The MeatEater

Steven Rinella and the MeatEater crew discuss: How Jani hasn't gotten a mountain lion this year; Brody's new tattoo and whether the tattoo industry faces a bleak future; Spencer's 2026 America The Beautiful Pass; MeatEater's Time Capsule Clovis Hunter hoody and tee; Corrections!; neanderthals getting it on and Randall as a neanderthal; Catalina Island mule deer eradication; Texas' Rattlesnake Roundup; mink eyelashes; and more. 

Outro credit: "The Screaming Song" written by George Alan Sparhawk

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In this episode of In Pursuit, Rich Froning sits down with former professional strength coach Shane Wallen (Detroit Tigers, Chicago Cubs, 49ers) and Angelo Dicicco. The crew dives into the "art" of, and frustration behind, effective, high-level fitness programming, sharing insights from training elite athletes to developing custom routines for intense, brutal workouts. Rich also reflects on applying decades of training wisdom to backcountry hunting preparation.

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This week on the show I'm breaking down my top 10 wildlife related books - from whitetails, to caribou, grizzlies, and beyond - that I'd recommend you listen to or read this coming year.

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If a red fox tunnels under suburban toolsheds or burrows beneath greens on nearby golf courses, no one can guarantee it a long, healthy life by hiring a trapper to move it to a nearby woodlot or even a rural wetland.

That’s what researcher David Drake concluded during his recent talk at the annual meeting of Wisconsin’s Wildlife Society. Drake, a professor at UW-Madison, gave his talk a blunt title in the conference’s three-day seminar schedule: “Urban red fox translocation leads to dispersal and low survival.”

As UW-Madison researchers repeatedly confirmed over the past 20 years, red foxes wreck stuff when living among humans. And though they’re undoubtedly cute when young and pretty when mature, mitigating their damage isn’t easy, and moving them elsewhere isn’t necessarily humane. Despite everyone’s best intentions, they often soon die one way or another.

Drake reviewed what happened to eight young Madison-area red foxes that researchers fitted with GPS-transmitting collars before releasing them within a few miles of their former homes. Some were turned loose in a park on Madison’s east side, and the others at a golf course or a conservation park on the city’s southeast side.

Once released, the young foxes—six males and two females—fled quickly north and east toward less developed habitats, even though they’d been born in fairly urban settings. The distances they moved ranged from 2 to 53 miles. In the months that followed, only one of the eight “translocated” foxes was verified alive.

Three were road-killed fairly quickly. The first one got Goodyeared two days after its release, while another got Firestoned 22 days later, and the third got Michelined 130 days later.

A fourth fox wandered into a hangar at the Dane County Regional Airport and had to be shot to ensure it didn’t cross a runway and endanger aircraft. A fifth fox died, but the researchers couldn’t verify what killed it.

Researchers couldn’t monitor two of the foxes because their tracking collars quit functioning upon their release, despite the units being tested and verified shortly before.

If nothing else, the study provided more data for the law of unintended consequences. Most folks don’t want to kill or harm wildlife, even when the prettiest critters eat flowers, devour gardens, foul lawns, or collapse walkways. Likewise, everyone wants to rescue “abandoned” cubs, fawns, and fledglings, and they’re all concerned by drooling deer and mangy coyotes.

But more folks might consider accepting the word and experience of biologists or ornithologists when told that quick death is often the most merciful way to mitigate damage. Academicians even have a name for what happens when good intentions cause unintended harm: pathological altruism. You’ll even find books about it, with subtitles like “The Hidden Agendas of Needy Helpers” and “Why Being Too Nice Can Hurt You and Everyone Around You.”

Meanwhile, professors like Drake, his colleague Tim Van Deelen, and their many UW-Madison graduate and Ph.D. researchers keep studying and critiquing their findings. Therefore, they anticipate questions like, “Why not release troublesome foxes back into the urban or suburban neighborhood they came from?”

