Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - A Sierra Foothills Murder Mystery

Episode Date: November 3, 2025

A 40-year-old woman's body was near the Sierra foothills, mangled and left for dead on the trail where she had been out on a jog. Over time, pieces of evidence began to paint a picture of what exactly had transpired, forever changing the way the local community saw what was thought a peaceful and safe slice of nature. ~~ LMNT: Get a free 8-count Sample Pack with any purchase at http://drinklmnt.com/tooth Cornbread Hemp: Get 30% off at http://cornbreadhemp.com/tooth and use code TOOTH Smalls: For a limited time, get 60% off your first order, plus free shipping, when you head to http://smalls.com/TOOTH Mint Mobile: Make the switch at http://mintmobile.com/tooth Miracle Brand: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to ⁠⁠https://trymiracle.com/TOOTH⁠⁠ and use the code TOOTH to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF. ~~ 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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Register today at richfield, Utah.com. Hello and welcome back to Tooth and Claw podcast. We have our bear biologist. He is on the board of bears, West Larson. Then I am as chairman of the board. Younger brother, Jeff Larson. I'm not on any boards for bears, but I am familiar with bears. You're on floor boards.

You got Mike. Hey. And Mike's just hanging at. I have built a bear. You guys ever do that? Did you go on a date to do it? No. I had to go check it out.

solo before I took a date there. I did it one time on a date and was not impressed. Really? They didn't even have like a baseline bear that we could use. We had to like do a Harry Potter themed bear. What? Oh, that's too bad. I can't think of a more depressing place to go solo than build a bear.

I like to go to the movies alone a lot, but like that's a step too far. Did you? Yeah, I just really like the ambioseal. honest when I'm by myself. Did you do the voice memo to yourself? Like, I love you, but it's like to yourself. Okay. So if anyone hasn't, please it, it sucks. If anyone hasn't picked up on the joke, I didn't actually go to build a bear alone. So, yeah, I just, I guess, clear my name of that accusation. Yeah, you got to do that a lot lately, huh? I was really mean to the person helping me, though. That's right. I was going to say, you have been so mean. It's like, no, I don't want a fucking tie on my bear.

You got kicked out of build a bear Your website shows green shirts Yeah Well I've never been there I don't think I ever will I can't see Jesse ever wanting to go to build a bear So yeah That's a weird one to draw like a hard line in the sand for

But like that's fine I just I don't feel like She just might Maybe doesn't do stuff to animals She doesn't do stuff to animals And yeah it just doesn't seem like something she'd want to do Okay You know teach their own Mike

Yeah I'd let her speak for herself, but that's just me. I do. But I mean, I've been with her for seven years. I know her personality pretty well. If Jesse, if I were to walk in and Jesse were to say, hey, I really want to go to Build a Bear, I would be like, hey, are you okay? Or like, it's something wrong with you. Well, welcome back to the podcast, everyone.

Jeff already said that, but I'm saying it too. I got a doozy of an episode for us today. A lot more gravitas. seem more genuine. Mine seemed more like I was just trying and get the ball rolling for the start of the episode. West really is like glad

to welcome everyone back. Now we'll get a text from mom saying I think West should start introducing the episodes. All right. Anyway, we got a good episode today. It is an animal that I really like talking about and I'm not going to spoil what it is. We're going to go through some of the story beats.

I want people to kind of guess in their own heads what it might be. I think our keener listeners will get it pretty quickly. I think you guys will probably get it pretty quickly. But as I researched this one, it kind of felt like a murder mystery. And so I wanted to kind of treat it that way. Oh. So there is a death in this one, just a warning. And it's a great story.

So whenever you guys are ready, I'm ready to start. Murder mystery, huh? Yeah. I was born ready. Okay. All right, well, Barbara Schoener woke up early on the morning of April 23, 1994. This was roughly 10 months after the iconic notes of John Williams' theme for Jurassic Park first played in darkened theaters across the country. She started to get ready to leave her house in the last...

It really puts me on the right time frame there. You know what we're talking about now. She started to get ready to leave her house in Placerville, California, which is a small mountain town located in between Sacramento. Lake Tahoe. Jeff, we have a close friend from Plasterville. Cassie LaContt lives there, lived there. And this is pretty much where Jackie was from, my college girlfriend, too. LeCont, that means the count in French. Might be a Dracula. Yeah, very well could be a Dracula.

Or what do they call it a vampire? A vampire. There's a reason Barbara was waking up so early. This 40-year-old woman was a long-distance runner, and she wanted to get her run in for the day. In fact, she'd actually recently graduated from just long distance running into ultra running, and she was training for her next race. Do either you guys really know what ultra running is? I was on a podcast with some listeners that do a distance.

Like, it's called, oh man, I got to give them the proper shout out here. Distance to... My brother is super big into it. He does like the Marathon de Sabable or whatever. The podcast was Distanced to Empty, and they asked me some hypotheticals about what they should do if they encounter animals on the trails. Yeah. And I told them what you would have said, Wes.

Thank you. You know? Just if it's a bear, don't turn around until you see what color it is. It's definitely not what I would say. Yeah, you know, we've talked about this a lot, but runners are often at slightly higher risk when you're talking about certain animals because they're moving fast.

Especially the ultra ones because they're like in the wilderness running. Right. They're spending a lot of. time moving through mountainous country, places that have more animals. They're moving fast. They can trigger that prey drive in animals. But Barbara was getting into ultra running. And ultra running is usually like 50K or more. So 50 kilometers or more are considered ultra runs. You're going very long distances. And she's really excited about it. She's training for her next race. So as she's moving through her family house early in the morning of April 23rd, 1994,

she's doing her best not to wake up her husband Pete or her two kids who are five and eight. She puts on her purple running shorts, a purple sweatshirt, and laces up her white Nikes. And she thought about the night before at her son Andrews Little League game. She'd been talking to her husband Pete about a morning run to train for this next race. Pete's also an ultra runner. And he suggested they go to one of their favorite spots, which was called the Auburn Lake Trails near the community of Cool, California. which cool is a neat name for a little community.

All right, Pee and Barb had met roughly 10 years previously, and Barb was giggly, vivacious, and she was the perfect yin to Pete's more reserved and quiet, Yang. They dated for about five months before getting married, and after about 10 years, they were just as in love as they had ever been. This is one of those couples that, you know, they just don't get tired of each other. You can just tell they really enjoy each other's companies. They have similar interest.

They just really like being around each other. So Pete's not only deeply in love with his wife Barbara, but he's also a bit protective. He liked the idea of her doing her long run at a place that was thought to be incredibly safe, and Auburn Lake Trails was incredibly safe. You had to pass through a manned gate to get to the trailhead. You need to have an invitation from one of the local residents

to access these trails, which Barbara had. And with that level of security, Pete wasn't worried about her being harassed or assaulted by anyone during her long run. You might wonder why anyone would want to. You know, you have these people out there that just are violent people or are deviance or whatever else. But also Barbara worked for insurance company and part of her job was kind of like making

people that were collecting unemployment for too long find new work. And often people would get pretty upset about that. So she had people that really didn't like her out there in the world. Yeah. Even though she's a very sweet person. Yeah, she's kind of a snitch, though. Maybe a little bit of a snitch, yeah. And what do snitches get, Jeff?

Stitchy. Yep. Barbara pulled her fleet feet visor down over her short brown hair and got into her Dodge Intrepid. She drove from the quiet town of Plastrolet. The more you describe her, the more she's starting to sound like grimace to me. Yeah. We're an all purple, brown hair.

Yeah. Yeah. That's what Grimmus drives, right? Yeah, of course. I mean, I doubt he drives like a standard vehicle. I think it'd be like a shoe that's made like a car or something. That's pretty much a dodge intrepid. All right. She drives from the quiet town of Placerville to the even quieter community of Koole and the Auburn Lake Trails.

It takes her about 30 minutes to get to the manned gate where she says the name of her friend, the attendant lets her in. Then she parks at spot number three near the trailhead, gets out of her car, slipped on some thin gloves over her hands and her pink fingernails, stretches, and then starts her run at about 8 a.m. Later that day, her husband Pete was starting to get really worried. Barber left that morning, should have been back hours ago. His worry turned into a deeper anxiety, so he loads his kids into the car and they drive to the Auburn Lake trails.

And there, his anxiety turns into full-blown fear, because her car is still parked at the trailhead, but no one had seen or heard from her for the better part of the day. He immediately starts praying that maybe she had just sprained an ankle or something else had happened that was minor, but his mind is also drifting to the worst case scenario that maybe some random, you know, stalker or terrible person had hurt, abducted, or even killed his wife on this trail.

