Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - Punch the Lonely Monkey and Other Recent Animal Encounter News Stories

Episode Date: March 2, 2026

The guys talk about a few of the more notable recent animal attack and encounter stories, including the first mountain lion fatality in Colorado since at least 1999, a macaque in a Japanese zoo whose story will pull on your heartstrings, an odd case of the poison from a frog being used in an assassination, and more. Thanks for listening! Watch here: ~~ ButcherBox: Get your choice of organic ground beef, chicken breast, or ground turkey in every box for a year plus $20 off your first box at https://butcherbox.com/tooth with free shipping—use our link so they know we sent you. Ollie Pet Food: Ollie. Feed the Obsession. Go to https://ollie.com/tooth and use code tooth to get 60% off your first box! LMNT: Get a free 8-count Sample Pack with any purchase at http://drinklmnt.com/tooth Quince: Go to https://quince.com/tooth for free shipping and 365-day returns on premium wardrobe essentials from Quince, now available in Canada. Miracle Brand: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://trymiracle.com/TOOTH and use the code TOOTH to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF. ~~ To advertise on the show, contact us! Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/c/toothandclawpodcast ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social:  Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, everybody. Hey, Dr. Nick. This is Toothamac podcast. I am Jeff Larson. I'm the wildlife biologist as brother, Wes Larson. Whoa. Almost had us there. You see the restraint I had there?

And we also have Mike Smith with us. I had something that was going to make Mike mad, and I just forgot it. Most things do, so just take a shot in the dark, and it'll be. work. The sun? Was it the sun? Was it human contact? He came over and met my dog yesterday. What'd you think, Mike? Great dog. Love, loved that dog. It was great. Did it look like Pennywise when you saw it or did it look very cute, like normal? It looked abnormally cute. I'm a pretty objective judge of pet cuteness. I'm not, I'll tell you straight up if your baby or your dog is ugly. Yeah. This dog is a good looking dog. It's a very cute dog. It's like one out of

50 photos that I see of it though I'm like oh it looks a little bit like pennywise there oh interesting yeah I didn't get that at all yeah I mean penny wise needs to be a little cute to get all those kids he's kind of cute he is kind of cute he can take a lot of forms too that's like saying he looks like anything that's true and he can be little cute forms too sometimes yeah that's what I'm saying that's fair no he's man I don't think there's a dog in the world that more more people comment or ask to pet or whatever. And he loves it. Because not only is a cute, but he only has three legs.

So it's like... And guess what? They never ask to pet me. That's probably for the best. I always have to be like, oh yeah, where's mine? No pets for dropping. You got to offer. Only if they're attractive, though.

Steering into some dangerous territory here. I got nothing, guys. Dang. I had something good. Yeah. Messed up. If you remember, just interrupt me. Okay.

He's going to see that as car planch for the rest of his life. You know what's weird with me right now? Well, kind of weird is I'm on, I'm back on my anti-anxiety meds. I've been off them for a while. I just had like back pain and I thought it was contributing to everything. So I was going to get rid of this pain and then reassess. And that's where I'm at. But the reason I started taking him was because I was so anxious about having a dog that I was going crazy.

I was just like, I can't believe I got a dog. And he wouldn't let me sleep the first night. So I was just like out of control anxiety. So I took some of my old anxiety meds. And when I first got shanks, my face was getting really tickly and my eyes were burning a bit. and then I took anxiety meds and that went away. And then I stopped taking them and my eyes started burning really bad and I was trying to figure out what was different. And I was like, maybe it's those anxiety meds and I am taking them again and I'm not reacting to shanks.

So it's really weird. My anxiety gives me allergies to wear something. I also thought like as someone who's had pet allergies my whole life, I've never heard those symptoms for. pet allergies. Just my spider wet feeling. I don't have any sinus. Yeah, like, but eyes

burning too. Like the way you described it to me, my eyes get really itchy when I'm around out, like pets that I'm allergic to, but they don't like hurt. And you said it felt like yours a bed and like smoke. So I wonder if it was like your anxiety was making that happen, you know?

I don't think, well, kind of, but it was the same thing when me and Mike had a cat. Okay. Huh. It was just my eyes were bugging me. And I thought it was because there's fires.

And I was like, maybe because we have a cat with the longest hair in the world. That was interesting that that happened because usually it takes a man and a woman and they have a human child together. But Jeff and I had a cat. That's true. Yeah. I don't say that weird. You made it weird. You had a cat together.

You're starting to say things that are making me mad, Jeff. You're getting there. He backdoored it. All right. Well, should we talk about these animal stories? Yeah. I think we ought to. Okay.

This is a news episode. We didn't say that. You probably got it in the title. So if you're new to this podcast, this is like an episode we do every like four or five episodes where we just go into recent animal news, often attack related. And it's just a way for us to get some of those smaller stories that don't necessarily necessitate a full episode. story. And, you know, we like to have a little fun with these episodes. They're a little bit more off-kilter. And, uh, yeah, we hope you guys have a little bit of fun with it. I don't know if our YouTube people are going to know what's going on with you right now, Wes. What do you mean?

All right. This little, I got a little bear here to tell me, it tells me, it tells me, it whispers to me if I'm doing wrong. Yeah, it's like a little angel on the Olympics. Just cheating. Just cheating. I have a little ear. Oh, man. That's actually really useful. Cheating's useful to do when you get away with it, it turns out.

Bill Belichette. That's a good quote, Mike. You know, one of our brands is looking for a quote from us that we sponsor, so maybe that should be it. Cheating is pretty useful when you know what to do. Is that what you said? I can't remember. I already lost it. All right.

Well, I'll go first since no one's volunteering. My first one's kind of a sad one. And I think it was one of the bigger stories that got reported to us over the last month and a half. But in November, so this actually, this story takes place in January, but there's some precursor in November. And in November of 2025, Gary Messina was trail running on the Crozier Mountain Trail, which is a trail that's not far from Fort Collins, Colorado. He was trail running in the early morning. It was really dark. And as he ran down the trail, he caught reflective of.

shine from his headlamp under some trees near the trail. So we've talked about this a bit on the show, but some animals have that, I think it's called a tapetum lucidum or something like that, but it's a reflective surface at the back of their eyeballs that will reflect back light. So we've on our trips shown like you can go spotlighting at night. It's a good way to find animals at night is by shining your light back and forth. And it's only certain animals that have it. And in this case, it happened to be a mountain line that had flashback.

So he stopped running. He turned his headlamp near this spot, and he was shocked to see a mountain lion beneath the tree, crouched and staring directly at him. And he managed to take a quick photo with his phone. And I will say, looking at this photo, this isn't a mountain line that looks like it's crouched like it's waiting for him to run by, so it can resume whatever it was doing. It looks like it's crouched like it's ready to pounce on him. It looks like a predatory lion. and sure enough, right after he took his photo, this lion lunged forward, rushed him, he threw his phone at the cat, which I wouldn't recommend.

