Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - Mountain Lion Attack - The California Cougar Kidnapper

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

Two incredibly unlikely encounters with a mountain lion in California cause a major legal battle, heartbreaking injury, and a crisis of faith. https://fishingclash.link/Tooth&Claw ~~ To advertise on the show, contact us! ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social:  Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Register today at Richfield, Utah.com. Welcome back to Tooth and Claw podcast. We have our bear biologist, Wes Larson. He's in his shed. He's happy. I'm happy. He's doing great. I'm his little brother, Jeff Larson.

And then I'm not going to call him our producer anymore. We have Mike Smith. He's just a co-host. He doesn't edit anymore. That's all Bill Baxter now. That's true. So you lost your title of producer. You never did call me producer before.

So it's like nothing will ever change. You're no longer sound guy. Nothing has changed here. You're no longer sound. guy. You're just comedic relief just like me now. I got to find something else to contribute. Demoted. You're still beefy

though. You're still a beefy boy. I don't even think he's beefy anymore. He's getting muscular. He's been being beefed up. You need a little beef to be beefy. He's got some beef still. Sure. I got some beef but I don't think I'd still be. I don't think I'm a beefy boy yet. You got beef

with anyone? Could you be beefy that way? Maybe. Yeah. I got beef with people but not anything serious. Jesse. No. Jesse's my number one. Oh, you know what? Let's put a pin in that.

Okay. I got some, for like our new thing, the advice thing. Yeah, some nice advice would suffice. Someone you might have some beef with in that later on. Okay. Okay. Great. Pinned.

Well, you guys, we got a heck of a story today. Really? Yeah. It's a bit of a catastrophe. Because I feel like you haven't really done any good ones for a few years. Hold on, Jeff. Wait. Jeff, shut up.

Yes. Say the joke again. This story is a bit. story's a bit of a cat-tastrophe. All right, Jeff, you can start talking, though. Yeah. Oh, I was just saying he hasn't had a good one for like years, man. Well, Jeff, I'd be lying to you if I said this was a bad story.

Well, great. Two jokes in a row. Wow, Wes. Well, what was that one? I didn't catch you either. Yeah, it's all right. You're just waiting for the next thing to say. No, so today.

Was it the lion thing? Yeah, it was. You probably know by the title of this episode, I'm guessing, but today we're going to talk about a Mount Lion attack. No, I'm thinking African Lion, so yet. Well, you don't, you haven't seen the title of the episode. That's a good point. We tend to, like, feature animals repeatedly on this podcast,

and I think the ones that we probably do the most are bears. There's a good reason for that. I'm a bear biologist. Jeff has helped me a decent amount on bear projects. Yeah. Uh-huh. And we live. in the Rockies. There's lots of books on bear attacks, too. There's just a lot of information

out there. I think next would probably be shark attacks. There's a lot of information about shark attacks. Yeah. And then after that, it kind of goes to big cats usually. And Mountain Lions are one that we've covered, but there's a lot of stuff about Mountain Lions. There's a fair number of stories. And I think it's one that our listeners are probably the most afraid of. And I want to teach them why that's not always justified. Are they the most fringe of the Big Cat? What do you mean? Or like a Cheetah, if they qualify as a big cat.

No, I would say cheetahs are more so. Isn't there some debate whether cheetahs actually are? Okay. Yeah. We're going to get into that. Hold it. Another pin. Before we do that, I just brought up sharks and it reminded me of something.

A while back, me and Jeff got it. I think it was when we did our Jesse Arbighamast episode and we were talking about Summer the Shark. We kind of got in a bit of a tiff. And I said that 24 was going to be an unremarkable year for shark attacks even though it was billed as a summer of the shark

where there was lots of attacks in the news. And I bet Jeff that 2023 would have more attacks than 2024. And I'll be honest, as we went through the year and I saw news stories, I started to feel very not confident about it. There's a lot of sharks in the news for 2024. Yeah.

And our bet was that the loser had to get a shark tattoo. And the source of information we wanted to use was the Florida Museum of Natural History's International Shark Attack File, which is kind of considered the gold standard when it comes to reporting shark attacks. Yeah, I don't know. New York Post. New York Post had some different stats. Yeah. If Florida Shark Attack File is a gold standard, New York Post is like the diarrhea standard. All right.

So the results are in for 2024. They usually come out around this time of year. February. And I'm just going to read the headline of this article. 2024 was an exceptionally calm year for shark bites. Uh-oh, Jeff. Worldwide, there were only 47 unprovoked attacks down 22 from the previous year and well below the 10-year average of 70. Oh, you're getting a face tattoo of a shark, Jeff.

So Jeff has to get a face tattoo of a shark. I'd make it look like a tear drop. Oh, that's cool. I think that's, yeah, but it's a shark. And it was less than 2023. At 2023, I looked into it and was significantly more. Yeah, you beat me by like 50 attacks, right? Some were close to that, but not that many.

It was like 30. But, you know, Jeff, I'll probably get a tattoo with you. I'll probably get a shark tattoo too. Sounds fun. Oh, nice. So anyway. Well, if you guys are getting one, then it kind of feels like I have to go on. You probably should too.

Yeah. All right. Well. Okay. Well, let's get into our story for the day. I have a few different sources for this story. main one that I used is this book called cat attacks. It was written by Joe, what's that about?

Cat attacks, all mountain lion attacks. Yeah, but what's it about? What do you mean? I know the name of it. You can't judge a book by its cover. I said it's about cat attacks and then you asked it again. Well, I thought you were just saying the name of the book again. No, no, I was telling you what it was about too.

Okay, I get it. This was written by Joe DeBrock and Dean Miller. It's a great book. I think there's some good science in here for the time, especially when it was published. I do think some of it is a little bit outdated, but I've enjoyed reading it. It was published in 2001. And then I also used the book Out of the Lions Den, which was written by Sue Matern, and then a lot of different articles I found on mainstream media.

So those are my main sources. Okay. Are you guys ready for it? I'm excited. Use the Bible at all. We're bringing up the Bible. Oh, the Bible's been brought up. We have to give ourselves lashings whenever we bring up.

five lastings. Yeah. It's just like the most, probably the most famous lion den story ever. I guess it's not a lion attack. Or one of us has to rend our garments whenever we bring up the Bible. Nash our teeth. Yeah. Sue Small was in shock.

She's staring at a spot in a small Santa Ana stream where seconds ago her tiny five-year-old daughter Laura had been standing and playing happily in the shallow cool water giggling while she's trying to catch some tadpoles. Now her daughter's gone. She's completely gone, and this creek is empty and quiet. It took Sue's brain a second to catch up, and then she bent over and led out a primal, blood-curdling scream. All right, so the small family had started that Sunday in really high spirits.

It's a beautiful March morning in El Toro, California in 1986, and like a lot of people in Orange County, they decided to spend their day outside after going to church. Having gone to a religious school, there was a lot of people from Orange. County. Yes. University. A lot of people in this community were headed to the nearby San Juan Capistrano Swallow Day celebration.

Mike, you went to something called Swallow Day once, didn't you? Yeah. It wasn't as fun as I thought it was going to be named very inappropriately, in my opinion. Anyway, the small family decided that they would head into the Santa Ana Mountains following their church service. So if you're unaware of where the Santa Ana's are, the mountain range that's essentially in between Los Angeles and San Diego. So they split like I-15 on one side and I-5 on the other side.

For Sue Small, the mom of this family, religion was always a really big part of her life. Following high school in St. Louis, she joined an order of nuns and spent six years in the sisterhood before finally leaving. And even though she left the nunnery year, the sisterhood or whatever, she was still a faithful believer in the church, but she just realized nun life wasn't for her. She just wasn't... She wasn't having none of that. That's pretty good.

All right. So she moved to Orange County. She met her husband, Don, and they had two kids, David and Laura. And on that morning in March, March 23rd, 1986, little Laura was five, and David was nine. When the family got out of church, they headed home. They got their hiking stuff together, and they headed on the short drive to the Ronald W. Casper's Wilderness Park.

This place is far from an actual wilderness. The park had been a 7,600-acre cattle ranch that was later set aside as a natural area through which San Juan Creek also ran. But as more and more of these communities kind of took over the foothills and crept up alongside the park, these trails got a lot busier and it definitely became far less wild than it once was. In fact, when the small family got to the gate of the park that day, they were handed a trail map, and on this trail map there's a warning

about the most dangerous form of life in the park. What do you guys think that warning? was for. Rattlesnake. That would have been smart. Cougar. It was for poison oak. That was the only thing they warned them about that day is they went hiking.

Wait a minute. Okay. Never mind. I thought you specified most dangerous animal, but that oak. I said form of life. Yeah. You got them. All right.

But do you think trees have souls? Yeah. Probably. That's why I only... If I have a soul, I think a tree has a soul. But I don't know if I do. You think like Jesus? judges the trees when they die.

I don't think Jesus judges anyone when they die. They go to heaven or hell based on how good of a tree they were. No, I don't believe that. I would think the poison oak would go to hell. I wouldn't. I would disagree with you, but that's an interesting theory. All right, so Sue, like most people that learn, the only concern in a place is a plant,

was probably pretty carefree as they started this hike. Little did she know that her small daughter, who's lagging behind the group, as she checked out all the different flowers and bugs along the trail had attracted the attention of a predator that was quite a bit more dangerous than just poison oak. And it was now quietly following the small family through the dense chaparral brush and oak woodland of the Santa Ana's. Oh, the chaparral brush is going to hell. You know that, Wes.

You have to admit to at least that. Yeah, sure. I'll admit that. I do agree. You got me. All right. So the small family arrived at San Juan Creek, where Sue and Laura took off their shoes. And I'm saying small family, like, their last name is small.

I just want to stress that. It's not, yeah. But they all are, they're also like a small family, right? Yeah, there's four of. Her daughter. There's four of them. There's actually 18 children. Average-sized family.

Huge family now it is. So they arrived at San Juan Creek where Sue and Laura took off their shoes and started waiting in this cool water of the creek. And Don and David got a little bored with the pace of the hike. And they decided they're going to head further up the canyon and let Sue and Laura play in the water for a bit. So Sue watches Laura in her little white shorts and blue-flowered patterned tank top splash through the water as she smiled.

She told Laura to go over to the edge of the creek and look for tadpoles, and Laura grabbed a plastic cup and happily obeyed splashing through the water. For the predator in the bushes, its focus was now solely on the little girl. Two of the group, including the biggest one, had split off and left, and the overall risk had been lowered. They moved toward the edge of the brush and waited, and then in another big stroke of luck, The girl splashed through the water toward the predator in the shadows, and its muscles tensed, its tail flicked, and in the blink of an eye, it shot out into the stream.

Sue hardly had time to even register the blur of the mountain lion as it shot toward her daughter. Her mind immediately thought, dog, but then it settled on the truth. It was a cougar. A cougar had her daughter, and it was now carrying her tiny, writhing body by the head of the abankment of the creek. Oh, man. Sue had one second to watch in horror as Laura's tiny hands feebly struggled to pry open the jaws of the cat for yourself. And then her daughter and the cougar both disappeared into the bushes. All right.

The creeks now empty and quiet. Seconds later, the deep primal scream of a mother who just watched her daughter potentially get killed by a wild animal erupts through the quiet canyon. And Don and David, the son and dad, who had left minutes earlier, heard Sue screams and they run back to where she's standing in the water and look. around frantically. She immediately tells them that a mountain lion had gotten Laura and that she didn't know where they were and then she ran back to the bank on the side of the creek where she had last seen her daughter in the mouth of the cat. And Laura's tiny sneakers were laying on the edge of the water and Sue could faintly hear the sound of her daughter groaning in the bushes. So she ran in the direction of the sound and she there was like cactus and all sorts of brush and stuff and she didn't even

register it. She just barreled through all this cactus. In fact later she would pick over 150 50 cactus spines out of her legs. Oh, wow. But as she just ran into the brush, she almost falls on top of the cougar, which was now holding Laura by the neck. Her head was flopped over limply, and blood was already covering her arms as it streamed from her neck and her throat onto the ground. Jeez.

And the cat stared at Sue, but it didn't flinch. And immediately she started screaming for help. And a pair of hikers that were nearby ran to her side, and one of the men said that he would run and grab a gun, and guessing probably in his car or something at the trailhead. And the other man who I couldn't find this guy's name anywhere, even though he's a hero. Even in like the books I read, I couldn't find his name. He was just described as a dark-skinned, slim man. He broke off a branch from a large manzanita bush.

And then yelling at the top of his lungs, he started swinging this branch at the mountain lion and trying to poke it in the eyes with the end of the stick. And this actually ended up being really effective. We told stories before, like the Shannon Parker story where they were slamming a rock on top of that mountain lion's head. They were doing everything they could to stop it and it didn't stop. This was effective in this case. It makes me think that instead of just kind of going for big brute force attacks, getting at a more sensitive part of the body might be a more effective way of getting an animal like that to disengage.

I think in that story with Shannon, though, you know, that lion we learned was like really malnourished. It wasn't doing well. And it might have known kind of that if it let that kill go, it wasn't ever going to be able to survive. and this lion seemed to be like top of its game. Okay. It seems like this lion maybe is realizing like I made a mistake because I'm getting too much attention now. Right. And it doesn't need this kill to survive.

I'd also say I think that stick he used. Yeah. I think it's all probably went to head. That man's in need of us. Because it also helped save her. Yeah. That raises an interesting question. If like the rest of the tree is bad but that branch, because that branch is part of the tree.

scripture in the Bible about that with the olive branches. You cut the bad ones. We really do bring up the Bible a lot. I wonder if plants have their own savior, maybe, you know? Oh, yeah. Like a Jesus plant. All right. So anyway, this attack ended up being really effective.

The cougar shot a paw out of this man and hissed, but it dropped Laura in the process. And the hiker kept pressure on this mountain line and yelled to Sue, grab your baby and run. And this snapped her out of kind of a daze she was in and she grabbed Laura and started running. She sped down the trail. She almost ran straight into her husband, Don. And he immediately draped his jacket over Laura's tiny body and they together ran toward the trailhead. Their son, David, had been looking for a ranger and he had found one. So they ran into them and the ranger grabbed Laura.

And actually this hiker that had scared the mountain line now joined up with them too and also helped with Laura getting her to safety. They took her to the Jeep of this ranger that was waiting, and they loaded her in. And I think they all kind of just knew that they didn't have time to wait for paramedics to come to them. They had to take her to paramedics. So they took her to like a little ranger station or something, and then a helicopter came in and flew her to a hospital. And during all this time, there was a point where the ranger looked at Sue and said, don't worry, she'll be okay. And Sue did not believe him.

She had seen what Laura looked like. Her face was mangled. Her skull was crushed. and she was sure that her daughter was going to die. But little Laura didn't die. An eye surgeon, a neurosurgeon, a trauma expert, and a plastic surgeon worked on her for 14 hours straight in the hospital. Pretty much all of them agreed that it was the most traumatic head wounds they'd ever seen.

Her skull had been mostly crushed, and some of the bone shards had penetrated into her brain. A good chunk of the skull was completely missing. The back of her left eye had been torn open by one of the teeth of the cougar. It had kind of like got it in behind her eye. What the heck? Yeah. And it was so damaged that it couldn't be saved.

They would use over 900 stitches to repair her head, face and neck. And she would spend five weeks in the hospital. When she was finally able to go home, she still had no control over the right side of her body. And she couldn't walk. She had a steel plate that had to be used to patch that hole in her skull. And she had to wear a helmet for a long time to protect the bones as they knitted back together. So pretty bad. I mean, as far as lying in.

as Mount Lion attacks go, this is a really devastating one. That's tough too. Like when you're growing so much at that age, I'm sure it messes a lot of stuff up. Yeah, your body suddenly has to like devote all those resources toward healing, not toward growing, you know? So it's, yeah, it's really rough. Okay, so we're going to take a little break. This story is far from over and we're going to get into biology.

So we've talked about this animal a number of times. So I do think if you want a real deep dive into Mount Lion or Cooooke, biology, go back to one of our earlier episodes. I mentioned Shannon Parker. There's that guy in Alberta who got attacked. I forget his name. We've done a few mountain lion episodes now, and we kind of did more of a deep dive into their biology on those episodes.

But there are a few things that we're going to talk about again, and then a few new things specifically about mountain lions in California. All right, so their record setting in a few different ways. First of all, they have more names than any other animal with a reported 40 names or over 40 names just in English. And a lot of those names are really stupid. I don't know if all of them should count because a lot of them sound like one prospector who was like, oh, that's the devil cat, you know, or something.

Yeah, exactly. But anyway, they do hold that title. They do have the world record for that. Yes, it's in Guinness Book World Records. Yeah. Oh, that's legit. They also have the largest distribution of any mammal in the Americas. You can find them all the way from Alaska down to Patagonia.

So throughout pretty much all of North and South America, you'll find this animal. In North America, we often call them Mount Lions or Cougars. And in South America, they're typically called Pumas. Is there one environment they prefer over all the others? Are they flourishing in one more than like the cold up in Alaska or something? Not really. I mean, before going to Patagonia, I would have told you, yeah, treeed, wooded areas are their favorite. it, but in Patagonia, they hunt in like open grassland, and they're doing really well down there.

So they do pretty well in a variety of environments. They're pretty good. If we, like, had to decide on just one name for him, what would you choose? Puma. Their scientific name is Puma Concolor. I like the name Puma. I think it's really cool sounding. And that's what they're known throughout, you know, probably two-thirds of their range.

They're known as Puma. So I like Puma. How about you guys? What would you pick? I like Mountline a lot, too. I don't know. I'm going to have to look at that list real quick. But I think I agree with you. Puma's the coolest.

I feel like Cougar is a good name, but it's been used for so many other things now that it's like kind of a joke. Yeah. Ooh, this one's good. Mountain Screamer. I'm seeing that on the list. Wait, don't look at the list. Okay. We're going to play a game later.

I just saw two or three, but I'm picking that one. Okay. So I think Mountain Lion's cool, but like these animals also live in lowland rainforest. You know, they also live in. places where there are mountains. So I really like Puma. I do like having lion in the name though because you kind of forget that they, how much they look like lions.

Yeah. For me, this has kind of become, I think, the most beautiful cat. And I know that's like a weird thing to say because you have jaguars and leopards and tigers and whatnot. But man,

there's something about mountain lions. The cubs are so cute. I just think they're so strikingly beautiful. So I think I actually, I see your logic, Jeff. but I think I might disagree and I think I trivialize mountain lions

is kind of just like a lesser version of the real lion full stop kind of thing. But I can see where you're coming from with that too. I think that I think that's what they are. I know, but that just makes me think then they're just a less cool, lesser version of lions. So if you remove lion,

they become their own cool individual thing. Puma. Puma's cool. I think for me where lions hunt in prides and they scavenge a lot and they kind of just get to eat whatever they want because they're top dog. I really like how tough mountain lions have to be. You know, they kill everything they have to eat.

They're really good at it. They're so elusive. Just really love this animal. Okay, so a thing that we noted earlier is some people consider them small big cats. And some people say that they're big small cats. I personally put them in the big cat category because they are on average the fourth biggest cat in the world after tigers, lions. and Jaguars. But the reason they're often not considered big cats is because they don't roar.

And they're not in the genus Pantera, which are technically like the big cats. But I think you count them. I think this is a cat that's big enough. They scream, but they don't roar. They don't have the specific physiology that allows roaring. So that's kind of what a lot of people consider. They're pretty loud, you know. For me, they're big cats.

It's like a nearly headless neck situation. So are leopards like pretty widely regarded as a, a big cat? They are a big cat. Yes. Interesting. They're on average smaller than... Slightly smaller. They're about the same size leopards and mount lions. Yeah. Cage match who wins.

That's a tough one. I don't know. That's a 50-50. I think it's a 50-50. Yeah. I'd probably bet on the leopard. Probably too. You whispering, you're trying to keep that a secret by whispering. Like here, I got an inside tip. So no Mount Lions here. I actually had a burp in my chest. Oh.

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All right. So one thing I did want to go over again is the way they dispatch prey. They have a wide variety of prey. So if they're catching something like a rabbit or something they might not have to really, they can probably just crush it. But for stuff that's on the larger side like deer or elk, they have a couple pretty tried and true ways to bring something down. And that attack usually begins with the cougars slamming into the animal with enough force that it often knocks it to the ground where it's easier to kill. So that's a big part of their attack strategy is this element of surprise where they hit it hard enough that it tumbles to the ground. and then it's a lot easier for it to keep it on the ground.

They usually then either kill by biting into the throat and severing arteries and suffocating the animal or like we've covered in the past by wedging those teeth into the spaces between vertebrae and separating them. So really, the thing you don't ever want is a cougar around your neck area. That's like the worst, which is, Jeff, that's one of your life. That's my check engine, like, yeah.

Don't ever let a cougar around your neck area. Oh, I thought you liked it when they choked. a little. But these methods of killing prey may get pretty quick compared to the other large North American predators. Like if I have to get killed by any of our large predators, I'm picking a mountain lion compared to like a wolf or a black bear, a grizzly bear. They'd be a mountain lion. They'll feed as much as possible and then they cover or cash whatever's left over so that they can return to the kill. So they'll kind of bury it in litter and whatnot and then come back to it. And then let's go over a brief history of mountain lions in California. First of all,

something that I thought was crazy interesting that I didn't know. It's thought that Pleistocene extinctions caused the extirpation, which is kind of like the local extinction of mountain lions from North America. So they think in the Pleistocene age after when some of those extinctions happened of that megafauna and whatnot, the cougars actually died out in North America. And then over the next few thousand years, it was repopulated from a founder population in South America. So over time, these cougars in South America,

repopulated North America, which I think is really cool. It's also what we'd see happen with Jaguars if we gave them kind of the space to do it, which we're not, but that would happen again. In the 1700s, Jesuit priests in modern-day Southern California and Baja Mexico offered a bounty of a bull for any mountain lion that was killed by Native Americans. So Native Americans could bring them the carcass of a mountain lion, and they'd give them a bull in exchange. A bowl of what?

A bowl of cereal. A big bowl of nothing. Yeah, a bowl of smallpox is probably what they're actually giving them. Messed up, dude. We shouldn't have given them smallpox like that. No. That's our bad. In 1907 during the war on predators of the early 1900s, California put up a bounty on mountain lions

and would pay $20 for the body of any mountain lion killed in the state. That bounty would stay in place through 1963. During that time, 12,462 mountain lions would be killed and turned in for bounty. The state would pay over half a million dollars to the people bringing them in. This bounty program was stopped in 1963 and mountain lions were classified as a non-protected mammal. You think they were running out of bowls? That's why they stopped it.

We simply cannot give out any more bulls. It's kind of like how cash money isn't represented by the gold in Fort Knox anymore. There's just not enough gold to back it. Just no more bulls. He started giving them. All right, so when they were classified as a non-protected mammal, that pretty much removes any protection for them. If you're a non-protected mammal in the United States, you can just get shot as varmint. You know, you're allowed to just kill them.

So they're not, even though there's not a bounty on them, they're still like, not in good shape. Right. So there's no, like, financial imperative to kill them, but people can kill them if they want. It should be noted that this campaign against Mount Lions throughout the country led to a huge drop in numbers. Some experts think that in the early to mid-1900s, we were down to less than a thousand mountain lions in the entire country. Wow. I guess it was probably more than that, but I couldn't find any good sources online that said what the number was. But in 1969, California classified mountain lions as game animals, which means they could be hunted, but only within the limitations set by the state.

So you'd have to get a permit and whatnot. There's probably quotas. The first season was in 1970. 35 mountain lions were killed. and then the next year, 83 mount lions were killed. So in 1971, new legislation, and I think this is important, which was signed by Ronald Reagan, put a moratorium on the sport hunting of mount lines in the state. The reason I think that's important is because the science showed that they couldn't sustain that hunt,

and a Republican governor said, yes, let's listen to that science and put a moratorium on this. And I want to bring that up because we didn't used to kind of have the, political environment that we have now. These kind of decisions used to be governed by science and rational thinking and it's kind of weird to read these things back then and think there's no way the counterparts to those people today would make these kind of decisions. Anyway, that law went into effect in March of 1972. The moratorium was actually lifted in 1986, but political pressure for Mountline Conservation Group stalled any hunts. And in 1990, Proposition 1 117 was passed, which outlawed the hunting of mountain lions in the state of California permanently.

It designated Mount lions as a specifically protected mammal, a specially protected mammal, and it set aside $30 million a year for 30 years to go toward protecting crucial habitat for Mount lions throughout the state, which is amazing. This is a really cool conservation story. Since that time, California has been really progressive about legislation surrounding how the public and wildlife should respond to mountain lions or wildlife managers. They've done their best to tackle problems like use of rodenticide to kill some of their food sources. They installed wildlife crossing corridors above busy highways.

And as we've mentioned, Jeff recently mentioned this. Los Angeles is one of the two places in the world where big cats live in a highly urbanized city, which is kind of cool. The other one's Mumbai, India with leopards. It really is interesting how politics, even when they think they're acting in the best, interest to the people. Like, recently I shared a small story about how during the Great Leap Forward in China, Chairman Mao ordered the killing of all the sparrows in that just the chain reaction that caused ultimately resulted in a giant famine, even though they thought they were probably doing

something like good and smart. Yeah. It's just, I don't know. I just wanted to echo your sentiments, Wes, I guess that it's crazy that such an important and, like, fascinating piece of the world has become politicized to the point where like we can't even agree on animals you know sucks totally well and i do just want to say like on the flip side of that there are like really extreme environmental groups that also kind of co-op their message and ignore science to get their kind of stuff passed and i just think there needs to be a middle ground where we listen to scientists we listen to public opinion and we make decisions based on those things not on emotion not on you know, any of your personal biases or needs, like based on the science.

Like that's why people go to school. That's why people learn about this kind of thing. So really quick, before we get back into the story, a really, really fast sum of attacks in California. They don't teach science at school, though. They do teach science at school, but probably not for much longer. Not in the classes you got told to go to, Jeff. All right. So as far as attacks are concerned, since 1890s.

and the entire United States, there have been roughly 170 non-fatal mountain lion attacks and 32 fatalities. A bit less than 50 of those attacks occurred in California, including six of the fatalities. So just a little context for you. In just the last five years in the Indian state of Maharashtra, which is roughly two-thirds the size of California, 99 people were killed by leopards in the last five years. So three times more people killed in the last five years in one state of India than mountain lions killed in the entire U.S. since 1890. And that's where we're taking a bunch of people that listen to us?

It is. We told them that? Do they know these stats? There's some confounding stuff there. Like the population sizes in India are much larger. A lot of those people don't have the same access to shelter and safety. There's a lot of socioeconomic and demographic things that come into play with that. But that's still a really big difference and a large part of that is because of the behavior of the animal.

Leopards are much more likely. They also have like a lot different mindsets towards humans, right? Yes. Leopards will view us as a meal. A meal. A meal. A meal. A meal.

A meal. A mule. They will. And mountlines just really don't do that. We do have the occasional mountain line that just kind of decides, you know what, I think I'm going to try this out. But with leopards, it's more, it's much more common that they'll investigate us as prey. Do you think if they, like, hung out with leopards for a few years, they'd start eating us more out? Yeah, bruh, you are missing out on something good here.

Is there a difference in the size of victim that each of the two will pursue? Will mountain lions usually target smaller, more vulnerable-looking prey? That's pretty similar between the species. Like the smaller and more vulnerable you look, vulnerable you look, the more likely either of these cats are going to grab you. But Mount Lions, there's not a real trend to their attacks because they're so rare and there's so few of them that it's hard to really even kind of suss out any kind of trends. But they do attack children more often than they attack adults.

That is one trend that we can say. Do you think if America still had like a bunch of Jaguars, it might be similar to that or no? I don't think so. Jaguars are really weird in that they like hardly ever attack people. It's just very, very rare. Even in places where they live alongside people. And the theory behind that is maybe just that they evolved away from any kind of human interaction. And so there's just no, there's no context for them with us.

They just don't see us as really anything but an annoyance. Whereas Mount Lions evolved alongside indigenous peoples and whatnot. They're just like, uh, humans burnt my own. home down again. I got to relocate again. We'll get into that at some point. There's a really interesting book about Jaguars that goes really in depth in that. Anyway.

Okay, cool. Okay. So a lot of the articles I read bring up the stat that you're a thousand times more likely to be struck by lightning than attacked by a mountain lion, which is true. I don't like the statistics because you can be struck by lightning any time you go outside. And Mount Lions, like your level of activity in the woods or wilderness. areas will drastically change your chances of being attacked by a mountain lion.

I mean, a lot of people visit L.A. That's true, but you're not going to get attacked by one in L.A. It's very unlikely. Yeah. Tell that to the small family. They weren't in L.A. They were in the Santa Ana's. No, I wouldn't consider that L.A. All right.

You could still tell them, though. You could. Okay. The Casper's Wilderness Park was closed. Not long after a male mountain lion was shot and killed about 400 yards from where Laura had been attacked. The county board of supervisors kept the park close for about a month. They were told by wildlife biologists that another attack would be like being struck by lightning

twice. But they did say, these biologists did say, and this is true, the only way to make this place completely safe is to kill every single mountain in the park, which no one wants to do. So it was reopened a month later with a bunch of new warning signs and kind of cautions put into place. Wouldn't it be like getting struck by lightning a thousand times? Yeah, it'd be, yeah, I don't even know what the, yeah. All right.

So in the wake of the attack, that'd be so unlucky. Which would you pick? Getting attacked by one cougar, getting struck a thousand times. It's basically the same thing. Boy, that's not what that stats of saying. Maybe a thousand times because then I got the world record. I think that would be the case if you were, if the same person were to be attacked by a mountline twice, they're just saying like another attack on any person.

But yes, I get sure. Has anyone ever been attacked two separate times by mountain lions? Not that I know of. Yeah. And no one's been struck by a thousand different light. Not that I know of. Maybe Nikolai Tesla. All right.

That's a good guess. In the wake of the attack, the small family started to do some digging. And they learned about some encounters with mountain lions that had happened right before Laura's attack in the same area. And they felt as though Orange County and the California Department of Fishing Game had been negligent about posting warnings and signage following those incidents. And they decided to file suit and sue both the department and Orange County. And just two weeks after they filed that suit, lightning struck twice, or maybe a thousand times depending on. All right. So Tim Mellon was happy to have some fresh air in his lungs as he hiked through Casper's Wilderness Park with his family and his sister's family.

As he walked, he touched the knife that was strapped to his side reassuringly. You see, Tim fancied himself. Yeah, and he fancied himself something of an outdoorsman. For him, this stop in Southern California was temporary. He and his brother-in-law Bill were working construction jobs, and they were saving enough money to be able to build their dream homes up in the mountains. Far from the hustle of Southern California. And touching that knife on his hip was a way for him to kind of feel connected to that dream of outdoor living.

Jeff, you're constantly touching your knife. I got knives all over, please. Yeah. You can't help but touch them. It's not, but in an episode full of them, it definitely could be. The two families had parked their cars at the trailhead, and now they're walking up a trail that was lined with thick brush, cactus, and oak trees. There were a lot of kids between the two families.

They had formed kind of a small pack as they ran up the trail ahead of the adults. Tim's six-year-old son, Justin, was kind of lagging behind. He's a little blonde boy, he's just learning to tie his shoes, and they'd come untied, and he's struggling to get them back on. So, Tim, or Tim actually stopped and waited with Justin. Tim's the dad, Justin's the son, and he helped him tie his shoes, and then the little boy sprinted to catch up with the other kids, who'd rounded a bend up ahead. Tim caught up with the other adults, and they watched as the kids disappeared around another curve, and then suddenly, screams from the kids filled the air. His daughter, Amy, came running around the corner with the other kids behind her, all of them still screaming and in a total panic.

Tim immediately noticed that Justin wasn't with the other kids, and he started sprinting up the trail. His first thought was that some sexual predator or pervert might have grabbed his son, and he clenched his fist as he rounded the corner. But it was a very different kind of predator that had grabbed little Justin. Well, do we know the mountain lions' motives? We don't. And the way it was sitting on him might make you question too.

We know his motives. We can assume that wasn't sexually charged. Tim could clearly see a mountain lion straddling his son with each leg on either side of his head. Shit. Oh, man. Okay. Let's pull it back in. This is a sad story.

the cat was biting into Justin's legs and the helpless little boy screamed and pinwheeled his legs trying to get the cougar to stop biting him. Tim's frozen in place and he watches as Justin got free of the lion only for it to adjust its grip

and bite into his legs again tearing away chunks of flesh. That broke Tim's days and he grabbed his knife and stepped toward the mount lion. In response, the large cat bit Justin around his head and started dragging him off

into the bushes. It had just a little bit. started to enter these bushes when Tim raised his hand with the knife and surprisingly the mountain lion dropped Justin but continued staring straight at Tim. With his eyes still locked on the cat, Tim reached down and picked up Justin's body and passed it to his wife Anne who was standing right behind him. And as he did this, he said the lion's eyes followed Justin's body the whole way like it just was tracking him. But then before the lion had any chance to do anything else, Bill, his brother-in-law showed up. And the two men started yelling.

and making themselves as big as possible. His tactic worked, and the mountain line stepped into the brush and disappeared. Anne was already rushing down with Justin down the trail. Tim and Bill caught up to her. Justin opened up his eyes and stared up at his dad and said, Dad, am I going to live? And Tim took a quick glance at him. His legs and part of his face looked like hamburger.

He was covered in a lot of blood. He thought too much blood. And he wasn't sure his son would survive the trip even to the hospital. But he looked at Justin, he said, Justin, you're going to live. That's the time it's acceptable to lie to someone. Yeah, yeah. That's definitely a white lie at that point. I wouldn't be, I wouldn't judge him too much.

I don't know, son. You sure look like hamburger right now. Yeah, when he passes the pearly gates and gets judged at the end of his life. God will catch him on that one. He's like, you lied. If it's that plant god, I don't think the plant god will care at all. That's true. He'll be like, you sure cut your grass a lot.

Didn't like that at all. Oh. All right. So, okay, at the Mission Viejo Trauma Center, doctors used over 500 stitches to piece Justin back together while Tim talked to the other kids to get the full story of what happened. And what had happened is when the kids ran ahead of the adults, Justin's shoe had come undone again, who's down on one knee trying to tie his laces

when one of the kids yelled mountain lion. Justin had just enough time to think that the other kids were messing with him when something hit him so hard that it knocked him out of his. sneakers. Oh man. Like a cartoon, which is crazy. Yeah. The kids went running and screaming and the cougars started biting and clawing Justin on his legs and head. And that's when Tim showed up. And there's actually a picture of the scene. And you can see his two sneakers like on the ground where he left him behind. That's crazy. Yeah. Okay. So before the family left the hospital, they were approached by legal representation. And by the end of the night, they had joined the lawsuit against

the county and the California Department of Fish and Game. The lawsuit states, that the defendants, which is Orange County and the department, had failed to protect visitors to the park, and that the rapid expansion of the county into the foothills had negatively affected Cougar habitat and behavior. And in the meantime, even though biologists assured officials that two attacks was really just a crazy fluke, the park was closed for three months.

When it reopened, there was serious restrictions about where kids could go and what they could do. Families with children weren't allowed to camp overnight, and Rangers had to write, and post any report of any cougar sighting on a board that the public could see. And then visitors also had to sign a liability waiver before entering into this park. Oh, man. Just so you know, there was never another cougar attack in this park.

They killed two cats, but there was never another one. I feel like that could backfire too where it would bring in more visitors, actually. Like, I know that if we were seeing like cougar sighting updates, we'd be like, let's go. Yeah, if I suddenly learned that Patty Canyon in Missoula, if people are seeing Cougars every day, I'd grab my camera and go up there without a doubt. All right, so the trial proceeded. A lot of different witnesses were called, including Rangers that testified that they knew about an abnormal amount of Cougar activity right before the first attack. And the prosecutor showed a lot of footage of Laura before and after the attack and her loss of movement and whatnot. Really, the only thing the defense could do was argue that the county couldn't be held responsible.

the actions of a wild animal. And ultimately, the jury did side with the small and melon families. They awarded the small family $2.1 million, and the melons got $100,000. And I think the reason the amounts were so different is because the second family, there were already like warnings posted and whatnot. There was definitely still some negligence, but they had more warning than the first family did. A really interesting tidbit as we wrap up. Both Justin and Laura, the two victims, grew up to be really sympathetic to the plight of Mount Lions in California. They both seemed to understand that their attacks were the result of humans encroaching on Cougar habitat, not the opposite. Laura is like a talented painter and she kind of painted about her feelings about Mount Lions.

Justin was like a football star in his high school. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, throughout their lives, they both been really vocal that this wasn't the Mount Lions fault, which is just so, I have so much respect for those. people. I think it's so beautiful. Sue, the mom, Laura's mom, really struggled with the trauma of seeing her daughter get attacked. And it immediately made her question her faith in God because she didn't see how a loving God could allow something like that to happen, which I kind of struggle with because it's like,

you know that terrible shit is happening to people all the time. So it's kind of like, I think you either just have to accept that like, if you believe in God, you have to accept that God allows terrible shit to happen. And if you don't, you don't. No, it's kind of weird. They deserved it. They probably deserved it. I, no, I shouldn't judge her, her, like, turn.

Like, I get what you're saying, but everyone lives in their own world. Like, you got to have something to affect you to really affect you. So she's the one that wrote. Eloquently put, Jeff. She's the one that wrote out of the lion's den, that book. And it's all about the. attack and it's really well written. I didn't include a lot of the details about the attack because it just would have taken too long. But it's a great book. But a huge percentage of this book is about

her faith journey and she ultimately became an atheist. She lost her faith in God because of this attack, which is kind of. Wow. That is interesting. Okay. I mean, it's hard to judge any, especially a mother of a child. We're never going to be able to experience that biological connection. So I don't blame someone in that position for feeling any sort of way. Totally. But I do, I loved hearing about the, the after story of the two kids. Just like exiting an incredibly traumatic experience and finding healthy ways or finding success in the wake of it.

I think that's really great. I will say to just, oh, go ahead. I'd like to just like talk with the mom and explain to her like animals used to be nice until Eve. The garden of even. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

This isn't God's fault. This is Eves' fault. Yeah. Man, this should be tooth and claw Bible study is what this should be called. I love that Eve ate that for you. Thanks so much, Eve. We wouldn't be here without you. Yeah.

What kind of affected it affected her with? Yeah. A quick thing, I just want to mention this. For people that are, I think, for whatever reason, Mount Lions and Cougars have just earned this reputation of being the scariest animal out there for people in North America, especially people that don't live around grizzly bears, they just really don't like attacking us. I have a friend, Jeff Worth, who's a listener, is a really good person. He's doing a study right now with trail cameras on mountain lions. And he is out there every day getting as close as possible to where these

mountain lions have been to set up trail cameras. I mean, literally following right behind them. and he never has any kind of incidents. And he does carry bear spray. He's prepared. But like this is an animal that wants to get away from us 999,000 times out of a million. You know, anyway. We better hope that Jeff never does anything really bad in the future and someone can clip that. Yeah.

Where you say he's a great guy. Really good person. For someone like you, Wes, who's worked in the part of. service industry. I don't know exactly how you would label yourself. Someone who has worked in parks and dealt with animal human conflicts. Wildlife in parks. Yeah. Yeah. What is your opinion on the lawsuit that took place? Do you think that was justified? Do you think it was the right thing to happen? I'm glad we're talking about this. I have a, I have a hard time with this one because I kind of see both camps. I see why you would feel upset if you went somewhere like that and the only thing

you were warned about is poison oak. But then I also just think anytime you go in a wild space, part of what makes it wild is that you kind of have to do your research. You kind of have to learn about potential threats and be prepared for those threats. I think sometimes we are overly safe and it removes some of the thrill of life out of things. And so for me, had I been a jury member, I probably would have cited with the county and the department. but I don't blame the jury members for siding with these families. I do think it's on responsible wildlife managers do need to tell people

when there's potentially dangerous wildlife in a place. I also think just responsible outdoor recreation, you kind of need to be aware of that on your own, you know? So it's hard. That's a hard one. Yeah. What do you guys think? I do think if there was like a mountain line sign,

the parents very possibly could have not let their sense. small children get that far away from them. Yeah. And someone had been charged by Mountline like days before. Yeah. So I do think it's like, I don't know, it's a little bit too close to civilization, I think, to just say like you're out in the wild. So it's your own fault.

So I think they should have had signs. Yeah, for sure. I think also, I don't know, I think even if the penalty, if you want to call out that on the civil side of things, might appear to be a little harsh. Like $2 million, it's a lot of money, but, you know, massively affected lives. Maybe that's fair. And also, it does result in more protection for people. And this is coming from my perspective. I'm not an expert in any of these kinds of things. But I think that ultimately more good came out of it than quote unquote bad.

Yeah. Well, and like those lawyers had to work really hard too. Like what when Jimmy? Got to think of the lawyers. Was it Jimmy who got to? attacked in the second one? Justin. Justin. When Justin got attacked, they were on it. They were like talking to them that same day. Like, hey, you have a case on your hands.

They're just hanging out. Like, these lawyers deserve to get paid a lot of that $2 million as well. I'm sure they got a lot of it. Yeah, you know what? We're going to get into more of this when we do the story of the only fatal Black Bear attack in Utah that also resulted in a lawsuit. Tom was an expert witness on that lawsuit, so we're going to talk to him again, which will be fun. But I think we've talked about this a lot.

This is why they have to kill black bears or whatever that display behavior that's abnormal because it presents such a liability now for wildlife agencies that if they leave that animal out there, then they risk being sued and losing millions of dollars that can typically go toward conservation. So I think it's tricky, but I'm, I don't know. I don't really know. I don't have a great answer for you, but I probably would have ruled on the side of the defendants. You're making me think, Jeff, maybe there's some kind of collusion we can look into

because lawyers and cougars have mutually beneficial kind of products they can offer to each other. If the lawyer just sets a cougar up with a small child, the lawyer all of a sudden can have a lawsuit. So I don't know, there's some. Maybe the lawyers are like. Conflict of interest there. Like leaving chunks of meat out in the area so there'd be more mountain lines in the area. Exactly. There's just one lawyer that's on mountain line duty, just constantly looking for someone to.

Just like, yeah, look your son tied his shoes on his own. He's fine. He like gave him shoelaces that don't stay tied so, man. Just buttered up his shoe laces. With, like, deer blood as he walked away. Ew. All right. Lots of places.

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Terms apply. Okay, let's get into our cat agorries. I want to just say with the stories, too. Okay. Man, Jeff keeps killing my jokes. You've done categories. I know. That's fair.

But yeah, I just want to say, like, we had fun with those stories, but we tried to, like, stop laughing once you started telling the story, because it is actually really sad that these kids got attacked by animals. I just want to say, like, sorry if we were like a little irreverent at the start of your stories because those were like two really intense stories. Pretty traumatic stories. They are very traumatic.

And like whenever you're dealing with little kids, it's not funny, Mike. No, it's not. Shut up, Mike. No, I do. I want to add on to that and just say that there's nothing I like more when Wes is telling a story than to hear when a victim of an. attack makes it out alive. So yeah, I'm just super happy that it seems like all ended well. And to be honest, like this is maybe going to be a little bit too much. I think over the, you know, four or five

years that we've done this now, I kind of expected myself to become more jaded as we did these stories. And I'm finding the opposite is true. And more and more I get emotional as I'm researching these. And this one did that to me. Like as I read Sue's statements especially, I got like choked up. And I had to take a break thinking of the trauma that it inflicted on her and her daughter. And it just was, it's a lot. It's a lot to deal with. And our heart definitely goes out to these people and to any victims from these stories. Definitely.

Okay. Categories. Sorry, I won't make the category joke anymore. I'm done, Jeff. You got me. You said the exact same thing. What do you mean? You said it was funny again.

Yeah. What are you talking about? Well, I'm not making the joke this time. Okay, we're going to do your favorite 80s movie or show that's set in California. So this can either be an actual show or movie from the 80s or it can be a more recent one that's just set in the 80s in California. Hmm. Okay. Yeah, I had a hard time with this one because I had so many choices in the 90s.

I felt like 90s is going to be LA for me. Yeah. So I'm going to go with the Karate Kid. Just a fantastic. movie set in L.A. I had no idea L.A. was like so into karate, but pretty much like all the high school, like the cool

kids are in karate, I guess. Yeah. And the whole town goes to this big tournament every year. And apparently it's still going. There's like Cobra Kai's back in L.A. So I don't know. All right. Good pick. Mike, what do you got? I'm going to go with Bill and Ted's

excellent adventure. It's just barely by the skin of its Teeth, a 1989 film. San Dimas High School Football Rules, of course. I know it mostly takes place in other locations, but I justify it by saying that the current time in which they are living, Bill and Ted themselves, is California. That's the best movie. It is such a great movie.

You're actually, your Bill. Oh, wait, no, Bill is Keanu, right? Yeah. Your Bill in my phone, Mike. No, Ted's Keanu. Oh, you're right. You're Ted in my phone. Your avatar photo is.

Oh, good. Young Theodore. He has a lot of L.A. movies. He does. Like point, break, speed, Bill and Dead. I'm going to pick The Lost Boys, which I know is more like Santa Cruz area. It's not so much Southern California. Still California, though.

And for me, it stands out as like one of the most kind of quintessentially late 80s movies. It's just like really super 80s. We should probably shout out once upon a time in Hollywood. Isn't that set for the 80s? No, that's the 60s. Yeah, just 20 years. And then one that was like so close for me, but like when I think L.A., I think of a lot of Mexican and Latin culture and blood in, blood out is like a really

popular movie in that culture. And I love that movie. Sangre poor songre. I've never seen it. Really? It's a good. That's one that Shea Serrano. Yeah, I know that he's always talking about it.

Yeah. You can watch it. Okay. I will. All right. Our next category is one. I created specifically for this episode. It's called Pin the Name on the Cougar.

I'm going to give you guys a list of names, and you're going to go one at a time, and you're going to tell me if you think that's a real name or a fake name that's been assigned to Mount Lions, to Puma Concolor. And I got this, my source for these names is the book, The Cougar or Mountain Lion by C.T. Barnes, which was published in 1960. So we'll go ahead. And you know, I don't, I probably was going to attach a dollar amount to each of these, but I'm just going to donate $100 to the Cougar Conservancy,

which is a nonprofit that my friend started. And it's done some great work for mountain lions in Southern California. So regardless of the outcome, that's what's getting donated. The rich get richer, huh? All right. All right. So who wants to go first? Mike. Your name that you have to say is real or fake is Tani Leeper.

Ooh, I'm going to say that is indeed a name that's been ascribed to them. You've used the name. Dah, dang it. That's what I made up. Not a real name for Mountain Lions or Figgers. All right. Jeff. Catamount. I hate you, Wes. I'm going to go with you made it up.

Wrong. That's a real one. Shoot. Mike, screamer. Well, so I did cheat. I cheated and looked up Mountain Screamer, and that is one. But just Screamer? I don't think so.

I think both of them. Okay, well, you're wrong then. It is true. Yeah. Both of those are names that they've been called. Okay, Jeff. Callie Womper. You had to made that up.

I made that one up. Correct. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Mike, Red Tiger. Um, yeah, that one's real. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Yes. Tigers are more red than mountain lions.

Well, that's, it's a weird thing. Someone called him the red tiger. Jeff, Pixawani Panther. Oh, you made that up. Correct. I made that up. All right. Mike.

Bender. What? Bender. Yeah, no, that's, yeah, that one's real, actually. That's weird. That's a weird one to have made. up. It is real, correct. Okay.

Jeff. Painter. That's real. Real. Correct. Mike. Sneak cat. I wanted it to be real. So bad.

But it's not. It's fake. It's real. No way. That's awesome. I'm glad it is. Jeff. Mountain Demon.

You made that up. It's real. All right. Mike. Dog Destroyer No way that's real That I want it to be real So bad

It's not that it's fake Ding ding ding I made that one up Jeff Old Man McGee's Kitty Cat Surprise I think that's real That one's made up No Okay

Okay that's it for that game But there are a lot of crazy names on that list Some of them, I'm guessing, were used like once by some dude. But anyway, all right, let's do a quick. What would Mike and Jeff do? You know what, Wes, I'll match you. I'll throw some money over to the big cat, whatever the hell it's called. $200 to Cougar Conservancy.

Perfect. There you go. What would Mike and Jeff do? So I'm going to put you in Tim Mellon's shoes. You've rounded a corner. There's a cat sitting on your six-year-old son. What are you doing? Sure.

I'm going to choose something else. Okay. Perfect. I feel like people who own a gun just feel like they need their gun in every situation they can possibly put it into. So like if I was that one hiker who came over to help, I wouldn't leave the little girl to go get a gun. I would just have it on you. Oh, got it. You can't like go back to your car if you're in that situation to go get your gun.

True. Especially. It seemed like they were a fair distance. Like coming from a gun guy, you just got guns on your mind all the time. So like, yeah, there's not a lot of opportunities where you can use your gun. Yeah. But you got to just realize like, oh, wait, this little girl has a mountain lion biting her neck right now. I probably don't have a lot of time.

Do you think while he was running into his car, he's just like, I get to use my gun. I get to use my gun. He's like, I hope it's still attacking her once. I will, I do want to bring up, I want to bring up Cindy Perlin, who was the mom that saved her kids from the mountain lion in Alberta, I believe. Or maybe it was British Columbia. And she, she, she, she wrestled that, that mountain line for an hour before someone showed up with a gun and finally killed it. So I will say there is the chance that you can still go get a gun and help. But I agree with you, Jeff.

I think that guy should stay. But like three, three adults, you need to get the lion office. Right. And you can do it with three people. Yeah. All right. Mike. For Tim, so maybe he did this. You may have just not included this detail, but I always like it. It's really intimidating. I think the mountain line would have been scared off if he had licked his knife that he was holding, because that's the move that, like, or like cut his own hand. Yeah. That's good intimidation factor. I'm guessing he probably did that, though.

Yeah, I'm sure he did. Would stop the attack too because all animals are drawn in by blood, the scent of blood, they can't resist it. So like if he dripped his blood on the ground, the cat wouldn't be able to resist that. Yeah. But then you're in danger of a shark attack. Yeah. That's a good point. I do want to say it sounds like Tim and then later on his friend or whoever it was that came in.

They did a good job. They got all big. They scared it off. Yeah. And so did Sue and these hikers. for sure. Like everyone kind of did the right thing here. And so I do want to get into that.

Really, the only thing Tim should have done better is double knot the shoe lace. Velcro. You get Velcro shoes. You got a double knot. To that point, I do think when Justin bent over to tie his shoes, that probably was the cue for this mountain line to rush in. Like he lost all credibility of in size. He made himself smaller.

