National Park After Dark - Creatures of the Wild ft. Tooth & Claw Podcast: Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Episode Date: November 21, 2022

The collab you’ve been waiting for! Today we are joined by Wes, Jeff and Mike of Tooth & Claw Podcast. We head back to Great Smoky Mountains National Park to share the tragic tale of Glenda Ann Bradley, the first person to be killed by a black bear in US National Park History. The T&C crew share their extensive knowledge on how to enjoy recreating in bear country safely, dissect what likely happened that day in the park and underline how wonderful these animals are.Join us for a LIVE show in Denver! Tickets HERECheck out Tooth and Claw on Apple , Spotify , or wherever you get your podcasts! For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials: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!BetterHelp: National Park After Dark is sponsored by BetterHelp. Get 10% off your first month of online therapy by using our link.Apostrophe: Use our link and code NPAD to get for first visit for only $5.Skylight Frame: Get $15 off a Skylight Frame with promo code PARK.Burn Wild: Listen to all 8 episodes of Burn Wild wherever you listen to podcasts. 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. Girl, 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. Welcome back, everyone, to National Park After Dark. Hope you had a great week. We have a very, very special episode today. I'm losing my mind. Yeah, you've been wanting to do this podcast collab for a while. It's become highly requested ever since I breathed word of this podcast, I think in the listener tale or trail tale episode a couple months back. And you guys are awesome. You flocked to their podcast. Became a big fans and have been requesting that we do something with them for a couple months now.

So here we are. We have collaborated with the guys over at Tooth and Claw. We have a very special episode for you all today. Yeah, we're going to talk all about bears, a bear attack. And we're going to talk about the reason behind them and all about bears and safety tips for you all. Before we jump into that, though, we do want to remind you that our live show is coming up super soon.

It's going to be December 4th at 7 p.m. Denver, Colorado. So if you want to come join us and hang out with us for a night, grab your tickets. We do have the link in our show notes. They are selling out pretty quick. I'm not even sure how many we have left, but we do have a few left. So grab some. We'll see you there. But yeah, let's get into this tooth and claw collab. If you haven't heard of tooth and claw as of yet, you are going to today. It is a very cool podcast. It's one of my favorites. I've been a fan for a long time. I say a long time since they started. But truth and claw, just in case you guys don't know,

they share true stories of some of the most extreme wild animal attacks ever documented. And it's told by Wes Larson, who he is going to blow your mind. He's so knowledgeable. He's so passionate. And he is a wildlife biologist and animal behavior expert. He has extensive experience, especially out in Yellowstone. So he knows his stuff. And he's joined by his brother Jeff and their friend Mike.

They were awesome to talk to you. This is on the longer side because we kind of got carried away with our conversation, but it's worth it. We are so excited to introduce to you guys tooth and claw. Well, welcome everyone to the podcast. We are so excited to have you here and talk about some bear stuff today. Hey, thanks for having us. We're very excited to be here too.

All you have to do is say bear stuff and Wes will chime. He knows that's his intro. He perked up a little bit. I saw you straighten up. a little bit. We're talking bears? Bears? Yeah.

Truly my favorite thing to talk about. So I'm excited. Awesome. Well, highly requested tooth and claw, like half our audience is probably over the moon right now. And the other half will be by the end of this episode. So thanks for coming. You're welcome.

Yeah, of course. Of course, we're doing a bear episode today. And this is a story that I read about into the mist. I don't know if you've ever read that book. It's about The Great Smok. Mountain's different accidents, tragedies, death. And as soon as I read it, I thought of you guys. I'm like, what is a better collab to have than tooth and claw?

So we have a great Smoky Mountains episode today. I know we've done this. Have we only done this once, Cassie? Great Smoky Mountains. Yeah. No, we've been here twice, I think, so far. Oh, okay. Yeah.

Cool. So this will be our third time. Third time's a charm. Yeah. Isn't it like the most visited national park in the U.S.? It is? But it's just because there's like a huge highway that like people need to use? Yeah.

Or is that wrong? Yeah, I think it's a combination. It is about 14 million people visit every year. But part of it is because it's such a good location. You have a lot of airports that are right there. I mean, you can get there from Charlotte, Atlanta, Nashville. And then of course there's the highways. There's stat padding for sure, putting airports there.

And then you have the Appalachian Trail or the Appalachian. and trail that runs through it too. So you have all of those hikers that are visiting the National Park as well. So it's very highly trafficked. And it's open year round. So there's no seasonal closures to worry about. So there's also that factor. I've never been. So that's kind of shameful. I've like dipped in there, but I've never done any work there. I do have some colleagues that they work with bears there. No, it was like mostly at night that I was driving through. It was beautiful, but they've got a lot of bears. They have like 2,000 black bears, 2000 plus, I think, in Great Smokies. So it is a really, if you're in the east and you want to see some Eastern

Black Bears, that's a great place to go. Well, that's where our story is taking us. So Cassie, do you want to give us a little park refresher? Of course. So before we get started, as we always like to do, we like to talk about the park a little bit. And Great Smoky Mountains National Park was established as a national park on June 15th, 1934. It's located in the southeast within Tennessee extending into North Carolina. And like we mentioned already, it is the most visited national park in the United States. It is also one of the largest protected areas in the country extending 522,419 acres, which is about 21114 square kilometers. There are a variety of plant in animal life that has been documented inside of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. And because

During the last ice age, glaciers never reached as far south as the Great Smoky Mountains and the sea never came inland. The floor and fauna here have been thriving for over a million years. Isn't that crazy? That is cool. Yeah, that's cool. It's weird. I don't think you've told me that before.

I found this new. I know. I was trying to find facts that I haven't covered yet in the other Smoky Mountain ones that we've done. So there are over 10,000 species of plants and animals that have been discovered, but scientists believe that there are actually over 90,000 species that live there. That's insane. So there's a lot to be discovered. Yeah.

Yeah. The Great Smoky Mountains. That's where Bigfoot is, I guess. Bigfoot's everywhere. Bigfoot is everywhere. And you can't convince me otherwise, okay? I don't know if you know this about me, but Bigfoot is like my big fan. We've been doing your celebrity, see your celebrity crush.

Yeah. Seriously. Literally. So the Great Smoky Mountains are some of the oldest mountains in the world, and they are believed to be formed around 200 to 300 million years ago. Over 95% of the National Park is forested, and about 25% of that area are old growth forests. So this makes the park one of the largest sections of deciduous old growth forests that still remain within North America. That's amazing. Oh, cool.

And while this national park is home to the Appalachian Trail and serves for an amazing place for hiking, it is an amazing place to view wildlife because there are around 65 species of mammals that are protected here, over 200 varieties of birds, 67 native fish species, and more than 80 types of reptiles and amphibians. Their mammals include white-tailed deer, groundhogs, chipmunks, elk, raccoon, turkey, and of course, the most infamous mammal here, the American Black Bear. Great Smoky Mountains National Park is one of the largest protected areas in eastern United States where black bears are able to live in the wilds. And there is upwards of 1,500 of them within the National Park. And that is where I lead you into talking about stories of the American black bear. Well, thank you for that

glorious introduction. Hocus pocus makes me want to go there. Yeah. Yeah, I'm right. Sounds really cool. Yeah. Especially the old growth forest. Like, old growth forest really has a different feel to it than like new growth forest. So, yeah. Go like discover new species while you're going to. Yeah. Yeah, seriously.

There's a time show. Mushrooms. Yeah, 90,000 to choose from. Right. Yeah. Well, I mean, there's a different feel. I mean, Cassie and I grew up in New England. And most of New England, at least where we're from, is heavily forested.

And just because you think of New England, you think of old. you know, 1600s thing, you're thinking like, wow, like this forest is awesome. But if you think about it, like most of New England area that we were from, at least, was clear cut. Like, it's new growth. And then I moved to Washington State. I'm like, man, I didn't know anything. Like, this is nothing.

Obviously, it's different species of trees and things like that. But there is a different feel when you're in an old growth versus a new growth forest. And the Great Smoky Mountains, I guess, is now on my list of to-dos. It's as old as it gets. Let's all go there. Let's all go. We'll have a tooth and claw national park after dark field trip to the great smoke. That would be so fun.

In the fall, obviously. Got to go to fall. Live like they did 300 million years ago. Wes, I'm thinking about it. Do you think Black Bears are like the third like most, I guess I kind of want to say like alpha or like most like dominant animal in this area? Like I would guess moose would be like the like biggest. like yeah that's kind of apples and oranges though comparing like a black bear and a moose the two just aren't going to mess with each other really at all so yeah as far as like ungulates go moose

are going to be the like biggest and baddest but i would say if you're looking at like an alpha predator in that ecosystem it's definitely a black bear and i do know that eastern cougars sometimes make their way into the smokies too but they're not necessarily like residents so yeah as far as like your main predator there it is going to be black bears even though we always like to use the word predator with them because they can be predatory but they're most leading vegetation insects stuff that you don't usually uh consider predatory but um but yes you're i mean they they are killing like elk calves and deer fonder and stuff too so yeah a pot of honey from winnie the poo smoky mountains version yeah yeah they do love honey all of them love honey so

Cassie always sends me this meme of like she sent to me like four or five times over our friendship over the years and it's literally just bear ears and it's like if bears are supposed to be like predators or something explain this and it's just like the cute little airs like if bears aren't friends explain this oh boy I've gotten that one a lot yeah that's one of those memes that like dies away and then a few months later someone reposts it on like some meme aggregate site and then 30 more people send it to me. I'm like, yes, I've seen that being. Especially like Gooseley Bears' little cutie ears. I know, they do have cute years. When they get like the huge head and just tiny little years. Well, that's what, I mean, we just got like a re-influx of there's like a clip going around. I mean, it's seven years old now when I used to work at the Wolf Center.

