WEBVTT

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Today, I want to tell you
about a journey that I've been on for

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most of my life. Ever since
I was a kid, I've heard tales

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of bigfoot and wild men while spending
time with my friends and family. As

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I grew older and read more about
the paranormal, my interest in encryptids and

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other things strange only deepened. That's
why I'm so excited to share with you

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what I've personally become involved with the
Untold Radio Network. The Untold Radio Network

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sorts of exciting topics such as bigfoot, cryptids, UFOs, aliens, and

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much more. I even have my
own show called Weird Encounters, where I

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talk about all things strange. This
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It's a community that allows me to
meet so many amazing people who share their

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stories and experiences with strange. If
you're interested in hearing more of these stories

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Untold Radio Network for all kinds of
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So what are you waiting for visit
www dot untold radionetwork dot com today.

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Now, what are your reporting?
I got a screen going on here.

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Something just kid with my dog,
something to kill your dog? My dog.

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We're flying through there, over the
tree. I don't know how it

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did it? Okay, Damn,
I'm really confused. All I saw was

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my dog coming over the fence and
name was dead once you hit the grill.

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I didn't see any cars. All
I saw was my dog coming over

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the fence. Sat, what are
you reporting? We got some wonder or

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something crawling around out here? Did
you see what it was? It was

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enough here. Look, I'm new
to window now and I don't need anything.

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I don't want to go outside.
It's quiet. Hello, hit the

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boddy out here? What que on
the out there? I've thought of a

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bit of about text nine. I
don't know easy. I'm out there,

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yeah, right, greeting and salutations
people of Earth. I'm not going to

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give a big preamble to this.
I'm just going to jump right into it.

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Then I'll come back at the end
with a little bit of a recap.

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This was recorded back in September at
the annual North American Wooded conservancy retreat

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that we conduct every year. You'll
hear interviews with people who help run the

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organization, as well as some eyewitness
accounts. So without further ado, and

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we'll jump right into it. I
will talk to you again when it's over.

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I'm sitting here and we're overlooking the
What am I looking at here,

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Paul? What is this out here? That is the western skyline about Mulga

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County. The sun is just set. I can see for many miles ers

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on a cloud in the sky.
It's absolutely beautiful. Hundred night. We

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are at the third ANNUALNAWAC member Retreat. As we've done in previous years,

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we're going to do a little summer
recap for what the NAWAC has done this

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year. I have with me Alton
Niggins, who's the chairman of the group.

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I have Daryl Collier, who's the
field coordinator, and Paul Bowman,

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who's the vice chairman. So we're
going to sit here and talk a little

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bit about how the summer went.
I want to start with you, Darryl.

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Did we get a wood eight this
year? No, we did not

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get a wood ape. The first
question people are going to want to affeck

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that is good question. It's a
fair question. No, we did not,

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but I will say that we came
close again but didn't happen. Alt

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to give an interesting presentation today about
conservationist Chim Corbett, who worked for decades

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trying to achieve his goals. We've
only been actively trying to obtain a specimen

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for four years. We are just
beginning, it's just starting. We came

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close. We have no reason to
believe that next year we will not be

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successful. We've learned some things.
Part of the session today included brainstorming and

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having discussions about how to tune or
craft and get better at this and bring

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to bear some of the new knowledge
that we have some new tech. We're

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going to put it to use next
year with Operation Resolute next summer. It's

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one of those things that I get
asked a lot, when are you gonna

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get one? And when it happens, because there's so many of those equal

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parts effort and luck and everything else. Alton, you found some inspiration in

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what Corbett had written. What were
some of the things that you thought were

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applicable to the work that we do, And tell me a little bit more

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about him. Yeah, Jim Corbett
was an Englishman, that was born and

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raised in India. He served in
the military there. He was widely known

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for his knowledge about wildlife, and
he turned into quite a conservationist. In

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his youth. He loved to hunt
and learned a lot about the cultures that

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were there. He spoke all the
dialects and what have you, and somehow

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the military became aware of his expertise
in his background, so he was often

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called upon to hunt down a man
eating tigers and leopards. He was an

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excellent writer, and he wrote some
books that detailed his exploits. I read

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these books as a child, and
then I reread them. Just recently,

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Travis Lawrence brought an omnibus of his
writings and lent me the book, and

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I reread the stories and found some
inspiration in the things that he wrote,

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the way that he operated in his
philosophy. So that's what I talked about

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today with some of the points that
I took from that. I think that

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the interesting thing that I took from
what he said is that he wasn't alway

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sucessful. He was considered to be
one of the most successful, as you

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said, man eating tiger hunters,
which is a really cool thing to be

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but he was considered to be one
of the most successful of his time,

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but that he was often not successful. It sometimes took him many tries and

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many months of effort, a year
sometimes to finally shoot one of these creatures.

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They were seedingly intelligent. He said, we underestimate the intelligence of animals.

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And he said that all these people
that failed before him, one of

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the things that characterized their failure was
that they weren't patient enough, that they

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didn't really have the discipline to put
in the time to endure the sits that

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are required to capture to shoot one
of these creatures. So I think that

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applies to us as well. It
takes a lot of patients. He never

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gave up. He would keep after
it. So that was one of the

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points I tried to emphasize. So, Paul, from your perspective, what's

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your take on the year that we've
just concluded. I've come to the conclusion,

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actually in the last few weeks,
that I used to be a glasses

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half empty kind of person. I
realized I'm actually a glass needs a refill,

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a person, preferably with a single
malt scotch. I was disappointed,

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of course, I've learned since I
had my sighting, and since just all

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the experiences that we've had, I've
always thought that we were literally so close,

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we were right there. We are
on the very verge of making this

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happen, and then when it doesn't
happen, I'm filled with utter disappointment.

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If I may. We had a
large event here last weekend, a big

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motocross race, and the charity here
being or at the Boman Lodge. Yes

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here at the ranch. It was
a charity race, and some of the

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guys came back today to help clean
up the course of the dirt track that

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they made. One of them was
a veteran, and I want him to

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meet Darryl. So I just basically
had to tell him who was here today.

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That's not a five minute conversation.
And it dawned on me and I

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said to him, as I say
these words to you, and as I'd

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give you a few stories about what's
happened down there in that valley of the

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apes. To any person that's not
either a friend or family member, it

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sounds utterly ridiculous, It sounds fantastically
impossible. Yet we experienced these things.

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We've seen them with their own eyes, we've heard them it's very real.

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All that's really done is it's a
tempered the sword, so to speak.

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For me, Because we are the
only people that are actually doing this,

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it almost doesn't matter if anyone believed
this or not. I've finally reached to

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that point. It's almost a spiritual
awakening where you realize, I don't care

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if you believe me. I don't
even have to tell you what we're doing.

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You can laugh, That's right,
because I'm not. We're doing this

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for the world. We're doing this
for the species. We're doing this for

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hopefully ultimately the ultimate conservation of habitat
of not only for them, but all

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the animals and wildlife that exist with
them. You don't have to believe what

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I believe in what I know to
be true. And there again, I've

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spoken before about that word belief,
and I can't stand using that anywhere in

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the context of the wood Apes.
I think this year really, upon further

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reflection, I've realized that we are
the only people on the ground doing this,

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and we have the patients, we
have the tenacity, we have the

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resolve, we have the endurance to
continue this project. Time is really on

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our side. It's difficult because everyone
takes time away from their families. Everyone

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expects it to happen. This is
the summer, this is when it's going

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to go down. And then when
it doesn't happen, it's very disappointing.

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But nobody else is doing this,
and it doesn't matter as far as we

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know, if someone else is in
a position that this group is in there

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not saying anything about it publicly,
but yeah, as far as we know.

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If I may add one more thing, what I told this guy is

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that I just gave him a brief
background of some of the highlights of what

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we've done in the last four years. But it dawned on me the incredible

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amount of knowledge. I never ever
would have guessed that we would have been

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able to obtain so much raw intelligence
and knowledge. And we've talked about this

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in the past about how everyone spect
a nocturnal or they migrate in the winter.

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It's just pure speculation. We actually
have hard data. In my mind,

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it almost boggles the mind how much
we've learned in the last four summers.

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In fact, I was telling one
of our members, Mike may Is,

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today about two of the sidings that
are within ten miles of this location.

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One of them was a geologist that
is about eight miles northeast to here.

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He saw what he described as a
large chimp like creature hanging from a

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tree five or six years ago.
That would have been a report to me

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anyway of the funtlement. Maybe that
was that's not the usual paradigm for Sasquash

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reports. People still aren't talking.
We're the only ones talking about these things

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being in trees because we've seen them
in trees. And now not only has

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the tree aspect to come into play, but now this small chimp like description

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has come It's like we can actually
backtrack to some of the sightings that go

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back decades and it suddenly makes sense. Now I'm going to talk to Travis

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Lawrence here at some point if I
can find them. He had an incredible

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encounter this past summer that involved small
chimp black things. Daryl, from your

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perspective, is the field operations coordinator. Tactically speaking, what were some of

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the things that we thought would be
helpful or profitable this year? I guess

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as a way to put it,
but it turned out just not to work

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for us. I think the primary
thing was the modification we did to overwatch

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last year. We had provided Overwatch
from a ground blind very close to the

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cabin. We believed that if we
were somehow elevated overwatch, it gave us

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a higher position, that it would
help us, it would give us a

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wider field of view. Many of
us went into this year with every bit

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of confidence that it was going to
happen. Because of the new Overwatch.

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We built a tower. The overwatch
blind was about twelve feet off the ground.

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It was much more comfortable. We
had padded floors, swivel seats with

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the padd of horse. This year
was for quiet. It was to make

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it quiet. May even the attention
to detail of having the blow and the

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dark tape that had the cardinal directions
that helped me immensely the few nights that

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I sat in the new Overwatch,
because you get so disoriented in the pitch

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black and you're looking into a thermal
scope and you can look down while you

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still have eye on the glass.
You can actually look down with your other

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eyes and say, okay, I'm
facing north now. Because when you're spinning

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around and you've also got a schamague
over your head to keep the light from

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escaping from the thermal. Yeah,
so you're definitely in total darkness, and

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those glow letters really helped. Unfortunately, the Overwatch Tower did not lead to

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the success we hoped it would.
We're still working on putting our finger on

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what the shortcomings were, but we're
going to modify it again this next year,

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going to augment it. We had
a great discussion about this today.

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We believe there are some weaknesses that
we're going to try to overcome next year.

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So what do you think it is
from a tactical standpoint. From our

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perspective, it's better because we're higher
up, we have better field of view.

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It's more comfortable. You can sit
in there and you're not as fatigued.

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What's the flip side? What do
we give up? Totally? In

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your opinion, because of course we
don't know what the apes are thinking.

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Yeah, the tower sticks out like
a sore thumb. It it becomes the

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focus of everything when you walk into
this area. The first thing is the

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tower where the apes actually threw rocks
at people in the tower. So it's

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exactly it was like a beacon.
So if you're in that tower and you're

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not observing light and noise discipline,
that is, if you're not staying quiet

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if you're using headlamps and making all
kinds of noise and stuff, then your

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position's given away. It's obvious that
someone is up there doing something. Whatever

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it is, there's a possibility that
they were onto us up in that tower.

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We had a number of examples where
we were not on Overwatch and we

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had things coming up to the cabin, up to the porch. But when

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we were rough in Overwatch, it
seems like they kept their distance. It's

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not unlike what happened with last year's
Overwatch, but I think last year we

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had more opportunities. We had more
instances where we felt they came in and

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we actually had thermal hits probable apes. But this year we had maybe one

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that's it. Last year we had
several that were definite visuals. This year

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we had no definite visuals from Overwatch, and we had one possible. The

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animals were still coming close insofar as
thirty forty fifty yards away, but they

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weren't coming into view. They were
keeping their distance. It might have been

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a result of some suspicion regarding the
Overwatch tower. It wasn't that they stayed

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away. They still approached. We're
still throwing rocks We had guys up in

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overwatch getting rocks thrown at them while
they're in overwatch. They try to look

203
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through and that's part of the weakness
with thermals. People think that thermal is

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just it has its limits. It
can't see through vegetation, and where we

205
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are operating, it's like a North
American rainforest. The vegetation is unbelievably dense.

206
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You can have something to thirty yards
away from you, but there's this

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thick understory and trees that are between
you and it and you can't see it.

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As I'm listening to us talking about
this, I don't want to get

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too hung up on the fact that
no specimens collected, because that makes it

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sound like we're worried that we failed. And clearly we did not fail this

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here because there were so many other
things that we learned and experienced along the

212
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way. Let me just say that
we actually had what was it today eight

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We counted eighteen visual encounters where our
investigators had the visual observations, personal visual

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observations in the field, hard contact
with the target species, and eighteen possible

215
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visual that is where they saw a
piece of an animal that just by process

216
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of elimination you could probably say that's
what they saw, but because they didn't

217
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really see any true identifying markers,
then we have to list it as a

218
00:14:54.279 --> 00:14:58.840
possible. Oh, there were close
contacts, Brian. You and I were

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on the last team this year,
Quebec team. The next to the last

220
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day, I had an opportunity to
shoot one. It just moved just in

221
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the nick of time to keep me
from putting around into it. And this

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is what I'm gonna say. So
people are gonna hear because I know,

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as they've asked me this on the
internet before, well thirty six times.

