The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 768: Sasquatch Calls, Exotic Pets, and English Muffins | MeatEater Radio Live!

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

Hosts Spencer Neuharth, Randall Williams, and Max Barta talk with taxidermy historian Brant MacDuff, throw a Hot Tip-Off, discuss the 2010 documentary Elephant in the Living Room for the MeatEater Movie Club, and dig into the 2025 Sasquatch Calling contest with organizers Cheryl Putorti and Paul Bartholomew. Watch the live stream on the MeatEater Podcast Network YouTube channel. Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Welcome to Meat-Eater Trivia. Welcome to Welcome to Me Deeder Radio live It's 11 a.m. Mountain Time. That's noon o'clock for our friends in Madison, Wisconsin, on Thursday, September 25th. And we're live from Me Deeter, H.Q. and Bozeman. I'm your host, Spencer, joined today by Randall and Max. On today's show, we'll interview taxidermy historian Brandt McDuff. Then we have a hot tip-off

followed by a review of the 2010 documentary Elephant in the Living Room. And finally, we'll interview the organizers of the 2025 Sasquatch Calling Contest. First off, we have some plugs to get to. Randall, take it away. Well, first of all, I want to wish a very happy vacation to our friend Mowgore. Happy vacation. Happy vacation, Mowgore. Hope it's a good one. You deserve it. Now on to serious business. Meat Eater is headed south for the holidays. We are thrilled to announce Meat Eater Live the Christmas tour coming to you this December. We have stops in Birmingham, Nashville, Memphis, Fayetteville, Dallas, and Austin. Come hang with Steve, Janus, Clay, Randall. That's me. And Brent, for a night of laughs, trivia, prizes, and stories from the outdoors.

Go to the meat eater.com slash tour to sign up for pre-sale access, which is happening right now. Today is your last chance to buy tickets before they officially go on sale to the public. That's the meat eater.com slash tour. And I will note, if you are hoping to attend the Fayetteville, Arkansas show, you need to do that immediately because those tickets are 90 plus percent sold out. Wow. We're only in pre-sale. I know, I know. Birmingham and Nashville, there's quite a few tickets sold there as well.

In Memphis, Dallas, and Austin, I was told to relate to you all to get your business in order and buy your tickets because there's still some, quite a few seats left there. But again, tickets are not officially on sale, so I'm not worried about it. Randall's going to be there. He's going to entertain you all night long at the Mead Eater Live tour. holiday cheer we're going to be spreading it thick in the south also our tailgate tour rolls on and this Saturday the 27th we will be at Penn State for their game against Oregon stop by and say hi if you're in the area eat some food hang out with the meat eater crew we will be playing games giving away prizes and showing off how meat eater tailgates this week

it is set and brodie who will be there and I wonder if those boys are in the loop for just how big of a deal this game is it's like the biggest game probably not so far Yeah, probably not. Or do you think they know to wear white? I hope so. I'm sure they do. I mean, Seth, Seth's in. Well, did Brody go there as well?

Brody was there last year. No, but I mean, attend school there. He can be an honorary graduate if not. They're both Pennsylvania boys. Okay. I'm sure they know the program. This is their warning. Wear white.

Uh, cheer really loud. Mm-hmm. We are. No one? I-O. I wanted Rampley to do it. All right, one last plug. One last plug.

our annual week of celebrating America's most pursued game animal. The whitetail deer is just a few days away. A whitetail week kicks off Monday and runs from September 29th to October 5th. A whole bunch of whitetail gear from First Light, FHF, Phelps, and Meadeter will go on sale next week. Be on the lookout for that starting next Monday, September 29th. We'll have some great whitetail specific content that rolls out next week as well. all right boys we we have a war going on in the office it is not a war this is the english muffin war it's been very contentious this this started in a meeting a few weeks ago uh where at the end

of the meeting max and i i had declared that i had recently found the greatest english muffins in the world uh and then max he says well are they the furrow and fly english muffins and i said no they're the stone and skillet english muffins and i said what both alliter illiterate alliterative. Mm-hmm. And Max said, interesting to note. Max said,

well, they're not as good as my English muffins. And I said, yes, they are. And I said, no,

they're not. And then I said, yes, they are. And it got really nasty. Max called me some names. Like, he just picked up.

And we just had to like, we declared we would settle this as gentlemen. And so we decided that I would go buy Max's English muffins and try them. And Max would go by my English muffins and try them.

Max, what did you think of my English muffins? Spencer, I, gave your English muffins a fair chance I tried them one day and I was like

oh these are just so doughy and just then I didn't like them and I was like you know what I'm gonna give these another shot tried them the next morning

same taste same flavor and everything and what did I say a six out of ten you went as far as saying that your wife did not like them and your in-laws

did not like that feed any to Ruby I should have so Max Max did not like my English muffins. I went and tried Max's English muffins. I didn't care for his. So we now we have furthered the divide in how how we think of who makes the best English muffin. So what we decided to do was I brought in both kinds this morning for Randall and Phil to try them themselves.

And so we are going to allow them to declare which one is indeed the best English muffin, my English muffin, the Stone and Skillet or Max's English muffin, the furrow and fly. I'm so excited for this. Give us, give us your thoughts. Are we doing this now? Right now. This is just a teaser. First of all, I'd just like to say that I think there's no, like, food argument that I have less invested in than what is the best English muffin.

It's a question I've never considered. Until you have a really good English muffin. And then you're like, what have I been missing my whole life? When I ate these English muffins, I thought to myself, maybe I don't know what an English muffin is. Oh. Because I'm used to... McDonald's English muffins? Tom.

Yeah. Well, Thomas, English muffins with the nooks and crannies. And then an egg McMuffin, which delicious. Uh-huh. Both of these were formidable creations. When they came out of the bag, I was surprised by the size. To me, they looked more like biscuits. Yes.

I don't, they both have very different qualities. Spencer's, your English muffin is, I would compare it more to like a bagel round. It's doughy, it's chewy, it's dense. It's dense. You don't have to tear it. I feel like the other, Max's English muffin, they're both

exceptional. Max's English muffin is closest to my understanding of what an English muffin is. Yeah, we didn't make these buy to you. We just buy them. It has the sort of cratered, the cratered surface with, I don't know if Nooks and Crannies is a trademark term. That's good. But it has those. You do have to

sort of tear um tender no well i think yours is hair i think yours is tender it's got like it's got like a crust to it because it's doughy and okay so i'm gonna go wishy-washy i'm gonna say max is if i was gonna eat one with butter probably maxes if i was gonna eat one with like as a sandwich or with jelly probably yours okay i don't think you've settled yeah you haven't yeah no well again as i said this is the question that I have nothing invested in. In fact, the whole time this has been going on, I've actually been shocked that this is a thing. The world is going to judge us, seriously.

