Pod Insights Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks African Buffalo Attack - John Digby Bristow & the Tragic Price of Poaching About this episode The African cape buffalo might not be the first animal that comes to mind when thinking about the most dangerous animals of Africa, but they are not one to be taken lightly. Jeff gives us the rundown on what makes them potentially so deadly, and Wes details the biology that makes them special.
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Transcript 14,250 words · 6 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:13 Jeff Larson? Hello everyone. Oh, I stumbled back.
0:15 Wes Larson? Oh, stumbled right out of the gates.
0:17 Jeff Larson? Welcome to Tooth and Claw Podcast. We have our wildlife biologist Wes Larson, who loves bears.
0:27 Wes Larson? I sure love him, Jeff.
0:28 Jeff Larson? And then I'm his younger brother. I was his field tech and I love cheetahs. And then we have our producer, Mike, and Mike loves lobsters because they pee in each other's faces.
0:41 Wes Larson? Among other things, but that's really the main reason. Yeah.
0:44 Jeff Larson? I like cheetahs because they're fast. Wes likes bears because they're
0:48 Wes Larson? The coolest animals on the planet.
0:50 Jeff Larson? And Mike likes lobsters because they pee in each other's faces.
0:54 Wes Larson? Mike, among other things. Of all the animals we've talked about, this might be a hard question for you to answer. Of all the animals we've talked about, what do you think the one is that's grown the most in your estimation?
1:05 Mike Smith? Ooh, I, this might be a little self-aggrandizing even, but when I did the episode on giraffes and learned everything that's going on with them, I think it might be them. I mean, I've always held them to be like unique and interesting, but I just love everything that I learned about them.
1:21 Wes Larson? I feel like when we were in Africa, whenever we saw one too, your eyes would get a little sparkly. You loved seeing giraffes.
1:27 Jeff Larson? Yeah, you like had to research them to realize they have long necks. You're like, oh, I've always heard this, but now that I'm like looking at the data, it's actually true.
1:40 Wes Larson? Yeah, I just picture Mike like opening a photo of a giraffe and being like, whoa.
1:46 Mike Smith? You know what I extra liked about the giraffes that we saw in Kenya is that they have those two ossicones? And they look like each little individual Frankenstein heads. They have like a little flat top. Oh, yeah. Almost like the Caesar haircut dangling down over them. Oh, man, they're so cute.
2:02 Wes Larson? That's true.
2:03 Mike Smith? I was gonna say cute. I don't know if that's the word. Yeah, they're cute. Why not?
2:06 Wes Larson? Kind of like a Friar Tuck haircut too.
2:08 Mike Smith? Yeah.
2:09 Wes Larson? Like a little bald. Yeah, I like that.
2:11 Jeff Larson? No, that's a good answer. I like the Kenya giraffes a little bit better.
2:15 Wes Larson? Me too. We had that, we had that cool experience where we walked in on some giraffes in Kenya too, and that was like. One of our Africa highlights, I would say.
2:24 Mike Smith? Yeah.
2:25 Wes Larson? That walking tour where we are surrounded by giraffes. That was pretty cool.
2:29 Jeff Larson? Mike, I'm starting to think you might be right about disc golf.
2:33 Mike Smith? You coming around?
2:34 Jeff Larson? We went and my arm just hurts for the last two days from throwing, trying to like, get a couple extra feet of distance and I don't know, man.
2:47 Mike Smith? I think that's more just getting old, but.
2:50 Wes Larson? Yeah.
2:51 Jeff Larson? My arm, I thought it was fun when I was playing, but now it's just like, that wasn't worth this.
2:57 Mike Smith? You need some Tommy John, Tommy John surgery maybe?
3:00 Jeff Larson? Wes, you try benching 200 pounds, one rep once.
3:04 Wes Larson? Yeah, I can't do that.
3:05 Jeff Larson? And then getting out drove by a frisbee and see how your pride feels.
3:11 Wes Larson? Yeah, fair enough. That's true.
3:15 Mike Smith? That's a very specific scenario you need to live out, but let us know how it goes, I guess.
3:21 Wes Larson? Yeah, we played the other day. It was fun. I might play again tomorrow.
3:25 Jeff Larson? I'll have to ice up.
3:26 Wes Larson? Jeff's in Montana. We're having a nice time. Mike, we miss you. We wish you were here.
3:31 Mike Smith? Hmm, it's nice to hear.
3:33 Wes Larson? And this is a Jeff-isode that we're doing today.
3:35 Jeff Larson? Jeff-isode. Have you seen, social media's been saying a lot of, if my name was Jeff, I would be using like Jeff in everything.
3:45 Wes Larson? No.
3:46 Jeff Larson? Like that's Jeffed up and like no Jeffing way and stuff.
3:50 Wes Larson? Interesting.
3:51 Jeff Larson? I've been getting sent that from a lot of listeners. I feel like I was, uh, started using Jeff-isode before I ever saw those, you know?
3:59 Wes Larson? Yeah.
3:59 Mike Smith? True. You coined that years ago. You coined that a long time ago.
4:04 Wes Larson? Your algorithm points you towards any Jeff content too.
4:08 Jeff Larson? Oh, yeah, for sure.
4:09 Wes Larson? A lot of Jeffs.
4:10 Jeff Larson? But a lot of listeners send me that one.
4:12 Wes Larson? Yeah.
4:13 Jeff Larson? If I, if my name was Jeff, I'd be saying Jeffed up, that's Jeffed up all the time.
4:20 Wes Larson? Maybe we should make a shirt that says that.
4:22 Jeff Larson? Jeff, I think, I think we'd have like seven people named Jeff and maybe four of them buy the shirt.
4:31 Wes Larson? Our real Jeff heads would do it.
4:33 Jeff Larson? So today we are going to be talking about a new animal and it's a pretty fun episode. Wes is also going to do a like more detailed story on this one. I have a group of stories that kind of link up with each other, but we're going to be talking about an African buffalo today.
4:52 Wes Larson? And when he says I'm doing a more detailed story, it's in a different episode at some point.
4:57 Jeff Larson? Right.
4:58 Wes Larson? I had put together.
4:58 Jeff Larson? Help me with the, with the biology today, but Mike, what are you confused about?
5:04 Mike Smith? Well, you said, we're talking about a new animal. I thought those had been around for a long time.
5:11 Mike Smith? When did, when were they invented?
5:12 Wes Larson? God just made this one. It's fresh out of the oven.
5:15 Jeff Larson? Well, it's kind of, it's kind of like New Mexico. It's been around a while, but it keeps the name.
5:21 Mike Smith? True. Yeah, it's exactly the same. Yeah. The more you think about it.
5:26 Wes Larson? Like when we were in Africa and we saw these animals, they would be like, oh, that's new.
5:31 Mike Smith? Right.
5:31 Wes Larson? Like huh?
5:32 Mike Smith? It reminds me of New Mexico is what we would say to each other.
5:37 Jeff Larson? All right. Glad we could clear that up. A little bit about African buffalo before we get into it. First of all, it's kind of hard to like, know what to call them. I feel like there's been, there's just like a lot of, first of all, in America, a lot of confusion with buffalo in general, because we call bison buffalo. And then the next buffalo that comes to our mind is a water buffalo. So then we think of like all other buffalo as water buffalo. And African buffalo are not water buffalo, but water buffalo just live in Asia.
6:16 Jeff Larson? So African buffalo, there's like Cape buffalo, but then there's also a few other subspecies. So you're not completely safe just saying Cape buffalo either. So I'm going to be saying buffalo or African buffalo throughout this episode.
6:31 Wes Larson? Great.
6:32 Jeff Larson? They're actually one of the most dangerous animals in all of Africa. A lot of people in Africa view them as the most dangerous animal. They'll tell you like actually buffalo kill the most people every year. And then they'll run into someone like Wes who's like, well.
6:53 Wes Larson? Yeah, I have.
6:54 Jeff Larson? I'm sorry to tell you, like, I know you live here and like.
7:00 Wes Larson? I have a bunch of biology stuff about.
7:02 Mike Smith? He starts mansplaining everything.
7:04 Wes Larson? I dug, I dug into the literature.
7:06 Jeff Larson? But they're, they probably rank around like third or fourth, probably closer to fourth.
7:15 Wes Larson? Probably.
7:15 Jeff Larson? If you're not counting.
7:16 Wes Larson? Seven thirty.
7:17 Jeff Larson? Insects. All right.
7:19 Mike Smith? You're still in the right ballpark though.
7:21 Jeff Larson? Main players though are like crocodiles and elephants and hippos.
7:27 Wes Larson? Hippos.
7:27 Jeff Larson? And snakes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
7:29 Wes Larson? Yeah.
7:29 Jeff Larson? But we were in Africa and we went on a few walking safari things and people. Our guide was always just looking for buffalo. Like that's what they were worried about. That's what they didn't want us to run into. So like it is on people's mind out there. They are very dangerous. From what I saw, they can, they kill about 200 people a year in Africa. And Wes, listen to Wes on it. I'm just saying.
7:56 Mike Smith? We'll, we'll get into all that later.
7:57 Jeff Larson? That can kill you. So I have three buff boy facts before our first story.
8:03 Wes Larson? Okay.
8:04 Jeff Larson? So they're nicknamed the widow maker or black death, which you know, that's pretty intense right there. That tells you all you need to know. Yeah. What's interesting to you about that?
