Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - African Buffalo Attack - John Digby Bristow & the Tragic Price of Poaching

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

The African cape buffalo might not be the first animal that comes to mind when thinking about the most dangerous animals of Africa, but they are not one to be taken lightly. Jeff gives us the rundown on what makes them potentially so deadly, and Wes details the biology that makes them special. ~~ 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

Hello everyone. Oh, I stumbled that. Oh, I stumbled right out of the gates. Welcome to Tooth and Claw podcast. We have our wildlife biologist, Wes Larson, who loves bears. I sure love them, Jeff. And then I'm his younger brother.

I was his field tech. And I love cheetahs. And then we have our producer, Mike. And Mike loves lobsters because they're keeping each other's faces. Among other things, but that's really the main reason. Yeah. I like cheetahs because they're fast. West likes bears because they're...

The coolest animals on the planet. And Mike likes lobsters because they pee in each other's faces. Mike, among other things. Of all the animals we've talked about, this might be a hard question for you to answer. Of all the animals we've talked about, what do you think the one is that's grown the most in your estimation? Ooh, this might be a little self-aggrandizing even, but when I did the episode on Jeremy, rafts and learned everything that's going on with them. I think it might be them. I mean, I've always held them to be, like, unique and interesting, but I just love everything that I learned about them.

I feel like when we were in Africa, whenever we saw one, two, your eyes would get a little sparkly. You loved seeing your eyes. You, like, had to research them to realize they have long necks. You're like, oh, I've always heard this, but now that I'm, like, looking at the data, it's actually true. Yeah, I just pictured my like opening a photo of a giraffe and being like, whoa. You know what I extra liked about the drafts that we saw in Kenya is that they have those two osicones and they look like each little individual Frankenstein heads. They have like a little flat top. Oh yeah. Almost like the Caesar haircut dangling down over him. Oh, man. They're so cute. That's true. I was going to say cute. I don't know if that's the word. Yeah, they're cute. Why not?

Kind of like a friar tuck haircut too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I like that. No, that's a good answer. I like the Kenya drafts a little bit better. Me too. We had that cool experience where we walked in on some giraffes in Kenya too, and that was like one of our Africa highlights, I would say, that walking tour where we are surrounded by giraffes.

That was pretty cool. Mike, I'm starting to think you might be right about disc golf. You coming around? I mean, we went and my arm just hurts for the last two days. from throwing, trying to like get a couple extra feet of distance and I don't know, man. I think that's more just getting old. Yeah. My arm, I thought it was fun when I was playing, but now it's just like, that wasn't worth this.

You need some Tommy John, Tommy John's surgery maybe. Wes, you try benching 200 pounds one rep once. Yeah, I can't do that. And then getting out drove by a frisbee and see how. your pride feels. Yeah, fair enough. That's true. That's a very specific scenario you need to live out, but let us know how it goes, I guess. Yeah, we played the other day. It was fun. I might play again tomorrow. I'll have to ice up. Jeff's in Montana. We're having a nice time. Mike, we miss you. We wish you were here. It's nice to hear. And this is a Jeffisode that we're doing today.

Jeffisode. Have you seen social media's been saying a lot of if my name was jeff i would be using like jeff in everything no like that's jeffed up and like no jeff in way and stuff i've been getting sent that from a lot of listeners i feel like i was uh started using jeff episode before i ever saw those you know yeah true you coined that years ago you coined that a long time ago your algorithm points you towards any jeff content too oh yeah for sure a lot of A lot of Jeff's. But a lot of listeners send me that one. Yeah.

If I, if my name was Jeff, I'd be saying Jeffed up. That's Jeffed up all the time. Maybe we should make a shirt that says that. That's Jeffed up. I think we'd have like seven people named Jeff and maybe four of them by the shirt. Our real Jeff heads would do it. So today we are going to be talking about a new animal. and it's a pretty fun episode.

Wes is also going to do a more detailed story on this one. I have a group of stories that kind of link up with each other. But we're going to be talking about an African buffalo today. And when he says I'm doing a more detailed story, it's in a different episode at some point. Right. I'd put together. He's going to help me with the biology today. But Mike, what are you confused about?

Well, you said we're talking about a new animal. I thought those had been around for a long time. When were they invented? God just made this one. It's fresh out of the oven. Well, it's kind of like New Mexico. It's been around a while, but it keeps the name. True.

Yeah, it's exactly the same, yeah. The more you think about it. Like when we were in Africa and we saw these animals, they would be like, oh, that's new. Right. Like, huh? It reminds me in New Mexico is what we would say to each other. All right, glad we could clear that up.

A little bit about African buffalo before we get into it. First of all, it's kind of hard to, like, know what to call them, I feel like. There's just like a lot of, first of all, in America, a lot of confusion with buffalo in general because we call bison buffalo. And then the next buffalo that comes to our mind is a water buffalo. So then we think of like all other buffalo as water buffalo. And African buffalo are not water buffalo, but water buffalo just live in Asia. So African buffalo, there's like Cape Buffalo, but then there's also a few other subspecies. So you're not completely safe just saying Cape Buffalo either.

So I'm going to be saying Buffalo or African Buffalo throughout this episode. Great. They're actually one of the most dangerous animals. animals in all of Africa. A lot of people in Africa view them as the most dangerous animal. They'll tell you, like, actually, Buffalo kill the most people every year. And then they'll run into someone like Wes who's like, well. Yeah, I have a bunch.

I'm sorry to tell you, like, I know you live here. And, like, I have a bunch of biology stuff about that. He starts mansplaining everyone. I dug into the literature. But they probably rank around like third or fourth, probably closer to fourth. Probably closer to... If you're not counting...

7.30. Insects. Oh, really? You're in the right ballpark, though. Main players, though, are like crocodiles and elephants and hippos. Hipos. And snakes, yeah, yeah, yeah. But we were in Africa, and we went on a few...

walking safari things and people our guide was always just looking for buffalo like that's what they were worried about that's what they didn't want us to run into so like it is on people's mind out there they are very dangerous from what i saw they can they kill about 200 people a year in africa and west listen to west on it i'm just saying we'll get into all that motor can kill you so i have three buff boy facts before our first story okay So they're nicknamed the Widowmaker or Black Death, which, you know, that's pretty intense right there. That tells you all you need to know. Yeah.

What's interesting to you about that? Well, so Widowmaker, this is where my brain goes since I'm a certified gamer boy, but Widowmaker's like this really hot, sexy sniper character in Overwatch. And when I think about that juxtaposed with the image of like a big burly buffalo, it's like there's, like, there's. I'm not reconciling those two images in my brain very well because they're, I don't know, I don't consider Buffaloes to be sexy. But Widowmaker, I kind of do. And again, Westwood is going to do the biology. I just want to give a little bit about Buffalo before we talk about them attacks.

So number two is that they have four natural predators that will target them in Africa. Can you guys name them? Yes. lions, crocodiles, wild dogs. Mike, can you get one? Wild dogs. And hyenas. Yeah, Wes Gotemaw.

