You're listening to KFI AM six forty wake Up Call with me Amy King on
demand on the iHeartRadio app k f I and kost HT two Los Angeles and
Orange County and you Amy Kay, good morning. It's by the clock straight
up. This is your wake up call for Thursday, July eleventh. Ooh,
it's seven eleven day. You know what that means. Free sir,
slurpees at seven eleven. I haven't had a slurpe for years. I might
have to stop buying. Get one. I'm Amy King. Thanks so much
for getting your day started with us today. We've got so much going on
as always, and don't worry, We've got you covered. We're gonna get
you all the latest news. We're gonna get you the traffic to help you
get there, and we're going to have some really interesting talks with some really
smart people. We'll be telling you about that as we move through the hour.
Here's what's ahead on your Thursday wake up call. President Biden is said
to hold his first press conference since the debate with former President Trump, which
has led to calls for Biden to quit the presidential race. Biden's going to
close out the NATO summit in Washington, d C. This afternoon. He's
expected to try to prove that he is capable of serving another four years.
We're going to be talking more about the growing pressure for Biden to step aside
with ABC's Steven Portnoy. In less than five minutes, more than twenty five
people have applied to be LA's top cop. The police commissions his candidates from
across the country have applied for the job. Mayor Karen Bass is going to
hire the new chief, possibly by this fall. Interim police Chief Dominic Choi
not allowed to apply for the permanent position. Border patrol agents have seized a
million dollars worth of met at the Coleexic Port of Entry. Agents say more
than five hundred pounds of meth was found hidden in a shipment of furniture.
A twenty nine year old man's been arrested. The guy who has a visa
was applying for admission into the US. Also, a little bit later this
hour, on wake Up Call, we're going to find out how Beaver's Just
may save California from wildfires. I know it sounds weird, but it's gonna
be a really interesting conversation. I love how nature can help us after we
screw up nature. We're gonna find out more about that again before the top
of the hour. I six, so five, it's handle on the news.
Some takeaways from the first day of Alec Baldwin's involuntary manslaughter trial in New
Mexico. Bill's going to share his thoughts on that. Let's get started with
some of the stories coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. The
new La Metro board chair says safety is her top priority. Ellie Mayor Karen
Bass has passed the gabble to La County Supervisor Janis Hahn, who for the
next twelve months will preside over meetings of the transit agency's board. Han says
one of the first things she'll start doing is riding the buses and trains,
and on our board meetings, I'm going to talk about what I experience as
a Metro rider. That will mean calling out problems I see as well as
praising the things that go right. Han also says protecting riders and employees is
Metro's top priority, and she'll also focus on helping homeless people leave the transit
system in downtown La. Michael Monks KFI News authorities in Orange County say an
elderly couple allegedly murdered by their own son in San Juan Capistrano died in a
very gruesome way. Investigators with the OC Sheriff's Department say Joseph Gerdville was arrested
in connection with the alleged decapitation of his seventy year old parents and their dog.
Deputies were responding to a domestic disturbance call about the murders Tuesday morning when
another caller reported a very bloody man had chased a maintenance worker and stolen the
golf cart. The OC Sheriff says the guy was found along a bike trail
a bit later and ended up shot multiple times by a debut but the guy
is expected to survive. In Orange County, Corbin Carson KFI news, a
man who owned a nonprofit animal rescue in Compton has pleaded guilty to four counts
of animal cruelty. Prosecutors say nearly one hundred and fifty live animals were found
at two locations linked to the man, and many were severely underweight and suffering
from various illnesses. They say the man knew the animals were distressed and didn't
do anything about it. Thanks Scott's Surfing. Now everybody's learning. How comes
the far with me? La County Health officials say surfers can't hang ten at
sixteen local beaches because of high bacteria levels. People have been urged to avoid
swimming and playing at the beaches all the way from Malibu to Marina del Rey.
A full list of the contaminated beaches is available on the county website.
Also, there should be warnings posted at the beaches, so be sure to
look for those as you had to the beach to get out of the heat.
