Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - Grizzly Bear Attack - The Old-timey Montana Grizzly Attack

Episode Date: June 8, 2026

A small-town group of hunters goes out in the wilderness and has a run-in with a massive grizzly bear. One terrible, albeit heroic, decision later, the hunt ends in tragedy. Subscribe to us on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/cw/toothandclawpodcast ~ Wild Alaskan Company - Get $35 off your first box of wild-caught, sustainable seafood—delivered right to your door. Go to: https://www.wildalaskan.com/tooth LMNT - Get a free 8-count Sample Pack of LMNT's most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase at https://drinklmnt.com/tooth. LMNT Lemonade Iced Tea uses a full black tea extract and electrolytes for steady energy without the crash, free of sugar and artificial ingredients. 3 Day Blinds - For their buy 1 get 1 50% off deal, head to https://3DayBlinds.com/TOOTH. ~ To advertise on the show, contact us! Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/c/toothandclawpodcast ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social:  Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Tooth and Claw. Today we have a bit of a special treat for you all. This is actually an episode that we posted to our subscriber feeds. A long time ago, Wes led it. It's about a grizzly bear attack that happened up in Montana back in the 1950s. A really cool story. A lot to learn from it. Wes did an awesome job.

He actually found this while he was preparing his Night of the Grizzlies series that he did forever ago. And he did an amazing job. I'll just say that for him. He wouldn't say it himself. I'm going to say it for him right now. But we just wanted to say that if this is something that you do enjoy and you want some more of it, we keep things a little more loose, but still educational over on our subscriber feeds. We have 150 or so and counting subscriber exclusive episodes.

And most of those episodes are led by Jeff and me, but Wes did tell me recently that he wants to get more involved and start making more bonus episodes over there as well. So if you want more tooth and claw, or if you want some animal content that's a little off the beaten path, or even things like we talk a lot about sports, movies, all kinds of different stuff. We're posting a lot of bonus content over on Patreon.

Anyway, just wanted to give a quick introduction to this episode, where it came from, why it sounds like maybe there's some outdated references in there. I've done enough talking, though. Let's get to the episode. Take it away, Wes. Let's go. Hey, guys. Hey. Hey, we're here.

Here with a couple of cry babies. My dudes. Yeah. I cry in movies. I cried in everything everywhere all at once. That's not the name. Yeah, it is. It's everything all the time, everywhere, all of it.

Every time. I cried a couple times. I went and saw it by myself. I felt it coming when I saw it, and I just was like, you can't cry. You're a man. Good. That sounds healthy. I buried it.

Yeah. And then Mike, you cried in the Northman. Yeah. It was a hard... I'd dare anyone to go see that movie and not cry. I saw it yesterday and I didn't cry. When they're having sex in the forest. You're like, oh, I wish that were me.

Hey, Mike. What's up? How do you feel about Montana? You know, actually feel about it. It's in like the 60th percentile of places that I like. You know? It's above average. What's above it?

That's a good question. I mean, like, I don't know. Probably Hawaii. I like Mexico a lot. Yeah. I like any of the, like, southeastern Asian countries I've ever been to probably more. How about as far as states go? States. Hawaii.

Let's go with. Do you like California more? South and North Dakota. What? Let's go with Alaska. Wisconsin. They got some good cheese. All right.

No, mind. I just asked because when we first became friends, you kind of had a bit almost where you hated Montana. Or it wasn't that you hated it. but you were comparing it to Colorado. Yeah. And you would send me, like, photos of, like, rocks and streams and be, like, look how beautiful this is. And I think we've talked about this on the podcast before, but it would be, like, the most weirdly disturbing photos that you would send over. Like, somehow you managed just to capture the ugliest looking creek in the world.

And they're just so boring and disturbing. And then you would be, like, look at Colorado. Look how beautiful it is. I didn't think it was disturbing, but it'd just be like a rock with like no like backdrop. It'd just be like a picture of a rock. And then he'd be like, here's Montana. Then he'd show like a mountain range and be like, and here's Colorado. It wasn't disturbing.

It was more like just cold and industrial. He would like make a creek look like, yeah, I don't know. Like a creek that I imagine in like Newark, New Jersey would look like. Yeah, I have a real gift. artistic eye. The thing was it bugged you the first time he did it was because you're like that's not fair. And then that just like lit a fire under him to do it for like the next three years. So I'm the kind of person and this speaks very poorly of the kind of person that I am. But when someone gets really, really excited and proud of something that they want to share with me,

you want to turn them down. It really just makes me want to look for all the bad in it because it's like, dude, Montana is great. It's a perfectly great place. And I've been there and I think it's great. But I don't need to hear about how the freaking flathead cherries are the best cherries on planet Earth. I don't need to hear about how glacier is like the last safe bastion for all things beautiful. It's like, let's get over it. You were born there.

That's awesome. You won the lottery of living in an amazing place. That's it. You still got it. It's still there. I feel like. That is a terrible quality. Me talking about how good I think Stefan Curry is is like single-handedly keeping Mike from fully embracing him.

Yeah, we can't. I never feel like I can fully love something around Mike or else he's going to hate it. He got negative about Lord of the Rings for like a little stretch, but I feel like he's gotten over that. Well, he hates Mary like 100% because I like Mary. That's the only reason. The sole reason. Yeah, I don't. I don't like the way that I am. Don't think that I do. We do. We love you, dude. Thank you.

I brought that up because the story that we're going to talk about today takes place in our lovely home state of Montana. Me and Jeff's lovely home state of Montana. You don't really have a home state, do you, Mike? You kind of traveled all over. Yeah, it's hard to say I was born in Oregon, but only lived there for like two years and then just moved so much. I pretty much just say Utah is my home state at this point. Yeah, because it's by far the place I've lived the longest now. So I don't know. It's weird. Were you mad at your parents when they made you leave Oregon? Oh, dude, I was crying probably. You're like, all my girlfriends are here.

All my friends are here. Yeah, I had a real thing for my cousin back when I was three, apparently. So I was probably sad to leave her. All right, well, we're just going to move right along to our story. This is one that when I was researching initially for Night of the Grizzlies, this is one that I stumbled on because I kind of, when I was doing Night of the Grizzlies, initially I was like, you know what, I should pepper in some other attacks that happened kind of right before it or during that same time period. And I was looking at older attacks that happened

in Montana, Wyoming area. And I found one that I really just, it just like stuck in my brain and I really wanted to tell. And I wanted to tell it for a while now. And I was going to do like a main feed episode about it. But then I thought, you know what? Yeah. Isn't you doing the episode? Isn't that mean Mike's job? Yeah, I'm doing the Patreon episode. Oh, good. All right. Cool. I was about. to wing it. Yeah, I was a little nervous. No, I'm doing the episode again.