Thanks, Wes. And the wild dogs one, like, respect to wild dogs, you know? They're not an easy prey. Like, leopards and cheetahs won't go after them. Like, we saw a lion on one of our safaris that was pretty messed up from trying to take out a buffalo. Like, they're not an easy. animal to take down. Yeah.

And wild dogs usually just go for younger or like older or hurt buffalo. For adult buffalo, like really it's just lions and crocodiles that can take like strong adult buffalo. Everything else has to go for like opportunistically for like hurt or injured or young. Hurt or injured. Got it. Yeah. And then I think most people at this show have heard of Africa's big five of,

I think we've talked about it, but the Big Five was, like, first formed because of hunting, and, like, these are the animals. These are, like, the five animals you should be most afraid to hunt. And Buffalo are one of those animals. And, turns out, that has some good reason. Paradei present, Ojos with Alerjia and Picasson,

contra the gardener. And the winner is Paradei Extra Fuerte. To alleviate the piccasson of the eyes for allergy, That actua more rapidly and supera clarity of flownays at 1.24 hours. Faraday! Adelante! Okay, so October 2020, 64-year-old Mario Alberto Canales Nahar

is the current president. Yeah. And, you know, I kind of get it. In Mexico, they like to give the both parents' name to the kids. It's cool. I like that. Four names, you know. Yeah.

It's great. In 2022, he's the president of the Mexican Hunting Federation. So, you know, this guy likes to hunt. And Mexico, honestly, for hunting, as far as I know, it's not the best place. Like, not a lot of people are, like, traveling to Mexico for hunting trips. A lot of their wildlife has been depleted, so then they have a lot of conservation going around. It's mainly, like, your typical stuff, deer, whatnot. So I'm sure Mario being the president of the Hunting Federation kind of is itching to get something a bit bigger, something a bit more noreworthy than his country provides.

So he starts thinking of like what's a fun animal like that I want to hunt, starts thinking of a buffalo. Big Buffalo, member of the Big Five. So Wes, if you're in Mexico, you want to hunt a buffalo where's the closest place you can go. I'm going to go to Africa probably. Wrong. Argentina. Oh, really? Interesting.

No, he went to like a game farm in Argentina. Okay. It doesn't really count as like a wild buffalo, but there is a game preserve in Argentina that he went to where they were going to let him shoot a buffalo. Now, Mario should know better as the president of Mexican Hunting Federation, but he's a game. He didn't have permits to go shoot a buffalo there. He just paid them money to, like, go in there and let him shoot it. So him and his guide go to the ranch. They drive out, like, secluded area.

The guide leaves his phone in the vehicle. They walk out about a mile, and then they see a buffalo. And Mario starts getting set up. He has, like, a very powerful rifle. It's a 458 caliber. So, big old caliber. Yeah,

that's a lot of calibers. You're our gun guy. How big of a gun is that, Jeff? That's like double a 22. I can think of another Mario that could use that kind of firepower. He just goes around stomping guimbas. I wonder if he has permits to do that.

Shoot fireballs. That's true. You got me. I rescind all statements. This is funny to me that I don't get the mindset of a trophy hunter but I also feel like if I wanted a big African buffalo mount or skull or whatever on my wall like people are going to ask you about it and I would feel really dumb saying I went to

Argentina and shot this in a game farm like you would think you would want to at least shoot it in the wild in a place where they're native to it just seems strange to like just go pick one out at a game farm in a country where they don't even live it's really odd well if you're thinking it's not dangerous enough, you're wrong. It's not what I'm saying. And they find a buffalo and he's pretty close to it. But he starts

setting up and then he puts on like head gear or like ear guards, right? So that the noise of this powerful rifle doesn't deafen him. And he puts it on and the guy kind of starts thinking like, you know, we're too close

to this thing because they do have a reputation. And he tries to tell Mario, hey, maybe don't shoot this, but Mario can't hear him. These guys had gear on, he's getting lined up for the shot. So the guide pulls out his rifle, he, like, lines up as well. Mario takes a shot, instantly dropping the buffalo, thinks the job's done. The guide lowers his arm, and then the buffalo pops back up and charges straight at him. The guide had relaxed his position, so he,

he has to pull his rifle up really fast because they are very close. The buffalo's already like half the distance to them. He takes a shot without really aiming too much, hits it but doesn't put it down. The buffalo makes contact with Mario, rams him into like the side of, or like at the bottom of a tree. He rams him into the ground. Whoa. Falls over next to him but keeps ramming his head into Mario and crushing him. into the ground with as much weight as it can muster.

And this Argentinian guide shoots the Buffalo four more times, killing it. Mario had been crushed. He's not breathing. So he puts him on his shoulders, hikes him out the three kilometers to the vehicle where he can call for help. By the time help gets there, Mario's passed away. Wow. Wow.

So it is interesting. Like, that's what you want when you go, that's why people want to shoot buffalo is because of this reputation, because a buffalo can, like, kill you after you shoot it. And this person's obviously, like, a trained hunter. He should know better than to shoot a buffalo this close. But, like, when he saw it, he just decided to shoot it. You kind of get what you ask for a bit when you, like, if you want to shoot an animal that can kill you, and then, it kills you, it's kind of like, well, that's kind of what you wanted to shoot it for in the first place. But it is still sad, you know? Yeah, for sure. There's a reason that, like,

prairie dogs aren't the number one target for trophy on this. Yeah. Yeah, they're like four or five, I think, right? Yeah. It does make me, it is, it's easy to kind of poke holes in his strategy and criticize, but it's like, this is the kind of activity where you forget to do one thing, Or like you, it just slips from your brain to like, you lower your gun before you should or before the kill is truly confirmed. And it's like, that's how thin the margin of error is. It can just flip so fast and literally lead to your death. It's funny in an ironic kind of way because this dude was the hunter of hunters, it sounds like, in Mexico. But it still is just, it's a telling story of how quickly things can go wrong when you're getting up to this kind of activity.

You know, it speaks to, like, how impressive animals are, too. Sure. Because we have this crazy technology. We have insane intelligence compared to other animals. And we still sometimes struggle to kill something like African buffalo. Like, he had, like, a very powerful gun. Yeah. And that actually is something I want to bring up, too, is, like, they are a difficult animal to hunt also because they're,

horns cover most of their skull. Like, a headshot when you're hunting buffalo just isn't a good idea because there's too much horn, there's too much like hard material that you have to get through and it can like ricochet off of the horns. So it's pretty much you're just going for heart or lungs when you're shooting at them. And it's easy to like miss into their stomach where they have a ton of compacted grass because they eat a lot of grass and that can slow the bullet down. So you have to be really precise with your shot.

