Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - Brown Bear Attack - Olga, Igor, and the Kamchatka Brown Bear

Episode Date: July 7, 2025

Olga and her step-father Igor were out in the Kamchatkan wilderness when they inadvertently committed the cardinal sin of recreating safely in bear country. The ensuing tragedy was captured through what might just be the most horrifying phone call a mother has ever received. Watch here: https://youtu.be/iXNYUZNsif8 LMNT: Get a free 8-count Sample Pack with any purchase at http://drinklmnt.com/tooth Ollie: Take the online quiz and introduce Ollie to your pet. Visithttps://www.ollie.com/toothtoday for 60% off your first box of meals! #ToKnowThemIsToLoveThem Cornbread Hemp: Get 30% off at http://cornbreadhemp.com/tooth and use code TOOTH Wild Alaskan: Get $35 off your first box of wild-caught, sustainable seafood—delivered right to your door. Go to: https://www.wildalaskan.com/TOOTH ~~ To advertise on the show, contact us! ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social:  Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. Save up to $1,200 on mattresses for a limited time. To experience a whole new world of comfort, visit a sleep number store or go to sleepnumber.com. Sleep number to a good life sleep. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Tooth and Cloud podcast. We have our bear biologist, wildlife biologist, Wes Larson. That's me. We have our tech guy, Mike Smith. And we have me. I'm Jeff Larson. Me and Mike are both beefy guys. Wes is a little bit small.

Yeah. Getting bigger, though. I'm beefing up. You're joining in the club. I'm curious now. If that article got written today, I don't know. if he would describe me as that much smaller than you guys. Nice. Yeah. All muscle. All muscle, dude. I'm like 2% body fat.

You enjoying your Montana summer out there? I am. We're in like the prime of Montana summer right now. Longest days. You think all the, everyone listening should move to Montana? I was about to say. It's full of bears, cold winters, lots of just like rednecks that, yeah, don't move here. but feel free to come visit sometime.

Bozeman's great. So wait, the rednecks are a mark against or four? It depends. It just depends on your worldview, Mike. I wanted you to insult a whole swath of people there, but you didn't fall for it. I have a soft spot for rednecks and for just country living. When you visit, Wes is out in a little town called right outside. No, no, no, no.

What's your street again? You're not doxing me on our show. Not happening. Anyway, Jeff, you're in Maine. Yeah. How is it? Is it amazing? Just a business trip.

Meeting with some of our podcaster friends. It's been fun. Yeah. Great. You know what? It's really fun just living with dogs for a little bit when you don't have pets. Yeah. It's fun when you do have pets.

Well, I think. Sure. Yeah. Have you seen Stephen King yet? No. I well actually maybe watch out while you're driving around

he's he's known to be hit by cars up there there's some real I'm not saying I want that I'm telling Jeff did not do that I don't want that to happen to him anymore there's some real old people here just creeping her hat yeah Maine feels kind of like I'm in a different

country honestly like there's no average Like everything's still like mom and pop out here. Yeah. You go to the ocean and it's like you just see like a little river of water and it's like that's not the ocean. No, yeah, it is. Can you guys do the main accent? Like the old guy in Pet Cemetery?

Nope. Not even going to try. Like the Yankee accent. Yeah. Neither can I. I kind of want to try it, but I don't think I can't think of close. Try one word. I can do the ball.

It was funny. do it. So like, I really like. The fastest bail on an accent, maybe ever. I'm a big fan of clam chowder. Yeah. And I, like, went to a local. You can do a Boston accent.

Local spot. Yeah. And ordered a clam chowder. And I was like, hey, I'll just get the small thing of clam chowder. And she's like, oh, a cup of chowder. Like wanting me to say that. I was like, I can't pretend. You did pretty good right there.

That was good. I feel like that, like, the Boston accent is the easiest of the accents to do. It's pretty strong in Maine, too. Yeah. Or like a Fargo accent. That was what I was about to do when I was going to try Maine. Anyway. Well, we're all three in different places.

We're enjoying our summers. We've been having a good time on this here podcast. So I wanted to kind of do something like a little bit shorter today. It's not crazy short, but it's going to be a touch shorter the story. Boom. And it's, yeah, if it was up to Jeff, our episodes would all be three hours long. I just like talking to you guys. I know.

I like talking to, too, pal. I've been really getting into YouTube shorts lately. That's my ideal length is like 30 seconds. I think we should start doing that more. The funny thing, too, is I could watch like 20 YouTube shorts about the same topic. But if you wanted me to watch one three-minute video about it, I couldn't. do it. You just like watch your movies and YouTube shorts now.

Yeah. Isn't that what Quibi was supposed to be? Yeah, it was. Quibi came like five years too early. Quibi, it was just too long. They needed to make their movies happen in 30 second chunks. That's true. Like two minutes is too much.

Right. So anyway, what I was getting to is this is a shorter story, but it's one I've wanted to do for a while. But it also is like a really dark one. We've been having some goofy, like really. fun episodes and I just thought I need to bring us down a little bit. That was a goofy ass episode. Maybe the act wasn't goofy, but that was a goofy episode.

Anyway, I think we've been... Can I just say a quick tidbit about that episode? Sure. So I'm in Maine. I'm visiting Danielle with National Park After Dark and I met her mom for a little bit. And her mom listens to the tooth and claw. So I was like, oh, do you have a favorite episode? And she's like, huh, I really like that penis episode.

I was like, no way. Oh, that's so funny. Anyway, sorry. Also, just so everyone knows, my Robin is back. You might hear it every once in the background. But I just can't. There's nothing I can do about it. He's around.

I mean, yeah. You just made a rule you can't kill bugs, right? No, I'm not killing anything. But trust me, if I'm, If I felt okay killing animals, this Robin would probably be. I mean, I can't say that even. That makes me sad to even think about. All right.

Speaking of being sad, this is a sad episode. It is one that I think merits covering because we're going to be talking. I just said it makes me sad to think about killing the Robin. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Catch up, Jeff. I'll get in it. All right. Get my head in.

Lock in. Lock in, dude. I'm locked. Are you locked in? Yeah. All right. It's a sad one. And I think it's one that I wanted to include because there's some pretty kind of a crazy thing that happens during this attack.

And it involves a part of the world that we haven't really talked about much yet. But we're not going to spend a ton of time on the story just because it is so dark. We're going to focus more on the second half of the episode, having a little bit more fun then. But so if you, no, no, mind. I'm not going to do trigger warning. That's enough for you guys to understand. This is a little bit sadder of a story than we often do. All right.

You guys ready? Let's go. In 2011, Olga Moskaliova was an exceptionally bright young woman growing up in the Kamchatka Peninsula and eastern Russia. Very strategic part of the board on risk. Yes. You want Kamchakka if you're trying to protect North America, you know. I was going to ask you guys how much you know about Kamchaka.

Yeah. Kempchakka, however you say. Yeah, that's about it. Yeah. I have a map of the former Soviet Union. behind me here with the wildlife that existed there. You got to point with the other hand and put your head on the other side. No, this works.

