The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 167: Mauled by a Grizzly

Episode Date: May 6, 2019

Steven Rinella talks with Amber Kornak and Janis Putelis.Subjects discussed: The polite way to address someone who has suffered a bear “tragedy”; Janis's chicken egg business; what it’s like for female wildlife biologists; hair snares; the precise moment when you realize you’re about to be attacked by a grizzly; where to carry bear spray and how to hose a grizz with it; biophilia; tattooing bears; and more. Connect with Steve and MeatEaterSteve on Instagram and TwitterMeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeShop MeatEater Merch Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Download the Hunt app from the iTunes or Google Play Store. Know where you stand with OnX. Okay, our guest, Amber Kornack, right? Yeah. Eh. Kornack. You got mauled by a bear, so there's that, but we're going to talk about a lot of other stuff first and lay some groundwork.

How sick are you of being the woman that of being the person, like the woman that got mauled by a grizzly? You know, sometimes, sometimes I get a little tired of it. But I haven't heard people use maul. That's kind of not really the word they use. Tragedy. They say, oh, I heard you were involved in a tragedy or. They don't say, hey, I heard you got mauled by a grizzly.

No, no. They start off. A tragedy? Yeah. They call it tragedy or tragedy. There say hey i heard you got mauled by a grizzly no no they they start off yeah they call tragedy or there's another word they use for it i don't really call it that i mean it was just another day you know and they look at me and i'm like they call it a tragedy yeah tragedy um you're sitting here you're fine accident yeah but they use a there's a tragedy means that someone in your family died or you got messed up in a way that you'll never recover. Oh, I know.

It's not the right word for it. No, you just had a major attack. No, they mix up. No, it's not. You had a horrible mix up. Actually, the, I had, there was a workman's comp lady with me yesterday, one of my appointments and she called it interesting. She goes, oh yeah, I heard you had an interesting encounter. And I said, you know, that's a great

way to put it. So that's the first time I've ever heard put it, oh, horrific. That's the word. They call it horrific. So it's anything that's, you know, might scare people. I mean, I'm just like, I don't know. I think that's fair. Horrific. If I was in that, if that happened to me i would describe it as a horrific encounter you'd have to say i heard you had what i would regard a horrific encounter but if you just want to be straight up you'd be like i heard you got mauled by a grizzly and you'd be like why yes i did but there's more to me than just that that. But I know there's a natural tension here because I'm very interested in that while recognizing that you're a complex,

accomplished individual who has many aspects to their lives that go beyond a terrible, horrific mix-up that you had. Yeah. So we'll get there. But first I want to talk about Yanni's chicken business because Yanni has a new chicken business. Yeah, you should have heard Jennifer last night

after she realized the demand. She's like, you know, we got more room in that chicken coop for at least another half dozen, which, you know, whatever. I don't think it's going to increase the workload if we added a half dozen chickens right now. So you're getting nine, they're throwing nine eggs a day. Yeah, but I think sometimes they're throwing more than, some of them will lay two in a day now.

And you and the Putalis crew, you're only good for how many a day? You know, if I'm home, I can't say we keep up with that, but we can get close between breakfast and some baking, you know, that goes on. But if I leave for a week, then I come home and there's like two full buckets of eggs. Yeah, I just bought 12. How'd you decide to sell them by the dozen? I'll give you one guess. You know what, though? I bought a dozen eggs.

Maybe I should split them in half at six. I would sell 10 eggs. I would probably get the same amount of money for six as I am getting for a dozen. That's why I would do 10. Because you sell donuts, fur traps, and eggs by the dozen. And snares.

Those are the only things you can think of that come in dozens? Yeah. Traps. I'm sure there's other things. And donuts and eggs. All great things. Bagels, as you call them. Yeah, those sell by the dozen.

I would say, because Yanni's trying to get four bucks a box because he's trying to pay for his organic. And it's funny. Everybody that we've said four4 to, they're like, we should be paying you $5. Yeah. I was so pleased with the transaction and so pleased with the quality of the eggs I had this morning

that I just gave him $5 and paid him down on another dozen. So he's now sitting on $10 of my dollars. I'm ahead. You know, I had a guy that I – I would sell him a dollar. Listen, I would sell him a dollar an egg. I cracked – like this know, I had a guy that I... I would sell him a dollar. Listen, I would sell him a dollar an egg. I cracked, like, this morning, Jimmy had two. I had two.

Matthew had one. I'd pay five bucks for that. Sure. I mean, when you have eggs in a restaurant, you're probably paying that per egg. Yeah. I like it being in the business

where when you're giving me money before you receive the item I'm supposed to give you. A guy I guided once was in fast food and when he was looking at business to get into, he was like,

that's one of the few places where people give you the money first and then they wait to get what they paid for. That's a good point. Yeah. He liked that about it. But you might wind up getting underwater because you're going to take a lot of $5 bills.

And then you're going to go home and they're all going to be dead. Because you know where this is going. Oh, you mean if I get hammered by a predator? Yeah. You know where this is headed. We've been good so far. No, I heard from your wife that two mysteriously vanished. Yes, but they're not the only two.

We also lost a lame duck with it being, it was at our house less than a week and we lost it. We started with, I don't know how many bantams. We had over a dozen bantams, which are just like a small version of a chicken because they were free, already laying. So we took them took them on much more skittish i like the big ones much better because they're like pets you can pick them up and hang out with them the bantams like they're they're paying the butt they're the wild men of chickens yeah for sure and they lay a

teeny tiny egg so you're eating like three to four you time you eat. But anywho, where's that going with that? Every time we've had a weak or getting old chicken or duck, they are gone within days of showing that weakness. And we have not yet figured out to who. We've never lost a healthy one. No tracks or anything? No tracks. That's why we think it's –

He can't read time. That's why we think it's... He can't read time. That's why we think it's... He needs to bring up a tracker. Amber, go up there and tell you what's going on. She does mortality. Next time you're up, you should look around.

Because you work on mortality projects, right? I do, yeah. Where you go out and look at something dead and try to figure out what killed it? Yeah. I actually love doing that. There's nothing...

Actually, we had a rabbit. Some lady brought in one of her rabbits, and she didn't know what had happened to it. It ended up dying, and we knee-cropsied it, and it had a bruising, and you could definitely see it looked like a dog had, just by the sign and where it had bit, it just grabbed it and shook it to death and then just let it go.

He doesn't have the carcasses, though. Well, you don't have anything. No feathers, no nothing? Nothing. Every now and then, Jennifer will describe it as a puff of feathers. That's why we think it's a bird. Cause there's times we have big fir trees that are near everything around our property. And there's times when there's a golden Eagle that's, you know, three feet tall sitting on the fir tree. That's right over the chicken coop. It's not your dogs, right? Don't have dogs. dogs oh you guys don't have any dogs oh okay all right uh oh quick thing i have you okay well i got one more thing that we're gonna oh yeah yeah good well i want to make sure we come back to it i want to know what goes into a necropsy of something as simple as a, is it necropsy

or knee? Necropsy. I've been told that a lot. But just as something as simple as like a cottontail rabbit, I'd like to know what goes into that. So I don't know if we want to cover that now or come back to it. A cottontail necropsy? Yeah.

Or a bear, you know. We'll touch on that first. No, we'll get to it. Can you remember? I'll make a note. I got a few notes. The thing I want to touch on is this, is I have my fish shooting bow. I have an Oneida Osprey, which is a souped up fish shooting bow that I don't want. And I don't use it because I use my recurve for shooting fish. It's only been shot a few times. They're expensive bows. It's left-handed is the catch. If you want this bow, all you got to do is write in and make the subject line, go onto our website, find the contact thing, make the subject line, fish shooting bow. So we know what we're looking at. So we'll say fish shooting bow.

And then you say, if you give me this bow, I will donate X dollars to the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. We're going to just do a quick scan, not paying a whole lot of attention. Seems like the highest person. I'll send you the damn bow, and then on the honor system, you got to make sure you send them the money. I was going to ask about that. We're going to do it on the honor system. Honor system. Yeah, have them send me like a... We'll figure it out.

So left-handed Oneida Osprey... Yeah, send a screenshot of your payment. Yeah, a left-handed Oneida Osprey fish-shooting bow. Barely been shot, and it's got those sweet rubber thumb grips so you don't have to walk around the thing um okay your first bro amber your first brush of fame was you made it into big buck magazine yeah now that magazine that magazine just comes right out and says right outdoor life you're like that could mean a lot of things field stream that could mean a lot of things big Field and stream, that could mean a lot of things. Big Buck magazine.

That's a lot. Straight to the point. It's a good-sized bear. It's not a big buck, but. Yeah, you made it into Big Buck magazine when you were 16 years old. Yep. It identifies you as being from my home state of Michigan. Yes.

Not where you know, though, apparently. No, we don't. All travel in Michigan, at least in my neck of woods, is north-south. Okay. You don't veer. You just stay in the same line of longitude. You stick to your longitude. Where'd you grow up?

Allington. Lower Thumb area. He's over in Kalamazoo, yeah. Oh, yeah, you're from Michigan, too. Central Michigan or whatever you call it. Michiganders. So you killed a big old bear when you were young. Yeah.

It was a decent-sized bear. You grew up hunting. I did. What kind of hunting? Were you generalists or were you guys like specialists? No, we kind of did everything. Mostly whitetail in Michigan. We just happened to

come upon the outfitters for doing black bear stuff, but yeah, we mostly did whitetail and I didn't do it. You know, I did as much as I could with going to school and I worked and everything, but bow and gun and we had tree stands and have quite a few acres and everything. So we just, it was just enjoyable just to kind of sit out there and i shot a my first one was a fawn a button buck my dad had shot the doe and i was like oh i can't leave the button wiped out the whole family well yeah i felt really bad afterwards i was like oh man he probably would have made it but i was i was so young you know so it was good just to get something under my belt and everything so did you grow up fishing?

Yeah, we did some fishing. We actually had a pond. We had a huge pond. And so we always bass fished in our pond. Largemouth bass. Yeah, that was a lot of fun. You guys cook those up or let them go? No, we just let them go.

Then we come back and catch them again. So it made it a lot of fun. At what point in your life did you realize that you were going to be a, did you grow up being like, I'm going to be a wildlife biologist I did not so you know I listened to a lot of your guys podcasts

and talked to other people and stuff and they're all like oh yeah I knew when I was a kid and super young and you'd think I would have known because I started my first job

I worked at a greenhouse and I absolutely loved it and had it until I graduated high school what's greenhouse just myths it was local yeah I worked at a local greenhouse.

