Ep. 538: Does Wildlife Win or Lose With Renewable Energy?

This is the meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, bug bitten, and in my case, underwear.

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Has it been on?

Long enough?

Let's we'll start it right where I said. Is it on? Great? I'm holding my hands right here? Uh uh?

Who's the kid? That's a kid sent this in? I call him a kid. Yeah, he's like said age I don't know. Called a Musky Manifesto Observer number five, September eighteenth, twenty twenty three.

The Musky Dossier.

A lot of mail comes in. I don't know how this email got sent me, but I had it printed off, which makes it seem more thing.

It's from a kid.

It's a manifesto full of photos and everything, and it has to do with one of my favorite pet peeves, which is the latest the new craze of the new musky craze, like Musky two point zero.

This is something that you've made up.

No, yes, my as I was just saying before Phil turned the machine on. My maternal grandfather was a Musky fisherman. Now back then you just went fishing muskies. Now it's this whole thing of like they treat them like they're like people, treat them like they're like pets. They got all these strains, they turn them out. There's like they're they're like, it's it's rotten. Real guys that have gotten

A lot of the recent UH enthusiasm comes from the fly fishing crowd. No, yes from US muskies.

Yes, maybe you cast out a big lure, you get close, you do the figure eight, they do that with you. You get mad if someone is mean to one.

All I can say is, if you're new timeline is my entire life.

It maybe which made five years. This is an example of that just came about came into my universe and now I'm interested in it, and so it's musky.

Geologic time, this whole thing of like, oh, did you hear that in Dickerson Lake they released the quad four strain three quad four strains.

Oh, I don't know about this either.

I'm making up the words, and I guarantee there's a Dickerson Lake though, Brandon, are you aware.

Of when was musky one point? Oh, I've caught one old day, the old days forty maternal grandfather, and then there was a hiatus for then there was.

A break, and then there was just like fishing, and then all of a sudden it became like that the catch and release, the really precious, persnickety, mean spirited catch and release school of thought got moved away from brown trout and laid.

Upon the muskie. Interesting, and now brown trout are being given a break? Are the col people.

Are still mean to give your mean to a brown trout?

Oh?

Yeah, And I guess there's a lot of top water action. There's some similar baits, just similar sizing, folks going nighttime activities, all that stuff, going after both species.

Fish with a thousand. I caught thou musky chet caught some muskies caught one musky in my life by tiger musk. No musky musky? What strain? I didn't ask it? You turn it right out? It strained the line. I turned it loose. We took one photo. I was fishing a little spinner bait. Thought I might pick up a walleye and a little lake in Wisconsin, and thought I had a log. Wasn't a log. Fought it for about twenty

The anger hearing from his Brendan Rundy here from North Carolina. He's a marine scientist.

What did I say wrong?

His last name?

No?

He took me sorry, I stand corrected.

I will think that's right.

That's that's my uncle. Actually nice, really.

So now now I'm real dubious about this supposed fish he's got on the wall.

Yeah, he's a marine scientist of the Nature Conservancy, and he's not going to put it this way, but he's here to talk about what I'm what I suspect to be a little bit of a deal with the devil on on alternative energy.

Definitely not how I'm going to put it.

No, not the devil, but but uh a fatal compromise, a fatal compromise. But I don't want to lose sight of the muskie manifesto. I don't want to spend ton.

Of time on it.

So this kid and his dad and his grandpa are outfish and muskies muscle lunges, and they catch a whopper. They catch the world record musky by a good stretch.

Well, let's hear how good of a stretch? You gotta have details if you're talking world record man.

They catch it.

This kid that wrote in his observer number.

Five okay out of some undetermined number of observers.

Um, okay. He even tells us the Linnean name.

He socks mass quiner g.

Seventy two pound musky. All kinds of witnesses they weigh it. They put it on a thing. They mayn't handle it.

They're mean to it. The rub off, rub the slime off it, turn it loose. Uh. They go and they tell a guy.

They go and tell a guy at the dock about The guy says man, the musky community. I wouldn't even put it out there because the muskie community will come after you.

Anyways.

The I g F A kicks him off because they weighed the fish on a boat.

M A lot of technicalities with the idea.

The muskie has to be weighed on dry land.

So you have to kill the fish. Basically, how are you going to pull that off with that in a regular old boat?

You have that cradle and then you like nurse the thing all the way.

He's got all these photos.

More stress, more stress.

Here's the fish here.

But one thing he gets into is he gets in it probably weighed more of course, because they will. They had to certify their scale after the fact. The scale they certified after the fact was dead on balls at fifty but a seventy five pound weight when they certified their scale is seventy five pound weight rang in at seventy two fifty.

Seventy two five.

Kicked off, and this is his story, kicked off because they didn't weigh it.

On land.

Then he gets into a bunch of other really big musky that had been disqualified for all kinds of reasons.

Is there consensus for that rule? Is like, since you aren't on a solid ground, that.

The boat sinks, the certified.

The certified scale isn't as accurate. That's that's the reason.

I don't know, but he's pointing out. Imagine if you'd killed that fish, what you would have heard about from the walleye, from the muskie community, which apparently is a you know, musky two point zero.

But if you'd have killed it fifty years ago, nobody would have cared, would have said nothing.

Now it's catched, it's now it's like what you supposed.

Hsky two point oh?

Well, just think about all the cat.

And panfish that you'd save by killing that fish.

It's a two point oh catch twenty two.

Yep.

In the old days, we hadn't name this podcast that two point oh catch twenty two.

Title days one point oh. Now it's title Day's two point oh.

What was your comment?

Just think about all the chipmunks and and uh small mouth and panfish. They would have saved by killing that.

Save a perch killing musky, dont forget ducklings.

Yeah, little kid toes, stuff like that.

There's that dude up in Canada three years ago that got smashed by a Walleye and BC tore his hand all up.

Wiley or a musky.

I'm sorry, musky, yep, musky. Yeah, those Walleye anglers just really perked up there, like see, we knew that fish was bad.

We know it wasn't real lazy.

It's not just for eating Sowa's buddy.

I hear you, man, you got bone. Your grandpa got boned by the IGFA.

Yeah, that's a boomer.

I don't know what more to say about it.

What do you want the igf A to.

Do about it? Though? I send the guy something. Yeah, consolation lure got away in that land. It's a catch twenty two. What are you supposed to do?

Rules or rules?

Rules is rules?

You kill it and you're gonna hear about it from the musky community. Two point zero. You don't kill it. You can't be in the thing.

Would you killed it?

Yeah, I'd have made a video about it.

He'd cut it into stakes.

I'd have got out my spearfish and k ivy right in the top of the head. Now to do it not been like sucket musky community.

For context, I'd like to understand catch twenty one and catch twenty three. You should come up with those.

It's a real catch twenty three. Catch twenty three exists. It's Michael Jordan's fishing boat.

That's right. Yeah, yeah, it never gets off.

Not a musket work on the street.

Wonder people hearing this?

Crin first to April.

Oh, hey, go check out. So we got our live tour coming up. Let me pull up the dates.

We got our live tour.

Coming up, just to remind everybody, where's my little thing?

April? What is it? Twenty second or twenty third? To May?

April twenty third, Mace, Arizona, bear with me here April twenty four, San Diego, California, April twenty five, Anaheim, California. April twenty seven, Sacramento, California. That winds up being a lot of California April twenty nine, Salt Lake City, April thirty, Boise, Idaho, May one, Missoula, Montana, which is gonna be a riot hometown crowd having spent many a night in that theater above it and in it.

And blow it with your elevator operator, buddy, We used to catch pigeons below that thing.

Scoot and Newton. I'm gonna tell the story of Scoot and Newton. May second, Spokane, May four, Portland, Oregon, Portland, Oregon and slow Gin Fizz. If that ain't loved, then tell me what is great tun Uh huh.

You know it's a winner When Phil laughs, I know it about once a year something tis fancy.

The other day what was it? Yeah, there are something caught Philsier.

That was just a great uh retain impression. Uh huh.

May five, Tacoma. Get your tickets. You can go to the actual you can go to the meeater dot com and you'll find a live events thing and find it there. Or you can go to the specific theaters. But I didn't just name the specific theaters, which makes it very tricky. Type go to your computer and type of media, your live you'll find it. Come check us out. It's gonna be a ton of fun.

It's a three act show.

Bring your wife, you know, I uh is a little in the weeds. But when we talk about reaching new audiences with the podcast. If there's gonna there's gotta be like a Venn diagram of when Phil laughs, mm hmm. We're reaching new audience members. I don't know if those people be around for a while, might pop in see what's going on.

Like you'd have to just catch one of them to have me walking by someone playing it like you left your car door open at the gas station and you left it on and some guy caught some guy like Phil caught a little lick there. All right, Yannie, hit it, quick hit.

If the live tour isn't it enough for you, you can come spend If that's not enough, Yanny, for you, three days with us and a new thing we're calling Meat Eater Experiences. We're gonna have a lot more details to come, but I've been instructured to do a quick hit here about this. We're hosting a fishing trip in Venice, Louisiana, as well as.

I get some background on that one waterfowl.

Hunt in Kansas. You have some background, I'd like.

To give some background. Oh yeah, please do the last couple.

Of years when we've been down been going down spearfish and on spearfish and the oil rigs out of you know, coastal Louisiana. And I fell into becoming friends with Renee, who owns Cypress Cove Marina, and we got talking about something fun we'd like to do, and we're gonna basically, not basically, we're gonna take over Cypress Coved Marina.

Yep.

So we're doing a thing where he's got a house boat, condos, a hotel, We're getting all the spots. He's got a whole ton of charter captains that charter out of his marina and friends and stuff. So we're getting all the boats, all the lodging, put together food plan, and then we're gonna have meat eater crew guys there and we're doing big fishing party, guys and gals, guys and gals, big fishing party in shore, offshore on guide boats, hanging out at night, cooking fish, cleaning fish.

