Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - Bison Attack - Seeking Love in Bison Bison Bison Territory

Episode Date: May 23, 2022

Two young adults match on a dating app and have a fateful date involving some angry bison that defies the odds. We also cover the bison's historical significance and then get into the usual categories. ~~ This episode of Tooth & Claw is brought to you by... Vuori: Vuori.com/CLAW Athletic Greens: AthleticGreens.com/TOOTH Feals: Feals.com/TOOTH To advertise on the show, contact us! ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social:  Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds                          Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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so you actually want to have it on you, because everyone deserves to feel safer. Learn more and get your Bertie 3.0 today at She's Birdie.com. Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Tooth and Claw. On today's episode, we're talking about a surprisingly popular animal, I guess, according to the March Madness tournament that we ran the first year, the bison. And with that, my job here is done. So let's get to the episode. We hope you enjoy it.

How's everyone doing on this beautiful May morning or afternoon or wherever. You know, who knows what time is where you're listening to this. Might not even be May. Yeah, probably isn't. It's good. It's a big day. Why? Just like the way Utah's positioned with the sun.

Oh, it makes it big. Today. Okay. All right. The, like, amount of daylight will get. I don't think that's what people usually mean when they say it's a big day. Oh, really? Yeah, like, baby's big day out is more kind of what they're thinking.

Like, you're getting a new job today. Yeah. Or it's like that baby's got a big day out on the town. Yeah. I always get confused when people use it in, like, January. And they're like, big day today. I'm like, not really. I got the spring snorgles a little bit.

The what? Sound a little snorgly. Is that a Sesame Street character? The Pokemon? Just now because of all the allergens floating around in the air. Plus, I live in a house full of literal allergens, too, because I'm allergic to all my pets. Yeah. You know?

It's nonstop for me. You got some red eyes. Oh, dude. You got to dodge those allergens. That's from all the pot I've been smoking. Yeah, that's a good. That's a good cover, though, if you, like, do smoke a lot of pot. You can be like, I have pets and I'm allergic.

Or if I don't want people to know I'm allergic, I could be like, I'm smoking a ton of weed. Oh, yeah, if you're, like, acting up to their dog and it's like, oh, no, I was smoking. No, this is just from all the weed that I didn't smoke. Or if you swim a lot, like, open your eyes underwater and chlorinated pools. You don't want people to know that about you? Yeah, yeah, exactly. To look for sharks. Yeah, lots of solutions.

Um, hey, I got a question for you guys. Yeah. So what's a movie for you that, like, you saw the trailer or you heard about it and you were like, I am not going to watch this. This looks absolutely terrible. And then you ended up watching it and you absolutely loved it. Paddington. I'll go first. Paddington.

Oh, that's a good one. That's a great pick. I'll go first. Mine's really, yeah, you went first. Mine's the movie Real Steel with Hugh Jackman from 2011. that movie is so good it's not that good it is I re-watched it yesterday

and I was like it made me cry no no it's good dude it's a good movie oh but it's infectious the dancing part with the robot it's a good movie

everyone out there I invite you to check out the movie real steel wait will you explain the scene when you cried uh yeah so Spoilers for the movie Real Steel. Hugh Jackman's like a deadbeat dad.

He reconnects with his kid. They go out on the road in the robot fighting circuit, as dads do, to reconnect with their kids. And there's a scene at the very end where they've gone through some really hard stuff. And Hugh Jackman is shadow fighting, and the robot is mimicking his every move. And it's slow-mo, and he's doing all these punches. And his kid is so proud of him. and his girlfriend's so proud of him, and he's redeemed himself, and his robot is winning the big fight, and spoiler doesn't actually win, but they don't care because they won the real battle, which is reestablishing that father-son. The first Rocky movie.

It's one of the better boxing movies out there, real steel. Would you put it above or below Raging Bowl? I would put it below Raging Bowl. But close. But I can't. Really close. Yeah, but it's up there. Creed?

Creed. Yeah, Creed. I would say it's better than Creed. Thank you. Rewatch it, guys. Please just rewatch it, and tell me if it makes you emotional. Speaking of Real Steel, Wes. Yeah.

At the start of that movie, isn't there a scene where the robot fights a bison in the ring? There's not, but that's weird that you should say that, because that's a perfect segue into what we're talking about today. Oh, really? Which is bison. Yeah. Oh, he fights a bull. Does he? Oh yeah, he does. He fights a steer. You watched it like a day ago and I remember that? And you don't?

Yeah, I was kind of tuning out during that part. But yeah, he fights a, he fights a steer. Yeah, we are going to talk about bison. I'm really glad you brought that up. Don't down. They say steer in the movie. They say steer in the movie. And then he loses $20,000 to the guy and the guys beat him up. It's a great movie. Kevin Durand is in it. Okay, we're talking bison. We're talking another ungulate. It's been a little while since we've done an ungulate. I feel like. Yeah. So I'm excited. And I'm especially excited because, as you know, I work in Yellowstone.

And I run into a fair amount of bison in Yellowstone. Every day I see probably at least 50 bison. Just running around with your car? Sometimes. Part of my job is to push bison off the road when they're causing big traffic jams. Oh. And I don't actually hit them with my car, but I use my truck to, like, kind of push them the right direction. And I'll turn into them real hard.

And then we make a scratching noise on. the PA that they really don't like, and that'll push them off the road. So that's a big part of my job is to almost run into them with my car. If they're really acting up, then we can use some other methods to haze them. But that's our main. It's our main method, and it works pretty well for the most part. But I see them a lot, and I think they're a really cool animal. And Jeff, me and you have been going to Yellowstone every year of our lives on Memorial Day. That trip's coming up. Mike's going to join us this year. You wish. You were. You're coming. So we're going to talk about a pretty crazy bison story.

It's also a love story. Mike, you know the scientific name of bison? Yeah, it's bison, bison, bison. I was going to bring that up later, but yeah. Bison, bison. So bison bison is the Latin name. And then the subspecies of plains bison that we have here in the U.S. is subspecies bison.

So that subspecies full Latin name. is bison, bison, bison. It's so cool. It's like Catch 22, major, major, major, major. You know, I haven't actually read the Catch 22. I need to read it. So before I start on the actual story, I do want to say I got a lot of the information from the This Is Love podcast. The reason I use that for a lot of the research is because it's the most complete interview we had from the people involved in this story. And then there's a lot of articles out there. I found articles from Washington Post, BBC. This was a really reported on story when it happened because it's pretty wild what actually

occurred. But you don't need to listen to that podcast because we'll tell you all the best stuff from it on ours. You don't need to, but it is a great podcast. I actually really like it. It's hosted by Phoebe Judge, who's one of my favorite podcast hosts. She also hosts the podcast Criminal, which is a great podcast as well. So it's a podcast about Bison Love Stories.

No. All right. We'll get into the story. so you can know where I'm getting at. So Kaylee Davis was initially intrigued by Kyler Bougo's Bumble profile because he seemed really outdoorsy, and specifically because on his profile, he said that he had been attacked by a bison.

So she swiped right. That's the direction you swipe, right, when you want to message someone? Don't pretend like you don't know. It's been a while for me. I think Bumble you go up. Okay. Well, she swiped to accept his...

I've never met an ugly, Kyler. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. That's a good name. I'm assuming he's attracted. She swipes right. They matched.

