Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - Animal Attack News Roundup - Hank the Tank, The Ukraine Zoo Extraction Project, and More

Episode Date: April 4, 2022

Another roundup of animal attack headlines that have popped up over the past month or so that we thought you'd all be interested in hearing about. Jeff also helps us to understand the hard reality of how the events unfolding in the Ukraine are affecting their animals and zoos. ~~ 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

Hey, everyone, welcome back to another episode of Tooth and Claw. It's another Animal Attack News Roundup, and that's really all that needs to be said. So we hope you enjoy it. Let's do it. Tooth and Claw! Hey, everyone. Jeff coming out the gates strong. What are you feeling so chipper about?

Yeah, why are you so excited, dude? Oh, man, just happy. The trees are finally blossoming, and it's just nice of that. You know? I'm glad you're happy. Mike. What's up? You got a new car.

Yeah. How long did it take? you to get it once you like... It took about five months, so they built it completely in Japan, which means technically I have a foreign import right now, which is cool to car people, I guess. I don't know. It doesn't really... It feels exactly like my old car just because it's another Honda Civic.

So I get in it and I'm just like, well, here we are again, even though it's like 14 years newer. Yeah, you had your old car for a long time. How fast have you gone in it? I've gone over. Over 40. Nice. Okay.

How quick does it get to that? Depends on if I have econ mode on or not. Nice. I'm still not exactly sure what that does. Hey, we're proud of you though. Yeah, thanks. If you guys, if money didn't matter, what do you think your primary car you would drive would be? I'd want a big decked out sprinter van.

Oh, like one that has like a bed in it and a stove and all the little accoutrements. A lot of room for activities. Room for activities. That's like what you would drive around town. Uh, maybe. If it was just like a drive around town. That's a good answer. I would just want like something electric.

Yeah. So I was going to pick. How about you, Jeff? Would you go lifestyle the rich and the famous? Dude, I'd probably want a BMW. My last car was one and it's such a fun drive. But like I always got speeding tickets because I could never, I never realized how fast I was going. I got like 72 speeding tickets.

Old Ledfoot Larson they used to call you. Do you guys ever look down on Larson's that spell their name E.M. Instead of Owen. I think it's mostly just that they're like Swedish or something, which I look down on the Swedish. Yeah. That's your ride as a Norwegian. Yeah. With that 72 speeding ticket thing, it reminded me Mike and Wes.

We worked for that event company, Alpine Event Rentals. Yeah. You guys both did a little for them too. That's right. Every once while. You remember that guy who told me that. He had been in 105 car accidents. George.

And he would like get in car accidents on purpose. I love that guy. This is the weirdest lie anyone's ever told me. That is very strange. Hey, so last time we talked, we were gearing up for the Oscars, which ended up being kind of a weird Oscars. Yeah. Can we do a little correction corner? Because I erroneously stated that nothing could ever be more dramatic than the La La Land slash Moonlight Fiasco.

You were wrong. Yeah. wrong. It's been talked about like to death, but I do think we should just bring it up really quick because it was pretty crazy and we just did an Oscars episode. So Will Smith slapped Chris Rock. What's you guys take? I think more celebrities should be slapping each other. Oh, wow. Slap away. Good entertainment. You guys are here to entertain us. I just, yeah, and I kind of feel like they don't matter to me on like a personal level. And the way I see it is like he got so mad that Chris Rock made fun of his wife.

But in my mind, that's the trade-off for becoming a celebrity. If you're going to get rich and famous and you're going to be like on screens and in the public eye and make like hundreds of millions of dollars, people are allowed to make fun of you. What about your wife? I don't care. Whoa. If it's like in that way, if it's like in an Oscar show where people get roasted and that's

just kind of what happens. Yeah. Yeah, maybe I'd be mad. I'd probably be mad and like maybe later if I ran into Chris Rock. I'd be like, hey man, stop making fun of my wife. But like, I don't care that they got made fun of. And I also don't care that he went up and slapped Chris Rock. Yeah.

It doesn't matter to me. It was great entertainment. And I get that like some people are traumatized because they had like violence growing up and everything. And I don't have that background. So I can't understand how that feels. And that sucks. But in my mind, a comedian got slapped for going over the line, you know. I felt that same way.

I was pretty excited when I first heard about it because I was like, oh, wow, Will Smith really, like, putting the bad boy's money where his mouth is. But when the detail came out that he was laughing at the joke at first and then, like, he saw his wife got mad and then he, it was just a little weird. That detail to me kind of fudged it up, for me, at least. And I don't know. Maybe we should say, like, a blanket statement, tooth and claw, we are not pro-battery and assault, because that's what it was at the end of the day.

But I don't know. It was just a really interesting and entertaining moment that we'll just, we haven't ever seen before and probably won't ever see anything like that again. It's crazy. I think he was just embarrassed that he was caught laughing at such a stupid joke that's raised way too many times. This is a bad joke. I'm glad they didn't kick him out is my biggest take because it's probably, like he's been in our lives as an actor for so long. and like, he has a great career as an actor, and it would have just been so crazy

if he was kicked out of the Oscars the night he won best actor. Did you see that he resigned? Yeah, I don't know. He resigned from the academy. I don't even know what that means. That means he can't, like, vote anymore or like... He doesn't get screeners, I don't think. Yeah, he's like...

No more Coke-filled orgy parts. Probably doesn't get the $140,000 gift bag they give everyone. I just, like, I agree with you, Mike. Like, we don't support. support assault on this podcast at all. But at the same time, like, if I'm walking down the street and I see a dude slap another dude in that manner, which I don't know if I've ever seen, I wouldn't be like, oh, that dude needs to go to jail or, you know, whatever.

I'd just be like, whoa, that guy's pissed, you know? And I've, like, I've been punched a bunch of times. I know how it feels. It's not fun. But it's also just like, that happens sometimes. And I don't know. I think it was very entertaining. I think people can say things where they deserve a slap like that.

Totally. Sure. Yeah. It was honestly the worst jokes ever, and then he's like the highlight of the Oscars. It truly is probably going to be like the best thing that ever happened to his career. His shows are sold out right now. Yeah. Yeah. Like all he has to do is mention this and people are going to like give him a standing ovation.

I was reading a Reddit thread that was like assuming Chris Rock wants to like go into what happened. What should his opening joke be? Uh-huh. And my favorite was he just walks out in a neck brace. That would be great. My favorite part of the whole thing were the celebrities that were just like really going hard on it. Like Judd Apatow saying that he could have killed him. Or like Jim Carrey saying you would have sued him for $200 million.

These people, they're just, they're so on a different planet. And that's why it didn't matter to me. I was just like, they're both going home to hundreds of millions. millions of dollars they're both going to probably make more from this it doesn't matter i think it hurts will i think it helps chris i don't know if it will hurt him and in the long run i think it just serves to make him more famous but maybe it will i don't know who knows yeah but to me it was just like very entertaining and i'm sorry if it traumatized people that sucks and like i don't want that to happen to anyone but in my like personal opinion i was just like well this is this is great yeah

finally there's something interesting people people my I think we're getting like sidetracked here, but this is an attack podcast, you know. Yeah. It was truly the most boring Oscars I've ever watched up until that point. So, good for that. So thanks, Will. You were watching it live? Yeah.

It was weird because they bleeped out, like, some of them swearing and stuff. So I thought it was just like a bit or something. And then when I watched the video and him saying like, keep my wife's name out your fucking mouth, I was like, oh, he's pissed. Like you could see his eyes like he was mad and I was like okay This is real all right It's been talked about like ad nauseum for a week now But now you have our take you got our take and I think it'll be a different take than what you've been hearing most of the time Yeah

I don't know I read plenty of people that were just like this doesn't matter Daniel Radcliffe had my favorite response to it he was like I'm so bored Bored by this that for me to add my take would just add to the boredom And it's like, wow, okay. All right, well, anything else we want to talk about? Some animal attacks. Yeah, sure. Yeah, probably some animal attacks from the news.