8:16 Mike Smith? Well, so widow maker, this is where my brain goes since I'm a certified gamer boy. But widow maker is like this really hot sexy sniper character in Overwatch. And when I think about that juxtaposed with the image of like a big burly buffalo, it's like. They're just not, I'm not reconciling those two images in my brain very well. Cause they're, I don't know. I don't consider buffalos to be sexy. But widow maker, I kind of do.
8:45 Jeff Larson? And again, Wes was going to do the biology. I just want to give a little bit about buffalo before we talk about them attacks. So number two is that they have four natural predators that will target them in Africa. Can you guys name them?
9:01 Wes Larson? Yes, lions, crocodiles, wild dogs.
9:05 Jeff Larson? Can you get one?
9:06 Wes Larson? Wild dogs.
9:08 Jeff Larson? And hyenas. Yeah, Wes got them all.
9:11 Wes Larson? Thanks, Wes.
9:12 Jeff Larson? And the wild dogs one, like, respect to wild dogs, you know? They're not an easy prey, like leopards and cheetahs won't go after them like we saw a lion on one of our safaris that was pretty messed up from trying to take out a buffalo. Like, they're not an easy animal to take down.
9:33 Wes Larson? Yeah, and wild dogs usually just go for younger or like older or hurt buffalo. For for adult buffalo, like, really, it's just lions and crocodiles that can take, like, strong adult buffalo. Everything else has to go for like opportunistically for like hurt or injured or young.
9:53 Mike Smith? Hurt or injured. Got it.
9:55 Wes Larson? Yeah.
9:55 Jeff Larson? And then I think most people at this show have heard of Africa's big five. I think we've talked about it, but the big five was like first formed because of hunting and like, these are the animals, these are like the five animals you should be most afraid to hunt, and buffalo are one of those animals. And turns out, that has some good reason.
10:21 Speaker 03 Welcome to the 50th Hunger Games.
10:23 Speaker 04 Witness the beginning of the revolution.
10:25 Speaker 05 Hey Mitch, you've been trying to take down these games from the start.
10:28 Speaker 04 Filmed for IMAX.
10:30 Speaker 05 Make them remember you.
10:32 Speaker 04 The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, November 20th, rated PG-13.
10:37 Wes Larson? So you guys know the holidays are right around the corner and they're all about connecting with loved ones. They're here. They're here. Yeah, we just had Thanksgiving, Christmas is right there, whatever other holiday you might celebrate. But I think it's a time of year where people really like to be around loved ones. And a really great way to connect with loved ones, especially maybe people you're not able to see in person, is with the digital picture frame from Aura. Wirecutter actually called it the best digital photo frame. And I do know I have people that ask me which of these I would recommend because they've seen ours in our kitchen. And I always recommend the Aura one because me and Jesse love it. Ours is on display right in our kitchen. We're constantly uploading new photos to it.
11:20 Wes Larson? It's just a really nice way to kind of be reminded of great memories and cool photos and friends and loved ones. And the cool thing about it is you can upload pics to your family's frames or your friends' frames. If you give them connection to your frame, they can then upload photos to it. It'd be really fun. Pretty funny, actually, if the three of us had one that we shared. So it can be like selfies, vacation pics, funny photos, whatever you want to do. It's a really nice gift. It's a great surprise. I really look forward to giving Aura Frames to different friends and family because they always love them. And they're really just like a nice looking frame with good aesthetics.
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12:30 Jeff Larson? Okay, so October 2022, 64-year-old Mario Alberto Canales Nahar is the current president. Yeah, and you know, I kind of get it. In Mexico, they like to give the both parents' name to the kids.
12:52 Wes Larson? It's cool. I like that.
12:52 Jeff Larson? You get four names, you know?
12:54 Wes Larson? Yeah, it's great.
12:54 Jeff Larson? In 2022, he's the president of the Mexican Hunting Federation. So you know, this guy likes to hunt. And Mexico, honestly, for hunting, as far as I know, it's not the best place. Like, not a lot of people are like traveling to Mexico for hunting trips. A lot of their wildlife has been depleted, so then they have a lot of conservation going around. It's mainly like your typical stuff, deer, whatnot. So I'm sure Mario, being the president of the Hunting Federation, kind of is itching to get something a bit bigger, something a bit more noteworthy than his country provides.
13:36 Jeff Larson? So he starts thinking of like, what's a fun animal like that I want to hunt? Starts thinking of a buffalo. Big buffalo, member of the big five. So Wes, if you're in Mexico, you want to hunt a buffalo, where's the closest place you can go?
13:53 Wes Larson? Uh, I'm gonna go to Africa, probably.
13:55 Jeff Larson? Wrong. Argentina.
13:58 Wes Larson? Oh, really? Interesting.
14:00 Jeff Larson? Nah, he went to like a game farm in Argentina. It doesn't really count. It's like a wild buffalo, but
14:08 Wes Larson? He's such a wild buffalo.
14:10 Jeff Larson? There is a game preserve in Argentina that he went to where they were gonna let him shoot a buffalo. Now, Mario should know better as the president of Mexican Hunting Federation, but he didn't have permits to go shoot a buffalo there. He just paid them money to like go in there and let him shoot it. So him and his guide go to the ranch. They drive out like secluded area. The guide leaves his phone in the vehicle. They walk out about a mile and then they see a buffalo. And Mario starts getting set up. He has like a very powerful rifle. It's a 458 caliber, so.
14:54 Wes Larson? Big old caliber.
14:55 Jeff Larson? Yeah, it's a lot of calibers.
14:57 Wes Larson? You're our gun guy. How big of a gun is that, Jeff?
15:00 Jeff Larson? That's like double a 22.
15:04 Mike Smith? I can think of another Mario that could use that kind of firepower. He just goes around stomping goombas. I wonder if he has permits to do that.
15:12 Jeff Larson? Fireballs.
15:13 Mike Smith? That's true. You got me. I rescind all statements.
15:19 Wes Larson? This is funny to me that I I don't get the mindset of a trophy hunter, but I also feel like if I wanted a big African buffalo's mount or skull or whatever on my wall. Oh, like people are gonna ask you about it and I would feel really dumb saying I went to Argentina and shot this in a game farm. Like you would think you would wanna shoot at least shoot it in the wild in a place where they're native to. It just seems strange to like just go pick one out at a game farm in a country where they don't even live. It's really odd.
15:50 Jeff Larson? Well, if you're thinking it's not dangerous enough, you're wrong. Cause he goes out and they find a buffalo and he's pretty close to it. But he starts setting up and then he puts on like headgear or like ear guards, right? So that the noise of this powerful rifle doesn't deafen him. And he puts it on and the guide kinda starts thinking like, you know, we're too close to this thing because they do have a reputation. And he tries to tell Mario, hey, maybe don't shoot this, but Mario can't hear him. These guys had gear on. He's getting lined up for the shot. So the guide pulls out his rifle. He like lines up as well.
16:36 Jeff Larson? Mario takes a shot, instantly dropping the buffalo, thinks the job's done. The guide lowers his arm and then the buffalo pops back up and charges straight at him. The guide had relaxed his position, so he has to pull his rifle up really fast because they are very close. And the buffalo's already like half the distance to them. He takes a shot without really aiming too much, hits it, but doesn't put it down. The buffalo makes contact with Mario, rams him into like the side of, or like at the bottom of a tree. He rams him into the ground.
17:16 Wes Larson? Whoa.
17:17 Jeff Larson? Falls over next to him, but keeps ramming his head into Mario and crushing him into the ground with as much weight as it can muster. And this Argentinian guide shoots the buffalo four more times, killing it. Mario had been crushed. He's not breathing. So he puts him on his shoulders, hikes him out the three kilometers to the vehicle where he can call for help. By the time help gets there, Mario's passed away.
17:46 Wes Larson? Wow. Wow.
17:49 Jeff Larson? So it is interesting. Like that's what you want when you go. That's why people want to shoot buffalo is because of this reputation, because a buffalo can like kill you after you shoot it.
18:03 Jeff Larson? And this person's obviously like a trained hunter. He should know better than to shoot a buffalo this close. But like, when he saw it, he just decided to shoot it. You kind of get what you asked for a bit when you like, if you want to shoot an animal that can kill you. And then it kills you. It's kind of like, well, that's kind of what you wanted to shoot it for in the first place. But it is still sad, you know?
18:28 Wes Larson? Yeah, for sure. There's a reason that like prairie dogs aren't the number one target for trophy hunters.
18:34 Mike Smith? Yeah, they're like four or five, I think, right?
18:37 Wes Larson? Yeah.
18:37 Mike Smith? It does make me, it is, it's easy to kind of poke holes in his strategy and criticize. But it's like, this is the kind of activity where you forget to do one thing. Or like you, it just slips from your brain to like, you lower your gun before you shoot or before the kill is truly confirmed. And it's like, that's how thin the margin of error is. It can just flip so fast and literally lead to your death. It's, it's funny in an ironic kind of way, because this dude was the hunter of hunters, it sounds like in Mexico. But it still is just, it's, it's a telling story of how quickly things can go wrong when you're getting up to this kind of activity, you know?
19:19 Wes Larson? It speaks to like, how. Impressive animals are too. Cause we have this crazy technology. We have insane intelligence compared to other animals. And we still sometimes struggle to kill something like African buffalo.
19:37 Jeff Larson? He had like a very powerful gun and it's like. And that actually is something I want to bring up too is like. They are a difficult animal to hunt also because their horns. Cover most of their skull like.