You might want your phone. Kick dirt, yelled, did whatever he could as this lion circled him. And then it would like jump at him and he would back up. And they were kind of doing this back and forth thing until he realized he's in a really bad situation. So he snaps a baseball bat-sized branch off a dead tree. And when the cat came in close again, he managed to swing. it with all his might and connects, hits the lion in the head, and it runs off. So this is in November. He reports this incident to the local authorities. They put up some

signs warning of a potentially aggressive mountain lion on that trail. And a few weeks later, those signs get taken down, which is pretty standard practice for wildlife incidents. So like in Yellowstone, if we had a bear that was acting strangely or aggressively, we'd put up warning signs and then if we didn't get any reports for a little bit, those signs would come down. Wouldn't it be wise just to keep a general warning up for the public, in your opinion? No, because I think if you do that, what happens is you kind of dole, if every time you go on a hike and you see a warning sign and like say you do it for years and that trailhead always has that warning sign, you start to kind of not put any kind of credence into those signs.

They just start to become meaningless. So you don't just want to leave them up. So I do understand why they pulled it. But they perhaps did pull it a little early, because on January 1st, 2026, Kristen Marie Kovach of Fort Collins was hiking on this very same trail when she disappeared. Later that day, a group of hikers noticed a female body

that had been pulled off the trail about 100 yards and a cougar was standing nearby. They threw rocks at this cat to scare it away and they checked the woman for a pulse but couldn't find one. So they called law enforcement and wildlife officials were sent to the scene alongside a local biologist. They managed to track down and kill two different mountain lions in that area. And again, Mount lions, Cougar, Puma, these are all the same animal.

And those animals were sent to a local lab for testing. An autopsy was done on the victim, and it was established that she had died from asphyxiation from neck compression. And a couple days later, it was confirmed that a mountain line was responsible. And this would be the first fatal mountain line attack in Colorado, since at least 1999. And I say at least because in 1999, a boy disappeared. And when they found his body, it looked like he had been predated.

So they're pretty sure it was a mountain lion, but not like positive it was a mountain lion. Okay. So I think when you hear this story, one of the first things that people might think is, why did they kill two mountain lions? You know, why did two mountain lions have to die? And in fact, I have a friend who works near this area in Colorado and wildlife.

And she said that their office received so many threats from people that they had to close their office. For killing two lions? Even like death threats they were getting. Yeah, for killing two lions. And the thing, I mean, we've talked about this a lot on the show. People wanted to even it back out. Yeah. Two people too lions.

One more person. Yeah. Do you guys remember from talking about this with Mount lions with other species, why it's important that they make sure they get the right animal in these kind of situations? Yeah. Why, Jeff? Because if the same mountain lion kills another person later, the state can get sued.

Yes. The state can get sued. Individuals can get sued. There's a lot of stuff that can happen. And so that's kind of the legal reasoning behind it, which is a very, I mean, that's like very compelling. And it totally makes sense then that you kind of. of have to make sure you have your bases covered.

And then just from a human safety perspective, too, you want to just make sure you get rid of this mountain lion. It showed that it'll kill people. It has attacked two people, killing one of them. It sucks that you maybe have to kill a couple to make sure you got the right one. But it also, a lot more harm is done to these species with negative press than with a couple of them leaving the population.

So you don't want any more negative press. So is there any school of thought that maybe rehabilitation for animals is something that could work? Or is that just too much of like a... It's not rehabilitation, no. But what you can do is pull them out of the wild and put them in zoos or something, which we've, you know, we've have examples of that from the podcast. And that's also more common in other countries. And, you know, there's other countries, too, where they just let these animals continue living out in the wild. because often it's like

I have one of those coming up. With bengal tigers, it's like, well, that's kind of like part of their natural behavior. But in a really populated area of Colorado like this, a popular hiking trail, this was the right decision. And people can get mad at me about that if they want, but it was like you need to protect people

because when you're protecting people, you're also protecting wildlife. Because if another person died, say a month later, another person got killed by a mountain lion, Then suddenly there's a huge fear of mountain lions in Colorado. Everyone wants to kill Mount Lions. Then it turns in, you know, the pendulum swings really hard in the other direction.

So you just have to maintain that positive public perception of these animals. And that's why they made this decision, that and litigation. So that makes sense. Maybe that second Mountain Lion, too, that they killed. Maybe it was going to kill the first woman president of the United States if we didn't kill it. It's very possible. Next Steinstein. This could have been like a dead zone situation where someone touched that mountain lion months ago.

AOC lives there. Yeah. She lives in Colorado. Isn't she Colorado's rep? No, she's in New York. Ah. She's the Bronx. She's out of Colorado, right?

No. AOC's in New York. She represents Colorado. No, you're thinking of Lauren Bobert, I think. No. AOC represents a borough of New York. Fact check us on that one, Jeff. I'll bet a thousand dollars.

That's I, so obviously a terrible thing that happened, really tragic. My takeaway is don't ever go trail running. Yeah. That little, you just heard from Jeff was him realizing that I'm right. Uh-oh. Yeah. She did a rally in Colorado. Okay.

Sure. So got you there. You can go trail running, but I, I, you bring up a good point there, Mike. is like early morning like this first guy especially if it's too dark to even see it is you are higher risk for sure you know so you do my two least favorite things maybe to do in this world is wake up early and run why you got to do both of those at the same time is my question yeah make my talk on the phone while he's also doing it oh my gosh that's terrible talking on the phone is so it's so bad yeah i also hate it all right

That's my first story, and I'm done with it. I like talking on the phone. You do. You do. You're good at it. You're one of the only people. I feel like you're pretty easy to talk to on the phone, Jeff. Easy to talk to, but hard to hang up on.

Yeah. I'll just like be saying bye and then think of like five more things. Mike will just stop talking at the end of a conversation and not say anything else. And then you'll be like, okay. That's it. Bye. Yeah. All right.

I'll go next. I'm going to be talking about viral sensation, punch the monkey. You guys know about punch? Sure do. I don't. Really? This is completely over my head. He's like the new mudang of the world right now.

Oh, fun. Yeah. So it's a Japanese kind of. Not so fun when you listen. Okay. Yeah. Japanese baby macaque born in July 2025 in Inchowkawa precinct at their zoo, right, in Japan. So Punch was abandoned at birth by his mother.

They don't really know why, but his mom had him, didn't like him, said, you know what, I'm not going to take care. I'm not going to waste energy on you. but the zookeepers decided punch was worth wasting some energy on so they bottle fed him and um ended up you know raising him for a few months for about half a year and then like mid-January they decided it's time to put them back with all these other macaques i i've seen videos that's like at least 30 macaques in this enclosure um so they put them back in and And all these other macaques are just rejecting them, pushing him away. He's, like, going up to him trying to, like, hug him, and they'll just, like, shove him away.

Oh, it's very sad. It's hard to watch. And then, like, he'll just wait by the door for the zookeepers who like him and then just, like, hold on to their legs while the other macaques are, like, getting the actual food they're throwing, you know? He's a very cute little baby macaque, too. He's, like, very cute. So then, to make him even cuter, the zookeepers feel bad, so they put. an orangutan.

I couldn't tell if they used this orangutan while they were nursing him as well. But they put this like big stuffed orangutan into the enclosure for him. And he latched onto it like it's his mom. So like everywhere he goes, he's just dragging this orangutan with him. And like he'll always run away from other macaques unless they go after his orangutan. And then he'll like stick up for it. fight him off. Oh, wow.

