Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - The Tragic Tale of a Would-be Lion Tamer and Other Animal Attack News + The Tooth & Claw 2025 End of the Year Wrap-up

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

The guys talk about a few notable animal encounter headlines from the past few weeks and then get into some of the highs and lows of 2025. Watch here: https://youtu.be/1D41lklWFbk ~~ NordVPN: EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal – https://nordvpn.com/tooth Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee Quince: Refresh your winter wardrobe with Quince—get free shipping and 365-day returns at https://quince.com/tooth, now available in Canada Nutrafol: Get $10 off your first month's subscription and free shipping at https://nutrafol.comwith promo code TOOTH Hims: Get simple, online access to personalized, affordable care for ED, Hair Loss, Weight Loss, and more at https://hims.com/TOOTH with a free online visit ~~ To advertise on the show, contact us! Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/c/toothandclawpodcast ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social:  Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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And because you're a listener, you get 20% off your first order. Just head to mood.com. That's M-O-O-O-D.com to get started. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Tooth and Claw podcast. We have Woodle Wesley. Woodle West, that's me. Wesley Larson

And I'm his brother, Jeff, and we got our Swiss Army knife. Mike, you having Swiss in you? Swiss chocolate. I had some Lader Ox chocolates for Christmas. It's probably still in there somewhere. There you go. Yeah. So we'll do New Year's resolutions at the end, but I have another one I want to add.

I think next year I don't want to break up any more family fantasy, football leagues that have been around for 20 years. I think that's a great goal for you, Jeff. Because I just broke another fantasy league up my second year in, and no one liked my strategy of tanking to collect draft swaps, and it caused a whole bunch of fighting. And you know what? There's a guy in the league who is recently released from prison for murdering someone, and he seems to really hate me.

So I'm kind of glad the league's over. Yeah. This might become a two-person podcast pretty soon. Yeah. Oh, no. So, yeah. Well, I Toad. Yeah, I think that's a great goal.

That's a great start. Oh, you guys heard Toad there? Oh, yeah. Jesse's been gone for a couple weeks in California, and me and Toad have been home alone, which usually she takes him and this time she left him. And I have been bonding with him at a very high love. Like, I just love him so much now. And it's kind of weird how just like a couple weeks of just us two together.

I just like love this cat. And I'm super allergic to him. I have been just constantly sneezing and stuff. But boy, do I love him. Well, uh, here we are. End of the year. Congrats, guys. We're recording this on New Year's Eve.

Yeah, we did it. Barely. I get through. I think like, I think it's been a particularly kind of hard year for a lot of people, you know? And we were through it. So hopefully this next one isn't more of the same. Good job, everyone. Yeah.

You know, and people, was it Time Magazine that gave all of us the person of the year award? I'm doing that right now. 2006 or something. Yeah. Right. You all get the tooth and claw person of the year award. Yeah, it's better than who they gave it to. The people that created AI.

Ugh. Dude. Oh, brother. We don't have to get into that. And that's their second time winning. Yeah. Is it? Really?

Well, they won the one Mike was just talking about. Oh, that's true. That's true. Everyone's on the board. Yeah. All right. Well, because it's the end of the year, we decided to do kind of a combo news episode plus year end episode. So we're going to have some stories that are more recent, but then we're also going to just go back through the year.

Reminis a little bit. Get a little and nostalgic. What do you guys think? I'm ready. Who wants to go first? I will. Me. No, I want to go.

Please. You go. Yeah. Oh, that was close. Got it. Get my stuff out of the way. You saved me from a bad review or two there. Yeah, that's true.

Okay. Well, I came up with a new segment called Granny's Gone Wild. It's a little work in progress. Maybe we'll change that depending on feedback. A new segment. Oh, is it not? I think you can. Someone already took that out there.

Yeah, probably. Oh, man. Okay. Well, I'll do some research on that later. Surprise, do you haven't. Okay. Come on Listen

Don't yuck a yum Wes That's crazy Okay so This is You know like Epstein's island Was like all young women

Yeah Oh dude Mike's island If it was like a grandma's island Mike would be The leader He'd be writing that plane

All right These are These are There's no basis for these claims everybody. I'm not I've never had I'm not there's no river so long it doesn't contain a bend but I've never really been attracted to a grandma quite like that sure do you believe me is that convincing no okay so all right from here on out we're going to grant this these stories all the reverence they deserve so this is this happened earlier this month

December 5th reported by the independent and various other news outlets that I got information from starts like this just like any other day Small statured, and that's going to come into play probably in a few moments. You'll see why. Small statured, a whittled guy like Wes, a whittle grandma, just kind of like West. 72-year-old Lydia West was down at City Lake Park in Royce City, Texas, feeding the ducks at the pond. It'll get you in trouble sometimes. Got me in trouble when I was little.

When a bunch of geese who were interested in getting in on some of that snack action wandered over, they were a little curious, and they're like, we want some of that too. When they started getting a little too aggressive, Lydia started feeling uncomfortable, so she turned around and started running away. Her son David painted the picture from there saying, quote, she fell hard to the ground, tried to get up and flee, and the geese actually chased her down. She was trapped on the ground, unable to move. Probably a little bit of her just being paint a picture of this. Or are you just being made a morocle? I hope one of our listeners painting pictures of that.

I'm going to commission him to do that. I want one of our listeners to do it. Pay you some money. So in a flurry of feathers and honks, the gaggle of geese rushed at Lydia, and she quickly found out she was unable to fend the birds off on her own. Thankfully, two passers-by walked onto the scene and pried the birds off of her before calling the paramedics. She was quickly taken to a local hospital, transferred to Dallas Trauma Center after

doctors recognized how extensive her injuries were. So she had actually fractured her pelvis in several places. probably I'm guessing during the fall she was bleeding internally she also already had some pre-existing health concerns which all of this just added up into like a perfect storm of like these geese just rushing her while she's on the ground

had some you know health concerns already it was just not a great scene for her she's just shocked you know I think a lot of people know geese to be aggressive but like I don't know if I've ever heard a story quite like this before where they they just gang up and pin someone to the ground and start going hog wild, you know? Yeah. Interesting.

Yeah, we described that. I mean, you know, I sound like a broken record here, but what do we always say about like when do the worst geese attack injuries happen? Well, you're always saying never run away unless it's a bear. No, that's not what I'm saying. That's bad advice. Don't run from bears either. There are animals you can run from. Geese are one of those animals, but your chances of getting hurt are much higher trying to get away from them than they are from the animal itself when it comes to a goose. So like if you run in a blind panic or you, you know, are just like panic trying to get away in any form, there's a higher chance of you like falling and hurting yourself than there is the goose doing any real damage. And yes, like they can bite and it can like draw blood, but it's not

going to be anything that's going to be more than like at the absolute worst couple stitches. What if 10,000 geese beat you? Sure. Then, yeah, if 10,000 geese attacked you and bit you at the same time, you're in a lot of trouble. I think that's what's interesting about this story to me is they're not like predator. I don't know how they, I guess they're just like so interested in what she has on her person that it's almost like a group effort to like attack, not her, but like get at what

she has. It was just a strange story that I thought was, I don't know, it's a continuing saga of geese related incidents that we deal with here at Tooth and Claw, and I thought I'd add this one to the list. I'm glad you did. No, but like it is true. Even just thinking about it, had she just turned around and walked to her car the way she would if there was not a single geese goose within sight, she would have been completely fine, you know?

Right. Yeah. So wait, what? She walked to her car and there were no geese around? No, like had she done it as if there were no geese around. Right. Like she would have been 100% fine. Like had she just strolled to her car.

Even with geese nipping at her. Yeah. Exactly. And that has to like that holds true for almost every single goose encounter. If you have a goose like rushing you or mad at you, if you calmly walk away and get to somewhere safe, you're going to be fine. Like it's not going to do anything more than scare you or maybe I'm just gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna shout out Lydia because I I'm not gonna I it's not my business personally me to blame anyone especially someone small maybe not so used to like these kinds of encounters for sure it's a lot of geese you know it's probably really frightening so yeah this isn't me like that's not me saying she did something wrong it's me saying to other people if this ever happens to you just remember you're going to be okay walk away slowly but yeah it's like That's an intense, overwhelming experience if you're an older person and you're suddenly swarmed by a bunch of geese. But, yeah.

I mean, I'll say she did something wrong by falling over. But, like, it wasn't an unreasonable reaction. Yeah, sure. Good. Yeah, I think that's true. Can you imagine just clothes lining a gaggle of geese all at once, just like in a WWE wrestling ring? You're doing that like rope to rope move and you just, bf, 40 geese at the same time. prime animals for close lining, aren't they?

So, yeah, they're all back. That's what my Mike and Jeff would do answer. Probably pretty easy to put them in like a full Nelson, too. Oh, dude. The noise they make, too, just like, Oh, yeah. Oh, that was a good one. That was a good one.

Yeah. Keep that sound clip, Bill. We're going to use that one a lot. All right. I can go next. I have kind of a sad one, so I wanted to get it out of the way. On November 30th, Jersen de Mello Machado, a 19-year-old boy in the Brazilian city of Joan Pessoa, decided that he would finally test his lifelong assertion that he was born to be a lion tamer in Africa. Unfortunately, this kid had a lifelong battle of schizophrenia, and one of his.

ideations when he was in this schizophrenic state was that he was just supposed to be a lion tamer. That was just something that he had always thought and so much so that he tried to sneak into the landing gear of a plane once that was headed to Africa so that he could visit Africa and prove himself right. And luckily they caught him trying to do that

because if you try and do that, you'll probably die just so people out there know. You shouldn't try and climb into landing gear. Or be a lion tamer. Yeah, it's not a great idea. Both ideas there were bad. Both ideas aren't perfect. Unable to get to Africa, though, he made up his mind to try the next best thing.