I've done a couple, you know, here and there. But this one, like I said, it makes a great main feed episode, but I kind of think, you know, I want to give this one to the patrons. I just think this is, and to our subscribers, I just think this is one that's, that they deserve. Okay. Just them. Yeah. Who about me?

Yeah, should we plug our ears? Yeah, you guys get it too. Oh, we're allowed to. Okay, great. You guys can listen. All right. Today we're going to talk about the Kenneth Scott bear attack in Montana. It's a grizzly bear.

Kenneth Scott was pretty much the golden boy of Fort Benton, Montana, when he left to go elk hunting in the fall of 1956. So when I say that, when you look at photos of this guy, it's in the 40s and 50s that most of these photos are from, and he's got that weird little wave in his hair, and it's this really beautiful, shiny golden blonde, like a towhead color. He's a real Adonis. Yeah, and he just looks like an all.

All-American 1940s and 50s kind of guy, you know, just really like handsome and athletic. He'd grown up like really dirt poor in this town of Fort Benton. There's only 1,800 people in the town at the time. I think there's actually less now. But it's out on this really expansive part of the central Montana prairie. So northeast of Great Falls. So pretty much once you get east of Great Falls, everything starts getting pretty flat in Montana. And that's where they are.

They're in Fort Benton. He was class president and captain of the Fort Benton High School football team. He set several records in both football and track and field. And he was so athletic that when he graduated, he had several offers to play professional football. Both the Detroit Lions and the Chicago Bears tried to get him to join their teams. Same divisional rivals. Yeah, this is in the 50s, and I don't think it was quite the status symbol and probably quite as lucrative as it is now. So he turned him down.

He didn't go. Still a good job back then, though. I know, but he ended up moving to nearby Loma, Montana, where he leased a 1,200-acre cattle ranch, and he married his high school sweetheart, Bernita Flat. Oh, yeah, that's way better than playing professional sports. Marrying Bernita and doing a cattle farm. That sounds nice. It does.

I shouldn't put fun. Then just spearing someone with your head and breaking your neck. Yeah, with your little leather cap, whatever they wore back then. And their knickerbockers or whatever. It was kind of interesting to me to think that back then you just graduated. high school and it's like, huh, should I play professional football or Lisa Cattle Ranch? You know, you kind of just like, the world was your oyster if you were a tall blonde man in the 1940s and 50s. So he married his high school sweetheart, Bernita Flat. They had three daughters together,

Connie, Shirley, and Glenda. So they kind of lived this really bucolic, beautiful life out in Loma, Montana on their huge cattle ranch. And in 1956, so he's 20, 29 years old, I believe. Kenneth Scott was getting ready to go on his annual hunting trip with four of his friends. And they went hunting in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. So the Bob Marshall Wilderness is a 1.5 million acre wilderness. And it's very different from the relatively flat town of Fort Benton. It contains some of the most rugged and remote wilderness in the lower 48.

Jeff, you kind of creaked there, or peeped or whatever that noise was. Did a cheat a noise? How do you feel about the Bob Marshall Wilderness? You want to talk about it a little bit? that big. Yeah, it's huge. Yeah, I love the Bob. It's like in the lower 48, I feel like it's probably the most wild place you can go. Yeah, it's up there for sure. It's definitely one of them. Me and Jeff did a multi-day float through the Bob Marshall Wilderness. We hiked in like 30 miles and then floated out. And it's very pristine, very remote. You don't see any kind of like civilization

or anything. There's some ranger cabins here and there, but that's it. It's very, like if you're looking to get a true wilderness experience in lower 48, it's a good place to do it. Another thing that's really interesting about it is that it's home to a completely intact northern rocky's ecosystem that includes all the animals that were here for thousands of years. So we're talking like Wolverine and lynx, grizzly bears, everything. And there's actually a decent amount of grizzly bears in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. And they tend to be a little honorary in those places. When was the last time you truly trusted the seafood that you brought home? I used to question everything, especially after I met Wes.

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while the Alaskin Company will give you a full refund, no questions asked, no risk, just high quality seafood. Not all fish are the same. Get seafood you can trust. Go to wild alaskan.com slash tooth for $35 off your first box of premium wild caught seafood. That's wild alaskan.com slash tooth for $35 off your first order. Thanks to Wild Alaskan company for sponsoring this episode. So I wanted to talk a little bit. We've gone over a lot of Grizzly biology on the podcast and it's hard not to feel like I'm repeating myself. So I wanted to talk about one thing that I think I've hinted on before, Jeff? But like with our, I mean, just with technology nowadays and people on the phones all the time,

our memories are bad. So just go ahead and repeat yourself. And I'll feel of new. I'll repeat a little bit of it. One thing that I really wanted to bring up, though, is the difference between coastal grizzlies and kind of more inland grizzlies, especially in their behavior. So the coastal ones are the ones that get really big because they're feeding on salmon. They have a lot of different food sources that come right from the ocean. They tend to get really big and they tend to be pretty docile as far as grizzly bears go because they don't have to compete with other bears for food. So because there is in that level of competition, they are pretty tolerant of other bears

and as a result, they're pretty tolerant of humans too. They kind of treat us like they will treat other bears. You can just walk up and pet them. You probably could. I mean, that's what Timothy Treadwell did. And you might get mauled though. Don't do it because you might get mauled. Yeah, he ended up dying.

But they are pretty docile. And then on the other hand, these more inland grizzlies, like the inner mountain grizzlies we have here in Montana, they have to patrol a very large area, a huge territory to find all the food that they need. And when there is a really good food source, often they have to defend it from other bears. So if they find like a carcass or something, that's a great find for a bear in one of these places because they don't just have a ready supply of protein like a salmon stream. So they're going to do their best to make sure they get the most out of that carcass as possible, and they're going to run anything and everything off of it that they can. Because sooner or later, another bear will show up. You could say they're a lot more difficult to pet.

Yes. In the wild. You could say that. Yeah, they are for sure. Mike? You often talk about how they can be all kinds of different colors, their fur. Is there any correlation between their colors as far as, like, coastal and inland goes? Is there like a way to kind of differentiate that way?

