Grizzly Bear Attack - The Bear vs. the BFFs

Hello everyone, welcome to Tooth and Claw podcast. You have our bear biologist Wes Larson, which is convenient for us because we're also doing bear month. Yep, it's bear month. It'd be a lot harder to do that without a bear biologist. Sure. We still manage that. To be clear, he's actually a human biologist. He just specializes in bears. That is a good thing to clear up. You made that distinction. And then I was Wes's field tech. I worked with black bears with Wes, so you could call me probably like a bear specialist. And maybe we should call you the tech guy. Yeah, tech guy. If you're the field tech. Then we have our tech guy, Mike. There he is. Mike, you committed a sin right before this episode started recording. Do you know what it was? I was going 85 through a school zone. No, it's that you started singing a creed song and now it's stuck in my head. Is that a sin? I'm mad at you. I think so. I'm a Christian rock band. I think that's the opposite of a sin. Fair enough. You know, I know a lot of like, but rock bands have kind of gotten like a renaissance lately. I don't feel that way about creed. You don't. And I know you have a soft spot for them. I don't like their music. I just can't get into it. I like the Sunday morning song. That's it. That's the only one that I like. Sure. Should have been there on a Sunday morning. My own truth. I don't know if I have a soft spot. I have a spot for them. I don't know the like the duress of it, though. Yeah. Might be soft, might be hard. I don't know. Butt rock. Yeah. I have a spot. They called like like fuel and creed and. Dot tree. Nickelback, dot tree. All those bands are but rock bands. They belong in that second hole in your butt, Jeff. That's what I have stuck in my head is the Kendrick Lamar. But it's just the noises he does like being bop boo bop. Oh, yeah. That's always stuck in your head, though. That's been stuck in your head your whole life. Yeah. Before he even like released his song. I was stuck in my head. You're like finally someone's making music for me. Wait, if we if I had to like intro Mike with like something about bears, what could I say for Mike? He's he know he forced to know a lot about bears against his will. Name eight or can name six of the eight species of bears. Mike Smith. Yeah. Alley, it's a tall order for me. I think you could get all eight. Why don't you try? Let's do grizzly, black bear, polar bear, panda, spectacled, sun, Asiatic, black bear. Hold on. Oh, you're doing good. Sloth bear. Yeah. Is that all of it? Yeah. Well, I think you know, for grizzly, better to say brown bear. Brown bear. And then for black bear, American black bear. But you did great. And spectacled bear, the true name is Andy and bear, but you can say spectacled. So yeah, you did great. That was fast. Shorten it down to Andy when you're familiar with them. Yeah, Jeff briefly mentioned this, but we are partnering with Backpacker magazine and outside during Backpacker, Backpackers. Backpacker is an annual bear month, which is really cool. It's it's a month where they release a lot of bear related content, lots of bear safety stuff, some fun bear stories. I wrote an article for them about Night of the Grizzlies. It's just like a very bear focused time for them in their publication. Yeah, we're really excited about it. We did a slot bear episode for part of bear month, and now we're going to do another bear episode. It's two of two. I've ranked all eight bears and sent it to them, too. We'll see if we'll see if it's good enough to use it. Yeah, I definitely said just black bear and grizzly bear to you. So OK. Yeah. Where did Koala bear rank? Oh, shit. What is I guess I don't. I guess that means I don't consider them bears. I think it's kind of like Pluto. Like they got they were a bear for a long time, but then we decided they're not anymore, no longer. But now they are again. They are. Yeah. But then there's like a couple other bears that we didn't know about, too. Yeah. Right. Because that's what's not true. There's like a couple extra other little planets like it. True. Is that true? Yeah. What's the little like microscopic bear that's in our blood or whatever? Oh, tardigrades. Like a couple of things like Pluto. Like it's like if you're in teach us about Pluto, you might as well teach us about these other couple. Yeah. All right. Well, should we get into our episode? Let's go. OK. As I mentioned, it's a bear episode. I think it's a fun one. I think it's one that has some interesting factors that you wouldn't expect from our typical bear episode. And the sources for this one are almost primarily, definitely primarily, almost solely the book Mark of the Grizzly by Scott MacMillan. It's a book we've used before. It was written in the 90s. There are some kind of updates to it. Some of the information in that book, I just kind of want to tell people some of that information is outdated. So this isn't a bear book I would recommend basing like bear safety stuff off of. But there are some great stories in it. Shouldn't be called Scott of the Grizzly and not Mark. Hey, let's do the rim shot. A rim shot. Bill, thanks. All right. You get better. I can't do it every time. I can't do it. When you write a grizzly book, what are you going to name it? West? Scott of the Grizzly. That's what I'm going to name it. All right. I call it West Side Story. OK. All right. I'm going to talk to you about sharks. Yeah, or jets. When you write your 9-11 memoir, where you were. So dumb. Oh, the dumb ones always get Mike. There is. OK. I'm done. I'm done talking. I'm not participating in this episode anymore. All right. Anne Korderman and Christine Bielowski were pretty tough women. They'd grown up in a mountain town of Rossland, British Columbia, which is just north of the Washington State border. And like a lot of people that grow up in mountain towns, they spent their lives kind of just working odd jobs and prepping for the ski season. They're big into skiing. They're big into outdoor recreation. In October of 1994, when Anne was 28 and Christine was 25, and just a year after the release of Jurassic Park into theaters, Anne decided to travel to the slightly larger town of Revelstoke, British Columbia, to look for work. And Revelstoke sits on the banks of the Columbia River. Historically, it was a really important logging town because they would cut logs there, put them on the river and ship them to the ocean. But after a highway, a highway was completed that connected like Calgary and some of these larger cities. It started turning into a tourist destination. There's some great skiing nearby, really great hiking. And it also had a ton of bears. So it was a place that sometimes people would go to look for wildlife. So as more and more people started visiting Revelstoke, Revelstoke, the local wildlife managers had to get them had to get a little bit more serious about the behavior of the bears. And in 1994, they had just installed electric fences around the town dump, which historically had been a huge draw for both grizzly and black bears. And we've talked about bears are pissed. These bears are not happy. Yeah. We've talked about that quite a bit. We we did an episode with National Park After Dark where we talked about what what changed in Yellowstone after they closed the dumps. Do you guys kind of remember what generally happens to bears that are food conditioned like that once they close off that that food source? They start getting into trouble. Exactly. That's exactly the answer I was looking for. Well, are you getting into trouble? Is that why you brought up Jurassic Park? It's not. But because like when the electric fence turns off, the T. Rex gets into trouble. Yeah, you know, we're full circle here. But then at the end of the day, is the burger and save them from like coyotes or something? I don't know. Yeah. You're just going to have to wait and see. Spoiler, it doesn't. So like Jeff said, they start getting into trouble. And that's because they have had this access. No, it's not. The dress is there. They started getting into trouble because they had had all this access to really high calorie, really nutritionally poor, but calorie dense food for these bears. And they lost that access. So they started seeking out anthropogenic food and other sources. Anthropogenic just means like human food. So during these years after they closed the dump and around when they close the dump, hundreds of black and grizzly bears were killed or relocated from Rebel Stoke in the 90s. It was a real hot spot for bear conflict. What did that look like? People were just sent out with hunting rifles and killed them. No, no, no. It was a more of an Asia kind of program. It was like managers. So like wildlife officials would go out and kill bears that were getting into trouble. But lots of calls, lots of people that had conflict bears in their yard or in their trash or whatever. There was one year where they actually had to cancel trick or treating because there are so many bears out roaming the streets. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, there's kids are pissed, too. Bears would have loved like trick or treating, too, because they were smart enough. They could just act like it's a costume. They could dress up. Yeah, or dress up like a vampire or something. Yeah, you're right. They could have spent a bear. Yeah, three of them stacked on each other's shoulders with a trench coat. They could have snuck in anywhere. Just holding its candy bag. Yeah. But neither Anne or Christine were too worried about bears as they drove to Revelstoke in early October of 94. They both had recreated and worked plenty in the woods of interior British Columbia. They had their fair share of bear encounters throughout their lives, albeit mostly with black bears. Christine's five four. She's pretty athletic. She's worked on a biological survey team where she counted ungulates. She spent a lot of time camping and looking for wildlife. Anne was a lot taller, but similarly athletic and worked as a cook in backcountry lodges and camps. Basically, the point I'm trying to get to here is that neither of these women are slouches when it comes to the great outdoors. Like they know their way around hiking, camping, all of this. The main reason for the relocation to Revelstoke was that Anne had found an open position at Durand Glacier Chalet in the northern Selkirk Mountains. This is a beautiful chalet that sits near Durand Glacier, mostly caters to skiers, but there's also hikers in the summer. And it's only accessible by helicopter, Jurassic Park again, or a 14 kilometer hike, 8.7 miles. But Anne, when she was applying for this job, had heard from locals, from someone that had worked there, that the chalet people would be more impressed if she hiked to her job interview rather than took the helicopter. So her and Christine decided that they'd hike up there. Like Timothy. Interesting. What do you mean? Timothy Chalet, those kind of people. Exactly. Like most job interviews, if you take a helicopter, they'll be more impressed than. Yeah. Not if it's their helicopter, though. Yeah. But if someone flew to my house with a helicopter and asked to be an intern for tooth and claw, I'd be like, no question. That's a job. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. Be like, yeah, you got it. Do you want my job? I don't even need you. All right. So in the morning of October 2nd, 1994, it was cold and wet. Rain clouds and mist were hugging the beautiful Selkirk Mountains when Anne and Christine turned onto the dirt road at the Woolsey Creek Turnoff. The skinny one lane, two track road wound its way past Russian creeks and dense forest, so dark that there could be a Wolverine, a mountain line or a grizzly bear standing 30 feet from the road. You wouldn't see it. It's the kind of place that both Anne and Christine had grown to love. And they're really excited about this hike. When they finally reach the small parking lot at the end of this two track road and parks or Ford Ranger, they get their backpacks, their rain gear and their food together. They start up the trail and their plan is to sleep at the Chalet. So they didn't bring like a tent or sleeping bags or any kind of heavy gear. They're just kind of day hiking up there. Yeah. Eight miles, that's probably like without a huge backpack. They could probably do that in like five hours or so. Right. Yeah, it depends on. Yeah. About that, because there's a lot of elevation. Seems like they know what they're doing out there, too. Yeah. On a flat hike, you could do that in like three hours. But this is kind of a tricky hike. You have to go across the glacier, Durand Glacier. There's like quite a bit of water. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty quickly into this hike, these women notice two things. The first is that not many people had been using this trail because it's very small and it's pretty overgrown. The second thing to a glacier. It goes to a glacier. Yeah, I mean, this is British Columbia, though, there's lots of glaciers, you know. OK. And it's not particularly easy to get to. People would be wanting to go eight miles to a glacier. Yeah, not me. The second thing they noticed. Well, I do think to a lot of people that visited this area would take. If there was a glacier in my backyard, I would shut the blinds. I wouldn't even look at it. Never. Not once. No. Yeah. All right. Yeah, I think a lot of people that went to this glacier would take the helicopter. So this hike, the trail wasn't used that much. The second thing they noticed, aside from the trail not being very used and there not being many people, is that bears had been using the trail pretty recently within the first mile of their hike. They found bear scat or bear poop. And while neither of them was particularly worried about bears, they did start making some noise, especially when they're close to the creek and their normal noises, like normal conversation is drowned out by the rushing water. And I don't know if that's something we really talk too much about on the podcast. That's really smart. If you're around any kind of natural feature that might be drowning out the normal noises that you're making, it's important that you get louder. It's important that you make enough noise near those features that a bear can still hear you coming because it does mask a lot of noise. And they do tend to be a little bit more jumpy around running water and whatnot. Like in a quiet place. It's just like really loud to be louder than that waterfall. Yeah, exactly. Mike would be great at that. Build your house by the waterfall. I feel like Mike can't like whisper very well. I'm bad at whispering. I'm too loud. Do you remember the leopard? Do you remember the leopard? I remember. Oh, man, I remember that leopard. Got shushed. And then he had me. I got humiliated in front of the group. And then the group and then the guides were like screaming at each other over the leopards sleeping in the body. That made it. That made us feel bad once the guy. Yeah, the guy did not care. Getting instant insights is amazing. But if there are too many data points, it can be hard to see what works. So I'll ask my assistant for recommendations. And with PDF spaces in Acrobat Studio, it's easy to remix documents and transform insights into standout content so you can go from idea to creation in record time or within an AI powered workflow. Do that with Acrobat. Learn more and try it out on Adobe.com. But I do think that's an important thing to remember. Think about like how far your voice is caring, how much that noise is being masked by other things. Because if you're in a place, especially a place that has decent amount of grizzly bears like this, you need to be making enough noise to where a grizzly bear can hear you coming. And that way it's not going to be surprised by your sudden presence. OK, it's unclear to me if these women knew that the berry crop had been pretty bad that year or that the dump had been fenced off. But those two things had likely led to the local bears being a bit more testy that year. So when we talked about that, these bears losing these food sources, not having many berries, not having the dump. I think people's knee-jerk reaction might be to assume that that means that those bears are going to be more likely to attack people like as a predator to eat the people. That's not necessarily the case. It's not that they're going to be looking at people for food. What it does mean is they have to spend a lot more time looking for food. And that puts them at a higher risk of running into other bears or other threats. So it means those bears are going to be more on edge and more defensive. And they're probably like more likely to get into garbage and stuff that's not protected. Right. Yeah, they'll start taking bigger risks to get at food as well. So the main thing to remember in those kind of situations, and this is kind of like what Timothy Treadwell found himself in at the end, when the bears don't have good food, they just kind of get antsy and testy and more defensive when they can just sit in one spot and have like total access to high calorie, consistent, plentiful food. They're usually like pretty happy, not very wary, not very defensive. Is that a thing that comes along with them being territorial? Like they're very comfortable in their territory. But if they venture outside of their comfort zone, do they get a little more antsy like that? Is that a behavior bears exhibit? To some extent. But when we talk about bears being territorial, like bears will share their range with other bears. It's not like they have this like neatly defined like border. And it's like, this is mine. No one else comes in here. They bump into other bears. And when when food sources like this are low, they do have to start going to other places. They have to move around a lot more. And it's really just like moving through their habitat. They're just a little bit more on edge because there is the possibility of bumping into other bears, bumping into humans, bumping into threats. So they do just get a little bit more wary. So Wes. Yeah. The whole world has a problem with having like too much waste right now. Yeah. Dumps are getting like too much stuff. Yeah. So what if we got like 15 times more bears and just let them in the dumps? Yeah, we don't want to do that, though, because then there's not wild animals anymore, you know? That's the problem there. Also, I have to quickly apologize. There is a robin at my house that is driving me up the wall. It just like it has been calling nonstop. I scared it off right before we recorded, but it's back. So if you guys hear a bird calling in the background, I'm sorry. It's been like three days of this. OK. I like it. It helps us kind of like put ourselves out there. Sounds like we're out there. Yeah, it's just ambient noise. OK. So all that is to say 1994 was probably a peak year for the local bears to be pretty stressed, especially because they just lost access to the dump. And I have no idea if Anna Christine knew that they had to be especially cautious on the trail that day. They'd been hiking about three hours when they climbed over a rock face and this ecotype changed from conifer forest to much more open country consisting of low brush and small stands of deciduous trees. So essentially they like came up on this rock out of the forest. And when they like went over the top of the rock, they were in this big field of low brush and like aspen trees or birch trees or whatever. Because it was October, all these trees were in their fall colors and the brush was in its fall colors. It was really beautiful. They're suddenly surrounded by all this red and orange and yellow. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Do you know how the stats bear out what environment bear attacks most frequently happen? Are they more frequently occurring in forested areas or out in the open? It really depends on the species with with brown bears or grizzly bears. They tend to be in open areas on forest edges. So so right where exactly like this, like this is prime grizzly like habitat. So it's more in this kind of country, like open areas, open fields, but near forest, if that makes sense. Yeah. OK. Oh, yeah. So they they open up into this field. They see all these fall colors. They stand there for a few minutes, just like kind of transfixed by this beautiful scene. And then they start walking out into the field. And that's when they first saw the bears. Female grizzly with two cubs from that year. Really, though, all they were seeing were these large brown dots because these bears are about 300 meters away, which is about 984 feet. Or Jeff, about 25 school buses. 25 school buses. Yeah. Yeah. I did the math for you this time, but I'm glad that you just checked me. Three football fields. Yeah, about three football fields. So a good distance. This is a distance where even if I'm in the back country and I see bears, I'm just kind of going to enjoy it. I'm going to think, oh, I get to look at some bears. You're feeling pretty confident that there's enough space between you. And that's what Anne and Christine felt. They were happy to have seen bears and had brought some bear spray. I'm doing quotation marks because we're going to talk about her bear spray in a bit. So she's feeling particularly confident. But that feeling of relative safety immediately went away when this female bear started running at full speed at 300 meters away in their direction. That's crazy. Yeah. Is their eyesight good enough for that bear to really know what it's running at even? It probably smelled them. It probably doesn't totally know what it's charging, but it's something that it's not happy about. That's crazy. Yeah. It's not going to seem them to. Their eyesight is somewhat similar to ours. I don't think they have quite the range of colors that we see. But as far as like distance and stuff, I think it's somewhat similar. So it starts running at them full speed in their direction. They both start yelling, but the bear kept coming. And Anne turns to see Christine running away in the opposite direction. She yells to Christine to stop running and Christine slows to a fast walk and Anne kind of briskly walks up to join her. There's a small ridge close by and they both figure if they could get behind this ridge and out of the line of sight of this bear, it might discourage her. The bear might think that they were gone, which seems like a good idea, but it's a really bad idea. And the reason for that is this bear has already seen them or smelled them or whatever, knows their threat and knows they're there. Walking away slowly while watching this bears the right decision. You want to keep eyes on it. You want to walk away slowly. And if you can increase that distance, if it stops or whatever, and you keep walking, it's probably going to be enough to discourage it. But when you hide behind this ridge, hiding anywhere really, if that bear does keep coming and it pops its head up over that ridge, suddenly it's another surprise encounter at a much closer distance. And that's not a good thing to do. I know this, this is a serious situation. And it's about to get a lot more, I imagine, dangerous. But it reminds me, it just reminds me of the scene in Monty Python where the guy is running towards the castle and they keep like switching perspectives and it's just like keeps running and running. 300 meters is like a long time to kind of wait and be like, all right, this bear is coming at us. Although I guess bears can close that distance really fast. That's the thing at 30 miles per hour. I mean, it's not going to take it very long. But yeah, I think that's why this one is so interesting to me is like, they had some time to kind of decide what to do. Usually people don't have time. Usually these encounters happen 30 feet or less and you have a few seconds to react. They had like probably 20, 30 seconds, if not more, you know. So they unfortunately made a bad decision hiding from this bear. It that increases this bear's kind of threat behavior because threats are things that are going to kind of sneak around and hide. And then also created another potential surprise encounter. And sure enough, what if it's a really good hiding spot? Like what? And Lord of the Rings, when Sam has that. It's good. He puts up. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I don't think that's great still. They I mean, they would smell them out. They'd probably smell you. Yeah. That's a great question. All right, so they make it to the small ridge, the crouch behind it and gets her spray out and ready to go. And sure enough, after a few seconds, the female grizzly's head pops up over this ridge about 25 feet away. And when she sees these two women, she charges it. OK, really quickly. And I'm kind of just mixing our biology and information through the story today. But let's talk quickly about when you should deploy your bear spray. Bear spray lasts for about seven seconds. And really, you should do your first spray when that bears about 40 or 50 feet away from you. And the reason for that is the spray isn't going to hit it square in the face at that distance. Yeah. Well, it's about one school bus. Yeah, from what I looked up earlier. The reason for that is that spray is going to sit in the air. You're going to kind of want to spray it low. It's going to sit in the air because it's aerosolized. So that pepper is just like floating in the air between you and the bear. That forces that bear to run through that wall of spray to get to you. So it's kind of your first like volley toward the bear with the spray. And it you're again, you're not aiming to hit it right in the face. You're just trying to put up that protective barrier between you and the bear. So two or three seconds to spray kind of lower toward the ground in front of you. Yeah, just get up in the air. Yeah. Yeah. Is it doesn't need to hit you straight in up. That's true. But they try to. They do try to. They try to aim in your nostrils. They try and get you right in your face. Yes. But it's still effective. Even the bear right in the face. It would be great if you could, but not at that distance. You're not going to get them at that distance. Is bear spray a single use like you discharge it one time only? So you kind of have to have your stuff together. You don't have to do one push. You can do multiple pushes, but it's not a product where after you've used it, you want to like save it for another day. Because it'll lose head pressure and it'll have like pepper that leaks out. And you can get it on your fingers or whatever. Yeah, but it's got about seven seconds of spray in it and you can do multiple bursts. So I always say use like short bursts and start at about 40 to 50 feet. This bear closed that 20 feet in between these women and it in seconds. And when she was five feet away from the women, she rose to her hind legs. And that's when Anne got her bear spray and sprayed this bear right in the face. But actually it was more like she squirted it right in the face. You see, it's like a mace thing. Yeah, she either had a really old can of bear spray. I couldn't find any photos of it or any good information. She either had a really old can of bear spray that had lost all of its pressure or she had bought mace thinking it was bear spray. And I think that's possible because I remember the first time that we ever bought bear spray as with dad, they sold him a little thing of mace for one of his bear sprays. And when it expired, I went out and tried to spray it. And it was just like the tiniest little squirt is like one of those toy squirt guns you get for like a dollar. That's like the amount of mace that shot out. And it would be totally ineffective against a bear. Yeah, we should sell that just to make money and get more attack stories. Attack stories. Win win. Yeah. Either way, whichever she had either an expired can or a really bad can. And I don't the reason I don't think it was expired is it have to be really expired to be that ineffective. But either way, this cloud of aerosolized capsaicin that's supposed to come out of the bear spray can and travel 30 feet was just a small squirt of pepper that almost didn't even make it to the bear. And it didn't stop this charging grizzly that was now completely locked in on Christine. Well, and part of why it might have been mace, too, is like she kind of knew to wait until it was right next to her. Yeah, maybe a physical bear spray. She would have felt more confident spraying it earlier. Yeah. The other thing is this is 1994 bear spray is still kind of for wide use, a relatively new product. There's not really good education out about it. So really, we'll talk about this at the end. These women didn't make many mistakes. They made a couple small ones, but for the most part, they did a really good job. OK, so this grizzly is completely locked in on Christine and had sprayed it. It blows right past her, goes to Christine. It bites into her left elbow and shakes her through the air by her arm. The way a dog throws around a limp toy, swiping her back and forth so hard that she's worried her arm might even separate from her body. And that's when Anne shows back up to intervene and runs right up next to this bear and sprays it again at point blank range. Once again, just a dribble of pepper shoots out onto the bear's face. It's not nearly enough to send the