Hey, everyone, it's Ashley, just giving you a heads up before the
episode gets started. My audio is a little funky in this one. It
kind of sounds like I'm calling in from a cell phone from like two thousand
and four. But Nick and I are troubleshooting and trying to fix it,
so next time it will sound much better. But thanks for staying tuned and
you love you all right. Welcome to episode five of Get Out Alive.
I am your host and resident animal expert, Ashley, and I'm your other
host and definitely not an animal expert, Nick, But you do really love
the animal we're talking about today. Second favorite animal? Yeah, oh,
what's the first? Black bears? Really? You like black bears more than
grizzlies? Yes, black bears are best classic office quote. Okay, well
all right, so let's dive run into it. Nick, you know the
number one defining characteristic to tell grizzlies and black bears a part. Hit me
with it. Grizzlies have a big hump between their shoulder blades, and that's
a good way to tell whether you have a grizzly or a black bear,
because even though they're called blackberries, they actually do come in you know,
various colors out, blonde and brown, so it's not always just like,
oh, that bear is brown, it's obviously a brown bear. That doesn't
really work like that. Yeah, great point. The name brown bear and
black bear isn't helpful because there's black bears that are white, so that doesn't
help you. So don't assume that just because the bear is brown that is.
Can you imagine if you're walking around the woods of like Florida and you
saw a white black bear going around there, it's a poor bear. Yeah,
I mean in Florida, I wouldn't be surprised. Yeah. And another
thing too, is that grizzlies have a really disk like face or as black
bears have more of like a pointed face. There's also different characteristics with the
height of their legs and whatnot. So just look at side by side pictures.
Just make sure if you're going into bear country that you know the difference
between the two, because, as you will learn very soon, how you
respond to them is very different. Yeah. One might get you killed if
you do the wrong thing. Yeah, one hundred percent. So Nick,
you love bears. I love bears. Yes. Do you know the Latin
name for a brown bear? Ooh ooh, I think I do canus something
Canus would be a dog. Really, yep. The bear family is ursus
are yeah, because ursa major, ursa minor. Uh huh Okay, So
I apparently I do not know it. That's fine, so for those of
you who don't know. So every animal has a Latin name, and that's
essentially so anywhere you go in the world, if you say the Latin name,
it is the same around the world, whereas especially animals like fish,
they have a different name in like every town that you go to. So
the Latin name is the way to tell we are talking about the same species
no matter what or like we were talking about last week with mountain lions and
cougars. You know, if you use the Latin name, then you're god.
Yeah. And Latin names are comprised of a genus in a species,
so it's every Latin name is two words, and then there's different specifications on
how you like write it in whatever. But anyways, so they're all pronounced
phonetically. What is your favorite Latin name of the animal kingdom? There is
a correct answer. Oh, off the top of my head, turtis migratorius.
What about the gorilla. What's that gorilla? Gorilla? Gorilla? Oh,
let's Turtis migratorius. Come on, it's a robin. Gorillas are funny.
Anyways, it's gorilla, gorilla, gorilla. Pretty self explanatory, huh.
I know. I love it. It's so simple. I remember that
one. So the Latin name for the brown bear is Ursus arctose, which
ursus in Latin means bear. Arctose also means bear in Greek, so it's
bear bear. So they are the most bear that you can get. They
are a bear's bear. So, as I'm sure you're probably wondering, we're
going to talk about grizzlies. Grizzlies are one of the two recognized subspecies of
brown bear. Because brown bears are they're in Europe in North America, but
they look very different depending on where you are. So the brown bears in
Europe are more like black bear sized, and then you have the brown bears
in Alaska that can be upwards of like one thousand pounds during the salmon run.
They are beautiful. I love them. From when I started digging into
the different subspecies of brown bear, I very quickly found out it is a
hot topic because there's sixteen subspecies, but all two of those are recognized.
I could probably name a couple of the subspecies. I know, the Kodiak
bear. That's kind definitely gonna be a subspecies. Yeah, so that one
is Ursus arctose middendorfi ooh what ant dwarfee however you want to pronounce it.
But yeah, Basically the third word is how you identify the subspecies, and
the subspecies is just a further down categorization of a species. Anyways. So
there's the Zodiac bear, which lives on Kodiak Island off of Alaska. I
want to go there one day. The other recognized subspecies is Versus arctos horrebliss.
Oh, that's gonna be a grizzly. That is the grizzly. Who
are you, baz? Yeah, so that's the grizzly, which it kind
of is in the name that they're horrible. They are fucking beasts. According
to the IUCN red List, which is essentially like the people who decide which
kind of species are extinct in how you categorize them and blah blah blah.
And they have a website where you can go and find very specific information on
different species and like the status of their population. So I looked up brown
bears. There are one hundred and ten thousand individuals worldwide adult individuals, so
they're considered least concern in terms of like endangerment. So they're considered least concern.
