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Welcome to episode seventy seven of Get
It Alive, a bi weekly podcast about

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animal attacks, why they happen,
and how we can avoid them. My

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name's Ashley, and I have a
few housekeeping things to go over before we

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get into today's interview. So the
first one is, I'm sure you've noticed

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by now that we have a new
logo. We're actually working on a new

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new logo with a great artist which
will be coming out soon, which means

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new merch will come out with the
new logo. And also we're overhauling our

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website right now. And if you're
listening to this, I'm sure you've also

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heard the ads that are now in
the episode. So the biggest update is

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that we're now part of a podcast
network, which means we'll have ads.

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But also I, just as a
podcaster, will have much greater support doing

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this for all of you. And
as promised from day one of starting our

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Patreon and this podcast, I've always
said if we had ads, we would

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offer ad free episodes on Patreon,
so we're doing that. So if you

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join Patreon at the two highest tiers, you'll get AD free episodes on top

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of the bonus episodes and all the
other content you get for joining, but

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you can support this podcast for free
by leaving a five star review wherever you're

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listening and subscribing. And now,
instead of shouting out experts survivalists, I'm

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going to read a review every single
episode as a thank you for taking time

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out of your day to leave them. So the first review i'd like to

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redo all is from Laura one nine
eight eight two three one one four on

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Apple Podcasts, and it is titled
great Podcast Informative and entertaining. The interviews

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with experts sets this podcast apart from
other Animal Tack podcasts. The hosts are

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really good at highlighting their guests and
not talking over them. I was interested

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in the early episodes on animal attack
stories, but the more recent episodes on

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broader issues have been my favorites.
So thank you so much, Laura.

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Hopefully you liked this interview as well. It is one of my favorites.

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I say that about every interview that
we do. It becomes my new favorite.

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But it's true. I really do
love talking to our guests and experts

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about this stuff. So our guest
today is a bear expert and this has

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been a long time coming. I've
been waiting to talk to someone about black

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bears and grizzly bears. You know, we've had a polar bear biologist before,

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but black bears and grizzlies are probably
the species that we talk about most

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on this podcast. So we go
over some of the common misconceptions and myths

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around bears, like some common sayings
that you might hear from time to time,

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like if it's black, fight back, if it's brown, lie down.

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We get into whether or not that's
true, and how likely you are

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to be attacked by which bear,
and just the safest ways that you can

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be in the woods around them.
So, without further ado, let's get

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into the interview. My name is
Darryl rada Jack. I am a wildlife

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biologist, but I'm a large apex
predator specialist. I'm the kind of guy

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that cares about those we call them
charismatic megafauna. But I've been doing this

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since the late nineteen nineties, so
I've got almost thirty years of working with

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bears, working with Cougar's work,
Dear and el, but my love for

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a wildlife pretty much falls on those
apex predators. I'm definitely a predator guy,

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and I'm thrilled to be here to
talk to you. Ashley an open

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book and you can ask me whatever
you want, but I'd love to have

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a conversation with you. Yeah,
for sure. First of all, you

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reach out to me, So thank
you for reaching out to me, because

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you had listened to I Believe some
early episodes and you were like, let's

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talk about misinformation about bears and like
myths about bears. So I am so

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happy. This has been a long
time coming. So thank you for doing

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this. So what was it about
bears specifically that made you choose to kind

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of specialize in them? Well,
this might aggravate people, because I know

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that there is is a large contingency
of people that would love to make a

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career out of working with bears.
And when I graduated from college back in

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nineteen ninety two in Syracuse, New
York, I was looking for a job.

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I had my degree in wildlife management, I was looking for a job

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and I really didn't have a specialty
animal. And I remember one of the

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professors at my college asked if I
wanted to pursue my masters working with woodchucks

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in Maryland, And at that point, it was like, that doesn't sound

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all that appealing. And so I
figured I would just wait it out and

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find a job. I don't know
if you know this, but wildlife jobs

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are really hard to come. Bye
and lo and beyond. Years after working

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odd jobs that I really didn't care
to do, there was a position that

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opened up just outside a Great Smoking
Mountain National Park. It was for this

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newly formed nonprofit called the Appalachian Bear
Center. And what they were going to

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do is they were going to work
with the National Park Service and with the

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Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, and they
needed someone to run the facility. And

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it was going to be a rehab
facility, an education facility, and a

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research facility. And the problem was
it paid no money. The sailor is

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like seven thousand dollars a year,
which is about hundred dollars a week.

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So I was like the only degreed
person to apply for it because it was

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like, wow, bears are really
cool. That would be an awesome opportunity.

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Maybe I could swing it, and
so I took the gamble, and

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as soon as I was there.
Since that moment I took that job,

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I haven't worked a day in my
life working with bears and all these other

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animals. It's just a dream come
true. So my getting into the bear

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world was kind of out of desperation
but also out of dumb luck that this

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particular job opened up at the time
it did and I was able to land

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it. Yeah. Yeah, I
think that's another conversation we could have someday,

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like the larger thing of how difficult
it is to make it in the

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wildlife field and what you need to
do to land a job if you're lucky.

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Yes, after I took that job
in Tennessee working with black bears again,

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that was back in mid to late
nineteen nineties. I did that for

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a number of years and was literally
working with bears in some of the most

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beautiful places in the world in the
Smokies. And I did that for a

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number of years. The problem was
working where I was, it wasn't the

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most secure job, working as a
nonprofit. So my wife at the time

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said time to get a real job, and so I applied for a position

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with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency,
and because of my experience working with black

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bears and the Smokies, within a
few years, I was promoted to the

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big Game program coordinator for the State
of Tennessee. So I was overseeing deer

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elk and the bear program for the
entire state of Tennessee, and I did

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that for about seven years and then
moved up to Chief a Wildlife for the

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State of Tennessee, so I was
over all the wildlife. So throughout my

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entire career, I have been dealing
with not just handling and working with individual

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bears early in my career, but
also handling and managing bear populations and talking

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about all sorts of things from bear
education to unfortunate events such as bear attacks.

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Because living in Tennessee you might know
this, but We've had a couple

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of fatalities that occurred in Tennessee that
I've been linked to. So it's been

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something I've been dealing with throughout my
whole career and I'm more than happy to

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talk about it. But whenever I
teach people about bears, and there's a

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big concern within the public about oh, what do I do if I encounter

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a bear? How dangerous are there? And we don't want to scare people,

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but I also don't want to blow
them off like they're nothing to be

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worried about, because if you look
at statistics when it comes to these very

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severe these fatal bear encounters, there's
not many. But if you look between

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black bear and brown bear. It's
been a year or two since I looked

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at the most recent statistics, but
it was about fifty to fifty half the

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fatalities were attributed to brown bears,
half of them more attributed to black bears,

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And you think, wow, they're
both equally dangerous. But then you've

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got to start breaking down that information. And so I hope you don't mind,

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but I'm going to quiz you.
Sure. Do you know roughly like

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how many black bears are estimated in
North America? I would say a couple

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hundred thousand, very very good.
You're right on top of things. It's

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obviously very hard to get a really
exact number, but they estimate anywhere between

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three hundred and fifty to six hundred
thousand in North America. When it comes

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to brown bears, it is fractionally
less. It's the estimates are anywhere from

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about thirty thousand sixty thou so black
bears outnumber brown bears by at least ten

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to one. And so when you
look at those statistics and it's half and

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half, but you know that there's
ten times more black bears out there.

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Obviously, brown bears are going to
be a bit more of a concern because

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they attribute about half of those severe
attacks, especially the fatalities. And so

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if you were to classify which one
do you need to be more cautious.

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You need to be cautious about both
of them, but brown bears you definitely

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have to pay a little bit more
attention to, simply because the incident's rate

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of encounter resulting in a severe attack
is going to be much higher with a

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brown bear than it is for a
black bear. Yeah, and I think

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of all the animals we will ever
cover on this podcast, bears the ones

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that I think people are the most
afraid of, like even worldwide, especially

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in Australia. For some reason,
we've had so many people reach out and

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say like, wow, I can't
believe you live around bears, like they're

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so scary. And you know,
I've lived around black bears forever here in

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New England. I've never had a
personal issue with them. I've seen like

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maybe two in the wild in my
entire life. So I love that we

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can have this conversation where it's like, all right, let's actually break down

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with a professional how at risk you
are being around these animals and the risk

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like really, like you were saying, is not that high. But we

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can get into some ways that we
can try to mitigate those conflicts and prevent

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bad things from happening. So,
to break it down even further, are

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there common differences between attacks from black
bears versus brown bears? Like it's one

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more predatory, is one more defensive. That's a very good question, and

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you've probably read Herrero's book where he
breaks down all very text the thing with

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the difference between the two. When
you look at those very severe texts,

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and obviously the fatalities are the most
severe at all, you'll find that almost

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all the fatalities from black bears are
attributed to predaceous attacks where the black bear

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has the intent of killing and eating
the person. Potentially, those very severe

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black bear attacks are pretty much all
predaceous. There's very few. In fact,

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they struggle to really find any that
they could say this was a defensive

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fatality from a black bear. I
don't even know if they have one on

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wreck brown bears. On the other
hand, there's multiple, multiple instances of

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fatalities occurring because of a defensive attack
where a female brown bear or grizzly what

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many people call them, is just
trying to defend their cubs, and a

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lot of that is attributed to bears. Behave very similarly. I have no

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way of proving this, but their
mentality is somewhat similar in the fact that

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both brown bears and black bears they
don't like people. They don't like people,

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they don't want to be around people. Where the difference usually comes with

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their interaction with humans is probably more
so based on their physical size, their

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physical differences than their mental differences.
Because if you are a bear and you

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come across a person and you're having
a bad you just don't want to be

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around this person. You can do
one or two things. You can run

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from the person, or you could
try to scare the person away. Most

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bears, in most situations will run
from a person. But if the bear

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says, you know what, I
just don't want to I don't feel like

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running. I just want this guy
out of here, where are you more

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likely to be an issue? If
you are one hundred and fifty one hundred

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and eighty pound black bear or three
hundred, four hundred even more pound brown

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bear, they're going to be less
likely to be intimidated by a human if

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you are a much larger bear,
and so brown bears being much larger bears,

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don't have that fear factor that the
black bears do. And so that's

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why some of these defensive attacks.
The brown bears just take things a little

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to fire, and they're much more
powerful and more bad things could happen if

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you get into a defensive situation with
a brown bear as opposed to a black

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bear. Yeah, And do you
think that that's related at all to the

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way that brown and black bears have
like coevolved, where black bears have always

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evolved and not be the top predator, but often grizzlies or brown bears are

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the top predator where they're at.
I never thought about that. That's a

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really good question. It boils down
to them pretty much the exact same thing,

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because if you have both species of
bears living in the same area,

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obviously, look at Greater Yellowstone,
you have a large grizzly and a large

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black bear. Typically the bigger the
body, the more intimidation you have,

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So evolutionarily the bears are going to
be the black bears are going to be

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much more quicker to back down because
throughout time if they ever exist with brown

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bears in the area, the black
bears were not the top predator. So

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one of the biggest things I've been
told throughout my life and I have come

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to understand. And we're not even
going to talk about polar bears because like

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we're here in the contiguous US down
here, so I feel like we're just

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going to focus on brown and black
bears for this conversation. But I've always

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heard if it's brown, lie down, if it's black, fight back.

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Can we talk about that statement and
how true or not true it is?

