Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - A Hawk Drops a Snake on a Woman - News Stories Including a Polar Bear Attack, a Brave Cow Herder, and a Shark Attack at Rockaway Beach

Episode Date: September 25, 2023

The guys discuss a handful of recent animal attack stories, including a nearly unbelievable sequence of events that left a Texas woman being rushed to the emergency room after a snake was dropped onto her arm by a hawk. Later on, Wes breaks down whether a wolf or a cougar would win in a cage fight. ~~ 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

Welcome to Tooth and Claw podcast. We got the Patrick Mahomes of Wildlife Biology podcasting, Wes Larson here. Yes. Yes, that's me. He's the best at it. That's on my resume. He kind of talks like Kermit. The frog.

He's the number one bear biologist fantasy scientist draft. Oh, thanks, Mike. That's nice of you. That's nice of both of you. I don't talk like Kermit, but he does talk like Kermit, apparently. Yeah, you got to work on that. I don't know much about Patrick the ones. He talked a little bit like Kermit to Frog.

Is that supposed to be? Let's go out there and get him, boy. That sounds like Kermit the Frog if he lived in, like, Long Island and had, like, smoked a lot. Yeah. Then we got the Carson Wentz of producing Mike Smith. No. He kind of forget about him until he does something funny. Oh, that's not true.

I'll take that. I'm always thinking about Mike. Do you want to give him someone else? Maybe Jake Cutler. Oh. I like that. There we go. Not a big football guy, so I don't know a lot of these people.

And then you got the Lamar Jackson of it, which is me. Of it. Just because I'm the coolest. All right. Sure. You guys, like, kind of have to put up with some of my, like, ADHD stuff sometimes. I wouldn't. No.

Oh, no, no. I wouldn't put it that way. No. I had a really bad one the other day it was. So, like, I bought a PC so that I can have, like, a more focused area to, like, work on tooth and claw, respond to listeners, do all that stuff. Like make new episodes, right? Yeah.

And Mike's like, once you, Mike knowing a lot about computers is excited for me, help me pick one. And then he's like, when you get it, let me know. And I'll come over there and help you set it all up. So then we're going to WWE. Of course, it's, I mean, it's Monday night, raw, you know? Yeah, that's what you guys do on a Monday night. Yeah.

Mike comes down early. Every Monday. But then Mike's told me in the past that my place has too much clutter, which is true. So like, I'm like... He's not the only one that's told you that. Conscious when he's coming over, though, like, I got to get rid of some of this clutter. So I just make a pile of cords. And I have so many chords.

And I'm like, all right, which ones of these do I need? And I keep all of them but one. And the one cord I threw away was like the cord to plug in the monitor to my new. It's unbelievable Computer So Mike came Like there's no monitor To do anything

And he had to like Plug it into the TV Which is like very sideways To where everything's set up And it's pretty The craziest part is that I gave him this monitor And the cord like six months ago

In anticipation That like eventually he would get a PC And then the day before He got his PC And I came up to help him He threw that one cord It's the only cord is a garbage day, so it was just gone. That's really funny.

Why did you pick that one? Were you just like, I don't need this one cord? So like, it's actually your fault. It's my fault. Yeah. Because you took my... I've been gone for weeks. Massage chair cord that once.

And then you told me that you didn't have it. So then I bought like two replacement cords for it that didn't quite work as well. And then you found it. And you thought it was one of those. So then you gave it back. So then I thought it was one of the replacement cords I had bought. Oh, yeah. That's on U.S.

This was like two years ago. Yeah. But yeah, that's on me. Hey, Mike, sorry about that. Sorry to waste your time. It's cool. It's fine. We got some wrestling action in.

How is WWE? I've always wanted to go to one of those. Uso ended up stiff in the bloodline group. Huso? J. Uso. Yeah. It was crazy. They're trying to put them over.

It didn't work on me. me though. Someone hit someone with a chair. Yeah. If I went to WWE and that didn't happen, I would feel like I had. The actual crazy part of that was like the whole fight just ended after that. They were like, you're kicked out. They kicked them out. They were like, you're dispoified. Well, at the same time that all that was happening, Seth freaking Rollins, he started running out because he had beef with Nakamura, who ricochet was fighting. And so like the ref was waving things off. These refs... They're up to their old tricks.

These refs miss so much stuff. They would be turned around when someone from like their squad was just beaten on the other person. And then like... Yeah. There's times where like you can't be out of the ring for 10 seconds. One guy was out of the ring for four minutes. Yeah. Are you guys invested now in the storylines?

Are you wrapped up in WWE now? Not at all, actually. Was it worth it, though? Was it fun? Yeah. See, I have a similar desire to go to like one big, like electronic music concert. You know, like what's that music called again? Like EDM?

Yeah, EDM. I want to go to like a big EDM show. I want to go see like Steve Akoy or whoever these people are and pay like good money to see like. One LSD. Yeah, no, it'd be ecstasy, right? Isn't that what you do with that? X or Molly? You got to take X.

In Aoki, he. He throws the cake, hit the one guy in the crowd, and always hits him. It's amazing. I want that cake. He's so accurate. I just want to do that once to have that experience. Yeah. Yeah, you got to go to raw.

I get that. One of our listeners was telling me that A and W, A-N-W has a better story. Right. Uh-huh. All right. Well, I've been in Brazil for a couple weeks guiding. Saw four different Jaguars. Saw a bunch of stuff.

I think we're going to have a. category where I can talk about that a little bit more. I'm very, I got back today. I'm tired, but I'm happy to be talking to my two best friends about animals. We're happy talking to us. Yeah. We're happy you made it. Yeah.

You're back. Yeah. Back in one of the years. The Jaguar didn't get you. Not this time. All right. Should we get into these stories? It's our news episode.

Yeah, let's do it. All right. Well, I'm going to do one then that came out right after our last news episode, which was a pretty interesting one. And it truly happened right after. and I was like, man, this is bad timing because we got to wait a little bit to talk about this. So it starts... So it starts...

That I have next. Okay. Well, perfect. Then you picked a great one. To be honest, when I first read this one, I didn't really totally understand it or really even believe it when I read the headline. But then as I got into it more, I do believe that it actually happened. And it's a pretty crazy one. The aliens down in Mexico, right?

It's that little marshmallow alien down in Mexico. Yeah. Imagine you guys live in rural Texas. You're outside. It's a hot Texas July afternoon. You're mowing your lawn when something drops out of the sky and lands on your arm. What do you guys think that is? Where does your mind go immediately?

What do you think is on your arm? Oh, man. Probably just like a vine of a plant. Yeah. Like some plants. I would kind of think like maybe my lawnmower like kick something up and it landed on my arm. I don't know. Mike, what do you think?

Like a plastic bag or something in the wind? Yeah, plastic bag. Oh, by the way, Werner Herzog made a short movie called Plastic Bag that I really recommend watching sometime. Yeah, American Beauty, right? That one. No. It's just called Plastic Bag. It's wonderful.

There's a Katie Perry song about a plastic bag? Yeah, sure. Are you asking? No, we're talking about plastic bags. I just thought I'd throw that out. Yeah, sure. I don't know that reference, but I'm just going to go. No.

But that's okay. So, persons outside in the yard. something falls on their arm. This is exactly what happened to Peggy Jones on July 25th. But much to her dismay, the thing that landed on her arm wasn't a vine, it wasn't some bird poop. It was actually a large snake and it really wasn't happy. The snake coiled around her arm and it started striking out at her face. So she's understandably pretty shocked about this, mostly because she's like not standing under a tree or anything that a snake would tend to drop out of. So it seemed really strange to where the snake would simply drop out of the sky and onto her arm.

