Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - Wolf Attack - The Wolf and the Hound

Episode Date: December 18, 2020

Wes takes us all the way up to a remote logging camp in Alaska to share a story about two young boys who tread a little too close to a wolf. Jeff takes the rare opportunity to shout out a serial killer. ~~ 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

Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Tooth and Claw, a show where we talk about the most intense real wild animal attacks and what we can learn about how to avoid, prevent, and survive them. You guys voted for it, so this episode we're talking about wolves. The story Wes has for us this time around involves a six-year-old boy, which, in my opinion, is way too young to be getting attacked by a wolf. There really should be an age limit to that sort of thing. The story also includes an unexpected and nameless hero, of whom,

there should probably be a statue built, or at least some doggy treats named after. A big thanks to everyone that's been sharing our podcast around with their friends and family. It's been really cool to see how much it actually helps us out, not just from the numbers of listens we see coming in, but also as a vote of your confidence in us. Honestly, it just makes us feel good that you feel like what we do here is worth sharing with people that you like. So yeah, thanks so much. Keep sharing it, please.

And we hope you all enjoy this episode. Welcome to Tooth and Claw Podcast. I am here. I'm Wes. I'm here with Jeff and Mike. Yeah. Anything exciting happened this week? Yeah, I had a pretty big week, actually.

So I had to make rib for the first time. Oh, they're so good. Right? No. I actually had about a 10-minute existential crisis in my car after eating it. And I guess I'll come out and announce it now. I have full-time switched over to a plant-based diet. Really?

I think so. You're going to be vegetarian. Yeah. It put you over the top. I think it did. Okay. For a while, for the time being. You know, I'm not going to be self-righteous about it.

No, I'm interested to see how this goes. Yeah. I'm not a McRib fan either. Jeff's the only McRib fan here. I like a big fan. He's all in. Yeah. Oh, another thing I actually wanted to ask you guys.

Did you look at your year-end wrap up of Spotify? I did. Yeah? What was your, like, top listen? My top listen was this punk band from Toronto called Pop. Oh, really? Dude, that was like my favorite album of the year. Yeah.

Yeah. I listened to them. incredible. Yeah. I didn't look at mine. Mike, what was yours? Wasn't expecting it, but it wasn't altogether surprised either. My top listen to artist was Carly Ray Jepson.

My number one song was Carly Ray Jepson. Most underrated album of the last decade. Yeah. Emotion. My number one song was one of the ones from her last album. So we're big Carly Ray fans here. There we go. Call in Carly Ray.

Yeah, Carly, we'd love to have you on the show. My biggest news is I got a massage show. and I just don't stand up anymore. Jeff only sits in his massage. He's sitting in it right now. It's a lie. Anyway, let's get to our story. We did a poll.

You guys said you wanted wolves over snakes. So that's what we're going with. We're doing a wolf story. All you snakes fans can eat it. Yeah. You can wait until probably the next podcast. Anyway, we are talking about wolves. This is an animal that I really wanted to talk about on the podcast.

because again, one of our main goals with this podcast is to kind of dispel this notion that animals are like bloodthirsty and terrible and that when they attack people, it's out of this lust for blood or anything. And wolves are probably the animal that's gotten that reputation more than any other animal. They are really just kind of an animal that people for all throughout history have been afraid of, whether it's people that are attending their livestock or just worry about. about themselves. They've always kind of been this enemy. And we don't want that here in the podcast. We definitely want people to appreciate what an animal can do to a person, appreciate their power and their potential as predators for some of these animals.

But then also, you know, just have that as a respect, not so much as a fear. And wolves definitely are an animal that's feared much more than they need to be. So are you guys ready for the story? Oh, I'm ready. Oh, man. Never more ready than now. Okay. Hold on to your butt.

This story takes place in icy bay Alaska. So icy bay is kind of what you picture when you picture Alaska, which is this really beautiful fjord with bright blue water and glaciers spilling into the ocean. And it's got this beautiful forest. And it's just really quintessential Alaska. And there's lots of wildlife there too. There's moose, there's bears, salmon.

And then, of course, there's wolves. So our victim is this. boy who is six years old, and his name is John Stangling, and I'm not sure I'm pronouncing that right, but I think that's right. And he had a pretty fairly unique upbringing. This little boy, John, actually lived in a remote logging camp in icy bay. So this camp was about 32 acres of cleared land, and then it's just surrounded by really dark, dense pine forest. There's about 80 seasonal workers that live in the camp, and then there's seven permanent families as well. and John is one of a few young children that called this camp home.

And there's only one unpaved road that runs through the camp and it connects to a log yard on the shore of I.C. Bay. But aside from that road, the camp was totally cut off from civilization. So, as I mentioned, there is a lot of wildlife in the area, and wildlife sightings were common around the camp, and in late 1999 and early 2000, people in the camp had reported a higher than average a number of wolf sightings, particularly one male wolf that had been lingering on the perimeter of the forest

and was suspected of killing a dog within the camp. This male had been seen a number of times before April 2000, which is when our attack happens, but it never acted aggressively towards humans. So how nervous do you think the camp would be about hearing about this? They weren't that nervous because they were used. I mean, they're like all Alaskans. They're all used to wolves.