Costco members are going to have to pay more starting this fall. The
company says it's increasing annual membership fees by five or ten dollars a year,
depending on the plan. It's the first fee increase in seven years. It'll
take effect in September. The price of Costco stock rows two percent after the
announcement. Over the last year and a half, Costco shares have nearly doubled
in value. I think that's important because of Bill Handle, who goes there
like every day. Get six oh seven on your wake up call for this
Thursday morning. Let's say good morning now to ABC's Stephen Portnoy. Stephen,
when we talked earlier this week, it seemed like maybe the calls for Biden
to step down had quieted a bit, But that was two days ago.
So what's going on now, Well, what's going on now is the drum
beat has continued, and in part it's because Nancy Pelosi yesterday declined to say
directly that the president should stay in the running, and that has led to
a whole another round of speculation that maybe more Democrats will come out and say
that he should step down. And we have an ABC News Washington Post IPSOS
survey this morning that shows that two thirds of Americans that the president should drop
out. Now weighing in Biden's favor. In addition to the fact that he
won all the primaries and has the delegates, there is the fact that this
survey, two weeks after the debate, shows the race is still effectively tied.
That the debate did not have the kind of impact that naysayers. This
is the argument to Biden people would make the debate didn't have the impact on
naysayers that people think it would have. That half the country still supports Trump
and half the country still supports Biden and that when more people hear the argument
against Trump, they're going to come on board for Biden. And by the
way, don't believe the polls, because the Poles have always been wrong,
is their argument? Well, that was Trump's argument for the last uh huh,
the last one. So it's turn about his fair play on this one.
Huh. Fair enough? Okay. So louder than Pelosi's voice, though,
was when George Clooney came out yesterday and said he doesn't think Biden should
run either. I think you're right, and I think it's highly significant that
George Clooney had an op ed in the New York Times that his Southern California
fundraiser within the last month, which is the largest fundraiser in Democratic history.
Yeah, it was like thirty million dollars or something, right, had Joe
Biden on the stage. And George Clooney says that he simply did not see
in Biden the man that he knew as Joe Biden, and that the Democrats
risk losing the House and the Senate with Biden at the top of the ticket,
and so it's the right move Clooney believes for Biden to step aside and
have someone else take over and help save democracy. These are Clooney's words.
Look, I think what will happen today is incredibly significant for the president.
He's standing at the conclusion of the three day NATO summit here in Washington to
take reporters questions. This is a rare I have to underscore it because I
think people take it for granted how often the president stands for questions. He
does not very often, this president in particular, this president in particular,
okay, and it's a shame. And those of us who cover the white
and have been here a long time have been disappointed, frankly by the fact
that this president has refused our entreaties to engage. Because we ask for answers
for two reasons. One so the public has a sense of where the president
is on various issues. That's obviously the main reason. And the other reason
is for history, because as we write the story of a presidency, it's
often told in responses to reporters questions, and when we're all deprived of that,
history is deprived of an opportunity to really get a sense of what is
motivating this man and his decision making and the record of Donald Trump's presidency is
pretty full as a result of his exchanges with reporters. The same would be
true for Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan,
going all the way back to Joe Biden's youth, when Dwight Eisenhower used
to have news conferences every two weeks. And so today is a good example
of the president's standing for questions. Let's see how many he takes. Let's
see how well he performs. The President has said, and this is news.
He's going to be sending for an interview with NBC on Monday night.
So there's that. And let's see how many calls continue to come for the
presidents for the president to step aside. Yep. And I think people are
watching him still like they have not watched him for years. So it'll be
interesting to see. Steven Portnoy, thank you so much for your time and
information this morning. Let's get back to some of the stories coming out of
the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. Governor Newsom says he will actively campaign against
Proposition thirty six, the measure that voters are deciding on in November, would
reverse elements of the voter approved proposition forty seven. That one reclassified felonies as
misdemeanors. Newsom said Prop thirty six is being promoted as a tough on retail
crime measure, but more of a drug policy build than anything else. We'll
cost the taxpayers billions and billions of dollars over the next decade. That well,
have we found impact on programs across the state. I reject the premise
that it foundationally a retail bill. It's it's a lot more, and I
will not be supporting. Last week, Newsom pulled a compete measure from the
ballot that would have shored up the law from Proposition forty seven. A proposed
merger could put sixty three grocery stores in California under new ownership. The stores
would be sold off of the proposed merger between Kroger and Albertson's goes through.