I mean, it's not a tried and true way to differentiate, but typically the coastal ones do tend to have like a more uniform color. And this is just anecdotal. But I find that when I see pictures of coastal bears or have seen coastal bears, they tend to be like they're all brown or all blonde or whatever. And then with these inland ones, a lot of times you get that really like grisly appearance where they have like the silver-tipped kind of back

and the dark legs, and they tend to look like a little bit more what you imagine a grizzly bear to look like. Right. So you're saying if a bear is wearing a uniform, you know you can edit it. That's not what I'm saying. But it's not a good way. Like if you're looking at a photo, there are, coastal bears do look a certain way and the more inland ones look a certain way. But it takes some time to kind of get used to what that is. Okay.

There's not like a silver bullet kind of like this. is what you look for. Is this wrong? Or do the coastal ones not normally get quite as dark as some of the inland ones do? Yeah, I think that's true. But it's not, again, it's not like a rule. They can get that dark. So it's tricky. There's not a, there's not like a perfect way to tell them apart. Coastal ones get a lot bigger usually. A coastal bear that's like really dark is super offended right now. Yeah. That I just said. Yeah. So as far as like, what grizzly bears are capable we've talked about this a lot

they can run 35 miles per hour they have a bite pressure that's strong enough to break a bowling ball two to two and a half inch claws they have a really muscular powerful hump in their shoulder that's used for digging but that also comes into play if they're like swattering or scratching they're really powerful explosively fast

amazing animal and they're in in the lower 48 there are our top predator they're the thing that can mess up your day the quickest if you're in a forest that has grizzly bears. So I did want to talk a little bit about their history as well in the lower 48 and kind of what's happened to them and why Montana is a place that still has grizzly bears. So between 1800 and 1975, westward expansion and European settlement, grizzly populations in the lower 48 states receded from like around 50,000 bears to

fewer than a thousand. There's a lot of reasons that happened. A big part of it was livestock Depredation Control, habitat loss, commercial trapping, unregulated hunting, and then just hatred of predators too, just people killing them because they're afraid of them. By 1922, the last California grizzly bear was killed, followed by 1923, the last one in Utah, 1931, the last one in Oregon, 1933, the last one in New Mexico, 35, the last one in Arizona, and then the last one in Colorado was seen in 1979. But for all intents and purposes, by the 30s, the only really occupied grizzly bear habitat in the lower 48 was in Yellowstone National Park, around Glacier National Park, the middle fork of the flathead drainage, and the Bob Marshall Wilderness. So, while grizzlies were disappearing all over the west in the 20th century, Montana really stood out as a conservation leader for grizzlies.

Montana fishing game did their best to slow the decline of grizzlies in the state by abolishing baiting and the use of hounds. to hunt bears, listing them as a managed game species, prohibiting the killing of cubs or females with cubs, and just really doing a lot more studies than any other state was doing. So Montana really saw this happening and they decided pretty early, we're going to keep our bears, we're going to make sure we still have a population of grizzlies here. How do you feel about Montana now, Mike? Yeah, Mike. I'm checking one in the pro column, so now I got to come up with two to put in the cons. And even today, Montana in the lower 48 is the state. that has the most grizzlies.

I think there's probably somewhere around 1,500 to 1,800 grizzlies in the state of Montana today. And how many in North America total? In North America total, I believe there's around 50,000. Okay. So a good little chunk down in Montana. Yeah, I mean, most, the wide margin of those are found in Alaska and Canada, British Columbia and Alaska. So as far as Grizzlies in Montana, they really don't get much bigger than 800 pounds. One of the biggest ever in Montana was killed in Lincoln, and it weighed at 830 pounds.

And Lincoln, Montana is really close to the Bob Marshall Wilderness. It's also famously where Ted Kaczynski was caught, the Unabomber. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice. Another in the pro column. Yeah, we love the Unabomber. Anyway, he's got some interesting ideas. Okay, in 1956.

That's a new episode. Yeah, something else we're going to have to talk about. Okay, in 1956, there wasn't a lot of information about grizzly bears and grizzly bear safety. If you remember the night of the grizzlies episodes, we talk about how there really wasn't a set thing to do if you're approached by a grizzly bear. Really what they thought was like run away and try and get up a tree. Yeah. And a lot of Montana still viewed them as a dangerous nuisance, but not necessarily like something that would potentially kill them. It was interesting in your night of the grizzly to like hear the mindset of people.

about grizzly bears just how like the group of people didn't feel safe searching for the girl because of one grizzly bear exactly yeah they just don't really know what they're capable of so like kenneth scott for example he for sure knew that grislies were capable of killing someone but he didn't really have a concept of how to act around grisleys he didn't know the rules didn't know exactly what to do but he didn't know the rules no he didn't know the rules right in the early dark hours of october 22nd 1956, Scott kissed his wife and daughters goodbye and left for the continental divide with his four friends. When you kiss your wife and kids goodbye, trouble follows.

Never kiss your wife or child. Never. Under no circumstance. You also, though, can't be a dick to them right before you leave either. No, it's got to be a recipe for disaster. You can't like leave something. It's got to be somewhere in the middle. It's a thin line at the walk, but you do have to be careful.

So one of his closest buddies was with him, his buddy VF Squires, which is a pretty good name. So far we've got Bernita Flat and VF Squires. Names today are so boring. I know, they are. Mike Smith. Gosh, get out of here. My parents, man. What's your middle name again?

Don't. We don't need to do this. I'm not going to say it. Say it. That's a mystery that must never. All right. Tyler? It's more boring than that.

But continue. Someday we'll get him to review it. Anyway, Mike, you were right. He should not have kissed his wife and his daughters goodbye. This would actually be the last time that his family would see him alive. So the hunting party was Scott, Squires, Mo Embolden, Lloyd Klein, and Ray Ham. And they decided to go hunting in the area of the headwaters of the Flathead River near the continental divide in the Balmarsial Wilderness.

Scott and Squires quickly picked up an elk track after they set up their camp and showed up. and they decided to head out by themselves to track down the animal, and Emilton, Klein, and Ham stuck together back in camp. So Scott and Squires separated to surround this elk, and they knew they were getting really close to it. So Scott went up on a ridge to kind of get some high ground, because you can't beat the high ground. It's a good move.