They'd seen it. There's a couple reports of them actually feeding wolves, which is a really bad idea, and we're going to get to that. But they weren't that nervous. Because Alaskins kind of know a wolf's, most likely never going to attack. It's not going to mess with them. But they did note that this wolf seemed to be less afraid of them than the typical wolf.

And we call that habituation. Habituated? Habituated. That's not a very nice word. It's not. Did you have any bears that were habituated in your project? We didn't really have any that were full on habituated. We had a bear that was maybe food conditioned, is the word for that, where they are used to

human food, and so they're really kind of looking for it all the time. but not necessarily habituated. Gotcha. Okay, wolf attacks in North America are really rare. When I was trying to find a wolf attack in North America especially, it was hard to find. Now, we're going to talk more about the rest of the world because North America is where they're the least common. Really? I would have thought anywhere with a warm climate wouldn't have a...

Am I being dumb right now? You're not... You're being dumb, but you're not alone in that. A lot of people think that. There are wolves. Wolves are one of the most widespread mammals on earth. It's the same species. It's Canis Lupus.

It's the gray wolf. But then there's lots of subspecies of that species. They're found throughout the world. They're found all throughout Asia, throughout Europe, in the Indian subcontinent, in the Middle East, in the U.S., all the way down into Mexico, New Mexico. So they're found in a lot of different places. There's a New Mexico? There's a New Mexico.

They are really rare in North America. And there's actually only been two documented human fatalities in North America from wolves. And that's pretty much since, like, written documentation started in North America. Both of those happened in the 2000s. A geologist in Canada was killed in Saskatchewan in 2005, and then a school teacher in Alaska in 2010. She was out running and got killed and eaten by a pack of wolves. And then the kid, they don't really know what happened with them, the geologist. both were killed and fed on by predatory wolves.

There are upwards of 11,000 wolves in Alaska, around 6,000 in the lower 48, and over 60,000 in Canada. So when you think about that, it really goes to show just how rare these attacks are if there's like 80,000 wolves almost in North America, and we've had two human fatalities. You know, you think about that compared to a lot of other animals,

and that's much lower. We are going to talk more about wolves kind of around the world, though, because then it goes way up. Okay, so back to our story. Around 9 a.m. on April 26, 2000, 6-year-old John and his 9-year-old friend Keith, they're out playing in this logging camp. They're right on the forest edge on the north perimeter of camp. And the two boys are like loudly running around in the trees and kind of roughhousing and stuff.

They're enjoying the spring weather. It's been a long winter and they're finally out kind of outside being able to play around. And as they're playing on this perimeter of the trees, they come face to face with the wolf 10 feet away. And the wolf's peering at them from underneath the low-hanging branch. And the boys just completely freeze, completely terrified. And the wolf takes a step out from under the tree branches and starts snarling and bearing its teeth. And the boys remain completely still until the wolf takes another step forward and snarls again. And they both take off running.

But little John, the kid that we're talking about, he was at a pretty big disadvantage. You said he's six, right? He's six. And because it was like wet, kind of still-wintery weather, he was wearing red, really big clothes and like huge oversized boots. And so he could hardly run. So he's like running pretty slowly and clumsily away from the wolf. I just can't imagine how scary that would be as a six-year-old kid.

Yeah. You know, wolves are the villains and so many fairy tales and stories and stuff that we've all heard about. And then just to like be playing in the forest and have one step out from under a tree and start snarling at you. And when they bear their teeth, it's pretty scary. Like you guys have probably seen the pictures of them when they roll their lips back and bear their teeth, they look really intimidating.

And to be a six-year-old kid and be staring that down, like, whether or not you're an Alaskan or something, like, that's nightmare fuel. So they're running away. Don't you have a lot of wolf nightmares? Do I? Yeah. No. I thought you had like a lot of wolf dreams.

No. I bear dreams all the time, but I don't think I've ever had a wolf dream. There's that famous far side with like the kid running around the table being chased by wolves. I don't, anyway. That's funny. Yeah. As we mentioned, John's wearing these big oversized. boots and he's running away really slowly and clumsily from the wolf. So we all know that wolves are

famous for hunting in packs, but lone wolves or two wolves can easily also be really efficient hunters. They kill large prey like moose, elk and bison, and they bite the backs of their legs as they're chasing them. And then once they like bring that animal down, they'll attack their face and their neck and like rip out their guts and stuff. So with smaller prey though, John would definitely be considered smaller prey for a wolf. A lot of times they just go straight for the the throat and just try and rip out their throat as quick as possible. I remember reading the story in Montana. It was in 2009 and there was these two wolves that killed 120 sheep in one night on a ranch in Montana. That's crazy. And they just went through and ripped out the stomach of every single one of these

sheep. And at the time, like, the news really wanted to sensationalize and be like, they're just murderous and they kill for the sake of it. But what they actually do is this thing called surplus killing where they'll kill like a bunch of animals to kind of prepare. They'll have that meat. for a while then. Oh, okay. Anyway, okay, back to our story. John is running away in these big oversized boots. Now, Keith is a lot older.

