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Welcome to episode seventy three of Get
Out Alive. I am your host,

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Ashley, and today I am joined
by a friend who has accompanied me on

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the last few bonus episodes, Margie. Hello. Margie has designed a few

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things on our online store, including
these save the Bee sticker and all of

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our Orca merge. Yes, so
check it out, Get a Live podcast,

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dot Com, slash shop. I'll
link your Etsy in our subscription if

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you want sure if that's like the
best place to find you, I guess

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yeah, We're like my Instagram.
Hey, miss Margie. Speaking of names,

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we have a new patron to shout
out remember okay the music. Thank

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you so much to Erin for joining
our experts Survivalist here and Erin, along

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with all the other experts, can
be on the lookout for your most recent

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gifts in the coming week, which
Margie will also help you package. So

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a little loving touch for Marty and
once I'm sure that everyone's gotten there is,

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I will talk a little bit more
about them. But to get into

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today's episode, this one has been
a super long time coming, and I've

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talked about doing different iterations of this
episode for the past year. So the

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episode we're doing today will be all
about owning exotic animals as pets and what

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happens when owning them goes wrong.
And then the next episode on our main

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feed will be with another guest that
we've talked to before, Sophien from our

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Bat episode, and we'll take a
deep dive into a specific organization, if

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you could call it that, that
is pretty popular in social media, and

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Sophia has done so much work into
like looking into them, so it'll give

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us all a bit more insight into
how dark the world of owning dangerous animals

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really is. First, before we
talk about attack, I want to give

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like a little bit more context to
this topic. So you may all remember

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the Netflix series Tiger King, Margie, did you watch it? I watched

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the first episode and I could not
emotionally. My mpath cup was so full

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and I was like, no,
can't I get it? I can't.

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Yeah, And you know what,
I feel like the first episode was the

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most important in terms of like their
messaging, because it really derailed and like

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I think we've talked about Tiger King
on this podcast before, but my huge

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gripe with that show was that it
really got away from the main purpose,

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which was to inform people about how
dark exotic animal ownership is, especially big

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cat ownership, and it just became
about like Joe Exotic trying to kill Carol

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Baskin, which was weird. But
one good thing did come from that series,

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which is actually the piece of legislation
that Carol Baskin was always talking about,

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the Big Cat Public Safety Act,
and it actually was enacted in December

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of twenty twenty two. So according
to the federal US Fish and Wildlife Service

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quote, the Big Cat Public Safety
Act was enacted December twentieth, twenty twenty

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two, to end the private ownership
of big CATS's pets and prohibit exhibitors from

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allowing public contact with big cats,
including cups. It placed new restrictions on

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the commerce, breeding, possession,
and use of certain big cat species.

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In order to continue to legally possess
privately owned big cats, the Act required

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individuals or entities to register any big
cats that were in their possession before the

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date of enactment with the US Fish
and Wildlife Service, unless another exception of

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the Act applies. This registration had
to occur no later than June eighteenth,

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twenty twenty three, which is one
hundred and eighty days after the date of

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enactment, which is now past,
so registration is closed. The Big Cat

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Public Safety Act refers to big cats
as quote prohibited wildlife species. The prohibited

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wildlife species listed in the Act include
the following species and hybrids of any of

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these species. Lion, which is
Panthera leo so the scientific name tiger Panthera

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tigris, leopard Panthera pardis, snow
leopard unsea unsea was fun clouded leopard Neophilis

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nebulosa, jaguar panthero Onka cheetah whoa, I've never seen si putting for a

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cheetah before, asinomics jew badis sure
looks like it and cougar puma con color

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nice easy. The Act makes it
unlawful for any person to import, export,

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transport, cell, receive, acquire, or purchase in interstate or foreign

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commerce, or in a manner substantially
affecting interstate or foreign commerce, or breed

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or possess any live prohibited wildlife species. The Act also makes it unlawful for

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any person to attempt to commit any
of these acts with prohibited wildlife species.

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And I've been learning a lot about
state versus federal laws and like how they

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apply to wildlife, because I'm in
like a class for my master's degree for

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like wildlife law and policy. And
how the federal government can step in in

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terms of wildlife is through the Commerce
Clause, which is like part of the

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Constitution. So that's why they're able
to make this law and like prohibit the

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trade and whatever the species because it
affects commerce. Whereas typically in the United

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States, life is held in the
public trust and the state is the trustee

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essentially who is like managing wildlife for
the benefit of everybody. So normally the

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state's quote unquote own wildlife, but
the federal government can step in when it

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affects the larger country as a whole. There's plenty more that goes into that

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act, and I'll link to the
US Fish Wildlife Service page that explains more

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for anyone that would like to read
it. But this was a huge deal

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in terms of getting the big cat
ownership in the US more under control,

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because, as many of you know, there are over five thousand captive tigers

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in the United States alone, which
is more than the three nine hundred tigers

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that exist in the wild of all
of the species of tiger, which is

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deeply upsetting. And most of the
captive tigers in the US live in private

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facilities or roadside attractions, and only
an estimated six percent of those tigers live

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in zoos or other facilities licensed by
the AZA, which we've talked about before

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on this podcast. And although many
organizations may claim that they're breeding or keeping

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these tigers for quote conservation, none
of these tigers would be able to survive

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in the wild, and many of
the people that breed them are also not

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geneticists, so inbreeding can be a
huge problem. Another reason that they couldn't

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be released into the wild, not
to mention there's not a whole lot of

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wild to put them back into.
And I'd also be or miss if I

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didn't point out that this problem isn't
unique to the US, because there are

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a staggering seven thousand to eight thousand
tigers reportedly held in a large number of

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facilities throughout East and Southeast Asia,
most notably in China, Thailand, and

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Vietnam, and they're often referred to
as quote tiger farms, and they definitely

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like fund the illegal wildlife trade through
pumping out those tigers. This episode is

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a bummer yeah, it's the biggest
sigh. Yeah. But in this episode,

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we're not just talking about big cats. We're also talking about venomous snakes,

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bears, the over fifteen thousand primates
kept as pets in the US alone,

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and a whole slew of other animals
that, for some reason, people

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thought would be a good idea to
keep as pets. But I am just

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me and Margie. We're just gonna
be talking about the US for the rest

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of the episode because otherwise we would
have to spend so much time looking at

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the laws specific to other countries.
Yeah, and the US laws are already

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hard enough to understand, but those
are the ones that were the most familiar

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with, so we're going to stick
to that. So, speaking of my

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class that I'm in for my master's
degree, a few weeks back, I

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had to read a paper on this
topic that we're talking about today, and

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for the paper, I had to
watch a documentary called The Elephant in the

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living Room, which I will link
in the episode description because you can watch

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it for free online. And Margie
popped into my house halfway through me watching

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it. I think I was you
said, yeah, and if you want

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to watch it, just like a
huge trigger warning. It is incredibly disturbing

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and there's a lot of animal suffering
and death within it. So Margie and

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I have trauma bonded, which is
partly what you're here today, so we

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could talk through it. But the
documentary focus is mostly on Ohio, which

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at the time of filming around twenty
eleven, had a shocking amount of exotic

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pet ownership issues. For example,
the film started with a loose gaboon viper,

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one of the most venomous snakes in
the world, native to Africa,

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and there were two little kids that
had been holding it and playing with it

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all morning as it was in their
garage, so it wasn't even their pet.

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It just ended up in their garage
and they had no idea that it

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was venomous, so they were like
putting it around their necks, running around

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with it. Yeah I missed that
part. Yeah, which is probably for

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the best. I mean, sure, yeah, but I mean, to

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be fair, the snake didn't bite
them, which is great. Great,

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that is great. You know,
not that I think anyone should have them

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as pets, but like, they
don't always have to kill people, right,

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So yeah, wait, who walked
in like a parent or who was

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like, guys, this I think
a parent called for help. It was

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like, oh, there's a snake, but I don't think they realized it

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was venomous because they let their kids
play with it. So when the protagonist

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of the film, Tim Harrison,
I would love to talk to him someday.

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He is a public safety officer in
Ohio, so he was the one

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who had to respond to a lot
of these issues with exotic pets getting loose

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and stuff in Ohio. So he
went there and he was like, Yeah,

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this is a goo boon bite bird. This is like incredibly venomous,

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and the family was like, oh
oops, wow. Yeah, so those

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kids are very lucky that it did
not bite them because also I can't imagine

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there's a lot of gaboon viper anti
venom in Ohio. Probably not. Yeah.

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So the guy I just mentioned,
Tim Harrison, who was the protagonist

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in the documentary, he said he
saw a massive spike in ownership of exotic

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animals after people like Steve Irwin came
on TV. And I would like to

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put in a disclaimer because my family
were some of these people once. I

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don't know if I've told you this
story, your family was too, Yes,

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okay, we were Animal Planet people. Well like Irwin Family people as

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well. Oh I yes, we
loved Steve Irwin, but we also had

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these pets that you shouldn't have had. Oh no, we just really like

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watching anything animal related. Oh sorry, that's no, I'm sorry. Well

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that's good. Yeah, we had
an alligator and yeah, I know so

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if you listen to this podcast for
a while, you may already know that.

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And I will say, at the
time it was legal, there was

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like this shop in New Hampshire where
you could go and buy an alligator and

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once it got too big, could
return it and they would give you another

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baby. I have no idea what
happened to bigger ones. They probably sold

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like now that I know more,
and they probably sold it to like a

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farm to kill them or whatever.
Wow. Yeah, But as we owned

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our alligator and as he was growing
up, it became illegal, so then

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that store went bye bye. So
we had nowhere to put our alligator.

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Oh no, yeah, So anyways, now he lives at a refuge owned

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by Jeff Coran, who's a biologist. Yes, yeah, yeah, we

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watched his shows all the time.
Yeah, I love Jeff Coryn. We

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didn't put it it was a whole
story. I won't get into it on

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this podcast, but anyways, he's
there now, he's probably still alive,

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which is cool. But I also
have no stats for this statement of like,

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it's actually true that more people owned
exotic animals post Steve Irwin coming on

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the scene. But also if this
guy was like the boots on the ground,

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I believe him if he saw an
uptake after Steve Irwin popped up so

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and then also if you've listened to
episod SO thirty seven of this podcast,

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we talk about a very infamous case
of all of this happening from Ohio,

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which was the Zanesville massacre, and
I won't spoil it if you haven't heard

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it before, but if you know, you know. And another great exotic

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pet ownership gone wrong story that we
covered in this podcast is episode fourteen Travis

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the Chimpanzee, which is another horrifying
one. So I don't know why,

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but these exotic pet ownership attacks always
seem like really especially brutal. Yeah,

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which I guess makes sense because it's
probably in your house. So now,

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as the filming of that documentary in
twenty eleven, there are thirty states in

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the US that allowed the ownership of
predatory exotic pets, and in nine of

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those states you did not need a
permit or a license to do so as

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of twenty twenty four, according to
the Michigan State University Animal Legal and Historical

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Center website, which I will link
to the episode description because it is a

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great resource. Now, there are
thirteen states that have a partial ban on

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exotic pets, which means that these
states ban specific listed animals statute, but

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not all non traditional, non domestic
animals. For example, these states may

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allow ownership of like small primates,
which still isn't great. And then fourteen

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states permit private ownership of exotic animals
under a licensure or permit scheme, so

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people seeking licenses may have to register
with the state, prove satisfactory conditions for

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keeping the animal, and pay a
fee, and maintain liability insurance, which

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I guess, like of all the
things, better than nothing better than the

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three states who do not have a
statutory or regulatory scheme that directly addresses or

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controls the private ownership of exotic pets, but may regulate some aspect of ownership,

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like these states may require health certificates
or import permits for some animals,

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and these states are do you know
them? No? Do you want to

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guess who's on this list? Who
allows the crazy stuff? Allows the crazy

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stuff? I'm trying to remember because
I also looked at the map. Mississippi

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no. Don't know why I had
to sing that, Florida no, no,

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which is surprising. I feel like
the other obvious one to me that

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I guessed was Texas. Oh yes, but Texas was not on that list.

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Pennsylvania No, Okay, it's okay, it's actually Nevada, Alabama,

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and North Carolina, which I didn't
expect. Okay, does that make sense

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to the North Carolina and Alabama do
for some reason? Really, I don't

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know why, because I found for
some reason there was like some upticks on

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like ownership in North Carolina for some
reason weird. I don't know what's going

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on there. I guess it's like
primo environment landscape, if that makes sense.

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Oh, just for like a lot
of different stuff. Yes, that's

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how I feel about Texas, Like
I feel like Texas a lot of weird

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stuff that shouldn't be in the US
could live there, like lions and whatever.

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But anyways, now let's get into
what you all came here for,

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which is the attacks? So I'm
going to start with Stephan Miller and Rocky

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from two thousand and eight. So
I first heard of the story while watching

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that documentary that I mentioned earlier.
And this story took place in April of

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two thousand and eight in Big Bear
Lake, California. So Stephan Miller was

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00:14:16,480 --> 00:14:20,120
an American animal trainer, wrangler,
and stunt double, and he would sometimes

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work for Predators in Action, which
was an animal training facility owned and operated

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00:14:24,200 --> 00:14:30,120
by his cousin, Randy Miller.
And this is a really interesting organization for

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00:14:30,200 --> 00:14:33,759
us to talk about in this podcast
because their whole purpose was to literally stage

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animal attacks, often for films or
television shows, including that GEO and Discovery,

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and Randy provided some quote training for
Chris Pratt for Jurassic World, Okay,

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00:14:48,840 --> 00:14:52,399
which I'm like, what qualifies you
to say how you would wrangle a

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00:14:52,519 --> 00:14:54,879
velociraptor. He's thought it through.
I mean, I guess if there's like

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00:14:54,919 --> 00:14:58,840
ostriches, that's gonna be close,
right. Yeah, Oh my god,

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00:14:58,840 --> 00:15:01,200
this is still relevant. Margie and
I just did a bonus episode last week

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00:15:01,200 --> 00:15:05,600
on prehistoric animals, so checked that
out on their Patreon. It's very good.

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00:15:05,039 --> 00:15:09,360
So to go more into Randy the
cousin for a second. So Stephan's

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00:15:09,399 --> 00:15:13,679
cousin, although he's now retired in
their organization, no longer provides animals for

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00:15:13,759 --> 00:15:18,039
entertainment purposes, which is great.
Randy, originally from Texas, kind of

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00:15:18,120 --> 00:15:22,200
hit it big when he was a
teenager because he and his dad opened a

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00:15:22,240 --> 00:15:26,960
soda seltzer company in the nineteen eighties, okay, and it became super successful,

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00:15:26,039 --> 00:15:31,600
which gave Randy the funds to buy
and race drag cars and also buy

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00:15:31,679 --> 00:15:35,720
exotic cats such as lions and tigers, some of which he kept in glass

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00:15:35,799 --> 00:15:39,360
cages in the middle of his house
in Hollywood. Wait, like the exotic

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00:15:39,440 --> 00:15:43,360
cats in a glass case he kept
like lions in the like as if it

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00:15:43,440 --> 00:15:46,320
was like our snake, my pet
snake showing you earlier where he's like,

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00:15:46,320 --> 00:15:48,360
you know, in a tank.
At least his tank like has stuff and

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00:15:48,360 --> 00:15:52,679
he's supposed to be a tank like
that. But yeah, it was essentially

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00:15:52,720 --> 00:15:56,000
like just like a focal piece in
his home, a glass case with a

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00:15:56,039 --> 00:15:58,919
tiger and a lion in it,
A live two live animals, yes,

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00:16:00,039 --> 00:16:03,559
in a glass case in his house. That's it. Okay, because have

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00:16:03,639 --> 00:16:07,159
you ever seen movies where people have
those? I can't think of one off

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00:16:07,159 --> 00:16:10,759
the top of my head. The
only thing I'm thinking of as a contemporary

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00:16:10,840 --> 00:16:15,559
artist who did that but with dead
animals? Oh, he like submerged a

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00:16:15,639 --> 00:16:18,159
shark in resin. I think I
cannot think of his name. Okay,

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00:16:18,200 --> 00:16:22,320
but that's kind of cool. It
is cool, but it's like it's massive

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00:16:22,320 --> 00:16:26,799
because it's a great white shark in
resin. If that's legal, that's pretty

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00:16:26,799 --> 00:16:30,679
cool. That's a good point.
I don't know. I mean this,

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00:16:32,320 --> 00:16:34,600
My first thought was like, how
are they getting oxygen? How do you

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00:16:34,679 --> 00:16:37,320
let them out? How do you
get them in there? Do they have

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00:16:37,399 --> 00:16:42,000
any how do you feed them?
Yeah? Because yeah, there's just so

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00:16:42,039 --> 00:16:45,840
many logistical questions. I'm like,
why would you want that? And then

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00:16:45,919 --> 00:16:49,159
like you just walk by a lion
like that's so awful. So anyways,

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00:16:49,960 --> 00:16:55,159
that's what he did, and he
would even bring his tigers into their soda

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00:16:55,240 --> 00:16:59,559
business's office. But don't worry because
he said, quote, we didn't turn

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00:16:59,600 --> 00:17:03,919
them loose. I was really careful
about it. All right. It's a

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00:17:03,000 --> 00:17:07,759
long story short. Eventually the soda
seltzer business went bankrupt, so Randy started

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00:17:07,839 --> 00:17:12,359
this predators in action business, and
he claimed, quote, the staged attacks

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00:17:12,559 --> 00:17:17,799
come from bonding and playing with these
animals as they grow up. Great.

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00:17:18,880 --> 00:17:22,440
So Randy made a name for himself
in the animal attack business in Hollywood,

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00:17:22,559 --> 00:17:26,000
and his first big break was in
two thousand when he was a stunt double

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00:17:26,039 --> 00:17:30,480
for Russell Crowe in the Gladiator tiger
attack scene. Have you seen Gladiator?

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00:17:30,680 --> 00:17:33,079
No? Okay me, I don't
know what this is referring to. But

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00:17:33,240 --> 00:17:36,759
it was a live tiger apparently,
and Randy was getting it makes sense a

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00:17:36,839 --> 00:17:41,119
scene in which he was only wearing
leather armor like fake leather armor ye for

256
00:17:41,559 --> 00:17:47,839
the doubling of Russell Crowe, and
the tiger bit right through it and created

257
00:17:47,880 --> 00:17:51,680
a hole in his arm, which
he just bandaged up quickly and then went

258
00:17:51,759 --> 00:17:55,400
back for another take because he was
like, I have to keep getting in

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00:17:55,519 --> 00:17:56,880
there and can't like let this drag
me down. You know what you mean.

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00:17:56,880 --> 00:18:00,039
If I'm going to be in this
business, I have to roll with

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00:18:00,200 --> 00:18:06,240
being bitten through my bicep by a
tiger. Yep. So then in two

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00:18:06,240 --> 00:18:10,240
thousand and eight, Randy stood in
for Will Ferrell in the movie Semi Pro

263
00:18:10,720 --> 00:18:15,680
and his Syrian brown bear Rocky starred
as the bear in that movie Rocky in

264
00:18:15,839 --> 00:18:18,839
that scene which I watched, the
scene, it's very silly, okay,

265
00:18:19,319 --> 00:18:23,240
But in the scene Rocky went the
bear, went for the wig that Randy

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00:18:23,359 --> 00:18:27,839
was wearing and ended up grabbing Randy's
head in his mouth and threw him around

267
00:18:27,880 --> 00:18:32,920
for about a minute. Oh,
but Randy survived, got cleaned up,

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00:18:32,920 --> 00:18:37,799
and took another take of the scene. It's back to Stephan also known as

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00:18:37,799 --> 00:18:41,759
Stevie, but I will call him
Stephan because I feel like Stevie's like a

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00:18:41,799 --> 00:18:45,160
little too intimate. I don't I
didn't know him, so anyways. Stefan

271
00:18:45,240 --> 00:18:48,799
worked for Predators in Action for several
years before he pursued other business ventures.

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00:18:49,079 --> 00:18:52,200
But he took part in raising some
of the animals with his cousin, including

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00:18:52,240 --> 00:18:56,480
one brown bear named Dakota, who
was related to the bear Rocky that I

274
00:18:56,599 --> 00:19:00,839
just mentioned. And I couldn't find
much else out about Stefan, but on

275
00:19:00,960 --> 00:19:03,440
April twenty second, two thousand and
eight, he was helping his cousin Randy,

276
00:19:03,480 --> 00:19:07,319
shoot a promotional video with Rocky the
bear, and for context, Rocky

277
00:19:07,559 --> 00:19:11,079
was seven and a half feet tall
when standing and seven hundred pounds at this

278
00:19:11,200 --> 00:19:17,440
time and five years old, similar
to our last episode with Timothy Treadwell.

279
00:19:17,519 --> 00:19:22,160
And because this is a promotional video, there is a recording of the events

280
00:19:22,240 --> 00:19:27,559
I am about to talk about,
and I watched it and I had Margie

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00:19:27,599 --> 00:19:30,279
watch it before we started recording so
we could both get the context for this

282
00:19:30,400 --> 00:19:36,400
story. But basically what happens is
Stefan is standing calmly in the middle of

283
00:19:36,440 --> 00:19:38,880
a cage with Rocky walking around him, and then a piece of food is

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00:19:38,960 --> 00:19:42,559
thrown beside Stefan. I'm assuming to
get Rocky in place for the video,

285
00:19:44,319 --> 00:19:47,599
and then Rocky ate the piece of
food, stood up on his hind legs

286
00:19:48,400 --> 00:19:52,720
and I'm assuming received a cue from
his trainer because he then turned licked Stephan's

287
00:19:52,799 --> 00:19:59,400
face, but then bit Stefan on
the neck. The bear held onto Stephan's

288
00:19:59,480 --> 00:20:03,799
neck him to the ground and everyone
began immediately shouting and running over and Randy,

289
00:20:03,799 --> 00:20:07,000
who was standing nearby, hit Rocky
with a cane to try to stop

290
00:20:07,119 --> 00:20:11,440
him, but Rocky did not release, and if anything, this made it

291
00:20:11,519 --> 00:20:17,720
worse because he began shaking Stuffan and
when Randy leaned down to try to access

292
00:20:17,920 --> 00:20:22,079
Rocky's mouth, he was easily tossed
away by the bear's head shaking. Two

293
00:20:22,119 --> 00:20:26,799
people deployed bear spray, which is
what finally made Rocky release Stephan and Stephan

294
00:20:27,000 --> 00:20:30,880
can be seen stumbling away at a
frame and Rocky began kind of like scratching

295
00:20:30,920 --> 00:20:37,039
and stomping at the ground after being
sprayed. And what follows is a nine

296
00:20:37,039 --> 00:20:38,799
to one one call of the attack, which has been released. So I

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00:20:38,839 --> 00:20:42,519
will read a bit of the transcript
here for you. So it starts with

298
00:20:42,680 --> 00:20:45,400
nine to one one, is he
doing okay? And this is like towards

299
00:20:45,440 --> 00:20:48,640
the end of the phone call Jeff, because nine one one told them to

300
00:20:48,720 --> 00:20:52,839
do CPR to try to help him, okay. And then there's a woman

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00:20:52,839 --> 00:20:55,160
who's the primary one on the phone. So nine one one says, is

302
00:20:55,240 --> 00:20:57,200
he doing okay? The woman says, no, nine one one, okay,

303
00:20:57,519 --> 00:21:03,119
woman, he's really still nine on
one okay, woman, he still

304
00:21:03,160 --> 00:21:06,960
has not regained consciousness. Nine on
one, okay. As long as he's

305
00:21:06,960 --> 00:21:10,839
breathing. We want to make sure
he's breathing. Woman, still breathing nine

306
00:21:10,880 --> 00:21:14,039
one one okay. Good. You
guys are doing good. I need you

307
00:21:14,079 --> 00:21:18,920
to stay calm woman, he's not
breathing anymore. The operator then tells them

308
00:21:18,960 --> 00:21:22,359
to give a rescue breath as part
of the CPR, and this is followed

309
00:21:22,400 --> 00:21:26,519
by an unidentified man who has later
been assumed to be Randy in the background

310
00:21:26,640 --> 00:21:30,000
saying he just died, and the
woman on the phone saying, come on,

311
00:21:30,119 --> 00:21:33,799
Stevie, hold on, and then
the man says, I've got you,

312
00:21:33,920 --> 00:21:38,640
Stefan. But Stepan ultimately died because
his jugular vein had been pierced,

313
00:21:40,000 --> 00:21:42,559
and he died within minutes of the
incident. So when you watch that video,

314
00:21:42,640 --> 00:21:47,079
it's kind of like not clear where
the bear is biting him and what

315
00:21:47,160 --> 00:21:51,200
really happens, and it's not graphic
per se in terms of like gore as

316
00:21:51,240 --> 00:21:53,519
you saw, Margie, And when
Stephan stumbles away, you're like, oh,

317
00:21:53,519 --> 00:21:56,519
okay, like he might have gotten
out of that, but he like

318
00:21:56,759 --> 00:22:03,079
soon collapsed after that mean recording that
shake that the bear did, Yeah,

319
00:22:03,519 --> 00:22:07,359
that was bad. Yeah. So
I've seen some sources claim that Randy said

320
00:22:07,400 --> 00:22:11,480
that this was playful behavior and an
accident, And I've seen some sources say

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00:22:11,480 --> 00:22:15,599
that Rocky just went for the fake
attack too quickly and caught Steffan off guard.

322
00:22:17,039 --> 00:22:19,720
I'm certainly not a bear expert.
I can't say what is playing and

323
00:22:21,359 --> 00:22:26,839
what is a bear attacking somewhat aggressively. I'm inclined to believe someone like Randy,

324
00:22:26,920 --> 00:22:30,359
but also I think this is it's
hard because he's obviously biased, right,

325
00:22:30,400 --> 00:22:33,440
because he doesn't want his bear to
be hurt, right, But it

326
00:22:33,519 --> 00:22:36,400
also killed his cousin, who he'd
loved very much. Yeah, So,

327
00:22:37,279 --> 00:22:40,759
as you can imagine, Randy was
very torn up after this and was diagnosed

328
00:22:40,759 --> 00:22:45,400
with PTSD and took a few months
off of work. Stephan left behind a

329
00:22:45,480 --> 00:22:51,279
wife and two children. As for
Rocky, following the incident, his permits

330
00:22:51,319 --> 00:22:53,920
to work in the state were put
on hold. There was some discourse initially

331
00:22:53,960 --> 00:22:57,519
as to whether or not Rocky should
be euthanized, and it was also confusing

332
00:22:57,559 --> 00:23:02,519
to determine who actually had authority because
this was a privately owned animal. So

333
00:23:02,599 --> 00:23:06,400
the California Department of Fishing Game was
hesitant to make a decision because they were

334
00:23:06,480 --> 00:23:11,880
like, this isn't technically wildlife.
And also the USDA's Animal and Plant Health

335
00:23:11,920 --> 00:23:15,160
Inspection Service also known as APHIS we've
talked about before. They're typically in charge

336
00:23:15,160 --> 00:23:18,680
of inspecting facilities like this one,
and they said that there had been no

337
00:23:18,839 --> 00:23:23,519
non compliances in the past, but
ultimately Fishing Game was in charge of the

338
00:23:23,559 --> 00:23:29,720
permitting for animals essentially like quote unquote
working in performing in the state. So

339
00:23:29,960 --> 00:23:33,559
in the end, they ruled Stephan's
death an accident and said that Rocky did

340
00:23:33,680 --> 00:23:37,759
not have to be euthanized. Okay, so Randy claimed that Rocky was safe

341
00:23:37,799 --> 00:23:41,240
to be around people and that Stepan
would have wanted him to continue working,

342
00:23:41,400 --> 00:23:45,079
which I think is a slippery slope
to like assume what dead people would want

343
00:23:45,079 --> 00:23:48,119
after being killed by an animal,
but just me. And then the USDA

344
00:23:48,279 --> 00:23:53,759
even cleared Rocky for work, but
because California houses most of the film industry,

345
00:23:55,440 --> 00:23:56,839
that was really the best state for
Rocky to like get work in,

346
00:23:57,000 --> 00:24:03,279
so they couldn't really take him anywhere
else. And ultimately, after a twenty

347
00:24:03,359 --> 00:24:07,160
twelve hearing, the Fishing Game Department
in California decided not to lift the restrictions

348
00:24:07,240 --> 00:24:12,160
against Rocky, therefore stopping him from
working in the state ever again. So

349
00:24:12,319 --> 00:24:17,400
in the end, in twenty twenty
two, so really recently, Rocky was

350
00:24:17,480 --> 00:24:21,799
moved to the Lions, Tigers and
Bears Facility, an exotic animal rescue in

351
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:26,279
Alpine, California, which is like
a kind of retirement for him. So

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00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:29,480
he's still alive as of today,
and because bears in captivity can live up

353
00:24:29,480 --> 00:24:32,359
to thirty years, he's still got
plenty of years left in him. Wow.

354
00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:36,240
So obviously not a happy ending for
well, I don't know if it's

355
00:24:36,240 --> 00:24:38,680
a happy ending for Rocky that he's
not like having to perform anymore for a

356
00:24:38,799 --> 00:24:44,680
living. But rough, rough going
back really quickly, because I somehow,

357
00:24:44,839 --> 00:24:48,920
very quickly just forgot that was that
the same cue that he was taught how

358
00:24:48,000 --> 00:24:52,079
to do with a Will Ferrell movie. I don't know. Oh, okay,

359
00:24:52,319 --> 00:24:55,759
yeah, I don't know anything about
it was hard to find information on

360
00:24:55,839 --> 00:24:57,319
this. I'm not sure if it's
just because it happened in two thousand and

361
00:24:57,319 --> 00:25:00,640
eight, you know what I mean? Yeah, but yeah, I don't

362
00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:03,039
know what the cues were, but
what Randy was saying where or like what

363
00:25:03,160 --> 00:25:08,599
some people were saying that he attacked
Stephan too soon. They were saying Stephan

364
00:25:08,759 --> 00:25:12,039
was supposed to put an arm up
to block the bear's mouth, and I

365
00:25:12,119 --> 00:25:15,200
think the bear was supposed to bite
his arm, but then it ended up

366
00:25:15,240 --> 00:25:19,440
biting his neck, so which I
don't know how well you can really train

367
00:25:19,480 --> 00:25:26,599
a bear to do anything, but
I don't know. I feel like that's

368
00:25:26,839 --> 00:25:30,799
also multiple articles I read because I
have a bear as well. People were

369
00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:37,200
like, you cannot domesticate bears,
but well, it's clearly like trained bears.

370
00:25:37,559 --> 00:25:41,000
Geah, it's hard, right because
there's obviously you can train an animal

371
00:25:41,319 --> 00:25:47,480
like a tiger or a bear,
but like how much can you really train

372
00:25:47,559 --> 00:25:51,519
them and how much can you stop
them from just like at what point does

373
00:25:51,519 --> 00:25:53,680
it become straight up attacking? And
when is it just like a thing that

374
00:25:53,759 --> 00:25:56,720
they're they've been trained to do?
You know what I mean? Like,

375
00:25:56,759 --> 00:26:00,079
I think it's such a slippery slope
and the lines are so blurred. We

376
00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:02,400
have CGI now, I just like, and I think that was something that

377
00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:04,119
Randy had said a reason he retired. He was like, there's not a

378
00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:07,039
lot of work for people like manymore
because CGI exists, which I'm like,

379
00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:11,079
good, sorry, But at the
hot take, I don't think we should

380
00:26:11,079 --> 00:26:17,039
be using live animals in performances.
Yeah, that's just me. That's a

381
00:26:17,039 --> 00:26:19,960
good hot take. Thank you so
much. Margie hit us with your bear

382
00:26:21,079 --> 00:26:26,279
story. Ooh, all right,
so my bear is appropriately named Teddy.

383
00:26:26,519 --> 00:26:30,160
Such a lame sorry to whoever owned
the bear, but like, come on,

384
00:26:30,599 --> 00:26:34,119
you know what I mean, Xavier, It's like naming your cat kitten.

385
00:26:34,920 --> 00:26:41,559
Anyways. That's I once house that
for people and their cat was named

386
00:26:41,640 --> 00:26:45,799
Kitty. Yeah, it's like yeah
anyways. Anyways, So Teddy. On

387
00:26:45,960 --> 00:26:49,839
Sunday night in October two thousand and
nine, thirty seven year old Kelly and

388
00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:55,000
Walls went to go attend to her
black bear, Teddy. Walls lived in

389
00:26:55,079 --> 00:26:59,880
a rural area northeast of Allentown,
Pennsylvania. Teddy was a nine year old,

390
00:27:00,079 --> 00:27:03,640
three hundred and fifty pound black bear
that Kelly had kept and raised since

391
00:27:03,680 --> 00:27:10,480
a cub. So the living situation
for this bear really reminds me of the

392
00:27:10,559 --> 00:27:15,759
situation with the lion in that documentary. So that evening, whilst went to

393
00:27:15,839 --> 00:27:21,200
Tendy's fifteen by fifteen foot steal in
concrete cage, and according to their neighbor,

394
00:27:21,359 --> 00:27:25,599
Scott cast In, this was a
daily routine where she would throw shovelfuls

395
00:27:25,640 --> 00:27:27,920
of dog food to the other side
of the cage to distract and feed the

396
00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:32,359
bear so that she could clean the
other side. And like, yeah,

397
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:33,720
I've got a hope that there's like
bedding, you know what I mean,

398
00:27:34,039 --> 00:27:37,799
because like just on the concrete if
you guys watched that documentary you mentioned,

399
00:27:37,839 --> 00:27:42,000
like it is awful. The lions
and that documentary were just kept on concrete

400
00:27:42,039 --> 00:27:45,640
and there was just like poop.
Ever, like it was just And also

401
00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:48,400
no, I don't want to spoil
what happened to the lions, but just

402
00:27:48,559 --> 00:27:53,200
all metal and concrete is not a
safe living situation anyways. No, no,

403
00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:57,480
And also dog food. Yeah,
I mean to be fair, I

404
00:27:57,599 --> 00:28:02,000
have cared for black bears before,
and they did eat dog food. Oh

405
00:28:02,079 --> 00:28:04,400
okay, yeah, I mean they
ate other things like fresh fruits and veggies

406
00:28:04,440 --> 00:28:07,519
and whatever, but they did eat
some dog food. Gotcha. I also

407
00:28:07,599 --> 00:28:11,319
feed turtles that eat dog food.
They soaked kibble. Is that weird?

408
00:28:12,200 --> 00:28:15,640
So many things eat dog food I
mean nutritious, I guess. So.

409
00:28:17,079 --> 00:28:22,079
Anyways, so she went to go
feed the bear, putting food on the

410
00:28:22,119 --> 00:28:26,759
other side of the cage, and
unfortunately Teddy turned on her and attack.

411
00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:30,720
Now I think it's important to note
here. Yes, so you said that

412
00:28:30,839 --> 00:28:33,279
she threw dog food on the other
side of the cage. Yes, so

413
00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:37,200
she couldn't block like there was no
separation. No, it was just like

414
00:28:37,480 --> 00:28:41,519
she's in there with him, cleaning
as fast as she can as he eats

415
00:28:41,799 --> 00:28:47,319
yep, awesome, fifteen by fifteen
foot cage, no barrier whatsoever, right

416
00:28:47,440 --> 00:28:53,160
except for a shitload of dog food
and a shovel. So unfortunately, Waltz's

417
00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:57,400
two children and Caston's children saw the
attack, They went and called Scott for

418
00:28:57,519 --> 00:29:02,480
help. Scott told the kids to
get inside and then yelled at Teddy to

419
00:29:02,519 --> 00:29:07,400
get him off of Kelly. Teddy
then turned towards him. Scott then shot

420
00:29:07,480 --> 00:29:11,720
and killed the bear with a handgun. Because rural Pennsylvania, Scott went to

421
00:29:11,759 --> 00:29:15,240
go and comfort unconscious Kelly Anne,
and she was later pronounced dead at the

422
00:29:15,279 --> 00:29:19,920
scene. Do you know, like
what exactly killed her? I mean,

423
00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:25,200
I think he just mauled her.
Yeah, yeah, I guess that's all

424
00:29:25,240 --> 00:29:27,759
you really need it just yeah,
yeah, yeah. There wasn't much as

425
00:29:27,839 --> 00:29:32,640
to like how he attacked her.
Yeah, which makes sense that there was

426
00:29:32,720 --> 00:29:36,279
children witnessing it and Scott came after. Yeah. Yeah, God, those

427
00:29:36,359 --> 00:29:42,240
poor fucking kids. Yeah. Okay, So afterwards, Casten said, when

428
00:29:42,279 --> 00:29:45,799
they told me what was happening his
kids, I at first thought that it

429
00:29:45,880 --> 00:29:48,640
was a wild bear, since we
have them in the area. I never

430
00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:52,279
would have thought it was Kelly Anne's
own bear. Kelly Anne's husband, Michael,

431
00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:56,000
had long standing permits to keep,
sell, and display exotic animals.

432
00:29:56,440 --> 00:30:00,240
He was listed with the state as
president of World of Reptiles ink. So

433
00:30:00,400 --> 00:30:04,480
was this like he had like his
own company and then named himself the president

434
00:30:04,559 --> 00:30:08,359
of it? Yess so interesting?
Okay, Yeah, there wasn't much on

435
00:30:08,480 --> 00:30:12,960
his like permit, just that says
business name. Okay, So it seems

436
00:30:12,960 --> 00:30:17,319
like the Walls has never sold any
animals and just kept them as pets.

437
00:30:17,799 --> 00:30:21,200
At one time on their eight acres
of property, they owned an African lion,

438
00:30:21,359 --> 00:30:25,599
a cougar, a jaguar, a
tiger, a leopard, a range

439
00:30:25,599 --> 00:30:30,440
of reptiles because it's the reptile king, two serviles, and along with Teddy

440
00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:33,880
the black bear, multiple articles also
looped in their old English bulldogs, which

441
00:30:34,039 --> 00:30:40,119
I personally don't think count but all
right exotic. Yes, At the time

442
00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:42,880
of this incident, only the tiger
and the Mountain lion remained. Multiple people

443
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:47,680
like neighbors in law enforcement noted that
the other animals had passed away due to

444
00:30:47,759 --> 00:30:52,519
old age. Eight acres is also
not a lot like I'm assuming, like

445
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:56,519
did they cycle through these big cats
or like, did they have all of

446
00:30:56,599 --> 00:31:00,240
them at once at one time?
That's not a lot of space. Eight

447
00:31:00,319 --> 00:31:03,960
acres is not a lot for that
many. It also looked from one news

448
00:31:03,079 --> 00:31:08,480
article they had an aerial shot of
the property and that enclosure for what it

449
00:31:08,559 --> 00:31:12,400
looked like for all the animals tod
not look at all to be eight acres

450
00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:17,920
at all, so it seemed to
be similar like fifteen by fifteen foot enclosures

451
00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:19,839
for the other animals as well.
It's a shame all, just like on

452
00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:26,759
this patch of land. So anyways, not great, no, so from

453
00:31:26,839 --> 00:31:32,200
a Seattle Times article, according to
their neighbor, Marshall Eldridge, he used

454
00:31:32,240 --> 00:31:34,839
to worry about the animals escaping when
his now grown children were still living at

455
00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:38,359
home, but he said the cages
were sturdy. They were good people.

456
00:31:38,599 --> 00:31:41,799
They just had a strange hobby.
He said. Well, I mean also

457
00:31:41,960 --> 00:31:45,559
like cool. The cages can be
as sturdy as you want. But if

458
00:31:45,599 --> 00:31:48,559
you don't have dividers to keep them
away from people, then it doesn't matter.

459
00:31:48,799 --> 00:31:53,519
Yeah, so its my two cents. Yeah. So Caston who killed

460
00:31:53,559 --> 00:31:57,160
Teddy, said the animals were safely
locked in their pens and that he had

461
00:31:57,200 --> 00:32:01,480
even fed popcorn to the bear on
a cave. One article noted that with

462
00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:06,759
parents' permission, Kelly would let some
of the neighbor's children care for the animals

463
00:32:06,839 --> 00:32:12,400
and clean the outdoor tases. Sane
to me. Yeah, So remember how

464
00:32:12,440 --> 00:32:15,519
I said that Michael had long standing
permits to keep, sell, and display

465
00:32:15,599 --> 00:32:20,200
exotic animals, so his permits had
expired the year before in June of two

466
00:32:20,240 --> 00:32:23,200
thousand and eight. A lapse permit
is considered a summary violation, like a

467
00:32:23,279 --> 00:32:28,680
traffic ticket, and would not result
in the removal of animals. The most

468
00:32:28,759 --> 00:32:31,359
recent state inspection, which was done
in two thousand and seven of their property,

469
00:32:31,519 --> 00:32:35,880
did not turn up any red flags
and no problems were found when the

470
00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:42,039
investigation was held after the attack.
So I don't know if you knew this,

471
00:32:42,880 --> 00:32:46,640
but Pennsylvania ranks second for exotic animal
faytale. That is shocking to me.

472
00:32:46,920 --> 00:32:50,960
I really would have guessed like Florida
and Texas would be the top two.

473
00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:57,599
Well, Florida's number one with sixteen
fatalities and Pennsylvania's eight, and Texas

474
00:32:57,720 --> 00:33:01,920
is seven. And this is from
numbers between nineteen ninety and twenty twenty two,

475
00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:08,519
specifically with exotic animal attacks and fatalities
and injuries. Yes, ok,

476
00:33:08,839 --> 00:33:15,119
not including injuries at all. There's
a whole other spec for that a lot.

477
00:33:15,319 --> 00:33:20,240
Ye specifically just Texas. Texas had
like categories for every single animal.

478
00:33:20,720 --> 00:33:24,599
Wow, like captivity animals, wild
animals, wild animals that were invasive exotics

479
00:33:27,039 --> 00:33:32,240
Texas like even like be and hornet
stings that were fatal Ye Texas. Yeah,

480
00:33:32,359 --> 00:33:37,759
keeping track, someone's got yeah,
gotta have a record. Currently,

481
00:33:37,920 --> 00:33:43,599
Pennsylvania has more than one hundred wildlife
permits. This number has dropped greatly in

482
00:33:43,759 --> 00:33:46,240
last in the recent years due to
more regulations, with new applicants needing to

483
00:33:46,279 --> 00:33:51,640
have two years of experience handling wild
animals and also obtain a letter of approval

484
00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:55,319
from their local government before they can
be considered. But previous holders like walls

485
00:33:55,400 --> 00:33:59,440
are not held to the same standard
and do not need to be reevaluated.

486
00:33:59,519 --> 00:34:04,640
Yeah, that's unacceptable to me.
Yeah. So it is highly advised against

487
00:34:04,640 --> 00:34:08,119
from owning a pet bear since they
cannot be domesticated similarly to like a dog.

488
00:34:08,760 --> 00:34:13,000
There are handful estates, mostly in
the Midwest, Texas and Pennsylvania,

489
00:34:13,079 --> 00:34:15,280
that allow you to own a bear
if you have a permit. So,

490
00:34:16,519 --> 00:34:20,119
like with all the animals I looked
up for this, I did a little

491
00:34:20,199 --> 00:34:22,760
test of how easy can I get
this. I love that you did that.

492
00:34:23,719 --> 00:34:28,119
And I was able to find a
website that specifically sold black bear cubs

493
00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:36,360
based in Vermont, so right over
the border in Rutland. You don't deserve

494
00:34:36,440 --> 00:34:40,239
that, but I mean, and
these cubs ranged between six thousand and six

495
00:34:40,360 --> 00:34:45,000
thousand and eight thousand dollars and they
were even having a sale on older cubs.

496
00:34:46,280 --> 00:34:52,119
The cub profiles read like petfinder profiles, noting certain personalities as safe with

497
00:34:52,199 --> 00:34:55,599
other humans, bears and has shown
aggression towards dogs and other animals. They

498
00:34:55,639 --> 00:35:01,760
offered grooming and training, so the
language that was used to describe the bears,

499
00:35:01,840 --> 00:35:06,039
the staff, and their mission statement
very much made me question all of

500
00:35:06,119 --> 00:35:08,880
this and to see if it was
actually real with slogans like all bears must

501
00:35:08,920 --> 00:35:13,280
go, It's a bear blowout,
special pricing through the rest of the month,

502
00:35:13,679 --> 00:35:16,800
which this was fake. This was
one hundred percent fake. And ashually

503
00:35:16,880 --> 00:35:22,159
saw my rise and fall of emotions
through Snapchat because I was so upset,

504
00:35:22,199 --> 00:35:24,400
and then I was like, I
am more upset because this is a joke.

505
00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:28,639
I was duped, I was jooped. But I did my research and

506
00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:31,960
it was fake. It actually was
Vermont Fishing Games April Fool's joke from twenty

507
00:35:32,159 --> 00:35:37,480
nineteen, and the site is still
active. It's called buybears dot org.

508
00:35:37,480 --> 00:35:40,960
But a little bit more digging and
I did find a site that at the

509
00:35:42,000 --> 00:35:45,039
moment wasn't selling black bear cubs,
but they requested that you fill out an

510
00:35:45,079 --> 00:35:50,039
email for requesting them. This site
gave me the absolute creeps, as it

511
00:35:50,079 --> 00:35:53,440
felt like an exotic animal Craigslist.
You could list animals for sale, submit

512
00:35:53,519 --> 00:35:58,920
requests to post for certain animals,
and an option to even auction off animals.

513
00:35:59,039 --> 00:36:02,679
It's so gross. An alternative,
you can just sponsor a bear through

514
00:36:02,679 --> 00:36:07,800
Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center and happy tax
season. It's a tax right off as

515
00:36:07,840 --> 00:36:12,199
well. Yeah, I love that
you mentioned that because another thing you can

516
00:36:12,280 --> 00:36:14,360
do too, which I thought about
doing, is a gift for this podcast,

517
00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:16,079
but it would be very expensive and
complicated. Would be like you can

518
00:36:16,119 --> 00:36:21,440
sponsor animals at zoos as well.
So like, one gift that I got

519
00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:23,440
as a child that I really loved
was for Christmas one year, I think

520
00:36:23,440 --> 00:36:27,679
it was my mom sponsored a little
blue penguin for me at the New England

521
00:36:27,719 --> 00:36:30,360
Aquarium. So I got like a
picture a rite up and I went to

522
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:31,920
the aquarium and was like, there's
my penguin, even though there was no

523
00:36:32,079 --> 00:36:36,719
way I could tell what penguin they
all looked the same. But it was

524
00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:38,400
still great because I felt like it
was kind of mine, which is a

525
00:36:38,480 --> 00:36:43,880
great alternative instead of owning a penguin
or a fucking bear, to just like

526
00:36:44,039 --> 00:36:47,360
sponsor one where they belong or are
housed by people who know what they're doing

527
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:51,880
and are accredited. So do you
remember the penguin's name. I think it

528
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:53,760
was just a little blue Yeah,
I know it was. I mean it

529
00:36:53,880 --> 00:36:57,320
was a very cute little penguin and
I got like a little stuffed animal out

530
00:36:57,320 --> 00:36:59,800
of it. It was great.
So, you know, if you have

531
00:36:59,880 --> 00:37:01,840
like an eight year old or six
or whatever, I don't know what age

532
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:05,719
kids are when they want stuff,
that's unreasonable. But if your kids like,

533
00:37:05,800 --> 00:37:09,000
eh, I want to pitt manity, just sponsor one and be like,

534
00:37:09,079 --> 00:37:12,960
there it is and it lives here, you can visit it instead of

535
00:37:13,119 --> 00:37:15,639
having an own one. Yeah.
Yea being a glass container in the middle.

536
00:37:17,039 --> 00:37:20,960
Imagine having amanity that in the middle
of your house is so gross.

537
00:37:21,039 --> 00:37:24,719
Yes, it's true. A lot
they do. Anyways, Thank you for

538
00:37:24,880 --> 00:37:30,719
that, Margie, You're welcome We're
going to move on to my final story,

539
00:37:30,280 --> 00:37:36,280
which is about a man named Austin
Riley, and my fiance was the

540
00:37:36,320 --> 00:37:37,880
first one to show me the story, and I know another one of you

541
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:40,679
listeners sent it to me. I
cannot, for the life me fine who

542
00:37:40,719 --> 00:37:45,599
it was. So thank you to
whoever sent me the story. This story

543
00:37:45,719 --> 00:37:49,400
took place in Bernie, Texas,
with Austin Riley, who is a thirty

544
00:37:49,480 --> 00:37:53,159
year old who lived on an one
hundred and thirty acre ranch there. Unfortunately,

545
00:37:53,320 --> 00:37:58,360
Austin had come close to dying many
times in his life. Before his

546
00:37:58,599 --> 00:38:02,000
first birthday, the doctors found a
large tumor growing inside his skull, leading

547
00:38:02,079 --> 00:38:07,400
him to spend most of his childhood
and hospitals undergoing multiple high risk brain surgeries,

548
00:38:07,679 --> 00:38:09,880
one of which left him partially paralyzed
on his left side because it was

549
00:38:09,920 --> 00:38:15,840
a quote botched surgery wow. Because
of his condition, he spent a lot

550
00:38:15,880 --> 00:38:19,880
of his childhood isolated, needing nearly
constant supervision, so he didn't have a

551
00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:22,880
wide circle of human friends, but
he was able to surround himself with animal

552
00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:29,559
ones instead. After Austin was born, his father started breeding exotic animals on

553
00:38:29,719 --> 00:38:36,360
their ranch. These animals included Ostrich
different species of deer and warthogs, and

554
00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:39,199
then in his twenties, one night, Austin was hit with the worst pain

555
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:43,199
he had ever experienced in his life, which turned out to be a brain

556
00:38:43,280 --> 00:38:47,679
hemorrhage that nearly killed him again,
but he survived and said he was convinced

557
00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:52,119
his life had been spared by God. So Austin turned to like all these

558
00:38:52,159 --> 00:38:57,559
animals for comfort and friendship, and
there was one animal that he formed a

559
00:38:57,719 --> 00:39:00,960
very close bond with after his string
of medical issues shoes, which was a

560
00:39:00,079 --> 00:39:07,159
warhog named Whyalan. Whalen's mother died
during labor in twenty seventeen, so Austin

561
00:39:07,239 --> 00:39:09,880
took to raising the baby on his
own, bottle feeding it and making it

562
00:39:09,920 --> 00:39:15,000
a makeshift nursery inside their home,
and Whitlan, the little warhog, spent

563
00:39:15,079 --> 00:39:16,960
its time wrestling with the family bulldog. There's a lot of bulldogs in this

564
00:39:17,039 --> 00:39:22,079
episode. There. They must be
going with exotic animals do at a but

565
00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:25,480
Whalen would follow Austin around and fall
asleep on his chest after being fed.

566
00:39:27,039 --> 00:39:30,880
He loved red apples and belly screeches, and sitting in Austin's car for drive

567
00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:37,599
through food trips. Did he get
a pup cup pig cut. I rolled

568
00:39:37,599 --> 00:39:40,320
to Starbucks. Can you get a
pig? Can a warhog cup? Please?

569
00:39:42,239 --> 00:39:45,559
So, as you can imagine,
Austin and Whalen were pretty inseparable,

570
00:39:45,679 --> 00:39:49,679
but Whylan, being a warhog,
soon got to be two hundred and fifty

571
00:39:49,760 --> 00:39:52,400
pounds, and at this point he
was moved to an outdoor pen hundreds of

572
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:54,679
yards from their family's home. I
also want to take a minute here.

573
00:39:54,719 --> 00:39:59,559
I didn't take notes on this,
but you know, like teacup pigs and

574
00:39:59,599 --> 00:40:02,079
miniature pigs, yeah, those aren't
real people. Have you ever heard of

575
00:40:02,119 --> 00:40:06,800
anyone owning one? Okay? I
knew someone who got one and she was

576
00:40:06,840 --> 00:40:08,440
like, oh, it'll stay little
fever. No, her he cut pig

577
00:40:08,480 --> 00:40:13,039
got to get two hundred pounds attacked
her grandma. So I just want to

578
00:40:13,079 --> 00:40:15,760
put it out there. They don't
stay little, even teacup pigs, they

579
00:40:15,800 --> 00:40:19,639
still gonna be big pigs, like
because the biggest pigs are like eight hundred

580
00:40:19,800 --> 00:40:22,239
pounds, like the feet the pigs
that you like, you know for the

581
00:40:22,400 --> 00:40:25,280
harvest pigs, yeah, pigs.
I don't know the word for harvest pigs

582
00:40:25,559 --> 00:40:30,760
that sounds cute, harvest pig.
It means messed up anyways, a cute

583
00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:37,840
name on it rebrand. Anyways,
similar to most pigs species, warthogs,

584
00:40:37,880 --> 00:40:42,639
including Whalen, are very intelligent and
he knew basic commands, including his own

585
00:40:42,719 --> 00:40:45,119
name, which he would like,
come running for, oh wow, And

586
00:40:45,320 --> 00:40:50,119
when Austin wasn't looking, Whalen would
root into his back pocket for a pair

587
00:40:50,159 --> 00:40:53,039
of pliers. He always kept there
and would play keep away with Austin around

588
00:40:53,119 --> 00:40:58,840
his pen. However, how tall
was How tall are they? That's a

589
00:40:58,880 --> 00:41:01,719
great question. I mean, like
they are pretty big. I don't know.

590
00:41:02,480 --> 00:41:07,079
So there's like this picture of one, like a diagram one standing next

591
00:41:07,119 --> 00:41:12,360
to a guy. They're they're pretty
sizable, so they can. Their shoulder

592
00:41:12,440 --> 00:41:17,000
height is like twenty five to thirty
three inches, so that's it's pretty tall.

593
00:41:17,239 --> 00:41:23,159
Yep. Anyways, so that tall
and two hundred fifty pounds. So

594
00:41:23,559 --> 00:41:29,000
unlike domestic pigs, though, Whalen
belonged to the warthog species, one that

595
00:41:29,119 --> 00:41:34,159
doesn't have a predictable behavior as a
domesticated species might. So this leads us

596
00:41:34,199 --> 00:41:37,639
to one October day in twenty twenty
two. We're talking a lot about October.

597
00:41:37,159 --> 00:41:40,719
Didn't attack happened October? Yeah?
What happens anyways, so stay.

598
00:41:40,719 --> 00:41:45,280
In October twenty twenty two, Whalen
was now five years old, and the

599
00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:49,320
day started out like any other on
the ranch. Whalen seemed like his normal,

600
00:41:49,360 --> 00:41:52,159
friendly self, and Austin said hello
to him as he passed through the

601
00:41:52,239 --> 00:41:54,880
gate into his enclosure and scratched him
on the back. They walked together to

602
00:41:54,920 --> 00:41:59,239
fill two feeding truffs, and about
twenty minutes later, Austin went to feed

603
00:41:59,280 --> 00:42:01,400
his pot belly pig Daisy in an
adjacent pen, so he like exited the

604
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:07,360
pen, fed Daisy, came back
into Whyalan's enclosure and began walking towards his

605
00:42:07,519 --> 00:42:10,320
all trained vehicle, which was parked
outside the enclosure. But all of a

606
00:42:10,360 --> 00:42:15,159
sudden, Austin's right leg crumpled underneath
him and he went flying forward, landing

607
00:42:15,320 --> 00:42:21,599
fifteen feet away. Oh As Austin
regathered his senses, he looked up and

608
00:42:21,639 --> 00:42:27,239
saw Whalen's face through a cloud of
dust near his feet. Before Austin could

609
00:42:27,280 --> 00:42:30,559
stand, Whalen got between Austin's lower
legs and began thrashing his head back and

610
00:42:30,639 --> 00:42:36,039
forth, stabbing Austin twice with one
tusk in the right calf and stabbing him

611
00:42:36,079 --> 00:42:39,719
once in the left half. He
also tore open from Austin's right knee to

612
00:42:39,960 --> 00:42:45,559
his upper thigh. Oh, so
deep and wide that Austin could stick his

613
00:42:45,719 --> 00:42:51,639
hand inside it. I wish everyone
could see reactions Marge's hand was shot in

614
00:42:51,679 --> 00:42:54,440
the air, like, sorry,
honestly, I feel like I would do

615
00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:57,360
that too if I was wounded,
to be like, can I put my

616
00:42:57,440 --> 00:43:00,400
hand on the Ooh? I wouldn't. No, absolutely not. Okay.

617
00:43:00,519 --> 00:43:05,079
Well, hey, it's okay to
be different, It's okay to touch your

618
00:43:05,079 --> 00:43:12,760
wounds. So Austin also at this
point felt cool air hitting warm muscle and

619
00:43:13,039 --> 00:43:16,480
realized that blood was spilling from his
jeans and pooling in his boots. That's

620
00:43:16,480 --> 00:43:21,519
how much blood he was losing.
Oh. He also knew his parents were

621
00:43:21,559 --> 00:43:24,320
inside their house having dinner, but
that was a quarter mile away, so

622
00:43:24,440 --> 00:43:28,880
he screamed, but he knew he
was too far for anyone to hear him.

623
00:43:29,800 --> 00:43:32,880
Oh okay. Initially, Austin hoped
that this was like a momentary show

624
00:43:32,920 --> 00:43:37,440
of dominance, but he looked Whalen
in the eye and saw his quote rage

625
00:43:37,519 --> 00:43:42,800
filled eyes, which made him realize
this was much more than Whalen being territorial.

626
00:43:44,840 --> 00:43:47,119
Austin tried to scoot away, but
Whalen charged at him and tried pinning

627
00:43:47,159 --> 00:43:51,519
him to the ground. War Hoogs
can run up to thirty miles an hour,

628
00:43:51,960 --> 00:43:53,440
so there was no way Austin could
have scooted fast enough to get away

629
00:43:53,440 --> 00:43:59,159
from him. Before Austin could defend
himself, the war hog stabbed him four

630
00:43:59,280 --> 00:44:02,880
more times his upper left leg and
genitals, following very quickly by a few

631
00:44:02,920 --> 00:44:08,119
more stabs to his upper right leg. Austin tried to gouge out Whalen's eyes,

632
00:44:08,519 --> 00:44:14,760
but the warhog's facial armor blocked Austin
from doing this. He tried grabbing

633
00:44:14,800 --> 00:44:17,920
Whalen's tusks, but ended up slicing
open his own wrist. So they're like

634
00:44:19,159 --> 00:44:22,320
built for this. I mean,
you figure, like in Africa they're fighting

635
00:44:22,360 --> 00:44:23,960
off lions, so yeah, they're
definitely built to fight off a person.

636
00:44:24,960 --> 00:44:29,920
Whalen also stabbed Austin in the abdomen, and Austin tried putting him in a

637
00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:35,119
headlock, but whalan jerked his head
up, stabbing Austin with a tusk in

638
00:44:35,239 --> 00:44:39,119
his voice box, which left a
quarter sized hole in his neck, causing

639
00:44:39,159 --> 00:44:45,000
a piece of artery to dangle out. So this knocked Austin completely over,

640
00:44:45,159 --> 00:44:46,559
and he knew he would be done
for if Whalen was able to get on

641
00:44:46,639 --> 00:44:50,920
top of him, so he paused
for a moment, kind of lying there

642
00:44:50,960 --> 00:44:54,280
as if he was dead, and
Whalen actually did stop briefly, and this

643
00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:59,519
gave Austin the chance to stagger to
his feet, running truly off adrenaline at

644
00:44:59,519 --> 00:45:02,559
this point, and he had to
scale an eight foot high fence to escape

645
00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:08,079
with arterie dangling out. Imagine yeah, and all like the damage done to

646
00:45:08,159 --> 00:45:13,320
his legs, Yeah yeah, I
cut open from your knee up to your

647
00:45:13,400 --> 00:45:17,119
thigh. Yeah wow. But once
Austin made it out of the pen,

648
00:45:17,559 --> 00:45:22,199
he realized during the attack his phone
had fallen on the ground in the enclosure,

649
00:45:22,840 --> 00:45:27,000
and he knew he couldn't stay conscious
long enough or like really probably have

650
00:45:27,079 --> 00:45:30,119
function enough in his body to drive
back to his house to get help,

651
00:45:30,559 --> 00:45:35,000
so he had to re enter the
enclosure. Are you so he did?

652
00:45:35,440 --> 00:45:39,880
Oh my? He walked twenty feet
and had to retrieve his phone without Whylan

653
00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:45,639
noticing him. He was able to
do this. He waited until Whalean walked

654
00:45:45,679 --> 00:45:49,119
away a little bit, grabbed his
phone and began stumbling towards a nearby gate,

655
00:45:49,440 --> 00:45:52,199
but was struggling with some latches to
get out of the gate, and

656
00:45:52,360 --> 00:45:58,639
Whalen charged again. Thankfully, Austin
was able to slip through the gate just

657
00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:02,400
seconds before whale got there. Austin
collapsed on the ground on the other side,

658
00:46:02,440 --> 00:46:06,760
and Wayland lunged at the fence trying
to break through to get to him.

659
00:46:07,639 --> 00:46:12,559
That is horrifying. Yeah, typically
Austin had no cell reception on this

660
00:46:12,639 --> 00:46:15,480
part of the property either, but
on this day, which he said is

661
00:46:15,639 --> 00:46:21,239
like thank God, he had one
bar and was able to call his dad,

662
00:46:22,039 --> 00:46:24,599
and he told his dad that he
was bleeding out. He told his

663
00:46:24,719 --> 00:46:28,960
parents how much he loved them before
he hung up, thanking them for always

664
00:46:28,960 --> 00:46:32,760
being there for him and that his
death wasn't their fault. From where he

665
00:46:34,000 --> 00:46:37,239
was a quarter mile away, Austin
could hear I literally have chills. Austin

666
00:46:37,320 --> 00:46:42,199
could hear his mom screaming, and
could hear his dad peeling out of their

667
00:46:42,280 --> 00:46:46,880
driveway towards him. When Austin's dad
got to him, his first instinct was

668
00:46:46,960 --> 00:46:52,000
to push all the tissue back into
Austin's body, trying to put him back

669
00:46:52,039 --> 00:46:55,039
together. As he was put into
his dad's car, he lost feeling in

670
00:46:55,079 --> 00:46:59,280
his hands and his feet, a
sign that his body was going into shock.

671
00:47:00,599 --> 00:47:02,880
His dad called NEMA one and emergency
responders advised him to wait in their

672
00:47:02,960 --> 00:47:07,760
car, but his dad refused,
racing onto the interstate to meet them,

673
00:47:07,960 --> 00:47:13,400
with Austin's mom in a car behind
falling Gotcha. Because of his severe condition,

674
00:47:13,840 --> 00:47:16,079
Austin's parents were told that they couldn't
ride in the ambulance with him,

675
00:47:16,400 --> 00:47:20,280
so they had to say goodbye and
that they loved him and to keep fighting.

676
00:47:21,480 --> 00:47:23,159
Austin's mom dropped to her knees in
the middle of the road, where

677
00:47:23,159 --> 00:47:27,159
a sheriff had to help escort her
to safety, afraid that she was gonna

678
00:47:27,159 --> 00:47:31,119
get hit by a car. By
the time Austin reached the hospital thirty minutes

679
00:47:31,159 --> 00:47:36,880
away, he'd lost nearly half of
his blood, which hospital staff said,

680
00:47:37,280 --> 00:47:40,400
had it been any more, he
likely would have died. They also found

681
00:47:40,400 --> 00:47:45,760
out that Whalen's tusks came within millimeters
of severing arteries, and he had a

682
00:47:45,800 --> 00:47:49,199
total of fifteen stab wounds that they
could tell, but some wounds were so

683
00:47:49,360 --> 00:47:52,800
messy that they couldn't determine how many
there actually were, but fifteen was like

684
00:47:52,079 --> 00:47:55,960
the lowest count. And I also
want to note here that wartog stab wounds

685
00:47:57,039 --> 00:48:00,760
aren't like a clean stab. So
their tusks, which Margie recently found out

686
00:48:00,760 --> 00:48:05,960
before we started recording that what was
it. The average tusk is like seven

687
00:48:06,039 --> 00:48:08,079
inches, but that's like on the
smaller side. Yeah, and that like

688
00:48:08,280 --> 00:48:13,800
large was over ten inches. Yeah. So their tusks are also hooked to

689
00:48:13,920 --> 00:48:16,239
do the most amount of damage possible
when coming out of whatever they're stabbing,

690
00:48:16,360 --> 00:48:22,239
rather than going in. That makes
sense. His recovery was long, but

691
00:48:22,360 --> 00:48:28,039
after ten surgeries, Austin survived once
again. To this day, he still

692
00:48:28,079 --> 00:48:30,639
has no idea what caused Whalen to
attack, saying that his penmate, a

693
00:48:30,719 --> 00:48:34,840
female warhog, wasn't in heat at
the time, and he didn't seem to

694
00:48:34,880 --> 00:48:37,639
be guarding food. It didn't seem
like he was cornered in any way.

695
00:48:37,719 --> 00:48:44,559
It just seemed random. As for
Whalen. The day after the attack,

696
00:48:45,079 --> 00:48:49,519
Austin's parents asked a friend to kill
Whalen and cut off his head to send

697
00:48:49,559 --> 00:48:52,880
to the state for rabies testing.
He came back negative, which is good.

698
00:48:53,119 --> 00:48:58,480
Yeah. His parents deleted all the
pictures they had of Whalen from their

699
00:48:58,559 --> 00:49:02,119
phones and rehome all their other war
hogs because the family just could not stand

700
00:49:02,199 --> 00:49:07,280
to look at war hoogs anymore.
Whoa However, Austin kept pictures of Whalen,

701
00:49:07,360 --> 00:49:09,559
but it took him over a year
to be able to look at them

702
00:49:09,599 --> 00:49:14,880
again. In the end, when
asked how Austin thought Whalen felt about the

703
00:49:14,920 --> 00:49:17,199
attack, like if they if he
thought that maybe Whalen like regretted it or

704
00:49:17,239 --> 00:49:22,079
something, Austin took some time but
responded with quote, I don't think it

705
00:49:22,159 --> 00:49:27,079
was Whalen who attacked me. I
was attacked by a ward hog, and

706
00:49:27,199 --> 00:49:30,840
that's it. I just can't imagine
like having like getting out of the pen

707
00:49:30,960 --> 00:49:32,840
and then being like you have to
go put my phone's in there. I

708
00:49:32,920 --> 00:49:37,840
also can't imagine raising something from a
baby and like every single day you're like

709
00:49:37,880 --> 00:49:39,800
really friend. Like they would cuddle
together in the sun, Like there's so

710
00:49:39,920 --> 00:49:44,360
many pictures here. Let me show
you some pictures that's them too. Yeah,

711
00:49:44,639 --> 00:49:46,599
and then there's pictures of them like
laying together. I mean, also

712
00:49:46,639 --> 00:49:51,599
there's pictures of his tusks, which
I'll post on Patreon. But here's a

713
00:49:51,679 --> 00:49:54,559
picture of Whalen just like asleep on
Yeah. They were Austin's like just like

714
00:49:54,599 --> 00:49:59,920
hanging out. They were like really
close, and it's crazy. I wonder,

715
00:50:00,199 --> 00:50:02,960
like what what happened, what switched? I don't know, but that's

716
00:50:04,000 --> 00:50:07,440
the thing. They're not domesticated,
so it's like they are not nearly as

717
00:50:07,480 --> 00:50:10,079
predictable and warhogs. Their whole thing
is like being super vigil and anxious all

718
00:50:10,079 --> 00:50:13,760
the time because they live around so
many things to try to kill them in

719
00:50:13,840 --> 00:50:17,719
Africa where they belong, so and
like they're literally meant for killing anything.

720
00:50:19,199 --> 00:50:24,159
They're built. Yes, yeah,
So anyways, Margie onto a new species

721
00:50:24,239 --> 00:50:29,480
that we haven't talked about yet.
Ooh, so when I walked in on

722
00:50:29,559 --> 00:50:32,079
the documentary, you kind of filled
me in on what had happened previously because

723
00:50:32,199 --> 00:50:38,840
we witnessed the auction for like mammals, which was horrifying, very scary,

724
00:50:39,039 --> 00:50:40,880
and I do you want to say, there's a really good quote from the

725
00:50:40,920 --> 00:50:45,239
documentary where the guy was like,
the only next crazy thing other than what

726
00:50:45,280 --> 00:50:47,199
we're seeing here is as if there
was like an auction of children because of

727
00:50:47,280 --> 00:50:51,360
the way that they just like manhandled
monkeys and stuff, and it was just

728
00:50:51,679 --> 00:50:54,440
like if you watch it is so
disturbing. But anyways, sorry, continue

729
00:50:54,639 --> 00:50:59,320
So that really like sparked my interests
because you were saying that there was reptiles

730
00:50:59,360 --> 00:51:01,880
and snakes and cups and like crammed
into bins, and you know, I

731
00:51:01,880 --> 00:51:06,039
think it was in Pennsylvania. It
was like the largest reptile expo in the

732
00:51:06,159 --> 00:51:09,079
country. And yeah, there were
venomous like baby venomous snakes just in cups.

733
00:51:09,360 --> 00:51:14,559
You could. The guy Tim Harrison
from the documentary bought a venomous I

734
00:51:14,559 --> 00:51:16,239
think it was a good boon viper
maybe, and they just gave it to

735
00:51:16,320 --> 00:51:20,000
him in a bin with like some
holes drilled on the top for air,

736
00:51:20,599 --> 00:51:22,159
and like no background check or anything. They just like he handed over the

737
00:51:22,199 --> 00:51:27,480
money and eventually he sent it to
like a research institute for venom studies,

738
00:51:27,639 --> 00:51:30,079
which was great, but like just
anybody could get whatever they wanted, like

739
00:51:30,159 --> 00:51:34,239
venomous snakes. They just had little
red tape to indicate that it was venomous.

740
00:51:34,760 --> 00:51:38,320
It was crazy. Wow, yeah, so cool, super neat.

741
00:51:39,079 --> 00:51:45,960
So speaking of venomous snakes, so
this one is a little bit mysterious and

742
00:51:45,519 --> 00:51:49,960
for anybody listening it kind of reminded
me of the second book in the series

743
00:51:50,000 --> 00:51:53,480
of Unfortunate Events, The Reptile Room. So this starts in twenty eleven when

744
00:51:53,559 --> 00:51:58,639
fifty six year old Elita Stacy was
found dead by her boyfriend in their home

745
00:51:58,719 --> 00:52:01,400
in Putnam, up Stany, which
is about an hour from Rutland, Vermont.

746
00:52:01,719 --> 00:52:05,880
Oh wow, yeah, her death
was caused by a black mamba snake.

747
00:52:06,880 --> 00:52:10,000
The black mamba snake is the second
longest venomous snake after the king cobra.

748
00:52:10,719 --> 00:52:15,440
They commonly grow to about nine to
ten feet and sometimes up to fourteen

749
00:52:15,480 --> 00:52:20,239
to fifteen feet. Wow. And
not from Upstate New York. No,

750
00:52:20,400 --> 00:52:24,639
definitely not, not at all.
They're from mid Africa. They can travel

751
00:52:24,679 --> 00:52:29,559
about ten miles per hour if they
got to go fast because goood, Yeah,

752
00:52:29,760 --> 00:52:32,360
it's goood. Black mambas are both
tree and groundwelling snakes and are found

753
00:52:32,360 --> 00:52:36,960
in Central and South Africa. Again, they can be found in dense forest

754
00:52:36,960 --> 00:52:42,519
savannah's rocky environments. They seem to
be like all terrain, an all terrain

755
00:52:42,639 --> 00:52:46,800
snake, having few natural predators.
They appear on small birds and small animals.

756
00:52:47,119 --> 00:52:51,920
They are not social and they are
not territorial. Okay, so they

757
00:52:52,000 --> 00:52:54,440
vary in colors from gray to dark
browns. The black in their name black

758
00:52:54,519 --> 00:52:59,960
mamba refers to the inky black inside
of their mouth, which they then owe

759
00:53:00,079 --> 00:53:04,880
open when they feel threatened. One
description called their open mouth shape to be

760
00:53:05,079 --> 00:53:08,199
the shape of a coffin. Oh
yeah, which spooky. Yeah, I

761
00:53:09,199 --> 00:53:13,119
did look up photos and yeah,
kind of has that shape. That's cool.

762
00:53:13,280 --> 00:53:15,559
So there you go. When they're
getting ready to bite, they will

763
00:53:15,559 --> 00:53:20,400
spread their narrow neck, flap and
sometimes hiss. Because of their length,

764
00:53:20,679 --> 00:53:24,639
they can strike from considerable range,
can deliver multiple strikes in rapid succession.

765
00:53:25,719 --> 00:53:30,000
And I do want to note here, like we've covered venomous snakes before and

766
00:53:30,039 --> 00:53:32,679
we will in the future too,
but once again, just because a snake

767
00:53:32,719 --> 00:53:36,360
is venomous doesn't mean that they always
have to inject you with venom. They

768
00:53:36,400 --> 00:53:38,880
can like choose whether or not they
Sorry if you were going to say that,

769
00:53:39,079 --> 00:53:43,079
lets yeah, no, that's all
good, specifically about the black mambas.

770
00:53:43,119 --> 00:53:45,519
But continue, Yeah, that was
it, Okay. They don't have

771
00:53:45,559 --> 00:53:49,719
to invenimate you. They choose not
to sometimes. But black mamba venom is

772
00:53:49,800 --> 00:53:53,239
primarily composed of neurotoxins, which will
affect one's nervous system, along with cardiotoxins,

773
00:53:53,280 --> 00:53:58,000
which will attack the heart. They
can induce symptoms for a victim within

774
00:53:58,199 --> 00:54:00,960
ten minutes. Of a bite.
Oh boy, it's frequently fatal, since

775
00:54:01,039 --> 00:54:07,159
two drops of its venom can kill
a person within twenty minutes. So that

776
00:54:07,320 --> 00:54:10,480
means you've got to get somewhere extremely
fast that has anti venom and hope that

777
00:54:10,840 --> 00:54:15,239
there's no long lasting nerve damage.
Yes, and I know, like you

778
00:54:15,280 --> 00:54:16,480
know, in our Rattlesnake episode we
talked about, oh well, if you

779
00:54:16,559 --> 00:54:19,760
get bitten, like you know,
if you're close to a hospital, you

780
00:54:19,960 --> 00:54:23,480
will probably be okay. But if
you're in a rural area, obviously having

781
00:54:23,559 --> 00:54:28,480
the time to get somewhere is vital. And in Africa, if it's a

782
00:54:28,559 --> 00:54:31,800
rural area and you're not near somewhere
like a big health facility, I can

783
00:54:31,840 --> 00:54:37,039
imagine they kill quite a few people. Yeah. Yeah. So also the

784
00:54:37,199 --> 00:54:39,920
rapid succession of bytes that they can
do, so they can carry up to

785
00:54:40,000 --> 00:54:44,800
twenty drops of venom in their fangs
at one time. Wow, so you

786
00:54:44,840 --> 00:54:47,880
could be administered multiple way more than
two drops. Oh so that means you

787
00:54:47,960 --> 00:54:51,280
were saying like, oh, if
you get like a few drops, you

788
00:54:51,360 --> 00:54:53,880
got ten to twenty minutes. Yeah, whereas if you get hit multiple times.

789
00:54:53,880 --> 00:54:57,840
They can imagine that would speed that
up. Yeap. Yikes. Yeah,

790
00:54:58,239 --> 00:55:02,400
great, animal to have as a
pet. Yeah. In America YEP

791
00:55:02,440 --> 00:55:07,119
and in Upstate New York I meant
frequently that they are fatal, meaning that

792
00:55:07,239 --> 00:55:12,079
they have been cases, specifically with
black mambas, to have been a dry

793
00:55:12,159 --> 00:55:16,400
bite, whereas there's no venom administered
by the black mamba. Also, depending

794
00:55:16,440 --> 00:55:20,880
on where the bite was and how
much was injected, people have survived a

795
00:55:20,960 --> 00:55:24,960
bite without anti venom. Wow.
So this does not mean though, if

796
00:55:25,000 --> 00:55:29,639
you're bitten by a black mamba,
then we get help. Please go get

797
00:55:29,719 --> 00:55:31,920
help. So we probably don't have
to tell people that. Hopefully you would

798
00:55:31,920 --> 00:55:36,800
assume that you would need help,
especially with this type of snake. So

799
00:55:37,079 --> 00:55:40,039
once bitten and depending on where,
humans can collapse within twenty to forty five

800
00:55:40,119 --> 00:55:45,800
minutes and can be dead within seven
to fifteen hours. If it's a direct

801
00:55:45,840 --> 00:55:50,239
bloodstream bite, it's one hundred percent
fatal within twenty minutes. Wow. So

802
00:55:50,480 --> 00:55:52,480
Symptoms will include a slight swelling at
the side of the bite, pain or

803
00:55:52,559 --> 00:55:58,519
light burning, loss of control of
the tongue jaw, resulting in slurred speech,

804
00:55:58,719 --> 00:56:04,000
tunnel and blurred vision, respiratory difficulties, drowsiness, along with paralysis of

805
00:56:04,159 --> 00:56:08,159
all muscle groups and mental confusion.
Wow. Mainly, if you're bitten by

806
00:56:08,199 --> 00:56:14,360
a snake, seek medical attention asaff
And secondly, and I know this would

807
00:56:14,400 --> 00:56:17,480
be so hard, but remaining calm
and not raising your heart rate will lessen

808
00:56:17,519 --> 00:56:22,119
the spread of venom throughout your body. Lie down and try to keep calm

809
00:56:22,519 --> 00:56:24,880
and keep the bite location below heart
level. Cover the bite with a clean

810
00:56:24,960 --> 00:56:29,480
dressing. Also, please don't use
it tournique. Don't open the wound and

811
00:56:29,519 --> 00:56:31,599
stuck out the venom, and don't
apply ice or water. Please don't apply

812
00:56:31,639 --> 00:56:37,360
a tournique, as this concentrates the
venom to just one spot and not applying

813
00:56:37,440 --> 00:56:43,360
one will dissipate the venom throughout.
So wow, it'll tournicating it will speed

814
00:56:43,440 --> 00:56:46,760
things up. Okay, not tournicating
it lessens the concentrate of it. Yep,

815
00:56:46,920 --> 00:56:49,480
does that make sense? Yeah,
that totally makes sense to me.

816
00:56:50,440 --> 00:56:52,639
So. The black mamba has a
reputation of being a highly aggressive snake,

817
00:56:53,159 --> 00:56:58,280
but they only attack humans if they
feel threatened or cornered when being handled.

818
00:56:58,320 --> 00:57:04,199
They require a ton of experience and
training just to move them from enclosures.

819
00:57:04,480 --> 00:57:07,199
That makes sense. Yeah, I
mean I was telling you when you first

820
00:57:07,239 --> 00:57:10,159
got here, we had to move
my corn snake to his new final tank,

821
00:57:10,599 --> 00:57:15,079
and even that was he's not venomous
at all. He's not a big

822
00:57:15,159 --> 00:57:16,760
snake, but that was a hole
to do, Like it was not easy,

823
00:57:17,000 --> 00:57:20,480
So I can't imagine doing it with
a venomas snake that's that long.

824
00:57:20,719 --> 00:57:23,480
Yeah, So they just, like
about all wild species, do not seek

825
00:57:23,519 --> 00:57:28,639
people out and rather would just like
to be left alone. One specialist,

826
00:57:28,719 --> 00:57:31,480
Donald Stryden, said that the black
mamba will do anything in its power to

827
00:57:31,559 --> 00:57:36,679
head away from humans rather than attack
them. The biggest danger is to keep

828
00:57:36,840 --> 00:57:39,559
attacking them though, or attempting to
kill the black mamba, as they will

829
00:57:39,639 --> 00:57:44,800
defend to the maximum of course,
so it'll just fill up your chances of

830
00:57:44,880 --> 00:57:46,400
being bitten, which I think is
funny that people label them as a very

831
00:57:46,440 --> 00:57:49,719
aggressive snake. But it's like,
okay, if you're trying to cut their

832
00:57:49,800 --> 00:57:52,519
head off, like, yeah,
I would, I would be pretty upset

833
00:57:52,599 --> 00:57:54,880
too, So I get it.
And like we've talked about in the podcast

834
00:57:54,960 --> 00:57:59,440
before, they have to replenish that
vetom. It's not like they have like

835
00:57:59,480 --> 00:58:01,239
an unlimited store. It's similar to
a skuk spring. Like they don't want

836
00:58:01,280 --> 00:58:06,679
to just release everything they have in
one go because then they're vulnerable, so

837
00:58:06,840 --> 00:58:09,079
they don't want to like attack things
that they don't need to. Yeah,

838
00:58:09,159 --> 00:58:13,880
makes sense, yep, but two
drops of their venom is fatal. So

839
00:58:14,079 --> 00:58:17,519
crazy. So going back to Alita
Stacy, So, the black mamba was

840
00:58:17,599 --> 00:58:22,119
one of the seventy five exotic snakes
found in her home. Wow. In

841
00:58:22,280 --> 00:58:27,159
all articles I found, it was
noted that all of these snakes, fifty

842
00:58:27,239 --> 00:58:31,800
six of them being venomous, including
a cobra, were under meticulous lock and

843
00:58:31,920 --> 00:58:37,719
keen enclosures. Okay, good within
her and her boyfriend's home. The couple

844
00:58:37,719 --> 00:58:42,599
wouldn't let anyone not familiar with the
snake to handle them casually. Alita had

845
00:58:42,599 --> 00:58:45,920
a bumper sticker saying, the only
good snake is a live snake. Oh

846
00:58:45,559 --> 00:58:50,880
yeah, I want to say that
they were taking a lot of precautions,

847
00:58:51,199 --> 00:58:54,079
which I mean, you're snakes,
So that's that's not great to begin with

848
00:58:54,280 --> 00:58:58,719
yet. Yeah. Yeah. So
when Alita was found, the black Mama's

849
00:58:58,800 --> 00:59:02,480
enclosures had law had been unlocked and
opened. Fresh bite marks and snake marks

850
00:59:02,559 --> 00:59:07,400
weren't found on her forearms. So
she was found dead, yes, and

851
00:59:07,519 --> 00:59:12,000
bitten. So since her boyfriend found
her, he was questioned, but he

852
00:59:12,159 --> 00:59:15,559
was absolutely cleared of being involved in
any way. Okay, gotcha. So

853
00:59:16,119 --> 00:59:22,239
it's just quite mysterious as to what
actually happened though there was a lot of

854
00:59:22,320 --> 00:59:24,840
loose ends. They're not sure if
it was an accident. She didn't call

855
00:59:24,920 --> 00:59:29,320
nine one one, oh wow.
Yeah, But do you think it's a

856
00:59:29,360 --> 00:59:31,280
situation where like if it struck her
so many I mean, I guess this

857
00:59:31,400 --> 00:59:35,320
might be an unfair question because it's
not like you're a venom expert, but

858
00:59:35,480 --> 00:59:38,519
like not, I wonder if it
just like struck her so many times.

859
00:59:38,800 --> 00:59:42,039
You know, I wonder what happens
to your body if you get injected with

860
00:59:42,159 --> 00:59:45,360
like a ton of venom, Like
if you just become so disoriented so quickly

861
00:59:45,639 --> 00:59:49,239
that you wouldn't have the cognition to
like call somebody, or if she didn't

862
00:59:49,239 --> 00:59:51,480
have a phone around, like maybe
you didn't have a chance. Yeah,

863
00:59:51,519 --> 00:59:54,800
totally, Yeah, I don't know. That's crazy. So in one article,

864
00:59:54,880 --> 01:00:00,320
though, one friend was interviewed and
they said she was an un happy

865
01:00:00,440 --> 01:00:04,320
lady and a very nice lady,
a very nice person. When police asked

866
01:00:04,440 --> 01:00:10,039
if her death was intentional, they
said it could have been so like suicide

867
01:00:10,480 --> 01:00:15,199
via snake. Yeah, that just
I can't imagine doing that, especially if

868
01:00:15,239 --> 01:00:20,199
she was someone that advocated for like
snakes not being seen as bad or like

869
01:00:20,599 --> 01:00:22,199
you know, said, any good
snake as a live snake. Right,

870
01:00:22,639 --> 01:00:27,800
It's so hard for me to believe
that she would enter her own life with

871
01:00:27,960 --> 01:00:30,719
a snake being the one to do
it. But also that's gonna be that's

872
01:00:30,719 --> 01:00:34,840
gotta be a terrible way to go. Yeah, not that you know,

873
01:00:35,159 --> 01:00:37,599
any way of dying is great,
but like getting injected with venom and that

874
01:00:38,079 --> 01:00:43,920
strong of venom seems like really rough. Yeah. Wow, so that's awful.

875
01:00:44,280 --> 01:00:46,840
Yeah, I just it's so hard
talking about this because it's like you

876
01:00:47,039 --> 01:00:52,559
own these venomous snakes for fun.
Yeah, because that's that's what it was,

877
01:00:52,679 --> 01:00:54,320
right. It's not they were doing
anything constructive with them. They just

878
01:00:54,679 --> 01:01:01,239
liked having venomous snakes. Yeah.
All the snakes, including the black mamba,

879
01:01:01,800 --> 01:01:05,840
they were all taken and as of
this twenty eleven article, they were

880
01:01:05,880 --> 01:01:09,199
housed at the Bronx Zoo. Most
of these snakes were illegal to possess without

881
01:01:09,199 --> 01:01:13,840
a permit. It is illegal in
most cities to own even a black mamba

882
01:01:14,360 --> 01:01:17,159
unless you are a zoo or have
special licensing. I could not find if

883
01:01:17,199 --> 01:01:22,840
Alita had a special license or a
permit, and no sources mentioned that.

884
01:01:22,480 --> 01:01:29,519
So the trade and purchasing of amphibians
and reptiles is incredibly unregulated and monitored.

885
01:01:30,360 --> 01:01:32,199
In one of the parts of the
documentary that I didn't see, we just

886
01:01:32,280 --> 01:01:37,719
talked about this, ninety percent of
wildcot reptiles die in their first year of

887
01:01:37,760 --> 01:01:42,039
captivity due to physical trauma prior to
purchase, or because their owners cannot meet

888
01:01:42,079 --> 01:01:46,440
their dietary or habitat requirements. Reptiles
are among the most inhumanely treated animals in

889
01:01:46,519 --> 01:01:52,079
the pet trade because they are cheap
and easily replaceable. Dealers, captive breeders,

890
01:01:52,159 --> 01:01:57,280
and retailers factor huge mortality in their
operating costs. Yeah, and you

891
01:01:57,320 --> 01:01:59,519
know, I want to touch back
on something that we mentioned a few episodes

892
01:01:59,519 --> 01:02:01,960
ago when we're talking about wildlife rehab. So I started some Wildlife Rehub classes

893
01:02:02,039 --> 01:02:06,400
because that's a goal of mine,
is to be one and so through the

894
01:02:06,400 --> 01:02:08,559
state of Massachusetts. And not that
I'm saying anyone should do this, but

895
01:02:09,599 --> 01:02:13,559
you are allowed to take a snapping
turtle or painted turtle from the wild.

896
01:02:13,920 --> 01:02:17,440
However, like we talked about in
the Wildlife Rehab episode with Jess it gets

897
01:02:17,559 --> 01:02:22,000
really tricky if you're like, I
don't want it anymore, because if you

898
01:02:22,079 --> 01:02:23,800
don't have the skills to house them
in a way where you're sure that they're

899
01:02:23,840 --> 01:02:29,119
not getting exposed to any bacteria or
diseases, if you let them go,

900
01:02:29,320 --> 01:02:31,400
you could be introducing that into the
wild, which is really bad, especially

901
01:02:31,519 --> 01:02:36,679
because snapping turtles and painted turtles are
like the only ones that aren't endangered,

902
01:02:36,840 --> 01:02:42,320
because turtles are the most endangered animal
in the world, full stop. I

903
01:02:42,559 --> 01:02:45,280
like that, yeah, And a
lot of it is because of this pet

904
01:02:45,280 --> 01:02:50,119
trade, because people take them.
Like if you are someone who rescues or

905
01:02:50,400 --> 01:02:54,599
tries to do conservation work for turtles, the amount of security you need because

906
01:02:54,639 --> 01:03:00,280
people try to steal them is crazy. It's really awful. The more you

907
01:03:00,360 --> 01:03:06,039
look into like the reptile trade,
it's really really sad. What's like the

908
01:03:06,199 --> 01:03:08,239
most sought after exotic turtle? Do
you know? I don't know. I

909
01:03:08,280 --> 01:03:12,400
don't know if there's like a specific
one, but there's some like for example,

910
01:03:12,519 --> 01:03:15,360
there's the spotted turtle in our state, and it's just cute. It's

911
01:03:15,400 --> 01:03:16,800
got like cute little yellow spots on
it, and people try to steal those

912
01:03:16,800 --> 01:03:20,920
because they're cute. And there's wood
turtles which are also cute because they have

913
01:03:21,039 --> 01:03:23,760
like little orange bellies. People try
to steal those all the time. So

914
01:03:24,519 --> 01:03:29,480
it happens here in New England.
It happens everywhere that there's turtles. People

915
01:03:29,559 --> 01:03:31,920
try to steal them and often people
don't know what they're doing. I say

916
01:03:31,960 --> 01:03:35,719
this as a family who one time
took a snapping turtle. We were those

917
01:03:35,760 --> 01:03:38,000
people wants to I have grown and
learned. We don't do it anymore,

918
01:03:38,239 --> 01:03:43,559
but we did at one time.
Wow yeah so wow. So if you're

919
01:03:43,599 --> 01:03:45,199
someone and I'm not saying that,
like owning reptiles can't be fun, like

920
01:03:45,239 --> 01:03:47,400
I said, like we have a
pet snake, we don't ever intend to

921
01:03:47,440 --> 01:03:51,599
release him. But like if you're
gonna get a snake, if you're gonna

922
01:03:51,599 --> 01:03:52,920
get a turtle, a tortoise,
first of all, know that you're gonna

923
01:03:52,920 --> 01:03:55,000
have them for a very long time, and get them from somewhere that you

924
01:03:55,079 --> 01:04:00,239
know it's reputable and that they're like
not being inbred and that they are being

925
01:04:00,280 --> 01:04:02,639
cared for correctly in whatever facility you
get them from. You can also rescue

926
01:04:02,679 --> 01:04:06,199
them from organizations like on pet pinder. You can look up reptiles. So

927
01:04:08,079 --> 01:04:11,639
that's my two cents. Sorry,
I ran about that. No, I

928
01:04:11,800 --> 01:04:16,320
learned a lot. I did learn
a lot so talking about acquiring turtles and

929
01:04:16,559 --> 01:04:21,800
other reptiles. So a quick and
easy Google search for me, I found

930
01:04:23,199 --> 01:04:28,360
a black mamba for one hundred and
fifty US dollars. That's it, Yeah,

931
01:04:29,480 --> 01:04:33,559
with mandatory overnight delivery with an additional
fifty dollars. I went as far

932
01:04:34,280 --> 01:04:39,679
as to the checkout point on the
site, and nowhere was there a request

933
01:04:39,760 --> 01:04:44,079
to see any qualifications, licensing or
permits in order to obtain this snake.

934
01:04:45,039 --> 01:04:50,320
On this site quote we offer exotic
reptiles for sale online at absolute rock bottom

935
01:04:50,400 --> 01:04:55,880
prices, Oh my god, which
means we make these fascinating animals available to

936
01:04:55,960 --> 01:05:00,239
you affordably as pets or even to
start your own reptile breeding product. Amongst

937
01:05:00,239 --> 01:05:05,519
the other creatures available included alligators,
arizona rattlesnakes, king cobras, poison dart

938
01:05:05,559 --> 01:05:10,440
frogs, and ball pythons. I'm
not giving out the name of this website,

939
01:05:10,719 --> 01:05:15,880
so it was depressing and awful.
I just it is crazy to me

940
01:05:15,960 --> 01:05:17,440
that there's no more If you're so
easily able to find this, how is

941
01:05:17,480 --> 01:05:21,960
this not shut down. So if
my post office was to get a venomous

942
01:05:23,000 --> 01:05:25,840
snake, would there be any indication
on it? There's a venomous snake?

943
01:05:26,239 --> 01:05:28,320
Yeah, you know what I mean, because it's illegal for me to own

944
01:05:28,360 --> 01:05:32,719
one here in New Hampshire. So
how how is that regulated? Yeah,

945
01:05:32,760 --> 01:05:35,719
there's a for a master's degree.
There's a class in like cybercrime, and

946
01:05:35,800 --> 01:05:39,840
I cannot wait to take it because
I want to know, like how websites

947
01:05:39,880 --> 01:05:43,559
like this are able to still exist. Yeah. But so for bear suck

948
01:05:43,800 --> 01:05:45,559
or Yeah, thank you for Vision
Wild last. They're so good at what

949
01:05:45,599 --> 01:05:48,639
they do. They know what they're
doing. So you have one more story

950
01:05:48,719 --> 01:05:54,000
for us about snakes? Yeah hit
us? Okay, cool? So this

951
01:05:54,159 --> 01:06:00,679
is about gypsy. This one is
heavy. In twenty eleven, Jaron Hare

952
01:06:00,800 --> 01:06:04,119
and boyfriend Charles Darnell were found guilty
on all charges of death her Hair's two

953
01:06:04,199 --> 01:06:08,679
year old daughter, Shayana, who
was killed by their pet python in two

954
01:06:08,679 --> 01:06:13,199
thousand and nine in the state of
Florida. This is, unfortunately an awful

955
01:06:13,239 --> 01:06:17,079
combination of substance abuse and neglect from
multiple parties. So I'm just giving an

956
01:06:17,119 --> 01:06:24,519
overall warning up front for the listeners
because this is quite heavy. So where

957
01:06:24,599 --> 01:06:27,159
we start is in May of two
thousand and nine, when the Department of

958
01:06:27,239 --> 01:06:30,320
Children and Families had received a complaint
for child neglect due to substance abuse.

959
01:06:30,880 --> 01:06:34,840
Child Welfare investigated the home and weighed
the situation. Jaren Hare, who was

960
01:06:34,920 --> 01:06:38,840
nineteen, lived with her boyfriend,
Charles Darnell. Sorry is her name?

961
01:06:38,960 --> 01:06:42,920
Jaren? Jaren Jaron Okay? Sorry? Speak sure? Karen with a j

962
01:06:44,119 --> 01:06:45,760
Charles Darnell, who was thirty two
at the time, and her daughter,

963
01:06:45,840 --> 01:06:49,480
two year old Shayana. Additionally,
they had a pet, five year old

964
01:06:49,519 --> 01:06:55,239
Burmese python Gypsy. Gypsy, who
was about eight and a half feet was

965
01:06:55,320 --> 01:06:58,920
kept in an aquarium take that was
out of the child's reach and was secured

966
01:06:58,960 --> 01:07:02,960
by a safety pinn quote well as
a lid. That's I want to rant

967
01:07:03,039 --> 01:07:10,079
so hard, but o'h wait.
Hair and Darnell reported were participating and using

968
01:07:10,079 --> 01:07:13,760
a range of drugs and had no
intentions of stopping, which is what they

969
01:07:13,840 --> 01:07:18,000
told welfare services. What he told
them that didn't even bother a lie that

970
01:07:18,000 --> 01:07:21,039
they were to stop doing the drugs. Oh my god, damn. I

971
01:07:21,119 --> 01:07:25,960
mean, I guess being truthful is
good, but like damn. Yeah.

972
01:07:26,559 --> 01:07:30,559
So despite sufficient costs to go to
court to protect Shyana. Then services decided

973
01:07:30,599 --> 01:07:34,000
to close the case and offered at
home services, which were also refused.

974
01:07:34,440 --> 01:07:40,440
Wow, so it was noted.
Though they did not note that the snake

975
01:07:40,800 --> 01:07:44,400
was a hazard. Child Welfare was
not there for the snake, just the

976
01:07:44,960 --> 01:07:49,119
drugs, just the situation that was
at handed in the home. Unfortunately,

977
01:07:49,239 --> 01:07:54,119
on June thirty first, two thousand
and nine, literally two weeks after the

978
01:07:54,199 --> 01:07:58,960
investigation was closed, Oh Shayana's mom
took an unprescribed biked and pill and went

979
01:07:59,039 --> 01:08:02,280
to bed. Darnell, Jaron's boyfriend, went to check on the toddler at

980
01:08:02,320 --> 01:08:06,519
around ten am the next morning,
only to find Gypsy wrapped around Shyana in

981
01:08:06,599 --> 01:08:12,000
her crib. Oh Shayana was bitten
on her face, head, abdomen,

982
01:08:12,280 --> 01:08:15,440
hands, and arms, and was
wrapped tightly around her upper body and head,

983
01:08:15,279 --> 01:08:19,439
so it bit her multiple times before
it latched somewhere. Yeah boy.

984
01:08:20,800 --> 01:08:25,720
At this sight, Darnell threw Gypsy
to the floor and stabbed the python repeatedly

985
01:08:25,800 --> 01:08:30,239
with a butcher's knife and meat cleaver. Multiple articles noted that Gypsy had clearly

986
01:08:30,479 --> 01:08:34,399
had not had a meal in some
time and was very emaciated. One article,

987
01:08:34,600 --> 01:08:38,640
noting that she had not been fed
in over a month, which I

988
01:08:38,760 --> 01:08:41,600
mean, to be fair, some
snakes like cango long periods. But if

989
01:08:41,680 --> 01:08:45,279
they are neglecting a child, I
can't imagine they're taking care of a snake.

