Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - Great White Shark Attack - Andrew Carter and the Shark Who Bit Him

Episode Date: April 14, 2025

Wes takes the guys through a violent encounter that two surfers had with a great white shark. One got lucky, and one didn't. ~~ To advertise on the show, contact us! ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social:  Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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birder, uh, Wes Larson. Master Burter. That R is doing a lot of work in that words. I'm his younger brother, Jeff Larson. And you know, Mike had someone, we were on a dive boat in the Galapagos, and Mike had someone who is just like having fun with the whole trip. Like, you guys got along really well. Mm-hmm.

And she, like, Like, checked out our podcast. And the first minute, she had it going for everyone in the boat. The first minute I introduced Mike as eating ass. Yeah. I think it was a good move. And, you know, I'm sorry, dude. No, don't apologize.

I didn't realize that was just going to be like. I've always wondered what episode would be the best one to introduce someone to the podcast. If it's a girl I'm interested in, maybe that one. Yeah, I guess that is. She'll be like, oh. Wingman. Yeah. Check, Mike.

You're the best wingman I've ever had. I've had a number of times that I've, like, played episodes for, like, people I'm guiding or whatever. And I'm always just like, ah, you're right. We'll just skip this beginning part. What does you get past this? Get to the 10 minute mark. Like, we proved that you didn't actually get a wildlife degree.

That's not true, Jeff. I've proved. The opposite has been proved, actually. That's what we're always doing, like, no, I swear, one piece gets good after 700 episodes. Wes is like, no, our podcast gets good after 10 minutes. story. Yeah. Well, what do you got for us today?

Well, we're in Galapagos still. We're currently on Isabella, and we did a dive trip right before this. Right now, we're with the group of toothies, which has been really fun. Our dive trip was also great. And while we were in the water, I thought a lot about sharks. We saw a number of species of sharks. Do you guys remember what we saw? I mean, the species.

I know it's hammerhead. Scallop. Scallet. We saw Galapagos sharks. Yes. Silkeys. Silkeys, white tip reef sharks. Well, you can't just start answering them after we named one.

I'm saying them after you say them. You said the Galapagos one. You're right. There's two more that we're missing. Oh, I don't know. Black tip. Black tip reef shark. And the Galapagos horn shark.

Those are all the species we've seen. And for me, diving, nothing quite does it like sharks. So for me, when I see a shark underwater, just the way they're moving through the water, like how graceful they are. that tiny element of danger, even when they're smaller sharks, just like it awakens something different in me than anything else underwater that I've seen so far. And so I've been thinking about sharks a lot this week. Just so everyone knows, we're recording in a hotel room. So if you hear any kind of road noises in the background, just that's Galapagos ambient noises for you. So I've been, I've been thinking

about sharks. And I was kind of trying to figure out what story I wanted to tell. I was looking through some different books. And I realized it's actually been a minute since we've done an episode on one of all three of our favorite animals, which is a great white shark. And so I found one that I really liked. I think it's a really interesting episode or an interesting story because of the situation behind it. And that's what we're going to talk about today. Let's do it. I'm excited.

So Andrew Carter really loves surfing. Like he really loved it. So much so that when he was 16 growing up in coastal South Africa. Don't tell me. He married it. He married surfing. End of story. He told his parents that he was done going to school

and that he just wanted to fully focus and devote his life to surfing. His parents weren't too thrilled about that. They were like, no, you like still have to go to school. That's still really important. But all he wanted to do was surf. If you guys had to devote your life to the thing you were most passionate about at 16,

what would have been? Ooh, 16. Yeah. I mean, I didn't make my high school basketball team but I thought I still had a shot at the NBA. Yeah. Is that what you were most passionate about at 16? I liked basketball.

Yeah. We were getting close to it with that whole master birder thing. Yeah. Your biggest passion in 16. No, not really. Basketball, actually, for me, probably too. Really? Or track video games or something.

Yeah. For me, it was probably fly fishing. I think that's when it really was starting to like, I was getting the bug big time, and that I felt like it was the thing that made me the happiest. But I don't know. Yeah, 16, that's probably what I would say. All right, well, for Andrew, it was definitely surfing. He slowly stopped going to school, even though his parents told him not to. Yours would have been like Pooka shell necklace. Pooka shells. Yeah, he would

have just made a business making them. Honestly, it probably would have been the Simpsons. I was obsessed with the Simpsons back then. That was like, yeah, that was late 90s, ideal time. That'd be a tough one to sell to Mom and Dad, though. Like, I'm quitting school for this Simpsons. Yeah, I'm doing the Simpsons the rest of my life. So Andrew stops going to school and he starts working at a local surf shop. He's making surfboards in Durban. And all day he would dream about saving enough money to travel the world and look for perfect lefts in clear warm waters. We all, we all love a perfect left around here. All right. So in July of 1994, just one year after Jurassic Park was released in theaters and delighted audiences worldwide, Andrew was working in a surf shop near

Nahoon Beach in East London, South Africa on the Eastern Cape. Nahoon Beach is considered by many to be one of the best beaches in the entire country. Pristine conditions for swimming and surfing. It's prone to clear, beautiful weather, like a lot of places on the Eastern Cape. And the Nehoun River pours into the ocean just north of the beach. And that fact, combined with some really specific geography, has led to a large amount of marine life being present in the area. So aside from surfing, it's also really popular for fishing, diving, and mike, snorke.

Your favorite thing to do. People are allowed to have fun, whether I... Are they, Mike? By law, they are. Okay. The waves were the true draw at Nahoon, though, and waves there can actually get quite big. So it's become a popular destination for big wave surfing. And there's been international surfing contests that have been held there.

It's a really popular spot on the eastern Cape of South Africa. Are we good? Yeah. Well, I was just looking up. You said Jurassic Park came out and delighted audiences everywhere. Yeah. And I looked up, I just wanted to make sure I looked up Roger Ebert's review because sometimes he misses. Yeah.

He gave it three out of four. So he was delighted to an extent. Yeah, it's a four out of four, Ebert, but whatever. Yeah. All right. So because it was such a popular surfing spot, that's precisely why Andrew found himself living and working in the area in 1994 when he was 31 years old. So around lunchtime on July 9th, he walked down to an area overlooking the beach.

and he noticed great six-foot waves breaking out past the reef. He and a few buddies got on their wetsuits. They grabbed their boards. Sounds like the start of a Beach Boy song. He headed out to where the waves were forming. And each of them took a different position in the lineup, caught some great waves on just like a bluebird day. So we like none of us really surf, but that sounds really nice.

Yeah. I've watched point break a lot. So I kind of know what I'm talking about. We've all dabbled and we buggy boarded and stuff. And we've surfed a few times. But like, right. I imagine this has got to be a great feeling here. for these guys.

Six foot waves are pretty good. I think Bodie would kind of maybe roll his eyes a little bit. Yeah, but he's living for big waves surfing. You know, the ultimate thrill. I think he could still have fun on him. Yeah.

