Podcasts about cdfw

With seven known wolf packs and additional areas of activity—including several packs meeting the breeding pair definition—CDFW has adjusted its approach as outlined in its 2016 Conservation Plan.

https://www.howlforwildlife.org/cawolfplan HOWL with us. HOWL as one. When we HOWL - our voices are amplified, our message is heard and we can be effective. When we HOWL we can lead dialogue and create positive outcomes that value entire ecosystems, human communities, and wildlife. Sign on to the HOWL letter today. Take Action here --> https://www.howlforwildlife.org/take_action  Complaining isn't working. It's time to lead... It is time to call upon the California Dept of Fish & Wildlife, and the Fish & Game Commission to refresh the 10-year old Wolf Mgmt. Plan, establish a practical and sustainable roadmap to delisting and long-term management of wolves. It is time to identify the risks that subsidized wolves present to human communities, the economy of California and all taxpayers, and to ecosystems wherever wolves live. It is time for the CDFW to present a realistic report on the health of our mule deer, elk and antelope herds in CA, and how do those herds support 3 unmanaged apex predators sustainably?  Sign on to the HOWL letter today. Take Action. Call upon the Commission and CDFW to proactively lead California out of this crisis. https://www.howlforwildlife.org/cawolfplan  *** #greywolf #wolf #wolves #california #wildlifemanagement #wildlifeconservation #conservation #ecosystems #predatorhunting #predatormanagement #elk #muledeer #tuleelk #antelope #hunting #sustainability #wildharvest #californiahunting #howlforwildlife 

John Nores has served as a game warden with the California Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. There he co-developed the Marijuana Enforcement Team (MET) and Delta Team, the CDFW's first comprehensive wilderness spec ops tactical and sniper unit, aimed at combatting the marijuana cartel's decimation of California's wildlife resources. In this interview on The Reed Morin Show, Nores exposes how Mexican drug cartels are running illegal grow operations, stockpiling weapons, and waging a silent war inside America's national forests.From armed confrontations in the backcountry to government inaction, this podcast dives into the real cartel threat no one is talking about—and what it means for America's future.Support John: https://www.johnnores.com/Timestamps: 00:00 Intro1:59 John Nores Background5:35 Cartel in USA Is Worse than you Think15:10 Narcotics Black Market in California 36:09 China Entering the Weed Trade49:06 Testifying to Congress 57:53 First Confrontation with Cartel1:19:50 Did Anyone Know About the Cartels?1:30:34 Cartel Vietnam War1:46:46 Forming the MET Special Forces Team1:59:52 Structure of MET2:18:03 Importance of Combat Dogs2:25:35 Strategy for Hunting Cartels2:37:56 Politics Hiding Cartels 2:49:51 What Cartel Grow Sites are Like2:59:26 Special Forces Working with Mexico3:06:05 What Cartels are Doing Now3:14:27 OutroPlease leave us a review on Apple/Spotify Podcasts:Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reed-morin-show/id1653324768Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2Dzr5Xoov2oqrW9y2vVLWh?si=3126520329894250Follow The Reed Morin Show:Twitter: https://twitter.com/@ReedMorinShowInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/@reedmorinshowTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@TheReedMorinShow #cartel #podcast #military #crime #reedmorinshow

This weeks guest on the Black Rifle Coffee Podcast is John Nores. John became a game warden for the California Dept. of Fish and Wildlife in 1992. In 2005 he was promoted to Lieutenant. He has investigated and fought environmental crime and wildlife destruction for the past 28 years. He co-developed the CDFW's first comprehensive wilderness spec ops tactical unit and sniper element to combat the destructive marijuana cartels. Find more about John on socials @johnnores His website www.johnnores.com And check out his book Hidden War https://a.co/d/bOtBRhw

Amy King hosts your Monday Wake Up Call. The show opens with Amy interviews John Ohanian about ‘A Kinder Community.' ABC News correspondent Jordana Miller joins the show live from Jerusalem to discuss Syria's government being toppled. ABC News reporter Steve Roberts shares his thoughts on Trump's views on immigration. The show closes with CDFW State Grey Wolf Coordinator Axel Hunnicutt discussing 2 new wolf packs.

Amy talks with CDFW State Grey Wolf Coordinator Axel Hunnicutt discussing 2 new wolf packs.    

Use these links to follow along:  - WATERFOWL Recommendations - BIG GAME Hunt Recommendations - Email Support and feedback by end of day 12/9: fgc@fgc.ca.gov - HOWL for Wildlife... JOIN THE PACK!  - Message me on IG for Q&A - HuntingAintEasy  Quick summary... CDFW is bringing regulations update package for Commission review and discussion (and decision!). It all adds up to more hunting opportunity, science-based wildlife mgmt decisions. Let's rally some support for this work, while we lean into the other hot topics that are coming up in 2025.   

On this episode of Save it for the Blind, our hosts Jeff and Carson sit down with Luke Matthews, Nesting Bird Habitat Incentive Program Coordinator for CDFW, and Jason Coslovich, a biologist with CWA. They delve into the crucial program Luke oversees, while also exploring the fascinating world of waterfowl biology and the trends these experts have observed. Tune in for an episode rich with insights and discoveries in the realm of avian conservation!

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife's free fishing day is August 31st. The CDFW's fish planting schedule can viewed online.

In part 2 of this episode, we dive into some additional viewer questions and best practices surrounding hunting regulations and enforcement: We will discuss these questions with two of California's top game wardens in CDFW Lt. Sean Kenady & Officer Tyson Hulse.1. Why are game wardens taking pictures of hunters' firearms serial numbers during checks? Discover the reasons behind this practice and its importance for enforcement and tracking. 2. With the new CDFW app, what documentation should hunters and anglers carry for proof? Learn about the benefits of the new app and what digital or physical documents you should have on hand. 3. If you injure or kill a bird while hunting but can't find it after trying, does it still count toward your bag limit? Understand how unretrieved birds impact your bag limit and what you need to know to stay compliant. 4. Can a game warden search your vehicle outside of hunting based on specific circumstances and legal reasons? Explore the legal grounds for vehicle searches by game wardens and what circumstances might warrant a search. 5. While hunting, are you limited to a certain number of rounds in your shotgun? Can you carry another loaded shotgun for quick shots? Get clarity on shotgun regulations, including ammunition limits and best practices for carrying additional firearms. 6. Can you share some interesting stories from the field? Hear firsthand accounts of memorable and unique experiences from game wardens in the field, offering a glimpse into their day-to-day challenges and adventures. Join us as we uncover the rules, reasons, and real-life stories from the dedicated game wardens who work tirelessly to ensure the safety and fairness of hunting practices.

In the first two part series of Save it for the Blind podcast brought to you by TETRA Hearing, titled "Your Questions Answered: The Duties of a Game Warden," we sit down with CDFW Lt. Sean Kenady and Officer Tyson Hulse to dive into the fascinating world of game wardens. We address some of the most pressing questions from our audience: What does it take to become a game warden, as well as what are the requirements? What is the role or job of a game warden? Discover the diverse responsibilities and day-to-day tasks of a game warden. What is the difference between a Federal Warden and State Warden in terms of jurisdiction and powers? Learn about the distinct roles and authorities of federal and state wardens. What are the most common waterfowl infractions, and how can hunters become more knowledgeable about laws? Get insights into typical infractions and tips for staying informed about hunting regulations. How should a hunter transport birds from a duck club, and are hunters allowed to keep birds in a freezer at a duck club? Understand the proper procedures for transporting and storing harvested birds. Join us on part 1 for this informative and engaging discussion that sheds light on the crucial role game wardens play in wildlife conservation and law enforcement.

This is an opportunity to proactively influence a management plan document that will impact bear hunting and ecosystem management for the next 10+ years!  The Calif. Dept of Fish & Wildlife has provided a (draft) 2024 Black Bear Conservation Plan for public review and input.  Here at HOWL we have developed no less than 78 comments, questions and recommendations for this plan.  In this episode of @huntingainteasy I break down the core issues related to the Black Bear Conservation Plan and call upon you for fast-action to add your voice, add your HOWL so that the CDFW knows how passionate our community is about Black Bear Conservation and the use of hunting as tool which benefits bears, ungulates and humans!  Listen. Share. Take ACTION at www.howlforwildlife.org  starting Wednesday 6/12!  Resources and links:  HOWL @ IG HOWL for Wildlife website  CDFW Black Bear Conservation Plan  ** #california #bearhunting #blackbear #conservation #predatorhunting #predatormanagement #bearconservation #wildlifemanagement #deerhunting #elkhunting #muledeer #blacktaildeer #bear 

This is an opportunity to proactively influence a management plan document that will impact bear hunting and ecosystem management for the next 10+ years!  The Calif. Dept of Fish & Wildlife has provided a (draft) 2024 Black Bear Conservation Plan for public review and input.  Here at HOWL we have developed no less than 78 comments, questions and recommendations for this plan.  In this episode Mike Costello (@huntingAintEasy) breaks down the core issues related to the Black Bear Conservation Plan and calls upon you for fast-action to add your voice, add your HOWL so that the CDFW knows how passionate our community is about Black Bear Conservation and the use of hunting as tool which benefits bears, ungulates and humans!  Listen. Share. Take ACTION at www.howlforwildlife.org  starting Wednesday 6/12!  Resources and links:  HOWL @ IG HOWL for Wildlife website  CDFW Black Bear Conservation Plan  ** #california #bearhunting #blackbear #conservation #predatorhunting #predatormanagement #bearconservation #wildlifemanagement #deerhunting #elkhunting #muledeer #blacktaildeer #bear 

This week, we have Craig Shuman & Eric Kord from the California Department of Fish & Wildlife on to discuss everything from the OREHP Program to Rockfish Regulations and everything in between. Join CCA at: www.JoinCCA.org Visit us at: www.CCACalifornia.org Register for the 2024 STAR Tournament at: www.CCACalifornia.org/STAR

This week, Darren is finally back, just in time for Donna Kalez from Dana Wharf Sportfishing! We chat about the new CDFW mobile app, making a difference as an angler when it comes to regulation changes, and taking kids fishing! Join us at: www.JoinCCA.org Visit us at: www.CCACalifornia.org Register for the 2024 STAR Tournament at: www.CCACalifornia.org/STAR

Serie: Estudios de las doctrinas de la Confesión de FeCapítulo: De la Creación Tema: 6 Preguntas Claves de la Creación-----------------Como lo hemos dicho, los avances de la ciencia moderna, el rechazo de la cosmovisión cristiana ortodoxa, el ateísmo rampante, el relativismo y el escepticismo del presente siglo malo, se combinan para desafiar la enseñanza bíblica sobre los orígenes de la humanidad, la tierra y el universo.Siguiendo el ejemplo de los Padres de la Iglesia primitiva, de los reformadores protestantes, y de los teólogos de Savoy y Westminster, los bautistas particulares del siglo XVII confesaron sus creencias bíblicas en el Capítulo 4, en una línea de pensamiento absolutamente ortodoxa.Ahora, una cosa es digna de destacar en este preámbulo introductorio es la siguiente: los textos del capítulo #4 en la (CDFW) y en la (CBDF), difieren en dos (2) asuntos a tener en cuenta…-----------------Descargar video o audio para ver o escuchar sin conexión (muy fácil): https://web.sermonaudio.com/sermons/425241535353837/aVer en YouTube: https://youtu.be/-9V7htkGWzc -----------------En el sitio web de nuestra iglesia usted podrá formular cualquier pregunta al respecto de esta enseñanza en particular, y en la medida de nuestras posibilidades con gusto la estaremos respondiendo cuando sea posible para nosotros. https://www.ibgrpereira.com/de-la-creacion/

Join hosts Jeff and Carson on a captivating journey into the world of duck hunting regulations as they welcome two esteemed guests to Save it for the Blind: Brian Huber, a distinguished California Waterfowl biologist, and Dan Yparraguirre, a retired Biologist from California Department of Fish and Wildlife. In this enlightening episode, the panel delves deep into the complexities of bag limits, regulations, and the vital role of management agencies in safeguarding waterfowl populations.With decades of combined experience in wildlife conservation, Brian and Dan offer unparalleled insights into the science and strategy behind duck hunting regulations. From the evolution of bag limits to the intricacies of enforcement, they provide a comprehensive overview of the regulatory landscape, shedding light on the challenges and innovations shaping the industry.Listeners are treated to a wealth of knowledge as the hosts and guests explore the delicate balance between conservation efforts and recreational hunting. Drawing from real-world examples and personal anecdotes, they highlight the collaborative efforts of hunters, biologists, and government agencies in preserving our natural resources for future generations.Tune in to Save it for the Blind as Jeff, Carson, Brian, and Dan unravel the complexities of duck hunting regulations, offering a deeper appreciation for the science, stewardship, and camaraderie that define this timeless pursuit.

Bob opens with the Show outline and discusses SF Bay halibut, and the controversy over new salmon regulations; According to one guest, it is the last weekend for goose hunting in the Northeast zone. Finally, Bob reports on how the CDFW did a poor job communicating why so many salmon have died on Klamath River.

Less than a year after California implements pilot program to compensate ranchers for livestock losses and economic impacts of wolves, the state runs out of money, and National Ag Statistics Service Cattle report shows a 2% decline in U.S. cattle inventory.

Less than a year after California implements pilot program to compensate ranchers for livestock losses and economic impacts of wolves, the state runs out of money, and National Ag Statistics Service Cattle report shows a 2% decline in U.S. cattle inventory.

Bob outlines the show and muses on where the money for salmon fishermen is. He talks about CDFW testing ropeless crab traps; All of the North Coast rivers are blown out, except for one; Decline of most delta fish.

Hear Bob Simms talk about Crab fishing and supply; regulations seriously affecting California fishing; winding down a poor duck season; ducks ending but more goose hunting ahead; delta trawl results hidden in CDFW website.

Bullards Bar kokanee; Latest sturgeon meeting by CDFW; North Coast rivers blown out, except for Smith River; Delta stripers; Bodega Bay crab; Youth Fair at ISE Show.