But what the IUCN red list didn't consider was the different subspecies. Okay,
like the Kodiak bear group might actually not be doing well, but because
they don't specify, they just say in general, least concern. But the
population is growing in Yellowstone. I've only ever really heard them referred to as
grizzlies and Yellowstone, so that's what we're going to call them. And that's
the type of bear we're referring to today, is a brown bear in Yellowstone.
So please correct me if I'm wrong, But I believe that the difference
between a grizzly and a brown bear is location, like based off how close
they are to the ocean. So like coastal bears are considered brown bears once
you go inland, I don't know exactly how much. That's when they are
considered grizzlies. Yeah you're still ret me. I like bears. Yeah,
I love that, So yeah, it's it really depends on It's like a
regional thing, so kind of like mountain lions, where depending where you are,
that's how you refer to them. That's kind of the way it is
with grizzlies. They're brown bears if they're coastal. And like, yeah,
like you said, perfect, thank you. You want to get into it.
But what the grizzly attack we're talking about today? Oh my god,
I's get into hell. Yeah, okay, you actually don't know who we're
talking about today. No, you have not told me anything about the story,
which we discussed and we said, we're gonna, you know, share
some information with me. But I guess that is don't get any tonight.
That's fine. Yeah, and I'm excited by that. Am I going to
freak out? You're going to freak out? Is this a grizzly bear attack?
This is a grizzly bear attack. I meant to ask it was this
attack in Yellowstone? It was in Montana? Close enough? Yeah, what's
the difference? Yeah, just kidding. Yeah, So it was in Montana.
So today we're talking about Todd or have you heard of him? I
have not heard of Todd or Okay, so I actually reached out to Todd
and asked him if we could tell his story, because I figured it'd be
super weird if you were someone who got attacked by an animal and then you
went on Apple podcasts and you were like, wait, my name is that?
So I want to be and his attack happened pretty recently, so I
wanted to be respectful and say, hey, do you mind if we tell
your story? If you're not comfortable, we don't have to. And he
was super nice. He was like, here, I wrote up the story
here, and he's been on so many podcasts. He was like on a
meat eater podcast, so he's told this story so many times. And you
know, although I would love to have more survivors on to tell us about
their experience firsthand, the reason Nick and I are doing this is not for
clout. We're not here to say that we talked to this person who survived
this attack. We're here solely to tell you the stories so we can all
learn from them. Not because we're trying to profit off of people's trauma,
but the profits and the clout are nice. I love how I made this
heartfelt point and you just have to poop on it. That is my role
at this podcast. Yeah, but yeah, so you know, we're here
to give you information and be educational first and foremost, and also tell you
interesting stories about people being attacked, because if we're being honest, people like
to hear gruesome attack stories, probably because it's in our nature, but also
I think because we like to feel like we're informed. So if we're in
that situation, we're better prepared. So yeah, it would really hard.
It'd be hard to push like telling people, hey, this is what you
need to do to be safe and then listen if they didn't know what the
consequences were if you weren't being safe, if you didn't do the right thing.
So it was kind of one of those being scared to do the right
thing, like scared straight. Yeah but yeah, you know, being scared
straight, but like we just don't want to get eaten. So Todd Or
he grew up in Ennis, Montana, on a fish hatchery, which is
pretty cool and from everything I've read about Todd, he is the kind of
person if you went to Montana and you needed like a guide to show you
around, you would call someone like Todd. He is just one of many
outdoor enthusiasts in his family grew up in Montana. He's an avid fisher hunter.
He hikes and he also makes knives ooh sick. Yeah, and he's
also he's currently an engineer technician for the Gallatin National Forest, so he works
outside. He has a degree in Fish and Wildlife Management from Montana State University.
Like, he knows what he's doing. Yeah, this is an experienced
person. Yeah, he knows how to deal with animals. Yeah, exactly.
So the fact that he was attacked makes it so much more scary.
It was October first, twenty six and it was a Saturday, and it
was actually the first Saturday of bow hunting season. But because of an earlier
injury in his life from snowboarding, he can't bow hunt, so on this
day he was just out hiking and scouting, actually out for elk. So
when his hunting season came around, he knew where to go, he knew
where they were. So he was in Madison Valley and he began to hike
into the mountains in southwest Montana. It was pretty dark and he was going
pretty fast because he wanted to get to the top of the mountain and you
know, see as much as he could in the time that he had,
so just three miles in he spotted a sow grizzly bear with two cubs.
A sow was a female bear, so and also a female pig. I
don't know why they used the same words, but yeah, he stepped out
into this clearing, and he admits later on that, like, he probably
should have been looking around and going slower. So by the time he stepped
out into this clearing and noticed the grizzly, she had noticed him too,
So she looked up at him and then bolted with her cubs, and he
was like, oh cool. So she kind of went west and over a
ridge. He waited a few seconds, felt comfortable, and then headed in
the opposite direction eastward. He takes a few steps and then hears a branch
cracking behind him, turns around and she, the mother grizzly, is gunning
it towards him like ears back bolting, And once again he's experienced. He's
taken bear safety classes. He always has a bear spray canister on his hip.