And Squires continued along the bottom of this ravine, and he was following the tracks of the elk through some thick brush. And suddenly there's crashing in the timber ahead of Squires. it grabs his attention and he looks up to think, oh, this elk is coming out at me, but it wasn't an elk. It was a huge, enraged male grizzly bear. So this massive bear is running full sprint,

and in a few strides it covers the 50 feet between it and Squires. And in a shock, Squires tries to back away, but immediately he trips and falls onto his back, and the bear's instantly on top of him. It bites into his skin, the flesh, and the bone of his ankle, and it lifts him up into the air, shaking him around like a dog shaking a toy. It's funny because that's how he described it

And that's how everyone always describes these things Yeah But you can really picture it just like a dog Just whipping a toy through the air And that's what he said it felt like with this bear No, that's super funny You know my humor really well Yeah sorry I shouldn't say funny

So Scott's nearby And he's watching just in stun silence As this huge bear is shaking his friend senseless And then he watched Squires repeatedly start kicking the bear in the nose With this other leg But the bear's not reacting to that at all So in a fog, Scott raises his 30-06 to his shoulder, which is a pretty high-calibro rifle,

and he fires a warning shot to scare the bear away. But as soon as he fires the shot, the bear drops his friend squires and charges towards Scott. So Scott still has his gun up, and he takes a second shot. This one's not a warning. It rips right through the bear, hits it in the chest, clips its shoulder, punctures both lungs, and lodges six inches underneath its spine. So you're thinking like, okay, this thing's... That's a good shot.

Yeah, it's been shot on the shoulder. Both lungs are punctured. It's right below its spine. This bear's toast. Yeah. You're wrong. But it was enough to discourage the bear, and it immediately turns and runs back into the thick brush of the Bob Marshall Wilderness,

leaving a really huge blood trail behind it. Makes me think of Dominic Tureto in the Fast and Furious movies. How you just can't kill him anymore? He's just like, we'll get shot and then he doesn't even flinch. Yeah. Yeah. So Scott runs to his friend, but Squires really miraculously seems to be relatively uninjured. The two quickly discussed the situation.

He's like bleeding out of his ankle, but that's about it. And they're talking about what to do, and they end up making a decision that's so bad that it would end up costing one of them their lives. So what do you guys think they decided to do? Follow the trail of blood. Yeah, that's exactly what they decided to do. They decided they would follow, and it's for kind of a heroic reason, But they said they would follow the bear into the brush and finish the job because they were worried that it would potentially attack other hunters that might stumble upon it.

And they knew there were a lot of other hunters in the area because they had passed other camps as they drove in. So they just thought, okay, we just injured this bear. It's enraged. We don't want anyone else to stumble on it. But this is a terrible decision. It's a really, really bad one. It's like, oh, I wonder what these other helpless other hunters won't be able to defend themselves. Right.

Like, they all have guns. I think it's more that they just knew. They knew there was a hurt bear out there and other hunters. That was like being aggressive. Right. But still, I get what you're saying. And I'm just going to say right here, this is a bad idea. If you ever, if a bear's ever injured, like say you hit a bear with your car,

or if you are a hunter and you end up hitting a bear for whatever reason with a bullet, hitting a bear with a bullet. You definitely shouldn't follow it if it's injured. That bear is 100%. in self-defense mode at that point, and it will absolutely rip you to shreds if it gets the chance. Is hitting a bear with a bullet throwing it a bullet at it? No, I mean, like you pinch it between your fingers and just hit it with it. Really?

And the powder will explode if you hit it on that. Yeah, exactly. The other thing to think about is this is a huge wilderness area. This bear has plenty of places to go where it's not going to run into people, and it has a really good reason now to avoid people. So what I said earlier, like if someone stumbled on it and they were too close, it will attack them now, almost for sure. It's when they're injured, you're dealing with a really, really aggressive animal because it's doing, I should say defensive. It's doing everything it can to defend itself.

But he shot it in the chest. And in my mind, it would have been like, you know what, it's going to die. Let's just let it die. Let's go back to camp and call it a day. I mean, in my mind, they're out hunting. they have like justification to kill this bear and they probably just kind of wanted to kill it too probably that's an assumption and it was a huge bear and back then I do think they could kill it legally and like keep its paws or something and like have a cool fur but just just from like a bear biologist's

standpoint there's like a lot of different types of bears that are dangerous we talked about how a female with cubs is dangerous or a male defending a kill is dangerous like those are really dangerous situations, probably the most dangerous situation out there is dealing with an injured grizzly bear. That's the one that truly you want to avoid at all costs because they are really upset and really, really, really, really defensive. All right. It actually, it didn't take them very long to find the injured grizzly. They had a really good blood trail to follow.

And when they spotted it, it was on the edge of a meadow and completely unaware of their presence. So both Scott and Squires opened fire. Scott's rifle jammed and Squires quickly ran out. of bullets. While Squires was reloading, Scott looked up to see the bear once again charging his friend, and he yelled at Squires that the bear was coming. Squires turned and ran to the edge of a ravine where his rifle actually caught on a branch and he tripped and tumbled all the way to the bottom of the ravine, losing his rifle in the process. Twice that this guy's tripped? Yeah, he's tripping everywhere. This one, he's been bid by a bear

on the leg already, though. So he's, it's probably throws off your equilibrium a little bit to have a bite in your ankle. Sure. Yeah. But he's laying at the bottom of the ravine. He can't see Scott any longer, but suddenly from this hill above him, a scream cuts through the silence. And then he hears this struggle breakout.

And this does, there's this joke in Montana that you always hear of like, can you outrun a bear? No. You just need to outrun your buddy. Yeah, that's hilarious. Or something like that. It's like something around that. Or like the guy's tying his shoes and he's like, why are you tying your shoes?

You can't outrun a bear. And he's like, I just need to outrun you. I laugh at that joke. time. That's kind of what happened here in a way. Yeah, that's so funny. Squires was the first to run. He got away and Scott got attacked. But he could hear this happening and then suddenly the forest goes completely silent again and Squires knows that he has a decision to make. He no longer has his gun. His only weapon he has is a really thin skinning knife and he knows that Scott is a championship runner that he's like, you know, the best runner ever from Fort Bent in Montana. So he figures,

okay, Scott might have gotten away, which knowing what we know now about bears, that's not a possibility. And you would think that squires who had just seen this bear charge twice, he should know. Is it maybe a possibility with a bear that's been shot in both lungs?