And it's of me and one of the wolves there. And every, like, it's like clockwork. every year to year and a half, it just resurfaces and people are like, you're famous, is this you? And then it dies down and it goes back and forth and up and down. Reading the comments of how I was mauled to death and killed by the pack I raised in the wild. Do people like change the headline a lot? Yeah.

And like the comments are like, you guys don't even know she was mauled to death after this. Like have respect. I'm like, yeah, have respect. Wes has that with the Bayer Dan? Yeah, exactly. Where there's, I saw one like two days ago where it's like, like this National Geographic researcher had no idea this bear wasn't hibernating. It's like, no, we like crawled in there. I was in there specifically to see that bear.

Yeah. And then it's constantly like, this guy was caving and look what he found. And it's like a photo of a bear and me in the same, in the same den. But. Right. Yeah. What were you, there's a favorite of yours, like a favorite comment? Oh, I was just going to say my favorite is when people comment.

that Danielle has died and she just quietly likes it. I just like it. I just like it. A like from beyond the grave. Exactly. Exactly. It goes slight. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime originals have everything you want.

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in 1926, but the Park Service was founded 10 years prior in 1916. In both the history of the park and the National Park Service itself, not one person had been killed in a U.S. national park by a black bear. But as Glenda Bradley prepared for a weekend hike in America's most visited park, that was all about to change. So the day was Sunday, May 21st, 2000, and 50-year-old elementary school teacher and avid hiker Glenda Ann Bradley entered the park for a day hike with her ex-husband, Ralph Hill. So they were separated, they were divorced, and they were married for less than a year before they decided to separate, but they were working on their relationship, they remain close, and they just decided to go out on a hike together. That's nice.

It's so nice. I know. Yeah. They entered the park at around 11.30 in the afternoon, and they made their way to the Elkmont section of the park, which has a lot of different trailheads and has a very popular campground as well. They began their hike shortly before noon, and they meandered through the Little River Trail for several miles until they approached its junction with the Goshen Prong Trail at about one o'clock in the afternoon. After a brief stop, Glenda decided she wanted to keep going for a little while, but Ralph wanted to fish the river. So they decided to separate, but they were going to meet back up after a couple hours. So they said, you know what, you fish, you go hike, let's meet up here around 2.30 or three, and we can head back to the car. So as Ralph was casting his pole, Glenda hiked forward.

along the trail that led to a metal bridge which spanned the little river, and it intersected two other nearby trails. And at this point, neither Ralph nor Glenda knew of the numerous reports of unusual bear activity in this particular area. Oh, got to read those reports. I know, but I will say, I have never gone to a report. You know what I mean? Like, when I'm going on a hike, I don't look up like all the reports that have been taking place there this like mud or something. You should. You should. Do you? I do now. Honestly,

after having worked in Yellowstone, especially the bear warning signs on like trailheads, I kind of always thought those just kind of get put up if anyone sees a bear or anything. You do have to take those seriously. We tend to put those up when there's like an increased risk of you running into a bear that has maybe displayed some aggressive behavior. So I would say if you're ever at a trailhead in National Park and you see a bear warning, don't just brush it off. Your chances of running into a bear have gone up dramatically if there's one of those warnings on a trail. I'm going to look them up just to like decide what hike I wanted to. You want to go hungry. I don't know about that one. You might change your tune after this story. I did come across

the sign like that one time. I was in Kinae Fjords and up in Alaska and there were there were signs posted everywhere like be careful there's bears around here and we were on we were on the river and everyone was fishing around there and within 30 minutes two cubs came out of the bushes and everyone I wish I could say everyone was like running away but a lot of people are standing around taking photos but they were two grizzly cubs and they started off kind of far away and you could see them in the distance and then they got closer and closer and they did not care about people at all And I guess the mom wasn't around. I don't know what happened.

But it was pretty scary trying to get out of there because they would disappear into the woods where the parking lot was. And then they'd come back to the river. And it was like, okay, I'm leaving. But am I going back to where you are right now? So I definitely have seen those signs before. Yeah. Well, hopefully no one was running away from them because that's definitely not what you want to do. No.

You not do. Yes. But I will say, and this is just kind of another like kind of insider thing. from Yellowstone. If like a bear warning sign could mean a lot of things. It could just mean that bears have been frequently cited on that trail. It could mean there was some kind of conflict. A closure sign because of a bear, you definitely want to listen to those.

Never go on a trail that's been closed because of bear activity. Because a lot of times what that means is there's a carcass, some kind of ungulate carcass that's near the trail. And a bear defending a carcass is going to act a lot differently than just any old bear. So, so I know we're getting off topic already. No, it's on topic. That is something for, I know, you know, your listeners are into national parks. If you ever come across a closure, don't break those closures because you really are taking your life into your own hands if you do that.

Well, that's very sage advice. I mean, the only time, like I said, I've never looked up a report, but the time of Mount St. Helens before you came Cassie, when Ian and I went, there were Mount Lion signs all over the trailheads. And I had been prior to that and I had never seen those. And I've been after that and they weren't there. So I knew at that point that I was like, okay, something was going on here. Was there any like volcano signs? Like watch out for the volcano? No, which is odd because we're standing on one.

But yeah. So anyways, so back to these bear reports that Glenda and Ralph had no idea of. They started four days prior. Several different groups of hikers, backpackers, and other visitors reported unusual and concerning encounters with a black bear sow and yearling, all within a mile radius of that particular bridge. The first occurred on May 18th, a group of scientists were out collecting different soil samples near the Little River Trail when they were charged by a sow. The group backed away, but they were repeatedly charged, and the bear continued her advances despite deterring

methods from the group like yelling, waving their arms, making themselves look bigger, banging their shovels. And after a couple of minutes, the group, group saw that the yearling was spotted off the trail. So once the sow and the yearling were reunited, the group states that her behavior started to ease up a little bit. And she did eventually leave, but it was on her own accord. She wasn't scared away by their deterrence. The next report came a day later on May 19th, again in that same area. Less than a half a mile from the bridge, members of a local fly fishing organization were camping when a member of the group encountered the pair of bears about a quarter mile from the campsite. He states that he was

followed by them on the trail and he eventually had to bushwhack a path off trail to get around them to get back to his camp because he was being pursued the entire time. And later that night, another member of that same group in that same campsite reported that the bears arrived at their campsite and weaved in and out of the group of tents that they had. And they eventually left again, only on their own accord, only to be noted in the camp again early the next morning displaying bold behaviors. Again, undeterred by banging pots and pans, shouting by the campers. In all, it was estimated that they stayed in or around that campsite for over three hours, and they even were entering tents, and they eventually gained access to some of the group's food

supply. And so this group of campers were really shaken by this. I mean, over three hours, of trying to get a pair of bears away and they're completely unfazed, they did not want to stick around. So as soon as the bears were gone for good, they packed up and left immediately. And they reported this incident to the ranger station at the Elkmont Campground, which was then forwarded on to the park's wildlife division. Interesting.

Yes. Now we're on to Sunday the 21st, which is the same day that Glenda and Ralph entered the park for their day hike. Remind me the year again? This is 2000. Okay. Can I interject something really quick? Is that all right? Of course. Please do. So I, you know, this is really classic food conditioned bear behavior. When a bear has received a reward of human food, it's just that our food is so calorie dense and so intriguing to them. Like eating, you know, a handful of human food for them is the equivalent to eating berries for just hours and hours. So for them, especially a bear that has a cub that's, you know, trying to take care of her cub and herself at the same time. She's trying to put on as much weight as possible. they're constantly looking for really good food.

So when they get that reward, they just keep, they want to keep getting it. It's something that they're going to be solely focused on. It really changes their behavior and it really kind of changes that scale of like risk to reward. Whereas usually for a bear, we're way too risky for them to come in and try and look for food. But once they've gotten that food, it outweighs that risk. It's such a beneficial source of food for them that they're willing to put up with a much higher level of risk. And it really makes them unpredictable. And that's why food conditioning is something we really try and avoid at national parks.

In fact, in Yellowstone, if we have bears that are food conditioned, they're almost always removed from the population just because it does present such a high liability. And that is something that at this time, people were still learning about black bears, especially, that, you know, food conditioning can lead to attacks. And that's unfortunately, yeah. I'm also, I'm kind of getting Knight of the Grizzly vibes. Like, for people who don't know that reference, uh, in Glacier National Park. They stopped, like, they just didn't view grizzly bears as a huge threat because no one had been killed by them. And they weren't like, they got a lot of reports of grizzly bears doing like abnormal things and they didn't take it too seriously. And then one night two people were killed in separate areas.

