Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - Grizzly Bear Attack - Al, The Man Who Punched a Bear

Episode Date: July 16, 2021

We cover another grizzly bear attack story, this one taking place in a campsite. Believe it or not, this actually makes what would already be a precarious situation all the more unpredictable. ~~ To advertise on the show, contact us! ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social:  Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds                          Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everyone, welcome back to Tooth and Claw. In this episode, Wes has another grizzly bear attack story, but with a twist this time and that this one takes place in a campsite, which, as you'll hear Wes explain later on in the show, does actually make a pretty big difference in how you're supposed to react to and deal with a grizzly bear encounter. And also worth mentioning, you might hear a small, fuzzy noise happen near the beginning

and then again at the end of this episode. Don't worry, it doesn't last long at all. And it might help you forgive us when I tell you that it's caused by a very cute but intrusive guest to the show, Toad the Cat. Wes was taking care of his girlfriend's cat for a few days, and he decided he wanted to be part of the show. So thanks for him. We'll send his guest appearance fees later on,

and thank you for understanding. And as always, we love hearing from you guys, so if you're so inclined, you can follow us over on Instagram at Tooth and Claw Podcast. We field a lot of our listener questions from there, and just like seeing you all pipe up on whatever we feel like posting over there on that account. And we're pretty active over there, so we consider ourselves a pretty good follow.

But all right, that's enough talking. Thank you all for listening, and we hope you enjoy the show. Let's get to it. We are here. We're recording. Tooth and claw. We're recording to our computers. Who are we, Wes?

And what do we do? I'm Wes Larson. I'm a wildlife biologist. I work primarily with bears, but I've worked with a lot of other species, too. We've got a special guest. You want to introduce this special guest? We got Toad who's up on our table right now knocking over everyone's microphones. He's being a bad cat.

Toad is my girlfriend's cat, soon to be also my cat. Probably my favorite cat I've ever met. He's a great cat. He's being a little bit of a pain right now. So I'm Jeff. I was Wes's field tech with bear research and then I've just had a billion other jobs. Mike? My name is Mike.

I spoiled it. Oh, he did spoil it. What do we do on this podcast, Wes? We talk about animal attacks, and we talk about what people can do to avoid them and what they can learn from them. You get the good stuff, the gory details, but then you also get some education. I've been dying to ask that for 27 episodes. Yeah, that's what we do. Finally know what we're doing you.

Mike, have you ever got a butt dial where you, like, hear something interesting from the person who called you? No, because very few people have me in their contacts. I don't get out a lot. But I can imagine what it'd be like. Well, West butt dialed me last night. Last night. And it started out real promising because he started out just with, you know what? I'm just going to say it.

Oh, that's a good lead in. Good things always follow. I was talking a bunch of my friends. And I'm just like, hello? And then he's like, I like Marvel movies. And I still think he's talking to me. So I'm like, okay, yeah? And then he's like, wait a second.

and like hangs up on me real quick. A little bit of background here. I got some real snooty friends that can enjoy like just a real fun summer blockbuster movie. And I feel like sometimes I get judged when, because last night some of us went and saw Black Widow. And sometimes I get judged when I'm going to a Marvel movie. And I was just, I was done. I was like, you know what? I like them.

And I enjoy the fun movies. I'm just going to say it. Put your foot down. Yeah. You like what you like. I do. And I like a fun Marvel movie. I was expecting something bigger once you say.

I'm just going to say it. Yeah, he'll let down. And I was, yeah. I did kill that guy. So I've got a couple corrections that we need to make real quick. Oh, man, a couple. So the first one's a big one. Our first episode that we ever recorded was about this guy,

Mike Markersich, which I might be saying his name wrong. I hope I'm not. But I got a lot of stuff wrong on that episode. And I realized that because I actually got in touch with his niece. who lived with him and knew him really well. And she filled me in on a lot of the stuff that we didn't quite hit right. It was our first episode.

Our research wasn't quite as robust as it is now. And we scrapped it. So that episode's gone. And we're going to re-record it with the good information that I got from her. So I don't know exactly when we're going to do that, but we are going to do it. So if you're looking for that first episode,

it's scrapped. I don't want to say anything wrong on this podcast. So I want to make sure that it's just gone and that's what we decided to do. We're going to re-record it. So be on the lookout for a re-record of that episode. Nice. Yeah.

Another kind of like business correction. At some point, someone asked us the question of like, how did you guys come up with this podcast? And it isn't really a correction because what I said is I looked and I didn't see any animal attack podcasts. And I did and I didn't. But we did learn there is another animal attack podcast out there. The guys at Force of Nature podcast let us know that they've got a similar podcast.

So if you guys want to check that one out, check out Force of Nature. More animal content. I do think it was pretty organic how we came up with it. We kind of combined a few podcasts we like, and we just talked about the idea of a murder mystery podcast with animals. Yeah, like a true crime podcast. Yeah. Not murder mystery.

Clue with animals. That's our next podcast. If you guys are looking for a Knives Out with Animals, that's our new podcast. So what Marvel movies are we breaking? down today. We're not. But what's your favorite Marvel movie? Well, I figured we could do Black Widow because that's an animal. Mine's the Thor Ragnarok. That's up there. I like Guardians of Galaxy. I like the end game. Mike, are you a Marvel guy? So my favorite one, I haven't seen all the movies yet, to my shame, but I'll forever be an Iron Man guy, just the first one that kind of kick-started

the whole thing. I love that movie. I think you should be ashamed of not seeing him. I just think people should watch them if they like them don't if you don't well i just want to participate in society yeah uh i feel like i have a big old blind spot if you count into the spider verse that's my favorite marveling oh yeah that's a good catch well that's enough talking about nothing so i wanted to talk about an attack that happened this week briefly so a woman was attacked yeah so we just barely released our news update episode and so probably will be like a month a month and a half before our one but then an attack happened that's like really right up our alley it's right up mine and jeff's alley especially because it happened not far from where we grew up it happened in ovando

montana which is like an hour or less from where we grew up and um a woman was actually killed by a grizzly bear there uh she was a cyclist who was passing through she was camping and in the middle of the night a grizzly bear pulled her out of her tent and killed her oh wow and it wasn't even that long that it was mulling her some people heard they came and sprayed the bear and it took off, but it was such a vicious attack that she died from her wounds. And yeah, because that was like something that I know a lot about, I know a lot about that area. I wanted to talk about it, but I also, it's so fresh and there's not that many details that I don't think we could fill up a whole episode.

So what I decided to do instead was bring up another story of people that were attacked in a campsite and kind of draw some parallels and also talk about, you know, what you're supposed to do if a grizzly attacks you in your campsite. Okay, cool. So I guess we'll just get into it. Yeah, let's dive in, buckle up. Let's get right into it. Okay, we will.

