Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - When Man Bites Back - News Stories Including A Crocodile Who Gets an Eyeful, The Pornstar Python Pecker Incident, and Orcas Continuing to Wage War on Watercraft

Episode Date: December 4, 2023

The Tooth & Claw gang discuss recent animal attack news headlines, including a man who wandered a little too far into a crocodile's billabong, the first elk fatality in Arizona state history, and much more. They then round the episode out by putting a bunch of characters from Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter into hypothetical cage matches. ~~ To advertise on the show, contact us! ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social:  Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I don't care. Yeah. West told me to bring up the energy today, so we're doing it. Okay. Let's go. We got our wildlife biologist with us, as always, Jeff Larson. Not Jeff Larson, Wes Larson. And his little brother, Wes.

That's not true. Oh. This is like a freaky Friday situation? Yeah. Yeah, we switched bots. That's funny. We got our wildlife expert, Wes Larson. Uh, uh, Wes, he, he likes to party.

And then we got me, Jeff Larson, and I like to party. And we got Mike. And Mike? I like to party. Speaking of party, I logged on early today. And I was feeling a little tired today. So I was trying to get pumped up. And I just listened to the Mortal Kombat theme from the 1995 music, or movie musical.

They need to. A Mortal Kombat musical would be great. You just stumbled into something special. Yeah, someone needs to do that. But I listened to it like three times in a row, and it did pump me up. So much so that I put it on my gym workout playlist. Yeah. Oh, it's a great song. Great movie, too.

When that movie came out, I was a huge fan of the character Scorpion. Yep. Yeah, he's my favorite. Did you guys get into any comic book characters to where... Now the Ice Guy is my favorite. That's sub-zero's cool, too. The ice guy. For me, like, Wolverine and Scorpion were my two big obsessions growing up when it came to, like, cartoons and video games and stuff.

And I still, I like Scorpion more than Sub-Zero, Jeff, just so you know. Same. Yeah, I like Sub-Zero. All right. What's your reason? Oh, because of ice powers. Yeah, duh. Right.

Okay. Yeah. This is all interesting, but don't you think people would rather hear about how your sex life with your girlfriend, Jesse, been what? Probably, but I'm not going to talk about that. I don't know where that's coming from. That does remind me of something, though. Jesse was upset because she would be upset if I talked about that, even though it's just fine. It's more than just fine. No, sex dungeon or anything? No, we're great, but I will say... You haven't been getting bored with like the same old. We're not going to talk about this, Jeff. But something we do need to talk about is on our, one of our

Halloween episodes. I think it was the one with Sammy, the Leach's episode. I said that Jesse liked the movie totally killer. And she listened to the episode and she got really mad at me because she didn't like that movie. And she demanded that I issue a correction corner for that. So here it is. You haven't had sex for a while. We're not talking about that. But that's, yeah, I'm finally out of the dog house. So sorry if we put you back in it. I think you handled us pretty well. Yeah, you know, I don't think either of us have any complaints. Yeah, Jesse, I just saw Jesse in Montana.

She's, I mean, we got to have her back on the podcast. Yeah, yeah, we'll do it. Once we talk about some horses or something. I got a horse story. Or maybe dogs, if we do dogs. You got a horse story? Yeah. Okay.

What's up? Oh, you want to hear it? Yeah. Okay. So a plane on November 14th, leaving the JFK Airport, 30 minutes after takeoff had to go back because a horse on board got loose. Wait, what? That happens, yeah.

Oh, this is like a story for the episode? Yeah. All right. Let's hear it. Let's hear the details. Oh, no, I mean, the details on this one were pretty boring. So I have a few that are just headlines more. Okay.

So we're just going to leave that one vague. People can just put together the... It was, yeah, the headlines a lot more interesting than the story. It was like once you get into this story, it's like a cargo plane, so it didn't really matter. Oh, yeah. Well, apparently it did if they had to turn it around. You're just kind of doing the opposite of what our podcast is about then. Well, I mean, it's a true headlines.

Okay. Well, and like, Mike's been a little more nervous about planes ever since one scared them a little. Yeah, true. So, like, I feel like for Mike, like, you got, this is really probably freaking you out. A horse on a plane. This will keep me up tonight. You're like, I can't even escape them thousands of feet in the air. That was the plot of that movie.

Horses on a plane. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sick of these mother fucking horses. I'd rather snakes than horses if I personally. Yeah, well, yeah, it depends. I would too. I would too.

I agree with you on that. If the numbers were equal, I'd rather one snake than one horse kind of thing. For sure. Yeah. Well, that's a great headline, Jeff. Thanks. Yeah. Do you guys have anything else you want to talk about before we just really jump into the rest of our stories?

We had Thanksgiving. It's nice. I went home, saw Wes, wrestled a little. We wrestled. Shirts off wrestling. Bold. Yeah. We bowled, Jeff.

Wes was winning, and we were, like, betting, and I got my first ever turkey in the last frame to beat him. Yeah. I was counting my money already, and then Jeff gets three strikes in a row in the last frame to be me by like four pins. Clutch. Yeah. What did you yell? Did you yell something like, who do you think you are, I am? I am.

Yeah, I actually did. Yeah, I'm so glad you did that. What was that guy's name, Dickie Weber or Pete Weber? Something like that. I'm playing that audio. On one of the podcasts, I like, he was a guest, and he admitted that that was directed towards an 11-year-old. year old in the audience. Makes it so much better. That's awesome.

All right, well, let's do our stories. You know, we get a lot of submissions from listeners. We hear from a lot of people about things that have happened in the wildlife world. Sometimes they're attacks. Sometimes they're just crazy stories. And often those articles or those headlines aren't enough to fill a total episode. And so we do this news episode about every six weeks. And it's just a way for us to talk about current events and kind of have a more free form.

fun show. So that's what we're going to do today. And I'm going to go first. I like it. I kind of went first, but sure. Well, that's true. You're right. So mine is one that just happened on Monday. We're recording this on Tuesday. So this happened yesterday. And this happened in India. On Monday, November 27, 2023, B. Nagash Babu, a 23-year-old contract worker at Indira Gandhi Zoological Park in Vizag, India. He was quietly doing his job. He's cleaning the Asiatic Black Bear enclosure at the zoo. But he had forgotten to do something very important.

How quietly was he doing his job? Because if you're too quiet, that's a little suspicious. I think pretty, like he's sneaking around. Around bears, you don't want to sneak up on it. That's true. He was doing it on his own, though, so I imagine it was quiet. Like, if I'm cleaning enclosures on my own, I'm probably not making much noise. You're not, like, whistling to yourself or something?

No, I don't like whistling. Wow, hard stance against a whistling. I don't like it when people whistle around me either. Whistling is a uniquely annoying thing, I think, when people do it a lot. All right, he had forgotten to do something important. You wouldn't like Tom Bommadale. I would like Tom Bompadil, but not, I wouldn't like his whistling. You would never, like what if Shadow Fax was at your call, but you had to whistle to get Shadow Fax?

You wouldn't do it. A whistle doesn't bother me. Whistling bothers me. people are constantly like whistling tunes. Like the Vanderbilt Whistler. Sure. Can I get back to my story? Okay.

So he's cleaning. He had forgotten to do something important. He had left the doors between this nighthouse where the animals would sleep, some of the animals, and the enclosure open. So the zoo was actually normally closed on Mondays, but there's a local holiday going on in this region of India, and the zoo was open. And as he cleaned this enclosure, a few visits. visitors ambled by and saw him cleaning. Unknown to him, the Asiatic black bear had woken up, it had quietly walked into the enclosure with Nogesh,

and for a bear that was used to the same routine day by day, day after day, it was going to be a very novel experience for this bear, seeing that there was someone in its closure. So he noticed the bear, and he quickly realized his mistake. He tried to coerce the bear back into a safe location, but the bear jumped on him and immediately began tearing at his head, in his chest. One of the articles I read said that there was onlookers that witnessed this and saw the whole attack. But that was only one that said that and it was kind of the one that felt the

least reputable. So I'm not sure if that actually happened or not. But his mauled body was discovered not long after by zoo personnel. They managed to lure the bear back into the enclosure with some honey. And then they rushed Nagesh. Yeah, it's a good move. They rushed Nagesh to the hospital, but he did die on the way. Oh, man. Yeah, this just happened yesterday, which is crazy to think about. What kind of black bear was it? An Asiatic black bear, which we haven't done a full episode devoted to them yet. They're often called moon bears. This one was technically a Himalayan black bear, but it's still an Asiatic Black Bear. And they are much more aggressive than our black bears. So do you remember that story we did a while ago of the guy

climbing on like the cliff and the bear came at him and attacked him? And then he was like, Yeah, it was below him. That was an Asiatic black bear. And there was actually a circulating recently, two of a guy in the forest with like some bamboo and a bear kept charging in at him and he was hitting it and yelling at it. That was also an Asiatic black bear. We'll get to them. They're pretty aggressive. What's the one that looks like a guy in a bear? A sun bear. Yeah. Different bear. Moon bear sun bear. Yeah, this is a moon bear. Unfortunately, this one does seem like a pretty clear case of just complacency, maybe some negligence on his part. Obviously, we're not going to like point fingers at him since he was the only real victim in this whole thing.