That's the peninsula right there. That's the Kanchatka Peninsula. It's hard for me to say that for whatever reason. But it is the long peninsula that sticks out of far eastern Russia. And it is an incredibly beautiful place. There are huge swaths of beautiful forests, productive coasts, lines surrounded by these massive volcanoes. Like picture Katmai, Alaska.

That's what Kempchakka looks like. It's very just wild mountains, forest, coasts. It's gorgeous. And if you don't know what Kapp Mai, Alaska is just picture. Kempchaka. Kempchaka. Perfect. I think that covers all of our bases.

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Find your favorite element flavor or share with a friend. So get your free eight count sample pack with any purchase at drinklmnt.com slash tooth. Thanks again, Element for being delicious and for helping keep our show afloat. A lot of the articles that I read about this story, and I didn't really focus on one, so I'm not going to give a source because I probably read 20 different articles, and they all essentially said the exact same thing. A lot of them reported this attack as being in part of Siberia, which is a huge stretch. I think Western media loves to say Siberia for pretty much any part of Russia, like outside of Moscow or St. Petersburg.

And that's not the case. Like, Siberia is constrained to some geographical borders. Kamchatka, as far as I know, is not considered Siberia. It's far eastern Russia. It's not Siberia. There is even some of the sources like saying that this happened in Amur, Russia, which is kind of more down by the China border, closer to North Korean. China that's where you're going to find more tigers and more leopards there are brown bears that live there asiatic black bears live there this is not in the more region either yeah basically

i just want you guys to picture this place as the russian equivalent to coastal alaska and one of the things that it shares with coastal alaska is a really large number of rivers that have amazing salmon runs and a very robust brown bear population as a result there's thought to be about If they bought Alaska from Russia, they really didn't eat it anymore because they already had it. They already had their own version of it. They were like, hey, we got two of these. We might as well get one of these. You guys can have one for super cheap.

Do you think they have their own version of Fat Bear Week? They probably don't. I bet you they do. You think? Yeah, they probably do. I bet you in Russia, like without cancel culture. I bet you they have a fat guy week, you know. That's where we should be making our bones, Jeff.

All right. So I know I'll bring that up actually a little bit about kind of the differences between these bear populations. But basically there's thought to be about 12,000 brown bears on the Kamchaka Peninsula and the surrounding islands, which makes it one of the most densely populated brown bear spots in the world. So again, when we're talking about brown bears, this is the bear that in North America we often call a grizzly bear. That's kind of the North American nickname for a brown bear. these brown bears in Kamchatka look very much like the coastal brown bears you would find in Alaska. So picture like the Kodiak Grizzlies or the Katmai Grizzlies or anywhere else that you're going to find these big coastal browns,

even in coastal British Columbia. That's very much what these bears look like in Kamchatka, Russia. They also have grizzlies that look very much like our inland grizzlies that live more inland Russia. These coastal ones are very big. Yeah. eating salmon all of the time. Yep, it makes sense. They have great resources there. They have pink salmon, berries, pine nuts, mollusks, sedges, dead marine mammals that sometimes wash up. It's a bonanza for food, a lot like you'd see in coastal Alaska. So like Jeff just mentioned,

when you have that much food, what does that mean for the bears? Chowda. Yep, it means chowda. Exactly. Mike, if there's a ton of food, what happens to your bears? They get to be big old bears after eating. They get very large. What else happens when there's lots of food for those bears? They get that. I know. No, either of you.

Less incentive to like, yeah. Yeah, less aggressive. Try to eat humans. More, I would say even like the better way to phrase that is they're more tolerant. They just. I like how Mike phrased it. What did Mike say? Less incentive to eat humans.

Yeah. It's kind of true. It's more that often when they're. are a lot of bears over a food source. They've just learned to tolerate the presence of other bears because there's enough food for everyone. There really isn't a reason to fight. Everyone is being well fed.

There still are going to be some scuffles over like mating, over a few different things, but not nearly as much as you would see with like Yellowstone bears or glacier bears or inland Alaska bears. These bears on coastal resources just tend to be more tolerant. And that tolerance for other bears kind of gets extended for other animals too and we fall into that category so again if you are watching like instagram videos or tick talk videos and you see someone often kind of in these big open grasslands

or on a tidal flat and they're right next to a really big grizzly bear it's probably in coastal Alaska or coastal russia these bears just tolerate people being very close doesn't mean you should approach them that closely especially without a guide but you can't They do tolerate it. Yes. You could, but we're going to talk about how even these bears can be incredibly dangerous. Okay, so we said they're really big. These are some of the biggest bears in the world.

They're equal to like what you'd expect in Kodiak. They top out at about 1,500 pounds, which is about what the biggest bears in the world top out at. Even like big polar bears only get about that big. So these are really large animals. As a small teaser, there was a Russian. equivalent to Timothy Treadwell that lived among these bears in Kamchatka and he had similar results to Timothy where he could get really close to these bears and even touch them at times. He treated them kind of like they were friends.

And this guy also flew way too close to the sun, kind of started drinking his own Kool-Aid as a bear whisperer and ended up getting killed by a brown bear. And we will do his story at some point. Is his name like Tim O'Fay Treadwellov or something? Treadiloskov. I'm going to have to do a lot. Treadwelloskovich. Corrections to what I've been telling a lot of people behind the scenes.

What have you been doing? I've been telling them that you didn't think Timothy Treadwell had a very good idea of touching bears, but I didn't think there's enough evidence to say that yet. Oh, there is. You have two data points now. Yeah. Yeah. When was this guy active? It was very close to the time that Timothy was active to.

I don't remember the exact dates, but they were almost, I think they were active at the same time, like early 90s. Because I do think that was kind of when people started to realize like, oh, bears can actually be quite tolerant of humans. Yeah. All right. But he flew too close to the sun. He got killed. He died in a terrible way. What do you guys think the Russian equivalent to Kool-Aid is?

I just said he was drinking his own Kool-Aid. Oh, I don't know. Vodka? Yeah. Like, flavored vodka. Vodka with like some cherry flavoring in it. Blue raspberry. I was thinking, too, they were really, they were like the number one competitor in the space race.

You think they have a Russian tang? Because that was like for astronauts, right? Yeah. Also vodka. Vodka-flavored tang. Yeah. So the whole background here is. is basically to say that while these brown bears are absolutely massive,

they are in general some of the best-tempered bears in the world, brown bears, and ones that often exist close to humans and other bears. But like all bears, they can be totally unpredictable at times, and that makes them animals that deserve our respect and the appropriate amount of distance. Unfortunately, in late August 2011, both Olga and her stepfather Igor would mistakenly inventing invade the allowable distance of the worst kind of brown bear to surprise, which is, you guys

know what the worst brown bear you could surprise is? Is it a mother with cups? Exactly. A mother with cups. All right, let's rewind a tiny bit. How long of a bus would the appropriate distance be? A hundred yards is what we would always say in Yellowstone. That's what I would recommend.

Yeah, so 100 yards is what? 300 feet. A bus is like 40 feet long. So what is that? That's like eight buses. Oh, rain man. We got rain man on the show. More than that.

