The Champawat Tiger Part 2 - The Death of One Legend and the Birth of Another

As the tiger continues its reign of terror over the village of Champawat, a young hunter hears tell of its carnage and figures maybe he can lend the people and the country he loves a hand. Watch this episode here: https://youtu.be/HEv2jYF6DOM ~ Forkful - Head to https://forkfulmeals.com/tooth for 50% off your first order today! https://quince.com/tooth Hims - To get simple, online access to personalized, affordable care for ED, Hair Loss, and more, visit https://hims.com/toothOllie - Ollie. Feed the Obsession. Go to https://ollie.com/tooth and use code tooth to get 70% off your first box! ~ To advertise on the show, contact us! Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/c/toothandclawpodcast ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social: Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:13Jeff Larson?

  Hello everyone. Welcome back to Tooth and Claw Podcast. We have our wildlife biologist Wes Larson. He knows a lot about bears, but he also knows a lot about tigers as you learned in part one. And this is going to be part two. So there's no real need to introduce all three of us. We'll just introduce Wes.

• 0:33Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 0:33Jeff Larson?

  And

• 0:35Wes Larson?

  I am gonna do a lot of talking this episode. A lot.

• 0:39Jeff Larson?

  The what's this one called again? The Tiger of?

• 0:41Wes Larson?

  The Chompa Wot Tiger.

• 0:43Jeff Larson?

  The Chompa Wot Tiger.

• 0:45Wes Larson?

  Yeah, Chomp a lot, right?

• 0:47Jeff Larson?

  I just watched Coyote vs Acme.

• 0:50Wes Larson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 0:51Jeff Larson?

  Sounds a lot like Tweety Bird saying Chomp a lot.

• 0:54Wes Larson?

  Chomp a lot?

• 0:57Wes Larson?

  I I might see that today. We'll see.

• 0:59Jeff Larson?

  Well, you should. I like.

• 1:00Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:02Jeff Larson?

  It's really emotional.

• 1:04Wes Larson?

  That's what I heard. And I from I've been reading some reviews and people saying that it's like a surprisingly emotional movie. So I'll I'll be honest, it's weird in my 40s. I'm in my early 40s. I feel like so many movies make me emotional nowadays. I just find myself getting choked up all the time and I don't know why. It I think it's ever since we lost Bryce. Just I'm always just kind of on this this cliff of about to cry.

• 1:33Jeff Larson?

  When you like rewatch Titanic, you picture Bryce as Jack?

• 1:38Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I picture Bryce as Rose and I'll sing. Did you guys know that James Cameron? Like went and restaged that to prove that they couldn't both be on the door? And he like did all these different scenarios to show that it's like nearly impossible that the door wouldn't have supported their weight.

• 1:57Jeff Larson?

  Well, it wasn't a door, first of all.

• 1:59Wes Larson?

  Whatever it was. Yeah.

• 2:00Jeff Larson?

  And then, yeah, they would have been too sunk down in the water and got both froze.

• 2:07Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it wasn't surface area so much as buoyancy. That was the problem. And also, the whole freaking point of the movie is that Jack needs to die for Rose. That's the whole freaking idea.

• 2:22Jeff Larson?

  Did he like Mythbusters 2 when Rose goes to heaven and has like a husband and grandkids? And goes straight back to her like one night stand?

• 2:33Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I love that movie. Love it. I think I have it in my top 20 right now.

• 2:38Mike Smith?

  That's great. I'm so happy for all of you.

• 2:40Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I I think it's like even though it's super long, it feels like crisp and fun. I just love that movie.

• 2:47Mike Smith?

  Not like Crispin Glover?

• 2:48Wes Larson?

  Not Crispin Glover. I love him too. That's that was Jesse's like longest celebrity crush, Crispin Glover.

• 2:55Mike Smith?

  Is that over for her now?

• 2:57Wes Larson?

  Uh, no, I think she still is into it.

• 2:59Jeff Larson?

  Who is that?

• 3:00Wes Larson?

  He was he is in like Willard.

• 3:03Mike Smith?

  He's no, come on.

• 3:05Wes Larson?

  He's the dad.

• 3:07Mike Smith?

  The dad in Back to the Future.

• 3:08Wes Larson?

  Back to the Future.

• 3:10Jeff Larson?

  Oh, really?

• 3:11Mike Smith?

  That can't be your go to.

• 3:13Wes Larson?

  The bad guy in one of the Charlie's Angels movies too.

• 3:16Mike Smith?

  Yeah, he's in one of the Friday the 13th, I think part five or four.

• 3:21Wes Larson?

  Really?

• 3:21Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 3:22Jeff Larson?

  So that's what she sees in you.

• 3:25Wes Larson?

  Yeah, she it's always a weird thing when you're dating someone that likes to tell you like, yeah, I just don't really like conventionally attractive guys. Like I've always just liked guys that are a little bit ugly and it's like, cool. Thank you. Uh, anyway, well, we are on part two of a pretty big story. And I do need to start with the disclaimer. In part one, I said, oh, don't worry, we're going to get into biology in part two. And then as I wrote out part two, and as I kind of went through it, I realized we left a lot of meat on the table. And for me to get through the entire story, I'm not really going to have time to go into a lot of biology.

• 4:07Wes Larson?

  So this is an animal we've covered before, though. Bengal tigers are the same species as Amur tigers, maybe a different subspecies, but the same species. So we did the Tatiana, the Tiger episode, which is, I think, our first available episode right now.

• 4:26Wes Larson?

  Right now, tease of something coming out soon. But you can get all the biology in that episode if you want to like re refresh on your tiger biology. Go back to that episode and re-listen.

• 4:37Jeff Larson?

  Are you sure?

• 4:38Wes Larson?

  Uh, no, but

• 4:40Jeff Larson?

  Because that's an early episode. I don't know.

• 4:42Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I I usually went into biology in those.

• 4:45Mike Smith?

  That's back when our episodes were like eight minutes long. I wonder how much we could fit in there, but

• 4:50Wes Larson?

  I I definitely went through it a bit. I remember doing a bit, but um,

• 4:54Mike Smith?

  I remember you got mad at Jeff in that episode because he compared a tiger to LeBron James and you're like, oh, you can't do that.

• 5:01Jeff Larson?

  Wow, I was asking if LeBron James could jump out of the enclosure.

• 5:06Wes Larson?

  That's right.

• 5:06Jeff Larson?

  And you can't say that he's in an enclosure.

• 5:10Wes Larson?

  Yeah, that did feel a little weird. It's that still feels a little weird to me. But yeah, we have, you know, we've

• 5:18Mike Smith?

  We'll see if we leave that in this time.

• 5:19Wes Larson?

  I think we can probably just leave it, you know, who cares anymore? Uh, yeah, anyway, we're we're gonna do more Tiger episodes. Like we got a lot of Tiger stuff left in the future. This is one of those episodes that as I was preparing for it, I realized like, man, there are a lot of stories out there that we have yet to cover. Um, this being one of them. So are you guys ready for part two of the Chompa Wot Man Eater?

• 5:44Mike Smith?

  Yep, been chomping at the bit.

• 5:45Wes Larson?

  All right. Oh, there you there we go.

• 5:48Mike Smith?

  Sorry, the actual expression is champing at the bit. That's the appropriate way to say that, but you can say chomp. It's acceptable.

• 5:56Wes Larson?

  Yeah, we went. We went through this before. It's either or at this point.

• 6:00Mike Smith?

  Yeah, common usage dictates the laws of the English language. So sorry, I shouldn't have interrupted at all. I'm an idiot.

• 6:07Wes Larson?

  I think that was totally worth it.

• 6:09Jeff Larson?

  I'm glad we nipped that in the butt.

• 6:14Mike Smith?

  Is that acceptable, Wes?

• 6:15Wes Larson?

  I don't think so. I think Bud is still the only acceptable one there. All right. So this tiger had been very active in Nepal. It had killed over 200 people. And if you guys remember, they were really struggling to figure out how to get it away from these villages. And finally, they organized this huge beat, which was essentially a thousand men strung together, making noise, pushing this tiger, and they managed to push it out of Nepal.

• 6:41Mike Smith?

  Was it like a human centipede kind of thing?

• 6:44Wes Larson?

  It's not a human centipede kind of thing. Um, more of a hands across America kind of thing, but hands across Nepal. This tiny part of Nepal.

• 6:54Mike Smith?

  Okay.

• 6:55Wes Larson?

  So our injured tigers had crossed the river and she'd settled into the area around Chompa Wot, India, which once again isn't a place you would typically imagine when you think of tiger habitat on the Indian subcontinent. Chompa Wot lies directly west of Nepal, northwestern Nepal, and it's just west of that. And it's in the foothills of the Himalayas again. So once again, we're talking about terrain that's pretty steep, mountainous. The forests are dominated with pine. Uh, it's far from the steamy jungles, dry forests, the stuff that we usually picture when we think of tigers. Like when you guys think back on our experience in Tadoba, that was like dry forest with some also kind of wetland and tropical forest.

• 7:40Wes Larson?

  That's what you think of when you picture tigers in India. You don't really think of like the foothills of the Himalayas, but that's what we're talking about.

• 7:48Jeff Larson?

  All right. It's kind of crazy that it killed. She killed 200 people in Nepal. And it's still going to be the Chompa Wot Tiger, you know?

• 7:58Wes Larson?

  Yeah, well, she killed more in Chompa Wot and that is where

• 8:01Jeff Larson?

  That's like if you're from Nepal, you're like, we don't even get mentioned in the name for this?

• 8:07Wes Larson?

  I'm glad you mentioned that though, because the reason this tiger is called the Chompa Wot Man Eater is because really, we wouldn't have known much about her had we not had the main figure in the story that we're going to talk about come into the picture and kind of write the book on this animal. And that's why he called it the Chompa Wot Man Eater, because he really only dealt with it while it was in India. So but that is a good point, Jeff. This tiger for years was, you know, around Nepal and around that town.

• 8:38Mike Smith?

  Kind of like when Dr. J played in the ABA before like the ABA NBA merger. We just don't really have like a lot of tape or info on those games. Like we have a vague idea, but you just don't even know what he got up to some of those nights.

• 8:51Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, Wes probably didn't even know he was in there, did you?

• 8:55Wes Larson?

  I didn't.

• 8:55Jeff Larson?

  And I didn't know this tiger is in Nepal until part one.

• 8:59Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 8:59Jeff Larson?

  Exactly the same situation.

• 9:02Mike Smith?

  They use the they use those like three colored balls. Those were kind of fun. We got to bring those back, I think.

• 9:08Wes Larson?

  Nepal only has three colors in its flag. It's the only triangular flag too.

• 9:12Mike Smith?

  And this just the synchronicity is insane.

• 9:15Jeff Larson?

  Most countries have three colors.

• 9:17Wes Larson?

  Yeah, but are they triangular? No, Jeff. Uh, there. So even though this habitat is very different from what we picture tigers in, there were a lot of people and there were thick forests and steep ravines for this tiger to hide in. And if you remember, that's very similar to the terrain that the tiger had been using for hunting people in Nepal. So when it settled in this area, it almost immediately began once again killing and eating people. But she had learned a bit from her experience in Nepal. And there where the people joined together to push her from the area, she may have realized just how intimidating humans actually can be. So in India, she started changing her overall strategy.

• 10:02Wes Larson?

  And rather than just staying in one place for months or even years, she would kill and then often move to a different area, spacing her kills out over large distances. And a lot of the people that talk about this say it's like, oh, she learned and she was adapting to her experience. That could be it. It also could be that in Nepal, she found this one little place that was kind of isolated that had a lot of people and there weren't a lot of other outlying communities. And in India, there was lots of little villages all scattered around, so it made more sense for her to move around. I don't really know which of them it is. But I do want to say the whole idea of her like being like, oh, well, now I'm gonna move around because I got scared in Nepal. Doesn't make a ton of sense.

• 10:45Jeff Larson?

  You live in Lolo, Montana, so you go out to eat at like the same two or three places all the time. I live in Salt Lake City, so I go to a ton of different places.

• 10:55Mike Smith?

  Exactly. Like a steakhouse.

• 10:58Jeff Larson?

  3D printed.

• 11:00Mike Smith?

  Horse meat. Yeah.

• 11:03Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 11:04Mike Smith?

  Never go to the same place twice is Jeff's MO, especially that.

• 11:08Jeff Larson?

  I wonder if the tiger would ate that steak. Honestly, maybe not.

• 11:12Wes Larson?

  Probably not. Yeah.

• 11:15Wes Larson?

  One day in nineteen oh three, Jim Corbett was hunting with his friend Eddie Knowles in the forest of Malani in northern India. And as these two friends are walking, they're exchanging stories. They're talking about their experiences in India and Eddie brings up a tiger. Jim instantly starts to get incredibly locked into this conversation because he loves tigers. And the main reason he's excited is because Eddie isn't just talking about any tiger, but a tiger that has recently killed two hundred people in Nepal and has started killing large numbers of people in the Champawat region of India, which is near where Jim grew up. Jim had heard of man eaters before, but these stats are like almost impossible to believe.

• 12:00Wes Larson?