It's gonna be a good time. Renee is gonna do once per group is going to do a big Cajun seafood boil, which I'm very excited about. He's so I like people that are so into doing their type of food that when when you meet someone that has custom made or had someone custom made them, the thing to cook their food in you know, it's serious and there it's gonna be good. So we're gonna get that experience

Will be there here shortly.

You know what I like about the waterfowl part of it is that's gonna be the thing I need to motivate me to finally get me.

A power plucker.

I'm going to have my power plucker sent there, know when it's all said and done on and bring that power plucker back home.

It's good idea.

What's that kind of power plucker I want?

You know, the one that my brother in law has Now, I think it's called the foul foul Plucker.

Isn't it?

Dude?

Do you ever be on that guy's website? Nope?

I got the nosing around there, and my neighbor, Pottery pat he after he offered to go haves. He's on it with me, But I don't know if I want to like want to share. Well, hey, then you know.

Whatever, then I gotta go looking for it over his house.

So I mean, you guys live like fifty yards apart.

It's not like.

Sharing being me and powdered pad or to share everything.

Anyway.

It's I've told you where I've seen these things set up. Eventually there's a shack that gets built around them.

Kahl was saying, because because the feather mate, the feather management so much.

Eventually just yeah, you kind of dig it out.

Yeah, you're like, boy, it doesn't really work in the garage all the time.

That's a creeping cost if you start out with a power plucker and then you end up with a building.

Yeah, and then you have a house that's built around well, yeah exactly.

I think it could be modified a little bit. They're not cheap. I'm looking at it right now on the orbist site. There's seven hundred and thirty bucks. Yeah, but they get for him. But it makes it pretty duck well when you do it right, you read the that guy is so serious. People place the order with that guy. And also, like you go place the order, all of a sudden your phone rings. He's calling you to make sure that you're serious about this purchase.

To be like, well, I saw you bought one of the pluckers. Here's the deal, right, let's work together.

Uh, Cal, I could see that there could be some feather build up, you know, I mean especially if you I mean if you're processing you know, at fifty a day. But I mean we processed almost twenty birds and we've basically filled up a shot full canister shot back in that you know, two hour period and it was full, like you couldn't really done too many more without dumping it.

But it worked, said two hours for twenty birds.

Yeah, I mean I'm guessing. I mean we had kids there that are, you know, helping and messing around, but I mean, yeah, the keys, it's got to be a dry bird.

Well, you gotta read more. I started reading more than you read.

Yeah, I just send that.

Guy a picture of my thumb, say like, is it going to be better than this?

I do better, but we'll do faster. That's one hundred percent sure, petition buddy, I want.

One of those things still.

Man, I'm gonna have it sent there so when we're doing our when we're doing our mediator experiences deal, we can people can power.

Pluck totally go home with a bunch of birds.

Hopefully you got more to say.

No, I think that's uh, that's good for it.

Off.

Quick hit spots are available to the general public starting the opening day of bear season.

And turkey season in Pennsylvania.

April fifteen.

Isn't that? What's tax day? Yep?

That's it?

Oh okay, so when you go to either send your money in or file for your money.

Who was it that had a horse named Iris because she was born on April fifteenth? You remember that?

No, I thought that was a cute ir s.

Yeah, April fifteen spotsor availed again. We got our trip fishing Louisiana in shore. Offshore, you can even go jug and catfish.

Yeah, listen, man, I would have gone way deeper, but I was asked to do a quick hit. But yeah, we got all kinds of things we can talk about for this trip or.

Or ducks and geese and Kansas. Yeah, and every night there's gonna be a long We're gonna give a long.

Lecture about something.

Every dight.

I'm gonna read this Musky Manifesto with everybody present.

That's right, and that's optional. If you don't want to stay for that. You can just go get some rest because the next day is going to be another big day of hunting or fish.

And so there's a thing we spent a lot of time on a uh something blowing up out a blow I don't know, blowing up that might be over selling it. A problem in Wisconsin that is just disconcerting to me. Unbeknownst to me for my whole life, I had no idea you can't spear a Northern pike in wiscon which to me seems like the pike spirit. If you'd have said to me before I found this out, if you said to me, what is the pike spear in the state in America? I would have just said, Eh, Wisconsin is there?

Is it because of Musky two point zero?

Is that what they don't who's driving it right now?

Yes, that's what I thought.

I don't know who is driving it. Prior to Muski two point oh, you cannot spear a Northern pike in Wisconsin. You can spare a sturgeon in Wisconsin. Can't spear a Northern pike Why because they can't trust one. They think pike spears will get all the Biggins and they think that a pike spearer cannot tell the difference between a northy in a muscle lunch man.

It's like looking into an aquarium at the zoo.

He can you can trust Americans. You can trust Americans to tell the difference between a button buck and a spike. You can trust Americans to tell if a deer has three times on one side. You can trust an American to tell a hen pintail from a drake pintail in the early season when they don't have their breeding plumage. You can tell Americans how to tell a hen pheasant

What else do you trust Americans to do?

I think I think you know fast moving waterfowls. Fantastic example.

For sure, you brought up hen versus rooster pheasant. How about a sharp tail and a hen pheasant when they get up into the city.

You can trust an American to tell the difference between a sharp tail hen and a hen pheasant. To drab colored brown birds with a pointy tail, the sun in the bright sun. There's no prohibition on hunting them in the bright sun. Far from it, no prohibition against walking into the sun. What else can you trust Americans?

Nothing?

You can trus men's room from the women's room.

You can trust Americans tell the men's well you used to.

Yeah, you can trust Americans to not shoot a black bearsyle with cubs. You can trust Americans to identify a male mountain goat. But apparently you cannot trust Americans to not spear muskies while spear and pike. Therefore, the entire state of Wisconsin can't go pike spearing. As we explained in the past episode, they put it to Wisconsin has this kind of cool but widely widely celebrated and widely displot despised.

Way that you.

Can get game loss change. What's it called calendar? You remember the advisory panel?

Oh?

Yeah, the regional like Pat Dirkins always talking about, and yeah, regional advisor or yeah, there's an acronym, but it's a county by county or region by region citizens Advisory Council.

So if you want to get a game a long Wisconsin change, you can bring it to the citizen's advisory panel. Like I'm going to get in there heavy duty as a non resident because they're trying to move through the Citizens' Advisory Panel process. They're trying to move youth turkey in Wisconsin from two days to four days, which I firmly support,

There's a lot of people that gripe about those youth hunting seasons.

I don't understand. Well, if I didn't have kids, i'd hate them.

Well, I was staying there to day. If we had a youth elk, I was saying, I would have never gotten the vast ectomy. I said that on the show.

As a man with no children. Here in Gallason County, here we go, I pay out the nose for your kids' education already.

I don't know.

I don't know why they also need to beat me out into the field.

Do you know what I mean?

Pick one or the other.

How's that You've had plenty opportunity at this point in your life. Those kids need a little opportunity to.

Okay, help me out here.

Whoa I got my glasses on. Who can help me out finding this?

Well?

How did the vote break?

So they put it to the citizens Advisory Panel and it got shot down kind of. They said, do you support pike spearing, and how in the world could someone say no?

But here's what happened.

They had a nearly even vote of yes no, and you had the option to say no opinion, okay, which was so close that it actually advanced to the Conservation the Conservation Congress in Wisconsin after a somewhat anemic public input, meaning evenly broke yes no. I think it was slightly no. But then there's all these people that copped out with a no opinion. So then it goes to the Conservation Congress, and the Conservation Congress in Wisconsin says thirty five to

Well, yeah, I mean, what what is the risk? Like, are you aware of any long studies that examine the abuse of overtake by spear fishermen during the ice season, like a guy committed to a fish shack versus six tip ups?

Yeah, Like that's what I was going to say, Like I've I've speared pike and you're you're not out fishing. The guy's got a whole set of tip ups out like no way, yeah, and you're sitting there and like, yeah, maybe you're targeting bigger pike.

But I'm not aware of any studies, and I could see an argument for going to lake by lake management. Yeah, well yeah, of course, depending on you know, the population status of muskies or the presence even of muskies in a given lake.

Yeah, that'd be a great compromise. Of course if there's like big treasure. You know, what was the strain of muskies also quad for strain. So he as when the guy or the guy that we communicate about this issue, when he wrote his letter being like, hey, what gives the Conservation Congress supported and advanced it. How come Noah movement. The department came back to him. Department, the department, this is the this is the Fishing Game Department Wisconsin d

Since I may not right, I mean sorry, go ahead.

Since implementation of a rule change in nineteen nine twenty three that eliminated the January and February spearing seasons on the Monominee in Brule Rivers, no winter spearing has been allowed in Wisconsin, with the exception of ice spearing on Lake Superior. Spearing can be selective for the largest pike in the population a lot of maize and cans.

So, if I get that argument correctly, he's saying that because spearfishing is so selective of the largest pike, then it could have negative population consequences.

Now it's other guys, bitch, and that they're going to spear all the big pike.

Yeah, that's the implication, right.

It's like in your four foot chunk of a how many acre lake, your little window that you see you're going to be selective within that four foot chunk out of one hundred and fifty eight acres.

But other states allow the spearing of northern pike. Oh yeah, have we seen across the northern tier? Have we seen a truncation of the size distribution in lakes where spearing northern pike is allowed.

I think the problem with that is it's been historically it's just always been historically present. But what I can tell you can study the dickens out of is the fact that there ain't nobody out spearing pike. Yeah, a little bit. It's like a it's not hurting anything. Yeah, he goes on, the department goes on. There is also concern with spearers mistaking muske Lunge for Northern pike on water bodies. We're both Congeners.

What's that mean? Same genus?

We're both congenders, reside Congeners.

That's what that means. Con generics. Yeah, good thing you're here.

That's great.

Yeah, congeners.

Congeners are congenerics. Yeah, same genus ESOCHS E S O X.

I'm gonna start saying that all the time all the time. Sometimes I get a word like that to write it on my hand for a few days and then then I got it.

Then I got it down.