Well, because the homeowners or business owners who complained didn’t want them back in the ’hood. Further, no university or agency has reform schools for wildlife. They can’t be taught how to live among city folk and leave their stuff alone. Besides, even though most folks don’t want to euthanize furry or feathery nuisances themselves, they’ll stay quiet if someone does it for them.

But even when red foxes settle in quiet city parks, green spaces, and backyard woodlots, they still face long odds. Yes, even if they’re adults that look both ways before crossing roads. And yes, Drake and his students have observed that behavior in urban foxes. Maybe those adult foxes grew up in densely developed neighborhoods with narrow roads, speed bumps, and low speed limits. They survived their youths despite behaving like easily distracted 16-year-old drivers who look too quickly and brake too slowly.

Meanwhile, foxes living on a city’s outskirts with more space between homes often die at higher rates beneath bumpers and Bridgestones. Those areas typically have wider streets and boulevards with higher speed limits, as well as more drivers operating at highly varying speeds.

Still others ask why someone can’t release problem foxes far outside town into a big woods or wetland. Well, because many rural areas across America are flush with coyotes, and, as Van Deelen and his research students verified, coyotes kill or persecute foxes infringing on their turf.

“Coyotes push foxes up into culverts and farmsteads and other things associated with roads, so they still have high road mortality," Van Deelen said.

Plus, no matter where a typical 10- to 12-pound red fox lives in town, it eventually encounters 50- or 100-pound pet dogs that break leashes or cheap chains. Likewise, urban foxes are more likely to contract mange and highly pathogenic avian influenza than their rural counterparts. In other words, the “mean streets” of our nation’s biggest cities aren’t any nicer to wildlife than to people.

Studies like Drake’s also help wildlife rehabilitators decide how best to spend their time, expertise, and limited resources. Most wildlife rehab facilities struggle to stay in business, given that birds and wildlife don't carry cash, insurance, or credit cards.

Therefore, rehabilitators can’t treat every bird, mammal, reptile, or amphibian that kind-hearted people bring in. Should they spend time and money on one critter with little hope of long-term survival when research and experience suggest they spend their resources elsewhere? Most people are just fine letting others make those calls, too.

After all, the more that universities study Mother Nature, the more they confirm her indifference to life, suffering, and altruism.

Steven Rinella takes bobcat pelts from Texas and Montana to a Nevada Fur Sale to see how much scratch they can get. From trap to trade, Steve breaks down the process and nuances of the bobcat fur market in these modern times. Presented by CanAm

This week, Tony talks about end-of-life care for our dogs, and when we know that it's truly time to put them down.

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In this episode of the Bear Grease Podcast, host Clay Newcomb welcomes Rob Argue, a retired Canadian conservation office to share the harrowing events when he and his partner’s canoe capsizes in icy water in the Ontario backcountry. This life-threatening event tests his physical, mental, and emotional limits and capacity as hypothermia sets in as they put their trust in an emergency locator beacon. In this story you may even learn some life-saving tips if you find yourself in a similar situation.

Thank you to our sponsor, Tecovas.

If you have comments on the show, send us a note to [email protected]

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Spencer Neuharth hosts MeatEater Trivia with Janis Putelis, Brody Henderson, Randall Williams, Seth Morris, Cory Calkins, Max Barta, and Hanzi Deschermeier.

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Hunting rifle cartridges come in waves. When my grandfather got out of the Army in the 1950s, military cartridges like .30-06 and 8mm Mauser dominated the woods. World War II and Korean War veterans knew firsthand about their potential, and there were plenty of cheap surplus sporter rifles on the market.

Next came the magnum craze of the mid-20th century. Hunters wanted big cartridges that shot flat and hit hard. This reached its peak in the 1970s, when hunters started to remember how much less it hurt to shoot a .270 Winchester than a .338 Winchester Magnum, but continued somewhat into the 1990s with true beasts like the .300 RUM and .30-378 Weatherby Magnum.