And like this black bear has done enough that like these two people should have heard about this black bear before. Like there should have been signs. There should have been like stuff letting them know like, hey, this black bear has been like chasing people. in this area or like not chasing but like you know exhibiting behaviors that are yeah yeah concerning like since a blackbird never killed anyone in any of the national parks they probably didn't take it as seriously when they were getting these reports it's like where my mind win yeah i mean it definitely has parallels because cassie has covered night of the grisleys so we are familiar with that story and again of course like that happened what in the 60s

62 67 yeah so of course you would think by the year 2000, we would have learned a little bit as far as that goes. But lending to your point, people view Black Bears differently than grizzly bears. And lending to your point, they do have cute ears. So they probably see that. And they're like, these aren't killing people. Yeah. And that's kind of, honestly, one of the big driving reasons that I was very drawn to this story in particular and wanting to have you guys come on and, you know, speak upon it because it's something that we've both seen, you know, in different pages on Facebook. Like, I'm part of, like, you know, hikers and climbers of whatever state I'm in or community.

And there's never fails posts of, like, a new hiker being like, hey, I need wrecks of, look at my pack. This is what I have. Like, what can go? What can stay? What do I need? And people always are like, you can ditch the bear spray. This is when I lived in Washington.

Yeah. Not in the North Cascades where there is some grizzlies, but more so they were like, you can ditch the bear spray, like, we only have black bears here. You don't need to worry about that. And it just kills me inside. Yeah, that's not great advice. And we can talk about that a lot later if you want, or we can do it now, whatever you prefer. No, let's do it. Okay, we'll put a pin in it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I will say a quick, before you get back into it, a quick, like, I did a bunch of research on great smokies and bear conflicts and stuff. And even though they hadn't had any deaths, they had had a ton of injuries from black bears.

Yes. Mostly like roadside bears that are habituated and were being fed. But those bears, kind of like Yellowstone's early days, they bite a lot because they learn that like, oh, if I charge this person or if I swipe at them or bite them, they're going to drop their food and then I can eat it in peace. And so they have had, it's not like they saw their bears as harmless. They just hadn't had any fatalities yet. And you bring up something that I've also, you know, obviously both Yellowstone and Great

Smoky Mountains. and obviously glacier that we know now have had a very interesting story about roadside feeding attractions like it was an attraction for people to come to and it's like come feed the bears and now it's like drilled into us like please do not do that and just the shift in that and that change is something that I think that the public is still kind of getting used to in a way but also the bears if it's a learned behavior I mean I know it was however many years ago but I think that would be an interesting episode too, because there's a lot of cool history on that. Yeah, I could talk about that for hours, too.

But I want to let you get to your story. Yeah, I kind of forgot like what we were in talking about. So they make this report to the campground. It's forwarded to the Wildlife Division. And now we're back to Sunday the 21st when Glenda and Ralph onto the park. This Boy Scout group had left their backcountry campsite and made their way to their next site, which was going to be within the elk monster. campground. They stopped briefly for lunch on the metal bridge that I described earlier. And shortly

after arriving at their campground, the sow entered the camp while the yearling hung back in the woods and the tree line nearby. And the group reported this behavior to the campground ranger station again. And they described their behavior as more of hungry than menacing. So a little bit different than the previous reports, but concerning enough that they made mention of it. That same day, a group from the Knoxville Trout Unlimited Group were conducting water quality testing near the bridge when they encountered Glenda. It was about 2.30 in the afternoon and she was by herself, but she was smiling and upbeat when she encountered them. They stopped to chat with each other for a bit and then parted ways. Shortly thereafter, several members of that group

heard what they described as four screeching sounds, almost like sharp, shrill sounds of children playing. And they heard this in the distance. They said they were about 10 to 15 seconds apart. But at the time, there was kind of a light rain, and it soon turned into a heavier rain. And when it started pouring onto the river, it drowned out the sounds that they were hearing. And as they couldn't hear them anymore, they kind of attributed them to children. They dismissed them, and they continued their work. Several minutes later, a man approached that same group. He introduced himself as Ralph and explained that he was looking for a solo woman hiker who had failed to meet him at their rendezvous location up the trail. He described Glenda and the group said,

yeah, we, we just saw her. It must have been less than 20 minutes ago. And they described to him where they encountered her, which was a short way up the trail from their current location. And he thanked them and headed in the direction that they described. It wasn't long until he encountered another pair of walking in his direction, and again, he asked about Glenda. This pair had not seen her, so thinking that somehow he must have missed her in the last couple minutes up the trail, he turned around to head back to the bridge and back towards their rendezvous location. Upon arriving back at the bridge, he spotted a fisherman by the river, and once again,

asked about Glenda. This fisherman shook his head no, but he did point to an abandoned black backpack, which he had noticed lying a few feet from the edge of the bridge. Immediately, Ralph recognized this as Glendez, and he confirmed it by opening it up, taking a look inside, and he saw that there were still the snacks like peanut butter crackers and a couple candy bars that she had packed earlier that day.

So now he's very concerned. It was now over an hour after they were supposed to meet, and suddenly she's nowhere to be found. So he's very worried, and he begins searching the immediate area for Glenn. He ran into several different hikers who all later described him as being extremely distraught. And while he scoured the area surrounding the bridge an abandoned backpack, Ralph began to follow the riverbank near the bridge. First, he did the right side, heading downstream, and then switched back, scouring both

edges of the river for any sign of his missing partner. But he could have never prepared himself for what he was about to see. Less than 200 feet away, Glenda's body lay face up, actively being fed on by two black bears, an adult and a yearling. He was horrified, and he started picking up large sticks and rocks, and he actually rushed them with a large stick, trying to drive them away. But he was met immediately by a charge from the sow. Wow.

Yeah. After a couple of failed attempts to scare the bears off on his own, I'm sure. in a sheer shock panic. It was clear that he was going to be totally unable to handle this situation himself. So he rushed off in search of aid from the other hikers and people he had encountered shortly before. And he ran into someone he encountered a hiker

who he had previously talked to when he was searching for Glenda. And after hearing the horrifying situation, this hiker told him to go back to the scene to kind of monitor everything while he ran. to get help from the nearby camp. Shortly thereafter, which I'm sure seemed like an eternity for Ralph, I mean, to be in such a horrific, hopeless situation, just powerless. And to be standing there watching it, waiting for help.

That's a crazy, like, I'm not saying it's wrong, but it's like, go watch your ex-wife get eaten by bear while I go find more help. It's like a big... It's a big ass. It's tough. It's tough, yeah. But at the same time, time you want to make sure that you know what's going like if the bears leave with her you want to

know where they're going and so i can see why you would have to but it's just oh yeah i'm not saying like it's wrong it's just yeah it's hard yeah it's really tough yeah i i i will say you know with with a black bear defending a kill um again this like you can't really point fingers in a thing like this because you can't expect people to have this level of knowledge with bears and and knowing the species differences and how to respond to like a really nuanced situation like this. But if any of your listeners ever do find themselves in, God forbid, this kind of situation, with the Black Bear, you absolutely should try and run it off. Continue trying, even if it's charging at you, do whatever you can, throw things at it,

do what you can to stop that attack. Because I did read a few things where it was unclear if she had died at this point. And had he been able to stop the attack at that point, there's a decent chance he could have saved her. And that's not true for grizzly bears. A grizzly will defend its kill a lot more aggressively than a black bear will. But with a black bear 100%, you got to stick around. You got to try and get the bear off of the person with whatever you can.

And that's a good point because while initially he came up to her from everything I read, she wasn't actively fighting and screaming. But at the same time, it's questionable whether or not she. She was deceased at that point. After, you know, Ralph returned to the scene, that other hiker goes to get help. He is actively pelting them rocks, doing everything that he can by himself. Eventually, other people did come, and they formed a group and continued their efforts. But each and every time, they attempted to gain closer access to Glenda.

The sow would rear charge them, clearly defending what she is now viewing as her feet. food source and they are not getting anywhere, essentially. So while all of this is unfolding, Ranger Robert Harris, who was working at the Elkmont Campground, had received a missing hiker report from that fisherman who initially found Glenda's backpack. It was at this point, so for time frame reference, it's about 5.30 at night at this point now. And he had just left the campground to search the area that she was last seen in when he was approached by a frantic hiker who reported the situation. The missing hiker that he was looking for had been located and she was likely killed and was being defended by black bears. So Harris hustled to the scene arriving just

after six o'clock and quickly joined this, I don't want to say mob because it wasn't that many people, but it's now a bigger group than just Ralph. And he joins the effort to try and scare the animals away. And by this time, the group assisting Ralph had grown, but again, was unsuccessful at their attempts to gain access to Glenda. That's crazy that the black bear just won't leave. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds really abnormal. It's incredibly abnormal.

Right? With like more several people trying to chase a bear off. I do. From everything you've ever told me, it sounds like a black bear would just disengage. They almost always do. But like, this one obviously is food conditioned. It's used to people. trying to scare it off. It's kind of, it's realized that like those threats are usually empty.

And so it, I think in my mind, and this is, again, this is like from an outsider perspective, I wasn't there, but I am a bear biologist, so it's not totally outsider. But I will say, like, in my mind, had I been in this situation, I would have felt like they had to push that bear to a level that it hadn't been pushed before. So that bear, they're smart. And it learned like, okay, they're coming at me, but if I charge them, that stops them. And so what you have to do then is you have to show the bear that that charge isn't stopping you anymore and you have to push past it. And that's really scary, especially if a bear's already killed someone. But that person's life maybe is hanging in the balance.

