Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - Grizzly Bear Attack - Bear's Got Your Nose and the 2022 Tooth and Claw Awards Show

Episode Date: December 26, 2022

Wes closes out the year with one more Grizzly Bear attack involving a shocking medical technique unlike anything the ghuys have talked about before, and then Jeff hosts the 2022 Tooth and Claw Awards show. ~~ 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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Tooth and Claw Podcast. How are we doing? We're doing all right. So we got Jeff. I'm Jeff. We got our editor, Mike. He's the man. Producer.

And then we got Wes, our wildlife biologist. But actually he hasn't shown us his graduation certificate. I got it. But I left it in my car. I'm going to go grab it really quick. There's always something. Maybe next year. No.

For the end of the year episode, I need to show you guys. Do we need to pause? Yeah, we need to pause really quick. All right, I'm back. I spent honestly two hours today looking for this just because I really wanted to have it as the end of the year. But I'm going to read it to you guys. It says Wesley Glenn Larson in the degree of Master of Science in Wildlife and Wildlife and Wildlife and Wildlife, as evidence thereof, I'm showing you both the diploma.

I should take my glasses off. Okay. And I specialized in poland. I specialized in polar bear and black bear conservation. You'd have to read my thesis to understand that part. But here it is, my master's degree. You both are seeing it with your own eyes. All right?

It's beautiful. Put that to rest. Hey, did you guys hear the sad news about P-22? Is that the mountain line? Yeah, that's the famous mountain line that lived in L.A. It'd been out there for like 11 years. It lived in like Griffith Park and Beverly Hills and went all these places where people would see it, and it was pretty famous.

It's not cheap to live there. It's not, no. But it finally ate a chihuahua, and it also, like, attacked someone's dog while it was on leash. And then, like... Has it been trying to eat a chihuahua for a while now? He, like, he scratched the person up a bit, too. And so it just... There was a big change in behavior, and so they decided to capture him.

And when they did, they found out that he'd been hit by a car and had some pretty serious injuries. and it just wasn't like even ethical to re-release him. Did the car leave like its license plate in the lion or something? No, I think someone reported that they'd maybe hit a mountain lion and then they saw like some pretty serious injuries on the cat. So they ended up having to euthanize him. They probably texting. Pretty, yeah, maybe.

Pretty cool cat. Definitely going to be missed. They're probably texting their friends like, what if I see a mountain lion did not? And then they just hit one. And they would hit one. Anyway. Texted into reality. How do they come up with the naming convention?

Sorry, you're not done with your story. Keep going, Wes. He'll definitely be missed. I know, like, people in L.A. really came to love him, but it's, like, a really cool story in that one mountain lion really taught a lot of people about coexistence and how in a really urban, one of the most urban places on Earth, people learned how to live with a huge, potentially dangerous predator. And so I think that one mountain line did a lot of good.

So he'll be missed. Let's give a moment of silence. Moment of silence for P22. Okay. I wouldn't have missed him at all. I didn't know about him. If not for you, I wouldn't be sad right now, Wes. To answer your question, Mike, how they name them.

There can be a lot of different things like our bears. We had some names that we came up with just to keep them straight, but then we also had like a serial number for their caller. What do you have against gay bears? What are you saying? Oh, to keep them straight. Anyway, that was the worst simulation of a ram shot I've ever heard of. I don't know how to do it.

Can you do it? Just shot a gun instead of played the drums. My guess is that it was just they had some sort of system for categorizing their cat numbers and his happen to be P-22. I don't know exactly how he got the name. How do they name 007? Oh, yeah. You'll have to ask Ian Fleming about that. All right.

Well, we got a lot to talk about today. It's our end of the year episode. It's a big episode for us. I got a good story. It's a story that I... Thanks for making it this far, listeners. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for sticking it.

We've been doing this for over two years now, which is crazy. So I found this story in like the midsummer and I couldn't stop thinking about it. So we're going to do a story, but then it's going to be a little shorter than normal. And we're going to go into some really fun end of the year awards that Jeff's going to kind of run us through. And then some listener questions. We're just going to have a really fun kind of award showy kind of episode. A little party. Yeah, buckle up.

We're going to party. Yeah. All right. You guys are all coming down from Christmas or your holidays. And now you get a party with us for a little bit in this weird limbo week. Anywho, before I get into this story, I have a question for you guys. if you had to move a body part from where it's supposed to be to somewhere else on your body, what body part would you pick and why?

Are we doing it now? Yeah. Shark my eyes. You're just going to move them out further? On the side of my... That's like... Like swap your eyes and your ears? I was trying to think of something that wouldn't make me look really weird, but all right.

That's interesting. Yeah, but you're vain, Wes. I was thinking about... Yeah, I'll switch one hair with a different hair. No, that's not what I meant. Like a whole body part. Yeah, I guess that would count. I was thinking about swapping my elbows and my knees.

Does that count? Interesting. Yeah, that would count. Because they both kind of serve the same general function, but I was thinking it would probably make the joints like reversed a little bit because of the way they're situated on the body. So like my legs would be more like dog legs where they bend back and then forward again.

Yeah. And I don't know. You guys probably know what I'm trying to say, right? Yeah, sure. Okay. I like those answers. I'll try a diagram for you. Those are good answers.

All right. Yeah, I'm going with Jeff's hair one, though. There's a real one. There's a reason I asked that question. We're going to get to it. But we are going to talk about this guy named Lee Brooke, who was attacked by a grizzly bear in 2016. And again, this attack happened a while ago, but

It was one that I came across while I was researching this year for some other stories. And it just stuck with me and I kept wanting to do it. I just, it's like I'm exercising a demon. I need to tell this story. So that's what we're doing. It's a nice little cherry. Yeah, just getting them demons out. Yeah, just getting them demons out.

It'll be a nice little cherry on the end of a good year for us. And you know what? We all love a grizzly bear attack around here. Okay. Oh, yeah. So a quick thing. This is definitely a story where I'm going to have to talk a bit about what this dude did wrong. but I do want to mention in all the interviews and articles and everything that I saw with him,

he seemed really humble. He seemed like he knew he had done some stuff wrong. So I just want to point that out that this guy, we're going to have to say some stuff that he did that was kind of dumb, but he was like fully acknowledging that he did some dumb stuff when all this happened. Okay. So Lee Brook, B-R-O-O-K-E, he's a Maytag repairman. He lives in this hometown of Westfield, Pennsylvania with his wife,

Martha. In October 2016, he's 61 years old, and he decides to go out to Wyoming for a trip that he'd been looking forward to for a while. He's going to be going on an elk hunt with some friends and his brother-in-law, and hopefully, you know, he's planning on coming home with a cooler full of elk steaks and a bunch of elk meat. He's really excited. He's like a pretty avid hunter, and this is like... Pretty tasty meat. It is pretty tasty meat. This is his big trip of the year. This hunt was going to take place near Duboy, Washington, Du Bois, which is, prime grizzly bear habitat. If I were him, I would go to prime elk habitat. Yeah, it is, prime elk habitat too. It's both. But I want to talk about hunting really quick. We haven't

really got into hunting too much. Personally, like my personal beliefs around hunting is that if you are hunting to get meat, I think if you eat meat, it's probably the best way you can get it. You're killing the animal ethically. The animal gets to live a nice. life out in the woods and then it's killed in a humane way and if you're actually like consuming that animal for me it's the best possible scenario for eating meat is hunting because it's like everyone gets to kind of have a good life and then be killed ethically so everyone well i'm just saying like the animals that are killed for hunting generally get killed in an ethical way and they get to live out in the wild and everything i do think there's limits to it i think i'm not a i really dislike

trophy hunting. I really dislike people that waste animals or people that are hunting animals that maybe need more protection. But I'm not anti-hunting when it is like sustenance hunting. Oh, really? Yeah. So what about that movie, The Hunt, where

they are trying to, they release a bunch of humans and try to hunt them. Yeah, if they're killed ethically and they eat them, I'm fine with it. They use all the human. Yeah, if they use all of the parts, then I'm all right. I love a good hunting human movie, by the way.

Yeah. Those are good movies. They don't come out enough. They don't. We need more of them. I will say, though, really quick, and I have to be a little bit delicate about this, I have learned from working in the Yellowstone ecosystem and whatnot, people that come from out of state to places that have grizzly bears often don't give

the animals the respect that they need, like bears. They are a little bit complacent and nonchalant about hunting and grislymouth. about hunting in grizzly bear habitat and kind of think because they're paying for these expensive tags and everything, they can kind of just go out there and do whatever. And they do tend to cause more problems than locals. And I've talked to a lot of different wildlife managers in Yellowstone area, in the northern continental divide area, where they have like people that are repeat offenders where they really mess up hunting and they end up having a bear charge from or something

and they have to kill it. And it's because these people aren't taking the proper precaution. So I do just want to urge any hunters that might be listening to this. If you decide to hunt in a place with grizzlies, make sure you know what you're doing. Make sure you're taking the right precautions, carrying bear spray, and being smart because you being unprepared could end up killing bears, which sucks. And it could end up getting you really hurt too. Okay.

