Ep. 340: People Getting Confused By Animals

he's six years old. That is not no, you know, but he was just like, I want to learn this everybody else's playing at because it was dumping rain the whole time, and ma'am okay, Tannon five, Tanon five? What's tanon five? Like a cribbage become the We're in a cabin, we have nothing to do. Everybody, it's the best two person card game out there. That's really my old man, you might as well run it, turn it the machine

on in my old man. In my old man's old age, him and his friends were very into taking any kind of oddball item and drilling whatever hundreds of holes you need to drill into it to make a cribbage score card. So if like someone found an antler, right, you do that with it. If someone's like, look at this old bowling pin at a heart at a yard sale, they would band saw the bowling pin and a half and then I want to take it home, and my dad would take his home and they'd go up and drill

holes in it. Yeah, hunters, and they would have a bowl, a bowling pin, crimpage board. Yeah, it didn't matter what, anything that would accommodate one on it. I know you're not a card game enthusiast, and if either of you, if your brothers aren't either, Oh no, we played cards like a madman growing up. Yeah, but I've offered to to play with you since we've known each other. Well, I just want to saying around, I'd be honored to take it and keep it, you know, alive. When I

go home. When I go home to visit my mom soon here, I will bring you back. I'll probably bring you a bowling ball, one bowling pin, one which I feel still laying around. I'll definitely find some antler ones and I'll bring him to you. We played. We used to throw craps on an army blanket because that's how my dad did it in the army we would, Um, he'd like pin He'd lay the blanket on the ground and pin it up the wall as the backboard. She said, when you're throwing apps in the army, it needs to

be quiet, so you it wouldn't make any noise. You threw the dice and it hit a wall, a wool blanket hanging on the wall, and would be like silent crabs. Um. We played a lot of poker, a lot of poker, and everybody had like a sock follow change, Mm hmm, go get your sock, dude. I could tell you, like a very great story about one of those socks. Will the change if I couldn't do it on this show doesn't involve violance, it was. I would absolutely tell a

violent story. It's not a violent story. It's a sexy story. But yeah. Joined today by John Mollem, who's been on the show how many times? Once twice twice, at least twice. He has a brand spickitty new book out, Serious Face Essays by John Wellem, several of which pertained to the stuff we like to talk about. That's right, because you, um, you have a things you're right about. One of the

things you write about. I don't know if you describe it this way, but you write a lot about human relationships with nature, especially when they get a little they go a little haywire. I think that's like, how do

you put it? I like to think of it as I like to write about people who are getting really confused by animals, you know, because the there's lots of stories where a bunch of people are doing very confusing, nutty things, trying to accomplish something, and there's an animal right in the center of the story, and the animal can't tell its side of the story, so you just get to deal with all the people acting crazy. And

something about that really scratches an itch for me. Like if you could go to a monk seal and say what do you think about all of this? You know what, I think he'd say. I think he wouldn't know that it's going on, absolutely not. I always say that the animals always have no comment, you know, and that in some ways I think that that brings the crazyness of

people into higher reliase because they get to speak for it. Yeah, because if you they get to speak for it, and it turns out that it says many different things to them, to many different people. And if you have a story where there's some kind of controversy among people, then you have to go around as a journalist and talk to all of those people and align their accounts and somehow

makes sense of all their different stories. But if one the main character in the story is an animal and they're not talking, then you can just show the nuttiness of people. It's a very pure way I think to show how dysfunctional we are as a species is to show us kind of colliding up against some other species. I can't tell if I'm gonna beat your ass in trivia? Are you staying for trivia? You're definitely gonna beat my ass in trivia without a doubt. No, I think that

you don't know. I think you're going to be a strong player. I think you're gonna be a very strong player. I think you've already gotten in my head where I'm feeling like you're gonna beat my ass trivia. So my game is collapsed. Okay, well we'll see, we'll see my game is so I started out strong. Um, we'll have already talked about this, but our trivia show has gone weekly. Um. It's a weekly release hosted by Spencer new heart. I think you'll do good, but I think I'll beat you

because here's the deal. You'll do good on all the geography like history stuff, you'll do good on, but there's gonna be some like technical there's gonna be some technical archery question or something that I might be like, oh, I remember what that is, and you're just not going to know. I mean, am I the only guest you've ever had on the show who's never hunted? So I'm already a disadvantage. I feel you're of a very small few. No,

that's not really true. Okay, As a casual listener to the show, I definitely feel like I'm I'm not qualified to be here. But like, but that's gonna come out in the trivia. But I know for a fact that you almost hunted, that's right, because you got real curious about the deer in your yard. Well, you've got me a real curious about it. I did go hunting once. We may have talked about this once. I did go hunting once, but we did not see an elk the whole time I was out there, and that sharpened my

appreciation for hunting for sure. Where are you at with the deer in New yard right now, you haven't eaten one. Well know, the where I'm at with the deer in my yard is I spent a lot of the pandemic building a deer fence, and it became like, you know, my, my, what's what like? It was like my Vietnam. You know. It was like me just like in an intractable situation, biting off more than I could chew, trying to protect

your garden, trying to protect my garden. I mean mostly okay, so it mostly started as I was really a yes, no, I mean I was so I had I had the last book I had come out, came out on March, I think, so I had all this time blocked out. I was gonna go on a big book tour, you know, it was going to be like a big deal. And then it all got crushed. And I was home doing Zoom second grade with my daughter, just hating life. And I got real mad one day and I went out

and there's I live on Bambridge Island. There's not much to do there. So I drove out of my driveway in a in a huff, and I went and I bought. I went to the garden center because that was like the only place you could go to blow up some steam, and I impulse bought four little fruit trees. And then I got home and I realized the deer are gonna tear these things apart. So I decided I would just build a fence around the little fruit trees. And then I was like, well, why don't I just build a

fence around everything? And that really spiraled out of control. So I built like it's something like six hundred feet of fence, and um, it took me, I mean many ups and downs, psychological as well as logistical. I think I did all right for someone had never done it. Be like what you put in a wooden post and yeah, yeah, and then deer netting through some of the woods and stuff. So I finally finished in July, and I had an opening ceremony two for all the people would help me.

I invited them, I gave some some remarks, I gave a little speech. In front of the fence. We had like red, white and blue bunting on the fence. We had a cake, we had a fence cake. And since then, I'm happy to report there's only been like one or two occasions when I've seen a deer inside the fence, and I think it's because my fence butts against my neighbor's fence and they're jumping over that fence. So the next summer's project could be that's that's your Cambodia, that's

that's right Vietnam. It said the right thing. Um. So that's the situation where the deer is that there. We've sort of reached an understanding. I think, um that is becoming uh, it's ZEITGEISTI in a way, because that's becoming a thing um where I grew up is they are taking orchards um, and I mean hundreds of acres of orchard and building exclosures, which was just not a thing

as a kid. And I think this is going to have We're talking about major reductions in habit deer habitat in that instead of trying to protect individual saplings, these are orchards around my buddy Maths place. They're a bunch of them. Now they're doing it with state funding, like state offsets, because it's just pist and match about it's the state's deer, right. They're building these deerproof fence around like several hundred acre farms and being like there are

no deer on this chunk of land anymore. Yeah, that's what I did with my not several Yeah, that bumbs me out that you did that. Well, I left half to write an article about that. I left half the property. The deer can go there. They just you know you you did the same thing with your garden. No, I didn't do my yard, and in my garden he didn't do. I did about it's probably like two and a half acres. Yeah. Yeah, that's a sizeable fans. Yeah, and what do you think

birds come in there? No, as soon as I see a bird, um. No, But you know, the coyotes still come through. They still come in because the wooden panels of the fence, the openings are fairly large. Build the fence, then we got a dog. The dog goes right through the fence. That was dumb, you know, get the dog first, then build a fence. But yeah, the deer, you know, there's plenty of room for the deer on Bainbridge. I'm not worried about them. John joined us on episode two

sixty six. Okay, threre times a charm. Creane calls you a brilliant writer. Thank you, I love this. Um Okay, we're gonna getting all that. Oh we just we just reminded everybody that the podcast is not weekly. Is there anything in here and I need to say about that wherever you listen to podcast, Apple, Spotify, et cetera. But do you don't have to subscribe to like another show its Feet, It serves on this feed. You don't need

to do ship right, So stay if you are. If you have not subscribed to the Meat Eat podcast feed on the various platforms that you listen on, please subscribe, and Trivia will just slide in on my phone. I have a little thing in my notes on my phone. I have a thing called podcast, and I just write down things that I feel like I should talk about on the show. I was in the Fort Myer, Florida airport and there was two I was like by two girls that sort of like ran it, knew each other

and ran into each other unexpectedly. I love when that happens. One of them said, this is a quote where you headed end quote quote to Durango to stay in a yurt. I had pointed out that like your stairs were they very hipsterish like the rs so like I feel that yours are very left wing and it's like staying in a year has become like a thing in and of itself. You would never say, I'm going to Durango to stay

in a tent. Do you know what I'm saying. You'd be like, I'm going to Durango to stay in a camper. It's like a market. It's like you're defining yourself. You know, you're attaching yourself to that type of person who goes around and stays in another thing. I might not. I gotta hit a couple of these things. And does this person even though that your is a ubiquitous term. That's a lot of different structures like, um, yeah, I didn't.