And black bears just do not attack groups of people. It doesn't happen. So once you have at least a couple people there, you just got to push that bear. You got to push it off the person and give them help as soon as possible. It's going to be scary. It's going to charge at you. But if it's a black bear, if you're confident it's a black bear, you can push it off. and with the backup of several other people.

Right. I mean, strength and numbers type of thing. Totally. But at this point, now that the Ranger is there, he recognized that she is now very pale and completely motionless. So at this point, it's probably safe to say that she's deceased. Dead. Yeah. Ranger Harris called for backup and requested the responding Rangers bring rifles to dispatch the pair of bears.

It's important to note that he did have a sidearm with him when he arrived to the scene, but there were multiple concerning factors that he was taking into consideration prior to utilizing his weapon. So in the book, Into the Mist, he states that first he was worried that he was going to be unable to kill both the animals immediately, meaning that he could potentially further agitate them when they're already in a very heightened state and potentially endangered, endanger others on the scene or himself. And plus, the field that, a fire that he would be covering was directly.

next to the little river trail, so potentially putting passing hikers at risk as well. So in agonizing 15 entire minutes later from that point, two other rangers showed up without rifles. Geez. I don't know what happened, but they did not bring rifles. But however, at this point, those two rangers approach the animals with their 40 caliber sidearms raised, and they at this point are actively consuming Glenda. and Ranger Jerry Grubb fired the first three shots into the sow and then followed up with two shots into the yearling, which proved to immobilize them, but they were not fatal shots. So soon after Ranger Chip Nelson finished the job, and he fired 14 more rounds into the pair of animals, which finally took them out.

That'll do it. It's not easy to kill a bear. It's really hard. Yeah, apparently not. The 50 cent of bears, that'll do it. Literally. Yeah, you know, as I was kind of reading all the reports on this one, that first ranger's decision not to engage is a really tricky one.

That's 100% the call I would have made with the grizzly bear if I only had a, you know, a handgun and there's other people around because an injured grizzly bear can react really aggressively. With a black bear, I don't know. That's a, it's a really tricky one. And this was a black bear that was acting very outside of typical black bear behavior. So I think some of the stuff I read really held that Ranger accountable for certain things, and I don't think that's fair.

But I do think it does illustrate the need for law enforcement rangers in National Parks to really be up to date on their bear attack information and how to respond to bear attacks because they do happen. And often a law enforcement rangers is the first to respond. And it takes bear management people longer to get there. So it is an important thing to think about. Yeah, it seems like if you. had like bear spray and it or like a i don't know i i just feel like in that situation i would have

and that's another point like did none of those people have bear spray on them right because that would have ended it right well black bears yeah it's a black bear so you don't need it right yeah exactly we are going to talk about yes sorry i'm being very uh sarcastic uh spicy about that's that's a it's something you hear a lot and none of them had bear bears right amazing Out of curiosity, Wes, do you think that if, I know they were saying, Danielle, you said, if they didn't want to shoot at it because there could be other people on the trail, but black bears are typically spooked by really loud noises. Do you think if he shot into the air, it could have been something that helped?

Definitely. Like with conflict bears in the park in Yellowstone or bears that are just in areas where we don't necessarily want them, we often use what's called a cracker shell, which is just a shotgun round that we launch into the air and explodes. And that loud noise is generally enough to send a bear running. So the report from a handgun would have the same effect. I do know that the Rangers are generally really hesitant to ever shoot into the air or shoot any direction where there could possibly be people, even in the air, you know,

like falling bullets or whatever. But, you know, in my mind, as a bear management specialist in the park, like, if I was in this situation and somehow didn't have my bear spray but did have a hand. handgun, I would have approached that bear as quickly as possible. And if it charged at me, I would have unloaded into it. That's kind of like, that to me is like, you have a good deterrent. It, you know, you have distance between you and the animal and someone's life might be at stake. So that's kind of my thing. Like, if he has a gun, like, what other situation would you need a gun for than like a bear eating someone? Yeah, I get the hesitancy. Like this is it. When are you going

use it if this isn't it, you know? Yeah. I get it. I do because maybe this ranger just didn't totally understand the possibilities with this bear. But I, yeah, I don't know. From my perspective, a little bit more of an aggressive response could have been a good option here. And again, like you said previously, every, you know, hindsight is 2020. Yeah. You're in a highly unprecedented situation. You know, this isn't something that he's had experience with. There's, you know, I'm sure everyone's freaking out. Yeah.

And someone's clearly deceased. And it's just a shit show for lack of a better term. Yeah. And just I can't even imagine all the thoughts running through your head and what do I do? What's the right thing? Like, you know, I've never been in a position like this before. And so either way, um, after the bears were killed, park service employees made quick work of securing the scene.

And they escorted Ralph and the, others away. Glenda's body was transported to the nearby James Age College of Medicine for an autopsy, and the bears were transported to the Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine for a necropsy. Ellen Wallin, who was the forensic pathologist who conducted Glenda's autopsy, concluded that she suffered major trauma to her neck, buttocks, and left femur. Additionally, her right corroborated artery and left femoral artery were both severed. So either one of these wounds would have proven fatal via significant blood loss, but combined, they most certainly ensured that her death was rapid. She most likely lost consciousness within seconds of those

injuries, followed by a quick death shortly thereafter. That's great. So of course, it's, you know, we don't know if they happen simultaneously, one after the other, what that was about. But I mean, those are both obviously major arteries. Yeah, that's, it's really fortunate. I know that's like a weird thing to say that that's fortunate, but it is. Like we did the story of Cynthia Dussle Bacon, who was a USGS researcher that was attacked by a black bear. And it's the one that sticks with me the most probably of any of our stories because this bear just sat on her and ate her and almost completely consumed both of her arms. And it never hit an artery. So she never died, which luckily for her, she survived that ordeal.

But there are people that just get eaten to death and it takes them like 15, 20 minutes to bleed out. But if a bear nicks an artery or something, then it's quick. You know, you're gone in a few minutes. And so whenever I know. After like starting tooth and claw, like being eaten by a bear is like the worst case scenario for animal deaths. Yeah. Yeah. So anytime in the records it says like severed artery, I always kind of like breathe a sigh of relief because I know that they didn't have to withstand like, you know, tens of minutes of being eaten alive before they finally bled out.

Because like the crazy thing with bears is like a lot of like big cats. and stuff, they'll try to kill you. They'll, like, grab your neck and suffocate you. And, but, like, bears just try to demobilize you. They don't, like, care that much if you die or not, you know? Like, they just start eating it. Yeah. There's no rhyme or reason as far as, like, you know,

crushing a windpipe or snapping a neck or, you know, other things that other predators do. I mean, I follow nature as metal, you know, and watching the, the Komodo dragons, especially just to eat their prey alive like that. And I think there was one, actually a couple days ago of, I think it was a lioness, and she was just eating some sort of ungulate,

like from the back and it was just like, I fucking hate my life. Waiting. Yeah. Just waiting to die. It's so sad. It's so sad and it's so hard to watch. But I agree, you know, it's the best case scenario for the worst case scenario,

if that makes any sense. Totally. If I get attacked by a bear, I'm just going to try to get it to bite me in an artery. Just like aim my jugular at its mouth. Like, come on. Just end it. So Ranger Steve Kloster led the nearly year-long investigation into what happened to Glenda that day, which included reconstruction of the scene, pouring over previous bear activity reports,

extensive interviews with more than 16 different witnesses, Glenda's family. And, of course, the ranger is involved, the responding ranger. that day. And of course, we can get into the report more extensively, but like I said, it took almost a year later. So this is now March of 2001 when the final report was issued. And it ruled that Glenda Bradley's death was an accident. And as far as what unfolded that day, they reconstructed the scene using her footprints and to kind of get an accurate layout of her final moments, essentially. So according to the National Park Service investigation report and an investigation of the scene, it is likely that Glenda was either on or very near the Goshen Prong Bridge when she was approached by the two bears.