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You're gonna say you saw thirty six
with apes over the course of the summer.

225
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Where's your picture? And why didn't
you shoot one? Because each time

226
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that I saw one, I only
had one and a half to two seconds.

227
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Any of you who can step into
a jungle, be on a ground

228
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blind and have an animal step out
at fifty yards, it's gone. Now

229
00:15:35.360 --> 00:15:39.600
where's your camera and where's your gun? That's the hallmark. It steps out,

230
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it's gone. You're walking down the
trail, it goes across the trail

231
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in front of you. Why don't
you get a picture? Why can't you

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shoot it? So that as well, because my sighting last year. No

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one is more disappointed and befuddled by
that as I am, because I've always

234
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been the biggest critic of our own
members. Why didn't you shoot it?

235
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So I've had to eat crow.
But given the context, and believe you

236
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me, I am a shooter,
Okay, I will not hesitate. The

237
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problem is that it was all about
context. Just like a lot of things.

238
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I always tell people my own critics
that are feeding it right back to

239
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me rightfully, if I had my
rifle at the ready, or let's even

240
00:16:22.120 --> 00:16:23.960
go it was slung, I just
have my third cup of coffee, eating

241
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my Beanie Leanies and wearing my dry
socks. Right, Let's take it a

242
00:16:26.919 --> 00:16:32.039
step farther and say I had my
rifle shouldered. I'm in the high ready

243
00:16:32.080 --> 00:16:36.360
firing position. I see this moving
object, and I know that within two

244
00:16:36.360 --> 00:16:38.679
to three seconds it's going to step
between those two trees at eighty yards and

245
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I'm going to get a solid id
on this object. If that had been

246
00:16:44.559 --> 00:16:45.840
the case, I wouldn't have been
able to take a shit. You didn't

247
00:16:45.840 --> 00:16:48.879
know where I'll because I didn't know
where Daryl was, so I couldn't good

248
00:16:48.879 --> 00:16:52.639
conscious make a shot and I don't
want to give the critics too much time

249
00:16:52.679 --> 00:16:55.960
here, but the critics will simultaneously
say that we're jumping around into shooting at

250
00:16:55.960 --> 00:16:57.440
shadows and then also saying, do
you saw thirty six bag foot? You

251
00:16:57.440 --> 00:17:00.399
didn't shoot any of them, and
you can't have it both ways. They're

252
00:17:00.440 --> 00:17:03.000
just wrong. They're just wrong.
They don't want to hear that, but

253
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they're wrong. Alton, you had
how many times did you maybe Seepe this

254
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summer because you were down there?
How long? How many days was out

255
00:17:11.200 --> 00:17:15.200
and down there? Forty three days? Alton was in territory forty three days.

256
00:17:15.240 --> 00:17:19.359
And Alton had three off, maybe
four visuals. So of those out

257
00:17:19.440 --> 00:17:23.519
and which ones comes to mind first, two of those were small creatures.

258
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They reminded me of chimps. We
had the opportunity this summer to send in

259
00:17:30.640 --> 00:17:36.680
reports of our activities and observations on
a fairly regular basis. Every few days.

260
00:17:37.000 --> 00:17:40.240
We had either phones that had the
right kind of boosters that we could

261
00:17:40.240 --> 00:17:44.519
get out, or we'd drive up
to a place where we had phone access

262
00:17:44.559 --> 00:17:51.359
and we'd phone Daryl and updating,
or we'd email or text or send things

263
00:17:51.359 --> 00:17:56.079
to you. Two of the sightings
that I had reminded me of basically chimpanzees.

264
00:17:56.240 --> 00:17:59.640
Black creatures. One of them was
we heard aloud. It was either

265
00:17:59.680 --> 00:18:03.799
a tree break or a large limb
break, and Travis took off towards the

266
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bottleneck and I was behind him,
and I stopped and was just glassing the

267
00:18:07.279 --> 00:18:11.079
side of the mountain. I saw
just briefly, just for a flash,

268
00:18:11.400 --> 00:18:17.359
this black creature that ran down the
mountain at an angle. That was the

269
00:18:17.440 --> 00:18:19.480
last I saw of it. It
was just a second or so. We

270
00:18:19.519 --> 00:18:26.079
reported this. Then when I was
there for my five day solo, I

271
00:18:26.119 --> 00:18:30.240
heard some knocking and racket down towards
the property gate. I went in that

272
00:18:30.319 --> 00:18:34.240
direction and I saw a creature that
confused me. It was black again and

273
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had reddish highlights on its tair.
I didn't get a good look at its

274
00:18:38.559 --> 00:18:41.920
head. I didn't notice a tail. I can't say it didn't have a

275
00:18:41.960 --> 00:18:44.759
tail, but it did not see
a tail. It crawled off in a

276
00:18:44.880 --> 00:18:48.519
very strange fashion. I took off
after the see if I could see it

277
00:18:48.519 --> 00:18:52.759
again, and I didn't relocate it. But the color this black kind of

278
00:18:52.839 --> 00:18:57.359
reddish tint combination, and the size
of the creature was like a large coon

279
00:18:57.480 --> 00:19:03.799
size. Those two observations taken independently
could be dismissed. But then when Travis

280
00:19:04.359 --> 00:19:08.480
had his sighting that you'll talk to
him about later, those two things made

281
00:19:08.519 --> 00:19:12.119
sense. They fit in. They
all clicked. Yeah, So that's what

282
00:19:12.200 --> 00:19:17.119
I guess impressed me as far as
the four sidings, But all of them,

283
00:19:17.200 --> 00:19:21.440
all four of them were interesting in
their own ways. Again, this

284
00:19:21.480 --> 00:19:26.599
fits in Daryl's category of sightings that
weren't certain. I can't stay unequivocally that

285
00:19:26.799 --> 00:19:32.519
that's what I saw an ape Professor
Leeper and I were involved with the situation

286
00:19:32.599 --> 00:19:36.519
where I was going to walk in
to a position where he could overlook a

287
00:19:36.599 --> 00:19:40.759
large area, and then I continued
on past him and then delayed for a

288
00:19:40.799 --> 00:19:44.640
while and came back. And as
I was passing by his position, I

289
00:19:44.720 --> 00:19:49.000
heard some ruckus up ahead, some
steps, three quick steps. It was

290
00:19:49.039 --> 00:19:53.640
a heavy sound, three heavy quick
steps was going from my left to I

291
00:19:53.680 --> 00:19:56.799
got excited because I knew it was
going to cross the road. But what

292
00:19:56.880 --> 00:20:03.000
I saw was this kind of dark
around creature that crossed the road so fast

293
00:20:03.039 --> 00:20:07.519
it literally was a blur. And
stay tuned for more sasquatch out to sea.

294
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We'll be right back. After these
messages I couldn't tell anything about it

295
00:20:14.799 --> 00:20:18.519
except color and relative size. That
was interesting. Relatives how big do you

296
00:20:18.559 --> 00:20:22.160
think it was? Ken had me
do a reenactment. He's really into doing

297
00:20:22.240 --> 00:20:26.160
re nagris, So he had Travis
go to the place where I saw it

298
00:20:26.160 --> 00:20:30.599
across the road, and he and
I stood where I saw it, which

299
00:20:30.680 --> 00:20:34.319
was about forty yards or forty steps
close to forty yards. Travis ran across,

300
00:20:34.359 --> 00:20:37.880
and of course he running as fast
as he could. It wasn't nearly

301
00:20:37.920 --> 00:20:41.240
as fast as as what I'd seen. But the size also struck me.

302
00:20:41.559 --> 00:20:45.400
I saw Travis and he looked small. He's six foot three and he's a

303
00:20:45.559 --> 00:20:48.680
big man, two hundred and fifty
pounds. It wouldn't surprise me. He's

304
00:20:48.680 --> 00:20:52.839
a large lad. So that was
interesting. When I ran up to see

305
00:20:52.839 --> 00:20:56.599
if I could locate it again.
After blurred across the road, there was

306
00:20:56.720 --> 00:21:02.119
a loud commotion behind me, like
it clock or so. It succeeded and

307
00:21:02.240 --> 00:21:03.799
distracted me. I looked back to
see if I could see it, and

308
00:21:03.799 --> 00:21:08.440
then it suddenly hit me, maybe
this is an intentional distraction behavior away from

309
00:21:08.480 --> 00:21:14.039
the other one crowl We've had that
sort of thing. We've speculated any realize

310
00:21:14.079 --> 00:21:17.000
what that was. A number of
times when we've seen one, are been

311
00:21:17.039 --> 00:21:22.119
close to one, and we've start
to pursue it, something loud distracts us

312
00:21:22.119 --> 00:21:25.359
in an opposite direction. Think about
that for just a minute. Think about

313
00:21:25.400 --> 00:21:29.240
the last thirty years, all the
documentaries and the movies and the shows,

314
00:21:29.440 --> 00:21:33.000
everybody from the community and everything they've
contributed to this endeavor. Okay, whether

315
00:21:33.039 --> 00:21:37.319
it be just armschair research or a
full on in the field type stuff.

316
00:21:37.880 --> 00:21:42.039
Think about the concept of what Alton
just said. We're a long way from

317
00:21:42.279 --> 00:21:47.000
weird travels and solved Mysteries TV shows
that the group has been on in the

318
00:21:47.039 --> 00:21:49.240
past. If you've really stop to
think about this is incredible data. It's

319
00:21:49.279 --> 00:21:52.759
interesting about what he said and when
he said it. It struck me that

320
00:21:52.920 --> 00:21:56.920
we've actually had multiple cases where this
happened over the past summer where we've learned

321
00:21:56.000 --> 00:22:00.480
that tactic of THEIRS. Like when
we're focused on one direction and we hear

322
00:22:00.559 --> 00:22:03.160
something in the other direction and we
look, we go or we focus our

323
00:22:03.160 --> 00:22:06.799
attention there, we think, oh, no, this is what they're trying

324
00:22:06.839 --> 00:22:08.720
to do. Because we've experienced it
so much, it's part of what we've

325
00:22:08.759 --> 00:22:12.039
learned four or five years ago to
me, it boggles my mind that we've

326
00:22:12.119 --> 00:22:15.720
come so far and it's all been
by experience. It's not speculation, it's

327
00:22:15.759 --> 00:22:21.000
not a conjecture. It's literally on
the ground, real live experiences that have

328
00:22:21.160 --> 00:22:26.359
molded it's very observable, repeated observations
of this and it's obviously a smart animal.

329
00:22:26.440 --> 00:22:30.559
We know that. But this is
something that we can try to exploit.

330
00:22:30.039 --> 00:22:33.440
But there are a couple of number
of questions for you. This was

331
00:22:33.559 --> 00:22:37.119
Operation Tenacity, right, I kept
getting this one in the last one confused

332
00:22:37.160 --> 00:22:41.920
in my head. How many days
total, one twenty two. How many

333
00:22:41.000 --> 00:22:45.720
investigators were on site over the course
of that time forty one? That's a

334
00:22:45.839 --> 00:22:48.359
record last year. It was not
that many last year. I think it

335
00:22:48.400 --> 00:22:51.680
was thirty six, About one hundred
and fifteen days I think last year.

336
00:22:52.319 --> 00:22:56.079
But yeah, we're constantly trying to
expand increase our time in the field a

337
00:22:56.160 --> 00:22:59.400
number of people. It would be
wonderful if we could conduct a six month

338
00:22:59.480 --> 00:23:02.359
operation. This gets back to that
nobody else is doing this, and there

339
00:23:02.359 --> 00:23:06.599
are things that we do tactically day
to day that other people are doing out

340
00:23:06.599 --> 00:23:10.799
there. But this idea of putting
fifty people in the field for almost four

341
00:23:10.880 --> 00:23:14.079
months whatever it was. Yeah,
I don't know. I've not heard of

342
00:23:14.119 --> 00:23:15.839
anyone doing that. And when I
said that, I didn't mean that as

343
00:23:15.880 --> 00:23:19.039
a slam on any other researchers and
what they're trying to do. It's just

344
00:23:19.119 --> 00:23:25.359
that we are gleaning observations and what
I would call a hard intel on these

345
00:23:25.400 --> 00:23:30.559
animals and their behaviors. It's repeated
from summer to summer. It's just not

346
00:23:30.680 --> 00:23:33.200
that we're I'm not trying to the
brag, it's just that we're just trying

347
00:23:33.279 --> 00:23:37.400
to make it happen. Definitely,
I'm just really proud of the membership that

348
00:23:37.519 --> 00:23:41.519
we have. They've gone year after
year, summer after summer, above and

349
00:23:41.640 --> 00:23:49.160
beyond. They've dedicated their finances,
they've dedicated their vacations cooperating in these ventures,

350
00:23:49.240 --> 00:23:52.519
and it's just a remarkable testament to
the quality that we have in our

351
00:23:52.599 --> 00:23:56.599
membership. So next year we're planning
pretty much the same length of time.

