Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - A Black Bear, Tiger Shark and Rattlesnake Bite the Same Person

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

Jeff leads another episode, this time about a young man who has been attacked by more deadly animals than most. The episode is concluded with a discussion of unlucky characters from pop culture, some fun encounters with animals the guys have had recently, and a small batch of listener questions. ~~ To advertise on the show, contact us! ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social:  Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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This is Tooth and Claw podcast. Here we are. We got our wildlife biologist, Wes Larson. Oh, that's me. Our number one boy. Don't call me that. Oh, man. We got our tech guy, Mike.

What's up, Mike? How you do it? I feel like I just got demoted. Good. Yeah, I'm doing great. Producer. He does a lot of the back end that we don't want to do. And then we got me, Jeff Larson.

And here I am. He's a Jeff. I'm a Jeff. I'm in the Jeff group. You're my favorite, Jeff, but just by a hair. Oh, thanks, dude. Yeah. Who's your second favorite?

Oh, I don't know, but I just don't like you that much. Yeah, probably Jeff Goldblum. He's probably the most, yeah, he's the most, like, unanimously like Jeff out there. Yeah. So I had something pretty cool and big happen this week. Okay. Something I've wanted my whole life. All right.

I met someone that was born on a leap year. That's pretty boring. Because my birthday is February 28. So like people always ask me about leap year, you know, even though it wasn't the right year for that. But I don't know. I put a lot of thought into leap years and I just wanted to ask a lot of questions. I was finally able to. But I'm jealous of leap year babies, I decided.

Why? Because I decided celebrating birthdays is important and cool. Like it's just cool that every person gets their own day for like, people to recognize them as a person. Yeah, your own personal holiday. But then, like, I don't know, I just don't really put effort into my own birthdays and no one else ever does. And, like, I end up kind of always, like, half-assing birthdays, which is, like, by my choice,

you know? Yeah. And just go to, like, Red Robin and get a burger or something. And that's kind of how it always is. And I feel like if you're a leap year birthday, you half-assed three of the four birthdays is because it's not actually the birthday, you know? You do it on like March 1st and it's kind of like, oh, this is cool, whatever. But then one out of four years, it's just the biggest part yet.

And you just go for it. Yeah. Mike, if your birthday was on a leap year, do you think you'd care at all about it still? Hmm. I think not. I think Jeff, I understand Jeff's line of thinking, but I also think it would just result in even more of a disappointing birthday. Because it's like, I waited four years and I still didn't do anything for it.

Yeah, like if one of your friends didn't show up, you would be all hurt because you'd be like, hey, this only comes around every four years. But to them, it's still just like your birthday. That's the hard truth that every birthday person has to realize is that to mostly everyone else, it's kind of just a normal day, you know. But it wouldn't be if it was the leap year. If you had a friend whose birthday was the 29th, you don't think, you would care more? I would probably care more, but it's not like I would shape my week around them.

You know, it's not like I would be like, man, I have to go to this person's birthday. I would, if it is like all my friends were equal, I would care about their leap year birthdays more than any other friends. What if they were kind of a dick, though, would you then? Well, that's why I just said they're all equal. Oh, if they're equal. But if they're truly equal, then they would all have birthdays on leap year. That's true. That'd be crazy. That would be crazy. How equal are we talking? Is this like animals? farm equality. So my audio, I realized I didn't hit for my speaker. So if I sounded a little weird at the

start, that's my bad. You always sound a little weird at the start, dude. Anyways, yeah, I'm jealous of leap year people, and I'm glad I have a friend now who could tell me what it's like. All right. Well, I'm glad you do too. I'm glad you finally check that box on the old bucket list that you have. Yeah. I think I'm going to start my overrated list, just like, Mike. I'm going to put leapier birthdays on there. I'm taking the opposite stance. That feels like you're just attacking me because I'm the only one. Well, is there anyone else you've heard say it's cool?

No, no. I just think they're overrated. It's only overrated by me. Well, I just had to talk about it for like four minutes, Jeff. So now I think they're over. I'm just kidding. You never even considered them, have you? We just did.

Yeah, there's some show where someone had a leap ear birthday. and they pretended like they were because they were like 30, but they acted like they were like 14 or whatever. No, that math doesn't add up. But they acted like they were eight even though. I can't remember what show it was. It was dumb. That's how much I dislike beer birthday.

The other cool thing about it was their driver's license says February 28th is the date people can use. Huh. So they can drink one day earlier in their life. That's super cool. When they get 21 years old, then every. Oh, let me, here. Does that change your mind in a lot? Yeah.

Real quick. All right. Well, how are you all doing? We doing good? Should we get this thing started? I'm ready to go. Yeah. All right.

I prepped our episode today. Yeah. Jeff gave me a week off. I did. So far, what? I've done the. Crows? Harambe and Humphrey the Hippa.

You're right. Crows we just put on a man. Crows was like a. bonus that we did. RIP, RAP Harambe, probably deserved it. All right, so should we just get into it? Yeah. All right, so he didn't deserve it.

He grabbed that kid. Gotta leave those kids alone. I'm not in that past. You almost caught me. Yeah. All right, so the movie starts out with Optimus Prime, explaining that there's an important cube that the Autobots lost, and it's on a planet called Earth. No, this is good.

I'm planning on seeing the Beast Wars tonight, so I need this recap. Keep going, Jeff. No. Oh, wait, these are the wrong notes. Hold on. Okay, no, so we're talking about someone, his name's Dylan McWilliams. It's a fun name. So I'm going to ask you guys a lot of questions.

That's the way I like to do episodes. Do you think his friends called him Dilly McWillie? I'm hoping so. Hopefully one of them listens and we'll start if they're not. What do you think is the world? record for types of animal attacks by a potentially deadly animal on a single person? Like over their life? Like the reason I worded it like that is like if someone gets bit by the same venomous snake

like five times, that doesn't count. I would say like 10? No, probably more than that. I'm going 18. Well, that's a bad question by me because Dylan's only had three so far. And he's the record? No, he's not the record. I was just asking what you think is.

But Dylan's been attacked by three animals that have all killed people, and they're all living in North America. Wait, we don't get to learn the record? Oh, I don't know. I hope all the questions are like this. So, well, this one's not, because you'll learn this one. What's your guess for the three types of animals that he was attacked by? I know this story, so I'm not going to guess.

but Mike should. Okay. I'll go bear. What type? Black. Okay. And shark? You got to say the type.

You just learned that. Black species. Black shark. Okay. Yeah. And a dog. All right. Yeah, you did pretty good there.

So the first story happens in Moab. But first, so were you guys taught any survival skills when you were like really young? Like three to eight years old? Yeah. You were, Mike? I think so. Yeah, my mom, it was always a big thing to have like survival kits hidden away in our closets. It was just like a little backpack full of like hard candies and like.

Like a go bag? Yeah. And like we learned just very basic like here's how to inflate your pants when you're in a pool or here's how to administer CPR. I don't know. We were like five. So I don't know how useful that was. But yeah, a little bit. Yeah.

