The First Fatal Florida Bear Attack - A Roundup of Recent Animal Attack News Including Stories About a Bear, an Alligator, a Rattlesnake, and More

The guys discuss some of the most notable animal attack news that have happened over the past few weeks. Here’s the link for James (coyote attack): https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-me-recover-after-surviving-a-rabid-coyote-attack Link for little Cara (rattlesnake bite): https://www.gofundme.com/f/donate-to-caras-recovery Watch here: https://youtu.be/gj6_U4IYRf4 ~~ To advertise on the show, contact us! ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social: Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Wes Larson?

  All of you Tooth and Claw listeners know I love a good story and that's why I want to tell you about What Was That Like? What does it feel like to get hit by a car while you're biking, or be attacked by an alligator, or learn that your spouse hired someone to kill you? If those are the kind of stories you find interesting, then What Was That Like is the podcast for you. What Was That Like is filled with real stories about the most surreal experiences of people's lives. On each episode, a guest comes on and tells about the time they found themselves in some kind of extreme situation. It could be an animal attack, hello, Tooth and Claw listeners, a plane crash, winning the showcase on The Price is Right, one of my personal dreams, and more. The show brings you tons of completely surreal, completely true stories, all told through the lens of the person who actually experienced it.

• 0:45Wes Larson?

  Check out some of these topics that I know will be especially interesting to you Tooth and Claw listeners. Episode 178, John was attacked by a tiger, a guy in Russia who was attacked by a tiger and only had a road flare to defend himself. Or episode 41, Lauren was attacked by a monkey, a primate specialist who was working with howler monkeys and ended up having a pretty crazy experience with one of them. So if you want to hear some unbelievable and inspiring firsthand stories, I invite you to check out What Was That Like? Every story is verified, so you know even the most bizarre tales are someone's reality. Listen to What Was That Like on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or the app you're using right now.

• 1:37Jeff Larson?

  Hello, everyone. We are live with Tooth and Claw Podcast. We'll do it live! We have our bear biologist Wes Larson. Hey! And we have our tech guy Mike Smith.

• 1:47Mike Smith?

  What's up?

• 1:48Jeff Larson?

  That's our guy. And our bear tech guy Jeff Larson.

• 1:51Mike Smith?

  Jeff, Big Jeff.

• 1:53Jeff Larson?

  BJ.

• 1:54Mike Smith?

  Big dog. That's what Tiger Woods would say to you.

• 1:57Wes Larson?

  You're a little bit lighter than last time we saw you, Jeff.

• 2:00Jeff Larson?

  That's debatable. I got pumped with some air and stuff, too, so.

• 2:04Wes Larson?

  But you're missing part of your body.

• 2:06Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, I'm not the same person. I don't have an appendix anymore.

• 2:10Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 2:11Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, things just keep happening, you know? I don't know.

• 2:14Mike Smith?

  Things do keep happening.

• 2:15Jeff Larson?

  Preach that I won't have any body left.

• 2:18Mike Smith?

  Do you think maybe you could jump a little higher now that you're full of air?

• 2:22Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 2:22Mike Smith?

  Oh, floaty.

• 2:23Wes Larson?

  Is it like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where you have to just like hold on to the side of the wall or else you float away? I have a reoccurring dream about that.

• 2:31Jeff Larson?

  I don't know, but burping sucks.

• 2:33Wes Larson?

  Really?

• 2:34Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, just my stomach hurts. But yeah, I just had really bad stomach pain and I was like, you know what? I had surgery like two weeks ago, so I'm not gonna have surgery again. And I tried to walk it off and ended up just laying in the fetal position on the sidewalk.

• 2:51Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 2:51Jeff Larson?

  Drove to the ER and then was like, no, I'm not doing it and drove back home and then threw up a bunch and went to the ER and they took my appendix out.

• 3:01Wes Larson?

  All right.

• 3:02Mike Smith?

  Yeah, mere moments away from death, right? It was about to detonate.

• 3:05Jeff Larson?

  Mike, yeah, I could have died if it blew up. And Mike fought with my nurse.

• 3:11Mike Smith?

  Do you, I, oh, man.

• 3:12Jeff Larson?

  She was being sassy.

• 3:14Mike Smith?

  She was a sassafraz, yeah.

• 3:16Jeff Larson?

  I was like, what'd I do, lady? I'm just here. I just am trying to exist.

• 3:21Wes Larson?

  Just giving them more money.

• 3:23Jeff Larson?

  I appreciated it.

• 3:25Wes Larson?

  Do you always think of that Simpsons scene?

• 3:27Jeff Larson?

  Mike cleaned up my place a bit. That was nice. Yeah, I do.

• 3:30Wes Larson?

  Where he cuts it out and then he chucks it in and it explodes. Yeah.

• 3:36Jeff Larson?

  Mike cleaned up my place, but he threw away, I had two future bets on sports. And he threw those away.

• 3:43Wes Larson?

  Oh, really?

• 3:43Jeff Larson?

  And that was like $4,000 if they both win. So we had to find those.

• 3:48Mike Smith?

  And then I actually, I did that on purpose. I'm trying to get you up to stop gambling. I think it's the devil's pastime, you know?

• 3:56Wes Larson?

  You call us degenerates.

• 3:58Jeff Larson?

  I went to, I went on a little walk with Cindy Larson to the zoo yesterday.

• 4:03Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 4:03Jeff Larson?

  I had to go real slow, but it was fun. It was a good time, you know? I'm back to normal pretty much.

• 4:10Wes Larson?

  All right.

• 4:12Jeff Larson?

  Just walking at the zoo.

• 4:13Wes Larson?

  That's great. I'm glad you're feeling okay.

• 4:15Mike Smith?

  I am impressed that, I am impressed by it.

• 4:17Wes Larson?

  I'm sick of getting early morning texts that you're in the ER. It's like the third one this year.

• 4:22Jeff Larson?

  A couple of those.

• 4:23Wes Larson?

  Well, Mike, time we take out an insurance policy on Jeff.

• 4:27Mike Smith?

  Yeah, oh, that was a year ago, but yeah.

• 4:30Jeff Larson?

  It mainly just hurts if I like move.

• 4:33Mike Smith?

  Yep.

• 4:33Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 4:34Jeff Larson?

  Moving is hard.

• 4:35Wes Larson?

  Luckily, you historically have hated moving.

• 4:37Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 4:38Wes Larson?

  So this is gonna work out well for you.

• 4:40Mike Smith?

  Just hire a moving service to help you.

• 4:44Wes Larson?

  Is that what those are for?

• 4:46Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 4:46Wes Larson?

  They just come over and move your body around?

• 4:48Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 4:48Jeff Larson?

  They they just show up. They're like, wait. You want?

• 4:54Wes Larson?

  They'd probably be stoked. They'd be like, oh, we don't have to lift anything. We just get to like pump this guy's arms and stuff.

• 5:00Mike Smith?

  Try not to bang me on the walls. That's what people usually say to moving services.

• 5:05Jeff Larson?

  Brad.

• 5:05Wes Larson?

  Mike, anything new in your life? Anything worth reporting?

• 5:08Mike Smith?

  No, nothing to that. I mean, that's like, that's a category eight out of 10 kind of thing. I have nothing even approaching that. So.

• 5:16Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 5:16Mike Smith?

  Let's let's forego anything that's going on with me.

• 5:18Wes Larson?

  I'm still just dealing with that American robin. That's really my only struggle right now.

• 5:23Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 5:23Wes Larson?

  But it is quiet today. It woke me up this morning. It wakes me up every morning, but so far we've had like two hours of quiet, which I think is the longest stretch since it started, like over a week ago.

• 5:34Jeff Larson?

  You think it's just trying to get laid?

• 5:36Wes Larson?

  Yeah, but it I think it has mental illness.

• 5:38Jeff Larson?

  You just have sex with it?

• 5:40Wes Larson?

  Or something. Yeah, I could just have sex with it at my work. Uh, no, I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna kill it, but I would love it if it stopped. I go to Yellowstone tomorrow for a week, so hopefully when I'm back, it's done because I'm tired of it. We're pretty much dealing with the same kind of stuff, Jeff.

• 5:57Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 5:58Wes Larson?

  I've got a bird that's bothering me. You're almost dying, so.

• 6:01Jeff Larson?

  I was in such denial. I was like driving back from golfing and it started to hurt really bad. And I was planning on like getting a cheeseburger at Wendy's. I was like, no, my stomach doesn't hurt. I still like got it and just threw it up and like, it's like, I wasn't going to like admit that there was something wrong because I was just like, I can't keep going to the ER.

• 6:21Mike Smith?

  I remember when I had my appendix taken out like six years ago, I was laying in bed all night, just suffering and sweating. And I was like, if I can just like sleep through the night, I'll be okay when I wake up in the morning. And I like passed out because of the pain for like 20 minutes. And I was like, see, I can stop. I'm doing, I'm doing okay. I can sleep. This is, it's all gonna be okay.

• 6:41Jeff Larson?

  That was my headspace.

• 6:43Wes Larson?

  Getting a cheeseburger from Wendy's isn't isn't just like not accepting. It's like flat out.

• 6:49Jeff Larson?

  Aging it on.

• 6:49Wes Larson?

  Against it.

• 6:50Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 6:52Jeff Larson?

  Like, let's see how bad I can get this to hurt.

• 6:54Wes Larson?

  Yep, well.

• 6:55Jeff Larson?

  No, it's dumb.

• 6:57Wes Larson?

  Uh, well, it's our, it's our news episode. You know, it's been five or six weeks since our last one. There's been a lot of news. I feel like this time of year, often, you know, when people really start going outside in the US and recreating a lot more, there starts to be a lot more attacks in the news and animal incidents in the news. Bears are waking up. Bears are waking up, coyotes are whiling, you know, there's a lot going on. So we have some good stories today. And maybe I'll go first. I got kind of a tragic one to start. It's a bear story. Uh, it's really our, kind of our first American bear story of the year. So, but it's a pretty sad one. So I'm just gonna get it out of the way. You think you're better than us? What's that? You think you're better than us? No, why do you say that?

• 7:42Wes Larson?

  Why you're going first? No, I just, uh, I just was tired of talking about your appendix. Think you're better than me? I sure don't. I think so too. You should go. I, okay. Well, Florida recently had its first official confirmed fatality from a bear attack on the morning of May 5th. First ever? Yeah, I say first ever confirmed. They didn't really start taking records in Florida until like 1970. So there probably have been fatal bear attacks in the past, but this is the first one on record that. They never had grizzly bears, right? They don't have grizzly bears, never had them. Yep, they have black bears. So a woman called 911 on the morning of May 5th,

• 8:25Wes Larson?

  when she looked out on her property in Jerome, Florida and saw a black bear fighting and killing her grandpa's dog near his camper. And Jerome, Florida, I looked it up. It's tiny little unincorporated town north of Everglades City. It is kind of in the middle of nowhere. I mean, this is like very dense Everglades type habitat, big cypress trees. It's, it's a really cool place. So she looked out, she saw a bear fighting with this dog and killing it. She called 911. Sheriff's deputies arrived at the property not much later. The dog had been killed and the bear was nowhere to be found. So officials from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission also arrived. That's the Florida State Wildlife Agency.

• 9:08Wes Larson?