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Yes, If I could find every
publication that has that written in it,

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I would burn it. And people
recite it and they go by it all

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the time, and it bothers me. Yep. Reason being, it's not

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correct because all the bear bios,
all the people that work with bears,

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the vast majority, believe the best
response to an encounter, if you have

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a close encounter with a bear,
your response to that bear should not be

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based whatsoever on what species of bear
it is. Rather, it should be

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based on the behavior of that particular
animal. Now, having said that,

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and I'll explain that more. But
having said that, working having worked for

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state and federal agencies before I kind
of understand the reasoning for that nursery rhyme.

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It's easy to remember. It works
in most situations, but not all

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situations. And when a government agency
is trying to put out information to the

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American public as many people as possible, they need simple things to say that

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people will remember and their headge and
their bet that it's the right piece of

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information. But I will tell you, if you are interested in having the

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best result from a bear encounter,
all it takes is a little more knowledge

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about bears in some common sense and
understanding bear behavior, and you could increase

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your successful encounter rates tremendously by knowing
how to read bear behavior. The one

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thing that it's interesting, and I
don't know if I had told you this

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previously, but Janelle Sharhak, she's
a brilliant young biologist, worked a lot

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with bear She recently did a master's
work and she analyzed over three hundred black

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bear attacks on humans. And there's
certain things that was coming out of that

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data that you don't hear about.
For example, in some situations, especially

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with females that have been attacked by
bears, what they found out is the

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more you fight back with a black
bear, the more severe your injuries tend

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to be. You don't hear that
in the if it's black fight back.

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The thing I'm trying to get across
here is when you enjoy the outdoors,

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you got to go out there have
an understanding of the animals you may encounter

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and what your best options if you
do have an encounter, what is that

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animal doing and how should I react
to get myself out of that situation.

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And we dive into that later if
you like. But the notion that if

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it's brown light down of black lie
back, one fits all, that's just

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not true. Yeah, if you're
looking at your own well being, I

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would take that extra effort to learn
as much as I could about that animal.

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Yeah, So this makes me think
of I wish I had a way

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of like showing you videos and we
could go over them. But I'm sure

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people send you videos all the time
of bears and people interacting. So there

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is one really popular video going around
that I get sent all the time,

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and it's of this family at a
picnic table and a black bear comes and

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hops on the picnic table and they
sit there and they don't move, and

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the bear eats their food, and
I'm assuming it goes away because the video

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ends. In cases like that,
where a black bear is approaching somebody and

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maybe going after your food, what
is the appropriate response. Should you just

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stay still? Should you scare it? Well, this leads perfectly into the

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differences between their behavior and whatever I
teach the class is about bear encounters.

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It doesn't matter if it's a brown
bear class or a black bear class.

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The main difference, there's two basic
encounters with with a bear, you could

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have what we call and this is
by far the most common occurrence, a

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defensive encounter. When we talk about
encounters, it's where you are close enough

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to that animal that you affect its
behavior and it affects your behavior. So

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if you're up on the mountaintop and
you see a bear down in the valley,

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that's not an encounter, that's just
the bear sighting, yep. But

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when you're close enough to that animal
that you interact with each other, the

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main difference is most encounters tend to
be defensive where you invade that bear space.

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It could be its personal space.
It was just feeding on some BlackBerry

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bushes and you just got too close
that the bear noticed you. Obviously,

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you have other situations where you could
have a mother with cubs. She does

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not want you around because her cubs
are there, So they're in this defensive

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mode. You're in my space,
You're too close to my cubs a lot

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of times. And you know this
as well as I. More and more

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people are hitting the woods with their
dogs, their companion animals. Yeah,

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and those dogs amp up the defensive
reaction in a bear. So in those

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situations, whenever a bear is in
a defensive mode or it's a defensive situation,

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the bear wants to increase the distance
between you and ed. It wants

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you to get away or it to
get away. And in almost every situation,

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you just let that happen. You
slowly back away, talk softly,

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and let the bear go about its
business because it doesn't want you around.

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The other encounters we have, which
are fewer and farther between. Is one

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you just describe where you're sitting there
and a bear approaches you. So instead

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of closed, instead of increasing the
distance between you and him, they're trying

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to close the distance. There is
something there that is making them curious,

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and so I call these offensive behaviors. And so the bears most likely looking

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for a food reward. In most
situations, it smells something, whether or

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not you have food at the picnic
table or whatever, it smells something that

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the bear wants. In those extreme
situations where we end up with fatalities,

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that's where you are the object of
its attention. That's the predatory attack.

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But whenever you encounter the bear,
if the bear wants to get away,

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it's defensive. If the bear wants
to get closer to you, it's offensive.

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In a situation where you're at a
picnic table and a bear's coming at

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you, yes, that's where you
get aggressive. You scare that bear away.

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You let the bear know you're the
bigger, more dominant person there,

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and in most situations that works.
You've always got to maintain this sense of

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safety. You got to. You
don't want to put yourself in a bad

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situation. So if you're nearby a
car or house or whatever, make sure

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you can always get to that.
But you are doing that bear such a

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favor if you can scare that bear, way to teach that bear, hey,

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it's not good to come up to
humans to get some type of food

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reward. So anyway, depending on
how that bear is acting, either offensively

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or defensively. Your reaction should be
based off their specific behaviors. Yeah,

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that was great, kind of going
off what you mentioned a little bit.

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So one of our patrons, Dana, asked, does having a dog with

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you increase your chances? She asked
specifically about like a campsite attack, But

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I think it's good to talk about
in general because I, even in our

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podcast time, I have found that
like people with dogs usually amps up reactions

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from any wild animal. Oh yeah, and actually I mentioned Janelle Sharhag's analyzing

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a lot of the black bear stuff. That increases the severity sometimes when you

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have the dog, because exactly like
you said, it amps up that bears

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defensive reaction. I talked with a
friend yesterday. We're actually a really good

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bear biologist herself. We were talking
to I was just making sure that the

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bullet points that jotted down kind of
agreed with what her thinking was, and

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we laughed about this particular question simply
because lots of people go into the woods

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with their dogs. In fact,
I've got two dogs that I hike with

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occasionally. The thing you have to
understand is there are some dogs that are

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really good can handle themselves. Usually
they're highly trained, and there's there's people

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that will be with their dog that
they have complete control over the dog.

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It's it's a very highly trained dog. Nine point nine percent of the people

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out there don't have those kind of
dogs. They think they do, They

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think that they're like little companion.
There is the most well behaved. But

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when a bear enters that picture,
that dog's mind just goes bonkers. It

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never experience, and the dog goes
crazy, the bear goes crazy, people

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00:22:49,599 --> 00:22:53,839
go crazy because the dog and bear
are interacting, and so it's just an

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all around bad situation. Now,
going back to your question about having a

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dog in your campsite, no matter
what we talked about here today, Ashley,

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I think you understand this. We
can tell you what is most likely

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to happen, but we can never
guarantee you this is what's gonna happen.

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When you're dealing with animals, they
behave how they're going to behave, and

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sometimes they don't behave the way you
expect them. But a lot of times

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a lot of people camp with their
dog just kind of as an early warning

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protection system, which should be good. It could alert you the dog will

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notice a bear coming into a camp
before you will. But then what's that

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dog going to do. Is the
dog gonna start chasing after the bear?

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Is the dog just gonna stand it
the ground? And you have no idea

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how that dog's going to react.
So the case of saying yes or no,

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it's good or bad to have a
dog in the camp with you,

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you can't answer that to say this
is what's gonna happen because I don't know

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how the bear's going to react.
I don't know how the dog's going to

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react. But it could be good, it could be bad. But what

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we're seeing more and more, with
more people going into the woods with their

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dogs, you're just seeing more negative
interactions between dogs and bears. Yeah,

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this makes me think of two.
To bring it back to videos. Have

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you seen any of the videos of
people who are hiking with their dogs off

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leash and their dogs actually bring back
an animal. Oh yeah, there's one

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where this the person with I think
they have an Australian shepherd and it brings

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back a full bull moose towards the
people because it got scared and ran back

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to the owners. And it's like, yeah, when you have your dogs

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off leash, whatever's chastes coming right
back at you. So, especially with

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the bull moose, think about what's
going on and that moose is the moose

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has evolved with one of their tough
predators being wolfe. And you have a

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dog which is more or less a
domesticated wolf, It's gonna react defensively,

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especially if there's a calf around and
so you are just opening the door.

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I will never tell anyone not to
go hiking with their dog, but if

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they choose to do so, which, like I said, I've done it

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myself, know the consequences. Yeah, know that you might lose your dog.

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No, you might lose your life, You might have a really negative

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Is it worth taking that risk?
Some say yes, some say no.

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But it's just hard to predict what
will happen in any situation because animals behave

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however they want to behave. Yeah, for sure. So speaking of risks,

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00:25:25,240 --> 00:25:29,240
one of our patrons, John asked, would you recommend carrying both bear

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00:25:29,319 --> 00:25:33,200
spray and a high caliber handgun in
black Bear country or would you say bear

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00:25:33,279 --> 00:25:37,680
spray alone is all that one would
need. I am a huge, huge

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00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:44,319
proponent of bear spray. It's funny
because you you probably get on social media

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and you'll always hear the people that
will be quick to say, well,

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I'm going to carry my forty five
or give me my gun over some stupid

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00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:57,839
bear spray. But I will tell
you I would recommend it one hundred percent

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of the time, especially if you
don't know much about firearms. If you

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are worried about bears, the best
thing to carry with you in the woods

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against a defense against bears is your
brain. If you know how to behave

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around bears, that's going to get
you out of almost every situation. If

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you had to carry a piece of
equipment to get you out of that last

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00:26:22,079 --> 00:26:27,279
half of percent, it's bear spray. The gun is like further on down

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00:26:27,319 --> 00:26:33,720
the road. And here's why.
In a high pressure, intense situation like

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that, I just told you,
you have no idea how an animal is

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00:26:37,519 --> 00:26:41,160
going to behave the bear, a
dog or anything. You also don't know

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00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:48,079
how you are going to react.
I've had personal experiences with this where in

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00:26:48,119 --> 00:26:52,759
a high tense situation like that,
your mind is telling you to do one

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00:26:52,759 --> 00:26:56,319
thing, but your body's doing something
else. And so, unless you are

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00:26:56,599 --> 00:27:03,039
a military special person and that trains
every day for intense situations with your handgun,

359
00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:08,759
put the handgun away carry bear spray. The reason being as long as

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00:27:08,759 --> 00:27:14,240
you can get it out in that
situation, that canister of bear spray is

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00:27:14,279 --> 00:27:17,319
going to put up more or less
a wall if you deploy it correctly,

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00:27:17,359 --> 00:27:19,559
it's going to put up a wall
of spray that the bear has to go

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00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:25,799
through. That handgun is only going
to fire a single projectile and a fast

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00:27:25,839 --> 00:27:30,240
coming animal that has to hit in
the perfect spot, and you're under pressure,

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00:27:30,319 --> 00:27:34,759
under duress. I take bear spray
every time over a handgun. Yeah,

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00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:38,119
let me just say one thing,
because you'll also hear the detractor as

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00:27:38,119 --> 00:27:41,759
well. Bear spray doesn't work all
the time. I'm going to put it

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00:27:41,759 --> 00:27:44,680
this way. Your handgun doesn't work
all the time either, if you don't

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00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:48,400
hit in the right spot. What
people don't understand is when it comes to

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bears, you know, their sense
of smell, their old factory senses are

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just off the charts. I got
a whole spiel I can go to about

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how powerful their nose is, but
like two thousand times more powerful than our

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00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:07,119
nose. If you have ever been
sprayed by pepper spray, or have any

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00:28:07,279 --> 00:28:11,519
instance, it freaks you out.
Your eyes water, you can't breathe.