I don't know about you, West. I don't remember like being taught anything specifically. The only one I remember specifically is. I was pretty young and dad took me out and it was really wet outside. We were like in the West Fork of the Bitterroot and he said, make a fire and gave me like two matches or something. And I very, and then he left and I very quickly like went through those matches and did not make a fire. It was very cold and wet for a while. And then he came back and was like, where's your fire?

And I was like, I didn't make it. That's pretty much all I remember. Yeah. It sucked. I like that. I wish she would have done that to me. Dylan, his grandfather, started teaching him like outdoor survival skills at the age of four. Wow.

In Colorado Springs. Mike, what state's Colorado Springs in? This sounds like a trick question. It wouldn't be so easy if you were asking, right? No, it's Colorado. So we'll fast forward and Dylan's now 17 years old. He's putting these outdoor skills to use. And he enjoys getting jobs that are like,

in wilderness preparedness and wilderness survival type jobs, wilderness training. So he's out in Moab. You guys, you've been to Moab, right? Wes, you've been there a lot. I've been there a lot, yeah. What stands out to you about Moab? It's like beautiful red rock country. There's some rivers running through.

Yeah, it's grown a lot in the last 10 years. It used to be like a small little town and now it's like a huge kind of mecca for outdoorsy people. It's doubled in arches. Yeah, the arches of rivers. exploded out there. But yeah, it's right by Arch's National Park and Canyonlands National Park. So it's a very popular destination. Yeah, it's beautiful out there.

I've done like the arch swing. I've done some cool adventures out in Moab. I love it there. So in September 2015, Dylan's hiking out of Grandstaff Canyon near Moab. It's an evening after Wilderness Rescue Training, the clouds are starting to turn orange over the dark red rocks of southern Utah and he decides to switch from his hiking boots to sandals and then he rolls up his pants. Think I know what's coming.

A shark. So him and his friends are walking in a group and he's second in the line. And as he steps off a ledge, he feels a sharp needle-like stab in his right leg. He says he thought he kicked a cactus. Have you guys ever kicked a cactus? Oh yeah. I've kicked a cactus or two. I almost kicked a cactus this week.

It does suck. You almost did. Yeah. I was about to step on a cactus and then I stepped. It's so scary when you're like about to hit one. Yeah. I always feel like I'm right away. I feel like I really hurt myself and then it ends up not being as bad as I thought it was, but it still sucks.

Well, unfortunately for Dylan, it wasn't a cactus. He looked down to see two puncture wounds, an interim part in his skin, and he claims a Pigny rattlesnake, dark reddish brown with pink spots laid coiled up under the ledge. Okay. Why do you say he claims? Because I looked up Pigny rattlesnakes and they don't have any habitat in Utah. So I have some. They're all southeast.

Yeah, I don't, like, I've seen a pygmy rattlesnake before in Florida. That's where they live. I am pretty confident we don't have pygmy rattlesnakes in Utah. No. So I have all the snakes. really small rattlesnake species in Utah. So it could have been like a Mojave Rattler or it could have been like a really small. There's five.

Can you name them all? Great Basin Rattlesnake, Western Diamondback, Mojave Rattlesnake. No diamondbacks. They don't have Western Diamondbacks in Utah? No, they're in Arizona and Texas, but they don't quite make it into Utah. Okay. Then. I've had some sneak over the line at like midnight.

Maybe. Well, no one's looking. So Great Basin, Mojave. We got built a one. wall. Prairie rattlesnake? Is that one? Yeah. Mm-hmm. And then I'm really drawing a blank here. There's speckled rattlesnakes. Oh, yeah. And sidewinders. And those are in the extreme southwest corner of Utah, which is where Moab is. Sidewinders are really small and kind of look like what he described. This could have been a sidewinder. Could have been a speckled rattlesnake. Yeah.

Yeah, it's not a pigmy rattlesnake unless someone had a pet one and left it on their hike in Moab. Dylan, I already don't, man, Dylan's not starting off strong for me here. Yeah, he needs some more wilderness preparedness classes. Oh yeah, and I should say my source for most of this is outdoor magazine. So, and I was reading in this Texas rattlesnake information website that apparently there's a saying in Texas that being third in line is the worst when you're hiking because the first person wakes it up, the second person. person makes it angry and the third person gets bit. It's bitten. Huh.

But I do think there's probably some truth to like being in second puts you like maybe a little bit more at risk than at first. Yeah. Because like especially it was cooling down like it probably just didn't see the first person until it the person had already walked away, you know? Yeah. But then the rattlesnake was alert and then Dylan being the second person got bit. Yeah.

I think there's probably some truth to that. All right. So luckily for first. Dylan, as we talked about, the Western Diamondback rattlesnake, it's the most dangerous species in America of rattlesnake. And it's responsible for the majority of human fatalities, but its northern range is south of the Utah border. So our most dangerous rattlesnake in Utah is the Mojave rat. Mojave. Yeah, they're the only neurotoxic rattlesnake in Utah. So their venom is quite a bit different than the other ones and that it attacks your nervous system as well as your blood your blood

system circulatory system so back to the story dillen claim because of his wilderness emergency medical response training he knew that he had two options which were call a helicopter to airlift him to a hospital because they're really far out here or waded out in hopes that it was a dry bite and in his mind, 50% of rattlesnake hits are dry. So he decided to take his chance and see if it's a dry blade. I researched that. There's a lot of varying information on dry bite percentages. So us.gov says that about 25% of rattlesnake bites are dry bites.

On Wikipedia, it said 33% of rattlesnake bites are dry bites and 50% of venomous snake bites or dry bites. And then one in 600 people will die from rattlesnake bites. So his chances are good, but I don't know, normally you don't have, normally your chances of surviving the night are a lot higher than that, right? But also, you're 1 in 600, that's not untreated. That's like overall. So most of those people are getting treatment and getting anti-venin.

So I think when they're untreated, it's more like 30 to 40% of people die. higher. Yeah. Yeah. Or at least lose a limb or something. Yeah, that's a good point. That's just death, too. It's not like serious injure. And those percentages are probably high the ones I just said. But yeah, you could lose like fingers, toes, a leg. There's a lot of stuff that could happen. So you don't want to take that risk. So him and his friends are three miles away from their destination, their campsite. So Dylan decides to sit down on some warm sandstone, drink a lot of water and try to just keep his heart. down to try to dilute and slow the spread of any venom. Yeah, that's smart. They watched and stayed ready to call for a helicopter at the first sign of any swelling or nausea.

Yeah, I don't think that's a bad idea. Okay, good. I was wondering. And after about 20 minutes, when none came, they decided to hike out. They took an extra long time and took three hours to cover three miles. So about an hour a mile, or exactly an hour a mile. And he, he, he, so Dylan vomited once that night and then once again the next morning. Yeah, but that's like, everyone does that.

He was fine. Yeah, maybe just from hiking so fast. And says that he's happy that they didn't call for a helicopter and happy with the way they did it all. Yeah. Which, you know, I agree with. But he did get a little lucky. But I don't know, like for all of our listeners with free health care. You know, you just sometimes you got to take chances with that stuff.