  And he really isn't that far from Champawat. So it's kind of feels like this is happening in his own backyard. And Eddie goes on to explain that the best hunters in Nepal had failed to kill this tiger. But he says, don't worry, its days are numbered because his brother in law, this guy named B A Repch, had been dispatched to kill the tiger. And Repch was known to be one of the best hunters in all of India. Uh, and both Eddie and Jim figured that within weeks, they were going to hear news that this tiger had finally been killed.

• 12:33Wes Larson?

  Little bit about Jim Corbett. So instead of doing tiger biology, we're going to do Jim Corbett biology on this episode. Uh, yeah, Homo sapien.

• 12:43Mike Smith?

  Are they sexually dimorphic?

• 12:45Wes Larson?

  Sexually dimorphic, yes. Uh.

• 12:47Jeff Larson?

  Eats hamburgers.

• 12:49Wes Larson?

  Eats hamburgers. Yeah. Lots of different food sources. Um, yeah. All right. He was in his late twenties at the time that he had this conversation with Eddie and he first learned about the Champawat tiger. And he had a very special love for all of the wilderness of India. He was one of these rare British colonialists that had actually been born in India. And having never traveled to the UK at this point in his life, in his twenties, India had been his home his entire life. And unlike his friend Eddie that he was talking to, who's really wealthy and well connected. Jim Corbett really didn't have any standing in the colonial society. His father was Irish, was which was already kind of a strike against him.

• 13:30Wes Larson?

  And his father had been a postmaster and had died when Corbett was younger, leaving him alone with his six actual siblings. And then I think an additional eight like step siblings. So he had fourteen siblings and his mom that he was left alone with. They moved into a property his parents had been able to purchase during better times. And little Jim Corbett had to give up on a lot of his dreams of like formal education, moving his way up this colonial ladder. Because his family is broke. His dad dying really ruined a lot of stuff for him. Pretty selfish, if you ask me, you know?

• 14:06Jeff Larson?

  Of who?

• 14:07Wes Larson?

  Of his dad.

• 14:08Mike Smith?

  That didn't stop Basil the first from starting the Macedonian dynasty.

• 14:12Wes Larson?

  It's a good point.

• 14:13Mike Smith?

  He was born, he was of humble origins.

• 14:15Wes Larson?

  That's probably what his mom was always saying to him.

• 14:17Mike Smith?

  He became the emperor.

• 14:18Wes Larson?

  What about Basil the first? And he'd be like, yeah, you're right. I need to stop.

• 14:22Jeff Larson?

  But on the other hand, Elon Musk wouldn't have gotten where he's at without his dad's diamond mine.

• 14:29Wes Larson?

  He need emerald money. Yeah.

• 14:30Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, emerald mine. So.

• 14:32Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 14:33Mike Smith?

  We all come from different backgrounds.

• 14:35Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 14:35Mike Smith?

  I consider them equally impressive.

• 14:42Wes Larson?

  All right. So what he didn't give up on though, was exploring the forests and jungles of India. And learning about all the wildlife from both British and Indian friends and paid hunters like the Shakaris. He was gifted an old shotgun when he was eight. And when he was at cadet school, he was doing some shooting exercises. And he impressed his instructors so much that they loaned him a really nice rifle. And that's when his hunting really leveled up. So it really didn't take him along. It didn't take him long to earn a reputation among both British and Indian residents. As someone who could perfectly imitate the grunt of a leopard, the chuff of a tiger. He could track animals through the forest through smells, sight, hearing.

• 15:25Wes Larson?

  Uh, he rivaled the best hunters in all of India and he was famously a really good shot.

• 15:31Mike Smith?

  Mm hmm. I was gonna say, times have really changed because like the way we entertain ourselves has evolved. But it kind of really hasn't. That's like a viral TikTok these days. If someone can just grunt like a Jaguar. That would go crazy on social.

• 15:46Wes Larson?

  Have you seen that kid that does the bird, the autistic kid that does the bird sounds?

• 15:50Mike Smith?

  He did. He did the Atlanta Hawks schedule announcement or whatever. That's amazing.

• 15:56Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 15:57Jeff Larson?

  I think it's like shooting guns did like really impress your instructors that much. Cause it's like, I feel like a lot of people hit the target if you're shooting guns very much. So like maybe he did it behind his back.

• 16:12Mike Smith?

  Behind the back shot. Yeah. A William Tell situation.

• 16:17Wes Larson?

  Well, one of the most impressive things about Corbett though, was how he seemed like he was at home in both of the contrasting worlds that were present in India at the time. His family was a colonialist family. So he was well trained in the different manners and customs of colonial Britain at the time. But he also spoke, spoke fluent Hindi and uh Kumoni, which is like the regional dialect. And he was well loved by the local villagers. So I think he felt actually like a lot more pride for India than he did for uh Great Britain. And while he definitely benefited from his privilege as a British resident in India as a colonialist. I do think for the time, he was like as well accepted as a white guy could be among locals in India.

• 17:03Mike Smith?

  He had the pass.

• 17:04Wes Larson?

  Uh, I don't know if he had a pass, but I know I'm.

• 17:10Mike Smith?

  A pass, not the pass.

• 17:11Wes Larson?

  Yeah. I kind of, I feel like I, this book made me really, the no book or no be so fierce book made me really like, look better on Corbett and his own writing and stuff. He definitely still had some like colonialist um leanings and thoughts and stuff. Like I don't want to paint him like he was a saint, but he did really, really love India and have a deep respect for the people of India.

• 17:38Mike Smith?

  That's great.

• 17:39Wes Larson?

  Because even though he was like a big hunter and killed a lot of man eaters throughout his career. He did have a huge respect for the wildlife of India and he would go on to be one of the biggest proponents for Indian wildlife conservation. There's even a national park named after him now. And I did want to read a quote from him from the book, No Be So Fierce. It says, "A tiger's function in the scheme of things is to help maintain the balance of nature. And if on rare occasions, when driven by dire necessity, he kills a human being, or when his natural food has been ruthlessly exterminated by man, it is not fair that for these acts, a whole species should be branded as being cruel and blood thirsty."

• 18:20Wes Larson?

  So even in like the early nineteen hundreds, Corbett knew that this isn't in the nature of tigers to kill people. This isn't something they actually do regularly. It's extenuating circumstances that we've caused that often lead tigers to end up killing people. And I loved it like this early on, he understood that.

• 18:42Jeff Larson?

  I practically had to beg Wes and Mike to let me do the ad read for this new sponsor. I just love their products so much that I insisted I'm reading this ad. It's hard to find good microwavable meals and Forkful is one of my favorites I've ever tried. I switched over to an all keto diet for a little bit and it's hard to find food that fits your diet. That's why I loved Forkful so much because it sent me food that was always keto friendly and tasted great. Typically I'll give Shanks a bite of my dinner or lunch if he's sitting right next to me. But this buffalo chicken that I had was just too good. I couldn't even give him one single piece of it. Also, you gotta try the braised beef barbacoa with the cauliflower rice.

• 19:23Jeff Larson?

  The bacon ranch chicken with Fontana tribe cauliflower mash, which I don't know how they make that mash so good, but it is. I feel like a lot of times the easy to make meals don't have enough flavor, but these ones are just marinating in sauce the entire time. And it's delicious. Like when I make a chicken, I need a lot of hot sauce on it. But with this, I didn't need to add anything. It had so much flavor packed into every bite. Explore plans and menu of fresh, ready to eat meals at forkfulmeals.com and use code TOOTH to get fifty percent off your first order. That's forkfulmeals.com slash tooth and use promo code tooth for fifty percent off. That's half your meals free right there. Thanks for Forkful for sponsoring this episode.

• 20:10Wes Larson?

  So the more and more I learn about Corbett, the more and more I like him. Um, I'm sure one of our listeners is gonna send an article that's like, Corbett kept kids in his basement or something and they're gonna make me look like, I should never have said that he was a good dude, but I do like Jim Corbett. All right, um.

• 20:28Jeff Larson?

  I disavow that.

• 20:30Wes Larson?

  Jeff does not like him.

• 20:32Jeff Larson?

  Well, if he kept kids in his basement.

• 20:34Wes Larson?

  Oh yeah, I don't like that. I, I don't think that's a good thing, but he didn't as far as we know.

• 20:39Mike Smith?

  We all have our faults.

• 20:42Wes Larson?

  Our weak points. All right. So when Jim had gone on this hike with Eddie hunting, he was working on the railroads. He was a railroad employee. And while he got really super excited about thinking about this man eating tiger living so close to him, both the stress of his job and the assurance that Eddie's brother-in-law was gonna kill this tiger, made him really forget about the man eater of Champawat. Then four years later, when Jim had moved his way up into the railroad industry, he's working a desk job that's also incredibly stressful. News breaks that this handsome British soldier named Edward Harold Wildblood had killed the Champawat tiger while on shikar in Khuomon. It's a great name.

• 21:28Wes Larson?

  That's the best. Yeah. So news circulates far and wide because it's exactly the kind of story that the colonial government wanted to broadcast. This like handsome, dashing British soldier named Wildblood had killed the Champawat man eater and he was paid 200 rupees for killing this tiger.

• 21:47Mike Smith?

  It's a lot. I think you can buy, uh, the Zora tunic in Zelda with 200 rupees.

• 21:53Wes Larson?

  Oh, does Zelda use rupees?

• 21:55Mike Smith?

  Yeah, you gotta have the adult's wallet though, in order to afford the good stuff.

• 22:00Wes Larson?

  Huh. Adults wallet?

• 22:03Mike Smith?

  Yeah, you can only fit 99 rupees in the child wallet and then you upgrade it.

• 22:08Wes Larson?

  Okay. All right, um. So Corbett, at this point, hadn't really thought of this tiger in years. He, he assumed that had been killed by Eddie's brother. And now he thinks that Wildblood had killed it. So he's surprised in 1907, when he's visiting his home in Kumon and he's approached by a friend of his who is the deputy commissioner. And this guy's name is Charles Henry Berthoud. And Berthoud had a tiger problem, but not just any tiger, it was the tiger. And he needed Corbett's help. So he explains to Jim that Wildblood had shot the wrong tiger. They had to issue a correction and the Champawat man eater was still out there and was just still

• 22:51Wes Larson?

  killing hella people at this point. In fact, in these resulting years, her total tally now is up to 434 victims. She, she'd killed more than 200 people now in India, which is an absolutely astounding number of deaths. So he asked Corbett if he could help them kill the tiger and he pretty much says, Jim, you're our last hope. It's kinda like Luke Skywalker, even though there's another, you know? And then more after that.

• 23:21Jeff Larson?

  Well, it happens if he doesn't get them too.

• 23:24Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 23:24Jeff Larson?

  The tiger takes over.

• 23:26Wes Larson?

  The whole world. This tiger would have eaten the whole world. Yeah.

• 23:30Mike Smith?

  Death Star would have blown it up.

• 23:34Wes Larson?

  I think a big part of the desperation here for the colonial government is that they're really trying to sell themselves as like the end all be all of government and power. And they're just getting their asses handed to them by this one tiger. So they really want this tiger dead as quickly as possible because it's making them look weak. And they would really love it if one of their guys can do the killing.

• 24:00Wes Larson?

  So at this point, even though Jim Corbett has no experience tracking and killing man eaters, he accepts this assignment, but he has two stipulations. And I guess, and I think this speaks to how he was a good person. First of all, he doesn't want a reward. Uh, and he wants all the existing bounties on the tiger to be withdrawn. And he says that he has too much respect for tigers to be labeled a bounty hunter.

• 24:24Jeff Larson?

  Hmm.

• 24:24Wes Larson?

  Second, he wants all of the other paid shikari hunters to be called off the hunt because he's worried that they'll shoot him on accident while he's out stalking this tiger. I guess that was like a major worry for him was that he was gonna get shot by someone else. Yeah.

• 24:41Mike Smith?

  Did I miss it during the biology of Corbett? Did he look like a tiger?

• 24:46Wes Larson?

  He doesn't look like a tiger. No.

• 24:48Jeff Larson?

  Maybe if he's wearing like a hunter's orange vest though.

• 24:52Mike Smith?

  Yeah, true.

• 24:52Wes Larson?

  Yeah. You ever hear of buck fever though, Mike? You know what buck fever is?

• 24:57Mike Smith?

  I actually don't.

• 24:59Wes Larson?

  Buck fever is when like a hunter just gets so excited about shooting an animal that they, everything starts to look like that animal and that happens a lot. So.

• 25:09Mike Smith?

  Is that what Dick Cheney? Is that the Dick Cheney?

• 25:12Wes Larson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 25:13Jeff Larson?

  He has buck fever.

• 25:14Wes Larson?

  Full of buck fever, dude.

• 25:17Wes Larson?

  That dude. Yeah. All right. So the government agrees to both of these stipulations and Jim Corbett says that he will head out to the site of the next kill that happens.

• 25:29Wes Larson?

  He wouldn't have to wait long. One week later, a man shows up in the village in the dead of the night. And this man had been running for hours. He was out of breath. But in between gasps of air, he tells Corbett that a woman had been killed in the village of Pali about 60 miles away. That's P A L I, Pali.

• 25:49Mike Smith?

  And that's where the marathon started, right?

• 25:51Wes Larson?

  It's the name of my dog.

• 25:52Jeff Larson?

  That's how we started marathons.

• 25:54Wes Larson?

