Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - Black Bear Attack - The Worst Black Bear Attack in History: Part 2

Episode Date: April 24, 2023

Part 2 of what is considered to be the worst black bear attack in history, once again taking place at the Liard River Hot Springs. The guys then get into their favorite heroes from pop culture, and the old cake and ice cream argument rears its ugly head again. ~~ 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, tooth and claw podcast. We got Wes Larson, smartest person in America, top five-ish in the world. No. For sure, the smartest bear biologist in America. Definitely not the smartest bear biologist in America. The smartest bear biologist on this podcast right now. Okay. We got...

I'll accept that. Jeff, the number one black bear field tech in the world. That's me. In 2014 and 15. And I bench 200 pounds. Nice. Oh, man. As much as Shrek.

That's amazing. I don't think that's true, Jeff. I think Shrek could bench a lot more than 200 pounds. He did lift that person over his head. I'm not even a Shrek fan, and I think that. So I think you got to take some steroids or something, maybe you'll get there. And then we got Mike here, who's our producer, Mike's, and might go see the Mario movie soon.

Oh, Mike, I've been thinking about it. I've been thinking about it a lot. I really want to see it. I think more and more as I read reviews and see, like, friends of mine that have seen it, I'm like, I think I'm going to like this movie. But the bar was set low. I'm not like thinking it's going to be anything mind-blowing. But I do think I'm going to see it.

I kind of think I'm going to enjoy it. You know what movie I've been thinking about more. I know. Sky Cat in the world tomorrow because you can't see. stop talking about it. It's good, guys. So the boys were just in Montana, and as we were deciding which movies to watch, we did our customary decision process, which is getting like eight Smash Brothers characters

on the Super Smash Bros. game, putting them all at computer, and then having them fight with each character is assigned a movie that we may or may not watch, depending on who wins. And the first night we did that Jeff's movie, Speed Racer won, which is a... very visually, like, eclectic movie that's just like, it's weird. It's weird. But by the end of it, I was like, okay, I've had my fill of, like, weird visual movies. And then the next, like, the next night or maybe two nights after, Mike picks for his character, Sky Captain in the World of Tomorrow, which is another very strange visually.

You said you hated it, like five times on the drive home. I did. And then I watched it again, guys. No, you didn't. I did. So I read Roger Ebert. Ebert, he gave it four out of his four stars. Oh, wow.

So I like, huge miss. There's a big wormhole about like the creation, the making of all that. I like it. Sometimes it does take like, sometimes it takes like a perspective I didn't think about for me to like a movie more. Like Dunkirk. I didn't like Dunkirk at all. And then I heard actually Quentin Tarantino like explain the movie and why it's. It's good.

Now it's like a top five war movie ever for me. It's great. Sky Captain was terrible. It was so bad. So I got home and I got my new driver's license. Uh-huh. And I think like, so like every time you get it, maybe your picture's worse because you get older, you know? Yeah.

I think this might be the worst picture ever taken of me. Like ever. Period. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I want to see. I feel like I look like a 40-year-old woman who's been smoking to her whole life.

You do. You too. What's going on there? So West took my beard trimmer when he was here, and all I had was a razor, and I was like, I haven't shaved my face all the way in five years. So I was like, and my friend, Natalia was telling me to. So I was like, you know what? Whatever, let's see what it looks like. And my face just like poofed up once I shaved. I just looked so weird.

You look like a 40-something-year-old, like, woman gym teacher in that photo. Yeah, I look like Charlie's mom, and it's always sunny. Oh, yeah, you kind of do. Or the principal in Matilda a little bit. Yeah. Do you guys have, like, good driver's license pictures? I feel like they always turn out kind of bad, right? Yeah.

Mine are pretty good. I and you know what the other thing is I my passport photo I'm like the only person I've ever met where they let me smile for some reason like they always tell you not to smile and I smiled and I'm just kind of like a happy guy on my passport and I feel like the custom guys are always like oh this guy's nice we'll let him through I feel embarrassed about it but now I probably need to all that heroin share my picture with the listeners after you probably should Mike I know So we all have some backgrounds right now, and Mike's is about overrated, underrated things, and you have Hot Springs as being overrated. Yeah. Do you care to elaborate on that at all? Well, you guys can read, right?

I'm kind of in the way. Hot Springs are terrible. Just never had a good time at all. So the reason why I put it up there is because I think part two of our story is going to be taking place in the Hot Springs that we were talking about in part one, right? Correct. And I've just been thinking a lot about them and how much I hate them. Okay.

Have you only been to Hot Springs in Utah? No. He's been to Jerry Johnson. I like Jerry Johnson. Yeah, Jerry Johnson was terrible. It was like four inches of lukewarm water. And then like you get all soggy and it's like a four mile hike out. So you get all chafed by the time you're back.

It's a mile. Yeah. It was the worst. It's hit and miss. You did miss like it in its prime. There used to be a pool. where like the waterfall came right into the pool and the pool was hot and you could go into the waterfall if you wanted like extra heat and then the river is right next to it so it's kind of like still circulating and not just sitting there gross but that one like got blown out and has never quite recovered I feel like I feel like you're right except for like if you get a perfect hot springs out in the woods like it's pretty it's pretty awesome they're magical I have opposite of views. Like, I've always thought if I was, yeah, if I was like, if I was like a old, sulfur and

garbage. Homesteader, trapper or whatever, kind of like the guy in part one, that Tom Smith guy. If I, if, if, if I like found a hot spring, I would just set up my cabin right next to it. And I would just constantly be in and out of that hot spring. And I would just, you'd also constantly have a couple of hippies like having sex in the hot spring right outside your house. That's a bonus. I will say like the first naked. people I ever saw were at a hot spragging it. It wasn't the kind of people you want to see naked. They got to stop.

Yeah. They got to stop doing that to us. It's mine too. You also, your background. I just, like, stared at her, too. Your background also says the sun is overrated because it hurts your eyes. I don't know. People are kind of like, all I need is the sun and I'll be happy again.

Yeah, I mean, I think those people are maybe taking. a little far, but I think the average person appreciates the sun a healthy amount. Oh, that's great. I'd love to see the rest of this document sometime. Is that a document you created? Yeah, that's been going on for a few years. I got a lot of stuff on here. All right.

Well, you know, I think we should get into this story. People are probably chomping in the bit to hear the rest of it. I'm ready. I was hoping when we were talking about hot springs, you just use that to transition right into here. You know me. I love a good transition. from you usually, but I want to do a little bit, a couple quick disclaimers. So, first of all, a little content learning because this is a very violent story.

It's a story that we're going to have a lot of pretty gruesome details here. So if you have sensitive kids or really impressionable kids or if your kids are dumb, if you got really dumb kids, you might want to turn it off now. But I guess if you do it right now, now they're going to know that you think they're dumb. So also Let them listen Or here Turn it off if your kids are really smart

And perfect too And that should trick those little dummies All right So another thing I just want to talk about something really quick The bear in this story is going to come off Like a movie bear almost Where it seems bloodthirsty

It seems like it's like intent on just like killing And I just want people to remember As you think about this This is an animal that we're talking about It's an animal that has natural urges, natural desires, and those urges are pretty simple. And, you know, they basically are keeping itself safe, giving itself opportunities to reproduce, and finding food. And this fits squarely into one of those desires and urges.

And three. Yeah. And honestly, like, just remember that. This is a bear. This is an animal that was just trying to get food. It was just doing its daily thing. We are in its habitat. We share habitat with these animals.

animals. Every once in a while, they're going to see us as food, and that just places us back into that cycle that we were a part of for a very long time. I'm not trying to diminish the horror that it causes in people's lives when these things happen, but I don't want us to view this bear as like an evil kind of like bloodthirsty thing because they don't have the same morals as us. To them, we're just another animal that could potentially be food. So just remember that as we talk about this. Okay. I forgot what you just said. That's fine, Jeff. I didn't expect it. Jeff, you're actually one of the kids that should probably turn this one off, and you should just go kind of watch something nice on TV. Okay. So we're going to recap part one really

quick. We talked about George Dorskin, who was the dragonfly researcher that was killed by potentially a grizzly bear at Learred River Hot Springs. We talked about the history of Learad River Hot Springs. And we talked about how in 94 there was a black bear that jumped in the pool and chased a Texan guy down. Almost got him, but some people threw a bench at him, which again is pretty cool of them. And then we talked to- That is some Shrek strength.

Strength. That's hard to say. We did get into then our main characters, which we talked about Patty O'Connell and her kids, Kelly and Kristen. They were the family that had left Paris, Texas. They were heading toward Alaska and they had stopped at Leard River Hot Springs. Kristen had met some other kids of the Hot Springs.

She was playing around with them. And then we talked a little bit about Ray Kitchen, who was the truck driver. He was there with his daughter and her friend Sarah, and they had headed to Leard River Hot Springs after a normal day of dropping off explosives for road crews. That's right. Okay. So that's where we're at in the story. And if you remember, Patty and Kelly had gone up to Bata Pool, which is the further pool in this series of pools.

And Kristen had run back down to the parking lot to hang out with their friends, maybe get some lunch. and as they were heading back down, Kelly decided that they should go up to hanging gardens, which is like a little diversion from the main boardwalk. It's this really cool terrorist area that has like these mineral rock walls that then have... Terrorist? Terrorist.

That then has... Is that where the bear was? A furry terrorist there today. Anyway, I had mentioned that it was just one of those kind of throwaway decisions that you'd never think twice about, but it ended up being a really tragic decision. I mean, it's like a place called Hanging Gardens right next to you. You got to go see it.

You got to go see it. And it does, from looking at photos, it does look like a very, very beautiful place. So the two walk up the short boardwalk in their swimsuits to Hanging Garden. And they're admiring all this plant life in the area. They're admiring this spectacular view. And Patty hears a little bit of rustling in the nearby bushes. But her mind's on her daughter, who's now been alone for a little bit with this new family that they just met. And so she tells Kelly that she's going to go back down and check on Kristen.