If I repeat, I would be praying that she were okay. I wouldn't be like, I hope she has a sprained ankle. I'd just be like, I hope she's all the way safe and healthy is what I would pray. Yeah. But I do. I'm kind of a demand a lot out of God. You need some type of reason that she wasn't back. She's cheating on me.

That's what I was thinking. You'd rather cheat on you than I was a sprained ankle. Strain ankles hurt, dude. Are you kidding me? Ouch. I mean, that was a bit of an artistic liberty that I said what he was praying about. But glad. Yeah.

You know, maybe he was praying that she was. She was cheating. Should have thought of that, Wes. Yeah, I should have. He was praying when she was cheating on him. When Jesse's a few hours late, I'm like, she better be out there cheating on me. If you had said, like, he was praying she was cheating on him or something, like, there's no way me and Mike would have stopped you to question that.

Yeah. Yeah. We would have gone and interrupted then. All right. So Pete acts quickly, in very little time, dozens of volunteers. volunteer searchers and law enforcement officials, the professional search and rescue, are looking and calling for Barbara. They searched that evening and the entire night, but by morning no one had found a single piece of evidence in the disappearance. There's knowing glances between searchers, conveying a truth that's becoming more and more clear to everyone,

that something really terrible had probably happened to Barbara Schoner. So around 7 a.m. that morning, three of Barbara and Pete's friends, who were also ultra-runners, showed up to the scene. These men were Russ Bravard, Kurt Fox, and Ernie Flores. Because they're runners, they're helping barbred. Yeah. Well, you're about to hear a lot about them.

Well, I guess not a lot. You just did, dude. Yeah. You literally just heard about them. You guys are both just lying all over the place. When did I lie? You said she was, he was praying. She had a sprained ankle, and you're like,

well, I mean, he probably was. Ask me, ask me what their names are. Ask me what their three names are. What are their three names, Jeff? I don't know. He's got a point. That doesn't mean you haven't heard of them. You just can't remember hearing about it.

All right. So they're helping her train for a next race. They figured if anyone could find her on these trails, it was them. Because they'd all run these trails a lot. They knew them really well. And they kind of knew how runners think, like which trails she might take, where she might go. So as they get near this makeshift camp where this search point, party had been established.

They're told by the volunteers there in these orange vests that search and rescue had everything under control. They didn't really need anyone extra on the trails, so they weren't currently needed. But when these volunteers turn their backs, these three men duck under the yellow crime scene tape, and they run up the trail. The morning's foggy and damp. They run up these different trails. They're yelling for Barbara.

Imagine being the cop that has to chase them. Chase them. They're ultra runners. Get like four steps there. It's like one of those big old cops, too, that's just like, but like so determined. Drops as a donut sister. Trunking up. I was thinking.

I was thinking. As a heart attack. They have those tables set up like rest stations. The cops would just be like coffee and donuts to refuel at and keep running. Someone get those guys. Yeah. All right. As the Krispy Chicken sandwich from 7-Eleven, people always call me loud.

And I'm like, yeah, I know. I'm crispy. Did you expect me to whisper? If you want quiet, go eat some soup and reflect. Like, I know I'm a handful. I'm bold, I'm juicy. Throw some pickles and barbecue sauce on me, and baby, I'm a whole meal. And with seven rewards, I'm just $4.

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Okay, so they're running up these different trails. It's foggy and damp. They're stopping to peer over the steep edges of these trails. They can hear helicopters whirring above the clouds. They can see. tracks from the horses and the people that have been used in this search. And they're continuing to look for Barbara. And they're also starting to kind of accept that she'd probably been either abducted or killed. Then something catches. Yeah. Abducted or killed.

Yeah. Is that what you meant? No. But it's possible, you know? It's abducted. Yeah. That is a type of abduction. Like you'd think you'd find your body if it's not alien.

I'm just putting that out there. Maybe. Well, there's plenty of people. People that abduct people to, Jeff. And they often don't find those bodies, too. Not on a, not ultra-runners. Maybe. You know, if you just, anyway, we'll get there.

No, Jeff's doing a good job. You presented this as a mystery. He's just poking holes. Aliens are definitely one of the potential options. On the list of suspects. Yes. I mean, it sounds to me like those people you're saying that go missing and they don't ever find them, you're attributing that to people taking them, and it could have, all of those could have

aliens if you never find it. Without a, yeah, without a doubt. I'm not saying you're wrong here. We're not disagree. Yeah. Is if we abducted an alien, by the logic of how we label alien abductions, we would call that a human abduction. But no one would understand if you said that, they'd be like a human got abducted. It'd be confusing.

It would be confusing. Would they call it a human abduction, though, or would we call it a human abduction? We would. I think, I don't know. They would make a sound unheard of by the ears of men. Yeah, that's true. Okay. Unless they're that like little rock spider in Project Hail Mary.

Rocky. All right. As they're looking for Barbara, something catches Russ's eye and he stops to call the other men. He's looking down a steep slope. It's covered in oak trees, some brush, and about 50 feet below, he could see something white laying out in the open. Staring a little harder, he realized what he was looking at. It was a visor. The visor could have easily been trash that was left in the area over the winter,

so the men walk slowly along the trail back and forth to see if anything else caught their eye, if anything else looked out of place. And as they get to abandon the trail, still inside of this visor, they see two big disturbances in the dirt on the side of the trail, like someone had kind of run off the side of the trail there and down the slope. It still isn't like a ton to go off of, but the marks in the dirt convince Russ that he should at least go down this steep slope. slope, brave this poison oak that's everywhere, and at least check out the visor. So he carefully

climbs 50 or so feet down to the visor, and when he picks up this white foam visor, he immediately notices thin reddish stains all over the hat. And of course, his mind immediately goes to whether or not these are blood stains. But as he looks down at his feet and all around, the mud that's on his shoes and all around is kind of reddish. And so he thinks this could easily just be mud that had been on this visor that dried, and he kind of talks himself out of thinking that this is Barbara's. Plus searchers had already scanned this area pretty intensely, and he was pretty sure that they would have seen this hat, but he still just can't shake a weird feeling. So Kurt is up above. He's yelling down at Russ. He's just saying, hey, leave the hat. It's nothing. Let's go look some more.

Russ is just about to do that when something else catches his eye, and it makes his blood run cold. laying not far from where he'd found this hat is a water bottle laying in the leaves. It's kind of a cheap and light water bottle that had an elastic strap on it for a hand, and it's the kind that's almost always used by runners at the time. So Kurt is now convinced that Barbara had been attacked and that he was close to the site where it happened. So he starts looking around more. He wasn't sure if his eyes were playing tricks on him or not,

but now that he's looking really hard, it looked as though he could see the faintest trail in the dead leaves, like something large had been dragged through these leaves. He follows this trail, he's carefully stepping around the poison oak, and the other two men slide down the slope, they start crashing through the brush, trying to keep up with them, and Russ had actually disappeared from their view, but suddenly his panic voice cuts through the air,

and he says, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, she's right here. Ernie and Kurt pushed through the brush until they were standing next to Russ, and all three men were looking at the pale white calves and the running shoes, Barbara Shoner, sticking out of a thin pile of brush and dirt. Her dirty brown hair was visible on the other side of this pile. Ernie bends down to touch her skin to see if she might still be alive. Skin was cold to the touch. He immediately knew that his friend was dead,

and that her murderer had buried her in a shallow grave and then left. Me. So these guys quickly talk, and Russ and Kurt decide they're going to run and tell officials that they'd found Barbara and that Ernie would stay with the body. He was an EMT, so they figured just in case maybe she possibly is alive, you should stay with the body. We'll run and get help. I feel like you could set a personal best runtime with that situation, you know. Yeah. Yeah, you could go really fast for sure.

That'd be a real tough moment where I just, I've always imagined, not always, but a lot of times I just think if like someone really close to me and I was the first responder and I had to be the one responsible to telling their next of kin, like that would be. I just can't imagine how hard that would be. Yeah. Well, the thing that's crazy for me about this next part is that they're in like the woods, it's dark, it's cold. and like Ernie just has to sit with the dead body of his friend that was maybe like viciously murdered and he has to just sit there in the quiet with it. Oh yeah. Yeah. Imagine like trying to tell him when you're completely out of breath too. Yeah.