He knows how to use it. He's practiced a lot with it,
which we've talked about. It's very important. And he also had a pistol
on him that he was going to use if he saw a wolf, because
he had a wolf tag, but it wasn't the kind like it had a
slug in it that could probably kill a bear if he hid it in the
right spot, but also had a scope on it. It wouldn't have been
great to just pull out in the moment, you know what I mean,
for protection. So she's coming at him, he takes out his bear spray.
He knows that she's not bluffing, like she is running like forty miles
an hour at him one hundred percent. So he yelled out to her to
try to be like, hey, I'm a person, you don't want to
mess with me, and she was like, nope, don't care, kept
gunning. So right as she was on him, he triggered the bear spray
full blast and it went out like thirty feet because if you've ever used bear
spray before, like it sprays out quite a distance. But because she was
running so fast, she just blew right through the bear spray and was on
him. So instinctually he threw himself on the ground, put his face in
the dirt, put his arms and hands around the back of his neck,
and locked his hands to protect his neck, and that's exactly what you want
to do. It's kind of what Cynthia dusil Bacon did with the black bear,
and that's really what saved her because one, if you're wearing a backpack,
they can tear into that instead of your organs. And two, like,
if you're blocking your neck and everything, you're good. You don't want
that bear to get access to your soft little belly. So she starts tearing
into his right arm and his shoulder. But after a few seconds and after
a few bites, she was gone because he heard her starting to make coughing
noises and wheezing, so clearly it took a few seconds, but the bear
spray did work. She leaves, so he's sitting there on the ground and
he's like, oh my god, I just surrect a bear attack. How
crazy. So he picks himself up once he realizes that she's gone. He
was like, oh, okay, my injuries they're not great, but it
was mostly just his arms and shoulder and upper back, so he was like,
great, I'm not bleeding to death. I can walk out of here.
I can go get my own help. Like he doesn't need to be
sitting there waiting for parent mags to show up one hundred percent. Yeah,
and he's like totally lucid. Adrenaline's running whatever I imagine. So yeah,
so he's like, all right, I'll make my way back down the trail.
So he's walking, and he had hiked in for forty five minutes,
so yeah, so he had quite a ways to go. So he starts
making his way back towards the trail, doing a study pace, but like
checking himself as he's going, and his backpack had taken most of the attacks
from the bear, but he still had like you know, puncture wounds and
they were bleeding through his clothes. At this point, Like I said,
it was October and in Montana, pretty cold, so he's wearing a lot
of layers and it was bleeding through the layers, and he really just want
to put distance between him and the bear so that he could address his wounds
and whatnot, because he also was very trained up in first aid. Like
I said, he knows what he's doing. This dude's just just a monster.
Yeah, And as he's walking these three miles back to his truck,
initially the adrenaline's starting to stop, and as we've talked about before, once
you're attacked and your adrenaline gets going, it's really the thing that pushes you
to stay alive. It is what stops you from feeling the immediate pain and
what keeps you from giving up. So at this point, it's subsiding.
So he's like bash shit, Like I'm really stiff. He walks and then
hears something behind him. Oh no. He turns around and the mother grizzly
is back. Geez, but she's within ten feet of him this time,
and he has no more bear spray left. Not even that he didn't have
time because he almost just caught her out of the corner of his eye,
and then it was too late because she was so close and so fast,
and he didn't have time to get his pistol. So once again he turned
and the bear knocked into the ground, and he was like, oh my
god, I survived the first time, but how am I going to survive
two grizzly attacks in one day? Well? You probably won't, is is
his first thought. Spoiler he doesn't die towards the end. God, yeah,
that's how I was able to talk to him. He talks about like
he didn't even think about I'm going to die he was just thinking, here's
what I need to do to keep living. So once again he protects his
neck besides his head and just tries to put all of his vitals flush with
the ground so she doesn't have access to them. But this time the mother
bear was pissed. She slammed down on top of him and bit his shoulder
and arms again, but once again, way more aggressive this time because she
was angry, and he says that the force of each bite was like a
sledgehammer with teeth, and she bit down on his forearm and it went really
deep and she instantly crushed his olna in his left arm. Right as she
crushed his olna, he couldn't feel his left hand, and then his wrist
and fingers for that hand were useless because she crushed his bones with one bite.
He understandably gasped, and that set her off even more because she was
like, oh, he's not dead, let me keep trying to kill him.
