Grizzly Bear Attack - The Old-timey Montana Grizzly Attack
66 min
•Jun 8, 2026about 1 month agoSummary
This episode recounts the 1956 Kenneth Scott grizzly bear attack in Montana's Bob Marshall Wilderness, where an experienced hunter was fatally mauled despite being armed with a rifle. The hosts discuss grizzly bear biology, the differences between coastal and inland grizzlies, Montana's conservation efforts, and why bear spray is more effective than firearms in bear encounters.
Insights
- Injured grizzly bears are the most dangerous situation in wildlife encounters—they shift into pure defensive mode and are significantly more aggressive than bears in other contexts
- Firearms have a much smaller margin of error than bear spray in bear encounters; even a shot through both lungs and near the spine failed to stop the bear from attacking
- Stress response and adrenaline fundamentally change how people perform under threat, making real-world bear encounters unpredictable regardless of training or marksmanship skill
- Montana's early conservation leadership on grizzlies (1920s-1950s) preserved the species in the lower 48 when it was being eliminated elsewhere, but current political climate threatens those gains
- Survivor's guilt and social stigma can be as damaging as physical injuries—the victim's friend faced years of bullying despite making the only rational decision available
Trends
Shift in Montana wildlife policy toward aggressive anti-predator legislation despite historical conservation successGrowing recognition that bear spray effectiveness relies on margin-of-error design rather than precision, contrasting with firearm-dependent approachesIncreased concern among bear biologists about political attitudes toward predators outpacing actual population recovery metricsHistorical documentation of wildlife incidents revealing gaps in public understanding of animal behavior and appropriate response protocolsCoastal vs. inland predator behavior differences creating distinct risk profiles requiring different management and safety strategies
Topics
Grizzly Bear Attack Response ProtocolsBear Spray vs. Firearms EffectivenessInland vs. Coastal Grizzly Bear BehaviorMontana Grizzly Conservation HistoryInjured Animal Pursuit DangersStress Response in Life-Threatening SituationsSurvivor's Guilt and TraumaNorthern Rockies Ecosystem PreservationWildlife Management Policy TrendsPredator Population Recovery Metrics1950s Wilderness Hunting SafetyGrizzly Bear Biology and PhysiologyBob Marshall Wilderness CharacteristicsSelf-Defense vs. Heroic Decision-MakingHistorical Wildlife Documentation
Companies
Wild Alaskan Company
Sponsor providing wild-caught, sustainable seafood delivery with emphasis on ethical ocean practices
Elements
Sponsor offering electrolyte drink mix products in various flavors with caffeine options
Three Day Blinds
Sponsor providing custom window treatments with in-home design consultation and professional installation
Palmer Air Service
Historical company mentioned as providing emergency air transport during the 1956 bear attack incident
Hogle Zoo
Referenced by Mike as location where he recently observed bears mating
People
Kenneth Scott
29-year-old Fort Benton, Montana resident and former athlete fatally mauled by grizzly bear in 1956
V.F. Squires
Kenneth Scott's friend who survived two bear attacks and witnessed Scott's fatal mauling
Wes
Primary storyteller and bear biologist who researched the Kenneth Scott attack while preparing Night of the Grizzlies...
Jeff
Co-host from Montana who provides commentary on grizzly behavior and conservation topics
Mike
Co-host who provides humor and asks clarifying questions about bear biology and wildlife management
Bernita Flat
Scott's high school sweetheart and widow who was left with three daughters after his death
Moe Emberlton
Member of Scott's hunting party who ultimately killed the grizzly bear with a neck shot
Timothy Treadwell
Referenced as example of someone who attempted close interaction with coastal grizzlies and was killed
Ted Kaczynski
Unabomber referenced as being caught in Lincoln, Montana near Bob Marshall Wilderness
Quotes
"If a bear is wearing a uniform, you know you can pet it."
Mike•~25:00
"An injured grizzly bear is probably the most dangerous situation out there because they are really upset and really, really, really defensive."
Wes•~55:00
"You just need to outrun your buddy. That's kind of what happened here in a way."
Jeff•~70:00
"This bear's toast. Yeah. You're wrong."
Mike/Wes•~50:00
"Bear spray just isn't the best option and I'm not saying you shouldn't have a gun, but go to your bear spray first and then go to your gun because bear spray does really work a lot better than that."
Wes•~95:00
Full Transcript
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Tooth and Claw. Today we have a bit of a special treat for you all. This is actually an episode that we posted to our subscriber feeds a long time ago. Uh, Wes led it. It's about a Grizzly bear attack that happened up in Montana back in the 1950s. Really cool story, a lot to learn from it. Wes did an awesome job. He actually found this while he was preparing his Night of the Grizzlies series that he did forever ago. And he did an amazing job. I'll just say that for him. He wouldn't say it himself. I'm gonna say it for him right now. But we just wanted to say that if this is something that you do enjoy and you want some more of it, we keep things a little more loose but still educational over on our subscriber feeds. We have 150 or so and counting subscriber exclusive episodes. And most of those episodes are led by Jeff and me. But Wes did tell me recently that he wants to get more involved and start making more bonus episodes over there as well. So if you want more Tooth and Claw or if you want some animal content that's a little off the beaten path, or even things like we talk a lot about sports, movies, all kinds of different stuff, we're posting a lot of bonus content over on Patreon. Anyway, just wanted to give a quick introduction to this episode, where it came from, why it sounds like maybe there's some outdated references in there. I've done enough talking though. Let's get to the episode. Take it away, Wes. Let's go. Hey guys. Hey. Hey, we're here. Here with a couple of cry babies. My dudes. Yeah. I cry in movies. I cry it in everything everywhere all at once. That's not the name. Yeah it is. It's everything all the time, everywhere, all of it. Every time. I cried a couple times. I went inside by myself. I felt it coming when I saw it and I just was like, you can't. You will not cry. You're a man. That sounds healthy. I buried it. Yeah. And then Mike, you cried in the Northman. Yeah. It was a hard, I'd dare anyone to go see that movie and not cry. I saw it yesterday and I didn't cry. When they're having sex in the forest, you're like, oh, I wish that were me. Hey Mike, what's up? How do you feel about Montana? How do you feel about Montana? You know, actually feel about it. It's in like the 60th percentile of places that I like. You know? 60th. It's above average. What's above it? That's a good question. I mean like, I don't know, probably Hawaii. I like Mexico a lot. Yeah. I like any of like southeastern Asian countries I've ever been to. How about as far as states go? States. Hawaii. Let's go with Do you like California more? South and North Dakota. What? Let's go with Alaska. Wisconsin. They got some good cheese. All right. Go up there. Never mind. I just asked because when we first became friends, you kind of had a bit almost where you hated Montana. There wasn't that you hated it, but you were comparing it to Colorado. Yeah. And you would send me like photos of like rocks and streams and be like, look how beautiful this is. And I think we've talked about this on the podcast before, but it would be like the most weirdly disturbing photos that you would send over. Like somehow you managed just to capture the ugliest looking creek in the world. And they were just so boring and disturbing. And then you would be like, look at Colorado. Look how beautiful it is. I didn't think it was disturbing, but it is like, it'd just be like a rock with like no like backdrop. I shouldn't say a picture of a rock. And then he'd be like, here's Montana. And then he'd show like a mountain range and be like, here's Colorado. It