Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - Kangaroo Attack - The Kangaroo That Almost Ruined Christmas

Episode Date: December 12, 2022

Wes covers the story of how a kangaroo almost ruins Christmas for a pair of young girls, and kind of actually does ruin Christmas for their dad, while Jeff keeps breaking the rules while picking his favorite Christmas movie and Mike wishes his snacks could crawl into his mouth by themselves. ~~ 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

Ruth and claw, here we are. Here we are. In my cluttered apartment. It is cluttered. Right where you left us. Well, you know, I had some nerve pain stuff going on and I just kind of gave up for a month. Yeah. So this is where we're at.

People give up for a lot less than nerve pain. So I think you're okay. Yeah, we're always kind of right on the fringe of giving up all three of us. It's always kind of cluttered so I can't really use that excuse. I was going to let it fly. But in my mind, I was like, we just went up to the cabin and did our Lord of the Rings marathon. We did. Any new takeaways this year?

I threw a real audible this year in that I came to Utah to do a LASIC consultation. Yeah. I did my consultation on Thursday, and they were like, well, when do you want to do your LASIC? And I was like, how about tomorrow? And that was the day before our marathon. Yeah. And it was a lot of faith in my ability to recover in a day. And I did it.

Yeah. Yeah, I was fine. It was really impressed. You did a 12-hour movie marathon after LASIC. They were like, they were telling me all this stuff I shouldn't do after LASIC, and I was like, how about like screens? And they were like, oh, you should be okay. And in my head, I'm like, man, if I tell them I'm going to watch 12 hours of movies tomorrow, they're going to be like, no, in a smoky cabin. We had a good time, though.

Yeah, my biggest takeaways, the Hobbit at the start when Gandalf and Frodo are coming through with the cart. Still can't figure out with the grouchy face, still can't figure out if that's a girl or a guy. It's a guy. 100%. I always think, like, I know I'm always wrong on this and then I still get it wrong. It's a guy. I always think, yeah. Mystery solved.

This is like where they're sweeping and the one guy like kind of grimaces at Gandalf. Yeah. I mean, we shouldn't assign their gender. Who knows? But if we're just, you know. I always be as a lady. Okay. I have it.

Interesting. But I think you're right. Yeah. Mine take away, my main takeaway is what I meant to say, is that the third movie, I've always kind of put it on a tier a little bit below the first two. I think I'm bumping it up. It's one, three, two for my favorites. Interesting. And I think it's because the third movie, Return of the King, I think has the coolest array of villainous figures, you know?

Yeah. They got some cool orcs going on. The extended version has the mouth of Soron guy, who's like my favorite character. Yeah, of all time ever. And the witch king of Angmar is in the third one. Which king does a whole lot of, yeah. I agree. Sheelab's in the third one.

She lob, yep. Yeah. The like John Wayne guy. What's his name? Gothmog. Gothmog. Yeah. You lose Sarmon.

Yeah. He's at the very beginning in the extended. I think by the end of films one and two, I'm kind of like, you had your time. Yeah. You know? I agree with you. I think the thing for me that I wish the third one didn't have that would make me like it's so much more are the ghosts.

I know the ghosts were in the book, but I wish that. they were in the book, or in the movies the same amount as the book, where they just kill people on a few ships, and then they're released. Because to me, it completely removes the drama from the best battle in the series. Yeah. I just think it's such a, it, deosis ex machina? Deuos ex machina. Kind of.

A little bit. Yeah. If Frodo, or like, what, what do you think would be the second best Hobbit to take the ring outside of Frodo? Sam. Oh, no. Okay. Do you give me an argument?

Maybe Pippin. Why? Pippin screws up throughout the entire movie. That always ends up helping. Yeah, he's like, Mr. Magoo. Yeah, it just always ends up working out for the good. They're like turning something good out of bad. Give me one screw up that didn't help him.

I mean, that's a hard thing to say because, like, it makes, they end up, it ends up helping them. Jar Jar J-Jank's where he just screws up in the right way all the time. Okay, sure. And so, yeah, so is Jar-Jar Binks? like your favorite character from those movies? He's not as cool as Pipham for sure. I'm definitely not trusting Pippin with the ring. Pippin loses the ring day one.

Without a doubt. I just don't think he'll be corrupted. He's too good. I would agree with that. I think any of the hobbits aren't getting corrupted. Maybe Mary gets corrupted. Yeah. But he would just like want to get taller or something.

The way Sam talks about his old gaffer, I think he'd probably be a good candidate for the ring. The old gaffer? The whole world a garden. Yeah. That sounds great. Get rid of all the trees and make them gardens. Wait, what? I don't know about that.

I don't think they dislike trees. It was, Jeff brought up something interesting. The scene where Sam is like, this is the furthest I've ever been from the shire. It's like in the middle of like a cornfield. There's like no landmarks or anything. Why did you stop right there? It's very strange. Like, why remember that?

Why is that so important to you? Yeah. I get the sentiment, but it's like, why were you in the middle of this cornfield and then decided to turn around? Like, this is it. Yeah. Yeah. Quick shout out to our Discord, too. We had a couple of people who watched along with us, and I just gave them little updates along the way, and they were all.

They're really excited. I posted little candid photos of Wes and Jeff. I didn't even realize that was going on. Also, to those listeners out there, if you're interested in Discord, the way you're you get access to it is by subscribing to our Patreon. So if you want to be part of the Discord community, which is really fun, just sign up for Patreon. All of our levels.

All of our tiers. If you're Apple subscriber, just DM us and we'll get you hooked up. But if you're not subscribing, sorry. Yeah, sorry, it's just one of the perks. We can't give you everything for free. Just a forewarning here, my throat just keeps closing up. We got a little smoky in there. I'm not going to blame anyone.

I don't think it was anyone's fault. But someone closed the chimney on accident. And then let a bunch of smoke in. I will say that someone was the person that least wanted to get smoke in the cabin because of their recent surgery. Hopefully that clears up for you. Yeah. I hope so, Jeff. At least you're not in charge of the story.

Yeah. Which I am. And we're going to talk about something pretty non-Lord of the Rings related. Okay. Although I guess this animal lives really close to where they filmed Lord of the Rings, which is the Eastern Gray Kangaroo. Lives in Australia. Doesn't live in New Zealand.

But pretty close. Pretty close. Yeah. All right. So we're going to be talking about the Matthew Channel kangaroo attack. I found this story in a lot of different sources. It was in the Sydney Morning Herald. It was in the Daily Mail, a lot of other online newspapers.

It was also the subject of an episode of the show. show I Was Prey, which is a show we've talked about a couple times. So some of the, like, finer details I pulled from that show and his interview in the show, but used those articles pretty extensively as well. All right. Great. If you're listening, don't watch that show, just listen to us. Yeah. Although the show had some really funny parts where it would, like, a kangaroo would be growling and they would cut to stock footage of a kangaroo, like, standing up all, like, alert. Did they ever show that muscular one that it always goes online? No, but then they would constantly cut to the shot of blood all over pine needles.

I did want to bring up. Liver King got caught with steroids. Because in our kangaroo news episode, I talked about Liver King and there's liver castle and everything. Yeah. I really believe that he was clean. So everyone out there that's been eating liver since we talked about that, you can stop. You got to switch to steroids.

If you want to look like Liver King, you do need steroids. We should do steroids. Why not? Or that kangaroo. Life is short. That kangaroo might have been doing steroids. Anyway. All right.

So, Matthew Chen Hall, he grew up in a really family-oriented home near Sydney, Australia. Family was always one of this dude's main focuses. Another big focus of his was animals. His family kept the... Big Fast and Furious fan, I bet. Yeah, so we'll get to that. You kind of beat me to one of my jokes. But anyway, the other big focus of his was like animals.