And on November 30th of this year, he visited the zoo in Juan Pisoa, and he beeline for the lion exhibit. Unfortunately, he was a pretty good climber. He climbed the tall side of the structure around the lion enclosure. and I think because I lived in Brazil and I'd been to some Brazilian zoos when I heard about this story, I thought, oh, it was probably super easy to hop this enclosure wall.

This was a very steep enclosure. Like, this was a very well-made lion exhibit and he managed to get over it. And then there was a tree on the opposite side and he used this palm tree to descend down into this, like, it looks like a lion pit almost, and test out his theory.

And there's actually video of this bystanders took some video of him descending this tree and when he gets a few feet from the bottom he pauses because there's a lioness that immediately clocks him and goes and waits at the bottom of the tree and you see him kind of waiting and then he makes up his mind and descends a little bit more and when he does this lioness jumps up grabs him pulls him down and what you see in the video is kind of like a struggle in the bushes he emerges but then he turns and again like a big and you see him get pulled down and that's the end. This lioness killed him so quickly that zoo personnel didn't have time to respond or anything.

And something I was impressed by is that they took the lion off exhibit, immediately put her in a holding cage. But when they interviewed zoo personnel like the day after, they said, oh, no, we're not, we're not killing this lion. Like, this was a totally natural response to a novel thing happening in her enclosure. she didn't it's not like she got out and hunted down someone and killed him this was someone who was mentally ill that entered a lion enclosure and lost their life because of it so i mean i think like we've said on other similar stories it's really tragic overall and it speaks to the need for appropriate care for people that are struggling with mental health issues but um this wasn't a you know bad behavior by this lion there's a lion acting very naturally especially a zoo

lion that just kind of sees the same thing over and over again. I have a question. I'm not even sure exactly what I'm asking here, so maybe you can help me, Wes. But when you are witnessing an animal encounter like this, do you think it's not the wrong reaction to pull out your phone and record? Is that, like, useful footage to have? Or what do you think about that kind of thing? I think it is.

I like, I don't know. I think that's like such a weird moral laundry for our day and age. but I would, like I would record it, you know? Sure. I don't think I would like zoom in on like the wounds and be like, holy shit, look at this, but like I would record it. Yeah, right. I don't know.

Like, in my brain, I'm not blaming anybody. This is no one's fault, but the battle that this person was battling internally. But like it almost seems like if you're close enough to get good footage, maybe you should be doing something a little more proactive to help. But I don't want to like put that on anybody. or say that like, I don't know what I'm trying to say. There's nothing these bystanders could have done. They were yelling for help.

Like, everyone was screaming. I'm sure they were. Trying to stop him from climbing down. I think, I think, yeah, if you just like silently pull out your camera and you're, you're kind of like excited for something to happen, then maybe you need to check how you're, you know, what kind of person you are. But if you are trying everything you can do to stop this person, but also trying to get some, you know, documentation of it, I think personally, that's probably what I would do.

Sure. Okay. You'd probably like selfie while you're recording it and be like, hey guys, follow me at Chris Kid on Insta. I definitely would not do that. I actually was looking at my Instagram before we recorded and I realized this is probably the least I've ever posted in a given year since Instagram started. Oh, wow. I'm kind of losing my saver for it a bit.

I don't that's not me telling people they should that's just me personally you'd be that meme of like the american idol girl where she's like crying and then she like side-eyes the camera and goes and then you're crying again all right not loving your AT&T or T mobile bill yeah we've been hearing that a lot good news bring your AT&T or T mobile bill to Verizon and we'll give you a better deal so get away from that unfortunate phone bill and get to Verizon. Run, ride, canoe. Whatever it takes, we'll be here. Bring your AT&T or T mobile bill to a Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal on the best network. A better deal. No surprises. That's Verizon. Best Network based on root metrics, best overall mobile network performance U.S.

second half 2025. All rights reserved. It must provide a recent consumer mobile bill in the name of the person and giving me the deal. Additional terms, conditions, and restrictions apply. Introducing the new best skin ever ultra slim precision concealer from Sephora collection. It's full coverage with a matte finish and perfect for any look, whether you're building it up for a full glam moment or targeting correction for a more natural vibe. At only $12, it's great for affordable touch-ups on the go. Get this new must-have concealer at Sephora or at Sephora.com today. I'm also going to talk about a video for my first story. Okay.

So mine's about as funny as a bear attack. can be, I think. Yeah, it is. Okay. So on December 10th in Z-Jang, China, Mike, you speak Chinese. What, how do you say that?

I just, I can't. I don't, first of all. How is it spelled? Is it Z-A-G? J-I-A-N-G? That's what it sounds like. I don't know.

Yeah. Zey-Jong. Nice job. Spelling that. That's incredible. That is impressive. So there's a video that maybe I'll just start out by playing the video for you guys actually. So let me share my screen real quick.

Go right ahead. Do you see that? Yep, and we can hear it too. Oh, we're squaring up. So these are Asiatic Black Bears performing. And so far it's not that funny. The bouncing noise was kind of funny. The basketball.

The basketball hoop. Where did that come from? But now wait. This guy has a parrot on his arm. He's trying to help with one arm. And then he takes a time out. And then he comes back. And he's like, all right, you take the parrot.

I'll take the basketball hoop. So. You should go over the whole thing since we don't have a lot of video watchers. Yeah, I will. So basically, these two Asiatic Black Bears, we've gone over the training

that they have, like the abuse they endure to be able to, like, perform like this. So like, before we learn that, it would have been the funniest video I've ever seen. But because I feel bad for the bears, it's not. But these bears are like riding segues.

And then they'll go and like jump over these bars and it's like boing boing every time they do but this one bear that gets off the segue starts wanting a treat and attacking its handler who didn't give it the bear treat and it's just the handler getting attacked for like

the first 15 seconds and then a lady holding a basketball hoop comes in and just starts like nudging the bear with a basketball hoop yeah someone's in with like a bamboo pole too. And then the next guy who comes in has like a parrot, a huge macaw on one arm. So like he can only use one arm and the freaking parrot is just going crazy.

So then he's like, I don't know, and like walks away. And then he comes back and switches the lady with the basketball hoop for his parrot. And somehow he uses the basketball hoop to move the bear off the guy. Eventually. And a crazy thing, too, is, like, the bear finally separates from the handler. He's free of the bear. And then he just immediately goes back in to try and, like, control the bear. And it attacks him again at the end of the video.

Yeah. Yeah. Dude, you've got to get out of that. Cut your losses. Yeah. It did make me wonder if they had declawed. I assume so. Yeah.

Which is really terrible. It was reported no one was injured. Yeah. And it had him for a while. This is from ABC, and this is how they translated it. But the park had some very reassuring statements from their tamers and the park. Okay? So they said, although the tamers and animals were not injured,

we apologize for the poor experience caused to tourists due to lack of on-site disposable capacity. In response to this incident, our school attached great importance to it and decided to immediately cancel the behavior of the Black Bear and properly appease and observe the relevant animals to ensure their physical and mental health. Okay. So it canceled the Black Bear's behavior and blames it on lack of on-site disposal capacity. Yeah. Maybe some translation issues there. Okay. Park officials vowed to seriously reflect and actively rectify and strive to improve the management and emergency response level of the park.

Yeah. So. So rest assured, they're on top of it. No, like, what they need to do is just cancel the whole thing because it is abusive behavior to the bear. There's people love seeing bears acting cute, but it's not so cute when you realize what the bear had to go through to get to that point. Yeah. Yeah.

We get this question a lot from listeners, like, how do I judge if a zoo or a rescue or whatever is okay? And there are zoos out there, like great zoos that have like really cool bird shows or they have some interaction with certain animals. If there's ever like a large potentially predatory animal, like a bear or a big cat or something like that that's being handled and put on display and forced to do tricks, you can almost bet that they've had to like break that animal. And it always ends up going bad. So either for the animal or the handler. So just don't support those kind of places.

That macaw, though, really just wanted a better view. I feel like. It's just like leaning over. staring at it. It's just so funny because, like, a guy's getting attacked by a bear, but then, like, a basketball hoop is all of a sudden in the video, and then there's a parrot of macaw going crazy, and it's just like, like, this is a cartoon.

It really is. Props to that guy, though, for trying to help out with one arm, you know? Yeah, it's a pretty good excuse to be like, listen, I had a parrot. I was dealing in my own stuff, but. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So my next story has infinitely fewer basketball hoops involved.

But it's a lot more tragic. So I'm going to lead with that one. I got this story from People Magazine actually did a really good write-up that approached the story from a more human angle, which I thought was just a nice thing to focus on in these kinds of situations. So this happened in Stewartville, Ohio on November 15th. of this year. So, the story began back in 2013 when 64-year-old Jody, it's like we're going to skip ahead. Don't worry. We're not going to go over the whole past 12 years. So 64-year-old Jody Proger

began saving dear in 2013. Another grandma. Maybe there is something. You guys might be on to something. So 64-year-old Jody Proger began saving deer in 2013 after she actually witnessed a white-tailed Dobe killed on the side of the road and she saw its little male, are they called Fawn when they're male still? Baby male white tail deer. It was pacing back and forth near its dead mother's body. And at first, Jody was like, ah, that's so sad, but there's not really anything I can do about it. And then as she continued to drive away, her heart kind of got the better of her. She won the day. She actually turned around, scooped up the baby deer and took it home with her. And over the next couple of years, she had to fight to keep this deer and she got licensed. And she

actually became like a really big proponent for wildlife conservation general, but specifically about like sheltering housing and raising deer. So just like a cool odyssey she went on from making the snap decision to save a baby deer and then all of a sudden becoming kind of like a big player in that space of like advocating for wildlife. I thought was really cool. Yeah, that is cool. There's, I mean, a baby deer. That's so cute. It's hard to just. Let it die.

