Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - Tiger Shark Attack - The Townsville Tiger Shark Shipwreck

Episode Date: July 4, 2022

A fishing expedition quickly turns into a nightmare when a group of three friends find themselves shipwrecked off the coast of Townsville, Australia. The nightmare becomes that much more real when they realize they aren't alone in the open water. ~~ To advertise on the show, contact us! ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social:  Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds                          Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If the world were like a sleep number mattress, everything would adapt for your comfort. Because as your life changes and your body changes, sleep number mattresses adapt and shift to give you personalized comfort night after night. And now everything's on sale during our Memorial Day event. Save up to $1,200 on mattresses for a limited time. To experience a whole new world of comfort, visit a sleep number store or go to sleepnumber.com. Sleep number to a good life sleep. Hey everyone, it's Wes. I'm going to intro this week's episode. It's a really cool episode about a tiger shark attack. You guys all know how much I love sharks. I think they're maybe the most beautiful animals on this planet. They're so important and they're so cool. So I hope you guys get this from that episode because sharks really are great. And we're quickly destroying a lot of sharks in the world. So I want to make sure that you guys come away from this with a big love for sharks. Secondly, I do really quickly want to plug something. thing that I'm doing this fall. I'm going to be guiding a trip in Brazil's Pontinal Wetlands.

That trip's going to be mostly looking for birds plus jaguars, plus reptiles. It's going to be a really fun trip. It's actually with the company that my girlfriend, Jesse, works for, naturalist journeys. So if you guys are interested, we do have a few more spots available. Just go to naturalist journeys.com, go to their destinations tab, then to the calendar, and then the one that we're doing is actually the Pontinol trip that's in October. So we have a few spots left. We'd love to see a few of you there. All right, that's it for interruptions.

Here's the episode. Hey, everyone. Hey. Is this our second episode in a row we recorded together? Uh, maybe. I think it is. We're here together. I lose track.

Yeah, I do, too. I don't know. Don't ask me. All right. That's a hard question to start off the podcast. Let's do some warm-ups first. All right. Uh, how's it going, guys?

It's going good. Yeah. You want to introduce us? Yeah. We're tooth and claw. We're a podcast of two brothers and three friends. And we're all friends here. Yeah.

We're all about talking. We're all brothers, too. Well, Mike's, yeah, Mike can be our brother, honorary brother. The words of the immortal meatloaf, two out of three ain't bad. Yeah. We talk about animal attacks, but we try and talk about animal attacks in a way that gives the animals a lot of credit, that talks about why the animal is actually attacked in the first place, why often it's the people that are at fault for those attacks,

not always, but often. And we try and just kind of describe some of the behavior of those animals and also a little bit about conservation. So we're kind of full circle on animal attacks. Wes. Yeah. So I feel like sometimes I have like some minor beef with Mike. Right.

And sometimes I have some minor beef with you. Yeah. I want to try to stir some up between you and Mike. Okay. So he went to a barber the other day, which I thought he always cut his own hair, but apparently went to a barber. Yeah, that's way off brand for you. First time in a long time.

Yeah. And she told him that bear spray doesn't work because it actually makes the, it brings them in. Yeah, common misconception. You use it and the bears like it and come closer. Right. And Mike just went with it. Okay. Interesting.

That already convinced you. So here's the thing. I already have a pretty strained relationship with barbers. Yeah. If I start contradicting them mid-haircut, they're going to, like, take some real artistic liberties, I feel like, with what they're doing. And get this.

It also makes me feel old, so I almost don't want to bring it up. But she asked if she could trim my eyebrows. Oh, I always have them trim my eyebrows. Really? Yeah. Yeah, it's nice. They've never offered that for me. I just ask.

So the last time I want to be, like, get into a mini argument with somebody is when they have a rinket laser to my eyebrow. So I was like, you know what? I'm not the expert. I would feel... I don't feel anything. I feel like someone who's cut their own hair for the past 10 years.

Literally, any way that your heart desires at that moment wouldn't care too much what a barber's about to do to their hair. Maybe enough to stick up for one of their best friends. This is not like ad hominem against Griskit or something. I was also like, he's like, well, I'm not like an expert. And I was like, why don't you just tell her? have like a wildlife podcast. And he was like, I go out of my way to never tell anyone. Why was what I want someone to know?

You weren't talking about the podcast. No, no. Well, I was talking about how I was about to run up to, where are we? Montana. Montana. Yeah. And she was like, oh, wow, cool. Oh, this is someone in you trying to lose weight.

Yeah. So she started talking about the Yellowstone stuff just because that's big enough news. It's not, it's not weird to hear someone bring that out. Yeah. But she was telling me that. Yeah, but she was telling me that you should probably not use bear spray because they like the smell and the taste. So I can explain that really quick. Yeah, I'd like you to.

Because I feel like I need to. So bear spray within the capsacin bonds to an oil. It shoots out as an oil. Like that's the main thing in there. Like it's so much propellant, so much capsaicin, and then there's oil. Oil is kind of the bonding agent. And if you spray it and then it just like settles, it's true that like, Like a bear might come in and like roll around in it and lick it and everything because it's this like peppery oil kind of interesting food source.

But that's once it's like on the ground once it's settled. Okay. If you spray it into their face, it's not good. Or if it's in the air and they run through it, it's not a good thing for them. That's why if you spray bear spray, you don't want to necessarily like hang out in that area because you were just charged by a bear there too. Like you want to get out of there. But once it's settled, you can like lick it off the rocks and stuff. But a bear might want to.

Okay. So that's like the misconception, because there have been studies showing bears, like, coming back in and, like, rolling around in it or licking it or whatever. But at that point, you should already be out of there. I feel like I have to defend myself at the beginning of every episode. This is... I think we should fire you. You won't even tell people, like, that you have a podcast. I want to talk about a show that I just went to.

I saw Third Eye Blind and Taking Back Sunday. Oh. A real nostalgic show. Taking back Sunday is like an all-timer for me. Yeah. Third Eye Blind was a lot better though. Like 10 times better. Like is a live act?

Yeah. And I like both of those bands a lot. Third Eye Blind has a weird, like I have a real soft spot for their first album. Yeah. It was actually our optometrist when we'd get our braces off, he would give us a CD. Like that was the prize for wearing metal jagged bars for two years. Orthodontists. Yeah.

Orthodontist. Yeah. Why is your optometrist taking your braces on? It's a man of many times. Yeah, or orthodontist. And so when I got my braces off. It is nice to correct you on vocabulary every once in a while, you know? I must feel like.

You're a lot. Real victory. So when I got my braces off, I got the third eye blind album, the self-titled album. And it was right before our family took a big trip to Lake Powell. And I had a Sony Walkman and I, like, a discman, sorry. And I put it in there and you could like program it so it only placed her. certain tracks. Like you'd have to go through and then like hit a button and it would like pick the tracks that you wanted. And I played semi-charm life jumper and how's it going to be on like a

straight loop from here to Lake Powell. So Missouri to Lake Powell was like a 13 hour drive. And that's all I listened to. And it was also when I first read Lord of the Rings. So now I can't hear the song Jumper without thinking of Frodo and Sam like in their last stages of their journey where Frodo was like ready to like kill himself and Sam like talks him down pretty much. Yeah, that's perfect. Yeah. Anyway, it's a weird association. Peter Jackson should have hired them for the soundtrack.

The right line. Anyway, it was fun to see him live. This is actually, I've seen them live a handful of times. Yeah, they sound cool. I actually, hearing about how much of kind of like an iconic dick, Stephen Jenkins is. Supposedly like a world class douchebag. It only makes me like musicians more when I hear those stories because it's like, that's how you probably should be if you're like.

I actually have a friend who was like a super fan and went to every city one summer that they were touring on. Really? Yeah. And like he missed two venues and then showed up in like the middle of nowhere in Montana. This was a long time ago. Yeah. And the singer spotted him and was like, we fucking missed you, dude. And like ran up and hugged him.

That's cool. Yeah. That is cool. Isn't that the plot to Taken? His daughter was following. Who was the band? You too. What 18-year-old girl follows you to Europe?