So they had chickens, they had ducks, they had dogs, cats. lots of domestic animals in his somewhat rural home that they all kept on their property. And he had a pretty idyllic childhood. He loved being outside. He loved being around animals. But his storybook life was shattered when he was 21. His father passed away from prostate cancer. And Matthew really looked up to his dad. So losing him at such a young age was really hard on him. He felt really lost and alone in the world. And I did think about that. If you're in your early 20s when you're kind of really starting to go out in the world and create your own life, it would be really hard to lose a parent right then because that's one of the times in your life

when you really rely on your parents the most to kind of guide you. Yeah. So that was really hard for him and he really struggled for a bit. But then he was in Western Australia working and he was visiting a bar and he met this really beautiful blonde girl named Janine. And the two started up a conversation in the bar and they were almost inseparable afterward. Janine actually ends up moving to Sydney two months later and not long after they were married in 2002.

So the couple welcomed two girls into their first. family, Holly and Amelia, and Matthew was really proud to be carrying on his father's legacy of starting a family, being a family man. They had lots of animals too. He kind of had emulated what his parents had done. In 2016, the family decided that they're going to Matthew's mother's cabin for Christmas. This is why I picked this story. We're in the Christmas season. I kind of wanted to do a story that revolved around Christmas time. So they went to Matthew's mom's house, which was in this really tiny community on Lake Conjola on the New South Wales coast. So New South Wales is the state that Sydney's in, and they were a little bit south of Sydney on the coast, about two and a half

hours away from Sydney. So Lake Conjola is much more rural and wild than the suburbs of Sydney where the family lived, and they knew that they were going to be recreating in an area where they might run in to some local wildlife. And some animals that they considered like fun to run into would be like koalas, wallabies, kangaroos, and then others that were potentially, potentially dangerous were like funnel web spiders, poisonous snakes. Drop bears. That's a koala. But never did Matthew or his family consider that one of the animals that they considered like the most mundane and ubiquitous, the kangaroo would be the one that would ruin their Christmas.

Oh, man. It's not the Grinch ruining it. It's the kangaroo. All right, so we're going to talk. You had to hide a present for their kids in the pouch. Yeah. And it just went bad. That's exactly what happened.

All right, so we're going to talk a bit about biology. What was the present? It went bad? What was it like? Well, I mean like, it was a bad idea. Idea went bad. Oh, okay. The present went bad.

Spoil. Okay, I got it. This is a new animal for us, even though they've come up in some of our news episodes. I dug a bit into their biology, and I learned a lot of things about kangaroos, and they're a pretty interesting animal. So we're going to, we're going to do a bit of biology here. So Australia is home to four species of kangaroo, but there's 51 species of macropod. And macropods are considered the big-footed animals that are marsupials.

So it's like wallabies, walleroos, kangaroos, those are macropods. You made walla-roos up. I didn't. But it's a funny name. But as far as true kangaroos, there's only four. There's the eastern gray kangaroo, the western gray kangaroo, the red kangaroo, and the antelopean kangaroo. And they're all only Australia, right?

There's only four kangaroos? Yeah. The ones that, like, I think, are most. Our most famous are red kangaroos. Not for total. Not for total. Four species. I'm getting things mixed up today.

So what you usually see when you see like shots of the outback in the desert and the really tawny red looking kangaroos like bouncing through the outback, those are red kangaroos. That tracks? Yeah, tracks. When you see the ones that are more like around Sydney and closer to cities and stuff, that's often the eastern gray kangaroos. What color are they? They're gray.

We're going to talk about that a little bit. But eastern gray kangaroos are found throughout the eastern third of Australia. What color are the red kangaroo? They're like reddish tawny colors. Yeah, we've been there. All right. I'm going to make a little diagram for you, too. So, you know, if you look at Australia, we lost Mike already.

If you look at Australia, on the eastern side, there's that really pointy peninsula up at the top. That's called the Cape York Peninsula. And if you draw a line down from that, everything east of that is where eastern gray kangaroo. live. They're also found on Tasmania. They're the second largest marsupial and second largest mammal living in Australia, the largest being the red kangaroo. Males on average weigh about 110 to 150 pounds. They can stand over six feet tall. Females are about half the size. They're like 37 to 88 pounds. The largest males on record weigh up to 200 pounds. And while all kangaroos can get pretty muscular, gray kangaroos are famous for being pretty muscular. Getting shredded.

Yeah, although I think the one that really went viral was a red kangaroo that was like super shredded. Why, do they use their arms for a lot of stuff? I don't know why that's the case. Like their pecks can be. Yeah, they like, it looks like human musculature almost. Right. It's, it's really disconcerting.

I hate, really, it's scary. I hate looking at those photos. So red kangaroos, as we brought up a few times already, are generally redder or more tawny in color. Gray kangaroos are gray or kind of a bluish gray. Red kangaroos have like the squinty your eyes. It's like kangaroo, Jack was a red kangaroo.

Oh, yeah. And then they have black and white markings near their muzzle. Gray kangaroos tend to have much more open eyes, and they live in more forested and vegetated areas where red kangaroo's are in more arid open areas. Their long muscular tail is used for balance when they're hopping fast, and then they pretty much use it as a fifth limb when they're just like walking around. So they'll like push off with their tail and then walk and like push off with their tail. So there's been studies that show it's essentially a fifth limb.

It's cool. Muscles in it and stuff. It's very strong. A third leg, if you will. Yeah. Did you want, was there a fallout coming? No, that was all I got. They can move at speeds up to 40 miles per hour when they're really booking.

And they're hopping when they're doing that. Is that the fastest land animal in Australia? I would think so, but I'm not sure. Yeah. Maybe like a claw falling out of a tree. Yeah, but I don't think falling counts. Yeah. If they, like, reach terminal velocity, then everything is.

the fastest. Like if you threw all of them out of a plane, they're kind of all the same speed. All right. Wishing you could be there live for the big game, soaking up the atmosphere of the crowd, but too often, life gets busy. Or the price holds you back. Priceline is here to help you make it happen.

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Limited time offer. So they can cover almost 20 feet in a single jump. And an interesting thing is most... What? That's pretty far. It's pretty far. Mike was a long jumper. What's your furthest jump? What's your furthest jump?

Almost, I never quite broke 24 feet, but close. It was like 23-9. Yeah. That's further than a kangaroo. Yeah, but if they were trying. Yeah, I think if like kangaroos were training to get as far as. The tails would always, like, mess them up, though. I don't think so.

I think they could probably. They would hit way far back. Oh, that's a good point. But if they trained to land the right way. Yeah. They had, like, yeah, the proper facilities. Yeah, we could postulate about that for a while. But an interesting thing about kangaroo species is most of them can only move their legs at the same time.

So they don't move each leg independently, like they're always bouncing and moving them at the same time. Here comes the really interesting stuff, in my opinion, is the reproductive stuff with kangaroos. You always like that. I do. It's always really fascinating to me. All right. So Eastern gray kangaroos can breed throughout the year. However, most births occur during the summer because there's really favorable conditions for them to breed.

Joey's, which are what they're young are called, are born 36 days after conception. And when they're born, they're about the length of a jelly bean or a lime. We did the jelly bean before, right? They're tiny. Yeah, but this gets really interesting. Even tastier. Those koalas had that in the page. That's right.

So the reason that animals do this, and polar bears do it too, like they have their babies really undeveloped, is that it's like much less taxing on mom's body because like they're not like directly feeding on her nutrients. And it also means that like if for whatever reason she has to, you know, abort that pregnancy, it's much easier if the young is already outside. It would be a lot easier to give birth to a jelly bean. Right. If you're human. Exactly. Yeah. And so she's, well, and that's an interesting thing too is like, if.

we were to, if like humans were to give birth at the same time, the fetus would be born at about seven weeks old. Holy cow. So it's pretty similar. It's like very new in a pregnancy. And again, the whole idea is like they live in a really kind of in hospitable environment. So it just gives the mom a lot more flexibility on raising young. And then there's another reason for it too that we're going to get into in a second.

But this is interesting to me, when this little jelly bean is born, it's pink. It's largely undeveloped except for its two front arms. And the reason those arms develop quickly is it's crucial for it to climb up into the abdomen into the pouch. Whoa. So they're born out of the kangaroo's cloaca, which is like they're opening for peeing and sex and everything. And they climb out of that cloaca and they instinctively know. Like on the outside of the kangaroo? Yeah.