Have you heard about the English muffin debate at the meat eater office? Bill, give us a hot take here. Which one is a good thing I'm here so someone can take a GD stance in this room. Listen, both muffins, I would be satisfied if I made one of these at home. I'd be happy with either. That being said, Spencer's takes the cake Oh yes it does honestly on every single level

It's what I want Like the boys have already insinuated It's a little bit doughier It was thicker but the way Spencer cooked it It had a nice crust that you bite through And then you got to that chewy bread That wasn't undercooked We are not grading the cooking

The chew was very satisfying And on top of that Spencer's butter was better as well We used the same butter the same butter. That's how much better this English Well, maybe I screwed up

in shaking the butter off of Spencer's because there was butter pooling. It doesn't have the craters in it to absorb. Oh, the screen went black. Anyway, back to what I was saying is it was incredibly important.

Spencer's muffin was better. And this may, I mean, the fact that you guys were using the same butter and I had no idea maybe completely disqualifies me from being a food judge in any capacity. But I think that just speaks to the quality of Spencer's muffin.

Yes. That's all I'll say I just I will not be buying them I like Spencer's muffin a lot But as I ate it I thought to myself

This isn't what I think of When I think of an English muffin Okay It was like a treat So the debate hasn't been settled yet Yeah sounds like Randall's voting for mine And Phil is voting for your life I will just take a tie max

I'd be satisfied with that I did enjoy your English muffin I felt a little hurt though That you said the one I liked Was a six out of ten And your in-laws As we all know in-laws have the worst taste imaginable, and they didn't even like it.

That's a tough one. What does the chat think? I think we're ready to put this one to bed. Yes, the English muffin war wages on. All right, joining us on the line first is taxidermy historian and author, Brandt McDuff. Brandt, welcome to the show. Hey, thank you for having me. Absolutely.

I've never had my work have to compete with debates about bread, but I'm honored for it to be the first. Okay. Brandt, what is a taxidermy historian and how does one become a taxidermy historian? You know, it's a thing if you make it a thing. I do work for museums and I had always loved animals. I'd always loved taxidermy because I felt like taxidermy were the only animals that I could bring that many of into my house. It's really difficult to have live elk, and rams and bears and bison in your Brooklyn apartment, but I can do that with taxidermy. So I've always just been a fan of the animals and taxidermy and the history that surrounds it. So the more obsessed I became with taxidermy and its history, the more I became someone that people

went to when they needed to know about taxidermy history. Okay, that is us today. Now, you give lectures on the history of taxidermy, and you say that the story of taxidermy is told through heroes, villains, and elephant testicles. What does that mean? Mostly, it's just a catchy tagline that gets people interested, so you can see that it works.

But mostly I talk a lot about different characters who were in taxidermy, important historical characters like Martha Ann Maxwell, who really sort of pioneered the idea of putting animals in natural poses and natural settings, as opposed to just sort of having a very static mount with no idea of how they would behave in their natural habitat. William Hornaday and Carl Akeley,

they continued that, but Martha Ann Maxwell was doing that well before them. So there are a lot of historical characters. Robert Rockwell learned taxidermy from Carl Akely, but he was a better sculptor, and so he became a much better taxidermist because being a good taxidermist is really about being a good sculptor. So there are a lot of wild stories associated

with all of those characters. So I usually like to start with a time period, find those characters, and then tell some stories about their lives. And that kind of gets people their foot in the door for appreciating the taxidermy, the art itself, through those people. Okay, so we just heard about the here.

How about the villains and elephant testicles? So villains, villains gets me to talk about poaching and how aside from poaching for bushmeat or poaching for medicine markets, there's poaching or markets for taxidermy. I also try to get people not to buy certain pieces of taxidermy. me. At a lot of curio shops, you might see a framed bat. And I encourage people not to buy those because unlike the very healthy, regulated market that we have for fur bearers, let's say, in the United States, if you buy a framed bat, it probably came from Indonesia or a place where there is not such a regulated market for that species. So when you buy those products, you really don't know what your money is going to support.

So that I would consider more the villain side. The photos that you're going through here have more to do with our testicles. And this would be the Field Museum in Chicago. And these are these fighting bull elephants that Carl Aikley put together. and it's a wonderful dynamic centerpiece of the museum. And the Field Museum actually saw Jumbo, the elephant that was owned by P.T. Barnum and was hit by a train. Well, Carl Akeley made a mount of Jumbo, and people at the Field Museum saw that mount and went, wow, he's pretty good. Let's have him do some elephants for our museum.

So they sent him on safari. He brings back these elephants. He makes this incredible mount. and unveils them out. Everyone's flabbergasted. They've never seen anything like it. And they say, now look, Carl, we love it.

But there's a problem. There's two big problems. There's four big problems. Four big problems. And it's the elephant testicles. They're like, this is a family place. You can't just have balls all over the museum. So they made him castrate the elephants.

And he was pissed. That's George Dante right there. He's one of the greatest museum taxidermists working today, getting up close and personal with one of the bulls. So that would be the testicles and how they tie into that story. Okay, are the testicles there today,

or are those bulls still neutered? They are still neutered as far as you see when you're walking around the museum and looking at the mount. But there's tale that they are somewhere in the back, because what were they going to do? Just chuck them out with the back.

Brandt, what is your favorite era of taxidermy? For most taxidermy nerds, the era would loosely be described as the Victorian era. Specifically, the Victorian era is the era of Queen Victoria's reign, which was like 1837 through 1901. I would bump those numbers out a little bit and just say kind of roughly, 1850 through the 1940s. And that was really the heyday for taxidermy. There was a lot of taxidermy happening before that earlier periods of the Victorian era. But people were really honing in on their skills and artistic displays and what people loved and were fascinated by with animals in wherever they lived.

Taxidermy was huge in the UK. They have a much richer history of taxidermy there. So a lot of taxidermy nerds focus specifically on the UK during that period. This was a time where some towns had 18 taxidermists in one town. That's how popular it was at the time. I imagine that today taxidermy is kind of a monoculture. But at one point, there were probably regional variations. What are some of those regional taxidermy variations when it comes to different parts of the world and different parts of the country?

So something I'm a big fan of that I don't really see anymore and really haven't seen that much outside of Colorado specifically are these split half mounts. So if we think of a half mount, you might think of a mountain goat with like a shoulder mount with its front legs coming out, maybe on a rock or something. Well, a split half amount would be if you went straight down the nose and bisected the whole animal. And so you've got the half the animal on the wall, and just by cocking out the neck and head, you can get the full head, both antlers, or you can split the head right down the middle and have half and half next to each other with one antler on one side of the skull, one antler on the other side of the skull. I think this is a really cool style of mounts saves a little bit of space, but you still get the whole animal. You really don't see it that much anywhere. And I personally haven't seen it outside of Colorado much. It's a really cool mount.

I'd like to see more studios pick it up again. I've never seen that. I have not seen anything like that either. You can see photos. So there's the head. That's a single head split, bisected in half, and you get one half on each side. So is that, is that considered a full body mount or a half body mount? I would consider it a split.