wasn't disturbing. It was more like just cold and industrial. He would like make a creek look like, yeah, I don't know, like a creek that I imagine in like Newark, New Jersey would look like. Yeah. I have a real gift, a real artistic eye. The thing was it bugged you the first time he did it was because you're like, that's not fair. Yeah. And then that just like lit a fire under him to do it for like the next three years. So I'm the kind of person and this speaks very poorly of the kind of person that I am. But when someone gets really, really excited and proud of something that they want to share with me. Yeah, you want to tear him down. Really just makes me want to look for all the bad in it because it's like, dude, Montana is great. It's it's a perfectly great place. And I've been there and I think it's great. But I don't need to hear about how the freaking Flathead cherries are the best cherries on planet earth. I don't need to hear about how Glacier is like the last safe bastion for all things beautiful. It's like, let's get over it. You were born there. That's awesome. You won the lottery of living in an amazing place. That's it. You still got it. It's still there. I feel like that is a terrible quality. Me talking about how good I think Stephen Curry is is like single-handedly keeping Mike from fully embracing it. Yeah, we can't. I never feel like I can fully love something around Mike or else he's going to hate it. He got negative about Lord of the Rings for like a little stretch, but I feel like he's gotten over that. Well, he hates. I probably did. He hates Mary like 100 percent because I like Mary. That's the only reason this the sole reason. Yeah, I don't I don't like the way that I am. Don't think that I do. We do. I really love you, dude. Thank you. I brought that up because the story that we're going to talk about today takes place in our lovely home state of Montana. Me and Jeff's lovely home state of Montana. You don't really have a home state, do you, Mike? You kind of traveled all over. Yeah, it's hard to say. I was born in Oregon, but only lived there for like two years and then just moved so much. I pretty much just say Utah is my home state at this point because it's by far the place I've lived the longest now. So I don't know. It's weird. Were you mad at your parents when they made you leave Oregon? No, dude. I was crying probably. You're like, all my girlfriends here, all my friends are here. Yeah. I had a real thing for my cousin back when I was three, apparently. So I was probably sad to leave her. All right. Well, we're just going to move right along to our story. This is one that when I was researching initially for Night of the Grizzlies, this is one that I stumbled on because I kind of when I was doing Night of the Grizzlies initially, I was like, you know what? I should pepper in some other attacks that happened kind of right before it or during that same time period. And I was looking at older attacks that happened in Montana, Wyoming area. And I found one that I really just it just like stuck in my brain and I really wanted to tell and I wanted to tell it for a while now. And I was going to do like a main feed episode about it. But then I thought, you know what? Yeah. Isn't you doing the episode? Isn't that me and Mike's job? Yeah. I'm doing the Patreon episode. Oh, good. All right. Ah, I was about to wing it. Yeah. I was a little nervous. Yeah, I don't have anything. No, it's I'm doing the episode again. I've done a couple, you know, here and there. But this one, I like I said, it makes a great main feed episode. But I kind of think, you know, I want to give this one to the patrons. I just think this is and to our subscribers, I just think this is one that's that they deserve. So just them. So yeah. What about me? Yeah. Should we plug our ears? You guys get it too. Oh, we're allowed. Okay. Great. Yeah. You guys can listen. All right. So today we're going to talk about the Kenneth Scott bear attack in Montana. It's a grizzly bear. Kenneth Scott was pretty much the golden boy of Fort Benton, Montana, when he left to go elk hunting in the fall of 1956. So when I say that, when you look at photos of this guy, it's in the like 40s and 50s that most of these photos are from. And he's got that weird little wave in his hair. And it's this really beautiful, shiny, golden blonde, like a toe head color. He's a real Adonis. Yeah. And he just looks like an all American 1940s and 50s kind of guy, you know, just really like handsome and athletic. He'd grown up like really dirt poor in this town of Fort Benton. There's only 1800 people in the town at the time. I think there's actually less now, but it's out on the, it's really expansive part of the central Montana prairie. So northeast of Great Falls. So pretty much once you get east of Great Falls, everything starts getting pretty flat in Montana. And that's where they are. They're in Fort Benton. He was class president and captain of the Fort Benton high school football team. He set several records in both football and track and field. And he was so athletic that when he graduated, he had several offers to play professional football, both the Detroit Lions and the Chicago Bears tried to get him to join the teams. Same divisional rivals. Yeah. This is in the fifties and I don't think it was quite the like status symbol and probably quite as lucrative as it is now. So he turned them down. He didn't go. Still a good job. Yeah. I know. But he ended up moving to nearby low mom Montana, where he leased a 1200 acre cattle ranch and he married his high school sweetheart, Bernita Flat. Oh yeah. That's way better than playing professional sports. Marrying Bernita and doing cattle farm. That sounds nice. It does. I shouldn't put it on. Then just spearing someone with your head and breaking your neck. Yeah. With your little leather cap, whatever they wore back then. And their knickerbockers or whatever. It was kind of interesting to me to think that back then you just graduate high school and it's like, huh, should I play professional football or Lisa cattle ranch? You know, you kind of just like the world was the world was your oyster if you were a tall blonde man in the 1940s and fifties. So he married his high school sweetheart, Bernita Flat. They had three daughters together, Connie, Shirley and Glenda. So they kind of live this really bucolic, beautiful life out in Loma, Montana on their huge cattle ranch. And in 1956, so he's 29 years old, I believe, Kenna Scott was getting ready to go on his annual hunting trip with four of his friends. And they went hunting in the Bob Marshall wilderness. So the Bob Marshall wilderness is a 1.5 million acre wilderness. And it's very different from the relatively flat town of Fort Benton. It contains some of the most rugged and remote wilderness in the lower 48. Jeff, you kind of creaked there. What, uh, repeat or whatever that noise was. Did a cheetah noise. How do you feel about the Bob Marshall wilderness? You want to talk about it? I don't realize it's that big. Yeah, it's huge. Yeah, I love the Bob. It's like in the lower 48, I feel like it's probably the most wild place you can go. Yeah, it's up there for sure. It's definitely one of them. Me and Jeff did a multi-day float through the Bob Marshall wilderness. We hiked in like 30 miles and then floated out. And it's very pristine, very remote. You don't see any kind of like civilization or anything. There's some ranger cabins here and there, but that's it. It's very like, if you're looking to get a true wilderness experience in lower 48, it's a good place to do it. Another thing that's really interesting about it is that it's, it's home to a completely intact Northern Rockies ecosystem that includes all the animals that were here for thousands of years. So we're talking like Wolverine and Lynx, Grizzly Bears, everything. And there's actually a decent amount of Grizzly Bears in the Bob Marshall wilderness. And they tend to be a little honoree in those places. When was the last time you truly trusted the seafood that you brought home? I used to question everything, especially after I met Wes. He got me thinking about the sustainability and, frankly, the morality of the seafood industry. So when we were approached by Wild Alaskan Company to partner up with them, we were all super excited to spread the message of a company that does things the right way. Wild Alaskan Company is the best way to get wild caught, perfectly portioned, nutrient dense seafood delivered directly to your door. And honestly, it's the best home cooked fish I've ever had. But more important in the taste for me is the sustainability of how they do it. 