They instinctively know at 36 days. And when the only developed thing is their little arms, they know to climb up into her pouch. That's cool. And then once inside, they find one of the four nipples that she has and they latch on. and they don't have even the muscles to suck. So what happens is the nipple swells inside of its mouth. So it can't even physically disengage. It gets too big and it's like stuck on it.

Whoa. And then it just secretes, the mom just secretes milk into its mouth. It's not sucking. It's just milk is just kind of being secreted straight into it. That's crazy. Yeah. That's so cool. Later, once the jaw actually develops,

it'll be able to disengage and actually suck it will. But it'll stay in the mom's pouch until it's nine months old. and then it leaves. It'd be great if jelly beans had arms that could just climb into your mouth. Yeah, it's really hard to put them in there yourself. You just sit and watch TV and there's just little jelly beans

crawling up your shirt into your mouth or latching under your nipple. I didn't know their nipples were inside the pouch. Is that what going on? She's got four nipples in there. That makes a lot of sense, but I just never considered that. And some goop there's some goop there's mucus and stuff. So another just like really interesting

thing is when the baby's inside of her, not in the pouch, inside of her, there's no placenta. The baby just pretty much consumes its yolk sack, and then once that's consumed, it leaves and goes up into the pouch. And then another really interesting thing about their reproduction is that kangaroos are almost always pregnant. It's called pregnant permanence. So once she's given birth and that baby crawls up into her pouch, she'll get pregnant, and then the second baby won't be born after 28 days like the first one, it develops until it's a bundle of about 100 cells, and then it stops growing. And it just waits there until the one in the pouch leaves. And then once it's like, once that one's left, she re-ups that pregnancy and it starts going again. And so

kangaroos are actually able to suspend a pregnancy and stop that development until the other one leaves. But it's got four nipples. I know, but like she doesn't want two in there at the same time for whatever reason. I don't know why. Why have four nips? I know. I thought the same thing. So is that little clump of a hundred cells? Is insemination required for that? No. But like you need the male. Yeah, that's already of sex, right? So that one, that 100 cells is already a fertilized embryo. From a male. Okay, both. That's a sperm and an egg. Yeah. It develops until it's 100 cells. It'd be like in humans if that egg leaves, you know, the fallopian tubes or whatever, and it's in the uterus, but then it just like hangs out in there.

And then as soon as mom's ready, it starts to progress the end. It's called embryonic diapause, and almost all kangaroos and wallabies are capable of it. And then another really cool little factoid with that is mom is able to produce two different kinds of milk simultaneously for the newborn and the older Joey. So I do think that newborn can crawl in there while the older Joey's still in there, and the Joey will be feeding on one nipple and the newborn's feeding on a nipple. another and they're getting different kinds of milk. And that's crazy. That's wild.

It's wild. Another cool thing is during a really dry period, males will stop producing sperm, and females will only conceive if enough rain has fallen to produce a large quantity of green vegetation. They live in groups called mobs. They have a dominant male that attempts to prevent other males from mating with receptive females. They'll actually fight to prevent other males from accessing the females. Those fights are really highly ritualized. So it means like the kangaroos will go through a series of motions in almost every single fight. Oh, wow. Yeah.

Like a sumo match. Yeah. So what often happens is like, the stomp. It kind of is. Yeah. It sounds like it. What happens is like one of the males will adopt a really high standing posture. And then a male will issue a challenge by grasping the other male's neck with its forepaw.

So that's like what you see when they attack a lot of like dogs or people too is they pull them in with a forepaw first. Head lock them. Yep. Exactly. And then the challenge will be declined sometimes. that means the more dominant male will just kind of decline it and be like, nah, you're not even worth my time. And then the one that tried to challenge it will just kind of leave rejected.

That's embarrassing. Yeah. During fighting, they'll adopt a high standing posture and they paw at each other's heads, kind of boxing. They also lock forearms and wrestle and push each other back and forth, and they'll balance on their tails and kick each other too. A winner's decided when a kangaroo breaks off the fight and retreats, winners are able to push their opponents backwards or down to the ground.

So once a kangaroo's on the ground, that's usually the end of the fight. And they'll also grasp their opponents when they break contact and push them away. They can be defensive around humans for a number of reasons. That can include extreme hunger and thirst, altered behavior from feeding. We just talked about that guy who was killed because he was feeding a kangaroo. Protecting young or aggression from mating. So only two people have been killed by kangaroos in Australia's history, a hunter in 1936, and then the 77-year-old man that was killed in September because he was

feeding a kangaroo. All right. Those are the kangaroo facts. Pretty interesting animal, much more interesting than I ever anticipated. Yeah, I was going to, at several points, I was going to ask if that's something that's bespoke to kangaroo. But the more you kept going over the, like, the fax is just like, this is such a unique animal. I think there's a lot of marsupials that have similar adaptations.

And correct me if I'm wrong. I'm pretty sure all marsupials have really tiny altricial young. Altricial means they're totally dependent on mom that move into a pouch. And I think that's like a very, that might be what makes a marsupial on marsupial. But I'm not totally sure about that. It sounds right to me. Yeah. Is that pregnancy period?

It seems uncommonly short for a mammal, right? Is that? It is. But that's like, again, is the whole idea of the pregnancy is really short. So they can. But then the longer, like then mom, it's like she continues. use that pregnancy, but in an external couch. Yeah. Yeah, that's really weird. And again, polar bears do a similar thing because they are like fasting for a long time and really pushing their bodies to the

limit so they can't afford to take a baby past a point where they're not healthy enough to do it. I've really grown to appreciate kangaroo tails. Yeah. Stories about kangaroos. That they can like just stand on their tail and do a double kick. Yeah. It's pretty sweet. Their tails are like, again, like another limb. They're super muscular and like movable. The UFC would be so much cooler if humans had tails. There'd be a lot more moves. Donp on them.

Yeah. All right. So back to our story. Matthew's family arrives at his mom's cabin. And on Christmas Eve, the whole family's having a really nice time. They're having a barbecue dinner down by the creek. It's the height of summer in Australia. The weather's perfect.

They're in kind of a cooler, more coastal. part of Australia, so it's really nice out. Everyone's in really good spirits. The house is all decked out for Christmas. They're putting presents under the tree. The little girls are really excited about opening their presents the next morning. It's just kind of like, for me, at least, Christmas Eve is better than Christmas. You have that, like, anticipation.

Yeah. And everyone's really happy and just, like, in a good mood. And that's what they're feeling. Well, and you were always mad about your presents. Well, you know, we just never got what we wanted. You was like, last year you got me ten presents. This year, I have nine presents. That's not true.

I was never like that. You were like, you got me an iPhone 6, I wanted the 7. That's not true. That was when you were like 20. He smashed his, he smashed his, these are all eyes. iPad once because it was a new model, but it wasn't the big one. It was the wrong color. Yeah.

If this ever happened, we would get like logs. Like I have a, I have a picture of us, like me and Cyrus each holding like logs. Like a wooden log? Yeah. All right. I can see why Christmas Eve was better. So, after... We got great presents. We did find it. Yeah.

After dinner, Janine and Matthew's mom, they walk back up to the house to start getting some of the dishes done and kind of getting cleaned up after dinner. And Matthew and the two girls had gone down to the creek to play around a bit. And as the afternoon got a little bit later, Matthew tells the girls that they better head back up to the house. And the girls start walking on this path ahead of him. He's cleaning up a little bit of their stuff and they kind of start down. the path. He's a little bit behind them when he stops to look up and a bit ahead he sees that both girls have completely stopped in the path. And he rushes to catch up with them and when he's a little bit behind him still, he sees what made them freeze. And there's a really large eastern gray

kangaroo stopped in the middle of the trail just a few feet in front of the girls. Wow. So Matthew describes this kangaroo as one of the largest he had ever seen. He said he was standing well over six feet tall in the middle of the path. And he slowly approaches the girls and the kangaroo, and he's been around a lot of kangaroos in his life, and he expects this kangaroo to do what they almost always do, which is just bounce off as soon as someone starts approaching them. That's not what it does. It stays completely still, and it starts growling at him.

