Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag: Part 1
Episode Date: March 11, 2024In the early 1900s, one leopard was responsible for the deaths of over 100 people in Rudraprayag, India. Wes covers several of the more notable stories of its reign of terror, and explains why leopard...s can become uniquely dangerous to the humans who live close to them. Watch this episode here: https://youtu.be/n_xGfEAKdFY ~~ 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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Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Tooth and Claw. On today's episode, Wes has a special treat in store for us. This is an animal we haven't talked about it all before, so this is a big one. But first, Jeff has been spending a little bit of his time down in Cancun. And we wanted to start off with a little bit of a travelogue because it's just been from the minute it started, it was chaos. And he wanted to share a couple of his notes that he's been taking. So look forward to that as well. Oh, and one other thing we wanted to talk about real quick is we try to keep our ad reads
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you can get that if you subscribe to us on Patreon. So you get no ads on any of our episodes,
plus like 70 or 80 subscriber-exclusive episodes at this point. So check that out if that sounds
interesting to you. Anyway, that's enough talking. Let's get to the episode. Let's go.
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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Tooth and Claw podcast. We got our
Best in the World Wildlife Biologist, Wes Larson with us.
Best on this podcast, at least.
Yeah, best on the podcast.
We're not saying anything more than that.
We got me and Mike in a close race for second best.
Mike Smith and Jeff Larson, I'm Wes's little brother.
But Wes is like, you know, he's the one that gives us any credibility whatsoever that me and Mike have.
Yeah.
Unless we're talking, unless we're talking one piece, then then.
there's more credibility on the opposite side of the table.
Yeah, but we're not.
Most of the time, most of the time we talk about animal attack stories.
It's like a 60-40 split.
West tells us, you know, the perspective of the animal
and also what people should be doing to stay safe out there.
Yeah, maybe you can learn a thing or two.
You're welcome.
Maybe I would have died had you not told me something.
I'm actually in Cancun right now.
There's actually like kind of a surprising amount of crocodile attacks that happen here.
Yeah.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
American crocodiles.
You see any?
No, I looked for a while, too.
I will tell you, I'll give you a little quick travel log if you want.
Yeah, let's hear.
Yeah, we got to do it.
Okay.
So, I came to Cancun because I've been wanting to get scuba certified.
We went to Australia.
Yeah, I did like a beginner course where I had to like link arms the entire time.
I thought it was cool, but you know, I did get the bends and I.
He didn't.
I wish we had the arrested development narrator.
He did not get the bends.
And I want to feel a little more free.
So then I kind of spontaneously for my birthday, I was like, you know what?
I don't really have any plans.
I should just go get certified.
And here I am.
And got a buddy pass from someone who, our cousin, who works in airlines and made it so it could kind of work.
I also had it in my mind, too, after our Australia trip.
Like, Wes, you do a really good job of planning trips.
But I do, like, normally end up feeling, like, mainly just a passenger when we go on trips together
because, like, I just know you're going to do a better job planning things, which is great,
because you do a really good job.
And I don't have to do much.
and we both kind of like that setup.
And if I don't do it, it doesn't get done.
That's the other thing.
But also, I just kind of wanted to see how I would do it doing a trip, you know, like, try one.
So I started planning literally three minutes before I boarded my plane.
Right.
Sure.
I booked my, I just clicked the first certification course I found in Cancun and, you know,
I went with Patty because that's like the biggest.
But book that as I was literally walking on the plane and then come to Cancun.
First thing I do in Mexico once I get here is immediately just throw my passport in the garbage by accident.
And I don't need to worry about my trip coming back anymore.
You know, it's going to be a lot easier for me to get started here.
A whole life.
You know, I just, yeah, exactly.
So I wanted to try an all-inclusive, just like reading about Cancun.
People were saying, like, you know, it's kind of like the best thing you can do in Cancun.
So I went and rented a car, first of all, at the airport, got scammed a little bit because they told me insurance was included and it wasn't.
Okay.
So I was paying more than I thought.
Then I drove for like five minutes or like my hotel's like,
25 minutes away.
I'm driving for five minutes.
I get pulled over by the police.
They say I was looking at my phone.
Like, I did have my GPS up.
And then I was speeding, but like every other car was going faster than me.
So I think it was just like they-
They profile you do.
So he comes up.
He tells me it's going to be like $400 in fines and that I have to go to court tomorrow.
I was like, there's like no way you can just like not give me.
a ticket and he's like, well, how much money do you have?
Oh, man.
So he's like, give me like a hundred bucks.
And I was like, I have well over a hundred bucks in my backpack, but I'm like, well, I got
$50.
And he's like, he's like, no, it's got to be at least 90.
And I give him 70 and he's like, I need 20 more.
And I see him like, look at the camera behind him.
I'm like, no, I don't have it.
And he's like, okay.
And I just drive off.
Bargaining with the police.
That sounds fun.
I've never done that.
So then drive to the hotel that I booked.
And it's the wrong hotel.
I booked the wrong hotel.
I booked one that I didn't want.
But luckily, I was able to cancel that and get the one I wanted.
So yeah, you know, off to a little bit of a rocky start.
I'm glad I planned Australia.
Yep.
But I will say the-
You didn't have throw your passport away on our itinerary last.
That was a good move.
We get there and I'm like, you guys can go ahead and throw those away.
First thing you do, you got to throw it your passport.
We're not going to need those.
It turns out now that I'm like thinking about coming back, that one I am regretting.
Yeah.
Yeah, that makes sense.
You should have had that.
Yeah.
Yeah, I wish I, you know, it wasn't that hard of a thing.
I should have just kept it.
Well, you know, Jeff, even with all those hiccups, you're having more fun than I am.
Because look what I get to drink.
You're on laxatives.
I got a few other things, but I want to hear about that too.
So let me go quick.
Sorry.
But I do my scuba classes.
And actually, that was a benefit of losing my passport because I've been really stressed about that.
And then just going down to the bottom of the crystal clear, like blue water.
in Cancun and like flying around the surface with fish, you know, is pretty cool.
Like didn't feel any stress anymore and it made me really love scuba.
So that was great.
Great scuba experience.
If anyone wants to get an Osprey just landed right behind.
Oh yeah.
Cool.
Cool boy.
So today I checked into, or no, yesterday I checked into the Airbnb where I am right now.
I come in and it's like an awesome view of the ocean and then I'm looking out and then there's like,
I see this Osprey on my balcony.
I'm like, this is magical.
Like, this is so cool.
And, like, I'm looking at it for literally, I don't know, 10 seconds.
And it just squats and takes the biggest shit I've ever seen a bird take.
Like, all over my balcony.
Still pretty small for, like, a person.
Sure.
But gigantic for a bird.
Like, okay.
And then it flies off.
So that's my trip so far.
All right.
Sounds like that.
You know, we'll see
Once you get your passport
Because they told me the best solutions
Just to go to the airport and hope they
I guess there's a program where if I go really early
They might just like let me go still
Like they should
Okay
So like
Like a day early or like what is that
No like four hours early
And then like they send something
I guess it started with COVID
But they like send something to like
get me a one-time permission.
Oh, good.
Yeah, so I should be good.
And I have a picture of my passport and stuff, so we'll figure it out.
But anyways, Wes, how are you feeling?
I'm good.
I'm getting my colonoscopy tomorrow because I had my little cancer scare and you had your
little cancer scare.
So it's just kind of like a preventative thing.
So I have to drink this gallon of chemicals at some point to make me shit my pants there.
That's a lot to still drink.
So much.
You have to do it all at once, too.
And all I've been able to do today is drink.
Well, you know, I was just reading.
I think I can space it out a little and I'm going to.
But all I've been able to drink that all at once.
No.
That will kill you.
That expands.
Well, they said three-fourths of it.
But yeah, all I've been able to do today is drink fluids.
So like the last thing I want to do is drink this stuff.
But I'm going to have to.
So we might have to take a break.
Okay.
So today we are going to talk about a new animal.
Are you guys excited?
Oh.
A brand new one? A new one to us. A new one to the podcast. I think we have a few big gaps.
We're finally talking about prong horns.
We're not talking about prong horns. And if you can see the video right now, you've got a pretty good idea of what we're going to talk about.
But I do think we have some fairly large gaps in our catalog.
Yeah, our catalog of animals that we've talked about. And this is one of the biggest ones. I think this is an animal that has done a number of
attacks and is well known for being an animal that will sometimes attack people that we haven't
talked about. And it is the leopard. So we're going to be doing our first leopard story today.
And it's a doozy. It's the leopard of Rudra Prajag. So Rudra Prajag is the place where this
leopard operated. It was a man-eater. I like these man-eater stories because it's almost like
you're talking about a serial killer. It's like their career. Like the Lions of Savo was another
good example of that on our podcast where there were lines that, you know, really went and ran through
a lot of people. And that's how this leopard is too. And India especially has some really good examples of
these kind of man-eaters. So this is our first one that we're going to talk about in India. But we just
had our polar bear episode. And that was like an animal that opportunistically might decide to
investigate a person as food. Same thing happens with sharks. It's kind of like, you,
It happens every once in a while, and it's like a one-off type of thing.
A man-eater is an animal that switches to specializing in people.
Like, this is an animal that decides, I'm going to actively hunt and kill this as a main prey source.
Well, it's also that one singer.
I'm a man-eater.
Yeah.
Hall of notes.
Two.
Oh, wait.
Yeah.
I think he's a couple songs.
I don't know if we're doing the same song.
I think so.
I was thinking my decision.
I forget who.
Were you doing maniac?
She's a maniac.
That's so it sounded like you were singing.
No.
The man-eater song.
Yeah, by hauling-up.
The man-eater song.
Yeah, sure.
I'm not saying it's not on notes.
All right.
Before we start, one thing that I wanted to get to before I forgot, we actually, I just
said polar bear, and it reminded me.