19:53 Wes Larson? Hmm.
19:53 Jeff Larson? A headshot when you're hunting buffalo just isn't a good idea. Because there's too much horn. There's too much like. Hard material that you have to get through and it can like ricochet off of the horns. So it's pretty much you're just going for heart or lungs when you're shooting at them. And it's easy to like miss into their stomach where they have a ton of compacted grass because they. Eat a lot of grass and that can slow the bullet down. So you have to be really precise with your shot. Headshots are really the only shots that instantly kill an animal. I mean, it's not the only one. But the only one that like for sure, like you can take it down and not be too worried about it getting up and charging you.
20:38 Wes Larson? Right.
20:38 Jeff Larson? With like a longer heart shot, there's still a risk that before it dies, it's going to come at you.
20:43 Wes Larson? Shot to the heart. You know that song, Wes. I do. I just ran through my head.
20:48 Jeff Larson? You give a little. So I also have another story of a British man working on a private reserve in Zimbabwe. His name was Owen Lewis. Is Owen Lewis? Spoiler.
21:02 Wes Larson? Oh, I hate those.
21:05 Jeff Larson? And he's sixty seven. And he was a guide. So an American went out there to. That's not the number.
21:14 Wes Larson? I see what you're doing though. It's only like two away from it.
21:19 Wes Larson? That's funny Jeff.
21:20 Jeff Larson? So, nice. Someone named Alan Bun came out to shoot a buffalo, right?
21:27 Wes Larson? Uh huh.
21:28 Jeff Larson? So they go out there, they're lined up on one and this American takes the shot and doesn't hit it in a critical kill spot. So the buffalo runs away injured, but not killed. So Owen, he's a pro Owen Lewis, Owen Lewis, Lewis, and he's like, obviously still cares about the animals. So he doesn't want an animal, like most all hunters still care, care about animals. They don't want like a long suffering death. No one wants that.
22:02 Wes Larson? It's kind of bad form. If you're a hunter and you like do a bad enough shot that the animal takes a long time to die, you're not, like, you're not doing a great job then. And they like want a quick, clean kill. Good hunters do.
22:16 Jeff Larson? Right. Well, and he was the guide, so he's not taking the shot, but I'm sure he's kind of frustrated that this person he's guiding didn't get the critical shot. But like I said, like buffalo's a hard animal to take down. So he tracks it for three days, like following this blood trail, just like keeps following it. He's like determined to make sure this animal gets put, put down because he knows it's been shot. And he's walking by some pretty thick brush and he's actually right next to a buffalo, but doesn't realize it. So this buffalo bursts through the brush,
22:57 Jeff Larson? throws him in the air, rips him open with its horns and then crushes him with its feet and kills him.
23:04 Wes Larson? Wow.
23:04 Mike Smith? Whoa. Oh, man.
23:07 Jeff Larson? His kids, uh, he had a kid in the United States and New Zealand. They came out to Zimbabwe for the funeral. It's where he wanted to be buried. It's like where his heart really was with, with the animals is Zimbabwe. But people who owned the ranch said like, that he's a man who has forgotten more about Africa and hunting than the younger professional hunters will ever learn.
23:33 Jeff Larson? Like he just knew a ton. He was like a real expert in it. And it just goes to show like even the best are in danger when you're targeting buffalo. Because buffalo, another thing about them is like, Wes, I'm gonna let you get to it soon, but
23:51 Mike Smith? Yeah.
23:52 Jeff Larson? Especially when they're wounded, their amount of danger that they pose to humans, if they're wounded, it increases exponentially.
24:02 Mike Smith? For sure.
24:03 Jeff Larson? Yep. So like, that's, that's like their natural instinct. First, it's to probably run from like lions or whatever, but like if they're severely wounded, it's to turn and fight.
24:14 Speaker 03 Welcome to the 50th Hunger Games.
24:16 Speaker 04 Witness the beginning of the revolution.
24:18 Speaker 05 Hey Mitch, you've been trying to take down these games from the start.
24:21 Speaker 04 Filmed for IMAX.
24:23 Speaker 05 Make them remember you.
24:25 Speaker 04 The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Weeping, November 20th, rated PG-13.
24:30 Mike Smith? So guys, I think I, of anyone I know, have the hardest time being healthy through the end of the year. The month of December is just ripe with pastries, cakes, pies, chocolates.
24:44 Jeff Larson? Beef sticks?
24:45 Mike Smith? Beef sticks. That's a staple of my year-round diet, but it's hard to stay motivated and to stay on top of being healthy when you're trading out, you know, your salad for another slice of pie that you had from the night before. And that's where AG1 comes in. Even when you're on the road, if you're traveling, there's the travel packs that you can get full of all kinds of amazing stuff that'll keep you healthy. It tastes amazing. My routine is I wake up every morning, I stir myself a little packet into a cup of water, and I know from that point forward, no matter what else happens throughout the rest of my day, I've made at least one good decision. Gotten started on the right foot.
25:25 Jeff Larson? That's enough. One's enough.
25:27 Mike Smith? It's honestly, sometimes it is, just to, you know.
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26:07 Jeff Larson? Wes, let's hear a bit more about like the buffalo biology before I get into the other stories.
26:14 Wes Larson? Yeah. So like Jeff mentioned, African buffalo is the name of the species, but there's five different subspecies in Africa. The Cape buffalo being the one that's most often thought of when you talk about African buffalo. It's the one that you usually see on safari in South Africa or Eastern Africa. And they get to be really big, too. They can be up to 11 feet long, five and a half feet tall at the shoulder, and almost 2,000 pounds, the biggest ones. So they can be-
26:42 Jeff Larson? What NBA player would you compare him to?
26:45 Wes Larson? I don't know. I probably wouldn't. I'd say they're more of a football player than an NBA player. They're very, very big, but that's a great question. I'll think about it. It wasn't in my notes. They do have some sexual dimorphism. Females tend to be a couple hundred pounds shorter or smaller than the males. And they are the fifth biggest mammal in Africa. So what do you guys think are the four?
27:08 Mike Smith? Six when your mom is there. Sorry, Cindy.
27:14 Wes Larson? What are the four that are bigger than them?
27:17 Jeff Larson? Elephant, African elephant.
27:20 Mike Smith? Giraffe?
27:21 Wes Larson? Yes.
27:22 Jeff Larson? Rhino?
27:23 Wes Larson? Yeah.
27:24 Jeff Larson? Can I do two rhinos?
27:26 Wes Larson? No, and hippo.
27:27 Jeff Larson? White and black rhino?
27:29 Wes Larson? Good job.
27:30 Mike Smith? Oh, that's a good.
27:31 Wes Larson? So those are some species. Yeah. So yeah, in order, it would be the biggest elephant, then rhinoceros, then hippopotamus, then giraffe, and then Cape buffalo. So they are quite big. One of their most distinctive characteristics. Oh, go ahead.
27:45 Jeff Larson? They're pretty similar size to bison, as.
27:49 Wes Larson? Yeah, they are.
27:50 Jeff Larson? Right?
27:51 Wes Larson? Yeah, and bison are like our biggest land mammal. So it just shows how big mammals are in Africa. This is the fifth biggest. Jeff mentioned one of their most distinctive characteristics, and it's that they have these huge horns. Both males and females have horns, but males are bigger. And with males, they have these fused bases that go across their forehead. And that continuous shield of horns is often referred to as a boss, which I think is a really cool name for horns. Yeah. Uh, another cool thing about them, buffaloes have bigger hooves in the front because of their huge shoulders and their heavy heads with their horns. They need more absorption, shock absorption in the front.
28:36 Wes Larson? So they actually have bigger hooves in the front than they do in the back. They tend to drink about forty liters of water every day. So there's a saying in Africa.
28:44 Mike Smith? Damn.
28:45 Wes Larson? Yeah. If you're around African buffalo, you're within a day of water because they have to stay within a certain range of water because they need it every single day. They have a really interesting group behavior. And it's kind of like a voting behavior almost, where when they're resting, females will occasionally stand up and kind of shuffle around and sit back down again. And they all sit in the direction that they think the herd should move next. And after they shuffle around, the more females that are pointing in one direction, that's the direction that they're gonna move. And it's like not a dominance thing or a hierarchy thing. It's just kind of like voting.
29:28 Wes Larson? Like, hey, which way should we go next? Which is really cool. They can travel in huge groups, up to 2,000 animals. Those groups are often called herds, but they can also be called gangs, troops, or an obstinacy. Um, which is a cool name for a group.
29:42 Mike Smith? Yeah, I like that actually a lot.
29:44 Wes Larson? Calves often suckle from behind the back legs, which allows them to suckle while they're on the move, which is pretty cool, too. That's not typical for like, usually they kind of saddle up to the side of the mom, but they can actually go from behind the legs.
29:58 Jeff Larson? Yeah, you suckled from the side.
30:00 Wes Larson? Yeah, I, yep, but you suckled from behind.
30:06 Wes Larson? All right. So Jeff mentioned their predators, really it's lions and crocodiles that kill adults, wild dogs and hyenas, and then occasionally a leopard or a cheetah can take down young or weak in buffalo. But the main four, like Jeff mentioned, are lions, crocodiles, hyenas, and wild dogs. Okay, and something that you brought up, Jeff, that I had in my notes, which was great, was those nicknames. I think the widow maker nickname, we talked about it a bit already, but I think it's especially telling of the danger these animals pose and to the specific people they pose danger to. Widow maker makes a lot of sense because it's usually men that are killed by buffalo, and it's usually hunters.