Head shots are really the only shots that instantly kill an animal. I mean, it's not the only one, but the only one that, like, for sure, like, you can take it down and not be too worried about it getting up and charging you. Right. With, like, a longer heart shot, there's still a risk that before it dies, it's going to come at you. Shot to the heart. You know that song, less. I do. I just ran through my hat.

So I also have another story of a British man working on a private reserve in Zimbabwe. His name was Owen Lewis. Is Owen Lewis? Spoiler. Oh. I hate those. And he's 67 and he was a guide. So an American went out there to.

That's not the number. I see what you're doing, though. It's only like two away from it. That's funny, Jeff. So, nice. Someone named Alan Bunn came out to shoot a buffalo, right? Uh-huh. So they go out there, they're lined up on one,

and this American takes a shot and doesn't hit it in a critical kill spot. So the buffalo runs away, injured but not killed. So Owen, he's a pro, Owen Lewis, Owen Lewis, Owen Lewis and he's like Obviously still cares about the animals so he doesn't want an animal Like most all hunters still care about animals they don't want like a long suffering death No one wants that It's kind of bad form if you're a hunter and you like do a bad enough shot that the animal

Takes a long time to die you're not like you're not doing a great job then and they like want a quick clean kill good hunters do. Right. Well, and he was the guide, so he's not taking the shot, but I'm sure he's kind of frustrated that this person he's guiding didn't get the critical shot. But like I said, like Buffalo's a hard animal to take down. So he tracks it for three days, like following this blood trail,

just like keeps following it. He's like determined to make sure this animal gets put. put down because he knows it's been shot. And he's walking by some pretty thick brush, and he's actually right next to Buffalo, but doesn't realize it. So this buffalo burst through the brush, throws him in the air, rips him open with its horns, and then crushes him with its feet and kills him.

Wow. Whoa. Oh, man. His kids, he had a kid in the United States and New Zealand. They came out to Zimbabwe for the funeral. It's where he wanted to be buried. It's like where his heart really was with the animals is Zimbabwe. But people who owned the ranch said, like,

that he's a man who has forgotten more about Africa and hunting than the younger professional hunters will ever learn. Like, he just knew a ton. He was, like, a real expert in it. And it just goes to show, like, even the best are in danger when you're targeting Buffalo. because Buffalo, another thing about them is like, I'm going to let you get to it soon,

but especially when they're wounded, their amount of danger that they pose to humans, if they're wounded, it increases exponentially. For sure. Yep. So that's like their natural instinct. First, it's to probably run from like lions or whatever, but like if they're severely wounded,

it's to turn and fight. As the crispy 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. Quiet, no. Krispy, saucy, and $4? Very. Only at 711.

Valley 36-2326, participating stores only while supplies, Lastly, out for full terms. Wes, let's hear a bit more about, like, the buffalo biology before I get into the other stories. Yeah. So, like Jeff mentioned, African buffalo is the name of the species, but there's five different subspecies in Africa.

The Cape Buffalo being the one that's most often thought of when you talk about African buffalo. It's the one that you usually see on safari in South Africa or Eastern Africa. And they get to be really big, too. They can be up to 11 feet long, 5 and a half feet tall at the shoulder, and almost 2,000 pounds, the biggest ones. So what NBA player would you compare them to? I don't know. I probably wouldn't.

I'd say they're more of a football player than an NBA player. They're very, very big, but that's a great question. I'll think about it. It wasn't in my notes. They do have some sexual dimorphism. Females tend to be a couple hundred pounds shorter or smaller than the males. and they are the fifth biggest mammal in Africa. So what do you guys think are the four?

Sixth when your mom is there. Sorry, Cindy. What are the four that are bigger than them? Elephant, African elephant. Giraff? Yes. Rhino? Yeah.

Can I do two rhinos? No. And hip-boh. White and black rhino? Good job. Oh, that's a good. So those are some species. Yeah.

So yeah, in order, it would be the biggest elephant, then rhinoceros, then hippopotamus, then giraffe, and then Cape Buffalo. So they are quite big. One of their most distinctive characteristics, oh, go ahead. They're pretty similar size to bison as looking at, right? Yeah, and bison are like our biggest land mammal. So it just shows how big mammals are in Africa. This is the fifth biggest. Jeff mentioned one of their most distinctive characteristics,

and it's that they have these huge horns. Both males and females have horns, but males are bigger, and with males, they have these fuse bases that go across their forehead, and that continuous shield of horns is often referred to as a boss, which I think is a really cool name for horns.

Yeah. Another cool thing about them, buffaloes have bigger hooves in the front because of their huge shoulders and their heavy heads with their horns, they need more absorption, shock absorption in the front. So they actually have bigger hooves in the front than they do in the back. They tend to drink about 40 liters of water every day. So there's a saying in Africa.

Damn. Yeah. If you're around African buffalo, you're within a day of water because they have to stay within a certain range of water because they need it every single day. They have a really interesting group behavior. And it's kind of like a voting behavior almost, where when they're resting, females will occasionally stand up and kind of shuffle around and sit back down again. And they all sit in the direction that they think the herd should move next.

And after they shuffle around, the more females that are pointing in one direction, that's the direction that they're going to move. And it's like not a dominance thing or a hierarchy. thing, it's just kind of like voting. Like, hey, which way should we go next, which is really cool. They can travel in huge groups up to 2,000 animals. Those groups are often called herds, but they can also be called gangs, troops, or an obstinacy. Which is a cool name for a group. I like that, actually, a lot.

Caves often suckle from behind the back legs, which allows them to suckle while they're on the move, which is pretty cool, too. That's not typical for, like, usually they kind of saddle up to the side of the mom. but they can actually go from behind the legs. Yeah, you suckled from the side. Yeah, I, yep, but you suckled from behind. All right. So Jeff mentioned their predators.

Really, it's lions and crocodiles that kill adults, wild dogs and hyenas, and then occasionally a leopard or a cheetah can take down young or weak in Buffalo. But the main four, like Jeff mentioned are lions, crocodiles, hyenas, and wild dogs. Okay, and something that you brought up, Jeff that I had in my note, which was great was those nicknames. I think the Widowmaker nickname, we talked about it a bit already, but I think it's especially telling

of the danger these animals pose and to the specific people they pose danger to. Widowmaker makes a lot of sense because it's usually men that are killed by Buffalo, and it's usually hunters. And that is, goes back into that discussion we started of the difference between dangerous and lethal.

From the research I did, Buffalo don't kill that many people compared to all these other animals that kill people in Africa. So what I tend to do when we're talking about one of these African animals that have these legends about them is look at papers from the countries

where there's the most of them. And I feel like in those countries, that's where you would expect then to see the most deaths because there's a higher number of this animal. So I looked at a few papers, one from Tanzania where there's the most Cape Buffalo of any country in Tanzania. And there's a paper that they do every few years that just highlights all of the human conflict

from every animal in the country. Tanzania has a lot of deaths from animals, a lot. And they don't even talk about Buffalo in this paper because there's so few deaths attributed to them. and the ones that are, it's always the person harassing the animal first. So someone either has a bad shot or it's like a conservation filmmaker or something maybe that's like kind of rustling in brush that they shouldn't be in and they surprise one. This isn't an animal that targets us or that we're not sharing resources like with elephants where they come into people's crops and then they trample someone or something because they're trying to run them out of their fields.