I didn't interview that. John would have been in their interviewing, But no, I didn't even know that. Um My, buddy, ron he's telling me about his pet crow as a kid, like Seth had a crow and Ronnie had a crow, and he when he was little, he got it out of the cemetery him his buddies each took one, climbed up and got him out of a nest, and he raised it up and the crow would like to go

out with him hunting other birds. He was little, he had a pellet gun, and he'd shoot a bird okay, and the crow would Peckett's eyes out, and then the crow would eat the bird's liver. And I knew that much, but I didn't know this. One day, Ronnie and this crow, we're out and Ronnie dropped a pellet while he was loading his pellet gun. The crow ate it and died right in front of him. That's some lived by the sword,

died by the sword ship right there. Last one, Cal, I had a dream in which you said, and this is the greatest line you've ever said. You said that you hold on in your dream dream state. The only good thing Calls said is something that's the best thing your version of Cal. You imagine it's you using cow. It's like a ventrilo because dummy in your sleep, he said, he said he's so tired that his nose hairs are hanging straight down. That's like, that's so tired. Your nose

hair has lost their curl. You know that type of that type of tired. It's great. That should be on the shirt. Oh, tune in right now because tomorrow tune to the meat Eater YouTube channel. Go on YouTube, subscribe to meat eater and you'll see Uh, a very own Jannis to tell Us and Kevin Gillespie preparing a dish with Yanni's special big horn. Ram, Yanni can't remember what it was delicious. I have all the ingredients to make more of it. I'm trying to Masala. No, wasn't Massala.

I feel like I heard like vind like something that's spicy. What We're losing a lot of lists. They're not listening to this. Uh. We just had the Dustin Hoff shooter of the huff Buck, so he was on the show. If he were listening, Um, Dustin Hoff from Indiana killed a giant buck. Realize pretty quickly that it must be

the biggest buck ever killed in Indiana. Turns was the biggest typical white tail ever killed in the U. S A. As a joke, kind of as a joke, he was giving away so much information about where the buck was that kind of as a joke. We were bleeping out names of surrounding landowners. Doug rode In, Doug durn Our, beloved, Dug durn bubbly Doug rode In. The bleeping of the names of the landowners near where this guy killed that big giant buck is funny and adds to the story

in a great and humorous way. But it makes me think of two things. One that Buck is dead. The odds of another like him being around is unlikely. So that's chasing a ghost. This from a man that killed the standard, which remains. He was shocked when he found it, killed it, and never another one. Right, but a lot of nice knocks and ye like, maybe not, maybe they're not the freak, but nice but right his second comment,

it reminds me this is Doug talking again. It reminds me of what the wise and beautiful Pat Dirkin said to me when I brought up my concerns about drawing hunters from out of the area to the Casanovia Northeast Richland County by saying where I killed the standard In an article he was writing for the national publication Quality White Tails. He goes on to say, I'm paraphrasing Pat and my experience, So this is this is him paraphrasing Pat Dirkin says, in my experience, people from outside the

area don't become a problem. It's the locals that were and are the problem. And they already know all about the big deer on your place and the area Doug then goes on to say my experiences that Pat was spot on with that assessment. Dustin Huff pointed out in the podcast episode is me talking, not Pat or Doug. Dust Huff point out the podcast episode that since that he killed this big giant buck, they have found a few bucks dead with their heads cut off, decapitated um.

And he was talking about that, and he was attributing it to people coming to that area now with big buck fever. Doug says, I guarantee you the bucks found dead with the heads cut off after this fella killed that big giant buck was the work of locals, not some poacher's drawn to the area. About hearing about this b G B and three. If you've got kids around, plug their ears and three this Doug talking. When I heard he killed it with a crossbow. I said, fuck yeah,

uh yeah, need do this. He's also he's also really happy that a mostly casual hunter killed that deer. Yeah, I was too. I was happy about that. It was kind of like the I don't want to say it was the focus of the interview. Yeah, you give everybody the story about bighorn sheep tags in New Mexico. This is interesting This is a trend that I don't think is going away. I'm not prepared for this, but I'll give it a go. What the hell were you doing

when you got she sent you the stuff? You don't starty the song and do all ancillary research and yeah, I do, I do what I can. I do what I can. Yeah, I just picked you up all night like reading, like prior finding. I see how it goes. So that way, when Steve doesn't do what he just suggested I do, he can just throw it. I've seen

this for the first time. Uh. It sounds like there's some folks that want to locals in New Mexico want to have more opportunities to hunt big horn sheep in their own state, and one of the options they're throwing around to figure that out is to um take away all of the big horn sheep tags that are available to non residents. There's only seven permits available for non

residents in New Mexico. Um. But that's an idea of getting thrown around, and it's going to be heard by I don't know some you know New Mexican game and fish the commission and whatnot. Person wrote in well, I was gonna hit this point. Okay, go ahead. Well I was just gonna we're gonna tag team the story Steve. Steve read up as I was giving you that. So

here's a perspective on it. Residents of New Mexico would be like, it doesn't make sense that I have to try to get a sheep tag my whole life and never get one, and it's stayed owned wildlife, and I'm just I'm here in state. And and then when they give a ram take out it's some hoser from wherever. Yeah, some holes are from Minnesota draws the sheep tag and and this you know, yeah, Yanni's a nonresident big horn hunter because he he used to live in Colorado, moved away,

drew a tag. And now here's an example of you know, he should have liked by some people's perspective, Um, he should have when he moved away. That should have been the end of him trying to get a tag there because he doesn't live there. This guy points this out, This is a fallure rights in from Texas. Um never hunted big horns as a Texas resident, he has We'll just say he has zero chance because they give out a tag. I think Texas does one like only do one general draw tag a year in Texas. I think

it's something like that one or two. Yea. It's like there's like uh tag in Texas. So it's never gonna happen for me. Yet he's a supporter of the Wild Chief Foundation because he dreams of someday hunting a ram. This trend word to catch on and continue. Um, he doesn't see in his view residents Uh, you know, aspiring sheep hunters from outside of New Mexico are gonna have zero incentive to give two ships about what's going on with sheep or sheep in New Mexico if this were

to become a trend. The guy in Florida who is a big wild Sheep supporter, but the Western states all say, like, no non residents, what is that? What are the implications for that? His relationship to sheep and sheep conservation? Good question. Yeah,

the sheep thing is an amazing deal. Right. You go to Wild Sheep Foundation, which raises an unbelievable amount of cash at their annual banquet sheep show, and if you really wanted to do the math, it is the tiniest majority, your tiniest minority of people in that room have killed the greatest majority of sheep, and the vast majority of people there at this point will likely never draw a

sheep tag, but their cough up cash too. What was that was that sort of like club they have the less than one is the So there's multiple clubs in there, but there's the less than one club, which is if you have never drawn a sheep tag or I'm sorry, you've never successfully harvested a sheep, then you can pay some cash to uh ideally up your odds for a series of drawings that you must be present to win, which is pretty cool. I drew a sheep tag. Remember

it was in the wrong continent. No, No. The outfitter was like, oh god, you're not seventy and they kind of like refused to call me back. And I got ahold of sheep wild Sheep, and I was like, hey, you guys paid a lot of money for this hunt. This isn't working out and it just kind of died from there. Yeah, and they're like, well, you know you could sell that uh hunt. I said, So this outfitter that I'm having all sorts of good luck with, you want me to sell the to somebody else. I'm like,

I don't want to go on it. Why would I sell it to somebody. I think you're right, though, Steve, that states are going to continue to clamp down on the number of like once in a lifetime tags available to non residents. I'm pretty sure Wyoming's working something. I

know Wyoming is working on half of its residence. When we were talking about the like recent issues around you know, the conversation around lead non lead, and I all I said, I said one day on this same digital radio program, I said that conversation ain't going away, and that got people mad to observe that a conversation ain't going away.

This conversation is not going away. But one thing that's confus using to me is from the Wild Sheeps the Wild Cheep Foundation's website, even though they seemed well, I don't know what their position is, but at the at the end of their notes as bottom line, this discussion over New Mexico big horn sheep would be dramatically different if it were not for the decades of support brought by nonresident hunters that have significantly contributed to successfully growing

the state's sheep population. The discussion would be why don't we have more sheep? Real conservation work is growing the pie for everyone, not fighting over the slice. The point this is a proposal to this is not so then I so that kind of seems to be in the spirit of what the listener is. For sure, you have this argument of like, well they're paying more money, you

guys should like that. And then you get into this whole other world of auction tags and governors tags, and he's like, well, these people are paying the most money, right, so should we give them more to it? Sure? And then you got res in so they're like, what the hell? Yeah, And you know, it's like when it used to be able to what did prior in the nineties here in Montana, what were your special draw applications? What was the cost

prior to the big bump up to two? It was something I know that not for non residents it was six hundred bucks a pop. And I think for residents it was like twenty bucks a pop or fort sub twenty not more something like that. Oh no, no no, I'm wrong, I'm wrong. I think it was seventy five bucks. I don't know anyway, when that jump, how about not a shipload? Not a shipload would be great to what most people would consider a shipload when that jump occurred here. I

can't tell you how many people. We're like, well, that prices me out of the Game's weird because the ones in a lifetime tag, like in Colorado, residents kicking like two for once in a lifetime tags, and it's ten times that for a nonresident. But it's still like Montana is cheap for ye sheep. It is, but it's it's you know, we we talked about it all the time. It's like that, what are you getting for that cost at the pump? It's like, well, I do burn a lot of gas, but I go here and I do

all this stuff and it makes me super happy. But a lot of people are like, I'm not driving. Here's a little tidbit some people might appreciate different states that do like nonresident tag draws. They run different programs where in some states you have to pre pay. I don't know what it is now, but it used to be in Montana you had to prepay for any tag that you applied for. So if you applied for Moose, sheep and goat as a nonresident, you had to send a

cash year's check. I think it was eight hundred bucks a piece because you had to send a cashiers check I think for dollars if you're gonna do all three. Oh and then because the problem they would run into is people would apply for stuff they had no way of paying for, and then you do the draw, and then you got all these these people that then they can wait all these months for they buy the tag. They never come up with the money, so then they're like, Okay,

you gotta pay up front. Some states do it where you submit a credit card number and they're like, you need to make sure that credit card is active and that your credit card company is aware that there could be a ding, because if that credit card is rejected, we go to the next name. And so they do their draw, It spits out names, they run the credit card. If that credit card has any problem, it's onto the

next name. And I've heard from people over the years who like, for whatever reason, head over, didn't pay overdrawn and miss their chance because their credit card got no second chance. It's like when that thing goes, it goes. And the remember when Chris Denim used to do from Western Hunter, when he used to do tag draw stuff, he said, I keep a credit card only for this purpose. And I know that there's no problem with that credit card.