  Yeah. 60 miles is a long run.

• 25:57Mike Smith?

  Oh, shoot. Yeah.

• 25:58Jeff Larson?

  60 miles?

• 25:59Wes Larson?

  That's how, that's how far Pali was. This guy may, it may have been like a relay race. You know, where like multiple runners were dispatched.

• 26:09Jeff Larson?

  Uh, what's it called? I forget.

• 26:11Wes Larson?

  Lighting of the towers. Corbett immediately gets his stuff together. He gathers up six men that he had recruited for this hunt. And then he leaves Polly on foot. Or leaves for Polly on foot. Excuse me. They arrive in Polly 2.5 days later. They walk into the town and they're getting there just as the daylight is fading. And Corbett explains it like a total ghost town. He says all of the residents are in their homes behind locked doors. There's this thick feeling of fear that was so palpable in the air, you could almost feel its weight. And there's clutter and trash and rubbish everywhere, like rotten food. Because no one is leaving their homes to clean up or take care of the village.

• 26:56Wes Larson?

  The food is starting to run out because the people are afraid to work the fields. And Corbett goes on to say, it was like they were inmates, like they were living in a prison of their own making. Um, that this tiger had kind of also created for them. So more of the prison.

• 27:10Jeff Larson?

  The tiger.

• 27:11Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Yeah. Tigers of the warren. Yeah.

• 27:14Jeff Larson?

  Hmm.

• 27:14Wes Larson?

  All right. So I, I think I didn't do a great job of explaining this, but he really, this made a huge impression on him. Just how terrified everyone was, you know, it's not like there was just a few people that this tiger had kind of influenced at this point. Entire towns, entire villages are just absolutely terrified. Like people won't even leave their homes because they're so scared of this tiger. And an, an interesting thing is.

• 27:43Jeff Larson?

  Cause they don't really have like weapons at home either.

• 27:46Wes Larson?

  Not really. Some of them have like really old muzzle loading rifles that and that, but they're not confident enough to use them on a tiger. And these also, these aren't people that have like spent a lot of time around tigers either. Something that's interesting is when we talked about like the, uh, leopard of Rudrapayag or the lions of Savo. Leopards and lions are often willing to pull people out of their homes to kill them and they'll usually be nocturnal. Tigers don't really do that. Tigers wait until a person goes into like the field or does whatever to go and kill those people. So even though they're not going into homes, people still are like unwilling to leave their residences.

• 28:26Jeff Larson?

  So wait, are the people, because you have to invite the tigers in for them to be able to come in. But then Jim Corbett looks like a tiger. So is that kinda tough?

• 28:38Wes Larson?

  Actually look like a tiger. Yeah.

• 28:43Wes Larson?

  All right. So what does happen is that, um, Corbett and his men make a fire in the center of the courtyard. And only, you know, after a little bit, do people start to cautiously emerge and talk to these men. And they tell them that the most recent victim was a woman. She'd been killed five days ago. And then in that time, no one had left their homes. Uh, and that they could hear the tiger calling on the road at night, almost like a ghost that was haunting their dreams. So Corbett gets his men settled. They, and he decides that he's gonna go out alone. Again, this is his first man eater that he's hunted. So this is a bad idea, but he just decides he's gonna go do it.

• 29:25Wes Larson?

  He's gonna go out alone and sit against a tree that night on the road and hope that this tiger shows up. And he quickly realizes that it's very scary to be out at night alone, hunting a tiger that's killed 434 people. He gets so freaked out that he's too scared to walk back to the village and he spends a really cold, really scary night alone on this road. He says, like, every shadow looked like 12 tigers coming at him.

• 29:53Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 29:54Wes Larson?

  So the next day, he wants to go visit the site of these different kills that had happened near this village, but no one's gonna take him. Uh, they're all way too scared. Instead, he's greeted by a group of about 20 women who were with the last victim when she was killed. And they tell Jim the gruesome story. So it was about 10 a.m. when they'd set out in a group to go collect some oak, oak leaves to feed to the cattle. It's a common practice for women to collect feed for livestock at this time. And while the Tharu people that we talked about that lived in Nepal and lived around tigers, they're used to sharing land with tigers. They're a rarity in this part of India. But the man-eating tiger had been in the area for a while.

• 30:35Wes Larson?

  And so while these women were likely thinking about this tiger, they weren't necessarily prepared for what was about to happen. And as they were gathering these oak leaves, the Champawat man eater watched them with its big amber eyes in the dense thicket of a ravine and waited for an opportunity. The women would climb into the oak trees to pick the best leaves from higher branches. And a group of three women had unknowingly picked the tree closest to the tiger that was now slowly creeping closer. It's taking minutes to carefully place each foot to avoid making even the slightest sound. And it was within feet of this tree when one of the women, who had filled her bushel with enough leaves, started to climb down the tree.

• 31:19Wes Larson?

  And this woman who had done this probably countless times is holding on to one of the lower branches of the tree. She's dangling her feet down like she's about to drop onto the ground. And as she's about to let go of this branch, the tiger rises up out of the grass, standing on its hind legs and grabs her by a foot that's dangling in the air. So she's like, holding on to the branch, extended in the air. The tiger grabs her foot and is trying to pull her out of the tree.

• 31:46Jeff Larson?

  It'd be so hard to hold on.

• 31:48Wes Larson?

  Yeah. And we're gonna talk about that in a second. I think she's so full of terror, I don't think any of us can even come close to comprehending that kind of terror. So she grips this branch with every ounce of strength she has. She starts screaming and pleading for help for her two companions that are still in this tree. But she's trying to fight the strength of a full grown Bengal tiger and it's futile. She's ripped down from the tree onto the ground. And her lifelong friends watch in horror as this tiger drags her still screaming by the foot into the ravine.

• 32:21Jeff Larson?

  Jeez.

• 32:22Mike Smith?

  Dude.

• 32:23Wes Larson?

  Then the tiger releases.

• 32:24Jeff Larson?

  That movie Ashton Kutcher, The Guardian, where he has to hold on till his arm dislocates.

• 32:31Mike Smith?

  Right.

• 32:32Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 32:33Mike Smith?

  Kevin Costner.

• 32:34Jeff Larson?

  Kevin Costner. That, he's the one who held on the longest, actually.

• 32:38Wes Larson?

  Costner does?

• 32:40Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 32:41Mike Smith?

  He's a legend.

• 32:42Wes Larson?

  Yeah. It's all those ranching muscles, you know? All right. So the tiger releases its grip on her foot, which gives her a split second to rally and get up off the ground to her hands and knees. But as soon as she does that, the tiger jumps forward, sinking both its broken and perfect canines into the soft flesh of her neck and likely severing the carotid artery. Blood spraying into the air and onto the fur of the tiger, which is now carrying this silent woman by the neck into the dense thicket of this ravine. So her friends are watching as her lifeless body fades from view. And then the sounds of the tiger feeding is drifting out from this undergrowth. And that's enough for them and they run back to the village.

• 33:27Jeff Larson?

  There really doesn't feel like a, what could you've done different there?

• 33:31Wes Larson?

  Yeah, there's not much.

• 33:33Jeff Larson?

  Like you're, like, you can't get away from the tiger. Like, that's the only one where like that old joke of, you don't need to be faster than the tiger, just your friends. The tiger's gonna eat one of those women.

• 33:47Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 33:48Jeff Larson?

  It's just, you gotta be lucky, which one?

• 33:51Wes Larson?

  The thing that I've learned too with this tiger is like, even when there's a lot of people that go and try and scare it, it just picks up its prey and runs. Like, it doesn't leave the prey behind. It grabs it and runs, cause it's so strong and powerful that it can literally just like run off with their bodies. So.

• 34:09Mike Smith?

  I feel like I'd still be up in that tree if I were the other two. Like, my skeleton would just be still up there.

• 34:16Jeff Larson?

  CT with Johnny bananas on his back.

• 34:18Wes Larson?

  Yeah, the bananas backpack. Yeah. All right. So Corbett, Corbett listens to this story with both a ton of interest and compassion. And he knows that he has to act fast before the tiger either leaves the area or kills someone else. This village is already starting to have a little bit of confidence in Corbett after hearing that he braved tonight alone, waiting for this tiger in the dark. And they, they ask him if he can watch over the villagers as they collect wheat from the fields because their food is running out and they don't want this wheat to spoil. So for a whole day, he just sits under a tree and his six men with the entire village harvest pretty much all of the wheat.

• 34:56Mike Smith?

  He is very, uh, he's a very brave person. Uh, I won't take that away from him, but I do like the fact that they took him staying out all night as a sign of his bravery, when reality was just, he was too scared to even go back inside.

• 35:10Jeff Larson?

  He must've like come back and been like, that wasn't scary at all.

• 35:14Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 35:15Jeff Larson?

  No, I wasn't scared. Yeah, of course I slept out there.

• 35:18Wes Larson?

  All right. But when he again asked the people to take him to the site of the killing, they won't do it. They're still too scared for that. Uh, and it really speaks to just how intense this fear is because in Hindu culture, it's actually really important to collect some of the remains so they can have a proper cremation. And they would have been really desperate to collect the remains of this woman, but the fear of the tiger was too strong. And Jim really wanted to see the kill site because if he can find some tracks or any kind of sign, he might be able to tell what sex this tiger is. And that would actually be really important information for him to use in the hunt. So he meets with his men and they come up with a plan.

• 36:02Wes Larson?

  And Jim decides he's gonna put on a little show that will prove to the people that he's the right man for this job.

• 36:09Mike Smith?

  He's gonna do one of those behind the back shots, I bet.

• 36:11Wes Larson?

  Pretty much.

• 36:13Mike Smith?

  Who's the, the girl who like went around touring gun shows and she would do all those trick shots? What was her name? Annie something?

• 36:21Wes Larson?

  Annie Oakley.

• 36:22Mike Smith?

  Annie Oakley. Yeah. Probably picked up some tricks from her.

• 36:25Wes Larson?

  He's kinda like the male Annie Oakley. Um, so the next day, he asked the village headman where he could go find some of the wild gural or goral, which are a species of mountainous goat and are really plentiful in this area. And they really just look like a goat that lives in the mountains. And three of the villagers offer to accompany Corbett and his men. And they hike to this high rocky area where Corbett sees the head of one of these goats sticking up over a rock like 200 yards away. And it's really just the head and it's totally camouflaged. So the other men can't see it at all, but they see him raise his rifle and fire. And they think that he's probably just like firing at the mountain or something to try and scare some goats out so that he can get a shot.

• 37:09Wes Larson?

  Because there's just no way that he's hitting the head of a goat that far away. And then they're totally shocked when a dead goat tumbles down the slope and lays motionless at the bottom. And then to make it even more incredible, when he does this shot, two other goats that had been hiding scatter. And he like follows and shoots both of them, nailing both of those goats and dropping them as well.

• 37:33Jeff Larson?

  Wow.

• 37:34Wes Larson?

  And they're moving.

• 37:35Jeff Larson?

  Behind the back?

• 37:37Wes Larson?

  Not behind the back.

• 37:38Mike Smith?

  The apple on top of their head?

• 37:40Wes Larson?

  Whoa. This is pretty amazing. It's pretty rad. Even Corbett himself knows that he has pulled off some pretty impossible shots. Like, he kind of hypes himself up in the book. And I should mention, a lot of this is coming from his book, Man Eaters of Kumon. So they gather these goats and the men and him head back to the village. Two of the goats are for the people of the village. The other one is for Corbett and his men. And as they're cooking them in the courtyard, Corbett can overhear the townspeople just talking about how he had shot the goats from what they said was a mile away and how it was pretty much a miracle from the gods that he was able to shoot these goats. So his plan works. He now has a lot of trust from the people.

• 38:23Wes Larson?

  That very same day, he has a lot of eager volunteers to take him to the site of the most recent killing. And when he gets there, he first goes to the tree where he sees something that's really gruesome. On the branch that the woman had been holding on to, there were still strands of skin and small pieces of flesh in the bark because she had been clinging on so hard that her hands had ripped open on this branch.

• 38:49Mike Smith?

  Wow, man.

• 38:50Wes Larson?

  Corbett then immediately notices the ravine and how it's really the only way the tiger could have approached the tree unseen. So he walks up the ravine where he finds some tiger tracks. And somehow these tracks let him know that he is indeed dealing with a female tiger, a tigress, who is slightly past her prime. So then he walks up the ravine where he finds the site where a big dried pool of blood shows that the woman had been killed. And then a trail of blood across the ravine and onto the opposite bank leads them to the site where the tiger actually ate the woman. There's essentially nothing left, aside for some clothes and small pieces of bone. But he collects the splinters of bone and the clothes for the cremation and they head back to the village.

• 39:36Wes Larson?

  All right. When he arrives at the village, he has some tea and then his new companions from the village take him to the site of another tragedy that had happened nearby. And this site was a hut that sat on a large, grassy hill. And inside this hut was a woman that hadn't uttered a single word in 12 months. And that's because 12 months ago, the tiger had killed this woman's sister right in front of her.

• 40:00Jeff Larson?

  Ugh.

• 40:01Wes Larson?