Yeah. That'd be a real lot. I didn't tell you something. She is dead. We found you dead. Wait, what? What did you say? If you guys discovered me since there are two people that are more than one person,

that found was like on this crime scene right yeah how would you decide who of the two of you if you found me together like my dead body who had to like tell my dad would you just do it together yeah i don't know smash bet i feel like you dad would take it all right yeah smash bet i wouldn't be like scared i would just be emotionally upset if we did a smash bet we'd have to like put in a weird one too Like, we have a cameo of Mark McGrath telling your dad. That'd be a good way. Yeah. In fact, that's how I'd want you guys to do it.

Never mind. The bets off. Take a picture of you and send it to them with no, like, text or anything. Or the... Or a school emoji. Maybe our Instagram tooth and cloth fan account, and we could announce the message through them. Through one of those videos.

Yeah. Great. You like, you like us enough to do this, do us a solid here, right? Please let Mike's dad know that he died violently. All right. So Ernie's left behind. He hears the sounds of his friends running away, scrambling up the trail as they fade into the distance. And suddenly the forest all around Ernie and Barb's bodies gets very quiet.

He slows his breathing to listen to his surroundings just in case the man that had killed his friend was still around, and a few minutes later he hears a soft noise in the brush behind him, kind of like the sound of a carefully placed foot. Thinking that he might be about to get the chance to avenge his friend, he spins around toward the noise but sees nothing. But the hairs on his neck are standing up and suddenly he realized that the feeling of being watched wasn't just an old wife's tale. It's something that actually happens.

someone was out there in the brush and he could feel them watching him. So he sat there as quietly as possible until around about 15 minutes later he hears approaching footsteps and he sees uniformed officials from the homicide department descending the slope. Ernie's then escorted back to the search and rescue camp where he rejoins Kurt and Russ and the three men told they were being detained that they would be interrogated after the initial analysis of the crime scene. which I guess makes sense. Like if people have been looking for like 24 hours and they find nothing and then you immediately go up and find the body,

they're probably going to want to ask you some questions. For sure. Yeah. Meanwhile, homicide investigators were removing the five inches of natural debris from Barbara's body stick by stick and leaf by leaf. After a while, they'd exposed one of her arms, which looked as though it had been pulled behind her with the palm up, kind of like it had been tied,

as they continue to pull debris from her body, they discovered a massive wound below her left shoulder that revealed missing portions of her lung, stomach, esophagus, kidneys, liver, pancreas, and spleen. And they realized they were either looking at one of the more brutal, possibly cannibalistic murders they had ever seen or something else altogether. Something inhuman, maybe.

Which would make sense for our podcast. Something unearthly? They moved to her head and carefully lifting it They found that she had knife-like cuts all over her neck Large puncture wounds in her head and into her skull And that her entire face had mostly been removed Oh wow They also found tawny hairs mixed into her hair

And all over her body And one of the investigators radioed down to the tent Where Russ Ernie and Kurt were being held And told the officer that the men could be released This was no murder Mount Lion had killed Barbara Shoner and it was the first fatality in the state of California since 1909. Wow, man.

All right. So we've talked a fair amount about mountain lions, even in California, the history of their conservation in the state. And if you want a refresher on that, go back to our episode this last February that's titled the California Cougar Kidnapper. So that really goes over a lot of information about California mountain lions. But I want to highlight a few of the key points to their biology because it's been a minute and their history of conflict in the state and in North America at large.

All right, first of all, technically, mountain lines are not considered big cats, and technically is doing a lot of lifting there, because that's mostly based on their taxonomy and some morphological differences from the other big cats, like not being able to roar. Their closest relatives are actually the Jaguarundi, which is something that we possibly saw in Brazil at night,

and the cheetah, which I didn't know. That was news to me, that cheetahs are actually pretty closely related to mountain lions. And those two cats are also technically not considered big cats. But for me, that term subjective, it's more related to size than anything else. Since mountain lions are slightly bigger than on average than leopards, which are a big cat, and they can kill prey as big as bull elk, I definitely count them as a big cat, and I would definitely count cheetahs as well.

How about you guys? I draw the line in cheetah. Yeah, cheetah's my smallest big cat. I'm with you there. Yeah. Who are these guys? What do you mean technically? It's not a big cat.

So some cat researchers and biologists think that you need to have, forget the exact name of the anatomy, but it's a certain modification in their throat that allows cats to roar. Yeah. And when you have that, you're considered a big cat. And so it's like just pretty much just the genus Pantera that are considered the big cats for those. biologists for me and for a lot of people it's just a size thing because it's big

cat you know like if you kill a bull elk you're a big cat yeah if only there's something else we could use to like describe roaring cats yeah well like the cats that can roar like if we could use like a word for those type of cats like yeah like loud what would that word be yeah louding cats or something like that Roaring, roaring cats. Oh, there you go. Yeah. You think Katie Perry could take down a bull elk?

Because she can roar. Yeah. But that's only like one of the criteria. I think she could probably just annoy one to death. You think, you know. Whoa. Oh, shots fired it. Katie.

Does she get to have a gun? Yeah. Then she probably still can't. Wow. Gee, you are. I know. What's this all about? I'll be honest.

Who do you like that? I like a lot of. She went to outer space before you did. I love Carly Ray Jepson. I like Olivia Rodriguez. I like Billy. Yeah, I like Billy Elish. I love Billy.

She's the one that married the alligator guy? I like Hillary Duff. We're friends. No, that's Lana Del Rey. You like her? I'm not a big, no, I'm not a big fan of her, but I don't dislike her. Oh my God. I just don't really care.

Yeah. That's fair then. In California, on average, males are going to be around seven and a half feet long. including their tail length. They weigh up to 170 pounds. Females will be around 6 feet long, including their tails, and can weigh up to around 120 pounds.

And to me, they're kind of the perfect big cat. And the reason I say that is I think our other big cats are all kind of good at one thing, and mount lions are good at a lot. Like they climb trees, they're ambush predators from trees, they're really fast on the ground,

they're super agile, they're really adept at killing prey. they kind of just do everything we think of when it comes to big cats really well. They have incredibly sharp protractile claws that extend when the muscles in their four legs contract. And that's something we learned early on in this podcast that they're not like, that's not a mental thing that they're doing extending their claws. It's not a wolverine. A physiological thing that's happening as they're running or grabbing prey or whatever else.

It's cool. Yeah, it's really cool. Those claws give them both traction to run and to help. help them grip prey. And then I just wanted to read this short paragraph from the Mount Lion Foundation on how they often kill their prey. We've talked about this before, but they word it really well, so I just wanted to kind of say how they do it. Prey is normally killed with a bite to the back of the neck at the base of the skull. Do you guys remember what happens next with Mount Lions? It's like one of my favorite ways that something kills prey. They put their

big tooth in between their vertebrae and paralyze them. Yeah, or just kill them. The large canines are inserted between the vertebrae like a wedge, forcing the vertebrae apart, and breaking the spinal cord. The speed with which this takes place indicates that the concentration of nerves and its canines allow the cat to feel its way into the vertebrae in a fraction of a second. In the case of larger prey, such as elk, the neck may be broken by pulling the head down and back, breaking it directly or in a fall, which is something I just learned about them, is that they use the gravity sometimes of them,

like, hitting the prey and whipping the head forward, and then they shift their weight to actually just, like, use that animal's momentum to break its own neck, which is really, really cool. Oh, man. Can you imagine that, Jeff? Can you imagine dying? What do you think happens after we die?

Hi, Jeff. Do you want a real answer? Yeah. Yeah, sure. Your real answer. I think we're just done. I think we're gone. We're finished.

I don't think we go on at all. That sounds kind of nice sometimes. Yeah. I think either way it's equally as scary. I couldn't think of like a situation where I want it. Well, we don't know. Let's get into this. It's a great place to talk about this.

The middle of an episode talking about how mountain lions kill things. Right. All right. If this fails, the cougar may grasp the throat, crushing the windpipe. Can you imagine that, Jeff? This necessitates death through asphyxiation and takes longer, exposing the cougar to possible injury. Don't need to imagine an affixiation, Mike. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. You've been choked before. He's done plenty of that. It's surprisingly effective. depending on what you're going for. If you go into Jeff's closet right now, you'll see a belt hanging up there that you know what that's for. Why is that belt hole so close to the buckle?

