Pod Insights Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks What the F**k is Going On With Japan's Bears? About this episode Japan has been seeing a higher-than-usual rate of violent encounters with bears. Wes explains why that might be and what should be done about it.
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Transcript 18,474 words · 5 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:13 Jeff Larson? Welcome everyone to Tooth and Claw Podcast. We have our bear biologist Wes Larson. I am his younger brother. I was a field tech for bears. I'm pretty much a bear biologist by now.
0:26 Wes Larson? Pretty much not.
0:26 Jeff Larson? And we have Mike Smith, who is our sound, uh, sound tech.
0:33 Wes Larson? Sound guy.
0:33 Jeff Larson? Sound guy. Master diver.
0:36 Wes Larson? Yeah.
0:37 Jeff Larson? And just all around good guy.
0:39 Wes Larson? Sick today, too. He's not feeling good.
0:41 Mike Smith? I try to be, yeah, I really try to be good, not sick. Sorry, I kinda.
0:46 Wes Larson? What if you did just try to be sick all the time? There's people that do that, right?
0:51 Mike Smith? Yeah.
0:51 Wes Larson? Cause I think that's Munchausen syndrome. And then there's Munchausen's by proxy, which is where someone keeps you sick because they like taking care of you or whatever. I don't know.
1:01 Mike Smith? Okay.
1:01 Wes Larson? But.
1:02 Jeff Larson? I had that.
1:03 Wes Larson? Don't listen to me. I don't know any of this.
1:05 Jeff Larson? A little bit growing up, I had the exaggerate an injury or whatever. Like if I like rolled my ankle at recess, I'd like limp really, um, exaggerate my limp the rest of the day. So people would be like, oh, are you okay?
1:20 Wes Larson? Yeah. That's just being a dude. That's what we do.
1:23 Mike Smith? You know who does that a lot is Shay Gildes Alexander. He's always trying to make people think he's hurt. Sick, trying to get those free throws.
1:31 Jeff Larson? Yeah, maybe he has that thing.
1:36 Wes Larson? I, the second we brought up like a syndrome, it made me think, uh, someone's gonna comment and be like, actually, that's not what that is.
1:44 Jeff Larson? No idea with this one.
1:46 Wes Larson? Right. So just.
1:47 Mike Smith? Feel free to leave your comments.
1:48 Wes Larson? Leave us alone. Yeah.
1:50 Jeff Larson? Wes.
1:50 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:51 Jeff Larson? Me and Mike did a little bonus thing for sports. We talked about sports.
1:58 Wes Larson? Nice.
1:58 Jeff Larson? And he wanted my 25 best athletes of the 25th, or of the 20th century.
2:05 Mike Smith? 21st century, so far.
2:06 Jeff Larson? 21st century. Yeah, that's what it is. No, since like the millennium.
2:11 Wes Larson? Right, right. The 21st century.
2:14 Jeff Larson? Twen- 2000th millennium so far.
2:18 Wes Larson? Yeah, sure.
2:19 Mike Smith? 2000th millennium.
2:22 Mike Smith? Now that'd be 20,000.
2:23 Wes Larson? When you're talking centuries, you're always one ahead of the one you're in.
2:27 Jeff Larson? No, but it's also the 20th century. It's like the 20th and the 25th.
2:32 Mike Smith? We can't do this. We can't publish you saying this. This is really gonna shoot all credibility out the window for all three of us, like forever.
2:40 Jeff Larson? I wanted, I wanted, uh, I wanted you to guess my five best athletes of the past 25 years.
2:47 Wes Larson? Steph Curry's number one.
2:49 Jeff Larson? No, he didn't make top five.
2:50 Mike Smith? What? I know. It's shocking. It's crazy.
2:53 Wes Larson? LeBron, LeBron James.
2:55 Jeff Larson? No, he's behind Steph.
2:57 Wes Larson? Okay, uh.
2:58 Mike Smith? It's also shocking, but.
3:00 Jeff Larson? Yeah, he's number one.
3:01 Wes Larson? Tom Brady's top five. Okay. Uh, uh, Hamilton in F1.
3:05 Jeff Larson? He made the list, but he didn't get top five.
3:08 Wes Larson? Okay, I'm done guessing. Tell me your others.
3:11 Jeff Larson? All right. Tiger Woods was like number four. Number two was Ronaldo, Cristiano Ronaldo.
3:16 Wes Larson? I like the order you're doing this in.
3:18 Jeff Larson? I kind of forgot the top five. I didn't realize.
3:22 Wes Larson? There's, there's one, two, and four for everyone that's interested. Get a, get a Patreon subscription to hear the rest.
3:28 Jeff Larson? Djokovic, I think was maybe five.
3:30 Wes Larson? What about Messi? Is he in there?
3:32 Mike Smith? Messi was behind Ronaldo.
3:34 Wes Larson? Okay.
3:35 Jeff Larson? Oh, Hussein Bolt was in the top five. All right.
3:38 Mike Smith? That's right.
3:39 Jeff Larson? Fastest man that's ever lived. That's gotta make top five. That's more impressive than Curry.
3:44 Wes Larson? All right. That's cool. Well, I can't wait to listen to it.
3:47 Jeff Larson? A little preview.
3:48 Mike Smith? This is a good list. I was shocked at how he had one person in there is all that I just, well, so I guess we should, I shouldn't even talk more about this. We're so far off the rails, but it was a 20, 25 best male athletes of the 21st century. And then we're gonna come back and do 25 best female athletes in the follow-up.
4:06 Wes Larson? I think Serena's gotta be number one for female athletes. That's just my, yeah.
4:11 Mike Smith? What'd you think?
4:12 Wes Larson? All right. Um, well, you guys, we've been talking about bears a lot lately and we're gonna do it again today. And that's because this is kind of like an emergency episode. I know a lot of movie podcasts are doing emergency episodes right now about the Netflix merger. We are doing it about something kind of crazy that's going on in the bear world. And I don't want to call it unprecedented because we've kind of got like a summer of the shark thing going on here and we'll talk about that a little bit.
4:41 Jeff Larson? Don't tell me Netflix is buying all the bears.
4:44 Wes Larson? They're buying out all the bears. Yep. Old Ted Sarandos.
4:47 Jeff Larson? Owns all the bears now.
4:49 Wes Larson? He's gonna make them all CG bears.
4:51 Jeff Larson? Oh, God.
4:52 Wes Larson? Every bear, when it's in a new scene, is gonna say exactly what it's doing and why it's there. And all the bears are gonna finish each other's sentences.
5:00 Jeff Larson? It'll be kinda convenient to like be able to see the bears from home and not have to go to national parks.
5:06 Wes Larson? Yeah, no one likes national parks. Everyone likes just being in their house. Right. All right. Okay, we're gonna start out with a little story. In early October this year, a man in his seventies got up early in his home in the Iwate. Oh, really quick, quick disclaimer, there are a lot of Japanese names in this episode. And I am, I'm just gonna do kind of bad on them. I'm sorry. I'm not great at pronouncing those correctly because I am so used to Latin languages. So I'm sorry in advance. I'm, I'm just apologizing. Okay.
5:40 Jeff Larson? I don't really care.
5:41 Wes Larson? Yeah, in the Iwate prefecture. That's not even a Japanese.
5:46 Jeff Larson? I'm not offended at all.
5:49 Wes Larson? On the Honshu island of Japan. Okay, so really quickly again, we're gonna be talking about two islands in Japan. Honshu is the like, kind of what you picture is the main island in Japan, the big kind of crescent shaped one where you're gonna find Tokyo, a lot of the famous places you hear about in Japan. We're also gonna be talking about Hokkaido a little bit, which is the northern island, north of Honshu, but we're mostly gonna be on Honshu for this episode.
6:13 Jeff Larson? Does all of Japan count as islands?
6:16 Wes Larson? Yes, it is an archipelago. It is consisted completely of islands.
6:20 Jeff Larson? Well, I mean, at a certain point, you're so big, it's not like Australia is an Australian island.
6:26 Wes Larson? It's a good point, Jeff. I don't know where you draw the line.
6:30 Jeff Larson? North and South America is just one big island.
6:33 Wes Larson? Huge island. Yeah. All right. This man was a mushroom picker and he was heading out to do the same thing he did most autumn days, which was go into the nearby forest and look for delicious and valuable mushrooms. Iwate is famous for the different varieties of rare mushrooms that grow in shady, damp spots in this forest. And mushroom pickers can actually do pretty well in the fall, foraging for mushrooms to either use for themselves or to sell for a profit. This guy makes his morning tea, he grabs his basket, his rain boots, his overcoat, and he walks out the door. When he didn't return that evening, his family starts to become worried and they call the authorities. When he wasn't back the next morning, their worry had changed to an all out fear. Searchers
7:15 Wes Larson? continue to try and locate this man. And then the news that this family had been dreading finally arrives. The mushroom picker's body had been discovered and nearby, his decapitated head was also found.
7:28 Mike Smith? Whoa.
7:29 Wes Larson? Scratch marks and other evidence almost immediately pointed toward a non-human culprit. And one more person was added to the double-digit list of humans that have been killed by bears in Japan in 2025.
7:43 Jeff Larson? Oh, man. I thought maybe it's Mexican cartel.
7:46 Wes Larson? It wasn't a cartel. Yeah, he was stuffed in some tires.
7:50 Jeff Larson? Because our, our Forest Service cousin Brent was saying, whenever there's like a big forest fire, the next year, like morel mushrooms and stuff will grow. He's like, the cartels will get in there and not let people in.
8:03 Wes Larson? Mushroom cartels?
8:04 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
8:04 Mike Smith? Oh, man. Those are valuable.
8:07 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
8:08 Mike Smith? I listened to Paul Stamets, he said, keep your eye on those morels.
8:12 Wes Larson? Mycelium running. So, the story of rising bear attacks in Japan has been in the news a lot this summer and fall. A lot of people have sent us this story. It had been, people have been requesting it a lot, especially people that live in that part of the world. And we decided that it was probably time to do an episode completely dedicated to the story. It's going to be kind of like a news episode. There's going to be a lot of information about a new animal for us, but it's this just going to be kind of an atypical episode. And again, I do think even Even though this has been reported on a lot, we're kind of in the summer of the shark territory here.
8:49 Wes Larson? Where I think because it's been popular, these stories, a lot of more news agents, a lot more news agencies are grabbing on to it and reporting about it. And it's not that it's like that crazy of a year compared to some of the previous years, but it is crazy. Yeah, okay, but but it's not totally unprecedented. Okay.
9:08 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
9:09 Wes Larson? So.
9:09 Jeff Larson? Another tattoo bet for next year. If there's more bear attacks or not.
9:14 Wes Larson? I don't, yeah, I think I would pick less next year, but you never know. All right. So the best place to start, I think, is to give you all some statistics on what has been happening this year in Japan. And something that's a quick disclaimer, something I've found when it comes to East Asian countries and reporting on stories that could potentially affect perceptions of their countries or overall tourism, it's often hard to find a lot of relevant details. Or sometimes even like it's really hard to access the actual government reporting. So most of the information I'm going to be sharing comes from mainstream media, unfortunately. I have found a few papers, a few better sources.
9:55 Wes Larson? But I've been my, I've done my best to sort out what feels legitimate and true, because there is a lot of crazy reporting out there, as we all know.
10:03 Mike Smith? We do.
10:03 Wes Larson? And Jeff, do we believe it?
10:05 Jeff Larson? So you need like real crazy ones?
10:07 Wes Larson? Oh, yeah. There's some crazy stuff. A lot of AI taking over this story, unfortunately.
10:13 Jeff Larson? I'm hit or miss if I believe the crazy ones.
10:17 Wes Larson? Yeah. Okay.
10:19 Mike Smith? Doesn't it kind of feel like we just live in a world full of J. Jonah Jamesons these days?
10:23 Wes Larson? Oh, boy.
10:24 Mike Smith? Just everyone is a J. Jonah.
10:26 Jeff Larson? You want to hear the newest conspiracy theory that's been getting pumped in my algorithm?
10:32 Wes Larson? Sure.
10:33 Jeff Larson? That the Titanic was like rigged, that they crashed on purpose and it wasn't even the Titanic.
10:38 Wes Larson? I've heard that one.
10:41 Jeff Larson? There's, there's like different versions of it. There's one real crazy one where it's like, that wasn't even the Titanic that sucked.
10:49 Wes Larson? So as of December 6th, when I was doing my research, there had been 230 total attacks on humans that caused injuries, which is a crazy number, since April of this year, including 13 fatalities, which breaks the 2023 to 2024 record for a total number of attacks, which was 219 with six fatalities.