All right. So this is actually from, again, Larry Knewit's Bear Tales, Alaska Bear Tales, I think, is the book. It's a book I've drawn on a couple times, but it's a great book. It's kind of old, but sometimes I like these older books just because they have really interesting details. Yeah, a lot of good old books. Yeah. Ulysses, the Bible. Okay, you want to name some others?

Gawain the Green Knight. Lord of the Rings. Gilgamesh. So the thing that I like about them is a lot of times the information in them there, in these books need some updating, but it's really interesting to read and kind of view bear attacks through a lens, like pre-bear spray, pre-a-lot of like the research that we've done on bear attacks. But this attack is a really interesting one.

It happened in September 1972. Our two people in this story are Joyce and Al Thompson. And they had set out on a trip that they'd been planning for and really looking forward to for months. They were backpacking and hunting moose in Alaska's Kenai Peninsula. So the Kenai is this really big peninsula that's where like Saldatna and Keenai and a few of these other cities are. Keenai Fjords is a national park there. It's beautiful. It's like when you picture Alaska, that's the Kenai Peninsula.

That's the one where the bears catch the salmon like jumping up the waterfall, right? Yeah, so that's at Brooks Falls. And I think Brooks Falls is more like in Katmai where me and you went. But it's close. Anyway, it's like huge mountains, glaciers, it's by the coast. It's just like quintessential Alaska. So they were going to be doing this long backpacking trip. They're planning on leaving for 10 days.

They're going to be hunting moose. And this place that they're going to is inaccessible by land and then also like pretty inaccessible by air. There's like no good spots to land a plane even. So they were going to hike in and they're going to go on a really. long hike. You said it's inaccessible by land. Yeah, they're hiking. Driving? I mean by driving. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah, it's just inaccessible. It's a voice. Yeah, it's in the core of the earth. Yeah, exactly. It's magma. So Al was going to be bow hunting, the husband, and then Joyce was going to be trying

to get her moose with a rifle. So they had arranged for horses to come and actually pack out the meat if they were to actually kill something. And then they spent all this time packing their bags. They're thoughtfully like selecting everything because they're going to be spending 10 days out there, but they also didn't want to have really heavy packs. And Al again, he's hunting with his bow, but he also carries a 44 magnum revolver. And then Joyce is hunting with her rifle, which is a 30-0.6, which is a pretty high-calibre rifle and enough to take down a moose. So they didn't want to leave their truck at the trailhead for like 10 days. So rather than do that, they had a friend dropped them off near this horse trail that they're going to be walking on, and they decided,

to start their hike. And as they went, it was like a beautiful Alaska fall day. There's like golden trees, all these fall colors, and they're just having a really nice time. Sounds great. It does. Yeah, Alaska has some really intense fall colors, and they last for like four days, and then they're over. Oh, really? Yeah, it's a very short fall in Alaska.

Anyway, so they hiked for eight and a half hours, and after that, a lot of the charm had kind of worn off. And Joyce remarked that when they got to the camp, she was completely exhausted. they trudged into this area where they're going to be camping and they quickly made a camp, a really basic camp, a really quick dinner and then they fell asleep. I know that feeling. Yeah.

So the next morning, they took their time to make their camp a lot more comfortable. They built a lean two. What's a lean two? A lean two is like, it's almost like half a tent. There's a lot of different ways you can make a lean two. A lean two is essentially a structure that you build out of logs.

And like they made theirs out of logs and tent plastic. But don't they already have a tent? No. Oh. So they build. a lean to, which is like a tent out of logs and their tarps. Okay. But that was during the second day.

Oh, the first night, I don't know. They just slept on the dirt. They probably just made, they probably just like made a bivy line, like put out a line and put their tarp over it, slept under it. Okay. It didn't say, though. Anyway, they built a lean to. They made something nice.

Al even made a table out of a piece of wood. And then like something I thought was really endearing about them was, uh, they picked up all the trash that other people had left in this area. Oh, good on them. like a few hours picking up all this trash. So that day they did do a bit of hunting. They saw a few small bull moose that they decided to pass on. And they just enjoyed this experience of watching the bull moose interact with each other.

And they're just having a really nice time out in the bush. I believe they're both from Alaska. So they're used to like Alaskan things. But they really loved like getting out in the back country. It's always cool to see a moose, even if you see them a lot. Yeah, totally. So the next day they hiked about eight miles and they saw a bowl that was big enough to shoot. And Al was first up.

He was going to try and get one with his bow and he snuck up on it, but he couldn't get close enough. And then Joyce didn't have a shot. So it had been like a really sunny and warm day that day. But when they got back to camp, it was starting to get dark and the cold was starting to set in. So they make dinner and they enjoy some time around the fire under the moonlight. But Joyce is starting to get a little bit cold. So she puts on her long underwear and she crawls into her sleeping bag.

All right. So before Al crawled into bed, he places a 44 magnum on a yellow paper towel. And the reason he did that was so there's like this big visual marking of where his gun is, which is really smart. I've never heard of anyone do that before. That's a smart way to do it. Yeah. And I honestly think if you're out camping in Grizzly Country, that might be a smart thing to do if you're

like wondering where your bear spray is. Bring something that's like a good visual marker for you so you know exactly where it is. A neon, neon arrow pointing at it. Exactly like a sign that's like flashing and pointing bear spray. So he also placed Joyce's 30-ought-6 next to him, and he put a bullet in the chamber and took the safety off. So he was serious. And then another thing he did is he left his sleeping bag halfway unzipped so that he could quickly move around and grab the gun should they have problems. It's almost as if you were expecting.

Right. He knew that they were in some of the best grizzly bear habitat in the world. So the kinae, as far as Alaska is considered, doesn't have a ton of bears compared to Kappmai or some of these other. places in Alaska, but there's still a lot of bears on the Kenai Peninsula. There's like 600-something bears just on that peninsula. So there's a lot. And like my mentor, Tom Smith has a cabin in the Kenai. And there's places you can go like on the Russian River or places on the Kenai where you'll probably see bears if you're there during the right time of the year. A little bit about Alaskan grizzly bears. Jeff, what's different about Alaskan coastal grizzly bears from like a bear that

you would see in Montana? They're bigger. They're bigger. Yeah. They're a lot big. These are the biggest grizzly bears in the world where there's places with big salmon streams where they can feed on salmon at like their heart's content They get really big so like in coastal Alaska coastal British Columbia They're like they're like a eighth the size of a small bus Sure. Yeah, it's a great reference wait. There's got to be a better way to Jeff always references everything to the small bus a small Maybe like a 30th of like a 10 car train. Yeah, I'm getting it now. You got it?

Yeah. Or like a 20th of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. How brown would you say they are? I'd say like a 12th of it. Yeah. How what? How brown would you say they are? So we're going to talk about that actually in a second.