352
00:23:57.240 --> 00:24:00.839
Yeah, it's going to be rough, with the same amount of time,

353
00:24:00.920 --> 00:24:03.720
maybe a little longer. Now.
One of the more controversial aspects of the

354
00:24:03.799 --> 00:24:07.160
things that we experienced this here was
this whole business with trees. Last time

355
00:24:07.200 --> 00:24:11.319
I had you on the show,
we had a handful of experiences where we

356
00:24:11.359 --> 00:24:14.839
had documented trees falling. The week
that I was there, we had the

357
00:24:14.839 --> 00:24:17.440
tree fall down. But then there
was the week when I was on the

358
00:24:17.519 --> 00:24:21.759
phone with Ken Stewart and the tree
came down. How many trees and or

359
00:24:21.880 --> 00:24:26.400
significant limb breaks did we document this
year? You recall the specific number twenty

360
00:24:26.480 --> 00:24:30.880
seven, twenty seven trees, so
the branches are similar. Correct, While

361
00:24:30.920 --> 00:24:34.960
we were there for one hundred and
twenty two days, our investigators observed twenty

362
00:24:36.160 --> 00:24:44.079
seven tree falls. These are big
trees, These are loud, obvious cracking.

363
00:24:44.599 --> 00:24:47.759
We saw a number of them.
We probably saw as many as we

364
00:24:47.880 --> 00:24:52.000
heard fall. The last team,
Quebec team, we saw a tree fall

365
00:24:52.079 --> 00:24:53.960
from fifty sixty yards. We saw
the top of it. We ran over

366
00:24:55.039 --> 00:25:00.720
there and then what happened. You
had a visual imagine that this tree just

367
00:25:00.799 --> 00:25:03.920
happens to fall out of the thin
air, and then there's a wood ape

368
00:25:03.960 --> 00:25:07.200
over there, and I hear one
running up the mountain and then one throws

369
00:25:07.240 --> 00:25:11.839
a rock at the cabin. So
these are trees that fill in close proximity

370
00:25:11.880 --> 00:25:15.200
to the cabins. Yes, within
one hundred yards we saw another one.

371
00:25:15.480 --> 00:25:17.640
Yeah, I didn't want to get
into it now. But yeah, So

372
00:25:17.720 --> 00:25:19.279
the story there is that we were
it was later in the evening. It

373
00:25:19.400 --> 00:25:22.519
was I don't know, seven twenties. It wasn't dusk yet, but the

374
00:25:22.599 --> 00:25:26.119
sun was going down, and so
the trees were silhouetted and we were just

375
00:25:26.119 --> 00:25:27.839
sitting on the fire and we actually
had Daniel Falconer down there and we were

376
00:25:27.839 --> 00:25:30.720
looking at comic on pictures on his
computer. Out of nowhere, this tree

377
00:25:30.759 --> 00:25:34.119
starts to fall down, and I
can see it in the distance because the

378
00:25:34.160 --> 00:25:37.200
sun is silhouetting behind these trees.
I can see the tree fall. The

379
00:25:37.279 --> 00:25:40.920
top of it fell. Anyway,
there was something I wanted to try on

380
00:25:41.039 --> 00:25:42.960
this team that we haven't done before, and that is, anytime anything like

381
00:25:44.039 --> 00:25:47.920
this happened, just dead sprint to
it because they're used to us, I

382
00:25:48.279 --> 00:25:52.759
assume they're used to us creeping down
the trail trying to be quiet. So

383
00:25:52.920 --> 00:25:56.240
I just grabbed my weapon and I
just hauled freaking ass. And I'd been

384
00:25:56.319 --> 00:25:59.480
doing sprint training, so I was
ready and I sprinted. So you went

385
00:25:59.519 --> 00:26:02.359
in there, and in the vicinity
of where this tree had come down,

386
00:26:02.480 --> 00:26:06.039
or we're part of this tree at
least had come down, you heard definite

387
00:26:06.119 --> 00:26:08.480
movement up the mountain. I'm so
confident. One was going up the mountain

388
00:26:08.480 --> 00:26:11.839
and there was a squirrel up there
barking at it. Whatever. It was

389
00:26:11.920 --> 00:26:15.039
so large rock displacement. I could
hear the branches breaking. Is this thing's

390
00:26:15.079 --> 00:26:18.880
moving off? That's what I'm That's
where I think it's gone. I'm yelling

391
00:26:18.960 --> 00:26:22.400
to you, he's gone up the
mountain. I can hear him. He's

392
00:26:22.440 --> 00:26:23.720
up the mountain. We're one hundred, one hundred and fifty yards apart.

393
00:26:25.640 --> 00:26:27.039
Yell to me. Daniel and I
are on the road and we're trying to

394
00:26:27.119 --> 00:26:30.559
find this tree. We never actually
found it, but we were trying to

395
00:26:30.599 --> 00:26:33.079
find where this tree was some from
behind us, from the direction of the

396
00:26:33.160 --> 00:26:37.039
south. Basically, we heard a
wood knock and it sounded like it was

397
00:26:37.079 --> 00:26:41.200
fairly close. So we're like,
do you hear that. We turn around

398
00:26:41.319 --> 00:26:44.759
and I saw a flash of movement. I saw some kind of movement back

399
00:26:44.799 --> 00:26:48.319
there, and it was enough and
I was walking along the road when I

400
00:26:48.400 --> 00:26:52.480
saw it. So I stopped.
And it's funny because Daniel was filming this

401
00:26:52.559 --> 00:26:55.480
with his little video camera. Yeah, and so he says, yeah,

402
00:26:55.480 --> 00:26:57.079
I saw it too, and so
I squat down and like stare in there,

403
00:26:57.240 --> 00:27:02.119
and so when I stopped moving and
I'm looking right at it, it

404
00:27:02.240 --> 00:27:06.799
was the head and upper torso of
a dark figure that ducked behind a tree.

405
00:27:06.880 --> 00:27:10.039
It was tree peeping, and that's
what we saw. And I started

406
00:27:10.119 --> 00:27:12.680
yelling over for you, Darryl,
Daryl, we have an animal, and

407
00:27:12.839 --> 00:27:17.559
so I came over. I pursued
it. That's exactly right, Darryl,

408
00:27:17.720 --> 00:27:21.240
we have an animal. It's I
pursued it for probably two hundred yards.

409
00:27:21.519 --> 00:27:25.480
Yes, I know you can't catch
one on foot. Here's the whole thinking

410
00:27:25.599 --> 00:27:29.119
behind that is that you're hoping to
capitalize on a mistake. You're hoping that

411
00:27:29.319 --> 00:27:33.559
something's going to happen if you press
it. Oftentimes, that's something you learn

412
00:27:33.559 --> 00:27:34.960
from the military. You press the
fight, you just press it, things

413
00:27:36.039 --> 00:27:37.519
can happen in your favor. So
I just pressed it, chased it for

414
00:27:37.559 --> 00:27:41.680
two hundred yards. I could hear
it moving off. Never caught a visual

415
00:27:41.759 --> 00:27:45.559
of it again. But it's a
very exciting evening. So this tree thing

416
00:27:45.599 --> 00:27:48.680
again, this is last time we
had this conversation was early on. Now

417
00:27:48.759 --> 00:27:52.440
Here we are at the end.
Anybody have an idea why this? Because

418
00:27:52.599 --> 00:27:56.839
so if we had twenty seven trees
and twenty seven large branches. What have

419
00:27:56.960 --> 00:28:03.079
we typically heard the tree break,
the branch and limb breaking twenty one?

420
00:28:03.640 --> 00:28:06.519
Take all those that put those together
do the match twenty seven plus twenty one.

421
00:28:07.400 --> 00:28:11.279
That's how many times we heard some
sort of part of a tree or

422
00:28:11.640 --> 00:28:15.759
the entire tree being broken failed.
So why what's going on? I think

423
00:28:15.880 --> 00:28:19.119
it's a part of intimidation behavior.
That's what I believe. I believe they

424
00:28:19.160 --> 00:28:23.720
are breaking vegetation. Just like I
said the last time we talked about this,

425
00:28:23.839 --> 00:28:26.599
Brian, in terms of the forest, breaking a tree is a nuke.

426
00:28:27.200 --> 00:28:30.559
It's the loudest thing that you could
do to produce noise. And if

427
00:28:30.640 --> 00:28:36.359
these animals equate noise with power,
then what better way than to break two

428
00:28:36.559 --> 00:28:41.960
foot diameter tree create this humongous explosion
of a sound. Okay, the secondary

429
00:28:42.039 --> 00:28:45.079
sounds too, Yeah, Alton,
you want to pop in here. Yeah.

430
00:28:45.079 --> 00:28:48.240
I think this idea of the intimidation
makes sense. I was in the

431
00:28:48.319 --> 00:28:53.759
valley once this summer with doctor Ken
Hilmer and I walked way towards the base

432
00:28:55.279 --> 00:28:59.279
of the South Mountain, the mountain
south of the camp. We positioned to

433
00:28:59.279 --> 00:29:00.640
where he was faced in one direction
and I was near him, based in

434
00:29:00.680 --> 00:29:04.119
the opposite direction, and we hadn't
been there very long. Down comes a

435
00:29:04.160 --> 00:29:08.200
tree very close to it from my
position, very close to us. When

436
00:29:08.240 --> 00:29:11.799
we were finally through it with our
set, we went over to find the

437
00:29:11.880 --> 00:29:15.680
tree. Ken saw where he said
the creature could have come up. There

438
00:29:15.799 --> 00:29:18.599
was like a path there, and
he said, creature could have come up

439
00:29:18.640 --> 00:29:21.960
this path, pushed this tree over, retreated. I would have never seen

440
00:29:22.000 --> 00:29:25.599
it. Here's an instance. We
were far from the camp, yet we

441
00:29:25.720 --> 00:29:29.359
had a tree pushed over in our
position forty yards from you right. It

442
00:29:29.480 --> 00:29:33.039
was very close forty yards. Yeah, maybe it was close right right in

443
00:29:33.079 --> 00:29:36.799
front of the Ken. To me, that makes sense. It's a huge

444
00:29:36.839 --> 00:29:40.519
coincidence at the very least, but
it makes sense to me in terms of

445
00:29:40.720 --> 00:29:45.519
these things following people around and pushing
trees over reminds me of our experience in

446
00:29:45.640 --> 00:29:48.880
the Arkansas when we were there years
ago. Again, it's a great noise

447
00:29:48.920 --> 00:29:52.640
maker. I mean I was there
for that starting that was Juliette team.

448
00:29:52.039 --> 00:29:55.640
I was about three hundred yards to
their north and I heard it. It

449
00:29:55.759 --> 00:29:59.319
was a god awful commotion. I
couldn't tell that it was a tree from

450
00:29:59.359 --> 00:30:02.079
that distance. I just knew that
something. I thought it was a big

451
00:30:02.119 --> 00:30:04.039
boulder or tree something, so I
started going that way. But it was

452
00:30:04.119 --> 00:30:07.599
definitely a noisemaker. There's no doubt
about it. I'm paraphrasing that. There's

453
00:30:07.599 --> 00:30:11.759
an old saying that if it happens
once, it's chance it happens twice to

454
00:30:12.319 --> 00:30:15.000
it's a coincidence. If it happens
three times, it's a conspiracy. The

455
00:30:15.039 --> 00:30:18.480
fact remains that the trees fall over
in the woods. Everybody knows that,

456
00:30:18.640 --> 00:30:22.440
and some people have been witnessed to
that. And I think we could probably

457
00:30:22.480 --> 00:30:26.119
look back and think about all the
times we've had in the valley prior to

458
00:30:26.279 --> 00:30:30.880
these missions and these operations, back
when we were doing Operation Force Vigil where

459
00:30:30.960 --> 00:30:33.920
we might actually have heard a tree
fall. I recall being down there in

460
00:30:34.000 --> 00:30:37.200
the past and having heard a tree
fall and not putting two and two together.

461
00:30:37.680 --> 00:30:41.240
But let's just face facts here.
I mean, are these really coincidences.