And she gets up to leave, and she'd only made it a few yards down the boardwalk when she lifted her head to see a black bear that was standing a few feet away, chewing on some branches in this brush lining the boardwalk. The bear immediately noticed that she was approaching, and it stopped what it was doing to also take stock of this new animal that's approaching it. So Patty had never been so close to a bear and fear just courses through her body. She hisses the word bear to Kelly, kind of like a whisper yell almost, you know. And the 13-year-old boy turns around, doesn't really see it, though, and he's like, sure, mom,

thinking that she's playing a prank on him because they had just been talking about bears. And then her panic reaches a new level, and she actually kind of yells at Kelly. She says, Kelly, and he turns around and he sees what's happening. The bear's now completely focused on his mom, and she's carefully trying to get away from this bear, but it's following her. Like every step she takes, it takes a step. And another thing to recognize, she's only in a swimsuit, so she feels very exposed to despair.

I do think we sometimes don't really talk enough about how much clothing can give you an extra level protection when you're being attacked by an animal. Kelly sees what's going on. He nervously tells his mom not to make any sudden movements, which seemed like some info that he had heard somewhere. But she's frozen in place, and Kelly starts slowly. moving toward her, and then in just like a split instant, the bear squeezes through the boardwalk railing and it charges toward her. And Kelly starts screaming at his mom, telling her to run away from

this bear. Hearing these screams from her son caused Patty to snap out of this paralyzing fear that she has, and she turns to try and run toward him, and she only makes it a few steps up the platform. When she's hit from behind by the bear, it crashes down on top of her, and it knocks her down on the boardwalk, where it immediately begins tearing into her with both its teeth and its claws. Within seconds, the bear bites deeply into her chest, and it shakes her, causing punctures to her lungs and her other vital organs. Blood starts just absolutely pouring from her body, and she immediately is having problems breathing.

So Kelly's sitting there. He's watching his... Yeah, if your lungs are popped, it's pretty hard to breathe. Bear bites your lungs, and it's harder to breathe. Much harder, I would imagine. Kelly's watching and he sees as the bear essentially just envelopes his mom and she falls to the ground. Her screams are just piercing through the air and Kelly acting out of instinct charges at the bear and starts kicking it. He's yelling at it to get off of his mom and screaming at his mom to play dead.

So pretty brave 13 year old kid. I think all of us like in our minds have imagined things like this happening to us. And I think all of us would imagine doing this sort of thing. but it's hard to say like if that's happening and you see this ferocious animal attacking someone you love, what you would do if you wouldn't just be stunned

if you wouldn't like try and run and get help but he like on an instinct run and tried to help his mom because there's definitely a lot of stories where people don't help too right and often it's just because they just like they just don't know what to do they're just standing there watching you know and he responded really quickly lots of places can expose you to identity theft Oh, no.

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He goes and he grabs a large branch that's hanging off of the boardwalk, and he slams it in the bear's head, and the bear continues to mullah's mom, who's still screaming beneath its body. And at this point, Kelly notices that there's blood dripping down from the bear's mouth, and he knows, oh, I don't have much time here. If this bear keeps going at this rate, I'm going to lose my mom. So he summons up all the anger, all the strength he can muster, and he brings this branch down really hard right on the bear's nose. And finally, he gets its attention, and the bear pauses for mom.

pally and it growls at Kelly. And then its paw shoots out as how it was described. And it rakes across his neck and his shoulders. So it's now completely focused on Kelly. It charges him and slams him down onto the boardwalk, pinning him down with one paw and then biting him on the back of his neck. And he's like a 13-year-old kid. So I don't know how much most 13-year-old boys weigh, but it's probably like less

than 100 pounds, I'm guessing. So he's not like a big. challenge for this bear. And it crunches its teeth into his waist, lifts him up in the air, and starts shaking them back and forth, like a rag doll, which is what a lot of bear attack victims say. It's kind of our equivalent of the shark and the truck thing. We constantly hear about bears shaking people around like rag dolls. I was trying to think of another comparison.

I couldn't really think of one. Like a dog with a new toy? Yeah, I mean, but that's kind of what this is, like a dog with a rag doll. Yeah. So during this... Yeah, could be. But I don't think that'd be quite as good. I don't know.

Yeah. Anyway, we'll think on it. But during this really explosive attack where the bear's shaking Kelly back and forth, his head is actually getting pummeled against the guardrail of the boardwalk, and he's starting to lose consciousness. And then the bear drops him,

and it bites into his neck and twists. And he remembers hearing the sounds of his bone crunching in his neck, and he starts to really pass out at this point. But right before he passes out Leave him alone I know it's not It's got a long way to go

Before he passes out It throws him to the side And he crumples up into a ball On the boardwalk So he opens his eyes And he's right next to his mom And he's staring into her face All the blood is out of her face

She's completely pale And her eyes are wide open And she's not blinking And then the bear suddenly Is tearing into his back again And it's removing Large chunks of flesh And skin from his back

and he can smell the breath of the bear and he suddenly has this realization that he's going to die this is how he's going to die is being eaten alive by a bear so he just closes his eyes and he just hopes that it won't take long suddenly... I popped my head on the cupboard yesterday

and I had the same thing I was like I'm going to die this is how it happens this pain won't go away yeah I think that's a good very comparable yeah but wait hold on Jeff's story is more interesting to me.

Yeah, what did you do about it? Let's just, we'll tie mine up and we'll get in. Did you put like some peas on it? I kept rubbing it with my hand. But whenever I stopped, it just hurt so bad. Oh man, that's tragic. Why do we do that? Why do we rub stuff?

Like, does it help? I feel like it spreads the pain around or something. Yeah, okay. That sounds scientific. Well, this was a very worthwhile. He's got a lot of areas to be rubbing right now. Yeah, he's got to be spreading that. So Kelly, he's closing his eyes.

He's just ready to go. He knows that this bear's probably going to eat him alive. And right when he's giving up, another branch slams into the bear's stomach, and it turns its focus away from Kelly and Patty. Ray Kitchen had stumbled on the scene. He had heard the screaming. And he arrived and immediately started yelling at the bear and then grabbed a branch and started like whacking it on the side of the rail trying to get the bear

a stop. So when that didn't help, when the bear didn't stop because he was slamming the boardwalk rail, he actually then decided to confront the bear and start hitting it. So he started hitting the bear and his plan worked a little bit too well because suddenly the bear was completely focused on him and it left Kelly and it charged at Ray. It caught him really easily and both of them actually crashed through the boardwalk rail, like broke the rail, went into the brush and Ray again was only wearing a swimsuit, and without this extra protection of the clothing, he was feeling very vulnerable. And the bear begins clawing and biting into Ray while he does his best to cover his head with his hands and crawl to a nearby tree. The bear grabs him by the shoulder, and it used, again,

both its teeth and its claws to pull away the skin and the muscle of his shoulder in his upper arm. Ray immediately knows that he's in way over his head, and he starts screaming for help, hoping that some other bystander might come help him, but his hopes are crushed when the bear actually bites into his neck and rips his carteroid artery out. What? Yeah, it just rips his throat out. That's an artery you need. That is an artery you need.

You can't survive without that one. So nearby 71-year-old Frank Headingham is relaxing above the lower pool, alpha pool, and he hears the screams from Ray and some other yells from some concerned bathers that were also talking about a bear, and he runs up the boardwalk toward the commotion. And just ahead of him was this woman, Ingrid Bailey, who is a wildland firefighter and a paramedic from California, and her friend Brad Westervelt. So these three, Frank, Ingrid, and Brad,

run up the boardwalk toward the screams. They get to the viewing platform, and they're completely shocked by the scene in front of them. There's two bodies completely covered in blood, lying motionless on the boardwalk, and a few yards away from them, there's a man weakly trying to fight off a large black bear that's now sitting on his chest

and tearing large chunks of flesh away from his legs and groin. So Ingrid picks up rocks and chunks of wood and she starts throwing at the bear and banging a large stick on the railing and yelling at it. But she's shocked to see that nothing is deterring this bear. It's just completely laser-focused on feeding on Ray Kitchen. So Brad and Frank pick up a really large nearby log. And with the help of Ingrid, they ram it into the side of the bear. It's like Grond from Lord of the Rings. Just a battering ram.

That's crazy. I guess I could have said that instead of grub. Yeah, your way was a lot less clear, but I liked it. Never going to miss an opportunity. No. How do you know the name of the battering ram? Because it was like their big weapon in the books. It was like crazy.

A battering ram? It's a good name. I'd name it ram. That's what they're chatting when they're like ramming it. They're going grand. Grand. Grand. Grand. All right.

Okay. Another interesting diversion. All right. So they are just like ramming the stick into it. And again, the bear is not acknowledging that they're doing anything. It's just still feeding on Ray. And Brad knows that they're fighting a losing battle here. He tells the other rescuers that he's going to go find a ranger and he takes off running.

And Frank, who had a history of heart disease, is starting to feel really exhausted from hitting this bear. But he continues attacking it, which is still producing absolutely no effect on the bear. It's just focused on Ray. I don't know what the word is for what is happening. Abnormal. doesn't seem like quite a strong enough word, but it's just crazy. The bears just stick in there. I will say like the thing with black bears,

and we're going to talk a lot at the end of this episode about predatory black bears and some of the motivations and a really interesting paper about them. But one thing that is really interesting is like because they don't often kill animals, when they do, once they have it, it's really hard to discourage them. It's pretty easy to discourage them. Yeah, it's pretty easy to discourage them before. they get it. But once they have it, then it's like, they've got it and they know they've got it. And it's really hard to get them to stop at that point. And we are going to talk a little bit more about that.