bear running, but it was enough to change its focus to Anne. So the bear effortlessly tosses Christine away by the arm. She flies into a small tree nearby and then the grizzly attacks Anne and knocks Anne to the ground and it bites into her right arm, which she'd raised to protect herself and try and fight off the bear. And she immediately feels teeth hitting the bones of her upper and lower arm. And she has the clarity to realize that her bones were being scraped by the teeth, but not broken. Like she could feel the teeth scraping on her arm bones, but not breaking them. And then she feels them shredding through her triceps, her biceps and her forearm muscles. And she starts screaming. Somehow she's still holding onto the bear spray. She tries it again, but now the can's either empty or whatever tiny bit of pressure was still in there was gone. So she had the sinking feeling that she's about to die. Is this terrible, musty and rotten smell of the bear overwhelms her senses. He's like rubbing the end, the nozzle of it to get a little on her finger to try to rub in the bear's eye. And it's nose. Oh yeah. Anne knew her only choice now is to play dead. So she rolls onto her stomach and that's true. Like if you're in this situation, if you've exhausted your bear spray, you don't have any other kind of deterrent and the bears actively mauling you, this is the rare occasion when you should go into the fetal position and try and play dead and hope it's just a defensive attack, especially with the female with Cubs, it probably is a defensive attack. So she rolls onto her stomach and she stops fighting the bear. It immediately flips her back onto her back, but she rolls onto her stomach once again. Now the bear starts tearing into her back, where luckily she's still wearing her backpack. So this pack absorbs a lot of the punishment, but she's still bitten several times on both sides of her torso, but they're kind of just puncture bites. This bear isn't biting and tearing. She's just getting puncture wounds, not these huge ripping, tearing bites, which is really, again, indicative of a bear that's just trying to neutralize a threat. Often these females with Cubs, especially, they'll just kind of bite a bunch of times to show you they mean business and then they back off. Jeff, you do that sometimes. Maybe she was screaming because she's upset she's going to be late to her job interview. She's like, I really want this job. The bear's like, no. All right. She's like, I hope they buy this excuse. Her luck is about to run out, though, because I said she was lucky that this bear was just biting and not tearing. I guess luck's relative. Yeah. So I did quotation marks again. You audio listeners can't see that, but her luck is about to run out. The bear reach forward with one of its paws and these huge three inch claws caught right above her left temple. So about an inch above her eye and the rest of the pot. This is like its furthest claw and the rest of its paw was over the top of her head. And in one swift motion, the bear raked its claws back across the top of her head from her left temple to her right ear and pulled her scalp all the way off. Exposing the bone of her skull. Dude. So really, I say all the way off, but it was still hanging by like one flap on the back of her head, but her entire skull on the front part of her head was visible. That's what sucks with like a bear swiping victims faces. Like compared to like a cat or something. I feel like with a cat, it more like slices into their skin. With a bear, it like scalps them. Just like tears everything away. Yeah, they're so strong. I mean, when you think about it with those same claws, like they can, you know, break a moose's back. They can dig up, like rip apart a log. There's so many things they do pick up a paw fruit. Yeah, pick a paw. There's so many things they can do with that muscle and those claws that scalping a human is like is nothing for them. I didn't know that Papa is just papaya. Australians call papaya papa. Is that what that means? I was watching Australian Survivor and they called papaya papa. What the heck? Yeah. Anyway, can I do a little correction corner or something since you got that up? Sure. I guess someone wrote in and said in Australia, they call it Wallabies, Walleroo's. Walleroo's. Oh, wow. Of course they do. All right. Well, great. Like, all right, Nickname, but yeah. Anyway, yeah, that's a shout from our previous episode where Jeff wanted to rename Wallabies. All right. So. Anne has just been scalped. She's screaming. Her screams reach a new pitch as warm blood pours down on her face and somewhere deep inside her primal brain, she knows that she has to quit screaming if she wants this bear to actually think she's dead. Christine, meanwhile, is watching this bear kill her friend on the ground. And for her, it's like she got tagged back into this fight. So she runs at the bear and she starts kicking in the head as hard as she can while it's focused on Anne on the ground. No way. Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah. She kicks it so hard that she falls backward. She lands on her back. And when she falls on the ground, the bear turns on her again, switching its attention once again from Anne to Christine, biting into Christine's lower left leg. But she still has a right leg. She curls it back and kicks out as hard and as fast as she can. And her boot connects right with the nose of the bear, which makes it let go and it shakes its head, runs to her side, bites her once in the torso, hard and quick, and then releases her and runs off to join its cubs that are crying in the distance. Nice. Yeah. These these ladies are like hardcore. Yeah, that's a cool. It makes me really like judge even more harshly that one guy from the attack story a while ago, where he just like stood there and watched for an hour. Coward and he was just a coward. Yeah. Yeah. That's wild. Yeah. So Christine immediately turns to her friend on the ground, who's missing her scalp and ask her how bad it was. And Anne at this point didn't know the bear was gone. She's so focused on playing dead that all she could respond with was, I'm dead. I'm dead, which later they both laugh about because like Anne was like trying to tell her that she was playing dead, but she was saying, I'm dead. I'm dead. Well, it's kind of an answer to her question, too. She said, how are you doing? I'm dead. Yeah. And then what do you say? You sure you're dead? You sure don't sound dead to me. Sorry to hear that. Yeah. All right. So before we finish the story, just quickly, before we talk about how they got to safety, I want to talk a little bit about why this is a weird attack. And for you guys, what's the strangest thing about this whole story? The distance that was in between the bears and the women. Like it didn't really seem like the cubs or any there was any kind of threat that they were opposing to this bear, the bear cubs. Yeah. Exactly. Yep. And that's what it was to me, too. It's this distance. This is a distance, again, where if you see bears, even in the back country, you should feel somewhat safe still. And I think the reason I really like this story is it highlights something about bears, especially females with cubs about grizzlies, is that you really never know what they're going to do. You know, they even at 300 meters, that bear might just decide I do not like that thing, whatever it is, I'm going to go check it out. And if it's a threat, I'm going to neutralize it. And that's why you really do just always have to be prepared in grizzly bear country, because even when it seems like a perfect scenario to just sit there and enjoy, there still is the chance that that bear is going to pose a danger to you. This is always potentially a dangerous animal. It's it's really strange that it is that far away because it feels like, oh, like I would have enough space and time to like figure something out. But then it's like, what are you going to figure out? You know, like, like you have like 20, 30 seconds. Yeah, do what? Yeah, make a gun out of the rocks. Yeah. And they looked for a tree to climb. That's not a bad idea. They yeah, they I mean, we did it at some point, right? Like it was just rocks that we kind of extracted the metal from out of the rock. Everything we have came out of the earth in some way. But I think I think the interesting thing here is they really did everything pretty much right, where they had their bear spray ready to go. They started running, but then they stopped. They realized that was a bad idea. The one thing they did wrong was like crouching behind this ridge and hiding because it did surprise the bear for a second time. But really, they were like pretty well prepared for this. And it's really strange to me that this happened at such a huge distance. But again, the thing I don't think there's like a great lesson to pull out of this, aside from the fact that these are unpredictable animals. We can go on and on and on in this podcast about all the things you're supposed to do to stay safe and you still might run into a bear that acts differently from what we've said. So you just need to be prepared. You need to be sure that you're ready for these kind of encounters. And we're going to talk about a couple of things in a bit that they could have done to be even more prepared than they already were. OK, so both Anne and Christine have some serious injuries. Anne's head is gushing blood. They both had ripped up arms, legs, torsos. They knew they had to get to help soon and it's starting to rain. So they're also worried about hypothermia. They're about halfway to the chalet, so they have a choice to make. Their choices either continue hiking uphill in bad weather across the glacier to get to the chalet and wait for a helicopter or hike downhill to the truck. So