Welcome to episode fifty four of Get Out, a live a podcast where me
your host Ashley every other week tell us your new animal tech story, and
me your other host Nick. I have nothing to say. We're recording on
a new thing today. We're recording on a new new mixer. Yeah.
If we sound different, it's because we're physically together for the first time in
a long time recording this. Usually we do it remote. Yeah, so
we're gonna be going through a little bit of learning process, but sounds good
so far. Yeah. I mean, like when we start the podcast,
we recorded together, we just had worse equipment. What's gonna be really fun
about this is gonna be a lot more like quick with our responses and cutting
each other off. Yeah, that'll be fun. Now we can look at
each other while we yell at each other. I mean normally we do,
it's just over more of a distance. Can phasically hate you exactly. Now
you can throw stuff at me, which is dangerous. Yeah. Perfect,
And I just want to say the reason that we're able to get better equipment
is because of patrons who listened to the show and support the show on patreon
dot com slash gett a live podcast No we spent a big portionary day to
day going out and getting the new gifts form for our quarterly gifts. Yes,
Nick and I thought about all of you. We always trying to make
the gifts really thoughtful, so we truly thought of each of you as we
picked the seeds individually. Yeah, yeah, we're gonna be writing notes to
all of you, so keep an eye out for that. If you're an
expert survivalist at the highest tier, did we tell them that we're getting seeds?
Yep? Oh nice, Yeah, I knew that. I'm definitely on
the Patreon Nick is really just supports this so much. I am great at
morally supporting you. Yeah, well, you did hit me with the stuffed
animal target today. I did hit you with the stuffed analet target today,
and then you asked me why I was starting shit with you. Correct like
you could just let me hit you and move on, but no, Yeah,
I had to fight back from it. It's always the first who swings
second that gets in trouble. Anyways, thank you all once again at patreon
dot com, slash get a Live for supporting us, and yeah, otherwise
we're just gonna get right into it this week. We are going back to
Nick's request, mountain goats and big horn sheep. Hell yes, and look
at you. You were in a a sweatshirt with a what is that mountain
goat or all this is? This is a mountain goat. They got like
chicken wings for legs, according to the drawing on my shirt from Glacier National
Park. So it's official. Yeah. So when I went to Glacier,
Oh my god, I feel like I mentioned that trip so much on this
podcast, but I went to talk about freaking seventy stone every episode. It
is relevant. Yeah. Yeah, So I went to Glacier, and I
guess the reason I wore this other than the fact that I wanted to like
rip the animal. And this is one of the odds I have a piece
of clothing with a mountain goat on it, of all things. It's a
great sweatshirt. So when we went to Glacier, me and my family,
the way that you can see mountain goats there is you have to drive to
the top of like drive to the very top of the going to the Sun
road, which is only available to drive like certain times of the year because
otherwise there's so much snow and it's way too dangerous. But another reason I
wanted to wear it was to point out the fact that, you know,
we're talking about conservation issues for these animals and like they live in such you
know, difficult terrain to get to and them being habituated to people is not
good for them. I literally couldn't even hike that trail. We got up
at like five in the morning to go hike it because there were so many
people. We could not find parking and glacier. I mean all I guess
all the national parks have had such an uptick in people since COVID that we
literally couldn't even I couldn't even go inside the gift shop because there was no
place to park for like twenty minutes and we just gave up. So think
of that amount of people, and this was the off season at like five
in the morning going to see the mountain goats, that is thousands and thousands
of people. So that's another issue they have. Yeah, it's really surrounded
by people. Yeah, the trail that I would see them on sometimes in
Josh Root Trail, think I saw them three or four times in talking Abou
mountain goats. Yah, yeah, yes, sorry, you know, same
episode. So they when like the times that I saw them, like same
thing was on trails that were like super popular with people, and we're yeah,
there was always people there. Yeah, so it makes sense why they
can habituated people, you know somehow. Like all the hiking I did and
Josh Tree with my my really nice camera, I never once got a photo
of them. Never once. That's frustrating. Yeah, yeah, I'm so
sad that I went all the way Glacier and like didn't even to see a
mountain go like unicorns. We got to see a prong horn, and uh,
I love me a prong horn. Yet, yeah, I saw a
pronghorn in Grand Tetons. I was. I got out of the car.
I did not run after them, of course, but I was like,
oh my god, I was so excited. I didn't know they were cool.
I had no idea that there were no idea. Yeah, like we
we none of us really knew. Like we were kind of driving along and
like someone like looked out the corner of the window and they're on the side
of a mountain there, coming down a hill and he was like, whoa
man, that's a species I should have looked into for this episode. Did
they kill me? But no, oh well, yeah I tried. Anyways,
they're really cool look at They're really good to look at. There's on
the animals that I always assume is African, and I want to hear that
they are an American species. It really full. Yeah you hear antelope and
you don't think of yeah America exactly, yeah exactly. Yeah, but hey,
they evolved to live around the North American cheetah, which is now extinct,
so they can run a ridiculous speed for no reason. Yeah, it's
outrun wolves, guess yeah, like realistically, or wolve's even a national predator
for them. They can catch them if the thing is like sick or like
a baby maybe, but otherwise like giant pack of wolves. Thank god,
yeah, massive, good luck. So did you do you still have the
same preparation that you did before? Yeah, the exact same preparation. Okay,
perfect. Yeah. So, however, because these animals don't usually kill
people, I've turned this episode into what I'm calling unruly undulates because we love
the word undulates. It's a great word. It's a great word. It
taught me when I was like eighteen, and I've been all about it ever
since. And now you all are all about it, so we're gonna just
jump right in. And if you are new here or haven't heard the word
undulate before, undulate are generally large mammals with hooves, and they're divided into
two groups. So you've got your odd toed undulates, which is also known
as parisa dactyla, and that includes horses, rhinos, tape ears, among
other things. And then you have even toad undulates, also known as aardiodactyla,
which includes cows, pigs, sheep, giraffes, deer, and hippos.
Hipposuff hoofs. Technically, I guess really, Oh well, what I'm
about to say is going to shock you even more. Cetaceans are part of
Audiodactyla. What are citations? Cetaceans are whales, dolphins, and no shit,
porpoises, yes, any hooves. I know they got flippers, it's
not wild nuts. Well, I guess. So the reason that they're lumped
into this category because this was the first time I realized this, I guess,
and I threw a pole out on Twitter and I was like is this
real? And everyone was like yes, I mean you could google it and
not put out a pole like there's been funny. I did find out on
Google, but I was like, I want to ask people who actually know
what they're talking about. Could Google could be anybody? Could be anyone?
Oh my god, what if it was me? I wasn't. I'm gonna
start on editing Wikipedia pages. Don't think you can do that anymore. That's
probably for the best. Anyways. So cetaceans the way that they've so whales,
dolphin, porpoises. Also, because we're recording in person, you were
at my house. I've got two dogs that click clack around, so you're
any click clacking or any slurp, and that's what that is. I also
have a cat next to me that may attack me at some point. Yeah.
She is unpredictable, and she is adorable. And the touch of so
soft and she hates it. Oh she doesn't like it. Yep. Yeah,
maybe stop concentus key nick oh. Also speaking of stuff, I guess
happy Pride month. Thanks congratulations to you on your Pride month. I guess
thank you so much. Nature is gay, so am I moving on?