I doubt they'll do anything to the bear. I doubt the zoo will really face any repercussions either because this is just a keeper that forgot to do the most important thing, which is always make sure there's a barrier between you and the animals. I do really quickly want to talk about zoo animals. And, you know, we've done a number of stories about the zoo. We've done Tachiana, the tiger. That was like one of our first episodes. I think currently it is maybe our first episode. We did Harambe. Like, we've done some other zoo episodes. And RIP. Yeah, RIP. But the thing that's really important to think about when you're talking about animals in a zoo is that they're not necessarily more dangerous, but what they are is really

accustomed to a certain routine. And when there's any kind of break in that routine, it's very enticing to them because it's something new. So if you're like if you're an Asiatic Black Bear, and you're in this zoo in India, you probably are doing the exact same thing every single day. You're in the exact same area, you have the exact same kind of, like, enrichment and food and everything. And when suddenly there's this, like, new thing in your enclosure, a new attractant, a new thing to, you know, interact with,

it can just trigger something in them. And that's why there are actually, like, quite a few zoo incidents, especially with bears, because bears are inherently curious. So since 1990 and just the U.S., and I think there's much, like many more of these things that happen outside of the U.S., because often zoo standards aren't quite as stringent, six people have died, 65 people have been injured, and 29 bears have been killed due to incidents that happened in captivity. That's just the U.S., and that's just since 1990. So this does happen, and it's really important to remember, if you do work in a zoo, don't ever get complacent because, these animals will take advantage of that as quickly as possible. Well, another thing with bears, too, is, like, one of their main options is always run away.

And in the zoo, they don't really have that option. And, you know, these two, like, had a relationship. Like, he had worked with this bear for three years. So I don't think it ever saw him as a threat. But I think it just finally was, like, there's nothing between us. I can get him, you know? And I don't think it had any animosity toward him. Like, there's no evidence that he mistreated the bear.

I think it was just that it had this novel experience that it got to have. And so it took advantage of it. Anyway, you know, our hearts go out to his family, to anyone else that maybe saw this. But again, if you work in a zoo or if you're ever at a zoo where something happens, just make sure that, you know, you aren't complacent. This episode is brought to you by Netflix.

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I mean, our subscribers will know this for sure, but I have a trend going right now that I didn't really want to give up. So I'm going to steal another story from Mike. This time I at least stole it before he even told it, though. Yeah, it's fair. I was just like, hey, Mike, I'm going to do that one. I've done that to him before, too. Yeah. All right, let's hear it.

Yeah, so this takes place in the northern territory of Australia, and it's a cattle producer named Colin Deverex. Devereux. And, oh, yeah, you're right. Devereux. A lot of people want to get that. Devereux, yeah. Detroiters.

Yeah. Okay. So this is from ABC News. So Collins in his mid-60s. I mean, I think he works quite a bit of land in this area where he's working. And he mainly just has to do with fixing fencing. So. I'm picturing Hugh Jackman in the movie, Australia.

Is that right? That's perfect. I mean, picture Hugh Jackman in like 10 years from now. Okay, easy. Because he's mid-60s. So this happened in October last month, and he's just walking along the fence near the Phenis River. And he stops along something, I guess this is an Australian word, I think, called a Billabong. Have you guys heard of that?

Yes. I've heard of the company. I didn't know. A billabong's like... Do you want to describe what it is? It's somewhere in between like a pond and a lake. It's like a body of water that's small and calm and often home to crocodiles in part of the country. Interesting you would say that.

So Colin notices some fish swimming in the middle of this billowong. And I think he's more cat than dog, right? So he sees these fish and he just is like a magnet. Like a bug to a light. Yeah. He's like, I'm going to just walk in there and look at these fish closer. All right. So he takes a few steps in and then West, what animal do you think's waiting in there for?

A rock. A saltwater crock. If you're an Australian, what would you say that lives out on the land? What would you say if a croc bit you on the leg? Crikey. He said, it took a big grab and he shook me like a rag doll and took off back in into the water pulling me in. Yeah.

So this crox got like a lot of his leg. He's yelling, cricky, but that doesn't help at all. And it's pulling him into the water. So what do you do? You got to start just like probably kicking the crock, doing whatever you can to get away. So he kicks it in the ribs, nothing happens.

Yeah. But he's in an awkward position. Mike, you've read this. What would you do? I'd find a really sensitive part of his body and bite him back. What part, Wes, what part would you buy? Do you think crocodiles really have sensitive areas, West? If I tried to bite him, if I was going to bite him, I'd bite him on his eye.

I'd try and bite his eye out. So that's your advice if you got your leg in a crox mic? My, my advice is not to get your leg in a crox mouth ever, because this is one of those, like, you don't have any good options scenarios. But, yeah. If you got nothing left, you might as well just go full feral and bite its eye. Well, as Wes, our wildlife biologist says, if you got your leg in a crock's mouth, you should bite its eyelid, which is exactly what Colin did. He did?

Yeah. Wow. He said, I was in such an awkward position, but by accident my teeth caught his eyelid. I think he was just going crazy. He was like kicking and punching and just trying to bite because he said it was by accident. It's a crazy accidental bite. Yeah, so lucky. Like, where were you trying to bite him?

Yeah, that's interesting. It was pretty thick, like holding onto leather, but I jerked back on the eyelid and he let go. Oh, man. It's crazy. Yeah, that is crazy. And this crock was 3.2 meters, so that's, like, around 10 feet. Pretty big, not giant, you know.

That's big, though. It's big enough. Yeah. So he bites its eyelid, pulls back. Like it's like a piece of meat. And then the crock lets go. He says that he leapt away with great steps to where his car was. And the croc chased him for about four meters, but then stopped.

Great steps, huh? Yeah, great steps for mankind. He got a towel, some rope to strap up his leg and stopped the bleeding. And then his brother drove him to the hospital. So his brother was there. Did I, I never. No, I just thought he was. alone like what was his brother doing he was alone but i think they're like both out in the same area

because his brother doesn't come up in the story until he gets back to the car got it yeah maybe his brother's just like the happen to be the uber driver i don't know okay didn't say all right um the biggest problem with the whole attack he says was how bad the bacteria from the wound was because this water like you were saying was it's kind of like a pond and he said his full of goose shit duck shit and these all got into the crocodile teeth marks yeah that's not a good combo is it you don't want shit in your rooms no no unless it's your own then not even that Jeff I've tried to tell you this you shouldn't even put that not even two molecules oh and you're I'm thinking P yeah you don't want you don't want P in there either pal but that's better for sure

So he went to the hospital. It took him like a month to recover. And he said that they had to flush out the wounds for 10 straight days. When the article came out, they were hopeful that he'd be able to walk out of the hospital. So like there was no update on that, unfortunately. Yeah. It came out November 7th. But he says that he's going to maybe look into getting a new type of job now because it made him really reflect on his life.