11:13 Mike Smith? Whoa.
11:14 Wes Larson? They do like, uh, their year goes kind of a weird, they're, um, what's that, what's that kind of year, not a calendar year, but a
11:21 Mike Smith? Fiscal?
11:22 Wes Larson? Fiscal year, that's what it is. It goes from like March to April of the next year or something. It's kind of weird. So that's when these stats are taken. They seem crazy, but Japan definitely has to be one of the top three countries in the world for overall bear attack numbers. I would put them up there with India and probably Romania would be the other one, or Russia. Uh, they really only started keeping a central database on bear attacks in 2006, but since that database has been kept, this year is definitely the worst year when it comes to attacks and fatalities.
11:56 Jeff Larson? People are always saying America's number one and it's like education, we're not mathematics, we're not, you know, bear attacks, we're not healthcare, we're not.
12:07 Mike Smith? Super Bowls, we are.
12:08 Jeff Larson? Military are, I think.
12:10 Wes Larson? You are for Super Bowls. Yeah.
12:11 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
12:12 Wes Larson? Military spending, yeah. Uh, depression probably.
12:17 Mike Smith? Nukes.
12:17 Wes Larson? I wonder.
12:18 Mike Smith? Yeah.
12:18 Wes Larson? Nukes. Okay. So even though there, there is an argument that this year is probably more online with the stats that were more common throughout the 1900s and before data was collected and reported, but it's impossible to say, and that's not to detract from the point that there really are a lot of bear attacks happening this year in Japan, but there have been, you know, in past years in 2014, they had a huge year, two years ago, they had a huge year. So this is the most, but it's not by like a massive margin.
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13:48 Wes Larson? A lot of you have heard me talk about my cat Toad. I just absolutely adore him. And this is really his time of year. He loves the winter. He just kind of sits by the fireplace. He's constantly sleeping and just looking for the warmest spot in the house. He's a very cozy creature, which I can identify with. So I absolutely love it. And I do feel like this time of year, he also gets pretty hungry. And thankfully, we've got Smalls. Smalls cat food is fresh, protein-rich meals that support cat health and happiness. I think that's really important. I think we read a lot about, you know, making sure your dog or your cat has really healthy food. But for me, I want them to be happy too. I care about Toad. I love him. He brings a lot of joy to my life. So I want to make sure he's happy with the food that he's eating every single day.
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15:16 Wes Larson? That's 60% of your first order plus free shipping when you head to smalls.com slash tooth. All right, there are two species implicated in these attacks. Asiatic black bears on the island of Honshu and brown bears on the island of Hokkaido. So between those two species, which would you guys guess is responsible for the larger share of attacks?
15:39 Mike Smith? Black Asiatic black.
15:41 Wes Larson? Jeff?
15:42 Jeff Larson? Me too.
15:43 Wes Larson? Good job.
15:44 Jeff Larson? I think if you replaced all their Asiatic black bears with grizzly bears, there'd be even more attacks, but the Asiatic black bears just live in closer proximity.
15:56 Wes Larson? You might be right, but I really don't know because
15:59 Jeff Larson? Cause they are kind of aggressive.
16:01 Wes Larson? Very aggressive little bear. Yep. So we really haven't talked a lot about Asiatic black bears much on the podcast. But they are the species that is by far responsible for the lion's share of attacks. Uh, that's confusing.
16:13 Mike Smith? Yeah.
16:13 Wes Larson? I shouldn't use that.
16:14 Mike Smith? What animal are we talking about?
16:16 Wes Larson? Was. Come on. Uh, for the bear share of attack for the nah, um, yeah. In the Japanese archipelago.
16:25 Jeff Larson? You think they're, they're like the worst named bear?
16:29 Wes Larson? Asiatic black bear?
16:30 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
16:30 Wes Larson? No, I think sloth bears are the worst named bear.
16:33 Mike Smith? Oh, yeah.
16:34 Wes Larson? Pretty easily for me. Their nickname is moon bear.
16:37 Mike Smith? I was just about to ask. Yeah.
16:38 Wes Larson? Yeah.
16:39 Mike Smith? Cause that's cool.
16:39 Jeff Larson? That's way better.
16:40 Wes Larson? Yeah. And we'll talk about why that is. The Asiatic black bear, I mean, ours are just American black bear. So it's like, if one of them's bad, the other one's bad, you know?
16:50 Jeff Larson? And ours get more.
16:51 Wes Larson? And these ones are at least almost always black. Yeah. Ours can often be pretty brown. Okay. So about 97% of the attacks this year involved Asiatic black bears.
17:02 Jeff Larson? Wow.
17:02 Wes Larson? Uh, the attacks from this species happened all over Honshu island primarily. But Iwate and Akita prefectures have the most fatalities with five and four people dying in those areas respectively. So a total of nine between those two prefectures. Am I saying that right?
17:19 Mike Smith? Prefecture?
17:20 Wes Larson? Prefecture, prefecture.
17:21 Mike Smith? I think you're saying it just fine.
17:23 Wes Larson? I was saying prefecture.
17:24 Mike Smith? I wouldn't change a single thing about you.
17:26 Wes Larson? Like Paula Hollywood would say it. Been watching. Thanks, Mike. All right. I'm on the semifinals finally.
17:34 Mike Smith? Oh, really?
17:35 Wes Larson? Yeah. My guy just got eliminated.
17:38 Mike Smith? Ah, that was so sad.
17:39 Wes Larson? Yeah.
17:40 Mike Smith? You were real worried about that guy. I was, you asked me the guy I was worried about because I told you that my favorite guy got eliminated in the first episode of Bake Off. He's that, I forget his name. He kinda sounded like a Muppet. Yeah, I love that guy.
17:53 Wes Larson? Yeah.
17:54 Mike Smith? I wanted him to last forever. He seems so friendly.
17:58 Wes Larson? Oh, they have the best casting director in the world. Whoever does it, they're so good. All right. Quick question for you guys. How big of fans are you of the Dreamstar Fighting Marigold? Which is the Japanese women's professional wrestling league?
18:12 Mike Smith? Huge. Well, I can't say that.
18:14 Wes Larson? I'm trying to get in on this sports conversation with you guys. How big are you into Dreamstar Fighting Marigold?
18:21 Jeff Larson? Well, we'll save that for the top 25 women on that.
18:25 Mike Smith? They'll make up five or six of those, I'm sure. But no, they're, um, those, they're insane. I've seen some clips of women wrestlers over there. And they're going bigger than the men a lot of times. It's so impressive.
18:37 Wes Larson? I watched a little bit myself. Well, if you were big fans, you probably would have heard the name Katsumi Sasazaki before. This was a 60-year-old man who had been a mainstay referee for Dreamstar Fighting Marigold. But he had recently retired from the league. In October this year, he'd been living a much quieter life, working at a local hot springs resort as a cleaner. But on the morning of October 16th, Katsumi had gotten to work doing some cleaning around an outdoor hot springs bath that made up part of this resort. And as he approached the bath, he was unaware that a large Asiatic black bear was also near this bath and was searching the grounds for any kind of food resources that might be around. Katsumi and the bear surprised each other, but only one of them would leave this encounter.
19:20 Mike Smith? Hot Spring would be such a good place for a bear to look for food. It's kinda like a human going to a hot pot. Just get them all boiled up in that water.
19:28 Wes Larson? Liard River Hot Springs Attack, which is like one of the craziest bear attacks of all time. In the hot springs. I guess the lesson here is don't ever go to a hot spring if you're scared of bears. Jeff?
19:39 Jeff Larson? I'm not scared of bears.
19:41 Mike Smith? Okay.
19:41 Wes Larson? You can go to hot springs.
19:42 Jeff Larson? I'm scared of hot springs.
19:44 Wes Larson? Just wait till I'm done with this story and we'll see.
19:47 Jeff Larson? What if the, have you seen Dante's Peak?
19:50 Wes Larson? Oh, yeah.
19:51 Jeff Larson? I'm afraid of hot springs.
19:53 Wes Larson? That's true. You should be. At least they died having sex, you know, those two. Okay. Yeah, that really affected me when I saw that.
20:01 Jeff Larson? So wait, he's pretty. He's pretty good wrestler, I'd imagine. I know he's just the ref, but he must kinda know.
20:09 Wes Larson? Probably.
20:09 Jeff Larson? Stuff.
20:10 Wes Larson? He knows his.
20:11 Jeff Larson? So I've, I'm giving him, you left us on a cliffhanger. One of them doesn't make it out.
20:17 Wes Larson? Making it out. Yeah.
20:18 Jeff Larson? I feel like it could go either way.
20:21 Wes Larson? Yep, you're wrong. Uh, around eleven fifteen that morning, Katsumi's supervisor became concerned because Katsumi hadn't reported back in after his morning cleanings and he called the police. When they went to where Katsumi had been working, they found sh- uh, shattered cleaning materials, the signs of a struggle, some bear fur, and concerningly, a lot of blood, both on the ground and on a fence that was surrounding the bath. It was evident that Katsumi had been attacked by a bear and dragged into the nearby woods, so a coalition of about thirty people that was made up of police, local officials, and a local hunting association, launched a search for Katsumi, but that search was called off after about thirty minutes because of inclement weather,
21:06 Wes Larson? which is like, how bad is that weather? You have to call off a search for a victim. Yeah.
21:13 Mike Smith? Which I don't know, maybe that's not totally out of the question. I know sometimes some real bad weather hits, but.
21:19 Wes Larson? I guess. I don't wanna point fingers, but if this attack just happened a few hours ago, there's a chance this guy's still alive, you know? And that if you go find him, you can stop him from dying. But yeah, again, we don't know the exact conditions.
21:33 Jeff Larson? If you get too wet, though, you can, you there's like a pretty good chance you get sick.
21:38 Wes Larson? Yeah, that's true.
21:39 Jeff Larson? If you don't shower. Well, I guess they had the hot springs right there.
21:43 Wes Larson? They got the hot springs right there. Right.
21:45 Mike Smith? For me, the worst weather would be if it were just really sunny out. I'd be like, I'm waiting for a storm to blow through before I go out there.
21:53 Jeff Larson? If you were on the team, they could like, put you in, once that storm came in.
21:57 Mike Smith? Yeah.
21:58 Jeff Larson? They'd be like, oh, we got a guy for this.
22:00 Mike Smith? Just like a wrestler, a tag team wrestler. Slap my hand, I'm in.
22:04 Wes Larson? Again, I don't want to be too judgmental, but it would make a lot more sense to me if they were searching at night and they had to call it off because of weather, but this was during the day. So it doesn't make a lot of sense.
22:13 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
22:13 Wes Larson? But then, the next morning, the searchers did make the grim discovery of Katsumi's body in the woods on the bank of a nearby river. His body had been badly mauled and dismembered by this bear. So this is the kind of news that's coming out of Japan this year. And, these are the types of stories that if just a handful of them happened in the US, we would be, you know, the news would be overloaded with them. And this is every single day in Japan, they're getting stories about attacks. So we need to talk a little bit about Asiatic black bears, just to get an idea of the animal we're working with. Professionally, this isn't a bear that I've worked with, and I have colleagues that have worked with them a bit. But I haven't really been to a lot of conferences and whatnot, where we talk a lot about Asiatic black bears.
22:57 Wes Larson? So I already had a fair amount of basic knowledge about the species part of the episode, but I'm kind of learning along with you guys, which is fun, because it's a bear and I love learning about bears. Alright, they are generally considered, actually, I'm gonna ask you guys, what, as far as size is considered, where do you think this bear falls in the eight bear species?
23:17 Jeff Larson? I mean, I'm just gonna think, like, the American black bear, but just an Asian version of it.
23:23 Wes Larson? Yeah, so where would it be?
23:24 Jeff Larson? So maybe a little bit slightly smaller?
23:28 Wes Larson? So what would that make it, size wise, number? So polar bears are number one, brown bears are number two, those are the two easy ones. After that, what do you think is number three?
23:38 Jeff Larson? Hmm, American, or sloth bear, three.
23:41 Wes Larson? Wrong, no.
23:41 Mike Smith? American?
23:42 Wes Larson? American black bear, you had it, and then?
23:44 Jeff Larson? Sloth bears can be as big as American black bears.
23:47 Wes Larson? They're smaller. On average, they're, they're quite a bit smaller.
23:49 Mike Smith? The one we saw was really floofy, but I don't know how that correlates to weight.
23:53 Wes Larson? Big old floofy sloth bear, for sure.
23:55 Jeff Larson? Alright, then I'll go Asiatic black bear four.
23:57 Mike Smith? That's what I would guess.
23:58 Wes Larson? Correct.