Yeah. Yeah, So she does a whole other frenzy of attacks on
his shoulder up or back, and this whole time he was just thinking,
Okay, stay as quiet as possible, don't move, don't move, And
that's what he had going through his head. It wasn't oh my god,
I'm going to die. It was do not move and she will leave.
So he was trying to go with the play dead tactic one hundred percent because
this was a mother bear, and he knows from all of his experience the
whole point of her attacking is because you surprised her and she thinks you're a
threat. So if you play dead and she thinks the threat is gone,
she's out of there to go check on her cubs. Maybe the first attack
was she thought he was a threat. I think she's got mad that he
sprayed her. He's like, I'm gonna go kill this motherfucker. Yeah,
And like we've kind of talked about before, bears had different personalities and different
tolerances. So one bear, this might have been too much. If they
got sprayed, they'd be like, oh, I'm good forever, but this
particular bear was not good. Oh. She took it personally. She took
it very personally. So at this point, you know, after he coughs
and she's biting into him more with this new flurry of attacks, she starts
biting and clawing in his head, and she cut a five inch gash right
above his right ear that nearly tore his scalp off Jesus, and this caused
blood to go gushing down his face and into his eyes. So he was
now blind and he still didn't move, still didn't make a sound. The
adrenaline was back. He wasn't feeling any pain, but he was feeling her
crushing his body and his bones and tearing into him. If you've ever seen
The Revenant, hell yeah, then if you remember the bear attack from that,
it's like the most famous scene from the movie. Everyone said, it's
pretty accurate in terms of like the bear will pick you up and shake you
like a dog shakes a toy, and then slam you back down. And
that's exactly what she was doing to him. She was picking him up,
shaking him, slamming him on the ground, and then biting him again.
So he was really afraid at this point that she was going to bite his
neck because humans were soft little babies and don't have a whole lot of protection,
so if they hit one spot, you're done. Yeah, I mean,
if she was able to crush his far arm with one butite, I'm
sure she grabb him by the neck, he wouldn't really have much of a
chance, yeah, or if she flipped him over. Oh yeah, yeah,
that's like you were saying, like no chance. Yeah. You know,
this whole time, he's thinking, don't move, don't move, don't
move, she'll leave, stay down, block the vitals. So she suddenly
stopped and just stood on him, and she dug her claws into his lower
back, like right below his belt line, and just stood there breathing on
his neck, and he remembers she smelled like death. She smelled so bad,
either from what she was eating or like if she was rolling in something
dead, like she just dunk, and he wanted to like gag and throw
up, but you know that would trigger the bear again. So she's standing
there pinning him down. She kind of did this thing where she would nip
at him, almost like a dog nips at a person, as if she
was trying to like test him, like are you still there? Are you
still alive? And then once she was comfortable and felt that he was done,
she left just like that. Yeah, And he, like Cynthia was,
was terrified to take a breath because he was like, she's standing right
there watching me. She'll know, yeah, and come right back and finish
the job. So he's sitting there, waited about ten secs and then nothing.
He reached his right hand, the functional hand down to try to grab
his pistol and it's gone. Oh yeah, she had ripped it away from
his body during the attack, and his bear spray was useless. He started
to wipe the blood from each eye really slow. He was very hesitant,
just to make sure for sure that she was gone. Yeap. Once his
eyes were wiping, he could see. He raised his head, took a
look around, and she was actually gone this time. But his first thought
was if she gets her cubs and comes back here to double check that I'm
not a threat. If I'm still here, I'm dead to eat him.
Yeah. Well that well yeah, so he was like, I have to
get out of here. So once he looked up, he also realized that
ten feet away from him was his pistol. He goes over, thumbs back
the hammer, and now he's prepared. But something I did want to mention,
although a pistol or a firearm may feel like a good mode of protection
against a bear, you really want to make sure that you hit that bear
and you kill it, because nothing is going to piss that bear off more
than being shot. Yeah, no, it's not gonna be happy. So
he picks up all this stuff, grabs the bear spray, grabs the pistol,
cocks the hammer back, and starts moving back down the trail. So
blood was dripping all over him. And also, if you're thinking he's in
bear country, he's now a walking, bleeding mess. He has to get
out of there. Yeah, so his clothes were completely soaked with blood at
this point. Like I said before, he had first aid training. As
he was walking like obviously wanted to put some distance between him and the bear.
He also was assessing himself like, Okay, although I am bleeding,
I am not bleeding profusely. She didn't hit any major arteries. Yes,
I have some real messed up arms. I'm generally okay. Do you know
how far he was from the truck when the attack happened. He was only
five minutes down the trail, like from the first tack. Yes, he
walked for five minutes then she came back. Ooh. Yeah, So he
had a long way to go after the second attack, which was obviously the
more devastating attack, and his hike back was not an easy one, like
he had to cross rivers. So it was a hard hike if you're a
normal person, let alone a two time Grizzly attack survivor. Yeah. After
the I'm sure grueling forty five minutes, he gets back to the trailhead in
his truck and it was only eight am at this point, and I think
this goes to show you the kind of person that Todd is. One of
his first thoughts when he was back to his truck was, Man, there's
gonna be a lot of other people coming through here. I should leave a
note. There was an aggressive grizzly was going to take the time to warn
other people, which is so sweet. But his hands were essentially useless and
he was covered in blood, so he's like that it's not gonna happen.