Yeah. He said, I've been walking around that swamp country for too long fixing fences and living life, but it's opened my eyes. Yeah, he opened the alligator's eyes. Yeah. Hey, oh, good job, life. You know, I kind of wonder, like, we've talked about this a little bit already, but we've got to be on the cusp of where, like, shaking like a rag doll doesn't make sense to anyone anymore, right? Like, we have to be close to that to where there's, like, going to be a generation that's just like, what's. the hell does that even mean what is a rag doll i think i know what it is but i'm not even not a hundred percent sure yeah i think it's just a doll kind of made out of a rag yeah so it just seems like floppy and you could shake it really easy but like you know what i mean i just that one might stand out all right here's a question for you guys on the on the same line of thinking does the phrase as the crow flies

make any sense to you yeah because me and my friends got in a big argument about whether that was like an old-timey thing that is completely out of use or whether that's like a useful phrase. And I use a lot, but apparently a lot of people think that's like an old prospectory thing to say as the crow flies. Oh, interesting. Yeah. I think that's a good one. What do you think, Mike?

Just means it's like a straight line to the destination. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but can you infer that from that saying alone or is that just because you know already? Well, that was the fight. Yeah. Like, I think I figured that one out on my own. The one I'm still working through is I screwed the pooch.

Because it's kind of like an accidental thing. Yeah. It's like, who accidentally screws their dog? You know? Yeah. It's like, oh, I messed up. Yeah. It's like, what?

How did that phrase start? Sure. Well, speaking of screwing, do you want to go on to my next story? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll get off the crow thing. Okay. I'm going to play Switzerland on that one, Wes. All right.

It's up for. Well, let me just ask you this. Really quick. If I were to say that, would you think that it sounds old-timey? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right. So my story. You ready? Yes. This one's called The Twin Snakes. I just did that because it was a Metal Gear Solid reference. I don't get to make those too often. It doesn't really have much bearing on the story, but you'll see. Yeah, that is funny. Australian, we're back in Australia. Australian adult film star, Danny DeBello, so she's a porn actress.

I was going to talk about this one, too. You stole one for me, even though I didn't tell you. you about it. Oh, what the heck. Do you want to take it? No, no, you do it, but I got stuff to talk about once you're done. Okay. I'm going to look her up real quick. I was going to share my screen the little little bit of their content. Okay, so Australian adult film star Danny Debello and her friend had just finished filming some steamy content together when things reportedly went from sexy. Like Wes wouldn't shut up about at the start of the episode kind of stuff. Exactly, that kind of sexy stuff. Well, maybe it's still, so it turned from sexy to scary, or maybe still sexy depending on who you ask. But on an Instagram video she posted later, she outlined the day's events as follows.

When the two of them finished shooting their scene together, the guy hopped in the shower, but not before mentioning to Danny that he'd love to hold Betty, Danny's eight-foot-long Centralian carpet python. So he finished washing up, and as he was getting out of the shower, Danny placed the snake around his neck. And as she turned around to go get washed up herself, she was stopped dead in her tracks by a horrified scream. There's some more biting going on in this one, Jeff. Where do you think this snake bit this guy? This is where the title of this segment comes into play a little.

He's naked in the shower? Yeah, he just got out of the shower, naked and clean. Well, I mean, I don't know. I'll solve it for you, Jeff. His wiener. He got bid on his wiener. I was trying to say, though, like, he gave Danny his python, so then her python. Nice.

Jeff's, just picture that meme of all the, like, mathematical equations running by Jeff's head. I almost told it up. I was getting close. Yeah. No, I was just going to say the snake was probably just like, well, I saw her doing it to you like 10 minutes ago. A little python on python action. Exactly. What was your title for this segment?

The twin snakes. Mine was. Python Pecks porn partner's penis. Mm, alliteration. Yeah, that's good too. Yeah. We might use that one when we're titling the episode. All right.

So the snake, who Danny, she was saying that she had never had an issue with the snake biting or anything dangerous like this until this day, only let go of this dude's junk after several minutes of struggling. So as soon as they got Betty off, Danny rushed to put her back into her enclosure, and then they got to work. At least she did. I don't know if the dude, like, stuck around and helped her clean up the scene, but there was just blood everywhere. Oh, damn.

I guess, like, if you're naked, your penis probably looks the most like a meal to a snake, like a mouse or something. What I was going to say... Those little pink mice they feed them or something. Yeah. What I was going to say is, like, I have a python, a ball python, and I feed it frozen mice. And to get him enticed by these mice, I, like, heat them up with a blow dryer so they're nice and warm. because it has to be warmer than room temperature for him to really notice it. So if there's like something that's like especially warm on your body that maybe has like a lot of blood pulsing to it and is like very warm,

that would be something the snake would naturally be attracted to and maybe think his prey. So if he was still, you know, fully torqued or something at this point and like there's that. Did it say, Mike? It didn't. But like I would do wonder if it just thought it was like a warm mouth. house and it went for it, you know? Yeah. Can I, can I, can I, oh, sorry, once you're done, I want to.

No, no, no, no, you go first. So I'm going to, I'm going to finish this up and then you can talk forever. I'll never stop you ever again. So Danny also knew to check the dude's dick for teeth, Python teeth, because apparently like their teeth can break off and stay wherever they were bitten. So, like, she was inspecting the wean and then they put like some anti-bacterial cream on it like this, probably. Sorry, I messed myself in a tricking off motion as he said that.

And, quote, made it all nice again, is what they said. And then she told him that he should probably go to the hospital for a tetanus shot. So you would think that the guy after that would probably not be super keen on coming back over to her place, right? Well, he texted her afterwards and was like, hey, I got my tetanus shop. I can't wait to come back for round two. And what round two is referring to, I'm not sure. They didn't make it clear. But she's like, you want my python to bite your dick again?

Now he's got a three-headed month. All right, really quick. I just, I need to interject something here. And like, this is just me putting on my Sherlock Holmes cap for a second. I'm going to, like, be a little dubious about this story. Because I did, I have found this one too, and I saw, like, Every single article was just based off of like a TikTok or an Instagram post that she did about this event. And like I'm not pointing any fingers here and I'm not.

This has nothing to do with the fact that she's a sex work or anything. You know, whatever. I don't care that that's her profession. But I do, I did notice that like her main thing I think is only fans. And this would seem like a really good way to get attention on yourself if you're trying to promote your only fans. Like coming up with a story like this. And the reason that I think it might be fabricated is there's like no aftermath pictures. There's no pictures of blood.

He's not telling his story anywhere. Yeah. Like if I had someone over that got bit by my Python and I said there was blood everywhere, I would at the very least take a photo of the blood on the ground or something. And I just couldn't find any evidence anywhere that this actually happened. And this is one of those few ones where it's like the amount of attention. she got from this story directly benefits her business. So I kind of struggle with this one.

I'm not sure if this is true. I'm just going to put my seeds of doubt into this story. Ew, come on. You don't need to say it like that. It's a big python too. I watched the video. It's a big carpet python. If it really bit his dick,

he would be in a lot of trouble. They have those backwards needle-shaped teeth. If it latched on, it would do a lot of It wouldn't be like a ha ha cheeky. You should get a tetanus shot. I'll be back in a week kind of thing. It would be like massive damage. So I don't know.

I have a hard time with this one. I do. Sure. It is suspicious that, I mean, the dude may have just wanted to protect his identity, but there's no information about him at all. Yeah. And plus someone who is on their phone making content probably would have more

photographic evidence. But we'll see. We'll see as the story develops. Okay. All right. Let's do another story. Is it my turn? It's my turn.

Yeah. Govils. Okay. Okay. Well, we're going to do orcas be revolting because those orcas are back at it again. They've sunk another boat in the strait of Gibraltar. So we've talked about this in the past. But essentially, for a couple years now, orcas have been ramming boats in kind of the

Iberian coast near Portugal, Morocco. They've been attacking boats. And what they usually do is break the rudder off of those boats. often boats managed to escape these orca incidents but every once in a while they managed to sink a boat and they just sunk their fourth boat so they had a turkey now they have four in a row and they did it on hallow yeah they did it on halloween day no less so good for that the grasi mama was a small yacht owned by a polish cruise company in the afternoon at october 31st the crew and passengers were enjoying a beautiful day off the coast of Morocco, when suddenly a pot of orcas appeared and

started ramming the rudder of the boat. They continued to hit the rudder for about 45 minutes until it broke off. That allowed water to enter the hole of the yacht, and the panic crew radioed for help, port tugboats and the Moroccan Navy worked together to try and bring this damage boat back into port at Tangier Med, but the ship ultimately sank near the entrance of the port. All of the crew and passengers were safely rescued, but the ocean claimed the Gratzi Mama, and the orcas had another rudder to add to their growing collection. Poland can't catch a break. I was picturing.