Unreal. Anyway, that's what's been going on. I did want to, like, we did this on the Patreon episode, but I wanted to do a brief update on Yellowstone, because a lot of people have asked. I am working in the park. The floods demolish the northern entrance. They're talking about reopening the northern loop pretty soon, though. So I think a lot, for most people that want to come visit Yellowstone, it's going to be

somewhat back to normal. They do have, like, a license plate system. now for like if you have like an odd number license plate or an even number license plate certain days you can enter oh weird so you want to look into that but i'm good everything's good with me i actually got to have a couple really interesting weeks with no visitors in the park and all the bears got really bold with no one around so it's like my license plate says haters with a z they actually have a system for like the personalized ones too yeah anyone with a vanity plate is not allowed Yeah, exactly. That's the rule. Anyway, it was a fun couple weeks. I, like, had a grizzly

with two cubs in my yard one day. Oh, cool. It's pretty neat. But, yeah, that's awesome. That's the update. So thanks everyone for your nice messages and everything, but I'm safe. You're welcome. And the park will be different, but it will be interesting. So, speaking of sharks. That's a great transition. Yeah. We're going to talk about sharks again, which is one of my favorite subjects. Megalodon. Not megalodon. We're not talking the Meg this time.

We'll have Jason Statham on for that episode. We're talking about tiger sharks. Oh, nice. Which I really wish one of you guys would have taken my cue there from Jaws and gone, a what? Oh, shoot, we missed it. Next time. Before we talk about sharks, this is kind of something I think we're going to do at the beginning

of every shark episode. I just want to talk briefly about how demonized sharks are. I think of all the animals we talk about snakes and sharks are probably the two that people have like the most innate natural fear of. And this is a scary story about a shark. It's like this one, this episode is scary. But I want I want everyone to think about as we're talking about the story, remember that this is an animal that is trying to access a food source. That's all it is. This is an animal displaying its natural behavior.

and it's just trying to survive just like we are. And they don't deserve our hate. They're beautiful, amazing animals. They're really important to the ocean ecosystem. And if you ever do get a chance to see a shark in the wild, Mike, I know you've seen some. Jeff, you've seen some. Nothing moves through the water quite as beautifully as a shark. They are just graceful, beautiful, amazing animals.

And although they can be scary, we shouldn't demonize them. Getting eaten by a shark isn't as bad as being tortured by humans for two weeks until you die. I agree. So humans are scarier. We're scarier. Yeah. Without a doubt. That's a low bar, right?

People's fear of sharks, I think, is, I understand it. The thought of already being in an environment that you're not used to and then being completely powerless in that environment and then having an animal with, like, teeth. that look like a shark's teeth and just they're so powerful that there's really nothing you can do to stop it once it starts coming and you don't see it coming there's like so many things that play into that psychology i think that i totally understand why people are afraid of shark attacks i think out of all the animals we talk about they're the one that probably scares me the most even though they're like maybe my favorites that's why shark nato just doesn't scare me that much because i'm on land you know like being in waters part of what's scary

Yeah, right. Was Shark Nato trying to scare people? Oh, yeah. Okay. So I don't blame people. It's a good point about Shark Nato. Like, if there is a barricane... I don't want to just breeze past that.

Yeah. Like, think about if there's a hurricane with bears in it. It's like, you know, like, you're not, I'm not super afraid of... You probably whipped around by a hurricane. Without realizing you probably just gave, like, sci-fi channel their next billion dollars. I'm... I'm... I'm...

...atting that real quick. You need to patent barricane that real quick. Except for polar bears. because they're aquatic animals. Yeah, they're marine mammals. True. All right, so this is a scary episode. Hold on to your butt.

Some people might not bother quite as much, but for me, the imagery in this one kind of tapped into those fears. Okay, so we're going to be talking about Ray Boundy. Keep in mind that this is the guy that got super duper scared when he watched paranormal activity. So this is...

Oh, I'm never going to live that down. I love horror movies, everyone. Just so you know, like, are the three of us? I like horror movies the most. Some shadows in the window at a cabin. Okay, here we go. All right. So I got a few different sources for this story.

One that actually really helped was this podcast I found. It's called Shark Files. They go over different shark attacks. It's kind of like case files, the Australian podcast, True Crime Podcasts that you really like. They even kind of have the same logo looking. But it's just like a guy talking about shark attacks. And there was a lot of really good information that I

couldn't find anywhere else in that podcast. And then I read a lot of articles that came out in the 80s when this happened. I hope they got it from a different podcast and it's just like an ongoing train of podcasts. We don't even like have the names right at this point. Another thing that I wanted to mention is there is a movie made in 2010 called The Reef that's based off of this story. I watched that movie. It's nothing. There's some similar aspects, but it's like a great white instead of a tiger shark and a few different things, but actually a pretty entertaining movie. I really liked it.

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in the tropical city of Townsville in northeastern Australia. So he's a father of two, and he's also the captain of the New Venture. It's a 45-foot prawn-trawler boat. Mike, you okay? I love the name Townsville for a place to live. What should we call this one? I don't know.

Boaty McBoat-Face. Townsend. Exactly, yeah. All right. I didn't even think about that. Sorry. So he's the father of two. He's the captain of the New Venture,

which is a 45-foot prawn-trawler boat. for all of you non-Americans, that's 14 meters. And even at his young age, he was like a really accomplished seaman. Pause for laughter. On Friday, July 22nd, he and his crew got the new venture ready for a shrimp fishing trip, and they left that evening. So this is Friday, July 22nd. He's joined by his second captain, Dennis Murphy, who was a 23-year-old deckhand from Brisbane.

Everyone that talked about Dennis said that he was this really free-spirited, kid. He would go from place to place and just kind of do whatever odd job he could. But he had a lot of experience on a boat and Ray hired him for this particular trip. Dennis's nickname was Smurf, which to me, I think, is a pretty good nickname. And also kind of weirdly brought back smirfs for me, which I feel like there has been much smurf discussion in the last month. I don't know.

I just like the nickname smurf. Like, was he blue? I don't think so. I think about that hot smurf like once. Smurfette. Yeah, Smurfette. Yeah. What are you doing?

Just thinking about her. Drawing her. I feel like the Smurfs are kind of done. Yeah. Yeah, it's been a long while. They had that big movie a couple of years ago. It didn't do well. Okay, anyway.

Sassy Smurf? So aside from Smurf and Ray, the other person on the boat was Dennis's girlfriend, Linda Horton. She went by Lindy for short. She was only 21 years old. Hold on. Lindy. Lindy short for Linda.

Uh, yes. Okay. Continue. It's the exact same thing. Yeah, it's just like a cute. I feel like Australians always put a Y on the end of everything. Like, Lindy sounds very Australian to me. And they're probably like, Dennis, that doesn't sound Australian.

We're going to call you a smurf. Anyway, so she was 21, and she was actually going to be the cook on this trip. So that was like her main thing. I think it was mostly like her and Dennis were dating, and they found a job for her to do as well. She actually, though, was feeling a bit anxious on July 22nd. The winds had kicked up around Townsville, and Lindy was really superstitious, and she saw this increasing wind as a bad omen. But I feel like you don't really have to be superstitious to see wind as a bad omen if you're about to go out on the ocean.

I was kind of like, huh, if I'm about to go on a multi-week fishing trip, I'm not like, I don't feel superstitious if I'm like, oh, this strong wind probably isn't the best thing. Yeah. Anyway, she was really worried. And her parents did their best to convince her to stay in Townsville, but she was known for being really tough, and she didn't want to back out of a job that she'd already agreed to. So she refused to be discouraged,

and she boarded the new venture as it left on that Friday evening. Might be a mistake. It was, unfortunately, a mistake. The boat was headed for some really productive fishing grounds in the area that lied between Townsville and the Great Barrier Reef. If the fishing was really good, they would spend a few weeks in the area. Mostly during the day, they would kind of relax and do odd jobs. and whatnot, and then in the evening they would get, they'd start fishing, they'd drop the nets,

they would fish throughout the night. It's really hard work, but a big catch would pay out a lot of money, and they really enjoyed being on the water in each other's company. All three of them had a really great love for the sea, and the area around the Great Barrier Reef is really hard to beat. I do think I would be remiss if I didn't mention that trawl fishing is really destructive. It's not a great form of commercial fishing. It's the boats that have like the two poles coming out the side with the big nets attached to them. Oh, okay. And sometimes they sink down to the bottom too and they just like drag the bottom.

And it destroys seabed ecosystems. Coral reef. There's a lot of bycatch because they can't like target specific animals. So it's just not a good way to fish. It's really destructive. That's kind of a dark rabbit hole that we don't need to really get into. I could talk about it for a while. But I just wanted to mention that.