30:48 Wes Larson? And that is, goes back into that discussion we started of the difference between dangerous and like lethal. They, from the research I did, buffalo don't kill that many people compared to all these other animals that kill people in Africa. So what I tend to do when, when we're talking about one of these African animals that have these legends about them, is look at papers from the countries where there's the most of them. And I feel like in those countries, that's where you would expect then to see the most deaths, because there's a higher number of this animal. So I looked at a few papers, one from Tanzania, where there's the most Cape buffalo of any country in Tanzania.
31:32 Wes Larson? And there, there's a paper that they do every few years that just highlights all of the human conflict from every animal in the country. Tanzania has a lot of deaths from, from animals, a lot. And. They don't even talk about buffalo in this paper because there's so few deaths attributed to them. And the ones that are, it's always the person harassing the animal first. So someone either has a bad shot, or it's like a conservation filmmaker or something, maybe that's like kind of rustling in brush that they shouldn't be in, and they surprise one. This isn't an animal that targets us, or that we're, we're not sharing resources like with
32:14 Wes Larson? elephants where they come into people's crops and then they, you know, trample someone or something because they're trying to run them out of their fields. That doesn't really happen with these guys. The person is almost always the aggressor when a buffalo decides to attack. And that's why they're insanely dangerous, but in these circumstances that we put them in. So it's like, if you were to be tracking an animal on foot that's injured, this is probably the, the last one that you want to be doing. Yeah, go ahead.
32:47 Jeff Larson? I would say, but especially in situation, because like, I think they're still dangerous, even without if we're hunting them.
32:56 Wes Larson? Yeah, but only at close proximity and only if you push them. Like, what I'm saying is that they don't put themselves in situations that are dangerous to us. We always put ourselves in those situations. So like, if you're just on safari in Africa and you're doing it right, your chances of having any problems with buffalo are like essentially zero. But you could have an issue with an elephant. You could have an issue with the rhinoceros. But that's not going to happen with this animal. They just don't, if you're being safe, they're not going to bother you. It's kind of like bison. Everyone that gets hurt by a bison is pushing that bison in some way. Um, I think bovines in general, like even bulls, we talked about the running of the bulls. Bulls aren't just going to like, run out and
33:40 Wes Larson? charge you. You have to like, put yourself into their space for them to do that. And then if you're hurting them, they become like the most dangerous animal on earth, where they're just like a freight train that you can't stop. And I think with Cape buffalo, it's even more so, because they are Are just like built in such a way that they're hard to kill. They're vengeful, which is pretty crazy. Like if you hurt a buffalo. Or if you kill like one of the members of their their herd, they actually had been known to like. Follow that person or try and like get revenge on them.
34:14 Mike Smith? What if you like their wife dies and then you kill their dog? What do you think they'll do in that situation?
34:21 Wes Larson? Then yeah, they turn they turn into John Wick. Exactly.
34:25 Mike Smith? Yeah, it's bad.
34:26 Jeff Larson? They would. That's a lot of the stats of it.
34:29 Wes Larson? So I found one other paper that I thought was really interesting. It's from Mozambique, another place that has a lot of buffalo. A lot of human wildlife conflict. They did a study over 27 months in the 2000s. And there's 265 people killed by animals during that time and 82 injured. And the number one was crocodiles. They killed 134 people. Next was elephants, 31 people. Lions next with 24, then hippos with 12, then buffalo with one. So they are they are dangerous. But and I and I like you brought up earlier.
35:10 Wes Larson? I have to be that person that's kind of like, oh, when people say they're the most dangerous animal. But I do think we that's not like other countries that just do that. We do that in the US too. You know, when you bring up a wolverine, people say, oh, they run grizzly bears off kills. They're the most dangerous animal out there. And it's like, well, they're actually not, you know? And I do think those myths are easy to pass around. And they're always based on a nugget of truth. And Jeff's stories are highlighting that. That if you put this animal in the right conditions, this is the most dangerous animal in Africa. But it's almost always humans that lead to those conditions.
35:49 Mike Smith? I'm thinking probably the myths, if you want to call them that, are perpetuated by the fact that it is an animal that people often hunt and that by necessity puts them in the line of danger. It's not like people are hunting Nile crocodiles necessarily, like they're hunting buffalo. So there's like, the encounters differ in such a way that I think the stories that get passed and shared around are just different by nature, you know?
36:16 Wes Larson? Exactly. That's what I was saying earlier, like lions and crocodiles, those are animals that occasionally target people. They go out of their way to get a person. Elephants are constantly in conflict with people because we share resources. This is an animal where there really isn't that potential for conflict at the same level. So that's why we're not seeing a lot more deaths from buffalo. But when they are in conflict, they're incredibly, incredibly dangerous animals.
36:44 Jeff Larson? Yeah. And I do think, I don't know, I would, I'd be interested to see what your numbers would say in Zimbabwe, or like the area we were actually just in, Victoria Falls area.
36:57 Wes Larson? Yeah.
36:57 Jeff Larson? Botswana, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. Because like, I think that where there's the most buffalo, they also have like the most space. So they don't really, like, a lot of these upcoming stories, they're in like smaller spaces.
37:15 Wes Larson? Yeah.
37:15 Jeff Larson? Where poachers will go through the fences, they'll get through the fence and then they'll be in like areas of people in close proximity and they'll attack people, you know?
37:25 Wes Larson? Yeah. Those, those countries that you just listed two are the like countries where they're hunted the most heavily. And so I think a lot of the accounts you're gonna see from, from Cape buffalo are gonna come out of South Africa and Zimbabwe especially.
37:40 Jeff Larson? I did see some stories too of just like kids walking to school, killed by a buffalo, stuff like that.
37:47 Mike Smith? Yeah. And I think it's interesting too, that while we were there, and this is definitely more anecdotal than empirical evidence, but whenever the conversation turned towards buffalo with any of our local guides, those were, it seemed like those were the animals they were most scared of, out of anything else in their area, you know? It's really interesting to hear.
38:08 Wes Larson? I I think, though, like, a really interesting thing about Africa in general, like, the these safari countries in Africa that we've gone to recently, is that a lot of the information that has kind of trickled into safari guiding comes from hunting. You know, like, even the big five.
38:24 Jeff Larson? Sure.
38:25 Wes Larson? Like, the big five originated in hunting, and that industry has turned in Africa from, and I keep saying Africa, I know that's like, it's a huge continent. I mean, like, these safari nations that we've gone to that have a lot of safari industry, that the industry has gone from hunting and it's turned into wildlife viewing. And a lot of that information is carried over, and that that counts like with dangerous animals, too. So I do think, you know, like, crocodiles aren't as interesting to tell people, like, that's the animal that kills the most, or snakes, like, it's not as interesting to say, yeah, you know, thirty thousand people die from snakes.
39:05 Wes Larson? But if you were to put me in a cage match, like, I'd much rather be in there with a puff adder than I would a Cape buffalo, because they are more dangerous, you know? So that's kind of where I'm at.
39:16 Jeff Larson? Yeah, and to go along with what Wes is saying, I have a few encounters with poachers, who, you know, are asking for a little bit, like, people, like Wes was saying, putting themselves closer to these animals and putting themselves in danger. So in two thousand and twelve, there were people in South Africa in the Kruger National Park who wanted to go poach fish from the river with gill nets, which is illegal, because you can catch too many, you can deplete the fish pretty fast. They were going to the river and they stumbled across a lone buffalo.
39:56 Jeff Larson? The animal immediately charged and injured one of the men, so the other three carried him away, but left him under a tree to get help, and once they came back, he he had died from his injuries. So that is one little story, but another one, this year in Kruger National Park, some poachers went in and they were targeting buffalo. So they were poaching buffalo, they were trying to kill buffalo for the meat, for the, like, selling, whatever, like, you know, poachers can make money from anything, but yeah. So they went and they shot the buffalo. The buffalo charged and killed one of the four people in their group, but they were there illegally poaching.
40:40 Jeff Larson? Poaching laws have gotten a lot stricter in Africa. So their friends didn't know really what to do. This friend of theirs had just died. So the three people went and like left him by the fence. And went to his family and said, hey, like he was just wandering around over there and uh he just died. Like they didn't have a good lie.
41:02 Wes Larson? Yeah.
41:03 Mike Smith? Oh, no.
41:03 Jeff Larson? So then the family went and got him and uh they took him to the undertaker. And he was just like. Yeah. And he was just like, wait a second, like this guy didn't just die. Like he has like a ton of bruises and like gashes and like broken bones. So he immediately called the police and was like, this looks like he was killed by a buffalo. And the police went and found the three friends and they had to go to jail.
41:38 Wes Larson? I don't know. He just died. That's what happens when you die is all your bones break and you have huge like wounds from.
41:46 Mike Smith? Internal bleeding.
41:47 Wes Larson? Yeah.
41:49 Jeff Larson? Most of all my stories so far, they've gotten some hits with the horns, but they've mainly died from being crushed by the buffalo. So here's two different cases of how people died from buffalo. So in Victoria Falls, which is where we were at, someone was watching a big group or his cattle, a thirty eight year old named Given. And he was like looking after her to cattle when he says that he came across a buffalo. The buffalo charged him and ripped open his stomach with its horn. And he had to like grab its two horns and just like hold on for dear life.