That's weird. The efficiency of the kill will vary depending on prey size, cougar size, angle of attack, and other circumstances. And a quick aside, I forgot to mention this earlier. Cougar,

mountline, Puma, catamount. These are all the same animal. Panther. Sometimes people call them panthers. We're talking about, the same antlery. Panther can mean a lot of different cats, but cougar, Mountain Lion are the

two ones we usually use in North America. Puma is used Mexico South pretty much. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right, so I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong. Bro, Skycoin, way better than points. Never fly during a Scorpio full moon. Just tell the manager you'll sue. Instant room upgrade. Making bad travel advice, start comparing hundreds of sites with kayak and get your trip right. Kayak, got that right. This episode is brought to you by Redfin. You're listening to a podcast, which means you're probably multitasking,

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This should be tons of fun. Marvel television's Daredevil, Born Again, now streaming only on Disney Plus. Okay. To me, the way they kill their prey is one of the cooler things about them. It's also probably one of the main reasons that a lot of people seem to have a pretty intense fear of Mount Lions. As I've talked to people throughout my years as biologist and talk to them about bears, I find that almost everyone says, I'm not really worried about bears, but I do get really creeped out by Mountain Lions, which I always just thought was kind of interesting.

because bears attack a lot more people than mountain lions do. Okay, a few more facts about mountain lions. They've been measured to jump 45 feet horizontally and 15 feet vertically. It's pretty crazy. That's a lot more feet than I can jump. Jeff, 45 feet horizontally is pretty much a school bus. I think the only time I really tried long jump. What was I getting to, Mike?

Like 18 feet? You're a little over eight. I was surprised. That's like not a terrible jump for someone who was like not in shape. Well, like at least not training to do that. I was like, whoa, over 18 feet. Darded as a compliment. What's your personal best?

My best was 22, 11, I believe. Okay. You know, double what you were jumping, which is crazy to think about. Like, it's the length of a school bus. I bet you they could jump even further or higher if they got like really scared to. You know how when cats get scared, they just like jump so high. Yeah. They have roughly 287 degrees.

degrees of visual field. To put that in perspective, we have about 200. So they can see further behind them than we can. A little bit. Based on the rods and cones in their eyes, it's thought that they probably can't detect a lot of color until they're closer to objects, but their low light visibility is much better than ours.

Even when they can see color, it's probably just a few different shades. They don't have a lot of color vision. A lot of grays, maybe? Yeah, a lot of grays. Different shades. Have you guys ever heard of murkle? sells? Mercil?

I have. Or no. I'm thinking sickle cell. That's different. That's bad. Maybe you're thinking of Steve Urkel instead of Merkle. That's what I thought of. Did I do that? Remember that? That was good, Mike. That's good stuff.

Say the line. I already did. I'm not saying it again. Rest in peace. Yeah. I think he's still alive. That's like a provisional one though. Like eventually he will have died. And then someone will listen to this episode. Everyone's going to be like, who?

All right. Basically, these Merkel cells are cells in your skin that are responsible for detecting light touch. So if you guys were to ever feel a tiny bug crawling on your skin, or if either of you ever experienced the delicate touch of a lover, you're going to be using those Merkel cells. That's going to be what you're using to feel that. Is it named after Megan Merkel? Possibly, but I doubt it.

Her light touch, you know that's going to get that one prince going. I started watching suits. I see it now. When she got married to him, I was kind of like, I don't know. But when I started watching suits, I was like, damn. Megan, if you're listening, you got Jeff's stamp of approval. Mountain Lane whiskers and a lot of mammalian whiskers, which are also commonly called vibrisae, are absolutely packed with these Merkel cells.

And it makes them ultra-sensitive receptors that they can use to navigate their world. So how that works is there's these tight clusters of nerve endings at the base of each whisker, and they can detect changes to airflow and their surroundings, which can indicate nearby objects or prey. They're so sensitive that they don't need to make physical contact with an object to see it. So people think that maybe these whiskers are so sensitive that if the wind is blowing toward a mountain lion and then suddenly it just shifts ever so much, they know that there's some kind of animal moving through that wind. And they can detect. it. Whoa. Yeah. They also have vibrasse on their wrists that sense movement close to the ground and help them position their paw perfectly so it makes no noise. And according to a 1979 study on behaviors of both domestic and wild cats, their facial whiskers may help them orient their bite as it captures and kills prey. So they use their whiskers for like really fine-scale movement and whatnot around the world. Mountain lions chirp, shriek, growl, and,

purr, but they don't roar. They live in almost every ecosystem in North and South America, with the only exceptions really being aquatic ecosystems and the far northern Arctic. They are the most widespread land mammal in the Americas, which is kind of cool. Yeah, that is interesting. How fast can they run? What's your guess? 52.44.

If we're doing Price's right rules, Jeff wins. If we're doing normal rules, Mike wins. No, we're doing prices right. Right, we always are. About 50 miles per hour. So very close. Dog on it. Cubs are born spotted with blue eyes.

They're very cute. What's your guys' favorite, two favorite names for Mount Lions? That's that screeching devil, wasn't that one? I like that one. Yeah, I think that was one. Okay. I like Puma because their scientific name is Puma Concolor, and I feel like every other country they're found in, they call them Pumas. And I just like the way it sounds.

And then I like Mount Lion, too. I like Mountain Lion more than Cougar. Cooler is cool except for you think of older women now. So I feel like that affects it. But that only makes it cooler, right? They're cool, yeah. It makes me think of BYU too, which just feels kind of tame. But Mountain Lion is just so descriptive.

It sounds like a fantasy animal, you know. That's my high school mascot for a couple of years while I was living in Nevada. Yeah. Yeah. That's a cool little fact. You guys know about it now. That is a great fact, yeah. In California, they've killed seven people since.

1890 and 29 total fatalities have been attributed to Mountain Lions since 1868 throughout all of North America. So that's Canada and the United States. That's so interesting to me that your cohort of bear biologist friends are creeped out by Do you think that's just a question of them being more familiar with bears and how to deal with them? This isn't bear biologists. I'm just talking about random people that come up to me and say like, what should I do if I see a bear?

And I'll tell them and they'll be like, yeah, I'm not that afraid of bears, but I'm afraid of Mount Lions. I feel like the common person is more afraid of Mount Lions often. They shouldn't be. Would you be more afraid of Michael Myers or Freddie Krueger, Mike? Probably Freddie. Right. But Michael Myers actually kills more people. Do you think that's true? You really, you were hoping your confidence would carry you through that one. I knew that either way, either answer you chose I had to defend the other guy. Yeah. You would have been so good in debate.

He's kind of equally scary. Basically, though, looking in those statistics, it's about one fatality every five years, which is a really low fatality rate for large cats. Yeah, it's nothing. Honestly, I think maybe the only other big cat by our qualifications that kills less would be cheetahs and snow leopards. Jaguars don't kill a lot either.

No, but I think they kill more than one every five years, but I'm not sure. It's probably, they're probably pretty close to Jaguars. There's thought to be about 40 or more fatal leopard attacks just in India every single year. So there's more in one year in India than there has been the entire,

pretty much history of North America. But per person that lives in India and per person that lives in America, it's probably about even. So, like 10 billion people in India. There's a huge difference, you know, socioeconomically,

all of that. But I don't think that accounts for this. Because if you go back to this... Lepards just will attack people more. Yeah, and if you go back to the late 1800s, the differences weren't that grand. And technology was about the same. And you still didn't see a ton of mountain lion attacks.

And there was still a lot of leopard attacks. So I think really the big difference here is natural behavior when it comes to interacting with humans. And my guess, again, is this is mostly because, like the Jaguar, Mount Lions spent most of their evolution essentially separated from human beings. And when they finally did encounter human beings, when people finally came across the Land Bridge 20,000 years ago, they already had technology that would allow them to kill mountain lions in a pinch. So stuff like spears, arrows, knives. So kind of they were never in squarely

in the prey category for Mount Lions, and they just don't really view us as prey, like leopards or lions or tigers do. Back to our story. That night, Ernie would hear on the news that his friend Barbara had not been murdered, but that she had been killed by a mountain lion, and he realized there was a good chance that lion had still been there watching him from the brush while he waited with the body. He broke down into tears at the kitchen table as his family surrounded him and did their best to comfort him. Based on the details that these investigators and wildlife officials could get from the scene, they were able to piece together what probably happened to Barbara

as she was on her morning run. There's a bit of a disagreement between some of these professionals as they investigated the scene, and I'm going to use kind of the one they constructed that came from the person that I thought had the most experience and that made the most sense. And now that we know who our culprit is, I'm going to say my source.