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00:28:11,680 --> 00:28:17,839
It's a horrible experience. We have
the weakest ass nose that you could ever

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00:28:17,880 --> 00:28:25,599
imagine. Now, take a bear
that has this hugely complex nasal cavity with

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all these old factory receptors and al
sudden you flood that with capsicum with this

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00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:36,359
pepper spray that is just it short
circuits their brain their nose. It's so

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00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:41,000
powerful. As soon as they hit
that, they pretty much in most situations,

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00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:42,759
they forget about it. They want
to get out of there because this

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00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:48,400
is pure health form, and so
they forget everything that they're going to do

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00:28:48,519 --> 00:28:52,799
and they're just scrambling to get away
from whatever is attacking their face. Rain

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00:28:53,119 --> 00:28:57,359
Again, I'm a huge proponent of
bear spray to know how to use it,

384
00:28:57,759 --> 00:29:02,319
even with the guns that you still
have to practice being able to draw

385
00:29:02,319 --> 00:29:07,119
a bear spray, But you don't
have to worry about hitting in that perfect

386
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:11,440
spot. You just got to be
able to deploy it to put that cloud

387
00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:15,519
between you and that bear. Yeah, and I know that they sell practice

388
00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:18,440
bear spray cans or like inert cans
where you can even just I've talked about

389
00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:22,680
this so many times of the podcast, But like practice before you go out

390
00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:26,240
taking it out quickly, like have
it where you can reach it. Because

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00:29:26,279 --> 00:29:29,880
we the bear attack survivor or the
grizzly bear attack survivor that we spoke to

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00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:33,960
Jeremy Evans, he had a gun
and bear spray. Both were I think

393
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:37,400
his gun he had out, but
his bear spray was in the bottom of

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00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:40,519
his bag. But he was like, that bear came at me so fast,

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00:29:40,559 --> 00:29:42,920
there was no way I could have
shot her. Yeah, and didn't

396
00:29:42,920 --> 00:29:45,720
have his bear spray where he needed
it, so like obviously and died not

397
00:29:45,839 --> 00:29:48,240
well for him. Could have been
worse, but didn't end well for him.

398
00:29:48,319 --> 00:29:52,400
But yeah, like just having it
somewhere where you can reach it and

399
00:29:52,519 --> 00:29:56,839
practice so that you know you can
pull that out quickly if the worst,

400
00:29:57,920 --> 00:30:02,720
And I will tell you with those
situations, the readiness is the key.

401
00:30:03,519 --> 00:30:07,880
Now, if you are totally surprised, it doesn't matter if it's a bear

402
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:11,279
spray, a gun or anything.
If you are totally taken by surprise the

403
00:30:11,279 --> 00:30:17,000
speed of those bears, you're unlikely
to draw anything quickly. Yeah, But

404
00:30:17,160 --> 00:30:19,200
this is why I said the most
important tool that you carry with you is

405
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:25,920
your brain because you know it's that
spidey sense you get like something's not right.

406
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:30,920
I maybe smell a carcass or I'm
getting into a real heavy vegetation area

407
00:30:30,960 --> 00:30:34,359
and like all the burrs and everything
went quiet. Something's just not right.

408
00:30:36,119 --> 00:30:38,839
That's where your brain said, you
know what, let's get the bear spray

409
00:30:38,880 --> 00:30:45,240
ready. You're carry it if you
want to. But because if there's a

410
00:30:45,319 --> 00:30:48,160
complete surprise by a bear at close
rain, it doesn't matter how fast you

411
00:30:48,200 --> 00:30:51,680
are. If you've got to dig
something out, you're likely not going to

412
00:30:51,680 --> 00:30:55,200
get it out in time. So
that's where the situational awareness and use in

413
00:30:55,240 --> 00:30:57,680
your brain is the most important.
Yeah, and not wearing headphones when you're

414
00:30:57,720 --> 00:31:02,119
out in bear country important too,
so that you can pay attention to those

415
00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:06,400
signs for sure. But yeah,
the bear spray reminds me of I'm not

416
00:31:06,400 --> 00:31:07,720
sure if this is like a thing
that's come up on the podcast before,

417
00:31:07,759 --> 00:31:11,319
but like, for example, when
dogs get sprayed by skunks, this is

418
00:31:11,359 --> 00:31:14,839
kind of a reach, but I'll
get there. So when dogs get sprayed

419
00:31:14,839 --> 00:31:18,319
by skunks, the reason that your
dog doesn't ever learn to stop going after

420
00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:23,640
skunks is because there's like no consequences. They still get to go home to

421
00:31:23,720 --> 00:31:26,200
you. They might have a bath, which they hate, but they still

422
00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:30,839
get to eat. But in the
wild, if a coyote is sprayed by

423
00:31:30,920 --> 00:31:33,240
a skunk, they smell like a
skunk and all their senses get messed up,

424
00:31:33,240 --> 00:31:37,039
they probably won't be able to find
food. Their food can smell them

425
00:31:37,119 --> 00:31:41,119
coming. So I can imagine a
person spraying a bear with bear spray is

426
00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:45,519
also you are helping to teach that
bear not to mess with people, because

427
00:31:45,559 --> 00:31:51,160
you are harming it in a way
so that it feels like that you are

428
00:31:51,200 --> 00:31:53,920
not a safe food source, helping
it learn to stay away from people.

429
00:31:55,599 --> 00:31:59,200
I love that you brought that up. It is a tremendous tool for a

430
00:31:59,279 --> 00:32:02,480
verse of conditions for teaching that bear. That was the wrong thing for me

431
00:32:02,559 --> 00:32:07,160
to do, to go after that
person because that hurt, yeah and so,

432
00:32:07,799 --> 00:32:10,920
And the good thing is it hurts, it doesn't kill. Yep.

433
00:32:12,319 --> 00:32:15,799
You could have arguments about shooting a
bear and killing it in a defensive situation,

434
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:20,400
but if a bear is protecting its
young, it's not doing anything other

435
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:23,759
than being a bear. A bear
spray will is much better at teaching it

436
00:32:23,799 --> 00:32:28,960
a lesson than just completely removing that
bear for being a bear. Yeah,

437
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:31,759
for sure. So kind of going
along this line, John had another question,

438
00:32:31,799 --> 00:32:36,599
which was has there been any studies
to show if different sounds made by

439
00:32:36,680 --> 00:32:39,599
humans scare bear off more effectively,
for instance, like a roar versus a

440
00:32:39,680 --> 00:32:45,359
yell? And then I was thinking
bear bells and how often do bear bells

441
00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:49,559
work if at all? Yeah,
very good question. First off, the

442
00:32:49,559 --> 00:32:52,799
thing with bear bells, there's actually
a couple of things here. Bears are

443
00:32:52,799 --> 00:32:59,640
pretty smart animals. And you know
what habituation is, habituation. It's not

444
00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:04,400
a bad thing. A lot of
people confuse habituation with being food conditioned,

445
00:33:04,880 --> 00:33:09,319
but habituation is just where a bear
is so used to a certain stimuli that

446
00:33:09,319 --> 00:33:15,119
they disregarded. And so in most
cases, like bears around the Smokies and

447
00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:19,200
Yellowstone, they're habituated to people.
They see people all the time, so

448
00:33:19,240 --> 00:33:24,319
they don't pay any attention to them. So habituation can occur with things other

449
00:33:24,359 --> 00:33:30,000
than people. So if they're exposed
to a stimulus, say you live in

450
00:33:30,079 --> 00:33:34,759
a really popular tourist town that has
a lot of hikers, a lot of

451
00:33:34,799 --> 00:33:38,559
bears, and every hiker is wearing
bear bells. The bear it's gonna sound

452
00:33:38,599 --> 00:33:43,279
like Christmas time in the woods all
the time. You're gonna hear bears bells

453
00:33:43,359 --> 00:33:47,039
ringing, and so the bears will
become somewhat that it doesn't it won't phase

454
00:33:47,119 --> 00:33:51,640
them as much because they hear it
all the time. Now, the main

455
00:33:51,720 --> 00:33:57,279
purpose of bear bells is not to
scare bears away, so to speak,

456
00:33:57,319 --> 00:34:00,319
but more or less to alert them
to your present because, especially if for

457
00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:05,160
hiking alone, sometimes we don't talk, we don't listen to music. Sometimes

458
00:34:05,240 --> 00:34:09,920
we walk quietly, and that could
potentially lead to this close encounter because you

459
00:34:09,960 --> 00:34:14,480
accidentally stuck up on a bear.
So the purpose of the bear bells is

460
00:34:14,559 --> 00:34:17,880
just to let the bear know something's
coming down the trail, and a bear's

461
00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:22,199
senses are so much better than ours
they'll be able to say, hey,

462
00:34:22,400 --> 00:34:24,000
that's a human. I'm going to
get out of here before you've become That's

463
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:29,360
why you don't even see bears,
and so bear bells can serve a purpose,

464
00:34:29,519 --> 00:34:31,599
especially if you're in an area where
the bears might not be used to

465
00:34:31,639 --> 00:34:36,800
seeing people. It just it's an
odd sound that the bear's not used to

466
00:34:36,800 --> 00:34:39,679
hearing, and that will usually freak
them out and say I've never heard this

467
00:34:39,800 --> 00:34:44,599
before, I don't like this.
He'll get out of the way, so

468
00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:49,760
as far as what kind of sounds
work best. Again, there's no one

469
00:34:49,800 --> 00:34:54,559
size fits all sound that's going to
work in every situation. Obviously depending on

470
00:34:54,599 --> 00:35:00,800
the situation. If you have an
offensive bear that is approaching you, you

471
00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:02,920
are trying to scare it away.
So the louder, the more aggressive you

472
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:07,480
are, the better off that sound
is going to be. If you're in

473
00:35:07,519 --> 00:35:15,280
a defensive situation where the bear just
wants you away, talking softly will put

474
00:35:15,320 --> 00:35:19,440
the bear more at ease than being
loud and aggressive. You have a mother

475
00:35:19,480 --> 00:35:22,280
with cubs, it's better to say, hey, mom, I'm sorry,

476
00:35:22,360 --> 00:35:25,159
I'm in your area and back way
instead of like, get real aggressive because

477
00:35:25,159 --> 00:35:31,719
she's gonna start to ampuff. And
so the sounds can be very situational and

478
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:36,880
so there's no one particular sound that
works best. I will tell you what's

479
00:35:36,960 --> 00:35:40,159
becoming more and more popular. There's
some people that don't like the idea of

480
00:35:40,199 --> 00:35:45,519
bear spray, and so they carry
air horns. Yeah, it will work.

481
00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:49,199
If there's a bear close buying you
suddenly hit it with an air horn,

482
00:35:49,679 --> 00:35:52,440
it could surprise the bear. The
problem with an airhorn, though,

483
00:35:52,679 --> 00:35:59,920
is if that bear has bad intentions, there's no hurt. Bear spray will

484
00:36:00,119 --> 00:36:04,159
hurt that bear and stop him.
An air horn will irritate that bear,

485
00:36:04,199 --> 00:36:07,960
but it's not going to hurt him. And if they're intent on getting something,

486
00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:10,239
they're still going to get it.
Yeah, and so it could be

487
00:36:10,480 --> 00:36:15,519
it could be another tool in your
pack that you use. But I would

488
00:36:15,559 --> 00:36:19,920
not want to rely on a sound
to keep a bear away because it all

489
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:23,039
depends on the intention of that bear
at the time. Yeah, And to

490
00:36:23,119 --> 00:36:25,840
me, it's also important to point
out, like you know, the people

491
00:36:25,880 --> 00:36:29,679
who might not want to use bear
spray because they're afraid of hurting the bear.

