Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - Grizzly Bear Attack - The Hunters Become the Hunted

Episode Date: September 22, 2025

Wilf and his son-in-law Skeet went out on what they were expecting to be a routine elk hunt, but ran into something much, much more dangerous. Wes then takes the opportunity to explore why bear spray is your best chance at deterring, avoiding, and surviving violent encounters with bears. Watch here: https://youtu.be/jJrx8JRxWKY ~~ LMNT:  Get a free 8-count Sample Pack with any purchase at http://drinklmnt.com/tooth Miracle Brand: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to ⁠https://trymiracle.com/TOOTH⁠ and use the code TOOTH to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF. Ollie Pet Food: Take the online quiz and introduce Ollie to your pet. Visit ⁠https://www.ollie.com/tooth⁠ for 60% off your first box of meals! #ToKnowThemIsToLoveThem ~~ 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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Register today at Richfield, Utah.com. Hello everyone. Welcome to Tooth and Claw podcast. And finally, back in studio, we have our wildlife biologist, Wes Larson. Wes, I was claiming to be a wildlife biologist or Bill while you were gone. I don't think you listened to any of that. Yeah, that doesn't surprise me at all. I didn't. I think we came up with more interesting stuff because you weren't here as far as like wildlife biology. Yeah, sure. I'll never know.

Like maybe spiders, maybe spiders can't see very well because they have too many eyes type of stuff, you know? Okay. Asking the real questions. Everyone else is afraid to ask. Yeah. I'm glad you took over. I don't know. Maybe you should just wing it more often.

I would love to do that. That would definitely make my job a lot easier. But I'm not going to do that because you're pretty interested in just the facts. I got my scruples, Jeff, and I got to stick to them, you know? Is that used that word right, Mike? It sounds a scrupulous man. Yeah, I don't know. I wasn't really paying attention to the context in which you used it.

I'm already tuned out. Sorry. I've been in Brazil for, I had been in Brazil for 34 or 35 days. So it feels good to be back home. But I also really. You look more Brazilian than you did before you left. Yeah? That's great.

I rubbed off on you a little. I have been thinking in Portuguese. Mostly your BBL. what I was noticed. Yeah, I did get a BPL. Yeah, I've been thinking in Portuguese, so hopefully it doesn't slip into this at all. I was really excited to get home.

I wasn't excited to leave the country of Brazil. I just think the people there are very happy and kind, and there's like a ton of diversity, and it doesn't really affect how people treat each other. And it just, I don't know, I just kind of, it was hard to get home, but I also was really happy to see Jesse and the pets. and be back in the studio too

because I recording on the road wasn't that easy this time around No anyway I mean it's pretty easy For you guys didn't do it Yeah I once The easiest I tried once And that didn't it was pretty hard But I still thought the episode turned out great

Thanks Jeff for filling in for me Bill thanks for helping on those Those other episodes if you're listening out there But don't ever think about it again Ever Well you might not And for people just joining us, we are a wildlife-themed podcast. You know, there's a lot of stuff going out in the world, but our focus is conservation, animals.

We think they have a right to be here. And we tell you a lot of ways that they kill us and what we can do better to. That was pretty good up until. You know, don't act like the whole thing was the worst. Okay. You're right. You're right. You're right.

You're right. I'm sorry. It's like running a marathon at world record pace and then just slamming your head into a telephone pole and losing right at the end. I think when you said we were going to tell you a lot of the ways that they kill us is where you lost me. But you're right. You did just stumble. We do do that. Okay.

Sure. Yeah. We, our point is not to demonize wildlife here. So we're, we love telling these stories, but we think people can learn from them. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, we got a great story today, I think. It was one that wasn't really on my radar, and I started putting it together in Brazil and then ran into some connection issues.

So I've been sitting on it for a bit now, and I'm excited to finally tell it. All right. So today's episode is about Wilf and Skeet, two pretty normal names, you know? Wilf and Skeet. So imagine your name is Wilf Lloyd. Okay? So that's your name. Yeah.

And I imagine quite a bit you're going to have to tell people with an F. You're going to have to say that a lot. Because you're going to say my name's Wilf and people are going to be like, Will? And you're going to be like, no, Wilf with an F, you know? Right. So you're going to be slamming that F noise a lot on the end of your name. Hard F. You might get.

Yeah, exactly. You might get so used to having to say the letter F that maybe when something really traumatic or scary happens to you, the F word would just naturally roll off your tongue. And that might be a reach, but it's just something I was thinking about. But that's not Wilf Lloyd. Just because you're emphasizing F, you think you're dropping a lot of F bombs. Yeah. You know, I'm reaching here, Sheriff, but just stick with me.

I just want to make sure that's what you're saying. I'm just saying that that's maybe what would happen, but that's not what happens with Will Floyd. Because when he was both attacked by a grizzly bear and shot by a rifle in the exact same day, and his arms are ripped open and his leg is completely useless. He looked up at his son-in-law and his hunting buddy, Skeet, who had just shot him and said, we got to get our crap together here or I'm going to die. Not the F word.

The C-R-A-P word. Your assumption was wrong. Right. He didn't say the F-word. You really pulled the rug out from under us there. You think I say it more because my name's Jeff? But you don't have to constantly say like, Jeff with an F.

You don't have to explain it, you know? They'll say, dude, you say gel? And I would be like, no, Jeff. I said Jeff. Fri you. All right. That's just, it's just the kind of polite Canadian that Wilf really is, though. In 2014, he's living in his hometown of Cranbrook, British Columbia.

And to be honest, Wilf just really seemed to be living his dream. He and his wife, Georgette, had two kids, boy and a girl, both in their 30s, and both still big parts of their lives. Wilf is a taxidermist and an avid hunter, and while he would often make trophies of the animals he shot, his main reason for hunting was to put meat on the table for his family and to create memories with some of the people that he loved the most. One of those people was his son-in-law, Skeet had married Wilf's daughter Harmony. Come on my. Yeah. And to Wilf, Skeet was essentially a second son.

son, they had a great relationship. They would spend a lot of time together, especially during hunting season. And Skeet would join Wilf on all different types of hunts. But for the duo, one of their favorite times to hunt was during the elk season. I guess when he got his name Skeet, it probably didn't really mean what it does today. Skeet, Skeet, Skeet, yeah. Yeah. You know what's funny is when I think of the name Skeet, I think of Kanye West calling Pete Davidson Skeet.

Yeah, I just, for whatever reason to me, that was so funny, I don't know, yeah, anyway. We lost a good one when Kanye turned. Yeah, we did. Me and Mike just saw Little John perform skeet, skeet, skeet. Wait, when did you guys see that? It was at halftime at the Chargers game we went to in Vegas. They were just like, here's Little John, and he did like a full performance. Not full, but it's like pretty sick.

It's like a 10-minute medley, and he just had the, The whole crowd, we were all shouting skied at the top of our lungs. Was that just him? Or was it, it was him and someone else, right? That song. Yiside boys? Yeah, that's right. To bring it full circle, he was shouting out the son-in-law quite a bit at the concert.

Ah, skit, skit, ski. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I don't think the elf is a part of that song. A bad thing, though. Yeah. Yeah.

If you don't know what skeet means in the urban dictionary, go ahead and look it up. And you'll figure it out. He was saying skeet is a motherfucker. You think skeet's just inherently a bad thing to call someone then? No, I don't. I think this skeet from our story is a bad. I'm asking, Jeff, you think just, no matter what circumstance, you see, skeet's a bad thing to be called.

Well, he says, motherfucker. You think that's good? Sometimes, like if I'm calling my dad that. Yeah, or when, like, Samuel Jackson says it, sometimes it seems. Seems cool. Like, cool with your... You call your dad that. He just comes in and you say it to him immediately.

Right. All right. Not anymore, but, you know. Getting back on track here. Jeff, why do you think people like hunting elk in the northern U.S. more than probably any other animal? I feel like elk hunting, there's just kind of a certain sickness to it. Not sickness.

That's the wrong word. But like, when people are into hunting elk, I feel like they really get into it. Why do you think that is? Obsession with it. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, for one thing, I think the meat is really good. It's like elk steaks are delicious if you cook them right. You got to keep them pretty rare.

Like real medium rare elk steak, delicious. And, you know, you get some really cool antlers where it's kind of a little bit competitive even. The hunting community will be impressed with you if you get an elk with big antlers. But yeah, I think it's just like a beautiful animal. gives you a lot of really good meat and it also has like some competition elements to it as well. Yeah. And usually somewhat challenging too. It's not always like easy to find a good elk and to like take one down and everything.

