National Park After Dark - Amazing Animals - Rescue Stories from Parks Around the World

Episode Date: September 13, 2021

In this episode we will explore a series of short amazing stories from around the globe. We are exploring almost unbelievable incidents of animals who rescue people, other species than their own, and even the environment.  Join us as we head to Serengeti National Park for the Great Migration and an unlikely hero who resides there. Keep your toddler close as we head to the national forests of Montana where a grizzly bear is accused of abducting a child. Pack a life vest as we head into the most dangerous waters in the world, located in a New Zealand National Park, where being consumed by a shark is a real threat. Meet Lady, the only survivor of her kind after poachers demolished her pride. Join us for these stories, and so much more. These stories will make you really begin to think - Do animals have emotions and feelings? Can they sympathize with others? Are animals people too?If you or a loved one is struggling with thoughts of suicide call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!Apostrophe: Save $15 off your first visit with a board-certified dermatologist at apostrophe.com/NPAD Magic Spoon: Save $5 off your variety pack of healthy and delicious cereal when you visit magicspoon.com/NPAD and use our discount code NPADFor a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Monday AI agents took over my work. And I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind now. They live inside Monday.com. So they see the full picture, my work, my team, the whole company. And I don't have to worry about the data. It's safe, which means I'm free to focus on the big stuff,

knowing everything runs smoothly in the background. It's completely shifted the way we work. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday.com. Animal behavior is something that has been researched for decades. It is a highly debated topic of whether an animal behaves off of pure, natural survival instinct, or if they can act on emotions. Do animals have the capability to feel empathy? Do they have feelings like you and I do?

Do they get lonely? For some, the answer is obvious, but for others, they need proof. If you are in a dire life or death situation, would you trust, a wild animal to save your life. What if you didn't, you would die? This scenario seems incredibly impossible, but I assure you, it's not. Welcome to National Park After Dark. Hey everybody, we are back from our vacation. This is Cassie. And this is Danielle. So if you noticed on our Instagram stories, National Park After Dark, you can find us on Instagram. We posted a ton of stories over the past week because Danielle and I reunited in National Parks in South Dakota this

past week. Yeah. Who would have thought? We kept saying South Dakota, you're bringing it. You were hiding from us this whole time. We're sorry. We missed you for this long. We had an awesome trip. And we actually started out. Our schedules were a little bit different. So I flew in early and I actually did my own little solo mini trip up to Theater Roosevelt National Park. I stayed in Madora. I went horseback riding. I saw the musical that they have up there. The park is beautiful. I saw tons of wildlife. Then I headed over to Devil's Tower in Wyoming. And I hung out there for a little bit before I picked Danielle up. And we reunited and we just spent days very busy, camping, hiking, seeing everything. I guess we tried to get in. We had a vision of

what we wanted to accomplish on the trip without kind of a strict itinerary. And somehow, some way, things just really fell into place and everything worked out from getting nice dispersed camping spots to booking last minute glamping tents to getting reservations for tours. Like it just kind of all fell into place and it was a really, really nice trip. We did a Jewel Cave, Wind Cave. The Caves. I'm not a caver. I'm not a caver. But I did it. But I did it.

You did it. If you're claustic, good luck. And then Badlands, of course, everyone who has ever said you have to go to the Badlands, we totally understand now. Historically speaking, we have vastly underrated that park and we are so happy that we went. Yeah. It's one of my top favorites now that I've gone for sure. And then I would say, let's do personal highlights because I don't know if they're going to be different or not. Okay.

So top two things. We have to only pick two. I would say for me, Crazy Horse and the mammoth dig site were my favorites. Okay. That doesn't surprise me because you like the, you're very big in the history and the fossils and all that stuff. I would say my highlights would be the notch trail in Badlands.

All over Instagram, you see these pictures of this ladder that you go up, and that's like the highlight that you see on there. Oh my God, this hike is beautiful. It is so much more than that little ladder. That ladder was like nothing to me after I saw the rest of the hike. It was beautiful. I loved that part.

I would have to say my other favorite was our dispersed camping spot and waking up in the middle of the night to the wind. Like blowing our tent over. It was just so funny. I just, that was like a highlight for me. I'm still tired from that night. Like I'm hungover tired. That's how tired I am from it. It was so windy, our whole tent.

Don't even say it was just the wind because, yes, it was wildly windy. And we went to bed lulled to sleep by the sounds of coyotes on, you know, in the distance. Oh, yip, yep, yep, yay. Okay, we're going to go to sleep. Wake up to like, and it's because we forgot the tent stakes. Yeah, we had no tents. So we've been pinning down all these different parts of the tent with rocks, which worked fabulous for most of the night. For no wind.

It was great. But yeah, that was, I totally, yeah, unexpected highlight. But thank you for reminding me. That was great. Anyway, that was our little national park trip. We were really excited to go out there if you haven't been to South Dakota. or North Dakota, highly recommend it. We had a lot of fun.

