas. So it's really hard to say, okay, well
just don't take off this direction because that's that's just
where the runway is. You can't really change the direction. Um.
So yeah, when you get a little farther out, we
can say, you know, we'll let Tower know. Um, and
the pilots will talk to each other too, like, hey,
I see a group of docks over here, there's a
flower gastline. Yeah. Yeah, they'll talk to each other and um,
sometimes I'll even let them. Now, I'll call Tower and

(14:55):
be like, hey, you know, I'm five miles out, I
see a you know, flock a geese fly and over
and they'll roll out their pilots. Now, no, kid, all right,
hang tight, you're gonna tell us a moose story later. Yes,
we were talking about the other day. I was saying,
I was reading a book these my you know, we're
gonna start a book club. Spencer's working on it all right.

(15:17):
People have been asking for that for a long start.
A monthly book club. Cool, and I think we're gonna
we're gonna do the book club. Will drop the book
club on this feed. Can we call it Oprah's book Club?
But better so, tell me how it's gonna work. Well,
we're working out the details. I think if you become

(15:37):
like a book club member, will probably just mail you
the books. But I guess how does it become part
of the podcast feed? Well, because then everybody reads the book.
I've never been in the book club my whole life. Oh,
so everybody, all of us would just come back in
after we read said book, discussed what we would say
this for this week's book, we're gonna do um, maybe

(16:01):
I would maybe we'd make it both. Uh, the memoir
of Um Human Row Human Row who lived with the
Blackfeet starting around eighteen ten. And then then there's a
so his book was called a Rising Woolf or something

(16:23):
like that. Then there's another book called My Life as
an Indian, which is Charles Willard Shoals who live with
the Blackfeet, kind of like right after he did. And
then these books are collected together. So it's just this
portrait of these it's this like basically amateur ethnography by
two individuals who lived in hunted with the Blackfeet. We
would read that, everybody would read it. So you're at home,

(16:45):
you're in the book, you're in the book circle. You
read the book, and then after some amount of time,
we have a discussion. We have a one hour discussion
of the book where you'd be like, oh, I like
that part. Where right? And that's the book club and
then we have like little titillating facts about the book
that you might not know. We can maybe even have

(17:07):
some authors join us. We talked about that would be
great that the book club would end with, well, these
people I just mentioned are dead, but yes, that would
be the ideal situations you do living authors, Like let's
say we did coming into the country and we somehow
manage you get John McPhee to come in. Oh, but
I'd read that one. Um again, I think he might

(17:28):
be like way up there, maybe not alive. There used
to be a radio station did a show called dead
or Alive. I think he's I think they name a
name and then you have to guess whether they're dead
or alive. He's dead. I think he's alive. He should be. Yeah,
he made a different one. I mean, I don't. I
don't mean mean macab content for the eventual podcast we

(17:49):
should cut. So yeah, point being, point being. I My
new favorite book is This is Human Rose Story as
told to the Shul's character In it, he names the

(18:11):
he names the blackfeet word for moose, as he understood
it to be six sis, I'm not pronouncing it right.
When he later learned the language, and he learned it
very well. Their word for moose was they didn't have
many of them. They're out on the plane, so they're
east of the Rockies. Their word for moose was black

(18:34):
going out of sight. And I mentioned this on the
podcast a couple of episodes ago, and I said, I
wonder if our word means anything like our word, Like,
what does our word for moose mean? A guy brought
it in and he says, our word for moose is
derived from the Eastern Abanaki word mos. However that's pronounced

(18:59):
or there's an eric Gansit word that's m o s
or m o o s u variously translated. It's a
long bill up, isn't it? Phil? Phil? He he's messing
with the knobs and stuff. He's so lost. That's his job. Bro,

(19:19):
Guess what moose means when you say moose, Hey, I
saw a moose. Guess what you're saying. I saw a
twig eater. I saw he who strips off leaves and bark. Well,
I mean the word moose exists in German, right, like
moose's elk like deer. So yeah, so I find it

(19:42):
very interesting that we're like, oh, it had to come
from the Native Americans und around. I find it very
maybe wrong. You sure about that? Yeah? Yeah, damn it.
Did you check into that? Grin Nope? I well, Phil,
I want you to research it, and if it makes
me look bad, cut it out. I got up. I

(20:05):
want to believe that in these Blackfoot camps with these dudes,
that the entire time that they were present, the black
Feet were like Noah, remember like guy's media, so be
careful what you say around them. Yeah, it is. It's
like I was trying to explain to someone. Well, I
was talking to Clay Nucombe about reading. Right, you get

(20:27):
into so you're reading journals of Euro Americans who spent
time with tribes. Invariably they were not understanding, they were misunderstanding.
People were not telling them things, sometimes just messing with them. Yeah,
having fun with them, not telling them things that they
didn't want them to know. Whatever. Like you're with someone,

(20:51):
you're very suspicious of them, you're suspicious of other motives. Right. However,
each of these chronicles, each of these individuals that spent
time with Indigenous Americans and like a precor in early
contact times. Every one of them had biases, no doubt

(21:12):
every one of them was getting some sort of incomplete picture. However,
taken as a whole, it still is a window into
It's like a snapshot of a culture in a life, right,
Like you know that it's not all wrong, right, absolutely,

(21:34):
But I'm a sucker for those books. But I always
read those books with some level of skepticism, being when
someone you have someone over for dinner and you portray
to them how shit goes in your family and everything,
and then they walk on and be like, here's how
shit is in that household. Right, they make a big meal,

(21:57):
they put out cheese and crackers every time. Yeah, And
you're like, no, we actually never done that. I was
doing time. I've ever done that, you know, because you
were coming over. Yeah I heard you like cheese crackers.
I don't know, I hate that ship whatever. So but anyways,
they're great books. Oh it gets way more complicated too,
because like think of like the true things that had
to have seemed so like fancifully drawn up, like the

(22:21):
number of bison on the plane, right, like people coming
back and saying like, yeah, this is how it is
people had to have a real level of skepticism. I'm
still a defender of the books. If they're super cool.
I haven't your stomping grounds, dude. Every place he talks
about in those books, you'd be like, Oh, I've been there,

(22:42):
I've been there, I've been there. I'm man, I'll read them.
Sign me up for the book club. They get to
a creek and they get to drainage and I found
the drainage. I'm a map. We don't call it what
they called it. They get to a drainage that flows
into the Missouri and they said that that creek is
called it crushed to them because some people were gathering

(23:04):
clay blow a high cut bank and the cut bank
collapsed and killed them. And that cup, that creek's name
is it crushed them. That's cool. Yeah, Yeah, It's not
like Dickens Creek. The old man Dickins got crushed by
some he lived there. Yeah. Uh man. A lot of
feedback on cadavers people. When we had Jonathan Reisman, doctor

(23:29):
Jonathan Risman on the lung King, which is a little
inside joke about the liver King. Knows the outside joke
about the liver King. He had a lot to say
about cadavers, and my goodness, makes you seem like everybody
that listens has cadaver experience. Yeah, and these emails especially
are wild, this person was saying. Someone wrote in in

(23:53):
regards to a recent show where the Meat Eater crew
was surprised about mobile labs on our roads carrying bodies.
I worked a certain government agency's forensic laboratory. I was
surprised to find out that we would receive human body
parts via ups and FedEx. He worked with a woman

(24:14):
that was in charge of examining human heads involved in homicide,
and she would put the heads in a crock pot
to get the skin and muscle off, to check the
skulls for injuries. She went into you better mark that
crock pot. She went into Walmart. Listen, are you ready

(24:38):
for this? She went into Walmart and put her head
into various crock pots to find the one that was
going to work best for her application. Think about that.
It's a very normal sight at Walmart. I don't think
anyone a coworker taking like profile pictures. Make sure your

(25:00):
chins in there. We used to joke about going to
like a Walmart buying like everything you'd ever need if
you just murdered somebody like latex gloves, plastic sheeting, duct
tape like whatever, like, yeah, what point with some of
goal at a minute? All I am out here? What's
going on? Yeah? And then the last thing is a

(25:21):
crock pot that you've been going like to see if
it fits your head or not. I like how Nicholas
puts in there a second to last sentences. I'm not
sure you wanted this information, but there it is, Nicholas,
You don't know. Steve very well keep sending that stuff in.
Here's another really interesting one about the cadaver business. I
was asking doctor Reisman if he because he spent a

(25:47):
lot of time with his cadaver in medical school, and
I said, what did you wind up knowing about the person? Now?
When I had cadaver bone in my jaw, I asked
if what I could find out about whose bone it was?
And they said, they can tell you whose bone it is.
So I was spitting out a little hunks with some
guy for two weeks, no idea who he was. He's