While the public input for the twenty twenty three advice requestion was fairly close, more people did not support this proposal, with three thousand, one hundred and forty three in favor and three thousand, three hundred and fifty five opposed. We just don't govern that way.

You know. It's a buddy of mine.

He's a retired railroader out of Missoula, loves spear and pike has only to my knowledge, speared maybe a handful in many, many seasons. Because he is actively selecting for a huge pike. He has one pike mounted on his wall in his house, and it does not matter if you've been through that door a thousand times or for the very first time. Eventually he'll be like, did you see the pike? And you're like, yep, gam it's still.

There, Like how did he get that one? With a spirit?

Yep, spearin through the ice. But he's like, he would be the and this is an invasive species in this lake. It's it's the lake that you can underwaters spearfish for in western Montana. He would be he would raise Holy hell if anybody decided to eradicate the pike from that system because he loves that species so much. So that's just kind of like a random selection of dark house spearfishermen. They're not or this particular person, right, he's letting every

Uh, Yeah, I'm the idea on that.

Like, I grew up in big time pike country in Michigan.

We fished. That was our primary ice. Now one of our primary ice.

Is that well, let me put this way, that was our only ice, big game fish that we concentrated on. You could spear, you could tip up, and you want to see some bloody ice, go out there on a big tip up day. If you were out for numbers, running tip ups is going to give you bigger numbers of fish.

Well we're weren't you saying that your your lake as a kid had a bunch of dead pike all over during the summertime, like people would kill them and leave them.

Is that right?

Yeah, you see a lot of that, right, But that's and that's after the bass. Oh when the lake shore is like littered with fish that got let go with a nightcrawler and its anus. Let's talk about mercury and fish from sure.

Okay.

The reason I want to talk about mercury and fish is one we have a colleague of beloved colleague who he claims that have been mercury poisoned. I have been eating fish most of my life, and waters that carry a health advisory, state health advisories.

I lived for a while.

In Seattle, and we would have people not eat the perch we caught because they knew that those fish had a health advisory.

People are aware of it.

There was just a recently an article in the New York Times about you probably saw this. If we're cutting if we've been so successful in cutting mercury admit what's the word, not admissions, submission emissions, mercury emissions. If we've been so successful curbing mercury emissions, why do tuna still have mercury in them?

It takes a very long time for mercury to leave the environment. It can be actually a bigger problem in freshwater systems than offshore, because no one's taking anything out of stink of remote lakes in Canada, for example, Atmospheric deposition of mercury puts mercury in that water. It's taken up by algae, other phytoplankton. It enters the food chain that way, it works its way up into say, let's say walleye are the top predator in a given lake.

And like you're hauling the mercury out when you haul fish way, it's.

Them get them big muskies out of there. There's there's no once it's in the food web. I mean, there's not really any mitigation that can be done. It's not like you can spray a lake.

And where's it all coming from in the first place? Does industrial pollution?

Yeah, right, fossil fuels too.

Well, how are they curbing?

I got a ton of questions about it now.

I thought mercury was so heavy that it just works its way.

Down in its elemental form. It's it's super dense, right, But the mercury that's dangerous to animals from a toxicity standpoint is the methylated form. Uh so, it's it's got a carbon and a couple of hydrogens on it. The density of that molecule I don't know off the top of my head. But it's not like the silver liquid you're thinking of in a in a thermode. The fun stuff, the fun stuff, Yeah, yeah, that you probably played with that you and I both so I were bald played

How have we slowed emissions? We haven't slowed fossil fuel consumption.

Well, depending on who you mean by we, we have slowed fossil fuel consumption as global you globally know. How have we slowed the emission of mercury? It's generally it's about uh, scrubbing procedures when those fossil fuel, when that that that gas is being emitted from coal burning powers. So want to hear about clean coal or whatever? Is that different? Uh? No, it's you're on the right track. Yeah,

And then they use mercury in mining applications.

It's out of my pay grade.

Okay, that's that's not making its way. I mean they use mercury in like, you know, like leech mining. Okay, But I don't know if that gets into the water system, because everybody talks about the atmospheric mercury that shuts into your.

Fish yeap, And depending on the fish, it could be both. It could be that that point source. You know, if you're talking about a fish that's in an estuary or close to shore, like bluefin tuna, for example, you brought up tuna. Bluefin tuna have elevated mercury. Often they're apex predators. They're eating a lot of fish that are associated with shore, that are living in rivers and systems that might be

An atmospheric deposition is global, correct. I mean, you could go to the remotest corner of the Indian Ocean and mercury rains down in that.

You'd find a Budweiser bottle, a food line bag, and some microplastics, and there'd be mercury there, got it, But not in.

The concentration right of like the Great Lakes and its heyday of the industrial output of the Industrial Revolution right.

Well, in general, since the nineteen seventies, mercury deposition worldwide has gone down largely as a result of the environmental movement in North America in that time. And again a little out of my depth here, but we as a country put pressure on other countries to be more environmentally responsible the emissions and the burning of fossil fuels, and that lowers atmospheric deposition of mercury too. Got it.

So when will do you picture if current practices continue, Is there a day in which all of a sudden you notice that there's no more health advisories on the consumption of wildfish, probably.

Out of the lifetime of everyone in this room. Unfortunately, that's my guess. You take that long, yeah, because you have some places where there's just super high concentrations, and you have some species that are just notorious notorious for high mercury content. But we'll see, so you.

Can put less. Like the fact that we're putting less of it out there is not being represented in what we're seeing when we sample fish.

That's fair to say. No, it is being represented, because.

So I'm saying we're not seeing, like I said with this article's point about tuna, we're putting less of it in the sure, but we're not yet seeing less of it in our fish.

Oh, I see. Well, So, first of all, I'll say that in order to observe a decline in a toxic kint like mercury, you have to have a really long time series of information. So, in other words, in order to observe that decline, you'd have to have the data going back to, say, the nineteen seventies. I'm not a tuna guy. I love eating tuna. I'm not aware of what sort of long term data sets there are for tuna muscle. And we keep saying tuna, but there's all

DeLine like who was collecked in that?

Like? How? Yeah, good question. So the federal government, the National Marine Fishery Service otherwise known as Noah Fisheries, has a laboratory in Beaufort, North Carolina, where I live, and there were scientists there and at the Duke University Marine Lab also in Beaufort, that began collecting muscle tissue from blue marlin in the nineteen seventies in from in fact, the Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament, which is something that

Well, I mean, Steve will tell you what you can and can't eat on a fisheries side of things.

From an authority standpoint.

Steve, Well, what do you mean, I mean, you're just going to eat it?

Yeah, Well, I will tell you my favorite quote, which I've said thousand times. Me and Yanni were with a friend of ours that likes to fish off flattheads. Yeah, and when we asked him about his feeling about eating all those flattheads, he said, if I eat so, if I catch and eat so many big flattheads that it kills me, I win.

So somewhat fatalistic viewpoint, yeah, markedly so.

But I have not.

I have never.

I've never changed my fish consumption behavior because of health advisories. But it nags in the back of my head the same way when I'm eating deer meat, even if I had to test it, if I'm eating deer meat from areas that has like CWD, it is always in.

The back of my head. So have you been tested for mercury? No, no intention to do so.

No.

I would definitely do it. If you got a kit right now, I would do it right now a kit.

Yeah, not. Somebody of the bag could never.

Be in a home test for fish meat you bring home.

Uh no, not other than from a culinary standpoint.

It's a centrifuge, Like, don't isn't that what you do? You like put your blood samples in a centerfuge and spin them up and then it separates.

I left my medical career behind a long time ago, but I know a guy in Morehead City who had blood drawn explicitly for a mercury test because he was wondering. He's like, man, I eat a lot of fish passed with flying colors. That's good to hear, that's what they were doing.

I'm gonna text our doctor and we can get well.

Recently I texted so recently, Yanni text. We were worried we had low tea. We asked so Yanni sent a note to our doctor wonder about his tea, And then a couple yes later, I have to send her a note wonder about my tea. And she's like, and I caught her breaking the hippocratic oath because she said, are you guys sitting around talking about testosterone?

And I was like, who exactly? Who exactly? Referring to because I was under the depression.

This is all very secret, isn't the hippocratical do no harm?

That's nothing.

You're thinking people's secrets, patient doctor confidence. Yeah, that's what she broke.

Cracks who guys about Steve is Michigan or eats every single fish? And I think like one of the more thorough fish consumption advisories comes out of the state of Michigan. It seems like that's the state that has put the most work into and it's based off of like the Minton state. So it's a Michigan portion, So you put

Yeah.

I've always Yeah, that's made me chuckle.

The in Lake Washington in Seattle. I don't know what it is now, but for a while the perch the fish advisor is very specific where they would even get into sizes of fish, meaning that an example would be there was no restriction or what not restrictions out the word. There's no advisory on perch under twelve inches yep, but perch over twelve inches carried a health advisory.

Yeah, and they do it differently for children, men, pregnant women. Montana has some real specific like size based advisories.

Steve, would you feed a pregnant woman mercury filled fish.

Along with not?

Would not?

Would? I? I don't know, because here's the thing about it. Here's I don't want to spend all over I want to talk about alternative energy.

Here's the thing about it.

You know, if you're a fisherman, everything you know, if you if you're a fisherman and you dig into your rags, you're seeing the health advisories. But when you go to the grocery store and buy fish, you're just not that would all carry a health advisory as well.

You've seen a lot of fresh I'm actually asking a lot of fresh caught wild walleye at the grocery store.

No, well, there's a there's a wild walleye commercial fishery in Ontario. Yeah, so when you go and buy that, or when you go to a perch fry on Friday night in Michigan, you're not presented with the health advisory information. But if you're a fisherman, it's you get your nose rubbed in it. So I'm like, I feel like the whole So for people to think that this is a thing happening to fishermen, it's a thing happening to people that go to sushi restaurants.

Yeah, so yeah, what's yours? What do you want me? Do you want it on the menu?

No, I'm saying that this is this isn't the thing about. This isn't a thing for people to fish. This is a thing for people that eat fish.