So it's October 2nd. It's the first day of their hunt. And Lee manages to kill an elk on the first day. So he says it was a really nice hunt. It was totally textbook. He just, like, arrived, went up there and got an elk. But when he shot this elk, they're pretty far from their camp, and the day was getting pretty late.

So he makes the decision to go back the next day to find and butcher this elk. So this can be a pretty bad idea in grizzly country. If you give a bear overnight to find your kill, there's a very likely chance that a bear's going to find it. So in that time of year, grizzlies are already starting to look for gut piles. A lot of the grislies You have to gut them, right? Yeah, it goes bad if you leave all the guts in there.

Yeah, if you don't gut them, right? Yeah, if you don't gut them. And then it's also a lot heavier to drag out when it's not gutted. So people tend to gut their... I'm just saying, like, to leave it overnight. Oh, no, I mean, you're probably going to lose some meat. It's not the best case scenario, but he didn't gut it. It went off and died and he left it.

Oh, he didn't gut it? No, it ran off, and he didn't have time to go collect it. So, this is like another recommendation for hunting. in grizzly bear country, maybe don't take the shot if you don't think that you're going to have time to collect your animal because there's a really good chance a bear is going to find it, especially during the hunting season. Well, it has to be hunting season because you're hunting. But Grizzlies, there are a number of bears in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem and other

ecosystems that have learned to look for gut piles. Like that is a big food source for them. And they hear a rifle shot and they come running. So you need to be ready to find a bear when you're out. out hunting. All right. So he decides to go in the next day, which isn't a great idea. And speaking of really bad ideas, when he goes in the next day, he goes alone and he goes without any kind of protection. No bear spray, no firearm. All he has is a boning knife that he was going to use to dress this elk when he got to it. So going in alone without any kind of protection was a really,

really bad decision, and it's one that ultimately would cost him really dearly. So he contributes separating from his friends to complacency, and he just says, you know, I got really complacent, and you just really can't be complacent if you're hunting in grizzly bear country. Or if you're doing anything in grizzly bear country, really, but especially when you're doing something like hunting, and especially if you're looking for a carcass of an animal that you just killed. It's just a bad time to be complacent. So when we, at Yellowstone, when we go check on a carcass, sometimes we'll get a report of like a bison or elk carcass that died near a trail, we'll go in packing. They'll have like a handgun, a shotgun, and bear spray. And we go in in groups of three or four. And we're

paying attention to any bird sounds like ravens, eagles, anything that might be on a carcass. We're just on full alert because that's how dangerous it is to walk in on a carcass. It's when bears are just keyed up and they might defend that carcass. They might charge you. You might come in between two bears that are already fighting with each other. It's just a really, really dangerous situation to go into, probably the most. Outside of maybe an injured bear with cubs or something like that, bear defending a carcass is a really dangerous situation. What would you compare it to for humans?

For humans? I would say, like, an escaped convict that is like a murderer and a psychopath and he's just murdered someone. I don't know. Or like, maybe you accidentally sat. It really loves murder, you know? Maybe you accidentally sat in Dominic Tureto's car. Oh, yeah, in his charger?

Yeah, you thought it was your car. Or you're like, you're in a golf tournament and your shot lands on the foot of like a really huge angry man. With a nail in his head? With a nail in his head. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Any of those would be pretty similar.

I would say this is even worse than that. So leave self-admittedly. Probably not worse than yours. Yeah, probably not. You're right. Wireless can feel like a world of traps, but not with Visible. It's one-line wireless with unlimited data and hotspot. Powered by Verizon for $25 a month.

Taxes and fees included. Plus, for a limited time, new members pay just $20 a month for one year on the Visible plan. Using the code Fresh Start. refresh your wireless with Visible Tap the banner to switch today Terms applied limited time offer subject to change See visible.com for plan features and network management details Lee self-admittedly says that he was being really complacent

As he solo hikes into where his elk had died And he suddenly realized that he had made a huge mistake When he seized the actual elk carcass His elk had been flipped over And there was dirt and debris partially covering it So that means that a grizzly bear had found his elk That it had cached it and it was feeding on it actively. So he understood that he immediately knew that he was in trouble. This would be the point

that if you were carrying bear spray, you would get it out, you'd get the safety off, and you'd get it ready because there's a pretty good chance you're about to have a run in with a bear. He didn't have any kind of deterrent. So he does the next best thing, which is turned to leave the area. But just as he turns, he sees a mother grizzly with two cubs charge out of the brush about 30 yards away. And in a matter of a couple seconds, he was being pulled off the ground by the area. his backpack. So she had his backpack in his jaws and was shaking him off the ground. He's not wearing a helmet. He's not wearing a helmet either. The bear quickly swats him with one of her paws and kind of in a stroke of luck for him, he gets knocked completely unconscious. And then he wakes

up not long after, but they kind of had to later piece together what happened in that time that he was unconscious. And what they think happened was the bear dragged him down the hill, almost riding his body down the hill and mauling him as she went. And the reason they think that is because he had broken a lot of bones on the left half of his body. And he had a shattered wrist, a broken jaw on that side. And then while he was unconscious, the bear would also bite into his face, removing his nose, his upper lip, and part of his cheek, and injuring a lot of his craniofacial bones. So a lot of his little bones in his face got injured. Picture it biting right on his nose and just ripping all of that off. That's what it did.

So he lost his face. Yeah, that's pretty much what it's like. Yeah. It sucks that he was unconscious for what sounds like was probably the most fun part of the experience. Getting rid down a hill. Yeah. I don't think it'd be that fun.

Anyway, it would malle him and drag him for about 50 yards until they slam against a fallen log, and then he wakes up. And when he wakes up, the bear's face was right in front of his, and he could feel her whiskers brushing against his ear. And he had this strong kind of intuition that he shouldn't play dead. I'm going to go ahead and say that probably wasn't the right move. This was a bear with cubs. It was a bear defending a carcass.

It probably just wanted him out of the area. It dragged him out of the area. Wasn't trying to eat him. And it had stopped mauling him. He woke up to her just kind of sniffing his face and stuff. I almost think had he just completely stopped, there would have been nothing else. But you don't know. And actually not too much more happens after this point.

So I don't think he necessarily was wrong, but I would advise people if you're ever in this situation, if you're being mauled by a bear and you don't have a deterrent, at that point it's time to play dead and just hope for the best, unless it starts eating you and then you've got to fight back. So he felt like he shouldn't play dead, though, and he punches out with his left arm. The bear immediately clamps her jaws down on it,

and then he decides to push his arm back into her mouth. They're like caught his punch in its mouth. I think so. Wow. Nice. They're so fast. Their reflexes are unreal. He tries to push his arm further back to trigger her gag reflex.

And by doing that, he manages to create some space between him and the bear. And he realizes that he's still in his right hand is clamping onto that boning knife that he had. And he reaches out and starts stabbing her in the head with this knife. Starts bone in her? Yeah. Yeah, I guess you could say that with a boating knife. So he stabs her a couple times in the head, and she actually ends up releasing her grip. runs off back into the brush.

Now, for those of you... It's all you need is a knife. It's not all you need. If you want to lose part of your face and maybe die, then yeah. I will say for those of you who are concerned about the bear, it's likely she didn't have any kind of long-lasting problems with those injuries. Their skulls are so thick. Yeah, I'm sure they're pretty superficial, whatever kind of injuries he gave her with

this knife. They're very robust animals. This would be the last time he would see the bear, but it would be much more before his ordeal was over. So he stands up and he looks around. He's anticipating another attack from the bear. And as he looks around, he realizes that something's wrong with his vision and that he could see down just fine, but he's having a hard time seeing straight out. And then as he's looking down on the ground, he sees his nose and his upper lip and mustache laying there. And it dawns on the good. He's like missing a good section of his face and that there's blood like covering his eyes and stuff.

He sees his mustache? Yeah. What I picture is those glasses that have a nose and a mustache. He's mustache on him. The groucho marks. He just sees that on the ground laying there. Like his whole upper lip got ripped off and his mustache was still attached to it. Like his nose and his mustache and his upper lip. That's so weird. Yeah.

So pretty weird thing to look down and see. But he's having a really hard time seeing. So he's like feeling his way around the forest and still anticipating another attack. And he managed to climb up the mountain to a higher spot and he tucks himself down in between some logs. And he actually says a prayer asking for help. and then he starts yelling as loud as he could, hoping that someone else is going to hear him,

maybe someone from his hunting party or someone else on the mountain. And he said that the yelling was particularly hard because his mouth was filling up with blood while he opened it, and he'd have to spit it out and then yell again. So he's in some trouble. Yeah, that's not ideal. It's not ideal. There's a couple who's on the mountain that actually...

He's got God on his side. He does, yeah. It's a good move. This is a religious dude, and he does contribute. some of his eventual escape to God. And, you know, we're not going to... Sure. We're not going to poo that because you never know.