Is a split? Full body mount. Okay. So, um, it's not a traditional full body mount. But you can see there's all four legs and the full neck and head. You're just kind of shape. It's almost like if you picture at home, if you picture a fish mount. Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

The whole side of the fish, but the one side that's against the wall is flat. So it can be up on the wall. Okay. I love it. Now, you spend a lot of time in museums looking at stuffed critters. So I asked you today to bring us a list of your top three museums for the best, most interesting taxidermy. I'm excited to hear what they are. Number three, what is it? Well, I kind of flipped them into two different groupings so I could cheat and get one more. Okay, great.

As far as traditional natural history museums are concerned, you're not going to do better than the American Museum. of natural history right here in Manhattan. The downstairs hall of North American mammals was finished up in around the 1940s, and they are excellent examples of taxidermy and habitat dioramas. Denver, incredible taxidermy dioramas. And then I'd say, really, the wonders of wildlife museum in Springfield, Missouri

at the Bass Pro. It's unbelievable. Insane museum. Unbelievable, insane museum. And if you want really, old school, traditional taxidermy, amazing mounts, and beautiful museum. Check out the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. Incredible museum, gorgeous space, really traditional, cool mounts and displays.

Okay, bucket list places I wrote down all four of those. Brandt, if people want to know more about your work in the history of taxidermy, what should they do? My website is immortal animals.com. My Instagram is stuff in my apartment. And you can get in touch with me there. I give all kinds of lectures. I travel for lectures on conservation history, taxidermy history, wildlife conservation economics, all sort of related topics. And I'm a mentor for the kinfolk hunting collective in the New York area. Okay, Brandt's book, The Shotgun Conservationist, is available right now. Brandt, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me, guys. Have a good one. American Museum, Natural History in New York, Natural History Museum in Denver, Wonders of Wildlife in Springfield.

And I think the last one he said was the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium. Do you say in Georgia? In Vermont. I'm sorry. How many of those places have you been to, Randall? Three. Okay, not the Vermont one. Not Vermont.

How about you, Max? Have you been to any of you? Um, no, I have not. Uh, my favorite museum for tax dermie is, uh, as a world traveler, the, uh, the natural history museum in Vienna, because all of that stuff is like a hundred plus years old and it's not maintained at all. Oh, just dusty. The animals are the wrong colors.

The elk look like white tail deer because they're so bleached out, but just like every animal you can imagine, but it's, I mean, it's just like a chuckle fest. Yeah. I've been to the New York American Museum and Natural History and the one in Denver Both very exciting The one in Denver In their planetariums

Or no, what's it called? They're dioramas In their dioramas The artist has painted Some little trolls into the scenes That you go around You try to find them All the trolls

Yeah It's like the trolls It's like the hot springs It's white sulfur Just like that I texted Randall last night I said Randall if you could go to a great history, natural history museum, or a great zoo, which one would you pick? What was your answer?

A great natural history museum. Because he said a zoo just feels like a strip club. Yeah, I did say that in a private text exchange. I said, you just, it's, you walk around and just go, ho, whoa. You know, there's no depth of, of, but a natural history museum that like either, uh, it just has a way of like blowing your mind and you actually learn stuff. I don't, I don't find that I learn very many things at the zoo i just see cool things and i go oh wow yeah i'm sorry it was actually max who texted me that's right max was the one who said zoos are like strip club no no of all the things that have blushed about in this room that's not one of them i did say that on a text exchange hunting big country isn't for the faint of heart you got steep ground long distances and miles of

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Hey, this is Steve, and I am proud to announce that Meat Eater is headed south for the holidays, announcing Meat Eater Live, the Christmas tour, which kicks off in December across six southeastern cities, Birmingham, Nashville, Memphis, Fayetteville, Dallas, and Austin. Join myself, Janus Putellis, also known as Yanni Chimani or the Latvian lover, Clay Newcomb, Brent Reeves, and Dr. Randall Williams for a night of laughs, trivia, free prizes, news, and opinion from across the worlds of hunting, fishing, wildlife conservation, and wild foods. Go to the meat eater.com slash tour to sign up to get early access to pre-sale tickets right now and secure your spot.

be available to the public on Friday, so don't wait. Go to the meat eater.com slash tour to get your pre-sale tickets now. All right, moving on. Our next segment is Hot Tip-Off. H-O-T-I-P-R. Let's all do a Hot Tip-O-T-I-P-R. H-O-T-I-P-R. Let's all do a Hot Tip-O.

Hot Tip-Off is where two listeners go ahead. Head to head with competing pieces of advice, and after we hear each tip, we'll declare which one is hotter. If you have a hot tip, take a one-minute video on your phone and email it to radio at themedeater.com with the subject line, hot tip-off. This week, hot tip-off is brought to you by Mountain Ops. Mountain Ops supports your daily journey for mountain training to overall well-being, optimizing performance, enhancing recovery, and bolstering health, preparing you for any challenge. Okay, this week, it is James Chapman versus Lane Aker. They are competing for a $100 meat eater gift card. Take it away, Phil.

Lane Aker! My name is Lane Aker, and I got a hot tip for making sure your decoys don't get tangled all that season. All you need is some paracorn, PVC pipe, a couple of caravineers. So what you do is you cut your PVC down, a little bit shorter than your lines and your decoys. And you cut the paracord a little bit longer than that. I know exactly what he's going to do. Got finished product painted black. The line runs through it from the top.

And from there, you can hook the decoys on, pull the group through. You got a bigger carabiner here, hook it on. You got a handy-dandy decoy carrier. Oh. So I've got a few of these in my boat. When I carry in, I can carry a couple of these pretty easily. about 15 decoys per keeps them from getting tangled

and you don't have to worry about buying those expensive decoy lines I just use like a hundred pound monofilament works great hot tip I like it James Chapman I've solved the problem for hunting hearing protection

hoodies got these dead gum things on them and of your string ties these reusable plastic gear plugs right there right there you just jam them on the end and they're literally right on your hoodie right to go in your ear all the time all right Two very hot tips there from James and Lane. Max, I'm going to have to really rely on you here for that custom decoy carrier. How hot of a tip was that?

And before you answer, Phil is going to put this poll in our chat for them to vote as well. And our listeners are going to decide who gets that $100 meat eater gift card. Get in there. All right, Maxwell. In my experience, they get tangled either way, no matter why. I would love to try that out and see if they actually don't. get tangled but I would use it for sure

and give it a shot even if not tangling though is that not like a convenient way just to carry them 300 yards to the waterhole oh for sure I mean it's a lot better than putting the actual string on your shoulder and then the string or the decoy lines

are digging into your shoulder but yeah I think I would love to try it sometime Randall what do you think what was the second gentleman's name we have Lane who had the custom decoy carrier and we had James, who had the hearing protection hoodie strings.

I think Lane's tip was maybe more practical. I liked James Delivery. And I also would love to just bump into someone at a gas station who's got earplice. Like, I love my heart wants to go with that, but I think ultimately my head tells me that it's the PVC pipe. Plus, anything that you can do with PVC pipe for a non-traditional use, I'm all in. Rod tubes, potato cannons. Both very hot tips.