After a short affair with short mags around the millennium, hunters were hit with another wave in the 2010s and 20s: long range. This latest trend has taken hold, and with it, an obsession with ballistic coefficients, ogives, and Data on Previous Engagements (DOPE). We went from being macho magnum shooters to number crunchers on calculators.

Despite the nerdiness of the long-range craze, it feels as though we’ve somehow circled back to magnums. I’m talking about the 6.5 PRC, 7mm PRC, and .300 PRC. They all have bigger case capacities, and they hold about the same amount of power as standbys like the .300 Win. Mag. and 7mm Rem Mag.

With similar bullet diameters as those old magnums, it leads one to ask, what’s the big deal? Are these cartridges just magnums with a fresh coat of marketing paint, or are they truly something new? If you’ve wondered this or are a new .300 PRC owner who puts up with questions like that at deer camp (but you don’t know how to answer), you’ve come to the right place.

To wrap our heads around this, it helps to understand what classic magnums like the .300 Win. Mag. offer hunters. It’s easy to think these bigger cartridges are designed for bigger game, but trajectory, not necessarily energy, is where magnums really shine.

Most traditional magnum cartridges come from the .375 H&H’s belted case. They are essentially necked-down versions of the classic dangerous-game cartridge. When you reduce the neck diameter of a cartridge, you generally get more velocity, and with that, a flatter trajectory.

Before calculators or dialing turrets, trajectory was king. By zeroing high (using a Maximum Point Blank Range Zero) with a standard deer hunting cartridge like a .30-06, you can hold dead on a deer’s vital zone and make an ethical shot out to distances between 200 and 300 yards. With high-velocity magnums, you can push that beyond 300 yards, and by holding a little high, you can stretch things out to around 400 without dialing a turret or calculating trajectory in the field. It’s highly effective with rudimentary optics and a big reason why hunters back then cared about laser-flat trajectory.

When the 6.5 Creedmoor took hold, people started getting more and more into long-range target games like PRS. By then, we’d learned more about bullet aerodynamics, and the 6.5 Creedmoor takes advantage of that with a longer, more efficient bullet and fast twist rate.

Laser rangefinders, ballistic calculators, and dialing turrets also made it easier to shoot cartridges with arcing trajectories at long range. Many abandoned the high-zero and holdovers from before and switched to a 100-yard zero and a DOPE card. This tech also helped those who wanted to shoot at a distance avoid nasty magnum recoil and barrel burn.

Trajectory matters less now, but there was still an equalizer, especially for long-range target shooters: the wind.

Even though we can plot bullet drop precisely, the wind will blow your shot off course. You can’t beat the wind, but you can cut through it more efficiently with longer, heavier, high ballistic coefficient bullets. To shoot those bullets to their full potential and gain an edge in competition, you need more powder, which is why it seems we’re back to the magnum. But there are some differences between newer “magnums” and the old ones.

To put it simply, classic magnum cartridges can shoot long, heavy bullets, but they suck at it for two reasons. The first is case design. To seat a 220-grain projectile in a .300 Win. Mag., you need to seat it down into the powder charge. This complicates things, will eventually damage the case, and gives you less room for powder.

The second is the twist rate of the barrel. Older magnums have slower twist rates that can’t stabilize long, high-BC bullets of today. You can build a custom .300 Win. Mag. with a faster twist, but you’ll save about $2,000 and a bunch of hand-loading headaches if you just buy a rifle chambered for a cartridge that ends in the letters PRC.

The shorter case of a PRC lets you seat a long bullet for maximum efficiency. It’s fatter than a .375 H&H case, too, so you don’t lose out on powder. Chamber throats are also cut to tighter tolerances for the PRCs. In traditional magnums, chamber throats are cut a little over caliber to allow for inconsistencies between ammo manufacturers. On a PRC, they usually almost match the bullet’s caliber.