Oh, you did? Moving those damn flats everywhere. Moving them outside, moving them inside, moving flats. It got you working, you know, playing stuff. Quick story about that. I think I might hesitate because I might have told this story. I've never heard a greenhouse story that I can remember. You know what a kill deer is?

A bird? Oh, yeah, yeah. Birds that act like when you get close to them, they try to lure you away from their nest back like they got a broken wing. Yeah. Some sly shit, right? For a bird. Yeah. We're out moving flats. On the beach, right? Yeah, they hang out on the beach. We used to put all the flats when it was time to move

the flats outside. And you'd be moving them out, in, out, in. We moved them all. They're all outside. We had to move them all inside. And in one of them, a kill deer made a nest. And there's thousands of flats out in this field. You could go find this. You could find this place on Google earth.

And we're picking up the flats and realize that there's a bird nest in one of the flats, a flat of like, what do you call them? It's like a flat full of the little pockets where the plants grow up. Yeah. And we leave it out there. So we pick up whatever 999 flats and leave the one flat with a bird nest sitting there. And I report to the owner, Mike. I say, we left that one because a kill deer laid a nest in it,

so we didn't want to disturb it. I remember he got mad and walked out, dumped that thing out, and carried it inside. Did it have eggs in it? I'm telling you, man, yeah. He's just like a hard man with a flat, hard man. He just didn't want the bird. Anyhow, so you were interested.

You had what E.O. Wilson calls biophilia. Probably, yeah. You know that term? I don't, actually. Like an innate desire to, like biophilia, right? Oh, yeah. But an innate desire to connect with other life forms. Yeah.

No, I definitely thought I would have known back then, but I just, I had no idea what I wanted to do. And I mean, growing up, and I don't know if you experienced the same thing where I was at, it was, it was ag. So there was a lot of ag and I knew there was game wardens or conservation officers, but I had no idea about wildlife biologists and things, you know, you learn biology, kind of the general sense but we didn't have extra classes or anything similar to that to kind of give me an idea of what I would

want to do so I just kind of went with it and I was like well I'm gonna go and be a teacher and we'll just kind of go with that and see and then ended up not being a teacher and got my associates in accounting and then finally I realized I wanted to be a biologist. Wanted to do accounting? Yeah. So I ended up in Montana from Michigan because that's where I wanted to go to school. I initially wanted to go to Alaska, but my dad told me no because my mom told him no. They didn't want you that far away. Well, if I was moving to Alaska, dad was going to move there too. So there's a lot to hunt up there.

Yeah, but you could have just done that deal. My brother lives there, so your dad could have hunted with you for everything. I feel like feel like we gotta backtrack just a little bit because i want to know if you had siblings because i'm interested about how oh i know where he's going with this did you have a brother i did not that's why your dad hunted with you what is that supposed to mean because i was the only one it's true man tell man. Tell her, Yanni. Well, yeah, I can't remember the numbers. But yeah, basically, if females are to get into hunting via their dad, it's usually because they don't have a brother. First born or no brother? Oh, man.

That's what we were told. You have a sister. No, I'm an only child. That's what we were told by someone who spent a lot of time with a hunter demographics oh really yeah dad's like well i gotta take her because i don't have any other choice old timey dads old timey dad i don't i don't i don't put it that way when i take out my girls hunting it's but it's like i got to no it's a reality hunting buddy yes it's a reality of how people historically,

how a segment of the American population has historically treated who goes hunting. You're exactly right. I just think that you're misrepresenting the thoughts that are in the dad's head when he chooses to take his daughter hunting. I'm putting a fine point on something. I don't think that that's her father's. I'm not saying anything bad about your dad,

but you understand what I'm saying. I'll back it up. In my family, all men, all of the men, to some extent, participated in hunting and fishing. Virtually none of the women. Really? Okay. It's just a thing. It sucks.

There are myriad reasons, many of them unjustified. You can't untangle it all. Right. But it's just a reality. Right. 90% of the people that buy a hunting license in this country are male, but less than 50% of the people that live in this country are male but less than 50 percent of the people that live in this country are male so there that's crazy it's crazy to think about especially and

that's still now like those are all accurate now right those are current numbers so i don't know i don't think it's i don't think it's good. Yeah. But it's just, as far as like what your father's motivations, I'm just teasing you. Oh, yeah. A guy that looks at demographics was telling us, he's like, and he's like, and when a woman does hunt,

it's often that she has no male siblings. So you moved out to study accounting. Well, I moved out to Montana initially to do teaching just because I didn't know, not knowing what I wanted to do. I thought maybe being a teacher and if I wanted to go back to school, I could take summer classes. But then I really didn't want to do that.

And I actually, and I started off at Carroll College in Helena. And I ended up dropping out my last semester. I just, I don't think I was ready to go to college. I just had no idea what I was doing. And moved back home. Well, my parents were in Wolf Creek at the time, so they had moved and got a place in Wolf Creek.

And so I moved back home with them. Wolf Creek, Montana. And then I just ended up going to the community college in Helena. And I went for accounting because, well, there's tons of jobs and it makes good money. So if I didn't know what I wanted to do, I'd eventually figure it out. And I spent four years doing that and worked a lot. So you're like totally cynical. You were totally cynical. You weren't like a romantic yet.

No, no, no. I mean, I loved hunting in the outdoors, but like I said, I didn't really know what existed actually until we moved to Montana and started talking to people about Forest Service and we learned about the BLM because there's not a ton of public land in Michigan and so we were always hunting. Yeah, there's a lot

but not where you're at. Right. No, it's a lot of private and we've always hunted Like over my area north, it's shit loads of it. Oh yeah, there's tons there. Yeah, I never stepped foot

on public land until I moved out west. Yeah, and it's amazing and it's so much to learn too because like I said, BLM and the ranches and everything that you go on. So just learning about all that foot on public land until I moved out west. Yeah, it's amazing. And it's so much to learn too, because like I said, BLM and the ranches and everything that you go on. So just learning about all that and learning about the game wardens and that there is wildlife biology. And like I said, it took me about four years, but I also got rid of some negative influences and people who had been in the field, but were like, no, you don't want to do that because you

don't make a ton of money and this and this and that. And I was like, well, what if this is something I really, really wanted to do? And then, I don't know, I just flipped a switch and started looking at schools and found Oregon State, and that's where I ended up getting my wildlife degree. Excellent. Yeah. Full on, you got a bachelor's degree.

I did, yep. Have you worked on a master's yet? No, I'm working on it. My grades and my GRE scores are a little lower than what they're like because I focus hardcore on getting work and getting a job and getting a ton of field experience. And I studied as hard as I could, but I just didn't – I don't quite make the cut for a GPA.

So working on it. What do you mean? Like you can't go to grad school because of your GPA? Yeah, because it's low. It's a little lower than what they want. Ah, really? Yeah, yeah. Oh, man. Yeah, no because it's low. It's a little lower than what they want. Ah, really? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah. No, it's a big bummer.

Yeah, because I was so focused. How bad were they? Like D's? No, no, no, no. They were better than that. It's a competitive field. It is super competitive. So, you know, they mostly want people with 3.0 or higher, and some people are even 3.5 or higher. And it's still WETO because it's so competitive. And the GREs 3.5 or higher and it's still weed out and it because

it's so competitive and the gre's are hard i mean it's like taking the east as a gres are miserable man yeah i took the gres yeah they suck well how long ago did you take because they changed and they changed all the scores and everything how they score them i took the gres, I don't know, 95. Okay. Yeah, so now they do a smaller, not a smaller scoring, but just kind of like they change the SATs over from the 1400s to the whatever it is, a three or whatever, and now they've kind of changed them over too. So I've taken it twice.

It's a pain in the butt every time. Well, we'll circle back around to that. That's horrible, though. I mean, it is what it is. So then what was your first paid gig when you come out of school for biology? Well, I actually had a paid gig in school. So when I started, when I was at Oregon State,

I was just networking like crazy. And there was a lady there who was doing some marbled murlet stuff, and she just needed somebody to do data entry, and so it was completely volunteer. And so I just did it. And from that, there was a job with Hancock Forest Management, an internship during the summer, and she forwarded my name.

She knew the biologist there and everything, turned in my resume, and they hired me right away. So that was a paid position. So that was my first paid position. We were doing Pine Martin stuff, which was pretty cool. Oh, that's good. Yeah. Yeah. It was super cool. And I was on the coast of Oregon, which is awesome because there are a ton of black bears out there. And so even though I was looking for Martins, I kept running into black bears and kept getting picked black bear pictures and just these huge bears. And I kept saying,

is there any chance we're going to do any black bear work over here? Just because it was so awesome how many black bears were coming in on the coast and they would just tear up everything. Had you given up your bear hunting ways by then? Or are you still a black bear hunter? No, I do like hunting black bears. It's not like deer elk though. I don't want to do it all the time i'd love to take one with my bow i haven't taken one um but yeah it would be really nice to take i mean an oregon bear especially a coastal bear because they're they're big you know and they're just it's the it's so hard to hunt them so it just makes it such a good challenge you were just running into them though yeah and they would be they would tear down so we were putting up cat food in a

just like a on a tree and kind of a makeshift little fencing to get the pine martin hair yeah and then we had those um i can't even think of but stuff to catch hair um gun brushes and stuff nailed onto the tree to catch hair and so they would go i've seen that we better explain it real quick what do you mean? A hair trap. Oh, so, well, everyone's a little different, so I know they do sticky ones. They can do those too for tracks.

We didn't have those. I was with my buddy and he was setting up a gun brush one. Oh, yeah. He was trying to catch, was he after fish or lynx? I think it was lynx. He was after lynx hair and he was setting up a rig.

Beaver meat. Oh, okay. He had a beaver, wired it to the tree, just a skinned out carcass, wired it to a tree up on a ridge top, and then he screwed in all the gun brushes, like the brass gun brushes, around it so that any critter that went up and started wrestling with that frozen carcass was going to certainly, like a dog hairbrush, leave a bunch of hair on the gun brushes.

Oh, cool. And he had to get it up out of the snow, you know? Oh, cool. Mine wasn't as cool as that, but that's the same thing. We had one on each side. What made it less cool, that you were using cat food? Well, yeah. I feel like we could have used something else, but the bears loved it, so it was great.