But the reason this attack is so well known is because Todd took a video
of himself walking out of the woods, like with his scalp hanging down.
You did send me this, yeah, yeah, So the video is out
there and after he posted it within two days, he had millions and millions
of views after two days and posting that video, so he went viral so
fast because he was just like gonna show his buddies the kind of weekend he
had, and he was physically a mess, Like I said, scalp hanging
down, blood all over him. If you follow him on Instagram, his
profile picture is one of the pictures he took after getting attacked. I mean,
wouldn't you, Oh It's all I would ever talk about And same with
you. Oh yeah, that'd be a maniac if I got attacked by a
bear exactly. So anyways, like I said, he took a few pictures,
took a video to show his buddies, ended up going, but to
show his buddies the old man, guess brought me to to king Match again.
That snatchat streak for me, Like, hah, she got tack about
Grizzly Bear twice. I'd be so mad at you why I'd get to a
hospital. But Todd was not an idiot. Todd knew what he was doing.
He got in the truck and also took the time to buckle up first
because he was like, I'm not about to die in a car crash.
No. I totally support this, because if you survived two bear attacks and
then died in a car accing zoo with your fucking seatbelt, oh my god,
not a lucky day. But he did stop a rancher on the way
to the hospital and was like, can you please call the hospit I don't
let them know him coming that way. I'm not walking in and horrifying everybody
that's there. Hey. He also called his wife on the way there.
She was like, oh, yeah, I'm about to get coffee with a
friend. He was like, cool, I'm on my way to the hospital.
I got attacked by a grizzly. I see it there. Yeah,
super chill. So anyways, after a very long drive, he finally gets
to the hospital, where he's met by a doctor, a nurse, and
a local sheriff. At this point, like the adrenaline was gone. He
couldn't open the door to his truck, he couldn't put the truck in park,
he couldn't take off his seatbelt, so the sheriff came over and helped
him out. I'm sorry, I don't know if he said this. How
long was the drive to the hospital. It was like an hour? Oh
my god, Yeah, it was a long drive. Like he's in the
middle of nowhere scouting for ELK. He said his left arm was useless and
there was a deep tear in his deltoid of his right shoulder, and obviously
so many puncture rooms. So two tendons had been severed in his left forearm
and they needed surgery to repair all that shredded muscle and reattach the tendons.
A bunch of his nerves had obviously been damaged as well, and he had
once he got there, seven to eight hours just of being stitched up.
Jesus, that's not including any of the surgeries, or that's just to get
stitched up. That's just being stitched. And this is a really gross detail,
but I want to share it, so if you're of the faint of
heart, please don't listen. Give it. So the doctor that was stitching
him up was trying to stitch where his tendons were all fucked up, and
he would stitch and then the tendons would pop it back open. Oh no,
yeah, So it took a lot of like, shove it down,
try to stitch, pops out, do it again. And as you will
learn very quickly, Todd is a beast. So he is unbothered. He's
unbothered. Yeah. So, after being stitched up for seven to eight hours,
he went home and had surgery the next day, and for his surgery,
he opted for just a local anesthetic so he could watch the entire surgery.
No, no way, I can't even get my blood drawn and watch.
Oh yeah, I have to go to therapy to talk about getting my
blood drawn because I have such a phobia of it after a bad experience.
So once again, he is a different breed. He is way cooler.
He's a bob, big old badass that's way cooler than we are. But
to this day, he still has no feeling in his forearm due to the
nerve and the muscle damage. And he had to do physical therapy for a
long time just to get ninety percent of the strength and use back in his
left arm. And like Oliverb's telling us, like he still doesn't have his
full strength. And the attack happened fifteen to twenty years ago, you never
go back to what you were. Yeah, your nerves just don't heal up
like they used to. No, So, the day after the attack,
Fish and Game went in on horseback to try to find the grizzly that was
clearly so aggressive, and they never found her, so she could still be
out there, and clearly she hasn't killed anybody that they've found or mauled anybody
again, so that we know of Yeah, I guess no. Anyways,
he says, looking back, like I said before a little bit, he
said he would have slowed down and really taken the time to look around.
And obviously, as I'm sure all of you would have guessed, he still
is out in the wilderness every day like it is such a big part of
his life. He couldn't let that go. But he said he's definitely more
anxious now, and if he sees a grizzly, he's like more on edge,
but he's never had another negative experience like the one that he had before.