We're going to post our itinerary, our full itinerary of everything that we did on Patreon. And it will be a public post. So you just have to go on to our link on our website, NPADPodcast.com. You can go to our Patreon link there or our Instagram National Park After Dark. If you go to our link on there and click our Patreon tab, you will be able to see that whole itinerary. It'll just be posted on there. And then if you want to join and listen to all of our new episodes, you can

click it from there as well. Yeah, well, go into things we like, didn't like, highlights, et cetera, go a little bit more in depth than talking your ear off about it here. But it was requested by quite a few people, so we would love to do that for you. But for today, Cassie has a really special episode planned, I hear. Yeah, I'm really excited for this episode because it's still a little morbid, so we're kind of staying on that theme, but it's mostly not. It's mostly uplifting, and fun, and I had a lot of fun researching it, so I'm really excited to tell you about it. You're just coming off a high, a happy high from the trip. I'm feeling great. I just want to be happy and not morbid for a few minutes.

Okay. Let's go. All right, lay it on me. How I should start this off by saying is, this story is a complete accident. I have had no intentions to tell this story. I had no idea these stories existed. I actually was on Amazon just browsing through different books, and I came across this one in a suggested book that I might like. I just bought it. So the book is called When Animals Rescue Amazing True Stories about heroic and Helpful Creatures by Belinda Rousseo. It's exactly what it sounds like. It's a book about animals who rescue. And I will say this episode's going to be a little bit different than our past ones because usually we pick a topic or a park and we go into a big story there or

a couple little stories there. This episode is going to be stories from around the world in different national parks. And this book itself is not focused on national parks, but there are stories in it that had locations of national parks. And this book is kind of written as like a coffee table book where there's big photos. It's a quick easy read. So as I got the ideas from this book, I didn't necessarily get all of the research from it.

Like I said, this is going to be a series of short stories all over the world, and we're going to start out in Serengeti National Park. I want to still tell you guys about all these parks that we're going to. So this park was established in 1952, and it is located in northern Tanzania. It covers about 5,700 square miles of grassland plains, savannah, riparian forests, and woodlands. And this park is larger than Connecticut. just to put a little perspective into that 5,700 square miles. This park is home to the best known wildlife sanctuary in the entire world, and it brings tourists from all over the globe to come see the safaris there,

to go on safari there to see the animals. So they have Africa's iconic Big Five. They have over 3,000 lions, rhino, leopards, elephants, and Cape Buffalo. The park has over 1,000. A million wildebeest. A million? Yes. Over one million wildebeests.

And it gets crazier. I'll tell you more. This park is wild. There's thousands of zebras, giraffes, hippos, elephants. There's 10 different species of antelopes, over 500 species of birds, and two species of primates. I love talking about this park because Africa's so high on my you need to go there before you die list. Inside this park, the Marrow River flows through it, and this is where the Great Migration takes place. My mind just went straight into David Attenborough voice, because I've heard of the Great Migration through his documentaries.

Yes. Are you going to talk in his voice at all during this? I don't know if I can do him justice. I mean, I can try a little bit. I don't know if we should, I don't know if we should do that to the poor people listening, but. Just don't leave me a review, please. If I got a bad review on my David Addera voice, I'll burn this podcast. I'll burn this to the ground. Okay, sorry, keep going. The Great Migration.

I didn't even do it. Oh, my God. Who was that? Oh, my God. David, is that you? Okay. The Great Migration. Nope.

Why are we so breathy? We're like, huh, the great... We're trying to have deep voices in our British accents. I think they're throwing a stop. It's like to my sister's British, and she imitates an American accent, and she is spot-on, beautiful, and I try to imitate hers, and it just awful. Go on. The Great Migration.

The Great Migration is the largest migration of animals on the entire planet. So each year in this region, animals have to move through Tanzania and Kenya because an extreme drought takes over the area and there's no food, there's no water, there's no resources for these animals. So they have to do this every year. They need to make a huge and dangerous river crossing over the Mara River, where over 2 million gazelle, wildebeest, and zebras will make this journey to find lands that aren't famined with this drought. Like I said, the This is the largest animal migration on the planet, and these animals will move more than 500 miles during the migratory cycle. This generally occurs during the dry season between July and early October, but this isn't an easy journey for these animals. The river current can be very strong. There's crocodiles in there waiting to make their move on these animals, and over 250,000 animals will die each year. The natural world is so amazing. Imagine witnessing even part of that migration. I'm assuming that's when most visitors go, right, during those months? Yeah, it's a huge tourist attraction. You can go to this park and you can watch this migration happen. And you can, if you look it up online, you can see these videos. And it's really wild to see. And what's really wild about this too is that this has been a tradition of these animals for the past million years.