Your favorite colors brown? Yeah. We're going to get into that. This summer, serve up the cookout classics. Oscar Meyer hot dogs and Heinz mustard. grill up a dog, add classic yellow mustard, or loaded Chicago style. We all know it's not a cookout without Oscar Meyer and Heinz. You know, we might as well now.

So you probably hear me during this episode say both Grizzly and Brown Bear. I'm probably going to switch a little bit between the two. It's because it's the same animal. Grizzly for us is our nickname in North America for brown bears. But throughout the world, they're called Brown Bear. Their Latin name is there's this arctos. They're a brown bear. Now that's a pretty bad name, just like black bear is a bad name for black bears because

black bears can be brown. Black bears can be all these different colors. And brown bears can be like kind of blackish or they can be really blonde. They can be a few different colors. So there's a wide range of shades of brown that brown bears can be. But in Alaska, these coastal brown bears typically are within a decent window of like blonde and brown. You'll see those kind of two colors.

the most. Just curious, do you know where the grizzly moniker came from? Yeah, I do. I honestly think it's from Lewis and Clark. And they said like, they described the bears as being grizzled in appearance. And that's where grizzly came from. I'm pretty sure that's what it was. Don't quote me on that. Yeah, maybe correction corners next week. Yeah. And they also, their Latin name that they gave them was Ursus Horribilis, which means horrible bear because they were constantly being charged in a attacked by grizzly bears. So sometimes North American grizzly bears get their Ursus arctose horribilis. But the actual Latin name, there's no scientifically recognized subspecies of brown bears.

The actual Latin name is Ursus arctose throughout their range. And that's what the big dipper is? Yeah, it's the ursus. Orsus is major? Major. That's a bear. So they are some of the largest bears in the world. They get as big as polar bears.

they get up to 1,500 pounds, these big coastal brown bears. And that's just because they have such an abundant food source, which is salmon streams. And then also coastal resources like clams and all these different things they can get from the ocean. So they have really good food. Yeah, the ones in like the lower 48, their diet's like 85% vegetation, right? And then these ones, it's probably the reverse. I don't know like how much their diet is salmon because it's a window of time that they're eating salmon. but when that window is going, that's all they're going for.

They eat a lot. And they get big. Fat bear week is like become a thing. You guys got to look up fat bear week. Yeah, it's cool. I can't wait for us to cover that. Fat bear week's a thing and that they get so fat because they're just gorging on salmon. When I went to hide her to watch a meat salmon, there was like a cub with its mom.

And the cub was just killing them and not even eating them. Yeah, sometimes let us leave them because there's so many. I'm glad you brought that up because that was the next thing I wanted to talk about. What? Me seeing a cup killed? About them leaving salmon. So they actually help their ecosystem out a ton by spreading these marine nutrients throughout the forest, both through like pooping out salmon and then like killing salmon and leaving them all over the place.

Those nutrients from the salmon's body leak into the soil and it makes the soil that much richer. And that's why a lot of those forests are so abundantly biodiverse and everything because the bears are doing this fertilization. kind of process with the salmon. And then they also do a lot of pooping where they're dispersing seeds and stuff too. So bears are like really great at increasing the biodiversity of forests, which is a really neat thing they do. That is cool. It's kind of like our cassowary that had that one fruit that it did it with.

Bears do it with salmon. Now, is that how Johnny Appleseed dispersed his seeds? You ate him and pooped them out all over the place? I think so. I mean, maybe. Wait, was Johnny Applesey? A couple of trees. Did George Bush really chopped down the cherry tree?

I don't know. Anyway, so because they have so much available food, these coastal brown bears, they... Oh, yeah, we're talking about bears. They do tend to get a little bit more passive. So they're not as aggressive as like a bear that you might run into in like Yellowstone or glacier. And that's because there's so much food to share, they don't have to compete at such high level. Henri. Yeah.

So a lot of times when you see those videos of people that are fishing in a bear walks right behind them or something, it's almost always in these coastal areas where the bears don't care because all they're focused on is getting more salmon. That's why Timothy Treadwell could go touch him. For so long until he met the wrong bear. Yeah. So we're going to get back to our story. When you think about it, they're like way out in the back country.

They're not right by the coast. Okay. So if they bump into a bear, there's a chance that's maybe one that hasn't. been around as many people, and it's maybe one that isn't gorged on salmon. So it might be a little bit more aggressive. It could be. It's hard to say, but. But he's got his pistol on the napkin, and he's got his rifle.

And he's got the 30-0-6. So it's good. So it's good to remember, too, that Bear Spray hadn't been invented at this time. They're relying on their firearms to protect them from a bear. This is their best option. Yeah. And although, like, both of them have a ton of practice using their guns, they're about to see that a gun isn't always a great option.

It seems like he should have done it reverse to me and had the pistol, slept with the pistol and had the 30-out six away. Well, that would have had to have- Right next to him. Oh, okay. Yeah. That would have had to have been like a huge napkin for the 30-a-s-od-6. 30-odd-6, I just feel like you need to hold it so tight to be able to shoot it. Yeah, it's not. Long guns aren't a great option for like a bear breaking into your campsite unless you see it coming from the ways away.

We're going to get into all that, though. Okay. So, again, it's not. the best deterrent against a marauding bear and they were about to find that out especially at night time period it is it's a good one but they also could have had flares there's some other thing we're gonna talk about all them i don't want to get into all that but um joyce had fallen asleep really quickly after she crawled into her sleeping bag but she wakes up at four a m and al's whispering in her ear and he had sensed that something was in camp and he's telling her just to listen and to stay quiet

So she feels terror, pulls through her as she turns over, and she sees the silhouette of a really big brown bear through the plastic of their lean-to. Oh my gosh. And it's inches away from her. Al hasn't seen it yet. For some reason, where he is in this lean-to, he can't see it. Only she can see it, and it's right by her face. Wow.

So she feels a sense of relief washover, though, because the bear walks away and it gets really quiet, and she's thinking everything's fine. and then suddenly her entire world all around her explodes and the bears on top of her ripping through the top of their lean two and it's roaring. She hears a roar and everything comes crashing down on top of her. So Al instinctively grabs the 30 out six as the bear starts crashing through the lean two

but the impact of the huge bear knocks the gun out of his hands. The commotion and all the ripping plastic and the falling logs seems to startle the bear and for a moment it stands up on its hind legs and it's just towering over both of them, like standing over. Oh, that's crazy. And it's like a big brown bear, right? Yeah, it's a big coastal brown bear. So what?

That's probably like 11 feet high or something? It could be close to that. That's more like how high a polar bear would be, but they can stand, yeah, pretty high. If it's paws up. Yeah. And they, I mean, they get, they're on average, they can be bigger than 800 pounds, the big males and stuff. Jeez. They're big, big bears and up to 1,500 pounds.