So suddenly this bear realizes that it's not alone. It changes position and it clamps its jaws around Ray's neck again and then violently whips them off the ground. Ingrid starts screaming and this causes the bear to drop Ray. And Ingrid in this moment of horror sees like that Ray's throat is completely ripped out. His face is unrecognizable. He's been chewed on. His windpipe's been torn out. And his neck is actually almost completely severed by this bear. So Ray Kitchen was dead. This bear had killed Ray. The bear disappears into the brush on the side of the boardwalk. And knowing that Ray is beyond help, Ingrid and Frank run to the other two bodies on the platform, which is Patty and Kelly. And Ingrid bends down to get a pulse from Patty and she doesn't feel anything.

And she knows that Patty is likely dead. But her E.M. M. S training teaches her that she needs to try and resuscitate her, regardless of having a pulse, so she gets working on chest compressions. And nearby, Kelly starts moaning, so Frank rushes to his aid. But just as he gets there, this bear's paw curls over the railing, or like the bottom of the boardwalk, and reaches for Kelly. What? And Frank, yeah, Frank at this point.

That's like what you're saying, a movie. Right. Seems like it's right out of a movie, exactly. Fair for the dramatic. Frank, though, he is like kind of pissed off. at this point. So he starts kicking out of the arm and now the face of the bear. And he gets it to abandon the boy. Like it finally just decides, okay, this is enough's enough. And it takes off and it goes back into the brush. But they can still see it moving in the brush. It's still in view. And now more people are running up the boardwalk toward the scene.

And they're going to be in direct view of this bear. So Frank turns to see that Kelly is really badly mauled. And he's crawling toward his motionless mother and Ingrid, who's still doing chest compressions on her. And Frank runs up to Kelly, and in a really quiet whisper, Kelly tells Frank to help his mom. And Frank tells the boy that they're doing everything that they could and to stay calm and not to move. So I mean, again, like, this is a 13-year-old kid who's been absolutely ripped apart by the sparrants, pulled like muscle and skin off his back. It's done all these terrible things to him. And he's still just really concerned with his mom and them saving his mom. Yeah, it's very admirable. There's a lot of heroes in this story, and Kelly is definitely one of them.

Let's give that kid. Let's give Kelly a purple heart. Ooh, just wait. So Frank has some experience with Wilderness First Aid, and he tries to clean some of Kelly's wounds and stem the bleeding. But really, like, he and Ingrid just didn't have the materials that they needed for something like this. I mean, this is, like, stuff you need, like, triage equipment for. And so they're a concern that they might lose Kelly, too, if they don't really get working.

But almost as if they had wished something into existence, two men show up with towels that could be used to apply pressure to Kelly's wounds. And then one of the men starts helping Frank with Kelly and the other is assisting Ingrid with CPR compressions and breaths on Patty. So Frank knows that the only way they're going to get Kelly to survive is to get him to the hospital. He knows that they're still just kind of putting band-aids on huge flesh wounds, essentially. So he decides to run for help. And he's only started down the boardwalk when suddenly screams, erupt again, and he clearly hears someone say the bear's at it again. This stupid bear.

Ari van der Velden is a 28-year-old research assistant from the University of Calgary, and he had been soaking in Betapool. Do you think his friends were like, hey, you have to go to Betapool? That's why the bear was sitting up there. The bear's like, ooh, Alpha Pool's tough, but I'll head on up to Betapool. I would be surprised he's just like hearing all this. commotion and just this hot tub feels so good. Yeah, I think people like heard it in stages kind of.

Like as the masses like moved down the boardwalk, they heard all the commotion and stuff. And Betapool is a ways away. But when he hears the initial commotion, he gets up and he starts walking down the boardwalk toward hanging garden to see what was happening. But around the intersection of the garden and a really important point here is when he got up, he kind of just was like in his swimsuit and just threw on his boots. really quickly, and he didn't lace them up. Everyone's in a swimsuit. Pretty much, yeah. Around the intersection that leads up toward hanging garden,

he and his friends see a group of screaming people running toward them, and in their screams, he hears the words clearly, charging bear, and then the people told them to run for their lives. And then he sees this bear charging behind this group of people, and he and his friends turn to run, and because he didn't lace up his boots, he slips and falls on the boardwalk. and the bear which was running when it gets within a few feet of Ari,

it slows to like a predatory kind of crawl and stock, and then it pounces on him. That's crazy that like, it's like a group of people. I know. This isn't, yeah, again, this is abnormal behavior, but stuff that we're going to talk about. So he's like on his back and the bear jumps on him. He feels, he remembers describing like the long,

hooked claws of the bear tearing through his exposed flesh. and its teeth bites into his left thigh. And then he's on his back and he's kicking at the bear. And as he's kicking at it, it's grabbing him by the thigh and biting into his thigh and ripping out big chunks of flesh and muscle. Jeez. But it's like better there than by his head or chest, you know. Although you do have your femoral artery in your thigh.

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Sleep number to a good life sleep. So he tries to crawl under the boardwalk and it actually grabs him and pulls him out from under the boardwalk. It starts biting into his back. his shoulder and his neck. So Frank, you guys remember Frank's the 71-year-old, he had run down to try and find some help. He's covered in Kelly's blood, and he reaches the parking lot,

and he runs into a man who had just arrived and was getting out of his motorhome. And he frantically tells this newcomer that a bear was attacking and that they needed help. And this guy was 49-year-old Dave Webb from Fairbanks, Alaska. And like a lot of Alaskans, Dave's packing some heat in his camper. Bazooka, probably. Yeah, why didn't they just go take Ray's explosives yet?

I think he had dropped him off already, is my guess. But also, Ray didn't really have a chance to talk to anyone, unfortunately, tragically. All right, this blood-covered stranger was enough proof for him. So he rushes into his motorhome and he grabs a Winchester 30-30 and a Remington 223. And nearby was 27-year-old Dwayne Egger Broughton, and he had also heard Franks yells. And he's standing near the motorhome when Dave comes out with the rifles. and Dave notices Dwayne and asks him if he had any experiences with rifles.

And Dwayne says that he'd used a 30-30 before. So Dave, like, throws him the Winchester and the three of the men run back up to the bear. So this is Frank, Dave, and Dwayne that are together now. And how much ground do they have to cover between? Not much. I mean, it's not very far. Yeah. So Dwayne gets to the scene first, and he sees that the bear now has Ari propped up against a fallen log.

And it's doing the same thing to him as it had a. Dundar Ray where it's sitting on his chest and it's starting to feed on his upper thigh and groin area. Luckily, it hadn't ripped out his throat like it had Ray, so he's still alive. And Dwayne raises this rifle and he knows that he has to get a good shot. So he actually walks to within 15 feet of the bear and fires. And Ari, who had been, you know, he's being mauled. He has no idea what's going on. Suddenly feels this bear collapse on top of it.

Then Dwayne walks up again and he fires two more shots into this bear just to make sure that it's dead and it is. So emergency personnel, that's got to be uncomfortable. I know. Well, it's only, I don't think that's what he's worried about. And the crazy thing is this was only a 220 pound black bear. This is not a huge black bear. It's a big black bear still.

I mean, it's bigger than most of the ones me and Jeff caught during the season that he helped me. But like, it's not massive by any means. Yeah. All right. So when emergency personnel gets there, Ray's pronounced dead on the scene. Kelly, Patty, and Ari are all rushed to the hospital. when they get there, Patty is also pronounced dead.

Kelly suffered, yeah. Kelly suffered broken ribs. The way you were telling that, it seemed like she was going to make it. Yep, she didn't make it. And you tricked us. I mean, they thought she might make it. That's why they took her to the hospital still, but she was pronounced dead on arrival.

Could you just, like, lie and tell us that she did make it? Patty made it. They made it to Alaska. Everyone was okay. That sounds nice. No, it's actually, it's much worse than that. Kelly suffered broken ribs, a punctured lung, a broken vertebrae, countless deep lacerations. He would spend three weeks in the hospital where he was then released and returned to Paris, Texas.

He and his sister actually had to be separated because they didn't have a caretaker for both of them. They were placed in different guardianships. Oh, man. Ari had extensive wounds. I know he did some serious hospital time too. I couldn't find much information on this. Again, this happened in 97, so there's not like a millionaire. articles and interviews and stuff.

But there is actually a really dedicated Facebook group to this particular attack that, like, posts very regularly. And a lot of them have made, like, YouTube videos and stuff. And I got a lot of information from that. Yeah, and also, Facebook. I'm not on Facebook that often. I also should mention that I got some information from a Reader's Digest article called Rogue Bear on the Rampage. And then every article I could find pretty much on this, I read. I watched a lot of videos

and then that book that I brought up in the last episode Bear Attacks by James Gary Shelton also had some information. Did you poke anyone in the Facebook group? I didn't poke anyone. I haven't poked anyone for a long time on Facebook. Is that still a thing? I don't know.

All right, a couple last things. Kelly received a Star of Courage medal from the Canadian government. Oh, so we kind of did, Jeff. Yeah, that's cool. That's the nation's second. highest award for bravery. Ray Kitchen also received.

You got a figure. I felt the same thing. I was like, wait, what's the highest? Maybe you have to die. Isn't there some awards you have to die to get? Maybe. Yeah, maybe if you like give your life. But also, but the thing is Ray Kitchen got the same award posthumously.

And then his family actually got a letter from Bill Clinton thanking them for Ray's bravery. It was the present of the time. I will say to. The queen? Didn't send anything to Kelly? Denied them. Queen? I don't think so. She probably, like, someone probably told her and she was like,

Oh, what? A boy. Are swans attacks him? Yeah. Anyway, I will say, like, Kelly's bravery was very obvious, and then Ray's bravery, like, I think had Ray not intervened when he did, I feel very confident saying Kelly would have lost his life as well. The bear was ready to feed on him.