So cetaceans evolved from sea creatures, as most things did when on land,
were like, nah, this shit sucks. And then went back to the
ocean. So the reason that they're grouped into audiodactyl is because they share common
ancestors. That makes these animals. Yeah, and cetaceans are most related to
hippos. No shitetically yep, I guess, yeah, I guess that makes
sense. Yeah, big fat marine mammal. Yeah, I guess I'd call
hips more like an aquatic. Yeah, okay, cool in my mind that
marine and aquatic would be the same thing. Marines like ocean. Well,
when I was in the marines, oh here, I was in the desert.
So yeah. So Also, some people use the term set audiodactyla to
differentiate, so like cetations, they just put like cet in front of audiodactyla.
Goatcha. That's not like an official thing. That's kind of like no,
and like ardiodactyl and parisa dactyla aren't even official anyways, Stop trying to
pet the cats. Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, she's saying next
to me, so clearly she's going to keep fighting you. God like it.
So the first species that we're going to talk about is bigcorn. Cheap
Yes, have you seen bigcorn? I have seen big horns? Sheep in
my life multiple times. Really yeah, good for you. So some really
cool stuff, you know some I'm in Joshtreet National Parks. I'm on the
Marine Corps base. When we're flying around a helicopter we uh no, we
were flying to a radio tower out in the middle of nowhere and they were
like a bunch of cheap on mountains, so we like chase them around the
helicopters. One that's cool. Well yeah, yeah, So I think the
base actually drops water out there for them because it's like such a room area
there's like no water. Wow. Yeah, so they helicopter in water.
The helicopters are like, oh yeah, oh cute, yeah wow nice,
okay cool. So the scientific name for bighorn sheep is Ovis canadensis. They're
one of two species of wild sheep in North America, with the other being
the doll sheep that lives in more arctic regions. Is that like the white
one with the pointy horns and so they're the round horns or no, that's
mountain goats. Oh, those are mountain goats. Yeah, but I'll be
completely honest, I have no idea what the different from the mountain goat and
the sheep are. Yeah, so I'm gonna describe it to you. But
doll sheep are like they have sheep horns like bighorn sheep, but they're also
white. So sometimes they can be a little bit confused with the mountain goat,
but they are different. Are you googling it right now? Yeall?
Doll d l Well have never got that right of all the ways it was
spelled doll. That's that's the last dale. I mean, it's just like
doll, but with an A instead of O. So, just because I
sometimes also confuse them with mountain goats, bighorn sheep are muscular and have short,
chocolate brown fur with some white on their muzzle butt in belly. They're
yoked out. Oh yeah, when you get nearer one like they are.
They are some thick motherfuckers. So they've got wide set eyes similar to a
domestic goat or sheep, and their horns are large and curved back. And
their horns alone can weigh up to thirty pounds or fourteen kilograms. Yeah,
yeah, you have to. You gonna need a thick neck to carry that
on all day, you know. Yeah. Males weigh around three hundred and
fifty pounds or one hundred and fifty nine kilograms, and females weigh between one
hundred and sixty to two hundred fifty pounds or seventy three to one thirteen kilgrims,
which is a lot. Yeah, those are those are big animals.
Yeah, even on the lower end, they're all like significantly heavier than me.
No, it's crazy when you think of like heavy animals, you think
of like bears and like fucking hippos and shit, like they're all kind of
blubbery and fat. There's no fat on these animals like they are. Yeah,
they are shredded well. Also, doesn't muscle way more than fat?
Way more? Yeah, way more, way more? Yes. Yeah,
and these things are oh yeah, like I said, thick boys built.
Oh yeah, I admire them so much, good as you should. They're
also not considered as agile as mountain goats though, but they're still great at
climbing steep terrain yep. And they can be on ledges as small as two
inches or five centimeters wide. Fuck isn't that wild? Why would you want
to do that? Because you're a goat? Sorry? True, because you're
a sheep? Oh yes, I mean the goats also can be on a
ledge small small but smaller ledges probably Yeah, So I guess now is a
good time to mention it. But similar to last episode, I'm going to
plug another episode of Ologies with Ali Ward. There's an episode called I'm gonna
plug two up in this episode, but the first one is Bovine Neuropathology with
Nicole Ackerman's and it's all about headbutting, specifically of bovine. So they talk
a lot about bitcorn sheep, and in that episode or in the other episode
I'm going to talk about they have a quote that's like sheep go where humans
can't go, and goats go where sheep can't go. So like mountain goats
are just way the fuck up there, I can't reach. Have you ever
seen any videos of like sheep punts, not cheap punts, but I've seen
them like run down they are like they are madness, they're really cool,
full expeditions, like out in the middle of fucking nowhere and they're shooting like
across canyons. Like yeah, we'll get into that. I mean, Also,
that's what Jeremy did. That's what Jermy was doing. Here is on
was he sheephunter or a goat hunt. I think he was big horn sheep
punting as he was attacked by the grizzly Yeah. Anyways, so big horn
sheep are listed as Least concern and the IUCN Red List says that there's around
forty nine thousand mature individuals that I feel like that's a good number. Yeah,
it's great. Yeah, it's not least concerned. Yeah. Yeah.
They are found in North America, but populations in Mexico have not been studied
as much as the US and Canada, so they do exist like throughout.
So big horn sheep mostly eat grass, but their diets do vary a lot
across their entire range, which makes so much sense because they can be in
Canada and also Mexico, so like not eating the same stuff, and males
and females are typically separated unless it's the running season. So the ret time
period also depends on where the sheep is living in the world. So,
for example, according to Big Horn Institut, Desert bighorn sheep are between August
November and Rocky Mountain and California's sheep ruts are between October and January, so
pretty much just like later in the year. Yeah, every time I've ever
seen him, they've been grouped up, So I wonder I don't remember specifically
what time of year that was, but I assume it was all during the
rut. Yeah, which it makes sense too, because like they were not
going to be around people as much when they're more solid to Oh yeah,
of course solitary and males will hang out in groups of five to fifty individuals,
and females will form like nursery groups ranging from five to one hundred individuals
that includes adult females, lambs and young males. Female staff horns two right,
yes, but not as like, not as pronounced. Yeah, they've
got like more nubbins rather than the big like curled back classic big horn sheep.
Look. Oh yeah, and when you find the one who's in charge,
when you find the big boy, the big boy, you know,
you know right away, like he's like in charge that you fucking watches over
the whole group and everything. Yeah, it's sick. Yeah, it's pretty
cool. Nature nature motherfuckers. So they also typically have different summer and winter
ranges, and males will especially wander long distances up to sixty kilometers for females
that are open to breeding nice. Yeah, consent is key. Consent is
key. Don't travel sixty kilometers for consent to open female. And when males
compete at the rut, they run at each other at speeds of up to
forty miles an hour or sixty four kilometers. Get your fucking bell rung per
hour. I said just kilometers, they'll run out sixty four kilometers. I
meant kilometers. They run for sixty kilometers. Yeah, they run sixty four
kilometers straight. And this is the classic. Like if you see sheep looking
animals head butting, it's these big horn sheep. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
that's the stereotype. Yeah. And the soald that's made from them hitting
their horns together can be heard for up to mile away. Do you know,
doll sheep do the whole thing, the head butting. That's a great
question, I would have, gre up. I would assume if they have
the horns and they're like a close relative to big corn sheep. No,
I'm with you. Yeah, yeah, So that's if this is something that
you're interested in, Like here more about the headbutting and stuff. I highly
recommend that episode of Ologies the Bovine Neuropathology. But I'm gonna give a few
highlights from that episode. So a few really interesting things I found were For
a long time, everyone just assumed that bighorn sheep didn't get concussions, which
is an interesting thing to think when you have something to smashing its brain against
another wall, when you have literally no evidence. Yeah, yeah, it's
probably that's probably how it works. No one's ever looked at a sheep's brain.