Under the deal, the stores would be sold to CNS wholesale grocers. Stores
that would be offloaded include Vaughn stores in La, Manhattan Beach, and Coasta
Mesa. Albertson's locations would also be affected in Dana Point, Northridge and LA.
The proposed merger, announced in twenty twenty one, is currently being challenged
by the Federal Trade Commission over concerns that the merger would lead to higher prices.
Kroger has disputed the claim, saying that customers will see lower prices if
the deal goes through. Blake Trolly k if I News San Diego Grocer's union
president Todd Walters's Kroger appears to be stacking the deck when it says customers would
benefit from lower prices if there's a merger. There's nothing from Kroger in the
state of California that's being divested, which I'm very surprised at Walters's overall.
He's not panicking about the potential merger. The company was communicating to our members
that the ones in these affected stores, there's eleven in San Diego County.
The unions are going to do effects bargaining over this. If the merger gets
approved, it still has to go through the court system to get approved by
the FTC. A man in Long Beach has been arrested for the deadly shooting
of a neighbor. The shooting yesterday happened on East First Street near Alamedas Avenue.
The murdered man had been shot several times the reason for the shooting not
yet known. A federal judge is ruled schools in Moreno Valley must change their
policing policies and hire an outside party to implement new policies. The decision follows
a complaint filed in twenty twenty that claimed campus resource officers at a middle school
discriminated against a black disabled student when they handcuffed him four times. The family's
attorney said Monday, the district's practices have allowed for the disproportionate suffering of black
disabled students. Two and who went up to space and board the Boeing Starliners
say they're comfortable staying up there a while longer as issues on the Starliner have
delayed their trip home. I'm not complaining, Butch isn't complaining that we're here
for a couple of weeks. Sudi Williams says she and co pilot Butch Wilmore
have spent some of their time photographing Hurricane Beryl in Houston, where they both
live. Powers lost trees are down, but we're a big team. Everybody
pulls together in Texas. She says they're not worried about the star Liner's ability
to get them back to Earth. Testing is underway to ensure glitches with a
thruster are fixed before they head back, likely later this summer. And as
you know, we've been talking with astronaut Colonel Nick Hagu who's going up to
the space station, supposed to be later this summer, and we're not sure
if those two astronauts who can't get home will delay the next mission. Right
now, they're saying it's still going to go off, but hopefully we're going
to be talking to Colonel Hag again in the next week or two before he
goes up. But I'm interested to hear how that all affects, because I'm
thinking if they're there and then the next mission goes up, it's going to
get a little crowded on the space station. When we come back. We'll
be talking with ABC's crime and Terror analyst Brad Garrett about the use of weapons
on movie sets, which is nothing new, and whether Alec Baldwin is really
at fault for the shooting on the set of the movie Rust. Of course,
his trial is now underway in New Mexico. You're listening to Wake Up
Call on demand from KFI AM six forty. Let's say good morning, now
to ABC's Crime and Terror analyst Brad Garrett. So, Brad, big shootouts
in movies are nothing new. They're kind of a staple in action movies.
What went so wrong on the set of Rest? So it appears amy two
things went wrong. One is safety protocols, both for the armorer that's the
person that's in charge of the weapons on a movie set, and the act
in this case, Alec Baldwin. So, I mean, according to the
prosecutor, he acted in a reckless way in reference to point in a weapon
at somebody, maybe having his finger on the trigger when he shouldn't have,
and some other things she cited inter opening the statement yesterday. So we'll see.