which would you guys do? Wait, how far? I want to get in that helicopter. They're halfway there. So the distance is the same, but up toward the chalet, it's uphill. They're going to have to cross the glacier and it's starting to rain. So up there, it could even be snowing. And then once they get to the chalet, they have to. Yeah, but they're going to have to call a helicopter to come get. Yeah, it sounds like going back to the truck. Well, what if you knew the bear went that direction to. Towards the truck. Yeah. That doesn't make sense. Why? Because they were walking on the trail to the chalet and on the trail, they saw the bear in front of them. Yeah. And the cubs were on the other side. I never said that. The cubs could have like worked their way around or something. You never know what the cubs are doing. But you understand what I'm saying. Yeah, like they hadn't gotten to that point where the bears were. So the bears switched like the bears moved. Yeah, the cubs just followed their mom. OK. Yeah. The the bear had gone that direction toward their truck. You think the bear was trying to get to that same interview? Going that same direction. Oh, and what? On the other way. Just interviewed and didn't want her to get. Oh, yeah. Single mom, you need now. Yeah. Now it makes sense why she was so mad. Yeah, but I guess that changes things. It didn't. Oh, for them, they decided to go that way, regardless. I agree, though, for me, it would have really made me reconsider whether or not I want to go down toward the truck. But for them, they did decide to go that way. They really didn't want to hike uphill. The pain is kind of starting to set in, even though they weren't feeling much pain until then. So they do their best to bandage themselves up with extra clothing, staunch the bleeding, and they start walking and making lots of noise as they make their way down. It's a long, scary hike, but it's one where they kind of let their feelings of camaraderie really overwhelm themselves. They realized they'd saved each other's lives and they knew that this they weren't going to let this stop them from enjoying their lives and going back out in the wilderness. They really just kind of had this now unspoken bond where they knew they had to live their life to the fullest to honor each other's sacrifices. Because really, especially Anne, she probably could have gone away without every scratch had she decided just to leave this bear to focus on Christine. And Christine could have been a lot better off had she left it to focus on Anne. But they so they both made some pretty good sacrifices for each other. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah. Multiple times, they almost pass out on their way back down, but they cover ground and they make their way back to the truck. And they're practically shouting the entire time. When they get to the truck and bends down to engage the four wheel drive hubs on her truck and a torrent of blood pours out of her rain jacket that had somehow been pooling in like a bend of her jacket and onto the ground. And she's staring at this pool of blood and she suddenly is like, Oh, we're in some trouble here. Like we're both losing a lot of blood. Much that like affects your mind to see the blood. You're just like, I almost feel like when I see a bunch of blood with a bad injury, that's when like the blood rushes out of my head. Oh, yeah. For sure. And it's like my my dumb qualifier and is like, Oh, we got to send more blood down there. Let's take it out of the brain. Yeah, down there. It used to be in me. Where am I? Opening is. Oh, OK. I thought you meant, well, whatever. Down there. Yeah. That'd be weird. Because you need blood down there for things to work. Weird reaction. All right. So she's staring at this pool of blood. She realizes they really got to get to help quick. But they both only have one good arm at this point. Both of their arms that have been mauled or like in a sling that they had made. So what they decided to do, it's a manual car or a manual truck. Christine is steering and working the clutch with her one good leg. And then Anne is working the stick shift on this five mile dirt road back to the highway. So they're kind of teaming up to drive this truck back. Cool. Yeah. A little difficult, but it would be. Yeah. But when they get to the highway, there's this work crew that's cutting trees or something on the shoulder and they pull up to a man whose back is to them that's running a chainsaw. And they're both a bit worried that he wouldn't take them seriously or believe their story. But Anne had so. That's crazy. I know. Her scalp is gone. That's the thing. It's like it's not gone at this point. She had like flopped it back on, you know, so it's just kind of sitting on her head like a wig. Maybe nowadays where everyone's just doing pranks all the time. Yeah, that's true. Just punches them, says you stupid kids. No, but she has so much blood on her face that when this guy turns around and sees them, he immediately runs to get help and to call an ambulance. And the rest of the work crew approaches them to offer their help. And they finally both break down crying because they feel like they've finally gotten into a safe place. While this ambulance is en route, a bunch of people from different organizations and government offices and whatnot are not offices, but like different officials from wildlife organizations show up. And they're thinking for some reason they thought that the bear was still nearby that had like mauled one of the work crew and someone asks Anne and Christine if they want them to hunt this bear down. And they both immediately say no. They say this was just a female bear who's protecting your cubs and acting naturally, which again, we've said this before on the show. I really respect when people can that quickly take that kind of opinion. It's impressive. Yeah, it is. Well, she's probably like, I got it pretty good to you. Yeah, I put a little bit of emerald on her face. It's nose is not feeling good right now. Yeah, it's true. A doctor in the ambulance started sewing them back together, reattached and scalp, which again, just kind of been hanging attached by this back flap, like a little wig. And they spent a lot of time in the hospital. I know they're there at least a few days. And while they're there, a woman visited Anne, just this mystery woman that she didn't know who it was when she walked in. It was the owner of the chalet, Miss Timothy Chalet, Mike. Wow. And she had come to ask if Anne still wanted the job. Wow. Wow. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. It'd be funny if she was like, if you want it, you got a hike. Yeah. Or like, do you want it? And she's like, yeah. And she's like, well, we gave it to someone else. Yeah. So it's open. It's open. You say no. Sorry about that bear. So Anne takes the job and she was going to start after Christmas. She went back home and recovered. So did Christine. But when Anne went back, she did take the helicopter to get to the chalet. Nice. Yeah. All right. And that is that story. I thought it was just kind of a great one for this bear month collaboration with Backpacker because it really highlights, again, the unpredictability of these things, the importance of being prepared and just kind of how incredible of a experience these things can be for people. You know, not in a good way. It's weird to say, like, this is my favorite story you've ever told because it's like terrible things happened to these two women. But like, honestly, I find it really inspiring and heartwarming and wholesome in a way. Like, I think these two ladies are pretty incredible. Really, really cool. Yeah, I'm glad you like it. I tried to find them. Not I didn't try very hard, but I couldn't really find anything. Just go and door to door. Yeah, I just started asking. I went in and said, hey, Jesse, do you know Anne Quarterman? And she was like, no. And I was like, damn, I tried really hard. I have a question for you guys. Yeah. So let's say like you felt to protect loved ones or family, you like saw a threat and you needed to like go neutralize that threat, but is 300 yards away. Yeah. Is like a person 300 yards away. Yeah. How would you start running right away and how fast would you start running? I think it depends on how like how critical it is that I get there right away. You know, yeah. If it's critical, then what would you do if it you're you and you're that bear? Yeah. If I'm that bear, I'm running because I'm good at running. But like you're you. Yeah. I would run out of steam. Probably have to take a break. Halfway. It's pretty. Yeah, I don't know. That's like right at my limit. If I'm running like pretty fast. Yeah. I'd probably yell first and then start running. Yeah. I have a hard time envisioning a scenario like realistic where this would be the case for me. Yeah. It feels like jogging isn't very threatening. But then like if you're sprinting, it's like it's a long way to sprint. Yeah. You got to maybe jog the first half of it. Yeah. I remember what we're just do like the Mike Myers. When I was probably like 11 years old, I remember toilet paper in a friend's house that was like about this distance from our house, Jean's house. And as we were doing it, his dad showed up and I started running for home. And I felt like I was just flying. Like I don't think I've ever ran that fast in my life ever again. So I wonder if I had like a threat if I could if my adrenaline would kick in, you know, you would not realize how tired you were. Yeah. I don't know. What's a movie? I feel like there's movies where you see a threat just coming from like a comically large distance away and the dude like Michael Myers is a good one. Like the the hunters in Georgia, the jungle, when George is running across Africa, that's probably how they