The MeatEater

We’re so excited to announce the release of our latest original audiobook, MeatEater’s American History: The Hide Hunters (1865-1883). This is the third installment of MeatEater’s American History audiobook series, where we explain chunks of American history in great, lively, bloody detail.

In this audiobook, Steven Rinella takes you deep into the blood-soaked world of the hide hunters who invaded the western frontier in the aftermath of the Civil War, killing and skinning millions of buffalo to supply a resource-hungry nation with an untapped source of leather.

From the scorching plains of Texas to the frozen prairie of northern Montana, they lived a nomadic, hardscrabble existence punctuated by raging blizzards, desperate shootouts, agonizing thirst, stampeding herds, freakish accidents, and backbreaking labor. Little more than a decade after the slaughter began, the hide hunters had transformed the once-teeming buffalo range into a boneyard.

These forgotten marksmen weren’t mythologized frontiersmen or celebrated explorers—they were displaced veterans, farmers’ sons, and wanted outlaws, chasing adventure and opportunity in a world turned upside down by violence and financial insecurity.

Their ruthless efficiency stemmed from industrial conditions unique to late-nineteenth-century America: transcontinental railroads that connected the Western frontier to eastern cities, revolutionary innovations in long-range rifles, and an insatiable demand for factory belting—made from the skin of buffalo—at the dawn of the machine age.

The Hide Hunters is more than a cautionary tale about overexploitation of the natural world. It is an essential chapter of our nation’s story—part survival epic, part ecological tragedy—that left an indelible mark on the American West.

Listen to the first chapter now.

Want to hear more? MeatEater's American History: The Hide Hunters (1865-1883) is available now wherever audiobooks are sold.

This week, Tony discusses changes in the deer woods and how recognizing them and working with them can help all of us kill more mature bucks.

Connect with Tony Peterson and MeatEater

Tony Peterson on Instagram and Facebook

MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips

MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube

Shop MeatEater Merch

The week Reid and Dan host legendary artist and Grand Ole Opry member, Jamey Johnson out in God's Country. They dive in on why it's been 14 years since Jamey has released new music and how his current duet came to fruition. Jamey tells the story behind how "In Color" became the song that is it and the personal touches they were able to throw in there throughout the writing process. Reid and Dan ask a million questions about the legendary "Traler Park Boys" here in Nashville and Jamey shares some stories that had the boys in tears. The episode ends with a George Jones gravorite and we don't know who's gonna fill his shoes after this!

God's Country on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook

MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips

Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube

Shop God's Country Merch

Shop MeatEater Merch

According to new research conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) this year, the COVID-19 pandemic may have given invasive lamprey populations a nearly tenfold boost in the Great Lakes.

The species, sea lamprey (not to be confused with Pacific lamprey, which are native to the Pacific Northwest and are facing declining populations), is a voracious parasitic fish that suction onto host species like lake trout and brown trout, wreaking havoc on their populations.

Historically, sea lamprey are relatively new to the Great Lakes, but they quickly changed the aquatic ecosystem when the man-made Welland Canal provided passage around Niagara Falls for the first time in 1938. Within 25 years, the commercial lake trout harvest dropped from about 15 million pounds per year to less than half a million pounds, as a result of the lamprey invasion.

In response, the newly formed Great Lakes Fishery Commission began experimenting with lamprey-specific poisons (“lampricides”) in the 1960s to kill the juvenile, larval stage of lamprey. Like salmon, lamprey spawn in freshwater creeks, and the larval offspring spend several years in the rivers before migrating to the Great Lakes and attaching to other fish species. The operation proved wildly successful at knocking back lamprey populations and reviving the lake trout fishery, but it was no small feat. Continuing today with a budget of around $20 million per year, the Commission treats about 200 tributary streams per year with lampricide to maintain the precarious equilibrium.

That balance, however, could be more tenuous than previously thought, according to the new research. During the 2020 and 2021 COVID shutdown, control operations came screeching to a halt due to both state-specific lockdown measures and the inability of field crews to cross between the U.S. and Canada. Tributaries to Lakes Ontario and Erie didn’t receive a single lampricide treatment in 2020, while other lakes saw around 45% of usual field crew efforts, at most. More streams were treated in 2021, but efforts still fell short of targets.