So her mind immediately goes to a hawk because she'd seen a lot of hawks in her neighborhood and she'd even seen them carrying snakes. Well, it didn't take very long for her suspicions to be confirmed because a few seconds later a hawk sweeps down and it grabs the snake on her arm, starts digging its talons into the flesh of her arm in the process. So she's battling both this snake that's constricting on her and striking out and a hawk that's trying really desperately to get at the snake, and she starts screaming for help from her husband who's in the front garden.

And this hawk has, it grabs the snake at one point and her arm, and it tries to fly away. And she describes her arm and the snake being, like, carried up into the air. No way. It's not like her feet left the ground, you know, but like it was like pulling her arm up in the air. Her arm left. And then, yeah, her arm.

Sure. Yeah. And she, at this point, she says that she was legitimately concerned. that she might die from this interaction, which seems like a pretty big leap to me. But we're going to give her the benefit of the doubt because it's pretty shocking. Yeah, and then you don't know what kind of snake this is necessarily. So the snake fell out of the sky and like it was like one of those snap bracelets that like coil around your arm. That's how I pictured it too.

Like hit her and just. And you got to imagine like this snake just got released from a hawk like it was in full defense mode at this time. So that's probably why it like coiled up so quickly. No that hawk did that on purpose. Yeah, probably. Butterfinger, butter talons. At this point, her arm's actually starting to get pretty ripped up. The hawks repeatedly disengaging and then swooping back in and attacking the snake.

But it finally gets the snake and this dazed Peggy, she now has to explain to her husband what happened. And she's taken to the hospital where she gets treatment for wounds. Some of the articles I read reported venom on her glasses or dents on her eyeglasses from the snake. Dents. I have a pretty hard time believing either of those. I don't think the snake's making any dents. And then also it's not this. I don't think this was a venomous snake.

And I want to break down why I don't think it was venomous. She's in Texas. So if it was venomous, the likely culprits would be some kind of rattlesnake or a cotton mouth or a copperhead or a coral snake. Those are the main ones that it could be. If it were a rattlesnake, I think she would have easily identified it as a rattlesnake. And I don't think it would curl around her arm and tighten up like this constrict. did. If there was a coral snake, she would have described as like a really brightly colored red and black snake and yellow. And then if it was a copperhead or a cotton mouth, same kind of

thing. It's not going to constrict around her arm. It's just going to fall off. So I really think this was probably a colubrid snake. It was probably like a rat snake or a racer. One of those kind of snakes. And the main reason I think that is they constrict. And they tend to like really bite a lot. They strike. It's not necessarily like they're making contact and bite. And But they strike and it's more of a defensive display that the snake is showing you like, hey, I'm a really aggressive snake. Don't pick me up. Don't mess with me.

And rat snakes are famous for that. And so are some of the other calubrid snakes. So she actually didn't have any bites from the snake, but she did have some bruises from the constriction. Really? It constricted that tight. Yeah. Yeah. It was really holding on.

It probably slapped pretty hard too. Yeah. Also, like some people bruise and I think as you do start to age a little bit more, you bruise. Is he just like drop one of the snakes from super high up? They don't die? I don't know. I guess not. I was going to ask because like I know like you worked with eagles, right?

Don't isn't one of their hunting tactics to like grab prey and then like drop them off cliffs and stuff? Those are like ungulates. Like you could drop a snake from pretty high and have it be okay. Like I bet a snake like this could probably fall from like 30 or 40 feet and be essentially unscathed. Wow. So I think that's probably, I bet it like flew out and dropped it. It probably wasn't much higher than that. And then especially if it hit her arm where her arm's going to, like, move and absorb a lot of that, like, impact force, you know.

It's not just hitting, like, hard ground. So, yeah, I think it could have dropped it from pretty high. But unfortunately for her, she's been plagued with nightmares ever since. She's had a really hard time sleeping. She is just, like, completely traumatized by this event. So Peggy, if you're out there listening, hope you're able to sleep better soon and really recognize what a one and a billion kind of thing this was. It really is like an amazing series of unlucky events.

Yeah, it feels like it's like out of the Simpsons or King of the Hill, Peggy, West Texas. There you go. I guess this was East, this was East Texas. If it happens again, that would be really insane. Yeah. If it's just like, then you know something's up with your hawks. I was reading a headline about this story actually and like the opening line on one of the articles was it turns out snakes don't.

need a plane to fall from the sky. Oh, wow. That's quite the reach. It was like, supposing that we had all, like, thought about this and realized that the only scenario in which a snake could fall out of a sky is that they came from a plane. It's like a really bizarre opening line, but it is. I liked it. You got to wonder how much effort was like, yeah, we'll run with it.

Speaking of snakes in our little group chat, I just want to read. So Wes said, one of us should definitely. Definitely do the woman who had the hawk drop a snake on her and then attack the snake on her and a few messages down Mike said, I'll do the snake attacking the lady dropped by a hawk. So you snakeed his story straight from him. I snaked you? You snaked me, dude. Oh, sorry, Mike. It's fine. I don't care. You did better than I could ever have hoped to. So wait, so you research this one too? I mean, I had it prepared, but I'm glad you took it. I'm sorry, Mike. Because that was like, this is the headliner, you know? I feel like this is the one I said I wanted to do first, but my bad. You kind of asked us to do it.

Yeah, it's fine. Unless by one of us should definitely do it, you meant I'll do this. Let me see. I'm trying to remember. I could have sworn I said that I was going to do it. Do you have another one, Mike? I have you for two stories. Yeah, I have two more that I could do.

You're right. My bad. No, don't worry about it. That's great. Relax and let Ralph's delivery handle your grocery shopping this week. We start with only the freshest items, then review your list and carefully choose each one. Then we pack it all up and deliver it in as little as 30 minutes, so you can feel confident it's what you ordered. Fresh groceries, your way, with Ralph's delivery and pickup.

Get free delivery during online deal days, plus $30 off your first online order. Ralph's Fresh for everyone All right So I have a story for us I'm not just gonna read them all Take everyone's story You know if you want to hop in this one I'm sure you do a better job than I do

That's not true I got this one down You got this dude So what do you guys want Done with you after you die I don't really care Whatever's cheapest and easiest for my family I think I'd prefer to be cream

made it and then like scattered somewhere that that reminds me of them that's really i don't really mind though you can dump me in a river for all that there we'll scatter your ashes at rigley field lifelong cubs there you go you want to yeah sports mega fan west at rigley uh i want a biodegradable bag dumped into the ocean i think give a shark a meal what if we put your bones in a museum that's kind of cool too sure i'd love that yeah and like that's not to say what these people feel about it is wrong, but I don't think I'd care really either. But a team from the Inuit community located along the northeastern side of Yuvgava Bay, Canada, they joined with representatives from Ava Toc Cultural Institute, a Navaki organization dedicated to preserving language

and culture. So, preference, I'm going to mess all these names up. But pretty much they joined up Because there's a museum in Canada that had the bones of four unknown people whose remains were excavated from the Killingki Island. So pretty much these researchers in the 1930s went and discovered these bones from like an Inuit village or what I don't know what their communities are called. But they like found these bones, found them interesting because I think bones that far north are preserved pretty well. and there's probably like, I don't know, there's something interesting about them, but anyways, they were in a museum in Canada, and Kau Kaipik is the executive director of Ava K Cultural Institute, and he heard about the remains and decided that they wanted to put them back where they were originally found, which like, you know, totally go for it.

A lot of cultures have a lot of things around, like, people's remains, where, you die, death is very sacred. So, like, they just want to return these long-lost people to where they died, right? So it was like the opposite of Indiana Jones. They were like, these do not belong in a museum. That's probably what they said. Exactly. Yeah, I think so.

Which I think is fine. Yeah, I agree with you, Jeff. And then just like Dominic Tureto, Mike, he's like, I'm going to need a team. Okay. So then they get like a bunch of boats, a big team of people. and, you know, make a plan to go and put these bones back where they were found. There's a quote from Kaukeye Peak that I'm going to say it right, one of those times. He said, it's very important that these remains or any other remains are properly put in place.