You know in Little Mermaid when she has like that cave with all her collections, I was picturing just like an orca with a cave just full of yacht rudders, and it's just like, look at this, isn't it neat? Or a necklace with a propeller on it, like we do a shark teeth. That would be cool for orcas. All right, well, we've talked about these incidents quite a bit, but I think there still are a lot of questions. We still get questions from listeners about this, about why this is happening. The most common theory that was put out there at the beginning was that there's this one orca who was traumatized.

Her name was White Gladys and that she was leading this revolution against boats. That's pretty much been debunked, not that many people believe this anymore. But to be honest, no one totally knows what's going on. I really liked one of the articles I read today was from Smithsonian Magazine, and they quoted this guy, Andrew W. Trites. He's the director of marine mammal researcher, marine mammal research at the University of British Columbia. And what he said was,

my idea or what anyone would give is informed speculation. It is total mystery and unprecedented, which I think is great. If you're talking about animal behavior, you always should say, even if you've tested something, it's still speculation. Like it's still a hypothesis because we can't talk to animals.

Like we can't ask an animal like why did you do that? That's impossible for us to know. So like when we tell a story of a grizzly bear mom with cubs that attacks someone and then runs away immediately, for me as a bear scientist, a bear biologist, I can say, okay, that bear was trying to neutralize a threat and then get away with her cubs. But can I say that 100% is what happened? no because I can't say hey why did you do that to that bear you know like it could be something else it just could be and we have to accept that we never exactly know um with humans too

yeah but with humans you can ask them they could be lying they could be lying yeah yeah but you ever tried asking a bear if you watch survivor no I haven't I do watch survivor yes they lie every episode okay fair enough um but they're happy been a lot of guesses. I trust an orca before someone on survival. You would trust their answer. So if you asked an orca something and it just went to you, you would trust that more than what someone on Survivor says to you in like English. That's what I'm saying. Okay. So we have talked a little bit about the guesses behind this behavior on the show already. And these guesses rely on data from the incidents, existing knowledge about orca behavior.

And I think for most mammal, like marine mammal scientists or cetacean researchers, the general consensus is that these orcas are playing with the rudders of the boat. Like that's what most people are saying now. And when you think about it, it would be kind of fun to like, if there's something on a boat that you just repeatedly ram and ram and ram and then finally it like snaps off, that would be a kind of fun game. if you learn that like you can break the specific part of the boat off if you just keep hitting it and it's like a part that kind of sticks out from the rest of the boat and so a lot of scientists just think this is a trend and that one day it might just stop but for now it's ongoing and it's kind of interesting you know yeah it's fun there's one other quote i read from a different researcher who said you know they are not necessarily trying to destroy these boats they're trying to pop the rudder off Yes, but if a 7,000 pound animal wanted to destroy a boat, it could do it much quicker than the way that they're doing it.

They could literally just ram their head through the hole or they could jump up in the air and land on the boat and smash it. They could do it. Orca's, like, get a hundred Orcas to all swim in a big circle, make a whirlpool suck the boat down. Yeah, I mean, you might be joking about that, Jeff, but they do that kind of shit with seals. Orcas coordinate attacks on seals. Like they make a wave that washes a seal off of an iceberg so that they can eat it. These are smart animals. So they could do that, not the whirlpool maybe, but they could make a wave to like knock the boat over.

I'm not. Yeah. They could do the whirlpool for sure. Anyway, I just think they're tired of capitalism and they just want to sink yachts. That's what I think's going on. Anyways. Sure. All right.

That's my story. All right. Well, I mean, are you guys willing to just let me off the leash for a bit? Yeah, dude, get off the leash. All right, well, I got a bunch of stuff then. Freak off a leash. So, October 22nd, this time, like, I feel like these stories, we get real sad ones because it's just people that just recently died a lot of the time.

So I tried to go funny or happier this time, or just kind of, like, weird. October 22nd, a runaway tortoise that went missing for more than three years was found crossing a busy road five miles away from its original home in in florida scolkata's the type of tortoise yeah it's an African skulcata tortuus you saw that one no but I just saw you trying to sound that word out and I know what you were doing well I was thinking is the place in Florida so that's why I stopped myself yeah five miles in three years huh cruising yeah it's in kind of bad shape but I mean it's kind of crazy that a tortoise can just survive that long after being domestic.

Did it assume a new identity have like Groucho marks, glasses, and a mustache and like working behind the register or something? No. It's not, okay. It wasn't living a new life. It just had a new family and it's like, no, I didn't. It's like, no, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not the guy.

I guess those tortoises are pretty good at escaping, like digging holes and tall fences and Like a quick warning to people out there that are thinking about getting a tortoise that grows into one of these really big species. Skolkata tortoises, and I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that, right? They grow massive, and they can actually break through concrete walls. They can do tons of damage to your yard. They are... Not that X-Man. Yeah, they're actually, they can be extremely destructive.

Juggernaut. So this isn't an animal you want to get if you're not ready for it. Yeah, it is kind of like juggernaut. Two dogs destroy cars at a Texas dealership and caused up to $350,000 in damage. Wow. On November 25th, they're just tearing off the bumpers. This dogs are a bander. Yeah, vandalism.

In Australia, this guy had magpies that were stealing his cat food and, like, you know, don't have outdoor cats, but whatever, he had one. Yeah. And these magpies were stealing the cat food. So he made a paper machet owl to try to scare the magpies away. And they ended up like coming up and like worshiping yowl the magpies did. Worshiping it? What? Yeah.

So I'm going to send you guys a picture of what was going on. So yeah, it basically became these magpies god. I don't think that's true. But I'll look at it. Well, that was the joke on TikTok. Oh, they were just like staring at it. It's all grouped up. Someone said it's probably just them like checking it out and seeing if it was like a threat or not. But he just got like way more magpies gathering up by this like stupid looking owl.

That's a very interesting owl sculpture. So bad. That's kind of funny. You decided to just make one instead of buying a $10 plushy on Amazon or something. Or like the little like. Like who has paper machet? He had like a fifth grader who was in arts and crafts, I guess. Tasmanian woman had to call into her office and let him know that she couldn't come into work because a 600-kilogram elephant seal named Neil the Seal was blocking her car on November 14th. Wow. Yes.

It's a good reason. It's just kind of funny. And, like, Wes, you worked with elephant seals a little, right? With northern elephant seals. Where do you, if you're going to try. track them, where do you put the antenna? Right on the top of their head. This one had one and it was really funny.

Really? Was it right on its head? Yeah. You literally... Share a picture on the Instagram for that. Like the elephant seal researchers I worked with, they literally glue it to the top of their heads. And then the glue over time just breaks down.

And when it does, like they can... They'll recapture the seal and pull off the thing. But it's kind of crazy. One of the weirder, like, tagging. How tall is the tag antenna thing? Not that tall. Like, it's just got an antenna that's probably, I don't know, six inches tall that goes up.

But we were actually, we were putting oceanographic measuring equipment on them so that they could, like, take salinity levels and stuff when they dove. Oh, that's cool. It was pretty cool. Yeah. This one looked like the aliens in Toy Story. Okay.

Just had, like, an antenna straight on his head. But so she, Amber, like, sent pictures into the, the office and they all had a laugh about it. And then she called a wildlife expert and the wildlife expert told her there's little hope of tempting kneel away from her car with food. He probably, this is a direct quote, he probably won't eat anything because when he comes on to land, he'll be up here for about three to four weeks. Yeah.

And he usually uses that for hibernation. So if I heard that, I'd be like, wait. So I'm just stuck with the seal. But I guess like a few hours later, Neil went back towards the beach. Good for him. All right. There's a coyotes be wilding. This one's not super interesting, but I want to do coyotes.

Actually, I'm going to do a category because I went off on the categories today. So I'm going to do one category now. Okay. So favorite pop culture army training. Oh, we're just getting right into it. Yeah. I'm going to say Starship Troopers, the movie Starship Troopers, where the movie Starship Troopers, where they like go to the weird base and they're like the guy gets his hand shot and then

is in the little recovery thing and they all shower together and I don't know I like football scenes are great yeah that's more in like high school but when they go to boot camp it's just kind of a fun scene and then Johnny Rico wants to quit but then he comes back because the bugs blow up Buenos Aires where he lives for some reason anyway it's a great great movie great scene I'm gonna go just with the movie major pain. I know it's not really military. I'll just pick that, yeah. But that movie came out.