But they would also tear down my camera. So we'd set up a camera, you know, just a tree away or so in a good spot. And then we'd have those gun brushes, one on each side and then one on the top. And then the, I guess it was just some fencing that we put together and then we'd poke holes in the cat food so they could smell it.

And the pine martins like that. They do. That's what they had. I think they use that. So it was on a study somebody was doing with Oregon State, and she did some work, I believe, in California, and that's what they were able to do. But I just was, I mean, I was getting bear after bear after bear.

Coming into that cat food. Yeah. Were you guys, are there fishers in there? Were you getting fisher hair? No, I didn't get, like I said, all I ever got was bear hair. And my partner, I think the same thing. The only bycatch was bear hair. Oh, por didn't get, like I said, all I ever got was bear hair and my partner, I think the same thing. The only bycatch was bear hair. Oh, porcupine.

Not a porcupine. Why was I thinking porcupine? Why can't I think of it? Pine squirrel? No. Badger. What is it with the long, they're cute when they're little

but they have the long nose. Why am I thinking? Possum's grippers? Yes, possum. Why was I thinking, yeah. Oh, they have possums up there. It was really weird and I thought. You guys were getting grippers? Yes, possum. I was thinking, yeah. Oh, they have possums up there. It was really weird. You guys were getting possum hair?

We got one. Yeah. He was so weird because I was like, what is that? Is that a marten? It's got to be a marten. And just by the size and then its nose. And my buddy's like, no, that's a possum. Yeah.

Tell you what, you take a possum fur and you get just the fur where his head's not involved, his feet aren't involved, his tail's not involved. Like skinned? Oh, beautiful fur. Really? You wouldn't believe it. The tail ruins it for people. Oh, yeah.

But just a possum fur is gorgeous. What do you do? Do you sell it? Yeah, they're not valuable because their leather's too thin. Oh, okay. Yeah. Only like a really good, I was just talking with Seth earlier. If you can flesh a possum, you can flesh anything.

Really? Very hard to not tear the hide on a possum. Well, you definitely don't want to eat them though, right? People eat them. I never have. We used to do a lot of possums because Trapping Fox, possums, a lot of possum bycatch. But you didn't do anything with them? You sell them.

It's just hard to flesh. You can sell them in the green, but then when you sell them in the green, they're like a dollar. Oh, okay. Because all the work is fleshing them. Right. But so you worked on that project. What else did you work on? Then I went and I worked at a hatchery with Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Yeah. Yeah, it was just a fun little internship. It was three months. You know, it was fun. I don't know what they – it's not – but when you pull out the was fun i don't know what they it's not but when you pull out the eggs i can't remember yeah when you just like pull out the you're like holding this huge fish and you're just squeezing these eggs out i'm like this is insane you can like feel them all in their stomach so that was pretty cool and then i worked for oregon department

of fish and wildlife again i did another internship but ended up with a job working on black-tailed deer. And that was a lot of fun. We darted them, or we set up clover traps. Clover traps? Mm-hmm. It's like a big walk-in trap. And it's crazy, but they do, they wander in them. You just put a little bait pile in there,

and there's a string hooked to the door, so it's got a door that goes up. And, when they cross the string goes across on the bottom. And when they cross, like one of their legs cross the door drops down. They call it clover because it's clover shaped or you're baiting them with clover. No, we're not baiting them with clover. I actually don't know where the name came from. I never really asked that. The trap isn't shaped like a clover. No, it's just this big and elk are bigger. They have bigger ones, but yeah, it's like the probably the size of this table and then just kind of tall enough so deer

can walk in and then obviously elk are a little more bigger. And you're getting them in there with what, corn? Yeah, we put down some corn. The hair trapping, catching hair, did you wind up doing more of the hair? Because you had hair work when you had your mix up. You were doing grizzly bear hair studies.

Yeah, but that, aside from the Pine Martin and the grizzly bear stuff, is about the only thing I've done with hair. I mean, we collect hair off of bears that I captured in Florida. But yeah, other than that, I haven't really done a ton of hair stinger stuff. So being a wildlife biologist is tough. Tough because it's like all these temporary jobs, right? It is. And they don't pay a ton of money.

No, they don't. Sometimes you get lucky. Oregon actually pays super well. And if you can get in and network, they're really great. And they're doing a ton of research. I actually just talked to one of my old bosses there. And he's got seven research projects going on. A couple different elk projects, black tail, white tail.

He's got a bear project, fisher, and he might've said Martin or something. I mean, he's just got so much going on. So there's a lot, there are a lot of jobs, but they're super competitive. And like you said, they don't pay as well. And some places don't even offer housing. So when I work for Idaho Fish and Game, they don't really offer housing because they don't really have a lot of housing, but then they end up, you know, in the area I'm in, they pay a little more and I get to be a senior wildlife technician just because they don't, you know, offer housing. So, I mean, some places balance out. If you imagine all things, this is going to sound weird,

I can't say all things being equal. Is it harder, is it still harder to make it in that field as a woman than it is to make it in that field as a man? Or has it evened out because it's so many uh government agencies i i say it's i say it's about evened out i i mean a lot of the a lot of my supervisors have been females um but i've also worked for a lot of males and you in the department especially in my office now it's's 50-50. There's a lot of males, there's a lot of females. I feel because of my work and everything that I have a lot of experience.

And so they tend to, I mean, they base it off of experience. So I've never had an issue where I was like, whoa. So you feel like in that field, it was like a meritocracy there. Yeah. Yeah. And then it's not like a bro culture. I definitely think in some areas there can be. There's still that old time, I guess, bro culture, if you want to say. But yeah, I still think it's around.

And I think it's probably something we're always going to have to deal with and work with. And I mean, some people are just set in their ways and that's okay. And honestly, it's just, that's fine. I'll take a challenge. You know, that's a good attitude to have. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness, we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes and our raffle and sweepstakes law that makes it that they can't join,

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land hunting zones aerial imagery 24k topo maps waypoints and tracking that's right you were always talking about uh we're always talking about on x here on the meat eater podcast now you um you guys in the great white north can can be part of it be part of the excitement you can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service that's a sweet function as part of it. Be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services

hand-picked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. How many years had you been doing field work? four and a half now which is crazy okay yeah

and all of it like no full-time salaried stuff it's just piecemeal nope yeah it's all been let's see the hatchery was three months and that's the lowest one i've had other than that they've been five six and then id Fish and Game has been eight months. So how did it come to be, like, lay out who you're working for, what you were doing when you got attacked? So I was working for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and University of Montana, so it was a cooperation between the two. And I was working in Libby, Montana.

What was the job? The job was a grizzly. So grizzly bear hair snare DNA technician. So that's kind of a long title, but. So you see this job come up where? Like how'd you even become aware of the job? Well, I have been trying really hard. Like bears are my goal

and that's kind of my, what I really want to do and what I want to work with. And somebody actually, so I knew somebody, he came to volunteer with us with Idaho fishing game. And he happened to hear through the grapevine that there was going to be a job. Um, cause he worked, so he had worked up in Northern Idaho. And so he knew somebody who kind of knew somebody, he did a little bit of volunteering with my boss from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. And so I met him doing some

capture work and he's like, oh yeah, by the way, they're going to be posting a job and just kind of gave me a heads up. And I believe, yeah, he gave me Wayne's number and I just contacted Wayne and was like, hey, heard you guys are going to have some openings. Would love to talk with you some more. And he sent me over the list and what they were going to have. It was trapping technician and then DNA hair snare assistant. And so he sent me those over. Trapping would be like barrel trapping bears? But foot holds is what they use.

Yeah. So I applied for both of those and did an interview and they actually didn't. So, you know, Texas A&M, a lot of things wind up on Texas. I don't know if you guys know. Yeah. It's a huge job board. And if it goes on there, I mean, it just goes insane.

And they actually don't post, they don't post anything on there. So everything they kind of send to the university. So U of M, MSU, and I think U of I is where they'll send the job descriptions and everything. And so, yeah, so I was super fortunate and just really wanted to be in there. And then I got an interview and yeah, they told me I got the job. How long did you, how long were you working the job before you got attacked? Three days.

Are you serious? I know. Did you go into it? I'll get to that later. So you get the job. And what's day one look like? So day one, we get to kind of everybody's there. So it's the trapping technicians. There's three biologists. And then there's three trapping technicians. It's, there's three, three biologists,

and then there's three trapping technicians, and then there's three hair snare. And so we're all there and we're just doing safety, going over all the just kind of rules, protocols, things that need to get done. We did chainsaw safety. And so that was, that was three days of doing that. So the first day kind of everybody was just getting in. We were getting to know each other. And then the next two days were just trainings. And like our last day, the three of us, DNA hair snare techs, we went out and we just set up one just to kind of see if we had any questions or if there was anything that we needed to do.

So we set up a corral and then set up a couple of hair, went and checked some hair snares that were already out. And what did you guys bait grizzlies with? So the trappers bait them with road deer so anything and then they they kind of like mix them up and that's what our you know when we do a corral in the center is we put a like lure and so it's basically blood and from like roadkill animals that they've had mixed up and everything and then then a little roadkill meat too. Yeah. Yeah. Just like little chunks of it and everything. And are you pretty precise about where you like, are you, when you place the hair snare,

are you trying to place it in really good, like a really good spot or do you place them like semi randomly? Um, the, so the corrals are fairly random that actually the hair snares, most of them were already set out. So they've been, I mean, they've been doing this project for 10 years. I got you. So you're coming in on a pre-existing project. Yeah, so there's already stuff out there. But definitely, I was looking for it.

So if there was a new, fresh tree that had a ton of hair on it, I would definitely keep an eye out for new areas to maybe move the hair snare if nothing's active on that tree. If you found a new scratching tree or something. Yeah, because it's just barbed wire that you cut. And so if I found something new that was looking better than the older one i could move it and um yeah some of the tree i mean they were just this tight they were super tiny just the diameter was so small and there would just be an inch diameter yeah

they would be so tiny but you could just see where the hair was and it would just be you would just wrap barbed wire around it and yeah there would be some hair there and i. And I'm like, how does it, how do they not break it? You know, but they're just kind of rubbing on it a little bit. Do you find rub trees that a grizzly like to rub on that were an inch? Grizzlies, black bears too. There's black bears out there. So we collect a lot of black bear hair too. Cause I mean, you can't.