(26:08):
all over this studio. I mean, I say, right here,
as the little bone hunks would come up out of
that hole. My job. He says this, this is very interesting.
University of Oklahoma. You were given so this is a

(26:29):
medical school anatomy Okay. You were given a seat assignment
in the lecture hall and what appeared to be a
random name on a sticker. About six to eight other
classmates had the same sticker with the same name. We
soon found out the name on the sticker was the
person we would be dissecting in anatomy lab in a
few weeks, one hundred and sixty students, twenty different names

(26:53):
on the stickers. Later that week, we were all bust
to a ballroom you'll state this cow at the Cowboy
Hall of Fame to sit with the family of the
person whose name was on your sticker. This was called
the donor Lunch and was a way to show the
person you were dissecting was really a person. I sat

(27:16):
with the son and daughter in law of my cadaver.
There were pictures of her on the table, and they
brought photo albums to show us her through the years.
They discussed injury she had sustained through her life, which
we correlated with later in anatomy lab. Broken leg here
scar their new hip. Here. The only rules we could

(27:39):
not contact the families later with any information about what
we found in the lab. All the remains were cremated
and scattered on school grounds. Unreal, Yeah, right, unreal that
I mean, yeah, it'd be an interesting lunch to sit
down too. Obviously, if you sit there as yourself, why

(28:00):
you listen to this show? That's why right there? Think
you're getting that on Maury Povich. No, not not even
this American Life good stuff, man, No, that causes you
to think a little bit. Yeah, yeah, I would have
gone a little bit deeper and said exactly why you know,

(28:21):
I mean, obviously he says, just so you know that
it's jokes man, It's referenced everywhere. But like the yeah,
just gave it, just didn't say anything, but he expressed
facially he doesn't think that that's why there might be
one little bitty reason why the you know, the origins

(28:44):
like the medical educational system, right, like body theft, stealing
bodies in order to be able to research because there
are so many taboos around, like dissecting a human. It's
amazing to think that that existed within the same profession

(29:05):
that now you can sit down with a family of
people that donate anybody. H that's wild, real weird. Um,
I was gonna say something that I should say. Here's
another one. I'm I was gonna talk about like a thing.
I just realized about a good grave Robin strategy that

(29:28):
I learned reading a book that I was just reading.
But you shouldn't be doing that. No, but it does
does make us wonder if our guest Megan used to
be Baker Denne will ever get some snarge off of
vulture that had dined on a human, so to be
a human strike at thirty sound agl um. I think

(29:53):
if that happens, it's usually because the person who collected
the stars didn't use gloves. Yeah, I am. Here's the
more on this same subject. Not me. When I say

(30:15):
I am, I'm the listener. This is the listener talking.
I am a student working on my Doctor of Chiropractic degree.
Is that an actual can you get it? Is that
an actual doctor? Either way, it doesn't matter. I trust
the person who's in the program and studying and writing

(30:36):
into this lovely show. Yeah, he opercased d as such.
I have dissected close to half a dozen human cadavers
from head to toe in the last year. In my experience,
the vast majority of cadavers are just as doctor Reissman
was saying, out of shape and full of large fat deposits.

(30:59):
That being said, oh, does this get any better? Yes? Oh,
I mean said he encourages everybody to donate your body. Remember,
like Spencer was like, I'm sure that the only people
who donate their bodies are are yeah, young in vain
and want their eight pack to be shown off when

(31:19):
they're dead. Ye there Yeah, where He's like, I'm so
good looking. I hope they dissect my body and find
out just how good looking I am. That was Spencer's thought. This,
this art, this letter does get great. For someone who's
fascinated by the inner workings of the human machine, as

(31:41):
I am, human cadavers are a gift. No, here's where
it gets good. The unsettling part for me, I say
this at risk of sounding like a psychopath, is the
hunger that comes along with dissecting. Ah, as well as
many of my classmates, have all experienced the same phenomenon.

(32:06):
After about a half hour of dissecting skeletal muscle, one
tends to get hit with a severe hunger. At first,
I thought and hoped that it was a chemical reaction
with the formal behind and other preservatives that causes this
to happen. But after asking several of my professors and

(32:27):
the lab managers themselves, I have learned that it is
an instinctual response to seeing meat. Yeah, next time you're
at the old Cairo fractor. I'm not saying who this
guy is. I just wanted you know, he might be
sitting there being like loins. That is interesting. Eventually, it's

(32:51):
when he's back there. Yeah, But have you ever felt
this phenomenon when you're skidding and breaking down an elk?
And absolutely? Oh yeah, yeah, I like some things like
dear mule deer elk, stuff like that. I'm like, I
find it's like when I'm cutting it up, it's very appetizing.
But I don't find myself like insatiately hungry, a severe hunger.

(33:14):
Yeah no, no, I don't find myself insatiably hungry. Thirty
minutes later. He might be a psychic because I feel
like we've got it a lot of stuff together, butchered
a lot of stuff in the field together. Cal you too,
I can't remember any time we're like thirty minutes in
either of you are like my god, am I hungry.
All of a sudden, I had no, yeah, because I
think we got stuff to do, right, like clocks ticking.

(33:38):
Typically he's describing maybe it's I think it's like psychopath
the federal be I may want to pay attention to
this one. You know, when I'm collecting snarge, I instantly
have a craving for chicken wings. No you don't, Okay, Well,

(34:04):
there's one more about this. Oh, this is something that
caldies know about. Just in case this is a strange behavior.
This has nothing to do with cadavers. This guy's an
electrical lineman for a local public power district. They install
and repair electrical poles and utility structures. His crew will

(34:27):
often work in areas far from restrooms, and especially after storms.
It isn't uncommon for him to work twenty four hours
straight to repair damage to electrical poles. Because it is
They often pack several meals worth of food and the
haul around drinking water those large orange igloo drink coolers.
They also will haul a green drink cooler for the

(34:50):
purpose of housing their number two, since they are often
far from a restroom but still too close to houses
to do their business. When they're done with the cooler,
they toss it into the trash. This is a note
for cow it's a little wasteful. It is right when
Cal's doing all of his dumpster diving, guys staying watch

(35:11):
out for the green coolers. That's good info than it is.
They should find something else wanted. It's going to contractor bag.
But I was just gonna say that is pretty trying
to keep it. We already covered the whole thing. He
could they sell those fancy five gallon buckets that you
could just take a bag out of, And why they
wanted to keep it warm. Well, I think it's right.

(35:34):
It's you're not gonna have a ruptured bag as you're
jostling around stuff in the track to be an insulated
container you're trying to keep No, I think you're gonna
trap in the smell. But you're also not gonna have
liquids escaping, you know, because it's a fortified vessel. Cal
sympathizes with him. Well, I understand, for sure, but I'd

(35:57):
rather I'd be more for Lynne just doing being able
to have carte blanche to do their deed on the
side of the road. Yeah, dig a little cat hole
or whatever exactly. Yep uh. Speaking of cat holes, see
that good one. Good one. This is another one that
the cow will appreciate. Some women. This is a strange story.

(36:19):
Two women in Alabama got in all kinds. They got decurdy,
then they actually got roughed up by the police, which
I don't know if this is true or not. This
is the kind of thing Crine should have called them
and talked to them. Well, their lawyers put out statements
and there's some video footage out there showing them get
roughed up. I mean roughed up is the bruises. That's

(36:41):
all kind of like up to interpretation. They were feeding
cats in their neighborhood and what Tumpka What Tumpka Alabama,
and the guy points out and the regional Native American
language rumbling Water Alabama. They've been feeding lots of house cats,

(37:07):
which is illegal, feeding stray house cats, but they would
feed them to lure them in and catch them and
then fix them. M So it's like letter the law
of spirit of the law not supposed to feed stray cats,
but they're catching them and fixing them. They've been warned

(37:31):
and warned, and they felt that they had the moral
high ground and then they got coughed and stuffed. I
think five year old and a sixty one year old
should point out that we don't want our a bunch
of people writing in and being like, oh, it's not
illegal to feed straight cat. This is probably like a

(37:51):
municipal or county ordinance that they're violating. Yeah, people over
sixty years of age, Like, you're you're not gonna fix
those people either. They're gonna do whatever they want. Um,
but it is never a good idea to feed a
bunch of stray cats. What if you're fixing them trying

(38:14):
to solve the stray cat the Uh, the kiddies aren't
having sex with birds to death, they're eating them. So yeah,
I'm with you. He can be, he can be as
fixed as you want. We're still gonna go kill like

(38:36):
three birds a day. Yeah, I was talking about we
were talking recently about a Bob Kat getting hit by
a train. This is the last thing, Megan, Bobcat getting
hit by a train, and I was talking about how
why you know, how does that happen? Um? And a
guy from the railroad. Uh, he calls himself a train

(39:00):
track station biologist. No, no, no, that that was my
little topic yeah, oh no, just like as a transition
into talking about good transition. Here's what they find happens.
Stuff gets between the tracks, between the rails, and for

(39:20):
whatever reason, it's impulse when the train comes, it's impulses
to like the Bob bobcat for instance, its impulse will
be to turn from the train, not jump the rails,
but just go down. He's like he's like consciously staying
within the line. Yeah, like like he's he's They they

(39:43):
they feel corralled by the corralled by the rails, and
so they just take off, Yeah, something like it. Yeah,
that's wild, um, the earl he says this about them.
They then tend to stretch out and try to jump

(40:05):
the rail once the locomotives are on top of them,
so they'll get overtaken and they try to bail out
from under the thing. They're only saving gray seems to
be if they come upon a grade crossing at that point,
they will veer off to the side. He said, I've
seen this in everything from raccoons to cattle. Oh, it's sad.

