Firing Line Radio 03-07-26

Welcome to the firing line with Rick Travis, legislative director of the California Rifle and Pistol Association.

The firing line radio show is brought to you by the California Rifle and Pistol Association, CCW Safe, and Turner's Outdoorsmen.

And now here's your host, Rick Travis.

Welcome to firing line radio, Patriots of the Inland Empire Patriots of California.

Well, just Patriots everywhere. We are glad to be here today at the tailgate.

Got my good friend Bill Gaines, who's a frequent guest on the show from Gaines and Associates.

But before we get to Bill, let's talk about this week in the Capitol because it's not what you think.

Because it's not what we thought. We had two bills and assembly public safety.

A place where the honest 99% of anything that says gun dies on contact.

And yesterday, I got to hear the chair. Chair Schultz actually pushed through, raised yourselves, hold onto the side of the truck.

A bill on firearm suppressors with the unanimous vote from public safety.

Yes, my heart skipped more than one beat going, uh, wow, how did that happen?

And the fact is we have some movement. We have some things that are going in a very positive direction.

There was a secondary bill dealing with law enforcement only on some of their firearms that had some safety issues that flew through.

And it was a very different committee meeting. I got to hear the second amendment brought up twice for almost eight minutes between two different members of that group.

Um, in a very positive way, you can go to CRPA.org and look for the video on it because we put it out on a clip.

Very, very positive. So folks, this is a different year. And we're going to be talking about how different a year it is because.

There is some craziness, but it's not where you thought it was going to come from.

One of the things that's not coming from is we're not facing a hundred bills. We're not facing 80 bills.

We're not in facing 50 bills, which is been the last three years.

This year we're facing less than about 18 bills, which is a very light season, but it also means it's more competitive.

It's harder to do things evidently, uh, cutting back from the 5,000 plus bills in the capital to 3,500 is having an impact budget is going to have an impact.

And so you're going to hear Bell and I talking about that today. So bell, welcome to the program.

Rick always a pleasure to join my good friend Rick Travis and CRPA not only on the radio, but in the halls of the capital.

So partner along those lines. So we have a bill that already has been interesting.

And that's, uh, I'm going to let you open it up with assembly bill 1912 with Hadwick.

Yeah, thank you for that, Rick. This is legislation that the sponsored by the California Bowman Hunter State Archery Association.

Rick, you've been around as long as I have you may remember 15 years ago or so when the Department of Fish and Wildlife Chief of Enforcement Mike Carry on at the time.

Came to the Fish and Game Commission and asked the commission recommended to the commission that they.

Changed the regulation that was currently in place dealing with whether or not somebody that had a CCW could carry while hunting big game during archery season.

And then the original reason for having that prohibition in place was, you know, the enforcement was afraid that somebody is going to go out there, shoot an elk with their pistol.

And then stick an arrow and say, look at what I killed with my bow, right? Well, that just doesn't happen.

Didn't happen. And so finally the Department of Realized that there was really no reason to prohibit somebody who had already.

Apply for and receive the CCW to not be able to carry while he's archery hunting for big game.

So the commission ran that through they adopted it absolutely unanimously. It's not a made good sense.

Problem was that applied to all big game with the exception of deer. Now problem with deer was that that was in statute, not in regulation, meaning the commission had absolutely no authority to tinker with that.

The department couldn't tinker with it. I mean, it had to be done by the state legislature.

So we've been looking at this for quite a while thinking, why the heck can you hunt elk, you know, but animal, you name all the big game with all the updates.

Right. Any ongoing section of deer, you know, carrying a side arm. If you have a CCW, you can't do it for deer. So nevertheless, this legislation, the symbol of 1912 will change that code in the fishing game code.

And allow the people that are hunting archery for deer to be able to carry it the same time. When you think of all of the issues we have with apex predators, wolves, bears, lions, possibly grizzly bears in the future.

We'll talk about that, right? I mean, these people need to be able to protect themselves, not to mention illegal girls, Rick, which are all over out there.

You walk into the wrong place and you're going to be in big trouble. You got to be able to protect yourself. That's the whole idea behind this is simply public safety for those people that have already got their CCW's.