I liked that James is one with the hearing protection on hoodie strings. That's like a 10-second project. And lanes, you're probably spending like a Saturday morning rigging that thing up. But it's not very cheap or, excuse me, it's not very expensive or very difficult to make that custom decoy kit. You can see the video of what he's doing there on the meat eater podcast YouTube channel. We're going to give the chat like 20 more seconds. I think I would also vote, though, with Lane, with the custom decoy carrier. It's never occurred to me to put hoodie strings ear plugs on my hoodie strings.

Me either. It's just fantastic. I love this so much. That's a good. What happens if you're not wearing a hoodie with strings, though? Like the hoodie I'm wearing now. Yeah, a lot of people like taking those strings. off because they're scared that they're going to get caught into something.

Yeah. If you're, uh, yeah, I mean, it depends if, if it's like you wear the same hoodie all the time, you know, uh, or, uh, or, uh, or if you have like a hunting hoodie or working hoodie. Yeah, yeah, yeah, work. Yeah, I mean, that's great for the job site too. There you go. Mm-hmm. Real, real blue collar hot tip.

All right, Phil. What's the chat have to say? All right. Well, with about 59, 58% of the vote, the winner is Lane with the decoy. All right. Well, congratulations. You earned that one. We're a podcast producer is going to reach out to you about how to get that gift card. And again, if you want to submit a hot tip, send it to radio at themedeater.com with the subject line, hot tip off. All right, let's take a break for some listener feedback. Phil, what's the chat after say? Yeah, just full transparency here. There was some sort of, I don't know if it was like a static short that just reset something with our computer or so it wasn't the internet. I think I might have just, you know, rubbed my. shoes on the carpet a little too hard

or something like that. But when that happened, it completely borked up the resolution of the TV I use and the TV that the guys see in the studio. So it's a little bit harder to read the comments. I can only read about two at a time. So I've been scrolling through there. But we've got a few that I can pull from. So Christopher asks

Spencer, who's sent in a gas can? Well, he's asking the live chat. Who sent in a gas can for Spencer? If mine doesn't at least get an honorable mention, I'll be disappointed. Yeah, two episodes ago, I asked for our listeners to send in their recommendation for the world's best gas cans, because I have yet to be satisfied with one in the last decade. You guys really provided, I think I have 150 emails as of this morning to go through. I'm still going through them. There are two brands, though, that

seem to be ahead of everyone else on a future episode. We'll go through them and tell you what the meat eater listeners recommended and love. Cool. This is another question for Spencer from Spencer. Crew, how'd the Milwaukee store opening go? Spencer, I think you were the, you, Mark and Chester were there? And Chester, it was awesome. We had, I think, a thousand people show up was the number that they guessed. The store

looks awesome. When you're inside the Milwaukee store, you feel it, you're like, I am in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Just like, I think if you're in the Bozeman store, it's very clear to you that you are in a meatier store in Bozeman. So the people we talk to were awesome.

I love Milwaukee. I love Wisconsin. A lot of good people there. It was a lot of fun. Thanks to everyone who showed up there. And the Madison Tailgate two were the next day. Any cheese curds? We did have cheese curds. Yes. We had multiple, I think we had three people bring us a case of spotted cow. So Wisconsin really provided. They brought their best. On the heels of the taxidermy conversation, Isaac's asking if the crew has any unique or interesting pieces of taxonomy that you haven't talked about on the show before. Maxwell, anything? Uh, my first ever duck mounts look like crap. Okay.

And, uh, the necks, I asked for like, uh, a dead mount hanging by the feet. Mm-hmm. And I got them back and they were hanging by the neck. And the neck was about like a foot long on each duck. And so, like, throughout college, it was just like a running joke. I was like, oh, yeah, do you want to see my shitty ducks, you know? Uh, that's the only interesting. Okay.

Really the only tax room I've ever had done. everything else has just been your your mounts and beetle clean and so that's about it Randall anything exciting the first bear I shot I got a shoulder mount and I feel like that's a little

uncommon to do a shoulder mounted black bear it's not like weird or anything but it's also funny because it's not a very big bear that's in Chili's office along with my old couch and then it's your office actually the most recent

uh the most recent bear i killed when i was up in alaska with steve i got that into a half they call it a a a wall pedestal which is essentially like a shoulder mount but it has more of the chest coming out of the wall and uh very happy with that but i do sometimes chuckle to myself that my only two and i have a bear rug uh but my only like taxidermy other than some fish when i was little okay are uh bears bears i think uh the most unique taxidermy in my house is probably Clay Newcomb gave me a couple raccoon baculums, which is a penis bone. And so we have those on a nice frame on the wall. And then I haven't had this one in about a decade.

But when I was in college, my buddies and I would heavily pursue the keystilope, which was the hunting season promotion that Keystone Light did with the gold can or something. Exactly. Bush Light did one where I think it was a gold can. And Keystone did one where it was either gold or orange. I think orange. I think it was the orange key. that you hunt for yeah and then if you were to get one you have like a box cut out where you put

it on the wall and there's like a kista lope and i think there was a kista fish or a kista trout something like that so when we had we had a couple orange cans uh those used to be up in my college apartment but now that i'm an adult just don't have anymore and no more keys i'd like to bring it back though i'd put that in chili's office empty beer can and liquor bottle home decor has really gone away for me in recent years. Yeah, like once you turned like 34. Yeah. I probably got to get rid of these things.

All right, moving on. We have the Meat Eater movie club this week. We're reviewing the 2010 documentary Elephant in the Living Room. Thank you, Phil. although that sound effect rings hollow in my ears since our Benegans review

and I've lost all confidence in this bit given... Are you saying it peaked then? Yeah, okay, exactly, exactly. I'm basically a heavily concussed Brett Farrv playing for the Vikings at this point. A year two. It's got a straightforward review but I think the film was right for discussion

We're reviewing The Elephant in the Living Room. So I'll begin my commentary. The award-winning 2010 documentary, The Elephant in the Living Room, Plums a fundamental mystery of the human condition. The capacity of people to do things that are completely inexplicable to other people and how those inexplicable things somehow make perfect sense to the people doing them. It's the type of film that forces you to confront the unsettling reality that the mind is capable of justifying nearly anything and that rationality itself might be nothing more than a shared hallucination. we've all agreed to participate in.

Your neighbors might well be living entirely different lives that follow logic so alien, it might as well be from another planet. The film follows Tim Harrison, a public safety officer who specializes in exotic animal emergencies as he responds to calls that sound like a five-year-old wildlife enthusiast filled out some madlibs, escaped lions in Walmart parking lots, pythons trapped in suburban basements, bears held captive in backyard sheds, and cougar, this is my favorite, and Cougars prowling next to pretzel bakeries, which actually is a thing from the film.