Maybe evens out the playing field. But I wouldn't. It doesn't even out of the playing field. There's still, no, you don't want to run. But he knew that he couldn't do anything with just his knife. So he decides to actually run down the ravine to their horses

and then try and go back to Can, to get help from their other friends. So he gets back to camp pretty quickly, and the four men altogether charge up the ravine toward the area where Scott and Squires had been attacked. And to be fair, where the bear had been attacked, too. They found Scott on the ground, and the bear's nowhere in sight. Their friend, who had been this athletic pinnacle of their community,

was lying crumpled and broken in the bushes. He was covered in blood, his scalp had been completely torn off, his face was covered in puncture wounds from the teeth, and his eyeball was completely out of his socket and was hanging down by his ear connected only by those optic nerves. So he was still conscious though when they found him

and they all gathered around him and he told them what happened. It's pretty crazy to think about talking to your friend that you've known forever while it's like eyeballs dangling out and his scalp is off of his head. Oh and another crazy thing, like a little anecdote. They were, right when they found him,

they tried to give him water and it poured out of the holes in his face. Oh my gosh. It made me think of like, Looney Tunes when they get shot with a bunch of bullets and like the water squirts out of them. Yeah. That's what happened when they try to give him water. I'm the most popular person at my apartment complex and I owe it all to Element.

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Also, no questions asked refunds. Try element and see how you feel if for any reason you're not satisfied elements customer service team will take care of you. So apparently the bear had charged him the second time and it quickly overtook him. Four times during the struggle between him and the bear, it got its jaws around his head and picked him up by his head. And then he fought back with his knife as Harzies. could, but obviously he was no match for the grizzly, and it tore him apart in a matter of seconds. And then after it tore him apart, and this is really indicative of like a bear that's just really pissed off, it laid down on him and rolled around on him.

And it crushed his ribcage in the process and did a lot of internal injuries to him. And they do that when they're just really mad at something. They'll lay down and like roll on it and just try and crush it. Kind of like what camels do too. Yeah. Or alligators, right? They do that? Kind of.

A little different. The gator roll. It's a little different. You would steamroll me when I was like four years old. Just the steamroller. We still do that. Yeah. I saw that like two weeks ago.

That still happens. Anyway, the men took off their shirts and they made an improvised stretcher for Scott with some tree branches. And they moved him to a creek bottom nearby. And then just as they were ready to go look for some more help, the bear shows up again. And in a split second, Embleton, their friend, raises his gun to his shirt. shoulder and fires a shot and he hits the bear in the neck and shatters its spine instantly killing it so they needed this dude with them yeah yeah it sucks it uh i forget his name his gun jam and so like unlucky the grizzly was eight feet tall and 750 pounds which honestly is an absolute

monster the only in in yellowstone we have some bears that get close to 700 pounds but you see like a 600 pound grizzly and they are massive. So a 750 pound one, that's like three or 400 pounds bigger than average for a Montana grizzly. Yeah, a huge male. Later, a taxidermis would find a bone deep slash in the bear's face from its eye to its ear where Scott had cut it with his knife during the fight. So he got a couple in.

So the men rode out for help, but the telephone line from the local Forest Service cabin was down. So they ran into these guys Frenchie Meyer and Roy Homme. and there were two other hunters in the area, and Meyer rode his horse 16 miles across the continental divide to the benchmark campground, where he called the Palmer Air Service in Great Falls. And a plane was sent to the area,

but it was unable to land in the dark, and at this point it had been almost 12 hours since Scott had been attacked, and he told his friends, God, I'd wish I'd die and get this over with. And not long after, he got his wish, and the 29-year-old Scott died an hour before a doctor finally arrived early Sunday morning. So a lot of this story came from a magazine from the time.

It was called Real Magazine. And they reported that Squires, his friend, had a really hard life after the death of his friend. And that his son, Mark Squires, was actually bullied in school by kids who called his dad a coward because he left his friend to go find help. And some of the other hunters had to go and talk to these kids and be like, hey, that was the only option he had to go find help. Yeah, I was going to ask if that was the right move. but it sounds like obviously it was. He just, he didn't have any ammunition left. Yeah, I mean, with an injured bear, it was.

It was for sure because that bear's injured. It's enraged. It's going to attack either way. If it hadn't been injured, there's a chance him showing up and looking for his rifle. Maybe he could have scared it off. But, yeah, I don't know. Because he had ammunition. He just had to reload when the bear was charging at him.

Oh, okay. I see. And then he dropped his rifle up. top. So to be honest, I probably would have scrambled up there and tried to find my rifle. I just think, I don't think he did the wrong thing. I think for the time, like for it being 1956, he did what he thought was right. Sometimes those attacks, though, are so brutal and so quick that where it suddenly went silent and everything,

I probably would have run up and tried to check on my friend and make sure that I could, like, staunch bleeding, do some triage, and then go and get help. I wonder, like, how far down a ravine can you fall? Was it, like, hot rod where he just falls down the whole mountain? I don't think it was like that. Like a 10-minute fall. I don't think it was that far. Are you supposed to plop people's eyes back into the socket when they're dangling out like that?

I don't know. I was wondering. I would want to do, like, the how many fingers am I holding up, but with, like, the eye by his cheek. Yeah. I was going to say, like, I'd be really curious to see if they could still see out of it. of it. Yeah. And then be like, maybe you should just keep it like this and you can use it as like a old periscope. Anyway, I know like the bear then, they stuffed the bear and it went to some hobby land or something and then they were, they were destroying the building that the bear was

in and they learned what bear it was and how important it was to the Fort Benton community. So they brought it back to Fort Benton and the daughters of Scott were there and they were really happy to have the bear back in their community. So the bears still in the community there? I think so. The article that I read was fairly old. And I should say the article I got was from a Great Falls newspaper that I got most of this information from, the Great Falls Tribune.

Once we start our Tooth and Claw tour company, that'll be one of our destinations. Yeah, we'll go to Fort Benton and see the bears. And we'll go see the Lions of Savo in the Chicago. Yeah. That'd be sweet. And the Harambe Statue. Yeah. Anyway, I thought it was really interesting story just because here you've got two pretty experienced hunters who grew up like round guns on ranches.

Really, I guarantee these guys are good with their weapons and they both get attacked by a grizzly bear, you know, and it kills one of them before they finally manage to kill it. And it just goes to show to me how effective bear spray is because with bear spray, you're just shooting a cloud of it out there for the bear. to run into, you don't have to get a perfect hit. Like, this dude shot this bear in the chest, punctured both of its lungs, almost hit its spine, and it still managed to kill him. That shows that guns just aren't the best option. And I'm not saying you shouldn't have a gun, but go to your bear spray first and then go to your gun, because bear spray does really work a lot better than that.

That's why I clean my gun out three times a day while I'm hanging upside down naked. just so it will never jam. Do you like disassemble it and then assemble it blindfolded? Yeah, force gum stuff. I'm quick. Someone wrote us recently and I forget their name and I'm sorry, but they send us a DM and I think there was some kind of psychologist or psychiatrist and they've done a lot of work on stress response and everything.

And they mentioned the fact of like how when you're preparing for public speaking, you can't prepare for that feeling of like getting up on stage and actually like delivering in front of an audience. Yeah. And like a lot of people that feel like they're really prepared when they actually get on stage, they kind of have the sphere response and things lock up for them. And that's the same thing with like preparing. You can go out and target shoot and practice with your rifle and get really good at it.

But when you have a grizzly charging at you, you don't know how you're going to react. It's impossible to prepare for that situation fully. And there are a lot of people that will be fine, but there's some people that won't. And the great thing about bear spray, it's like the same thing there. You have to prepare with your bear spray too and like practice and know how to use it. But it has a much bigger margin of error. It shoots a big cloud. Like, what are you laughing about?

I just want to hear a story now about how someone is really, really good at shooting, but only when they're hanging upside down and naked because that's how they practiced. I was like, they can't shoot any other way. When Wes went off of my tangent with like someone wrote, well, like someone wrote in and said, I was like, where is this go? Anyway, it's just, it's not that bear spray is like a magic bullet either. It's just that there is this margin of error. And like the other thing about is this dude shot the bear through its lungs and it kept coming later.

You know, it ran off, but then later they approached it. So actually that's not a great because it did stop it when he shot it through its lungs. They chased it down. And if you chase down a bear that you sprayed with bear spray, it might maul you too. But the thing about bear spray is that it gets into their nasal passages, it gets into their eyes, it gets into their sinuses, their throat. It just kind of shuts everything down for them. And it's a really uncomfortable experience for them, and that's what makes them run away. And you probably said this already, but my memory, like I said, is really very short.

But they didn't have bear spray back then. So that wasn't an option for them. It was developed in the 80s, I think. I'll do a deep dive into that at some point. But, yeah, but that's my plug for bear spray again. And one more time, like, bear spray isn't just any mace. Like, it's a specific type of mace that's developed for bears. So you can't just, like, go buy any pepper spray and use it as bear spray.

Yeah. Do you think that bear was just mad that he didn't want to go play for the Chicago Bears? He's like, you don't like bears, do you? Yeah, you better watch out for lions, too. I guess he doesn't have to because he's dead. Anyway, sorry, that's not very nice. That's it for the story. I thought it was a really interesting one.

I really like these older stories with grizzly bears just because there's a lot more kind of chaos associated with them sometimes because the people just have no idea what to do. Aside from like shoot it, which is, you know, it's effective sometimes. But I thought it was an interesting one. And when I read it, it really stuck with me probably partly because of the eyeball part. But anyway, do you guys have to? have anything you want to add or ask? No, I think I'm good. No, I just, I can understand why Squires would have such a hard time.

Like, Survivors' guilt's a real thing. And he kind of got away with it twice because his friend is there to take the attention away. And like, it's just a sad situation for everyone. I feel like maybe I was a little too irreverent earlier about some of these things. But, I mean, obviously, this is a tragic thing. And to live with the knowledge and kind of as a first. hand witness to your friend's death has got to be really, really hard to deal with.

Yeah, and I'll say, like, it's admirable that they considered other hunters as their reasoning to, like, try to kill the bear. Yeah. That's admirable a way to die that he was thinking of others. Well, and we talked about this a little bit in the polar bear episode. It's kind of just this weird wilderness Russian roulette where that bear could have just as easily gone after squires. but for whatever reason it zeroed in on Scott on that last charge and went for him

because Squires ran away but he didn't run away fast enough to discourage a grizzly bear you know it could have still gone for him so it's just bad luck for Scott is what it is and Squires doesn't shouldn't hold me if he's still alive because then Scott would have survivor's guilt his whole life yeah yeah that's what's worth death or survivor's guilt it's a toss up all right so we're going to go into our category We've done a lot of grizzly bear episodes. So instead of doing grizzly bear pop culture, we're going to say our favorite hunter from pop culture.

Do you guys have yours? Yeah, but I think mine might, I'm worried about crossover. I'll go last because I have a good backup. Were you going to pick Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter? Yes, is that yours? No. I was actually, I was going to pick a vampire hunter, but it's Simon Belmont from Castlevania.

Ooh, over Buffy, huh? I know. It was a tough one, but Simon, Simon was in my life first, so, you know, first love kind of thing. Have you seen his thighs? He's got good thighs. Speaking of good thighs. Robert Muldoon from Jurassic Park. And those little khaki shorts.

He's my favorite hunter from pop culture. That was mine, too. He's the one. Okay. He's the clever girl one. Yeah, he's great. He's, I recently read the book again, and he's another one of those characters in the movie that's just like so much cooler in the movie.

And in the book, he's just like an old alcoholic guy. Yeah, he gets stuck in a pipe and the velociraptors are like attacking the pipe while he's in it. I'm going to go with the hunter that killed Bambi's mom. I just think... It's your favorite, huh? Yeah, I think if he doesn't kill

Bambi's mom, the movie is just not that good. So I think he really just adds a lot to that movie. Okay. Interesting. Do you even ever see the hunter? Isn't it just like a gun from off screen? I think so. Yeah, I haven't seen it in forever.

I'm going to allow you to call that your favorite hunter. But just no, skepticism is mounting. Well, it's my... It is my backup. Okay, you're right. I had to think of it on the fly. Yeah, all right. So we're going to do the Anaconda scale.

Let's do it. Are we doing it for both men or just Scott? I think it's... I think they both work together, right? It's the same kind of decision. They pretty much did the same thing. Yeah. So for both men, I think there's some strong elements of both hero and villain here.