As he gets closer, he notices, like, he can see really well these huge claws that it has on its feet and its arms, and he realizes, okay, we might be in a little bit of trouble here. And the animal growls at the girls, and it starts leaning back on its tail, and he's like, okay, you know, we're actually in quite a bit of trouble. What have I told you guys about Matthew? Jeff, what does he have in common with Vin Diesel? He loves family. He loves family.

I'm drinking medellos. Or what's he always drinking? Coronas. Coronas, that's right. Medellos. What the heck? I need to watch those movies again. Yeah, we do.

That should be our next marathon. Yeah, let's do that. I'd love that, actually. He's a big family man. Family's everything to him. You ever look at it? So you're saying he doesn't want his. daughters to get attacked by kangaroo. He doesn't want his daughters to diet from this kangaroo.

A little side note here. Sometimes when you look at Vin Diesel's Instagram, he'll just post a photo of him like on the beach or something. And it's the funniest thing in the world to me because you look at the comments and the first 200 comments are all just people saying family. There was one that was really funny to me recently where he's just like at a basketball game giving a thumbs up to a camera. So you're like, oh, that's interesting. And then the caption's like, we need Brittany Griner home this month. And it's like such a weird picture for that caption. But like I do think it's a good like, it's a good message. But it's like such a, it's just like everything's about me.

But like here's this other message. Yeah. So knowing this guy like Vin Diesel cares so much about his family, do you think he's the kind of guy that's going to run away and leave his girls to deal with this kangaroo? No. He's not. So Matthew charges in, he pushes the girl behind him, kind of like Boromir does with Marion Pippen when the Urukai or attack. He tried to steal the ring.

He's not. He's already done with that. But moments later. Yeah, but he's realized what he did at that point. As soon as he does this, the kangaroo jumps forward, and it grabs them on each side of his head with its powerful clawed forearms. So kind of like we talked about, it puts him in this little headlock. Vice grit.

Yeah. And Matthew describes this initial. offensive, he says it feels like he was being hit by sledgehammers with knives on him. Okay, hold on. I know. That's what he said, though. Isn't there like something that that is? Like a mace.

It does sound kind of like a makeshift. Or like a warhammer or something. Morning Star. Yeah. He tries to push the kangaroo away, but it pulls him in and it squeezes his head against its chest. And Matthew can't do anything to break its grip. And then the kangaroo begins scraping its claws. He's stomping its feet, I bet.

We'll see. The kangaroo begins scraping its claws down his flesh, and Matthew can hear the girl screaming behind him, and then he feels a warm sensation running down the side of his head. So he reaches up to feel the side of his head into his horror. The kangaroo had torn a big chunk of his ear off. Oh, wow. And he had blood running down onto his shirt and his arms,

and he's seeing it like fall on the ground, and he's still unable to really disengage from this kangaroo. But he managed to scream to his girls to get away and to run to safety. But them, understandably, they're totally frozen in place. They're watching their dad wrestle with this huge kangaroo. So Matthew's concerned that if the kangaroo knocks him to the ground, it might then go for the girls. So his focus is on staying upright and hopefully getting this kangaroo to release its grip.

But it might back off because it's like the... Yeah, but he doesn't know that biology, really. So he's trying to get it to release its grip, and he manages to pull away enough to swing his hand and punch it in the head, but his blow just bounces off of its head. He feels like he doesn't really get any good contact. He described it like he was punching a C-Doo with razor blades on it. He didn't say that.

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Learn more at LinkedIn.com slash small business. So this only enrages the kangaroo. It pulls him in tighter, and Matthew can feel its claws digging into his flesh again. And it shakes him back and forth, and he knows that what it's trying to do is get close enough that it can start kicking him. Because like we talked about,

they pull something in close, and then they lean back on their tail and start kicking. It's a good move. It is. and it's potentially strong enough to disembowl a person. So it's really, yeah, it's not what you want to have happened. Split your guts right out? You can split your guts right out.

All right. So the kangaroo has him in a headlock. It starts leaning back on its tail. And Matthew knows that this means the legs are coming. So he managed to spin to the side just in time. And rather than sustain a full kick from the kangaroo, he kind of gets a glancing blow. But it's still enough to crush his ribs.

And then one of the claws on the feet punctures into his back. It just sucks, too. It feels like if someone's going to do like a two-legged kick at you, they should at least fall over and give you a second afterwards. Right. But this king is sturdy. Yeah. It'd be like if someone was going to do that, but they leaned back on a chair first and then kicked you.

With like grenades under it. Yes. This is how this guy probably would have described it. A chair full of bullet ants. All right. He knows that another kick is likely coming. He knew that he got lucky to not take a full blow from this first kick. So he knows he has to do something to stop this encounter.

So he does his best again to get a little space between him and the kangaroo, and then he throws a good cross and punches it right in the eyes and in the muzzle. Yes. And finally this kangaroo releases him, and now he has about two feet in between him and the kangaroo. Not a lot of space still. No, but I'm once again reminded of the viral. video where the kangaroo is attacking the dog and the guy runs up and punches in the face and the kangaroo looks more surprised than any animal ever has.

Seems like a punch to the face is a good technique. Because that's what they do to each other. I do think it can work. It's a classic bully thing. You just, you hit the bully and they never expected it. You got to get that first punch in. It's like when you go to prison, you go to the biggest guy and punch him in the face. Life lessons from last.

All right. So Matthew's chest and broken ribs are causing a lot of excruciating pain, but he manages to run to his girls, and he pushes them up the trail and tells them to get to the house. He then turns to face the kangaroo, which is still there, it's still facing him and growling. And they face off, and the kangaroo lunges forward and narrowly misses him. And then he starts slowly backing toward the house,

and the kangaroo's following. But as he gets closer and closer to the house, it finally stops, and it watches him as he backs away, growling the whole time. So he gets back to the house. His wife is standing in the door and she's in complete shock. She inspects his ear. She's a nurse. And she tells Matthew he needs to get to the hospital because his ear is like half off.

The paramedics show up. They call the paramedics. He's like, what did you say? Yeah. I need to go where? I can't hear you. The paramedics show up. They give Matthew some morphine.

So good for you, Matthew. You at least got some morphine out of this whole thing. They load him in the ambulance. They take him to the nearest hospital. It's a really small local hospital, and it's late at night. They don't have a plastic surgeon. They get there at like midnight, so it's already Christmas. The paramedics tell Matthew that they would have to likely take him to Sydney,

which is just totally devastating for him because, again, he's a big family man, he doesn't want to miss Christmas with his girls. His girls are, I forget how old I said, like 9 and 11. 9-11. Oh, that's bad luck. Yeah. Should have known something bad was coming. But that is kind of like a great age for Christmas, you know?

They're still kids. They're still, like, really excited, but they're like your buddies, too. Last year, Santa Claus, probably for both of them. Sorry. Hey, if you kids are out there listening, uh, whoops. All right. Okay. So he's really devastated because he might have to go to Sydney.

They're there really late. The hospital's mostly empty. And they find some doctors. They explain the situation. And the doctors are like, no, we don't know how to do plastic surgery. This is beyond us. And then they hear. this voice come out of the corner of the room. This is how he describes it. And the guy's like,

I can do plastics. And it's this young doctor that I guess was just hanging out in the corner that like emerges. This is like, I've done plastics before. He's like Aragorn in the pub living back on his chair. That's exactly what I pictured. And confidently he tells Matthew that he can fix his ear. So he gets to work. He stitches up the ear. They work on the puncture. There's no general anesthetic, so they're just kind of going for it. He had also broken two ribs. They actually wanted to keep him in the hospital overnight, but he wasn't having it. So they get him back to his cabin around 4 a.m.

Also very Vin Diesel of him. Yep. Yeah, you don't want to stay in the hospital if you're in diesel. Get him. Have doctors. They're staff for it? No, you can, like, throw a torpedo at like a suffering and it's still not have to go to the hospital if you're Vin Diesel.

So he gets back to his cabin around 4 a.m. in the morning, and then at 5 a.m., his girls wake him up to open their presents. Which to me, it's like, if you're 9 and 11, you know, maybe give your dad that just saved you from a kangaroo attack a few more hours to sleep. So he spends most of Christmas Day in a really delirious haze. There's these photos of him celebrating, and he's just kind of like laying back on the couch, like a Santa hat and all these bandages on his face. And the kangaroos looking through the window. Yeah, exactly. All right, so his full recovery took about a month.