So by the night of Sunday the 24th, the wind had gone a lot worse. and the new venture was caught in seas that were way too rough for the boat and for this crew of only three people. That's not good. It's not good. So around midnight, Captain Ray and Lindy were in the wheelhouse. So picture Jaws. It's like the interior wheelhouse with like the radio and everything. I'm picturing perfect storm.

Picture perfect storm. Yeah. Mark Wahlberg. Okay. Yeah. But picture George Clooney because he was the one in the wheelhouse. Okay, got you. Yeah.

So they're doing everything they could to keep the boat afloat. and then Dennis was out on the deck, and he's watching the waves roll in. And he looks up to see a massive wave come in, and it hits the new venture. And he manages to dive off the boat just in time as this wave capsizes and flips the boat. Oh, geez. But Ray and Lindy weren't very lucky. They were in this enclosed wheelhouse. And so they got flipped with the boat, and they found themselves trapped in this little small room.

Oh, man. And it's filling with water. It's kind of like in the movies. They're like upside down? Yeah. They're in the movies where they have just like that little bit of water. or the little bit of air, and they had to dive down and free themselves from the wheelhouse. Think Rose and Jack.

Think Rose and Jack. Perfect. And they found themselves, all three found themselves treading water in the open ocean as their boat bobbed upside down nearby. Okay. So this is the middle of the night on Sunday. So their boat's still up, but it's upside down. It's bobbing upside down. And they can't, like, float on it?

They actually did do that. That Sunday night, they managed to pull themselves onto the overturned hole of the boat. And on Monday, they started talking about, what they should do. So right before the boat had sunk, they had taken some coordinates of their position, and they knew that they were about 90 kilometers from Townsville, and then 45 kilometers from the closest group of islands. Had they caught a lot of fish? I don't know. They might have lost some fish. I don't think so, because they hadn't been out too long. But they knew they had no chance of reaching dry land. So 90 kilometers is what, that's about 60, it's close to 60 miles. And then

45 kilometers is the islands, that's like 28 miles. So you can't swim that. And they decided that they were going to go and try and reach a reef that was nearby. They knew they were close to the Great Barrier Reef. They knew there were some reefs nearby that were like up enough out of the water that they could hang out on those reefs and wait for rescue. So you're probably wondering, and this is what I was wondering, is why not just stay on the boat? My only guess is that they either assumed the boat was going to sink or that it

was going to drift way out into the ocean, and then they would be way off course of where they had been, and so a search party wouldn't find them in that area. That's my guess, because otherwise that seems like by far the most kind of, if you're like, if your plan B is to go to a reef that's like barely sticking up out of the water, you might as well stay on your boat. Yeah. So my guess is that they're worried about it drifting out or about it sinking. So they had collected a few things from the wreckage of this boat, and they made a small makeshift

life raft from those items. Those items included a surfboard, a life ring, like the ones that lifeguards throw out. Oh, yeah. And then some styrofoam boxes in a beer cooler. And they tied a rope around all these things and kind of like tied them together. So they had a little mishmash of a life raft. And then they got into the waters of the coral sea. That's what that sea is called.

And they headed out east toward the reefs. So their plan was just to kind of paddle on all this stuff and make their way to the reefs. So we've talked about a shipwreck before on this podcast. It was another shark episode. And there's a few things you really have to worry about when you're shipwrecked. And sharks aren't actually at the top of that list. What are some other things that you guys think would be, like, the number one things you have to worry about, especially in a place like the coral sea in Australia.

Well, you got plenty of water. You're surrounded by it. Yeah. So you won't be thirsty. So you won't be thirsty. So food? Electric eels, maybe? Yeah, that's a good guess.

I'll just answer it because maybe the same. is a dumb question. So thirst is one of the top ones because obviously you can't drink sea water. That just dehydrates you even more. It can cause you to go crazy. On top of that, you also have exposure. So just like the elements of the sun, people that are adrifted sea often talk about how terrible the sunburn is and how it can. July by Australia has got to be pretty gnarly. No, so July is actually the best time for them because that's the winter. So it's a bit cooler, a bit cloudier. So they had that. Everything's backwards. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's Christmas time.

They kind of had that in their favor. So actually, like, for them, the water of the coral sea was about 23 degrees Celsius, which is about 74 degrees Fahrenheit. So that's pretty good. There's not an immediate risk of hypothermia. But they, you know, I'm not sure what kind of drinking water they were able to bring with them, if any. I'm not totally sure how well they, how well prepared they were for this journey. I think these guys were really just trying to get somewhere stable and hope for rescue.

I think that's really what their plan was. They knew they weren't too far from Townsville. They were pretty confident that rescue would come at some point. That water temp, it sounds like it's not terrible, but when you take into account, like your body temperature is much higher than that. Like, you can't be stationary in that water. Yeah, I forget what it is,

but it's like how much your body temperature drops after each hour in like 80 degree water. And you will still get hypothermia. Like if you're in 74 degree water, at some point you will get hypothermia. It's not like you're just going to like, you can float in it forever. Your body, if it drops below 96.8 or whatever it is,

and just a few degrees, you get hypothermia. Exactly. So they weren't just like in, you know, it wasn't like an easy time for them. So I do think sharks are probably psychologically the, like, scariest thing that you're going to face. But there's a lot of other stuff that might kill you first or at least like really make it awful.

Okay. So as they started their swim toward the reef, Ray, Lindy, and Dennis knew that they really had their work cut out for them. They still felt pretty optimistic and positive about their chances for survival, though, which I thought was pretty impressive because I think a lot of people would just kind of succumb to panic at that point. But by that night, a 15-foot tiger shark would make them feel far less optimistic. So on Monday night... Spoilers.

Mike's so mad. On Monday night, the tiger shark first appeared. It's Finn was breaking the surface in this really dark water. It's nighttime. So wait, where are they? They're swimming. They're trying to swim to the reef. They haven't made it to reef.

They're like open water. Yeah, open water. Okay. Yep. Ray is no stranger to the ocean. He knew that sharks were pretty commonplace in those waters. He knew that shark sightings were often just the result of a curious shark. And he thought that if they didn't do anything to provoke this shark,

there was a really good chance that it would just leave. And he's right. there is a good chance that would happen. But unfortunately that wasn't the case, and this shark was much more curious than Ray had bargained for. So the rough ocean at this point had broken apart their makeshift raft, and each of them were just clinging to different items as they're swimming through the water. And at this point, Ray was currently on the surfboard,

and as he was moving in the direction of where they thought the reef was in the darkness, he felt the shark passed underneath them. And then right after he felt that, it turned, it swooped in, and it bit him on his knee. Oh, man. His instinct was so quick that he kicked out, and he actually stopped that shark, like, mid-bite. And it was so quick his response to it that the shark peeled off,

and it cut what we think was probably an investigative bite, what I think was probably an investigative bite short. So that shark was probably just kind of doing that bump that we've talked about a lot, where sometimes they'll bite a little bit too, but just really checking out to see if this was food or not. Right. And Ray responded so quick.

quickly that it might have cut that short. The shark had nicked him, so it left a small cut on his knee, but it really left the entire group pretty shaken. Yeah, I can imagine. And I was just thinking about it. Like, you're bobbing around at night, you know, you see a fin break the surface, and then you have a shark bump into you. That's kind of, it's a whole different level of terror in the night.

I think in the day, it's one thing where you could, like, stick your head underwater and maybe see it or just keep an eye on it from the surface. but at night, I always think about, I think I've mentioned on the podcast before, but there was a night in Hawaii the last time I was there where Jeff like ran into the water and started swimming. And it was like dusk. It wasn't even full night yet, but it was getting pretty dark.

And I was following you and then I was just like, no, I'm not doing this. And I turn around and swam back. And any time I jump into water at night, even like lakes, you kind of get the willies. And in the ocean especially, I don't like going far into the water. at night in the ocean because it just feels so much darker and like unknown and I don't know maybe you guys are the same way I don't I don't know I'm scared probably but it is like definitely scarier yeah we also aren't like professionally trained to critically think about those

kinds of sharks so have you done a night dive ever I have yeah yeah like I came back from that night in Hawaii and you were like yeah I didn't go out because it's sharks and I was like oh yeah there's sharks well that was dusk too and like dusk and it was really murky in the water that year so it just was like a perfect scenario right I'd be pretty scared if I was one of the people so the guy on the surfboard seems like that's a good place to be yeah because if I knew a shark was close and all I had was like a little beer cooler to be hanging on to I'd be like it's time to maybe trade I was thinking about that too. They must have been switching around. Yeah.