  They found evidence that the bear had killed the dog, which, you know, the other evidence was that this woman had seen that.

• 9:13Mike Smith?

  There was a witness.

• 9:14Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 9:15Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 9:15Wes Larson?

  And that a bear had broken into this camper where her grandpa lived, an 89-year-old Robert Markle.

• 9:22Mike Smith?

  Oh, man. Breaking and entering.

• 9:24Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 9:24Mike Smith?

  Racking those crimes up.

• 9:26Wes Larson?

  Robert wasn't in the camper and they couldn't find him anywhere. So they started searching the premises. It wasn't long before they would find Robert or his remains about 100 yards from the camper in the dense woods. He'd been killed by the bear and partially consumed, or at least they thought he'd probably been killed by the bear. A search was launched. That night, three adult male bears would be killed by FWC. They weighed 207 pounds, 263 pounds, and 434 pounds. These are all full-size adult black bears. Some big 434 pounds is a big bear.

• 10:02Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 10:03Wes Larson?

  There was one more bear in the area that they saw, but they couldn't catch it or kill it. Uh, and then when they tested these bears, the 263-pound bear had some of Markle's remains in its stomach.

• 10:15Mike Smith?

  Hmm.

• 10:15Wes Larson?

  They did then.

• 10:16Mike Smith?

  Evidence.

• 10:17Wes Larson?

  Yeah, and then they tested DNA evidence from inside the camper and around the property. And it matched that 263-pound bear. So they're pretty sure that bear was the culprit.

• 10:27Mike Smith?

  So the huge one in the small, were they all male bears?

• 10:30Wes Larson?

  They were all males.

• 10:31Mike Smith?

  Male.

• 10:31Wes Larson?

  Yeah, cuz initially I heard this and I thought there was a really, you know, the one of them was significantly bigger and the other two were roughly the same size. I thought it was probably a female with adult cubs. But I think these were just three male bears. And again, this is really good bear habitat in Florida. So I think there's just a lot of bears in the area. So FWC remained in the area for most of the week to make sure they had gotten all of the bears responsible. But from what I could tell, they didn't kill, kill any other bears. All three of the dead ones were tested for rabies. All three were negative. As far as I know, there hasn't been any investigation results shared with the public. So I think there are a few scenarios that could have happened here. The officials that responded didn't really release what they think happened.

• 11:14Wes Larson?

  But here are three that I think are most likely. So the first one is that the dog antagonized the bear. Markle responded to this commotion and it drew the attention of the bear. It defensively killed him and then opportunistically fed on him. And maybe raided his camper for any food too. And then also killed the dog when it continued harassing it. So in my mind, I think that is probably the most likely scenario. But there's two others that aren't unlikely. The second one was that this bear was already food conditioned, like had gotten into food. So it broke into the camper to try and get more food. Markle responded to this bear that was trying to break into his camper was killed in the process.

• 11:57Wes Larson?

  Once again, the bear opportunistically fed on him and killed the dog when it intervened. And then the third one that I think could have happened is that this was a predatory attack on Markle. Either while he was in his camper or near the camper, the bear attacked and killed him. The dog tried to intervene. The bear killed the dog and then left the scene when other people arrived. So could it be any of those three?

• 12:20Jeff Larson?

  How, how did it like break into his camper?

• 12:23Wes Larson?

  I don't know. There weren't a lot of details about that, but it's there said that there was evidence that the bear had been inside of the camper.

• 12:29Jeff Larson?

  Right. But it seems most likely that he like had the door open, trying to get his dog. I don't know. I feel like it's hard for a bear just to walk into a camper that's doors closed.

• 12:41Wes Larson?

  I don't know. I don't think so. Not if it has windows and stuff or. Or like a really big doggy door. Yeah. I don't think it would be hard. Yeah. I think if the bear was determined enough, especially. I don't think that's a big jump. Uh huh. Yeah. I mean, there's that video like a year or two ago from Florida where there's that guy with his dogs on his porch. And the bear just like bust through the door and grabs one of his dogs. Kool aid man style. They, I mean, they can get into pretty much whatever they want. Yeah. Just like the Kool aid man.

• 13:09Jeff Larson?

  You think they can get into whatever they want?

• 13:12Wes Larson?

  Pretty much.

• 13:12Jeff Larson?

  Mike Mark Zuckerberg has like a huge bunker in his Hawaii property. You think a bear could get in there?

• 13:20Wes Larson?

  No, that's why I said pretty much whatever they want, not everything. You're right. I don't think they want to though. Some bear proof places, but. They could if they wanted to, I bet. Yeah. They're pretty good at getting into things and finding weak spots.

• 13:32Jeff Larson?

  I don't even know how they get to Hawaii in the first place.

• 13:35Wes Larson?

  Yeah. I think that's a good example.

• 13:38Mike Smith?

  Really good on the the rebel team in Star Wars to find the weakness of the Death Star. They would have been able to like figure out exactly where its weak spot was.

• 13:46Wes Larson?

  They wouldn't have even needed Galen or so, or whoever to tell them where the weak spot was.

• 13:51Mike Smith?

  Right.

• 13:52Wes Larson?

  Yeah, anyway, this is a huge tragedy. Like a terrible unintended kind of consequence of this is that the Florida Wildlife Commission has been looking into maybe doing a bear hunt. And I do think the news from this will probably carry into like the public perception of whether or not that hunt should go forward. Usually when someone's been killed by a bear, it does create some negative feelings towards the animals. So I could see that being a nice push for them to get that hunt approved. I'm not arguing either way in like favor or against a hunt, but I don't like the idea of bears being shot personally, like for a personal.

• 14:29Jeff Larson?

  Sounds like you're arguing against it.

• 14:31Wes Larson?

  I just don't like. It's just my personal view, but like.

• 14:34Mike Smith?

  Sure.

• 14:34Wes Larson?

  Sometimes they are an important management tool when populations are exploding.

• 14:39Jeff Larson?

  Side with Wes and say, I argue against it too.

• 14:43Mike Smith?

  Yeah. Do you think that initial response of killing those three bears, that just wasn't enough to satisfy the public or?

• 14:50Wes Larson?

  No, this hunt was already like on the table and there are plenty of people opposed to it too. I'm just saying this is bad timing. For bears, but I looked and Florida has they they estimate over 4,000 bears in the state, which isn't a ton for a state the size of Florida. And pretty much the whole state is bear habitat. So they have a good, like as far as the the eastern US is concerned, they have a decent population of bears. But that the fact that like there's that many bears and this is the first fatality shows they really don't have that many conflicts, you know? So.

• 15:26Mike Smith?

  Florida is kind of like the appendix of the United States. If you think about it, it's a little dangling. Yeah. I hope we don't have to remove it. Seems like.

• 15:34Jeff Larson?

  It feels more important than actual appendixes.

• 15:39Mike Smith?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 15:41Wes Larson?

  We might have to remove it. It is becoming toxic.

• 15:45Mike Smith?

  Problematic.

• 15:45Wes Larson?

  I love Florida, actually.

• 15:47Mike Smith?

  I love it too.

• 15:49Wes Larson?

  When I was looking up this.

• 15:52Wes Larson?

  When I was looking up Jerome, like a real estate section came up and I got curious and I was like, oh, there's some cool places in Jerome. So anyway.

• 16:01Mike Smith?

  Well, that's a sad one.

• 16:02Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it is sad. Eighty nine, you know, it's a good, maybe that's better than going out dying it alone in your bed or something. I don't know. Maybe he kinda did though, die alone in his. Yeah, that's true. It's a bad way to die.

• 16:16Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 16:16Wes Larson?

  It's also. I guess he wasn't alone if you count the bear. Yeah, and his dog. And his dog.

• 16:22Mike Smith?

  Do you know what I think is really lucky? Sorry, Jeff, you can go. I keep interrupting you.

• 16:26Wes Larson?

  No, I'm gonna try to, you can go.

• 16:29Mike Smith?

  Oh, well, I was, well, now that's gonna sound extra stupid what I'm about to say. I was just gonna say it's real lucky that all of our radioactive spiders, they're always biting humans and not bears. Like, it's real lucky that all of our superheroes are just humans who are looking out for us, you know?

• 16:44Wes Larson?

  That's true.

• 16:45Mike Smith?

  Like a bear. If that got Spider-Man powers.

• 16:48Wes Larson?

  Spider powers to steal all our food. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. No, I'm glad, I'm glad I waited. Okay.

• 16:57Mike Smith?

  That would have been embarrassing if that didn't land.

• 17:01Wes Larson?

  So I'm in a five star hotel right now in Thailand. I'm sitting on the bed. It's a great bed. It's amazing. I'm still dreaming of my bed back home, and that's because it's a Brooklyn Bedding bed. I have the Sedona Elite from Brooklyn Bedding. I absolutely love it. Every night I look forward to just climbing into bed and going to sleep because it's such a good mattress. And that's because Brooklyn Bedding has been assembling top tier mattresses for over thirty years in their Arizona factory. There's no middlemen, there's no gimmicks, just top tier quality, honest pricing, and real American craftsmanship for a better night's sleep. Brooklyn Bedding knows that sleep isn't one size fits all, and that's why they offer fifteen plus different mattress models for every body, every sleep style, even in the hard to find sizes.

• 17:46Wes Larson?

  And if you sleep hot, they use Glaciotex covers, copper infused foams. And temperature regulating materials to help keep you cool and comfortable all night long. Me and Jesse actually had a really, really nice mattress prior to this and it was hard for me to give it up because I just didn't think that Brooklyn bedding could possibly be better. And it is. I'm really happy. I'll never look back. I just love my mattress. So go to brooklynbedding.com, use our promo code TOOTH at checkout to get 30% off site wide during the Black Friday sale exclusively with our code. That's brooklynbedding.com and promo code TOOTH for 30% off site wide. Let them know that we sent you in the survey after checkout. Brooklynbedding.com promo code TOOTH.

• 18:30Jeff Larson?

  Tooth and Claws brought to you by AllerMe. So in Salt Lake right now, the pollen is thick. Like you can see it in the air. It's thick and I'm getting allergies. It started a few years ago. I used to never get allergies and now I get them bad every spring. And you know what? I'm kinda new to allergy medicine because like I said, I didn't used to get them. I started out just taking like over the counter pills and stuff I didn't really like. Now that I'm trying AllerMe, I absolutely love it. Having the spray is such a game changer. Don't spend another allergy season suffering. After completing a quick online consultation that's reviewed by AllerMe's medical team, they'll formulate your unique spray. They'll

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• 19:57Jeff Larson?

  My next story, it begs the question, is Florida the new Australia?

• 20:02Wes Larson?

  Oh.

• 20:03Jeff Larson?

  Or the new India, take your pick. But just one day later, a lady was killed by an alligator in Florida.

• 20:11Wes Larson?

  On May 6th?

• 20:13Jeff Larson?

  Yes.

• 20:14Wes Larson?

  Oh.

• 20:15Jeff Larson?

  So on May 6th, Cynthia Decima of Davenport, Florida, was recovered from the water and declared dead. Her and her husband went out like canoeing on a lake. It's Lake Kissimmee. And yeah, they went like late afternoon, May 6th, and they're only in two and a half feet deep water. When unknowing to them, they went right over an 11-foot alligator, which did not like that surprise and reacted to it.