Sure, and I I just got this thing. There's this organization that does like fish.

They do fish consumption estimates twenty five years, fifty years down the road and fish. They expect fish consumption to go up globally. So it's not like people that it's like, this is what we're talking about for people that go and catch a waho. It's people that eat a wahoo.

Yep. So I guess we need to continue to reduce emissions. Ye take that, keep that mercury level down.

But people be like, oh, you fish, you must eat a lot of mercury. It's like you go out to eat with your wife, you must eat a lot of mercury.

I wonder if, in general, there's a presumption that people who fish or buy a fishing license are eating more fish than people who are going to the grocery store to get that fish.

I think so, dude, if you're a big if you love sushi and you're going out once week and eating biggics, the kind of stuff that people go to sushi restaurants to eat, you're pounding a lot of mercury compared.

To some dude that thumps a cup of wall I know.

And then trout.

I mean, I hate to play in Steve's hand here, but the think of the amount of catch and release trout fishermen. We all know that the only fish that they're eating are coming from the grocery store.

Yeah, they're just not.

They're getting their mercury from down at I don't know the sushi joint. I can't name our old sushi joint.

They got enough. Just as as one example, I think if I didn't get fish from you guys or my in laws from both Fort North Carolina when they bring us some shrimp, we wouldn't really eat fishkill. We just don't. I don't, I don't, but I don't like don't. Yeah, to Brendan's point, I don't know the light trying to see you know, I just don't buy a lot of fish.

I'm with you, honest, like, dude, we eat way more like.

Oh listen, I'm an outlier magnitude. All right, we're gonna not move on to where you're.

Actually an expert. Okay, but I appreciate you. You just dragging you into this.

Oh go ahead, Sorry, I just I'm like, I was straining my brain to try to figure out the last fish that I bought at a grocery store, and it has to get like further divided because it's like, the only fish I've purchased at a grocery store is bait to go catch other fish with.

I would never buy it at a grocery store. In fact, there's no way smell Nope, I mean, oh yes, what you bought right. I'll eat it all day long in restaurants, but I would never buy it at a store to prepare it at home because I'm home. I just eat it out of my freezer. But if I go to it and there's fish, I'm probably getting the fish.

Okay, back on track. Sorry.

Brendan Runny is a marine scientist of Nature Conservancy, and Krin's been really wanting to get him on because we've been wanting to talk about offshore alternative energy development and what it might mean for fish, which led to a broader conversation about where I wanted to have that discussion as a sort of as.

A example.

Of the opportunities, challenges compromises around alternative energy development, which comes at a cost.

Fair all energy development comes at a cost, comes at a cost.

Now, I want to lay out something that I said. I'm going to tell you something I said on previous episodes on a previous episode when we talked about this, and then I'm gonna let you run.

But I just want to tee this up.

If I was the emperor of the world, Nope. If I was the emperor of the.

Country, the emperor everybody.

If I was in charge of America. If I was solely in charge with America of America and my people came to me and said, he, here's our plan on developing currently undeveloped landscapes offshore. On shore, here's our plan to take currently undeveloped landscapes and develop them for alternative energy in order to combat climate change. I would say, Man,

Global average temperatures. Okay, now you go. Yeah, so a couple of things. So we're in a climate crisis, fair.

Yes, Well, yeah we're seeing.

Yes, if you're a Michigan ice fisherman, hell yeah.

We're seeing. We're seeing annual increases.

And now I'm not I don't I don't want to go back like what they do where they try to go back a thousand years because we just weren't measuring temperature the same. But in the modern era with with how we measure temperature now, we are seeing increases, and there's some little blips and stuff, but generally we are seeing increased temperatures, and we're seeing impacts of increased temperatures on fisheries, on wildlife, on marine resources, and we're seeing like some chaotic weather.

Patterns, weather patterns, we're seeing rain shifts, range expansions of many marine species, many terrestrial species for that matter. The United States is responsible for fifteen percent of the carbon emissions globally. China is responsible for thirty all right, but we have the leg up because we industrialized one hundred

Can you, within this touch on the BLM's proposal. Definitely, Okay, tell everybody about that.

So right now, the Bureau of Land Management is overseeing something called the Western Solar Plan. There is this is maybe going to be a little jargony there's right now a draft programmatic Environmental impact statement for the Western Solar Plan. There are several alternatives in that plan. They all involve opening public land BLM land to solar application. What a solar application means. Solar application means that that land has cleared the first hurdle, the first governmental hurdle, to be

Public hunting ground. Let's just call it that.

BLM lands upon which a variety of recreation upon which a variety of consumptive and non consumptive outdoor activities can take place.

Well, you met you like you mentioned that. And at the same time, the BLM has promised to prioritize recreation activities and wildlife habitat. So how do these two things.

Like, I'm glad you asked. So, there's one other alternative in that plan that would only open eight million acres to solar application, and that eight million acres is lands that are both already disturbed and are within ten miles of transmission existing transmission infrastructure. So that's one thing to support with this. Where we know we need more renewable energy production, we have an opportunity we can build solar

So one of these proposals would more than double the amount of land, would more than double the amount of land given to energy production.

Yeah, I understand the question. But what I'm not sure about is whether there's overlap in that twenty two millionaires for solar three.

For the eight million dollars or eight million acre plan. They would use existing roads and things like that that are being used by fossil fuel extraction operations.

Or wherever possible, we want to use existing transmission infrastructure, which of course includes things like roads, that includes things like power lines. Right, And that's what we that's what we know we need, and that the Nature Conservacy's working towards identifying the lowest impact ways to build out a clean energy economy.

Right Because I mean, not only do you have like the idea of solar panels covering the ground, but all the roads in infrastructure you would have to build is not much different than what's already being done by fossil fuel viperation.

The footprint of any energy installation is not restricted to just the infrastructure that's generating the electricity.

Who are the biggest players that are foreign against this?

When you say this, do you mean the renewable energy transition in general or the one.

It's got to be a bitter pill for environmental groups who've been who've built their careers, who've built their organizations on fighting energy development.

I don't think it's a bitter pill at all. I think all it's in my mouth right now, it's better, well not certainly not for every environmental group. So there's always trade offs with building any energy infrastructure, and why would we not transition to building renewable energy infrastructure. Why would we stick with fossil fuels when we have the opportunity to build infrastructure, to build utility scale projects that produce electricity at no net carbon emissions.

You're asking a huge question, and I'm trying to keep this conversation contained because I could come I could come in with a lot of things that are sort of out of my area of direct interests and expertise, and I would get into I guess, national security questions. I don't know, like like I don't even know. I don't even know where the conversation would go. If we're talking about it from a sort of a perspective of the US economy security, it could go one hundred directions.

Yeah, okay, fine, But but from a public lens standpoint? From okay, that that I'm comfortable with. Yeah, there's always trade offs. Over the last several decades, we've seen oil and gas exploration, we've seen oil and gas, new oil and gas leases. So if we're going on public lands, so if we're if we're going to use public lane ends in the generation of electricity, why would we continue to do that with fossil fuels and not transition to renewables. I can't really tell you.

A thing that I would explore would be efficiency meaning energy per unit of space.

Okay, that's one way to measure efficiency, sure, but it's also about containing the climate crisis and trying to curb emissions and bring us to and and energy and an energy sector that's not continuing to contribute to what we've seen over the last several years. Runaway temperatures, species shifting, the distributions, all the things we just touched on. Are you familiar? I can't remember who. There's a novelist. He's a big birder.

That's his name, read the French name Gay No no no.

He's a contemporary novelist and he's a big.

Burder, A novelist, not nonfiction. Who wrote the corrections? Was it him? Either way?

Uh? But not leaves of.

Either way? It doesn't matter. There's a perspective. His perspective was this.

This perspective was as the climate, the climate's changing, climate's going to change. The best thing we can give wildlife is sanctuary to withstand those changes. Wildlife places to be wild and weather the storm and again, like I want you like I just I don't want to like I'm

We're not necessarily going to lose pristine habitat. As I mentioned, one of the alternatives in this Western solar plant only includes previously disturbed lands. So we're not talking about cutting out what is the definition of that.

You'd have to look at the because you could go to a ranch and say that's previously disturbed. Isn't it not from wildlife perspective? Okay, So then Mikyle's not condos guy, gotcha?

Yeah, this is so like I'll make the the bargain with you right now. I'd be way more into it if my version of disturbed right like these old well pads, the infrastructure that go out to you know, you know, you fly over you know, parts of the Red Desert, all that stuff, that type of infrastructure BAM gets replaced with green energy infrastructure. I'm like, yeah, okay, I can see that. Like we're not gonna in any sort of good way be able to rehab that into the mixed grass prairie that it once was.

So the good news here is that the public is involved in this process at every step of the way. Right now, there's a public comment period open for the Western Solar Plan. This is going to drop April first.

I heard.

The public comment period is open until April eighteenth. There right now, if you go to.

Three days after the tickets going, yeah, get your tickets, get your tickets to the live show, and get a couple days of recoup a couple days.

Proceed right to the BLM's website. Take a look. There will be recordings of virtual meetings that have already happened. But you can listen to the virtual webinars describing the solar plan. Maybe somebody asked, what's your definition of disturbed lends. Maybe you can get a nice crisp answer from the BLM on that, and then you can provide public comment.

I think that there are six options if I'm not mistaken, like five different frameworks for the plan. And then if I read this correctly, there's a no action status quo option, which I.

Think theys thing happens. Yep, there's always a no action alternative.

Is there any existing studies like where large scale solar operations have been built, like on wildlife impact? Like are they like what where are they basin what they're going to do and what's going to happen.

On that's a little out of my expertise.

Yeah, I mean it almost feels like we're like, hey, after you, but it's just like questians I have.

No, that's perfectly fair. I mean there are ways that you can mitigate the impact on wildlife to things like a solar project. For example. Most solar projects are going to have a fence around them. That's not great from a migration standpoint, but you can make a permeable fence. Maybe not for an elk, but for foxes, Okay, for desert tortoise you can. You can have openings in the fence and allow them to move through that project even

There's two things I want to do, and you'd pick whatever, whatever one you.