All right. So a couple that's on the mountain hears his screams. They call for help. And then his friends from his hunting party actually start looking for him too. And about an hour after the malling, his brother-in-law, George Neal, finds the attack site. And he actually stumbles on the nose and the mustache. And he sees them on the ground and he thinks, uh-oh, this is going to be really bad. Like I just found

The guy's name again Lee He's like Oh that looks like Lee's mustache He's like I know that mustache It's probably a good thing He did see that

Because like he wouldn't have recognized Lee without his mustache probably Yeah Hey I'm looking for my friend Lee Have you seen him But you got to pick up your mustache And like put it in your pocket or something right You take your mustache

That's exactly what happens He picks it up And then he finds Lee And he actually gives it to Lee and Lee stuffs it like the nose and the mustache and the lip into his pocket. And that's going to come into play later. So he tells Lee like hang on to these and Lee hangs on while they're getting off the mountain. George takes his shirt off.

I got you nose. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's the one time you can do that joke and have it be really funny. Anyway, he wraps his shirt around Lee because Lee is getting really cold and going through some shock and blood loss. and George and some others get Lee down the mountain, and it takes about seven hours from the time of the attack for him to arrive at a hospital in Riverton, Wyoming, where he's stabilized.

Then an emergency helicopter flies him to Swedish Medical Center in Englewood, Colorado, where he's going to get some really specialized medical care, especially plastic surgery. So, enter two of our other heroes in this story. Dr. Benson Pula Koltiel and Dr. Lili Daniali, They're married plastic surgeons that had just started their practice at Swedish Medical Center, and they're going to be spearheading a lot of his recovery and his reconstruction.

And the first step that they had to do was cleaning large amounts of debris and dirt out of the face injuries. So he had like the bear had smushed him all over the ground, so he had lots of dirt. Adds a point to the ouchy scale. Yeah, Jeff. Yeah, whenever there's sand or dirt, that's one of Jeff's big things. Jeff and Anakin. Anakin, too. Skywalker.

Yeah, why, what does that have to do with that? He hates sand. Why does he hate sand? You don't know if he hates sand? It's coarse and rough and gets everywhere. When do they talk about that? I don't remember. Wes, come on, man.

You can't be serious right now. That's like the biggest Star Wars mean. Yeah, Anakin hates sand. I guess that's all you really mean. He hates sand more than hot lava, I think. So these two doctors, actually, they did an interview with CNN, and they talked a little bit about what was wrong with Lee after this attack. They said he had bites and lacerations all over his body.

The bear grabbed his face, bit it, and ripped it off. It was a big bite. Almost every cranio-facial bone was injured. His eye sockets were torn up. Part of his jaw was broken. The open wound on his face was contaminated with dirt and twigs. And they actually ended up placing him in a medically induced coma while they went to work on a lot of these different surgeries.

And he was in this coma for a month while they were working on him, which is crazy to me. Whoa, yeah, that's so long. They use skin and bone grafts from his leg to repair his mangled face. They also put some metal plates in there to help reconstruct some of the contours. They took part of his scalp and cartilage from his ribs and his ears to rebuild his upper lip and his mustache. And they also did their best to repair his wrist and some of the other broken bones. He would go through over a dozen surgeries while he's in the coma.

And then during this time, they also reattached his nose to his arm and connected. to a radial artery in his arm to keep it alive. So they use some surgical leeches to, like, get the blood flowing. Like, I think they put, like, leeches on the nose to, like, pull blood into it. Like, the animal? Yeah, leeches, like, surgical leeches. And then, like, once blood was flowing. Like, what's a surgical leech compared to just a leech?

They're just, like, sterilized, clean leeches that they use. Wow. What? Yeah. Is that normal? I think it's somewhat common reconstruction things where they're trying to get like something reanimated. Apparently like one of his nostrils had died, but the other one was still alive.

And it was still producing mucus and growing hair and stuff while it was on his arm. I don't know. What? Yeah. I didn't realize that the nose. He's in his pocket forever too. Yeah. I didn't like for me, I didn't realize the nose was such a self-regulating part of your body.

Like I didn't know. I thought it was just like cartilage. Anyway. So his like his nose is on his arm. And in one of the interviews I saw with him, they were like, can we see it? And he pulls his shirt back and he's got a nose right by his wrist. Yeah. What?

I thought it was like a temporary thing. No, he had it there for like three years. It's crazy. What? Yeah. Like three years. Did he ever get it back on his face? We're going to talk about that.

But just think about all the jokes you could do. Like you could go into like a dinner and be like, oh, this smells so good and just put your arm over the food. You know? I don't know. I guess I'll have to wait. But I would have, I would have just refused to leave until they put my nose back on my face. There was so much that they had to do with his face to like get his face ready for his nose to be back. That that took years for them. Like every interview I saw with him, he had a tracheotomy tube that he was speaking through.

And then he had a hole in the middle of his face that had a little plastic button where his nose would be. And then he's just got like a hole there. And it was pretty impressive that all of that had been ripped off And they were creating a platform for like his nose to put back on But it takes time anyway In one of the interviews I saw he had his mustache back It looked great But it took them years to reattach the nose

But according to a GoFundMe that I found for him That had been set up It looks like they did reattach it But there's still a decent amount of work That needs to be done for like shaping and everything There was a point where I guess it was too big and he was having a hard time eating. And so they had to cut his mouth open wider so that he could eat stuff.

It just sounds like truly the worst possible recovery. Just piecing your face back together just sounds awful. But I was really impressed by all the interviews I saw with him. He just is taking everything with the greatest amount of grace and just kind of being like, you know, I messed up and the doctors have taken such great care of me. He sees these doctors as practically part of his family. And he says that the way they treated him and the way the whole hospital staff treated him just was like above and beyond. And he just was so tickled like how nice they were to him and how good of care they gave him.

I feel like if you pick your nose and eat your boogers and your nose is on your arm, then you just really like the taste of boogers. Yeah. Because like your nose is so close to your mouth that sometimes it's just like right there. you know. Yeah, it's like, I don't like to taste of my boogers, but it's so, it's so close. My tongue's long enough, I can just stick my tongue right up there. Just blow them right onto your tongue. Yeah, that's a good point.

You really got to work for it. I really recommend, like, checking out some of the photos on his GoFundMe or elsewhere because it's kind of interesting to see the process as they, like, reconstructed his face. And honestly, this dude is really upbeat about the whole thing. I was very impressed. Some of the hardest thing for them, and this is very common in our American attack stories, was navigating the insanely expensive U.S. healthcare system. And he wasn't able to work the same way that he was after the attack

just because he was like a repair man and it just messed him up so badly. And then he actually lost another job in 2020 when the place he was working got shut down. So it's been really financially tough for them. So his GoFundMe is still active. It's called Lee's Grizzly Attack Insurance Fund. I'd like to invite everyone just to go on there. You can see some of the videos and photos. And then if you feel like it, go ahead and donate to this guy because he needs a new face.

And that's kind of a hard hand to get dealt. Yeah. All right. So a quick disclaimer, a lot of the articles I read had some conflicting information about his recovery process, especially when it comes to like where the different skin and bone grafts came from. I tried to use information from the best sources. But just so you guys know, there's a lot of conflicting information out there. This summer, serve up the cookout classics, craft mayo and dressing.

Toss green salads with delicious ranch dressing or zesty Italian. Serve smooth, craveably creamy potato salads with mayo. We all know it's not a cookout without craft. So you guys got any questions about them? The reason this one stuck with me was the nose on the arm. I know we've talked about we've had people before that there was someone that had a stomach thing where they put. It's like his finger on his stomach or something or his hand. But the nose on the arm was...

I can't believe a nose can stay alive on your arm for three years. Like producing mucus. I know. It's crazy. I don't totally understand it. One of his nostrils died, but the other one stayed alive. And it was like still growing hair and stuff. Nick Cage and John Travolta can switch faces.

I guess anything's possible. Yeah. And seamlessly, you know? Yeah. Like enough that he slept with his wife. I know. She didn't even notice a different. You'd think there'd be other things.

What was that movie called again, Jeff? Uh, man. I think it's called the old, they say it. The faces. Yeah, the old face switcher-ruth. Yeah, they're trading, trading faces. That's the, that's got to be. Oh, no, you got to keep your face.

You got the best face of the family. That's got to be the movie where they say the title of the movie the most in it. They say face off. Yeah. I don't think they say it a ton, but it's so obvious. It's just like, face off? Anyway, all right, well, if you guys don't have questions, let's get into outchies. I'm going to go ahead and give Lee eight outchies.

Because to me, it wasn't a ton of like broken bones or ruptured organs. Like to me, he didn't like have limbs completely chewed off or anything. Your face being ripped off is really hard. Oh, and I forgot to mention he did have a fair amount of psychological trauma. He had to go through therapy and stuff. to deal with the PTSD. So, you know, I'm going to bump it up to nine, actually. I'm going to say nine outchies.

Losing your face is pretty rough, and his recovery just seems like it's been hell. So I'm going to say nine. I'm going to give it a 10. Wow. Okay. Like having your nose on your arm for three years. Yeah, that is rough. And then, like, there's a couple that I think are worse still, but this one's right up there.