He's nine years old compared to six, which those three years are a pretty big difference, six to nine. So he's running a lot faster than John, and he's running towards these small cabins in the logging camp, and he's screaming at the top of his lungs for help. And no humans heard his initial screams,

but we got a good boy in this story. Keith's family pet, a male Labrador retriever. Hey. He hears him screaming. He's napping a few hundred feet away, and he immediately responds. So this lab gets up and just runs to his best friend, who's Keith. And the lab sees the two boys running from the woods with this wolf chasing him, and the dog just sprints and just starts full on fighting this wolf.

Oh, awesome. Yeah, which honestly, like, yeah, exactly. It kind of bugged me because I read a ton of articles about this, and not a single one of them had the dog's name. And the dog is full on the hero of this story. Yeah. But no one had the dog's name. It's just this Labrador retriever.

It intercepts the wolf, which at this point is just a couple feet behind the boys. And the two start fighting really hard. But right when that happens, John finally just trips. His boots give out. He trips in some gravel. And the wolf disengages from the dog and just starts attacking John. And it's mauling him. It's shaking him.

It's throwing him around. And John's trying to fight back, but he's six years old. Luckily, he has like huge winter clothes on, though, right? So that actually does come into. play. The wolf at this point is trying to get John back into the woods because it knows it's in a vulnerable position. This dog's just attacked it. It sees all these buildings. So it bites into his lower back and tries to actually carry him into the woods. But because of all the heavy clothing that he's wearing and because he's like 50 pounds or something, which is a lot for one wolf to carry,

the wolf can't get him into the woods. So it drops him and then it starts to drag him, which is a lot slower for the wolf. Now, because it's taking so much time, Keith has had a little bit of time to, like, scream and get some people to come help. And so these four adults run out and the dog comes back. They run at the wolf, the parents, or these adults and the dog, and they start throwing rocks at it and kicking it, but it's just refusing to let go of John. And then our hero, the dog, comes back and starts biting the wolf's hind legs. And finally the wolf releases John for just a second probably to turn around and like snarl the dog or whatever and it gives the dog this window to get in between it and john and so the lab actually like puts itself in between the wolf and

john and that gives these adults time to like grab john and get him out of there good defense is the hero of the story without a doubt air bud versus balto yeah playing some good d those are both dogs no balto oh yeah balto is a wolf isn't he uh i don't whatever he's a dog yeah good point Okay, so then the dog and the three remaining, like one person carries John off, the three remaining adults and the dog chase the wolf into the forest. But the wolf is kind of hanging out in this perimeter still. It like really wanted this meal. And so a few minutes later, Keith's dad shows up with a rifle and he shoots the wolf and kills it immediately.

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Refresh your wireless with Visible. Tap the banner to switch today. Terms apply limited time offer subject to change. See visible.com for plan features and network management details. Okay. So John has 19 lacerations and puncture wounds on his back, his legs, and his butt. The wounds on his back required stitches. But overall, he got off pretty easy considering the wolf had him for a couple minutes.

And they do, like we mentioned, they typically go for the neck when they're killing prey his size. So he got off, I mean, he was pretty lucky little kid. That's probably what it would have done had it gotten back into the trees. Well, actually, I'm going to get into kind of the reasons why it probably attacked him, but I think it was a split-second decision for this wolf, and I'll explain that. It was found to be in normal health. It tested negative for rabies. And when it comes to rabies, this is something I didn't know, and I've learned when I was researching.

In North America, it's really rare that wolves have rabies. In other countries, it used to be somewhat common. And that's because there was other animals that they interacted with, specifically like jackals, that they could get rabies from. and a rabid wolf is like the worst rabid animal. They get just like totally ferocious. They're just like killing and biting everything. So a lot of the historical attacks you read about are rabid wolves.

And when you look back at the history of rabid or of wolf attacks, a big percentage of them are from wolves that had rabies. So this one luckily didn't have rabies. And it seemed like it was in somewhat good shape. One thing though that I did mention is that some of the workers had been feeding wolves in the area and although the logging company had some strict wolves or although the logging company had some strict rules against that it's likely that was happening and there's a female that they had been feeding that was probably this wolf's mate and that means that it's possible that they had cubs in a den

nearby and a little bit about wolf biology when there are cubs the male will go out and do a lot of the hunting and there's a lot more kind of stress on him because he has a lot of mouths to feed Okay, a little bit about why this happened, why this attack, this specific one happened. I think a really interesting thing is that whole behavior where the boys first saw the wolf under the tree and it kind of stepped out and snarled at them. That's not a typical predatory thing for an animal to do. It's kind of like how we talked about with cougars and with some of these other animals. If they're making a lot of noise at you, chances are it's not predatory because it's trying to warn you. was trying to tell you, like, get away from me.

They're usually really quiet when they're hunting stuff or when they're trying to kill stuff. So what I think and what I, there's actually, this just goes to show how rare these attacks are. There's a whole scientific paper just written about this attack. And what the authors think is that this probably started as a wolf that was being defensive because it was in its territory and they had these intruders.

