Glenn Bohn and the Brown Bear: A Grizzly Face Off in Alaska

Glenn Bohn's hunting trip resulted in one of the most gruesome pictures ever taken, but the truly stunning part of the story comes after the picture was taken. This is the story of what might just be the toughest many who ever lived. Watch here: https://youtu.be/1qdKkSmkuPU ~ Ethos Life Insurance: Protect your family with life insurance through Ethos—get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/tooth. Application times may vary. Rates may vary. LMNT: Get a free 8-count Sample Pack of LMNT's most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase at https://drinklmnt.com/tooth. Rocket Money: Let Rocket Money help you find and cancel unwanted subscriptions, monitor your spending, and lower your bills—join at https://rocketmoney.com/CLAW. Smalls: For a limited time, get 60% off your first order, plus free shipping and free treats for life, when you head to https://Smalls.com/TOOTH. ~ To advertise on the show, contact us! Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/c/toothandclawpodcast ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social: Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:57Wes Larson?

  Hey everyone, it's Wes. I needed to do a quick disclaimer before this episode. We talked about this a lot in the episode, but I wanted to put it at the very top. There's a photo associated with today's story that is incredibly gory. It is hard to look at. I'm not going to tell you not to look at it. If you feel like it, go for it. But it is very, very, very extreme. So, wanted to let everyone know that because you might be Googling the name already. The photo is pretty intense and it might stick with you for a while. So, you know, use your own discretion. You can decide whether or not you want to look at it. But I wanted to make sure you guys heard that first so that there wasn't anyone that was surprised when they looked it up and realized that it's a photo that is hard to

• 1:41Wes Larson?

  forget. Two other quick things. We do have a YouTube channel where you can see all of our episodes in video format. You can see us talking, see us laughing, see us grimacing. So check out YouTube. The photo that I bring up during the discussion isn't going to be on YouTube. It's going to be blurred, but it is going to be on our Patreon channel, which is another thing I wanted to plug. We talked about it a lot, but if you ever want more content, there is a ton over at Patreon. It's only 10 bucks a month and I promise you're gonna like it. All of our episodes go up as videos. There's a lot of chatter and comments and fun to be had over at Patreon. So check it out. I really think you'll like it. Okay, that's it. With no further ado, here's the episode.

• 2:34Jeff Larson?

  Hello everyone. Welcome to Tooth and Claw Podcast. We have our bear wildlife, bear biologist.

• 2:45Jeff Larson?

  If I say bear twice, it makes it sound like you're a bear.

• 2:49Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it kinda does.

• 2:50Jeff Larson?

  He's not a bear. He's a human, but he, he studies bears and his name is Wes Larson, AKA Griz Kid. You may have seen his humpback whale out there. I'm his younger brother Jeff Larson, and I was his field tech with the Black Bear Project. And we have Mike Smith, who's just kinda along for the ride, but he does a lot of good stuff.

• 3:14Mike Smith?

  Someone let me off of this ride.

• 3:16Jeff Larson?

  A podcast that talks about animal encounters.

• 3:23Jeff Larson?

  Yes. Animal encounters that sometimes end up fatal and we like to keep a scientific perspective on everything. So yeah, if, if there, if the animals needed a lawyer, we would be like a good group to reach out.

• 3:42Wes Larson?

  Go ahead and expert witnesses.

• 3:44Mike Smith?

  Just toss this hot potato over to Wes and he'll take us home, maybe.

• 3:49Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I would say we're a podcast all about animal encounters, like Jeff said, but often how they're misrepresented in the media. We want to tell those stories, but give the animals their fair shake. And yeah, I think between those two introductions, you should understand what we do here. How are you guys doing today on this hot summer day? Man, it's a hot one.

• 4:10Jeff Larson?

  You know.

• 4:11Wes Larson?

  Wish I had Santana behind me.

• 4:13Mike Smith?

  You're like Rob Thomas. It's a hot, hot one. What a good song.

• 4:18Jeff Larson?

  I have something that I just can't figure out for the life of me.

• 4:23Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 4:24Jeff Larson?

  Thai food. It just always looks so good and sounds so good. And then I just never like it that much. Like it's not bad.

• 4:31Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it's a little too sweet for me usually. And that's some coming from a guy who loves sweet stuff. But I think I want my meals to be savory and my treats to be sweet.

• 4:41Jeff Larson?

  I honestly can't pin it down. Like the meal I ordered today was perfect and I was just like, I don't know.

• 4:48Wes Larson?

  Yeah. What'd you get?

• 4:50Jeff Larson?

  Something choy.

• 4:53Mike Smith?

  That sounds more Vietnamese.

• 4:55Wes Larson?

  Vietnamese, yeah.

• 4:58Mike Smith?

  Thai is often in contention for my number one. It's like, depending on the day, it's Thai or Japanese for me, for cuisine. So I don't know what y'all's on about. That's crazy. This is crazy talk.

• 5:09Wes Larson?

  It's usually, it's usually Italian or Mexican for me, but Japanese is right up there.

• 5:14Mike Smith?

  Also, very good.

• 5:15Jeff Larson?

  You don't like fish enough for Japanese?

• 5:18Wes Larson?

  I don't, but you know, just about everyone has fish in a lot of their cuisine. So I kinda, you know, I'm putting all that on the other side. Seafood stuff. But you're right, Japanese has a lot of seafood. Same with Korean. Thai doesn't have much, I don't think.

• 5:32Mike Smith?

  Not sure how to solve this mystery for you, Jeff. Maybe it's a COVID thing. Maybe we need to call in.

• 5:38Jeff Larson?

  Like, I can't even explain why is what I got kale soy, kale soy, this one. And it looked just like that, too.

• 5:48Wes Larson?

  Huh. Yeah, it's all blurry for us, but that, yeah.

• 5:52Jeff Larson?

  It wasn't blurry.

• 5:54Mike Smith?

  Okay.

• 5:57Wes Larson?

  You guys want to hear something funny that Jeff did to me recently? So we, I record in my shed and it is out in the middle of my yard. And I occasionally have a cricket that decides to join us while recording. And that cricket, once I called a starling this year, because I couldn't hear it and I could hear a starling. So I thought you guys were hearing the starling, but it was a cricket. When I listened back, I was like, oh, that's obviously.

• 6:22Jeff Larson?

  I was like, sure, it was a cricket, but I wasn't going to tell you what was in your own shed.

• 6:27Wes Larson?

  And it's, it's happened before, too. We've had that cricket be a guest. And the other day we went to record and it was like, no, we were playing VR mini golf and the cricket was just hammering in my, in my shed. Like I could hardly hear my thoughts over the cricket's constant chirping. And it was driving me crazy. I was looking under the shed. I was like, man, it's in here with me. So I was lifting up my furniture. I just could not find this cricket. And then Jeff's like, hey, did you look under your desk? And it's like a very, my desk is wide open. So I was like, no. And then he's like, you should look under your desk. And sure enough, Jeff had attached like a cricket thing that he

• 7:10Wes Larson?

  could activate from afar underneath my desk. And it was driving me up the wall.

• 7:17Mike Smith?

  Genius.

• 7:17Wes Larson?

  So, yeah, it was pretty good.

• 7:20Jeff Larson?

  Activate from afar by telling your girlfriend to switch.

• 7:24Wes Larson?

  Oh, she, she switched it. I was wondering, I was like, this thing doesn't look technical enough for Jeff to like trigger it from Utah. Huh. Yeah, it was awful.

• 7:34Mike Smith?

  He pwned you.

• 7:34Wes Larson?

  So it was a good prank. Good prank. You pwned me real good. Well, speaking of getting pwned, today's subject really gets pwned in a bad way. Yeah. This, this story really for me revolves around a photo. And to be honest, it might be the worst mauling photo I've ever seen. And I've seen some really bad ones. Like you guys have seen some really bad ones. We looked at the Timothy Treadwell autopsy photos. This one's worse, in my opinion.

• 8:06Mike Smith?

  I can't.

• 8:07Wes Larson?

  Really, really bad.

• 8:08Mike Smith?

  Imagine how, if I'm being honest right now, but I'll let you prove me wrong.

• 8:12Wes Larson?

  Part of the reason is how gory it is. And part of it is because the person is still alive when the photo was taken.

• 8:20Jeff Larson?

  And if you guys are listening just on auto, auto, if you guys are listening just on audio, Wes actually has the photo frame behind him.

• 8:30Wes Larson?

  I'm wearing a big cutout of the photo on my face.

• 8:33Mike Smith?

  Yeah, it's really irreverent.

• 8:34Wes Larson?

  No, I am going to show the boys the photo while we're recording. I do think, I want to talk about this, but I think maybe our Patreon people are going to see it live while they're watching the video. But it's not a hard one to find on the internet. And I'll tell people how they can find it. I would, I'm going to have some disclaimers for it here in a second. But basically, the reason it's so hard for me is because I think when I'm seeing a picture of someone who's dead that was mauled by an animal, you can kind of imagine that a lot of that damage took place after they died. And that, you know, maybe they just like bled out really quickly and then the animal ate them a bit or something. And that's why it looks so bad. But knowing that this guy is alive and he's totally conscious

• 9:17Wes Larson?

  and functioning, it's insane. And I think when you guys see the photo, you're going to agree that it's just absolutely insane. Yeah.

• 9:25Mike Smith?

  It's like a Harry Potter picture and they're still moving around and stuff.

• 9:29Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it's like moving. Yeah. And you have to like give it a code to get into a room.

• 9:33Mike Smith?

  Now, this story is getting crazier and crazier.

• 9:37Wes Larson?

  All right. So there's probably people out there right now that are Googling it just based off like our title of the episode and everything. I just want to warn you that it's probably worse than what you're picturing. It might scar you a bit if you've never seen anything like this. For Jeff, who's a resident dark web expert, this is just a Thursday.

• 9:55Jeff Larson?

  I'm off my meds, so I'll stick with me.

• 9:59Wes Larson?

  Oh, man, I never know. How long have we been off the meds? Is that a new thing? Or is this?

• 10:04Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. Okay. Since I got norovirus and I couldn't keep anything down. So then I couldn't take my meds and then I just kept not taking them.

• 10:13Wes Larson?

  All right. Well, anyway, this whole episode is kind of constructed around this photo. And that's because it went somewhat viral in 2020, even though this incident happened in 2016. But when it went viral, it went viral in certain quarters of the internet, like Reddit and whatnot, because I think if you posted this photo to social media just directly, it would probably get censored. I have a hard time believing that it's really floating around on like mainstream social media.

• 10:40Jeff Larson?

  It's like the ring.

• 10:41Wes Larson?

  It is kind of like the ring. Yeah. If you see this photo, seven days later, you're getting mauled by a grizzly bear.

• 10:47Jeff Larson?

  If you post this video, seven days later, you get banned.

• 10:51Wes Larson?

  Yep. You get your face ripped off. The photo has been attached to a number of different bear attacks, including a man named Wes Perkins. But that's not who the victim was.