23:58 Jeff Larson? And then sloth bear five.
23:59 Wes Larson? They're number four, then Andean bear's number five, sloth bear's six, sun bear's seven, giant panda is eight.
24:06 Jeff Larson? Pandas are the smallest bear?
24:08 Wes Larson? On average, yeah.
24:09 Jeff Larson? Sun bear, or?
24:10 Wes Larson? I thought so too, but that, everyone reports it as being giant pandas. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. But, anyway.
24:17 Mike Smith? Okay.
24:17 Jeff Larson? Hmm.
24:18 Wes Larson? I think they got a lot of hair. Okay.
24:20 Mike Smith? Sure.
24:21 Wes Larson? They generally have a white or cream colored crescent moon pattern on their chest, which earned them their nickname of moon bear. The rest of the bears black, aside from a lighter colored muzzle and sometimes some white around their lips or under their chin. They often have a large hairy mane of longer black hair all around their face. And then they generally have really large ears that are much rounder than those of the American black bear and further down on the side of their head. So they kind of look like a Mickey Mouse bear almost. Adult males on average are going to weigh around 300 pounds or 135 kilograms. And adult females around 200 pounds or 90 kilograms. The biggest Asiatic black bears can be up to like 450 pounds.
25:03 Wes Larson? So they don't have nearly the range that American black bears have. Like American black bears on average are probably even a little smaller, but they can get up to like 800 pounds. So they can be quite a bit bigger on the upper end.
25:16 Jeff Larson? But like Americans are fatter than Japanese people.
25:20 Wes Larson? Yeah, without a doubt.
25:21 Jeff Larson? Like the people. So like our bears are getting into our food and their bears are getting into their food.
25:28 Wes Larson? Yeah. Our bears are getting like Twinkies and pizza and their bears are getting like ramen and rice.
25:34 Mike Smith? Fish sushi.
25:34 Jeff Larson? Right.
25:35 Wes Larson? Yeah. Yeah, they're like fish again. This is what I eat in the freaking wilderness.
25:40 Mike Smith? That's why their fur is so shiny, shiny and clean.
25:43 Wes Larson? Shiny?
25:44 Mike Smith? Shiny shiny.
25:45 Wes Larson? All right. It is important to mention that these bears though Asiatic black bears are found in many different places with different food sources. So there's a lot of variation in their size still and their overall morphology, which is kind of all their physical characteristics, is going to vary a lot depending on where you find them. So in some places, there are going to be these big fluffy, big Asiatic black bears like in Russia or in Iran, you're going to find a much sleeker, smaller looking bear.
26:14 Mike Smith? Okay.
26:14 Wes Larson? Our American black bears are gonna have shorter curved claws, which are really good for what?
26:20 Jeff Larson? Climb.
26:21 Mike Smith? Clamberin'.
26:21 Wes Larson? Climb. These are clamberin', climbin' bears.
26:25 Mike Smith? Shelling pistachios.
26:26 Wes Larson? Yeah, also good for shelling pistachios. They are a very arboreal bear and they spend up to 50% of their lives in trees, even more maybe. For that reason, they're almost always found in forested regions in the countries throughout their range. Their range is quite large. They're widespread throughout the South, Southeast and East Asia. So Southeast, South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia. They can be found in 18 different countries, all the way from Southeast Iran to the islands of Honshu in Shikoku in Japan.
26:59 Mike Smith? Holy cow.
27:00 Wes Larson? Yeah.
27:01 Mike Smith? How'd they get out to those islands? Swim? Swimming?
27:04 Wes Larson? That's a good question.
27:06 Mike Smith? Stowing away?
27:07 Wes Larson? Land bridges, back when there's land bridges.
27:09 Jeff Larson? Iceberg?
27:10 Wes Larson? What do you got?
27:11 Jeff Larson? Iceberg?
27:11 Wes Larson? What's going on in that brain of yours? Ice bridges? Sure. Yeah.
27:14 Jeff Larson? Icebergs.
27:15 Wes Larson? Icebergs? Yeah.
27:17 Mike Smith? Right.
27:18 Jeff Larson? Well, how do the polar bears get to Iceland?
27:20 Wes Larson? They swim.
27:21 Jeff Larson? Huh?
27:21 Wes Larson? Or they ride ice floes. Yeah. Polar bears are used to that. They kind of, that's part of their natural history.
27:28 Mike Smith? So it makes sense to you that they're differentiating between just, for example, the North American black bear or American black bear and the Asiatic black bear? Whereas the brown bears just categorize the same everywhere. That's, it's pretty obvious to your brain why that is.
27:45 Wes Larson? Yes, and actually that's great. Perfect timing, Mike.
27:48 Jeff Larson? Yeah, why aren't they Asian brown bears?
27:50 Wes Larson? Just about to talk about. So this bear is considered the most similar to what is thought to be the common ancestor of the Old World bears. So when we're talking Old World bears, we're talking about brown bears, Asiatic black bears, sun bears, sloth bears. We're not really counting giant pandas because they're kind of their own thing. This bear is the most like that common ancestor. It's it's derived the least from it, or it's diverged the least from it.
28:19 Mike Smith? Hmm.
28:20 Wes Larson? And it's thought that they and American black bears first diverged about three million years ago. So they were the same bear and they, you know, evolved into different bears.
28:31 Mike Smith? Hmm.
28:31 Wes Larson? The reason they are their own species is because during that time enough genetic changes happened to them to separate them into their own species. With brown bears, that just hasn't happened. Uh, so even though we have brown bears throughout the world and they can look quite different, those brown bears could still mate. They're still similar enough that they aren't their own species yet. They're different subspecies, but they're not their own species.
28:57 Jeff Larson? I wonder if the black bears could mate.
28:59 Wes Larson? There's a good chance of it. Yeah, I don't know.
29:01 Jeff Larson? Like polar bears and grizzlies can mate?
29:03 Wes Larson? Three million years is quite a bit. And polar bears and grizzlies, we think it might have just been a few hundred thousand years that they diverged. So that might be too long, but we'll see. We'll see.
29:14 Mike Smith? Should we? Should we try?
29:18 Mike Smith? That'll be our first live stream.
29:19 Jeff Larson? Once like Japan floats all the way over to United States.
29:25 Wes Larson? Yeah.
29:25 Jeff Larson? That's the way it's even going.
29:27 Wes Larson? Yeah.
29:27 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
29:28 Wes Larson? Yeah. Or a big tsunami will pick up some of their bears and push them onto our shores.
29:35 Mike Smith? That'd be so nice.
29:36 Wes Larson? All right.
29:39 Jeff Larson? Would it?
29:39 Wes Larson? Like?
29:42 Mike Smith? For the bears?
29:43 Wes Larson? It'd be kind of a fun ride.
29:44 Mike Smith? Are you serious?
29:48 Wes Larson? Like our black bears, they're highly omnivorous and opportunistic. And most of what they eat is going to be vegetation and masts. So when we talk about masts, we're talking about like nuts, acorns, those kind of things.
30:02 Mike Smith? Pistachios.
30:03 Wes Larson? Yeah, pistachios. Yeah, they got those claws. This is all adding up. In Japan, they eat a high variety of different foods, including acorns, beech nuts, wild berries, bamboo shoots, insects, grasses, and roots. It's thought that beech nut trees are potentially the most important food source for Asiatic black bears in Japan because they eat the nuts from the trees in the late summer and fall, but they also eat the young leaves, the buds, and other parts of this tree throughout the year. They do occasionally kill other animals for food in Japan, which are going to be mostly ungulates, and meat comprises varying percentages of their diet depending on which part of their range you might be in. So like, the ones in Russia
30:47 Wes Larson? might be eating more meat than the ones in India. You just never really know. Well, you do know, but I don't know which are the most meat eaters. From what I could tell, the ones in Japan get most of their meat from deer and wild boar gut piles that are left behind by hunters.
31:04 Jeff Larson? Well, those deer like bow to you, too.
31:07 Wes Larson? That's true.
31:08 Jeff Larson? It's kind of messed up.
31:09 Wes Larson? For a bear. Yeah.
31:10 Jeff Larson? Right. It's like, hey, I respect you. And the bear just eats them.
31:15 Wes Larson? Eats them. Yeah. Well, they're mostly, they're mostly scavenging gut piles that have been left by human hunters. And I didn't really realize that there is a pretty robust hunting culture in Japan, but it's one that's dying out with, with modern generations. Okay. In Japan, a lot of Asiatic black bears have started eating human food as well. That ranges from everything for them, raiding crops and orchards, to breaking into homes or even grocery stores. We did that story on one of our news episodes of that bear that was in a grocery store and they like called in the SWAT team and couldn't get it out for days. Okay.
31:56 Jeff Larson? What are they doing? Just tranquilize it. It's like one of those things where it's like, I could, I could get it out of there.
32:05 Wes Larson? Yeah. And that's, I do think that, I do, I think he could. I, I do think that's part of the issue here, the larger issue, and we're going to talk about this at length later, but I think that the system of wildlife management there is very different from how we do it in North America. And they just don't have a lot of like specialty wildlife bear experts that are on the ground managing. They have a lot of really smart bear biologists, but a lot of the actual management is done by law enforcement and they are not trained for it. So they just don't, they kind of fumble a lot.
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35:09 Jeff Larson? When I was back home for Thanksgiving recently, I noticed Wes wearing some dark black socks with orange coloration on them. And I don't really normally compliment socks, but I told him, hey, those are cool socks. And he said, yeah, they're hollow socks. Have you not ordered yours yet? And I hadn't, so I ordered mine right away. So thank you hollow socks. I'm wearing some right now. They feel amazing. But what they are is high quality alpaca socks that are perfect for hiking, but also just for everyday use. Like I wore mine on the airplane yesterday and I swear my feet didn't get swollen at all. And it's probably that slight compression that they have. Also, feet are always the thing that I don't pay attention to when I'm going somewhere cold.
35:53 Jeff Larson? Like if I go to a Montana Grizzly game in the winter, you know, a lot of times it's 10 degrees outside. And I'm wearing a warm coat, warm pants and little ankle socks. And guess what? My entire body gets cold. So now I have hollow socks. Now I'm prepared. They feel great with my hiking boots and it honestly makes me want to walk more just having these socks. They're three times warmer than wool, but still lightweight. And what I like is if it's a hot environment, they don't overheat. They stay cool, which I don't understand the logistics of that, but. It's amazing. Once you wear hollow, you'll never go back to wool or cotton socks again. For a limited time, hollow socks is having a buy two, get two free sale.
36:38 Jeff Larson? Head to hollowsocks.com today to check it out. That's hollowsocks.com for 50% off your order. After your purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and let them know that Tooth and Claw sent you there.
36:55 Wes Larson? Okay, their reproductive cycle is very similar to our black bears. They have delayed implantation. The females enter maternal dens and they come out of those dens in the spring with their new cubs. Whether or not they hibernate really depends on where you find them. If the weather is cold and snowy in the winter, they will hibernate. So in places where there's scarce food in the winter, they're going to hibernate and reemerge in the spring. And throughout a lot of their range in Japan, they do hibernate.
37:21 Jeff Larson? You could say that about our black bears too.
37:24 Wes Larson? Yeah, exactly. Like in Florida, Mexico, there's places where they're not really going to hibernate because they don't really need to. But always the pregnant female bears will go into dens to have their cubs in the winter. There's a fair amount of human bear conflict with this species. And a lot of that conflict is in Japan. However, unlike American black bears, where a lot of the attacks and especially the deaths from American black bears are going to be predatory and them investigating people as food. Almost all the attacks attributed to Asiatic black bears seem to be defensive in nature. And that explains why there's so many conflicts in Japan.
38:03 Wes Larson? Some experts think that there's over 40,000 Asiatic black bears on the islands of Honshu and Shikoku. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's a lot. On those same two islands, there are roughly 108 million people, making it one of the most densely populated places in the world when you're looking at both humans and bears. So pretty crazy. I mean, it's like a really high density for bears and then it's a really high density for people. So there's a fair amount of potential for conflict and it makes sense why it's happening.
38:34 Mike Smith? Is that, so with that many bears? I'm not as familiar as maybe I should be at this point with bear behavior, but are they territorial to the point where that many bears is going to be pushing them into like further into places where they just traditionally haven't been historically?
38:50 Wes Larson? Great question. And yeah, they are. The thing that really affects territoriality with a lot of bear species is food availability. So like with brown bears in Alaska where they can all sit on a salmon stream and there's tons of food for everyone, they're not very territorial because they don't really have to defend their resources. But if if food is scarce and there's not a ton of food, they're going to become much more territorial and the bears that can't compete are going to have to start taking advantage of alternative food resources. And that's really what's happening. And we're going to talk a lot more about that.