And then when John tripped and when he was like clumsily running away, it was like, oh, this might be food, and it's incapacitated, and it's easy. And wolves in nature typically go for sick or injured or hurt animals. And so if you have this little tiny animal running away from you that's kind of like swaying back and forth and it's huge boots and then falling on the ground, it's like pretty hard for an animal to turn down. That triggers its natural reaction to go for that type of prey. Exactly. It's hard to say why it attacked to begin with, but at the end it was definitely, a predatory attack. That kind of switch got flipped and it was like, no, I'm going to eat this.

Okay, so I've been kind of hinting at this the whole time, but we need to bring up wolf attacks throughout the world. And I've noticed that I've kind of had a North American bias with a lot of the stories I've picked. And a lot of that is because of a language barrier when I'm researching stories from other countries. But I did really look into wolf attacks around the world. and there are a lot more in other places. Like Europe historically had a ton of wolf attacks. France had these periods where there would just be a wolf that would just kind of run the table and kill like hundreds of people.

Oh, interesting. Yeah. And throughout Eastern Europe and Russia and all these places, there's lots of wolf attacks. The place that I think is really interesting is India. And India has the same wolf species. It's Canis Lupus. They're a little bit smaller.

But there's this one state in India. I think it's called Bitar. where like from 1980 to 1995, so not that long ago, 200 children were killed by wolves, and many more were injured. And that continues to this day. They still have a lot of wolf attacks in that place. Wow. And they, the thought there is just that it's so prey depleted.

So a lot of the stuff that they would typically eat has been wiped out. That makes sense. And there isn't really a lot of livestock there either. They've kind of just switched to seeing kids as a food source. And they're getting away with it too. And you think about it like in America, the places where wolves live the most, it's like not very many people, a ton of wild animals. Yeah. Alaska, Montana, Wyoming.

Right. So having that prey base is super important. That makes sense. Yeah. And here they have like elk and deer and caribou and moose and all these different things they can eat. And over there, like in India, there are a lot of ungulates and different prey species they can kill. but in this one particular region, a lot of those other prey species have been depleted. There aren't tigers there.

They're competing with the wolves. And so the wolves have just kind of decided we're going to eat people. So I guess to kind of circle back and talk about wolves. Wolves are really complicated because there's people that just absolutely hate them. Here in North America, hunters hate wolves because they kill deer, they kill elk, they see them as this really efficient predator. all the studies point to them actually not being nearly as efficient as we think they are, but hunters really don't like wolves, and they're kind of demonized, and then there's a lot of people that are really afraid of them. And then on the other end, there's these people that really

adore them and think they're godlike, and think they're kind of this, you know, emblem of like nobility and everything. And this paper about attacks that I was reading, the authors had like a really good quote in it that I think applies to most animals. And when I read this quote, I don't, when I talk about the, like, seeing them as a deity, I'm not trying to, like, neglect anyone's religious feelings towards an animal. But this is what that author said. He said, the main symbolic conclusion that comes from this study, this is a study where they looked at wolf attacks all over the world, is that it's time to stop viewing wolves as

a devil or a god. A wolf is a wolf. We cannot expect them to not eat humans. We should just be glad they avoid us as much as they do and manage them to keep it that way. So it's like a very pragmatic look. Like, you can't expect a wild. wolf to not ever see us as prey every once in a while they're going to right but we should also be happy that that's not a common thing yeah i'm happy about that yeah i think we're all in

how often they attack us yeah i'm pro wolf in that regard i think we're all pretty pro wolf but just a tiny bit more about wolves males average about 88 pounds and females about 80 pounds but that's their global kind of average and a lot of wolves are smaller in other countries yeah i was going to say that sounded a little small. Yeah. In North America, so for example, in Montana, they average right around 110 pounds. Yeah, there we go. Yeah, it's a little bit bigger.

A 110 pound dog is a big dog. We have a real obesity problem here in this country. So they live in packs. Something that a lot of people don't understand is those packs are usually familial. So it's like a couple has some pups. Those pups grow up, their yearlings. They stay in that pack and then they have more pups. So a lot of times a pack will be like adults, yearlings,

cubs. And then when they get old enough, they disperse and they go form their own packs. So when I think about an alpha male, the wolf is kind of the first species that comes to mind. You don't think of like Jimbrose? But that's a thing with wolves, right? Not really. There's like an alpha male of the pack. So that's just like a myth. That whole alpha thing's kind of been disproven. It's they do have like a hierarchy, but there's not like an alpha male and female.

That whole thing is kind of more of a myth than it is fact. It's mostly like a dominant structure. So you have the mom and the dad that are like the dominant members of the pack and they're the ones doing the breeding. And they have these cubs, the cubs or the pups, the pups grow up to be older wolves that stay in that pack for a little while. And then when they get too old, they get run off. Okay, so in America, North America, typical pack size is around eight animals,

but they can be up to like 30 or 40 animals in a pack. They can sprint up to 38 miles per hour and they can run. for a few miles without stopping. So they got some endurance. Most animals can't do that. They burn out pretty quickly. Yeah, I feel like for long distances, wolves are pretty high up on the list. They are.