• 11:03Jeff Larson?

  No relation.

• 11:04Wes Larson?

  Not no relation to me, just another Wes. Initially, there

• 11:09Mike Smith?

  Anthony Perkins, maybe?

• 11:11Wes Larson?

  Could be related to Anthony Perkins. We haven't done that story yet, so I can't tell you for sure.

• 11:15Mike Smith?

  Psycho?

• 11:16Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it's possible. You know, you just never know.

• 11:19Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 11:21Wes Larson?

  Anyway, there was a video that was posted as well, and I couldn't find it. I think it's been kind of scrubbed from the internet. And then there's a number of other videos that were said to be part of the story that actually aren't. You maybe have seen this video of people harassing a grizzly bear on the snow in their snowmobiles. And it's maybe the most beautiful brown bear I've ever seen in my entire life. And right as like they're about to hit it, it turns around and swipes at one of these guys and they speed off on the snowmobile. It's a viral video that's out there. People said it was part of this story. It is not. It's different, totally different thing. One other thing I want to mention, too, is that in Alaska, a snowmobile is called

• 12:03Wes Larson?

  a snow machine. That's what you call them in Alaska. I spent a lot of time on them in Alaska during my polar bear work. And because this story all takes place in Alaska, I'm going to call them snow machines. So snow machine, snowmobile, it's the same thing. And people in Alaska are very particular about that, by the way.

• 12:23Mike Smith?

  I was gonna ask what they call those machines that make artificial snow, but they don't really need one of those up there.

• 12:28Wes Larson?

  Snow blowers. No, that's not

• 12:30Jeff Larson?

  Alaska is not as good of a name. You just use snowmobile.

• 12:35Wes Larson?

  I don't know.

• 12:35Jeff Larson?

  Cause there's lots of machines that work in the snow.

• 12:38Mike Smith?

  Like a plow?

• 12:39Jeff Larson?

  And have like snow responsibility.

• 12:41Wes Larson?

  But what's a snowmobile? Like, I don't know. I don't think it's that much better.

• 12:45Mike Smith?

  What? Like an automobile, but on the snow?

• 12:48Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 12:49Mike Smith?

  Okay. I'm not saying you're wrong, Antarctica, or where are we talking about?

• 12:53Wes Larson?

  Alaska.

• 12:56Mike Smith?

  Yeah, whatever.

• 12:57Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 12:58Mike Smith?

  I'm done. All right. I'm done talking. Sorry.

• 13:00Wes Larson?

  Finally.

• 13:01Jeff Larson?

  I can think of 10 other machines that I would think are snow machines, too.

• 13:06Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it's not super clear. And I will say, when I first got to Alaska and people are saying snow machine, I was like, huh? Like, what's that? You know?

• 13:13Jeff Larson?

  Right.

• 13:13Wes Larson?

  But that is what they call them. What's what we're gonna call it today. Another thing I wanted to talk about.

• 13:18Jeff Larson?

  Well, I'm gonna get confused.

• 13:19Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 13:20Mike Smith?

  What about the smashing machine starring The Rock? What would they call him up there?

• 13:24Wes Larson?

  This is not about that, that particular film.

• 13:27Jeff Larson?

  I don't think he should have been named that. There's a lot of machines.

• 13:30Mike Smith?

  Yeah, the smashing mobile is what he should have been called.

• 13:33Wes Larson?

  All right. A smashing machine is obviously something else. It's those hydraulic presses that we see.

• 13:40Mike Smith?

  Obviously, right?

• 13:41Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 13:41Mike Smith?

  Am I going crazy?

• 13:42Jeff Larson?

  Should be. Yeah.

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• 14:47Wes Larson?

  We're gonna be talking about hunters again. My main source on this story is a hunting podcast, which is called The Hunting Collective, which is part of the Meat Eater family of podcasts. When we talk about hunting, there's a lot of opinions. And I did just want to kind of say my opinion really quickly. And I'm gonna give you guys time at the end to talk about your opinions. But my opinion is that hunting for food is one of the better and more ethical ways to eat meat. I think if you're going to eat meat, and you go out and collect it in the wild, you're killing an animal ethically, you have a connection to your food, the animal gets to live this nice torture-free life. I think it's a good way to get meat.

• 15:26Jeff Larson?

  It contributes to wildlife conservation.

• 15:29Wes Larson?

  It does. Yeah, there's a lot of contribution to conservation. Our North American model is based on hunting.

• 15:35Mike Smith?

  I kind of think it's a good way to die, too. If somewhere around like 65 years old, someone just shoots me and I'm gone, it's better than, you know, like cancer for 10 years or something, right?

• 15:45Wes Larson?

  Yeah. And I would love for them to eat my body. Yeah.

• 15:47Mike Smith?

  I'm just, I'm just throwing, I don't know if I believe this. I'm just throwing that out there.

• 15:52Wes Larson?

  If you eat meat and you are okay with like a cow being in a feedlot its entire life, just kind of like stuck in a tiny confined space, but you're not okay with an elk that lives a wonderful life out in the wilderness and has killed humanely, it's just kind of, I don't know, there is a bit of a disconnect there for me. But I do think everyone's entitled to their own opinion.

• 16:11Jeff Larson?

  But you agree with Mike that it's a good way for like the elk to die?

• 16:15Wes Larson?

  I do. Usually, if they're killed, yeah, if it's like a good shot and a good kill, I do.

• 16:19Mike Smith?

  Because how, how do you elk typically die in the wild?

• 16:23Wes Larson?

  From predators.

• 16:25Mike Smith?

  Yeah, getting munched on.

• 16:26Jeff Larson?

  Disease?

• 16:26Mike Smith?

  Disease.

• 16:27Wes Larson?

  Disease falls. Yeah.

• 16:28Mike Smith?

  Trees falling on them.

• 16:29Wes Larson?

  My opinion on trophy hunting is that it does serve

• 16:32Mike Smith?

  As a beavers. Yeah, beavers get a lot.

• 16:36Wes Larson?

  Trophy hunting can serve a big purpose financially. It can contribute a lot of money to conservation. But personally, I don't understand the mindset of wanting to kill something just to kill it or just to have a trophy. It just doesn't make sense to me. I can't, I can't see things that way. But I do think my thoughts on the necessity of trophy hunting to kind of further conservation in some areas has evolved. I have kind of learned that there are some places where it really is still necessary. And we will do a full episode on it at some point. That being said, I really

• 17:08Jeff Larson?

  You don't think they should have killed mountains of bison?

• 17:12Wes Larson?

  I don't. No, I don't like that. And that was, I mean, that was trophy hunting. That was also to try and like, to take over the indigenous population by taking care, like removing their main source of food.

• 17:23Jeff Larson?

  Oh, so you do think they should have?

• 17:24Wes Larson?

  No, I don't. Not at all. So the specific type of hunt that we are going to talk about today, I really don't like. And I am going to make that clear. It's the spring brown bear hunt in Alaska. You can read a lot about how people think it's important that we manage brown bear numbers. But I believe that they naturally regulate their own populations, especially in really wild places like the place we're going to talk about today. And the thought of shooting a bear right as it emerges from its winter den, just does feel kind of wrong to me. I don't love that. It is legal, though. And I, and I'm not gonna like, say that these people are bad people because they do it, but it just doesn't sit right with me. I think it's probably fairer than like chasing and treeing a bear with

• 18:09Wes Larson?

  dogs or shooting one that comes into a bait station. Because there is still a good amount of danger involved with it, as today's story is going to illustrate. But I'm not going to call this one an attack, because this was a bear defending itself from an attack. And regardless of how you feel about bear hunting, if you don't agree with that, I am curious to know why. If a bear coming out of its den in the winter and being shot isn't an attack on the bear, rather than, you know, vice versa, I don't really understand that that train of thought. Let's talk about our people. Glenn Bond moved from Colorado to Alaska in the 60s. And he worked in the last frontier as a school teacher. He did a lot of hunting. He'd hunted his entire life. And from what I could gather, he hunted

• 18:54Wes Larson?

  just about everything in the state that was legal to hunt. Like, including before they were like banned from hunting beluga whales. This guy hunted everything. And that was a tradition that he passed on to his son Brett. And Brett started hunting squirrels and rabbits at about three years old. And by the time he was eight, he had shot a caribou and a moose. He got really into hunting. As he got older, he started guiding right out of college. And he took people to hunt and kill just about everything that you could get a permit for. And Glenn Bone also did some guiding as well, the dad. When he retired from school teaching, he started guiding in the 90s. And he worked as an assistant guide all the way up to 2015, which is the year before this incident takes place.

• 19:40Wes Larson?

  So all of this is to say, these are two very experienced Alaskan outdoorsmen and hunters. Brett probably leaned into it even more so than his dad. And by April of 2016, he'd either guided hunters or hunted himself just about everything he possibly could. He was also incredibly well trained in safety, first aid, and he possessed some serious certifications and qualifications. When it came to wilderness and backcountry safety and response. He also was a certified bear guard and had been for about 10 years.

• 20:13Mike Smith?

  Last name is Bone, you said?

• 20:16Wes Larson?

  It's Bohn, but it's B O H N. Yeah.

• 20:19Mike Smith?

  Okay.

• 20:19Wes Larson?

  Yeah. So I

• 20:20Mike Smith?

  I was gonna say a good hunter's name.

• 20:22Wes Larson?

  Bone would be a good hunter's name. I may have said bone at some point, but it's Bohn. It's pronounced Bohn.

• 20:27Mike Smith?

  I am gonna title this episode Bone Gets Pwned, though.

• 20:30Wes Larson?

  That's fine. I like that.

• 20:34Wes Larson?

  Uh, again, regardless of how you might feel about the whole hunting angle on this story. These dudes really did know their way around the Alaskan backcountry and they were extremely well prepared.

• 20:45Jeff Larson?

  Wait, what did you say his bear thing was? His, he's what?

• 20:49Wes Larson?

  He was a bear guard, a certified bear guard. So those are people that can be hired to like, um, hang out around like, uh, survey crews or yeah, nightclubs.

• 21:02Wes Larson?

  Whatever to, um, to make sure that, that bears aren't, aren't going to come in and hurt anyone.

• 21:06Jeff Larson?

  The, he's just like, let me see your human ID and the bear's like, oh, here's one and it's like, that doesn't look like you.

• 21:19Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 21:21Mike Smith?

  I bet that happened a lot.

• 21:24Wes Larson?

  All right. Get back on those meds, Jeff. Uh, it's mid-April, 2016. Uh, it's actually tax day in 2016 and they decide to go on a spring bear hunt about 60 miles east of Denali National Park at the Alpine Creek Lodge. Glenn and Brett leave the lodge that morning on snow machines. And basically the thought was just to cover as much ground as possible and look for a bear den. There's still a lot of snow on the ground and this is the kind of hunt hunters are just looking for a den that has been opened by a bear. Which means the bears come out, it's slid around, it's walked around a little bit, but it still hasn't left the den site. And bears do often spend a fair amount of time around their dens before they actually leave.