Heartbreaking. Yeah. She actually named this baby deer weezer with an H. W-H-E-E-Z-E-R, but still pretty, that's pretty sweet. Oh, like wheezing. Yeah. Yeah, probably. Yeah.

Had like a really raspy. What's the sound deer make? Do they, what do they, what do they toot? Oh. Is that what deer sound like? That's what ours do when they're doing. alarm calls. What the heck? I'm just realizing I've never heard a deer speak. It's more, it's kind of more coffee, like, ah, sounding than that. But they, it's more high pitch than you

would think. I need to speak with more deer. So from this point forward, Jody's Facebook, it actually became pretty much entirely dedicated to a relationship with Weezer. It was allowed to come in, leave the house at its own leisure. It would like sit on the couch and quote unquote watch TV with them. It would lick their pet cats. It's just a really kind, basically a part of the family at this point. And it would put on matching holiday outfits with Jody, which I thought was like Christmas Santa hats and stuff. That's great. I think. I don't know. This seems like everything was on the up and up here. You can't dress the deer as Santa. You got to dress as Rudolph, right? it all right yeah i think i do like i feel the need to just interject a tiny bit here like please oh dear

people people that are doing like a wildlife rescue or rehab or whatever if the animals are pets if they turn into like a member of their family or whatever i do kind of start taking them less seriously i'm and like that's just i'm being honest about it like that at that point it's like no you like you have some wildlife pets you're not like a rescue or rehab You know, so for me, that's, if you're dressing them up in funny costumes and stuff, it's fine. Like, I don't think there's a huge problem with that, and it's not like my fight. But I also am not going to be like, oh, this is a serious player in conservation. They're dressing the rescue deer up as Santa, you know.

Sure. Right. I think this was an exception. She had many other deer that she would bring in and raise, and they weren't quite on this. I don't know. There's a very special connection with she seems like she had a very sweet, soft tart and I'm not saying she's a bad person. Yeah. Yeah. So mid-November of 2025, things took a turn for the violent when she entered the deer enclosure on their property

while at home alone. Her husband was actually in the hospital getting treated for a work-related accident. So she's home alone. You know, she's probably putting nails on the ground. Or maybe the deer work. Tarantulas. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. Her daughter, Jennifer, attempted to contact her a few times and failed each time. And she started to worry. So she sent her husband Matt over to search the property, just make sure everything was okay. And when he searched the property, it was about 20 minutes until he discovered her motionless body on the ground inside of this deer enclosure. And he tried to contain it. He was acting really aggressively. He was worried it was going to do some major damage to him. So he disengaged and just waited for authorities to arrive and help take care of what was going

on here. And the responding deputies ultimately did kill Weezer, but by then Jody had already, tragically, she had passed away. It's really sad. It's just a really sad story and there's a little bit, I don't want to call it a controversy, but Jennifer, her daughter actually has taken it upon herself to go online and dispel any rumors that it was actually Weezer that caused the death of Jody. It seems to me like most of the signs point towards that being the case, but I I think maybe Jennifer just knows better than I do, of course, but like it seems maybe like a little bit of, you know.

Yeah. In my true. It's kind of like maybe she was getting a little too trusting of her wild animals, you know, and that sucks. And it's like deer are, they're an animal that have a rut, you know, like male deer are a completely different animal when they're in their rut. And they're just like raging on hormones. So, yeah. Like we saw it with, we've talked about a ton of times with chimpanzees. Like they're the most loving animals until they start to get to that I want to mate.

Or like Humphrey the hippo. He freaking loved that hippo and he'd ride on it. And then once it got old enough to like mate, it behaved like a completely different animal. Yep. Or Mike. Right. Or me. I'll say like for, again, we've talked about this.

Like there's a huge difference between taming an animal and domesticating an animal. And domestication is generations and generations and generations of breeding out aggressive, you know, aggressive characteristics. And even domesticated animals can hurt us. But taming an animal, it still has those like wild instincts and hormones and everything, even if it's teamed. And sooner or later, they're going to act out. They just are. So I, but this is terrible. Like, that doesn't excuse that this is a huge.

And it sucks for her to lose their life this way. That's a scary animal. Maybe just I don't really consider deer to be like a threat in my day to day life. Of course, I'm not around them like Jody was. But like this is a big animal. What can they get like 300 pounds? Especially these males with the huge rack of antlers. It's like if you think about it, you really look at one.

It's like this one has many ways to dispatch me. Sharp hooves. Like they kick really hard. They're antlers. Also, for people that have a soft spot for deer, they're doing great. You don't have to worry about them. They don't need, like, extra attention. Deer are doing just fine.

Yeah. So, they are. Are your ad campaigns lighting up the dashboard, but not the pipeline? That's bullsbend. And marketers are calling it out in Dashboard Confessions. My boss asks for results. So I open my dashboard for the only positive-sounding metric I had. Impressions.

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The Hilton sale is on now. Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. All right, I got another one. It's called the perplexing Puma Penguin, Patagonia, mystery.

Let me do that again. That's a lot of peas. The perplexing Puma Penguin Picnic in Patagonia is what this next story is called. That's like a world record for alliteration. Yeah. You might be the record holder. I might.

I think I did it. There's certain animals that when I see him, I always think, like, why isn't every other animal just eating this animal? Like, it's popcorn? Like, why is it still surviving? And for me, penguins have always been one of those animals because they see. Yeah, it's like, why don't polar bears just eat every penguin? Because they don't live in the same. question.

But if they lived in the South Pole, they probably would. What? Yeah, they're on different ends of the planet, Mike. You know that. Shock. Penguins are super speedy, super well equipped when they're in the water. But when they're on land, when they're nesting or just hanging out on land, they're not very fast. And they don't really have any great defenses.

And I think they're saving graces for most penguin species, their main predators are also water-based. So they don't really have to be that fast on land. But there's some exceptions. And Magellanic penguins in Patagonia are a big exception. Seasonally, these Magellanic penguins, and I've been to these colonies, and you guys are probably going to see these penguins soon when we go to Antarctica, they gather on the shores of Patagonia. They form breeding and nesting colonies where they raise their young,

and traditionally, seasonally, Pumas have been able to have a real penguin picnic. So some researchers in this area recently published a paper that looked into this predator prey relationship between these two species and the history. And what they noticed was that like a lot of predators in the 19th century, Pumas were largely removed from this area. And that was basically because of ranchers and farmers that didn't want to compete with Pumas. So they hunted them to near extinction. And then recently there's been a lot of protections put in place, national parks, just overall a better conservation system in Argentina and different parts of Patagonia. And these Pumas have really rebounded. They're doing a lot better in Patagonia.

It's where I've seen the most Pumas. So researchers had heard some anecdotal stories about Pumas feeding on penguins, and they decided to collar a number of Pumas and see how their behavior and their movements changed during the penguin's season. So basically, when the penguins would come up on land, nest, breed, They're spending a lot more time on land. And what they noticed is that these pumas that had these really kind of large, wider-ranging territories suddenly shrank to just like the area directly around the penguin colonies. And it's really reminiscent to what you'd see with like a brown bear in Alaska, where when suddenly the salmon are running, this brown bear that's spending a lot of time in different places is now just in one spot. And that really speaks to the fact that a lot of these pumas are eating hella penguins.

It's like Jeff during McRibb season. Just tiny little geographic spot there. I'm so lucky you guys don't have like a tracking collar on me. I don't have my friend find my friends on. You guys are like, oh, a good. It's three times today. What? Also, if Jeff were at McDonald's and there's other Jeff's there,

but it's McRib season, he's probably not going to compete very heavily with those other Jeffs. Whereas normal, you don't think Jeff's like punching every Jeff that he sees. Yeah. Same thing with these Pumas. When it's penguin season, they're willing to be in really high densities and share space, whereas usually they're very territorial and aggressive toward other Pumas. Again, this is very akin to what you'd see with brown bears on salmon streams,

where when there's plenty of food for everyone, everyone just kind of realizes, we don't need to fight. There's lots of food here. We don't need to, like, defend it. And that's kind of what they're seeing with these Pumas as well, which is really interesting. So they actually think that during the breeding season,

the penguin breeding season, and nesting season, these areas have the highest Puma density of anywhere on the planet, which is kind of cool. That's cool. Wow. Yeah, they've really only scratched

the surface of this relationship based on the article I read in Smithsonian Magazine. Some big questions remain. But they did. did interview one of the researchers, and they said that they think Magellanic penguin numbers are actually still on the rise. So this isn't having, like, a huge effect on penguin populations. And they are, they are like, there's a ton of Magellanic penguins down there. One of the lead scientist, Emiliano Donadio, had a really good quote about rewilding in general.

And something that I think is really interesting to think about, how the effects aren't always what we anticipate. And what he said is, when we start to rewild the land, the species that are coming back might find a system that's a bit different from the one that used to inhabit 100 years ago and they adapt to it. And I think that's really important to think about, like, I think sometimes when there's these conservation projects that are based on kind of recreating, you know, the habitat that existed 100, 200 years ago, you can't recreate it perfectly. but what we are seeing, and this is kind of a positive message and one reason I included this one at the year end thing, is that animals are adaptable, especially animals like Pumas or black bears or coyotes, lots of other animals.

Squirrels. They can figure it out if we give them the necessity of what they need. So like prey, good habitat, you know, free from persecution, they can figure it out. And I think that speaks to the resiliency of, nature and the fact that even though we can do a ton of damage to these systems, there are a ways to bring them back. Who else has got some shit for us?