I will say like if you get bit by a rattlesnake and you are close to help, you definitely should try and get it. In this situation though, if I were in Dilley's situation here, I would probably do the exact same thing. No, it's Dilley McWillie. Okay. I would do the same thing. I'd probably just look for any signs of envenomation. and rattlesnakes are a lot of venomous snakes are this way and rattlesnakes are a good case of it where generally the bigger the snake the higher chances you have of like a higher load of venom so when you

get bit by a small rattlesnake like a really small one like this even if you do get you know an envenomation there's a decent chance that it won't be anything that serious so i'm saying if you know again if you're willing to take that risk he was probably in the best possible category for taking it, but it's not good. I'm not going to say that's good advice because the good advice is to get to a hospital as quickly as possible. All right. Yeah, no, that's great. And we have two other animals we're going to cover, but I'm only going to give really detailed information on one animal, and I chose rattlesnakes for that. Okay. So first I want to talk about two animals that I think are really interesting that they imitate rattlesnakes. West, you could probably

guess at least one of these. Growing owls and gopher snakes. You got it. So the cool thing with gopher snakes is they don't have a rattle, but their markings are pretty similar, and they'll coil up and try to imitate the rattling of a rattlesnakes tail. So they'll vibrate its tail when agitated. And this is to make things think that it is a rattlesnake. And I was just wondering, like, how do you think they ever learned how to do that?

Because it's not like they just watch rattlesnakes all day. No, it's instinctual. Like, this isn't learned behavior. This is something they're born doing. So, like, this is an instinctual behavior for them. I've seen this. I think I have a video of it that maybe we can post. But it makes noise even.

You know, it doesn't sound like a rattlesnake, but it does make noise and it hisses and it gets in the S position, just like a rattlesnake. Like, they look like a rattlesnake when they do this. It's pretty impressive. It's so cool. It's so interesting. to me that they don't have a rattle and the only reason they would be doing that is to act like a rattlesnake, you know?

Yeah. And their pattern looks like a rattlesnake kind of too. To an untrained eye, a gopher snake can look a lot like a rattlesnake. And then do you want to just explain what burrowing owls do? Yeah, so burrowing owls, especially owlets, the little babies, they will make this rattling noise. It's just a vocalization that they do and it sounds a lot like a rattlesnake rattle. So if there's something coming into their burrow that, you know, is potentially going to eat them, they start making that noise. And it might scare off whatever predator that is because it's like, oh, shit, a rattlesnake. I thought I was about to eat some little owls.

And the reason they've evolved to be able to do this and not other owls is that they live in the ground. So they have like, they have like coyotes and foxes coming and they have like. Badgers. Yeah, lots of predators. And then we've heard it. It's so convincing of a rattlesnake noise. It's really impressive. They're just tiny little owls.

It's super cool. All right. So those are my two imitation animals. And then I want to talk a little bit about dry bites. So I think, I mean, I know you've talked about some of this West, but hopefully this is, we got some new information here too. So dry bites can occur from all snakes, but their frequency varies from species to species. and these are venomous snakes, obviously. So like an Australian eastern brown snake,

80% of the time they have a dry bite, but tapans or tapians? Tapans. Yeah, it's the most venomous terrestrial snake in the world. Inland tapins. Inland tapins in Australia are the most venomous, yeah. So they only do dry bites 5% of the time. Yeah, you don't want to get bit by them.

They're not very bitey snakes, though. You really have to kind of force one to bite you. Not force it, but. Like I said, about 50% of snake bites end up being dry bites. Dry bites doesn't mean like zero venom, but it means like a very minimum amount of venom. Mike, really quickly, give us a refresher on venom versus poison. Oh, man. What, poison is when you swallow it, ingest it, and venom is when it's injected into you?

Yeah. Are those all the right words? Venoms injected, poisons ingested. Just remember that. Wes. Okay. The U.S. government website when talking about rattlesnakes use poison for rattlesnakes. Yeah, well, that's just another reason.

Our government is broken. One of many. Drybytes were first thought of as a thing understood in 1892, which is a lot earlier than I expected by a South American rattlesnake in London. They just had it out in London. A South American rattlesnake understood it first in London. I'm picturing a rattlesnake wearing like a lab coat. Yeah, the researchers figured it out. So they can do dry bites on accident or on purpose.

So here are like some of the things that cause a dry bite. Gland infection, trauma after defense, trauma after extraction of venom, duct calification or obstruction. Calcification. Venom metering. Oh, yeah, thank you. Yep. Empty gland or misjudgment of the distance. to victim leading to only partial penetration or a premature ejection of venom.

Mike, you know about that. When I can't see very well, things just don't go to plan. Do you think when rattlesnakes or other snakes do a dry bite, they're like, I swear it's my gland calcification. I swear to God, this never happens to me. And then I want to talk a little bit about venom metering. you've mentioned it before, but this is where they control their venom. And it's really interesting.

It kind of became a real thing scientifically in 2002 when there was a scholarship, or like, what's it called? Like a peer-reviewed journal, a peer-reviewed article? Yeah. That what you were getting at? Well, it started out as a hypothetical concept proposed by Esther Wigger, Lucia Kuhn-Nutwig, and Wolfgang Newtwig of the Zool-Law-Lygh. Institute of the University of Bern in Switzerland.

And what they did to figure it out is they used the studies of a wandering spider or wandering spider. Wandering, it's wondering. But it's with a A. Wandering is with an A. That's how you're called a wandering. Oh, you're right. There's a lot of English words out there.

It's all right, dude. It's all right. doing great. So this is a spider that paralyzes its prey. It can't weave webs so it relies strictly on its venom for predation. Yeah, they're one we're going to do for sure because they've killed people. Oh, wow. Yeah.

And they can't hold a ton of venom in its glands. So their main preys are butterflies, moths, earwigs, cockroaches, flies, and grasshoppers. and it takes two to three days to refill its glands. So, you know, it's a big process. Right. Energetically costly. But it was found that the amount of venom released differed for each specific prey. For example, the bigger and stronger the insects like beetles, the spider uses the entire amount of its venom.

While for small ones, it uses only a small amount, thus economizing its costly venom. In fact, the experiments show that the amount of venom released is just sufficient to paralyze the target organism depending on the size or strength. So it never uses more than necessary, which was really interesting to me that they're just evolved to get it this precise. Metering it out. Perfect. Yeah. So that's what I found for our rattlesnake facts. I kind of just want to get into dry bites. Yeah. So. Relax and let Ralph's deliver.

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Ralph's, fresh for everyone. What's going on with Dilley? So back to the story. Yeah. Or Bill and whatever his real name is. What do you guys think about when you think about Hawaii? Lou-O-O's. My-Tis and Pinacoladas and Lou Oos and...

Purple bread. What's the purple bread? I don't know. Po? Poe. Poe bread. Poe. Not like that.