And it's unnatural for human remains to be stored in an institution. You're leaving me on the edge of my seat here, Jeff. You don't know why there's these remains. We've sure been talking about them for a while. I want to know what happens. I want to do a sidebar thing here real quick before I tell you that it's kind of crazy the Egyptians went through so much to preserve their bodies just for Brendan Fraser to go dig them up. Yeah.

All right. They're all in this group to go return the remains. And in the early hours of July 26, Maggie M. Dulek, the mayor of Kanga, Sula G. Gagach, was home. in bed when she is awoken by a frantic call. A resident from town told her that a polar bear had attacked two people, 140 kilometers northeast of them, on the first night of the trip. And she needed to coordinate a rescue mission.

Wow. Yeah. So, like, they're way out there. Up in, like, the Arctic. You know, it's like, they're far from help. Yeah. I remember when this happened, because when a polar bear, polar attacks are really rare.

So when they do happen, like the... You hear about it? Yeah, the bear biologist that I talk to and follow and stuff, they all talk about it. So it was like the talk of the town and the bear biologist community for a little bit. So at 2 a.m., it said that the polar bear reached. There's like a campsite with a father and daughter in one tent. The polar bear went towards their tent, reached the father first, and started attacking, but then quickly moved its attention to the daughter and started attacking his daughter,

and someone on the expedition named Ned Barron was ready to go. He's prepared. They had polar bears on the mind. Got his gun, killed the polar bear at close range. But now we got two people that had just been mauled by a polar bear out in the Arctic, nowhere near help. Right. Luckily, it's summer and not winter. So the mayor dispatched a boat at 4 a.m.

And they were able to get the people back in the community around 9 a.m. So like, it's pretty long for when we normally tell attacks. Like at 2 a.m., they're attacked, and they don't get to a town for help until 9 a.m. That's like a long time to be dealing with these injuries. Yeah, that's a good response, though, for like a rural Arctic community. Sure, yeah. I don't think they could have done anything better. Yeah.

And then once they finally get to a hospital, they're transported by helicopter to another hospital. the father took a little bit longer to recover and as of this article was still recovering but I think he's doing all right now. Oh, good. So they both survived. Yeah. And then the team, they went along with the mission and returned those remains to where they first were found despite all the efforts to the polar bears in the area.

Yeah. Trying to stop. Maybe there's like something about those bones that are going to be. bad for the polar bears, you know? Yeah, you know, maybe they're a haunted bones. That bear did not want them to return. It sure didn't. Did it? All right, that's my story. So, Wes, the mortality rates in polar bear encounters is pretty high, right? Compared to other bear species? Yeah, higher compared to other bear species, because almost always with the polar bear attack, it's predatory. So it's like, they're not a very defensive bear. They're not, like, a bear that needs to, like, neutralize a threat when they do

attack a person, it's almost always predatory. Is that kind of because they don't have like as much opportunity to be defensive? It's more just that like they can get away. Like people don't like tend to surprise polar bears as much. And then they're just like they're the top dog up there. So when they do have a potential prey, you know, opportunity, they'll take it. But usually again, like we've talked about this with other animals too. Like we're not a good prey option for a polar bear.

We just don't have enough fat on us to where it's like. like energetically viable for them to kill a person and eat them. So it's almost always like a younger male that's trying to figure out how to be a bear still and hasn't really like learned what is food and what isn't food. We all go through that. Yeah. Yeah. I ate bugs for a while.

Yeah. Do you think with the polar ice caps melting at an alarming rate less, we should boycott the shaved ice industry? No, I don't think that matters. I do know, I do know, like from this, this attack was a young male. And I do know that they had a really early thaw in that region this year. So the ice melted earlier than even normal, even like our new normal it melted early. So this bear probably was like pretty hard up for food by late July and just decided like I'm going for it.

You know, this new thing seems easy. I'm going to try it out. Try something new, you know. Variety is the spice of life. Yeah, I guess. It's not good advice. The bear got killed pretty instantly. It's not a good, a good.

trying something new yeah yeah never trying don't do anything don't do anything new you might get killed yeah yeah that's what i would say is the i mean if you're going off this story that's the lesson that's true this is your only data point then yes don't ever play anything new you know maybe just don't worry about bones people's bones okay i'm gonna tell you guys that you can worry about whatever it's important to you. You'll get no judgment from me. Mike, what's your first story that isn't the one that I stole? Oh man. You did a good job pretending you didn't know the story already. Okay, so this one I've titled my first story. I'm no cow erred. Teen protects his cows from a lion attack. So this happens September 4th of this year. I got most of my information from Nairobi

News and Citizen Digital. So there's a 17-year-old cowherder in the Mbriqani area, this is in Kenya, who was busy tending to his livestock when he saw a lioness with her cubs following along, attacking one of the 150 cows in his herd. And in an instance of what I'm going to call extreme bravery, he actually attempted to rescue the cow from the lion's mouth. Like this line was actively eating this cow, and the teen was like, no, that's my cow. Brave. Yeah, it is brave. I would say maybe not well thought out, but also brave. Sure. There's a fine line Yeah, brave isn't always good. Yeah.

Right. The lion was probably like, dude, you got like 150 cows. You can give me one, you know? Yeah. So I wasn't able to find out if the cow survived. I'm assuming not. But when the teen went over to save this cow, the lion did shift its focus over to him. And in his attempt to save the cow, this teen herder got his right hand in his back just super

badly messed up and wounded. And he was rushed off to a level four hospital for immediate. medical attention and treatment. So. Wounded by the lion, right? The lion attacked him. Right. Okay.

I've heard lions can do that. Yeah, they can. They're capable of doing that. Especially if you grab them off of the attack. Yeah. Pull them off of something they're eating. Yeah. It's interesting, though, like, I was reading this book on big cats and kind of human

conflict relationships with big cats. And there's places in Africa where, like, some of the early people that live there and, like, Bushmen and stuff. Like a main tactic for securing meat was scaring lions off of kills. So they would follow a pride of lions until a lion kills an ungulate. And then they'd just rush in and scare and just like essentially push the lions off of the kill and take it. But they could only do it during the day. Like you can't do that at night.

The lions will attack you. But like during the day they'd do that. And that was like their main way of getting food. So it is possible to do that. Interesting. Yeah. Well, so like we've, We've covered similar stories to this in the past, and it's become a really contentious issue

over there because the locals feel like the authorities aren't giving them enough attention or protection, and more and more of these attacks are happening, just as, you know, like, humanity is encroaching on these animals' territory. Right. And at least for me, it's just, like, hard to blame humans when they retaliate if their lives and their livelihoods are on the line, like them and their families are, like, sometimes being killed by these animals. And I know we've talked about it.

I actually do agree, Jeff, I know you're pretty, like, you take our stance that, like, this is just the risk that you take when you're out in these areas. I can't speak for, like, that area as much. I feel that way a lot stronger with grizzly bears in America. Right. Me too. Yeah. Yeah. But I wouldn't say this cow is part of his family that he has to go protect.

Yeah. Sure, but, like, it is his life. Yeah. But also, it's not like this was, well, I'm not, yeah, again, I'm not going to take that stance. But like, this is like an easy prey item that we're introducing to an ecosystem that we're stressing to like a very high level. And then also killing those other ungulates that lions are eating. So it's like I also don't blame the lion at all, you know, like. Definitely.

Yeah. So recently herders in this area, they've been, they've killed several lions in similar encounters. And one of these lions that was killed was actually kind of an iconic. It was a 19 year old male lion. named Lunkito, and he was believed to be, if not the oldest, one of the oldest wild lions in the world. And actually the same week, in one week, the same week that Lunkito was killed, several other lions were also killed in response to them, leaving their home in Ambecelli National Park looking for food. And, you know, they're getting into like goat herds and a little too close to humans and killing dogs and sometimes, unfortunately, humans.