We talked about all this, though. Yeah. this bear's towering over him and Al thought that he so this is kind of a weird part and we're going to dissect this a little bit afterward but Al thought that he wouldn't have time to grab the 44

I'm not sure how far away from him it was at that point and he also was worried about grabbing the gun if he turned his head he would expose his neck to the bear and the bear would instinctively lunge out and grab him by the neck so he was worried about that so his backup was that I got

He's like, I got to distract this bear from my wife. And so his backup plan was to grab the bear by the face with his left hand and then punch it in the face with the right hand, which he does. And the bear doesn't love this. It does love getting punched in the face by this dude. Yeah. And before he could punch again, the bear grabs owl by his left forearm in its mouth. And it stands up as it does it. So it pulls him like completely out of his sleeping bag and flings him through the air.

just by grabbing its mouth around his arm and like standing up. And so it throws him all the way to the foot of the lean to. That's cool. And by the time he crashes to the ground, I'm sorry, I think it's cool. It is like pretty crazy to imagine that. Just how powerful they are. Yeah.

And by the time he hits the ground that bears on top of him, and it's viciously mulling him. It takes its claws and it tears through. These claws can rip through logs. I mean, they're incredibly powerful. And it's just easily ripping through his sides. It nearly punctures his lung with its claws. claws and then it pulls out to his chest in like a really horrific bear hug and bites into his

head and its teeth are he said it like that's why when people say like I'm going to give you a bear hug I'm like you don't you're crazy yeah and you don't want him to bite into your head yeah so as it bit into its head his teeth skid it across his skull and that's common with bear attacks yeah and they caught on his scalp that's where the the teeth finally sank in and then Then because it had finally sink into his skull, it takes off running. So it's got him by the head and it's holding him with one arm and it's running on three feet holding him off the ground. Just palming his head like a basketball or something? It's just like, yeah, it's biting his head holding his mouth.

Oh, it's still in his mouth. In his scalp. Yeah. Holy cow. Holding him with one arm and running off. And he's like not even touching the ground. So what a nightmare. Anyway, so Joyce has pulled her bag over her head.

which I don't blame her. You know, you just had your whole world get crashed in. She doesn't even know what's happening with Al. But she listens in horrors like he's getting tossed around and stuff. And she hears him pretty much get taken 25 yards away. His feet are, again, never touching the ground as he's being carried away. And then the bear stands up and it shakes Al. They described it like a cat with a mouse.

And in like a kind of weird twisted stroke of luck, his scalp because the bear was holding him by the scalp with his mouth rips off. It completely comes off. The nice thing about that is it causes the bear to drop him. Because up until that point, it was shaking him really violently. And that's the time when you might get your neck broken or something like that. And losing your scalp is a lot better than the alternative. So the scalp comes completely off.

Well, that's why you always tell people, if you're being attacked by a bear, try to make it take your scalp off. By your head. I don't. Just for the record, everyone out there, I never tell anyone that ever. So he gets dropped to the ground, and Joyce knows that she has to do something. So she stands up in her sleeping bag and then steps out of her sleeping bag. And she grabs the 44.

She can't find the 30-ought-6. But then she looks around and Al and the bear are gone. The bear again had run 25 yards away. It's dark. She can't see him. And she's expecting to see this animal come charging out of her at any minute. But she's also considering running away, but she's thinking that might draw its attention. And she thinks about climbing a tree, but she's.

couldn't find any trees nearby with lower limbs. So she just is pretty much standing by their broken lean to the 44 in both hands, shaking and just pointing into the darkness and waiting for this bear to come charging out at her. Unfortunately, the bear didn't, well, I'm glad it didn't charge her, but the reason it didn't is because it's still really busy with Al. So it dropped him. It dropped him. And he had been lucky enough when he dropped, he fell by this big clump of moss and he wraps his arm

around this clump of moss, and he just decides at this point, his only option is to play dead, which honestly, if you're being mauled by a bear and you have no deterrent, that is probably the best option. So he's giving up on punching it in the face.

He's not punch it anymore. So he plays dead. He holds on this moss, and the nice thing about that is that kind of anchors him so he could keep his face and his stomach pointed toward the ground, which is what you're supposed to do

if you are in a situation where you have to play dead. You want to protect everything that's soft and you want to protect your face. Because if you do get mauled really bad and it rips out your eyes or whatever, you're screwed because you're not going to be able to get out of there. So you want to protect your face,

you want to protect your neck, you want to protect your stomach. And that's what he did. And he really committed to playing dead because as he's laying on the ground, the bear starts just raking its claws down his back and his shoulders and then it bites into his back really hard twice. And the pain is so incredibly excruciating,

but he knows that if he starts screaming and tussling again that the bear's going to know he's alive. And so he just stays completely quiet and motionless. Wow. And this plan ends up working and the bear loses interest and it moves into the brush. That's really impressive. Yeah, it really is. I can't believe that.

Good job, Al. Yeah. So he should be an actor. Joyce is still standing with the revolver when she hears Al calling to her and she calls back and Al runs up to her and she can see that he's covered in blood and Al tells her that he's really hurt but he's like, I'm not going to die. And she asked where the rifle was and Al then holds the revolver and she looks around and finds the rifle. She also finds a shirt for Al to tie around his forehead because as they're talking, so much blood is gushing into his eyes that he can't see.

So he has to tie a shirt there to like soak up all the blood. They get a fire started and Al collapses onto a sleeping bag and he starts shaking because it's really cold out at this point and he's lost a lot of blood and he's probably going into shock. So she pulls his sleeping bag closer to the fire to keep him warm and she starts. starts looking at his wounds. So first of all, the first thing she notices that she's relieved about is that she doesn't see any arterial spurting. You don't see bloods shooting out, and that means that his arteries haven't been severed, and he's probably not going to bleed out. Have you ever seen that?

I haven't. Yeah. What? Really? Crazy. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. When?

In Guatemala? I don't want to hear, actually. Oh, wait. I have. We should move on. Okay. Yeah. So she's relieved that she hasn't seen any spurting blood.

blood. And his legs are relatively untouched, which is good because, again, they're miles and miles inland at this point. But he does have a gaping hole on his right side underneath his arm, where the bear had used his claws to tear at him. And then, so she puts like a compress on that, and then she had a game bag that she had brought for any meat, and she tears strips of that off to wrap his bandages. Half of the skin on his forehead was missing from the bottom of his left eyebrow all the way back into his hair and a large section of his scalp was gone. His left arm had been really badly mingled by the bear chewing on it and that's what was causing him the most pain.