felt. There's a bunch of just like Tom Cruise sprinting. That's true. Yeah. All right. Well, before we go into our categories, do you guys have any other questions or comments about this story? I would just say I think if you don't have like a weapon, you just like hiking. I feel like a kick to the nose with your like hiking boots is about as good as you can do against a grizzly. Yeah. If you feel like you have to fight back, but you probably shouldn't fight back. Right. But yeah, if you're like in a predatory attack without a deterrent shirt, I kick to the nose. That's where I'd aim to. Well, just as humans, too, like I feel like kicks normally hit a little harder than punches. Yeah. All right. And when we get to the we're going to do what would Mike and Jeff do when we get there, I'm going to talk a little bit more about the bear spray issue here in this story. Great. OK, so our first category, though, is your favorite movie with two female leads as the main characters? Is it the Louise Mike? I mean, it yeah, it has to be. It's Ridley Scott kind of at the peak of his powers in a way like he doesn't. He usually goes for more like sweeping epic kind of period pieces or whatever. But I mean, man, that movie is so good. Probably like the most iconic freeze frame at the end of a movie beside a lot, maybe even more than 400 blows at this point. But like just iconic friendship, the two ladies are so tight. They go through so much together and I just think it's a beautiful movie. But if I had to pick a different one, maybe Francis Ha or maybe crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, those two two women leads are so cool. I love when you say more iconic than and then you say a movie that no one has ever heard. Oh, come on, please. 400 blows. 400 Francois Truffaut. Everybody knows. Oh, Truffaut. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. I mean, I quit. All right, Jeff, what's your relatable answer that people can actually. I was going to say Thelma and Louise. OK, yeah. I just I love that movie. Yeah. If I had to do another one, I can't remember. You'll know her name. Well, it's a show, but I really like Daenerys and the girl she was like partnered with was her name. Oh, yeah. Daenerys and shoot. Yeah, what is their name? They were good. No power. The actress is Natalie Emanuel. OK, but yeah, I forget the. Yeah. Anyway, about Charlie's. Missande, Missande. Well, that's Charlie's Angels. Clearly, that's more than. Yeah, that's more than that's true. I picked the Handmaiden. My favorite. You know, I bring it up a lot on this podcast, but it's my favorite Park Chan, Wook movie. I just think it's like so many twists and turns and it's beautiful. Violent and erotic. It's just like got a lot of feeling in it. So fine line between violence and eroticism. There is some of it. It is. Boyd is that movie. Talk a lot about that. It's a great movie. I can't believe I didn't think of that. Yeah, yeah. That was a great pick. All right, let's do what would Mike and Jeff do. Let's say you're at 300 meters or 300 yards, essentially, and you got a grizzly bear charging toward you. What are you going to do? Well, I think in this case where the bear spray didn't really work, like I'd try the bear spray, it doesn't work, but there's still some left, right? So I think I would put it on my forearm. I would put the spray on my forearm and then I'd stick my arm out when the bear tries to bite me. So it bites the bear spray. Give it some hot sauce for its bite. Yeah. Okay. Like Luke in the Return of the Jedi where he lets the Rancor grab him and waits till the last moment to put the bone in its mouth. Yeah, I like that. That's a good move. Yeah. So it gives this distance gives me enough time to really get into the character of being dead. So I'm going to lay down and try my very hardest to make it look like I am not a threat. Yeah. You know, like method act at that point. Exactly. Yeah. I thought one of you would say like really time it and jump over the bear. Yeah. Like as it's running like they do with cars. That's so cool. Maybe would be cooler than that, even if it's if you sprint at the bear and then jump over it. Go right towards it. I like that. Yeah. Dude, all right. If you're trying to play dead, maybe I lay down and I grab like a sharpie and dry dry X's over my eyes and like my tongue is hanging out of my mouth. Yeah. Maybe draw like some blood on my neck or something. I like that. It's like one of those things where it's like I didn't want your cubs, but now guess what? Yeah. I'm coming for you. Your cubs are done. Forced by me. All right. So quickly, Jeff said something in his that obviously this was all in jest, but I do want to say Layton bear spray. So like if the product, the capsaicin and oil is just like sitting out there, it actually can be an attractant to a bear when it's not aerosolized and like in the air, so it goes up their sinuses and their eyes and everything. It's just like on the ground, that oil that the pepper is in can actually be something they're attracted to. So that would be a can into the forest and it would chase it. Probably was that probably wouldn't work either. But just so everyone knows, like it's not like if you spray a bear, it's like suddenly it's going to draw another bears. It's not that much of an attractant, but they have done studies. Tom did a study with this where they sprayed it on the ground in a really high density bear area, like in Katmai. And the bears did go check out and kind of roll around in the spray and stuff once it was on the ground. So it really only works when it's suspended in the air and the bear or like when you spray it right on its face. So a quick thing about what happened here with this bear spray. So we talked about when you should first use it, like 40 to 50 feet is what I would say, then if the bear keeps coming, if it runs through that cloud of spray and keeps coming, then you spray it like directly toward its face when it gets closer to you. What I think happened here again, is that they either had mace product that's attended for humans, or they had an expired can of bear spray. So the thing that I would highlight here is first of all, check your expiration date on your bear spray. There is some wiggle room there. Usually it'll last even a few years after the date, but this product is always kind of constantly losing a little bit of its pressure from when it's first made. It's going to be just tiny, tiny, tiny little bit ahead. Pressure is going to be losing. So generally they have about a five year shelf life. The other thing I want to mention is if you're in really high density bear country, multiple people should have a can of bear spray because there is always the chance that your bear spray fails. It's really low chance, but it does exist. So if I'm hiking by myself in a place like this, I would carry two cans. And if I'm hiking with someone else, I'd make sure we both had a can because you do want to have a backup. So that was the other thing I wanted to bring up. Good to know. Yeah. Also, that allows you to help your friend rather than like running up and having to kick the bear like these women had to. Tooth and Claws brought to you by Ollie. A lot of you know me and Jesse lost our dog last year. It was really hard, but we did get a new dog and we just love her so much. She has so much energy. She's so fun. She's very sweet. And I think for both of us, we just want to make sure that we do everything we can to prolong her life as long as possible. Did you have a question, Mike? No, I've just been thinking about how good bears would be on that hot ones show. They probably get through the hottest sauce. Like no problem. I don't think they would flinch. Yeah. They're like licking up, licking bear spray off the rocks when it's just like in liquid form. All right. Next category. He would have such good questions for bears, too. They'd be like, how would you even know to ask that question if bears could talk is what they would say? He's a good interviewer. He's so good at them on. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Would you go on hot ones, Wes? Yeah, I'd go on hot ones. I wouldn't be very good. Like I would eat them all. Yeah. But I'd be suffering. You think you'd get through all of them? I mean, I would try them all, but I would be in a lot of pain. Like I'm not. I don't think I'm a total lightweight when it comes to spice, but I'm not good at spice. No, sure. Yeah. Like because I've always wondered if I would even do the hottest of the hot ones. And I think I'm a little more tolerant than you, but I would try it. Yeah. But like you would try it if you were at like a baseline, but you're already like have tried four in a row of the hottest hot sauce that you've ever had. And now you need to try this. But if I'm a hot one, I'm doing it. I'm doing it. You know, I'm doing it. Like I'll say this about myself. I do think I'm kind of a picky eater, but I am an adventurous eater. Like I will try anything that someone, especially if it's something that's like gross or weird or is going to like, you know, be a one time opportunity to try it. I will try it. So if I was on hot ones, I would try all of them. You'd be like, hey, so it says here you were modeled with Dior. And you'd be like, how do you know that? Yeah. Did Jeff make these notes for you? All right. Our next category, just something you recommend this week, anything from pop culture, from literature, whatever you want to recommend, throw out a recommendation. And so I'm really pleased to announce that the sequel to one of my favorite games ever made called fantasy life is on the Nintendo 3DS, the little handheld. It's called fantasy life. And it just came out for every platform. And I'm so pleased to report that it's as good as I could have ever hoped it would be. It's just