Yeah, you can't sort it out. Yeah, yeah. When you were training up, did they train you in, did you shoot some training cans of bear spray? We did once, yeah. And I've done it before. So I've gone to a lot of the, you know, the be bear wear stuff and kind of shot the cans out there.

And they definitely gave, I was like, you guys are giving us bear spray, right? And they said, yeah. Oh, yeah. Did they give you the, because one of my brothers used to work for the state of Alaska through the university system. And their protocol was pump shotguns with slugs was their protocol. That was like what you were supposed to have with you. And he traveled everywhere.

This is a while ago. Everywhere he went, he carried a pump shotgun. No bear spray at all. Had like a 24-inch barrel with slugs and you carried a pump. That's like in Alaskaaska with that community that was what you did then when he switched to u.s fish and wildlife service it's optional oh any of it spray shotgun pistol really yeah taster's choice oh man but you have to have one it's not optional to have any you gotta have one oh okay okay that's my understanding. Okay. You know, I take that back.

I think that that's true, but I don't want to say that that's true. Right. But I know he started using more carry and spray more. Yeah. Even though it's a hassle with flying and stuff. Spray is a hassle. Oh, they carry it. Well, I guess they're flying into remote locations.

Yeah, you always got to put it in an ammo can and strap it to the struts on helicopters. Right. You know, because no one wants to have one of those things rip loose in a cockpit yeah no that wouldn't be ideal that's a death sentence um so you guys never talked about carrying shotguns or anything no we didn't and i don't even know if carrying a gun i may have asked the question just i mean i don't really carry a hand gun so we've always kind of carried bear spray and that's just standard protocol yeah mandatory to carry spray for them yes like in the role you were doing it's mandatory spray yeah personally where did you carry it where did you keep it i actually had it on my chest so my like on my left and right and right where that buckle meets you know on your left side you just

hang it off your backpack buckle yeah yeah i just have it right there so it's kind of right right near me i don't know if that's the right place. I mean, every place is different. I think it's a smart place. I mean, talking to you, you'd know better. But in my mind, what could be better than having it on your chest? Well, you guys heard about the most recent attack

and NS, right? And it sounded like maybe he had his on his hip. I don't know for sure i didn't read the report oh okay but he did have bear spray which is super awesome but i was wondering how he was carrying his if it was on his hip or if it was on you know and some people do they carry them like right on their hip and it's just more convenient you know we used to do with them put them in the bottom of your backpack. I don't know. I'm just like so stupid.

We're always like, oh, it's in the lid of my pack. I feel like you still see it all the time. Like on just the hiking trails around here, you'll see bear spray on the outside of a backpack. Sure, it's kind of reachable, especially if you're a yogi and you're flexible. You can get to it a little bit easier, but still. But now what I do is the FHF Hornets has, Especially if you're a yogi and you're flexible, you can get to it a little bit easier, but still.

But now what I do is the FHF harness has, what do they call that, like the MOLLE or whatever? Yeah, whatever. Some strips on the bottom. And you can attach his bear spray canister right underneath your binocular harness. Is it Velcro or is it? No, it's like the MOLLE system, right, where you have like,

what do you call that? It's like woven nylon webbing. Webbing. And you have like tacks or, you know, tacks, strips in a row. And you can, the harness or the holster has like a little belt that runs through there and then back into itself. Okay. He totes his hand cannon down there in the same place.

Yeah. Yeah, man. Right there down there in the same place. Yeah. Yeah, man. Right there. One or the other. Right there. You got to get it where you cross draw. Well, I figure if you're in like a ball, right, or if you're in sort of a defensive fetal position,

that's where your hands are going to be near your chest. Yeah. I mean, like I said, everybody puts it somewhere different. So I think it's the motion of being able to get it out. Cause what if you can't, cause some of the times when you get those holders, even the ones that they have, yeah, they're super tight. So what if you can't get it out? You know, that's a good point. So on the morning, I got a, before we get there, I got a question. Cause when I was reading through what you were doing, you're, you just talked about catching bears and then tattooing bears. Oh yeah. And I want to

know how and why you tattoo a bear. So, so I wasn't a part of trapping, so I only did the DNA stuff, but I did assist after my accident. They had an, I was going up to Libby to visit people and they happened to have an augmented bear that was coming up. lead foot to the ground that was on my way up but we so we tattoo them on either side in case they lose their so sometimes the collars break off fall off or we take them off and also we do put ear tags on them so if they the ear tags come out and the bear or if the bear gets eaten and a lot of that stuff is gone but the mouth is gone then we can just flip that up and you can see the number on there so we're basically so the tattoos on the inside of their cheek yeah so you you're pulling up and we did this on black bears in florida too and so you're just pulling up

their cheek and you feel kind of bad but you're essentially it's this tool and it has kind of not nails i don't want to call them that but you're able to put ink on it and then you just stick it up under their lip and push it, and it creates holes, and it's a tattoo. And it's got like their number on it. Yeah, so like an indelible mark that someone can. They'll have it forever. Well, of course, unless they lose their lips.

Grizzly gets hit by a car out 100 miles away. You can tell that it was yours, and he went that far. Yeah, because sometimes they don't call her on or even ear tag them maybe they just captured it and they're gonna move it or something so they just you know a tattoo is easier they're just gonna relocate it and i know they tattoo a lot of mountain lions when they relocate them too do they yeah because i've heard like when people talk about when a mountain lion will turn up somewhere weird you'll often read that they'll remark that it had no tattoo interesting on the outside i don't know where they tattoo them interesting because oftentimes you have a problem animal yeah and you

relocate a problem animal so you can sort of like look at recidivism meaning is this problem animal a problem animal or is he just having to be in a bad situation one-time offender yeah you mark you can mark them and then like the next time it destroys someone's chicken coop next time it destroys yanni's chicken coop peel its lip back and be like he's been in trouble before and he was in trouble here and he's in trouble here and then you know you got a bear that's just not gonna or a lion or whatever just not gonna stay clear right which makes it easy too for then sometimes when you ear tag things i think people get a little nervous and it kind of they're like all these things you're tagged is it a little nervous and they're like, well, this thing's ear tagged. Is it a problem? And so then when you just do a tattoo, then you kind of know

if there's any issues. Because you don't want to scare the public or make them nervous. Was the bear that got you tattooed? He was. He was tattooed. Number 770. 7-0-7-7-0. Which, how cool is that? Yeah. 770. He's an original cabinet

bear. He's 24 years old. Well, he'll be 25 this year. You got attacked by a 24-year-old grizzly. Yeah. So what happened? Lay out that day for me. So you got to go out and check the hair snares by yourself. Yes.

Did they give you GPS coordinates? How do you know where to go? Yeah, so they gave us a map. So we have a couple different maps, and then we have a GPS. And we also have a tab, a tablet, I guess. I don't use those very often. But they gave us a map so we have a couple different maps and then we have a gps that and we also have a a tab a tablet i guess i don't use those very often but they gave us that i'm like what am i gonna do with this where is it and they're like just just use it i'm kind of a little old-fashioned so but oh like using like a digital map yeah like a tablet and everything and i was like man this is fancy because i don't really get it's very rare you get those in my job, you know,

because those are pretty expensive. But so they gave me a tablet and everything and had an inReach. So all the gear that I needed. And yeah, I was just- So you go out with the inReach, which you know how to use. You got your tablet.

With the maps and all the points on them and the GPS. And the GPS. You know how to use that. Yeah. And your pepper spray and you know how to use that. Yeah. And your pepper spray and you know how to use that. Yeah. And you strike off up the trail.

Oh, yeah. So. How far did you walk? Two miles, about two miles. To your first hair snare? No. That was, I had already collected maybe at least six. Oh.

Yeah. So start. So you've been out knocking around already. Yeah. So it had been a couple hours. I usually started my day at 7, 7, just cause it took a while to drive. It was, you know, a little far outside of Libby, like 10 or 15 miles. Then you got to drive up all the back roads. And then, um, my second day I spent most of the day chainsaw, just using a chainsaw cause there was

just trees everywhere and I was so irritated, but so yeah, third day I'm just walking along. And like I said, I'm checking all the trees. What's it look like? A lot of irritated. So yeah, third day, I'm just walking along, and like I said, I'm checking all the trees. What kind of area are you in? What's it look like? A lot of trees. So complete national forest area, just trees. Heavily timbered. Yeah, yeah, just a ton of trees.

And there's a huge river. It's Poor Man's Creek, and it was roaring just the entire time from all the snow melt. May 17th. Okay. Yeah. Are you cutting trails with your chainsaw or cutting open the road? Actually, road. Open the road.

Yeah, because, I mean, we're there so early. No one's cleared everything yet in the winter. Yeah, which I was actually shocked because somebody had drove down at one point, but then they decided to turn around. I was like, gosh darn it. I spent three hours on the second day just on your way up the road it was so mad and then I had I don't know it was a 16 mile hike in so and that's 60 miles both ways so but I so I finished doing that and then I had to go in 60

miles and I'm setting up this corral so this is day two but setting up this corral and I'm just cursing up a storm because it was not functioning with me the way I wanted it to. So of course I'm yelling too, just in case of bear, cause I'm literally back in this super tight area, just a lot of trees and I'm looking around and finally get done and I'm heading out and I'm making a tone noise. I'm just like, oh, this is so dumb. And just like thinking about all the things i could have done differently to just do better and all of a sudden i just hear this all these trees and just this motion and i was like and i like got down pulled on my bear spray and it just happened to be a black bear like running across the bridge and i just scared him that's day two yeah that was day two so i'd already been running into bears you know but yeah i scared him because

he was eating on some berries and everything and yeah he took off a little nice bear he was a nice bear he was small but he was still i mean color just jet black and then i saw a couple more that day too really yeah you know in that area unrelated to the bait yeah yeah not even one of them ran right in front of my truck Yeah. That's a bear rich zone, man. Oh man. Libby is such an amazing area. Yeah. Love that area. So day three. Yeah. So I'm walking along the trail and like I said, making a ton of noise and just checking, like I said, I think there was six, maybe eight. Positioned along a footpath or? So it's an old forest road, but a ton of like new growth had come up. So there is, like I said, those one inch, two inch, smaller trees, but they're super tall.