Yeah, all right. We can do that. So it is our fourth episode. Every fourth episode we do our news roundup. And we kind of... Is that how that works? Yeah, that's how... Jeff's just now catching on.

It's kind of a thing that we created because so many people would send us stories and there's stuff happening in the news that we noticed to and like we didn't want to every episode be like interjecting those little stories because it kind of gets us off track. I mean, we just talked about Will Smith and Chris Rock for like 10 minutes. We get off track pretty easily. So we just decided that we would kind of compile all those stories into one episode

every like four episodes. And that's what we're doing today. So some of these stories are from like a few months ago, but they're still relevant in our minds, so we're still talking about them, right? Every day. Just can't stop talking about these attacks. Well, maybe I'll go first

because there's one that I think since our last news episode probably got sent to us the most, and I kind of wanted to start with that one. Do you guys mind? Yes. Jeff minds. Okay, Jeff, you can go first.

No, I'll let you. No, I'll go first. So I'm going to talk about Hank the Tank, finally. Oh, yeah. Oh, Hank the Tank. Such a good name. It is a good name. I don't know.

I disagree. We're getting off- It's low-hanging fruit. But anyone named Hank or Frank is just going to be called the tank, and I think they probably are tired of it. Only if they're huge. Yeah. I don't think that even matters. I actually don't.

I don't think his name was Hank, and then they called him Hank the tank when he got big, though. I think it was Hank the tank from the beginning. There you go. So if you don't know about Hank the tank, since last summer, a 500-pound bear has been breaking into home. in the Tahoe Keys area of Lake Tahoe, and he's breaking into homes to get food. Hold on. Let me say why that's like crazy, though. It's a 500-pound black bear.

Black bear, which doesn't normally happen, right? No, so average weight for a black bear in the western U.S. is somewhere between like 150 and 300 pounds. When me and Jeff were working with desert black bears in Utah, our biggest bear was about 300 pounds. But average for us was like low one hundreds. So a 500-pound black bear is a very big black bear. And we're going to talk about that a little bit. But he would go into people's homes.

He would sometimes eat food straight out of the refrigerator or out of their pantries. And no one had been able to deter Hank. So this guy for California Fish and Wildlife, Peter Tira, he said that they had tried to haze the bear with paintballs, with beanbags, with sirens, with tasers. But he was so keyed in on human food that. any of these hazing operations didn't stop him. They would like sometimes immediately stop him, but sooner or later, you know, within a day or two, he's back on it. So as of late February, when this story kind of hit the news and everyone learned about Hank, residents had called police over 100 times about Hank causing trouble and he had broken into 28 different homes. He used his

really big size to break through garage doors, through windows and just through normal doors too. and he was given the name Hank the tank by local residents. It's got to be a world record. Yeah, that's got to be up there. It's also, yeah, bear world record. Do you think they have their own little Guinness Book of World Records? They should. Most honey.

That one polar bear that swam all that way? Yeah. So it's also thought that Hank didn't hibernate at all this winter because he was getting so much good food he didn't really need to. And we've talked about this before, that hibernation is an evolution thing in bears that they've evolved to hibernate because they lose their food sources during the winter. And if bears that live in places where they have food throughout the winter, if they live in those kind of places, they often don't need to hibernate

because why hibernate if there's still food available? So that's the case with Hank. They think he probably didn't den or hibernate just because there's still plenty of food. All right, so they tried to trap Hank. They didn't have any luck trapping him. And then they actually started to about euthanasia, about removing him. Oh. And that met a lot of resistance from the community because a lot of people saw Hank as somewhat of a local hero. And when they had this trap out, people even spray painted bear killer on the trap.

Yeah, like they loved him. Okay. They spray painted what? Bear killer on the trap because like they thought they were trying to trap him and kill him. And that leads me to believe that had they actually trapped him, someone 100% would have let him out, which happens. Don't ever do that. Don't ever open a bear trap because sometimes they come out of there.

There's a bear in there. Yeah, exactly. So they talked about other options. They talked about relocation. They talked about taking him to a sanctuary. But I wanted to talk about those other options really quick. If you have a bear that's that food conditioned, relocating them is just moving the problem. So unless you can find a spot where there's no way that bear is going to be able to get back to a community,

it's going to find another community and it's going to repeat those same behaviors in that new community. unless that community is like totally bearproof. So relocation for a food condition bear can work, but it's it usually doesn't. You're usually just moving the problem. As far as taking him to a sanctuary, he's a black bear. There's 800,000 black bears in the country.

They're not a really like high value animal for sanctuaries or zoos because they are so common and there are so many of them that get into trouble. So it's really hard to find a good sanctuary or zoo or Wildlife Rehabilitation Center or whatever for these kind of bears. And it's not one that you could also like rehabilitate and then release because in a rehabilitation center, whatever, they're going to be feeding it and it's just going to keep those same behaviors. So they had all these different options.

They were talking about killing Hank when this thing came up that Hank was spared because they found DNA in these different homes where he had been breaking and entering. And they ran the DNA. Did it DNA of bears? They ran the DNA and they found out that it was actually three bears instead of one. And if you will see, especially in places like Tahoe, the bears there, they vary in appearance, but they do kind of all have a very similar appearance. Like they kind of, a lot of the bears in Tahoe are kind of this dark chocolatey brown.

They're pretty big. And so they just probably had three massive bears that looked really similar and people couldn't tell them apart. and they all thought that it was Hank. So they were like, oh, okay, we can't kill Hank because there's actually three bears and we don't know which one is Hank. But in my mind, it's like,

well, now you've got three bears that are breaking into people's homes. You have three times the problem you thought you had. You got to strike them from the bear book of world records too. Yeah, exactly. In their mind, it was like, we don't have a problem anymore. I just don't think they thought they could target Hank

and kill Hank now because they weren't sure he was responsible for like all of those incidents. They were set on getting Hank. Yeah, but at the same time, I'm going to talk about that decision whether or not to kill a bear in a second. But in my mind,

a threshold had kind of been crossed in this instance. And we're going to talk about that a bit. Wireless can feel like a world of traps, but not with visible. It's one-line wireless with unlimited data and hotspot. Powered by Verizon for $25 a month. Taxes and fees included. Plus, for a limited time,

new members pay just $20 a month for one year on the Visible plan. Using the code Fresh Start. Refresh your wireless with Visible. Tap the banner to switch today. Terms apply, limited time offer subject to change. See Visible.com for plan features and network management details. There's this organization in Tahoe called Bear League. It's run by this woman, Ann Bryant, and they're a nonprofit, but they're permitted

to manage a lot of the Bear incidents in Tahoe. And some of these people that reported on this interviewed her, And she said the following. She said, he just sits there and eats. He doesn't attack them. He doesn't growl. He doesn't make rude faces. So she was like trying to defend Hank by saying those things.

And that's a little concerning to me because I don't think the bar for like a management decision should be whether or not the bear is attacking someone in their home. Making faces at him. Roof faces at him. Yeah. Like in my opinion, breaking down a door to get into someone's home is reason enough to take. action. And I wanted to bring up Night of the Grizzlies. I know it's a completely different species with completely different behavior. But remember, in that story, they knew about these problems. They knew about these bears that were food conditioned. And they had the same kind of

excuses. They were like, well, they haven't attacked anyone. They haven't heard anyone. And then they did. And then it was like, shoot, we should have done something. And another thing I wanted to bring up is like, we did a news episode not long ago in the fall where we talked about a woman in Tahoe. where a bear broke into her house, was in her refrigerator, and then mauled her when she came down to check it out. If you guys remember, she was recovering from cancer. Yeah. And the bear ripped the shit out of her.