My primary source was this book, Cat Attacks, by Joe Debrich and Dean Miller. This book's quite good, actually, if you're interested in Mount Lion Attacks. There's really interesting details. hills. It's about cat attacks. Great question. Okay. As Barbara ran, she got warmer and tied her sweatshirt around her waist. Less than an hour into her run, she approached a long, U-shaped curve that at its peak overlooked the American River far below. It's a beautiful section of this trail,

and it also happened to be the spot where a young female mountain lion was hunting that morning. This lion had likely seen dozens, if not hundreds of runners and hikers and walkers, and walkers, in the area throughout its life, but something about Barbara, and it's impossible to say exactly what this was, piqued the interest of this particular mountain line, and it started following her progress from high on the hill. As it quickly moved through the Manzanita and the scrub oak, it's keeping its large green eyes on the moving woman below on the trail, and then it kind of saw where she was heading and it ran around this U-shaped thing and short cutter, and was waiting for her ahead and dense, brushy area with a steep slope.

Although this is a younger mountain lion, it already knew that reduced visibility and a steep downhill would help it catch and then use gravity of its falling prey to kill it as quickly as possible. Mike, do you have a question? No, I was just thinking that's probably how Obi-1 felt with the high ground. Yeah, it knew it had the high ground. Exactly.

There's absolutely nothing that could happen at this point to stop it from winning. I assume there probably wasn't lava on this running, trail either so it was feeling extra yeah didn't have to worry about it even more confident yeah all right so so this lion is essentially waiting lying in wait in this brush when barbara enters this area and when she speeds past this crouch predator it jumps forward and ran toward the woman so it let they think it let her run by it and then it ran behind her completely silent it had never attacked a human before its mother had never attacked a human before but this mountain lion had a cub stashed in a bush not far from here

and for whatever reason she decided to investigate this new food source. Barbara likely didn't even see it as the 82-pound cat slammed into her 5-8-120-pound frame and sent her sliding down the hill 50 feet until both of them hit a small pine tree. During this slide, she probably felt sharp pain in her shoulder and neck while the cat tried to find a killing bite on prey that had never really encountered before. She reached behind her with her hands to try and free herself from this violent mystery, attacker and in the process the mountain line bit her hands pretty severely so severely that as they were investigating the crime scene they found one of her gloves and the tip of her finger was inside of the

glove she's pinned against the tree the cat continues to try and bite and kill her it's raking at her with its claws biting her hands and arms as she reached behind to try and pry it off and then its teeth found her neck and bit deep tearing her artery and spraying blood about six feet high into the branches of the tree that they were pinned against. This is, again, what one of the experts thinks happened. A lot of the news reported her as like getting up and fighting off this cat and then getting attacked again. I tend to think that probably didn't happen because usually if people do get up and fight,

it lasts a lot longer because the cat loses its bravado. It kind of like realizes that it's dealing with something different than what it usually kills. And just based off of what I heard about this crime scene, not crime scene. attack scene, it does seem like it was very quick, and I think that's the way I'd like to imagine it too. Because of all this blood loss with the open artery, spraying blood, she lost her strength fast. The cat readjusted its grip and bit into her head, fracturing her skull, and then it pulled and started dragging her deeper into the brush. There is some evidence that

would suggest she was still alive when the cat started feeding on her and into her organs, tearing through a rib cage. But for me, I'd like to think that her consciousness was either far away because she'd lost so much blood or that she'd already died. Either way, it was pretty quick. The cat fed, and then it cashed Barbara's body near the kill site, and then returned that night and drag the body even further into the brush to the spot where ultimately Russ would find his friend dead the next day.

And that night, she and her cub both fed on the body. They found lots of little bite marks from the cub, and then they walked to the nearby creek to drink. Her cub was about the size of a house cat at this point, playful, and like any good mother cougar, she was constantly protecting, feeding, grooming her offspring. So what looked at first be a cruel, evil murder was actually just a natural predator securing unnatural prey for its cub.

There's no malice, there's no ill will, but also no compassion. It's just a simple, violent transaction that this mountain line had referred. repeated time and time again throughout its life with other prey. And I just want people to think about that because I think you hear about something like this, especially the way we set up this story is kind of a murder mystery. And it sounds so scary. And when you picture a mountain lion, you know, biting into someone, it feels very violent and intentional. This is just how they get food. This is an animal that is a predator. They only eat meat. There's there's nothing in this cat that is angry or anything against this person. It's just trying to eat, you know, and that is just,

it just is unfortunate that this time it was a human that it decided to eat, both for the human and for this cat, which we'll talk about. People are full of surprises, especially when you travel together. Thankfully, Verbo is not. When you book a Verbo, you get Verbo care and 24-7 live support. So your house doesn't surprise you like your friends might. If something's not as described or doesn't work, Verbo's there. Real people. Real support. Any time. Book today on the Verbo app.

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They used bite marks and evidence from the site and guessed that they're probably looking for an adult female mountain lion or an immature male. Five teams of professional trackers with their hounds combed the area day and night, but a cold spell and some rain made finding any fresh tracks really difficult for these hunters, and they decided to focus on the area

around where they found the body, because mountlines obviously return to their kills as much as possible, but then they even do it sometimes when the kill's been removed. So while the hunters were confident, they would catch a mountain lion sooner or later, they knew they had to do it sooner

because the longer that time passed, the less evidence they would have to prove that the cat they caught was the one responsible. So after a few days, enough time would pass that the stomach contents wouldn't prove anything. And then after a few more days, any blood or skin under the claws wouldn't be usable either. So they knew they had to catch it quick. On May 1, 1994, they finally crossed a fresh mountain lion track near the kill site. Within a matter of minutes, their dogs had treed a cat in a large black oak, not far from where her body had been found. When I say treeed, that means they chased the mountain line up a tree,

and they kept it up in the tree. The lead hunter who worked for the federal government got permission from local wildlife officials to shoot the cat, and with one shot, he brought her down from the tree. Subsequent analysis showed that this mountain lion had human tissue under its nails, and officials were very confident that they had caught the responsible lion. She was lactating, so they knew that there had to be a cub nearby. Three days later, they'd found a dehydrated and weak cub on a rock outcropping nearby. It was taken to a nearby zoo. It was named Willow and it lived there, had a really good life for 15 years. Pete, Barbara's husband, would actually take his kids to the zoo to visit Willow, which to me is like really beautiful

and poetic, made me a little emotional because like both of these kids lost their moms to this terrible interaction and they both kind of got to bond over that. Yeah. I thought that was really nice. I thought that was really sweet. Unless it's like a anger exercise. They went out there just to like get rocks at it. You deserve to be in there. I don't think that was it. I think Pete was doing it for the more beautiful reason. All right. Just like I'm imagining him praying for her to have a broken ankle. All right. It's crazy, dude. That's crazy to me.

Maybe it's just me. A really interesting thing is this was the first Mountline Fatality in California since 1909. And there had been two deaths in 1909, but they're both the result of a rabid mountain lion. And now a healthy, wild, normal mountain lion had killed a person. And it really changed the vibe in that part of California. Especially in the running community. People just kind of suddenly felt like all of these trails and everything they used to run were suddenly a lot wilder than they had thought. And I want to read a quote from a 2004 article on a running website.

it says in some ways it would almost have been better if it had been someone who had killed barbara a homicide said gregg sotterland race director of the western states 100 mile endurance run it would have been easier to understand but it was way worse that it was a cougar because it changed things for all of us it really did the innocence was gone these animals could not only hurt you they could kill you an interesting perspective to take a very interesting one and i think naive. That's what I was going to say. Yeah. It's like you have to wait till a mountain lion kill someone to know that they can kill someone. Right. When like they've, they killed other people during that time period and other parts of the world. And it's kind of, I think it's kind of similar to how in like

Yosemite they don't allow bear spray because their bears have never attacked anyone. And it's like, well, they're going to at some point, you know. And I just, I think it's a little naive. And I also think it's a little, and I don't want to be too hard on this guy, but it, it's kind of a little egotistical to think like, you know, we're just out in nature and we're kind of top dog out here, you know, and nothing bad has ever happened, so nothing ever will. Egotistical is the wrong word, but more of like, I don't know. That's not the world I want to live in where we don't have to think about that, you know, and I get that for them that was just a negative, but also it kind of was a reminder, like, hey, we've preserved a wild space here. There's wild animals. There's animals here that have

been existing here a lot longer than we have. And we've managed to keep some of them here. And that's something that we were just reminded about in a really violent way. And we need to think about and we need to prepare and educate and be more prepared next time. For sure. Anyway, I think it's important that we have places where Mount Lions can live and that we just need to be a little bit more ready to enter those places. And if California does kill all their mountain lions, maybe they'll put them on their flag at least. Yeah, serious.