the coziest little charming game. It's really wholesome, really fun. I'm a my main job as a chef. So I'm just preparing all kinds of little meals for everybody. It's amazing. I'm like, I am doing it justice, but it's like a hard game to sell for what it is. But yeah, it's just like such a fun, funny, wholesome little game. So if anyone's looking for kind of like an animal crossing or a Stardew Valley type of thing where you're just having a fun little life, adventuring around, can't go wrong, fantasy life. I, the girl who stole time. All right. I'm going to go to sports. Just NBA last night was one of the craziest games ever. Really? It's insane. It's the Knicks Pacers. So like the whole city of New York is just so hyped right now because like they haven't had the best sports luck and like the Knicks are legitimately a great team. And growing up, I loved Reggie Miller and he like destroyed the Knicks and the playoffs and did like the iconic choke sign at Spike Lee court side. So then last night, Knicks were like winning game one by like 16 points with four minutes left. They were up by like 12 points with two minutes left. And this guy on the Pacers just kept making a three every single time they had the ball. And the Knicks were even like scoring and stuff. I don't know what happened, but somehow the Pacers had the ball down to with 10 seconds left halber and goes and he goes back and like shoots a three and it hits the back of the rim, goes like 40 feet in the air and then drops down and goes in and he does the Reggie Miller like choke sign to everyone. But then it ended up being a two pointer because it was on the line. So they go to overtime, but the Pacers still won. But it's just like the most drama and really fun. And also I just want to say French Open starts in a couple of days. Yeah. And that's my favorite of the tennis tournament. So I think that'll be fun to you. It's great. All right. I'm going to recommend Australian Survivor. I've been I watched this. Yeah. I've been a lifelong survivor fan and I think this current season of like of the main survivor has been like the most boring season I've ever watched in my life. And so I started watching Australian Survivor not long ago. And I think it's so much better, more interesting. I just think it's a more compelling show. So I really like it. And the season I'd recommend if you want to give it a shot is check out Titans versus Rebels. It was a more recent season and it's like a really fun one that's not going to spoil any of the other seasons for you. So that's the one I would say to check out. So that's what I'm going to recommend. Yeah. I've never watched a single episode of Survivor. Can you believe that? We started like when it started like season one. And then I remember I fell off and then during COVID I got really back into it. And now I like I have a group of friends and we all text each other and we make bets on Survivor and stuff. It's really fun. Yeah. I still love Survivor, but this season was boring. I want to dig into what Mike said a little bit. How have you never watched like one episode? It's just not something I've ever been curious about or interested in. Do you watch any like reality TV ever? He doesn't like competition reality. Like when real world was on. He doesn't even know. Because you have to watch an episode to like even form that opinion. Well, I like just through cultural osmosis you can kind of pick up on like how the show works, the voting off island, all that stuff. I remember the naked guy from season one that got me a little interested. Wait a minute. This might be this might be something. But just like it never clicked for me. Like I don't know my parents. He got beat by a shark. Yeah. Yeah. It's not like we were disallowed from watching TV, but I was just like I was always just into cartoons. And video games. You watched the real world? When it was like as I was cycling through channels, I'd kind of if there was like a big argument and people were yelling, I'd kind of tune in for a second. But I never really watched anything like that. You've never watched the episode of the challenge? No. I think I actually did once with you guys and that was I was kind of like in and out. That's not for you. Yeah. All right. That's fair. Okay. The next category is a surprise one. It's we're going back to one of my favorites where Mike and Jeff paying attention. And there's not going to be too many questions. I don't know. Whoever wins, I we've all kind of been starting. I think at least me and Mike and Jeff, you can start now. I've been starting to collect physical media a little bit more. So whoever wins, I'm going to send you the 4k Blu-ray disc of your choice. But it can't be like, well, you know what? It can be of your choice. So all right. Unless it's like a $2,000 one or something. Yeah. We'll put a $60 cap on that. Oh, wow. Generous. Okay. Okay. Who wants to go first? Any takers? I'll go. All right. First question. End page. We were staring each other down. You were playing chicken there. You won. Mike. What town were Anne and Christine from originally? I had no idea, to be honest. Jeff, do you have any idea? It's kind of a hard one to start out with. No. Rossland. Rossland was the name of the town. Jeff, who was taller, Anne or Christine? Anne. Correct. Oh my gosh. 50-50, that's insane. Yeah. I think you have a 50. You have an easy one too, Mike. Mike, how many hours had that been hiking when they first saw the bears? Did you know that, Jeff, or was that just purely a guess? I worked out a reason to guess that, but it didn't make sense. I was like, Anne is the one who got scalped, so maybe she was taller. Her head was a little taller. Oh man. A lot less logic. That's so good. How many hours? I'll say three. Correct. Wow, really? Yeah. Jeff, how many bears total were in this family? Three. Correct. Unless you count the dad. I don't count the dad. He's a deadbeat. The absence went out to get cigarettes. What was the name of the glacier near the chalet? The Timothy. No. Jeff, do you know that one? Do you want to try and steal? Okay. Jeff, what mountains were they? Sorry, Durand, like Kevin Durand. Oh dude. You knew that? Well, I was saying Durand to myself for a few minutes. Yeah, I did do that too. What mountains were they hiking in, Jeff? The Colombian. Mike, do you know? The Rockies. The Selkirk Mountains. Nobody knows that. You didn't say that. I didn't say that. All right. It's not real. Jeff, what planet is Cassian Andor from? Or what planet was he living on with his adopted mom? You can say either of those and you'll get this answer. Andor. Incorrect. That's his name, right? Mike. Maybe they named him. Do you want to try and steal? It's like Carilla or something? Carrot. Carrion. You're so close. Canary is the planet he's from. Ferrics was the planet they were living on. I would have accepted either of those. Mike, in what year and month was the initial VHS release of Jurassic Park? 94. In what month? February. So close. Not that close. October of 94. All right. Jeff, you have two. Mike, you have one. We have one. Bonus questions were 30 points. Still in it, baby. But I'm going to give Jeff first crack at it. Jeff, what was the name of the tower in Final Destination Bloodlines? I don't know. Mike? Skyview? Skyview. All right. We know Hogwarts rules are quite here. It's like the worst view of the sky in a tower. You can just see way more ground. Sure. Don't worry, dude. I'll split the 4K disc with you. I'll just snap it in half. Jeff. Jeff. Or you can give them the bonus features. Yeah, I'll give you a double. Yeah. Well, you got 31 points and I got two. Right. So just give me like 115. I'll slice a tiny little. Yeah. All right. Let's do some listener questions. Okay. Here is a listener question from Brianna. Brianna says, I'm looking to travel to see some wildlife this summer. Any recommendations for places within the U.S. that have active wildlife during June or July? Or is it better to wait some time during the rest of the year? Jeff, where's one place that has great wildlife in June? Yellowstone. Yellowstone. Yeah. That's probably the best month to visit Yellowstone, especially early June. So that's a great time. Everglades is a really great wildlife park. You'll see alligators. You'll see lots of really cool wildlife there. That's a better one for like not summer, I feel like. Yeah, but I still like it in the summer. Yeah. Okay. But yeah, it's hot. You'll see. Yosemite has black bears, some other stuff. Yeah. But I would say if I were to recommend like two wildlife parks, I would say Yellowstone and Everglades would be my two biggest recommendations. All right. This one's for Maddie and it's for mostly Mike. Mike, what's your favorite episode of Buffy? I'll answer that one too. But yeah. You can't stay out of that one. Yeah. I mean, it's a cliche, but once more with feelings, just my favorite. It's the best. Or Hush. Yeah. Hush is probably mine, which is the episode with the gentlemen, which I think are the scariest antagonists throughout. They're so good. Yeah. Okay. Let's see. Are you kidding me? You know what's crazy is the one's more of your favorite episode. Yeah. I want to hear this, Jeff. I haven't watched it. What? Okay. Okay. Glad we did that. It's crazy that I know Joss Whedon, he's under some scrutiny for good reason. Like maybe you shouldn't be involved in making stuff anymore. But like for a guy who just didn't really have any classical training and like songwriting or musicals, it's pretty amazing what he was able to accomplish with that episode. Just like a musical episode in the middle of a show that was not musical. It was pretty great. Yeah. Yeah. And like I feel like a lot of shows have done that now, but they weren't doing that when he did it. It doesn't. I don't think so. Yeah. Yeah. See, there's another