42:29 Wes Larson? Yeah.
42:30 Jeff Larson? So it already like gashed him and now he's just holding the horns. The buffalo keeps coming at him and then eventually it disengaged and left. And he gets up and his intestines come out of his stomach. So he takes off his shirt, ties them back in and like walks to the village. Goes to the hospital, gets some help, gets patched up. But then unfortunately for him, like he had to go to the hospital and things didn't really add up with this story. And they found out that he was watching his cattle, but when he saw the buffalo, he decided to poach it. He decided, I'm gonna kill this buffalo and
43:15 Jeff Larson? eat it to me, which you can't do.
43:17 Wes Larson? Nope, you're not allowed to do that.
43:19 Jeff Larson? And he knew that he'd get in trouble. So he made up the story that the buffalo just attacked him for no unprovoked. Also, in 2028, a 35 year old woman from Chimpingji, she was just walking around to gather firewood for her family. And there was a buffalo in the bushes where she was going next to that she didn't see. The buffalo attacked her, ripped her stomach open, her intestines fell out. The village had to like, come get her, try to help her, but she died before she could even get to help for it.
43:59 Wes Larson? Yeah.
43:59 Jeff Larson? Man.
44:00 Wes Larson? Usually when your intestines come out, it's not.
44:02 Jeff Larson? Fifty fifty from what I'm seeing.
44:05 Wes Larson? Really?
44:06 Mike Smith? Wow.
44:06 Jeff Larson? Well, that's two stories.
44:08 Mike Smith? Oh, yeah, I guess.
44:09 Wes Larson? Oh, yeah.
44:11 Wes Larson? It'd be a good, it'd be a good story if you ever like got to see your intestines and then you survived. Like, who gets to see that?
44:18 Jeff Larson? Just like stuff them back in and.
44:20 Wes Larson? Yeah.
44:21 Jeff Larson? Yeah, it's crazy.
44:22 Wes Larson? You get to know your body a lot better than anyone else.
44:25 Jeff Larson? For sure.
44:26 Speaker 03 Welcome to the 50th Hunger Games.
44:28 Speaker 04 Witness the beginning of the revolution.
44:31 Speaker 05 Hey Mitch, you've been trying to take down these games from the start.
44:34 Speaker 04 Filmed for IMAX.
44:35 Speaker 05 Make them remember you.
44:38 Speaker 04 The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, November 20th, rated PG-13.
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47:14 Jeff Larson? All right, so those are like some smaller stories and I'm doing a lot of small stories because honestly, a lot of these Buffalo attacks are
47:24 Wes Larson? Pretty similar.
47:25 Jeff Larson? Pretty under-reported, like there's not a ton of detail. You can find a bunch of articles on it, but they all say the exact same thing.
47:32 Wes Larson? Yeah.
47:33 Jeff Larson? But I, I don't know, I thought they were all interesting. And I have one last one of someone who was like very revered in Zimbabwe, kind of a local hero who died just 11 months ago. So his name was John Digby Bristow. Well, he had a privately managed 32,000 acre property with like a bunch of animal habitats on it. I think that's like, kind of, I would guess like the size of Massachusetts, like around that.
48:05 Wes Larson? How long is it?
48:06 Jeff Larson? From what I saw. 32,000 acres.
48:09 Wes Larson? Yeah, I think Massachusetts is a lot bigger than that.
48:11 Jeff Larson? I saw a bunch of like things that were being very confusing about it.
48:16 Wes Larson? Okay.
48:17 Jeff Larson? They'd say like, it's a thousand times smaller than like Arizona or something. I was like, what? Like it's hard to.
48:26 Wes Larson? Weird comparison.
48:28 Jeff Larson? Anyways, this person who owned it, he was very into conservation. He was very into like Zimbabwe as a whole, making it a better place for tourism, making it a better place for the residents there. Zimbabwe has a lot of controversy right now about white Africans and black Africans and just how they are in, how the white people of Zimbabwe have kind of taken advantage too much of the black citizens. And John was a white African, but he was very much on the side of like helping the black citizens of Zimbabwe, giving them opportunities. And one of the things he is most famous for in his life.
49:13 Jeff Larson? Became kind of a local legend because of his contribution to an establishment called the Mengpangway Transfrontier Park. So it's this huge section of land that Zimbabwe, Botswana, and South Africa created together for like the wildlife to have all of this range between the three countries, which is pretty rare in Africa. Like when we were in Kenya, one of our guides even told us that Tanzania tried to block off part of the migration to just keep the animals in Tanzania. Like, a lot of these countries do try to limit, like, keep their animals in their country.
49:55 Wes Larson? There's not a lot of cooperation sometimes.
49:57 Jeff Larson? And then, yeah, so these three countries are really cooperating and it's something that I think is very important for Africa as a whole, to kind of get behind this idea of these borders are, don't need to pertain to all the animals in here. To Africa's credit, they do have a ton of animals. They have done like a great job of preserving what they have, in my opinion. But there also can be a lot of steps for progress. And this is a, this was a big step. And John was a key part of it because he put his land into this agreement.
50:31 Wes Larson? Again, too, I think like when we say Africa, we're painting with like a very wide brush because there's like so many different countries there and they're vastly different. But I think, like, there are some really, some countries that have done a really great job with conservation there, especially like in East Africa and Southern Africa.
50:53 Jeff Larson? Yeah, I mean, there's a reason so many people travel to Africa to see animals. They've like preserved a lot of their animals, you know?
51:00 Wes Larson? Yeah.
51:02 Jeff Larson? So he also hosted something is a really famous bike ride called the Tour de l'Tour Li, which like is a mountain bike adventure that's 300 kilometers.
51:15 Jeff Larson? So it's like this huge, like you go through South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe and he would like set up camps on his land and host the group and.
51:26 Mike Smith? Is it like a competition or is it just kind of a tourist kind of attraction?
51:32 Jeff Larson? It's not like the Tour de France or anything. It's more like a like go mountain biking with, like they do do it in a group. I don't think it's competition. I think it's like you want to go mount mountain biking on like slick rock in Africa with wildlife. And another cool thing, so his land they owned was called the Sentinel Ranch. Another cool thing was it has like a lot of dinosaur fossils. And instead of like digging them up and selling them or whatever, he preserved them. He like encourages locals to come on his land and see them.
52:08 Mike Smith? That's cool.
52:08 Jeff Larson? And.
52:09 Mike Smith? That's awesome.
52:10 Jeff Larson? Yeah. And they were pretty cool dinosaur fossils. So yeah, from what I was seeing, he he just really more than anything wanted people to love Africa, love the wildlife. You could knock him a little bit because he did have hunts on his land, but I think pretty much every privately owned like game reserve type of situation and most of these countries do allow some hunting and I didn't see too much about the details of that. But yeah, so John also had a lot of problems with poaching. He understood that there were a lot of Zimbabweans
52:50 Jeff Larson? who weren't as fortunate as him, but also just like his main priority was wildlife and conservation. So he was very, very, very against poaching. Actually worked with the national leaders of Zimbabwe to get heavier fines on poachers and to enforce more punishment on poachers. He thought like, to me, people are getting away with poaching. To me, people who are caught poaching don't have any repercussions. So he really helped a lot to get like poaching to be taken more seriously and punished more harshly, which is great because we were there
53:33 Jeff Larson? and like we saw a lot of the side effects of poaching and it's not great, like the painted dogs. In Africa, like really struggle from poaching and they're not even trying to get painted dogs, but that just wipes them out. Obviously, he had very strong anti-poaching in his blood, right? And in December of 2023, John and his wife Vanessa were patrolling some of his rented land and they saw a buffalo who had been caught in a gin trap. So do you know what those ones are?
54:10 Wes Larson? I don't think so.
54:11 Jeff Larson? Those are like the metal claws that clamp on a leg and was like heavily limping and wounded. So then John was like, we gotta help this animal.
54:22 Speaker 03 Welcome to the 50th Hunger Games.
54:24 Speaker 04 Witness the beginning of the revolution.
54:27 Speaker 05 Hey Mitch, you've been trying to take down these games from Star.
54:29 Speaker 04 Filmed for IMAX.
54:31 Speaker 05 Make them remember you.
54:33 Speaker 04 The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, November 20th, rated PG-13.
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57:26 Jeff Larson? Okay, so John sees this buffalo. It's, it's struggling to walk. His blood is boiling a bit because his lifelong battle with poachers, they've been taking about 30 animals a month from his property, mainly impalas, but also some, what are they called? Elan?
57:46 Mike Smith? Elans, yeah.
57:47 Jeff Larson? Elans and kudus. Yeah.
57:50 Mike Smith? Those are all cool.
57:51 Jeff Larson? And he said that like groups of 30 men would enter the property with dogs and big spotlights and he had a lot of land. He would try to patrol it, but it was hard, especially the rented properties. And they would use huge spotlights to temporarily blind the animals and then kill them. And then they would use donkeys to haul them out of there. Like I said, though, he's had a lot of animals taken off his property. He's worried about his predators not having enough prey. He's worried about everything. So this just gets his blood boiling. He wants to go and see if he can help this buffalo, see if it can survive.
58:32 Jeff Larson? So they drive up, he, he exits the vehicle, he approaches the buffalo, he gets about thirty meters away. When the buffalo turns and charges and it, he has a gun ready, he shoots at it. But head first, it's hard to kill it. So doesn't kill it. The buffalo makes contact with him. And starts crushing John. He tries to like crawl out from under it. But the buffalo keeps crushing him into the dry African earth. And it's like very hard ground we were out there. So then Vanessa is watching in horror as her husband, who's like meant so much to this land.