462
00:30:41.240 --> 00:30:45.960
I don't think so. I mean, something doesn't just push a tree

463
00:30:45.039 --> 00:30:49.920
over. You've also all the other
data along with that. You've got rock

464
00:30:51.039 --> 00:30:56.000
throwing all in happening concurrently, all
those contexts. It's about the totality of

465
00:30:56.000 --> 00:31:00.039
the circumstances. Of what goes on
down there in that context is what I

466
00:31:00.079 --> 00:31:03.440
was getting out a minute ago.
We haven't observed this kind of behavior at

467
00:31:03.480 --> 00:31:07.000
this quantity in previous years, have
we not? As it relates to tree

468
00:31:07.039 --> 00:31:10.079
breaks, tree falls, it's something
that's that's a I don't want to call

469
00:31:10.079 --> 00:31:14.240
it a new phenomenon, but it
seems to have increased. We had one

470
00:31:14.279 --> 00:31:17.400
fall down during the fox trout when
I was there, but again they were

471
00:31:17.440 --> 00:31:19.640
punctuations. They were few and far
between. I think they're pulling out the

472
00:31:19.680 --> 00:31:23.319
stops. There is tired of us
being in there as we are tired of

473
00:31:23.440 --> 00:31:27.039
not collecting a special and they're literally
thinking, how can we Okay, We've

474
00:31:27.119 --> 00:31:33.319
thrown jukebox sized bowlers into the creek
bed. We've done everything to try to

475
00:31:33.400 --> 00:31:37.039
scare these guys. We body slammed
cabins, We've done everything that we know

476
00:31:37.200 --> 00:31:41.400
as animals to show aggression to try
to stave off this intruder. And I

477
00:31:41.480 --> 00:31:44.200
think that's what they dare I say, in the last four summer, the

478
00:31:44.279 --> 00:31:47.480
tree breaking in the tree felling not
a new phenomenon, but it's just a

479
00:31:47.559 --> 00:31:49.880
more observed and I just think it's
just one more tool in their toolbox to

480
00:31:49.960 --> 00:31:52.799
say, hey, get out of
our valley. Who else can do that?

481
00:31:53.119 --> 00:31:56.319
Well. Another difference is for about
a week or so the apes up

482
00:31:56.359 --> 00:32:00.759
to the game. In terms of
rock throwing, we had a number of

483
00:32:00.960 --> 00:32:05.160
quite large rocks that were thrown at
the cabin this summer and we hadn't seen

484
00:32:05.240 --> 00:32:07.559
that before. Very large. The
one that you were able to send photos

485
00:32:07.559 --> 00:32:09.559
of it. It was larger than
a bowling ball. It was a big

486
00:32:09.640 --> 00:32:14.680
old rock. My daughter came in
with me for a Juliette team. We

487
00:32:14.880 --> 00:32:19.640
tried to lost campers scenario where the
rest of the teammates, Alton led a

488
00:32:19.720 --> 00:32:22.039
team out just out of the valley
away, leave my daughter and my son

489
00:32:22.079 --> 00:32:28.240
in law there seemingly alone, while
I am inside the cabin ready to take

490
00:32:28.319 --> 00:32:32.359
overwatch after I've slept. Shortly after
Alton's team left, I'm in the cabin

491
00:32:32.400 --> 00:32:36.680
sleeping, just my daughter and my
son in law. Out they started lobbing

492
00:32:36.759 --> 00:32:39.240
these big rocks, big huge rocks. Of course, it scared my daughter

493
00:32:39.759 --> 00:32:43.880
and my son in law. Plans
changed. Had to abort what we had

494
00:32:43.920 --> 00:32:45.319
planned, which was for them to
sleep in a tent and for me to

495
00:32:45.359 --> 00:32:51.000
provide overwatch. They didn't want to
sleep in the tent after all these rocks.

496
00:32:51.200 --> 00:32:53.960
Jeff saw one peek around the woodshed. But that again, we're stepping

497
00:32:54.039 --> 00:32:58.880
up our game. We're constantly trying
to brainstorm and figure out new ideas that

498
00:32:59.000 --> 00:33:02.519
may sound silly to ridiculous. We're
trying to outsmart them and outflank them,

499
00:33:02.680 --> 00:33:06.839
and they're doing the same exact thing
to us. It's incredible if you stop

500
00:33:06.880 --> 00:33:10.599
and think about it, the dynamic
between us and them. They always surprise

501
00:33:10.720 --> 00:33:15.519
us. One of the interesting things
we did this year that was different.

502
00:33:15.319 --> 00:33:17.519
One of these new tactics that we
tried was you and I. In the

503
00:33:17.599 --> 00:33:22.200
last week there, we tried a
new tactic. I call it the tailgate

504
00:33:22.319 --> 00:33:27.000
drop. That's where you take two
guys out on the truck pick up and

505
00:33:27.079 --> 00:33:30.319
you go out of the valley,
you drop them off, and then they

506
00:33:30.440 --> 00:33:34.160
hike in under cover of darkness at
night. That's what we did, Brian,

507
00:33:34.200 --> 00:33:36.519
you and I did. We hiked
in from three and a half to

508
00:33:36.559 --> 00:33:39.599
four miles west of the compound.
We hoiked in at night. What time

509
00:33:39.640 --> 00:33:45.720
did you depart? We left the
drop zone at about twenty two hundred.

510
00:33:45.359 --> 00:33:49.839
I think we got to the compound
about a one hundred or something like that.

511
00:33:50.119 --> 00:33:52.400
We had no lights. The moon
was full, but we used no

512
00:33:52.519 --> 00:33:53.960
lights when we were down there and
we were trying to sneak in, Yeah,

513
00:33:54.000 --> 00:33:57.839
and we did. We used no
lights, absolutely no lights. We

514
00:33:57.960 --> 00:34:01.119
had an encounter on the way down
halfway down. Then we proceeded down into

515
00:34:01.200 --> 00:34:05.240
the compound. But the team that
was there, which was Alton, was

516
00:34:05.240 --> 00:34:08.800
a part of Bob and Kathy Straying, Daniel Falconer. They created this tremendous

517
00:34:08.840 --> 00:34:15.360
diversion and made all manner of noise, playing loud music, blowing on stadium

518
00:34:15.519 --> 00:34:17.800
air horns, all sorts of things. I couldn't even hear my own steps,

519
00:34:19.159 --> 00:34:22.000
with the idea that they would distract
attention away from us because then we

520
00:34:22.079 --> 00:34:22.880
were close. At that point,
we wanted to get in a position,

521
00:34:23.440 --> 00:34:27.480
yeah, and that allowed us to
slip in hopefully unnoticed. And we have

522
00:34:27.599 --> 00:34:30.880
every reason to believe that we did
get in there unnoticed that would put us

523
00:34:30.920 --> 00:34:35.840
in a position collect a specimen.
We got into position. We began here

524
00:34:35.920 --> 00:34:38.519
in wood knocks and bangs, but
we were just not in the right position.

525
00:34:39.119 --> 00:34:43.400
The tailgate drop is definitely an interesting
tactic, and we're going to try

526
00:34:43.440 --> 00:34:45.639
it. We're going to expand it. And we're going to try it.

527
00:34:45.199 --> 00:34:51.079
So you mentioned briefly that we had
an encounter going down, and that was

528
00:34:51.119 --> 00:34:52.840
an interesting encounter to me because I
thought at that point we had been busted

529
00:34:53.440 --> 00:34:58.559
by potentially an animal acting as a
century. Why don't you describe what that

530
00:34:58.719 --> 00:35:00.960
encounter was like for us. We
were about halfway down the mountain. The

531
00:35:01.000 --> 00:35:05.360
thing is that the drop zone we
actually smelled what we believed was an animal.

532
00:35:05.519 --> 00:35:08.920
There was one waiting, because we
have reasonably they followed vehicles out to

533
00:35:09.000 --> 00:35:13.679
a point about three and a half
to four miles west of the compound that

534
00:35:13.800 --> 00:35:17.320
they have centuries just like chimps.
Gorillas do the same thing. We have

535
00:35:17.400 --> 00:35:21.800
reasonablyive they followed vehicles out. So
when we got back to this area,

536
00:35:22.079 --> 00:35:24.880
we smelled what we were certain was
in a After Bob Strang took the truck

537
00:35:24.920 --> 00:35:30.079
and left us there, the smell
left, which was indicative of an animal

538
00:35:30.159 --> 00:35:32.039
leaving. We no longer smelled it, so we began to hike down a

539
00:35:32.079 --> 00:35:36.719
little after ten pm twenty two hundred. We got about halfway down, we

540
00:35:36.800 --> 00:35:39.039
smelled the smell again, really strong. I'll say I've never smelled it the

541
00:35:39.119 --> 00:35:43.440
first time. You always smell this
stuff first because you have this amazing nose.

542
00:35:43.519 --> 00:35:46.599
But the second time it was like
a wall of odor that just waffed

543
00:35:46.639 --> 00:35:50.559
it over us. Yeah, it
was the strongest stop smelled in several years

544
00:35:50.599 --> 00:35:53.320
now. I haven't smelled one that
strongly, I think in three years.

545
00:35:53.519 --> 00:35:57.639
It smelled like he was right next
to me. Then something was thrown at

546
00:35:57.719 --> 00:36:00.880
us, So then I hit the
dirt. I got in with the trail,

547
00:36:00.920 --> 00:36:05.440
which is more like a ravine.
Brian got his third gin out.

548
00:36:05.920 --> 00:36:08.360
He just began scoping. That's when
he saw a figure dark from tree to

549
00:36:08.480 --> 00:36:12.679
tree, being back lit by the
moon, and the smell was gone.

550
00:36:12.719 --> 00:36:15.239
And that was it. It was
gone. And actually I saw it with

551
00:36:15.360 --> 00:36:19.320
my eyes because the moon was so
bright, the trees were glowing. They

552
00:36:19.360 --> 00:36:22.440
were just reflecting the white moonlight,
so they were glowing white. And there

553
00:36:22.519 --> 00:36:24.159
was a black figure that walked in
front of a few if that was an

554
00:36:24.159 --> 00:36:27.480
animal, and I don't know what
else it would have been. There was

555
00:36:27.559 --> 00:36:30.400
no indication when we got down there. We stayed in position till daylight.

556
00:36:30.800 --> 00:36:35.119
We had no indication that any animal
near the compound knew we were there.

557
00:36:35.440 --> 00:36:38.079
Nothing approached us. We were out
all night twenty two hundred to think we

558
00:36:38.159 --> 00:36:40.519
went to bed the next morning at
ten am. We were out all night

559
00:36:40.599 --> 00:36:45.719
and nothing ever came within close proximity
to us. Nothing approached us. All

560
00:36:45.840 --> 00:36:49.159
their attention seemed to be focused on
the cabins. There was banging in wood

561
00:36:49.199 --> 00:36:52.360
knocks from the direction of the central
cabin where we stay, so we had

562
00:36:52.360 --> 00:36:58.239
every reasona believe their attention was focused
on Alphin's team there at the cabin and

563
00:36:58.360 --> 00:37:01.119
not us, which led you and
I to believe confidently that we went in

564
00:37:01.239 --> 00:37:05.800
there unobserved. So we're going to
try that again and we're going to try

565
00:37:05.840 --> 00:37:08.599
to capitalize. It gets back to
that. We like to joke that they're

566
00:37:08.639 --> 00:37:13.000
forest ninjas, but they're not omnipotent. They don't know why wants happened,

567
00:37:13.000 --> 00:37:15.679
but they are force and injes that
is, they're extremely aware of their environment.

568
00:37:16.079 --> 00:37:20.679
But a perfect they can't be everywhere, and they do have weaknesses and

569
00:37:20.760 --> 00:37:23.440
they are fallible creatures. Roan,
can I say something about the smell.

570
00:37:23.920 --> 00:37:28.480
Over the last four or five years, I've caught when we thought we busted

571
00:37:28.559 --> 00:37:31.679
one. When we pulled a similar
tactic a few years ago we came in

572
00:37:32.199 --> 00:37:36.199
on the bad Boy buggy. That
was the first time I actually smelled the

573
00:37:36.239 --> 00:37:38.440
smell. But this last summer,
we were sitting in the middle of the

574
00:37:38.519 --> 00:37:43.280
camp in the middle of the day. Try to imagine spending a few days

575
00:37:43.440 --> 00:37:45.880
or even a week out in the
woods. You get used to some of

576
00:37:45.920 --> 00:37:50.440
the forest smells, with the dirt, campfire, a certain foliage, and

577
00:37:50.559 --> 00:37:54.000
then imagine all of a sudden,
you're smelling a hot, warm apple pie

578
00:37:54.119 --> 00:37:59.119
fresh out of the oven. That
is a smell that you're immediately going to

579
00:37:59.280 --> 00:38:02.199
recognize. That is something that it
doesn't fit in here. Right when I

580
00:38:02.360 --> 00:38:07.679
was down there, for the first
time ever, I caught a smell,

581
00:38:07.920 --> 00:38:15.000
a very strong, completely distinct smell
of zoo. I smelled a zoo and

582
00:38:15.079 --> 00:38:19.320
it was eight of the zoo,
and it was like and it hit me

583
00:38:19.400 --> 00:38:21.920
for about two seconds and then it
was gone, and I didn't smell it

584
00:38:21.960 --> 00:38:24.880
again the entire week. But it
was so strong and so distinct in my

585
00:38:24.960 --> 00:38:30.480
mind that it was unmistakable. Just
like smelling apple pie, you recognize it

586
00:38:30.559 --> 00:38:34.159
as something that doesn't belong there,
but you definitely recognize it as distinct.