Mr. Harrison serves, or Officer Harrison, I should say, serves as our guide through this parallel universe where owning a 400-pound tiger is somehow not only worth considering, it's worth fighting for. He has the thousand-yard stare of a man who's seen too many things that shouldn't exist, but absolutely do. But the real enigma and star of the show

is the late Terry Brumfield, a truck driver who keeps a penful of African lions in his mud-spattered Ohio backyard. Watching Brumfield interact with these animals, you're struck by how completely normal this seems to him. He feeds them, he talks to them. He worries about their health. Exactly like any pet owner,

except his pets could horribly maim him in a moment. The cognitive dissonance is staggering. Terry has decided that sharing his property with apex predators from another continent is a rational choice and scoffs at those who have called him, quote, brain dead, selfish, and immature. The documentary doesn't try, to bridge this gap for the viewer. It lets you chew on the electrifying discomfort of knowing

that human beings can arrive at completely opposite conclusions about what constitutes reasonable behavior. This extends to everyone in the film. There's the woman who sees some measure of irony in escaping the totalitarian regime behind the iron curtain only to find that keeping tigers in perump Nevada is unnerving to her neighbors. There's the dealers who trade in poisonous snakes that they coil up inside of empty potato salad containers. Director Michael Weber wisely avoids trying to explain these people to us. Instead, he lets their own words reveal the vast gulf between how they see themselves and how the rest of us see them. There's something anthropological about the film, like studying a culture whose basic assumptions about risk, responsibility, and sanity are so different from mainstream society that meaningful communication between the two becomes nearly impossible.

So that's my take But I have a whole list of things Before we get into the discussion I tried to check up on some of the Folks from this Oh, where are they now? Well, the man, the Terry, the man who Kept the Lions actually died

The truck driver died the same year as the film's release I mean it kind of felt like it was trending that direction Yeah, the guy, the giant guy that Oh, the Rassler He looks like Goldberg Yeah, he also passed away. I looked up the Animal Finder's Guide, the class of, you know, it was like the auto trader, but for exotic pets, that stopped publishing in 2018. I went to the website.

I went to the web, because when I saw that on the screen, I wrote down, I should get Animal Finder. I know, I wrote Animal Finder Guide, can we get it? And Sidney turned to me and said, I'm surprised you don't have that. there are some articles still in the website including advice on what to do if your large animal escapes he says my standing rules if an animal of danger leaves my compound there shall be no effort to capture but only to destroy

because no single animal is worth the harm it does to all the other exotic pets when someone is mauled I thought that was insightful I feel like that's usually not the take these people have yeah well It's like animal above human. I think this person has a larger view because they're part of the trade. And then finally, I tried to look up the folks from Perump, Nevada, who were sort of political. And so I couldn't remember their names, and I didn't want to go back and watch the film.

So I googled exotic pets, Perump Nevada, big cats. And I found a guy who very recently claimed his seven tigers were emotional support animals so that the government couldn't take them away. Wow. but the government still took them away. And I thought, surely that's got to be the same people that were in this film. And no, Scott Shoemaker and Susanna Zukol are not the people involved in this. That guy was named like, like Cal something. I don't know.

So I don't know. I guess I've got a lot of thoughts here. The final thought was, I mean, this movie is actually darker and more disturbing than I imagined or than I remembered. um you you had declared this is one of your favorite documentaries yeah i watched it a bunch this probably is the documentary of most i've watched third most only behind grisly man and and wild and wonderful whites of west virginia um but i hadn't watched in a very long time and it's darker than i remember and so i have some dark the worst part of the movie is seeing the lion die uh and then second most is when they have the they take the starving

away from that woman and the elephant's name is twiggy and i wrote down in my notes if i were starving an elephant to death in my backyard i wouldn't name it twiggy i wouldn't like make a joke about okay so i don't know what are your thoughts guys what are your thoughts well pa rump pa rump nevada um the only thing i have any awareness about of that place is that is where lamar odum overdosed on cocaine at a uh what do they call it like a bunny house just a brawl yeah it's it's like it's like 40 or 50 miles outside of Vegas, I believe. Yeah. So they really like their brothels and their big tigers and lions.

Yeah. My takeaway watching this was why is this Ohio's culture? Yeah, that's what I was thinking. It's just Ohio mainly. Our token, Ohio and Randall, why are your people like this? I see, this is one of those questions. This is one of those questions you have about any work of art. Is it just Ohio or is the film just in Ohio?

sure because if you watch chimp crazy i don't think any of those chimps are in ohio is that connecticut no that was missouri there's yeah it's all over the country Oregon Connecticut um I think this is also one of those things where it's like this doesn't exist until you look for it sure and then when you're this officer you see it everywhere um I love the officer he's great he's got a great heart And it reminds me of, like, the old dare, like, anti-drug campaigns, but if marijuana was, like, as bad as it was in the 90s. Yeah. Because he's, like, he's, like, I, you know, I have this connection to it.

But let me tell you, it's bad, kids, you don't want to get into, you don't want to get into tigers. You don't want to get into lines. And they're sort of walking around on the neighborhood on this crusade, like, and going and, like, showing the cameras how bad this is. Yeah, the casting for this documentary was very strong. Like the cop looked like a cop The exotic pet owners Looked like exotic pet owners The exotic pet rescue people

Looked like exotic pet rescue people They nailed it for Bringing us those characters Max Did you notice how Tim was wearing a Livestrong bracelet? I did not Yeah And then like

There's a lot of mossy oak and real tree In this document But then also like at one point Like Tim had this hat It said ambulance on it but it was like instead of spelled left to right it was spelled right to left which i thought it was extremely awkward and like i just thought it was like oh just like looking into a mirror but then i read his shirt and his shirt was reading perfectly fine well you can't see his shirt

if you're looking in your rear of your mirror but you may be able to see his hat no it was just like i'll find it i'll send a picture to you guys later but it was just like it wasn't even looking in a mirror weird they were also a weird government agency of first responders whereas like I thought that was super cool. The police officers were the firemen and the firemen were the EMTs. Yeah. I didn't know that exists. Was that just because it was a small community?

Well, he said it was very rare. He did say it was very rare. I enjoyed one of my favorite moments in the film is when he's walking through the woods. Max pointed out that it seems like it's a little bit of a setup. Cheesy. But he's walking through the woods and he describes it as a little slice of heaven. And he's like very genuine about it. Yeah.

And it's just sort of like dark, there's nothing that's like. It's Ohio woods. Yeah, like there's nothing about it. That's like spectacular. Yeah, it's like this gray, gray woods. But you could tell the guy was like, this is a piece of heaven. Yeah. And I love that.

I think he just needed some quiet in his life. That was something he was missing. I had, when I used to think about SeaWorld, I was like, it's probably bad, but I imagine there's like a lot of nuance with keeping whales and dolphins in a place like. like that. And then I went whale watching for the first time and saw how like a pod of orcas very quickly could move miles. Like you would see them here. They disappear for a minute or two. And then all of a sudden they are miles away. And I was like, oh, never mind. It's actually not nuanced. It's just pretty evil to have those things in captivity like that. There's no, there's no reason, probably almost

no reason, where that should be okay, where you can have whales and dolphins in a place like sea world. I think I had a similar experience with this documentary that I was probably beforehand like I imagine there's some real nuance and owning a lion if you live in Texas is cool. You know, it's just

not for me. But then when they go to the exotic pet show and you see all those critters just yeah like a nine foot snake in a in a little potato salad or a rubber made container with an alligator in it. It was awful to watch. I wrote down this the market like there's

There's a, there's sort of like an Mission Impossible or James Bond. You always see like the scene where there's an arms bazaar and there's like arms traitors selling weapons to terrorists. Yeah. And that was like that was the vibe I got from that scene. Yes. Except instead of selling weapons to like fanatical murderers, it's just that. But for people wearing tank tops going, oh, that's cool.