492
00:36:30,320 --> 00:36:34,920
In the worst case scenario, if
a bear hurts you and you didn't

493
00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:39,039
have bear spray, that bear is
likely going to be at least here in

494
00:36:39,079 --> 00:36:43,719
New Hampshire. Like bears that attack
people, they try to find those bears

495
00:36:43,760 --> 00:36:46,960
to euthanize them or move them away. So ultimately, yeah, a bear

496
00:36:47,039 --> 00:36:52,079
hurting you is going to definitely hurt
that bear. So like bear spray is

497
00:36:52,159 --> 00:36:58,239
temporary, euthanasias forever, So bear
spray great option. Yeah, No,

498
00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:00,480
that's a great point, and it's
just not New Hampshire, it's pretty much

499
00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:06,159
every state. If you have a
severe attack, there's just too much risk

500
00:37:06,840 --> 00:37:10,880
that state wildlife agencies aren't going to
take that risk to allow those bears to

501
00:37:12,119 --> 00:37:15,159
remain out there. And I know
a lot of people don't agree with that,

502
00:37:15,679 --> 00:37:19,880
but there's reasonings behind that. Yeah, for sure, it's the not

503
00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:23,559
fun part of wildlife management that people
don't talk about. Yeah. Yeah,

504
00:37:23,760 --> 00:37:27,880
So John, John has so many
good questions, so we're gonna keep wronging

505
00:37:27,880 --> 00:37:31,199
with another one of John's question.
So what types of wildlife areas should people

506
00:37:31,239 --> 00:37:38,159
avoid during what seasons to avoid conflicts
with bears? That's pretty easy. The

507
00:37:38,239 --> 00:37:44,840
nice thing with bears is they're fairly
easy to pattern. Bears are gluttons.

508
00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:50,519
Wherever there's food, there's bears.
So whether or not it's a BlackBerry field

509
00:37:50,559 --> 00:37:54,960
in the summertime that's ripening, camping
in the middle of that BlackBerry field if

510
00:37:55,000 --> 00:38:00,039
there's a potential draw of bears to
that area because of those blackberries, not

511
00:38:00,119 --> 00:38:06,840
a good place to camp in the
fall, especially in New England or the

512
00:38:06,920 --> 00:38:09,880
eastern half of the country that has
a large acorn crop. If you've got

513
00:38:09,920 --> 00:38:14,440
a lot of acorns dropping around there, that might not be a good place.

514
00:38:14,519 --> 00:38:17,480
Bears obviously are trying to fatten up
for the wintertime. You go more

515
00:38:17,519 --> 00:38:22,480
out western states and you have those
salmon runs up some of the streams in

516
00:38:22,519 --> 00:38:27,639
the West, you might not want
to camp, especially if you're Alaska Western

517
00:38:27,679 --> 00:38:30,000
Canada, where those brown bears are
coming in to feed on the salmon.

518
00:38:30,679 --> 00:38:35,840
You don't want to be camping right
next to the river their favorite food source.

519
00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:39,760
So a lot of it it's situational
awareness. Is this a place where

520
00:38:39,880 --> 00:38:46,199
bear is likely to come feed?
Or think also about travel corridors. Most

521
00:38:46,199 --> 00:38:52,920
wild animals don't like exposing themselves and
so they'll kind of stick to that edge

522
00:38:52,000 --> 00:38:58,199
that brush line to stay concealed.
So it would probably be better to camp

523
00:38:58,239 --> 00:39:02,559
in a more open spot than tucked
away under the tree somewhere, because that

524
00:39:02,559 --> 00:39:07,840
could just be a chance of dumb
luck that and animals just walking through the

525
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:10,400
thicker stuff to get from point A
to point B. A lot of it's

526
00:39:10,599 --> 00:39:15,320
come in sense. The best thing
to do is think about that animal and

527
00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:19,639
know about that animal, have a
good understanding of what they like and don't

528
00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:22,679
like, and just say, if
I was this animal, would I want

529
00:39:22,679 --> 00:39:25,159
to be in this spot? And
if you're like, oh, this is

530
00:39:25,159 --> 00:39:30,480
a really good spot to see bears, don't camp there. Yeah. Yeah.

531
00:39:30,519 --> 00:39:32,960
John had another camping question. So, if you are out camping where

532
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:38,360
there's bears, how far away from
your camp should you hang a bear bag

533
00:39:38,519 --> 00:39:42,159
to like put all your food into
so that they can't access it? And

534
00:39:42,199 --> 00:39:45,559
then is there a certain height that
you should hang bear bags at. You

535
00:39:45,639 --> 00:39:51,199
are gonna hate me because I'm never
going to answer your question like succinctly.

536
00:39:51,480 --> 00:39:55,239
Just this is. This isn't the
hard and fast rule you anywhere you go,

537
00:39:57,079 --> 00:40:01,239
it may have slightly different guidelines because
it it's based on it's situational.

538
00:40:01,440 --> 00:40:07,320
It's based on the area. So
you might be an area that does not

539
00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:12,360
have many trees for you to hang
a bear bag from, and so it

540
00:40:12,400 --> 00:40:16,119
all depends on where you're camping for
that night. The thing I want to

541
00:40:16,159 --> 00:40:21,880
stress to people is even when you
see guidelines to hang a bear bag one

542
00:40:21,960 --> 00:40:27,719
hundred yards away from your campsite,
it's a guideline. So if you walk

543
00:40:27,960 --> 00:40:30,880
ninety nine yards and you can't say, oh this is bad, but take

544
00:40:30,920 --> 00:40:35,800
one more step and say, okay, we're good. Just get a feel

545
00:40:36,199 --> 00:40:39,559
for the outdoors, get a feel
for the animals. Just say all right,

546
00:40:39,960 --> 00:40:45,199
I'm far enough away, but where
I'm hanging this pack, it's a

547
00:40:45,239 --> 00:40:47,679
trail that goes right back to my
campsite, So maybe this isn't a good

548
00:40:47,679 --> 00:40:52,960
place. Take those guidelines and kind
of just get the gist of what they're

549
00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:57,840
saying. If you have food that
they recommend hanging in a tree, the

550
00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:00,440
hardest thing, usually Ashley, is
finding a good tree to hang in it,

551
00:41:00,480 --> 00:41:04,800
yep, because it's very difficult.
A lot of trees are too low,

552
00:41:04,880 --> 00:41:08,280
their branches aren't conducive to hang in
a heavy bag or anything. So

553
00:41:08,800 --> 00:41:14,800
it's just finding a good tree that
will work to hang your bag in a

554
00:41:14,840 --> 00:41:17,400
way that a bear is less likely
to get at it. Now I say

555
00:41:17,519 --> 00:41:22,079
less likely, because bears are ingenious. If they want to get something,

556
00:41:22,119 --> 00:41:24,400
they're going to get something, and
so if you make it hard for them,

557
00:41:24,400 --> 00:41:30,119
hopefully it'll dissuade them. But there's
no steadfast rule of this is how

558
00:41:30,159 --> 00:41:32,800
you do it, this is how
you don't do it, because in some

559
00:41:32,880 --> 00:41:37,880
situations the way you do it here
could be completely wrong the way you do

560
00:41:37,920 --> 00:41:43,199
it over here. So the main
thing is you want to keep the bear

561
00:41:43,519 --> 00:41:47,079
out of your campsite. You don't
that bag if you have food in it,

562
00:41:47,159 --> 00:41:52,440
no matter how many times you see
it bears sense of smell. It's

563
00:41:52,480 --> 00:41:54,360
gonna smell stuff that's on the outside
of the bag, on your clothes.

564
00:41:55,360 --> 00:41:58,920
That bear is going to be able
to tell that there's something hanging in that

565
00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:04,519
tree. It could draw a bear
into your pack to investigate. The key

566
00:42:04,599 --> 00:42:08,800
to all those guidelines is to keep
that bear out of your campsite while you're

567
00:42:08,840 --> 00:42:15,519
sleeping. Yep. So yeah,
I think to a great resources like contact

568
00:42:15,519 --> 00:42:17,760
your state wildlife agency or like if
you're traveling to a different state, just

569
00:42:17,760 --> 00:42:22,159
reach out and be like, hey, what are your recommendations for this specific

570
00:42:22,280 --> 00:42:25,440
area too. Yeah. The good
thing is like a lot of campsite trailheads,

571
00:42:25,480 --> 00:42:30,760
well we'll have a guideline or more
than likely you go to their website.

572
00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:34,440
They'll have information on how you should
do things in the back country in

573
00:42:34,440 --> 00:42:38,400
that particular area. But you can't
somewhere out westwar where I go camping a

574
00:42:38,440 --> 00:42:43,119
lot, there's not a tree over
six foot tall in some of the areas.

575
00:42:43,159 --> 00:42:46,079
So you got to be you just
got to be smart with your food

576
00:42:46,079 --> 00:42:51,239
storage because the whole goal of all
of those guidelines is to make sure you're

577
00:42:51,239 --> 00:42:53,280
not bringing that bear into your campsite. Yep. Yeah, for sure.

578
00:42:54,440 --> 00:43:01,519
So to get more into the more
intense attack. So John, once again

579
00:43:01,559 --> 00:43:07,840
another great question. If one comes
across another person who has been mauled or

580
00:43:07,880 --> 00:43:10,000
someone who is like in the process
of being attacked by a bear, what

581
00:43:10,039 --> 00:43:15,880
should you do to get that person
to safety with minimal risk to yourself if

582
00:43:15,920 --> 00:43:20,599
possible. And there's a second half
to his question, so we'll get it

583
00:43:20,639 --> 00:43:23,599
to that after you answer the first
part. Yeah, this was the other

584
00:43:23,679 --> 00:43:29,760
question that I was talking to my
best friend about regarding how to respond to

585
00:43:29,800 --> 00:43:32,920
this, because the first thing that
she brought up to me is she said,

586
00:43:35,079 --> 00:43:40,119
John, just let John know he
is that upper one half of one

587
00:43:40,159 --> 00:43:45,639
percent, because ninety nine percent of
the people if they come across a stranger

588
00:43:45,800 --> 00:43:49,880
that is getting mauled by a bear, nobody's going in there. Yeah,

589
00:43:50,039 --> 00:43:57,599
it's such a crazy event. And
unless you are this ultimate hero that will

590
00:43:57,679 --> 00:44:04,679
charge into save, which is a
where trait in people. But we would

591
00:44:04,719 --> 00:44:07,599
never encourage it because I think John
mentioned you don't have bear spray, you

592
00:44:07,599 --> 00:44:09,159
don't have a fare arm. Yeah, if you're alone with no sort of

593
00:44:09,159 --> 00:44:14,719
defense. The one thing you have
to understand if you have a severe situation

594
00:44:14,800 --> 00:44:20,199
where an animal is or a bear
is unfortunately mauling someone or has already killed

595
00:44:20,199 --> 00:44:24,679
someone. It has already done the
damage to one person. We want to

596
00:44:24,679 --> 00:44:29,320
make sure it doesn't do the damage
to two people. And so we will

597
00:44:29,360 --> 00:44:34,199
never tell anyone to go in and
try to do what they can simply because

598
00:44:34,719 --> 00:44:38,960
it's a bad situation and you're not
prepared a situation like that. The best

599
00:44:38,960 --> 00:44:44,519
thing you could possibly do is try
to get a hold of someone nine to

600
00:44:44,599 --> 00:44:47,880
one one, any agency you can
get a hold of as quickly as possible

601
00:44:49,320 --> 00:44:53,320
so they can bring the resources necessary
to help that person out. You can't

602
00:44:53,320 --> 00:44:57,519
do it with your bare hands.
Karate is good, but it's not good

603
00:44:57,599 --> 00:45:00,000
enough on a bear. Yeah.
This really brings me back to We did

604
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:06,000
a two part episode early on in
this podcast about the series of attacks at

605
00:45:06,000 --> 00:45:10,280
Glacier National Park from Brown Bearsli Yeah, Night of the Grizzlies, and Nick

606
00:45:10,440 --> 00:45:15,880
my cost was like so angry because
he was like, there's people being attackling,

607
00:45:15,920 --> 00:45:16,280
you got to go help. And
I was like, but the people

608
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:19,519
don't have bears, brier, they
don't have guns, and he was like,

609
00:45:19,519 --> 00:45:21,840
it doesn't matter. Someone's being attacked
and I'm like, I think that

610
00:45:21,920 --> 00:45:28,719
makes it worse. Yeah, And
Nick was thinking like but in real life.