The pair was likely the same that the others have reported in the preceding days based on their behaviors, like little fear of humans, intimidating behavior, etc. Seeing the animals on the trail near the bridge, she took out her camera and snapped a couple pictures of them because the camera was recovered and found nearby later and the park rangers developed the film. In the photos, the bears were not displaying any intimidating behaviors, but not long after those photos were taken for reasons we're still not 100% sure on. The bears likely would have altered whatever behavior they were exhibiting and turned into an outright predatory attack. So it's unlikely what glibly, what glitory. So it's unlikely what Glenda did at that point, whether she froze in hopes that they would lose interest and kind of

walk by if she attempted to drive them off. Again, very unclear. No one witnessed this part of that, but it is certain at some point that she ran. And the soft soil below the embankment on the north side of the river near the northwest corner of the bridge told the rest of the story. Glenda was in a full outright sprint based on how far apart her footprints were. And the pair of bears were in close pursuit right behind her. She ran along the little river for a few feet before making a sharp right turn to the north away from the bridge, now moving almost parallel to the nearby Goshen Prong Trail. She ran for nearly 200 feet before attempting to clear a shallow rise, and it's here where the bears closed in and made their final move. She was taken down,

and we do know that she fought because she did have defensive wounds on her arms and hands, clearly indicating that she put up some type of fight for how long, again, we're not sure. And the bear's necropsies revealed that both of them were malnourished. The sow came in at about 111 pounds. And both of them had been previously captured, tagged, and tattooed as part of Tennessee's Department of Forestry, Wildlife, and Fisheries Research Program. To this day, Glenda Bradley's death remains one of the most tragic events in all of Great Smoky Mountain National Parks history and resulted, of course, in the loss of a beloved family member,

partner, friend, and teacher. While the manner of her death is difficult to grapple with, and we can easily kind of get into a place of fear, I think, when, you know, you hear a story like this, you're going to look at Black Bears a little differently, I think. But we like to shift, as you do, I'm well aware, from a frame of, you know, fear to like, let's change the perspective a little bit because there are a few statistics that I found, of course, U.S. can go off after this. I'll hands the reins over to you. Wes has been biting this time ago. She said she ran away. Almost done. So between 1900 and 2009, 63 people were killed by non-captive black bears in

North America, with only 18 of those occurring in the lower 48 states. And more specifically, within this national park itself, between the years 1931 and 2013, 470 people died within the park. And with an average of, like Cassie mentioned earlier, around 15,600 bears inside the park boundaries, that's about two bears per square mile. And how many millions of visitors does this place get? 14? 14, yeah. Every year, you know, you're going to run into bears and, you know, there's, lot of bears, there's a lot of people. And to this day, Glenda's death remains the only death

by bear among the park's fatalities. Wow. And you should be excited if you see a bear there. That's cool. Like, it's cool to be in areas where there's bears. I will say, I think somebody, didn't somebody just died? Somebody else died. Yeah. So in 2021, they had their second fatality. Yeah. It wasn't the hammock attack? No, that was a little girl that was mauled pretty badly. This was Patrick Madura. Um, and he was consumed. He was found. dead on September 11th, 2020. Sorry. I think it took him a while to determine whether or not Bear was cause of death or he was just

consumed after dying from something else. But I do think they finally ruled that one as like cause of death by bear. By there. So yeah, they do. I think on the records now, the official records, they have two fatalities. Okay. I wonder if a bear fatality has ever been ruled not accidental? Like, has a bear ever been used as like accessory to murder or something?

I know when it's like, it was ruled an accident. It's like, well, I would hope so. Yeah, right? It's not premeditated by the bear. Yeah, I'd be curious because there have been people that have like jumped into zoo enclosures and stuff with bears. And they might deem those suicidal. I don't know. Yeah, I see.

I like rub honey on West when he goes to bed and murder by bed. So to finish up my little portion here, I wanted to quote something from that book. because it really stuck with me. So his name is David Brill, who's the author of this book. And he says, many, if not most hikers who observe bears while exploring the park trails, cherish the encounter. And while there's no reason to fear the black bear, there is ample reason to educate ourselves about the animal's behavior and to respect them and afford them the space they need to remain creatures of the wild. And I think that's a perfect segue into how we can do. do that.

Yeah. So take it away. Yeah, I really appreciate that. And I think as we talk about this, like Jeff worked for a couple, like for a whole summer and then a few winters with me on a black bear project. Mike has listened to me Prattle on for hundreds of hours about bears. So they'll probably have some stuff to contribute to. So guys, feel free to interject if I miss something. But like, rewinding a little bit in her account or like what they piece together, I do think you really hit on something important when you talk about.

her running. The way that I picture this happening and obviously no one was there, no one can say for sure, but these bears that have become food condition were probably approaching her to like a level that was really scary to her and she decided to run. And I think that running is what often triggers a really predatory response in a bear. My guess is they were just trying to get what they've gotten from other people before that point was like, you know, treats from her bag or whatever. And then as soon as she ran, they're like, oh, this is food. You know, this runs from me. This is food. It triggers that predatory response in a black bear. Yeah.

What you've said before that I really like is like it forces it to make a decision that it might not have had to have made before. And it sounds like these bears were super hungry, very like underfed. So the decision, not obvious, but it makes the decision easier for them to pursue. It does. And honestly, like that generally isn't that big of a consideration in black bear attacks. Most fatal attacks by black bears, they're not malnourished. they're not sick. And generally, they're really wild bears, too. So this is a really unique attack in

that it was a habituated bear. And usually with Black Bear's habituation doesn't really preclude an attack. It's, or it doesn't like come before an attack. It's not something that makes them want to attack people. And then the other thing that's really unique about it is that it's a female with young. Female with dependent young hardly ever attack people. I think of all the fatalities ever by Black Bears, It's like 90% are males, single males. And then there's a couple that are females with young. And I do think what happened here was just that she made a wrong decision, which was to run. And that bear that was already feeling really comfortable around humans decided, you know, I'm going to eat this one.

So it's really unfortunate. It's super rare that this sort of thing ever happens. You kind of talked about that a little bit already. Your figure of 63 is great. That's from a paper by Stephen Herrero where he talks. about fatal black bear attacks. I actually, I decided to update it for 2021. So up to 2021, 78 people have been killed by black bears.

That number, that rate of people being killed is increasing just because a lot more people are spending a lot more time in the great outdoors. So it is bound to happen a little bit more often. I also feel like drought is pushing them towards people more too. Yeah, they're spending more time on the fringes of human society. They are. We have fewer bears that are in like really remote areas. they do tend to spend more time kind of on our fringes.

But when you consider there's 800,000 black bears in North America. It's a lot. Yeah, their numbers, like, if you combined the total number of every other bear species, there's double that amount of American black bears. So there are just a ton of them. They're really prevalent. There are tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of black bear sightings every year.

And when you consider that then 70-something people have been killed by them since 1900, Like those numbers go back to 1900. That's less than one a year. It's pretty insane how little they actually do decide to kill us because they're perfectly capable of it. A black bear of two years or older is generally capable of killing a human being. So it really doesn't happen often. It's incredibly rare that it does happen.

But it is a horrific way to die. Like we already talked about, they don't kill their prey. They don't go for your organs or your throat or anything. they eat your fat parts while they sit on you and you don't want to die that way. So don't take that risk. You know, just don't. It's not worth it because it does happen sometimes. So I know I'm already kind of rambling here, but I know we want to talk a little bit about bear spray and like why it's important.

You brought that up already, Danielle, that people often say, oh, I'm just in Black Bear Habitat. It's something I'm guilty of. It's something Jeff and Mike are probably guilty of sometimes. We've all been guilty of it. Like, I'm in Black Bear Habitat. I'm not going to worry about it. But I will say for people that have spent a lot of time interacting with Black bears, that's a much different decision than people that don't really know them at that level.

You are taking a big risk. And I mean, we're guilty of it too. Like, we grew up hiking the White Mountains in New Hampshire, Black Bear's everywhere. After I started, you know, we started this podcast, I'm already nervous by nature. And now I'm like, I'm going to die. Anytime I go outside, I'm going to die. So like now I always have my bear spray. I'm always, you know, doing everything the right way that I never used to.

You know, you hear the stories and you're like, yeah, but what are the chances? Or, you know, it shifts your perspective a little bit. Yeah. Well, Wes, I would just want to ask you, like, if you encounter a wild black bear and, like, you were trying to get it to attack you, what would you do? If I'm trying to get a wild black bear to attack me? I'm just saying, like, what's the worst thing someone could do to, like, prompt and attack? Like laying down on the ground and spreading food all over yourself is the worst thing you could do. I thought you were going to say run.

Yeah, or running away from one that's chasing you. Those are two things that are. Because like in this story, it's just like, like she got attacked because she ran away. Yeah, that's where my mind goes, you know? It is. And like that is something, you know, there's three things that I kind of, when you get on even the National Park websites, there's pages of what to do when you encounter a bear. But there are three things that are really easy to remember that are proven to be effective.

And those three things are grouping up because they really don't like attacking groups of people. And this goes for Black Bears and Grizzly Bears, these three things. Getting your bear spray out and getting it ready and then slowly backing away. If you do those three things, like your chances of having any kind of incident with that bear are reduced by probably 95, 99 percent somewhere in there. Just remember those three things. Then there's a lot of nuance that you can bring into that discussion afterward. But I know we're going to have people saying, I've hiked in California my entire life. I've never had a problem with black bears, you know, or I've hiked in Washington or whatever.

I don't like giving animals the control. That's my whole thing is I don't, you're probably right that you're never going to have any problem. But if you do and you don't have a deterrent, you have given that bear the complete control and it gets to decide what's going to be the outcome of that situation. If you have a deterrent, if you have bear spray, which is proven to be incredibly effective with black bears especially, you have all the say in how that's going to end. If you decide to spray that bear, not only have you saved yourself, but you've also taught that bear a really important lesson, which is, you know, maybe it's up until that point, it's like, oh, I approach people, I get this reward. And then all of a sudden, it's like, oh, I approach someone and I get a face full of like the worst thing that's ever happened to me.

You know, it's a very important learning opportunity for that bear. And we constantly, like, just this year, there was this guy in Canaanascus. It was a viral video of this guy who a bear was following him and he finally like gives it his. coat and then he had fed it like some hard-boiled eggs or something that he had in his pocket. Yeah. Apparently that's a thing in Canada, hike around with hard-boiled eggs. But because that bear learned this lesson of, oh, I can approach this thing, I can push it to a level where food pops out, it learned that lesson.