(40:32):
Possums get up on the rail and run down the rail.
That's terrible, man, that's sad. I think it's a natural
instinct for animals to follow lines. So when we I've
trapped like you know, ducks and stuff, and we have
confusion traps where it's like a funnel that they go
into these traps and then they're gonna hit the edge

(40:54):
of the cage and it'll funnel around and they'll just
keep following that line and they'll never actually just like
the opens wide open, but because they follow that line.
And the same thing when we're managing moves up in Alaska,
we can get them up on a fence line and
they'll follow that line and something about following the lines.
So your trap they could get out like the duck one,
but there keyboard do yeah, but most of them will

(41:16):
just keep doing this figure eight because they just follow
the line. Really, that makes for inexpensive trapping materials. Right there,
you get a rope. So what was how did you
get into your How did you get into your business
in your line of work? Yeah, so I went to
Michigan Tech University up in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. I got

(41:37):
a degree in wildlife management. Like every other person, I
wanted to work for the state and went to a
conference and somebody was given a talk on wildlife damage
management from Wildlife Services and I was like, oh, that
sounds fascinating. He happened to be the state director out
of Michigan, so I went to his office a few
weeks later and he said. I was in his office

(41:57):
and he's like, oh, there was a seasonal position that
just opened in Alaska. He printed it off and said,
here you go. And I'm from the cornfields of Michigan.
I never have left Michigan before at that moment, and
I was like, I'm never moving to Alaska so far
away from home. So you were damned close to ly
even by the time you go up to Michigan Tech. Yeah,
because you had that big ass lake you'd had, Yeah, yeah,
exactly cross the ice. Yeah, my parents said, was the

(42:20):
forest I could get away from home with still paying
state college? Yea, um, so you know, naturally, six months
later I was in Alaska. So after I graduated, I
ended up doing a seasonal position up in Kotsabue, Alaska
for Wildlife Services. Part of being an airport biologist is
a lot of surveys and creating management plans. So my
position was working in Kotzebue, Alaska, and I was up

(42:42):
there for six months just doing surveys on wildlife and
but related to an airport or not really started right
out in the airport business. Yeah, I got you. So
just doing surveys um you just trying to see where
animals are moving, their behaviors, stuff like that, and it
was It's one of the greatest experience of my life.
Just the cultural experience is just getting to live in

(43:04):
that native village. You know, it's way up it's remote,
like I think the closest row systems like five hundred
miles away, and it was a really really great experience.
And then the wildlife up there was really interesting. So
some of like the weird things that can happen up
there on an airport are like muskox. So you guys
might be familiar with the muskox like defense circle. So

(43:25):
imagine you have a group of muskox and they get
on your airfield and you try to you know, harass
them off, and they just stop and they create that
defense circle and they're on your runway and it's like
really difficult to get them off. So then you got
to cancel flights, Yeah, exactly, So it'll definitely delay some stuff.
I know, my airfields. Like right after I left, they
actually had a caribou migration go through and it like

(43:47):
disrupted the airfield because just thousands of cariboos were walking
across and you can't. They don't fence the airfield there,
some do, so it's just part of that management plan.
Some airfields, you know, they'll have eight foot because why
I tell dear, can't jump over eight feet? Sometimes they
don't haven't. Could be a funding issue, could just be
they might not think it's important until you know, they

(44:08):
get a strike with a cariboo or something. They'll learn
pretty quick. And with those muskox that's gonna be you know,
you know what we didn't, what we had, we weren't
talking about. But it just we keep not talking about it.
And it got so long ago? Was it? They just
Alaska had their first um the first person ever killed
by a musk Ox, right reported first reported person a

(44:28):
trooper was he stay a trooper? Let me pull that
back up. I actually did not hear about this. This
is a shocking. Well, someone rolled in. They had just
they were trying to get some kind of ATF permit
or something. I think he had just someone rolled in,
Like yeah, man, that guy. I was with the guy
an hour before. He was doing some kind of filling
out some form or checking my ID for a form.

(44:50):
The guy went home. There was a musk ox harass
and his dogs. Maybe he had sled dogs and uh
they yep. Officer with officer with Alaska State Troopers killed
by muskoks while trying to scare away a pack of
wild animals outside his house stomped him and gored him
to death. Whoa. He was trying to scare away a

(45:13):
group of muskoks from near a dog kennel at his
home when one of the animals attacked him. He was
declared dead at the scene. Horrible, isn't that's very rare?
I thought, I remember seeing that it was the first.
No one, I'm sure it's happened, right, But in terms
of first, but with muskoks on the air, if you

(45:36):
got a bunch of muskaks or a bunch of caribou
out there, I mean, there's got to be a little
bit of an element of sort of public perception, like
you don't just you can't just run out and start
shooting at him. Probably no, on top of you wouldn't
want to shoot something like that because they're also a
large animal, because now you're delaying time trying to get

(45:57):
that animal off too, so you created more problems. Yeah, exactly,
so you're just trying to harass him off, get him
off there? What Why was that a temporary position? So
that was just temporary so they Wildlife Hazard Management Plan
only has to be renewed every couple of years. So
I was just doing surveys for this plan. So it
was just a written up plan and it's just recommendations.

(46:18):
So we do these surveys and then we'll be able
to be like, hey, you know this particular part of
your air fields a hot spot, Maybe you might want
to change something around that area. And then what have
you heard of getting run over by planes up there? Oh? Gosh,
just about everything. I mean, ay, we're like you're talking
cotso Beyer just in Alaska in general. Yeah, like like
Cotsaby for instance, what's a typical strike up there? It's

(46:39):
not a morning dove. Um, So you have ptarmigan up there,
and I remember they had ptarmigan issues. Honestly, it was
pretty low strikes up there, because I mean, there's just
not a whole lot that I know. They had to
remove a seal off the runway after I had left
as well. Really, yeah, seal on the runway? Was that
in your management plan? Actually? No, so the like we

(47:01):
flew this person up here, did a whole management plan,
she leaves in and here's a seal. No mention of
that in the management plan? Yeah, yeah, I know, I remember.
They're really easy to do though. You just take a
red ball and you bounce it down the runway and
they follow it right off. You know, do you remember?
I think that the most this has to be the

(47:22):
most famous bird strike is the Miracle on the Hudson
Captain Sully. Yep, they hit what they had a flock
of candy geese. How many? I don't know the exact
flock size, but I know it took out some of
their engines and that's why they couldn't couldn't get back
to the airfield and time like a bunch of geese. Yeah,
it was a flock. Yeah, so imagine that flying v

(47:44):
going across. That's what I'm curious about because movies make
it seemed like a bird at any time can take
down a giant plane. How fragile are the planes? Like?
What's like a concerning bird strike? What has to have on.
I think it's just like any you know, when you
hit something with your car as well, like something that

(48:05):
could just splatter off some things that could actually cause damage,
depends on how it got hit. But I know, you know,
with technology and stuff, they're testing more and more on
how to like, you know, toughen up these aircraft. So
I know a lot of agencies that are, you know,
building engines. They use like frozen turkeys and frozen chickens.
They'll toss them into an engine to see how well
they handle the impact. You know, what they ought to do,

(48:27):
You ought to tell them this thought out. I bet
they do, Steve well, then wouldn't be frozen, she said,
She just said that they buy frozen ones. She just stood,
buy frozen. I mean you can ask the because if
you throw a rosen turkey there, man, yeah, you might
as well throw a rock in there. Yeah. Yeah, what

(48:49):
about honing the wing tip to a razor's edge, slice
them so you're just slice them through the sky. Well
that's like if you run into them at that at
an angle where they're sliceable, you know, yeah, because they
may Yeah, well I would elsewhere. What if it's not

