Wild Times: Wildlife Education - Andrew Ucles Hand-Caught Africa's Scariest Animal - The Wild Times 137

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

This week Andrew Ucles joins us to discuss some life-changing moments on his adventures, walking 500 miles across Arnehm Land in Australia, and his quest to hand catch a honey badger. Join Andrew in Australia: Australian Wild Tours https://australianwildtours.com/ Factor: 50% off your first box and 2 free wellness shots per box while the subscription is active. https://factormeals.com/wild50 Manscaped: Get 20% Off https://www.manscaped.com/ Code: Wildtimes Pretty Litter: Save 20% On Your First Order https://prettylitter.com/wild Subscribe to The Wild Times Podcast on YouTube ▶▶ https://www.youtube.com/@WildTimesPod Get YouTube Membership Perks ▶▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVl7fHhUOpFK8Mpv-6DdoOg/join Get Up To 4 Bonus Podcasts Per Month ▶▶ https://www.patreon.com/wildtimespod Watch More Episodes Here ▶▶ https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLP... Visit https://thewildtimespodcast.com/ now! Join The Wild Times Discord Server: https://discord.gg/ytzKBbC9Db Get your Wild Times Podcast merch: https://thewildtimespodcast.com/merch Leave a review on iTunes Apple Podcast: https://thewildtimespodcast.com/itune... Follow The Wild Times Podcast on socials: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wildtimespod/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@wildtimespod Twitter: https://twitter.com/WildTimesPod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wildtimespod/ Listen to The Wild Times Podcast on: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2cbFBzf... Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0... Anchor.fm: https://anchor.fm/wildtimespod/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@WildTimesPod Enjoy, brosteners! TWT 137 - The Breakdown 00:00 - Intro 03:26 - Face The Beast 05:30 - Relocating a Problem Crocodile 13:05 - Crocodile Attacking a Child in Myanmar 19:30 - Catching Water Buffalo by Hand 22:15 - Arnhem Land Trek 36:29 - Would Forrest Join Andrew on Arhnem Land part 2? 40:16 - Snow Society 43:10 - Andrew Hand-Caught a Honey Badger 58:58 - Thylacine, Is It Still Around? 1:08:00 - What's Next for Ucles Jingles made by: www.soundcloud.com/mimmkey https://www.newbelgium.com/beer/fat-tire/ #wildtimespod #podcast

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We all know it's not a cookout without Oscar Meyer and Heinz. Just be careful because you're probably about to see something you won't be able to unsee. We were trying to relocate a problem crocodile. I've caught large crocodiles literally with like this string on my pants. this day, it's a crazy shoot I've ever been on. Peter, what's the one animal that I've always said to you, you can't mess with? It's the honey badger. I would much rather go up against crocodiles all day and catch crocodiles all day than go up

against a honey feather. Mombas won't mess with them. Lions won't mess with them. Nothing will f*** with a honey badger, except for the lunatic on the other end of the phone. He goes, I want to go and catch a honey badger with my hands. And I was like, click. Once we're fucking in there, he goes, this is not your domain anymore. I go, it's his.

Andrew can hear the music. Woo! Andrew can hear the music. That's okay. There is music. What's up, buddy? How are you, Yukes? George.

It's been a long time. How long has it been since I've seen you? I've got seven years. No, it's kind of been seven years. Has it really? A lucky guy. Yeah, exactly. 2017.

Wasn't it? Oh, I don't know. I would have guessed two years. That's what I was going to say off the top of my head. Wait, so Forrest, have you seen Eukles since Face the Beast? Yeah. came to a premier party. We had a premier party for Extincter Alive season two, I think it was. And he came up, season one, crashed on the couch, hung out. I think that was the last time when he was

cruising through the States. So I don't know him. Why don't you introduce him to me? Why don't I introduce everybody? Because this is a regular pod. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Wild Times, the greatest show on television slash your computer. This is the Wild Times, the best comedy and wildlife podcast in the world fact. I'm your host, Forrest Galante. the broologist joining me as always the effervescent and lovely the blue lighting really popping on his eyes with the fat tire beerboxes in the background mr peter the brofessor what's up bro i really like how you rolled your tongue there it uh it makes me feel warm the subcoccles of my heart uh yeah had a few i p as when we recorded last night and i think you can't yeah you sound like

James Earl Jones, son. You need some magic mind, dude, to get back on the board. I seriously do. I have one in the fridge. I might do it. You're a mess right now. As always, our other co-hosts before I get to our very special guest, the broducer himself, pop a pee, the pen popper.

How are you, Pat? Ready to go. Let's do it. This is the most chipper I've ever seen you in the morning, Patrick, ever. You know what it is? It's the anxiety bubbling over from the flight that I have coming up in about two and a half flowers. So yeah, it's quivering. And very

exciting for everybody. A good friend of mine, of Patrick's, of the pod, of everybody in Australia, the lunatic himself, Mr. Andrew Eukles. What's up, Eukes? It's absolutely amazing to be here. And I'm still suffering the jet lag. You've done that trip

before from Australia back to the US and it gets it every single time. And it doesn't matter how you transition your sleep, you're still going to be lagged for a couple of days. So, It might be the worst flight sleep transition in the world between Sydney and California. I don't think there's anything worse. I don't know why.

I don't know what it is, but you just never get on track. Well, you're on like opposite ends of the world. Like it's Christmas there when it's summer here. Yeah, that's how it works. I think you're in a different world. It's literally, it lasts like two weeks also. A lot of people don't know this, but July 25th in California is Christmas Day in Australia. That's absolutely correct.

According to Peter, yeah. That's absolutely correct. Dude, we got a lot to chat about, a lot to catch up on. We were just shooting the shit. It's been six or seven years since I last saw you in person. Obviously, you and I and Patrick did our Face the Beast show, and then History Channel just poked us in the bum on that one, and that never went anywhere. What was that?

I don't know about that. Tell me a little bit about Face the Beast. Just what was the idea? Sure, Pat. Jump in. Let's talk about it. Well, the idea was that Andrew, as a wildlife lunatic expert, you know, someone who was very, very good at getting super close to dangerous animals already at the point. Gotcha.

Out on expeditions and try and sort of shed light on these mysteries that have happened in history. So the first episode was the Ramory Island Massacre where supposedly, you know, hundreds, if not close to a thousand Japanese soldiers were eaten by Crocs. Andrew went through the bowels of Ramory Island, saved a kid's life along the way. Wow. Oh, yeah. It just kind of got networked to where there was just a lot of pieces. Sure. They aired it on a Saturday and I never gave it a real fair shake. Sounds sweet, though.

Dude, that shoot in Myanmar with you, Coles and I was, to this day, it's a crazy shoot I've ever been on. I reckon the one liner that came out of that was Andrew get, the fuck out of the net now. Who said that? Just give me five more seconds, five more seconds. So essentially what we were trying to do is we were trying to relocate a problem crocodile. And, you know, it was anywhere between, you know, a three and four meter crocodile, which had been hanging around in this vicinity.

And so we went about setting up a little bit of like a net trap sort of, sort of design. But as we were setting up this net track, we had the heating tide, which was kind of. coming in. So it was literally like a race against the clock as I was trying to set this like trigger bait mechanism going on. And so we had the entire crew on one side and then I was kind of up inside this net just trying to set this trigger. And the water was slowly increasing. And I remember there was a sound though that was there by the name of Trevor Robinson. Trevor. Yeah. And he was genuinely in fear. You know, you could hear it. Let me explain something. Hold on one second. Let me explain something. Like seven hours before this, we had taken a pig leg and pinned it to

the tree exactly where Andrew was standing. And White Nose, this deadly crocodile, who turned out to try and kill a kid, like two days later, by the way, was caught on trail camera right there. So we were in the spot where we knew there was a mad-eating crocodile lurking us, a giant, monstrous crocodile that we watched on trail camera rip a pig leg to shreds. And Andrew was just like, he was like a toddler, he was like flashing in the water. Like, no, he wasn't like that. But he was, he wasn't like that at all. He was very focused. But he was, uh, He was in the water in an area there was definitely a very mean crocodile. So we were all getting pretty nervous.