There's nothing on it. Does he make like ten dollar charges like you know soda pop at the cast and on time? Uh? And I heard someone won't say that. Um, the reason States made you prepay is they're making all this money on interest, and so they like to have this two months where they're holding hundreds or millions of dollars.

Someone said, man, when you and someone said the interest if you, if you think about the time, the interest wouldn't pay for the return postage to send that person's check back, not counting like the banking fees and all that for how long they're actually holding this pile of money. Yeah, that's why they all went digital now, is because they were losing money with the amount for what it costs to deal with the processing of the checks and then

and then mailing back refunds, et cetera very costly. Watch this transition. You're ready, I'm ready. The guy tam Van Tron is a licensed commercial fishermen in the region of San Francisco, California. He goes out into a protected marine preserve at the Fairy Lan Islands, sets traps in the marine preserve. The Fairy Island Marine Preserve where he's not you dassn't set your traps there, says traps catches nearly three hundred dungees, Dungeoness craps, two sixty Dungeoness crabs in

those traps. Dungeoness crab. Right now, it's going for a dead middle price. So we're we're assuming, like you know, it's a varied price. We're saying about it's about pound okay, the middle of the road Dungeoness crab. Wait, it's two pounds. This all your math? Grin, No, this was a podcast listener. But I think I think I bought Dungeoness crab for like before. But I spent some time in San Jose and um, you know what's funny. Oh no, we were eating shrimp last night, but I gave away a bag

of Dungeoness crab last night. I realized I gave away probably the dungeons last night. But um, uh no, I know last night I gave away twenty four dollars for the Dungeoness crab. So I remember buying it when it would come in, and I remember buying it that you could buy, uh, Dungeoness crab for seven dollars. Oh huh in California. That's like live crab, probably coming right off the boat. You know, I used to buy it because

I liked it. So this guy has seven thousand dollars worth of illegally caught crab more or less more rounding off figures the fine for doing such the fine million bucks fair excessive. I think that the rub is that he was in, not that he like overcapped in an area he was supposed to be in. It's like intentionally went to a marine preserve. Oh, he's claiming that he didn't know the waters were closed. Come on, according to

the right. And then they and then they also said don't touch your traps, don't retrieve anything, don't move them nothing, leave them alone. And after he was told this by the authorities, the authorities did find that some traps were they were pulling traps and letting crabs going. They knew where they all were, and while they're pulling them, they realized that two dozen were missing. What are they were doing that just to kind of gay estimate how many

crabs could have been caught? That wasn't really explained in the arm. They probably wanted to seize them all. I would imagine, can we get that broken. The traps, well, yeah, they were leaving them like pulling traps, throwing the crabs back and then leaving them in the water, even in the water the traps. Let's say, get by the cops for a d y right then go okay, this is the thing you're yeah, okay, now go park your vehicle and we'll take you to jail. That's what's happening here

right there. Like you stay away from all this stuff because you you can no longer fish. That's the situation that you're in. And then they got to go go deal with it. I don't think there's much like a like they come out, here's all his traps. They say, you're in restricted waters. Don't mess at the traps. We're gonna pull up traps. Many crabs you caught, and then they're not putting the traps back down. The area is closed because of whale migrations, is not closed as like

a crabbing protection area anyways. In California, UM, the Dungeoness crab industry UH drove thirty million dollars in revenue. One million dollar fine can break that down per crab a million dollars. The one million divided by two sixty, that's going to be more. I don't know, caviar, Hey, have anything we talked about? Strike your fancy? Can you see any big features about anything we've talked about? Six bucks? Yeah? Crap. Now I'm gonna titillate folks with something. Uh. They in

big game poaching a lot of states. I think this is more and more common all the time, in big game poaching a lot of states. Uh, they do a thing where they have to value the wildlife. Are you famor with this? And then if you, like, for instance, if you killed like a dull white tail, they're gonna sign a value to that dull white tail, and it's

gonna be like a modest value. If you were to kill like the huffbuck, like the biggest typical white tail ever killed right in Indiana, and you poach that, they're gonna assign a very different value to that dear and they're gonna look at like what it's market value would be, Like what would some two they have a formula, have a math formula for it. What would some two inch white tail costs someone to go shoot it? In a

high fence operation? And like your dear that white tailed dough was worth a hunter box to hunter box, dear you shots worth, we're gonna say that's worth. But this is this is this is crab crab. I mean, I've got a transition, but then I also wanted to ask John something before we transition, but he's not interested in that. He just told me he doesn't if we transition to his monk Seal story. They're all kinds of numbers listed for like rewards given to people who have uh information

on as you know, killed animal. You have a whole list, but I think yeah, but I think too, you're dealing with two separate things, right, because you're dealing with the value of the wildlife. But also it's penalizing, right, it's a deterrent right to say this guy went out there, he's going to spend a million dollars now for his mistake. That's a deterrent. That's not because they can claim he did a million dollars worth of damage. So and the rewards, to my knowledge, are often put up not by the

government but by like humane society. These are like for killings, you know, like um not as assassinations to call them assassinations. We're not talking about hunting violations. We're talking about you know, someone you know, wrenching the head off a pelican because frustrated. Are sure over in Idaho like that. There's a group that pays bounties you know to uh two trappers and two wolf hunters, private order that kicks in money. Yeah. I think that's pretty but you gotta be a member.

Just sign up ahead of time. It's like joining the Turkey Derby, I think. So. Yeah. I do like to see a fine, though, that seems like more than less because I always feel like when I hear about wildlife, uh finds given out for you know, wildlife crimes or public land sort of infractions or whatever. Really well, if that's all cause, let's all go and do it, and when we get caught, we'll just pay the fine and

keep on doing it, you know. I sometimes I feel that when you're reading about a poaching thing and then you you know, it's like this elaborate, premeditated deal, and you know, and and uh, it winds up being like like even more like people are selling stuff, you know, and it winds up being not well. This was also a commercial fishing violation, which I'm sure factored into that fine too. It's not like some recreational fisherman went out and was over the limit. Be a higher standard of regulation.

If people want to talk about monks, he was last summer, Well we're gonna talk about them big time. Well I'm gonna start it right now. Then last summer, you gotta woman, you gotta set the whole thing up. Man, Can I give you this little anecdote just like this is right last last summer? So then it sounds like a natural transition.

Last summer, you had a woman I think from Louisiana who was on in Hawaii and was you know, there's a monk seal hauled out on the beach and she filmed herself going and touching the monk sealift fine for that. You know, the video went viral, and I think that's all de terrence. She did not she did not cause fifty dollars. She ever actually pay it that, I do

not know. You never hear these things after the fact, right, But but that was the fine they level on the last did her lawyer get away down and you don't know what happened. What happened? It was levied against her. I mean, that's a Dangerous Species Act violation, right, that's harassment quote unquote is defined by the law. Yeah, so, and that's why they have they have seal exclusion zones where they have volunteers and back me up, Steve, backed

me up because this is fast nating. But I want to get to this um in your new book, Serious Face is a what's that one called about the monk seals? I can't believe this is happening? Yeah, can you even believe this is happening? And you even believe this is happening? And it tells the story of the It's kind of an endangered species story. It's like a like a C. S I endangered species of um. Targeted intentional targeted killings of an endangered species. That's right. I call them assassinate.

You called want to fight about that. I wanted to fight about it because when when a hunter shot pedals the bear, So there was a bear was just itching to get right back to that. There there was a bear in New Jersey that had had some deformity at bird. People debate whether it had a deformity at birth or it had been injured, but it would it's it's front feet weren't very functional. It would spend a lot of time walking around on its back feet. Some guy during

the Bear season, Um, I don't know if anyone. We should try to get him on the show, but he's tryably not talking. We have been identified, but he's he talking to he's doing interviews. Know that the hunter has never been identified. There was a lot of everyone thought was one guy, and he started receiving death threats, but I think it's pretty clear it wasn't actually him. Well here's the deal, Um, he would get a sympathetic audience. I'm sure he would. I don't have anything I would want.

I would I would look like the first question I would be like, did you see it coming walking on its back feet? And if so, did you wonder what it was doing? Did you know there was a bear hereabouts that walks on his back feet and has the name Pedals? Or would he say I had no idea to do what it was on It's all four ft when I saw it, I had no idea about any of this. It was just right. But when when Pedals was killed, it was billed that he had been assassinated?