How much? Yeah, I like how. Like the guy that was buying the alligator for his kid or something. Yeah. The kid was so pumped up. Yeah, the kid was so pumped up, and I'm just like, it's not going to end well. Like, I, in 2025 right now, how prevalent do you think the reptile trade is or like exotic animals? Do you think it's like still a thing?

I imagine in parts of the country, it very much is. Well, there's been a, there's been a big crackdown in recent years. I think, I think, you know, there's obviously like an organized movement to bring an end to this stuff. And Tiger Kings certainly brought popular attention to. it yeah there was also the infamous zanesville massacre where the guy uh another ohio and um released all of his animals and they ended up shooting oh did he kill himself too yeah he killed himself and and they ended up shooting like all but four there's lions tigers bears wolves oh my um and that that also brought like national attention to it where you know they have like you see a

cnn broadcast and they're talking to some expert they're like well actually there's no rules about this. So, I don't know. What do we do? Yeah. So I bet the scene has changed somewhat since this, but I think it's, I think it's still thriving in certain places. A tough watch. You see some, like, very, uh, beautiful animals who are, like, tortured situations. Yeah. But, but the, the, the part about it is like the, they talk to someone who loves having animals and then they talk to, like, that old guy who's just sitting in the chair. He's, yeah. And he's just like, I don't, understand these people like there's just such a disconnect there's something that's just very compelling to me about that one final uh note here i don't know how much time we have but um

i paused when they showed the animal finder guide when he's flipping through it i paused it and i looked at what was on the page and there was an ad that said uh where did it says need 100 shooter bucks 130 inches to 250 inches call Jerry okay did you call him no I know but it's like a big

half page classified ad in there just like I need 100 for the fall can you get some shooter bugs for me that's funny so yeah where I grew up there was a free um like newspaper you'd find in any gas station that was called the green sheets and it's basically

agriculture advertisements where people saying I'm in need of 20 hay bales or I have a 1986 Chevy pickup for sale. I would like us to bring something like that to media to radio called the meat sheets where we do similar advertising for people. Someone in Mississippi is looking for a buddy to go fishing with. Someone in Iowa would like a 20 acre deer lease near Des Moines. Yeah, if we can if we can drop an ironclad liability waiver for this, I think it's a great idea. Yeah. We're just like doing Tinder for for some folks who need some outdoor projects

or a hunting buddy or whatever. Yeah, I like it. Really quick, Max, people are talking about it in the chat, but they print ambulance backwards on the front of ambulances. Oh, really? So that when you look at at, when you look at your rear view of mirror. Look at that.

Learn something new every day. It shows up, you know, written throughout us. Thank you, chat. Very good. Hunting big country isn't for the faint of heart. You got steep ground, long distances, and miles of crown land that aren't always easy to navigate.

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Big Country demands better intel. Download on X hunt and start your seven-day trial to get dialed before your next trip. Hey, this is Steve, and I am proud to announce that Meat Eater is headed south for the holidays, announcing Meat Eater Live, the Christmas tour, which kicks off in December across six southeastern. cities, Birmingham, Nashville, Memphis, Fayetteville, Dallas, and Austin. Join myself, Janice Putellis, also known as Yanni Chimani, or the Latvian lover, Clay Newcomb, Brent Reeves, and Dr. Randall Williams for a night of laughs, trivia, free prizes, news, and opinion from across the worlds of hunting, fishing, wildlife conservation, and wild foods.

Go to the meat eater.com slash tour to sign up to get early access to pre-sale ticket. right now and secure your spot. Tickets will be available to the public on Friday, so don't wait. Go to themeatater.com slash tour to get your pre-sale tickets now. Our last segment today is about the 2025 Sasquatch calling contest. But before we do that interview, I want you to hear what it sounds like to be there. Here is a 30-second clip of the 2018 competition. The final call you hear is from the winner.

Play the clip, Phil. I thought Randall was this going to make noises. Wow. She's got some lungs on it. She was the winner. All right. Joining us on the line now is Cheryl Ptoorty and Paul Bartholomew from the Sasquatch Festival and Calling Contest in Whitehall, New York.

Cheryl and Paul, welcome to the show. Hi. Thanks for having us. Thanks for being here. All right, we're going to talk to Cheryl first. She is the organizer of the Sasquatch Festival. Cheryl, I have to get this question out of the way. Do you believe in Bigfoot?

yes you do okay have you ever seen or heard a bigfoot i have not okay so why then do you believe in bigfoot well we have all our researchers who bring us all this information there's castings of footprints so i think there's one out there somewhere at least one if not a lot more excellent i would be disappointed if the person organizing this festival did not believe in bigfoot so i'm glad to hear that all right shiro what is the sacks Sasquatch Festival. Well, it's just a big event in our community here in Wai Hall, New York. There has been sightings of Sasquatch a few years back in our community.

So people got together and decided this would be a great fun festival to bring people into our community. So here we are. Nine years later, bigger, it grows bigger. Every single year has got attention of people all over the country. So Whitehall is a very small community with only about 3,000 people. And we bring in at least 3,000 to 4,000 people just for this festival. Amazing. And what is there for people to do there?

Well, we have 150 vendors that come in all down, up and down the streets. We have lecturers and researchers who start all day. long. There's eight of them. And they come in and bring us all kinds of information so people can listen to all their lectures all day. We have live entertainment. We have a beer garden. We have all kinds of fun things. Children's areas. So it's a fun day. And the festival is best known for its Sasquatch calling contest. It takes place this Saturday at 5 p.m. Cheryl, how many competitors do you expect to have this year? Well, generally in the past, we have two divisions, a children's division and an adult

division. So up until age 14, we probably get about 25 or 30 kids that do it. But the adult, we could have 60 to 80 or maybe 100 this year callers. Great. And what are they competing for? Just to have the title. I'm the winner of the Satchquatch Calling Contest. Okay, that is very meaningful, I would say.

Who are the judges of the competition? We bring some people in some out of town, people who want to have fun, people who want to be involved. So we have a couple of business people. We have a high school guidance counselor. We have the chairman of the tourism division for our county. We have a high school student. And so we get a little variety of everybody, and they're all very supportive of the festival. Have some of those folks heard a Bigfoot before? Do they know what they should be listening for?