He also has no amygdala. Is that true, Andrew? He's way worse than me. Worse than you. I don't know. I've really thought about it over the years. And, you know, I think I've lived out there in the bush, in this scalyne bush. And so, you know, when you're really connected in that type of, in that type of space and

you're having that constant exposure, you do develop a sense of, you know, obviously a heightened sense of confidence. And you've got to be really careful, I feel like, in this industry, because, you know, confidence and complacency, there's a very thin line. You know, and you often say quite literally in this industry, so many people get themselves into positions where people do get attacked and people do get hurt because they just don't know how to draw that line. And so I guess, you know, the last 10 years of my life, I guess it's been like juggling

knives at times. Sure. But look, I think, you know, retrospectively, you know, with crocodiles as well, look, I've had quite a bit of experience with crocodiles in close quarters. And, you know, when you're an individual that's had a thousand hours in the field, we've been dealing with these animals, as opposed to, you know, someone that might be, you know, not as confident in this environment, of course people are going to have a sense of tension about them.

And I think that was probably what was going on. Kyle, pull up some, uh, pull up some of this imagery from the shoot because we, we've talked about it a couple times, but I don't think anyone's probably seen it since it aired on a Saturday. Absolutely incredible. What was this, what was this atmosphere like in Ramby? This pause that right there. Pause that right there, Kyle. Look at this. That's fine.

Right there. That's fine. Look at this. I want, I want Andrew to answer that. I don't want to interrupt him. I just want to point out, this is a real human skull that Brian fingered in the mud out. outside of the fort of Ramory. And the network goes,

oh, we don't want, remember this, Patrick? They're like, oh, we don't want a fake skull. And we're like, why would there be a fake skull? And they're like, oh, well,

you didn't find a human skull. We're like, of course we found a human skull. We were at the site of a massacre. And meanwhile, Andrew and Brian, Brian was shook by this. Remember this?

He was like, he was rattled by holding this human skull. But anyway, I think Andrew should answer it. But Peter, that's a real human skull we're holding there. Yeah, that's wild, dude. Yeah.

Yeah. So what did they end up saying? They were like, all right, leave it air. I don't remember. I don't think they ever believed us that it was real. Yeah. I was just one of many props that we had that day. I just think, you know, when you're dealing with that type of remote this

and you're dealing with that kind of impoverished, you know, atmosphere that we were in, it's no real shock to be finding body parts, particularly in a place like that. To be honest, I was actually surprised we didn't find more skulls along the way. You know, we could literally have quite a collection. Oh, look, this is bringing back some memories now, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, run us through. We missed him, didn't we?

We did. We missed him. We missed the crock, yeah, here from this net, and then you caught him with the news. But, yeah, this trap and then, you know, that lovely idiot producer that we had, who I won't name, who was like, you need to come in because the lightning storm, which we just- Pause it right there. So what's going on there, my recollection, is that, so, Andrew is comfortable around crocs.

I don't know if I don't want to speak for you, but you've been, you've had thousands of hours dealing with crocodilians. The co-host, Brian, didn't and had some fear. Never even seen one at all. And so in this moment, Andrew looked behind him and started screaming and told Brian there was a crock coming up on them,

just for a laugh. Right. You saw proper fear in his eyes quite literally. Yeah, he didn't like that joke. Atjohn, Forrest, that was your idea, wasn't it? It was my idea, yeah. Yeah, we really want to get some energy in this. I was really hoping you weren't going to tell people that was my idea.

I was just going to sit quietly here and let you fly. But yeah, I was like, I whispered in you fear. I was like, pretend there's a crock right by you guys. And yeah, he fucked up with Brian. And then there was just like big hysterics from everybody but Brian after that. So this is the last thing we'll say about Myanmar and then move on to some of your other stuff that you're working. You've been working on in the last seven years. but in the moment where you guys got the call

that someone had been attacked, I've heard Forrest's POV on this, but what kind of, what was your experience there, Andrew? Guys, it's time for the ultimate face off. The Beard Bowl is here. Yes. Two best teams square off to see who the champion

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Dude, you might have a career as an announcer. New Year, new me. Did you guys know that? Definitely. Yes. Yeah. I can see it. I'm doing it.

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What are we looking at here real quick? Okay. So we're inside the village or the heart at that point in time. and essentially we're just trying to amend the industry, amend the, the injuries that is got. But you know what? I think what was interesting is coming into that situation, I think we all kind of looked at each other and thought it was staged, didn't we? It looks nasty.

We thought there was acting going on at the time because we could hear like a lot of drama and a lot of emotion and crocodile, crocodile and all this kind of stuff. And we thought, is this village just having it on? Like this can't be a coincidence that we're here. trying to find this problem crocodile and let alone someone's just been attacked within 15 minutes. So I think naturally I was actually quite skeptical of the entire situation. And even when it was unfolding, it was, I think what it done there is it really made it relative. You know, this is actually happening sort of thing.

You know, we are here for this reason and here we have as a young boy in front of us, which has just been mauled by a crocodile. And I'll be honest, I think it was the medic that was there at the time. Because I remember I started running up towards the, to the hut. He said, as soon as I got off the boat, he said to me, he goes, just be careful because you're probably about to see something you won't be able to unsee. Wow. Because we didn't know what we're walking into.

Yeah. We just knew. So we got a call. I've explained this before on the pod. We were in the research station, which was, I don't know, two kilometer from the village. and we got a call and screaming that there was something that someone had been attacked. And that's all we knew. So we jumped in our little speedboat and went basically across the river to the village.

And as we approached the village, it was just chaos. Like people were running around. There was screaming. There was a mother wailing like, my son is dead. My son is dead because the boy was bleeding out and dying. And then we hopped off the boat. And Andrew, myself, Brian and Eddie, the medic basically rushed into the hut. And the boy, as you see in that frame, was lying there.

lacerated with arm broken in 20-something places. And, you know, he wasn't bleeding out as in he was going to die from bleeding. But in a village like that in the middle of a swamp of Myanmar, he was going to die. It was going to go septic and he was going to die. And so we cleaned and, you know, there is no medical care. There is no nothing. Like, that's the end. So the mother was literally already wailing like my son is dead.

Like she had already written him off for dead. It's wild. Because we happened to be there, we came in and I'll let Andrew explain it more. but we triaged him and sent him out on a speedboat. His arm was amputated, but he lived. So we saved his life. Yeah. Wow.

Dude, that's wild. And they aired this on a Saturday. What a bunch of pricks. It's like you found a human skull. You saved some lives and they're like, eh, let's pop on Saturday morning. You want to see something insane. Yukes decided to make himself fate for the crocodile.

And as the crocodile slowly approach got a noose around it. Yes, I would love to sell it up. Yeah, and go to this ending part here before this, went to see him catch it. Yeah, somewhere, there's a baby. But no, no, no, the other way, Kyle. Yeah, this is something that Mitch cut together. So I don't know if he has like.

No, no, no, no, no. Too far. Just look for where the guy's making himself human bait. Kyle, you're a fucking nitwit. All right, I'll show you. Go to 326. Nope, sorry. Hold on.

That's not it either. Oh, boy. What a mess. Here it is. 350. 3.45. There, watch this. Okay.

So now we're in the boat. Andrew, we don't, I guess we don't see it much. Yeah, but this is, yeah, Andrew's in the water. It might be cut together in a weird order. It is. Yeah, okay, they don't even have a shot of it in there. Andrews in the water splashing, waiting for this croc who's tried to kill a kid four days prior. And the croc approaches and he gets a noose around it.

And then this is the chaos. And then this is us freeing it later. What was, I noticed. Look at this. Crazy. Yeah, that is crazy. Just rolling around there. the death spiral.

Yeah, he came lunging out and Yux is just in a, in a wetsuit and it's like a thousand degrees out. And yeah, that's the crew getting charged by the crock. It was lunacy. So what's up with this? Why was he so violent? Was it just starving or was it like a man eater? Look, I think I've got a bit of an interest in taking crocodiles.

I think once you're in control of a crocodile or you've got a lexoo over them, they're the easiest animals to deal with. They're so dogmatic in their routine. You know, they've really got a set kind of pattern. And not just that. Because of the way that their bodies are designed with the lactic acid system, they just, they're just dying the ass real fast.