This is Season 3 Episode #95 Conservation Clips Today is kinda cool in that I'm taking clips from various previous podcasts that I've done with different  biologists, a professor from UCLA, a person from Cal trout, a fish and wild life game warden, and a conservationist. All these clips are super interesting to me and I hope they are for you, so let's get started with the first clip from episode #18 with retired Ca  fish and Game Warden Terry Mullen as he talks about catching some bobcat poachers.  Clip #2 Professor Micheal Shin from Episode #50  Michael Shin is a professor in the UCLA Department of Geography,  He is an expert in geospatial methods and techniques. In this clip he talks about climate change and golden trout. Clip #3 Episode #11 with CDFW Biologists Craig Fiehler and Evan King who discuss Tule Elk and the Rocky Mountain elk that have turned up in Kernville CA. Clip #4 Episode #62 with Roger Bloom who is a retired CDFW biologist and he talks about the California Heritage Trout program. Clip #5 Episode #32 with Mikey Weir from Cal Trout and he talks about some of the dam removals going on in California. Clip #6 Episode #35 with  Gary Ananian from the Kern River Conservancy and he talks about the KR Rainbow Project. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Season 3 Episode #95 Conservation Clips Today is kinda cool in that I'm taking clips from various previous podcasts that I've done with different  biologists, a professor from UCLA, a person from Cal trout, a fish and wild life game warden, and a conservationist. All these clips are super interesting to me and I hope they are for you, so let's get started with the first clip from episode #18 with retired Ca  fish and Game Warden Terry Mullen as he talks about catching some bobcat poachers.  Clip #2 Professor Micheal Shin from Episode #50  Michael Shin is a professor in the UCLA Department of Geography,  He is an expert in geospatial methods and techniques. In this clip he talks about climate change and golden trout. Clip #3 Episode #11 with CDFW Biologists Craig Fiehler and Evan King who discuss Tule Elk and the Rocky Mountain elk that have turned up in Kernville CA. Clip #4 Episode #62 with Roger Bloom who is a retired CDFW biologist and he talks about the California Heritage Trout program. Clip #5 Episode #32 with Mikey Weir from Cal Trout and he talks about some of the dam removals going on in California. Clip #6 Episode #35 with  Gary Ananian from the Kern River Conservancy and he talks about the KR Rainbow Project. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More Angelinos are joining the battle to stop a destructive and highly unpopular plan to bulldoze LA's Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve. LA's last coastal wetlands, near Marina del Rey, is home to upwards of 2,000 species, including threatened and endangered species. Some estimate there are up to a million beings, large and small, who would have no place to go if the one square mile of wild land is bulldozed…. Foxes, owls, egrets, cormorants, pelicans, snakes, herons, butterflies, to name a few of the species. In May, a judge brought the bulldozing plans to “a screeching halt” (is how the LA Times described the ruling) saying California's Department of Fish and Wildlife's Environmental Impact Report was flawed and failed to account for flood risks! But the CDFW continues to try and move forward even though about 40 people testified against it at a recent hearing with virtually zero testimony in support of the ecologically unsound plan. URGENT: Please denounce the bulldozing plan by emailing your opposition to: BWERcomments@wildlife.ca.gov (Put “Ballona REIR Scoping Comment” in the subject line) Now, Defend Ballona Wetland's Marcia Hanscomm Wendy-Sue Rosen's Protect Ballona Wetlands and In Defense of Animals' Lisa Levinson join UnchainedTV's Jane Velez-Mitchell to break it down. Visit https://defendballonawetlands.org/ to get involved.

More Angelinos are joining the battle to stop a destructive and highly unpopular plan to bulldoze LA's Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve. LA's last coastal wetlands, near Marina del Rey, is home to upwards of 2,000 species, including threatened and endangered species. Some estimate there are up to a million beings, large and small, who would have no place to go if the one square mile of wild land is bulldozed…. Foxes, owls, egrets, cormorants, pelicans, snakes, herons, butterflies, to name a few of the species. In May, a judge brought the bulldozing plans to “a screeching halt” (is how the LA Times described the ruling) saying California's Department of Fish and Wildlife's Environmental Impact Report was flawed and failed to account for flood risks! But the CDFW continues to try and move forward even though about 40 people testified against it at a recent hearing with virtually zero testimony in support of the ecologically unsound plan. URGENT: Please denounce the bulldozing plan by emailing your opposition to: BWERcomments@wildlife.ca.gov (Put “Ballona REIR Scoping Comment” in the subject line) Now, Defend Ballona Wetland's Marcia Hanscomm Wendy-Sue Rosen's Protect Ballona Wetlands and In Defense of Animals' Lisa Levinson join UnchainedTV's Jane Velez-Mitchell to break it down. Visit https://defendballonawetlands.org/ to get involved.

Show outline; Crab gear restrictions; SF Bay striped bass/halibut; Walk-on refuge hunting; Good waterfowl opener, clubs waiting for water; No reports on trawl survey from CDFW, again!

California Department of Fish and Wildlife This week I cover some important topics related to California Department of Fish and Wildlife on the podcast. I talk through the important dates, changes for 2023 and some other administrative related topics.  I also briefly discuss the application process and out of state hunting opportunities for nonresidents in California.  I wasn't able to get a representative on the from CDFW but they did really help me understand the regulations for me to walk through it with you. CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND WILDLIFEWebiste - https://wildlife.ca.govYouTube Page - https://www.youtube.com/@CaliforniaDFGR3 - https://wildlife.ca.gov/r3Regulations - https://www.youtube.com/@CaliforniaDFG OUT OF STATE HUNTERInstagram -@outofstatehunter ALLTERRA ARMSWebsite - https://allterraarms.comInstagram - @allterraarms

Guy talks to Roger about the California Heritage Trout Challenge, Climate Change and Trout , 2021 Statewide Regulation Change, The Golden Trout Complex, The Internet and Effects to Fisheries, Fish Genetics, Angler Satisfaction , Working at a fly shop..45 years of observations, Challenges and the Future of California Fisheries Bio : Roger Bloom Roger retired from California Dept. Fish and Wildlife in 2022. He served CDFW in many capacities since his start in 1994 including, but not limited to, Fisheries Chief, Inland Fisheries Program Manager, Statewide Native fishes coordinator, Heritage & Wild Trout Program Leader, and Regional Wild Trout biologist. Roger has also worked on many projects throughout California including chemical treatments, habitat restorations, aquatic sampling, genetic sampling, research, fishing regulations, public outreach, and many others.  Roger is a passionate angler and has been flyfishing since 1976. He has travelled the world in pursuit of wild fish and is currently working part-time at fly Fishing Specialities in Citrus Heights, Ca. He is married to a biologist that works at the USFWS and they have two sons who are also pursuing careers in biology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode we venture to Arcata, just north of Eureka California and home to Cal Poly Humboldt to discuss ranching a few miles from the Pacific. Every environment presents a unique set of problems whether it be weather, invasive or native wildlife or urbanization. Ranchers in Arcata deal with all of the above.The reason for my visit was to talk about Elk. Specifically, Roosevelt Elk. These elk are endemic in the area but for a long-time, populations have waxed and waned. More recently the population has thrived... the Elk don't have many existing predators, are hard on fences and are prolific breeders. The Elk prefer the same feed that cows do and have the ability to access it.The Elk's size, population and reproductivity makes management difficult. In this episode we speak with ranchers Jason & Dean Hunt and Justin Mora about how they deal with the Elk and about what systems they have to manage them. We also speak with Carrington Hilson from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife who is tasked with gathering data on the Elk population in Humboldt County which should aid in better management practices in the future.

Guy talks to Roger about the California Heritage Trout Challenge, Climate Change and Trout , 2021 Statewide Regulation Change, The Golden Trout Complex, The Internet and Effects to Fisheries, Fish Genetics, Angler Satisfaction , Working at a fly shop..45 years of observations, Challenges and the Future of California Fisheries Bio : Roger Bloom Roger retired from California Dept. Fish and Wildlife in 2022. He served CDFW in many capacities since his start in 1994 including, but not limited to, Fisheries Chief, Inland Fisheries Program Manager, Statewide Native fishes coordinator, Heritage & Wild Trout Program Leader, and Regional Wild Trout biologist. Roger has also worked on many projects throughout California including chemical treatments, habitat restorations, aquatic sampling, genetic sampling, research, fishing regulations, public outreach, and many others.  Roger is a passionate angler and has been flyfishing since 1976. He has travelled the world in pursuit of wild fish and is currently working part-time at fly Fishing Specialities in Citrus Heights, Ca. He is married to a biologist that works at the USFWS and they have two sons who are also pursuing careers in biology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Climate Change Exacerbates California's WildfiresNearly all of California's landscapes are naturally fire-dependent or fire-adapted, and this beneficial relationship with fire allows ecosystems to maintain healthy functions and promotes biodiversity. However, high-intensity wildfires disrupt this relationship and cause detrimental damage to these ecosystems as wildfires impact tree regeneration, soil erosion, and water quality. According to modeling by the California Air Resources Board, climate change makes the conditions for high-intensity wildfires – like hot, dry summers – more likely. Extreme Wildfires Hurt WildlifeHigh-intensity wildfires impact wildlife. Many animals cannot move, so die in the fires. Those that can escape, by running or burrowing into the ground, face another challenge when they return: adapting to a new and changing environment. While directly measuring wildlife casualties isn't possible, emergency vets and zoos across California report dramatic increases in their wildlife patients after severe wildfires. During the 2021 fire season, the Wildlife Disaster Network through UC Davis's Veterinary Emergency Response Team cared for more than 2000 injured wildlife and pets. According to estimates by The Wildlife Society, fires the year before had killed between 300 to 600 cougars – 15% of California's cougar population.California's Plan to Increase Fire ResiliencyIn 2021, Governor Newsom signed SB 85, the $536 million Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan, into law to support early action and intervention against wildfires and measures to build resilient communities, restore ecological health, and fund wildfire suppression. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) manages over one million acres of land in the state – many of which are both fire-prone and vital habitats for wildlife. As a result, the CDFW plays a key role in implementing SB 85's goals. As part of that effort, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) undertook “the largest wildfire protection and resilience efforts in its history.” This new support has helped not only safeguard CDFW property, but better protect surrounding homes, communities, and wildlife habitats, as well. SB 85 also allowed CFDW to hire additional staff, afford new equipment, and start over forty new fire control projects like creating fire breaks, removing wildfire fuel, thinning overgrown vegetation, expanding livestock grazing, and more. In January 2023, the U.S. Senate also introduced the Wildfire Emergency Act. This bill has bipartisan support and aims to reduce the risks of catastrophic wildfires faced in California and across the West of the country. The $250 million act would increase forest restoration and wildfire resilience projects.Looking Forward The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) in their 2023 Fire Season Outlook predicts a possible abnormal wildfire season due to mixed temperature and precipitation and flooding anomalies earlier in the year. As a result of these historic storms, critically dry fuel moisture alignments are not expected to be reached for the next four months. However, one concern is that the extreme precipitation may accelerate spring plant growth, which once the moisture disappears and heat sets in, will dry out and become additional fuel, accelerating wildfires. The impact of climate change also varies dramatically across different climates of the state with some regions expecting more extreme drier and hotter months. Wildfire season in California begins in early summer and runs through late fall. Although fire season has not officially begun, CAL FIRE has reported 196 incidents of wildfires resulting in 51 acres burnt already in 2023. As climate change intensifies California's wildfires, the work of the CDFW is even more critical because their efforts protect the health of California's ecological reserves, wildlife, waterways, and communities from the devastating effects of wildfires. About the GuestThe California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), formerly the California Department of Fish and Game, is focused on “improving and enhancing [its] capacity and effectiveness in fulfilling [its] public trust responsibilities for protecting and managing the state's fish and wildlife.” Chuck Bonham has served as the director of CDFW since 2011. Bonham is responsible for overseeing CDFW's wide range of projects, from preventing illegal poaching to protecting California's wildlife from human and environmental conflicts such as drought and fires.  Sources:California Department of Fish and Wildlife Home PageCDFW Director Charlton H. Bonham (ca.gov)Governor Newsom Signs Landmark $536 Million Wildfire Package Accelerating Projects to Protect High-Risk Communities | California GovernorCDFW News | CDFW Initiates Massive Wildfire Protection Effort at Wildlife Areas, Ecological Reserves Statewide2022 Fire Season Outlook (ca.gov)CA Department of Fish and Wildlife: Science: Wildfire ImpactsNational Geographic: What do wild animals do in wildfires?Sierra Club: California's Wildest Wildfire VictimsThe Wildlife Society: California Wildfires may have killed hundreds of cougarshttps://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/26/us/california-rain-wildfire-season-climate/index.htmlCNN: How California's recent flooding could set the stage for a dangerous wildfire seasonUS Senate: Senators Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Increase Preparedness, Reduce Risk for Catastrophic Wildfires

On this episode, Dennis speaks with Best Selling Author, National Speaker and Thin Green Line Warrior, John Nores. John, a California native, grew up in a small town in rural Santa Clara County. The eldest of four, he and his brothers and sister (the wolf pack as their mom coined them) developed a love for nature and the outdoors at an early age. He initially began college with the goal of becoming a civil engineer but during winter break of his first semester, he fortuitously met a fish and game warden in the back country of Henry Coe State Park on a back-packing trip and was instantly inspired to become one himself.  Inspiration led to a certainty of purpose and as soon as he got back to school, he changed his major to Criminal Justice and began pursuing a career as a fish and game warden for the state of California. ​​John has a Master of Science degree from San Jose State University in Criminal Justice Administration (1998), a Bachelor of Science Degree (1990) from San Jose State University in that same discipline and was inducted into SJSU's Justice Studies Alumni Hall of Fame in November 2018.Hard work and diligence led John to a diverse career he held for three decades. Beginning in 1992, he was hired as a warden for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and retired in December of 2018 as a special operations lieutenant working directly at the state level, co-developing and leading his agency's elite tactical unit the Marijuana Enforcement Team (MET) and developed the CDFW's first sniper unit aimed at combatting the most environmentally damaging criminals working within California and impacting the nation.  The MET has been featured on Fox News, NBC Investigative Reports, CNN, Dan Rather Reports and highlighted on the Outdoor Channel's award-winning Patriot Profiles: Life of Duty documentary series.​John's induction into the San Jose State Justice Studies Hall of FameThroughout his years of service he was a field training officer for new cadets,  conducted statewide, national and international training in firearms, defensive tactics, high risk warrant and arrest tactics as well as basic and advanced sniper training programs with special operations personnel from the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office.  John was awarded the Governor's Medal of Valor for lifesaving and leadership efforts in 2007 and led allied agency dignitary protection details with the US Secret Service during the Obama administration. Today, Dennis and John discuss his time on the show "Wild Justice" on NAT Geo where California Game Wardens -- 240 in all -- patrol the state's 159,000 square miles, pursuing poachers, polluters and drug runners around the clock while making sure hunters and anglers follow the rules. Find more info on John Nores and his best selling books: http://www.johnnores.com/ If you like what you are hearing and want to stay in the loop with the latest in Street Cop Training, please follow our Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/StreetCopTraining Don't forget to subscribe and rate the podcast, it truly helps! Sign up for classes here: https://streetcoptraining.com/course-list/Follow our podcast here: https://streetcoptraining.com/street-cop-podcast/    or    https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/street-cop-podcast/id1538474515