Yeah, i'd be a little more on edge. Two, you know,
one of those just trying to get that could be the one that just
tried to kill me, you know, last week. So I'm gonna I'm
gonna be a little freaked out. Yeah, So let's get into a little
bit more of grizzly attack statistics, how we avoid them, How you should
feel about grizzlies. Well, I'm not gonna tell you to feel about anything,
but I definitely even know about the avoidance part because whatever I'm out and
I see, you know, these big fluffy animals. I want to get
as close as possible, which I've been yelled at on this podcast already for
so I need to know and in your personal life by me, yeah,
and multiple friends. It's been a whole thank anyway. So I definitely know
how to not get my face eaten. Yeah, first and foremost, leave
them the fuck alone. How about but what if they like hugs? They
don't? Oh, oh my gosh, speaking of hugs, you know,
it's ironic that we're recording this Grizzly Bear episode this week because guess where I
went this week? Oh my god, I almost forgot to mention. Yeah,
So if you listen to our Black Bear our second episode about black bears,
we mentioned the Ben Killem Bear Sanctuary in New Hampshire, and I went
there this week. I can't believe that. Like what a fucking text together.
Like I come out of work, It's like, I'm going to Ben
Killing's place, Like huh huh. Yeah, I got so lucky. My
one of my coworkers had put on a trap for a orphan bear cub and
he was like, Hey, I just got the bear cub. Do you
want to come with me to drop it at Ben's and I was like do
what. Yeah, So unfortunately I didn't get to meet Ben, but I
met his nephew who now runs the Bear Center. But Ben is the very
famous, like world famous bear biologist. But anyways, it was so cool.
And also I've never been that close to a bear because obviously, like
I had to help my coworker move the trap. And let me tell you,
you know, I said, the black bears are bfb big fat babies.
They're no joke. That's a bear cub. He was scary in that
trap, like swiping at us, snapping his jaw like growling, was very
upset. How much do you think you wait, that's a good question.
I don't know, like twenty to thirty pounds, Like he was really tiny
because he had been on his ohe for a few days. Even though it's
a baby, it's still gonna really suck to deal with, Yeah, one
hundred percent. So we joked about it in the bear episode, but like
they're babies when you compare them to grizzlies, but there's still no joke.
Yeah, so it's great, you know, we brought him there and now
he's gonna get taken care of and released with all the other little ones.
But yeah, it was so cool to see eleven little bear cubs playing around
and like basically a jungle gym. And if you join our Patreon, that's
where you get to see the video I took of the bears playing. There's
a baby little bear named Bert and he's real chunky and real cute and you
don't miss it. Burt so cute. But yeah, so anyways, that
was great. That's it. That is not it. I was having a
crisis this entire time. I'm trying to know everything I can about your time
there because I am a big fan of Ben's and I'm a big fan of
black bears, and especially when they are in cub form because they are adorable.
Yeah, it was. It was a good time. So anyways,
let's get into it. So, according to Stephen Herrero's books that we mentioned
in the Black Bear episode, bear attacks causes in How to Avoid Them great
title, Yeah, he said, most grizzly injuries occur during July, August
and September because those are the busiest months in national parks, so more people,
more chances for encounters. And if you're wondering, okay, we said
in the Black Bear episode, there's like maybe one attack or death a year
from black bears, or honestly less than that. In just North America alone,
there's like eleven grizzly attacks per year. Jesus. That being said,
think of how many black bears there are and how there's so fewer grizzlies,
and not just that that black bears are living in like urban areas, like
they're in your town. Yeah, so that goes to show like you don't
have very much to fear from black bears. And the reason that black bears
their instinct is to run up trees is because they learn to do that to
avoid grizzlies, because grizzlies will eat them. That it's a horrifying thought that
a totter of fifty pound black bear has to run from something. Yeah,
I mean grizzlies. We love talking about them because they're the biggest, baddest
thing out there. I mean, they're also so cool and deserve so much
respect, but they're scary. At some point, we definitely have to shout
out the fat bear week over at Katmai National Park. Oh, oh,
we'll talk about it. I mean, like we're talking about now. We
love talking about grizzly attacks for so many reasons. We're going to have so
many grizzly stories coming up, so don't you worry. We'll have plenty of
time to talk about fat Bear week. Yes, so those when grizzly attacks
are the most common, just because that's there's so many people out there.
Also, be aware of what kind of habitat you're in. So if you're
in like a blueberry patch, maybe don't be the berries have come out.