Like, she got mauled pretty badly. So it's not like these bears don't ever attack people or hurt people. They're still bears. They still can. I just think it's important that we talk about this a little bit more, and I want to talk about food conditioning a little bit more, and the difference between habituation and food conditioning. So, Jeff, do you know?

the difference between the two? Well, I guess I don't know habituation that well, because I know food conditioning is just them getting accustomed to eating human food. Yeah, so habituation is more when a bear becomes used to human presence. So, like, in Yellowstone, we have bears that will hang out on the roadways, and they're not scared of people stopping their cars and taking photos or anything anymore. And that's habituation. Like, the bears have become used to our presence.

we don't necessarily scare them anymore, but they're still more or less acting like wild bears. They're eating wild food sources and they're doing wild things, but they're a little bit more used to our presence. That's habituation. It's kind of a gray area in bear management and bear science. It's not necessarily a bad thing. It's kind of a scary thing.

We're not really sure how to feel about it yet. Food conditioning, on the other hand, is almost always a negative thing. And that's where bears get really used to eating human food, anthropogenic food. So like not just trash and donuts and stuff, but also like bird feeders or chickens or anything that is something that we put out in their environment and they eat. So when a bear becomes food conditioned, it starts to take really big risks because the rewards outweigh the risks. And that bear is going to stop acting like a bear does in the wild.

And it's going to start doing whatever it needs to do to get that kind of food. And that can be charging people. It can be attacking people. it can be destroying property. They just start acting like bears don't typically act. And they become much more unpredictable. So it's not a good place for a bear. I was going to ask in the case of like Hank the tank,

why don't they just fly him out to like the middle of nowhere and just like leave him there? But if their food condition, would that mean like basically you're consigning them to death? Not necessarily. I mean, if it was like a cub that was raised getting human food and then as a adult it got human food, yes, that would probably happen. But if it's a bear that just recently made the switch, then it'll be fine once you release it somewhere. But to your point, in the lower 48,

the furthest somewhere is from a road is like 25 miles. Like we don't have true wilderness anymore. A bear can cover that distance in like a day. So even if you dropped him in the middle of the Sierra Nevada's, he could find a community pretty quickly. I'm not saying he would, but he could. And again, like, the other thing with that is like, there's so many black bears,

is it worth the tens of thousands of dollars or maybe even more to like fly him out, you know? And that that's more of a moral discussion than anything. But something else I wanted to say is this food conditioning thing, the thing that people don't really think about is that it presents a really big liability for wildlife agencies and organizations. Because if they have a bear that they know was a problem bear and that bear ends up hurting or killing someone, those people like the family of those people or that person, can sue the agency, and that ultimately takes funds away from that agency that they would be using

to protect and manage wildlife. So it's a really bad deal, and it's like something they have to remember that they have a huge liability when they leave those animals out on the landscape. And then, like, in my opinion, I just don't think bears belong in trash cans and like in our alleyways and stuff. It kind of makes them stop being bears to me. To me, when I see a bear out in the wild, like if I'm out fishing and I see a bear or something, it's a very different experience than when you're like driving through downtown Tahoe and you see one rooting through a dumpster. It's just like it's not the same.

Yeah, so. The thrill is gone. Yeah. So I read a comment. There's a Facebook post by the police in Tahoe and they were talking about Hank. And this is a comment from one of the residents. Please stop considering euthanizing Hank the tank. He's made national news.

And although a nuisance and rabble rouser for his human neighbors, he's already got a huge supportive fan base across the country, save Hank. So this is also kind of a new phenomenon where these bears become celebrities because the news reports on them. And then they have this national fan base that's supporting them. And that also really influences decisions when you're talking about maybe removing them. In my mind, the thing that needs to be done in Tahoe, because this is a continuing problem for them, is they need to bear-proof their community.

Like every single resident needs to have a bear box that's bearproof. They need to have penalties for people that are leaving their trash out overnight or bird feeders or whatever kind of attractants. And they just need to be a lot more on top of bear proofing because that stops these kind of things from ever happening in the first place. But, and this might not be a popular opinion, my personal opinion is that if you have bears that are breaking into dozens of homes, you have to remove that bear. and it's like I know people don't love that opinion and I know like I love bears more than honestly probably 99.9% of the people in this world probably more than that but like I just people who take it too far. Yeah I would hate to ever have to kill a bear so far I haven't had to but like I think these residents are ultimately responsible for this but if this bear were to kill someone it would be really

bad for every other bear in that population. Yeah. So to me, it's like if you have to kill three bears, I keep saying this bear, but it really was three bears. If you have to kill three bears, that's tragic and terrible, especially because they're so beloved by the community. But it's much better than everyone hating bears in that entire community and the wildlife agency's not having money to manage the population.

So I think you got to remove them. Wes. Yeah. Why don't they just put human food up in the tree? where the bears should be, and then the bears will just have the food up in the trees. So I know you think that's kind of a silly question, but they actually did that in Tahoe. They had a year where there was like very little natural food, and they started placing supplementary food sources out in the woods for bears to get.

It was mostly apples, I believe. And that for me is like another gray area. I'm not totally against that. And I do think we've altered their landscape so much that sometimes we need to help them out. But you got to do that before they become food condition, not after. Just like where Walter White throws the pizza on his garage, just start doing that to other trees? Yeah. Anyway, that's the story of Hank. I think it's a really nuanced one, even though it doesn't seem like it may be a lot of people. It's not, I don't love taking that position that

I hate any time I feel like a bear probably needs to die because it's always the people's fault. It's not the bear's fault. But in this case, I do kind of think. think that's the only outcome here. But we'll see. Yeah. We'll see how it develops. And it's not like the people are acting maliciously. It's just out of ignorance.

They're like, hey, bears are cool. It's fun that we have a nice one, a seemingly nice one in the community. And they just kind of let things spiral a bit too far out of control. And it just seems like it's going to ultimately it will end badly for one party or the other. You know, like we can't wait for that to happen. I don't know. I'm not a bear expert, but I agree with you. I just said it's true, but like as far as like them not being malicious, you're right,

but it is a little ignorant because it's like you live in bear country, you need to protect your attractance. Like you can't leave your trash out overnight. You can't allow a bear to get into that because then they start breaking down doors and stuff, you know? Yeah. And then you can't stop it. No, they love kicking indoors. Yeah.

If Hank and these other bears had never gotten that reward in the first place, then they would never think about breaking down someone's door because they're still afraid of us and our food still isn't worth that risk to them. But once they realize it is, then it's like, fine, I'll break this window, you know, whatever. I want some food. Yeah.

Anyway, I've rattled on about this. Have you ever kicked a door in, Jeff? No, I've tried. It'd be pretty cool. If you learned you could do it, you'd want to do it again. It's not like the movies. Yeah, you got to go like by the door handle, I think, is where you're supposed to.

Isn't that Jumanji taught us that, right? I don't know. Really? I don't know where I learned that one. All right. Well, that's it for Hank the Tank. Who's up next? I'll go.

Should I do a short one or a long one? Whatever you want, dude. Okay, I'll start with a short one and I have a longer one coming up. Cool. Okay. Okay, so this one happened in Florida, and John Hopkins had just started a new job. Ooh, the famous doctor. He's 59.