Mine is just titled, We Didn't Forget About You, Australia. Don't even worry for a minute that we did. I just feel like sometimes I personally forget about Australia, and this time I didn't. Like when people tell you to name all seven continents, you're like... Oh, yeah. And Australia. Yeah, yeah. The big island.

Yeah. Shouldn't be a continent. Just forget about them. You know? It's like, oh, sure. They got that many people living over there. All upside down. They're like that stranger thing show.

Yeah. Yeah. They're lucky they're not. Okay, so I got two stories from Australia. First, November 26th. A woman was killed and then a man was seriously. injured from a shark attack. Most likely a pretty big bull shark, they're saying.

I had that in my headlines too. Yeah, it was in New South Wales. And it was at Kyle's Beach and Crowdy Bay National Park, about 300 kilometers north of Sydney, Australia. But the paramedics said that the bystanders had saved the man's life by putting a tourniquet on him as soon as they found him after being attacked. And I don't know, I think they went a little hard with what they were saying. They were saying that it took a lot of courage from the bystanders.

I was like, if you know how to apply a tourniquet and you see a guy bleeding out, like you should put it on the last thing. Right. Yeah. Exactly. But not to take it. They did save his life, you know, so like, yeah. They deserve credit.

I shouldn't be discrediting what these guys said. Did they maybe like fish him out of the water, like go into the water where the shark might still have been? I just thinking of him anyway, maybe. Courage is the word that it was. That's what the quotes were making me think, but I don't think they did. Because they're saying, like, to put yourself out, or to put yourself out there is heroic. And I guess it is because, like, if you do something wrong in. today's world a lot of times you're like liable you could get like if you apply the tourniquet wrong or

something it's like you could get in trouble so you know what shout out those guys you save this guy's life he was like life flighted to a nearby hospital and yeah great job saving that guy's life we're sorry about the lady who was killed by the bull shark yeah and then it's tough the other two sharks that it could potentially be are like a white shark or a white pointer, as they would call it down there, or a tiger shark, are the other two like potential culprits in that area. The only other thing I had to add is like if both of them were attacked, it's incredibly rare that that happens, that two people get attacked in the same incident or bitten. And it's probably a predatory shark then. Like it's very likely that it was trying to eat them. And that also is very rare.

Did I miss something? Were they together in the water? Were they like right next to each other? I think they were like a couple or something. Yeah. That's really interesting. Because I know we've talked about how... I didn't see that reported, but that makes sense.

Okay. Yeah. Let's see. I just know that we've said in the past that when you have a group of people, that is a big deterring factor for a shark looking to munch on something, right? Yeah. Or am I getting that wrong? No, it usually is.

Like, bull sharks, if this is a bullsharks, if this is a bullshark, shark you know they do tend to be a little bit more tenacious than some of the other species when they do want something so like it it's not unheard of that they'll bite multiple people but other sharks if there's someone that comes in and tries to rescue it's usually enough commotion to like get rid of the shark i think because they were both there and it like you know bit them knowing that they were both there that's a different scenario than it like biting one person and someone else showing up you know that's like a bit more surprising to the shark gotcha And then I forget my like coyote's B. Wiling version for dingoes that I made up.

Like dingoes be biting that ass or something, right? Yeah, it was something like that. November 20th. So there was a seven-year-old who was visiting the island of Kagari with his grandfather. And as we know, dingoes have been attacking people a lot on that island. Dingo bite hot spot. Yeah. And he was fishing in the ocean and he had a fish when he was, he was reeling in a fish

where when a dingo snuck up behind him and started biting him. So he gets a little scraped up. And then his mom said that the dingo let go for a sec and kind of like ran off once people were running into help. And then it came back and like barreled down on him again. Wow. And what I thought was crazy is she said that it took five people, 45 minutes to completely end the attack. Wow. What the heck?

Did they test it for rabies? I didn't see anything about rabies. I don't think that that was, I don't think it was rabid. Yeah, because that sounds like a rabid animal. Like 45 minutes is insane for like. is insane. Something, the size of a dingo. And he was rushed.

He was rushed off the island to the nearby city and given care. And lost part of his year had some pretty bad gashes, but he's going to make a great recovery besides his year. Right? Yeah. And so this year, there were 17 dingo incidents on Qigari. Wow. Jeez. Kind of a lot, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. It is, I mean, it's a wild place. That's the thing about Kagari is like, I think if you go there, you got to be prepared to maybe run into some dingoes. So, yeah. It just feels like you should be able to scare it off, like, after like three minutes or so. 45 minutes is crazy. 45 is a real long standoff.

Yeah. Maybe if you're a whittle guy, stay away from there. Just a little guy. I couldn't find if he caught the fish or not. Oh, shoot. Well, yeah, we'll report back. Wes, you did remind me a one that I didn't include, but I was reading someone died of rabies recently

because they got a kidney transplant and the person who gave them the kidney had been bit by a skunk. Really? Yeah. That should be a question they ask when you're giving a kidney. Right. Have you been bitten by any wild animals lately? I know.

What the heck? That's crazy. You guys got anything else? Should we move on to our year-end categories? That's all I've got. That one, the rabies one, shout out Bryn, sent me that this morning. Thanks, Bryn. Hey, Bryn.

Thanks, Bryn's our intern. Ben, just a wonderful addition to the team in 2025. Killing it. Yeah. Yeah. Bill, you're doing. Okay. Well, Brin's main job is just to, like, help Bill out with stuff.

Bill needs it, dude. All right, poor guy. Oh my resolution is to fire Bill. Yeah, fire him more. More often. Like permanently. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Oh, wow. Okay. Hey, everyone. This is Bill here. Just a quick producer's note. Brough. All right.

So we got some. fun categories to kind of wrap up the year and talk about things we liked and things we didn't like. So let's just get into them. The first one. Did you, did you like this year, Wes? This was a complicated year for me, Mike. I think professionally, and like it's been a great year for tooth and claw. I think it's been a good year for me, but I think it's been a hard year for a lot of people. So I don't think I particularly like this year. No. What would you say this year? How was it for bears? For bears? Uh, probably not that great. I think there's a lot more negative bear news. That Alaska thing is bad. Positive bear news. Yeah. Japan. Japan.

Yeah. Bears are kind of doing good in Japan. Yeah, they're kind of doing good in Alaska, too, to be honest. Like, depending on what perspective you're looking at it from. Yeah. Well, I just saw the Trump thing that he's planning to, like, go through all that bear habitat or whatever. Yeah, and they're calling bears in Alaska, and, but it's still a hot spot for bears. Like, bears are still doing really well in Alaska, and they probably still. Giant pandas probably still not doing great. Doing better, though.

I think they're ones that are doing better year after year. That's good. Polar bears. Do you think a single panda, do you think any one panda this? year has had sex. Probably. They never do. Why?

Yeah. I don't know. Hymns. Let's get Hems on the case. We do need to send them some Hems. Just like lace their bamboo with Hems. They need some tea, dude. Get them some more testosterone, you know?

Yeah. Some liver. Injections. The Liver King. The Liver King panda is just all like red and vainy. It looks like he's sweating. wedding all the time. Just like a toe stub away from a heart attack.

Yeah. It's funny. Ever since that dude came on the scene, I can tell when other, like, influencers are doing that sort of diet because they just look like they're ready to, like, pop. It is such a weird look. Frightening. Yeah. All right.

I know. It's like RFK. Oh, yeah. Exactly. I actually think some of what he's doing is, like, kind of important. Like, trying to get rid of red food dye. Like, yeah. go for that, you know?

But it's also like, I don't trust this guy because of how he looks. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's like, sure, you know, these guys are all going to have a couple things that ring true, but also like broken clock twice a day. Denying like, you know, saying that people shouldn't get the measles vaccine or stuff like that is, I don't know, doing a lot more harm than good in my opinion. All right. Wishing you could be there live for the big game, soaking up the atmosphere of the crowd,

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Should we move on to our categories? Are you guys ready? Yeah, I am. Okay, let's do our top three movies to start of 2025 and then go ahead and throw in your least favorite too. So give us your top three and your least favorite you saw. It's tight competition for my least. Ooh.

Oh, boy. Do you need time to think, Jeff? No, I didn't see the least favorite, but I'll think of one. Okay. Mike, you want to go first? I'll go first, and I'm going to try to pick a few that I know you're not going to, Wes, and then maybe we can just do some honorable mentions at the end. So I'm going to start out with Kyoshi Kurosawa's newest movie, Cloud.

I thought that was a really interesting movie dealing with the dangers of being a presence on the internet, which is kind of what we are here at Tooth and Claw. Like, we're not doing anything nefarious like this guy was doing in this movie. But it does, I don't know, puts it in your brain that, like, if someone really wants, wants to get at you. Like, they take a distaste towards you. You're a public persona in a way now, and, like, they can't find you. And they can mess up your life pretty bad.

So that one just really stuck with me. And Kiyoshi, he's like, he's the man. He's the guy that did the cure, uh, cure in Cairo and a bunch of just like all-time classics. Madding it to my list. Uh, I'm going to go with Marty Supreme is my second choice. I need to see it. Yeah.

Yeah. Josh Safty, it turns out, I think Benny still has a bright future as a director with Smashing Machine. wasn't quite on the level as the Safty Brothers earlier films and Josh Josh's solo attempt this year with Marty but man he's just another like dude it's like good time uncut gems just like a permanent you know like your heart's ready to just explode due to the tension and just like a guy that's barreling head I won't say too much about it but great I really enjoyed it and it's doing a lot more than just being like a sports movie I thought it's really important I haven't

even watched the trailer for that one because I'm really excited just to go in like pretty blind. Because the uncut gyms is maybe, you know, it's a very, it's a top movie for me. So I really, yeah. Yeah. And my last one, I just had the most incredibly fun time with it. I can't stop thinking about it. I listen to its soundtrack pretty regularly.