(49:10):
the way that they're hitting. Well, I don't think the
geese are going to like t bone a seven thirty seven.
Well wasn't it? Did you? Did you say to me
that if there is a strike that occurs, depending upon
like how far the aircraft is from the runway, uh,
the plane actually needs to turn back around. A lot

(49:30):
of strikes people don't even like the pilots won't even
realize that happened. Okay, Um, so that's a lot of times.
That's why a lot of times they don't realize that
happened until they're doing their maintenance checks. I'm like, oh, hey,
obviously if it goes through an engine, you know, they
might feel it. They may smell it. I know, pilots
say they can smell when a bird gets ingested. Lo'll
get like a burnt bird smell. Um. So yeah, I
just kind of he'd be hungry, I'll get But like

(49:55):
you know, like JFK, LaGuardia, places like that, I would
imagine like lots of pigeon strikes, and that's like that's
a light bird. It's not gonna bring down a plane, right. Yeah.
If there's one thing I learned from my travels is
every airfield they got a runway, they got taxi ways.
Like there's things that are very standard in an airfield,
but when it comes to managing the wildlife itself, it

(50:17):
is vastly different. Because you can have cultural things, environmental things,
the type of wildlife that's there, the regulations on what
you can do to that wildlife is going to change
on every Airfield's really fun. How often do planes hit? Um? Like,
if a bit, give me just a like, what's a
normal jet? Like a normal jet that's flying nowadays there's

(50:44):
both okay, seven thirty seven's coming down the land and
there's a white tailed deer. Is it just blam deer
flies out of the way or can that screw the
plane up? Oh, if it hits a deer, Yeah, that
would probably cause a lot of damage. That doesn't happen.
It doesn't happen very often. Oh So I looked up
some numbers and I believe it's about you have a

(51:06):
point zero eight percent chance of hitting a bird, and
that's just to hit a bird, but to actually cause
damage is going to be like a point zero zero
three to five percent. So the chances of hitting birds
are really low. But when they do hit and it
does cause damage it causes on average like two hundred
and eight million dollars a year. Wow, So do you
have any nice states? Do you have a number? So

(51:29):
if the chances are low though, do you have a
number of how many strikes maybe happen on average? Yeah?
On average is looking through numbers between nineteen ninety to
like two twenty one, So like it's there are growing
more because as we fly more, we're gonna be hitting
more birds and stuff like that. But it's on average
like one hundred and fifty five strikes a week or so,

(51:52):
but there's also one hundred and seventy five thousand flights
in a week. Two. Sure. Oh, it may seem like
you guys doing a good job of de gating bird crashes.
We do our best. What what's the best airport in
terms of the wildlife habitat? I mean, are they are
they actually trying to make it not good wildlife habitat? Yeah,

(52:12):
So that's part of the steps of being an airport biologist.
So one of the first things we do is, you know,
observing wildlife and serving wildlife. We look at the habitat,
so we look at the airfield as a hole in
the surrounding areas and we go, Okay, we're looking for food, water,
and shelter. Which of those three components are on the
airfield or near the airfield that are attracting wildlife? And
can we change that? Can we modify them? Can we

(52:33):
remove a forest? The type of grasses that are on
an airfield, you know, can we change that? Can we
make it a grass that geese don't like? Um, it's
just changing, you know, just the habitat to make it
less desirable for wildlife to be around. So you'd be
like that food plot that runs down the length of
the air has to go. Yeah, the corn feeder can't

(52:55):
be there anymore. But what ones have like a what
ones have great great habitat? I mean, but it's a
weird occupation to have to have to like interrupt habitat. Yeah,
I don't know. I know a lot of airfields, you
know that we're built fifty hundred years ago. You know

(53:16):
a lot of times they were just looking for land
that was wide and open, so allocatet wetlands. Nobody likes these,
so they would build on those. But obviously conservation efforts
and stuff have ramped up a lot in the last
hundred years and now we're going, ah, these are actually
really great habitats, and so it you know, we kind
of have to balance this of like, Okay, we need
to make sure the air field self doesn't have great habitat,

(53:36):
but also conserving what we have on the outside of
the airfield as well, just outside of our flight paths. Yeah,
because I imagine the mandate becomes a little bit different,
Like you could picture. In the old days, it'd be listen,
kill anything that might possibly come near an airplane, and
now there's a lot you know, we try to be

(53:56):
a little more surgical and delicate. Yeah, it's just a
lot more research and stuff too. I mean just the
technology in the research and technology that we've had throughout
the years, as well as just also increasing our understanding
of wild wildlife is on the airfields and what we
can do, Like you know, you can sit there and
try to shoot every duck that comes on. Why not
just remove that pond of water and now you just

(54:19):
removed all those future ducks from coming in. Yeah. Do
you ever have to get involved in the like, how
do you guys do if you get where you just
get like a deer infestation in some area? How has
it ever decided that you're going to have the mechanically
removed deer. So it kind of depends on where it's at,
you know, what is the fencing situation. So that's another
stuff that we often take is just you know, creating exclusion,

(54:41):
creating barriers to make it harder for wildlife to get on. So,
you know, you remove all that habitat, you remove those
forests and stuff off the airfield, you're adding fences up,
and when deer are on there, like, they are at
risk and they are hazards. So oftentimes we will remove
those individuals. And I know at my particular base, when
we were move them, we actually donate all the meat
and stuff, so is they're not wasted When you have

(55:03):
to remove a deer, is it like is it a
thing you're just sort of working away at or is it,
oh my god, right now there's a deer that's presenting risk.
We need to go get the deer. So yeah, if
it's like right there, right on the runway rate within
that strike zone, like it's if if an airplane takes off,
that thing is going to be hit. We also try

(55:23):
to remove those. Yeah, how is that done? Oh we
just use firearms? Yeah, huh. Does every airport I'm a
little confused. We just need to and to straighten this
out for me. You have like a home base airport,
but you're also traveling around reviewing other airports. Does every

(55:48):
airport have a biologist? It's do Some airports have full
time biologists that are constantly working, constantly watching the skies
and that way when they see the flock, they radio in,
can you yeah. Yeah, So we cover eight hundred and
thirteen air fields across the United States agency as an
agency as USDA Wildlife Services, and so there's some airfields

(56:11):
that'll have full time people like me, Like your larger
airfields will have multiple you know, wildlife texts and wildlife biologists,
and then some might even just be Wildlife services going
in and telling, you know, teaching our airfield operations like hey,
this is kind of what you need to do if
you see a bird or see some wildlife and giving
those recommendations so that they can handle themselves if they're
a smaller airfield. But yeah, any FAA regulated airfield will

(56:33):
have some sort of wildlife management plan. Well, we're during
a normal day of work. You're not just sitting there
watching the skies and watching the runway now, So we'll
do patrols, we'll do like observations and like I said,
if I see a flock of geese flying over, I
will call tower and let them know. But you know,
we're doing a lot of those other steps of harassment.
So part of harassment is you know, scaring birds or

(56:57):
like professionals. So I think there was like a joke.
It was like, you know, describe your profession badly, and
it was like, I'm a professional bird shooter. Um, so
I shoe birds off the airfields, shoot you know, go
away birds, and using um pyrotechnics so glorified we shoot
like glorified bottle rockets at birds. So if you have
flocks of birds, flocks of geese and stuff on the airfield,
we'll just harass them off. We use bird cannons. Just

(57:19):
how's your accuracy? You got it? You gotta do it
enough to where you can refine glorified bottle rocket, right. Yeah.
So like our pyrotechnics, the ones that we use, they're
like like a revolver and so it's just you know,
you're not shooting it at the birds, you're just shooting
them in the proximity to make it uncomfortable for them
to be there, and they'll take off. My old man

(57:40):
had a big gallon size ziplock when I was a kid,
probably wasn't even ziplock. He had a giant plastic bag
someone had given them. You shoot him up A twelve
gage shotgun. Oh yeah, Oh yeah, we use some airfields
will use those. Um, we use them up in Alaska
because a lot of the birds that we're working with
up there, you know, they're so you have Lake Hood
out there, which is the world's largest plane lake, and

(58:00):
so you'll have ducks and stuff. They're way out in
the middle of the lake and so you can't really
reach them. So we had to use those. You know,
it was a break action that we would. You guys
get involved in that. What was that they get involved in?
Scaring them off lakes for floatplanes. Yeah, so that's part
of Anchorage National Airport. That's their floatplane lake. A million
times you guys will scare birds off that. Yeah, it's

(58:21):
still a hazard. Here's one thing I don't get about
this though, running around an airport with a shotgun, if
that's concerning. Everybody knows I'm out here right and I'm
on the same team just triple checking today. If a

(58:41):
plane okay, a plane's haul and ass and and burt
at what foot at? What was that acronym? Hl agl uh?
The plane takes off but his he's left airport and
his wheels are still right like scraping the ground. How