990
01:08:45,439 --> 01:08:49,159
So Darnell called nine one one saying, we have a Bernise python and

991
01:08:49,239 --> 01:08:53,119
she's about twelve feet long. She
got out of her cage last night and

992
01:08:53,239 --> 01:08:56,319
into the baby's crib and strangled her
to death. I'm going to kill that

993
01:08:56,439 --> 01:09:00,319
bitch. Child Welfare made it clear
that Gypsy was not noted as a threat

994
01:09:00,399 --> 01:09:04,439
in the initial investigation. It was
the family's erratic behavior and substance abuse.

995
01:09:04,960 --> 01:09:10,239
Multiple parties, including friends and family, regarded Gipsy as a gentle snake,

996
01:09:11,520 --> 01:09:15,600
but multiple family members had expressed their
discomfort with the situation, Jaren's ex,

997
01:09:15,720 --> 01:09:19,199
Shayana's father, and Jaren's mom even
offering to buy the snake off of her

998
01:09:19,279 --> 01:09:25,520
and keeping it ooo. At the
trial, Pete Magrino stated, the snake

999
01:09:25,600 --> 01:09:28,960
is not at fault in this case. It's a wild animal. The responsibility

1000
01:09:29,000 --> 01:09:32,640
for the death of that child is
those defendants. The defendant's argument had presented

1001
01:09:32,680 --> 01:09:38,520
it as simply a terrible accident,
Darnelle's attorney argued, he is not guilty

1002
01:09:38,600 --> 01:09:42,439
of manslaughter. He is not guilty
of murder. He's not guilty of neglecting

1003
01:09:42,479 --> 01:09:45,439
that child. He's guilty of making
a stupid decision and having a stupid pet

1004
01:09:45,960 --> 01:09:55,880
Ooh okay sure. The jury rejected
this, saying we also felt that as

1005
01:09:55,920 --> 01:10:00,479
the parents and the caregivers, their
responsibility was to preclude any chance that there

1006
01:10:00,520 --> 01:10:03,000
could be an incident of any kind
because a two year old could not protect

1007
01:10:03,039 --> 01:10:08,680
herself, a four person told reporters. After the trial, Charles Darnell and

1008
01:10:08,760 --> 01:10:13,640
Jaren Hare were convicted to aggravated manslaughter
and child neglect, resulting to twelve years

1009
01:10:13,640 --> 01:10:17,399
in prison in twenty eleven. Darnell
was released from prison in January twenty twenty

1010
01:10:17,479 --> 01:10:21,560
one, and Hair being released in
September of twenty twenty one. They will

1011
01:10:21,600 --> 01:10:26,439
be on probation until twenty twenty six, and then a twenty twenty one article

1012
01:10:26,720 --> 01:10:30,920
confirmed that they were planning to get
married. Well, okay, yeah,

1013
01:10:30,920 --> 01:10:33,760
I would love to rant is now
for it? Okay, See here's the

1014
01:10:34,600 --> 01:10:41,439
this is my problem is that you
can purchase any sort of snake. No

1015
01:10:41,600 --> 01:10:45,680
one checks in to make sure you
know what you're doing. And even my

1016
01:10:45,880 --> 01:10:48,079
horn snake, who's I mean like
maybe four feet long. He could get

1017
01:10:48,079 --> 01:10:53,720
out from a quill too. They're
so strong. That's just not like a

1018
01:10:53,880 --> 01:10:58,319
chill pet you have. That's a
that's a very serious commitment to have a

1019
01:10:58,359 --> 01:11:01,680
snake that that that's that big,
that's strong obviously can get out of quilt.

1020
01:11:02,840 --> 01:11:06,479
They failed both that snake and that
girl so bad. Yeah, it's

1021
01:11:06,560 --> 01:11:10,800
just so sad that the snake is
I don't think the snake is seen in

1022
01:11:10,840 --> 01:11:13,079
his bag. Guy obviously got convicted
and went to jail, But like,

1023
01:11:13,520 --> 01:11:15,159
I don't know what point I was
trying to make. I'm just mad,

1024
01:11:15,439 --> 01:11:18,920
that's okay. Yeah, it's really
complicated and like infuriating because everything could have

1025
01:11:18,960 --> 01:11:25,000
been prevented. Yeah, and I
just I really wish that this country did

1026
01:11:25,159 --> 01:11:28,960
more in terms of like people being
able to buy whatever they want as a

1027
01:11:29,000 --> 01:11:30,880
pet. I know, ooh,
it's America, can do whatever I want.

1028
01:11:30,239 --> 01:11:34,199
I don't think that that should be
the case. Like we talked about

1029
01:11:34,239 --> 01:11:38,359
in the documentary The Elf in the
living Room, which we keep mentioning,

1030
01:11:38,399 --> 01:11:41,760
but it's super relevant. There was
a doctor in that documentary who worked in

1031
01:11:41,840 --> 01:11:45,479
Ohio, but he also did missions
in Africa where he would go do work

1032
01:11:45,560 --> 01:11:49,399
there, and he said, I
see more animal tac injuries in America,

1033
01:11:50,039 --> 01:11:55,560
far surpassing anything I see in Africa, because the people in Africa don't keep

1034
01:11:55,600 --> 01:11:58,680
these animals as pets, probably because
mostly they live around them outside, so

1035
01:11:58,720 --> 01:12:00,560
they're like, why would I But
he's like, they know to stay away

1036
01:12:00,600 --> 01:12:03,399
from these types of animals that people
in America think would be a good idea

1037
01:12:03,399 --> 01:12:08,600
to have pets. And I don't
understand what it is about. I mean,

1038
01:12:08,800 --> 01:12:11,319
obviously it's not just an American problem, but like I just I don't

1039
01:12:11,399 --> 01:12:14,960
understand why you would want a snake
like a black mamba, Like, what

1040
01:12:15,279 --> 01:12:17,039
is it that you just need to
be around an animal that dangerous? Why

1041
01:12:17,039 --> 01:12:20,880
do you need a bear? Why
do you need a lion? Go hiking

1042
01:12:20,920 --> 01:12:26,079
where there's mountain lions if you need
a thrill, Like, just go into

1043
01:12:26,159 --> 01:12:29,720
the wilderness where we have animals that
are slightly dangerous. We have places that

1044
01:12:29,760 --> 01:12:31,720
have venomous snakes. Go hike around
there if you want a thrill, you

1045
01:12:31,760 --> 01:12:34,600
know what I mean, Like you
don't need it in your house. Yeah,

1046
01:12:35,079 --> 01:12:39,800
oh sorry, all right, I'm
done. So it's great. Well,

1047
01:12:40,119 --> 01:12:42,680
no, it's not great. Now, the whole situation sucks. Yeah.

1048
01:12:43,000 --> 01:12:45,039
I don't know. I just I
feel like I'm one of those people

1049
01:12:45,039 --> 01:12:48,079
who just doesn't have the desire to
like own one of those things. No,

1050
01:12:48,439 --> 01:12:51,359
for like eight like hot second,
I found out that people could own

1051
01:12:51,439 --> 01:12:55,600
hyaenas and like literally get one millisecond. I was like, that'd be cool.

1052
01:12:55,720 --> 01:12:58,840
Then I was like, no,
no way, no, We're going

1053
01:12:58,880 --> 01:13:01,920
to talk about that in our next
tip. Oh ooh oh yeah, people

1054
01:13:01,960 --> 01:13:08,079
who are not doing it right me
spoilers on that. I did write a

1055
01:13:08,119 --> 01:13:12,079
little little diddy about pythons in Florida. Yes, would you like me to

1056
01:13:12,159 --> 01:13:14,800
talk? Oh my god, please? It is long overdue us talking about

1057
01:13:14,840 --> 01:13:16,039
this. Oh okay, I thought
you guys had talked about this. I

1058
01:13:16,079 --> 01:13:20,399
can't remember. There's on a few
episodes. That's all good. So one

1059
01:13:20,439 --> 01:13:25,359
of the reasons I wanted to cover
a python incident is because in the documentary

1060
01:13:25,399 --> 01:13:29,119
they touched on how they are incredibly
invasive in Florida. There's a part where

1061
01:13:29,239 --> 01:13:32,479
Everglade Park Services is called and a
python has been reported out in the park.

1062
01:13:32,880 --> 01:13:38,439
Tim Harrison is desperately calling in state
sanctuaries to take in the python along

1063
01:13:38,479 --> 01:13:43,159
with zoos and private rescue facilities as
they're all full. He then reaches out

1064
01:13:43,159 --> 01:13:46,199
to out of state facilities, trying
anything to get this python housed. In

1065
01:13:46,279 --> 01:13:49,199
the end, because no one can
take it in, the python is shot.

1066
01:13:49,479 --> 01:13:53,119
Yeah, and I think what he
did is like abnormal. I think

1067
01:13:53,239 --> 01:13:56,960
most of the time they're just killed. Yes, Yeah. So one of

1068
01:13:57,000 --> 01:14:00,880
the most hot exotic pets to own
is some version of a constrictor snake.

1069
01:14:00,239 --> 01:14:05,800
Bo constrictors, Burmese pythons and other
constrictors are notorious for ownership neglect a lot

1070
01:14:05,840 --> 01:14:10,279
of cases where people just release them
out into the wild for multiple reasons,

1071
01:14:10,680 --> 01:14:15,319
which is incredibly neglectful to the snake
and in Florida, incredibly neglectful to the

1072
01:14:15,399 --> 01:14:19,720
natural wildlife. Yeah. So,
there is an estimate of about three hundred

1073
01:14:19,840 --> 01:14:27,399
thousand burmese pythons in Florida currently now. Non native Burmese pythons have established a

1074
01:14:27,479 --> 01:14:31,800
breeding population in the Everglades National Park. Pythons compete with native wildlife for food.

1075
01:14:32,039 --> 01:14:35,880
Several mammals like raccoons, possums,
and rabbits have been on a rapid

1076
01:14:35,960 --> 01:14:40,439
decline in the park, and this
is linked to the growing population of the

1077
01:14:40,520 --> 01:14:45,279
pythons, so in twenty twelve,
importation of Burmese pythons was banned in the

1078
01:14:45,399 --> 01:14:49,359
United States. As of twenty twenty
one, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission

1079
01:14:49,399 --> 01:14:56,520
prohibits the commercial sales of pythons and
limits ownership to the purpose strictly to research

1080
01:14:56,720 --> 01:15:00,520
and educational exhibition, and they must
have a permit. The species may not

1081
01:15:00,680 --> 01:15:05,319
be possessed for commercial sales. Pythons
are not protected in Florida except by an

1082
01:15:05,359 --> 01:15:11,600
anti cruelty law. There is an
ethical and legal obligation to extinguish a Burnamese

1083
01:15:11,640 --> 01:15:15,199
python in Florida, which prevents suffering
and destroys the brain of the python,

1084
01:15:15,279 --> 01:15:17,359
which, to simply put it,
is accurately shooting them in the head,

1085
01:15:17,560 --> 01:15:23,359
yeah, or stunning them and then
immediately administering a lethal blow to pierce the

1086
01:15:23,399 --> 01:15:26,800
brain. There is no permit,
there's no hunting license or bag count to

1087
01:15:26,920 --> 01:15:30,720
kill pythons in the wild of Florida. It's encouraged. Yeah, and I

1088
01:15:30,880 --> 01:15:32,039
know that they're I think we've touched
on this before, but I know that

1089
01:15:32,279 --> 01:15:36,279
like Florida, because they have so
many invasives, including the iguanas they have,

1090
01:15:36,800 --> 01:15:40,520
they're on that list as well.
Yeah, they have stuff on their

1091
01:15:40,560 --> 01:15:43,520
website of like, hey, if
you kill them and want to eat them,

1092
01:15:43,640 --> 01:15:45,680
here's some recipes yep, yep,
yep. And then even on the

1093
01:15:45,760 --> 01:15:49,039
site they like give you step by
step on how to like ethically kill them

1094
01:15:49,279 --> 01:15:54,960
and legally kill them. Yes,
well thanks, Margie's all you had for

1095
01:15:55,079 --> 01:16:00,920
the snakes. That's it. Yeah, well what a horrifying, horrifying situation.

1096
01:16:01,279 --> 01:16:04,479
Yeah, I mean they've all been
horrifying. Yeah, they have been.

1097
01:16:05,800 --> 01:16:09,880
So I don't know if there's a
takeaway from this episode. I think

1098
01:16:10,000 --> 01:16:14,920
we're both biased towards not owning big
exotic pets. But well, we'll gat

1099
01:16:15,000 --> 01:16:17,520
more into like the really dark side, especially on social media, like some

1100
01:16:17,680 --> 01:16:23,560
of you send me videos of people
owning these pets. And we're gonna have

1101
01:16:23,880 --> 01:16:29,199
a big talk next week about what
it means to like ethically consume social media

1102
01:16:29,600 --> 01:16:33,960
that includes exotic pets. Ooh yeah. So but well we'll still cover a

1103
01:16:34,079 --> 01:16:38,359
text It's it's dark, it's weird. I can't wait. Yeah, So,

1104
01:16:38,720 --> 01:16:41,680
thank you all so much for listening
to this episode. I will post

1105
01:16:41,800 --> 01:16:45,359
all those relevant links and relevant episodes
that I mentioned of our podcast in the

1106
01:16:45,399 --> 01:16:48,640
episode description, and you can also
find links there to our website, where

1107
01:16:48,720 --> 01:16:54,840
Margie designed merch that you can buy, including stickers. You can find links

1108
01:16:54,880 --> 01:16:58,000
to our Patreon and all of our
other social media accounts there as well,

1109
01:16:58,119 --> 01:17:00,399
and Margie social media. Thank you, Thank you so much Josh Walsh for

1110
01:17:00,479 --> 01:17:04,399
making our intro music, thank you
Jesse Walsh for doing all the editing,

1111
01:17:04,479 --> 01:17:10,880
and we'll be back in two weeks
with more animal attack stories. Bye bye