Yeah, more than that. It's like nine buses. Yeah. All right. Yeah, not a very smart rain man. The rain man that immediately loses all his money in the casino. Right. Let's rewind a little.

Olga's growing up in this. Yeah. We don't need our time machine. We just need Superman to fly around the earth like four times. Okay. Olga's growing up in this really beautiful and unique part of Russia. And in 2011, she's a 19-year-old psychologist in training. And she's also done extensive schooling for music.

Kind of seems like she's a bit of a protege. One of those people that as soon as they graduate high school, they're already like so far ahead of all their classmates. And just a person that you know is going to go really far in life. Like you with bears. I wouldn't say that. You were a bear protege growing up for sure. I loved bears, that's true.

All the bear scientists would come to our house and look at you. Yeah, we had bear scouts coming by. First overall pick in the biologist draft. All right. So her mom, Tachiana, had been divorced from Olga's dad, and she remarried a man named Igor Psykanakov. I'm sorry, I'm bad with Russian names, but I'm pretty sure that's close at least.

I'm just going to call him Igor from now on. And this Igor guy, he really loved nature in the great outdoors. Kamchatka is just a wonderful place to like fish, to hike, to explore. And him and Olga had that in common. And they shared this bond where they would spend a lot of time in the wilds of Kamchatka, fishing, foraging, recreating, and just enjoying these really beautiful surroundings. It's like, this is on the top 10 list for me, a place. I would love to visit. It just seems like a wilder version of Alaska, a place that used to exist in the U.S., but we don't really even have anymore.

It's truly gorgeous. Olga and Igor spent every minute they could enjoying it. Tatiana didn't seem to be quite as into these adventures, Olga's mom, but she loved that they could bond over the natural world. She was really happy that her bright, warm, friendly daughter had this new father figure that she could rely on. And in August of 2011, Olga and Igor decided to go on a camping trip, and they're also retrieving a fishing rod that Igor had forgotten near a river close to the small village of Termalini on the peninsula. Now, again, a couple sources reported this in a different spot, but this did happen near this village. There's not a ton of information about exactly what happened the day they were attacked, because they're both alone out in the wilderness. but while they were retrieving this lost rod or maybe fishing or walking alongside the river, they surprised a female brown bear with three cups.

The bear ran at Olga and Igor and immediately grabbed Igor, knocking him to the ground. It's impossible to say exactly what happened to him, but he was found with his neck broken and his skull and his whole head had been completely crushed. Wow. Yeah, so I can't find any other reports of injuries or anything. but from my experience what that means is that when that bear knocked him on the ground, she immediately just jumped on his head and his neck. Because we've seen that happen before, like the woman in Romania,

sometimes they'll literally just jump on something that they're trying to neutralize and put all their weight on their front paws. And that would have just immediately killed him. I mean, I think Igor in a way was spared a long death in that this bear crushed his head in almost instantaneously. You're saying he's lucky. Yes. Compared to Olga, he is.

Unfortunately, yeah. So after she saw this large female brown bear almost effortlessly kill her stepfather, Olga, in a blind panic, turned and ran. She made it about 200 feet when she felt the bear bite into her back of her leg and pull her to the ground. She immediately started trying to fight back, but this bear was on top of her. of her biting her and raking her with its claws. And for whatever reason, unlike with Igor, this female bear didn't try to immediately crush her, but instead it continued to bite and pin her to the ground. And Olga, who had just seen her stepfather die in seconds, probably thought that

she was about to suffer the same fate. And in a last ditch effort to escape this bear, she pulls out her cell phone and she calls her mom. So imagine you're her mom. Yeah, you pick up the cell phone call and this bear is actively mauling Olga and her mom answers and she hears the screams of her 19 year old daughter and the huffing and grunting of the bear and Olga says mom the bear's eating me mom it's such agony mom help and the bear shaking her around and occasionally I guess like occasionally she would play a practical joke on her mom so her mom initially thought that this was just a prank. And then immediately after that, recognize, like, the actual fear and pain in her daughter's voice. And realize, like, she's getting the most, like, unimaginably horrific

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Plus, they offer a happiness guarantee on the first box. So if you're not completely satisfied, you'll get your money back. That's O-L-L-I-E dot com slash tooth and enter code tooth to get 60% off your first box. Thank you, Ollie, for sponsoring this episode. The call cuts out and Tatiana tries to call Igor not knowing that he had just been killed by the bear. She then calls police in the local area and some family members in the town closest to where she was, where Olga was, to try and get someone out there to help them. And then her phone rings again, and she answers to hear her daughter screaming again. And Olga says, Mom, the bears are back.

She came back and she brought her three babies. They're eating me. Call cuts out again. My God. Yeah. So Tatiana again tries to call people to help them, you know, get out there and she finally, she gets a hold of the police and some of Igor's family and they're en route. And she just keeps trying to call Olga again and again and again, but she's not getting any answer. And then about an hour after the initial call, she gets a final call from Olga. And the bears had left her and they were now feeding on Igor's body. And she called her mom and she said, mom, it's not. hurting anymore. I don't feel any pain. Forgive me for everything. I love you so much." And the call cut out, and those would be the last words that Tatiana would ever hear from her daughter. Igor's brothers showed up with some police at the scene and the bear was still feeding on

Igor. Unfortunately, I don't think they were like prepared to deal with these bears and immediately rush in, but they could tell that both Igor and Olga were dead. So they called some hunters, I think there were six hunters they called, they came in and killed the female and the three cubs. So ultimately, there was six lives lost as a result of this surprise encounter. So pretty terrible. It's one. Yeah, just absolutely devastating.

I can't imagine like Tatiana, how she ever, you know, really comes back from that. That would be such a horrible thing to have to deal with. but also in a way like to have that closure too to know exactly what happened you know in a way might help too rather than just like that's tough i don't spend yeah like spending weeks before you like find their bodies out in the wilderness you know i don't know it's a tough one the opportunity at least to speak or to hear from her daughter i mean that's like yeah that's the two worst things to have to choose between i think it'd be better not to like at least you like have i guess in your mind like at least they died quickly she was able to like

talk to me while she was going through that but like that it's a hard one sounds stay in your head yeah yeah and i i do think like she had to get some peace from the last call at least like at least she got the last one where her daughter was like i don't i'm not in pain i love you you know rather than like the the last call being like they're eating me which would be the absolute worst note to end on but if i were taught yanna i would have asked to speak with the bear like mother to mother put me on put me on the lion yeah anyway um this kind of feels like a weird one for me to pick for a story it there are a lot of stories out there and i i think the reason i picked this initially is because I thought it was interesting that she was able to call her mom while

this was happening. I don't think we've ever had someone that has been able to kind of describe in the moment, you know, to someone else what's going on. But also it was kind of one that I started down the path in Midway. I was like, oh, this is heavy. But I feel like I should just, we should report it, you know? Yeah. No, I'm glad you did. I think it's, we have so many stories of heroism and making it out etc, et cetera, et cetera. But I think it's important also to have the frame of reference that, like, this isn't just a fun story to be told at the end of the day most of the time in these encounters. It's something to seriously prepare for and to, yeah, have in the back of your mind. That's exactly what I was about to get into. The main reason I wanted to do it is, like,

almost everything I read about this one said, oh, well, there's a lot of hunting pressure on these bears. You know, the salmon were down that year. There's a poaching, happening. There's resources extraction. There's all these things happening. And from what I understand from this one, I don't, I think this bear was in pretty pristine habitat. I don't think this was a stressed out bear. I don't think she was under weight or there were any kind of like conflicting factors that led to this. This was a surprise encounter at close distance. And it really highlights how unpredictable these animals can be. It doesn't, there don't need to be other factors for a bear. to a mall a human being.