  The two sisters had been on the hillside, cutting grass with these big, long scythes. And when the tigers appeared and attacked the older sister, it was carrying her off by the neck while this younger sister is screaming, doing anything she can to stop it. And in front of all these village onlookers, the younger sister chases the tiger while swinging her scythe and screaming at it to drop her sister and to take her instead. She chases the tiger about 100 yards when it drops the older sister and jumps at her. And when it does this, she realizes she's in overhead. She turns, she runs to the nearby villagers who had witnessed the whole thing.

• 40:42Wes Larson?

  And when she arrives, she's so scared and overwhelmed that she can only make these incoherent noises, which they figure is probably just a result of her like running really hard. So they try to go rescue the other sister. And when they come back, they find that the survivor was still unable to talk. And when Corbett talked to her, she had been mute for over about a year. Uh, she hadn't said a single word since her sister was killed.

• 41:09Wes Larson?

  So Corbett, he hears this story. And he confidently tells her that he's gonna come kill the tiger that had killed her sister and he leaves. Put a pin in that, Jeff.

• 41:19Jeff Larson?

  I wonder if she'll like, yeah, I'm curious if she like talks if the tiger gets killed.

• 41:24Wes Larson?

  Jim walks all over the area, collecting stories, but he decides that the tiger has left the area. And he decides that he's gonna walk with his men to Champawat, which kind of lies right in the middle of this bullseye that this tiger had been creating with its kills. So people walk this road all the time between different places. And when they do it, they often do it together because it's a pretty unsafe road. So while he's walking with his men, more men are kind of joining them. And he's joined by some men that about two months ago had walked that very same road in a group of 20. And they had a story. Basically, as they were walking the road, they start hearing blood curdling screams and pleas for help from the valley below.

• 42:07Wes Larson?

  They stop walking, they huddle together, they're shaking from fright as these screams are getting closer and closer. And then they watch as the tiger crests a small hill in the road in front of them. And in its mouth is a screaming naked woman. Her hair is trailing on the ground on one side of the tiger and her feet are dragging on the other side. So it's kind of like the tiger's biting her in the middle and her head's dripping down on one side and her feet on the other side. It's carrying her from the small of her back. And she's just bleeding out and screaming for the gods or for anyone else to help her. The tiger passes 50 yards from this group of 20 men and they just watch as it carries the woman away to her death.

• 42:51Wes Larson?

  So Corbett, of course, is kind of like, wait, so you guys didn't do anything? And they just say they're way too scared and that the woman was covered in blood. They were sure she was gonna die regardless. But when they get to the village that they were headed, they learned that the tiger had grabbed the girl from that village. And she had been gathering sticks and that a rescue party of about 30 people, some of them with rifles and drums are headed to try and rescue this girl. So they join the rescue party. And I do think they managed to scare off the tiger because when they find this girl, uh, she's lying dead on a rock, but the tiger hadn't started to feed on her. But had licked all the blood off of the body. And it's nowhere to be seen, the tiger.

• 43:33Wes Larson?

  Pretty rough. So rather than judge these guys though, Corbett says that he's starting just to learn how horrifically scary it is to live in a places, live in these places where a man eater is active. And he's got another great quote from his book. And you guys are gonna understand why I included this quote. There's one part of it that made me feel like I had to include it. "It is little wonder that the character and outlook on life of people living year to year in a man eater country should change. And that one coming from the outside should feel that he had stepped right into a world of stark realities. And that the rule of tooth and claw, which force man in the reign of the saber tooth tiger to shelter in dark caverns. I was young and inexperienced in those Champawat days.

• 44:17Wes Larson?

  But even so, the conviction I came to after a brief sojourn in that stricken land is that there is no more terrible thing than to live under the shadow of a man eater. And that's been strengthened strengthened by 32 years of subsequent experience." Corbett shouting out the name of our show.

• 44:34Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, thanks for the shout out.

• 44:37Mike Smith?

  It's the best part of every movie when they say the title of the movie.

• 44:42Wes Larson?

  Face off.

• 44:49Wes Larson?

  We've been doing ad reads for Quince for a while and there's always this intro that they have in their copy that says, "Hey, this is gonna be the first thing you reach for in your closet." And to be totally honest with you, I didn't believe it, but it's true. I find that everything that I'm buying from Quince ends up being something that is permanently in my rotation. Always some of the first things that I reach for when I open my closet. I have a sweater from them that I always get compliments on, pants that are really comfortable. I recently tried out their underwear, which I just absolutely love. It's so nice to wear, especially on long flights, which I know sounds kind of weird, but I just have a hard time finding underwear that I love on a long flight. And this Quince underwear just feels so good. And it's because they focus on high quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials,

• 45:34Wes Larson?

  like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, merino wool. Their styles are timeless, they're versatile, they're designed to become the dependable pieces that you're gonna reach for day after day. And it's a lot cheaper than a lot of the stuff you'd get from a luxury brand. So you're getting luxury stuff without the luxury price tag. I just really like everything I've gotten from Quince. So find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com/tooth. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada and the UK too. That's Q U I N C E dot com slash tooth.

• 46:17Wes Larson?

  So when Corbett gets, when he gets to Champawat, he stays in a bungalow outside the village. And one day, not long after arriving, he's talking to one of the local leaders on a hill overlooking a long sloping field of green that leads down to nearby village. And he and this leader watch as a man leaves the village. And then they watch this man alternatively run and walk in their direction, like he's sprinting and then walking and then sprinting and then walking. And Corbett tells this guy, this guy's coming to tell us something. And sure enough, uh, the man runs up out of breath and tells them that tiger had just killed a girl in their village.

• 46:56Mike Smith?

  I thought maybe he had diarrhea because sometimes, you know, he like.

• 47:01Wes Larson?

  Like have to stop and pinch it.

• 47:03Mike Smith?

  Yeah, to like walk a little bit to keep it in. Yeah, that's how that would look. So they're like, he's either got something to tell us or.

• 47:10Wes Larson?

  Some diarrhea, which in India.

• 47:13Mike Smith?

  Boy, you get that. You get that every time.

• 47:15Wes Larson?

  I get it bad.

• 47:16Mike Smith?

  Yeah, that's how you're moving. You alternatively run and walk everywhere in India when you go.

• 47:21Wes Larson?

  You see me dip behind a lot of rocks.

• 47:26Wes Larson?

  So Corbett tells this guy to hold tight and then he runs up and grabs his rifle out of the bungalow, some cartridges, then runs back to this man. And he says this guy was really annoying because he could only talk when he wasn't running. So they run back to the village, but the guy's trying to tell him the story. And whenever he'd try and talk, he would stop running. And Corbett's finally just like, shut up, let's just go to the village. Don't try and talk anymore. And they just run to the village together.

• 47:55Mike Smith?

  Uh, it's really funny.

• 47:56Wes Larson?

  Corbett's really funny. Like in his books, there's always these little anecdotes that are really funny and really get me. So.

• 48:04Jeff Larson?

  It's such a crazy situation too, where it's like, I can understand why that guy wants to keep talking. Like that's a crazy thing that just happened. But then it's like, he just can't.

• 48:18Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 48:18Jeff Larson?

  Get the words out unless he stops.

• 48:21Wes Larson?

  I forget exactly how you word it, but he's like, he's one of those exasperating individuals. His brains only work when their legs aren't running or something.

• 48:32Wes Larson?

  So he gets to the village, there's a lot of commotion. Um, but a man sees Corbett and he points to a grove of oak trees about 200 yards away. And he says that a group of a dozen people had been gathering sticks in the area when a tiger materialized out of nowhere, grabbed a 16 year old girl named Premka Devi. And that no one had seen this cat, they only knew that it grabbed the girl when they heard these choking sounds. And they turned around to see her in the jaws of the tiger. Everyone else had ran back to the village and they sent this messenger to tell Corbett.

• 49:06Wes Larson?

  So this is victim 436. He goes to the grove of trees. He finds a bright spot of crimson blood, so it's very fresh, and a broken necklace of brightly colored beads. He follows the trail of the cat with this girl, uh, which he says is easy because on one side of the tiger tracks, there's these bright splashes of blood. And on the other side of the tracks were drag marks from her feet. So again, it's carrying her that same way. He finds her sari, her, you know, the sari dresses about half mile away from the kill site. And then her skirt on top of the hill. A man that the local leader had sent, uh, shows up behind Corbett and he's a little irritated about this,

• 49:48Wes Larson?

  but he lets the man join him after making him take off his heavy boots to telling, telling him to step lightly. Like this guy had really heavy boots on and Corbett's like, you gotta take those off. And then he immediately leads this dude through a bunch of thorns and nettle bushes.

• 50:06Wes Larson?

  The trail of blood leads into a creek that goes down a really steep and hard to navigate ravine. And it's full of brush and this guy from the village completely loses his nerve. He begs Corbett to go back. Instead, Corbett finds this big pillar of rock and he has the man climb on top. And he leaves him there. He says, that's a safe spot. Just hang out. You can wait for me there. And then he continues on. He comes to the junction of another ravine. And at the junction, there's this small pool of water that has patches of blood around it. He sees splinters of bone all over and lots of blood. And it's obvious to him that this was the spot where the tiger had started to feed. Before he had scared it further up the ravine.

• 50:49Wes Larson?

  And then he sees something strange by this pool of blood or pool of water. He kind of gets closer to it. He's looking at it. He can't really make out what it is. As he gets closer and closer, he realizes it's the girl's leg. It had been bitten off below the knee. The cut was so clean that it looked like it had been chopped off with an axe. And blood is still leaking out of it. Yeah. Pretty gnarly. So as he's staring at this leg, he suddenly has this really intense feeling that he's in immediate danger. He slams his rifle butt to his shoulder. He puts his finger on the trigger. He raises his head. And at the same time, he's looking down his rifle.

• 51:29Wes Larson?

  And when he does this, he sees a little bit of dirt and rocks go tumbling down the bank in front of him and into the pool of water. And the tiger had been just about to pounce on him. But him swinging his rifle up so quickly had stopped the attack.

• 51:44Jeff Larson?

  Wow.

• 51:45Wes Larson?

  Yeah, this bank in front of him is like 15 feet and it's steep, so he can't climb it, but he runs at it and jumps up and grabs some bushes. Pulls himself up on top of it. And he sees where the tiger had just been, like the plants are kind of starting to like right themselves. And he finds a big rock where she had been feeding on this girl again. The tiger had grabbed the girl's body and headed back up into some really rocky and rough terrain. And it's really hard to move through these big rocks. And he keeps finding spots where the tiger had stopped to feed and then kept moving because he's interrupting it.

• 52:19Jeff Larson?

  That's such an interesting, like they're both really smart. He's really smart to like get that like spidey sense almost that he's about to get. I mean, I guess seeing a severed leg should probably make your senses a little more alert, but still. And then like the tiger was about to pounce on him and knew, actually I'm gonna die if I pounce on him here, right? You know?

• 52:47Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 52:47Mike Smith?

  Tiggy sense.

• 52:48Wes Larson?

  It also, the thing that really struck me at this point is it's like pretty hard to overstate just how brave Jim Corbett is. Like this tiger's killed 436 people. She was highly defensive. And he is just like chasing it up a ravine with one gun. You know, he's unreal brave. And she's growling at him while they're in these rocks that he could, he could hear her growling, but he never saw her. So I just like, this, I don't think. I mean, I don't think I could do something like that, you know, like it's pretty crazy.

• 53:22Jeff Larson?

  That's kind of like Trump versus Biden's debate, you know? Just two masters, one step ahead of each other.

• 53:32Mike Smith?

  4D chess or whatever they call it.

• 53:34Wes Larson?

  Yeah, a real display of cunning.

• 53:38Mike Smith?

  Like each had two checker pieces.

• 53:44Wes Larson?

  And neither of them were able to score a single move.

• 53:48Wes Larson?

  It's getting late, so Corbett decides to go bury the leg of the girl so he can collect it later for her cremation. I don't know why he didn't just take it with him, but for whatever reason, he buries it. And then he goes to get this guy on the rock and they head back to the village. On the way, this guy almost slips and like blows Corbett's head off with his gun. And Corbett in his book says, at that moment, I decided I would only hunt alone from now on. Like he's never hunting with another guy. He really doesn't want to lose this tiger though, so he decides what to do. He knows that the people in Nepal had managed to scare her by organizing that beat. So he decides he's gonna do the same thing and force her into very narrow gorge that's covered in trees.

• 54:31Jeff Larson?

  How do they know that?

• 54:32Wes Larson?

  Last standoff. They know quite a bit about this tiger at this point, about her history. Yeah. So he asked the local leader, the guy that he'd been sitting on the hill with, to round up men and to meet him at 10 a.m. the next morning. And this guy managed to find 298 men that were willing to help with this beat. Some of them with ancient rifles. So Corbett positions the men on this ridge where he wants them and he tells them on his signal to make as much noise as possible, but not to leave the ridge unless he personally tells them to leave the ridge. And then he makes his way down to the gorge. But when he's about 150 yards away from this gorge, the men start firing their rifles and making noise before he gives them the signal. So he has to sprint down to this gorge.

• 55:18Wes Larson?