Especially if he, like, just robbed a bank and he's like right in that eye. That's true. Big wave surfers are just macho jerks with the death wish, though. Isn't that what they say? Something like that. All right. So about 30 minutes into their session,

Andrew finds himself furthest out in the ocean. He sits up on his board. He's waiting for his next wave. I think for a lot of people, especially a lot of people in a place that's as sharky as South Africa, this might be a really uncomfortable place to be. Everyone else is in a little closer than you. You're just sitting in the open ocean on your board. The sound of the wave is kind of covering up voices and stuff.

And you can't really see what's down there in the water. But you got your bored in between you and the shark. That's actually a good point that you bring up. We're going to get to that. But for Andrew, this is a sudden. something he had done thousands of times. He didn't really have a worry or a care in his head, and neither did his friend Bruce Corby, who was surfing nearby. Bruce was 22, similarly obsessed with surfing. The two made a good pair when they're surfing these bigger waves at Newham.

Nahoon, sorry. At some point, they switched spots, and Bruce went out deeper, and Andrew surfed alongside his friend John. There's about 30 meters between them and Bruce. So at this point, Bruce is in the, like, further water, and Andrew and John are about 30. And Andrew and John are about 30 meters in surfing together. Which one, sorry, I must have missed it. So which one's the undercover cop? Neither of them are undercover cops. Nearby was their friend Johnny Utah.

Yeah. Was a new friend. Who just joined the group. Yeah. Because he's good at football. Also, strangely enough, Anthony Ketus was on the beach. All right. So what neither Andrew or Bruce knew was that a 12-foot great white shark had been circling

the pair. and was now moving toward Andrew, committed to a rare predatory attack. Both Andrew and Bruce's lives were about to become changed forever, and one of them wouldn't live to see another surf day. All right, let's do a little biology. What's that? Okay. Say it again.

I was going to do a joke, but it wouldn't. It's not. Okay. If Jeff, if he bales on a joke, you know it's bad. It's real bad. All right, so little biology, we've talked about the shark a fair amount on the podcast. It's been a minute since we've done a full episode on them. So we're going to gloss over some basic biology and then we're going to go into some interesting facts about their status in

South Africa. First of all, this is the largest macro predatory shark in the world and the largest macro predatory fish in the world. Can one of you guys remind our listeners what macro predatory means? Do you guys remember? You can probably piece it together just by like looking at the word too. Yeah, micro is small. Yes. Yeah, micro so that's big. Macro's big. Good. I would guess it has like some things to do with like the amount of ambition the animal has too. Like an ambitious animal is a macro.

Like an alpha? Kind of, yeah. No. Isn't it a kind of fish, a macro? Kind of. Macrole is what you're thinking of. That's awkward. I'm not going to ask you guys those kind of questions anymore.

I'm just going to answer them. Macro predatory pretty much means that they're eating bigger food. So, like, there are bigger sharks than the Great White Shark, but they're mostly eating, like, small schooling fish, krill, stuff like whale shark and basking sharks and mega mouth sharks. Macro predatory means they're eating, like, larger fish, marine mammals, other bigger stuff. So that's what macro predatory means.

Since mac and cheese is, they're small. Yeah, but that a mac and cheese would probably be big enough that it would be a macro predatory shark. You could have a big old bowl of mac and cheese. That's a real. It's juxtaposition right there. Yeah, if it was just one mac and cheese, it's just one mac and cheese, that wouldn't be enough. Yeah, that's true. One mac and one cheese.

So like a big Mac, is that macro if I'm eating those? Yeah, I think a Big Mac it'd be big enough for it to be a macro fish. It's right in the name. Big Mac. I'm a macro predator. Yeah. All right. So these are big sharks.

The largest confirmed measurement of a great white. puts them around 6.3 meters, which is roughly 20 feet and upwards of 4,000 pounds. A two-ton shark, that's a big, a big animal. Females are significantly larger than males. The average length for an adult male gray white is about 12 feet long, while females are typically in the 15 to 16 foot long range. They're mostly found throughout coastal and offshore waters that have temperatures between 12 and 24 degrees Celsius, which is about 54 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit.

So temperate waters. Some of the greatest concentrations of white sharks are found in the coastal seas around California, South Africa, and Oceania. So Oceania, Australia, New Zealand, that area. But they can be found throughout the world in temperate waters. So Japan, Mediterranean, a few other places where there's decent concentrations of great whites. The Western Cape of South Africa traditionally has been one of the most robust populations of white sharks in the world. So many sharks were found around places like false bay and gonzby that there was a robust shark cage diving industry in the area i went cage diving there in 2019 in muscle bay and it's a place where filmmakers would go to make documentaries about them you've no doubt seen the videos of of white sharks like breaching yeah that's where they filmed that oh was in south africa so is that like how south africans say muscle bay muscle beach muscle bay muscle muscle muscle that's how You got some big muscles. No, it's not.

I'm thinking about mac and cheese still. Yeah. So you're looking for like a small little snack. You take one noodle and you slip like one shredded cheese through the macaroni noodle. Is that a macon cheese? I think it might be. All right. Okay.

Are you good to move on from it? I do have one serious question if you're done with biology. I'm not done with biology. Yeah. Sorry. Is it a macanese question? It's not. It's a good question, I think. Do you want to do it now or do you want to do it? Well, so the story we're talking about six foot waves, and I was just wondering what if sharks are more likely or less likely to be in a scenario where there is a break or if there isn't.

I don't think it really affects them much. Really? They don't really. I don't think it really has a big deal. I don't think you're going to see them in places where you're having like a reef break where there's like not much room between. the churn and the bottom. But in these places, it's not, that's not really the situation. So I've seen a lot of photos of Great Whites like in waves. Yeah.

Oh, I was just asking since we were, we, we did some diving with some sea lions. And it was a pretty hefty kind of like swell in and out. Yeah. We were really affected by it. Yeah. But the sea lions just kind of moved through it like it was nothing almost. I think it's pretty similar with sharks. Do you think they might even like getting in a wave every once in a lot?

Yeah. But I, yeah, I don't think you'd expect to find them like. like right where the waves are crashing, like, in that exact spot. But around that area, they're still going to be around. Cool. This is a Bose moment. It's 10 blocks from the train to your apartment door. 10 basic, boring city blocks until the beat drops in Bose clarity.

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Around 2013, shark cage diving operators in those places started reporting less and less sharks year by year. What happened? Well, we're going to get to it. Can you wait? Can we put a tiny pin in it? The pin's going to fall out in like 15 seconds. By the late 2010s, around when I went. Some of those places that would see multiple great whites per day in the early 2000s

were now not seeing any great whites over the entire season. So I remember when I visited South Africa, I first looked at like Gonsby because that's where I had heard it was the best. And they weren't seeing any sharks at all. So we moved further to Mussel Bay. And that's where they were still having like somewhat frequent sightings. And now even in Mussel Bay, I don't think they're seeing them very often. Why not?

There's a few theories. There's a few theories for what might be going on in the Western case. one of the leading ones is that a group of orcas has moved into that area, and they become highly specialized in killing great white sharks. Oh, man. And when they do it, they mostly just eat their livers. You know, maybe with some Kihani and Fava beans. Those orcas probably killed enough great whites that a lot of the others just moved out.