There doesn't need to be like at the sperry shaller or the Granite Park chalet and glacier where they're feeding them like for nights and nights and nights and nights or the trout lake bear, you know? I think the devil's advocate would be it had three cubs. Yeah, I mean, that's a factor without a doubt. But then the devil's advocate to that would be aid them. So it's kind of predatory.

Well, yeah, and I was going to talk about that. That this is not, if you were to put, the reason for this attack, it would be a surprise encounter of a female with Cubs. And then I would say she opportunistically fed after she neutralized these threats. And that does happen sometimes. It doesn't always happen, but more often than not, it doesn't because the female is just trying to get out of the area. But in this area where she neutralized both of them and then there's no other kind of surrounding threats, it's not unheard of that she would then feed on these people.

So I don't, I don't, I really don't think this was motivated by predation. I think it was motivated by the desire to protect her cubs. And then she opportunistically fed on these two essentially carcasses. What is the difference in behavior, if you know, between North American grizzly bears, brown bears, and Russian? Is there vastly differing data on like, okay. So really, I mean, these bears, these coastal ones, you would think would act kind of like our coastal brown bears in Alaska.

So there's plenty of videos of people getting very close to these bears and them just running away. But even a really tolerant, well-fed brown bear, if you are in thick brush and it has cubs and you come around a corner and you're right there next to it, there's a very good chance it's going to come at you because they just don't like surprises at close distances. It's just that's like, that paper that I constantly quote that's a worldwide perspective of brown bear attacks, by far the most attacks start from this exact scenario of female with Cubs and a surprise encounter. So the whole lesson here is that no matter how prepared you are,

no matter how tolerant the bears are, no matter how much experience you have in the outdoors, you need a deterrent if you're in brown bear country. You just do. It can stop it. I don't think Igor would have survived this, but Olga might have had she had a deterrent. Yeah. With brown bear and bear cubs generally, is there a time of year that's their most, the mothers are most protective? Like, maybe you understand what I'm trying to ask you,

but like, is there like a less safe as opposed to a more safe time of year when it comes to, like running into mother bears with cubs? Not really. They're like, I would say the whole first year when their cubs are born, when they're called Cubs of the year, they're pretty like the moms are pretty on edge the next year i think they kind of let them wander a bit

more and they're not quite as you know like a helicopter mom but when those cubs are small the the moms tend to stay really close to them they tend to be very defensive because they don't really have any kind of the cubs don't have their own defenses they're not like black bears will they climb up a tree as fast they they really rely on their mom to protect them at that age and they're very good at protecting their cubs right yeah like Even once they seem pretty big to us, it's like you got to realize these moms are worried about male grizzly bears and stuff. Right. Right.

Yeah. So they're still. Yeah. They're like Mike when you try to eat his lasagna. You come from my lasagna. You, you show, man, you should have known. Your mom hadn't passed away yet. So it was reasonable at the time that I wanted some of that.

You came into the kitchen and kind of. just stood there. You didn't even ask. You wanted me to just offer you some of this lasagna? It's a normal thing. Did you? No, it's not. It was not that much lasagna.

It's not much. It's one serving's worth. It's four. No way, dude. I still have the little glass little casserole dish. He made it for me. I'll show it to everybody. That would be my first ever post on Instagram.

One thing stuck in my brain, West, I wanted to talk about. So we were talking just briefly about prodigies earlier. Is there such a thing as a prodigy bear cub? Are there bear cubs that are just like obviously better at being bears from a young age? Not that I know of. You haven't ever seen one that's just like moves better, climbs faster. It's like brand new and it goes out and just catches the biggest salmon. No, I mean, there are definitely like prodigy bear moms, I think.

I think there are like female bears that are just really. good at protecting their cubs and keeping them safe. Like $399 was famous for that. She was just really good at raising her cubs. But I don't know about cubs. That's a question. Maybe like for chimpanzees, like where they're always riding on typewriters.

Yeah. Yeah. That one writes Shakespeare or sometimes. Always doing that. Yeah. It's just that one. Yeah. You just got to find that one. You just got to find that one. Heald Bloom, Chimp. All right.

So the last like, kind of justification for doing this story is a lot of the stuff I read said like a, you know, a bear that was stalking them, a predatory bear, whatever. That's not the case here. I really don't think so. We mentioned this already, but this is a defensive bear. This was not one that was motivated by predation. So I'm going to say that almost like definitively. I'll leave the tiniest room for like it could have been motivated motivated by predation but I really don't think that was the case no way dude you put your stamp on it or you don't west it's one or the other all right I'm stamping it then it's defensive bear attack okay so that's it for the story you

guys have any questions about the deaths of Olga and Igor Mike do you have a favorite prodigy like a child prodigy child prodigy yeah I was gonna say prodigy yeah band prodigy yeah Band Prodigy, Fire Starter. So good. Maybe. Keith. Oh. Freddie Adieu.

He was like seven and he's getting scouted by the MLS and stuff. And then he just like wasn't that good. Wes, you got one? A child prodigy? Yeah. Duggey Hauser. That's a great pick. Bobby Fisher.

That's going to be mine. Bobby. Oh, that's a good pick. I can't think of any like real ones. There was a funny one. He must have had so many vibrators in his butt, dude. The girl who just went number one in the WMBA, Paige Bucketers or something.

Yeah. There's a clip of someone like 12 years ago when she was like playing like seventh grade basketball. That's like she's going to be the number one pick in the WMBA. Really? Yeah, it's a good call by him. That's cool. That's kind of how I feel about young LeBron too, honestly. Oh yeah, he lived out too.

Yeah. Greta Thunberg in a way. I don't know. She's still doing her thing. Yeah. But she is still doing her thing. Good on you, Greta. Yeah.

All right. So we'll move on to categories. First category is something that makes you really, really happy lately because I just want to bring up the mood a little bit. I can go first. Yeah. I love a good cheesecake ice cream. Like, ice cream in the summer, it's hard not to be happy when you're eating it. Yeah.

And the last time I had cheesecake in it, I don't, I would kind of like, fall. on off the cheesecake ice cream train. I was like, I should try this again. Pretty good stuff. Yeah. You know what? You just made me really unhappy right there. So thanks for Biff and that.