I don't know. I don't, I don't see crocodiles. I know there's such a big thing about crocodiles and these large, man-eaters and all that kind of stuff. To be honest, and I've done it before, I've caught large crocodiles literally with, like,

the string on my pants. But I'm being serious, literally. That's wild. And I guess it's almost like a good, funnel into like the honey badger because i would much rather go up up against crocodiles all day and catch crocodiles all day than go up against a honeybather any day or any day or the way you're dealing with two completely different animals and i know people would say automatically yes but a honey badger can't kill you in a crocodile can well it's all um it's all relative to the environment that you're

in obviously if you're swimming around in water you know you're going to you know putting yourself in a in a situation that you can't get out of but um in terms of being able to handle restrained and actually getting control of. I dare say crocodiles are probably one of the most easiest animals. So let's talk about that for a second. So anyway, Peter, that was where we all first got to know Eukals. That was many years ago. After that, we went to the Caribbean and did a shark dive thing.

And Andrew tried to get himself eaten by a bull shark, which was pretty much. That really, really, really almost happened. At what point in your guys' relationship was the circle jerk? We're still working on it. We do it regularly. Can I join? Yeah, we do digital circle jerks because he's not. Oh, excellent.

Yeah, it's really nice. Yeah. Let's talk about this honey bad. You just reach off screen and then Andrew puts his hand in like this. Yeah, it's like, yeah. Yeah, it's really nice. No, yeah, I asked Patrick. That's the only time he's ever seen me like completely flip out on set when I was like,

Andrew, get out of the water because Andrew nearly got eaten by his yard. Well, that's when you feel in the adrenaline. You know what I mean? Like, for me, I don't know. I'm not an adrenaline junkie. Oh, I really, I'm not. You know what I mean? but there is something about a sense of not having control that really just sparks me.

You know what I mean? I love it. I love the frill of it. Okay. I don't believe that is an adrenaline junkie, but if you say so. You know what I love doing in Australia? And it seems to be that the one thing that I really love doing is I love going to catch the water buffaloes with lassus. So I go on foot and I run it down and I catch them with lawsuits.

and I feel that's the one thing that I just, I don't know, it's such a rush. Australian rodeo. You'll have to try it. It is. I've never done it. Kyle, hold on, Kyle, pull this up. Go on YouTube and find Euckels catching water buffalo with a rope. This is a real thing.

But anyway. I did want a couple of years back with Adam with Green Tree. But when I, actually, you know what actually happened? After I done the filming with Face the Beast, I said I did a walk across Adam land. Yeah. I wanted to talk about that, actually, in your horse. all of that. Yeah, so hold on.

Let's stay a little bit linear here because it's interesting. So that was when we met you Coles. Look at this fucking loon. He's just roping water buffalo. Lead from it. Jesus. I do really want to do this.

It looks insane. Looks ludicrous. It is ludicrous. Especially Andrew doing it. Just no protection, bare skin shirt with no shoes. Big ass horns. It's crazy, man.

At the same, look, what about Flowset dangerous and I you know they're an incredibly intelligent animal that definitely knows their danger are and um you know i've talked to guys that actually spent some time in africa there with the cape buffalo i feel like the cape buffalo behaviorally are probably a little bit different and i think it's more to do with the fact that no no question yeah because the cape buffalo are constantly being predated upon so they've already got that instinct that or already that reaction but yes they are a you know they are a flight animal but their fight response happens quite

fast. Whereas an Australian water buffalo, I feel like you can chase him around all day and he'll just keep on running until you really put that animal into a position where it's cornered or it has to defend itself. That's when you're going to get a different change of behavior. But the Cape Buffaloes are, yeah, I think they're a bit more on the wild aside. You couldn't do that with a Cape Buffalo. I'd kill you. I know you don't believe. You're going to do it now. Oh, they're just buffalo, the ones with huge muscles? No, you're thinking Gar. Gar. Gar. There's two things I want to talk about.

So since our shoot with Andrew and History Channel, like, dropping the ball on that, he's done two things that I find, he's done a lot of things that are really interesting, but two things that I find really remarkable. Peter, do you know what Arnhem Land is? Of course not. Of course. I just set you up for failure. Peter, Patrick, do you know what Arnhem Land is?

Only because of what Andrew did. Okay. So, Kyle, while we talk, while Andrew explains Arnhem Land before we even get into his adventure, and what he did that no other Western human being has ever done. Pull up a map of Arnhem Land so people can see it, Kyle, on the screen. And then, Andrew, explain what you did, because this is, I don't know why this isn't like bigger news. Like, the guy who walked the Amazon was at Ed Stafford.

Like, he got a lot of info for this. This is like credit for this. This is way harder than walking the Amazon. Anyway, explain Arnhem Land. Well, look, I had been told that it couldn't be done on a number of occasions. And I think I'll tell you the real personal part to this is there was fear in this undertaking. There was. If you've ever taken that drive from Darwin down to Catherine and you're looking amongst the frontier that surrounds you,

there's one thing that you notice in that kind of landscape. And the first thing is how harsh it is, how remote it is. And essentially, if you go missing, it's a perishable country. Yeah. But you will not last, you know. And essentially when they, even when they're, you know, when the rangers or the police are doing their search and rescues, we generally, you know, cast like a net of like 72 hours upon someone. You know, the fact that water can be incredibly hard to find, the fact that it's so hot up there in the northern territory as well, not to mention the amount of predators, but you're there too. That landscape there represented what I like to call nature's labyrinth.

Because if you get lost, well, you just walk around for circles. You know, your only friends will literally be the crotes. And I think that's where, you know, there was actually a lot of fear in me. And, you know, when I did embark on that trek, it was close to 800 kilometres that I wore. I did it in 42 days, which essentially I'd been given some really good advice and it was essentially just keep listening to your body. Whenever you're hitting ground, which is relatively flat, keep moving. The thing about Arnhem Land is, it's not like a stretch of desert. that Arnhem Land has a number of different types of biomes and different habitat types,

from floodplains to wetlands to bilibongs to, you know, higher scarpment country and plateaus and all that kind of stuff. So it's an incredibly difficult landscape to try and walk across. I remember there was a couple of situations there because I'd taken a horse, almost as moral support, and there's actually a quote, and I think it really talks a lot about the journey. and I guess at the end of it, the kind of conversation I would have with people and people would ask me this question

of what was Arne Mlane like. It was a bit like this. So there was a quote from a novel. And sometimes it makes me emotional because I feel like it's very true. There's a quote from a novel that says there's a boy and a horse and they're in the forest.

And the boy turns to the horse and says, I can't make my way through. Like I'm lost. I can't make my way. through. And then the horses to the boy, can you see your next step? And then the boy says, yes. And then the horses will then just take that. Love it. And I feel that the power of that message and the power of that quote can be relatable to a lot of people in different ways of life.

And not just necessarily the extreme of what I had done, but as an example to, you know, sometimes we find ourselves at a crossroad and we don't know which way to go in life. So sometimes you've just got to go of your gut, you've got to go with your instinct. And if you can see a path forward, then move towards that. So I think inevitably, the entire journey had a lot of, you know, significance with it. And I'm not sure if I'd communicate. So I'd actually film this as an entire documentary that went to Netflix, and it's also went to Discovery Networks.

And I guess I'm in a situation now where I've had a number of episodes, which went to Network. And it's funny because they're popping up in Europe. They're popping up in South America. They're doing the rounds. They're everywhere where they're not, where they should be. Like, I've been trying to get my content into the U.S. And it's not in the U.S.

And I feel like, and Forrest knows how hard I've worked over the years. Oh, yeah. And the discipline and the B-Def experiences. And I just haven't had my break. It'll click. Maybe this will be at Yukes. Maybe people will watch this. I'm telling you, on the wild times, people are going to want to see it.

But let me, let's back up for a second here. Peter, I want you to just understand this for a second. First of all, Euckel's weighs about 140 pounds soaking wet at his fatest. Okay. Okay. Just think about that. I want you to put that picture in your head. Then he decides to walk 380 miles over the roughest country in the world.

Well, he said 800 kilometers, which is 500 miles. Oh, I thought it was 600 kilometers. No, 500 miles he walked. Okay. Sorry. You just you just jipped him out of 120 hard-fought miles. That was 10 days of his journey. I thought it was 600 kilometers.