And on Bumble, the girl has to message the guy first. So she messaged him. And her first message to him was, did you antagonize the bison? And he replied that he didn't antagonize the bison, which I think there's an argument. After this, maybe we should talk about that. But he said he didn't antagonize it. And he said that he would tell her the rest of the story if she met up with him, which is a pretty good lead, I think, if someone.

messages you on Bumble or a dating app to be like, I'll tell you the story in person. So Kyler lived really close to Anelope Island State Park, and he had a really long family history with the island. Mike, have you been to Anelope Island? I have, yeah. Okay. I've been there with Jeff. Me and Jeff caught burrowing owls there last year together.

And yeah, there's a lot of cool wildlife. It's a really neat place. It's a state park. It's like in the middle of the Great Salt Lake. Yep. It's a state park that sits in the middle of the Great Salt Lake. It's roughly 15 miles long, 15 miles wide. There's a ton of open space on the island.

There's not really many trees. It's mostly just like kind of rolling prairie with some big prairie mountains in the middle of it. And there's a lot of wildlife that calls it home. So in 1893, 12 bison were brought to the island. At the time, the island was owned privately. And it's thought that the owner just wanted to create kind of like a zoo out there. So he brought some bison there and he was going to try and domesticate him. but they wouldn't domesticate, and they ran wild.

And over time, they brought more and more bison to the island. Today, there's about 650 wild bison that call the island home, and now the island is owned by the state, and it's managed by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, or the bison are at least. They share the island with pronghorn, big horn sheep. I've caught big horn sheep out there, too. Mule deer, burrowing owls, coyotes, badgers, bobcats, eagles, hawks,

and lots of other birds. It's actually a really great spot. for bird. Wolverine a year ago. Yeah, a year ago, Wolverine showed up there, which was pretty crazy. So on June 1st, 2019, Kyler was hiking Frere Peak with his parents. It's a hike that he guessed he had done over a hundred times before, and he really loved the hike because there was big fields of wildflowers, there was no trees, it had a view of the Great Salt Lake, and it just made him feel really peaceful when he would do it. But typically when he would go with his family, he would actually run some laps up and down to the peak while his family took their time doing the hike.

But he was kind of a trail runner and he liked to get his exercise while he was doing the hike. So he would run laps. And on that day, he was on his first lap up the trail when he saw three people sitting on some rocks on a little saddle ahead of him on the trail. So a saddle, for those of you who don't do much hiking or you're not outside that much, a saddle is pretty much where two little peaks come together and there's like a dip. and usually a saddle is like something you crest and go over and then come back down the other side. So it's pretty much just like a crest in the trail.

And he saw three people sitting on rocks. He looked at them, but he didn't really think twice about it as he had seen people sitting there before. He ran past them. He crests this hill. He goes over the saddle. And as soon as he gets to the other side and the other side comes into view, he's face to face with two adult bison that aren't standing very far away. Let's get into some bison facts before we finish our story. There are two living species of bison, American bison and European bison.

American bison live in North America, European bison live in eastern Europe, and the Caucasus region. They look pretty much like American bison. Their coats are a little bit more uniform and not quite as shaggy, but they're pretty similar-looking animal. We're going to be talking about American bison, as we mentioned, Latin name, bison, bison. I love when Latin names are just the same thing repeated over and over. again. It makes it really easy. Yeah. So, Jeff, what's another word that a lot of people call bison? Uh, buffalo. Buffalo. Buffalo. There's subspecies of buffalo. They're not. They're not actually. But that's what a lot of people probably think. In English usage, they're related. They're not. Well,

I guess they're distantly related. In English usage, the term buffalo dates to 1625 in North America. And that was when it was first used for this American mammal, the bison. It's derived from a French word, Beau, which is a name given to bison, that French fur trappers gave it when they were working in the U.S. in the early 1600s and saw the animals. And that's like, that word has roots in French in the word buffalo, and that's how it got mistaken, and they started calling them buffalo. So buffalo are an animal that actually live in Africa and Asia. So like Cape Buffalo, water buffalo, those are a completely different animal. They're still a bovine. They're in the cow family, but they don't live close to the same places as bison live.

Yeah, I remember the first time you guys invited me up to Yellowstone. Jeff told me I was going to be able to see some buffalo. And imagine my disappointment when I didn't see a single buffalo. I was like, what's going on? There's a lot of bison, though. What name do you think is cooler? Buffalo. Bison or buffalo?

Buffalo is way cooler. Bison bill? Yeah, bison bill doesn't quite, yeah. A bison nickel? It's not as good. I will say I used to be kind of a stickler about correcting people when they would say Buffalo. It was probably when I was in like a really annoying time of my life, trying to like prove myself as a wildlife biologist. But I've heard, you know, working at Yellowstone, there's a lot of people, even in scientific circles, that still casually use the term Buffalo for them.

They know their bison. We all know their bison. I think it's okay if you want to call them buffalo. It's not a big deal. everyone knows what you're talking about. You don't need to correct people and be a dingus like I was being. So it is casually used. So if you want to call them Buffalo, go for it.

You can call them like Drizzly Bear if you want. I guess. They're the largest land mammal in North America. And males weigh up to 2,000 pounds. Females reach up to 1,000 pounds. That means they're what, guys? Males are 2,000 pounds? Sexually dimorphic.

Good job. Okay. Is there anything that's not? sexually dimorphic? Yeah, there are. Every episode. Most things are, though. But there are species that aren't sexually dimorphic

where you can't really tell the difference between females and males. Like a duck? Yeah, that actually, they might be about the same size. Enjoy more ways to save at Ralph's like low prices in every aisle. And when you download the Ralph's app, you can clip and save more

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Seasite for details. Okay, so they're surprisingly agile for being so large. They can run at 35 miles per hour. They can jump high fences. They can swing their entire body around really quickly. And they actually swim really well as well. We've seen them swimming across rivers and Yellowstone. I've seen them like very explosively run quickly towards things.

They're not a slow animal. They have to swim fast because of crocodiles. No, that's Buffalo, not bison. Jeff's going to make me revert to my old, my old person. They, they are like you see them just kind of, if you go to Yellowstone or these places that have bison, you see them just kind of lumbering around and you get this impression. that they are just really slow and plotting. And it does give people, like, false confidence around them.

They think that they could outrun them. They think that they could get away from them if they needed to. And you can't. They're much faster than you. They're very agile, and they're really powerful. They almost seem like cattle sometimes in Yellowstone. Yeah. You know?

They just seem like they're domesticated. Just grazing in a field and they're big, but you're like, I don't know. Totally. And that's great that you actually say that because my next point was that their ruminants, similar to cattle, sheep, and goats. They're very closely related to cattle. And what that means is if you're a ruminant, it means you eat plant matter

and you digest it in a series of four stomach compartments. So when a bison eats, it chews and swallows whatever it's eating. It goes into that first stomach compartment, which is called the rumin, and it's mixed with all these different fluids that contain bacteria and some other microorganisms, and those break down all the fibers in the grass or weeds

or whatever they might be eating. Then they do what's called, chewing their cut. So chewing your cud means you regurgitate that food back up into your mouth and you re-chew it into smaller pieces. So it goes in that first stomach, it gets broken down a bit, they barf it back up into their mouth and they chew it up more. Is that just because there's more nutrients to be had from like what's going on? Yeah, exactly. Whatever they barf back up. It's to break it down even more. So they swallow it again and it goes into the second stomach compartment, which is called the reticulum for further processing. And then it goes into the third stomach

compartment, the omassum, which takes a lot of the moisture out of that mixture. And then the fourth stomach compartment is the abomassum, which is like our stomach and it's really acidic and it helps with the digestion of proteins. And they have a really slow digestive system, so grass will stay in their stomach a lot longer than it will even in cattle's stomachs. So yeah, Mike, like you said, that whole process is just to get everything possible out of their food. I wonder how autonomous that process is. Like they probably don't have to think about really. you directing it to each of the different stomachs? No, when I probably misspoke, like I said, when they re-swallow the cut, it goes straight

in the second compartment. I think it passes through the first one and goes into the second one. Gotcha. But they eat all sorts of grasses, weeds, leafy plants. They'll for nine to eleven hours a day. They have a really large muscular hump on their shoulder. And what that does is it lines up with their vertebrae and it gives them the power to swing their head back and forth.