Why you don't like cheesecake? Here's the thing. I've always heard. So like sometimes later on in life you can develop a lactose intolerance. I think that's happening to me. Like every time I eat it, I feel a little bad and I get a little puffy. And it's really like... That might be happening to me too.

It sucks because I've never been allergic. to anything. I've never had any kind of like dietary restrictions. And then all of a sudden there's like this whole category of food I'm kind of like now at this point subconsciously avoiding that I've loved my whole life. And it's probably it's probably like Havana syndrome or something, you know. You think? It's because you hang out with our audio producer so much. Dude, he's got all those diet. Raxson's lactose intolerant. He's gluten intolerant. Oh my God. And we hired him. I know. It's crazy. Life's been a little crazy lately.

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That's cornbread hemp.com slash tooth and use code tooth. Also, I just want to say they just sent me their seltzers and I absolutely love them. So check those out too. What's yours, Mike? Obviously not cheesecake ice cream. It's not cheesecake. I message you about this. Miley Cyrus's new album just like overcame all the odds and really blew me out of the water this past week.

I've been spinning it front to back, back to front over and over again. I just think it's really like artistically. I mean, it's still pop music at the end of the day. I'm not trying to oversell this, but Miley's really got something to prove still. And I really have a great time listening to that album. She has it to prove or she's proved it. She's proved it, but she still has more to prove. She's got more in the can.

She's kind of creatively flexing again. I really appreciate that. Her brother listens to us. Really? Yeah, not Trace. Bracin. Bracin. Just the one that was, had that one song, the shake, shake, shake.

Oh, okay. He doesn't listen? I want him to listen. No. I like Bracin. Okay. You got no love for Bracin? I don't know.

I've not heard any of Bracin's music. It's good. It's more like folksy. I really like. Check out Bracin Cyrus. Jason, if you're listening, if you could get your brother to listen from Mike, that would be great. That would be my answer for next time we do this category. All right.

So, what am I going to pick? I don't, you know, I personally, I tried listening to that album. I didn't love it, Mike. Sorry. Whoa. That's fine. What I decided. We're each kind of hating.

Knocking down each other. Well, I'm curious if you guys won't like mine, because I think you will. So lately, we've been having really long nights in Missoula and really just like, afterglow kind of lighting to the sky. And I just find it really beautiful. But the thing that I think really adds a lot to that are like some well-placed bistro lights. Like, you know, like the little cafe, the little round lights in a string. Yeah.

I just think when you place those well in like a yard or an outdoor setting and then you also have this really beautiful ambient light, it just creates a very nice atmosphere. So bistro lighting recently has been a thing that's made me very happy. I tried sitting outside with Beasterolining. I didn't care for it all that much. All right. Yeah. Cool.

So, I like the things that... Bistro lights. I used to make them. You made Beestralites? Yeah, when I worked at the Alpine event rentals, we'd make some. Oh, you like hung them up? No, like, I, like, I bought, like, electric wire. Oh, yeah, that's right.

And then we would, like, get a, like, box cutter and split it. And then we would put light bulbs in it and it is, like, can't believe I did that. Made that. Now you can buy a strand for like $20 on Amazon. I will say. I could just make you. Yeah, just hire Jeff.

If I go to a wedding in there aren't bistro lights somewhere, I'm going to be a little disappointed. Yeah. Like how are you supposed to feel cozy and nice? Right. There's no bistro light. Yeah. It doesn't have to be like a centerpiece of the aesthetic, but like just a little corner or outdoor porch.

Just one light. Yeah. Just one beaster light. Would you say you were a prodigy, Jeff, at making beasterlytes? You probably would like that. Just like one long. One dangling beasterlight. No, I wouldn't as a prodigy.

I think I was a work in progress. A work in progress, WIP. All right. I want to shout out to just NBA draft and Utah Jazz. Everyone's like they had a great draft. And it's funny because the player they drafted. was like, I'll play anywhere but Utah. And they were like, welcome to the NBA, buddy.

Yeah. Don't get to call your shots. You haven't scored a single point in the league yet. We got swig soda out here. You're going to love it. Mormon housewise, all over the place. It's going to be great. Hey, there's swingers.

I'm sure you will like that. Okay, the next category. A favorite example of a movie or TV show where a Russian character I'm sorry Wes I just like this Mormon housewives thing is really crept up on me this is not the kind of thing I usually engage in But I saw a picture kind of like a splash screen or some kind of attractant for the show Yeah, and I think like literally they all and I'm this this is gonna sound bad no matter how I say it They all look exactly almost literally the same to me it's crazy they all got the same like extensions and stuff Well you know it's funny is you know that movie Megan

with like the doll that looks like a little girl. Yeah. They all did a promo for it where they like dressed up like dolls. What the heck? So weird because they don't look like they almost already don't look like real humans. Yeah. And then it's like, oh man. I think we're like in 50 years we're going to look back and see this Mormon housewives show,

whatever it's called as like a pretty significant step towards the dystopia, which we will by then be living in. Yeah. I think it's just another. You've given that a lot of credit. All of the other reality shows that have been out beforehand. You know, anthropologists will be digging through the silt and the ash and be like, what? This is where everything started going terribly wrong.

When Taylor and Dakota started. Yeah. Or is that her name? Taylor. Yeah, yeah. You're nailing it. All right. Yeah.

The funniest thing for me is like when you're driving around Utah and you see these huge billboards that say, JZ extensions. Yeah. Like jizz hair is what it's called. JZ styles. Yeah. Jiz styles. Ugh.

All right. All right. So the next category, a movie or a TV show where the Russian character is not the bad guy. I had a real tough time. I have two strong picks.

So maybe you guys go first so I don't take it. Jeff, why don't you go first? I think I know who Jeff's going to pick. Okay. I had a hard time thinking of any other ones. The Man from Uncle, Army Hammer. Oh, okay.

I thought you would say Armageddon. Oh, no. Yeah. I didn't even remember the Russian in that. Okay. Oh, yeah, that guy is great. He's awesome. Yeah.

But yeah, I loved Army Hammer and Man From Uncle. I love that movie. I don't know. You guys could probably say that pick doesn't count because he actually is a bad guy, but just in real life. Yeah. I haven't heard anything bad about Army Hammer. I separate the art from the artist. Yeah.

Yeah, that's a good pick. Mike, what are yours? Well, so Storm Arrow was my first pick from Armageddon, but I'm going to go with Igor from Anora. He kind of stole the movie for me. Yeah, that's a good pick. Yeah, he kind of like showed up halfway through and you're like, who is this dude? And then by the end of the movie, you're like, this movie was kind of about him, actually. Yeah.

It's so good. Not really. It's about Enora, but he... Was he Russian or like Chechninean? I'm not. sure. I probably should have checked. I think he sure he was a Russian. Because the main, or the oligarch son is a Russian.

Yeah. Okay. I think you're right. Yeah, he was great. I think that's a great pick. Yeah, a Russian henchman played by Europe, Borisov. There you go. Great. I picked like pretty much all of the, uh, the protagonists in the movie Enemy at the Gates. Um, so we got Jude Law. We got, um, what's her face? It's married to Daniel Craig. Rachel Weiss, beautiful. And then, yeah, some other characters in that movie.