And he just like runs around everywhere with this orangutan. He has recently made a few friends, but then he's still getting rejected quite often as well. I think the orangutan stuffed animal might be like a double-edged sword, where he's like the only one with like a really cool toy in there too. So they might have some resentment towards that. I don't know. That's just me thinking out loud.

But he's become a sensation. and people are traveling to Japan to see him. I saw the line today is longer than Swig's $1 drinks in Orm, Utah. What? Wow. Yeah. That's long. Holy cow.

It was honestly like thousands of people waiting to go see him. And it kind of makes sense because, like, it'd be, like, it's just interesting because at the zoo, it's like, there's cooler animals than a baby macaque. There's a lot of macaques. They've seen a bunch of baby macaques. There's other baby macaques in there. But once you get a storyline behind it, everyone is interested in that, you know? He's insanely cute. He's very cute.

And it's very sad. You just want to reach in there and give him a hug because it breaks my heart. He just wants friends so badly. Don't feel too bad because, uh, okay. Internet good guy, Andrew Tate. He saw it. Offered $250,000 when he saw that punch. was getting bullied to take punch out.

And like, if anyone knows how to have friends, it's Andrew Tate. Yeah, money is really what it comes down to. He decided he's going to start trafficking animals now alongside with humans. Like, I mean, think of all his friends. Is his brother? Yeah. Yeah. That one streamer guy that smelled his chair.

Is that his friend, though? That's, yeah, I don't know. I think it's just a brother. Yeah. Oh, man. Japan's really good at having tragic animal figures, aren't they? Remember Grape Koon, the penguin that fell in love with a little, like, anime cutout girl? Yeah.

That's a little stand-up. Shoot. All those bears that are mulling everyone. Please be friends with, yeah. Punch, everyone. Punch, by all means, do not let Andrew Tate adopt you. Please don't want that happen. It's like how much worse can we feel for him

Yeah All right Yeah well I hope he does better I hope he makes some friends Yeah We should have him on the show Yeah I was thinking is a lot like

Me growing up Whereas just rejected by my entire family Including Wes right away I love Jeff Me and Cyrus used to fight over Who got to play with Jeff but he did have a hard time with friends, especially in like middle school. I always felt bad for you.

Well, let's get some, let's get some punch updates in the future. Yeah. That's why I like Beanie Babies. Yeah. Did you ever have an orangutan beanie baby? No. I like that. Bit of a double-edged sword for you to.

Kix was my all-timer. Yeah. If like me, you're trying to make better food decisions in 2026, and it's your year to stronger, eat smarter, or maybe even just simplify your dinner routine, Butcher Box has you covered. They have high-quality proteins with no antibiotics, no added hormones, and no mystery labels. Just the kind of clean fuel that supports actual results. Butcher Box delivers over 100 premium protein options straight to your door, including 100% grass-fed beef, free-range organic chicken, crate-free pork, and wild-caught seafood.

And for over a decade, Butcherbox has led the industry with meat and seafood that's antibiotic-free, hormone-free and independently verified. It's the clean, trustworthy protein you want to be eating, especially at the start of a new year. For me, it has been really convenient having Butcher Box show up to our house. We are very picky about the type of meat that we'll eat, and we've been really happy with the quality of meat that we've been getting for Butcher Box. Plus, every box ships free, and members get access to recipe inspiration, tips, and exclusive deals to make every meal easier, healthier, and more enjoyable. As an exclusive offer, new listeners can get their choice between organic ground beef, chicken breast, or ground turkey in every box for a year, plus 20% off when you go to butcherbox.com

slash tooth. That's right, your choice of organic ground beef, chicken breast, or ground turkey in every box for an entire year, plus $20 off your first box and free shipping always. That's butcherbox.com slash tooth. And don't forget to use our links so they know. that we send you. I've got two stories that are a little similar to each other. This first one, I'm going to be a little bit of a poison boy today. This first one comes from Times of India, also People magazine reported on it, a bunch of different outlets we're talking about this one.

This one's really interesting to me though, but not as interesting as my next story. You like that? That's listener retention right there. You got to tease there, right? When village leaders, this is happening in the Philippines. About a couple weeks ago in Porto Princessa in the Philippines, when village leaders visited the Filipino food influencer Emma Amitt's house earlier this February, guess what they found, Wes?

Poison. Kind of. They found a handful, so there's an unmistakable crab that all of the locals know, basically, that live in and around this town. They found the unmistakable red and brown shells of crabs scattered in and around her garbage can. Just a few days earlier, Emma, she's actually kind of a big, deal on Instagram. 200,000 plus followers on her Instagram account.

She was filming herself foraging around these mangroves, finding a bunch of snails, a bunch of crabs, shellfish all over the place. And after catching a few. Wes has more than that. I don't. I mean, Wes is our bots. I probably have my fair share bots. I mean, I'm one of his followers and I barely count.

Yeah. You think you're a bot? Almost. A little bit, right? Yeah. Um, so she caught a few crabs. She holds them up to the camera to show off to our followers, and then she drops it into a pot of simmering coconut milk. After a little bit, she dips into the pot for a little taste test. She's pretty satisfied with how it's tasting, and she just dip back in

for more. She and a friend were eating some of this crab stew that they got all boiled up. But not long after, she lost consciousness and was afterwards rushed to the hospital, obviously. So unfortunately for her, the crab was a Zosomis Ieneas, better known locally as the devil crab. It's a reef dwelling species whose flesh contains a mix of potent neurotoxins, and cooking them

actually does nothing to neutralize this danger. So, you eat one of these, you're ingesting poison, basically. And most marine, well, all marine biologists, from what I could see, they consider it among the most poisonous crabs in the Indo-Pacific, and very obviously something you probably

shouldn't be eating, right? And what's really curious about this story is that she and her husband were actually really experienced fishers. And it prompted in an interview later on, the village chief was quoted as saying, this is really saddening because they should have known. So consuming these devil crabs can paralyze muscles, shut down breathing, and often kill sometimes within even just hours of eating. Health officials say roughly half of known severe cases in the Philippines prove fatal. And sure enough, two days later after she arrived at,

at the hospital. She and her friend, unfortunately, both passed away. Damn. Yeah. Well, now everyone knows for sure not to eat those crabs. Yeah. Well, you know, you got to crack a couple eggs to make an omelet, right? Wait, did she die?

Yeah, she said. Oh, shoot, never mind. Per ends. That's awful. Yeah, I thought she just got sick. Way to bring that back around, Wes. He was distracted by me. Totally saved it.

No, it's kind of like an interesting twist on, I mean, you gave that subscriber episode a while ago about taking selfies with dangerous animals. It's kind of like a social media driven animal encounter. I mean, it's not like an attack. We can't say that at all, but like doing it for internet clout. Yeah. I guess I can't say that either, that that's what she was specifically doing. Maybe she was just like trying to make a little snack to eat and show her audience. She wasn't eating poison for internet cloud.