So let's unpack that for a moment because you bring up a couple of points. I want everyone to understand. And one of those is, you know, the number of illegal growers illegal drug things. And when you're out archery hunting, I mean, obviously many hunter stock and stocking means you're being very quiet.

You're been over. You're speaking around because you're trying to get a closer view of the animal to make sure that everything checks out on the animals, the right animals are very sex. It's the right. There's a lot of things. There's no youngins with them.

And in doing that, that can also make you look like to a criminal like your law enforcement or something else coming in another criminal trying to take over their area.

And so we've had hunters shot at we've had boy scouts shot at we've had church groups and and hikers and Sarah club members all have had people that aren't even in this country because many of those as you know growers, bring people in from other countries illegally to do that work.

So this is important, but I can't tell you, though, the craziness with this bill already and we haven't even got the record to the first committee meeting, but we went in front of a caucus group to talk about getting support from this bill.

And they're like every caucus group. There are Republicans and Democrats and you know, we figured Republicans that kind of give us the thumbs up, but you know, this is a heavy lift because again, it's CCWs that horrible words going to come in.

And Belle, you you took lead and I was, you know, sin practically next to you and I thought you were going to have to reach across to put my job back up in my mouth when one of the Democrats said, I think this is dumb, which I was prepared for.

I think it should be open carry.

What?

And then the other Democrat jumped and said, I completely agree, Belle.

Like I agree, but I never thought I'd hear not one, but two Democrats from the two different houses of our government, the Senate and Assembly.

Both say, yeah, don't don't do this just for CCW holders and make it for everybody and we'll fight for it.

Belle, we've talked about this, this particular position for at least a decade.

You know, none of us and none of us saw that coming.

You know, it was, it was funny. He's not the right word. It was pleasantly surprising.

We had our four co-chairs there, our Democrat and Republican co-chairs on the Senate side, same on the Assembly side.

And you're absolutely right, Rick, the Assembly co-chair and the Senate co-chair, both Democrats, you know, both started talking about that and they both jumped on that.

Not only did they want the caucus to support the bill through the legislature, they wanted us to open it up to open carry.

And the Republican, you know, Assembly co-chair and Senate co-chair just sat back and watched. They didn't say a word.

It's like, we got the karma going in the right direction. Let's not mess this up.

No, that was a wonderful meeting. It was a milestone, if you will, and then state legislation when it comes to, you know, the things that we care about.

Yeah, and I think it was funny because in that mean it wasn't just CRPA and the organizations you represent.

It was members of multiple different hunting organizations and our fishing side to house.

And the fishing guys were just like us like what just happened.

So folks, through this session, I think you're going to hear a lot from people like Bill and some other guests I'm going to have on.

This is not what we've been facing in years previous. Bill accurately said that we've been around for a long time in the Capitol.

And this is a very interesting. I will just leave it that interesting session so far, the way it's starting to develop and take off the ground is different.

But it's also, and I'm just going to call it out. It's also a bit crazy. And when I say crazy, I'm kind of team up our next segment for you guys.

But we have been talking on this show for years and clean when Phil Neiman was the host.

We have talked about some of the crazy ideas of what's called rewilding in California, which is the idea of pulling humans completely out of the landscape and then the critters do whatever the critters want to do.

And that comes down to a week. Do we manage a particular species or critter, which shows many groups that formed and make a lot of money off of that?

Do we manage the ecosystem? Do we manage the landscape? There's one model, the North American model that has proven so effective here in North America that's been adopted in multiple places around the globe and has had great success.

But California is on a brink and we've talked about that. We have way too many predators critters that are well over what the land can support has nothing to do with hunting.

Folks, it's just there's only so much and what happens in nature isn't always pretty, but when a species overpopulates, other species often get wiped out and that species itself has a die off that is absolutely horrible to watch.

So there's not a clean way to handle this and we're going to talk about that when we come here on Firing Line Radio.

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Hi folks, Rick Travis. If you're a concealed handgun carrier and have a firearm to defend your home, you need to have CCWs safe on your side.

CCWs safe is your defense if you're forced to use your firearm for self-defense or the protection of a loved one.

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So check out their new ultimate plan with no caps on criminal and civil defense, $1 million for bond coverage, a dedicated $1 million of civil liability and many other benefits.