  And he has to settle kind of into the first place that he can find. That's maybe an okay place to wait for this tiger. So it's already not going very well. Yeah. The noise from this man is just going absolutely crazy. He catches a brief look at the tiger. And then hears a gunshot and sees her go up a different direction. He manages to fire a single shot after her, which is just kind of a hail Mary. He misses, like he knows he misses the shot. The men up on the ridge are firing more, they're yelling. Suddenly the tiger crashes into the gorge and the stream that Corbett is also standing in. He has a split second to remind himself that his rifle shoots a little bit high at this altitude.

• 56:01Wes Larson?

  He adjusts up a tiny fraction and he fires. The tiger stops. And although Corbett thinks he's hit her with his first shot, he also doesn't know because she doesn't react at all. These glowing amber eyes are now on fire. They're absolutely fixed on Jim and she turns toward him. Gives him a great shot at her shoulder, which he takes. This time he knows he hits the cat, but she keeps coming. Her teeth are bared. She's growling. She's just absolutely in full defensive mode now. And he's in a bit of a pickle. Because he'd only brought three shots and now he's fired all three of them.

• 56:42Wes Larson?

  Which kind of speaks to his inexperience with man eaters because he's like, three shots is definitely not enough. I should have brought a lot more. But at that time, he figured like, how would I ever need three shots to kill a tiger? I'm only gonna need one. So three is like excessive.

• 56:57Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, he was like too good of a shot. He got too cocky.

• 57:00Wes Larson?

  And he'd killed tigers before, but they'd been, you know, tigers that weren't man eaters. Luckily though.

• 57:06Jeff Larson?

  You think you only had three shots with those goats and killed all three?

• 57:10Wes Larson?

  Probably, yeah. Old three shot Jim is what they used to call him.

• 57:16Wes Larson?

  Luckily though, the tigress doesn't charge him, but she walks up a narrow ledge of rock to a big overhanging rock. And there's a bush up there and she's really angry and she starts just kind of tearing into this bush. Corbett runs to the leader of the village who had followed him and he asks him for his gun. Which is this really ancient muzzleloader that shoots like a round bullet. He grabs it. He runs back to the tiger. He carefully aims and fires. But this gun is so old that the bullet doesn't hit the tiger in the head like he intended. It hits it in the paw. But this last shot is somehow enough to kind of finally cause the tiger to collapse. And she lays down on this big flat rock.

• 58:00Wes Larson?

  And this tigress that had been looming large over two countries and thousands of people for the better part of a decade. Takes her last breath and she dies on a rock in this forest.

• 58:12Wes Larson?

  So a bunch of the men who'd been part of this beat show up. And when they see the dead tiger, they immediately begin shouting that they want to hack her to bits with their machetes. And essentially like tear her apart with their own hands. And their ringleader is a man who's holding a sword and he's screaming that the tiger had killed his wife and his two sons. But this tiger is on this rock that's really hard to get to. And they're not able to climb up there and the anger starts to kind of die down. They start to kind of get a, you know, a handle on their emotions. And they apologize. But Corbett's really sympathetic and he knows that he can't possibly understand like the rage and the sadness that these people are feeling.

• 58:54Wes Larson?

  He's then able to carefully lower the body of this tigress down and he immediately notices the broken canines and like on the spot, he says that that was the cause of this tiger switching to specialize in humans rather than natural prey.

• 59:09Jeff Larson?

  Wow.

• 59:10Wes Larson?

  He's about to Skinner then and there and the men beg beg him not to, and they say they want to carry her body through the villages so that the women and children could see her and know that their long nightmare was over. Like they felt like the women needed also to like have this kind of closure. And there's a lot of celebration that follows the death of this tigress. Corbett presides over a big feast. Uh, they kind of have this tour where they go through all the different villages with their body and then her skin. And he takes the skin, he starts for home, but Jeff, pull that pin out.

• 59:43Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 59:43Wes Larson?

  Stops, he stops at the hut of that woman who had lost her sister and lost her voice. And when he spreads the skin of this tiger out in front of her, she starts calling for her husband and her voice miraculously comes back to her.

• 59:57Jeff Larson?

  Oh.

• 59:59Wes Larson?

  This was the first man eater that Corbett would ever kill and establishes him as something of a legend, uh, and as someone the local governments would call when there was a big cat or maybe a bear or a wolf or something that was killing people. And we know from his other stories that he probably became the most successful and accomplished hunter of man eaters that the world has ever known. The Chompa Wot tiger had killed four hundred and thirty six people by the time her life came to an end.

• 1:00:28Jeff Larson?

  Leopards too, they called him for.

• 1:00:30Wes Larson?

  Yep. And leopards. Sorry. Yeah. I said, big cat. I said, big cat, didn't I? Yeah.

• 1:00:35Jeff Larson?

  Oh, man. Four hundred and thirty six, you said?

• 1:00:38Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:39Mike Smith?

  Yeah. And one bush.

• 1:00:40Jeff Larson?

  So one volcano killed two thousand people, Pompeii.

• 1:00:47Wes Larson?

  Sure.

• 1:00:48Jeff Larson?

  So it's kinda, that's kinda nothing still.

• 1:00:51Wes Larson?

  That's not.

• 1:00:51Mike Smith?

  Is that all that volcano got?

• 1:00:53Wes Larson?

  Yeah, that's not enough for a volcano.

• 1:00:56Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:56Wes Larson?

  Opinion.

• 1:00:57Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. I think it, I've heard that it's a lot more like as like a, I don't know. There's, it's two thousand to sixteen thousand.

• 1:01:06Wes Larson?

  Yeah. And we should mention that with this tiger too, there's a bit of debate. There's people that think she probably killed a lot more because

• 1:01:14Jeff Larson?

  Really?

• 1:01:15Wes Larson?

  Record keeping was so poor in a lot of these villages that it's likely that she killed a lot more. And there's people that think she killed less. So.

• 1:01:22Jeff Larson?

  How did they get that number?

• 1:01:24Wes Larson?

  That's just what was reported. Like those were the ones that actually were reported to the colonial government.

• 1:01:30Jeff Larson?

  So like, okay, so it could have been some different tigers in the mix or like a few.

• 1:01:36Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:38Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:38Wes Larson?

  There could be a lot of things, but um, we're just going to stick with four thirty six for the purpose.

• 1:01:43Jeff Larson?

  Maybe like some old person was about to die and the tiger killed him like a, like an old person had COVID and was about to die and the tiger killed him. Like a stat head.

• 1:01:57Wes Larson?

  All right. So she is thought to be the most prolific solitary man eater that we've ever known. The Njombe man eating lions and the crocodiles of Ramri Island both have killed more people, but there weren't single animals and those are stories that we'll still tell. But before we move on to our categories, I just really quickly want to visualize just how many people four hundred and thirty six really is. The roster of the NBA, the current total roster of the NBA is around four hundred and fifty people. So she killed almost the entire roster of the NBA. Um, the voting members of the US House

• 1:02:42Wes Larson?

  of Representatives is four hundred and thirty five. So when you see those like videos though of like all of them sitting in that big hall, she killed every single one of those people. It's more than the number of people that fit in most IMAX theaters. So again, just a way to visualize how many people this tiger actually killed. All right. Well, that wraps up our story of the Chompa Wot man eater. Uh, this is one.

• 1:03:08Jeff Larson?

  So you said it's for like one single animal. This is probably the one that killed the most people on record.

• 1:03:15Wes Larson?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:03:16Jeff Larson?

  What was that crocodile? We did a story on that had like

• 1:03:20Wes Larson?

  Gustav.

• 1:03:20Jeff Larson?

  Gustav. Yeah. But it ended up being like a lot of other crocodiles too.

• 1:03:25Mike Smith?

  Potentially. And it was only around like three, three hundred plus. So not quite at the same totals. Um, but a lot more reason to doubt those numbers than even the Chompa Wot, I think.

• 1:03:37Wes Larson?

  The leopard of Ruderpyog was in the like between one hundred and two hundred. And then there's another leopard we're going to do at some point called the Panar Leopard. And I think it's thought to have killed around four hundred people. But when you look at these lists of like the most successful man eating animals, the Chompa Wot tiger is always at the top for like single.

• 1:03:58Jeff Larson?

  And it's like, bye. It's like John Stockton with this is, it's like

• 1:04:02Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it's a good.

• 1:04:03Jeff Larson?

  Second place is like half as many.

• 1:04:06Wes Larson?

  Yeah. The Panar Leopard, it killed a lot, but we'll see about that one. Yeah.

• 1:04:10Mike Smith?

  What about that one brown bear from Sankabatsu, also known as the Sankabatsu brown bear?

• 1:04:16Wes Larson?

  Yeah, we still need to do that one. I want to say it's around like 12 people. Bears, bears don't kill nearly, yeah, nearly the number that.

• 1:04:24Mike Smith?

  That's compared to that volcano. Are you serious right now?

• 1:04:30Jeff Larson?

  That's more like Mount St. Helens or something.

• 1:04:32Mike Smith?

  Yeah. Why don't people tell us to do the volcano story? That's what I'm wondering now.

• 1:04:39Wes Larson?

  All right. You guys have any questions about the Chompa Wot tiger before we move on to our categories?

• 1:04:44Mike Smith?

  So it seems like attacking individuals that were part of a, a group of people wasn't beyond this tiger. Is that, uh, normal for a tiger to not really be concerned? Cause I know with brown bears, we always caution people to go out with groups of two or three people and that drastically reduces chances of attacks.

• 1:05:04Wes Larson?

  I think the thing to remember is none of this is normal for a tiger. Like this is not normal tiger behavior at all. But as far as man eating tigers, her pulling a person out of a group isn't like, that's not unheard of. Like that's not something that's totally, but they're ambush hunters, you know, like with bears, we're typically talking about like surprise encounters where the bear is suddenly having to analyze the situation. It's suddenly having to kind of try and figure out what it can do. And when there's a bunch of people there, it's just like not, it's too much information for it to process and too risky. This tiger is seeing these people from a distance. It's creeping up

• 1:05:48Wes Larson?

  slowly. It's carefully plotting, you know, where it's going to make its move, where it has the best cover, which person is going to be the easiest for it to grab. So it has time to kind of assess and analyze. And, um, that's why it would take a person out of a group like that.

• 1:06:06Jeff Larson?

  I feel like leopards and tigers especially to have easier surroundings to get away with a kill, you know, and are more capable. Like, uh, like they can like carry it easier. They have more coverage. So they can kind of like hide with something pretty quick.

• 1:06:29Wes Larson?

  Yeah. They also like have spent their entire lives learning how to hunt, whereas bears are much more just kind of grazing and opportunistic and can hunt, but that's not like their MO.

• 1:06:39Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. Cats don't eat vegetables.

• 1:06:43Wes Larson?

  Nope.

• 1:06:44Mike Smith?

  Do you think if a bear encountered, so in the first human centipede movie, it's three people attacked? Would that scare a bear off? Or would it be just like, that's just one, one thing. So I'm cool now. I go after it.

• 1:06:59Jeff Larson?

  Cause it's like a group.

• 1:07:00Wes Larson?

  Scare him off.

• 1:07:01Mike Smith?

  Right. Cause it is three people.

• 1:07:03Wes Larson?

  Have you seen that movie?

• 1:07:05Mike Smith?

  I have. No.

• 1:07:06Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Neither have I. I refuse to watch that one.

• 1:07:10Mike Smith?

  That'll be my pick for you to watch during no pants.

• 1:07:12Wes Larson?

  I don't think I'll do it. I honestly don't think I would. Yeah.

• 1:07:16Jeff Larson?

  I think that the bear would like initially be scared, but like bears are curious. So I think it's like, it depends how long they keep going. I think maybe eventually come check it out.

• 1:07:30Wes Larson?

  Bear'd be like, this is kind of franked up. I need to go see this.

• 1:07:34Jeff Larson?

  It's like Wes waiting to watch it. Like he's curious. One day.

• 1:07:39Wes Larson?

  I am curious.

• 1:07:40Mike Smith?

  It'll get the better of him.

• 1:07:42Wes Larson?

  Reading the Wikipedia on that one's going to be enough for me. I don't need to watch that movie. Yeah.

• 1:07:46Jeff Larson?

  Before categories, the Volcan de Fuego killed a hundred ninety four confirmed deaths in Guatemala. So that's like more like the leopard.

• 1:07:57Wes Larson?

  Yeah, this tiger is more powerful than a volcano.

• 1:07:59Jeff Larson?

  So I learned that like, there's never really been a volcano that killed just, I guess two thousand's a lot, but.

• 1:08:06Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Yeah. It's like one nine eleven.

• 1:08:10Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:11Wes Larson?

  It's not even. All right.

• 1:08:13Jeff Larson?

  How many people died in nine eleven?

• 1:08:15Wes Larson?

  Like three thousand?

• 1:08:16Jeff Larson?

  Counting the pilots?

• 1:08:19Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:20Mike Smith?

  They wanted to die though. Yeah. They, they were like, well, okay.

• 1:08:27Wes Larson?

  Let's just let this die out.

• 1:08:30Mike Smith?

  How heavy do you think that guy's boots were?

• 1:08:32Wes Larson?

  I don't know.

• 1:08:34Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. And then he's like blames him for slipping. It's like, well, let him wear his frank boots.

• 1:08:41Mike Smith?

  Yeah, that's true. That's crazy. I don't know about this gym guy.

• 1:08:46Wes Larson?