So just in the span of this one week, 11 lions were killed. And it's turned in, it's like it all came to a head. And Parliament opened up a public inquiry into human wildlife conflict in this area over unpaid claims. And they've discovered that cases of victims that have yet to be compensated from these attacks go back to the 1990s. So like, it's just kind of an unsustainable environment for humans and wildlife to be coexisting. And the authorities, I don't know. I don't know all of the information. but it seems like the authorities just aren't doing their part in some ways, you know?

Yeah. I, you know, sometimes, like, the solutions for these can be so complicated and nuanced. Sometimes it's as easy as, like, in stating, like, a pay program for when people loops livestock, they get paid for that livestock, like, the value of the lost cow. Because then you don't have a kid that, like, feels like he needs to go save that cow because he knows he's going to get paid for it. So, I don't know. Or it could just be, like, fencing or flag. or having like hurting dogs or something like that could be enough. So you never know, but it's tragic.

Sure. That sucks. I think it's less sad that is the oldest lion. Oh, yeah. I completely agree. And it's not breeding anymore either. I don't know. In fact, like they're trying to make it so when they hunt lions, which I'm not for

at all, but trophy hunters like only shoot big males that are past their breeding age. And they can look at the nose to figure that out. So anyway. That's too bad. Those lines are probably like one day away from retirement. They get killed. That sucks. Dude, put a pin in that.

It's pinned. But before we move to the next episode, I just want to, or next episode. I'm ready. Let's move to the next episode. I just want to shout out something I read that I didn't like prep a story for. But just Mike talking about protecting lines and like the politics of it, reminded me. So one of the, like, we talked about how they reintroduced grizzly bears to Italy. Mm-hmm.

And one of the more famous grizzly bears there, like, there's only a population of about 60 was killed on someone's property. And it has, like, two bear cubs. So, like, there's a huge, like, outrage in Italy right now over it. But, you know, I'm glad people seem to really like the bears, because it seems like most people are pretty upset that this bear was killed. That's good. All right, Wes, you got a story for us? Yeah, so my second story was about an otter attack in Montana. Oh, yeah.

You ought to believe it. Yeah, you can. I wrote out the whole story as going to tell the entire story, but the more I thought about it, I want to do a full episode. You ought to tell it all. I'm not going to at some point. I want to do a full episode devoted to river otters, and I think this is a really good story for that one because it has a lot of details. and it was actually like a pretty horrific otter attack. I saw a picture. It's crazy.

Yeah, so I'm just going to do a brief synopsis right now. I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty because I am going to save it. But essentially a woman and her two friends were floating a river near Bozeman. And late in the evening, it was 8.15 p.m. They were attacked by a family of otters. And the woman who told the story on her Facebook had suffered some pretty extreme injuries. Like half of her ear was missing and some pretty big. big lacerations and lots of stitches.

So if you can't wait, go ahead and go check it out on Facebook. I'm sure you can find her post by just saying woman attacked by otter. There's also a bunch of news stories about it. But it's pretty crazy. Quickly before we move on, though, I will say this happened like late in the evening when otters and other animals like that tend to be more active. And they also can't quite assess a threat the same way that they could during the day. My guess is the reason this happened was either they had young nearby or food nearby that they were defending.

This wasn't like they weren't looking to feed on these women. It was either they were defending young or defending food. And later in the evening you are putting yourself at a higher risk of having some kind of interaction with like an otter or a beaver or something like that in the river. So anyway, that's it for that. I'm not going to do much more on that one just because I do want to save it. I already know my favorite pop culture otter. Oh, all right. Otters were halfway there.

They've had a big year. They have. Year of the otter. You said this place was steps from the water. We just haven't found the steps yet. How much did we save? Enough. Enough to get lost.

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Hilton, for the stay. All right. So for this one, do you guys remember what, or do you know what the second biggest land animal is? Like, weight-wise? Rhinoceros. So this is a rhinoceros one. Was that on your final exam to be a bear biologist West? Yeah, yeah.

I just googled the second largest land mammal. attack stories unless it was what got really yeah just unprompted that's what you huh just where my mind went yeah we'll let you cook let him cook west a zookeeper in austria has has died and another had been seriously injured after being attacked by a rhino on september 12th oh and i mean it's in austria so it's got to be at a zoo right well i guess i said zookeeper too you did so that's also a good hint yeah I mean, a zookeeper could get attacked in the wild. That's true, but I was thinking it was probably in the zoo because of the context. Yeah.

But yes. Rhino attacked a 33-year-old female animal keeper while she attended to her early morning work in the animal's enclosure at Salzburg-Helburn Zoo. So sounds like they were like getting into this rhino enclosure pretty much on a daily basis. zoo keeper spokeswoman Ilrich Olman told CNN and this is verbatim so I just got to say it this way. Early in the morning, the rhinos are routinely creamed with an insect repellent stick. That always takes place in a protected area. Phrasing. Yeah.

I mean, but like, I don't know. I feel like our zoos for sure wouldn't let zookeepers just get in there and cream the rhino. knows every day. I don't know. I don't know what their protocol is for a good cream and around here. But I think, I do think, like, I have talked to a lot of zookeepers about their protocols for handling animals and working with animals. And I know the thing that they've all told me is, like, the most important thing is that

you can't get complacent. You can't break your routine or start to be complacent out of anything because that's when the animal takes advantage of it. And I'm not saying that's what happened here. but I'm just saying like you have to be really careful in those kind of situations even if you've done it a million times. And then we had a brave zookeeper, a 34-year-old Austrian who saw the attack going on, was close by, and ran into the enclosure to try to assist her. And this rhino was worked up, you know.

Some days you just don't want to be creamed. So then the rhino went and charged him. He was seriously injured. He's taken to a hospital where he went underwent emergency surgery and he ended up being okay. He survived, but he had one fatality and one emergency surgery from this. Jeez, that's tragic. That's awful. And according to the website, the zoo is home to 150 species and 1,500 animals.

So it's a pretty big zoo. And that's including the white rhinos, which have two females, Yeti and Tamika, and two males, Tumu and Athos. All right. Okay. Yeah. Well,

the rest of them were creamed without incident. Yeah. Next time I'm at a zoo, I'm just going to go up to one of the keepers and be like, you creamed them yet? They're going to be super impressed at my knowledge. You know how they always have,

they always have like a plan of like zoo things that are happening that you can watch or participate in? It'll be like, oh, at 9 a.m. We're creaming the rhinos. I guess I got to go see that. All right. Who's up?

So this one, it's interesting. I'll give you that much because it doesn't happen very often. Just recently, a rabid beaver bit a young girl while she was swimming in a northeast Georgia Lake. And it prompted, I'm kind of getting ahead in the story here. But the girl's father actually ended up killing this beaver, just like beat it to death. Liam Neeson. Right.

He kind of. The beaver is like, I've got a special set of skills. Yeah. Killing beavers with a stick. And the beaver was just. shaking in fear. Now, what did they say when he first calls him? They said something like, see you soon.

Good luck. I can't remember. Good luck. That's what the beavers said to him. But then he hears him say good luck later and he knows that that's the guy. Remember? Because he's like, hey, how do you say good luck in English or something like that? That's right.

Right. No, that's exactly how this went down. I think. Their details were a little sparse on this one, but I imagine there was a threatening call made, etc, et cetera, et cetera. But state wildlife biologists, they said the beaver attacks are pretty rare, especially around these parts, saying that the last one in Lake Lanier where this happened was 13 years ago. I'd say that's pretty common for beavers.