These are intelligent animals. I think if they see enough orcas in the area, they're just not going to hang around. So I think, you know, they, enough Great Whites see Orcas around. They're probably just going to move out of that area. So I don't think what we're talking about here is that those few Orcas decimated that population so much is that they scared those Great Whites out of those areas. And what's happening now is they're seeing other sharks move in, sharks like Bronze Whaler Sharks, a few other types, Sevengill Sharks, but the Great Whites aren't there anymore.

Now there are. Yeah. They're just like take, it's like one bite type of situation. I think they kill. them by like ramming them and then yeah they just like eat out their livers because like are they that much bigger than a great white they're significantly bigger like well if a great white rammed an orca as hard as it could it wouldn't do anything read it if they bid it it it would take a big chunk out of it yeah but it probably wouldn't kill it there's a video there's a video that actually i think a friend of

mine, Aaron helped record, of a killer whale or an orca ramming like a big female great white shark out in the open ocean. Yeah. And it's pretty impressive. And you can just see like they're not equally matched at all. Wow. Yeah. The crazy thing, though, the interesting thing is that roughly during this time when these white sharks

were disappearing from the Western Cape, large numbers of white sharks started being reported in the Eastern Cape. Now, there are some papers that refute the theory about the orcas that they're saying it may just be one of several factors that led to sharks shifting their territory east. But whatever's going on, it's pretty fascinating. And it happened really fast. This is, like, when you think about it, it'd be like suddenly if every grizzly bear in Yellowstone moved up to glacier over a period of like 10 years, that'd be crazy.

Everyone would be, you know, like pretty shocked by what's happening. And that's similar. And they are a highly migratory species. So while they'll often return to the same coast during specific parts of the year, they do sometimes also go out into the open ocean to congregate in deeper waters. This is also something I found really interesting. This phenomenon has been studied particularly well with Great Whites on the Pacific coast of the U.S. in Baja, California, and researchers have seen tag sharks travel to an area between Baja and Hawaii that they've named the White Shark Cafe. At this cafe, sharks spend

about 100 days in the area, and researchers aren't completely sure what they're doing there, but some recent research seems to indicate that they're feeding on school. squid and fish that also show up in that area during that time of year. And the reason they think that's what's happening is they see these sharks, especially the males, doing these like up and down dives. They're diving really deep, like hundreds of meters deep. And they're following kind of the pattern of what squid do. So squid go down into like deep, dark water during the day and they come up closer to the

surface to feed. And the great whites are showing essentially the same kind of movement pattern through the water and it's crazy how deep they're diving. I don't remember exactly, but I feel like I read like 900 meters, which is really, really deep. That'd be what, like almost 3,000 feet deep. And they're just out there eating squid and fish for a while, which is really cool in the middle of the ocean. All right, a couple more things. Great White is the most popular name for the species in the U.S.

Elsewhere throughout their range, white shark is a common name for them. It's what a lot of shark scientists call them. In Australia, they call them white. Pointer. Correct. White pointer. All those names are indicative of the bright white coloration of their ventral or their bottom side. They look especially white when they're dead or dying individuals are found belly up on beaches.

So they think that might be part of that naming convention. When people first saw them, they were on the shore. Yeah, it feels like they're kind of just ignoring all the gray. Yeah. They should be like a two-tone shark or something. Yeah, like white and gray shark. Is that an often thing you find a dead great white shark? Not that often.

Not often. It was probably like once they'd caught fishing too and they would often like drag them ashore and they just look bright white. I'd call them white belly gray backs. That's a good name. Sure. It's kind of long. Make an acronym out of it maybe. Bighty white belly graybacks.

I like that. Another really interesting thing about their color, we recently learned in a study in 2022 that showed that great whites may use different hormones to actually control their color, making themselves. darker to prey above or lighter during periods of great excitement. Oh, wow. So they have a melanocytes stimulating hormone that can cause melanocytes in the skin of a great white to dissipate. And that gives them a darker color, effectively camouflaging themselves. So this hasn't been outright proven, but there are species of horn sharks and other

sharks that have been proven to be able to, like, change their skin color to camouflage themselves. So they think that this is very possible for great whites. That's cool. That's awesome. The study found that in a few individuals, but there hasn't been a sample size big enough yet. All right. They fish marine mammals, marine invertebrates.

Many of the coastal great whites specialize in marine mammals, specifically pinnipeds like fur seals, elephant seals, sea lions. They often deliver a devastating bite in an ambush attack and then take their time to finish off their prey, which is really smart. If you're an animal that could get bit by your prey, if you just like really mess it up, with one big bite, then you can kind of just wait for it to bleed out and you don't have to take any more risk. And that pattern often follows in attacks on people. So shark attack specialists are a bit divided between thinking if that first bite is often enough to either the shark's just trying to deabilitate the person to come back in or if it's

like a mistaken identity or like we've talked about a lot on the show, it might be just like it bites into a person that's like, this is too bony. I don't even want to eat this. You know, like an exploratory bite. So I've kind of gone all over. I do kind of like this idea, though, that some shark biologists think that they're actually trying to kill a person with that big bite. But then often with people, the person can either escape, like they can get into a boat or their friends come in and help. And the shark just decides not to do it.

Like it takes its time a little too much. Yeah. And people are able to get away. That makes sense. Like pin of heads often aren't. Yeah. Tortoise and the hair kind of thing Yeah

Finish the race, dude Yeah I think that's why a lot of people are taking Ozempic To shed off all the fleshy bits So they're not attractive To gray whites anymore Yeah, maybe

I don't think that's In the top 30 reasons 30? Yeah Really? No, I don't That's the other

And that's the other Big kind of prevailing theory Is that they're just coming up And biting us and thinking Oh wow, that's like way too much bone, not enough fat, whatever. I don't really buy, personally, I don't buy into the mistaken identity thing.

I think this is way too perfect of a predator to mistake us for a seal. Yeah. You think they know what surfboards look like, though? No. So what do you think they think it is? I think they're just checking it out, you know? Again, like, they don't have hands to reach out and touch something and feel what it is. They're opportunistic predators, so they investigate it with their mouths.

It's like that's what the Japanese game show. where everything, like there's a secret object in the room made out of chocolate, and the guy has to go around biting everything to he finds what it is. Or like, is it great? It's amazing. Yeah. What do you have to like bite cake stuff to see if it's cake or not? Those are weirdly perfect analogies for this.

All right. Well, Andrew Carter was about to get one of those devastating bites. As he looked out over the swirling ocean and prepped himself for the next set of waves, he didn't get any indication of 12-foot white shark shooting. toward him in the water, opening its mouth and rolling back its eyes as it approached his left thigh. No fin broke the surface. There's no speeding blur in the murky water. No ominous soundtrack in the background.

Just one minute he's sitting calmly on his board and suddenly something slams into his leg. Like a huge fucking truck. All right. So Andrew rolls sideways in the water and as he does that, he feels stuck to his board. Like it was impossible to slide off. Oh, wow. There's a really good reason for this. Shark's mouth.