But there's a path in there from people kind of hiking in and out. And you can tell it's an old forestry road. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Nobody can drive it. Yeah. And just walking along and just grabbing hair. And then I get to the one creek, the loud creek. And I was like, oh man. And I had to cross a bridge and everything. And I just kept thinking, I was

thinking, I'm like, man, this is really loud. I got to start yelling a lot louder because it was just rushing and you could run into it. And there's so many moose out there, which I was dying to find a moose shed, but that didn't really work out. So yeah yeah I just kept going and um got to there I hit some snow and at one point you know my boss told me he's like if you hit a bunch of snow you don't have to keep going just we can go back to it in the next week it'll eventually be melted but I was already walking and it was just on the trail so it was just no shoes no but I mean it was a foot high maybe a foot and a half so but I was walking along. It's kind of miserable in the spring when it gets all soft and you sink down in it and it's all wet. Oh, it makes me so mad.

Yeah. I didn't even think about snowshoes. But, like I said, it was just on the trail so I could kind of get off of it. And I actually found grizzly bear tracks on the snow and looked down and I'm looking at them. I was like, oh, they're a couple days old. I wasn't super worried. Had they been fresh, I probably would have turned around, you know, just because he was walking the same way I was walking and he or she, I should say.

And got to my last hair snare and was taking some photos. Was there any hair in it? Yeah, there was a little bit. Yeah, there was some. Grizz hair or black bear hair? Both. Both? Yeah, yeah.

So you got to kind of collect everything. And so there was a little bit of both. There wasn't enough to where I was like, So you don't make an in-field analysis about what it is. You just grab it. Yeah, we just kind of, I try to, so we separate it by barb. That's on the, literally the barbs that are on the wire. So kind of, you know, there's like 101, 102, 103.

So we separate them by those and we have different envelopes. And then when we come back, you go through the hair to determine black bear, grizzly bear. And you can kind of determine out there, but sometimes but sometimes i mean you're out there for so long it's just easier to do it and back in the office i'm surprised you're getting both hairs on the same tree why is that what is because in the field and we've seen the both and both blacks and um brown bears on the landscape it's like when that black bear realizes there's a grizzly in the area, they just hightail it. Well, they've got to pass at some point though, right?

Yeah, but they must smell that a grizzly's been rubbing on that tree. And I would think that being subordinate, they'd always be like, no, no need to cause any friction. You can look up and see them together. But yeah, a little bit like that if he was in the zone and hanging around and scratching it up that the black bear would be a little apprehensive yeah i guess i didn't even think about that i just figured out they're walking the same path and maybe he smelled it he's like well i'm gonna rub on this tree too and just kept walking you know they dealt like on the islands in coastal alaska they don't overlap. Really? On the islands.

I didn't know that. If it's suitable for brown bears, black bears aren't there. Really? Yeah. Interesting. Black bears are on an island, it's because it's not suitable habitat for grizzlies or brown bears. Wow, that's super interesting. Yeah.

I actually love Alaska. I'd love to do some bear work over there. In the interior, they overlap, but they still, you know, I mean, the grizzlies will kill them. Right, right. Oh, I saw this video on Facebook that somebody posted.

Yeah. Did you see that? one of the grizzly killing the black bear cubs. Oh, man, I couldn't. That sound. Oh,

it was brutal. Isn't it brutal? It was brutal. Dude, that video gave me nightmares. Really? It's just, it's,

I watched it like too many times. Oh, how many times do you watch it? I too many times oh how many times you haven't seen oh you're digging out it's digging out the den fighting with the ma oh and she's just you see her and she's like whack she just whacks that he's still he just like doesn't he's like i he's like lady i do not care yeah i do not care does he kill he or the grizzly killed him? It's a cub. No, but does he kill the sow black bear too? No, he's not harassing her. Really? He's like, I'm in here for the cubs.

To eat them? Yeah. And she's like fighting and fighting. And he just is so unbothered by it. It doesn't even affect him. No, he's like, I'm just here for one thing, man. I want your cubs. Which two of them.

He doesn't care. There's three cubs. Two of them live. One of them is nerves. Went the other way. One of them, he There's three cubs. Two of them live. One of them is nerves. Went the other way. One of them, he loses his nerves and busts out of the den. And the sound and how long the sound goes on. And that's a stout freaking grizzly man.

Oh, yeah. And the hard part about it is the two dudes filming it kind of like it detracts from the video yeah they're speculating yeah it's there are no uh what's that dude that does all the narration for nature movies at burrow yeah they're not at they're not okay so there you are you're out you check a few snares you see some grizzly tracks was it a whopper the track they were pretty big i don't know if i've ever i mean you go to yellowstone you see big grizzly bears but they were big to me you know they seemed pretty big you know what a good rule of thumb is please tell me well i want you to verify it oh uh you measure the front pad

oh is it from the is it from the corner to like the just the width of the front pad. Oh, is it from the corner to like the... Just the width of the front pad. Just the top part. Add an inch. And that'll tell you roughly nose to tail what the height will stretch out. Not stretch out, but what it'll square out as. Oh, really? That's a Duncan Gilchrist trick. Okay.

So you find a black bear, he's got a five inch pad. He's probably about a six foot bear. Really? Okay. That's good to know. But I don't know if that i don't know if that works on grizz i know that he talks about it working on black bears and i always used it as a rough estimate for grizzlies with grizzlies yeah interesting but it might be off they might

have a proportionately larger foot yeah well and two they got proportionately larger claws that's for sure are there tracks different like how do they and depending on how they step in the snow and stuff too you know like a black bear has got more of a dog-like deal right where the the the toes don't fall in a real straight line right but the grizzly's toes fall in a pretty straight line and then obviously the claw mark will stick out an inch and a half, two inches out. No, it was definitely grizzly tracks. So you see them, and you go like, wow, there's one back in here. Oh, yeah. I thought it was – I mean, I had been finding wolf tracks,

blackbird tracks, moose tracks, everything. So I see them. I was like, oh, that's super cool. There was one – yeah, there was one back here. So I keep walking, and I get to this kind of avalanche shoot area. It's pretty open. Remember when avalanche chutes coming down off the hill, down toward the trail? Yeah, yeah, and it's super open, not as many trees and more like bushes

and things like that in there. Just walking down the trail, and I make some noise. I blew my whistle and just was looking to the right and looking around. Headed to another location. Yeah, so I was moving down the trail just going to, I think I had maybe four or five more hair snares to pick up. And I just heard this, oh. And I turned to my left, and they ended up measuring it.

He was about 11 feet from me on my left-hand side. Walked in 11 feet from him. Yeah. Because he's so old, he doesn't know what's going on anymore. I don't know if he didn't hear me, if he was laying down or if he, because of the, I mean, the ridge, it dropped off and the ridge was right there. There was maybe a foot, maybe two feet on the left-hand side and then it dropped off down to the creek.

Okay. So I don't know if he was coming up. He was on the downhill or uphill. Oh, I got you. Yeah, so I don't, I think he knew. So it wasn't like, it was like a somewhat obstructed view in that direction. Yeah. Yeah.

So like I said, he might've been laying down or he was coming up as I was coming down and just didn't hear me and I didn't see him. And he woofed. Yeah. He was just. And was he already motor in your direction? He was, well, he was 11 feet for me, so he really didn't have to go very far. But when you first registered him, was stationary yeah coming no he was standing

right there like what excuse me what are you doing here at 11 feet yes yeah no he was right next to me on all fours or up on his hind on all fours not looking happy i mean he was just i don't know if i would say that it he just was like, didn't know what I was, you know? He didn't have a real expression on his face. Were his ears cocked back? A little bit. You know, I don't even know if I, a little bit, but nothing like, you know, what that would normally do.

How many pounds was the bear? So when they first captured him in 2005, and I also brought his family tree which is super cool i i wanted to know everything oh man i want to know everything about yeah so they captured him originally in 2005 and they he was i think they put this in kilograms 250 kilograms i believe they put that in oh the whole thing but anyway he ended up being originally 550 pounds and so I mean you figure what 13 years how long has it been last year 24 yeah so he had to have been I knew it was springtime but he had to have been at least 600 pounds I mean he had to have gained some weight you would think so he was

I would say he was probably at least 600 pounds. And how well did you register it? Like how well, was it just when you review it in your mind now, was it like a blur? Was it like you just can remember every detail of the face? I can remember every detail. They showed me a picture. They sent me a picture of him when he was originally captured, and I was like, oh, yeah, that's him.

Yeah. Really? Wow. You could have picked him out of a police lineup of bears. Oh, yeah, because he's a little darker. Yeah. Really? Wow. You could have picked him out of a police lineup of bears. Oh, yeah. Because he's a little darker. He's got kind of a darker tone in his hair.

And just the face. I mean, I don't know what it was. His face is engraved in my mind. Had he been in a lot of trouble in his life? No. No. He was not a trouble bear at all. He's born there.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. He's an original cabinet bear. Yep. So he's been popping out cubs. Not him, but he's been. Yeah. Siring cubs. there. Yeah. He's an original cabinet bear. Yep. So he's been popping out cubs and not him, but he's been. Yeah. Siring cubs. Yes. Yeah.

So all of a sudden, 11 feet away. And then did you stay on it, locked on it to see him start to lunge? Or did you kind of turn away and somehow sense that it was coming? I just, I knew, I sensed that it was coming. I mean, I was so close to him that there was no way he wasn't going to come at me. And so my first initial reaction, which is kind of what they tell you not to do, but I mean, how often do people want to bear right there? Listen, don't apologize.

All of the things about oh you're supposed to do this when you're doing this it's like all that stuff goes out the door yes it does yeah who's got that great saying i think it's tyson maybe saying that says that like everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the mouth oh isn't that real oh is that what yeah that's it that is right yeah everybody's got a plan to get punched in the mouth. I think that's what it is. That's a good saying. A friend of ours who ran one of the SEAL training, Navy SEAL training courses,

like that's the thing, is we talked about this, where you can rehearse something and practice something. You can eventually get to a point where when it's real, you've done it so much when it's not real, in very real-seeming situations, that you can function when it's real. Really? But it's hard to get there. Yeah.

And you being like, oh, yeah, if a bear comes for me, I used to joke that I was going to grab his upper jaw, lower jaw and spread his mouth out so he couldn't bite. A joke, but I'm saying like, there's no way. Yeah. Well,

I love when all my guy friends are, you know, and this was prior to, all guys are like, oh, I could fight off a bear. I'm a bear fighter. And yeah,

I've had a lot of guys say that to me. And you know, now this has happened and they're like, I don't think I'm as tough as you. And I'm like, I don't know. It is what it is. So you just, but you just knew. Oh yeah, knew.