And that allows them to clear snow from grass and whatnot in the winter. So they can use their head like a huge snow plow to clear the snow off of the grass to eat it. And you would think like, oh, would you need a specialized muscle for that? And if you're doing that all the time day in, day out, you would. It's like go try it yourself. Yeah, exactly. We should ask Alexander Scars guard. Go try it.

You think you could move a foot of snow with your face? Yeah. Get at it, champ. Let's see you do it. Film yourself. Ask Alexander Scarsar. Yeah, why are we asking? Yeah.

Alexander Charzard. Did you see his hump on his back, his trap muscles in the Northman? He could probably headbutts, no, all over the place. I think you're probably right. All right. So female bison live in maternal herds with other females, with their young and then sometimes a few older males. Males leave the maternal herds at about three years old,

and then they either live alone or they join herds of other males. And then male and female herds only mingle during the rut and the breeding season, which is generally in late summer. Males maintain a harem of females during the breeding season. They'll fight other males for breeding privileges. Last year when I was in Yellowstone, it was during the rut, and there was these two males near each other. And one of them was literally just like standing there, mining his own business. And a huge male, like another bull, just charges in and just gores him in the head and just immediately kills him.

Just drops it. There's a video of it online. It just drops like a 2,000 pound of bag of rocks. I don't know what I'm trying to say. A 2,000 pound bag of sack of dirt. Yeah, like a 2,000 pound bison. Anyway, so a really interesting thing I learned about bison while I was doing research for this is that more dominant males will mate earlier in the season.

They're much more dominant so they can get to females quicker. And that means that their calves are going to be born a little bit earlier in the spring. And because those calves are born a little bit earlier, they grow quicker and they become stronger and more dominant too. So dominance has actually passed on generation to generation because of that cycle. The bigger males mate first, their calves then are bigger, those calves grow up stronger, they become dominant, they mate first, and it just continues and continues. That's interesting.

Just like humans. Another really interesting thing is that bison are an animal that sometimes display, wait, just like humans, is that what you said? Yeah. Yeah, I guess. I should make a note that, like, these herd dynamics that I'm talking about are just general for bison. And I'm not totally sure if different herds in different places might demonstrate different structures. I'm just saying that to cover my bases because I don't want people to be like,

they're not always in maternal herds or they don't always do that thing in the rut. You know, so I just want to make sure that, like, that's a general, that's general information for bison. Okay, a couple more quick things about bison. if you've ever seen a lot of bison or you've seen videos of them, you might see them do a behavior that's called wallowing. And wallowing is where they lay down on the ground and they roll around in the dirt. And it actually creates these... Yeah, wallowing's cool.

It is cool. It creates these little depressions in the ground that are like little kind of like half domes. And those are called wallows. And there's a lot of different reasons that they might wallow. They do it to get rid of excess fur, to get rid of biting insects, to help with thermal regulations. and even to assert dominance. But a really cool thing about wallows is that historically they were really important

for the prairie ecosystem and they helped to increase both plant and animal diversity. And I think in my mind the reason that is is because you form these little depressions and then those can fill with water and it just spreads water out throughout the ecosystem. It allows for different kind of plants to regenerate and then that creates little micro-habitats for wildlife too.

So how big are these wallows? Are they, like, pretty sizable if, like, the amount of water? They're, like, the size of a bison. I guess that makes sense. Yeah, they're not huge, but they're just little depressions. But it is enough to where water will catch in them if it rains hard enough. Interesting. And stay there a little bit longer.

How does that help them assert dominance? I think just, I'm not totally sure. To me, it just made it seem like maybe you just see this huge bison rolling around and you're like, oh, that's a big bison. I think like a school bus cut in half in the middle and then, like, a sixth of it and it's probably about that. A sixth of a half of a school bus? So a 12th of a school bus. Well, if it's cut in half horizontally first.

Hot dog style. Because it's too tall at the start so you cut it in half and then you take a sixth of it. That's about the size of the wallow. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I guess. That's, wallows are really cool. And I assume that's why they were so important to the prairie ecosystem, but it could have been for a lot of reasons. It could have been that they're just stirring up the sediment and stuff, too.

The only predators of bison are wolves, grizzly bears, and humans. And wolves are the only ones that kill them with a decent amount of frequency. Grizzly bears will kill their calves, but it's rare they'll kill an adult. Wolves will kill an adult? Yeah, they will. Especially if it's like one that's injured or struggling to get through snow or something, they'll kill them. Wolves are cool. Let's talk about wolves. You want to talk about wolves? Should we just call it audible here? Yeah, we'll just switch. Okay, so let's get back to our story, back to Kyler.

So if you remember, Kyler was just cresting this ridge, his family's behind him, he's on his first lap of his run. He crests that little saddle and he sees two bison staring back at him. So he actually said, oops out loud, and he turned to run the other direction. And as he started running away, he looks behind him and he sees one of the bison charging toward him. It only took the bison a couple seconds to catch up to him. And he says he still has the image of the bison's head burned into his mind right as it made contact with him. And the horns of the bison smashed into and threw his armpit and his hip. And it threw him 10 feet up in the air and 20 feet out.

He closed his eyes and he felt his body just like spinning through the air. And in the interview, he actually said it felt like he was just caught in like a little whirlwind. Like he didn't know what was happening to his body. He was just being smashed around and thrown through the air. I wonder where that ranks for like bison's tossing people distance-wise. Yeah, like they should have a competition to see how far they can chuck us. I wonder how far that one compares to other chucks. I don't know.

You should look at the, all of you out there should look up this video, this little girl, getting thrown by a bison and Yellowstone. That one was good for height. She gets way up there. So the horns went into his armpit and hip. He's thrown 20 feet away. He hits the ground and he starts screaming for help to these other visitors. and they hear him actually shush him.

And he kind of half opens his eyes. And the sweat and the blood and the dirt were all obscuring his vision, but he could see that the bison was standing right next to him. And that's why they're shushing him because they're worried that he might antagonize it. Like the T-Rex thing. Yeah. But that would be kind of annoying if you're like, help. And I'm like, shh.

Yeah, don't move. It can't see you if you don't move. Or just shushing you in general when you're trying to get help. Yeah. I know. That's where I thought was going. So he knew that the animal probably had just seen him as a threat and was just trying to neutralize that threat. So he stayed completely still until the bison finally decided to leave him.