But she was trying to get creative and be like, look, I caught this myself type of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And this obviously, like, this has someone shouldn't die because of this. But I kind of have a really hard time watching videos of live crustaceans being thrown into boiling water. I always just kind of feel like we view them as too lesser, you know, that like we shouldn't do that to anything. And I'm like, I'm a meat eater.

I'm someone that eats meat. but I just kind of, I don't know, putting live animals through torture is always a little hard for me. And I know it doesn't compare to like what we do to animals and food farms and stuff. But before all of you guys get at me, but I do, that still is just kind of a knee jerk. Like, oh, do we really have to boil these guys alive, you know? Can we not get one first? We have plenty of other really good things to eat. I don't know if we need to.

No, I'm with you there. I think, Wes. Should we? No. Okay. Boils of food farm animals No, we shouldn't do that either He said it wasn't as bad as what we do to them

Yeah I think the food farm animals Like the factory farmed ones Often get a more humane death But their life is pretty horrible You know Yeah, I think you would sound probably Yeah, just playing around

You're just joshing Yeah All right Well so my next story is more of kind of a study that I think is really interesting that I just read about. And this study came out recently, and it's about animal-related deaths in the U.S., which I thought, that's right up our alley here at Tooth and Claw. You know, we got to talk about this.

This study looked at data between 2018 and 2023, but it was published late last year. And during that time period, the authors learned that a total of 1,604 animal-reliable. deaths were reported in the U.S., which is about 267 deaths annually, and they pulled some really interesting trends out of that study. So, 267 animal-related deaths annually in the U.S. What groups of animals do you guys think are most responsible for those deaths? Devil crabs. Number one, devil crabs.

Snakes are in there. But think about... This is just any animal. It's not wild animal specific. Dogs. Dogs. Dogs are very high. So the number one category was actually hornets, wasps, and bees.

31% of the deaths came from hornets, wasps, and bees. And I think they were including people that got stung that had allergic reactions. I don't know if you can group all those together. Hymenoptera is the group, so you kind of can. The next. Got you there, Jeff. As biologists, I don't like bees and hornets are different species. They're all in the same group, though.

You got him on AOC. He got you on the bees. You're not going to like this grouping then either. The next largest was other mammals. So this doesn't include dogs, but it was other mammals. And mostly what this group was was horses and cows from what I read. Like a lot of people, farmers getting kicked by livestock or whatever else. but other mammals was the other largest number of deaths that was 28.6%.

Dogs, you guys got that one, was the third biggest, 26.2. And then some of the other animals that are featured in this are going to be venomous snakes and lizards. There's seven deaths in this six-year period. Marine animals. Lizards are getting thrown in there. They're not really doing numbers. What the hell? We didn't kill anyone.

like Mario Chalmers on the 2013 heat. Venomous snakes was 30 deaths. I was looking at the wrong chart there. But yeah, lizards did get thrown in with them. Marine animals, there was 11 deaths, unspecified venomous animal, 13. And then there was some other ones that they had like dated efficient, but there was probably some deaths like alligators. Anyway, it did point at things that most of us live nearby as being the most dangerous animals

that we come into contact with. So dogs, wasps, bees, non-venomous arthropods, which would contain mosquitoes and some other animals that can kill us. And as far as, like, demographics, most of the people that died were male, 67.6%.

Most of them were white, 87.2%. And most of them were between 55 and 64 years old at 22.8%. So I think this is, We're talking about a lot of farmers and ranchers here. You know what I always say. What? Nothing harder than being a white male.

An old white man. Old white boomers sure have had it hard their whole lives. It's dangerous out there for them. But non-venomous animals encountered, encounters had a much greater proportion of fatalities than venomous ones. with 943 non-venomous deaths and 64 deaths from venomous animals, including those wasps and bees. So the overall death rate for animal-related fatalities from this study was about 0.8 people per 1 million people. So you have like a roughly 1 in 1 million chance of dying from an animal if you live in the U.S. And Mike's still afraid of horses.

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. male, Jeff. I mean, you know what it's like out there for us. Probably one at numbers. Yeah, like two in a million. If you live in the south, you have a higher chance. Texas was the state that had the most, but then Florida and Georgia also had high concentrations of fatalities. The next most at risk group in the U.S. was the Midwest, then the West, and the Northeast was the least most represented. The least most. Yeah. That was a bad way to say that. The least represented.

So northeast, like Maine, New York, Vermont, Virginia, or not Virginia. What's that other state by Vermont? New Hampshire. That's great. Yeah. Anyway, I'm familiar with those states. They don't know how to, like, record keep very well up there, though. That's true.

She's out in the woods, so I don't know. Could be higher. I think, I mean, you've been to Maine. I think they're pretty civilized up there, right? Oh, my God. It's crazy. You know how many moose and bears they have there? So mean.

There's no way they haven't killed more than that. Anyway, I thought it was an interesting study. It's available online if you want to check it out. But bees and dogs. Bees and dogs and mammals. Yeah, I still don't. It's like, sure, if you group like four different types of mammals together, they're going to have more fatality than dogs.

But, yeah, I don't, I, I, I do have some issues with this study. I'm going to say that, but it was interesting. Did you guys know that 40% of people say they would save their dog over a human stranger? Two weeks ago, I would have thought that was crazy. But now that I adopted Shanks, I just love them so much. I completely get it. I remember getting some flack when I saw a video of some lady pushing a black bear off her porch

because it was attacking her two dogs. And I was like, why'd she risk? her life for that. I get it now. Dogs are the best. I love Shanks so much. And that's why I want Shanks to have the best food. I just adopted him a week and a half ago. I came home with the food they gave me and he would just kind of stare at it, not too excited. But then Olly gave me a welcome package and let me tell you he is so excited to eat food now and it makes me so happy. You need to get your dog, Ollie. Allie's fresh recipes are developed by real chefs, and backed by the vet nutritionists,

they're obsessed with making the best meals with the highest quality ingredients. And I've noticed that Shanks is so much more obsessed with food now. So get ready for both you and your pup to be obsessed. Head to Ollie.com slash tooth. Tell them all about your dog and use code tooth to get 60% off your welcome kit when you subscribe today. Plus they offer an obsession guarantee.

If you're not completely obsessed, you'll get your money back. That's O-L-L-I-E dot com slash tooth and enter code tooth to get 60% off your first box. Ollie, feed the obsession. If you walked into a store lately, you know that there are a billion different options for drinks, and it's really important that you pick the right ones. And you can stay hydrated without all the sugar, the food dyes,

all the crazy ingredients that are found in popular electrolyte and sports drinks. That's why we love Element. Element is a zero-sugar electrolyte drink mix and sparkling electrolyte drink born from the growing body of research revealing that optimal health outcomes occur at sodium levels

two to three times government recommendations. It's formulated for anyone on a mission to restore their health through hydration. An element is really suited for athletes, folks who are fasting, those who follow keto, low-carb, whole food, or paleo diets.

Plus, I think Element is, tastes much better than any of the other sports or electrolyte drinks that I've tasted. And one of the flavors that I'm really into is lemonade salt. Lemonade salt is only available for a limited time only. It's one of my favorite flavors. I think it just goes really well with everything. I just absolutely love it. It's the one that I always claim when we get our boxes of element.