He didn't blame the kangaroo at all for the attack. He knew that, like... Who did he blame? His daughters? Well, I mean, it's not, he didn't think the kangaroo had bad intentions. He just knew that it was like, it came across the wrong kangaroo. I'd blame it. You'd blame it.

Would you want to, like, get revenge on it? No. Okay. I think that's more what he's saying. It gets your fault that that happened to me. I'd ask for at least an apology. Yeah. Okay.

I don't think you're getting it. But throughout the interview, he brings up losing his dad as motivation for continuing to fight. And he was really determined to, like, be able to. see his girls raised to adulthood. And I do think this is one, like, from an outsider perspective, I was like, well, his life was never really in jeopardy, but it could have been. Like, they have killed people. It is possible.

And I do think if a kangaroo has you in a headlock and you feel your ear being ripped off and stuff, you are starting to worry about, you know, whether or not you're going to make it out of that encounter. For sure. All right. That's the story. You guys got any questions? What the daughters get for Christmas.

I was going to ask that. Yeah. What do they give him in Australia? Like, Vegemite? A couple cans of Vegemite and like boomerang. Boomerangs. They for sure got boomerangs. Yeah.

Kangaroo scrotums. That's what our parents brought us back. Yeah. A few shrimps on the Barbie. Put them in their stocking, I think. All right. Well, what do you guys? Did you re do?

Yeah. What do you guys is outchies for this one? Three. Three outchies? Yeah. Yeah, three. I'm going to say four. I will say, like, he really described the claws, like,

digging into his flesh and stuff. And then when I saw the photos, he didn't have that many open wounds. For some reason, ears getting ripped off are always hard for me. Like, I just recently watched. Mike Tyson versus. No. A Vanderholyfield? No.

I watched Reservoir Dogs. And, like, the part where he cuts off the ear really bothered me. I also, that movie, I don't recommend watching it anymore. It's pretty, yeah, some tough moments. Yeah. I'm going to change to a four as well. In a vacuum, this seems like a three, but you factor in stuff like, it really sucks when you're really anticipating something and then it just gets ruined. Yeah.

Like Christmas Eve. This dude loves Christmas, too. Christmas Eve is like you spend time you're watching like a nice Christmas movie and you're not expecting to get your ears ripped off. Yeah. Usually. But you kind of have it over your daughters now, too. Like if they don't want to go to college, you can. be like, well, you won't even be here if I didn't say, you're from the kangaroo.

I'm saying, I'm bumping it down to a two. I will say, I've never actually broken one, but I've been around people that have broken ribs. And apparently that really, really hurts. Yeah. I broke a friend's rib and it's the worst I've ever felt. Really? Yeah.

I think I might have broke size rib. I, like, hugged him against a rail too hard. Okay. Yeah, he's from behind or? Yeah. I'm actually, I might, I'm tempted to bump up to fight. even but I'm gonna stick with four. Okay.

All right, well, we'll move on to our categories then. He probably thinks it's a seven. I think so. The way he described it. But our scale, you guys know our scale already. We got a rough scale. There's some bad things that happen to people out there. One is like, you die by a jellyfish.

I do agree, like him. I don't know about that. Him coming home the same night, only spending a few hours in the hospital. Yeah. And like still being like, sleeping up a hour later. like five minutes. Yeah. So I don't know that might add to his outchies.

If he's mad about our outgies for him, he can listen to our other episodes. Yeah. Okay, so categories. Pop culture kangaroo. I'll go first. Mine is from the Simpsons episode where they go to Australia. And there's a part where they're running from a mob. And Homer's like, here, hop into this kangaroo pouch and we'll use them to escape.

And he hops in the kangaroo. and then he realizes he pulls his foot out, and it's all mucusy. And he's like, oh, I didn't realize it was a mucusy. Yeah. So that's my favorite. I'm picking Roger from the Tekken series, fighting game. Oh, there's a kangaroo in there, huh?

Yeah, it's weird. He's actually got like a fairly intricate storyline about like family and fidelity and all this kind of stuff. So, yeah, he's got a little boxing gloves on. It's great. All right. I have a kind of bad answer, but I couldn't think of a great pop culture

kangaroo. All right. But I'm just going to say, like, one of my favorite recent videos I saw of kangaroos. Yeah. And there's a guy wearing, like, one of those inflatable kangaroo suits, and it had a pouch, and there's, like, a baby kangaroo in his yard, and he held the pouch out, and the baby kangaroo hops over to him and jumps in his pouch. Really?

That's pretty cool. That is cool. Yeah, so that baby kangaroo is my favorite. There are some really cute videos of people at, like, kangaroo rescues, stuff holding pouches that joey's go into yeah joys are really cute that's like just like joey kangaroos hopping into like fake pouches is my favorite that's your pink do you guys know anyone named joey i do i don't think so uh i know joey chestnut no i know who he is american our best american athlete he is our best athlete if he if he had grown up playing soccer we'd be in

the World Cup finally. For sure. Yeah. Instead of eating hot dogs. I want to say Kanga and Rue from Winnie the Pooh. Okay. Because I know, I just, and I don't disagree with you for writing in and telling us that we messed up, because we would have had I not done this.

All right. But Kanga and Rue, fine. Great. So another category I wanted to include this time. I just got a surgery that made me feel like I have eagle eyes now. So if you could have any surgery to have any attribute from an animal, what would you get? So I'll give you an example I would pick gills

Because I would want to be able to swim underwater And And not afterword So I'm picking gills Okay before we talked about kangaroos You prepped us for this one Mine was a kangaroo tail Because I want to be able to kick people

With both feet at the same time And not fall over Interesting out of all the attributes From any animal Well can I do Tigger's tail That's a cartoon That's a cartoon. It has to be an animal.

But, like, that's as close to that as I can get. Well, you can do a kangaroo tail. That's what I'm saying. Okay. I want a kangaroo tail. Just so you can kick people. Well, and I can hop on it. Okay.

It's a third, I'll have a fourth leg then. Yeah, but you're going to need big feet. And, like, they're, like, their hopping isn't just because of their tail. They also have, like, a really interesting tendon structure and stuff. I could hop on it. No, they use it for balance while they're hopping. They don't use it for hopping. Man.

I don't know. They use it for, like, like walking for like pushing themselves forward, but they don't use it to like balance. If I could just jump with both feet all the time and then my tail could like kind of anchor me. It would balance you. Yeah. That'd be sick. Okay.

All right. Down the stairs. Out of all the attributes from every animal. I would like just freaking launch myself off of them and my tail would just catch me. You could have condor wings or gills. Yeah, I'll take a kangaroo tail. Well, all right. Okay.

Yeah. You can hang from trees with your tail too. prehensile tale, but not a kangaroo tail. What? They're not prehensile. Well, I mean, after hearing Jeff, how could you pick anything other than a kangaroo towel? I think I would pick just about everything else.

My answer is, have you ever heard that? I don't even know if it's true, but apparently is it like shrimp or some kind of like crawdad or a lobster can see like 16 more colors than the human eye? That'd be kind of cool. Yeah. Seeing new colors for the first time? I think that one, I agree. that that'd be really cool.

I think that one would feel really lonely, though. Like, being able to see all that and not be able to explain it to other people or have anyone else be able to, like, identify with that experience, I think would be really lonely. I'll go with flying squirrel flaps. Ooh, that's a good one. That'd be kind of cool. Okay.

A little built-in body swings. It'd be like a, yeah. Whatever. Well, yeah. It's cuter, I think, right? And that's my, I don't have a... It is not cuter. They're kind of gross-looking, actually.

Open up your arms. Okay, you have gills. Yeah. Gills aren't. Where are the gills going to be? I'm not looking for cute. Or are we doing like, what's his name from the boys? I would want the side gills.

Yeah, that'd be good. That ruined his life, dude. He is not having a good time with those gills. But he was also like a sexual predator. He's a bad guy. But that is because he has gills. Right. Well, you can't.