And the other visitors had actually called for help and a helicopter was on its way. So they strap Kyler into the helicopter. They give him oxygen. They strap him into a neck brace, which he said he was bummed about because he wanted to look out at Antelope Island as it was fading into the distance. This dude really loves Anelope Island. Like he really loves it. but he wasn't able to. So his parents actually saw the helicopter arrive,

but they didn't know it was for their son. And then when they couldn't find him, they put two and two together, and they race down the hill to their car, and they drive to the nearest hospital, which I think is in Ogden. So Kyler's there. He has a fractured rib, a collapsed lung,

and some really big lacerations. And he had to have emergency surgery to repair his lung. He knows that he didn't really do anything wrong, but he also knows that the bison didn't either. It was just a surprise encounter. I would say I would agree that he probably didn't do anything wrong. I would say though if you are trail running in a place with bison and you're coming around a blind corner, you should go real slow and make a lot of noise before you go over that corner.

The hardest thing for him was that he was now kind of afraid of this place that he loved so much, but he didn't really want to give up on it and he knew he'd go back. So his first trip back was a couple weeks later and all he did is he biked the causeway out to the island. And as soon as he got to the edge of the island, he turned around and went. back. He was having a hard time going actually onto the island because he was pretty traumatized by this whole incident. And the first time that he actually went back on the island was on a date with Kaylee in September. We're going to go back to their little romance. They'd met on Bumble. They went on their first date the next day after they met on Bumble in September of 2019. And they planned to go

paddleboarding at a local lake and get some takeout. And they go on this date. They have a really nice time. They actually extend it to go hike a nearby peak, and then they go back and get some Chinese takeout, and then they go to Kaylee's car, and they spend most of the night just talking and chatting. They're really hitting it off. They're having one of those dates where you're just like, wow, that was so great. I had the best time with that person. And they really both had this huge appreciation for the outdoors. They both love trail running, hiking, and then just simply sitting and enjoying the sunset. So fast forward a little bit. It's September 27th. It's actually been a few weeks since they'd first met, and Kaylee's on her way to Anelope Island to go trail running.

And her and Kyler had gone out a few times. She really liked him, but now it had been a little while since she had heard from him. And she's starting to wonder if she should move on or not. And as she's on the way to the island, Kyler actually calls her. And she says, I'm on the way of the island, and he was actually curious if she wanted to watch the sunset. So she was like, why don't she just come out to Anelope Island and watch the sunset with me? And he's like, okay, I will.

So he meets her on the island. They pick a spot to meet. and he's like getting his dogs and his stuff out of the car when they meet, and she decides she's going to go trail running, so he's just going to hike behind her, and they're going to meet at this spot to watch the sunset. So she takes off running, there's all these blooming sunflowers, the clouds are the sun's peeking through the clouds.

It's a really beautiful late September day. And she runs about a mile and a quarter when she sees some bison off the side of the trail. And she knows Kyler's story. Like he's told her the story by now. She knows how dangerous these animals can be. And she knows that he's going to be nervous once he, like, walks up behind her and sees him. Right. So she sees the bison. She gives him a really wide berth. They act like they don't even notice her.

But then she does exactly what you just said, Jeff. She realizes, like, oh, Kyler's right behind me. He's going to be super nervous and probably doesn't want to encounter these bison, especially with his dogs. So she turns around to go the other way to warn him. And as she turns around, she sees four boy scouts and she starts to say hi to them. and then the bison charges at her. So she sprints away from the bison, but she could hear it right behind her, and she knew it was getting close. And she looks over her shoulder again seconds later,

and the bison's about 10 yards away. And then she looks over a third time, and it's right behind her, and she knows, okay, I'm about to get tossed into the air. Yeah. And that's exactly what happened. The bison used its massive head and its horns to easily toss her skyward.

She sails 15 feet above the ground, and she realizes she's going to come down on her head. And she actually doesn't remember much after that because she hit her head. That tracks. Aside from laying on the ground and she felt like warmth spreading around her ankle and she felt this presence of the bison right next to her. She knew it was still right there. And it was pawing at the ground and stomping. I don't know.

It didn't say how far it threw her. But I imagine it threw a pretty far. 15 feet in the air. Yeah, I like my theory. I think these bison are just like playing a game of just how far and high they can tossing. shot put for them. Yeah. 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. So she laid there silently for about three minutes when she heard a man calling out to her to be still and not to move. And she started screaming for help and she's telling the onlookers to go get Kyler. And she could also hear the scouts nearby calling 911. for help. So Kyler's about a mile and a quarter into his hike when he sees

a group of scouts running down the hill yelling his name and he knew that wasn't good and he had a sinking feeling that he knew what had happened. So he gave his dogs to the scouts and he runs to the top of the hill. His dogs actually slip their leashes that catch back up with him. He has to grab him by the scruff and give them back to the

scouts and then he crests the hill. And he sees the bison about 30 yards from Kaley's body, a scout leader nearby standing around and he actually, he was carrying bear spray now. So he gets his bear spray out. He gets it ready and he gives it to the scout leader and he tells him, hey, if this bison comes any closer, you need to spray it. And then he carefully makes his way over to Kylie and he actually puts her backpack in his lap and pulls her head up on it

and holds her hand and just tells her it's going to be okay, spreads his jacket out over, and just comforts her, and the bison walks off. She's like laying in the gravel, she's crying, her ankles gushing blood. Kyler starts checking her body for other wounds and he finds a big wound on her thigh that's also gushing blood. So he ties the tourniquet around her leg. And they just continue waiting for help, which takes about an hour to arrive. A helicopter shows up in about an hour. She also has emergency surgery.

She spends three days in the hospital. The bison horn had actually gone right through her ankle. Whoa. And yeah, which is a weird place to have. Yeah, it's bleeding. Yeah, it went through her foot. It scooped her up from the, oh, that's weird. Yeah.

That's not where I would have thought. No. It kind of makes my stomach turn to think of like a horn going through your ankle bones. But throws her up in the air by her ankle. That required a cast to heal. And the wound on her thigh required stitches. So after this whole ordeal, they actually got a lot of media attention because it's like, boyfriend gets attacked by a bison.

And then a few months later, his girlfriend also gets attacked by a bison in the exact same spot pretty much. And it was a little weird for them because they weren't boyfriend-girlfriend. But that's what all the news, every news article published it as like a love story. Might as well just go for it. Yeah, and being boyfriend, girlfriend. And it actually put a lot of weird pressure on their relationship and they broke up a month and a half later. But it was pretty fascinating to me. Just the fact that these bison attacks don't happen that often.

This was the, these were the only two that happened in Antelope Island that whole year. And it happened to him and then him again as he brought his girlfriend out there not long after. It happened to her. but I mean he was there. This dude's pretty bad luck. This isn't someone you want to go to Yellowstone with. He sounds attractive though, like Jeff said. Okay, so do you guys have any questions about the story?

What was, so Kyler, three weeks after his attack, he was like riding bikes and stuff. Yeah. So like his recovery wasn't too bad. Yeah, as a puncture long. I just wanted more on the recovery. That's all I could find. There wasn't a ton on either their recovery. Three weeks later, he's riding a bike.

and she was only in the hospital for three days, but she did have a cast on her ankle. I think it broke her ankle. He had a fractured rib. She had just the broken ankle and a deep laceration on her thigh. Maybe like a concussion. Yeah, and they both got really lucky

because had either of these bison decided to really push that attack and just continue ramming them with... Like, what they'll do sometimes is if you're on the ground, they'll put their head down and just push you down with their head, and that can break your back.