thing you're making me watch. What? You gotta watch Buffy. Buffy. You have to. I'm not making you watch Buffy. Oh, so you don't think I should, huh? I think you should. I think you'd like it. Okay, there you go. Yeah. Pressure's on now. All right. It's crazy how much you're just always trying to get Jeff to watch stuff, Wes. It's really inconsiderate. Just trying to bring joy into your lives by telling you things that I liked. All right. This one's from Kiana. Kiana says, I've been thinking a lot about bears. You and me both, Kiana. Been a fan since 2021. Listen, all the old episodes have been listening to combat. Oh, have been re-listening to combat some insomnia and toddler sleep regressions. My question I keep thinking about is why are bear mouths so stinky? I was trying to pick bear related questions. I know their teeth are like other mammal teeth, but do they have rotting teeth? Do they constantly have rotting meat stuck in there? This is so small, but I'm so curious. Love y'all. They can have rotting teeth, like if their tooth breaks or something and it dies, it can rot. But really, it's more what you said, the rotting meat, it's more of like the bacteria and what not that you get from eating rotten meat. They have a very healthy amount of bacteria that they use to combat the sickness that they would get from eating those kind of things. There's a lot going on in there. There's probably old rotten meat stuck. Yeah. Because it doesn't feel like a lion or a tiger would have as bad a breath as a bear. No. And they're always eating meat. And bears eat 80% veggies. Yeah, but grizzly bears especially have been the smelliest bears that I've had to work with. And by far, the ones that smell the worst and have the worst breath are the ones that are around carcasses because they're eating old rotten meat. Like tigers and lions are mostly killing things and eating it pretty quickly. Grizzlies will eat stuff that is just disgusting. But then they'll go eat like a bush of huckleberries too. Yeah. That doesn't help. Maybe you get some of that sweet smell mixed in there too. But yeah, I think it's mostly a combination of what they eat and the flora that they already have in their bodies that fight those kind of infections lead to bacteria and a lot of kind of weird smells. So this is probably wrong too, but I feel like they have huge mouths, right? And kind of like a big throat that can swallow big stuff. So maybe their stomach gases just come out of their mouth a lot more. Yeah, they're super burpy or something. Like they're just a big tunnel from their mouth to their stomach. Maybe. Yeah, I don't know. All right. I think that's good for now with listener questions. Maybe we'll do like a Patreon special or we answer a bunch of bear related questions sometime. That sounds fun. But yeah, for now we're going to move on. And our last main category is about conservation. I briefly just wanted to bring up. There's about 15,000 grizzly bears in British Columbia. They're divided into about 60 subpopulations. The grizzly bear foundation, which is the nonprofit on which I sit on the board of directors. They do a lot of work around education and advocacy for grizzly bears in British Columbia. And one of the things I really like about this organization is they really try to involve as many indigenous voices as possible in those conservation discussions, which I think is really important because those people have a really strong relationship with these animals. And it's been shown throughout history that indigenous people tend to take care of their land better than anyone else. This group grizzly bear foundation was instrumental in the push to ban trophy hunting for grizzlies in British Columbia. They were successful in 2017. You can no longer hunt grizzly bears or trophies in British Columbia. So you can't hunt them at all unless you're indigenous. And I really like this organization, especially their focus on indigenous participation. So we'll likely do a fundraiser for them as well soon. Sweet. Oh, speaking of fundraisers. Yeah. Let's shout out our audience for helping us reach our goal for wildlife SOS. It's like, again, we always start these little campaigns, hoping for the best and everyone that gets involved and engaged in everything we get up to really just kind of goes above and beyond the call of duty. So yeah, thanks everyone for helping us out. Yeah. Yeah. And I think our plan is to do a few more of those and kind of always have that target of around $2,000 that we're going to match. And we'll probably close them after they hit that target because we want to make sure that there's enough goodwill for some of these other organizations. Yeah. So yeah, thank you, everyone. That was really amazing to see. All right. You guys got anything else you want to talk about? I just realized how weirdly named British Columbia is. Yeah. It's like part of Canada and it's just called British Columbia. Yeah. But it's spelled differently than Columbia or like Columbia in South America. It's like Christopher Columbus. Yeah. Columbia. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, is it because of Columbus? I think so, but I'm not sure. Let's look it up. Okay. Good question. Let's just check it out. I always thought it was because of the Columbia River. But like why they named the Columbia River there? I don't know. Yeah. It's a whole daisy chain. It goes all the way back. I'll look it up. Mike, what was your, what did you want to talk about? A couple of things. We're all wearing blue, which I thought is kind of a little bit of synchronicity there. Good job, guys. Also, I would never hear speed in a school zone. I just want to make that clip. It's a long time ago I said that I would never, ever, ever do that. And it's not, it's kind of funny to like joke about it. Maybe, maybe it's not even funny, but I would never do that. And neither should you. You know what's weird with me and Mike right now? Like I don't trust Mike at all. You shouldn't. Because I brought up the other day. I was like, I remember like when I met you, you told me that you threw your sister's phone out of the car window while she was driving because she was texting while driving. And he's like, I never did that. I'm like, I, how did I just make that story? I would never do that. It's crazy. I'm like so confused. I do have. So as listeners have probably picked up on, sometimes I have a way of delivering jokes and stories like straight faced and kind of understated to where people might not realize. Maybe that's what happened, but I would never, ever do that to my sister. I would, I would tell her to stop, but. All right. Are you guys ready for an actual Daisy chain that we got really right? Oh yeah, let's go. The name of the province was chosen by Queen Victoria when the colony of British Columbia became a British colony in 1858. It refers to the Columbia district, which was drained by the Columbia River in southeastern British Columbia. So it was named after the Columbia River. And then ultimately the Columbia in the name British Columbia is derived from the Columbia Reda Viva, which is an American ship, which gave its name to the Columbia River. And the Columbia Reda Viva came from Columbia for the new world, which was named after Columbus. Wow. So layers. We kind of nailed it all. We got it. You had got it. I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. All right. This seven layer Columbus dip there. I wanted to do a quick shout out for our Patreon. Jeff just did a really fun two part series on loneliest animals in the world, which was very sad, but also really fun. Mike, what was your last episode you did on there? It was a good one too. I don't know. Oh, the grasshopper leg. Yeah. It was really like different animals that had been used. I really liked my take in the most recent loneliest animal that Coco the gorilla was actually the loneliest animal because it's the only one. She was the only one who could comprehend loneliness. Yeah. Me and Jeff got a little argument about that so you can check it out. Most of the grasshopper leg. Someone got murdered. I don't know. It was animals that have been used to help solve crimes or animals that had jobs, I think, is what we titled. Kind of. Yeah. You could ask us favorite pop culture grasshopper, did you? Yeah. Oh, I should have, huh? There's some good pop culture grasshopper. No, that episode had good categories though. It did. I did really fun ones. And then also something that's going to be coming out on Patreon soon is I'm going to do a quick video that talks about my career, how I got to where I got to with bear biology. And we're just always trying to put fun things on there. So I'm more interested in how you became a Dior model, honestly. I'm not going to talk. Tell us how you got there. Join our Patreon. It's $10 a month. How safe are bear biologists from AI taking their jobs? Probably pretty safe. But who knows? Things are going crazy. $10 a month, you get access to our whole catalog of bonus episodes. You get early access to our episodes and you get to interact with our community, which is really fun. If you just wanted in your Apple feed, join the Apple Gris Club. It's very convenient, essentially the same price. And if you have an alternative method of signing up to either of our subscription feeds, try not to do it through the iOS app shop because they upcharge you a little bit. Apple's doing a new thing. If you're paying 14 bucks a month, there's a way for you to be paying 10 bucks. Yeah, go down a little bit. But it's worth it. If I'll say that. Do it through your browser. Yeah, I'd pay $14 if I honestly. It's like less than what popcorn costs at the movie these days. That's wild. It's wild. We're living in a wild world. All right, thanks guys. We love you and we will talk to you soon. See ya. Love ya.