K-pop Demon Hunters. It's a freaking good movie. I don't care what anybody says. It's so good. I had an amazing time with it. Man. I've talked to a lot of my friends that are parents where I'm just like, isn't it so nice to have a movie that your kids are obsessed with it's like actually good and they're like oh it's so

it's so nice that this is one that we actually like so i love that movie i when you first brought it up on the podcast i was very dismissive but then i watched it and i was like okay i get it and then i watched it with jesse and we both like cried it's just good oh yeah i'm a mirror you want mira stan personally yeah i don't remember their names uh go ahead jeff okay did you do least favorite? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I'm going to go Predator Badlands. That's a little bit of a hot take, I think. It might have been circumstantial the way we

saw it. We were all really tired after a long trip and like I was in, I don't know. I thought one of you guys would pick that. I just didn't have a good time with this and it's very much a personal thing. Everyone seems to love it and I'm happy for you all. But man, I thought it was like in almost every single way a bad movie for me. For me it wasn't like a bad. movie, but it didn't live up close to what it had been billed as is like a really good movie.

And so I was really disappointed. Sure. All right. I'm going to go one battle after another, number one. I don't know. I just like the more I thought about it, the more I liked it type of movie. And the clips that I see on social media, I watch them every single time. Like Leo's little Mexican whistle, I love where people are like, he nailed this whistle.

I'm like, yeah, he kind of did. And like, I don't know. It's just a funny movie. It's so funny. It's so good. Next, I'm going to go with sinners. Probably, yeah, I don't. It's just a great movie.

Amazing soundtrack. Just a really fun one. I liked it. Yeah. And number three, I'm going to just go with one that probably isn't even number three, but I want to mention it type of thing. So I'm going ballerina. I thought it was like, whoa.

Such a good John Wick. like world. I think the John Wick ones were getting tired and needed a new person. I honestly kind of don't normally like the female action hero movies because I don't think they do a good job of just like how like being realistic and I think it was incredibly realistic and she's just such a badass in it and is a good plot and like some amazing flameless. Thameshrower scenes. Probably my favorite Flamethrower,

even above once upon a time in Hollywood. I'd say this is my number one for flamethrowers. So I loved it. And then my least

favorite isn't my least favorite, but I'm going to go most overrated. I think I'm going to say Marty Supreme. Really? I was just really excited

for it. And like Timothy Salome is my guy. not he's not my guy but i like timothy shallame and i've been loving his press i think he's like really funny person just in general his like druski co-lab thing that they did with uh the something talent but i don't know i thought two and a half hours was crazy and like i liked the ping pong in it but it just wasn't like quite funny enough or dramatic enough or I don't like there wasn't enough plot for me where it's like okay yeah I just didn't

talk off there to yeah yeah spoiling it for less but man uh freaking good Jeff come on it's so right I'm gonna I'm we're it's gonna be I'm not even I don't want it to I don't want to twist it saying worse it's like too harsh like I it's not even a movie that I disliked it's just like I thought it was going to be better than what it was. Yeah. All right. My favorite movie of the year was sinners. I do feel like I kind of am just going with the academy this year, but I just think

we had some incredible movies this year that rose above all the rest for me. So Sinners was that for me. I watched it twice in theaters. The musical part in the middle just like swept me away like nothing has in a very long time. One battle after another was number two for me. I thought it was like impeccably acted and directed, just like such a good movie. about rebellion and felt very real.

Like the fascism in it to me felt like what we're seeing right now. So it felt very timely. And then Christmas Adventures. Yeah. So stupid. It's amazing. For me, my third movie, it was between 28 years later and this movie, but I picked weapons because I just had so much fun with weapons.

I just felt on the edge of my seat and alive the entire movie. And just loved it. It was perfect for me. So I picked it for number three. My least favorite, I'll be honest, it was between ballerina and Jeff. I think the reason I wanted to pick it is because I had such high expectations because Jeff and me are usually very pretty aligned on our movie watching. And so when Jeff really likes something, I almost always really like it too.

And I just didn't like it. But the one I actually picked was Jurassic World Rebirth because I had actually... That's a better big than mine. Yeah, I had allowed myself to get excited for a Jurassic movie based on the hype that was coming out of it. And I fucking hated it. Like, I hate it almost as much as I hate Dominion and not saying something. And I hate that they felt like they had to create new dinosaurs and it all looked like bad Photoshop. I just hated it.

I think it's a terrible movie. So... I'm going to switch my... to your answer. Marty Supreme deserves better than what I gave it. I think I'm going to also switch mine to Jurassic Park rebrew. It was bad. Dismal.

You know what's crazy to me? It came out in the summer, right? Yeah. I'm seeing Winter Olympic promos with Scarlett Johansson, where they're promoting Jurassic Park rebirth. And it's like, what? Why? Like, we watch this movie.

Quit promoting it. Stop. Yeah. I think the frustrating thing about it is it's like every piece is there for them to make an incredible movie. It's been done. It's not that hard. But they just make the laziest shit. It's like, no, your blood from these dinosaurs isn't going to save people.

It's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life because they have big hearts. It's going to help with heart disease. Come on. Like, that's just dumb. And I just can't, I don't know. I just can't get over the fact that they can't make a good dinosaur movie. Just make a good dinosaur movie. It's scary. It's all you have to do.

I'm switching my pick back to Predators, Badlands. I just hate the thought that all Arnold Schwarzenegger had to do was like go on a little camping trip with a predator in the first movie. They would have been great friends. They would have been awesome. They would have been tight and they would have bonded. Terrible. Oh my gosh.

I'm sorry. You're allowed to like what you like everyone out there. Yeah. That's just me. Let's move on or we're going to be stuck on movies for too long. Yes. Let's go. Your top show, just your number one show of 2025.

your least favorite. Some great shows this year. I'm going to go first because this one I feel very passionate about right now. Andor was my favorite show of 2025, season two of Andor. It is my favorite show ever. I think I can say that now. I just rewatch season two. It affects me like no other show ever has.

I have been on like Reddit trying to find shows that are like Andor. And there's other people that are running into the same thing as me, where it's like they're depressed because nothing hits like Andor does. And it's funny for both season one and season two, I was into them when I first watched them, but they weren't like the best ever. But when I rewatched both of those seasons, it just hits so hard and wrap me up so completely

that I just think it's a masterpiece. So Andor for me is easily my favorite show of the year. My second or my least favorite is season five of Stranger Things. I've been watching it pirated because I don't want to give them my views, but I just think it's just turned into garbage. And I loved season four. I loved it. And I'm a fan. Like, season one was like a perfect season of TV.

And I just hate the season. I think it's so bad. It's sad. Yeah. But I just thought it was like poorly handled. I think it's been just a bad, a bad season of TV. There's just so many scenes of them like, explaining like what's going on and coming up with these hairbrain plans that are so dumb and it's

like every single episode is just chalk full of that and it looks terrible like it's lit like it's all made in Photoshop it's just really bad I just hated it so yeah and I love stranger things so it's been hard you know what I'm going to choose the chair company as your best show yeah I loved it I still got to watch that. I just really liked Tim Robinson. His humor works for me. And I was super excited for the movie Friendship, and I didn't like it. So then I was, like, kind of worried about him doing anything outside of just, like, sketch comedy.

And I think he nailed it with the chair company. Like, I thought every episode had something that, like, made me laugh out loud. But then, like, I kind of related a little bit to the story, too. Like, just having an office job, you don't care about at all. And, like, having a company back you over and just no way to hold anyone accountable was, like, relatable, you know? Yeah. I think of the three of us, you would be the best detective because you're a dog with a bone when something's, like, you know, in your brain and bugging you. Yeah.

Yeah. What's your least favorite? Leeds favorite, oh man, I'll go the beast in me just because it was rated so highly by Bill Simmons, who I respect with this stuff. Yeah, and it wasn't great. I agree. Claire Daines was bad. Like, her facial expressions were crazy. So I think it wasn't that bad of a show, but I really liked the pilot, and then I kind of watched the whole thing.

thing expecting it to be good. Yeah. Mike, are you going to watch that? Can I spoil something really quick? Go. Yeah, I have no plans. So a quick spoiler. Something I hate in any TV or movie is like when the way they resolve it is someone

records the person like doing a concession. It's like so lazy. And that's how they resolve the whole thing. And it's just like, come on. That's just sucks. It's so trite and overdone. We don't need to do that anymore. And it was like so obvious what was happening.

Yeah. It's like when she revealed that she recorded them, it's like, yeah, we know. Like, that's obvious. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not quite tapped in. I just have a hard time with live action TV for whatever reason these days or limited runs, whatever we're calling it. I just don't really watch them.

I watched Andorre Season 2. It was awesome. I really, I think, you know, back against the wall, that's what I would go with to. But as you all know, I'm a bit of a weeb. So I'm going to shout out in anime. I think I already talked about it on the show. It's a show called medalist, and it's about a young girl who really wants to get into competitive figure skating. And she's just the most infinitely likable and root forable character I've come across in a really, really long time.

Her coach is one of the most likable characters I've ever seen. It's just like this amazing portrait of a young girl who doesn't have anything in life that makes her happy except for this one thing. And there's so many obstacles placed in front of her in order to do that. one thing. And it's just like such a triumphant feeling when you see her overcome each like a step at a time just getting better incrementally. Sports anime, it's the best. I make no bones about it.