And had that guy instead sprayed that bear, it learns a very different lesson. It learns a lesson of, oh, if I approach humans too closely, I get punished for it. And they ended up having to kill that bear because it learned the wrong. lesson. So not only can bear spray help save your life, but it also is a really important conservation tool because if a bear is doing behavior that we don't want, it teaches it an important lesson. So I do, I'd really like to make that point because I think people see it as just like, oh, this will save my life, but you're also saving bears lives when you use bear spray. I think that's a really good point because I think one thing on top of that that people think with carrying

bear spray is that they don't want to hurt the bear. And it's going to be fine. Yeah, and it's a longer a lesson than that. It's not just that moment. It's after that. After you're not around that bear. They remember it. Yeah. You'll never forget. I mean, I accidentally set off my bear spray. It contained truck. It's the worst. Oh, no. Yeah. My partner and I wanted to die for like, you know, a solid out. It was everywhere, you know, everywhere. Did it ever get out? Oh, well, yeah, eventually. But it was so funny because we're like, oh, my God, it's everywhere. It was bright, you know, bright orange, whatever. And, and, you know, And he was like, I need some, I need water. And he had like a, you flip open the tab to drink out of the water.

And he flipped it open with his hand that had the fucking bear spray on it. So we're both drinking. And then we're like, oh, shit. It's all in our mouth. It gets everywhere, especially because it's an oil base. Right. And so that it, like, it's really hard to clean off. It's hard.

But it's super effective because it's aerosolized. It creates a cloud between you and the bear. It just works so well. This summer, for example, in Yellowstone, I had an interaction with the black bear on a trail where the bear was approaching me. And I was no tiny part of me was concerned for my safety. But that bear kept coming close, even though I was displaying some really like defensive aggressive behavior, throwing things yelling. It still was deciding to approach. And I was one second away from spraying it.

And again, not because I was concerned necessarily about my safety, but it was going to give that bear a very important learning. opportunity about approaching people within 10 feet. It decided to veer off right when I was ready to spray, but I do want to just tell people like, if you're ever feeling threatened by a bear and you have bear spray and it's coming in close enough for you to spray it and make contact with it, you should spray it because that bear's going to learn something and it's going to stop doing that most likely. I have a question with this story, Wes, that I'm like, I feel like I know it like 99%. But so with black bears, like it having a cup. And this cub sounds like it's like a year old cub.

Yeah. It's pretty heavy. Yeah. But Black bears don't cub defend, right? Like at all? No, sometimes they do. But that's actually a perfect segue for kind of what I wanted to talk about next. And girls, feel free to interrupt me if I'm rambling too much about this because I don't

want to like say too much or like take too long on all of this. But as far as like Grizzlies and Black Bears and their differences, Grizzlies evolved out on the open plains. They evolved in these areas where they didn't really have trees to escape in. They've evolved really long claws for digging, so they're not nearly as good of climbers as Black Bears. And so they've evolved this really aggressive response to a threat because that's how they have to deal with something that approaches them on the open plains. They can't get away, so they just evolved this more of a fight response than a flight response. Black bears, on the other hand, evolved in forests, they live on forest edges, they live in forests. They use trees for escape

terrain. So if you scare a black bear, chances are it's going to run up a tree. If you scare a black bear with cubs, and this is what Jeff was getting at, it's almost always going to send its cubs up a tree. Because most things don't chase them up trees. It's a safe place for them to go. And the female is usually going to run up that tree with her cubs. She's just going to get away. Every once in while they stick down and they'll charge whatever's threatening them. But those are bluff charges. It's just the female trying to get you away from her cubs. But it's not like a grizzly. A grizzly is a true cub defender where if you like rise a bend in a trail and there's a grizzly there with her cubs, she's probably going to knock you down. She's not just going to like trust her cubs to get to

safety and bluff charge you. There's a good chance she's going to knock you down if you're too close, like if you've surprised her. If you've given her plenty of distance, she's probably going to take off with her cubs or bluff charge you or something. But if you're like within that distance where like I kind of call it like the pissed off distance, then there's a decent chance that she's going to actually physically neutralize you as a threat. And black bears don't do that. They will bluff charge you every once in a while, but generally they just trust their cubs to get to safety. And they've evolved that response over millions and millions of years. I love that we're talking about black bears versus grizzly bears because I think that that is a huge question for a lot of

people is how are you supposed to react in different situations between a black bear and a grizzly because they're very different. Yeah. Yeah. And people just grew bears together sometimes. They do. And if you do the wrong thing with a grizzly and you think it's a black bear, you're going to get yourself in a lot of trouble. Yeah. So there is, and to that last point, there is kind of a growing movement among bear biologists to educate people more based on behavior than species. Okay. Because a lot of those responses are, like I said, those three things you can do, those go, you know, those work across both species. I don't necessarily love that approach. I don't think it's wrong, but I prefer to still kind of differentiate between the two.

Because I think if you are hiking in grizzly bear country and you know you're in a place where there's a potential to run into a grizzly bear, you have absolutely no business doing that without a deterrent. You should be in there with bear spray. Bear spray has been proven to be more effective than firearms. If you are positive you're going to be better with your firearm, fine. I would much rather use bear spray.

It's not going to kill the bear. It's shown to be more effective. You don't have to be good at aiming either. I have zero confidence that I could put a bullet in a bear. I'm like I just never shoot. But with like basically it's just super pressurized for breeze spray. Like anyone can just, you know, put a little wall of bear spray in between them and the bear. Most sprays come with a blank so you can practice too as well.

Any more they have the training canisters that are great for practicing. And we can get into technique a little bit on that. But just as far as like the two species are concerned, even if you're great with your gun, You don't know how you're going to do when you're being charged by a grizzly. You don't know if you're even going to have time to get it out and get the safety off. Bear spray is quicker. It's a quicker deploying and you don't have to be perfect with it. But yeah, I wouldn't even consider hiking in Grizzly Country without a deterrent.

Black Bear Country is a little bit more of like if you want to take that risk, I guess go for it. But I still don't like giving control to animals. So you might as well have it. It fits so well on your hip. It's not very like, it's not a problem. You know, just have it there. I do have one thing that I want to ask you about because it's something that was brought up after, I think, I think it was after the Night of the Grizzlies one that we did like last sometime a year ago. But we had quite a few people talk about, because Cassie did a very brief like bear, you know, safety 101 type of thing at the end.

Yeah. And we discussed bear spray kind of like we're doing now. And we had a few people be like, well, it's illegal to carry bear spray in national parks. So can you elaborate a little bit more and clarify that? Any of the Grizzly National Parks, bear spray is not only going to be legal, but it's going to be greatly encouraged. It's going to be sold there. So if you're in Yellowstone, Glacier, Denali, any of those places, you should have bear spray. You 100% should have it with you.

There have been a few parks that only have black bears that have decided not to allow bear spray. It's not something I love, but I have learned more and more about it working in Yellowstone. for, like, for example, Yosemite is one of those parks. They don't allow people to have bear spray. And the main reason for that is that they've had far more problems with people thinking it's like bear repellent and spraying their kids or like a bear showing up. People like Danielle spraying their truck.

Yeah, exactly. And it doesn't work that way. It really doesn't. In fact, like, it would actually be a bear tractant if it was just kind of on the ground and accessible. But they also have had problems where bears come into campgrounds that are just curious. and people just go crazy and are spraying everything and spraying their neighbors. And it's too much.

So they've decided not to allow it. And they have they do tend to have really kind of non-confrontational black bears in Yosemite. If I were spending a week in the Yosemite backcountry, I would bring some bear spray. I'd put it in my backpack. I wouldn't tell anyone about it. But I would definitely have it with me because they have had some close calls there. It's so funny that people like spray their kids. I know.

Like it's missing. Like it's bugged like it's bug spray or something. Yeah. Yikes. Those pork children. Yeah. If you're going to a park where it's not allowed, but you're going to be spending significant time in the back country, take it. Just take it with you.

You don't have to tell them at the kiosk or whatever. Just keep it on you, though, while you're in the back country. But they don't have a real threat in their front country, and that's why they don't allow it. So generally, there's a good reason for it not being allowed in national parks, in certain national parks. Okay, so good rule of thumb, if there's grizzlies, I mean, you gotta take it. Yeah, honestly, the metaphor I like is it's like it's driving a car without a seatbelt. You are taking a risk that you don't need to take. It's just a very easy thing to have with you.

Okay. I think another question that we get a lot from people is when they are camping, they want to feel safe from bears. And a big concern for people is where do they store their food and how do they store it? Can you give people listening some advice on what they can do to feel a little safer with that? Yeah. I mean, the number one thing, the best, like, by far the best option is to have some sort of bearproof canister. You know, they sell some, and then there's also some that are like, in Yellowstone, for example, we were installing them in all the backcountry campsites. And if you put your food in those, it's going to work great. You still want to do whatever you can to reduce the amount of scent. So I would still put it in, like, a bag that is going to keep the scent inside as much as possible.

If you don't have that option, you want to put all of your food in one pack and hang it from a tree. And you want to make sure it's at least 10 feet up and that it's at least four or five feet away from the side of the tree too. That can be really hard to do. It's tricky, but it's worth it. If that, for whatever reason, if that's not an option and you still, you know, or then you're taking a much bigger risk. But what I would do then is put anything that smells food, toiletries, anything that's going to have a strong scent all in one pack. and I would take it at least 200 yards away from my camp and just stash it somewhere. Because then if a bear does find it, at least it's not bringing it into your camp. It's keeping it away from your camp.