They can run down prey, which isn't an easy thing for most animals to do. Like a cheetah, for example, they're super fast, but they peter out really quick. And then they have to rest for a while before they can chase again. And wolves can run. I think there's one that said it ran for like 12 miles before it finally killed something. And it was probably stopping a bit in there. But I mean, that's a pretty long distance to run. So they're pretty cool.

I'm a big fan of wolves. Do you guys have any questions about the story? Yeah. Did we know anything about John? I know that he recovered and then his wounds got infected. And he had to be like admitted back into the hospital. And they had to treat him with like antibiotics and stuff. I don't know anything else about him.

Did Balto have to deliver the medicine? He's got a fairly unique name this kid, and I looked it up, and I couldn't find him. One more question. How do you feel when people pronounce wolf? Woof. I personally hate it. Yeah, I can't stand it. I didn't know that as a thing.

Oh, yeah. People do it all the time. Oh, I guess I kind of. Like when you're in Yellowstone, they're like, oh, we saw woof. Really? I guess I always just assumed they're talking about a dog. Pardon me? Just like a child.

Yeah. Anyway, that's it for the story. It's kind of a shorter one, but I thought it was really interesting. We'll definitely do more wolves. We'll probably talk about one of those wolf attacks in France where they just kind of killed dozens of people back in the day. Yeah, good story. Okay.

Way to go, Wes. Thanks. Nice job, Wes. All right, so I think we'll go to our categories. Our first category, as always. is what's our favorite wolf from pop culture, Jeff? Yeah, I can start us off. So I have a couple I want to mention,

but I'm going to go with Ghost from Game of Thrones. I thought you might pick Ghost, a dire wolf. Yeah, he's just, he's a good wolf. He knows when John Snow's spirit is coming back to him. I thought that was cool. I almost feel like I liked Rob's wolf more. Really? Yeah.

Oh, I like Ghost. Okay. And then I forgot my other teen wolf, right? You're thinking teen wolf, right? Okay, that's not mine. That's not mine. Teen wolf, high school student that turns into a werewolf playing basketball. Okay.

Are we counting werewolves in this? And then Lupin from Harry Potter. Okay, so we are counting wherewolves. Well, he like really turns into a wolf. No, that's serious that turns into a wolf. Oh, you're right. What does Lupin turn in? A werewolf.

A werewolf. But he turned into a wolf. A werewolf. A werewolf. I don't care I like I think we count that yeah we're counting werewolves

sure okay yeah Teen Wolf was the first time I ever experienced like feelings about a woman was from that movie which one

the blonde like cheerleader in the closet yeah I remember wondering what was going on it's just funny like he's a werewolf and everyone's just cool with him playing basketball still like he can still play on his high school

basketball team. I like that plot. It's like Air Bud. Yeah, Air Bud. No one. It's not in the rule book. Mike, what's your pick? So I had to cheat a little bit again, but I can, you know, audible over to the other ones.

That's your own rule that you've created for yourself. I cheat, yeah. Princess Monanoque. There's San, but she's actually a female human girl woman. What is that? A girl. A female girl. But her adoptive mom, the actual wolf,

Moro. Okay. So that's probably mine. Okay. Studio Ghibli. That's a good pick. Mine is the, I was thinking about this one a lot. There's a lot of wolves in culture.

I think this is probably your animal that's like best represented. Yeah. In pop culture. But mine is the wolf from White Fang, the 1991 movie with Ethan Hawk. And that was like a big movie. I was like, I was pretty young, but it was like the perfect movie for my age. and then it was actually Jeff's first movie that we ever took you to the movie theater and you were like you were two years old and you started howling so much that we had to take

you out of the movie theater and I remember that like clearly that I was like kind of I was like kind of embarrassed yeah when we watch anything at 12 you start howling yeah Twilight would have been a good pick what percent of the time do you think you howl when you see a full moon? If I'm out in the woods, probably like 100%. But if I'm in the city, like, probably like 2%. I'd say about 10% for me. Okay.

That's what you're doing in White Fing, is a little child. Anyway, our next category is our cage match category, Mike. Cage match, let's do it. So this is the category where we take the animal of the episode and compare it in a fight situation with the other animals we've talked about. So Wes, you being the expert, where would you place wolves on the spectrum of the animals we've discussed so far? So our list is getting longer, but I would actually say after doing some serious research on wolves, that I would put them as the second weakest of our animals so far.

And this is a single wolf. Like a wolf pack is a whole different thing. But a single wolf, I think the only animal that we've talked about so far that it would probably be is chimpanzee. I think everything else takes a single wolf. There have been instances of cougars and wolves fighting, and usually a single cougar can overpower a single wolf. But if there's more than one, then they're obviously like a lot more intimidating. Okay. That surprises me. Yeah. And this chimpanzee kind of surprises me too. I feel like a chimpanzee might be able to take a wolf. Yeah, I mean, so the thing, this is kind of the math that I did in my head is that leopards kill chimpanzees.