  It's so funny too, cause he had on like lightweight boots and then he tells this guy to take off his boots and then he just immediately talks about how thorny and nettly the ground was. But he doesn't bring up the guy at all. He's not like, yeah, I feel bad for making this guy take off his boots. It's so funny.

• 1:09:03Mike Smith?

  It's messed up.

• 1:09:04Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:07Wes Larson?

  The moment you notice something's off in the bedroom, it tends to stick with you. But most guys might sit on it longer than they should. And Hims makes it simple to actually do something about it with real treatment options 100% online. Hims connects you with licensed healthcare providers online, giving you simple access to legitimate ED treatments from home. There's no awkward appointments, no pharmacy lines, just a complete, simple, online intake. Provider will review your information to determine if treatment is right for you. And if prescribed, your treatment ships directly to your door. If you have this problem, you know you have it. So you might as well just talk to a doctor online, get your medicine shipped straight to your door. Plus, while you're there, you might want to take a look around. Their hair care products are great.

• 1:09:52Wes Larson?

  I've been using Hims hair care products for the better part of five years. Absolutely love them. I've seen some really great changes because of them. So check it out. There's a lot of stuff on their website that's really great, straightforward, transparent, and it's designed to make getting care feel easy. So to get simple, online access to personalized, affordable care for ED, hair loss, and more, visit hims.com/tooth. That's H-I-M-S dot com slash tooth. Hims dot com slash tooth. Not available in all 50 states. Prescription required. See website for details, restrictions, and important safety information. So Denofil is a generic version of Viagra. Viagra is a registered trademark of Viatrix Specialty LLC.

• 1:10:35Wes Larson?

  Hims is not affiliated with or endorsed by Viatrix.

• 1:10:39Jeff Larson?

  So by now, everyone knows that my dog Shanks lost one of his legs by jumping on a live grenade during active combat to save his whole squad. But what people don't know is that I get stopped daily by people asking if they can pet Shanks because he's just so dang cute. And they always comment how soft his fur is and how happy he looks. And they ask me, do you take him to a dog trainer? Do you take him to a groomer? And I say, nope, but I do give him really good food, so maybe that helps. Ollie's fresh recipes are developed by real chefs with gut-friendly ingredients that support better digestion, energy, skin health, and poops. With flavors like fresh beef, with sweet potatoes, or fresh turkey with blueberries. I'm telling you, I noticed a difference with my dog.

• 1:11:24Jeff Larson?

  He feels so soft and he's just always smiling. Another thing I love is the end-to-end experience. From the moment you start your subscription, everything is tailored to your pup. The meals are perfectly portioned, and you get a pup tainer and scoop for easy storing and serving. Download the Ollie app for health tracking with health check-ins, vet feeding guides, and wellbeing scores. So get ready for both you and your pup to be obsessed. Head to ollie.com/tooth and tell them about your dog. Use code TOOTH for 70% off your welcome kit when you subscribe today. Plus, it's risk-free with their obsession guarantee. That's O-L-L-I-E dot com slash tooth.

• 1:12:05Jeff Larson?

  Enter code TOOTH to get 70% off your first box. Ollie, feed the obsession.

• 1:12:13Wes Larson?

  All right, let's move on to our categories. Uh, first one, a favorite pop culture hunt. So it can be anything. It can be a hunt for national treasure. It could be a hunt for animals.

• 1:12:25Mike Smith?

  Red October.

• 1:12:26Wes Larson?

  It could be the hunt for Red October, any kind of hunt in pop culture.

• 1:12:31Jeff Larson?

  I went, I went No Country For Old Men, just like starts with him hunting antelope. And then he finds like the drug deal gone wrong in like the rest of movies. Him and the Antoine guy like hunting each other.

• 1:12:47Wes Larson?

  Yeah, that's a great pick.

• 1:12:49Jeff Larson?

  Hmm. Thanks.

• 1:12:52Wes Larson?

  You're welcome.

• 1:12:56Wes Larson?

  There's a 2020 movie called Hunter, Hunter, which is all about this like hunter and his family that live off-grid and they're being terrorized by like a wolf. But then a man, an injured man shows up on their doorstep and he is not what he seems. And it, I'm just like a bit of a content warning for you. It has one of the gnarliest endings I've ever seen in a horror movie. But it is a really, it's a movie that really stuck with me and that I quite enjoyed. So that's going to be my pick. Also, just a quick disclaimer, now that we're in categories, I'm not going to go out and fix this. But you may hear one of my chickens in the background who is just absolutely trying to derail this episode.

• 1:13:40Wes Larson?

  So, um, yeah, just enjoy the beautiful noise of a chicken that needs to lay an egg.

• 1:13:46Mike Smith?

  Hunter, Hunter. That's what it's called?

• 1:13:48Wes Larson?

  Uh huh.

• 1:13:49Mike Smith?

  Holy cow.

• 1:13:50Jeff Larson?

  Have you ever heard of that, Mike?

• 1:13:52Mike Smith?

  Well, I was thinking you was going to talk about the anime Hunter, Hunter by Tagashi, but no.

• 1:13:57Wes Larson?

  I'm pretty sure it's called Hunter, Hunter.

• 1:14:02Jeff Larson?

  Crazy if it's not.

• 1:14:03Wes Larson?

  Yeah, it's Hunter, Hunter.

• 1:14:05Mike Smith?

  Okay. Is there an X in between the two Hunter words?

• 1:14:09Wes Larson?

  No, no.

• 1:14:09Mike Smith?

  Then it's not.

• 1:14:10Wes Larson?

  But they're both kind of like.

• 1:14:11Mike Smith?

  You're safe.

• 1:14:12Wes Larson?

  Claude.

• 1:14:13Mike Smith?

  I'm going to go with The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt. It's a game I actually, I've not finished it yet. And it's on hold again now that they announced a remaster for it and some new DLC, like 10 years later, which is really unusual. But, um, it's a pretty special game with Geralt running around doing his thing, just hunting.

• 1:14:31Wes Larson?

  Hunting.

• 1:14:31Mike Smith?

  He's actually, The Wild Hunt doesn't refer to Geralt actually, which is like, it's kind of a little mystery there. Yeah.

• 1:14:39Wes Larson?

  All right.

• 1:14:40Mike Smith?

  Exactly. Well, you should know what The Wild Hunt is if you've played the previous games, but you probably haven't statistically.

• 1:14:45Wes Larson?

  I haven't. I played, I've played like one video game in the last four years, pretty much, and it's Astro Bot.

• 1:14:53Jeff Larson?

  What about, uh, mini golf?

• 1:14:56Wes Larson?

  Besides mini golf, we do play a lot of mini golf.

• 1:14:58Jeff Larson?

  Why besides mini golf?

• 1:15:00Wes Larson?

  That transcends video games for me. Walkabout is more of a relaxing.

• 1:15:05Jeff Larson?

  Mike?

• 1:15:06Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:07Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:08Jeff Larson?

  Did you ever like Big Game Hunter at arcades?

• 1:15:11Wes Larson?

  Oh, I love that game.

• 1:15:13Mike Smith?

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. Just kill like 400,000 Black Panthers in one round. It's like, what is going on here?

• 1:15:22Wes Larson?

  And then just like a hot, like scantily clad woman with a gun is like dancing in front of you.

• 1:15:28Mike Smith?

  Camouflage bikini.

• 1:15:29Jeff Larson?

  It'd always be like this big bowl elk walks out and you're about to shoot it and a doe like flashes the fastest ever in front of it.

• 1:15:41Mike Smith?

  Secret Service just takes a bullet.

• 1:15:43Jeff Larson?

  It's just like, you shot a doe.

• 1:15:48Wes Larson?

  I remember that, like, they had that game at the movie theater I'd go to and it was back when you had to get there early to get seats. And so I'd go like really early and then just play Big Buck. Is it Big Buck Hunter or Big Game Hunter? I can't remember. Yeah.

• 1:16:02Jeff Larson?

  I think there's both.

• 1:16:04Mike Smith?

  Yeah, a few different ones. Yeah.

• 1:16:06Wes Larson?

  All right. Uh, next category, a time that you've had to hunt really hard for something.

• 1:16:14Mike Smith?

  This one's actually, I had, um, about five years ago, I went into a Nordstrom rack and saw some shoes that I really wanted and they're just a ridiculous pair of shoes.

• 1:16:23Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:23Mike Smith?

  It's the Steve Madden loafers with like, they're bedazzled with little, um, just like rhinestones or something. And they're just a little rich for my blood back then, so I didn't buy them. And I thought about them for like 48 hours straight, so I went back with every intention.

• 1:16:39Jeff Larson?

  Small or something.

• 1:16:40Mike Smith?

  They were like, maybe a little too, I probably could have squeezed into them, but I went back after two days with just like constantly thinking about them. And they were gone. And I was just like, ever since I've been just scouring the internet, it took me like years just to figure out what they were called. And finally I found a listing on eBay. And these are the ones you're probably thinking of, Jeff, but I bought them, but they're like size four.

• 1:17:06Mike Smith?

  No shot I'm going to fit into them. But it was like such a gratifying moment when I finally figured out what they were called and then actually found a listing for them for sale. So.

• 1:17:16Jeff Larson?

  How close to you are, or how close to them are you?

• 1:17:20Mike Smith?

  Not very close. I should go grab them and show like a picture, but.

• 1:17:23Jeff Larson?

  That's what I was going to say.

• 1:17:27Mike Smith?

  But it was a good hunt. They, they gave me a run for my money for a long time, but I persisted.

• 1:17:32Wes Larson?

  When I, like around the pandemic, uh, locked, locked down and everything, I was working for Hawkwatch. And it was a great job because I got to go out and look for golden eagles. And then once we, uh, had eagle nests that had active birds, we would often put, uh, trail cameras next to them. And then we would, um, tag birds in their nest by repelling into them. And we had this nest who had an eagle with the, with the chick. And then it suddenly was gone and the eagle was gone and we didn't know what had happened. And it was kind of a mystery and that was really good data for Hawkwatch to understand. And so we had to hike all the way, I hiked with the science director over at Hawkwatch, Steve. We hiked all the way up this like really hard ridge.

• 1:18:16Wes Larson?

  It was a hard day. It was hot. We get up to the top and it's a nest that's like pretty steep, but not too far from the top with like a 400 foot drop. And Steve was like, hey, do you want to repel into this one? And I was still kind of learning the ropes, so to speak. And so he, he like showed me how to set up everything.

• 1:18:39Mike Smith?

  The ropes. Whoa.

• 1:18:43Wes Larson?

  He got me all set up to repel down into this eagle nest to collect the camera. And the one thing he told me was do not drop the camera, you know? Which obviously like, don't drop it. It's 400 feet down and there's important data on this camera. And the first thing I do when I get this camera unscrewed is I drop it because I was scared. I was repelling and, uh, it falls down. It just shatters into a billion pieces on all these rocks. And so the hunt was the hunt for this SD card. Yeah. We had to find the SD card that was somewhere in all these rocks. Uh, and it took hours and hours and hours of searching.

• 1:19:27Wes Larson?

  And finally we did find it, but it was one of the.

• 1:19:30Jeff Larson?

  Exploded that much?

• 1:19:31Wes Larson?

  Oh yeah. It was like, it was 400 feet. So just like, was just like in tiny little pieces everywhere. Yeah. But he was very kind about it and we did find it. And we learned that this, uh, this eagle mom just kind of watched as her chick got too close to the edge and then fell off. We have a video of this, oh, this bird like right on the edge. And then all of a sudden she just toppled off the edge and the mom just kind of stuck her head out and looked, was like, whoops.

• 1:19:59Jeff Larson?

  Was just splattered?

• 1:20:01Wes Larson?

  Yeah, just died. It wasn't old enough to fly yet.

• 1:20:04Jeff Larson?

  Wow. I wish your chicken would do that.

• 1:20:07Wes Larson?

  I do too.

• 1:20:13Jeff Larson?

  In college, me and Mike's first time rooming together, we like found this puzzle at a thrift shop with a cat on it, but it's like a thousand piece puzzle. And it's from a thrift store, so you're not confident that all the pieces are going to be in there. But as like we got close to the finish is like, oh, I think this is gonna work out. And we get to where there's one piece missing. And we look everywhere and can't find it. And it was the most frustrating thing ever. And then it turns out our friend's recent or like new girlfriend had who he ends up marrying.

• 1:20:57Jeff Larson?

  So worked out, but had taken one of the pieces and put it in her purse. So that she could finish the puzzle. And it's like, you can do that if it's your puzzle with your boyfriend, but you can't do that with like our random puzzle.

• 1:21:15Wes Larson?

  Yeah. How, how mad versus like, like kind of funny? Did you think that was, you know, like,

• 1:21:22Jeff Larson?

  I never thought it was funny. I was relieved because I wanted the puzzle to be complete.

• 1:21:28Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:28Jeff Larson?

  And then it kind of dawned on me later, like, she can't do that.

• 1:21:33Wes Larson?

  No.

• 1:21:37Mike Smith?

  I think I was maybe a little less emotionally invested. I didn't, I didn't care too much. I don't remember caring. Maybe I did in the moment.

• 1:21:44Wes Larson?

  That would bother me. I think I would be like, yeah, you, this isn't allowed.