So yeah, anyway, I agree with everything you said. And on October 12th, 2014 on an early Saturday morning, Will Finkeke got in the truck and they headed up to the mountains of elk valley, which does seem like probably the right place to go elk hunting in that. area. A little too obvious. Yeah. They're like, they're like, I can't tell you where my hunting spot is. Yeah.

Family see the elk valley? No. All right. They're going to hunt elk, though. And this was right in the peat of the rut for the local elk, which means that the bull elk were still doing a lot of bugling, both in order to attract females and to warn other males that they were in the territory. When I lived in Yellowstone, I lived.

lived in Mammoth, which is where a lot of the elk head during the rut, and I would just hear bugling from sunup to sundown every day because of the rut. And like the bulls really just do go crazy, kind of all the hormones rush to their heads and they just really, not just their, yeah, their heads, both heads. And they just really want to mate. So they do a lot of bugling. And it can be a really effective tool for hunters. With an artificial bugle, you can get, the attention of one of these males making him think that you're another male in his territory and he might want to come

check you out and get you out of there. So hunters are catfishing these elk. They are kind of catfishing him. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think a female elk when they hear like, you know, because sometimes the military has a little bugle boy in it? You think sometimes they get confused?

Try to approach that little guy blowing the bugle. I don't think it sounds the same. The human bugle that we use versus like an elk bugle. Because the bugle and the military's like a trumpet, right? Yeah, they're do do do do do do like the kid at the beginning of Last Crusade, Indiana Jones. I love that guy. I don't think it brings in. I know. Maybe we can switch catfishing to bugling, just like the term. Yeah. I like that. I like that. I like that. I like that. Because catfish makes like no sense. I got bugled. I got bugled again.

Why do all these women want my credit card number? You'd be like showing up ready to fight is the difference, you know? Yeah, right. I mean, Mike. But I get what you're saying. Mike gets bugle. I wonder if bugle boys in the military are having a lot of sex. You think?

Yeah, probably not. Remember bugles those chips that you could put on your fingertips. Yeah, do the little Freddie Krueger fingers. Mike will, like, go on dates and he'll see another person, like another girl on a date with a different guy, and he'll be like, no, you're my date now. And I'll just switch in the middle of a date. Really? Yeah.

It's crazy how often I do that. It's a real problem. He's got that bull elk mentality. Right. All right. Anyway, for Wilf, let's go back to Wilf, nothing really got his blood pumping more than hearing a big bull elk bugled him on the side of a beautiful British Columbia Mountain.

It's like music to his ears. So the day is getting longer as Wilf and Skeet hunted and bugled, and about 25 minutes before they were about to give up and go home, Wilf gets a response to one of his bugles. And it seems like an elk that's responding is actually pretty close. Almost immediately, Wilf and Ski hear the footfalls of the elk as it comes in close to check out what it thought was probably a challenger. And the duo spots this large bowl as it comes into view about 270 yards away. They both told each other to take the first shot, and then in unison they raised their rifles and fire at the same time.

So I think it was kind of just like, hey, you get you take it. No, you take it. And then they both just shot. Right. That's funny. Like a firing squad, so they won't know who killed it. Sure. Yeah.

Which one? Honestly, I've heard of hunters doing that before where they both just shoot so they can kind of both say, you know, whatever. But what they didn't hear was the telltale sound of the thud of a bullet as it slammed into this mammal's body. So they hear nothing and they watch as the elk simply walks off into the forest. What Wilfonsky didn't know? What do you mean by that?

What do you mean? The telltale sign of a bullet hitting the... Sound. Sound. I feel like it makes a sound. It does. Yeah. You can hear like a thunk when it hits.

Well, I mean, a lot of hunters listen for that. Okay. Yeah. I mean, what? No, I didn't realize that. Uh, all right. What Wilf and Skeet didn't know is that a large grizzly bear nearby had also heard the sound of the shots. And this bear over the years had come to associate rifle shots with free food.

When hunters killed. an elk, there'd be at least, the very least, a big pile of guts and organs left behind. And the bear that had been resting moments before rose to its feet, shook off some dust, and started walking in the direction of the shots and the bugling. Wishing you could be there live for the big game, soaking up the atmosphere in the crowd. But too often, life gets busy. Or the price holds you back. Price line is here to help you make it happen.

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because they would have to find it and finish it off if they had simply injured it. So both men start walking toward the area where the elk had been standing and began looking for blood or maybe the elk lying on the ground somewhere nearby. And they search for about 10 to 15 minutes, but then the darkness closes in and they're no longer able to see the ground well enough to spot any blood. So they decide to give up. How much bigger do you think the artillery could get before the bear stops associating that sound with a free meal? With meals.

Yeah. If someone's like, like I think if they're like, yeah, it's a big one. Probably scare it off. I think like artillery shells would be enough to scare off a bear too. Like a cannonball.

Yeah, a cannonball would probably scare it off. But not every bear is going to respond to rifle shots in a positive way, like in the distance. But there are bears in a lot of these places that have come to associate rifle shots in hunting season with free food. and sometimes it's just gut piles. And it stands to the reason, like if we were shooting elk with cannonballs, they might associate cannonballs with food as well. Yeah. So I don't think that.

Yeah. But we're not. So it's a moot point for now. For now. But, yes, for now. But no, it is a real thing. And sometimes, you know, this is something that can get hunters into trouble, too, because not only are they looking for gut piles, but if they find it,

an elk before the hunter does, then you might come back to a bear on its carcass. Or if you shoot an elk but you don't have the time to quarter it or clean it or whatever and you have to come back the next day. And especially if you're in grizzly bear country, you have to be really careful about coming back to that elk because there's a decent chance a bear will find it. If you're a hunter and you shoot an elk and like when you get to the body, there's a bear on it, like what is the protocol? If it's a grizzly bear, my protocol would be to get out of there and probably let it have the elk.

Like they can't shoot the bear off of their kill? No. They're not a lot of... Unless you were in a place where you're legally allowed to take a grizzly, but... And you have a tag already and everything. Yeah. Yeah. And I wouldn't try and scare it off either because that's a pretty dicey situation. So these guys know that they have to at least figure out whether or not they'd killed this elk.

They look for any kind of sign that they had shot it, and they can't see anything. So they give up. And as they walk back to the truck, they make a plan to head out again early the next morning to search for the elk and really make sure that they hadn't killed it. Meanwhile, the bear continues walking in the area where it heard the shots and the bugling, but it also finds nothing. But this curious opportunist bends down to sniff in an old skull of a deer that was long past the time where it could provide anything to the bear,

and then the grizzly also decides to abandon the hunt for the night. It beds down in some bushes nearby and falls asleep under the sprawling stars with the beautiful Canadian wilderness. Who knows what that bear maybe was thinking when it looked up at the endless night sky, but personally, I like to think that it's something that we can't even comprehend. When we were in Brazil recently, like we saw some really beautiful stars with the Milky Way and everything, and it does always make me think of like what are am I. animals thinking when they're looking up at the night sky you know mike you're laughing seeing those

consolations and being like i wonder how this relates to me spiritually and like what what it says i should be how it says i should be acting yeah i should be acting yeah like i wonder what that shape in this guy means for how i should behave for my birthday yeah yeah and then they look down at their paw and they're like that wrinkle has got to mean something No, I imagine they're just probably dreaming of that meat pile Or like another bear that has sex with it. Yeah, probably. But you know, yeah, we all can't go.

Something we can't say. And I, for me, it's just very peaceful to think of a bear like betting up and looking at the stars maybe. Anyway. Sure. So the next day on Sunday, October 13th, Wilf and Skeet once more get up early and they head into the mountains with their rifles. It's a gorgeous morning, and as they retrace their steps from the day before, they're looking for blood, tracks, any kind of indication whatsoever that maybe they had hit this elk or that it was still in the area. And after searching for about 45 minutes, they don't find anything, but Wilf does notice the skull of an old white-tailed deer in the bushes. He's a 56-year-old taxidermist.