Like, if someone argued to me that this was the worst one, I'd be like, yeah, well, you got some good points. Yeah. Like, he's still not, like, anywhere near recovered. I don't know. The last update I could find was from 2020, so I'm curious how he's doing now. But, yeah, it does seem like he has a long road ahead of him still. I'm going to go with an eight. Okay.

And just because it seems like he was unconscious for the worst parts, for the initial attack, it seemed like he wasn't even awake when his face was getting the worst of it. Am I right? Sliding down the hill? Yeah, he was unconscious for that. Yeah. Plus, for a full month, he was unconscious during the initial recovery phase. That's true.

Which would be pretty nice. I mean, obviously, this is like, I wouldn't. A large a coma. Yeah. A large a coma, as Jeff would say. A coma. As Jeff and the Super Mario brothers would say. Oh, man.

But, I mean, obviously, I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy. Yeah. You bring up some good points, though. The coma is a really good point. I might go with you. I might downgrade to an eight. Yeah. But the dirt got in there.

So you got to... I will... Yeah. I will say like twigs. Generally, when we have grizzly bear attack survivors, they talk a lot about pain and the crushing bones and all of that. He never really brought that up. Like, in all the interviews I watched, he never talked too much about being in a ton of pain.

I think his, like, adrenaline was pumping so hard when he came back to that it just wasn't quite as bad. but I do think his recovery process has been just miserable and so prolonged. It's like someone ever hands me multiple parts of my, prominent parts of my face. Yeah. Like, I think that's a 10. Okay.

I'll stick, I don't know. You guys keep swaying me each way. Just, yeah, right in the middle. Like, if I have to stick my nose in my mustache in my pocket. In your own pocket. Yeah. Did he ever talk about how bad the grizzly bear smelled? He didn't.

And that's probably because his nose got ripped off. Oh, man, maybe I'll bump it down. Remember how this makes, it reminds me again of that movie, well, he lost his nose. Almost heroes where the grizzly bear attacks and the ear is left. And they're like trying to talk into the ear to figure out what the guy is. Yeah. There are reservoir dogs. Does he do that joke?

Yeah. Yeah, does he? Probably, I don't know. I think so. A little more mean-spirited in that movie again. Yeah. Anyway, quick, just like a quick reminder for. for all you people who might be recreating in grizzly bear habitat next year,

carry a deterrent, go in groups, even if you're hunting, even if you're stalking around. Just make sure you're not completely on your own. It just isn't worth it. These things happen. And hunters, especially bow hunters that are being especially quiet, they get attacked at a much higher level than just about anyone else because they are just slinking around in the woods. They're killing animals that are a big attractant to bears.

You just got to be really careful. you need to make sure you have a way of stopping these things when they happen. And bear spray works great. And you don't have to kill the bear then, too. So, yeah. I was laughing doing that because I was just thinking of what type of vanity license plate I'd get if I was hit. What would it be? No nose.

Yeah. I know. All right. Arm nose. Yeah. That fits. I just like all the, you could really do a lot of funny jokes about smelling things and sticking your arm out and doing it. Okay, well, that's it for the story.

Lee, if you're out there, hope you get a quick, not a quick, it's obviously not a quick recovery, but I hope your recovery is full, and I hope you're able to pay for it. Well, that's it. And, you know, because this is a special episode, end of the year episode,

we're not going to do our normal categories. We're going to do some fun end of the year categories, which Jeff is going to lead us through. Woo! Not even categories. We're going straight awards. Awards. All right.

Yeah. Here we go. What was your favorite award show moment this year with? It was Will Smith slapping Chris Rock. That's probably my favorite award show moment ever. Was that this year? Yeah. Yeah, I went to Dave Chappelle.

Oh, wait, no, never mind. I did go to Dave Chappelle, but Chris Rock wasn't there. He went to the next show, and I just heard his joke online. Probably the best thing ever happened to him. Did you guys see in the news that, like, in L.A., Dave Chappelle? got tackled by a random person who like snuck into the show. Yeah. And like they had the weirdest weapon ever to sneak in.

It was like a gun. He had a gun on him. But then the gun was actually a knife, which is like the hardest way to sneak a knife in. Why would you camouflage your knife as a gun? I guess in America they'll just like take a gun. Oh, you just got a gun? Bring it on him. But anyways, after he tackled Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock went up and was like, was that

Is that Will Smith? That's pretty funny. All right. Two our awards. So we're starting off with a big one. This is like one of the biggest awards I've given that. All right. Start with a bang.

Biggest ouchy of the year. Ooh, okay. I'll start us off. All right. So my first choice is Joanne. And I did some subscriber episodes just to let you guys know. But she went skydiving and her parachute. chute malfunctioned and she free fell and landed on a fire ant hill and died, but then the fire ants

kept her cardiovascular system going and she was able to be brought back to life way afterwards. Yeah, that biting her, like kept her heart pumping. Like, yeah, she like fell, free fell onto ground and then got bit by a ton of fire ants. And I have it tied with coyote Peterson getting stung. Yeah, it's like a excisionary wasp. That's a good pick. Mike, you want to go next? Yeah, so if I have this right, I'm going with the camel that bit the guy's head off.

Okay. But I remember there was some questions as to whether, like, that was an exaggeration or exactly how that happened. So I have a backup if there's any doubt cast on those. I don't know if there's any doubt, but I think go ahead and give us her backup. Well, I was going to do in the Piranha episode, there was a bus that. got submerged completely in water. And I know that these people most likely drown before getting eaten by piranha. But my biggest fear is like getting trapped somewhere under water and drowning.

And if you weren't quite dead already, there's some prana there eating you. So I thought that might be my worst, my personal biggest ouchy. All right. Mine was Julie Helgeson from our Night of the Grizzlies part one. she was the first victim that was killed at Granite Park Chalet and she was the one that she's the one that got eaten quite a bit and then left out there for hours and then they brought her back to the chalet and she died that night but she was alive for a while and she really got chewed up so to me that's getting eaten by a grizzly bear is the worst way to go so she was my

number one I'm gonna say Wes is wins the award because not that we need to like say which one wins every time, but Joanne skydived the next year. Yeah, it's worse than mine. Right. All right. Okay. Pop Culture Animal of the Year. So if you guys want to cheat, you can use just like one from one of our episodes we've done,

but I chose one from a movie that came out this year. All right. And I'll just go. Mine's Tolkien. Is that what it? Tolcun. Oh, the whale for the avatar. The whale and avatar with the like half missing fit.

Nice. All right. He messed. Some people up. That's a good one. I like that whale. The little double eye action is cool. So mine's also a whale, but it's a sperm whale monstero from the three separate Pinocchio

movies that came out this year, which is astounding to me. So I felt like sperm whales had a pretty big pop culture year. Did you watch the Guillermo one? I didn't watch any of them. It's beautiful. The Guillermo one's like really, really pretty. I'll give it. I'll give it to watch.

I'm a big stop motion fan, though. Big stop motion guy over here. Do you see Ben Wyatt's on Parks and Rec, the stop motion? Oh, yeah. I remember that. It was pretty good. You got some great Parks and Rec recall, by the way. I love Parks and Recall.

Mine is a bit of a stretch because I was having a hard time thinking of one, but I'm picking all of the dragons from House of the Dragon. I know they're fantasy animals. Okay. But for me, Game of Thrones ended on such a sour note with the last. season being so bad. And House of the Dragon seemed like such a nice return to that world. And it was really immersive. And I really like the Targaryen storyline and all the dragons. And I just really, it was fun for me to be immersed in that world again and like actually

care about characters and like be having fun. So. Whose dragon would you choose if you had to choose one? That's a good question. Probably, um, Reneiras. Just like a nice medium sized cool looking Dragon. Damans was like a little bit too, like strung out. Like it was too skinny. And then that really big one was too big. So I don't know.

Oh no, that's the one I'm talking about. Anyway. Yeah, I get all their names confused. Anytime there's a dragon scene. Shout out the listener who asked us our favorite dragon. I didn't save your question, but shout out. There you go. There's your answer.

All right. Okay. The award for Animal News Story of the Year. Okay, mine was an easy slam dunk. It was Clara Jessup, the girl that we interviewed who got bit by a rattlesnake. That was in one of our news episodes. It was a news item. And the fact that she got bit by a rattlesnake and stuff that we said on the podcast helped in some way with her recovery was like such a huge win for us, I think.

Yeah, for sure. Just like such a neat outcome of the podcast. So without a doubt, for me, that was my favorite news piece of the year. Mine is, it involves two different animals, but the circumstances were really similar in ways I found really interesting. So the first half of the equation was Hank the Tank in Tahoe, right? Yeah. And then the other one was Freya, the Walriss, over in Norway, who both kind of had garnered this small, like, local following. It almost became, I mean, for all intents and purposes, it was a worldwide celebrity in many ways.