So he actually tells Joyce he hands her a pocket knife and tells her to cut away the shredded pieces of flesh from his arm that were dangling off of it. So she's cutting off all these pieces of flesh. Yeah. That seems not necessary. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, maybe it makes it easier to bandage and less likely to get infected. I don't know.

I'm not a nurse or doctor. I just feel like it wouldn't make it hurt any less. Yeah, I think he just was trying to get it bandaged up. Do something. Yeah. She did notice that there seemed to be a lot of muscle and nerve damage in his arm. Flowing ad budget on metrics that look great, till the CFO sees them, that's bulls bend. And marketers are calling it out in Dashboard Confessions.

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they're both also listening for this bear to potentially come back. It's still nighttime. Yeah. They're still really worried. And then they said they spent the longest three hours of their life waiting for the sun to come up. I can't imagine that. So when the sun finally does come up, they know that they have to hike out. So they rig up this kind of weird backpack system for Al.

They're like over 10 miles into the back country. So they rig up this backpack system for him that kind of keeps the pressure off his wounds. And they leave a lot of their possessions in the lean to because they don't want heavy packs. And they leave a note saying they'd been attacked by a bear in case someone else shows up. So Al had lost several pints of blood and he's in excruciating pain. But he still manages to hike 10 miles out to the road to try and find help. And his pace was actually so fast that he passed Joyce and she got way behind him. And he was the one that flagged down a vehicle.

The person in this vehicle happened to be someone they both knew and she was heading to Saldatna. So she called the troopers and the ambulance. And then Joyce showed up while Al and her were waiting for the ambulance. And they had actually hiked out two hours faster than what it took them to hike in. Wow. Yeah. Pretty crazy. Can you imagine pulling up on someone you knew who had just gotten all by?

Just been covered in blood. I mean, you might not even recognize them. That'd be horrifying. It really would. So 20 minutes later... Would you say a joke if you were like the person who had been mocked? Barely made it. That's what I'd say.

You'd go to a pun. Yeah. Yeah, fair enough. So 20 minutes later, troopers and ambulance show up. They help Alan Joyce in the ambulance and they take off to this new hospital in Saldotna. There's only one doctor on call. And as they arrived, this doctor, she realizes that they're going to need to find a surgeon. But the surgeon was actually out fishing.

So another doctor shows up and that doctor, this part's crazy, asked if they knew where the scalp was. And Joyce is like, it's probably by the lean to. So Joyce and some troopers get in a helicopter. They fly back to the campsite. They follow the trail of blood. They find the scalp. No way. They put it in a plastic bag and take it back to the hospital so the doctors can try and reattach it.

So Joyce goes back to the hospital. The surgeon's now there and he's starting to work on Al. they stitch the piece of scalp back on. They do the best to clean up his other wounds and piece him back together. The next day she visits him and he had hiked 10 miles the day before and the next day he's completely exhausted so weak he can't even stand up. So it was unclear in the book how much time he actually spent in the hospital, but I know he went through multiple surgeries and skin grafts.

The piece of scalp that they found didn't actually take, so they had to do skin grafts instead. He did a lot of physical therapy and he did manage to regain most of the use of his left hand again. Oh, good. The bear was never found, but another hunter was mauled in the exact same area, not nearly as badly, but he was bitten. And he managed to, like, shoot the bear and wound it, and it took off.

Al, like, went on a personal vendetta to try and kill this bear, and he could never catch it. Really? Yeah. All right, so that's the story. Al survived. Joyce survived. Joyce, at the end of the story, mentioned that it didn't stop her from going into the woods, but she is more cautious and she does think about it when she's in the woods now.

I thought of what I would say if I saw my friend and I had been mauled by a bear. Okay. I'd just say, hey, I kind of have a headache. Do you mind giving me a ride? Or like, hey, I tripped. Yeah. All right, so there was a quote in the book that I wanted to read. This was like at the start of this story.

And it's a really good one. And it's one that I've kind of said an iteration of, an iteration of this to people before that ask about bear attacks, specifically about predatory bear attacks. And this is this quote. It's from 1943 by this guy, Otis H. Spear. And he said, some people claim to believe that if a bear is unmolested, he will go about his business and leave his human neighbors to do the same. Nine times out of 10, or possibly even 99 times out of 100, that may be true. However, it's that 100th time for which the woodsman must ever be on the alert. So I do think that's a really important lesson for all you listeners to learn is that

we explain to you all these different things that can happen, all these scenarios, and how the bear is like supposed to act. But sometimes bears just kind of go off script and do what they're going to do. And you have to be prepared for that bear. That's the one that you have to really be ready for because it might not run when you yell at it or it might not be easily hazed by like a flare or something. That's the one you need to have bear spray for. That's the one you need to have some kind of deterrent for. So one thing I want to talk about really quick with this dude is him deciding not to go for his gun and to punch the bear instead might have been what triggered this attack. I mean, wasn't it kind of already attacking? No. At that point, all it had done

was collapsed their tent or their lean to and then it stood up. It stood up and then went all back down on all fours and that's when he punched it. And it had an attack. And it had an attack. to that point yet. And I'm not saying this is for sure. Like maybe that bear was trying to eat them or something. It probably wasn't trying to eat them or else it would have eaten them. But it was probably just curious. It probably was like,

what's this thing? And bears investigate things with their face and their paws. And sometimes it's devastating when they investigate something. It collapsed their tent. It probably was like, oh, what's going on now? And then suddenly it gets punched. And it was like, oh, this thing's like, oh, you're disrespecting me.

I don't think it was a disrespecting I'll put you in your place It was like Oh this thing's attacking me I'm much bigger And I'm going to attack Well it's like what if Jeff At the beginning in this podcast

He was wondering what a lean two was And he asked What if I just punched him in the face The response Yeah I would have thrown you across the room He probably would have bit you by the arm And thrown you across the room Yeah and ran away with me

And again I don't want to say That's like what happened in this one Because again Maybe it was about to mall them and maybe he did distract it from his wife. But I do think there's a good chance because of the fact that once he played dead, the bear left him alone, that this was just a bear that was investigating and that it suddenly felt like it needed to act in a defensive manner because it got punched in the face.

Yeah. I feel like too is probably just very situational where like he couldn't find his guns. I'm sure he was looking for him. Right. And then the bear was by his wife and he couldn't find his guns, but he could. could punch it in the face. Yeah. So maybe just didn't think he had another option at the moment.

They thought they were being attacked. Right. And so I don't blame him at all for that. But you should never, with the grizzly bear, you don't want to, until you're actually being attacked, you don't want to fight back usually at all. But campsites are a little bit different. And so that's why I'm kind of stumbling over my words here. That's what I wanted to talk about.