39:24 Jeff Larson? And is having that many bears and humans in the same island going to like overwork the bees?
39:30 Wes Larson? Yeah, the bees are just like, guys, I need a break. I can't feed all these mouths. Yeah, that's a good question. The bees, you know, they're they're need a union.
39:43 Jeff Larson? Bees never get to keep their honey.
39:47 Wes Larson? You're probably right.
39:48 Mike Smith? What are the bees even doing with the honey, though? Do they eat it? What are they doing?
39:52 Wes Larson? They gotta deal with Godzilla, too.
39:54 Mike Smith? The bees?
39:54 Wes Larson? What if Godzilla smashes their beehives?
39:59 Mike Smith? It is a real, it's a wild daisy chain of interspecies symbiosis we're disrupting with this many bears, it turns out.
40:08 Wes Larson? Yeah. Plus, there's another bear species in Japan. Brown bears are found on the island of Hokkaido, and they have been attacking people as well. This year, two people were killed by brown bears in Hokkaido. One was a newspaper man that was dragged away by the bear in front of his neighbors while he was delivering newspapers, and he was found later partially consumed and killed in some bushes. And police actually responded to that attack and killed a bear days later, but they probably got the wrong bear based on what I read about this story. The other brown bear fatality involved a 26-year-old hiker that wanted to visit his family's ancestral home in the mountains of Hokkaido. As he left for his journey, his mom warned him to be careful,
40:51 Wes Larson? and those would actually be the last words she would ever say to her son. A day or two later, his parents turned on the TV to hear the story of a young hiker being killed by bears on Mount Rausu.
41:02 Jeff Larson? Oh, wow. That's a crazy way to find out.
41:05 Wes Larson? Yeah, it was the same mountain their son had been scheduled to hike that day. They then got a phone call from their son's friend, who informed them that their son had been dragged off the trail by a female brown bear with her cub. He'd heard his friend screaming ahead on the trail at about 11 a.m. And when he ran ahead, he saw him being dragged down a steep slope by a large bear that was actively mauling him. Both the bear and the 26-year-old disappeared into the woods, and his body was recovered the next morning.
41:33 Mike Smith? He had an invisibility cloak?
41:36 Wes Larson? That is not what happened. So while there had been a higher-than-average number of brown bear conflicts as well, when we're talking about this current, you know, bear issue in Japan, we're really mostly talking about Asiatic black bears. And they're getting really, really bold. There's CCTV video that was recently circulated of an elderly woman in Akita Prefecture, prefecture, being attacked in broad daylight on a neighborhood road while she was on a walk. It's kind of a crazy video. This woman's just walking down the road, and this bear just like barrels into her. Kind of, she kind of deflects it, actually, and the bear spins to the other side. It hits her again, and then it runs up a tree.
42:19 Wes Larson? And honestly, had this woman fallen over, I think it would have ended a lot differently. But because she didn't, and I think there was oncoming traffic, the bear actually runs away.
42:28 Jeff Larson? It bumped her twice and she stood her ground? That's impressive.
42:32 Wes Larson? Someone needs to sign her, you know? She should be like a...
42:34 Mike Smith? Like a roller derby team.
42:35 Jeff Larson? Sumo.
42:35 Wes Larson? Yeah. Defensive lineman. Yeah.
42:42 Mike Smith? She'd be good on American Gladiators.
42:44 Wes Larson? Dude, that Marigold, you know, dream fighting wrestling week, too.
42:48 Mike Smith? Nah, man. She's got a lot of opportunities, I bet, knocking on her door now.
42:53 Wes Larson? A 69-year-old man was using a public toilet in Gunma Prefecture, and had finished his business, was about to leave the small building, when a black bear poked its head through the door and made eye contact with him.
43:05 Mike Smith? That's always so awkward in the bathroom. That happens, you look through the crack.
43:09 Wes Larson? I'm in here. I'm in here.
43:14 Wes Larson? It's the worst. Oh yeah, when you can see someone through the crack and you, oh, and you make eye contact.
43:19 Mike Smith? Yeah.
43:19 Wes Larson? That's the worst.
43:20 Mike Smith? Mortifying.
43:21 Wes Larson? Yeah. They alpha you when they do that. That's the thing. It's the thing, Jeff, that you gotta think about.
43:30 Mike Smith? You think that's an alpha move?
43:32 Wes Larson? Yeah. Just to look at someone. You're, you're sitting there on the toilet, totally vulnerable and they alpha you.
43:38 Mike Smith? I just think it's whoever breaks eye contact first is the.
43:42 Wes Larson? Oh, that's a good point.
43:43 Mike Smith? Like if you maintain eye contact, you're like, I'm, you're territorial there.
43:48 Jeff Larson? Yeah, you like drop one while you're looking at him?
43:51 Wes Larson? That's true.
43:52 Jeff Larson? You're not getting alpha'd.
43:54 Mike Smith? No.
43:54 Wes Larson? That's a good point.
43:56 Jeff Larson? Or start peeing.
43:57 Wes Larson? Yeah, I wish I knew all this. All right.
44:03 Wes Larson? So this guy's using the toilet, a black bear makes eye contact with them in the door and both bear and human are totally surprised. This man yells and falls backward, but the bear rushes in and claws him as he pinwheels his legs and did his best to scare the bear off.
44:19 Mike Smith? Is he on one of those like standing toilets then?
44:22 Wes Larson? I think he was done in the toilet at that point. I think he had been like washing his hands and about to leave the building.
44:28 Mike Smith? Oh, okay.
44:29 Wes Larson? Luckily this works, the bear fled the scene and this man was treated for minor injuries. These kind of stories were commonplace this year in Japan with these 230 attacks reported. There have been so many that a local university created a heat map. Do you guys know what a heat map is?
44:45 Mike Smith? Yeah.
44:46 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
44:46 Wes Larson? Yeah. Right. For those who don't know, it's kind of like a map where there's gonna be, like the more red colors show where there's more activity and then it'll fade into like different lighter colors. But this heat map shows where bear incidents have been reported and where bears have been sighted so that people in Japan can avoid negative encounters themselves. And it hasn't just been locals that have been mauled. New Zealander Billy Halloran has been living in Japan for years. On October 4th, he was on a trail run in Miyoko, Japan, when he stumbled on two Asiatic black bears, a female with a dependent cub. They were staring at him from inside of a bush.
45:26 Wes Larson? Rather than run, Billy started yelling at the large adult bear as it left the bushes and started moving toward him. Was backing away as the bear lunged forward and caught his right forearm in its mouth and it bit down hard and he immediately heard the sound and felt the sensation of his bones in his arms snapping.
45:45 Mike Smith? Oh, man.
45:46 Wes Larson? He fell to the ground and the bear started mauling his leg, tearing away at the flesh and biting so deep that it removed a chunk of bone from his hip.
45:55 Mike Smith? Geez.
45:55 Wes Larson? Then backed off, he managed to get up. He had a brief standoff with the bear before it left and returned to its cub and he started actually running in the opposite direction, which is pretty amazing if you can run after a bear, you know, pulled some bone off your hip.
46:10 Mike Smith? Yeah, amazing.
46:11 Wes Larson? He called his wife, she called emergency services. He was taken to the hospital where he spent weeks recovering and needed multiple surgeries to repair his wounds. All right, we could go on and on with stories from this year, but I wanted to talk a little bit about why this might be happening and the Japanese response to this uptick in attacks. So first, let's go into why, and I'm mostly just gonna be giving my opinion after reading all this stuff. And I have, you know, read some stuff from different colleagues in the bear world that are a little bit closer to this than I am.
46:43 Jeff Larson? Now, us listeners, can we take this as fact?
46:46 Wes Larson? You cannot take this as, some of it you can take as fact, but if I say it's my opinion, it'll be my opinion.
46:53 Mike Smith? Right, great.
46:54 Wes Larson? First and foremost, something you can take as fact is this was a really bad year for some of the bears' natural food sources, especially beech nuts. And remember, that's the tree that they really rely on the most in a lot of parts of Japan. And from what I read, the beech nut crop this year was almost non-existent. And when those normally dependable food sources fail, these bears have to start taking bigger risks to get at atypical food resources that leads a lot of the bears that would typically be content just foraging in the woods, going into communities, raiding orchards, garbages, whatever, which puts them into direct contact with humans and leads to more attacks. And Mike brought up a good point earlier that this is awfully the-
47:36 Mike Smith? The invisibility cloaks hiding the nuts?
47:38 Wes Larson? Exactly, that was the point I was gonna bring up, that you brought up. Uh, no. What Mike had mentioned earlier is a lot of times this is gonna be the less dominant bears that aren't able to take advantage of natural food sources. They're gonna be pushed out and have to become like, you know, a little, they're gonna have to take some big risks to get at food.
47:57 Jeff Larson? Oh, man. So the humans are getting attacked by like the beta bears?
48:01 Wes Larson? Not always, but sometimes, yeah. Which sucks.
48:04 Mike Smith? Yeah, that's really, geez.
48:06 Jeff Larson? I guess that kinda makes sense though. Like, you and Cyrus would always beat me up growing up? And then whenever like my...
48:15 Wes Larson? Come on.
48:19 Jeff Larson? And then whenever, whenever my, okay, you guys would often beat me up.
48:24 Wes Larson? I defended you from Cyrus a lot.
48:26 Jeff Larson? So then whenever like my younger cousins or something would come over, I would just like beat the hell out of them.
48:35 Mike Smith? Yep.
48:36 Jeff Larson? And it's more like...
48:38 Wes Larson? Brothers and cousins.
48:40 Jeff Larson? I wasn't, I was just making a point about the bears.
48:45 Wes Larson? Yeah.
48:45 Jeff Larson? I didn't mean to make you get on the defensive here.
48:49 Wes Larson? You're right.
48:49 Mike Smith? Wes is protesting so much.
48:53 Wes Larson? Uh, also our cousins were easy fodder for you.
48:58 Jeff Larson? They never beat me up. I made that up.
49:03 Mike Smith? Are the beech nut trees what the bears are climbing and sleeping in? Or is, does it really correlate to what their food source is, the trees they decide to?
49:12 Wes Larson? It does. Not necessarily what they, they're not like necessarily living in these trees. They will sometimes sleep in them and whatnot. But um, a lot of the trees they climb are gonna be for food. And then sometimes they climb them as escape terrain. So if they're just trying to get away from something, they can climb up a tree. And that's, that's the curious thing to me about this is that our American black bears use trees to get away. And that's why we kind of assume they're not very aggressive. It's because they kind of always have a place they can hide. And so it doesn't really make sense to me that this bear is so aggressive because they also are great climbers and could just use trees to hide. So we'll talk about that a little bit more, but.
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50:25 Speaker 04 This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. You can go deep, keep it on the ground, or draw up something nobody sees coming. And whether you want to run a flea flicker or the tush push, you need a plan to fit your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you, so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
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53:54 Wes Larson? I did read a paper that was titled "Mechanisms of Human-Black Bear Conflicts in Japan in Preparation for Climate Change." This paper was published in 2020, and it highlights how climate change might be leading to detrimental effects that would cause bears to seek out human food. And one thing I really liked about this paper is I think when we tend to talk about climate change as a society, we only talk about like warming effects, how summers are getting longer and winters are getting shorter. And this paper brings up that climate change is very dynamic. And while the overall trend is warming, it's also introducing a lot of unprecedented variability to places like Japan. So these authors looked at both longer,
54:38 Wes Larson? colder winters and hotter, drier summers to see what kind of effect they would have on human bear conflict. And they show that climate change is likely to have a really strong effect on the number of conflicts. And that's what we're seeing this year and the past few years in Japan, because a lot of these natural food sources are failing because it's just been so hot and dry there in the summer.
55:01 Mike Smith? Oh, yeah.
55:03 Jeff Larson? Sure. You don't mind like, it's like the whole Les Mis thing, right? Like if you're starving, you steal the bread.
55:13 Mike Smith? Right.
55:13 Jeff Larson? Yeah, exactly. These bears are starving.
55:15 Mike Smith? The end of the day, you get nothing but nothing.
55:16 Jeff Larson? They're gonna go into trash and grocery stores and stuff.
55:20 Wes Larson? Yeah. And you're gonna learn, we've done all sorts of fucked up shit to these bears. So I don't blame them at all.
55:26 Jeff Larson? I don't blame them. You blame them.
55:28 Mike Smith? Yeah, I don't.
55:30 Jeff Larson? Yeah, you do. You're always like, we should kill those bears when they go into shop. I don't blame them because I don't think we should.