I know him. Uh-huh, yeah. A new job. Wow. Career shift. And he was. one mile away from home when he hit an 11-foot alligator in the road causing him to veer off the road yeah in his car all right it's an important detail yeah so it caused him to veer off the road

the car flipped and he ended up dying along with the alligator oh jeez they both die yeah wow so i guess the road's pretty dark at night and like you just don't expect you're like i'm sure like you look for deer and stuff, but you don't ever really look that low for like an alligator. Yeah. 11 foot alligator is a big alligator. Like you would notice it. Yeah. And honestly, there wasn't a lot more to the story than that.

But I did see, this is a random stat. It kind of goes with it. 185 people died in car crashes involving an animal in 2019 in America. So this one doesn't count towards that. but that's actually less than I would have thought yeah yeah read that number again 185 oh that's really it that seems low but I don't that seems very low I would have thought like couple thousand but I believe that's what I was watching someone on the Florida news who said okay okay so that's my source yeah I was driving in New Orleans once and I saw an alligator in the

road nearby of New Orleans and they're pretty noticeable like you see him it looks like a big log laying in the road. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I want to ask what your guys, like, scariest incident in a car was. Mine is that cow in Mexico. I was, like, I was driving in Baja, Mexico, probably doing, like, 65, and the roads there are really narrow and dark. And I rounded a corner, and there's a whole herd of cows in the road. And I had to, like, swerve. And I just missed it by, like, inches. Yeah. It was so scary. I think about it all the time. Mike?

So my sister told me that there might be a spider egg and a bunch of little spiders running around my car because she saw like two spiders once. And I made fun of her at first, but I couldn't stop thinking about it for a long time after that. Just worried about spiders crawling around. What's yours, Jeff? My cousin, Brent, fell asleep while we were driving. And he always drives all over the road. He was like kind of driving towards the guardrail. and like I didn't say anything because that's what he always does.

And then he starts getting like super close to it. I'm like, whoa. And then we're about to hit it. I'm like, whoa! And he wakes up and just fish tails the truck and like we're going to drive off the road towards the river. And then he fish tails it the other way and just like fish tails it five different directions until we like skid it to a stop. But that was pretty.

So scary. It woke him up though. Yeah. Yeah. You said this place was steps from the water. We just haven't found the steps yet. How much did we save? Enough.

Enough to get lost. Or you could book a stay with Hilton. Welcome to your ocean front room. Just steps from the water. The Hilton sale is on now. Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises.

It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. day. All right. All right. Well, Mike, you got a story for us? I do. This is a kangaroo attack. That happened in Australia, of course, since that's really the only place kangaroos live. Right, Wes? It is. Yeah. So this was in New South Wales, and it was a three-year-old... I got some kangaroos coming up that aren't Australia. All right. Well, they're from Australia, but maybe they don't live in Australia anymore. Should we just skip right to yours then? Because your son's pretty good. This is a teaser.

Okay, so mine happens on the back porch of a family house where a three-year-old toddler, a little girl, there aren't exactly like a ton of details about what the kangaroo did to this girl? Hey, Mike, another teaser. I got a story with a three-year-old girl coming up. So just so, you know. My story is redundant before any of them have even been told. Anyway, this kangaroo messes up the little girl and she ends up having to get airlifted to a nearby hospital. and... Wait, how's it messer up?

Yeah. I think we need some more details there. There aren't like, what does a kangaroo do? Does it just like jump on you or does it bite? It has like claws on its feet, right? Yeah, they kick and they have claws. That's their main thing. They can box, right?

They can also grab onto you. Yeah, or they can grab onto you with their, like, arms and they can claw you up pretty good there too. Suplex? But mostly it's their feet. Their feet are their main weapon. Right. So probably a combination of those things. Are you guys satisfied?

Okay. No. But go ahead. So this three-year-old little girl maybe got put in a headlock, scratched up. There were severe lacerations to the head, the back in one of her arms, it says. And there's a guy, his name is Ian Temby, who's he's been working for the Department of Environmentland, Water and Planning for like 30 years. He said, and this is just kind of like general advice is to what to do in the event of a kangaroo encounter. He said, if you're standing up, the kangaroo can kick you with its hind feet.

and that can pretty much rip you open. It's extremely dangerous, he said. And it kind of made me rethink the clips of, you know, when you see a kangaroo lean back and, like, kick with its feet. Yeah. It, like, kind of looks a little comical almost even, but it made me re-contextualized just how dangerous that can be. If, like, you know, they both have some pretty narly clause.

Yeah. Yeah, we're going to do a kangaroo episode soon. Cool. And they're, yeah, they're pretty gnarly. He said, he added, what you were supposed to do, what you should do is, crouch down, back away, get away, get a bush or a tree or something else in between you and the kangaroo. They typically don't chase you too far. So anyone out there who may or may not be getting into it with a kangaroo, that's what you should be doing. And this actually occurred,

a little bonus kangaroo. I don't know if you can call an attack. It's a kangaroo story, but a girl, a teenage Australian girl, was riding on her dirt bike about a week before this attack took place. All of a sudden a kangaroo jumped at the front, wheel of the dirt bike and just like totally cleared her off the bike. And she had to spend quite a while in the hospital recovering from, um, from the wounds from that little encounter. But she credits the protective gear she was wearing that it wasn't a lot worse. So if you're ever in Australia, just here's to protective gear. Strap on a helmet. That's the official tooth and claw advice. Just wear a helmet wherever you go. All right. Well, thanks, Mike. Yeah, we're definitely going

to do a full kangaroo episode soon because I feel like we're missing that. All right. So my next one is also an Australia attack. It's a shark attack. We mentioned it in our last great white episode, but I think we need to get a little bit more into detail on it. Unfortunately, a fatal attack. It happened in February. It's the first fatal attack that's happened in Sydney in the last 60 years. And it happened near Little Bay, which is a really popular beach for residents of Sydney. So the victim was Simon Nellist. He was a 35-year-old diving instructor. He'd grown up in the U.K.

He was in the military. He did two tours of duty in Afghanistan for the British military. And then he visited Australia and he fell in love with the country and the country's wildlife. And he moved there with his fiancé, Jesse Ho. They were planning on getting married in 2020. The pandemic ruined their plans. Apparently they were only weeks away from getting married when he was tragically killed by this shark. which is pretty terrible.

Yeah. The attack happened off Bukin Point. I feel like that's better than like a week after you're married though. Yeah, I think that's, yeah, probably. Maybe, I don't know. I guess I don't know. I can't say that. Yeah, maybe not.

I think from like a legal standpoint, it probably would have been a lot better had they been married. I think it's bad. I don't know. It's bad. I don't know. Anyways, it happened off of Bucan Point, which is this like popular fishing area near this beach.

And a great white shark attacked him from underneath while he was offswain. swimming in a wet suit. It completely breached out of the water and then it slapped back down into the water with him and his jaws. Several eyewitnesses witnessed the entire breach. They said it looked like a car coming out of the water and then slapping back down into the water, which is kind of interesting that I feel like our frame of reference is always just like it's a car. Like anything big is just a car and it's like, well, it's also a great white shark. It looked like a great white shark shooting out of the water. So there's also a fisherman fishing off that point and he saw the shark then pull Simon underwater and then the shark began to thrash around

and splash side to side and the water turns red and another fisherman actually recorded a video of that part and that video is available. Did you watch it? I did watch it. It's grainy. You can't really make out too much, but you can see clearly like a red spot in the water and the shark thrashing around. It's pretty, it honestly, it made my stomach turn.

Like I don't like watching those kind of videos where someone dies because it's, It's just too much. It's too personal. It's like too big of a thing. But I did feel like I needed to watch it just to have some more context. And it made me feel pretty gross. So the eyewitnesses also described the shark returning. It ate pieces of him.