And it's going to have a nice little feast and ruin your trip. But it's probably not going to hurt anyone. You told me a story once, Wes. Was it your grandpa that put bacon under his pillow at night? You don't do that, right? Yeah, don't do that. He woke up to a bear licking his face. They were so excited to eat their bacon.

Yeah. Why in the world would he do that? We don't know. We have some really dumb family members. He just, like, wanted to be close to it. Your parents didn't let you meet him. No, we know him pretty well, but that was a big mistake. Luckily, he didn't end up getting mauled or anything.

But yeah, honestly, the name of the game when it comes to campsites is just scent reduction. You don't want any kind of scent in your tent at all. If you're cooking food, do it away from your campsite. Do anything that's going to create scent away from your campsite. This includes, like, fragrance. is like toothpaste or deodorant or perfume, things like that. Yeah, yep. Any kind of unnatural fragrance for them can be an attractant.

It's definitely not going to hold the same weight as like you cooking up a pan of bacon or something or like a salmon filet. But you still want to be careful. There's no reason to give a bear that decision, you know, to help it make that decision to collapse your tent and try and grab you. Because those are the attacks that generally end up in, not generally, but they are much more serious than just like a run. run in with a bear. A bear investigating a campsite is a really serious thing. So you do want to be

careful about that. You know in Yosemite how they like camp on the side of El Capitan and stuff when they're climbing it? They don't need to worry about. They're probably okay. They're doing already. They're probably good. Yeah. They get a bear though they're done for. I know we derailed you with our questions. No, no. Those are great. And honestly, I would just say like he likes getting like actual questions every once. Yeah, I love it. I probably do. Like, I will say, so the

professor that I worked with the most, my kind of mentor, he did a lot of work on attacks, and he did a paper that looked at all the attacks in North America, or sorry, in Alaska, and there was like hundreds and hundreds of them. These weren't even attacks. These were just conflicts. So there's a lot of them.

Any conflict was where, like, a bear acted aggressively toward a person. And in those conflicts in Alaska, this is a remind you, there's three times as many black bears than there are grizzly bears. 88% of those conflicts were involving grizzly bears and 11% involved black bears. So black bears are a much less conflict-prone species of bear. They're much shyer. They're much more likely just to get out of there, get up a tree, get away.

Grizzly bears have evolved that fight response. They are a bear that if you surprise the grizzly especially, there's a decent chance that it's going to decide to engage with you, whether that's a bluff charge or a charge that makes contact. So it's right of your listeners to take grizzly bears more seriously than black bears. That's for sure the right move. But you shouldn't discount black bears for their capabilities and their potential because they have killed 70-something people and it is a really terrible way to die.

And a tiny little simple tool that fits right on your belt loop can almost completely remove that risk. So I just always say, you know, carry it. I try carry it as much as possible. even though I am fairly confident I can get out of any black bear scenario, I don't want to meet that one out of a million black bears that maybe decides it wants to eat me. And just never under any circumstance run away. Yeah.

Because you lose all, like humans have credibility as a threat to bears. Like bears have learned that we can harm them, you know? So like once you run, you're losing your credibility and you're forcing them into a quick decision. where otherwise they might have just been kind of curious. Right. I think some questions people have too is when you do, of course, not run away from a bear, but when you are stepping away from a bear, should you ever turn your back to them

or you should be facing them and backing away slowly? I would face it. And that's where you're kind of getting into that nuance. And like, my, like, the main thing that I want to get out there is like simplification of these kind of rules because what you don't want is for someone to run into a bear and think, okay, I'm supposed to talk respectfully. I'm supposed to hold my hands up and yell. I'm supposed to do this and this and this and run through this whole checklist of things that maybe will help but aren't necessarily proven to help. When really the three things that are proven to help are grouping up,

getting your bear spray out and getting it ready, and backing away slowly, I would stay facing the bear just because then you have eyes on it. It knows that you know it's there. But I will say with black bears, like if you're in a situation where a black bear where it's charging the bear, you a lot and huffing and clacking its jaws and making a big display. That's a bear that just wants you out of there. It's not interested in hunting you unless maybe you turn and run like Jeff said. Then maybe it's like, oh, that actually was food. I do want to eat that. But as far as like what level of worried you should be about that bear trying to eat you, it's very low. That's just a bear that's showing you how big it is, showing you it's defensive and it wants you out

of there. The black bears that you have to be more concerned about are the ones that are slinking and stalking and following and being really quiet. If a bear, if a black bear is quietly following you, that's the one that you really just have to convince that you're not food. So you got to start throwing shit at it. You got to make yourself as loud as possible. You can charge the bear, run at the bear. If you have bear spray, by all means, spray that bear because that's one that's considering you as a meal. Sage advice. I mean, it's terrifying. Like even Cassie and I are 95. percent sure that we were very close to a black bear once. Remember a Musilok?

Yeah. Or wherever we were. And we never actually visually saw it, but it was probably like two or three feet away from us and some underbrush. A little further than two or three feet. It was right next to the trail. It was close to the trail, but we could hear it and we could see the brush moving around. Yeah, and that's spooky.

It was very spooky because at first we weren't because we were mid-conversation, you know, And you know, when you hear something, you're like, what was that? You know? And then it happened again. We're like, oh, shit, we got to go. I've had an instance where a black bear was getting way too close for comfort. I was camping at one point. And it was very clear that people had been feeding this bear because I was there with my partner.

And we had our camper. And when I was outside, the bear would come very close to me. No matter what I did, I would scream, throw stuff. If my partner came out, he would run off. But if it was just me, he was coming closer and closer and it was very, he was not afraid of me at all. Right. And honestly, like, usually that's going to be just a food condition bear that's trying to get a reward. But that's very similar to behavior to one that's acting predatory.

And it's really tricky to tell those two apart. So you should treat any bear that's approaching you like in a very directed kind of like slinky, hunty way as a bear that is, it could potentially be predatory. And that's the bear that you want to fight off the hardest. This is black bears. Grizzly bears, you don't want to fight them. The only time you ever want to try and maybe engage with the grizzly bear is if it's a campsite attack or if you're actually being mauled. But at that point, I would just say, if you're being mauled by a grizzly, just fetal position

hope it stops if you don't have a deterrent. But with black bears, I guess that's probably the last thing that I should say about black bears is never with a black bear do you ever go into the fetal position and play dead. That is giving it an easy meal. It's giving it just a way to consume you at the rate that it wants to. will 100% always fight back with them. You never, ever give up with a black bear because it will. Grab those cute little ears. Just grab those ears and tug on. And then you get to touch them too. If you're going to go out, you've got to pet the ears first. Exactly. I've been around thousands

of them though, and I've never had one stalk me. I've never been in a situation with a black bear where I felt like my life was in danger. You know, me and Jeff have crawled into their dens and poked them. And been charged. That got me like unafraid of black bears just crawling into their dens. But it's probably not the best advice to give people. But, you know, as we just talked about, they do have the capability to kill people. So you do want to be careful. But I do think it is good to like tell people like you're probably going to be fine.

Just because like people see a bear and they freak out. And then like they lose all their like what should they do, you know? Right. Be calm. Yeah. Be calm about it. And like, if you get attacked, I'm sorry, I said that, you know? Well, the thing that's going to give you the confidence is that is having bear spray.

If you have that tool with you and you know how to use it, you should be totally confident. And then you can enjoy that experience. You know, then you can actually say like, wow, this is incredible. I get to have this up close and personal encounter with like one of the most charismatic and beautiful animals that we have. And I get to do it without worrying about my, you know, my safety. And so I, it's just a great tool. I could talk about it forever, but I'm done.

Well, I do have a question about you mentioned earlier that you had some contacts at Great Smoky Mountains and kind of circling back to Glenda's story. I did read briefly that, you know, this incident did kind of enact some change as far as protocols within the park. And do you know of any of those changes that were made or anything that was implemented? I know it was a lot of it had to do with visitor education. Yeah. I think that's the main thing is just that they upped their game in education and then like signs and kind of like warnings and closures and everything. I think they just took their black bear population a little bit more seriously. I'm not sure if they hired more bear management staff following that. I do know that their current lead bear management biologist is someone who worked at Yellowstone for a while. He really knows his stuff. He's really good with conflict. Yellowstone is a great place to learn how to manage bears. and people because you're working with both species and you're really, it's a very dynamic park. And so I know that they have a really good crew there that's really prepared for any kind of thing that their bears might throw at them.

I would imagine Yellowstone's like, you know, baptism by fire. It's great. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's truly such a cool place to work because you, when you're working with grizzly bears, especially like hazing and trying to push a grizzly bear in a certain direction with like hazing rounds is a real, you really learn a lot doing that sort of thing. I would imagine.

Yeah. But I mean, through all of this, obviously the entire point of your podcast is to educate people through these tragic, you know, really unfortunate cases and stories, but by, you know, you learn more, learn better, do better, have a respect for the animal. There's normally always a reason to why these things happen. And that's part of the reason why we really wanted to speak with you guys today because, you know, we can reiterate a story all we want, but to get real true insight from people actually in the field and that are experts in it. Because we never want to scare people just like, you know, we share a story every single week that's frightening in some way. And somehow it makes people more interested and more appreciative of the wild.