Want now, and then we should move to off I want.

Yeah. One move is talk about offshore. Yeah, that's like you'd explained.

The other move is we have an election coming up this November.

What are you running for?

If well, if there's a if there's an administration somewhere within this conversation, if there's a change in administration, how much did this just becomes a non issue. I mean Trump said he was he joked and was taken Like everything he says he like makes a joke and actually serious he joked that, Oh, no, I'm gonna be a what do He said, I'm gonna be a dictator for a day, just a day.

He was he's joke.

He doesn't have the authority, he said. Someone says, oh, everyone's afraid you're gonna be a dictator. He goes, no, I'm gonna be a dictator one day, and on that day, I'm gonna close the border and I'm gonna take some action. I can't remember how I articulated it takes some action to increase domestic oil production. Then he says, then I'm gonna quit being a dictator.

Let's do the offshore one.

Okay, we'll do off short. But I want to come back, like all the things we're talking about, how much does this ride on? Like how much if you come back next January seven, how much would everything we just discussed become a non issue because there was a change in administrations.

I can provide you with several names within the Nature Conservancy who would love to come on this program and answer that question.

I got one more pragmatic question on here, and it's okay if we just like leave it on the table. But there's a finite amount of public land and it's declining of that public land habitat. A lot of it is already in question. We and we've we're losing good habitat. What what's the private land existing infrastructure option to carry out and get us to the same you know, net zero.

Yeah, point like if we did this in a willing seller, willing buyers.

Like wind farms, I mean a lot of those are on we could land.

It's a great question. Kyle's not turbanes kind of.

Turbineses.

No, that's that I think that there is a lot of ground to make up by putting this infrastructure on private lands. And one thing that the Nature Conservancy has done some analyzes towards this rooftop solar not not just on homes but on big box stores things like that. An analysis was done that suggested that if thirty five percent of all suitable rooftops had solar on them by twenty fifty, which is aggressive but maybe reasonable, a third of all roofs in the United States is going to

Yep, just fill that whole thing in with solar.

I would say the Bears, Chicago Bears Stadium first one to go, great Minnesota Vikings number two.

To any one of those things that opens up, it's now closed, the top, the roof closed covered.

What are you a Packers fan?

Yeah, that's right.

Who would pay for the BLM proposal? If they like did this start doing?

A great question? Who pays for it?

I assume there's like some private individuals that are you know, footing the bills to these things.

Do you mean who pays for the build out of the actual infrastructure of.

It, Like, you know, are we paying for some portion of it? Or is it mostly private individuals who are like standing to make money off this.

Like they're going to sell the lease or what are they gonna do? How's it work? Oh? Okay, so it's a it's a win win. So I know it's a win win. So the developer applies for a lease from the federal government or in the offshore wind space, the federal government holds an auction for the lease for the rights to build a project on that ground. It might go for ten million, one hundred million, whatever it depends on the lease, depends on how big it is, where

Once they start pouring it into the grid.

Which in the offshore wind space not a lot of is happening yet, but it were on.

The brink, so it would operate just like fossil fuel.

From a from a economics, the BLM makes money off it, Yeah.

The public makes money off it or cattle grazing, and and I gotta feel it's more lucrative than the it's definitely contract. Yeah. So as far as as far as putting solar wind on private land, that does put money in the pocket of the landowner big time. The companies are really proprietary about how much money. But it's more lucrative than cattle ranching or grown corn.

I recently, I don't want to get into any details. I have a friend that is in conversation with the solar people. It's life changing money. So there you go, like it's life, it's it's generation, it's generational money.

So if you're listening to this and you got a big patch of ground, you want.

To turn the turn off? Please you big patch of ground.

Turned it off.

But I mean, we got all these buildings out there that are already patched in to the grid somehow, some way, hmm. Like right, I mean there's going to need to be like if you're generating some serious your juice, you know, but that ship I don't like, lay a big, gross looking cable off the top. I don't care about that. Sure if it's fixing this problem. But like, you know, we I just came back from pheasant Fest, right, and you know we talk a lot about grasslands, right, the

Yeah, I want to get to I want to get to offshore bad. But it's like just for your colleagues. For you and your colleagues, please just make sure you're like really digging into like old junkie vacant lots like just whatever, Okay, whatever you guys can find. Well, I encourage you to actually parking lots that you park under the panels.

I've parked in those. I've parked in.

Those, So it's not even that it's not even that you lose the parking lot. Yep, it's covered parking.

And what about agrivoltaics which we haven't touched on. But you can grow especially fruits and vegetables underneath solar panels. You can graze cattle. Dairy cattle in particular produce more milk when they are underneath solar panels, when they don't have exposure to extreme heat, extreme sunlight. Great, this is what I need to hear. I'm here for you. I want to talk about offshore.

What I don't want to hear about I need to hear about all the alterns before we start talking about going out onto perfectly fine ground and breaking it up. And I would say this, I don't give I'd say that if it's coal, I say if it's gas, it's just like, I just don't think we can afford to lose habitat.

We agree with you, we are looking for the lowest impact alternatives. Okay, let's talk about offshore.

And while I did, just a little tip for you, if you want to talk about offshore from an improving fishing standpoint, that'd be a good way to do it.

Is that where you want to.

Start, what's the current? Give us where offshore for? Okay, do this explain what offshore means, because there's like there's state offshore in federal offshore. Sure, and then what are we currently doing for offshore wind and what are we getting out of it?

Yep? Set the stage. So the distinguishing characteristic between state and federal waters is the three mile line. So in the Atlantic, so three miles from shore, the state has fisheries management jurisdiction, leasing the bottom jurisdiction. Once you get outside that three mile line into the edge of the exclusive economics and the EZ at two hundred miles that's federally controlled.

Okay, I wasn't aware of the where it ended.

Two hundred and then it's international waters, got it, yep.

So three it becomes fed, and then at two hundred it becomes sort of everybody.

Three to two hundred, and then it's it's everybody, it's nobody. It's foreign fishing fleets, it's you know, offshore accounts. They're out there somewhere.

Yeah, little piles of money floating around.

That's a fish aggregating device right there.

Yeah, the baiales of cocaine and yeah.

Man, So here's where we are with offshore wind right now. As of last week, there are twenty four operational power producing wind turbines in the United States Atlantic. Five are actually in state waters off Black Island, Rhode Island. You know, they were the first Rhode Island thing. I think fished it totally. Twenty seventeen they built five then off of Virginia in federal waters. First federal project was built in twenty twenty two turbines. Okay, how big in what? By

The circumference, What is the circumference of the thing coming up out of the water where it comes out of the water.

I was what's today Friday. I was fishing around it five days ago, close enough that you could reach out and touch it with your fishing rod. Not that you should, because that would be trespassing. The diameter, which is easier for me to estimate it is maybe twenty feet coming out of at the surface of the water. It's bigger, of course, at the sea floor, slightly tapered larger at the sea floor. The tip of the blade when it's spinning and it's straight up and down is six hundred

That's where we're currently in the Atlantic Ocean, and US water US or state waters.

Are power producing power twenty four right now?

Can I ask one more question as you set this whole thing up, Yeah, can you compare the output of one of because I think I know what. Most people haven't seen that, but most people have been driving down the road and they've seen a wind farm yep. So in size and output, ye, how similar is it to what you see off in the distance when you're driving.

Down the highway? Offshore? It is way bigger. They're bigger. Yeah. So on land, your typical wind turbine generators three and a half megawatts, So I just mentioned the ones off Virginia six megawatts. That's the that's the pilot or research project for that. Developer will begin building a commercial scale project this May. They're going to be putting in fourteen's fourteen megawatt wind turbine generators. That project will be one hundred and seventy six turbines. Sure, it's going to power

So the maximum man, you need to get more kids signing up for Vogue time school.

So I'll give you what I mean by the maximal build out. So take the Virginia project for example. The maximal build out of that project was about two hundred and eight turbines. They are only going to build one hundred and seventy six. Where's the other thirty two going? Well? They through a collaborative process with the public and with the federal government, decided to lay off a couple locations that were too close to important resources like shipwrecks, like

Can you hit me with Let's let's go to the current ones. How many miles from shore are the current ones?

So the one I was fishing under five days ago is twenty seven nautical miles from Virginia Beach, Virginia straight east.

You're still only eighty five feet of water there.

Yeah. The continental shelf is a is a mysterious mistress and drops off at different distances from shore. I don't know where you are. Off Florida, you have five miles from the beach here in a thousand feet of water. But yeah, off Virginia, you gotta go a lot farther to get to that continental shelf break, okay, and.

Then to transmit this energy or transport this energy?

Oh yeah, are.

You trying to like bring things to a centralized cable and then bring that on shore or what's the infrastructure there? So sorry, we should hit Steve's quite of how is that some bitch anchored down?

Which one you want to go to first transmission?

Or just real quick touch on. I'm just curious that the engineering on it.

Yeah, so again, I'll speak from the Virginia project that I that I'm most familiar with. One hundred and seventy six turbines will within that farm will spider web to three offshore substations, which will then package up that power into larger cables and shoot them to shore in a cable export corridor.

Are those substations above or blow water above water?

Yep? How big is that? I'm not sure. The oil rig kind of look yeah, it looks like an oil rig. Yep, yep. And okay, now how do you anchor them down? Yeah?

That the footprint of the actual turbine the pole. Yeah, look pad, Well there's no pad, so here's okay.

Yeah. So most of the projects that are under development right now or will contribute to that three thousand by twenty thirty number are built with what are called monopile foundation, which means you guessed it, one pull, one piling. These are thirty ish feet in diameter and they're hammered into the seafloor using a hydraulic hammer. A massive vessel comes out there, holds itself. The vessel has like a power pole to hold you in place, but on a much

Where does that material come from?