Hanging out by the beach, snorkeling, sea turtles, sand. I think a ton of beach in Kauai. That is like my favorite beach I've ever been to. Great beach. Yeah. It's just beautiful. I probably think of Kauai first when I think of Hawaii. We got family out there.

That makes sense. I already told you all my stuff. I'm not answering a second question. I was thinking, why don't, like, we and all of our listeners just pitch in, buy a house and Kauai and all live there together. We can all share it. Yeah. You'd love that.

I'm in. All right. All right. So April 2018, so this is like three and a half years after the rattlesnake. bite, right? Dylan's out in Kauai and he's doing some more emergency response preparedness with there's a lot of flooding going on and he's kind of working with that. Oh so like a disaster relief kind of trip. Yeah. I don't know too much detail on it but that's kind of what he's out there. That's what he likes to do for work and he does like wilderness preparedness preparedness training and teachings

But, I mean, he's a young kid. He's like 20 right now. So he's just kind of figuring his career out. He's doing more than I did. But he gets some time off and, you know, he's in Hawaii. So he wakes up early and at 7.15 a.m. decides he wants to go out, boogieboard, and catch some waves, which I've done in Kauai. It's great.

Yeah, it is great. So he is in Kauai? Yeah. Okay. He's in Kino Lino. Kiyonilo. Bay on the south shore of Kauai. So he swims out there with his boogie board and water's probably, you know, just warm enough.

That's how it always is when I'm there. It's like, feels a little cold but not that cold. Yeah. And he goes out there, catches a perfect wave, rides it all the way back to shore, swims back out there hoping to, you know, recreate that experience. And he feels a bump and a sharp twinge on the inside of the, of his left calf. For a second, he's just confused, looks back, sees like his red board shorts, but then he also

sees behind his red board shorts a cloud of red blood in the water. Wait, so his shorts are off of his body now? No, his shorts are on. But the first thing he saw was the red board shorts. And then he saw a shark is just pranking him. Blood behind it. Okay. So he's just kind of confused figuring.

out what just happened, right? So it ends up being a six-foot tiger shark that just came up and bid as late. They're the ones that get people in Hawaii sometimes. Tiger sharks have about 48 serrated teeth. Do you think the shark was actually six feet long, or does it just say that it is? It's actually 5-11. We'll get back to that, actually. Okay.

So, yeah, let's just table that. And I was reading about Tiger Sharp teeth, and I read them, described as having like mini razor teeth on each tooth because they're serrated teeth. Well, we've talked about it too. They're kind of like a chainsaw blade. It's like they're pointed to one side. They're serrated. They're built for sawing through sea turtle shells. Yeah. Right. So it's not a type of tooth you want to get bit by. No, it's not. Not at all. When I was a kid, I had a tiger shark jaw, which I definitely should not have had that, but I did as a kid didn't realize it.

And I grabbed it once and it cut my hand and it hurt. I remember that jaw. You cut yourself on it? Yeah. I got bit by a tiger shark. Yeah. Wow. So the shark's still there and Dylan kicks out and like kicks it straight in the nose and says that

it felt like kicking a giant rubber inner tube underwater in slow motion, which I guess you just got to try it. Yeah. Because I don't know why. I don't understand the slow motion, but whatever. Mm-mm. So then it leaves him alone, but it starts circling below the board. Dylan is freaked out and nothing else to really do except start paddling towards shore. And the entire time, he's leaving this blood trail just worrying that the shark's going to follow him there.

He says that it took an eternity to get back to shore. Time stopped. And he eventually did make it there, Mike, so it didn't take a literal eternity. and he crawled onto the sand and blood was pumping out of the holes in his leg. A local lady saw it happen and called an ambulance. They put in seven stitches, which were like loosely sewn in his leg. And it's really weird. I saw a picture of it and like he definitely needed more than seven stitches.

But there's just like these seven like loose stitches in there. And he he ended up just duct taping over it three days later and getting back out there. to surf. Nice. Good for him. Yeah. So, like, he said if he didn't get back on his board, then he didn't know if you ever would and just wanted, wanted to take full advantage of being out in Kauai.

It's a very dedicated boogie boarder. Right. I know. Like, if someone told me, like, oh, you can never boogie board again, I'd be like, oh, okay. I thought I just had that, like, I'd have no research on because I just thought of it. but it seems like maybe bogeyboarding is a little bit more likely to get attacked by a shark than the surfer because your legs are like always in the water. Dangling in the water.

It does probably make a bit more sense. Yeah. But there's a lot more surfers than there are big bogey bogey bogeyblowers probably. For surfing like look a little more like something to bite. The other thing too is like surfers when they're waiting for waves and everything generally have their legs in the water. It's just when they're surfing. And I bet he was, I don't think he was like in. the act of catching a wave when he was bit.

Like, I don't think he was, like, riding a wave. It's usually when you're just, like, waiting there. So surfers would have about the same amount of chance. Okay. Yeah. So this is crazy, right? This guy's been bitten by a rattlesnake. And now three and a half years later, he's getting bitten by a tiger shark.

Yeah, surely we're done. There couldn't be another one. You know what's crazy? What? Before this trip to Hawaii, nine months earlier, when he was camping in Colorado, something The notes bid him. Oh, great. A mosquito?

And it wasn't his girlfriend. Okay. He did have one, though, you're saying. You guys fans of Colorado? Sure. Yeah. Yeah, I like Colorado. You guys fans of camping close to home?

Yeah. In the woods? Yeah. I think it's a little overrated to, like, camp close to your house out in the woods. Oh, see, lately I've been thinking about putting a tent up in my yard because I love just sleeping out during the summer. It just is so nice hearing all the crickets and having the cool air and waking up early with the sun. So I big disagree. Second big disagree of the episode for me.

Yeah. I'm feeling contentious today. First being leap year. Leap years. Yeah. Mike, you like camping? Oh, you should see my overrated, underrated document, my entry on camping. It's like five pages long.

You can guess under which section it falls under. Dylan, like you had his grandpa teaching him this stuff when he was four years old. He just loves being outside. He's an outdoorsman. So he's 20, no, right now he's probably 19 years old. He's teaching a wilderness survival skills at Glacier View Ranch near Boulder, Colorado. Mike, you still have your picture on a cement truck in Boulder, Colorado. Not Boulder.

It's up in the Vale Valley somewhere. I think maybe they retired it already. Oh, that'd be cool if it made its way to Boulder, though. So he's out there and five coworkers invite him to go camping. Wes, what's the worst thing someone can do while camping in Black Bear Country? Leaving food in their tent. No way. That's the worst.

What if they, like, kill the person they're camping with? That's worse. I mean, you're right. Yeah. Murdering children. Right. Yeah. No, I would say, though, when it comes to bear safety, the worst thing they can do is leaving.