Was it now? Yes, dude? And I could we could find the article. I did not say that one. And when you wrote in a bit you were doing a recap of like important deaths throughout the year, and you did a thing about because you're interested in when wildlife makes people nuts. You recap the pedals story. I don't

remember you using assassinated in it. But then and talking about the killing of monk seals by Hawaiians, you said, you say, I struggle to find the right word for what it is, and you say it's like an assassination. And I wanted to take I wanted to be like, oh, come on, but I'm like no, because it is a political yes, right, like assassination is like a it's a political killing. It's a statement, the golden to achieve. It's to achieve a goal. I would say. I mean, I

haven't looked up and it's a statement. It's meant to be perceived in political terms. I think that guys are really good because I just looked it up on Merriam Webster and it says murdered by sudden or secret attack, often for political core reasons. So in that way, in the story you're going to tell um, I think, does it say people? It doesn't even specify who's doing well, Um, the it's it was comma the act or an instance of an ass of assassinating someone such as a prominent

political leader. But that's why I'm an innovative writer. I mean, that's the beauty of what I'm doing in that piece. Is I'm applying that, you know, I'm I'm seeing it for what it is is that we have built up such a political controversy over this species the other species that we can only really understand it's killing in political terms. And this is crazy, right, It's crazy to say that I'm not That's what I'm acknowledging is it's crazy to

think that a marine mammal can be assassinated. But when you see the facts, that's exactly what's been going on. In a way, I decided where I want you to start. There's a tinge of anthropomorphization there too. There's more than a tingion. I'm just going to back up for hot second. A lot of the headlines that I'm seeing just say killed from like Washington Post, et cetera. Just says killed petals.

But I see it the Newsweek. God Newsweek is infamous for their like beheaded elk headline real quick in Rocky Mountain National Park was a huge bowl and it died. They think it got killed by what do you killed by? Mountain lined mountaine, and so some guy took its head in the headline was that it was They don't say like the famous decapitated, no beheaded, no famous behaded in

Rocky National Park And you're like, oh, that's weird. Like someone walked out to the broad It's like, oh, no, it died and then someone like took the head home. Oh but the newswork headline says the the shameful slaughter of petals the bear crant. If you want to make a cash bet. Hmm. That word was used. It was used in the Pope, not the post. It was used in like one of those digital huff post. Just you go ahead and follow that up up on that. Um, here's what I want you to start, the Monk Seals.

I want you to start the Monk Seals story one thousand five years ago. Sure, one thousand five. Look good, this guy, look at good. This guys he's like, no problem. It was a Wednesday. Um no, I mean that's when. So that's when Polynesians reach Hawaii, right and everything ecologically starts to change, and so you had monk seals, which are because we all know what monk seals are there, giant ass seals. Yeah, I wouldn't say we all know, come on a little bit. I think they're about eight

hundred pounds. That's what blows my mind when we get to the part about the kid that killed one of the rock Yeah, hundred pounds. Yeah, but they're you know, they're sort of defenseless, right, they're not meant so they spend a lot of time. We'll get back to years ago, but well, years ago, they also spent a lot of time.

You know, they swim around, they're eating octopus, they're eating stuff, turning over rocks, and then they come out on the beach and they lay there for hours just digesting, hauled out fully out of the water on the beach and they'll spend hours and hours like that. And their native to them, their native to the islands, and so no, they are there. Yeah, you'll get to that. Yeah. But so once the Polynesians come, it's pretty fast. It seems that the monk seals disappear, at least from the main

Hawaiian islands. Right. They probably have retreated like up into the Leeward Islands. You know, they like frigate shoals, all the ones that we don't really talk about when we talk about Hawaii, the little archipelago that's off to the west toward Fiji, and that's where they stay. Right. So then you fast forward, uh to you know what, I think a thing that people do that annoys me a little bit, and you just did it. What bring it, Steve?

Bring it? There is this thing. There's this thing people say or they're like, you know, there used to be a lot of elk in the Great Plains. Okay, there's this idea that that they retreated from the Great Plains and went into the mountains. What I think happened is they were in the mountains, they were on the Great Plains, and now they're gone from the Great Plants. That's absolutely true. So I don't think that these monk seals moved there. I think they were eliminated from parts of their range

and remained in other parts. So you're saying the word retreat implies that there was a conscious group decision, like a movement, rather than they were like killed off here but not here. You're absolutely right. I mean, that's a monk seals story. I mean, no, I think that's we know that. And thank you for I don't want to come in hot. You know, you're very particular about language. I appreciate it, so thank you. So they remained in the Leeward Islands, which I didn't know we're a thing

till I didn't. I mean I knew, I knew they were there. I didn't know that we call them Hawaii. I didn't know that. And um, and then what started happening was so basically then in nineteen seventy six, So that's three years after you know, fast forward a thousand years and change, and the three years after the Endangered Species Act has passed UM in nineteen seventy six, the federal government protects the monk seals. They are at that time, I believe, the most endangered um marine mammal in terms

of their numbers. We absolutely, like I think in the like the low hundreds, like maybe two. So I don't know at that moment how many there were. And they launched this project that even at this point I think is still projected to take forty five years and close

to four hundred million dollars to recover the species. According to the government's plan, and at first nothing's happening, and then slowly, like starting in the you know, nineties, mid nineties or so, the monk seals start to appear in the main Hawaiian islands, mostly in Kauai because that's the you know, the westernmost island, and people who have grown up in Hawaii, whose families have been there for generations have never seen monk seals, start to see monk seals.

You know, they're out fishing or whatever. They see monk seals taking their fish, scaring away their fish, and uh eight eight hundred pound fish eater. Yes, yeah, yeah, but the tiny, charubic little face with whiskers, very beautiful little face as a button. Most biologists would describe the very cute face really kind of disgusting, lovery body, you know,

just with that cute little button face attached to it. Yeah, not only had they not only had native wines not seen them, but the animals must have disappeared so quickly upon colonization that they point out that they don't have a word for them. But you could also you know, I don't know if you talk with this your but but you could also argue that there was but in the eight hundred years or whatever of non use, it hasn't needed to be carried out. Yeah, and the and

the federal government. So, I mean a lot of what I'm writing about in that in that piece is that just the complete breakdown, like the bungling breakdown of communication between the government and the people. Because you, right, you have you have Native Hawaiian saying, what is this thing? You know, we don't and it's getting in our way.

You're giving it all this money. Meanwhile, you're the same government that stole our land, right, and we don't get anything from you, right, So there's a lot of resentment towards this animal. And they say, and we don't even have a word for it, which it's not in any chance, it's not in there's no you know, carvings of it anything.

And the government does some research and they say, well, we think it's this this word, which I think translates something like dog, right, And and that doesn't go over too well, you know, I think that's the translation. Yeah, And so so that goes on. You know, there's about a decade of that of that kind of intractable conflict. By the time show up in Hawaii, tell about the protect protect people. Yeah, so these are you know, like

a lot of endangered species. They have um gathered a constituency around them, right fan club, Yeah, fan you know, people people who want to do right by this vulnerable animal, you know, for whatever reason, because they love the animal, because they see it as a symbol, you know, the way to help in the larger mess of human society,

whatever you want to say. And the government has mobilized these people, um to create seal protection zones or exclusion zones so that when a seal hauls out on the beach, you you know, a call goes out and you immediately get you know, half a dozen mostly white people, uh, putting you know, yellow tape around them and steaks and

protecting the seal. So you can understand that that also doesn't look so good to the people who do not like the seals, do not want the seals around is um all maybe like air is one of those around this island? Right to have kept everybody? And the title, the title of the piece, can you even believe this

is happening? Is actually comes from a native Hawaiian guy who I spent you know a couple of hours with where he was basically just you know, shouting his side of the story at me increasingly, you know, frustrated by the whole situation. And I say in the piece that was kind of the look in his eyes the whole time was like can you even believe this has happened? You know, just like complete disbelief that this government would do this. So, you know, I'm simplifying a little bit.

I don't mean to generalize that like all Native Hawaiians don't like whatever, but to point out that this is a very long piece of investigative reporting collected in the book serious face, and we are doing a abbreviated yes, now it's not as bad as coming on NPR and have to do it in four minutes. No, I appreciate that. Does you can't even remember saying and make it like

the main thing you said, that's right. Um. So, anyway, so that the situation when I go to Kauai in two thousand twelve early two thousand and exacerbated by the fact that the previous year in in about the six months prior, there have been for assassinations of steals um a string of assassinations that started with one on Molokai, which is a you know, the least populated of the of the islands, and then also on kauai Qui favor too. There's a piece, there's a part of your story that

you probably don't think is that important. But the what were the birds that were showing up with the broken wings? Newles sheerwaters. So this is another people were just like it seems like fishermen when these birds are coming down the Oh sorry, those are pelicans. Yeah, so they were, so in the piece, I kind of do a roundup of assassinations. Well I would, I'd say those are all assassinations.