59:16 Jeff Larson? Is being crushed before our eyes. So then the buffalo ends up crushing John to death in front of her. She goes and gets help. They kill the buffalo, they recover his body. The whole country, like the president, the vice president, everyone's been mourning his death because of how much. He meant to like the tourism of the country and just everyone around him. And like it all could have been avoided without poaching, like poaching really. Just does such a number on some of these places, you know?
59:49 Mike Smith? Sad. It is really sad. It's so sad because like he lived his whole life. Serving these animals, you know, and I don't blame the animal at all. Right. But it's just sucks. Yeah.
1:00:00 Jeff Larson? Like to what Wes was saying. Every, so I told what six stories, seven stories, but like every story except for the lady getting firewood. They're kind of asking for it, you know, they were going into like the buffalo's area, they were hunting the buffalo. Even John, like it's unfortunate, his intentions were great, but he shouldn't have got thirty meters away from a injured buffalo, you know? Do you guys having questions about buffalo, any of these attacks?
1:00:31 Wes Larson? No, I think I was at a conference once where I heard a story told by a survivor of a Cape Buffalo attack. And that's probably the one I'm gonna do when I get to these guys at some point. Super harrowing. And I think it's hard to underestimate or overestimate the amount of damage an animal this big and this territorial and defensive can do to a person in very little time. And when Jeff says like crushing, they use that like that boss on their head just to like push people into the ground and just pulverize them. So like, I think when we see horns, we think, oh, pointy, sharp, kind of, you know, but they also use those as like a crushing
1:01:12 Wes Larson? implement. So it, these are animals that are built to a level where they can repel an adult African lion attack. We just are no match for them. So it is, it like, this is a very intimidating animal.
1:01:27 Jeff Larson? And it's crazy, like, having been to Africa, like, what was really eye opening to me is just how much lions do impact like that entire ecosystem and environment. And like, there's areas where where they'll kill adult elephants, which is insane. And so like, these buffalo are always kind of scared. So like, they're, they're big enough that they can do a ton of damage to a human. And then like, they're in environments where they can never really be relaxed. So like, yeah, always a bad combination, you know?
1:02:06 Mike Smith? Yeah. Yeah. We touched on this a little bit earlier, but when we were on safari, driving around, every once in a while, we would come across one of these bosses that from a deceased buffalo. And it's pretty shocking how thick and substantial and hefty they are.
1:02:24 Jeff Larson? Scores in the world.
1:02:25 Mike Smith? They really are so cool. But like, imagine just getting crushed down into the ground by just this skull that's inches thick, you know, and it's thick as parth. It's really, really intense.
1:02:37 Jeff Larson? I think of your mountain goat, uh, story you told Mike, where like, The mountain goat killed someone with how sharp its horns were. But like, mountain goats don't have a ton of weight on them.
1:02:49 Wes Larson? This is two thousand pounds.
1:02:51 Jeff Larson? This is, yeah, thousand to two thousand pound animal with sharp horns that can like, slice you open. So like, it's just insane.
1:03:00 Wes Larson? There, it's definitely on the shortlist of skulls that I would want from an animal. Like, if I could have one like that just died naturally or whatever. This is definitely one that I would be very interested in having because they're really cool looking skulls.
1:03:16 Jeff Larson? Yeah, they really are. Okay, so let's go into our categories then.
1:03:22 Mike Smith? Let's go.
1:03:23 Jeff Larson? Favorite pop culture buffalo.
1:03:25 Wes Larson? I had a hard time with this one because I didn't want to include it like a bison. So I picked the movie, uh, Crocodile Dundee. I can't remember if it's the first one or the second one. But there's a scene, and I think water buffalo got introduced to Australia. And some of them are feral or wild. There's a scene where there's like one in the road in front of him. And he walks out and goes like, meow, meow, meow, and like puts his fingers out and does this thing and, and the buffalo moves off. And I feel like it, it's kind of implied that he's kind of like with the people in the car too, like, that he didn't actually do anything. He knew it was just gonna like walk off.
1:04:05 Wes Larson? But, um, it's, I just remembered that scene. I always thought like, man, Crocodile Dundee is so cool. So, uh, that's the, that's the one that I thought of when you asked.
1:04:15 Mike Smith? I, I had a hard time too. I came up with a couple of answers that aren't specifically the animal. So I came up with the Buffalo Sabres. They're my favorite hockey team.
1:04:27 Mike Smith? And then the opening track on fully, uh, the Fallout Boy album. My favorite, one of my favorite albums ever is the disloyal order of water buffaloes. It's a great track. I love it.
1:04:37 Jeff Larson? All right. Yeah, no, I mean, I just went with Josh Allen, but like, I feel like that's not a good answer. Because like, it's the Buffalo Bills.
1:04:47 Jeff Larson? And like
1:04:49 Mike Smith? It's a bison reference.
1:04:50 Jeff Larson? Was like a bison reference. Yeah, exactly.
1:04:53 Mike Smith? That's true.
1:04:54 Jeff Larson? I feel like Africa has some like Buffalo mascots and like teams and stuff. I'm just not very familiar with it and America doesn't really have. I mean, I think it's a gaping hole, you know?
1:05:06 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:05:07 Jeff Larson? It's some Buffalo representation.
1:05:09 Mike Smith? Yeah, let's go.
1:05:10 Wes Larson? There's some, there's some animated movie. It may be like one of the Madagascar ones or something. Where there's a Kate Buffalo that gets really angry. And I can't place it. So if anyone out there listening thinks of it, I, I have this image of it like, like steam coming out of its ears and it like attacking something, but I can't remember what it is.
1:05:31 Jeff Larson? I wonder if Netherlands have any Buffalo stuff because they kind of have like the Dutch boy. They look like a Dutch boy haircut with their horns.
1:05:41 Mike Smith? The middle part?
1:05:42 Jeff Larson? Turn to the side and have the middle part and stuff.
1:05:45 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:05:46 Wes Larson? It's kind of a reach.
1:05:47 Mike Smith? That's it. Yeah.
1:05:47 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:05:48 Mike Smith? Maybe.
1:05:49 Jeff Larson? Okay. Your favorite buff guy?
1:05:51 Mike Smith? This one, man, I, I'm starting to hate doing this, but it's a reference you, neither of you will really get. It's from Fullmetal Alchemist. It's, um, Alex Armstrong, a character that's beloved by everyone that watches that show. I would encourage everyone to give it a try. It's, um, it's just an amazing show, but he's like my favorite character in that whole show.
1:06:14 Wes Larson? I, I had to pick Arnold. Have you guys ever seen Pumping Iron?
1:06:18 Mike Smith? Of course. Yeah.
1:06:20 Jeff Larson? It's so funny.
1:06:21 Mike Smith? Amazing.
1:06:21 Wes Larson? It's so funny and like early Arnold, when he was just a bodybuilder. He's so cocky and funny and like weirdly open. He just like says everything like that whole part where he talks about like, how bodybuilding is the same as being with a woman, but he says it much more graphically. He's just so funny and such a legend that it's gotta be Arnold for me. I have to pick him. Yeah.
1:06:50 Jeff Larson? No, that's the best pick. I'll go with Bane from Batman.
1:06:55 Mike Smith? Oh, yeah.
1:06:56 Jeff Larson? She's a great buff boy.
1:06:57 Wes Larson? It's tough. Super buff.
1:07:01 Wes Larson? I was, you were merely, you merely accepted the darkness. I was born into it.
1:07:09 Wes Larson? Something like that.
1:07:10 Jeff Larson? All right. Favorite pop culture moment of someone who's severely wounded, just like going crazy. I can start on this one. I went with The Raid, The Raid Redemption, one of my favorite movies. Oh, Wes had it. Mad Dog, was that gonna be yours?
1:07:27 Wes Larson? Uh huh.
1:07:28 Mike Smith? It crossed my mind, yeah.
1:07:29 Jeff Larson? Break the glass and stab him in the neck and he just like is fighting two people at once by choice for some reason. And then he just like gets even harder to kill after they like almost kill him type of a situation.
1:07:45 Wes Larson? Yeah, my mind immediately went to Mad Dog and The Raid too.
1:07:48 Jeff Larson? He's just the best fighter ever. I love Mad Dog.
1:07:51 Wes Larson? So beat up and he's still just like keeps fighting and you think he's gonna beat two people. He's just like so tough. Yeah, so it was hard for me to think of anything else, but I can, I'll just say like John Wick at in the, I think the third one where he travels to Morocco and gets his finger cut off and stuff. I feel like that one, he gets really messed up.
1:08:14 Jeff Larson? The more he gets beat up, the like more dangerous he is.
1:08:18 Wes Larson? Yeah, yeah. So I'll say John Wick.
1:08:20 Mike Smith? Yeah, I had a tough time thinking of anything outside of The Raid. This is like a real moment of synchronicity between the three of us. But I know this doesn't quite match the category completely, but that moment in Punch Drunk Love when he gets in the car accident. And he gets out and beats all those punks up that hit his car with a tire iron. It's like, Adam Sandler's character has been so kind of nebbish and shy. And not proactive at all. And then, then he just finally like snaps in that moment. And then he's like right back to his normal self after he gets done beating him up. He's not like severely injured though, which is why it wasn't a great match, but.