I mean, just instantly. I just had a feeling. And what was the feeling? I don't, I just knew he was coming at me. No, I didn't. There was no time for fear. There was no time to. Just realization. Yeah. And I was like this, coming at me. No. There was no time for fear. There was no time to. Just realization.

Yeah. And I was like, okay, this is it. I'm going to figure this out, and I'm going to survive. My thought process was, I'm getting out of here. And I did everything that I could. So I ended up, when I heard him, saw him. I mean, this is second. So this all took so much time.

I turned to the right and got by a bush and just dropped down to the the ground before I was even down all the way. I mean, he was already at my back and I had a pack on. He had smacked my back, clawed up my arm. And I, you know, I had my bear spray here, but my thought process was he's not going to tear up my guts. Like I'm walking out of here. And so that's why I turned and just dropped like as much as I could. And I'm just on the ground and just trying not to move any muscle in my body, getting this bear spray out. And I finally got it out and had the cap off. And I'm literally like the—

Over what period of time? A split second. Oh, this is like three seconds just between him coming there. It might have even been a second. I mean, it's just a second. The first physical contact felt like him blowing you with his arm. Oh, he did. Yeah, I thought I broke a rib when I was walking out. Like I thought he essentially broke you that

hard. Oh yeah. Cause he just came up and whack, just whacked me and just like clawed up my arm. And I was like, I'm just working on getting that breastplate. Where on your arm? My right arm. So on the back. Did it make it through your clothes? It did. You know, I had three layers of, yeah, three layers on, I believe three long sleeve layers on and I got a rain jacket and then I had this Columbia long sleeve shirt on and then I had another just kind of like a thinner must have been a short sleeve shirt on but still they were all fairly long but yeah it made it through and there's actually tears in my rain jacket and then on my right side of my back so right below like my shoulder blade kind of area there's still a scar and everything. So he made it through that.

And I had a pack on. I had a huge Osprey pack on. And he still somehow was a... I mean, the bruise... Punctured all that stuff. Yeah, the bruise was huge. I mean, how he made it through. And there was even a gash on my pack

on the top part of that, you know, that top part. There was a gash on that. I was like, how did he even do that? Think about, they can run behind an elk and swap the elk's rump and topple the elk. Dude, you could cock back as hard as you could ever hope to cock back and punch the elk in the rump and it will not register the blow. No, I wouldn't even know. You make like a bruise the size of a penny.

The fact that it can like swipe its legs out from underneath it with a blow of that arm. It's insane. So you feel that. And did you, were you like, oh, I just got whapped or cut or clawed. Or was it just to just feel like this overwhelming kind of blow? Oh, I mean, I knew he hit me. When he hit me, he hit me. I was like, all right, I'm going to keep going.

Like, I'm'm gonna pull this bear spray out you already got it in your head to get your spray oh yeah i mean i was like focused yeah i was working on it and i just was trying not to move these arms at all because because of what reason well because he was i mean he was on top so he was right there and so any move i mean any movement and they see that oh they just want to grab you. Oh, you're like trying to play dead. Yeah, yeah. Or play like not threatening. Yeah, I'm just trying not to move. And I mean, that part was where I was like, all right, just pull it out.

Just do it. And then I took that, you know, that clear cap off. And that's when. The safety. Yeah, the safety. And that's when he had reached over and bit down on my head. And I just reached over my left arm sprayed him and he took off hey folks exciting news for those who live or hunt in canada and boy my goodness do we hear from the canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes

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OnXMaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. Sprayed him over your shoulder while he's biting your head. Sprayed him over my shoulder, yeah. And you got yourself? I did, yeah. So it actually, I mean, because he was, I don't, he had to while he's biting your head. Over my shoulder, yeah. And you got yourself? I did, yeah. So it actually, I mean, because he was, I don't, he had to, he was on my pack. Were you on your knees?

Yeah, so I was sitting on my butt and just kind of had my legs out to the side. You wanted him on your butt, like with your legs out. I did, yeah. How? I don't, I mean, I just ended up down there, but yeah. And he goes, he bites your head. He does. Is that the first bite

yeah that was like he knew what he was doing man and the only bite which is crazy because i had fruit snacks and all kinds of stuff in that top part you think he would have gotten into the top part of the bag and or like pulled the but he was just i don't know what neutralizing a threat yeah and he just kind of went over and it wasn't because i've had people ask me what was the bite and i was like he just bit down on my head and it wasn't, because I've had people ask me, what was the bite? And I was like, he just bit down on my head. And I mean, I didn't feel any, I literally didn't feel anything. I heard stuff crunch, and then the hearing went out of my left ear. But I was so, like I said, I was going to get out.

So I just literally reached over, sprayed him, and he, I felt him lift up. Could see him or just shot blind? Nope, just shot blind, closed my eyes, sprayed, and I felt him come off of me. And he went on i know he went away and that was it so what was the your hearing went out right away instantaneously and it was replaced by like a yeah like static noise yep so what was the wound did he did he make it through your skull he did so um yeah one of his canines actually punctured my brain so went into my brain um by the way the doctor and she's pretty sure she goes it had to have been by the way it was shaped everything ended up going into my brain

and so from kind of just below my eye on my left side and then it wraps around and there's a there was a decent hole on this side. And then it goes all the way to the back. And I had staples all the way just right before my right ear on the backside. So this whole, you know, your back of your head, that whole lower part where all that muscle, all that muscle tendons were all shredded, like all that stuff was shredded. So did he bite it like crosswise or like? That was my next question. You know, I honestly don't know. So I also got, I had about six staples on the top of my head.

So there was some kind of scrape. So I think maybe the top part might have been like his upper right canine. And then this side was the left side of his mouth. And then probably the back side was his bottom jaw. And he was literally just like, so I think he was kind of on his side. Like a 45 degree sort of angle. Yeah. Wrapped around your,

like fit your head in his mouth. Oh yeah, essentially. Yeah. You heard crunch, a crunch? Yeah, I did. Did you like, oh, there's my skull. You know, honestly, I didn't know. I wasn't, I was so focused on getting him off of me.

I thought, but I wasn't for sure. Like I assumed it was my skull because I was like, what else would it have been? But I didn't know that it had cracked open all the way. I mean, you hear it. And then, like I said, it was white noise in my ear and all this static. And so after that, I didn't really think about it. Like I just.

With all those tendons gone, did you notice that your head was hard to hold or move? I tried not to move my head too much just because, like I said, I wasn't sure that what he cracked open but I knew that he had touched my head. So I just tried not to move my head. But it was hard walking out because I walked out. Did you put your hand back there

to see how much blood there was? No. At one point, so I had a hat on too, mind you, and I had super long hair. So my hair was super long all the way down to my lower back. And I had a ponytail in and had a hat on. And I hadn't even found, I was walking out and my hat

happened to fall out of my hair. And I was like, oh, that's my hat. That's really weird. So I picked it up and put it on. And then, I don't know, I was just walking out. Why did you not check to see if it was all super bloody? I didn't want to know. You know what's funny? What?

This is like, nah, I shouldn't even be telling this story because your story's cool and this isn't. I was in a car rollover one time, and I had just bought a coffee. Oh. And when the car got done rolling over, my head was all hot. Oh, from the coffee? And I was like, oh, my head cracked open, and that's all my blood. And then I touched it and looked, and there was no blood. And I was like, oh, my head cracked open and that's all my blood. And then I touched it and looked and there was no blood.

And I was like, oh, that's weird. And I touched it. I'm like, oh, it's that coffee. And I was like, totally fine. Oh, well, that's good. But for a minute, I had like the feeling of my life blood. Oh, yeah, all the blood running out of you. I was like, oh, there's actually nothing wrong with me.

Well, at least you didn't get any burns from the coffee. And that's what I would be worried about. So you don't put your hand back there. But it had to have been bleeding bad, right? Probably. I mean, are you in shock? Is your whole jacket and everything just soaked through? You know, honestly, I really don't know.

You lost all your gear? No, it was all with me. So I still had my pack. I still had everything. I mean, after the hop. Oh, yeah. So they cut. Yeah, they cut able to well that's not true they were able to take my rain jacket off and they just kind of took everything for me like the rest of my clothes

they had essentially had to cut off of me so how many stitches and staples I had I used to you know the number uh we're getting too far ahead I I want to know how far the walkout was. Two miles. And you're in shock. I don't know about that. I mean, I almost didn't hit the in-range, hit the SOS, because I was fine and I could see. And so I'm literally sitting there and I sat there.

Did you get pepper spray on your face? Yeah. Well, and I couldn't really tell right away, but I could definitely feel it. Burn it. And I didn't know for sure, but I just sat there for a couple seconds

just waiting and then I was like, okay. Like waiting for him to come back and maul you again. Yeah, to see if he was going

to come back and he wasn't coming back so I just looked around and I pulled out my in range and I'm like, God, this is my third day. Do I really hit the SOS button

on your third day? You know, and I was like, well, what if I end up not being able to make it out? And I was like, I'll, I guess I'll hit it. But I literally debated it for at least probably five to 10 seconds. Okay. You debated it. Like now it seems funny that you debated it because you weren't in your right mind or you debated it like a rational person no it was definitely rational just because it was my third day and who wants to call the sos and green and like this was probably i shouldn't say probably this was a decent size injury but who wants to it's your third day and you're already hitting the sos

button you're like oh man so you didn't register it as something that kind of life changing no yeah i mean when i walked out of there i was like i'll be i'll be back to work in a month i didn't really think i was gonna not be able to go back to work for four or five months yeah which isn't long i mean people have that's what i mean this isn't it was pretty bad what happened but i'm super fortunate to have healed up as much as I have and everything. Not be dead. Yeah. Could have been a lot worse.

Yeah, because he could have added probably 20 pounds or who knows how many pounds of pressure it would have taken and crushed your skull altogether. Yeah. Which it was very, and it was light. Or you could have had your pepper spray in a stupid place. Yeah. And that's why I said, I don't know if I had it in the right maybe i didn't maybe i i mean how can you argue yeah how do you

everybody puts it in a different place and like you said you practice and everything but until you're actually in the situation and i always knew i was going to run into because i've run into black bears so i always figured i would see a grizzly even though there's not a ton up in the cabinet yak area there's still quite a few bears. So I always knew I would run into them. Never once did I think that one would be 11 feet for me. What was the walkout like? So it was mainly just me just trying to focus. And I, you know, they say that you can use 911 when you don't have service.