It's my favorite genre just because like it's just the most fun, you know, watching Underdogs triumph. It's a tale as old as time. It's the best. Yeah. Least favorite, again, don't really have much to offer here other than IRL streamers on like Twitch and kick and stuff. I think without exception, they're all pretty terrible toxic and damaging content.

I think it's really indicative of the times we live in, people just doing whatever they can to get eyes on the screen watching them. And it's really resulted in a lot of really, really awful stuff. I'm not talking about like talking heads, political commentators, like whatever. That's their own thing. But like people that are on the streets, they go to foreign countries, they act like fools, just to like get any kind of notoriety, whether it's good or bad. And I think it's just a really sad state of affairs. It does feel like something that's gotten like too much legs under it, like IRL streams where it's like,

this shouldn't be as big of a force for the economy and everything that it is. So I tend to agree on that. Yeah. Next we've got one other favorite media from 2025, just any other kind of media that you consumed that was a favorite of yours this year. Hmm. Jeff, do you have your answer? I'll just go with...

I liked playing the new Mario Kart when Mike got the switch to. That was fun. Yeah. I don't have like a really passionate one. Okay. I read a book this year that I'm pretty passionate about, that it's going to be my shout-out. And I've mentioned on the podcast before and actually, listener Randy, who did some of our art, recommended it. It's the book Chain Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwa.

Amay Agibrena and just like a really good, fun post-apocalyptic kind, not really even post-apocalyptic, but like book about like some kind of like hunger gamesish almost, but with some really interesting social commentary and just like really beautifully written. And I just loved it. I inhaled it. It was like the fastest I've read a book in a long time. So I really, really recommend that one for everyone. Must have been a tiny book. It wasn't tiny. It's not huge, but it wasn't tiny either.

You inhaled a whole, a huge book. Jeez. If you, like, really love an audio book, do you think it makes you love it more if you listen to it at, like, four times speed? Super fast. It's like the fastest I ever listen to an audio book. You got to go fast. That's actually a good question. I could not get it delivered to me fast enough.

I just listened to it at 5X. My one other piece of media I want to shout out is the new Clips album, Let God Sort them out. I think it's my favorite rap album I've heard in a very long time. And rap kind of had a bit of a down year post Kendrick Drake. It hit a little bit of a lull and not a lot of great stuff was hitting the shelves. We had a couple of standouts here and there. Dana Brown's album was great, but you know Miles.

Drop another clip, Bragson, right here. I'm Indiana Jones. So I told you boy today, so kiss me through the phone. Do the Indiana Jones one. His album got a zero out of ten from Fantana needle drop, which is exactly what he wants. So everyone wins. But yeah, like the return of malice in Push a T just didn't miss a beat after 15 years of not having done anything together. And it's like every bar was just a killer.

So if you're into hip hop it all and somehow missed it. Check it. Okay. Oh, and you said check it. So we know that you're into hip-hop. Yeah, that's the widest way to tell people to, yeah. Maybe consider giving the new clips. Yeah, spin it on your...

All right. Your favorite moment from a trip we did in 2025. I'm going to go with Cassie sleeping with a hard-boiled egg in her coat. It happened in India. It's just the most shocking thing I've heard anyone say, really, first thing in the morning. and it was still warm from her body heat when she told us. And it's like, I don't, it's probably people hearing me say that out loud or like, how is that the most important thing that's happened to you on a trip?

But I think it is. It's just the most. I had to sit and ponder that for a while that she slept with a whole egg in her pocket. And it didn't break. It was flawless. The shell didn't crack even a little bit. Good work, Cassie. I was going to do my, a Jaguar,

But now that I'm remembering India was this year, I'm going to do my first tiger siding because it's like perfect. There's a female with two cubs, big female. And then I saw it. Oh, yeah, three cubs. And I saw it with the cubs for a while. And then you guys didn't see this part, but I saw it like jump after some deer and like do a full lunge. So cool.

Sweet. So that's got to be my favorite. Yeah. Yours is better. I should have gone with something like that in retrospect. I feel kind of bad that we're all doing India, but I am going to do an India moment. I think India was like one of the more challenging trips we've done. And for me, that's often the ones that have the memories that tend to kind of, you know, float above the rest.

I think every trip we did this year was amazing. And there's like moments from each of them that I almost said. But in India, there was a day where we saw the snow leopard, which was just like was going to be my moment. But actually what it was was that night we went back and we had our camp was really cold and the mess hall especially was like very cold. They had two heaters, but only the person sitting directly in front of it would get any heat from it. And it was like negative five and especially on the days where it wasn't sunny. It was just freezing. And there was at the night that we saw the snow leopard after we finished eating one of the guides brought in like a detergent can.

bright green detergent can that they had brewed like a local moonshine in it that was made from like some yak product and it was just pretty like gross but also not that bad and we all just drank a bunch of this Himalayan moonshine out of a detergent can and Jeff especially was kind of responsible for bringing that vibe because when they brought it out I think everyone was a little hesitant whether or not they were going to go for it Jeff's just like I Hell yeah. And then we all got in and it was really fun and just like a really fun moment. Well, and I got the good luck too. What was the good? Oh, you got like some yak butter on top or something. Yeah. In my drink.

Yeah. Yeah. It was really, really fun and just felt like a really special moment that we could have only had in the Himalayas in a tent in negative five with the really fun group of people. So that was probably my favorite moment. All right. Top three new animals you saw this year. I'll go first. Number one is Snow Leopard.

That was the animal that I really hoped to see this year. It's been my number one bucket list animal for a bit. So it was like an emotional experience seeing one for me and being able to watch it for like 13 hours was just the cherry on top. Number two was actually sloth bear, both in India. I had worked with sloth bears, but they were all captive ones that had been rescued. I had yet to see a truly wild sloth bear. So seeing one felt like I could finally say, you know, oh, I've seen sloth bears in the wild because there used to be an asterisk on that.

And then my number three was actually one I saw right after our Brazil trip with our group, which was a maind wolf. That was like the big South American animal that I still really wanted to see. And seeing it was just very special. and I think about it all the time still. So those were my top three. That's great. Mine mostly come from our Galapagos trip, actually. So we saw the giant Galapagos tortoises, which I just thought was so, I don't know.

It's such a charming animal that just kind of plops there. Sometimes they'll get up and move around. But like, yeah, I loved seeing those. They're as big and as, I don't know what the word is. Beautiful doesn't quite seem like the right word to invoke here. Sexy because they're all like 100 years old. Yeah. Oh, mama.

So I'm going with the tortoise. I'm also going to go. So I had a bit of a unique experience in the Galapagos where and I saw a penguin about 10 feet in front of me zipped through the water. And it happened so fast that it like took a second to register in my brain. But I was like, we'd all seen penguins and we were all really excited about it. And I was kind of like over that initial like, oh man, penguins.

I wanted my whole life to see one. And then all of a sudden it like another jolt to the heart of like penguin induced excitement. Just having one zip real fast right in front of me in the water was so fun. Man, penguins are amazing. And like the rarest penguin in the world too, which is pretty cool. And just tigers being my favorite animal, this being the first time I've seen one out in the wild. Wes and I in our car had a pretty special experience with, I think, the biggest male tiger that

they had in that park, wildlife, whatever that place was. And it walked towards us. And there was a moment in my brain where I was like, I could die very easily right now. It's just not something I experience very often. So that was really special for me. Yeah. Yeah, I'll go Jaguars. I think that place in the Pontanol, they're just always hunting and always like so, it's just like such a scenic, cool experience.

So I'm going to go Jaguars. Yeah. And they've always been like. within my top three favorite animals. And then next I'm going to go with hammerhead sharks. I just think they're really cool. And I wanted to see them and I did. So that's cool.

And third I'll go with sloths. Because that's floths. Friken cool. That was cool. That was fun. Yeah. That one was cool because it was like kind of just on our own. You know?

Like we just stopped the bus at a rink. random spot and walked around until Lilith found a sloth. Yeah. And like the most out in the open slot I've ever seen in like such a beautiful spot. So yeah. Cool. All right. This one was Jeff.

Jeff came up with this category. So I'm curious the explanation. Uh, tooth and claw animal of 2026. What's that mean, Jeff? Yeah. I just think, you know, China always has an animal of the year. I think we should start doing it. Okay.

Okay. I'm going to nominate. leopard seals. I like that. Yeah, because we're going to Antarctica. That's kind of our biggest trip this year. I would either say that or like the blue insularis vipers in Komodo,

but I like leopard seals. I'll second your nomination. Yeah. I would proffer up pandas maybe for our China trips that we're going on. But I think leopard seal feels a little more apropos of the moment, so good job, Jeff. Pandas, I feel like get animal of the year, a lot of different places.

too. That's true. They're too popular. That's very true. Yeah. Cut our own path. Leopard Seal. Let's hope we see one. Okay. Now just like a little bit about toothed claw. Your favorite episode we did in 2025. I actually have one of like a main and then I have one for each of your subscriber episodes too. Ooh, extra credit. I like when I forget who did this one, but the Lorena Bobbitt story. That was you. That was you, Jeff. That was an interesting zag. Yeah. That was one where my head almost exploded halfway through the episode.

I liked to have whoever did it tied it in at the end to animals. Oh, it was perfect tie-in. Yeah, it's very, yeah, it's amazing. Very animal-centric. Mike, you want to go next? I'm actually going to go with the Humboldt Squid, El Diablo Rojo. I like learning about new animals that I didn't know were something. And I'm not saying we need to be like fearful of them when we go on the water.