Yes, the top jaw of the shark was firmly crushing down into his thigh, while the bottom jaw was chewing into the board. So he was literally pinned to his board in the mouth of the shark. And he watched his teeth cleanly separated skin, flesh, and muscle from his leg, and the shark shook its head, and those teeth were slicing down and hitting his femur bone. Oh. He let out one shrill piercing screw. and almost immediately the water around him turned red from this cloud of blood pouring out of his leg.

Now for John, who was right next to him, watching a huge shark peel away all the flesh from Andrew's leg, there was a lot for him to handle. And thinking his friend was literally about to be bitten in half, he just started paddling for shore. And Andrew, I watched an interview with Andrew. I read a lot of articles about this. He definitely did not blame John for this. Like he kind of thought he was dead too. And, you know, that's a scary thing to see.

Yeah. I wouldn't hold it against you guys. Yeah, I swear. It does. There is. Roughly, like, surfed. Or, like, if you kept taking the good bed in hotel rooms. I'm in the worst bed ever.

But, like, what if, like, a perfect wave was coming while you're getting attacked? Would you know that against me if I, like, took the wave? No, no, no, no. I wouldn't. There is, like, and we'll talk about this when we kind of get into what you should do. There is a lot of evidence that shows that when people go to rescue a shark bite victim, that it often stops the shark from coming back in. So we should.

You should help if you can make that happen. But I don't blame anyone for being pretty scary. Does that work with like sea lines? It probably would. Yeah. If like two of more come and get in there. In fact, recently I saw a video of like a pod of, I think they're called pods, of sea lines that like chased a great white shark away because there are so many of them.

Yeah. All right. You're not the king of the ocean jungle then. No, that works out. The kelp forest. Andrew's still staring at the shark, sawing through his leg, and all he could do was hold onto his board in horror and watch the shark chew through him.

Suddenly, the shark adjusted its bite, probably to kind of lurch forward and bite down even more and get a bigger grip. But because Andrew was holding his board so tightly, this momentary loss of pressure caused the board to kind of shift when there wasn't pressure from the shark anymore, and it jammed sideways into the shark's mouth. No way.

And he freed himself. Yeah. And the shark started shaking the board back and forth, tears a huge chunk out of it. It's super frustrated, but Andrew's free. Yeah. His first impulse is to start swimming for shore, but he's bleeding a lot,

and he's a couple hundred meters from shore. So he's pretty far. And he knew that if he kept swimming, he's just going to be easy pickings for this great white if it decides to follow him. So he knows probably, probably his only source of help at this point is his surfboard, which is in the jaws of gray-white shark.

Wow. He turns around, he faces the shark, it's still tearing at his board, but when he turns around and faces it, it releases his board and disappears into the water. He doesn't really have a choice at this point, so he swims back to his mangled surfboard, climbs onto it, paddles a few strokes, and then catches the luckiest wave of his life. No way. He surfed? He's served?

I mean, like on the body served? That's insane. That's awesome. That's cool. Yeah. Well, people went back out for like one more than boys. That's a good way. Battles the rest of the way in.

Climes onto some rocks where two girls that were sunbathing run over to help him. Andrew's clutching the top of his thigh trying to stem the bleeding. He's already starting to feel incredibly weak and dizzy from all the blood he's lost. And he tells the girls that he needs a tourniquet. So one of them takes off her shirt, ties it tightly or, around his leg to slow the bleeding. His legs so torn up that only about two inches of flesh seemed to be holding the rest of his muscle

and his leg to his torso. I will say it does seem like it was torn up from like puncture wounds, not so much from ripping and tearing. He didn't actually end up losing a lot of meat, but the shark had bit kind of a perfect circle around his butt and his upper thigh. Wow.

One of these girls is holding his hand and he said he could feel her warmth passing through her hand and into him and he knew that he was about to die. eye. His life passed before his eyes. He started to lose his vision in his hearing, but he was struck by an incredible feeling of calm that washed over him. He wasn't afraid to die, and more than anything, he felt a deep sense of serenity and comfort. Wow, that's really nice. Yeah, something much less nice. Out in the water, a scene far less serene and comforting was happening. 22-year-old Bruce, who had been further out in the water than Andrew, had started paddling in to help his friend

and wasn't lucky enough to catch a wave like Andrew. On his way back to shore, the shark had changed targets and focused on Bruce. As Andrew lay dying, Bruce slowly paddled into shore. All of the attention was on Andrew, but someone noticed Bruce and yelled him to get out of the water because Andrew had been attacked by a shark. I'd been attacked too, Bruce calmly responded. I just lost my leg. Jeez.

Bruce was pulled from the water and off his board, and his leg was missing above his knee. had been cleanly bitten off by the shark, and he had paddled through the area where Andrew had been bitten. When he looked down and saw that he only had a stump on his upper thigh, he went into hysterics in full-blown shock, and within two minutes he wasn't breathing. Some of the crowds started CPR on Bruce, and they managed to get him breathing again, but he would never regain consciousness again. 48 hours later, Bruce Corby would be pronounced dead in the hospital, and his cause of death was massive blood loss. Andrew's friends And shark bite Yeah

Massive blood loss From shark bite Yeah That's why I'm getting the tattoo I bet Is there's like All these shark bites And they just count it as like

Blood loss Misattributed This is a really rare Double bite From a great white This really doesn't happen Very often This is why earlier

I said A predatory attack I think had this shark Ben just investigating New Prey and not really interested, it would have stopped after Andrew. But the fact that it targeted Bruce again, I really think the shark wanted a meal. Yeah. Andrew's friends and some of the onlookers used his surfboard as a makeshift stretcher. They moved him to an easier area for where paramedics would be

able to get to him. And when Andrew got to the hospital, the priority was still on Bruce. Bruce was still alive. And he was more, Andrew was more or less stable. So he had to wait two hours before surgeons started on him and his wounds. And many of his muscles and tendons had to be sewn back together or reattached. In his interview, he talked about them, like, pulling the muscles together and then sewing them up. Yeah. And his tendons all had to be reattached.

Because the shark hadn't, like, torn out a lot of meat, it was kind of just, like, pushing everything back together and sewing it back up. Crazy. Yeah. All together, he received about 2,000 stitches and 150 staples to piece him back together. Somehow, as major arteries had been missed, and they hadn't been severed, Had they been severed, he much likely would have, or much more likely would have suffered a similar fate as Bruce. Andrew wasn't very mobile for a few months, but once he was, he went to Indonesia and got back in the water.

He did notice an overall change in his composure. Things that used to bother him really didn't bother him anymore. He's a lot more patient and calm. He felt as though he's living on borrowed time and he just had a deeper appreciation for life. I'm like, you got to get bit by a shock. I could really use that. It's like my therapist should be really argued. I've got an alternative method.

You've ever been in Nehoun beach. Yeah. It did take him some time to get completely used to surfing back in South Africa, but ultimately he would surf back at Nehoun, and he was able to pretty much fully overcome the trauma of this bite. That's great. Yeah. He's an inspirational dude, for sure.

Still alive, as far as I know. The interview I saw was just from a couple years ago, And he's like, I think he was in his 60s, but he looks like very fit and in good shape. That's how you know, final destination is purely fiction, you know, they would have come for him. Oh, yeah, death by now. I don't know. Sometimes he takes his sweet-ass time.