55:37 Wes Larson? That's true. Don't have any.
55:42 Jeff Larson? I got him tangled up there.
55:44 Wes Larson? Not all bears, but when there's a lot of them. Yeah, Mike.
55:47 Mike Smith? Climate change, is that leading to a surplus or a deficit of naturally occurring food sources for these bears? And it's like, I just, I don't really know how to ask what I'm asking or trying to ask right now. But like, it kind of seems to me with the weather changing in the way that it is, it would actually lead to more natural resources for these bears. But I'm such a, so far from an expert on any of this that.
56:12 Wes Larson? You'd think that, but it, the thing about climate change and kind of what happens with a lot of these systems. Is that the the changes are so quickly that the stuff that's able to really quickly take advantage of the changing ecosystem, the changing soil conditions, moisture levels and whatnot are often invasive plants and they're often weeds that aren't really edible, that nothing's really going to exploit. And so these other plants like beech nuts, they really require this kind of Goldilocks zone of moisture, of temperature, of whatever to really do well. And the stuff that is really kind of flexible and plastic is often
56:55 Wes Larson? stuff that no one really eats. That's kind of the the real big downside to it. So these guys pretty much show that climate change has a huge effect on conflict, but there are some additional reasons that people think these conflicts are happening. And one of them is changing population dynamics among people in Japan. Because what's really happening is if Japan is having, they have a decreasing population right now, and a lot of the younger people are leaving these rural communities, they're moving to city centers. And that leaves a lot of these rural communities that are on the edge of bear habitat, really underpopulated, and bears are feeling much more confident entering the communities, entering, you know,
57:36 Wes Larson? orchards that have been left kind of to go wild and agriculture that's been left. And they're raiding these places because there's really not people around anymore. Yeah. So it's making them more comfortable in our civilizations. It's kind of like what we might see in an apocalypse, where wildlife kind of takes over these spaces that we used to have.
57:55 Mike Smith? That makes sense to me why maybe there's not quite so many hunters anymore, because it's usually in those rural centers where, all right, should I just like?
58:04 Wes Larson? No, that was great.
58:05 Mike Smith? It makes sense to me though, right? Because with fewer people there to make up for the communities that typically become hunters.
58:13 Wes Larson? Yep. That's a huge part of it, too, is that there used to be like 500,000 something hunting permits that were issued every year. And that number has been halved in recent years. There's just really not that much interest in hunting anymore. But they're still killing hella bears in Japan. Yeah.
58:30 Mike Smith? Sure.
58:30 Jeff Larson? Because like the Japanese countryside seems like it's like awesome and just beautiful and peaceful. Hot springs everywhere, sushi conveyor belts everywhere.
58:43 Mike Smith? Blining roads.
58:44 Jeff Larson? And then like. You know, in United States right now, just for a long time, people have been going from cities to more rural places. They see three episodes of Yellowstone and they move to a ranch in Montana from LA, you know? So it's just kind of interesting that in Japan, everyone's kind of congregating to the cities.
59:09 Wes Larson? Yeah, I think part of that is their cities are much more livable and beautiful and walkable and just appealing than our cities are, you know?
59:17 Jeff Larson? Hmm, maybe they're afraid of bears, dude.
59:20 Wes Larson? Yeah, but they're, I mean, they've had bears in Tokyo this year, like the bears are almost everywhere.
59:25 Jeff Larson? Oh, man.
59:27 Wes Larson? And a big part of that, Jeff, you kind of just hinted on something else I wanted to talk about.
59:30 Jeff Larson? That's why so many Japanese people are moving to Hawaii, I bet. Now that they got bears in Tokyo.
59:37 Wes Larson? Yeah, tiger sharks, though, in Hawaii. Another thing that you just reminded me of, though, that's really interesting about Japan is over 60% of Japan is forested. They've done a really good job of preserving their natural forests. And it's part of what makes the country so beautiful and so loved by the international community and people there are really used to kind of living around the forest and being near the forest. And it just so happens to have a lot of bears in it as well.
1:00:06 Mike Smith? Yeah, that's a really interesting thought experiment to me right now that obviously I think the ethical course of action is to preserve those spaces where wildlife can thrive, but that is in turn also maybe increasing the chance that that wildlife and the humans living by it get into conflict with each other.
1:00:28 Wes Larson? Exactly.
1:00:29 Mike Smith? That's really, yeah, huh, I've just never really thought about it in that way.
1:00:33 Wes Larson? But that, to me, that's like.
1:00:35 Mike Smith? Maybe it's a good thing that Bolsonaro's chopping down the entire rainforest.
1:00:39 Wes Larson? It's not.
1:00:40 Mike Smith? Keeping the people safe.
1:00:41 Wes Larson? Bolsonaro's in jail, too.
1:00:43 Mike Smith? Oh, that's right.
1:00:45 Wes Larson? Uh.
1:00:46 Mike Smith? Let's see if.
1:00:46 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:00:50 Wes Larson? The, the thing is, so yeah, it's a, that's a great point. I do think though.
1:00:54 Jeff Larson? Until the end.
1:00:56 Wes Larson? When we, yeah.
1:00:57 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:00:57 Wes Larson? When we, when we decide that we want to live next to the forest, you know, I live in a rural area. I have foxes in my yard almost every day. We have chickens. For me, like, I would think it would be gross if I decided to shoot that fox, which I'm fully within my rights to do. Because it's eating my chickens, because I'm the one that decided I wanted to live in a rural area. I'm the one that's putting out these attractants for these animals. So I have to properly protect. You know, my attractants so that they can't be killed. But I would never in a million years shoot one of those foxes because it's my fault. That they're, you know, being drawn to my property. So that's kind of, I think that's the responsibility people have to take. But I wanted to ask you guys a question. When you picture Japanese forests.
1:01:42 Wes Larson? How do you picture them? Like, like, tell me about what kind of images that conjures for you? I'm talking about the actual quality of the forest, like the density, the light penetration, like.
1:01:53 Jeff Larson? Cherry blossoms.
1:01:55 Wes Larson? Cherry blossoms.
1:01:56 Mike Smith? Samurai swords clashing in the moonlight.
1:01:59 Jeff Larson? Maybe like if you were an aunt at like a bonsai tree shop.
1:02:05 Wes Larson? Sure. Yeah. Okay.
1:02:08 Mike Smith? Yeah, let's go with that.
1:02:10 Wes Larson? All right. I, yeah, maybe I'm not. So when I have always pictured them, I picture them as being very dense. Almost kind of like the Pacific Northwest with lots of foliage, really dense cedar forests. And what I learned is that that is the more modern Japanese forest. But traditionally, they were this really sparse, open, airy kind of forest. And that's what these bears evolved in. But then they brought cedar to Japan and cedar has really taken over a lot of their forests. And it's become much more dense. And because of that, these bears have actually become much more confident moving closer to cities. Because the cover is so much better for them than it used to be. Which is really interesting.
1:02:49 Mike Smith? Yeah. Wow.
1:02:51 Wes Larson? All right. We have to talk about this for one second. There is an argument that the bear population is just simply too high in the country and that hunting used to keep numbers in check, but the growing unpopularity of hunting and bear hunting in Japan has given this bear population the ability to hit new highs.
1:03:08 Jeff Larson? Who's like driving that argument?
1:03:10 Wes Larson? A lot of people and a lot of, pretty much every article I read says that, you know, it's because they're under hunted is one of the reasons. I agree that hunting can keep bear populations or wildlife populations at a pre-decided level or number. What I don't necessarily agree with, especially with bear hunting, is that if you don't hunt them, they'll become overpopulated because there are natural controls that will stop bears from becoming too successful or overpopulating. And in my opinion, hunting isn't necessary to regulate the numbers of predators in ecosystems.
1:03:48 Mike Smith? Okay. I was just gonna ask that very thing that is, so hunting is, at least for predators, you're saying, but, because I always hear about the argument for like deer control, population control in the United States. I always hear hunters being cited as a necessary part of that effort, but.
1:04:06 Wes Larson? With deer, I would almost agree because we have created perfect habitat for deer and we've removed all their natural predators. So we kind of are necessary to keeping their numbers in check because they have unlimited habitat. But for a lot of animals, animals like bears, if people can stop them from getting at human food sources, then their success is going to be determined by natural food sources and they're going to get to a level where there just simply can't be more bears in that ecosystem and it's going to naturally regulate. That's what's happening in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem right now. We think we kind of hit our level of how many grizzly bears that ecosystem can hold.
1:04:44 Jeff Larson? Oh, wow.
1:04:45 Wes Larson? And we don't need to hunt them to regulate those numbers. And that would happen.
1:04:51 Jeff Larson? The argument would be just like. Japan seems to have a lot of bears and maybe that number hasn't been met like it has at Yellowstone? And they're having like bear problems already at this number?
1:05:05 Wes Larson? My argument to that, though, would be the reason that all those bears, they have so many bears is because they're getting into a lot of human food. And that we're creating endless opportunities for those bears to reproduce and be successful. And if we made it so they weren't able to do that, then they would be naturally regulated.
1:05:24 Mike Smith? So would you say the primary deficiency in Japanese bear control at the moment is education?
1:05:32 Wes Larson? Yes, that's exactly, man, you guys are just on it today.
1:05:37 Mike Smith? Snapping, firing.
1:05:38 Wes Larson? The next thing I was gonna say is that I think there's a bit of a lack of proper education for people that are on the front lines of this problem. The main thing that I think really needs to change is that people need to be educated on how to properly store and protect their attractants. So that bears don't have access to them and that forces bears to rely on natural food sources instead. Also, bear spray is only really just now starting to become really well marketed and accessible in Japan. But it's still somewhat hard to get and there needs to be a lot of training when it comes to how to use it. And proper conflict prevention and what to do when you encounter a bear.
1:06:17 Jeff Larson? I mean, it takes like five minutes to learn how to use it.
1:06:21 Wes Larson? Yeah, it does. You're right. Yeah, it doesn't take a lot of time, but there's still a lot of people that don't even understand what it is.
1:06:29 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:06:30 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:06:30 Jeff Larson? Yeah, that's true.
1:06:32 Wes Larson? All right. And then I think the final thing that's
1:06:34 Jeff Larson? They should just like critical think a little bit when they hear the name bear spray.
1:06:39 Wes Larson? Yeah, sure.
1:06:40 Jeff Larson? For what it is.
1:06:41 Wes Larson? Yeah, but I mean, even in the US, there's people that think it's like repellent spray.
1:06:45 Jeff Larson? Yeah, like mosquito spray.
1:06:48 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:06:49 Jeff Larson? Bugs.
1:06:50 Wes Larson? I think the final thing that's causing these attacks before we get on to what they're doing to stop them is the attitude of this species. And I've seen different hypotheses for this on why Asiatic black bears are so defensive. But really, regardless of the reason, this is a bear that is often willing to pick fight over flight. And people that live near them or recreate and recreate around them need to be aware of that. And you just need to have deterrence. If you're going to be recreating in Japan in bear country. From what I've read, I would mentally treat this like a grizzly bear. That is the kind of aggression and defensive nature that we're talking about. They're highly defensive animals. So I wouldn't.
1:07:32 Wes Larson? If I'm going to go out in like prime black bear habitat in Japan, I would want bear spray after reading what I've read. They're not as big, so that like the potential for damage isn't quite as bad. But they're still, I mean, there's still an animal that can kill you.
1:07:48 Jeff Larson? Sure. Yeah.
1:07:49 Wes Larson? Okay. I know this has been a dense episode, but our last thing we're really going to talk about is Japan's response to all of those attacks. And this is where things get a little wonky sometimes.
1:08:00 Jeff Larson? Yeah, we've talked a little bit about it in the news episode, but.
1:08:04 Wes Larson? Yeah. Do you guys remember what they used in that one? The, the news.
1:08:09 Jeff Larson? There's a guy in a bear suit in one. Where like, there was just a whole SWAT team and a guy in a bear suit and they.
1:08:16 Wes Larson? They use a guy in a bear suit to train.
1:08:18 Jeff Larson? Seriously.
1:08:19 Mike Smith? There have been robot wolves.
1:08:21 Wes Larson? Robot wolves. Those are still being used. There's actually, there's a whole company that sells robot wolves for people to use in their.
1:08:28 Mike Smith? I wonder if I could buy one. I want to buy one so bad.
1:08:31 Wes Larson? Drones have become really popular in some areas that play the sound of barking dogs and fireworks to scare away bears, which is actually like a pretty effective way.
1:08:40 Jeff Larson? Yeah. Like bears could take a wolf.