I'd be careful about qualifying them all. Some of those I think are just you know, people losing their ship momentarily and hurting an animal, you know, but because there isn't necessarily the political you know, discourse around those animals. But yeah, I mean kind of the the point of the piece in my mind, what was interested in me is, you know, we talk a lot about conservation. We talk a lot about bringing species back to levels approaching what

they maybe once were. But we because conservation doesn't have a lot of you know, it's mostly failures. You know, when you look at the whole of the endangered Species Act. I mean, I wouldn't say failure because it's not done, but it's not like you know, it's very hard work. And so there's only a handful of cases where we really have these animals introduced back to levels where now they're starting to be in people's way again. I think it's sub two that go on the Endangered Species Act

come off due to recovery. I think you're more likely to come off because they realize that they find another population they didn't know about, or you come off because you're extinct, right or another little interesting wrinkle is that is you're more likely to go extinct I believe before you even get on the list because you're you're held in this kind of like holding area called the warranted but precluded where then yeah, where the government says like, yeah,

you're at you know this, this species deserves protection, but we just we just can't. Right now. We're gonna put you on this category called warranted but precluded and a species of God, we can't because we can't afford it. We can't, you know, I don't know whatever, you know, just saying like we we recognize this is worthy and we're going to get to it. But we just have to hold off on giving you the protection that it

deserves right now. Um. But anyway, but yeah, So the upshot for me of this whole story they think I'll be interested in is what happens. You know, the monk seal is not a success story, but it's the fact that they're now appearing in places that they haven't appeared has been enough to raise this problem of you know, some of these animals disappeared because we didn't want them.

They're right, people. People gotten mad at intentional. It was intentional, and now they're coming back, and so we've never really you know, there's a there's an environmental lawyer in the piece who says, you know, we put all this energy into saving wildlife and wildness, but we never really talked about how much wildness we want and how much we're willing to live with. And that's what was happening with

the monk seals. So you had this clash right between the government and the people who wanted them to rebound, and then the people who were who's lived experience was being upset by their rebounding. I still want to hit the thing. I'll just do it myself, Okay, it's just a kind of horrific details. The birds. Yeah, there was a bird were like they would mess with fishermen. Yeah, they'd laying on the boats pelicans and it seems as

though they were just reaching up and snapping their wingbones. Yeah, so you're finding dead pelicans with two broken wings, like someone just going snap. Yeah, which is like worse than just cutting its head off. Yeah, do you know what I mean, it's like so like to do that, to snap its wingbones and then be like so long, buddy. Yeah, it's just casualness of it. It's just it's like disgust. It's just it's just keep a little sharp machete on.

But like, I don't know. Yeah, there's all kinds of examples, like people that are like fishing for a living treating other stuff really badly. Like I mean, in Southeast Alaska they hate those sea otters, right, sea lions too. Yeah, and now, and uh isn't in Washington like they're allowing the killing of a certain number of sea lions to protect salmon they've been doing in the Columbia for a while. Yeah. Go on, Well, so yeah, so I show up and I think I'm in the right You know cs I

monk seal. Right, they've got four assassinations, they've got investigators looking at the evidence, quote unquote, and they've got rewards ten thousand dollar reward for each seal. Information about each seal killing, describe how they're killed or what they know about the killings. Well, when I arrived, all I knew was one had been shot and I believe three for what they were calling blunt head trauma. And one had a spear fishing spear starter that happened while I was there,

but survived and but survived. Yeah, and um, that's a hail Mary. Yeah, you can imagine that person cut the line, yeah, rather than reeling it in. I think that's right. Um, that one was a juvenile though, so it was even more adorable, you know when they put it on the evening news. Um. But yeah, So I show up and the first thing I realized is this is not there's no police work when it comes to dead seals. You know, like they've got Noah has its investigators and they're they're

trying their best. But what do you do? You know, as one of the cops says, is like, you can't talk to the seals friends, right, And you don't even know, you know, if it washes up somewhere, has it been killed in that spot? Was it killed somewhere else? Did the did the head trauma happen just from bouncing around on rocks after it's been you know, killed in some other way or died in natural causes. So immediately realized like,

this is a mess. You know, this is not a police procedural for me to for me to follow, and I start reporting on the clash itself, right and yeah, but you gotta get like how hard could the police work of Ben? Because you ended up talking to the guy that did it? Well, I saw, I saw the crime. I solve the crime. So that's what's so funny. But like you're not there that long and here you are having coffee with the guy who's got a reward on his head. Yeah, did you collect the money? I did

not collect the movie? And it was funny because after the peace published, I got a call from the same Noah cops, you know, the investor who is it? Yeah? There and no, I mean he knew. His whole tone of voice was listen, I got a this call. You. I know you're not gonna tell me anything, but any chance you're gonna tell me, because I'm sorry I can't tell you. But but yeah, basically I had met a guy named Walter Riddy who I've hung out with him

you have. Yeah, he's a phenomenal guy, and um I met him sort of by chance when I was you know, when I first arrived in Hawaii on that trip, and

he had told me that he knew the person. He called him the kid who had killed the first monk seal, the one that had set off this you know, quote unquote set off the string of killings, and that he was you know, very remorseful about it, YadA YadA, And I kind of kept after him and eventually I was invited to meet this guy and by that this Walt like I I met him, I should say, But anyway, he's a like not spiritual leader, but I mean he's

a he's an active he's an organizer. I'd says. He's done a lot of activism against um, you know, military testing in in Malachai, against development, and he he was counseling to kill He's very revered in the community, so that when he found out that he was he was not one of the people who was anti monk seal. You know, he understood that the monk seals were supposed to be there, that there should be this kind of coexistence and an actual affinity between native Hawaiians and a

native Hawaiian species. And so when he found out who this this kid was, he just went knocked on his door and he said, I want to talk to you about the seal. And you know, for the kid, that was a big deal for Uncle Uncle Walter to show

up at his house. And you know, I had spent a week just talking to both sides of this debate, and everyone on both sides, you know, you just get the impression that anyone who kills the seal is going to be this kind of burly, angry native Hawaiian fisherman who you know, lost his ship at a seal and finally, you know, snapped and killed it. And um and that was Uncle Walter's assumption too. And when I met the kid, what I found out was that essentially it was was

an accident. Um. I mean that's a generous way of putting and not a fisherman, not a fisherman at all. That was the only time he had been fishing that hole that whole season. But he was with some friends and it was a pure pressure situation because they were looking for a spot to fish. Every every place they went there was a monk seal there, and they've been

hiking and hiking and hiking. Finally they got to this one spot and there was a big male seal there and he was kind of goaded by his friends to you know, he thought he'd scare it away by throwing a rock at it and a court His story, which was, you know, I ran past the Noah investigators they said it sounded incredible based on injuries, was that he hit this thing square in the head with a rock. It went unconscious and was dead. So that was he was

broken up about it. This kid was broken up about it, and he was more broken up about it when the next seal was killed and the seal after that and the seal after that, because he felt, oh, I started this whole chain reaction. You know, I uncorked all this frustration that's been going on, and I sort of showed it a way to deal with it right away, to take it out on the seals um And it was

not I mean, that was one of those moments. I mean, there's a lot of moments like this in the book, but that was one of those moments where I just could not believe. I mean not to me is like the privilege of doing this work is if you can spend enough time and attention on these stories and you just keep kind of scratching layer after layer of understanding away from it until you actually get to what happened,

you find the most surprising things. And that's the This was the epitome of that for me, is that I could not have invented this situation. One of the one of the early things that happened to me as I was like training to be a writer that made me appreciate the work of good journalism was after the murder of Matthew Shepard and Laramie Wyoming that it was immediately it was that some cowboys found a gay kid and out of just pure unbridled hatred, dragged him out of

a bar and killed him. And that story ran and ran and ran, and then a journalist from Harper's went in just hung out in the town and met everyone involved, and when she wrote her piece about it, it it was like, that is not at all what happened at all. No one had gotten it right, like the relationship between all the individuals involved, the lack of cowboy noess that it

not being motivated by that, it being like financial entanglements. Yeah, I mean, I don't know, like they got for people that will going to spend three weeks somewhere and be like, so what happened now that night? I mean, I don't know that story in particular, but that's the phenomenon that

I've encountered again and again. It's weird because I think that we It's interesting cause I was having this conversation with someone the other day, and I think it's like we're wired to kind of just snap everything into like a tidy story so that we can make sense of it. You know. Otherwise we'd just be walking around this like incoherent cloud of facts all the time, having to use

our brains all the time. Yeah. Yeah, you need things that you can just take for granted, right, And I think that's how we kind of walked through the world, just metabolizing everything that's happening, you know. The writer Joan Didion, of course, Yeah, in her in her book, I think it's in Slouching towards beth Lehem she talks about and

this is pre Internet. When she wrote this, she's like there's so much information, right that, Like you get people where there's so much information they can't deal with it all, and they're thirsty for just something very simple, and all the better if they're the only one that knows it. I was gonna say, it's nice, right when you can repackage it and and and tell it farther, right, Yeah,

I mean I think that's like that. Yeah, that's I think what the realization I was having talking to this other person was, like I guess that's sort of what