• 20:45Wes Larson?

  In two feet of water?

• 20:47Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 20:47Wes Larson?

  Eleven feet of water, right? Oh, no.

• 20:49Jeff Larson?

  No, 11-foot alligator.

• 20:51Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 20:51Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, it's the size of a very small bus.

• 20:54Wes Larson?

  sedan.

• 20:55Mike Smith?

  Size of, yeah, an 11-foot ruler.

• 20:58Jeff Larson?

  Bus.

• 20:59Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 20:59Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 21:02Wes Larson?

  That would be a good measurement system, how long of a ruler it is.

• 21:08Jeff Larson?

  So they, they unknowingly go over this alligator. The alligator thrashes and tips the canoe over and they both fall out into the water, which is like super scary, right?

• 21:21Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 21:22Jeff Larson?

  I'm sure they probably had alligators on the mind. So then the husband like tries to protect his wife, but the alligator gets her pretty quick, takes her under. He had like no real opportunity to save her. And then, yeah, park officials get there and it's pretty easy to put together what happened and alligator killed her.

• 21:44Wes Larson?

  Man, did they get the alligator?

• 21:45Jeff Larson?

  They killed two different 11-foot alligators. And there wasn't confirmed if it was the one.

• 21:52Mike Smith?

  Does the husband, did he get out unscathed, it sounds like?

• 21:55Jeff Larson?

  It says it wasn't clear if he was injured or not, but I assume he was fine.

• 22:01Wes Larson?

  You said Kissimmee like an Italian guy asking for affection.

• 22:07Wes Larson?

  Kissimmee. Uh, that sucks. That you would think in that shallow of water in a kayak, you'd be okay. You know, why do you say it's like Australia? Just because they have lots of crocodile attacks?

• 22:19Jeff Larson?

  Because people always say Australia is the most dangerous place for animals.

• 22:24Wes Larson?

  Yeah, we don't say that around here, though.

• 22:26Jeff Larson?

  Well, that's why I'm saying maybe Florida is the new Australia, you know?

• 22:30Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I like your.

• 22:32Jeff Larson?

  That's what people are saying.

• 22:33Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 22:34Mike Smith?

  Many people are saying that. All right. Shoot. To you. Well, I'm not. I'm not going to make things much lighter with my story. If I'm allowed to go, if you guys are done talking.

• 22:45Wes Larson?

  Go for it, Mike.

• 22:45Mike Smith?

  Let's go to, let's go to South Carolina, not too far north of Flor- Florida, as some people are want to say. So a couple of weeks ago, as of today, uh, today being, what's today? Like near the end of May, 2025.

• 22:58Wes Larson?

  Today's the 27th as we're recording this of May.

• 23:01Mike Smith?

  So, yeah, a couple of weeks ago, 52-year-old Eric Slate died of multiple blunt force injuries, according to the chief deputy deputy coroner of Horry County, South Carolina.

• 23:12Wes Larson?

  Should we guess what animal it is?

• 23:14Mike Smith?

  I want you to guess.

• 23:15Wes Larson?

  Multiple blunt force injuries?

• 23:17Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 23:17Wes Larson?

  I'm going to guess a cow.

• 23:19Mike Smith?

  Oh.

• 23:20Jeff Larson?

  South Carolina?

• 23:21Wes Larson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 23:22Jeff Larson?

  I'm going to guess a, a, I, I don't have a guess.

• 23:28Mike Smith?

  Okay.

• 23:30Wes Larson?

  Jeff is passing out as we're talking.

• 23:32Mike Smith?

  Not much, you know, against all odds, you're not that much more wrong than Wes, Jeff.

• 23:38Jeff Larson?

  That's crazy.

• 23:39Mike Smith?

  It was, uh, it was actually, well, oh, we'll get to it. So obviously an investigation begins because there's a

• 23:45Wes Larson?

  A death.

• 23:46Mike Smith?

  A dead man, blunt force injuries, et cetera, et cetera. There were no direct witnesses to what happened. So I guess we can't totally say for sure what caused this. But officials who responded, uh, they found Eric's lifeless body inside an enclosure located at a children's petting zoo. So that, that opens the gates up to all kinds of different animals.

• 24:05Wes Larson?

  Children. It could have been children.

• 24:06Mike Smith?

  It could have been, yeah, children of corn. Could have been.

• 24:09Jeff Larson?

  Children were tired of us.

• 24:11Mike Smith?

  Lord of the Flies kids.

• 24:12Jeff Larson?

  Children were tired of us petting them all the time.

• 24:15Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 24:17Wes Larson?

  He drew that black spot and they stoned him to death.

• 24:20Mike Smith?

  So why this is an interesting case is because upon speaking to Eric's brother, Robert, they learned that obviously while this was a tragic development, it maybe wasn't entirely like the most unexpected thing to have happened because apparently Eric. He liked getting in the kangaroo enclosure and roughhousing with Jack, who was a male red kangaroo, which is really interesting because that seems like the kind of thing to me where it's like a party trick or you get in there to impress people that are like there watching and having fun. You're like, I'll go and get, but this guy was doing it by himself. He was, he was just for the love of the game. He went in there. There were no witnesses and he was just fighting this kangaroo.

• 25:00Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 25:01Jeff Larson?

  Huh. You think that means he like grew up with a lot of brothers and he's just loved wrestling? Or he didn't have any brothers and he felt like the need to wrestle around with something?

• 25:12Wes Larson?

  We know he has at least one brother.

• 25:15Jeff Larson?

  Ah, yeah, they probably like to wrestle.

• 25:19Mike Smith?

  Right. So a tribute posted to Facebook on the following Monday by his brother, Robert, featured a series of photographs with Eric inside the enclosure, kind of like squaring up and fighting with the kangaroo. And it was just like a nice memorial post, like we're gonna miss you, you're loved. Um, Jack, your buddy of the kangaroo, he's gonna be fine. But Robert, he's actually a little skeptical still about exactly what happened because they found his body and while there were injuries, I guess you could say consistent with that of a wild animal attack. It was pretty tame, all things considered. So he, I don't know exactly what he's thinking, but he's thinking maybe there's another layer to this mystery. And we haven't, no development since this happened has shed any more light on it, but

• 26:03Mike Smith?

  he just thinks there'd be more like more violence and yeah, like his clothes would be in a worse state if this were actually like a wild animal attack that got him.

• 26:12Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Interesting.

• 26:13Mike Smith?

  But this leads me to just kind of kangaroos in general and their behavior as far as encounters with humans go. So I think we talked back in 2022 about that first person in forever who had died in an encounter with a kangaroo. It was like an older gentleman in Australia. It happened in 1936 and that was like the first recorded death of a human from a kangaroo since then, this Eric guy. But we have talked about kind of their strategy sometimes with, when they get in a tussle with whether it's a dog or a human. What do they sometimes like to do, Wes? Do you remember? Kind of see what I'm trying to get at?

• 26:49Wes Larson?

  They lock up with their forearms. They grab on to whatever they're like trying to. Fight and then sometimes they'll kick with their legs as they're locked up and that

• 27:00Mike Smith?

  And they like

• 27:01Wes Larson?

  Yeah, that's kind of their main strategy.

• 27:03Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 27:03Wes Larson?

  With dogs, they'll actually like, if they're can get him in water, they'll try and hold him underwater.

• 27:09Mike Smith?

  Yeah, and that's actually so another recent kangaroo attack happened just um days ago at this point, like a week ago. Where um Don James, this happened in Australia, he found himself fighting for his life as a huge red kangaroo, wrapped him up and held him down under the floodwaters near Port Macquarie, Australia. And an ecologist named um Graham Colson is from the University of Melbourne. He's he went on to say exactly kind of what you're saying is if they can get their prey or their target to water, that's kind of their instincts kick in and they try to just hold that person or that animal underwater. Yeah, it's not bad.

• 27:48Jeff Larson?

  They're saying Australia is the new Florida.

• 27:52Mike Smith?

  Really switched back pretty quick there. But anyway, I'll just wrap this up real quick. It turned, it was like a boxing match and then Don got the worst end of a punch. The kangaroo was holding him under the water and there were some onlookers kind of just like, what the heck is going on around here? But then thankfully, a neighbor popped out or drove by scared the kangaroo off. And Don thankfully traumatized, he escaped with his life intact. But it's crazy because just months prior, he had also found himself fending off a great white shark attack. So he's been, he's really been through it the past couple of months here.

• 28:24Wes Larson?

  Yeah, we gotta keep our eye on him.

• 28:26Jeff Larson?

  The kangaroo held him underwater for the great white to get him.

• 28:31Wes Larson?

  Oh dude, yeah, that's their strategy.

• 28:34Mike Smith?

  Do you think a kangaroo would try to hold the shark out of the water? That's probably their move, right?

• 28:39Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 28:40Jeff Larson?

  They had to fight the shark.

• 28:42Mike Smith?

  If they were fighting the shark.

• 28:43Jeff Larson?

  I have to do another quick correction corner for the same one I did last episode.

• 28:49Mike Smith?

  Yeah, okay.

• 28:50Jeff Larson?

  So someone wrote in and I guess uh wallaroos are an animal already.

• 28:56Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 28:57Jeff Larson?

  So there's kangaroos, wallaroos and wallabies.

• 29:01Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 29:02Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 29:02Mike Smith?

  I'm kind of mixed up where we're at on this whole thing.

• 29:06Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it's confusing. It'd be like if we had elk, deer and moose, but we called one like deer, deerie and deer-oo.

• 29:14Jeff Larson?

  Kyla, who can't...

• 29:15Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 29:17Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, there's like too many types of those too, you know?

• 29:20Mike Smith?

  So it started with you wanting there to be a wallaroo, not realizing that there was one. Then there was one and what was your first correction?

• 29:27Jeff Larson?

  Last week I said that they call wallabies wallaroos.

• 29:32Wes Larson?

  Oh.

• 29:33Jeff Larson?

  Wallaroos are actually their own animal.

• 29:36Mike Smith?

  Three disparate animals, okay.

• 29:38Wes Larson?

  We just need to remember that if we ever make up a silly name for an Australian animal, that name already exists. It's already there. All right, I got another one.

• 29:48Jeff Larson?

  Thanks, Kyla.

• 29:49Wes Larson?

  Yeah, thanks, Kyla. This one's about a rattlesnake bite. If you were to guess what age is probably the worst age to be bit by a rattlesnake, what would your guess be?

• 29:58Mike Smith?

  One, one minute.

• 30:00Jeff Larson?

  Probably a newborn baby, yeah.

• 30:02Mike Smith?

  One minute old.

• 30:03Wes Larson?

  One minute old, yeah.

• 30:03Jeff Larson?

  When you came out.

• 30:04Wes Larson?

  This girl was pretty close to that. So earlier this month, Jacqueline Reed was enjoying some time outside with her 15-month-old daughter Kara, so a year and three months old. When she got up for a second to throw away some trash, and she'd only been out of sight of her daughter for about 10 seconds, when she heard little Kara scream in agony. She rushed back to her daughter to find her in a lot of pain. She immediately noticed four puncture wounds on her foot. How many fangs do rattlesnakes have?

• 30:34Jeff Larson?

  Two, right?

• 30:35Wes Larson?