We have a quick correction for the last episode, the last main feed episode we did,
which was the polar bear episode.
after we published that one of the people involved in the story Rich Gross, he was the lead guide for Sierra Club. He contacted us and it was a nice email. He pretty much just said, listen, you guys got a few things wrong. I want to clarify them for you. And those things were wide ranging. But I think like the ultimate, like the main thing I got wrong was that I didn't talk about the amount of experience that he had going into it. Like Rich had actually led a number of Arctic trips before this. He had. He had.
had a pretty good amount of experience in the Arctic, even though he hadn't really been around
polar bears that much.
He had been around grizzly bears quite a bit.
So he did know what he was doing.
And I didn't want to create the impression that he didn't.
And then the other thing that I think was like the main thing I got wrong there was that they
really were operating under what they had been told to do.
Like they had showed up and Parks Canada had like told them the things that they should do
and they did those things.
So even though they didn't have some of the things that I would recommend
people going into the Arctic have, which are like a bear guard, a fence that you test on site,
like a critter getter, a few other things.
They were doing what they had been told was enough.
And so I just wanted to get that out because even when I re-listened to it, I was like,
you know, I was maybe a little hard on these guys because they were really heroic.
Like he saved that dude's life.
Definitely.
Yeah.
With a flare gun.
Yeah.
Which is really cool.
Heroic move.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Not your run-of-the-will heroism.
Me and Rich message back.
It's not like giving CPR in Groundhog Day when he, like, gives the Heimlich maneuver to that guy.
That's, like, not as cool as saving a guy with a flare gun.
Well, even, like, that one Spalsvired episode where he saved his friend with a gun.
Like a shotgun?
The world's right again.
Yeah.
It's been a while.
Like, using a shotgun just wasn't as cool as using a flare gun.
No, for sure.
It was cool.
And like the whole group from talking to Rich, the whole group really was such a perfectly well-oiled machine when they hit this weird trauma.
So I just wanted to make that clear that we did kind of, I think we missed the mark a little bit on that one.
And I'm glad he reached out to tell us that.
I do think all the advice I gave is still the right advice for what you should do in those kind of circumstances.
But I do just want to clarify that, you know, we are maybe a little.
I'm glad I did that.
I'm glad I chose to do my what would Jeff and Mike do
about just polar bears catching seals instead of what they're
camp would have done.
Yeah.
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So today we are talking about the leopard of Rudra Pryag.
My main source for this whole story is a book that was written by the guy that actually hunted
down this leopard, Jim Corbett.
Jim Corbett is going to come up in multiple episodes that we're going to do.
he's probably the most famous hunter of man eaters he's killed some of the most famous man eaters ever
he is actually like kind of a father of conservation too there's a whole national park in india that's
named after this guy because he really was forward thinking when he thought about conserving big cats
conserving indian wildlife and other types of wildlife around the world so he's he's a really cool
interesting guy even though i think we hear hunter and we kind of sometimes like trophy hunter you
your brain shuts down, but this guy did a lot of good for wildlife.
Okay, so a tiny bit of biology to start.
We've talked about the big cats.
Like we've done a number of big cats at this point.
We've done tigers.
We've done lions.
We've done jaguars.
We've done, I shouldn't say Mount Lions because we don't know if they actually count as a big cat.
They do.
But that's what I'm trying to get at here.
Leopards are the fifth largest cat.
So tigers, lions, jaguar,
and pumas or mountain lions are bigger than them. But the cats that are generally considered to be
like the big cats are the cats in the genus Pantera. And those are tigers, lions, jaguars,
leopards, and snow leopards. And all of those cats, but snow leopards, are able to roar. And that's
why they're considered the big cats. But I do think we should put mountain lions in there too.
I think they're bigger than leopards, they should be big cats. And I think most people do count them
as big cats.
Michael,
you put in a little roar
sand.
Do one.
You do one, Jeff.
Okay.
Yeah, that is a little roar.
Yeah.
All right.
Wait, snow leopards can't roar?
Snow leopards can't roar.
No.
So there's like a specific thing in their,
in their larynx that allows them to roar.
And only those four cats do it.
The lions, tigers,
leopards, and jaguars.
Right?
I would agree with you.
Yes.
But you know,
that's all objective. Maybe they are roaring, but all the snow is just like, it kind of dampens the sound
so we can't hear it. Or they're like afraid of avalanches.
Oh, that's a, yeah. I think that's worth investigating further. So the reason I bring this up
is this is the fifth biggest cat. We've talked about mountain lions and cougars. They're not that big.
And so this, like a leopard, a big leopard weighs 150 to 200 pounds. That's not that
big of an animal. I mean, like, Jeff, you can bench 200 pounds, so you know that's like, yeah,
I could lift them up over my chest. So if it's not that big. So wait, I'm getting mixed signals
here. Is 200 a lot or is it not, Jeff? Well, we're going to leave that up to the audience to
decide. All right. Sure. You know, so this isn't, and like, the phenos are a lot.
Females are half that size. So a female leopard's probably going to be less than 100 pounds.
even. So when you think about it, you know, that big of an animal, how many people do you think
this, this leopard killed? I want to, I want to guess from you guys. Um, what? That one mountain
line that's like maybe a touch bigger can't even kill like one 10 year old. So I'm going to say zero.
That's a, are you talking about the stairway one? Yeah. The kid got killed. It killed.
Oh, no, it didn't. You're right. No, he's, I was thinking of a different one. Yeah, you're right.
Okay. So you're saying zero.
I'm going to confidently say Jeff is wrong on that.
He is wrong.
If this is a story about like a famous man eater, I'm going to, I don't know, what, like 36.
Am I going way too high on that?
So the leopard of Rudra-Pryag killed 125 people.
Oh, man.
But many experts, including Jim Corbett, think that there was a lot more than that.
And the reason for that is they didn't, if someone got mauled by this leopard and then died days later,
They didn't count that as a death.
And then this was also in rural India.
And there was probably a lot of people that it just like pulled off that didn't ever even really get counted.
That's crazy.
Because like Ted Bundy only got like 33 people.
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, if this leopard were a serial killer,
it'd be the most prolific serial killer probably ever.
So pretty crazy.
Its reign of terror started in 1918.
So what were two other very important worldwide?
things that were happening in 1918
Industrial Revolution
No
World War I and the black socks
Shoeless Joe Jackson
That guy
You got one of them
World War I
Great Depression
The Spanish flu
Shit
So India was hit really hard
By the Spanish flu
And over a million people died
As a result of the flu
Garhwal
That'd be the most prolific serial killer then.
It would be, yeah.
This Garwal place is a division in the Uttarakahan state of India,
and it was hit especially hard.
The local residents were having a really difficult time disposing of all these bodies
that are piling up from the Spanish flu.
So the traditional way to dispose of these bodies,
it required this kind of more elaborate ceremony
where they would take the person down to the river,
they would have this little ceremony,
and then they would put them in the river,
or sorry, they'd cremate them,
then put the ashes in the river
that could be taken down to the Ganges.
And it's kind of like man-intensive.
It takes a lot of effort to do that.
And because so many people were all dying at once,
they weren't able to dispose of bodies
in their typical way.
So a lot of bodies,
they would just put a live coal in their mouth,
which was also a Hindu tradition,
and then just kind of chuck them into the woods
around the village, like down in ravines.
They're just disposing a body,
kind of willy-nilly because they just didn't have the resources to do it the way they wanted to.
It's impossible to say for sure why this particular leopard started specializing in humans,
but Jim Corbett and a number of experts think that the leopard, which is an animal that isn't
adverse to scavenging, started feeding on human corpses around Garwall, and because of that,
that became a primary food source for it. And then when the flu slowed down and these bodies
started drying up, it had already become accustomed to feeding on human carcasses, so it just
then switched to live human prey. That's kind of the predominant theory that Jim Corbett puts out
in his book, and I don't think it's that crazy, to be honest. Yeah, no, that makes sense.
I don't love saying, in these books and in these articles and everything you read about man eaters,
you always hear them say they developed a taste for human flesh. I don't love that idea.
I just think what happened was humans entered this leopard's menu and the leopard specialized.
It learned, okay, this is easy, reliable prey.
I feel like that's kind of saying the same thing.
Why don't you like develop the taste?
It's not.
The thing that I don't like is taste makes you think that they like, oh, I need more human.
I love the way this tastes.
And what I'm saying is that this particular leopard decided to focus on humans because it found them
easy to find and kill.
And so we just simply became a prey option for it.
But if it's birthday, it might still on an antelope.
Right.
Like, who knows?
Yeah.
It's impossible to say.
You think maybe the leopard switching from deceased to living human victims is kind of like
when humans eat that poisonous puffer fish.
It's like there's plenty of other things to eat out there.
But like that little added extra risk is kind of like makes it enticing.
Who figured that out?
Like, who kept just trying?
Yeah.
We need an episode on that.
Yeah, we should.
That's what happened with Ted Bundy, that people are just leaving scraps of human outside his place.
It was definitely more.
More Dommer.
No, I don't.
To answer your question, though, Mike, I think you're right in a way that if the risk was high enough,
I don't think this leopard would have really made the switch to then go feed on living people.
But as you're going to learn, it wasn't that high of a risk.
It was pretty good at just grabbing people.
Yeah, it seems like it was pretty successful.
Yeah.
So we're going to talk about that a little bit.
So Rudra Prajag, which is both a city and a province in Garwal, which is a division of a state,
which I know is kind of, you don't have to worry about all that.
Just remember Rudra Priyag is like a city and a district or a province.
You know, I forgot that even.
You already forgot it.
It sits at the intersection of two rivers.
And those two rivers combine to form part of the Ganges River.
So these are two of the feeder rivers that form the Ganges,
which is like the holy river for Hindu people in India.
It sits in the foothills.
Like when Goten and trunks do the fusion dance and become Gautengs in Dragon Ballsy.
That's exactly what I was the two rivers combined.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So sweet.
So this city sits in the foothills of the Himalayas.
It's a stop on this really popular pilgrimage route for Hindu people.
And it's Gooch Country.
We're in Gooch Country here.
I don't know what that means, but that sounds fun.
Wes's first bonus episode.
How the Goonch stole Christmas.
Yeah.
People still, that's their favorite one.
You swooped in and stole all our glory on one subscription episode.