That's why I picked a campsite story. A campsite situation with the grizzly bear is very good. different from any other situation with the grizzly because you don't really know why it's there. It's not like you round a trail and you surprise one. That's something there's like a very clear path of what you're supposed to do. It's not like you see a mom with cubs. There's again like a clear thing that you're supposed to do. If one wanders into your campsite, it might be there because it's hungry and it's trying to eat you. It might be there because it's just curious, which is most likely it's just like, oh, what are these new sites and smells?

I'm going to go investigate. But you don't really know. And so the thing that you want to do is, we'll get into that. I'm going to first ask you guys what you guys think you should do in a category. And then I'll tell you guys exactly what you're supposed to do. But I did just want to make that note that this isn't a typical bear attack. When they attack in campsites, there's a whole other kind of set of things that you should do. And we're going to get into that a little bit.

Oh, interesting. So do you guys have any questions about? the story? Yeah, how well can bears see in the dark? So there's a little bit of research on that and it's, we don't think they can see that well in the dark. Is it, would it be better or worse than humans, do you think? Probably pretty similar. Really? Yeah. So they're mostly navigating with their nose and they don't, they really don't see that well in the dark. We think it's pretty similar to about how well we can see in the dark. Any others? No. Do you have any details? Or what did you find out about Alan Joyce.

Did you know any more information? I didn't look any more into it. Yeah. I was just going to say that these attacks, we should find someone bad that an attack happens to. Because I always feel really bad that these really nice people,

they always have good sense of humor about it typically. Yeah. All of our stories are just in like, Timothy Treadwell is a weird dude. We can make fun of him when we do this. Think of it from the moose perspective. The moose?

Yeah. This is a zag. I'm just saying, I mean, if you were that moose, that they were trying to kill. You're like, good. You're like, all right. Yeah, that's what you get.

No, I didn't find much more. Their last name's Thompson, and I think there's probably a lot of Al and Joyce Thompson's out there. But I didn't really see it necessarily like go into their lives post or pre-attack. Gotcha. Okay, so with that, we're going to get into our categories. Our first category. We should squeeze Toad right now and make a, make him meow. Make him, yeah, when we say category.

Toty. Toty. We'll let us sleep. He's sleeping. Okay. So our first category is, it's usually our pop culture category. We've done Grizzlies now a couple times. So I came up with a different idea.

And it's going to be your favorite instance of a bear going into a campsite in pop culture. Okay. So I'll go first. Mine is from the movie Almost Heroes, which was like a Chris Farley. Yeah. Yeah, I like that movie. Chandler from Friends. What's his name?

Matthew Perry. Matthew Perry. And there's a part where a bear attacks their campsite and it malls one guy, I think, to death, but he leaves his ear behind. No, that guy survives. And one of the guy picks up his ear and he's like talking into the ear, seeing if the guy can hear him still. I forgot about this movie. Really dumb. But I have like a soft spot for that movie.

Yeah. That's a funny one. Uh, mine's just the meme of the bear sitting at the picnic table and it says like, what's for lunch? And it's just this bear hanging out at a picnic table. It's on like t-shirts and stuff. Yeah, you bought me a t-shirt with that on a once. Yeah. Yeah.

So mine is going to be, it's a show called Golden Camui. I lost you guys already. But no. So off the wall. We got, we got someone out there. Yeah, someone will appreciate this. Golden Camui. I think everyone should check out what I'm talking about, though, because in the show, it's animated pretty fairly standard.

Yeah. But during the bear attack, it's almost like you enter into a fever dream because it's such a clash of animation styles. It's this weird CG bear. I don't know. It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen. Is it in a campsite? Yeah. We'll allow it.

Some runners up could be the Edge, the Anthony Hopkins movie, and then also Backcountry, which has maybe the most horrific. bear attack scene in any movie I've ever seen. And Timothy Treadwell? Yeah, but that's not really. I guess that is kind of pop culture, a grizzly man. All right, so, well, let's just get right into what would Mike and Jeff do if you were attacked by a bear at a campsite? I'll start us off.

Okay. So I'm going to go from this situation. I don't have bear spray. Yeah. And I'm in a lean to, right? Yeah. So the bear comes up and it puts its way. on the lean two.

Uh-huh. Well, surprise, it's a fake lean-toe. I dug a giant 20-foot hole under it, so it just falls straight head-first down into my hole. So you set a trap. Yeah, and then I'm in a different lean-to 30 yards away. Yeah. And I just run up and look at it.

How deep is the hole? Like 20 feet. Yeah, so that's where I have a problem. Um, they were tired. Yeah. They might have had a shovel, but 20 feet's pretty. ambitious. Yeah, that's going to take you a few weeks.

I'd go like 10 feet maybe. Oh, no, dude, I could do it. Dude, in holes, what, zero? Zero dug. True. Stanley's hole and his hole, and they were still, like, the first ones done. You're bringing up real good points. You're right?

Jeff always uses holes to get out of our games. It's bulletproof. All right, Mike, what are you doing? So, I actually, I appreciate how much it seemed like Al was preparing for this attack. Hey, Toad. There's Toad for categories. Come on, give us some row. I'll probably think that's Toad.

Keep going. Okay, so I like how much Al prepared. It seemed like he went to bed almost expecting an attack to happen, which is probably a good rule of thumb. It is. But I'd go a step further. I would go. I would put on. So I would put on like a full suit of body.

armor and yeah sleep with my wife on top of me maybe so she gets attacked first that kind of thing you tell your wife that if you bring attacked just punch it in the face and they'll run away yeah so that's what I would do Wes how you like that so those are both pretty bad answers there's actually a guy a long time ago that built a suit of armor that was like specifically for bear attacks so you know we're talking yeah it's like It's a big spiky thing, right? I don't think it was spiky, but it's like pretty wild. Mine would be spiky.

All right, so. Did it work? I don't think so. I don't, I think he got mauled, but I'm not sure. Okay. So, you got to do a story, huh? I, um, I didn't, like, this was one that was a little tricky for me, because I'd heard a lot of different things about campsite attacks.

Once I heard that if a grizzly comes into your campsite, you fight back. But then as I read the story, I'm like, no, this dude shouldn't have fought back because as soon as he played dead, it was done. So it wasn't a predatory bear because I had always heard it's probably predatory and, you know, you need to fight back. And that's not necessarily true. I think that's bad information. I don't think that should ever be your go-to, especially with the grizzly, to fight back. With black bears a lot of times it is, but with grizzlies, no.

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He has gone over thousands of animal tax. bear attacks, bear attacks. And he told me a little bit about what he thinks is the best course of action. So I'm actually going to defer to him on this one. And pretty much what he said is that you're never sure why the bear's there. It's probably there because it's curious.

But you can't rule out predation. You can't rule out a lot of things. So he's like, you shouldn't just back up and get out of the area like you would with a bear on a trail. And you don't want to necessarily like let it have your camp. So what he said is that regardless of its motivation, you need to defend your camp and yourself.