But it just never occurred to me that those creatures could pose the kind of danger. I think his name was Scott Castle, right? In the story, Scott, something. And you did a really good job when you were explaining his encounter when he was really deep under the water with, what do you call a herd? A group, a flock of squid. And it was almost, you described it almost like a dance. And it was such a weird and beautiful and graceful, but also a dangerous encounter

that I just thought was like a really, really special moment to highlight. That was an interesting. Yeah. That's so cool. I think for me, I kind of learned a lesson in that like, the more effort I put into something,

the better it gets. And like, that is something I probably should have learned a long time ago. But the Indianapolis episodes, I really enjoyed putting together and learning about that. because I think I'd always just heard the surface level, like the quint speech kind of surface level of that.

And understanding what those men went through, like not just with the sharks, but with everything that happened to them, like really changed how I looked at the horrors of war and kind of just the things that we never even think about that really happened in war. So that for me... I don't think you're allowed to call them horrors anymore.

Horrors, not horrors. Yeah. The sharks. But, I mean, that feels a little like I don't want to pat myself on the back too much because I really liked a couple of the episodes that you guys did, too. I just to cut in, I think personally those are my favorite episodes you've ever put together. I think they might be my favorites, too. They were the ones I did an amazing job. Thank you.

I really liked Mike's episode that he did on like ancient guys that were killed by animals. We actually released that one wide. Yeah, that is great. It probably made me laugh harder than any episode we've ever done, which was really fun. There's just a donkey. The donkey just killed us. And then I really, really liked Jeff's two-part series on the loneliest animals. It felt really, like, poignant and beautiful.

And I just thought it was a really interesting idea for some subscriber episodes. So good job, guys. Nice year for us. We did it. Yeah. All right. Since this is a news episode, I wanted you guys to say your most memorable animal news story from this year. I'm going with the three-day standoff with the bear in Japan.

I just think that that's endlessly entertaining to think about. I don't know exactly how it happened. The way it is described seems like it should have been resolved in minutes, not days, but I just think that's an incredible story for a bear to bunker up in store for three days and probably you know like getting in it all the all the snacks in the aisles i just think that bear was probably having an awesome time in there you know there's no better place for a black bear an asiatic black bear a supermarket must just feel like the absolute heaven yeah uh i mean for me is the jaguar like it's probably not the best to say my favorite was when someone died but like Jaguars just hardly ever attack and kill people.

So it's that. And it seemed like the way it did it was so efficient and like it did it so easily that it kind of like gives you that realization like, oh yeah. These things can kill pretty quick if they want. Yeah. That one was interesting for me because after our trip in Brazil, I went to that part of the Panthenal. and that guy had worked on one of the ranches that I stayed at and everyone knew him like very well and personally had been friends with them for like decades

and so it was really interesting just to see like kind of their reactions and I brought it like with all of them I was like hey did you know I had asked them all and they were all like yeah it's really sad but also like can't feed them you know that's a yeah it's a good pick I also just picked I was more vague than Mike I think Mike's answer is better but I picked all the bear news coming out of Japan. It's just been such a crazy year for bear attacks there

and lots of crazy kind of side stories surrounding it. So that's what I picked. What was, oh man, I want to shout out the guy who reached out to us. What was his name? Connolly, Billy Connolly, I think. Billy, Bill, yeah. One of the people in our Japanese bear attack stories, the guy from New Zealand.

who runs Billy. He reached out and said, like, thanks for sharing. And we actually put him in contact with someone else who's been attacked by bears who we had on here. But just to like kind of, yeah, Shane, to kind of talk about their experiences together. And it's cool. So, yeah.

Yeah, that was cool. All right. Next one is just like a memorable non-animal news story from 2025. something from this year that you wanted to talk about. I think you can go a lot of different directions with this one. Yeah, I really loved reading the Epstein list that they put out. Yeah. You know, it felt cool to like read 130 pages in two minutes.

Oh, the redacted, yeah. Yeah, it's pretty cool when you see that like, oh, our pedophile list. needs to be redacted because we don't want people in charge to get in trouble for the full pedophile list. It's like, all right, something needs to change pretty quick. Yeah. Thinking the right way about this. I pick the Louvre heist. I think there's a lot of like crazy news stories that we could talk about this year.

And I think if you want to get my insight into like some of the stuff that I actually have been thinking about all year, follow me on Instagram and I talk about it there or Twitter. but as far as like for our podcast trying to keep it kind of positive, the Louvre heist to me was just so fascinating that one of the biggest heists in history happened this year and that they almost got away with it. Like they were so close. They really should have too. Yeah.

So I just I love thinking about that stuff and I love that they did it. More heists in 2026. Did you- That's a good resolution. Yeah. I something. Did you see that 400,000? dollars worth the lobster was just stolen from Costco in like Michigan or something yeah yeah

it's a lot of lobsters that's a lot yeah from a single one or was that like a series of just just golden lobster what oh single Costco oh yeah single lobster it's just one lobster they like stole the cargo trucks yeah with like all the lobster wow do you think it was in cow do you think it was the fast crew since it was a cargo truck. Diesel? Yeah, maybe. There's been like some James, James, or James Winston, rumors maybe, because he's stole.

Loves lobster. Self, shellfish before. Yeah. What eats lobster the most besides humans? Humans. New Englanders. It's a good question. I would guess like octopus would be my best guess.

Oh, and they're smart. Yeah. Could have been an octopus. They could operate a... Yeah, semi. I'm going to go one that hits a little close to home that's making me mad to think about,

so I'll make it quick. The fact that there are AI artists getting millions and millions of views and streams on platforms like Spotify really, really bothers me. The fact that people are either falling for it or not realizing it is a really scary proposition.

that we're all going to like eventually there will come a day when we have to like do our research because I don't I don't want to partake even if there comes a day where it sounds good to my ears I don't want an emotional exchange with a robot I want the artist to be a human to have gone through that creative process and transfer those thoughts feelings and sounds to me and it's a two-way street and I just think the method of creation is important as the end product I think about stuff like, I don't know, like the Sistine Chapel or like anything written by Virginia Wool for Chet Baker's music, like these people who are tortured for years and years, like creating beauty.

And I think that's like a really, really important part of the equation. I agree. Chinese beaver. The Chinese beaver. Oh, man. That's real art. Someone like went in like animated that Chinese beaver to be talking over Chow Yun Fat and a better tomorrow.

That's art to me. I mean, when you said this one's close to home, Charlie Kirk got shot eight miles from your house. I thought you might say that. That's very close to my room. Yeah. Yeah. Holy cow. I think that leads perfectly into the next category because it kind of is one of the answers I had.

But this is another category Jeff proposed and I like it. Anything we want from technology in 2026. And I'm just going to go first because Mike kind of led into what I wanted to talk about. is like I kind of like there's I have a two part answer to this one of the things that I want is for people to be more think harder about their technology and especially with AI and I think it's happening and it makes me feel more hopeful because I think when AI first kind of came onto the scene everyone was posting like AI avatars and really excited about it and I do think people are slowly starting to realize that this is sucking a lot of the joy and fun out of our art and it's turning into something cold and meaningless and that makes me hopeful. The other thing that my two-part answer to that, it's a little bit more, I think, on track with what Jeff said is like, the thing that I have hoped for with technology is that I think climate change

can seem really insurmountable and like it's just, no matter what, it's going to be really bad and it kind of already is. But I do think our one hope for that lies in technology and people inventing stuff that might be able to lessen and the effects of climate change. I do think technology that controls the weather is scary to think about or that helps with climate. But I think we're at that point where we need some kind of intervention

or else things are going to get really bad or they already are getting bad. And I think people are coming around a nuclear technology as being a good alternative. And that makes me happy because it is. It's better than what we're currently using. So, yeah, that was my answer. Yeah. Good category. Mine kind of goes with that.

I have a two-parter as well, one that goes with what you're just saying and then another more animal one. But I had whatever that MIT professor and fusion scientist that got shot dead and his home was working on. I hope they still come out with that. Oh, wow.

That's a crazy story. I know. It seems like he was on to some real good energy. Yeah. You know? So hopefully, fossil fuel people weren't involved. I mean, I think they definitively were.

But yes. And my second part would just be GPS callers for bears that don't explode and blow their heads off. They don't do one of those for years. Number one. I thought you were going to say one's smaller and better. And fall off? They explode. There's a tiny charge in there that explodes.

And it makes the screws fall out, but it does not blow the head off the error. Did you just say the callers have a tiny charge that explodes? Yes. So they do explode. They do explode. Not all of them, though, just some of them. That's what you want the nuclear energy in there? So it just like blows up.

Just a nuclear reaction. Why did your mom say it that way? It was in Yellowstone when she said something that made me think that that's what actually happened. And I was like, I guess it's on me, Mo. mostly for falling for it. Yeah, if you're listening to our mom on that, on caller technology. I somehow miss this category, so I'm just going to go with the little pizza that turns into a big pizza in Back to the Future Part 2.

Sure. Yeah, I hope that happens too. Why not? Yeah. Okay. All right, resolutions. Let's first do an update of our resolutions from last year, from this year, and then resolutions for 2026.

This is our last category before we'll. listener questions. How'd you guys do this year? Yeah. I mean, mine was close, but there were no nukes. Oh, yeah. No nukes. Yeah.

So no nukes. And I kept that one. Yeah. And so, yeah, I kept my resolution in this next year. It's going to be to read at least one single real book. Okay. Ooh. Yeah.

All-Stars. You should read that one. Call me if you need help. Maybe I'll do like a book club so then the listeners can help me. Yeah. You know? That's a good idea. Yeah.

Mine was to write in my journal every day. I did mostly good. About three quarters of the year, I really nailed it. And then I fell off like October, November while we were just kind of scrambling around so much. But I got back on the train at the end of the year. So overall, I feel like mission accomplished, like an a minus kind of effort. So there you go.