That's true. You know. All right. So that's the story. You guys have any other questions about Andrew Carter or Bruce Corby? I have a question about sharks. Yeah. So do they have like taste receptacles, like taste buds?

Do they have tongues? Are they enjoying what they eat, or is it purely just for sustenance? It's hard to say they enjoy, you know? Like, for us, that's a really tricky thing to say. They do have, like, tastes, you know, they have tongues, I believe. I'd be shocked if they didn't. Yeah. You know, we've talked a bit about their different.

They have some crazy senses. Great white and bite your tongue. Let me do just a quick search and make sure I'm not lying about that. That way I don't have to do a. It just seems a little wrong for them. If they do have tongues, why don't they lick in surfboards? They don't have to bite it. It's a little rough.

I can't imagine licking a surfboard would be that awesome. I think if it is like they think it might be some type of sea lionish thing. If you lick it, it's not going to just sit there. That's true. Maybe they bite and then start licking the chomp lick move. So I was going to get into this a little bit. They obviously, we've talked about their different. receptors like their different senses obviously the ampule of Lorenzini yeah it's like one of our

favorites to talk about but they also we have talked a bit about how they have like papillae also lining their mouths they think those are some of their more potent taste receptors they do have kind of a primitive tongue it's a piece of cartilage called a basiol which is located on the floor of their mouth but it's not muscular like ours it's more kind of bony or not bony cartilagey and So it's, it doesn't, apparently doesn't play a big role in like taste. But they for sure do have some sense of taste. That's another thing about sharks is I always hear it's, they're purely cartilage, right? They don't have skeleton.

Right. Because they're not a bone in their body. Right. And so there is a bone. It's their jaws and their teeth. And that's why for prehistoric sharks, all we have are their jaws. So there's a lot of like interpretation when it comes to like what prehistoric sharks look like because really all we have are jaws.

Yeah, they're probably going to be like, yeah, actually they had feathers. Yeah. Those dumb paleontologists will figure out a way to ruin sharks. Totally ruined the maid for me. Also, one other question. I'm being a little asky right now. No, that's fine. We recently learned, or I recently learned,

hammerhead shark mating behavior, how they, like, bite onto each other and then mate. Do you know much about Great White mating behavior? No one does. So that's the crazy thing about them is a lot of their reproductive history is like really unknown. We don't really know where they mate. We don't really know where they have their pups. Recently the like the first time ever a newborn Great White was recorded, I think in California. I can't remember where it was, but it was near the surface and someone saw a newborn. It's the first time in history we'd ever recorded that. Really? So a lot isn't known, but they do have, sharks have males have clasper's. It kind of looks like a modified, like, hemipenus almost. And females have... Hemming. Nice. Big old hammy. Females have coddle fins.

I think I'm saying that right. I believe so. Anyway, I'm drawn on just reserves here. But they... Most sharks seem to make kind of the same way. Where the males are smaller, they use those claspers to kind of, like, anchor themselves on the female. They, you know, they have an actual penis.

like, you know, inserts, and then they kind of wrap themselves around and, like, bite on to the female. I imagine with Great Whites, it's probably similar, but I don't know if they're seeing, like, females with big bite marks here. Yeah, you got to be careful if you're the dude biting with those kinds of teeth. Yeah. Yeah. And this may be the animal that has the strongest bite for us in the world. We don't really know, but it's likely.

Wouldn't the orca have a stronger bite? Uh, not necessarily. No. Because they don't even have sharp teeth, really. And they're poning everything. We've got into this before, but like when we talk about bite force, there's two different ways to talk about. There's like bite force quotient, which is, you know, you're adjusting for the size of the animal and whatnot. And then there's just overall pressure exerted.

And yeah, maybe an orca would have the overall most. But from what I've kind of read, it's with orcas, it's more like tearing and ripping. So they, I don't think they necessarily bite as hard as gray whites, but I'm not sure. All right. Let's move on to categories. What's your most memorable limb loss in pop culture? When someone lost a limb? I like the 127 hours guy.

Ooh, that's a good one. I forget his name, actually. Aaron Ralston. Aaron Ralston, nice job, what? My favorite part of the story is it's like really amazing story. Like, you have to respect his survival and, like, being able to do that. But then, like, the rescuers were, like, right there after he was done. is kind of fun.

Yeah. It sucks. Like they were about to find them. But I think his arm was toast anyway. Probably. Yeah. I remember when I, when me and Jesse first started hanging out,

she was like, we were talking about that movie and she kept calling it 100. What is it? It's 127. Yeah. She kept calling it like 127 days or something. Yeah. And so I sent her a drawing of a guy with like a skeleton with his arm

stuck in the rock. But then we have. established that it was 127 hours. And a little bit later we were walking through the canyon, she's like, how long was he stuck again? And I was like 127 hours? Yeah.

And she's like, oh yeah. It is like, you don't really think about how long that is. That's crazy, long time. What, like five days or something? That's longer than that. A little bit. Yeah. 25 days is the sequel.

Kind of like 28 days later, goes to 28 weeks later or whatever. Yeah, it'd be like. I forget. A little bit more than five days. Yeah, that's so long. 127 hours is crazy. Yeah.

All right. You know, good job. Maybe he would have died, had he not cut it off. Yeah. What hour, Jeff, do you think he started drinking his own pee? Like two. Second hour is just like, finally I have my opportunity. I think I read this book or listened to it.

Yeah, we listened to it on our cross-country trip. Okay. Yeah. His pretty is right away. The gross thing was like. It is before the rock fell on his house. The gross thing was. how many times he had to drink it.

Before. Gross thing was how many times he had to drink it and how it was getting like brown and muddy at the end. Yeah. Mike, you want to go next? Yeah, so the heroic trio. It's a Hong Kong film, Michelle Yo. She's the best.

There's, I forget what the actor's name is. He's in hardboiled, though. He's like the main bad guy of hardboiled. He's kind of a silent antagonist in this one. But there's kind of a running joke of his body parts just keep getting cut off, but he doesn't really acknowledge it. It doesn't affect him at all.

And that movie's amazing. It's so funny. But there's a moment where his arm just gets like whacked off and it just kind of keeps going. It's great. I kind of, his arm gets whacked off. I want to watch. Believe it.

It sounds good. Wacked off. All right. I couldn't decide between two, so I'm just going to say both of them. Got a shout out my guy Pennywise, just ripping off a kid's arm, like first scene of those movies. Oh, yeah. In the book.

For me, that was always so scary to me because usually I feel like in movies especially you don't see that happen. Seeing a kid actually like lose his arm like a little kid was always like scarring. Yeah. Scarring in the best possible way. Another weird one, you guys remember the movie The Jackal? It's not a great movie. It's Bruce Willis where he's like a killer but like a highly proficient one. And he's got this like rail gun or some crazy gun.

And he takes like Jack Black out into a field and makes him stand by a car and he's got a little computer targeting system. And then he just like, Jack Black's like holding something that he's going to shoot. And he just blows his arm off. And then he just like lights him up with a bunch of shots. I just always thought it was a crazy scene. And I think it was one of the first scenes I saw as a kid where I saw someone's arm get blown off. So it just kind of stuck in my consciousness.