It took several years for the impacts of the missing treatments to be realized, but the data now suggest that lamprey populations took quick advantage of the slack. “Like a coiled spring, sea lamprey populations bounced back quickly when control was relaxed,” said lead researcher Benjamin Marcy-Quay in a press release.

In the two years following COVID, lamprey abundance spiked significantly in all the lakes, with Superior and Ontario seeing the biggest increases. In Superior, lamprey abundance jumped from pre-COVID estimates of around 25,000 to about 65,000 in 2022 and 2023. Similarly, Ontario saw a jump from around 5,000 pre-COVID to a post-COVID peak of 60,000. Additionally, the researchers noted an increase in sport fish with lamprey scars in all but one lake (Erie).

“Wounding on Chinook and coho salmon, specifically, increased over 10-fold in Lake Ontario,” said Marcy-Quay. “Our findings support observations by the fishing public and fishery managers of fish riddled with sea lamprey wounds, some containing three or more wounds per fish.”

However, some good did come of the missed treatments, according to the researchers. COVID offered a unique opportunity to actually measure the effectiveness of an invasive species treatment regime. And the important conclusion? Not only is lamprey control successful, but it’s also critical to the well-being of the Great Lakes—especially the commercial fishery, which is valued at $5.1 billion and supports about 35,000 jobs. For reference, the Bristol Bay sockeye fishery—which received attention with regard to the Pebble Mine—is worth $2 billion and employs about 14,000 people.

Despite that knowledge, the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency took aim at the lamprey control program this spring. On Valentine's Day of this year, 14 U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service employees who administer the treatments were fired, right before the field season was set to begin.

“This simply puts us in a place where we don’t know if we’re able to actually run a program in the year ahead,” Greg McClinchey, policy director for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, told Great Lakes Now after the firings. “We know that if lamprey are left in the system, it has pretty immediate and pretty massive economic and ecological implications,” he said in another interview. Given the outsized impact and importance of the lamprey control work, local people were generally outraged and on edge by the layoffs.

Fortunately, the Trump administration heeded the pressure and in mid-March allowed 12 of the program’s staff members to be rehired. Several opted not to return, according to a local news outlet. Still, the upheaval set the field season back several months—a delay that could have impacts, given the newfound sensitivity of lamprey populations to consistent poison treatments.

Still, the fiasco—in conjunction with COVID—exposed the vulnerability of the Great Lakes to potential resurgences in lamprey. A single female can lay up to 100,000 eggs, meaning the species can make quick work of repopulating—at the expense of other commercial and sport-fish species.

“If we take our foot off the gas, even for a short while, sea lamprey populations will increase rapidly and cause considerable damage to fish,” said Commission chair Ethan Baker, in response to the new research. So for now, it’s pedal to the metal on lampricide usage, and hopefully it will remain as such until another solution can be found to maintain the balance in the Great Lakes.

Feature image via USFWS.

On Monday, October 6, the White House announced that President Donald Trump had approved the development of Ambler Road, a 211-mile industrial road in Northern Alaska. The proposed corridor would be used to transport materials and personnel from new mines in what many consider to be one of the most pristine areas in North America. The Trump Administration also announced that it would take a stake in one of the foreign-owned mining companies with mining claims in the area.

“This road goes through an area where there's no roads. Ambler Mining District at the end of that has some of the richest mining deposits in all of America and in all of the world,” said Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum. “These are minerals that are absolutely essential to defense and to industry moving forward today. Just take copper. This is one of the richest copper locations in the country.”

The decision is the latest in a back-and-forth over the proposed road, which was originally greenlit during the first Trump administration before being reversed by the Biden Administration. Following the announcement, the U.S. Senate repealed the Yukon Resource Management Plan (RMP) on October 9 through an unusual use of the Congressional Review Act. Doing so reverted the region to an earlier RMP—and paved the way for Ambler Road and mining development. Though the Trump Administration touted the corridor as a way to increase energy independence, experts say that this may not be the reality as ore from the mines will likely need to be shipped Asia to be processed.