And that's our whole point. And we know that your point is the same with animals. And that's our goal as well. Like we never want people to now listen to this and be like, well, I guess I'm never going to go to Great Smoky Mountains because I'm scared of the bears. You know, you want to appreciate those encounters. Like you said, like wildlife encounters, close encounters with wildlife are among the most special moments in my life that I've had. And thankfully, they were all good, you know. But it's just through sharing stories like this, it's like, you know, bad shit can happen.

But this is how to make you safer. And in turn, you're keeping the bears safe or that other animal, whatever they may be. Yeah, I'm really glad you brought that up because that is, and Jeff and Mike can chip in on this too. But like the main point of our podcast is not to scare people. There are going to be like a percentage of people that it's just going to be too much for them and it's going to make them not want to go to those places. And maybe if your fear is that intense, maybe that's the right move. I don't know. But for most people, and we found this through like messages we've gotten,

learning more about how to, you know, react in these kind of circumstances, in these situations, it empowers them. And it gives them the confidence they need to go out into the wilderness and feel prepared. And that has been like kind of a really cool effect we've seen from the podcast is we're telling stories that everyone wants to hear. They're gory. They're interesting. You know, we have a relationship with our.

kind of our monsters and we want to hear about them. But then you learn that they're not monsters and that they're just doing natural behavior and they're acting like animals. And if you understand that, it takes away a level of fear and it really makes you able to appreciate them. Knowledge is power. A thousand percent. We had a listener, what was it Clara who we did the episode with who got bit by the rattlesnake? Yeah. What was it? Yeah. Yeah. Claire. Yeah. But she was like saying that she learned things from my rattlesnake episode of like what to do and stayed pretty calm. But I just remember it's funny that she like felt bad for the snake using its venom on her. Yeah.

Because it's energetically costly. Like said how much they need their venom. Yeah. But I mean, she thinks that it probably could have helped save her leg, like some of the stuff she's learned. That's awesome. That's such a direct reward.

Yeah. It was cool. You know? Yeah. It really made us feel great. But I do think, yeah, like you said, knowledge is power and people don't need to be afraid to go out and enjoy these places. You just need to be prepared.

And if you're prepared with that knowledge, you're going to, if you do have an encounter, it's going to be something that sticks with you for the rest of your life and makes your life better. And if you don't have that, you know, if you're not prepared, then you might end up being content on our podcast, which is what you really don't want. You don't want that. I want that. Well, speaking of content on your podcast, we do have one request. Yeah.

As a story suggestion that Cassie found. Okay. Remember, I don't know what it's called. I know it was in Japan. Do you remember that story? Cassie? Oh my gosh, yes. There is a... The grizzly bear one? Yes. I don't know which one it was. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. What? In Japan? It's like, someone messaged us and they're like, there is an attack in Japan, a

grizzly bear attack that would make night of the grislies look like Winnie the Pooh is what they said to us. Yeah, it was like a city in Japan that was like a little town in 1915 that was like essentially like a bear just waged war on them and killed like a bunch of people and mailed a bunch of people. it's definitely on our list. It's like we get so many requests that... Why is there a grizzly in Japan? Like Hokkaido and some other parts of Japan have a really healthy brown bear population.

I didn't realize that. Yeah. They also have a lot of Asiatic black bear attacks there. Japan has a rich history of bear attacks and we have yet to do one. But that one, for sure, we're going to do it. We kind of have to space out some of our like really heavy hitters. Intense ones?

Yeah, just to keep people interested. But yeah, that is one that we're for sure. going to do and we'll do it you know what i'll make you a promise that we'll do it in the next year perfect perfect we're never having promise for it we're never doing tread well though yeah we've had too many requests for it we're just not going to every we did that as yeah like one of our i think it was like the first story or second story i ever covered and like we've done uh you know we don't do a lot of animal attack ones even though they're my favorite ones to cover i just feel like like cassie love survival stories. I love animal attacks stories just because there is this other side to it. You know,

there's always, there's the story of what happened and then there's the story of why it happened. And then what can we learn from it and what outcomes obviously have come from it. And I think my favorite one was the Jim Corbett National Park that we did. That's a good one. I loved that one. And I know you guys covered the Savo Lions. That one was also really cool. And that one is insane. I will never get over that. There's so many people. I know. So many people.

Over 400, I think it was. No, I can't remember. Yeah, do you have a favorite of our episodes? Yes. Let's hear it. This can be our promo. Which one to start with? I don't think it's the one.

It's hard to pick. It really is hard to pick because they're all so unique. But I really loved the Townsville Tiger Shark shipwreck. Oh, interesting. Ray Bundy. I really loved that one. I don't know. There's something about or the Oceanic White Tips story.

Okay. Yeah, a lot of people bring that one up. Yeah, that one was crazy. I just think there's something about sharks just because they're so vilified and villainite. Like, I don't know. I just, with bears, yeah, they're scary as hell, but they also have those ears. They're very cuddly. You know what I mean?

So, but with sharks, people are just like, they have a very strong feeling towards them. And I don't know. I just really loved those episodes. Yeah, and weirdly, like, our biggest goal is to dispel those feelings. Like, you know, an animal attack podcast, our biggest fight is to, like, not make people afraid of animals. But, you know, it's like, they're not demons. They're just kind of doing their thing.

And we don't want anyone ever. Like, it's such a tricky topic. You say, like, animal attack episodes are your favorite. We, I, like, really bounced with this idea of doing this podcast for a long time because even among biologists, we really, it's always kind of been a little bit taboo to talk about attacks because of public perception. But I really do think if you do it in the right way, you can learn so much and really gain a bigger appreciation for the animals. And hopefully prevent future attacks because people know better. And the other thing, I mean, I know you bring it up a lot in your show,

but as far as even saying the word attack and categorizing it as an attack. Yeah. Is it, was it a true attack? Was it, you know, is it an incident? What's the word that you would rather use? encounter encounter is a good one incident's a good one honestly for like glinda and bradley i think attack is totally like a okay word to use because she prompted an attack by running from these bears and they fed on her so that is an attack but like yeah if you're floating around in the water and a great white comes up and bites you in the leg and then decides not to eat you because it realizes it doesn't want to that's not really an attack it's more of like an incident that really sucks wrong place wrong time yeah exactly like what's

Sorry, you don't taste good. Yeah. So there's really, there is like a lot of attack is such a loaded word, but it is a word that we use a lot just because it's kind of how people have described these things for a long time. Right. Well, I know we've been talking for a while, but as far as, you know, for what it's worth, we are huge fans, everything. I know you just said you went back and forth with even wanting to do the podcast at first, but I think you made a great decision because you've not only educated us, but obviously so many other people. And we found through our own journey that, you know, at first you think that maybe these things are going to be off-putting and maybe do the opposite of what you intended by sharing scary stories and things that come off is, you know, not the fluffiest and nicest to hear. But it does have that kind of reaction of what you want.

And you want people to be inspired and to appreciate things more. And what better way to do that than, you know, sharing some stories that grab attention, you know. And you're doing it great the right way. And it's just awesome to hear. Thank you. Thank you. And likewise for you. You guys, we really like your guys' podcast a lot.

And it's been really fun listening. So we appreciate it. You know, a lot of mutual love here. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Is there anything else you want to talk about? Just a quick plug. I don't know if we've really even said it.

The podcast is called Tooth and Claw. You can find it on anywhere where you get your podcasts. There's also, we have a really fun subscriber section. where Jeff and Mike do a lot of the episodes. So yeah, it's tooth and claw. Check us out. Hopefully you like what you hear. Yeah, listen to our Tiger Shark episode.

Yeah, exactly. The shark ones. You guys have like four or five, right? Shark ones. Our one coming out this weekend is a great white. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Just don't listen to the chimpanzee one because that one will haunt you for the rest of your life.

No, I was just going to say I've sent that one to a couple people before. Daniel said that one to me like first. I hope you don't like warn them. You're just like, oh, this is kind of a fun story. Yeah. I think I sent it to Cassie just like with no context. So just like, yeah. You're like, check out this episode.

It's really cool. And then I was like, oh, my God. That's perfect. Holy shit. Okay. Didn't expect that on a Monday morning. Yeah. Yeah, that one was actually terrifying.

Yeah. Chimps are another, uh, I, they're very frightening. Yeah, chimps are very frightening. Well, we will certainly, we will add all the links in our show notes for everyone listening. Thank you. So you can get straight to their podcast and you can check out all of these really interesting and intense episodes. And I just want to say thank you guys again for coming on. This has been so fun and so informative.

And I know that everyone listening has really, really enjoyed this. So thank you so much again for joining us. Thank you. And if we can all take out our calendars and mark down our field trip to the the great smoky mountains. Oh, yeah. It's smart. That would be great.

Now I need to go to Japan that. Yeah, let's all go to Japan too. Yep. Yeah, we'll tell that. We'll tell the grizzly story in Japan together. Yeah, on site. On site, yeah. Well, thank you again, you guys, for joining us.

We will see you all next time. In the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch your back. Bye. Bye. Thank you for joining us again this week. If you have a trail tale you'd like to share, send us an email at NPAD Stories at gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at National Park After Dark and on Twitter at NPAD podcast.

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