Is leaving food in and around their tent. Yeah, no, the answer I was looking for it was just detonating a nuclear bomb. Starting a genocide. But they did leave food around the camp. That's the close second. And like, you know, I'm going to give Dylan a pass here because he's only 19. But if you're going to work in wilderness preparedness, preparedness, you got to be better than that. You got to be bare safe.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's around 4 a.m. and Dylan woke up to a crunch. and this crunch ended up being his skull. Oh, that's not good. You don't like it when your skull's crunching. It's like someone squeezing a handful of chips,

and it felt like a jerk on his skull. A 300-pound male black bear had dug his claws into his scalp, and then bit his head and dragged his 6-foot 180-pound body by the head, 12 feet from the back. So, yeah, this is where we get back to it, Mike. I'm 511. My driver's license says six foot. I'm going to, like I think you got to say six one. And anyone who says they're six foot, like, I think they're making it up.

No one is six foot. I'm questioning. I'm questioning. Maybe there's a bear stretched him out a little bit, though. That's a good thought. So he dragged him about 12 feet from his sleeping bag. You have your head and a bear's mouth, Wes. What are you doing?

I'm going to start hitting it and just going as hard as I can to get. it to release me. I'm hitting it. What's the strategy for hitting it? I'm punching it just, I mean, if my head's in their mouth, I don't really have a strategy. I'm just throwing punches behind me. Yeah, I'm just trying to get it to release my head. You know what I'm doing?

You know the move in Raiders of the Lost Ark when he replaces the statue with the bag of sand? Yeah. I'm going to do that with my head and a bowling ball, slip it in there so the bear doesn't even realize my head's gone. That's why you always camp with a bowling ball. I was wondering why you always have that. Yeah, that makes sense. Well, Dylan starts punching the bear, but what sounded like was really effective is he somehow found an eye and started gouging that eye.

And this made the bear mad. Rightfully so. I think that's kind of a Bush League move in a fight to gouge an eye. Yeah. It's like the mountain and the viper. Yeah. That sucked. Yeah.

He just gouged those eyes out. Yeah, he popped his head by gouging his eyes. All right. So then everyone in the camp, all his friends. They came out to see the bear just stomp on Dylan's chest a couple times. Whoa. Like he's pretending to be Draymond Green against Sabonius. And then the bear, Angerly walks out of camp.

So Dylan grabs his head. Probably didn't even get called for a technical. There's eight people out there laughing at that joke right now. I guarantee some people are laughing at that. Blood is running down his arms, soaked his flannels. He's bleeding a lot here. This is the bloodiest story of all three of them. His flannels, huh?

He's got more than one flannel on. Oh, yeah. On his flannel. It's a flannel enthusiast. His shirt and his jeans. I don't know why he's sleeping in a flannel shirt and jeans. That's kind of a psycho move, you know? Yeah.

Oh, sleeping in jeans is rough. Holy cow. This guy's a real outdoorsman. The blood is dripping onto his bare feet, and then it starts running into his eyes and he said, I couldn't see. I thought, I'm going blind. That was the scariest part. I knew it was bad.

Man. So, yeah. You know that's bad. Whenever you go blind from blood from an animal attack, that's not a good one. Yeah. I slept in jeans once and I pinched my ball really bad and it hurt like so bad that it completely changed my behavior for the rest of my life. And I used to have a blog called my other blog as your mom,

and I wrote a whole blog post about that night and how badly it hurt. This was like when I was probably like 20 years old, and it really embarrassed my mom, and I ended up deleting it. That's my story. Oh, shoot. Yeah. I'd like to see that. Yeah.

So no more sleeping in jeans for you? No, no. How did your ball get so hurt? It just got twisted. It got caught on one side of the jeans, and then I rolled over, and I think I'm lucky I still have it. I really do. It was bad.

It was at Aunt Terry's house. What else were you wearing? Was it our final? No, just shirtless with jeans. Oh, my gosh. I know, I was smart enough to take off my shirt, but I fell asleep in my jeans. Oh, boy. I've come a long way.

Everyone knows all my stories. I mean, we're learning them as we go. So they call the ambulance. He goes to a hospital. hospital. He had five bite marks on his head and then deep cuts from the claws across his face and then bruises on his chest and neck. It's not a fun night. No. They ended up catching and caging the bear, Colorado Parks and Wildlife. And which I appreciated, they tested the bear, found Dylan's blood and bits of scalp under the claws. And after that, decided to put him down.

Yeah. Because often with black bears, they'll just catch any bear in the bear in the Harry and kill him. Right. They really, they really wanted to make sure it's the right bear. Yeah. He got nine staples in his scalp, but he ended up going camping. Camping two days later. So this Dylan guy just likes to, he just, yeah, I don't know what it is. He loves the outdoors. This guy loves the outdoors. Can't keep him out of the outdoors. He likes facing his fears, you know. He's like, this isn't going to stop me, which I respect. I like that. So that's it for our three stories. Real quick, I want to talk about the odds of all of this happening. So for snake bites, each year around 7,000 to 8,000 people are bitten by venomous snakes in the U.S.

Most of these people, about 50%. It's like they're handling the snake. It's pretty rare. And then there's like 26% they're intoxicated. So it's really rare for a situation like this to happen. And as we've talked about, if you're out in the wild, snakes don't want to mess with you. And you guys are going to like this. So it says, this one was from the US government, or US.gov.

So it says, of these 8,000 bytes or so, on average, 5 to 6 result in fatalities. This means you're 6 times more likely to die from a lightning strike or a dog attack, eight times more likely to die from a TV set or other large furniture falling on you, 14 times more likely to die falling out of a tree, and 95 times more likely to die falling off a ladder. So, Wes, I guess your fear ladders isn't that crazy? That's also just, like, so situational because there's people out there that will never go on a ladder, and then there's people that go on a ladder every single day, you know? And also like TVs are getting lighter every year.

I hate these stats. I hate them so much. All right. For sharks. In the United States, even considering only people who go to beaches, a person's chance of getting attacked by shark is one in 11.5 million. Bears. Statistically hikers have thousands of interactions with bears every year.

Very few resulting in physical injury or death. There is less than one black bear attack a year in the United States. States. And according to NPS, National Park Service, the chances of being injured by a bear are one in 2.1 million. Yeah. When you said less than one black bear attack per year, that's that's fatal attack. That's not just attack. There's lots of black bear attacks every year. There's lots of people that get bit, but fatal attacks, it's less than one every year. Okay. So National Geographic compounded the numbers of the likelihood of the Black Bear attack, the Tiger Shark attack, and the rattlesnake attack. Yeah.

And put it to one person what the likelihood was. And it was one in 893 quadrillion. Wow. So pretty much the same odds is Mike playing around a golf with me. Yeah. Mike keeps going golfing, but he like will never golf with me. I just don't want you to beat me. I know you're a little better than me, and I don't think my ego.

could handle that. So I was thinking this dude needs to get, Dylan needs to get a tattoo of all three animals, right? That is a good idea. So a skull tattoo of a bear, a foot tattoo of a rattlesnake, and a calf tattoo of a shark. Yeah.

And then I want to reach out to him and just try to manage him, like be a social media manager or something, and just try to get him to get attacked by like one or two more animals. He could really nail down the record. Like if you keep it going, I think if he goes for like a mountain lion or alligator next.