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The California Rifle and Pistol Association has worked tirelessly for 150 years to promote your rights to self protection, shooting sports, firearms collecting, hunting, conservation, and every aspect of your second amendment rights.

CRPA works tirelessly and relentlessly to defend the civil and constitutional rights of individuals to choose to responsibly own and use firearms.

Every dollar that CRPA receives from its members and donors stays and works in California to support your hunting and second amendment rights and the fight against politicians, elitists, and bureaucrats who would deprive individuals of those rights.

Join the California Rifle and Pistol Association today at C-R-P-A dot org. That's C-R-P-A dot org.

This portion of the firing line is brought to you by Turner's Outdoorsmen.

Welcome back to firing line radio. I'm your host Rick Travis with the California Rifle and Pistol Association.

If you're not a member, go to CRPA dot org. Join and hit firing line radio. So we know it was one of you that joined us. Give the gift of membership. Get people to join. Folks, we are winning.

We are looking this weekend at what is going to happen in the Duncan case at the Supreme Court. We're winning in the ninth circuit. We are winning everywhere.

And so we need you not to abandon us, but to join forces. Get excited. This is where your money goes to a great cause, a great battle, and it keeps you from just leasing your firearms and your second amendment rights from the Liberals in Sacramento.

So talking about things going wild. We've got some bills bill that you are supporting, which we'll talk about to those. I believe are 1327 and 1232.

But before we get to that, I had a conversation years ago with Philip Naiman, who used to run this show. And I had brought up when there was a movement down in Orange County to take part of the Ortega highway and part of the Senate and amounts that separate Riverside.

From Orange County and renamed that. Wait for it. Grizzly national monument and reintroduce grizzly bears and everybody laughed. I remember you laughing about no one's going to do that. There were all sorts of jokes.

Never going to happen. This is complete idiocy. These people have lost it.

And now we have a bill assembly bill 1305, which I got to tell you every time I look at this bill, I'm like, you've got to be kidding me.

But what this bill says is it's called 1305 Senate bill or no, assembly bill.

Senate bill. I'll send a bill. Yeah, sorry. 1305, put up by Senator Richardson, wildlife bears.

And what it says that this bill will require the department to develop and make publicly available a roadmap for the reintroduction of grizzly bears in California.

OK, I just want to say a couple things on that and let you go, Bill. Grizzly bears, the California grizzly bear that went extinct. I believe in the 1920s.

Yes, that's sad, but it was a small bear. It was not the size of today's grizzly bears and the Rockies or in Canada, Alaska. Those are huge grizzly bears.

There is no way to bring back the reduced grizzly bear, the mini grizzly bear, or to reintroduce it to the areas that was in because it was primarily like a bait area bear.

There were some other parts of the state it was found, but like it's biggest population was the Bay Area, which doesn't going to happen today with all the human conflict that's already there.

So Bill, how crazy is this for you?

I don't think it could get any crazier, Rick. I mean, you know, we've dealing with all kinds of a spreaders already, mountain lines, big issue throughout the state, even especially up here in over on a county where I live, black bears, double their estimated population, 30,000 no, 60,000 plus, right?

Wolves, holy smokes. I mean, we've got wolves back in California, they're beating the hell out of the ranchers up north. They're already down south. I mean, their, their packs and numbers are spreading rapidly.

And what about coyotes? They're wandering down your streets and hunting to beach where you live, Rick. I mean, we have apex predators coming out of our ears, predator prey relationships.

I mean, as far as the balance between their natural foods, deer, for example, bear love, deer fonts, you know, mountain lines love adult deer bears like adult deer to just can't catch them.

So I'll just go get it from the mountain line, let them kill another one, right? I mean, I mean, our deer populations and the other species that people should also care about are in absolute peril because the predator prey balance is so out of balance.

And now they want to bring in grizzly bears. It's like, are you kidding me? It makes absolutely no sense like you say, Rick, they're not even the same bear. Why don't we bring back T-Rex? Right? I mean, it's like you're trying to bring critters here that were never here.

You know, and here's the sad thing. And I see this in front of the fishing game commission. I see it in front of the legislature. I see it everywhere.

The people that are pushing this are people that don't live in the areas that have to deal with them. I mean, I got to deal with bears and mountain lions where I live because I live right smack in the middle.