Because in Libby, you go on the force, you don't have service. Through satellite. Yeah, and it wasn't working. And I don't know if that's because I had a ton of trees and everything, but I had hit the in-reach, and I was literally just messaging anybody I could, just trying to remember. And I was looking around, and I yelled pretty much the entire time. And I only had—

Were you yelling? Oh, I was just cussing and yelling and screaming bear. I was literally yelling anything. To try to keep the bear away or try to alert help? No, to keep any more bears or moose from coming my way. That's the other thing. You're just done. You're done for the day. Yes. Yeah. I turned around. I was like, yeah, I'm going to step out just in case. So it was just me. I was like, I'm going to make it out. And I just kept walking and just yelled and made as much noise as possible. And I mean,

I just screamed my lungs off, which at the time I didn't really feel anything, but towards, you know, the end, once I got to surgery and everything, my head was just throbbing. But when I was getting down to that bridge, cause it's so loud down there, I just kept thinking, Oh, please don't let another bear be down here. Just let me get out. Cause I didn't, I didn't have a second can of bear spray. It's only had maybe a half an inch if that. I barely had any bear spray left. But I've got that in my hand and I've got my inReach in my hand and I'm just yelling and screaming and if I can, whacking trees with whatever and cursing up a storm like,

this is my third day. And I thought I was literally like, I better find a moose shed out here right now. Just doing anything I can to just get myself out. Were you hauling ass or were you going slow? No, I was walking pretty fast, as fast as I could. So my balance was thrown off a little bit. I could see and I could hear for the most part out of my right ear, my good ear,

but my balance was kind of thrown off some. So I was like, because he bit me on the side, I guess where your balance is and everything. And so they've been super worried about that. And so I was off balance and could tell I was a little off. So I kind of had to spread my legs a little bit and walk in a different way. But I was walking as fast as I could just to get, I needed to get out of there. And you got to your truck or car?

I got to my truck. So we had work trucks that they gave us. And I took off my pack and put everything in there. And I actually took out a snack. And I was like, well, they're probably not going to let me eat at the hospital. So I better eat something. Got in my truck. And I looked in the rear view.

And I was like, no, I don't need to see that. Started it up. What did you see in the mirror? My eyes. Oh, you didn't examine? No. I got you. So when I was walking out, you were, you're talking about blood and everything.

My nose was running like crazy. And that's about the only thing that I could tell. Running blood? No, it was just draining because, you know, my ear had been and everything and where he had bit me. So it was just draining. And I was like, that's super weird. So I didn't know why. And then.

Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah, it was really. And that's about the only thing. So you were like tempted to look, but just didn't want to why. Oh, wow. Yeah, it was really weird. And that's about the only thing. So you were tempted to look, but just didn't want to look? Yeah, no, because I was like, well, I mean, animal blood I'm good with. People blood I'm fine. I give blood and everything.

But I was like, you know, just in case. I don't need to pass out or anything. So I just started the truck up, put it in reverse, and got out. I just started driving out there. And like I said, I'm on an old horse. Did you feel like you were driving normal? I mean, like you were able to drive normal. Yeah, yeah, for the most part.

It was a little tough. Like I was sitting a little higher, sitting a little closer, just trying to make sure, rolled down my windows, and just started honking my horn because I was like, there's going to be somebody here. And I literally just laid on my horn. And then when I finally got to, because I was on an old forestry road there too, and I had kind of stopped.

And once I finally got onto the main road, which was all dirt, I was literally, I gunned it a little more and I was just honking, honking like crazy, looking for anybody because I figured there would be a bear hunter, somebody out there. And I ended up, I don't know, I probably drove for three or four miles

and ended up running into somebody and he was way ahead of me. And he's got this huge dog in his truck. And I'm pretty sure it was a bull mastiff. And the dog is hanging out of the passenger seat like, hey, we should probably pull over dad. Hey, what are you doing? You know? And he's just hanging on the seat and I'm honking my horn, honking my horn, trying to get him to pull over. Finally, he pulls over. I pull over and I get out and put the truck in park, get out. And I just walk up to him. I'm like, excuse me. And he looks at me and he goes, oh dear, are you okay? I said, I got attacked by a grizzly bear. Could you maybe take me in the local hospital? And he goes, of course. And I went and turned off the truck, rolled off all the windows, locked the truck, put my keys in my pocket. And I

went and got in the back seat. He goes, I'm sorry, my dog's probably just going to love on you. And he's like trying to hold him back. And he was a retired veteran and everything. So he had been in the military, super nice. And, um, he's just talking to me and just trying to keep me, you know, he's talking about stuff, but I could barely hear him. He didn't try to administer any first aid. Nope. Nope. He's like, no, I'll get you there. He's like, and I was like, I hit my inReach, but I'm not sure if they're coming. Like, I had no idea if anybody was coming. I mean, you hit that S button, and they kept sending me texts like, are you okay?

And I'm like, no, I'm not okay. How am I going to text you? I don't even have cert. And so I was super frustrated with that. And so he kind of knew what was going on, and he was just trying to get me there. You could tell he was changing the subject. He doesn't inspect you?

No, no. Because you were talking it up. Yeah, because I think it's not enough i and and like i said i hit the end reach so i think he thought that the ambulance was probably coming you know so but how many minutes had gone by now gosh so it took me an hour and a half maybe hour and 45 minutes to get back down to my truck so it probably been two almost two and a half hours we went for about a mile mile and a half in the ambulance. We were running into the...

And he's waving them down, waving them down. And then he finally pulled over. And he's like, I got her, I got her. And they pulled over and everything. And I got out. What was their take on what they do? Oh, I guess what they're supposed to do. They're just like, okay, you got to take off your jacket.

Okay, cutting off your shirt. And they just start, okay, we're going to have to take off your, you know, all your clothes, like let's get in. And they're just looking me over and everything. And then they finally like, they're asking me what happened and everything. And I was like, well, I was out there. Are you sure it was a grizzly bear? Yes, it was a grizzly bear. I know it was the, you know, I was like, I know my bears and they got me in there. And then I believe the sheriff and two other guys showed up while I was in the ambulance, and they were asking me questions about kind of what happened and everything, and I just told them and told them where it was.

And they actually, I believe it was that day, they ended up sending, I don't know, at least 11 people up there to just kind of do a search to see if the bear had come back, and they have this whole protocol that they go through. And they ended up collecting hair, and that's how they were able to determine which bear it was. How was the decision made to not kill the bear? Well, because I think... You didn't press charges.

No, no, because it wasn't... You know what I mean? Yeah. Usually when a bear gets someone, it's a dead bear. You know, I don't know, and I don't know all of the stories, and i don't know all the stories and i don't know the whole protocol but i do i mean they did ask me and i was like well it wasn't predatorial i wasn't we just happened to run into each other and and he was advocating for the bear yeah because i mean that's so i would i don't want him to die i mean it was so random and so rare and the bear

spray worked so i think that has a whole play in it too so he attacked me and something happened but i survived and the bear spray worked which me and he's not a troubled bear so they don't they rarely see him except for the dna stuff and so there's no there's no other issues with him i mean there's no really reason to kill him you know yeah so he's a first i guess a first offense kind of bear, which sounds, I guess it doesn't sound terrible, but at the same time, it's like,

who's to say that it's going to happen again? I mean, it was just such a rare occurrence, you know? So, well. But you were involved in the discussion. I did, they did ask me and I told them, I told,

I don't know if I was involved, but I did tell them I didn't want them to kill it. Like I was like, there's no reason. How did they put the question to you? Oh, gosh. Well, I wasn't even in surgery, and they

just kind of asked me. They asked me what happened, and they said, do you think it was predatorial? And I said, no. I said, we just ran into each other. It was just wrong place, wrong time. Yeah. And then they kind of make the final decision. Like I said, the fact that he didn't come back to the site got you wasn't searching or wasn't still there trying to find me i think puts it plays a big role in it you know what was his name 770 but i call him rat bastard

am i allowed to say that that's cool that's in this i mean i didn't want him to die, but he still made me a little upset. Right. You weren't exactly running at him. He could have just turned and walked away. It's not like you hauled off and punched him. Right. Yeah. I wasn't asking for his food, whatever he was digging for, you know.

So what was the surgery? They had to put your skin back together. Skin, skull, bones, kind of everything. What did they do to your skull? Put a little plate in there? They actually put, so there's a bunch of screws and kind of, they call them dog bones, but they're bands or plates. And there's just a bunch in my left side,

and then there's a bunch in the back on my left, like behind my ear. And yeah, they just, what they had to do, so there was a bunch of broken pieces of my skull because, you know, he had punctured my brain and everything. And then they had to cut kind of like a moon shape on the left side of my skull just so that they could put the other pieces back together and then kind of put it all back together.

So there's no, there's like plates, they call them bones, but they look like bands. So it's just like screw, band, screw, screw, band screw band screw and it's just keeping all the pieces and everything together so how much time did you spend in the hospital only a week huh yeah so that wasn't too bad now what have you noticed from like uh because you punched into your brain do you notice differences now i don't i actually i was super fortunate that, I mean, I didn't, I was a little nervous I was going to lose something when she told me that. Oh, yeah, man. If someone tells you that, you got to like start looking at yourself in a new way, like expecting some or hoping you don't find some.

I remember a buddy of mine, you know, he'd crashed his bike real hard and had amnesia and was hospitalized. And he would later, he'd be like, I'm totally fine. But now and then I'll be tying a knot, a fishing knot or something like that. I'm like, I know that I know this knot. Oh, you just can't. Did I normally forget it or is it related? Right. Because I knew this.

I've tied this a hundred times. Why can't I remember? Yeah. And he was always trying to find out what was just normal. What's normal and what's that? Well, you hate to sit around and think like that. But I have lost a few things out in the woods. And I was wondering the other day, I was like, did I lose my... And I don't even know what that would be.

You're lost and found common sense out in the woods. Because I've lost a couple of knives. Where one, I had it in my rain jacket pocket. And I just walked a couple of steps. And I was out in the snow. And it fell out. And I couldn't find it. It had just gone deep in the snow. And then at one point, I lost a water bottle and a flannel and another knife.