So what you do is you use bear spray, you use flares, use firearms, you do anything you can to deal with a bear that's coming in your campsite. Essentially what his advice was, the first thing, if you see a bear like coming in, if you're not necessarily in your tent, if you see it coming to your campsite, you stand up, you yell at it, you do whatever you can to discourage it from coming in. If you have like flares, the one that he recommended were Skyblazers, XLT, They're just little red survival flares that you like pull on them and it shoots the red flare out. Okay.

If you have those, they hate those. That really scares bears. Shoot a flare at it. Do whatever you can to scare it off. If it keeps coming, then you would want to stand shoulder to shoulder with whoever else is in your camp. Get your bear spray ready or get your firearm ready. And if it keeps coming, you spray it or you shoot it. That was his advice.

Now, if you're inside of a tent, what you want to do is pretty much do what Al did, not to punch. matching part. But have a deterrent that's right there and ready to go. He was really unlucky, kind of what Jeff said, that he picked the 30-0.6 is the first one to go to because it's big. It was easy to get knocked away as the bear collapses this lean to that has logs and stuff associated with it. Bear spray is pretty small, though, and it's really easy to keep right next to you. It's easy to grab, and if a bear collapses your tent, hopefully you can get out of the tent and spray it. So yeah my real answer I mean it sounds like a lean to is just like a bunch of logs so it's probably like sucked for him once that fell like he couldn't get his guns anymore

even if he had him ready next to him. So what I think he should have done is they heard the bear so just grab the gun then and like be ready to go yeah for sure and then like it's easy to say that another thing so another thing that would have really helped them and this is something that most people don't want to do when you're camping out in the woods is actually sleeping in two different spots. So if they had set up two different tents, then if someone's tank gets knocked in and there's a bear collapsing someone's tent, you can actually like run over and help your friend. That was what I said. The trap one and the real one? Well, no, not like a hole. One of them is just, why not just make one a hole? No. So you would like, if, say you're going in,

you're camping in a grizzly country. Say you're going on a 10-day. hunting trip in back country where there's grizzlies, but you're in 2000, what year is it, 21, bring two tents, bring two small tents and sleep in two different tents. It's boring, that sucks, it's not as fun to sleep on your own. Yeah. But you're in really good grizzly country, and if someone's tent gets collapsed by a bear, they're probably not going to be able to get to their bear spray and spray the bear, but you can. Like, your tent's still fine. You go out and help your friend. But if you're both in the same tent and it collapses your tent in, then you're probably not going to be able to get to your deterrent and you're taking a really big risk.

So it's really, really smart to bring two tents. A last thing that you can do is they sell now electric fences that are backpackable, that are really easy to set up and will keep bears out of your campsite. So that's another thing you can do. I think I deserve some credit for my answer now. What? I said two tents. Yeah, I'll give you credit.

That's not really what you said. So that was a lot of information, but those are the tips for you guys. Bring some flares, bring two tents. Just be ready if you're camping in a place that has lots of grizzlies. Right. Okay. So that is it for what you guys would do if you were attacked by a bear in a campsite. So our next category is our Animal Olympics.

So what event would they be best at? Eating honey? Eating honey. I mean, I think they'd be number one. Have you ever seen that video of one eating hot dogs? and it's competing against like Kobayashi. Oh, you think he could beat Jimmy Chestnut? No, it kills Kobay.

No way. It's like a billion hot dogs. Oh, yeah, it goes against him, huh? Yeah, so they're going to win in the eating hot dogs'clock. So I always think about this, like in a real Olympic event. Uh-huh. I was kind of looking at this bear like he was carrying owl like a baton. So maybe like a 4x-100 relay or something.

Relay race? Yeah, yeah, sure. Also, the hot dog. dog eating. Okay, our next category is our listener questions. Okay, so Patreon questions. Yeah, let's do it. So our first one is from Sarah and it says, hey guys, my girlfriend and I have have a question when listening to the latest Black Bear podcast. When an animal attacks a human and it's decided that the animal needs to be euthanized, how do they confirm that they have the right animal, which is kind of relevant to this story we just talked about? I assume that,

they can narrow it down based on location, but is there a way to confirm before they euthanize? Yeah, I mean, usually it is just location. If, if animals just attack someone or just on damage or something, and they go back to that area and they immediately catch a bear there, it's almost certainly that same bear. I mean, like, they can go off of descriptions of if anyone saw the bear, and that's a good way to go. It's rare that they get the wrong bear, but I'm sure it has happened. but the way to actually confirm it would be after it's dead to like cut it open and see if it has like human food in its stomach or people in his stomach or whatever. And that's what she goes on to say. Yeah.

Yeah. I was actually going to ask that about, um, Al and how you felt about kind of that personal vigilante justice that he was going to go out and try to get that bear. How do you feel about that? I don't know. I've always felt like if I got attacked by one, I wouldn't feel that way. Like I would feel like I probably did something wrong. But I don't necessarily hold that against someone that's just been. absolutely mauled by a bear.

I don't blame people for feeling like they were wronged. So, yeah. He started it. He did, he punched it. So this one's from Sheen Bean, Ween. Question. Which two animals do you think would make the cutest baby or the coolest mix of ability?

So let's just go cutest baby if you combine two animals and they have a baby. Okay, I needed longer to think of it. I was going to do the cool one. That's here. Because I wanted to combine the, I was going to call him a monster. I guess it would be a monster if you combine them. Two animals, so I'd want like the best defensive. You know how an armadillo turns into a little shield ball.

So get a really good defensive move. And then combine that with an animal that has a really good offensive move. Okay. So maybe like a bee with its stinger, but can also turn into a shield ball. That'd be so cool I said to go with the cutest But we'll take this Okay

Cutest That'd be pretty cute What are the cutest animals I would say like a Like a red panda And a duck So like Oh that's pretty good

So like a duckling are really cute So it's like a duckling That looks like a red panda And it's just floating out in the water Sure All right I don't know I like that

I just think those are both cute I'm going, I'm mixing a koala with a hippo. Okay. And so I think baby hippos are really cute, and I like hippo's ears, how they wiggle. But if you had like the hairy koala ears and like the whole hippo is just hairy, I think that might be cute. Ooh, I got one. So you know those little salamanders that always look like they're smiling really big? Yeah.

I would combine that with a lottoes. Yeah, that. I combine that with a panda. So the little smiling gecko thing will have panda. That's kind of creepy to me. Well, it wouldn't be furry. It would just have like the black and white. Black and white color pattern.

That'd be pretty cute, right? I think you win. Hell yeah. I needed one. Next question. This is from Claire Bersey. Hey guys, do you think Dr. Hammond should have paid Dennis Nedri more money? I feel like I need to add that Hammond continually claims that he spared no expense.