It would have started feeding on him more. Ray completely diverted that attention on him. to himself and he sacrificed his life for this kid and he's a hero. Like he just flat out. For sure. Kelly's a hero. These people who rescued all of them are heroes. Like there's a lot of people in this story that really stepped up and did some really

heroic stuff. So I didn't do any biology during the story just because it's like such a fast-paced crazy story that I didn't really want to interrupt it. But I did want to talk a little bit about predatory black bears before we get into categories because they they act so much differently from what you tend to think of when you think of interactions with black bears. So I do think it's a really interesting topic to talk about again. I think it's like very helpful for people because really the only black bear that you have to really worry about is one that is predatory. So it's an interesting talking point and we're going to

talk about it a little bit. Cool. So this is mostly from a paper that was authored by Stephen Herrero, who is like kind of the godfather of bear safety information. And then Tom Smith, my mentor, was one of the co-authors on this paper. Oh, no way. Yeah, it's called fatal attacks by American Black Bears on People. It was published in 2011, and it deals with attacks from 1900 to 2009. So between those years, there were 63 people killed by Black Bears. Roughly 88% of those interactions, those fatal mallings were thought to be predatory interactions.

the remaining 12% were defensive mallings. And of that 12% most of those were like someone that had shot and wounded a bear or something and then it turned around and killed them. Interesting. So almost always when a black bear kills a person, it's a predatory thing.

If you were to look at grizzly bear attacks, these statistics would be almost flipped. Like very few grizzly bear attacks and fatalities are predatory and most of them are defensive. So they're very different bears and the ways that they interact with people. But what we can say is that when a black bear does attack a person, it's almost certainly predatory.

There are the rare occasions when it's not, if someone's like cornered a bear or if they've wounded a bear or something like that. But almost always when they make contact with a person, it's because it's predatory and it wants to eat them, unless you're like feeding it or something like in Yellowstone, but we're going to disregard that. So of these 63 fatal attacks that they looked at in this paper, 92% of these mallings were attributed to an adult or subadult single male.

So almost all of them were males that did it. And then 8% were a female with dependent young. So the episode that we did on National Park After Dark on their podcast, we talked about a woman who was killed by a female with young, which is very rare, but it has happened. That's interesting. So it's not really like cub defending as much as like getting food for the cubs. Yep.

But a single female black bear has never killed a person on record. Wow. That just hasn't happened. So 91% of these fatal attacks happened on parties of one or two people. So really, if you're alone or if there's just two people, you're much more likely to run into a problem bear than if you have three or four. And that's just like a consequence of you making a lot more noise when you're in bigger groups. And then also just you're a bigger threat to a bear when they see that there's a lot more people. They just don't want to engage with you.

It's much riskier for them to attack a large group of people. Now, we talked about this in this story. So this bear attacked Patty and Kelly when there were just two people alone by themselves. And that just kind of put it in this. And this is me spitballing. This isn't me. Like, I haven't written a paper on this attack. I haven't, you know, there hasn't been that much research into it.

But as far as what I think as a bear biologist, when it had actually managed to get a meal, it grabbed them and it knew that it had them and it was going to feed, it then switches out of this mode where it's looking for risk and it's wondering if, you know, this is a threat and it's doing this whole calculus of whether or not it's worth pursuing prey. And it's just focused on keeping its meal at that point. And that's a very different animal that you're dealing with. That's an animal that is going to then take much bigger risks and not necessarily be concerned with other noise that's happening until it gets loud enough, you know, someone whacking a branch on its nose or something like that.

Well, you said it was eating a branch before it attacked him, too. It was eating the brush. It was like, yeah. I thought he said branch. No, it was in the brush, just eating whatever. Yeah. Is that a mark against or four tree powers? I'm not sure.

Yeah, it's a good point. The story has me thinking a lot about that. I think it's against it because two separate people hit it in the head with a branch. Right. It didn't work. If you're a tree, though, if you had tree powers, you could just shoot the branch right through it. I don't know. I don't know if that's. Sure it is.

Yes. So, but that's something to think about. And then honestly, like, once they're in that mode, it's really hard to get them out of it. So in this paper, it's really interesting. There was a note in this paper that says, once predatory behavior, this is a quote, direct quote from the paper. Once predatory behavior is initiated, it may persist for hours unless it is deterred. After one person has been killed by a black bear, the bear may attempt or succeed in killing other nearby people as demonstrated by the three incidents in which two or three people were killed,

this being one of those incidents. Such bears appear to be strongly motivated as if a switch had been thrown. Once a black bear has killed a person, there's an increased chance that it will try to kill other people. They just start raging. Yeah, it kind of, again, it flips the switch. It goes into a different mode, and you're dealing with a much different animal. that point. 38% of the bears involved in fatal attacks had access to human food or garbage prior

to the attack. So that's a significant number of these bears that were food conditioned before they attacked someone. 30% of the bears implicated in the attacks were thought to have had health problems and may have been food stressed. So I do think it's important to bring this up because anytime this stuff happens in the news, the first thing that people say is like this was an abnormal bear, something was wrong with this bear.

That's not necessarily true. in this paper they found that only 30% of those bears had health problems or like something wrong with them the other 70% were healthy they're doing fine they had gotten enough food even if it was human food they were healthy like there wasn't a broken tooth there wasn't like a hurt paw they were healthy black bears so this is an animal that can just be a predator sometimes sometimes it does just decide that it wants to kill someone and that's not it again being mean or whatever it's just it thinking oh I wonder if this is food I'm to see if this is food. All right. Yeah. So not a single one of these fatalities did a person use bear spray. Not a single one. That's a very important lesson to think about. That means that

everyone that did use bear spray managed to survive. In this paper, they make the question like, why don't they do this more often? Why aren't bears killing people more often? They're obviously capable of killing people. So why doesn't it happen all the time? One of the reasons might be, because when this does happen, we almost always kill the bear. And that's removing genes of bears that decide that people are prey from that population. They don't pass those genes on. It's kind of like, in a way, it feels like domestication almost, where like that's what we do when we domesticate animals, like more aggressive animals, you don't breed them. And the really nice, kind of friendly ones you do breed. And it's like the same idea, but obviously not at that level. But when you

remove a killer bear's jeans from the population, then it's not going to teach those to Cubs. It's not going to like, you know, it's not going to pass on those genes that may be predispose it to kill people. Yeah, it is very interesting. All right. Before we go into like some safety stuff really quickly, do you guys remember roughly, I asked you this last week, how many black bears there are in North America, Mike? Yeah. Is it 800,000? Are you Mike? Did you say Mike? Yeah, it's fine. I thought you said you guys.

No, I did, and then I said Mike. It's fine. You can have that point. You said Mike under your breath. It is 800,000. Good job. And you know what? That number has a bit of a confidence interval,

and my guess would be that it could even be more than that. So, like I read this study that talked about this, like a state park in New York State, where over the period of the study, there was like 77 million visitors. days at the park. That's like, so if a person goes to the park for a day, that counts as one day. And if that same person comes back the next day, it's like two visitor days. There's 77 million visitor days during this study. And there's four thousand.

By that one guy? No. By multiple people. There's 4,000 something bears in this park. So really high density of black bears. And they didn't record a single fatality. And they had like three conflicts the entire time, but none that led. to serious injuries or problems.

So when you think about that, that is an insane amount of bear interactions that are happening where nothing goes wrong. When you think about there being 800,000 of these animals and the amount of time that we spend outside these days, there are millions upon millions upon millions of interactions with black bears every year and we average about one death from bears in North America every year.

So it just really doesn't happen that often. This is a very, very rare thing to have happen. We just did a, like, I guess that hasn't come out yet. We talked about Yellow Jackets, the teaser for an upcoming episode. Bees and Yellow Jackets kill like 60 something people a year. And bears, yeah, it's like one. So just remember, like, although this is like probably the- Bers kill bees to get their honey.

That's true. Yeah, think of that. It's like rock papers. So, like, really, that one. death a year, you could just get rid of it because there'd probably be five more deaths if they didn't kill those bees. Jeff's got equations just flying through the air by his head right now. I don't think we need to get rid of it.

Well, I mean, it counteracts it because the bees aren't killing people because they ate them. Okay. Yeah, fair enough. Yeah. And I don't know. Yeah, I don't know if they're killing bees so much as just eating their honey. But you know, that probably leads to some dead bees.

Oh, they are killing some bees, dude. Okay. If the world were like a sleep number mattress, everything would adapt for your comfort. Because as your life changes and your body changes, sleep number mattresses adapt and shift to give you personalized comfort night after night. And now everything's on sale during our Memorial Day event.

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I don't think that's a bad thing. I think that's what makes you then want to be prepared. That's why we don't walk around, like even though dogs kill more than any of these animals every year. We don't walk around with dog spray because we just don't assume that's going to happen to us and we're not that afraid of it. But we do walk around with bear spray because it's a really horrific way to go. And so I do think people should do that. Like carry bear spray if you're worried about bear attacks. Carried anyway. Like it's a good tool to have. Mailman carried dog spray. My friend's dog got maced by a mailman once. Really? Yeah, it was a scandalous. It was like newspaper material. Well, they understand the risk.

Did the dog have it coming? Yeah. I mean. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm sure some listeners are going to be freaked out by this episode. Yeah. Especially like any of you that are on hike right now or something listening. But yeah, Black Bears, if you see them in the wild, you should be excited. There should definitely be the respect for them. And if you have bearspray on you, you're going to feel a lot more confident.

And you're not going to die unless you completely fumble it. Yeah. Just drop. bag. Yeah, like, Nadria, Jurassic Park. But the thing I really don't want to do on this podcast is, like, tell people Black Bears are harmless. I've stood next to a Black Bear trap and, like, push them out.