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Not all fish are the same. Get seafood you can trust. Go to wildalaskan.com slash tooth for $35 off your first box of premium wild caught seafood. That's wildalaskan.com slash tooth for $35 off your first order. Thanks to Wild Alaskan Company for sponsoring this episode. So I wanted to talk a little bit. We've gone over a lot of grizzly biology on the podcast, and it's hard not to feel like I'm repeating myself. So I want to talk about one thing that I think I've hinted on before, Jeff. But like with our, I mean, just with technology nowadays and people are on their phones all the time, our memories are bad. So just go ahead and repeat yourself. And I'll feel new. I'll repeat a little bit of it. One thing that I really wanted to bring up though is the difference between coastal grizzlies and kind of more inland grizzlies, especially in their behavior. So the coastal ones are the ones that get really big because they're feeding on salmon. They have a lot of different food sources that come right from the ocean. They tend to get really big and they tend to be pretty docile as far as grizzly bears go, because they don't have to compete with other bears for food. So because there is in that level of competition, they are pretty tolerant of other bears. And as a result, they're pretty tolerant of humans too. They kind of treat us like they will treat other bears. You can just walk up and pet them. You probably could. I mean, that's what Timothy Treadwell did. And you might get mauled though. Don't do it because you might get mauled. Yeah, he ended up dying, but they are pretty docile. And then on the other hand, these more inland grizzlies like the inner mountain grizzlies we have here in Montana, they have to patrol a very large area, a huge territory to find all the food that they need. And when there is a really good food source, often they have to defend it from other bears. So if they find like a carcass or something, that's a great find for a bear in one of these places because they don't just have a ready supply of protein like a salmon stream. So they are going to do their best to make sure they get the most out of that carcass as possible. And they're going to run anything and everything off of it that they can. Because sooner or later, another bear will show up. You could say they're a lot more difficult to pet. Yes. You could say that. Yeah, they are, for sure. Mike. You often talk about how they can be all kinds of different colors there for. Is there any correlation between their colors as far as like coastal and inland goes? Is there like a way to kind of differentiate that way? I mean, it's not a tried and true way to differentiate, but typically the coastal ones do tend to have like a more uniform color. And this is just anecdotal. But I find that when I see pictures of coastal bears or have seen coastal bears, they tend to be like they're all brown or all blonde or whatever. And then with these inland ones, a lot of times you get that really like grizzly appearance where they have like the silver tipped kind of back and the dark legs. And they tend to look like a little bit more what you imagine a grizzly bear to look like. Right. But you're saying if a bear is wearing a uniform, you know you can pet it. That's not what I'm saying. But it's not. I must have missed understeer. That's not a good way. If you're looking at a photo, there are coastal bears do look a certain way and the more inland ones look a certain way, but it takes some time to kind of get used to what that is. There's not like a silver bullet kind of like this is what you look for. Is this wrong or do the coastal ones not normally get quite as dark as some of the inland ones do? Yeah, I think that's true. But it's not again, it's not like a rule. They can get that dark. So it's tricky. There's not like a perfect way to tell them apart. Coastal ones get a lot bigger. A coastal bear that's like really dark is super offended right now. Yeah. That I just said. Yeah. So as far as like what grizzly bears are capable of, we've talked about this a lot. They can run 35 miles per hour. They have a bite pressure that's strong enough to break a bowling ball. Two to two and a half inch claws. They have a really muscular powerful hump in their shoulder that's used for digging, but that also comes into play if they're like swattering or scratching. They're really powerful, explosively fast, amazing animal. And they're in in the lower 48. They're our top predator. They're the thing that can mess up your day the quickest if you're in a forest that has grizzly bears. So I did want to talk a little bit about their history as well in the lower 48 and kind of what's happened to them and why Montana is a place that still has grizzly bears. So between 1800 and 1975, westward expansion and European settlement, grizzly populations in the lower 48 states receded from like around 50,000 bears to fewer than a thousand. There's a lot of reasons that happened. A big part of it was livestock, depredation control, habitat loss, commercial trapping, unregulated hunting, and then just hatred of predators too, just people killing them because they're afraid of them. By 1922, the last California grizzly bear was killed, followed by 1923, the last one in Utah, 1931, the last one in Oregon, 1933, the last one in New Mexico, 35, the last one in Arizona, and then the last one in Colorado was seen in 1979. But for all intents and purposes, by the 30s, the only really occupied grizzly bear habitat in the lower 48 was in Yellowstone National Park, around Glacier National Park, the middle fork of the flathead drainage, and the Bob Marshall wilderness. So while grizzlies were disappearing all over the west in the 20th century, Montana really stood out as a conservation leader for grizzlies. Montana Fish and Game did their best to slow the decline of grizzlies in the state by abolishing baiting and the use of hounds to hunt bears, listing them as a managed game species, prohibiting the killing of cubs or females with cubs, and just really doing a lot more studies than any other state was doing. So Montana really saw this happening and they decided pretty early, we're going to keep our bears, we're going to make sure we still have a population of grizzlies here. How do you feel about Montana now, Mike? Yeah, Mike. I'm checking one in the pro column, so now I've got to come up with two to put in the cons. And even today, Montana in the lower 48 is the state that has the most grizzlies. I think there's probably somewhere around 1500 to 1800 grizzlies in the state of Montana today. And how many in North America total? In North America total, I believe there's around 50,000. Okay, so a good little chunk down in the mountains. Yeah, I mean most, the wide margin of those are found in Alaska and Canada, British Columbia and Alaska. So as far as grizzlies in Montana, they really don't get much bigger than 800 pounds. One of the biggest ever in Montana was killed in Lincoln and it weighed at 830 pounds. And Lincoln, Montana is really close to the Bob Marshall wilderness. It's also famously where Ted Kaczynski was caught, the unabomber. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice. Another in the pro column. Yeah, we love the unabomber. Anyway, he's got some interesting ideas. Okay, in 1956. That's a new episode. Yeah, something else we're going to have to talk about. Okay, in 1956, there wasn't a lot of information about grizzly bears and grizzly bear safety. If you remember the night of the grizzlies episodes, we talk about how it really wasn't a set thing to do if you're approached by a grizzly bear. Really what they thought was like run away and try and get up a tree. Yeah. And a lot of Montana still viewed them as a dangerous nuisance, but not necessarily like something that would potentially kill them. It was interesting in your night of the grizzly to like hear the mindset of people about grizzly bears. Just how like the group of people didn't feel safe searching for the girl because of one grizzly bear. Exactly. Yeah, they just don't really know what they're capable of. So like Kenneth Scott, for example, he for sure knew that grizzlies were capable of killing someone, but he didn't really have a concept of how to act around grizzlies. He didn't know the rules, didn't know exactly what to do. But he didn't know the rules. Nope, he didn't know the rules. Right. In the early dark hours of October 22nd, 1956, Scott kissed his wife and daughters goodbye and left for the continental divide with his four friends. Never do that. When you kiss your wife and kids goodbye, trouble follows. Never kiss your wife or child. Never. Under no circumstance. You also though can't be a dick to them right before you leave either. No, it's gotta be. Because that's also the recipe for disaster. You can't like leave something on the side. Somewhere in the middle. Yeah. It's a thin line at the walk, but you do have to be careful. So one of his closest buddies was with him, his buddy V.F. Squires, which is a pretty good name. So far we've got Bernita Flat and V.F. Squires. Names today are so boring. I know they are. Mike Smith. Gosh, get out of here. My parents, man. What's your middle name again? Don't. We don't need to do that. What is it? I'm not going to say it. Say it. That's a mystery that must never arrive. Tyler? It's more boring than that, but continuous. Sunday we'll get him to review it. Anyway, Mike, you were right. He should not have kissed his wife and his daughters goodbye. This would actually be the last time that his family would see him alive. So the hunting party was Scott Squires, Moe Emberlton, Lloyd Klein, and Ray Hamm. And they decided to go hunting in the area of the headwaters of the Flathead River near the continent. They'll divide in the bottom of Marshall Wilderness. Scott and Squires quickly picked up an elk track after they set up their camp and showed up. And they decided to head out by themselves to track down the animal. And Emberlton, Klein, and Hamm stuck together back in camp. So Scott and Squires separated to surround this elk. And they knew they were getting really close to it. So Scott went up on a ridge to kind of get some high ground because you can't beat the high ground. And Squires continued along the bottom of this ravine. And he was following the tracks of the elk through some thick brush. And suddenly there's crashing in the timber ahead of Squires. It grabs his attention and he looks up to think, oh, this elk is coming out at me. But it wasn't an elk. It was a huge, enraged, male grizzly bear. So this massive bear is running full sprint. And in a few strides, it covers the 50 feet between it and Squires. And in a shock, Squires tries to back away, but immediately he trips and falls onto his back. And the bear is instantly on top of him. It bites into his skin, the flesh and the bone of his ankle. And it lifts him up into the air, shaking him around like a dog shaking a toy. It's funny because that's how he described it. And that's how everyone always describes these things. But you can really picture it just like a dog just whipping a toy through the air. And that's what he said it felt like with this bear. No, that's super funny. You know my humor really well. Yeah, sorry. I shouldn't say funny. So Scott's nearby and he's watching just in stunned silence as this huge bear is shaking his friend's senseless. And then he watched Squires repeatedly start kicking the bear in the nose with his other leg, but the bear is not reacting to that at all. So in a fog, Scott raises his 30-06 to his shoulder, which is a pretty high caliber rifle. And he fires a warning shot to scare the bear away. But as soon as he fires the shot, the bear drops his friend's Squires and charges toward Scott. So Scott still has his gun up and he takes a second shot. This one's not a warning. It rips right through the bear, hits it in the chest, clips its shoulder, punctures both lungs, and lodges six inches underneath its spine. So you're thinking like, okay, this thing's- That's a good shot. Yeah, it's been shot on the shoulder, both lungs are punctured. It's right below its spine. This bear's toast. Yeah. You're wrong. But it was enough to discourage the bear and it immediately turns and runs back into the thick brush of the Bob Marshall wilderness, leaving a really huge blood trail behind it. Makes me think of Dominic Toretto in the Fast and Furious movies. How you just can't kill him anymore? He's just like, we'll get shot and he does a good flinch. Yeah. Yeah. So Scott runs to his friend, but Squires really miraculously seems to be relatively uninjured. The two quickly discuss the situation. He's like bleeding out of his ankle, but that's about it. And they're talking about what to do and they end up making a decision that's so bad that it would end up costing one of them their lives. Oh man. So what do you guys think they decided to do? Follow the trail of blood. Yeah. That's exactly what they decided to do. They decided they would follow, and it's for a kind of a heroic reason, but they said they would follow the bear into the brush and finish the job because they were worried that it would potentially attack other hunters that might stumble upon it. Okay. And they knew there were a lot of other hunters in the area because they had passed other camps as they drove in. So they just thought, okay, we just injured this bear. It's enraged. We don't want anyone else to stumble on it, but this is a terrible decision. It's a really, really bad thing. Yeah, especially like, it's like, oh, I wonder what the other, like these other helpless other hunters won't be able to defend themselves. Right. Like they all have guns. I think it's more that they just knew, they knew there was a hurt bear out there and other hunters. That was like being aggressive. Right. But still, I get what you're saying. And I'm just going to say right here, this is a bad idea. If you've ever, if a bear's ever injured, like say you hit a bear with your car, or if you are a hunter and you end up hitting a bear for whatever reason with a bullet hitting a bear with a bullet, you, if it's, you definitely shouldn't follow it if it's injured. That bear is 100% in self-defense mode at that point. And it will absolutely rip you to shreds if it gets the chance. Is hitting a bear with a bullet, throwing it a bullet at it? No, I mean, like you pinch it between your fingers and just hit it with it. And the, the, the powder will explode if you hit it. Exactly. The other thing to think about is this is a huge wilderness area. This bear has plenty of places to go where it's not going to run into people. And it has a really good reason now to avoid people. So what I said earlier, like if someone stumbled on it and they were too close, it will attack them now. Almost for sure. It's when they're injured, you're dealing with a really, really aggressive animal because it's doing, I should say defensive. It's doing everything it can to defend itself. But he shot it in the chest and in my mind, it would have been like, you know what? It's going to die. Let's just let it die. Let's go back to camp and call it a day. I mean, in my mind, they're out hunting. They have like justification to kill this bear. And they probably just kind of wanted to kill it too. Probably. But I, that's an assumption. And it was a huge bear. And back then I do think they could kill it legally. And like keep its paws or something and like have a cool fur. But just from like a bear biologist standpoint, there's like a lot of different types of bears that are dangerous. We've talked about how a female with cubs is dangerous or a male defending a kill is dangerous. Like those are really dangerous situations. Probably the most dangerous situation out there is dealing with an injured grizzly bear. That's the one that truly you want to avoid at all costs because they are really upset and really, really, really defensive. All right. It actually, it didn't take them very long to find the injured grizzly. They had a really good blood trail to follow. And when they spotted it, it was on the edge of a meadow and completely unaware of their presence. So both Scott and Squires opened fire. Scott's rifle jammed and Squires quickly