The Board of Supervisors heard an update last week on the non-lethal wildlife exclusionary program. They also proceeded with the development of a pilot program that would ask voters to approve the creation of a benefit zone to assess residents of Brooktrails and surrounding areas to maintain evacuation routes on private roads. And, while supervisors concluded that the county is not in a position to craft an ordinance to protect riparian areas and wetlands, they agreed to have Supervisor Glenn McGourty work with relevant agencies to collect maps of Mendocino County to organize the information about those areas. The county no longer has a contract with USDA's Wildlife Services, which offered non-lethal as well as lethal solutions to problems people have with wild animals. Citizens groups complained that Wildlife Services killed hundreds of animals that did not present a problem, while the agency itself insisted that the majority of its calls resulted in non-lethal assistance. Acting Ag Commissioner Andrew Smith told the Board that members of the public can contact either his department or county Animal Services for small wildlife nuisance animals. California Fish and Wildlife deals with larger nuisance animals or sick, injured, or orphaned wild animals. CDFW is the only agency that can issue a depredation permit for wildlife conflicts. The UC Cooperative Extension offers education and surveys about non-lethal wildlife control. Maps were key to the next two discussions. Residents in Brooktrails have already used the private FirCo road to evacuate during the Oak Fire. There are memorandums of understanding in place to continue using that road as well as the sewer easement road, but Department of Transportation Director Howard Dashiell said that LAFCO, the Local Agency Formation Commission, was seeking a durable written recorded right, plus a district boundary map to form a community services district. He confessed that his figures were “spitball numbers,” but he estimated that the cost of that would be about $100,000. Ongoing maintenance, he estimated, would be $45-50,000 a year. The aim is to cover the costs by assessing each parcel that would use the evacuation route a certain fee, perhaps $30 a year. Keith Rutledge, of Sherwood Firewise communities, told the Board he's confident that residents would vote to approve the benefit zone to maintain the evacuation routes. “These access routes can be used by CalFire or the sheriff or any emergency personnel, with or without maintenance, with or without access agreements for public emergency purposes,” he said. “We're not talking about permission for use for emergency access. We're talking about permission to maintain the vegetation along those routes so they can be used for evacuation. When CalFire comes through and bulldozes through an area to get access to something they don't currently have, they will come back and repair that. Typically, they'll come back and do the wattling and the stream restoration. It takes a long time, but they do take responsibility for the damages they cause. So if there were some terrible situation where there were damages caused, that would be the case. However, what we're trying to do is create a road surface that can be used by emergency vehicles that has the clearings and turnouts and all the safety features so that there won't be those damages, and they can quickly respond, like they did during the Oak incident.” The Board voted to send Dashiell back to LAFCO with a revocable license for the project, and to proceed with a ballot. In environmental policy, the Board heard from senior CDFW scientist Jennifer Garrison about the need to establish protections for riparian, stream and wetland areas. She began by summing up their fragility, and their role in the ecosystem. “California has lost 91% of its wetlands,” she said. “And in CDFW's northern region, which induces Mendocino County, it is estimated that only 25% of riparian habitats remain, due to land conversion and development…wetlands and riparian corridors benefit us all, humans, wildlife, and the environment. They contribute to the scenic value of Mendocino County and are host to many recreational activities. They store floodwater, protect land and structures against erosion, storm surges and flooding. Wetlands recharge groundwater and riparian corridors, trap sediment, and filter pollutants, preventing those substances from entering streams. Wetlands are habitat for over half of the listed threatened and endangered species in California. These areas are vital habitat for the majority of wildlife species as they provide water, food, and movement corridors. They are also the primary habitat for many mammal, bird, and amphibian species.” Garrison said CDFW supports setbacks from waterways, but that would reduce the amount of usable land on riparian or streamside parcels. Supervisor John Haschak siad the proposal was to seek a grant to hire a consultant who could figure out how to balance environmental and developmental interests. Interim assistant planning and building services director Nash Gonzalez said the earliest the county would be able to start crafting a protection policy would be 2026. “For an ordinance like this, the function is, you have to develop a scope of what it is that you want to achieve,” he told the Board. “You have to look at the big picture. And the big picture is, the protection of riparian resources. Well, you have to do the mapping. You have to look at someone to manage the project. Obviously, the Executive Office can work with the grants writer to look for a grant. But once you find the grant, who's going to manage the project? Because there's no free grant money out there. Somehow you have to bring some money, and that match might be from the General Fund…The other thing, too, is, it's been my understanding from this Board and previous Boards, is that the county's priority right now is housing. As you start limiting development on parcels, you are also going to start limiting the availability of housing in those areas. At what point do you say, this works, or this doesn't work. And that's part of the scope.” In light of funding and staffing shortages to proceed with a robust policy at this time, the Board tapped McGourty to identify what kinds of high-quality LIDAR and GIS maps already exist for Mendocino County.

The Wildlife Resource Committee meeting with the F&G Commission and CDFW this week brought out the WORST in the anti-hunters, and they showed up in numbers.  The hunting community didn't show up in the numbers we hoped, but our voices are unique, diverse and respectful - which means we are heard much better by the Dept and F&G.  Meeting Documents linked here.  This 1-hour discussion is a recap of the highs and lows of the WRC meeting, with some commentary on our NEED to show up (here and with F&G) and the NEED to share our hunting stories and values with people who are in the non-hunting camp. If we don't define the conversation, words and values of hunting - then the crazed looney-tunes anti-hunters will define us, and that is not good for hunting, conservation or wildlife.  Biggest Wins: the Dept will bring to rulemaking new regs to close the loophole that enables individual hunters to pull high-point value tags every year, without ever fully going "to the back of the line".  "the Grandma loophole will be closed - and our Big Game Draw will be better, more equitable and fairer because of it.  Please consider following or bookmarking these pages:  www.instagram.com/huntingainteasy  www.instagram.com/howlforwildlife.org  www.howlforwildlife.org  https://fgc.ca.gov/Meetings/2023 (2023 Fish & Game meetings in CA)  

Hey friends, yes the CDFW and Fish & Game Commission is listening. We have a new Elk Biologist taking the lead and progressive NEW opportunities to hunt elk are coming our way.  3 new elk zones, modified seasons, increased bull and anterless tags - improving opportunities to hunt Tule Elk, Roosevelt Elk and Rocky Mountain Elk in California?  How does our hunting community support and guide this across the line for a real win??  1) Get informed... check out the links here.  - Dec. F&G Meeting Video  - Dec. F&G Commission Elk Report  2) Get active... join HOWL for Wildlife and become a voice of support!! CA F&G Commission and CDFW are listening, and hunter-advocates are becoming the leaders when it comes to conservation discussions. Join us!  3) Send comments and then attend Jan. 11-12th Wildlife Resource Committee meeting. We need to guide the WRC to support 2021-017; support a 2nd bear tag as part of the 2023 Bear Mgmt Plan; support new Premium deer hunts!  

The mountain lion known as P-22 was captured Monday in a Los Feliz backyard in a severely underweight and injured condition. Today, officials from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, announced P-22 was euthanized. KFI's Steve Greory talks about why CDFW officials decided to euthanize him, a brief history on the Hollywood cat and what he meant to the community.

For episode 136, we welcomed back Lt. John Nores [Ret.] back to the show for the third time! Since 1992, Lt. John Nores Jr. has served as a game warden with the California Dept. of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW). There he co-developed the Marijuana Enforcement Team (MET) and Delta Team, the CDFW's first comprehensive wilderness spec ops tactical and sniper unit, aimed at combatting the marijuana cartel's decimation of California's wildlife resources. Lt. Nores and his team have been featured on the National Geographic channel's television series, "Wild Justice." In addition, Nores is the author of numerous magazine articles and the book, War in the Woods: Combating the Marijuana Cartels on America's Public Lands. He is the author of Hidden War. In our discussion, we covered his knife line with V Nives, how to properly train and carry a knife, protecting our natural resources and power grids, if new technology is changing field medical response, his upcoming work on the Thin Green Line series, the launch of the second edition of "Hidden War", and everything in between! #johnnores #wildlifeconservation #knives  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

November 23, 2022, Sarah Reith — The cannabis department is moving from the county administrative campus on Low Gap Road in Ukiah to the Justice Center in Willits. The new office will open Monday, with counter service. But the department is still short-staffed. At last week's cannabis department meeting, Director Kristin Nevedal said the majority of permits were issued without environmental review, which might not be completed until 2024. “CEQA is not occurring,” she said. “And it will not occur until we have contract planning staff trained and working through permits. Depending on what that timing looks like, and how quickly we can move through applications, we may not fully review CEQA documents until 2024.” Nevedal calculated that each application review takes 200 hours of staff time, though the hours have not been tracked by software. With the ability to track the time more precisely, fees are likely to go up. “Two hundred hours is an estimate, largely because there have not been time studies conducted,” she conceded. “So we're estimating it will take 200 hours to do an application review, a CEQA review, and potentially conduct any necessary inspection…we will be billing $600 and some odd change…to the permit holder.” When the department moves to another system, she added, “We will be doing time tracking. And then if time starts to run over, we will be billing applicants and permit holders directly based on the weighted hourly rate, which right now is $90 an hour, but may be more for consultants that have your application. So until we have time tracking software in place (which is not currently the case) we will not be billing extra hours, although I can say that we are hemorrhaging funds because our permit fees do not cover the extensive review that's occurring by the department.” The department's plan for prioritizing review of license applications starts with provisional licenses that will be subject for renewal in July of next year, and places those that are subject to renewal later in the year further back in the line. As to whether or not CEQA review can take place concurrently with renewing the provisional licenses, Nevedal revisited the need for more help. “Our goal is to meet the deadlines for folks who are renewing those provisional licenses on or after July first,” Nevedal said. “A lot of it really depends on if we can get a full twenty or more contract planners in place by early January and really start moving through these applications. We are not willing to jeopardize applicants' renewals by taking on CEQA review that doesn't need to happen. I know folks are anxious. I'm anxious to get into those CEQA document reviews as well.” The county had a contract with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife for just over $230,000 to conduct site specific habitat reviews for sensitive species. That contract expired on November second. Details about arrangements for upcoming reviews are sparse. “The contract with CDFW and the contract I mentioned earlier,” Nevedal said before offering an update; “we have some meetings scheduled to square away all of those items including invoicing and restarting the referral process, so I cannot give you a timeline for when the new contract will come forward to the Board of Supervisors until we have been able to meet whe (C)DFW on next steps on reinstating reviews and receiving the invoice for the reviews that have already occurred.” Long-time cannabis advocate Paul Hansbury laid out a key component of the entire situation. “I'm a little bit confused,” he began. “It seems to me that we're looking at things to renew the provisional, instead of moving forward to an annual. So I guess what you're doing by July first is saying that you have a complete submission but no review. But if you had a review you could submit that to them, and then we could just skip the renewal of the provisional, and go directly to the annual, if it were already reviewed. So I'm just wondering what's holding up the review process.” Nevedal told him it was a combination of staffing, direction from the Board of Supervisors, and state requirements. “I have limited staff,” she said. “We're working on these contractors. And we are prioritizing keeping as many people in this program as possible. Which means we have to do our best and make sure that we have a strategy in place to ensure that folks are eligible for provisional license renewal. Folks cannot cultivate without both local authorization and a state license. So in order to meet the Board's directive of keeping as many people in this program as possible, we must ensure folks are eligible for provisional license renewal. If folks fall out of those provisional licenses, it's going to be really hard for them to stay in the program because they'll lose their ability to cultivate. I know folks are anxious to transition into an annual. You have until the end of 2025 to transition from your provisional to your annual…so we are eating this elephant, so to speak, one bite at a time.”