Jesse really likes orange salt, so we get along because we both like our own flavors. Anyway, you can get a free eight-count sample pack of Elements' most popular drink-mix flavors with any purchase at drink element.com slash tooth. That's drinklmn t.com slash tooth. You can find your favorite element flavor or share with the friend. And a great thing about element is you can try it totally risk-free.

If you don't like it, give it away, and they'll give you your money back, no questions asked. They have a very low return rate and a very high reorder rate. Who's up next? I want Jeff to go again. His last one was so good.

I might be three. All right. This one's older, but I wanted to talk about it. Not that old. In early 2025, a yellow-footed tortoise was discovered alive under the floorboards of a home in Incaha, Brazil. It was trapped there for 10 to 13 years in their floorboards. That is crazy. And the tortoise survived by entering a state of estivation.

Is that how you say it with? Carvation. I don't know. Yeah. No, estivation. Huh. Yeah. Never heard that.

Maybe like ate a few termites or like some condensation stuff. But it's crazy photo. Like its shell is all warped on the side from like growing into a board. And then as soon as it got out, it was like ready to eat and they fed it. And it's just like eating lettuce like a normal tortoise. What the heck? That's crazy. So some animals are just like

When you hear about that with like a freaking bug It's like okay yeah sure I guess But freaking like 50 pound tortoise It's like what? Yeah Yeah Just lodged to theirs of being like well I guess I'll just chill here

I mean Tim Robbins in Shawshank Redemption What was it like three weeks And he was like going insane? Tim Robbins Yeah Tim Robbins Robbins, right?

It's not Robin. Tim Robinson's that I think you should leave friendship guy. I think it's Tim Robbins. Yeah. You said Robinson to start. Oh, we're going to, I'm going to check that. I'm going to replay the tape so many times. Oh, hell yeah, dude.

You're going to be so freaking wrong. You promise? I promise. Let's make a bet. Let's do it. Tim Robbins and Shawshank Redemption. Tim Robbins in Shawshank Redemption. Tim Robbins and Shawshank Redemption.

What do you want to bet? A hundred trillion dollars. No, let's bet. Let's make a real bet. $100. Because I'm positive, you said Tim Robinson. Okay. Okay. Yeah.

Oh, that's a lot of money. Do you want to know why I'm smiling right now, Mike? Because you owe me $100. So I think I know how you misunderstood me. I said Tim Robbins in Shawshank Redemption. Tim Robbins in Shawshank Redemption. I think that's probably how I... He said Robinson.

I would never mistake Tim Robbins is my. I love that guy. Dude, are you kidding me? If you can show me, like, good evidence that you said Tim Robbins in Shawshank, I will pay you the money. Okay. But if it's Tim Robinson then. So excited. But there is a, that does put a shred of doubt into my mind.

I want the hundred bucks. Fox. That's what I titled this one. Fox. Okay. Great. West, what would you do if you saw a fox attacking one of your chickens? I'd run out and chase it.

What if you lived in Australia? I'd run out and chase it. All right. Well, a 50-year-old man was hospitalized from doing just that. So 6 a.m. on January 19th. And one of his, oh, these are cute. A baby apaca. Alpaca.

Yeah. Alpaca. Yeah. Baby alpaca. Pretty cute, right? Yeah, you're right. So he hears one of his baby alpacas just roaring. for help.

And he looks out the window and sees a fox attacking it. So he does what Wes says. Our wildlife biologist says, go out there and scare it away. That's what Wes says to do. That's what this guy does. I've done it in my underwear. He goes out there, fox runs up, bites him as hard as it can in the thigh, dives deep in there.

And he's got like a lot of blood flowing. and has to go to a hospital. Is it rabid? And, well, that's what's most interesting was Australia doesn't have rabies, much like Hawaii in the movie Primate. Huh. So that's why wildlife biologists are like, what the heck? Yeah, me too. Why is this fox biting people so hard?

Yeah. Yeah, that's not normal behavior for a fox. You know, rabies is like the first thing we tend to think of when an animal. animal like a fox or raccoon or something like this is acting that way but there are lots of other viruses uh mental illnesses other things that can happen with animals that can cause them to act aggressively so i just want to say this isn't conditioned yeah this isn't typical fox behavior well you if that guy could probably sue you uh one last one i titled elephant from the bangkok post.

Yeah, I hope this involves an elephant. Mike, you talked about this a little. Have you guys ever established a workout routine like as soon as you wake up, like wake up early and work out? No. Yeah. I regret it. I only did on my like Mormon mission because it's part of our rules.

Oh. Oh, wow. But I would wake up, roll out of bed and start doing push-ups and sit-ups. Yeah. Well, this guy, Jirathai, Jira. Pa Bunya Thorne From the Muang district of Luke Bore

was 69 years old And he loved waking up An hour before sunrise And doing his same little exercise routine Right Yeah So he's out camping And little does he know

There's a bull elephant Nearby Who's already in its life killed two people Which is kind of You know And I think had he known that, maybe you'll be a little more... Yeah, careful.

But he's doing his workout when this bull elephant just at 5.30 a.m., he's, like, walking around a little, he's by his tent, and then this bull elephant runs up, grabs him with his trunk, slams him to the ground, and stomps on him until he dies. Whoa. And it's out of campsite. Other campers are just, like, kind of starting this waist. them up for sure that's a crazy thing to wake up to and they all stay kind of where they're at not

trying not to be the next victim yeah uh the rangers eventually come and scared the elephant off and they say that they're either going to relocate it or try to change its behavior which they did not comment further on huh give it a stern talking too yeah man that's crazy I can't The trunk to stomp Yeah No It threw him down with the trunk

And then stomped on it Right trunk to stop Oh Yeah I thought you were saying He stomped him with his trunk I was like No

combo combo Yeah Yeah that's that's wild I We really You know We have yet to do On the main feed

A full episode elephant Or full episode elephant West Elephant episode But But they're just like, whenever we talk about them on these news episodes or subscriber episodes, they just seem like the one animal where there's just nothing, like nothing you can do. Unless you have like an elephant gun, like an extremely high caliber weapon, you just can't stop them if they're angry or upset or anything, you know? I just just, I don't know.

They're just different than anything else. It's crazy. This one's killed three people now. Yeah. And they're still like, like, wow. No. Maybe we just need to put them in jail. It was like Yahoo News reached out too and they're just like, yeah, we don't know.

Yeah. I kind of though, like in a way I respect that where it's just like this is their, you know, this is where they live. And sometimes they can be an incredibly aggressive animal. So we just kind of have to accept that people might die sometimes. We're weirdos where it's like that would make me more likely to camp in that. place. I would really want to see this elephant. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't want to get killed by it though. No, obviously. But like the element, like we like camping in grizzly bear country. Like we like an element of danger to like what we do in the outdoors. You said this one was in Bangladesh? It was in Thailand. Thailand.

Let's see. The elephant's name was Phila-O-Wan. Hmm. Yeah. And narrows it down. Uh, uh, what if I was like, oh, so it was Thai. National Park. Klong Plaw Kang National Park Conservation.