Certainly, I have wolves too. Of course, everybody's got coyotes, right? You know, we have wolves too. Now, I mean, we've got wolves in LA, even a department said we didn't, but then they were caught on film. And they said, well, it's one wolf. And then we had two days later, a wolf in San Bernardino, different color, different pattern, no color.

It was caught on camera and verified by multiple people as a wolf.

Where did they come from? Right. Right. You know, it's we have mountain lions walking down the streets of San Francisco and in LA just in the last few weeks, right? I mean, so people need to recognize that we need ecological balance out there.

You can't just hold these apex predators up as the holy grail and not take care of the critters that they depend upon as their natural food.

Right. I mean, so you've got in this case, you've got, you know, a primary author on this is Senator Richardson, where she from?

Down south in the urban areas. She lives in an area. She represents an area that'll never have to deal with these grizzly bears because me and other people that live on the world areas are going to be having to deal with these grizzly bears.

We see the same thing when when they're arguing to protect wolves or lions in front of the commission. It's all the urban folks that want to do that, not the people that have to actually live out reality with this thing.

I mean, this bill makes absolutely no sense at all. I mean, but it's don't look for logic where there is none Rick. I mean, this is the California state legislature.

They're capable of doing just about anything. So I guess I'm not surprised. We knew this was coming.

But I mean, this is certainly a bill that's going to be our number one target to kill this year. I can promise you that.

Yeah. And then I'm not trying to kill a bill on a couple of bills. You have 1397, which this is a redone bill with a lot of changes to it, which is from Senator Averado,

who is the center up there from El Dorado County among others, where the crisis with mountain lions has reached a fever pitch. Can you go into this bill?

Because I know you are the principal person behind this for the center.

And I appreciate that. Let me give you a little bit of background. Your listeners may remember the last year, Senator Averado,

Gil authored Senate bill 818. And that was legislation. It was known as the tailing and why it's why tailing was a young man that was killed by a mountain line here in

El Dorado County back in 2024, right? Is brother why it was attacked also survived. Thank God. You know, so I've been working with the family,

and why it and his parents and is extended family on trying to find a way to where we can actually manage mountain lions so that we can restore their fear of humans.

So we can run them with dogs again, nonlethal, because we know that the proposition 117 back in June of 1990, assigned mountain lions,

especially protected family, right, which makes no sense because our populations are real bust. But nevertheless, so that was Senate bill 818.

That had language directly in it that said that the Department of Fish and Wildlife shall work with private permitted houndsman to haze, nonlethal haze,

problem lions out of areas where they're going to get into trouble. Run them out of the urban areas where they shouldn't be.

Run them out of the semi rural areas where they're pounding livestock and so forth. Restore that fear and then among people of dogs, right?

That bill last April just blew up an assembly policy committee. Absolutely blew up. So this year, Senator Alvarado Gill has struck that way back.

And what we're simply trying to do this year is trying to help the department work with landowners to protect themselves and their property from mountain lions by providing them with additional tools,

not dogs, because that one was a nonstarter by the committee. And they let us know again this year it would be a nonstarter, right?

But in other ways to where we can haze these mountain lions out of areas where they shouldn't be. And that's Senate bill 1397 Rick won't be heard until April.

You know, we're doing it again to move that bill along and it's much more bipartisan, if you will, than it was before.

But this has to do with mountain lions. So I still expect a battle in assembly policy committee here next month.

And do you see any other legislation coming up on bears? Because I know that was another subject matter because bears are out of control.

I know you'd worked with Assemblymember Hadwick in the last session.

Do you see anything coming in the future on bears?

We got some spot bills out there. We're going to kind of keep our ears to the tracks, if you will, and see how things play out with wolves and some of the other issues that are big, you know,

predator issues, if you want, in front of the state legislature right now. You know, Assemblymember Hadwick was told the same thing in assembly policy committee that Senator Alvarado go was told in Senate policy committee.

And that was don't bring me any bills that deal with running dogs on bears, running dogs on lions. What have you? I will not hear them. Both committee said that.

So we've had to strip things back both on the assembly side and on the Senate side to see how we're going to get things done. And we can't just flat out call out dogs. So we're trying to try to navigate or through that right now, Rick.