ran out of bullets. While Squires was reloading, Scott looked up to see the bear once again charging his friend. And he yelled at Squires that the bear was coming. Squires turned and ran to the edge of a ravine where his rifle actually caught on a branch and he tripped and tumbled all the way to the bottom of the ravine, losing his rifle in the process. Twice that this guy has tripped? Yeah, he's tripping everywhere. This one, he's been bit by a bear on the leg already though. So he's probably throwing off your equilibrium a little bit to have a bear bite in your ankle. Sure. Yeah. But he's laying at the bottom of the ravine. He can't see Scott any longer, but suddenly from this hill above him, a scream cuts through the silence and then he hears a struggle break out. And this does, there's this joke in Montana that you always hear of like, can you outrun a bear? No, you just need to outrun your buddy. Yeah, that's hilarious. Or something like that. You know, it's like something around that or like the guy's tying his shoes and he's like, why are you tying your shoes? You can't outrun a bear. And he's like, I just need to outrun you. I laugh at that joke every time. That's kind of what happened here in a way. Yeah, that's so funny. Squires was the first to run. He got away and Scott got attacked, but he could hear this happening. And then suddenly the forest goes completely silent again. And Squires knows that he has a decision to make. He no longer has his gun. His only weapon he has is a really thin skinning knife. And he knows that Scott is a championship runner that he's like, you know, the best runner ever from Fort Benton, Montana. So he figures, okay, Scott might have gotten away, which knowing what we know now about bears, that's not a possibility. And you would think that Squires who had just seen this bear charge twice, he should know. Is it maybe a possibility with a bear that's been shot in both lungs? Maybe evens out the playing field. But I wouldn't, it doesn't even out the playing field. There's still, no, you don't want to run. But he knew that he couldn't do anything with just his knife. So he decides to actually run down the ravine to their horses and then try and go back to camp to get help from their other friends. So he gets, he gets back to camp pretty quickly. And the four men all together charge up the ravine toward the area where Scott and Squires had been attacked. And to be fair, where the bear had been attacked too. They found Scott on the ground and the bears nowhere in sight. Their friend who had been this athletic pinnacle of their community was lying crumpled and broken in the bushes. He was covered in blood, his scalp had been completely torn off, his face was covered in puncture wounds from the teeth, and his eyeball was completely out of his socket and was hanging down by his ear, connected only by those optic nerves. So he was still conscious though when they found him, and they all gathered around him and he told them what happened. It's pretty crazy to think about talking to your friend that you've known forever while his like eyeballs dangling out and his scalp is off of his head. 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Also no questions asked refunds, try Elements and see how you feel for any reason you're not satisfied. Elements customer service team will take care of you. So apparently the bear had charged him the second time and it quickly overtook him. Four times during the struggle between him and the bear, it got its jaws around his head and picked him up by his head. And then he fought back with his knife as hard as he could, but obviously he was no match for the grizzly and it tore him apart in a matter of seconds. And then after it tore him apart, and this is really indicative of like a bear that's just really pissed off, it laid down on him and rolled around on him. And it crushed his ribcage in the process and did a lot of internal injuries to him. And they do that when they're just really mad at something, they'll lay down and like roll on it and just try and crush it. Kind of like what camels do too. Or alligators, right? They do that kind of a little different. The gator roll is a little different. You would steam roll me when I was like four years old. Just the steam roller. We still do that. Yeah, I just saw that like two weeks ago. Still happens. Anyway, the men took off their shirts and they made an improvised stretcher for Scott with some tree branches and they moved him to a creek bottom nearby. And then just as they were ready to go look for some more help, the bear shows up again. And in a split second, Embleton, their friend, raises his gun to his shoulder and fires a shot. And he hits the bear in the neck and shatters its spine instantly killing it. So they needed this dude with them before. Yeah. Yeah. Sucks that I forget his name, his gun jam. Scott? And so I got lucky. Yeah, the grizzly was eight feet tall and 750 pounds. Geez. Which honestly is an absolute monster. The only, in Yellowstone we have some bears that get close to 700 pounds. But you see like a 600 pound grizzly and they are massive. So a 750 pound one, that's like 300 or 400 pounds bigger than average for a Montana grizzly. Yeah, a huge male. Later, a taxidermist would find a bone deep slash in the bear's face from its eye to its ear, where Scott had cut it with his knife during the fight. So he got a couple in. So the men rode out for help, but the telephone line from the local forest service cabin was down. So they ran into these guys, Frenchie Meyer and Roy Haugham. And there were two other hunters in the area. And Meyer rode his horse 16 miles across the continental divide to the benchmark campground where he called the Palmer Air Service in Great Falls. And a plane was sent to the area, but it was unable to land in the dark. And at this point, it had been almost 12 hours since Scott had been attacked. And he told his friends, God, I'd wish I'd die and get this over with. And not long after he got his wish. And the 29 year old Scott died an hour before a doctor finally arrived early Sunday morning. So a lot of this story came from a magazine from the time. It was called Real Magazine. And they reported that Squires, his friend, had a really hard life after the death of his friend. And that his son, Mark Squires, was actually bullied in school by kids who called his dad a coward because he left his friend to go find help. And some of the other hunters had to go and like talk to these kids and be like, hey, that was the only option he had to go find help. Yeah, I was going to ask if that was the right move, but it sounds like obviously it was. He just, he didn't have any ammunition left. So yeah, I mean, with an injured bear, it was. It was for sure because that bear's injured. It's enraged. It's going to attack either way. If it hadn't been injured, there's a chance him showing up and looking for his rifle, maybe he could have scared it off. But yeah, I don't know. Because he had ammunition. He just had to reload when the bear was charging at him. Oh, okay. I see. And then he dropped his rifle up top. So to be honest, I probably would have scrambled up there and tried to find my rifle. I just think, I don't think he did the wrong thing. I think for the time, like for it being 1956, he did what he thought was right. Sometimes those attacks though are so brutal and so quick that where it suddenly went silent and everything, I probably would have run up and tried to check on my friend and make sure that I could like staunch bleeding, do some triage and then go and get help. I wonder how far down in Irvine can you fall? Was it like hot rod where he just falls down the hole? I don't think it was like that. Like a 10 minute fall. I don't think it was that far. Are you supposed to plop people's eyes back into the socket when they're dangling out like that? What do you do with it? I was wondering, I would want to do like the how many fingers am I holding up that with like the eye by his cheek. Yeah. I was going to say like, I'd be really curious to see if they could still see out of it. And then be like, maybe you should just keep it like this and you can use it as a periscope. Anyway, I know like the bear then they stuffed the bear and it went to some hobby land or something and then they were