October 11, 2022 — The Board of Supervisors went through a dozen recommendations from a cannabis ad hoc committee led by Supervisors John Haschak and Glenn McGourty last week, sending five of them to another committee. Supervisors received assurance that other items are already being addressed, but cannabis advocates who stayed in the chambers until after 7:00 at night complained about a lack of urgency as state deadlines loom and operators give up on ever making it through the permit process. Mark Schaeffer, who has chimed in on cannabis policy at every step of the ordinance and now serves as the policy chair of the Mendocino Cannabis Alliance, wept as he spoke about losing his farm. “I used to say I had a ten thousand square foot farm in Comptche,” he said. “It's closed. Not only can I not pay for my taxes, likely I'm going to lose my land, and I don't even have enough money to get fuel to get home. But I'm here. Why? Because I put everything into compliance. Because I believed. I believed in myself, my government, my community. Neither the county nor the state has given any of us a pathway to success. They have not given us a pathway at all. And now we perish.” Most of the ad hoc's recommendations had to do with streamlining processes so local operators will have a better chance at complying with annual state license requirements. Because the county's ordinance did not go through California environmental review, individual growers have been struggling to keep up with regulatory requirements as they are being crafted. Another process that has often been described, including by the Mendocino County Grand Jury, as building the airplane while it's flying, is the rollout of the equity grant program, which was designed to aid cannabis business owners who were harmed by the war on drugs. The committee's first recommendation was a three-part reiteration of Board direction to align the county's program with the state's requirements. Applicants have complained that the county has been stricter and more meticulous than the state, out of fear that the state could reclaim funds that were improperly awarded. Haschak laid out his position. “I know that there have been issues that have gone on and on and on, for six months, a year, about trying to clarify whether a solar panel is the right size, whether the number of jars is right for the business, and that kind of stuff,” he said. “And if it's allowable by the state, then we should just go with it and move on. Because the way I see it is, the role of the (Mendocino Cannabis) Department really needs to be getting people to their state licensure.” Cannabis Department Director Kristin Nevedal said she believes she is already implementing that direction. She added that, although there have been bottlenecks in the equity grant program and very few awards have actually been made, no one has been outright denied at this point. Nevedal secured another nearly $18 million in grant funds to help local cannabis business people: the Local Jurisdiction Assistance Grant Program. She described her planned approach to applications for that grant, which she hopes will save her department from multiple rounds of review, and circumvent the need to bring in outside contractors. “I think that these will come to us, this is the hope, review ready,” she said of the upcoming grant applications. “And if they aren't review ready, we will not be issuing an award, and folks can make corrections and apply in the next round. And I'm thinking the rounds for grant applications will be short. Thirty days. We'll announce ahead of time, it will open for thirty days, it will close, we'll do reviews, we'll award, we'll announce another opening.” Nevedal told supervisors that she expects the cannabis department's upcoming move to the Willits Justice Center will help remedy some of the department's shortfalls — but she's not sure exactly how long the move itself will take. Another proposed simplification involved several steps that have not yet been completed. The ad hoc recommended that the cannabis department provide a ‘no objection' status for every document or requirement that it's referred to a state agency, after the agency has been unresponsive for thirty days. But this is problematic, when the county does not have a contract with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the main state agency responsible for environmental review and approval. Nevedal said her department has referred about 100 sensitive species and habitat reviews to CDFW, and that a contract is on its way to being finalized. “It came to us as an unsigned document,” she said of the contract. “So we'll work it through approvals at the county level. Once it's signed at the county, I'm sure CDFW is eager to sign it so that we can pay them for the reviews they have conducted…and they have staff waiting to conduct further reviews. So I think they're just as eager as the county to move this contract forward and resume work.” Another layer of procedural difficulties involves vegetation modification, or the removal of trees and shrubs from grow sites. Growers have complained that their permits have been denied or terminated if they're suspected of removing trees for cultivation purposes, even if it's for fire safety or because the tree was dead or dying. Haschak explained the ad hoc committee's recommendation that the Board clarify some exemptions, and establish what kind of evidence is required. “If we're all in agreement that tree removal has happened because of defensible spaces, for health, for safety, for the tree mortality crisis that we have going on, and I think that we really need to be clear on what the parameters are,” he said. “Because what we're having is, we're having a lot of, well, five years ago, I look at this satellite imagery, and I see that there was something there, and we don't know exactly what it was, but there was something, and so it was removed, and so now you're into the veg mod issues.” Supervisor Ted Williams complained repeatedly that recommendations were not “shovel ready,” with plans to implement them with budget and staff. During public comment, Susan Tibben, a frequent commenter on cannabis policy, recalled her experience planting trees in San Francisco with a group called Friends of the Urban Forest. “We did not know what that soil was going to be, until we stuck that shovel into the dirt,” she told the Board.

John Nores - (Ret.) Lieutenant / Game Warden for California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Cofounder of the Marijuana Enforcement Team (MET), Author of the book Hidden War, War in the Woods, and Where There's Smoke. With a love for wildlife and our nation's, John became a game warden for the California Dept. of Fish and Wildlife in 1992 after earning BS and MS degrees at San Jose State University. He was inducted into SJSU's Justice Studies Hall of Fame in 2018. In 2005 John promoted to Lieutenant, continuing his mission to protect and defend our nation's wildlife resources. Nores has investigated environmental crime and wildlife resource destruction for the last 28 years and was awarded the Governor's Medal of Valor for lifesaving and leadership efforts in 2008. He's received several other awards for valor, life-saving, and distinguished service throughout his career and along with his teammates has survived four officer-involved shooting incidents during DTO trespass grow operations. John's first book, War in the Woods: Combating the Marijuana Cartels on America's Public Lands, was published in 2010 with his second book, Hidden War: How special operations game wardens are reclaiming America's wildlands from the drug cartels dropped in 2019. Nores also recently co-authored a national cannabis environmental issue book, Where There's Smoke, released in 2018. In 2013 John co-developed the Marijuana Enforcement Team (MET) and Delta Team, the CDFW's first comprehensive wilderness spec ops tactical unit and sniper element, aimed at combatting the drug cartel's decimation of our nation's wildlife resources. Lt. Nores and his team are featured in three seasons of National Geographic channel's award-winning game warden reality TV series, “Wild Justice,” highlighted in the Sportsman Channel's Patriot Profiles: Life of Duty documentary TV series, Pursuit Channel's Modern Shooter and Frontier Unlimited television programs, hosts RecoilTV's Thin Green Line film series and co-hosts the Thin Green Line and Warden's Watch podcasts that discuss public safety and wildlife conservation topics and issues throughout the US. Tune in as John Nores joins Bobby Marshall virtually and discuss cartel marijuana grow operations, impacts to the environment, public lands, wildlife conservation, law enforcement, hunting, mountain life, and so much more. Please subscribe or like us on social media platforms for updates on shows, events, and episode drops.www.themountainsidepodcast.comwww.johnnores.comHidden War e-bookHidden War AudiobookJohn Nores YoutubeThin Green Line Pilot Film Sponsor Linkswww.jockofuel.com Mountain Side listeners receive 10% off all Jocko Fuel products! Use Code TMS10 to save.www.ONNIT.com Mountain Side listeners use Discount code TMS to receive 10% off ONNIT products! www.OriginMaine.comMountain Side listeners receive 10% off Origin & Jocko Fuelproducts! Use Code TMS10 to save. Other Affiliates Links

The East Walker River, a legendary Brown Trout fishery in the Eastern Sierra of California is in need of your help. The CDFW imposed a new regulation that doubles the legal limit, allows barbless hooks, and closes the fishery during the winter. We have personally experienced the degredation of this fishery in the short time this reg has been imposed and are looking to change it to a realistic regulation that would protect the legacy of the fishery. A petition has been set forth by Jim Reid, Owner of Ken's Sporting Goods in Bridgeport, Ca that has a feasible and realistic approach to protecting the fishery by essentially mirroring the current regulation on the Nevada side of the river. Please listen in for details on the regulation change and how and where you can sign this petition to support a positive outcome for the fishery. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/bearfish/message

June 1, 2022 — As another dry summer heats up, the Board of Supervisors is considering asking voters to approve a sales tax for local fire districts and county-wide water projects. The tax for Measure B is due to decrease this year, and the Board hopes voters will agree to replace that reduction with the new tax, which is expected to generate about $7 million per year. At a meeting in mid-May, firefighters and Russian River water users expressed their support for the tax, though details about how to allocate the funds and the exact size of the need were not part of the initial discussion. The Inland Water and Power Commission is eyeing some of the potential money as it works to take over water rights associated with the Potter Valley Project. The rights are currently held by PG&E, the project's owner. Commission Chair Janet Pauli is preparing for an expensive and convoluted process The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has directed PG&E to begin the license surrender process. “That is going to be lengthy,” Pauli predicted. “We don't know exactly how it's going to unfold. We do know there are certain sections of that process that are going to require a lot of our participation, so that we can have a voice in what is going to occur with this project. That is going to require some funding.” Pauli added that there has not been consideration of a CDFW-funded study that examined several possible ways to continue diverting water without the current infrastructure. “If the diversion structure comes out, if that's the final disposition of the license surrender, then we have a very, very, very serious problem,” she said, citing the conclusion that, without water from the diversion, Lake Mendocino would not fill in eight out of ten years. The Commission was part of a consortium that tried to take over the license for the Potter Valley Project, though it fell far short of its funding goals. In addition, it was supposed to form a regional entity that would manage the project, a task that is also imperative for acquiring the water rights. The water rights coalition, Pauli said, “would ultimately own and manage and fund the diversion. That entity needs to be formed so that they can negotiate with PG&E regarding acquiring the actual physical infrastructure and securing the water right for the diversion, as well.” The long-term license for the hydropower project has expired, and PG&E is operating it on an annual license. “Now that PG&E is required to surrender the license, the project will no longer produce power,” Pauli reasoned. “Our job is to protect the diversion, to assure that that water can continue to be diverted into the Russian.” Another long-time goal, a feasibility study for raising Coyote Valley Dam, just got a step closer to the fundraising stage. A press release from Congressman Jared Huffman's office declared that expediting the study is one of his priorities as the Water Resources and Development Act winds its way towards completion. The Act was approved by the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure last month. The Inland Water and Power Commission is the non-federal local sponsor for funding that study, so “When the federal budget allows funding, we need to match it,” Pauli said. “Those costs combined will be about $3 million, over about a three-year period,” starting sometime in 2023. The IWPC is budgeting for its half of that cost, which would be $1.5 million. But without Eel River water, Lake Mendocino would rarely fill to its current capacity in a rainy year, let alone a millennial drought. Last month, PG&E asked federal regulators to expedite permission to slash the diversion of Eel River water from Lake Pillsbury into the East Branch of the Russian River, which flows into Lake Mendocino, from 75 cubic feet per second to five. The request is being vigorously contested by the Potter Valley Irrigation District and Sonoma County Water Agency. “The idea of people who benefit from this water supply helping to fund what's needed to get us that water supply is critically important,” Pauli declared. She expects that it will cost between $1.6 and $1.8 million a year, over the next five or six years, to secure the water supply through the diversion and raise Coyote Valley dam. “That's what our budget outline is showing right now,” she concluded. The Board of Supervisors plans to review an initial draft of the proposed tax ordinance at its meeting next Wednesday, on June 8th.

Joshua trees, the iconic species of the Mojave Desert, are in serious danger of becoming extinct across most of their range... and yet the state of California is recommending against granting the trees permanent protection. We talk to desert botanist Christina Sanchez and Brendan Cummings of the Center for Biological Diversity about the dangers the trees face, and what we can do to stop California from stripping the trees' protections. Plus, C&A visit a Joshua tree forest threatened by unsustainable development, Support us!: https://90milesfromneedles.com/patreon See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I have a treat for you guys today! It was my privilege to interview the author of; Hidden War: How Special Operations Game Wardens Are Reclaiming America's Wildlands From The Drug Cartels, retired California Game Warden Lt. John Nores.  ​John has a Master of Science degree from San Jose State University in Criminal Justice Administration. John was awarded the Governor's Medal of Valor for lifesaving and leadership efforts in 2007. John was a special operations lieutenant working directly at the state level, co-developing, and leading his agency's elite tactical unit the Marijuana Enforcement Team (MET), and developing the CDFW's first sniper unit aimed at combatting the most environmentally damaging criminals working within California and impacting the nation.  John and his special operations unit battled heavily fortified Mexican drug cartels in California on their illegal marijuana grow operations worth millions of dollars. John and his unit had to contend with heavily armed, well-trained cartel members who often deployed Viet Nam war era boobytraps and engaged John and his team in intense firefights. These criminals use toxic chemicals that are banned in this country destroying the land and wildlife on location and away. In today's episode we discuss:·      How John started his career in law enforcement, more specifically the job of game warden. ·      John explains the job duties of game warden.·      The training and preparation needed for this physically and mentally demanding job.·      We discuss his book; Hidden War: How Special Operations Game Wardens Are Reclaiming America's Wildlands From The Drug Cartels, and his two other books.·      How his agency cooperated with state, federal, and tribal law enforcement.·      Trespass grow operations and the tactics used to fight these life-threatening operations, including K-9s and air support.·      What was discovered in and around these operations including booby traps, dead bodies, and religious shrines.·      The incredibly harmful impact on the environment from these illegal grow operations when they steal water and use banned toxic chemicals.·      The importance of hunter safety courses, even if you are not a hunter.All of this and more on today's episode of the Cops and Writers podcast.Learn more about John, his work, and products, at his website!Enjoy the Cops and Writers book series.Please visit the Cops and Writers website.If you have a question for the sarge, hit him up at his email.Come join the fun at the Cops and Writers Facebook groupSupport the show (https://patreon.com/copsandwriters)

April 14, 2022 — The California Deptartment of Fish and Wildlife has announced that the commercial Dungeness crab fishery in the entire state of California will close two months early, at least until mid-November, due to five humpback whale entanglements in crab gear along various parts of the coast. The commercial fishery from the Sonoma-Mendocino line to Mexico closed last Friday, and the rest of the commercial fishery, from there to Oregon, will close next Wednesday. The CDFW is also asking recreational crab fishermen to remove their traps from the water as soon as possible, but no later than April 24th. Recreational fishermen will still be allowed to use hoop nets and snares. Ryan Bartling is a senior environmental scientist with the CDFW marine region. With five entanglements in about a month and a half, “We are in uncharted territory,” he conceded. Three of the whales were confirmed to have been entangled in California commercial Dungeness crab gear, while the other two were not identifiable, but “the gear is consistent with what could be California commercial Dungeness crab gear,” he said. Anna Neumann is the harbormaster at Noyo Harbor in Fort Bragg. She paid for her masters degree in fishery policy partly by fishing for Dungeness crab. Changes in naturally occurring domoic acid, which doesn't harm shellfish but is toxic to humans, have shortened many but not all of the crab seasons since 2015. And whale entanglements do appear to be increasing. “There are several theories out there as to why that is,” she reflected. One is that increased reporting means, “We simply have more eyes on the water. We're looking now, whereas perhaps before we haven't looked in past years. Or, with a recovering humpback population, “More whales are coming into the gear. Or it could really just be that we're fishing more heavily, and the entanglements are just a direct increase of the overlap between the whales and the later season periods that are starting to happen as domoic acid is pushing seasons later and then the closures are kind of truncating the season into this very small period of time.” Bartling says new types of gear are being developed to reduce the risk of entanglements, like weak-link technology, that would cause lines to break if whales encounter them. There is also a kind of “ropeless gear,” which does have ropes and buoys. But the gear would be stowed on the ocean floor inside the traps, to be released according to a timer or remote control. Neumann says the biggest problem with ropeless gear is that fishermen rely on surface buoys, which are attached to the traps on the ocean floor with long lines, to let them know where other crews' traps are. That's important information, because if crews drop their equipment on a set of gear that's already set, the two sets of gear could get entangled with each other, causing the loss of expensive assets, litter in the ocean, and traps that continue “ghost fishing.” “Even just tending your gear,” Bartling says, “or day tending, where they go out and set the pots and pull them in before they leave the fishing grounds…would probably help minimize the risk as well.” Neumann added that, “There are other ideas that have been floated through” a Dungeness crab working group that includes crab fishermen and CDFW scientists. Some are as simple as changing the color of the lines, since whales are colorblind to certain colors, and can't see the blue or pink line used by crab fishermen. In the meantime, Dungeness crab fishing will not start up again until mid-November or early December. Neumann said fishermen based in Noyo Harbor will be doing “a little bit of everything,” depending on what kind of permits they have. She expects some will fish for salmon in California, Oregon, and Washington, bottom fish, go after open-access rockfish, or open-access lingcod and blackcod. “So they'll all pivot into their respective fisheries,” she predicted. “And it's really important to realize that the top two fisheries in California are Dungeness crab and market squid,” which isin Southern California, so, “They can't pivot into the other top California fishery,” she concluded. Meanwhile, conditions for whales are looking up. “Their populations are recovering,” Bartling said. “There's good foraging opportunity for them right now. There's a lot of data around anchovies and sardines. The NOAA flight indicated there were some humpbacks foraging for krill at the shelf break. So: good news for whales. I would expect to see more whales beginning to arrive over the next few weeks.”