But anyway, that movie's all about, like, the fighting in late stages of World War II in Stalingrad. And I think it's in Stalingrad where that happened. And pretty much like the Russians keeping the Nazis at bay. And I do think in, you know, in Western culture, we don't really give the Russian forces the credit that was due yeah um for stopping world war two for sure no the soviet force trump just said that too actually yeah i'm not i'm not a fan trump was not a fan of why do we like germany and japan so much russia so i'm helped yeah well the soviet union yeah i mean they fought back the nazis so credit credit credit where credits do okay our next one the national anthem

that goes the hardest in your opinion so I thought of this because the Russian National Anthem goes pretty fucking hard. It's so good, dude. Yeah. So I'm curious what you guys think as far as national anthems that go really hard. So I had a couple of them came to mind, but they're more like contact space, like the Marseilles and Casablanca, that scene is a classic. Or, oh, what's the guy's name? The guy that sings the national anthem at Blackhawks games, the NHL, where the crowd is just going nuts.

Like usually during the singing of the national anthem, the crowd stands. up. They're all quiet. Very respectful. But for some reason, the tradition started that when this guy is singing, a Jim Cornelius or something, he sings it. I'll look it up. And the crowd is just going insane the whole time he's singing. And it's just a really fun environment. I'm actually not like a crazy huge fan of the anthem itself. It's a little weird. Cornelis and Jim Cornelis. Yeah. So I settled on Brazil. I guess all that just to say Brazil has a walkie fun national anthem. It's great. I used to sing it when I was there And it, yeah, it's a fun one

Yeah, that's a great pick Jeff, do you have an answer? I mean, honestly, I like the United States just because I don't even know if it's particular to the actual anthem But I think we have like the most change up on our act On our anthem like the most variations

It is like most countries It could just be me thinking this But like I feel like most countries when they play their national anthem it's like pretty much the same thing every time yeah and with ours it's like you can bet on how long it will take them to sing it you can like do all these different things so I

and then like sometimes you get like what's their name Shakira yeah oh Fergie Fergie Rizalia Fergie who just completely botches it and it's such a hard one to sing Roseanne Barr yeah

it's like it's a fun song but like the octave changes are vast. Like you got to be able to hit high and low notes. I got to shout out Guatemala. They have a great one, especially for being like such a small country. It's like always ranked one of the best national anthem. So good job, Guatemala. Good work.

I spent, I spent quite a bit of time listening to different national anthems to for this. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm going to give you a few that rose to the top before I give you my number one. South Africa has a great one. I like that they incorporate a lot of the different kind of dial. Alex of the Native peoples.

Shakira. She's not from South Africa. No, but she sings their national. She's there. That's not their national anthem. Is that the World Cup song? That was the World Cup anthem in 2010. That's not the same thing, huh?

No, it was that guy from like Somalia that made that song. What was his name? Shakira did one, do you? Yeah, but she did a version of his song that he created. Okay. So South Africa was great. Brazil was on my list. Bangladesh has a really good one.

The former Soviet Union, I think, has a really good national anthem. But my favorite of all the ones I listened to was Nepal. Nepal has a really good national anthem. It's like very melodic. It kind of goes all over the place. It sounds like peaceful and meditative, but also really beautiful. Maybe I'll put a little snippet in. I'll have Braxton cuts him in, but it is, or he can play it while I'm talking about it.

It is just really, really good. So, good job. Do you have a least favorite national anthem? Probably ours, honestly. Yeah. I would probably say Canada. I feel like it starts off, like, just putting it. Oh, Canada.

Yeah. Our home and native land. Yeah. Yeah, this is worse than ours. The only reason I would say ours is because I've heard it like 10 billion times. so I'm just like tired of it. I want to know just for, I guess I could look this up, but maybe I'll just have our listeners write in and tell us, do you play your national anthem before literally every single event

of note in your country? Because we do and I'm so tired of it. I like our anthem. I think it's a pretty cool song, but do. Me too. But I hate when I'm like settling into my seat and I like people are going to stare at me if I don't stand up and put my hand over my heart. In international sports, it is kind of cool.

Like when you see Italy or someone like Spain or whatever, I think Germany, all of their players are singing every single word of their anthem as it plays. And we don't get that. They go like full into it. I just think we play it too much. I think it's overkill. Yeah. If I heard it once a year, I'd probably be like standing up and, you know, wiping my eye. But anyway, all right.

You just do that with a, what's it? Toby Keith's song now. No, I hate that song so much. We'll put a boot in your ass. All right. Okay. Quick question for you guys, because there's a new season of a loan. I'm pretty into it already. They're in Africa, which is a really fun change up.

So I'm curious for you guys, do you think you would make it longer in a season of alone that's set in Africa? or one that's set in kind of their more traditional locations like Vancouver or Alaska or northern Canada. I would say like Alaska. Yeah. Me too. Any reasons? The climate mostly for me. I don't like hot and then seems like there's just, I don't know.

I haven't been watching it, but just Africa in general seems like less water sources than Alaska. Yeah, they're all camp near a lake, but it's dirty water. They have to purify their water very well. Yeah. For me, just because I have watched it, I kind of think Africa, because there's just wild game everywhere where they're at. Really? And they all have bows.

And I think there's going to be a lot of success when it comes to hunting this season. And that's always been the- You think there's like a rule of like if like three people make it like 300 days, they're just like, okay, you all three win. I hope so. Yeah, because I think the things that are going to be hard this season, and his shelter seems to be a lot harder to build because there aren't like trees or anything nearby

so they're going to have to be a lot more creative about their shelters. Water is going to be a little bit harder and trickier. I think they could very easily get sick from drinking water and then it's going to be hot. But I think I could last longer and hot than I could and really, really cold. So I don't know.

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Not all fish are the same. Get seafood you can trust. go to wild alaskan.com slash tooth for $35 off your first box of premium wild caught seafood. That's wildalaskan.com slash tooth for $35 off your first order. Thanks to Wild Alaskan Company for sponsoring this episode. Okay. Next one is going to be listener questions. So Jeff brought this up recently and this mostly goes out to our patrons.

It really only goes out to our patrons, I guess. But for our Patreon subscriber, listener questions, we have a thread on Patreon now that I think Jeff created or Mike created. It was a great idea. There's a thread in there for listener questions. It helps us keep them a little bit more organized. So if you have a question, you're hoping to have read on the show. The best chance of getting us to notice it is putting it on that thread on Patreon.

So if you're not a Patreon subscriber, you will have access to that thread if you do end up subscribing. And that's what we're going to be polling most of our Patreon questions for. If you have any other kind of question, first, think whether or not you need to ask it. Second, if you do, send us a DM on Patreon. But listener questions, you can add to that thread. So I'm going to pull some from that. This one is from Hanny Banani. Great name.