And unfortunately, they both had to be euthanized. I don't think Hank was euthanized, was he? Did he not get put down? They found out it was like seven different bears. They found out it was different bears so they didn't kill him. They killed a bear because of that, though, right? I can't remember, but I don't think they decided they couldn't kill a baby because. Either way, I think there's just some really interesting similarities and just how we got to be cognizant

and how we treat our local. I think P-22 is another good example of that, like a celebrity animal that ultimately. had to be euthanized. I'm going with the Wyoming wrestlers. That's a good one. I just think, like, the one kid, I think his name was Caleb that went back and, like, fought the bear off his friend

and then, like, took the beating from the bear after that. It's just, like, he's in college. Like, that's the ultimate party story, bragging rights. Like, he's going to be the man for, like, two years, you know? It's crazy that a human won in a bear fight. He didn't win. The real takeaway from that.

He did not win. So, quick correction on mine. California's rogue black bear Hank the tank still alive and rampaging around town. That's what Newsweek is reporting. Nice. That boy, Hank. Oh, really quick. When you say Correction Corner, I thought of something that I need to slip in there real quick.

Is that all right? Slip on in. First of all, we said something in our coyote episode a while ago about how I said, that coy wolves weren't that common. And a coyote researcher actually wrote us and said they are quite common out east. And the coyote wolf hybrids are much more common than I thought. So I was wrong about that. And then this isn't so much a correction as an addition to that same story.

There was recently an article written about those coyotes that killed that girl out in Canada at the singer Taylor. I forget her last name. But she was killed by coyotes while she was in that little park and like a national park or something and they did a study on those coyotes and found that they were actually killing a lot of moose like a much higher than average number of ungulates that those coyotes were killing and because they had gotten so good at killing large animals they think that they just saw her as a better prey option than a typical coyote would and that was a really big

contributing factor in that whole attack so that was something i wanted to bring up i don't know if coyotes could take on a moose it's not that's definitely not common prey for them but um in that area they They learn how to do it. Yep, they be learning. Flowing ad budget on metrics that look great, till the CFO sees them, that's bullspend. And marketers are calling it out in Dashboard Confessions. I remember telling my boss, it'll be good for the brand when leads were slow.

Yeah, it wasn't. Cut the bullspend. LinkedIn lets you target by company, job title, and more. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a $250 credit. I go to LinkedIn.com slash campaign, terms of conditions apply. My correction corner, I just want to get this out because I've been thinking about it really a lot. A listener wrote in and asked us what songs from our childhood were our favorite.

And I gave a pretty weak answer, just songs from like the 1960s. And I really should have said Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice. Really? You listen to it? Can you sing it? Dude, are you kidding me? The whole point of that song was for like dorky little white five-year-olds to be able. to rap along to. You remember when he did the song in the second Ninja Turtles movie?

Go Ninja, go ninja. That's a six song. Like, everyone says he's a one-hit wonder. No, it's just simply not true. Two-hit. Yeah. Oh, I did, I remembered one other thing, too. In the kangaroo episode, I said embryonic instead of embryonic diapause.

Oh, yeah. That was a blunder. Yeah. That was bad. I have one, too, but I'm going to do it in listener. All right. Sounds good. Okay, so I thought of my story, too, real quick.

The elephant that killed a lady and then went to her funeral. That's a good one. The funeral got stampeded by elephants. Who knows if it's the same one. And also, I want to shout out the first person to be killed by a kangaroo in like 70 years or something. Longer than that since like the 30s. Yeah. 36, I think, was the last one.

So congrats to that kangaroo. Good job. Yeah. Just kidding. It's dead. That kangaroo is dead. Yeah, well. Movie of the year.

Win out a champion. Movie of the Year. Mike, you want to go first this time? Yeah, so mine is the Northman. I love that movie. I still think about it a lot. I also want to just give a quick shout out to the movie Mad God. I don't know if you guys have heard of it. I've been seen you and I've heard of it. Phil Tippett, the visual effects guy who did like Jurassic Park, Star Wars, all like the crazy, awesome 70s and 80s visual effects that we all remember in love. But it was like a 30-year labor of love, and it was crazy. I don't know if I could say like everyone needs to go out and see it because like I don't think it's for really almost anybody

Not totally approachable But for the people that will like that kind of thing, you'll love it All right My number one pick was the movie Barbarian I tried to think of a different one, but honestly like I love a horror movie that makes me really Get Invested And that one just did it in spades like it really was a twisty-turny fun ride for me I just really enjoyed it

I watched it twice. Just loved that movie. And then I had a couple runners up. I had top. Let me give mine. And then just, I don't want you to take mine. All right. I'm going Avatar 2.

Okay. The Way of Water. I love a movie that feels different than anything I've ever seen. And like, I was ready for, like, I got really tired of 3D, but I was kind of ready to see another 3D movie. Yeah. And then I just thought this was by far the best 3D movie I've ever. ever seen and like it worked perfectly with it so like that experience was just so cool to me plus

all those arrows getting shot through cockpit windshields you know they like i could watch that all day killing scenes yeah there were the worst scenes like the fighting scenes in that movie were amazing i just wish they'd cut an hour of fat out of it is a lot of movie yeah you needed it though yeah i don't know about that uh my runners up were top gun maverick which i just had the best time watching in that movie. I think Tom Cruise is like the movie star of our generation and he's got some skeletons, but man, the dude loves making movies. Or the artist from the whatever.

Yeah. And then my other run-up was the Northman, which Mike also mentioned. Love to see a Robert Eckers movie. He just continues to make movies that make me feel. Shout out the new Batman, too. Yeah, that was a great movie too. All right. Okay, show of the year.

I'll start. I'm going sevens. I freaking love pick. Oh, I didn't think about that one. That's such a good pick. Yeah. Poned. Yeah, you are.

I thought you were going to pick Severance, and I was actually going to pick it, but I decided to pick a different one that was right up there for me, which was season two of White Lotus. I just, I watched both seasons this year. I thought it's severance. Yeah. I watched both seasons this year and just loved it. It was like so immersed in that whole world.

And I'm just kind of a big Mike White fan. He's been on Amazing. Amazing Race and Survivor. I just really liked them on television grace. Yeah. And it's cool of rock. So that's my pick. I'm going with Arcane.

I don't know if you guys have seen that. I'm not into League of Legends. In fact, I'm like actively anti League of Legends. I hate that game. So I went in with just, and maybe this is why I liked it so much. I just went in with the lowest expectations, but it's the best show I've seen in many, many years. I loved it. I might watch it.

Man, everything about it's so good. I think you'll really like it. Okay. Favorite new animal we covered this year. Mike, why don't you start us? Yeah, I'm going to go with bison. This one snuck up on me. I didn't know I felt this way until I was like looking through our back catalog.

And I was still somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I was still kind of irked that our listeners voted for bison to go so far in our March Madness animal bracket. But like the more it kind of like stuck in my brain. I was like, I don't know. Bison are they're pretty cool actually. And it just kept going. That bison we saw in Yellowstone with the fall colors was so cool. Yeah. Plus, what is it?

The bison, bison, bison. What's that name called? Yeah. That's their Latin. Scientific name. That's a huge part of it. Yeah, that's plains bison. Bison.

Bison. Bison. I was actually going to pick bison as well, but they've also, like, working in Yellowstone, I've had to wait so long in so many bison jams. They're, like, constantly a thorn in my side that I had a hard. type picking them. And honestly, like an animal that we did this year that I ranked a lot higher than them for a good reason is a tiger shark. So our first tiger shark story was this year. They're like a top three shark for me. Well, top five at least. So I really want to see one in the wild. I think

they're such a cool animal. So I picked tiger shark. Bison jam sounds disgusting. Yeah. Tiger sharks are cool animal because it's like two of the coolest animals combined. That's true. That's yeah. I chose koala off our subscriber episode. Unbelievable. It's my 10 favorite animal probably should bump it up a few. Yeah. I feel like you bring up koalas more than any other animal. Like that should be your top three favorite animal.

I've been really high on pandas lately. All right. Well, those are all good answers. You like my answer, huh? Yeah, sure. No. Okay. So for our Instagram.

category, Instagram moment, your hypothetical best Instagram moment that could have been taken in any of our stories. So if you could have a photo from any of our stories, what photo would you want? I'll start just to give you guys a better idea. I just loved in the Polar Bear episode. You picked my... Spald Bard. Svald.

Where he's got the guy's head in his mouth and is standing all the way up. That'd be such a sweet. Oh, yeah. First bumble picture, Instagram picture. It's like which one are you? You had the exact same moment? I had the exact same moment. When Muvik sees his friend Sebastian being lifted up by the polar bear in Svalbard.

To me, that was just like burned into my brain. He comes out of the tent. He like knows his friends being attacked by a bear and the bear like stands because they're massive. When you see a polar bear stand up, it's like eight or nine feet or even higher. and the fact that it lifted him all the way up in his mouth, that's just unbeatable. So that's what I picked. If that happened to me and you got the gun before you got your phone to take a picture,

I'd be so mad at you the rest of my life. Like when I go over to rescue you're like, did you get a photo? Did you get a photo? Get it from over there where you could see my face. Yeah, some backlighting. I want a picture of a young Jeff sitting at an elementary school. assembly watching Muscleman rip phone books in a half.