1:08:44 Wes Larson? I'm thinking they should do like a robot Godzilla if they really are a scary.
1:08:48 Mike Smith? They're serious, yeah.
1:08:50 Wes Larson? Yeah, I don't even think it's necessarily that it's a wolf shape. It's just like a scary thing that's making a lot of noise.
1:08:56 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:08:59 Wes Larson? And then they actually, the thing that's really kind of caught the most national and international attention is that they are calling in the military to help with this bear problem. And what's a little misleading about those headlines is that the military is actually not authorized to shoot any bears, but they're assisting hunters that are legally permitted to kill bears. And they're also just kind of doing on the ground management for this bear issue. Riot police in Japan do have permission to kill problem bears, but like we talked about, they're often often not that well trained in dealing with bears. But really what the news is reporting is that there's this all out war on bears in Japan. And that's not what's going on. There are coals happening.
1:09:43 Wes Larson? They do these coals almost every year.
1:09:45 Jeff Larson? Like, it's not like Australia with the emus where they had a real war.
1:09:49 Wes Larson? An actual war with like a mounted machine gun. Yeah. Uh, they do coals. And when I say that, it's mostly just authorizing hunters to kill a certain number of bears. And I was surprised by how many that number is. I mean, we're talking thousands of bears that are killed by hunters every year in Japan.
1:10:08 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:10:09 Wes Larson? But really these hunters are saying that they're just not enough to keep up with the growing population. And that's probably true. Okay, uh, we're almost there. Um, in my opinion, what I think would be the most effective way would be removing the problem bears. Um, this is what they've done in places like Yellowstone. And what that does is it cuts that kind of problem genetics out of the population. And the bears that are teaching their cubs to, you know, raid crops, to go into homes, to do whatever are being removed. And the ones that are really wild risk averse bears are staying and they're the ones that are doing the breeding. And over time, you kind of work those genetics out of the population.
1:10:50 Jeff Larson? Yeah, it seems like they need to be better at getting the culpable bear like right away. Because if you wait a couple of days, then it's like, yeah, you killed a bear, but there's a lot of bears in this forest, you know?
1:11:04 Wes Larson? Right. And where Jeff doesn't, Jeff would argue you should never do it. I do think in this case where you're having this level of conflict, you do need to remove these conflict bears or else everyone's gonna hate every bear in Japan and that's not what we want.
1:11:21 Mike Smith? I'm in the middle of you two. I think there should be due process. They should be put on trial, have representation.
1:11:28 Wes Larson? They kind of are often, like they test, they test their genetics to make sure they got the right bear. Yeah.
1:11:34 Jeff Larson? That polar bear prison in Churchill?
1:11:37 Wes Larson? Yeah, exactly.
1:11:41 Wes Larson? For me, and the reason I think people might bristle a little when they hear that I say that bears should sometimes be killed. But the thing that you don't want, and this is what I just mentioned, is the, the bears that are causing problems can create a negative perception of the entire species. If you allow that to continue happening and that becomes a really dire situation for the species as a whole. And that is what I don't want to have happen. Okay. While there is a lot of fear in Japan, especially on the north end of Honshu, many people on the island still have a great respect for Asiatic black bears. In some of these prefectures, they're considered a mountain spirit and they have an importance in both Shinto and Buddhist traditions.
1:12:23 Wes Larson? They also feature heavily in Japanese kawaii culture or cute culture. Which actually has been kind of problematic because a lot of people just think they're like cute cuddly animals when they're not. But really, the resolution to all of this is to be determined. I think better education, better deterrence is going to go a long way in reducing conflicts. And over time, I think people and bears are just gonna have to figure out a way to navigate climate change together in a more harmonious way. I think the catch 22 about bear species, especially our black bear species, is they are one of the few animals that are able to switch between food sources so rapidly,
1:13:03 Wes Larson? which is so great about them. It's like such an amazing thing that they're able to deal with all this shit that we're throwing at them. But the bad part of that is it puts them into conflict with people. And I think we need to have a lot of patience with these animals because we're making them deal with stuff that they've never had to deal with throughout their entire evolutionary history. All right. Do you guys have any questions about the ongoing conflict in Japan before we move on to our categories?
1:13:29 Jeff Larson? Uh, I just have a dumb joke.
1:13:32 Wes Larson? Yeah, let's hear it.
1:13:33 Jeff Larson? That one sumo wrestler lady who the bear ran into twice?
1:13:38 Wes Larson? Uh, yeah, she wasn't a sumo wrestler, but yeah.
1:13:43 Jeff Larson? It's kind of like a kamikaze bear.
1:13:45 Wes Larson? Ooh.
1:13:49 Wes Larson? Good job.
1:13:50 Mike Smith? Win in Rome, do as the Romans do.
1:13:53 Wes Larson? All right.
1:13:54 Mike Smith? Good job, Jeff.
1:13:57 Jeff Larson? Thank you.
1:13:58 Wes Larson? Okay, let's move on to our categories.
1:14:00 Mike Smith? Okay.
1:14:01 Wes Larson? This is kind of a big question, but what's your favorite pop culture to ever come out of Japan? What I want is one movie, one video game, and one anime from each of you.
1:14:12 Mike Smith? It's almost more interesting for me to do my second because the ones, the number one things are so obvious for me. It's like Godzilla, One Piece, and Final Fantasy VII. It's like, those are my number one things. That's my answer then. We'll go with that then.
1:14:26 Jeff Larson? We'll give you honorable mentions if you want after.
1:14:30 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:14:31 Jeff Larson? I would go Battle Royale, the movie, One Piece for just like anime. And then game, I'd probably go Ghost of Tsushima.
1:14:43 Wes Larson? Is that from Japan or just about Japan?
1:14:45 Mike Smith? It's by Sucker Punch, which is not a friend, or it's a, not a French studio. It's not Japanese though.
1:14:51 Jeff Larson? Okay, I'll go Smash Bros.
1:14:53 Mike Smith? There you go.
1:14:54 Wes Larson? Oh, that's a good pick. That should have been my game pick. Whoops. All right. I picked Godzilla minus one for my movie. I picked uh Super Mario Brothers on Nintendo 8-bit for my game. And I picked Princess Mononoke for my anime, which I know is a movie and it's kind of in a weird. It's fine. But that's what I picked. Mike, what are your honorable mentions?
1:15:17 Mike Smith? No, I was surprised.
1:15:18 Wes Larson? For a second.
1:15:19 Mike Smith? Neither of you picked Resident Evil 4. That's gonna be really high on my honorable.
1:15:23 Jeff Larson? I didn't know that was Japanese.
1:15:24 Mike Smith? Yeah, very.
1:15:26 Jeff Larson? That's probably my favorite game ever.
1:15:29 Mike Smith? Yeah, so really anything by Kurosawa or Kobayashi as far as movies go, Harakiri, Human Condition, uh, Seven Samurai, et cetera, et cetera.
1:15:39 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:15:40 Mike Smith? Uh, amazing movies. And then, man, the anime one's just so hard, but like Redline, if we want to go movies. Spirited Away is my favorite Studio Ghibli movie. It's incredible. Um.
1:15:51 Wes Larson? Do you think you like Seven Samurai so much because it's just pouring rain the whole movie? You just love rain?
1:15:56 Mike Smith? It's pouring rain in like one part of the movie. That's a long movie for it to be all rain all the time.
1:16:04 Wes Larson? All right.
1:16:05 Mike Smith? No.
1:16:05 Wes Larson? I also wanted to ask you guys if you could think of any uh favorite pop culture Asiatic black bears?
1:16:12 Mike Smith? So, speaking of anime, Kumakuma Kumabear, I think is an Asiatic black bear.
1:16:18 Wes Larson? Probably.
1:16:18 Mike Smith? But I don't, I'm not.
1:16:20 Wes Larson? Probably just about any Japanese bear you see is gonna be.
1:16:23 Jeff Larson? Yeah, I was wondering if the Olympics used one, but I don't.
1:16:27 Wes Larson? They did, yeah.
1:16:28 Jeff Larson? Okay.
1:16:29 Mike Smith? Pick that one.
1:16:30 Wes Larson? Sure.
1:16:30 Mike Smith? Monokuma from the Donginrompa series. More technically a robot with a bomb inside of it, but bear from Japan, so maybe.
1:16:41 Mike Smith? Asiatic.
1:16:42 Wes Larson? It was kind of frustrating when I was reading all these articles. They almost all use brown bear photos. And I think brown bears are taking a lot of the heat for it. And we are gonna talk about Japanese brown bears when we do the Senkabetsu Brown Bear Incident in the early 1900s, which is a big story. But um, when I went to Taiwan, they have what's called the Formosan black bear, which is a subspecies of Asiatic black bear. And they used it for everything. It's like their national mascot. And I just loved all the cute like black bear stuff everywhere. So that will be my pick is just like all the ads in Taiwan with Formosan black bears. Jeff, do you have one?
1:17:24 Jeff Larson? I did the Olympics.
1:17:25 Mike Smith? The Olympics bear.
1:17:26 Wes Larson? Oh, yeah, that's right. Okay. All right. Let's do a quick cage match. I think what I want to do is stack this up against the other bears that we've talked about.
1:17:36 Jeff Larson? They're like, when they introduced mascots to their prisons, I feel like the first mascot they introduced was an Asiatic black bear.
1:17:46 Wes Larson? You're probably right.
1:17:47 Jeff Larson? The guy in a big bear costume. And it's really funny because he's just in prison and they have like a full mascot in their prison.
1:17:57 Mike Smith? So good.
1:17:58 Wes Larson? They're one of the top, they're one of the top like Kawaii animals, for sure.
1:18:04 Mike Smith? Kawaii?
1:18:05 Wes Larson? Kawaii, yeah. Okay. Cage match. I stacking this up against our other bears, I actually think it beats our American black bear in a lot of fights if we're doing the average weight of each. If we're doing the max size of each, then the American black bear wins that fight. But if it's average size, I'm probably going to put this bear over American black bear and probably over sloth bear, too.
1:18:31 Jeff Larson? Just the aggressive, like fighter flight.
1:18:34 Wes Larson? Aggressive, yeah, yeah. So I don't, it doesn't beat brown bears and it doesn't beat polar bears, although there are stories in Russia of this bear like scaring brown bears off of kills. So I think they can be really intimidating, but they wouldn't beat them in like a cage match fight. But they're gonna be wool, a single wool.
1:18:53 Jeff Larson? Yeah, might be our third best bear in that cage match.
1:18:57 Wes Larson? Yeah, I think so. Probably beats a leopard, wouldn't beat a tiger. Tigers do eat them throughout their range.
1:19:05 Wes Larson? Yeah. And that's one of the reasons people think they might be aggressive, but um, that's what I wrote the paper on about sloth bears, too.
1:19:12 Mike Smith? What do you think a tiger's favorite thing to eat is?
1:19:16 Wes Larson? Uh, like a deer, those, those big deer that we saw in India, the um.
1:19:22 Jeff Larson? Or water buffalo?
1:19:24 Wes Larson? Why am I, space, oh, sambar deer, S A M B A R. Yeah, that's kind of, I think that's their favorite food. Yeah, also those huge buffalo, the water buffalo, the guar.
1:19:35 Jeff Larson? Yeah, guar.
1:19:36 Mike Smith? They eat those things?
1:19:37 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:19:38 Mike Smith? Those things are massive.
1:19:40 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:19:40 Mike Smith? Guar!
1:19:41 Jeff Larson? Those things too like.
1:19:43 Mike Smith? So good.
1:19:44 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:19:45 Jeff Larson? Like bison horns, like they look sharp, but the very ends look kinda dull, you know?
1:19:51 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:19:51 Jeff Larson? They always look like a little beat up and not like sharp, but on guars, their horns always look just sharp.
1:19:58 Wes Larson? Yes, super pointed, yeah.
1:20:00 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:20:01 Wes Larson? Yeah. Alright, I want to do a quick, what would Mike and Jeff do? Uh, you guys are, you're just finishing up in the toilet in Japan, beautiful part of the country.
1:20:11 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:20:11 Wes Larson? And a bear pokes its head through the door. What are you doing?
1:20:14 Mike Smith? I'm not gonna flush. It seems like there might be something in there that might be a little more interesting than me to them. Just cuz the smell's gonna be stronger. And then, yeah, while they're going to town on that, I'm gonna slip out through that crack.
1:20:28 Wes Larson? Okay, I like that.
1:20:30 Jeff Larson? Yeah. What crack?
1:20:32 Mike Smith? That, the one he's looking for.
1:20:36 Mike Smith? When I put my invisibility cloak on, won't even see me slip right through that crack with it.