He's curious, he bends down to pick up this skull, and as he does, he hears something that he describes as the sound of a 10-pound. bag of flour hitting the ground. Kind of like a loud The tell tell sound of a 10. Okay, yeah. Yeah. I like, you know, I think sometimes when people use such a blatant descriptive kind of thing, we kind of are like, oh, yeah, like when it was the last

time you hear that? Yeah. But I do really like it because you can picture it. So I do. I appreciate that's how we described it. I thought it was weird until you made the noise and I was like, oh, that actually probably is pretty accurate. Yeah.

And it kind of sounds like the woofing that a bear does when they're upset about something. I've always said West does an awesome impression of a 10-pound sack of flour. All right. You've always been good at that. This does make me think that maybe we should be using cannons to hunt these elk. Because like you shoot one, then you have to track it for like eight months. I don't know. There'd be no doubt if you hit it with the cannon.

Just to hit it with the cannonball. It's like you don't got to chase it at all. Did you find any legs? Did you find its torso? Well, you got to hit it in the heart. Yeah. Still, probably. All right.

So he hears this sound, and as he does, he looks up and he looks straight into the eyes of a 400-pound male grizzly that starts charging straight at him. Wilf stands up. He only has the time to yell the word bear to ski before the bear crashes into him and violently rolls him to the ground through the thick brush. Comes to a stop on his back, and the bear has his front paws on Willfell. chest and is loudly roaring in his face. So not a great, not a great situation for Wilfrey. That's not, that's bad. Not necessarily where you want to be.

The telltale sound of a bear roaring in your face. Yeah. I will say that he's like, it sounded like a bag of flower roaring like a bear. Like you know when you rip a bag of flower open and like light it on fire at the same time? I do. I kind of, he talks about roaring a lot in this story, and I haven't heard many bears roar.

Like, they kind of make a, like, a, like noise, and they do a little bit of roaring, but I thought it was interesting how much he says roaring.

But anyway. Because they can't, kind of roar. Yeah. Okay. So he's on his back. He puts up his dukes in order to get something

between him and the bear, and to block actually the large amount of bear drool that was falling onto his face as the bear continues just vocalizing and roaring just inches away. And then it puts his ears back. It growls as it looks him in the face. And he suddenly realizes that he is about to die. And he starts screaming for Skeet to shoot the bear and kill it. He just says, shoot him, get him off of me, shoot him as he screams at Skeet.

Probably sounded a lot like Lil John, I imagine. Skeet, Skit, Skate, shoot him. I wonder if Skeet hates that song or loves it I'd be so into it if I were him Yeah It made me think actually of Jurassic Park in the beginning Where Muldoon's like shoot a Yeah

Skeet has never shot a bear before But he's only about 20 He's about 20 feet away And he knew that it would be hard to miss So he chambers around and he raises his gun Wilf knew that the bear's about to bite down And he knew enough about bear attacks To know that they often go for the throat

the face in the head when they're attacking. So he makes the split second decision to sacrifice his arm instead. This real what would Mike and Jeff do moment. He shoves his left hand, especially you, Jeff. I feel like this is pretty commonly. He shoves his left hand into the bear's mouth

and the grizzly immediately bites down. He feels intense pain, shoot through his left hand and arm, pain that he describes as unlike anything he had felt so far in his life. And then he hears the loud noise of a gunshot, and he actually feels the bear's body vibrate as a bullet passes through it. Wow. That'd be a good magic trick if he, like, pulled the bullet out of its mouth.

If, like, he caught it while his hand is in there. Yeah, that would be cool. All right, the bear drops Wilf's hand, and it looks at Skeet, and Wilf says he could see its eyes roll back into the back of its head. It releases some of the pressure on Wilf because it's standing on him. and it had just been shot with a high caliber rifle round. I mean, this is a rifle that you're using to take down elk, so I'm guessing it's at least, it didn't say what model skeets was.

We'll hear what models was, but I'm guessing it's at least like a 30-30 or 30-ought-6, which is a high-powered rifle. And this bear had probably been fatally shot at this point, but even so the adrenaline coursing through the bear made it so it hardly even registered this shot. It turns back, it woofs at skeet, and then it goes right back to Wilf, who's now kicking up at the bear as hard as he can with his legs.

He's kind of like pinwheeling his legs, trying to kick the bear, trying to get it to let him up. And he again screams at Skeet to shoot the bear as he kicks his left leg into the bear. Once again, Skeet raises his rifle and squeezes the trigger. Wilf's left knee explodes into fine splinters as the bullet slams into it. now he has an even much more excruciating benchmark for what pain can feel like it was so all-consuming that he wants to pass out but the bear was still on top of wulf and as he looks up at the huge animal he realizes it's about to bite him again so now he's dealing with his left arm being ripped to shreds his knee has been exploded by this bullet and did the bullet hit the bear at all or just his knee just him yeah that's tough it actually we'll talk about out its path later, but it, like, essentially hit his shin and then, like, moved up into his knee and exploded his knee. Whoa.

Yeah. Did he not, like, give clear instructions to ski? Yeah, maybe he was just saying, shoot, shoot. And he's like, not me, the bear. All right, we'll talk about that. But anyway, once again, he, in the midst of all this pain, having just been shot even, he has the sense to bring up his arms to block the bite. And this time the bear bites into his right arm

and its teeth going straight to the bone, separating skin, muscle, and nerves on the way. And once again, a bullet now slams into the bear and it again releases its grip on Wilf. So the bear backs off of Wilf after having been shot the second time and now it seems to finally be realizing that it had been mortally injured. So Wilf again yells at Skeet to shoot the bear, but Skeet at this point yells back that he's out of bullets.

Wilf immediately thinks of his rifle, which he had dropped when he had first been charged by the bear, and he tells Skeet to find it. Skeet grabs it on the ground a few feet away, and he still has a round in the chamber, so he flips off the safety just as he turns to the right to watch the bear charge back in. Okay, let's take a quick break, and we're going to talk a little bit about guns versus bear spray again. Okay. So I know there's a lot of... of stuff right now about guns out there in the world that when I put this episode together to

begin with, I had just been sent an article in like the Wyoming Cowboy something or other all about how gun should be pushed instead of bear spray as far as like bear deterrence. And I think with the current political climate in the U.S., there's been a lot more pushback against anything that seems anti-gun. I'm curious to see how that's going to change and, you know, if it will change it all with recent events, but very surprisingly, or very not surprisingly, the gun lobby has actually done a lot to discredit bear spray as the better alternative for bear deterrence. I think like that lobby just kind of pushes back against anything that feels at all anti-gun. And it's, it's really interesting

to me because a lot of bear biologists, including Tom and other people that had been like the main proponents of bear spray as a deterrent, it's not that they're anti-gun. Like, these aren't people that don't like guns or don't carry guns even, it's that they are promoting something they think is working better than guns for bears. So I just want to make this clear. A gun can stop a bear. I trained extensively with guns when I was working with bears so I could defend myself in a bad situation or if I ever had to kill a bear.

But I think even with like the best training that money can buy and really high caliber powerful guns, you're still taking a much bigger risk when you use a firearm as your main bear deterrent. especially a long gun for me, like a rifle or a shotgun. And that's because most dangerous interactions with bears are at close range interactions. They're like the ones we're talking about. They're so quick and surprising that victims often don't even have the time to chamber around to swing their gun in the right direction to remove the safety and then deliver a shot in a kill zone.

This is a great example of that like Skeet shoots the bear twice, probably center mass, and it doesn't bring it down because it takes some time for animal. to die sometimes and often an injured bear is much more dangerous than it than one that's not been injured yeah you think in this situation like had he instead of that first bullet had he bear sprayed the bear you think it would have worked I do yeah I really do so when I was in Yellowstone we trained and that's just like based off a data or something yeah yeah uh years of testing it in the field I don't know there yeah there isn't a ton of data on like someone's already been mauled and then the bear is sprayed there there is some and it

does usually stop it but like that is kind of it's a situation you'll want to get into in the first place obviously i remember who was it todd or one of our stories where he got attacked a couple of times and he did deploy his bear spray and the bear still engaged with him but ultimately it he does credit the spray yeah making that bear ultimately disengage and leave him to live right for sure Am I remembering that right? It's more like the momentum of the bear. He sprayed it, but the momentum of the bear still like tackled him. But it like ran off without really like right.

Well, even Shane, who got attacked in Teton that we interviewed, I mean, he was being mauled. And then the bear been into his bear spray and it stopped. Oh, yeah. So. Shout out Shane. Something you might not know about me is that we talk about dog food a lot in our house. And that is because my partner, Jesse, she is very, very. very, very much into pet nutrition. She's read tons of books about it. She cares about it deeply.