And I was like, what the heck is going on with me? Well, listen, Steve's brother has not been bitten in the head by a bear and that dude he's got to bring out like four sets of clothing when he goes out for a week-long elk hunt so you don't feel like um everything moves normal yeah I am still so I'm still in recovery. I mean, it'll be a year in May, and I'm still in recovery, and definitely hiking is definitely a lot. And I don't know if that's mainly because I can't hear out of my ears. So everything that you guys feel like when you're out hiking, you feel it in your chest and everything, I feel in my head.

I used to feel it a lot more in the beginning, like the pulse and everything. I could just feel in my head. I used to feel it a lot more in the beginning. Like the pulse and everything, I could just feel in my head. It was like just pounding in my head and in my chest from hiking and walking around. I don't feel it as much, but I do still feel it. So when I'm on a strenuous hike, I have to take kind of more breaks than I would normally have to take. So there's things like that, but I hope with time it'll just eventually, like I'll be at a maintenance level where either I have to do that or I won't have to do it anymore or I'll still have to kind of in the middle,

you know. But other than that, I mean, in the hearing, that was a huge new thing to learn. And your hearing's back now? No, it's gone forever. No more hearing in my left ear. Just dead. Mm-hmm.

Yep. Does it throw off your equilibrium? A little bit. It definitely throws off location. So I can't try to locate stuff. Like blue grouse hunting would be out for you. Oh, probably. Or a gobble or a bugle.

There's no turkey gobble. You don't know where a gobble is. Yeah. I mean, I was fortunate. So I actually did do some hunting last September. And I was fortunate enough. And I was good because I didn't have any hearing aids at the time. And so just trying to locate and everything, my dad would be like, it's over there. Like he's calling. I was like, no, I'm pretty sure it's over there. And so as a whole, it was stressful,

but just having to, I mean, you basically just got to reteach yourself and the hearing aids help some. And there's another hearing aid that I could get, but I probably won't because I'd have to get another surgery and everything. But, I mean, it's just learning how to relocate stuff with just one ear. I mean, people do it all the time, right? You figure it out. You adjust. What was the injury that took your hearing in your left ear? So it was my – and they don't know for sure how it happened,

but my inner ear. And they can't fix your inner ear. So that's the only part of the ear that they can't do surgery or fix or anything. And that's what got broken. So basically all the hairs and follicles and everything that's in there are just dead and they're never going to come back. So there's no, yeah. Yeah, there's nothing, which is crazy because you think about where your inner ear was. I mean, his teeth really had to have been

far in there and it just, I mean. But it didn't shred your ear. No, no. It was just so weird. I mean, the whole thing. Just a puncture. Yeah. How many crazy media requests did you get? How many crazy what? Media, media, like interview requests. I don't even know at least probably at least 10 the first couple weeks I got one from one of those big talk shows over in New York morning talk shows or something and they were like we want to talk to you tomorrow tomorrow morning and we're gonna put you on the set and I was like no no this isn't happening like I'm still working I still have staples in my head. No. And that's, nobody's ever offered me anything, which I don't, you know, I don't really need that. I was just curious, not so much. Like, I was just curious if that's how they operate or not. Um, you know, I don't know. And I also,

I don't really ask for money either. Cause I'm like, well, I'll do it, you know, but it's gotta be under the right circumstances. So I'm really picky on the interviews and things that I do, because I don't want anybody to turn my story into something. Oh, she loved bears and then she got attacked by bears and now she wants to still work for bears. And that's just not me. Oh, you can spin a thousand yarns on it, man. Or you can be like, she had done some bear hunting in the past. Yeah. Well, people hate that. And this is karma.

Yeah. So yeah, there was quite a few. Like I said, I even get hit now on that. What did I say it was? Oh, I was prey. I wasn't prey. Like a TV show. Yeah, he didn't hunt me down. What channel was it?

I think it was the Discovery Channel. They want to do a show, I am prey? Yeah, or I was prey. I was prey? Yeah. I was like, no. You turned that down. Yeah, well, I Am Prey? Yeah, or I Was Prey. I Was Prey? Yeah. I was like, no. You turned that down. Yeah.

Well, I wasn't Prey. I think their definition of Prey is very different than what my definition is. So you're not really interested in the limelight? No. Why did you come talk to us? I was surprised you did. Well, because, I don't know, you guys are super well-known, and I love listening to your podcasts. And you guys are super well known and I love

listening to your podcast and you guys are really educational and you bring in educational people. And so it's, it's a different interview. I mean, you're not asking me to cry and tear up and talk, you know, you just want to hear my story and you're asking questions and you're insightful. And so it's not like you don't want to make it a big emotional mess. You don't feel the urge to cry right now? No. Golly. Okay, if you could go back to that day, you know what I'm going to ask you. No, but. If you could go back to that day, would you still get out of the truck and go off the trail?

Yeah. Really? Yeah. Really? Yeah. Really? Well, because, I mean, if I'm going back, so if I'm going back to this day, right, am I going back to this day and I'd... Knowing what you now know. Knowing that I was going to get,

so I'm going back knowing that I'm going to get attacked? Yeah. Oh, well, that's tough. But, no, I'd probably still go. Because what if it didn't actually happen? Like you found something in it. I don't know. What did you find in it?

I mean, you have to be a hell of a lot more confident. Not that you weren't confident then. It sounds like you really were confident and competent. But you're forged by fire now. Well, that's true. I don't know. Because even though if I'm going out there knowing that I'm going to get attacked, I could say that, but that's like driving your car, knowing that you're going to get in a car accident. I wouldn't drive it.

Ever. whatever the experience, so exhilarating, the life lesson, so valuable, the things you learned about yourself so important that you would take the getting bit and the surgery and the loss of your ear as payment for the experience or was it not worth it? No, it was worth it. I mean, I learned, you learn a ton about yourself. How often do people get attacked or, you know, they get into something. And so many people have told me, they're like, I wouldn't have been able to make it out. And I said, you probably would have. You just, you don't know at the time. And I mean, I survived. I was bound and determined to get out. I was going to get out. And I've learned a lot. Like I thought, I definitely thought I was going

to be back to work in a month. Well, after being in that hospital, I could barely walk around the hospital just because I was so weak from all the meds and not eating and everything they give you, and you're in there for so long. And just walking up my parents' driveway, of course, they have a slated driveway and everything, was tough for me. But I figured out what I can do and what I can't do. And granted, the hearing loss, it sucks. It's really hard, but I'm learning so much about myself

and learning things about my friends and about people and how people really interact together. And I think it's done nothing, but I still want to be a bear manager. I still want to work with bears. I have more education now from this bear biting me on the head than I probably did before. And I feel like I can help people out more and teach them and, and do something with my experience to help them survive and know that they can. I mean, you can, it's, and know that it will happen. You know, we just, sometimes we get complacent and we're out there

and we're not always thinking cause we just get so involved in the woods but you do you have to remember that there's other things out there that vigilance yeah i bet you won't have a problem with vigilance for a long time i hope not uh the happy part of the story not not that any of this is particularly sad um i i i don't like it that you lost the hearing in your ear and that you had to have surgery and had such a disruption in your life, but it's uplifting because you're who you are, right? And you have the attitude you have. Yeah.

Which for me, from sitting in my seat, I'm like, wow, this is phenomenal that that's your approach and that you don't harbor animosity. Thank you, I appreciate it. Toward bears is pretty remarkable. And then you wound up, we talked about this earlier. You got a job. I did a regular old job. Yep. A real adult job with bears. Yeah. So I got the East panhandle bear biologist position. And so it's bear management in Florida and it's doing

bear management. Really what I want to do, educating the public and managing, you know, bears. And they have a ton of issues. They've got 4,000 black bears throughout the entire state, roughly, throughout the entire state of Florida. And so there's a lot of bears and there's a lot of people. And they lost their bear season. Yeah. Or it kind of comes ebbs and flows, but out now. Which, you know, isn't always i mean hunting

i love hunting and i'm a huge promoter for it but it's not always the answer when it comes to conflict and issues sure i mean there's there's a lot of other stuff and fencing and and just educating the public and letting them know you know hey your garbage can isn't right let's let's get this fixed you're dealing with the on the ground reality yeah they're like whatever's happening politically or ever around the bear hunts, you still got bears, you still got people. Right, right, yeah. So it'll be a good job.

I'm excited. Are you going to be doing some hair snaring, counting, genetic work? No, probably not. So our research in Florida normally does some of that. But I did, so when I was there previously a couple years ago, so I'm actually moving back to the place where I did capture and telemetry work and monitored all of our sows with cubs and everything. So I'm super excited about that. And we collected hair for DNA, and we tattooed them and put collars on.

And then all the cubs had collars, which was really awesome, monitoring all these cubs running around. And so I know a lot about the area. So I'm super excited. And I know some of the bears, I'm sure there's some of them are still around, you know. Is it a state position? It is. Yeah. Health care.

Yeah. So they do, they provide benefits, but the kind of the way their system works is I don't, I don't get vacation days, but once I'm there for a year, then I'll get vacation, which is kind of actually normal, I guess, for some agencies, you know, you don't get vacation until you've been there for a while. So, but yeah. Good for you. Thank you.

You made it. You're a full-fledged wildlife person. I know. You're not an accountant. I'm not a tech. You still got hearing in you right here. Yeah. Thanks for coming on.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. Do you have any final things you want to wedge in there? Concluders? My only concluder is I'm a huge supporter of the Western Bear Foundation, so everybody should kind of look into that.

Okay. We're doing an event in Boise I'm pretty excited about, and they have a bear relief fund, which is awesome, and it's for anybody who gets attacked by a bear or has any conflicts,

and we're definitely going to try to help them out as much as we can, which is super awesome because there was a ton of attacks last year so hopefully we don't have that again but we definitely want to be able to help people help people out so oh that's good yeah that's your plug that's my plug tell us again western bear foundation they got a website yeah they do and bear relief fund bear relief fund yep to help offset costs associated with bears.

Yeah, any hospital bills or anything. We'd definitely love to help out and be able to donate some funds for people who get attacked or have issues. And in your case, expertise. Funds and expertise. I don't know about expertise, but we'll see. You got anything? No, I'm good.

Thanks for coming. That was great. Yeah, I'm good. Thanks for coming. That was great. Yeah, I'm so glad you came to talk to us. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Yeah. Don't go doing stupid TV shows. Okay, I won't.

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