1:20:42 Jeff Larson? You don't wanna be in the stall with the bear, so I'll just sit there. Hope, I'll probably start wiping.
1:20:50 Wes Larson? Okay.
1:20:50 Jeff Larson? I think, I don't wanna try to run away with a messy butt still.
1:20:55 Wes Larson? You don't wanna be mauled with a dirty butt.
1:20:56 Jeff Larson? It won't be the greatest cleanup job I've ever done.
1:21:01 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:21:01 Jeff Larson? But I will at least give one, one go at wiping.
1:21:05 Wes Larson? Okay.
1:21:06 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:21:06 Jeff Larson? And I'll be slow, you know, no sudden movements. And then, if it gets in that stall, I'm just gonna dive under the stall. So then.
1:21:17 Wes Larson? Oh, that's smart.
1:21:17 Jeff Larson? If, and then like, if it comes after me, I'll dive back into the stall and just kinda go back and forth.
1:21:23 Wes Larson? Kinda go back and forth, yeah.
1:21:25 Jeff Larson? Till one of us gives up.
1:21:27 Wes Larson? Maybe it'll break its ankles, you know?
1:21:29 Mike Smith? Juke them.
1:21:30 Jeff Larson? And that way, if I haven't finished going to the bathroom, I could maybe keep going, like, little by little when I'm getting back in there.
1:21:38 Wes Larson? That's a good point. You don't wanna be uncomfortable.
1:21:41 Jeff Larson? Because it didn't seem like there's any other bathrooms close by there. Like, that's the bathroom.
1:21:47 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:21:48 Mike Smith? Maybe throw your wad of toilet paper over the wall somewhere else to distract it.
1:21:53 Wes Larson? Ooh, I like that.
1:21:55 Mike Smith? That might work, right?
1:21:56 Jeff Larson? Then you can wipe.
1:21:57 Wes Larson? All right.
1:21:58 Mike Smith? You have more than one wad of toilet paper.
1:22:00 Jeff Larson? Oh, I thought you meant the roll.
1:22:03 Mike Smith? Not the whole.
1:22:03 Jeff Larson? They don't use toilet paper, though.
1:22:05 Mike Smith? You use the toilet paper and then you throw.
1:22:07 Jeff Larson? I'd have to wait for the bidet.
1:22:09 Wes Larson? Maybe it's one of those fancy bidets that talks, though, and you could tell it to say, like, go away, bear. Or something.
1:22:15 Jeff Larson? Maybe it's like, super fancy and it has like, a bear spray function?
1:22:20 Wes Larson? Yeah, exactly.
1:22:21 Mike Smith? Squirted it right in the eyes.
1:22:22 Wes Larson? What if you accidentally hit that function while you're pooping?
1:22:28 Wes Larson? All right.
1:22:28 Jeff Larson? Yeah, so that's my answer, is I would bidet, bear spray it.
1:22:32 Wes Larson? Okay, perfect. I'm glad we got to that. What you're actually supposed to do is actually really similar to what you would do in a brown bear encounter or a grizzly bear encounter, which is group up, get your deterrent out, if you have it, slowly back away from that bear. If it does make contact with you, what I've read is to go into fetal position and cover your neck, cover your vitals, and hope the bear is just defensively attacking you, which, from everything I read, is almost all of these attacks are defensive. They're not really feeding on their victims. So there's a good chance it's just gonna swat you a couple times, bite you, and get out of there. Kind of like it did with the New Zealander. He didn't stop that attack, the bear just decided it was done.
1:23:17 Wes Larson? That is what I've read you're supposed to do. I'm gonna look into this a little bit more and talk to some of my expert colleagues to see if that's still the messaging they're telling people. But what I would say, again, is if you're gonna be in a part of Japan where you might run into this species, it's a really good idea to find some bear spray and to keep it with you. It's not easy, it's not hard to carry, it's easy to use, it's not that expensive. So, I would do it.
1:23:43 Mike Smith? All right. Do you think if a bear was mad at you and was like fixing to attack, if you threw an invisibility cloak on, would it be able to like smell and hear you well enough to still get you?
1:23:54 Wes Larson? Yeah, can't they, like, that, the invisibility cloak doesn't, oh, have you put it on yourself?
1:23:59 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:24:00 Wes Larson? I thought you were saying if you threw it on the bear. It's like, that wouldn't do anything.
1:24:04 Mike Smith? That'd be extra bad, then.
1:24:06 Wes Larson? Yeah, I think it'd still be able to get you, probably. It'd be confused, though.
1:24:10 Mike Smith? Yeah. All right, well, so that's not an effective countermeasure?
1:24:14 Wes Larson? No, I don't think so.
1:24:15 Jeff Larson? I think it'd help.
1:24:17 Mike Smith? Yeah, like, if you have one, give it a try.
1:24:19 Wes Larson? Yeah, you might as well put it on if you've got it.
1:24:22 Mike Smith? Yeah, all right.
1:24:23 Jeff Larson? What about like the Frodo and Sam rock blanket?
1:24:27 Wes Larson? I wouldn't do that either, but it's, I guess it's worth a shot.
1:24:30 Mike Smith? Better than nothing.
1:24:31 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:24:32 Jeff Larson? I mean, I confused a human. I'm sure it'd confuse a bear.
1:24:36 Wes Larson? Is that something the hobbits like learned how to do? Cause it was perfect.
1:24:41 Jeff Larson? I think it was like an elven blanket or something, right?
1:24:44 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:24:45 Jeff Larson? Maybe elves just have magic.
1:24:47 Wes Larson? What about the, what about the Peta Malark paint your face like a rock? You know?
1:24:57 Jeff Larson? I think that could rid some of the scent too.
1:24:59 Wes Larson? Sure.
1:25:00 Jeff Larson? He's covered. He was caked up in that mud.
1:25:03 Mike Smith? He was.
1:25:04 Wes Larson? All right. My next category, we are heading to Japan in about a month and a half. We're, we're doing our tooth and claw trip with our Komodo guests. And then on our way back, we decided to stop in Japan for a little bit because Mike loves the country so much. He wanted to show us a few things. I've only been there for a day. What are you guys most excited for during our time in Japan?
1:25:26 Wes Larson? I can go first. Oh, go ahead.
1:25:28 Jeff Larson? No, you go ahead.
1:25:29 Wes Larson? Uh, for me, it's, it's the sumo championships that we're going to go to. I, that's honestly the main reason that I'm taking the diversion is I really am excited to see that atmosphere and culture and just really kind of feel it. So that's, that's what it is.
1:25:45 Jeff Larson? I mean, yeah, it's the overall trip really is because like Mike wanted to go to Japan for a long time. And so did Brent. And then when they win, it seemed like is like better than they even thought it would be.
1:26:00 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:26:01 Jeff Larson? So I'm just excited to be there. The food probably. And then we decided to go to Disneyland Tokyo. That might be.
1:26:10 Wes Larson? I'm stoked for that.
1:26:11 Mike Smith? Oh yeah. I forgot we were doing that.
1:26:14 Wes Larson? I'm excited. Yeah.
1:26:16 Mike Smith? Um, mine specifically, just because I've been to a sumo tournament before, but as part of our tour package, we're getting, I think we're going to be able to eat some of their traditional like Chonko sumo stew before the matches.
1:26:29 Wes Larson? Cool.
1:26:30 Mike Smith? And I just don't, I don't even know. I'm like, I don't even want to look up what that is. So I'm just surprised when we get there, but I'm so excited to just have a big old bowl full of.
1:26:41 Wes Larson? Knowing my luck, it's just gonna be like blue fin tuna.
1:26:44 Mike Smith? It's so much weight they're packing on. So like, what do they have in that stew, you know?
1:26:48 Jeff Larson? Just pure fat.
1:26:49 Mike Smith? Yeah, carbs and fat and, oh, it's gonna be amazing.
1:26:53 Jeff Larson? Bear.
1:26:54 Mike Smith? Yeah, bear meat.
1:26:55 Wes Larson? All right. This is a very quick category, but it's called best comment you found during your research. While I was researching one of these attacks on Reddit, this is one of the comments. Getting mauled is actually really frowned upon in Japan. It goes against the traditional concept of Ikiru, which means to live.
1:27:20 Mike Smith? It's so shocking.
1:27:21 Wes Larson? That's, oh. Oh, I looked it up and the actual translation is like will to live.
1:27:29 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:27:30 Wes Larson? Anyway. Okay. Very disrespectful, but very funny comment.
1:27:38 Wes Larson? Who? Couple of questions, real quick. Couple of listener questions. This one's for Madison. Here's a question. Would you rather, A, be able to speak every language fluently, or B, have all of your SIM needs, bladder, energy, fun, hunger, hygiene, and social, filled 100% at all times? So essentially like, would you rather know every, every single language, or would you just feel totally satisfied at all times?
1:28:07 Mike Smith? No, I'd do the language one.
1:28:09 Jeff Larson? Yeah, the satisfied one doesn't make sense. Like.
1:28:12 Wes Larson? I don't play the Sims, but I think it's just, yeah.
1:28:16 Jeff Larson? If you don't ever feel sad, then you don't appreciate happiness.
1:28:20 Mike Smith? Right.
1:28:20 Wes Larson? But it wasn't happiness wasn't one of them. It was bladder, energy, fun, hunger, hygiene, and social.
1:28:27 Jeff Larson? If you feel fun all the time, then you never feel sad.
1:28:30 Wes Larson? Fun all the time. Yeah. Good point. Okay. I think we're all language then.
1:28:36 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:28:36 Mike Smith? Hmm. Okay.
1:28:38 Wes Larson? This one's from Andy. This is kind of a sadder question, but I wanted to read it. Sad listener question here for Wes, but actually mostly Jesse. I lost my soul dog a month ago. Tomorrow. Does it get better? Does it just get easier to live with the grief? My husband and I are both veterinarians. We help families through this on an almost daily basis, but nothing prepares you for this type of loss, of course. What helped you both through losing your sweet Bryce? I'm not going to ask Jesse this because I don't really want to make her think about it if she doesn't want to. She's still really struggling. Um, I think I'm doing a lot better, even though it hits me still sometimes. It's been about a year and a half. The thing that helped us the most was getting another dog. And for me, the thing I just tell myself when I miss Bryce is that had Bryce not left us when she did,
1:29:24 Wes Larson? we wouldn't have rescued Polly and Polly was in desperate need of a good home. And she's a really tricky dog, um, but a wonderful, just we love her so much. But I think had she gone to a home that didn't have a Jesse in it, someone that was just willing to devote so much time and love toward a dog, she would have had a really hard time. And so the fact that we could get a new dog not only helped us, but it makes me feel like Bryce left at the right time. So that's how, that's how I handle it.
1:29:53 Jeff Larson? Can I, can I ask you a controversial question?
1:29:57 Wes Larson? Maybe, but we might cut it. Sure.
1:29:59 Jeff Larson? How do you feel about Tom Brady cloning his favorite dog? And now he just has his favorite dog again in a new dog.
1:30:07 Wes Larson? I don't like the dog cloning stuff. Um.
1:30:10 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:30:11 Wes Larson? I you're not gonna have this, the dog's not gonna have the same personality. It's gonna look the same, but it's not gonna have the same personality. And for me, and we've talked about this a lot, I am a huge proponent of rescuing dogs. There are so many good dogs that need homes and they're stuck in shelters and all they want is to be loved and have a family. And when you buy a dog from a breeder or clone a dog, you're denying one of those dogs a home that just needs one so badly. So I, I just am all for rescues and that's it. All right, this one's from Dana. If you could all talk to one species of animal, which would it be? And what would be the first question you'd ask?
1:30:53 Wes Larson? My girlfriend said whales, but we agreed it might be a sad convo.
1:30:57 Jeff Larson? Sad convo? What animal's gonna be like a great conversation?
1:31:03 Wes Larson? Yeah, like a mosquito. It's gonna be like yum, thank you.
1:31:07 Jeff Larson? Yeah, maybe mosquito. And then it wouldn't make that annoying buzz sound.
1:31:12 Wes Larson? You could be like, stop.
1:31:13 Mike Smith? And maybe that one turtle is like the last male of his species and was just having sex all the time. Yeah. Although, I don't know, maybe that'd be sad too. In fact, for sure it would be.
1:31:26 Wes Larson? I just wanna talk to dogs and be like, what do you want? Like, what makes you happiest? You know? So that's the animal I deal with the most.
1:31:34 Mike Smith? Hmm, okay.
1:31:35 Jeff Larson? I wouldn't want any animal I like run into frequently. I want it to be like one that I hardly ever see and then it's like, hey, what's up? Like maybe like a mountain lion.