• 1:21:51Jeff Larson?

  You gotta break up with her.

• 1:21:54Wes Larson?

  We've talked a lot about where the, uh, the big cats rank in our personal rankings. But I think often in those rankings, we're considering a lot of different things like their abilities, sounds they make, whatever. I want you guys to rank the following big cats solely based on how pretty you think they are. So just their beauty and I want you.

• 1:22:17Jeff Larson?

  Beautiful.

• 1:22:18Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Yes. And I, we're only talking typical coats here. So we're not talking Black Panthers, White Tigers, any kind of genetic variation, just like a typical coat for these cats. All right.

• 1:22:32Jeff Larson?

  Hmm.

• 1:22:33Wes Larson?

  Tiger Jaguar.

• 1:22:35Jeff Larson?

  Black Panther might be number one.

• 1:22:37Wes Larson?

  Okay. Well, we're not doing it. Tiger Jaguar, Lion, Snow Leopard, Mountain Lion or Puma, Cheetah and Leopard.

• 1:22:45Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, I went number one leopards.

• 1:22:50Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 1:22:50Jeff Larson?

  Then I said Tiger, Jaguar, Lion, Cheetah, Snow Leopard, Mountain Lion.

• 1:22:57Wes Larson?

  Oh, wow. All right.

• 1:22:59Speaker 03

  Insurance isn't a one size fits all. And shopping for it shouldn't feel like squeezing into something that just doesn't fit. That's why drivers have enjoyed progressives name your price tool for years. With the name your price tool, you tell them what you want to pay and they show you options that fit your budget. Enough hunting for discounts, trying to calculate rates and tinkering with coverages. Maybe you're picking out your very first policy. Or maybe you're just looking for something that works better for you and your family. Either way, they make it simple for you to see your options. No guesswork, no surprises. Ready to see how easy and fun shopping for car insurance can be?

• 1:23:41Speaker 03

  Visit progressive.com and give the name your price tool a try. Take this stress out of shopping and find coverage that fits your life on your terms. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law.

• 1:23:59Speaker 04

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

• 1:24:27Mike Smith?

  Interesting.

• 1:24:28Jeff Larson?

  But yeah, I think leopards with their long tails, their like coats, like I just think they're the most beautiful.

• 1:24:36Mike Smith?

  Yeah. I'm going to go Tiger Jaguar, Snow Leopard, Leopard, Cheetah, Lion, Cougar. I think Cougar is really the only one I like. You can exchange anyone and put them in first place, honestly, except for Mountain Lion, which I do think is just kind of like.

• 1:24:55Jeff Larson?

  See for me, Leopard was the only like clearly had its spot at one. And the next six I could have changed the order for.

• 1:25:06Wes Larson?

  Yeah, I was gonna say my margins in between these cats are very small. Like I think they're all incredibly beautiful animals. But I have the same first three as Mike Tiger Jaguar, Snow Leopard. And then I go Mountain Lion, which I really thought about putting in number one.

• 1:25:23Wes Larson?

  Because I just, I don't know what it is about them. There's something about their faces that I just think make them so beautiful. And then I have Cheetah Leopard and Lion rounding it out.

• 1:25:34Jeff Larson?

  Lion's the least beautiful.

• 1:25:36Wes Larson?

  Lion. Yeah, I, I think, but I still think they're incredibly beautiful. Like if you.

• 1:25:41Jeff Larson?

  The main of the sun's African sunset.

• 1:25:44Wes Larson?

  I know.

• 1:25:44Jeff Larson?

  With the main just.

• 1:25:46Wes Larson?

  All of these animals are beautiful. Yeah.

• 1:25:50Mike Smith?

  Oh, my freaking gosh.

• 1:25:51Jeff Larson?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:25:52Wes Larson?

  Why don't you put them at one then? Jeff?

• 1:25:54Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:55Wes Larson?

  Jeff, you're so hot for Lions.

• 1:25:58Jeff Larson?

  Uh, well, I have them pretty high.

• 1:26:01Wes Larson?

  Where are they for you?

• 1:26:02Mike Smith?

  They're like fourth.

• 1:26:03Jeff Larson?

  They're right in the middle.

• 1:26:04Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:05Jeff Larson?

  Fourth.

• 1:26:07Wes Larson?

  All right. Uh, let's move on to the next one. Something animated you loved recently. And this is in honor of, uh, Alyssa and Sechi, who are the two animators that created the really wonderful, um, episode artwork for this episode. Alyssa also did our Treadwell artwork. Um, I gave these guys like a week to put this together. And they perfectly matched the vision I had for it. So thank you so much to both of them.

• 1:26:35Mike Smith?

  Yeah. So impressive.

• 1:26:36Wes Larson?

  And they're professional animators. So that's why I wanted to do this category, something animated that you've loved recently.

• 1:26:43Jeff Larson?

  Mike, how do you say the one I've been watching on Netflix, the end of Ap- Avil?

• 1:26:49Mike Smith?

  Evangelion?

• 1:26:50Jeff Larson?

  Evangelion. Yeah. The end of Evangelion. It's kind of, it kind of feels like Pacific Rim almost where it's just like sticking kids in these robots to go fight monsters.

• 1:27:03Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:03Jeff Larson?

  And but like the opening song and closing song were just like so amazing. And I just really loved, especially the first part of it. Like the first 10 episodes, I was just like, wow.

• 1:27:22Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:23Wes Larson?

  That's the best.

• 1:27:24Mike Smith?

  Out of you. You got you. Pretty good thing.

• 1:27:26Wes Larson?

  That's the best. When you watch 10 episodes of something and you're like, wow, afterwards.

• 1:27:32Mike Smith?

  Wow.

• 1:27:32Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:34Mike Smith?

  Uh, no, I'm happy you're watching that.

• 1:27:36Jeff Larson?

  There's only like a few shows too, where I'll like try to watch the opening and closing credits. Especially on Netflix, because it's like so easy to skip them. You almost like, you have to like try to not skip them to skip them, you know?

• 1:27:54Wes Larson?

  I hate when you're stoked to watch the ending credits and then it just does the little tiny window. And you have to click back on it.

• 1:28:01Jeff Larson?

  Yeah. Cause all you do is watch Marvel movies and then you don't get to see the last scene that's a teaser for the next.

• 1:28:07Mike Smith?

  The middle credits.

• 1:28:08Wes Larson?

  Only watch Marvel.

• 1:28:11Wes Larson?

  Uh, I am watching a Marvel again, I guess with the lanterns. Uh, Mike, what's yours?

• 1:28:18Mike Smith?

  I'm gonna go, so ask me tomorrow. You could ask me tomorrow. Why didn't you go ahead and ask me tomorrow?

• 1:28:24Wes Larson?

  I'm gonna ask you today, but.

• 1:28:26Jeff Larson?

  Well, it's tomorrow. What is it now?

• 1:28:30Mike Smith?

  To right now it is the anime movie Redline. It's really right out there with Spirited Away from my favorite animated film ever. But it's just like this intergalactic, uh, racing series. And it's just like so beautifully animated and it's so exciting. And the character designs and everything about it's just so freaking cool.

• 1:28:52Jeff Larson?

  What's that have to do tomorrow? Isn't that like?

• 1:28:55Mike Smith?

  Cause if you ask me tomorrow, it's gonna be Spirited Away, but today it's Redline.

• 1:28:58Jeff Larson?

  Why?

• 1:28:59Mike Smith?

  Well, this isn't your day. You ask me on any given day. You can just tell me.

• 1:29:03Jeff Larson?

  Well, it can be his favorite.

• 1:29:05Wes Larson?

  It can be. The category didn't have to be your favorite though. It's just something animated you've loved recently. But I'm happy with that answer. So.

• 1:29:13Mike Smith?

  Ask me tomorrow.

• 1:29:15Wes Larson?

  I'm gonna pick Puss in Boots, The Last Wish. Have you guys seen that?

• 1:29:20Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:20Mike Smith?

  Of course.

• 1:29:21Wes Larson?

  It, it, it was such a surprise to me because I don't really, I don't really with the Shrek universe, you know? It's not really my thing, but that one, I saw all the like the love for it and I watched it. And it was one of those movies where within the first few minutes, I was just like, this is so much fun to watch. I'm just having such a fun time right now. And I think movies like that are few and far in between for me these days. And it continued throughout the entire movie and I've rewatched it since and I really enjoyed it. So I'm going Puss in Boots, The Last Wish. Great villain.

• 1:29:57Mike Smith?

  Have my, my favorite villain in any animated movie. So cool.

• 1:30:01Jeff Larson?

  I, I texted him Wagner Mora because I was his driver. And I was like, hey, I really loved you in Puss in Boots. He's like, thanks, dude.

• 1:30:14Jeff Larson?

  Probably like one day at work that he forgot about. He's like nominated for the Oscar for some boring ass movie I never saw.

• 1:30:22Wes Larson?

  Secret agent.

• 1:30:23Mike Smith?

  Oh, come on now, Jeff. Hold on now. Hold on.

• 1:30:27Jeff Larson?

  It's probably great. I shouldn't say boring.

• 1:30:30Wes Larson?

  It is long. All right.

• 1:30:31Mike Smith?

  But it is great.

• 1:30:32Wes Larson?

  We're gonna do a quick, we're Mike and Jeff paying attention. You each are gonna get four questions and I want to know who wants to go first.

• 1:30:41Mike Smith?

  I don't even care.

• 1:30:44Jeff Larson?

  Uh, I'll go second.

• 1:30:47Wes Larson?

  Okay. Mike, in which country was Jim Corbett born?

• 1:30:52Mike Smith?

  Indiana.

• 1:30:53Wes Larson?

  India, correct. Jeff, in what industry was Jim Corbett working when he first left to kill this man eater?

• 1:31:03Jeff Larson?

  Sorry, you said what industry?

• 1:31:05Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:06Jeff Larson?

  Uh, railroads.

• 1:31:07Wes Larson?

  Railroads, correct. One to one.

• 1:31:09Jeff Larson?

  He should have just built a railroad to the tiger, honestly.

• 1:31:14Mike Smith?

  That would have been easier.

• 1:31:15Jeff Larson?

  Doesn't encroachment kill tigers all the time?

• 1:31:20Wes Larson?

  Whoever wins today, I'm gonna send a mystery, a mystery gift to. All right, Mike, how many total people did the man eater kill?

• 1:31:29Mike Smith?

  Ooh, you said this number so many times, four hundred and thirty-six.

• 1:31:34Wes Larson?

  Correct. Four thirty-six. Jeff, where did the last bullet that Jim Corbett shot at the tiger hit it?

• 1:31:43Jeff Larson?

  The paw.

• 1:31:44Wes Larson?

  The paw, correct. Mike, what was the productive, this is from episode one, what was the productive tiger habitat in Nepal called?

• 1:31:55Mike Smith?

  The tarai.

• 1:31:56Wes Larson?

  Tarai, good poll. All right. Jeff, what species of deer was most likely one of the main food staples for this tiger prior to her injury?

• 1:32:10Wes Larson?

  I'll give you a hint. We saw this deer in India.

• 1:32:13Jeff Larson?

  Oh, shoot.

• 1:32:17Jeff Larson?

  Red deer?

• 1:32:18Wes Larson?

  Mike, do you want to try and steal?

• 1:32:21Mike Smith?

  Yeah, it's like the gaural, gaural?

• 1:32:24Wes Larson?

  You're thinking of the sambar deer. This was the spotted deer, spotted deer.

• 1:32:28Jeff Larson?

  Hmm.

• 1:32:29Wes Larson?

  Mike, last question. Jim Corbett was in what decade of his life when he first heard about the Champawat tiger?

• 1:32:37Mike Smith?

  Um, what decade? In his, uh, second decade?

• 1:32:42Wes Larson?

  Yeah, his twenties.

• 1:32:44Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:45Jeff Larson?

  That's the third.

• 1:32:46Wes Larson?

  I guess that's not a second.

• 1:32:47Mike Smith?

  That would be the, dang it, okay.

• 1:32:49Wes Larson?

  All right. I'm not giving that to you. Jeff, to tie it, how many living subspecies?

• 1:32:56Mike Smith?

  You just said, no, why would you ask the question that way? What the heck?

• 1:33:00Wes Larson?

  How else do you ask that? How do I try and get his, like, the answer of his twenties?

• 1:33:04Mike Smith?

  The twenties is what I should have said.

• 1:33:06Wes Larson?

  Jeff, how many living subspecies of tiger are there if we're accepting that there's multiple subspecies?

• 1:33:13Jeff Larson?

  Seven.

• 1:33:14Wes Larson?

  Ooh, Mike, you want to steal?

• 1:33:17Mike Smith?

  Nine?

• 1:33:18Wes Larson?

  Six, living species, subspecies. All right. Mike wins. Mike, I'll be sending you something through the mail, something great. All right. This one's from Jensen. A couple of listener questions, real quickly. This one's from Jensen. Hey, guys, new here, haven't been able to listen to all the episodes, so I hope this hasn't been asked and answered before. What's your favorite animal that can only be found in Europe, if you can think of any at all? Cheers from Bremen, Germany. Keep up the excellent work.

• 1:33:50Mike Smith?

  Europe?

• 1:33:51Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:51Mike Smith?

  Huh.