(59:03):
many miles out is the plane by the time it
hits a thousand agl I'd have to look that up.
I'm not sure way ass out there? So how does
does your jurisdiction extent? Like let's say this, Let's say
I live a mile from the airport and I say, man,
I'm gonna start planting waterfowl food, I'm gonna do all

(59:27):
kinds of habitat improvement. I'm going to make the duck
hangout of all duck hangouts. So yeah, so part of
the job we do what So we'll put out recommendations,
be like, hey, like this is what's going on. We
do have like safety zones outside of airfields as well,
so you hold some jurisdiction the airfield does not while
I services but yeah, yeah, yeah, so just so you

(59:49):
can go bang on the guy's door and be like
you gotta cool it on the ducks. The airport maybe
the airport, but again we'll just give recommendations. And oftentimes
if you explain to someone like Okay, what you're doing,
this is what could happen often there. You know, Okay,
I can understand that. Do you ever need to go
have those conversations not at my current base now? Yeah,

(01:00:10):
and you're assigned out like you're assigned out all over
the place to go do airport assessments. Like my profession
or like my career has just taken me all over
the place. So I've worked in seven air fields in
five different countries. Yeah. You and Yanni were talking about
hanging out in Latvia. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm currently a
Selfridge Air National Guard base, which is just outside Detroit, Michigan,

(01:00:32):
and our sister base is in Leovard, Lafia, And so
I've had the opportunity to go out there twice, and
then my counterpart has been able to come to Michigan
as well. Are there any major differences, like any any
safety things that are concerns in Europe VERSUS and not
concerns in the US vice versa, where like in the
US they'd be like, oh, make sure there's no geese here,

(01:00:54):
and then Europeans are like, oh, who cares about geese
anything like that. I mean, everything is going to be
are if it's on the airfield. So maybe not so
much as they don't consider it a concern, but they
just have different concerns. So in Latvia you have those
the white storks, which are really large bird. They really
like the airfield and they're really protected as well, so
you know, just trying to keep them off the airfield

(01:01:16):
there and they just aren't They don't scare very easy.
They're completely non lethal over there, so it's not something
that you know, we can lethally remove. So it's just
you know, learning the behavior of the bird and when
we harass it or chase it down, like what it's
going to do, and trying to get it out of there. Yeah,
do you find around the country do you find that
there are very different perspective as people have about In

(01:01:42):
some areas they kind of got like a kill them
all that God sort them out attitude, And in some
areas they're very concerned about not harming anything or not
scaring anything. So that like cultural aspects are definitely a
part of you know, airfield management. So when you have
you know, if you're in a country that has sacred animals,

(01:02:02):
you got to be very conscious of that, like, hey,
I'm in this country and a white pigeon is a
sacred animal. Like, let's not do anything to those guys.
But it's just you know, being cognizant of where you
are and what you're doing. But you know, everything we
do is you know, we can justify. So when I'm
doing you know, starling removal on my airfield and people
are like, oh, what are you doing with those? And

(01:02:24):
it's like, well, those are an invasive species and they
compete with twenty seven of our native species, nobody argues
like and then you know it is a safety aspect.
So when you say this, you know these birds or
this wildlife could cause you know, a strike or it
can cause damage from aircraft and you know the very
very rare cases of fatal crash. You know, when the

(01:02:45):
name of safety not made, people argue with it. How
do you get rid of a bunch of starlings? So
we have different traps and stuff that we can use.
Um So we have as a starling trap, which is
it's just a large cage with a funnel on top
and we put in different feed and stuff that when
they get inside of it again, they can't figure out
how to get back out. Yeah, just set it out,

(01:03:06):
so you're like catching handfuls them out of time. Yeah.
And then as well as the other thing that we
like to trap our raptors, so hawk owls and falcons,
So we have live traps for those are modified specific
four raptors. And this is something I get to do
a lot in Michigan. And so when we catch these birds,
we catch them live. And how do you catch them?

(01:03:26):
So we I guess the most popular one is our
gossac trap. So the best way to explain it is
we'll use like a pigeon and we put it in
a cage and then on the top of it we
put this trap. That is the doors are opened with
springs and there's a trip pole that hold it open.
And so when this raptors flying around and sees that pigeon,
it'll come down, it'll hit that pole, clothes and so

(01:03:49):
pigeons in the bottom, he's totally fine. Well, be a
little traumatized because then he's got oh heste yeah. Yeah.
So then when we catch these raptors, we put a
federal band on them and then we work with our
states to find suitable habitat for these guys. So we'll
fly or I'll drive them out hour hour and a
half away from the airfield and release them and hopefully

(01:04:09):
that they don't come back. Do you very often just
catch the same bird on occasion? I think it's less
than a ten percent recapture, right, It just kind of
it's effective moving them how far I usually drive like
an hour hour and a half. It still doesn't seem
that doesn't seem like you'd thrown It seems like he'd
be back before you got back, right. It just depends
on the birds. So is it If it's like an

(01:04:29):
adult bird that this has been their territory for years,
chances are those are guys are going to come back
where a lot of birds, you know, if they're young especially,
they're going to fly back and when they see that airfield,
they're like, I remember what happened there last time, And
they're out there talking about that. What that pigeons day

(01:04:56):
is like? Right where he here's that thing gossip caught
a trap right above him and he's got to hang
out there. We had a guy on the show that
was doing work with ocelots, so it's like a souped
up little cat like a spotted like a jaguar. The ocelots,
so they use they'll put they put their traps out

(01:05:16):
and they put two roosters. They'll set two traps with
the rooster in each trap as bait, and they get
to cock, they get to talking to each oart so
it's making a lot of racket. And then the ocelot
gets caught, but he's got a little little cage that
separates the rooster from the ocelot, and then that rooster

(01:05:36):
has to hang out there for however long with that cat.
And I was like, that's gotta be like a fatal
level of fear. But he said, man, I got, I
got roosters have caught multiple cats. But just imagine when
we gotta run around with that biologist in California trapping

(01:05:57):
mountain lions years ago. Now, they had a live quail
that they would use for you know, luring in a
mountain line into these big cage traps that they had
to use. That works. I just I thought it was
hilarious because I was like, there's no way this works
because in California, like the amount of signage that they

(01:06:19):
had to have up saying like this quail is being
very well cared for. Please don't release that. Don't worry
about this quail. Yeah, yeah, very happy. Like this doesn't
seem like it's worth the effort, Like cat has to
figure this out. You ever had to get rid of
a cat, bobcat or line off a cougar? No, not

(01:06:39):
any of the places I've worked. Now, feral cats. There's
got to be a lot of feral cats around airports. Yeah,
I mean I see them on occasion, but they're not
enough for me to be like, ah, these guys are
going to be causing a strike. You mentioned that porcupines
can cause a lot of stir Yeah, up in an Anchorage, Alaska. Porcupines.

(01:07:00):
It's probably like one of my favorite things to catch.
So I'm sure Tower probably loves watching whileye services employees.
So when you see a porkypine, you take a tub
with a lid and you run with it usually above
your head, and you're chasing this porkypine down and eventually
you'll catch out to it. You drop the tub on it,
and you grab the lid and you slide it under,
you flip it, and that's how you could catch a porcupine.

(01:07:22):
And but these guys, yeah, if they're up on like
the runways and stuff, they can actually pop tires. What
do you do with the porkupines? We'll just relocate them.
How many porcupine is? He's probably whatever, you know, just
keep slowly moving. There's so like I don't want to

(01:07:43):
call them oblivious, but they're just easy going man, easy
going animals. What back to, like the social acceptance thing?
What is the Have you ever get witnessed something that
like straight out of like the movie Airplane or National
Lampoom in regards to an animal strike on the runway.

(01:08:04):
I've never seen either of those. I don't know read
that old geez there were two apocalypse now, don't worry
about like, um, there's never been like a strike on
the runway where folks are you know, sitting, are ready
to take off and it's like grape jelly across all

(01:08:26):
the windows at one point or something like that. Yeah,
I'm sure that could. I mean, yeah, when the bird
gets hit, it's just like again, if you hit like
a bug with your car, like they splat, that's a snarge.
Oh you know what you did? Do it? Tell us
the moose story? Oh, yeah, so when I so after
I left Cots of You, I went and worked in
South Africa for a little bit volunteering, and then came

(01:08:49):
back to Anchorage. And when I was an Anchorage, I
got to do more of the hands on direct control.
And they're mixing it up with porcupines. Yeah, yeah, working
with the porcupines. And I got a call that there
was a moose going on and they were damaging airfield
property and I was like what, And it was the
middle of the rut, and I show up and sure enough,
there were two huge bulls fighting. But they were fighting

(01:09:12):
on each side of a chain link fence and it
was an airfield fence, so one got on the inside
and one got on the out and they were just
hitting each other so hard, and every time they'd hit
that fence, you were just ping, ping, ping, ping, just
coming off like all the wires and stuff. And I
couldn't get them to pull apart. I mean, they were
just raging to stopsterone bowls, and so it was kind

(01:09:33):
of the fence through the fence, and so it just
kind of turned into just getting people to stay back,
and because people were wanting to get pictures, they were
trying to get closer, and it was like, ah, these
guys are not safe. Well, one of them, as they were,
you know, growing at it, got his antler caught up
in barbed wire, and the barbed wire ended up you know,
from every move back and forth, they kept getting tangled

(01:09:55):
and tangled. So we end up having to call the
Laska State Game to come in and trank liz Us
moose because I mean it was he was just covered
in this barbed wire after an hour. And this was
I was twenty two, so I was just bright eyed,
bushy tailed, fresh into the wildlife field and moose are
my favorite animal by far, and so I was just like,
can I help, And they're like, yeah, here's the clippers

(01:10:17):
you can clip off the wire. And I was so
excited and so we get the moose down. I run
up to it. I'm clipping all the wire and the
biologist was like, yeah, I just can't a run your
fingers through the firm make sure there's no large gashes.
And the best way I can explain this is that
in a Jurassic Park, when the couple go to the
park for the first times out of very familiar with

(01:10:46):
so they see that try saratops and it's on the
ground and the guy gives it a big hug and
it takes that deep breath. I did that with a
moose and it was the greatest day of my life.
And so we were able to get the barbed tire
off of it, you know, we're able to put the
reversal ind and he was able to get up and
walk away. That's cool wild. But oh, my backtrack a

(01:11:08):
little bit. So when this moose was covered in barbed wire,
he eventually stopped fighting the other moose because he was
just more concerned with this barbed wire. Though he's been licked, right, yeah,
So I mean he's just shaking his hand, he's trying
to get it off, and like I said, there's a
lot of people all, you know, spectating, and he was
rubbing up against a bush trying to get this barbed
wire off. And there was this car parked next to

(01:11:30):
this bush, and he walks right up to this car
and this lady has her falling out. She's just taking
pictures and he just rubs himself across the side of
her car. And I was like that insurance claim, He's
gonna be great. Like what happened all this moose try
to rub barbed wire off on my car. Yeah yeah,
you imagine the skepticism. Yeah wow, No kid, You know

(01:11:51):
I had a thing. I put it on Instagram, but
I don't think we talked about on the show. Is
this guy sitting in in Ohio three perfectly fine deer,
like a really nice buck, a nice buck and a
doe dead in a pile and it had there It
was a down power line and these two bucks must

(01:12:14):
have been duking it out and there was a dough
there and one of them hit that power line with
its antler and just in a pile. Wow. Well, and
they said that they got to the fire department, got
the skulls and got them cleaned for to decorate the firebarn,
and a dude down the road took all the meat,

(01:12:34):
which leads me to my next question. I'm not gonna
ask you a question. I'm gonna ask you this because
so you have a you have a job, and you
want to keep your job, and no doubt, there's like
certain things you just don't talk about. I'm gonna tell
you a story before I ask the question. A friend
of mine I can't name them, used to do fish
surveys um for this well for our home state used

(01:12:56):
to do fish surveys in Michigan and they would have
to do nets surveys just to count what was in
the lake, right, but they were not allowed to utilize
the resource because they felt that it was a conflict
of interest. So they would go and do these net surveys,
and then he would go out and they had a
spot out in the woods where they would have to

(01:13:20):
dump it all. So he would come home, get his
own vehicle, get his cooler full of ice, and promptly
zip back out there and get all the whitefish and
northerns and perch and get them all filaied up and
give them out to everybody. Question being if I asked

(01:13:41):
you if you ever eat the stuff that you control,
would you be able to answer honestly or would you
probably not answer honestly? Yeah, No, honestly we don't. So
a lot of things that we control, well no, no,
So like when we like when we shoot deer, we
donate all that meat, so it actually goes to food
for hunger, donate the meaning so do you have to
do all the field dressing? So yeah, we have to

(01:14:04):
um field dress it. But then the butcher will do
all the processing, so you gotta go fiel dress. Yeah, well,
let me ask you this. So you dragged the gut
pile off to the side of the runway, A bunch
of big ass vultures land on there. Old Souley comes
in and what hits a vulture? Do you ever think
about that? Well, I wouldn't dress it right next. Yeah,

(01:14:27):
you don't want to put anything like attractive next to
your runaway, so yeah, no, we would you describe the
white starks and labba as a tender meat. That'd have
been a better way to do it. Yeah. Yeah, Like
which region were you? So? Do you like the deer

(01:14:47):
meat that you take? No? So you guys will you
guys will fin you'll you'll be responsible for getting it
dressed yep, and bring it to a butcher yep. Yeah.
So then it gets donated and then it just depends again.
It's all region. So when I was in Alaska, even
all the ducks and stuff that we caught, we wou
address him and then they would get donated to the
elders of the community. You're kidding, huh. That's a lot

(01:15:09):
of extra work. That's cool, It's worth it, though, it's
better than just tossing them all the time. I'm telling
their story about my same friend that I can't mention
his name. He later in life had a job as
a surveyor and they were surveying a place one time
and it was full of He found someone's little weed plantation.
This is pre pre when everybody loved weed, like when

(01:15:32):
a lot of people still hate a weed, like the cops.
He finds a giant where a guy's growing a giant
thing of weed, and they're surveying it, and he keeps
an eye on this area and pretty soon they go
they clear it. Dozers come in to clear the lot.
So just like he did with those fish, he then
snuck back out there at night and got all the
weed that the bulldozers, that got all the buds that

(01:15:54):
the bulldozers had cleared off into the back end of
the debris pile, and brought all that home. I think
about that. That's a good gig. No, this guy's very
a job. I'll say one more thing. He told me.
They would go into the up where you're familiar with surveying,
and sometimes they'd be surveying in the wintertime and they're

(01:16:15):
out and all that seedar swamp, you know, and they'd
cuddle line way through the woods and the deer would
be you know, let deer have a hard go of it.
And those winners up there and those deer would know
they would come to a sound of a chainsaw and
you'd clear a big line to shoot a line. So

(01:16:35):
you'd like clear it all through the swamp and you
get your two things, those little looking holes in there
that you look through the line them up when you
survey in, and the deer would flood in so much
to the sound of the chainsaw that you couldn't shoot
the even though you cleared the line, you couldn't shoot
the line because so many deer would be in that thing,
and they'd have to have a person such as yourself

(01:16:56):
trying to clear the deer out to be able to
survey the thing. That's amazing. It's an amazing story. You
like that story, Phil loved it. I just have a
question about any stats that you have of like yearly
or over the course of a number of years, like
the costs to airlines of damage. Yeah, so the average

(01:17:24):
right now is about two hundred and eight million um
it did it has gone up, So this is like again,
this is like an average between the last thirty years.
So it's you know, it's going up a little bit more.
But it's just I mean, it's our planes are getting faster.
We're flying a lot more. Again, there's one hundred and
seventy five thousand flights in a week. That's that's just
in the United States. That's not across the world. And

(01:17:46):
we've been hitting birds forever. So the first documented bird
strike was Orville right in nineteen oh five, right to it. Yeah,
he wrote in his diary that he hit a red
being blackbirds. So this is not anything new. It's just
our aircraft are getting faster. We're in the air Moore
were sharing those these guys like it's just going to happen.
Did he refer to it as snarge? I think he did.

(01:18:08):
When when did I guess the airport biology become h formalized,
just like a job within the USDA to even have
you know, have this be a position. Yeah, I think
it was in the early nineties, And it was that
strike that happened in Alaska, that was that fatal strike,
and that fatal strike was um it was a military

(01:18:30):
aircraft and it was brought the whole aircraft was brought
down by a flock of geese and it killed everybody
on board. There was like over thirty souls, and so
that was kind of a big jump with like, Okay,
we need to do something about this so this doesn't
happen again. That's when they recognized it as Yeah, even
though that's so funny, that was his name was Wilbur Orville.

(01:18:51):
Orville was will Who the hell? Oh no? Those two brothers,
the brothers, Yeah, okay, yeah, the two brothers, which one
which one of the brothers had a red wing blackbird
or and I think he did his first flight in
nineteen oh three. Yeah, it's amazing those like he like
identified it. Did he write about it as have you
ever read his journal? Did he write about it as, oh, hey,
if we get into this flying thing, this is gonna

(01:19:12):
be something to keep in mind. I think it was
just a really brief mention about the fact that he
hit or read being blackbird out and when he was
in I think Dayton, Ohio. Yeah. Yeah. If you if
someone if someone comes you and says, man, I want
to get a job as an airport biologist, do you
do you say good luck? Or are you like, oh,
you just gotta do X, Y and Z and you'll
get the job. Yeah. So it's it's definitely a growing field.

(01:19:36):
So it's just again as we're recognizing more and more
need for it. You know, we have technicians, we have biologists.
I mean, we cover all the airfield or mostly airfields
in the state or sorry, gosh, mostly airfields in the country,
and so it's definitely growing. A lot of people just
don't know that we exist. So I mean, like wildlife
tech positions, they are open quite often. And if you're

(01:19:59):
ever interested getting into this field, as long as you're
willing to move around, it's like how I moved right
to Alaska. Once you're that foot is in the door, like,
you can pretty much you can live anywhere in the
country really, because every airfield needs somebody like us. Yeah.
And then it's a it's a federal salary deal yep,
it's good healthcare. Yeah. Then you gotta worry about when

(01:20:21):
the government shuts down. Nope, because we are considering emergency personnel.
You need to worry about that. So when that happens,
and when that happens coming up here, you'll just you'll
still be out there cranking away. Oh yeah, because they're
still flying. Yeah, I got you. Uh does every airport
have to use the federal agencies? Like, let's like, why

(01:20:44):
does an O'Hare airport or some giant ass airport like that?
They don't do in house like you guys do that work.
There are some private agencies that do it as well.
Just with a federal we get the federal expertise, and
we are wildlife professionals and you know, we don't have
inherent authority like we don't we're not a regulated service,
so we do work closely with US Fish and Wildlife Service.

(01:21:06):
We work with the state agencies to get permits and stuff. Um,
so we have the ability to really you know, trap
and relocate raptors and working with all the migratory birds
and stuff. Yeah, do you You know what I also
want to ask you about is do you are you
from with a thing called avatroll like an avian like
an avian poison. Yeah, I've like I've heard of it,

(01:21:30):
but that's not something that you guys use are allowed
to use. I hear people use it for street pigeons. Yeah,
we don't use it in myerfields. No, no, but what
like what is it? I don't know because I hear
people refer it like uh like um like rat poison
for pigeons. You don't have any exposure to that. I
don't personally have any experience using it. See that's you

(01:21:53):
guys can't get like you guys can't get like medieval
like that with with poisons. Um not for me personally, No, No,
I just don't have the experience. Do you guys have
issues with iguanas? Let I say we have iguanas in Michigan. No, no, no,
I mean not in Michigan. No. But you know, I

(01:22:14):
guess what are the top like maybe other than birds,
the top disruptive critters that we maybe wouldn't think I
think additionally, Yeah, so I know, like white tail deer
and coyote are going to be our two highest mammal strikes.
Yeah really yeah. They love airfields. What does the picture

(01:22:37):
of being a little I don't know, spooked or like
a little sly, you know, like like I don't get
off because they because there's a bunch of out there,
they're they're hunting, all their presources are right on that airfield. Really,
short grass vowles my stuff, like yep, exactly what do
you do to get rid of them, are usually trapping.

(01:22:57):
How do you catch well? You do, yeah, seriously, So
you gotta make a little dirt hole set alongside the runway,
not exactly alongside the runway, but yeah, I mean because
you're not focusing just on that runway. I mean you're
using the entire de of the airfield properties, and so
it's you know, finding their habitat and stuff and where
you get to do a little kyote trapping too. Okaid,

(01:23:19):
what else do you gotta catch like that? Using like
old school stuff boxes? Yeah, some air fields probably, Yeah,
I will catch boxes and stuff too. It's just again,
every air fields different. So it's really just whatever is
prevalent at your airfield and running around your airfield. So
let's say you call it a bobcat, You're probably gonna
move them somewhere. I think Bob's cats are pretty sly.

(01:23:42):
Like you just said of kayotes, I've never heard of
any bobcats causing issues on an airfield. But again, I've
never been in a region that had bobcat issues like that.
Coyotes and deer deer, I could definitely picture snowy owls. Yeah,
snowy owls are probably one of the big things this
time of year. So that's the other thing is just
every time of year, seasonally, you're gonna have different things

(01:24:04):
that you're after. So this time of year in you know,
in Michigan and a lot of these like the northern
Lower States, all the snowy owls will come from the
Arctic and they migrate down and when they come down here,
they're trying to find something that is as close to
their habitat as possible. What's the closest thing to the Arctic.
They want something wide open and flat. So when I

(01:24:25):
tell when people are like I really want to see
a snowy owl, I'm like, go to your local airfield
because they love it there. And then when they're down
there or when they come down here, they they love
the airfield. Maybe if there's not a whole lot of snow,
they're gonna watch sun something white and a lot of
runway lines are white, and so they'll hang out on
a US sit on the runway, they'll use the signs,

(01:24:45):
they'll just and then great, there's just tons of like
voles and mice and like it's like a buffet out
there for them. How do you catch one of those
using those raptor traps. What do you bait it with pigeons?
Do you ever get a snowy owl that you've banded
it in a litt skill that shows up on an
airfield in the lower forty eight um. Not necessarily out

(01:25:05):
of Alaska, but there are times that we will ban something,
relocate them, and then they'll get picked up into another
airfield because again it's just they love that wide open
flat area. So they just airfield hop are sandhill crane's
an issue? Yeah, so I have them on occasion, but
I have heard, you know, in other states that they
can you know, they'll come across and like large flocks

(01:25:26):
and stuff. Probably picture that taking a plane down. Yeah,
snargo come off one of those things, big long bones
and stuff coming out of there. Oh oh, so when
you're doing your foothold draps, I mean, air airfields are
pretty busy places just from you know, my point of view,

(01:25:48):
a landing on them and taking off and stuff. There's
like folks walking around all so do you kind of
have to like I imagine there's a lot of communication, right, like, oh,
there's foothold traps out here, so don't go walking out
on this area to have lunch or something like that.
Or is there just a huge amount of ground that
nobody ever walks on in an airfield. So yeah, most

(01:26:11):
of the time it's just a huge amount of ground
that people are just not around. But you put the
signs out, you know, this is going what's going on
on my base. You know, we work with security forces
and let them know. You know, we'll let if there's
an airfield that's got kenine units and stuff. We always
you know, we try to be cognizant of who may
be coming around here, who may be attracted to the
lures and stuff we're using. Yeah, so yeah, it is.

(01:26:32):
You know, you're working with your airfield. You're working with
your airfield operations, your airfild managers. You know, there's it's
a whole team of people that are doing this. So
you know, we are the experts in doing the airfield
managed wildlife management, but with airfield we have then actual
airfield management who are out there all the time, so
they probably observe just as much as we do. So
we do a lot of education and outreach with people

(01:26:53):
across our base, people across the airfield. This last year
I just started a I'm calling it the snow spot.
So I put out flyers and was like, hey, who's
the first person to see a snowy owl? Now this
is my You know a lot of people are just
birders and they're just excited to see a snowy But
for me, it's like, this is great because the second
snowy owl shows up on my base, I'm going to
be notified about it and I can start managing for them.

(01:27:15):
So just getting people involved is actually so a lot
of times people are like, oh, you're trying to be
hush hush. It's like for me, no, Like I love
telling people what we do and educating people what we
do because in turn it'll help us do our job.
Cool if you go, if you go to do an
interview like this, you gotta go get you probably just
can't do it on your own, right, you gotta go
get permission. Yeah, pretty much. It's hard to get permission, no,
because we're not ashamed or we're not hiding anything that

(01:27:38):
we're doing, And so getting to do stuff like this
is a really great opportunity for people to know what
we do because a lot of times it's a thankless job.
I remember when I was in an anchorage there was
there was a group of ducks along in a ditch
along one of the runways. You know, A shot one
of my techniques at them. They flew away, airplane landed.
I happened to look up and it was one of
my friends flying. I texted him and I'm like, I

(01:27:59):
just saved your life. So, I mean, and it's people
don't realize that we're out there and what we're doing.
And you know, it's hard to be like, oh, yes,
because of us, we prevent an x amount of strike,
because it's it's a preventive thing. You know, we're just
trying to reduce the amount of wildlife strikes. We can't
say we're never going to have a wildish strike, but
we're hoping, as you know, those damaging ones will go
down because you know, that's money for the airfield. That's money,

(01:28:22):
you know, our government money and stuff too with new
military aircraft. And then it's people's lives. I mean, if
you have even like a small Cessna hit a large
bird like that can bring it down. Yeah. Like a
great proof of a great job is that there's no news. Yeah,
it's yeah. I try to think of some way to