I think after that story, people kind of get your point on that. But I think it's good to have these stories so the pendulum doesn't swing too far in one direction where people just think, oh, I heard on the podcast about how Black Bear's almost always run away and climb a tree, which they do, 999,000 times. out of a million. But that one other time is the time. It's like how much money Mike owes me. Yeah, it's much less than that.

Yeah. I don't even close. He wishes. That's how much he owes you. So generally, this would be kind of a talk that we would have during the what would Mike and Jeff do. But because of the tragic nature of the story, even though it was a while ago, I don't really want to do that category.

So I do really just quickly, while we're in the meat of this, talk about what you should do with the predatory black hair. Mike's good because apparently he doesn't even. go in hot pools. Yeah, that's true. So they wouldn't even be there. Mike would just be, stay at home. Sit in my own tub.

You'd take a bath. Do you like baths? Yeah, just pour a bunch of like rotten eggs in them and we're all set. Dead animals maybe. Some dirt springs right at home. Do you ever take a bath? Do you ever take a bath? I don't really have like a good bath.

I just have one of those shower bath hybrids and no one's sitting in those. Oh, I do. Oh, really? Those little tiny tubs? I have like one where I, My knees are like in my chest at my house and I still take baths. Yeah, I, yeah, that's a small bath. Yeah.

I'll sit in the shower too just because I just love sitting down with some warm water. Do you guys never sit in the shower? Have a nice cry. I did picture you crying when you said that. You can't sit in the shower not cry. I will sit in the shower like once a year. But I normally just take a bath. Somewhat often.

Well, Mike doesn't even have like comfortable. showers. He just takes like an ice cold shower every morning. It's like, oh, you're a cold shower, huh? Yeah, I am. Do you do the James Bond shower or do you just start cold? James. Okay. Yep, it's slowly, slow. And work my way down. Cool. Feels good, dude. It's good. Yeah. I've always, I've always thought I want to do it. And then I'm like, you know what? This is one of life's little pleasures that I just don't want to give up. So, yeah. That's it for what would Mike and Jeff do? It's not. Okay, yeah, it is. All right. So, Really quickly, though, you guys have heard now several stories on black bears.

Jeff, you've worked on a black bear project a little bit. Mike, I feel like we've talked about them a lot. I want to ask you guys, what do you think the number one difference is between a defensive black bear and a predatory black bear? Like, just in their behavior. Oh, in their behavior? Yeah. Like, before the attack happens?

Mm-hmm. Like, if you see a bear approaching you, what's going to be the thing they're doing differently? A predatory one versus a defensive one. Offensive, they're going to give you the warning signs and, like, clack their jaw and snort at you and try to get you to, like, back away before they attack you. Predatory, they're going to just kind of come right at you. They're sneaking around a little, right? Yeah, you guys got it right. The one thing that's maybe a little off there is with the defensive one, they're not even going to attack you.

It's just a big display. Well, you said 12% have attacked defensive. So that's what I was like enough. But there was, like, other factors involved in that. they were wounded or they were cornered. You said defense attack. Okay, okay. Let Jeff have it.

Just move on. Anyway, I'll give it to you. Well, that's why I was confused, though. With a defensive interaction with the bear versus a predatory interaction, the main difference is going to be noise. So with the bear that's acting defensively, a black bear, remember, we're talking about black bears in this episode. I don't want you guys to try and extrapolate this to Grizzlies because it's a whole different

conversation, as you loyal listeners know. But with a defensive black bear, it's going to be popping its jaws. It's going to be hoofing. It's going to be swatting the ground. It's going to be like squaring up to you. It's going to be doing this huge display to let you know that it's scary and that it's a bear. And it is scary when they do it. It does make you like think, oh, I don't want anything to do with this bear.

Even when their cubs do it. Do black bears stand up? Sometimes they'll kind of like do a little stand in charge, but not nearly as much as grizzly bears do. And when grizzly bear stand up, it's really just them trying to see what's going on. It's not part of a display or anything. But that's what they're doing. And then a predatory bear... Plus, it kind of makes them look more cute than scary at that point, I think.

Okay. A predatory bear is very much the opposite. It's going to be very quiet. It's going to be following you, and it's going to be stalking you. Often, like, in the open, you're going to see it still. But it's going to be really taking its time, and it's going to look like it's thinking the entire time. and if you're obviously being followed by a bear for a long time or even a short time and it's not doing this big aggressive display, you need to do everything you absolutely can

to discourage it. One of the things you're going to do to discourage it is to stop moving. Because if you're moving backwards, it knows that you're being submissive and that you're still potentially prey. You don't want to move backwards. You don't want to run away from it. The only time I would say you could keep moving backward is if you're like close to your car or close to some sort of.

shelter where you can get away from the bear. But if you're not, you need to stop moving. And then at that point, you want to be yelling, you want to be throwing things. You want to be as aggressive as you possibly can to deter this bear. Because like we talked about in this story, once it makes that decision and it's like, this is food. I'm going to be much harder than it is at this point. So you're just being totally dominant with this bear, everything you can to stop it from

attacking you. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And like having seen there, the jaw clack and like the snort, it's something to definitely pay attention to if you see a black bear because it's not, it's a little more subtle than a lot of animals, I feel like. Like a gorilla will like beat its chest really loud or like a big cat will roar. Yeah. With the bear, I'm kind of like, what are they doing?

But you've mostly, that's been in like traps or dens. When they're out in the open and they're doing that, they're also like swatting. the ground and doing bluff charges and stuff. It's very obvious that it's like a big display and that it's like pissed off. I clack my teeth and my sleep a lot. Does that say anything? Who do you think you're thinking of? I'm probably like these bears just like a little roast chicken thought bubble over my head

when I'm asleep. I bet you're just mad about people giving credit to Tom Hanks or something. The son. He's just thinking about the actual son. All right. Giving credit to Tom Hanks. Yeah, dude, you get so mad when people say Tom Hanks is a good actor. Forrest Gump is a bad movie, by the way.

My teeth are starting with clack. All right. So, again, everything you can do to deter it, if it comes close enough and you have spray, by all means spray the bear. And if you deter it and it runs away and then it comes back, you got to do it again. And sometimes even running at the bear will be enough to, like, chase it off. if it's like being as persistent as like that requires that. Okay. So.

I'd like to see a dominatrix and a bear square off. Because one's dominant. She's going to be, yeah, she's going to like with her big old high heels and a whip and stuff. Oh, yeah. The bear's not going to want any of that. No, no. It only like subs. Yeah.

All right. So really quickly. I'd like to see that too. This is just. You could probably find it online. This is just five. things like so if everything that I've said so far is just kind of like gone through your head it just hasn't really set in here are five things that you can remember if you're being stalked

or followed by a black bear west is big five group up be as aggressive and as loud as possible get your bear spray out and use it if it comes close enough within 30 feet hold your ground if you're not near a safe location and never run those are the five things group up be a aggressive, get your bear spray out, hold your ground, and don't run. So that last one's almost unnecessary because I already just said hold your ground. So we'll just say four. We'll keep it five like in Dodgeball where he's like Dodge, Duck, Dive, Dip, Dip, and Dodge. And he has Dodge twice. Okay. I am going to work just a tiny bit of nuance into this. I've seen a lot of videos where like people have a bear walking up a path toward them and they're like, oh, this bear.

is stalking us or following us or something. Remember that bears really like to use the same kind of paths that we use. And these are often bears that are habituated because they're in places where people hike a lot and they're not necessarily afraid of people anymore. If that bear isn't like focused on you and kind of like trailing you and following you, it's probably just trying to walk by you. That's not a predatory bear. That's just a bear that's trying to go from point A to point B.

So the way that you can test this, if there's a way for you to get off the trail and kind of let the bear go by, do that. if it peels off and follows you off the trail, then you know that that's a bear that you need to be concerned about and you need to start being aggressive. I was just going to ask you, in the story you told, is there anything that anyone should have done differently? Not really. It's hard to even have bear spray when you're like in hot pools. Well, and it was 1997, so bear spray wasn't like really commonly used at that point still, especially in Canada. Honestly, like, I do think this demonstrates this.

this could happen at any point when you're in the outdoors. Like, you could be at a really popular tourist trap destination and still have a negative encounter with the bear. So I think the things that, like, no one did anything wrong because this isn't a place you would necessarily expect to have this interaction with all those people around. If they had been in a bigger group, it probably never would have happened to begin with. This bear had probably arrived, seeing all these groups of people and thought, I'm just going to look for berries or whatever.

and then when suddenly there's two people on their own, and they're both pretty small, it's like, oh, you know, I've got an opportunity here. So with the bigger group, it probably wouldn't have escalated to this level. R.A. should have tied his shoes before running to investigate people screaming about a bear. Yeah. Should the mom have, like, been more aggressive towards the bear probably, right, right when it came out of the bushes?

If she had to just, like, ran at the bear and yelled at it and thrown stuff at it right off the bat, this probably never would have happened. Okay. But it's hard to say for sure. You never know. And the other thing that I think people could have done better is when all those people were like going to see what was happening, had they just been unified and not run away in screaming panic,

they would have been able to stop it before this guy shot the bear. So Ari wouldn't have gotten chewed up quite as much. Had everyone just swarmed around the bear and throwing stuff and yelling at it and stuff, that would have been way too much for this bear. Okay. All right. So I think we've talked about it enough. unless you guys have any other questions.

Why did the bear, is there a reason why it seemed like the bear was intent on going after the groin of these people even before like killing them or is that just incapacitate them? That's, I mean, that's like a pervert. That's why I, no, I mean, it's why getting killed by bears is one of the worst ways to go. Because they tend to eat like the fatty parts of your body and like lymph nodes and stuff like that first. Kill me first and then go for my groin. Dude, your legs are huge, Mike.

It would go straight for those freaking thighs. I mean, if you grab your thigh right by, like, where your groin is, like, that's, that's, like, that's like muscle and fat right there. You know, that's like, it's a good spot for a bear to start. It's getting a lot of muscle. That is getting a lot of fat. Yeah, Mike, you don't go any further. So that's, that's mostly it. Like, we've talked about this a lot on the podcast, but this is not an animal that incapacitates its prey.

It just starts eating it if it's prey. is small enough. I think with Ray, where he was bigger, it did actually, like, kill him. You know, it decided just to go for his throat and kill him because he was putting up more of a fight. But with someone like Patty or Kelly... Yeah, they were.

They're pretty much the same. And so, like, for him, it was like, I got to kill this before I eat it. But with these other people, it was just like, I'm going to sit on them and just eat them, you know? So it's not a good way to go. No.

Carry bear spray if you're going to be in a place with lots of bears, even black bears. Let's be honest. Buying cannabis shouldn't be complicated, sketchy, or low quality. That's why I want to tell you about mood.com. That's M-O-O-O-D.com. Mood ships federally legal cannabis straight to your door. No medical card, no hassle.

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Just head to mood.com. That's M-O-O-D.com to get started. I have a cage-match question for you. Yeah, I was actually going to do cage match. Okay. Do you want me to save it? No, it's launching into categories. We're not going to do ouchies for this one.

Yeah. But we'll go into category. and you can, we'll start with cage match. So my question was, so this bear, it's like 220 pounds. Uh-huh. Is there like a human who in a cage match versus bear you think would have a better chance of winning than the bear? Any human on the planet?

No. Well, that's a good question. There probably are. I would pick like John Jones. Like, I feel like John Jones could like, but like it, you know, You can't headlock a bear. It's going to bite you. It's got built-in weapons that just are...

I just feel like... I feel like there's people that would last a lot longer, but sooner or later the bear would do enough damage to where they would start losing blood, start losing strength. We just don't have the weapons to like take out a bear. We don't have the weapon to, like, kill it, right? And they're just built so strong that I don't think they could like snap its neck or something. I just think it would be the person would have to subdue it,

but then after a while they would just get so clogged. up and bit up that they would die. Yeah, you can't do a bear because they'll just scratch you. Right. It's pretty tough. Maybe like Timothy Treadwell rematch. Like once you fight once, you kind of learn the other guy's moves. I can't wait until we do Treadwell just because like, that's one that I'm going to

feel okay joking about a little bit more than a lot of them. Yeah. So that's Cage Match. For our pop culture, this one, we've obviously done Black Bears a Bors of Bull. bunch times. So I decided just to come up because there are a lot of heroic figures in this story. I decided to ask you guys one of your favorite heroes from pop culture. It doesn't necessarily need to be your favorite, but a favorite hero. I'll go last. Mike, you want to go first? Yeah, I'll go first. I have a couple honorable mentions I can say for the end. I think I'm going to go

with Dorothy, though, from the Wizard of Oz. It's a weird pick, I know. No. It's just, she just seems like such a nice person that, like, saves this whole realm. This is weird, I know. But, like, it does never seem like she's holding a grudge or, like, even with the Wicked Witch, she just seems like she feels bad more than anything. So I feel like she's just a really kind-hearted, heroic figure. And I love that movie. Can't deny it.

Between that and Sky Captain. No, we're not doing it. Sky Captain. All right. Would it be Angelina Jolie or Jude La. Oh, Frankie. Angelina Jolie for sure. I thankfully fell asleep during part of that,

and I completely missed Angelina Jolie's role in that movie, which was a real blessing for me. Anyway, my answer is also one that's tainted by recency bias, but I'm going to go with DeNiras Stormborn from Game of Thrones, DeNear's Targaryen. You're doing a rewatch. Yeah. I'm re-watching Game of Thrones, and I'm re-watching it for the first time with the context of knowing what happens at the end, which is like very interesting.

And spoiler warning, if you haven't watched Game of Thrones, this character that you follow throughout the entire series that you're rooting for turns out to, Mike, you haven't watched it. So I'm not going to spoil this actually. Anyway, I kind of know, but whatever. DeNiris for me is like, they say, have sex with her nephew. Nephew, yeah. What? She is like the character as I watched it the first time and now as I watch it again that I just feel like does the most good that has the best motivations.

Me too. I was just rooting for the hardest. And she's just so cool too. Like she rides dragons. I don't know. She's my favorite character. Yeah. The first time I watched it, I was like all John Snow.

But this time I'm like all De Nira is. So she's my pick for a hero. Fictional hero. I'm going to go with the T-Rex in Jurassic Park. Great pick. I love that. The Raptors, you know, first of all, you need to start off. You need a redemption story.

Yeah. So, like, first the T-Rex tries to kill Lex and Timmy, and shouldn't have done that, probably. There's an argument that it was protecting them, you know? When it's smashing them into the mud? Yeah, that it was just, like, looking for other dinosaurs and, like, hanging out. Yeah. Like, if it really wanted to, it could have got them.

Yeah. Did push the car off the cliff with them. That's true. It took it a little far, that's all. Yeah, but then, at the end of the movie, the Raptors are about to kill everyone, and who comes in to save the day? Oh, Rex. Yep.

And then in Jurassic World comes back again to beat the Spinosaurus and saves them all over again. And at this point, it's like, this T-Rex really, yeah, Dominus. This T-Rex really doesn't want people to die. It's like anti-killing humans, which is the worst thing they ever did in those movies. It only kills one person, right? The weird little lawyer guy in the bathroom? It targets like the worst human. This sleazy lawyer.

Is he the only guy that kills in that movie? I think so. I think you're right. Wow. That's a great pick. That's great. Yeah. Thinking outside of the box.

Is there any good child heroes since we got a child hero in this story? Astroboy. I'm sure there are. Mega man. How about that? Rockman for all. Spider-Man. Spider-Man's a high schooler. Oh, that's a good one. Yeah. Let's do that.

Okay. What are your honorable mentions, Mike? I mean, you kind of, it's just not worth talking about them, really, anymore. That's why I went last. Yeah, I didn't come up with any honorable mentions. I mean, this is, like, such a wide category that there's so many. Like, a ton, but we'll come back to it at some point. Next time we have some real strong heroes in our stories.

All right, the categories on this one are a little bit different again because it is such a tragic story. So one kind of positive category that I wanted to bring back that Mike has done recently is I just wanted to ask you guys a favorite thing from the past month that's happened to you. Mike, was that your category? Just like anything nice? Well, I think when you did it, it was like. Or animal encounter. It was like you did animal encounter and then once you did like a pop culture thing that you just liked from the last month. Oh yeah, just like your favorite thing from the past month.

Mike, you go before me. I've been collecting just volumes of my favorite manga series, and I found some pretty rare ones, some like first edition prints. I've been trying to get at least like the first volume of all my favorite series. I'll just shout out. Beck, Mongolian Chop Squad, amazing manga, about a little guy who's kind of lost in life, and he joins a rock band when he's in high school, and it just takes them all kinds of crazy places. And it's just like a really fun coming of age story. So that sounds interesting. Check it out.

I think you like it. All right. That's great. For mine, I'm just going to say my favorite animal encounter, me and Jesse got some ducks, some ducklings. I don't know if I brought that up yet. We got some little ducklings, and it's just been fun. Like, it's finally starting to warm up here, and the other day I just had them out in the yard, and they're just peeping around in the yard and doing their little duckling things.

And I really like ducklings, so that's going to be my favorite thing from the past month. Do they follow you? Not yet. But they do stick near me. They don't, like, run away. They, like, hang out right by me. Does Bryce chilled out at all with them? She's doing better, but she's still pretty obsessed with them.

Just hovering. She just loves them. It's not like her trying to eat them or anything. She just absolutely is obsessed with them. For me, I'll just do, like, a couple, I guess. Let's do... I saw a fox in our parents' backyard in a snowstorm, and it's my fifth favorite animal. I love seeing foxes.

and then I went and hiked into our family cabin in Brighton yesterday. It's just like really nice. It's like a, I think Utah's at like 250% the normal snowpack up there. So it's just like an unreal amount of snow and it's just really cool to like see all these cabins buried in the snow. Yeah, that is cool. How the window's doing. I know you guys were worried about that. There is snow touching them, but they're fine.

They're not like shattered or anything. Yeah. Yeah. And then, uh, episode of Succession last night. Oh, gosh. Yeah. Spoilers. But yeah.

So, and I think, like, for TV, it's maybe, like, the best depiction of, like, a death I've ever seen. Like, grief. Yeah. Not that it had one quite like it or anything. Not that, like, hit home. But it's just, like, so unexpected. No one really knew what to do. And everyone was just kind of.

Like, I don't know. Normally it's like you have like some big line before they die or like some like, you know, moment that lets you know something's about to happen. And this one was just like everyone processing him dying and is really good. It was great. Some of the best acting I've ever seen. And Tom said that he's bringing some gray glitz with him on the plane, which was really funny. Yeah.

Pretty funny thing. Jesse's first episode of Succession she's ever seen was that episode. Wow. Yeah. So it's pretty much a run the entire series for her. All right. So we're going to move on to listener questions. I got some patron questions.

Okay. Let's start with Shauna. They ask if you could choose one actor or actress to bring back to life, who would it be? I'm very torn between Chris Farley and Heath Ledger. Two good picks. Those are great picks. Uh, Norm MacDonald.

Yeah. That's who I'd pick. I'm going strictly actor. Okay. Actress. Because I feel like he wasn't more. of a comedian. Yeah.

Because he'd be mine. I mean, dirty work is an all-timer. So you miss his movies? No, but I'm still picking Norman McDonald. It's just, I'm going to pick one.

Yeah. I'll go Chadwick. Chadwick. Bosman. Boswick, yeah. Or Bozeman. Why is I missing that? Chadwick Bozman.

Yeah. I don't know. He just seemed like he was kind of really catching his groove once he got cancer. It seemed like it would have been cool what he could have done. Like outside. person too. Yeah. I would have really liked to see it more from him like outside of Black Panther. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's really unfortunate because he was he was kind of an older guy who hadn't

really caught in his break in Hollywood for quite a few years and then when it finally happened for him. It's just really sad. He was honestly, his honestly was like not to get too personal, the only one that ever really made me cry because he died of Colin Campbell. And I had had a friend that had just passed from colon cancer that I hadn't like processed it yet and then like when I heard that he died of colon cancer I like I like broke down and cried for a while Were you sitting in the shower? I wasn't I was like just in bed would I went to visit Jesse where she was living and I just like I cried for a long time And I think it just kind of opened the floodgates on like yeah on all of that repressed stuff anyway That's a lot so if we brought him back you and have that release

No, it's true, but I probably should have picked him over. Norman McDonald. All right. Mike. I'm picking River Phoenix. Oh, that's a good pick. By far, when I was little, I saw him in, of course, the third Indiana Jones movie, and he was just immediately the coolest person on planet Earth, you know.

He was cool. And then, like, kind of right around that age where I started kind of understanding that people died and, like, didn't come back, is when it was him and Kurt Cobain were like two of the first celebrity deaths that I was cognizant of. But just an amazingly talented young actor. I love basically every movie I've seen him in. And yeah, it's just gone way too soon. Yeah. All right.

All right. Next question. This one's from Ash. If you had to go on a dinner date with any animal and eat what they eat, which animal would be the best host and give you the best meal? I'm going fruit bat. I like fruit. I love all. Fruit. Yeah, I know they eat mango, and that's enough for me.

It's a good answer. It's a really good answer. You threw me off of my answer, even. I'm going to go with a black bear from our story. I feel like black bears eat all the stuff I like the most. They also eat rotten meat, though, and, like, trash. Well, they eat non-rotten meat, too. Yeah, but don't you have to, like, eat everything it eats? Isn't that the question?

It doesn't have to be, like, the worst thing they eat. So they're giving you, like, their best thing? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Their favorite thing is like candy wrappers and garbage cans. Yeah, I'm eating candy and elk. Yeah.

I guess I framed that as a good argument against, but that does sound really good. Some honey and meat. All right. Those are both really good answers. I initially was going to say honey badger, because honey just sounded like a really nice thing. But they don't really eat that much honey. Yeah. You said bear if you wanted honey.

I know, I know. So I actually, I think I'm just going to jump on, I like your answer, Mike, so I'm just going to bandwagon on this one. Hell yeah, dude, me and you. It'll be like a double date. You can't name another animal that eats fruit? Fruit fly? No, but it would just be the same thing. Yeah, fruit, like a lemur.

Sure, a lemur. Yeah, I just like Mike answers better. I mean, you literally picked the same thing before that. So, yeah. That's the same thing. You got to take it easy on West. I went hard on a second. I wanted an answer, dude.

Well, he gave a better answer than me, so I'm going to, I'm going with his answer. Yeah, you're just giving him props. Yeah. You're like Tom Cruise at the end of a few good men. Tell me. Okay, this one's, uh, Wand P asks. Wes, what was the first job you had as wildlife biologist? And for Jeff and Mike, what was your first job?

My first job was actually on a polar bear project. So I really lucked out with my first job. Whoa. As a wildlife biologist. I was a tech. but I helped out on a polar bear project and then started my master's degree on that same project. So that was my first job. I'm very lucky to have done that.

Yeah. That's where most wildlife biologists start, right? That's not true. Yeah. No, no. It was very fortunate. What was your guys' first jobs? My first, like, real on the book job was construction doing cement foundations for houses.

That's right. I remember, too, like, they're all like. You can bench 200 pounds. Yeah, they're all, like, tough guys. And mom sent me there on my first day with a note that, like, was asking for days off on my first day. It was like, I get occasional late days. And I got made fun of that, like, the rest of the time I worked there. Mom has no concept of, like, how that works.

My first job was, I worked on a golf course. And I was an okay employee until a new guy got hired. He was a little older than all of us high schoolers. and they gave him 50 cents more per hour than they gave any of us. So we all kind of mutiny it a little bit. But that golf course, I'm surprised it survived after we were done. I feel really bad. Nah, you shouldn't.

You're in high school. No one should feel bad for anything they did in high school. Unless it was something actually bad. Unless it was something really bad. It's pretty. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Last one. This one's from Katie and also Gianna. Would any of you eat the lab-grown meatball made with extinct woolly mammoth DNA? It's simple yes or no? I'm saying yes. Yeah, I'm eating it. Just like, how are you eating it?

Like a meatball sandwich? Oh, I think it's like the size of a volleyball. Oh. I'll eat a bite, sure. Yeah, yeah. I'll try anything once. You'll only need one meatball for all your spaghetti. That's true.

And, like, who else gets to say that they've, like, tried some woolly mammoth meat? You got to try it. Yeah. You could put that on your resume. You could put that, I'd put that as my bumble headline. I eat a woolly mammoth meatball, yeah. I ate a volleyball-sized molly mammoth meatball. All right, Jeff, you got some more from Instagram? I sure enough do.

From Grace Shepherd, Hidden Talons. I got a super long tongue, like the longest of anyone I've ever seen. That's more like a gift than a talent. Yeah, you're like Gene Simmons. He does have a huge tongue. Yeah. Maybe you could tie not better with it or something. Yeah, I can pick my nose with it.

There's a talent. Oh, there we go. Yeah. Parallel parking for me. I can't park in regular parking spots straight at all, but I'm the best parallel parker in the world, I think. I think I'm really good at, like, throwing my clothes in the laundry hamper, or, like, trash in a trash can from far away.

I just never miss. That's such a good, like, B-min. greatest grade superpower. I'll, like, scoop it up on my foot and just kick it into the basket. Oh, I like that one the most. All right. All right. Monday's Child Jewelry.

That sounded like a promo. It's your dish recipe if you're cooking for A, yourself, or B, other people. What if someone just changed their, like, an ad sponsor, just changed their name, their username to like the entire copy for their ad? And tricked us into reading it. So signature dish if you're cooking alone and then for someone. Yeah, I'm just going to give one dish. The last time I cooked for a date, I cooked an elk steak, which was risky.

And then onion and, like, grilled mushroom with it. And she said she really liked it. So that, I guess it's not my go-to, but that's the last one I cooked for someone. Okay. I'm like a person who cares very little about food. And like, so when I'm alone, I tend to eat like a child and I'll just eat like healthy cereal. You eat children? No.

But I just, I try and buy like a healthy cereal and like I make green juice and just then just like kind of eat whatever's easiest. Like I'm much more a convenience person. So for my alone, I'm saying that for trying to impress someone. There's this recipe from New York Times that Jesse found that's like a peanut. noodle with chicken and stuff that's just really good. It has scalyons in it. And it's just delicious. And I really like making that for people because it's easy to whip up.

And it's really like an impressive dish. And I'm a really good baker too. So I usually bake something. You make a good Huckleberry mojita, too. Oh, I think you. And good chocolate chip cookie too. The brown butter. Yeah.

When I'm cooking, cooking is the wrong word. I'm just eating a big old bowl of cereal if it's just me. I've been really into raisin nut brand lately. It's so good, man. Those big old candied raisin things. When I'm cooking for other people, I'm really into... So my dad passed down a lot of, like, family secret breakfast recipes. And speaking of items on my underrated, overrated list, other people's parents, pancakes, or whatever, always overrated.

It's never as good as you think they are. It's always like the ones where they just mix water in with, like, some mix. and they're just terrible. It's nostalgic. Like, that's what they grew up eating, so they think it's the best. Fair. But when someone tells me, oh, wait until you try, my mom's... I was going to say cherry pie, but that got a little weird.

That sounds very sexual. Choose any other things. Yes, I don't know how my brain with that. Literally any other food. But, yeah, so probably just like breakfast for dinner kind of thing. A bunch of pancakes, waffles, whatever. Why did you have to go on that tangent about people like that? their parents pancakes.

All these recipes are passed down from my dad. And I recognize that I probably like them a lot better than anyone else will. But that's what I'm making them. I thought you were going to say, like, my dad's actually are the best, and I was going to call you out for being a hypocrite, but you went the other direction. Yeah. Did you nail your Hello Fresh meals we got sent? Yeah.

They were pretty good. They're pretty good. They're free for Hello Fresh. Charge them. I mean, send a bill. They did pay us once. Yeah. My life as I see it

Do any other animals squirt stuff at you other than skunks? P.S. Cake a la mode is one dessert. All right. Yeah, I agree with that. That's just cake and ice cream. If you order cake a la mode, it's one dessert. Okay, hold on.

But if you get cake and ice cream, it's two desserts. It's the exact same thing. It's not. My whole argument the entire time is just the vocabulary. The thought in preparation. My whole argument, has been like if the chef prepares cake and ice cream and he's like hey today's dessert is cake and ice cream like cake a mode that's a dessert but if someone says you can have one dessert

for the rest of your life on a deserted island and you say cake and ice cream you're trying to come up with if i say cake a la mode it's fine uh then it gets dice because it's the exact same thing okay anyway um what was their question again If any other animal squirt stuff, I can't believe you just admitted that was one you agree. I've said that since the beginning anyway. No, you haven't. Yes, I have. Squids?