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Go to quince.com slash tooth for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-C-E dot com slash tooth. Free shipping and 365-day returns, quince.com slash tooth. So something I wanted to bring up is in Yellowstone, when we were training, and I was really good with a 12 gauge, we would use shotguns for a lot of different hazing things and everything. But one of our training exercises, we had this like pop-up bear that was on a track that would come at you really quickly. And we'd be standing there like, your shotgun's ready. You can't put a cartridge in yet until the bear starts coming at you. but you knew that it was going to pop up in charge at you,

which is something most people don't get to like know when they're charged by a bear. You don't know that you're about to be charged. And even knowing most of the people that trained with that wouldn't deliver a kill shot into the bear by the time it reached the end of the track and was right next to you. And these are people that have just spent like three or four days training with shotguns intensively having this like big wooden bear charge at you would throw you off enough to where you'd miss.

It was, I will say, like, not toot my own horn. It was the thing I was best at in all that training was getting two slugs into that pair before it got to me. But a lot of people that were really good with guns had a really hard time with that, because it does throw you off. And something I just, like,

Jeff, you brought up data a second ago. There is really good data to back all this up. And my favorite papers to look at are two that were authored by my mentor, Tom Smith, who kind of did the preeminent examiner, examination of the efficacy of both bear sprays and firearms when it comes to bear encounters. And the results of these papers really speak for themselves. Both of these papers deal with encounters with bears in Alaska, and Tom and Stephen Herrero did the work. They included all this data

from negative encounters with all three bear species found in the state, although the polar bear data sets really small, and the results paint a pretty clear picture. So after analyzing hundreds of different encounters, they found that firearms were effective at deterring bears or ending the encounter about 76% of the time, which is pretty good. I feel like that's not bad. So a gun definitely can work at deterring a bear. But bear spray... That's like LeBron's free throw percentage.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. But what's Steph Curry's free throw percentage? Like 91%. All right. So bear spray is even better than Steph Curry when comes to free throw. No. What?

Bear spray was effective 98% of the time when they looked at these encounters. And a really interesting finding in their studies was that the outcome for the person in these encounters involving firearms, so the ones where people had guns, the outcome for the person wasn't statistically different based on whether or not they actually used their firearm. So the amount of non-injuries to people, injuries, and fatality rates weren't affected by whether or not they actually even used. their guns. But the outcomes for the bears were very much affected by whether or not people use their guns. 357 total bears were involved in that firearm study, and 172 of those bears were killed in the encounters where firearms were used. So for bears, it's not a great deterrent because there's a very good chance you're going to kill the animal. On the other hand, in the bear spray study, none of the bears involved in the incidents were killed, and 98%

of the people involved without any injuries, or 98% of the people escaped without any injuries. The 2% that were injured only had minor injuries. So we've talked about this before, but it's kind of like the bear had enough momentum that it still made contact with them. And minor injuries in a bear mauling, you generally still end up in the hospital or something, but you're not going to have, like, injuries that affect you for the rest of your life necessarily. Yeah. I think for sure.

I think a big problem with it just in general. People who hunt especially, but guys, a lot of the times, like, wilderness guys just like having a gun. Yeah. They think it's like, I mean, we had a gun on our Black Bear project. There is like a sense of power that you get from having a gun. Sure. That's like the main reason people like them. Yeah.

Right. So then it's like if I can't have my gun to protect me against bears, there's like hard. any use for having a gun anymore. So, like, they have to make an argument that actually this is the best way for bears because, like, they want to have that still, you know? Yeah. And I actually was going to talk about this in a little bit, but we might as well talk about it now.

I do think there's, like, kind of, I don't want to show to, I don't want to say it's ego, but I think there is this power thing that you're talking about, Jeff, that comes with carrying a gun. and I'm not saying that these people who want to carry a gun for bear safety shouldn't. I'm saying, consider going to your bear spray first, you know? Or if you have a bear at like a long distance that's charging, fire a couple warning shots and then go to your bear spray. I carried a gun in Yellowstone in really crazy kind of situations

where maybe we're going into a carcass or something that seemed especially dangerous. But for me, it was if the bear is mauling me, I can pull out my pistol and put it against it and fire off a few rounds. That's what I carried it for. It was kind of my last case thing that I would use. But we'll talk about that a little bit more. I want to go into a few more of the stats before we get to that. Sure.

Yeah. I've kind of started to feel that same power with bear spray too, just like having a bear spray on your hit. And it's like skunks are pretty cool. Porcupines are pretty cool. And they have like defense systems for predators. Right. So it's kind of like you just get to survive. just get to use a better

version of that. Yeah, we're like human skunk larking. Yeah. Cosplay. I do want to mention this study, these studies, their data range ends in like the late 2000s, like 2009 or 2010.

I think with Bear Spray becoming much more popular in recent years, this study could definitely be done again. The data set would be a lot more robust. And there's definitely some instances now of people using spray and still getting mauled pretty badly. including one that happened this week in Yellowstone.

But I would argue still that even those people, or like Todd Orr, are people that still save themselves a lot more punishment by using their spray. They probably would have been worse off had they not used it. And I think when a firearm is used and the person is still mauled, the mauling is almost always worse than it would have been otherwise. Like if you've injured that bear, but it's not enough to get it out of there, it's probably going to punish you for that. But with bear spray, it's like so overwhelming for it that it just wants to weave.

Yeah, that's what makes sense to someone like me who I'm not a gun guy. I'm not really an outdoors person at all. But even our story that we're telling today illustrates the point that a gun, you got to, you have to be pretty accurate. This guy shot his father-in-law on the leg accidentally. We'll have to assume. And this guy's good with a gun. He's a hunter.

He probably has used his gun a lot. And for me, I know how to use a can of fabric. You know, you just spray it generally in the direction you want to go. And that's kind of what bear spray at an exponential level is, right? It's just a big, easily deployed cloud. You don't have to be super accurate with it. You just spray it in the direction of the bear and it'll be effective, right? But on the other hand, with the gun, he only got shot in the leg.

With bear spray, he got shot in the head. That's true. He could have gotten full body. But he would have been okay. Yeah. All right. So, yeah, that's something else I was going to get. get into Mike as ease of use, which we'll talk about in a second. But basically the main thing that

I wanted to say is that we talk about bear spray a lot on this podcast for a reason. And that reason is not that it's only effective, but it's also a conservation tool. Both parties get to leave that interaction when it's used correctly. So here are my bullet points for bear spray. It's much, much cheaper than a gun. It's much easier to learn how to use than a gun. It has fewer moving parts, so there's much less that can go wrong. You don't have to worry about chambering rounds or, you know, all you have to do is remove the safety quickly. It covers a much bigger area so you don't need to have great aim. You can use it at close range. And the bear gets to live. It gets to live through that interaction. But guns can still be effective deterrence, so I'm not saying you shouldn't carry a gun.

And you probably should carry one in polar bear country. So here are a few red-hot things to know about carrying a gun in bear country, which I probably should have switched those two. It's still funny, though. Don't think for one moment, you're not funny, Wes. Okay. The data doesn't show a statistical difference between the effectiveness of long guns versus short guns.

So if you prefer carrying a rifle or a pistol or whatever for bear deterrence, I'd Those can work. Proper training is really key, so you need to feel very comfortable with your gun before using it as your main deterrent in a counter. So in this study that Tom did, the things that were the biggest, like, contributing factors to problems or lack of time to respond to the bear, 27% of the people didn't have time to respond. 21% didn't use their gun, like there was some sort of mechanical issue or something.

9% of them the bear was too close for deployment Or no, sorry, that's 14%. It was too close. 9% they missed the bear. And there's a few other reasons. Like the gun was emptied and it could not be reloaded. The safety mechanism was a problem. There's all these different things that happened that basically boil down to people

having an issue with the weapon itself or being too close. So there are a lot of things that can contribute to these attacks. And basically, just to wrap this all up a little, just so everyone knows out there, we're not being paid to promote bear spray. There's no benefit to us aside from passing along the information to help protect. Probably lose a little money. Yeah. Just as far as future stories go. Right.

Yeah. We're actually like destroying our subject matter. Yeah. We'll cut all this. We'll cut all this whole thing. All of it. Keep going. The other thing that I just want to mention is there's a lot of responsibility that comes with telling people what to do in these encounters that could potentially end their lives or forever change their lives.