Well, that's a good question. So the Nature Conservancy recently put out a report about different materials that can be used to enhance scour protection. And when I say enhance, I mean from an ecological standpoint, to maximize the amount of positive ecological benefit that we're getting out of this material that's being placed in the water. If left to their own devices, the developers would rely on two criteria to decide what they're going to use as scour protection,

What's the lifespan of one of these things, and like how long? What percentage of its life does it's been just trying to pay for itself.

So the leases are generally for twenty five to thirty years. Most wind turbines pay for themselves within six months or a year. What, yeah, man, that's efficient?

Is that the same with the ones that we see on out here in the west.

Belief cell, Yeah, I could believe it there more and I could believe what you're talking about that just seems like a bigger pain in the ass, building it out in the ocean, big pain.

In the ass.

What happens at the end of that twenty five years, We're.

Not really sure. So I know you guys have spearfished around the remains of oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. There's a program now.

Which is hilarious because can I get kind of lay this out? Really, there's thousands and the golf there are just like you're talking about thousands, twenty three hundred roughly in the goal. There are thousands of oil platforms from offshore oil rigs and many of them are being retired. And so to kind of give a little bit of a window into where this conversation is going around this wind development, is these oil rigs made.

The golf bloom.

I mean, the oil rigs created a fishery. You're shaking your head. They altered they created a fishery. Now there's a debate around. People are saying, well, now that they're here, please leave them here, because it they generate so much fish, they create so much habitat, they create all these vertical reefs, and so now people that might have lamented them coming in because of the disturbance, increased boat traffic, pollution, are now have gotten used to them. The fishery is built

Created, and that's likely to happen with offshore wind too. The fight. I don't know all those fights, and I don't know. No one knows what's going to happen twenty five to thirty years from now, the decommissioning thing. At this point, I believe that technically that the fine print says that the developer will take it down to the substrate and leave it looking like it did before they got there, which means removing all that scour protection material.

To a body mind said, when they remove an oil rig in the golf, he said, it's not even a beer can down there.

Yeah, right, probably cleaner leave no trace.

No, it's like they come in with like high test sownar and when they're done, there's nothing nothing. It's cut off wave below the surface and everything's gone.

And think of the expense and think of the loss of what may very well be extraordinarily valuable fish habitat. So that's a fight that we're probably going to have in twenty five or thirty years. And how much of a fight that is, I don't know. But the opportunity that we have now is to demonstrate whether these are valuable habitat, and in all likelihood for certain species they will be. Whether they produce new and animals or simply attract animals from elsewhere is a matter of open debate.

Well, how in its infancy can it be? If it's gonna be it's twenty twenty.

Four, right. What I mean is we're any.

Time how many by two thousand and thirty?

What couple thousand?

Okay, well it can't be that.

I mean. What I mean is it's in infancy for.

Us six years to build a couple thousands.

But from a scientific study standpoint, we don't have any large, full scale operational turbines that can be used when far that can be used as a study location.

So the biology is in its infancy, or the ecology is in its infancy.

Correct. And there's a lot of money going into collecting before data right now as we're in the for many of these leases, in the waning hours of the before period m hm, we're trying to scrape together data that will be valuable comparison down the line when these wind farms are fully built out.

Man, imagine if they had done that in a really good way in the goal of Mexico, how valuable that information would be now.

I can imagine.

So if you could go like, well, let's take a look now that it's all done, let's take a look at what we want and what we lost.

Yep. And so a lot of a lot of scientific a lot of really cool fisheries work being done.

When you compare this to oil rigs providing habitat and like fishing around defunct oil rigs, is there like is there gonna be travel restrictions in these areas for like the average recreational fishermen like wanting to run right under an operational because you can tie off.

Well, that's said you can't touch them. And I was like, there should be anchor points on there so you can put your bungee line on there.

You're not supposed to touch them. My understanding is that there won't. My understanding is there won't be any restrictions as far as how close you can get. Now, there may be, there may be. There may be day to day restrictions. If there's a maintenance of something going on on a specific turbine, the developer won't allow you to

They need to get real clear on that point. If you're gonna want fishermen to buy in on it, you're gonna have to really clarify that point. And I would say, put a couple of mooring cleats on the side of that thing.

I'll uh yeah, I'll place a call to the cleats.

In twenty twenty one, Joe Soimelli Road an article on the media dot com about wind turbines off the coast of New Jersey and the Atlantic Shores manager Doug Colpland said, you're welcome to fish by the structures. We just asked that you don't tie up to them. And in general it seemed like they were like kind of supportive of like yeah, like come hang around him, just like, don't touch them.

And they are supportive, and they have to be because it's this is a collaborative process in which the public is engaged and they need as many of the stakeholders and stakeholder groups on their side as they can get.

They should set up some bait and tackle shops out there.

I want that, Yeah, that floating barge and feed, so I.

Could get on board, Like from the access point, that's a compromise. I could see fisher you want. Don't touch it seems fair. If it winds up being like don't go near it, you can't be within two hundred yards of it, I feel like that's going.

To cause a lot of tension. I don't think we're going to see that though, And I like the idea of a tackle shop up out there. I was thinking on Sunday when I was fishing underneath them that I was putting tags on fish. Oh, we're asking for so you know, with tagging studies sometimes you ask the angling public to participate in some way, either call the tag in or release the fish. In this case, we're asking

So?

Is there a big gripe from the commercial fishery here? Like where I mean there's We're haven't gotten nearly as contentious as with putting this stuff in good bird habitat, buck habitat.

So like we got to get back to the fight here. What's Yeah, it's all positive.

That's what I want to return again to my the oil development and the golf. The shrimpers didn't like them. No different different critters, just the amount of debris they're after something totally different. Shrimp don't care about the rigs. It's all that much more debris. It's more stuff you got to avoid. So like winners losers, red snaper dudes, winners, shrimpers losers.

And there's uh an important parallel in the Atlantic too. You're right that the there are commercial sectors of the fishing industry that aren't enthusiastic about some of these wind farms, especially the toad gear trawlers, uh, scallops.

Bottom clams like bottom trawlers.

Yep, and the trawling for invertebrates. Yeah five alums. Uh, they're not enthusiastic.

When that's not the I mean, I don't want to cast judgment, but that's not always the friendliest.

The ones that I know a great guys, I don't mean friendly, like not great guys. They get, they get, they catch it.

They indiscriminate.

If you go talk to you an anglers having a bad day of ficient and go like, what do you think is the main reason you're having a bad.

Day of fision, he might say, well, Okay, this is a discussion for another time.

I mean to talk about how people blame their bad day officient and stuff.

Sure, yeah, and I just said it's a discussion for another time. But I'll say one thing on, which is that for some species of fin fish, the recreational sector is a responsible for the majority of the mortality, not the commercial sectors. What we want to hear about that, that's not what we're talking about here, because we're talking about trawlers who are potentially upset about wind farms and

Are yeah, yeah, I mean we can we can assume two ways. Right, it's pretty easy to prove your bad fishermen.

Well. One other thing to mention is that, just like with on land renewable development, the sighting of offshore wind is an iterative process that takes into account things like where people are fishing. Okay, we're always looking for the lowest impact. We're always looking to put the energy infrastructure in the places where we weren't using that location for a whole lot of other stuff.

When it comes down to onshore wind development, you're looking for these places that are you know, these high wind plateaus or whatever. Right, there's a micro site selection.

Yeah, there's a resource and you want to extra.

You'd be like, you know, you can't just put one anywhere you want one, and it has like very consistent wind windy spots right kind of areas to develop, you know, it can't have like huge topographical features, right, Right, So is the Atlantic is the Atlantic Coast? Does it have all these sort of micro wind channels or does it wind up being more a sort of more ubiquitous constant wind no matter where.

You go, it's in between that. Okay. I don't think it's as micro as on land, where you have topography, ain't much topography twenty seven miles from shore, but you do have areas that are windier than others, consistently windier than others. The New England, the northeast is consistently windy. That's where a lot of off shore wind's gonna wind up. But we're talking about sort of large.

You have large areas that are consistently windy, not like little teeny pockets that are consistently windy.

Yeah that's right, Yeah, yep. And when you get that far from shore, that's right. Uh.

Let's talk about winters and losers, all right, from a species standpoint, Yeah, humans winners? Yeah, what what's your guess on?

Uh?

I don't know, right, Whales, sword and fish like whatever?

Like who who's a big part of the this sucks?

I'll address cows. Comment about birds. So it's hard to avoid migratory pathways. When migratory pathways run through the Atlantic, a lot of these wind farms are likely to be in places that historically have been migratory pathways for some species. So I want to just real quick talk about this study that my colleagues at TNC Virginia are doing. Where they're putting satellite altimeter tags on a couple species of shore birds altimeter, meaning we get the altitude of the

Yeah, what does that mean? Yeah, I can see that. That's not something it would have occurred to me.

But yeah, and so nailing down again, it's about building that foundation of scientific knowledge such that we can reduce the impacts as much as possible to all species, including birds.

Give me a couple of species that are out twenty some miles off cruising through fish species.

No birds, Give me a couple of birds. Oh man, I'm not a Yeah, gannets, mers, razor bills depending on the time of year, a lot of let's see sheer waters, things like that. I'm less of a burder than I am a fishermansood sort of armchair ornithologist. You know why.

I'll tell you a little something about sheer waters. I don't know if you're much into etymology. Okay, he's sheer in the water. I can tell you where he's at. That's right, he's licking it.

Yep. So you know there's a lot there's a lot of birds out there, a lot of different species, and that that's some maybe winners. In fact, you know, there's speculation that the habitat created by offshore winterbines will create good forage for birds that eat fish, got and invertebrates. Yeah, same, it is true. Submarine mammals, smarine mammals, harbor seals, gray seals in the North Sea. I think I have those species right have started feeding around wind platforms. They go

No one that was drew in a breath of air to ask a question. Do they ever think talk about like you was talking about, to prevent the scouring effect, you do this thing, it creates some habitat, Like is there's someone else going like, oh, well, here's ten other things that you guys could also do and it might not even be beneficial to the turbine turbine, Yeah, but it's going to be really beneficial. It's all these things that swim around here.