Yeah. And just it's like up to four and he's 23 years old. So what's going to be your, what's your social media pitch to him? Well, I mean, he's been on Jimmy Kimmel. Hey, do you want to, do you want to misspell all your captions? I'm just going to get him famous like I got you famous.

You got me. Yeah, all those pictures I took. All right. Sounds like he's doing okay. I mean, we've never been on Kimmel. Wishing you could be there live for the big game, soaking up the atmosphere in the crowd. But too often, life gets busy.

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offer. Okay, two categories. Two categories? That's it. Great. Two, two categories. Oh, shoot. First, let's go to animals you've seen or interacted with recently. Oh, boy, do I have a list for you guys? I'm in Yellowstone right now. I've been doing some guiding out here, and I have just been having quite the experience out here. Yesterday, I saw a pack of wolves trying to bring down a baby bison, and the female bison surround the baby and then tried to protect it from the wolves, which they did successfully. I saw two, this is just yesterday, I saw two pairs of black bears with brand new cubs. Yeah. Yeah, the cub was on the tree.

Yeah, and they were fighting with each other. They should have won our bracket. Yeah, I saw grizzly bears yesterday. I'm just going to say what I saw yesterday. I had a coyote run right past me like within 10 feet. It was wilding. It was looking for, yep, it was looking for ground squirrels. I saw mountain goats, I saw big horn sheep, I saw elk, I saw bison, just every day out here has been better than the next.

And then I also, last week, had a really cool badger encounter where I was bird watching and a badger ran right by my feet and it started digging in a hole and it caught two mice. And it had them both in its mouth and their tails are like hanging out of its mouth and then it ran back and gave it to its babies. And it was just like really, really cool. So I've just been having a hell of a time. Nice. Seeing a badgers, so cool. They're like one of my favorite animals to see out here. I'll go.

I played golf yesterday and I saw a family of five raccoons. Nice. And it was like kind of far away. So at first I thought they might be badgers. But then I was like, no, those are raccoons. I also, yeah, I mixed up an animal too. I was out golfing actually as well with my dad and one of his friends. And you guys are golfing a lot.

mine. You might have won't golf with me. He hates him. So we saw two cows way, like way far away up on the mountain side. And we are all kind of like, that's a weird spot for a cow to be. And they were kind of moving and foraging around. I'm not a bear expert. But they were like a perfectly chocolatey brown color.

And they're like nosing through some bushes. And I was like, I've seen some bears kind of do that in glacier. So maybe. But yeah, cows. But it was exciting for a couple of seconds. You're like this. Yeah. That's a great story.

Well, that makes you more excited, right? I know. It's exciting for a couple seconds than it was even more exciting for the rest of the day. Because those cows were just looking down from the mountainside. Wes, you know how golf was invented? Yeah. It was one of those dwarves that cut off an orcs head and then it rolled into a hole and that's how the game of golf was invented.

Yeah. According to Gandalf. Yeah. Let's go to it. Hey, let me, I'm just going to go on record really quick. I've changed. I think the Hobbit movies are good. I'm actually into them.

So just so everyone knows, I like the Hobbit movies. Well, ever since I publicly came out and said that Sky Captain is good, I no longer have any ground to tell anyone that they're wrong or not. Sure. So you're allowed to think so. In a two-day period. It was good both times.

No, it was not. I hated that movie. I'm still neutral on Hobbit. I think they could have done a much better job. Oh, yeah. They're nowhere near. good as the Lord of the Rings, but I still really enjoy him. How of a lot better than this series.

So let's go to, yeah, I mean, with riding like that golf line, it's hard to argue with you. All right, let's go to, it came from Cora. So I asked two different questions. One of them, I looked up two different questions. One is, what is the worst animal to be attacked by? And someone replied, the Asian hornet. Evolution went too far with these guys. when they get their stingers going, it's death in torturous agony, and many humans have already died.

And I thought that was wrong, but then I looked it up, and a lot of people have died from these hornets. There's, like, China reported 42 deaths, but then they said, like, it's actually probably a lot more than this. Whoa. But most of them are probably from, like, anaphylactic shock from allergies. I didn't look too far into it, but people are dying from them. Yeah, I'm almost positive. It's from allergic reaction, though. That does sound a lot worse than a bear attack.

Sorry. Sorry to be a downer, but I'm pretty sure that's what it is. I mean, it's more than most hornets are doing. I don't think so. There's like 50-something deaths a year from yellow jackets in the U.S. No, but it was like in like one little area of China. It wasn't like the entire country. Okay.

It's like one city official who says they requested anonym, anonymity. Anonymity. Anonymity. Eminity. Thank you. There we go. Hornets have been, I've been reading too much this episode. The Hornets have been killing people for some time this year in just this district, more than 20 people have been killed.

This is from ABC News. Oh, that is pretty crazy if it's just one district. The number should be a lot higher than that. The number is shocking. So I don't know, Wes. I still think it's, I think it's allergic reaction. I think it's probably just a place where people aren't getting, like, don't get me wrong. It sucks.

But I don't think people should be. picturing being stung to death by hornets over and over again. I'm sure some of that's happened, but I bet it's mostly people dying for anaphylactic shock. Well, you know what? I'll prep a future patron episode on it and we'll figure it out. I like that. One more question was from Chance Murray, what's the best way to handle a venomous snake?

Do you hold its tail and spin it so it never bites you? That's what I always do. Just don't handle them. The best way to handle them is not to. Yeah, pretty much that was all the refurb. replies he got. Yeah. That's a funny question.

I should, I mean, I have handled a cobra, but I was there with a professional. Do you spin them around? No, but I did. I mean,

there was one point where it was like, you keep their head away from me? Yeah, and he said, hey, if you lose control, just drop it. And I had to do that

because it like was coming back to bite me. So anyway, someday I'll tell that whole story. Okay. I have two pop cultures that I wanted you to do. Okay.

And you can just combine them. so that we'd take one turn each. Yeah. But pop culture most unlucky person and pop culture most unlucky person who ended up being kind of lucky. Okay, I'll go first. So my most unlucky person from pop culture,

Jurassic World, the like assistant woman who's taking care of the little annoying kids in that movie, she gets picked up by like a pterodactyl dropped into like the Moasaur enclosure and then the pterodactyl is like pecking at her. And then the pterodactyl picks her up again. And then the moasaur comes up and eats her and the pterodactyl.

And it was kind of like, why do they hate this woman so much? Like, why did she get this death? Those kids were bugged by her because she was being bossy. Right, because she was like trying to like not let them get killed by dinosaurs. I don't think you understand how bossy she was being. She really wasn't bad. And then my person who was unlucky but ended up being kind of, of lucky is an aragorn because he breaks his toe, but then he still hits that knife when that

orc throws the knife at him earlier in the movie. He still hits it, even though it didn't mean to throw it right at his face. He hits it out of the air. Pretty lucky. So you think he's unlucky that he kicked the helmet? Yeah, he was unlucky about that, but then he's real lucky that he hit the knife, even though those are sequentially out of order. I was just, I couldn't think of any.