611
00:45:29,079 --> 00:45:34,199
It's it's something that it'd be hard
to do. Now, I understand,

612
00:45:34,239 --> 00:45:37,320
like if it was if it was
your child, if it was someone

613
00:45:37,360 --> 00:45:44,400
that you knew, then that act
of heroism definitely increases. But to stumble

614
00:45:44,519 --> 00:45:50,480
upon someone, your best bet is
to try to get someone who's better prepared

615
00:45:50,519 --> 00:45:54,440
to handle that situation, because if
you're not prepared, you're just increasing the

616
00:45:54,559 --> 00:46:00,320
likelihood there's going to be too bad
a situations. Yeah, I think the

617
00:46:00,400 --> 00:46:02,519
link between John and Nick is that
they're both veterans, so I think they're

618
00:46:02,519 --> 00:46:06,440
already the type of people that would
run in and try to help a situation.

619
00:46:06,599 --> 00:46:10,000
So maybe to all the veterans out
there, still leave it and wait

620
00:46:10,079 --> 00:46:15,280
until someone else comes in. There's
nothing wrong where if you can see it

621
00:46:15,320 --> 00:46:20,119
happening where you yell and you scream, but you definitely don't want to go

622
00:46:20,280 --> 00:46:22,400
up to that bear because that bear's
going to take you out too. But

623
00:46:22,559 --> 00:46:25,280
yeah, if you want to try
to get the bear off by yelling,

624
00:46:25,320 --> 00:46:30,159
scream and throwing things, but if
you don't have anything to immediately deal with

625
00:46:30,199 --> 00:46:37,800
that bear, you just can't interject
yourself into that particular encounter. Yeah,

626
00:46:37,840 --> 00:46:40,880
and his second part of the question
was like, in this situation, like,

627
00:46:40,920 --> 00:46:44,920
how do you get that person out
of there? And I think some

628
00:46:45,440 --> 00:46:50,159
wilderness like first aid training would be
really helpful to know if that's the kind

629
00:46:50,199 --> 00:46:54,000
of thing that you're worried about,
because handling someone who has been brutally attacked

630
00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:57,519
by an animal, like, there's
a lot going on there that I don't

631
00:46:57,559 --> 00:47:00,840
know if either of us are qualified
to get into how to handle that,

632
00:47:00,960 --> 00:47:05,119
but well, I'll tell you.
One of the things I used to do,

633
00:47:05,239 --> 00:47:09,840
especially when I was in Tennessee,
is I helped coordinate bear attack response

634
00:47:09,880 --> 00:47:16,239
training for different state and federal agencies. It's pretty intense, and that's kind

635
00:47:16,239 --> 00:47:22,000
of one of the things that I
wanted to touch on because when you're talking

636
00:47:22,039 --> 00:47:30,920
about these severe attacks, it is
such devastating, a personally devastating experience for

637
00:47:31,039 --> 00:47:36,360
the not just the person that has
attacked, but their friends, their family,

638
00:47:36,920 --> 00:47:43,280
all the first responders. And I
know sometimes people tend to like joke

639
00:47:43,320 --> 00:47:46,519
about it or play it off,
but it is such you want to joke

640
00:47:46,559 --> 00:47:53,519
about a serial killer who's on a
rampage and just make light heartedness, because

641
00:47:54,360 --> 00:48:00,920
there are situations where it just it's
life changing, and so we want to

642
00:48:00,960 --> 00:48:07,079
treat bear attechs with the utmost respect. And so one of the trainings,

643
00:48:07,320 --> 00:48:10,880
and I'll give you an example.
One of the trainings we were doing in

644
00:48:10,880 --> 00:48:17,480
Gatlinburg just over a decade ago.
We brought in specialists from out west who

645
00:48:17,519 --> 00:48:22,960
dealt with numerous attack situations and they're
horrific. Some of them will break up

646
00:48:22,960 --> 00:48:30,119
when you mentioned specific cases. And
we wanted to prepare all these first responders

647
00:48:30,159 --> 00:48:36,519
from all these different Southeastern states and
federal agencies about what you're likely to get

648
00:48:36,559 --> 00:48:39,679
into. So we had these different
scenarios set up around Gallenburg, Tennessee,

649
00:48:40,599 --> 00:48:45,000
and I worked one of those scenarios. And they go all out with this

650
00:48:45,079 --> 00:48:49,239
training. They want to make sure
these first responders are prepared. And so

651
00:48:49,320 --> 00:48:54,960
the particular scenario we set up was
just on the outskirts of town. There

652
00:48:55,000 --> 00:48:59,079
was a restaurant there and behind the
restaurant was a little play set, and

653
00:48:59,159 --> 00:49:02,239
so we may the scene the instructors, myself and the instructors, we made

654
00:49:02,280 --> 00:49:07,039
the scene that supposedly there was a
young three year old girl playing on the

655
00:49:07,159 --> 00:49:12,800
swing set and a bear grabbed her
dragged her off into the bushes, and

656
00:49:12,880 --> 00:49:16,239
so they use all the props they
had the baby dolls, the everything in

657
00:49:16,280 --> 00:49:22,079
there. And as soon as you
set that up and you look at it

658
00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:24,639
right away, you're like, oh
God, I hope I never ever have

659
00:49:24,719 --> 00:49:30,440
to encounter this. So we got
the scene all set up and the particular

660
00:49:30,519 --> 00:49:37,159
group of students who are mostly wildlife
officers or first responders, started coming in

661
00:49:37,199 --> 00:49:42,280
to They were told there was a
bear incident and to come investigating. So

662
00:49:42,320 --> 00:49:46,840
they approached the scene and they started
piecing it together what was happening, and

663
00:49:46,880 --> 00:49:52,119
they saw the doll where it was, they saw the drag marks, and

664
00:49:52,599 --> 00:49:55,519
they're clicking like a young child with
taking and all of a sudden, we

665
00:49:55,599 --> 00:50:00,000
cueued up the actors. And my
good friend who I was talking with yesterday,

666
00:50:00,039 --> 00:50:02,719
she was one of the actors,
and she's phenomenal. She's brilliant,

667
00:50:04,239 --> 00:50:07,719
and she played the part better than
anyone ever. And she comes out of

668
00:50:07,719 --> 00:50:13,559
the restaurant and she screams and she
runs over there and she's trying to go

669
00:50:14,360 --> 00:50:20,440
find her baby, and the officers
panicked and she's screaming, where's my baby?

670
00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:24,360
Where? And Ashley, it was
the most amazing thing. Here was

671
00:50:25,280 --> 00:50:31,840
a simulation and you look around and
I'm crying. The officers are everybody's crying

672
00:50:31,920 --> 00:50:37,880
because there's this mom that's trying to
find her bab, and so the lightheartedness

673
00:50:37,519 --> 00:50:46,199
of these attacks can sometimes like anyone
that's been involved with it just it doesn't

674
00:50:46,199 --> 00:50:51,480
sit well. Yeah, but I
understand the general public has this interest in

675
00:50:51,519 --> 00:50:53,679
them, But we just got to
treat all of these situations with that most

676
00:50:53,719 --> 00:50:59,840
respect because they're pretty pretty serious situations. Yeah, for sure. Yeah,

677
00:51:00,119 --> 00:51:05,360
we spoke to Jeremy Evans, the
Grizzly Attack survivor. You know, it's

678
00:51:05,400 --> 00:51:07,599
funny, it was his first time
ever going on a podcast and like really

679
00:51:07,679 --> 00:51:13,280
ever talking in public about what happened
to him, and his story is crazy,

680
00:51:13,320 --> 00:51:16,559
but he the whole you know,
went through talking about the whole attack

681
00:51:16,599 --> 00:51:22,159
itself and like his journey to get
help, and the first thing that made

682
00:51:22,239 --> 00:51:25,800
him cry was talking about his wife
and how like she responded and how she

683
00:51:25,880 --> 00:51:28,760
helped. Oh my god, I'm
like teary up thinking about it. But

684
00:51:29,400 --> 00:51:34,159
yeah, I think something that can
get lost often in podcasts when you're talking

685
00:51:34,159 --> 00:51:37,440
about even true crime like people killing
people, is like there are real people

686
00:51:37,480 --> 00:51:42,880
involved in these stories that are still
traumatized by these events. So like it's

687
00:51:42,880 --> 00:51:45,480
not a big thing to joke about
or like you know, and I know

688
00:51:45,519 --> 00:51:51,119
the humor of the joking is kind
of like a coping mechanism even for the

689
00:51:51,199 --> 00:51:58,400
general public, to make it not
so scary. Yeah, but I will

690
00:51:58,440 --> 00:52:00,800
tell you, I told you like
during that situation, I cried. But

691
00:52:01,280 --> 00:52:06,400
even sitting through that class, we
we would go over different case studies,

692
00:52:06,400 --> 00:52:10,920
and there's there's a cell phone video
of a person who was recently attacked by

693
00:52:10,920 --> 00:52:15,119
a bear. He did not hang
his food away from his campsite. He

694
00:52:15,199 --> 00:52:20,239
ended up getting mauled by a bear, and so he made a video and

695
00:52:20,280 --> 00:52:23,280
he was he was mauled pretty severely, and it wasn't pretty to look at,

696
00:52:23,360 --> 00:52:27,840
but he was pretty much saying goodbye
to his wife. And you're just

697
00:52:27,840 --> 00:52:31,199
sitting there and you're just you're in
tears. It's like this is this is

698
00:52:31,239 --> 00:52:35,280
the worst possible thing that can happen. So the good news with that is

699
00:52:35,840 --> 00:52:38,960
he was saved. There is actually
a for service worker coming up the trail

700
00:52:39,000 --> 00:52:44,360
on a horse that was able to
help him out. So yeah, started

701
00:52:44,360 --> 00:52:50,519
to going a downward tangent. But
I enjoy talking about them. I think

702
00:52:50,559 --> 00:52:53,800
they're fascinating. But yeah, whenever
we talk about we're always trying to just

703
00:52:53,840 --> 00:52:57,960
put in perspective of this is serious
stuff. Yeah, and I think it's

704
00:52:57,960 --> 00:53:00,840
a good reminder too, Like going
off of John's question of like how can

705
00:53:00,840 --> 00:53:04,400
you help somebody, It's like,
I don't know, even professionals aren't usually

706
00:53:04,480 --> 00:53:07,000
prepared to come across this event because
one, it's so rare into it's so

707
00:53:07,400 --> 00:53:13,320
horrific if you do come across it
only cow And for a second there,

708
00:53:13,360 --> 00:53:17,119
I forgot why I've got on that
tangent. But it's basically the question because

709
00:53:17,159 --> 00:53:23,199
even in that training, the professionals
are taught like to approach a situation,

710
00:53:23,559 --> 00:53:28,360
especially if the bear is still over
a victim or near a victim. It's

711
00:53:28,400 --> 00:53:31,800
almost like military training about you got
to be in specific positions to watch all

712
00:53:31,840 --> 00:53:37,360
your guards, and even the trajectory
at which if you're to put a bear

713
00:53:37,519 --> 00:53:43,320
down in which you angle that gun
so as not to cause more injury to

714
00:53:43,639 --> 00:53:46,400
the victim, and so you know, as well as in a lot of

715
00:53:46,559 --> 00:53:50,960
situations where you have people saying the
gun is the best thing, there's a

716
00:53:50,960 --> 00:53:55,679
lot of situations where they shoot their
friend trying to shoot the bear. Yep.