1:08:59 Jeff Larson? Yeah, I feel like Dominic, Dominic Toretto, like when he gets shot, he's like way more dangerous.
1:09:06 Wes Larson? Yeah, he just flinches and then like goes and kills the person that shot him. Another one, another one that I just thought of is Levi from Attack on Titan.
1:09:15 Mike Smith? Oh, yeah.
1:09:15 Wes Larson? I feel like he, there's so many scenes where he gets like really cut up or messed up. And he just becomes even more lethal and dangerous.
1:09:23 Jeff Larson? Yeah, I feel like pretty much every anime character.
1:09:26 Mike Smith? That's, yeah. I thought of like a hundred, but I was like, I can't do two anime references in one round of categories.
1:09:33 Jeff Larson? Like Luffy has fought so many bosses now. And every single time he's like died before he beats him.
1:09:42 Mike Smith? Right.
1:09:43 Jeff Larson? All right, should we do, let's do cage match. And I wanted Wes to kind of run us through it, but first of all, I wanted to know. What do you think Bison versus African Buffalo?
1:09:56 Wes Larson? African Buffalo, they're, like you said, they're about the same size, but they.
1:10:01 Jeff Larson? They have like that helmet horn.
1:10:03 Wes Larson? Yeah, the helmet horns, they're just so. And they're, they're more, I think they're like more defensive than a Bison's gonna be.
1:10:12 Jeff Larson? Like Bison have to be prepped for grizzly bears is pretty much it.
1:10:17 Wes Larson? And wolves, yeah.
1:10:19 Jeff Larson? Yeah, yeah. Is it because with especially Buffalo, because like their predators are kind of low to the ground? Is that why they toss people up in the air a lot of the time?
1:10:32 Wes Larson? I don't know, because Bison do it too. And they kind of just like get their heads under and throw them up. Both these animals have really pronounced powerful shoulders and necks. And I think it's just like.
1:10:43 Jeff Larson? They're like the leg guy meme where it's like.
1:10:47 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:10:47 Jeff Larson? People at the gym who only do upper body.
1:10:49 Mike Smith? Yeah, skip leg day.
1:10:51 Wes Larson? But I think, I think what you hinted at earlier, just Bison have a few natural predators and they definitely have to constantly be wary of them. But it's hard to compare anything to what animals in Africa have to deal with when it comes to predation. It's a constant threat. And a pride of lions is pretty much more dangerous than anything else out there. So I would just say.
1:11:14 Wes Larson? This is a highly defensive animal that's really built for combat. And bison are too, but the horns on the, I think the horns on the Cape buffalo give it the edge.
1:11:23 Jeff Larson? I will give, like, to give Cape buffalo its credit too, like, a lot of the times if, like, it's very rare for a lion to take a adult Cape buffalo by itself.
1:11:36 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:11:36 Jeff Larson? You know, like, they need to group up to take one out. So like, in a cage match versus a lion, it like, has a pretty good chance of beating the lion.
1:11:45 Wes Larson? Yeah, they, like, this is a-
1:11:47 Jeff Larson? One on one.
1:11:48 Wes Larson? It's a prey item for lions, but it's a highly risky one. It's not like taking down a zebra or a wildebeest or something. They have to be very coordinated and very careful when they go for a buffalo, because they're incredibly dangerous animals.
1:12:04 Mike Smith? What about against like a moose? You think they'd be able to take a moose?
1:12:08 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:12:08 Mike Smith? Really?
1:12:09 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:12:09 Jeff Larson? What about grizzly bear?
1:12:10 Wes Larson? Probably, I'd give it to the buffalo. Like an adult male buffalo.
1:12:14 Jeff Larson? Over grizzly bear?
1:12:15 Wes Larson? Yeah, even a bison, like a big bison is hard for a grizzly bear. So I would say-
1:12:18 Mike Smith? So would you say Cape buffalo are kind of like-
1:12:21 Wes Larson? Buffalo.
1:12:22 Mike Smith? At the top of the ungulate food chain? Like, as far as like cage match is concerned?
1:12:27 Jeff Larson? Well, elephant-
1:12:28 Wes Larson? No, cause like, yeah.
1:12:30 Mike Smith? Oh, elephants are ungulates?
1:12:31 Wes Larson? I don't think elephants are ungulates.
1:12:33 Jeff Larson? I guess I got confused on ungulate.
1:12:35 Wes Larson? They're pachyderms. I don't think, I don't know if pachyderms are ungulates. That's a good question. But I'm pretty sure rhinoceroses are and hippos are.
1:12:45 Wes Larson? I'm trying to, I'm, now I'm like blanking on whether or not they're ungulates. But yeah, I think for like bovines, so like any of the ones that are closely related to cows-
1:12:53 Mike Smith? That's more the word I was trying to think of, yeah.
1:12:56 Wes Larson? I'd probably put them at the top.
1:12:58 Mike Smith? That's cool.
1:12:58 Wes Larson? The one that I think is a really good match for them is the gar or guar or whatever they are in India, those huge buffalo in India.
1:13:05 Jeff Larson? Those are cool.
1:13:06 Wes Larson? Like, that video of one turning over a truck makes you think, okay, these, yeah.
1:13:11 Jeff Larson? So you kind of think a one on one match, they beat pretty much every predator?
1:13:17 Wes Larson? A single predator?
1:13:19 Jeff Larson? Because like polar bear and tiger are kind of even for the top predators, right?
1:13:24 Wes Larson? Yeah. I just think like, the difference between a tiger, like a tiger or an adult male African lion and a polar bear, is that- Tigers and lions are adapted and evolved to hunt like big, dangerous prey. Where polar bears are mostly going after seals and stuff that doesn't fight back at the same level. So I think a polar bear would struggle with something that's this dangerous. Whereas a tiger, a lion kind of know like, I have to dispatch this. I have to like bite its throat. I have to like attack its haunches. So I would, that's why I would say like a tiger or lion, I think are the two that I would think match up as predators best against a buffalo.
1:14:08 Jeff Larson? Got it.
1:14:09 Mike Smith? The buffalo would be like, not my haunches. Ouch. How about my haunch? Is what they'd probably be saying.
1:14:16 Jeff Larson? It'd be like, you know what? I don't think I like getting my ass eaten.
1:14:22 Mike Smith? Yeah. It probably crosses their mind. Yeah.
1:14:25 Jeff Larson? A little overrated, if you ask me. Uh, Wes, you got a random animal fact?
1:14:32 Wes Larson? Yeah. Do you guys know what tardigrades are?
1:14:35 Mike Smith? Yeah, the little like aqua bear things or whatever they call them.
1:14:38 Wes Larson? Yeah, they're often called water bears. They're little microscopic creatures that look like little worms that kind of look like bears.
1:14:45 Mike Smith? They're kind of cute, really.
1:14:46 Wes Larson? Yeah, they are. Anyway, they're considered by many to be the most durable animal of any kind of organism on earth. They can survive in temperatures as high as a hundred and forty-nine degrees Celsius or as low as negative two hundred and seventy-two degrees Celsius.
1:15:04 Jeff Larson? Oh, geez.
1:15:05 Wes Larson? And pressures six times more intense than the bottom of the ocean. So people think that they could survive in space, like in the, you know, the vastness of space.
1:15:15 Mike Smith? The vacuum of space. Wow.
1:15:17 Wes Larson? Yeah, and they can go more than 10 years without eating as well. So this is like, this is probably the most durable animal on earth.
1:15:28 Mike Smith? Huh, that's really cool.
1:15:30 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:15:31 Mike Smith? Should do a cage match with them.
1:15:33 Wes Larson? Yeah, yeah.
1:15:36 Jeff Larson? Them, but like a new, in like a nuclear arena.
1:15:40 Mike Smith? Hmm, yeah.
1:15:43 Jeff Larson? So how much do we like African buffalo? Should we, we should shout out Garrison too. He came on our trips. And he was just relentless that we had the audacity to suggest they shouldn't be in the big five for tourism.
1:15:59 Wes Larson? Yeah, he loved buffaloes.
1:16:01 Jeff Larson? He did.
1:16:02 Wes Larson? Really quick, a quick conservation note on these guys too. They're considered near threatened, and I think that's just because their population numbers are dropping. But there are a lot of them. I think estimates are around like 500,000 throughout Africa. But some of the subspecies like the forest buffalo and the other ones are pretty threatened. But as a group like African buffalo, they're near threatened because populations are decreasing. All right. My clause, I would give them, give them seven claws. I think for ungulates, they're really interesting. I think when we saw them in Africa, whenever they like lift their head up, you're always like, whoa. Like that is an impressive animal, especially when we were in Nairobi National Park.
1:16:46 Wes Larson? That first one that we saw that had the huge horns and the boss. I think all three of us were kind of like, these are bigger than I remember them being. So I, yeah, I give them seven. For an ungulate, that's pretty high for me.
1:16:59 Mike Smith? I'm going to go with a six. I think they're really cool. It's a really interesting experience I've had with them though, because I usually am not. Well, I'll just explain that like my favorite of the bovine family that I've personally seen. I just keep thinking back to the bison that we have like up in Yellowstone in the States. And it's like, yeah, these are cool, but man, I just think the bison are so much cooler. And I don't know why I feel that way.
1:17:24 Wes Larson? These look more like cows and bulls that we see.