Yeah. What country is that in? Tombom Wang Mi of Wang Namkau district is in Thailand. Okay. There we go. We got there. All right. And the guy's name again.

Yeah, do the whole name. Giratha Chai and that's his first name and then Girafa Tabunya Thorne from

Mung District of Loopburi Nakon Ratsha Seema Great glad we got to experience that

again Mike do you have any other stories I do So this is this is part two of the poison duology

that I have here to present to you all. This one's really interesting. And we're about, we try not to get super political all the time here on tooth and claw. This one,

just by nature of the story, we're going to get political. Not involving the United States, though, so don't worry too much about that. So got all this information primarily from the BBC and Sky News. Yeah. I want to correct what you said a little bit.

We get political, but specific to animals. We try to keep it in animals. Yeah. And each of us... We're not scared. No, we're not. Yeah.

And I'm very political, but it's more on my private or my personal social media. You just want a voice for animals, you know. Exactly. So I got this from primarily the BBC. I think I said that, a bunch of other news sources. This just was revealed recently. But the UK, Sweden, France, Germany, and the Netherlands all just released a joint statement stating that after two years of investigation, the assassination of political dissident Alexei Navalny in the remote Siberian prison colony was caused by a lethal dose.

of a neurotoxin called epibetididine. This is really crazy. So epibetidine, it turns out, it's the same substance that is only naturally found on the skin of a few different species of Ecuadorian poison dart frogs, such as the phantasmal poison frog. So it's like how did this stuff get into Siberia? Siberia, you know? Yeah.

So the Kremlin has since denied all the allegations. They called it, quote, a ridiculous circus performance by the media, just like trying to divert our attention away from, you know, whatever is going on in the world. And they had already dismissed Navalny's death in 2024 as a result of a combination of diseases. But even though authorities haven't provided an exact method or theory as to how it was administered to Alexe, they're now confident that this is what ultimately killed him. Huh. Wow. So that's fascinating. It's really, so here's the wrinkle that makes it maybe a little less like of a crazy story. So experts, they did note that it's possible to basically recreate this.

neurotoxin in a lab, rather than having to actually literally scrape it off the skin of a frog. But like, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, if this is how neurotoxins work. But no matter the method of administration, once it hits the bloodstream and it breaks through that, the blood brain barrier, it doesn't really matter where these toxins come from or how they're administered, right? Yeah. And something we've learned recently, and this was a bit of a, like a paradigm shift for me, is that it's not often the bloodstream so much as the lymphatic system that they're entering.

We tend to think of it traveling through the bloodstream, but it's often other systems within the body that they use for transportation. So mostly the lymphatic system. But yeah, it's like once they're in there, there's nothing you can do to really stop it. Yeah. So professor of environmental toxicology at the University of Leeds, he basically said what you just said. Like once it's introduced to the system, it's too late, basically.

And apparently it's said to be approximately 200 times stronger than morphine as far as like similar doses go. That's just crazy, you know, that like sounds fun. Yeah, it does sound fun. Like it might be kind of nice after. The first thing that popped in my head is licking a frog. Wait, so this guy, was he murdered? That's basically what this report is saying is that. somehow, quote unquote, somehow this neurotoxin was brought into the prison, the penal colony where

Naval Colony was being held. And like, how else is that going to happen other than, you know, the state introducing it into the, yeah. And like, it doesn't necessarily have to be the state. Again, allegedly, this is the modus operandi of the Russian government. I'm like, I'm so unschooled in all of this stuff. But just hearing these stories, like, this is not the first time that these rumors have been swirling around of like poisoning political opponents for yeah yeah Russia seems to have a lot of poison incidents yeah yeah it's interesting you know we we talked about like we talk about venom and poison and the difference a lot and how venom's injected and poison's ingested but I guess it's true that sometimes poison can be injected too like with

these poison dart frogs where they'd put it on darts and blow them into animals and stuff it does it can work that animals that way to inject it though no But like venom, if you were to ingest venom, like say you were to drink some cobra venom, you might get a stomach ache or something, but it's not going to kill you. But with poison, if you inject it, it can kill you still, certain poisons. So that is interesting. Yeah. I also like, this one's fascinating to me because I feel like if I'm an assassin, I wouldn't use poison dart frogs because there's so little data on that, like, how effective it is for killing people. Star Wars where the assassin puts the worms in to kill the academy.

But yeah, you would think that you would use something that's like tried and true, you know? Yeah. Or maybe they knew somehow toxicology reports would get out and that'd be like a hard one to identify or something. I'm not sure. But yeah. Huh. Interesting. There you go.

Those crazy Russians, you know. It's a wild world out there. Yeah. All right. I don't have anymore. It's like, it's a good alibi. You can be like that we don't have poison dart frogs here. Couldn't be that.

Yeah. I have a really brief one actually. I don't really want to go too into it because I think it's really sad and it just happened to. And my other one was a fatality as well. But there was a woman in Minnesota, Arlene Lillis, who was in the Virgin Islands on vacation and was bitten by a shark. And the shark took off her arm below her elbow. bow and she actually died from from her injuries she bled to death so the reason i don't like i'm not going to go into all of it but the reason i did think it was interesting is we've done a lot of shark stories and most of the

stories that we end up picking are stories of survival where people have these really massive injuries from a shark and then they managed to get to a tourniquet in time or you know someone manages to do whatever and you know we always say like oh the doctor said if they had lost a little bit more blood they would have, you know, died. And it does happen, too. Like, where a person doesn't get a bite that isn't necessarily immediately going to kill them. But if they don't get help soon enough, it will. And that's what happened, unfortunately, to this woman in the Virgin Islands.

So, as with all our victims, you know, our hearts go out to them. But, yeah. A thoughtfully built wardrobe comes down to pieces that mix well and last. That's where Quince shines. Fabrics considered design and everyday essentials that feel effortless to wear and dependable, even as the seasons change. Let me tell you, they've got a little bit of everything. It has the everyday essentials that I love with quality that lasts.

I really do. I've been wearing the cashmere sweater that I got from Quince basically every single day for the last week. It's gotten a little bit colder here finally in Utah. Probably shouldn't admit this. I know it's a little bit of a fashion faux pa. I wear that thing to bed. I sleep in it.

It's so nice and warm and toasty and soft. I can't get enough of it. Quince works directly with top factories and cuts out the middlemen. You're not paying for brand markup or fancy retail stores, just quality clothing. Right now, go to quince.com slash tooth for free shipping and 365 day returns. That's a full year to build your wardrobe and love it. And you will. Now available in Canada, too.

Don't keep settling for clothes that don't last. Go to Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash tooth for free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash tooth. The most important thing to a good night sleep is temperature. I don't like it to be too hot, and the key factor in my situation is my sheets. And that's why I stand by Miracle Made Sheets. They're inspired by NASA technology, use silver-infuged temperature-regulating fabric to help you sleep perfectly all night long. I've been told I have a really comfortable bed.

Let me tell you, I think the sheets are the reason why. They're just the perfect sheets. I think they're way better than the nicest hotels I stay at. Hotels are getting kind of weird with their sheets anyway, but Miracle Made are smooth, breathable, and just ridiculously comfortable. Also, I really like my rose-colored ones. I don't know. They look good. So upgrade your sleep or give the gift of better rest.