Dude, he freaking made, he ripped the phone book in half and shot it in the basket in half court. It's the most incredible thing I've ever seen. And some listeners wrote in and said like the same things happened at their elementary school.

Like they saw the muscle dudes come in and rip phone books. The hardest I've ever laughed on the podcast was when just thinking about that happening in an elementary school. Someone wrote in two and said that they had a yo-yo guy come to their high school, their elementary school, which I had too, like the guys been selling yo-yo's. That hit a little bit different if it were a high school assembly.

That's got to be at the very top of the list of like the most impressive stupid skills is to be able to make a half-court shot with a ripped phone book. It's the most amazing. Amazing thing, but why? Half of the book, though, like half of the half of the book. Right. Because, like, the pages were all falling out as it went in. So it's almost like those, like, pictures where you see the ball's flight and there's

like snap shots of it going in. You saw, like, the entire path of the phone book, like, going into the basket. I got to wonder what his percentage is like. Like, I wonder how many of those he's missing and, like, on days that he makes it if, like, his buddies aren't just like, yeah, dude, fuck yeah, good job. He gets paid an extra $50. Like, it didn't matter if he missed it, but he freaking drained it. Yeah, that's amazing.

So good. It's a great choice. Let's give that one, didn't. Well, me and Wes both have that the same one. But fact of the year. Mike, you want to start us off? Yeah, so this is recent. You're going to pick mine again.

It's the kangaroo, right, Wes? It's the kangaroo, right, Wes? It's got to be the little jelly bean kangaroo climbing up. Why did you do that? When I did it in the koala one first. What? You didn't give nearly the amount of detail. You just, like, said they were bored tiny and they moved on to the next fact.

You did give the jelly bean detail. I'll give you that. I'm combining it with koalas. Sure. Whatever keeps this podcast going for another year. I really dug into the kangaroo reproduction stuff. Yeah, that was it for me, too. That was, like, learning more and more about that.

And it wasn't just the jelly bean thing. it was like the fact that their nipple swells in their mouth and they can't detach and that the like mom produces two different kinds of milk well the coolest thing is that the they climb they have like developed enough arms that they climb up into the pouch that's the craziest thing to me that was really just wild to picture we didn't go over any of that in the koala thing i wonder if the koalas climb into the pouch yeah i don't know question but yeah that was it for me too you don't have any backups i no i picked the kangaroo one i i have three My first one's just how big boars can get.

That was incredible to me. And that picture you found on our, and put on our Instagram, Wes, is like as big as this freaking huge truck. Yeah, they're massive. How big can they get?

It's like as big as a freaking elephant. They can be like, yeah, they can be like six or seven hundred pounds. It wasn't as big as an elephant. This is big as a small bus. Yeah. I have the kangaroos double leg kick

and then just balance on their tails. Oh, yeah. You see that in videos, but I never quite put it together until I, like, heard that fact that they can just, like, stand on their tails and kick you. Yeah.

And then just what Mike said already, but that camels can rip your head off. Yeah. Yeah. Jeez. Yeah. That was shocking. When you told that story, that was legitimately shocking.

There's been a few animals, for me, like cassowaries, camels, kangaroos, where the more you dig into their facts, the more you're just kind of like, this is insane. There's so much going on with this animal that I had no idea about.

And I just, those are, like, some of the most fun episodes for me because it's just really fun to learn all that stuff and then, like, be able to share it. Yeah, and that's why the subscriber episodes are fun sometimes too, because it's a lot of times less about the attack and more just, like, saying crazy things about a random animal. Yeah.

Yeah. Totally. All right. So animal video of the year. I'll start us off. I got the Hogle Zoo giraffe birth. Okay. Like, just that drafts are so tall and they just, like, spit their babies out onto the ground.

Yeah. Yeah. Like, that was crazy to me. This was kind of a late category that Jeff gave us. Like, you texted us a half hour before recording. So I picked one that was just fresh in my mind for some reason. It was the woman who was braced. breastfeeding her kid and a bald eagle attacked her pet goose and she ran out to scare the bald

eagle off of her goose while she was breastfeeding and there's a video of it and it was just a lot of stuff happening all at once so that's what I picked. Yeah, I know why you picked that one less. You're a freakazoid. You're a real perv. So this is a bad answer and I acknowledge that. But there's a guy who's playing the new Dark Souls game, Eldon Ring. People are going to get mad at about what I just said, but I don't care. He got attacked by a wasp while he was fighting a boss. And like these games, you got to be like fully on a Twitch stream. Yeah, on a Twitch stream. You got to be like fully locked in paying attention. Any like millisecond of lapsing in concentration, you die. But there's like a was like a was flying around his head and he was freaking out. But he killed the boss and then ran away and

didn't get stung. So that's, there you go. All right. I think that was a, it would have been good if he got stunned. Moist Critical. Yeah, I wish he got stung. Yeah. wishing you could be there live for the big game soaking up the atmosphere of the crowd but too often life gets busy or the price holds you back Priceline is here to help you make it happen with millions of deals on flights

hotels and rental cars you can go see the game live don't just dream about the trip book it with Price Line download the Priceline app or visitpriceline.com actual prices may vary limited time offer. All right. Conservation awards of the year.

Yeah, so more than like an award, well, it's just, it's like one big conservation success story that I wanted to talk about. So there's actually like quite a few great things that happen in conservation this year. But one that I wanted to bring up was in COP15, which just happened. That's like the UN's annual biodiversity meeting. They just had it in Montreal. But it's kind of where they talk about what's going on with biodiversity around the world, some of the risks, some of the things that are happening. I guess during that meeting multiple

times, they brought up the fact that indigenous lands currently make up about 20% of the Earth's territory, and that indigenous peoples are currently protecting about 80% of the world's remaining biodiversity. So more and more people are realizing that indigenous people have been practicing sustainability for centuries, and that there's some of the most important voices when it comes to like talking about conservation, protecting wildlife and biodiversity. And I think that's something that's really important when it comes to conservation, and it's something that people are starting to realize more and more that we really need to involve indigenous voices when it comes to those decisions and conversations and stuff.

So that is something that's happening more, and I think it's going to really change a lot of how conservation it's done, which is great. Awesome. Sweet. Yeah. All right. And last award. We're just going to give our animal of the year.

So you want to explain this a little bit? You had it in parentheses what this means. So pretty much just like, we're each going to choose an animal of the year for our own personal year. And I said like the animal that climbed the highest in your personal rankings. Okay. But I'm allowing anything here. Oh, all right. Well, I'm going to go with the one that climbed the highest.

Yeah. So for me, too, mine that climbed the highest and that just like, I don't really think about a ton by just decided I love is giraffes. Okay. And they filled one of my top 20 spots, and I don't have many of those left, but they're my 16th favorite animal. I just think they're so cool. So giraffes are the animal of the year for me.

That was a contender for a fact of the year that they use their heads like wrecking balls when they're fighting. Also, I couldn't think of what their horns are. Oh, the osicones? Ossicons. That they're like date back to dinosaurs or something? Yeah. Dude, giraffes are sweet.

Yeah, they are sweet. Mike, you want to go next? Yeah. So I feel like the animal that I thought about the most, oddly. Maybe not oddly. It was coyotes. We talked a lot. I mean, it was basically once a month.

Yeah, we talked about Coyote Peterson, of course. But basically once a month, we gathered up a bunch of Coyotes B. Wylan news stories. Yeah, yeah. So they're just kind of, and I started reading that coyote. Coyote America. Yeah. Kara made us some cool coyote art.

Yeah. I was just happy to learn that there's an animal out there that's thriving despite interference from humankind. And coyotes seem to really be. So why didn't you choose goose? Goose. Geese. Why didn't I choose goose?

Goose. So you could question. Top Gun Maverick, you got them thriving. I really like that answer, Mike. In Yellowstone, I, and I got to see a lot of coyotes. And it was always kind of, like, I always just got really happy when I saw a coyote. They just are such a neat little animal that has just figured out such a cool niche.

And I just really like them. They can kill a moose. Yeah, they can. It's probably mostly calves that they were killing, but still. All right. So I, initially I was just using our main episodes, but I now understand the fallacy in that. And when it was just main episodes, I was going to say camels. Because to me, like, I look at it.

camels completely differently after that episode than I did beforehand. And they really climbed the ranks for me. But I'm actually going to say giant ant eaters. Nice. In Brazil, I saw a number of giant ant eaters. I had this really cool up close encounter with one with a baby on its back, feeding right in front of me. And I just think they're such a cool looking animal.

They're so beautiful. They're impressively defensive. Like they can ward off a jaguar. They can kill a person. I had a really big giant ant eater year. So that's going to be my pick for animal of the year as giant ant eaters. My guess is for you guys was kangaroo for Mike and Jaguar for Wes. Okay.