And I'm not saying they're villains at all, but I'm saying like applying it to Anaconda. The fact that they're chasing after an animal that is injured and in distress has some John Voight feelings to it. But then they also were being heroic by trying to kill it because they were worried about it attacking other people. and I say heroic in quotes because honestly like this whole thing no one's the winner in this whole situation because you don't want to kill a bear either plus it seemed like that there was no ill intent

that instigated the event from the start either so like no one was looking for trouble they just were dealing with it he even tried to fire a warning shot to get rid of the bear he wasn't just immediately trying to kill it see I'm going different than you all together I'm going to Owen because I just think they put themselves into a bad situation that wasn't necessary.

Owen Wilson goes in the jungle to get laid and then gets eat by an anaconda. And these guys put themselves in a situation where they could have just left. No, I see where you're right. Yeah. I would say Owen with hints of John. Yeah. I see the John. I don't think they're bad guys.

This is our most blurry line anaconda skill. Yeah. What are you saying? I feel like I need to rewatch it. Yeah. That's really my main takeaway right now. Because there's other characters, too. We have like three characters that we use.

Four. Or four. Okay. So do we all agree with some John? Mike, you got to say something. I was, so I was agreeing with Wes, but then Jeff changed my mind. Nice. So now I'm agreeing with, I'm agreeing with what Wes ended up at.

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so when their back rolls across your knees, they kind of... Kind of hurts. Kind of, yeah, hurts them back a bit. Okay. That would probably work. Mike? I don't know what I would do,

but I know what I would be thinking. I would be laying there getting thrashed and be like, I should have just played football. Because I don't think there's really anything you could do at that point. No, it's a good point. So I'll tell you really quick, we've talked a lot about what to actually do in a grizzly bear encounter. I think with this one where it was a surprise encounter,

they were creeping around in the brush trying to be as quiet as possible. They probably got too close to this bear and it charged at them. And it was already they were close enough to where it was going to be a full charge, not just a bluff charge. And it immediately hit one of them. So typically in this kind of situation, nowadays I would say discharge your bear spray, spray the bear, group up and then back away,

is what I would tell people to do. back then, if it were the 50s and bear spray wasn't around, I think they did the right thing. I think you fire a warning shot, and then if the bear still doesn't respond, you shoot at the bear once you have a clear shot. As far as, like, you shouldn't follow it after you hit the bear. Definitely, like once the bear's out of there,

you've accomplished your purpose, get out of that area. But one other thing I wanted to talk about is in this kind of situation, like an enraged bear, especially after it's been hurt, there is an argument for playing dead once at the same. it's mauling you because if it's mauling you it's really just trying to neutralize you it now sees you as a threat it sees you as something that's caused it pain it might actually just rip you to shreds but if it's mauling you and you have no other option playing dead could work because it might convince the bear that it's taken care of business and that it can leave but that's not advice i would

generally give people you don't you only want to play dead once a bear is actually mauling you and you've exhausted all your other deterrent options. So if you don't have a gun anymore, you don't have bear spray, and it's actually on top of you mulling you, you can play dead. Gotcha. And that looks like you want to cover your neck and you want to be on your, like, you want your belly facing the ground so it can't get into like the softer parts of you. And if it flips you over, you want to roll back over onto your belly and again, cover

your neck. Do you stick your tongue out and roll your eyes? Yeah, just pretend you go, oh. And then draw X's over your eyes. balls. Exactly. You got to hide your bowling balls, too, or else they'll bite those. Yeah, exactly.

Okay, let's move on to some questions. Jeff, do you have some questions from patrons? Yes. Will you please share them? Yeah. Okay, this person has told me how to say their name before, and I'll just preface it like that. Oh, can't even say preface. This should go well.

I'm pretty sure it's Akshara. They say, since Bart was mentioned in the most recent episode, that might not be relevant right now. How do handlers reduce the risk of an attack on movie sets? Do you know how they deal with logistics like travel? Seems pretty crazy to transport a grizzly. I don't know how they deal with logistics. As far as reducing the potential for an attack on a movie set, I think the main thing that they do is they only have absolutely necessary people interact with the bear. So wherever possible, only handlers are

going to be interacting with the bear and then they, you know, act as a stunt double or whatever, or the stunt double of the actor. And then in some circumstances, I think they let the actual actors interact with them. But I think it's pretty rare. I think it's almost always a handler or a stunt double that are actually doing the interaction. I think that's the main way they reduce those chances just because the bear has a relationship with that person. They know their commands. They know their behavior. And they can respond.

And if they are mauled, they're the ones that are kind of taking that liability upon themselves. So I think that's the main thing, is just reducing any kind of interaction with the bear. As far as travel logistics go, I mean, these are like big shot Hollywood bears now, right? They're probably first class. Private jets. Flying them first class everywhere. Yeah.

They sit shotgun everywhere they go. All right, this one's from Hannah. I spent six months in New Zealand doing field research on kiwi birds, and there was a population of 50 birds that we worked with that had been tagged for 13 years. Kiwis are mostly magnanimous. Magnanimous? How do you say that? Monogamous.

Magnanimous is a word, though. Kiwis are mostly... What word are we trying to say? Wow. This is the first time you've almost slipped into an entirely... different actual word. That's amazing. But there have been a few couples that broke up.

Taco and Bell broke up, sadly. So that's kind of funny. Taco and Bell were a couple. Yeah, that is funny. And there were two throuples in the population. We had a lot of fun gossiping about the birds like it was a reality dating show. So I was wondering if Wes has had any similar funny stories of animal populations he has worked with with their juicy. drama? Not really. I feel like most of the animals I've worked with, the only animal I think I've

ever worked with on a more extensive level that are monogamous are Golden Eagles. And we don't really get close enough to them to really tease out a lot of like relationship drama. I'm sure the people that have worked on that project longer than me know some like kind of juicy tidbits about their relationships. But as far as me, I can't think of any any animals where I felt like there was like something really juicier or kind of fun like that. Are there any documented incidents of grizzly bears or bears in general mating with the same mate from one season to the next? I'm sure there are, but I think that's more of just like a coincidence than like a monogamous kind

of thing. It's not the bear like trying to get its old partner back. It's just that they ran into each other again in the spring and made it. I saw some bears mating last week. Nice. Where? YouTube. No, I'm just kidding.

At the Hogle Zoo. Oh, yeah, that's right. Your siblings, right? Yeah. I always miss the good stuff. All right. This one's from Emily. And they say, besides Lord of the Rings, what are your favorite fantasy stories or series?