Cougars are typically bigger than leopards and cougars can kill wolves. So that was kind of the logistical way that I looked at that. Transitive theory. Or the logical way I looked at that, not logistical. But that's why I'm saying that. I don't know though. Chimpan, like, that's a tricky one. I think that's a really good fight.

So how about this? A pack of wolves, what couldn't it take down from our animals? Like a pack of like 15 wolves. That's another thing that I changed my mind on, a little bit doing this research is I used to think that was like the ultimate like a pack of wolves takes down anything yeah and I don't really believe that anymore from what I was reading it takes like eight to 12 wolves to bring down a moose um and any less than that it's like pretty hard for them but there's there have been instances where just like a single wolf has killed a moose

too it's like really back and forth with these guys yeah but I would say a pack of how many did you say 15 yeah I'd say they kill most they could kill most of our animals probably not the hippo. Maybe not grizzly or polar bear. The grizzly and the polar bear. Yeah, they're not killing the great white. The grizzly and the polar bear, I think, is like, there's going to be a good battle,

and if the bear can pick off a few here and there, then the wolves are going to give up. Okay. That sounds logistical. Yeah, logistical. That's our cage match. Enjoy more ways to save at Ralph's, like low prices in every aisle.

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Book it with Price Line. Download the Priceline app or visitpriceline.com. Actual prices may vary, limited time offer. Okay, let's move on to our category of what would Mike and Jeff do if they were attacked by a wolf. I'll start us off. Mike will go first. So here's what I would do.

It's playing the long game again. Over the course of hundreds, maybe even thousands of years, I would domesticate it. It would become the common household dog. Like become a pug? Yeah. Have you ever seen that meme where it shows a wolf skull and then a pug school? Oh yeah. This is what we did to wolves.

Yeah. That's a good, okay. Jeff, do you have a plan? Yeah. So I think I'm actually a pretty convincing wolf. If I want to be My hal is pretty good Okay

So I'll join them I'll join the pack And they'll just accept you And I'll eat their meat I'll join them I'll hunt with them And then when they least Expect it

I'm gonna get them So you're killing them again Well it's just like a wrestling match Or something This is just how you guys You guys have branched so far off From where this category started Yeah I forget where we're

It's what would you do if you were attacked by a wolf? Oh. Not your long-term strategy for completely ruining the species or killing a certain animal. Well, no. That's right, though. My answer works. Okay. If it's attacking me, I'll act like a wolf.

You're going to act like a wolf. And I'll join their pack. Okay. And then I'll be a traitor in the end. Okay. Anyway. I'm going to answer it once more and we can cut it if it's weird. Okay.

So this is what I would do if I was attacked. by a wolf. So Native Americans would dress up like wolves and do like a bison jump where they scare bison off of the cliff. So I would dress up like a bison and scare the wolves off of the cliff. That doesn't really, okay, never mind. You guys have put in your answers. I'm going to go ahead and answer. Mike, your answer happened. You know, it's what, I mean, we domesticated wolves. We turn them into dogs. I think again, long-term, yeah, that's an effective strategy. It's not a good strategy for if you're being attacked by a wolf in the moment. I don't think you can domesticate a specific wolf. It depends how many treats you have, I think. Yeah. Jeff, your answer of

becoming like one with the wolves and assimilating into their pack, there actually have been some biologists and some people that have gotten wolves really used to their presence. And they've managed to like pretty much become part of their pack. It's a, it's an interesting relationship with an animal. Again, it's something that takes weeks, if not months of like slow approaches and like slow acceptance.

And this whole thing. One convincing wolfhall is not going to do it. So both, and then, I mean, Mowgli did it and he was a baby. Mowgli was adopted by those wolves. Yeah,

it doesn't seem that hard. If a baby can do it, Jeff can do it. Actually, yeah, maybe not. So this is the part where I actually explain the science behind all of this. The other answer, Jeff, your answer of putting on a wolf costume or a bison costume and then running at the wolves just doesn't make any sense to me at all because that's not, it's not, that wasn't part of that equation.

Like the wolves chase the bison and the bison were never chasing the wolves. I think it might work. Okay. All right. Do you know what I would have done? No, I don't. Okay. Sorry. know what you would have done. What you should actually do if you're attacked by a wolf is you should stand tall, make yourself look large.

Essentially, honestly, essentially everything you do with a mountain lion or a black bear is what you also do with a wolf. Calmly, slowly back away. Maintain eye contact. If the wolf doesn't run away immediately, you want to continue making yourself large, continue backing away. Don't ever turn your back and run. That, again, can trigger that.

predator response. If you have a dog with you, you want to make sure you keep your dog with you, and if they start fighting, you don't want to try and break that up because you'll probably get hurt. And then if the wolf starts acting really aggressively and it's like snarling at you or doing any of that stuff, that's when you start like throwing stuff at it, yelling at it, screaming at it. And if it attacks you, you just fight back with everything you've got. So what do you do if you're a six-year-old? If you're a six-year-old, you scream and yell for help. It's good that they ran away. No, it's not good. that they ran away. They should have just started screaming for help. If they hadn't ran away,

though, the wolf could have got them in the trees a lot easier away from the open. But it's like we talked about when that wolf first saw them, chances are it wasn't seeing them as food. Planning the attack. It was just upset that they were so close. And had they just like slowly backed away, they probably could have gone out of there without any problems. Running away is what triggered it into a predatory response. So you can't expect a six-year-old to do anything but run from a predator. Yeah. Like, that's our natural response.