That doesn't really happen with these guys. The person is almost always the aggressor when a buffalo decides to attack. And that's why they're insanely dangerous, but in these circumstances that we put them in. So it's like if you were to be tracking an animal on foot that's injured, this is probably the last one that you want to be doing. Yeah, go ahead.

I would say, but especially. in situation because I think they're still dangerous even without if we're hunting them. Yeah, but only at close proximity and only if you push them. Like what I'm saying is that they don't put themselves in situations that are dangerous to us. We always put ourselves in those situations. So like if you're just on safari in Africa and you're doing it right, your chances of having any problems with Buffalo are like essentially zero. but you could have an issue with an elephant.

You could have an issue with the rhinoceros. But that's not going to happen with this animal. They just don't, if you're being safe, they're not going to bother you. It's kind of like bison. Everyone that gets hurt by a bison is pushing that bison in some way. I think bovines in general, like even bulls, we talked about the running of the bulls. Bulls aren't just going to like run out and charge you. You have to like put yourself into their space for them to do that.

And then if you're hurting them, they become like, like the most dangerous animal on earth where they're just like a freight train that you can't stop and I think with Cape Buffalo it's even more so because they are just like built in such a way that they're hard to kill. They're vengeful, which is pretty crazy. Like if you hurt a buffalo or if you kill like one of the members of their herd, they actually had been known to like follow that person or try and like get revenge on him. What if you like their wife dies and they're,

you kill their dog, what do you think they'll do in that situation? Then, yeah, they turn into John Wick. Exactly. Yeah, that's bad. You don't want that. That's a lot of the stats of it. So I found one other paper that I thought was really interesting. It's from Mozambique, another place that has a lot of buffalo, a lot of human wildlife conflict.

They did a study over 27 months in the 2000s, and there's 265 people killed by animals during that time and 82 injured and the number one was crocodiles they killed 134 people next was elephants 31 people lions next with 24 then hippos of 12 then buffalo with one

so they are dangerous but and I and I like you brought up earlier I have to be that person that's kind of like when people say they're the most dangerous animal but I do think We, that's not like other countries that just do that.

We do that in the U.S. too. You know, when you bring up a Wolverine, people say, oh, they run grizzly bears off kills. They're the most dangerous animal out there. And it's like, well, they're actually not, you know? And I do think those myths are easy to pass around, and they're always based on a nugget of truth. And Jeff's stories are highlighting that, that if you put this animal in the right conditions, this is the most dangerous animal in Africa. but it's almost always humans that lead to those conditions. I'm thinking probably the myths, if you want to call them, that are perpetuated by the fact that it is an animal that people often hunt and that by necessity puts them in the line of danger.

It's not like people are hunting Nile crocodiles necessarily like they're hunting buffalo. So there's like the encounters differ in such a way that I think the stories that get past. and shared around or just different by nature. Exactly. You know. That's what I was saying earlier. Like lions and crocodiles, those are animals that occasionally target people. They go out of their way to get a person.

Elephants are constantly in conflict with people because we share resources. This is an animal where there really isn't that potential for conflict at the same level. So that's why we're not seeing a lot more deaths from Buffalo. But when they are in conflict, they're incredibly. incredibly dangerous animals. Yeah. And I do think, I don't know, I would, I'd be interested to see what your numbers would say in Zimbabwe, or like the area we were actually just in Victoria Falls area.

Yeah. Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Because like, I think that where there's the most Buffalo, they also have like the most space. So they don't really, like a lot of these upcoming stories, they. They're in, like, smaller spaces where poachers will go through the fences. They'll get through the fence. And then they'll be in, like, areas of people in close proximity and they'll attack people, you know? Yeah.

Those countries that you just listed to are the, like, countries where they're hunted the most heavily. And so I think a lot of the accounts you're going to see from Cape Buffalo are going to come out of South Africa and Zimbabwe, especially. I did see some stories, too. of just like kids walking to school killed by Buffalo, stuff like that. Sure. And I think it's interesting too that while we were there, and this is definitely more anecdotal than empirical evidence, but whenever the conversation turned towards Buffalo with any of our local guides, it seemed like those were the animals they were most scared of out of anything

else in their area, you know? It was really interesting to hear. I think though, like a really interesting thing about Africa in general, like the these safari countries in Africa that we've gone to recently is that a lot of the information that has kind of trickled into safari guiding comes from hunting you know like even the big five sure like the big five originated in hunting and that industry has turned in Africa from and i keep saying africa i know that's like it's a huge continent i mean like these safari nations that we've gone to that have a lot of safari industry that the industry has gone from

hunting and it's turned into wildlife viewing. And a lot of that information is carried over. And that counts like with dangerous animals too. So I do think, you know, like crocodiles aren't as interesting to tell people like that's the animal that kills the most or snakes. Like it's not as interesting to say, yeah, you know, 30,000 people die from snakes. But if you were to put me in a cage match, like I'd much rather be in there with a puff adder than I would a Cape Buffalo because they are more dangerous.

You know, so that's kind of where I'm at. Yeah. And to go along with what Wes is saying, I have a few encounters with poachers who, you know, are asking for a little bit. Like people like Wes was saying, putting themselves closer to these animals and putting themselves in danger. So in 2012, there were people in South Africa in the Kruger National Park who wanted to to go poach fish from the river with gill nets, which is illegal because you can get too many. You can deplete the fish pretty fast. They were going to the river and they stumbled across a lone buffalo.

The animal immediately charged and injured one of the men, so the other three carried him away, but left him under a tree to get help, and once they came back, he had died from his injuries. So that was one little story, but another one. this year in Kruger National Park some poachers went in and they were targeting Buffalo so they were poaching Buffalo they were trying to kill Buffalo

for the meat for the like selling whatever like you know poachers can make money from everything but yeah so they went and they shot the Buffalo the Buffalo charged and killed one of the four people in their group but they were there

illegally poaching poaching laws have gotten a lot stricter in Africa. So their friends didn't know really what to do. This friend of theirs had just died. So the three people went and left him by the fence and went to his family and said, hey, like, he was just wandering around over there and he just died. Like, they didn't have a good lie.

Yeah. Oh, no. So then the family went and got him and they took him to the undertaker. And he was just like... him. Yeah. And he was just like, wait a second, like, this guy didn't just die. He has like a ton of bruises and like gashes and like broken bones.