While mining development proponents are celebrating the industrial road’s approval, conservation and environmental groups are roundly condemning the outsized impacts it could have on wildlife populations and recreational opportunities. Here’s what you need to know.

The Ambler Road would transect a formerly roadless area along the southern edge of the Brooks Mountain Range. Ambler would run West from the Dalton Highway from near Wiseman, a small community 270 miles north of Fairbanks. Notably, Ambler would cut through Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve as well as parts of five Wild and Scenic Rivers. The potential ecological impacts are numerous and difficult to fully quantify because of the “compounding” impacts of mines, the scale and number of which are not yet clear, according to a 2023 Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) prepared by the U.S. Department of the Interior and Bureau of Land Management biologists.

From a big game standpoint, the primary species threatened by Ambler Road is caribou, particularly the famed Western Arctic Caribou Herd. The herd supports a significant amount of subsistence hunting for isolated local indigenous communities in the region, as well as backcountry sport hunting from traveling hunters. According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the herd was once considered the largest herd in North America but has declined significantly over the last 20 years, dwindling to the lowest count in forty years in 2023. According to Tim Fullman, a senior ecologist for The Wilderness Society, several factors appear to be contributing to the herd’s decline, including but not limited to low female survival rates, warmer winters, more icing events, larger storms, and other variables. While caribou herds are known to cycle naturally, Fullman worries about the additional impacts that Ambler Road and its associated mines could cause.

“Forty-plus years of studies of caribou in the U.S., Canada, and Europe have shown that the species is sensitive to development,” Fullman told MeatEater. “We see displacement away from roads and various other behavior changes from human activities and development. The concern is that at a time when there are other stressors, additional development could have a negative impact on the herd’s ability to recover from being at a lower level.”

Caribou are particularly sensitive to roads because of their migratory behavoir. “Caribou live in an environment with extreme seasonal changes,” Fullman said. “They use movement as a way of varying their access to areas to get different resources when they need them. That’s why things like roads that hinder their ability to access those resources can potentially have a bigger impact on caribou [than other species of ungulates].”

According to the 2023 Draft Environmental Impact Statement, in addition to habitat loss and fragmentation, “fugitive dust” from the road could negatively impact the lichen-dominated vegetation that caribou depend on. While Fullman says it’s difficult to quantify exactly how severely the development of Ambler Road will impact the Western Arctic Caribou herd, he worries about its timing.

“Is this the time to increase pressures on the herd when there are already so many challenges its facing?” he asks. “I hope that those who are making these decisions will weigh that very carefully.”

Other potential major ecological impacts from the road have to do with its potential effects on rivers and fish species. The road’s construction and use could negatively impact the already-struggling Pacific salmon stocks of the Yukon River Basin, as well as sport fish such as sheefish and Arctic grayling.

“The proposed mines would be open-pit sulfide mines,” said Kevin Fraley, a fisheries ecologist for the Wildlife Conservation Society. “You get a lot of tailings, which usually have to be contained in tailing ponds, that have high levels of chemicals, metals, and acidity. This can be flushed into rivers in big flood events.”

Fraley added that similarly catastrophic events could occur with trucks crashing along the roads, but beyond that, there will be a cumulative impact on fish health from dust released from the road surface. “This causes chemicals like mercury, zinc, and lead to get up in the air. They end up on the tundra or in the streams. Over the time, they build up in fish and invertebrates.”

While such a build-up of chemicals may not directly kill fish, it could impact their survival fitness and reproduction, as well as the health of the catch-and-keep anglers who consume them. Fraley and his team recently completed a study that assessed toxins in fish in the region and found very little contamination in the area of the proposed road compared to raised levels in waterways near the Dalton Highway—which, like the Ambler Corridor, was constructed to provide access for mining and energy development.

Another aspect of the Ambler Road stands to particularly impact migratory fish populations: culverts. The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA), which will oversee the development of the road, has pledged to build and maintain appropriate culverts to support fish passage on around 3,000 stream crossings. In practice, the culverts will likely impede fish movement.