That's my pick as well. At the perfect time for us. Like we were, that was the perfect humor at that age. Oh, yeah, that's great. Yeah. I'll go just like the,

when he shaves everyone's head and the dog. That's great. We should watch that. We'll watch it after our Lord of the Rings marathon. So I'm just going to do the headline really for this, but there's six soldiers attacked by coyotes. They were national.

guardsmen in Louisiana and there's six of them attacked which is kind of crazy. That is crazy. Their guns just have blanks so they like didn't actually have weapons to protect themselves. Okay, I have two more real quick ones that I got sent from listeners on Instagram actually just today. All right. So one, this was from the Lady Junebug sent us this. a man finds spider eggs in his toe while on a cruise. Nice.

So he's in France, and a wolf spider bit his, like, toe, and then, like, his toe was just all red, and he had to, like, go to the ship's doctor to get it checked out. And the medical team cut open Blake's toe letting out pus. The fluid reportedly looked like it contained leaves, which turned out to be spider eggs. Oh, ew. Come on, dude.

Yeah, crazy, right? Probably the worst thing could happen to you on a cruise. Yeah. That's why I don't go on cruises. I could be wrong about this, but I don't feel like spiders can inject eggs when they bite. So it must have, there must have been like some other point where this spider laid eggs in him. Yeah. I don't want to get people the wrong idea.

Like if a spider bites you, you're not going to have eggs in you. No. It must have like, clearing that up. Yeah, laid eggs on him. Yeah. Okay. And then this one was from Hannah Borsch.

So Moses Lake Elementary School on November 22nd, they shut down the entire school for a mountain lion that was on the school grounds. And it turned out that it was just a fat-ass cat eating a rat. Those kids got out of school, though. That's nice. Yeah. Yeah. Well, good for them. Padiday presents in the red corner the undisputed, undefeated weed whacker guys. Champion of hurling grass and pollen everywhere.

And in the blue corner, the challenger, extra strength, Hannity! Eye drops and work all day to prevent the release of histamines that cause itchy allergy eyes. And the winner, by knockout, is Padaday. At a day. Bring it on. All right. Mike, you got another story for us? I do. This is going to be, I'm going to get through this one pretty quick. Thanks for bringing up the mood, Jeff, because I have kind of a sad one. So I'm glad we can balance things out a little bit.

I got a happy one after yours. Oh, great. Sandwich. I'm the sad sandwich. You always are. The meat of the sad sandwich. I should start putting that on my business cards. I should make business cards so I can put that on them because I like it so much. I don't have business cards, personally. So in the afternoon of a late October day,

a woman was spending time in the yard for a property in the Pine Lake community of the Hualapai Mountains in Arizona. She had a big bucket of corn nearby, which may have been what led an elk to come onto her property, but while the specifics of that day's events aren't known, we do know that the encounter took a turn for the violent. So, according to the husband, he returned home around 6 p.m.,

and he found his wife on the ground, in the backyard with entries consistent of being trampled by an elk. And he also observed that big old bucket of corn tipped over and spilled all over the place. Ah. Yeah. The corn. The corn. Oh, the corn.

I think this is like dried corn that you would like feed to animals. Right. Because she was feeding these elk. Yeah, that's, you're right. You think she's feeding the elk? That's what the story has led me to believe as well. So I'll get to the end of it. And we can explore that further.

So again, while there weren't any witnesses to the, event. In Arizona game and fish department officer later observed multiple elk tracks in the yard. And just what, like, one thing about elk is like, I don't see them all that often. But whenever I do, I'm always shocked at how huge they are. They're massive. They're so big. And like, I don't know, I always kind of conflate deer and elk together, but it's not the same at all. Elk are like massive. What do they, how big do they get? Like seven, 800 pounds? Yeah. When I lived in, I'm not sure, I don't want to put a number on it, but that's, yeah, in that, That range.

That's like the eighth of a bus. Yeah. Probably. Yeah, it's probably a lot less than that. But when I lived in Yellowstone during the elk rut season, I was like right in the middle of it. And sometimes I'd walk out my door and there was this big bowl that was like rutting right there. And once he saw me and we made eye contact and he charged me and I just got in my door in time. I have a video of it.

And it was scary. They're not a small animal. Like you really could get messed up by him. it's not a surprise to me that this went the way it did did it get your corn uh it didn't get my corn my corn i didn't i would get a lot of trouble had i fed the elk and yellowstone and i do yeah i'm really quick mike if i can interject at this point in this story i'd love you too i think the fact that she had a bucket of corn means that she was feeding something this is a person who didn't survive this incident and oh you obviously don't deserve to die because you like fed an elk you know or

any other animal. Like, it's just not, that's not like how we do things here. We don't pass those kind of judgments for sure. But I do think when you do feed an animal like an elk, you do change its behavior. And you do make it much less, they're much more unpredictable when you're feeding them. And this isn't typical behavior for an elk. An elk in the rut might trample someone or an elk defending a calf might trample someone. But this was, when did this happen again? This is like late October. Yeah, so the rut should be over and then there wouldn't be protecting a calf either. That's usually like late spring. So really, I do think this was probably somewhat related to the feeding. But again, we're not going to say this is like this woman's fault because she lost her life and that's

way too heavy of a price to pay for just making a simple mistake of feeding a wild animal. Yeah, I mean, you basically covered everything I was going to want to talk about. So, okay. That elk though, You were around in Yellowstone. Didn't it set like a world record for a headbutting cars? That was another one. So the one that charged me, its name was 24, because it had a tag and it was number 24. But there was an elk. Yeah, it was a huge Jack Bauer fan.

There was an elk a few years ago they named Touchdown that rammed like 50-something cars in one day. That was a sad story, Mike. Let's end it on a slightly lighter note. This one is about a kangaroo assassin. Mike, you should tell the story once West starts this time since he did that the both years. Yeah, I didn't do that too. I'll try. Did I?

Yeah, he did. You told the elk one and the snake one. I did not. I'm the wildlife biologist here. I have to interject the, like, important information. You did politely commandeer the conversation for the elk, so I'll give you that. That's what I'm, the porn one I wasn't trying to interrupt you. I just did a lot of extra research on that one.

No, I get it. No, I'm glad you did. Because you always, you talk about these things with more information and authority than I could ever. I mean, that's my role on the podcast, guys. All right. Yep. So this one's about Mick Maloney. He's a former police officer in Victoria, Australia.

He's walking his dog near the Murray River in southeastern Australia on October 15th. We're really going hard on Australia's stories this time around. All right. The trail along the river is one of his favorite. places to take his dogs, but as he walked alongside the river that day, he realized his dogs were being much quieter than normal and not entering the water. So he stops and looked around, and he realized he couldn't see his dog Huchy, and Huchy was a medium-sized Akita. So then Mick looks further, and Mick, I kind of picture all Australians being named Mick, so I'm

really glad this guy was named Mick, but he looked further out into the water. Wasn't Crocodile Dundee's name Mick? I think it was, anyway. I thought is Dundee. No, Mick Dundee is his name. He looks further out into the water, and he sees a large gray kangaroo chest deep in the water, and it's holding its arms underwater and staring calmly at him, which he thought was a little weird.

Suddenly, Hatchy surfaces in the kangaroo's arm, and the dog was gasping for breath and yelping, struggling to, like, stay above the water while the kangaroo was holding it underwater. And, like, there's videos of this, and this kangaroo looks so calm. It looks like an assassin that's like drowning someone. Like it looks very weird. So it's really apparent to Mick that this kangaroo is trying to drown his dog

and that he's going to have to intervene. So he opens his phone or opens, what is this, 2010? He pulls his phone out of his pocket, starts recording, walks into the water and tells the kangaroo that he's going to punch its front head in. And the kangaroo continues to stare at them and hold on to Hutchie. and then when he gets close, he says, unfazed. Yeah, and Mick is like pretty jockey at this point. He is kind of laughing as he's approaching this kangaroo, which I thought was impressive.