• 1:33:53Wes Larson?

  I'm gonna go European badger.

• 1:33:55Mike Smith?

  The badger is what came to my mind, too.

• 1:33:57Wes Larson?

  Yeah. There's a chance they trickle into Asia, but I'm still gonna go with European badger.

• 1:34:02Jeff Larson?

  I can't think of anything that doesn't go into Asia.

• 1:34:05Wes Larson?

  The Iberian lynx would be one, that is only in Europe.

• 1:34:09Mike Smith?

  Oh, that's a good one.

• 1:34:10Wes Larson?

  Of lynx, yeah.

• 1:34:11Mike Smith?

  That's a really good one.

• 1:34:12Jeff Larson?

  Oh, yeah, that's pretty good.

• 1:34:14Wes Larson?

  All right, here's another, another question from Lindsay. What do you think is the most ticklish animal?

• 1:34:21Mike Smith?

  My knee jerk was to say red panda, but it almost looks like they want you to tickle.

• 1:34:25Wes Larson?

  Right.

• 1:34:26Mike Smith?

  They stand up and they're just like.

• 1:34:27Jeff Larson?

  That's a good answer, though, so.

• 1:34:28Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:29Jeff Larson?

  Because that's kind of what you do when you say, like, don't tickle me, dude, you know? Don't tickle me.

• 1:34:34Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:35Wes Larson?

  I think like a hedgehog.

• 1:34:37Jeff Larson?

  Or you go like this, huh?

• 1:34:38Mike Smith?

  Yeah, you hug yourself.

• 1:34:39Wes Larson?

  A hedgehog or a porcupine where, like, their belly is so protected, it's just gotta be so ticklish, where nothing ever touches it, you know?

• 1:34:49Mike Smith?

  Maybe that's why those hyenas are always laughing, you think? They're tickling each other?

• 1:34:53Wes Larson?

  Yeah, maybe.

• 1:34:55Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, I'm gonna say orangutan, because they're always hugging themselves.

• 1:35:00Wes Larson?

  Okay.

• 1:35:00Mike Smith?

  Dude.

• 1:35:01Jeff Larson?

  So they're just like, don't tickle me all the time.

• 1:35:04Mike Smith?

  Or an armadillo.

• 1:35:06Wes Larson?

  Yeah, because they're just rolled up in a ball, they don't want you to tickle them.

• 1:35:09Mike Smith?

  Don't touch me.

• 1:35:10Wes Larson?

  This one's from MZ. Hey, guys, I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and lately lots of bears have been seen in town. Several have wandered into public parks and been relocated. I've heard of lots more getting into people's yards. I've lived here all my life and have never seen anything like this. What conditions in the bear's habitat would cause them to come down from the mountains and into town? I want to do this one because lots of people have been sending us questions about black bear activity in their communities. It has been a really bad drought year in the West. And when we have bad drought years like this, a lot of berries and whatnot fail, like a lot of the local natural food sources for black bears will fail.

• 1:35:50Wes Larson?

  And they have to be a little bit more resourceful when it comes to getting food, and that often means traveling larger distances, taking bigger risks. And I think that's why we're seeing a lot of bears in people's communities this year, that, and they're probably also looking for water. So if you live in one of those places where this year you're seeing a lot of bears, make sure to se- secure any food attractants that, so they can't get them. And just realize that they're having a hard time and do whatever you can to avoid, uh, having any conflict with them. Walk your dogs on a leash, just be careful. They're really adaptable animals, they'll be okay, but we have to make sure we give them the space to be okay.

• 1:36:35Mike Smith?

  If you have two friends you're really close with, sew yourselves together and then give us the results.

• 1:36:42Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:43Mike Smith?

  And then tell us if the bear will still come get you. We need the data.

• 1:36:46Wes Larson?

  We need to know.

• 1:36:47Mike Smith?

  Yeah, be useful.

• 1:36:49Jeff Larson?

  They're like dogs, too, so don't let them be outside if it's too hot. Let them.

• 1:36:53Wes Larson?

  This isn't true. Yeah.

• 1:36:55Mike Smith?

  Don't leave them in your car with the windows up.

• 1:36:57Jeff Larson?

  Uh, this one mom sent, our mom Cindy sent to us, but Maddie wants to know, uh, she wants us to cover the end of Oak Street. But we can just give our opinion on it. Do you watch the new dinosaur movie, End of Oak Street?

• 1:37:14Wes Larson?

  I did. Yes. Me and Mike had very different experiences. I really liked it and I texted him right after and he was like, I almost walked out. And it was like shocking to me because I was having such a nice time. I do feel like we've fought, not fought, but we've argued a bit about feathers on dinosaurs. And I, I like feathers on dinosaurs, but not on like the sauropods, like the brontosaurus, brachiosaurus dinosaurs, like those didn't have feathers, most likely. And some of the other ones, they put feathers on, it was kind of like, these ones don't need feathers. We can have some dinosaurs without feathers. I really liked the end. There's like a crazy little moment at the end that you have to pay attention to see and, uh, I liked it. I thought it was mean.

• 1:37:59Jeff Larson?

  You liked the very ending?

• 1:38:00Wes Larson?

  Uh huh.

• 1:38:01Jeff Larson?

  See, I thought, I hated the end, but I was having a fun time, but then I was like, you pulled your punches when you brought the husband back.

• 1:38:11Mike Smith?

  Uh, should we spoil things?

• 1:38:14Wes Larson?

  Yeah, quick spoiler here. Did you see that there was two of the girl at the party?

• 1:38:18Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:19Wes Larson?

  Yeah, and to me that like is really dark because it means that she like took the husband away from the other family and left them alone. Yeah. Like she pulled the husband away and left the other people to die.

• 1:38:33Jeff Larson?

  Right, but I didn't see that.

• 1:38:35Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:36Jeff Larson?

  I liked, I liked seeing the husband die and he's just dead, you know?

• 1:38:40Wes Larson?

  Well, yeah, he died in his reality, though, still. I don't know.

• 1:38:44Mike Smith?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:45Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:45Mike Smith?

  I liked seeing him die because it was maybe the worst acting performance I've seen anyone give in a very long time.

• 1:38:51Wes Larson?

  That was pretty bad.

• 1:38:51Mike Smith?

  It was really tough for me. And this is a movie, I'm gonna need to re-watch it. I'm gonna reserve like final judgments for if I ever see it again. But, um, I, I just, I don't know. I, I thought it wasn't very fun or imaginative. I thought the screenplay was pretty weak. And there are a couple of flourishes with the camera that were fun, some like tracking one-shots.

• 1:39:11Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:11Mike Smith?

  That were interesting, but I, I don't know, it just didn't really.

• 1:39:15Jeff Larson?

  It did.

• 1:39:15Mike Smith?

  Hit me, I guess.

• 1:39:16Jeff Larson?

  It did scratch an itch, though, like, because so many Jurassic worlds have like not killed any main characters.

• 1:39:25Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:26Jeff Larson?

  And like not really had very cool dinosaur deaths. So for me, it's like, okay, we got some dinosaurs killing some people, which is fun.

• 1:39:35Wes Larson?

  The dinosaurs were like an unstoppable force, kind of where it was like, they are just going to keep coming at us. And I liked how mean it was. I liked that it was a movie that didn't hold back, especially for being PG thirteen. I really appreciated that. So I liked it. I had a genuinely good time. I wish there was less feathers on some of the dinosaurs and I wish they didn't look so like pink and like fleshy. But outside of that, I really enjoyed it.

• 1:40:04Mike Smith?

  I really like Ewan McGregor, too. I just need him to.

• 1:40:08Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:09Mike Smith?

  I don't know what I need him to do. Sometimes he just doesn't work for me.

• 1:40:13Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:14Mike Smith?

  I guess whenever he's doing an American accent, it doesn't work.

• 1:40:17Wes Larson?

  That, yeah, I think that's what it is for me. I also, there was like some weird, like the bully storyline didn't really go anywhere. There's a few things that I thought felt flat, but I liked it.

• 1:40:27Mike Smith?

  The neighborhood was like oddly vacant.

• 1:40:30Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:31Mike Smith?

  Yeah, at the beginning, we had like a whole block party going on and then by the time the dinosaurs are really out doing their thing, there's like eight people total in the movie.

• 1:40:39Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:40Mike Smith?

  It's just strange.

• 1:40:40Wes Larson?

  I didn't love that, like, we just heard all the screams and destruction and stuff, but didn't see it. Like, I wanted a montage of, like, carnage, but.

• 1:40:49Mike Smith?

  Yeah, that would have been fun.

• 1:40:51Wes Larson?

  Okay, let's do a quick conservation corner and then we're gonna leave this one, um.

• 1:41:00Wes Larson?

  There's thought to be about thirty five hundred tigers in India alone.

• 1:41:03Jeff Larson?

  Just burped.

• 1:41:04Wes Larson?

  I just burped. I had to take a quick second to burp. Nepal.

• 1:41:09Jeff Larson?

  That upset.

• 1:41:10Wes Larson?

  Or Paul, um, as we like to call it, has somewhere around four hundred. Also, just like a quick, you know, we're thinking of people in Nepal this week as they've had just like an absolutely horrific natural disaster. Um, it's one that I've been thinking about a lot. So if we have any listeners out there, we hope.

• 1:41:27Jeff Larson?

  It happened again.

• 1:41:29Wes Larson?

  Yeah, they're just, it's unreal. And it's especially crazy thinking that like Nepal is one of the most climate forward countries out there in the world, but they're paying the cost of what we've, you know, inflicted on the world. Anyway, in Nepal, there's thought to be around four hundred tigers, which is also thought to be about the maximum that the current tiger habitat in Nepal can support.

• 1:41:51Jeff Larson?

  What type of habitat is it?

• 1:41:54Wes Larson?

  The Tarai, the, yeah, the like lowland. It's like wetland that butts right up against the foothills of the Himalayas. Yeah.

• 1:42:02Jeff Larson?

  So it's like close to mountains, but the habitat's not a mountainous.

• 1:42:06Wes Larson?

  Exactly. Yep.

• 1:42:07Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:08Wes Larson?

  Uh, worldwide, there's probably about fifty six hundred tigers left in the wild across the different subspecies. India has about seventy five percent of the world's tiger population, or even a little more. The low point for tigers was probably around two thousand and ten, when it was thought there was only about three thousand wild tigers left in the wild, um, which is crazy considering that there's probably about a hundred thousand just in India at the turn of the nineteen hundreds. So around nineteen hundred, there's thought to be about a hundred thousand tigers just in the Indian subcontinents, like India and Nepal. They've lost about ninety five percent of their historic habitat. So while habitat

• 1:42:48Wes Larson?

  loss is a huge issue for them, I do think this is an animal where hunting, poaching, and wildlife trafficking, um, are as equally destructive as habitat loss, if not more so. Every part of tigers, from whiskers to their tail, has been found in illegal wildlife markets. Um, their bones, their teeth, their skins, everything has been used for health tonics and folk remedies, traditional medicine, um, status symbols. They are an animal that has just been highly desired in that trade. And, um, it's awful what it's done to them and their populations, and what it's done to other cats, too. Like now jaguars are

• 1:43:32Wes Larson?

  being killed in South America as replacement parts for tigers in the traditional medicine trade, and they just say they're tiger parts. So it's terrible, but tiger conservation is ticking toward a positive direction. They are, a lot of their populations are growing, but the demand for tiger parts, parts is ongoing, uh, in the trade. So once again, we just urge any of our listeners out there to never buy any kind of product or souvenir or anything that has potentially been made from tiger parts. Um, don't participate in tiger tourism where the tigers are drugged or chained down or whatever, too. Um, just be really smart when you're, when you're in these places that have tigers or in places

• 1:44:16Wes Larson?

  that have traditional medicines. You don't need it. It's not going to be a miracle cure, and it's, it's leading to the demise of an animal that we all really love.

• 1:44:26Jeff Larson?

  What if a listener wanted to do something like really, really extreme to help protect tigers? What could they do?

• 1:44:35Wes Larson?

  I would say train to be really good with a gun and then go be an anti-poaching person in one of these countries. Like go be on the ground, fighting poachers.

• 1:44:48Jeff Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:49Wes Larson?

  All right. Well, that is it for the story of the Chompa Lot Man Eater. I, I hope you guys enjoyed listening to it as much as I enjoyed researching it. It was a crazy story. It's the birth of our, you know, one of our kind of mythical heroes from that time, Jim Corbett, uh, the birth of his career at least. And then, uh, yeah, I, I hope you guys liked it. It was fun.

• 1:45:13Jeff Larson?

  Yeah, it's incredible how many people one animal can kill.

• 1:45:18Wes Larson?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:19Jeff Larson?

  Like just with how good we've gotten with like managing wildlife nowadays, it just feels so impossible, you know?

• 1:45:30Wes Larson?

  Yeah. Even in like the nineties, though, there's been man eaters that have really gone on a big tear. And I think even more recent than that. So it does still exist, but you're right, not, not in this way. Um, all right. Well, with no further ado, then we'll end this episode.

• 1:45:47Jeff Larson?

  All right. Love you guys.

• 1:45:49Wes Larson?

  All right. Love you.

• 1:45:50Jeff Larson?

  See ya.

• 1:45:50Wes Larson?

  Bye.