And I think that one dogs because there's a war on dogs across the state is going to continue, which for those who you don't have, you may want to pay attention. And because there are some interesting things that we'll be talking about in the future show with some dog kennel people because

it is getting a little weird when it comes to man's best friend. We'll be back on fine line radio.

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AM590, the answer.

This portion of the firing line is brought to you by the California Rifle and Pistol Association.

Welcome back to firing line radio. I'm your host Rick Travis, legislative director for the California Rifle Pistol Association today.

With me, the guy who slugs through the mud of X Cramento is Bill Gaines from Gaines and Associates. He represents many fine groups like California Deer Association, California Bowman Hunters, many, many others,

Houndsman for hunting, just great people, wonderful things, should look up Bill Gaines and Gaines and Associates because he does tremendous work on behalf of all of you.

So we're going to talk about two different bills in this segment that we want you to know about that we're supporting and then we'll finish up on some updates that you probably all curious about.

So Senate Bill 1021 says fishing hunting youth program. This would require the fishing game commission to establish a program to increase opportunities to fish and a big game up in game regulatory game birds for youth with life threatening illnesses.

So let's talk about that for a moment. Originally we were we had something there for somebody lost a parent, but that was paired down already and it's first amendment.

And so this is just youth with life threatening illnesses that 17 and under these are kids that may have cancer leukemia.

There's many debilitating diseases that eliminate literally thousands of kids in California's lives every year.

I think we can all agree that's horrific a lot of these kids you may not realize have as their final choice of something to go do they want to go fish or they want to go hunt.

But unfortunately a lot times when they have the ability to do that in their fight for their lives.

There are two to three weeks to do that doesn't line up with the seasons and so we are working with the legislature to try to come up with a program that already exists in over 21 other states that allows kids to do this.

They also have another bill that we're working on with a assembly member Heather Hadwick that would allow for tags to be donated.

So if you're one of those people you spent your points you get a tag and then a life event happens.

Whatever that is good kids are getting married grandkids coming in your kid is coming and you can't go use that tag instead of just losing it and all going to waste.

You'd be able to donate it to a kid who has a life threatening illness.

So obviously we are trying to take a program and use it and I will say a couple things we've already been hit with people that say oh you guys you're trying to teach kids to kill when they're dying.

No we're not and I'm going to address that right now and let you make your comments bill but folks this is what's actually happening.

I'm going to take up and gain as an example.

There is nothing we can do in the federal or state code to make it so you can go shoot an up and game bird which would be like a peasant or a quail or a turkey during the off season.

There are too many laws it's just too big a lift. However, currently as any of you have been listening to the show know I work with Labrador has raised them the majority of my life.

I've been with dogs my entire life and and look we take Labrador retrievers as an example springer spaniels German char haired pointers but this goes on and we take Bob White quails which is a non game quail here in California.

All see all year long to train they get they're raised in pens they're released they go up they get shot the dogs retrieve them.

That is one of the ways that we can it with if the commission decides to let us do this then those kids during the off season be able to shoot a Bob White quail now there's a lot that says you can't eat those birds that are used in training.

Okay we've had two different organizations that sell meat to the public game meat including quail who said fine well donate the quail for these kids.

So these kids will get a hunting license they'll go through all the training everybody else says there are zero shortcuts but probably three times the safety and security because the situation those kids are in working with multiple nonprofits to make this happen this is literally not going to cost the state.

Next to no money once the programs in place and very little money to get it in place so I want people to realize we are trying to give these kids an opportunity an opportunity that other states has often led to the kids actually fighting back hard enough.

That they either extended their lifespan for four or five years or are still with us bill what are your thoughts.

Well I did this is obviously a very very good bill Rick you know it leaves it pretty wide open it just tells the commission that they shall consult with the Department of Fisher wildlife on establishing programs that that help these kids that have life threatening illnesses get out in the field right and so.

So obviously we're always struggling to improve our our size and breadth of our hunting community so this bill certainly helping those ways but these are kids that they want to go do something that frankly in California Rick I mean when it comes to to getting a quality big game tag or when it comes to getting a quality hunt you know whether be for upland birds big game whatever I mean it's difficult you've got access issues you've got season you've got all those kinds of things to get the way.