But he says, let go of my dog. He swings at the kangaroo. And when he does that, the kangaroo does let go of his dog, but it lashes out at Mick. And it hits his phone out of his hand. His phone goes in the water. You hear like a little bit of struggling, and then you see the phone come out of the water. Mick picks it out of the water and the kangaroo is let go of Hutchie. Mick and Hutchie are leaving the water.

They're kind of, he's laughing. He splashes the kangaroo, kind of a dick move again. And the kangaroo's just kind of standing there, but like all puffed up. Like his chest is puffed up. It looks like one of those ripped kangaroos. And in my opinion, kangaroo was the clear victor here, even though it let go of the dog, like the two of them had to leave and the kangaroo held its ground. It looks like Alexander Scarsguard as a kangaroo.

Yeah, sure. Yeah. Broad chest, big old traps. About that amount of, like, pretty shredded. Yeah. Pretty big. Anyway, it was a pretty interesting video, interesting story. We should play the audio right here.

I'm going to punch your fucking heading. Look at my dog. Mick Maloney slapped the kangaroo. The kangaroo smacked his phone into the river, but released the dog. Okay. This Australian. I really want to talk about this quickly about what might have been happening here. So I read up a bit on kangaroo behavior.

We've done a kangaroo episode. And we did talk about how when kangaroos engage, when they're fighting something, their first defense is often to kick. But do you guys remember what the other thing they often do when they're fighting? Choke you underwater. No. They'll actually like grab you and pull you in. Like they grab you with their forearms.

and they do like a hold, you know? And they have really strong claws, and then as they're holding you, they'll kick you some more. But in the water, a kangaroo can't really kick. So the idea here probably what happened is that the dog scared the kangaroo into the water. They'll often go in the water to escape predators.

And then the dog followed it into the water. And then it did what it, like it can't really kick in the water so its next line of defense is grabbing onto this dog. So it's not that it was like trying to drown. the dog. It's that the act of it grabbing onto the dog and holding it was pulling the dog underwater. So that's most likely what was happening here. It's not like this is a strategy of theirs to like drown a potential predator, but they actually have done that to a number of dogs. A number of dogs have been drowned by kangaroos because of this same kind of set of circumstances.

That's what's going on. I'm sorry to that kangaroo that you had such a weird day. Mick, I'm glad you and Huchy made it out of this okay. All right. Sorry, kangaroo. Okay, that's all I got. I think you're all right, though. You're great at protecting your data, but lots of places could still expose

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In fact, we're so confident restoration is guaranteed, pour your money back. Isn't it nice to have someone like that on your side? Save up to 40% your first year at LifeLock.com slash Spotify. Terms apply. All right. Time for some categories.

And mainly I just kind of win off again. Let me back off that leash. I want to talk about the genesis to these categories. I texted Jeff and I was like, hey, maybe we should do some Lord of the Rings categories because we're going to be watching Lord of the Rings. And then me and Mike just got like, 20 texts of matchups between all these different universes and stuff. So here we go.

Well, I said that I could take the lead on categories today. And you said, okay, I was going to do like a Lord of the Rings cage match. Yeah. And then my brain just started spinning. Yeah. There's like a hundred orcas in my brain just making a whirlpool. Okay. So, I mean, this is the time of year that we do our Lord of the Rings marathon.

But I feel like this is also the time of year where like a lot of people, including myself a lot of the time, are watching Harry Potter, right? Yeah, sure. I'll probably watch them. So instead of doing just like a Lord of the Rings cage match, Wes's dumb idea, I did a combination, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings cage match and other things. Way cooler title, right? Yeah, very cool. Yeah, why not have a streamlined easy to do? category. Let's make it, let's do Calvin Ball on this. Yeah, I didn't have anything else to do tonight.

All right, so I have too many for us to each answer, each one, so we're going to like take turns. Okay. Mike, I want to start with you. Okay. So we're going to switch Gandalf and Dumbledore. What changes? So like their role is to protect, Dumbledore's protecting Frodo and Gandalf is protecting Harry. Right. So I think honestly, Dumbledore and Gandalf's spot doesn't hurt too much because Gandalf just kind of like sets people off on their way and lets them take care of it. Because like he needs to stay a little bit removed because he's whatever the my are. I don't know, Wes, you can talk about that. But Gandalf and Dumbledore's position changes everything. Voldemort's not set in foot inside of Hogwarts. Gandalf's like on top of his stuff. Dumbledore is like a senile old man who has like an old man who has like an old man who has like an old man. 11-year-old boy running all of his errands for him. Yeah. I think he really let down all of his pupils and basically the world at large for being so negligent.

Yeah. I also feel like when they're doing like the House Cup and they're like, hey, who wins? Gandalf's just like, oh, what are you even talking about? Like, he doesn't even care. He'll be like slithering one day after. Yeah, slithermost points. Yeah. I don't know.

Gandalf was a little negligent. Didn't make it to the inn, kind of just left Frodo with the ring for years. Yeah, sure. That's your answer to do. Right. Wes. Yes. Elijah Wood versus Daniel Radcliffe just in a cage match.

Yeah, I think, you know, I've met Elijah Wood. We're about the same stature, me and him. Daniel Radcliffe sometimes can be pretty ripped. Like, I've seen some movies with him recently where he's, like, kind of jacked. And he also has, like, a more chaotic energy to him. I think of all the big child stars that had just like a series that totally set them up financially for the rest of their lives where they'd never have to act again if they didn't want to. He made the best choices afterward where he just did like really quirky weird movies. And I kind of just really like, I like both these actors a lot, but I think I'm giving the edge to Daniel, even though he's like 5'2 or however short he is.

It's a good fight. Yeah, it is. They're both short, short kings like me. I heard Daniel say, or I've heard them both say that people will, like, confuse them. Yeah, I could see that. They'll be like, hey, you're Harry Potter to Elijah Wood. Oh, yeah. Weird.

All right, I'll do this one. So switch Hermione, Ron, and Harry with Frodo Sam, Mary, and Pippin. What happens differently? So I think that Hermione, Ron, and Harry can use that. invisibility cloak to get to Mordor pretty easily because they can go invisible without the eye seeing them. That's a good point. But Frodo and Sam both had pretty pure hearts and Frodo definitely needed Sam's help,

even though I'd give most of the credit to Frodo unlike some people. I don't trust Ron with the ring for like one second. You leave Ron back in the shire. I think Hermione is the only one that could wear the ring for more than like a few days without immediately turning bad. That's true. Yeah. Does Harry get his broom?

Ooh, that's a good point. Because the broom and the invisibility cloak is like slam dunk. They're winning. Yeah. And then the Hobbits, if like Voldemort killed Frodo's parents and how it just has to kill Frodo, you know, I kind of think Frodo still figures it out. Yeah. I think Frodo figures it out.

We'd have Sam's help. Imagine how many house points people. Pippin loses Gryffindor, though. Yeah, that's true. Oh, Pippin's a Hufflepuff, for sure. I think Harry puts the ring on way too quick. So even if he's wearing the invisibility cloak and on the broom, Soron sees him and gets him.

Yeah. I don't think they do it. He always want to be like the star quidditch player and stuff. He has too much. Yeah, that's a good point. All right, Mike. So Legulus versus Snape cage match. We'll do like Hunger Games cage match, you know, like a huge, huge arena.

I chose them because Legolas never talks to Frodo the entire Lord of the Rings movies once. This is a good matchup. And Snape's kind of a dick to Harry, so that's why they're going to, but they both kind of help the other person still. Doesn't Legless say you have my bow? And my bow is the one thing he says to him. Yeah, he kind of says it to like the whole group, though. Yeah, he says it to Frodo though. Okay.

I think Snape's going to drink one of those potions. that turns him into someone else, and he's going to turn him into the forest elf lord. And Legless is not going to want to shoot that guy. Thrandewil, his dad? Yeah, there it is. That's Legless's dad is the forest elf? Yeah, the one in the Hobbit movies.

Oh, man. He's cool. Lee Pace. He is cool. Yeah, that's the best casting, I think, they've ever done in any of those movies. Besides Martin Freeman is Bilbo, maybe. All the casting's perfect.