On a ballistics table, there isn’t much difference between, say, a .300 Win. Mag. and a .300 PRC shooting the same bullet, but the PRC can shoot long, heavy bullets more precisely. The thing is, though, it really isn’t until you start getting out into really long range that the PRCs give you a significant edge. That’s because PRCs are technically designed for target shooters.

The claim of the PRC is that it will perform better at long range. That claim is very true. For hunters, though, long range might not be so long.

Target shooters eyeing up a 6.5, 7mm, or .300 PRC are thinking about how all of those small differences above will add up to real performance at distances well beyond 700 or even 1,000 yards. For example, at and beyond 1000 yards, you’ll see around 10 inches less wind drift with a 7mm or .300 PRC (in a 10 mph crosswind) than you would with a comparable magnum. Most hunters don’t take shots that far, though, for a lot of good reasons that have been explained and debated ad nauseam all over the Internet.

When hunting at distances around or under 500 yards, the classic magnums have most PRC loads beat. There’s a slight upside to a PRC on paper, but ammo and rifles are cheaper and easier to find for traditional magnums; they perform on game animals just about the same, they buck the wind just fine (because wind matters less at 300 yards than at 1,000), and they’re easier to put in more rifle actions.

You might see a few more fps and an inch or two less drop/wind deflection from a .300 PRC compared to a .300 Win. Mag. at practical hunting distances, but you’re really splitting hairs. If you want to pick a mule deer off a mountain a mile away, buy a PRC. But if you shoot big game at sane distances, my advice would be to buy a magnum.

With that said, the PRC cartridges aren’t all marketing hype. They can still hunt, and they hunt very well. The 6.5 PRC in particular makes an exceptional hunting cartridge for those dissatisfied with 6.5 Creedmoor. I like to think of the PRCs as highly versatile, letting you have one gun for hunting and shooting matches. And if you hunt in a place where long shots are common, long-range shooting matches are very helpful.

Even though you might not shoot game at 1,000 yards, shooting a match full of 1,000-yard targets makes 500-yard shots on animals much easier. A rifle chambered in 6.5, 7mm, or .300 PRC would make the perfect crossover gun to go between the field and the match. They also make custom-gun-quality performance and accuracy more attainable. For that, I’d say they fall in a camp all their own.

Most hunters are not familiar with javelina, a unique game animal often referred to as “Collared Peccary” by the same people who say “Cowz Deer.” This native pig-like critter thrives in the dusty Mexican borderlands, where it is an iconic symbol of the American Southwest and Mexico.

Unfortunately, javelina are sometimes considered more of a nuisance than a coveted big game animal worthy of pursuit. Don’t let these misconceptions stand in the way of a good time. If you’re contemplating a javelina hunt, here are a few things you should know before hitting the desert.

Understanding javelina biology and how they use the landscape can help you put a tag on one of their tiny legs. Javelina evolved in the thick thorn scrub of southern Mexico and Central America, so they never needed the keen eyesight of pronghorn. Outside of bow range, you can get away with a lot of movement for your stalk. As long as you’re downwind and quiet, you can sneak within 100 yards for a shot.

Javelina travel in herds of seven to 15 individuals that defend a specific territory of one to two square miles. This means you can find javelina almost everywhere in good habitat. However, that thick brush makes them difficult to spot. Because you can’t reliably differentiate between males and females in the field, hunting permits are for either sex. By the time piglets reach their first birthday, they are indistinguishable from other adults.

Javelina spend the daylight hours feeding or resting in traditional bedgrounds, often located in low areas of thick brush or caves throughout their territory. These bedgrounds offer soft soil to lie on and protection from predators, the sun, and the weather. Since these tropical animals lack fat and underfur, they sleep late and use the sun to thermoregulate. They also don’t care for cold, windy hillsides, so this knowledge can help you avoid lower probability areas.

Much of a javelina’s diet comes from roots, agaves, cactus, and other green leafy plants. This knowledge can speed up the scouting process. During dry times, they rely much more on prickly pear cactus, pincushion cactus, barrel cactus, lechuguilla, and cholla cactus. The fruits and fleshy parts provide both food and water for javelina.