This bill would lift a lot of those restrictions and allow these kids who are very deserving of receiving a quality outdoor experience like that would give them the ability to do so so I mean I there's.

We get opposition to everything we do Rick every time you're trying to do something that makes good sense something that that that that people are calling for out in the community we got those people that's anything

you know what guns are hunting we get that automatic pushback I don't care what the proposal may be it's just it's just kind of a function of where we live right you know but we're up for this fight this is a fight that's worth fighting you know and and you know I'm looking forward to working with you on 1021 Rick it's just good legislation that this state desperately needs.

And 1673 that is your baby I of course I know what it's about but I think this is a good point we both sit on the Cal tip which is a Californians turn in poachers and polluters trying to make sure that our wildlife is passed on to next generation and this bill that you have with Heather hadwick deals in part with that so it's called county fish and wildlife propagation fund expenditures so let's talk about that bill.

What is this? Yeah and I'd be happy to do that Rick you know you and I have the pleasure of working with the state fishing game commission.

You're right right I mean they meet six times a year we're working with them between meetings and everything else are the ones that adopt the regulations doing with hunting and fishing and a lot of things that we care about right you know but the counties also have county

fishing game commissions not all of them do but a lot of them do and and there's certain revenues I don't want to get too far into the weeds on this did they come from from various fishing wildlife citations and finds that are because of legislation that we've passed in the past you know that that trickle into these counties to help fund expenditures that are authorized by the county fishing game commissions right so so this bill would would open that up a little bit.

And allow the counties to spend monies you know for for example county sheriffs investigating or issuing citations are making arrests for you know violations relating to fishing wildlife and so on and so forth so it would open that up a little bit but we're also going to play with this bill Rick there's there's some issues with is the money that should be going into these county fishing game commissions actually getting there in all counties in some cases it's not right and and there's other things that we want to look at when you.

Helping these county fishing game commissions get the jobs done that they need to get done in their counties and to make sure the revenues that they deserve are received by them also I want to work with these that you would agree with this of course we've talked about it so that these county fishing game commissions can have a better working relationship with the state fishing game commission when it comes to issues that are taking place you know in their counties and so the deck and just

increasing coordination and collaboration between the counties and the state that's not happening right now Rick and that's one of my goals with this legislation is to make sure that that happens and I think it's really important for all of you to understand to that what we're trying to do is we often get blamed we being the anglers and hunters for not doing stuff when in fact even Jerry Brown when he was governor pointed out that we do more than all the other groups that fundraise on Sunday mornings to people.

This is yet another attempt for us to try to take care of wildlife wildlife that we don't have while you know fish that we don't fish for.

It's to take care of those ecosystems to make it better to strengthen it up and this is what we do and this is why we need your help so desperately is because we are trying to get this bill across again this is assembly bill 16 73 you'll see it in CRPA alerts when it comes across.

Please hit that button and send those letters in if you're not getting those alerts from CRPA now is the time to go to CRPA or you can go to our one click politics it will be under programs legislation you hit it you sign up you will only get an email here and there I will let you know March and April you'll probably get like four emails in each month after that you probably won't get any until July August and you'll get probably three between those two months.

And then the rest of you don't get anything so this is not like ham sign up for email i'm going to be badger forever nope that's not the way this works this is a very close system for one purpose only and that is giving your voice to the people that are going to be voting on the way your life will look here in California.

So again go to CRPA org and sign up for that and we'll be back on fine line radio to give you updates on wolves and cuddling that.

The California rifle and pistol association has worked tirelessly for 150 years to promote your rights to self protection shooting sports firearms collecting hunting conservation and every aspect of your second amendment rights.

CRPA works tirelessly and relentlessly to defend the civil and constitutional rights of individuals to choose to responsibly own and use firearms.

Every dollar that CRPA receives from its members and donors stays and works in California to support your hunting and second amendment rights and the fight against politicians elitists and bureaucrats who would deprive individuals of those rights.

Join the California Rifle and pistol association today at crpa.org that's crpa.org.

Hi folks, Rick Travis. If you're a concealed handgun carrier and have a firearm to defend your home you need to have CCWs safe on your side.