Anyway, so if you remember, they live in clear, fast-moving water.
Like, we're kind of getting up into the mountains here.
When you think of India, you probably typically think of, like, dry scrubland or steamy jungles.
This is more up in mixed pine forest, and we're getting up into the Himalayas.
It's a little bit higher than what you might typically think.
When I think of India, I think of that train that drives straight through, like, the market,
and they all have to, like, just have all their stuff get driven over by a train every day.
Is that in India?
I thought that was in like Bangladesh or something, but I'm not sure.
Well, I guess I don't even think of the right country when I think it might be India.
I think about, I think about the Pacers, the NBA team.
No, you're thinking way off then.
All right.
The India Pacers?
Yeah, that's funny.
All right.
The first live human taken by the leopard was in 1918.
It'd be the only victim that year.
Then three people were killed in 1919.
six people were killed in 1920 and 23 people were killed in 1921.
Then from like 22, 23, 24, 25, it's like in the 20s all those years.
Jim Corbett arrives in 1925 and at that point 90 people had been officially killed by the leopard
but probably more had actually been killed.
It's weird to hear like 24, 25 because like we're in 24, but it's like a hundred years ago.
Maybe you'll get to this West.
But how were they so confident that they know it was a singular leopard?
It was always the same one doing these attacks.
Because these things were so, like this isn't the first time this had happened.
And it was like well known that when suddenly people start dying, it was generally one animal.
And once that animal was killed, it stops.
And so I think that the people in India and Jim Corbett and some of these other people just had enough experience to know this was like the work of one animal.
And there was witnesses, and they all described it as kind of the same size and everything.
So there were roughly 50,000 people that lived in the 500 square miles of Garwall,
and they were living in constant terror of the dark and a predator that lurked in every shadow.
During the day, most people conducted business as usual.
They would walk long distances along rural forested roads.
Women would gather grass for thatching or for their cattle on the hillsides,
and children would walk to school unintended or gather sticks in the jungle.
When the light starts to dim and the shadows get a bit longer,
people suddenly abandon whatever they're doing,
they quickly run to their homes and shelters.
Children were anxiously called home by their mothers,
and pilgrims would huddle together in makeshift shelters.
Doors were locked and sometimes double-locked,
and the streets would become completely empty and silent.
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Book direct at choiceotails.com. All right. So we were just talking about how everyone would get really scared as the light would dim as the night came in.
And there's truly no one on the streets at night, which may seem like a bit of an overreaction.
But in some really significant ways, the leopard had earned this reputation among the people of Rutherpricy.
because it had broken down doors, it had jumped through windows, it had clawed through mud
and thatch to get to victims.
It was a really determined leopard.
And so it's understandable why these people are living in constant fear.
Yeah, I don't feel like that even sounds like an overreaction.
It just, it makes you like, yeah, you're right.
It doesn't.
If that many people are dying in my neighborhood from something.
And it's like the early 1900s and like.
Yeah.
Here are a few stories from the early years that the leopard was actively hunting humans in the area.
The wife of a village leader was feverish and two of her friends were staying with her and nursing her back to health.
So when I say village, I just want you to remember there's a number of small villages around Rudra Pryag that are being affected by this leopard.
So I'm not always going to elaborate which village it is, but just assume it's like a pretty small rural village.
All right, so this wife of the village leader sick, two of her friends are staying with their nursing her back to health.
They're staying in a small two-room house.
The room that the women were in was the inner room, and this room had no windows or doors, aside from one door leading into the outer room.
The outer room had two doors.
So there's one from the inner room that we just talked about, and then a door leading to a small out yard courtyard.
So it's just a two-room house.
one room has no windows and only one door, the other room has a window and then a door leading
outside. And the window in this outer room had a big brass water receptacle in it. So it's like a
window with a window sill and then there's this big brass thing sitting like right in front of
the window. So these three women are inside the inner room and they're kind of sleeping, the woman's
sick, like all residents of the village, they're very proactive about fastening latches, locking doors
because they don't want this leopard to come in.
And they're all sleeping in this inner room.
And in the outer room, the husband is laying in a bed right by the window.
And he's also sleeping.
And on the floor, there's an oil lamp.
Okay, I just kind of wanted to set that up.
I think it's going to get the husband, if I had to guess.
I wanted to set that up because really the only way this leopard is getting in the house
is through this door in the outer room or the window.
And they'd locked the outer room door.
So as these four people are sleeping in this humble house,
The leopard sneaks in through the small window, carefully avoiding the large brass water vessel.
It lands soundlessly on the floor, and years of hunting much more aware prey in the forest had taught it to take each step carefully.
And this clean floor made that very easy for it.
It ignores the man sleeping in the bed, jab.
It slips into the room with the three women, and without making a noise, it clamps its jaws down over the sick woman's throat and clamped her windpipe shut.
Oh, man.
Wow.
A silent scream shoots out of her open mouth, and her eyes are searching wildly for help,
but the leopard was already carrying her into the other room and trying to push her through the window.
But in its hurry to get her through the open window with this woman in its jaws,
the leopard bumps into the water vessel and sends it crashing to the floor.
So the man wakes up, the other women wake up, they run into the room where they take this oil lamp
and they're like pointing it around and they point it toward the window,
where this woman is curled up dead on the floor
with four large canine puncture marks in her throat
and a pool of blood spreading out around her.
And the leopard had escaped through the window.
That's just so crazy.
She's asleep in a room with two other people
and it can just do one bite
and she doesn't make a noise
and it just drags her out.
They're so impressive.
We're going to talk about that when we get to the biology.
Like I probably weigh more than it does
and I couldn't do that.
No.
Nope.
All right.
So a 14-year-old boy, he's working for a local goat farmer,
and he's responsible to look after a flock of 40 goats.
He would spend long days in the fields and forests with these animals,
and then at night he would return to the village where he'd be fed,
and then him and the goats were locked inside a large room.
The room he and the goats would sleep in was directly below his master's room,
and to stop the goats from crowding in on him,
as he slept, he kind of made this little makeshift fence in that room.
So he's sleeping in the far corner of this room and then there's 40 goats in front of him.
No windows, only one door in this room.
So after all the goats and the boy were inside the room one night, the goat's owner would
then attach a small chain to a staple on the wall and then he'd kind of cram this piece of wood
in there too.
And that's how he locked the door.
And then this boy would roll a stone.
in front of the door on his side, just as extra protection from this leopard.
So one night, the boy and these goats are sleep in the room.
The leopard approaches the door and it tries to push it open with its head.
When that fails, it begins running its long claws down the wooden door,
leaving deep gouges in the wood.
Finally, one of those claws catches that little chain and immediately breaks it.
No way.
And a piece of wood shoots out.
Jeez.
So then the leopard's able to push the door open.
It easily pushes aside this stone and it enters the room.
It pushes into this dark room and the panic goats start running out in the street away from this really focused cat, which doesn't care at all about the goats, but it's laser focused on the boy that's sleeping in the corner.
See, that does kind of make it seem like it prefers just eating humans.
No, it did.
Yeah.
Like it's got taste for humans.
We're going to talk about that.
why taste for humans is still the wrong word.
Okay.
The leopard pounces, it grabs the boy by the neck,
his screams are drowned in the tumult
and the braying of all these stampeding goats,
and he's killed quickly in his tiny corner of a bare room.
And then the leopard carries him through the now empty room
and outside into a nearby ravine
where it starts feeding on him
and feeds on him throughout the night.
The next day the goat farmer finds
what's left of his servant spread apart on a large boulder.
Oh, geez.
Not one of the goats was injured, and some people think that the leopard may have even crossed over their backs in order to get to the boy.
That's crazy.
Because if you kill a goat, you can, like, drink milk at the same time.
That's true.
They have goat cheese.
Can't do that with boys.
Stomics.
Yeah.
Or wherever they keep it.
I don't know.
All right.
This is, I think of the three that I'm going to tell in this episode, this might be the craziest one for me.
So two men were neighbors, and they'd have.
met up in the night to smoke tobacco out of a hookah. So you guys know what a hookah is, right?
It kind of looks like a big, like, bong almost. And it has...
Mom, I have no idea. Yeah. All right. So this was actually, I know this one for a fact was
pretty early in this leopard's career of killing people because no one had died in this particular
village. These men weren't really worried about the leopard yet. So the door to the small house
that they're smoking in was wasn't locked, but it was shut.
There's no electricity in this village, so when they're smoking this hookah together, they would typically do it in relative darkness, and they would just sit and pass the hookah back and forth, chat about village gossip, talk about their day-to-day lives.
It was just kind of like an unwinding thing for these dudes, that they would do this late into the night.
Yeah.
The man that owned the house that they're smoking in had just passed the hookah to his friend when his friend suddenly drops it and it crashes to the ground and scatters burning tobacco and charcoal embers across the house.
the floor. So this guy gets mad at his friend. He's like, you drop the hookah. He leans over to
clean up the embers and the tobacco and everything. And as he leans over, the open door comes into
view. Remember, they'd shut that door. And in the light of the moon, he could see that one horror
movie, Wes. Yeah, this is. Paranormal activity. Yeah. Shut up. The door is open a little bit.
It's time to be scared.
Except for this one actually has something in that.
I'm so mad.
I told you guys that that movie scared me.
Anyway, I'm sorry.
So as he leans over, he sees the doors open.
And the moon is silo-like the moon's in the background.
And silhouetted in the doorway is the leopard with his friend in its mouth.
That is a horror movie.
Holy cow.
And his friend's struggling, but the leopards carrying him off.
The friend that dropped the hookah?
Yeah.
So this guy forgives him now.
He dropped it because the leopard grabbed him.
Yeah.
Oh.
Yeah.
Oh, what the heck?
Crazy.
So the guy was like he had his back turned to the whole situation.
No, it was so dark that he just didn't even see it.
What in the world.
And he was in arms reach away from this leopard grabbing his friend.
And later when he was interviewed, he said that the leopard had been so quiet in grabbing
his friend.
And he told Jim Corbett that he hadn't even heard an intake of breath or any other
sound from his friend or the leopard that was only an arm's length away.