Maybe avoid spaces where their natural food is good time to leave. Yeah,
And grizzlies will eat They're omnivorous, so they'll eat berries roughage. But they'll
also hunt down elk and take down an adult elk with a swipe of a
paw, So no joke. Like the way that grizzlies kill things is like
they run up on them and just hit them with brute force. Yeah,
brutal. Yeah. And it's not like elk are small animals. Deer are
relatively small. They're not super impressive amazon the ones I've been knowingland the least,
and elk is massive, a little bit smaller than a horse. Basically,
I think about it, if you punched an elk in the butt,
do you think it would do anything. It would kill you, It would
kick you and kill you. Well okay, yes, but also it'd be
like whatever. But it Grizzly can knock it down and kill it with like
the swipe of a paw. So that goes to show you how powerful grizzlies
are. I mean, we're gonna have somebody, like I said, so
many Grizzly episodes so we can talk about them at nauseum, but I will.
So. Yeah, when you're out in grizz country, just be sure
that you're aware of be sure you're once again be bear aware, sure that
you're not in critical habitat for them at times where they need to be there,
like berry patches when the berries are out. Be aware of walking around
blind corners because you don't want to spook a bear because that's how they get
aggressive, especially if the salad with cups. You don't want to spook them.
And then just keep a line of sight with them, and you want
them to smell you and know that you're coming that way, they have time
to get away from you. You probably won't even see them because they'll be
gone before you get there. If you make plenty of noise. Yeah,
and like we've talked about, to be in groups, talk a lot.
If you're alone, like Petros was saying in the last episode, play a
podcast out loud, play this one a reminder. Yeah, bear bells have
not been shown to be effective because sometimes it will intrigue a brown bear to
come check it out. Ye, and that's not what you want. So
you know, make noise, have the bear spray on you have it somewhere
that's very easily accessible. Practice with it. You can get cans of it
that are inert, so they you know, if they spray back at you,
they won't hurt. So just practice with it personally, like to like
double tap. Be aware thing you keep saying, be bear aware, Yeah,
be bear aware, because that's like the entire reason that the attack happened
that we just talked about. If he had just caught the bear like thirty
seconds sooner, he probably would have never even been seen. He would have
been able to get out of there would have been no issue. But he's
got a little bit too close and that's what caused it. Yeah, and
that also kind of brings us to what we've talked about with Oliver and Petros.
You don't really want to be listening to headphones while you're there, because
it really takes away a lot of your senses. If you have a podcast
playing out loud, like you can still take in what's happening around you.
If you have headphones in, you're kind of in your own little zone,
which is great in theory, but dangerous sometimes, yeah, one hundred percent.
So be aware of where you're going, make noise. But if you
do encounter one, if you spook one, try to back away slowly and
talk softly to the bear, just so it's aware of you and that you're
a person and that you're not trying to be threatening towards it. And you'll
have to know some basic bear behavior too to feel more comfortable out there.
So if you're comfortable with dogs, similar if the ears are back, that's
not great. But a lot of people mistake bears standing on their hind legs
as them being aggressive, But bears stand on their hind legs because they are
confused, and yeah, they want a better view and they want to be
able to like sniff higher up and try to figure out what you are,
So that's not inherently aggressive posture. If they're standing on their hind legs,
so some other aggressive warning behaviors, because typically an animal will warn you before
it attacks, like in my bluff chargers obviously is like the most dramatic of
the warnings, but they'll do other things like salivate, sway their head,
huff, pop their jaw, similar to black bears. And then if it's
a defensive attack, which they most of the attacks are sounds with cubs that
they're trying to defend their cubs. But there's also you know, if you
spook a male grizzly, they'll attack you too. I think the scariest type
of attack besides predatory obviously that's horrifying, is if a bear has a kill
nearby and it's protecting it. Oh yeah, do you know what story I'm
going to reference? No, it was either last year, like I think
it was last year or two years ago. He was killed by a grizzly
that was protecting a kill. Well, so when I visited Yellowstone, yeah,
I wanted you to talk about this. Oh good, Okay, there's
a hike that me and my friends had planned on doing for months. This
hike overlooked like a major attraction, So all right, cool, go do
that get there, you know, a big sign up trail close, Like,
oh that sucks. Gonna talk about for a minute, Like we all
do a lot about doors stuff, like should we just go anyway? Like
no, Like it was a really snowy day anyway, so we didn't really
want to be on the trail for too long. Go into the thermal pools
and there was a park ranger there who was with a documentary crewer doing a
documentary in the park and everything, and she was just kind of like overseeing
everything make sure they weren't doing something stupid. So we go up to like,
hey, excuse me, ma'am, just wondering, why is that that
trail close? Like, oh yeah, there was a grizzly just killed an
elk up there, and there is currently a battle going on for the carcass
between wolves, grizzly bears, black bears. I guess there's the giant mess
of predators and there yet, so like if anyone goes up there, screw,
we're not going after him. They're dead. We're not going to risk
our people for them. Like the signs are there. They don't mess with
animals when they're hungry. Yeah, so the case I'm talking about is this
guy was fly fishing and he was like also an outdoorsman in Montana. I
think he was a wilderness guide and he's just fishing and this male grizzly just
comes barreling out of the woods and kills him. So once it was discovered
what happened, fish and game went out there and the bear tried to kill
them too. Jesus, Yeah, came out on fishing game and they luckily
had time to shoot the bear so they didn't get killed. And then they
realized it was protecting a kill. So like in those cases, that guy
didn't even know what was there. So I think that's the scariest to me,
is when it's a super aggressive territorial bear protecting a kill that you don't
even see. So this is something always blows my mind. Like every year
when the sam starts to run and you see these videos of people who are
out there fly fishing and the bears right next to when they're all just like
living in harmony, I am shocked that there's not more that goes down.