But that wasn't the right decision. Sounds like putting on some really big puffy winter clothes was a good idea, too. Honestly, it does help. I used to have a huge jacket, and Jeff threw it away. He just threw it away. I remember that jacket. You would take it back. It was huge.

I did. You would. You guys need to have some roommate therapy at some point. I needed, like, my own storage unit just for that coat. It was a big coat. That was the biggest code I've ever seen in my life. Anti-wolf, Jack. We finally have established what you're actually supposed to do if you're attacked by a wolf.

Disregard what Mike and Jeff said. What I just said is what you're actually supposed to do if you're attacked by wolf. Jeff, do you have some listener questions for us? I do. They always appreciate your wisdom and knowledge, Wes. Thanks, Mike. Sorry to cut you off earlier. No, it was just time to get to.

You're completely right to do that. Okay. Um, our first two listener questions we have. They're asking the same thing. Seven Devils all around me and Yemilia. And they both say, why does your brother sound like a baby? The funny thing is your deep voice there sounded like a baby trying to do a deep voice. You know what guys?

This is a pretty mean question. We're happy that you guys are listening. Jeff has a great voice. I think it's built for podcasting. Thank you. Yeah. But, you know, it's a valid, I guess, question. You know, we roasted Mike's hair last time, so I figured we could roast me.

This time. All right. Next question. From Marcy Bond 69. Don't. Marcy. Nice. And Susier.

Okay. So they both want to know what our favorite dinosaurs are. Mike, you want to start? Yeah, I have always been partial to the teradactal. Okay. Just because I like things that fly. They got that cool, like, knob thing coming off the back of their head, too. I'm going to go with alligators.

Alligators. Yeah. So you're not going with, like, uh, okay. All right. With a what? With like a, I guess they, yeah, they existed back then. Yeah, they are if they're living dinosaurs. Uh, mine, I honestly, I know I've been saying this wrong, my entire,

life. I don't technically know how to pronounce it. I've always said it's dinanicus, but I think... Dinonicus. Dinonicus. That's how you say it. I think that's it. But they're like, basically what velociraptor was patterned after in Jurassic Park. Like real velociraptors were actually really small. And this, that dynonicus was like a much bigger version of that animal, kind of like a Utah raptor, but a little smaller than them. And they were my favorites all growing up. And I absolutely loved him so that's my favorite okay so we have a question here from roar ameer is that some lord of the ring's fan fiction yeah i think his name's roary okay and he's going with roermere so a question for all us who is your favorite celebrity who shares your first name i'll start us off jeffrey dommer

all right it's a good start mike you want to go next Sure What the hell, Jeff? This is a boring answer about Michael Jordan Oh, that's not boring, I mean It's pretty, like he's a big celebrity our whole lives Yeah Plus I love basketball

There's a lot of mics, you had a lot to pick from Yeah Mine is probably I would say West Borland From Limp Biscuit? No way less Yes The guitarist from Limp Biscuit.

Not a fan of their music at all, but I just remember seeing their videos when I was a kid, and he always had, like, the crazy contact lenses and face paint and everything, and I was just like, whoa, that's a cool guy. So I'm going with West Borland. That's a great pick. All right.

From Norma Rockwell 11, Best Animal and or Animal Attack from Lord of the Rings. Oh, okay. Just running through Lord of the Rings for hours. I'm going to go Shilab. Yeah. Sheelab attacking the Hobbits on the pass. That's the one I'm picking.

I'll take the spiders from the Hobbit movies. Okay. Just because Shilab's a better answer, and that's close to it. Mike? I'll go with the ants. The ants. We're counting them as animals. They're plants, they're trees.

We can't count that. Shoot. You could do like the wargs. I'll go with the moth because that played a key role in Gandalf's escape. Okay. That's a really, that's a really liberal interpretation of an attack. in Lord of the Rings. I just thought it was animal.

No. All right. A question from Tina Warbs. Do hippos have natural enemies? Hippos don't really have a natural predator, but they have natural enemies. Like they don't like crocodiles. Crocodiles can kill baby hippos. Lions can kill baby hippos.