Like that's not something I take lightly and I know it's not something Jeff and Mike take lightly. At this point, we have lots of people that are listening to the show to try and learn what to do in like a really bad situation. So personally, I would never push a narrative that's based on how I feel about bigger. issues facing gun ownership in the U.S. So, like, what I'm trying to say is I wouldn't let my politics around gun control affect what I would tell people to do in a bear encounter, you know? Like, my bear spray, kind of me pushing bear spray isn't because I don't like guns. It's because bear spray works better.

I would always go to bear spray first. So that's kind of what I was trying to say. Well said. Well, if you have both, too, like, you can just take your bear spray out first. throw it on the ground, shoot it with the gun right under the bear. Like jaws. Exactly. So sweet.

All right. So I just think if you are trying to decide between these two things, do your best just to kind of separate any ego or politics or whatever from it, your decision making. And then think about what makes the best sense for your own protection. All right. Okay. Let's get back to the story. This grizzly had been shot twice. Wilf had been shot once.

and now the grizzlies charging back in at full speed once again. Skeet steps over Wilf on the ground and raises Wilf's 30-ought-6 and shoots the bear for a third time. This time the bear visibly reacts to the shot and thrashes through the brush. Skeet looks down at Wilf and says, give me more bullets. And Wilf reaches up with two more rounds that Skeet awkwardly racks into the chamber of this left-handed rifle. He's right-handed, Wilf's left-handed. So it's kind of weird to try and rack a bull on a left-handed rifle if you're right-handed. Sure.

He had just finished getting the rounds loaded, and he looks up to the bear who's once again in a full charge and less than 10 feet away. I think it's been shot three times at the point. Yeah. Yeah. He pulls the trigger again, and now the bear falls to the ground in a motionless heap. The stars of that previous night would be the last that this bear would ever see. Skeet runs to the side of his father-in-law. You don't believe in heaven is in the stars.

I don't know. You don't think bears go to heaven in the stars? It's the last that we would ever see in this mortal coil. Okay, thank you. Yeah. Skeed immediately runs to the side of his father-in-law and starts crying and apologizing. And Wilf looks up at him and says, we got to get our crap together here, man, or I'm going to die.

Crap. Yep. They call emergency services and Wilf's daughter Harmony, and then Wilf called Skeed over. He looks at him in the face and says, If I die here, it's not your fault. You did what you had to do, and you save me, and don't let this wreck your life. Skeet assures Wilf that he would be okay, and then they call Wilf's wife so he could tell her he loved her.

And I wonder if he's also quietly kind of like, hey, if I die here, watch out for Skeet. No, honestly, though, it's a very sweet moment in this interview that I watched. You can tell how much he loves his wife. and right as he's wanting her to know that, he looks up and he sees her walking through the trees toward him. So I don't think they were very far, and word had gotten to Georgette that Wilf had been shot and attacked by a bear. And so she'd already gotten there.

And she lets, yeah, she lets Wilf know that help was coming. And when search and rescue did get there, they realized. I would think like, oh, this is it. I'm about to die. Yeah. I'm dead. Like she's not. It can't actually be here right now.

Yeah. I think he had like passed out for a bit too. Anyway, yeah, that would feel very strange. Anyway, when search and rescue does get there, they realize they aren't prepared to carry him out of this wilderness area. So they had to bring some chainsaws in to clear a line to be able to carry him out. So it takes a little bit longer than it should. Meanwhile, he's been on the ground for the better part of an hour.

He's screaming for pain relief. One of the EMTs comes up to him and says, when I get you to the ambulance, I will relieve your pain. Which, to me, it's kind of like maybe just give him a shot of morphine or something, you know? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. It's crazy. He's been attacked by Grizzly Bear and shot, but I don't know what their protocols are.

He's just like a DMV person type thing where he's like, I hear you. You need to be patient. I'm doing my job. This episode is brought to you by Miracle Made. The weather's heating up in your nighttime bedroom temperature has a huge impact on your sleep quality. If you wake up too hot or too cold, I highly recommend you check out Miracle Maid's bedsheets. Miracle Maid sheets are inspired by NASA and use silver-infused fabrics that are temperature regulating so you can sleep at the perfect temperature all night long.

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Oh. At the time of the interview I watched, he had over 100 bone splinters still in his leg from his thigh to his calf, and they show an x-ray. It's pretty crazy. You can just see all these tiny little white slivers all over his leg that are all little pieces of bone that are still in him, which has to just be really painful

and a weird thing to have to deal with your whole life. Yeah, that's insane. Yeah. I want those out. Yeah, I just think like it literally blew into tiny splinters, his knees, so I just don't think they could get it all out. Oh, from the gunshot. From the gunshot.

Yeah. Uh, yeah. Easily, like, his worst injury was from the gunshot. The bullet had entered his leg in the calf. It hit the lower bone and followed the bone up and shattered his knee, then exited out of the top half of his thigh. That sucks. Yeah.

The first surgery was to stabilize. Those rifle bullets, too, like, they put a big hole in. Like, it's, that's a lot of damage. Especially if they're, like, hollow point or something like that. So they clean the damage and the soft tissue, then they put in a bar, in his lower leg and upper leg, these bars like meet in his kneecap and there's this weird metal gel

that's kind of holding everything together because he doesn't have a knee anymore. So at the time of the interview that I watched, he had a doctor's appointment in Calgary and they kind of thought that he would end up healing all the way, but then he also had a bunch of skin grafts and everything. It was a big mess. That was by far the worst injury for him.

But I do just want to say, everything I read, everything I watched. He doesn't blame Skeet. Skeet felt terrible. But when you're kicking at a bear as it's mauling you, there's a lot going on. And it's totally, like, this isn't the only time this has happened, that someone's been shot while they're trying to fend off a bear. This has happened in other instances, too. It's a thing where you got to put yourself into the situation.

And that's where, like, the whole gun versus bear spray thing, too. It people don't understand the amount of panic that strikes when like a grizzly is just on you or on a friend. Yeah, you can shoot a target like 10 out of 10 times at a gun range. But like if there's a grizzly bear right on you, you're not going to have your nerves. You're not going to be like a calm state of mind. And it's going to really put in a lot more variables and a gun can do a ton of damage. It's something you can't actually practice. for like that thing I did on the track with the charging bear is as close as you can come

and that's still not the same thing because I knew it was like a wooden bear that was and it still made me nervous like it still got my heartbeat up so you just can't prepare for this and this goes back to what Mike said I was good at it I really was probably named it after you I like on my I had like a hole in the head and right in the chest on yeah in seconds but Mike what Mike was saying ease of use, the thing about bear spray is that you aren't even necessarily trying to like hit the bear right in the face when you first deploy it. You were just getting a cloud of that spray in between you and the bear that the bear is going to have to pass through to get to you. And that works really, really well and it's really easy to do. You don't have to be

a crack shot. You don't even have to have your wits about you. You just have to spray it in front of you, and that's pretty easy. So that's why I think it's the best deterrent that we currently have. Okay. You guys got anything you want to add before we move on to our categories? I mean, it just, yeah, it's crazy that he got his arms, like, stripped off by a bear, and his worst wound was from a gunshot. Yeah.

That's a crazy story. Yeah. His arm bites were mostly, like, punctures where it really got deep and did do it. a lot of nerve damage and stuff. But yeah, the rifle shot in the knee, that's going to mess you up for a long time. I want to meet a Wilf someday. Me too. It's popularized that name.

Okay. Yeah. I feel it's kind of on him if he's going to insist on going by Wilf. He's going by Wilf. Yeah. I know. If people are dropping that F, it's like maybe just go with Will. But I respect that.

I like Wilf. It's great. Me too. Wilford Brimley should have gone by that. Wilf Brimley. Anyway, okay. Wilford. Oh, yeah.

Let's not forget him. Let's go on to our categories. All right. So the first one I have for you guys is your most memorable leg shot in pop culture. So the most memorable time that someone got shot in the leg in pop culture. I have kind of a bad answer, I think. But it is the first one that came. So do you guys remember the movie Night and Day with Tom Cruise?

It's like Tom Cruise and Cameron D. I ever saw it. Yeah. I saw it. I just remember there's like a scene where he comes to a restaurant and like sits down with her in a date. Yeah. Right. That's actually the scene I'm talking about.