It's a lot of weight and a lot of pressure. We talked about that huge muscle they have on their hump. If they just put all that pressure on you and continue pushing you in the ground, it can really mess you up. Or they'll just trample you to death. So they both really lucked out

that neither of these attacks continued past the first little instance. And yeah, I mean, both of these aren't like, as far as Bison incidents go, they're not like that crazy in the scale of the incident. It's more just that it happened to this dude And then... The same couple. Yeah.

And then his girlfriend, like a few months later. It's crazy. Yeah. At Yellowstone, I think it was... I don't think you were with us. I was trying to remember. I think it was me, dad, and Cyrus, our oldest brother. But we're just sitting there watching our dad's favorite Geyser, West.

Anemone. Anemone. It's just right at the start of the old faithful boardwalk. And we're sitting there watching, and there's this bison. I don't know. No, no, it was off on a different, like, section of boardwalk, but its head was, like, right next to the boardwalk. And this Japanese guy listening to headphones just walks, like, straight past it, right in front of it. And the bison lifted its head up and, like, hit him right in the butt and lifted him, like, two feet off the ground.

Whoa. And then the guy just, like, kept walking and, like, walked past us. And we were like, that was crazy. And he's like, yeah. And then just like, get going. So I watched a bison just kind of like lift a dude up once. Yeah, that dude got lucky. We should have just told that story for the entire story.

Should have saved that for the next episode. It's funny, though, because Cyrus and dad got charged by a bison in one of our first years going to the park. Like, Cyrus was probably eight or nine. And Cyrus is terrified of bison now ever since. Like even when we're just stuck in the car in a bison jam and they get maybe not so much anymore, but when he was like a teenager and a little older, he would get all like, he would crouch on the other side of the car

and start breathing heavy and stuff. Like he really doesn't like bison. They really traumatized him. It's pretty funny. Hilarious. Yeah. Jeff, do you remember when I put the bison, made you wear the bison hat

and shot you with the pellet gun from the balcony? Yeah. I lost a bet. Yeah, we had a Montana party for Montana's birthday and Jeff had to put on a bison hat and then that had horns on it and stuff. And then we all got to shoot him with the pelican from the balcony.

It hurt. Yeah. Last time I was up in Bozeman, I went out to eat with my brother and I had a bison burger. Is that made out of bison meat? It is. Yeah. So bison are really common. So you attacked a bison is your story?

Yeah. It's really good. If you eat meat, bison's really good. And it's not from wild bison. It's from domesticated bison. So a lot of people use them as like cattle. They're actually better for your land. They do a little bit better job, not just, like, completely eating everything.

Their meat is a little bit, like, richer and leaner. It's a good burger. I still feel a little bad and sad about it. You shouldn't. If you eat meat, it's ethicality and vice as long as you get it from the right spot. I love cows. You know I love cows. You know I love cats.

So why don't you feel sad eating a normal hamburger? This is, this is, I'm going to, like, kind of get some vegetarians and vegans on my case about this. I'm a hypocrite, you know? Okay. Yeah, that's you. You should just be eating horses nonstop. Oh, man. I heard that's really good.

All right, so something really important. I think you shouldn't talk about bison in North America without talking about their significance to indigenous cultures. So for many Native American tribes, the bison was totally essential to their survival and their well-being. They use bison for food, for clothing, for shelter, for tools, for jewelry. and even for commerce. And it was considered a sacred animal, something that had been given to them by their creator, and something that was really important to their way of living. And a lot of tribes would use every part of the bison when they killed one. So when westward expansion started among colonizers in the United States, they began slaughtering the bison, both for sport and as a way to sabotage the indigenous tribes during the American Indian Wars.

So before 1800, it was estimated that there was as many as 60 million bison in this country. And by 1900, there were only 300 bison. So within 100 years, they killed almost 60 million bison. And the idea behind that was both just because it was fun to kill animals for them and then also to pretty much sabotage Native Americans because they knew how important bison were for their way of life. And for a lot of these indigenous people for their tribes, this was like a totally shocking and just completely devastating thing to happen because they didn't really have a concept of extinction. They didn't think of like people being able to wipe out a species and seeing the species that they depended on at such a high level get wiped out by these colonizers was just so soul crushing for a lot of the tribes that it just completely destroyed their.

way of life. It's truly like one of the worst things that we've done to the indigenous people. Yeah. And we've done a lot of really bad things to them. I've seen pictures of just like a massive pile of buffalo schools. Have you seen that picture before? Yeah, it's crazy. I can see like devastating is the right word for everybody involved, you know? Like 20 school buses worth of bisoned schools. Yeah. So bison conservation began in the early 1900s and then the through dedicated efforts by the U.S. government and tribal governments, there's now roughly 30,000 bison in private or public herds in the U.S. That's wild bison, and then around another 400,000 that are raised domestically. So they are on the comeback, and the tribes have been really instrumental

in creating that conservation push. That's awesome. Yellowstone is the only place in the U.S. where bison have lived continuously since prehistoric times. So the Yellowstone bison are the only pure descendants of prehistoric bison. The American bison was named the national mammal of the United States on May 9th, 2016. It's a good pick. So we have the bald eagle for our bird and the bison for our mammal. Cool. But I do think, I just think it's really important that people understand that this was an animal that

was so important to indigenous peoples and still is, and it is important to recognize that, that relationship. Humans can be such a virus sometimes. We really can. Come in and destroy everything. Yep. Yeah. All right.

Well, should we get to ouchies? I say we do. I'm going to give them, I'm going to give Kyler's attack five outchies. I'm going to give Kaylee's attack six outchies. Just because I really hate ankle pain. And having a horn go through your ankle would really suck. So that's how I'm going to rate them. I sprained my ankle once and pretty much turned into a bison.

You turned into a bison? In the corn maze? Oh, yeah, because you puked and then fell in your own puk. Yeah. And ate it and redigested it. He did. Pretty much. Jeff sprained it, immediately vomited into some corn, and then passed out into his vomit.

And then it hurts so bad, but I was, like, in a corn maze. So I, like, had to, like, find my way out. That's so mad. And we wouldn't help him. Yeah, I think that is pretty good. choice. Like, I would have put them the same, but then ankle pain sucks. So, yeah, that's, I'm going to agree with you.

It sucks for Kyler. You didn't get to see the anilop violin from the helicopter. Yeah, yeah, that adds to his pain. They got to make medical helicopters just have bigger windows or something. Full windows. You're paying a lot for it. Right. Yeah.

You should get a good view. And get like a little gift baggie at the end and like free drinks and stuff. Yeah. They probably charge for the drinks. Our health care system's screwed up, I tell you. What did you give the ouchies, Wes? I give Kyler 5 and her 6. I'm going 3 in a 5.

He was on his bike three weeks later. It couldn't have been that bad. He did have a punctured lung and a fractured rib. 4 and 5. I'll go 4 and 5. I'll give you that. I'll give the Japanese guy 1. All right.

Okay. Categories. So we're going to start out with our pop culture bison. Ooh, yeah. I'll go last because I'm pretty confident mine will still be there. Okay, I'm not sure about mine. I picked M. Bison from the Street Fighter games. That's my backup.

Those bikes. Well, mine was from the movie, so if yours is from the games, you can talk about it. That's who I picked. He's the big bad, right? Yep, Psycho Crusher, Unstoppable, basically impossible. I picked M. Bison from the Street Fighter movie, Raoul Julia. Okay. This dude was a legitimate actor, and his kid was like, I just want you to be in the street fighter movie.

And he was like, okay, whatever. And he just, he like, he gives an incredible performance. If you want to go see, like, some highlight clips. Terrible movie, but this dude is incredible in it. Yeah. Some of his line readings are just unbelievably good for such a schlocky movie. So, I don't, you don't watch the movie. You watch highlights of Raul playing M. Bison on YouTube.

That's what I would suggest. Jeff is yours a One Piece character? Mine's the bison in the game Oregon Trail. Oh, that is good pick. That you shoot for food. That's like the best part of the game. When you kill a bison, you're set. Oh, it sets you, yeah.

So it's just a little pixelated bison that would run across the screen that you have to try to shoot. The OG organ trail. Good pick. I had a good backup, but I forgot it. Buffalo Bills, maybe. Okay, so let's do our cage match. We're putting a bison against all our other animals. in a cage match.

Wait, I thought in my backup. Can I say it? Yep. I really like the Colorado College has that bison that they just like sprint with onto the field before football games. It's crazy like how fast they're getting it going and they're like running alongside it. It just looks out of control every time they do it.

There is a good bison in one piece. If you're asking, Wes. Yeah. You guys can always go to one piece when you don't have an answer. It's pretty handy. So our cage match, I was thinking pretty hard about this one. It's a good one. Yeah, it is.

It's a really good contender. A huge male, like, we're taking our biggest bison, right? So, like, if we're taking our big male bison, I think it beats most of our carnivores that we've talked about. I think the ones that give it a run for its money are, like, a really big grizzly bear, potentially. But grizzlies don't attack big bull bison. They know that it's too much. So I would still give the bison.

That's just because they... Yeah, if you're in a... No, that they could get hurt, you know. But if you're in a cage and they're both just fighting for their lives, I don't know who I would bet on for that. It's a good fight. The bison outweighs it by a pretty significant amount, right? It does, yeah. It's got some nice horns.

Yeah. I think there's a chance the grizzly still wins, but I'm not sure. I'm not betting on that one. And then it could, it would lose to a... You're not betting either side. No. You're just like, I'm staying out of this one. Right.

It's losing to our orca. grizzly bear. If it's in three feet of water, if it's in three feet of water, I'm betting on the orca, the saltwater crocodile, or the great white shark. But I think it could kill all of our other water animals. Is three feet of water enough to make a difference for an orca? Yeah, it's not. Sorry.

I guess. I mean, I don't. I'm probably still betting on the orca though. Yeah. I'm probably still betting on it. Sure. Yeah, maybe we should say like four feet of water. But then the bison's in pretty deep.

I like three, three and a half feet. Yeah. Yeah, let's compromise. Me in the middle. I can't, I don't know. I'm having a hard time thinking of other animals that would beat it. Puller bear. Some are venomous snakes.

Polar bear, I think our biggest polar bear is about the same size as our biggest grizzly bear. And polar bears aren't really, they don't ever attack prey as big as a bison. Well, I guess they go after walrus sometimes. That's a good fight. I think a polar bear and a bison is a really good fight because sometimes polar bears will go after walrus. I want to give an ed. to polar bear, but it's, I know it's more your decision, but just from my mind, I want to give it like a six out of ten to a polar bear.

Yeah, I don't think I would. I like, I like the bison's lower center of gravity a little bit more. Yeah. What kind of moves is a bison working with besides like a headbutton of gore? Do they do like donkey kicks or anything? Yeah, they kick, they trample. It's mostly their head and their horns that you got to be worried about, but they can kick and trample too.

They don't have nearly the repertoire of attacks as some of our other animals do have. But I don't know. It's a good one. It's one that made me think a lot. I'm giving them the edge over our moose. I'm giving them the edge over our camel. But when it comes to our predators, I think the ones that have a shot are Siberian tigers, grizzly bears, and polar bears.

Maybe a big African lion, too. I guess we'll never know till we have the budget to make these fights happen. I know, I can't wait. You guys, we need more patrons and subscribers so we can start paying for these fights. You said this place was steps from the water. We just haven't found the steps yet. How much did we save? Enough.

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So I think I would have gored him and then done a 360 spin like a shot putter and just like use that snow pushing muscle in my neck and just got like a full fling out of him. I think I could have got like 40 feet. For maxed record. Yeah. Yeah, right. But I think for height on K-Leet, like if you want height, you get your head down low, get them in the leg, and then just use all that. Yeah, and it got that good leverage by getting her down and her ankle, so it could really just fling her up. Flipper.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's what I would do different if I were the bison. All right. I guess that's the new name of this category. What would you do different if you were the animal attacking this person? Mike, what are you doing? So I would do the thing

Remember in two towers when legless Slings up onto the back of the horse? Yeah. He made that look pretty easy So I think I could probably do that To get on top of the bison Yeah. And once you're there, there's nothing it can do It's not going to kick or trample you if you're up there It can't get you with its head or its horns.

So you're safe. Like the back of a bison is the safest place on planet Earth. Well, and if you were in a herd, you could do what he did in the Hobbit movies And just jump Run across them? Cross bison like he did across those falling rocks. And the piles.

You're going to do that thing where he like grabs the front of it, swings like in front of it a little and then swings around. Yeah, it's sick. It's so cool. All right. So what you actually should do, the main thing to do is first to pay attention to the bison and what they're doing. So some signs that a bison is agitated, they'll raise their tail up. So if a bison's just calm and whatever its tail's just hanging limp, If they're agitated, they'll actually raise it up and it goes out straight.

They'll paw at the ground. They'll stare at you. They'll sway their head side to side. They'll bellow or huff at you. They'll turn to the side and kind of show you how big they are. Those are all common signs that a buffalo's annoyed with you. The one that I see the most in Yellowstone is that bellowing, like huffing at me or shaking its head back and forth. When one does that, I'm like, okay, this bison's pissed.

Did I say buffalo a second ago? I think I did. Ah, you're close. Yeah. So if you're actually charged by a bison, one good tip is if you're in a place that has bison, get used to planning escape routes. So just as you're hiking and you're thinking about could I run into a bison, just be thinking about where you would go if you did run into one.

And then look for things to hide behind. So get behind trees or brush or poles or cars or whatever. And then act assertively, yell loudly, wave your arms around. but the main thing is just get away from it. So if a bison's coming at you and you have some escape terrain, like you have a tree to get behind or a car or whatever, get behind it and then when you have the opportunity, get further away from the bison.

We always say like with all of our predators, we're always saying don't run, don't run, don't run. With almost all of our ungulates, running away and getting away from it is the best possible thing you can do. Now if you're actually charged and you're hit and the bison has you on the ground, at that point it might be smart just to lay flat

and play dead kind of like Kyler and Kaylee did because it might just be trying to neutralize you as a threat and as soon as you're neutralized, it's going to leave you alone. You just got to hope at that point that it will. And we did mention bearspray in this episode. Bear spray does work on bison. They don't like it. It probably would stop a charging bison, but not for sure.

So in this story where they, okay, for Kyler, where he saw the bison and then started running before the bison. bison charged him was that bad you know it's hard to say it was such a surprise thing where he came up over the hill it might have already been too late for him to stop that bison come charging at him but there's a chance had he just stood his ground and yelled and made himself look really big and stuff that it might have were like slowly back up yeah either of those might have stopped it from charging but it's hard to say i think he was close enough to it there where it just decided i'm charging this thing regardless.

Sorry, were you done? Yeah. Okay. I was just going to ask, do Buffalo... It's fine. You can say Buffalo. You lost your chance. You can't ask your question anymore.

I got to wait until next Bison episode. I was going to ask. So, do Bison bluff charge? Is that a thing that they do? Like, would they ever pull up short? Okay. They buff charge a lot. That's what happened to Cyrus.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's really common. And that's just, again, part of their display telling you like, hey, I'm a bison, I'm too big for you. But yeah, as far, like, that's a great question that you asked, Jeff. And I don't know if there's a way that he could have stopped it. But you would recommend not just running away right when you're in that situation, right?

If it just slowly back away or like, don't run. I would recommend like, yeah, if you suddenly see one and it's right there, I don't know if I would just turn around in sprint. But if it started coming toward me, I would. because it's not like a predator where you trigger this response and it's like, oh, this might be prey, I'm going to chase it. It's just trying to get rid of you. Like the bison just doesn't want you there

and running sometimes is the best thing to do. I will say that the bison on Antelope Island are a little bit more onry than a lot of the bison that I've met otherwise. It's like in Yellowstone, they're a lot more used to visitors. But in Antelope Island, for whatever reason, you do have to be a little bit more careful with those bison than you do your general bison. Also, there's not really much to hide behind that.

There's not. Yeah. All right. So those are the main things you should do. The main thing, though, I would say is just if you have bear spray, spray it, get away and put something between you and it. Those are the big things. Okay. So our next category is going to be our questions.

Listener questions. Okay. Patreon questions. This one's from Caitlin. I'd love to hear what you guys think the psychology is behind why we in jrifice. listening to gruesome animal attacks and why we go hunting for some of the most gory animal attack photos. Yeah, I think that's a great question. I want to answer it with a quote from E.O. Wilson that I'm going to paraphrase, but he's kind of like, you're ready for this.

Yeah, one of the best thinkers in wildlife conservation. Yeah, this is unprompted, but he talked about just how much we love our monsters. Like throughout history, there have been stories about things it scare us and things that we're terrified of. And I don't think wildlife are monsters and our big point of this podcast is to make you guys realize that they're not monsters. But they are, there is this primal thing in us that ever since we became, you know, upright and we left trees, we were at risk of predation. And we were killed by leopards and lions and all these different things. And that was something that we had to deal with for hundreds of thousands of years as homo sapien or astrolopithesis or whatever and our ancient ancestors had to deal with and that's ingrained into us it's a primal fear that

we have it's something that we still think about all the time even though you don't realize you're thinking about it it's still in that like lizard brain that you have and I think that's why we're so interested in it still is because it takes us back to those like primal responses that we had to being hunted I've heard some theories about why when you're up on a high place like on a Cliff's Edge and you always get those weird kind of spur of the moment thoughts like I should just jump off you know do you ever have those thoughts like just really weird there's a word for it in French I don't speak French so I wouldn't know but I've heard and this is like this is in no way no one should take this as scientific fact or anything this is just something that I heard a while

ago but I've heard that our brain does that to us on purpose so it can kind of like put into the forefront of our brains like this is what you shouldn't be aware of of and what you should not do. It's kind of like, it's getting you to like consciously consider the dangers of the situation that you're in. So maybe when you're seeing pictures of like animal attacks, you're like, that's something that you need to treat with care, like understand that the consequences could be death. So look at this, consider it and, you know, go out your way safely kind of thing.

I'd also, I'd say like animals, like we think they're cool, like a bear, like a bear, like a bear, People think it's cool. But if someone's going to tell a story of like, oh, yeah, I saw a bear and is in a me me a meadow and is really pretty, opposed to like someone telling me a story, yeah, I saw a bear and it came up and started biting me and, like, threw me off a cliff. One of those stories is going to be a lot more fun to listen to than the other, you know? Sure. Totally.

So there's a, there's an answer from all three of us. Progressively, less and less scientific, but sure. I don't know. Yeah, yours is a lot smarter than Wes's. From Jack, if you could meet anyone alive or dead, who would it be? Congratulations on the network partnership. Thanks, Jack. Do you guys want to go first?

I have an answer for this, but I always forget it. I'll go Steve Irwin if I can go on like a field trip with him. Yeah, that's a good answer. Like if we can go see a bunch of animals. Mike, who are you picking? That's a good question. Wes, you go and then maybe I'll think of something. I'm having a hard time.

I had an answer for this. I can't say like a T-Rex, right? It has to be a person. So, Steve Irwin's a really good answer. You should say John Hammond and then you could see a T-Rex three of him. But he's a fake character. He said alive or dead, not real or fake. So I'm going to assume he means real people.

I think I'd want to meet Steve Irwin. I'd pick the big J.C. Clear up a lot of questions, you know. Jesus Christ. Yeah. I think that's a good big. Probably be an enlightening conversation. Take away my back pain or something.

Yeah. All right. And then some questions from Instagram. This one's from Mark Lodderback. I think I'd meet Charles Darwin over Steve Irwin. I'm picking Charles Darwin. All right. Yeah.

So this one, it says it's for me. Okay. I have a listener question for Jeff. If you were to have an NFL team with five different animals, QB running back wide receiver 1, wide receiver 2, and tight end, who are you picking? So I'm going to pick a gorilla as my quarterback because they got useful hands. Then an elephant's going to be my running back and it can just use its trunk to like hold onto the ball. Okay.

And then I'll have a cheetah is wide receiver 1, a tiger is wide receiver 2. Obviously speed and they can probably jump high and catch a ball. And then the polar bear is my tight end. But honestly, I don't think the last three matter much because I'm just going to have the gorilla hand the ball to my elephant and score a touchdown every single time. Yeah. It's a good question and a good answer. Do you guys have any comments or should we move on? No, but I'm back to Steve Irwin for my person I'd want to meet.

I was going to say, it'd be really interesting if both of us met, you met Charles Darwin, and I met Jesus Christ and we were together. That'd be it. That'd be fraught with tension. So for my team, I don't think a buffalo is a terrible idea for running back. They just don't have a good way to hold the ball. But I would want a kangaroo, I think, for a wide receiver. Because I don't think they would ever fumble the ball. They just stuff it down there.

Your gorilla is a good enough quarterback. You could throw it straight into the pouch. Straight in there, yeah. I don't think they'd allow it to be in the pouch. That'd be like someone sticking it in their jersey or something. That's such a good move. Why does no one do that? It's part.

It is part of their body. All right. Here's a question from court-mandated. Hi, guys. I made this account just to follow you, and I had a question. Kangaroo can is a bear bee. No. What?

Kangaroo. Can is a bear bee? I have no idea what that means. All right, let's just move on. Okay, whatever. All right. That was our court-mandated question that we have to answer. Hey, I have a listener question for Mike.

It involves horses. I grew up, sorry, I'm going to say who this person is. This is from Avalin Wooden. I grew up rodeoing, rodeoing down in Oklahoma, and I have my fair share of horses that I hate. But if you meet a horse that's actually nice, would you consider liking horses that loves you? I just don't see how much. I can't see that ever happening. Like, what could a horse do that would change my mind about it specifically?

What if, like, that one Mother's Day story, you're getting trampled by a cow and a horse came and saved you? I would rather die by the hoof of a cow than be saved by the mouth of a horse, as the old saying goes. That needs to be on a shirt soon. All right. Next question is from Ginger Running Wild. Thoughts on the jackass show slash movies. Generally positive, I think. Very positive.

We got a lot of questions after this last movie about the scene with the bear. A lot of people asked us about how we felt about that. And to be honest, I didn't feel great about it. I thought that bear, seeing a bear in chains being led into an area where there's like a bunch of food and it was like a guy that was really scared of it. It just kind of, it felt wrong to me. And it's like you're trying to almost promote bad behavior in a bear, you know, even a trained bear. I didn't love that part. There's been some other segments, too,

where they, like, throw snakes around, really, like, nonchalantly. Not in that newest movie, but in one of the older ones, they, like, threw a bunch of snakes into a pit. And I just do think sometimes they're a little casual with their animals that they're using.

But aside from that, I love jackass. Like orangutang tank drunk. Yeah, that was wilds. Yeah. Yeah. So I do take some issues with that, but aside from that, I will say with the newest.

one, the preview of like the bear walking into the room as like, oh, this is going to be like cheesy and not real. And then when I watched the movie, I was like, okay, this is like making me nervous. Yeah, it definitely could have bid him. Speaking of bison, was it, I mean, this is. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Was there a bison in this one?

Isn't the last one in the, you can't dance in a. That actually might be my favorite pop culture bison is when he has roller blades. playing that song. You can't roller blade in a Buffalo. You can't roller skate in a Buffalo. Roller skate. And it just gets like, oh, it's like one of my favorite bits. Yeah, it is a good bit.

All right. From Nab Segal, what's an album you think is perfect all the way through? Weezer Blue album. Or the first third-eye blind album. Nice. Yeah. I also really like Pup. The Dream is Over.

I think that's a perfect album. finish. I don't have a good one. I've been listening to Taylor Swift's Red a lot. Taylor's version. Back to front perfection, huh? Mike? Yeah. Oh, man, I have so many. I've been really into hip hop lately, so maybe I can just focus on a couple there, but atrocity exhibition by Danny Brown, Deltron 3030, maybe Pignata by Freddie Gibbs. I'll just, I'll stop at those three, but like all three of those are unbelievable. I should also probably say that none of the three of those are very child-friendly, so maybe go listen to Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band.

There's a 10 out of 10 album, fun for the whole family. Or both of the jellyfish records, belly button and spilt milk. These are some 10 out of tens, I think. All right. So one more question from poor Lieberg? Poor Lieger? So she's referencing our 2001 Mother's Day episode. 2012?

Yeah, 2020. Did they even have podcasts in 2001? No. No. Mother's Day even a thing yet? So, Wes, you mentioned that the mountain lion was smart enough to recognize that there's a small child on top of a horse. So they say that they were lucky enough to go on a safari in Africa,

and the guides told them that they... animals don't recognize that they're people in a car. Yeah. Something that they could attack neat. So what's your opinion on that? Yeah, I was probably making a judgment call when I said that it was smart enough to do that, but I'm pretty sure it was because it pulled them off of the horse. I think there's a big difference between a kid on a horse out in the woods between a safari

vehicle that lions have seen dozens of times with like full of people. Those are two very different things that they view those things very differently. I feel like the lions recognize that there's people inside of a safari car, though. That's the second point I was going to make. I think you're not giving lions enough credit if you think that they don't realize that those safari vehicles have people inside of them. I don't think they just see them as like a big monster coming at them. I think they know what they are and they know what's inside of them. I think maybe the safari people just want people to feel confident because they know the lions won't attack the vehicle.

You know, they rarely ever do. But like, I agree with you. And I'm not, you know, I'm not a safari guide in Africa. So I don't, I can't say that for sure. But I'd be shocked if lions can't separate people from the vehicle. Cool. All right. Thanks for the questions, guys.

So if you're not aware, if you are one of our Patreon members, We do prioritize your questions, both for answering on the show and just answering through email or voice message or whatever. So we do really try and get to our patron questions first. Everyone else that submits us questions, we try and answer them whenever we can. But that is one more perk to being on Patreon as we try and get to your questions. Okay, we kind of already talked about conservation. The U.S. has launched a big initiative to conserve bison. They've done that hand in hand with the tribes that have also.

really worked hard to bring bison back. So both of those, both tribal governments and the U.S. government have really done a lot of work to bring bison back from the brink. We have about 30,000 wild bison now in the U.S. And a lot of domesticated bison. So they're not going anywhere. But they do still need some protection and conservation. Okay.

Do you know what states have wild bison? I believe all 50 states have wild bison at this point. But I'm not sure about that. Yeah. Rhode Island Hawaii doesn't Okay I know that there's bison in all 50 states But that maybe they're probably domestic

You're right There's it's probably just bison All 50 states have bison at this point But I think it's only I can't remember how many states have You know what you're right I think it's only like 12 states that have wild herds I'll have to double check myself on that

We're going to give them our claw rating I'm going to give bison I'm going to give them Um, six claws. I think they're really cool for an ungulate. I really think they're like a cool emblem of the West and they're neat looking animal. But I've seen so many of them and they're generally pretty boring when you do see them that I just don't. They're not, they're not like way up there for me, but I still like them.

So there are six, six and a half. I'm going to give them a nine. Wow. Okay. Yeah. I like bison a lot. and it adds to it that I see them a lot, especially because wherever I see them,

it's always a pretty location. That's a good point. So it's like always a good experience when I see them. And I saw one attack someone, so that's cool. Yeah. That adds a level for me. Yeah. So yeah, I'm going to rank them 29th overall.

Oh, top 30. Nice, dude. That's so exciting. So I'm going to give them an eight I think they're really cool too I take a little bit of umbrage with you saying that they're never doing anything that cool west

Because like when you see a bear What are they ever doing that's super cool? You're right they're generally just like grazing And looking for food to like But it generally feels a little bit more dynamic to me And you do see bison wallow and stuff I'll give them a seven I'm gonna bump up a seven

Have you seen that planet earth Where the bears are dancing their backs on the trees Yeah I saw that this week I saw a bear do a tree rub this wink. Did they do that in Planet Earth? Or is that just Jungle Book? No, they do that in real life. It's in Planet Earth.

But I'll give them a 7. I'm bumping up to 7. That's what we like to hear. 7-8-9. There we go. 6 is so afraid right now. All right, thanks guys. Thanks for tuning in.

As always, quick plug for some of the stuff we've got going on. We still have our Patreon, which we absolutely love. We love our community on there. We post bonus content on there. There's some other little bonus perks you get. Discord. That's coupons for discounted merch, discord, a lot of different things that you get from being a Patreon member. So join us on Patreon if you're interested in more of Tooth and Claw.

We also have our Apple Gris Club subscription. They're getting bonus content and early access to episodes. So if that's all you're interested in, that's a great place to sign up as well. Both of those services now have an annual membership. cost, which you're going to save some money if you sign up for the annual membership. So check it out. We'd love to have your support. We need your support.

You know, that's what keeps us going. Yeah, and so those are my plugs. Plug in our stuff. And like and review us on Apple Podcasts. Yeah. I got roasted by one the other day. I just saw it. So people need to say some nice things about Jeff.

If you guys like us, get on there and give us a good review. Yeah. Because I do think it helps a lot with, like, Like, I've talked to a few people who found us just through, like, searching animals on podcasts and, like, our podcast come up. So if you have reviewed us, thank you so much. It's really helping with our growth. And we do, even though you're not supposed to do this, we read every single one of them.

So we do really enjoy reading what you guys have to say about the podcast. So we'd love to hear. Yeah, I'm going to be a lot more serious now, and I'm going to just try to be smarter overall as. Sounds good. All right. Love you guys. Love you.