I just love Aragorn. We'll allow it. Okay. So my unluckiest character is the guy, you guys have seen Lilo and Stitch, right? That guy gets his ice cream cone knocked over like three times. Oh, yeah. You remember that? That's unbelievable.

That and Jack Bauer from 24. He just can't catch a break. He's always involved. Yeah, that dude's had some bad days. So many end of the world scenarios for him. Yeah. My unlucky guy who turned out to be kind of lucky in the end is Milton from office space. No one ever listens to him.

He doesn't get the cake at the party. Someone steals a stapler. And like, he's just the butt of every joke. But at the end, he's just hanging out in the Caribbean. He got all the money from that one heist that everyone is planning. That's pretty great. That's a good answer. Good ending for Milton.

So my most unlucky person in pop culture, I'm actually going to do two. it's Sean Archer from Face Off. So, so Caster Troy, first he kills his kid, Archer's kid, and then Archer finally catches him, but then like the police, or I guess, I think he's FBI. They like tell him like, hey, listen, Casper and his brother, who's Billy in Jurassic Park 3,

they have this nuke just in L.A., and we have this new procedure, and you're going to switch faces. with him. But Casper Troy wakes up in the middle of the, Caster, wakes up in the procedure and has the doctor give him Archer's face. And then he goes to Archer's house and has sex with Archer's wife. Yeah. And Caster, so Archer has to go to jail as Caster and get this, the jail has magnet boots.

So that's unlucky. That's the worst kind of jail to go to. But then Caster's kind of unlucky because Archer, becomes the only person to ever escape this jail. And it's like he would have just been able to be the head of the FBI had they not done this prison escape. And they both end up just being super unlucky the whole movie. All right.

After they switch faces. Yeah, don't switch faces. What's your one? My most unlucky person who was kind of lucky is the Havit could have used to face switch, Wes. You got to admit that much. I guess. The most unlucky person who is kind of lucky, I think, is the Count of Monte Cristo because he gets framed, gets put in jail, but then ends up, like, meeting the only person who

knows, like, the biggest treasure in the world, and he's, like, the richest guy ever once he escapes prison. So, let's go to Cage Match, but this time it's just going to be one of these three animals, So the rattlesnake, the tiger shark, or the black bear, and they get orders to kill you. What would your order be of what you'd feel most confident in, like, avoiding, and least confident? In a cage? Nope, there's not, the cage matches in a cage this time. So it's just these animals are getting direct orders ingrained in their brain,

and their only purpose in life becomes killing you. And do I know that that's their orders? Like, am I trying to avoid them? And they have, like, in their mind, they know where you are at all times. Well, I would think then that I would pick, I think the shark is the one I'm least afraid of. Because I think the first time, the first couple times I go in the water and that shark's coming for me. I'm like, okay, I'm not going in the water anymore. And then that threat's no longer a threat.

After that, I would probably say, I think I would next say the bears the next least scary because I think if I just keep cans of bear spray around all the time. I can keep stopping it from coming in and killing me. But that snake, he's going to work his way under my door. He's going to get in my bed. Give you the full load. Yeah, I'm just not going to see him. And if he's not, you know, if he's not dry biting me, if he's really going for it, then I might be in some trouble. So I'm, that's my order. I like it. Okay. So I'm least afraid of the bear because I feel like he'll, he'll be noticed. me, you know? I'm going to for sure notice that there's a bear waiting outside my garage to, like, kill me.

And you could kill it. The problem is, like, I don't, I'm not aware that these animals were given the order. So eventually, I am going to get into the ocean someday unaware that this shark is going to. Well, you're going to think that bears a cow. Yeah. It's true. The thing with the snake, though, is that, like, it'll probably be the one that'll get me, but it's not going to kill me.

Like, step on it or something. A full load, though, can get you pretty bad. Fast. Not if it's a tiny little snake like this, though. You'd probably be okay still. And I'll be close enough to medical attention. Well, I never said it as a tiny snake. Okay.

I thought we were kind of going with the same animals that got him. Well, like, in the story, it never said it's a tiny rattlesnake. Well, he thought it was a pygmy rattlesnake. So it had to been really small. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we're just saying a bigger rattlesnake.

Yeah, it's probably going to give you its full load if it's trying to kill you. Yeah. But you're still going to be okay. you can get to anti-venom, you'll be all right. That's my thought process. Yeah. So bear snake shark. I'm going, I'm going shark number one just because I know I'll go in the ocean again.

And I know that thing's going to eat me. So it's the scariest for you. Like I'm not getting a second try. Exactly. Yeah. And then I'll go, that one's the most likely to kill me. Then the black bear and then the rattlesnake. Okay.

Also real quick, just kind of a side one. Let's say like the clone. from the movie the island are like an alien comes to earth and they just see a picture of a rattlesnake a tiger shark and a black bear like roaring which one do you think like all of the ones are like in attack mode which animal do you think would look the scariest to them if they didn't have any context of any of them you think yeah they just look tiger sharks have so many teeth though yeah but they don't tiger sharks don't show their teeth the same way that i'm going to agree with you.

Yeah. That's why the rattlesnake wouldn't get me in that other question. I'm always thinking about them. Like I'm out. You're scared of a lot. Like, even if I don't know it's coming for me, I'm looking for it. Yeah. All right.

Yeah, I'll agree with you. And then just for conservation, I just had a little note on rattlesnakes that something I found out that I think is cool and people should know. I didn't look up all the states, but since this happened in Utah, I looked it up. And it's actually illegal to kill rattlesnakes in Utah. That's great. And it's a second-degree misdemeanor if you're caught killing one. Yeah.

So don't kill rattlesnakes here. They keep down rodents, rodent spread disease. They're a lot less dangerous probably than rodents in like the scheme of things if you take that into account. And they're just really important for the environment. Plus they're just beautiful animals that are just living their lives, you know? I think like we've talked about this a little bit before, but we shouldn't not kill animals just because they serve a purpose.

Like we should also recognize that inherently all these animals have a right to live and they're wild and like there's no reason to kill a snake just because you don't like snakes. Like there's places in Texas. There's a mindset with rattlesnakes where they just think it's like for the common good to kill rattlesnakes. Like they're like helping people. There's this place in Texas called Sweetwater. I'm looking at you Sweetwater where they do this huge rattlesnake roundup where they kill thousands and thousands of rattlesnakes. every year just because they think that they're like making the world a better place by doing it

and it's barbaric the things they do to the like they have kids put their handprints and snake blood and like point and put them on the wall and stuff it's like it's wild and they call them rattlesnake roundups it's just not this isn't necessary it's not something if you're terrified of rattlesnakes don't live in texas that's just i don't know i hate that shit yeah yeah well on that note um That does it for this episode of Tooth and Claw. Do you guys have anything you want to add before we wrap up? No. Dylan, glad you made it through all three of those.