You also need to know how javelina feed so you can spot fresh sign. Here are a few ways to tell if you’re looking at javelina activity.

Other animals share similar diets, but Javelina bite directly into the pads of prickly pear cactus, chomp right down, and pull the cactus flesh out. This leaves the cactus pad shredded rather than cleanly bitten, as rodents and rabbits do. Javelina will knock over small pincushion cacti, eat the fleshy insides, and only leave the tough outer skin and spines. They also pull apart agave and lechuguilla leaves to eat the fleshy heart of the plant like we eat artichokes. Like other swine, javelina will root up the tubers of plants and cacti, just not with the same destructive sign. Even though they are considered omnivores, they’ll also eat insects, reptiles, and other animals occasionally.

Besides shredded prickly pear, scooped-out pincushion cacti, scattered lechuguilla leaves, look for bedgrounds, scat, tracks, and rooting activity. Bed sites are sometimes in caves, presenting a rather challenging adventure, but more often they are under a large lone tree or bush high on a hillside so they can catch a breeze in the shade, or snuggle in a pig pile out of the canyon bottoms on cold mornings. From their hillside bed, daytime thermals deliver them the scent of any potential enemies approaching from below. Something you should keep in mind.

Look for a set of tracks so fresh that the javelina is still standing in them. You should also look for new glassing locations, water sources, and trails that will lead into thick habitat. If you don’t spot fresh sign, keep moving.

In thick brush country, you have to rely on open prickly pear flats, senderos, or feeders. But in more open country, you’ll have to take a different approach to spot-and-stalk methods.

Good binoculars are a staple for javelina hunting. The price of your binoculars is less important than the fact that you are using a pair. Premium binoculars offer clear glass and more durability and reduce eye strain. In open country, you’ll spend most of your time glassing.

The most effective way to hunt javelina is behind good glass. Photo by Jim Heffelfinger.

Find a good point that overlooks a large canyon or basin and systematically search the whole viewshed. A tripod can make this a more comfortable experience with a few advantages. It can allow you to catch the subtle movement of a javelina without tiring your arms. You can also systematically scan the area within view. Start at the top of the hill or ridge and pan across at the same level until you see all of the hill top. Then adjust your binoculars down one field of view and scan back across the hill. Rather than actually scanning, you can look at each field of view intently before moving over to search the next area. Continue to search in over-lapping layers until you have covered the entire hillside.

If you are scanning a large basin or canyon, by the time you’re done searching the area it’s time to look again. It’s common to suddenly find animals in the middle of a hillside that you just searched. Contrary to the opinion of some physicists who have never hunted these critters, javelina do have the power to materialize out of nowhere.

Plan to glass the sunny slopes in the morning and evening. These animals prefer warmer slopes in the winter months, and it is also easier to spot them in these areas. If you’re dealing with rainy or windy conditions, look in low, protected areas like bedgrounds and canyon bottoms. If it’s greening up in the canyon bottoms, avoid dry rocky hillsides. They probably won’t be there.

Javelina can be difficult to spot. I have spent several days glassing them in the mountains, only to have a herd walk through a crosswalk when I return to town. You might think you’re looking for a large herd of black animals on the hillside, but it’s not that simple. In reality, you are looking for a gray lump among gray boulders. Once you find one, the rest of the herd magically materializes around that animal. The best javelina hunting advice I ever received was from Gerry Day who researched javelina for three decades in Arizona. Gerry said to remember the three “P’s: Patience, Perseverance, and a Positive mental attitude. This mantra has carried me while looking for these little porkers.

Look for good javelina habitat more than a mile from any road to locate larger herds that might not be as pressured. Carry a predator call with you to mimic a piglet in distress. The herd serves as a defensive unit, protecting the juveniles from predators. I have not been very successful cold calling javelina, but after you blow a stalk or miss a shot, a predator call often draws the herd right back to save the piglet and can offer you another shot.