I see myself as doing now. Is like it's like Jiu jitsung the storytelling instinct, you know, to unravel the stories you know that we that we lock onto and then kind of see all of the parts laid out and put them back together into something a little more real, right, Um, And it's it's when they click back into place, like with this kid on Malakai that that I just I mean it like it almost feels like a spiritual experience, like to see like, oh my god, like the world

is very very complicated and it's so much more than we understand, And what else do I walk around not appreciating the complexity of That's the thing I appreciate and all the stuff you've written and then again in this story, is that, um Like, I know your wildlife advocate, a conservation advocate, right like you. You like to see intact, healthy habitat and like a clean planet and that means

a lot to you. Um, But you're able to go into a thing like this and not be like, I'm gonna root these assholes out and it's horrible, but you give like a very fair and I'm not I'm not native Hawaiian, I don't know, but you give what seems to me like a very fair recounting of how we got here. Yeah, it isn't like isn't like the whole point is to like make people bleed. Yeah, And it's also not to make people have some kind of simplistic

sense of hope. You know. I think both those things are pretty boring, right, And and I think that's why I never really read a lot of you know, quote unquote in nature writing about conservation before I started doing it myself. Is it? It seemed like it was very easy to just you get the sense of what's happening

in these stories pretty quick. In a lot of tellings of them that were you know, thank God for the people who are protecting the seal or you know, against the nasty you know whoever it is, hunters, landowners, whatever, you know. Um, I just feel like that's really a case where you see stories snapping into those those outlines pretty quick. You know, where you wouldn't do well as a writer where writing animated children's movies. No, because you're the bad guy. Let me guess it's the evil logging

or mining consortium. Yeah, yeah, I would not. I don't think with a sadistic tinge. Yeah. I also I just don't really do morals either. I think I think the morals of the story always escaped me. You know, John, what what happened after? Like how long ago did you did you do this? Well? So that was about ten years ago that I was there, and and the story since then it's kind of just been more of the same. Honestly. The the monk seal numbers are up, um modestly, but

I think they still getting assassinated. There were four killings last year, I believe, and there were two this year on Molokai. And there was a study, yeah, and there was a study recently that as I read it this morning, after you phoned me to tell me i'd better have

some contemporary monk seal facts, Steve. As I read this study, it was showing that what I would call assassination, um, intentional killings are the leading cause of monk sealed deaths by well, you know, anthropogenic monks that more than more than tanglings, more than exactly um that there are now more more seals have died because they've been intentionally killed rather than other human calls. Uh, tell quick about that island I had never heard of. And the brothers that

own the island, Knee How. I that was an interesting It sounds a good fishing spot. Yeah. Yeah, you can put up with an old man yelling at you from the shore all the monk seals. Yeah, so Knee How, which I had never heard of. Um, is a it's an island. Um. I mean it's big, it's you know, they think it's about seventies square miles and it's right across from Kauai and uh. In eighteen sixty four, King Kamaya May has sold the island to a ranching family,

a white ranching family. I don't know. Yeah, it was cheap I'm sure and uh, and that descendence of that family still own it's it's now under the control of two brothers, Keith and Bruce Robinson. They're both getting up there in years and it's known as the Forbidden Island because the Robinson's do not like to have people on there. You can, they will. They've taken a limited number of

tourists there. I guess you can hunt there hot tip um, but you know, it's very expensive to get there, and they control the helicopter company that takes you in and out, and it's very very difficult to access, very very difficult to know what's going on there. There are some Native knee howandsh or Nee How people who live on the island and have lived there for generations. There's been like and they've been entangled with that family for years. I mean, as Keith Robinson put it to me, they are a

feudal landlord. Those people are their tenants. Feudal landlord. Yes. Um, it's a very bizarre situation to exist in the Centurion. You point out that they use it for training down the pilots and evasion. Uh, they have in the past. Yeah, So there and in the Native Nie How when they run them down down in the training and they said that they they get them pretty easy. Yeah that's there. That's their only extra mural sport. Um. So yeah, so they you know, the robin doesn't have just had to

find ways like that to make money. They do a lot of military you know, they have a radar station there, I believe, on on the mountain side. And I was able for some reason, uh you know, which wasn't clear, which only became clear to me later, I was able to talk my way on to knee How flew over with Keith Robinson because knee How happens to be one

of the best places for monks seals right now. The Robinson's out of a kind of like very right wing anti government, um, you know, wanting to stick it to the government instead of killing the seals, they've saved the seals, so they're they're conservation proms. It's great. The rub being they won't let the government come look at them. No, not at all, not at all. And it's like, oh, you're interested in these seals? Are you plethora of endangered seals that we have here? You can't, you can't and

you don't want you counting them. And the reason, according to Keith, is because they don't have to put up with any you know, fussy community meetings and hearings and and stuff like that. They just tell the people living there, who are their tenants again, their feudal tenants and employees, we're going to protect the seals, so and then and then then they do it. Um and so, Yeah, the government has been you know really, I mean, I think

they may have made a little more progress. But at the time I was there, they were they were definitely just like really, I mean, they were like fascinated, what what did you see there? You know, like I was. But but when I got there, it also became apparent that um, the Robinsons that were really upset that fisherman

from Kauai. We're coming too close to knee how and they I think as I interpreted it, and I'm you know, Keith Robinson was not very happy with me after this this story because he didn't I don't think he liked this interpretation. But he was trying to broke her some deal with the with Noah to set up a marine preserve around his island so that the fisherman could not come anymore and his quiver. Yeah, he was using the seal.

So he when he took me there, he really wanted to show me how there weren't actually that many seals and they were suffering and it was all because of these intruding fishermen from kwaiet and to to you know, create this atmosphere where it's like now and even knee house seals are are in trouble. Yeah, that's what he John's explained. Like in this navigation of this the owner is like where they all go, this is a disaster, but his drivers like seems like it's about and then

he just he just stormed off, stormed off. You know. It was like so yeah, it was a wild day. It was a wild day. I mean, Keith is a very interesting character. And you know when I met him, he was wearing in a uh, you know, work clothes and a green hard hat and he handed me a self published book about the apocalypse, which had a painting of mushroom clouds and fires and then a little figure in the corner wearing the same work clothes in a

green heart hat. And so that was like some reading material for the helicopter flight over See, I don't want this to be taking because I I would like nothing more than the foster friendship with this individual. Yeah, so I don't want if he's listening, I don't want to take listen. I want to be friends. Okay, I want to hang out on the island. I want to hunt. I'll interview about the book. Anything mean John saying I wanna be really tight? Yeah? And I was very tight?

Would I would say? I mean, he's in a very untenable position, you know, So I don't think there's any right way to be Keith Robinson right now? You know it's John. When you sat down in the helicopter and he thumbed open the first page of the book, did it say something along the lines of, so you're in my helicopter, things you know about me? Yeah? No, I do remember that he was like nagging the pilot to fly in a perfectly straight line to save money on gas. Um.

You know, he's very cash poor. He owns this island, but he's he's really having some cash fallow problems. That seemed so, but in all fairness, is like, do you feel that he's legitimately interested in the ecology of the island. Oh? Absolutely, He's like one of the most successful conservationists in America right now. I mean he's done, he's you know, bred a lot of endangered native plants. Oh and he I forgot he had that tree. Yeah, he had a He had a one was it the last one of the

of the native a particular native Hawaiian hardwood tree. This was in the nineties, that he kept from a seed, that he kept from a seed. And and as I understand this was this was something I could not definitively get to the bottom of. But as I understand it, and this this is a little bit speculative, but it seems like he had misread a Fish and Wildlife Service document about about his tree that made it seem to him that they were going to come and claim his

tree by imminent domain. And he just implied very strongly to me that he then killed the tree rather than let the government take it because it was against his principles, and that he told them that if they were going to come take his tree, there'd be like another Ruby Ridge on Nihow. Because the headline to the thing or somewhere in it said something about like the containment and I believe it was like support and protect. And then in the bottom it was like, we really need to

work with this guy, yeah, to keep his tree happy. Yeah. And he would not be very specific about the story, although he wanted to tell me that story many times. He told you three days later the tree was dead. Yeah, yeah, so that was his That's why I said, strongly implied, strongly implied that he killed that tree rather than let the government take it. I'd love to get this guy on the show. Don't tell him, you know me that helicopter pilot better find out a straight asked way to

fly over here. It out as you say, tell them, we'll find a very efficient means of travel. Okay, you're ready to move on to the macaques. Hold on, you gotta cover just because it is the cutest thing. Monks seals with eels coming out of their noses. It's so sad, like big slimy boger. You didn't see this happen. This

is a frequent thing. And that's what job of the hut was created off of man eating the seals and then like a spaghetti noodle when your kid tells one of those funny jokes, the seals eat the seals eating the eel. Yeah, and then like a lugie. You know they hack up the seal or the eel through their little seals. Yeah, it is. That's that's your first kid's book, John, Which ones are the bad guys exactly? And then at the end you can be like you tell me they

Pixar is not gonna pick that one up anyways. Is it a live when it comes out? No, he's got a dead heel hanging out his nose. Yeah. People, these these folks that protect the seals get very concerned over the well being of the seal and uh, I think maybe one of one has died from some blockage and stuff. I think, Yeah, it's been a few years since I

research that one. Yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot of I mean it's not just killing, you know, like we're talking before, they've they've got a toxic plasmosis threat from feral cat species that they think are affecting the seals. Now we've covered that very heavily on the show Eels. Yeah, how does that because all he's got to do is get out there and that when he's because cats like ship in the sand and are out

in the sand. But I think it's a great point to bring up right, it's like we always protect animals on our terms. Then they're living this entire other life, in this case in the ocean, which is a giant place that is full of dangers that they have to conquer on their own, and it's you know, then they show up and they got a eel dangling out of their nose and people are like, well, that's not part of the plan. He's like, listen, but you know what

my main problem is this eel hang out. If you want to help me, let me tell you yanked a some bitch out of my nose kills me. You ready for mccaques? Which what was I calling this morning? Macause? And I had you all confused? Yeah, I thought you were talking about that little monkeys called him maccaque. Now I thought it was a macaw. And it's also apparently a tribe. Yeah, is it mccoq or maccaque maccaque friends

of s Chaster. Yeah, yeah, it sounds right, it sounds wrong, right, It sounds like mccoq would be a little more civilized. But you know it's m a who's looking at it? A yeah? Alright, already want to start. You don't need to go back hundred years, hundred years ago. They were not they were non Florida. I mean we can go back a hundred years. That's yeah, okay, go ahead, picture it Ferris Wheel, well a lot more fish it was.