(01:28:43):
brag it up. But it would be hard. It'd be
like people that point out with TSA, like I don't know,
does it really work? I'm like, I mean, has that
happened since have we had that happened since TSA became
of things? I see, like it seems like something's working. Yeah,
because if he looks atistically, strike numbers have like gone
up exponentially. But it's because of that outreach and education

(01:29:05):
that we're doing. It's hey, guys, like, if you see something,
even if you're like, I don't know if this is
a bug or a bird, snarge collected anyway, because we
can decide that for ourselves. If this is just a
bug and we can ditch it. But if it is
a bird, it's you know, using that information and then
we can get that information to then your return and
you know, manage for it. Who actually collects that's just yeah, right,

(01:29:28):
Like when your plane lands, you know there's like a
cleanup crew that comes into the airplane. Is there like
a snarge specimen collecting crew on the outside of the aircraft,
not specifically, but there are the crews that are checking
to make sure, you know, mechanics are working right and stuff,
and so they're the ones that usually are going to
collect them, So I work with you know, on my base,
I'll work with our maintainers and stuff, making sure they

(01:29:50):
have the kids collecting them appropriately. You know, don't wear
you know, gosh, wear gloves, don't try to touch things
bare hand. Um, and just getting that information we can
and then if we do we get like a whole
bird and stuff we can just if we can identify it,
like yep, that was an Eastern metal arc, We'll just
swim in that a freezer and send it the Smithsonian
some pictures. They're like, yep, it is, then we can

(01:30:10):
dish the carcass it Does it throw off a whole
plane's whole schedule when that happens, Like if that flight
has to leave in forty minutes to go somewhere else,
is it up too bad? We got to take care
of this strike or whatever? Does it? Snarge is usually
pretty depending on if it's just you know, a little
snarge splatter, it's pretty quick just to clear up. If
it's a damaging strike, you know, that could probably slow
down the aircraft itself. But they're actually doing a lot

(01:30:32):
of studies right now on the economic impact of a strike.
So if you have you know it a civilian and
real busy o hair or something, and you have one
an aircraft takeoff, hit some birds. They call in tower like, hey,
I just hit some birds. I got to turn around.
I'm not sure like if that caused damage. And so
they turn around. Now all the aircraft that we're about
to take off, we'll all pause because they're you know,

(01:30:55):
they'll have a your wildlie professionals run out there and
make sure there's nothing that's that they can handle and
take care and get out of the way. And then
now that aircraft just got delayed, the one behind that
one got delayed. The next thing. He knows this domino
effect not only for those airplanes that are trying to
take off, but now all those passengers on that aircraft
now they ought to rebook their flights. So there's actually
a pretty un I mean they're working on it right now.

(01:31:16):
I mean there's been some studies coming out, you know,
trying to see what the economic impact is. You know,
we can say damaging is two hundred and eight million,
but like what about all those ripple effect costs? Right?
I wanted to do one of those analyzes around air
Force one because like during Obama's two terms. I got seriously,

(01:31:42):
seriously screwed. When they decide to land the plane. I
mean no, I mean it has undo with who it
was as president, but it happened to be. Then how's
for anybody where I'm like, oh, where did they get off?
I mean it close the airport down. And one time
I learned they close the airport down. Listen to this,
They closed an airport. This is how audacious I think

(01:32:04):
this program is. Someone should look into this. He lands
in the big plane, okay, and he's going to make
a stump speech for someone running for Congress. They shut
the entire airport down for the plane to land, Get
in a helicopter, take the helicopter to give a stump speech,

(01:32:26):
a campaign speech, stays closed, comes back, helicopter lands, speech
is over, gets on air force one, air force one
leaves the airport, can resume flying. Wow. Now I traced
the economic impact, and I was particularly incense because I

(01:32:46):
didn't feel like it was of national significance. It was
a speech. Well, I guess you could have like a
plane that would be otherwise taking off for landing, that
would try to crash into the plane issue, right, Like
I think but that's that's why I think, right, I
felt as though if it was I felt as though,

(01:33:08):
you can't do that to people, to go give a
speech for a guy. Okay, I got it. I got
over the anger. But I was like particularly angry for
a while, and I said some things that probably would
have put me on the UM no fly list or
like the Secret Service whatever. You know. I was like,
I was pretty mad. Man, that was pretty bad out
shape about it? Yeah, like fly someplace to diffuse some

(01:33:30):
international situation or make something better for everyone. Yeah, I
can wait. That's great, man. You're gonna diffuse tensions with
North Korea? You know, I can wait. I can wait.
You're gonna go give a speech for some Yahoo running
for office yep, so we can lock up some sector
in Iowa or yeah. Man, people got a place to go,

(01:33:52):
they got things to do. Got it? You seem incredulous? No,
I just I'm amused. Megan. You can play trivia? Yes,
oh I got. I had one last question for you, though.
Did you grow up hunting? Yes? Okay, yes, I did
grow up. My I have an older brother that just
wasn't into the hunting fish. Well, he does fish, but

(01:34:13):
he was just not into that outdoorsy thing. And so
when I came around, my Dad's like, it's gonna be you.
Oh really, So he took me out hunting and I
was real little, and you know, it just gave me
some hostess, you know, cupcakes and stuff. We're like to
sit here quietly. Your brother wasn't into it, and your
dad was cool. Your dad like it took you on. Yep.
Do you look him back on it? Do you think that,

(01:34:34):
let's say your brother had been into it, would you
have gotten the same opportunity or would your dad have
been Oh no, this I got my boy and that's
my hunting body and you'd got left in the dust.
Or do you think he would have either way of
giving you the opportunities. Oh, I'm pretty bullheaded, So I
probably would have still tried to join because it was
interesting me. Right. So it's just something that interested me,

(01:34:56):
and my dad capitalized on it. And it wasn't just
the hunting and ching aspect. But you know, when I
went out to I was like eight or nine years old.
We did this big road trip out to Yellowstone, hit
all the national parks and my mom had me and
my fund all the way through. Yeah, but just like
you know, being out in nature getting to see all
these like the megafauna and stuff. And my mom had
me and my brother write essays about our trip, and

(01:35:18):
I wrote in there how I wanted to like work
in the wildlife sector like that, Like all right, yeah,
I said, I think I wanted to be a National
park ranger. But like I didn't you know to me
at eight year old, like that was all the same
any but it was in the wildlife fields. Like I've
known what I wanted to do since I was a kid.
Were you big into Independence Day celebrations too, fireworks? Yeah,

(01:35:39):
it really spoke to me. Yeah. So yeah, when you
filled out your application, you'd be like, I love doing
shooting off fireworks. I like shooting guns romaniac. Yeah. Did
they when you applied, did you weigh in how you'd
had Like did they care that you'd had hunting experience
or did that? Was that inconsequential to them? Yeah? So
with the work that we do in wildlife services, having
those grounds definitely help because you just want people to

(01:36:01):
be comfortable with it. You don't want to give a
firearm to somebody who has never touched one before, maybe
be you know, really scared to hold one, and you know,
not even just to shoot stuff. So having those backgrounds
are definitely beneficial. Great, not necessary, but it definitely helps.
Now back to trivia. Have you have you ever heard
the trivia shell? Yeah, my husband and I have played
trivia every week since it came out. WHOA and how

(01:36:26):
do you do? Do you beat the Shelby Index? Do
you beat like? Do you beat like krine? Do you
beat cow? Everybody beats karne Um? I usually am right
there with the Shelby Index, But disclaimer, I also I
also pause it and think about it. So actually being
in person, real time, I have no idea how all
this is stressful. Yeah, so you're not. You don't know how.

(01:36:49):
You don't think you're gonna like tear it up. You're
gonna hold your own. I'm gonna survive, Okay. And then
have you coordinated with Spencer about what bone he's gonna
throw you when he gives you like a bonus question.
I haven't had a chance to talk to him yet,
So how does he how does he? I don't understand
how does he do this? Because yeah, we talked, we

(01:37:09):
talked about her. He looked at the podcast. No you're
I'm a laugh if he's like, what snarge? Yeah, you know,
when we record the pot, when we record the trivia
show in a minute, I'm gonna be like, well, how
do you know? Well, I know yesterday. That's happened once
before where Spencer's not a part of not always a
part of the podcast we do before trivia, and we've

(01:37:32):
things would come up on that podcast that were the
bone that Spencer eventually threw to the guests. That happened
once or twice I've noticed. So yesterday the bone he
threw was he just like the person was from Texas,
So you had a Texas reservoir question. But I'm curious.
I'm gonna I'm gonna dig in with him a little
bit about how he's determining what to throw your way. Yeah,

(01:37:53):
could be a host of good questions. Well, you're gonna stay,
You're gonna stick around. Yes, we're gonna need some lunch
or something, and then we're gonna have a trivia Thanks
for coming on. Thank you

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Steven Rinella

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 417: Snarge