And then when the authorities finally responded in a boat, there wasn't hardly anything left of him. What that makes me think is that this was probably a predatory attack, which we've talked about again are really rare. But when they do happen, the victim usually dies. And there's usually not much left of us. them because the shark consumes the victim's body. So my guess is that this was a really rare great white predatory attack.

It wasn't just an exploratory bite from what they described like it breaching. So it definitely like attacked him thinking it was food and then it continued to feed on him, which makes me think like, okay, it was predatory. Could have been mistaken identity. Then it just continued to eat him. But who knows? It could have been influenced by the fishing activity nearby. like if they had lost a bunch of bait or something,

that can kind of get a shark excited thinking that there's prey around. And then there's also a good possibility that this was a juvenile shark that maybe just hadn't totally figured out what its prey was yet and it was investigating a new prey source because they describe it as being about four meters long, which is four to five meters long, they said, which is like probably somewhere around 12 to 15 feet long. So it's not like a massive, it's big still,

but it's not like, as big as they get. So some people blame the fishermen, some people even blame the victim. But I just think it's really important to remember that if you're spending time in the ocean where Great White sharks are commonly found, there's a chance that you're going to run into a shark at some point.

And he swam in this spot almost every day. He was training for a swimming competition. He was there all the time. He'd probably swam in those exact same conditions 20 times already. And he just got unlucky or unlucky. He just ran into, a shark one day and unfortunately it was a really rare type of gray white and and he paid for it with his life and i don't think there's anyone to blame in this instance it's just a really

unfortunate tragic circumstance yeah so a couple if i ever get hit by a car just like walking i'm going to say it's like a shark came and hit me yeah it's like a huge gray white hit me when you're describing it to people that's perfect i'm describing a car i'm just using a great white shark for now. It was like two vending machines stacked on top of each other. I mean, you always compare everything to a bus, so you have no room to talk. It was like a small bus. It was like a mini, mini bus.

It's like that so you think you should, or so I think you should leave skit or he thinks everything are motorcycles. Yeah. It's like a little house motorcycle. Yeah. So a couple things, just a quick reminder, we just did a great white episode, so I'm not going to get two in the weeds with this. But a few things to pay attention to if you are recreating and you're going to the ocean and a place where great whites are found,

pay attention to the water conditions. If it's murky water, it's more likely that you could run into a shark. Pay attention to any kind of warning signs that might be on the beach. When sharks have been spotted, they almost always put up some kind of signage. Look for any potential food sources in the water, like if there's a dead whale nearby or sea lions or fish, and then finally pay attention to the other marine life that's active in the area because as we talked about in our last great white episode, seeing dolphins or sea lions or all these different animals means that there's activity in the water and it's more likely that there could be a shark too. It doesn't mean there's going to be one, but you just need to

pay attention to those things. Just so you're going into that with open eyes. That's all I got about the shark attack. Okay. So this one's going to, I think, make you guys feel a lot of different emotions. All right. You're going to feel angry, sad, maybe some hope, maybe some admiration. Okay. What other feelings are there? It's just like the Oscar slap.

Yeah. We're going to feel all those emotions. You guys got, what other feelings are there? Horny? Yeah, that's the big one you're missing. I hope it doesn't do that to you. I don't know exactly how to say the town's name, but it's in Ukraine. Okay.

The Kharkiv Zoo is the oldest zoo in all of Ukraine. and it's been struggling to keep its animals safe during the Russian invasion right now. And actually two volunteers have already been killed. They were like breaking into the zoo every three days to feed animals. And they were targeted with shells and machine gun fire. And there's been a few other Ukrainians who have gone into the zoo to feed animals who have reported shelling. So it's kind of like in the middle of stuff.

and it kind of sounds like people are being targeted when they go in there, which is like super messed up. So this is from the zoo, and it was posted on their Instagram and Facebook, but it says, we work daily to evacuate our animals from the territory of the eco park, but alas, we cannot avoid tragedies. And in order for the mournful list to no longer expand, we must take out all the animals, without exception. We will not be able to do this without your help. Your donations can be sent in any convenient way at feldmanincopark.com

slash donation. So they're asking for donations if you guys are interested, but they're right now just trying to get these animals out of the zoo, which is like something I didn't really consider at all until like I saw these articles. Yeah, and they didn't really have like a ton of warning to get them all out or anything too. Yeah, so they're like bringing animals to their homes and taking care of it. It says from Facebook, they've managed to take out a few more animals.

They save some monkeys and a young lion. And they wanted to take out more, but they were under constant bombing and shelling. And they said all the its animals are in mortal danger. What I've been telling you has like a lot of sources. This one was just from one source. And let me tell you what it is. It's from AP News. So there's like this full grown lion, Simba the Lion, and then a gray wolf, Akila.

And some people from the UK, they were like part of an animal rights group and they heard about the zoos and how they needed help. And they drove into Ukraine and went to the zoo and like put this lion and wolf in cages in the back of a van and like had no sedatives. and I guess the cages were pretty questionable. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And so then they were driving this lion and wolf in the back of a car and drove it to the border of Romania, and then the guards wouldn't let them through.

So then they had to go back into Ukraine and drive like 660 miles over this mountain range to get across a border. And now the lion's going to be moved to a sanctuary. Huh. Wow. That's crazy. Yeah. So I sent you guys a video, and it's of like a Ukrainian guy. Ukrainian. And Ukrainian guy, sorry. It's a funny video because you just see him talking, and he's like talking in Ukrainian.

Uh-huh. And then like it pans to the back of what he's driving, and there's just like 10 kangaroos and a couple wallabies in the back of his van. Yeah, and they're pretty chill in there, too. They're not like really reacting. all. I mean, they're probably happy to be away from the bombings. Yeah. Yeah. So that's kind of what like led me to this deep dive was like finding this video of a guy. It's like, oh, wow, like, I guess that is like something to consider that these animals are kind of just stranded there. And then the same guy has

a video where he's taken like eight giant tortoises and a few monkeys and cages in that same van. and I guess in the translation of the video, he says these tortoises were not easy to move. Like 250 pound tortoises. Do you know who the guy is? It doesn't say his name. I think it says his name in Ukrainian, but I just hope he has a good plan for him, you know. I think he's doing what he's supposed to do.

He wants him to do. Good. They're getting bombed. I know. It's one of those situations where it's like something is better than nothing. But then at the same time, it's like you don't really want people picking them up just for like internet clout either you know i'm not saying i don't think that's what this guy was doing i'm just saying like that would be unfortunate if it were the case but anything is probably

better than being in the middle of like a shelling area is there's no one at the zoo to feed them so the animals have to start to death if they don't get them out so it's not it's not anything like that yeah okay and they were able to also save four orangutans nine chimps 22 apocas and three rare bear macae sisters. It's like a type of monkey. I have no idea. Macoc. Macoc, yeah.

Macoc or macac? I don't know why it said bear. A lot of people say macac. I'll probably start saying macac. Or maybe I'll say macawaki or whatever you to say. Bear macaques. Unfortunately, two orangutans have for sure been killed. And then a bunch of deer have been killed.

I guess they've just released a lot of deer in their moose. into the wild because they figured you'd have a better chance. But yeah, the best thing to do, unless they're native to that area. I think there's deer and moose. I mean, I guess I don't know what type of deer is. Yeah, exactly. But it just seems like it would be hard to do the very best thing in this situation.

It is. You know, like what's the alternative? It's a pretty impossible situation. You just don't want to do things that are going to have like implications for generations to come, which like releasing invasives could do that. But like, I don't blame anyone for anything over there with their decisions they're making with the zoo. I'm sure they're just doing whatever they can. I just want to give credit to the only name I saw translated is Vadim Stoller.