Just put them right under that bear, that grizzly bear. Yeah. Oh, you want both of them on there? You don't want it just to replace the bear? They just start adding every dangerous animal that they've gotten rid of. No, it is, it's kind of like, I don't know. It makes me think about Tony Hawk. Why is that?

Well, it's just like, you know the 900 is possible, but like it's kind of hard to believe it until someone actually does it. But now you just have like nine-year-old kids doing like 1280s back-to-back and stuff. So someone had to break through that barrier, you know? So that's why I think this mountain line is kind of like the Tony Hawk. Well, it's kind of interesting you say that because like, I mean, this was the third fatality in the state. There's two people killed in 1909 by a rabid cat.

And since 1994, there's been four more. So it did kind of speed up after this. That is interesting how that. It's kind of close to when Tony Hawk did the 900. Yeah, it's not too far from that. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. And why would you guys think that there probably has been a little bit more conflict between humans and Mount lions in California? Encroachment.

Yes, encroachment. We're just pushing animals toward things that they can't handle, and sometimes then they have to take bigger risks. And in this case, I don't think that's what happened. I think, like, this was just a cat that decided it wanted to try something new and it went for it. it was healthy. It wasn't in a place where it was really being encroached. There's plenty of deer, but that can happen too, and that's the important thing. So that's why on this podcast, we teach people what to do. And there's a couple tips. I just wanted to go over quickly before we got into categories. First of all, bear spray does work on Mount Lions. So if you're worried about

Mount Lions, buy can a bear spray, take it with you. It works really well on this animal. The main thing is you got to see it first, which isn't always the case, like with Barbara. So if you're on a trail and you're running or whatever, I would recommend you do it with a friend if you're in mountain line country or do it like midday rather than early morning or late at night. If you have a pet, keep it leashed. If you're with small children, don't let them go too far ahead of you on the trail or whatever. If you see a mountain line, don't approach it. Don't run. Stay calm. If it comes toward you, then you start making a lot of noise. You get yourself as big as possible, be very aggressive.

If it keeps coming toward you, you can even run toward it and just try and intimidate it. You're trying to be as dominant, as loud, as intimidating as possible. If it does attack you, you need to fight it off. You never play dead. You never do anything else. You fight it off. I do think that's part of why they are so scary, though, is all that advice you just gave is great.

And I don't think. she could have really done any of that, you know? Yeah. It got her from behind. She never saw it coming. And like with bears, I feel like most of the time you have a second to get your bear spray out. Yeah. And with mountain lions, sometimes it's just like you're falling down a hill with a tooth in your neck.

For sure. But it's like these ones that you hear about where it's like that so quick and so efficient. They're like, of the 28 fatalities, there's been in North America. There's like two or three of them that are like that. most of them are more prolonged where you know there could have been something that stopped it from happening it's like when a great white decides it wants to just eat someone and it just bites him in half it hardly ever happens but when it does there's just nothing you can do and like you always say this is a bad idea but maybe for mountain lions it'd be kind of smart to pat a little bear spray on the

back of your neck before you run i don't know if i would do that no i would not do that but um maybe like a necklace of cans of bear spray. Or just like wear one of those airplane pillows as you run. Yeah. Or like tape a tide pod there because that'll, that you die if you eat one of those. That is, it is one of those animals,

though, that the preventative measures you can take before you have an encounter seems like the most important step. Like, just don't be out there alone. The more people you have with you, it'll just drastically reduce the chances that something like that will ever happen in the first place.

It is. With Mountlines, the thing I just really want to drill in is that they hardly ever attack people. And when they do, it's usually little kids. It just doesn't happen that often, considering how many of them there are. Of all of our big cats, this is the only one in the world that's IUCN least concern. They are doing great. There are lots of them, and they don't attack us. They really just leave us alone.

They're very conflict-averse. They're not defensive. when they do attack its predatory, and that's incredibly rare. So if you are worried about them, that's fine. I get it. I understand that it's worried there might be something out there hunting you. Carry some bear spray. Go out in groups.

You'll be fine. So should we get on to our categories? I have one question, just a general question about caching, since that came up a little bit in the story. I know it's different because you worked primarily with bears and not mountain lions, but just generally with caching, is it usually about the same amount of dirt and branches and stuff they'll try to cover it up with or does that vary from... Yeah, Grizzlies will sometimes put like a ton of material over their stuff,

like a huge mound. Mount lions, it tends to be like this real shallow kind of thing like we talked about, and it's mostly just to cut down scent and make it harder for stuff to find it. But I don't know how much variation there is in between individuals. An interesting thing about mountain lions, So sometimes they'll cash their prey before they even feed on it. Sometimes they'll immediately cache it and then come back later to actually feed on it. Yeah, sometimes I'll grab like a free donut from the office lunchroom.

Yeah. But like you're not hungry for it yet. So you just put it by your mouse on your desk. Sometimes if I'm getting a sandwich, I'll buy two sandwiches and cash one for later. Yeah. Just covered up. Or hat. Smart.

All right. Well, if there's not any other questions, should we get into our. categories. Yeah, I want to add one. Yeah. I want to do the Animal Olympics. Okay. I just wanted to say really quickly too, like, it's very possible some of her kids, her kids are still alive, her husband's probably still alive. This is a huge tragedy and our hearts definitely go out to you guys. Like, I can't imagine losing someone this close to me in this way. So, um, yeah, hopefully you guys are still doing okay. I joked a bit, but like we actually really do appreciate you visiting that lion at the zoo and still like not hating mountain lions.

Yeah. Would Willow still be alive? No. Willow lived. It was the Folsom City Zoo Sanctuary, which I looked at their website. It seems like a pretty good zoo. And Willow was there for 15 years and then I believe passed away, which is a healthy old age for a mountain lion.

Okay. Our first category, your favorite pop culture where CSI or any kind of crime scene investigation plays a big role. I'm going to go with Manhunter, the Michael Mann movie, just where he has like the voice recorder and he's really like detailed about everything he sees

in the room. It's like the Hannibal type of story with a, what am I blanking on his name? Lector. What's it? Yeah, Hannibal Lecter. Hannibal Lecter. Yeah, yeah. But it was like the first version of that which actually might be my favorite

even over Silence of the Lambs. It's so good, Manhunter, and there's that scene where he just, like, really breaks down a murder room that was really good. Yeah. Oh, that reminds me of the, I think it's season one of the wire where McNulty and his partner go to the little apartment where there was a shooting. And it's just them saying the F word for, like, eight minutes straight. That's the only thing they say. That's not my answer. My answer is it's a game called The Return of the Oberlin.

and it's like sometime back in, I don't know, 1800s or something, a boat at sea was lost, and it was kind of a mysterious disappearance. But then all of a sudden it comes back to the docks, but no one's alive on it. And they only have like the captain's logbook to kind of suss out exactly what happened. And you spend the whole game, and it's really cool, like a visual aesthetic they have going on. It's like a pointillism pixel-based kind of thing. Beautiful music. But you are the investigator.

You're the crime scene investigator trying to like get a, you're getting up to some supernatural investigative techniques. It's really cool. It's a really beautiful and fun game. You would probably love like an escape room if you're into that. Nope. I would not. Oh, boy.

I would have to do that solo first too. Yes, I'm just going to go hang out in an escape room by myself. All right, mine, I picked a kind of weird one. And I think I maybe said this before when we talked about like detectives. But I picked the Tarsem Singh movie, The Cell, starring Vince Vaughn and Jennifer. Lopez and shoot, what's his name? The guy from Full Metal Jacket. Vincent DeNoffrio.

Beautiful movie. It is really beautifully shot. But when I saw that movie, I was younger in college and it kind of made me want to be an FBI agent for a bit because seeing the way they like analyzed crime scene and they like found a dog hair and realized, you know, that he had a dog and all these different things just made me think like, oh, this is this really interesting puzzle that they're putting together to save people's lives. And in that movie, it's like a very easy thing to conceptualize because it's like there's

a ticking timer until the next victim dies. So it just, I don't know, for whatever reason, that movie made me think that crime scene investigation was really cool. Never seen a single episode of CSI. As interesting as Cash Patel, like the FBI director. Yeah. FBI, you want to be able to like find every clue and everything. and he can open his eyes wider than anyone else.