I haven't seen it since it came out. I have vague memories of kind of enjoying it. So maybe I'll watch it again tonight or something. But as he's leaving with Cameron Diaz, the guy that they're sitting at the diner with comes out and follows him and tries to take Cameron back from Tom Cruise. Because Tom is seemingly kind of a bad actor at this point in the movie. but Tom pulls out his gun and shoots I think he's a firefighter in the leg to kind of cripple him

but he's like don't worry it's a through shot I didn't hit any arteries or bones you're gonna be you're barely gonna feel anything and you're gonna be a hero because you took a bullet and then they drive off when you say bad actor you mean like a villain right yeah he's a bad actor

yeah sure never could Tom be a bad actor yeah I like that that's funny because that movie's from a time where pre-streaming where we just kind of watched every movie that came out. Yeah. Right. And now it's like, that's definitely one I would have skipped.

But back then it was like, yeah, sure. I'll watch this. Jeff, do you have an answer? Yeah, I have a couple runner-ups too. Maybe I'll just go NFL. Don't steal mine then. Okay. Let's go with Bejohn Robbins.

Got shot in the leg when he was like a rookie running back for the Washington commanders. That's not where you want to get shot. Right when he was about to, or not Beijon Robinson. Bijon? Brian. Oh, Brian, okay. Brian Robinson.

Yeah, the backup running back in San Francisco. But he started for the Washington commanders and got shot in the leg. And everyone was like, oh, man. And then he played like three weeks later and he was really good. What? He's crazy. He didn't enter his career. Wow.

He was like really good. Yeah. That's like 50 cent getting shot nine times and not walking with a limp, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I picked Taken, the movie Taken, where Liam Neeson's, like, trying to interrogate that French dude that was, like, his friend. So they just, like, invited him over for a nice dinner. And then when he's not answering his question, he shoots his wife in the leg.

Yeah. Which, at the time, I just, I was like, holy shit, what just happened, you know? Yeah. I feel like now that's kind of a lot of things from that movie had become tropes. but at the time, it was so shocking to me that he would shoot this innocent woman just to get information. She was so nice, too.

I know. She didn't know what was going on. No. But, I mean, he needed to do something. It made you feel something. The ends, he got the ends justified the means. Sometimes you got to shoot a couple legs to get some answers. I was like when someone like drops down under a car and shoots like a foot or like,

In Kill Bill, I really like the cartoon one of the, what's her name? The Asian assassin. Lucy Lou. Lucy Lou, like the cartoon part of the movie where, like, she drops down and shoots the guy in the leg and then kills him. Yeah. That's a great part. Yeah. Cool.

There's a scene in the Patriot where Canon Ball takes that guy's leg off. Speaking of cannons, it's such an effective piece of artillery. It is. Hard to load and like, it's true. Get many shots off, but yeah. We did the Freedom Tour. Dog got its leg blown off by Canbaugh. The Freedom Tour.

In Boston, the Freedom Trail. Yeah, it was not a dog. Got his leg blown off by Campbell. Jeff is a little mistaken. His name was William. Johnson or something. I read a sign that had a picture of a dog on it, and I read it completely wrong as if the dog was talking.

Wait, one other one was the sopranos. I like when the rapper asked one of the soprano guys to, like, shoot him so that his rap career will go back. Oh, yeah, yeah. Does he shoot him in the leg? In the butt, yeah. Okay. Yeah, we'll count that. Buts or legs.

Most memorable friendly fire incident in pop culture. Did you guys find one for this? I had a hard time thinking of a good one. but then I found one that I liked. I'm just going to go with full metal jacket. The training guy who's like in the bathroom and shoots the sergeant. Yeah, I like that. I'm actually now realizing maybe this doesn't.

So at the end of, well, halfway through Indiana Jones in the Last Crusade when Sean Connery shoots the tail of the plane they're escaping in, he doesn't shoot someone on his team but kind of shoots themselves. out of the air in the plane. He's like, sorry, they got us. And his face is just so funny

in that moment. But like, he shoots the entire tail fin off of their biplane. It's so funny. I do like that. Yeah, I guess,

Jeff, I don't know if yours counts his friendly fire because he meant to kill him. Like an accidental friendly fire? Yeah, like friendly fire is usually, well,

I guess mine, I don't know if mine really counts then either. We all did a bad job, it sounds like. Yeah. Mine's from Desperato. where Danny Trejo's character, you remember he's throwing all the knives and stuff?

He'd been hired by the same people as like the gangsters, but then when they see him, they don't know who he is, and they end up fighting each other, and he kills a bunch of them, and they end up killing him, and they're on the same team. So I counted that as friendly fire.

You know what? At the end of the movie, one of my favorite movies ever hard-boiled, Tony Lung's character accidentally shoots one of the policemen, that's on their side just like they turn the corner really quick and just instinct pulls up his gun and shoots him and it's like a really it's a really strong moment and it's not that kind of movie per se like where you're trying to get in your feelings about like you know right you're not really so more people die in that movie than really any movie i've ever watched i think that isn't just

like a large scale war film but like that they can still make a death in the middle of all that carnage still like a very poignant moment i thought it was just like really really great filmmaking from john woo yeah all right maybe like gooku with his kami kamiha he gets his friends a few times oh sure piccolo shoots goku with the special being canon through raddits that's iconic i didn't know you guys were into dragon ball this is kind of new are you kidding me oh my gosh you you remember that time when you were babysitting me and you came home from school and there's like fire trucks in front of the house. Yeah.

I was just watching Dragon Ball Z, and the lady came over with their son's, like, dislocated elbow. Uh-huh. And it was like a crazy part in the show. So I was just like, yeah, come in and use the phone. This kid had like a broken elbow, and I just like turned the volume up. So I could still watch. Oh, that's pretty funny.

All right. Next thing is your favorite usage of your name in a song, because of ski, you know? I'll go first. Mine's really quick. The song Wesley's Theory by Kendrick Lamar, which is a song I really liked, even outside of the fact that my name's in it.

Because Wes and Wesley aren't like that commonly used names. Yeah. So it is always kind of like fun when I hear my name in a movie or something or a song. It's like a great song. Yeah. I think it's what the opening song off of Wesley's theory? It's opening track off of Damn, right? Man.

Yeah. I believe so. It's a great song. Yeah, George Clinton's in it. We'll have Bill play a quick clip from it. We'll sniff it. There's not a ton of Jeff ones, but I went with Katie Perry's Dark Horse

and Juicy Jay sings about eat your heart like Jeffrey Dahmer. Jeffrey Dahmer. Yeah. Most of my references were Wesley Snipes, because he didn't pay his taxes. Most of mine. Jeffie Dahlmer. Yeah.

I got one Jeff Gordon and like six Jeffrey Domer. In that Young Thug song, I think it's called Kanye West. I don't even know who Jeffrey is, but they say Jeffrey like a million times in that song. Oh, really? But it's just kind of like an ad lib. I don't really get it, really. It's a good song. I like that.

The whole album is called Jeffrey, I think, actually. It's great. I'm going with MGMT song Me and Michael. It's maybe my favorite off of that album, the Little Dark Age album. And I like it because it's like a vague reference to a Michael. It's not really, because Michael is always a reference to like Michael Jordan or Michael Jackson. Michael Jordan or Michael, yeah.

But with me and Michael, it's just like, yeah, I could be, I could be that Michael, you know. And you can put myself in that song. And that's fun. Great. Next category is something you recommend write this instant. I want to go back. Okay. I, man, I have two things I'm really into.

So the first one is I'm secretly taking part in one of our listeners reading clubs. It's just her and her grandma. They told me they're going to read Dostoevsky's brother Karamazov. And it's been a while since I read that. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to like intrude because it's just like her and her grandma. And that sounds like really pleasant and fun.

But I'm reading in the background along with them. And I forgot like I had read it a long time ago and I love Dostoevsky. but like the character descriptions and the small little details is really where the wit and the humor comes through. And I just, there's something about his writing style that really resonates with me. So if you're looking for a classic to read, highly recommend that. And if you're looking for something a little more maybe accessible and fun, I watched an anime called medalist. It's about a young girl trying to figure out how to figure skate. And it's just really inspiring.

It's really fun. Sports shows are kind of my favorite because it's just the easiest storyline. to get behind and root for someone, like the protagonist, you want them to do well. And there's a lot more mechanisms at work than just a young girl figure skating. But that's kind of the driving force of the show. And it's just really, really well done, beautifully animated. All of the figure skating animation is just like, I don't know, they did a great job animating it.