587
00:38:34.199 --> 00:38:37.159
That's the first time ever that I've
had that smell. There was no question

588
00:38:37.800 --> 00:38:39.039
that it was. It was a
zoo. Like smell, and it didn't

589
00:38:39.079 --> 00:38:43.079
belong in that forest. Like I
said, the second time we smelled it,

590
00:38:43.119 --> 00:38:45.760
it was almost physical. It was
so powerful. It was just like

591
00:38:45.840 --> 00:38:49.760
somebody turned on a light switch and
boom, you were filled with this intense,

592
00:38:50.079 --> 00:38:52.519
sweaty ape smell. I don't know
if I've told the story or not,

593
00:38:52.679 --> 00:38:54.440
but the smelling with the gorilla,
the Saint Paul' zoo and the wind

594
00:38:54.519 --> 00:38:57.599
turned and he was sitting there,
and all of a sudden I smelled him

595
00:38:57.599 --> 00:39:00.000
and the hair of my mac went
up because it was just like getting voluntary.

596
00:39:00.320 --> 00:39:02.079
Oh, I know that. So
we've been talking for a little while

597
00:39:02.119 --> 00:39:04.920
now, and I want to get
to a few other folks here. But

598
00:39:05.119 --> 00:39:07.760
what we're looking forward to next year? As always, what's closing thoughts on

599
00:39:07.880 --> 00:39:12.440
this year and opening thoughts for next
year? I'll say, we're going to

600
00:39:12.519 --> 00:39:15.920
stay in the fight, press forward, let's just make it happen. We're

601
00:39:15.960 --> 00:39:20.719
not quitting. We've got too much
invested, we've learned too much. It's

602
00:39:20.760 --> 00:39:23.559
either going to happen or not.
Will responsibility now, we absolutely have a

603
00:39:23.639 --> 00:39:28.440
responsibility to follow through with it.
I mean ethical responsibility. I think because

604
00:39:28.480 --> 00:39:31.039
we know this animal is real and
most of the world scoffs at it.

605
00:39:31.800 --> 00:39:37.559
I think that if we don't act
quickly, I believe that the animal is

606
00:39:37.639 --> 00:39:40.199
probably going to go extinct. But
I do want to say that we came

607
00:39:40.280 --> 00:39:45.840
close again this year. We did
have opportunities to get this done. The

608
00:39:45.960 --> 00:39:50.119
luck was not on our side again. But as the lesson from Jim Corbett

609
00:39:50.760 --> 00:39:53.400
was applied today, Corbett himself said, you have to stay with it.

610
00:39:53.639 --> 00:39:59.400
That luck does eventually turn you away, that there will be many times that

611
00:39:59.599 --> 00:40:01.920
luck will not go your way and
you will think that you can't do it

612
00:40:02.079 --> 00:40:05.960
one more day, or one more
year, one more month, But you

613
00:40:06.119 --> 00:40:08.840
must continue to press forward. You
must continue the work. Ryan. The

614
00:40:08.920 --> 00:40:13.519
last team, you and I had
a shot. Had had he stood there

615
00:40:13.559 --> 00:40:15.400
for one more second, I would
have sent around, I would have with

616
00:40:15.559 --> 00:40:19.239
the red dot on it, I
would have sent around and it may have

617
00:40:19.320 --> 00:40:22.880
been over. That was the next
to the last night. So that's how

618
00:40:22.960 --> 00:40:27.599
close we're coming. No, we're
definitely not giving up. Critics be damned.

619
00:40:28.159 --> 00:40:30.280
We are pressing forward. We're going
to do this. I'm fifty three,

620
00:40:30.360 --> 00:40:35.639
man, I'm in great condition.
We've still got a long time that

621
00:40:35.719 --> 00:40:37.519
we're going to be around, and
we're not going anywhere. We have the

622
00:40:37.599 --> 00:40:43.239
team to complete our objectives. Planning
has already begun for next year. That's

623
00:40:43.320 --> 00:40:45.840
it, right, thanks guys.
Okay, so what we're still outside here

624
00:40:45.880 --> 00:40:50.079
at sunset has turned tonight, the
windows blown. It's a lit chilli guy

625
00:40:50.079 --> 00:40:52.880
actually, even though from Minnesota,
I will admit to being a little cold.

626
00:40:52.920 --> 00:40:55.039
Right now, I have Geene and
Travis and Shannon here and we're going

627
00:40:55.119 --> 00:40:59.599
to talk about some of the experiences
they had in x over the summer.

628
00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:00.559
The first time. I want to
ease into this and I want to talk

629
00:41:00.599 --> 00:41:04.960
to you, Travis, very briefly
about something we tried when we were down

630
00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:07.320
there together. We called it the
Haunted Cabin tactic, where it looked like

631
00:41:07.360 --> 00:41:10.480
we completely left the area, and
the idea was we were going to leave

632
00:41:10.480 --> 00:41:14.719
you behind in the cabin quiet,
and then you would be able to assume

633
00:41:14.760 --> 00:41:17.880
overwatch when the sun went down,
with the perception for anyone outside that there

634
00:41:17.960 --> 00:41:22.320
was nobody left in the cabin.
That didn't really work out. What happened.

635
00:41:22.960 --> 00:41:25.239
Yeah, it was a nice innovative
idea because it's not something we'd tried

636
00:41:25.320 --> 00:41:29.880
before. Did we start about sundown? Is that when we started a little

637
00:41:29.880 --> 00:41:32.400
bit before sundown, all packed things
in your truck. I went and hid

638
00:41:32.440 --> 00:41:35.760
in the cabin while y'all were packing
things, and then y'all took off.

639
00:41:36.119 --> 00:41:37.760
There were no vehicles in the compound, and I was there by myself.

640
00:41:38.320 --> 00:41:44.079
What my plan was to give a
little shd eye until after dark till nine

641
00:41:44.119 --> 00:41:46.360
ten o'clock whatever I could get,
and then sneak up to the overwatch tent

642
00:41:46.440 --> 00:41:50.639
and do overwatch all night long and
let the apes think that there was no

643
00:41:50.719 --> 00:41:53.360
one in the valley. Because we've
always had questions about what happens around that

644
00:41:53.480 --> 00:41:57.920
cabin whenever none of us are there. We wondered, do they apes just

645
00:41:58.000 --> 00:42:00.000
walk around like they on the place, because they pretty much because nobody's there.

646
00:42:00.199 --> 00:42:02.599
We've had those questions, and we
don't have any way of verifying that

647
00:42:02.719 --> 00:42:06.280
without having somebody there to witness that. He thought it would be a good

648
00:42:06.320 --> 00:42:10.119
collection opportunity. I'llbeit a little bit
risky having somebody there by themselves, But

649
00:42:10.320 --> 00:42:14.159
where y'all were parked whenever y'all went
out was only about three miles away.

650
00:42:14.559 --> 00:42:17.280
So we were hoping that if I
did have a collection opportunity and I did

651
00:42:17.440 --> 00:42:20.599
fire, we were hoping y'all would
hear the shot, and you would be

652
00:42:20.639 --> 00:42:22.039
able to come back and help me
out, so I'm not just down there

653
00:42:22.199 --> 00:42:27.239
by myself with or whatever happens in
that situation. So y'all left, and

654
00:42:27.360 --> 00:42:30.599
I was already laying down in the
back portion of the cabin, and I

655
00:42:30.719 --> 00:42:32.880
was laying on the floor, away
from the windows, on a sleeping pad,

656
00:42:34.280 --> 00:42:36.559
hoping to just catch a few hours
of sleep. Like I said,

657
00:42:37.360 --> 00:42:39.400
while I was laying there, I
found it difficult to fall asleep because now

658
00:42:39.440 --> 00:42:43.360
I was there alone. I had
all these things running through my head about

659
00:42:43.400 --> 00:42:46.800
what would happen if I did get
a collection opportunity. I was slightly nervous,

660
00:42:46.800 --> 00:42:50.440
to be honest about doing that overwatch
by myself, about the whole idea.

661
00:42:50.599 --> 00:42:52.800
I wasn't there. Maybe ten minutes
after y'all left, I heard a

662
00:42:52.880 --> 00:42:55.960
rock hit the roof. This summer
was a little bit different on the rock

663
00:42:57.039 --> 00:43:00.440
throwing. There wasn't a whole lot
of rock throwing on the immediate cabin that

664
00:43:00.519 --> 00:43:02.840
we were staying in, But this
was an obvious rock that hit the roof.

665
00:43:04.360 --> 00:43:06.679
It was while I was in the
back portion of the cabin laying on

666
00:43:06.719 --> 00:43:07.199
the floor, and I was like, okay, that was a rock.

667
00:43:07.920 --> 00:43:13.079
Just a couple minutes after that rock
hit, I heard obvious heavy movement on

668
00:43:13.159 --> 00:43:15.400
the slope just north of me outside
the window. The window was open.

669
00:43:15.960 --> 00:43:20.320
It was probably twenty five thirty yards
away from me, but it was obviously

670
00:43:20.400 --> 00:43:22.880
a large animal moving around. I
heard it come a little bit closer to

671
00:43:22.960 --> 00:43:25.480
the cabin, down the slope a
little bit, Then a couple of minutes

672
00:43:25.559 --> 00:43:29.960
later, I heard it move off
back up the slope. At that point,

673
00:43:30.239 --> 00:43:31.360
it was just about getting dark,
and I was like, I'm still

674
00:43:31.360 --> 00:43:34.840
going to try to get some sleep, So I laid there about thirty more

675
00:43:34.880 --> 00:43:37.239
minutes. I wasn't able to fall
asleep because I was too keyed up about

676
00:43:37.239 --> 00:43:42.239
the situation, about the prospect of
what might happen, because of what just

677
00:43:42.360 --> 00:43:45.320
did happen. I was pretty sure
that was an ape that I just heard

678
00:43:45.519 --> 00:43:47.000
walk away behind the cabin, because
he's just thrown a rock a couple of

679
00:43:47.000 --> 00:43:51.559
minutes earlier. So when I decided
that I wasn't going to get any sleep,

680
00:43:52.000 --> 00:43:53.519
I went ahead and snuck up to
the overwatch tent. I'd already had

681
00:43:53.559 --> 00:43:58.360
everything set up ahead of time.
I had the rifle up in the overwatch

682
00:43:58.480 --> 00:44:00.199
tent, I had my head lamp
beside me, even though I had no

683
00:44:00.320 --> 00:44:02.559
plans to use it. That was
just there in case. I had nothing

684
00:44:02.599 --> 00:44:07.440
but my side arm down where I
was. But I pretty much crawled all

685
00:44:07.480 --> 00:44:09.480
the way across the cabin. Took
me several minutes because I was trying my

686
00:44:09.559 --> 00:44:14.239
hardest not to make any sounds,
not to let any apes know anybody was

687
00:44:14.280 --> 00:44:15.599
there. And I creeped all the
way over to the Overwatch ten and I

688
00:44:15.679 --> 00:44:20.639
climbed up in there, effectively not
making any noise. I think I managed

689
00:44:20.639 --> 00:44:24.039
to shut myself in there and I
assumed Overwatch. I don't remember exactly how

690
00:44:24.119 --> 00:44:27.800
long I was on Overwatch, but
I want to say about an hour and

691
00:44:27.840 --> 00:44:31.320
a half. And I heard absolutely
nothing. I heard no movement on the

692
00:44:31.360 --> 00:44:36.719
slope anymore. No rocks hit our
cabin or any other cabin, no vocalizations,

693
00:44:37.119 --> 00:44:39.360
no wood knocks, no nothing.
After about an hour and a half

694
00:44:39.440 --> 00:44:44.119
of nothing, had started to sprinkle
lightly. Just it came on like an

695
00:44:44.159 --> 00:44:46.360
onslaught. It just started raining harder
and harder. The overwatched him. The

696
00:44:46.400 --> 00:44:50.119
way it's set up right now,
it's not totally waterproof. I started getting

697
00:44:50.159 --> 00:44:52.920
water falling on me, and I've
got a six thousand dollars thermal scope mounted

698
00:44:52.960 --> 00:44:55.239
on my forty five to seventy So
I was like, I don't want this

699
00:44:55.320 --> 00:44:59.119
thing to get wet. So I
crawled back down and I went inside the

700
00:44:59.159 --> 00:45:00.880
cabin, and I was like,
oh, sleep for a little bit.