I don't know the answer to that question. I don't think they've heard one. Okay. But maybe they've gone online and heard some calls. There we go. Okay. Now I want to talk to Paul. Paul is a Bigfoot researcher and the author of the book, Bigfoot, Foot encounters in New York and New England. Paul, do you believe in Bigfoot? Whatever this phenomenon is, it's real, and it has been cited by reputable people. And so, yes, I believe that whatever is being cited out there, there's something being cited. And it's not the normal culprits such as bear and things like that. This creature does different things. It crosses the road in three steps, and that was witnessed by police officers.

outside of White Hall back in 1982. There was a major incident involving various police agencies back in 1976 out on A Bear Road. So we've got a lot of respectable witnesses who have seen this creature or some of these creatures. How about you? Have you seen or heard a Bigfoot? I have not. Okay. But you've been studying Bigfoot for over 40 years.

And in that time, you've interviewed dozens of Sasquatch eyewitnesses. When is the last time you investigated a siting, Paul? Sightings are continual. They're basically broken down into three categories, which are eyewitness sightings, track finds, and vocal reports. And it's just a continual process of reports. And if you go to the BFRO site, which is Matt Moneymaker's Bigfoot Field Research Organization site,

you can actually just track where you want to look to see if there have been sightings, you know, what counties and what states, So it's a grassroots thing to check out. And in Washington County, which is where Whitehall is here in upstate New York, we have hundreds of sightings on record. Wow. So when is the last time you investigated a sighting, though? Last year.

Okay. Now, a Bloomberg article stated that Bigfoot sightings peaked in the early 2000s and have been on a decline ever since. Have you witnessed the same trend? No, not at all. In fact, back when I started, of course, I would be considered ancient because I can remember typing a manuscript, you know, with carbon paper. But, you know, now we have social media and instant messaging. And so the information flow is really instant.

And as far as I'm concerned, what I've seen is more reports than ever. Wow. And reported faster. And so you have now a loose network of researchers connected through social. media that constantly put their information forward. You know, back in my day, we had to look for news clipping services and things like that and mail things out. Now everything's instant.

Good, good. I'm glad to hear that the Bigfoot sightings are still strong. What percentage of the time do you walk away from an interview and come to the conclusion that that person saw a genuine Bigfoot? Yeah, I don't know what the percentage would be, but there are certain things, what I call confirmation moments. And that's like what Cliff Sparks was a family friend and the former owner of the Scheme Valley Country Club in White Hall. He had a siting back in May of 75 out on the Greens.

And the only reason we got that sighting is because we were friends with Cliff. Dan Gordon kept his name private for 20 years. He didn't want to be known as the Bigfoot cop. And then finally he came forward with his information publicly. So there's information like that that seems to confirm that there, These are reputable witnesses who have everything to lose and nothing to gain. And there was a fascinating incident back in the early 2000s up in the Dresden area, which is just outside of Whitehall.

And a couple of Hong Kong nationals were fishing. And they saw this creature wading through the water at chest level. They described it as ape-like. And I said to him, I said, well, what did you do? And he says, well, we went fishing. In other words, in their cultural expectation, they weren't all that surprised. just didn't know that we had primates in this area. So you get in a case like that and you're like, wow, that's very interesting.

Fascinating. What are some things that those credible eyewitnesses have in common when it comes to the details of their story? Well, what's being cited here, if I gave out a general description, you're talking about seven to eight feet tall, it's fairly common, dark colored usually. But you know, you can go back into New York Times articles and there was a case in the 1800s on the front. page of the New York Times in Palno, Vermont, where the creature was red in color and only five feet tall. But you have these various descriptions, making a sound like a squealing or a high-pitched scream, being a photosensitive, light-sensitive, photophobic, having a gait like a man, but looking more like a gorilla with long swinging arms down at knee level. So I guess it'd be your

traditional harry and the henderson's type of a creature being cited in a lot of the cases occasionally like down in kinderhook new york where bruce helenbeck is an expert uh these site these creatures were seen in groups oh okay now we know what to look for uh paul you literally wrote the book on bigfoot in new england so i want to ask you some questions specifically about saskatch in that region does a new england bigfoot differ uh from a bigfoot that lives in tennessee or Montana or California. That's an excellent question because this is a global enigma. Whatever is going on here is going on around the world.

If you go to Nepal and the Himalayas, we call these creatures the Yeti or the Abamba snowman, whether they're a cousin, but they're closely described the same type of, you know, unknown primate type creature. If you go to Australia where my brother was at for many years, it's called the Yahweh or the Yahoo or the devil's devil. If you go to the former, you know, Soviet Union, it was the Chichuna or the El Misti. So, and then we talk about the states. You can go down to Florida, which racks up a lot of sightings. And it's called the skunk ape down there, Momo and Missouri, the Falk Monster in Arkansas, and so forth. Now, the Honey Island Swamp Monster appears to be a little more aggressive.

And that may be because it's in an environment which has, you know, alligators, reptiles and things. And it just may be more aggressive in that regards. So we do have these regional differences, but they seem to be some sort of, they seem to be related in some, some way. Okay. What do you think a New England Bigfoot eat? Dr. Cook, who I studied with at Castle and State College, he was a Pulitzer Prize nominee and an anthropologist.

And he wrote Flood Tide Empire through Yale University. And he had studied this with myself. And he felt that whatever these creatures were, they were, probably opportunistic and omnivorous, meaning, you know, plants and animals. They're often seen in swampy areas. And things like, you know, maybe a down deer that would be edible as well. And down in Kinderhook, it was actually seen going through garbage. So, or at least a group of these creatures. So, yeah, it's, I think Dr. Cook's observation of being opportunistic would be probably the best answer. Sounds like Randall. Is a Bigfoot dangerous.

It kind of looks like Randall, too. Well, I mean, any wild animal or creature in the wild that you're not used to, you should obviously use caution. But in my span of research, I haven't come across very many negative encounters. One encounter that I have heard fairly frequently is people say, well, it started to chase me. And then they say, well, it seemed like it could have caught me at any time. And I'm not, I'm wondering if that might be some sort of a bluffing display to, you know, to get rid of the danger, uh, near it. Uh-huh.

Uh, if someone in New England wanted to see a big foot today, where would you send them and what would you tell them to do? It's like hitting the lottery. Uh-huh. The most common sighting of a creature is driving around at night and the creature crosses the road in front of you. That was the Dan Gordon, the police officer's sighting. Uh, he was with another officer.

the time and the creature crossed the road in three steps. They were stunned. He gets out of the car, draws his weapon, tries to follow, but it's long gone. And, you know, Dan took a polygraph regarding this incident. And there was no deception. Of course, we knew we weren't. I went to school with Dan, very honest person, brutally honest person. And so, yeah, you, you just have to be lucky. I mean, obviously, there's certain areas that they have had a lot of sightings like Kenderhook, Chittenden, Vermont, the Whitehall, New York region, the Rutland-Vermott region, and so forth. But there's different hotspots all over the place.