You know what? Maybe I would just be like, you can't blame him. Maybe if everyone thinks my gills are gross, I just decide to live a celibate life and enjoy my life. under the sea. Right. Yeah, I don't know. I think I'd be okay. I'm just throwing stuff back at you.

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It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. This was kind of a Christmas episode, so I also wanted to ask you guys, just for nostalgia's sake, we've maybe said this in the past. Who the hell can remember all our episodes anymore? What's your favorite Christmas movie?

Right now. Gremlin's one and two. Okay, it's a good pick. Gremlin's one is a great Christmas one. Gremlin's two, is it Christmas? Yeah, there's a little Christmas. I would go, I would say gremlins one is more. It is.

But no, I'm, you know, I'm just, but like I kind of like Grimlins two more. Actually, no, I am going to push back. You have to pick one movie. Uh-huh. What's the one? Here's the problem. Yeah, you do have to pick one. I like Gremlins two, but Gremlins one is more of a Christmas movie.

Well, then pick Gremlins one. It's a Christmas movie. You got to pick. I didn't ask what your favorite Gremlin's movie is. He didn't ask what your favorite true movie. You guys go. Okay. My favorite Christmas movie,

honestly has to be home alone. Even though it's not like... What about disonestly? Dishonestly, I would say National Lampoon's Christmas vacation because that recently has been the one that I think I get most excited to watch. But Home Alone,

I usually watch it not long after Thanksgiving and it brings in all those nostalgic Christmas feelings for me. An outsider one, like one that's like really gaining a lot of steam lately for me, is the movie Klaus. Oh, it's so good. Yeah. I love it.

Animated movie. It's great. Mike, what's your? I feel bad saying this because I let my anger get the better of me a few days ago. I was talking to my brother and he brought up that it's a wonderful life might not only be his favorite Christmas movie, but maybe his favorite movie. Wow. And I got a little worked up. As you guys know, I'm prone to. And I was like, we watch so it's my pick. That's my pick. It's a wonderful life. It's amazing. We watch it every Christmas Eve and we love it every year. But I just had a moment. And I was like, I'm so. sick of this movie.

Yeah. And he pushed back and, you know, you push my buttons the right way. I'm going to start arguing the death about the stupidest. Like if you say like, hey, Mary, Mary's actually kind of a fun character on Lord of the Rings. Exactly. You know exactly where I'm going with that. But no, it's a wonderful life. Since I can't pick Gremlins one and two, I guess I'll just do like a die-hard, lethal weapon combo.

You can't do that either. You got to pick one movie. We're not leaving this. category until you pick one movie. I'll go with Die Hard. Okay. That's a great pick. I hate when people are like, oh, die hard.

It's not a Christmas movie. It's like there's Christmas music throughout. There's Christmas decorations throughout. There's Christmas hats. It's like, it's very Christmasy and it's a fun movie. So, you know, let people like Die Hard. They're chopping for Christmas trees at the start. Yeah.

Get out over it, guys. You know? Yeah. Ah. All right. So from this story, what photo do you want to post on your Instagram? Well, it sounds like it already exists.

The picture of him like zonked out on the couch with like a Santa hat bandages. That's a pretty good picture. Yeah. I would, I'd want when I'm in a like chokehold from the kangaroo. Uh-huh. But then I like stick my tongue out and do like double piece signs. That's cool. That did never happen in the story.

So I don't know. Does that count? Well, he's in a chokehold. Yeah. I'm just saying I would make a face. Okay. I thought it had to be something that. actually happened in the story. It did happen.

He didn't, he made the peace sign? I missed that part of the story. I mean, he was in that position. So you think he must have. He could have. Tost up them. Okay. I didn't know that's, I didn't know that was allowed. But mine is like, I want a picture right after I punched the kangaroo. Oh yeah. And it's like faces to the side and there's maybe some spit flying out of its mouth. Yeah. That's my fellow. I like that. All right. Also, I want to see, maybe this doesn't really count, but I want to see a picture of this rogue plastic surgeon guy that's just hanging out in the corners of the cigar. Yeah.

I just want to see what he looks like. I just imagine him like putting out his cigarette and being like, yeah, I can do plastics. Okay, so what would Mike and Jeff do? Your little girls are facing off a kangaroo. You're there. What are you going to do? I'll wait for it to do the double leg kick and I'll put my leg behind it. I'll like sidestep the kick.

put my foot behind the tail and then tabletop it over my foot type of thing. Okay. Like trip its tail. All right. Yeah. Okay. Mike said, yeah, like that was like the most. I felt like I was.

Like that was so reasonable. Tripping a person, you trip their legs. Yeah. Like you stick your leg behind their legs and push them. Right. Yeah. I'm going to do that with its tail. So you're going to tabletop itself over its own tail.

While his feet are up in the air kicking. I'll wait for it to. try to kick me, and then I'll trip it by its tail. So you're swiping its tail out from under it? Yeah. Oh, like a leg sweep, but its tail. And like we talked about it, a lot of times when one kangaroo's down, that's the end of the fight. So you might win the fight that way.

All right, right. Just a little flourish on the end there. Mike? Yeah, I'd probably stick like a bomb down its pouch. Right. It's violent, but. I love that we watch that come to your wizard. Okay.

All right. What are we supposed to do, Wes? All right. So, first of all, you should avoid getting into this kind of situation. So you want to keep your distance from kangaroos, give them plenty of space, be vigilant, plan ahead, take routes that avoid passing through areas where kangaroos are congregating. Avoid walking alone at dawn and dusk when they're really active, which means they're what, Jeff? I was thinking about mics. Dawn and Dust.

Corpuscular. Correct. Exactly. Always, if you're in a place that maybe has a lot of kangaroos, it's a good idea to walk with like a safety stick. Because like sharks and some of the other animals we talked about, if you can get something in between you and the animal, it's like a visual deterrent for them. It creates a barrier. For them, it's just like it kind of reduces the chance of them engaging with you. If you feel threatened by a kangaroo, oh, and I should.

I should mention my source on all these. This is from the Queensland government. They're a department, environment, and science. Okay. If you feel threatened by a kangaroo, you want to move away slowly, hopefully to a safe place. You can give a deep, short cough, avoid eye contact, bow your head and keep your arms close to your body. Like you get in a physical. You're being like less of a threat.

You're appearing smaller. Like you're the man, I'm not. Yep. I couldn't do that. So all you alpha males like Jeff. I refuse. You won't cough even once in their presence. When I get physicals, I won't cough.

All right. We're off the rails. So don't turn your back on it. Don't run. Where possible put a barrier between you. and the kangaroo. If you happen to have an object with you, hold it out as a barrier. If it does actually attack, you want to drop to the ground, which Matthew never did. You want to curl into a ball. Lie face down. Use your arms to protect your head and neck.

Try and remain calm and still until it moves away. So kind of like what you do if a grizzly is actually mauling you and you don't have it in a fetal. Get in the fetal position and just wait for it to stop. If you have a bomb, just put it in that pouch. Blow it up. All right. Let's keep one of those on you. Let's give a disclaimer here. We don't actually want people to blow up kangaroos.

We don't condone any violence against animals. No. We're just laughing because that was unexpected. Silly answer. Okay. Jeff, you got any listener questions for us? Yeah. What do you want me to do with them?

Read them. All right. From patron. Yeah. And this is from Kristen. Patreon. Or patrons. You got close.

Yeah, it was. It's better than... I said one or the other, at least, not a combo. Okay, this is from Kristen. Hello, they came over from listening to your Anaconda episode on Too Scary Didn't Watch. Oh, that's what you talked about. The movie Anaconda. They've been binging our episodes and they've learned so much.

So my question is this. Which animal is the most surprising in that they don't kill people? My favorite animal is a rhinoceros. I was surprised not to find any rhino episodes in the main feed or in Patreon. Are rhinos actually pretty safe big buddies, or is this episode still to come? Still to come. But then they still want to know what animal should be killing people that's not. Yeah, honestly, I'm going to, maybe this is just like a recency bias.

I'm going to say Anaconda. Anacondas have never on record killed a person. Never once. No. And they're definitely capable of it. So I'm going to say Anaconda. You guys have any answers? Yeah.

Mine both look alike. Okay. I'm going pandas and killer whales. Pandas have killed people. Really? Yeah. And Killer whales have. Actually, I don't know if pandas have.

I don't think they have. I couldn't find them. Okay. Mike did an episode on one. And only captive killer whales have. Yeah. Yeah. So they both are black and white, cool looking.

Those are good answers. And they haven't killed anyone in the wild from what I personally know. Yeah, I think you're right, actually. They're just small people, pandas. This one is more just my own preconceived notions playing the major part in me thinking wrongly about them. But Tasmanian devils are nothing like Tas. If you would ask me when I was six what the most dangerous animal out there is, So I would have been like, oh.

Yeah. I think when you see one, you realize, like, okay, of course, this has never killed a person. Yeah, it's just like a little, I don't even know. They're pretty small. But they are mean. Okay. We got a lot on this. So from Connor, what are all your thoughts on the cocaine bear movie and, like, what it's being made about?

Is Connor a patron or is this? Yeah. Okay. You know what? I just did an interview with Atlantic about this. they asked me kind of my thoughts on it. I think it looks, well, personally, like, from my, like, cinematic tastes,

I think it looks way too silly for me to even want to see it at all. Okay. But I think as far as, like, you know, they took the story of a bear that ate a little bit of cocaine and then died. Yeah. And, like, really ran with it. Yeah. But the one thing that kind of concerns me

is just sometimes movies about bears will proliferate a bunch of myths. that are already existing. Yeah. Like playing dead or like all these different. Sucking the poison out. Right. Like those kind of miss, but with bears.

Yeah, I'm talking babes. Okay, fine. Haven't heard that one. But anyway, so I do worry about that a little bit. But outside of that, I don't know, I'll see it at some point. I don't think it looks good. No, me neither. But I think it was kind of a good idea just because like it's not that

realistic to have a movie about like a bear just going on a rampage and like this kind of gives you like an excuse to do that that like a bear would be behaving like really crazy yeah you know I mean yeah but there are like stories like there's this sync this like series of attacks in japan and like the early 1900s where a bear did go on a rampage or like i don't know so i do think i'm just saying it's yeah it's a funny you could like have the bear go like full Hollywood on people and have like an explanation for why. I do think like this is like a snake's on a plane example where the title was so important and making people crazy about this, the fact that it's called cocaine bear.

Yeah. And I've never done cocaine, but from watching the trailer, it seemed like that bear was on every different drug. Did it like sniff it up and throw its head back? It just like, it was like tripping too. Do really well on Wall Street. I don't think people like trip on cocaine, but I don't know. Mike, what do you think?

So I feel a little bit maybe differently in that I think they should have taken it, taken their artistic liberties to the limit and just really had like a whole group of bears doing cocaine on purpose and like. Drugging. Basically like crank, but instead of Statham, just have a bear. I think that's pretty much what it is. Oh, I haven't watched the trailer. That's pretty much what it is. Okay, well, then I'm in for a good time.

Now you have to watch it. All right. This one is from Instagram, and there's like four different ways you could say this Instagram name. So I'm just going to go a lot of idiocy. Oh, I nailed that. I figured it out as I read it. It sounds like only one way to say it. So it's another bear question.

I'm going to give it to Mike first. Okay. Mike, why do bears fight each other when there's so much space out there anyways? Like outer space? Like just space out. There's so much space. Yeah, that's crazy. Why do they fight each other?

Wes, I'm going to defer this one. I'm going to say it's a weird choice to get this one. It's usually over resources. It can be over mating opportunities too. So like male bears will fight when they're both trying to court a female. But sometimes it's over the best fishing spot in the salmon stream. And then sometimes it's actually just like sparring and it's more like play than it is even fighting. So a lot of times, like in polar bears, when they're waiting for the ice to refreeze,

you'll see males sparring. And it's more just like they're playing and kind of testing each other than they're even fighting. And then you also sometimes see females defending cubs from other bears, and they'll fight in those circumstances too. But I would say the main reasons are competition over resources and mating conflicts are the probably two main reasons you'll see bears fight. Cocaine, too, right? And there's not a lot of space for bears out there.

There's a decent amount of space for bears, but... Okay. Yeah. I mean, their habitat is getting worse, but I think as far as just, like, space is concerned. There's a lot of space out there. There's a bit of space, yeah. Okay. They're not fighting over, like, space.

They're fighting over resources or mating. Well, I mean... Or defense. A spot in the salmon stream is space. Fair enough. It's also resources. All right. So, yeah, the Venn diagram is just kind of a one big circle, it seems like.

Okay. From I am just Danny. I'm just Danny. I'm just Danny. Okay. All the possibility. What is an animal with no recorded attacks? Oh, this is kind of like what we just, but it's different.

Okay. What is an animal with no recorded attacks that you think would make an interesting episode? Huh. Anacondas. They've attacked people. Yeah, oh, no recorded attacks. Even an attack. They would make an interesting episode.

Like what animal just has? crazy facts that would have a cool story. That's a good question. A Greenland shark. Although there might be Greenland shark attacks. I don't think there are, though. That'd be a good one. They're just fascinating to me.

Yeah. I don't know. There's so many. Dinosaur? Just D-Rex. For me, that's a hard question because I think every animal is somewhat fascinating. Yeah. And there's like a whole, like more animals don't attack people than do.

And so that's really hard to put one. And if you guys check on our bonus episodes, we have done like some pretty, like I did koalas and that's pretty hard to find any attacks. Yeah. All right. From Spencer Thomas Smith. Favorite song from your childhood. Mine's, she thinks my tractor sexy. How did that one go?

Do you think my track is sexy? I kind of channeled my Scott's dad. That's like creed. It's like creed. in it. I'd probably say all-star. Hey, no, you're an all-star. I love that song.

Does it have to be a song that came out when we were kids or a song that we listened to a lot when we were kids? I mean, I don't know. I'll say, I'll do one that came out when we were kids. I was really into the song, song two by Blur. When you're a kid? Yeah. Of course.

I mean, I was a kid. I was like in middle school when that song came out. Okay. That counts, right? Sure. When I was a kid, kid, like when I was really, That's what I said. I just listened to the Beatles and the Beach Boys.

And, like, my favorite of each of theirs, for the Beatles, it was hold your hand. I want to hold your hand. And for the Beach Boys, it was Little Deuce Coupe. Little Deuce. Yeah. I was really into Sail on Sailor by the Beach Boys, but my favorite song was by yes, long distance. I liked smooth criminal a lot as a little cute dude. Yeah.

Hey, Annie, you okay? Yeah, we know. We know the song. You don't need to keep going. All right. Thanksgiving just happened. So from Molly Sky, let's do a refresher. Favorite food on the Thanksgiving food table.

Does pumpkin pie count? Sure. That's my favorite food in general. That's my favorite thing to eat. Wow. Big claim. Yeah, that is big. I'm like, I'll go on record saying that Thanksgiving food isn't my favorite.

I think it's, like, fun. I really like Thanksgiving, but the food, like, palate, me isn't the best, but I, or like the food, I don't know what I'm trying to say. Just the food. Usually the thing I like the most are like homemade rolls. Mine's always been the cream, uh, cream green peas. Yeah, but, whoa. You know it's rising the ranks every year's stuffing.

Yeah, I like stuffing. I like pie the most, but I, but it's not like, I like all the pies, not just like one kind. I like turtles. So I'm going to say, yeah, I like those too. All right. Jeff, which of your beanie babies is your favorite? That's a really hard one. A listener sent us some beanie babies, and they gave me kick, which I love.

Uh-huh. But, I mean, you'd probably be Valentino, the Princess Diana Bear. His name was Valentino? Yeah. Why? Yeah. If I could have any of a pristine beanie baby, I'd probably want Cubby. I had this as the end, but someone's...

This is one where I have absolutely no, nothing to contribute to this answer. All right. From Everything is Gray, they just say dire wolf or dragon. Ooh, dragon. That's easy for me. Like, I like the dire wolves more. But it's just like a big wolf. If I'm seeing one of those, I want to see a dragon.

They were like, the dire wolves were my favorite characters in this show and books. Yeah. Well, dire wolves are a real thing, right? Dyerwolves existed. I'm not going to assume he's asking what would, win in a fight. No. Because that...