701
00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:04.320
If the rain lets up, then
i'll go assume overwatch again because I can't

702
00:45:04.320 --> 00:45:06.559
sit up there right now. It's
too wet. So I went back down

703
00:45:06.599 --> 00:45:10.000
and I fell asleep and stay tuned
for more sasquatch oat to see we'll be

704
00:45:10.159 --> 00:45:16.480
right back. After the east messages, I sat on an alarm on my

705
00:45:16.559 --> 00:45:21.559
phone for two hours later. I
woke up then and it was still raining

706
00:45:21.599 --> 00:45:23.400
real hard, so I went back
to sleep. The next time I woke

707
00:45:23.440 --> 00:45:27.280
up, it was daylight. It
was still raining lightly, if I remember

708
00:45:27.320 --> 00:45:30.320
correctly, at daylight, y'all came
down there quickly at daylight. I think

709
00:45:30.400 --> 00:45:32.800
y'all got back down to the cabin
at seven or something. It was a

710
00:45:32.880 --> 00:45:37.559
real telling situation. Then nothing else
happened. On hindsight, I think it

711
00:45:37.639 --> 00:45:43.320
makes sense because I think our cabin
was under direct surveillance from an ape that

712
00:45:43.440 --> 00:45:46.320
was up on the slope. He
saw y'all leave, so he was just

713
00:45:46.400 --> 00:45:50.239
testing the waters. Make sure everybody's
gone. I'm going to hit the cabin

714
00:45:50.320 --> 00:45:52.159
with a rock. I don't hear
any sounds at the cabin. Yeah,

715
00:45:52.239 --> 00:45:57.079
everybody's gone. Okay, I'm gone. They walk around somewhere out. Yeah,

716
00:45:57.119 --> 00:45:59.400
it makes sense if none of us
are at the cabins, why would

717
00:45:59.400 --> 00:46:01.280
they be there. I'd just walk
off and go ten to their own needs

718
00:46:01.320 --> 00:46:05.400
because they don't have to worry about
watching us anymore because we're not there.

719
00:46:05.960 --> 00:46:07.800
So, Shannon, you were down
there. What team were you in when

720
00:46:07.840 --> 00:46:12.599
you had your two experiences? I
was with Charlie team. It was the

721
00:46:12.880 --> 00:46:15.840
first week of June, over that
Memorial Day weekend, and so two things

722
00:46:15.880 --> 00:46:17.960
happened to you in one of which
I find fascinating with the thing that sort

723
00:46:17.960 --> 00:46:21.280
of crept up on you. And
Mark, why don't you relate to me?

724
00:46:21.400 --> 00:46:25.320
The tail there we got in seven
point fifty on Sunday evening. We

725
00:46:25.440 --> 00:46:30.599
had arrived, heard a weird noise
on arrival when we were unloading the vehicle,

726
00:46:30.760 --> 00:46:35.800
something like a siren, almost like
a clason sound, and all of

727
00:46:35.840 --> 00:46:38.119
this gee that was weird, sat
around the fire pit. It was a

728
00:46:38.239 --> 00:46:44.599
very low fire, just embers,
and we kept tearing stuff in that Middlewoods

729
00:46:44.639 --> 00:46:51.440
bottleneck area about one am. Mark
mcclarkin said, are you okay with going

730
00:46:51.519 --> 00:46:54.840
out there and kneeling in the bottleneck? I think he said it was a

731
00:46:54.880 --> 00:46:59.400
waxing moon. I just remember it
being pitched black, and I'm like,

732
00:46:59.559 --> 00:47:02.079
I can't see anything. You're gonna
have to I have a great night vision.

733
00:47:02.159 --> 00:47:07.239
So basically I put my left hand
on his right shoulder. I had

734
00:47:07.320 --> 00:47:10.559
my shotgun in the right hand,
and we walked out about midway through where

735
00:47:10.599 --> 00:47:15.079
that old stump is where we feed
Foxy. And his plan is to basically

736
00:47:15.159 --> 00:47:16.760
go over there in the pitch dark
and just take a knee and wait.

737
00:47:17.320 --> 00:47:22.320
So we take a knee. If
Shannon Mason actually came up behind us,

738
00:47:22.360 --> 00:47:24.559
she had a Gen one night vision
monocle that was given off ambient light,

739
00:47:25.119 --> 00:47:30.960
had some bright like bone colored white
north face pants on, and he told

740
00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:35.039
her and she quietly went back to
the fire area and we took any in.

741
00:47:35.079 --> 00:47:39.159
It didn't take long. You could
hear crunch, crunch, crunch from

742
00:47:39.239 --> 00:47:43.679
the direction of what we call the
middle Woods. Yeah again, pitch black.

743
00:47:44.159 --> 00:47:47.800
I'm on a knee, right hand, shotgun stabilizing me or sitting there.

744
00:47:49.280 --> 00:47:52.760
I grubbed deer hunting, But I
don't know an animal that strategically moves

745
00:47:52.840 --> 00:47:55.639
when the wind blows. The crazy
thing. When the wind wouldn't blow,

746
00:47:55.639 --> 00:47:59.639
you wouldn't hear anything. The wind
would rustle in that all your senses because

747
00:47:59.639 --> 00:48:04.519
you can't or hearing. And I
just remember being like a tuning fork because

748
00:48:04.559 --> 00:48:07.079
this thing kept getting progressively closer and
it was going to hit me before it

749
00:48:07.159 --> 00:48:12.880
hit Mark pretty durn close, I
would say, within arm's length. He

750
00:48:13.000 --> 00:48:15.679
said, can you smell it?
Even though everything is heightened. I could

751
00:48:15.800 --> 00:48:20.920
smell it. I've smelled the zoos
smell that manually smell. But I wasn't

752
00:48:21.000 --> 00:48:23.719
smelling it, but I could damn
sure hear it crouching. It's okay,

753
00:48:23.760 --> 00:48:27.360
who's going to make the first move? And all of a sudden, Mark

754
00:48:27.559 --> 00:48:31.880
just and it stopped. It didn't
like bolt away, It just slowly retreated.

755
00:48:31.920 --> 00:48:34.960
And I said, okay, I'm
ready to go back now. So

756
00:48:35.039 --> 00:48:37.079
then you guys got up and walked
back back to the We walked back to

757
00:48:37.159 --> 00:48:42.360
the deep fire. Not long after
that, he had gone to go to

758
00:48:42.400 --> 00:48:45.440
the bathroom at the out house,
and I had the tim which is the

759
00:48:45.519 --> 00:48:50.599
older thermal unit. More black and
white image he had come out of the

760
00:48:50.880 --> 00:48:52.960
alt house and all of a sudden
I saw him draw his side arm.

761
00:48:53.079 --> 00:48:57.800
Number one. The thing that sticks
out is a human lights up like Las

762
00:48:57.920 --> 00:49:01.480
Vegas strip on the tim or anything, and you just clearly see him draw

763
00:49:01.559 --> 00:49:06.360
his side arm. Both myself and
Justin Horne said, okay, everybody lights

764
00:49:06.400 --> 00:49:09.800
on. What's going on? Something
had growled at him from that Middlewoods area?

765
00:49:10.800 --> 00:49:15.320
How much longer after that? Do
you think that was? Maybe fifteen

766
00:49:15.360 --> 00:49:19.000
minutes shortly there after? Pretty quickly
then anything else happened that night? Or

767
00:49:19.039 --> 00:49:22.039
is that pretty much it? I
think that was about it. And the

768
00:49:22.480 --> 00:49:23.480
next thing, you know, I
want to talk about when was that in

769
00:49:23.559 --> 00:49:28.840
relation to these events? So we
arrived on Sunday, So it was Tuesday

770
00:49:28.960 --> 00:49:32.079
about eleven thirty. Reading over the
notes, we had heard movement in that

771
00:49:32.119 --> 00:49:37.880
Middlewoods area. Again. I like
to take laps of the compound when i'm

772
00:49:37.880 --> 00:49:44.079
there and change up the direction each
time. This time we headed east toward

773
00:49:44.119 --> 00:49:47.559
the east cabin, through that meadow
down into the Bottleneck area. We weren't

774
00:49:47.599 --> 00:49:52.920
really being stealthy. It was myself
and Shannon Mason. I was pointed she

775
00:49:53.079 --> 00:49:57.400
was about five yards behind me in
the ground was moist. I remember there

776
00:49:57.480 --> 00:50:00.440
was a lot of deer track,
talking about all the tracks, and we

777
00:50:00.519 --> 00:50:05.239
were coming in that bottlenecked spot where
it starts to open up toward the east

778
00:50:05.320 --> 00:50:12.000
cabin. I saw something bolt across
the trail from south to north, heading

779
00:50:12.039 --> 00:50:15.639
towards the north Mountain. I would
say it was at least as large as

780
00:50:15.719 --> 00:50:19.960
me, dark brown red, large
as you're You're eight and a half feet

781
00:50:19.960 --> 00:50:22.960
tall. Is that no? Whatever
it was, I got the impression that

782
00:50:23.039 --> 00:50:27.559
it was the same mass as me. It was a fleeting look that whatever

783
00:50:27.639 --> 00:50:32.559
it was glided literally glided across my
vision across that trail, and it didn't

784
00:50:32.599 --> 00:50:37.360
make any noise. So I was
just stunned at first because I didn't hear

785
00:50:37.440 --> 00:50:40.840
the thing. It's not the impression
that it was stooped at the waist quadrupedally

786
00:50:42.079 --> 00:50:46.880
locomoting across or on biped. It
was so smooth and so fast, so

787
00:50:47.079 --> 00:50:51.920
smooth, super fast and not making
any sound whatsoever. For a second,

788
00:50:52.000 --> 00:50:54.480
I know, I just stopped and
then I just started cussing, and she

789
00:50:54.559 --> 00:50:59.360
and Mason what I'm like, I
just saw something bolt across the trail at

790
00:50:59.400 --> 00:51:01.599
me, and she behind me with
her side arm drawn and I'm like,

791
00:51:01.719 --> 00:51:05.480
there's no way in hell we're going
to catch this thing. It was just

792
00:51:05.599 --> 00:51:08.719
stunning how fast and smooth it was
and how quiet. Then we heard a

793
00:51:08.840 --> 00:51:15.159
large limb snap on the north mountain
side, and then I saw a white

794
00:51:15.199 --> 00:51:22.360
tail lush east across the creek,
two totally different colors sizes. This thing

795
00:51:22.519 --> 00:51:25.599
was smooth. It didn't lumber like
a bear. I mean, it just

796
00:51:25.800 --> 00:51:29.760
it was like it was on a
zip line. It was fifty yards ahead

797
00:51:29.760 --> 00:51:31.039
of me and I only saw it
for a second to a second and a

798
00:51:31.079 --> 00:51:36.480
half. We were watching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It was a character

799
00:51:36.559 --> 00:51:39.400
that got pulled across on a line
that smooth. Yep, yep, And

800
00:51:39.559 --> 00:51:43.199
what you're talking about? Cool?
Thank you. That was cool. So

801
00:51:43.320 --> 00:51:46.079
back to you, Travis. You
guys had another experience, and I'll say

802
00:51:46.199 --> 00:51:50.360
up front that I think is one
of the most significant things we've experienced down

803
00:51:50.360 --> 00:51:52.000
there. Well, why don't you
and Jean just set the stage here for

804
00:51:52.119 --> 00:51:55.079
what happened. Okay, this is
during my team. I was there with

805
00:51:55.199 --> 00:52:00.440
Jean, David, and Andrew.
We had been hearing relentless wooden eye to

806
00:52:00.599 --> 00:52:04.800
our southeast. That's odd because we
haven't heard a ton of woodknocks from that

807
00:52:04.920 --> 00:52:07.039
direction. It was just like a
motif for that week, as we were

808
00:52:07.079 --> 00:52:12.199
hearing constant wood knocks from this one
location to the southeast, and that all

809
00:52:12.280 --> 00:52:14.880
sounded like they were from the same
exact spot. They were about the same

810
00:52:14.960 --> 00:52:17.400
volume. We'd heard ten or fifteen
of them so far that week. One

811
00:52:17.440 --> 00:52:22.360
of the things that frustrates me to
no end about these animals is our inability

812
00:52:22.400 --> 00:52:27.360
to find sign of them other than
occasional tracks. Occasional on those trackways,

813
00:52:27.400 --> 00:52:30.159
you find logs that have been stepped
on that you're like, something really heavy

814
00:52:30.199 --> 00:52:32.920
stepped on that. We don't find
browsing sign from them, and we don't

815
00:52:32.920 --> 00:52:37.199
find trees that they've beat up on
these woodknocks and things like that, except

816
00:52:37.239 --> 00:52:40.280
for one time back during Operation Endurance. I've always thought that if they really

817
00:52:40.320 --> 00:52:44.480
are hitting trees with pieces of wood
to make these sounds, which I think

818
00:52:44.519 --> 00:52:46.719
they are, we ought to find
more sign of them doing that, because

819
00:52:46.719 --> 00:52:50.079
if you do hit a tree with
a baseball bat or something that leaves a

820
00:52:50.079 --> 00:52:52.840
wound on it. I was just
talking to Gene. I was like,

821
00:52:52.480 --> 00:52:57.159
there's obviously a tree like one hundred
yards over there that's all beat the hell

822
00:52:57.280 --> 00:53:00.519
from this week, so let's go
over there and find it. This was

823
00:53:00.599 --> 00:53:04.000
like three o'clock in the afternoon.
We just decided to go over there and

824
00:53:04.159 --> 00:53:07.719
look specifically for the tree that had
been getting hit over there. This is

825
00:53:07.719 --> 00:53:09.800
an interesting area because when you've told
me where you went, this is a

826
00:53:09.840 --> 00:53:13.199
place that we Even though it's not
very far from where the cabins are,

827
00:53:13.280 --> 00:53:16.440
it's in a little corner that we
don't often get into. It's kind of

828
00:53:16.519 --> 00:53:20.119
hard to get to the spot because
you have to hop across rocks on the

829
00:53:20.159 --> 00:53:22.679
creek to get there. It's not
on the way to get to anywhere.