It's really invested in her story. So, medalist. Mine is, the thing I want to recommend is trusting your friends with recommendations. Because Mike recently recommended K-pop Demon Hunters, which when it came out on Netflix and I saw the slide for it as like, I'm not at all interested in seeing that. And then when you recommended it, I was like, all right, I'll give this a shot and I really, really liked it. And then also, Randy, who did artwork for us. A demon boy, man. Genuinely loved it.

Randy, who did artwork for us, recommended a book called Chain Gang All-Stars by, and I'm going to slaughter this name. I'm sorry, Nana Kwame Ajie Breña. It was a book that I hadn't heard of that honestly, like, I don't know if ever would have been on my radar. But Randy had said, hey, I think you'd really like this book. And I just really, really loved this book. It was so good. It's all about kind of a near future where convicts are forced to go through this kind of gladiator-style fighting ring to earn their freedom. And it is very topical to a lot of stuff going on right now and just like really beautifully written, but also an incredible story that's really gripping.

And I just loved it. Like I inhaled that book, read it really quick because it was so good. So because of those two recommendations, the thing I'm recommending is listening to your friend's recommendation. because they know you best. You told me about that book. I got it downloaded, ready to go. I think you'll like it. I really do.

I was thinking about doing demon hunters, but, you know, I'm going to just go with a real recent one, but let's just say the Las Vegas Allegiant Stadium. Yeah. It's so cool. It looks like, they call it the Death Star,

and it's just like the atmosphere in there was like so cool. And, like, I like NFL, so it's fun to go to a game. But I feel like even if you don't, like, NFL, like, that would have been, like, a fun situation. Yeah, I was jealous when I saw you guys there. And, you know, we've talked about how there's a lot of contention in the air in the United States. But I just feel like at sporting events, everyone kind of is able to get along. Well, in a fun way.

Yeah. Every, like, I guess. I know what you're saying. Well, adjusted person. Like you hate the visiting team and stuff, but like, there's a sense of community and inclusion that's kind of fun. So, I don't know, go to this boarding event is my recommendation. Okay.

That's a good one. Great. All right. And then I also just wanted you guys to throw out something that makes you happy right now, like something that just because of what we keep bringing up is, you know, things are a little crazy. So just something that genuinely just makes you happy. I've been swimming a lot recently and it's been really just aside from just the the cardio, the athletic or working out aspect to it, it's really nice because it's kind of the one time in my day when I just don't have any choice but to be with myself and my own thoughts because I'm not wearing headphones. I'm not looking at a screen or somebody else or something else. I'm just head down swimming laps. And I think that's just like such a good meditative thing to have on a daily basis is just definitely.

to have a moment to yourself like that. And of course, I think working out generally just improves everything about your life. And I go through peaks and valleys with that. But you just feel better, feel a lot healthier mentally and physically. For sure. It doesn't have to be too hard either. It's not like I'm cranking miles out every day, just thousands of laps. Just like 7, 800 yards, maybe 1,000 at the very most.

And call it a day. Cool. I'll take a different route. I'm going to say pizza. Pizza just always makes me happy. Especially, like, I've been doing hot yoga if you, like, earn it a little bit. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Or do it at the same time during your hot yoga, just eating some hot pizza. Mine's also kind of a food, but also just kind of a routine thing. Lately, I've just really enjoyed the routine of making my own coffee in the morning. And I've kind of nailed this ice coffee recipe that I really like. and I really enjoy just kind of having that be the first thing that I do in the day is just kind of going and going through this little routine and being just kind of precise about certain things. And I kind of always made fun of people that were really into that,

but I do get it now. I understand the kind of like ritual. Yeah, the ritual of it and how like sometimes ritual really helps you to kind of start your day in the right way. Are you going to try any pumpkin spice now that it's, I'm not a big pumpkin spice guy. I've never been that into it. What?

I don't really like it in cookies or anything. What? Yeah, I know. I'm ready for spooky season, but the pumpkin spice thing never really did it for me. I love it. Yeah. Pumpkin. Anyway, pumpkin.

All right. Punkin. All right. Let's do a couple listener questions. I know one of you grab some from Patreon. Sure enough, did. Hurry up a damn questions, Jeff. Read them.

I'm not going that. Are you looking at your texting someone? I don't know what you're doing. All right. This one's from Trez. Tress? Can bears smell food in sealed containers such as canned food? No.

Like not a canned food container. But if you had like a thin enough Ziploc bag with something that smells strong enough, I think it probably could. But like a canned food, I don't believe they can smell it. But to be honest, and this is a project I wanted to do when I was working with Tom, we don't know exactly how well bears can smell. Like, we don't know what parts per million or parts per trillion of a scent they can pick up in the air. What we have is anecdotal stuff. So we know, like, you know, we've seen them, like the polar bear one that I constantly bring up,

where a polar bear was so many miles out on the ice. And when a whale was brought up on shore to immediately be lined for the whale. So there are like there's things out there that kind of show us that we think they have and like their nasal cavity and stuff, but we don't know exactly. But I would say if you're worried about it, you don't really have to worry about canned food, but I still personally wouldn't like keep it in my tent or something. Well, and like they can probably smell a campsite, which is like, you know, once they get into the campsite, maybe they'll see a can and be like, they're curious. Yeah. So they'd bite into a can. And they buy, like, they do that really commonly.

So. And then once they learn that canned food has food inside, then that's something they're going to be actively looking for. They're just like, you should, we should do a campsite in bear country, but do like the, is this cake type of thing? Make like a tent out of cake. But then like a bunch of stuff's just metal and they have to bite it all to see if it's cake or not. Yeah.

It'd be fun. All right, from Riley. Hi, question watching the Eagles game right now, and they have an actual bald eagle fly around the stadium. Can bald eagles even be fully trained? Is it stressful for them to fly around a huge stadium? They can be fully trained. So a trained balled eagle, it wouldn't be stressful for it

because it has been doing stuff like that. I do feel like there's been instances with like sporting events where they do the training, but there's no one. in the stadium and then like once it's a full stadium the bird gets like a little confused with like all the noise and people and stuff but yeah anyone told these bald eagles about hair transplants you think just go to it yeah romania turkey it is kind of like an unfortunate name you know because there are lots of animals that actually are bald that are called like bald whatever's but for eagle i feel like it should be like the white-headed eagle or the black or the black or the white capped eagle or whatever i don't know i

think it kind of works though i think it like it's kind of cool i like to think about they go get their hair transplant turkey and then like well they're there they may as well hit up one of those bathhouses so they got their like wings spread out on then the baths and the little towel around their waist yeah there's so much to live for for these birds and they just don't even know it they haven't been the Turkish bathhouses yet. So Alex, Alex asks, he says, or they say, that dogs, like, you know how dogs will greet them each other and they sniff each other's butts? And it's almost like a, like, how, like, nice to meet you.

Let's do business together. So his question is, if you had to pick a method that other animals greet and acknowledge each other, what would it be? So like besides a handshake for us, what would we do the animals do? Oh, for people. Like what would we pay? So like, for example, rubbing necks like drafts, touching bills like penguins, etc. So we're replacing handshakes with something animals do.

Yeah. I like the territorial ones where if they see each other, they just fight until one of them leaves. That would be sweet. Just knock heads. Yours is like a big horn sheep. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

This isn't like the exact same. thing, but it'd be kind of funny if we did like courtship dances, you know, like if you just saw someone you were interested in, you just immediately started like putting your hands up and doing like a funny little dance to try and attract them. But that's not so much a greeting as it is like a courtship thing. If we were doing courtship, I'd do like the frigate birds. Because I can like puff my neck out pretty well compared to those humans. All right. I'd get so much action if it's all about just getting your neck big. For greetings, they all sound really bad to me,

where you have to, like, touch faces or get somewhere, like, gross. I don't know. They kind of do it, like, the Bezoo in France. They just kiss each other three times on the face or twice. I don't know about that. Which we need, I feel like we need to practice that in the U.S. Because when I go somewhere where they do that, and I'm forced to do it, I do it so awkwardly.

It's always just the worst. There's a lot of, like, real close lip-to-lip calls because you both go the same way, You're just not sure. Yeah. I got pretty good at it in France, though. Yeah. Maybe like just like a whale, just sing to each other.