What am I talking about? All right, Wes. Yeah. Both the right-hand man. Voldemort's right-hand man, Peter Pedigrew, versus the mouth of Sauron. That's a good question. The mouth of Sauron seems very intimidating and impressive,

but he immediately gets his head cut off by Eric Gron. So Peter Pettigrew was willing to, like, live as a rat for, like, who knows how long just to, like, go back to Voldemort. He's tenacious. So I think I'm going with Peter Pedigrew on this one, even though I don't want to. I'm going with Peter Pedigrew. I like it. Surprise pick, but I like it.

All right, Dobby the House Elf versus Gollum, but Gollum with the ring. I'll do this one. I mean, Dobby's got magic and can kind of like teleport and do little magic poofs. Yeah. But, like, Gollum's a killer. Yeah. He's a straight-up savage. That's a good point of gold.

Just kills Frodo without the ring. He's, he's hardcore. Yeah, I mean, I'd take Dobby over Frodo though. Yeah. I think you gotta take Dobby on this, though. I think I'm going to gollum. All right. Those house-hills are actually, like, really powerful.

Like, he doesn't really have, like, a limit on his magic compared to the wizards. He can do it whenever. I don't know. Really? Yeah, I think so. Bobby just wants to be with his friends. Why are they all slaves, though? They should be, like, in control.

They should be. It's like a whole part of it, but they're like naturally subservient. We don't need to get into all that. That's weird. Because they don't have pieces of clothes. I don't like what that insinuates. Yeah. A quick context here is there's like some really weird things about the Harry Potter universe these days that, you know, I think people are aware of that we don't necessarily support.

But we do love the movies. I kind of like them. I'll say that much. All right, Mike. Shadow Fax versus Buckbeak. A buck beak in a fight, it seems like. Buckbeak almost accidentally kills someone, right? Swiping at their.

I mean, he just bites Malfoy or something. That's right. Yeah, but it's just the flight aspect gives them the edge. Buckwheat. What is Buckbeak again? What's the name of the critter? Like a griffin, something or other? Whatever.

Does it hurt? Wes. Who's more evil? Slytherin or Mordor? Slytherin or Mordor? Mordor is a place. Yeah. but like the politics of Mordor, the constituency.

I mean. Those are like, like, what do you mean? They're both groups. Like Salazar Slytherin or like Slytherin? Mordor is not a group. Like the, what's a more evil? I'm not, I'm not clarifying. I think this is pretty easy to understand.

Slytherin or Mordor. Yeah. All right. I'm just going to go Slythering because Mordor is like, Mordor is a place. It's where the orcs live. And I kind of just think like they should be able to live there. Like the orcs should be able to have their little chunk of middle earth

where they're able to live and just like do their orc stuff. And Slytherin is like, they're constantly trying to get more like power and overthrow people and whatnot. I guess the orcs are too, but I'm still going with Slytherin being more evil. Slytherans, they're bad. Even like someone will be like, oh, what about so and so. And it's like they would have gone bad. They're all bad. Yeah.

Yeah. Aragog versus Shilob, the spiders. You know, Arrogog's supposed to be, like, the smartest person or something. Spider. Like, super, yeah, the spider in the forbidden forest. It's supposed to be smart? Oh, yeah, they're hell of smart. But Andy's got venom.

I don't think she-lep has a venom. I'll go Shelob. Good. That's the right pick. Okay. Yeah. Aragog couldn't even take out, like, 12-year-old kids. No.

Yeah. And She-Lob's, like, an immortal, ancient, like, disembark. send it of Angolian. I mean, he couldn't take out one Hobbit. Yeah, but like they had special weapons from Galadriel. Like a light? Yeah, just light. Yeah, light of Ayrindal, yeah.

Okay, I'm going Hagrid versus Gimley. Is that what it is? Yeah. I'll go with Hagrid. He's got a huge weight and reach advantage, of course. I think he could take a couple of axe blows before he goes down. And if Gimley gets close enough to do that, Hagrid's just going to to like rip his beard off and beat him to death with it.

I could give him that little pig tail that he gives Dudley. Oh, yeah. That's a good move. This is a good one for you, Wes. This was my only one that's not mixed universe. Okay. The ballrog versus smog. Hmm. Well, they're both, the ballrog is like a being of fire.

You know, it's like pretty much made of fire, which kind of destroys Smog's main attack. And, you know, smog, as far as dragons go in, like, Middle Earth, he's not that impressive of a dragon compared to some of the other ones. And Durenz Bain, are you talking about the Bollrag in Fellowship? Just they're in the movies, yeah. Yeah, that's Duren's Bain. It's, like, pretty powerful ballrog.

So I'm going to go with the ballrog. And the ballrog are also kind of my, they're kind of myr. They're, like, lesser myr, pretty much. So I'm going with the ballrog. Yeah. Interesting. My are we surprised. All right.

I'm next. Dementors versus ring rays. I think this battle goes on for a long time. It's going to be pretty hard for anyone to get a kill. But I'm giving it to the ring rays. Good. Actually, some dementors are women, though. Are they?

So actually, I take that back. Yeah. How do we know that? Because women can kill the main ring race. Dementers are just people. People are put in Ascaband. No, they're not. Turned into.

Is that true? I'm so... They're definitely not. I'm bad with Harry Potter stuff. Dementors are like, they're like dark creatures. They're not humans. They guard Ascaband. I thought they used to be.

No, they're not. They're like a creature. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but the ring rates are running around, like slipping on banana peels and stuff. They have no idea what they're doing. I give it to the dementers, too. The kiss?

All right. We got just a few left. Was the more heroic death? Cedric Diggery or Boramere? Who's this for? Mike, I think you. Mike. My boy Boromir, for sure.

I don't, so I don't remember nearly anything as much about Harry Potter as I do, Lord of the Rings. But didn't Sidric Diggery just kind of get warped to the same place and die? He didn't really do anything. Immediately dies. He does immediately. He tries to like help Harry and go after Voldemort. Yeah. I thought Voldemort just immediately.

at least says kill the spare and he's dead and that's it but like cedric's pretty he wins to try wizard cup with harry and they're like pretty good sports about it and then no sedrick tries to like get his wand and do something and tries to get his wand that's not very heroic heroically tries to get his wand boormeer kills like dozens of works harry like tells him to like Harry tells him to go grab the cup and he stays to like try to help Harry and then dies. I think I'm still going to go Boromir though.

Yeah, without a doubt. That's the right answer. Just personally. I was much more emotionally moved by Boromier. I mean he tries to steal a ring, you know. Dude, he was trying to steal Harry's girl. What about that? That's not heroic. That's the one I feel the strongest about.

Cedric just dies immediately. Well, I wouldn't say that quite yet because your next question is which books are better. Oh, okay. That's an easy one for me. Lord of the Rings, like, without a doubt. My favorite books. I think, like, don't get me wrong, when I read the Harry Potter series for the first time, I was just, like, swept away in them. I had such a fun time reading them. I listened to him on audiobook not long ago and just had such a good time again. I think they're, like, amazing children's books. I think people always give her a hard time for, like, not being good at

world building and I think the world building in those books is the one thing she is good at yeah yeah so i like i think it's great but i think Tolkien's works are like some of the best stuff that's ever been written i think they're lyrical beautiful um i think there's all sorts of things we can learn i just think i mean i'm you guys all know that but i'm like a huge fan so yeah told can i think i think for books i'd go harry potter interesting just because i grew up with them and lord of the rings have always been a little hard for me to read yeah okay uh all right who would you most want to go to a party with just of anyone in the world i'm of either world oh okay i would i would probably choose haggard would be like a fun party hang oh i'm for sure choosing marian pippen he'd like show me a

dragon that he has hidden in a cabin he would just immediately if you're at hoggworts you're immediately getting kicked out of school if you're hanging out with Hagrid. Anything you would do with that dude is going to get you kicked out. Yeah, we're not going to school, dude. I'm hanging out with, oh, go ahead. Marion Pippen for you. I was thinking that too. But if I had to pick just one, because they would be like the dream pair to hang out in a party with,

I'm going with Gandalf because he's got fireworks. Yeah. You know what's another good answer would be that. You don't even like fireworks. I like his. Bilbo's through a pretty sweet party. That's true. But he was kind of stressed out about it the whole time.