CCWs safe is your defense if you're forced to use your firearm for self defense or the protection of a loved one.

CCWs safe provides and pays 100% out front defense funds for high quality attorneys, expert witnesses and investigators you need following a critical incident with no reimbursement.

And they do it all for one flat yearly fees trying to harm $79 a year. CCWs safe has permit and non permit plans to protect California residents in this state and while traveling across the country.

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AM 590, the enter.

This portion of the fire in mind is brought to you by CCWs safe.

Welcome back to fine line radio. And folks, we have been fighting an issue for over a decade.

That was made painfully clear this week because the California Rifle Pistol Association, Safari Club International, California Bowman Hunters and the California State Archery Association.

California Deer, the Catalina Group that has been fighting to save the deer on Catalina have all come together and we are taking the Department of Fish and Game.

And the Catalina Island Company and the Catalina Island Conservancy to court over a was called sequel, which is the California Environmental Quality Act violations and their attempt to eradicate deer from Catalina.

Now, one of the things that's interesting is, and I want to point this out because I've had some people pushed back recently and said, well, Rick, the deer have only been on for about 100 years.

We don't know that's a fact. And I'm going to give you a couple reasons why.

Mountain Lions have always been in Orange County. So I'm just going to use Orange County. We've always had Mountain Lions.

We've always had Mule Deer in Orange County. We've always had Mule Deer in the Laguna Beach area of Orange County. That's well documented for thousands of years.

So there's a place called Salt Creek. If you're not familiar, it is the beautiful park system that goes into the wildlands right next to one of the biggest hotels in the Laguna Beach.

And so when you go towards the big hotel complexes, you'll see it.

It is not uncommon for deer to go into the ocean and swim towards Catalina when the mountain lions are chasing them. How many deer?

Sometimes over 30 deer. Okay, Rick, but they just get in the waves and surface push them out sometimes.

But just talking this week, we had fishing boats that could not see California.

They could see Catalina, but they couldn't see California, which means there are more than 13 miles off the coast.

And there were 20 deer swimming towards Catalina.

Now, they got rounded up by a couple of fishing boats and another, I believe it was a law enforcement boat that rounded them up and got them back to land.

Right, but they were not dying. They were not drowning. They were in fairly good size wife's bill.

They were two to three foot swell. So that's a big swell. And those deer were headed to the island because they were like, I don't want to go backwards because that's where the non line is.

So deer could have been on the island and they were hunted out of existence years ago when the Spanish first got there.

They could have been hunted up by Native American tribes. We just flat out don't know.

But meal deer, my point has been here forever. California, as we said, is looking at bringing in grizzly bears that never existed these type in California.

We've looked at bringing in pronghorn antelope from other parts of the country that weren't the same as the pronghorn antelopes that were here in the Sonora desert.

We have done this multiple times brought in other species and never called them invasive yet we're calling a species.

The department is invasive. It's not invasive. It is a natural species.

And so I want you to realize we are still fighting for those species. We're fighting to keep an existing population on the island for all 13 million Los Angelinos to be able to see so kids can go see those deer so they can be managed properly.

And this is a time where we've got wolves going crazy. This is in a disarray and I want you to realize that there's a lot of groups out there claiming that they are trying to fight for you, but where are the groups that are actually fighting to make sure all this wildlife is balanced and kept for future generations.

Bill, you've been at the heart of this along with me. You actually as we talked yesterday started first engaging us about six years before I did.

I've been engaging this since 2010. So take it away, Bill. What's your thoughts on this? Yes.

So the proposal to eradicate all the deer from Catalina has been cropping up.

I've been doing this 35 years and it's been cropping up pretty much that entire 35 years comes up goes away comes up goes away comes up goes away.

Well, you know, back in October of 2023, it came up again and this time they were buckled up and ready to do battle.

They had hired one of the best wildlife lobbyists down at the Capitol from the environmental side.

You know, got got her going on this and and and they just thought that they could run it right through it.

Obviously they had some support from California leadership. There's no question about that.

But that is Rick. This is California. I mean, we don't go the original proposal said we're going to gun down all these deer from helicopters.

It's like, this is California, not only California, but Southern California.

What are the optics of that when you look at the demographics of California who don't even like hunting?