It was a land of amusements, the land of the vacation land already, and a New Yorker named Colonel Twoey, Colonel being his first name, not a rank, started a tourist name it is. It's pretty badass, colonel dog want to name him? Why not name your kid general? He's got to earn admiral. He starts at colonel. See how he does? How does he get how does he get advancement?

Maybe he started his private video. It was spelled CEO L not k R K E R. Yeah, like like uh popcorn colonel, Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry, not like the popcorn colonel, like the military colonel. So Mr Colonel Tooey had some kind of tourist attraction going in the middle of Florida in a town called Akala on a silver river, and he decided he wanted to up his game a notch.

And he brought over six macaques from somewhere I don't know where, and decided he was going to put them on a little island in the river and you'd get to be able to see monkeys. When he came to visit his place, he did not realize that mccas are tremendous swimmers. This is my favorite detail story. Within minutes, certainly by some accounts, they were off the island. Um,

so that was that was in the thirties. You'd like to imagine I'm kind of standing there, you know, feeling very proud, just gazing out at his little monkey island, and then sort of dawning on him. Um, tell some kids, Okay, now go feed the monkeys, and they're like, which ones? Yeah, yeah, Well, I just imagine he's still standing there. Just they're just

slashing toward him. It's like normandy, you know. Um. But yeah, and then but so then you've got wild monkeys in Florida, and by the eighties there were about four hundred of them each separate troops. Yeah. I mean, I'm gonna preface all this by saying this, the census, the monkey censuses in Florida are very fuzzy. Several recounts. We never write a lot of hanging chads. We never really have very good information. It seems about how many monkeys there are

in Florida any given time. But you know, there's wild monkeys living in Florida, something I did not know, so pause that story. In two thousand twelve, the summer of two thousand twelve, I went to Tampa to um look for the mystery Monkey of Tampa Bay, which was a maccaque that had first appeared behind the Bennigan's um in two thousand nine, I believe a hundred miles away from the very far away. Yeah, yeah, this is way out, you know, Tampa. It's like way out on the coast. Um.

So it's crossed the whole interior of the state. And the theory was when they called out um a gentleman named Vernon Yates, who's a renowned freelance animal trapper in Florida, to come corral this monkey behind the Bennigan's, he was floored.

He could not believe that this thing was, as he put it, very streetwise because when a pet maccaque um, of which there apparently are many licensed pet maccaques in Florida, when they escape, they tend to just fry themselves immediately on a our line or get hit in traffic or something. But this thing, this thing could boogie, this thing could get through, it could read your mind. Yeah, it was.

It had a kind of a ninja like a nimbleness that was evading both Vernon and the Fishing Wildlife Commission officers who were sent out to travel. And he darted it like multiple time to get away before it fell. He's like, look and pull out the dark the line where he looks him in the eye and like pulls. Yeah, that that detail we work. We used to work a lot with a guy named Mo and he was a cameraman and he described being in the jungle in South

America and he's with some guys. This wasn't working with us, working with someone else. He's with some guys that were blowgun hunters. They were in Columbia and they're blowgun hunters. And he's said one of these guys was his monkey up in a tree. He said, it's kind of the most disturbing thing you've ever seen in his life. These guys like with that blowgun and that dart hits the monkey in the back. He said, that monkey reaches around

behind his back pulls the dart out. Yeah, he said, just not what you expect like a game animal to do right right, because they don't have a possible he said, just seemed like at that moment, he's like everything was wrong.

My other favorite details. Apparently there was a moment because this was this Bennigan's pursuit was just the first of many, right, So I think Vernon, by the time I saw Vernon in two thousand talking, this has been going on for three and a half years, and he had said he had more than a hundred occasions he had gone out after this monkey. On one of them, there was a fish and wildlife officer caught it in three years. He hadn't caught in three and a half years. And he

was you know. I went to his house and he he took a map of Florida out to show me kind of where the monkeys travels had taken him. And he just kept having to flip the map over, like bring out a different map at a bigger scale. He

just kept getting more and more elaborate, you know. Um, And he was sure it was the same monkey, like he was marked somehow, he would They were, well, they were very sure it was the same monkey, just by its behavior, I think, And that's what I guess that an open question, but there it seemed to be consensus of very long causeway, probably in the back of a truck. Yeah. Yeah, And it started. It was in different neighborhoods. It was eating fruit off people's roofs um, it was getting around

and uh. And what happened again in a in a similar and yet extremely different Yeah, he's abounds. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's he's a little guy. He's pretty adorable, I think he Uh. And he became known as the Mystery Monkey of Tampa Bay. And in the same way as this Monk Seal story unfolded, but in a very different version of it. A there was a political dynamic around the Mystery Monkey in that here you had um Vernon Yates.

It was sort of caricatured as this you know, dopey small town sheriff animal, trapper guy out to you know, trap this innocent creature, and the state, you know, the power of the state clamping down on the the animal. Yeah. And the populace wanted the monkey to be free. You know.

They were they were t shirts stay free Mystery Monkey, they were billboards, um, you know, social media accounts, and it became again another intractable kind of um, you know, disagreement about what this monkey was all about and what we what we should do with it, right, you know, you had the state saying it's a danger to people. It's probably um suffering itself because they're communal animals, they're social animals, and this one's been you know, outside of

its troop, and they have hepatitises over there. They all have herpies, not all, a lot of them have herpes b I believe, which is was used as a as kind of scare tactic as I see it by the state to say, this is another reason we have to get this monkey. Although when you kind of dig into the science, because everybody will make love with the monkey and wind up yeah you know, yeah, people love and the monkeys with herpes are definitely telling the monkeys without

herpes like, hey, everybody's got it. Yeah, you know, it's yeah, um so yeah, so so uh so I was, and I was there, um right before Republican Convention, you know, in two thousand and twelve. This was the Romney in their freedom was in the air, the Tea Party was ascendant. Um, there was a lot of you know, in a way, the monkey debate really mirrored the American debate of like, you know, what is the line between tyranny and lawlessness? And you know what is the government for? And um,

you know, shouldn't we all just be free? And uh, it was fascinating. It was fascinating. I mean, the characters involved were fascinating. This guy Vernon shown, you know, he had like seventeen tigers at his house and uh, a big pile of alligators in the concrete pool. And uh and again in in just as I solved that monks monksil crime, I managed to find the monkey, um, living very happily in someone's backyard. They had sort of reached a kind of daytent with the monkey, and we're letting

it hang around their property. Um. It was actually through some reporter from the Tampa Bay Times had had had found this out, and I knew another source who had been working with the family to kind of take care of the monkey and keep the monkey, you know, close and and well cared for, but also not bring it too close to you know, everyone bringing into their house or anything like that. It seemed to be working out

in a weird way. It was a weird kind of compromise happening between the monkeys rights and the humans need to keep the monkey a monkey. Did you ever get Vernon's like personal opinion on whether or not the monkey should be caught, like, aside from the fact that it's his job, he absolutely thought the monkeys should be caught.

He thought, I mean, like like this, like the wildlife officers, imagine your job is to keep wildlife healthy and keep people safe from wildlife, and now you've got a monkey running around and everyone's more concerned about the monkeys rights. So Vernon was was adamant that, um, you know, he was doing this for the monkey, that the monkey needed

to be captured. And we can jump ahead because the you know, some stuff happened after I did this story, but that it was in the monkey's best interest to be brought into captivity where it could be with other monkeys of its kind and live out its life there. It was safer for the monkey and was safer for people. Was there any talk about putting the monkey back on

the river. No, because that's a I don't know that this is why, but the monkeys on the river themselves have been a huge source of controversy and aggravation because at different times the state has tried to um trap that population and extinguish that population, which doesn't go over well, which does not go over well with people who like adorable, anthropomorphized monkeys. Um, so there was I don't think there was any sense that they were going to like relocate

the mystery monkey. Everyone knows about the non native situation Florida, but very few people know about the non native monkeys in Florida. Yeah, I had no idea. And there's other there's another monkey population. Apparently there's a very monkeys by the lad that. Yeah, that's been there for as long as I was interested in monkeys in Florida, popular popular

uprisings around monkeys in Florida. Ever, did they ever get him? Oh? Sorry, Oh, I guess I was just wondering about Vernon's opinion too, because in his role, right, he's got a pool full of alligators, he's got tigers, he knows that so much of that exists in the state of Florida. It just crossed my mind that he could possibly have an opinion of like, I'm glad I'm getting paid to go try to capture the monkey. But doesn't matter. No, he doesn't

matter because there's already so many exactly. Well, I mean he the reason why he has those animals is that those are animals that have that he has offered to read home from licensed or unlicensed owners in the state of Florida who did not you know, who were not keeping their animals humanely. He complained to John about losing a hundred thousand dollars or the tortoises, and a divorce settlement that's right, came after my turtles. Yeah, he loves tortoises.