I like where you're going there totally hey while you're out there.

Yeah, So we have there's a process where from an impact standpoint, the first thing you want to do is avoid, Then you want to minimize, then you want to mitigate, right, and so that hierarchy is coming into play with all of these construction projects. There may be mitigation that these developers can partake in that would result in things like

Have they kicked around drape sheathing those suckers and something that's really good for Bui valves to hang on to.

Or don't they want bui a valve growth on.

It, Yeah, like the drag or something.

Yeah, I don't think they want a lot of bivalve growth on it. I think, you know, that can actually destabilize the structure. The amount of biomass you're talking about could destabilize the structure. So I think they're they're actually cleaning bi valves off of certain parts of these things.

Can I tell you something about the oil rigs. I just can't help but bring this background to oil rigs. Come on, those old oil rigs are encased in life. Yeah, no, one's when you put your hand on them, you can just sit there and break away and it's like barnacles, but all these vacated barnacles that are full little fish, and you can actually sit there and crumble some of that stuff and watch fish coming up from the depth.

Yeah, they're coming up to meet it. Use that as a little bait for your spearfish and extras.

They're encased in life.

Yeah, yeah, I mean that'll happen if you leave something in the ocean for a while. So if these wind turbine guys are listening, what's it like you fished under one.

Now, I mean, that's obviously a very big part of the whole contentiousness of this whole thing, right, is what it looks like from shorts. I'd like you to speak to that, like the distance they put them out and how that's been worked on. But then when you're out there, I mean, obviously, like my some of my well one memory that I have now that my father in law is for years wanted us to go and do. He's like, you'll never experience a sunrise like the sunrise you experienced

It's amazing.

If you're in the middle or near a wind farm, it's not the same.

I'm sure that's the case. I haven't experienced a sunrise on the on the seas underneath a wind farm. I've experienced it many times elsewhere. I would suspect that, But you get my point. I do get your point. There's nothing uglier than the wind farm.

There's a building.

I guess there's an aesthetic, there's an aesthetic loss of that, you know, it's that sunrise observation.

That's part of why they want to put him way out right.

That's part of it the whole because people don't so you don't.

Have the nim's sayings a mile off shore of mon talk like.

Yeah, you to like, oh no, we're going to put them right off shore in Nantok. You see how many people also aren't pro alternative energy.

But you can see him from sure, you can, you can, but they're not big.

So twenty seven miles out and they're big structures.

Man, Yeah, you got the curvature of the earth, well depends on Yeah, that's so.

Yeah, So what distance are they visible? Not visible?

You can see him from short from twenty seven miles, but they're small and there's not much to them, and if they weren't moving, you would need a crystal clear day to even really know this.

Do you have to look for him to find them?

Or you're like very aware you'd have to look for him for sure. In fact, we took our first tagging trip for this project a couple of weeks ago, and the guy that I had volunteering to help me tag fish, he and I were in the hotel room in Virginia, beach. There's a fairly high floor. And we stood at the window and I said, oh, I see him. And it took him a minute. He's like, where man? Where? So?

No, I mean when you're out there fishing underneath the wind farm, like what, after a day you're like, oh, it's just normal to have this big blade spinning above my hand.

Yeah, after after the first couple of fish, you've forgotten about it. How loud is it? I can't hear it? Really. You might hear the wind rushing around the you know, you know, over the blades like anything. Yeah. Yeah. What about whales? Whales loving it or hating it? I han't asked, having asked the whales, how deep you want to get into this? To the bottom? You got the wrong guy. Okay, serves level whale.

Yeah, okay, let's say let's say all you remember earlier I said to that that I'm primarily interested in one thing. I'm primarily interested in, not in anything.

That would pass up. Okay, let me put this way.

My primary interest when it comes to conservation is sacrificing the least amount of acres of productive wildlife habitat. Yeah, okay, that's my primary Like I'd be like, my primary objective is saving productive wildlife habitat, whether it's a cattle ranch, whether it's a.

Brushy ditch. I'm with you. Okay.

If my whole thing was like, I'm a whale guy, top to bottom, all I care about is whales, would I be like real sweating it about these wind farms.

I don't think so. It's been in the news a lot that allegedly offshore wind development is harming marine mammals. We're experiencing an unusual mortality event for whales on the East coast. Is it right whales or what does it happen? The North Atlantic right whale is an endangered species. There are something like three hundred and fifty animals left in existence. Humpback whales have also experienced unusual levels of mortality over the past eight years. It's extremely difficult to pin down

But was there like a signific can increase in offshore wind development in twenty sixteen.

Well, remember, at the beginning of this part of the conversation, I told you it's only twenty four turbines in the ocean, and half of them were just built. So in twenty sixteen there were zero. Twenty sixteen there were zero. There was survey activity going on at the time, and it has been claimed that some of these survey boats, the survey gear could have disrupted or disturbed these whales in

It's but blunt fords trauma you're talking about. They're physically getting banged.

Up, yep. Okay, boats are hitting them.

So it's not no one's speculating that it's the noise of the seismic survey that's it's being speculated, and I don't want to add any fuel to this fire.

It's being speculated that the survey noise could have disrupted the normal activities of the whales instead that then eventually resulted in put.

Them in different channels like commercial channels that they disorient from.

Right, and so a couple more things on the vessel strikes an offshore wind every offshore wind construction vessel and survey vessel is required and they do carry protected species observers, trained individuals who are looking for whales, dolphins, sea turtles, any protected species. All of those that I just mentioned are obligate air breathers. They got to come to the surface.

While you're thinking, Okay, how much how much wind does it take to spin a turbine? Turbine? Gosh, I don't know why you got that in my head.

Now take that turbine right off the top.

Of your head. I hear both ways all the time. They stop spinning below about five miles an hour. They could spin at that, but there's a break that stops them from spinning because it's a net loss of electricity to spin the blades. At that low level, they also shut down. I think above fifty five or sixty they just start spinning too fast and that not gonna work.

My kids like YouTube compilations of wind turbines falling apart and.

Very very popular.

I'm going to ask you a really complicated question. I'm ready, and you might have to do one of those things where you defer to your colleagues.

Okay, I'm ready for that too.

In discussing the border wall, oh God, to return to Trump. In discussing the border wall, I would often bring up, Okay, one, I.

Believe we have a border crisis.

The border wall makes me uneasy because of the wildlife impact.

Okay, okay, mountain lions.

Jaguars, mulitary analyope, whatever that. If you make an impenetrable barrier YEP, basically separating.

Cutting the bottom third of our.

Continent offp and you make an impenetrable land barrier isolating our portion of the continent from the rest of North America, Central America, South America from travel, and you look at the long, deep history of wildlife movements as well as the short history of the need for wildlife to move around.

I get uneasy.

People then go, well, your job hasn't been taken by an immigrant.

Okay.

I'm like, be that ad as it may. This is a thing to think about, Okay, it's a thing to think about, the same way if I said we're gonna go on family vacation and someone said, but that costs a lot of money, I would say, correct, that's a thing to think about in considering this though, We're gonna go on family vacation recognizing that it costs money.

Okay.

With whales, are you so confident in our need to do this that you would say, I get it, it sucks for whales, but we need to do this anyways.

Are you there in our need to build offshore wind. Yeah?

Would you be like, yeah, you know what, It's just like how we're blocking off jaguars, Like in pursuit of border security, we're going to kind of say goodbye jaguars in our country. Would you be like, would anybody say, in pursuit of alternative energy, goodbye the northern right whale.

I believe that the people who are best suited to answer that question no, No, you don't think you think you know I'm going with this video are the ones who are involved in that decision making process. They are the scientists, the marine mammal scientists who have dedicated their careers to understanding the biology of these animals. They're the people who are doing Marine Mammal Protection Act consultations for

Just counter that with how many species are going to go extinct. If we're if we change the climate faster than wildlife can adapt to it, how many species are going to go extinct?

Anyways, there's a value judgment that is made when you're making that statement on which species are more important than others. That part of this process of the buildout of renewable energy is consulting with the people who are best qualified to make those determinations, and those determinations are being made, and it has been determined that the build out of renewable energy is unlikely to drive these animals to extinction. God, so that's where we are.

Is the ESA, The Environmentals and Danger Danger Species Act is the Danger Species Act. That's got to be powerful enough inapplicable to federal.

Waters, right definitely, as is the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which they go hand in hand. Got got so.

If there was like a real demonstrable risk of extirpation or extinction, yeah, or.

You would have you would have it would have got shut down, or even the loss of a single animal in the case of the North Atlantic right, Well, if it was suspected that any of these activities would result in the loss of even a single animal, it would have been shut down.

And when it comes to it, like when it comes to the essay, I think you know, everyone's where like the US fish widlifts Servius sort of manages it and oversees it. But the other party is Noah Noah Fisheries, right, Like they're the ones who decide on all the ocean stuff. So they are like directly overseeing that. Probably more there's like equipped to make calls on that than maybe the US fishal Wildlife Services on terrestrial things even.

Definitely the protected species division of no Offiicieries are the ones who make those determinations. And again, these are dedicated people. They've dedicated their careers, their lives to understanding the biology of these animals to the extent of the science and that horizons are growing being pushed every day on the extent of marine mental science. And they're the ones making the calls. They're the right people to make the call.

They could have a built in bias, you know what I'm saying, Like, hear me out, this is going to put you in a bad situation. No, no picture this. I wonder, this is like psychology st science. I wonder if you task those same individuals, Let's say you had an alternate universe, and you task those exact same individuals with determining whether an oil development was appropriate in this area. I wonder what answered those exact same individuals.

That have given you. But there is there has been offshore oil development development, and that people who administer the Marine Mammal Protection Actor involved in all of that too.

Shit, you, the alternate universe exists.

I am.

To weigh into this, like I shouldn't. I think there's so many people that want to point to this particular project and be like, that's what's.