How many coyotes could you fight off at once? No weapons allowed. Ooh. What do you guys think? At once. How are bigger coyotes? Like average I'd say like 30 40 pounds Like I would I would picture

Like what kind of dog would I say Like smaller than a golden retriever Slightly smaller than a golden retriever Yeah I think Well so is it like if it's cage match It's going to be less than like if it's just Trying to fight off wild coyotes Because like fighting them off in the wild

It's like you just need to get them to want to give up Yeah So with that I would say like four, but in a cage I'd see three. Okay. I have a reach advantage on them. That's going to be big. I'm going to go with eight.

Wow. They could take him. Yeah. I'm going to say three. Like I think realistically, if they were cooperating and attacking me, I don't think I could handle more than three. So, and sometimes they do cooperate. Sometimes they hunt in little packs.

It's a great question. All right. This one's from Nicole. Nicole says, what's the best breakfast carb pancakes, waffles or French toast We should rank them

Sure Go for it I would go French toast Waffles Pancakes French toast, Waffles, pancakes Okay Mike

I'm gonna go Waffles pancakes French toast I think Waffles are always Whenever I see a waffle I'm always like Oh what's the occasion You know

Yeah I don't really get that From either of those other two Yeah I love them all though I love, I very much could eat all three of those every day for the rest of my life and be happy. This is kind of a hard one for me because I feel like these all vary, very, very much by like how they're made and prepared. Like if a French toast is too eggy or sloppy, I just like hate it.

But if it's done the way I like it, I think it's my favorite. And same with waffles. But if I just had to rank them, which we're doing, I would do waffles, pancakes, French toast. There you go. Yeah. All right. Uh-huh. This one's from Sarah.

cage match. Wes and Jeff's older brother versus Mike's oldest brother who wins. I'd say definitely Mike's oldest brother. Yeah. Cyrus is tough. He's surprisingly tough, but Mike's older brother's like an ex-Marine green beret or whatever. Yeah, I think he would be the overwhelming favorite, but you never know. Yeah, everyone's got a punch or two in them that will catch you off guard.

I would say we know. Okay. I'm just trying to be diplomatic here. Yeah, I would. What would the odds be, do you think, Jeff, if you were... If I was making the odds. Like, minus 700? I don't know. Yeah, more.

Really? I'd go, like, in the thousands. Sure. And I will field those bets. Like, I'll do the payout. Let's see if we can set this up. It's not like, it's not like he's like a pushover. No.

He's not a Marine. Yeah. I don't know, though. Marines are kind of soft, actually. I'll let them know. They're just using, like, especially nowadays, dude, arm of Marines nowadays just using fucking robots and stuff. Flying.

I don't know about that. Yeah. Cyrus is a hiker, you know. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. You know, he's got three kids. That's not easy.

All right. Jeff, this one's from Hannah. She says, what's your ADHD superpower? Hannah can sense minor shifts in people's energy like a platypus seeing in water and Hannah can do ridiculously hard things first try, but can't do simple things without restarting them at least twice. Do you think you have an ADHD superpower? I actually think it helps me in interviews or like conversations or something where like if something's going on too long, I'm very good at like stopping it and like changing the subject.

Keeping it fresh. Yeah. Yeah, like I'll key into something and I'll be like, well, let's talk about this. I think I'm good. And like on a phone call, I'm pretty entertaining because it's like, we cover a lot of topics in that phone call. When Jeff calls you, you got to be prepared for at least three different goodbyes to be said. But you know the conversation is not even close to over. Like, we're halfway there maybe by the first time we say bye.

It's very true. Yeah, it is. All right, that's going to be it for patron questions today. Just so everyone knows, after we read these, I am going to be deleting them off the thread. So if you log on there and you're wondering where your question went, it's because we read it. I have a few more 90s-themed ones. Yeah, let's do it. Speaking in 90s theme, I'm like 10 minutes away from where Ninja Turtles was created.

Oh, that's cool. Okay, so this one, go ninja, go ninja. Go. Like where they made the ooze? Like where the riders wrote Ninja Trails. And then I was like looking at the manholes. That's new you work, dude. Manholes look the same.

Okay. Sorry, Mike. I interrupted you. I was just going to say Vanilla I has had more than one hit. Technically not a one hit wonder. No. The Ninja Rapp was technically a hit. That's two more hits than I've had.

Right? This one, sorry. Are you guys from talking? No, we're done. I'm not. Robert Van Winkle. whatever his name is. Rip Van Winkle, right?

No, that's the guy that fell asleep. No relation as far as I'm aware. Shug Knight like almost killed him for some reason. Oh yeah. Shug Night almost killed a lot of people. Yeah, and actually killed some people too. Actually literally killed. Yeah.

All right, Jeff. I think we're finally ready. I don't know. That's pretty good where it ended up. Yeah, so Stuart that he DM me. saying he really liked the 90s theme questions and wanted to get our thoughts on Crystal Pepsi, which

I didn't even remember what it tastes like. I think it's cool though. Yeah. Yeah. They re-released it when all of them were good, because they made a ton and weren't selling it enough. So they just had it like in some warehouse or something. They re-released it right before

it all expired what like eight years ago or something. Yeah. And I didn't really try it the 90s but when they re-released it I was like pretty addicted to it you were on poor that's a bad thing to get addicted to I thought it was something you know is gonna end better than like brown colas huh and then I think the brown in cola is like one of the things that makes it the least healthy thing too right I don't know yeah maybe haven't you like the car hurt that mic it's like it's bad yeah for your teeth and it like dissolves nails and stuff yeah

Have you tried Zima yet, Jeff? I think you froze. A nice cold Zima, who froze me? Jeff, right? I was just going to say, maybe that's the best thing to get addicted to, though, because like there's a cutoff date. Like, that's a good point. If someone was like crystal heroin, here's some crystal heroin, it's only around for like

three days, I'd be like, you know what, maybe, maybe. I'll give it a shot. Like, I won't be able to this. And it is gone soon. Yeah, that's a good point. Crystal meth. Jeff's frozen so me and Mike are this guy going We might have to land this plane on around

Jeff if you can still hear us Oh he's gone he's out of there He's completely gone I never tried Crystal Pepsi I don't think I got on that quick enough But for everyone else Something that was really hard for me is that In the 90s they made a Jurassic Park themed candy

Jeff's calling me Okay hey put them on speaker Plug my laptop into charge And it was a different chord. Oh, did you die? So it just died. I think you guys should just close it out. Okay.

You're on speaker right now. Do you want to say any last words? Crystal Pepsi's great. Okay. And love the listeners. Thank you so much for listening. Sorry, my laptop just died. There it is.

Jeff's final words. See you, Jeff. Yeah. So anyway, they had these two dinosaur jawbreakers that came in this skinny box. I might have talked about this. I remember, yeah. But the spitters and the raptor whatever cherry bites or something. I think you gave me one. Yeah, I was about to say, I finally found some on eBay and I bought them thinking, I'm going to be able to relive this wonderful childhood memory of this candy that brings back, it'll bring back this rush of nostalgia for me.