That's what the Daily Mail said, all right? 500 miles, Peter, that he walked. That's more than you walked in your entire life put together. Yeah. Without question. 500 miles that this skinny kid walked in some of the hardest landscape in the world. Kyle, pull up that picture, that picture I told you to get ready. Look at what he looked like coming out of it.

Oh, my goodness. I came out like a skeleton. He came out like a fucking skeleton. Look at his feet. Those are monkey feet if I've ever seen monkey feet. It doesn't even look like you. I actually had to do the last 100 kilometers with no shoes on because my shoes were absolutely discreeted.

And that was tough. Walking out of escarpment country was fucking tough. I can't tell you what I went through. But I said to myself that I was going to fucking crawl out of there. Yeah. And the horse died, right? I was going to crawl out. And that was the adult mentality.

Didn't the horse die, Andrew? No, he lived. Oh, I don't know why I thought the horse died. He did. So when production put the entire documentary together, there were times that the horse collapsed when we were all out there. Not many people know. We went, me and that animal went through hell, you know.

Sounds like it. Yeah, and he came out pretty emaciated at the end. We both came out. And it was interesting. People also didn't know that I took, I took a green horse into this situation and never put a pack saddle on him. And until we got out there,

this was the most jittery animal. For the time we'd walked halfway, not only did I need a lead on him, he was actually helping me to round up the buffalo when I was trying to catch him. So it was an interesting reaction that was happening between me and the horse as well. And I'm not, look, I'm not a horse person.

I'm the most inexperienced person of a horse. I can't, I can barely ride a fucking horse. But that connection, man. This horse couldn't be ridden. but I think, you know, in doing any kind of quest like this, you need something to work off and some kind of support. And I think in a comical sense, it's, it's okay when you're talking to that animal. What's not okay is when the animal starts talking back. Yeah, it's going to get the fuck out of that.

What were you eating? Like, what was your main diet for those 42 days? Anything and everything I'd get my hands on. Because you didn't take food, right? Within the legal context, I was, uh, what were some of the, what were some of the, staple food sources that were, I'm not going to say abundant, okay. Yeah, feral pigs, plenty of feral pigs. And look, feral pigs are relatively easy to catch on foot if you know which wants to target. So I was targeting a lot of the larger sales, running them down.

Water buffalo, I think I caught about free buffalo on that trip. So, but look, the issue not necessarily is going to be the food that you're collecting. Because you're dealing in such a hot and humid environment, the issue is always going to be in the preservation of your food. So yes, I took fault. But look, that was a constant thing. And because you are dealing with that environment there, you are constantly on the mood hunting. And I think, you know,

I really want to just draw on one fact here. And that is, you know, I work quite closely with indigenous people up there in the Northern Territory. And this is to do with another side, which is, so I'm also in the Australian Defence Force, you know, coming in as a survival instructor, but we work very closely with the indigenous there.

and you know sometimes i just say to myself how the fuck did they survive out here hundreds of thousands of years like i can see myself being really good at what i do but how the fuck do they survive at what they did is unbelievable you know it really is it's it's the true it's almost like the true human when you look at that you know if we look at ourselves today i feel like we're like domesticated dogs in a way like we're turned into like Labrador's, but the wolves of the past were essentially like the aboriginals. They were the wolves. You know, I've watched some of those Aboriginal kids,

knock birds out of the skies with boomerangs and just the accuracy that they've got with the spear. And it doesn't matter how much time that we spend out there in the field. They've got something which is just innate. Sure. Oh, yeah. And it's from the environment. And I just think I've always just been in awe of that.

And I've always tried to be that. Right. Yeah, Andrew, we've talked about Forrest and I were, you know, We were standing by our car, eating some bananas. And we saw these kids in Madagascar. And I'm not kidding. They were probably four or five playing with a, looked like playing with a sling shot.

They were plinking birds one shot, one shot, grabbing food. Like we saw him get like six birds out of a tree with six shots. And we were like, these kids are built different, man. Yeah. Absolutely. Almost genetic instinctual. Peter, did you catch, there's,

I have questions about Arnhem land. I want to know about how you slept and how that worked. But Peter, I don't know if you caught this because Andrew said it in such a nonchalant way. He ran down pigs. So Andrew used to be a competitive, a competitive triathily or not triathly, marathon runner, right? Andrew. Ronald, yeah.

Yeah. And marathon runner. So he runs down pigs like Native Americans used to run down deer. It's wild, man. He's probably the only person in the world who still does that. Not joking. I love it. I love it. And, you know, with the tours that are run up in the Northern Territory,

I take people out and it's about, you know, teaching of a skill set and making them confident, but showing them what's what's humanly possible. And yeah, there's definitely a lot of strategy to it. You know, you're just focusing on a random solo ball, not even a dog's going to be able to keep up with him, you know, so you've got to be very selective about the individual that you're targeting. And not just that, it's in the same way that, you know, a cheater might be identifying the weakest link within a group. That's exactly what you've got to do. and I think what's happened I think what's happened over time

and this might just be like an internal thing is like a lot of people see what I do and they go this guy's crazy or this guy's this or this guy's that and I think when the general public is saying that it's okay because it's okay to look at me for those kind of eyes I think where I've copped

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This is what I do. It's not me dealing with captive animals from zoos or whatever. Like I catch the wild animals. That's what I've done since a child. It's all I've known. That's just that's being my thing. You, buddy, I just want to say one thing. I don't want to cut you up, but I want you to consider this.

It doesn't matter what you do. If you're in the public light, you are going to be ridiculed. especially in the wildlife space. I mean, Peter and Patrick fucking get it just for doing this podcast. Like, people will jump online and write negative things about them.

Just for sitting here chatting with me about our opinions on animal stuff. I mean, it just... Don't let it get to you, man. People are lunatic. Like, not the good way. I've been definitely thick, a big skinned about it and all that kind of stuff.

But there's definitely a topic that I really want to discuss today outside of all this. And it's about the Tasmanian tiger. But just we'll keep that in... Oh. Yeah. That's a good.

That's called a tease. That's a tease. I sent a text to the group chat last night. I was very excited. Yes. About cat litter. Cat litter. Cat litter.

That's what you tell you. Pretty litter. You guys know I love my cat, Lemley. Peter loves his cat, forest. You need to get some. I might. Pretty litter is a, I'm not kidding, a life-changing product for me. Wow.

It's, dude, there's no odor. There's none. Oh, God. I don't know how this works. But here's the best part. You don't have to scoop the urine out. What? That's the terrible part of cleaning your cat box is the urine and it turns to clay.

It's also the spot that makes you have to clean it all the time and refill it. Dude, the crystals, the individual crystals absorb the urine. So all you have to do is grab the poop. There's no smell. It's, I wish I could go back in time to have this product when I had my other cats. Pretty litter helps keep tabs on my cat's health, keeps odors down. You and your cat are going to love Pretty litter as much as I do. go to pretty litter.com slash wild and use code wild to save 20% on your first order.

That's pretty litter.com slash wild, code wild save 20%. Pretty litter.com slash wild code wild. Terms and conditions may apply. See site for details. Hey guys, if you're enjoying, whoops. Guys, if you like the Wild Times, check us out on Patreon. We put out four extra podcasts per month. That's one commute a week that you're just going to be laughing and learning the whole time in the car. I don't know.

I do something else. This is the late night content and stuff that we can't show on on YouTube because they'll kick us off YouTube. It's the cinemas of podcasts. Uncensored, raw dog. It's the cinemax of podcasts. Check it out. Link right here. Wait, Forrest, your phone's ringing, dude.

Oh, can you answer it? Yeah, pardon me. Sorry, guys. Hello? Hey, is this Forrest Galante? The one and only. Hey, this is Billy from the new streaming service. Oh, yeah, Flipio, of course, Billy.

Yeah, big fan, big subscriber. You're aware of, you know who Andrew Euckels is? He's the guy walked across Arnhem Land. Of course, personal hero of mine. Okay. So we're actually interested in buying a new series about him doing it again. But we want someone to be there for banter. Sure.