A packed third hour where Bob gives us the update on Lake Berryessa trout, salmon, and kokanee, New Melones trout and kokanee, Whiskeytown kokanee, Feather River stripers with fly fishing, and Shasta bass and trout! CDFW lack of striped bass management and more worthless gun control laws to update you on.

On today's episode, I chat with Wendy Keefover, Senior Strategist of Native Carnivore Protection with the Wildlife Protection Department at the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). This episode was a chance for all of us to pause and spend some time listening to each other to better understand different, sometimes opposing, perspectives. It was an opportunity for us to use this platform as a table for discussion and not head-butting argument. The HSUS recently submitted a petition to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) to close the black bear hunt in California and calling on the CDFW to enhance the science around black bear abundance in the state and update their black bear management plan. Hunters mobilized leading up to the California Fish and Game Commission meeting that heard the petition on February 17 to advocate for the continuation of the hunt. At the same time, some hunters recognize the need for better science on black bears and up to date population estimates. What does it mean for hunters and the HSUS to agree on the need for better science? What happens if we get that science, and it inevitably supports one perspective and not the other? Wendy and I chat about the idea of collaboration, dialogue, how we navigate temporary convergence in goals between groups, and try to disentangle social understandings of “trophy hunting.” In the conservation segment, I review a new expert panel report that finds our current approach to global conservation will not be enough to avoid continued biodiversity decline (53:00); cover a proposed regulation change in British Columbia that will drastically reduce moose and caribou hunting opportunities (1:02:23); and give a couple quick reading recommendations relevant to hunter-conservationists (1:07:25). In this episode, we discuss: Article: “Editorial: Are California's bears in peril? Suspend hunting season until we know”: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-02-05/lets-not-hunt-more-bears-until-we-know-how-many-are-there Paper: Estes et al. “Trophic Downgrading of Planet Earth”: https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/science.1205106 Paper: “Population reduction by hunting helps control human–wildlife conflicts for a species that is a conservation success story”: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0237274 Paper: “Sustainability of the Grizzly Bear Hunt in British Columbia, Canada”: https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jwmg.21189 Paper: “The Polar Bear Management Agreement for the Southern Beaufort Sea: An Evaluation of the First Ten Years of a Unique Conservation Agreement”: https://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/arctic55-4-362.pdf Article: “Global conservation goals are insufficient to avoid mass extinction event, report finds”: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-countries-must-broaden-scope-to-meet-conservation-goals-report-says/ Report: “Expert Input to the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework”: https://www.cbd.int/doc/c/16b6/e126/9d46160048cfcf74cadcf46d/wg2020-03-inf-11-en.pdf C. government negotiations agreement: https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2021IRR0063-001940 C. regulation proposal: https://apps.nrs.gov.bc.ca/ahte/content/close-peace-caribou-hunts-and-reduce-peace-moose-hunts-region-wide University of Calgary Faculty of Law blog on Yahey v British Columbia: https://ablawg.ca/2021/09/24/yahey-v-british-columbia-and-the-clarification-of-the-standard-for-a-treaty-infringement/ Action: BC Wildlife Federation Peace Region Hunting Regulations campaign: https://bcwf.bc.ca/peace-region-hunting-regulations/ My Goodreads page for all my book recommendations: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/69758704-paul-mccarney?ref=nav_mybooks&shelf=conservation

March 3, 2022 — The Board of Supervisors took up a full slate of cannabis issues at its March 2 special meeting, including fallowing, the tax code, an appeals process for application denials, and the proper uses of a seventeen and a half million dollar state grant, which is supposed to help local growers secure annual state licenses. Supervisors directed County Counsel and cannabis program staff to look into what it would take for growers to take a leave of absence from cultivating, without continuing to pay the minimum cultivation tax. The tax was approved by the voters, so any changes will have to be effected with a certain level of finesse. Supervisors also tried to hammer out an appeals process that would cover every contingency. The ad hoc committee even took a break with outside legal counsel in an attempt to work out something that would include all applicants; whether they are in the portal or not; the terms of cost recovery; and whether or not applicants appealing a denial should be allowed to continue growing during the appeal. They expect to review various options at a meeting in May. Cannabis industry representatives called for more transparency and stakeholder meetings with the county cannabis department, but Cannabis Program Director Kristin Nevedal responded that she recently began holding Friday morning meetings about various topics of interest to those in the program. The program has now been promoted to the status of a department, and is attempting to increase its staff of nine to twenty. The name change does not incur additional costs, but it signals that cannabis is no longer within the purview of other departments, as it has been in the past. Letters about tree removal also came up during public comment on off-agenda items. Last month, the cannabis program sent some applicants letters and aerial images of areas where trees had been removed. The letters stated that if applicants failed to provide credible evidence like documents from a licensed professional and lists of the species that had been removed within two weeks, their applications would be denied. Cannabis attorney Lauren Mendelsohn blasted the program for its handling of the issue, calling it “arbitrary and unacceptable.” Nevedal said that a subscription to Planet, the aerial surveillance service utilized by CDFW, could provide archival footage and answer questions about vegetation management. The subscription is $350,000 a year, and is one of the items she proposes to pay for with the local jurisdiction assistance grant. That set off alarm bells for Michael Katz, Executive Director of the Mendocino Cannabis Alliance, who said that “The grant application did not allow for funds to be used for enforcement, and yet, included in the satellite imagery text is that the tools are crucial for managing complaints about participants. So that's one specific item that certainly is, on the face of it, related to enforcement.” Nevedal said that often people call in complaints about things that aren't actually happening, and that the imagery could be used to discredit false complaints. Katz also worried about grant money being used to hire full time staff, asking what they would do once the money runs out. Nevedal said cost recovery was written into the budget, and that she expects there will be plenty of work at the cannabis department, what with processing another grant, renewing phase I and phase II applications, and moving into phase III. And she expects the department to play a key role in the county's economic future. “I'm confident we'll need staff going forward, as the program expands,” she said. “And I certainly hope that we'll see changes at the state level that will allow our cannabis businesses to stabilize…I think there's a lot of opportunity in the future, and I don't think twenty staff is out of the question, going forward.” Supervisors and county staff blamed much of the difficulty on the mismatch between the state's regulations, which require extensive environmental review, and 10a17, the county's cannabis ordinance, which includes a mitigated negative declaration. Supervisor Ted Williams had a question for Nevedal and County Counsel Christian Curtis during one discussion about an attempt to align county policy with state requirements. “I don't like the recommended action today,” he declared. “If we pause and we have stakeholder input and we have meetings and we decide to go a direction contrary to where the state is trying to steer us, what have we gained?...It seems like we're all over the place. Do you see room for negotiation with the state, and if not, why would we hold stakeholder meetings? It sounds like a checkmate.” Nevedal said she did not think there was “a heck of a lot of room for negotiation with the state” on its requirement. The Mendocino Cannabis Program holds public meetings every Friday morning at 8:30 am. On March 4, the topics will be program updates, CEQA, and appendix G, a checklist devised to satisfy the state's environmental requirements.

Rob Tressler talked about late season tuna fishing and other related subjects. Billy Egan updated us on the upcoming WON Arizona Open. Jay Rowan, Program Manager for CDFW hatcheries, informed us of the current status of hatchery stick populations.

December 17, 2021 — The Potter Valley Project is in a phase of uncertainty, but a recent feasibility study could be a blueprint for a future that includes a diversion without dams. The deadline for the license application is coming up in mid-April, and PG&E, which owns the project, has made it clear that it does not intend to renew. The coalition seeking to take over the license hasn't come up with the money it needs to fund the necessary studies. And PG&E is not paying for a costly repair at the powerhouse that drastically reduces the amount of water the project is able to divert from the Eel River into the Russian River and on into Lake Mendocino. The new study, a technical memorandum funded by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife with cannabis taxes, posits a few strategies for decommissioning the dams and building structures to continue seasonal diversions. Darren Mireau, the North Coast Director of California Trout, signaled that he favors the rapid removal option with pumping. (CalTrout is a member of the Two-Basin Partnership, the coalition of entities that has filed a notice of intent to take over the license, but Mireau is not speaking on behalf of the entire Partnership here.) He says sediment, both of the sandy and the rocky varieties, will play a large role in how any of the alternatives is carried out. Sediment buildup that reduced the capacity of the van Arsdale reservoir behind Cape Horn Dam was a large part of the reason Scott Dam and Lake Pillsbury were built in 1922, 14 years after Cape Horn. “You're goint to have an impact with sediment release, and you could do that once, or you could do that four times,” he said of the rapid removal option, as opposed to the phased approach, which would take place over four years. “And each time has about the same caliber of impact. So it seems reasonable to do it all at once and get past the impact, and get the dam out.” Since the point of dam removal is to protect fish, Mireau added, “We would time it in a way that most of the fish are coming up the Eel River and heading into tributaries, so they'll be distributed out of the effect zone…like I said, this is a feasibility level study right now, so a lot more detailed study will unfold.” Some options include a partial removal of Cape Horn Dam, but Mireau was unambivalent about CalTrout's position on Scott Dam. “We will certainly want to remove — or have PG&E remove, to be honest, the entirety of Scott Dam,” he emphasized. “It needs to go. With regard to Cape Horn Dam, it's a little trickier, because it's the diversion point for water going into the Russian River, and we're committed to maintain that reliable water supply…this study is actually groundbreaking for us, because we now have three reliable infrastructures that we think would safely and reliably provide that water supply to the Russian River.” Of the three alternatives, the pumping option would be the cheapest to build, at an estimated cost of $20 million, as compared to $35-$48 million for channel-building options. But the annual projected operations and management costs for the pumping scenario range from $309,000-$359,000, including water delivery costs to Potter Valley of about $284,000 per year. Annual O&M costs for the other two options range from $50,000-$200,000. But Mireau doesn't have a problem with water users paying the price for the commodity. “Any water diversion at that location is going to have some annual operation and maintenance costs,” he said. “That's unavoidable. The advantage of the full removal of Cape Horn Dam with that pumped diversion approach is that you get all of the obstruction out of the river that might impair fish passage.That alternative for Cape Horn Dam does that the best. And it does shift the cost, I think, to the water users, instead of the fish side, where it appropriately needs to be.” Reached by phone, Congressman Jared Huffman acknowledged that PG&E ratepayers are likely to get stuck paying for any alternative that ends up being implemented at the project. But he said ratepayers are already paying for hydropower costs, and PG&E is currently operating the Potter Valley Project at a loss of about $9 million a year. What happens next depends on the federal regulators. If surrender and decommissioning is the way forward, it will depend on an order from the Federal Energy and Regulatory Commission. The Two-Basin Partnership is likely to withdraw its notice of intent to apply for the license, according to Mireau. “We're reasonably certain that will happen in ‘22, at least by the expiration date of the license itself, which is April 14, 2022,” he said. “And then FERC will turn and order PG&E into that surrender and decommission process…and then it's PG&E, the license holder's obligation to respond, start developing a plan for that decommissioning, and go forward from there.” Huffman said that, although surrender and decommissioning scenarios do differ, a dam that blocks anadromous fish passage, as Scott Dam does, would have to meet a set of regulatory standards so significant that, “When you add it all up, you see where agencies have weighed in, (and) the only way to meet standards is to remove the dams.” The last relicensing of the Potter Valley Project took 34 years. Mireau thinks time is of the essence for the fish, which are drawing nearer to extinction. Huffman hopes the condition of Lake Mendocino and the crippled transformer in the powerhouse “should create a great sense of urgency.” He also noted “a reticence to give up on the license application.” But if the partnership doesn't withdraw its notice of intent to apply, FERC is likely to wait until it misses the application deadline in April, just as the dry season is getting underway, before making the pivotal order. “One or the other will happen,” Mireau predicted. You can find more documents about the Two-Basin Partnership at twobasinsolution.org

Listen. Share. Discuss. and Support!! It's not often the hunting community can get behind hunting regulation changes with enthusiasm, but I bring you this podcast with hope and genuine optimism.  For most of the last few decades it seems as though California has not evolved hunting regulations, seasons, administrative practices, tag allocations or wildlife management in a way that supports hunters or hunting opportunity. Other western states are far more creative, proactive and progressive - and both the hunters and wildlife in those states can benefit.  This episode we get into 2 specific items on the 12/15/21 Fish & Game Commission meeting agenda.  Item #13 - is the CDFW proposed regulatory change related to tag returns, point reinstatement and refunds, in response to widespread public lands closures.  Item #15 - features a HUGE petition for regulatory, administrative, tag allocation and season changes or creation which will spur a ton of debate and hopefully be a new beginning for how CDFW approaches problem solving, hunter opportunity.  Listen. Learn. Share. Comment - via email or via the public comments opportunities during the 12/15 meeting.  ***Most importantly: we need to support the Item #15 petition being "referred for additional review and consideration" so that CDFW, Dan, biologists and the hunting public can continue working on the ideas presented to craft changes that may go into effect over the next 1-5 years.  If you want the Petition documents sent via email - drop me a DM at www.instagram.com/huntingainteasy and I'll send them your way.   HOWL For Wildlife #Hunting #Conservation #Wildlife #Muledeer #California #Habitat #Blackbear #BearHunting #HSUS #DeerHunting #ElkHunting #Wilderness #Deer #Whitetail #Elk #Blacktail #Advocate #Activist #Howl