Like, really? Yeah, it's not like a crazy amount of time. That's not like beavers are attacking people everywhere. Would you say that that's not rare? I don't know. That seems like, is that like how much anyway shows up? In general, for animals, but like, do you think there's been? more than 13 beaver attacks in Salt Lake, or more than like one per every 13 years?

I have no idea. In Salt Lake, there's none in the Great Salt Lake. Yeah. No, in the Great Salt Lake. I can't believe this is what you're taking me to task over. It's not a common occurrence. I don't care what anybody says. One in 13 years is like, beavers aren't top of mind right now.

I just thought it's funny they said beaver attacks are rare in that area as like. as they've inferring that they're like common in like some other place could be could be more you know beaver county fun of. I wasn't making fun of you. Keep going. I'll let you cook. I'll get over it. So you actually did a bonus episode, a subscriber episode a long time ago about beavers, Jeff. I love that one. You know what they're like when they're rabid, right? What did, what was the description? They like slapped their tail a lot and then, yeah. Yeah, it was like freaking out in the lake. And one of the people in your story was noted that the beaver was like, it's acting, that beaver's kind of acting a little weird out there. Yeah, and like going like straight at him. Right. They're scary.

if they're like coming at you too because their iron teeth are like just like orange teeth I feel like are scary. Yeah. Scary and big and someone actually died, right? Somewhere like counted the tree falling on a lady as a beaver kill. That's right. That's even more rare, right? Or am I wrong about that? But they also, it ends on kind of a positive note at least this article does because beavers, they had been hunted close to extinction in certain areas or almost countrywide.

But they're thriving now, especially down in this area in Georgia. So, like, I guess with more beavers comes more encounters, which... Yeah, also comes more ecological balance, though, you know? These are ecosystem engineers, people. Beavers are important. So let's keep them around. I like seeing a beaver in the wild. They're cool.

They're cool, interesting-looking animals. My next one is about a jaguar. So I just got back from seeing some jaguars in Brazil, totally obsessed with them. I can't think, you know, I just like can't say enough about them. So this was honestly, like on one hand, a fun, like interesting read for me and then also also kind of a disappointing one. Because this is a cat, jaguars aren't really famous for attacking people. They don't really attack people much at all.

A big reason for that might be because they didn't really evolve alongside people the way that some of the other big cats did. So lions and leopards and tigers all coexisted with humans for, a very, very long time, whereas Jaguars essentially got to evolve in the Americas away from human presence. So because there wasn't that co-evolution, we think that maybe Jaguars never really saw us as a source of food, and that's why they don't attack that much. Or as a threat, really either. So they really don't do it much for being such a big cat.

But this one has a great headline, Cowboys saved from vicious Jaguar thanks to exploding cell phone. So that's a real. a real attention grabber. I really wish they'd not put the word vicious in there, but whatever. All right. So, and the reason they did is because this is from the New York Post. So go ahead and take this story with a grain of salt because I did look for a really credible.

They have duped us before. They have duped us. And I did look for a credible source for this one. I couldn't find a really good credible source. So, again, grain of salt. All right. So this was actually, this happened like 50 miles from where I was just viewing Jaguars. and a Brazilian farm worker was left with a mangled lake after Jaguar blew up his phone.

So this 40-year-old cow hand, he was attacked by the Jaguar while he was investigating some disturbances among his herding dogs on a ranch. So my guess is the dogs picked up this Jaguar. They were going crazy, barking, maybe baited up. What baited up means means the dogs had surrounded the Jaguar. And so the Jaguar was like reacting defensively to these dogs. The rancher heard that. He went and investigated and it attacked him.

So his companion tried to then fight off the Jaguar with a knife, get him off of his friend, and it didn't work. It continued mauling his friend, mauled him pretty badly. And then it suddenly stopped because the Jaguar bit into his cell phone and it made the lithium ion battery in the cell phone explode in the Jaguar's face. Wow. And that was enough to scare it and the Jaguar ran off.

Pretty crazy, like definitely lucky. We've had now a cell phone playing Justin Bieber that saved a man's life. And now one's just exploding that saves a man's life. Which is scary. I think the exploding one is cooler in my mind. What was the Creed one? Kid playing Creed scared a wolf or something? Yeah.

Anyway, the Jaguars thought to be alive, you know, it just ran off. He suffered a broken arm, some other injuries. He had to be transferred by plane to a clinic in Korumbah. he also had second degree burns on his leg from the phone, which is kind of crazy. Like this thing really blew up. Got to be a Samsung. Crazy.

We just have those in our pockets all the time. The Galaxy Note 5 or whatever. Something that could blow up. I will say like when I read this as like, okay, my first thought was what was happening to make this Jaguar attack someone? You know, like what did they do to it? And I have to imagine that these dogs had been harassing it or something. It probably came on to the rest of.

ranch looking for a meal and the dogs cornered it. And then because it was in such an agitated state, it lashed out of this guy. That's my best guess. Because almost every time that you do hear about one of these attacks, especially in like a ranch setting, there are these really big factors that influence that. So I have to believe that's the same thing. All right. Well, if you have to.

Yeah. They're just not, they're not an aggressive cat. I'm not going to stop you. They are a really cool cat. They are. Have you, do you think you like them more than you used to? Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Yeah. They're the big cat I've seen the most now, too. I think I've seen like 15 Jaguars now. Oh, wow. I really wonder what kind of phone that was. Yeah, me too. The company is really missing out on like a good marketing opportunity. Yeah, Jaguar deterrent.

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Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. I have one more quick little story. So I'd like to start my stories with a question. When do you guys want to retire? Tomorrow. What's something you think you'll do every day once you're retired?

I'd rather not disclose that information. Yeah, I was going to say. I don't know. Watch TV. I would love to like go on a walk every day. So Tatiana Koltun Yuk is 65 years old. She came to America from Ukraine with her husband and three-year-old daughter in 1996. And just like a couple weeks after they got here,

her husband died of a heart attack. So then she just kind of had to be the one who grinds it out and provides for her daughter, right? Provided her daughter a great life, worked really hard as a nanny, as a bookkeeper, and just had a lot of jobs, tried to, like, bring her daughter to ballet to, like, all the different things to, like, give her the most opportunity she could have for her life, right? Good mom. Yeah. So she's been grinding away and she's 65. She's thinking like that she is about to retire. In one of her dreams, she wants to get a puppy to help raise and then she wants to swim in the ocean every single day. So. Great dreams. Yeah. Unfortunately, she was swimming in the ocean on August 7th. And as she is swimming, she's bit on the leg by a shark.

I read that it took 20 pounds of flesh out of her thigh. Oh, God. Yeah, so it was a lot. Pretty big bite. And, you know, it's been... Where was this? So it was Rockaway Beach on Long Island, New York. Oh, wow.

Kind of buried the lead there. That's like one of the most popular beaches in New York. That's like where everyone goes in New York. Yeah. Sorry, it was August 17th. Not August 7th. She needed five surgeries and is left with a permanent disability. Jeez.

So there's a GoFundMe for her, and it's just her name. I would, it's a Ukrainian name. It's hard to be able. I would just search like GoFundMe, woman attacked by shark. Yeah, or like Rockaway shark attack, and then you'll see your name. Yeah. But I actually had an idea that every news episode we do now, as we're going, And I'm going to make a donation to one of the stories I do.

I love that. They have a GoFundMe. Her name's Tatiana Kaltunyuk. Yeah. Right now I'm donating to her GoFundMe because, you know, we're talking about her. She's raised 90,000 of her 130,000 goal, but it's been five days since anyone donated. So, there we go. I donated anywhere for...

Surgeries are expensive. $20 to a billion. All right. Sounds good. If Mike ever pays up, I'll donate the phone book. So it's really on me to save Tatiana here. That's not a place you would expect to get bitten by a shark. That's like, again, a very commonly used beach really close to like the main part of New York City.