Would you be interested in doing this with him? absolutely not. Not only does your network not exist and you have no viewership, but outside of that, I'm not nearly as tough, as rugged, as manly, or as capable as Mr. Eukles. And I think this is a wonderful suggestion, but part of Andrew's charm that the last time I did a show with him that we had to remove is the fact that him on his own doing his funny little dance moves and silly Michael Jackson shenanigans is what makes him so adorably charming and enjoyable. And, you know, know, I'm kind of a crumagin. I'm like an old man.

Sure, sure. We've seen that. Yeah. I would, uh, I would, it's not good. It's not good. No, it's really quite unpleasant. So if it were me, I would recommend doing a show with Andrew and leaving me out of it.

All right. So let me ask you this. Phone call aside for us. What would be this, let's say this really happens. It's, it's Netflix this time. Okay. Well, that's different. What would, how much would they have to pay you to attempt to do this?

So here's the thing. And Hukes and I spoke a lot before this and right after you got back, it sounds like fucking hell. It really does. Yes, clearly. But that being said, I could really use a good diet. So I'd do it. No, I'd do it. Honestly, like all jokes aside, I would do it.

If Andrew came to me, it was like, hey, you know, it'd have to get paid some money. Like, I'm not just up and doing this misery for nothing like that lunatic. But yeah, if there was, if there was like, hey, go and do this, you and Eucles together, get through it 40 days or whatever it was. I'd definitely go for it. I wouldn't do it the Andrew way, though. Andrew's too tough for me. I swear to God, I'm not just making that up. I'd have, I'd have probably a crossbow or a rifle.

I'd certainly have two pairs of shoes. I'd have an RV. Yeah. You know, that'd be fantastic. Yeah. I'd be a little, I think. I do a whole secret broad. I do want to, I do want to point something out that is important, like all networking and jokes.

I'm sorry. Andrew is a true survivalist. I am not. People, people often turn to me as like a survival expert, survival. I'm not that person. I've never been. I said that on naked, afraid. I've said that since beginning. I'm not a survivalist. Yeah, I can build a shelter. I can make a fire. I think anybody with half a brain can do those things. Most of that stuff, and Andrew can attest to this, is about being dynamic and adaptive. I can do any of that stuff.

That's fine. I can filter water. I can do all that. But I'm not a survivalist. Andrew is a survivalist. If you put Andrew and I out in Panama, Arnhem Land anywhere, he is going to out-survive me a thousand times out of a thousand. I'm a biologist. I like to tinker with animals, not try and push myself to see how long I can survive with nothing. Yeah, you're kind of a pretty boy. Oh, yeah, you have become one. I think persistence, you know, it's that persistence and I think it's the mentality of it is what makes a good survivalist is not giving up, not quitting and having a good sense

of ingenuity, you know, being able to look at a problem and look outside the box. You know, that's something that kind of creative way of thinking can only really happen when you spend a lot of time out there in the bush and just been able to look things up. But, you know, I think in any kind of survival situation, have you guys seen the Snow Society? No. Have you guys watched it? So you guys know about the incident that happened in, I think it was in Uruguay. No, they were flying from Uruguay.

It was a soccer team that was going to Chile. Yeah, the rugby team. The rugby team. That's then. Yeah. And they ended up crashing in the Andies, and they had to survive. I think it was 72 days that they had to survive. out there in the snow.

Wow. And I just watched the film and done a little bit of the, the, the, the, the, the, wiki rate on it. Now, these guys here, they obviously, they didn't have any kind of survival backing or understanding all that kind of stuff. But the way in which they were able to push their bodies to the extreme. So they actually ended up having to eat the dead. Okay, but can I just say one thing about this, Andrew?

The reason they were able to do that is because they were rugby players, not soccer players. If they were soccer players, they would have faked injuries, they would have been worried about their hair. They would have all died within 12 hours because soccer players, if you're listening to this, I stand by this, are pussies. Because they were rugby players, yeah, I don't give a shit. Because they're rugby players, they fucking topped it out. So that's important.

Don't insult us by calling us soccer players. What I want to try and say, I guess this is for the audience at home, is everyone has the innate ability to survive. And at the end of the day, you don't know what you're, you don't know how you're going to react until those circumstances have been put in. funny you just don't you know you really you really really don't know how you're going to react and the fact that these guys were able to survive for that period of time and you can imagine the mental trauma of having to eat the person next to you just to sustain yourself oh my god moral implications

that that would have on you both you know both are questioning your belief system or your religion and all that kind of stuff just imagine me turning to pat and being like hey so forest has been gone last 72 hours i'm going to start nolan on his five yeah exactly literally what the context of thinking that you would be in and trying to even transplant that way of thought is just Well, and at the time, at the time when that became a news story around the world back when, you know, you read your news and newspapers, people were outraged and, and these guys took a lot of heat for the fact that they, you know, ate humans. Whereas like, you know, and so I remember hearing about the story as a kid and just being like, but wait, the option was to die. Right. Like, if I'm dead, please, please have a feast. I actually might request that, like, regardless of the survival situation.

Andrew, who would you rather eat Pat or Dead Forest? Well, it all have to be categorized into what I would consider as junk food. Pat would be a meager meal. A lot of saturated fats. I'd be going for fat content. That's probably. So you go forest and start white cheeks. More meaty. More meaty.

Good bone marrow on this boy. Yeah, I take my vitamin. All right, I want to get into something else. Can we transition a little bit here? Sure. So, Andrew, youx got back from Arnhem Land weighing all of 84 pounds and looking like a wet spaghetti noodle of a human being. And we started chatting.

This was your, when did you finish Arnhem Land? Yukes? I was like four years ago, three years ago. It was pre-COVID. Yeah. So it was, what, 2018, I knocked it. I think, yeah. Anyway, we talked about that.

a year or two went by. I get a call out of the blue, a WhatsApp from Yukes. He goes, Chuch, got a chat with you. And I was like, great. Haven't heard of having talked to Yucles in a year or so. Let's, let's get on the phone. Now, before I explain the next absolutely fucking insane thing that came out of this boy's mouth, Peter, what's the one animal that I've always said to you, you can't mess with? There's nothing you can't fuck with it. It's the honey badger. The honey badger, right? Have I not said that on this pod? I don't know. Yes, you've said it a couple times. Yeah, it's like an unfuckable animal. I mean, like, and I mean that. It is just something, like a ferret's bad enough, and that's a honey badger that's this big, right?

It's unfuckable. Mombas won't mess with them. Lions won't mess with them. Leopards won't mess with them. Hyenas won't mess with them. Elephants won't mess with them. Nothing will fuck with a honey badger except for the lunatic on the other end of the phone. He goes, yeah, chichi, how's it made?

I'm doing so that right now. He goes, I want to go and catch a honey badger with my hands. And I was like, click. No, I didn't do that. But I was just like, you're an idiot. that's not possible. What are you talking about? And I was wrong.

So that's all I'm going to say to set that up. But Yucles, what, like, talk about your thought process and that whole thing. Like, what? Okay. So literally, I'm going to show you my phone. And can you see what's on my phone? Sure. Oh, wow.

That's a great honey badge. Beautiful photo. Yeah. Very good. This animal means so much to me. But really. And, you know, I think there's a couple of, um, there's a couple of, um, there's a couple of episodes. I think it was maybe filmed on that Gio and I think someone picked it up

and made it into their own kind of thing and it went viral and it was about the honey badge doesn't do shit. Oh yeah. It's huge. And it was the footage of this, you know, honey badges going and consume my puff adders and breaking into like, you know, honeybee nests and all that kind of stuff. And I guess that's where my fascination kind of arose from. And look, as a child, I had ferrets as as pets and I'd do rabbit hunting like kind of stuff. So I already knew a little bit about, a little bit about the family of the Muscle Day, the Muscle Day theme. So like the weasels, the stoves, the mongusers, the badges and so forth.

And I've always just been so fascinated about those animals I really had. And I think the Honey Badger represented a couple of things. It represented an animal that I had been told was a bit of like a unicorn in Africa. Like people which had been guides their entire life and been like, well, I did see one. Yeah, that's me. Four years ago. Yep. Or, you know, and so it really had.

two. I grew up in like the heart of it, which is where Andrew went to in Zimbabwe. And in my entire life, I've seen two. And I grew up on safari in the bush in the highest density place for honey badgers in the world. And I've seen him twice in my life. Wow. Okay. So, there he is. There he is. Look at these things. Yes. And so the other name for the honey badge is what they're called the that I tell. And it's because the noise that they make is which essentially sounds like a rattle. And it's funny because I feel like that's actually being like

scarred into my brain that noise because I heard it on several occasions when I questioned for them. But look, I made some big fundamental mistakes with that. And I just want to say it was a sponsor, K-Barr. So K-Bar and Ives. I actually got in contact with one of the guys here, Joe, and just said, hey, look, I've always wanted to do this. Can you please send me on this mission?