they were destroying the building that the bear was in and they learned what bear it was and how important it was to the Fort Benton community. So they brought it back to Fort Benton and the daughters of Scott were there and they were really happy to have the bear back in their community. So the bear's still in the community there? I think so. The article that I read was fairly old and I should say the article I got was from a Great Falls newspaper that I got most this information from, the Great Falls Tribune. Once we start our Tucson Claw tour company, that'll be one of our destinations. Yeah, we'll go to Fort Benton and see the bears and we'll go see the Lions of Savo in the Chicago National History Museum. That'd be sweet and the Harambe statue. Yeah. Anyway, I thought it was a really interesting story just because here you've got two pretty experienced hunters who grew up like around guns on ranches. Really, I guarantee these guys are good with their weapons and they both get attacked by a grizzly bear, you know, and it kills one of them before they finally managed to kill it. And it just goes to show to me how effective bear spray is because with bear spray, you're just shooting a cloud of it out there for the bear to run into, you don't have to get a perfect hit. Like this dude shot this bear in the chest, punctured both of its lungs, almost hit its spine, and it still managed to kill him. That shows that guns just aren't the best option and I'm not saying you shouldn't have a gun, but go to your bear spray first and then go to your gun because bear spray does really work a lot better than that. That's why I clean my gun out three times a day while I'm hanging upside down naked, just so it will never jam. Do you like disassemble it and then assemble it blindfolded? Yeah, for his gum style. I'm like, I'm quick. Someone wrote us recently and I forget their name and I'm sorry, but they send us a DM and I think there's some kind of psychologist or psychiatrist and they've done a lot of work on stress response and everything and they mentioned the fact of how when you're preparing for public speaking, you can't prepare for that feeling of getting up on stage and actually delivering in front of an audience. A lot of people that feel like they're really prepared when they actually get on stage, they kind of have this fear response and things lock up for them. That's the same thing with preparing. You can go out and target shoot and practice with your rifle and get really good at it, but when you have a grizzly charging at you, you don't know how you're going to react. It's impossible to prepare for that situation fully and there are a lot of people that will be fine, but there's some people that won't and the great thing about bear spray, it's like the same thing there, you have to prepare with your bear spray too and practice and know how to use it, but it has a much bigger margin of error. It shoots a big cloud. Mike, what are you laughing about? I just want to hear a story now about how someone is really, really good at shooting, but only when they're hanging upside down and naked because that's how they practiced. I can't shoot any other way. When Wes went off of my tangent with like someone wrote, well, like someone wrote in and said, I was like, where's this go? Anyway, it's not that bear spray is like a magic bullet either. It's just that there is this margin of error. And the other thing about it is this dude shot the bear through its lungs and it kept coming later. It ran off, but then later they approached it. So actually that's not a great because it did stop it when he shot through its lungs. They chased it down. And if you chase down a bear that you sprayed with bear spray, it might maul you too. But the thing about bear spray is that it gets into their nasal passages, it gets into their eyes, it gets into their sinuses, their throat. It just kind of shuts everything down for them and it's a really uncomfortable experience for them. And that's what makes them run away. And you probably said this already, but my memory, like I said, is really very short. But they didn't have bear spray back then. So that wasn't an option for them. It was developed in the 80s, I think. I'll do a deep dive into that at some point. But yeah, but that's my plug for bear spray again. And one more time, like bear spray isn't just any mace. Like it's it's a specific type of mace that's developed for bears. So you can't just like go buy any pepper spray and use it as bear spray. Yeah. Do you think that bear was just mad that he didn't want to go play for the Chicago bears? Yeah, he could. He's like, you know, like bears, do you? Yeah, you better watch out for lions too. I guess he doesn't have to because he's dead. Anyway, sorry, that's not very nice. That's it for the story. I thought it was a really interesting one. I really like these older stories with grizzly bears, just because there's a lot more kind of chaos associated with them sometimes because the people just have no idea what to do aside from like shoot it, which is, you know, it's effective sometimes. But I thought it was an interesting one. And when I read it, it really stuck with me probably partly because of the eyeball part. But anyway, do you guys have anything you want to add or ask? No, I think I'm good. No, I just I can understand why squires would have such a hard time. Like survival or survivor's guilt is a real thing. And yeah, he kind of got away with it twice because his friend is there to take the attention away. And like it's just a sad situation for everyone. I feel like maybe I was a little too irreverent earlier about some of these things. But I mean, obviously, this is a tragic thing. And to live with the knowledge and kind of as a firsthand witness to your friend's death has got to be really, really hard to deal with. Yeah. And I'll say like it's admirable that they considered other hunters as their reasoning to like try to kill the bear. Yeah. That's admirable a way to die that he was thinking of others. Well, and we talked about this a little bit in the polar bear episode. It's kind of just this weird wilderness Russian roulette where that bear could have just as easily gone after squires. But for whatever reason, it zeroed in on Scott on that last charge and went for him because Squires ran away, but he didn't run away fast enough to discourage a grizzly bear. You know, it could have still gone for him. So it's just bad luck for Scott is what it is. And Squires doesn't shouldn't hold me. Maybe it's good luck if he's still alive. Because then Scott would have survived or his whole life. Yeah. Yeah. That's worth death or survivor's guilt. Yeah. It's a toss up. All right. So we're going to go into our categories. We've done a lot of grizzly bear episodes. So instead of doing grizzly bear pop culture, we're going to say our favorite hunter from pop culture. Do you guys have yours? Yeah. But I think mine might. I'm worried about crossover. I'll go last because I have a good backup. Were you going to pick Abraham Lincoln vampire hunter? Yes, I guess. No, I was actually I was going to pick a vampire hunter, but it's Simon Belmont from Castlevania over Buffy. I know it was a tough one, but all right. Simon was in my life first. So, you know, first love kind of thing. Have you seen his thighs? He's got good speaking and good thighs. Robert Muldoon. All right. Fantastic bark. And those little those little khaki shorts. He's my favorite hunter from pop culture. That was mine too. He's the one. Okay. He's the clever girl one. Yeah. He's great. He's I recently read the book again. And he's another one of those characters in the movie that's just like so much cooler in the movie. And in the book, he's just like an old alcoholic guy. Yeah. He gets stuck in a pipe and the velociraptors are like attacking the pipe while he's in it. I'm going to go with the hunter that killed Bambi's mom. I just think it's your favorite. Yeah. I think if he doesn't kill Bambi's mom, the movie is just not that good. So I think he really just adds a lot to that movie. Okay. Interesting. Do you even ever see the hunter? Isn't it just like a gun from offscreen? I think so. Yeah. I haven't shot in forever. I'm going to allow you to call that your favorite hunter. But just know skepticism is