And then really the animals that they would have to kind of be cautious around would be like elephants and a big rhinoceros. Those are animals that they could get. get hurt by. Okay. So thank you guys so much for the listener questions. We really like doing it. I don't really reply to you guys on Instagram when you send them to me, but I do read them all. They make me laugh. Thanks for sending them. Yeah. All right. So our next category is where can you find wolves? So as I mentioned earlier, they are one of the most widespread animals on the planet. You can see them throughout the northern hemisphere. You can see them in the Indian subcontinent. You can see them in Europe. You can

see them in North America. They're all over. I think personally, some of the better places to see them are national parks in the U.S. So like Yellowstone's a good place to see him. Denali in Alaska is a good place to see them. There's some places in coastal bridge, Columbia where you can see them, but they're not necessarily an animal that you can go and just know that you're going to have 100% chance of seeing one. But they are somewhat visible. If you spend a few days in Yellowstone and you're really looking for wolves, you'll probably see them. Through like a spotting stuff. Yeah, you're not necessarily going to see them up close, but you might.

You never know. Okay. Our next question, how are we messing things up for them? So they're actually categorized as a least concern animal, which means that their global population is doing pretty well. There's roughly 300,000 wolves in the entire Earth. So there's quite a few. There are places, though, where they are threatened.

So like in the lower 48, they just barely got taken off. endangered species list. And there's other places in the world like the Middle East, for example, there's hardly any wolves left. There's some places in Europe where they're almost completely extirpated. So there's localized populations that need a lot of help, but on a general scale, they're doing pretty well. The main things that are problems for them are hunting, competition with humans, human conflict, and then habitat loss. Those are kind of the big issues facing wolves. Name the states that they're in. So in the lower 48, we have them like in the Great Lakes region.

So they're in like Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin. And then we also have them in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming. And then they recently are starting to recolonize in like Washington and Oregon too. And then they're in Alaska. There's a ton in Alaska. I've heard there's like a couple in Arizona. Oh yeah. Sorry.

I forgot about that. Arizona and New Mexico both have a few wolves now too. Yep. Good reminder. And then actually I think there is a small population out east in the Carolinas too. But those might be Red Wolf. I don't, no, they're not. They're normal gray wolves, but they're like a subspecies.

But there are some wolves out there too. Cool. Yeah. Okay. So finally, our last category is do we like this animal? I'll just start off on this one. I really like wolves a lot. When I'm going to Yellowstone, where I'm going to one of these places where I have a chance

to sing wolves. They're always pretty high on the list of the animals that I really would like to see. You have wolf eyes. I do have some like some kind of wolffish eyes, I guess. I've seen a number of wolves in the wild, and it's always a treat. I've seen a couple in Yellowstone, a couple in glacier, a few just in Montana, one way up in the tundra in Alaska. And every time I've seen them, it's been a really cool experience.

So I'm going to put them pretty high on my list. I don't know what number I'd give them. I don't know if they're top 10, but they're real close to top 10. Yeah, I like them too. I was trying to figure out where I'd place them on my list. I think they're pretty dope. I would put them behind at least Great White Tiger, and maybe that's it. I don't know.

What was the... Alligator? Alligator. It was like your number two. Yeah. Alligator's kind of dropping. I don't know. A little bit.

It's because we made fun of you for being sexually attracted to tigers. That has nothing to do with it. I'm, like, conflicted on it. I think they're really cool. in media and the idea of wolves is really cool. But when I actually see one, I think it's cool, but I'm always a little underwhelmed. I'm like, I'm looking at like a really big dog. I get that.

Like we're so used to dogs that seeing a wolf is just... Yeah, like everyone has a dog. So I just feel like I'm seeing a big old dog without a leash. For me, that's like kind of the special part about it. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. This is what dogs came from. And now like this is a wild. This is the ancient relative of what we...

I think there's cooler animals to see in the wild because it's things I don't typically see. You know, that's your opinion. So I'm going to put it right around hippopotamus range. I'll put one spot behind hippopotamus. That's unbelievable. That's insulting. Yeah, I'm surprised by that. Yeah.

Okay. It is what it is. You still like them, though. Yeah. I mean, that's pretty high. Unbelievable. I guess. Yeah, there's a lot of animals out there.

Yeah. Yeah. But I just think they're really cool. The idea of them's cool. their howl is cool but when I see one I'm like you know I've seen cooler animals nothing makes you feel like more like you're out in the wilderness and alone than when you hear wolves howl at night I'll say I love having wolves I think it's really cool to have them in the wilderness yeah he's backpedaling now no it's all right I mean he said they're in his top 50 which

is still pretty good top 30 yeah okay fair enough so we all like wolves I like him a lot Mike really likes them a lot. Jeff is neutral, but he likes them. Yeah. Yeah. And I want to give a special shout out to the wolf in Red Riding Hood. Okay. Because it dresses up like a old woman, right? Yeah. That's pretty cool wolf. It's a fake wolf, very tall. That's like the opposite of a furry. A wolf dressing up as a human. That's true. Yeah. Whoa, dude. All right. It's a version. I think that's it for this week's episode. So like always, thanks so much for listening. guys. We're having a lot of fun with the podcast. We are going to have one more episode this year that's going to be kind of a fun end of the year episode. And then we're going to take a little

break. But we really appreciate all the support, all the reviews, the ratings, the shares. So keep it up because we'd love to keep doing this. And we'd love to start making it bigger. So help us out. Thanks, guys. All right. See you.