But clearly this is the case of I think mistakes, clearly huge mistakes
made by the armor who's already been convicted and got the maximum sentence you and
get into Mexico eighteen months. So we'll see if it holds true for mister
Baldwin despite the fact that he may have violated some safety protocols in handling the
weapon. But is that enough to actually convict him of involuntary manslaughter? Well,
that remains to be seen, and that he maintains that he didn't pull
the trigger. But the prosecution and is saying, and analysts have said it
would be impossible for that gun to have gone off if someone didn't pull the
trigger. Well, that's certainly what the FBI analysts, the firearms analysts are
saying that that test fired the weapon. So, you know, is that
you know, disagreement, Obviously it is. But I guess the question,
aby is is that enough one way or the other? Because clearly in movies
people are pulling the trigger of the weapon. Now they're shooting blanks in most
of these movies because you've really got to use a blife to get the most
realistic you know, smoke, fire, ejection, all that stuff to make
it look like you're literally shooting like rounds. You clearly aren't, you know,
so does We'll have to see the whole thing on the trigger. I
know they're making the big deal out of I don't know how much weight that
would really carry with the jury since he believes Alec Baldon believes that despite the
fact he is the figure and maybe pulled the trigger, that nothing was supposed
to come out the end of the gun. Well, and then yeah,
I mean, that's the biggest question for me is why was there live ammunition
on that set? Because you've got an incompetent armor. I mean, I
can't say anything else but that, I mean the idea. I mean,
could they conceivably amy have live ammo on a set to go to a not
on the set, but go to a separate range to help train actors in
what it feels like to shoot actual live rounds. The answer quite well,
yes, However, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to be able
to separate the two. And how she intermixed or somebody intermixed live rounds with
blanks or dummy rounds. You know, it's just beyond me, and clearly
it doesn't happen from the standpoint I think about all of these shootings that you
mentioned. I mean's thousands of shootings that happen in movies every year that people
don't get hurt. So I know you people are following protocols. Despite the
fact there's no mandatory universal protocols, by a large these movie makers are following
safety protocols. Well, that's what I was going to say. Like,
I'm watching The Mayor of Kingstown right now, and there's a lot of shooting
in that show every single week, and I mean this is just so unheard
of. So overall, I would say that movie sets are pretty safe.
So what kinds of precautions do they take. They have the armor on set,
they only have the you know, they only have blanks on set.
But what other things do they do to make sure that everybody stays safe?
Well, first of all, they train the actor. They have professional fire
arms experts, which is actually is not uncommon. I mean it's my understanding.
Like in the movie Heat that Michael Mann hired former sas officers, they
actually trained Pacino de Naro and everybody else who had a gun. How do
you shoot it, how you hold it so you look professional, you know,
you know what you're doing. And then all the safety protocols you don't
put point the weapon in anybody despite the fact that you're shooting blanks, and
all of the safety protocols that you would have in place that you respect a
weapon. This like a law enforcement as supposed to respect their weapons that clearly
do have live rouds of them. Yeah, So do we know if Alec
Baldwin was actually trained like other actors have been in on other sides, I
don't know. And you two questions will come out. A did that occur?
And B did he follow what they trained him? Now, according to
the prosecutor, he clearly didn't follow some of the safety protocols if in fact
what she's saying is accurate. So some of that's going to come out and
testimony. I guarantee you, if she's going to put she be in the
prosecutor, he's going to put somebody on saying I did train him, I
didn't train him. I'm going to ask to train him whatever the correct answer
is. I do think that that's going to come out in this trial.
And the armorer is gonna who's already been convicted, she's going to testify.
Isn't that correct? Yeah? But my understanding is she may plead the fifth
because she's probably concerned about additional liability in some former fashion and maybe civil liability.
Who knows, But yes, she is. Apparently they moved her to
from whatever prison she's in to someplace close that if she is called, they
could bring her to the courthouse. We'll be we'll be watching. It's an
interesting case, and thankfully it doesn't you know, it's not a common case,
so ABC for sure. Yeah, Brad Garrett, always a pleasure to
talk to you. Thanks so much for your information and insight this morning.