Yeah, So the guest in that episode, Nicole Ackermans, is literally
the first person to ever investigate it, so she had to do a lot
of pioneering of different techniques to figure out how to answer it, and she
did bighorn sheep and muskox, who also ram heads. So I'm also going
to link to her study in the show notes, and it was titled evidence
of traumatic brain injury and headbutting Bovids, and her preliminary finding showed that muskox
and bighorn cheap do indeed suffer from chronic or cute brain trauma, and what
may protect them from more intense trauma is basically their thick skulls. Yeah,
so my takeaway was, yes, in some species, males having a fixed
skull is beneficial. I think in all species. That is a good thing
to have, you never it's just you know, for safety of the brain,
that's why. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've
knocked my head around a few times. I have a prethext skull. I'm
not sure if anyone knew that never been concussed, not once, certainly I
remember all of them. And when her and like the Nicole Ackerman's and Ali
were talking about it, Ali was like, you know, why would they
evolve to still have brain trauma? And Nicole was like, I think it
just doesn't matter because like by the time it would affect them, they just
die anyways. Like they're not a very long way species. Like if you
look into like a fucking sheep's eyes, like there's not a lot going on
there anyway. Like even no they like domestic sheep, obviously, they're just
fucking nothing. There's nothing there. There's like two brain cells exactly. They're
fighting with each other. Yeah, and the wild ones don't seem too too
much different. Doesn't seem like there's a lot of emotion behind those things.
Yeah, that's fair, I'll give you that. Yeah. And I also
to throw this in somewhere because it really blew my mind in that episod.
So they also reveal you know how I said that cetaceans are part of the
audiodactyla, even toad unngulia group. No sure for that. They also head
butt. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I listen to the
same episode. Yeah I remember that now. Yeah, whales head butt,
dolphins head but each other. That's crazy, Which I feel like we knew
that a little bit about that way the workers, right, they been they've
been knocking stuff the heads. That's true. They do head but each other.
Yeah, but I didn't know that, like in the wild that was
the thing they commonly do to like fight. Yeah, that's like a dominance
thing. I don't know. They're like they didn't go into it too too
much. Yeah, she was like, yeah, there's videos of them just
jumping out of the water and dash each other's heads, fucking two dolphins flying
through the air, just crashing into each other and knock and melons. It's
pretty bad ass though. Yeah. So, although bighorn sheep are considered least
concerned, they still do face some issues, and the biggest one probably is
epizoonotics, which is basically the word that we use for an epidemic and non
human animals, epizoonotics, and the biggest concern between all, like the epizoonotic
potentials is pneumonia and mange, and this happens when they come in contact with
domestic sheep and goats, and pneumonia that they can tracked from domestic sheep can
kill an entire herd of big horn sheep, which has been recorded in California
and Washington according to a nineteen eighty two study. So it's a really big
deal. Yeah, they get it. Yeah. I saw an article about
that and it was like the area that I was in in California and it
was like where twenty other sheep were found dead. Oh, like oh fuck,
Yeah, it sucks. Sometimes poaching does happen to large trophy males,
even within national parks, which is a huge no no. But this doesn't
threaten their overall population, which is good. And this was a bigger threat
to them in the nineteenth century, but their numbers have recovered thanks to wildlife
management and conservation efforts. And in Canada, big horn sheep have experienced a
genetic consequence due to hunting, so now males have smaller horns. Oh no
shit, yeah, because people they kicked the males with the big horns.
Yeah, yeah, shit, yep, that's pretty cool. I think that's
a similar thing happening in Africa, where obviously the elephants are the biggest tusks
were taken for ivory, so now like they're continuing to have smaller and smaller
tusks. Yeah, maybe I'm making that up, but that sounds like a
thing that It absolutely sounds like a thing. What makes sense, I suit
I could see that with like most animals, Like if you had align with
a big main Yeah, if I was a trophy on right, I want
that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, if I was killing animals illegally
in for funk correctly, yeah yeah. And then specifically in Mexico, a
habitat degradation fragmentation is a bigger issue for them, as well as competition with
domestic livestock. So now to get into the attack portion, which is really
nothing because to be fully honest, they really don't attack people, which is
good. You know, I really thought they were a lot more dangerous than
they are. They look it, right, they look at Yeah, absolutely.
I mean there's plenty of videos of like people in Colorado, for example,
pulling up on herd the man. The man the male sheep just like
runs at them and bashes their car. But it's not like they're killing people.
Yeah, they've never really even like gone well I shouldn't say've never.
It's hard to find examples of them charging people at all. Well, let
me tell you one story. So the most recent I could find was from
Cedar Hills, Utah, and there was a group of sheep that were known
to the area that would frequent the local golf club in the winter or would
come around town and search water. I did see this near the end of
March or early April in twenty fifteen. The local water spring was dried up
and they were coming around, which was like early for them to be in
the area, And normally the sheep were not a problem, which I'm assuming
similar to like white tail deer here in New England, Like they're just they're
just kind of the exists, but they don't do a whole lot. That
being said, I did just post a video to our Facebook page of a
white tail deer absolutely wrecking dogs. Oh yeah, did you watch it?
No? I did not, as the one that's like stepping on the dogs.
I've seen a lot of videos of white it's two videos like clumped together
of deer jumping or running through fences and just yeah, absolutely beating a crap
out of dogs. It is horrifying to watch. Yeah, that's like why
I assumed that they were so much more dangerous than they are. That's why
I assumed the sheep were much more dangerous because they're way beefier than a deer,
And I assumed that there would be tougher in the rut because he seemed
bashing heads into shit, Like, yeah, I would think that they've if
I walked up on a group of female sheep and there was a male with
them, the male be like, huh, I'm coming for your motherfucking asse.
He never did. No, that's I mean, good for you.
I'm happy for you. I was always very safe around them. I was
never fucking around with them. Only with bears. Okay, that's one time.
It was only one time. When did you fuck around with the bear?
I really fuck around with it? Oh? Is that yo, Samity?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're part of the problem anyways. In
June of twenty fifteen, a two year old male bighorn sheep was euthanized for
showing abnormally aggressive behavior what was doing so June is outside of their typical runting
season, which is in November in that area, so it was weird for
him to be aggressive at all. But this mail was chasing golfers at a
local golf course and would challenge cars and even houses. And there's a video
of him on YouTube headbutting someone's glass door. So did do you have more
of a story with that glass door, because I just read something on that
Okay. So he had many separate instances of property damage, including a garage
door breaking, breaking a tail light, and broke a window. So specifically
the person that took the video of him hitting the glass door on YouTube,
they called local animal control who could not scare him away even with rockets or
rubber bullets. It's a badass, fucking sheep. So for days, this
male returned to this house and would just hit their door and they had no
idea why it. Even biologis were like, I don't know. And when
he broke a window in the back of their house, it was the last
straw. So the Division of Wildlife Resources stepped in and euthanized the ram.