Yeah. I like that. 15 minute long songs. It's pretty much what they do in Tolkien's universe, too. That's true. And then I have a few listener questions from Instagram. Dakota Moberg asked Paddington versus Ted who wins in a cage match. I'm saying Paddington.

First of all, because I like him a lot more. And second, because I feel like no matter what, what you throw at Paddington, he comes out on top. He just kind of fumbles his way through it, you know? I'd say Ted, just because I don't think Paddington has any violence in him. But I think Paddington might get them both out of the cage just as friends, like, you know. Yeah. Paddington doesn't have the violence in him, but he's going to, like, slip on, like, a banana peel and, like, make the cage fall on Ted or something.

What if they mean Ted Bundy? Does that change it for you? I still think Paddington wins. I think you can't bring Paddington down, no matter how hard. hard you try. That's the whole thing. And Ted Bunding, I don't think he ever killed any males. Yeah. Paddington's kind of a Jesus figure, I would say. The Jack Todd.

Good place down on that one. Dear Jeff, any tips for dealing with bird blindness? So yeah, I did a joke on my Instagram from the new Peacemaker show. Yeah. Where one of them has bird blindness. But you got to get the Merlin app, you know. Turns out some of the birds are different than other birds. I've been watching that show, and I have realized I've really slept on Tim Meadows my whole life.

Because when I think back on him now, everything that he's in, he's kind of the funniest one. Like everything. He's so funny. His character in Hughie Halloween. Oh, my gosh. Oh, he's so good. So briefly at the drive-in theater. the funniest part. Larissa, or this one's hard, Larissa Isimo, or Larissa is Emo, got it. What are you guys

going to watch this fall? A lot of horror movies. First of all, I'm excited for the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie. Oh, I can't wait for that. Great things. I've been wanting to watch the Shining again. It's been a little while for me. Probably watch that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just, I realize the other day I was listening to a lot of AFI, and that always happens to me this time a year or two. And so I'm like, oh, spooky seasons, it's working its way into my bones. And so I already am starting to watch horror movies. And that's probably almost exclusively what I'll be watching for the next month and a half. I've been watching.

I've been going back and rewatching all of just the classic slasher movies, just to kind of really see where they stack up because it's never been my favorite genre of movie. And it's crazy because I've watched, you know, some Mike Myers, some Jason stuff. And the ones I'm having by far the most fun with are the child's play movies. Really? Really? Because it's, because it's, I feel like it's a humor first kind of thing. And then a scare comes secondary.

And if that's not what they were trying to do, then they, I think they failed pretty miserably. But those movies are so funny. They scared the shit out of me when I was a kid. Like, really scared me. Yeah. You love Brad Durif too. Oh my guy.

I love Brad. He's so fun. He just calls a little kid a brach. I got two more. Sunny laughs as opinion on mullet hairstyles. I'm typically not a big fan, but I've been watching the movie together. I fell asleep, but I'm going to finish it today, which is the one with Dave Franco and Allison Brie and the new horror movie.

And he's kind of got a little mullet in it, and I like it. Like, I generally don't like him that much, but I kind of like his in that movie. So maybe I'm coming around a little bit. I've always been a big fan. I think they're sick. I think they're really. I like it. I think real Mullets are sick, but these Gen Z ones, I think, look kind of done.

I'm in on all of it. Yeah. Anything interesting you want to do for your hair, I'm going to 100% support you. I'm just so into weird, fun hair. So, yeah. Mullets are great, dude. It's like, I don't know. It's not something that should make.

people as upset as it seems to I don't understand that like people are so viscerally repulsed by them and it's like I don't know it's hair I don't know yeah it's a front party in the back yeah right our Cheo Alex asks which one of you has eaten the most donuts in their lifetime who I've eaten a lot of donuts I kind of have too it's not my go-to so it's probably one of you guys I've definitely stolen the most donuts out of the three of us Because I used to whenever I'd go to the grocery store, just eat a donut while I was shopping. I had a friend do that.

And, like, I had on a church trip, and it blew my socks off. I couldn't believe anyone would, like, eat a donut in the store, that blatantly, you know? You're just allowed to have one donut while you're shopping. Yeah. I've eaten a lot, but yeah, I don't know. I think all of us have eaten our fair share donuts. What's your one single favorite donut? My single favorite donut is just like a typical raised donut, not like the, I like cake donuts, but I like a raised donut with just like a chocolate icing.

So just like a chocolate ring. Yeah. I would say like if I'm going to just any donut store, the most likely I am to like it is just like a maple bar. Maple bars. Those are always consistent. A glazed can, like just a normal glaze can be the very best. I'd say the best don't experience in my life was probably the first crispy cream I ever had. Anymore, it's like not as much anymore, but the first time ever when you're a kid, it's just like, oh, this is incredible.

What do you guys think of fritters? Like an apple fritter. That's like, I love an apple fritter. I like them if they don't taste greasy. Like fritters, if the grease has penetrated them at all, they taste too greasy to me. but when you get a good apple fritter I agree that's hard to be I'm never picking

I want a donut fried in a donut shop like someone would have to buy me one for me to try it yeah that's like pick three for me if I'm like if I'm getting a dozen my third or fourth pick is going to be a fritter so yeah cool our last thing I wanted to say just a category about wildlife

because we've done a lot of conservation for grizzly bears So we haven't really talked too much about our Brazil trip, our tooth and claw Brazil trip. We brought it up a few times. But I wanted to ask you guys just to tell like a beautiful or memorable moment from that trip that involved wildlife. Yeah, for me it'd be the second Jaguar we saw because the first one is cool but is really hard to see. There's like a male deep in the brush. But it like kind of got me like excited. Okay, this is real now.

This is real. Yeah. And then the next one we saw was just like, we got so close to it. She started like swimming in the water. The lighting was like perfect and it's just beautiful. I was like Marcella. Man. Yeah.

Look at that. Look at her. Mike. Yeah. There's some animals. I don't. Do you have an answer? It's just like what if it's not the jaguars, which it obviously that it needs to be, I think.

But there, we saw a lot of really cool stuff. The tapir, the first tape ear we saw just kind of happened really suddenly and out of nowhere. And that's always an animal I've harbored some affection for, just because it's like a weird little guy. You think you could beat one in a fight. Yeah, I totally could. I don't think it would even be that hard, honestly. But no, it's just, it's an animal that kind of looks like it's not fully rendered in quite yet. Like when you're watching a PlayStation game, like load the graphics in, but it's like not quite there yet.

Some of the surfaces and textures are a little smooth somehow. It just looks like an incomplete animal almost. But it's just such a curious and funny little, sometimes really big animal. It might have ended up being an anteater for you had we seen one. Yeah. Yeah. I got to do a live correction too that I think on the trip I told multiple people that they're closest living relative as elephants. It's actually rhinoceroses and horses that are closest to tapirs.

Oh. Oh, really? Yeah. Look at that. Yeah. Mine, honestly, so yeah, like it's hard to beat Jaguars. I got to see main wolves and anteders and tons of stuff as I stayed in Brazil. But for our tooth and claw trip, I think one of my favorite moments.

And Mike, this is probably one of your least favorite. But one of the first things that we did that was like a wildlife activity is we all just drove in these open air safari vehicles to a watering hole. And we just got to sit for a couple hours and kind of watch all these different species that people, had heard about their entire lives show up to get a drink, mostly birds. And it was cool just to sit and like hear everything and watches like, a toucan's came in and a goody and all these different little critters. And for me, the excitement of our group doing something that was kind of like a little boring and a little kind of required some patience, seeing our group get so excited for

these different birds and whatnot that would show up, it was like the moment where I realized okay, this is going to be a really good trip because these guys are enjoying this, you know? And I was enjoying it, but seeing that our group was enjoying it, made me realize it was going to be a really beautiful, amazing week, and it was. There's a really funny photo of all of us looking at something, and Mike just, like, not even try.

Someone got a picture of our vehicles. There's, like, 16 of us all, like, intently looking at. something and Mike's just like not even like trying it all it was hot and it wasn't for everyone but it did I did find it to be like peaceful and affirming yeah so I've always loved two kids that was my first real yeah good experience with them yeah all right well it's good to be back boys and listeners and thanks for being patient with us while I was gone and you know all three of us travel a fair amount but we're gonna do our best to always priority this here show, but we love you all for sticking with us this long.

Love you. Love you. We'll see you later. Bye. Bye. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task, unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website to marketing, to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz, and all birds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into

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