I did consider kangaroo pretty heavily. All right. So on that note, that's it for awards. All right. Hey, great. Play some music, Mike. I wish I could give you both awards for being the best co-hosts of Tooth and Claw. The best podcaster of 2020.

Oh, thanks, Jack. That's the best editor. producer. Editor. And then let's go, let's do some listener questions too real quick. I did one that, something I haven't done before where I'd said, we're not going to reuse these. This is just for today's end of the year episode.

And I'm going to read a bunch of them and just kind of go quick. Type it. All right. So first is from me and West's brother's side grids. And why don't dad's armpits? Our dad doesn't sweat much. Just not a big sweat. At all, really.

He said he only wore deodorant once. Once in his life. Like, all day, and he's like, this sucks and never wore it again. He's just not a sweaty or a hairy guy, so he just doesn't really ever smell. Is it pigs that don't sweat? There's probably a bunch of animals, but. Yeah, and that's why they roll in the mud. There you go.

He does that. He's calling our dad a pig. I'm just putting two and two together. It's a hypothesis is all. Okay. This person, Circa del Sola. Cirque du Soleil. Cirque de Soleil.

Maybe? Oh, Soleil. Cirque de Soleil. Got it. So, fuck, marry, kill, Frodo, Sam, or Aragon. Aragon's a dragon. Ergorn? There's a...

You guys trip me up now with it. You can't blame us. I know, but I'm like overthinking it now. Okay, yeah. That's our bad. I'm effing Aragorn. I'm marrying Sam. I'm killing Frodo.

I don't know. I think I want to marry Aragorn. Because he's king and that looked pretty, that was a sick waiting. Yeah. But he's just always going to be like doing kingly stuff. Sam's just going to be a fun time the rest of your life. You married Sam? No way.

Yeah, I'm marrying Sam. He's such a little busy body. I want to live in the Shire. He's just going to be out in the garden doing his thing. Now that Frodo's gone, he's just going to be crying all the time and so like attached to you. Sam's dying for sure. Sam. I'm, and I'll F. Mary.

I got married on the mind. Frodo. Yeah, no, I'm marrying Aragorn. I'm killing Sam. Fing the hell out of Frodo. Okay. Okay, Jigolo Thomas. Is it really pronounced Jaguar?

Or were you just messing with us during the Jaguar episode? It's just a local dialect. I've always said Jaguar, but it's Jaguar. Jaguar. Jaguar. I, you know what? I've kind of have that problem as well, and I'm working on saying Jaguar, especially now that I'm doing Jaguar guiding.

I'm trying a little bit harder, but you guys, it's not that different. You know what we're saying. I play Mike for this one. What? You correct me on milk and pillow, but you don't come to help me out with Jaguar? You say milk? I used to say milk, but then Mike was like, I got mad. Milk sounds so stupid, and milk is like one of my favorites.

favorite words and then I was like oh I didn't even know I was saying any wrong milk is one of your favorite words such a weird favorite word I said to me I said that I could see you saying that I probably did I'm ridiculous gross kids don't grow up to be like me from hey Jennifer Hughes would you rather lose the ability to cry or cry every day for 20 minutes randomly Lose the ability to cry It sucks to cry Crying can feel really good I think like crying can be a nice release

But I'd much rather lose the ability to cry than cry I like cried all the time when I was a little kid So now I'm like scarred by crying And I try my hardest to never cry You should cry every once in a while dude It's nice I'll go with the expert Yeah

Because I cried all the time I mean you got more experience than I do So you would know Okay, Jebedai Long Trees Best movie you saw this year We already answered that We answered that Fuck off

You know what though I'm surprised you guys didn't say RRRR Early's Jeff, you didn't That was a great movie Yeah That is a great movie Yeah Did you watch it?

No I loved it All right All right Kyle Moore 3 Favorite Animal Story of the year We kind of did that Yeah

We did exactly that In fact Yeah Daughter Earth's art I might have need to prep you guys on this. Favorite animal reference in a song. Mine's probably my anaconda don't want none unless you got buns, hun. Yeah, anaconda, but that's okay.

I, mine, pronounce it that differently. Mike will be correct. There's a song called Black Bear by, I think the band is called Black Bear, and it's all about, like, the life of a black bear in the woods. And I, that's probably mine. I like that song. I don't know. Or maybe like Blackbird by the Beatles. Yeah, that's the one that came to mind.

Man, I really ought to have a better answer to this one, but it was. That's a hard one. I was just going to say Blackbird. Yeah. Yeah, it's a good pick. Wes's answer is better than mine, Anaconda. Okay, from Daisy King Bingham, I kind of part-time intern right now. Worst Christmas song to exist.

Oh, speaking of Beatles. A Wonderful Christmas Time by Paul McCartney. Not only one of the worst Christmas songs, but maybe the single worst song ever written. That song is a really bad song. That song is so bad. I'm getting mad. I'm just going to turn my mic off for a sec.

Jeff, what's yours? Mine's easily 12 days of Christmas. I can't stand that song. That one like has, it's like unique enough, though. No, I won't listen to that one. It's just too long. I saw Santa kissing my mom.

I love that song. I love a horny Santa song Kissing my mom Oh, Ia the tiger That's not a Christmas song I went just back to the last question sorry Oh got it Yeah

The I'll be home for Christmas I like it but it's like I didn't realize how sad it was That it's about like army people In like World War II or something That couldn't go home for Christmas So now whenever I hear it I get a little sad

What's your guys favorite Christmas? a song real quick. Mine is Little St. Nick by the Beach Boys. Oh, that's a good one. Justin Beaver's Christmas album. Just the whole album. I don't know. What is my favorite? Mine's either Little Drummer Boy or Let It Snow. Yeah. I love the Bing Crosby David Bowie Little Drummer Boy mashup. That's a great one. I haven't heard that. I need to check that out. Oh, you got a little. You're going to love it. It's so good. I actually, I'm going to just completely agree with Mike said. Okay.

Mike, I'm going to text you after we record for you to listen to that because it is so good. Only if you listen to Mark Tremani singing Sinatra. I already did. I did. He sounds just like him, but I hate it. This one I just want to read. So, Chuckers says

not a question, but I think Mike would survive the longest on the show alone. Oh, no. No. Definitely not. You're the only person, Chuckers. Even Mike disagrees. Yeah. Yeah. On, like, day two, you would just be like, why am I doing this?

No, I wouldn't make it, I wouldn't apply to be on the show. I wouldn't make it past the screening phase. There's no way. But you know what? I appreciate your vote of confidence. So if it ever does happen to me, I'll let you know how long I last. If it just happens to you. I mean, you're fine with being, like, just sitting there.

That's true. That's true. But, like, inside. I love that, too. You'll be alone and you're just sitting there all day. Okay. Yeah. My Jungabunga

Ask what our favorite Pokemon game ever is Mine like Pokemon I played Pokemon blue On GameCube so many hours And I always started with Bulbosaur And it's just such a fun game

You played it on GameCube? Did you have like the little Game Boy adapter thing? Game Boy Okay I meant Game Boy thanks Wes I've never played it I've never played a Pokemon game So I'm gonna

I'm just gonna recuse it accuse myself from this question. Your answer is Pikachu on Super Smash Bros. Yeah. Smash Brothers is the closest I've come. So I actually, I'm not really a Pokemon guy, despite what I may have led people to believe over the course of the show. I really only played that first game over and over and over again, but I also played Pokemon Snap, the little photography game on the Nintendo 64 where you like, it's like a little on-rail shooter, but instead of bullets, you're like taking pictures. Oh, that game is so sick. Man, I love that game. Not really a Pokemon guy goes on to list multiple Pokemon games he's played to conclusion. What Pokemon would you like, would you go with

Charmander, Squirtle, or Bulbosaur? Squirtle squad for life. I love that guy. A Pokemon guy. Once she said, they say, Jeff, what is one thing you would change about a koala if you could? I mean, they're pretty perfect, but like 80% chlamydia rate is a little rough. That's my favorite fact about that. All right. Andy Scarbear says, what's something you all are looking forward to in the next year? I'm really looking forward. Does Dune 2 come out?

Yeah. I think so. Yeah. Yeah, that's my answer. I'm going to Bimini, an island of the Bahamas in January, to dive with Great Hammerhead. sharks. They're like one of my favorite sharks and I just had been looking forward to it for a long time. So that's something I'm really looking forward to seeing great hammerheads.

Do you anything, Mike? Mike's got nothing. I mean, I'm sure. There's, I think the new, I got West to read Empire the Vampire. I think book two comes out next year. I don't know. I didn't like, that's not my favorite book, but I was into it enough to anticipate a sequel. Yeah. All right. Luke Smith, how did Mike become such good friends? with Jeff and Wes. Who do he meet first? So me and Mike lived by each other in college, and he, like, told a joke the first time I saw him, I think.

And I was like, this guy seems cool. I want to be his friend. And then I'd always, like, ask him to go do stuff, and always say, yeah, and then he would never, like, leave his apartment. And I just, like, recognized after a while that, like, we can just be friends that, like, hang out in each other's apartments. and that's about how it's gone ever since. I made it really hard for Jeff to be my friend.