And they had originally tried to get a local archery hunter to harvest it because
it's a once in a lifetime chance and Utah to hunt a big horn sheep.
But that would require getting the ram out of the town and having the
hunter encountered the exact correct ram. So the DWR just captured it and euthanized
it themselves. Would it be easier just to give the guy a pass to
go shoot in some guy's backyard. No, that's just I feel like it
would be. I think they were trying to be nice, to be like,
hey, let's give the opportunity to somebody get a house. I understand
like why they were doing that, but it's also like if that at a
fucking golf course, just give the dude his bone and his bowe. Well,
I think it was like more he was at the house, so you'd
be shooting at a house with a bow and arrow. Yeah. Still,
yeah, they were kids present. I mean, you have the family leave
while you're doing this. It's not that's the same day. I mean,
this freaking sheep was banging on the door of this house for like days,
weeks. It was every day at seven am. It's like how they wake
up every day, is the sheep banging on the window. Anyways, they
did ane cropsy on this sheep, which revealed nothing that's weird. Yeah,
they said he was quote just an ordinary teenager, just mad at reflections.
Maybe maybe yeah, just a little. Maybe maybe he had some brain damage
from knocking his head around too much. It would make sense, wouldn't it.
Yeah, yeah, getting some behavior changes. Yeah, if you get
like two messed up, yeah for sure, or the bad brain. That's
wh Nicole Ackerman's was saying. She was like, you know, there's no
evidence of like what is normal behavior in these animals, or like what would
be abnormal if they had a concussion, because no one's been able to like
really study that or there hasn't really been interest to study that. So even
if it was knocked around a lot and acting weird, like, we don't
know what weird h it would be. You can't see it at a point
of it's life when it hasn't bang. He can't do like an MRI on
a live sheet. No, so pretty cool though, it would be really
cool if you could get one dead. Maybe do that for like a master's
program. Start MRI and sheep nom set. You have a lot of fun.
Thank you, I'll help you. Well, No, that's okay.
Otherwise, like I said, there's virtually no attacks from big horn sheep on
people, None that I could find that led to the death of a person.
So just like every other wild animal, give them space, but especially
give them space in the running season, and you should be okay. Just
I assume everything's going to try and kill me during the rut. Yeah,
I think it's safe to assume that most things will attack you, So just
lead them alone. Yeah, yeah, give it space. Yeah, even
Canada geese give them space. Fuck those things. So now let's get to
mountain goats. So once again I will be plugging the ologies podcast. If
you'd like to learn more about mountain goats in general, check out the episode
Oreamnology Mountain Goats with Julie Cunningham and I will link all these in the episode
description, of course. And ironically, if you listen to that episode around
fifty four minutes, you will hear my name because apparently I had the foresight
that we were going to talk about these animals someday, and I asked Julie
how we can record eat safely around mountain goats. So we'll get into that
nice. Yeah. Perfect. You don't look at past me thinking about stuff.
So what are mountain goats. I'm not sure they're not goats. They're
not mount hang on. Mountain goats are not goats, correct, they are
not goats when you say not goats, They're not like the European goats that
were brought over. They do look goatish, Yeah, they look pretty goated.
So remember in our Romanian bear attack episode, I mentioned a species of
goats antelope in the area that I definitely mispronounced, and I was wondering if
it was a taken in Nepal, which it definitely was. Oh yeah it
was not. So apparently it's pronounced shammy. Oh my god, this thing.
Yes, but it's spelled c h A M O I S, which
is wild. Yeah. I'm not gonna give you stair for that one,
thank you very much. I yeah, just love to. But at least
that's how Google said to pronounce it, and I'm going to take it.
So the a I don't know. Shit. So the shammy is the closest
living relative to the mountain goat that we know here in North America. Oh
no, shit, Yeah, So the mountain goats we know here only occur
in northwestern North America and they're the only living member of their genus and their
scientific name is Aureamnos Americanas. These mountain goats are white and have like a
little beard. They have black horns that stick straight up, so not curled
back like the bighorn sheep, and the horns are present in both sexes,
so it can be a little hard to tell them apart. And you can
get like really specific about like how the horns curve and like the length that
they are to differentiate the sexes. And then also the easiest way to tell
the sexes apart in mountain goats is how they pee. Oh so like one
squat and one just kind of one squat's more and the other like leans forward
kind of like dogs. Yeah yeah, I guess, yeah yeah. And
if you would like a more visual and musical description of the difference between mountain
goats and bighorn sheep, Canada's Parks Department has a video called Goat, Sheep
Goat that's a polka song about the difference between mountain goats and bighorn sheep.
And we'll plug a little clip that's gonna sound yeah, can we can't we
please run this? Yeah? Jesse put it in goats and sheep ming high.
We don't need your ropes. Nope, you may see sheep upon the
road bringing traffic to a hunt. I really cannot help myself. I'm down
here in salt. So anyways, males do way more, and I think
their size also depends on where they are like geographically, because Washington State said
that males get up to one hundred and eighty pounds, but Alaska reported an
average weight of two hundred and eighty pounds, with the largest male ever weighing
three hundred and eighty pounds. Fuck. Yeah, that thing is just chilling
on the side of a mountain. Yeah, cleaning onto like pebbles pretty much.
Yep, damn yep. It's not really a species that like it doesn't
gain anything from me that big, right, I mean there's muscle. Yeah.
Also like for what like the way that they escape the predators is all
about being in excessive it's not about even running away like yeah, but much
the way that they pull themselves like they climb, Oh yeah, that have
to be yeah, so power from that comes from their shoulders. So they
have to be like really strong and like like a mountain climber, like they're
always fucking yeah, I mean the mountain goats, like the way that they
once again listen to the ologies episode with the Julie Cunningham, the expert on
mountain goats, but they basically are doing pull ups all day, like running
up mountains. Badass. Yeah, so they're as Yeah. So if you
thought bighorn sheep were bad asses, mountain goats where it's at. I'm still
into the takings. Yeah, you're allowed to have favorites. So mountain goats
are found at very high elevations in remote areas and making them the least studied
large mammal in North America. I believe that. Yeah, I think that's
how they were able to repopular. So like that bighorn sheep specifically wear ably
repoplate. So well, it's because they're hard to get to Yeah maybe,
yeah, I mean animals that would be more around humans, its can be
harder for them to repopulate. Sure. Yeah. So mountain goats live west
of the Continental Divide and in the US they are native to Alaska all the
way down to Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. So mountain goats
have also been introduced into Utah, Colorado, and different parts of Washington and
Montana where they were not originally and they will spend their entire winters at these
high elevations if there's exposed brows for them to eat, but goats in coastal
areas will migrate to lower elevations in the winter. Do you know why they
introduce them to two new areas because they could I think? Or are they
historically from there? Is it just kind of like no, these were new
areas like where they were not native to. It's not like they went like
locally extinct area. They just were like wouldn't it be cool? Yeah,
So science were just like, oh, like these things could probably survive here.