830
00:53:22.960 --> 00:53:27.360
If you're going to go that direction
to get somewhere, it's easier to go

831
00:53:27.480 --> 00:53:30.320
around it. So it's not very
far from the compound, but it's not

832
00:53:30.400 --> 00:53:31.960
somewhere we go very often, just
because it's hard to get to and it's

833
00:53:32.000 --> 00:53:35.599
not on the way to anywhere.
People say small towns in East Texas,

834
00:53:35.679 --> 00:53:37.480
if you end up in this little
town, you either have business there or

835
00:53:37.519 --> 00:53:40.480
you're lost. The only reason we
would have gone back there is because we

836
00:53:40.559 --> 00:53:44.519
had business there, and our business
there was to go find this tree that

837
00:53:44.559 --> 00:53:47.159
had gotten beat up so badly that
week. We went looking for that tree,

838
00:53:47.199 --> 00:53:50.159
and we had to find a spot
where we could cross the creek.

839
00:53:50.760 --> 00:53:52.559
This was an area to the south
of what we call the East Cabin.

840
00:53:53.199 --> 00:53:57.920
We were walking along in those woods
very slowly. We were literally walking from

841
00:53:58.000 --> 00:54:00.719
tree to tree. Every tree we
could find back there there was big enough

842
00:54:00.760 --> 00:54:02.920
that looked like it would produce a
woodknock. Jean and I were just walking

843
00:54:04.000 --> 00:54:06.519
up to this tree, kind of
feeling of the bark, looking to see

844
00:54:06.519 --> 00:54:07.719
if we could see any strike marks
on it, because I really wanted to

845
00:54:07.880 --> 00:54:12.639
find evidence of the wood knocking tree
back there. We were moving along real

846
00:54:12.679 --> 00:54:15.760
slowly. We weren't hunting by any
means. I didn't have my rifle in

847
00:54:15.800 --> 00:54:17.719
the low ready because I was looking
at all the trees. We were just

848
00:54:17.800 --> 00:54:22.760
walking back and forth. And I
think Jane actually sort of prophetically called it

849
00:54:22.800 --> 00:54:25.840
as we were going back there,
because we found pieces of trash back there.

850
00:54:27.159 --> 00:54:30.159
Jean said something like, there's all
kinds of things to play with back

851
00:54:30.159 --> 00:54:31.840
Can you remember that, Gene.
What were you finding on the ground there,

852
00:54:31.920 --> 00:54:37.400
Jean, crash pile or something like
it, rusted hands or something from

853
00:54:37.440 --> 00:54:39.440
a locks some by through crash out. Yeah, it's not too far from

854
00:54:39.480 --> 00:54:42.599
this area. We call the homestead
where there used to be a home.

855
00:54:42.639 --> 00:54:45.199
Back there, in that area where
there was a home, there's little pieces

856
00:54:45.239 --> 00:54:49.000
of trash laying around, some bottles
and things like that, and there was

857
00:54:49.119 --> 00:54:51.679
just some, like Jean said,
some old metal pans and things like that

858
00:54:52.199 --> 00:54:53.719
laying around the place. As we
were walking back and forth in there,

859
00:54:53.760 --> 00:54:59.039
looking at trees, we were about
seventy five yards south of the east cabin

860
00:55:00.119 --> 00:55:02.519
walking through there. Midstep, I
thought I heard a real subtle sound.

861
00:55:02.840 --> 00:55:07.320
And the sound was so subtle that
it made me stop and look to my

862
00:55:07.440 --> 00:55:09.360
east where I thought it came from. It was such a quiet sound that

863
00:55:09.440 --> 00:55:13.880
I wasn't even sure I heard anything. Maybe it was a nut falling and

864
00:55:13.960 --> 00:55:15.760
it hit a leaf, but it
sounded like a real quiet huff. I

865
00:55:15.840 --> 00:55:20.440
stopped and I stared to the east
for about ten seconds. I didn't see

866
00:55:20.559 --> 00:55:22.159
anything over there, and I didn't
hear anything over there. I can't see

867
00:55:22.280 --> 00:55:25.320
very far over there anyways, maybe
fifteen yards because the woods are so thick.

868
00:55:25.599 --> 00:55:29.519
It didn't say anything to Jeane because
he wasn't standing right beside me,

869
00:55:30.000 --> 00:55:32.599
and because I wasn't totally sure that
i'd heard something significant, so I just

870
00:55:32.719 --> 00:55:36.440
went back to doing what I was
doing. I started looking at the trees

871
00:55:36.480 --> 00:55:39.480
around me again. About five or
ten seconds later, I heard a sound

872
00:55:39.880 --> 00:55:44.360
like claws on tree bark, or
if you were to rub a rough hand

873
00:55:44.440 --> 00:55:46.960
down tree bark. I looked over
to the east as soon as I heard

874
00:55:47.000 --> 00:55:52.639
that sound, and I saw some
small animal moving through the grass. As

875
00:55:52.679 --> 00:55:54.280
soon as I saw it, my
first thought was that it was a raccoon,

876
00:55:54.679 --> 00:55:58.840
because it was a very small animal. If you just picture grass and

877
00:55:58.920 --> 00:56:01.159
brush that's two to three feet high. It was moving through that. It

878
00:56:01.239 --> 00:56:04.960
wasn't running by any means, but
it was moving through it pretty quickly.

879
00:56:05.559 --> 00:56:07.800
About the time I saw it,
it was just in the shade, and

880
00:56:07.039 --> 00:56:10.039
because it was in the thick trees
and it was dark, just dark colored,

881
00:56:10.079 --> 00:56:13.440
I couldn't tell exactly what color it
was. It just looked dark.

882
00:56:13.840 --> 00:56:16.039
About that time I could see that
there was more than one. I said,

883
00:56:16.119 --> 00:56:19.679
Geane, look at that. Jean
looked up and saw them. And

884
00:56:19.719 --> 00:56:22.159
about that time it moved through a
little piece of sunlight. As soon as

885
00:56:22.199 --> 00:56:24.280
it moved through that piece of sunlight, I could see that it was this

886
00:56:24.400 --> 00:56:28.360
real strange color. It was a
reddish black. It's the best way I

887
00:56:28.400 --> 00:56:31.440
could describe it. I went to
Vermont just a couple of weeks before this,

888
00:56:31.800 --> 00:56:35.519
and I saw a fissure up there, and that fissure was about the

889
00:56:35.559 --> 00:56:37.440
same color. It's like a black
fur with a red tinge to it.

890
00:56:37.880 --> 00:56:40.239
Yeah, if you just mix a
black and red fur together, that's what

891
00:56:40.320 --> 00:56:44.119
it looked like. As soon as
I saw it ride there, I thought

892
00:56:44.159 --> 00:56:45.760
it was a hog, which is
a stupid thought looking back on it,

893
00:56:46.400 --> 00:56:50.679
because we've never seen any hogs in
there, and we have one game camera

894
00:56:50.760 --> 00:56:53.320
picture of a hog. They can't
really live back there because the ground's so

895
00:56:53.400 --> 00:56:55.880
hard and they can't root. But
that's just what I thought it was,

896
00:56:55.960 --> 00:57:00.519
because hogs can be that color,
and that's the little box mind put it

897
00:57:00.559 --> 00:57:02.960
in because it was small too.
As soon as I thought that, I

898
00:57:04.039 --> 00:57:06.880
took a step to my right so
that I could see them better. About

899
00:57:06.920 --> 00:57:08.760
that time, these couple of animals, I didn't know how many there were.

900
00:57:08.920 --> 00:57:10.960
They had made their way to a
creek and they were fleeing to the

901
00:57:12.000 --> 00:57:15.199
east, and I just took a
couple of steps to my right and I

902
00:57:15.320 --> 00:57:17.960
caught a visual of them fleeing to
the east. Before I tell what they

903
00:57:19.039 --> 00:57:21.679
looked like, I want Gene to
tell what he saw, because he didn't

904
00:57:21.679 --> 00:57:23.800
see them after that point. What'd
you see, Gene? We trash saw

905
00:57:23.920 --> 00:57:28.039
four. By that time I had
got up there within four or five feet

906
00:57:28.119 --> 00:57:31.360
of them, and when he said, look, there was a gap over

907
00:57:31.400 --> 00:57:36.400
there about five feet wide where I
could see, and one of them went

908
00:57:36.480 --> 00:57:38.760
through that five foot gap. I
saw the top of his back. It

909
00:57:38.920 --> 00:57:43.880
was like a dark chocolate lab color. To me. I didn't say a

910
00:57:43.960 --> 00:57:46.360
head or a tail or. I
just saw the back and he was moving

911
00:57:46.440 --> 00:57:52.559
east. How big do you think
this was? Like relative to other bigger

912
00:57:52.599 --> 00:57:57.280
than a raccoon? It would say, yeah, a raccoon, get up

913
00:57:57.320 --> 00:58:01.280
thirty five downs? Four? Yeah, I said thirty thirty pounds or so

914
00:58:01.360 --> 00:58:05.000
when we first saw it, we
said definitely less than fifty pounds, because,

915
00:58:05.039 --> 00:58:06.519
like I said, as soon as
I saw it, I thought it

916
00:58:06.559 --> 00:58:08.760
was a raccoon. And Gene,
you've seen tons of animals, but as

917
00:58:08.800 --> 00:58:12.679
they're moving, as soon as you
saw it move, could you say what

918
00:58:12.840 --> 00:58:15.079
you thought it was? Oh,
there's nothing in there of that color in

919
00:58:15.199 --> 00:58:19.639
that valley that I know of.
Yeah, so you saw the color before

920
00:58:19.679 --> 00:58:22.239
I did it, or before you
could make a preconceived notion about what it

921
00:58:22.400 --> 00:58:25.320
was. I know it wasn't long
hair. It was mightbe one inch long

922
00:58:25.400 --> 00:58:30.599
hair like that. I took a
couple steps. I took a big step

923
00:58:30.679 --> 00:58:34.280
to my right so that I could
see up this creek is these animals are

924
00:58:34.320 --> 00:58:37.159
running away. And as soon as
I did that, I was just blown

925
00:58:37.199 --> 00:58:44.079
away instantly, because there was these
obviously Semian looking animals running up the creek

926
00:58:44.119 --> 00:58:46.639
on all fours. And as soon
as I saw them, I realized real

927
00:58:46.719 --> 00:58:50.199
quickly what they were, and by
that time, they were all gone.

928
00:58:50.400 --> 00:58:52.679
Because that's what happens. That's the
common theme about lots of these things,

929
00:58:52.800 --> 00:58:55.320
is you think it's something else,
and then as soon as you realize what

930
00:58:55.400 --> 00:59:00.360
it is, it's gone, and
that collection opportunity is lost. But if

931
00:59:00.400 --> 00:59:06.760
you just imagine small chimpanzees running away
in a straight line, that's exactly what

932
00:59:06.880 --> 00:59:08.559
they look like. I didn't see
a head or tail. All I could

933
00:59:08.599 --> 00:59:13.000
see was shoulders, the upper part
of their bodies. But it was so

934
00:59:13.159 --> 00:59:20.199
strange seeing something whose shoulders were outward
facing rather than downward facing like dogs and

935
00:59:20.280 --> 00:59:23.440
cats and things like that, because
just the way it was shaped is it

936
00:59:23.559 --> 00:59:27.360
was running away, it couldn't be
mistaken for anything else. I've seen bear

937
00:59:27.400 --> 00:59:30.840
cubs in there. I've seen raccoons
and things like that running away, and

938
00:59:30.880 --> 00:59:32.519
they're just they don't have that shape
to them where their shoulders are wider than

939
00:59:32.519 --> 00:59:36.719
their waist. These things were running
away on all fours. They weren't just

940
00:59:36.880 --> 00:59:40.360
booking it full speed by any means, but they were a hurried getaway kind

941
00:59:40.400 --> 00:59:44.760
of pace. They were getting away. But by the time I realized they

942
00:59:44.760 --> 00:59:45.840
were all gone, it was four
of them. They were running in a

943
00:59:45.880 --> 00:59:50.840
straight line. So why I think
this is so important? And I'm not

944
00:59:50.920 --> 00:59:53.679
a biologist, I don't even play
one on TV. But the little that

945
00:59:53.760 --> 00:59:58.440
I do know is that these animals, if you want to use the gorillas

946
00:59:58.440 --> 01:00:02.400
as a parallel produce young, caring
for young, that's a resource intensive activity,

947
01:00:02.480 --> 01:00:06.519
right. It ties down certain members
of the group because you have the

948
01:00:06.599 --> 01:00:08.639
mothers of the group, But then
you have these other animals that are assisting,

949
01:00:08.679 --> 01:00:12.760
and you have fathers. And the
idea that there would be four all

950
01:00:13.079 --> 01:00:15.880
presumably around the same age, because
they're all about the same size, that

951
01:00:15.920 --> 01:00:17.280
they all appear to be about the
same size to you, Yeah, they

952
01:00:17.280 --> 01:00:21.199
all did peer to be about the
same size. I would guess that they're

953
01:00:21.199 --> 01:00:24.039
about the same age. If you
want to extrapolate that primates generally, gorillas

954
01:00:24.280 --> 01:00:29.960
and humans have single births most of
the time, this could mean that there's

955
01:00:30.039 --> 01:00:34.519
four mothers and they're all having offspring
at the same time. To me,

956
01:00:35.000 --> 01:00:37.719
again, I'm not a biologist.
I don't know the algorithm. I don't

957
01:00:37.719 --> 01:00:39.559
know what the calculation is to get
to the total number. But it's a

958
01:00:39.639 --> 01:00:43.000
hell of a lot bigger number than
I ever thought could be in there.