Because he was on the surfboard of that moment and I thought like, the captain. He's like, Rose and Titanic. Yeah, exactly. He just pushes them. He won't. It's like this huge paddleboard that they could all fit on. But nope, you get to hang on to a little plastic bottle. That's all you get.

So the shark had nicked him. He, it left and the entire group was really shaken at this point. They had a huge sense of dread. The shark had just disappeared into the dark water. And they all knew enough about sharks to know that a tiger shark wouldn't be easily discouraged from what it now thought might be a meal. Enjoy more ways to save at Ralph's, like low prices in every aisle. And when you download the Ralph's app, you can clip and save more with digital coupons every week. Plus, you can earn fuel points to save up to $1 per gallon at the pump.

At Ralph's, you can enjoy more ways to save and more rewards every time you shop. So it's always easy to save big every day with savings and money. rewards. Ralph's SoCal for over 150 years. Savings may vary by state. Fuel restrictions apply. Seasite for details. So we're going to talk a bit about tiger sharks. This is a new animal for the podcast. We haven't talked about them yet. They're one of my favorite sharks. I'm excited. They're one of what where do they rank? Uh, that's a hard question. Favorite sharks. Favorite shark is got to be whale shark and great white. Yeah and then a whale shark and then probably tiger sharks afterward.

Number three? Yeah. So they're one of the largest predatory sharks in the world. The Great White is really the only one that's larger. Great hammerhead sharks can be longer, but they're not as bulky. So Tiger sharks are generally considered the second. But you said Tiger sharks can get bigger than Great White. So I'm going to contradict myself.

We're going to do a quick correction question. Wow. Because I had read that, and then I dove into Tiger sharks a little bit more. And there's like one really unconferring. catch of like a 24-foot tiger shark. And that's the one that people sometimes use to say they can be bigger than Great Whites. But there's no real data or photos or anything.

And so I don't think we can count it. I think Great Whites still are bigger on average. But Tiger Sharks can get really big. So strike that from the record. Don't listen to that episode. Don't ever listen to that episode. So females can grow to be 16 feet long and males around 13 feet. So they are a dimorphic species. Pretty big still.

Females are larger than the males. Yeah. Oh. Oh, wow. Is that? It's still sexual dimorphism. Is that normal for sharks? I believe it is. Oh, okay. I do think the females get a little bit bigger in sharks. Interesting. So a large female tiger shark can weigh over 2,000 pounds, and there's unsubstantiated claims of tiger sharks that were over 20 feet long and weighed more than 3,500 pounds. There's one that was like a slightly more substantiated of a tiger shark that was 18 feet long, but for now, we're going to say their max length is about 16 to 17 feet. Okay.

They're part of the largest order of sharks. Two-thirds of a bus. Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. We're not sure. We've got to figure out how big buses are. My favorite thing about this measuring thing is we have no idea how big a bus is.

All right. So they're part of the largest order of sharks, which are called the Requiem Sharks. And species of Requiem Sharks have a nixiex. dictating membrane. Nictitating membrane. So that's a thin translucent membrane that slides down over their eyelid. Alligators have that. Some birds have it.

It actually improves their eyesight in low light because it reflects some of the available light. Like improves it from daytime? Or is it just like it has better at night? They're normal. They have better night vision than other animals. So this means that like many of the other requiem species of sharks, tiger sharks will do a lot of their hunting at night. that's just because they have an advantage over their prey that doesn't have that nictitating

membrane or like good eyesight at night. It's cheating. Yeah, I guess. They're found throughout tropical and temperate waters. They're especially common in places like Western Australia, the South Pacific, Hawaii, and the Bahamas. Have you seen one? I haven't.

But I'm hoping to go to the Bahamas this year to dive with some sharks, and I'd love to see a tiger shark. Cool. As far as sharks go, they're the ultimate opportunists. So they're much less picky about their food than, like, say, a Great White. We talked about in our Great White episode, adult Great Whites will typically only target food that's really rich in fat. So that's why a lot of times when they bite people, they immediately peel off because they're like, oh, there's not enough fat, bony there. Right, they're bony and, like, to process all that bone and everything isn't worth it to them.

But I think just because Tiger sharks don't migrate quite as far and they aren't as fast moving of a shark as a Great White, they don't have the same. they don't have the same energy requirements, so they can be a lot less picky about their food. And they have a large range of potential food items. So one of their main things that they're known for eating is sea turtles. There's actually some really viral videos going around. It's cool how the turtles, like, defend just to like turn their body so it only bites shell. Or just, yeah, exactly. They're pretty fast, too, to get away.

So they will attack sea turtles, fish, dolphins, crustaceans, birds. seals like Hawaiian monk seals, squid, and even other sharks. They're so open to investigating potential prey that tiger sharks have often been found with license plates or like weird garbage in their stomach. Like the jaws one. Like they ate a car? Yeah. No, I shouldn't say they're often found with license plates.

They're often found with weird garbage. So when someone says it was like they got hit by a truck, it's more true than usual. It had a license plate on it. Someone just like drove into the ocean and then their whole family got eaten with the car. Yeah. If you think about it, it kind of sucks that they're found with all this stuff in their stomachs. Yeah. Because it means that like it's trash that we've thrown into the ocean.

Yeah. So they have short serrated teeth that are very unique due to their sideways pointing tip. So like a tiger shark tooth is really iconic, especially if you ever go to Hawaii. It's like the one that you often see. I had a cool necklace. Yeah. They're like, they're really. serrated and then the tip like points at a pretty hard angle to the side. To me, their teeth

remind me of like a chainsaw blade. If you ever look at a chainsaw chain, it has these blades on it that have like a tip that points really hard to the side. And they work in a really similar function. Not good for human flesh. No, no. So just like gray whites, they have an infant number of teeth and tiger shark teeth are really designed just to saw through stuff like turtle shell, for example. and then they are just constantly producing new ones. So if you want to hear more about how that actually kind of works, we talked about in one of our other shark episodes. I don't remember which one.

Just go listen to them. Listen to them all. So they have counter-shaded coloring, which means they're dark on the top and light on the bottom. That makes it harder for stuff above them to see them and harder for stuff below them to see them. They get their name Tiger Shark from vertical stripes and bars on their sides that are often really visible when they're young

and they get a bit more faded as they grow older, but you can typically still see some bars on a tiger shark. Why do they have those? I imagine it's like also camouflage because like the reflection of the water on the surface kind of matches with it, but I'm not totally sure. But that's generally what it would be.

They have really specialized anatomy just like other sharks to help them find prey. They have a lateral line that picks up vibrations in the water, and they also have amputated Lorenzini, which helps them detect my new electrical fields in the water. Yeah. So that's Ampulata Lorenzini. These features as well as like a really powerful factory bulb, which is what they used to detect blood in the water,

contribute to them being a nearly perfect predator. Like other sharks, they're pretty much unchanged for hundreds of millions of years, which is amazing to me. Okay, a little bit more. Tiger sharks are responsible for the second most recorded bites on humans, second only to my favorite shark, the great white shark. The great white. And white tip, or oceanic white tip. Oceanic white tip, it's like we're not completely sure. They could be up there.

Because they get a lot of open ocean people who aren't recorded. Yeah, like the USS Indianapolis. Like there's a lot of ones that they could have killed. They're a large predatory shark that spends large amounts of time close to the shore. They have a lot of flexibility when it comes to prey. And all those factors combined make them one of the more dangerous sharks. Sounds bad. But it does.

Those attacks are still incredibly rare when you consider, how many people spend time in the water. Think about it like in Hawaii, Hawaii is known for tiger sharks. There are millions of people that enter the water every year in Hawaii and they average like two or three tiger shark attacks a year. So this isn't a common thing.

You think like as Americans continue to get fatter, maybe we'll get attacked more often by sharks. By great whites. They're just like, this bone is worth it now. Yeah. Yeah. They are responsible for the second most number of attacks, but I just want to make everyone know and make this clear,

that's still not many considering how much time people do actually spend in the water, especially in tropical places where tiger sharks are found. So I want to get more into their attack statistics and more about tiger shark attacks, but they're definitely an animal we're going to be doing more. So I'm not going to get into like every fact and every statistic right now, just to save some stuff for further episodes. Right. Okay.