Pretty well, let's make a new population here. Yeah, fucking up,
fuck you out down? Yeah yeah. I mean it's not again like
the spe stalle oves in mountains, like if there's a giant fucking distance between
mountains, like they're not gonna be able to get to a certain area,
so cool. Unlike elk or deer, they live a more solitary lifestyle and
they can hide out in caves or cliff crevices. So, like I said,
studying them is super difficult unless you have access to a helicopter. Their
kids so cute. Yeah, they're so cute. But also they use community
science in the form of goat spotters, and you can volunteer to get out
there with some biologists to count goats and I will link that in the episode
description. If you live in an area with mountain goats, you can go
out and look for them. I would love to do that, wouldn't be
so fat? A great Saturday morning to go on with for ghosts, Yeah,
for sure. So similar to bighorn sheep, their running season depends on
where they're located. But to keep it simple, it's in the fall or
the winter. Yeah, end of the year. That makes sense. Unlike
bighorn sheep, mountain goats do not headbutt to fight for females. And I
think the best way to describe the differences between the two species in terms of
like how they fight is if they were dungeons and dragons classes. Oh boy,
big horn sheep would be barbarians and mountain goats would be fighters. Okay,
does that make any sense to you? No? Okay, so divulge
me for a moment. So barbarians are like big strong, They run at
things with big heavy like two handed weapons. I like that. Yeah,
that's why I would want to do it. Whereas fighters are like more fast
and use like a sharp sword to like stab. But they're like doing a
lot of skill and moving and stuff. Okay, so big horn sheep run
each other smash, whereas mountain goats are like dip into the side to stab
you from the side. So are they pretty good at defending themselves against predators
with the horns? Like, is that a common use for the horns or
just kind of like for mating purposes? No, I think it's I mean
they do. They don't fight nearly as much as big horn sheep, but
I mean you can't they'd stab each other. Yeah, I mean they do,
but it's not like they always die, Like I don't think that that's
a very common method of death for them. But their biggest predator, especially
for the younger goat children, is golden eagles. Yes, so they are
very aware of predation from this guy, because gold eagles will come down try
to take like a little baby goat and knock it off a cliff and eat.
What a sick way of hunting. We weren't over this enter Golden Eagle
episode, but what a fucking smart way to do it. Yeah, just
run them off a fucking cliff. They're so scary. Yeah, Like I
respect the crab out of golden eagles, man, right, they're huge,
they're so cool. Yeah. So I imagine like drones becoming more popar is
probably quite scary for the goats and the sheep. Yeah. I was going
to touch on that later, but especially for mountain goats, who are so
aware of predation from above, they get really bothered by drones. They run
away. There's nothing else they can do, right, yeah, just keep
going up. But like you're stressing them out, which isn't great, no,
you know, yeah yeah yeah, I mean otherwise they're probably biggest start
to be mountain lions because mountains could probably run after them. Yep. Otherwise,
like I mean there was a recorded death from wolves ooh, but they'd
have to. And I mean they live around grizzlies sometimes, but you figure
they're in such like remote places and like steep places. It's hard for pretty
much anything else to get at them. I have absolutely recently seen a video
and Natre's Metal of a bear going after the mountain goat. Huh a mountain
goat? Yeah? Really yeah, and the bear like falls off the mountain
and dies, and there's a video. There's a video of it. Yet
No, I don't want to see that. Don't look it up. Okay,
oh my god, it's definitely not looking it up. Oh my god.
See, I feel like that account is so cool. I'm just way
too soft to follow it. I can't do it. It's interesting stuff like
you don't need to love everything about it. Yeah, but it's still interesting
to see that because it happens, you know, objectively, it's interesting,
but in theory, I don't want to see it makes sense. Nature is
metal, I am not anyways. Typically, the males from ages five to
ten are the ones that breed with multiple females, and occasionally, if they
do fight, instead of budding heads, like I said, they stab each
other with their horns. So the hunting community doesn't really have much of an
effect on the population because so many or the males like mate with multiple females,
So it's not a big deal if a male leaves the community, right,
leave the population. Yeah. I was gonna touch on that later too,
but we can talk about it now. Sorry I keep jumping ahead.
I mean, you don't know my notes. This is why I'm not allowed
to do research on the stuff because I want to bring stuff up out out
of order that you want. That's fine, I don't care. So yeah.
Yeah, Basically, hunting is really dependent on where you are in the
populations that you're hunting. So if you are someone who wants to hunt mountain
goats, you have to make sure that you know. I mean you would
know because you'd be getting the test. Yeah, you need to know the
laws no matter what you're hunting. Yeah. But for example, so they're
not a really long waved species, like they don't even live to be really
twenty, but the females take quite a few years to mature, like more
than normal, and they only have a kid like once a year, once
every two years. Yeah, only one kid out of time exactly. Yeah,
So it makes more sense to kill males because that way you still have
more breeding females. But in some areas with the mountain goats, like there's
a lot of them, you can't take a female. So it depends on
the area. But yeah, I mean, also I think we've got to
acknowledge if you are a person who hunts mountain goats, like that's gotta be
one of the hardest things to hunt. Yeah, that is crazy, I
think so, I think. I think that's gotta be one of the most
intense hunts there are. That's gonna be so dangerous because you're like climbing walls
of ice probably to try to just even scout for that in grizzly bear infested
areas. As we've learned, Hey, it's not infested if it's their home,
that's yeah. You are absolutely correct, and you're walking into the home
of all these animals and you are nothing but a fleshy little baby with a
gun. Yeah, which is pretty effective, to be fair. Yeah,
well, if you aim right and if you're able to get it while you're
being attacked, it works. Yeah. And then just one more little fact.
Similar to bighorn sheep, the males tend to separate from females and kids
during the non running season. So that's it's sick. No. Unlike bigcorn
sheep, mountain goats have been recorded killing people. Let's talk about it.
Really. Oh yeah, how did I not find so? I actually looked
up let's go to Olympic National Park in Washington State. I you know what,
Actually I did see this one. I saw I was like the only
one, so I purposely did not read it perfect. Thanks. So.
Olympic National Park was one of those areas where mountain goats were introduced. I
really want to go there some day. On a side note, Yeah,
that's like top my list. Cool, Okay, you just want me to
know that, you want everyone know that. I just know that. Cool.
I really so. Mound goats were introduced in the nineteen twenties to Olympic
National Park, so they weren't considered native to the area, and sixty three
year old Robert H. Boardman set out on October sixteenth, twenty ten,
to hike with his wife Susan, and friend Pat Willitts in Olympic National Park.
The small group got four miles north of Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center along the
top of claw Hain Ridge, and around twelve thirty pm, they stopped for
lunch and as they were eating, they were approached by a very aggressive male
goat. Robert told the others to head back down the trail, and he
said that he'd tried to shew the goat away, and because Robert ended up
alone with the goat, no one really witnessed what happened next, but Susan
and Pat heard him scream and ran back. Robert was lying motionless on the
ground with a stab wound in his thigh and the male goat was standing over
his body. Ooh. Susan and Patt tried to shew the goat away,
but he would not leave and instead just stared them down while he stood over
Robert, who was bleeding. Another group including Jessica, Bill Bacchis, and
their three kids, came upon the scene and saw Pat on the phone seemingly
frantic and stepped into help. And Bill was actually a park scientist, which
was convenient, so he had a park radio and immediately called for help,
and thanks to his experience in the park, Bill had three of them spread
out along the slope and throw rocks to the goat while yelling at it,
and it finally backed away for a few minutes, only because it got distracted
by a reflection on a hiker's space, Like, like, not even from
the rocks they're yelling it just like saw a shiny object and was like,
huh, yeah, there are some I guess that they don't look like they
got a lot going on behind his eyes. Nope. Correct. Also,
Jessica Bill's wife was a former park ranger and she was trained in first aid,
so she tried to help Robert, but she didn't get access to him
until one twenty pm and they started eating lunch around like twelve thirty. Oh
yeah, he had no pulse and blood was coming from one of his legs.