So he immediately called the police and was like, this looks like he was killed by a buffalo. And the police went and found the three friends and they had to go to jail. I don't know. He just died. That's what happens when you die is all your. bones break and you have huge, like, wounds from internal bleeding. Yeah. Most of all my stories so far, they've gotten some hits with the horns, but they've

mainly died from being crushed by the buffalo. So here's two different cases of how people died from Buffalo. So in Victoria Falls, which is where we were at, someone was watching a big group, or his cattle, a 38-year-old named Given, and he was like, looking after her to cattle when he says that he came across a buffalo. The buffalo charged him and ripped open his stomach with its horn. And he had to like grab its two horns and just like hold on for dear life. Yeah.

So it already like gashed him and now he's just holding the horns. The buffalo keeps coming at him and then eventually it disengaged and left. And he gets up and his intestines. come out of his stomach. So he takes off his shirt, ties him back in, and walks to the village, goes to the hospital,

gets some help, gets patched up. But then, unfortunately for him, like, he had to go to the hospital, and things didn't really add up with this story. And they found out that he was watching his cattle, but when he saw the buffalo, he decided to poach it.

He decided, I'm going to kill this buffalo and need it to me, which you can't do. Nope. You're not allowed to do that. And he knew that he'd get in trouble, so he made up the story that the buffalo just attacked him for unprovoked. Also, in 2008, a 35-year-old woman from Chimpingi, she was just walking around to gather firewood for her family. and there was a buffalo in the bushes where she was going next to that she didn't see. The buffalo attacked her, ripped her stomach open, her intestines fell out. The village had to come get her, try to help her, but she died before she could even get to help for it.

Yeah. Man. Usually when your intestines come out, it's not good. 50-50 from what I'm seeing. Really? Wow. That's better than I was good. Two stories.

Oh, yeah, yes. Oh, yeah. It'd be a good story if you ever, like, got to see your intestines and then you survived. Like, who gets to see that? Just stuff them back in and, yeah, yeah. It's crazy. You get to know your body a lot better than anyone else. For sure.

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Get the alerts that could make all the difference. Save up to 40% your first year at LifeLock.com slash special offer. Terms apply. All right, so those are like some smaller stories, and I'm doing a lot of small stories because, honestly, a lot of these Buffalo attacks are pretty similar. Pretty underreported.

Like there's not a ton of detail. You can find a bunch of articles on it, but they all say the exact same things. But I thought they were all interesting. And I have one last one of someone who was like very revered in Zimbabwe, kind of a local hero who died just 11 months ago. So his name was John Digby Bristow. Well, he had a privately man. 32,000 acre property with like a bunch of animal habitats on it.

I think that's like kind of, I would guess like the size of Massachusetts. Like around that. How long is it? From what I saw. 32,000 acres. Yeah, I think Massachusetts is a lot bigger than that. I saw a bunch of like things that were being very confusing about it. Okay.

Yeah. It's a thousand times smaller than like Arizona. or something. I was like, what? Like, it's hard to... Weird comparison to... Anyways, this person who owned it, he was very into conservation.

He was very into, like, Zimbabwe as a whole, making a better place for tourism, making a better place for the residents there. Zimbabwe has a lot of controversy right now about white Africans and black Africans and just how they are... how the white people of Zimbabwe have kind of taken advantage too much of the black citizens.

And John was a white African, but he was very much on the side of like helping the black citizens of Zimbabwe, giving them opportunities. And one of the things he is most famous for in his life became kind of a local legend because of his contribution to an establishment called the Mengpongue. Trans Frontier Park. So it's this huge section of land that Zimbabwe, Botswana, and South Africa created together for like the wildlife to have all of this range

between the three countries, which is pretty rare in Africa. Like, when we're in Kenya, one of our guides even told us that Tanzania tried to block off part of the migration to just keep the animals in Tanzania. A lot of these countries do try to limit, like, keep their animals in their country. There's not a lot of cooperation sometimes. Yeah, so these three countries are really cooperating.

And it's something that I think is very important for Africa as a whole to kind of get behind this idea of these borders don't need to pertain to all the animals. To Africa's credit, they do have a ton of animals. They have done like a great job of preserving what they have. in my opinion, but there also can be a lot of steps for progress. And this was a big step. And John was a key part of it because he put his land into this agreement. Again, too, I think like when we say Africa, we're painting with like a very wide brush because there's so many different countries there and they're vastly different.

But I think like there are some really, some countries that have done a really great job with conservation there, especially like in East Africa and Southern Africa. Yeah, I mean, there's a reason so many people travel to Africa to see animals. They've like preserved a lot of their animals, you know? Yeah. So he also hosted something is a really famous bike ride called the Tour del Toulis, which like is a mountain bike adventure that's 300 kilometers. So it's like this huge, like you go through South Africa,

Botswana and Zimbabwe and he would like set up camps on his land and host the group and Is it like a competition or is it just kind of a tourist kind of attraction? It's not like the tour to France or anything. That's more like a like go mountain biking with like they do do it in a group but I don't think it's competition. I think it's like you want to go mountain biking on like Slick Rock and Africa with wildlife. And another cool thing, so his land they owned was called the Sentinel Ranch. Another cool thing was it has like a lot of dinosaur fossils.

And instead of like digging them up and selling them or whatever, he preserved them. He like encourages locals to come on his land and see them. That's cool. That's awesome. Yeah. And they were pretty cool dinosaur fossils. So yeah. From what I was seeing, he just really more than anything.

wanted people to love Africa, love the wildlife. You could knock him a little bit because he did have hunts on his land, but I think pretty much every privately owned, like, game reserve type of situation and most of these countries do allow some hunting. And I didn't see too much about the details of that. But yeah, so John also had a lot of problems with poaching. He understood that there were a lot of... of Zimbabweans who weren't as fortunate as him,

but also just like his main priority was wildlife and conservation. So he was very, very against poaching. Actually worked with the national leaders of Zimbabwe to get heavier fines on poachers and to enforce more punishment on poachers. He thought, like, too many people are getting away with poaching, too many people who are caught. poaching don't have any repercussions. So he really helped a lot to get poaching to be taken more seriously and punished more harshly.

Which is great because we were there and like we saw a lot of the side effects of poaching and it's not great. Like the painted dogs in Africa like really struggle from poaching and their knives trying to get painted dogs but that just wipes them out. obviously he had very strong anti-poaching in his blood, right? And in December of 2023, John and his wife Vanessa were patrolling some of his rented land, and they saw a buffalo who had been caught in a gin trap. So do you know what those ones are? I don't think so. Those are like the metal claws that clamp on a leg and was like heavily limped.

limping and wounded. So then John was like, we got to help this animal. This episode is brought to you by Netflix. Most valuable promotions in Netflix are hosting a blockbuster triple headliner Saturday, May 16th. Rhonda Rousey returns to face fellow woman's MMA pioneer Gina Carrano in the main event. Plus co-main's Nate Diaz versus Mike Perry. And the best have you wait in the world, Frances Nganoe versus Felipe Lins. Watch Rhonda Rousey versus Gina Carrano, live only on Netflix.