All right. I like the one two and kill Bill with like the. assistant lady. Oh, yeah. She, like, chops off both her arms and then rolls her down a hill. Yeah. Which is, like, a really mean thing to do after me. All right.

Next category, what's one of your luckiest breaks ever? Because Andrews sure caught a lucky break catching that wave. Mine actually kind of involves the ocean, too. And I don't know why this is the first thing that came to my mind, but I was in Thailand with my brother stuck in the back of a bus. And I needed to go to the bathroom. so bad. Yeah.

And they got to the point where I thought I was just genuinely going to take a dump on the bus and like probably have to leave the country and change my identity, just be so mortified that it happened. But then just randomly the bus pulled over and everyone offloaded into the ocean. Yeah. And so it's like, that's my one, this is my chance. So I went like deeper into the ocean and went to the bathroom like kind of deeper in. And then somehow like kind of the smell of it blew back in towards the shore and everyone

blamed it on a whale. They're like, I think a whale. So it's like, I got, I unloaded the bowels and I got away with it. No one's like, no one's ever going to end up with me. That's a potent. It was crazy. I don't know. That was weird.

Maybe it was a whale. Biggest animal in the world. That's funny. That's so good. Jeff? Hmm. I didn't think of a good one, but I have one. Okay.

I'm thinking of when we went to Loretto. and we did like a blue whale tour right and I was like blue whales were maybe the animal I most want to see biggest animal that's ever existed and I was looking at it and it was cool but for the animal I most wanted to see in my life it was kind of underwhelming you know just seeing like a spout the tiny bit of its back humpbacks you see way more gray whales you see way more whale blue whales you just see like kind of have to be above it to see it maybe like 120 of the whale or something. So then, yeah, you need to, like, get in the water.

So I was kind of like, all right, that was cool, but not the best. And then an animal that, like, obviously I'd want to see, but wasn't really on my radar, West spots it. A pot of orcas come up to our boat. And then we just, like, followed them for, like, an hour and a half. And they, like, made the whole ocean crazy, too, like, a thousand dolphins formed a super pod. it felt very lucky that like we were able to see orcas on our blue whale tour. That's awesome.

It was one of my favorite ocean days ever and we were on like a very touristy kind of dumb little tour and it ended up just so amazing. The tour that I thought was going to be like my favorite animal sighting ever turned out being that in a different way. Yeah. The only one I could think of is like when I was deciding what to do with my life, I thought I was going to be some kind of doctor for a long time and knew I was obsessed with wildlife, but kind of just like got stuck in thinking I needed to make a bunch of money. And so I was like applying to schools and thinking I was going to maybe be an optometrist or something. And I happened to spend a night at my grandpa's house.

My cousin Eric was there. And me and him just stayed up all night talking. And he had just started a wildlife program as a master's student. And the more he talked to me about it, the more I just thought, this is actually. actually what I want to be doing. Like I am not living like the stuff that I'm not living my passion. I'm just worried about money. And we talked about it for a long time. And the next day is when I really changed my mind and thought, okay, I'm going to go into wildlife full. Like that's what I want to do. And had we not just happened to like stay there that night, both of us, because he just kind

of stayed there on a whim too. I don't know if I would have ever become a biologist. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the podcast itself is for sure. I consider to be. I I mean, people often say luck is preparation meets opportunity. And like I think all three of us did in our own way kind of go through it to learn everything that's necessary to make a quality product. But at the end of the day, it's kind of just like you never know when something's going to go viral or catch on for whatever reason. I don't think I was destined.

I don't think it's lucky. Like I think even without you guys, I'd be popular podcast. He might be right, actually. COVID in a weird way. It was the lucky break. Yeah. Seriously. Sorry to anyone who might have lost someone.

But I trace it all the way back to like, what if I hadn't answered that call when Jeff and I first met and like we hadn't hung out and like none of this ever happened kind of thing. So it's like, I'm your lucky break. A little bit. Thanks, dude. I would love to like have that someday where you could see like where your life would have gone

had you not made like certain tiny decisions. Yeah. Butterfly effect, dude. Maybe you would have killed yourself. in the womb like he did. Oh, yeah, Ashton. Ashton. Yeah.

Yeah. That was the single time I ever cried in a movie. Not really. That's like the director's cut. Yeah. Yeah. That's a terrible movie. I rewatched it recently.

I was like, this is really bad. All right. Let's do a quick, what would Mike and Jeff do? So you can put yourself at any point in this story and tell me what you do. Yeah. I mean, I kind of feel like he did it. Catch a way. wave was like what I was thinking.

You'd just go back out. I think I'd go back. I think I'd finish this well. Yeah. You know, for sure. If it's like six foot waves, that's perfect. Especially if they're tunneling. All right.

And then, yeah. He had no access to his surfboard after the shark got it, right? No, he did. He had a piece of it. He went back on it. Like, they just took one huge bite out of it. And then they put him on it to like stretcher him. You know what I would do a metal surfboard?

Oh, that might not work. very well, but sure. I mean, I don't think the shark would bite through it. Yeah, I'm just saying it might not float. When it gets stuck in its mouth, you think the shark. I think we're still missing the most important part of this. No. So what I would really do is I'd use the surfboard leash to turnicat myself immediately, maybe.

Maybe. Yeah. Or off of Jeff's line of thinking, I would paint the bottom of my surfboard to look like a torpedo. So they don't want to bite that. Like, I don't want to blow myself up. Yeah. Or like maybe paint like a baby seal on the bottom of your surfboard. So it's still going to attack it, but like with a smaller mouth.

Ooh. You know? Like it's just going to open its mouth all the way. Yeah. All right. That's a good thing. It would have been funny too of when they're carrying them on this surfboard like a stretcher if he like popped up and like pretended to surf.

So really quickly, again, a few things you can do. Number one with any kind of shark, the main thing is prevention. So pay attention to the conditions. These are highly crepuscular animals. They're very active, early morning, late evening. They use that low light as cover for hunting. So you're taking a much bigger risk just by going in the water during those times of day. You should know about where you're hanging out in the water.

You should just know whether or not it's a place where they're commonly seen or cited. And then another really important thing to pay attention to is any kind of like stinuating circumstances that might draw sharks in the area. So if there's a dead whale nearby, if you happen to see a lot of marine life happening, sometimes that means there'll also be sharks in the water. Just paying attention. If you are in the water and you see a shark coming toward you,

we've talked about this before, stay as calm as possible. Splashing can really draw them in and just keep something in between you and the shark. If you had a surfboard or something, you could face the shark and try and keep the board in between you two, any kind of pole or anything you might have to keep a barrier between you and the shark. You don't actually want to hit them with it.

You just want to keep it between you and them. Hitting them with something can actually trigger more of a defensive bite. A shark does come up and bite you. At that point, your main thing is just fighting back as much as you can, eyes, gills, their nose, whatever you can do. And then if you are able to escape from the shark, again, just calmly getting to help as quickly as possible. So with Andrew, I want to give him credit for knowing he needed a surfboard. Because I think that would be really hard to go back towards the shark. I agree.