And I told them a guess for Mike already. We'll see if I'm right. Mine was the Song of Ice and Fire, the Game of Thrones. But then it got ruined. But I loved, I read all the books and was so into it. until the end of it. Yeah, no, that's probably mine too. I really like the new Dune movie,

and I'm excited to see the second part of that. The book's good, too. Yeah. I actually love the Harry Potter books. Oh, yeah, that's true. Yeah. All right, Mike. What did you, what was your guess?

Fantasy head. So I'm going to guess the thing that you guessed right off the top. I can't say the guess before you say it. Okay, you probably said either Miss Born or Stormlight Archive. Nope. Okay. Any of like the gentleman bastard books? I do like the gentleman bastard books. Like the Greenbone saga?

No. Anything by John Gwynn? What are we talking about? Enders game. Oh, that's more like sci-fi. But no, I... That's like a series. That's a fantasy story series.

It's sci-fi. No. It does get a little like fantastic. That doesn't mean it can't be a series if it's sci-fi. Well, she said a fantasy series. Didn't she say fantasy? Maybe we misunderstood. She said, what are your favorite fantasy stories or?

series. Right. Fantasy stories are series. Yeah. That's not fantasy. She's saying fantasy stories or scenes. I think Enders game would count, but whatever. Have you read it? Yeah. It's very sci-fi. So is Dune. Dune's more sci-fi than is fantasy. I don't think those are mutually exclusive, sci-fi and fantasy. You can't have a fantasy sci-fi? I think you can, but I don't think either of those are. I mean, I get what you're saying, and I actually do agree to an extent, but they're two different genres for a reason. You go to the sci-fi section or the fantasy section in a bookstore. And, like, they're divided for reasons. But there's a couple of books that they don't know which one to put it in, I bet.

You can have an erotic thriller, but you can also have a thriller or an erotic book. And there's like, it's not like they're always the same, you know. But you're right, Jeff. To me, Enders game calls squarely in sci-fi. It's not, there's no fantasy elements in it to me. Yeah. All right. But that's me.

Mike. I'm trying to think of others. Okay, so if there's one that I could recommend to anybody, it would be Sanderson's Stormlight Archive. It's like a contemporary fantasy author. Some people kind of call him like the Marvel Cinematic Universe for Fantasy Lit, but it's very accessible, incredibly epic and scale and world building, awesome characters and just like a really easy fun time with like a lot of really, I'll just say, kind of like poignant and important life lessons to be learned along the way. think that that series is going to go down as one of the all-time classics once it's all

said and done okay cool would you choose enders game it if it qualified um i would but it doesn't so i won't i just yeah no we established that already right i love fantasy but i really just go back to to Tolkien usually that's just kind of where i am and then this one's from gracey if the multiverse was real and you guys had to pick an alternative alternative reality to live in, which reality would you choose? So I'll head this one off just to give you both some time to think. Lately, I think I'd want to be a F1 driver in my alternate reality, because I just think it'd be really fun to drive a race car and be a super celebrity

and go to all the coolest cities in the world. Okay. I think I'd pick one where dinosaurs haven't gone extinct. That's a good pick too. You're a race car driver. And a F1 driver. That's better than mine then. So I'm going to be an F1 driver in mine too.

But I want to live in the alternate reality. Every history teacher I've ever had always says, oh, if the library at Alexandria hadn't been burned, George Washington would have been fighting the British with nuclear submarines. And it's just like, really? Is that like really what would have been happening? I never heard that. Me neither.

Mostly just out of curiosity, I want to live in the reality where the library at Alexandria was not burned. Just to like see if all these history teachers were just here, like repeating something that they heard that's actually just kind of really stupid. And that's a petty reality for me to live in. I love that you have infinite possibilities of realities to choose from and you pick one that you just are mad at your history teacher about. Listen, I'm happy with where I'm mad. Like you could pick one where humans can fly. That's boring. At least he said he's an F1 driver still.

Yeah, yeah. Listen, humans are nothing if not adaptable. So, like, if we can fly, that'd be cool for two days and then be like, well, we can fly. Sweet. They didn't have cars in your time period, right? So you're winning every race. Right. All right.

Great question. Good slate of questions this time. Yeah, that was. All right. So quick conservation corner. We've talked about this a little bit. In Montana, grizzlies have done pretty well compared to the rest of the lower 48. But with the current political climate here and with kind of this return to really anti-preditor sentiments in Montana,

a lot of bear biologists in Montana, myself included, are pretty concerned with the future of grizzly bears. A lot of laws have been passed that are pretty aggressive that allow for things like chasing bears with dogs or setting wolf traps that can catch bears. Lots of just, like, really aggressive laws, killing bears, like, in self-defense, but it's not really, or if they're threatening your livestock, but threatening isn't even defined. There's just some really loose, aggressive laws

that are being passed toward grizzly bears and other predators in Montana that make people, like myself, pretty concerned about the future of those bears. So while their numbers are pretty good, the attitudes are what are mostly concerned. right now and we're just kind of crossing our fingers that things don't slide too far in the other direction so that's a quick conservation corner quickly we'll do our claw rating which is pretty easy for me and jeff this is a 10 claw animal this is probably my favorite animal so yeah yeah number one 10 claws mike it's a nine claw for me oh you bastard they're they're close of all the nines i've handed out

this one's the close the closest probably besides polar bears which we did last week but they're awesome I love seeing them I haven't gotten nearly enough opportunities to do that myself I'd love to do it some more what ratings a panda bear free um giant panda it'd be probably be another nine they're not a top 10 but they're you don't have a single 10 that's a bear I don't think there's any bears in my where do grizzlies rank for bears like yeah give me your top three bears in order well I think we've done this before but it was polar bear grizzly Panda and then, I don't know, the rest of the forgettable black bears, whatever. Boring ass bear.

Just sitting around. All right, so tens for me and Jeff, a nine for Mike. I'm kind of bummed that bears don't ever crack your tens, but that's okay. That's fine. Well, thanks, guys. This one was a fun one, and I really enjoyed this story, so I'm glad I got to share it with you guys. And thanks again for supporting us, whether you're supporting us on Patreon or on Apple subscriptions. it really does mean a lot to us.

It is up to this point what's gotten us this far on the podcast. So we really, truly do appreciate our subscribers. So thanks again. You guys are the best. I say it. We say it.

We don't say it enough. Maybe we say it too much, but we do mean it. We talk about it all the time. So we do mean it. All right. We'll see it. Bye.

Bye.