Back to the story. So Ray had just been bitten by the shark. This is a 15-foot shark that they're guessing. So really big tiger shark, about as big as they get. It then disappeared into this dark water. So to this floating group of three. Scariest situation you can be in. Yeah, the biggest possible tiger shark has disappeared in the dark water.

Yeah, for two weeks apparently. So this water that had before been like unimaginably blue and beautiful and welcoming to this group is now the most hostile environment on earth. And it's just full of all this unseen tear. Panic is really starting to set in on Ray, Dennis, and Lindy. They're floating around. They're turning at any kind of little splash

that they hear. It's like, yeah, like you said, probably the scariest scenario possible. Like you know what sharks there and you're floating in the night. Ten minutes later, the shark reappears on the surface. Its dorsal fin once again breaks above the water for a moment and then disappears.

And Ray, Dennis, and Lindy go completely silent. And then suddenly Dennis screams into the darkness. He's got my leg. The bastard's got my leg. So Ray immediately yells to Dennis that he should kick the shark because that technique had worked so well for him. But on this attack, Gunniss wasn't an exploratory attack. It was a full-on, like the shark really went for it.

And so as Dennis kicks down again and again with his free leg, he just meets the unrelenting head of this massive shark. Yeah. So, I mean, a 16-foot tiger shark, its head is going to be almost as big one of your legs, it's just not going to do anything. It's not going to stop it. They can kill seals. They can kill dolphins.

You kicking it isn't going to stop. Maybe if you were wearing like cowboy spurs. Yeah, maybe. You should wear it. That's why I always wear those when I'm out. If your ship's going down, throw on your spurs. Get your spurs on.

So then Ray and Lindy watching horror as Dennis is yanked below the surface of the water. And the ocean that had previously been like full of chaos, all this, you know, him splashing and yelling and screaming is now completely silent. And they peer out at this spot where Dennis had been just a few seconds ago, and to their relief, he pops back up a few seconds later. But now this water that was already really dark somehow gets darker, and they realize it's from all this blood that he's losing. And they knew that this bite had been pretty devastating. They weren't sure just how devastating it had been,

though, and then Dennis reaches down and realizes his leg is completely gone. Oh, my gosh. So they search for something they can use as a tourniquet, but they couldn't find anything. their panics increasing when the shark again reappears. And Dennis, and what to me seems an almost unbelievable moment of bravery, realizes he's not going to survive this. And he turns to his friends, he tells them to bolt and to gather in all the stuff and leave him. So he's like, take all the floaties, get out of here. Oh, man.

And then he pushes them away before they can do anything and start swimming the opposite direction, drawing the shark away because he's got this bleeding stump of a leg. and Ray and Lindy kind of look at each other and they start paddling away and they turn around and as they turn around they see Dennis get lifted up out of the water

by the shark and then it pulls them under the water and they never see them again. Yeah, that's a cool way to go out though. Yeah, pretty heroic. Yeah. Like almost unreal heroic. Yeah. So Lindy can't process what had just happened.

They swim away a little bit and she just starts screaming uncontrollably. Which again, this is a 21-year-old girl. I don't blame. I would also just be losing my mind at this point. And Ray shakes her and he tells her that they need to stay alive. They owe it to their friend who had just sacrificed himself to stay alive. And he figures that with their pace, they might be able to reach the reef by morning.

And they just had to keep it together to make it to the reef. So sunrise actually, though, wouldn't be for a few hours. And the shark wasn't finished. So about two hours after killing Dennis, the shark returns. If its fin once again cuts through the surface of the water, and it's almost lazily circling Dennis and Lindy. And at this point... I'd be so, like, irritated with the shark at this point.

Like, dude, just leave us a lot. You got one of us already. They're overwhelmed from shock. You feel like ruining my day. They had been swimming now for a couple hours since Dennis had died, and they're dealing with that mental anguish. They're dealing with, like, just the panic of being in the water, with the shark.

They're just completely overwhelmed. So they, it's like from reading about this, it seemed like their eyes were just kind of like glazed over. They're looking at the shark. And they just stopped paddling to watch the shark and see what it was going to do in this darkness. And they're holding onto each other's hands as this is happening. Like they're probably almost accepting at this point.

Are they the couple? I forgot. No. No, but they're friends. Yeah. Yeah. So in a really slow fluid motion, the shark that had been circling breaks off from its circle.

and it approaches Lindy who's floating in the life ring. With its head halfway protruding from the water, it bites into the 21-year-old around her chest and her arms, and then it pulls her hand out of the grip of Ray. So he was holding onto her hand as this happened. And then he silently watches in horror as she has time just to admit a tiny squeal, and the shark starts shaking her by her torso,

and she goes completely silent. Jeez. Within second, she's motionless in the water. So this attack only, took seconds. The shark came in, grabbed her by the chest, ripped her away from Ray, and then shook her enough to where it just ripped her apart. Ray turns into start swimming towards lodestone reef, which he now knows is really close. He's in total shock, but he's completely fixated on getting to this coral outcropping. And not long after, in the glowing light of Tuesday morning,

the shark appears again, but he also now can see the reef. So this, like being able to see the reef, is giving him a second wind. This is just like a movie in my mind. Like, yeah. He can see it, but he also knows the sharks right behind him. And he's swimming as hard as he can. The shark's right behind him. And he managed to get like on a wave.

And the wave pushes him into the reef. And he scrambles up, cuts himself up all on the reef in the process, but gets up on top of the reef. Oh, man. And as he's like safe on the reef, he lets his emotions just overwhelm him. He starts just like screaming out in joy. And he's so happy he made it. And then he's like, he's like, safe.

he breaks down crying because he starts to feel like the true loss of his friends and all this stuff that had just happened to him. And as he was sitting there like bawling, he heard the sound of a helicopter high above. And he looked up to see the approaching Australian Air Force who had spotted him as he was struggling through the water. Oh, wow. So apparently on one of the things I read, someone said they remember seeing a news clip of like him swimming through the water with the shark behind him.

Oh, geez. Like the Air Force had gotten footage of that. So I don't know. I couldn't find that anywhere. That was the only place where I saw that. But on like a forum, someone like said they clearly remember seeing that. I kind of have. I have that image in my mind.

Was this you? Did you write the forum? No, but I feel like I've seen that. Okay. But I mean, I don't know. Yeah. When you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed sponsor jobs.

It gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills, certifications, and more. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a $75-sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. So it's 1040 in the morning on Tuesday when the helicopter pulls Ray Boundy from Lodestone Reef and up to safety. He's leaving the nightmare behind. And as he was helicoptered to safety, he learned that

Six planes in almost all of the commercial fishing fleet in Townsville had been looking for the new ventures since Sunday night. So when this storm kicked up, they sent a call out to the boat to check on them, and they never responded. So they sent out rescuers on Sunday night pretty much. Ray was treated for minor cuts and exposure, but he made a full physical recovery. He returned to the sea not long after. He was still captaining trawlers, and even rescued three men when their ship went down in the same area. where the new venture had sunk. He would have a lifetime ahead of him

dealing with the psychological trauma, though, of this 36 hours. That trauma was really exacerbated by news organizations that brought up the story and cast a lot of doubt on it, which was really easy to do because he was the only survivor. And that was something I want to talk about. In these circumstances where there's only one person that survives,

you kind of have to just take their word for it. And I don't want to cast any doubt on it. And, like, for me, there have been times where I've heard survival stories of people where there's animals involved, where the description of the animal's behavior is so far outside of that animal's natural behavior that I know it's, that it's like BS. But this isn't a case of that. This isn't typical behavior for a tiger shark, but it's definitely not outside of its natural behavior. So I don't doubt his story. And I don't think we're here to do that. No. So, I mean, when you think about a tiger shark,

on that note, this is an animal that does, like, they can be very coastal, but they can also be somewhat open ocean predators. And for them, like, finding an easy floating meal, it would be almost dumb for it not to investigate it. You know, they know this is a potential food source. It's putting off an electrical field that they find enticing. It's putting off vibrations that they know its potential prey. So I think when we talk about this story, I'm going to make it a little bit less scary here. But this whole thing of like the shark circling and like going around them, that's not it trying to like instill terror in them. That's not it being menacing or anything. That's a, that's a curious animal trying to figure out if it's worth the risk of going in and

attacking. Just like any other animal in the entire animal kingdom, they're going to be risk averse. They don't want to like take a risk they don't need to. So it wasn't stalking them. It was checking them out. It was trying to decide if they're food. And that's what they're doing when they're circling and when they're checking something out. And even it coming in and bumping Ray, that was it just like saying like, oh, you know, okay, maybe this is food. So we can't blame an animal for simply doing what it comes natural to it, taking advantage of a potential food source, especially one that's just kind of bobbing around in the ocean at night. I mean, it's just like we're not built for that. It's like pringos, right?