Lt. John Nores, retired CDFW game warden, recipient of the California Governor's Medal of Valor and author of Hidden War and War in the Woods, joins Sam on The Wild Initiative to discuss the largely unknown battle for our public lands against the drug cartels. John and Sam discuss the issues that hunters and conservationists face coming up against anti-hunting activist groups, such as mountain lion management and get into some of what differentiates a game warden from a park ranger. John also looks back on his unique journey to becoming a game warden and how his time working in rough areas of Southern California directed his career path towards special operations. John and Sam then dig into the difference between legal and illegal grows, the destructive effect illegal grow operations have on wildlife and habitat areas and the extreme level of crime associated with those illegal grows due to cartel involvement. See more on the show notes page at thewildinitiative.com/220 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quick recap on the Oct. meeting of the Calif. Fish & Game Commission discussing a proposed regulatory change to provide Elk, Deer, Sheep and Antelope hunters some recourse when public land closures impact their hunts. This is a big move from CDFW and F&G to both acknowledge an issue impacting thousands of hunters, and then to move forward with long-term regulatory changes which impact affected hunters in a positive way.  This is a short episode, but there is a lot of material that you should review - become informed and communicate to F&G what you think about these regulatory changes.  Finally - thank Backcountry Hunters, California Deer Association, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and Wild Sheep Foundation for their support of these regulatory changes.  Call to action: read the proposed regulations and let Fish & Game know what you think. If you're in support, they need to know. If you are not in support, they need to know!  EMAIL Fish & Game Commission.  Calif. Fish & Game Commission Notice of Proposed Changes (11/2/21) Proposed Changes to Regulations – Tag returns and point & fee refunds Hunting Ain't Easy – Instagram HOWL For Wildlife #Hunting #Conservation #Wildlife #Muledeer #California #Habitat #Blackbear #BearHunting #HSUS #DeerHunting #ElkHunting #Wilderness #Deer #Whitetail #Elk #Blacktail #Advocate #Activist #Howl

TehachaPod got a chance to talk with Robin Parks from the Mountain Lion Foundation about these big cats that call Tehachapi and California home. We get a chance to separate myth and facts about these predators that live in our nearby mountains. Robin explains how we can be better pet owners when we live in rural areas. He also explains how mountain lions truly want nothing to do with humans and generally leave the area when they hear the human voice. We also talk about misidentification of mountain lions and things we can do if we ever do encounter one of these animals while out in their habitat. More information on the mountain lion can be found at www.MountainLion.org. Send your show thoughts and questions to Media@TehachapiCityHall.com. 

September 30, 2021 — Mendocino County will receive $600,000 from the state for cannabis enforcement, possibly as soon as next month. Senator Mike McGuire announced the allocation of $1.5 million of general fund monies at a press conference yesterday with sheriffs from around the north coast and Third District Supervisor John Haschak. Humboldt County will also get $600,000 for its enforcement efforts, and Trinity County will get $300,000. The money is earmarked for enforcement operations at grow sites that are diverting water illegally, harming the environment and sensitive species, and involve organized crime. McGuire emphasized that the money is not to be used for raids on small farmers working towards getting legal. “At no time will legacy farmers and small family farmers who are currently working through the permitting process, or those who are already permitted, be the focus of this campaign,” he said. “No way, no how.” McGuire said part of the purpose of the new campaign is to help prop up the legal market, which, as Supervisor John Haschak remarked, is out-competed by the illegal market. “Many cannabis growers are on the path to getting county and state permits for cultivation,” he noted. “Yet when these illegal grows are not following any rules, they aren't paying the taxes and fees, and cutting corners at every step, the illegal market has the advantage.” All three sheriffs talked about the increase in violent crime, human trafficking, and the environmental degradation associated with illegal grows. Sheriff Matt Kendall, who approached McGuire about six weeks ago to ask for state assistance on enforcement, estimated about eight to ten thousand illegal grows in Mendocino County — and the sole priority behind them. “We've got some folks who showed up with a two year plan to make as much money as they possibly could, and that plan did not include did not include taking care of the environment, taking care of the folks around them, that plan did not include looking out for sensitive species,” he informed his listeners. Humboldt County Sheriff Billy Honsal spoke about the organized crime that's moved into all three counties. “They're playing the numbers,” he said. “When you look at how many search warrants we do every year, it's in the hundreds. And so when there's thousands and thousands of illegal grows, organized crime, they'll take advantage of it...organized crime has moved in all over. Once it was trespass grows, now they're buying up private land, all over the county...we've had unprecedented homicides, as well as gun violence, throughout the county...we were hoping legalization would push some of these people out, and it has not.” The money cannot be used to hire more sheriff's personnel at the local level, but it can be used for overtime and per diem costs as the three sheriff's departments assist each other on enforcement operations. And Kendall expects a lot more help from the Department of Cannabis Control and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. McGuire pledged that this collaboration, and this funding, “is just the start.” Kendall added in an interview after the press conference that he also expects assistance from CDFW scientists. These specialists are qualified to document the details of environmental degradation at illegal grow sites so the District Attorney can prosecute the damage as a crime. Kendall described the new campaign as still in the planning and handshaking phase, but he expects to be able to call on state law enforcement agencies and his neighboring sheriff's departments soon. He hopes to knock out the large illegal grows in two years.

Getting a better understanding of California DFW with Alan Gregory

Today I sit down with Matt Bond also known as @cutproffessor on IG to discuss who we need to quickly and collectively work together to show the CDFW and California Natural Resources Board that we as Hunters, Fishers and Spearfishers are here to respectively, thoughtfully and assertively continue the way of life that we know and love. Comment on the upcoming 30 x 30 Rule Making Back Country Hunters and Anglers

Continued

Our first guest on Hunting Ain't Easy is Kevin Vella, the Pacific Region Biologist for the National Wild Turkey Federation.  We cover 3 sections of discussion in this episode: 1) NWTF work in CA and how habitat mgmt for turkeys helps wildlife diversity and our big game populations 2) Insights into our allies and agencies such as CDFW, F&G Commission and where laws, rules and regulations come from.  3) our first "how would you hunt this" segment!   Listen in and take some notes because Kevin drops some great knowledge that can benefit any CA hunter.   While you're at it, check out https://www.nwtfcalifornia.com/ and drop your $35 to join their conservation efforts, you'll get a $25 coupon code in return, so net costs are just $10!.  Not a turkey hunter, no problem - NWTF is going great work in prime deer habitat so the herds and hunting improve too.    California hunting, deer hunting, bear hunting, black bear, mule deer, blacktail deer, blackbear, backcountry hunting, habitat management, backpack hunting, bow hunting, archery, conservation, wildlife management

Today on Live Life in Motion, I'm joined by John Nores. John shares how Special Operation Game Wardens are reclaiming America's wildlands from drug cartels. Beginning in 1992, he was hired as a warden for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and retired in December of 2018 as a special operations lieutenant working directly at the state level, co-developing, and leading his agency's elite tactical unit the Marijuana Enforcement Team (MET) and developed the CDFW's first sniper unit aimed at combating the most environmentally damaging criminals working within California and impacting the nation. Throughout his years of service, he was a field training officer for new cadets, conducted statewide, national, and international training in firearms, defensive tactics, high risk warrant and arrest tactics as well as basic and advanced sniper training programs with special operations personnel from the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office. John was awarded the Governor's Medal of Valor for lifesaving and leadership efforts in 2007 and led allied agency dignitary protection details with the US Secret Service during the Obama administration. *Listen, subscribe, and give us a 5***** review on Apple Podcasts! * John's website: http://www.johnnores.com/ John's book: Hidden War http://www.johnnores.com/books.html John's IG: https://www.instagram.com/johnnores/ *It's time to get a NEW mattress!! www.engineeredsleep.com USE code LIVE10 for 10% off*

This Burritos, Breaks, and Flies Micro-Tip Podcast will be covering the East Walker River and the new regulations set forth by the CDFW. This change is of the upmost concern for this trophy fishery and if it remains unchanged it will certainly have a negative impact on the fishery as well as the town of Bridgeport. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/bearfish/message

April 16, 2021 — The Board of Supervisors decided this week to follow Humboldt County’s approach to code enforcement against cannabis scofflaws, which includes real time aerial surveillance, hefty fines, and property liens. And scientists with the California Dept of Fish and Wildlife told the board that the proposed cannabis cultivation ordinance to replace Phase III does not adequately address the cumulative impacts that cannabis grows have on water bodies and habitat loss. On the same day the board heard from water managers around the county about the severity of the current drought, Angela Liebenberg, a CDFW environmental scientist specializing in cannabis enforcement, offered an analysis of the proposed ordinance.