It's been working hard to get all these out. But yeah, their Instagram page is up. So you can go to the zoo's Instagram page and there's links to donate if you feel like you want to help try to get some of these animals out. Okay. Great. It always sucks hearing how animals are just like they're getting messed up by stupid, human behavior. I know. And it makes me like not obviously I'm not talking about attacks here, but when I hear about stories how a bison is just like walking in the middle of the road and

cars can't get around it, I'm just kind of like, yeah, good. Put us back in our place for a little day. Show us that like you can really ruin our day without really having to even try. I've been thinking we need to have a segment called animal justice where like someone gets hurt by an animal, but they totally deserve it. Yeah. But yeah, I agree. It's like we already do so many things to mess up their day-to-day lives between climate change and habitat loss and poaching and all these different things. And then on top of that, our stupid conflicts between ourselves are also messing things up for them.

It's just like they can't catch a break. It sucks. I know too. I didn't really dive into too many details, but the zoo in Kiev. Keev. There's a bunch of different ways to say it, but Keeves. has been struggling to keep their animals from being stressed out. And, like, I know that elephants are getting really stressed out there.

Yeah, I bet. Yeah. Summer serve up the cookout classics, Heinz ketchup, and Kraft singles. Every good burger needs a layer of perfectly milty cheese and thick, rich ketchup. We all know it's not a cookout without Heinz and Kraft. Relax and let Ralph's delivery handle your grocery shopping this week. We start with. Only the freshest items.

Then review your list and carefully choose each one. Then we pack it all up and deliver it in as little as 30 minutes. So you can feel confident it's what you ordered. Fresh groceries, your way with Ralph's delivery and pickup. Get free delivery during online deal days plus $30 off your first online order. Ralph's, fresh for everyone. Mike, you got something else? Yeah, so before I get into my next story, I just wanted to mention real quick.

that we saw a bunch of you submitting the Moose Attack story up in Alaska that took place right before the Iditarod. And Wes and I were just kind of talking a little bit about it earlier. And we decided there's enough cool little details that we actually want to do a full story on it. Or something a little more, I just wouldn't be able to do just how cool of a story it is. I wouldn't be able to do a justice here. It'll be part of another Moose episode. We've done one Moose episode, but it'll be part of another one at some point. I do just want to say that it ends differently than I would have expected it to, the story.

It's a good teaser. Yeah, I don't want to spoil anything, so I won't get into any of the details. But it's a really, really fascinating story, I think. But my actual next news story, now that I've wasted everyone's time, talking about something we're not going to be talking about, is a North Carolina man. This is early March of this year. He loses fingers and almost dies after a venomous viper bite.

And that happens sometimes when a venomous story. snake gets you, you know, it bites you. Yeah. You can have it. You can lose your life even. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh, this guy was bitten by a goboon viper.

I'm saying that right, I think. Oh, those are so cool. They're, I know, I was going to say, like, you guys realize how cool those snakes are, right? That one's a top tree snake. Yeah, they have, like, the little horns on their snout. Snout, I don't know. They have the longest, uh, they have the longest fangs of any snake, too. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. So, like, two inches, I think. Yeah. And they, like, they, like, they're super long. move in a straight line. They don't like S turn. Yeah, they're neat. They're neat snakes.

So not only do they have the longest fangs, they're also, at least according to this article, and you can fact check me on this, it says that they have the highest venom yield of any venomous snake. I don't know. What does that mean? When you like milk one, if you were to like try and get venom out of one, it's going to give you more volume of venom. So it's not as potent as some other snakes, but it's got a lot.

more volume. Yeah. It also said, and I wanted to ask you if this is normal, West, that it can control how much venom it releases during a bite? Yeah, it's very cool. Okay. I can't speak for like every venomous snake because I don't know about all of them, but I think that's most venomous snakes can control the amount of venom that they inject

when they bite. Don't quote me on that, but I know it's fairly common. Well, even if it is common, it's still cool. It is cool. Yeah. Jeff, you agree? Well, again, like we've talked about, We've talked about this in other venomous snake episodes.

Like creating venom for them is really energetically expensive. It's hard for them to create venom. So they don't want to waste it. So if you're a go boon viper, you want to give a different dose to like a mouse as you would to like a warthog or something that's threatening you. So it's very different the amount that they'd want to use and it's smart that they're able to control it because otherwise they would constantly just have to produce more venom if they're like shooting their load every time. You know? That's not the best way to say that. I can control how much spit I spit.

That's true. Yeah. Yeah. You're great, Jeff. This is not that cool. No, we've been proud of you for that for a long time. Yeah. Cool.

I'm just saying, I'm just saying maybe it's not as cool as you guys think. Okay. In any case, in this situation, this viper decided to shoot its whole load, as it were, Wes. He needed 44. bottles of anti-venom, which is... Oh, wow. That is a lot. And we have some quotes from the first responders and some of the paramedics that

were dealing with this situation. So the first responders consulted with a doctor who had kind of frequented Africa, you know, where this snake typically lives. This was in North Carolina again, so it was kind of an exotic import. But they said, this is going to be the worst goboon

fight that's ever been survived. And then one of the paramedics on the case, his name is Thad Bowman. He told WM. BF news that we've dealt with exotic bites in the past, but nothing to this extent. And it's crazy because this guy, not only did he survive, really the only seemingly lasting damage was he lost a few fingers, but otherwise is living a fairly normal life, which is great that he made it through. And I didn't see any details about if he was antagonizing the snake or like he caused it by any kind of weird behavior on his part. But yeah, I can probably speak to that.

a little bit. Like, I don't know anything about this story, but the fact that it happened in North Carolina and the fact that it happened on his hand makes me almost positive that he's like a handler, that he's someone who keeps venomous snakes, which some states allow that. You typically have to have a permit, but he probably does. But almost for sure he was handling this snake when it bit him for it to happen on his hands and for it to happen in North Carolina. And I'm not saying that's like, I'm not saying that's wrong. Maybe he like gets anti-venom from maybe, you know, there's a lot of different reasons to have venomous snakes. But almost for sure he was holding it or handling it is my guess.

Yeah. The article did say that goboons typically are pretty mild-mannered snakes. They are. And again, we're not passing any judgment just because there aren't details. No. Usually in the case of a goboon bite, it's the snake was feeling threatened for one reason or another. And that could be any number of reasons.

But the guy spent months, he was in the hospital for months. on dialysis and doing the physical therapy and rehab and all that. But he made it through. He made it through all right. And this story just tangentially reminded me of another listener submitted story that I kind of got to thinking like, it's really weird. And I'm not passing judgment on anyone that does this because I think in a lot of cases, it's really cool and interesting and many times done for good reasons.

But how snakes and other exotic animals that are native to like, you know, the other side of the planet, how they end up in, you know, you know, some dude with some guy in North Carolina. And plenty of very legitimate reasons for that to be the case. I have a snake that's native to the other side of the world in my house right now. And like mine's a ball python. It's like the easiest kind of snake to keep. But I do know in the back of my mind, like I could get bit by this snake, you know?