You can only, you can't just have one. Once you pop, you just can't stop. Is that what you're talking about? Yeah, so he got like a bite. And then he's just like, I can't just stop at one bite. I guess. It's pretty. Yeah.

I was trying real hard to be respectful to the shark and the victims. Here we go. No, I think that's a great metaphor. All right. So let's do our ouchies. This is a tough one because two people died, but I do think it was long enough ago that we, We can do our ouchies.

I would say for me as a group, we're just combining the three. I'm going to say Dennis and Lindy. Okay. Ray's out cheese. We can do Ray's outchies too. The worst one is Dennis. Okay. So yeah, let's do all three.

The worst one is Dennis. He got his leg chewed off and then got salt water in it and then had to slam away. So, I mean, it was over in like minutes. Yeah. So because that, I'm going to give it an eight. I mean, we don't know if it was over in minutes. But the terror factor adds to it. It could have pulled them under and then, like, who knows?

That would be, that sucked to be that scared. Yeah. I'm giving Dennis an eight. I'm going to give Lindy a nine because of the added, like, time aspect of just being terrified. One should see Dennis die too. And you see your boyfriend die. I'm giving them both nines. I'm giving, what's the other guy?

Ray? I'm giving him a 10. Have you ever been scratched up by a reef? It does suck. I'm giving Ray... Salt water? I was going to give Ray a one. No.

I'll give him a two. You know, and like all the floating around in the ocean. Yeah, let's give... Well, I'm not counting that. Okay, we'll count it. If we're counting that, he's almost the worst off because he had to, like, live his entire life thinking about his friends getting ripped apart.

So who knows? This is a hard one. The image of seeing the sharks circling you after you've already seen one of your friends, and then two of your friends die, I was out on a paddleboard when hammerhead sharks were kind of just like investigating what my brother and I were doing in Hawaii about like a year ago. And even just that, I don't know, you feel so uneasy. You just don't know what's going to happen.

But you do know in this story, you know that the shark already killed and ate one of your friends. I can't imagine how terrifying that must be. Well, and then this isn't a small shark. It's 16 feet. Like a lot of the whale sharks we've swam with around that size. Like this is a big, big animal. And if you see that dorsal fin go cutting by you, you're like, oh, I'm powerless against this. This isn't something I can stop.

If it wants to kill me, it's going to kill me. So it's, yeah, it's a crazy one. This is one that I was like, this pure terror. It's something you would never get over. Yeah, all three of them went through a really bad time. Yeah, I think that's safe to say. Yeah, it's a bad time. All right.

Let's get into our categories. So we've done a number of favorite sharks at this point. We'll probably do some more because there are a lot of great sharks in pop culture. But today I wanted to ask you guys what your favorite shipwreck movie is. So your favorite movie involving a shipwreck. Have we done this? Did we do this for the shipwreck episode? The other one?

We might have. You might hear it again. You might hear it again. That's what my answer was going to be. Yeah. I'll say castaway. Okay. That's a good one.

That's a great movie. Yeah. That's like an airplane rack. Does that count? The more I think about it, the more... Yeah, that counts. I think... Like, I always thought this, but, like, now even more so,

just, like, open that last package. Yeah. Like, what if it's, like, a water purifier or something? Right. Or, like, a radio. Yeah, like, those other ones were really helpful. Or, like, a little package that says, Pain Free Tooth extract.

Yeah, exactly. I'm picking Poseidon Adventure. an old Gene Hackman movie. Interesting. I think it was, if not the first, it was one of John Williams' first movies that he ever scored. Yeah. Great movie. I just, it was actually funny because it was a little bit of a double feature for me,

because it was on an old VHS tape that we taped that movie first, and then on the second movie on it was Mickey Mouse's The Prince and the Popper. And my mom didn't want me watching Poseidon Adventure, but she knew that like my... Yeah, so I'd always, I'd make sure I caught the very end. when like jean hackman's hanging from the i won't spoil anything but check it out it's a really good movie who directed castaway is that zemeckis was it a zemeckis maybe i think so not sure uh yeah mine's swiss family robinson but castaway was like a close second for me that's a movie that's one of those movies that whenever it comes on i start watching and i get like real lost in it yeah

it's a good pick there's also one that i watched not long ago with um robert redford that i liked It was called like All Is Lost. Oh, yeah. That was a good shipwrecked movie. It was like just him out on the sea alone, right? Just him. I really liked it. I need to see that.

Okay. So we're going to do what would Mike and Jeff do? You guys can pick any point in this story. What would you do? Well, Mike would probably just stay home and like the second there was when he'd like come up with a excuse. It's a good thing. No good reason to go outside, I don't think.

I would all get on the surfboard, banana boat style. Because sharks are probably afraid of groups, right? If you're all grouped together. I don't know. Well, I'll bank on that being a fact until I'm disproven. But yeah, that's what I would do. I mean, I need to know the reasoning they got off the boat because it seems like the obvious answer is just to stay on the boat and wait for help.

Yeah, I'm with you there. Trying to get the shark to choke on your legs a good strategy, though. Just didn't work for it. jam it down its throat. I don't think that's what he was doing. All right. I think I agree with you. Like, in any survival situation, you're supposed to stay as close to where the incident happened as possible. Because that's where they're going to look for you. Hopefully you had some sort of route plan or whatever. But I have to imagine they had a good reason for leaving the boat. Maybe it's like almost all the way sunk at that point or something. Yeah, who knows?

As far as preventing shark attacks, though, there's a lot of, like, with some of our animals where there's not much you can do once the attack has actually happened, it's a lot about prevention. Bear spray? No, bear spray is, it's not going to work on them. But we have talked about this before. There's some times where you should really avoid swimming, so you don't necessarily want to swim at dawn or dusk or at night. You want to avoid places that might be especially enticing to sharks, so places that have murky water, because with all, all those specialized... But you got anything for like shipwreck?

Yeah, we'll talk about it. Okay. Yeah. You want to avoid like murky water, river mouse, estuaries, carcasses, anything that might be appealing to a shark. We talked about they have all this specialized equipment for detecting stuff in water to where for them murky water is really great because they can sneak up on fish or whatever and they know exactly where it is, but it can't necessarily see them or know where they are.

if you are shipwrecked or if something happens to you where you're in a situation where there's a shark around and you need to actually deal with that shark, in that case you want to face the shark and you want to try and get something in between you in it. So if you can have something that you can actually hold in the water column, like not necessarily on the surface of the water, but in the water column like a stick or a rod or something that you can push at with the shark as it comes in, that's a really good way to just discourage that shark and make it decide that you're not worth the effort that it's requiring to actually come in and attack you. So that's the main thing,

is just always keep the shark in front of you and always try and keep something in between you and it. If you're actually like in the water and you see it coming toward you, a really good idea is to actually put your head in the water and try and see the shark. That's a lot harder at night. But maintain eye contact with it

as it comes in to get you with a tiger shark, they have a really big flat head and you actually just put your hand on that flat part at like the point of its face and just try and divert it away from you. And you need to follow through by pushing through with your body and then you kind of like push up and over the shark.

And that can completely divert it away from you and then only try that a few times before they just give up. For them it's like this thing's kind of got it figured out. That sounds easy. Yeah. It's not necessarily easy. I did though.

I was, so I was free diving with sharks once and a big sandbar shark came in and I was told to do that. Like if it comes all the way in and approaches to within like arms reach to like hold my arm up and then to like do a motion down and push it away with my arm. And I did it and it worked perfectly. Like the second I made contact with that shark, it diverted. And with tiger sharks, they have that big flat broad nose to where you have a really good spot to kind of grab and push it away. If you're actually being attacked by a shark, you can try. and fight back. You can try and like get your hands in their gills or in their eyes or whatever. But at that point, it's like we talked about with a lot of animals. You've lost control of this

situation. There's not much you can do. You're kind of grasping at straws at that point. Right. Here's a question. Yeah. So when a tiger shark gets a sea turtle in its mouth, just like the shell, like what happens? They start like going back and forth like it did with Lindy, like shaking it back and forth, and those serrated teeth will cut through their shells. It goes through the shell? Yeah. But what they try and do, I think, I'm not positive about this, they try and get at their flippers in their head, and then they kill it, and then they can just, like, take their time

working at it. But they can, if they can, like, latch into the shell, they can bite through the shell, too. Like, they have enough pressure to get through it. And where's, like, the most meat? They're full of meat. So, like, once you get through the shell, but, like, you have to bite through the shell to get to the meat, right? Unless you're getting the flippers of the head.