And he was so terrified after seeing the leopard carry his friend away that he
waited until it was gone and then he crept up and locked his door.
He's kind of like, whack you.
Hard to blame him.
I don't know what I would do, but.
So this leopard had become so adept at killing humans that many of the local residents,
a lot of whom were highly devout Hindus, believe that this leopard was actually a
supernatural entity or an evil spirit and not a leopard at all. So a common belief among the people
was that what's called a Sadhu, which is pretty much a Hindu monk that has renounced his
worldly life, was infected by an evil spirit and was actually responsible for the killings.
So these are the guys that sometimes you see is like, they're like yogis almost in India,
and they look like a monk. They're often dressed in like bright orange or red, and they have
paint on their face and like crazy hair or like whatever. Anyways, it's like a,
aesthetic, you know? Yeah, sure. So maybe you're saying the guy broke the hookah first and then
karma dictated that he should be killed by a leopard. It may not have been the other way around. I'm not saying
that at all. No. Okay. They're saying that these, I thought that's what you're saying to you. No,
they're saying that these monks might be possessed by an evil spirit and they're the ones that are doing this.
These people. Oh, interesting. So in the book, Jim Corbett talks about,
how he bought this goat from a local goat farmer.
This is once he's there and he's hunting this leopard.
That's like, I'm sorry.
That's just a funny, like, thought process, though.
It's like, hey, you know, like, these guys are pretty chill and, like, just good guys.
Bit you it's one of them.
Yeah.
I think it's because, like, often these dudes are pretty, like, pretty out there, you know?
Sure.
Like, they can be, like, kind of crazy.
And so I think that's why they're kind of an easy target to believe that they're possessed.
But I'm going to jump around in the time a little bit here, but when Jim Corbett's hunting this leopard, he bought a goat from a local farmer to use his bait.
And the goat farmer just kind of laughs at him.
And he's like, this isn't going to work.
And you're wasting your time.
And then he tells Jim Corbett this story.
And the story was that his father's village was having a problem with the leopard that was killing people.
And they did everything they could to kill it, but they never even got close to killing it.
So finally in this village, they have a big meeting.
And someone proposes that it's not actually a leopard.
but it's the sadu, this monk, that had arrived recently,
and that he had assumed the form of a leopard and killed people in order to eat their flesh.
And the killings had actually started when this guy arrived.
So they thought, like, okay, there's some reason to this.
And they pretty much staked out his hut.
And then one night when this guy's dad was watching the hut,
the sadu leaves.
And that night they could hear screams in the village.
And then when he came back, they said that he had blood on his hand.
and blood in his mouth.
So he goes back into his hut, and they latch his hut clothes,
and they all agreed that the only way to kill this evil spirit was fire,
so they light his hut on fire and burned him alive inside of his hut.
No way.
And the killing stopped.
What?
Yeah.
So he was doing it in like a leopard suit.
So in the book, Jim Corbett's like kind of like, this is crazy.
It's pretty tragic.
And I'm kind of like, this dude might have been eating people.
You know?
Yeah.
They might have gotten this guy, actually.
But then Corbett goes through a number of other times that this happened,
where they blamed the sadu, where it wasn't nearly as cut and dry.
There was one where they made this guy stay in his hut,
and then while he was in his hut, people still got killed.
So they're like, okay, it wasn't him.
Anyway, the main thing to take home here, though,
is that people just can't understand how this could possibly be happening,
how one animal could be killing this many people.
It seems impossible.
But we're going to learn a little bit about leopards,
and I'm going to teach you a little bit about just how capable of an animal they actually are.
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1-800 545-97579. All right. So some leopard biology. And I got most of this from the San Diego
Zoo Wildlife Alliance Library, which is a really good resource for basic facts on animals
that are peer-reviewed, that are referenced. Great resource. Okay. The leopard, or
Pantara Partis, is one of the four big cats that can roar.
it's one of the five cats in the Pantera genus.
So it is a true big cat, even though on average they are smaller than mountain lions or cougars.
They have the broadest distribution of all wildcat species.
They can be found through much of Africa, the Middle East, the Asian steppe, the Indian subcontinent,
and eastern and southeastern Asia.
So over 70 countries throughout African Asia have leopards, which is pretty crazy.
Countries that you wouldn't think of, like Afghanistan has leopards.
has leopards. Like there's
some countries that you wouldn't really expect
leopards to be in that they are.
Yeah. They can utilize a variety
of different habitats. They're probably the most
adaptable big cat when it comes to
habitat use. Everything from
rainforests to savannah to
desert to montane forests.
It's a crazy amount of
habitat plasticity that they have.
This is the same animal
in all these different habitats, but they've
managed to figure it out in all those different
places. So Indian leopards,
are a subspecies of leopard that are found on the Indian subcontinent.
And like all of the big cats, they're sexually dimorphic when it comes to their size,
and males are bigger and heavier than the females.
They're almost twice as big.
Male Indian leopards average about 110 to 170 pounds,
and females are about half that size.
So they aren't huge.
They're not like a massive cat.
There's a fair amount of videos.
Me and Jesse were watching them last night on YouTube,
of leopards that get into cities,
and people panic and try and chase them out
and there's these big mobs of people
trying to push leopards out
and the leopards end up attacking these people
and just kind of going from one to the next.
Yeah, those videos are insane.
They're insane, but they give you a good feel
for how big leopards are compared to people
and they're really not that big.
Often these people are able to kind of wrestle the leopard off of them.
But this is like, it's very different from hunting.
It's not hunting.
It's like just trying to get out of there.
So I think if it was really determined
to go after one,
of those people it would get them.
Sure.
Like John Wick, when that guy kills his dog.
Yeah, he wants that guy.
It does take him a while, though, even though that guy's like...
Right, you get a lot of people in your way, just like the leopard would.
That's true.
Fair enough.
Yeah, they are the John Wick of cats.
I think we can say that.
It's a good thing leopards don't have pet dogs because we'd have had a trouble.
We'd have to kill the dog.
I don't even know what I'm saying, actually.
You can just keep going with.
All right.
So they're incredibly agile and powerful cats for their size.
I do think there's this sweet spot in cats, like leopards and mountain lions, where you get this
really good mix of power and agility.
I think like a lion or a tiger are kind of trading some of that climbing ability and agility
for a lot more power.
But leopards and mount lions just kind of have it all in this really great package.
And I think that power is really well represented in their ability to carry prey up into trees.
African leopards are especially famous for that.
They do it with about 50% of their kills, but Indian leopards can do it too.
So you guys have probably seen this in nature documentaries or photos or whatever where you see like an Impala that's completely gutted and it's just kind of hanging in a tree and a leopard's eating at will.
Ted Bundy never did that.
He didn't.
No.
Nor did dommer.
Why do you guys think leopards do that?
Why would they take their food up in the tree?
Because they're not as big as some of the other predators in their area.
And then so they can eat it up there.
Or like even not even sizewise, but like if hyenas ganged up on them, you know,
hyenas aren't getting up a tree.
Tell you that much.
Yeah.
Yeah. And a big hyena is bigger than a leopard.
So like even one hyena can be enough to chase a leopard up a tree.
And you're right, that's exactly it.
It's to give them a place to consume their meal in peace.
And honestly, like, almost all big carnivores do this in some way,
where they'll kill something,
and then part of the fight is making sure that you have access to that carcass
over days or even weeks.
So for a lot of cats, what they'll do is they'll cash it.
They'll, like, half bury it, push it into some bushes,
try and get it so the scent isn't getting out and they can enjoy it.
But for a leopard, they'll just take it up into a tree.
And it's a really good way to get away.
There's like something about eating a nice meal with like a view.
That's true.
It's just a lot better experience.
Yeah, that's a great point.
An enterprising leopard could probably start charging for premium branch real estate.
Anyway, in Africa, they do this with about half their kills.
Generally with bigger kills, they'll do this.
It's really an amazing thing to watch them do.
Do you know, like, what their limit is for what they can take up?
Yeah, so we're about to talk.
I don't know the exact limit.
200 pounds.
There's observations.
Well, really quickly, before we get into that, they're able to do it because of this really strong jaw, really strong neck muscles and shoulder muscles.
And then they actually have front limbs that are only connected to their collarbone by muscle and ligaments.
There's no like bone connection there, joint connection.
And that makes it so they have like this really crazy wide.
range of movement in their front limbs and it gives them a lot of flexibility so there have been
observations of them hoisting the bodies of young giraffes that weigh two to three times more than
the leopard up into the tree so like 300 pound baby giraffes no it's like that's like pretty
big because impala's don't get that big or springbok or whatever but that's a big animal so i mean
it'd be like carrying a sofa up into the tree with just your mouth okay so maybe
Maybe, like if you can't imagine that very well, I found this website that helps you imagine things that weigh a certain amount.
So here's some of the things that weigh about 300 pounds for the size of a young giraffe.
Six e-bikes.
Okay.
Fifteen small passenger car tires.
Yeah, that's more my area of expertise.
Five and a half bushels of corn because we all know how many corn.
go into a bushel.
Three bloodhounds or 67 bricks.
So again, if like, if you're having a hard time imagining a sofa, just picture 67 bricks
or like six E bikes.
So that's a lot easier to visual.
Three bloodhounds weigh as much as one sofa.
I got to keep that in mind.
Have a, who's got the stronger jaw then?
The jaguar or is it leopard?
Again, like this is, it's really hard because we talk.
With Jaguars, we talked about bite force more than anything.
And with like leopards carrying stuff up a tree,
it's this kind of interaction between all of it,
between their jaws, their neck, their shoulders.
And I would say if it's like that ability to carry something up into a tree,
I'd give it to leopards.
As far as bite force, I'm not sure.
I'm guessing it's Jaguars because they're famous for being,
for the big cats like pound for pound, the highest bite force.
They also kind of have the same leopard thing too,
where they grab the Kaman by the head.
The Kaman's like flopping around
and it brings it up the river bank.
Yeah, carrying it up the bank,
but the way they kill prey is pretty different.
We're going to talk about that in a second.
They should give...
But they can hold them up in the air
and take it up the river bank.
I just feel like they don't need to go in a tree
because they don't really have the same predators around them, right?
That's maybe true.
It's a good point.
They are kind of top dog where they are.
They should give leopards and jaguars
a jawbreaker each and see who gets it through it faster.
It can bite in half.
I do think,
I think Jaguars probably have a higher bite force,
but I do think their ability to carry something heavy up a tree,
I don't think anything really beats leopard.
If it's like a marathon jaw competition of leopard woodland.
Yeah, maybe.
All right.
I don't know.
That doesn't.
Okay.
So they have,
they have shark,
or shark.
They're like climbing up a redwood tree.
Is that kind of what a marathon?
to look like for a leopard.
I'm just 700 foot tall climb.
I put my money on the leopard.
Yeah.
All right.
So they have really sharp curved protractile claws that help with climbing and hunting.
You'll notice I said protractile and not retractile or retractable.
And that's because claws at rest are actually retracted and they come out when they like pounce on something or climb or whatever.
We talked about that with not lines in it.
Yeah, there's just muscles and tendons and stuff in there that when they hit, those claws come out.
But at rest, they're retracted.
So anyway.
Gotcha.
They're largely nocturnal hunters, but leopards that live in more heavily jungled or forested areas will sometimes be more active in the day or at dawn and dusk.
And then a big part of why they're so adaptable in so many different habitats is because they have a really high variability of prey species.
So mid-sized ungulates, that's like your gazelle.
deer, a springbok.
That's kind of what's preferred prey
throughout a lot of their range, but they'll eat
just about anything they can catch.
So, talked about those
ungulates, but also wild pigs,
monkeys, porcupines,
pangolins, snakes,
rats, birds, small dogs,
canids, like foxes and
doles and stuff, and even other
wild cats like servals and cheetahs.
They'll kill cheetahs.
All of those things can sometimes be on leopards,
menus. So it's pretty extensive.
How do they catch the cheetah?
That's a good question.
They're ambush hunters, so
they wouldn't be able to catch it running after
it.
In a marathon.
So when they kill
larger prey, and Jeff, you kind of brought this
up earlier, Jaguars
bite into the back of the head, usually
like into the brain cavity or the
vertebrae, and a leopard will go for
the front, and it's trying to just compress
that windpipe and essentially like
suffocate something or strangle it.
And I think we think of like suffocation is taking a really long time.
This is more like strangulation.
Like there's a lot of pressure there and that pressure can actually kill you a lot faster than
simply the amount of time it would take you to run out of air.
So it's pretty quick and they're very effective at it.
All right.
So one thing that it can affect what they eat is the presence of other large predators.
So when they live around other tigers or other large predators in India,
leopards will mostly get pushed out of those areas.
And they'll get pushed into the kind of these buffer forest in between people and tigers.
That'll be a place where a leopard might live.
And then in places where both species are actively hunting,
leopards will hunt smaller animals and the tigers will hunt the bigger animals.
So they've kind of learned how to like avoid tigers and then live around tigers in some places.
This is an important thing that I want to get to.
individual leopards can become specialists in certain types of prey.
I read a really interesting paper called Ecological Opportunity
Drives Individual Dietary Specialization in Leopards.
And this was in the Journal of Animal Ecology.
And one of the takehomes of this paper,
they kind of just looked at all the different things that leopards eat
and if sometimes they become really specialized on a certain type of prey,
and they learn that they can become specialists,
and that bringing down a certain type of prey
will almost always come
with really specific risks and challenges.
So when an animal like a leopard
becomes really good at killing a certain type of prey,
it makes sense for it just to keep doing that.
Because think about it, like,
if a leopard learns just how to kill a warthog,
it's like, I'm really good at killing warthogs.
I've learned how to, like, avoid their tusks,
I've learned how to kill their babies,
I'm just good at it.
Then for it to suddenly switch
to killing gazelle, it has to learn about all the challenges and everything to kill Gazelle.
So it's like, as long as it has access to a lot of warthogs, it might as well just stick with
warthogs because it's good at it.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, stick with what you're good at.
Yeah.
I like that.
So that will happen with certain leopards.
It doesn't happen with all of them.
Like a lot of leopards are just generalists and they'll be good at hunting a lot of different prey.
But some leopards turn into these specialists where they're just really, really good at killing.
a specific type of prey.
So why do you guys think that would be pertinent to our story?
Because they're really good at killing humans.
Right.
So again, this isn't necessarily that this leopard is like, man, I need to eat humans.
Like, they're so good.
It's like, I've learned how to do this.
I'm pretty good at it.
So I'm not going to switch until I have to.
I'll walk on top of these goats to get this.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Exactly.
And you know what?
this leopard's like, it's been able to do this without really many threats, without many challenges.
So why change?
You know, it's safe and it's effective.
It's like Steph Curry.
He's a good three.
He shoots the three.
You know, he's good at him.
Why stop?
He could probably be a good NFL quarterback, but why is he going to switch out of basketball?
He plays golf.
He's good at golf, too.
He's a general.
There is something to be said about challenging yourself, though, you know?
Like, these leopards really aren't.
They're not pushing their limits.
Well, I would say just to say this one particular leopard.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that is, I don't want to generalize.
You shouldn't generalize.
I know you're joking, but I do want to like hammer that in that not all leopards are
specialists.
Like probably more are generalists than our specialists, but some of them are.
Do they eat like big old snakes?
They can.
Yeah.
Some of them are really good at eating like pythons and stuff.
Interesting.
So I think in general, we typically pose such a large and unknown threat to most animals
that they won't start attacking and feeding on us,
but a really intelligent and adaptable animal like a leopard that somehow learns that we're a good source of food.
So maybe it's finding dead carcasses in the woods might then decide to start specializing in us.
So I think we're going to talk more about that in part two.
This is going to be a two-parter.
Oh, bringing that on us.
We're not there yet.
We're not to the end of this one yet.
I mean,
I'm cool with that too because it's like not as big of a cliffhanger as you give us
sometimes,
you know.
Yeah.
Well,
don't praise me for that as yet.
We're not there yet.
We're not to the end of it just yet.
Okay,
another quick fun fact.
Leopards were actually my favorite animal for probably like eight years of my
childhood and adolescence.
I don't remember that.
That's why I chose jaguars.
It's like,
how can I be as close as possible but still have my own identity?
And you know what?
Now I like Jaguars more
So there we go
I like leopards more
I do love leopards
I've never seen one in the wild
But I've had like
In Africa I've had their tracks
Inside my tracks
When I came back to my car
And then I've been close enough
To hear them vocalize in both Africa
And India
So I've been really close to them
But I've not seen one yet
Hopefully this year
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No, that's a cliffhanger.
Really did.
All right.
Okay.
So before Jim Corbett arrived in 1925 to haunt this leopard,
there had already been some pretty large efforts to find and kill it.
The local government was really motivated to bring an end to the terror,
and they'd offered a large cash prize, as well as the,
gift of two villages, which I don't totally understand what that means. Yeah, generous. Maybe.
I don't know. I wonder what. Yeah, maybe that's normal. Like how many, yeah, bartering with
villages. How many villages does the average person have? The villagers are just like, what the
frat? Yeah. Someone wins him and they're just like, oh man, you guys are in trouble.
All right. So, uh, that's what they had been offering to anyone that could bring down the
the man-eater, which was a rich enough prize to encourage the 4,000 gun owners in Garwall to
try their hand at killing this leopard. So a lot of people got activated trying to kill it.
Professional hunters from the area were also offered special rewards on top of the general
reward, and military men from the area were allowed to take their guns with them when they went
home on leave. So people that were in other parts of India and the military when they came back home,
they were allowed to bring their guns in case they were able to kill this leopard. Traps were
set all around the roads in areas where the leopard was known to travel, and then when they found
human victims of the leopard, they would actually poison the carcass in hopes that the leopard
would come back and feed on the poisoned flesh. So all of these efforts only resulted in the
leopard being grazed by a single bullet that blew off one of its toes. And Corbett in his book
goes over three of the early incidents that hunters had while pursuing this leopard. So the first one,
Two young British officers had traveled to Rudra Pryag in 1921 in order to kill the man-eater.
They assumed that this leopard might be crossing one of the rivers bordering the town by using a large suspension bridge, and they decided they'd focus on that bridge.
At either end of this bridge, there's these two towers, and each of the men would sit in one of these towers.
Yeah, they'd sit in, oh, two towers, I get it.
Yeah.
Which two towers?
No, and not.
Ornthack.
and no, what's Soron's Tower called again?
I don't know.
Ornthak's the one in Eisengard.
Orthank.
Why can't I think of it?
I mean either.
Baradur?
Yeah, Baradur.
Yeah, Baradur.
Okay, okay.
Anyways.
So, they're sitting in these two towers
on either end of the suspension bridge
and they did this for two months
before finally one night
the leopard walks out onto this bridge,
which is crazy.
I would have given up on that plan after like,
three nights.
They do it for two months.
And finally, the leopard
steps out on the bridge below one of these men.
He waits until the leopard
gets a good ways out onto the bridge,
and then he opens fire with his rifle.
The leopard takes off running toward the other
guy, and he unloads
six shots from his revolver at the leopard.
It's night, so they can't see
if they hit it or not.
The next morning, though, they find blood on the bridge,
and then they find blood going up the hill,
and they're sure that they had killed
this leopard.
So they think it's dying out in the forest somewhere
There's the search party that goes and looks for it
But no one finds it
But kills the leopard stops killing people for six months
So everyone's like pretty optimistic that they had killed this leopard
And then suddenly people start dying again
So they realize no we didn't get it
There's no legolus
They're no legolus
And these are actually the guys that blew off the leopard's toe
And later when Corbett arrived
And they explained what had happened
happened. He said, I bet you shot it in the foot. And then he was able to confirm that when he finally,
spoiler. Okay. Okay. All right. Yeah. No one has to listen to part too. But please come back. Yeah,
seriously. Yeah, we'll cut that. So the second thing that they did, there was tons of traps that they set.
And about 20 leopards were caught in these door traps. And they're kind of traps similar to the ones that
Jeff helped me with on my Black Bear project. And one day, they caught a particularly large,
and ferocious leopard and everyone agreed like this is it this has to be the man-eater and all these
people that caught it were predominantly Hindu people so they didn't want to kill the leopard because
they believed that they'd be haunted by the spirits of the people that the leopard had killed so
they sent for a Christian man that lived in a village like 30 miles away and by the time this
Christian dude shows up the leopard had dug itself out of the trap and escaped.
It's very very likely that they had the right
leopard, but it got away. And they just
wouldn't kill it. No. So this is
two times. Two times
that the leopard was almost caught.
And so now here's a third.
The leopard had killed a man and it was
eating its carcass, the man's carcass
in an isolated patch of jungle.
The next morning when people went looking
for this man, they saw the leopard leave
the jungle and enter a nearby cave.
They run to the mouth of the cave
and they cover it with thorn brushes
and rocks. And that traps
the leopard inside. So
every day after like dozens and then hundreds of people would hear about this they'd gather at this cave
because they heard that this man eating leopard was trapped inside and on the fifth day of this
about 500 people were gathered outside this cave and this really influential man from the community
shows up and he starts laughing and he says there's no leopard in that cave and he walks to the
opening and starts removing the thorn brush and as soon as that thornbrush was out of the way
the leopard shoots out of the cave,
runs through the middle of 500 people,
and escapes into the jungle.
Dude.
So the leopard had been in that cave for five days,
and honestly,
had they just maybe sat there five more days,
it would have died.
So there was some really influential that guy was afterwards.
Yeah.
What do you think he said?
Uh-oh.
What do you think he said?
I don't know.
I think there,
I think you got to go just full denial.
Be like,
That wasn't a leopard.
That's a spirit.
That kind of person would be like, that was actually a cheetah technically, so I'm right.
They've been extinct here for a long time, but whatever.
So the important thing to take home here is that there had been some really close calls
and had those things just gone differently, a lot of people didn't need to die.
But the press was also publishing.
It reminds me a lot of lines of Sava in that.
Yeah, exactly.
The press had also published a lot of stories about this leopard.
and the reward, and they were trying to draw professional hunters from all over India.
And in 1925, the leopard would finally draw the attention of the most famous hunter in India, Jim Corbett.
And we're going to talk about his hunt, more victims, and the next episode.
All right.
Can't wait.
I mean, imagine if Jim Corvette had decided to...
Corvette with a bee.
Corvette.
Jim Corvette is the guy that lives down the road from dad.
That guy is awesome.
play basketball instead of become a hunter.
Yeah, it's true.
He wouldn't be nearly as famous, probably.
All right, so do you guys have any questions about part one of the leopard of Rudra Prajag?
Rudra Prajog, yeah.
I do.
Yeah, me too.
What are you going to talk about in part two?
Like what stories?
You can have to wait for part two for that.
In detail, tell us.
I actually haven't even read that part of the book yet, so.
Whoa.
Okay.
Yeah. Whoa, you cliff hanged yourself.
Yeah, seriously.
I was wondering, maybe this is just the geographical thing in my situation,
or maybe it's a size thing with the cat itself.
But when I think of man-eating large predators,
it kind of stops at lions and tigers for me.
And I know that's not super accurate,
but is that like an unfair dismissal of leopards
to kind of put them on a different level?
Are they, like, just as...
So for the, I think for the next episode, we're going to talk about some other famous man-eating leopards.
And this one isn't even the most prolific.
Like, it's pretty crazy.
And I do think it's-
Why aren't we talking about those ones?
There's not nearly as much information.
But they're just so, they're such good hunters.
They're so quiet and well-adapted to so many different kinds of environments that, like, a lion or a
tiger might feel very uncomfortable entering a village to grab someone, but a leopard doesn't.
So actually, I would say, like, when it comes to man-eaters and big cats,
leopards are probably, like, number one.
Really?
I think we're going to talk about the tiger of Chumpawater.
I forget exactly how you say the name.
I think that's the cat that's responsible for the most kills.
But I think there's more leopards that have turned into this kind of man-eater than there
are tigers.
I could be wrong about that.
That makes me like leopards more, though, just how, like, good at killing less they are.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I do, like, I want to hit this because I didn't really talk about it in the biology.
This isn't like an animal that is mad at humans or that is, like, necessarily, you know.
Like, if you saw a leopard, you shouldn't just be, like, terrified.
This isn't normal behavior for them.
This is just one leopard that decided to specialize in humans.
It doesn't view those humans.
any differently than it would view a warthog or a gazelle or something like that, it's just
adapting to a new prey species. And for us, there's all this terror and horror and everything
involved in that. And for the leopard, it's simply just switching prey, you know? It's still just
an animal of like doing what's natural to it. So I just think like, we need to remember that,
that almost never are we actual food for these guys. There's hundreds and hundreds of thousands
of leopards in the world, and this doesn't happen hardly ever at all.
And when it does, there's a lot we can learn from it.
It's pretty cool that we can learn so much from this stuff.
So anyway.
Learning so freaking cool.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
Let's do our ouchies for our three victims that we've talked about so far.
So the sick woman, the boy with the goats, and the guy with the hookah.
This seems like one of the best animals to get killed by.
I agree.
Yeah.
So yeah, I'm going like a three.
I have to do more than three because they still die.
Right.
But I'm going to do like six.
Yeah.
It seems like in the best situation, you're going pretty quick.
So I'll give them a seven just because there is going to be a brief moment of realization that you're dying.
Yeah.
And no matter how brief that is, that's still just a harrowing thing.
You're going to have to reconcile.
for a couple seconds with yourself about or minutes.
I don't know how long it typically will last.
But yeah, not good, not ideal.
Yeah, I think that's good.
Yeah, anyway.
Do you think mine's good?
I don't, but that's okay.
I do.
I agree, though, like, it is a pretty quick way to go for an animal.
And the reason, I mean, leopards have to do that because they do pretty much throughout
their range, there's something bigger than them, wherever they live.
live that might want to steal their kills.
So they do have to be pretty quick about dispatching prey.
So that's,
I think,
one of the saving graces for these people that lost their lives to this cat,
which,
you know,
even though it was a hundred years ago,
it's pretty tragic to think about it like an orphan kid
whose whole life is hurting goats.
That one was killed in the dark corner of a room.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Gets chained and locked in his little room.
Yeah.
Killed.
That's tough.
You know, hopefully he got to rejoin his parents wherever they are.
No, unless they're bad parents.
Or, you know, I think probably they, it's a reincarnation kind of thing there.
So I don't know.
I don't want to speak to that.
Maybe Batman would have been from India had he lived a little longer,
but since he didn't, he had to be an American guy.
I don't know if they'd have all been there.
He would have been lucky because he was an orphan.
Yeah.
Or maybe goat.
We can cut that.
No, we're leaving that.
All right.
So let's go to our categories.
It's a new animal.
So we get to do kind of some of our normal basic categories, which I love doing.
Yeah.
Your favorite leopard from pop culture.
I'll go first.
I'm going to.
Okay.
Shit.
I needed first on this one.
No, you go.
You called it.
You called it.
Okay.
So I'll get mine out of the way quick.
Don't you worry, Jeff.
And I'm not going to be stepping on anything you have to say.
So mine's from bringing up baby.
It's an old movie with Carrie Grant, Catherine Hepburn.
Baby, the titular leopard, gets up to all kinds of hijinks.
He runs away out into the town with his dog friend, George.
It's just a fun movie.
It inspired my favorite comedy.
What's Up Doc is kind of like loosely an adaptation of Hawk's old bringing up baby film.
It's just a lot of fun.
And you guys know I love Carrie.
So run, don't walk to your local theaters.
If I went third, I wouldn't get my top two picks.
But I'm going Lucci from One Piece, just a great villain.
It has really funny opening and his bird that he has is just such a funny character.
So, yeah.
Okay.
I thought you said you had two.
So I was giving me.
Well, I mean, I think you're going to say the other one.
Yeah, I'm actually going to do two since I'm going last.
I'm going to do The Leopard from the animated Tarzan movie, the Disney animated Tarzan movie.
I just like remember when that movie came out, it wasn't my favorite Disney movie,
but the leopard in it was really menacing and cool, and I just really liked it.
And then my backup was Bagheera, also a Disney movie.
Begira, I said that in Spanish.
It's actually, Begira is probably my number one.
but I feel like you like Jungle Book more than I do.
So I kind of wanted to save it for you.
Yeah, it is my favorite Disney movie.
And just so people out there know, a black leopard is commonly referred to as a Black Panther.
But when you're talking about Black Panthers, you're either talking about a Black leopard or Black Jaguar usually.
So we could have chose Black Panther from events.
You could have, yeah.
You could have done it.
Or like the Revolutionary.
group in the United States to Black Panthers.
I'll pick them.
I'll take the Black Panther guy.
Okay.
I'm taking Michael B. Jordan for that little bit.
Who are you talking about?
He's a Black Panther.
No, he's talking about the Marvel one.
Oh, okay.
Michael B. Jordan has the Black Panther for split seconds.
I still think Luji clears in a fight, though.
Do you guys think Leopards have the coolest, like, print of any of it?
the cats. No, I like Jaguar prints better. Me too, I think. Yeah, but I think leopards are in the
combo. Yeah. So, tigers. One way to tell leopards and jaguars apart, they don't live in the same
places, but if you're looking at a photo is those rosettes, which are like the circle, the black
circles, jaguars sometimes have rosettes that have dots in the middle of them and leopards don't.
So actually, just as I'm saying that, I'm noticing that a rosette that I picked for my background
on here has a dot in it.
So this is likely a jaguar that we're looking at behind me, not a leopard.
That's fine.
I'll edit it out.
You can't see the face or anything.
It's just skin behind me.
That almost seems like just a blooper on that.
It might be.
It might just be a blooper.
All right.
So.
I like leopard like print stuff.
I almost did that as my favorite pop culture leopard, just like a Beyonce outfit or something.
You got a Black Panther shirt.
shirt.
Blends Tiffany.
Mine's a Jaguar, though.
Okay.
All right.
So we're going to go into our cage.
Or like a boxer shorts.
We're going to go into our cage match.
For cage match, I think there's some animals that are significant that it would beat,
pretty much outright that I would put my money on the leopard.
Those are wolves, like a single wolf.
The leopard's probably going to beat.
A cheetah.
A wolverine.
I think some really good fights are going to be a black bear.
or a cougar or a mountain lion.
I think those are pretty good fights.
What about our newest hot topic, the chimpanzee?
I think leopards kill chimpanzees.
I think it happens every once in a while.
So I would probably put the leopard beating the chimpanzee if I had a back.
But you, would you say a human has a chance against a leopard?
Yeah, it's a different fight though.
Right.
I know, I know.
I'm just spitball in here.
In a cage match.
Like a chance.
I'm not saying we would win.
Yeah, a chance, sure.
Like if it's Vin Diesel.
Yeah, I think Vin Diesel would be able to headbutt one in oblivion.
You should be just going to what would Mike and Jeff do then
and see what you would do to give yourself a chance?
Yeah, what's your strategy, Jeff?
What are you guys doing to fight a leopard?
The hard thing is they get you when you're sleeping.
So you got to wear like one of those airplane neck pillows,
but you got to wear it the wrong way.
That's good.
That is a good tactic, actually.
Yeah.
So that's where I start.
And then, I mean, if it's a fight, it's just headbutts,
flying headbutts.
All right.
There are no trees in a cage, so that's probably big for us.
They won't be able to get us up in those.
Well, that's once you're dead, though.
It sounded like in that.
Then you could make trees in that cage.
If the leopard does.
The leopard had tree powers.
That would be dangerous.
You wouldn't even have a chance.
Yeah.
In that first story, it sounded like having a clean floor served to that lady's detriment.
So I'm just not ever going to clean my floors.
So you can hear it coming.
Yeah.
That's good.
I already, you give me a hard time sometimes for having a cluttered apartment, but, you know, maybe I'm just worried about this.
It was an instinctual manifestation of your survival.
instincts.
All right.
Okay, so what you actually should do,
this is pretty similar to our mountain lions,
our cougars.
Like, if you see one at a distance,
probably just enjoy it.
Don't crowd it.
Don't try and approach it.
You know, just watch it.
And people see these animals all the time on safari.
They can be really close to people sometimes
and, like, not even really care about them.
So if you get to see one and you're in a safe situation to observe it,
great. If you are being approached by a leopard or stalked by a leopard or something like that,
then you want to do the same thing as you would with a mountain lion. You make a lot of noise.
You make yourself as big as possible. If you have children around, you get them close to you.
You throw things at it. You do whatever you can to convince it that you're not easy prey.
Because this is a cat that needs every muscle of its body to survive so it doesn't want to take risks.
and if you convince that you're too big of a risk,
there's a good chance it's going to leave you alone.
While you're doing that, you can slowly back away.
Don't ever run from a big cat.
And if you're slowly backing away and as you back away,
it takes steps closer to you,
stop backing away, hold your ground,
and you just need to convince that leopard that you're not prey.
So those are some basic tips for how to avoid a bad incident with a leopard.
I think bear spray or flares would both work pretty well on the leopard.
All right, let's go into the wildlife experience of the week.
Jeff, you're out there seeing some cool wildlife underwater.
What's been the coolest thing you've seen on your little trip?
Scuba, I saw an eel, which was really cool.
Oh, cool.
I forget what type it was.
And then it's like right next to this jite, like those biggest types of puffer fish.
So that thing was huge.
And it was just letting me stare at it.
So that was pretty cool.
That's nice of it.
The Osprey was cool for like the first 15 seconds.
You see any crocs yet?
Dude, I looked so much.
I can't find them.
I saw if I go to Tulum, I can dive with crocs at night.
Oh, that'd be crazy.
Oh, cool.
Yeah.
Yeah, I feel like that'll get shut down soon too.
We should definitely go do that.
Yeah.
All three of us should go do that.
Yeah.
Cool.
I had a skunk sighting two nights ago here.
home, but that's really my only wildlife this fun, aside from deer every day.
But, yeah, Mike, you got anything?
I've caught two wild chocobos in Final Fantasy 7 rebirth so far.
Pretty sweet.
Yeah, a little harder than you'd expect, especially the second one.
I think they're just going to get harder from here on out.
Something cool about where I'm staying at, too, is, like, there's this building right
next door to me that was like a tiger petting, like get your picture with it.
tiger and pet it place.
And it's like prime real estate and the whole thing's just shut down and abandoned.
And it's kind of cool to just see it.
You know, they're not in business anymore.
That is good.
All right.
Something you guys would recommend this week, any kind of pop culture or anything.
I wanted to include this category this week because I just finished Scavenger's Rain,
which is an animated series on HBO or Max or whatever they're calling it these days.
And I liked it so much.
Like I've just been thinking about it since I watched it.
It's this story about these, like, it's in the future and it's these space, these people that are exploring space and they wind up on this really hostile planet.
But it's not necessarily hostile so much as just the ecology of it is really crazy and weird.
And it's just them kind of trying to survive on this planet.
But it's just really the amount of detail that they put into the ecology.
ecology of this place is so cool. There's parts where I gasped because it was just so
beautiful and neat and like creative. So I just loved it. It was recommended to me by my friend
Soleil. So thank you for the recommendation. I know Brent loved it too. Mike you loved it.
So scavengers rain. Real close to being my favorite show of last year. I just,
they're little cutaways to just different little creatures and plant life doing their thing.
It doesn't serve the purpose of the story really in any direct way,
but it's like the coolest part of the show at the same time.
That little seed dude that pollinated that flower was like.
So cool.
Yeah.
All right.
That's my pick.
You can go off, Mike.
Okay.
This one's so obvious.
I felt like maybe I had to pick a different one.
But Dune 2, I thought was just incredible.
Yeah.
I know that some people.
Oh, did I?
I was going to mention it, but I got a good one.
Great.
No, I loved it.
I had, so watching these two Dune movies, I've kind of had one of those moments where you feel yourself getting a little older, you know.
And my moment was realizing that, like, the hot actress draw to the movie was Zendaya for a generation.
Not Rebecca Ferguson.
But for me, it's Rebecca Ferguson.
Me too.
Man, they're both amazing.
I thought they both were, everyone in the movies.
This one forms.
But.
Pew.
Yeah.
Yeah, but she was wearing like a little like chain mail helmet thing.
No, everyone's great.
Everyone's beautiful.
It's just a spectacular movie in a literal sense.
You get the popcorn bucket?
You got the Dune one?
No, I didn't.
I should have.
The commemorative one.
Yeah, that's what I meant.
No, that would have been so cool to have.
Jeff, what are you recommending?
All right, I'll go with, I'm just going to recommend myself also watch this because I haven't watched it yet.
But I'm going to recommend Shogun because I, you know what, whenever I read a book, I got to talk about it because I don't read a lot of them.
So I read this one and it's pretty good.
And I just love samurai stuff.
So it's kind of been on my radar, but I didn't want to get too excited.
But now people are saying it's awesome.
So I'm there.
I'm pretty excited.
I've watched it.
I like that.
Oh, have you?
Yeah.
I was a little skeptical.
So they cast John, the main guy, this guy named Cosmo Jarvis, which is an amazing name.
But he was in an adaptation of my favorite Jane Austen novel not too long ago, Persuasion.
And it was terrible.
And he wasn't great in it.
But then whenever I see Hiruki Sonata pop up in a movie, I'm like, I'm in.
Got to go see that guy do his thing.
Yeah.
Okay.
Our next category is going to be listener questions.
So I'll do a couple subscriber questions to start off because their subscribers are our favorites.
I'm sorry they just are.
I'm not getting grouped in that.
Every listener is my favorite.
I'll join you, Wes.
I'm with you.
All right.
Solidarity.
This one is from Jules, and Jules says, hey guys, I have a question I cannot stop thinking about.
If you were a muffin, what type of muffin would you be?
I think about this every day and it's taking over my brain.
I'm convinced that Jeff would be chocolate chip and Wes would be blueberry.
Oh, not even for himself, he thinks about for us every day.
But I have no idea what Mike would be and it haunts me.
All right.
I think I'd be poppy seed.
That's what I was going to choose for Mike.
Okay, what would you choose for me?
Because Mike, it's like the one you're not going to like necessarily pick.
But then when you get it, it's like, oh, this pretty good stuff, you know?
And like you can't have it.
You can't have it if you're testing for steroids either.
Yeah, I rarely am.
I'd pick you first, Mike.
Yeah, maybe I am blueberry.
I'm wearing a blue thing right now and I got blue eyes.
So sure.
Yeah, of like the common jar.
I'd say blueberry.
You're a little fruity.
Yeah, a little.
Sure.
Yeah.
Just a dash.
Yeah.
I'm proud of it.
Irish chocolate chip.
Yeah.
That feels like a good one to have.
Okay.
Whenever I eat poppy seed muffins, I sing that old Marcy Playground song, Poppies to myself.
I can't help it.
I love poppy seed muffins.
So that was a really good.
And you love Marcy Playground too.
I do.
Underrated.
You know what to add lemon to it, a lemon poppies.
You seed muffin is what I'd make Mike.
Yeah, it takes it to the next level.
All right.
This next question's from Max.
Max says, hey, legends, got a question for you all.
What animal taxonomic class would you say is your favorite?
Example, mammals, reptiles, birds, fish, amphibians, and vertebrates.
I hope this question makes sense.
I find it the easiest way to figure out this answer is to imagine your top 10 favorite animals
and seeing which class the majority of them belong to.
Thanks so much.
P.S. I'm devastated. I didn't get to see you when you were in Australia.
Oh, next time. Yeah. I, I, you know, my like, sometimes I want to say like reptiles or something else, but it's mammals for me. Like, I've studied bears. My favorite animals are mostly mammals. So it's mammals for me.