• 22:08Wes Larson?

  So when they wake up, they often kind of like go in and out and they're walking around a little bit and kind of just like waking up and figuring out if it's actually time to leave the den site. And so that's exactly what these two are looking for. They're looking for a big Alaskan brown bear that hasn't yet left its den. Quick reminder on what we mean when we say brown bear. The species name here is Ursus arctos. So this is the same species we have in places like Yellowstone and Glacier that we call a grizzly bear. Um, and then you can also find them in like Russia, in the Middle East, in parts of Europe. It's the same species. This is probably a different subspecies, like the, the subspecies here in the lower 48

• 22:51Wes Larson?

  is often called Ursus arctis horibilis. I don't know if I necessarily believe that it's its own subspecies. But this is a grizzly bear, also called a brown bear. In Alaska, they typically call them brown bear. All right?

• 23:04Jeff Larson?

  All right.

• 23:05Wes Larson?

  You got that?

• 23:06Mike Smith?

  Yeah. Let me write that down.

• 23:09Wes Larson?

  Write it down, Mike. I want to see it on the wall behind you next time we record.

• 23:13Mike Smith?

  When bears hibernate and they go into those dens, are they? Um, do they ever cache food? Do they have like a food source they bring nearby or anything like that? Why, why do you think they don't do that? They just are done eating?

• 23:27Wes Larson?

  Yeah. I mean, their, their bodies are programmed to just kind of shut off, you know? And they're, they're just, they're going to slow that metabolism down. They're going to recycle urea. Um, they're not gonna, they're gonna have that fecal plug in that

• 23:39Mike Smith?

  Myrea?

• 23:40Wes Larson?

  Prevents them from urea. That prevents them from pooping.

• 23:43Jeff Larson?

  Right. Exactly. Would you want to keep eating if you couldn't poop?

• 23:47Mike Smith?

  That'd be tough.

• 23:48Wes Larson?

  Yeah. What if you had, what if one of your many anal plugs was in and your butt plugs and you couldn't poop? Yeah. Or you had to poop. I mean,

• 23:56Mike Smith?

  I wouldn't know how to deal with that.

• 23:59Wes Larson?

  Or those balls from the handmaiden? You ever think about that?

• 24:03Mike Smith?

  Yeah, I have a lot, actually.

• 24:05Wes Larson?

  All right.

• 24:08Wes Larson?

  All right. Glenn Bohn is 77 at this time. And I think Glenn and Brett both know that this might be Glenn's last chance to do this kind of hunt. So both men really want to find a big bear for Glenn to kill. It's a sunny day. The snow hasn't really gotten soft yet though. And Brett knew they probably really only had this one day to really find what they're looking for. Because once the snow gets too soft, you can't really ride a snow machine on it that well. And it's harder to walk around and to find these dens. Um, they're about 25 miles into their snow machine ride and he sees exactly what they'd been searching for all morning. And what that is, is an open brown hole in the white snow. And all around it are the unmistakable tracks of a large brown bear.

• 24:52Wes Larson?

  They stop their snow machines. Brett takes a closer look through his optics. And then after following the tracks with his eyes, he decides that none of them led away from the den. And that it's very likely that this bear is still inside of the den. All right. I'm not totally sure.

• 25:09Jeff Larson?

  That's a bingo.

• 25:10Wes Larson?

  That's a bingo. That's what he said. Yeah.

• 25:14Wes Larson?

  In a German accent, weirdly.

• 25:16Mike Smith?

  He just stuck his head into the big brown open hole and looked inside.

• 25:19Wes Larson?

  I, I was wondering, I was wondering if you guys were gonna be able to

• 25:23Mike Smith?

  I almost made it through. I couldn't.

• 25:25Wes Larson?

  Open brown hole. When I wrote that in my notes, I thought, we're gonna see, we're gonna see how they do with this.

• 25:31Mike Smith?

  I failed again.

• 25:32Wes Larson?

  I'm glad you took the bait.

• 25:33Mike Smith?

  Maybe someday, but not this day.

• 25:36Wes Larson?

  But not today. But I'm not totally sure why, but for some reason Glenn really didn't love the idea of checking out this particular den at that moment. Cause this seems like exactly what they're looking for, but he told his son that they should come back tomorrow. Brett, though, was planning on leaving that evening and he told his dad that tomorrow isn't an option. And then Glenn suggested they flip a coin. And Brett pretty much says he doesn't have a coin and his dad either needs to decide if they should leave or if they should go check out this bear den.

• 26:04Mike Smith?

  Got him on a technicality.

• 26:06Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 26:07Mike Smith?

  On a loophole. I don't have a coin, sorry. Nothing we can do.

• 26:11Wes Larson?

  Turns out it would have been great had they had a, a coin in this instance. So finally his dad relents.

• 26:17Mike Smith?

  It's tough out there in this economy.

• 26:19Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Let's go investigate this den.

• 26:23Wes Larson?

  All right, Jeff, quick break. Um, when we went inside black bear dens on the study that you helped me with, what was the overall danger level that we were facing?

• 26:33Jeff Larson?

  I mean, it did depend a lot on the den, I think. Like if it was a more open den, I would say maybe like a three out of 10. If it's like a really enclosed, enclosed tight den, I'd probably say like a six.

• 26:47Wes Larson?

  I think we always knew there was like the chance we would get swatted or bit or something like that. But never did I feel like there was a bear that wanted to kill us, you know? It always just felt like with black bears, they really just want to get out. They want to get out and get away. And if you're in their way when they're trying to do that, there's a chance you might get injured. But they're so risk averse in their dens that I know biologists that have had to just lay flat and let the bear run over top of them. And that's what it does because it just wants to get out. And this is so common that most black bear biologists have done den visits and a lot of black bear wildlife managers have done den visits. They're very common. This is not the case with brown bears. They're extremely grumpy and defensive in their dens.

• 27:32Wes Larson?

  And it might be one of the worst places that you can run into a brown bear. And this is anecdotal, but Tom Smith, my mentor, used to tell me about a study in Scandinavia where he said the researcher, the researchers tried to sedate brown bears in their dens like we did with black bears. And what they would do is get this big metal grate, throw it over the top of the bear's den entrance. And then the bear would come rushing out and they would have their entire team like holding this metal gate against the den entrance while they tried to sedate the bear. And, and it was like an experimental study and he said multiple people on that study got mauled by brown bears.

• 28:10Wes Larson?

  Yeah. So I tried to look this up. I couldn't find it anywhere, but if anyone out there knows anything about this, please send it to me. Cause Tom used to tell me about it and I just thought, man, that is the craziest idea for a study.

• 28:22Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. Well, like it's just, your hands would be able to get bit. They're like so good at like, I just remember that one bear that was, uh, in a trap. And like a dog placed its paw for one split second where the bear could get it and the bear bit the paw.

• 28:40Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 28:40Jeff Larson?

  It's like, they're so quick with that.

• 28:42Wes Larson?

  And I've been around both black and grizzly bears in traps. And the way that grizzly bears are scary in traps outweighs anything that I've pretty much seen in my life. They are just, you can tell that it just wants to kill you. Um, and I don't blame them. You know, it's a scary, really terrible environment for them. Um, there are a fair number of maulings and fatalities that have happened at brown bear dens. Whether or not it's people that are actively looking for them or someone that stumbled across one and getting mauled by the bear. It has happened a fair amount of times. And they are probably one of the more, if not the most dangerous bear to encounter in a den. Uh, even more so than polar bears. So this is, I'm just trying to illustrate all this to let you know, this is a dangerous way

• 29:28Wes Larson?

  to approach a bear in a hunt is to crawl up to an unoccupied den. The men couldn't take their snow machines safely up the hill to the den.

• 29:36Jeff Larson?

  Is that why, or you kind of said you don't know why, but is that why the dad was kind of hesitant?

• 29:43Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I don't know. He'd hunted bears before. I don't know if he'd ever hunted them this way, like in a den. But they didn't, in the interview that I listened to, um, which was with Brett, he didn't really elaborate why his dad didn't want to do it.

• 29:56Jeff Larson?

  Like it seems weird to me that the dad wanted to go back, almost like they, he wanted something else.

• 30:02Wes Larson?

  It does to me too, because you're going to learn that Glenn Bohn is maybe the toughest person that's ever existed on this planet. So I don't really understand it either, but we're, we're, we'll, yeah, I don't know. Maybe we'll get some clarity on it sometime. So they can't take their snow machines safely up to the den. So they decide to walk. And when they get close enough to this den entrance, there's kind of this flat vantage point that slopes very slightly up to the den, which is about 35 yards away from where this flat area starts. And in between where they're standing and the den, there's a little dip in the snow. Um, that just kind of like dips down and then it slopes back up to the den. So Brett says that they should go check out the tracks, but his dad said that he's fine just

• 30:46Wes Larson?

  waiting there. And Brett didn't want to leave him, but his dad insisted. So Brett then checks to make sure that his dad has a round chambered in his rifle, which was a 300. And then he went to inspect the tracks. Brett walks up around the den entrance and he's just looking at the tracks with his back to his dad and the den about 40 yards away. And as he's doing this, he's realizing how especially big these tracks are when he hears his dad yelling that the bear was coming out. He spins around to see this massive brown bear lumbering out of the den and luckily completely zeroed in on his dad. And I say luckily, because at this point Brett's

• 31:27Wes Larson?

  just a few yards away from the bear and his dad's still like 40 yards away. And his first thought is that his dad is going to have a great shot at the bear and that when he shot it, it would probably spin around and then Brett could shoot it again and make sure it goes down. But that is not how things went.

• 31:46Wes Larson?

  Glenn Bond did kneel down. He does get his rifle up and he does get a shot off, but it's right as the bear started charging at him and right as it had settled into that dip that I talked about a second ago, in between where Glenn was and the, and the den. And because of that, the bullet just grazed off the back, maybe hit its like meaty backstraps, but it doesn't do any real damage. It doesn't break any bones. It doesn't hit any organs. It just hits meat. And if anything, it only further enrages this bear.

• 32:15Mike Smith?

  Does the bear catch any air off of it? Sounds kind of like a ramp almost.

• 32:19Wes Larson?

  Off of the dip. I hope so. I don't know. That wasn't included.

• 32:24Mike Smith?

  Does like a 360 grab.

• 32:26Wes Larson?

  Kickflip. On instinct Brett, who's standing up above the den raises his rifle to put the bear in his sights, but it's so close and moving so fast that he's struggling to find it in his scope. Because you know, scopes like zoom way in, so you can't really see it. And then also on instinct, he goes to jack a round into the chamber of his rifle, but he already had one in there. So this live round was ejected and it adds a second more to his timing. And down below Glenn is also trying to get another shot off with his 300, but his second round jams in his rifle.

• 32:58Mike Smith?

  Oh no.

• 32:59Wes Larson?

  And I do just need to take a second here to reiterate why we never recommend rifles as your primary bear deterrent tool. These are two dudes who probably have spent more time around their rifles than anyone, any of us have ever met in our entire lives. And when they really needed them to work, the shit hit the fan and they ran into some big issues. And it wasn't a great deterrent for them. But we are going to talk about Brett's secondary deterrent, which was his secondary firearm in a second. And that did work much better for him. So it only takes the bear a couple of seconds to make impact with Glenn Bond. And Brett said it looked like a semi truck hitting a fire hydrant, which I really liked that description,

• 33:41Wes Larson?

  where it was just like one second it's there and then one second it's gone.

• 33:46Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, probably a little bit resistant still though.

• 33:50Wes Larson?

  Maybe.

• 33:50Jeff Larson?

  Stout guy.

• 33:51Wes Larson?

  Yeah. I don't think Glenn's that big of a guy. He's tough, but I don't think he's that big.

• 33:56Mike Smith?

  Yeah. Fire hydrants are like, what, three feet tall?

• 33:59Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 34:00Mike Smith?

  So you must be real small.

• 34:03Mike Smith?

  Are they hobbits? They're not hobbits.

• 34:05Wes Larson?

  They're not hobbits. For my, everything I read, they're not hobbits. But, and if they were, their name would be like bone feet or something. I don't know. Bon feet, whatever their name is. Yeah.

• 34:17Mike Smith?

  Nah, you got it. Nailed it.

• 34:18Wes Larson?

  All right. That's really poor. It's getting hot in here. So one second he's there and the next second he's gone. The bear had grabbed him by the neck and was shaking him. And the momentum of this charge had taken them down the mountain a fair distance. So Brett is holding his rifle in his right hand. He throws it to his left hand and with his right hand, he draws his 454 casul, which is a high caliber revolver. And he starts sprinting toward the sound of his dad trying to fight off this huge brown bear that was currently ripping his face off.

• 34:53Jeff Larson?

  Oh damn.

• 34:54Wes Larson?

  Brett runs over to this flat area. He crests the hill and he's surprised to see how far this bear had gotten with his dad. So he keeps sprinting downhill, never for a second thinking twice about what he had to do. In fact, later, when people would investigate this scene, they said that his strides were equal to those of like Olympian sprinters, because he was running so fast and confidently.

• 35:16Mike Smith?

  In the snow too.

• 35:17Wes Larson?

  In the snow. Yeah. But downhill.

• 35:19Mike Smith?

  Sure.

• 35:20Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 35:21Jeff Larson?

  The dip. He probably jumped.

• 35:23Mike Smith?

  He did a 720 grab.

• 35:25Wes Larson?

  Brett did a sweet freestyle walk as he jumped off the hill.

• 35:30Jeff Larson?

  Have you ever woke someone up that was like as mad as this bear was right when it woke up?

• 35:36Wes Larson?

  Oh yeah, you. I feel like I've seen that from you this week.

• 35:39Jeff Larson?

  You think I'm that mad when I wake up?

• 35:41Wes Larson?

  Yeah, probably. You're just, you're just holding it in.

• 35:45Mike Smith?

  You start rampaging.

• 35:46Wes Larson?

  Yeah, that, when we were at that place the other day and you just wanted your food so bad.

• 35:50Jeff Larson?

  That's hangry. That's not like.

• 35:52Wes Larson?

  That's true. That's a good point.

• 35:54Jeff Larson?

  When I wake up, I have no thoughts. I'm like, not mad.

• 35:58Wes Larson?

  All right.

• 35:59Mike Smith?

  What if the, yeah, who's to say the Evanescence girl? What if they wake her up? What if she's mad? Yeah. Maybe that's why people aren't waking her up, you know? It's like she keeps asking. It's like, no.

• 36:11Wes Larson?

  Yeah. You're too mean when you wake up.

• 36:13Mike Smith?

  You mauled us.

• 36:14Jeff Larson?

  There's been a few like pranks I've seen where the guy would be woken up with like a bucket of water or something. And just like immediately out of bed and like run straight into a wall. Like maybe that's kind of what this bear's doing.

• 36:28Wes Larson?

  Getting woken up with water is such a terrible way to get woken up. I hate it so much, but it is effective. All right. So when he gets close to the bear, one of the first things that Brett notices was how much blood there was everywhere. An almost unbelievable amount of blood was spread out all around the bear and his dad who was lying on his back. And I will say, if you ever look at pictures of like polar bears killing seals, because everything is white, the blood really just like, you see every speck of blood.

• 36:57Jeff Larson?

  Like, yeah.

• 36:58Wes Larson?

  Yeah. And I think that's what Brett was seeing here. So his dad's lying on his back. The bear had been biting his dad's face and shaking his entire body by the face. And when Brett first looked at his dad, he said his face looked kind of like a weird, almost unidentifiable red blur. Like someone had taken red paint and smeared it across the face in a painting.

• 37:19Mike Smith?

  The picture Jeff showed us of his Thai food.

• 37:22Wes Larson?

  Yeah, exactly. Just unidentifiable. Both the name and the, if anyone can figure out what Jeff was eating, you deserve an award. So he makes noise to get the bear to stop mauling his dad. And the bear does turn to look at Brett while still laying on his dad's body. It kind of slides down his body a little bit. And Brett knew he had to make his first shot count. So he walks to within a few yards of this bear. And then he raises his, his casul and he shoots it in the neck. The bear backs off a bit and Brett fires again, this time hitting the bear and its vital organs, but it still doesn't go down. In fact, the bear spins around and lunges toward Brett and he has a split second to think about how this

• 38:06Wes Larson?

  is his final shot. This shot is going to decide whether or not he lives, whether or not his dad lives, whether or not they survive this encounter. So he leans back and he fires and he hits the bear straight in the head and drops it a few feet away from where he's standing.

• 38:24Wes Larson?

  Brett then shoots the bear a couple more times, mostly just because adrenaline's pumping through him at that time. And then he runs back to his dad who's about 50 feet behind him now, because he had kind of chased this bear down the hill. As he runs back, he thinks that he might only have a few seconds to say goodbye to his dad and tell him like how much he means to him. But he's about to be surprised in a couple really big ways.

• 38:48Wes Larson?

  The first big surprise, and here it comes, I'm going to have to show you guys this photo, is just how horrifically mauled his dad was. If you're queasy and you don't like hearing these descriptions, no one likes them, but if you can't handle them, you might want to skip the next little bit.

• 39:05Jeff Larson?

  Let me go start my meds again.

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• 40:11Wes Larson?

  I do want to say, I, I, people have given me a hard time before in the Timothy Treadwell episode about maybe showing Mike those photos when he expressed some reluctance. I cleared this with Mike before I did this episode. Jeff, I know doesn't care, but Mike, I cleared it with, so I do have his permission. Yeah. Uh, this bear had essentially split his face in half and torn those two halves free. So Glenn's nose, mouth, left eye, forehead, and pretty much all of his facial skin and flesh are dangling on the sides of his head. What was left was just a gory red mess of ligaments, teeth, blood, and one bulging eyeball in a bloody mess.

• 40:55Wes Larson?

  It's as bad as anything I've ever seen in a horror movie and probably worse because it happened to a real people, a real people, a real person. And I'm going to go ahead and show you guys now, unfortunately, what this looks like.

• 41:10Jeff Larson?

  Oh my God.

• 41:11Mike Smith?

  That's almost beyond comprehension. It almost doesn't even register as like a real human being.

• 41:19Jeff Larson?

  Well, it's, yeah, it's like, that's like someone who got blown up by a bomb in war.

• 41:26Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 41:26Jeff Larson?

  You know, and is dead.

• 41:28Wes Larson?

  Yeah. All right, I'm going to stop it. So the second big surprise though, is how coherent Glenn was considering the nature of his injuries. When Brett runs back to his dad, he was so shocked to hear his dad talk normally and start moving around after learning that Brett had killed the bear. And they start talking about what they had to do next to get help. So it's just like, his dad is just kind of acting like everything's normal.

• 41:55Jeff Larson?

  His dad's like, I told you so.

• 41:58Wes Larson?

  Yeah. You got that coin? It is so crazy that he didn't even complain about his face. At one point, he complains about his wrist because the bear had broken his wrist in several places, but he doesn't say anything about his face, which is, if you don't see this photo, it, his face is caved in, there's nothing there. Like it's just gone. So it's, it's insane.

• 42:24Jeff Larson?

  Just blood. Yeah. Well, it's like.

• 42:26Wes Larson?

  Ligaments and blood and an eyeball.

• 42:28Jeff Larson?

  It's more like tissue, blood. Yeah, it's, oh.

• 42:31Mike Smith?

  I wonder at what.

• 42:32Jeff Larson?

  Bad of an injury as you'll ever see.

• 42:34Wes Larson?

  Hmm.

• 42:35Mike Smith?

  Glenn is on, just out of control for surviving this in the first place.

• 42:40Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 42:40Mike Smith?

  But I do wonder at what point Brett with his dad is just like, your face? Uh, how you feeling? You doing okay?

• 42:51Wes Larson?

  Like starts holding up fingers and stuff. Yeah. So Brett does fall back on his training. He immediately starts assessing his dad's injuries. Even though there's blood everywhere on the snow, he doesn't notice any serious like arterial bleeding. And it seems as though nothing is really obstructing his dad's airway either. So then Brett does kind of try to pull Glenn's face back together and sort of tie it up with some bandages. And when he does that, Glenn does start choking and having trouble breathing. So he undoes these dressings and he just lets his face flop to the sides again. Basically, both men know that they have to get to medical assistance. Yeah. And that means getting back on the snow machines.

• 43:32Jeff Larson?

  Right. It's like, how fast do you drive when your face is flopping up?

• 43:35Wes Larson?

  Exactly. And we're going to talk about that. But before they get back and they start heading towards safety, Glenn had a request for his son. And what he said is, I want you to take a picture of me. And Brett obliges. So Glenn's laying down in the snow, his face splayed wide open, and Brett takes this photo and a minute long video. And then Brett does his best to help his dad to his feet in the snow. As he does, Brett steps backwards and he feels something under his foot. So he looks down and he says, verbatim, what the heck is that? And his dad, who had already been looking at this object in the snow, says, oh, that's my ear. Brett bends down, picks his dad's ear off the ground, wraps it in some tissue, puts

• 44:19Wes Larson?

  it in his pocket, and then they carefully walk down the hill to the snow machines.

• 44:23Jeff Larson?

  No way.

• 44:25Mike Smith?

  No way.

• 44:25Jeff Larson?

  Do you think he looked at the ear? Because his eyes are pretty messed up. He saw his ear?

• 44:31Wes Larson?

  Yeah. He could see out of one eye still.

• 44:33Jeff Larson?

  I wonder if he heard it.

• 44:34Wes Larson?

  Yeah. He's like, ah, you just stepped on my ear. He's like, what is this? Dad, can you hear me? So they get down to the snow machines and it takes them a while. Jeff, you just kind of mentioned this. It takes them a while to find a comfortable position for Glenn to sit down where his face isn't going to flop around too much on this, on the snow machine. And they do a bit of shuffling before they finally find a position that's somewhat comfortable for Glenn. And then on the way out, Glenn asks Brett if they could stop to take a photo with the bear. This dead bear is essentially right in the middle of the tracks. So Brett's like, sure, you know, what the hell? And they stop and they take another photo of his dad, this one of them sitting on the

• 45:18Wes Larson?

  snow machine with the dead bear nearby. So I'm going to show you guys that.

• 45:22Mike Smith?

  I like this Glenn guy.

• 45:23Jeff Larson?

  I'm excited for this.

• 45:24Mike Smith?

  Amazing. Glenn, his face is gone. What?

• 45:28Wes Larson?

  This is the one where the blur makes a lot of sense, like the red blur. It's like, you can't even make out that it's a human being. It just looks like a weird red smudge where his face is.

• 45:39Jeff Larson?

  It looks like one of the alien movies where like the face turns into like a huge mouth.

• 45:45Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 45:46Jeff Larson?

  Or the smile demon. Like a demogorgon in Stranger Things, like, yeah.

• 45:50Mike Smith?

  I wouldn't, if I didn't know what had happened, I would just not, I think Wes just left the call. Anyway, we'll keep going, me and Jeff. If I didn't know that that was actually his face, I would never guess that that's what I was looking at, you know?

• 46:06Jeff Larson?

  I know.

• 46:06Mike Smith?

  It looks like material draped over someone's head.

• 46:09Jeff Larson?

  Like the second one, that second time wasn't, here comes Wes.

• 46:13Wes Larson?

  He's back. I accidentally hit leave instead of stop sharing.

• 46:19Jeff Larson?

  That second photo is like, almost doesn't feel hard to look at because it's, I don't feel like I'm looking at a torn off face. So it's like, now that I know that, it's probably going to stick with me forever now. And.

• 46:33Wes Larson?

  That first one is so gnarly.

• 46:35Jeff Larson?

  But yeah, without the context, I'd just be like, what the heck's going on here?

• 46:40Wes Larson?

  Yeah. It's, so when I.

• 46:42Jeff Larson?

  AI messed up his face.

• 46:45Wes Larson?

  When I first started like bear biology, Tom showed me those, those Timothy Treadwell autopsy photos. And I had gotten online to like Google to see if.

• 46:54Jeff Larson?

  You said, that's nothing.

• 46:55Wes Larson?

  I know, that's not what I said, but I've gone online to Google to see if I could figure out, um, you know, the audio and stuff. And I didn't find anything. And then later in my career, like in 2017 or 18 or something, I did it again. And this photo popped up and it scarred me more than any other like bear thing ever had. And I just couldn't get it out of my head and I think about it all the time. And so in a way, this, this episode is going to be kind of cathartic because I'm, whenever I'm thinking of a new episode, I'm like, man, should I do the terrible photo one? You know? So I'm glad that we're kind of getting it out of the way finally, and that you guys have to share it with me. All right.

• 47:37Wes Larson?

  They, you know, they covered this 25 miles back to the lodge in about 90 minutes, which is pretty impressive. When Brett gets there, he runs in, he tells the workers that his dad had been mauled by a bear and then he needed medical attention. They call a helicopter and when the medics arrive and all these people get a good look at Glenn, they are not able to hide their shock at the sight of his face. Everyone notices that this is very bad. And he even does his best. Glenn is kind of comforting some of these medics and telling them that he's going to be okay. Like he, he's like outwardly talking to these people and saying, I'm going to be okay. Don't worry, you'll be okay, you know?

• 48:15Mike Smith?

  Glenn's the man.

• 48:16Wes Larson?

  I know.

• 48:17Mike Smith?

  So cool.

• 48:19Wes Larson?

  So there's a weird backstory to this story. And it's basically the biggest hospital in Anchorage at one point had held Brett Bond against his and his parents' wishes while he's having some really serious medical issues. And they kept him on medications that may have been exacerbating those issues. And it was this big crazy legal drama and his parents essentially had to like kidnap him to get him out of the hospital.

• 48:43Jeff Larson?

  Oh my gosh.

• 48:44Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Because of that, there was a really healthy distrust of this hospital and of hospitals in general. So during the flight, Glenn tells the medics not to take him to that hospital and they change course to go to a smaller hospital in Palmer, Alaska. When they get there, Glenn is taken into surgery immediately.

• 49:05Jeff Larson?

  It's like he shouldn't be able to be making decisions like that.

• 49:09Wes Larson?

  I know, I know.

• 49:10Jeff Larson?

  It's like, what is it like? How, that's just so crazy that he's even like thinking about any of that.

• 49:18Wes Larson?

  The thing is.

• 49:19Jeff Larson?

  Like he should be like.

• 49:20Mike Smith?

  Dad?

• 49:20Jeff Larson?

  Fighting for his life.

• 49:22Wes Larson?

  Yeah. From what I read, like not only is he like making those decisions, but he's making them like confidently, like he's telling them, hey, you know, go to this hospital and like, they're like, yes, sir. And he's like telling them where to fly and stuff too.

• 49:37Jeff Larson?

  Imagine they take him to the Anchorage one and he just like sits there with his arms folded and won't get out.

• 49:43Wes Larson?

  Absolutely not.

• 49:46Mike Smith?

  This is the ultimate dad story. It's just a guy who's like backseat driving the helicopter driver and stuff.

• 49:53Wes Larson?

  But he's, he's like really kind to them too.

• 49:56Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 49:57Wes Larson?

  It's crazy. And he has like a sense of humor and stuff too. He gets taken into surgery immediately and he's really lucky that the reconstructive surgeon is on shift and he's there when he gets there. And they work on him for hours immediately and essentially just sew his face back on. And the craziest part of all this, and this is where he reaches like my newest level of toughness of maybe anyone in any of our stories, is that he turns down all of the pain meds, all of the anesthesia and any blood transfusions. And that's because of his son's like weird history with the, with the hospitals. So they do this, they raw dog his surgeries and he raw dogs every subsequent surgery after this too.

• 50:38Wes Larson?

  I know. Yeah.

• 50:40Jeff Larson?

  It's like the best part of getting hurt.

• 50:42Wes Larson?

  Yeah, that's what I like. He's missing the good stuff. I know. Uh, he even raw dogs the surgery where they realign his ear canal, which just has to be incredibly painful. This bear had broken his wrist in several places. That was the only thing he ever really complained about. Um, he's comforting all the medics. He, uh, doesn't do pain meds. He's just like so tough. And his recovery speaks to it, too. He's in the hospital for about six days.

• 51:09Mike Smith?

  Which wrist was it?

• 51:11Wes Larson?

  Uh, I don't know.

• 51:11Mike Smith?

  On his dominant hand?

• 51:13Wes Larson?

  I'm not sure. I'm not getting into that.

• 51:17Jeff Larson?

  His shooting hand?

• 51:19Wes Larson?

  So nine days after the mauling, he takes a photo with Brett and the healing is remarkable. And I think it must just be some kind of miracle where the bear didn't hit anything major and all of the kind of like piping and everything in his face remained because looking at that photo, you would think that no matter the amount of reconstructive surgery you do, you're going to have just kind of a blob for a face. You're going to have one big scar for a face, you know? And I'm going to show you guys what he looked like nine days after the incident and then I'm going to show you a more recent photo, too.

• 51:58Wes Larson?

  So this is nine days after.

• 51:59Mike Smith?

  Wow. Yeah.

• 52:01Wes Larson?

  I know. So he'd lost his, uh, his, what is that? His right eye? No, his left eye. Uh, his right eye is still in there. They had to like kind of reposition it. But I mean, he looks recognizable, you know?

• 52:15Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, for sure. He looks a lot like, not to like, but he looks a lot better than the lady whose face got ripped off by Travis the chimp.

• 52:24Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 52:24Jeff Larson?

  And that she's like had years, after years of recovery, nine days after he lost his face, it's like back.

• 52:31Wes Larson?

  And then this is a somewhat more recent photo. I don't know exactly when this was taken, but I mean, he looks, you know, like you would kind of, you wouldn't even really do a double take.

• 52:41Jeff Larson?

  It looks like the Snapchat where Shrek's like holding the people.

• 52:49Mike Smith?

  That's amazing. That is like straight up. I wonder, I don't, this is like so pseudo scientific of me, but I wonder if that kind of positive attitude, maybe I, I have no idea. Maybe it was just miraculous that the bear didn't get him in quite the right ways, but.

• 53:06Jeff Larson?

  Still.

• 53:07Mike Smith?

  I don't know. Like, you know, placebo, the placebo effect can be a thing where I, I don't know. I just.

• 53:13Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 53:14Mike Smith?

  I'm wondering it how possibly someone nine days after getting their face literally ripped off can look like.

• 53:19Wes Larson?

  It's one of those stories too, where the doctor said, you know, like if it had been a millimeter this way, or if this thing had been ruptured or whatever, he'd probably be dead. Um, and then I think that holds true too for a lot of the reconstruction, but I like, if I ever get a maul. Yeah, take me to the hospital in Palmer and ask for that surgeon because it's crazy.

• 53:42Jeff Larson?

  It would've been kind of funny had you said like, this is why he looked like nine days after the attack and showed us that second picture.

• 53:50Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 53:51Jeff Larson?

  Just been like, he's completely recovered.

• 53:54Wes Larson?

  Yep. He just looks perfect. This is Superman. Yeah. So he's had a number of other surgeries. He has had some lifelong effects from, from the mauling, but he's maintained a positive attitude and good humor throughout. His wrist healed a little crooked, but he joked with Brett that he could like grab things from around a corner. Uh, he lost eyesight in one of his eyes and he does have some scarring, but considering what, you know, he should look like, it's a miracle that he healed the way he did. The family overall has been pretty hush about this story. They haven't really told it in many places. As far as I can tell, Glenn hasn't ever told it publicly. Brett has told it a few times. Brett does continue to guide in Alaska and I don't know much about Glenn. If he's still with us, he'd be 87 years old.

• 54:40Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 54:40Mike Smith?

  Oh, he's, yeah, he's living forever.

• 54:42Wes Larson?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 54:44Mike Smith?

  Nothing can take him out.

• 54:46Wes Larson?

  Brett is a big proponent of carrying a handgun in grizzly country, a high caliber handgun. It is something that he has kind of become his rallying cry. And I don't totally disagree with that. We talk a lot about bear spray being our number one deterrent. It still is. I think even, you know, he had to shoot the bear several times with the handgun to get it to stop. Who's to say a bear that mad if, if bear spray would have stopped it? I personally think it would have, but, um, when I've been in like really dicey situations, going into situations where maybe it's going to a carcass or going to somewhere where a bear might be extra defensive, I had a high caliber handgun with me.

• 55:28Wes Larson?

  And I think it's a great secondary deterrent. I would still always go to my bear spray first. But, um, I don't think it's bad to, to say, you know, a high caliber handgun can be a great option uh, in a bad bear situation.

• 55:41Jeff Larson?

  That would be worse even than the water bucket wake up pranks I've seen. Just bear spraying something right when I wake up.

• 55:49Wes Larson?

  Be really bad. Yeah. Be awful. Yeah.

• 55:55Wes Larson?

  I think we all agree. I don't even think we have to discuss that anymore. Um, all right. Well, you guys got anything you want to add to this story? Questions?

• 56:04Mike Smith?

  Good work, Glenn and Brett. Both of them. It seems like, you know, given the circumstances, there's a clutch shot to take the bear down. Uh, miraculous recovery. Just a crazy story. Yeah.

• 56:15Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 56:16Jeff Larson?

  I'm gonna be maybe a little insensitive for what they had to go through, but I mean, maybe don't go to grizzly bear dens and try to shoot them.

• 56:28Wes Larson?

  Sure.

• 56:28Jeff Larson?

  You know, it's a bad situation being, I don't think it's very cool. I don't know. It's not that cool of a way to kill an animal. So, uh.

• 56:37Wes Larson?

  I agree. I, I do still think it's better than like baiting or chasing with dogs. I'd still think it's more ethical than that and like obviously more dangerous. And like I said earlier, I couldn't kill a bear. I think they're far too personable. I don't think we need to manage them to control their numbers. I don't really believe in that science. I don't, there's other science that shows they've managed themselves. But what I will say, and I do want to give them, you know, this at least is that they grew up doing this. This is their lifestyle. This is like the way that both of these men were raised. This has always been their lives and I'm not going to really, I'm not going to cast judgment on that part of it, you know, like I feel like I don't agree with bear hunting, but I also think

• 57:22Wes Larson?

  that this is just kind of how they've always lived and I don't love it, but they obviously have had some incredible, some experiences that maybe have made them think twice about it now. Who knows?

• 57:33Mike Smith?

  Hmm. Is there, the aftermath of a bear hunt, I know a lot of people just get them stuffed or taxidermied or whatever. Are there ever scenarios wherein that hunt results in like the meat being used for ethical reasons or like?

• 57:47Wes Larson?

  Yeah. A lot of people eat black bear. I've eaten black bear. It, it's good. Like it doesn't, it's tastes good. It's like, it can be, you have to cook it, right? You have to be really careful because there's some diseases they can carry, but a lot of people eat black bear. I don't know about, not too many people eat brown bear. I'm guessing these guys didn't eat their, their bear, but I'm not sure. And I, again, that's not like a thing I should say, you know, definitively, but I do think most people that hunt brown bears are doing it for a trophy. There are a lot of them in Alaska, like they're doing great there. I agree with Jeff. I don't think it's like uniquely impressive way to kill an animal as it's coming out of its den for the winter. But I also don't want to judge these guys' lifestyle necessarily. I don't know. I'm trying to be diplomatic.

• 58:32Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 58:32Jeff Larson?

  It is a cool trophy though. Like if FIFA gave out that bear for the winner.

• 58:38Wes Larson?

  Well, Tom, like Tom had a bear in his office that he didn't kill. He, he got it from like the museum in, in Utah that has all those and like, I would love to have it and like someone shot that bear and I would love to have it in my studio. And like, does that make me better than them? You know, I, I don't know. It, these are all just like kind of weird moral ethical questions. But I think basically what it boils down to is what are, what are your motivations when you're hunting an animal? How does it make you feel? I, and for me, I just couldn't do it.

• 59:08Jeff Larson?

  Would you make love on a bear rug?

• 59:11Wes Larson?

  Uh, yeah, probably.

• 59:15Mike Smith?

  Hmm. Which, which pelt do you think would be most conducive to a, a night of lovemaking?

• 59:21Wes Larson?

  A polar bear. Yeah. They feel like the sexiest.

• 59:25Mike Smith?

  Oh, I don't know. That sloth bear we saw was so like fluffy.

• 59:29Wes Larson?

  Yeah, they are fluffy. I don't know if I want all that hair.

• 59:31Mike Smith?

  Yeah, you might want, I want, yeah.

• 59:34Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 59:34Mike Smith?

  Okay. I'm just talking my way through this.

• 59:36Wes Larson?

  Great question. Uh, I think we should do ouchies for this one. This guy's tough. He made it through. You know, I don't think we have like kind of the weird responsibility of dealing with someone who died. So let's do ouchies for Glenn.

• 59:48Jeff Larson?

  It's an interesting one because appearance wise, it seems like a 10.

• 59:53Wes Larson?

  Mm hmm.

• 59:54Jeff Larson?

  But then like the details, it's like a s- one.

• 59:58Mike Smith?

  Right. His wrist, his wrist hurt real bad. So three.

• 1:00:03Wes Larson?

  Yeah. I think for any normal person, it's a 10. For Glenn, it's like a, yeah, like a two.

• 1:00:10Mike Smith?

  I honestly, I have no idea what score to even, because the way he spoke about it.

• 1:00:17Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:17Mike Smith?

  I don't know.

• 1:00:18Jeff Larson?

  Not using painkillers? Like I'm giving this like a nine. I think he likes pain and he just.

• 1:00:26Wes Larson?

  Me too.

• 1:00:26Mike Smith?

  Yeah, this is a real.

• 1:00:27Wes Larson?

  Nine is what I was going with too. It's not as bad as some of ours, but it is crazy.

• 1:00:32Mike Smith?

  Dude, if Pinhead came out of the little cube, Glenn would have been like, give me your worst shot. I'm ready for this.

• 1:00:41Wes Larson?

  Just gets all excited to see his, his Cenobite friends. Uh,

• 1:00:47Wes Larson?

  what's your rating, Mike?

• 1:00:48Mike Smith?

  I was going to go with a nine. I think Jeff was right to call out the no painkillers and the hours of procedures and all that. So, yeah, not, I don't want to discount Glenn just because he was so tough that he made it sound not very painful because I'm certain that it was.

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• 1:02:37Wes Larson?

  All right, well, if that is it, then we will move on to our categories. I was gonna do a Face Off category, but I felt like we had done that before. When we had someone get their face ripped off. All right, I'll throw this in then. What's your favorite scene from the movie Face Off?

• 1:02:52Jeff Larson?

  Well, in this story, I'm not gonna do my favorite scene, but the one that I thought of in this story was when Nicolas Cage has his face off in the procedure. And he's smoking a cig. Because that was like cinematic. It's like, he doesn't have a, like, I think Ed just smoked a cigarette, or in that picture with the bear. Ed?

• 1:03:15Wes Larson?

  Glenn? Glenn, yeah.

• 1:03:18Mike Smith?

  He had one of the letters, right?

• 1:03:23Wes Larson?

  Mike, what's your favorite line or scene from the movie Face Off?

• 1:03:26Mike Smith?

  Oh, man. I, probably when he is singing with the choir.

• 1:03:32Wes Larson?

  Shoot, that's what I was gonna say to you.

• 1:03:37Wes Larson?

  The, the thing that I always have in my head from that movie, it's not my favorite necessarily, but it's like the first thing I think of, is the weird, like, face touch that John Travolta does to all of his kids. And just how, like, weirdly sexual it is.

• 1:03:51Jeff Larson?

  Why?

• 1:03:52Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it's so strange. All right.

• 1:03:55Jeff Larson?

  It's maybe the best all time of someone saying the name of the movie in the movie, dude.

• 1:04:00Wes Larson?

  It is, yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:02Jeff Larson?

  They really force it, didn't they?

• 1:04:04Wes Larson?

  All right.

• 1:04:04Jeff Larson?

  Like, the least natural.

• 1:04:06Wes Larson?

  Face Off.

• 1:04:10Mike Smith?

  John Woo, what a genius.

• 1:04:11Wes Larson?

  Yeah, he really is. All right, so goriest horror movie that's affected you the most personally? The most, the most personally?

• 1:04:23Wes Larson?

  I kind of said that weird the first time.

• 1:04:25Jeff Larson?

  I didn't really have a good one for that, like, a gory image. But I'd say the one that stuck with me the most is from Bone Tomahawk. Because it, it's funny, I spelt it that way in my notes.

• 1:04:39Mike Smith?

  Homatoc?

• 1:04:42Jeff Larson?

  But it's just really unexpected. I was like, what?

• 1:04:49Wes Larson?

  That was honestly in my top three, too. Bone Tomahawk is so gnarly.

• 1:04:53Mike Smith?

  I interpreted your question a little differently, maybe, but I thought of the movie The Devil's Rejects, because that did, on a personal level, kind of affect me emotionally. It's a weirdly touching film by the end. Even though they're just like truly terrible, awful people, but like, there's a-

• 1:05:10Jeff Larson?

  Like, did a feel-good horror.

• 1:05:11Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:12Jeff Larson?

  Gruesome.

• 1:05:13Mike Smith?

  I don't know, well, people that have seen the movie, some people, it just doesn't work on some people at all, but for me, they do this really strange magic trick of making you kind of, you're not rooting or cheering or even liking these people by the end, but there is a sort of camaraderie that they share by that final scene that happens. And that's just like a truly gruesome movie, so.

• 1:05:33Wes Larson?

  I don't think I've ever seen any Rob Zombie movie all the way through. I, they're just not, they're a little too grimy for me.

• 1:05:40Mike Smith?

  They're pretty gross, yeah.

• 1:05:41Wes Larson?

  Yeah. I picked Midsommar. Like, the, the scene where the, the couple jumps off of the cliff and then they, like, smash their heads in with hammers afterward. It's so, like, eerily calm and brightly lit and weird feeling. And it's not like the most violent thing I've ever seen on, on screen, but something about it just really affected me. And that was, that was one of those movies, I think it's like a total masterpiece, I think it's so good, but it, for like, three or four days afterward, I just kind of felt in a funk after I saw that movie. Like, it actually made me kind of depressed. So, well done.

• 1:06:19Jeff Larson?

  Bonus points for having a bear in it, dude.

• 1:06:22Wes Larson?

  Also has a bear, yeah.

• 1:06:23Mike Smith?

  Bonus, good job, Wes.

• 1:06:25Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:25Mike Smith?

  You won, you're winning so far. Yeah, you got by far the most points.

• 1:06:30Wes Larson?

  All right, this is a, let's argue with a question mark on it? Because who knows if we'll actually argue about this?

• 1:06:36Mike Smith?

  Are we talking about dippin' dots?

• 1:06:37Wes Larson?

  We're not. Do you prefer when the hero dies at the end of a revenge film or when they survive? Because the bear dies in this, and this is definitely the bear's revenge film, if anything. Like, in, in a really good revenge film, do you kind of just want them to die? Or would you rather they survive?

• 1:06:55Jeff Larson?

  What's the bear getting revenge for?

• 1:06:57Wes Larson?

  I mean, it's like, getting woke up and people trying to kill it. You know?

• 1:07:02Mike Smith?

  It's a real short story.

• 1:07:04Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:06Wes Larson?

  Like, I, I think of, spoilers here for a lot of stuff, probably. I think of John Wick, like, the most recent John Wick movie, where, you know, he finally dies. And it feels kind of cathartic, like, it's like, okay, finally, this guy, you know, gets to get, have some rest. And that one feels good to me, but I'm, I'm curious what you guys feel about it. After they get revenge, would you rather they survive or die?

• 1:07:30Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, I just, I don't know. It's hard to answer, because it's like, sometimes-

• 1:07:35Wes Larson?

  Situational.

• 1:07:36Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:36Mike Smith?

  Generally, I prefer they live, because I like them, them to enjoy the fruits of their labor a little bit. And I know a lot of times, the message is, like, revenge isn't worth, you know, the price you pay, but like, I don't know, when someone gets back at the bad guy and, like, saves their daughter or whatever, like, I want them to have a, be able to enjoy that.

• 1:07:56Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I'm, I'm strongly on live.

• 1:07:58Jeff Larson?

  Django, it's like, uh, what's the doctor's, or the dentist guy's name again?

• 1:08:06Wes Larson?

  Christoph Waltz?

• 1:08:07Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, the, the character.

• 1:08:09Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 1:08:11Mike Smith?

  I think they just kept it Christoph Waltz.

• 1:08:13Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:15Jeff Larson?

  Like, he dies getting revenge, but then Django lives. And it's like, which one of those was more satisfying? Kind of him killing Leah.

• 1:08:24Wes Larson?

  I think that's what it is for me, is if they've, like, lived a tortured life, then I want them to be able to, like, live in happiness after their revenge. But if they've had, like, a good life and then all of their family has been killed or something, and they're just gonna be miserable anyways, I kind of like it when they die. But usually, I really like live. Like, Count of Monte Cristo is the one I always think of, like, I'm really glad that he gets to live at the end of that. Yeah.

• 1:08:48Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:48Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 1:08:49Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:49Wes Larson?

  I think we agree then. Let's agree, is what we should call this category.

• 1:08:52Jeff Larson?

  Best revenge is living a happy life.

• 1:08:54Wes Larson?

  Yeah. All right.

• 1:08:56Mike Smith?

  Dude, that's so wise. Did you just come up with that, Jeff? That's wise. Good wisdom.

• 1:09:01Jeff Larson?

  So you're, you're not happy that the bear died, Wes?

• 1:09:05Wes Larson?

  Uh, I wish the bear would have lived, yeah.

• 1:09:07Jeff Larson?

  Getting its revenge.

• 1:09:09Wes Larson?

  I don't want it to get, I wish it could have just run off and they could have also survived, the guys. I got a couple would you rathers, just to kind of flex that old brain of, like, thinking about stuff that you would maybe rather do, you know? You know how these work, all right? Would you rather have $500,000 right now or get $1,000 every time you run a mile in less than 12 minutes for the rest of your life?

• 1:09:32Mike Smith?

  Ooh, the second one. Oh my gosh, that's infinite money hack. You're, 12, 12 minutes is, listen, not easy for everybody.

• 1:09:40Wes Larson?

  You'd have to run 500 miles to make that even.

• 1:09:43Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:44Wes Larson?

  I agree, though, because I, nothing would get me in shape faster than if I have to, if I get $1,000 every time I run a mile in less than 12 minutes.

• 1:09:53Mike Smith?

  I'd crank them out quick, too. I'd be doing like 10 a day.

• 1:09:56Wes Larson?

  Instead of something else you're cranking out 10 times a day.

• 1:09:59Mike Smith?

  Yeah, it's slowing down a little bit. We've talked about this before, Wes.

• 1:10:03Wes Larson?

  Jeff, what's your answer? 500K immediately or the mile one? The mile one?

• 1:10:07Jeff Larson?

  The mile one.

• 1:10:08Wes Larson?

  It's an easy one, all right. Would you rather win $100 million lottery and have it announced on national TV? Or 10 million and no one ever knows about it?

• 1:10:19Mike Smith?

  I'll do the announcement one. I wouldn't want to, I don't know, I wouldn't want to be too secretive. I'm gonna tell the people that matter to me in either scenario.

• 1:10:27Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, exactly. I'm gonna do 100 just because I can't keep the secret.

• 1:10:30Wes Larson?

  I can't spend 100 million either. I'm gonna, I'm gonna want to give away a lot of that anyways, you know?

• 1:10:35Jeff Larson?

  Well, good news for you, you get to give half away to taxes right away. Only multimillionaires that pay taxes are lottery winners.

• 1:10:45Wes Larson?

  Would you rather have the ability to freeze time for 30 seconds once every day? Or rewind times, time for 30 seconds once every day?

• 1:10:53Mike Smith?

  Does that count as an ice power, Jeff? Freezing time?

• 1:10:57Wes Larson?

  Freezing.

• 1:10:59Mike Smith?

  Because I might switch over to your side.

• 1:11:00Jeff Larson?

  Wow, yeah.

• 1:11:02Wes Larson?

  Freeze or rewind?

• 1:11:05Jeff Larson?

  That's smart.

• 1:11:06Wes Larson?

  Rewinding, yeah. Because then you could, like, watch the end of a sport game and rewind 30 seconds and place your bet.

• 1:11:16Mike Smith?

  So it's just another money question? These are all just money questions, seems like.

• 1:11:20Wes Larson?

  Or, you know, there's a lot of other things you could do, rewinding time. Are we all rewind on that one?

• 1:11:26Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:27Mike Smith?

  I think so.

• 1:11:27Jeff Larson?

  I don't really want neither, honestly.

• 1:11:29Wes Larson?

  Okay. Oh, I'd love to reveal the rewind.

• 1:11:31Jeff Larson?

  Seems like it's gonna make things worse eventually.

• 1:11:35Wes Larson?

  Yeah, you're probably right. Good for you, Jeff.

• 1:11:37Jeff Larson?

  I like living in the moment, not the past.

• 1:11:39Mike Smith?

  Did you just come up with that, Jeff? Wise. Wisdom.

• 1:11:44Wes Larson?

  All right, something you like this week?

• 1:11:46Mike Smith?

  Oh, snap.

• 1:11:47Wes Larson?

  I'll, I'll go first. Mine's a pop culture thing. I've been enjoying the Kate Fear reboot that's been on Apple TV. Uh, my guy Javier Bardem's in it, Amy Adams and Patrick Wilson both giving, like, very eccentric, out-there performances. It's not for everyone. It's kind of like a weirdly shot, weirdly edited thing, and it feels, but it feels kind of reminiscent of the Scorsese one, which is also kind of strangely put together, but just really good. So I'm, I'm really enjoying it. I think it's been fun.

• 1:12:19Jeff Larson?

  Good, die getting your revenge movie there, huh?

• 1:12:22Wes Larson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:12:23Jeff Larson?

  I wanted De Niro to live, but he died at the end.

• 1:12:28Wes Larson?

  Yeah, he was a great guy in that movie. Real hero.

• 1:12:34Jeff Larson?

  I put my birthday present I gave Wes.

• 1:12:39Wes Larson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:12:40Jeff Larson?

  And it was like fun for me. Uh, I gave him a hundred dollar ticket on Spain to win the World Cup. And, um,

• 1:12:50Wes Larson?

  And you bought it in the semifinals, right?

• 1:12:54Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, so they had to beat France and then the winner of Argentina and England.

• 1:12:59Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:59Jeff Larson?

  And, uh, it's nice because I think had he lost, it still would have felt like a hundred dollar gift.

• 1:13:06Wes Larson?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:13:06Jeff Larson?

  But now that they won, it kind of feels like I gave him $450.

• 1:13:10Wes Larson?

  It totally does. Yeah. And it made, it made the last two rounds so fun for me, too. So, yeah, it was a great gift. I'm gonna go actually cash it in today.

• 1:13:19Mike Smith?

  Whoa, what you gonna spend it on?

• 1:13:22Wes Larson?

  Ton of Dippin' Dots, dude.

• 1:13:23Mike Smith?

  Oh.

• 1:13:24Wes Larson?

  Fill my freezer with Dippin' Dots.

• 1:13:25Mike Smith?

  Ah, it's such a good idea. Oh, brother.

• 1:13:29Jeff Larson?

  What did you get, Wes?

• 1:13:31Wes Larson?

  What did I get?

• 1:13:33Mike Smith?

  Oh, what did I get, Wes? Oh, I told him a, I told him a secret.

• 1:13:36Wes Larson?

  He told me a secret.

• 1:13:40Jeff Larson?

  For his birthday.

• 1:13:41Mike Smith?

  Yeah, it was a secret to everybody.

• 1:13:43Wes Larson?

  Yeah. What, what do you guys like this week? Did you guys answer?

• 1:13:47Mike Smith?

  Oh, uh, yeah, so I am playing a game called Dench Attack. It's a new, smaller indie team developed. And it's basically like if you combined, oh, this is gonna be really hard to like put into terms people are gonna understand. So it's like kind of a Tony Hawk game, but you're playing is like a young girl driving a train. So you're like doing tricks with a train on these tracks and like a post-apocalyptic kind of,

• 1:14:14Wes Larson?

  Wow.

• 1:14:14Mike Smith?

  It's amazing. It's incredible. It's like if you have any affection for like the old Jet Set games.

• 1:14:20Wes Larson?

  Or trains.

• 1:14:20Mike Smith?

  Amazing music, yeah, the trains.

• 1:14:23Wes Larson?

  If you've got a special interest in trains.

• 1:14:25Mike Smith?

  Amazing game, like a crazy inventive, really fun, really just like inventive.

• 1:14:30Jeff Larson?

  I like trains.

• 1:14:31Mike Smith?

  It's awesome. Amazing music, dude. The lineup of the composers they got for the game is like kind of crazy. I don't know how they did it, but.

• 1:14:37Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Yeah, let's do a quick, uh, what would Mike and Jeff do for this episode? What are you guys doing if you're in this situation?

• 1:14:44Jeff Larson?

  I'm glad you asked. Uh, I think, I think I'm going like full speed with the snowmobile and then like, ride at the den, jump off, both of us, jump off the snowmobile, shoot the gas tank as it's like in the den, blow everything up.

• 1:15:02Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:03Mike Smith?

  That's so smart.

• 1:15:04Wes Larson?

  You wouldn't have much of a trophy left, but you, yeah, it would be effective.

• 1:15:07Jeff Larson?

  But I killed that damn bear.

• 1:15:13Mike Smith?

  Um, yeah, I guess I'd put in an oxygen tank into the bear's mouth and then shoot the tank.

• 1:15:20Wes Larson?

  Oh, that would also be very effective. We've seen that work before.

• 1:15:24Mike Smith?

  Uh huh.

• 1:15:25Wes Larson?

  All right. Okay.

• 1:15:26Jeff Larson?

  Wouldn't have much of a trophy left.

• 1:15:29Wes Larson?