It's not far. The last one at that spot was like, I forget the exact date. I want to say 56, 1956 is in the 50s. And there's a boy who was like fishing and got a shark caught in one of his nets. So it's kind of like that it's not really the shark's fault at that point. Right. Like the first one of like someone swimming in the ocean. Like at this spot, the last time it was in 1906.

And I know that I know a little bit about this story. And I don't think they have like identified a species. But yeah, anyway. But it is interesting in New York on long eyes. Island, like shark attacks are getting a lot more common there than they have been. So prior to 2022, New York had only recorded a dozen unprovoked bites. Over the last decade, there were just four people bitten by sharks. But then last year, there was eight people bitten by sharks.

And this year, they're at six. So it's like a lot more than there has been. I wonder if that's a byproduct of just like different. methods of monitoring, like more advanced or sophisticated methods. Not for the last, just like, I think if it was like decades difference, but like for just a couple years, honestly, I would guess it's a byproduct of like either them doing a much better job of like ocean conservation in that area and like having cleaner water because I know they've really improved those like those beaches and riverways and stuff right near New York.

Okay. And then also just like ocean currents are really changing. Like I know they had really, really warm water there this year that can bring in some species of sharks that aren't typically in that area. Kind of like in 1916. Okay. And then shark sightings and encounters, I guess, I mean, we just did sharks, but like the U.S. gets like way more shark bites than most the world. From what this article is saying. Yeah.

It said in the last year there is 41 of the 57 confirmed. case since worldwide. We're in the U.S. Yeah. And probably 32% of those are from Florida. Yeah. So I actually have that. So Florida had 16 unprovoked non-lethal bites last year, which is the most attacks of any state or any single place for that matter. And then New York saw the second most with eight. Hawaii had five, one of which was fatal. But I just thought, you know, it's kind of interesting. You just don't think about shark attacks for New York and like Long Island.

Totally. So, hey, I'm swimming here. I'm swimming here. Get out of here, you shocks. I just have a quick update on some grizzly stuff. That can be the title of this one. Grizzly stuff. I like it.

So that grizzly that we talked about in our last news episode that killed the jogger in West Yellowstone, that bear broke into a house in West Yellowstone. It like went through the kitchen window with its cub. It got some dog food out of that house. And I think that process took long enough that it gave authorities time to respond. They got permission from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to euthanize that bear. And that bear was shot and killed. The cub was taken to a rehabilitation center in Helena, Montana,

where it's awaiting placement in a zoo somewhere. But that was a bear that they think in a couple of years. years ago that bear had attacked someone else then it killed this woman and now it's breaking into homes definitely a bear that needs to be removed because when you have a bear like that that's setting a precedent like that it can affect the entire population it affects people's perceptions of the animals so in in our current state that is the right decision in my opinion all right and then tough last meal it is you know when they they ask you before you get executed

I hope the dog food was good. This summer serve up the cookout classics, Heinz ketchup, and Kraft Singles. Every good burger needs a layer of perfectly milty cheese and thick, rich ketchup. We all know it's not a cookout without Heinz and Kraft. All right. Well, let's move into categories. So first off, Wes, I sent you an article today of it's about cougars and wolves and how they've kind of been killing each other.

And it's in national, not kind of, they have. It's in National Geographic. So I figured let's just do cage match, Cougar versus Wolf, and also kind of give context of what this article is talking about. I like that. So yeah, it was in Washington. It was in Washington State where this has been happening. It happens all over, but where they've been like talking about it more recently.

There's not a ton of wolves in Washington State. and so they're doing a lot of kind of like high intensity studies on those wolves, and they're learning that there's been a number of them killed by cougars, and that was somewhat surprising to the biologists there. And to be honest, it was somewhat surprising to me, too. So often these wolves are lone wolves, or it's just a small group of wolves that will be killed by the cougar. I recommend reading the article.

It's in National Geographic, as Jeff mentioned. But again, this was something that, to me, seemed pretty interesting. And so I reached out to a friend of mine, Kira, Kira Cassidy, she works with the Yellowstone Wolf Project. And that project also does some cougar research, which she's been involved with too. And I asked her like, hey, you know, what's the deal here? Why are, I think we tend to picture just like maybe this is a mental thing buried in our brains, like dogs beating cats in fights. So it seems like the wolf to me should be the victor in these fights. But then when you do think about it, when you take a step back and Kira pointed this out, and it did make me think about it more, she brought up that cats have a clavicle.

And what that means is that they can grab and pull something and wolves can't. So when you think about these two going up against each other in a cage match, what weapons does the wolf have? Teeth. Teethies. That's it. That's really all they have. There's nothing else that the wolf can really use in a fight. Yeah, that's not really effective.

If it's a full moon, they've got superpowers that. And the cat has teeth. Yeah, that's true. A soft pink person. The cat, you know, the cougar has teeth as well, but it also has forearms that it can use with, you know, really sharp retractable claws to grab and pull prey into it. Or to like grab and pull, you know, in a defensive battle, like in our cage match. Are they similar weight? Yeah, similar weight.

I would even say the cougars probably on average are going to be a bit bigger. And so I, you know, I do think the cougar here is the clear winner. And Kira agreed with that. And she actually said, I thought this is a really interesting text from her. She said one-on-one adult cougar nearly every single time. Two or three wolves, she thinks it's a draw. Four plus wolves, she would give the advantage to wolf. Which, again, was really surprising to me.

I would have thought, like, as soon as there's two wolves on one cougar, that's it. Yeah. But she was saying that, like, even a small group of wolves, a cougar might be able to kill them. Wow. Yeah. And so, like, in the article, it says that cougars have been stalking wolves a bit, a little bit in Washington. But then it said in the Teton's wolves will kill cougars and they kill, like, mainly the cougar cubs. The cubs.

Yeah. So that it kind of is interesting, too, that it depends what region. for like which ones are killing which. Yeah, I think though in the titans it's usually like a pack of wolves scaring a, you know, getting a cub because they're able to run the mother off. But again, if it's one on one in the teetons, the cougar's still going to win. And another thing that I failed to bring up too is like we've talked about, you know, when wolves hunt something, they tend to do it in a pack and they kind of nip at it until they can

bring it down and then they just essentially tear it apart. There's not like one bite that kills that animal. It's a lot of bites from multiple animals. That's the opposite with the cougar where it is trying to kill the animal as quickly as possible. And whether that's severing those vertebrae by inserting the teeth into the vertebrae and breaking the neck or, you know, grabbing the windpipe and suffocating the animal, it's killing it quickly. And so they also have that built into their biology where they kill quick and a wolf needs much longer to kill. So, yeah, I agree. I think it's the cougar.

I think it's like a pretty easy, pretty easy one for the cougar. That's cool. Yeah. A real Hatfield and McCoy scenario there. Is it just they're trying to eradicate competition from? I don't know. I don't think so. I think they're just killing them to eat them.

It's just prey. Wow. That's crazy. I think with a wolf, a wolf killing a cougar, it's more just to like kill it. Just like they're just, if it's like a pack of wolves that runs one down, they're just killing it. Especially where it said is mainly cubs. Yeah. But with the cougar killing a wolf, it's doing it to eat it. It's interesting it said in Yellowstone that cougars kind of like changed their habitat a bit when they reintroduced wolves where they like didn't range as far.

But they've like been doing better than they did even before wolves were reintroduced too. Like they're doing really well. Interesting. Yeah. All right. I think it's a great cage match though. Should we move on to the next category? Let's move on.

So I said, favorite recent pop culture headline. So I can start. So Taylor Swift is dating Travis Kelsey from the Kansas City Chiefs. Oh, my gosh. You can do better. You hate. You can do much better. Travis Kelsey.

He's pretty cool, though. He's pretty hot. Hate him. You know, I'm a Swifty, so, like, I'm just excited. She's dating someone cool now. But also on that same note with Taylor, Swift. Did you guys see she gave 55 million in bonuses to her crew for the Erez tour? No, that's cool.

Oh, wow. That's awesome. One of our listeners is like one of her main dancers too, so hit her up for your GoFundMe's. Yeah. I will. Yeah, that's great. I'm not a huge fan of her music by any stretch, but I actually really respect what she's doing in the industry. Mike, what's yours? This whole Dion Sanders coach of Colorado stuff has really been getting me excited. And in the first game, his son tried to do the primetime shuffle dance that Dion used to do. And Dion was just like, he sucks at it. He's terrible.

So the headline that I found was, Lord passed us when it came to dancing. Dion Sanders explains his son Shadur's primetime shuffle. It admits the overall lack of rhythm, which is just great. Because, like, Shadur is awesome. But the headline was that he sucks at dancing. And they're just like the biggest story in college football right now. It's funny that that turned into such a thing. I forgot to do this one.

I'm sorry. I don't know. You don't have anything from... Like, can I just say my favorite ones that have been happening recently are like the headlines from that, the Lauren Boberite Beetlejuice fiasco? Dude. There's been just like, can I just say in general there's been some really good headlines around that? Like, let's just preference it, like, politics aside, it's just funny. Yeah, yeah.

She had some great lines that, like, Beetlejuice just got. are too excited. Right. All right. Anyway. I'm just going to say all of the headlines surrounding that. Because there's been some pretty dark stuff happening in pop culture this week too. So I,

that one was like kind of funny. The most surprising part of that story to me was like not what she got caught doing or anything. Like whatever. I guess I do kind of care, but not really. But the fact that there's a Beetlejuice musical play. It made me want to go see it. I know.

Me too. Yeah. Don't bring a date because. Apparently. Bring a date if you want some. Bring a date. Yeah. Seriously. Don't?

You're on a dry spell. Yeah. All right. No, good, good job, Wes. You came up with one. So did you do this one? What's underrated? I did do this one.

And it's a very personal choice. This is like something that I used to think was overrated that now I think is underrated, which is picking the aisle when you're on a plane. I used to like be shocked that anyone would pick the aisle seat. because for me the window was like you can lean your head up against the side there you can you know you have that like extra space there to like lay your head against yeah but like the more i think about it i'm never comfortable putting my head against the window also the plane like kind of like vibrates and makes a noise when you do that that's true you just never have like a good surface there and on a long flight like i just had a 10 hour flight like the aisle you can stretch out you can get up whenever you want you don't have to like like wait for the other people to get up or bug them. I just feel like I've been overlooking the aisle, and I'm always window.

So I think next flight I'm going aisle. The aisle got a lot of bad press in the wedding singer with Drew Barrymore. Yeah, true. The car always bumps her elbow. He was doing her a favor, it turns out, according to Wes, at least. He was a good guy, it turns out. Just a couple mistakes.

Yeah. I'm glad that you're doing this category, though, Jeff, because I feel like we've been focusing on stuff we think is overrated. Yeah. I have just as many, if not more, entries of stuff that's underrated on my document. All right. I'm not just a negative Nelly. One that occurred to me recently, I was in Austin with my brother.

We were eating a lot of really good barbecue. And it struck me while we were waiting in line that I think it's actually a really underrated thing to take pictures of what you're eating and post it on Instagram. A lot of people like... Wow, I never would have guessed hearing you say that. Yeah, me too. Like a lot of people... The dude who can't stand child pictures of someone doesn't mind the food pictures.

Yeah, that's still stupid. That's really stupid. You're doing nothing for anybody by posting that. But food pictures, this is why they're great. They help perpetuate new food trends. Because, you know, whenever there's like a new hot food thing, like all the kids go out, they take a picture and they're eating fah or sushi or kimchi or whatever. And it's introducing...

Pimento cheese, chick filets. Oh, man, it's so good. And, like, as you're promoting these cool new things to go out and eat, you're just kind of helping perpetuate cool new food trends from new cultures and stuff. And it's not hurting you. How is that affecting you on a personal level when someone just takes a picture of their food and post it on Instagram? Just scroll right past it.

I think it's great. Coffee with, like, a cool design in it. I'm off for those, too. Yeah, that's great, too. I like that. Yeah. It's like an easy low-stakes recommendation when, you know, you see something like some food on Instagram.

Take it or leave it. I don't really TikTok at all, but when I, like, I went on there once for like a couple hours and I just tried to get the algorithm to only give me people making food because I thought it was like a fun medium for like learning new recipes. And then, so like if you got on my TikTok right now, all it is is like recipes and Lord of the Rings like lore and that's it. Yeah. Shocking.

One of our listeners, what do you call coffee makers? What are their names? Barista. Barista. There's like a barista, and I asked if she could make one of those leaves. What are they called, like Rosettas or something? Oh, I would like that. And she just started making bears.

And she said, I can't make leaves, but now I can make a bear. So I was like, all right, that's pretty cool. What's underrated? I think being a diehard fan of something. So like going to the WWE event, there's just, like so many people that were just diehard fans of like this fake wrestling silly like men I love that tiny little tights and stuff and like so many people just were like so involved in all the storylines there's like this guy next to us when like Uso lost in the end that like

had his hands on his head devastating just like could not believe what just happened in front of it I get jealous of that kind of devotion too, because it's like, man, I wish I had a weekly thing that made me feel that way that gave me like that kind of emotional response. Just pick someone that's good. Don't do like chargers or Vikings. The craziest ones are the chiefs. That dude who dressed up like a wolf to every game and he was robbing banks to Ford. And he put like the money he robbed on the chiefs winning the Super Bowl last year. So he won a ton of money, but had to, like, use it all to pay his bail.

But, yeah, just, I love super fans, you know. Swifties. Yeah. Swifties. Sure. Like, I wish I was that much of a Swifty. Toothies. You toothies out there, we love you.

What you do? Love. So, wildlife you've encountered. Wes, we're just going to kind of let you cook on this one. All right. Yeah. had like a pretty crazy couple weeks in Brazil. I, um, you know, there's a spot in the, like the heart of the pontoon all where if you go out on boats, you have like a near perfect chance of seeing,

not perfect, but like a really, really, really good chance of seeing a jaguar. And to me, that's like kind of like the Yellowstone experience where you're going to probably see a grizzly bear, but there might be another like 20 cars parked there. And with this jaguar in like this area, you might have a lot of other boats there and a lot of other people there watching it. And so I, I'd had that experience, but I had yet to find a jaguar on the ground, like from a vehicle. And I managed to do that twice this trip. And that's really hard to do. And I found two.

And one was during the day, we, like, rounded a corner, and there was a jaguar walking the road. And we got to watch it actually, like, chase some peckeries, which was really cool. And then at night, I was out spotlighting, and I found one right by the road. And then it ran off and started, like, bellowing in the dark. darkness. And because I made everyone turn off all the lights and like it totally quiet so we could hear if it was moving around. And then it just started bellowing and it was really cool and just a really neat experience.

And then I got to see a new bird for me, a king vulture, which I had never seen. Just like a beautiful, beautiful vulture that just was like I just couldn't stop thinking about it after I saw it. So I had some great, I just like hundreds of bird species, a lot of jaguars, a lot of tapier, some anacondas, like just some really cool sightings. That's awesome. Yeah. And I was with Naturalist Journeys, the company that Jesse works for and that I do a little

bit of guiding for it too. Hashtag ad. Yeah. Nice one way. Well, I like working for him. So anyway. All right. Before I say the next category, what was the thing I told you to put a pin in, Mike?