  Yeah, so this girl had been bit twice by a rattlesnake. Jacqueline looked around and she saw a rattlesnake tucked under a propane tank a few feet away. She realized what had happened. So she rushed her, rushed her daughter to the nearest hospital. They weren't quite prepared at that hospital to give her the care she needed. So she was airlifted to Phoenix Children's Hospital, where doctors begin administering antivenom. In the meantime, Clara or Kara was struggling to breathe. She was vomiting, losing consciousness, and her foot was turning black. Again, like a one-year-old kid, that's a lot of venom.

• 31:11Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 31:12Wes Larson?

  And like a really small body for it to attack. So

• 31:14Jeff Larson?

  The vomiting, though, it's like they vomit a lot anyways.

• 31:18Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was related to the rattlesnake bite. Uh, she would spend days in the hospital. I couldn't get the exact amount, but it was a fair amount of time in the ICU with a breathing tube, slowly receiving antivenom because they didn't want to overwhelm her, you know, tiny system. And just in those initial days, the family racked up over $200,000 in medical expenses. On their GoFundMe, the most recent update says that Cara is now recovering at home, but she still has a really long road ahead of her. I think of that, um, YouTuber that we did a story on this, this winter who got bit by an eastern diamondback. And just how long his recovery was and how painful he said it was.

• 31:58Wes Larson?

  And to imagine that happening to like a 15-month-old baby is just so hard to even wrap your mind around. So she has some surgeries scheduled. She's in pretty constant terrible pain. There's still a chance they're going to have to consider amputation. Uh, it's hard to say how much, you know, like what rattlesnake venom does to a baby like that's just, I don't think we have a ton of, I'm sure we have some evidence, but like, that's just a lot of venom for such a small body. It's hard to say what it's going to do to her overall development as she ages. But if people, I mean, this one definitely pulled at my heartstrings a bit. So if people do want to help this family,

• 32:37Wes Larson?

  there is a GoFundMe set up for her. Uh, her name is Cara Reed, C A R A R E E D. If you just want to Google it. Or we'll put the, we'll put it in our episode notes, just so you guys have access to it. But Cara, we, we wishing you a happy or not a happy, a speedy recovery. Yeah.

• 32:55Jeff Larson?

  I mean,

• 32:57Wes Larson?

  Yeah, and happy. Sure.

• 32:58Jeff Larson?

  If possible, yeah.

• 32:59Wes Larson?

  But yeah, what a nightmare. And yeah, I, you know, it's, it's probably pretty easy to villainize the snake because this seems like, but I imagine what happened is just she probably crawled over and tried to like handle it or grab it or got too close to it. And that's part of living in the desert. You know, there are rattlesnakes around.

• 33:17Jeff Larson?

  I see this video on like social media sometimes where it's a bunch of like little babies. And they put a bunch of huge pythons with them.

• 33:26Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 33:27Jeff Larson?

  And like the babies aren't afraid of snakes at all. For some reason, like babies aren't afraid of snakes.

• 33:32Wes Larson?

  Yeah, which is strange because like a lot of animals have that fear built into them like it's

• 33:37Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 33:37Wes Larson?

  An instinctual fear.

• 33:39Mike Smith?

  It's a learned fear for humans, then, I guess.

• 33:42Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 33:42Mike Smith?

  Maybe.

• 33:43Wes Larson?

  Anyway.

• 33:43Jeff Larson?

  I would, I would change my answer to like a week after they're born. Because if it's right when they come out, at least there's like doctors and stuff there.

• 33:51Mike Smith?

  Oh, that's a good point. Once they're out of the NICU, yeah.

• 33:55Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 33:55Wes Larson?

  Yeah, anytime in the first couple of years, I think is a pretty, pretty terrible time. Anytime's a bad time to get bit by rattlesnake, but that's especially bad. She's a really cute baby and the pictures are really sad, but the fact that she's at home recovering makes me think she has a chance.

• 34:10Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 34:11Wes Larson?

  Of making it.

• 34:12Mike Smith?

  Hoping for the best and shout out all the garbage men out there, honestly.

• 34:15Wes Larson?

  Yeah, why do you say that?

• 34:17Mike Smith?

  Well, it's happened when the mom had to go up and throw some trash away and it's like

• 34:21Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 34:21Mike Smith?

  The garbage men are helping us do that, not leaving too many openings for these snakes to get at our babies.

• 34:27Jeff Larson?

  That's a good point. Shout out.

• 34:29Wes Larson?

  I didn't put that together, but yeah, thanks, garbage men.

• 34:33Mike Smith?

  Big ups to the garbage men out there, dude. Public man. I love those guys. I wanted to be one when I was little. I still might need to become one, honestly.

• 34:42Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 34:42Wes Larson?

  When Jeff dies, me and you are gonna have to look into new

• 34:45Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 34:46Wes Larson?

  Employment. Yeah.

• 34:47Mike Smith?

  That'd be a great one. I'd be honored.

• 34:50Wes Larson?

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• 35:35Wes Larson?

  And those are people that are living through Wyoming winters, so they really know warm. The Hometown Down Jacket is 800 fill down, but it feels more like your favorite hoodie than it does a puffy. And for me, I am really excited about the Men's Furnos Max Insulated Jacket. I'm constantly looking for a jacket that just ticks all the boxes, and this one really does. It's stretchy, it's breathable, it looks great, it keeps me super warm. It's just amazing. I just absolutely love this jacket. So ski season's almost here. Gear up now the way that the locals do. Go to stio.com/tooth for 20% off your order. That's S-T-I-O dot com slash tooth. stio dot com slash tooth. Stio, designed and tested in Jackson Hole.

• 36:19Mike Smith?

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• 37:04Mike Smith?

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• 37:40Jeff Larson?

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• 38:22Jeff Larson?

  Also, I just want to say, they just sent me their seltzers and I absolutely love them. So check those out too. Well, I got kind of a fun one. All right, good. Federal Way, Washington. So Donald Hale, he's, he's like 50, 60 year old man. It didn't say the age, I just saw, watched a video of him and I'll play part of it because he's great. But anyways, he credits his bearded dragon pet, Spike, for saving his life. Cool. Yeah. So Mickey, thank you for sending this one in. But yeah, it's, he says that it likely saved both of their lives on May 17th, when a fire broke out in his apartment.

• 39:04Jeff Larson?

  So he was laying on the couch and he had just run 13 miles. He got home and he took a bunch of melatonin and just wanted to pass out after his big run, right? Sure. So he's passed out on his couch. The fire alarms are going off and he is like, took a bunch of melatonin. So he's out, he's not paying attention, he's not like waking up. 13 miles. Yeah, exactly. So then Spike always is hanging around on him, angles his tail and just starts whipping him in the face with his tail. Until he woke up and he woke up and like saw the fire alarms are going off and went and like

• 39:45Jeff Larson?

  found the fire and is still like containable. So he went and got water and like put it out. But I want to share just two video clips of him too.

• 39:55Speaker 03

  Right here laying on his couch because if my dragon don't wake me up, he don't wake me up. I don't, I don't be here talking to y'all. When I opened the cabinet from the pressure, the smoke came out, the fire came out. I backed up. I went in there and grabbed the, grabbed something to put the water in and came back and put it out. Now Hale is thanking God and his wordless companion. I mean, he don't make no noise. He don't bark. He don't holler. He, but he made the loudest noise that day I ever heard in my life.

• 40:28Wes Larson?

  That's awesome.

• 40:29Jeff Larson?

  That's pretty cool, right?

• 40:30Wes Larson?

  Yeah, that's great.

• 40:31Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 40:32Wes Larson?

  I want to be friends with that guy.

• 40:33Jeff Larson?

  You know what? I think I'm a little too harsh sometimes on reptiles as pets too. Cause I say like, well, I just say like, they don't really give their owners much emotion.

• 40:45Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 40:45Jeff Larson?

  You know, like it's like, they don't care about their owners, but I don't know. Maybe Spike cared about this guy, you know?

• 40:52Wes Larson?

  Yeah. How else could you even interpret that if he was, I don't know. Maybe it's just a weird coincidence that he just happened to be whipping him in the face and making sound like that, but.

• 41:03Jeff Larson?

  It just feels like it wasn't something that happens ever. Like it doesn't, it sounds like it's like the first time Spike's really like woken him up.

• 41:11Wes Larson?

  Yeah. And it's not, it's not a coincidence that, that bearded dragons are like such popular reptile pets because they have like such a great temperament. They're really cute. And I do think like what Jeff was just talking about, I think of all, like a lot of reptile pets, it do, it does seem like they're one that people are able to form some kind of emotional bond with, you know?

• 41:32Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 41:33Wes Larson?

  So, yeah, that's cool.

• 41:35Mike Smith?

  Favorite Spike impromptu category? What do you, who you got Wes?

• 41:38Wes Larson?

  Oh, it's Buffy Spike.

• 41:40Jeff Larson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:41Wes Larson?

  Without a doubt.

• 41:41Jeff Larson?

  I'll take Land Before Time.

• 41:43Mike Smith?

  Okay. I'll go Spike Jones then. If, I was thinking Spike but from, from before the land, land before the land of, before.

• 41:51Wes Larson?

  How have they not rebooted that movie yet too?

• 41:54Mike Smith?

  I don't know. Live action?

• 41:56Wes Larson?

  Of all the movies they're rebooting, it seems crazy to me that Land Before Time hasn't gotten one. We should jump on it.

• 42:01Mike Smith?

  Before the land of time. It got like 20 sequels. It really did have a, it's some legs on that, yeah. It's like Fast and Furious is like halfway there.

• 42:12Wes Larson?

  Like I'd go see that one.

• 42:13Mike Smith?

  Guess I would too.

• 42:14Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 42:15Mike Smith?

  Alright, I'll go next. I have a pretty fun one too. Really, uh, back half of this episode's a real spirit lifter maybe. Uh, I'm talking about, well, I'm not gonna spoil this one again. I'm gonna kind of keep it in my pocket for a little bit. So, for a few weeks now, there's a seaside Massachusetts town that's been plagued by broken car windshields and side mirrors. And, uh, a resident who lives there, Janelle Favoloro, was able to capture a photo of the culprit. And she was just having, you know, sometimes we like to have fun around here. She was having some fun around there. And she was on NBC's Today Show. And, uh, she described the culprit as 18 to 24 inches tall, wearing black and white with a red hat. Does that make you think of?

• 42:56Wes Larson?

  18 to 24 inches tall, wearing black and white with a red hat. Where is this?

• 43:01Mike Smith?

  Massachusetts, coastal.

• 43:03Wes Larson?

  Massachusetts.

• 43:04Mike Smith?

  It's not a human. I'll tell you that much.

• 43:07Wes Larson?

  A seagull?

• 43:08Mike Smith?

  Getting close. Yeah, getting pretty close.

• 43:10Wes Larson?

  Some kind of bird.

• 43:10Mike Smith?

  Wearing a red hat. Yeah. Um, think of maybe a cartoon. Yeah, there you go, Jeff.

• 43:16Wes Larson?

  Oh, nice.

• 43:17Mike Smith?

  Yeah, so at first, the people in the neighborhood, they didn't really know what was going on. They'd just wander around and every once in a while, they'd see a car mirror, it kind of like popped off the side of the car. Or a cracked windshield or something. But eventually Janelle caught the perpetrator in the act. And it's since been identified as a piliated or a pileated, piliated woodpecker.

• 43:36Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 43:37Mike Smith?

  Yeah, and just like Woody the Woodpecker, if you can envision that in your brain, you'll be seeing what this bird looks like.

• 43:41Wes Larson?

  They're our biggest North American woodpecker. Big, bright, red crest.

• 43:46Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 43:46Wes Larson?

  Really beautiful bird.

• 43:48Mike Smith?

  And that's, that was like, I was thinking to myself when I saw the headline, how much damage could a woodpecker actually do?

• 43:54Wes Larson?

  Heck.

• 43:54Mike Smith?

  And these things were like pretty big, a lot bigger than I was thinking they could be.

• 43:59Wes Larson?

  When you see them fly by, they sometimes look like a crow or something. We have a fair amount in our neighborhood and they're, they're a big bird.

• 44:07Mike Smith?

  Well, so over the past few weeks, it's damaged more than 20 vehicles, including dozens of mirrors and at least one vehicle's side window and some windshields and stuff. And that's like pretty thick class for these woodpeckers to be getting through. Yeah, and I'm not sure, this might not mean anything to anyone else, really, but I was really happy when I saw Ron McGill. Maybe Jeff, that name rings a bell. He pops up in the story. He was actually the wildlife consultant on the Lebatard Show for a long time.

• 44:33Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 44:33Mike Smith?

  Like, he'd call in every week.

• 44:34Wes Larson?

  He's at like the Miami Zoo, right?

• 44:36Mike Smith?

  Yeah, and he's like, you're really fun, kind of a big personality proponent for wildlife, and he's a director at the Miami Zoo. And he was speculating that the woodpeckers' behavior could be attributed to it being mating season.

• 44:48Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 44:49Mike Smith?

  And they do this like fun little dance and they do like all kinds of pecking and calls that, you know, the famous. Doesn't sound like Woody the Woodpecker quite, but it's a pretty distinct call that they've got.

• 44:58Wes Larson?

  Yeah, we, we have a lot of, we have three species that we see a lot of in our neighborhood and they, almost all of them, when it's mating season, they'll find kind of the loudest possible thing to peck on. And that's to draw in other mates and to establish territory and everything. So our flickers especially, will do that on like metal roofs and stuff. So most woodpeckers, you assume that they're only pecking wood to like, get it food or create a, like a nest or whatever, but they also do it just to like create noise, which can be quite annoying.

• 45:30Mike Smith?

  I'd peck like, I'd peck the button of a foghorn or something.

• 45:33Wes Larson?

  Yeah, that would be effective. A symbol.

• 45:37Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 45:37Wes Larson?

  You think if one of those cars was your car, you would ever put that together?

• 45:42Mike Smith?

  No, I'd be like, that's a kid with a baseball bat.

• 45:44Wes Larson?

  I would have to see the bird doing it, yeah.

• 45:47Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 45:47Wes Larson?

  But it's like, so, it's, it's like, obviously not a baseball bat, right? Because it's like.

• 45:53Mike Smith?

  Probably, yeah, true.

• 45:54Wes Larson?

  I would think someone was throwing rocks in the neighborhood or something, but I would never think it was a piliated woodpecker.

• 46:00Mike Smith?

  Anyway, so like Ron McGill, he was talking about it being mating season. And what do you see in the reflection of a mirror or a window than yourself? And they're thinking that maybe they're, they're just thinking that their own reflection is another male bird competing for females. So they start like attacking it. But it's a little strange because apparently, and another senior biologist in the area, her name was, is Pamela Hunt. She said usually when they're fighting each other, they're not pecking each other. They're kind of like just, right. You know, flapping around and kind of like more of like a wrestle kind of a thing than an actual peck or a stab.

• 46:35Wes Larson?

  Well, it's strange too, because if that if that were the case, we would see this all the time, you know?

• 46:40Mike Smith?

  True.

• 46:40Wes Larson?

  Cause like, there's lots of piliated woodpeckers. There's lots of reflective surfaces. So we'd see this everywhere they live. And this, yeah, it makes you wonder if this one has, maybe it's like my robin and it just has something, something up with it.

• 46:52Mike Smith?

  Well, Pamela, she speculated and said that this woodpecker might just be a quote, a little stupid. Is what she said, so.

• 47:01Jeff Larson?

  Maybe it's like a, a Gollum Sméagol situation where it's like.

• 47:07Wes Larson?

  Sometimes good.

• 47:08Jeff Larson?

  It's gotten rid of its Gollum, but then when it sees its reflection, it talks to him all evil.

• 47:14Wes Larson?

  Oh, yeah. That could be it.

• 47:16Mike Smith?

  No, that's gotta be it. Anyway, that's, um, that's the, the chronicles of the rogue woodpecker up in Massachusetts. Good luck, little guy. Hope you find a mate.

• 47:27Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 47:28Mike Smith?

  Um, but don't, don't stop doing what makes you happy. If you like attacking cars, the people in the community, they're pretty chill about it. They're like, they're kind of having fun and laughing with each other about it. Like it would kind of suck to have your car vandalized. But at the same time, it's, it's almost kind of a badge of pride to be one of the lucky few to have that animal interacting with you in that way, kinda.

• 47:48Wes Larson?

  All right. I got, uh, coyotes be wildin'. You guys ready?

• 47:52Jeff Larson?

  What? You stole my thing?

• 47:54Wes Larson?

  Oh, it's, it's open to whoever, Jeff. You created it. It's your baby, but sometimes you gotta hold your brother's baby, you know?

• 48:01Mike Smith?

  It takes a village to raise a baby.

• 48:04Wes Larson?

  All right. On May 16th, James Polium was enjoying a cigarette on his porch, you know? We've all been there. It's a great place to smoke your nightly cigarette.

• 48:14Mike Smith?

  I haven't been on his porch. I don't even know who he is. I've never been there.

• 48:17Wes Larson?

  Smoked a nightly cigarette, but this is something he loved, uh, something he had done countless times before. That night, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. Something was watching him. And his suspicions were confirmed when a coyote shot out of the nearby woods and charged at James. He yelled, he threw rocks at the coyote, but it kept coming. And then it jumped through the air at him, snarling and snapping at him. Caught it in the air and threw it down. And then he kind of tried to sidestep the coyotes that came at him again. It still isn't deterred. So he starts kicking it as hard as he can. But as he's doing this, he slips and he falls and the coyote jumps on top of him.

• 48:59Jeff Larson?

  Oh, no. Whoa.

• 49:00Wes Larson?

  And when it jumps on him, it starts biting at him and he puts his left hand out, bites his left hand really badly. And in this moment, he realizes like this coyote is trying to kill me. And I have to do whatever I can to stop it. And so he said, like, it was either me or him. So he rips his left hand out of its mouth, grabs it by the throat and strangles it to death for 10 minutes.

• 49:23Jeff Larson?

  No way.

• 49:24Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Uh, he said he, he went for 10 minutes just to be sure that it was dead.

• 49:29Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 49:29Wes Larson?

  Um, and I saw photos, it's a decent sized coyote. Um, they can get pretty big out east. Uh, he went to the hospital and they had to do some work on his hand. And a really unfortunate part of the story is he had just started a job in the food industry. And from like, reading about this, he was kind of starting to get back on his feet financially. And this really set him back both with his medical bills and with like the loss of work and everything. So this is another one where there is a GoFundMe, another one where I want to link it. I know with, um, the baby that we talked about, the rattlesnake, it's seen a lot of attention and it seems like there's been a lot of donations to that. I'm not trying to discourage people. We should all, if we can help.

• 50:11Jeff Larson?

  This guy's into both.

• 50:12Wes Larson?

  Yeah, this guy's hasn't gone very far. So I would love to, um, to show him a little tooth and claw love, help him get back on his feet.

• 50:19Jeff Larson?

  How do you think he titled it? Like, I strangled a coyote, please help?

• 50:25Wes Larson?

  Let's see.

• 50:26Jeff Larson?

  Please donate.

• 50:28Wes Larson?

  Help me recover. Oh yeah. And this, uh, there's an important detail on the thing here. Help me recover after surviving a rabid coyote attack. This coyote did test positive for rabies, so he had to get rabies shots.

• 50:39Jeff Larson?

  That's expensive.

• 50:40Wes Larson?

  Which are not cheap. Yeah. And he said they almost hurt worse than the coyote, which, uh, again, they're, and I want people, this is like a good time to interject with, with another kind of lesson. For people that the rabies vaccine, which you can get if you're living in a place where you have a high incidence of rabies, or maybe you're working with animals that could potentially give you rabies. The vaccine is a lot cheaper than the, um, like the one that you, the shots you have to get if you've already been bit by an animal.

• 51:08Jeff Larson?

  But don't you still need those shots if you get bit, even if you have the vaccine?

• 51:13Wes Larson?

  No, not necessarily.

• 51:14Jeff Larson?

  I thought you still have to get shots no matter what if you get bit by something with rabies.

• 51:19Wes Larson?

  Hmm. That might be true, but I'm not sure. Yeah, it's cheaper to get the vaccine.

• 51:24Jeff Larson?

  And it makes it in the story like already is he had every right to defend himself and kill the coyote. But now it's like he saved other coyotes because like had that coyote ran off, they probably would have killed a few coyotes. Once they realized that he had rabies.

• 51:41Wes Larson?

  Hmm. Well, it could.

• 51:43Mike Smith?

  That's a way to think about it.

• 51:44Wes Larson?

  Yeah, um, it could have attacked someone else too. So James, we hope you, uh, we hope you recover and yeah, again, we'll put that, we'll put that GoFundMe link in the show notes.

• 51:54Mike Smith?

  10 minutes is a good amount of time because there was that one story about the rattlesnake who died. And then 10 minutes later, even its head was cut off and it bit that coyote could have.

• 52:04Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 52:05Mike Smith?

  Really could still done some damage.

• 52:06Wes Larson?

  Than coyotes. It's interesting in movies how like when someone gets strangled, they die really quick. But that kind of happens in real life, right? Like strangulation can actually kill someone like pretty quickly. I think.

• 52:19Mike Smith?

  I'm not sure. I've never tried it.

• 52:21Wes Larson?

  Yeah, neither have I.

• 52:22Jeff Larson?

  It's less an oxygen thing and more a blood flow thing. I know.

• 52:26Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Uh, that's a terrible way to kill something, but I don't blame him for doing it to this coyote.

• 52:32Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 52:34Speaker 04

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• 53:04Mike Smith?

  This episode is brought to you by Element. This summer, stay hydrated without the sugar, food dye, and other dodgy ingredients that you find in all those other popular electrolyte and sports drinks. Electrolytes are important to have. If you're at an electrolyte deficiency or imbalance, it can cause headaches, cramps, fatigue, brain fog, and weakness, and you really can feel the difference when you get it right. Element is a zero-sugar electrolyte drink mix and sparkling electrolyte drink born from the growing body of research, revealing that optimal health outcomes occur at sodium levels two to three times government recommendations. So a lot of us, we think we're getting enough electrolytes, enough salt in our system. We're really not. Some of us might not even be close. But if you've got Element in your body, you're gonna be doing great. And you don't just have to take our word for it. So professional athletes everywhere are taking them, special forces in the military, Navy SEALs,

• 53:50Mike Smith?

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• 54:35Mike Smith?

  Give it a try, we think you're really gonna love it.

• 54:38Jeff Larson?

  All right, that's it, that's all I got. Yeah, I'll do two quick headline ones. So this one's a year ago, but it popped up because there's a revision to the article, but I just want to share it. All right. So, Australia, a Queensland woman was bitten in her bed by the world's second most venomous snake. What is it, Wes? Second most venomous snake, eastern brown? Yeah, eastern brown. So she's in her twenties, and she's just laying in bed, and an eastern brown bit her on the hand, like woke her up. And I just feel like that'd be so scary to like wake up and like

• 55:14Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 55:15Jeff Larson?

  See the second most venomous snake in the world just had bit you.

• 55:19Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it probably had like crawled into her bed because it thought it was a safe place and then she like rolled over and disturbed it.

• 55:26Jeff Larson?

  It said it probably went in during the day because it's so hot out.

• 55:30Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 55:30Jeff Larson?

  And yeah, she's just in bed with it unknowingly. But she's a scary thought.

• 55:35Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 55:36Mike Smith?

  Yeah, it's like the one last, like the last safe bastion that you kind of take refuge in when you're scared. You like hide under your covers and if that's not going to be a safe place, where is, you know?

• 55:48Jeff Larson?

  And yeah, she had to get like airlifted from Western Downs to Brisbane, but she was able to get help and she lived.

• 55:54Wes Larson?

  Yeah, good.

• 55:56Jeff Larson?

  Just one that I got right before we started recording that I want to at least shout out, I feel like is there's a show, I think it's probably like TLC. Here's I, I should have looked up what station it's on, but there's that show that Thousand Pound Sisters is what it's called. And one of them was bitten by a camel at a drive through zoo while feeding them.

• 56:18Wes Larson?

  Really?

• 56:18Mike Smith?

  Whoa, no.

• 56:20Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, and it became like a big thing because they videoed it and there was like child endangerment stuff. And she got her kid taken away for a bit because they were having camels just stick their head in their car.

• 56:34Wes Larson?

  I'll have to tell Jesse about that one because she is usually very up to date on what those two sisters are up to.

• 56:40Jeff Larson?

  Oh, really?

• 56:41Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 56:41Mike Smith?

  So wait, the sister who got bit had her child taken away or like the zoo got or the drive through zoo got in trouble? Because that seems a little strange.

• 56:50Jeff Larson?

  No, the lady who got bit got her kid like that. She got child endangerment charges.

• 56:58Mike Smith?

  Interesting, because that seems more of like the zoo's problem more so.

• 57:03Jeff Larson?

  I think they were breaking the rules.

• 57:05Mike Smith?

  Yeah, probably.

• 57:06Jeff Larson?

  But you know, who knows what that that camel. That camel is probably a little confused.

• 57:12Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 57:13Wes Larson?

  You know, from all of our episodes.

• 57:14Jeff Larson?

  That's a big lady. Like, it's probably like.

• 57:17Wes Larson?

  From all of our episodes, I think, like, the, the one that has changed my perception of an animal the most is camels.

• 57:25Mike Smith?

  Hmm, for sure.

• 57:26Wes Larson?

  I, when we learn they could like bite people's heads off and stuff. Actually, Mike, do you have any more? Cause I had one more quick one.

• 57:34Mike Smith?

  I do have, uh, I could get through this one pretty quick, this last one.

• 57:38Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 57:38Mike Smith?

  And it is a quick one, but it's, um, that's, uh, I'm glad. Good things seem like they were happening in those stories, Jeff. Or bad. I don't know. I wasn't really listening. Uh, my last one, um, what did happen? What was the first one? The lady lived. Yeah. She, in her bed.

• 57:56Jeff Larson?

  Neither of them were good.

• 57:58Mike Smith?

  No, but she lived and I'm happy about that. I just want to express that. So. My last story for this month is a story that happened out of Australia. And there was a Chinese woman named Mang Yon Jong, who's swimming about 30 feet away from the shore at Gunya Beach in Bundina, Australia. And she felt a slight stinging sensation on her leg. And at first she thought it was just kind of like something small, not very serious. But she got an eerie feeling when she felt something large pass by. She's like, that's probably more than just like a jellyfish, you know? And that's when she told 60 Minutes that she started seeing blood and the water around her became increasingly more and more red. And she began to realize just how much trouble she was in.

• 58:40Mike Smith?

  Realizing that she'd been bitten by a shark, she froze, hoping that it wouldn't come back to her if she remained still. But after a moment of kind of calibrating and, and monitoring the situation, she began screaming for help. Which is when the second character of this story hops into action. So Blake Donaldson, yeah, he, he was hopping, right. They're in Australia. He was hopping. So Blake Donaldson and his partner, Ellen, they were the only other people at the beach at the time. And so he knew that he needed either to get involved, or they were just gonna sit there on the shore, watching this woman bleed out and die. So he said he didn't hesitate for even a moment, which not saying I don't believe him, but I'm also gonna say that that's something

• 59:21Mike Smith?

  I would say about myself if I were the only person around to, you know, kinda-

• 59:26Jeff Larson?

  You think you would have hesitated a moment?

• 59:28Mike Smith?

  I mean, like a moment. Yeah.

• 59:29Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 59:30Mike Smith?

  Very briefly. I like to think I would have gotten in the water, but this guy didn't. He went immediately sprinted in, pulled Zhanyang back, um, Mang Yan Zhang, pulled her back to safety onto the beach. And that's when Blake's partner Ellen started administering CPR. And she started hallucinating, started seeing these crazy colors in her brain. And then she slowly drifted out of consciousness, but not before she started hearing responders talking about how her blood levels were dangerously low. And this is like a very critical situation, which is like, not the last thing you want to hear in this kind of thing when you're, you know, drifting off to sleep. The next thing she knew, she woke up after the surgery pleasantly surprised she was actually still alive. And she actually met up with Blake and Ellen a

• 1:00:15Mike Smith?

  little while after the incident and thanked them for saving her leg in her life. And she was like, words can't even express to you how grateful I am, how thankful you saved my leg, you saved my life, which is a great place to be in if you're Blake, I would think. Like, if someone literally owes you their life, you can guilt them into doing so much for you.

• 1:00:35Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, it's true. You could scam them for any, any of those like pyramid schemes, you could get them as like the first person to sign up.

• 1:00:45Mike Smith?

  Right. I think even in that scenario, if someone saved my life, I would still just like- Block. No, nope. You're out of my life now.

• 1:00:54Wes Larson?

  Uh, do you know what kind of shark it was?

• 1:00:56Mike Smith?

  It was a bull shark, reportedly, but there wasn't, no one was super confident since she was the only one that even got like a passing glance, but that's what it was saying in the article.

• 1:01:06Wes Larson?

  Uh, I had a really quick shark one as well, and I just kind of thought it was an interesting one because it involves a British woman and, you know, they don't, we've talked about this a lot. They don't have that many animals they interact with, so I think they tend to take these things a little roughly. She was paddling in hip high water in Rose Hall Beach in Montego Bay, Jamaica, when a shark bit her left hand and she noticed her ring finger was hanging off her bleeding hand and she thought she was going to die as she looked at her ring finger hanging off her hand. Um, and which you probably won't, just so everyone knows, if you lose your finger, you're probably not going to die. But she, uh, she went to shore and unfortunate thing is the

• 1:01:48Wes Larson?

  local hospital like said they were going to charge her $2,000 to even start working on her. And then they told her that they were going to charge her $25,000 for surgery. So she actually got like transferred to a public hospital and then flown to Ireland where her parents live. And that's where she had most of her treatment done. It sounds like probably they were able to reattach her finger and she's going to be okay. I think it was like a little reef shark. I shouldn't say little reef shark. It was a reef shark. But yeah, that's a not a fun thing, also not, not life threatening though.

• 1:02:22Jeff Larson?

  Charlie got your finger.

• 1:02:24Mike Smith?

  Charlie got it.

• 1:02:24Jeff Larson?

  Charlie bit your finger.

• 1:02:26Wes Larson?

  Yeah. All right. That's all I got.

• 1:02:28Jeff Larson?

  I saw, I saw a British TikTok girl who like wanted to visit America, but was too afraid to because of bears.

• 1:02:35Wes Larson?

  Yeah, that's a common thing. Yeah.

• 1:02:38Mike Smith?

  Yeah. I don't know. There's less rational fears or more rational. I don't know what I'm trying to say there.

• 1:02:43Wes Larson?

  I've learned as I've like traveled and met other biologists in other countries that people are always like, they're always much more concerned about animals that they're not familiar with than with their own. Like my friend in South Africa, like lions, he just didn't even consider them much of a threat. But when I told him about climbing in black bear dens, he just thought it was like suicidal. So, yeah. Anyway. All right. Well, should we do our categories?

• 1:03:07Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:08Mike Smith?

  Yeah. Oh, one thing I actually wanted to talk, or maybe more ask is the right word, Wes, in my last story about the shark, those teeth, is it just because those teeth are so fine that you can't, like, sometimes don't even realize how much damage has been done?

• 1:03:21Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I mean, they're like, I think, yeah, sharp would be the, the word, fine. There, I mean, they have like, big teeth, but like, they are incredibly sharp. And that's a common thing that people report is like a feeling of pressure, but not necessarily of pain when they're bitten by a shark, because they just have like a surgical cut to them almost. And, and then also, like, in a lot of our stories, we've just learned, like, it takes nerves a while to respond, and then also that adrenaline kicks in, which kind of pushes back some of that pain response too. So I think that's mostly it. Yeah, those two things combined.

• 1:03:57Speaker 04

  Coca-Cola. For the big, for the small, the short, and the tall. Peacemakers, risk-takers. For the optimists, pessimists. For long-distance love. For introverts and extroverts. The thinkers and the doers. For old friends and new. Coca-Cola. For everyone. Pick up some Coca-Cola at a store near you.

• 1:04:28Mike Smith?

  This episode is brought to you by Rocket Money. So by now, everyone's heard us talk about Rocket Money. We love it. We wholeheartedly recommend it. It's helped us all out, especially on the subscriptions. Helps you get out of those tricky subscriptions really easily, just a click of a button. Rocket Money helps you save money by getting out of those subscriptions headache-free. But one thing that I've learned to love, maybe even more than that subscription part of the service from Rocket Money, is that it actually was able to help me start my own budget, something that I had never really done. And it helped me track all of my spending habits, all my finances. And it was really surprising to see my spending habits when I really thought I had everything under control. I always thought that I was a pretty frugal person, and it really started to highlight these different areas where I was starting to let things get away from me a little bit. And that's just the thing. Rocket Money is

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• 1:05:55Mike Smith?

  in the survey, so they know that we sent you. Don't wait. Download the Rocket Money app today and tell them you heard about them from our show.

• 1:06:01Jeff Larson?

  All right, get into categories?

• 1:06:04Wes Larson?

  Let's do it.

• 1:06:05Mike Smith?

  Let's go.

• 1:06:06Jeff Larson?

  Something that you've watched recently that you don't recommend?

• 1:06:10Mike Smith?

  I want to go first because I think you're gonna steal mine, Wes. It's Death of a Unicorn?

• 1:06:14Wes Larson?

  No.

• 1:06:14Mike Smith?

  Holy moly, that was a bad flick. Sorry to anyone out there who enjoyed it. I like plenty of stuff. I just showed Wes a picture. I'm getting a 4K disc of Sky Captain sent to me, and I love that movie. I know most people don't. But my Sky Captain seems to be a lot of other people's Death of a Unicorn, and I found that movie to be almost on every level abhorrent. It couldn't, couldn't, almost barely reach the end.

• 1:06:38Wes Larson?

  I didn't care for it either, and I didn't care for the comparisons to Jurassic Park.

• 1:06:43Mike Smith?

  Yeah, I found that offensive, if I'm being quite honest.

• 1:06:46Wes Larson?

  In a lot of the reviews.

• 1:06:47Jeff Larson?

  Anyone you want to shout out in particular?

• 1:06:49Wes Larson?

  No, no. But I don't.

• 1:06:54Jeff Larson?

  Sounds personal.

• 1:06:55Wes Larson?

  It's not personal, and I don't blame.

• 1:06:57Mike Smith?

  A couple of people messaged me, like DM'd me on Discord, and they're like, "I can't believe you didn't like that." And I was like, "This is the thing. Most people seem to really like this movie."

• 1:07:05Wes Larson?

  That's, that's what I was about to say. I think there's plenty of people out there that really like that one, and I don't blame them. Like, it's got a talented cast. It's got like all the pieces. I think though, for me, it just, yeah, it just was like too slapsticky and not, it just didn't do it for me at all.

• 1:07:21Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:22Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:23Jeff Larson?

  You guys just want more, more of the Marvel movies?

• 1:07:26Wes Larson?

  That's not what I want either.

• 1:07:27Mike Smith?

  That's, yeah, just kicking Disney's door down.

• 1:07:30Wes Larson?

  Yeah. No, I'm, I'm gonna pick another one that's maybe slightly controversial. The Last of Us, Season 2.

• 1:07:44Wes Larson?

  I really enjoyed Season 1. I think it's because Pedro Pascal really carries that show. And spoiler alert, he's not in season two nearly as much. And I just haven't found it that engaging. I think the performances have been annoying. I, I just haven't, I just haven't been able to enjoy it. Like the last episode that I watched, which isn't the finale, is the, the one right before the finale. I was like skipping through it because I was so annoyed by it. So.

• 1:08:13Jeff Larson?

  Sounds like it follows the video game pretty well then.

• 1:08:16Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:17Jeff Larson?

  Didn't everyone love the first one and hate the second one?

• 1:08:20Mike Smith?

  The second one's definitely divisive. I mean, I think objectively it is a great game. I never played it, but the, a lot of people really, really, really hated that game for good or bad reasons. I couldn't tell you why.

• 1:08:33Wes Larson?

  Yeah. And I, we've talked about this a lot, but for me, like the threat of zombies is never enough to carry a show. And I know that's, I know the people in this show are like the true villains and that's how they always do zombie shows. But I just, I just can't get into it anymore. I'm just like, again, I don't think the performances are very good. I just don't really care for it. So I think I'm done with that show.

• 1:08:55Jeff Larson?

  All right. I'm going to go with the show you, because I actually shouted it out as a show to watch a little bit ago, and then I watched season five and I absolutely hated it. I thought it was like written so bad and uh, yeah, I shouldn't have shouted that out before watching it. But I really like seasons one through three, especially I thought four was kind of fun. And five, I thought they got way too cute with it and didn't really add up or make any sense. And I don't think like it's stuck true to the characters very well. You know, I feel like Joe should have got away. He's, he's the good guy the whole time.

• 1:09:37Wes Larson?

  Yeah. What's this show about? I don't know anything about.

• 1:09:40Jeff Larson?

  It's like some. Guy who reads books and he's like, yeah, he like develops in his mind that like this is his dream girl. And then he'll put him in a cage and then he'll.

• 1:09:51Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:51Mike Smith?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:09:52Wes Larson?

  And sometimes he like gets them, but then he they realize he's like been this total psychopath the whole time. It's just, it's the same thing every season, but I'll agree with Jeff. Some of the seasons were pretty fun. I'm not even trying. I hated season four, so I'm not even trying season five, but um, yeah.

• 1:10:11Mike Smith?

  Do you know what I'm having a real bad time with, hard time with is Andor, season two. I'm like, I'm only four episodes in, so like I'm reserving judgment and I know it ends really strong. The first four episodes have been really, really, really not fun to me.

• 1:10:27Wes Larson?

  Huh.

• 1:10:27Mike Smith?

  Really.

• 1:10:27Wes Larson?

  Have you been, have you been like pretty locked in, like focused on it?

• 1:10:31Mike Smith?

  Yeah, like pretty, I don't, I'm a no phone kind of watcher dude.

• 1:10:36Wes Larson?

  Cause I, season one, when I first watched it, I was like, yeah, I get why people love this, but it didn't really do it for me. Cause I wasn't like really focused.

• 1:10:44Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:45Wes Larson?

  When I, when I rewatched it, I was just like, man, this is a masterpiece. Like this is such a good. I will say I liked season one more than season two.

• 1:10:52Mike Smith?

  Okay.

• 1:10:52Wes Larson?

  But I thought season two was great.

• 1:10:54Mike Smith?

  Yeah. No, I, I, I loved season one. I, I really, I mean, yeah, I don't know. Okay. Weird. That's weird. I'm not done with it though. So I'm not passing judgment.

• 1:11:02Wes Larson?

  Episodes or whatever. So.

• 1:11:04Mike Smith?

  Right.

• 1:11:05Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 1:11:05Jeff Larson?

  All right.

• 1:11:06Wes Larson?

  All right. What's next, Jarf?

• 1:11:08Jeff Larson?

  We make everyone mad there?

• 1:11:10Mike Smith?

  Yeah, sorry.

• 1:11:10Jeff Larson?

  Shit and on their favorite things.

• 1:11:12Wes Larson?

  Yeah, we attached, we attacked some major, some major shows there.

• 1:11:17Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. All right. Uh, because of the brown snake bite in the girl's hand and how scary that'd be to wake up to. Scariest like in bed scene you can think of.

• 1:11:27Wes Larson?

  Can I go first?

• 1:11:28Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:29Wes Larson?

  For me, it's Poltergeist, the original Poltergeist, uh, directed by Toby Hooper, story by Steven Spielberg. Yeah.

• 1:11:37Mike Smith?

  Yeah. Well, that's the rumor is that Spielberg was actually the director, but I think that's a little insult.

• 1:11:42Wes Larson?

  When you see the camera movement, it feels like a Spielberg movie and that's why I love this scene so much. It's kind of after the first bout of craziness has happened in the house. And the family is settling down to go to sleep and you see the little boy in his room and there's a clown, like big gross clown doll sitting on this chair. And he like casually tries to kind of throw a thing over it. It doesn't work. And then he lays down to go to sleep and he hears a thud and he looks over clown isn't there anymore. And I think this was like a genius thing that they would ruin in a current horror movie. Is that when he looks at the chair, there's no like really loud music. When you see that the clown's not there anymore, it's just totally quiet. And it really adds to how that would feel if you're a kid.

• 1:12:26Wes Larson?

  That the scariest thing in your room is moved. And so then he pulls up the covers of like underneath his bed and the camera like follows him perfectly. And then as he like goes back up, the clown's behind him and grabs him. And it's such a good jump scare and such a perfect scene. And they don't have to make it super dark to where you can't see anything. There's no jump scares before like one is necessary. It's just, it's masterful. I think it's an amazing scene. It's definitely my favorite bed scare scene.

• 1:12:55Mike Smith?

  I think like a clown doll in a child's bedroom is grounds for like a call to CPS these days. It's like, don't.

• 1:13:02Wes Larson?

  Sitting there watching him sleep, like perfectly positioned. Yeah. In a house that you know is haunted by ghosts.

• 1:13:11Mike Smith?

  Yeah, it's a tough one. So I'm going to go with the original Grudge Japanese movie Juwan. There's a, she's watching in bed, she's watching TV and it starts to like get all warped and distorted. There's a freeze frame on the weird face of the reporter or whatever. And then she lifts up the covers and it's creepy. I don't want to spoil exactly what's all going on down in there, but it really catches you off guard. And again, it's kind of like just a violation of what should be your safest, most comfortable space. And it's no longer that. So that one got me pretty good.

• 1:13:43Jeff Larson?

  Oh man, both of mine are still here. So I'm going to shout them both out, but misery. Like it's kind of the whole, like half of the movie. One of you guys haven't seen that, right?

• 1:13:53Mike Smith?

  No, I've seen it. Yeah.

• 1:13:54Jeff Larson?

  Mike, you've seen it?

• 1:13:55Mike Smith?

  Uh huh.

• 1:13:56Jeff Larson?

  Okay. Uh, and then the other one would be just Nightmare on Elm Street, the original Johnny Depp's death.

• 1:14:03Wes Larson?

  I almost picked that one.

• 1:14:05Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. Milkshake blender to his body, pretty much in the bed.

• 1:14:09Mike Smith?

  Pretty fun. Dude, the scene in Misery is, uh, the ankle scene, I'll just say. That's maybe my least favorite scene ever because it's not like supernatural. It's not, it's not crazy. It's a thing that could just actually happen to you and it shows it so brutally. Ugh.

• 1:14:27Wes Larson?

  Yeah, him begging and just like it not.

• 1:14:30Jeff Larson?

  He should have wrote his book better though.

• 1:14:32Wes Larson?

  Yeah, he did do a bad job. Yeah.

• 1:14:36Jeff Larson?

  Alright. The Switch 2 is.

• 1:14:38Wes Larson?

  Devil's advocate.

• 1:14:39Jeff Larson?

  The Switch 2 is coming out, so I was just wondering what the most excited for a video game console release you've ever been?

• 1:14:49Mike Smith?

  I'll go.

• 1:14:49Jeff Larson?

  For me, yeah.

• 1:14:50Mike Smith?

  So, leading up to the PlayStation 2 release, we heard everything about how it was gonna be able to play DVDs and we didn't have a DVD player. And there is the new snowboarding game, SSX was coming out, um, a new Tekken tag tournament, that game was coming out, like a bunch of stuff. It was on my radar, but the console wasn't out quite yet. And so when we got it on Christmas, my dad did a smart thing where he put like a DVD for each of us kids in our stockings and we always open our stockings first and we're like, oh, we're getting DVDs so we know what else is coming from under the tree, you know, so. It's like a really fun build up and anticipation towards that. Plus it was like backwards compatible. You could play all your old PlayStation 1 games on it and that was just like.

• 1:15:33Jeff Larson?

  You never said the actual console, I don't think.

• 1:15:36Mike Smith?

  Did I not? Oh, PlayStation 2. Yeah.

• 1:15:39Jeff Larson?

  Okay.

• 1:15:39Mike Smith?

  Okay, sorry. If I didn't, then that's, that's a bad move on my part. I'll issue a correction corner next episode.

• 1:15:46Jeff Larson?

  I think for me it'd be the Wii. I just like. Couldn't believe I had access to that technology and like I was playing that indoors with those remotes. I thought the Wii was so cool.

• 1:16:00Wes Larson?

  I slept in a line for the Wii.

• 1:16:02Mike Smith?

  Did you?

• 1:16:03Wes Larson?

  Yeah, like we took tents and like, but it was me and some friends and we bought extras too to like resale. It didn't really work very well.

• 1:16:11Mike Smith?

  You dirty dog.

• 1:16:12Wes Larson?

  I only bought like one extra. I couldn't afford more than one. But um, yeah, the Wii, you know, that I honestly could be it for me. I, but I'm gonna say Nintendo sixty four. I feel like for my life, that was like the biggest jump forward in what it seemed like consoles could do. And it just playing GoldenEye and the Mario Kart version of that and Super Smash Brothers. It just felt like things had progressed to an unreal level. I remember, I actually remember being on, like, I remember where I was driving with my dad. When I told him, there's just no way video games are ever gonna get better than this. Like they're already like so good. There's no way they can do better. And he just kinda laughed and he's like, I'm sure they're gonna improve on this.

• 1:16:57Wes Larson?

  But yeah, and he was right.

• 1:16:59Mike Smith?

  The whole thing where like, we look at Lara Croft and her breasts were like three polygons each. We're like, oh my gosh. That is so hot. We had no idea what was coming.

• 1:17:10Wes Larson?

  Yeah, yeah. Um, those were the days, you know?

• 1:17:14Mike Smith?

  Oh yeah, they were. The halcyon days.

• 1:17:16Wes Larson?

  True yearning.

• 1:17:17Jeff Larson?

  Who's the girl with the butt you like, Mike?

• 1:17:20Mike Smith?

  Eve from Stellar Blade. Oh man, it's coming out on PC soon. Listen, call me a gooner, call me what you will. That game is sick. It's a great game and I'll go to my grave defending it. It's a little over sexualized, but that's just to get people in the door, you know?

• 1:17:35Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it, you know, it's a good door.

• 1:17:38Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:38Wes Larson?

  It's that, that old ass door.

• 1:17:42Mike Smith?

  The backdoor, if you will.

• 1:17:44Jeff Larson?

  All right, let's do something underrated. I'll go first. I'm gonna just say purple Powerade. It's been here my whole life. I never really shout it out. I like purple Powerade a lot. I feel like Gatorades like kinda become the main drink and I just love getting purple Powerade every once in a while.

• 1:18:03Mike Smith?

  You never shout it out? Like, we're not expecting, really. Well, yeah.

• 1:18:07Wes Larson?

  I have, yeah. There's people out there that are like, finally, finally Jeff shouting out purple Powerade.

• 1:18:15Mike Smith?

  That's good. That's a good one. It's good.

• 1:18:17Wes Larson?

  I'm gonna go popsicles. I feel like you eat a lot of popsicles as a kid. You don't really tear into too many popsicles as an adult. Had a popsicle recently and I was just like, man, this is such a refreshing, wonderful treat. And maybe just have a little bowl so it can drip into that bowl instead of getting all messy, you know?

• 1:18:34Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:35Wes Larson?

  But, yeah, popsicles for me. Underrated.

• 1:18:38Mike Smith?

  I'm gonna go with maybe a bit of a controversial one. I mean, I don't know if it is, but I'm gonna say fake plastic plants. Just because there it's no maintenance at all. You don't have to worry about like, because we travel a lot, it'd be hard to keep those. I'm sure you guys deal with that when you're traveling. It's kind of a lot to take care of and I've never been good at taking care of real plants. I've tried my hardest, done all kinds of research, even like succulents and cacti. I just can't do it. I don't know what it is. I've got the opposite of whatever green thumb is.

• 1:19:07Wes Larson?

  I've got a pretty good indoor green thumb.

• 1:19:10Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:10Wes Larson?

  I have plants that have been alive since 2016 that are doing really well.

• 1:19:14Mike Smith?

  That's great. And I'm happy, but it's like a way for me to kind of spruce up my place. Uh, make it look a little nicer without having to like stress out and constantly feel bad about myself.

• 1:19:26Jeff Larson?

  Hate the sun.

• 1:19:28Mike Smith?

  It could be it. Yeah, I'm passing that on tonight.

• 1:19:29Jeff Larson?

  You got everything blocked out.

• 1:19:31Mike Smith?

  Yeah, that's true. Look at me. I'm like pink. So I haven't seen the sun in years.

• 1:19:37Wes Larson?

  All right.

• 1:19:38Jeff Larson?

  Uh, let's do Jeff's animal fact. So snowy animal, or snowy animals. Snowy owls, they are diurnal, so they hunt during the day. Just seems like an animal that would hunt at night, you know?

• 1:19:52Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:52Jeff Larson?

  Okay.

• 1:19:52Mike Smith?

  It kind of makes sense though, right? Because when it's bright outside, they're probably a little more camouflaged. As opposed to like being a white blur in the middle of like a darker night. Nah, I don't know. Maybe I'm not thinking quite right about that, but.

• 1:20:06Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:06Mike Smith?

  Again, it's like the snow and stuff.

• 1:20:08Wes Larson?

  I don't know why they're diurnal, but um, also like a lot of the places they live have really extended daylight. You know, like some of the places where you find snowy owls, like it's pretty much always day in the summer. So, yeah. And then they tend to migrate down south for, for winters. So that might be part of it too.

• 1:20:27Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 1:20:28Wes Larson?

  Cool.

• 1:20:28Jeff Larson?

  All right, let's do list. I did listener comments. They mainly just gave me this question, so.

• 1:20:34Wes Larson?

  All right.

• 1:20:35Jeff Larson?

  Um, Tim Fecat, does Wes experience frission when the T-Rex emerges from the paddock in Jurassic Park?

• 1:20:44Wes Larson?

  Frission?

• 1:20:44Mike Smith?

  Free song.

• 1:20:46Wes Larson?

  What's that?

• 1:20:47Jeff Larson?

  Okay.

• 1:20:48Mike Smith?

  It's like chills, tingles and like down your spine kind of thing.

• 1:20:51Wes Larson?

  It's, if I'm ever testing like new sound system, if I'm ever trying to like test any kind of media, that's the scene I go to. Because it, that scene does something to me that like no other uh, action kind of horror movie scene does. I just think it's such an incredible use of CGI. It's wonderful. And people are going to argue and say, oh, that was practical effects. No, when it steps out of the paddock, it is CGI. There are parts of that sequence that are a practical T-Rex, but that scene is CGI. And they put so much thought and time into it that I still think to this day, it's the most realistic a dinosaur has ever looked. Or at least what we thought dinosaurs looked like at the time. So, yeah, I love it.

• 1:21:35Mike Smith?

  You know what my scene is for like a reference test, like in 4K or whatever, at the end of uh, Requiem for a Dream when they're like.

• 1:21:43Wes Larson?

  The double dildo.

• 1:21:45Mike Smith?

  Yeah. I had, yeah, I revisit that one a lot.

• 1:21:49Wes Larson?

  You're.

• 1:21:49Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, like.

• 1:21:52Wes Larson?

  I bet that's a real crowd pleaser.

• 1:21:53Jeff Larson?

  Mine's the start of fellowship of the ring. So we're all three kinda similar.

• 1:21:58Wes Larson?

  Yeah, very.

• 1:22:00Jeff Larson?

  Uh, curiously, Katie says, worst named animal is a cow. A cow is a female bovine that has had a baby. Uh, just a comment. We don't need to.

• 1:22:15Wes Larson?

  I can see where they're coming from, I think.

• 1:22:17Jeff Larson?

  I like the name cow, though.

• 1:22:19Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:20Jeff Larson?

  Liliana Lebec, yeah, go ahead. That's all it is.

• 1:22:24Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it's a comment.

• 1:22:25Jeff Larson?

  That's why they're called cows, I think.

• 1:22:28Wes Larson?

  Right. Yeah.

• 1:22:29Jeff Larson?

  Liliana Lebecky wants, says a Russian yeti attack story could be sweet. Sure, Liliana, if you can send us a good yeti story, we'll do it.

• 1:22:40Wes Larson?

  Well, there's Dyatlov Pass, which actually is in my, my list of stories that we'll probably get to.

• 1:22:45Jeff Larson?

  Okay.

• 1:22:46Wes Larson?

  As we did, remember we.

• 1:22:47Jeff Larson?

  And look at that.

• 1:22:48Wes Larson?

  We did Gi, or Juliana of the Jungle, which was kind of like animal related, but not a full animal story. Dyatlov Pass is kinda like that, where like they found a bunch of dead people and there's a lot of theories of what could have happened. So some people think it's yetis.

• 1:23:03Jeff Larson?

  All right. And then a lot of people just checking in on me, asking how I'm doing. My stomach hurts. I want to lay down.

• 1:23:11Wes Larson?

  All right. Let's call it then.

• 1:23:14Jeff Larson?

  All right.

• 1:23:16Wes Larson?

  All right. Jeff, hope you feel better, pal. Uh, yeah. Thanks for getting up for this. That's a tall order.

• 1:23:22Jeff Larson?

  Oh dude, I'm a, I'm a grinder, you know?

• 1:23:25Wes Larson?

  Yeah, you are. Oh, yeah. That's if there's one thing we know about you.

• 1:23:28Jeff Larson?

  God gives his strongest challenges to his toughest soldiers. That's why I always say.

• 1:23:33Wes Larson?

  Yeah, hardest grinders, I think is how the saying goes.

• 1:23:37Wes Larson?

  Drink some purple Powerade and eat a Wendy's cheeseburger. That'll help you feel better.

• 1:23:40Jeff Larson?

  Oh, yeah. Doctor said I'm like fat, so he got in my head. I'm trying to be healthy right now.

• 1:23:48Wes Larson?

  All right. Well, let us know how we can help.

• 1:23:51Jeff Larson?

  He didn't even say beefy. He just said.

• 1:23:54Wes Larson?

  Obese.

• 1:23:55Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:56Wes Larson?

  He's like, you know what the BMI is? You got a big one.

• 1:24:00Mike Smith?

  Is what he kinda said, yeah. It's tough. I knew, I was there, right? And I was like, I probably have a problem too.

• 1:24:06Jeff Larson?

  That guy in the Reacher show, he probably is as tall as me and weighs more than me even, so like,

• 1:24:13Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:14Jeff Larson?

  Is he obese, you know?

• 1:24:15Mike Smith?

  Yeah, but BMI isn't just weight and height.

• 1:24:18Jeff Larson?

  They didn't take my BMI.

• 1:24:21Mike Smith?

  Okay, I don't know. Yeah. All I'm saying is that I'm beefy too, so I should be taking whatever he said to you to my own heart. So, I'm solidarity.

• 1:24:31Jeff Larson?

  Quit yelling at nurses all the time, dude.

• 1:24:33Mike Smith?

  She was bad bedside manners. I don't care for her.

• 1:24:37Jeff Larson?

  She was making me mad too.

• 1:24:39Mike Smith?

  Yeah, and not care for her one bit.

• 1:24:42Jeff Larson?

  Alright.

• 1:24:42Mike Smith?

  Alright.

• 1:24:43Jeff Larson?

  Well, thank you everyone, love you.

• 1:24:45Mike Smith?

  See ya. Bye.