Tractors are working ground in the Sacramento Valley, as the 2021 rice season is underway. Whether it’s farmers, those in cities or for the environment, this year will pose challenges due to less than ideal rain and snowfall during the fall and winter. At Montna Farms near Yuba City, Vice President of Operations Jon Munger said they expect to plant about one-third less rice this year, based on water cutbacks. As water is always a precious resource in this state, rice growers work hard to be as efficient as they can. Fields are precisely leveled and will be flooded with just five-inches of water during the growing season. Rice is grown in heavy clay soils, which act like a bathtub to hold water in place. High-tech planting and harvest equipment also help California rice farms and mills operate at peak efficiency. Expectations of less rice acreage will impact other parts of the valley – rural communities, allied businesses and the environment – birds and fish. “The Central Valley is arguably one of the most important waterfowl areas on the planet,” remarked Jeff McCreary, Director of Operations for Ducks Unlimited’s Western Region. “It’s because of all of these birds coming down the Pacific Flyway… and when we think about the drought, it’s going to affect that wintering habitat. Is there rice on the landscape? Is there water for wetlands? How do we make sure that those populations are in as good enough condition that when they go back to the breeding ground, they can have a successful year.” McCreary said rice fields are critically important for wintering waterfowl, supporting 60 percent of the food energetics these birds need.  He said of all of the duck species, the Mallard is perhaps the most impacted by dry weather in California. Another environmental concern during dry weather is the wild salmon population, which faces significant challenges.  However, farmers, water districts, conservationists and others are working hard to find solutions. “The salmon rice work is among the most exciting work I’ve ever been a part of, “said Andrew Rypel, an associate professor and the Peter B. Moyle and California Trout Chair in Coldwater Fish Ecology at UC Davis in the Department of Wildlife, Fish & Conservation Biology. Rypel is one of the key participants in pilot salmon research, including raising juvenile salmon in winter rice fields, then releasing the fish into the ocean. So far, results with the project have been very positive. Another key project to help salmon is putting a shallow amount of water on rice fields in the Sacramento Valley after harvest, which creates “fish food”- zooplankton – which is then released into the river to help feed wild salmon runs. Water managers always have a balancing act to meet the needs of their customers, and dry years provide even more careful consideration.  Lewis Bair, General Manager of Reclamation District 108 in the Sacramento Valley, is one of those navigating through this dry year, which includes creative approaches with water, including the likelihood of transfers. “In a dry year, our folks would still love to farm, just like they always love to farm,” he said. “But in these types of years, we end up kind of sharing the pain by doing water transfers. Sometimes, it’s better to move water around for the whole system. You end up being able to achieve other benefits. It really is a short-term solution. We need to have a more reliable water supply for California, and I’m hoping that the long-term vision and long-term investments will help reduce the need for those sorts of transfers.” Bair said building Sites Reservoir would be a major help to the state’s water future, providing new storage and flexibility to re-operate the system for water use efficiency. “I think it’s the most promising thing we can do from an infrastructure perspective,” he added. Munger, McCreary, Rypel and Bair all have different responsibilities, but they share a common goal- to help our region withstand dry years, including a healthy ecosystem and sufficient water for cities and farms. They all agree that the level of cooperation is great in the Sacramento Valley, as evidenced by the scores of voluntary, collaborative projects that have been done to help maintain the Pacific Flyway and enhance the wild salmon runs. Episode Transcript Jim Morris: Tractors are in the field and work is underway to prepare ground throughout the Sacramento Valley for rice planting. An old challenge has returned, one we faced in the past, that will impact virtually all Californians. The question before us, how to navigate through a dry year with subpar rain and snowfall? Jim Morris: Welcome to Ingrained, the California Rice Podcast. I'm your host, Jim Morris, proud to have worked with California farmers and ranchers for more than 30 years to help tell their stories. Over that time, there have been years of abundant water and dry years, which provide challenges, and this is one of those years. I'm in the Yuba City area, one of many areas of our valley where fields are being prepped for rice planting. Jon Munger is with Montna Farms. John, what's happening out here today? Jon Munger: Today we're starting our field prep with chiseling. It is opening the ground up. It's the first piece of equipment that we use since the rice fields have been flooded for the wintertime. Jim Morris: Jon, looking at it from a longer-term perspective, what are your thoughts as you are going to enter your very busiest time of the year? Jon Munger: Over the years, we've had many dry years. We've dealt with a COVID pandemic and, like we did last year, we quickly implemented the policies to keep all of our workers safe in the field and our workers that we have here, they're spread out quite well. They're driving their own tractors and we implemented policies last year that worked very well to keep everybody safe and we're planning to do the same this year. So, it's no different now rolling into the drought that we're currently facing. We've had dry years in the past. We always will get through them. It does affect our local rural communities. A lot of folks depend on the farming activities that we have out here. For our farm, we're looking at potentially growing a third less of our acres this year and that's definitely an impact. Jim Morris: One thing people may not know about rice is of course we have this season coming up, the harvest will be in the fall, but rice is stored and milled according to order essentially year round. So Jon, tell me a little bit about how rice is milled and marketed right now and what it means for the consumer. Jon Munger: Each and every year during harvest rice is delivered to many different dryers throughout the valley. It is then dried and stored until millers and marketers make orders, and then rice is shipped onto mills and milled and shipped out there to whatever buyer or whatever location it's going to. Last harvest crop 2020 is being stored and will be used all the way through this year. Then come this fall, the 2021 crop will go back into storage and will be used in during the year of 2022. Jim Morris: That really helps in a year like this because there is rice, it's already in storage, it's already going to be shipped to consumers at home and abroad. So that helps us during dry years like this. Jim Morris: It's important when looking at a dry year to talk with someone who manages water on a daily basis. Lewis Bair is general manager of Reclamation District 108 on the West side of the Sacramento River, about 30 miles north of Sacramento, and they represent about 75 square miles of agricultural land and rural communities. Lewis, how does your job change during a dry year? Lewis Bair: Most of it stays the same. I mean, watershed management is a long-term vision, a long-term exercise in how you manage water. But, during a dry year, a lot of people are interested in that and the impacts are more severe because we don't have enough water to go around. So, I do a lot of education during these years to explain the reasons why we're making the trade-offs that we're making with water management. There are things that we do to help spread the water around a little bit more during these dry years. Jim Morris: The decisions made in a dry year aren't always easy. You obviously want to make sure that the needs of your district are as whole as they can be, but will you also try to reach out and help some of your neighbors, if that's possible? Lewis Bair: In a dry year, our folks would still love to farm just like they always love to farm, but, in these types of years, we ended up kind of sharing the pain by doing water transfers. Sometimes it's better to move water around with those transfers for the whole system. You end up being able to achieve other benefits. It really is, though, a short term solution, right? We need to have a more reliable water supply for California and I'm hoping that the long-term vision and long-term investments will help reduce the need for those sorts of transfers. Jim Morris: How helpful would Sites Reservoir be if it can be constructed and available down the road? Lewis Bair: Well, Sites Reservoir does something that climate change is kind of unwinding right now, right? So climate change means water, more precipitation as opposed to snowfall. What happens with that is we lose our storage over winter. Sites Reservoir is kind of perfectly situated in the middle of the system to provide both some new storage and some flexibility to re-operate the system. So, you can kind of think about it as a storage and a water use efficiency project rolled into one. I think it's the most promising thing we can do from a infrastructure perspective. Jim Morris: The Sacramento Valley is a unique place and one of the ways it is, is the Pacific Flyway and the amazing wildlife we have. There's also really an emphasis on helping salmon, too. How important is it from a water management perspective but also for someone who lives here to try to help the ecosystem as much as possible? Lewis Bair: I think it's super exciting right now because we have a long-term vision for the Sacramento Valley that I think supports a reliable water supply, a healthy environment, and an economy for the State of California. It's really dependent on that reliable water supply. So, in the Sacramento Valley, what that means is taking a look at what impacts some of the flood control system and water supply system development created. It impacted species and those species impacts are affecting water supply. What's exciting is that we found out we can unwind some of those flood control impacts. We can restore those floodplains that are really the energy that kind of fueled our amazing environment in the Sacramento Valley. So if we can do that, I think we have a very positive outlook for the future. Jim Morris: This isn't something that happened yesterday. I mean, these things have been in works for many years with millions of dollars behind them. So how long has this been an area of dedication and how important is it to you personally as well, to try to have the best environment we can here? Lewis Bair: Well, I think everybody loves the Sacramento Valley up here. Everybody is super excited. Two decades ago, we started with the bird programs and that's really what I think woke folks up here in the Sacramento Valley, that these wetlands are so important to kind of fueling our environment. We've seen now that that applies to fish too, and that's really the door that's been opened, that's changing things for water supply reliability. The floodplains that were separated from the river when we constructed our flood control system, we now believe they're extremely critical to restoring the fisheries. If we can restore the fisheries, that sure takes a lot of pressure off of the water supply system. Jim Morris: Throughout the Sacramento Valley over the last 20 years, there have been about 155 different projects that have voluntarily been done cooperatively to aid salmon. One of the interesting ones here in Reclamation District 108 that may be happening again later this year, hopefully, is getting some water on the floodplain to provide fish food. Can you comment a little bit about that? It's a really interesting concept, but perhaps even more valuable this year than normal because of the dry year. Lewis Bair: Yeah, so historically we built a flood control system and drainage systems that essentially kept water from staying on the land long enough to produce food, phytoplankton, that we all hear that fish eat. But what we've learned is that the rice fields that we farm in work perfect during those winter months to hold water. So, we have a program where we will flood and hold water, produce phytoplankton and drain that back to the river to help support the fishery. This can also be done on the floodplains in the bypasses. So it's really an exciting program. We think fundamentally it's one of the biggest things affecting juvenile salmon out migration. Jim Morris: One thing that is clear in the Sacramento Valley is the collaboration that's happening between agriculture and the environment, communities, water districts. How important is that approach in a year like this? Lewis Bair: Well, it's super exciting. We have so many talented partners that are coming together to push forward on these floodplain efforts, at the fishery efforts. It's really wetlands with birds and the fisheries. So we have NGOs, state and federal partners, local water agencies, and landowners all on the same page and driving this forward. I think it's the kind of partnership that's going to make change in the Sacramento Valley. Jim Morris: The environment is an important part of the Sacramento Valley, and there are some challenges heading into this dry year. Jeff McCreary heads up the Western Region for Ducks Unlimited and Jeff, before we get into that, a milestone for Ducks Unlimited with 15 million acres conserved throughout North America. That's awesome news. Can you comment a little bit about that? Jeff McCreary: Yeah, Jim, it's fantastic. The 15 million acre mark is a remarkable achievement for the Ducks Unlimited family of organizations, that includes Ducks Unlimited Incorporated here in the United States, Ducks Unlimited Canada and DU de Mexico, which covers Mexico. So we've got from Los Mochas, Mexico to Yellowknife, Canada and everything in between has been conserved, whether it's protected, restored, improved up to the 15 million acre mark. We're just really proud to be able to celebrate that with our partners and our members and our volunteer leadership. Jim Morris: That is awesome. We are heading into a dry year. We're going to need all of those skills. You're a wildlife biologist. What are some of your thoughts heading into this dry year? Your concerns about waterfowl health in the Sacramento Valley. Jeff McCreary: Well, Ducks Unlimited takes a continental approach to waterfowl conservation, and, when we look at the Pacific Flyway, we think about where are the birds coming from, where are they going to, and then where are they going back to? So, they're coming from Canada and the breeding grounds, and they're coming to California for the winter. The Central Valley is arguably one of the most important waterfowl areas in the planet, and it's because of all these birds coming down to the Pacific Flyway here in the Central Valley, in this narrow band of habitat that is comprised of wetlands and agricultural working grounds. When we think about the drought, it's going to affect that wintering habitat. Is there rice on the landscape? Is there water for wetlands. How do we make sure that those populations are in as good enough condition that, when they go back to the breeding ground, they can have a successful year? Jeff McCreary: The remarkable thing about waterfowl is that they have a large clutch sizes, like up to 12 eggs, so they can be responsive to the good times and the bad times. Our job this year is to make sure that they're in good enough condition in these bad times so that when the good times come around, they'll be able to respond and grow at their population. Jim Morris: So as we head into this year, how important are rice fields in this equation when you talk about ducks along the Pacific Flyway? Jeff McCreary: Rice fields are critically important for the wintering population of waterfowl. They support 60 percent of the food energetics that waterfowl need during the winter. Now, rice and wetlands have this interplay. So the birds move back and forth between both types of habitats, but with rice, what we are doing now with our planting, we're getting ready to get out in the fields and get the rice planted, so that's really going to drive how much energetics is out there in eight months from now. Jim Morris: Are rice fields more important than a drought time? About the same? Do you have a thought on that? How much do we need rice to keep the population healthy? Jeff McCreary: Well, we certainly need rice to keep the population healthy and ducks are just one of the waterfall guilds that we have. Of course, geese and white-fronted geese are growing in numbers and so rice certainly play an important role for those birds as well. When we look at the Sacramento Valley, wetlands and rice agriculture use the exact same water infrastructure and water delivery system the rest of the valley uses. So, it's important to look at both wetlands and rice as a whole unit, because the water comes from the same place. Jim Morris: Is there one duck species in particular that is especially dependent on the Sacramento Valley habitat? Jeff McCreary: Yeah, I'd say the iconic California bird is the Mallard, and over the last 10 years and the last 10 year drought, we saw significant declines in the California Mallard population, nearly by half from what it was. We went from 400,000 to somewhere around 200,000 birds. If you drew a graph of that and you paralleled that graph with the graph of the water years, you would see this decline over time. In the last several years where we had some better water years, we've actually seen an increase in the Mallard population. So that's a concern going forward. Jim Morris: How important are the partnerships between rice growers and conservation groups like Ducks Unlimited? Jeff McCreary: The partnerships are everything. Ducks Unlimited never does anything by ourselves. It's always with somebody else, whether it's a grower or whether it's with an association or whether it's with a federal or state or local agency. Everything that we do is by partnership. In times like these, when drought and stress is going to be out there, it's all that much more important for stakeholders to come together and find those innovative entrepreneurial solutions to deal with some of these challenges that we're facing. Jim Morris: What are your thoughts when you see that big flock of birds that's taking off from a rice field? I mean, to me, I just have a big smile on my face when I see that. Jeff McCreary: It's a spectacle of nature, and if no one's been to the Gray Lodge Wildlife Area or the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge to see the waterfowl fly offs in the evening, I really strongly encourage you to do that. We are blessed to be in this part of the world, with this amazing waterfowl population that comes here and they're here for a reason and the things that we do on the landscape with our wetland management, with our working agriculture and riceland management, that's what keeps those birds here, that's what keeps them coming back, that's what sends them back to the breeding grounds to be successful and do it all over again. Jim Morris: What does this dry year mean for fish in California? Probably a lot of unanswered questions, certainly a big subject, not just for environment, but it also impacts water to cities and farms. Andrew Rypel is an associate professor and the Peter B. Moyle and California Trout chair in cold water fish ecology at UC Davis in the Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology, and that's probably the longest title I've ever seen, but that's all important. Andrew, what are your comments as we head into this dry year, concern for the wild salmon population, and maybe what we can do here in the Sacramento Valley? Andrew Rypel: Droughts are difficult times for fishes in general. However, our native fish fauna in California are well adapted to cyclic climate patterns where they are adapted for dealing with drought cycles and wet cycles, and that's part of the business of living in the Mediterranean climate for these species. Jim Morris: You're participating with many others in some pretty interesting research that I think could help in the long run. Can you comment a little bit about some of the work that you're doing with rice farmers and how it may help in the longer term? Andrew Rypel: The salmon rice work is some of the most exciting work I've ever been a part of. It's based on the idea that the Central Valley was once a giant floodplain wetland ecosystem complex, and the water originated in the mountains much like it does today, and would spread out over the valley floor and the native fish and wildlife really evolved to capitalize on those resources. It's abundant food for fish, abundant for birds, for Tule Elk, things like that. Of course, much of that is gone. However, there's an increasing awareness that we've got a lot of acreage, roughly 500,000 acres of rice, which is not a perfectly natural wetland, but it can approximate some of the important wetland processes that can facilitate the life cycle of native species, particularly fishes in my case. Andrew Rypel: So, there have been a lot of really interesting work done with migratory waterfowl and highly successful NRCS programs that were developed that, in my opinion, it looks like it has arrested the decline of migratory birds on the Pacific coast. So a lot of people have been looking at that and saying, "If we can do that for birds, why can't we do that for fish?" So we've been working with the California Rice Commission, with other science partners to really kind of pilot how this could work for fish in the Central Valley. So we've been growing salmon on bypass rice fields, looking at how well they grow, how well they survive in these fields when they're flooded in the winter time, and also how well they survive out in the Pacific Ocean. Andrew Rypel: To sum it up in a really short way, the results are very positive. Salmon grow really well in these habitats. They put on weight very fast. Just within a month they can go from 30-40 millimeters in length all the way up to 70-80 millimeters in length. So they get big, fast, and that's important because it tends to time these fish up with the natural flow regime that these rivers experience. So baby salmon tend to have better survivorship when there is more water in the rivers and more food in the rivers. If we can grow them bigger, faster so that they get out on the high tide of the rivers earlier in the year rather than later in the year when the river is low and doesn't have much food and it's full of predators like striped bass, that's just a good thing. So, we think that rice fields could play a role in fish conservation in California, much like they have for bird conservation before. Jim Morris: Not only raising salmon in rice fields, but also fish food. How positive are you on that approach and how important would it be in a year like this to have more food in the river for the wild salmon? Andrew Rypel: Both concepts are extremely important. There are certain fields, rice fields, that flood naturally, so fish can come on those fields and off those fields in a volitional way. They want to be there and they want to spend time in these fields. But that footprint is finite and so there's a lot of other rice field that could be useful in other ways. One of those ideas is to grow fish food in those fields. So I'm extremely positive about this idea because what we know is that these are productive habitats to just grow a ton of zooplankton, which is basically the fish food that we're talking about. Andrew Rypel: Most of those 500,000 acres are on the dry side of the levee. They're not exposed to regular flooding. If we could learn how to grow fish food, and then drain those fields strategically so that fish that are actually moving through the river system and the river network will have food resources when they need them, when they're migrating, when they're vulnerable, we think we can also leverage the fitness and the health of populations that way as well. So it's a bit of a jigsaw puzzle, but these things fit together and we think they fit together fairly nicely. There are probably other ways to use these habitats that we haven't thought about yet. So we spent some time thinking about that as well. So it's exciting. Something like this only happens when you have a lot of partners at the table that are willing to work together and help the situation. Andrew Rypel: Obviously I'm a scientist, I'm at UC Davis. There's a whole team of scientists at UC Davis that are interested in this. California Trout is an NGO that we work with quite regularly that's been at the forefront of this project as well. The California Rice Commission, obviously, a crucial partner for linking in with the actual growers, with the landowners. USDA-NRCS program has been funding a good chunk of our pilot research, trying to figure this out with the goal that we could eventually have a practice standard that growers could enroll in, to participate in these practices to really actuate these conservation practices at scale. Then we work with so many of the agency scientists, managers, partners, whether that's NOAA Fisheries, CDFW. We spend a lot of time communicating with CDFW, DWR, water managers throughout the Central Valley. Everybody's kind of involved at some level and we communicate with all those folks quite regularly, and need them. Jim Morris: The Sacramento Valley is a one of a kind place with great natural resources and another strength, a lot of people, including those you've heard today, dedicated to keeping it that way. Dry years are challenging to be sure, but there are many people devoting a lot of time to doing the most with the water that is available. Jim Morris: We'll, of course, keep you updated on planting, the growing season, harvest and much more on future episodes of Ingrained. For now, that wraps up this episode. Thank you to Jon Munger, Jeff McCreary, Lewis Baer, and Andrew Rypel. You can find out much more and listen to past episodes at podcast.calrice.org. Thanks for listening.