“During the winter, the water in the culverts can freeze solid,” Fraley said. “Because they’re shaded by the road, they thaw out late, and there will likely be buildups of water flowing over the road. After a couple of years of this, the culverts get pretty jacked up and broken, and it’s hard for anadromous fish like salmon and sheefish to get through them.”

As for larger waterways, the road stands to detrimentally impact the Alatna and Kobuk rivers. According to the National Wild and Scenic River System, the Kobuk is one of only two major spawning grounds in the region for sheefish, an aggressive game fish widely considered “the tarpon of the north.” A trip to fish for sheefish is considered a bucket list expedition for both gear and fly anglers.

“The Kobuk is basically the world’s best sheefish fishing area,” says Fraley. “I caught my first one there on a trip in 2019. It’s a very unique species only found in parts of Alaska, Canada, and Russia. They can live up to 40 years and grow up to 40 pounds. There are also these sea-run dolly varden in the area with these beautiful colors that are a symbol of the wilderness.”

In addition to fish and caribou, there could be adverse impacts to native vegetation, small game, grizzly bears, wolves, moose, musk ox, and other species. “The question is: are these risks worth it in one of our final areas that’s relatively untouched by man?” Fraley said. “As a scientist, as well as a fisherman and hunter, I don’t think so.”

In addition to its ecological impact, the proposed road and associated mines stand to drastically alter recreational experiences in the area, especially for consumptive users. This would impact not only the region’s Indigenous subsistence hunters but also sport hunters.

“The primary thing hunters and anglers need to be concerned about is the loss of the of a large, contiguous landscape,” says Nathaniel Kibbey, a caribou hunter from Fairbanks and the Vice Chair of the Alaska Chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers (BHA).

Currently, to rifle hunt in the region, one must hike or be flown in at least five miles from the Dalton Highway. Doing so can be a logistically difficult but rewarding experience—one that could be degraded by the construction and use of a road and mines. “It’s a wilderness experience people come from around the world to enjoy,” said Barry Whitehill, a local of Fairbanks and board member of the Alaska Chapter of BHA. “But this road would be within sight and sound of the south side of the Brooks Range, releasing dust plumes and the noise of industry. It’s going to change the entire character of the area.”

As it’s currently proposed, the Ambler Road will be a “controlled access corridor” open only to approved industrial vehicles. While some people hope that one day it could be used by hunters to gain access to remote areas, as was eventually done on the Dalton Highway, which began as an industry-only road, this possibility is far from guaranteed. And if this were to happen, many outdoorsmen don’t consider it worth the cost.

“Even if it does open to hunters at some point, it will cheapen the experience and threaten the wildlife populations that exist in the area,” Kibbey said.

“Getting into the area right now isn’t easy. It requires sweat equity, planning, and vision. But if you do it, it’s amazing,” Whitehill concluded. “Our license plate says, ‘Alaska, the Last Frontier.’ When you put this road and mines in there, that area is going to be the lost frontier.”

Burgum said he expects construction of the road to begin in the spring during a White House press conference. “We’ll get it done in less than a year,” Trump added. However, the project still has quite a few hurdles to overcome before construction can even start. While there isn’t a public comment period open, you can certainly reach out to your representatives and voice your opinions on the Ambler Road.

Are Grizzlies Endangered? Should they be delisted? Do they even belong here? Grizzly bears are without a doubt one of the most polarizing species we have in the United States, and since their placement on the endangered species list in 1975 they have been on the forefront of conversations concerning wildlife issues. In this episode of Backwoods University we approach the topic head on with two very different perspectives. The first perspective coming from Casey Anderson, a lifelong outdoorsman, naturalist, award-winning film maker and bear fanatic, and the second perspective coming from Jeremiah Smith, Danielle Oyler, and Kyle Orozco of Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks.

Connect with Lake Pickle and MeatEater

Lake Pickle on Instagram

MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and YouTube Clips

MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube

Steven Rinella talks with Randall Williams.

Topics discussed: A fascinating period in our history; all about hunting hides; and our new audio original, MeatEater's American History: The Hide Hunters (1865-1883).