717
00:53:55,760 --> 00:54:00,239
So yeah, and I believe I
can't think of specific one off the

718
00:54:00,280 --> 00:54:02,159
top of my head, but I
have heard of bear attacks where that exact

719
00:54:02,159 --> 00:54:06,119
thing happens. Someone goes to shoot
them there and ends up shooting themselves or

720
00:54:06,159 --> 00:54:09,159
their friend. So yeah, it
happens, all right, So to move

721
00:54:09,159 --> 00:54:14,840
on similar one of our patrons,
Ali asked, what do you think is

722
00:54:14,880 --> 00:54:17,239
causing the increase of bear attacks in
Japan in the last year? And I

723
00:54:17,280 --> 00:54:20,840
don't know exactly what she's referring to
because I haven't heard of this. I

724
00:54:20,840 --> 00:54:22,840
don't really keep up with the news
in Japan on bears. Maybe I should,

725
00:54:23,000 --> 00:54:25,880
but I don't know if you know
what she's referring to. Well,

726
00:54:27,280 --> 00:54:30,559
no, I wasn't. Sorry,
I kind of researched it, and pretty

727
00:54:30,639 --> 00:54:35,519
much all I saw was over the
last few decades, the amount of encounters

728
00:54:35,559 --> 00:54:39,000
and the tacks of her attacks has
increased in Japan, and I think it's

729
00:54:39,000 --> 00:54:43,639
pretty simple. It's the exact same
thing that's happening here, because if you

730
00:54:43,760 --> 00:54:46,880
look over the decades, we're having
more and more bear encounters, bear attacks,

731
00:54:47,400 --> 00:54:52,320
and that's just I would imagine as
just a simple product of human populations

732
00:54:52,360 --> 00:54:58,360
going up, bear populations also going
up in most situations, And that second

733
00:54:58,400 --> 00:55:01,679
part a lot of people don't realize, especially in the general public. They

734
00:55:01,719 --> 00:55:06,280
know human populations arizon, but when
you say, what about bear populations,

735
00:55:06,280 --> 00:55:08,519
Oh they're going down. That's not
true. Look at black bears. Black

736
00:55:08,559 --> 00:55:14,760
bear populations have exploded over the last
century, and so it's just I believe

737
00:55:14,760 --> 00:55:20,840
it's just simply a product of more
encounters. So it's just a population statistic.

738
00:55:21,199 --> 00:55:23,599
Yeah. Well, that's really all
the questions I had on bear attacks.

739
00:55:23,960 --> 00:55:30,159
So I know there's some misconceptions that
we should get into that maybe aren't

740
00:55:30,679 --> 00:55:36,159
bear attack related, but just bear
related. So before we start recording,

741
00:55:36,159 --> 00:55:38,199
you and I were talking a little
bit and one of your biggest pep peeves

742
00:55:38,719 --> 00:55:44,400
is the misconception about bear hibernation.
So do we want to dispel that rumor

743
00:55:44,480 --> 00:55:46,599
right now? Yeah, and I'll
do it quick. And I can't thank

744
00:55:46,639 --> 00:55:51,320
you enough, Ashley, because when
I brought that up a few months ago,

745
00:55:51,599 --> 00:55:57,480
you brought up on the Treadwell episode
about making that clarification. And I'm

746
00:55:57,519 --> 00:56:04,320
glad you referenced bearwise dot org because
is that website tremendously useful information and it

747
00:56:04,360 --> 00:56:07,800
has something about hibernation on there,
and that website is written by bear biologists

748
00:56:07,840 --> 00:56:13,800
that work with bears all the time. The confusion and the pet peeveseness is

749
00:56:13,880 --> 00:56:17,239
when you say, or when people
say, bears don't hibernate. Let me

750
00:56:17,280 --> 00:56:22,679
ask you, how do you define
hibernation? And there's two different definitions.

751
00:56:22,719 --> 00:56:24,920
You could use the general term that
the general public would like, or if

752
00:56:24,960 --> 00:56:30,280
you would rather use the biology like
the biological definition, either one. How

753
00:56:30,480 --> 00:56:34,840
would you just define hibernation? Yeah, generally, I would like broadly,

754
00:56:34,880 --> 00:56:40,119
I would describe it as a long
term period of sleep or the animals respiration

755
00:56:40,400 --> 00:56:47,000
and like heart rate decrease and their
metabolism slows down. Okay, that is

756
00:56:47,039 --> 00:56:52,760
definitely closer to the biological definition.
If you ask a ten year old child

757
00:56:52,880 --> 00:56:57,400
or just someone off the street,
they'll say hibernation is sleeping through the winter,

758
00:56:58,000 --> 00:57:02,840
and that's fair. So yeah,
And if you look at Miriam's or

759
00:57:04,239 --> 00:57:09,079
Merriam Webster dictionary, it'll say a
dormant or torpid time through the in which

760
00:57:09,119 --> 00:57:13,679
animals sleep through the winter. So
that's how most people they're like, the

761
00:57:13,719 --> 00:57:17,719
bears are inactive during the winter.
From the biological perspective, I'm so glad

762
00:57:17,760 --> 00:57:24,599
you brought that up, because there
is a biological aspect to hibernation. And

763
00:57:24,679 --> 00:57:28,920
what it is. It's a lot
of people think it's based on cold,

764
00:57:29,239 --> 00:57:32,639
so when it snows outside animals,
it's loosely related to that. What it's

765
00:57:32,800 --> 00:57:38,239
most closely related to is lack of
food. And so you all know in

766
00:57:38,320 --> 00:57:43,079
North America, in most parts of
North America, during the wintertime, trees

767
00:57:43,159 --> 00:57:46,320
lose their leaves, plants stop growing. We have this period of months and

768
00:57:46,400 --> 00:57:53,519
months where plant life does not grow. Bears are omnivores and a huge chunk

769
00:57:53,519 --> 00:57:58,400
of their diet is plant life.
So if they have no food out there

770
00:57:58,480 --> 00:58:00,800
for a number of months, they
got to figure out how to survive.

771
00:58:01,199 --> 00:58:06,199
They're not going to fly, they're
not going to migrate deer during the wintertime,

772
00:58:06,280 --> 00:58:09,199
their diety changes, so instead of
eating forbes and leaves, they're eating

773
00:58:09,239 --> 00:58:15,599
twigs because that's all that's out there. Bears will and other animals will hibernate,

774
00:58:15,679 --> 00:58:22,159
and so pretty much the biological definition
of the hibernation is where the body

775
00:58:22,800 --> 00:58:28,880
will go dormant for a while,
and there's certain changes within that animal,

776
00:58:29,360 --> 00:58:32,960
like you mentioned lower respiration, lower
heart rate, and what all that does.

777
00:58:34,239 --> 00:58:37,440
They kind of put their body in
kind of like an idle mode where

778
00:58:37,440 --> 00:58:43,840
they're not burning a lot of energy. It decreases their metabolism, so they're

779
00:58:43,880 --> 00:58:49,079
not burning through all their fat resources. They'll still burn through it, but

780
00:58:49,119 --> 00:58:53,760
at a much slower rate. So
there's that metabolic decrease. So when bears

781
00:58:53,840 --> 00:59:00,000
hibernate, all those hibernating animals,
the true hibernators, they lower the respiration,

782
00:59:00,039 --> 00:59:06,360
they lower their heart rate. Their
metabolism decreases tremendously. But the key

783
00:59:06,400 --> 00:59:10,639
with a lot of those is their
body temperature drops from around say ninety five

784
00:59:10,639 --> 00:59:15,480
to one hundred degrees, and it
drops to almost freezing, so their body

785
00:59:15,480 --> 00:59:21,039
temperature goes way out. The thing
that bears do differently is they lower their

786
00:59:21,039 --> 00:59:23,079
heart rate, lower the respiration.
They form that fecal plug because they're not

787
00:59:23,079 --> 00:59:28,800
going to eat or drink, but
their temperature stays relatively high. It only

788
00:59:28,840 --> 00:59:31,400
drops about ten degrees, so they're
still hovering high eighties, low nineties.

789
00:59:32,000 --> 00:59:37,840
All that means is they can wake
up real easily. So if they're disturbed,

790
00:59:37,599 --> 00:59:42,519
then it just takes them a few
minutes. They'll still be really wobbly

791
00:59:42,519 --> 00:59:45,199
and groggy, but they can get
out, move around, but then they'll

792
00:59:45,199 --> 00:59:52,079
go back to sleep. The reason
it's a pet peeve is when it's generalized

793
00:59:52,159 --> 00:59:55,199
way too much and say, oh, bears don't hibernate because they're using this

794
00:59:55,480 --> 01:00:00,360
torpor, this other strategy where their
temperature doesn't drop public things. Oh,

795
01:00:00,360 --> 01:00:04,960
they don't hibernate. They're out all
winter long. And believe it or not,

796
01:00:05,079 --> 01:00:09,719
we have folks that hear that that
will go visit the Smokies in January

797
01:00:09,760 --> 01:00:14,760
and February because they heard bears don't
hibernate and it's like, no, they're

798
01:00:14,840 --> 01:00:19,079
they're sleeping. There might be a
bear that is awake or has access to

799
01:00:19,119 --> 01:00:22,880
food. That's a big problem is
if they constantly have access to food,

800
01:00:22,159 --> 01:00:27,440
then they don't have to sleep as
much because that adaptation is because there's no

801
01:00:27,480 --> 01:00:30,679
food around. If they have food, then they don't have to sleep as

802
01:00:30,760 --> 01:00:35,360
much. So anyway, thank you, thank you, thank you for clearing

803
01:00:35,360 --> 01:00:40,079
that up. It's they don't hibernate
the same way other animals hibernate, but

804
01:00:40,400 --> 01:00:45,400
they still spend most of the winter
sleeping. Because if it was true that

805
01:00:45,440 --> 01:00:49,559
they didn't, the best time to
see bears would be January and February because

806
01:00:49,559 --> 01:00:52,119
there's no leaves on the streets.
But they're not out. Most of them

807
01:00:52,159 --> 01:00:54,880
are sleeping. Yeah, so thank
you for that. Thank you. I've

808
01:00:54,920 --> 01:01:00,039
also heard in recent years there's been
like maybe it's just the fact that it

809
01:01:00,159 --> 01:01:01,840
reported more and now I'm keeping more
of an eye on it, But I've

810
01:01:01,840 --> 01:01:06,840
heard more people say that grizzlies are
waking up during the middle of the winter

811
01:01:07,199 --> 01:01:10,880
very hungry and are like going after
people or bird feeders or whatever. Is

812
01:01:10,880 --> 01:01:16,559
there anything happening with brown bears and
like why they're waking up early or hungry.