Retirement. Oh, yeah. That was just the lady with the shark. Right. Yeah. Unpinned. Jeff's animal fact Jeff you got an animal fact for us

I sure do So howler monkeys Their level of loudness So the smaller the testicles they have The louder they are Hmm compensation Which I think It's kind of true with humans maybe

I don't know Look into it Sure They get bigger trucks Yeah that's true You know Small potatoes make the meat look big though, right?

Oh, man. That's good. I got to start saying that more. That's what they say, right, boys. Who says that? I don't know. I guess people that take steroids, I guess. All right.

So, let's go to subscriber questions. From Madison, what's the hardest part of producing an episode for the podcast? Are there any messy behind the scenes process that we don't get to see? Yeah. Me crying for eight straight hours editing an episode gets pretty messy. You don't, you don't want to see that. I mean, we've, we've gone over it, but you edit out a lot of us saying like, especially when I tell like a personal story, I really let them rain. Yeah. I think that's, yeah, I don't think it, it's never that messy. I think for us,

like, we're all three, like, different people. And so sometimes there'll be some back and forth on what we want to keep and what we want to get rid of. But luckily, we're all also best friends, so we can always work it out. Yeah, he's figure it out. One thing we got rid of, we talked about Frodo being lucky that he didn't put the ring on his penis at the end of Return of the King. I felt bad to cut that one.

We cut that. We did cut that. You did say it out of nowhere. I think we were both agreed, but after the fact that I was like. All three of us were agreed. I still don't understand why you think that's more effect. way. Right.

All of those of you out there who don't like a lot of penis talk have me to thank for a lot of penis stuff ending up on the editing room floor. But we still get it in there. Like Mike just snuck it in still. Sophia has a good question. Why does Jeff like the movie Gremlin so much? Specifically the hot one in the second movie. It's obvious.

Gremlin's great. The first one has like some amazing guys. gags of like them killing the grandma on like the stair master thing. Or it's so funny. Phoebe Kate's like her monologue about her dad coming down to the chimney or Christmas. It's like that's like an all-time movie monologue for me. Yeah. That her dad like died in their chimney.

And they like smelled them days later. Yeah. It's so good. And then the second one like honestly just watched the kid. key and peel skit talking about it and then watch it because that makes it so much fun here to me definitely this one i just want to read real quick from mike eric says i booed a horse today from my car hope you're having a great sunday keep up the good work you got shooters out there like to shake that man's hand all right this one's from my friend move and also from

Patricia. They both had the same question for us. How often do you think of the Roman Empire? Like never. What the heck? I'm like biweekly, probably. It comes up a lot. I only think about it. I only think about it if I'm like reading something and someone mentions it. But I'm never just like, huh, like think about like the Roman Empire. What about when you're having like a Caesar salad? I don't. I don't like Caesar salad. Yeah. You drive by Little Caesars. I don't think about Romans. I don't put it together. with Romans. I don't.

Yeah. I feel like, so Trojans aren't Romans, right? No. I think of the Trojan horse sometimes. Yeah. It's pretty sneaky. Sure. Yeah.

Okay. All right. Let's do some listener questions from Instagram. Beef fork 2012. What animal encounter scares you more in hindsight than it did in real time? Huh. Mine's just the grizzly bear that we saw up in Alaska that one time. That was like I didn't know anything.

Oh, that went under the bridge we were on. And it was like five feet away from us under that bridge. Yeah, that one was scary. Mine is like pretty stupid that like I regret doing it and I shouldn't have done it. But once I picked up a rattlesnake and just like hearing how much like the medical bills and stuff cost, that would have really sucked. I was going to say the exact same thing. Like from I've handled rattlesnakes and like those zesnakes. dumbest thing to do. There's no reason to do it. I never should have done it. Definitely that.

You know, Steve Irwin did a lot more good than bad, but that is one bad thing he did for me. Yeah. He was just showing me that you can pick up a rattlesnake. All right. Jenner. Point 92. What has been your worst job ever? Hmm. I worked for a guy and a few of us in our family worked for him. He was fine, but like I worked at a storage facility where like it was like I was just kind of maintenance and then like a manager and all this stuff and this was in like 2000 and so I was getting paid like five bucks an hour and I remember for like a week he had all these storm drains that were like full and for like a week straight every day I would just like pull the cover off a storm drain get completely in it and I was just like cleaning out like dead animals and like slime and

muck and I'd be like knee deep in it and I was getting paid like five bucks. an hour and it was just terrible and I remember just thinking like man this is not worth this yeah for me I was like literally the the like car warranty guy that all those beams were about for a little bit when I like tore my patellar tendon they like tricked me into leaving a job at like a sales job I had to like come like be the start of this like new upcoming company and I'm going to like do like sales talk on the phone you know know. And I get there. And like, I'm, like, crippled. I'm on crutches and can't do most jobs anyway. So it's like, whatever. I'll just do this job. By day two, they're just like, you know what?

We're not going to have you, like, actually do any of your sales stuff you told us about. You're just going to read this script about people's car warranty being expired and they need to, like, come in to get a new car. So I was literally just car warranty guy for a bit. And I would watch Netflix. while I just let it ring and I would like hang up on people so I didn't have to do it. And it's funny, they would track how many people we talked to at the end of the shift. And mine would be like 35 calls that went through. And this other girl would be like 280. And I was getting paid like $4 an hour more because I had sales experience.

Jeez. That's funny. That's amazing. Jeff and I actually worked a construction job together for like a week. I was there for a little bit longer. Yeah, you were doing it longer. I came in for a week and then like I actually had a bike accident and got hurt so I couldn't do it anymore. Not that I probably was minutes away from quitting anyway. But the problem with it was it was like an hour drive out to the work site.

The shifts were 12 hours long and then an hour back. So that's like an entire day that I was just. Yeah. I actually didn't mind. the physicality of it, but it was just so long and so hot. And you would look at your phone. I tried not to look at my phone for as long as I could just to like make time go by. Yeah.

And I swear I'd be out there for like four hours and I'd look down. I hate jobs like that. It was like 20 minutes had gone by and I was like, oh my gosh, this is. Yeah. I quit that job because he had me at like 12 bucks an hour for the first month and then it's going to be 15 bucks an hour. and then like the last week he's like hey jeff i'm just going to pay you 14 bucks an hour for this week and time going forward like once i had made it to the 15 oh okay yeah that'll

that'll yeah i'm just going to quit my runner-up is is um doing optometrist pre-screenings for inmates in a federal prison in montana that was like a real depressing job for a little bit and that is tough oh man yeah i'll get you Corlyidoscope Ask, Wes is obviously An animal fact god But what subjects

Do Mike and Hefe know a ton about? One piece? I don't retain stuff Like super well So I even feel like I watch like Way more sport

Like I know a lot about sports You're pretty good with sports Not great Like No, but you do pretty good I don't know West just has like The trivia mind

Where you like learn something and you don't forget it somehow. Yeah. You're good at trivia. Yeah, you always win trivia nights. You guys are always pretty impressed by my knowledge of esoteric Nintendo knowledge when we play Smash Brothers. I know like all the stupid little items.

It's insane. Every character. Yeah. All the characters are like their backstory. Backstories, how to pronounce all the stupid little items and stuff. Yeah, that's a good one. So I guess that. Shaf Squash wants to know,

do other bears regularly fall out of trees or is, Is it just pandas? Not regularly, no. I would say the one that probably, yeah, like, sloth bears aren't great climbers. They probably fall out sometimes. There's some other bears that do. But, like, I don't think pandas in the wild fall out that much. It's just zoo pandas that get kind of lazy and stuff.

So, yeah. Okay. All right. Thanks, everyone. That was fun. Yeah, that was fun. We got to go. We got to put West to bed.

We should do it again sometimes. Yeah, I'm sleepy. Yeah, let's, let's. Yeah, let's keep this going. At least another week. So, sure. All right. Love you guys.

Bye, guys. Love you. See you next time.