Go to try Miracle.com slash tooth to try Miracle-made sheets today. You'll save over 40% and when you use promo code tooth, you'll get an extra 20% off plus a free three-piece towel set. And remember to check the box because I forgot. So they make an amazing gift and with 30-day money-back guarantee, there's no risk. That's try miracle.com slash tooth code tooth at checkout. Thanks to Miracle Made for sponsoring this episode. Should we go into our categories?

Yeah. Let's do it. First category, what am I going to use the $100 for I'm about to win? Oh my gosh, I'm so excited. I was 100% confident until you said the Robinson Robbins Inn. And then I was like, that is possible that you said that. But I'm still pretty confident you said Tim Robinson. I'm going to be living like a king.

This is crazy. I'm going to buy so much candy. All right. First up, because of punch. Best pop culture bully line. I had to pull mine from Nelson Mons in the Simpson. because he's like the classic pop culture bully for me. And the one I picked from him is shoplifting is a victimless crime,

like punching someone in the dark. That's actually really good. I'm pretty sure that's from the episode where Bart steals a video game like around Christmas time. Yeah. Yeah, but I'm not sure. There's one that I've been seeing on social media from Dennis the Menace, where he's at a carnival and he's like too short to ride the ride.

And then there's this really big adult who just goes, oh, is the little baby too small to ride to ride to ride? Then he just like starts laughing and does like a backward spin kick and like breaks the head off of this like wooden feet. Measuring thing. Yeah. What? This is from the movie Dennis the Menace.

Yeah. Huh. Or either that or problem child. It's one of the two. That sounds more like problem child to me. Yeah. Was it a redheaded kid or a blonde kid? Redheaded.

It's problem child. Okay. I've got to, I needed a shout out Gary from Pokemon or blue, I guess he's in the games. He always says, smell you later. That's classic. Smell you later. Which is like kind of weird. It's almost like I wouldn't want him to do that.

I don't want anyone smelling me now or later. I like Cobra Kai to put them in a body bag. So my go-to, just like yours, is Nelson West. I always think of Chet, Bill Paxton's character from Weird Science. And his best line is, you two donkey dicks couldn't get laid in a morgue. This is just incredible, incredible screenplay dialogue. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. That movie has got some issues, but Chet's not one of them.

It's kind of a compliment at the start. Donkey Dick. Yeah. that's true um most evil bully so my like my quintessential evil bully i always think of henry bowers from the it movies and the it book uh yeah because he like carves into them with knives and then he comes back in his adult years after he's like pennywise's friend pretty much but i was doing some research on him and i remembered the guy in his group patrick hockstetter or Hofstetter, or

Hawksdetter, if you read the book It, he's a bully and he's like, I, you know, we have our qualms with Stephen King, we have our things we love about Stephen King. One thing I think he is really good at is writing bullies. And Patrick Hoxtetter isn't just a bully. He transcends it into like a psychopath. Like he kills his infant baby brother

because he's crying too loud. He does a bunch of other stuff that I, I don't even want to talk about on the show because it's so dark. So for me, it's like, okay, if the category is evil bullies, he's kind of hard to beat. So that's who I picked, Patrick Hoxstetter, from specifically the book, It. Yeah. That's pretty extreme bullying, killing a baby. You're kidding me?

Fairly extreme and very evil. So, yeah. I went with Kiefer Sutherland's character and Stand By Me. I forget his character's name. It's a good pick. At the beginning of the movie, he's just kind of, like, like the cool older kid in the neighborhood who is doing some light bullying. And then by the end, he's just like a murderous vampire.

It gets pretty gruesome by the end with him. Also Stephen King bully. Yeah, true. Shoshank Redemption, Clancy Brown, Pol. Tim Robinson. Even though I asked this one, I would go not quite the most evil I can think of, but just the most evil scene was with Johnny Lawrence in karate. kid again but there's a scene where Daniel Laruso is like kind of dating Johnny's ex-girlfriend

right and Johnny wants her back now and there's like a rich people dance that Daniel couldn't go to and Johnny like forces her to dance with him and then as they're dancing he sees Daniel like snuck in and is spying on him from the kitchen so he decides to kiss her and then Daniel does doesn't see the reaction, he just like burst through the door. And this wager spills this entire giant bowl of spaghetti on his head. And all, every adult, hundreds of people instantly start laughing at him. It's the most hilarious thing. It's just so mean.

I forgot about that. The 60s and 70s laughing at this kid that just got spaghetti spilled all over him. So yeah. Just steaming hot. Spill all over and everyone immediately is just laughing their heads off. Yeah, that is a great scene. I want to add, because Mike did two poison ones, can you guys think of a good poisoning scene? Because I just watched a clip again of one I liked where Aria Stark gets revenge for the Red Wedding.

Yeah, I mean, my all-time favorite is also a Game of Thrones and it's Joffrey being poisoned because you're just like waiting. You want him to die so badly And then when it finally does It's really I mean it packs a punch It's fun to watch him like choke and die I'll go with Princess Bride Never get into a battle of wits with a Sicilian

Or whatever his line is That's a great scene when he's just immune To both cups of poison Wow It is great Classic Wow All right

Favorite non-animal news headline Maybe you don't need to favorite you can just do one you want to shout out. Yeah, I found one that I liked. There's so much news happening all the time. So it's kind of having a hard time finding something that wasn't like overtly political. But I did find one that's political, but it's interesting. So one thing that's been happening with the current administration is they're trying to do a lot of redistricting.

So different places are trying to redefine their boundaries to favor one political party over another. and in Missouri there's been this battle to do that and typically in Missouri they only do that after a census but now there's a big push to do it right now and they're using air bud the movie air bud as their justification for doing it right now and the way that they're using it is that line where they say there ain't no rule that says a dog can't play basketball

When people are saying like, you know, a dog can't play basketball, they're saying, well, there isn't a rule that says they can't. And they're pretty much saying calling this the Air Bud rule in Missouri saying that while typically they do a redistricting right after a census, there isn't a rule that says you can't do it at another time. And they keep quoting Air Bud in that decision. So pretty wild, weird times we're living through. I hope everyone is getting outside and smelling some fresh hair from time to time. Yeah, they're essentially saying like dogs can play basketball. Right. I'll do a shout-out animal one that's feel good is Guatemala's putting conservation efforts

towards their jaguar population. Jaguar. I think you're flying a little close to the sun with the jaguar. But my article is that the person who, like, found a planet with water on it, he, like, lives super, like, solitary area was assassinated recently. What? Oh, yeah, I heard about that. And he's, like, an MIT, like, genius, right? What the heck?

Yeah. So, I don't know. It just seems like maybe there was some more meat on that bone that my mayor. may not come at. It was like the guy that recently was working with fission, energy creation from fission, and was like making huge, like, cold fusion. Cold fusion.

I know, I'm saying it's like the same thing. It was like, he was very close to discovering new energy sources. And then, oh, he wound up dead. That's pretty weird. Can't do that. I forgot to prepare for this one, but I am remembering a headline I saw recently. I don't know if this is true, so take it with a grain of salt.