Saturday, May 16th at 9 p.m. Eastern Center time, 6 p.m. Pacific time. Okay, so John sees this Buffalo. It's struggling to walk. His blood is boiling a bit because his lifelong battle with poachers. They've been taking about 30 animals a month from his property, mainly in Palos, but also some, what are they called? Elon? Elons. Elons and kudos.

Yeah. Those are all cool. And he said that groups of 30 men would enter the property with dogs and big spotlights. And he had a lot of land. He would try to patrol it, but it was hard, especially the rented properties. And they would use huge spotlights to temporarily blind the animals and then kill them. And then they would use donkeys to haul them out of there. Like I said, though, he's had a lot of animals taken off his property.

He's worried about his predators, not having enough prey. He's worried about everything. So this just gets his blood boiling. He wants to go and see if he can help this buffalo, see if it can survive. So they drive up. He exits the vehicle. He approaches the buffalo. He gets about 30 meters away when the buffalo turns and charges.

And he has a gun ready. He shoots at it, but head first, it's hard to kill it. so doesn't kill it, the buffalo makes contact with him and starts crushing John. He tries to, like, crawl out from under it, but the buffalo keeps crushing him into the dry African earth. And it's, like, very hard ground when we were out there. So then Vanessa is watching in horror as her husband, who's, like, meant so much to this land, is being crushed before her eyes. So then the buffalo ends up crushing John to death in front of her.

She goes and gets help. They kill the buffalo. They recover his body. The whole country, like the president, the vice president, everyone's been mourning his death because of how much he meant to like the tourism of the country and just everyone around him. And like it all could have been avoided without poaching. Like poaching really just does such a number on some of these. places, you know.

Sad. It is really sad. It's so sad because, like, he lived his whole life serving these animals, you know. And I don't blame the animal at all. Right. But, yeah, it's just sucks. Yeah. Like to what Wes was saying, every, so I told, what, six stories, seven stories,

but, like, every story except for the lady getting firewood, they're kind of asking for it, you know? They were going into, like, the buffalo's area. They were hunting the buffalo. even John, like, it's unfortunate. His intentions were great, but he shouldn't have got 30 meters away from an injured buffalo, you know. Do you guys having questions about Buffalo, any of these attacks?

No, I think I was at a conference once where I heard a story told by a survivor of a Cape Buffalo attack. And that's probably the one I'm going to do when I get to these guys at some point. Super harrowing. and I think it's hard to underestimate or overestimate the amount of damage an animal this big and this territorial and defensive can do to a person in very little time. And when Jeff says like crushing, they use that like that boss on their head just to like push people into the ground and just pulverize them. So like I think when we see horns we think, oh, pointy, sharp kind of, you know,

but they also use those as like a crushing implement. So these are animals that are built to a level where they can repel an adult African lion attack. We just are no match for them. So this is a very intimidating animal. And it's crazy, like having been to Africa, like what was really eye-opening to me is just how much lions do impact that entire ecosystem and environment. and like there's areas where they'll kill adult elephants which is insane and so like these buffalo are always kind of scared so like they're they're big enough that they can do a ton of damage to a human and then like they're in environments where they can never really be

relaxed so like yeah always a bad combination you know yeah yeah we touched on this a little bit earlier, but when we were on safari driving around, every once in a while we would come across one of these bosses from a deceased buffalo. And it's pretty shocking how thick and substantial and hefty they are. They really are so cool. But like imagine just getting crushed down into the ground by just this skull that's inches thick, you know, at its thickest part that's really, really intense. And like, I think of your mountain goes. I think of your mountain a story you told Mike where like the mountain goat killed someone with how sharp its horns were but like mountain goats don't have a ton of weight on them this is 2,000 pounds this is like

yeah thousand to 2,000 pound animal with sharp horns that can like slice you open so like yeah it's just insane there's definitely on the short list of skulls that I would want from an animal Like if I could have one that just died naturally or whatever, this is definitely one that I would be very interested in having because they're really cool-looking skulls. Yeah, they really are. Okay, so let's go into our categories then. Let's go.

Favorite pop culture buffalo. I had a hard time with this one because I didn't want to include it like a bison. So I picked the movie Crocodile Dundee. I can't remember it's the first one or the second one, but there's a scene and I think Water Buffalo got introduced to Australia and some of them are feral or wild there's a scene where there's like one in the road

in front of him and he walks out and goes like and like puts his fingers out and does this thing and the buffalo moves off and I feel like it's kind of implied that he's kind of like with the people in the car too like that he didn't actually do anything he knew it was just going to like walk off but it's I just remembered that scene I always thought like man

crocodile dindy's so cool so that's the that's the one that I thought of when you asked I had a hard time too I came up with a couple answers that aren't specifically the animal so I came up with the Buffalo Sabres they're my favorite hockey team and then the opening track on Foliad de the Fallout Boy album my favorite one of my favorite albums ever is the disloyal order of water buffaloes. It's a great track. I love it. All right.

Yeah, no, I mean, I just went with Josh Allen, but, like, I feel like that's not a good answer because, like, he's more of a bill and a buffalo bills. And, like, it's a bison reference. Yeah. Exactly. That's true. I feel like Africa has some, like, buffalo mascots and, like, teams and stuff, but I'm just not very familiar with it.

in America doesn't really have. I mean, I think it's a gaping hole, you know? Get some Buffalo representation. Yeah, let's go. There's some animated movie. It may be like one of the Madagascar ones or something where there's a Cape Buffalo that gets really angry and I can't place it. So if anyone out there listening thinks of it, I have this image of it like steam coming

out of its ears and it like attacking something, but I can't remember what it is. I wonder if Netherlands have any Buffalo stuff Because they kind of have like the Dutch boy They look like a Dutch boy haircut with their horns When they like turn to the side and have the middle part and stuff Yeah It's kind of a reach Yeah

Yeah maybe Okay your favorite buff guy This one man I I'm starting to hate doing this But it's a reference you Neither of you will really get It's from full metal alchemist It's Alex Armstrong, a character that's beloved by everyone that watches that show.

I would encourage everyone to give it a try. It's just an amazing show, but he's like my favorite character in that whole show. I had to pick Arnold. Have you guys ever seen Pumping Iron? Of course, yeah. It's so funny. It's so funny. And like early Arnold when he was just a bodybuilder, he's so cocky and funny.

and like weirdly open he just like says everything like that whole part where he talks about like how bodybuilding is the same as being with a woman but he says it much more graphically he's just so funny and such a legend that it's got to be

Arnold for me I have to pick him yeah no that's the best pick I'll go with Bain and Batman oh yeah she's a great buff boy it's tough super buff I was, you were merely accepted the darkness.

I was born into it. Something like that. All right. Favorite pop culture moment of someone who's severely wounded, just like going crazy. I can start on this one. I went with the raid, the raid redemption, one of my favorite movies. Oh, Wes had it. Mad Dog, was that going to be years?