Can you please sponsor me? And he was just like, you know, I think you talked to John, which is a CEO, then they're just like, yeah, let's send this idiot out there. Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. I'm like quite early. They found my trip, which was, you know, amazing. And so that's where on CIDD actually took me four months to actually try and track one down.

Hold on. I don't think we got to the core of this, which is the main thing, which is, Peter, Andrew wasn't just trying to find a honey badger or photograph one or tranquilize one and move it. He wanted to hand catch one. Of course he did. That's like bigger than like, you know, my God. Oh, yeah. I got nothing to say.

Well, I said, I mean, we just, we just saw the insane. We just saw the video where the honey badgers were chasing off a couple of hyenas. And now we have a picture of Andrew. just holding the biggest honey badger I've ever seen with this bare hands. Yeah. That's crazy. Sorry. All right.

So yeah, so it takes you four months to find one. So the problem we're trying to track down an animal like this is there's a couple of things. And I guess there was a, and I know, I know you're going to be able to relate to this because, you know, you grew up in Zimbabwe, right? Zimbabwe is a difficult place. Oh, right. The quote at the end of the entire trip was the hardest thing about trying to catch one of the hardest animals on earth had nothing to do with the animal. The people. And had everything to do with the people in the way.

Well, explain. I warned you going into it. I told you it's very corrupt and you're going to have a lot of problems and you got to know whose pockets degrees. You're going to spend a night in jail. I warned you on all of that. The caption on your photo, you mentioned extortion and bribery. What happened? Broad, scammed.

the government, which I'd paid thousands of dollars for with a permitting and stuff, just took me around in circles and what they did, their little games and all that kind of stuff. And then Boris gave me a bunch of amazing contacts, which I ended up tracking down and they seemed to be the most, like, helpful people. I was like, don't use the government. Right. Yes. And, look, what ensued was one hell of an adventure, and I think, you know, a social adventure as well.

But one of the biggest issues with Honey Badgers is apart from there, then being a highly intelligent animal, is you're dealing with a species of animal, which is completely nomadic. You're dealing with a species of the animal that has a huge home range. Like, I mean, the home range can be up to 25, 30 kilometres. Now, this animal can move 20 kilometres throughout the night and be from point A to point B. We're talking about an animal that doesn't utilize the same retreats. That's huge.

You know, because if you're targeting an animal that goes into the same, like, cavern or borough or hole and effectively you can set up a trap we can wait for it you can dig it out but a honey badger doesn't do that it's using the generational retreats of multiple different animal species so whether it be a jackal whether it be a an ardbark or whatever it might be that animal itself doesn't know where it's going to land it's almost like a butterfly so when you're trying to track down an animal like this it's it's incredibly difficult it doesn't matter i had some of the best trackers i'm sure from zimbabwe from zambia helping me to try and track down this animal and with every step closer that we got was still a mile away from this animal because there was no way of

I've been able to predict where it was going to end up not to mention there's a lot of footage of these animals moving around dionally like in the daytime they are not a diurnal animal they're a nocturnal animal that's the other thing that's the other problem we've talked about this you can't just like run around the bush at night in Africa it's not a thing it's not like anywhere else in the world I know you tried you lunatic I'm saying normal like people can't just do that because you get to eat Well, look, I saw, I saw, I saw, I saw leopards, I saw hippos at night. I saw all of that as I was walking through the bush and just, but, and I saw my first badger, I saw three weeks into my trip and I remember chasing and running and then you've seen African box form, right?

You've seen that before the figure. And I remember chasing it and it went into that and that's impermeable. You can't get through that. That's a matrix. It's a vegetation matrix. So if I was to, if I was, retrospectively, if I was to do it again, and it. you don't want to be picking an environment, which is like a 3D environment.

So what I mean by that is you don't want to be picking somewhere where there's a lot of hideaways and holes and thick vegetation and scrub is where people have had their success in catching these animals is essentially in two-day environments. So like in the Kalahari, where you can see this animal in the distance and it can't retreat anywhere,

it can't go anywhere. So it literally becomes a foot race to catch these animals. And that's how it's been done in the past. How did you catch... So obviously you caught one at some point. Right. So I was basically out of cruise. National Park. I'm just trying to think it's like a German kind of town there. And I went and started doing

some interviews with some of the farmers. I'd been told that the best chance of me trying to catch one would be talking to one of these people because there's often a conflict that they have with like jackals and mongooses and badgers essentially trying to get into their chickens. So I met up with a guy that was a chicken farmer and essentially he said, look, we've been having a problem with a badger. You know, we're going to, we'll try and help you out. We'll try and set up like a bit of a trap. So it was like a bit of like a walk in Avery and we set up a like a chip in like a carcass and a track and springloaded sort of door system. And essentially we got one inside of this like fucking Avery. Now the interesting thing was after almost four months of trying to catch one of these animals, I've got a phone call that day.

And there's I thought there's not many things that will make my heart start racing. But it was it was the phone call of, hey, we have a badger. And this thing is going to be. I don't know how you're going to try and go about handling this thing. He goes, really, he goes, but I'll film it. And so what ensued was I got there. And I remember I was actually outside of this like big Avery, big walking room. And there's this badge and he'd been trying to dig out throughout the night and he was just walking.

Just calmly, just along the sides. And I remember, I got to it and it kind of just like glanced over its shoulder and just looked at me and then just kept doing it. Yeah, because they don't give a fuck. I mean, there's literally memes, Honey Badger, don't give a fuck. Because they don't give, they don't, Kyle, pull up that mean, they don't give a fuck. Because nobody's going to mess with a honey badger. Nobody, eucles, is stupid enough to mess with a honey badger. Nobody.

They don't get back. They don't run away from predators. So he's in the room. He's in the room. The honey badger sees you, doesn't seem to care. Now what? Right. And then I say to the guy, I said, let me go in there.

I just want to just suss this animal out and just work with it. And the guy goes, mate, he goes, I'm going to be honest. He goes, once you're fucking in there, he goes, this is not your domain anymore. I go, it's his. So anyway, he opens up this door, locks me in there. And I go inside this big fucking Avery room with this fucking badger. And this is the intelligence of the animal. He knew the door I'd come in for him, right?

So the badger, he's just looked over his shoulder. He's watched me come through the door. And then he's kind of just, you know, kept doing his thing. He's digging inside. And then by the time I'd moved halfway to the room, what had done is it took a look at me. it went to the side it went to the door and then it stopped and it turned because what it essentially done was it goes well i know that's your outlet that's how you get out of this entire trapment so i'm going to put myself between you and the outlet and that's that's the strategic

mind of a honey that's right now yep it's like now i've got you so it turned and then mate i think the footage is quite hilarious and it's for i think seven minutes of me trying to get fuck out of the Avery with this fucking badger just asking me and I'm trying to do it all things like in that time I'm jumping. Wishing you could be there live for the big game soaking up the atmosphere of the crowd

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You know what I mean? Yeah, and it's spying as like a fucking noodle. You know what I mean? It's what I've always said when we're talking about, about mustilids. Like, you can't hold them anywhere. You can't hold. They're like fucking noodle creatures with the ferocious team. Very difficult.

Yeah. So whilst all this was going on, the guy's like, hey, you're only going to be able to do this with a net. So he ends up giving me a fucking net. And then eventually I get this thing in the net. I'll get him under control, but not just that. Trying to actually grab a badge up, they've just got, it's not like scruffing a fox or scruffing like a feral cat or something like where you can actually got something to grab onto. They've got so much loose skin, right?

So you've actually got to grab the loose skin and pull it up as high as you can and have as much gravity to actually get the animal off the ground that enables you the ability to handle it. Or otherwise, you're going to get bit. Wow. Dude, that thing is so big. Yes. It's wild.