My guess is like, what would you rather see, maybe? I'd much rather see a dragon. I would rather... I'd rather own a dragon. I'd rather see a dragon. It's a dragon. In the show and the books, I like the dire wolves more, but I would rather have a dragon. Yeah.

But I don't know where I'd keep it. I'd probably burn... I'd probably kill someone and take their house. Yeah. All right. Mike. Dyerwolf seems a little. easier to kind of have around and like very loyal feed yeah and play with if you're keeping it

but dragon would be the dragon's like if you're not in alpha that thing's going to have a mind of its own yeah if it's just like not even alpha but just like a strong we've all seen the show if you don't have enough badges the dragon's not going to pay attention to you like we learned in Pokemon so yeah yeah charge aren't even I know it's like just straight up ignored it's in like multi also congratulations to ash ketchum he did it he won the pokemon world championship you see that les i didn't i don't care west his mom didn't go yeah his like best friend didn't go and team rocket was there watching him his mom's busy shack up with i saw this i saw this tweet recently that like showed ash feeding all his Pokemon and they're all like feeding out a little bowls on the

ground and then team rocket they're all like having a feast together and they're like maybe team Rocket weren't the bad guys. Yeah. There's good guys all along. But you know what? I also know hardly anything about Pokemon. Well, you know that. You got it.

All right. Okay. Well, that's good. I think that's a good. Yeah. All right. So let's do a quick conservation corner. Eastern gray kangaroos are one of the rare animals that has possibly benefited from

European colonialism. Oh. So as something we can be proud of. People from mostly Europe came to Australia. they cleared large swaths of land, which actually created habitat for kangaroos. They also placed water troughs throughout the arid outback of Australia for their cattle and their livestock, which kangaroos use. So they actually provided water and habitat for kangaroos. Today, collisions with vehicles, interactions with dogs and cats, coals, they actually coal kangaroo numbers, hunting, and other human-caused threats, lead to kangaroo mortalities, but overall they're doing pretty well.

they're considered least concern in IUCN. Eastern gray kangaroos are especially adaptable to humans because they do pretty well on the fringes of society. So they're doing okay. Cool. All right. Kind of like you. Living on the fringes of Missoula.

Just living right on the fringes of Missoula. All right. So kind of a new thing that we're doing sometimes, maybe every time, is we're going to read a five-star review because we really appreciate them. We read probably all of our reviews, which I don't know if you're supposed to, but we do because they're overwhelmingly nice

and we really do appreciate it. My thought was getting five-star reviews is good for our podcast, so maybe people won't want there's red. Yeah. So that's why we should do it. So now you guys know the entire reason we're doing this, the psychology behind it.

All right. So this one's from R.B. Sparrow. The title's too long. Really? No. Okay. The title's too long for me to see. like it won't show up, but it says being a wildlife major, I abso, and then it cuts off.

I wonder what the rest of that word is. But they gave us five stars. This is a longer review, but I did like it because I think it sums up some of our goals in the podcast. It says, I found this podcast a little while ago, and boy, I'm so glad. I have an Associates and Wildlife Resources Management and a Bachelor's in Wildlife Conservation, so getting to learn about various types of animal species, their biology, and how to handle encounters with them is right up my alley. The episodes are super informative, intriguing, and fun.

The banter between Wes Jeff and Mike is great. There's an awful lot of wildlife biology, ecology, jargon out there, but Wes explains things in such a way that clears up the mud and reaches every type of audience. Though my passion is wildlife, I'm currently stuck working an office job. Sorry, RV Sparrow, we feel for you, in agribusiness. So getting to hear about Wes's work in Yellowstone is sort of like a window into what my dream job would be. A tremendous thanks to you guys for creating this podcast, giving the animal a voice in the story, one of our main goals, and educating the public on how to best mediate human wildlife conflicts. Through education comes inspiration, through inspiration comes conservation. Keep it up, you guys. P.S., excited to now be

part of the Grizz Club. We're excited to have you part of the Gris Club. That's a very nice, thoughtful review. Thanks so much. It's cool getting my name shouted out on the podcast. On the podcast. Oh, yeah. Oh, just now. I said review, yeah. I got my name. shounded out. I feel cool. And you got read out loud on the show. By Wes, my favorite, my favorite podcast. It's crazy. Yeah. All right. Thanks again for the five-star review. We really appreciate it. And honestly, like, we do, we do really like them. And they do kind of, you know, I think the reasons we do do this podcast are because we really like the benefit that it has for people that you can go out and recreate and feel a lot more prepared about being around wildlife and then also the

benefits for wildlife because when people are more prepared you're not going to run into as many problems wildlife's going to be safer and it is a conservation tool so we are really happy about that and we love to hear from you guys about how it's helping you so thank you yeah all right so our last category how much do we like this animal we'll do our claw ratings Jeff will do his number rating uh who wants to go first I'll go I'm going to give them a nine. Wow. I love kangaroos.

Okay. It's one of those animals where it's like, if I'm trying to think of like 20 animals that are just like fun to think about and look at, it's going to be there. They're just so funny and fun. Okay. Yeah. I'm going to give it a seven. And I'm going to rank it 77th.

All right. Wow. I just picture Jeff like seeing a seven in front of them right now. That's all we can think about. I think they're very cool. I think they're the second coolest marsup. Well, I don't know. I need to see all the marsupials, but they're not as good as koalas.

But yeah, I like them a lot. All right. And they're sweet. And I like their name. They do have a brand. That plays a big part into my rating too, I think. There's actually an interesting story about their name that was like one of the early colonialists heard.

He asked what they were called to like an indigenous person. And he heard the name. And they think that he misheard the person. asking him a question back. But then that was actually a myth. And the guy did actually say their name for kangaroo. So anyways, look into that if you want to learn more about it. Honestly, before doing the research for this episode,

I probably would have given them like a five. Now I think I'll give them a seven. Nice. I think they're really fascinating animals. I think any time an animal is like an emblem of an entire country, it's kind of neat, and they definitely are for Australia. And yeah, I think they're very interesting. than koalas?

I think those two would be the two that would be their most famous animals. I like animals that move around unlike any other animal. I know there are other animals that hop around, but I don't know. It just doesn't seem like anything bounces around quite like a kangarigas. Yeah. I wanted to ask before we end, so we used to have the Olympic category. What would they be good at in the Olympics? Yeah, I would say, what's the one where you're...

Polval because they're shredded arms, too. I know. It would be so good. What's the one where you're jumping a bunch of? Triple jump. No, like hurdles. Or you're running hurdles. I would say hurdles.

Hurdles is it. I just wonder if their tail could keep from knocking the hurdles over. That's true. But yeah, I like that answer. Taekwondo. Isn't that the one where you kick a lot? They're pretty good at headlocks. Headlocks, yeah, that's true.

Knocking people over, you get a point. Yeah. And it's hard to take a kangaroo down with like the three. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. True. So seven claws.

Seven claws, seven claws and nine claws? Eight. Let me dip. Eight. I just wish they had a little more like markings or like a little something more. Like the babies are cute, but the adults, there could be a little something else going. The jelly beans? Yeah.

You hear that, kangaroos? Step it up a little bit. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks, guys. We really appreciate you listening. Again, if you are interested in more content, we've got our Patreon. We've got our Apple Grizz Club.

It was our last patron episode. Our last one was about wild boars. Oh. It was an interesting one. A lot hogs. A hogs. Yeah. So feel free to subscribe.

You know, we really appreciate it. You're going to get access to our entire catalog of bonus episodes. We're pushing probably, what, 60-ish hours of just completely exclusive content to either Patreon or Gris. It's a lot. And honestly, any more, it's 10 bucks a month. Like, what costs 10 bucks? We're up to 60 million a month. What does cost 10 bucks?

That's like a value meal at McDonald's. Just see one less value. meal and McDonald's a month. Yeah, and you get access to all of our bonus. That's 10 items from the dollar store. Yeah. The dollar store doesn't even cost a dollar anymore. It's like two C's chocolates.

Yeah, that's like 10-1-bill's. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. Okay. We'll see you guys. Bye. Bye. Love you.