Connect with Steve and The MeatEater Podcast Network

Steve on Instagram and Twitter

MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube

This week, Cal explains how wind farms harm earthworms, how beetles stay cool, why Floridians are opposing a new national park, and so much more.

Connect with Cal and MeatEater

To learn more and get involved with any Cal to Action, click here.

Cal on Instagram and Twitter

MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips

Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube

Shop Cal's Week in Review Merch

This title might seem a little misleading. It probably ruffles a few feathers, but hear me out. There’s a whole market of deodorants, detergents, and, yes, even mouth spray that promises to fool a big buck’s nose.

I’m not saying they don’t work in some capacity or that, if compounded, they might not reduce or your scent. Nor am I suggesting that you should disregard a deer’s nose. It’d be foolish to do so. However, most hunters have limited time, effort, and money to dedicate to deer hunting. Rather than stressing (and spending) over scent control, most of us are better off sharpening our deer hunting skills and skipping the scent control regimen.

Again, I’m not saying none of the scent control products out there don’t work (at least partially). Science does support some products, like Ozonics, which uses ozone to oxidize scent molecules, rendering them (almost?) undetectable, but it’s still no guarantee. I know hunters who use and swear by these products, so I’m not ruling them out. However, some of those products’ prices rival that of a decent rifle scope, so the skepticism surrounding them is understandable. If you have the margin to try one out, go for it. I guess folks have spent a lot more than that to kill big bucks.

Avoid products that claim to fool a mature buck’s nose. Here’s a secret: No one has cracked that code yet. Companies that claim to do so are selling snake oil. These gimmicks promise something they most certainly can’t deliver. Once at a hunting camp, one of the members mentioned buying a certain camo system (that I won’t mention) and that he wouldn’t have to worry about wind direction once he did. I’m sure he could’ve bought anything else and it would have been a better investment in his hunting.

I know some hunters go to the extreme when it comes to scent control. They keep their clothes in air-tight containers, wash them in special detergent, and only dress when they park at their hunting location. Some even bathe in special soap. These hunters also kill, some with consistency, big bucks. I can’t argue with those results. However, there are also big buck killers on the opposite end of the scent control spectrum who do the bare minimum—they wear rubber hunting boots and play the wind.

I think meticulous scent control routines might have a place in certain hunting situations on private land. On large, highly pressured public land where small gamers, foragers, hikers, and hunters share the ground, just stick to the basics. This doesn’t give you permission to tromp through a bedding area or muddy up the deer trail with scent, but I wouldn’t fret over the cup of coffee you drank that morning before gassing up the truck.

This should go without saying, but you have to play and understand the wind if you want to kill any deer, let alone a mature buck. Hunting with the wind in your face is a great way to avoid getting busted, and I’ve killed a ton of deer this way. Because bucks, especially big ones, typically travel with the wind in their favor, this might not give you the best shot at tagging a mature buck.

Of course, that’s not to say bucks never travel with the wind at their back, but it’s not exactly their preferred method. In these instances where you might hunt an area with a quartering wind or one that gives the buck a scent advantage, you might benefit from a more rigid scent control routine. However, the majority of hunters probably aren’t taking this approach. When in doubt, play the wind.

One reason hunters want to believe in scent control products is that it’s easier to buy something than to put in the work. Take access, for instance. A lot of hunters will take the shorter route, even if it means blowing their scent into a bedding area, instead of making a half-mile loop or traversing a steep hillside. Sure, it takes work and a knowledge of how deer use a certain area, but you don’t have to pay for it, not in cash anyway.

Instead of looking for a product to cure your deer hunting woes, consider how you might be the common denominator of your problems. Do you bust deer every time you walk into one of your spots? Do you have to cross one of the main trails? Instead of taking the quick way, see if there’s an alternate route to your stand that might give you more stealth, even if it requires a trek.

If you’ve ever wondered why deer have an uncanny sense of smell, it’s because they have anywhere from 10-50 million olfactory receptors at their disposal. For comparison, humans have about 400. Just memorize those numbers for the next time you see a product that makes “scent-free” claims. Play the wind and don’t get lazy. Remember, you might stink to the deer, but you don’t have to stink at deer hunting.