December 21, 2020 — The legal cannabis industry in Mendocino County is more uncertain than ever, with a local ordinance that does not set up local growers for success in getting their annual licenses from the state. Those will be required by the first of the year in 2022. The local program started out in the ag department, which is on its fifth ag commissioner since the regulatory process started, then moved over to planning and building, where Megan Dukett is now the second cannabis program manager to try to sort things out. She’s the third, if you count Kelly Overton, who fled into the desert after a few months on the job amid purported clashes with Harinder Grewal, the ag commissioner whose legal troubles with the county have surfaced in closed sessions of the board of supervisors. More than a thousand growers are in the queue to get their permits from the county, which does not require site-specific environmental reviews but does call for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to conduct sensitive species reviews on potential grow sites. However, there’s no funding to pay the agency to do that work, and CDFW has not indicated that it’s willing to do the job for free. Meanwhile, growers have gotten tired of resubmitting minutiae-laden paperwork and paying to bring their properties up to a standard that’s acceptable for growing weed. A huge problem for Dukett is that many of the applications are incomplete. She reported that the response rate to letters from her office requesting more information has been less than stellar. At a cannabis town hall last week, led by Supervisors John Haschak and Ted Williams, Haschak said that, in light of the fast-approaching deadline for annual licences, the focus of conversations with state leadership has been about the California requirement for site-specific CEQA reviews.

Lt. John Nores, Jr. (Retired) from California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) discusses his most recent book, Hidden War: How Special Operations Game Wardens are reclaiming America’s wildlands from drug cartels. Nores Jr., talks about issues with water, wildlife, and how California game wardens dealt with an attack on public and private lands by drug cartels, and how the issue continues across the U.S. Please subscribe, rate, and review the DU Podcast and contact the DU Podcast via email at DUPodcast@ducks.org with recommendations or questions. www.ducks.org/DUPodcast

Leo, Craig, and Jesus talk to retired Lt. John Nores Jr. He was a warden for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and retired in December of 2018 as a special operations lieutenant working directly at the state level, co-developing and leading his agency’s elite tactical unit the Marijuana Enforcement Team (MET) and developed the CDFW’s first sniper unit aimed at combatting the most environmentally damaging criminals working within California and impacting the nation.*Recorded on 06/17/2020   

The Everyday Sniper Episode 255: John Nores Hidden War Author This was a great interview, and slightly outside the EDS box.  John is an awesome interview, this is definitely a must-hear.   John wrote the Hidden War, and his bio is:  Since 1992, Lt. John Nores Jr. has served as a game warden with the California Dept. of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW). There he co-developed the Marijuana Enforcement Team (MET) and Delta Team, the CDFW’s first comprehensive wilderness spec ops tactical and sniper unit, aimed at combatting the marijuana cartel’s decimation of California’s wildlife resources. Lt. Nores and his team have been featured on the National Geographic channel’s television series, “Wild Justice.” In addition, Nores is the author of numerous magazine articles and the book, War in the Woods: Combating the Marijuana Cartels on America’s Public Lands. https://vimeo.com/302754870 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=avZpWVEpiV8 www.johnnores.com

Eric @vanessk9 & Ted @ted_summers sit down with our guest, Lt. John Nores @johnnores, who has served as a game warden with the California Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. California has become notorious for its environmentally devastating illegal marijuana grow sites; tune in and hear how Nores co-developed the Marijuana Enforcement Team (MET) and Delta Team, the CDFW's first comprehensive wilderness spec ops tactical and sniper unit, aimed at combatting the marijuana cartel's decimation of California's wildlife resources - and how he incorporated the use of a badass working dog into the mix as well. You don't want to miss this as he talks about the use of K9's and all the bites the dog got! HUGE thank you to John for coming on Working Dog Radio!  Follow him and show some support; @johnnores. Pick up his book Hidden War: How Special Operations Game Wardens Are Reclaiming America's Wildlands From The Drug Cartels, available on Amazon, Barnes and Nobel, Audiobook and anywhere you order books. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1946267619/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1589296126&sr=8-1

Eric @vanessk9 & Ted @ted_summers sit down with our guest, Lt. John Nores @johnnores, who has served as a game warden with the California Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. California has become notorious for its environmentally devastating illegal marijuana grow sites; tune in and hear how Nores co-developed the Marijuana Enforcement Team (MET) and Delta Team, the CDFW's first comprehensive wilderness spec ops tactical and sniper unit, aimed at combatting the marijuana cartel's decimation of California's wildlife resources - and how he incorporated the use of a badass working dog into the mix as well. You don’t want to miss this as he talks about the use of K9’s and all the bites the dog got! HUGE thank you to John for coming on Working Dog Radio!  Follow him and show some support; @johnnores. Pick up his book Hidden War: How Special Operations Game Wardens Are Reclaiming America's Wildlands From The Drug Cartels, available on Amazon, Barnes and Nobel, Audiobook and anywhere you order books. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1946267619/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1589296126&sr=8-1

This morning the California Fish and Game Commission conducted an emergency remote meeting to hear comments on potential plans to allow CDFW to temporarily delay, restrict or suspend fisheries were needed to prevent the spread of coronavirus. This is part 1 of a 3 part series.  Don't panic! Per CDFW Director Charlton H. Bonham: “I understand Californians desperately need the outdoors for solace, reinvigoration and spirituality, especially so right now,” “The proposal was never about a statewide permanent closure. It is about being responsive to local needs in this public health emergency, where we must do all we can as Californians to help each other make it through this together. We intend to use this authority surgically and based on local needs and knowledge.” CalTrout Trout Camp 2020 - LIVE CalTrout is hosting its annual Gala & Auction on May 1st at 7pm and this year, you're all invited! Given the current shelter-in-place, they've shifted to a live-stream event where they'll be creating the same excitement, sense of community, and celebration with an online auction, raffle, and updates on their work across the state to ensure healthy fish thrive in healthy waters for future generations.  Visit caltrout.org/troutcamp2020 to register today and for more details. Support the show: https://gear.barbless.co See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This morning the California Fish and Game Commission conducted an emergency remote meeting to hear comments on potential plans to allow CDFW to temporarily delay, restrict or suspend fisheries were needed to prevent the spread of coronavirus. This is part 2 of a 3 part series.  Don't panic! Per CDFW Director Charlton H. Bonham: “I understand Californians desperately need the outdoors for solace, reinvigoration and spirituality, especially so right now,” “The proposal was never about a statewide permanent closure. It is about being responsive to local needs in this public health emergency, where we must do all we can as Californians to help each other make it through this together. We intend to use this authority surgically and based on local needs and knowledge.” CalTrout Trout Camp 2020 - LIVE CalTrout is hosting its annual Gala & Auction on May 1st at 7pm and this year, you're all invited! Given the current shelter-in-place, they've shifted to a live-stream event where they'll be creating the same excitement, sense of community, and celebration with an online auction, raffle, and updates on their work across the state to ensure healthy fish thrive in healthy waters for future generations.  Visit caltrout.org/troutcamp2020 to register today and for more details. Support the show: https://gear.barbless.co See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This morning the California Fish and Game Commission conducted an emergency remote meeting to hear comments on potential plans to allow CDFW to temporarily delay, restrict or suspend fisheries were needed to prevent the spread of coronavirus. This is part 3 of a 3 part series.  Don't panic! Per CDFW Director Charlton H. Bonham: “I understand Californians desperately need the outdoors for solace, reinvigoration and spirituality, especially so right now,” “The proposal was never about a statewide permanent closure. It is about being responsive to local needs in this public health emergency, where we must do all we can as Californians to help each other make it through this together. We intend to use this authority surgically and based on local needs and knowledge.” CalTrout Trout Camp 2020 - LIVE CalTrout is hosting its annual Gala & Auction on May 1st at 7pm and this year, you're all invited! Given the current shelter-in-place, they've shifted to a live-stream event where they'll be creating the same excitement, sense of community, and celebration with an online auction, raffle, and updates on their work across the state to ensure healthy fish thrive in healthy waters for future generations.  Visit caltrout.org/troutcamp2020 to register today and for more details. Support the show: https://gear.barbless.co See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this podcast, Mike talks with John Nores. He has been a game warden with the CDFW and co-developed the Marijuana Enforcement Team (MET)and Delta Team, the first comprehensive wilderness spec ops unit... he's also the author of the book "Hidden War". https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-War-Operations-Reclaiming-Wildlands/dp/1946267619 http://www.triarcsystems.com "fieldcraft" http://www.killcliff.com "Survival10" https://www.kchilites.com https://bravocompanymfg.com http://www.blackpowderredearth.com https://www.511tactical.com Follow us: https://fieldcraftsurvival.com/collections/training/training https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcj3FycZBXIPNj7QIBKTIDw https://fieldcraftsurvival.com/ http://www.instagram.com/fieldcraftsurvival https://www.fieldcraftmobility.com https://www.instagram.com/mike.a.glover/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/george_teamfieldcraft/?hl=en

John Nores is a California native. Beginning in 1992, he was hired as a warden for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and retired in December of 2018 as a special operations lieutenant working directly at the state level, co-developing and leading his agency’s elite tactical unit the Marijuana Enforcement Team (MET) and developed the CDFW’s first sniper unit aimed at combatting the most environmentally damaging criminals working within California and impacting the nation.  

In this episode of the show Tricia Bratcher calls in to talk with us about the impacts that DIY “off grid” marijuana farmers have (if any) on anadromous waterways in Northern California.   Tricia is a biologist with the California...

Mike McKnight, Aimee Russell, Billy Driessen, Lucas Hoge On this episode we talk about Aimee's fire evac, the joys and sorrows of dogs, would Aimee write me a ticket, Billy getting smacked in the face with a huge lure, Fukushima Hands, Catalina Recap with Lucas Hoge, Hoge Wild TV, swag you can win from Lucas and his sponsors, a California fires rant, Man Made Crisis. Stay connected on Facebook and IG @bnboutdoors and on Twitter @bentnballistic   Show Notes Links: Hoge Wild TV

John Nores has served as a game warden with the California Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. There he co-developed the Marijuana Enforcement Team (MET) and Delta Team, the CDFW's first comprehensive wilderness spec ops tactical and sniper unit, aimed at combatting the marijuana cartel's decimation of California's wildlife resources.

John Nores has served as a game warden with the California Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. There he co-developed the Marijuana Enforcement Team (MET) and Delta Team, the CDFW's first comprehensive wilderness spec ops tactical and sniper unit, aimed at combatting the marijuana cartel's decimation of California's wildlife resources.

Tricia Bratcher with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife needs your help! The lower reach of Deer Creek near Los Molinos, Ca. will be having some work done to it next week (8/26 to approximately 9/1). CDFW is looking for volunteers to help...

Mike McKnight, Aimee Russell, John Nores LT CDFW Ret John Nores of Hidden War is back! We talk about Aimee's broken fingers and how it happened, Aimee's quest to be a CDFW Warden,what a F&W Academy is all about, MET Team weapons, Aimee in Camo and Tac gear, John's hog hunt and Axis hunt being filmed, Hidden War's message nationwide,Texas Special Ops,what John saw and heard at NRA National Meeting,John's podcast appearances since he was last here, Wild Justice Stories, North Woods Law, Thin Green Line, reeling with your weak arm, Mike snapped a rod, long range game shots.   Axial Precision, V Knives, 

Mike McKnight, Lt John Nores, CDFW (ret) and author of War In The Woods and Hidden War In this episode: Recap of the CA Fish & Game WRC meeting. The inaccuracies of the Coalition for Sustainable Delta. What we have to do before 8/7 meeting. Plus we continue our discussion of Hidden War. Situational Awareness while hunting or fishing. John's decision to be a warden. The reason Wild Justice ended at three seasons. Deer for Meth. What other states are doing about grows on public lands.  

Mike McKnight, Lt John Nores, CDFW (ret) and author of War In The Woods and Hidden War In this episode we talk John's new book and the war that is being fought for our public lands. The cartels are growing marijuana in at least half the country and making meth in the entire country on the same lands we hunt and fish. Not only is it an environmental threat but a public safety threat. What is being done at the local, state and Federal levels. 

Mike McKnight and Aimee Russell talk with Jen Benedet, CA R3 Coordinator. Also Striper Guide Billy Driessen In this episode Jen Benedet of CDFW talks to us about the California R3 plan and the challenges we face here in implementing it effectively. I talk with Aimee about a technical and presentation issues with podcasts. Plus one of her sponsors is coming on soon to talk Texas fishing. We also get into female centric hunting and angling competitions. Women that pose with fish and other game in very little clothing. Billy Driessen calls in with his near cat attack while turkey hunting.

Mark Stopher is an ecologist with 36 years of experience resolving a broad array of complex natural resource management issues. He has worked with local governments, State and Federal agencies, non-governmental organizations and tribes. He is recently...

In this jam-packed episode CDFW's Environmental Program Manager Roger Bloom breaks down a number of topics for us, including: The New 6ft leader regulations. Pegging beads, what is is how it works. CDFW findings on recommended hook-to-bead lengths...

In this week's episode of The Barbless Fly Fishing Podcast we speak with California Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists Sarah Mussulman, Mitch Lockhart and John Hanson. Sarah and team discuss their experience surveying some of California's...

New contributor Lawson's Landing at Dillon Beach. Rick Powers on the New Sea Angler with a Bodega Salmon Update. Mike Nielsen checking in from Lake Tahoe. Michael Lynch, Attorney at Law discussing CDFW Violations

Robbie Dunham BNBO Pro Staffer with a recap of the Phil Johnson Kokanee Derby. Jordan Traverso of CDFW and Erin Harrison of the Oakland Zoo talking about rescue of 4 Black Bears. Delta Legend Bobby Barrack talking Delta Bass and Delta Water issues.

Capt Joe Aksamit of JoeFish Guide Service talking foothill lakes. Marko Mlikotin of CA Sportfishing League talking changes to licenses. Lesa Johnston of CDFW talking Bear Safety.