813
01:01:16,639 --> 01:01:22,719
I haven't heard it like as much
of it being a whole species wide

814
01:01:22,719 --> 01:01:30,280
phenomena, But if you have areas, one of the biggest food sources is

815
01:01:30,320 --> 01:01:34,159
that there's a beetle. There's an
insect that a lot of the bears will

816
01:01:34,639 --> 01:01:38,440
gorge themselves on. And when you
have specific situations, whether or not it's

817
01:01:38,519 --> 01:01:45,920
due to climate change or just bad
weather or something where an animal's food source,

818
01:01:45,599 --> 01:01:50,280
especially in the fall when they're trying
to fatten up, has been tremendously

819
01:01:50,480 --> 01:01:54,400
impacted by another event, and the
bears don't get those fat reserves that they

820
01:01:54,440 --> 01:02:00,159
need to stay sleeping, Then bears
in a particular area might a lot of

821
01:02:00,159 --> 01:02:05,440
them might be underweight and get up
to forge around for food because they're all

822
01:02:05,599 --> 01:02:09,280
kind of struggling in that particular winter. I don't believe it's happening on the

823
01:02:09,320 --> 01:02:16,199
whole global or metal scale, but
definitely in some areas you could have some

824
01:02:16,360 --> 01:02:22,960
winners that bears are more active because
either there's more food around or something happened

825
01:02:22,000 --> 01:02:28,039
to their food source. So the
thing with social media is we hear a

826
01:02:28,039 --> 01:02:34,599
lot more of the anomalies. Before
social media. If something happened in somewhere

827
01:02:34,679 --> 01:02:37,599
Iowa, you never heard about it, but now it's front page news because

828
01:02:37,639 --> 01:02:40,960
something weird happened in Iowa. Yeah, all right, are there any other

829
01:02:42,039 --> 01:02:45,440
pet peeves or misinformation things about bears
that you would like to clear? Well,

830
01:02:45,480 --> 01:02:49,840
I'm sure I get a lot,
but we're over an hour now,

831
01:02:49,880 --> 01:02:52,760
so I don't want to keep it
too long. But cool. Well.

832
01:02:52,159 --> 01:02:55,880
One of the last fun questions,
which I think could lead more into some

833
01:02:55,960 --> 01:03:00,559
things that you have worked on the
past. Kim, one of our patrons

834
01:03:00,599 --> 01:03:05,760
asked, what cartoon bear is your
favorite? I started thinking about this and

835
01:03:05,960 --> 01:03:09,440
I don't want to disappoint Kim,
because I promise you the bear I'm gonna

836
01:03:09,440 --> 01:03:13,840
mention she never heard of. Hopefully
she'll hear it soon. But it's not

837
01:03:13,880 --> 01:03:17,679
a cartoon either. I was a
kid, I loved Yogi and smoking all

838
01:03:17,719 --> 01:03:22,400
that, but my favorite bear in
general. I actually wrote a book.

839
01:03:22,519 --> 01:03:29,159
Released the book last year. It's
called Spooning a Bear, and it's just

840
01:03:29,199 --> 01:03:34,480
a series of short stories about some
of my adventures being a bear biologist,

841
01:03:34,760 --> 01:03:37,280
and a lot of them came from
when I was working at the rehab and

842
01:03:37,760 --> 01:03:43,960
research facility in the Smokies. Now
understand, when you're doing bear rehab,

843
01:03:44,599 --> 01:03:46,519
the best way to do it is
hands off. You don't want any contact

844
01:03:46,599 --> 01:03:51,639
with the bears. You don't want
those bears to associate with humans at all.

845
01:03:52,440 --> 01:03:55,079
So I all the bears I rehabbed, which I forget the grand total,

846
01:03:55,199 --> 01:04:00,480
it is either forty three it's close
to fifty bears, but never had

847
01:04:00,519 --> 01:04:03,039
any contact with them. Everything was
done behind blinds. You didn't get in

848
01:04:03,079 --> 01:04:08,400
there and crawl in the cage with
them or anything like that. But there's

849
01:04:08,480 --> 01:04:12,519
one bear that was brought to us
early on. It was probably about a

850
01:04:12,559 --> 01:04:16,360
twenty pound cub is. It was
already about six seven months old, but

851
01:04:16,480 --> 01:04:21,599
it was captured by the State Wildlife
Agency. They grabbed it off the porch

852
01:04:21,679 --> 01:04:28,559
of someone's house and sure enough,
we found there some wrong. The bear

853
01:04:28,800 --> 01:04:33,199
had aspiration pneumonia, which is indicative
of being bottle fed the wrong way.

854
01:04:33,280 --> 01:04:36,639
They had the bear tilted the wrong
way and it got liquid in and the

855
01:04:36,639 --> 01:04:42,360
bear's lungs and that bear we took
it to the vet to make sure it

856
01:04:42,440 --> 01:04:45,360
is going to be okay, and
the vet was pretty serious with me.

857
01:04:45,400 --> 01:04:48,199
He said, Darryl, don't be
too upset if the bear doesn't make it

858
01:04:48,239 --> 01:04:54,280
through the night, because it's it's
not doing very well. And so here

859
01:04:54,320 --> 01:04:57,920
I am. I'm one of the
biggest animal lovers, and I wanted to

860
01:04:57,920 --> 01:05:00,519
see that bear released to the wild. Then I'm just told that the bear's

861
01:05:00,599 --> 01:05:04,559
not going to survive through the night. So that was one of the only

862
01:05:04,679 --> 01:05:09,719
times where since the bears wasn't going
to make he couldn't be released back to

863
01:05:09,760 --> 01:05:13,280
the wild. I wanted to make
sure he had a really good last night.

864
01:05:13,760 --> 01:05:16,159
So instead of feeding the natural foods, the acorns, the grapes,

865
01:05:16,519 --> 01:05:20,679
whatever the natural foods we typically gave
the bears, I gave him a little

866
01:05:20,719 --> 01:05:26,119
treat kind of as his last meal. And the cub's name was Deacon.

867
01:05:27,000 --> 01:05:30,679
He was comforted by my presence and
so I did something you never ever,

868
01:05:30,719 --> 01:05:33,960
ever should do with wildbear. But
I let him out of the cage and

869
01:05:34,440 --> 01:05:40,400
he would go on my lap.
Because you have to understand, whoever ruined

870
01:05:40,519 --> 01:05:44,480
this bear handle this bear quite a
bit, and so it thought that I

871
01:05:44,800 --> 01:05:47,360
was the mama bear. And so
there's one and only time I ever got

872
01:05:47,360 --> 01:05:51,519
to handle a real bear. And
when I went to put him back in

873
01:05:51,559 --> 01:05:56,679
the cage when we're all done kind
of comforting each other, he would have

874
01:05:56,800 --> 01:06:00,760
none of it. Like he would
go spread eagle with both and paused holding

875
01:06:00,800 --> 01:06:03,360
the door and is like a little
trampoline, trying to push him in,

876
01:06:03,400 --> 01:06:06,519
and he wanted to go in.
And then he turned around and wrapped his

877
01:06:06,760 --> 01:06:11,079
arms around my leg and I could
feel his claws digging in, and I'm

878
01:06:11,119 --> 01:06:14,719
like, holy cow, I've got
a real bear here. And so I

879
01:06:14,840 --> 01:06:18,880
ended up. I was in a
storage shed at the facility, and I

880
01:06:18,960 --> 01:06:24,239
ended up throwing a blanket on the
floor and I let him play around and

881
01:06:24,320 --> 01:06:27,840
dummy me. I was exhausted from
a long day. I fell asleep and

882
01:06:28,000 --> 01:06:30,159
when I woke up in the morning, at first I didn't even open my

883
01:06:30,159 --> 01:06:32,960
eyes, and I was thinking,
did I dream all that? And I

884
01:06:33,039 --> 01:06:36,400
woke up and I was spooning the
bear. The bear had fallen asleep in

885
01:06:36,440 --> 01:06:42,039
my arm. So Deacon is my
favorite bear because this is the only time

886
01:06:42,039 --> 01:06:46,400
I ever actually handled and got up
close and personal. But the happy ending

887
01:06:46,400 --> 01:06:50,119
to the story is we say that
the bear ended up living, but it

888
01:06:50,280 --> 01:06:57,920
was still a heart wrenching story because
bear that is fed by humans and wants

889
01:06:57,920 --> 01:07:00,760
to be around humans can't be released
back to the It's a way to find

890
01:07:00,760 --> 01:07:05,280
a sanctuary for that bear to go
to. But Deacon is probably my favorite

891
01:07:05,280 --> 01:07:09,079
bearon if you want, if you
got to read about Deacon, it's in

892
01:07:09,159 --> 01:07:12,480
my book Scooting a Bear, which
you can just google it or look it

893
01:07:12,559 --> 01:07:15,199
up on Amazon. So nice.
Well, in speak, you don't just

894
01:07:15,320 --> 01:07:18,280
have a book, You also have
your own business. So can you tell

895
01:07:18,360 --> 01:07:21,880
us a little bit about your business
and why you started it? Oh yeah,

896
01:07:23,119 --> 01:07:28,840
back in back in twenty sixteen.
I moved from Tennessee to New Mexico

897
01:07:29,360 --> 01:07:33,800
back in twenty fifteen, and by
twenty sixteen I was kind of touring all

898
01:07:33,840 --> 01:07:39,239
over the Southwest given bear talks,
bear safety talks, cougar talks, just

899
01:07:39,679 --> 01:07:43,159
lots of apex predator type of talks. In the West, things are a

900
01:07:43,159 --> 01:07:45,760
lot more spread out than in the
east, so when you got to drive

901
01:07:45,760 --> 01:07:48,880
from one town to another, it's
three hour drive this way or that way.

902
01:07:48,920 --> 01:07:54,119
And I was loving it. But
I mentioned on my Facebook page back

903
01:07:54,119 --> 01:07:58,400
then, I've got to go to
Los Alamos to give a bear talk tomorrow

904
01:07:58,519 --> 01:08:00,760
night, and someone said, man, I would love to sit in on

905
01:08:00,800 --> 01:08:04,519
your talk. Can you do it
online? And the light bulb went off,

906
01:08:04,559 --> 01:08:09,280
and so I started a business called
Wildlife for You. It's just an

907
01:08:09,400 --> 01:08:13,960
educ wildlife education where I would just
give talks. And I started doing webinars

908
01:08:14,000 --> 01:08:19,760
back in twenty seventeen. General webinars
air safety, but different species talks about

909
01:08:20,199 --> 01:08:25,439
maybe foxes or people would send in
can you do a class on this?

910
01:08:25,680 --> 01:08:29,960
And so I would do all that. And I have a website that's in

911
01:08:30,039 --> 01:08:33,199
band need of updating, and my
son, my youngest son, is in

912
01:08:33,239 --> 01:08:38,800
college to update that and he promises
within the next few months he'll have it

913
01:08:38,880 --> 01:08:42,920
updating. But I used to teach
a lot of online classes and I've got

914
01:08:43,359 --> 01:08:46,720
over eighty different online classes available.
If anyone, I'm going to have all

915
01:08:46,760 --> 01:08:51,479
those available. But we also did
a podcast, there's a Wildlife for You

916
01:08:51,600 --> 01:08:55,720
podcast. I don't want to compete
with yours a couple of years ago.

917
01:08:56,760 --> 01:09:01,600
It's over and done with. I
started with the brilliant friend of mine,

918
01:09:01,600 --> 01:09:06,159
Stephanie Payne, who was my co
host, and we talked about a whole

919
01:09:06,199 --> 01:09:12,000
different slew of different topics and that
was I think we have over eighty shows

920
01:09:12,039 --> 01:09:15,199
on that one, so nice.
Yeah. So I've got a real job

921
01:09:15,279 --> 01:09:20,119
where I go to pay the bills
as a wildlife biologist. But my true

922
01:09:20,199 --> 01:09:26,199
passion is the education side of things, because unfortunately, and I know you

923
01:09:26,359 --> 01:09:30,399
know this too well, some of
the smartest people in the business are not

924
01:09:30,560 --> 01:09:38,600
the best communicators. And so my
passion is taking that hard, good sound

925
01:09:38,680 --> 01:09:43,600
science, translating it and providing it
to the public so they can understand it

926
01:09:43,640 --> 01:09:47,039
better. Yep, because sometimes what
we put out it doesn't always carry over

927
01:09:47,319 --> 01:09:53,119
in the best way. And so
yeah, if you ever want to talk

928
01:09:53,159 --> 01:09:56,359
any more about any other topic,
I'm happy to do it because I love

929
01:09:56,439 --> 01:10:00,840
trying to educate the public about wildlife
because it's my passion. Yeah, I

930
01:10:00,880 --> 01:10:02,960
mean, first of all, thank
you for doing this in general, but

931
01:10:03,399 --> 01:10:06,640
yeah, that's why I want to
do this too, because I mean things

932
01:10:06,680 --> 01:10:10,640
like the if it's black fight back, if it's brown led down, like

933
01:10:10,720 --> 01:10:14,720
there's more nuance to that statement that
you can't get out of, like the

934
01:10:14,760 --> 01:10:17,319
government just issuing that statement. And
that's why broadcasts are great. Yeah,

935
01:10:17,359 --> 01:10:24,039
that two sentence nursery rhyme doesn't cover
at all, but if you listen to

936
01:10:24,439 --> 01:10:29,079
someone explain why it doesn't work in
all situations and what you are supposed to

937
01:10:29,079 --> 01:10:33,920
do. I'm trying to reach those
people that love wildlife and love to learn,

938
01:10:34,560 --> 01:10:39,880
because the best moment, Ashley,
is that light bulb moment, and

939
01:10:39,960 --> 01:10:42,600
we see it all the time.
It's like, oh, I get it.

940
01:10:42,880 --> 01:10:45,239
As soon as that light bulb goes
off, those folks are a thousand

941
01:10:45,319 --> 01:10:49,359
times in better shape being in the
woods than someone that's just reading a two

942
01:10:49,399 --> 01:10:54,720
sentence nursery rhyme. Yeah, and
you know, I know some people may

943
01:10:54,760 --> 01:10:59,039
not agree with like the branding of
our podcast where like it's branded as an

944
01:10:59,079 --> 01:11:03,039
animal attack pod, But the whole
purpose is like to get people in that

945
01:11:03,119 --> 01:11:05,840
might be afraid of animal tax,
right, so they're looking up like animal

946
01:11:05,880 --> 01:11:10,640
tax or whatever, and that will
lead them to this where you can actually

947
01:11:10,760 --> 01:11:15,520
learn about like Okay, here's actually
the statistics on whether or not this is

948
01:11:15,640 --> 01:11:17,960
likely to happen to you and how
you could avoid this from happening to you.

949
01:11:18,239 --> 01:11:24,560
So I totally get that approach.
I totally appreciated because obviously, when

950
01:11:24,560 --> 01:11:29,600
you're in this business, you've got
to capture people's attention. And I will

951
01:11:29,640 --> 01:11:33,000
tell you I've written a ton of
articles. The one I wrote it was

952
01:11:33,039 --> 01:11:41,840
about wildlife photographers because oftentimes they do
very very bad things, and sometimes they

953
01:11:42,239 --> 01:11:45,720
think what they do is so unobtrusive
it doesn't affect the animals, which is

954
01:11:45,920 --> 01:11:51,560
a bunch of malarkey in many situations. And so the article I wrote was

955
01:11:51,600 --> 01:11:58,199
about the ethics of wildlife photography,
but the title it was I Killed a

956
01:11:58,239 --> 01:12:02,399
Bear, And it was a shock
title that once people read it, they're

957
01:12:02,439 --> 01:12:06,439
like, oh, I had no
idea we had we could potentially have that

958
01:12:06,640 --> 01:12:12,720
impact on an animal, because if
they're changing that animal's behavior, they can

959
01:12:12,720 --> 01:12:16,159
definitely have a negative impact on those
animals. Yeah, so I totally get

960
01:12:16,199 --> 01:12:21,239
and understand your marketing strategies to draw
people in just to get them to listen.

961
01:12:23,000 --> 01:12:27,359
And again, I can't thank you
enough Ashley for reaching out trying to

962
01:12:27,520 --> 01:12:30,119
get the most current, up to
date, best information out there. Yeah.

963
01:12:30,479 --> 01:12:33,039
Truly wonderful. Yeah, Well,
thank you, Daryl, Thank you

964
01:12:33,079 --> 01:12:35,239
so much for doing this. I
would love to have you back on another

965
01:12:35,279 --> 01:12:40,319
time. There's so many things we
could talk about, so yeah, anytime

966
01:12:40,560 --> 01:12:43,399
you want to come back, you
let me know, even if we're not

967
01:12:43,439 --> 01:12:45,560
on air, if you have any
questions or one or anything, by by

968
01:12:45,560 --> 01:12:48,039
all means, please feel free to
reach out. Yeah, and how can

969
01:12:48,119 --> 01:12:50,840
other people reach out and find you
if they would like to talk to you?

970
01:12:51,159 --> 01:12:55,760
Well, there is a Facebook page, which is kind of For the

971
01:12:55,880 --> 01:12:59,680
last couple of months, I've been
dealing with some family issues with my dad,

972
01:12:59,720 --> 01:13:03,439
so it's kind of been quiet,
but wildlife for you. On Facebook,

973
01:13:04,000 --> 01:13:06,720
it was pretty active for a while. We got a pretty good following

974
01:13:06,760 --> 01:13:11,520
on Facebook. I think there's we
had over eleven thousand people following that right

975
01:13:11,560 --> 01:13:15,279
now. Yeah, and I see
you. Also, if anyone's listening and

976
01:13:15,439 --> 01:13:19,199
they are part of the Science Career
Network Facebook pages or anything like that,

977
01:13:19,239 --> 01:13:23,479
you are super active on all those. That's where I first thought, Yeah,

978
01:13:23,479 --> 01:13:26,119
I know, that is funny that
I usually do not find people from

979
01:13:26,159 --> 01:13:28,960
Facebook, so it's funny that that's
how we connected. But it worked out

980
01:13:29,159 --> 01:13:31,399
so all right. Well, thank
you so much, Daryl for doing this.

981
01:13:31,560 --> 01:13:34,640
It was great, haven't you.
I had an absolute blast, Ashley,

982
01:13:34,680 --> 01:13:38,399
And if you ever need me again
and be happy to talking about any

983
01:13:38,439 --> 01:13:41,159
other thing you want. I think
we got to touch on Krueger's before too

984
01:13:41,199 --> 01:13:46,920
long. Oh absolutely, yeah.
I hope you all enjoyed the interview with

985
01:13:47,000 --> 01:13:50,319
Darryl. And my favorite quote from
the episode was, if you have a

986
01:13:50,319 --> 01:13:54,479
close encounter with the bear, your
response to that bear should not be based

987
01:13:54,520 --> 01:13:58,000
whatsoever on what species of bear it
is. Rather, it should be based

988
01:13:58,000 --> 01:14:00,840
on the behavior of that particular animal. And I think that's really important really

989
01:14:00,880 --> 01:14:04,199
with any animal that we're talking about, but it highlights the need for us

990
01:14:04,239 --> 01:14:08,800
to be more connected to the animals
around us, the world around us,

991
01:14:08,800 --> 01:14:11,319
and just if you're going out in
the woods, just get a better sense

992
01:14:11,319 --> 01:14:14,199
of what's going on around you and
what you might encounter. And you don't

993
01:14:14,239 --> 01:14:16,680
have to be afraid of bears.
You are not likely to be attacked by

994
01:14:16,720 --> 01:14:20,000
a bear. As we mentioned the
episode, we can't predict exactly how every

995
01:14:20,039 --> 01:14:24,640
animal is going to act, but
in general, you are not likely to

996
01:14:24,720 --> 01:14:27,840
be attacked by a bear, especially
if you go out prepared with bear spray

997
01:14:27,880 --> 01:14:31,359
and you know basic bear behavior.
So in our next episode, I will

998
01:14:31,399 --> 01:14:35,079
be telling a story of someone who
lived very close with black bears, and

999
01:14:35,119 --> 01:14:40,000
we will dive a little deeper into
their behavior and maybe things to keep an

1000
01:14:40,039 --> 01:14:44,000
eye out for. Also, our
next bonus episode on Patreon will also be

1001
01:14:44,039 --> 01:14:46,239
a story about bears, one that
has been very highly requested by a lot

1002
01:14:46,279 --> 01:14:49,479
of you, so stay tuned for
that. And I figured, you know,

1003
01:14:49,560 --> 01:14:54,880
we're having basically this entire month dedicated
to bears. But tis the season

1004
01:14:55,359 --> 01:14:59,560
bears are waking up from hibernation,
so that means take down those bird feeders

1005
01:14:59,600 --> 01:15:01,880
there are already hitting them, so
please get those in so it doesn't cause

1006
01:15:01,920 --> 01:15:04,359
a problem for the rest of the
summer. So take what you learn from

1007
01:15:04,399 --> 01:15:09,279
this episode, put that to use
as bears are coming out of hibernation and

1008
01:15:09,319 --> 01:15:12,800
if there are any around you,
and stay safe out there, all right.

1009
01:15:12,840 --> 01:15:15,760
You can check out our episode description
for links to find Darryl, links

1010
01:15:15,800 --> 01:15:19,880
to find us on social media.
And thank you to Josh Walsh for making

1011
01:15:19,880 --> 01:15:24,439
our intro music, and thank you
to his brother Jesse Walsh for doing all

1012
01:15:24,479 --> 01:15:29,000
the other lifting in the audio department. Also, Jesse is currently updating our

1013
01:15:29,279 --> 01:15:32,119
early episodes to upgrade the sound quality, so thank you so much Jesse for

1014
01:15:32,159 --> 01:15:35,680
doing that. Is a long time
coming. Thank you all right, I

1015
01:15:35,680 --> 01:15:45,720
will catch you all in two weeks
for another animal attack story. See yeah