mounting. Well, it's my back up. I had to think of it on the fly. Yeah. All right. So we're going to do the Anaconda scale. Let's do it. Are we doing it for both men or just Scott? I think they both work together. Right? It's the same kind of decision making. They pretty much did the same thing. Yeah. So for both men, I think there's some strong elements of both hero and villain here. And I'm not saying they're villains at all, but I'm saying like applying it to Anaconda. The fact that they're chasing after an animal that is injured and in distress has some John Voight feelings to it. But then they also were being heroic by trying to kill it because they were worried about it attacking other people. And I say heroic in quotes because honestly, like this whole thing, no one's the winner in this whole situation because you don't want to kill a bear either. Plus it seemed like that there was no ill intent that instigated the event from the start either. So like no one was looking for trouble. They just were dealing with it the best they could. He even tried to fire a warning shot to get rid of the bear. He wasn't just immediately trying to kill it. See, I'm going different than you all together. I'm going Owen because I just think they put themselves into a bad situation that wasn't necessary. Owen Wilson goes in the jungle to get laid and then gets eaten by an anaconda. And these guys put themselves in a situation where they could have just left and get attacked by the bear. I would say Owen with hints of John. Yeah, I see the John. I don't think they're bad guys. This is our most blurry line anaconda skill. Yeah, what do you say? I feel like I need to rewatch an anaconda. That's really my main takeaway right now because there's other characters too. We have like three characters that we use. Four. Or four. 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All right, so let's say you're in the situation at the very beginning where a bear charges out and mauls the other one of you and is shaking them around and you're just sitting there watching it. What are you gonna do? Well, I was just thinking the best defense for the bulldozer or the steamroller technique where they just roll over you a bunch. Yeah. Is you really gotta ball up and like get your knees pointing into them. So when their back rolls across your knees, they like kind of, kind of hurts. Kind of, yeah, hurts them back a bit. Okay. That would probably work. Mike? I don't know what I would do, but I know what I would be thinking. I would be laying there getting thrashed and be like, I should have just played football. Cause I don't think there's really anything you could do at that point. No, that's a good point. So I'll tell you really quick, we've talked a lot about what to actually do in a grizzly bear encounter. I think with this one where it was a surprise encounter, they were creeping around in the brush, trying to be as quiet as possible. They probably got too close to this bear and it charged at them. And it was already, they were close enough to where it was going to be a full charge, not just a bluff charge. And it immediately hit one of them. So typically in this kind of situation, nowadays I would say, discharge your bear spray, spray the bear, group up, and then back away is what I would tell people to do. Back then, if it were the fifties and bear spray wasn't around, I think they did the right thing. I think you fire a warning shot, and then if the bear still doesn't respond, you shoot at the bear once you have a clear shot. As far as like, you shouldn't follow it after you hit the bear, definitely. Like once the bear is out of there, you've accomplished your purpose, get out of that area. But one other thing I wanted to talk about is, in this kind of situation, like an enraged bear, especially after it's been hurt, there is an argument for playing dead once it's mauling you. Because if it's mauling you, it's really just trying to neutralize you. It now sees you as a threat. It sees you as something that's caused it pain. It might actually just rip you to shreds. But if it's mauling you and you have no other option, playing dead could work, because it might convince the bear that it's taking care of business and that it can leave. But that's not advice I would generally give people. You only want to play dead once a bear is actually mauling you, and you've exhausted all your other deterrent options. So if you don't have a gun anymore, or you don't have bear spray, and it's actually on top of you mauling you, you can play dead. Gotcha. And that looks like you want to cover your neck, and you want your belly facing the ground, so it can't get into the softer parts of you. And if it flips you over, you want to roll back over onto your belly, and again, cover your neck. Do you stick your tongue out and roll your eyes? Yeah, just pretend you're... Yeah, go, oh! And then draw X's over your eyeballs. Hide your... You got to hide your bowling balls too, or else they'll bite those. Yeah, exactly. Okay, let's move on to some questions. Jeff, do you have some questions from patrons? Yes. Will you please share them? Yeah. Okay, this person has told me how to say their name before, and I'll just preference it like that. Oh, can't even say preference. Preference should go well. I'm pretty sure it's Akshara. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Akshara. They say, since Bart was mentioned in the most recent episode, that might not be relevant right now, how do handlers reduce the risk of an attack on movie sets? Do you know how they deal with logistics like travel? Seems pretty crazy to transport a grizzly. I don't know how they deal with logistics. As far as reducing the potential for an attack on a movie set, I think the main thing that they do is they only have absolutely necessary people interact with the bear. So wherever possible, only handlers are going to be interacting with the bear, and then they act as a stunt double or whatever, or the stunt double of the actor. And then in some circumstances, I think they let the actual actors interact with them. But I think it's pretty rare. I think it's almost always a handler or a stunt double that are actually doing the interaction. I think that's the main way they reduce those chances, just because the bear has a relationship with that person. They know their commands, they know their behavior, and they can respond. And if they are mauled, they're the ones that are kind of taking that liability upon themselves. So I think that's the main thing, is just reducing any kind of interaction with the bear. As far as travel logistics go, I mean, these are like big shot Hollywood bears now, right? They're probably first class, flying them first class everywhere. They see a shotgun everywhere they go. Yeah. All right, this one's from Hannah. I spent six months in New Zealand doing field research on Kiwi birds, and there was a population of 50 birds that we worked with that had been tagged for 13 years. Kiwis are mostly magnanimous? Magnogamous? How do you say that? Monogamous. Magnanimous is a word, though. Kiwis are mostly... What word are we trying to say? Wow. This is the first time you've almost slipped into an entirely different actual word. That's amazing. But there have been a few couples that have broke up. Taco and Belle broke up, sadly. So that's kind of funny that Taco and Belle were a couple. Yeah, that is funny. And there were two thruples in the population. We had a lot of fun gossiping about the birds, like it was a reality dating show. So I was wondering if Wes has had any similar funny stories of animal populations he has worked with with their juicy drama? Not really. I feel like most of the animals I've worked with, the only animal I think I've ever worked with on a more extensive level that are monogamous are golden eagles. And we don't really get close enough to them to really tease out a lot of relationship drama. I'm sure the people that have worked on that project longer than me know some juicy tidbits about their relationships. But as far as me, I can't think of any animals where I felt like there was something really juicier or fun like that. Are there any documented incidents of grizzly bears, or bears in general mating with the same mate from once into the next? I'm sure there are, but I think that's