I've always said it's all about how it was meant to be prepared. I think there's no argument anymore. I think we're both on the same side. We're not on the same side. I've always said. I'll just say cake la mode for now on. No, I've always said that they can be one dessert, but that in my initial question, they were two. I said that it didn't count in my question, and that's what.

why we got in the argument in the first place. That's always been my position. I've never deviated from it. As far as other animals that can squirt things, squids can squirt ink. What's that lizard that squirts blood out of its eyeball or whatever? I was going to say a horn lizard can squirt blood out of its eyeball. That's cool.

A lot of other animals will like squirt musk, like a tiger can like musk or lots of animals can do that. It's essentially what a skunk is doing too. They don't necessarily use it as like a defensive mechanism. What? Don't fox do that? They smell pretty strong. Yeah, but it's more of like them marking territory than it is like them using it for defense.

So three that came to mind are skunks, squids, and horn lizards. Spitting cobras? Yeah, that's a good one. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's other animals that spit venom too, I think. Llamas, they spit. Oh, yeah. That's kind of squirting.

It's squirting. All right. Mike, you're really stumbling all over yourself. What's going on here? Starbex, Twitter. 23, if you were on the show alone, what would be your top five items to bring? I'd bring a fishing pole, I'd bring a hunting rifle, I'd bring a cell phone, I'd bring a Nintendo Switch, and I'd bring a house.

That's a good pick. Those are great picks. I'm going to fold in another question into this one, too, because we had a patron named Jeff and his fiance Chloe, who wanted to know which of us would last the longest on a loan and how long we think we'd last. So, Jeff... Oh, we have done that before. Oh, we have? Yeah.

Oh, okay. Well, sorry, Jeff and then, Mike said he would just leave right away. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, we decided I would probably last the longest. Okay. Yeah. There are five items. Man, yours are really good ones.

I think for me, the big thing would be boredom. So I think I would want to bring, like, playing cards as one of my items. even though it seems like a waste, I think I'd want playing cards and play solitaire. There's so many other things that are like, well, whatever. Okay, this is your list. They don't allow you to bring like a Nintendo Switch or something. I know we're allowing that for this question. Okay.

But I'm going to be true to the show. I would want that. I would want my fly rod. I would want, I think I would just really want to be warm. So I just want like an extra layer, an extra sleeping bag. If I could have an extra sleeping bag. Because I feel like the thing that would make me leave is like being. uncomfortable. So fly rod, extra sleeping bag, and some playing cards. I don't even need five. That's all I want.

I just want those extra three. Jeez, okay. I'd bring that huge coat that Jeff threw away that was so nice. That was massive. It's so big. I'd bring like a fighter jet probably so I could kill everyone and then get out of there. What's the point of alone? I don't really know. I never watched it. Are you trying to kill each other? No. No, you're just trying to outlast. It's like the new Netflix show. Yeah. Where you're trying. Outlast. Outlast, yeah.

Alone is just like, yeah, you got your own little section of wilderness. And whoever can live there. You just have to survive the longest. From Reagan Neckert. What do you think listeners do while listening to the pod? When I'm listening to podcasts, I'm usually either driving or doing some chores. So I'm going to say those two things. I feel like people listen a lot when they hike.

Yeah. And they kind of freak themselves out a little. but in a fun way. Okay. Madison Krupa, did Wes and Jesse come up with names for those baby ducks? Yeah, we're naming, we named one puddle because Jesse asked her friends' kids, and that's the name they came up with. And then I named the other one Spike after my favorite vampire from the Seminole series,

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is top five show for me. I think people heard, okay, yeah. We talked about it on a bonus episode, but this is going out to be on a show. It was undecided, right? Yeah, it was either Giles or Spike, and I went with Spike. All right. He's a little bad part. Cody Cocoa Pye.

Aliens just landed on Earth. What is the first food or foods or meal you feed them? Alien, what are we feeding them? The first thing we're feeding them? Yeah. Huh. I would just want to, like, blow their minds. I'd feed them the Ebola virus.

Make sure they can't kill us faster and we can kill them. I'm going to just feed them. them like some lawn grass because then like they'll act like they like it and then it's like only uphill from from there you know so everything they eat for now on it's that bar low yeah if you give them like the best thing right away it's going to be like oh wait all this other stuff isn't as good as that first thing i had i think i would feed them it's going to be awesome i'd feed them a big old bag of plastic in the hopes that they really like it and they would just eat all the plastic around the world and clean up our oceans and stuff.

And then I had one more question that I want to ask. And this is just Jeff's question he found on Twitter. Okay. So I'm not going to give the person credit even. Or should I? I guess I will. It's Lee Jameson. I don't know who it is.

I don't follow them. They don't listen. Name a fictional character who would pay for Twitter blue. Fictional characters. Their choice. Percy Weasley? Shooter McGavin. Percy Weasley is a guy.

great one. Percy Weasley one, for sure, yeah. That's such a good one. Yeah, that is a good one. Denethor. Denethor, yeah, I was just thinking that. Kendall Roy. But he would already have.

He would already be. No, but like, if you had to pay. Oh, yeah, Kendall Roy. Joffrey, maybe. Yeah, he might not care, though. Yeah, he'd pay for it. All right. All right, good question.

I like that one. So really quickly, we did conservation in the last episode. and this is a two-parter. But I did, I found, like, some interesting facts from a few different websites that I wanted to share that I don't think we've talked about yet when it comes to Black Bears. Especially, I wanted to talk about Black Bears within British Columbia. So one really cool thing is that Black Bears in British Columbia and coastal areas, they did the study that showed that they consume an on average 13 salmon per day during the spawning season, which is crazy. And that they actually may influence. salmon genetics just based on how they prey on salmon, which makes salmon healthier and increases

their genetic variation. Like the ones that are better avoiding black bears are the ones that reproduce? Exactly. Yeah. And then also it has a lot of impacts on their ecosystem. And the bear that we're talking about wasn't necessarily, it wasn't a coastal ecosystem, but a lot of them in British Columbia are. So that's what we're talking about.

When they catch a salmon and they take it away from the stream and they eat it, They spread that salmon all over the place and then scavenger spread it even more. And nutrients from those salmon feed a lot of the plants in the areas. And a lot of those specific plants in that specific ecosystem, they need those salmon nutrients to thrive and survive. So bears are like a really key component by spreading salmon all over the forest, which is really cool to me. Yeah.

It's kind of funny like all these black bears in the desert would just be so much happier if they moved to Alaska. Coastal black bears. For sure. And then often when you talk about black bears in British Columbia, people do bring up the spirit bear, or they often call them Kermode bears. But this is a white black bear.

They only exist on BC Central Coast in the Great Bear rainforest. It's a recessive trait in those bears, so it's essentially like hair color again, but it's recessive. So it's very uncommonly expressed. Both parents have to have the gene. Oh, they have to mate with another white one. Well, it doesn't necessarily mean that they have to mate with another white one,

but they both have to have that recessive gene for it to be expressed. It occurs in about 10 to 25% of black bears in that area, and it's unknown exactly why. That's not a small amount. No, but it's recessive. So, like, when it's a recessive gene, all their other genes are going to, like, express themselves over it, unless they both have it and they have that combination of alleles to make it express itself.

So it doesn't happen very often. And the thought is that it's this adaptation to sunlight. So it's like a fish is looking up. It's much less likely to see a white bear than it is a black bear. And so it makes them better salmon hunters is the thought of why it's like being expressed. And if it continues to make them better salmon hunters, you would see that gene probably go from being recessive to being dominant in a population and you'd start to see a lot more white bears.

So we'll see if that happens in the next 100,000 years. Interesting. Cool. All right. for it. That's why it happens where there's salmon is not like in the lower 48. That's just a theory, but that's the prevailing theory of why it's expressed. So we already did, do we like this animal in the last episode?

We all gave our votes. So really, I think I'm just going to say, do you like British Columbia? It's going to be very different from any do you like that we've ever done. Yeah. I mean, it's arguably, well, it's probably a top five prettiest place I've ever. ever been is like Banff area yeah that's Alberta oh is it it's right next to British Columbia where I've been in British Columbia British Columbia is just like just the very western edge of Montana is bordered by British Columbia is British Columbia is like west of Alberta is my yes yeah rich the western most yeah

okay yeah I've still been through a ton of mountains in British Columbia but not okay like Smithers was British Columbia yeah yeah anyway it's beautiful out there it is it's probably my favorite Canadian territory or province, whatever they call them. Yeah, for sure. Vancouver is one of my favorite cities I've ever been to. I lived right on the border when I was up in Bellingham, Washington. It's incredible. Yeah, it is. So we're all big fans. I'm going to give it, I'm going to give British Columbia nine out of ten claws. Yeah, I'll give it a ten. Just that we're giving it a claw rating. Yeah. That glacier we saw was British Columbia, right? Right outside of Haider. Yeah. Yeah, it was.

It was like the fifth biggest out there or something. Yeah, it was the one where they filmed. Oh, yeah, yeah. Ah, inspiring. All right. Oh, yeah, you hate glaciers. Thanks, everyone for sticking with us for this two-parter. Until I find a worse one, I would say this is the worst bear,

Black Bear attack I've ever come across, just in the devastation it caused. Takes the crown from Cynthia Bacon for the Tooth and Plac Black Bear stories. I would agree. Hers is like such a crazy story still, but this one is pretty intense. It's just so crazy that they like sit on you and start eating you. I know. So bad. It's a bad way to die.

Yeah. But thanks for listening. If you guys are interested in more content, as always, check out our Patreon channel. Just go to patreon.com and search Tooth and Glow podcast. Or if you're an Apple podcast listener and you'd rather subscribe to the Apple Grizz Club, it's really easy. You'll put the subscription ones right in your feed. So that's another option for you.

We have a lot of fun over there. Those are really fun episodes. So it's like the price of what? It's less than the price of one movie a month for you to get all that extra content. So there you go. I'm going to go sign up. All right. We love you.

We'll see you later. Love you guys. Bye. Bye.