And it was just disgusting. Like so bad. I've never tasted candy that I'm pretty sure was rotten somehow. I don't know how that happens to a hard candy, but that was, it was foul. It does. Not good. So apparently it doesn't have the shelf life of Crystal Pepsi. Yeah. Well, you know, Jeff had those 90s themed questions and he's gone. Yep. So let's just do one more patron question. And then, yeah, and then we'll go, we'll say goodbye. We'll do a little conservation too. Great. All right. This one's from doodle P. They say, I started the podcast from day one this January and finally caught. up and became a patron. Thank you. I wanted to ask, what's y'all's favorite thing to learn about,

like your Roman Empire, or like something in history or something that you always go back to learning about. Mine might be Diane Fosse and what happened to her, a famous gorilla researcher. What do you think happened to her? P.S. you should do an episode on the three grade eight women scientists. I'm not as familiar with the story. I'll look into it. I'm not sure what happened to her. I'll have to read about it. But that's a great question. Mike, what's your Roman Empire. Is it the Roman Empire? It's not quite, no. That's a really good question. I like, I mean, the revolutionary war for American history is definitely where my heart is, as far as like American history is concerned. Yeah. Globally, yeah, I don't really have anything that like is my singular

focus of attention. So I guess I'll just go like George Washington basically. It's my guy. George Washington. Yeah. I know, I know there's always some history and I'm aware of it all. So, You don't have to bring that up. I'm not bringing up. I was just going to say. Not to you, but to the listeners. I just want to ensure people are aware that I know. Those ones are hard.

Yeah. Because the more you learn, the more you're kind of like. It's tough. Yeah. But for me, I honestly think it's like survival stories where it's not an animal. Like it's against the elements. And the one that really just grabs me unlike anything else is people adrift at sea. I just for whatever reason stories of people like floating at sea for months or even years is so fascinating to me and I just can't consume enough of that.

So that's like, yeah, that might be it. Or like kind of tied to that like early naval or whaling disasters. So like the mutiny on the bounty, the wager, the ship that crashed, you know, in Patagonia. or the story that we're definitely going to tell at some point, like the inspiration for Moby Dick, which was the whale ship Essex. So anyway, okay. Maybe the Chicago Bulls.

I don't know. I can't ever consume enough content about like the Michael Jordan six championships. Yeah. Okay, quick conservation corner. Trophy hunting is a problem for the bears in Kamchatka. There is a fair amount of hunting there, and it's not super well regulated. So that is something that they are facing.

There's also a lot of resource extraction in the area, including mining, commercial fishing, a lot of activities that directly affect the habitat and the food sources of these bears. So I do think it's safe to say they don't really have the same celebrity and protection as the coastal brown bears in Alaska. And those bears too are often a threat for mining development and stuff, other things that are happening in Alaska. but they have earned this kind of protection from ecotourism, both like Fat Bear Week, which we mentioned earlier, or just people wanting to travel to Katmai or Kodiak or Lake Clark or wherever else to see wild brown bears.

I think a lot of people in those areas have realized that there is a better, stronger, more ethical economy around keeping those bears alive rather than killing them or reducing their habitat to a habitat where they no longer can thrive. And I think that's still, unfortunately, the case in Russia where the resource extraction is kind of outweighing the protection for the animals. So they are, I think they're doing well, but they are probably facing more threats than our coastal brown bears. Luckily, there's a lot of places there for them. So, all right. Yeah, you got a question?

No, I was just going to say if you're like in a real IRL risk game, which I guess you just call war. Like, yeah, it's pretty nice to have bears up there in Alaska protecting that border for us, you know? Yeah, yeah. That's pretty neat. I think you're right. There's a lot of bears. And we don't even pay them or anything. If we could just figure out a way to militarize them.

We got a, like, Jurassic world. If any country is going to figure that out, it's us. Yeah. You know there's some kind of MK Ultra nonsense going on where it's like, ah, there's got to be something we can do with these killer whales. You know Department of Defense somewhere in there. someone's like they got killer in their name. That's their Roman Empire. Yeah.

Like figuring out how to make killer whales kill people in the global south. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Or figure out how to make them push buttons for drones. All right. That's great. So we don't take, we don't have to feel guilty.

It's like they're the ones that. Yeah. All right. Blame the whales. Yeah. That's a good point. we could just do that and they could just be like, I didn't do it. It was a fucking killer whales that pushed the drone buttons.

Right. All right. So behind me in my studio, some of you keen-eyed listeners may have noticed at some point. I have a map of, I mentioned this earlier. It's of the former Soviet Union. And it's not because I was like a huge fan of the former Soviet Union, but it's because the amount of wildlife that you could find is insane. There was tigers, there's leopards, there's.

polar bears, there's Asiatic Black Bears, there's brown bears, there's hyenas, there's just so many different things that existed within the former Soviet Union. And this map has all of that wildlife on it. So I just really liked it. It's a really old map. But what I wanted to do for our claw ranking this episode on bum Jeff isn't going to get to do this. I want you to give a claw rating to Russian wildlife. So in the current, in Russia as it exists, we're talking about, we're talking about Amor tigers, more leopards, brown bears, Asiatic black bears, polar bears. There's a number of ungulate species. They have moose.

They have red deer. There's a lot there. Reindeer. Links. Reindeer. Yeah. There's quite a bit of different, a variety. Wolverine.

I know we talked about Siberia a little bit earlier. Would you say there's like an animal that you associate with Siberia first and foremost? Wolves. Yeah. Yeah. They're sweet. Yeah. They are sweet.

Well, so just by virtue of having more tigers, like, tiger's my favorite animal. So it's going to be high. It's going to be really high. It's kind of like, it's like if you were looking at North American, like the Rocky Mountains, but you add in leopards and tigers. It's so sweet. Yeah. It's pretty sweet. And polar bears.

Yeah. So for Russia overall, I mean, just as far as wildlife is concerned, probably 10. Like, I don't, there's not like many more places that would have animals. I'd be much more interested in seeing. Maybe I need to think about that more. But it's like, yeah. No, it's 10 for me too. I think Russia and India are two countries.

They get 10 for me because they're just like, there's such a wide variety of crazy charismatic wildlife. So. Yeah. All right. Well, that's it for the story. Again, sorry,

it's kind of a bummer of a story, but it's one I've had on my list for a long time. And I figured this was the week to tell it because we've had a lot of, kind of more lighthearted episodes. in a row. So I wanted to just bring everyone down. Thanks for bringing us back to San Juan. Yep. Sadness. All right. And as always a quick pitch for our Patreon. We mentioned it earlier, but it's a fun community where you get to ask questions. There's a lot more interaction with other listeners with us. You get access to a lot of bonus content. How many episodes would you say we

have on there now? 10030? 130. Yeah. And I think when we started it, we were like, oh, these will be mini fun episodes and they're just as long as our normal episodes. They're long, they're fun. They're often led by Mike or Jeff, so they tend to be a little bit more off the wall, which I really enjoy. So check us out on there. It's 10 bucks a month. Do it. If you sign up through your web browser, which you should. Yes. All right. We'll see you guys. Love you. See ya. Thanks.