I'm dubious. I really like this question a lot because Dennis Nedry is such an obvious villain in that movie, especially when you watch it. When I saw it as a kid, I'm like, I hate him. You know, he's like terrible. But then when you think about it from like a worker's perspective, he is treated pretty poorly. And he's pretty much the dude that's in charge of running this entire park. And he keeps complaining to Hammond about all these things that need to be changed and Hammond won't do it.

So yeah, I agree. I think Hammond should have paid him more. I don't think that would have helped. You don't think he would have sold the embryos if Hammond paid him really well? Well, how much do you think the other guys were going to, they were going to pay so much money. I bet In Jin was going to give him like a million bucks in $93. I also think Nedri probably exhibited a pattern of behavior and everyone was just finally fed up with him. Yeah, I mean, he seemed like a slob and like he thought he was smarter than everyone.

But also, if you're John Hammond and you've built a multi-billion-dollar amusement park With dinosaurs. Yeah, with dinosaurs. Maybe pay your lead developer a little bit more than like... We don't know the details. Especially when you only have like four employees. Right, exactly. Like, that is...

Cut them in a little bit, you know? Yeah. It's like, oh man, his computer's not working. That was our one computer. What are we going to do? Yeah, I think he should... have had a percentage of it because he seemed really important. Yeah, personal investment, you know, because then he doesn't want to ruin it.

Give him some, like. Place on the board, maybe. Yeah, I feel like for sure Hammond. I bet you Hammond wouldn't have even like given him a T-shirt if you asked him for it. That's a great question. So I have a listener question that they messaged us instead of doing it on like the, when I asked for him. So I lost track of it and I apologize and you can message us. again and I'll give you a shout out next time.

But it was a really fun question for me. And his question was, if you took the most elite samurai in history and put it against an average grizzly bear with the samurai, just full samurai gear, you know, who wins? Is he on his horse? No. I think it's a pretty good fight.

Yeah? If it's like the most elite samurai ever, then maybe the samurai. If he's like that good. I don't know that much about samurai, but I think we have this romanticized like they're the best. They're crazy good at what they do. So if that's how it actually is, then yeah, you could probably kill a grizzly bear. Okay.

I do too. You read Shogun with me and Brent, right, Jeff? I don't think I read it with you, but I have read it. You read it. Okay. Just reading that makes me think they could take anything. For me playing the game, Ghostos, uh, Tsushima, they get cut bamboo so fast. Yeah.

Okay, so that's it for our listener questions. We're going to jump into a little bit about grizzly conservation. So how are we messing things up for this animal? Grizzlies are doing pretty well throughout their entire range. They're doing pretty well in Alaska, too. But the Kenai specifically has a smaller population of bears than you might expect for that area. And that is because there's a lot of human wildlife conflict that's happening. As more people move to those really scenic parts of Alaska, you do see a bit more conflict.

and then a lot more bears are getting shot because of management decisions or hunting or whatever. So that's kind of the main problem that they're running into. It's just human wildlife conflict. But overall, grizzly bears or brown bears are doing pretty well. It seems like in the lower 48, they're kind of expanding a little bit. They are. A few states, like Montana included, have decided to get pretty aggressive on, like, their management techniques and whatnot.

But they're doing okay. Like, they've hit their goals. on where they wanted them to be as far as like their recovery efforts. But there are still a lot of places where we could reintroduce them and there's a lot of room for growth. California. Yeah, maybe. It's their state animal. Yeah, and they don't even have them.

They'll probably never get back to California. But like Washington and some other places that. Yeah, California is too expensive. Habitat loss in human conflict are there two main things? Yeah, it's too expensive. All right. So our final category that we usually end on, Do we like this animal?

Yeah, we've done this before. We've done Grizzlies. Yeah. Top, probably top animal for me. Yeah, I have it ranked number one overall. Yeah. Mike, you love Grizzlies. I love them.

I do. So on a scale of, on a scale of five claws. Oh, shoot. Okay. I'm giving it, no, it's 10. On a scale of 10 claws, I'm giving it 10. 10 out 10. I'll give it a 9.

Okay. And then for our ouches, or outches, our ouchy scale, how many ouches are you giving it? I think we did 10 again We've mixed up this Yeah Yeah Who cares we're just flying by the seat of our pants Right

I'm gonna give it Six and a half Ouches I'll give it Four Okay Because we're going tooth and claw scale Right

So a two is really painful Oh it is I think so No I think a two is like you get stung By a scorpion or something Oh well then I'll give it like a six Okay I think I'll give it a six too

Like he hiked out 10 miles afterwards. It means that it was bad. I mean, he had to have surgery and stuff. But he knew he wasn't going to die even after he was smalled. He did get his scalp ripped all the way off. So that's going to bump it up for me. I'll go, I can't go any higher than a six, I don't think.

All right. And that's not a discredit to Al. It's just. 666. Yeah. There you go. Number of the beast. Ooh.

All right. Well, that's it for this episode. I hope you guys enjoy it. It is very topical because of the tragic accident. her attack that happened this week. And yeah, we'll be back soon with some more stories. Togu, want to say goodbye? All right, see you guys.

Thanks for listening, see ya. Okay, thank you once again for listening. We commend you for making it all the way to the end of the episode. Before we get to the shoutouts for our new Patreon supporters, though, we wanted to give another quick shout out to our new friends and neighbors, the guys over at the Force of Nature podcast. They contacted us not long ago, and they let us know that they've been doing the same sort of thing that we do here. So if any of you are looking for some more animal attack content in the form of a podcast, consider checking them out.

They seem like really nice dudes who probably wouldn't get mad or yell at you if you decided to check them out, I'm sure. And with that, let's get to all these new patrons, how about? Thank you again so much to Lauren, Georgia, Aaron, Ryan, Evelyn, Joel, Laney, Liam, Liam, Elizabeth. Ashley with two eyes Laura Lindsay Kay Gracie Rachel Maggie Connor Celia Marianne Ben Steve Liz Katie Olivia Michelle Jessica Laura Alexa Kelly Katherine Justice Meredith Amanda Natalie Ann Marie Claire Daniel Samantha Eric Katie Sophie Yasmine Melissa seen bean ween who we just heard from earlier on the episode from a listener question or maybe it's pronounced sean bean ween maybe they're a fan of the band wean if that's the case good on you

anyways continuing along we have alison porter kelly stephanie meredith eva darcy megan jane rene emily jesse july nicky daniel sabrina surge carlos airlees and Sorry if I'm pronouncing that wrong. And last but not least, Holly. Thank you so much again for all of your support. We are truly humbled and blown away every time you guys show out on Patreon like this. It's made it so much more fun to be able to really connect in a personal way with all of you. And we look forward to many more messages and jokes and questions and friendships to be made in the future.

We will catch you in the next one. See ya.