Was his sweet spot. I think he had a special special place in his heart for tortoises. Um. Yeah, one of his five divorces, he got cleaned out of his tortoises. So so the mystery monkeys settled down and lived his life. Well that was where my story. That was where my story ended. And then a few months later, um, the monkey was you know, everything was still peaceable at the house. And then the monkey jumped on the woman the homeowners back and startled her classic monkey on your back, absolutely

that you know, startled her. She reacted, that freaked out the monkey, and the monkey bit her on the shoulder and then it was game over. So at that point the monkey had to be caught to be I guess tested in the same way you know you get bit by a stray dollar or something. I don't know the ins and outs of it, and involves decapitations often. Well, this monkey was not decapitated, were beheaded. Um so Vernon came back in with this the state will Vernon was

probably the first call. I mean, you're not gonna at the time he had sunk into this, do you think they're gonna give it to someone else? And this time they were able to get him. They trapped the monkey, who was then named Cornelius after the monkey and Planet of the Apes, which I think I could take a little bit of credit for because there's a part in the piece where I sort of have this delusional fever dream while I'm reading Planet of the Apes at a La Quinta in in Ocala. But they named him, uh,

they named him Cornelius. They brought him to a kind of like a roadside attraction type zoo thing where he was paired with another monkey named Cora. Settled down, he had children, seemed to be living a happy life until until his hours ago he developed as they had given him a cyanide pillow to keep in his cheek and

when Um, no, until a few years ago. I guess that that facility where he was had come under fire from Peter and some other organizations and they started, um they had a dozen or more tigers at this place, and there were some complaints and they started offloading their tigers, driving them out to Oklahoma to the guy in that Netflix show. Yeah, and Somes got tangled up with a

tiger king. Well, that's where this So there was a follow up report in the Tampa Bay Times trying to figure this out, and it seems like in the confusion over all of this, Cornelius, the trail on Cornelius went cold. We don't know where he is and where he wound up, and uh, there's really no paper trail or anything. Yeah, are you going back down? I mean, I think it's been it's been covered to death, but I'm curious. I'd like to know where he is. But if the trail

is cold, then it's obviously just right for John Well. Yeah, I don't know. I'm gonna crack that one. But what you found the monks, the little sass in days, you will find that monkey. Feel like it's like a lethal weapon. Lie, I'm getting too old for this. One last time. I think it's hilarious how you're staying at a Laquinta too, you know, because they're claimed to fame is they're always

pet friendly. There's no chance you have that monkey. I mean, I'm not gonna say they were getting into and they were getting into Netflix documentary territory. If it turns out that you have pretty well, there's a whole dome. Turn your friend in or not for reward, you know. But that's actually the weird thing is that the monkey is not the reason why we don't know where the monkey is is because there's really no regulation that would require

them to stay where the monkey is there. As this there was a quote in this Tampa Bay Times to followup where the someone from the state was basically, it's just like a TV. You don't have to tell us when you sell your TV to someone, right, So that person who has the monkey should theoretically have papers for the monkey, but there's no database where you can look up who has what monkey, so they're just property. M Um. In my Buffalo book, I wrote about uh, you know

the buffalo from the buffalohead Nickel. Not long after the artist Um did his sculpture, which became the buffalo head nickel. That buffalo's name is Black Diamond. He was sold um in the meatpacking district in Manhattan and butchered and um yielded an incredible eleven pounds bones meat. The guy that owned the meat pack was a guy named Sills. I think it was his last name. S I LZ got stuffed. So he for years had Black Diamond's head stuff from

the buffalo head nickel. He sold it right now someone. Ah, it's speculated that someone has that stuffed head and doesn't know what it is, because no one's ever come forward to be like, oh, I have Black Diamond's head. So unless it got lost in the house firedever, it likes like someone's like, I don't know where. It's just the thing I got from my grandpa. Yeah, there should be some way, like you could get an alert on your phone, like an Amber alert and it would just be like,

do you have a buffalo head? Can you send a picture of it to this? Can you know we just did it, just large buffalo head that looks like the buffalo head nickel. Yeah. Yeah, we keep cracked this in thirty seconds if we had a will to do it. UM so working on next. I know you can't you say not not that you're working on like a murder mystery, but you don't want to talk about it because you're waiting on some permissions. But what what can you tell us?

Can you say what it involves without saying where it involves it? This is my favorite subject. Yeah, well we've talked about neandertals before, right, So yeah, so I got really after I did a story about Neandertals, I got, you know, just kind of reawakened to how cool deep time is that there were there were people so long ago. So yes, I've been really interested in writing about Paleolithic cave art and I've been trying to find a way

to do it. Um. What I didn't understand is that these caves are like, um, the people who study these caves, it's very proprietary, so like it's you know, this person will they're the person for that cave, you know, and then yeah, kind of if you're an up and coming researcher, you have to wait until that person retires or to get your hands on a cave. Yeah. They're sort of

like Supreme Court appointments or something. So yeah, so I've been talking to a lot of people, you know, all spring about trying to trying to talk my way into a into a cave because I think it's um. I think there was this feeling in the past that the people studying cave art we're we're trying to over interpret what they were seeing, you know, so they would everything had to have like the biggest mediat possible explanation, like you know, we see X on a cave wall, and

therefore it means this about the Testament to the extinctions. Yeah, they were you know, they revered the elk because here's a you know, and I think that that's that's kind of that approaches in my mind from what I've learned, is it's kind of being deflated a little bit and people are studying more like the material culture of it, like how was this actually made? What do we know about the moment that it was made? And things like that.

There was a lot of comments is that you kind of down like the religious spiritual side of things too, Like the people who painted were very special and because because they had to be. There's no way it was There's no way it was like fourteen fifty year old kids dicking around in the cave but it was predominantly male also, but they did some I think fingerprint analysis something something pretty cool. And there's a lot of surprisingly a lot of small children, females get out of my

way and go paint on the wall. You're telling me kids drew stuff on walls. Well, yeah, And that one thing that I didn't realize either is like so many of these sites because you know, you see, I've never been in any of these caves, but you see, you know,

the photographs of the walls. But I didn't realize is that a lot of these places where the biggest they call them galleries, where the biggest galleries are actually like really deep inside caves so that you like, you know, they're they're through narrow passages, like they're very purposeful places that you had to try to get to, you know. They didn't just walk in the cave and start drawing.

And so that suggests like little crawls, like crawl spaces your crime and understuffing around it and exactly so they were very specific about where they wanted to do this. I don't know what that means, but that just seemed like an interesting fact. I mean, I think that one points to little people like children going in there and doing it. Yeah, that's actually an interesting thought. I hadn't

thought about that yet. You know, Uh, you've no doubt seen her Zog's movie about cave paintings, so I'm big her Zog. I was deeply disappointed with that movie. I want to see that movie with another writer who's been on this podcast. I would almost regard you guys as peers and contemporaries. Ben Wallace Um. I went to see it with him and we laughed and I said, I don't know how you could make a bad movie about cave paintings, And he said, I was just wondering myself

the exact opposite. What did you what didn't you like about it? I love that movie. It was too it was too it was too like it made it all ethereal, it was too like what were they dreaming? This must be their dreams? And you're kind of just what was it like? What was it made out of? What do we think it was? Like? Stop stop this nonsense about that these are like shamans capturing their dreams. Yeah, I can see that. I mean they did just things just

so overblown. You got guys like dressed up like they're from a long time ago. Like you like role play? What do they call them? People? Large? There's like lar Per's in it, live action role players of like cave people. I love that. I don't think you want to alienate the larking audience already most I'm a fan That Little Deader needs to Fly. He's got some masterpieces. Grizzly Man. He's got a novel out now. Yeah, it just came out and then he made, Um, what's that one Little

Deader needs a Fly? Then he made a fictionalized version with Christian Bale. Yeah, I met him. I met him once at a in the We were trapped in the room of an ideas festival in Mexico together. They wouldn't let us out for a few hours school and uh, there were a bunch of us and I slowly kind of made my way over to Werner Hertzog to ship

a little bit. He was telling me. This was right before he was making that documentary about volcanos, and he kept he just wanted to talk about volcanoes all the time, and that felt like the perfect way to meet. He's like a method actor, but a documents artists. Um he uh, you know, he wrote he made that crazy ass when he used to do fictional films, not used to, but focused on He did Fits Crawl though, and it's about it like a deranged Robbert rubber Baron who the movie

is that a guy does the impossible. He like build, He moves his boat from one drainage in the Amazon to the other, which involves like hoisting it up and over a ridge and down in another valley. So you think, like today you'd be like, oh, we'll just make a thing look like c G I whatever. But he did the insane thing. They did exactly that. They took a boat and moved it. People like died on the production, and they made a movie about the movie called Burden

of Dreams. And in Burden of Dreams, Herzog is losing his mind over that he can't get his movie finished, which he did eventually finished, and he's going off about how much he hates the jungle, and Herzog says, birds don't sing, they scream in agony. All right, man, thanks for coming on the show. Thank you, Thanks for tell everybody your other books. We didn't really do we do

a show about about this is chance. I think we focused on that specific Okay, So John MoU Alum like move like cow Alum, not like Alan John m o A L L E M no h in the John New book is serious face, author of This is Chance, author of what was the Candidate? Not the creatures, wild wild Ones, more about all about animals, about animals, well people all people going wacky about animals. Um am I missing books. This is Chance was about the biggest earthquake

to ever strike, sixty four earthquake. Yeah, good Friday earthquake. Focuses on narrows in on a woman who became very influential in the chaos, Yeah, translating and providing news as

this as the catastrophe unfolded. That's right, radio reporter named Genie Chance, who kind of was in the right place at the right time and spent all of that weekend on the air pretty much as just chaos, as just being one source of like concrete information in a situation that did not seem to have much certainty at all, and stay tuned for his thing on campaigns, which I promise you'll be good. Thank you, you know, all right, Thanks everybody, Thanks, Thanks