Oh you bled out? Yeah. Fuck. The goat was still nearby
as she went to go tend to Robert, and someone was entirely dedicated just
to keeping an eye on the goat to make sure he didn't come back.
He got I mean shit, I guess he got lucky, but like he
got found by the best people he could have been found. I feel we
talked about this a lot, like it kind of works out that the best
possible people find each other. Well, this is gonna blow your mind.
So, like so many other stories, as Jessica was tending to Robert,
a doctor happened to be on a walk. I don't know why this happened.
How many doctors are there, There's got to be a lot there.
So I was out there. So the percentage of people that I meet,
like on a normal basis, none of them are intelligent be doctors. So
like there's no way that there's there's that many doctors out there. I think,
hun, I think that's more a reflection on you than anybody else.
Fuck, you're right, damn it. So the doctor stepped into help and
tried to give assistance, and the US Coast Guard arrived twenty minutes later,
and they were in a helicopter and they were able to airlift Robert to the
Olympic Medical Center in Port Angelus, where he was pronounced dead. Coast guard
huh yeah, oh that's pretty cool. Same either, Washington, Yeah,
absolutely, I did. I'm right by the water, yeah yeah. And
within hours of this incident, members of the National Park Service found the goat
who had killed Robert and euthanized it. Robert's family sued the National Park Service
for what because this goat was known for being aggressive. He had even been
nicknamed clawhyne Billy oh no, and was referenced in some emails within the National
Park Service as quote cranky goat, cranky doats. So a bit of an
understatement, yeah for sure. So in July two thousand and nine, National
Park employees tried to haze this goat because they were getting reports of him like
chasing people down trails, and they tried to throwing rocks at him, tried
shooting at him with bean bags, but obviously none of it worked. And
Susan Robert's wife alleged that they allowed this depth happen by not removing a known
dangerous animal. Shit, They might have a point. I might not completely
disagree. I mean, ultimately, the judge mostly throughout the lawsuit, okay,
and said that even the park no sorry, and said even though the
park could have acted more quickly to kill or relocate Clawhyn and Billy, their
actions are quote immune from lawsuits under the Federal Torte Claims Act. So basically
mean that, like, what happened was not caused by negligence or a wrongful
act by an employee or agent of the National Park Service, just a shitty
accident. Yeah, And I mean, because like, where do you draw
the line? No? Absolutely no, No, I agree, I absolutely
agree. I don't. I don't totally blame her for trying to go after
that one. Like if I had heard that my family was killed by an
animal that was known to be a nuisance, I'd be a little bit like,
yell, what the fuck why didn't you stop this? Yeah? Why
Yeah, whit what did you do? Wow? Why didn't you do something
sooner? You know, So I don't totally blame them, But at the
same time, like what could they have done to keep themselves safe in the
situation? You know, like did they get too close to the animal?
He probably should have left himself alone with it. Yeah, I agree,
that's that's the number one thing in my mind is stay with the group.
Yeah, you know, it's kind of for any animal, like I would
I would rather be in a group than than not be Yeah, for sure.
Yeah. Yeah, it brings me back to the Grizzly Nights episode,
Like, I wonder if any of those families sued the park Service because the
bears that killed those kids they were known to go after people. It was
such a different time though as well. So oh yeah, for sure,
like the sixties and seventies. Say, I don't think lawsuits were really what
they are today. Yeah, fair, because people suck now, people have
always suck, just in a different way now for sure. Yeah. So
why did claw Hayne Billy become so aggressive in the first place? Why did
that happen? At the time of Robert's death. It was the running season,
so it would make sense if he was a little more aggressive. But
anee cropsy revealed rabies. Nothing, Fuck, David, you set me up.
Imagine a rabid goat though, I mean it must be possible, right,
Like all mammals are yeah, all mammals, including cetaceans technically fuck yeah,
ah man, a rabbit or I was just gonna say, dude,
what if one of the wheels that see we're all got rabies. I'd be
crazy. My best friends are going to Lasca and Mark I would have to
warn them, look out for the rabies, look out for the rabbit orchan.
Look they're trying to think your boat. That's crazy. Anyways. Yeah,
so his knee cropsy revealed nothing interesting or like abnormal. So what made
him so aggressive? Well, it was known in this region, and Slash
is known in the Pacific Northwest that goats have become habituated people because they want
your pea. I'm sorry what they want to lick your pea? These goats
want a golden shower. Yeah, because they crave salt, which is not
naturally produced a lot in the area, and they started associating people with salt
because people will, you know, as they're hiking, will just whip it
out, and so the goats are like yum. And then so now they're
chasing people for their pea. I love this. It's so weird. They
want your pee. Yep, fascinate. So just a watch up. I
guess I never realized that salt would be that uncommon in nature that they would
want to chase after people to get it. Well, I mean, you
know, deer and moose like salt lakes. Yeah, but they don't chase
after people's pee. Yeah, but they do go inside of the road to
look salt. So they do. They do. Absolutely. You figure these
goats are at the top of a goddamn mountain, Like there's not many places
for them to go to get salt. Yeah, so you pee and they're
like thingkspell wow. Yeah. So like what is this like a normal thing,
Like are multiple goats doing this or is just like cheap go we are
on right, mountain goats mountain goat all right, I got all of them
up on my my computer, nowsing. Yeah, So, like, is
this a normal thing for the goats to do to go out in the Pacific
Northwest? It is recorded in like a known phenomenon that they will like chase
after people or like approach people for their peak. What probably people sweat,
like can they smell someone who has like really bad bo or something like when
they're sweat? Maybe, but I feel like it's less common for a goat
to walk up in the liquor start licking your fucking hand like yeah, because
you'd be like, please don't. Probably, but also like what's he?
How's he? How's he getting the pe because people peel on a wrap and
then they're like, uh, that makes way more sense than what my more
peeing on goats? That okay. I kind of thought that people would be
peeing and the goat would come like running over as their pin. Maybe that
happens now, but I'm sure if you were peeing and a goat ran towards
you, you'd probably stop. I'd probably pissed myself more. I'd put it
back in my pants, like I get back there, it's being drenched,
And then they'd be chasing you because he'd be like let me, oh no,
something like that. Naked and the one pants at them. I don't
think that's no. I think that's I think that's the safest way to get
out of these goat naked we are taking some turns, so let's move right
along. So, like I said, the goats in the Olympic National Park
area were introduced, meaning they weren't native, right, So, beginning in
twenty eighteen, the National Park Service, the USDA Force Service, and Washington
Department of Fishing Wildlife set out to get the Olympic National Force population of mountain
goats to zero. What the fuck? What? Yeah? Wh wha what?
No? No? No, no. So they introduced them and now
they're trying to kill them all off. Yeah, they're like, take these
taxis and they are removing them. But the reason is they wanted to relocate
all the goats to the Cascade Range where they were native, but populations have
been really depleted. So they were basically like, well, they're fucking with
people here. They killed the guy, so let's just let's take all the
goats and move them over there where they're dying. Yep. I know,
I couldn't find out like why they were depleted in that region, if it
was like hunting or something. So they're not murdering them off though, they're
just moving them. Okay, So here's what happened. Oh no, in
twenty twenty, they had their last captured and translocation effort, and in total,
three hundred and twenty five goats were released in the Cascade Mountains. Oh
wow, that's a lot. Actually, however, it's supposed to every last
goat because they're so hard to find. So, you know, we were
talking about the goat counts earlier. The biologist in that ologies episode was saying,
even if I count every single goat, I can see I know for
a fact, I'm not counting every goat because some are just in areas that
people cannot access. So I mean I assume that with every animal pretty much.
Yeah an account. Obviously you're popping up with a helicopter, they're like,
what is that giant ass loud bird. Go away, let me skirt
out here. So basically meaning it's impossible for the park Service to capture every
single least goat, right, So the remaining goats were in the worst terrain,
making capture unsafe for not only the people but also the goats. So
as time went on, from twenty eighteen to twenty twenty, the capture mortality
went from five percent to nine percent, meaning it was really unsafe to capture
the rest because they assumed like they are so remote and like, you know,
away from people, that the capture stress would be a lot for them.
I mean, if you're again, mountain goats, they sit on cliffs.
How can a fucking trank a goat on m Yeah they did it though,
which is crazy, and that's why the fucking the rate went up.
Yeah, yeah, that's that's true. Yeah yeah. So instead of letting
the goats live out the rest of their days there, because obviously they would
have been more goats, they gathered quote skilled volunteers aka hunters to lethally remove
the goats. In the fall of twenty twenty, thirty one goats were killed
this way, but it took a combined nine thousand hours across ninety nine volunteers.
Wow yeah wow, obviously not like you know, between ninety nine people
nine thousand hours. But that's still for thirty four No, sorry for thirty
one goats. I would put money to slow goats out there too, yeah.
Yeah. And then in twenty twenty one there was a two week aerial
operation in July and August and one hundred and thirteen more goats were removed this
way, so basically shooting them from helicopters, which has got to be crazy.
Definitely does not sound fun at all. It sounds a little bit fun.
Oh, this sounds a little bit fun. Yeah, aad Yeah,
fucked up? Yeah, well, I mean, I mean there are species
that people hunt. Yeah, Like, it's not wrong for you to want
to hunt in animal. As we've said, they're not endangered, like they're
all yeah, in this specific area. They're even trying to get rid of
them, and this is once again a once in a lifetime shot that you'd
be able to take them out and go. I just don't like the fact
that they brought them there and are now. Of course I don't like that
part to me either. Yeah, it seems like that's wherever problem. Yeah,
And I don't know if this was in response to Robert's death or if
this was just in general. They were like, you know what, not
working out here. I think that they were also disturbing some natural vegetation,
so they were like, let's move them to where they're supposed to be.
Whose fucking idea was this? I think when you forgot whose idea this was,
I kind of go after that. Some people in the nineteen twenties they're
dead now, probably all right, fair, So As of August twenty twenty
one, five hundred and twenty five goats were removed from the park, with
one hundred and fifty two being lethally removed. Six were euthanized for reasons I
could not ascertain. Twenty three died during capture and three died in transport.
I think it's pretty good, honestly. I mean that must have been really
expensive. Oh my god, yeah, absolutely many, like excluding the ones
that were that were killed. Like to move that many? Yeah, with
helicopters, yeah, manpower, Yeah, that's present. Do you know what
the what the process is to go capture them? Like, is it just
tranquilizing and then talk them to helicopter and just flying them out in a blindfold
on flying a helicopter. Yeah, just pokemon to the bottom and yeah,
give them the flight of their life. I hope they don't fake and fucking
wake up. Well, like I just said, three died in transport.
Yeah, so what does that mean they woke up and had a heart attack
when they realized they were six with the Golden Eagles, the Golden News are
flying with them. Oh my god, that's fucked up. Anyways, So
to wrap this up, how can we stay safe around the goats, and
kind of touching on to once again, like what's affecting the mountain goats?
So the most important thing to stay safe around them. Give them space,
give them space, give every animal space. Yeah, exactly. That is
a great piece of advice for anything little wild animal. Just don't run at
them. Like a video I just posted on our Instagram of a woman running
out a coyote and then the kyote runs after her, and they're like,
ah, no shit. What if you're in like Yosemite or Yellowstone ye specifically,
and you see like a baby bison drowning at river, do you go
say that we're gonna talk about in second. Okayay, we'll get that.
Don't you worry. We're not gonn talk about unngele It's and not talking about
that. Don't spoiler spoiler fucking do it anyways. Also, don't try if
a mountain goat is approaching you, don't try to poke them with a hiking
stick or anything. I'm sorry, why would someone do that. Well,
maybe it's a run night and you're like all you have is sticks, or
get away from it. If it's running at me. I'm not poking at
I'm full swing in that motherfucker. Well, but the point here is the
way that they compete with each other is by stabbing each other. At the
horse, he's gonna win that. So poking them may entice them to also
poke back at you and they will win. Yeah, So don't do it.
Instead, yell at them, throw rocks or something else that allows you
to have distance for them. That's the biggest thing. Like, keep your
distance for sure, And if a goat approaches you and seems aggressive, let
the rangers in the area know, Nick, stop speaking of not approaching dangerous
animals. Stop trying to hit my cat. You're supposed to kill me a
little bit. So Also, like we've been talking about, they're really mountain
goats are really aware of predation from above. So if you are in an
area with mountain goats, like, don't use drones around them. I mean,
you're not supposed to using the national parks anyway, So that takes out
a lot of the area that they're in the United States at least. Yeah,
and then using for a hunting like I think at first one, I
think it's illegal and it's kind of fucked up. Yeah, for sure.
So another great piece of advice that could be used for many animals is off
leash dogs, bother them. Every fucking animal, yeah, especially deer apparently.
Check out the video I posted on our Facebook get a Live podcast.
Was it Facebook or Instagram? Facebook? So let's why I didn't see it.
They have also gore dogs because when dogs run at them, they're like,
hey, small or large wolf, fuck you a very small wolf.
Yeah. So if you live around mountain go through your recreating around mountain goat
territory, keep your dog on a leash. Yeah. Now, and whenever
I hear of like a dog being attacked by wall anymore, I honestly don't
feel as bad because it's like keep your fucking dog only. Well, I
feel bad for the dog, but I hate the owner. Yeah that's what.
Yeah, that's what I mean. Like, I don't I don't call
for the death of said wild animal for attacking it. Oh, of course
not. Yeah, yeah, I understand why the animal needs to be youthanized
sometimes. But yeah, and also especially for mountain goats, they live in
such dangerous places for humans and dogs, so you don't want your dog running
up a cliff. After an animal evolved, that's three hundred pounds sprinting up
a cliff. Yeah, but like you mentioned, like in the in the
winter time, sometimes they come down from higher elevations, so that's when you
would run into them, is the winter time, Yeah, in the tree
line for exactly. Yeah, but otherwise mountain goats are generally doing okay,
they don't really attack people that often unless they're going after your pee. But
but keep your distance if you see them. Some many time, I saw
people walking into the bighorn cheap and it's just dumb. It's just dumb.
I mean, hey, that's a great segue and through the last thing we're
going to talk about, which is bison. The fucking bison man. Yeah,
I mean I just someone one of you sent me a TikTok of a
woman standing within like two to three feet of a bison laying down and she
was taking selfies. Bison killed people every year. They're the most dangerous animal.
And Yilsom. We've said it before, we'll say it again. We
can't find stories about these sheep, but we can find plenty of stories about
the fucking bison. We already have episodes about it. Feel free to go
back and looked at them. Yeah, So, Nick, you did more
of the research for this story. We're going to discuss it a little bit
and then we'll close this out. But I want to discuss but mostly I
want to scold the internet a bit. Perfect. Yeah. I'm not sure
if you guys know this about me or not, but I don't love the
Internet very much. You don't stay at the end of every podcast. Yeah,
it's a pretty pretty shitty place. So there was a tourist in Yellowstone
who the National Park's Department or Yellowstone specifically, made a social media post looking
for a white man in sunglasses, blue shirt who helped a calf out of
the river. And there's a picture which I heard on our Instagram. What
have happened? I called him an asshole. I'll be fully I will be
fully transparent own up to the fact. I did not read the story before
I posted it. I just saw a man holding a bison and I was
like, this guy sucks. Yeah. So there was a bison herd that
crossed the Lamar Valley River Lamar River. Yeah, that's where the bison across
the Lamar River in Lamar Valley, and the whole herd went by, and
there was a young calf stuck in the water. Man goes down, helps
it out of the water, pushes it up onto the road. Good guy.
Right. Well, no, that they had to put that bison calf
down because the herd then pushed it away. The herd would not accept it
into them anymore. It was walking up to people in cars because I had
nowhere else to go. So they had to euthanize this bison because they can't
take these things out of the park without first testing for brussolowsis. I'm putting
it into quarantine. Yah, they cannot quarantine the animal. Well sorry,
they could not quarantine this calf because it does not have to care for itself,
so it die in quarantine. God, yeah, you're right, that's
why they had to put it down. In the entire fun Internet, these
dumb motherfuckers start, there's unloading on the National Park Service, unloading on the
people in Yellowstone as if they wanted this fucking calf to die, so people
just start going after them. That'd make a whole another post about it,
like hey, this is why we did this, This is like we didn't
want to do this. Yeah, And they said that they were going to
delete comments and block people and they start going after the fucking guy, like
people wanted the dude that pretty much crucified. Yeah, like what are you
doing? Like he helped a baby animal out of a river. It was
a stupid mistake. He shouldn't have done it. He got not arrested.
He had like one thousand dollars fine for which I think is pretty accurate.
Yeah, I'm fine with that because he's getting absolutely destroyed online, like he's
fucked. Yeah, and his pictures out there out there. Yeah, his
family is friendsic, they all see it's Hawaii. Yeah, he's an Hawaiian
dude. Yeah. So something that you didn't just say, but you told
me earlier when we were talking about it, was that the herd left without
the calf, right, the herd just left. They didn't even like the
mother didn't stop to retrieve the calf out of the water. No, you
know why, because fucking calves die. It fucking happens. Yeah, it
sucks. Also, Yellowstone is not it's not a park, right, that's
sorry. It is a national park exactly. It is not a zoo.
It's not a zoo. A really hard thing for people to witness when they're
not in nature all the time, Like if it was to die, that's
part of it, and something would eat it. And if you tell me
that this guy brought his family to Yellowstone, He's got a ten year old
and eight year old fucking daughters and they're watching his baby calf ground, they're
gonna be dad. Dude. Yeah, I'm not gonna jump on the dude
for getting in the river and pushing a calf out, knowing what we know
now and what he he hopefully knows now, that's sure he knows, say
the fuck away, do not touch the animals. This is why we're always
so like on it, like let the animals be. Let the animals live
and die as they're going to live and die. Yeah, it sucks.
But now my big problem is with the way that the Internet responded to it,
specifically against like the dude, Like what you're you're gonna get the fucking
You're gonna get the pipe on the internet. That's just what's gonna happen.
The Park Service, like people who follow the National Park Service should have a
little bit of like recognition of you know what they're doing. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, Like these are scientists that know what the fuck they're doing,
and like they don't want to kill animals, and we know that we need
to stay out of their fucking their shit. Yeah, I mean people,
I just I mean some people who go to National Parks don't get that it's
nature and that things. It isn't all rosy all the time. We do
talk shit about some of the National Parks series stuff, Like I was just
saying they shouldn't have introduced the ship to Washington and killed the mountain goats and
the mountain goats yeah no, I yeah, like they can make mistakes,
but like, let's fucking think about it for a second. You know.
Also animals. First of all, let's talk about the fact that when people
touch animals, even outside of National parks, they often get euthanized. Like
recently in Maine, there was a story going around of a dumb woman,
a dumb woman that sounded like no, no, no, we women are
dumb, But that's not what I'm saying. This particularly stupid woman had a
baby raccoon. There was a video of her holding a baby raccoon in her
arms, and she took to PetSmart to get its nails trimmed because she wanted
to keep it and let other people snuggle and kiss the baby raccoon. So
of course Main the department are like fisheries or whatever the hell it is.
Main was like, uh noesies and took the baby and euthanized it because that
it had to test it for rabies only making test for rabies cutting out a
brainstem. Everyone had to go get shots, which are expensive. Do you
know how hew Passmart responded to that, like do they kip clip the nails?
Oh no No. The manager saw on the camera that someone was walking
around with a raccoon and was like, you need to get out of you're
right now, and they did the right thing. They immediately called the government
and was like, ah, yeah, we just think tested. Yes,
this baby raccoons killed because people I used to take calls all the time.
I've said it before, where like someone calls me and says, hey,
my child picked up a baby skunk and I'm like, cool, now that's
gonna test to die. Yeah, like that's just how it is. Yeah.
And this time I see someone on Instagram of like people fucking around with
baby animals Like all right, well you just killed them all yep, yeah
pretty much. Well there it is. There it is. Don't touch stuff,
don't fuck with the animals watching the distance, take pictures, enjoy it.
Keep your dog on a leash, Keep your dog on a leash oo,
don't like cats outside? Always ending on that, do not let your
cats. Anyways, let's wrap this up because we're just gonna say more shit
that we will regret. So thank you so much for listening to episode fifty
four I Get it a Live. For more information, check out the episode
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You can find us on Instagram at get out a Live pod, TikTok
get out a Live gross I do. Yeah, I'm not gonna TikTok.
I really don't know how to use it. But also if sometimes people tag
me and stuff and I don't see it because I don't know how to use
the app, are you serious? Oh my god? Yet? Oh I've
recently started like responding to people and they are shocked that I'm responding because I
think people have tagged me and stuff before and I haven't seen it. No
shit, So I'm sorry people. Yeah, that's sad. But one listener,
Jenna, I see you thank you for listening. Jenna, Jenna,
No, this is unknown to us, Jenna, unknown to the pod now.
So anyways, thanks guys. You can follow me on Twitter at the
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