Mine's mammals, too, because that's where bears are at. Yeah, right. I skew aquatic, a shark, I don't know, maybe.
Or a shark.
Orcas, I don't know if that's the same taxonomic, are they?
I don't know, sharks.
Oh, no, because they, I think we get orcas.
Yeah, we get orcas.
Oh, shit.
Oh, you get, dude, I'm still going to go, just to be different.
I'm going to pick whatever sharks are.
Yeah, they're fish.
Yeah, fish, there we go.
The best, we'd even get the best fish, dude, in mammals.
Wait, what are whale sharks?
Are whale sharks fish?
They're fish as well.
Yeah.
Hell yeah. You guys don't get that. They're mine.
All right. I'm doing one more from subscribers first tonight. This one's from Chelle.
Chell asked, hi, tooth and craw. Tooth and craw. That's our that's our crawdad spin-off podcast.
Question for Wes. If you were to encounter a bear, would it help to poop your pants do that they won't, so that they won't be interested any longer? You're like soiled food to them, right?
question for you all, would you, could you, poop on command if you were to encounter a bear?
First of all, poop in your pants wouldn't help at all.
I think it happens a lot, doesn't it?
Yeah, it probably happens quite a bit.
And there are bears that have like raided pit toilets and eaten poop out of pit toilets.
So I really don't think it would be enough to discourage a bear.
That's your favorite animal?
I might have to change my range a little.
And then could.
Did you guys poop on command?
Turd burglars.
Yeah, I'm pretty good at, I'm pretty good at poop on command.
I think I can do it.
Just like if you just feel normal?
Speaking.
Like you could go poop right now?
Yeah, I'm pretty, I can like poop most of the time if I want to.
I think these guys, maybe it was years of sitting on my heel to, like, control my poop
that I have learned how to have mastery over my butthole.
Great command over your sphincter.
Yeah.
Depends if I'm taking my anti-
diarrhea pills I've been taken from Costco or not.
Yeah.
All right.
If I'm taking them, I can't.
If I'm not taking them, you've got a good chance.
Yeah, I'm giving myself good odds on doing it involuntarily,
but I don't think I could do it on command.
I think if you give me an hour.
Yeah, the bear, you just got to ask the bear to wait for a little.
I couldn't just do it standing up.
I'd have to, like, squat over or something.
You know, I remember this trip?
Grab on to something.
It was just like the best and worst thing in the world west was when we did our gray whale trip last in Mexico with like mom and dad.
And it's just so beautiful.
And I had to pee so incredibly bad.
And the boat was just rocking and I could not go pee.
Yeah.
Like I was just like standing on the back of the boat with my dick.
out for like an hour.
Yeah.
So funny.
You like God in the water,
didn't you?
I don't.
I think I eventually was able to go,
but it took so long.
Speaking of,
I kind of need a piece,
so let's wrap this.
Okay, yeah, we're almost done.
So, Jeff,
why don't you do a couple
listener questions and then we'll,
we're good.
Okay.
Our newest sponsor,
but Trump 83,
from priority tax
asked who would win in a hundred yard sprint,
Jeff or Wes?
Hmm.
Probably you.
You got longer legs.
Mike would beat us both for sure.
I've actually done that and he would me.
You'd beat me.
I'm not that fast.
I think I could beat you in like jumping and sprinting,
but you can like hold on a bar way longer
or like balance stuff you would beat both of us probably.
Yeah, you're the tiger, I'm the leopard.
Yeah, that's a good way put it.
Margo Powell asked, would you each rather visit the year 1924 or 2124?
1924 doesn't sound super awesome to me.
Yeah, it seems like a lot of bad stuff.
Can I like change stuff up though?
Like get in there and like be like, hey.
That's a good point.
You guys can invent a way to talk to each other through a phone.
Yeah, they are investing in Bitcoin.
24.
You're a little late.
I meant like a smartphone.
I don't know.
If I can like it.
I want to invest.
Invest in Bitcoin by Bitcoin in 1924.
Yeah.
All right.
I'm going to the future.
Yeah.
I'm going to pass and just mess it up.
I'm going to put an end to my future progeny if I have any.
I'm going to wipe out my line.
Wow.
Bradley.
Bradley Wilson 30.
what would a bear's favorite luxury meal be?
It's like a really big old porterhouse steak.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
More than a big old salmon?
Yeah, that's a good point.
Like a bluefin tuna or something.
Do you think that they would enjoy like a prepared salmon more than just a big
old raw salmon?
Probably not.
You think they'd prefer, I bet you they'd prefer it just covered in barbecue sauce.
Yeah.
Or just like covered up.
marshmallows.
They would.
Brown sugar.
Okay, from Casey June 7,
if you had to teach high schoolers about one thing animal related or not,
what would it be?
Let's say animal.
Well, I guess she asked a question.
Yeah.
I think I would teach them just about being kind to each other,
to be honest.
If I had to teach them, I don't know.
But like, I feel like that's more important.
than anything else.
I think the thing I'd be best at teaching them out is wildlife.
But if I guess if, yeah, if it was me, I'd teach them wildlife because they're learning about
that from other people.
So, yeah, I'd teach them.
Better at it.
Bear safety.
I think I was thinking, like, that's the only lesson they ever get from someone.
Like if I could, like, make them learn something.
No, it's like, what can we teach them?
Yeah, I'd teach them a bear safety then.
Yeah.
Or, like, how to be a wildlife biologist.
I'd probably teach them bear safety, but just.
more funny and not quite as accurate.
Mike, I would tell them all, I would have them all once they were of age,
open a Roth IRA account and just add like $1,000 every year to it and just have that
compounding interest build up for, I mean, like 15 more years than I did when I first started
mine. I was a little late to the game, but just finance stuff in general, like very basic stuff
Yeah, like how to pay your taxes, except for I still don't really know that very well.
I wish someone told me to start one of those when I was that age.
I know.
I do.
All right.
Let's go on.
Last one.
You're not going to like that I made you.
The Jordan Curtis asked, from a Swifty, what kind of animal would Taylor Swift be?
You can answer.
You're only Swifty.
You know, I'm going with a leopard, you know, because.
She just takes the voice right out of everyone else.
Just how good hers is.
I like that.
I'm still a Swifty, but it is harder to be a Swifty now that she's like a billionaire.
Just like, you know, I'm all for, I don't like billionaires in general.
And like, I'm glad at least, like, it's a woman billionaire this time.
Most of them are all men.
And she's like, hopefully she does some good stuff with it.
But, you know, start thinking about that plan.
little more Taylor. I'm going to put it out there. I'm going with a lion for Taylor because like
obviously it's a cool animal, but I think pretty overrated in the grand scheme of things. Like I
understand broadly the appeal, but there's just so much cooler stuff out there to be into, I think.
Yeah, I agree. All right. So quick thing about conservation, while the species at a whole,
leopards are considered vulnerable, there are subpopulations that are critically endangered,
including Indo-Chinese leopard and the Amur leopard.
Both of those subpopulations likely have less than 300 animals in the wild.
In Africa, leopards are still plentiful.
There's an estimated 700,000 leopards in Africa.
But there's a lot of doubt on that number.
So I don't, like, don't quote us on that.
It's hard to know when it's 700,000.
Right.
But it's hundreds of thousands of leopards.
That being said, they have been removed from 37% of their historic range in Africa.
out there it's habitat loss through human encroachment and climate change that are primary threats for them, as well as human conflict, trophy hunting and poaching.
They can be hunted legally in 12 African countries with a combined animal quota of like 2,600 animals.
In India, they're thought to be about 13,000 leopards.
That estimate was also based on a method that has some flaws, but it's probably a good ballpark number.
In India, their primary threat is illegal hunting, poaching, but also habitat loss, human encroachment.
What happens is you have people turning really good habitat into agriculture, and then they bring in livestock and pets.
And because the leopards no longer have their typical prey base, because they no longer live in that habitat, they'll start hunting livestock and then people kill them as a result.
So it's just like they lose prey and they start getting shot.
Is the poaching for the fur?
Fur, claws, bones, teeth, like traditional medicine.
Fur is a big part of it though.
I want to put out just in the world as a message, like, I think like fake leopard print stuff is really cool.
Like any time you ever see like a leopard fur for real, just please like don't give the people.
any validation or like be impressed at all because it kind of sucks. Or report it like if it's illegal.
Yeah. Yeah. I'll just like I'll say like don't buy animal products of any kind as like
souvenirs or as like apparel or whatever. At least like wild animal parts. You know, I'm not saying
like leather or whatever, but I'm saying wild animals just don't buy their stuff. Like don't go to a
market and buy like a shark jaw or a leopard pelt or anything like that because you are contributing
to those kind of things.
Well, and like, people used to have, like, leopard skins and jaguar skins on their houses
and, like, showing it off to get, like, people to be, think that's impressive.
And I think that's kind of going away.
I think that it's, like, almost embarrassing.
And I hope that continues, that trend is, you know, like, they should be embarrassed that they have that.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, Mike's got a pee, and my colonoscopy stuff is kicking into.
So let's get to our claws.
Wait, no, no, we're not quite there.
Our claw rating.
We could do claw rating at the end of them.
Okay, yeah, yeah.
You're right.
We'll do claw rating after part two.
We'll do call rating after part two.
Yeah, we don't know everything we need to.
Yeah.
All right.
Subject to change.
So stay tuned for part two guys.
We're going to be talking about the hunt.
We're going to be talking more about some victims.
I hope you guys enjoyed part one.
We're also going to be doing a subscriber episode real soon.
So if you want more content,
subscribe to our Patreon or Apple Gris Club.
I honestly have so much fun on those episodes helping and being there and listening to you guys.
Mike, you know what the next one is going to be yet?
Not for me, but we're due a March Madness episode.
So we have that to look for me too.
I'm going to post my green juice recipe to Patreon soon too, a little video of me making my famous green juice.
So that's exciting.
Trying to get more out there with the stuff that we're posting there.
So anyway, all right.
Love you guys.
We'll talk to you later.
Love you.
See ya.
Bye.