So I do wonder if that helps him at all. That's probably why he got appointed. This guy's not going to miss anything. Yeah, he sees everything. He sees everything. He thinks like a mountain lion. He probably has like a, yeah, a mountain lion. 360 degrees.

How many rods do you think he has in there in cones? Millions. All right. So our next category, I want to hear your favorite two nicknames that you've ever had. This is a cat with a lot of names. What are your favorite nicknames that anyone's ever given you? When I was little, my best friend's last name was Simpson, and I'd go over to their house all the time.

And he had a much of really cool older brothers that, like, didn't really ever give me the time a day. But when they found out my last name was Smith, they called me Smithers, because they were huge. It's actually kind of funny. We were having a, like, a family dinner. I was just at the table. Like, I was the awkward little friend and the rest of the family was at the table.

And one of the brothers said something like, I'm getting kind of. kind of tired of the Simpsons. And it was like a scandal. It turned into like a big fight. But yeah, I appreciated them calling me smithers because it felt like, I don't know. When someone gives you a nickname,

it's like you get, it's like the seal of approval, you know? What's your other one? Or it's bully. I think it's usually in Deerment, even if it feels like bullying sometimes. Right. I don't think it.

I think there's plenty of cases where nicknames are pure bully. Okay. We might hear of one of those. Jeff, maybe even two. Sounds like, my friends in high school called me Smyth, which is kind of a, that was like came out of nowhere and has never been said to me again outside of those like three years. Yeah. All right.

Jeff, three years. Smyth, huh? Did we never give you a better nickname than Smyth? Which is fine. You like stem cell mic or something? Oh yeah. Stem cell research mic two. Jeff, what are your two favorite nicknames?

Hmm. Maybe I'll have to replace one. I like Jifers. That was like a, of all the 20 nicknames, my older brothers gave me, that was the one I was kind of chill with. I was like, yeah, I kind of like that. And then, actually, I like goop too. So it's kind of funny to me. And, yeah, I like Bad Jeff.

Bad Jeff was my favorite. Because we had two Jeffs and I went by Bad Jeff, which was kind of, I felt cool going by bad jazz cool jZ biggie was a good one my two favorites high school teacher are probably vizal which was weasel and german and that's what my dad called me growing up uh still calls me that sometimes and then i actually like the one i gave myself which was gris kid which was more of an instagram handle but kind of turned into a nickname that a lot of people call me giz skid jiz skid i've never given myself that nickname i've said it before sure we've been doesn't That's what we've been calling you behind your back for years.

Yeah. That is an interesting case where... I think it's endearment. Not often is it that you give yourself a nickname that catches on. Yeah. And it wasn't... That wasn't my plan, you know? Right.

All right. I got a fun category now, a game. This game's called Mountain Lion or Mountain Truthen. All right? I'm going to ask you guys a series of questions about mountains that are truth or false. Truth or false questions. Am I saying that right? True or false?

You don't say truth. And you guys have to tell me whether or not they're true or false. The rules are whoever misses the most has to buy $10 or less treat for me and the winner in the airport on Saturday. But if either of you get all of the questions right, I will buy you $10 in treats regardless. And the winner and the loser will also have to buy them for you in the airport on Saturday. Okay. Mountain Lion or Mountain. Mountain Truthen. Question number one.

Mount Elbert in Colorado is the highest peak in the lower 48 at 14,497 feet, followed closely by Mount Whitney in California at 14,433 feet. Is that mountain lion or mountain truthen? Can I just say false instead of that other thing? Sure. I'm going to say false. I say true. It is false.

Mount Whitney is the tallest in the lower 48. So so far Mike has one. Jeff doesn't have any. And Jeff, you can't get all of them. Okay, number two, the Mid-Ocean Ridge mountain system is by far the longest mountain system in the world. Underwater, stretching approximately 40,000 miles over its total length. I'll say false because underwater doesn't can't. I'll say true because I've heard something about an underwater mountain lion being the longest.

Okay, Mike is two for two. Jeff is zero for two. Mountain truth. Number three, the longest range on land are the Andes in South America. I'll say false because those are actually underwater. Okay. I'll get into the spirit of the game. I'm going to say Mountain Truthen. Okay.

You are correct. They are the longest mountain range on land. Mike is three for three. Jeff is O for three. Mike, if you get this next one, right? And Jeff gets it right. If Jeff shoots the moon, he wins, right? Sure. If you get them all completely wrong, I will buy you $10 in trees.

Number four, the state of Rhode Island is the lowest average topography state in the country with the highest point a mere 345 feet in elevation. Mountain Falson. Lion. It is false. Mountain lion. Florida is the lowest on average in the country. Mike, you're four for, Jeff.

You got one right. Oh, shit. I forgot. Yeah, you messed up. I wondered. All right. Number five, Rold Amundsen was the first person to summit Mount Everest, completing the task in 1953. Mountain Lion.

Mount Lion is some Sherpa whose name I probably can't say. Probably a Sherpa, but the first white person is Sir Edmund Hillary, right? Correct. Mountain Lion, it was Sir Edmund Hillary in that year, 1953. Final question here. I'm not saying that the white person is the only one that counts. was the first one that should count. I'm just saying conventional knowledge. But the thing is, I don't think these Nepalese Sherpas were like going up there. I think they're kind of just like,

look at this mountain. This is crazy. You know? You don't think. I don't think so. No, I never did it before. It's possible. I just want to say that like the way I said white person made it sound maybe like I was being no, no, no, racially weird. But like what I thought is they kind of just respected it too much to feel like they needed to go up there and like conquer, you know? Sure. Yeah. I think that was very much like a white colonial viewpoint. Okay. Number six, Mike, if you get this one right, I will have to buy you a treat, Jeff will have to buy you a treat, Jeff will also have to buy me a treat.

Number six. Just kind of has to. Mountains cover approximately 24% of the Earth's surface. Foss, that's water. 24% are mountains? That's so, I don't know, like the tectonic plates and stuff. I'll go true. True.

Mike's, nice job. Holy moly. I owe you a treat. Jeff was bowl. of us treats. Hey, thanks, Jeff and Wes. All right. Next category.

Let's do our Animal Olympics for Mountain Lions. I just, I wanted to throw one in here that I thought of when you talk about their whiskers. Yeah. I think they could be a really good golf caddy. Why's that? Because like golfers need to know the exact wind once they get really good. Oh, that's a good point. And the Mountain Lion would be able to tell them like exactly the wind.

I think with like their paws being extra sensitive too, they'd be really good at reading the slopes of the green. So I think they'd be an excellent golf caddy. Do caddies also get the medal? I doubt it. I hope so. They deserve a Olympic sport. It would suck if you got mauled every time you went to ask for a new club. That would be the bad part about them being a caddy.

But aside from that, something you recommend this week. I'm going to say Taylor's back That second to the most recent album sucked But this one was great And Father Figures a great song I'm gonna recommend homemade bread And if you're bad at making homemade bread like I am I'd get a breadmaker

Turns out they do a real good job for you It's really easy and it's delicious And it's like the great British bake-off season So it's always like more fun to bake something When you have that going That's true when you're in the mood I'm going to recommend a nice fall walk. I just feel like this is the best time of year to go for a nice little walk.

The leaves are beautiful. It's crisp outside. It's nice to hear like the crunching leaves under your feet. I just think it's prime walking time right now. So a fall walk. All right. I got a couple questions from Patreon. This one's from Izzy.

Izzy says, Hi, guys. I just discovered the pod via Too Scary Didn't Watch. Glad you listened to them, Izzy. Question about sharks. I know Wes said that they're more likely to attack if you're thrashing around in the water. Do sharks recognize the sound of human screams? Should you try to be as quiet as possible or does it not really matter?

I feel like it would be impossible for me not to scream if I were being bumped or attacked. Screaming is much less important than thrashing. So if you had to do one of the two, I would say go ahead and scream. You want to just try and be as quiet and as calm as possible. but screaming is definitely much lower priority than the thrashing. So just don't focus on not thrashing in the water, and hopefully you can also try and stay as composed as possible, would be my answer to that.