  You wouldn't have much of a trophy left. I got a couple.

• 1:15:34Wes Larson?

  I got a couple listener questions because we haven't done them for a minute. This one's from Devin. These are all from our Patreon members. Devin says, hey, guys, one of the reasons I enjoy your podcast is because of all the Simpsons references. My brother and I are avid fans up to the 20th season. Good for you. And fell off afterwards since it's different. Sometimes my brother and I talk about how maybe the show should end. Definitely it should end, given how long it's been running and how much it's changed.

• 1:15:59Jeff Larson?

  Counterpoint.

• 1:16:00Wes Larson?

  Do you think the show should end? And if so, how would you have the Simpsons end?

• 1:16:05Jeff Larson?

  What do we even put on cable TV if we get rid of the Simpsons?

• 1:16:08Wes Larson?

  So this is your answer.

• 1:16:09Jeff Larson?

  Every show is ended, you know?

• 1:16:11Wes Larson?

  Do you want it to keep going then?

• 1:16:13Jeff Larson?

  Do we just get rid of cable?

• 1:16:16Wes Larson?

  I don't know. What's, do you think it should keep going?

• 1:16:18Mike Smith?

  I want it to just keep going forever. Who knows? Maybe it'll find its stride after 40 years again. As long as there's demand, just give the people what they want. It seems like there's demand for it, so why not?

• 1:16:29Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:32Speaker 04

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• 1:17:30Wes Larson?

  I, Simpsons, it's funny because two of my favorite things, Simpsons and the band Weezer, were kind of on the same trajectory in the same timeline. And the thing about Weezer is they occasionally come back with just like a total banger. And that I'm just like, they keep me in. And Simpsons to me doesn't, like I haven't liked any of the episodes in a long time. Every time I check back in and I hear there was a good Simpsons episode, I try and watch it. And just the animation, the way they do it now is so distasteful to me that I just can't enjoy it. So for me, I think it should have ended 26 years ago. And that's how I think they should end is saying, hey, well, this has actually been two different shows and.

• 1:18:13Jeff Larson?

  Hey, that's all, folks.

• 1:18:14Wes Larson?

  Yeah, that's all folks. Exactly.

• 1:18:16Mike Smith?

  Give him the Porky Pig.

• 1:18:17Jeff Larson?

  Do you know the creator went to Epstein's Island?

• 1:18:20Wes Larson?

  Matt Groening?

• 1:18:21Jeff Larson?

  That's how he's able to predict everything.

• 1:18:24Wes Larson?

  Huh, all right.

• 1:18:27Wes Larson?

  All right, here's another question. This one is from Brooke. Brooke says, what do y'all think of sea lion shows photo ops at aquariums? Is there an ethical way to do them? Kind of like bird shows or no? Uh, those are often like enrichment for sea lions and they're usually really ethical. And the sea lions probably look forward to them all day. That's probably like the one time that they really are excited for because they get to like play and learn and do tricks. It's kind of like dogs where dogs love getting treats and doing tricks and learning and using their brains. So I'm, I'm a big fan of zoos that do those kind of shows.

• 1:19:03Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, for me, it's like if you have a pretty intelligent and social animal in an enclosure, the more you do, the better.

• 1:19:13Wes Larson?

  Yep. All right, this one was to me, but I want all three of us to answer it. Um, this is from Abby. Abby says, Wes, I started watching Naked and Afraid again. And it got me to thinking, why didn't you want to do it? Did they say what part of the world they would have sent you to? Would you do it sometime in the future? So I want you guys to answer. They reached out to me and asked me if I want to be on it. I said no. And I'll answer that part quickly. I didn't want to do it because at the time I was still full on research scientist. It felt like a little cheap to me. They don't pay you much. It just didn't feel like the right move. I still don't think I would do it at this point. But I'm curious if either of you would do Naked and Afraid if they reached out to you.

• 1:19:55Jeff Larson?

  Wes, your blurb would be so big.

• 1:20:01Wes Larson?

  Thanks, Jeff. Mike, I know you wouldn't do it. Jeff, would you consider doing Naked and Afraid?

• 1:20:08Jeff Larson?

  Nah, I don't think so.

• 1:20:09Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Okay. If you were to do it, where would they want, where would you want them to send you?

• 1:20:15Mike Smith?

  Home, Antarctica.

• 1:20:18Wes Larson?

  Just your living room. Naked and Afraid in Mike's living room.

• 1:20:22Mike Smith?

  Come on over.

• 1:20:23Wes Larson?

  The afraid is the audience.

• 1:20:24Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:26Wes Larson?

  All right, uh, I got one or two more here. All right, this one is from Regan. Regan says, hypothetically, if the earth survived long enough, do you think polar bears could move off the ice and evolve to a more grizzly-like species that they used to be? Or do you think that they would not survive?

• 1:20:46Jeff Larson?

  Oh, yeah, they did, kind of.

• 1:20:47Wes Larson?

  Yeah, and they, they opened their question with that. They said, I was listening to one of your episodes, Wes mentioned that polar bears evolved very quickly. But when I say that evolved very quickly is like within a matter of a couple million years. The changes that we're putting on polar bears right now are happening in decades. Even if it were over like centuries, evolution doesn't happen that quick. They don't have the ability to evolve into a different species in hundreds of years or even thousands of years. We're talking hundreds of thousands or millions of years for evolution like that scale of evolution to happen. And we've talked about this before, evolution is always happening. It happens incrementally, constantly.

• 1:21:29Wes Larson?

  But what I mean is it happens right now. We're hap, we're evolving, everything's evolving. But for those large scale changes to happen, it takes a very long time. For an animal to completely change the way it looks, the way it operates, the things it eats, it takes a long, long time.

• 1:21:46Jeff Larson?

  I would want them to mix with black bears, so we get panda, American pandas.

• 1:21:52Wes Larson?

  Yeah, that would be cool. I agree. Or it'd just be like a gray bear, you know?

• 1:21:58Jeff Larson?

  Like, I don't like the grizzly or the growler bears as much as pandas.

• 1:22:03Wes Larson?

  Yeah, like a beige bear. Uh, this one's from Jules. What's your favorite? Oh, no, sorry. What's your least favorite class at school?

• 1:22:11Mike Smith?

  Oh, uh, math. I was really bad at math and I didn't like it.

• 1:22:15Wes Larson?

  Math is my answer, too. I was actually decent at it, but I hated it. Like, it just felt not fun to me at all.

• 1:22:21Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. I think it would also be math for me, but mainly just because that's like the one class guaranteed to give you homework every single day.

• 1:22:31Wes Larson?

  That's true.

• 1:22:32Jeff Larson?

  Why? Like, if I didn't have to do homework all the time, it might have been something like English.

• 1:22:39Wes Larson?

  It's also my, my, my least favorite in like retrospect because we never needed any of that, you know? Math didn't matter. We can do it on our phones right now.

• 1:22:52Mike Smith?

  Yeah, I, I kind of feel like it was like a brain workout almost.

• 1:22:56Wes Larson?

  I agree.

• 1:22:57Mike Smith?

  And which is good, you know, I think learning those kinds of things, even if you're not using them daily, is just a healthy way to live, but I just could not. I couldn't get the hang of it at all.

• 1:23:07Jeff Larson?

  And it is like the way to really understand.

• 1:23:12Wes Larson?

  The universe.

• 1:23:13Jeff Larson?

  Our planet and the universe is to get really good at math.

• 1:23:17Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:17Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:18Wes Larson?

  I just, I feel like there are people that use it a lot, but most people never use that ever again in their life. But I agree, it's like a way to work your brain. Okay, good answer, Mike. All right, well, that is it. Um, we're gonna leave it there.

• 1:23:32Jeff Larson?

  Why did you ask for our favorite swimming spot?

• 1:23:35Wes Larson?

  Did I? Oh, I did, didn't I?

• 1:23:37Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:37Wes Larson?

  Was that?

• 1:23:38Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:40Wes Larson?

  Okay, we'll do that some other time.

• 1:23:41Jeff Larson?

  Why did you, what made you think of that?

• 1:23:43Wes Larson?

  Cause I'm really hot and I wanna go swim in the creek.

• 1:23:48Wes Larson?

  Alright, that's it.

• 1:23:50Jeff Larson?

  Put a pin in it.

• 1:23:53Wes Larson?

  That's it for this episode if uh.

• 1:23:56Jeff Larson?

  Can I guess what yours is?

• 1:23:58Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:59Mike Smith?

  The creek.

• 1:24:00Jeff Larson?

  The creek.

• 1:24:01Wes Larson?

  I think it's the Bitterroot River, but the creek is right next to it. Yeah.

• 1:24:06Wes Larson?

  As always, if you're looking for extra content, uh, we have it on our Patreon. Mike just did a really interesting story about stonefish and scorpion fish. Um, I learned a lot in that one. I thought we had a really fun time. And Jeff did a really good one on hippos not long ago. I feel like.

• 1:24:23Jeff Larson?

  That was good.

• 1:24:24Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I feel like both of you guys have been firing on all cylinders for your, your Patreon episodes. So I, I highly recommend checking it out. It's 10 bucks a month for access to our bonus episodes. That price has been the same our entire history and you get access to our whole catalog.

• 1:24:40Jeff Larson?

  And you get to go on tooth and claw trips.

• 1:24:44Wes Larson?

  Right, and we are.

• 1:24:45Jeff Larson?

  Really, really fun.

• 1:24:46Wes Larson?

  About to sell our Brazil trip.

• 1:24:48Mike Smith?

  Have a much better chance of going on one of our trips.

• 1:24:51Jeff Larson?

  You get to sign up. You get to pay money to go on a tooth and claw trip.

• 1:24:55Wes Larson?

  That is, that is something, when this episode comes out, we will be about to drop our Pontenot trip. And our Patreon, or our Patreon members will have access to that. So, if you wanna go on a trip, you might sign up. And if you don't like the, the membership, you can cancel it later.

• 1:25:12Jeff Larson?

  But we'll find you.

• 1:25:13Wes Larson?

  But we'll find you and we'll kill you.

• 1:25:14Jeff Larson?

  Because you have to put your address in there.

• 1:25:17Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:18Jeff Larson?

  So we have that. So if you do cancel.

• 1:25:20Wes Larson?

  You don't.

• 1:25:21Jeff Larson?

  We will find you.

• 1:25:22Wes Larson?

  You don't have to put your address.

• 1:25:24Jeff Larson?

  Your email address.

• 1:25:25Wes Larson?

  Sure. That's true. Alright, Jeff will find you. Alright, love you guys. We'll see ya.

• 1:25:31Jeff Larson?

  Love ya.

• 1:25:32Mike Smith?

  See ya.

• 1:25:54Speaker 04

  Fall never arrives all at once. First the air, then the light. And slowly the things you love begin to find each other. A jacket meets a dress, a hoodie slips beneath a blazer, an old cap finds a new scarf. Because you don't simply step into the season. You create it layer by layer, until it finally feels like fall. Find fall your way at Ross.