So that I think he gets a lot of credit. And my main question would be with Bruce, should he have done anything different? We don't, that's the thing about the story is we don't really even know what he did. But like if there's, I guess more of what I'm asking is if you know your friend just got attacked by a great white shark and you're a little bit. bit deeper than him like what should you do i think i probably like would have tried to avoid the media area where he was bitten because there's still going to be blood in the water and the part of away probably going to be around there so try and give that a wide berth but you kind of said too that you should try to help so maybe he's like patering to help he might have been yeah we just

really don't know because even what as soon as he got on shore he went unconscious so he couldn't even tell his story so we don't know when he was bitten there's like the possibility he was bitten before Andrew even. We don't know that. So it's impossible to say what he did right or wrong. I feel like I would want to like get my legs out of the water though. Yeah, I mean, but that's usually what you do is you lay flat on your board and paddle, you know? Yeah.

So it does. It seems like his leg was maybe dangling in the water if it got bit off. I don't, we don't even know if he knew that Andrew was being attacked by a shark. Well, his response suggests that. Well, someone said Andrew's been attacked and he's. He said, I have two. Okay, yeah. So it doesn't.

Yeah. Okay. But like if he didn't know Andrew got attacked, I'd be like, oh, that's a coincidence. Yeah. You know? All right. Let's do your favorite recent animal experience. We've had a good couple weeks with a lot of different animals, both marine and terrestrial.

What are your guys' favorite recent animal experiences? So, and I actually genuinely mean this, the most shocking experience, startling even, was, and one of our final dives of our trip. I forget what island we were off of. Me and your friend Ashley, actually were kind of close together, about 23 meters under the water. And all of a sudden, right between us from behind,

we saw a flightless cormorant zip right between us. How deep were you? That's 70 feet. It was like 70, 80 feet down. This is a bird that's like diving to find food. And we kind of like turned and looked at each other. And it was just like, we looked at our watch again just to make sure, like,

we knew how deep we were. It was really, really cool. That is cool. It was awesome. I wish I would have seen that. Yeah, that's amazing. It's really cool. I'll go with sea lions.

Galapagos is like pretty much an island of sea lions. Like there's more sea lions than people almost it feels like. Yeah. But there was one time where I was just snorkeling a little bit on my own, which was like unique. And there was two sea lions that I just kind of got tired and had just like lay in there on my stomach with my face under. just kind of breathing through the snorkel and the sea lion, two of them, but especially one, had its head like one inch from me for like 10 minutes. Yeah.

And we were just kind of floating together. And it just felt like we kind of were in the same like mindset, you know, like, yeah. Yeah, let's just kind of have a moment together. Yeah. I think Galapagos might be the place I've been where the wildlife is the least kind of concerned with humans. Yeah. You know, like everything here sees. seems very willing to share space with humans, which is really cool.

It's a neat place to visit. For me, I kind of was bouncing between seeing marine iguanas underwater, which was just amazing. But I think I have to pick my other one, which is, after one of our dives, we were on a boat, and there was a big pot of dolphins, like jumping everywhere, like really acrobatic. And they were coming closer and closer. And then one just, like, jumped and landed inches from our boat and splashed us. I thought it was going to like hit me in the face. Yeah, it's cool.

We all, and I had like my camera right there underwater. I didn't get a good video of it underwater, but someone with their phone on that got a crazy video. And then our guide also got one. So it was really, that was the thing that probably made me the most excited. Laura, we should chat. Yeah, Laura. Yeah. Good video, Laura. Good job.

And Paulo. All right. Let's do a couple patron questions. I feel like it's been a minute since we've done too many and I want to get to a few. We've gotten some good ones. So first, let's do, this one's from Kim. Kim says, guys, I want to know, are you good about returning your parents and loved ones texts and phone calls?

My kids suck at answering me in a timely manner, if at all. Help me understand. I mean, mom texts me to tell me she thought Danielle did a good job on our March Madness bracket yesterday. I haven't responded yet. Sorry, Mom. I respond right after this. I think, so I'm not going to say anyone's doing anything wrong in this scenario.

I don't want to cast any judgment on anyone, but I'm pretty notorious in our family and friend's circle for being bad, at least on an initial call to answer, and texts can go read, but not answered for days, maybe even weeks. So my family is adapted to me, and that's, like, really nice of them. They send me texts like, call when convenient. Yeah. So it's kind of, they put the ball in my side of the court. And that does. That's actually really effective because all of a sudden it's like, well, I got to do it now or else I'm going to forget kind of thing.

For me, I am generally really good at getting back quickly, but then sometimes like midway through the conversation, something grabs my focus. And then I forget for like days to like text back to the last thing they said. I would just say, Kim, that, you know, it's a weird world right now. And there's a lot of things pulling people's focus all over the place. So I don't think you can really read that. good at it.

Yeah. I think it's hard to read that as like, as anything but people not being able to kind of focus. Yeah. It's not ad homonym or personal. I mean, I text my mom more than most people. Yeah. I just don't text her very much. Yeah.

You got to text her after this. All right. This one is from Megan. Megan says, I've listened to every episode. Love the podcast. Thank you, Megan. But I haven't heard this answered. Did you, Wes, have to have your friends or Jeff sign a.

death waiver or no liability agreement when they helped you with bears denning uh no jeff was the only person that i trusted to go into the dens with me um aside from like clint and some of the other wildlife professionals but we had a few friends that got to join us on bear denning trips but they never got to actually go into the den that was just you and you were the only but you didn't have to sign anything i don't think nah no i mean what was i going to do if i killed by a bear sue you yeah exactly you can't even mom and dad are going to sue you on my behalf i was just trying to get your inheritance oh they're not given they that's all going to cyrus they're not proud of either of you at this that's true especially my dad all right this one's from

olivia uh there's a serious question and then a question for all three of us i thought the second question fit really well with this trip first of all the serious one what are your tips for food storage in bear country especially black bear country is hanging a bear bag the best method, or is that outdated? The best method would probably be getting a bear proof container, like they have bare bags, they have different types of containers that really reduce the amount of scent that'll come out. You put all your food in that container, put it in a bag, and hang it from a tree. I think that's still probably the best method, unless you have, like in the Yellowstone sites, we installed bearproof containers where they're like cemented

in the ground, that would be the absolute best. But if you don't have that, then hanging is probably still the best option. Not the bacon under the pillow move? No, no, that's a bad one. If you want to see bears. Yeah, if you want to really see him, don't. Right. Still don't do that.

Yeah. That was your grandpa that did that? It was our great-uncle. Great-uncle. That's amazing. Just got licked in the face by a black bear. I guess that just goes to show you, like, how unlikely the chances are that you're going to get attacked by a bear.

It's just like that guy never quite got. Yeah. Or just like our accessibility to bacon now. He was like so jazzed about bacon. He had to sleep with it under his pillow. Yeah. If you guys don't remember this story, it was our great uncle and he woke up to a black bear licking his face.