But you think they're going to support gunning down deer from helicopters.

I mean, and backing up a little bit on on the sides behind this, there is none.

Absolutely no science. It says these deer have to be eradicated.

The Conservancy over there is arguing that well, they're competing with native plants and they're exotic.

So you just laid out knowing reasons why maybe they're not exotic, right?

And secondly, they've got absolutely no biological documentation that says that they are actually really having a negative impact on the native plant species there.

So nevertheless, you know, we fought like heck ever since October of 23 for this go around, if you will,

to keep the department from providing the Catalina and Conservancy with the permit they needed to go ahead and eradicate these deer.

We delayed it, delayed it, delayed it, and then finally a couple of weeks ago, you know, the department actually improved that permit.

And so now we're going into stage two, Rick.

And you mentioned we've got a great partnership and thank God for Michelle and associates that extremely valuable attorney team that you've got working with CRPA.

You know, taking a lead on this as we try to challenge it, you know, under the California Environmental Quality Act.

So we're going into the legal battles now. We've got a great team doing it, working with SCI and others, California Bowman Hunters are big in this calendar and others.

You know, and I think I think we're going to be able to stop this Rick.

And the more we look at it, the more it looks like that we're on pretty solid ground, you know, and trying to put a stop to this.

Yesterday, the LA County Board of Supervisors, you know, voted unanimously to oppose it as well.

So I mean, the optics.

I want to touch on that. I mean, we've got, you know, Supervisor Han, who comes from one of the most legendary political families in the LA basin.

And she had the LA City Council, Dawn Harrison, file an opposition letter, Chief Maroney, who's the LA County Fire Chief Authority, also has raised concerns in the letter.

But they also talked about, you know, aerial capture nighttime shooting drones hunting dogs.

You know, this is very interesting to me that the left has done is you said earlier everything to make sure dogs can't be used to stop negative human wildlife interactions because that's excessively violent.

It's excessively horrible. It should never happen to state of California.

And then that those same groups are like, oh, yeah, put out hunting dogs are trained to run deer down to the camp breed, and then we'll use drones to kill them.

Okay, which side of your mouth are you operating out of when you look at this? And so folks really, really look, it is not scientifically supported.

One of the things that we did was with our own monies from our own groups and how for wildlife, I want to mention because they have been critical with their, their incredible documentary.

If you haven't seen it, look it up. It's called killing Catalina, incredible film you can find it on YouTube.

But folks Charles Whitwam, who works very close with us. We went out there. We're going to have them on the show and talk about this more in depth.

They took very scientific drones and we were able to look at the deer and refute literally every claim that was being made by the conservancy with actual hard science.

They're claiming to count deer by, oh, we saw an eyeball with a spotlight at two o'clock in the morning at a crossroads.

And then we use this math model to say this is how many deer we were actually able to tell them exactly how many deer were on a third of the island in one evening.

And had we been given permission, which we were denied by the conservancy not once, but three times, we would have been able to fly the island in a single evening and told them exactly how many deer were everywhere and had a scientific number.

But instead, it's made up numbers. And so this is why, you know, we're not against plants on the island. We're not against any of that. Neither is the fire chief. We're all looking for balance.

And one of the questions I will leave you with today is when anybody says we want to bring this back to what it was. You need to ask when?

Because the terrain even before humans has always been changing wildlife has always been changing multiple extinctions happened without humans without a single human being around.

So these things are part of nature. Nature is not friendly. Nature can be beautiful, but nature can be ugly as well. And it has nothing to do with humans.

And we can't harness nature to make it into something we think it should be we have to let nature be nature.

Bill, any closing comments?

No, Rick. I mean, that was just very well said and how has played a very positive and big role in this.

The attorneys that you have in CRPA, Lord knows that there are phenomenal when it comes to two and you talked about the victories there when it comes our second amendment, right?

But you guys do much more than that. And Catalina is an example of that. So thank God for Chuck Michelle and his team.

And as I say, every week folks, remember, be safe, shoot straight and fight back for all of your rights here in the Golden State and across this great nation. Take care and be safe.

The firing line radio show has been brought to you by the California Rifle and Pistol Association CCW Safe and Turner's Outdoorsmen.

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