And weren't you afraid it was just going to claw your face right there in that picture? Look, at that point in time, I feel like I'd already been through enough. Sure. I just, yeah, it was kind of almost like a suicidal mission at that point in time. I just want, I just want to have this moment with the animal. Did you take any? Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. Retrospectively, they are still to say my most favorite animal.

It's like a spirit animal. I think they're unbelievable. It's such an unbelievable species. And I feel so sorry for the African continent for them being there. Did you take any damage? No. No. Financial damage, yes.

Sure. But in terms of like physical and emotional damage, or maybe a bit of emotional damage. You took plenty of emotional damage. I remember you're calling me halfway through. Oh, angry. In Zimbabwe for two months. Everybody's a fucking crook here.

I don't know how you lived here. This place is the shittiest country on earth. And I was like, no, you're just dealing with the wrong people. Wrong people. You got to deal with the right people. Like, the government will fuck you. And not, I'm not trying to throw you under the bus here, but you just can't do it the right way.

in Zimbabwe. You can't do it on paper. You can't do it. And people don't understand this. When you come from America or the Western world, you're like, check the boxes, dot the eyes, cross the T's, do things the right way. And I respect that. And I understand that. You should do that in the Western world. You cannot do that in Zimbabwe. It doesn't, you don't understand. All that happens is you get walked like a bloody dog on a leash and write check after check after and hand out piles and piles of money. And they just look at you with dollar signs in your eyes, like, oh, this boy is a bottomless pit. And they'll just walk you around. round and around in circles, getting you to, uh, getting you to pay. And that's what happened to

Andrew for two and a half, three months. And then finally connected with some of my friends and got pointed in the right direction. But it just, uh, yeah, it was, I know, I know what you've been through because I lived it. I lived it. It's unbelievable. It really, it really is. And, uh, look, I did meet some amazing people along the way. Uh, but, um, you know, retrospectively, and it's so true, you know, when, when your example, when your template is coming from a first world country, you know, Australia or the US. The interesting, your word is your word. And the value system that we have in most places is your word is honest.

It's transparent and it's to the point. It's quite clearly black and white. And the unfortunate thing is when you go to these places, you get nothing more than the African promise. You get promised everything. And I think, you know, it wasn't my first radio. I'd been to Africa before and I dealt with this. But I felt as though because there was a goal,

I was trying to achieve something that was so hard. They just found that as a way of being able to exploit me. And at every single level, like, I've met up with the environmental ministers of the countries. I met up with everyone in between. And it's all part of the documentary. And I think it's, it's interesting because I filmed the entire thing. It's sitting on a hard drive and I haven't released anything.

Oh, really? No, I haven't released anything. When are you going to release it? Well, I guess when I've got a production company that wants to... Yeah, we're talking about it. Got you. If there's anyone, if there's any production companies listening, then, yeah. Hell yeah.

For real. Andrew, you mentioned, you teased it earlier. The audience has been waiting now, 25 minutes. Anytime we talk about Tasmanian Tiger, people are nuts. What? I found one. I was like, hold on a bitch. Wait, what?

That was good. I was like a little bit shocked. I didn't know what to say or do for a second. I was like, all right, here comes Neil Waters. Surprise guest. Tell us, talk to us, Eutz. Tell us the story. Well, I want to ask you some questions.

You know, and I think a question I've received is, you know, one of my thoughts about there still being like a small population of Tasmanian tigers remaining in the remoteness of the Tasmanian wilderness. And I think you have to think about this type of issue. And obviously, you know, being a wildlifeologist, you've got to think about this in layers. But where my mind goes is straight to, why don't we look at why this animal became extinct

based on its behavior. And it was probably because this animal didn't have the fear of humans. It was an opportunist. It was a scavenger. It had a large home range. And essentially, even today, if it was around, I can almost guarantee you it would almost be very similar to like a raccoon or a fox where it's going to be popping up campsites.

It's going to be popping up at rubbish bins. It's going to be popping up in areas where it's going to have a very, efficient way of being able to hunt food, so on people's farms and properties and all that kind of stuff. And so when you think about it within the context of behaviour and ask yourself the question of, right, do I believe there are Tasmanian tiger still roaming around out there in the wilderness? I think the pretty fast answer to that is no. I don't believe there is. I don't believe there's enough wilderness out there. And it's one of those, another layer in effect that people often use is, well, it's the remoteness, you know, and the Tasmanian forest,

and it is, is incredibly dense and there's such a thick matrix and there could be a small pocket population that could be existing out there. But I just feel with the amount of paths and roads and the amounts of game cameras and the amount of individuals which are out there on motorbikes

and not just that, the amount of road kilk, which is out through Tasmania, I'm not sure if you've been in Tasmania, but the amount of roadkill which is there, one would have popped up, one would have been hit by a car. We're talking about an animal that I believe was quite aloof

to the interaction of humans. I don't believe they probably had a good flight distance, the same as like a dingo, but I don't believe they were such a nervous animal because then that wouldn't make sense as to why they were shot to extinction. They're obviously a very easy animal to get a target on. So I don't, I don't,

I personally believe that they're not there. I agree with you, by the way, and I've said that before, and I actually have a whole video on this coming out pretty soon, but I believe that they have been expatribute, created from Tasmania. Now, I'll tell you this. I think that they were around in Tasmania much later than they were declared gone and they were functionally extinct and slowly weeded down long after Benjamin died in the Hobart Zoo. I don't think mainland Australia had any. I know

sightings still pop up. These are just my opinions, by the way, based on my searches, interviews, chats with people, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I do believe, and I've said this many times before, that if there is still a population, that it would be a very small and fragmented subspecies, but a population none the less of thylacine in western Papua, or possibly Papua New Guinea, where dingoes have not been able to penetrate. Because outside of expatriation from human beings and being targeted, you know, by bounty place hunting, these animals were primarily out-competed by dingoes. There's really no other reason that they went away from Australia and New Guinea. So as long as you find an area that those animals would have been in,

evolutionarily speaking, they would have been naturalized to those areas without being out competed by dingoes being introduced 4,000 years ago, that's where they would still be. And I think I know where some of those areas could be in Western Papua and Papua New Guinea. So I agree with you. I don't think they're in Tasmania. I went, I looked. I don't think they're there. And believe me, Andrew, we have tried to. get multiple different times. We've tried to get someone to fund the expedition to this one particular part of Western Papua, which still has upwards of 50 uncontacted tribes. There was one botanical survey that went there 20 years ago and didn't go very well.

But yeah, we've tried to get someone to fund it. It's not a cheap expedition and a brutal one, but my fantasy scenario would be the two of you and Bradley Trevor Greve altogether. Oh, God, it would be great. Go in, bunch you jump out of helicopters. You're in the bush. Been three months. Find the thing. Yeah.

And there are all these stories, Andrew, you know, I can go, I don't want to get started because I'll go on for hours. But there are all these stories of moon tigers and this and that, of these local indigenous people, people that come out of the forest that have lived there, you know, several generations and have firsthand reports of seeing them, just like you said, like a raccoon or a skunk outside of camp, digging through the trash, whatever. And this is someone who walked from his village and ended up in another village and ended up in another village and now lives in Port Moresby. But when he was 18 years old, he used to feed the thylacine outside of his,

outside of his village. And these are always in villages that don't have dogs, by the way. They don't have dogs. They don't have dingo. So there's nothing to outcompete them. Because it was Nick, it was Nick, a Ranger by the name of Nick Mooney. He was the individual that last spotted that one in Tasmania. And I don't, I did.

Have you met him before? Yeah, yeah. You get a show with him. Yeah, Nick's an incredible guy. Amazing. And I 100% believe he saw what he saw. There's no tourism plug for Tasmania embedded into that or whatever it is. I genuinely believe that this individual saw one out there, what may have been the last one at that time.

Yeah. But do you believe, you know, because obviously I watch a lot of what's been happening in terms of the research of the potential of a reintroduction? What are your thoughts on that? It's coming. It's coming in the next 10 years. I think that, you know, Colossal is working with Ozzy Ark. They're working with the Dunnard, the closest living relative. We used to think it was the Quall, but now we know it's the Dunnart.

Not Quall. What do we think it was before? Maybe it was the Quall. Anyway, they're now working with Dunart DNA. The Numbat. That's right. Thanks, Edwin. We thought it was the Numbat, but now we know it's not.