But apparently the company that runs Pokemon Go, had to remove a pokey stop that was on Epstein Island. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. That's a probably good to do if that's indeed true. I was going to say nuclear power, I think, is starting to gain some popularity again. And I'm, I'm all on board for that because the more I learn about it, how clean it is, how efficient it is and how, like, better they've gotten about safeguards.

We should be, like, fully investing in nuclear, in my opinion. So let's go. Anyway, all right. What's your next category, Jurf? I got more. I don't know. That might be it. Oh, yeah.

What's your best advice for someone going on a first date? I got one. This one's actually kind of funny if you think about it a lot. But I always say listen more than you talk, which is, I think that's still probably really good advice. But if both of those, both of the people on the date were given that same piece of advice, it kind of turns into a Mexican standoff to see who can. like talk less. So it turns into a kind of a competition, which I think is just really funny to think about. It sounds like it could either go great or be a very awkward date. Right. No one talks

at all is how I'm envisioning that going. Just listen. That's kind of your perfect date. It sounds amazing to me. Yeah. My advice I always tell people, but I've been out, I haven't been dating for eight years. But when I used to be on the dating scene, I would always say, and what I would do is just like just plan dinner go to dinner and if you're getting like great vibes and things are going great during dinner then maybe plan a second thing like go see a movie or go to the bar or do whatever else but don't force people to do more than just dinner if you're meeting for the first time because if it doesn't go well then you have this like other thing you have to do and it just sucks for everyone so just plan dinner on your first date sure you know when I was dating there's plenty of those

dinners that we would do more, but like it didn't have to be that way. I'm not saying that in a sexual white. As I said that it came off that way, I meant we would like go get a drink or we would go for a walk or whatever else afterward. But like it doesn't, if you plan multiple things, then it feels like too much to me. No, that's good advice. I like keeping it short. I'd say go to the duck pond, though. Bring some bread. Go to the duck pond. Throw some bread to the ducks. Don't do that. Yeah.

Don't throw bread to ducks, though. Throw some bread to them. Don't. They're not, they can't digest it. Who am I going to throw all my bread at? I guess just humans? Yeah. And then, I don't know, maybe a dessert, but keep it short, like West said.

And then afterwards, you know, you got to play it cool with texting. You can't do too many texting. Yeah. Yeah. One. Okay. One is enough. All right.

Do we want to do worst advice you've been given for dating? Sure. All right. The one I had was like that dating is a way, is a pathway to marriage. Like that that's what dating is for is to get married. Because that's what I grew up believing is like you date to marry. And I think if that's, yeah, if that's your like view, then you're not getting a lot of good things out of these people that you don't want to marry.

And by going on dates with people that maybe you're not like supposed to marry that person, but there's like some good things you can learn from that person or gain as a human being, uh, that's also very valuable. So to me, it shouldn't be like your goal is I have to get married. It's why I cut a lot of like cool buddy relationships off early was I was I was just like, I'm not ready to get married. Right. I know.

It's a bad way to look. at it. Yeah. I was once told it's actually kind of a smart move to ask your date for some money because it shows that you're comfortable enough around her to ask her for a favor. And it's just like, even in the moment, I was like, well, that's terrible. Terrible advice. Bad advice. I kind of see where they're approaching that from. But yeah, if on like, you're especially on like a first date, if you're just like, hey, could you spot me 10 bucks? It's like, oh. Yeah, it's crazy. That is crazy. That is crazy.

One of Wes's college friends told me to never get the door for a girl. I know who you're talking about right now, and I'm so embarrassed that I was even friends with him. He was also into like nagging too, which is also terrible advice. Don't neg people. Don't be mean to people for any reason. All right. I have a few listener questions if we want. Great.

Yeah. Katie, all for. Says, best programs to support Montana Wilderness Wildlife. I really like Swan Valley connections. They are like focused on doing really good wildlife work in between the Swan and Mission Valley. I really like Vital Ground. Their grizzly bear nonprofit does really good work with connecting grizzly bear populations. I really like, who else?

You know, let's just stick with those two for now Just to not like muddy the water too much But those are two that I really do Like a lot Oh, MPG Ranch is another one We'll put them in the mix too Do any of us have Or this is from

Fancy, full fairy beads Do any of you have a favorite new animal fact That you just recently learned? I can't think of one off the top of my head Yeah, I thought It's interesting they spotted a grizzly and Yellowstone like earlier than they have in forever. It's not quite a fact, but more of a stat.

It's been such a warm winter. Puffer Fish do a really elaborate art installation on the bottom of the ocean to impress potential suitors. Like they do a, I don't exactly know what it looks like, but it can take up to a week for them to finish, which is you would think the water would kind of disrupt it or something. I don't know how it works, but I thought that was there was probably why it takes a week. Yeah. There was one of those BBC, like, Blue Chip documentary series that showed that. And it, like, blew my mind almost more than anything ever has, like, seeing the display that the fish made to attract a movie. It was so cool.

Yeah. Rera Soce asked cowboy boots, yes or no? It's a no for me, but yes for other people. Yeah. I think they're cool. But I think they're cool when they're not trying to be cool. if you like are trying to be cool with them sometimes sometimes they're cool when people are trying to be cool too

yeah like I like when girls go for it with them I don't know they just don't look good on me yes but I think they look good on a lot of people Mexicans have a 100% batting average when wearing cowboy boots I'm always just like yeah you're doing you're doing it you're pulling it off uh Roy Smith 9-11 oh do pray for Mexico right now I oh yeah I will sure why there's a lot of cartels stuff going on no is something bad happening they killed like the head cartel person and now the cartels like in puerto viarta and the different cities like taking hostages killing people like flights are canceled I know it's stuck in puerto

viarta right now yeah me too I can't keep up with all the trouble geez anyways Troubles. Off of that note, Rory Smith 9-11 asked Canfish drowned it. Can fish drowned? Yeah, we actually

talked about this in our... I want to answer this one because I have a story that I feel bad about. Sure. I got to confess, people are going

maybe think a little less of me, but when I was just a dumb college kid, I didn't realize fish could drown, right? And my friend

had two goldfish and I thought it'd be funny to buy 30 more goldfish and put them all in the same tank as his two goldfish. So I went to the pet store and I bought 30 goldfish and I put them all in his little fish tank and then they all started drowning and it's because they didn't have enough oxygen in the water. They were all having, sucking it up, same oxygen. So I learned the hard way and I felt really bad and my roommate got really sad. And like a different two goldfish ended up living, but then he didn't like those do you? Yeah.

So I'm sorry, Brett. Shoot. Yeah. I mean, and that's like them running out of oxygen in another way that we just talked about they can drown is like in our bull shark episode where we talked about how if you put fish in the wrong environment, then all the water like rushes into it. Like salt and freshwater. Right.

and salt water. Yeah. And I forget which way it was, but if you, you know, there's one way where they pretty much dehydrate underwater

and the other way where they essentially drown underwater because all their cells become overwhelmed with water. So that's another way that they can drown. Yeah.

All right. Cool. All right. Well, thanks, guys. We'll talk to you later. We love you. All right. Love you guys.

Bye. See ya.