You know, if you look on a national level, you go to like the ranch in Utah, which has been studied by George Knapp, the investigative journalist. And that has a plethora of paranormal phenomena occurring there routinely. Okay. Circling back to the Sasquatch calling competition, what do we know about Bigfoot vocalizations? Yes. You can actually look up online, look up Ron Moorhead, and you look up the Sierra sounds from 1972, and he put them right out there. And these were sounds he and Alan Barry and a group had gone up into the Sierra's and recorded these incredible vocal displays. And they've been

studied by various institutes and scientists, and they're right open for everybody to listen to and to study. And I think those are the real thing. I think that's, and it's a, it's a, it's a, assortment of sounds ranging from guttural noises to high-pitched screaming to what sounds like a wild violent type display to a more more more like grunting and things so yeah you can actually hear them right online run more head okay yeah i just i just pulled it up and it's got 1.3 million news we will check that out after the interview you can hear paul speak about bigfoot and white Hall's role in the Unexplained at the Sasquatch Festival this Saturday at 10.30 a.m. The Sasquatch calling competition starts at 5.

Cheryl and Paul, good luck with the event, and thanks for joining us. Thank you for having us. We really appreciate it. That's fun, guys. Randall, do you believe in Bigfoot? I don't. I don't. I like that there are people who do.

Yes. I like to think. I feel fairly certain that we don't know everything about everything, right? The size of Bigfoot gives me pause. It's hard to hide all those skeletons and... I just feel like... Not getting him on trail camera.

But I like to... I like that people believe. We're getting a lot of requests in the chat for a Randall Bigfoot vocalization. Oh, please, Randall. Max is going to tell us if he believes in Bigfoot. But, Randall, you think about what a vocalization would sound like. We'll get that in a minute. I've got it.

A minute. Just ponder it. I personally don't. My biggest thing is, like, you out in the woods and you run into dead critters all the time, a dead deer, dead whatever, dead birds. Why haven't we ran across a dead big foot yet? Yeah. I never found a dead wolf. No, I believe in wolves.

There's been confirmed sites. Sorry. It's supposed to go longer than that. Oh, that's very good. That is a cat giving birth. That was great. I do not believe in Bigfoot. I've never believed in Bigfoot.

I think there's a zero percent chance he's real. But I love the folks that are dedicated to finding them. and I love the folks who are dedicated to, you know, making this a thing and keeping this a thing. If I was at the Madison, Wisconsin Tailgate Tour and two people came up to me at the same time, and one of them's like, I have a story about the time I killed 180-inch white tail. And then the other guy said, I have a story about the time I saw Bigfoot. I would say Bigfoot story. Give me that one first.

I'm very interested in that. That is something that I will always be entertained by, despite, you know, not ever going to believe in it until, like, you know, the thing shows up as a carcass. And I think, like, just being outside, there's an element of it that's, like, mysterious. You never know what you're going to see. You never know what's going to happen, good or bad. And so the Bigfoot is, like, the embodiment of that. It's the distillation of all of the unknown of the outside.

And so for that reason, I'm glad that Bigfoot exists in our culture. I like the culture aspect of it. like that it gets some people outdoors who seem to be like singularly interested in that thing. That's that is their outdoor activity. Good for them. All right, that brings us to the end of the show.

Phil, let's get some final feedback from the chat. People who devour all of our content on the YouTube probably know this, but Tim Allen asks, what does Max do at meat eater? Max. Well, Tim, I run around chasing people with cameras.

Yes. So a videographer Photographer. Extraordinary. And you do a little Waterfell hunting content. Yeah. Do a little duck hunting on the side when I'm not working.

But yeah, this is only my second time on radio live. Right on. On that, does anyone hear, is anyone here an upland person? Max?

Yeah, sort of. I mean, Cal would be a better person. Yeah, we had a pheasant question. I'm just not even going to bring it up then. I know I know Randall and Spencer or not. My best advice is if you shoot a pheasant

with cow, you give a fessent. it to Cal and you have Cal cook dinner for you. Okay. It works every time. Never been disappointed. What is the pheasant question? Oh, just, just meal prep. So there you go. Go send Cal a DM. I'm sure he'll respond to it.

He made a lovely faw. A pheasant fa? He made a pheasant fae last year with some birds we shot. It's delightful. That sounds great. Let's see. I think we got a Leland question. Yeah. Leland says, I just learned Randall was a fellow Eagle Scout. Makes me even more of a randomal. How many eagles are there in the meat eater crew?

Probably one. I was a Cub Scout. That's about it. A Cub Scout. Oh my God. That's about it. Didn't even make it a tenderfoot. I think it's just random.

Janus was in Latvian scouts, wasn't he? Boy Scouts? Yeah, he was in some sort of Latvian fraternal organization. Reed Duval says we should do a Sasquatch calling on the live tour. So put that together. Yeah, the last live tour, it was a barred owl calling contest. Yeah. The problem is Steve will be there.

So it will not happen. Yeah. Yeah, we actually had another person say, does Steve know that you're talking to Bigfoot people on the podcast today? Yeah. He does not. I also think he still does not know we played D&D on his podcast TV. Can't wait until he finds out a few months from now.

He doesn't know, won't hurt him. This is a question from Nate. If hunting and fishing was banned tomorrow, what would keep you outside? I think we know the answer from Spencer Looking at the ground for rocks and mushrooms That's what I would do How about you boys? Walking my dog

Oh dogs is a good one Yeah dogs got me to the river yesterday I like just seeing animals And I like just being outside Yeah Like it would be great this weekend To be outside at sunrise There you go

That's like that's enough for me I spent some time on the coast this summer in southern Oregon in northern California and I started doing tide pooling where I'd get up right at sunrise and go out when the tides are very low and I had so much fun doing that.

I had it all to myself and I also liked that it felt like I wasn't consuming anything. I didn't like walk away from that with a bag full of rocks or sheds or mushrooms or sheds or meat and I kind of realized then it was one of the few things I do outside

where I'm not consuming something But I'm still thrilled to do it. It was so much fun. I wish I'd lived closer to a place where I could go tide pooling. Bill, anything else? Noah says if someone were to harvest a Bigfoot, how would a typical state wildlife management agency treat that harvest? An illegal harvest, right? And he says he doesn't have to say how hypothetical he is.

Some states, I believe, have outlawed it where our last two guests came from, Whitehall, New York. They have a Bigfoot sanctuary where they have made it illegal to kill a Bigfoot within city limits. Um, so some states have outlawed, uh, straight up killing a big foot. Oklahoma, he's on one side of it. Either they've outlawed it or they've made a season. They offer a tag. Okay. That's what I just someone, I read someone's comment.

Yeah. Said that so. And I, if you see a big foot in the wild and you shoot it, you're killing a man. In a big foot suit. Yeah, you're probably going to. So I just, it's not a, it's not a wildlife management issue. you, you're talking about homicide. Yeah, if they have a legal

Bigfoot season and someone shoots a man in a bigfoot suit, would they go to prison? If I go out in my black bear costume, I don't think they'd be going to prison. If I go out in my black bear costume, no one's going to say

it's a good idea during spring bear season. But if somebody takes a poke, they're probably going to the pokey. Max, before we get out of here, can we hear the Bigfoot call that our guest Paul was referencing? This is the official sound. of a big foot.

There is a lot of background noise, but... There is a lot of background noise. That's just nature. Okay. Is that the big foot? Okay. Now we know, we know what to listen for. Thanks for joining us this week on Media Radio.

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