Okay, let's see. Question for the podcast. This is from Jonathan. If there were a bear biologist draft, think NBA draft, and what place do you think Wes would be drafted and why? For context, where would Tom Smith be drafted? For context? Yeah, I don't know what that means, but I think for, so like, say where you think Tom would

be drafted in the bare biologist draft and where I would be drafted. Oh, bear by, okay. Yeah, sure. I think I would be like 200th pick overall when it comes to like bear biologists. There's a lot of bear biologists. But I think if we were to talk about like outreach, I'd be up pretty high. But Tom, I'd put Tom in my top 10. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. If it were the NFL draft with that many rounds. You'll be taken eventually. But if it was the NBA draft, you might go undrafted and have to work your way onto a squad. Which is fine. Go to hear it. Yeah, playing the Greek.

Japan needs some bear biologists, it sounds like. They do. Yeah. Yeah, I think when it comes to research, there, well, I know, there's a lot of bear biologists that are much smarter and more accomplished than I am. But I think on the education front, I'm probably a top 10 pick. All right. Uh, question for Jeff. Has there ever been any reports of people being killed by a house cat?

This is from Che, whether it be a passerby or their owner. Oh, yeah. You don't know? Someone's tripped over a cat down the stairs, right? I would guess indirectly someone has died. That one guy opening the PlayStation got close, where he, like, got super excited, and then his cat jumps on his neck. Oh, yeah.

You think that he was close to dying from that? I know he had got stitches on his neck. Oh, I didn't know it was that serious. Yeah. Geez. All right. This one's from Rachel. Is there a universally adored animal that for you is just kind of me?

Mine is kangaroos. Hmm. Hot tape. You guys. Qua. Now, koalas were that way until we went to Australia and then I really saw the vision with koalas. I'm still, I'm still pretty lukewarm on koalas. I saw it.

I saw the appeal. Mine might be those ones, and again, another Australian animal, those, I forget what they're called, but they're the little smiling ones that everyone goes on to that one island to see, what are those animals called? Oh, they, with a Q. Yeah, Kwaka. Qdobo. Quakas. I just, they just never really did it for me. It looks just kind of like a smiling squirrel.

I don't know. Yeah. But there's just like constantly like articles about them and like celebrities. posting with them and everything. So that's mine, Quakas. I'm having a hard time with this one. Lion is one for me. I still really like them and think they're really cool,

but they're not really anywhere close to my favorite. Even in my top three big cats, they'd be a distant fourth or fifth. I'm with you there. Lions honestly might have become my favorite cat. I think they're so cool. They are cool. It used to be zebras until I saw them like in a mass herd,

and I was like, that looks. so cool. Maybe like... Their gum is great too. Maybe like a, you know, like a Cape Buffalo. African, what's the African buffalo? Yeah, African Cape Buffalo. Yeah.

Garrison's going to be so mad again. Just thinks they belong on every list of cool animals. Big five. Yeah. I'm going to do one more Patreon question. This one's from Rayan. Rayan says, question for everyone, but mostly West. During the month of October, would you rather give up all candy or all horror movies

and TV shows. You're giving up candy or horror movies? I gave up candy this October and it sucks. But I have lost some weight. Am I still allowed to eat like cookies and donuts and stuff? I don't know how to define candy, but I don't think cookies count. That's just what my brain is telling me. I'm giving up candy.

I love watching horror movies in October. So I'd give up candy. I can go without candy. Going out without sugar would be hard for me. Are you going without sugar, Jeff? Pretty hard, yeah. Yeah. I'll have like a little bit, but not my...

I have my two starbursts a day, you know? We do know. But, yeah, I get more into horror movies after Halloween. Really? Yeah. Just because you want to, like, a little too warm outside. Yeah.

I think it's like a little too happy and warm outside still. Like, once, like, all the leaves are down and it's, like, cold, I get really into horror movies. Yeah. Right. Okay, I got one more quick one actually from Yash. Yash says, Wes mentioned biologist being on an oil company payroll. How can we tell if a biologist is or isn't? Are there ways for people to check to make sure that a biologist is trustworthy? I would just say, like, a quick litmus test is if you see a certain biologist in a field kind of saying the opposite of what every other expert in that field is saying, and it kind of feels like it's something detrimental that they're saying. then I would question them. Outside of that, I think you have to dig a little deeper and kind of look at their credentials,

you know, their papers, whatever else. But with polar bear biologists that are being paid by oil or whatever, it's generally pretty obvious because they're the only ones like saying polar bears are fine. We shouldn't worry about climate change. There's a guy who's been bugging me on social media named Ivan Carter. He's got like 700,000.

and followers, but he keeps going to Black Bear Denz in Utah like we used to do. Yeah. And acting like they're just asleep. I think I saw one of his videos. And they're just like, he's done it a couple times now. And it's just like taking off. And in the comments he'll be like, oh, it's actually sedated. But like in his like video, he's like, look at this sleeping bear and stuff.

Yeah. Weird. Oh, I mean. Who's he with that sedating him? All right. Yeah, Joey. Yeah, no. All right, since we don't have any Instagram ones, we're doing one more Patreon one. This one's from Robin.

Robin says, non-animal question, what are all of your favorite hot beverages? Mine is chai tea with milk and a little honey. Hot beverage? A hot beverage. Mine would just be like a mocha. I love, I really like the taste of coffee, but I like to cut it with something. Oh, I thought you were answering yours. You were saying what they're.

No, I'm saying what... Yeah. Yeah. When you said... The Chite... Sorry. Robin said mine is chitee with milk and a little honey. Mine is like a nice mocha.

I like a nice hot mocha for sure. At public... Yeah, they have a good mocha. You know, I really love a... I thought it was pubic. I really love a pumpkin spice latte. Hmm. Never had one, but I do need to try it.

I've been really into Apple cider this year. I love good apple cider slaps. I need more than a mug. I need like a hole like a vat with a huge straw. One of the ones called friends. Like a huge hole like this big and I have to like stretch my lips to get around it. Very hot then. I've developed calluses.

If it's super hot, you don't want like a ton at once. I've singed all of my taste buds off. It's not the taste I like. It's just the texture. Okay. Quick conservation corner. Of all the big cats, again, this is the only one that's least concern. They're doing pretty well throughout their range.

There are spots where they are under a lot of pressure. For example, Florida Panthers are in a lot of trouble. 200 left? I don't know, the exact numbers, but they're not doing great out there. I did see that number. I'm not sure. Okay. The Eastern Cougar.

How's the hockey team doing that? They do great. Well, right. They're two in a row. Florida Panthers, I thought were doing great. Yeah, one, two and her. not um the animal is not doing great the eastern cougar was like extirpated so there's not many really west of the mississippi or sorry east of the mississippi but along their range in general they're least

concerned we don't really have a good number for them even because there are so many but there's probably not quite as many as there are jaguars but there are a lot of mount lions so so why is it the only cat that's least concerned. Because jaguar habitat is very fragmented and under a lot more threat than Pumas. Pumas are very good at like adapting to new habitat and living in a variety of habitats, whereas jaguars are a little bit more restricted for prey, for habitat for everything. So they are, I believe jaguars are vulnerable and mountain lions are least concerned. So, yeah.

All right. Oh, let's do a claw rating. Because we kind of haven't done this one for a minute, and we talk about this animal a fair amount. It pains me to do it, but I have to go nine instead of ten. Just because they're not even a top five favorite cat for me. Yeah. Which is tough because they deserve it. It's tough.

Yeah. Same logic for me, but I'm going even lower with an eight. I don't know. I feel like we've been letting these animals get off a little easy on these claw ratings. Me especially. Yeah. It's 10 for me. me. I love mountain lions. I think they're consistently dipping in and out of my number one spot

for the big cats. I think they're insanely beautiful. Again, I think they're like the consummate cat. I think they're just like amazing at everything they do. They're so beautiful. They're so efficient and they live in so many different places. I just love them. So they're a 10. Platinum 10. Are they top 10 animal for you? Probably. Well, wow. I don't know. That's really hard for me, but they are a tent claw animal. So, yeah.

All right. Well, thanks, guys. And thank you, listeners. If you are looking for more content, check out our Patreon. Jeff just did round two on beavers. Mike did one recently, too. It was great. I don't know what it was.

Yeah. I'm sure it was incredible. Me and Mike have been doing our mini, our horror movie show. on there too. It's a fun time. You're going to get a lot of extra content. You're going to get to interact with the tooth and claw community at large. It's really fun. So check out Patreon. If you'd rather just have it right in your Apple feed, check out our Apple Gris Club. They're both affordably priced and we think you get a lot of bang for your buck. For sure. All right. Okay. All right. Love you guys. See you guys. Bye. Bye.