959
01:00:43.039 --> 01:00:45.719
You know what I'm talking about.
I do know, and it is a

960
01:00:45.840 --> 01:00:50.239
very exciting thing. Like you said, it's probably the most significant visual we've

961
01:00:50.320 --> 01:00:52.880
ever had. Like you, I'm
not a primatologist. I won't pretend to

962
01:00:52.920 --> 01:00:57.400
play one, but I know that
the simians and us humans. Of course,

963
01:00:57.440 --> 01:01:00.960
we don't have mating seasons like other
animals do, so it might seem

964
01:01:00.960 --> 01:01:02.760
bad that you would see four of
them the same age, because obviously a

965
01:01:02.880 --> 01:01:07.480
mother didn't have quadruplets. We assume
that's not the case. Yeah, but

966
01:01:07.719 --> 01:01:10.320
perhaps if you have a bunch of
females around each other, they would ovulate

967
01:01:10.400 --> 01:01:15.480
together like humans tend to do,
so maybe that was the case. It's

968
01:01:15.559 --> 01:01:19.039
an incredible experience. I won't lie
and pretend like I saw them really well,

969
01:01:19.119 --> 01:01:22.599
because I didn't see them that well. But it was obviously for the

970
01:01:22.599 --> 01:01:25.840
little lapes. It could not have
been anything else. They know, they

971
01:01:25.880 --> 01:01:29.719
were not bears. They were not
bear cubs. Yeah, I've seen bear

972
01:01:29.760 --> 01:01:30.679
cubs in there, and for one, they're not that color, and for

973
01:01:30.760 --> 01:01:35.599
two, they just don't have that
shape. I didn't explain too much about

974
01:01:35.679 --> 01:01:37.679
what happened initially, so let me
do that right now. So I heard

975
01:01:37.719 --> 01:01:40.119
the huff and then I heard the
little scratching sound on the tree, and

976
01:01:40.159 --> 01:01:43.960
that's what caused me to turn around. If I hadn't I have heard those

977
01:01:44.000 --> 01:01:45.639
two things, then we would have
never seen these four animals because we never

978
01:01:45.719 --> 01:01:47.599
heard them, or at least I
never heard them. Did you hear them,

979
01:01:47.639 --> 01:01:51.199
Gene? No, I didn't hear
them plowing bound that hurriyer. Yeah,

980
01:01:51.199 --> 01:01:52.559
I heard both of those things.
And if it wasn't for me hearing

981
01:01:52.679 --> 01:01:55.280
those things, then I would not
have turned around and seen them because I

982
01:01:55.360 --> 01:01:59.559
never heard them as they were running
off. In hindsight, looking back at

983
01:01:59.599 --> 01:02:01.719
we think, so why would we
hear a huff, then hear the tree

984
01:02:01.719 --> 01:02:05.440
scratching sound, and then see all
four of them running off and what I

985
01:02:05.559 --> 01:02:08.639
think happened is that those four little
apes were up in a tree. There

986
01:02:08.719 --> 01:02:14.599
was a mother somewhere to my east, twenty thirty yards away, far enough

987
01:02:14.599 --> 01:02:17.000
away that she was behind brush and
I couldn't see her. She knew that

988
01:02:17.119 --> 01:02:21.519
this was a bad situation because there
was four little apes up in this tree

989
01:02:21.719 --> 01:02:23.320
not far from us. This tree
was only like fifteen yards when we were

990
01:02:23.480 --> 01:02:28.440
standing. She knew that there was
her little the babies that she was watching

991
01:02:28.480 --> 01:02:31.079
over. However that works. I
won't pretend to understand the social dynamics of

992
01:02:31.239 --> 01:02:35.639
any grade apes, much less this
grade ape, because nobody understands those things,

993
01:02:35.719 --> 01:02:37.599
because we don't have qualified boots on
the ground to learn those types of

994
01:02:37.639 --> 01:02:42.880
things yet. But what we think
happened, or what I think happened,

995
01:02:43.119 --> 01:02:45.360
is that she was letting them know
that they need to get down and they

996
01:02:45.400 --> 01:02:50.239
need to run. She made that
real quiet little sound that I wasn't supposed

997
01:02:50.239 --> 01:02:52.480
to hear, that I did hear. Then I happened to hear one of

998
01:02:52.559 --> 01:02:55.480
them make a little mistake because he
was jumping off the tree. Then I

999
01:02:55.480 --> 01:02:58.800
could see them bobbing through the grass, and I took a couple steps to

1000
01:02:58.840 --> 01:03:00.840
my right and I was able to
see all four of them, and I'm

1001
01:03:00.840 --> 01:03:02.960
thankful that I was able to see
that, even though I couldn't capitalize on

1002
01:03:04.039 --> 01:03:06.480
it. Well. Like I said, it's one of the coolest things we've

1003
01:03:06.519 --> 01:03:08.480
seen in there, and I think
it's really significant. And thanks a lot,

1004
01:03:08.519 --> 01:03:10.599
guys. Thanks for sitting out here
in the wind, in the cold.

1005
01:03:10.920 --> 01:03:14.960
It's talking to me. I really
appreciate it. In biology, an

1006
01:03:15.039 --> 01:03:17.760
area where there still exists a relic
population of an animal, that is,

1007
01:03:17.920 --> 01:03:22.599
the remaining population of a species that
had at an earlier time a much larger

1008
01:03:22.719 --> 01:03:29.440
range that's called a refugium. Refugia
can be quite small, like the north

1009
01:03:29.480 --> 01:03:31.039
facing slope of the mountain, for
example, or the bottom of a deeper

1010
01:03:31.119 --> 01:03:37.840
vine, more secluded and sparsely populated
corner of the Washtaw Mountains. Members of

1011
01:03:37.880 --> 01:03:42.159
the NAWAC are increasingly of the opinion
that the valley we call x is a

1012
01:03:42.239 --> 01:03:45.440
refugium for the North American wood ape. Besides the significant encounter by Travis and

1013
01:03:45.519 --> 01:03:50.559
Gene of four presumably very young apes, the number of sightings we recorded of

1014
01:03:50.599 --> 01:03:54.639
other similarly described creatures and pairs of
animals moving together is relatively high. Sometimes

1015
01:03:54.719 --> 01:03:59.199
the pairs seem to be one mature
animal and one smaller one, while at

1016
01:03:59.239 --> 01:04:02.079
other times seem to be a mature
pair. We can't know their social structure,

1017
01:04:02.079 --> 01:04:05.480
of course, but the apes appear
to be quite gregarious and potentially fairly

1018
01:04:05.559 --> 01:04:10.360
numerous. It's possible that at an
earlier time in the history of North America,

1019
01:04:10.440 --> 01:04:14.400
situations like that found in x could
have existed over a far larger scope,

1020
01:04:14.920 --> 01:04:18.079
perhaps back in the time when the
only other primates inhabiting the vast wooded

1021
01:04:18.159 --> 01:04:21.559
areas of the continent were Native Americans, and while of course they existed in

1022
01:04:23.079 --> 01:04:26.920
larger numbers than what's commonly believed,
they certainly were not counted in the hundreds

1023
01:04:26.920 --> 01:04:30.920
of millions as people are today.
It's possible there were hundreds or even thousands

1024
01:04:30.960 --> 01:04:34.320
of exes throughout the Lachatas and Aazark
Ranges, down along the Red Mississippi Rivers

1025
01:04:34.320 --> 01:04:38.920
and into the Bayous of present day
Louisiana, and over time, as Europeans

1026
01:04:38.960 --> 01:04:42.400
moved into the region and developed their
own civilization and exploited the resources they found

1027
01:04:42.480 --> 01:04:45.119
in ways Norther people had before them, that the wood it population was fragmented

1028
01:04:45.159 --> 01:04:49.920
and isolated. Today, the Nawac
has reports from and its conducted investigations in

1029
01:04:50.000 --> 01:04:54.159
areas like the mountains north of the
Red River where X is, to the

1030
01:04:54.239 --> 01:04:58.239
jungle like big thicker region of East
Texas, to the swampy lowlands around Kettle

1031
01:04:58.320 --> 01:05:00.000
Lake, and of course in between. In all of those you'll find a

1032
01:05:00.039 --> 01:05:03.840
little place called Folk. Of course, without a persistent and dedicated field investigation,

1033
01:05:03.920 --> 01:05:08.719
it's impossible to know which encounter was
the sign of a refugeing population and

1034
01:05:08.800 --> 01:05:12.360
which was just a transient animal trying
to scratch out an existence on its own.

1035
01:05:12.480 --> 01:05:15.480
I personally believe that the majority of
sightings reported by witnesses are of the

1036
01:05:15.519 --> 01:05:18.199
latter kind. That is, individuals
no longer able to live among those they

1037
01:05:18.280 --> 01:05:20.679
came from, or are looking to
branch out and start their own troops.

1038
01:05:20.960 --> 01:05:25.920
It's not unlike how gorillas live again. This is pure speculation on my part,

1039
01:05:25.960 --> 01:05:28.920
but many of the commonly held perceptions
of what apes do not line up

1040
01:05:28.920 --> 01:05:33.079
with what the NAWAC continues to experience
an X. In any event, nothing

1041
01:05:33.119 --> 01:05:36.679
from the past summer's efforts has done
anything but cause the NAWAC to feel an

1042
01:05:36.679 --> 01:05:41.639
even greater urgency for protection of the
animal's habitat. As I said, there's

1043
01:05:41.639 --> 01:05:44.920
really no way to know how many
xes there are left, not without a

1044
01:05:44.960 --> 01:05:47.960
concerted effort to find them. While
I think that's sufficient motivation to continue to

1045
01:05:48.000 --> 01:05:53.119
strive for the collection of a holotype, it's also sufficient motivation for anyone hearing

1046
01:05:53.159 --> 01:05:56.599
my voice to get involved at some
level. As we discussed it with David

1047
01:05:56.599 --> 01:06:00.559
Mitchizouski, there are many active groups
already working to protect with apes in their

1048
01:06:00.599 --> 01:06:04.519
habitat, even if they don't acknowledge
the creature's existence. David's National Wildlife Federation,

1049
01:06:04.599 --> 01:06:09.760
for example, or the Nature Conservancy
here large national groups that spring to

1050
01:06:09.840 --> 01:06:14.679
mind immediately, there are likely some
in your local area doing the same kind

1051
01:06:14.679 --> 01:06:18.440
of work at a more modest level. What's required right now, more than

1052
01:06:18.440 --> 01:06:21.920
anything, is for people to get
involved somehow to make sure that the areas

1053
01:06:21.960 --> 01:06:26.719
we still have where large animals can
live and reproduce, remain as they are.

1054
01:06:27.480 --> 01:06:30.719
Because if we don't, you and
I and all the others who care

1055
01:06:30.760 --> 01:06:33.679
about and love our wild places,
who will kind If we don't do it

1056
01:06:33.719 --> 01:06:39.760
today, when are we going to
do it? They say, you don't

1057
01:06:39.880 --> 01:07:15.079
have to go home, but you
can't stay step steps steps step chid,

1058
01:07:15.320 --> 01:07:20.920
this chid, that chid. Everything
came right back, right back for joy,

1059
01:07:21.119 --> 01:07:36.000
for me joy, stay right,
you come in right away, step

1060
01:07:42.119 --> 01:08:40.880
still stay us to do, don't
don't don't about the thesssssts us stassus thess