years. It's incredible. Like, first, the scale. Like, it's hard to wrap your mind around numbers that vast and herds of animals like that because here in the United States, I mean, anywhere else in the world, it's not like that, you know? Yeah. So to imagine thousands and thousands of animals that are just doing something that is just so deeply embedded in their DNA is incredible to witness, I'm sure. It just reiterates why Africa is so high on my list, and it is almost solely because of the wildlife there. Oh, of course. You can't see wildlife like that anywhere else. No. And people from around the world agree, and people from around the world come to watch this voyage. But in October 2010, visitors that came to see this migration saw something very unusual and even

heroic. Hippopotamuses live within this river system and have a reputation of being extremely dangerous. In fact, they are the most dangerous animal in all of Africa, killing over 500 people every year. They are also extremely protective and aggressive when they're protecting their own calves and have been known to take on crocodiles. But their maternal love doesn't end with their own. They also have empathy and protection for other species. In October 2010, as visitors watch countless animals enter this powerful river to cross, they saw a young wilded beast get carried away by the strong currents and away from its mother. This is something that occurs really often and is a risk that has to be take, because this is a survival thing. They have to do

this. But this particular time that this happened was different. A female hippo saw this all happen, immediately jumped into the river to save it. She positioned herself downstream of the calf, and she used her nose to nudge it and keep it above the water until it brought it all the way to the other side of the riverbank and propped it up onto land. And then just swam away? Like, Mike dropped, here you go. I've blessed you with life.

No. And went on her way? No. So just a few moments after that. a young zebra fell into the water and was struggling and started to drown. The same hippo jumped into action yet again, and with the same motions as before, she used her snout to keep this baby zebra above water and push it back to safety and back to its mom. That's amazing.

She's like a little guardian. I say little. She's not. Giant. Tons of, yeah, hippo. Wow. Do you know, side note, if hippos are they omnivores or I know they eat a lot of vegetation, but I'm not sure if they rely on anything else. I don't know if they ate meat or whatever. So when I looked it up, it looks like they are mostly grass eaters, but they are known to eat meat as well. Okay. I didn't know if like...

Because they are very aggressive. I mean, you hear stories of hippos. And they are known for being really aggressive, which was part of why I really liked this story, because I think hippos get a bad rep. Yeah, because they're frightening and kill a lot of people. They're terrifying. I'm not saying they kill 500 people a year, but I, and I don't suggest like going up to try and touch one or anything like that. But I just think that it's really sweet that they do have this maternal instinct to go in and save a baby. Even though it's not hers and it's not even her species, she just jumps right in and moves into action. She could easily just sat there.

Yeah, not my problem. Not my baby. Or not even paid any attention, like, oh. Okay. I just wanted to highlight the hippo story because I feel like every time we hear about them, they're aggressive. And in this story, she was not. But for my next little short story, I'm going to take us to a different corner of the planet. And we are going to come back to the United States.

We are going to go to Kootenai National Forest, which is located in the northwestern corner of Montana. And it stretches into the northeastern corner of Idaho, and it also borders Canada. It encompasses 2.2 million acres of forest, and there are two major rivers here. Both of these rivers are mainly fed by the extreme amount of rain that happens in this area. So although this is not part of the Pacific Northwest, it is said to have a very, similar climate because of the amount of rain that they get yearly. There are some larger animals that live here. They are elk, mountain goats, big horn sheep, moose, black bear, and grizzlies, mountain lions, and mule deer. There's also smaller animals such as bobcats, lynx, beavers,

and a lot of other small animals. And this forest is common for camping, hiking, swimming, and winter skiing. So we're going to take it back a few years. We're going to go to 195, the weekend of July 4th, the Curtis family vacationed in this forest and camped with their two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Ida. Where the family was camping, they noticed that there were a few bears in the area, and they were pretty nervous. While they were camping, Ida wandered away from their campsite when her parents weren't watching, and when her mom came back, she noticed she was gone and she feared the worst, that a bear had taken her daughter. She called for help immediately and reported that a bear had taken her. Immediately 250 armed rescuers accompanied by bloodhounds began

combing the forest. Do you know if they were grizzlies or black bear they were concerned about? Not to say that makes a difference, I just want to visualize it. I believe she said grizzly bears that she saw. Okay. Later that evening, a horrible storm came in and brought cold temperatures and a ton of rain. It was cold enough where they feared that there might even be. be snow that fell. And their search efforts became limited because the weather was so bad. In the dense forest and as the night came, the search had to be called off between the weather and no visibility. It wasn't safe for people to be out there. The next day they continued their search for hours. It wasn't until 22 hours later after she disappeared that they found her and she was only

300 yards from where she was last seen in a small hole in the ground. She was awake and lying on her side when she was found and minus a few scratches, she was completely untarmed. With the pouring rain and temperature drop, she should have had hypothermia. She was not wearing any warm clothes. When she asked what happened to her, she said that a bear stayed with her all night and kept her warm. Oh my gosh. And she's two and a half.

She's two and a half. So I imagine she didn't say, I was with a bear all night and it kept me warm. I'm sure it was like jumbled work. But she did state and they asked her multiple times what happened out there and she kept saying a bear, a bear. That is insane. And I know that kids make up shit all the time, but that is not like. Not a two and a half year old. And in that circumstance, like she's not just making up a wild, I have an imaginary friend named Bert and whatever.

You know, it's like there's actual evidence pointing to that she's telling the truth. And that was the fact that she was uninjured and also that she wasn't cold. She wasn't hypothermic in these horrid conditions. She was okay. They certainly couldn't prove that there was a bear. They had no proof of that. But they also had no proof that she was lying either. Let's go with her.

Well, there's also other stories that are really similar to hers. There are two other similar stories, actually. In 1880, a toddler named Katie Flynn. had disappeared in Mansty National Forest. Rescue efforts happened for two days before they found her. And when they did, she said that Habber had been guarding her. Oh, okay. In the 1800s?

In the 1800s. Our back. Okay. But very recently, back in 2019, three-year-old Casey Hathaway was at his grandmother's house in North Carolina when he wandered off into the woods from her backyard. When he didn't come in with the other kids that he was playing with, his grandmother became really nervous, and his grandmother and his family members went outside looking for him. After 45 minutes when they weren't able to find him, they called 911.

Rescuers, helicopters, drones, and dogs searched the area, but they couldn't find him. Over the next few days, this area was hit with torrential downpours and freezing temperatures, and the family became extremely worried. And according to Time Magazine, on the third day, Lisa Franker was home taking her dogs for a walk when she heard the sound of a cry in the nearby woods. She had been aiding in the search and effort the past few days and she thought it might be him. So she ran up the street and she found an emergency responder and asked them to come listen to the cries. And sure enough, the responder heard it too. Quickly, everyone was running up towards this noise that was happening and they found, Casey. He was tangled in Thornt Brush and he was very cold. They transported him to a nearby

hospital where they found a few cuts and bruises, but otherwise he was okay. While Casey was in the hospital, he made a comment and said that he had a friend in the woods with him. And when they asked who this friend was, he said it was a bear. So again, another one, when you first said that, I know this whole episode's about animals and good things. But when you're like, yeah, I had a friend in the woods. My mind just went to like someone abducted him and was keeping him there. Like, I don't know. It's really sad.

Well, that's what we always talk about. I know. Yeah, true. So, again, there was no proof that he was actually with a bear, but no one could prove that there wasn't either. And this was also an instance where they couldn't explain why he wasn't more cold, why he wasn't more injured if he was completely alone for days. Right. And they're all, all of these circumstances, all of the children are so young. Yeah. I wonder that has anything to do with anything. I'm sure, I mean, I have done zero research into this, but I'm sure there's other cases of human and

animal positive interactions like this with people of varying ages, but it seems like all of These at least are very young kids. Well, I think kids are a threat to animals. You know, if you have a toddler versus a full-grown adult. But then again, like if we're talking about big predators, I would think that kids are more enticing and easy meal. Yes, but that also brings on the empathy part. If they see this toddler in torrential downpours

or vulnerable and alone and no one's around and crying, maybe it brings out this empathy in them as well. That's what this is all about. It's not about them killing and eating people. I got to rewire my brain. How to think. I already told you this is happy stuff. Okay, all right.

Except for this next story. Okay, here we go. And we're back. Winter is so last season. And now Springs got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders. That perfect hang on the patio sundress.

Those sandals you can wear all day and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch. Done hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear up on that envelope? It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session.

And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L, every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. Before I start this story, I just want to say for listeners that we are going to be talking about suicide in this. So I just want, I know that this can be a triggering topic for people.

So I just want to say if you don't want to listen to this part of the story, fast forward about five minutes and you can just skip past that. I will say we are on a happy note this episode. So it's not all bad, but just in case you don't want to listen to it. And we're going to California for this one. We're going to San Francisco. The Golden Gate National Recreation Area is located in the San Francisco Bay Area. It protects 82,000 and 27 acres of land. It's managed by the park service,

and it is the most visited national park system in the U.S., with more than 15 million people every single year coming to see it. It has beautiful views of the Golden Gate Bridge, one of the most famous and most beautiful bridges in the entire world. The bridge sits about 100 feet above the bay and is 1.7 miles long. You can walk, bike, or drive on the bridge. This beautiful bridge also has a much darker side. The Golden Gate Bridge has the second highest number of suicides in the entire world. Only around 2% of people who jump from this bridge survive. Most people die from the trauma of hitting the water, while others may drown or die of hypothermia. In the year 2000, Kevin Hines, who was a teenager at the time, was struggling with depression and bipolar disorder

and he made the decision that he wanted to end his life on the Golden Gate Bridge. He went up there and he jumped, but he survived. When he hit the water and sunk down, he saw something circling him. He thought it was a shark and he waited for the worst. He waited to be attacked. But instead, the creature kept circling him. And then actually came up to him and pushed him up to the surface of the water. And this creature continued to do it every time he sank back down under the waves.

Kevin had severely injured his back and he couldn't swim. This animal, which he believed was a shark, stayed with him this whole time. With a broken back and I'm sure other things. Yeah. So it took months for him to recover from the injuries sustained in the fall. But when he did recover, Kevin went on to a show about, suicide awareness and talked about the shark he interacted within the water. Later, a man who had seen the show and heard his story wrote into him. And according to the book that I mentioned earlier

when animals rescue amazing true stories about heroic and helpful creatures by Belinda Rissio, the man wrote, It haunted me until this day. It was no shark. It was a sea lion. And the people above looking down believed it to be keeping you afloat. So he, I just got goosebumps. So this man witnessed this whole thing happening. Mm-hmm. And he saw the sea lion? He saw the sea lion pushing him back to the surface over and over. Oh, wow.

Imagine seeing something starts so horrifically. And then it takes this wild turn that now there's a sea lion attempting to save this person. You go from one extreme of, oh my God, I can't believe that just happened. I can't imagine the thoughts that are going through your mind witnessing something so traumatic and so awful. And then immediately after, you're seeing another thing that's unbelievable to be watching. And there's an animal that's rescuing him right now. There's no one else who can get in these waters. Like, there's an animal rescuing him right now.

What's going on? And can you put yourself in Kevin's position thinking it's a shark the whole time, which is just so terrifying. Like just waiting for the worst. Like you said, waiting for the worst to happen. Like at any point, any time now, this is going to go south really bad. Yeah. So he didn't know this for years. He thought it was a shark the whole time.

Months. Oh, months. Okay. Months. Yeah. So he thought this for a few months. And Kevin is actually a mental health advocate now and give suicide prevention talks around the globe. He's actually a very well-known person in the mental health.

Circle. Before I even read this story in this book, I've actually seen interviews with him. And when I was reading it, I was like, I think I've heard of him before. And I looked him up and sure enough, I recognized him. He's done interviews about his jump from the San Francisco Bay. And he's pretty popular in that retrospect of how much advocacy he does now for suicide prevention and how he talks about how his life was saved and he has this whole different view now that he survived that, especially one thing that he really highlights is that only 2% of people survived and he did. So there was a reason for that and now he is using his life to try and prevent other people. What a beautiful turnaround.

And we can thank a sea lion for part of it. Wow. Like I said, I'm doing a bunch. I'm doing a series of short stories. So we're going to head off across the globe again. And this time we're going to go to New Zealand. Never been here before. Mm-mm.

It's on my list. Your list is, I think it's safe to say everywhere's on your list. Just stop saying it's on my list. We all know it's on your list. Okay. Not everywhere. I don't want to go to like war-ridden countries right now when it's cleared. I do.

But. So it's still on your list. That's my point. Yeah. I just want to see everywhere. No shame in that. I'm just saying it's so funny. You're like, it's on my list.

It's on my list. It's on my list. It's on my list. It's on my list. I want to go. Well, anyway, we're heading to New Zealand today. And we are going to a national park there. We are going to go to Abel Tasman National Park, which is a wildlife preserve and northwestern South Island, New Zealand.

It was established as a national park in 1942 and covers about 50. 55,699 acres. It's known for its beautiful shorelines and bright torquoise ocean waters. Off of the shores of this national park is Cook Strait, a body of water separating the north and the South Islands of New Zealand. The Cook Strait often has rough waters and will have huge swells from the strong winds. It is known as one of the most dangerous and unpredictable waters on the planet. In 2014, long-distance swimmer, Adam Walker, was doing a 16-mile swim on the street. He looked down into the crystal clear waters and he noticed a great white shark stalking him. He then watched as a pod of 10 dolphins surrounded him and swim alongside him. They continued to

swim alongside him until the shark finally left. Adam Walker wrote in a Facebook post, I'd like to think they were protecting me and guiding me home. At the same time this incident happened, Adam happened to be doing a swim to raise money for a whale and dolphin conservation charity. That is so, so that's the swim he was on. That's the swim that he was on when this happened. Sometimes the world is just so good, you know? And this reminds me, I have no idea if this is founded in fact,

or if it's something that I've just morphed in my brain over the years. Oh, good. But I remember my dad telling me a story of something similar. Like there was a swimmer in the ocean. There was a shark involved. And a single dolphin that was kind of protecting him. But to the point that it was like ramming the shark with its nose snap. What do you?

I don't know the technical term for that. Like a bottle nose dolphin. It was ramming into the gills of the shark, like its most sensitive area. And that's how it was deterring it away from this person. Very cool. If it's real. If it's real. So cool.

If not, thanks, Dad. Now I'm spreading lies to thousands of people. But I really, for some reason, it just sticks with me. I don't know. One of the stories in this book, too, kind of similar to that is there was this, it wasn't in a national park, so I wasn't, I wasn't going to dive deep into this, but there was this woman and she was swimming. And as she was swimming, there was a whale that came up around her. And this wasn't unusual, I guess. She was used to swimming with whales and they usually just

swam right past her. This whale was pushing her and nudging her. And she was going under his fin and he was putting her underwater and pushing her up and kind of like messing with her a lot. And she got really scared. She thought she was going to drown or she was going to get really hurt if he kept hitting her. She would get internal injuries or break a bone or something. And she was getting really, really scared. And finally, a boat came. I didn't read it too much. I don't know if it was a boat that she was with or if it was a rescue boat or whatever was going on. But she gets into this boat and she looks out and there's actually three whales. And the whales behind her, there was a huge shark that was stalking her and these whales were hitting it with their tail to try and back it away from her

that whole time. That's incredible. And I wonder if she's swimming this area religiously, if these whales recognize her and are protective of her for that reason or if it's just an instinctual thing. Yeah. But that's really cool. I think whales are really interesting creatures and I think that there's something really magical about them. One of my friends actually had a really magical experience with a whale once. She's in the Navy and she was out on deployment and she was out in the waters. Far from land, hadn't seen land in a really long time and she would often see whales. And one time she was just out. She was completely by herself and she was near the edge of the boat. And she was having a really hard time, I guess. And she was just looking out and a whale started

swimming next to her. This whale locked eyes with her and was just looking at her and she said this whale stared into her soul. She'd never felt anything like that before in her life. And she's not a huge animal lover. She's not super into research about it or anything like that. So this was just a huge experience for her. Like a very profound moment. Yeah. It's something that not a lot of people get to experience. And in moments like that, we realize just how special animals are. They feel, they think, they have complex emotions. They have complex social behaviors and structures. They are not people, but I think it would be totally unfair to categorize them below us. They're just different. They act in different ways. And I think the stories in this book and in this

podcast that I've told kind of highlight that a little bit. I'm talking about this book, I highlighted a couple stories from this book. There's probably 100 stories inside this book, so so many more instances, I do want to get into another story that is just going to bring this entire conversation forward. Perfect. For this one, we are heading back to Africa because it's on my list. We get it. We get it. And we are going to go to Lua Plain National Park. It is located in Africa in Zambia's western province. Lua means plain, in Lousie language, which is native to this area. It was established as the National Park in 1972 and is made up of 1,301 square miles of grassland. It is home to the second largest

wildebeest migration in Africa. As we learned from the beginning, the first is the Serengeti, What makes this place a lot different is until recently there was almost no tourism in this national park at all, and there still isn't much. When I looked at africa parks.org, which is one of the organizations that manages this park, it stated, While the parks tourism appeal is strong, more infrastructure is needed to ensure that local communities benefit directly from this industry. In addition, providing sustainable solutions to communities living in volatile climate conditions with diminishing resources is a high priority of ours. So it is not established as this huge tourist destination because they're trying to do this in a sustainable way that will be beneficial to their own communities. Lua Plain National Park is home to many different types of animals. There are an abundance of zebras and wildebeest.

it is home to hippos, buffalo, leopards, cheetahs, and hyenas. The park also has lions, but it wasn't always like that. In fact, until recently, there was only one lion, Lady Lua. And this is her story. In the 1990s, poaching and trophy hunting inside Lua Plain National Park was destroying their ecosystem. They completely wiped out Eland Antelope. inside of the park and every single lion was killed, with the exception of one lioness. For years, she wandered the plains, surviving completely on her own.

Rumors started to fill the local villages of the lone lion. In 2008, National Geographic Explorer and videographer Herbert Brower headed into the park to search for this mysterious lion. on the very first day he found her. To his surprise, she was completely healthy. She was muscular, well fed, and besides only two scars that she had on her, she was in perfect condition. She had no signs of difficulty surviving. And this was a shock because lions hunt and live and survive in groups, which are known as prides. And typically when a lion hunts, They either stalk and surround their prey before moving in, or they team up and go in for one big kill.

But she was alone, which brought this big question. How was she surviving? The National Geographic team decided that they needed to find out, and they began studying her. They watched her hunt. She was patient, calculating, and silent. They watched her stalk a baby wildebeest, and when he strayed to, far from its mother, she leaped out, chased it with incredible speed, and killed it almost instantly. She was really smart. Big game options were just too risky to go after alone. She couldn't

get injured out here. She was alone. So she waited for the easier options. And after all, she was only eating for herself. So a kill like this could hold her over for a few days. She faced a huge other struggle though. There were other predators that were nearby and lurking. Hyenas. After her kill, the screeching sounds of the hyenas surrounded her and almost as quickly as she had killed her meal, they stole it from her. Now when this was happening and they were observing it, it was the wet season.

So before we noted that the dry season comes and they have to migrate for resources, it is the wet season and the risk of injury and fight just isn't worth it for her. So she gave up her meal without a fight and she went to bed hungry. The observer watched a bunch of other instances like this and he watched her again. Another time she found a pregnant wildebeest that was struggling and having a really hard time giving birth and she came up, went in for the kill, killed the wildebeest and the hyenas came again. But this time she fought for it because it was a huge kill for her. Part of this was actually seemed like it was merciful because this wildebeest was in so much pain and struggling to give birth. It maybe probably wouldn't have survived anyway. So it was

almost like she found this wildebeest and put it out of its fissory. Well, and it's a two for the price of one kill. You have the baby and the adult. That's, the best she can ask for. Yeah, so they watched her strategize for these kind of kills. She found the perfect opportunities, and she picked and chose what she went after. These National Geographic explorers were observing her, and they would watch her cry out for a male to come. But those calls were never going to be answered. The closest line to her was over 65 miles away.

After a long time of following her and seeing what she was doing, something amazing happened. She started to seem like she was waiting for them to arrive and that she actually enjoyed their company. One day when they pulled up in their vehicles, she sat not too far away from them. And after observing them, she lay on her back, exposed her belly up to them and rolled over. she did this to say, I trust you. She's just so lonely. I watched, so there's this National Geographic documentary called The Last Lioness. And this is where I watched all of this.

This is all something you can watch and more than what I'm going to say. I 100% suggest watching this documentary. It is so interesting. And all of this is on video. You can see her. You can see these interactions. It's all on video. So cool to watch. So if you're interested in it, it's called The Last Lioness. Just Google it.

Tons of videos will pop up and you'll be able to find it. So from this point on, from her exposing her belly and saying, you know, I trust you, she started coming to visit more often. She would sleep in the trees around their camping area at night and she would actually follow Herbert around. They bonded and they had this mutual trust in each other. And in the documentary that I was just talking about from, National Geographic, The Last Lioness, Herbert says that he wasn't afraid of her. He knew that she never meant any harm. And he also said in this documentary that he never fed her, not once, and he never touched her. And in fact, he would not allow her within 10 feet of him. Although she tried, she tried to get closer. But she had no dependence on him. She had no form of dependence for food, for anything. While that was good, this also made him realize just how lonely she was.

There was no reason for her to be there other than she needed companionship. Well, lions are such social animals. So to be alone like that, it's got to be a form of torture. I mean, their whole lives are surrounded and centered by other lions. Mm-hmm. So to just be solo for so long and it's got to be a different type of obstacle. Yeah, she's feeding herself and she's getting along. Fine. Otherwise, but clearly something's missing. Yeah. And she's been alone for pushing nine years at this point. That's so long. That's crazy. And she's been surviving and she wasn't only surviving, but she was thriving. And one of the things they really highlighted in this documentary was how amazing that after humans had killed her entire family, that she could have trust in a person again. So when his crew realized just how lonely she was, they decided that they needed to bring Lady Lua a mate. Not only because she was lonely, but because lions played a huge role in the ecosystem in the area. They needed lions to maintain

the population of animals, which would in turn help the healthiness of the plant life there. So it's all a circle, and they were missing a huge part of it with her being a lone lion there. And of course, with her being the only lion there, eventually there's going to be no lions there. Well, that's the other part. She's already been on her own nine years. She's a wild lion. She's not going to live, the average lifespan for a wild lion is not much longer than that. They decided to travel with a wildlife veterinarian for over three days to find a suitable lion, whom they would sedate and then make the trek back to introduce it to Lady Lua. Their first mission to do this was unsuccessful, but on their second mission,

they captured two brothers and brought them back. They released them into an enclosure inside the park to acclimate them to their new environment because they didn't want them to try and run home and head home, and they were also very concerned that because they weren't familiar with Lady, that they were trying to hurt her. Lady Lua heard their roars inside the enclosure and came to investigate. And as expected and on the defense, the two brothers charged at her through the fence.

This didn't deter her, though. She was really curious, and she began sleeping outside their enclosure, instead of with Herbert that she was doing in the trees every single night. They ended up becoming curious of each other, and soon they all seemed to accept each other. One morning, when the crew headed to the enclosure, they found a horrifying sight. The two brothers were gone. When they investigated further, they found that they had escaped through a hole that they had made in the fence.

And this was horrible news. They could be heading back home, and their reintroduction of the lion's to this national park would have completely failed. Or worse, they could have harmed Lady. They immediately go out on their search. Only a few hundred feet away, they found them, napping under some trees alongside Lady. Best possible outcome.

Their introduction worked. They were acclimated to each other, and they had all accepted each other. Did they go on to have a family? Although Lady Lua was never able to have cubs, They introduced another lioness into their pride who gave birth to Cubs in 2014, and Lady Lua became a huge part of racing them. That's so special. What a success all around.

For her, for the park, for the ecological benefits that's going to come from that. Like, that is just a wild success. That's awesome. In 2017, Lady Lua passed away. she was estimated to be 17 years old, which is very old for a lion, as they are estimated to live between 10 and 15 years. And when they found her, she had died of natural causes. She lived a long, she died an old lady in her bed, as they say. This was especially important to note that it was of natural causes because in Angola,

which is a city that kind of borders this national park, there's a civil, war going on and poaching is going on. And if they were to leave this protected area at all, go outside of these boundaries, they were at a huge risk of being poached. So the fact that she lived for 17 years with this very nearby threat was nothing short of amazing the fact that she survived for nine years by herself. Yeah, that's incredible. What a story. I've never heard of anything like that. I watched the documentary and it just touched my heart. I kind of said at the beginning of this episode, this episode was an accident. And that goes for this story too. This was an absolute accident. I was actually researching a different lion story that's inside of this book to see if it was in a national park because it described an area that was close to a national park. So I was trying to find more information on it. And I just happened to come across her and I watched the documentary. At first I read an article about her and then I watched the documentary. And I was just so touched by her story. I just thought she was so amazing and so strong and I sound like I'm talking

about a person, but she really persevered through this whole thing. And today, the park's lion population is on the rise. There are seven lions that are now inside of the park. Oh, nice. Do you know if they're doing any further reintroductions from other genetic pools? Are they all related to her. Like, I don't under, I don't know what the plan is for that to increase genetic diversity within the park. I would imagine maybe, but it's either way, it's cool that there is a population of lions, period. And I'm sure that's hugely beneficial. I'm not totally sure what the plan is moving forward. I mean, I just know they do that in certain circumstances with wolves, especially the Mexican gray wolves in Arizona and New Mexico, there's such a small amount of them left.

And a lot of them are related in some way. And to increase the genetic pool, they try and introduce others from various places to help diversify that. So it just made me think of that. But that's really, really cool. And I'm really glad you decided to do this episode today because I really enjoyed that. And it did remind me of our previous conversation we just had a few minutes ago. I read this book years ago, but the title always stuck with me because I thought it was really funny. And it's, are we smart enough to understand how smart animals are? And it's all about essentially what the title says, you know, and obviously it's very elaborate and it's very psychology-based and it goes into the cognitive abilities of animals and how we kind of categorize

intelligence. Like we have a set of parameters that we view as intelligence. Oh, you can make a tool, you can make a hammer, or you can, you have thumbs and can open a lid, or you can put this piece of puzzle into this opening. Like, you're smart, you're intelligent, that's a sign of But there are so many other different types of intelligence that not every animal subscribes to. And that's what this book is about. You know, are we smart enough to understand that and to recognize intelligence in other species? And it's really, really cool. And I would actually like to reread it at some point.

That's on my list. My list of ever-growing reads and things. I actually really love that you just said. that because I wrote down a quote that I actually took off of this woman who wrote the book that I've been talking about. She has a blog. It's called it's Animal Hearts and Minds.com. And she had a quote, which is not from her directly.

It's actually from Ryan Reynolds in the movie The Whale. It was in 2011. But I'm going somewhere with this. I promise. Okay. Okay. I like Ryan. Reynolds. I'm for it. Okay. The quote was,

One day we humans may meet an intelligent being from another world. Hollywood tells us the stranger will come flying down in a spaceship and will look a bit like us, but maybe it won't be like that. Maybe it'll be like this. And it just reminded me of this, these stories of all of these animals and all of these interactions. And I just thought it was so fitting with what you just said and just today's episode. Well, it's true. And I'm just like, this is such a feel-good episode because we could start a whole new podcast, not just another episode. We could do a whole series on animal intelligence and empathy and cognitive abilities and et cetera, et cetera. I have to go to school a little bit.

longer because I personally don't have a lot of education in that, but I mean, you have a psychology degree, so you're a step ahead of me at least, but it's true. It's so in-depth and, I mean, obviously it's a whole academic field. It's something that we are studying extensively. I think hearing stories like this gives us more empathy towards them to see the empathy that they have towards us and around them and just the way that they live. And, um, I'm glad you liked it because I was really, I literally had a smile on my face the whole time. I was researching it and I wanted to keep parts of it morbid because this is a morbid podcast, but the underlying story of this whole thing is supposed to be uplifting and nice and I feel a good episode. And I'm glad we were able to do that.

Awesome. Thank you everyone for joining us. Hope you enjoyed the breath of fresh air coming up for air as much as we did. And if you have an interesting encounter of your own, I know a lot of us are always out in the forests, in national parks, etc. If you have a cool animal encounter that you've had, please write it in. Tell us. It doesn't have to be, you know, your friend didn't have to get mauled by something. You didn't have to have a near-death experience. It doesn't have to be morbid.

It could be uplifting and heartwarming. And I mean, the animal encounter that stuck with me the longest in my life is when a mountain lion walked in front of my Jeep. That was it. And literally I can feel the emotion right now of seeing that happen. And for you, we would love to hear if that has ever happened. So yeah, right into us. Our email is MPAD podcast at gmail.com. And you can find it on our Instagram, National Park After Dark.

You can just click the message link. and we have Facebook National Park After Dark. Also, in our episode bio, we have the links to our sponsors. If you want to check them out when you support them, you are also supporting our podcast. Also, if you are interested, we do have Patreon. We kind of skipped over that this whole beginning. We do have Patreon. We upload episodes.

Danielle just did a very interesting episode in Crater Lake National Park just last week. So that is on our Patreon. You can join that. You can find that on our website, npaddpodcast.com, or on our Instagram, you can go to our bio and click on our Patreon link there. Thank you, everybody, for joining us.

Hope you have a wonderful week, and we will see you next time. But in the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch your back. Maybe there's an animal back there. Or maybe they just want to say hi. They just want to hang out with you. Or maybe they're going to eat you.

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