Uh-huh. They crossed my mind. break the glass and stab him in the neck and he just like is fighting two people at once by choice for some reason and then he just like gets even harder to kill after they like almost kill him type of a situation yeah my mind immediately went to mad dog and the raid too it's just the best fight because he just gets like so beat up and he still just like keeps fighting and you think he's going to beat two people he's just like so tough. Yeah. So it was hard for me to think of anything else. But I can, I'll just say like John Wick in the, I think the third one where he travels to Morocco and gets his finger cut off and stuff. I feel like that one he gets really messed up. The more he gets beat up, like more dangerous he is. Yeah. So I'll say John Wick. Yeah, I had a tough time thinking of anything outside of the raid. This is like a real moment of synchronicity between the three of us. But I know this doesn't

quite match the category completely, but that moment in Punch Drunk Love when he gets in the car accident and he gets out and beats all those punks up that hit his car with the tire iron, it's like Adam Sandler's character has been so kind of nebish and shy and not proactive at all. And then he just finally like snaps in that moment. And then he's like right back to his normal self after he gets done beating him up. He's not like severely injured though, which is why it wasn't a great match. I feel like Dominic Tureto Like when he gets shot

He's like way more dangerous Yeah you just flinches And then like goes and kills the person that shot him Another one that I just thought of is Levi From Attack on Titan Oh yeah I feel like he there's so many scenes where he gets like really cut up Or messed up and he just becomes even more lethal and dangerous

Yeah I feel like pretty much every anime character That's yeah I thought of like a hundred, but I was like, I can't do two anime references in one round of categories. Like, Luffy has fought so many bosses now, and every single time he's, like, died before he beats him. Right. All right. Let's do cage match. And I wanted West to kind of run us through it.

But first of all, I wanted to know what do you think, bison versus African buffalo. African buffalo. Like you said, they're about the same size, but they... They have like that helmet horn thing. Yeah, the helmet horns, they're just so... And they're more... I think they're, like, more defensive than a bison's going to be. Like, bison have to be prepped for grizzly bears is pretty much it.

And wolves. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Is it because with especially buffalo, because, like, they're... predators are kind of low to the ground. Is that why they toss people up in the air a lot of the time? I don't know. Because bison do it too.

And they kind of just like get their heads under enthroma. Both these animals have really pronounced powerful shoulders and necks. And I think it's just like a... There's like the leg guy meme where it's like the people at the gym who only do upper body. Yeah. Skip leg day. But I think I think what you hinted at earlier just bison have a few natural. predators and they definitely have to constantly be wary of them. But it's hard to compare anything to what animals in Africa have to deal with when it comes

to predation. It's a constant threat. And a pride of lions is pretty much more dangerous than anything else out there. So I would just say this is a highly defensive animal that's really built for combat. And bison are too, but the horns on the, I think the horns on the Cape Buffalo give it the edge. I will give, like, to give Cape Buffalo its credit, too, like, a lot of the times if, like, it's very rare for a lion to take an adult Cape Buffalo by itself. Yeah. You know, like, they need to group up to take one out.

So, like, in a cage match versus a lion, it, like, has a pretty good chance of beating the lion. Yeah, they, like, this is a one-on-one. It's a prey item for lions, but it's a highly risky one. It's not like taking down a zebra or a wildebeest or something. They have to be very coordinated and very careful when they go for a buffalo because they're incredibly dangerous animals. What about against like a moose? You think they'd be able to take a moose? Yeah.

Really? Yeah. What about a grizzly bear? I'd give it to the buffalo. Like an adult male. Oh, over grizzly bear. Yeah, even a bison. Like a big bison is hard for a grizzly bear.

So would you say Cape Buffalo are kind of like... Buffalo. At the top of the ungulate food chain, like as far as like cage match is concerned. Well, elephants. No, because like, yeah. Oh, elephants are ungulates? I don't think elephants are ungulates. I guess I get confused on ungulates. They're pachyderms. I don't think, I don't know if packaderms are ungulates. That's a good question. But I'm pretty sure rhinocerces are and hippos are. I'm trying to, now I'm like blanking on whether or not they're ungulates. But yeah, I think for like bovines. So like any of the ones that are

That's more the word I was trying to think of. Yeah. I'd probably put them at the top. That's cool. The one that I think is a really good match for them is the gar or guar or whatever they are in India. Those huge buffalo in India. Those are cool.

Like that video of one turning over a truck makes you think, okay, these. So you kind of think a one-on-one match, they beat pretty much every predator. A single predator? Because like polar bear and tiger Kind of even for the top predators, right? Yeah.

I just think like the difference between a tiger Or an adult male African lion and a polar bear Is that tigers and lions are adapted and evolved To hunt like big dangerous prey Where polar bears are mostly going after seals And stuff that doesn't fight back at the same level. So I think a polar bear would sort of struggle with something that's this dangerous.

Whereas a tiger or a lion kind of know like, I have to dispatch this. I have to like bite its throat. I have to like attack its haunches. So I would, that's why I would say like a tiger or lion, I think are the two that I would think match up as predators best against a buffalo. Got it. The buffalo would be like, not my haunches.

Ouch. Oh, my haunch. Is what they'd probably be saying. It'd be like, you know what? I don't think I like getting my ass eaten. Yeah. It probably crosses their mind, yeah. A little overrated, you ask me.

Wes, you got a random animal effect? Yeah, do you guys know what tardigrades are? Yeah, the little, like, aqua bear things or whatever they call. Yeah, they're often called water bears. They're little microscopic creatures that look like little worms that kind of look like bears. They're kind of cute, really. Yeah, they are. Anyway, they're considered by many to be the most durable animal of any kind of organism on Earth.

They can survive in temperatures as high as 149 degrees Celsius or as low as negative 272 degrees Celsius. Oh, geez. And pressures six times more intense than the bottom of the ocean. So people think that they could survive in space, like in the, you know, the vastness of space. Wow. Yeah. And they can go more than 10 years without eating as well. So this is like, this is probably the most durable animal on Earth.

Huh. Cool. That's really cool. Yeah. She do a cage match with them. Yeah. Yeah. Them, but like a nuclear arena.

Yeah. So how much do we like African buffalo? We should shout out Garrison, too. He came on our trips, and he was just relentless that we had the audacity to suggest they shouldn't be in the big five for tourism. Yeah, he loved Buffaloes. He did. Really quick, a quick conservation note on these guys, too. They're considered near threatened, and I think that's just because their population numbers are dropping.

But there are a lot of them. I think estimates are around, like, 500,000 throughout Africa. but some of the subspecies like the forest buffalo and the other ones are pretty threatened. But as a group like African buffalo, they're near threatened because populations are decreasing. All right, my claws, I would give them seven claws. I think for ungulates, they're really interesting. I think when we saw them in Africa, whenever they like lift their head up, you're always like, whoa. That is an impressive animal, especially when we were in Nairobi National.