And then you can just eat through the head. You mean to get it all the other meat? Yeah. They would still have to get through part of the shell. I see. Yeah. You can't just like suck it out. It's not like an oyster or something.

That's what I was thinking. Yeah. This is a Bose moment. It's 10 blocks from the train to your apartment door. 10 basic, boring city blocks until the beat drops in Bose clarity. Streetlights become spotlights as you strut down the sidewalk, your own personal runway. With Bose, you get every note, every baseline, every detail, just as you should. Those 10 blocks, they could be the best part of your day.

Your life deserves music. Your music deserves Bose. Find your perfect product at Bose.com. Okay, so we're going to do our cage match because we haven't done tiger sharks before. Yeah. I think recently we were talking about doing a cage match with like three feet of water. Yeah. Which is a pretty good idea.

I think if you take the biggest tiger shark, versus our other aquatic animals that we've done. The one I'm most curious about is alligator. I think it beats an alligator. But loses to a crocodile, right? Loses to a saltwater crocodile, probably. That'd be a pretty good fight, though. Okay.

I think a great white has a slight edge on it. Yeah. An orca's feet on tiger sharks. That's like a prey item for them. Hippo, I would give the hippo the edge. I'm putting all my money on hippo. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. What about Hippo versus Orca? You're losing some money.

Probably I'd go Orca. Yeah. You lose in money if you do that one. Well, I wouldn't put all my money on it. You just said you're putting all your money on Hippo. Versa tiger shark. Oh, I thought you just meant in general, like as you're a winner. No. Okay. What other aquatic animals are done? The white tip? Yeah, it's beaten the white tip reef shark or sorry, oceanic white tip. What about an elephant in four feet of water? I would give the elephant the advantage.

Okay. Yeah. But that's a good question. The three or four feet of water really introduces a weird wrinkle into this. Yeah. Right. I think a polar bear versus a tiger shark in three or four feet of water would be another really interesting one. Yeah.

But I think I would probably give the advantage to the tiger shark, but I'm not sure. How about a giant reticulated python? Is there any scenario? I'm going shark still. Yeah. That's what I would imagine. Because I think the shark gets the snake in its jaws and the snake wraps around the shark. But I think the shark just kills the snake before the snake can construct the shark.

I don't know. We haven't done them yet. Yeah. So I don't know. I don't know why we're including them. Well, I'm just curious. I don't know. Maybe we'll do them sometime and then we can talk about it.

We only did elephant on Patreon. That's true. But it counts. All right. So what's like your best fight for a tiger shark? My best fight for a tiger shark would probably be a great white shark. Oh, really? They can hold their own a bit.

I think it would be interesting. I think the great white would probably win, but I think it's the best fight. They're similar size. They're both sharks. I think it's a good fight. Cool. They kind of got the advantage with the saw teeth. Yeah, but great whites are more explosive and like a faster shark.

I'm just saying what tiger sharks have an advantage with. Great whites do have serrated teeth though, too. I don't know. It's a tricky one. They seem a little thicker, too. That could be the true. Yeah. Yeah.

That could be the true is what I just said. That could be the true. All right. They got Tiger Blood. Time for our new category. Did Mike and Jeff listen? Oh. Yeah.

I don't know. So. I definitely spaced that. Who wants to go first? I'll get it out of the way. All right. You gave Mike the easiest ones that's saying. That's why I was asking who wants to go first.

Okay. Okay. Because I have these just arranged in order. Yeah, go for it. Okay. How old was Lindy? 21. Correct. What was the name of the boat, Jeff? Oh my gosh. I want to go first. I said it like six times. Do you know it, Mike? Do you not? I don't think. Is it like the

Steal? A huntsman or something? No, the new venture. New venture. Oh, okay. Mike, name three sharks. Oh, I didn't say this, but I'm going to see if you know it. Okay. So I'm sorry. This is kind of cheating a little bit. Name three sharks bigger than a tiger shark. Okay. So, Great White, the hammerhead can get bigger. And I don't know, what else did we, you didn't say it, but. I did actually say one other one that's bigger. A huge old ball shark? No.

Can I steal? You can. Okay. The whale shark, great white shark, and that Greenland shark. Greenland sharks can be the same size, pretty much. But I'll count great hammerhead that he said too. The other one that I was going to say earlier is basking shark. So the two sharks that are bigger.

than Great Whites and Tiger Sharks are basking sharks and whale sharks, but neither them are predatory sharks. Okay. I messed that one out. So we're at one one. Yep. Yep. Okay.

Jeff, where did the shark first bite Ray? He still. He's still that one. He got one that I didn't. Yeah. So he just gets a point even though he didn't get three? I named two that you didn't. I could have named the Great White.

Yeah. You didn't think I knew it. He got it. Family blood, way thicker than friends. Yeah. Unreal. Where did the shark first bite Ray? It bit him by the knee.

Correct. Two one. I don't want any more questions. Just give him to Jeff. Dude, that's how all quiz shows work, if you steal. These last two are the hardest. Okay. Mike, what is the membrane over a tiger shark's eye called?

Oh, the, no, not the Lorenzini. It's the articulated. You're going to regret what you just said. I don't know. It's the nictitating. Sorry, you could have stolen that, but you wouldn't have got it. It's an exitating matter. You would have given him the point also.

Jeff, what organ do sharks use to detect electrical fields? Oh, okay, that's the amputated Lorenzini. I'm going to give it to him. Of course you are. You want my points? Yeah, give it. Okay. Mike wins.

My kids, four points. I'm at zero. All right. So you guys, Mike, you've won both of these now. Two and no, baby. All right. Okay, let's get into our conservation quarter. Tiger sharks, like all large requiem sharks,

are seeing massive population declines that's due mostly to shark finning. Huge numbers are also killed as bycatch from commercial fisheries. They're also directly targeted for medicinal properties of their liver. Apparently, tiger shark livers are really rich in vitamin A, I think, is what it is. So people hunt them just for their liver. They're a prize fish for sport fishermen. and then sometimes when an attack happens, they actually do tiger shark coals. So they'll go out and kill as many tiger sharks as possible or big predatory sharks.

Australia is kind of famous for having done some coals in the past when people were killed. They're currently listed as near threatened by the IUCN, which doesn't seem like a really drastic listing. But they are at risk of extinction because populations are being really drastically affected by the demand for shark fins. So there's still a decent number of tiger sharks out there, but they're being systematically destroyed. So like all of the shark species, we're losing a lot of them. So something I wanted to say that's kind of another way of visualizing this, we've been talking now for a little over an hour. In that time, around 10,000 sharks were killed.

So just in the time that we've been talking about 10,000 sharks have been killed. So it's pretty crazy. They definitely have a lot more to fear. from us than we do from them. I have friends that dive with tiger sharks. I have a friend that works in the South Pacific that does like dive tours and she does free diving and she's constantly in the water with tiger sharks. She knows all the tiger sharks in her region. They hardly ever try to bite or do anything. And when they do come in, she's learned how to divert them. They are a very amazing animal. They're not an animal that we should be afraid of. They're an animal you should be prepared for.

And if you are going to be in a place where there's tiger sharks, you should think about them. But they're not worthy of the fear that we've given them. Yeah. So that's my little spiel about tiger sharks and conservation. It's so crazy. How many? How many? How many?

How many? How many humans have died since we started talking? Yeah. Not tiger sharks, but sharks. Really makes our stupid quiz seem pretty pointless. How many humans do you think have died, though, in the past hour? Probably more. Well, I don't know, actually.

How many humans die in every hour? How many ants? Yeah, a lot of ants have probably died. Probably a lot more have been made. A really, oh, a cool thing I learned about Tiger Sharks is they'll have like 30 to 35 pops in a litter, which is really neat. Yeah, that's a lot. So for our last category, we'll do some listener questions. Is it the last category?

Our closet category? I don't know. Yeah. All right. From Patreon first, Natalie wants to know. Well, first she says, I've been beyond impressed with all. the facts that Wes knows. Oh,

thanks, Natalie. Yeah. How high is his IQ? Does he have a photo, photo, she says photogenic memory. It's got to be photogenic. It's got to be photographic.