And mine's like non-venomous. It would just kind of hurt. But like you just need to have, if you are keeping any kind of reptile, there's a chance it could bite you. you. And if it's a venomous snake, there's a chance it could kill you. So it's just like one of the risks. I found kind of a story from like the seedy underbelly of the exotic animal trafficking scene though. One of our lists, again, a listener sent this into us. But this headline reads that border authorities find 52 reptiles hidden in man's pants. Oh, wow. That's a lot. It's impressive. Were they like little lizards? Yeah. So I'm just going to read off exactly what it's.

says. So it says the U.S. customs. It's like me. It's like me trying to go to a movie without my snacks. All your reptiles. Basically, a U.S. citizen was trying to smuggle in a bunch of exotic animals through the San Jacidro port of entry down by Tijuana from Mexico back into the United States. And the border officials say that there were a total of 52 bags holding 43 horned lizards and nine snakes, which were concealed in the man's jacket, pants, and groin area. The live reptiles were placed in a secure and safe area and will remain in quarantine, as some have been identified as endangered.

So that's just, that's, that's one way that some of these critters make it in, into the States from overseas or across the border. Yeah, which isn't cool. No. That's pretty brave to be like,

you know what? Like, do you think he was at his, like, friend's house and they were like, he has like 12 lizards in his pants? And they're like, dude, you're good.

And he's like, no, I'm not. Keep them coming. Just kept going. More. I want more. Well, cool.

All right. Well, I got a couple more. I got a real quick one that's just pretty much a headline. It is about snakes on a plane. So exciting. An Air Asia flight that was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Tawa, Indonesia, was diverted after a snake was seen one of its overhead compartments. And there's a little video of this. It's like you can see it crawling through the little light.

right by the overhead compartment, and they had to, like, land the plane and fumigate it, and then they couldn't find the snake, but they had to switch planes, I believe. But it's unknown. I looked at the video. It's pretty hard to tell if it was a venomous snake or not. It could have been a type of viper that's in that area and pretty common, or it could have been like a vine snake, which are rear fanged, slightly venomous, but not really bad at all.

So it's pretty interesting, though, was the true snakes on the plane kind of, I can just imagine a flight attendant hopping on the PA and just being like, so, do we have any snake handlers on this flight by any chance? Is Samuel Jackson here by chance? All right, but my last real story is about, it's a pretty tragic one to just in that, like, what was actually happening in this story. But it's about a mom in Uzbekistan who actually attempted to throw her daughter into a brown bear enclosure in the zoo. No. Yeah, it's pretty terrible. So this was the Tashkent Zoo in Uzbekistan.

So I actually want to show you guys the video on this one because it's pretty crazy. They got this on video of this mom trying to throw her daughter to this bear. This is the mom right here. She's holding her arms over the railing. And her daughter's standing on... Michael Jackson with his baby. Yeah, exactly. It looks just like that.

But her daughter's like standing on the lip of this wall that goes down into a trench. her daughter's only three years old so this woman's holding her daughter over the railing onto this lip and the bear is just pacing back and forth in front of them now i'm going to let you guys watch the video oh wow yeah that's pretty obvious what she was doing yeah so she chucks her daughter in there and the bear is pretty into it and that's pretty much the whole video so i'm going to explain it one more time for everyone else she's holding her daughter over the railing the bear's pacing back and forth on the edge of this trench and then suddenly you just see her kind of of just let go of her daughter. And her daughter plunges 15 feet down into the trench. Looks like she fell like head first. She does. Yeah. The daughter's kind of leaning forward and the mom just lets go of her.

So she just falls head first. Goes down in this trench and the bear which had been pacing back and forth because someone was doing something new in its enclosure like her putting her daughter on the other side. It's a grizzly bear, right? It's a Caucasian brown bear. So it's a grizzly bear brown bear. It shoots down there and goes to investigate.

And luckily for this girl, The bear really just went up and sniffed her and was checking her out. And then the zookeepers had already been like yelling at her, telling her to stop. And so they were ready to go. And they lured the bear into its feeding enclosure. And then they all got in there and rescued the girl. And that only took moments for them to get in there and do that. Apparently, the girl was pretty much uninjured.

She had a concussion, some cuts and bruises, but nothing too serious. The woman is facing up to 15 years in prison for attempted murder. In my mind, it should be a lot more than that. that should be a life in prison kind of thing because you're trying to kill your daughter. That's for sure. She's trying to kill her. And then also like all these people are going to see that. This bear's going to have to kill someone.

Like it's awful. It's just really terrible. Yeah. Anyway, that's the whole story. That's bad. It's a bad parenting technique in my opinion. It really makes you appreciate our moms. But you're not a parent yet.

So you can't say it. Yeah, you can't judge her. I mean, maybe that girl was just like maybe she wanted to listen to baby. shark like one too many times you guys are right uh that's it for me do you guys have more yeah so just because i was like so familiar to last month's news episode a 50 year old employee at like a nature park in florida went into the tiger's enclosure and got mauled by a tiger and it's like you guys got to just realize a tiger doesn't want you to pet it you know like they look soft but don't try to, like, interact with tigers.

Yeah. I got a quick comment on that one. The Eco, or Echo, sorry, Echo the Tiger, that was in, like, a Naples zoo. That was in, like, an AZA-accredited great zoo. This one was in, like, a roadside wildlife place. So, like, more of kind of, like, a Joe exotic kind of thing. And so I'm not saying they don't do a good job with their animals. I don't know anything about this place where he got mauled.

But I know that this guy, like, wasn't supposed to be interacting with the tiger, and he kind of just decided to, and you shouldn't be able to do that in these kind of places. And the thing that we've learned from both of these things is, if you try and pet a tiger, it's going to probably mall you. So, like, don't try and pet tigers. It's a bad idea. Just don't ever try and do it, because it might rip your arm off.

And then real quick, I just wanted to do a small coyotes bewhilin. So this one's not an attack, but I just found this really funny company to me that was on Shark Tank apparently, but it's called Coyote Vests. Wait a minute. We've talked about this. Have we talked about it? Yeah, when we were looking up the Sir Barksalot costume.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, we can't even really remember it, so go ahead and run through it really quick. Yeah, do it again. Just real quick, there's like Velcro spikes all over these Kevlar vests, and then there's like these plastic neon porcupine quill things that I guess if you push them too hard, they hurt you but like there's all these dogs and like all this Kevlar with spikes and after watching a few videos of coyotes like going into people's yards and taking their little dogs I just don't think this mess is going to work that well but maybe I'm wrong yeah it might help a little bit the thing

that I see on it that seems most effective is like the big plate on their neck that has the big spikes on it because coyotes do tend to pick their prey up by their neck and run off and so Yeah, I agree. Like, if the coyote is determined enough, it would still be able to kill these dogs. But I could see it working, like, short term, at least allowing the owner enough time to go and respond. That's a good point. There's also a hawk vest that they have on there for protecting little dogs against hogs. I think you're right, Mike.

This is the second time we brought them up. But, you know, we're just trying really hard to get a sponsor. So if you were a coyote vests, reach out. to us. Well, that's our news roundup. I think we got through a lot today. Some of them pretty sad, some of them pretty funny. But, hey, we really appreciate everyone that sends us all these stories and whatnot. Don't stop. Just because you think maybe someone else has sent it to us, go ahead and send it to us. And we'll definitely let you know if we've seen it or not. And yeah, that's how Mike gets all his stories. It really is, yeah. He just pulls him from listeners.

Thanks guys and gals. Anything else that we need to talk about? Well, I have listeners. questions. Okay, let's do a few listener questions. That sounds fun. Okay. All right, from Patreon, from Luke Ellis, could you guys rank your favorite Star Wars movies worst to best? Oh, yeah, that's a great question. Uh, yeah, you want me to go first? Yeah, go for it. I'm going to say Empire Strikes Back number one. Worst to best, he said. Oh, worse to best? So that's your least favorite? No, sorry. What a terrible thing. Worst. My worst on, Mike, you go. Oh, shoot. My worst one is probably Attack of the Clones, but I don't hate Attack. I don't hate any of these movies.