more of a coincidence than a monogamous kind of thing. It's not the bear trying to get its old partner back, it's just that they ran into each other again in the spring and made it. I saw some bears mating last week. Nice, where? YouTube. No, I'm just kidding. At the Hogle Zoo. Oh yeah, that's right. You're siblings, right? Yeah. I always miss the good stuff. All right, this one's from Emily. And they say, besides Lord of the Rings, what are your favorite fantasy stories or series? And I told them a guess for Mike already. We'll see if I'm right. Mine was the song of Ice and Fire, the Game of Thrones, but then it got ruined. But I loved, I read all the books and was so into it up until the end of it. But yeah, no, that's probably mine too. I really like the new Dune movie, and I'm excited to see the second part of that. The book's good too. Yeah. I actually love the Harry Potter books. Oh yeah, that's true. Yeah. Mike. What did you, what was your guess? Here's a real fantasy head. So I'm going to guess the thing that you guessed right off the top. I can't say the guess before you say it. Okay, you probably said either Mistborn or Stormlight Archive? Nope. Okay. Any of the Gentleman Bastard books? I do like the Gentleman Bastard books. The Green Bone Saga? Anything by John Gwynne? What are we talking about? Enders game. Oh, that's more like sci-fi. But no, I think that is probably. That's a fantasy story series. It's sci-fi. Now, sci-fi, that doesn't mean it can't be a series if it's sci-fi. Dune is sci-fi. Well, she said a fantasy series. Didn't she say fantasy? Maybe we misunderstood. She said, what are your favorite fantasy stories or series? Right. Fantasy stories or series? Yeah. That's not fantasy. She's saying fantasy stories or series. I think Enders game would count, but whatever. Have you read it? Yeah. It's very sci-fi. So is Dune. I don't think those are mutually exclusive sci-fi and fantasy. You can't have a fantasy sci-fi? I think you can, but I don't think either of those are. I mean, I get what you're saying, and I actually do agree to an extent, but they're two different genres for a reason. You go to the sci-fi section or the fantasy section in a bookstore and like, they're divided for reasons. But there's a couple books that they don't know which one to put it in, I bet. You can have an erotic thriller, but you can also have a thriller or an erotic book. And there's like, it's not like they're always the same. But you're right, Jeff. And to me, Enders game calls squarely in sci-fi. It's not, there's no fantasy elements in it to me. Yeah. Right. But that's me. Mike? I'm trying to think of others. Okay. So if there's one that I could recommend to anybody, it would be Sanderson Stormlight Archive. It's like a contemporary fantasy author. Some people kind of call him like the Marvel Cinematic Universe for fantasy lit, but it's very accessible, incredibly epic in scale and world building, awesome characters and just like a really easy fun time with like a lot of really, I'll just say kind of like poignant and important life lessons to be learned along the way. I think that that series is going to go down as one of the all time classics once it's all said and done. Okay. Cool. Would you choose Enders game if it qualified? Um, I would, but it doesn't. So I won't. All right. I just, yeah, no, we established that already. Right. I love fantasy, but I really just go back to Tolkien usually. That's just kind of where I am. And then this one's from Gracie. If the multiverse was real and you guys had to pick an alternative or alternative reality to live in, which reality would you choose? So I'll, I'll head this one off just to give you both some time to think. Lately, I think I'd want to be a F1 driver in my alternate reality because I, I just think it'd be really fun to like drive a race car and be a super celebrity and go to like all the coolest cities in the world. Okay. I think I'd pick one where dinosaurs haven't gone extinct. Oh, that's a good pick too. And you're a race car driver. And a F1 driver. That's better than mine then. So I'm going to be an F1 driver in mine too, but I want to live in the alternate reality. Every history teacher I've ever had always says, oh, if the library at Alexandria hadn't been burned, George Washington would have been fighting the British with nuclear submarines. And it's just like, really? Is that like really what would have been happening? Never heard that. So, mostly just out of curiosity, I want to live in the reality where the library at Alexandria was not burned. Just to like see if all these history teachers were just here like repeating something that they heard that's actually just kind of really stupid. And that's a petty reality for me to live in. I love that you have infinite possibilities of realities to choose from. And you pick one that you just are mad at your history teacher about. Listen, I'm happy with where I'm at. But you could pick one where humans can fly. Yeah, that's boring. At least he said it was an F1 driver still. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Listen, humans are nothing if not adaptable. So, like if we can fly, that'd be cool for two days and then be like, well, we can fly. Sweet. They didn't have cars in your time period, right? So, you're winning every race. All right. All right. Great question. Good slate of questions this time. Yeah, that was. All right. So, quick conservation corner. We've talked about this a little bit. In Montana, grizzlies have done pretty well compared to the rest of the Lord 48. But with the current political climate here and with kind of this return to really anti-predator sentiments in Montana, a lot of bear biologists in Montana, and myself included, are pretty concerned with the future of grizzly bears. A lot of laws have been passed that are pretty aggressive, that allow for things like chasing dogs or chasing bears with dogs or setting wolf traps that can catch bears. Lots of just like really aggressive laws, killing bears like in self-defense, but it's not really, or if they're threatening your livestock, but threatening isn't even defined. There's just some really loose aggressive laws that are being passed toward grizzly bears and other predators in Montana that make people like myself pretty concerned about the future of those bears. So, while their numbers are pretty good, the attitudes are what are mostly concerning right now, and we're just kind of crossing our fingers that things don't slide too far in the other direction. So that's a quick conservation corner. Quickly, we'll do our claw rating, which is pretty easy for me and Jeff. This is a 10-claw animal. This is probably my favorite animal. So yeah. Yeah, number one 10-claw. Mike? It's a nine-claw for me. You bastard. They're close. Of all the nines I've handed out, this one's the closest probably, besides polar bears, which we did last week. But they're awesome. I love seeing them. I haven't gotten nearly enough opportunities to do that myself. I'd love to do it some more. What rating is a panda bear for you? A giant panda. It'd probably be another nine. They're not a top 10, but they're hovering. So you don't have a single 10 that's a bear? I don't think there's any bears in my top 10. Where do grizzlies rank for bears? Like, yeah, give me your top three bears in order. I think we've done this before, but it was polar bear, grizzly, panda, and that I don't know the rest of them. In that order? Forgettable. Black bears, what a boring ass bear. Just sitting around. All right, so 10s for me and Jeff, a nine for Mike. I'm kind of bummed that bears don't ever crack your 10s, but that's okay. That's fine. Well, thanks guys. This one was a fun one, and I really enjoyed this story, so I'm glad I got to share it with you guys. Thanks again for supporting us, whether you're supporting us on Patreon or on Apple subscriptions. It really does mean a lot to us. It is up to this point what's gotten us this far on the podcast. So we really, really, truly do appreciate our subscribers. So thanks again. Thanks. You guys are the best. We love it. I say it. We say it. We don't say it enough. Maybe we say it too much, but we do mean it. We talk about it all the time, so we do mean it. All right, we'll see you. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.