And then what is Jeff and Mike's IQ? Well, I got a zero on that quiz. I think I got like a, my IQ's like a 15. Mike, do you know your IQ? I don't.

I don't know it. Yeah. I don't. Isn't a good one like, I don't even know a good IQ? You. A hundred is average. I feel like like 120 plus is like you're in real smart.

I don't think it's a really good way to measure intelligence either. I have no idea. My memory is photogenic in some regards. Photographic. Photographic. Yeah. It's photographic in some regards. For whatever reason, animal facts are something that just kind of stick in my brain.

Yeah. And I have good recall with them too. But then you could like ask. me about sports statistics and I wouldn't be able to do it. You're really good at trivia. I am. I am good at trivia. Yeah.

I am. And like aren't you really like with your professor, I know he knows like way more about bears, but like you're pretty good about other animals. Yeah. He was always impressed that it wasn't just bears for me that I kind of was well-rounded. You're probably pushing 200 IQ. Animal IQ. Yeah.

It's a different category. And then Sean. wants to know, did you guys grow up watching Saturday morning cartoons? If you did, do you have any favorites? I was really into like nighttime cartoons, like Cartoon Network, like Ed, Ed and Eddie, Curge the Cowardly Dog. Yeah. I was real big into Saturday morning cartoons.

Yeah. So like favorites for me were like Duck Tales, Tales from the Crypt, like the animated one. I, man, there's so many. The Ghostbusters Carters. cartoon. There's a bunch. But, like, those are ones that come to mine. Ghostbusters, Tales from the Crypt and Duck Tales. Mike, you got anything?

Rockos Modern Life is my favorite. I haven't got too into Rockos. And then, I don't know, what was the one that John, it was it Johnny Quest? Yeah, that was a, that was a pre- I think that was an afternoon one though, too. Oh, was it? Like, that was one right after you got on school. Before going to school, but, who knows?

I lived in some backwards state that isn't Montana. You remember the, like, topographical map that you would go through before Johnny Quest. Oh, it's so cool. Yeah. Anyway. All right. From listener questions from Instagram.

Yeah. Cage, Grizzly Bear Refuge wants to know what's your favorite fact about bears? My favorite, I think when people ask this question, the one that I usually think of is delayed implantation. So the fact that like bears will made in June and this fertilized egg will kind of float around. until the bear's body knows that it's healthy enough to support a cub, and then it'll actually implant in the uterus in like October. And so that's an adaptation that bears have so that a female... Is that pretty specific to just bears?

There's other animals that have it too, but it is really well known in bears, and it's so that the female doesn't go into a den and have a cub when her body isn't able to handle it. So it's almost like her body is like deciding whether or not to abort that, that fertilized egg. Interesting. Yeah, before going into the den,

which is cool. Yeah, until the government gets involved. Yeah, exactly. Mike? I like that they can go through blackberry bushes and, like, not even get poked by thorns. Yeah, my favorite fact

is they have cute ears. Okay. But I also like that when they hibernate, they, like, form a butt plug. Yeah. And when they, like, come out of their den, they just, like, release everything.

Yeah. They form? one? Yeah, like it's called a rectal plug. Did they like build it with their paws or it's just build up and like the, the fecese that's still pretty cute. Or what? What was not?

The cute facts were the time? I think they just said their favorite fact. Our favorite, yeah. Fatty Patty Patty wants to know what's the best view you've ever seen. Hmm. Do one of you guys want to go first? Well, aside from Montana. Oh, that's beautiful.

No Mike's been in Montana too long Mike's been on My three days I need to go lay down Me and West went to Codiac Alaska And then we flew

These planes over like humpback whales Looking for like Codiac Grizzlies And we went What was We went to Catmai National Park

And that might have been like It just looked like Tropical water mixed With like huge mountains Mike do you have a answer for that? Yeah So when I was in Thailand. I went to a really cool beach that, you know, what's the James Bond movie where

they see like kind of the huge rock formations just popping out of the water like off the coast? It's like Goldfinger or something. Yeah, I was on a beach that had a bunch of those really cool formations just popping out of the ocean just off the coast. And it's like, it's kind of like monument valley. You see that picture all the time. But like being there is just really different. Yeah. One that I think about a lot. lot was this little village in Italy that I went to in the Dolomites where it was like this just beautiful little church in like a valley with just like the jagged Dolomites right above it and there's all these cows walking around with like tinkling cowbells they were and it was just like such a

beautiful little village surrounded by the most amazing mountains in the world and it was just so picturesque and like fairy tale that I just sat there for like three hours and just looked at it that might that's one that's up there for me but that's a really it's hard to pick that but that's that's one of them okay this name's really hard so lose ma haraghi um did you all ever watch animal face off when y'all do cage match i always think of it so yeah is that like a sequel to the original face off yeah it's just with animals john wu did it with dubs yeah like a tiger in a bear switch faces? I don't know.

I've never. I've never seen it. From, oh my gosh. Lara Rainey. Lera Rainey? You want to try it? Lara Renee. Lara Renee.

Yeah. And also from Laura Andrews. Both wanted to know how you know Hillary Duff. Oh, we met through the internet in like two, 2014 or 15, 2015, started chatting, ended up, like, being a really cool person. And, like, we hung out in California a few times and now we're just good friends. Okay. Yeah.

She put us in her story once. Oh, yeah. She did. She talked about Tooth and Claw. Yeah. The first Mother's Day episode. That's cool. Yeah.

Thanks, Hillary. Yeah. She's a great person. We owe you one. Yeah, I chose the highest. The rare celebrity that turned out really great. This one's from Hannah. Secular.

Let me see it again. No. I don't know that one. Would you love Jeff if he was a worm? Probably not. Like, did you turn into a worm or have you always been a worm? It's just as if I was a worm. I would.

You would? Yeah. Regardless. Okay. Thanks, dude. If he came out of the womb, a worm, I'd be like, this is what we've got. I don't know if I would.

Okay. I'm an effing lady. Wants to know most overrated hero. in a movie or book Oh Mike's gonna have some good thoughts about this He was on a big Captain America Terror the other day That's my guess

I would say I don't know Like Ant Man to me Seems like Kind of overrated Yeah Like when he's an aunt He has the power of a man

But he still just has the power of a man I don't know I was saying I don't really like Superman Because it's just like All right So there's just like one thing that can kill you And every villain just has to like...

Yeah, but he's like so powerful. How can you say he's overrated? You just don't like him. I just think like the hype around him. Okay. He's kind of a dork. He is like, dude, if you're gonna be like that powerful too,

you're just gonna help people? Like, dude, like, stir some stuff up. White bread of all the superheroes. Any superhero who's just like completely broke, too, it's like, what are you doing? Yeah, that's true. Go steal some money from a bad guy. You're not proven anything to do.

anybody. Yeah. All right. That's it for questions. Let's do our final category, which is our claw rating, which we're not sure if it's a category or not. Tiger sharks, claws. I really want to give them 10 claws, but I'm not going to because they're not my favorite

sharks. So I'm going to give them nine claws. Sharks, sharks are like a nine or ten for me, almost always. So I'm going to give them nine. That kind of hurts, though. I'm thinking seven for me. Really? Yeah.

Okay. I think it's one. one of those animals, once I see it, it'll, like, move way up on my rankings. Yeah. But I haven't seen one. And, like, I like great whites. I like whale sharks. I like hammerheads.

Mm-hmm. All more than tiger sharks. Okay. I'm putting them at 52. As a seven? You definitely had some, like, like, I need a question. Yeah, yeah.

All right. Mike? I'll go with an eight. I think I just haven't spent enough time thinking about them. Okay. Like when I think about sharks, Tiger Shark is not even like in the top five that I'll think is like, oh, that's a cool shark, you know?

It's a tiger shark. I know. It's cool. And if I spend more time thinking about it. I don't know why I'm going to bat for Tiger Sharks, but I am. No, it's good that. Okay. They're nine for me.

It's hard for me not to give them a 10, but I'm going to go nine. Are they in your top five sharks? Yes. But they're probably like number five. I think I already said that they're like number three, right? Didn't I say whale shark, great white, and then these guys? Is that what it is? I think so.

Okay. Yeah. Or I think it's Great White Whale Shark, then them. Yeah. Okay, that's it. Thanks, everyone, for listening. I got nothing else to say. We love you all.

Love you guys. Love you. Bye.