1:17:27 Mike Smith? A little bit. Yeah.
1:17:28 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:17:29 Jeff Larson? I agree for like similar reasoning. I, I give them a five and it's mainly just like, I do think they're very cool. But yeah, I just think bison are like similar size, but super hairy. I don't know. They're just like very pretty. The buffalo kind of are just like one solid color too, you know? Bison kind of get like different shades of hair. I don't know.
1:17:54 Wes Larson? Buffalo kind of look like oversized cows with cool horns. Yeah, I think you guys talked me into dropping them to a six. I'm a serious.
1:18:00 Jeff Larson? Not like a cute cow either. Like cows can be really cute. I don't really think buffaloes are very cute.
1:18:07 Wes Larson? No.
1:18:07 Mike Smith? Yeah, I would agree.
1:18:08 Jeff Larson? Yeah, they're almost like diserviced and cows.
1:18:11 Wes Larson? The horns are sweet, though. Their horns are amazing.
1:18:13 Mike Smith? The horns really bump them up a whole, like, three points.
1:18:17 Jeff Larson? I'll put them on like my top four skulls.
1:18:20 Mike Smith? Hmm, okay, yeah.
1:18:22 Jeff Larson? Good skull.
1:18:22 Mike Smith? Yeah, that's a good, yeah, good exercise.
1:18:25 Jeff Larson? All right, and then do you have any subscription questions?
1:18:29 Wes Larson? Sorry, guys, I'm a little behind on subscription questions, but I'm, me and my mom are kind of putting them together. So we'll get some subscription questions in upcoming episodes.
1:18:41 Jeff Larson? Okay, and I have a few Instagram ones. So Lex Not Luther 96 asks, you can't use any of the original cast members. Who are you casting for Lord of the Rings?
1:18:53 Mike Smith? Oh, geez.
1:18:55 Wes Larson? Yeah, that's hard. How about you assign us each a, assign us each a character?
1:19:00 Mike Smith? I'll go Danny DeVito for Gimli.
1:19:04 Mike Smith? Well, we have some casting what-ifs we could try, like Nick Cage as Aragorn. Let's go, baby.
1:19:10 Jeff Larson? I knew you would say Nick Cage.
1:19:12 Mike Smith? Uh, who was it? Sean Connery for Gandalf?
1:19:14 Jeff Larson? So perfect, it's hard.
1:19:16 Wes Larson? I know. Thing, like, we've been asked this before, and I feel like never have I seen a movie where they nailed the casting so perfectly as this movie, that it's hard for me to even consider other actors in these roles. It's really like, it's tricky for me. I can't, it's hard.
1:19:33 Jeff Larson? And like, you'd want it to be like, you wouldn't want like Brad Pitt in it, because that's like.
1:19:38 Wes Larson? No, it's too distracting.
1:19:39 Jeff Larson? You don't, yeah.
1:19:40 Wes Larson? So I don't know. I think I'm gonna recuse myself from this question, because I just, I have a hard time thinking of anyone else.
1:19:48 Jeff Larson? Brendan Fraser is Aragorn?
1:19:51 Wes Larson? No.
1:19:51 Mike Smith? Dude, oh, I would love that.
1:19:53 Wes Larson? I'll, sometime I'll put some real thought into this, because I do think there's an answer there.
1:19:57 Mike Smith? We should do, we should do a big category.
1:20:00 Jeff Larson? We can leave it in there, but we'll come back.
1:20:02 Mike Smith? Okay, we're gonna be doing a Lord of the Rings marathon pretty soon here, and that'll be a good time when we talk about that.
1:20:08 Jeff Larson? Sav Simpson West wants to know, in like natural disasters, like for example, the hurricane that hit North Carolina, how much is wildlife in North Carolina affected?
1:20:20 Wes Larson? That's a good question. I can't speak on it with like any authority, but what I would guess is that animals. Like birds that are building nests and are using trees pretty extensively. It's probably pretty like a pretty substantial effect for them.
1:20:36 Jeff Larson? Oh, yeah. That's interesting because I almost feel like birds, like my, my brain says like, oh, birds will be fine because they're like up in the trees. But all the land animals are in trouble.
1:20:47 Wes Larson? I think, I think the animals that are probably doing the best with it are like aquatic ones because it expands their habitat and stuff. But also for them, like.
1:20:54 Jeff Larson? But even then, they like get lost and then it dries up and then you're just like on Main Street, you know?
1:21:01 Wes Larson? Well, also like riverways create all this great habitat for them over time. But then when a ton of water comes through and just pushes all that out, suddenly those rivers aren't very like conducive to all the animals that have used them for habitat. So I, I'm going to take back that. I think it's pretty destructive for probably every animal, but some of them probably adapt a lot better to it than others. But I, again, I can't speak to it with any.
1:21:26 Jeff Larson? Bears do good because they like find a bunch of like fish on the ground and.
1:21:31 Wes Larson? And bears are really, really like plastic adaptable animals when it comes to the different things they can use. So, yeah, I don't know. That's a hard question.
1:21:41 Jeff Larson? Okay. A listen Nicole seven, if you could start your own NFL team, what animal would you pick as your mascot?
1:21:50 Jeff Larson? I'm going to go with the cheetahs.
1:21:51 Wes Larson? It's good. Yeah.
1:21:53 Jeff Larson? And I'll cheat too.
1:21:55 Mike Smith? Oh, would that be good? Do like some deflate gate kind of stuff?
1:21:59 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:21:59 Mike Smith? Overinflate the balls maybe?
1:22:03 Jeff Larson? That's what Brady said. He wanted them all the way inflated.
1:22:07 Mike Smith? I, I want to go with like an insect. So like maybe like the mantis, mantises.
1:22:12 Wes Larson? Ooh, I like that. I think I'd want to do a snake. So like maybe the vipers.
1:22:19 Mike Smith? Oh, yeah. I don't know. That sounds like an AFL team name for some reason.
1:22:24 Wes Larson? It kind of does. It sounds a little too like sexy.
1:22:27 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:22:27 Wes Larson? Yeah. But that's what I'm picking.
1:22:28 Jeff Larson? All right.
1:22:29 Mike Smith? Okay.
1:22:30 Jeff Larson? Well, thank you guys for giving us questions. Thank you for listening. Hope you have a great holiday season, you know, remembering Jesus as a baby.
1:22:43 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:22:44 Wes Larson? Couple really quick announcements. Again, Jeff put together some really cool designs for us or from different artists on our merch website. That's tooth and claw merch.com. Uh, some really cool.
1:22:57 Jeff Larson? Order when this comes out, you can still get it by Christmas.
1:23:01 Wes Larson? Yeah. Some of our coolest stuff that we've ever put out, I think, is on that website right now. So check it out. And then, uh, one other thing I wanted to say really quick before I forget, because I forgot last time. I forgot to mention in our 399 episode, I got a lot of really great information from a friend of mine, forgot to credit him. He didn't care, but I felt bad about it. Uh, Tyler Brazington, who is a, a bear manager working in Grand Teton, really helped me with some of that information, making sure I got things right. So thank you, Tyler.
1:23:34 Mike Smith? Brazington?
1:23:35 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:23:36 Mike Smith? What's that remind me of?
1:23:38 Wes Larson? I don't know.
1:23:38 Jeff Larson? Brazers?
1:23:40 Mike Smith? Oh, there you go. Nah.
1:23:43 Wes Larson? Also Jess Hadley, who works there, helped me out a lot too. So thank you to the two of them. That was really, really helpful.
1:23:49 Mike Smith? Thanks, guys.
1:23:50 Wes Larson? Yep. Oh, and last thing too. One other thing we've mentioned around the holidays, you can gift our Patreon subscriptions now. So if you're interested in kind of an out of the box, a good gift that keeps on giving to someone, uh, you can go to Patreon and there's like a little gift symbol or something. I'm not exactly sure how to.
1:24:09 Mike Smith? Not sure if I'd call it out of the box to gift someone a shirt. That's pretty like in the box.
1:24:15 Wes Larson? What am I thinking of? Like a different gift, like a, you know, not typical gift to give someone a subscription.
1:24:22 Mike Smith? Maybe we'll make some neckties to give to your dad on Father's Day next year. Really out of the box kind of stuff.
1:24:28 Jeff Larson? Another out of the box gift. Me and Wes are both on Cameo and honestly, we're like, we do make money from it, but we're not like so much in it for the money as much as like, we wanted to be able to give people to love Tooth and Claw messages and like, so far we've had pretty good response. So if you need a Christmas message or want to gift one to someone, like I genuinely love being able to like. Have some form of communication with our listeners and this is just like very organized way for me to do it. So yeah, go on.
1:25:06 Mike Smith? For Christmas, I'm ordering one from both of you. I don't know who that gift is for. I guess it's a two-way street.
1:25:14 Wes Larson? Okay, well, we'll stop shilling stuff. Thanks, guys. Happy holidays. Thanks, Jeff.
1:25:18 Jeff Larson? Love you, guys.
1:25:19 Wes Larson? For doing the episode. Love you.
1:25:20 Jeff Larson? You're welcome.
1:25:20 Mike Smith? See ya.
Previous Bears Being Framed - Two Stories of Bears Being Blamed for Crimes They Obviously Did Not Do, Peanut the Squirrel, a Macaque Prison Break, and More Next The Grizzly Deaths of Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard, Part 1: Timothy Treadwell's Rise to Prominence Page updated November 6, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated