Welcome to episode sixty seven of Get Out, a Live, a bi weekly
podcast about animal tax why they happen, and how we can avoid them.
I'm your host, Ashley, and I'm maroth host Nick. We have new
patrons to shout out. We have new patriots. Shut up, Jesse,
cute the music? Wait I usually do that after Well, I'm just excited
for all of you. So we have three new experts survivalists to shout out
today, which is the most we've ever had of one week one episode.
I feel like three, Yeah, I don't know. I think it's the
most we ever had one episode. So thanks guys. So a huge shout
out to Jess what's one ass? Who? Who great? Name great?
Here's name everything, Taren, and Anton, who has been an all time
supporter. So thank Cranton all the way from Sweden. Yeah but yeah,
awesome, Thank you guys very much. Ashley. What some of them are
our experts, fivalists, perks. We talk about you on an episode clearly
that just happened. You get a gift every three months, which by the
time this comes out within like the next week or so, we're gonna start
failing them out. They're really good. We're so excited. You can now
follow us for as little as a dollar a month and get full video episodes
that includes our phonus episodes. So they kind of fuck, we're so learning?
Why is that response to everything? Fucks? What do you want?
I stand by? So, speaking of Patreon, this episode was voted on
by patrons. And also if you want to joice patroon patreon dot com,
slash gtai podcast or a good our website, get a liipodcast dot com where
you find a button of Patreon. You'll figure it out. Anyways, Yeah,
so one of the perks is that you get to vote on upcoming episodes,
and this was voted on by patrons. Nice. One quick I have
before we start is the animal that So this was suggested by people as well.
Someone commented this a while ago, and I was it's been stuck in
my mind. I've been pronouncing this animal wrong my entire life. Yes,
I had no idea what it made fun of you for for a long time,
as if you would know the correct person, that's the problem. I
had no idea. So my whole life, I've been pronouncing this animal tapier
and apparently it's tapers taper. So we're talking about tapers. Tap I R
tapers makes no sense. I know, I really want to be tapier.
English is a tough language, and its bye not even originally aimed in English.
No correct. Yeah, so translations are always fucked up. I've heard
the people, so I watch videos and other people pronouncing it, and I
saw people who actually worked with them pronounced it tapers. So if you've never
seen a taper before, imagine the baby of a pig and an elephant and
an anteater, Like if you combine those three animals, that's kind of what
it's like. However, their closest living relative are rhinos and horses. Really,
yes, meaning they're in the parisa dactyla family. Oh wow, I
had no idea. Yeah, because we're talked about radiodactyla before. Yeah,
of course that I'm sure you remember fondly. Yeah, they are those things.
So in general, tapers have they're all like bodies, short legs in
a preboscus, which is like a shortened elephant trunk. Oh sick. Yeah,
I think they're pretty cute. Nick disagrees. Uh, I mean they're
like ugly cute in a way which I don't normally think that things are ugly
cute, so that's a big step for me to come that far. But
the babies are really cute. Well, everything has a baby is pretty cute,
isn't it. I feel it's like defense mechanism. I mean some baby
birds. Yeah, oh true, those things are gross. Yeah, some
of them fair, the precocial ones. Anyways, big words, big words,
early morning. Yeah, didn't throw that out of shet. So there
are a few species of taper found around the world. First, there's the
lowland taper, which is found in lowland regions as you know, as the
name was suggested, Yeah, of northern and central South America. And they're
considered South America's largest native land mammal because they average five hundred and fifty pounds
and six feet long. Whoah, they get that fucking big. Yeah,
these are the smaller of all of them. Yeah, geez, I have
no idea, yep. And what makes these lowland tapers visually distinct from other
tapers is they have like a stiff maine that they have from their forehead all
the way to the middle of their shoulders, which other tapers don't have.
Sick. Yeah, of all the tapers, these ones have probably the biggest
geographic range, but still very little is known about their population numbers, so
we don't have an estimate on how many are in the wild. Then we've
got the Baird's taper, which is found in the Wahawka Province in Mexico through
parts of Central America, which includes the western side of the Andean Mountains in
Colombia. And they're smaller than the Lowland taper, but still at around like
five hundred and fifty pounds, they're just like five feet logs. I really
I did not think these things are going to be that fung It is very
large, so they're like on poar, the wild hogs pretty much. Yeah,
okay, okay, okay, yeah, very similar. So they don't
have the main that the Lowland taper has, but they have a similar short
brown coat of hair and very tough skin. And there are not great population
estimates on these tapers either, and estimates are very specific to subsets of their
overall populations, so like there's little pockets of them, but we still't have
great overall numbers, which it makes sense, yeah, that does. Then
there's the Malayan taper, which occurs in Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, and
Thailand, and until relatively recently, they also existed in Borneo, and that
means that they don't exist there anymore, but there's been discussions on reintroducing them.
That's nice. Yeah. Good. And they're the biggest taper, weighing
up to seven hundred pounds and six feet long. Wow. Yeah. And
they're very distinct from other tapers due to their white midsections, so they kind
of look like a panda a little bit. Nice. Yeah, it's pretty
cute. They're considered to be in three distinct and often isolated subpopulations, which
are Sumatra, which has no accurate population estimate, but thought to be from
like four hundred to five hundred individuals in the wild, and then you've got
Thailand and Myanmar, also no accurate population estimates here, though it's thought to
be like two hundred fifty individuals, which not a lot. And Malaysia and
southern Thailand, which is thought to be the largest and most resilient population of
Malayan tapers from thirteen hundred to seventeen hundred individuals. Wow, it's pretty deep.
I mean, still not a lot of animals, but it's pretty decent
number. What's interesting to me is that they're on completely different continents, on
opposite hemispheres, but like somehow they have survived in two different popular multiple different
populations at those low numbers as the same animal. Like, did they evolve
liked independently like tapers in general, or the Malayan tapers, like the tapers
in general. So it's like yeah, usually like yeah, yeah, because
like usually like you have like one type of animal that kind of like comes
up in an area and then they'll be like an equal type of egg.
So like the North American cheetah, like the African cheetah. Yeah, we're
like similar animals, but they evolved in their own way completely separate. Animals
are not even like related to each other. So it's interesting that like these
two things kind of evolved in the same same way. I don't know if
I fully understand your point. They evolved independently at each other into the same
animal, right, Well, I think they like they all started as the
same pot Okay, well yeah we all did. Like we all were like
bacteria at all. We were all single celled organisms. That's my point.
Anyways, Uh, yeah, I think they all started as the same thing
and then went to their little pockets of the world and just kept being kind
of the same thing. It was so long ago, us't they do still?
How many millions of years ago? These things that pop up in new
existence A few wells, they're actually some people consider I don't really like this
term, but some people consider them like living fossils because they've been around for
millions of years. But yeah, I mean, and their shape have stuck
around, so clearly whatever they're doing is working for them. Insects have always
been around pretty much so forever and ever, always since beginning, except for
like the first thing this because of the eat insects with the little nose,
right, they don't what the the point we'll get there? Are you thinking
of an ant eater? Well yeah, but these things also you said they
have like a like thing, right, yeah, yeah, it's for like
grabbing stuff like insects like not not mostly that was a good guess that happens.
Moving on, this is this is my life. And finally we've got
the smallest and fuzziest of all the mountain taper and they're the large mammal in
the andyes, mountain range that you know what, let me look it up
for you. See, you're reach for your laptop. How big are they
similar size as the other ones, so like around five hundred something pounds.
They're fat, Yeah, they're sick. Yeah, god dam so. Their
hair is long and brown to black in color, but their lips are lined
in a white color. And adult mountain tapers have two hairless patches on their
butts. Nice, they have butt cheeks. I could not figure out why
this was the case, but they've got two hairless butt patches size, so
there's that. And they are known from the Andyan area of Columbia, Ecuador,
and northernmost Peru, and historically they were also found in Venezuela, but
there's clearly no evidence of them being there now, so that's it. Kind
of sucks. And their populations are fragmented, but estimates put them at around
twenty five hundred individuals left in the wild, so not terrible, not great.
Yeah, I mean these things are really l like crawling by a little
bit. Huh. Yeah, they're very fragmented. If you were to look
at their ranges on maps, like it's they're pretty split. So like you're
saying, populations and local areas just not very strong and like world. Yeah,
so all tapers have three hooves on their hind legs and four on their
front legs. And yes, you may be thinking or looking at me like
nikkas and be like, how do you have four hooves on one foot?
Did they like walk in circles? That would doesn't make any sense at all,
Like if you have one leg short the other, it was gonna be
drifting in one way. So they have multiple individual little hooves on each foot.
It's very cute. Really, let me show you. I wouldn't call
that cute. That's I don't look at that little foot. Just so we're
clear. When you're saying three total and four total, I thought you meant
between both legs, like they had three hooves between two legs, so one
leg would have like this is where mine mixed up with. Okay, now
this makes more sense. Yeah, it's got like little toes. It's got
like four little toes and each one is like a little hoof. I absolutely
thought you meant like, yeah, between both legs, like it's weird.
It's very cute, you would thanks. So Also, all baby tapers are
striped and also very cute. I had nowhere else to put that. But
as we need you also know, just want to get it in there.
Yeah, just please look them up. Have you seen the baby ones?
No, I don't think so. I imagine they look like piglets. They
kind of do. Yeah, they look like picklets. Yeah, but they're
striped and adorable. And all tapers live in forests which are often dense,
which can explain a bit why there's not great population estimates because they're hard to
find. And they are also herbivores and some consider them quote the gardeners of
the forest because they are awesome seed dispensers, and they will occasionally eat like
bugs and stuff, but like most of their diet is just like twigs and
buds of trees and stuff like that. H of course. Yeah. They
also have some interesting teeth that I will do my best to describe on an
audio only platform, and if you're watching this, we will have a picture
of what their teeth look like, because it's very hard to describe. Check
out the video podcast. But they have forty two to forty four teeth and
have molars and premolars in the back, and then there's like a break in
their skull and then there's teeth in the front, kind of similar to a
horse skull. If you've seen a horse skull. How there's like the molars
and then there's no teeth, and then there's like in sizers and stuff up
front. However, these tapers do have canines. Why that's a great question,
because they're herbivores. I think it's just for like grasping and tearing at
like twigs and stuff. They can also be for self defense. They looked
so weird. Yeah, so there, it's there's a lot going on.
Like if I found that in the woods, I feel like I think it
was like a like a sea animal. Yeah, it does, kind only
a manatee or something. Yeah, it does. So despite all the cute
things I said about tapers so far, and I do think that they're cute,
tapers can also be very dangerous, and of course that's why we're talking
about them on an animal attack podcast. So let's get into it. Yeah,
I can see your laptop already have questions. Yeah, how the title
of this next attack is taper attack in Oklahoma? How fuck did they get
that? They walked it didn't have it at all. So the first attack
we're going to talk about is one of the first attacks on record from a
taper, and it occurred in nineteen ninety eight in Oklahoma, So it was
November twentieth, and thirty four year old zoo keeper Lisa Moorehead was working at
the Oklahoma Zoo, where she worked with three Malayan tapers. So is that
a zoo It makes more sense though it does. Yeah, So around eight
thirty five am before the zoo was opened, she was tending to Melody,
an adult female taper, and Melody's two month old baby. There was also
another adult taper in the cage as well, and normally they're solitary unless they're
like breeding or whatever. So to keep that in mind, Lisa brought the
food dish over to them through a two foot wide feeding door in their nighttime
quarters. So a lot of animals will have like an indoor nighttime place when
they're not like on exhibit per se, and then they get let out into
their enclosure where everyone could see them. So she was feeding them through their
nighttime enclosure through a little two foot wide door, and as Lisa pushed the
food in, Melody grabbed her arm. Lisa was pulled into the cage where
Melody continued to maul her. She bit Lisa's left arm mid bicept, which
is usually the thickest part of your arm and bit it completely off. No
shit, yeah what so in the mauling, Melody also goured Lisa's neck and
chest, even puncturing one of her lungs, and stomped all over her mid
section and legs. Did they pull this poor girl through that little chee?
Yes, the taper pulled her through the two foot wide door? What the
fuck is that? So? Luckily for Lisa, a groundskeeper was nearby and
saw all this happen and ran to call for help. And Lisa was in
the cage for a few minutes before help arrived and she was able to be
rescued from the cage. Holy shit. Yeah, she was immediately rushed into
surgery and they tried to reattach her arm, but unfortunately her arm was not
able to be saved. Why why does this her before? We have the
drawstrick to height off a whole fucking arm? Well, yeah, things,
What happened to these things over the past ten million years? They've had to
live with some crazy stuff. I mean, like I said, they have
the you know, they have incizers and canines in the front and I'm not
sure if that's like I'm sure it serves a purpose for food. But also
yeah, I mean they live around like jaguars and bears and stuff that try
to eat them. Well fun, Yeah, yeah, you're right, maybe
the Malaysian ones that living sloth bears, Like I'd be tough as shit.
Yeah, we keep talking about sloth bears and tires and shit like these things
are prime e. So yeah, they gotta be tough. They're like a
main food source too, for jaguars, leopards and stuff. Yeah. Anyways,
Ultimately after the attack, Lisa spent a month in the hospital, but
even after leaving, she was not out of the woods. She had a
lot of scar tissue in her intestines that constantly made her sick, and up
to a year later, she was spending four hours each day on doctor's appointments,
either for physical or psychological help. Holy crap. She got plastic surgery
and steroid treatments, including steroid shots in her face, and then they would
sand blast the skin on her face to try to encourage collagen growth. So
like severely mauled her. Wow. Yeah, and Lisa's mother retired early to
help care for her, and Lisa said that without her parents and her fiance's
help, she probably wouldn't have been able to recover it all. Oh my
god. She had also been left handed, and her left arm was the
one that was ripped off. Oh that sucks. So she had to learn
how to write with her right hand, and she said she couldn't imagine doing
any other job than zookeeping. But as a year later, she had not
been back to the zoo, which makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, Lisa
was paid her usual salary for about a year after the attack, and her
medical bills were also paid. Wow wow, well yeah, well, so
the zoo didn an investigation trying to figure out what caused Melody to attack,
but the only thing that they could think of was that Lisa had been between
Melody and Melody's baby, which of course wouldn't be Lisa's fault because all she
was doing was putting food through a door. Yeah. So, and it
must have happened so fast. I mean, Melody had to be like right
there in order to grab Lisa's arm in a few seconds that she pushed it
through. I mean, it's it's unbelievable that she'd able to pull a whole
grown ass woman like through a two foot wide thing. Yeah, Like,
oh my goodness and bite the arm off at the bicep. Yeah that's nuts.
Yeah. Wow. So Melody remained on exhibit for a year after the
attack until she died of kidney disease and pneumonia, but the zoo installed more
protective measures like plexiglass, new signs, and new gates. So how do
they feed them now different? I don't know they have, you know,
portant thing for them to address if something's getting snatched through like that. Yeah.
No, I'm sure that they don't have like just the little door anymore.
I feel like I've seen a lot of like sliding drawer things, yes,
yeah, yeah, so that's like a normal thing that they do for
like creditors. They probably just threw one of those in, right, Yeah.
I think some people do like put stuff through the cage, which isn't
great. But yeah, yeah, when you work with them every day,
you know by that we do so maybe. But also they're a wild animal
still, so oh yeah, so I'm gonna get got like you're gonna get
got. So. In two thousand, Lisa actually sued the zoo in its
director, staying that they did not properly respond to the attack. So Lisa
even stated that the lack of training for zoo employees contributed to her not being
able to have her arm reattached, because she said that no one responded in
the correct way quickly enough in a way that could have saved her arm.
Huh. She also said in court documents that she and other zoo employees had
been denied their rights to work in a safe environment, and claimed that zoo
administrators did not have written policies and procedures in case of emergency situations like the
one that she was in, and at the time of her attack, there
was no other trained keeper or attendant present, which is a federal safety regulation
that you had to have at least two people who were experienced to work with
the animal. And was she the only one or were there a zero?
According to Lisa in these court documents, she was the only one there.
Yeah. She also said that the zoo did not share safety incidents with staff
members and didn't correct safety concerns because apparently, in nineteen ninety, which was
eight years before her attack, a male zoo keeper was also attacked by Melody,
but it was never documented or talked about. Oh good, yeah,
that was like some seayear old shit, doesn't it. Yeah, Yeah,
how old do a tapers get? That's a great question. Give me a
second. Twenty five to thirty years. That's a dang long time tapers can
live twenty five to thirty years. Well. So, ultimately, her court
case was dismissed by a judge who thought it was better suited as a workers
comp case. That's kinda where her story ends. She did have another coworker
who alleged that she had seen Lisa playing with Melody's baby and that's why she
was attacked. But Lisa was like, I never was playing with the baby.
It would also be a bold, bold move to live about being pulled
through again a two foot hole. Yeah, if you were just in the
cage and got attacked and you're like, oh, I got ripped through this
thing, Yeah, you think that'd be one that they can pretty quickly they'll
figure out. Yeah. And also, if you're the like coworker who saw
her playing with it and then get attacked, why would you not immediately rush
to her? Aid? That's why I thought first, I mean, it
could have been like a situation where it's like, as someone's leaving the room,
that out of the corner, right, like, oh, that like,
why is she doing that? And yeah, leave and it's like yeah,
ten minutes later, oh shit, Yeah, but that was never proven.
So in the end, Lisa, I don't know if she ever went
back to working at zoos. I don't really know what she's doing now,
But as of a year later, she was still trying to recover. I
mean a year later, I don't think i'd really expect her to be back
at work after Yeah, that's at like losing an armed when it Oh yeah,
that's insane. Yeah, and I'm sure once she started the lawsuit and
everything that she probably not. Yeah, after you suit your employer, Yeah,
not great. So our next attack also took place in the zoo.
Oh this time it was twenty thirteen at the Dublin Zoo. On August eighth,
two year old Katie, her brothers, who were eight and six years
old, her father Dara, and her mother Patricia, were engaging in a
close encounter experience where they were inside the Malayan paper enclosure with a zoo keeper.
You know, my stance on these things, I know, I think
this is yeah, I can't talk about shit. Yeah, it's I really
screwed myself with the dolphin comments. So oh you're saying you would want to
do a close up not with these things now, Oh but like yes,
yeah, yeah yeah, if you give me a go swim with the Sharks
experience, I'm in okay, Well I also whatever time. Anyways, So
the family was excited because just two months earlier, one of the tapers named
Rio, had given birth to a baby named Jenny. See that's the opposite.
You shouldn't be excited. You used to be worried about that thing,
because now it's gonna be all protective and hormonal and fucking trying to kill people.
Yeah, but also i'd be like, oh hey, a little bay
had also an a track of the baby. So while they're in this enclosure,
so you got mother Rio and baby Jenny run around, and some other
tapers as well. I don't know exactly how many were there, but there's
at least two. So Katie the bait, the two year old human child
was put on top of Rio, uh the taper. That's that doesn't seem
like a good idea. Rio was five hundred pounds or two hundred and twenty
five kilograms. Fucking boy had just had a baby. That's a big,
fucking, big, fucking girl. So, two year old Katie allegedly let
out an excited scream while being on slash near Rio. Rio attacked the two
year old was allegedly happy. Yeah, so Rio grabbed two year old Katy
in her mouth, held her to the ground, and shook her, biting
her arm in stomach. Oh boy. Instantly, Katie's mother, Patricia,
threw herself at Rio and was able to dislodge her daughter from the taper's jaws.
And Rio turned and bit at Patricia twice. Oh fuck. The zookeeper
and Katy's father were able to restrain Rio, while Katy and her brothers were
taken away and Katie was rushed to the hospital. Okay, she had a
deep laceration on her left forearm, a badly bruised forehead, and multiple lacerations
on her abdomen, one of which lacerated her large bowel. Oh yeah,
and I know this because a medical journal published pictures of her injuries, since
this was one of very few recorded attacks by taper. So I saw this
two year old's arm cut open like although almost down to the bone from a
taper. Oh that's terrible, that's horrible. Yeah. So, Katie's mom
was also hospitalized for her injuries, and she was in the hospital for a
week but responded well to treatments. Katie was in the hospital for a week
but responded well to Well, week's not that bad. I mean her arm
was bad, yeah, yeah, and her bowel was like cut yeah,
So this is never a good thing. Yeah. And also this is a
wild animal. I mean it's in a zoo, but still wild animal,
like cutting into your body with its saliva. So like the fact that there's
no infection was great, Yeah, that I know of. So seemingly,
the zoo was instantly charged and found guilty for breaching health and safety regulations,
and was ordered to pay five thousand euros to two children charities, which I
thought was a weird punishment. They did also pay the family money, but
I was like, I don't know why it's five thousand euros. This was
in twenty thirteen. Yeah, it seems like a wildly low amountain, I
know, I'm too for like allowing a two year old to get mauled.
Yeah, I don't know. I'm sure there were many other fines in crap.
So yeah, and years later, the two brothers who were present each
got a thirty three thousand euro settle for the trauma they had to witness,
and the family also filed a personal injury claim for Katie. But as far
as I know, like the boys had psychological trauma obviously from watching their little
sister get mauled by this giant animal. But I think she recovered from what
I could ascertain, I think she is like fully recovered and she dinnot like
die of her injuries by any means. The kids are freaking resilient kids.
Sounds back. I just reading this, I was so scared because we just
talked about like a thirty something year a woman who lost her arm, like
an adult arm. So the fact that this baby, because two, is
so little, the fact that she was able to keep her arm is like
incredible. I mean, yeah, absolutely agree, absolute agree. Yeah,
the pictures are really brutal. So we just talked quite a bit about captive
tapers. So now let's get into what happens when wild tapers attack people.
I was I was really hoping we're gonna have a couple of leaves. Oh
yeah, we have at least two, at least two. Yeah. So
our first story begins with Costa Rica's Environment Minister Carlos Manuel Rodriguez. On April
twenty, aeth of two thousand and six, forty six year old Carlos was
on a fourteen kilometer hike or for US Americans eight point seven miles with a
group of six rangers in Corcovado National Park. Just to give you a little
background the park because I can. It's one hundred and sixty three point seven
square miles and was established in October of nineteen seventy five. And it's considered
one of the most biodiverse regions in the world and contains the only remaining old
growth wet forests on the Pacific coast of Central America. And it contains thirteen
different ecosystem types including mangrove swamps, a cloud forest, lowland rainforest, and
palm forest. Thick. Yeah, so it looked so beautiful Corcovado National Park.
So as for a wildlife in the park, there's the Bard's taper,
which I mentioned up top. Are a little smaller than the other tapers,
but can still be five hundred and fifty pounds. There's jaguars, scarlet macaws,
harpy eagles, africanized bees, crocodiles, hammerhead sharks, red backed squirrel,
monkeys which are very endangered, and white lipped peckrees to a name a
few. Do you know what a peckery is? No, it's a it's
another pig like that. I was thinking, yeah, all right. So
Carlos was coming to the end of his term in his position, and this
hike was one of the last things he did before his time in office was
up. He and the group of rangers were in a remote part of the
park in the southern zone, and they were working on an operation to prevent
poaching on the white lipped peckery, which is considered vulnerable by the ICN Red
List. Do we need to look up a peckery so you can stop laughing.
I don't know what you're talking about. I haven't been a freaking sound
the entire time. The white that's a fucking pig. That's a pig,
all right. So if you don't know what a peckery looks like, imagine
like a furry pig with no neck, oh god, and a flatter head
that's basically in heels. Oh yeah. And of course, the legal poaching
of any animals a problem, but these peckerys are a main food source for
the jaguar, which is also endangered, so it's like a double endangered thing
happening here. So this group is hiking through the jungle on this multi day
excursion looking for signs of poaching. At one point, Carlos was at the
front of the group and noticed a young taper that looked injured in front of
him. Assuming it had been attacked by a jaguar something, he went forward
away from the group to get a little bit closer to see if it needed
help or anything. And before I continue, I do want to mention it
because I like to throw in scientific studies when I can. I found a
study called Jaguars Predation and Human shield a taper story by Flores at All that
suggests that Bard's tapers will hang out near people to avoid being attacked by jaguars
spar Yeah, so I don't think that that's what was happening here, but
that is a thing, and I will like that an episode description if you
want to read about it. So anyways, as Carlos went forward, the
mother of this injured baby taper launched herself at Carlos and grabbed his backpack in
her mouth in an attempt to escape her. He threw himself down a ravine
and upon hitting the bottom of it, went unconscious. Oh fuck yeah.
When he woke up, he was bloodied and very confused and also alone.
On him he had a compass, a machete, a rain jacket, binoculars,
cookies, a flashlight, and a hammock and that was it. You
know what, he could be in a much worse position. He is set
up to chill for a little bit, so, using his compass in the
sun, he began to try to navigate his way out of this jungle.
So our story began on Thursday, April twenty two, thousand and six,
but by Friday, the twenty first, Carlos had still not turned up.
Oh shit, so rescue mission was launched. How long has it been?
Twenty four hours? I mean the moment that he disappeared from the group,
You think they would well, I think they looked, couldn't find him,
and then and then what they just went back health I don't know. I
got a call for help immediately, like, hey, our guy fell down
a mountain and we get someone out of here. Well, that was the
thing. They didn't see him because he went ahead of them, so no
one saw him go down this revie. Oh god, yeah, it's terrifying
and you're in a thick jungle that's already hard to navigate. This is an
official Yeah, oh god, that must be dull. God. Yeah,
imagine that in that group, like, oh god, this guy just like
get fun kidnapped or something. Yeah, who knows. So around fifty workers
descended on the area on that Friday, including two helicopters, two airplanes,
two teams of mountain search experts, and two canine search units. But the
jungle did not make this rescue mission easy. Never does. One rescue team
had stopped because one of them was having an allergic reaction to an insect fight,
and the man started to have shortness of breath, a quickened heartbeat,
and then fainted and began foaming at the mouth. According to his colleagues,
I don't know, there's a lot of stuff, I mean a lot of
stuff. Yeah. So, as the rest of the group tried to help
this man, who was passed out for a total of fifteen to twenty minutes,
a group of monkeys attacked them by throwing sticks at them, and they
were just grateful that the monkeys didn't throw feces because that's also the thing that
the monkeys did. But hey, I mean, these guys have the right
outlook. Yeah who. In the end, they did not find him on
Friday, but on Saturday morning, a dehydrated Carlos Manuel Rodriguez was found on
a beach, covered in leeches, but alive. He had camped out two
nights in the jungle. All the food he out was cookies, so I
don't know if he was just eating cookies or trying to afford I have no
idea, but he said he didn't sleep for more than four hours at a
time, probably because you're stuck in the jungle with you how would you?
And all he had was a hammock, so at least not am Honestly,
he was pretty fucking so maybe cookie is a hammock. Animochete, Yes,
cover leaches though two days out there, I'll be all right. The buggs
would be little b annoying. Yeah, the africanized bees would, I don't
get me. So, he said he remained calm the whole time and only
thought of his wife and four kids, the oldest being twelve and the youngest
being two at the time. Yeah, which I cannot imagine the panic for
that mother those two days, well, your husband's lost some jungle. So
anyways, he was taken to a hospital and was treated for cuts and dehydration,
but made a full recovery and after returning to work. Some people claim
that this was a publicity stunt, and his response was quote, he would
never dream of putting so many people's lives at risk like that, and that
if people think so, they should say it to his face, and he
would rip theirs apart. Oh damn. I like him, yes, seriously,
and hope he's being honest about that. Don't see why not. It's
a politician, that's why. Oh well yeah, And finally, now it's
time to talk about the only recorded fatal attack by a taper. We're going
to Brazil, and I could not find a date that this happened, but
a scientific article titled a fatal attack caused by a Lowland taper in Southeastern Brazil
by Haddad at All was published in two thousand and five, so I'm assuming
it either happened in two thousand and five or obviously before. No. I'm
also not going to link to this article because it includes pictures of the man's
dead body. Oh shit, and the wounds that he sustained. And if
that's an article that you want to look at for some reason, just look
it up, I said the title, so you can find it. No,
no, So this took place in a rural area near the border between
South Manto, Grasso, and Sal Paulo states in Brazil, Okay, And
this entire area is dedicated to farming, specifically maze. And this man was
not named in any source material like fine, All I know is that he
was a fifty five year old man and he lived on his corn plantation.
The man had been experiencing damage to his crops by tapers, and one day
when he was going into his cornfield found a female taper there raiding his crops.
He grabbed her and stabbed her I don't know what with, and in
turn, the taper turned and attacked him back. That's kind of it,
because he was not an unpromoted attack, no of course. Yeah. And
also you're like you're injuring the animal, you're up close to it. So
when his body was found by a friend, he was still warm to the
touch, so he had probably recently died whenever he was found. And there
are at least three deep bite wounds on the man's body that caused severe lesions
and ultimately caused him to bleed to death. So that was the cause of
death. And the bites were located on one of his arms, on his
thighs and his testicles. Ooh, that's partly the one that made him bleed
out. And the adult female taper was found later on dead, also near
the farm. Damn. So they both died fucking traded, all right,
Yeah, but that's kind of it. It's it was like a quick case
study. And obviously because the man was the only one there when the attack
happened, it's kind of hard to say, like exactly what went down.
Besides he stabbed her or she bit him. He has a bunch of taper
bite marks, so it's safe to she bit him to death and he bled
to death. Whatever. Ye sucks. Yeah, so they can kill people,
but obviously this was provoked in this case, since he stabbed her.
Yes, I know, obviously we just spent a very long time talking about
these animals attacking people, but these were really all I could find besides like
road collisions, which I don't count as attacks by any means. No,
that's obviously not on purpose. But I mean when you compare him to the
animal that would be compare them to the entire time like pigs. These seems
way more docile than pigs do. At least they're in way lower numbers,
so like, yeah, percentage wise, it's just less likely they're going to
attack someone. Yeah, And I do want to make it clear, like
tapers are generally considered shy and docile and will run off into the brush when
threatened. These attacks were super rare cases, but showcase the fact that they
can be dangerous when they're provoked, which is pretty much any wild animal ever.
Oh definitely, yeah. Yeah. And also we're gonna do a bonus
episode soon on weird attacks like from animals that we probably will never have an
episode on because it's like so strange and one off. So I think that'll
be a good case for like, hey, any animal can be dangerous,
no matter how big or small. Absolutely, yeah, So I just wanted
to throw that out there because yeah, there's plenty of videos of zoos keepers
like rubbing their bellies and stuff, and they're perfectly docile. But still,
I think the point here is always keep your guard up and don't assume that
animals are not gonna attack you if they can always assume they're out for blood.
Yeah, I mean, they're erbravores, but they still have teeth that
can obviously buite through a woman's entirely, So they're definitely worth being respected.
Absolutely. And besides habitat loss, which nearly every wild animal is facing,
one of the biggest threats to tapers that can drive more of the conflicts like
the ones that we talked about is the rating of crops by tapers. So
one twenty sixteen study by sand Waters titled Croperating Bards Taper provoked diverse reactions from
subsistent farmers in Belize found the Inbalize, although tapers were not considered the most
notorious crop raating wild animal, six percent of people interviewed in the study did
admit to killing tapers in retaliation for crop rating, and one of them said,
quote, the taper eats my corn every night, so when I see
a taper, I shoot it eat it, so I get to benefit from
all the corn of mine that was eaten. Wow. Shit, that's actually
very decent reasoning. Kinda yeah, I mean, if you yeah. But
thankfully there were also people in the study who either planted extra crops for wild
animals, and there was even one who let their crops beaten because quote,
she had a calf and she was hungry. So there's there's you know,
some people who do retally tory killings, but then there's plenty of people who
are like, well, the animals need food, so here's some extra form.
Yeah, and when it's a case of we know, South America,
we're losing tons of land to farming and everything, and they know, yeah
exactly, So it's tough to be like, oh, fuck them for killing
nails. Also it's like, well, I kind of have to for the
crops, you know, Yeah, they're trying to make a living. Yeah,
absolutely. I imagine these aren't the most wealthy of neighborhoods that these tapers
are run around to farm exactly. Like, yeah, it's kind of hard
to be mad at them for doing that. But from what I could ascertain,
at least in where the Bard's Taper is, it seemed like most people
didn't want to kill them and wanted to live around them. So, of
course, if not the main purpose, but one of the main purposes of
this podcast is to figure out ways that we can live more safely and happily
around wild animals, And from what I could ascertain, it seems that taper
human conflict is an up and coming field. So there are a few people
currently doing research on ways to prevent tapers from raiding crops, but it's been
a challenge, and like I mentioned up top, they're pretty hard to study
just due to the habitats that they're in. But some researchers have tried using
salt licks to lure them away from farms, and also some people will put
out salt licks if you're a poacher, to try to get animals to come
to a central location to kill them. So that's been kind of hard because
they're like, we're trying to get them away from the farm, so we're
luring them over to this section. But then we also don't want them to
become used to salt licks, just in case someone's trying to illegally poach them,
of course, and there was one graduate student I found who's using radio
collars to track taper movements and habitat use and electric fencing around crops, but
of course that can be expensive and hard to maintain if you're on a larger
farm. So basically what this graduate student is doing is if a farmer is
experiencing issues with a taper rating their crops, he'll try to trap it,
radio collar it, see how it's moving, and then try to electric fence
off for the farmer the crops that it's trying to raid. Nice, but
not everyone has access to those resources yea. And also if you have a
huge farm, it's impossible to fence everything in and also maintain those fences.
So it's cool that there seems like to be a lot of room for growth
here with trying to figure out how to get tapers not from eating crops.
And I think in the coming years we'll see more research coming out on how
to deter tapers from crops, but right now it seems like electric fencing,
tracking their movements and harassment is the way to go, while of course keeping
yourself at a safe distance from them nice. And I think what's exciting about
tapers, at least that I could ascertain from doing all this research, was
that there's still so much to learn about them. Oh yeah, which is
crazy because they're all over the all, not all over the world, but
like they're in different parts of the world, so no matter where you are
you're somewhat close to some sort of taper yea, And we don't know a
ton about them, so there's always room for research. And if you're someone
up and coming in the wildlife field, or you're looking for an animal to
study and you don't mind rugged hiking, tapers would be a great species to
study. And one place to start is the Bard's Taper Survival Alliance the BTSA,
which I will link in the episode description, and they're a group working
to eliminate the biggest threats to the species. But I'm sure they have like
volunteers and stuff, so there's always organizations you can reach out to. And
every animal deserves to be conserved, no matter what they do. But tapers
are important to each environment that they're in in the rainforest and jungles that they're
in need all the help they can get. So if you feel so inspired,
get out there and teach us all more about tapers. Nice. Yeah,
that's it. I like that. If you're someone who wants to get
into this field and you want a weird animal to study, is one,
yeah, yeah, yeah, it's gonna make a lot more interesting me.
They've been around for fifty million years, of going to the old Google machine.
So there's a lot to learn there. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah.
So thank you all so much. Relation to episode sixty seven of this
podcast. If you like it, leave us a five star rating on the
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else? I think that's it. Thank you so much, Josh Walsh for
inter Music, Thanks Jesse for all the other heavy lifting in the audio and
visual department. And we'll be back in two weeks with a new animal tech story Preach