I want to make that clear. I don't hate any of the Star Wars movies. And then the most recent one, the Skywalker one, and then probably Force Awakens, and then Phantom Menace, Attack of the Sith, whatever the second most recent one was called. Last Jedi? And then, is that what about? No, no. The one that Ryan Johnson directed. I liked that one.

I think that's what it's called. Okay. Last Jedi. I think you're right. And then, no, Last Jedi was the third of like the originals. That's, wasn't it? No, that's Return of the Jedi. Sorry, Return of the Jedi.

And then Force Awakens. No, what's the first one? New Hope. Then New Hope. Then Rogue One. Then Empire Strikes Back. It's really hard to do it worst to best. It's like doing the alphabet backwards.

It is. Yeah. Good job. I'm glad you did it. And now me and Mike can just kind of like say our differences on it. and not list at all. But Empire Strikes Back, I think, has one of the best, like, scores of all time. Like, the score of that movie is, like, top five score for me all time.

Super good. My favorite's probably Rogue One. Rogue one's so good. Just start to finish. It's good. And then my least favorite's the newest one. The Last Jedi is that way is? That's probably my least favorite, too.

It's just like Return a Skywalker or something. Like he just kind of negates everything that happened before. And like, I just don't like when new movies kind of changed the originals for me. It was lazy. And the fact that, like, the empire comes back in, like, 50 years, it's like, okay, so everything Luke does, doesn't even really matter because no one died. The big threat's, like, a million star destroyers. It's just, like, all of a sudden, they're like, oh, what should we do? I don't know, a million star destroyers.

Yeah. And then how should we beat him? don't know, have every ship in the universe show up. That's how we'll beat them. It's just lazy. It's lazy screenwriting. Yeah, let's bring back Landau. Yeah, that'd be fun.

Sure, why not? He'll save everyone. Mike, you got any thoughts? I do. I have a lot of thoughts. Oh, he does. It was really a cold, sobering day when I realized that I just didn't, I didn't really care about Star Wars anymore.

And I actually haven't even seen the latest Star Wars movie, whatever it was called, like the last of this newest trilogy. Something Skywalker, return of sky. Something like that. Rise of Skywalker. Haven't even seen it. This newest trilogy I'm pretty indifferent about, like, I can take it or leave it. I don't, I don't hate or love it.

I don't really like it or dislike it even. It's just there. The prequel trilogy, I think, is like some of the worst movies ever to be made when, like, taking into consideration the hype and the budget and the source material, I think they're disappointing on levels that it's rarefied air that movies. movies are in this category of bad. We should marathon. Good Lord.

Phantom Menace is like easily the stupidest. Yeah, you hate like Darth Mall and stuff too, though, too. It's not even, Darth Mall, I think, is like a weak character. I think everything about Phantom Menace was dealt with poorly. Like not like this. Like space politics. Yeah, for like it, oh my gosh, the opening scene where it's just like two Jedi's, let's solve this trade dispute.

Yeah, that'll get the kids going in the theater. I felt that way too. When I watched Clone Wars, though, like the entire Clone Wars series, and then I started viewing the prequels as like a compendium to Clone Wars almost, I enjoyed them. But I get what you're saying. It's fine. Awful.

We could talk. We could do a whole podcast about this. I'm so sick of this new movement of people like pretending that the prequels are actually kind of good now. Yeah. And they're not. They're not good movies. Like let's be objective again, guys.

Please. There's some good memes from it. I'm going crazy over here if you couldn't tell. Well, I kind of enjoy it. I need to go lay down. It's unbelievable. Start practicing meditation again. Wait, Mike, give your favorite Star Wars real quick.

Oh, yeah, I should have. So Empire Strikes Back, New Hope, Rogue One, Return of the Jedi. Those are like my four favorite. I think the only four that are worth watching, to be honest. I actually didn't mind solo. Sorry, solo is okay. I like solo. All right.

Here's a really weird question from Bo. And he says, please describe the other host as a type of chair. Like, example, Mike and West pick the type of chair Jeff would be, or what chair encapsulates the essence of Jeff? Jeff would be, who's that big purple guy at McDonald's? Grimmis. He'd be the grimace chair at the old McDonald's play places. That'd be my pick for him.

Wes would be like an old rocking chair that grandpa's smoke their pipes on, I think. I like a handmade. Mike's a rocking horse. Come on. No. Mike, in my opinion, is like a fancy gaming chair. With like the head thing and everything. Yeah.

But it probably has like, it has some anime character like on it. Hell yeah. All right. And then a couple from Instagram real quick. So from Art Garcia drawn paint Oh he's the one that animated you as a sloth Oh is he? Yeah, that's fun

Wes, have you ever heard a grizzly or polar bear roar up close? Is it louder than a lion's? I've never heard them roar. I've heard them do like aggressive vocalization So I've heard them like huff and hiss and do things like that But I've never heard them roar It's pretty rare that they ever roar Would it be louder than a lion?

No, it would not A lion would be louder. You know, I take that back guy I have heard him roar. It's not louder than a lion. Okay. Yeah. I've heard a lion roar and that's loud. Yeah.

Yep. Anselhorn, favorite sports movie training montage. That's a good question. It's Rocky Four for me. Yeah. Rocky Four? Yeah. Where he's like in the snow?

Mm-hmm. That's a good. I've always loved the montage in Mighty Ducks where Emilio Estevez is teaching one of the kids how to skate and how to stop. And it shows us the scene where, like, there's the cans that they stack up that he has to stop before he hits him or they'll, like, knock all the cans over. And I just have to imagine that that's the least efficient way to teach someone because, like, in between every time he tries to stop, you have to like, okay, stack up a hundred cans again. Yeah. I'll go with Miracle just where he's like whistling and saying again, again, again. Yeah, that's great.

I love a good montage, especially a training montage. All right, and one more from Van Gogh's Sunflowers. If you could choose one animal as a Pokemon champion, what would it be? So you're using, like, real-life animals as, like, a Pokemon character. So it's just, like, what animal would do the best in a fight? But as a Pokemon. But I think you get, like, Pokemon, like a small animal can be to snorlax. Okay.

Do you know what that means, Wes? It's a different language for me. No. Basically, every animal has been turned into a Pokemon at this point. So just like pick the toughest animal. I don't know. I guess the, the or the killer whale, the orca, I forget what his name is, is a Pokemon, but I'd just pick that one, I guess.

I'd pick a pika and give it electric powers. And then your water, Pokemon's just a toast. A pika? Pika. You're right. No, it would beat my killer whale. I was thinking of a Pikachu. You're thinking of Pikachu.

Yeah. All right, cool. Thanks for asking questions. We're going to keep getting through those. And it's fun. Like, even if we don't answer it, it's fun for us to go through it all. Yeah. Oh, there was one that I wanted to answer to.

Cooke Skywalker said, Did Wes have bad dreams after delving so deeply into the Glaciered Grizzlies case? I thought it was a good answer or a good question and, like, something I wanted to talk about. I've pretty much since day one of working with bears have bad dreams about bears, but they're like kind of good dreams too. Like I get really excited, but then they end up in attacks and they're weird dreams. But I did have some, I had a higher than average number of grizzly dreams after investigating nine of the grizzlies so deeply.

And they were a little bit more intense than normal. But I do kind of always wake up from bear dreams disappointed that I woke up even when they're scary. So it's a good question. Well, I think that's it. Thanks, everyone for sticking with us and listen to all our news stories. We'll be back in a couple weeks with another normal episode featuring one animal. What animal that's going to be?

Who can guess? No one. Dog, cat. Who knows? All right. Love you guys. Love you. Bye.

Bye.