1:31:47 Wes Larson? You could be like, why don't you have sex? Yeah.
1:31:50 Jeff Larson? Just be like, oh, what's up dude? Like, what's up?
1:31:54 Wes Larson? It would be like, what's up? And then that would be it.
1:31:59 Wes Larson? You wasted it, burned. Mike?
1:32:02 Mike Smith? Dude, if you ask a pig what's up and they'd be like, I don't know, I can't, I can't look up.
1:32:08 Mike Smith? That's what I would choose, just to play that prank. Uh, maybe it'd be kinda nice to have just an information network of pigeons in your town.
1:32:17 Jeff Larson? Oh, yeah.
1:32:18 Mike Smith? Maybe useful, just to have a fleet of, you know, you, I wouldn't, I can't imagine what I'd be interested in enough to talk to them about happening around town, but, uh, it's a cool idea.
1:32:27 Jeff Larson? See, that one's heavy, though, because like, they work for the government, so then you'd learn all these dark government secrets.
1:32:35 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:32:36 Jeff Larson? And you'd just like, no one would believe you, you'd have to keep it to yourself, but it'd be like way too big of a thing.
1:32:42 Mike Smith? Yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't mind.
1:32:46 Mike Smith? Carrying the burden of knowledge.
1:32:48 Wes Larson? Into our next question.
1:32:49 Jeff Larson? He would be like, these pigeons are nut jobs, dude. These pigeons are crazy. They think that all this just like-
1:32:58 Wes Larson? Tinfoil hats.
1:32:59 Jeff Larson? Was planned.
1:33:01 Wes Larson? All right, this one's from Vanessa. Vanessa says, would you rather have the ability to know the truth to one conspiracy theory? Or be able to make everyone believe one conspiracy theory you make up? So would you rather know the truth to one conspiracy theory, or be able to believe everyone, or make everyone believe a conspiracy theory you make up?
1:33:23 Jeff Larson? Know the truth, you just kinda, it's kinda what I just said, you kinda just need to sit with that information.
1:33:27 Wes Larson? Like, no one's gonna believe you, yeah.
1:33:30 Jeff Larson? Although it's not, there's people out there that believe them.
1:33:33 Mike Smith? I mean, yeah, I think that's way better than just spreading misinformation.
1:33:38 Jeff Larson? I don't wanna lie about one, yeah.
1:33:40 Wes Larson? But what if you could, I mean, your conspiracy theory could be something that is for good, you know, if you made everyone believe it.
1:33:48 Jeff Larson? Like how you guys all made up climate change, so that we'd stop burning fossil fuels?
1:33:54 Wes Larson? That you don't believe that, Jeff doesn't believe that, it's a big disclaimer. I think I would do that. I think I would rather have someone believe my conspiracy theory, cuz I would think of something that would be for the greater good. But knowing the truth to one, you just, it like, would be frustrating, I think.
1:34:12 Mike Smith? Yeah. Hmm.
1:34:14 Wes Larson? Maybe I'd want to know who killed JonBenet Ramsey.
1:34:17 Mike Smith? Oh, my gosh. That's
1:34:19 Wes Larson? Actually, I don't care at all.
1:34:21 Mike Smith? Incredibly.
1:34:21 Wes Larson? I don't care one bit.
1:34:23 Mike Smith? Inane answer.
1:34:24 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:34:25 Mike Smith? Um, yeah, I'm gonna do know the truth to one. The thing is too, that I
1:34:30 Jeff Larson? Do you have one in mind?
1:34:33 Mike Smith? I mean, just any of the big ones, really.
1:34:35 Jeff Larson? I think the moon, the moon landing is the one I am most curious about just because I think there's really compelling stuff on both sides.
1:34:45 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:34:46 Jeff Larson? Like, I would like to know that if the moon landing, like, happened.
1:34:51 Mike Smith? Just like for a hundred percent.
1:34:53 Wes Larson? Dude, Buzz Aldrin's gonna punch you in the face if you're not
1:34:56 Jeff Larson? He's the one that said that the video was fake, alright? On Conan, that's a big show to say that on.
1:35:04 Mike Smith? Right. Um, I mean, like, I'm ninety nine point nine nine nine repeating certain that the moon landing happened. It would be nice just to have confirmation and it wouldn't be such like a big revelation in my brain that it would alter the course of my life. So maybe something like that is the right answer because I don't want to get into, because with all the other conspiracies, it seems like there's a lot of moving parts and a lot of gray area, a lot of half truths. You're gonna have to like still navigate through and I just wouldn't care to get rad too wrapped up in any of that. I'm just trying to like live my happy little ignorant life, you know?
1:35:40 Wes Larson? Yeah, I'm trying to change everyone's mind, so I'm picking the second one.
1:35:44 Jeff Larson? I'd want to know if Ratatouille was actually able to control that guy's movements just by pulling his hair.
1:35:54 Wes Larson? Is there a conspiracy about that? Isn't
1:35:56 Jeff Larson? I just, I mean, that's not how hair works, Wes.
1:36:00 Wes Larson? Sure. Okay.
1:36:02 Jeff Larson? There's not nerves from your hair into your arms and legs.
1:36:06 Mike Smith? Maybe there are in France.
1:36:08 Wes Larson? All right, one more. This one's from Katie. I just, I wanted to talk about this, so. Do you guys watch Stranger Things? If so, what are your thoughts on the first few episodes in the new season? Have either of you watched those first few episodes?
1:36:20 Mike Smith? No.
1:36:21 Jeff Larson? Yeah, I watched.
1:36:22 Wes Larson? I have. I think it's really bad. I think the last scene of the first of the available episodes is, was really fun. The rest of it has been very unenjoyable to me.
1:36:34 Jeff Larson? The last scene was great. The writing's gotten a little lazy. There's a lot of plot armor with the demogorgons or whatever. Where it's like literally a lady with an axe fending one off and then an entire army not being able to kill a single one.
1:36:53 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:36:53 Jeff Larson? And it's just kinda like how powerful. How powerful are, aren't these things?
1:37:00 Wes Larson? There's, I love that army scene too, cause they're all in a circle shooting at it and they're not having like bullets whizzing by them and stuff. There's an entire circle around it and they're all firing machine guns at it.
1:37:11 Jeff Larson? I do, yeah. Kind of enjoy it being like bad enough that social media clips about it have been really funny.
1:37:21 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:37:22 Jeff Larson? So that's been fun to see.
1:37:23 Wes Larson? I think the downside to having a show like this where you have great child actors that then turn into adults is you don't know how good of actors they're gonna be once they're like their own people. And unfortunately, I think like more than half of these kids did not turn into great actors and and a couple of them are really bad and they're like really leaning on them this season. And so I just haven't liked it at all. Yeah. All right. Uh, we're gonna have to do kind of a dark conservation corner for this animal. And I'm just, if you're really extra sensitive to animal abuse, especially I would skip this one, but I do think it's important you listen to it to know what's going on.
1:38:04 Wes Larson? All right. So Asiatic black bears are listed IUCN vulnerable because they're found in so many different countries. A fair amount of those countries aren't really doing a lot of population estimates. We don't know how many there actually are. Estimates in Japan range anywhere from 15,000 to 50,000. Most of the things I read said around 40,000. They're under a lot of different threats throughout their range. Their biggest threats are habitat loss.
1:38:29 Jeff Larson? You said just that one island had 40,000.
1:38:31 Wes Larson? That's what, that was what I read in most things, but they say it's anywhere between 15 and 50, depending on where you read. But most, I think like.
1:38:40 Jeff Larson? One island though, right?
1:38:41 Wes Larson? But Honshu Island's really the only island in Japan they're found. There's one other island that has some, but most of them are on Honshu Island. Yeah.
1:38:48 Jeff Larson? Is that where Tokyo is?
1:38:50 Wes Larson? Yeah. Yeah.
1:38:51 Mike Smith? It's the big main body of Japan. Yeah.
1:38:54 Wes Larson? They're under a ton of threats. Their biggest ones are coming from climate change, habitat loss. But another big threat with these animals is poaching and trafficking. And unfortunately, bear bile is a huge market in Chinese traditional medicine. And like even more unfortunate is that there actually is some medical proof that bear bile can be beneficial to humans. But there are synthetic versions of it that are just as beneficial. You don't have to get it from these animals. And bear bile farming is maybe the bleakest, most depressing animal abuse issue in the world for me personally. It's made me cry thinking about it before learning about it, but we are going to talk about it.
1:39:37 Wes Larson? Basically, what it involves is either catching cubs or breeding cubs into captivity. They put them in cages that are just big enough for their bodies. They're so small that their bodies sometimes grow around these cages. They are hooked up to machines that painfully extract enough bile to keep the bear alive and producing bile. And the bear simply lives its entire life in a tiny cage while it suffers almost continuous pain. They're starved and dehydrated to stimulate bile production. Almost all of them are missing all of their teeth and their claws from desperately trying to get out of these cages. I can't imagine a worse existence for a bear, or really any animal for that matter.
1:40:20 Wes Larson? Luckily, there are groups that are completely dedicated to the eradication of this practice. They've made huge steps to end it in a lot of different places. One of the better known of those organizations is called Animals Asia, and we're going to link their donation page in the notes. It's a horrible, awful thing. It's one of those things that I almost hesitate to even put in people's minds because it's so terrible, but I do think it's important. We know just what we've done to these animals and don't ever buy anything with bear bile in it, ever. Okay.
1:40:54 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:40:55 Wes Larson? Sucks.
1:40:56 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:40:56 Wes Larson? People suck. I really hate talking about that one. It just bums me out on such a huge level, but we gotta get rid of that traditional medicine thing. It just needs to go.
1:41:08 Mike Smith? Hmm.
1:41:08 Wes Larson? Okay. Claw rating, one to 10 claws, give me your claw rating for Asiatic black bears.
1:41:16 Jeff Larson? Hmm, this is tough.
1:41:18 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:41:19 Jeff Larson? I forget when I did for Backpacker where I had, Mike, you go first.
1:41:25 Mike Smith? I'm gonna go with a 7.5.
1:41:29 Wes Larson? Okay.
1:41:30 Mike Smith? And that's-
1:41:31 Wes Larson? I would have thought that like the Asian bear that's in like Korea and Japan and stuff you would like the most.
1:41:37 Mike Smith? I don't, so I don't feel much different. I think I gave American black bears an eight last time we did it. We, I feel pretty much the same, so I can be generous and give them an eight. I think they're amazing. I think that's, um, I don't have to explain myself. They're cool animals. I really do think they're good to have them, you know, bile intact.
1:41:57 Jeff Larson? Hmm, I, I'm, I think they might be my last place bear.
1:42:05 Wes Larson? Okay. Over like spectacled bears, Andean bears?
1:42:08 Jeff Larson? If we, I mean, they have Paddington.
1:42:12 Wes Larson? Okay. Yeah, sure. That's true.
1:42:14 Jeff Larson? So it's tough. That's a hard thing to say because they're cool animals. They deserve credit for being that cool. But I do think I'm gonna put them as my last ranked bear, which means I can only give them a seven is as high as I can go. And I'm gonna put them at 333.
1:42:35 Wes Larson? Okay. There's only eight bear species and I just don't know if I can give any of them less than a 10 claw. So I think I have to give them 10 claws. I think this, they're kind of a combo between a black, an American black bear and a grizzly bear. Like they're aggressive or defensive like a grizzly bear. They climb trees like American black bears. I think they're super cute with their crescent moon and like their big ears.
1:43:04 Mike Smith? That is cool.
1:43:06 Wes Larson? So yeah, they're 10 for me. Ten claw animal.
1:43:08 Mike Smith? Good job, bears.
1:43:10 Wes Larson? All right. That's it for the episode. Thanks, everyone for suggesting it. We definitely listen to you guys when it comes to this kind of stuff and as always, it's the holidays. So if you're interested in a gift for that toothy in your life, our merch store is open right now. Plus, we have gifting Patreon. You can gift a Patreon membership to your friends or your family or your loved ones.
1:43:35 Mike Smith? Or your enemies.
1:43:36 Wes Larson? Or your enemies. Yep, might as well.
1:43:40 Wes Larson? You save a little bit on the annual membership. Yeah, sure.
1:43:44 Jeff Larson? Yeah, make your enemies your friends.
1:43:46 Wes Larson? Olive leaf. Uh, so check that out if you're not a member and happy holidays.
1:43:53 Jeff Larson? Happy holidays. Love you guys.
1:43:56 Wes Larson? Love you. We'll see you.
1:43:58 Mike Smith? See you next time.
1:43:59 Wes Larson? Bye.
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