Park, that first one that we saw that had the huge horns and the boss, I think all three of us were kind of like, these are bigger than I remember them being. So I, yeah, I give them seven. For an angular, that's pretty high for me. I'm going to go with a six. I think they're really cool. It's a really interesting experience I've had with them, though, because I usually am not, well, I'll just explain that, like, my favorite of the bovine family that I've personally seen, I just keep thinking back to the bison that we have, like, up in Yellowstone in the States. And it's like, yeah, these are cool, but, man, I just think the bison are so much cooler. And I don't know why I feel that way.

These look more like cows and bowls that we see. A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. I agree for, like, similar reasoning. I give them a five, and it's mainly just like, I do think they're very cool. But, yeah, I just think bison are like similar size, but super hairy. I don't know.

They're just like very pretty. The buffalo kind of are just like one solid color too, you know? Bison kind of get like different shades of hair. I don't know. Buffalo kind of look like oversized cows with cool horns. Yeah, I think you guys talked me into dropping them to a six. I'm a size. Not like a cute cow either.

Like cows can be really cute. I don't really think buffaloes are very cute. No. Yeah, I would agree. Yeah. They're almost like discervaging cows. The horns are sweet, though. So their horns are amazing.

The horns really bump them up a whole like three points. I'll put them on like my top four skulls. Okay. Yeah. A good skull. Yeah. That's a good, yeah. Good exercise.

All right. And then do you have any subscription questions? Sorry, guys. I'm a little behind on subscription questions, but me and my mom are kind of putting them together. So we'll get some subscription questions in upcoming episodes. Okay. And I have a few Instagram ones. So Lex Not Luther 96 asks,

You can't use any of the original cast members Who are you casting for Lord of the Rings? Oh, geez. Yeah, that's hard. We can do it as a group. Assign us each a character. I'll go Danny DeVito for Gimley. Well, we have some casting what-ifs we could try

like Nick Cage as Erdogan. Let's go, baby. I knew you would say Nick Cage. Who was it? Sean Connery for Gandoff. Gandalf's so perfect. It's hard. I know.

That's the thing. Like, we've been asked this before. And I feel like never have I seen a movie where they nailed the casting so perfectly as this movie that it's hard. That it's hard for me to even consider other actors in these roles. It's really like, it's tricky for me. I can't. It's hard.

And like you'd want it to be like, you wouldn't want like Brad Pitt in it because that's like. No, it's too distracting. You don't. Yeah. So I don't know. I think. I'm going to recuse myself from this question because I just, I have a hard time thinking of anyone else.

Okay. Brendan Fraser is Erdogan? No. Dude. Oh, I would love that. Sometime I'll put some real thought into this, because I do think there's an answer there. We should do. We should do a big category.

We can leave it in you, but we'll come back to it. Yeah, we're going to be doing a Lord of the Rings marathon pretty soon here, and that'll be a good time when we talk about that. Sav Simpson-West wants to know in like natural disaster. Like, for example, the hurricane that hit North Carolina. How much is wildlife in North Carolina affected? That's a good question. I can't speak on it with, like, any authority.

But what I would guess is that animals, like birds that are building nests and are using trees pretty extensively, it's probably pretty, like a pretty substantial effect for that. That's interesting because I almost feel like birds, like my brain says like, oh, Birds will be fine because they're like up in the trees, but all the land animals are in trouble. I think I think the animals that are probably doing the best with it are like aquatic ones because it expands their habitat and stuff. But also for them, like... But even them, they like get lost and then that dries up and then you're just like on Main Street, you know? Well, also like riverways create all this great habitat for them over time.

But then when a ton of water comes through and just pushes all that out, suddenly those rivers aren't very... like conducive to all the animals that have used them for habitat so I'm going to take back that I think it's pretty destructive for probably every animal but some of them probably adapt a lot better to it than others but I again I can't speak to it than any bears do good because they like find a bunch of like fish on the ground and and bears are really really like plastic adaptable animals when it comes to the different things they can use so yeah I don't know that's a hard question. Okay.

Alyssa Nicole 7. If you could start your own NFL team, what animal would you pick is your mascot? I'm going to go with the cheetahs. It's good. Yeah. And I'll cheat too. Oh, would that be good? Do you like some deflate gate kind of stuff?

Yeah. Overinflate the balls, maybe. That's what Brady said. He wanted them all the way inflated. I want to go with like an insect. So like maybe like the mantis. Mantises. I'd be kind of fun.

I think I'd want to do a snake. So like maybe the vipers. Oh, yeah. I don't know. That sounds like an AFL team name for some reason. It kind of does. It sounds a little too, like, sexy. Yeah.

Yeah. But that's what I'm picking. All right. Okay. Well, thank you guys for giving us questions. Thank you for listening. I hope you have a great holiday season, you know, remembering Jesus. This is a baby.

Yeah. A couple really quick announcements. Again, Jeff put together some really cool designs for us or from different artists on our merch website. That's tooth and clawmerch.com. Some really cool. Do you order when this comes out, you can still get it by Christmas. Yeah. Some of our cool stuff that we've ever put out, I think, is on that website right now.

So check it out. And then one other thing I wanted to say really quick. before I forget, because I forgot last time. I forgot to mention in our 399 episode, I got a lot of really great information from a friend of mine, forgot to credit him. He didn't care, but I felt bad about it. Tyler Brazington, who is a bear manager working in Grand Teton,

really helped me with some of that information, making sure I got things right. So thank you, Tynd. Yeah. What's that remind me of? I don't know. Brasers? Oh.

there you do. Also, Jess Hadley, who works there, helped me out a lot too. So thank you to the two of them. That was really, really helpful. Thanks, guys. Yeah. Oh, and last thing too. One other thing we've mentioned around the holidays, you can gift our Patreon subscriptions now. So if you're interested in kind of an out-of-the-box, a good gift that keeps on giving to someone, you can go to Patreon and there's like a little gift symbol or something. I'm not exactly sure how to do it. I'm not sure if I'd call it out-of-the-box. I'm not sure if I'd call it out-of-the- box to give someone a shirt. That's pretty like in the box. What am I thinking of? Like a different gift. Like a, you know, not typical gift. Yeah. To give someone a subscription.

Maybe we'll make some neckties to give to your dad on Father's Day next year. Really out of the box kind of stuff. Another out of the box gift. Me and Wes are both on cameo. And honestly, we're like, we do make money from it. But we're not like so much in it for the money as much as like we wanted to able to give people who love tooth and claw messages. And like, so far we've had pretty good response.

So if you need a Christmas message or want a gift one to someone, like, I genuinely love being able to like have some form of communication with our listeners. And this is just like very organized way for me to do it. So yeah, go on there. For Christmas, I'm ordering one from both of you. I don't know who that gift is for. I guess it's a two-way street. Okay, well, we'll stop shilling stuff.

Thanks, guys. Happy holidays. Thanks, Jeff. Love you guys. You're going to do in the episode. Love you. You're welcome. See ya.