Killing the whales. Don't.

Don't look at what's going on over here, that's what's killing the whales, which people are those There is some nasty shit going into the oceans at increasingly large amounts every single day. And when we're doing these nekruptcies on all sorts of marine wildlife, like you're pulling out pounds and pounds of shit, garbage, yeah, plastic, yeah, And and some of that is a societal shift.

So mountain mountain dew is like, listen, it's not us. I shouldn't point out mountain dew. The plastic bottle companies.

Plastic bottle companies, but I mean that's just like a small layer of things, right. But I think we've learned over and over again in the conservation world, like it is so rare to point to one thing and be like, oh, that one thing is the thing that did it.

But it's also interesting that that, like for the longest time, like pointing the finger at fossil fuel, whether it's from the ESA or just pollution in general or whatever, like that was like just the way things were. But now you have this environmentally friendly energy source that's having to contend with the same right attractors that.

Yeah, you know, and every kids movie it's big oil is a bad guy.

Is there gonna be a I don't know that.

Give me an example.

I don't I don't watch kids.

Okay, there's there's the avatar basically just about a guy that's a big There's like a big guy that like he's a scientist and he gets turned into a bigfoot.

What's the oils relationship?

That one? He goes to Alaska to fight big oil.

Big oil is a very common villain in kids movies. I'm wondering if there will be if there would be a future Pixar or whatever Disney movies in which Big Wind is where Big Wind is the villain, you know, because Big Oil has served as like you know, like Kurt Vonnegut, was it, Kurt Vonnagut. Yeah, Kurt Vonnegut said, when the Third Reich designed their uniforms, it's like they knew they would always be the bad guys in movies.

Like Environmental is fighting environmentals and kind.

Of I think you, I think you would find that the whale community may actually be at least somewhat the big oil community.

M Oh, there's people that might not like where this is going.

They're whale decoys.

Well look at oh yeah, the green green whale decoys.

I mean conco.

Phillips does a hell of a lot for the old prairie chicken and the sage grouse.

Right, yeah, I think, well as they maybe. I think I heard something about that a different podcast being that in Dangerous Pieces are I mean, well, in dangers pieces are bad for business, yeah, right, like an industry. I mean if you're a long playing If you're a long playing player in an industry, generally and dangerous piece has become a headache. And so as much as you can

Right.

This particular discussion, right is like, are we going to be fifty years down the road and be like Jesus, I wish we would put all that smart time energy money into uh, nuclear energy at that point in time.

That's the last thing I want. There's two last things I want to ask, right.

It's like, should we have just gotten more efficient with this.

Federal government past them?

Yeah? I think that, like eighty ninety plus, I think that.

Uh, I think we're missing the boat. I think we should be doubling down on nuclear. But I want to ask you a question. Can you tell me through the Nature Conservancy what's your mandate?

I know the Nature.

Conservancy's work through. Remember I've been pounding on this idea of habitat protection. I know the Nature Conservancy as a major player and habitat protection and also a very even keeled.

Other than me.

No, it's organizationally, Yeah, yeah, really good about access. Don't go out of your way to mess with hunters and fishermen and like, really focused on habitat.

That is us. So our mission is to protect the lands and waters upon which all life depends. Okay, lands and waters. We are primarily a land protection organization. Got four thousand staff of four thousand dedicated individuals globally, about four hundred scientists, including myself. We work on virtually every ecosystem on the planet, and we work in the ocean. We have one hundred and twenty five protected one hundred and twenty five million acres. We currently protect one hundred

That's the number I wanted to focus on because what that explained, What that just tell people what that.

Means, transferred ownership of fifteen million acres to agencies, federal and state agencies, meaning you're making public land.

You guys manufacture public land.

We are making public land. And if Mike, oh.

Well, I've always i've always, I've always loved you guys mission, I should have gotten that up up top.

Anyway that after you beat them up a little bit, Well, I want to I want to point out that you guys had on this podcast, asked a colleague of mine named Nelis Johnson who lives here in Bozeman, had dinner with him last night.

On episode two sixty one, there's no such thing as a free lunch YEP with Renewable Energy talked. It covered a lot of ground on that episode, including a deeper dive into what the nature concernacy is and what we do so go ahead and dial wow.

Yeah, usually we got to like work that in.

But your guest.

Comes now, I wish I would have started out with that, that's okay, And before we get into why, I want to just hear a sort of not necessarily your take, but sort of someone who's who's focused on energy, like why not nuclear? But first, uh, walk me through the steps of I guess we should have done this up top. How How did your mandate get directed? How does your mandate get directed into sort of like watching this project and making sure this project's done effectively?

Which project.

Your involvement in offshore wind?

Yeah? Okay, so let me head off the nuclear thing. I'm not equipped to address that. So you can bring Nell's back on if you want to talk about the nuclear thing. He's a much better guy. So the Nature Conservancy is heavily involved in the buildout of renewables in the United States and elsewhere. We recognize that offshore wind is an area where we can make a lot of gains in terms of the amount of electrons that are

I have a thing to add. The other week, the House in the Senate released final twenty twenty four fiscal spending bills, and appropriators allocated this from an article. Appropriators allocated Z point twenty five billion to the Department of Energy, about one point eight billion above the fiscal twenty twenty three enacted level. And there is a ton more going

That'll be the next show. Why not nuclear?

Why not nukes?

I'd listen.

I want to point out the biggest mistake I made the show is the easy layup of instead of run to DMC, it's run to TNC.

Oh I heard that one.

Yeah, such a bummer when you said that.

For some reason, my kids have gotten willing to clean in their shoes, which is driving me insane.

Cleaning their shoes the like, washing their crocks with a scrub brush.

It's a stranger.

I don't even know about this.

And I made a joke beause like you guys think you're like run DMC because never had.

Their whole thing. It was like those super white shoes.

Was like, oh my god, they have no idea what you're talking about.

Of course, where would a nine year old get the idea that he needs to clean his crocs off?

Does that?

It blows my mind?

I don't know either. Did they do that to their sneak?

I don't I don't understand. When they come in from the field, aren't you like clean your ship?

No?

No, no, they're like cleaning them cleaning, like not cleaning them off like mud.

Like they want to go to school with fresh.

No, not fresh fresh crops. It's insane.

Steve also declared that your crocks look new.

Steve also declared this morning in the parking lot that he doesn't like states who have too many license plates off up and Tannis specifically said, he said, you can learn a lot about a state, but kind of a license plate.

How lin plates? Yeah?

I said, there's an inverse correlation my native state, the greatness of a state and how many license plates it offers.

My native state, Maryland leads the nation and the number of license plate they are got something like eighty, something like eighty license plate. I don't support that.

My last thing I have is we got to get to trivia. Everyone's running the one you can.

Stay for trivia?

He is, yeah, what are you to throw him a bone about?

The first guests who's ever asked like, hey, are we gonna play trivia? So yeah, you know, I think he'll do well.

I appreciate you coming on. We were we were all over the place. It's great.

We're talking about tech. We were talking about uh, theory, philosophy.

We didn't get to Barrow trauma, which we're talking about.

Maybe you can hit that for like two minutes in trivia.

Got two minutes, we'll hit it in trivah in trivia?

Sure, Oh yeah, can you intro with Barrow Trauma.

We'll see what the schedule looks like.

Thanks for coming on. It was probably frustrating for you.

No, it's great, happy to be here. It felt like a PhD defense all over again.

But I get it, man. I mean it's like, yeah, uh, in developing alternative energy, it's like everything is again, everything's going to be a little bit painful. It's just like where you can get the least amount of pain in the biggest amount of gain.

Well, so you would love it, Steve, right, if we if you could just do a clean trade, uh, and just what we're already developing for fossil fuels, if we could just trade it out and do the win.

Be like and it'll be even more energy and great, let's stop talking about it.

And I just want I just want to remind the public that it's important to be involved. And there's a public comment period open right now, and you might bring something to the table that hasn't been said before. Because one of my favorite quotes, Mark Twain quote I think is a fresh set of eyes finds more beings, finds more beans. Yeah, you need more eyes on this situation, more fish, and sell the damn T shirts out.

Well, you're supposed to be wearing it if.

You want a sweet T shirt.

Okay, shirt like this is all very complicated? Is this still like warranted? Just walk around going hey, make sure you turn your lights off. Definitely all complicit.

Due half my day at home is spent walking around turning lights off and.

Shut them all off, and five minutes later I come out there all back on again.

Turn your lights off and don't get balloons for your next birthday party. I saw I say balloons every time I go off short every.

Year can Texas.

You can go to the top of the highest mountain on Earth. There's probably a birthday balloon sitting there.

There's a lot of complaining balloon, a lot of complaining about federal overreach.

But I mean, I think there's a room for more.

A band of broad scale balloon band a sea turtle bait.

Right there, except for you know who you're going to piss off, big buck white tail. A lot of them will say that if you find a balloon in the woods that tells you what the wind drafts are doing, then that's where a big buck would like to bet.

Guys, thinks to phil Off.

Got a botber in the water, toastuck in the mud.

It's a perfectly for sitting soaking up the sign. Dad came up and asked me.

Baby's wishful thinking, Yes, son, are you getting manny?

I said, no, I'm just fishing boat. Just lost the anchor and the breeze.

It's blowing slow, so.

I'm just out here sending snagging.

Some trees and getting the stone jogged around and a can of.

Worms in the sun drinking down.

Sure, got a few hours to my I said, that's what fishing for.

Turning around and a candle, words and sign creeping down the shore. Got a few hours to myself.

That's what fishing for.

Well, maybe you're on the water casting from.

The shore, time just seems.

To fly by. Maybe you want it, always seems your last cast is really the first of many, whether catching the fish, catching the buzz beat's not catching eddie. Some folks they don't understand and know just what they're missing because you don't. There's the the be out here fishing turn around and a can of worms in the sun, creaking down the short got a few lives to my settling.

That's what fishing for.

I got a few lives to my symblings.

That's what fishing is for.