And they're working with the Dunnart, and they are building the genome. from existing specimens of the thylacine so that they can, through artificial wombs and through Dunnarts, make a thylacine, and Ozzi Arc is going to manage the reintroduction. What do I think of it? I mean, you said it yourself. You've been to Tasmania. How much roadkill is on those roads? How much facial tumor disease is wiping out the devils?

How much mange is taking over the wallabies and the wombats there? I mean, it's unbelievable. Kyle, just people should see this. pull up a picture of the mange on the wombats in Tasmania. It's crazy. And this is because there is no predator to regulate these mid-sized animals. That is the reason that these populations have exploded and these diseases have become rampant. That animal that you're looking at right there would not be alive if there was a thylacine in the environment because a thylacine would see that weak link and pick it off and eat it.

That's what predators do. They see the weak and the injured and they get rid of them. So diseases like what you're seeing with that mange wouldn't spread so rampantly. So what do I think? I think it's fucking fantastic, man. I can't wait for them to do it. Now, does that mean we go and make a bunch of thylacines in a lab and just dump them in Tasmania and be like, good luck. Of course not, right?

It's slow. It's controlled. Yeah, it's slow. It's controlled. You do it in a test area, a small site. You add certain types of prey. You monitor how that interaction works. You make sure their, their reproduction is viable.

and they're not genetically bottlenecked and that they're not, you know, the offspring aren't all deformed and mutated. And, you know, it's like, it's a very slow process. It's not like, oh, thylacine are back. There they go. You know, it's like a very slow like, okay, we made one. Now we made two.

Now they're in an acre. Now they're in five acres. Now they're in 50 acres. You know, it's like a big control group and you got to test everything. And then you slowly begin to reintroduce them into the right areas that are all managed. Like, this is not an overnight thing. But what do I think? I think it's the best fucking thing in the world.

Like I couldn't be more excited. What I know. right now, and my core belief system is one way or another, in my lifetime, I will get to see a thylacine. I've seen them in museums. I've held dead specimens. But in my lifetime, whether I find one in Western Papua and Pat and I figure out I get this fucking $5 million project funded, or I'm standing next to the guys at Colossil the day one is born, I will get to see a thylacine in my lifetime. And just that's, that's on a selfish level, but outside of that, on a biological level, they are going to effectively repair the ecosystem that is so terribly damaged in Tasmania.

I'm thrilled about it. Yep. Eucles, what, we got to wrap up here, but what's next for you, man? What's the next big adventure? I'm talking with a producer at the moment for Australia, and essentially we want to do a series up here in the Northern Territory. So there's a lot of, there's a lot of social dismay going on at the moment with the booming crocodile population. As you know, Australia, essentially we went from a population of 3,000 crocodiles back in the 19th, now to all over 150,000 crocodiles.

Wow. That they're somewhat succeeding, their carrying capacity. And they tried to do a number of things that curve all the population in terms of, you know, crocodile farming, it's a commodity and all that kind of stuff. But now, of recent, the Australian government has actually. been questioning whether they introduced a cult. And so obviously on one end with the ecologists and the conservationists, there's a huge concern as to what kind of like traffic cascade effect that this might

have on the environment. Right. And anyway, there's so much which is entailed into this, you know, socially, culturally, you know, particularly with the relationship the indigenous people have to the animal. And in one article I just read, which I thought was interesting, a lot of big fashion brands and labels are actually getting away from the use of animal products like crocodiles, for example. And it's probably because something along the lines of, you know,

the husbandry practices of what the actual farming setups look like with animals. And so obviously on animal welfare kind of thing, they're trying to go away from that and step more into like the use of biotechnology and different fabrics and all that kind of stuff. So there was actually one farm in the Northern Territory. I'm not sure if it was Northern Territory in Queensland that started using crocodiles, as blood and bone fertilizer. Now, I'm not sure how a lot of people would feel

that one of the most iconic Australian animals is being used as fertilizer. So anyway, there's a lot of other uses for crocodiles too. I mean, skins and leathers and meat and, you know, I think fertilizer is kind of a low priority, I would think. 100%. So there's a number of hot topics which are happening in the Northern Territory at the moment,

and essentially we're going to be focusing on a couple of these hot topics, and obviously crocodiles is one and the other. What's the difference between butter and butter made from real California dairy? It's the real California farm families behind it. Real people. Real care. Real intention. Why? Because real matters. So whether you're pouring milk, melting of cheese, or just grabbing one more spoonful of yogurt. Keep it real. Look for the seal.

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Rules and restrictions apply. is to do with, and this is obviously a little bit about what we discussed, about the concern of what would be the next COVID and the number of amplifier or reservoir animals that we have in the Northern Territory that can harbour some of the most dangerous diseases known to man, spirulosis, brucellosis, Japanese encephalitis, you know, what is going to be the next zoonotic disease, which is either going to hit into the primary production industry and or is going to be a direct threat to public safety. Damn.

We're a stone pro from Southeast Asia quite literally. And, you know, we've got a very strict biosecurity here in Australia because we have to. And we have a lot of concern, particularly with what's coming in from Southeast Asia. You know, we've got some rampant diseases right on our shoreline. So, yeah, there's a bit of an idea and a bit of a concept based around that as well. And, yeah, I think it'll be really interesting. And I think also to a pivotal point in my career where I'm doing things which are a bit more social, political, a bit more, you know, investigative journalism and all that kind of stuff. And a little bit different from the, you know, the crazy, crazy eugals, you know, the psychopath.

So it's now about using my experience, my knowledge, my skill set, and now being able to ask the hard questions to get the answers to. Oh, sorry. Andrew, and that experience, that knowledge and that skill set is materialized in another way, too. because you're doing Euckels Wild Tours now, right? Yeah. So Australian Wild Tour is in Northern Territory. And look, that's essentially about teaching people a skill set and an ability to survive in the Australian Outback. And so I take very exclusive small groups of individuals into the bush.

We do it for three days or even do like overnight tours. And essentially, I teach you how to survive. That's just it. And so I've got a bit of a program. And it's all been incorporated in a very conservation way. So, for example, the feral pigs that I catch, not only in my teaching people how to catch them, how to be utilising the meat content of that.

I'm also giving tissue samples to the veterinary laboratories in Darwin because they're testing for different diseases. With the sharks that we're catching on the program, we're doing shark tagging. You know, with the species of snakes that I'm finding out there in the bush as well, we're putting that information to the NT fauna Atlas, so people are able to identify what species of snakes are in certain areas. So what we've tried to do is,

we've tried to create a tour which has like a bit of a research focus at the same time it's fun it's adventurous it gets people out there and it's something which is different and it hasn't something like this hasn't been offered in Australia and yeah I'm gonna I'm gonna go pretty gunpow with it so yeah very good nice dude yeah well congrats and congrats on the evolution of your your career to now you're an investigative journalist with a sprinkle of survival that's it yeah there you know dude great to see you thank you Thank you so much for hanging out with us for now. Thank you.

I've learned quite a bit more than I ever learn with these two. This is true. Thank you so much for having me. And it's always great seeing you guys. And I hope next time I can see you guys in person when I'm back out. Yeah. Let us know when you're cruising back through the States again on your way back. So enjoy your time in Central America, Andrew.

Thank you so much for joining us. And yeah, everybody go check out Andrew's, Andrew's social media and the wild tours. Get yourself a nice tour of the Outback with Andrew Euckel. Yeah. You must be barefoot. All right. Good night, everybody.

Peter, do the thing. Yeah, and while. Oh, yeah, that thing. Oh, yeah, that thing. Oh, damn it. Sorry, Peter. Edit, clear your throat. What?

Get rid of your hiccups. I'm really sorry. This is very unprofessional. Yeah, you're a mess. And while you're at it, go to the wild times. Dot club forward slash info to find all of the links to all the stuff that we have to offer. And what do we offer? We offer four additional bonus pods every single.

month. That's six total podcasts a month. Ad free. If you want to sign up on the Spotify, uh, you know, have at it. It's wonderful. Do it. Wild Times.com. Forward slash info. And don't forget to check out Andrew Uckels.

All of his socials. Good night. Good night. No problems here. God damn it. I got to start. MPH. Don't breath hurting.