He's like, you've got to go through me to get to this bacon. The other question from Olivia, what animal has the nicest feet? Blue-footed booby. That's what I thought you were going to say. I think it's a great answer. Yeah. Nicest feet.

I'm not really a feat guy, if I'm being totally honest. Yeah. Give me a sec. Do you have a good answer to that, Wes? I'll go with the Galapagos answer as well, even though I haven't really thought about all of them. I really like the giant tortoises feet. I think they look just like really cool with their big nails and like pads. I just think they're really cool.

Kind of like a dino. Yeah. Like a bronosaurus. I found myself really staring at their feet a lot while we're looking at them. Ooh, maybe a tree frog with their big splice. laid out fingers. That's a good one. Those are cool.

Yeah. I like Sandcat toes with all their fur on them. Yeah. All right. This one's from Mary. Mary says, if you guys were in a Groundhog Day movie situation, what would you spend your time doing? Pass. Pass.

Yeah, I feel like I wouldn't be a very good person. Oh, yeah. I'd go psycho. Like, I think Palm Springs, Andy Sanford kind of hints at that that he just lost his mind. Yeah. And did everyone. and everything and just killed people and like nothing matters. If you just know there's no consequences and everything resets the next day.

Yeah. I think I would constantly live in fear, though, of like maybe this is the day that it doesn't. For at least a few years, I would feel that way. And then after that, I'd probably just go pretty crazy. I would go full foody mode because you could just gorge yourself and none of those calories count the next day. Yeah. I think I do a lot of really, really bad eating.

How far do you think you could get from your place? 24 hours. Not that far. Well, I don't know, same-day flights. You could probably get to anywhere in the world for at least a little bit. It's a lot of food. Yeah, maybe. Not anywhere, but like any major... A lot of places.

Yeah. And be there for a few hours. Yeah. Man, that would feel so restrictive. I don't want that to happen to me. Oh, I hope it doesn't have. It usually doesn't, so I think you're safe. That we know of.

That's true. Amanda asks, would you prefer for all marine animals to be able to fly in addition to being in the ocean, or all land animals, including humans, to be able to breathe underwater. I mean, selfishly, I got to say breathe underwater, but it would be cool if all the ocean animals could just fly when they wanted. Yeah. Can you imagine just a whale flying? We'd be a lot more worried about sharks in our day-to-day lives.

Yeah, no, I think that's bad. But just seeing a blue whale cruise by in the sky would be so cool. Oh, but underwater mammals, they can be trained to do some pretty sophisticated stuff. you know someone's going to weaponize a blue whale and just like... And what would they do with a huge blue whale, Jeff? I mean, I think we got stuff that would work better than a blue whale. Maybe. Pilotless drones and stuff, but you're just going to use a blue whale.

That's like when people talk about, there's a Jurassic Park storyline where they were like, Oh, Jurassic World. Yeah, we're going to turn these raptors into fighting things. It's like... You point a laser pointer at someone and the raptor kills them. It's like guns. You can just point a gun at someone. Shoots a projectile at him.

All right. I think that's good. We've been getting a lot of good questions. Thank you, everyone, for sending them in. We really definitely appreciate it. I've been thinking about guns a lot. Have you? Yeah, I think being in Ecuador,

where there's not really accessible guns is getting to me. Yeah. After dinner, I didn't have anything to shoot. You are a gun guy. American. All right. Quick Conservation Corner. Worldwide, Great White Shores.

sharks are vulnerable. They're IUCN. Vernable. IUCN vulnerable. But they're critically endangered in the Mediterranean and throughout Europe. Fishing's by far their biggest threat. Europeans don't have any dangerous. No, they've just got rid of all of them. Yeah. Fishing's by far the biggest threat, both direct target fishing and bycatch. There are people out there that still target Great Whites in like sport fishing, but mostly by catch in commercial fishing and then finning too. What are the sharks in the Paris shark movie? Probably like Makos or Great Whites.

That's like what every movie uses. So Paris has some. What's that movie called? I never saw. I think it's called like Sharps or Paris or something. Yeah. Yeah. So they are like all sharks, they're under threat.

We don't really know how many great whites there are out there. It's really hard to get a number on them. So it's really important that they receive the right amount of conservation. It's crazy you guys having. We haven't even figured out how they have sex yet. Oh, they're like such a mystery. What are you guys using our taxes for? That's not me.

I don't know why you're saying that to me. I'm not a shark biologist. I don't know. I put more of the blame on the sharks in this one. Like, I don't know. Just have sex in front of us. I know. It's not us watch.

Right. It's not that much to ask. All right. And finally, let's do our claw rating again just because it's been a while and I just love talking about how much I love this animal. I'll go first because mine's really easy to know. This, you know, if I could mint three animals as 10 claw animals, this is without a doubt one of them. Often this is my favorite animal. I just think they are incredibly beautiful.

I think they're so amazing. Every time we do an episode about them, I learn something new that just boggles my mind. This time it was the camouflage skin stuff. I am in love with great white sharks. I just absolutely love them. I would love to marry him, just like he loved surfing. I, yeah, mine's 10. I think I got them ranked like 13th or something, which I feel good about, I got orca,

like sea animals, I got whale sharks and orcas ahead of them. I think that might be it. 10 for me, they're my third favorite animal. I think traditionally I've said tigers, orcas, great whites. And when we saw them in Australia, it was truly like my breath was taken from me. It's just an incredible, beautiful, charismatic. but also like at the same time just like a very natural entity as well. I didn't sense any kind of intent that was, you know, like their anthropomorphism is a problem,

I know, and we do that a lot to these animals. But when I looked at a great white shark, I just felt like at the beauty of nature, pure and simple. Nothing more, nothing less. Like that. It's a great note to end on. If you out there. Like snakes. No, snakes.

When you look at snakes, you like that thing. They start licking their chops. They want you to eat fruit. There's our Bible reference. Thanks everyone for listening. As always, if you want more content, check us out on Patreon or on Apple Gris Club. It is truly what keeps us going. On this trip, we've had pretty much everyone on this trip, I think, is a subscriber.

And it just has, like, really nailed home for me how much our podcast has been supported through subscription and how without it, we probably stopped a long, long time ago. So, we really love them. And if you're paying $14 a month, it's because you book through Apple iOS, and you can get around that.

Yes. Cancel it. Just do it on your desktop. Desktop. Yeah. Or on your browser. Right. And then get the app.

And you can still use that. Right. Yeah. Yep. And you don't get, you don't have to listen to ads. If that's something that's important to you, you get a little bit early access.

That's something that's important to you. You get community posts. We're trying to post more more you get access to discord and that's a growing thing we have like movie nights and all kinds of like awesome friendly people who have become honestly like really really close through friends through that little community hub so there's a lot of a lot of benefits and the gris club too but that's purely if you're just after more content it's kind of funny that when we started it 10 dollars was kind of like it felt fair but it felt like a fair amount of money but we didn't know we yeah yeah now 10

is like bargain. Yeah. Yeah, you get like 150 hours of extra content plus all that other stuff. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks, guys. I'm still kind of a lot. I think it's a, I think for everything they're getting, it is a crazy deal.

Thanks guys for listening. We love you. Love you. See ya.