A good person would be Horace Slugworth or whatever his name is, the guy that they have to convince to give him his memories because he gives Harry that feeless felicitous potion or whatever it's called that just makes you super lucky for an entire day. And I just feel like if I went to a party with that dude, I'd just brown nose so hard and get a ton of that potion from him and then just live a charmed life for the rest of my life. The Weasley twins would be a good pair too.

Yeah, they'd be fun. All right. What world would you most want to live in? Middle Earth or Hogwarts. Hogwarts. I think so, too. I don't like how they have to hide. It's like, you guys are the superior beings.

You should be like, I'm on Voldemort's side a little bit, you know? Like, you guys don't need to hide from us. Like, you should be out in the open, doing whatever you want. I think it'd be kind of fun to have to hide and, like, be a cool wizard and know, one gets to know and you just get to like go have your little secret club at your fun school yeah yeah i'm picking i think that universe seems more fun to live in than middle earth middle earth seems very dangerous and probably better food yeah yeah better sports quidditch what is lord of the rings have as far as entertainment goes quit is golf worst sport ever oh quidditch wow um all right and then my last one's

just Lord of the Rings versus Harry Potter. Lord of the Rings. 100 million miles. A large margin, yes. Yeah, I'll take Lord of the Rings all day as well. All right. There you go. All right.

Well, thanks for let me just go off there. Gandalf versus Dumbledore. I feel like we've done it before, but go for it. I feel like you're always like, oh, Gandalf's invincible and Dumbledore. He can't die. Good point. We have done this before. Maybe Gandalf the Gray versus Dumbledore, I was thinking, or like, uh,

Saraman? No, it's all right. You're right. We've done this. We don't have to do it again. They both really just leave the people out on their own a lot. Yeah. But I feel like with Gandalf, it was much more intentional.

It's like fighting Voldemort when he's like 12 by himself. Not only that. Frodo's just like has the ring of power that Gandalf gave him. Dumbledo like full on hires Voldemort to be like, one of Harry Potter's teachers. Like, I don't know. RIP Richard Harris. Love that guy.

Oh, also the other. Yeah, Dumbledore guy. Also, but the Dumbledore's like the first person to bail on the fellowship. She's like, I'm out of you. Dumbledore? I mean, Gandalf. Yeah, you didn't bail on him. He got pulled into the earth by the Volrock.

But all right. You've been in there after him. Let's move on. Okay. All right. Well, I mean, I kind of changed that up so that that was like our only real category besides listener questions. Okay, so this one's from Rachel. Office fact check.

In the cold open for season six, episode 14 of the office, when Jim dresses as Dwight to mock him, Jim states that black bears are the best bears, and Dwight says there are basically two schools of thought. What do you think those are? Dwight also states that bears don't eat beats. do they and are there bears around squarant and pa the two schools have thought about like they're being the best bear i have no idea what that means i don't think we could like really comment on that but as far as the other questions i would say probably talking about grizzly versus grizzly bears and polar bears and like yeah yeah but it's hard you know it's hard to say

as far as like bears not eating beats bears would definitely eat beats um Is there anything bears? Not much. Like they'll eat just about everything. And like black bears, as we've talked about a lot on the show, are really highly vegetarian. Like most black bears are mostly just eating vegetation. So something like a beet would actually be like a pretty good treat for a bear.

So I do think they would eat them. And there are black bears around Scranton, PA. So great questions. All right. This one is for all of us. It's from Ben. Ben says, what is the most bizarre animal each of you have eaten, aside from bugs, Wes. And, big disclaimer here, if the world had a perfect healthy population of every single animal,

nothing was at risk, completely theoretically, what's one endangered animal that you think would taste the best? I like those questions. What's the weirdest animal you guys be? I mean, Darwin loved, oh, sorry. I don't really have anything too crazy there. Yeah? I think zebra was a weird one for me. Even though I've eaten, like I've eaten a lot of different animals,

but I think zebra, it just felt strange to be eating like a horse and then a wild horse. And it wasn't very good. So zebra, aside from bugs, I would say zebra is my weirdest. I wanted to eat guinea pig in Ecuador. Oh, guinea pig? Yeah, but I didn't get any. Like a nugget? They eat a lot of guinea pigs there.

I ate some alligator when I was living in Louisiana. Really chewy, not terrible, but I kind of regret it and wish I wouldn't have. I don't know. It seems weird to eat those kinds of things when there's other. I don't know. That opens up a whole conversation, I guess. But just how I felt. That's kind of the second part of the question is if it was completely ethical,

no problems at all. What endangered species would you guys want to eat? Didn't Darwin say he loved tortoises? A lot of early sailors ate tortoises because they could keep them on their ship for a long time. And they wouldn't die and they didn't have to feed them or give them water or anything. It's like a bread bowl. You just like eat it straight out of the shell. Yeah.

They would like take them for months on board those ships. But I think I would eat. Honestly, I think I'd want to try polar bear. Even though it's like full of mercury and not good for you. I think polar bear is probably what I would want to try. but obviously never in a million years would I actually do it. I think I'm going to go with like a big rib-eye steak out of a rhino, just like a Flintstone steak.

Yeah. I never, I guess ideally in a perfect world, maybe I could, but that's not something I feel good even thinking about doing. Yeah. Obviously, none of us would ever do any of these things. Right. Yeah. Right.

Jeff, what's your answer? The tortoise? Mm-hmm. All right. All right. I have a few from Instagram, too. Satchay wants to know Does Mike still cut his own hair?

I kind of stopped cutting my hair in general But the last... Looks good. The last one time I did get it professionally done Which is why it probably doesn't look like a disaster. Elise Ralph, Story you're most looking forward to covering in the future. Treadwell.

Treadwell, we got Travis the Chimp. Yeah. I saw someone saying we promised to do like a Japanese... I was about to say that one. It's like called this... I forget what it is. It is the Subuki Bear Incident or something like that. But yeah, that one's a big one on the list.

The tiger, the story by John Ballant, that's like a book that he wrote that's about a tiger that killed a couple Russian hunters. That's one I'm really excited for. But Treadwell for me is like the number one one that I'm excited about. We're going to do it soon. Air Brown 11. How did Ira Glass first hear about Wes's Bearden story? So one of their producers, David Kestenbaum, he listens to Tooth and Claw and his wife is actually like a super fan of Tooth and Claw. Oh, wow.

And so she, but he reached out to me and said, hey, yeah, he said, we'd love to have you tell the Bairdend story on the podcast. And then when I was talking to him, I was like, you know what? I think Jeff would also be like a good perspective for this. And so then he reached up to Jeff. and that's kind of how it all happened. That's from the This American Life podcast. Yes. Yep.

Manix 170. Favorite One Piece arc? For me, like I haven't watched that many, but I liked the R. Long arc, the best of the ones that I saw. With Nami. Yeah. That would be mine. I'll choose a different one because West took it. I'll go, I'll go like childhood, Luffy.

I really enjoyed. That's really fun. Um, it's water seven into any slobby for me, pretty easily. Robin, you love Robbins. My favorite. You think she's so hot. Oh, I can't stop thinking about her at night. Thoughts on zoo pandas, or this is from Hannah Gustlin.

Uh, thoughts on zoo pandas being sent back to China. I, I'm pissed. Yeah. I, I would, I don't want to get too political on the podcast, but like, I want a president who's just like, hey, China, come get your pandas. These are our pandas. You know, like, what, you're going to go to war with us over some pandas? No, we're going to, we're going to let them free. We're going to let them just have a population in Florida. That's what I want. All right. Interesting take. You know? I don't know, but sounds, you're convincing me.

I don't fully understand the reasons why they decided to like bring them back, but I think it's just because of political tension with the U.S. I heard that they're like willing to give them back or something. I don't know. But like every panda in the world belongs to China, which is crazy. Like even if they're born somewhere else. They're completely endemic to China. So they control all the breeding, all of it.

So they essentially own the animal. And they charge zoos like three million a year just to have a panda. So. Yeah. I would just let them loose in America. All right. Well, that's it for listener. questions. Do we have anything else? I don't think so. All right. Awesome. Well, it's fun talking to you

guys. I like talking to you guys. Well, that makes one of us, Jeff. Two. Two of us, West. No, I'm just kidding. I like it too. I'm excited to watch our favorite movies here real soon together, all three of us. Harry Potter. All right, love you guys. Love you guys. See ya. See ya.