Glad you're still doing your thing, man. Hopefully you're not stuck in an office job and you're still out there living your dreams. You seem like a cool guy. Good job like getting back out there. He didn't blame any of the animals. Yeah, good for you. Oh yeah, let's finish it up. Instead of claw rating, let's just do, let's rank, which is your favorite to least favorite of these.

three animals. Should we do? Okay. Ouches. It's got to be like Black Bear number one. Tiger Shark was the second worst and rattlesnake was the best. Yeah. I think you're right.

All right. So my favorite, this is hard. This is a really hard one for me. They're all really great. Yeah. I would have to go Black Bear number one. And then I love Tiger Sharks, but man, I love Rattlesnakes. So I think I got to go Rattlesnake number two and Tiger Shark number three.

If this were a great white shark, it would be different, but I'm picking snakes over sharks on this one. I'm going to join you as yours any different, Mike? Yeah, mine is tiger shark, rattlesnake, black bear. Black bear, yeah. You've given you thoughts on them. Might as well be a cow, right? May as well. They look the same from like a mile away.

Oh, yeah. A lot of things look the same from a mile away. Sorry, I forgot one other thing I wanted to do. Totally spaced it. But good thing is I'm still talking so we can keep going. You're in charge, dude. We can't leave until you tell us we can. This is the worst.

I want control back ASAP. So a long time ago, I set up an email account that I haven't been using too much. But if you have an animal-related story or honestly just any, like, story that you want to share with us and get our thoughts on, give us an email at tooth and claw mailbag at gmail.com. Yeah. So here's an email. from a listener, Kayla wrote and said, Hi, whoever reads this, you're my favorite.

Yep, you. So that means, shit. Lucky. You're everyone's favorite. I started listening because your guest appearance on National Parks after, National Park after Dark. I've never heard of them. We love them.

And listen to your whole back catalog in two months or so. I'm loving it so much as an animal nerd and such a nice. break from the true crime. So thank you so much for saying that. But the reason I'm writing is I'm listening to the 2020 end of the year episode right now, and Jeff was talking about the phone book Strong Men. Well, I have an animal-related traumatic version. So people who don't know in like elementary school, I saw these Strongmen rip a phone book in half and make a half court shot with half of it. So in my small town in North Mississippi Elementary School, we had one of those. cool animal guys in quotes animal guys west you you've seen some of those guys on

instagram right yeah yeah i'm not going to get into it but yeah come in and he had like baby crocs and corn snakes and stuff but he also had his big wow animal was what i know now to be an albino burmese python i don't know how big it was but i was like eight so it seemed like it was like 10 feet long anyway he's showing us this snake and and it starts constricting around his neck. We think it's part of the act, but it was not part of the act. He's trying to pull the coils away as his face is turning purple in front of the entire elementary school in the gym.

It goes on for what seems like forever. He's making these choking noises, and no one does anything until our gym teacher, Coach Kane, who is the kindest, gentlest human in the world, comes in and straight yeats that snake off his neck and into the floor. Mass pandemonium ensues because we all think we're next. Assembly over. Never heard what happened after that, but I definitely still love snakes.

But maybe had just a little trauma from that. Anyways, love the podcast and wish you all the success in the world. That's too much success for us. Yeah, we don't need that much success. I don't want to hog at all. Crazy story. Mike, you might. to clean my reading of it up a little bit.

But that's so crazy to just have a presentation where someone gets strangled by his python. I would have loved it. It would have just been like the opposite of traumatized. I'm impressed by that gym teacher. Yeah. Right? Prying off at huge snakes. It's probably one of those big like the yellow and white ones.

Yeah. Yeah. An albino. Albino-Albino-Bino-Bino-Bernie's python would be, yeah, the big kind of whiteish. Those are cool. And then let's do a couple listener questions real quick, and then we'll end the show. Instamand de Graham 526. If you could choose any sauce to shoot out of your fingers at will, what would it be?

Probably like a really good diner ranch for me. Like the kind that I really kind of like liquidy kind that you get in like a good diner. I think that's what I would want. Does caviar count as a sauce? No. Because I just like fill up jars a caviar and sell it. No. If I could do honey, if honey is a sauce, I would do honey actually.

Honey mustard. There's a fine line between sauce and spread. I don't know about honey. I'm going just like a sweet and spicy barbecue sauce. All right. I might go buffalo. I'd probably just do like a hot sauce. I don't know what kind of hot sauce.

Chalula or something. Not like that. Tabasco. Yeah, some kind of. Maybe like each of my fingers can do when I have like barbecue sauce, Tabasco ketchup, mustard, and fry sauce.

Yeah, what's the, my favorite hot sauce, it's like a mango, it's like secret art bark hot sauce. Have you ever had that? I'm going to that.

No. At least Stowe wants to know if animals get seasonal depression and also if we do because she had some. I don't think animals do. I don't know of any studies that show they do.

And also that'd be like a really hard thing to measure or quantify just because it's hard to tell. It's hard to know if an animal's depressed. Even then it's pretty hard to know if an animal's depressed. Horse whisperer. I don't think so. Yeah, I feel like I get it sometimes.

But I don't know. Yeah, I do. I definitely do. Yeah. Brayden White 16. What's better? Lobster, shrimp, or crawfish? What?

I don't like any of them. I don't eat seafood. So. You don't like them or you don't eat it? I don't eat it. I stopped in 2011 because of overfishing. and it was just so hard to figure out if stuff was sustainable or not, so I just stopped eating it.

And then I lost my taste for it. I used to like it, and then I just like, I went over 10 years without eating it, and now I don't like any of it. It doesn't taste good to me. If those are my only options, I'll probably say lobster, but, like, seafood-wise, I prefer, like, muscles and crab. Yeah, I think of those choices I'm going lobster, too.

I like a good lobster roll. Then Maya, I-S-K, why does Rock beat, Why does paper beat rock? Rock paper scissors is weird. It is weird. It should have been like dynamite or something. I don't know why paper beats rock, but my, there's a lot of unanswered questions out there. Well, dynamite's beating scissors too.

Yeah, that's true. Unless you cut the way. Cut the fuse. Yeah. Dynamite's the way to go. What would the hand signal be? Like a thumb or a finger? Sure.

Just a straight finger up. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, that's it for listener questions. That's it for. Our podcast episode, Wes, thanks for letting me take the reins.

You're welcome, dude. We had a lot of fun. Listeners, we love you. We sure do. And hey, if you really like hearing Jeff take the reins, or if you're like, hey, I wonder what it sounds like if Mike were to take the reins, you know what you should do. You should check out our Patreon or our Apple Grizz Club. Because a lot of those episodes, you got Jeff taking the reins,

you got Mike taking the reins. Mike hates when we use horse-related terminology. examples like taking the reins yet terminology but uh we're saying it anyway check it out it's pretty cheap we didn't go up with inflation 10 bucks a month that's that's like the price of what of i don't know a couple bananas probably like a tiny bit of banana cost terrible example but like a really small sliver of gold yeah like a fleck of gold think of that all right well we'll see you You guys later. We love you. See ya. Bye.