He persisted. I think, well, I let slip that I was in charge of equipment rental in the locker room. And I think that's what you guys keyed in on because the next day after, I think I mentioned that you came in and rented tennis equipment from me. So maybe it was, yeah, it was a relationship of, like, benefit. That was the first time I met you. But I think when me and you really became friends is when you came to Montana in 2012. And like we remember like we like popped a tire on the way and we had a few other like kind of little things. But we went to Glacier.

And that was like the first time I hung out with you for an extended period of time. Right. And I think that's when I was like, oh, Mike's pretty cool. Was that before or after we were on the trampoline dodge ball team? That's always the first thing I remember like connecting with you. I think that was after. Okay. But I don't, yeah, but I don't think we were like really.

That was fun. We were close, but we weren't like good friends. The only problem with like the trampoline dodgeball was like the more you jumped on the trampolines, like the easier target you were. Yeah. So if you wanted to win, it's just like don't use the trampolines. Right. Yeah. All right.

Molly Sky asked goals for the podcast for the new year. I want. Yeah. I want like a million listens to episode. And at least like half a million dollars. Right. That's like

hefty goal. In what capacity like through the You just want that in your bank account? Yeah. I have been thinking about ways we could get maybe more involved with

the charity or fundraising side of things. Yeah. Because a lot of what we do and I think we've done a good job of raising awareness for different issues, but maybe getting our hands even a little dirtier in all that stuff, it would be a pretty good direction to go for us. Yeah, I, you know, I'm going to get a little sentimental here for a

second, but I think, like, for me, the most affirming and best part of this whole thing, aside from, like, getting to spend time with both of you, has been having people right in and say that they feel more comfortable in the great outdoors, or that they have, like, a greater appreciation for wildlife or that they care more about conservation and to me like that easily is the biggest benefit of this whole thing outside of any other kind of benefit and it's the thing that really just makes me happy like when we get reviews from people talking about that when we get real life stories to people that had interactions with animals where they knew how to handle them because of stuff they learned on the podcast and I think for me like the biggest thing that I want going forward is just

more of that. I just want more and more people to come to a kind of appreciation for wildlife that I hope we're giving them. And like it really just makes me so happy. I just, I think having wildlife in your life enriches your life in such a way that it's like almost unmeasurable and or immeasurable. And I just, I love being able to bring that to people. So I just want to do more of that. And jokes aside for me, I just think it'd be cool to do like a couple of live events. or shows to like be able to like meet fans because like I honestly think we have like the best fans in the world and it'd be really cool to be able to meet you guys more. We're all friends even though we've never met.

Yeah. On that note, Kilmer 12 asks why doesn't Mike say I love you at the end of episodes? So I actually answered this on my Instagram. I said I can't speak for Mike, but I assume he doesn't love our fans. or love me or Wes. You said that? Yeah. You say it sometimes.

Mike started it. Yeah. Yeah, I did. So that's a, that right there should just negate any, any doubt that you would have that I love you guys. And I do. It's love and appreciation. And you'll never know how much I do. Yeah.

Thanks, man. Because it's made, it's like, honestly, I don't think I'm speaking out of school when I say that this has improved our lives in every way imaginable. and it really is because of all of you listening to us. So it's like I'm a weird emotionally. I think they're just being funny. Yeah. Right. Mike's one of those people that doesn't always say it, but you just know it.

Oh, yeah. I think they know. They're just saying it as a joke. It's funny, too, that, like, there's been a bit of online debate over it, whether or not we're saying that to each other or to the listeners. And it's both. We're saying it to both. Sometimes it's just to you guys and sometimes it's just.

Just to the listeners for me. You guys have to tease that out. Yeah. So totally Kyle 24 wants to know all-time, all-time starting five NBA squad if you can pick anyone ever. Oh, wow. So my lock is 100% Kyle. Steph Curry, best shooter ever. He's going to space the floor for everyone.

And then I'm taking, I don't care. Well, like, I don't choose old players because I never watched them play. So like, I don't know. I'm just not going to. So I'm going to Steph Curry. I'm going to go Tim Duncan. I'm going to go Shaq. And then I'm going to go Kevin Durant and Kauai Leonard.

No Jordan or LeBron. I'm just going to let you guys answer this one because I don't really care. Sure. Yeah, so Steph's got to be on the team. Jordan's got to be on the team. I'll go along with Shaq. I'm going to put Elgin Baylor on there. because he never won a championship and he definitely deserves to.

So whatever the title is that this team hypothetically is playing for, I just want him to be a part of. And let's go. You got to go George Gervin because he's got those finger rolls. You know you got to get some finger rolls. All right. I'll do a team just because I can do it. I'm doing John Stockton, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Tim Duncan, and Magic Johnson.

Man, you played Frisbee as Shaq and you're sliding him, huh? Yeah, I probably should have done Shaq, but whatever. All right. Carly Amanda asked, what is Jeff's 11th favorite animal? That's my only animal in my top 20 that's not done yet. All right. I'm just saving it. I'm keeping you guys guessing.

So, you know, once you hear me say 11, that's a big deal. For Wes, what kind of work is done in Yellowstone during the winter? There's a lot of wolf work. That's when the wolf team goes out and does their captures and collars wolves. And they also do, like, they go out and look at kills and take a lot of information on wolves. Wolves are really active in the winter. It's like one of their best time to the year because they're killing animals. They get left behind and stuff.

There's a lot of bison work that gets done. There's not any bear work really just because bears are hibernating in the park in the winter. But bison, elk, wolves. there's still a lot of work that gets done, but I'm not there in the winter. Do they all have to snowmobile? Yeah, I mean, for the wolves, they get taken in on helicopters. And then they'll hike for like the captures, but then they'll hike in for the clusters and some of the other stuff.

There's mountain line work being done. The park stays pretty busy. A lot of the seasonals leave, but the permanent people there are still there working on wildlife biology. And then Henry Castro Miller wants to know our biggest podcaster, Our biggest podcast regret? Like, what sucked the most was when, so Wes is friends with Hillary Duff. I don't know if we've talked about that.

But when she, like, shouted us out on Instagram, all of our episodes were, like, off of all of the platforms. Oh, yeah. Because we were having a hard time porting them from one platform. That was, like, by far, like, biggest shout out we've ever gotten. And, like, no one had access to. There's no way to listen to it. That's a good pick. That's probably what I would go with too.

Yeah. Just a really poorly timed shout out from from Hill Dog. Do you guys have any regrets you want to shout out? I'm going to echo yours. Like that was a big one. It was just an accident. It wasn't like. Yeah.

Just perfectly awful timing. I would say like not starting Patreon earlier because Patreon's been such a fun little community to be part of and like to interact with and to make those bonus episodes is really fun. But yeah, I'm going to go with the same one. Like getting a huge. huge shout out on our truly our most chaotic day of our podcast was like yeah that sucked the our first episode we still haven't re-recorded it i don't know if we can call that a regret but like that's no that is a regret there's just a lot that i got a number of things wrong about our first story mike mark

kersich who was a guy who was attacked by a grizzly bear in british columbia it was our first episode i just didn't give it the attention that i've come to give our episodes now yeah and someone wrote us from his family and they weren't happy about some of the stuff in the episode. And I felt terrible. Like, truly, like, I got on the phone with her and talked to her. I just, like, really wanted to make that right. And they were, I think they were happy that we just pulled the episode. But at some point, we're going to retell that story and we're going to do it justice because

he was a lot cooler of a guy than we gave him credit for, I think. And I learned a lot about him. So, yeah, we just, we didn't really have, we all, we all said things. And it was just a weird first episode, so it was for us at that point. Like the podcast was like a listenership of 10 people. Yeah. And we never knew it was going to turn into what it was. And I just didn't put in the time.

It was like totally my fault. 100%. That was a big regret. That's a good poll, Mike. All right. Well, that's it for listener questions. All right. Well, that's it for 2022.

Hey, great job, guys. Shut it down. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. That's so cool when you gave me a shout out the other episode. That was, which one? Gracious of you.

And like, you were reading the five-star comment and you read out my name. Yeah. You might be a podcaster, dude. Yeah, well, honestly, everyone out there, again, to get a little mushy, thanks so much for listening. It truly means the world to us. It's been such a neat project and, like, been so fun to see you guys react to it the way that you do. We read all the reviews.

We love hearing. from you guys. We like genuinely feel like this podcast is doing some good for wildlife and it's brought out the three of us closer together. It's just been like such a fun, great thing. And 2022 was a big year for us. And that's in large part thanks to you listeners. So we like when we say we love you, we actually do. We actually mean it. Thanks guys. I mean, we appreciate your support in every way, whether that's just listening, commenting, like subscribing. It just means the world to all three of us. All right.

Well, we'll see you next year. Yeah, we'll see you in 2023 in the future. Love you guys. Love you guys. Mike? We love you. We do. We love you.

Bye. Bye, bye, bye.