The two that I think I said on the show were swimming more and not killing anything that I don't need to kill. It's like not biting me or whatever. I did really good on the second one. And it's actually, I think, become a lifestyle change for me. I just don't think I'm going to kill bugs anymore or anything that isn't biting me or like actively harming me. The swimming I did really bad on. I didn't swim at all at the swimming pool. And I still want to because Mike has really kind of put up.

lit a fire under me with his fitness journey. But I just, because it's cold here and stuff, it's really hard for me to go to the gym and want to get into a pool, especially during the winter. So I've been doing other stuff, but maybe I'll get into swimming. We'll see.

Do you wish you could find that bullet ant so you could kill it? Uh, no. I think it was obvious. I think you need to take that one to even like a next step, Wes, the no killing. What's that? Yeah.

Like don't kill bacteria this year. Or just like do something nice for all of the bugs I see. Like an active service for all of them. Sure. Yeah. Maybe like when you blow your nose, save the tissue and put in in a little jar and let like the cultures grow and stuff. Yeah. You don't want those to die.

I don't do. Never anyways. So. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Okay. All right. Resolutions for 2026.

I gave mine. No. What was it? Read a book. No. No books. Oh, read a book. That's right.

Read a book. Okay. For 2026, you mean? Yeah. Yeah. I like it. Mike? For right now, my new year's resolution is to remember what my new year's resolution is going to be because

two days ago I had such a good answer and I'm trying to remember it. So for now, I'm just going to try and remember that. We'll put a pin in it. And if you remember it. Yeah. I think it's fun to announce he's on the show because it does actually keep me kind of like, like, like I have to do it. Such a good answer.

Why? Mine aren't that great, but the one that's the most kind of specific is that I want to try and meditate three times a week. I had a boss when I worked for Hawkwatch who had got really into mindfulness and meditating, and it really changed his life in some really good ways. And he sent me this big write-up on how to approach it in a really kind of approachable way. And I want to finally put that into practice, because I think it would do me a lot of good just to have some moments away from. my phone and everything that aren't in the movie theater. It'd be sweet if you can start levitating to.

Yeah, I'd love to levitate. Nice byproduct of it. The ones that are, that's no fap, right? No fap. Like if you stop masturbating? No, that's not matatting. No, you like cross your legs and you put your arms out and then you levitate like four

inches. Oh. Or maybe I'll be like Dalsam from the street fight. Yeah, and I can shoot my arms out. That's what I thought of two. Yoga flame. Yeah. All right.

My ones that are a little bit more vague are I want to be better about skin care because I just feel like we have all these crazy products now. I might as well use some of them. I want to get in better shape and I want to camp more because I feel like every year when I look back, my happiest moments surround camping trips. And that was true for 2025, both mine and Jeff's River trip and camping in the Himalayas. So I want to camp a little bit more I love camping Okay Was that yours Mike?

Yeah more camping Mike Camp less Yeah Never camp again All right Jeff you asked the listeners For some end of the year questions Do you got some picked out

Yeah you do too right I got a couple yeah Okay Let's see here All right The Heck Alley Says Has any of your top five animals

changed because of an episode this year. I don't think so. My top five sharks has. I wanted to, after our lion versus tiger debate episode, I wanted to just be like, lions are the best. But I couldn't quite do it. Not for me either. I think Oceanic White Tips went into my top five sharks and they didn't used to be.

But that, yeah. Manatee is really, that went pretty high. Far up my list, but not top five status. But yeah, learning about manatees was really cool. Manatees. I got one from Sunny Laf's. Best 2025 purchase you didn't need rocket money to advise you against. That's a good question.

I got a really nice electronic drum kit. Oh, no, switching. Bread machine. Zodirushi bread maker. Holy cow. You just throw the ingredients there there. It warms it up. It needs it up.

It proves it, bakes it, lets it rise, does everything for you. Four hours. You have an amazing loaf of bread. I'm so ready to munch. I might have to buy that. That sounds great. So good. It's so bad.

It's like the Nintendo glove, the power glove. It's so bad. For me, I'm going to go with, um, I got one of those little robot vacuums, and I've had some in the past that were really good, and this new one's just like so good. And she just like gets everything and it mops too. And it just is such like a nice little convenience that feels so futuristic to me. still. So my mopping robot vacuum might be my pick.

Not your rooster? Rooster is out there growing. Me and Jesse made a decision that we would never get a rooster and someone sent us a rooster and we didn't know it until recently. But don't worry, it won't be around much longer. We're going to give it away.

Oh. That's awesome. No killing. I won't do it. Uh-oh. But people adopt roosters around here. So we'll get it. We're finding a new home for it. I'm just going to go new apartment. I got a new apartment. It's a lot bigger.

I got a great view, and I love a big view, you know. So I'll just sit here and look outside. Great. Sometimes I see birds. Yeah, that sounds great. All right. This one's mainly just for Mike, because Wes gave his answer, and I didn't read one. No neighbors asked best book you read all year.

Hmm, that's a good question. I just read Andrea Harata's The Rainbow Troops. I just finished reading that. It's part of a little book club I'm a part of. Amazing. Just a glimpse into a life you never quite knew existed for people. It's about a boys' experience growing up in Indonesia, sorry, and just paints such a beautiful picture about the dualities of the

existence of humans, how Belatong is just this island that is so loaded with wealth and riches, but the people that live there don't get to experience that, whereas the colonizers came in, took advantage of all of that. And I don't know, it's just like an amazing world expanding experience reading that book, Rainbow Troops. I have an audible mention that was almost my favorite, and it was the Buffalo Hunter Hunter, which I had read Stephen Graham Jones book. books before, but Danielle actually put me onto that book. And it's about the Blackfeet tribe

in Montana. And like me and Jeff grew up not far from where that tribe, you know, originally was. And I've always been really fascinated by their history. And it's a great horror novel. It's an amazing book all around. Really loved it. Uh-huh. Uh, Jodd, 1986 says, Jeff Larson is comedic gold and national treasure. Thank you guys for doing this podcast. I guess there's not a question. I just want to read that. Is that like a yes?

I'll say yes. Yes, that's a yes or no question. Alexa Nudra, Alexandra, M. Does a vampire with a warrant still need to be invited in? Yeah. Oh, that's a good loophole.

No, I don't think so. Because like, I mean, what is home ownership, really? Exactly. Or like if you're a guest in someone's house, the vampire still can be let in if a guest invites them in, I think. I don't think you have to own the home.

So I think if a judge tells you you can go in, like you're allowed. Yeah, that's so smart. Yeah, in sinners where the woman invites him in and it's like she's just like helping out with the party. It's kind of like, should she be able to let that vampire in? So yeah, I guess you make a good point. All right.

I got one from Wholesome Contents. They said, what made you guys the happiest this year, despite the horrors? Horrors. Oh, they made me happy this year. Oh, yeah. I picked this one, so I had a little bit of time to think about it. I think the thing that's made me the happiest this year and kind of feel a renewed vigor for, humanity is kind of seeing finally, I think, people pushing back against like collective suffering

and pain. And I think, I think this year, some of the big, you know, the politicians and corporations and billionaires push people too far. And people are finally kind of like, you know, we don't, this isn't how we should be living. And I mean that like in the political system here in the U.S., I think that's happening on both sides of the aisle. And I think it's a uniting factor for people to realize that like you know it isn't so much red versus blue it's more uh-huh billionaires versus everyone else and i think that the common man yeah i think that has been a growing movement and it's it's really um invigorating for me to see it catch on in a more mainstream way i like that answer i'll just say Disneyland you went to Disneyland yeah sure yeah made him happier yeah

You could probably use that one next year too since we're going in Tokyo next year. You guys don't even have to listen to this episode next year. You already know. I can't wait to go to Tokyo Disneyland. I'm so excited. I'm going to say scuba diving. You know, my first real year of like getting some scuba dives in and is really cool, loved it. And we got our cousin Brent into scuba now.

and Danielle's signed up to do scuba lessons. So like, you know, it's pretty cool. Yeah. I would live down there if I could. It's the best. Yeah. Atlantis or something. Anda da da-see.

I got one more. Okay. Maximid's 94. What animal would you be most excited about if there's 10 times bigger in real life? Hmm. excited? Yeah. I'm going to say a giraffe.

Okay. Yeah. I think the spirit of his question is like, what small animal would be cool if it is 10 times bigger? But I was like, no, like make our biggest animals 10 times bigger. Even bigger. They would never be able to reach the water to drink, though. It's already so hard for them.

Like those facts about a blue whale penis already, if there's 10 times. bigger than that. It'd be like as big as a blue whale is right now. Right. The penis? Yeah. Yeah. I think that's awesome.

I think I would pick an anaconda. And I think the reason I say that is like big pythons and anacondas, we are like right on the fringe of being small enough that we're prey for them. And if it's 10 times bigger, we're like well within their range. and it just introduces a really scary new fun predator into the world for us. So that's what I'm picking. I'm going to pick Polly. I just think that'd be fun to see you and Jesse have to deal with that. Bill's dog.

See what the fallout on that is. Oh, man. Casawares would be fun because then it'd be like, we have dinosaurs. Like this counts. Yeah, that's a good point. All right. Well, that's a great question to end the entire year. on. Thanks everyone for listening this year. Truly the thing that's made me the happiest is doing this show,

and we couldn't do it without all you listeners. So we really do it. I think we could. We could, but we definitely wouldn't have made it this long. So thanks, everyone. I hope we hope you all just have a great 26. Love y'all. Happy New Year. See you next year. Bye.