Arizona Wildlife Federation, Safari Club International, and Texas Wildlife Association have been keeping record books for javelina for some time now. Javelina hunting is growing in popularity across the Southwest and populations are doing well. Each year, almost 58,000 javelina hunters harvest more than 33,000 javelina in the U.S. alone. It was time for Pope & Young and Boone & Crockett clubs to add them to their record keeping. As you may have seen on Episode 685 of MeatEater Radio Live, I was part of a small team led by Nicole Tatman of New Mexico Department of Game and Fish who wrote the proposal to add this big game animal to the record books. Javelina are Boone & Crockett Club’s first new category in a quarter century and long overdue. The purpose wasn’t only to correct an oversight, but to give this animal the respect it deserves. As a new record book category, this unique desert dweller will enjoy more positive attention and conservation focus than ever before.

Like bears and lions, javelina are scored by their length and width. Deciding the minimum entry score for Boone and Crockett (14-5/16”) and Pope & Young (13-14/16”) clubs was not guesswork – there were more than 500 skulls already measured and entered into the state-sponsored record books that were used to determine an appropriate minimum. Both record books are now accepting entries and Boone & Crockett just announced last month they are waiving the entry fee for all species thanks to a private donation to cover the expense. Retroactive harvests are welcomed, so get that skull off your bookshelf and see how it matches up.

Javelina meat has a bad rep, but it’s actually tasty. After you harvest one, it is important that you handle it like food and not something you leave in the bed of your truck. My family skins and quarters our javelina in the field right away and places the meat in meat bags to cool it off rapidly. The famous scent gland on the lower back above the tail is just a skin gland. As such, it comes off cleanly when you skin the animal. Pay no attention to it and skin the javelina as you would any other animal. The hairs are covered with an oily scent from that gland, so just be sure you don’t get it on the meat.

Javelina hunting is a great opportunity to get your partner, youngster, father, or grandparent out in the field. It’s a low stakes hunt where you can sit quietly and talk about things that don’t come up in the chaos of daily life. Even if that’s all you can take away from your first javelina hunt, you won’t regret it.

There is a lot of luck in hunting, but there are things you can do to greatly improve your chances. Here are my top ten tips for tagging a javelina.

1) Be Prepared: Spend a significant amount of time scouting and researching before the season. You can locate javelina territories and start to understand their movement patterns.

2) Take a Seat: The old adage that a good hunter wears out the seat of their pants before the soles of their boots describes perfectly how much time you should be sitting behind your optics.

3) Look on the Bright Side: Always have the sun to your back. It not only prevents you from squinting into the sun, it assures you will be looking at canyons and hillsides illuminated brightly.

4) Get High and Lay Low: When glassing for javelina, you should climb as high as possible to get the best view and set up in the shade of a tree, bush, or other structure. It may be tempting to stop short, but for every 50 feet in elevation, more and more habitat down below opens up for your inspection.

5) Concentrate: Javelina don’t stand out like a neon sign on the other side of the canyon. They will be gray lumps among gray boulders. If you don’t concentrate, you will miss a lot of javelina.

6) No Room for Random: When using binoculars, do not scan around willy-nilly hoping to spot a javelina. Searching efficiently and effectively means you search your visible area in a systematic way. A tripod is a must if you are serious about bringing home the bacon.

7) Come Early/Stay Late: If you want to be successful you have to put the time in. Javelina keep “Bankers Hours” because they do not like the cold, but the more hours you are out there, the more success you’ll have. Pack a lunch and stay afield all day.

8) WWJD?: Think Like a Javelina. Given the temperature, wind, location of food and water, where would you be if you were a javelina?

9) Carry a Call: Imitating a distressed piglet can save a blown stalk and draw the herd back for more.

10) Three P’s: Patience, perseverance, and a positive mental attitude.