Take care Amy. All right, let's get back to some of the stories
coming out of the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. A study from Northeastern University
has found President Biden's debate performance has had almost no impact on voters preferences,
despite reports claiming otherwise and calls from lawmakers for Biden to drop out of the
race. The study shows ninety four percent of Biden's supporters say they'll continue to
support him, which is one percent switching to Trump and three percent of Trump
supporters switched to Biden. Northeastern's David Laser says he hopes the report shows the
dangers of making a mountain out of a mole hill when it comes to the
media interpreting data. Biden says the pressure on him and to end his reelection
campaign is coming from Democratic Party elites. He says they're the same kind of
people who have doubted him throughout his time in public life. But Biden says
the voters will still have his back in the end. One of three men
charged with killing a tourist at Fashion Island in Newport Beach was on probation for
a similar armed robbery before Leroy McCrary and two others allegedly dragged a woman to
death under getaway car. Santa Monica Police Union president Cody Green says McCrary got
probation for holding a gun to someone else's head for their watch in twenty twenty
two. It's on video. We have DNA evidence, but La County DA
Gascon said the case lacked evidence. If the DA's office has a policy to
let people who commit armed robberies go, then own up to it. But
the idea that the Santa Monica detectives didn't have enough to move forward is absolute
fantasy. The charges for last week's robbery murder could carry the death penalty in
Orange County. Corbin Carson kf I news, the IRS is it's collected a
billion dollars in back taxes from wealthy tax cheats. The agency got more money
for staffing last fall from the Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act to collect from wealthy
people who hadn't paid what they owed. The IRS identified at about sixteen hundred
taxpayers with more than a million dollars in income and more than two hundred and
fifty thousand dollars in tax debt. And speaking of big money, a Mega
Million's lottery ticket sold in southern California isn't worth the jackpot, but it is
where two hundred eighty thousand dollars. The ticket sold at a gas station in
Redlands hit five of the six winning numbers from Tuesday nights, drawing No.
One hit the one hundred and eighty one million dollar jackpot. Dang, and
I had a ticket for that one too. When we come back, when
it comes to safety, ABC's Jim Ryan is going to tell us about the
best and the worst places to be driving around the US. You're listening to
Wake Up Call on demand from KFI AM six forty right now. I can't
wait to talk to ABC's Jim Ryan. Good morning, Jim. Why Hi.
So it's always a risk when you head out on the highway, but
it's more of a risk in some areas of the US than others. Yeah,
And folks on the West Coast, for example, tend to handle their
phones while they're driving a lot more than people in the rest of the country.
Really bad idea, yes, But people in the Midwest, though,
are less inclined to slam on the brakes, and people in the Pacific Northwest
drive at safer speeds than to the rest of the country. This all comes
from the latest report on the Safest and Riskiest places to drive, based on
data to from all State. All State, the insurance company, and this
year is a little different amy and a little more precise, potentially because the
numbers are not based on insurance claims that all State has processed related to accidents.
And you know it's based on data coming out of your phone and out
of your car. Wait a second, yeah, I know, I know.
There's a company. All State in twenty sixteen purchased a company which compiles
data based on what your smartphone is doing. Right, it's getting them jostled
around, or if you're looking at it, if you're speeding in your car,
if you're breaking fast, that that all can be picked up by your
devices. Okay, I got to interrupt you for just a second, because
we're talking about cars spying on us exactly. I had to rent a car
a couple of weeks ago because my car was in the shop because I got
rear ended at Disneyland. But that's a whole other story. Okay, So
I rent this car and on the dashboard it says how much. Basically,
it gives you a meter of how much attention you're paying, So it says
attention level is high or attention level not high. But most of the time
it was at high. But there was one time when and I didn't notice
it at first, but I looked down at my phone just for a second,
and then I glanced back up and it like the meter had gone all
the way down to low. I was like, it's watching me and where
my eyes are looking. Yes, your car knows what you're doing. I
don't like that. Well, yeah, I mean, and in a rental
car you probably have no choice. But in your own car, if you
don't want your car keeping tabs on you, if it's a newer car and
it's connected saying with your phone, you can turn those things off. You
have to opt out. It's not a matter of opting into those features.
You have to opt out. Otherwise. Companies like this one called Arity,
which is the subsidiary of All State, can monitor your data and can sell
it to other companies. And that's what they do with this, with all
this data, and so I mean there is an upside to this. If
you have the All State app, for example, and it includes all those
features that we're talking about here, and you can prove that you're a safe
driver by not exceeding the speed limit, by keeping your eyes off off the
screen, by not slamming on the rags, then you'll get a lower insurance
rate. That's the carrot in this carrot and stick equation. Yeah. I
think Progressive Insurance has something like that. They've advertised that. Yeah. Okay,
So anyway back to the study about where it's safest to drive, where's
the safest place first, or at least risky, that's the best way to
put it. Honolulu, Hawaii is the best place or the risk of the
most risk free. I suppose has the safest drivers in the whole country.
The other safe cities include Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, Portland, Oregon.
That is Portland. Yeah, that's because the traffic is gridlocked. Like you
said, it's gridlocked here, but there it's gridlocked because they only have two
lanes on the freeway. Oh right, so you can't get up to get
up to speed. But at the same time, if you're a gridlock,
you're probably playing with your phone or looking down and you know, looking at
emails and text messages, which you shouldn't do right right at the other end
of the of the scale, Albuquerque in Mexico is considered the least, say
for the riskiest place to drive. And why did they they have the kind
of the list of factors. Yes, yeah, they show you exactly what
this is about. Honolulu has the overall best rating, and they have the
people are least inclined to slam on the brakes. They're also driving at high
speeds the least in Honolulu, so they scored you know those two, those
two categories quite well. That makes sense because you're you're in Hawaii, you're
on island tournaments, like, yeah, I'm on just like chill out,
chill. I know that sounded like a Jamaican accent, but it meant it
was meant to be, like everybody's just more chill on Hawaii. I wasn't
gonna say anything about it. The people handling their phones to the least though
in San Jose. But if you look at the riskiest drivers by category,
the overall riskiest drivers are in Albuquerque. The people who slam on the breaks
the most are in Bakersfield. California. Okay, people driving at high speed
the most are in Port Saint Lucie, Florida, and the ones handling their
phones the most are in Providence, Rhode Island. Does La top the list
anywhere? It doesn't, which is good, right, look at how good
we are any of the list. But it does show up on some the
list. People are slamming on their brakes there in Los Angeles. You show
up at number ninety four, in the place where people are slamming on their
breaks the most. All right, okay, So Honolulu, if you want
to be face the least risk and stay away from Albuquerque in Mexico. Yeah,
okay, we'll do. Jim Ryan, thank you so much. All
right, all right, Tucson, right carefully. You're listening to Wake Up
Call on demand from KFI AM six forty. Okay, remember that song you
used to sing at camp Bear with me the other day? The other day,
I met a bear. I met a bear out in the woods,
out in the woods, A great big bear, A great big bear.
Yeah, well it came true for an ultrarunner at Yosemite. Pretty scary stuff.
But the guy's okay, Bill's going to tell you about that right now,
let's say good morning to the Assistant Professor of Geography in the Department of
Geography, Environment and Society at the University of Minnesota, Emily Fairfax. Hi,
Emily, Hi, good morning. So we wanted to talk to you
because beavers just may save us all. Yeah, I would say that.
Okay. So the answer to and when it comes to wildfires is what I'm
talking about. So the answer to the risk of wildfires in California may not
be more water storage or more firefighters, better defensible spaces around homes, but
it might be beaver's. Can you tell us why? Yeah, So it
is more water storage and more defensible spaces, but it doesn't necessarily have to
be us building them. It can be the beavers. So beavers are ecosystem
engineers, and when they go around and represent streams, their number one goal
is to build a great, big, wetland and to make sure it stays
wet and full of water, even during droughts, even during floods, and
even during wildfires. And so they're constantly out there maintaining these super soggy patches
and lines across the landscape. And what I've seen over and over in my
research is that when you have a big wildfire comes through, these beaver wetlands
are too wet to burn. Okay, And so now the problem now in
California at one of the problems in California is that they were hunted to almost
extinction in California. But they're trying to reintroduce them now, right, Yeah,
there used to be a lot of beavers in California. The Central Valley
was full of them, The Sacramento area was full of them. They were
from the mountains to the coasts, the north end of the South end,
and during the seventeen hundreds and early eighteen hundreds, we trapped them basically to
local extinction. There were very very few left in the state of California,
and it stayed that way for a long time. For about one hundred plus
years, just weren't very many beavers. And slowly they're coming back, but
it doesn't feel fast enough. So the state CDFW is helping to conserve beavers,
bring back beavers, and even reintroduce beavers to places that they used to
live a while ago but haven't been back to quite a long time. So
how do you do that? Do you pull a beaver from somewhere else and
then just put them in a new house. Or do you take beavers that
are like in zoos? I mean, how is that process done? Definitely
easier said than done, for sure. The beavers are pretty fussy when it
comes to relocating them. You have to get the whole family and move them
all at once, and a family could be up to eight, nine,
even ten beavers that live together. You do take them from the wild,
not from zoos. Usually they're sourced from a place where they're in conflict with
landowners. Maybe they're chewing on trees or flooding the field that we don't want
flooded. And so those beavers get trapped and alive, trapping and round it
up and checked for their health, and then as a family unit, you
bring them to a new place where more wanted and where they have a better
chance at survival. Where are there a lot of beavers. The highest beaver
populations in California right now are mostly up by Tahoe and Truckee and then through
Sacramento down towards the Bay. Sacramento River has a pretty decent population on it,
Okay, And you mentioned that they were hunted to near extinction they were
trapped, and for like one hundred years we haven't had a lot of wild
beavers in the in California. Why is it because? Was it because of
their fur? Or is it because like farmers and ranchers didn't like that they
liked to build dams. It was for a few reasons. Fur was definitely
the earlier trappings. When the seventeen hundreds or so, they were trapped mostly
for fur that could be traded back to Europe. After that, they were
also trapped for castrium, which is an oil that comes out of glands inside
the beaver that is used in perfumes. Then they've also been trapped pretty heavily
since then for nuisance reasons. So when we do have conflict with beaver and
to it was a decision to try to control westward expansion through beaver trapping to
stop there from being for more people to come out. So they were a
political tool, they were a resource, they were a lot of different things,
and we just really took it a bit too far, as we tend
to do. Okay, So now the effort is to get them back.
What kind of successes have we had. We've had a lot of successes.
One of the biggest successes that I think is out there that maybe doesn't get
the attention it deserves is just the public attitude towards beavers in California is shifting.
There's more people that understand what they do, what they don't do.
Some of the myths about beavers are slowly being dispelled, like beavers don't deep
fish, Beavers are not massive disease vectors. They do a lot of really
good things. Other big successes were the state reintroduced beavers up in the Mountain
Meido Consortium lands back last fall, and then they just reintroduced beavers to the
Tuley River Tribe the spring. And so these are really big movements to not
just bring beavers back, but to bring them back to the indigenous people that
have lived alongside them successfully for thousands of years and who do know how to
manage the species correctly. Okay, and the places that you mentioned where are
those? One of them is up in northern California, it's within the Dixie
fires car and the other one is in south central California by the giant sequoias.
Oh, we got to keep the lands near the giants. Sequoia is
nice and wet i think that's important. Yeah, we don't want those to
burn. Okay, And Emily, you say that even after a wildfire,
which we've had, our share are more than our share, the ecosystem could
benefit from beaver's How is that. Yeah, So when the beavers prevent these
wetlands from burning during wildfire, after wildfire, the areas around them that did
burn, they do need to recover, and that requires there to be mature
plants and mature animals to help repopulate the rest of the landscape. So these
beaver wetlands, they're like a great big storage bank of adult trees that can
flower and that can feed, and grasses and reeds and native plants and fish
and frogs and turtles and all the things that normally can't really outrun a wildfire.
They're there and they're alive, and they're able to reproduce after fire as
long as they were able to sort of hunker down for that brief moment in
the beaver wetland. And we've seen this multiple times, lots of expansion of
greenness and recovery that really does center at these beaver ponds. So the beavers
are saving everybody. I love it. They're doing their best. I mean,
they just want to protect themselves and it's sort of a secondary thing for
them, but they do a good job at it. Like there's definitely a
keystone species and support a whole host of other organisms besides themselves. I think
it's so interesting because you don't think of like, you know that beavers make
dams and that kind of stuff, but like to hear that they are,
you know that they're so key to the whole ecosystem, the whole circle of
life thing. You know, each species plays a key part, and if
we would just get out of the way, maybe nature would act a little
better. Yeah, I mean, I get it. They are like sixty
five seventy pound rodents. People have issues with normal sized raps. I can
imagine a beaver being difficult for some folks to want to like. But the
more you learn about them, the more they grow on you. Okay,
Emily Fairfax, thank you so much for the information. I love that the
beavers are saving the day, and I hope that we get more of them
in California. All right, thank you, thank you, thank you so
much. Isn't that cool? And you know, I went to Oregon State,
so I'm a big beaver believer anyway. But I love this and I
love watching how each Like I said, each species plays a key role in
the whole circle of life. You've been listening to Wake Up Call with me,
Amy King. You can always hear Wake Up Call five to six am
Monday through Friday on KFI AM six forty and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.