He wasn't looking around. That's like, like for a mountain line that's hunting a deer or something when it puts sits head down to start feeding. That's like go time for them. So I do think that was probably what triggered that. But what you actually should do, first of all, as far as avoiding these kind of things, you want to avoid hiking, biking, or jogging alone in prime mountain mountainousand habitat. I'm not saying you can't do it, but I'm just saying you do up that risk a little bit when you go out alone, especially in the early morning or evening because these are a highly crepuscular animal, meaning their activity tends to be heightened in the mornings in the

evenings. If you see a cougar while you're out and it doesn't run away, you want to be pretty aggressive. You want to get loud, make yourself look big, gather together in a group, pick up any children that might be on the ground, and don't back away unless the cougar leaves that area. You want to kind of keep your ground and just be as loud and as aggressive as possible. You can pick up or throw things, but you don't want to bend all the way over to do that. So if you can grab something that's like kind of on level with you to throw at it, great, like a tree branch or something. But again, if you bend over and kind of aren't looking at it anymore, that might trigger it to come in. Bear spray works great on these animals.

So it's a great deterrent if you're in Cougar country. And the main, the number one most important thing with this animal, if you're in an encounter, what do you guys think that is? What shouldn't you do over everything? Run away. Run away. Don't run from them. That triggers that predatory response. It's a good chance it'll chase you.

I will say too, just that first story. You know, I'm all for letting kids have freedom and like explore the outdoors. But also like if you're in a really dry area, they're playing in like a water source. And there's like bushes right by that water source. That is kind of like a little bit of a situation. I guess you just got to be more careful. of maybe. And you bring up a good point in water limited areas. That's where prey is going to congregate. That's where deer are going to come in. And these predators know that. They're going to kind of

hang out in places where they're more likely to see prey. So you do have to think about those kind of things. If you are actually attacked by one of these animals, you do want to fight back as hard as you can while doing your best to protect your neck and your throat because that is what they're ultimately going to go for. What move would you recommend? Just like this. bite them like this. Maybe an elbow drop then. No, but if you had a backpack on, maybe like hoisted up over your neck

as you're making yourself loud and whatnot, do whatever you can. If it's actually engaging with you, just try and keep it away from your neck as much as you possibly can. But what I recommend is bear spray. People that run around in trench coats, flashing people,

they have a pretty good advantage if they ever get into it with a mountain line. They got that trench coat collar. Yeah, open the trench coat. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you can't. open your jacket or whatever to look bigger. Like one of those frill lizards or whatever?

Yeah. I mean, these are animals that can take down an elk. So you can make yourself look pretty big and it still might not deter it. I think more so than just being big, it's aggression. You know, it's being, letting it know that you see it and that you're not happy that it's there. Okay. That'd be hard for you. You'd be like trying to pretend you're not happy to see it. But inside you really are.

He's just smiling. All right. We're going to go on to our new category. Some nice advice would suffice. We got some advice requested from a listener, Jeff. Yeah, we got some good ones. Thank you for emailing us. If you have any wildlife encounters or just want advice from the boys,

email us at tooth and claw mailbag at gmail.com. Yes. And if Cindy tells you you're in the wrong place, just know you're in the right place. Yeah. Thanks for all your help, Cindy. Thank you, Cindy. You've been amazing. I shouldn't be teasing you.

This is from Aaron F. Hi, guys. I know you aren't parents, but I'm curious on your take here anyway. My third grader science teacher shows the kid's coyote Peterson videos every day, every single class.

They don't do reading, assignments, quizzes, experiments, nothing but old coyote pee they don't even discuss the videos after other than like he he that was cool bro should i complain from from a scientific perspective are these videos like really bad so i mean call coyote peterson follows follows the podcast we don't know if he's ever listened yeah but uh west you got you got what are your thoughts here yeah i i you got you got you got beef? I don't. I'm not going to say that I have beef with Coyote Peterson. I don't feel that way at all.

I've mentioned before that I don't like videos where people stress out wildlife just to get views and monetize them. But the same time, I do think there is an educational component to a lot of those videos. I do think in his videos, he teaches a lot of facts about wildlife. But in my opinion, and I'm not a teacher, but in my opinion, that's the kind of wildlife entertainment. and the kids are going to access on their own, that they can go to YouTube as kind of like a more supplementary thing in their own time and access that sort of thing. And I don't think it's bad to show that in class every once and a while,

but to solely rely on that feels very shallow to me. That's how I feel. I think especially you can turn it into a good learning experience if you at least talk about it, you know, but it sounds like that's not happening at all. So I don't know. If I put myself in the place of a parent, I would talk to somebody about that.

I wouldn't be, you know, I wouldn't burn the house down or anything. But, yeah. I haven't watched a lot of coyote pee. I do think he, like, gives some animal facts that are true and stuff, though. Sure, for sure he does. My advice would be, don't, don't complain about it. Just maybe, like, add to it when you can. Yeah.

But I don't know. Yeah. Steve Irwin probably, in retrospect, wasn't. the best example for how to interact with wildlife. I was going to say the exact same thing. Yeah. But freaking look at Wes. He knows so much and he learned a lot from Irwin.

Yeah. Irwin was one of my, I mean, he was one of my like role models and heroes. Like he inspired me. And I do think people like Coyote Peterson serve as that for a lot of the newer generation. But I do think it's still a lot of it is pop science.

Like a lot of it is just kind of very surface. level things that you're learning like facts about animals, but you're not learning about the systems. You're not learning about the kind of the undercurrent of science. And that's what teachers are for. They should be teaching those kind of more weighted, interesting kind of fundamentals. And you're not getting that from YouTube pop scientists. You're just not. You know, like you need a dedicated teacher that's teaching you those sort of things. So I just would say that school and teachers are really important. And I hope they are. actually teaching kids.

All right. Yeah. Well, that's it for listener advice. It's a fun one. Thank you, Aaron. Yeah. Some nice advice would suffice is the name of that category. All right.

Got to call it that, Jeff. My bad. Jeff, do you have any listener questions for us? I do. So I don't know. I was just trying to theme the listener questions recently. And I themed this one, tooth and claw listener questions about reproduction. Okay.

So, G. Chud's asks, do all marsupials do the weird jelly bean baby birth thing, or is it just kangaroos? I think they all do it. I know koalas do it. Yeah, but I'm not sure, but I'm, I think they all do it. And they all have, like, pouches that they raise their babies in, right? Yeah. I'm pretty sure they all have pouches, too. I think those are, like, both kind of what make a marsupial or marsupial.

don't take that as gospel but I'm pretty sure that's it. Rebecca J. Henderson, what's the most interesting example of sexual dimorphism in nature you've heard of? Hmm. The ones that are always really interesting to me is when the female has like really elaborate coloring or some like crazy courtship thing and the male is really drab because it's usually the opposite. I'm trying to think of a good example of that and I'm not coming up with one. but I know they're out there

because it's usually the opposite. Yeah, so it's like interesting to you that the female wants to get some. More that, yeah, the female's like the one that's more kind of in charge of or has the role of trying to convince the male to initiate. It's interesting in the emu episode

that like the females just kind of hatched their legs or their eggs and they're just gone. Yeah, that's actually a good example of what I was just saying. Emus do that. The females are, responsible for a lot of the courtship. Yeah.

I like the Queen B situation too. I just think that's a really interesting hierarchy. Yeah. And their little ecosystem. And some sexual dimorphism there, some pretty extreme sexual dimorphism. They're all huge and the dudes are little beta, beta males. What's like the biggest contrast of like male to female size? It's probably like a spider or something, right?

Where they're like three times big. Probably some kind of insect. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I like black widows where the females are just bosses. Actually, mine would probably be lions, though. I just think lions just seem like two different animals, the males and females.

Like, it feels like they're not the same species. The male lions just seem so different. And I think it's cool. Yeah. For me, you see that the most in birds. When you see like birds of paradise and the males have these, like, the males have these crazy feathers and, like, wild colorations. and the female will just kind of be a little nondescript brown bird. All right, so it was Valentine's Day yesterday.

J. Gabb 94 asks, if you were a bear, how would you pick up a girl? I don't know if Valentine's Day matters. I don't know what I said that. I can kind of see where you're going with it, though. You think it's still, like, romantic to have, like, chocolate bears if you're a bear? Yeah, sure. We eat probably lots of little human-shaped things sometimes. Did we?

I don't know. Dude, it's most of it. Trying to think of any. Yeah. Sour patch kids. There you go. That's a good one. And those are kids.