I understand that the reasoning is that the bears have such an easy food source
and are so plump that they don't have to even defend their kills. But
still it's just insane to me. Yeah, you can literally go up there
in Alaska and get a guide that will bring you there and you can sit
just feet away from the grizzlies, and you can't do it anywhere else in
the world. Is only here that they are so fat and have so much
food that they don't even look at you or realize that you exist because they're
so full of salmon. It's arable. And we listened to a podcast a
couple weeks ago in the car where someone who had been a part of one
of these groups, and they said that a mother grizzly bear came and stashed
her cubs with the humans because she knew that the male bearers would avoid the
humans, Like the bear is more likely to kill the cubs than the people.
Yeah, it's nuts brutal thing about nature. A lot of animals will
kill babies of another that don't belong to them so they can sire the babies
with that female instead. It's awful. But nature is metal. Oh go
check out the Instagram. Don't check it out. It's so brutal. I
can't do it. It is a metal page. It is unreal. I
love it. Nick. Is there anything else you want to say about Grizzlies?
I mean, we're, like I said, we're gonna have so many
Grizzly episodes that we can cover everything that we didn't cover today. But is
there anything else you want to say about them? I love them. They
are gorgeous. I want one. No Wor's shot. No, they are
just crazy cool animals. When you think about the range that used to have
in North America especially and where is now, it's kind of disappointing to see,
you know, they used to be all the way down to Mexico.
Not really the case anymore. You know, the entire California population has been
killed off. So it's one of those things where it's like we would really
enjoy seeing them around more. But at the same time, I am very
glad I don't have to worry about them in New Hampshire. Yeah, And
that's a really contentious debate right now too, like should there be a grizzly
hunt to mitigate some of the attacks or should we just let them keep going
because they're still recovering. I'm sure we'll talk about that in the future too,
because there's other there's so many attacks we have to talk about. But
yeah, that's a very hot topic currently. Also, Kodiak Island, where
the world's largest brown bears live. Great name for a dog. I have
reserved it and no one else can use it. Kodiak. Yeah, oh
yeah, I'm sure there's no other dog named Kodiak that is solely or sound
so surprised. I've been telling you this for like five years. Okay,
if you're listening to this podcast, you can't name your dog Kodiak, and
if it's already named that you have to change it. I'm so sorry to
tell you. Well, I'll just take the dog for you, Jesus.
Okay, cool? Well is that it? You good? I feel pretty
good? All right, Well, thank you so so much for listening to
episode five of Get Out Alive. To see more information and links for this
episode, check out the episode description below, or check out our website get
out Alive podcast dot com. You can rate us on Apple Podcasts, which
would be super cool, and subscribe wherever you're listening so that you can get
instant episode downloads. You can join our Patreon, where we have different tears.
You can grab two and get different benefits. Full of the different tiers.
Stickers are being made as we speak. Gues stickers are being made by
one of my very good and very talented friends, and we post updates on
our Patreon of the stickers. We also throw up polls of what episode and
species people want to hear from next. People are able to ask questions there
from the experts that we have on so it's a good time. Check it
out Patreon dot com, slash get out Alive. There's a button to our
Patreon on our website get at a Live Podcast dot com. So check it
out. We love it, We love you. If you join. You
can follow us on Instagram at get Out a Live Pod, and you can
follow me on Twitter at the Angryologist. Nick. You know I'm going to
ask you. I am actually going to make concession here. I will answer
anyone's emails at the email our email. How many times can I say that
word? I will answer any questions that someone sentenced to us at get Out
a Live Podcast at gmail dot com. Absolutely, that would be my interaction
with the people since I refuse to give out my social media accounts. Yeah,
I mean we also, oh, we also started a Facebook page ye
page now I'm an old man. I'm dealing with two thousand and five things.
Tell them kitties to aim me, pet me up on the Instagram and
me on MySpace? Can we make a MySpace page just for the fun?
Is it even still there? We can definitely. I have no idea,
but like I never had one, Well we can find out. Yeah.
Anyways, join our Facebook. Like it that we post episode updates there too,
but you can also ask questions there. Thank you to my very good
friend and second grade husband, Josh Walsh for making our intro music, and
we will be back with a new Animal Attack story next Wednesday.