That's fucked up. Yeah. I think I'd just, I'd bring her a bunch of huckleberries because I love when someone gives me fresh huckleberries as a human. So I can't imagine for a bear how good that must feel. So that's what I would, I would do. Yeah, I think I'm going sour patch kids. Like instead of gummy bears, you just give them some sour patch kids.

I like that. Learning about how bears do that girding around trees, they like rip off all the bark. I would do that and then I'd like scratch our initials inside of a heart together on every single tree that I killed. I like it. Just so destructive. You're going to tree hell if you do that. I know. This is an interesting one.

I don't know if you'll be able to answer it, but I want to see if you having takes on it. I think it'll be more for you, Wes. Kim Hoffie asked If you had to be pregnant And give birth What animal's reproductive Experience would you pick So like what animal

Did you think as like an easy I guess Or just like the birth you would want To be able to do Yeah I feel like the easiest are egg layers Laying eggs doesn't seem too bad Right

Because and most of them Like a huge egg or a tiny egg A tiny egg I mean most like a fish You know I want to be a female salmon. Oh, yeah. Just squirt all my eggs out and swim away and don't have to worry about them ever again.

Yeah. Like, that's easily the easiest. But if you're talking about, like, mammals. Because you guys swim around bears to go do it. Yeah. Yeah, fair enough. It decays you. But as far as, like, the giving birth part of it.

But if we're talking about mammals, I'd probably pick most ungulates kind of just poop out their baby. And then, like, you know, it's already, like, walking and kind of mobile. and stuff. And the way that their bodies are designed, it's pretty easy for them just to give birth. You know, it's not like where humans have, our femurs aren't the right size and the birth canals too small and everything. Unglets don't have that. And I know, I know I said poop out your baby, everyone, and I know that's not what it actually is. I was just joking. But that would probably be my pick for mammals. I'd do a whale probably because they just, what, blast them out of their blowhole? It's pretty simple, I think. It's not what they do. marsupials are a good one too. A giraffe, you like don't even need to lay down. Yeah, you just drop them. Exactly. That's what I'm saying.

Angulus just like drop their kids and then they're walking. Yeah. I mean, orangutans too. I just like it because you kind of get like a cute little buddy for like the next 10 years. That's true. Yeah, eight years, I think. So I got a couple from our patrons just because, you know, there are right or dies. And we want to do them do them the best we possibly.

can. That didn't make a lot of sense. I don't want to do them at all. Well, actually, I do them, I guess. Yeah, we don't want to make any blanket statements. My mom, our mom's been categorizing this for us and she forgot to put the name on this one. So, never mind, I'm

just going to do, too. We'll come back. We're getting some tax. She's doing a great job. She really is. She's helping us out so much. Our messages have gotten to a point where we can't do them on our own. So if you ever have a message that's like needs to be answered by one of us specifically, let her know that. But for the most part, okay. So Max from Australia says, if you could only listen to

music from one decade for the rest of your life, which one are you picking? Ooh, 90s. 90s for me too. It's an easy pick. Yeah, pretty easy for me. I'm going to go out on a limb. Okay. I'm going to say the 2040s. You're just, you're scared. You're sure. Skipping ahead. Okay. I think the best is ahead of us. All right. Interesting pick.

This one's from Bella. Bella says, are you guys excited for the new Paddington movie? And do you think he'll meet a spectacled bear? Before we get into whether or not we're excited about it, technically Paddington is a spectacled bear because that's the only bear species that exists in South America. So yes, I do think he'll meet one because he is one.

But, you guys... Well, I think she's saying that. No, she said, do you think he'll meet a spectacled bear? Right. But I think she knows that he's spectacled because she knows that he's from Peru. Okay. She's just wondering, shouting out her knowledge there. Sure.

Yeah. I'm not trying to... Yeah, I'm not trying to... I wasn't really listening. I have no input. Are you excited for the new Paddington movie, though, Mike? Yeah, sure. It sounds...

I mean, it looks real fun. And I have recently watched the first two for the first time and had it just... Oh, really? an overwhelmingly positive experience. So anyone who put it off for as long as I did for whatever reason, get on it. Did you like the second more than the first? I think I did. Yeah.

It's very slightly. Yeah. I thought the first was just like so cozy and comfy and fun too though. No, they're great. I don't know. I was a little nervous when the preview came out, but I think I'm always like skeptical. Like it just doesn't seem like movies I'm going to like. I'm just like, oh, they got lucky twice, but.

I don't care. This isn't my type of movie. And then every time I just end up freaking loving that bear. Right. Yeah, I'm excited for it. It's not the same director as the other two. And he's the one that directed like the new Wonka movie and stuff. And he just, I think he just has like a really good flair for making really whimsical fun movies.

So I'm less excited than I would be if he was attached. But I'm still going to go see it. So, all right. Yeah, let's just go with those two for now. We'll definitely, at some point, I think I'll do, all three of us can do an episode where we just answer a bunch of patron questions because we do have them building up a little bit. Sure. All right. Let's get on to our conservation corner real quick.

So there's probably between 3,200 and 4,500 mountain lions in California that makes it one of the states that has the highest population. That's about what probably Montana has. Oregon likely has a little bit more. there's a few other states that are kind of in that range. Utah has about 1,500 is what they think. The main threats to the ones currently living in California, we're going to talk about California specifically, are loss of habitat from human expansion,

habitat fragmentation, which is a big one, because if you have these isolated populations of mountain lions, there's no gene flow, and they're really susceptible to disease, which is another big problem for them, especially with bird flu, becoming more and more common. it does affect mountain lions. There's been mountain lions that have died from bird flu.

So we are a little bit worried about that. Illegal killings and rodenticides are a few other threats that face them. So there are a species of least concern right now for the IUCN, but in some of these states, they do have special protection because they are under threat from so many different things. And I think they deserve it. They got like really close recently to pretty much dying out. of Florida, right? The Florida Panther.

So they are on the Endangered Species Act, on the Endangered Species List in Florida. And then the eastern cougar was declared extinct a number of years ago. That's just, that's the same animal. It was just the eastern variant of the Western cougar. And right now, the only state in the east that has a viable population of Mount lions is in Florida. And they call them Florida Panthers down there. But they are expanding into some of those states again. So I do think we'll see them back in some of those states. But this is an animal that is under a lot of pressure. People don't like them. They're afraid of them. You shouldn't be. It's an amazing animal. It's one that's very afraid of us. We do far more harm to them than they could

ever do to us. And they make the wild more wild. They make it more beautiful. And I just absolutely love them. All right. So let's give them our claws. It's 10 claws for me. It's a minted 10 claw animal. Where'd you got them in your cat ranking? Currently, they're probably one or two. One. Really? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It's between them and Jaguars for one. Holy cow. Yeah, I just love wild cats. I have such a hard time. I just feel like I want to give them more credit, but then, I don't know, they are just as cool as any of the big cats, though. So I'll give them, I'm going to give them nine claws because there's at least five big cats I still have

ranked ahead of them. Yeah. I freaking love mountain lions. When I had one walk right in front of me in Patagonia, it just, as it was hunting Guanaco, it's really what's cemented them for me. Mike? I'm going to give them a real light.

I'm stealing Fantano's little needle drop out of 10 scale here. I'm going to give them a light eight. Yeah, they're awesome. They're really cool on the whole spectrum of animals. They're beautiful. They're powerful. Just really cool animals.

But I like every other cat. I think a lot more, all of the big or other big cats. Substantially more, I think. Okay. How would you rate, like, the scream they make compared to, like, other cat noises? It's pretty high for me. I think it's a really cool sound. Definitely higher than cheetahs, just chirp in, like, little birds.

The chirp. I like chirp. I do, too. I love cheetahs. But you guys have made me feel like I don't like them throughout the podcast. You're the one that left them off your top ten cats. I forgot them. man, I forgot him.

I think I like the scream more than like a cat that can only half roar. The lion roar is like so cool to me. Yeah. They got it. Damn. All right. Well, thanks guys for listening. And thanks as always for supporting us.

However, you support us, whether it's just listening to the podcast or if you're a member of our Patreon community or a gris club, gris club community. If you bought merch. If you bought merch, however you've done it, we truly can't. express how much we appreciate it. This has changed all three of our lives. I feel like it's been such an amazing vessel for communicating wildlife knowledge. And, you know, as someone who's in research science for over 10 years, this is, for me, feels like the most impactful thing I've been able to do for wildlife.

And that is all because of our listeners. So thank you. It really means a lot to all three of us. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I love my job. And it's all because of you listeners. Yep, we love you.

Nothing more to add. Thanks. All right. Bye guys. See ya. Mike, you're not even going to like edit this or anything now. You're just going to go take a nap.