Welcome to episode eighty of Ghetto Live, a bi weekly podcast about animal tacks,
why they happen, and how we can avoid them. I'm your host,
Ashley, and I'm joined by my good pal Margie. Again, hi,
and this is the third time we've tried recording this episode. Great,
and we're currently sharing one microphone, so please be nice. If just be
nice, that's it. So if one of us sounds far away, any
give a point, that's the reason why. Okay, So before we get
into today's episode, I want to acknowledge our brand spank and new logo.
So thank you so much to Jack ak Anomalite. I hope I'm pronouncing that
right for creating this logo for us. Jack nail the design right away.
He was so great to work with. I will link his social media is
in the episode description if you'd like to collaborate with him or just see more
of his stuff. And as is now customary on this podcast, as a
thank you to all of you who take a minute to leave us a review,
I read one on each episode. Today's review is from Podchaser, where
you can leave a review and we can respond to it, which is fun
and it's from longtime listener and friend of the pod Jeremy Montoya, who said,
quote, absolutely love the energy between the hosts. The enthusiasm they have
gets me pumped to learn and honestly laugh pretty hard. Still so many serious
moments in the attacks they recap, but they do well to give great advice
and reason for why an attack may have happened. Been a patron of theirs
since episode two three. Heck it's worth it. Great listen in my top
three of all time. Thank you so much, Jeremy, and speaking of
thank you to everyone on our patreon as well. So this week's theme is
inspired by the instagram account that has been continuously suggested to me Torons of Yellowstone.
And if you read the title and had no idea what a touron was,
then you were like me each time that instagram was recommended to me before
I looked at it because I was like, I don't know what a tourn
A very unique name it is, so a tourn not very intuitive, but
it's a tourist who is a moron. So as you can imagine, the
instagram is full of people doing dangerous things at national parks and this is usually
involving getting too close to wildlife. So in the bonus episode we released in
May on Patreon, I talked about a recent bar attack that occurred in the
Grand Tetons National Park. So I'm not going to go over that story again.
But Shane, the man attacked in that instance, was not a torn
by any means, and he did absolutely everything right. So this episode is
not about that. These are people who broke rules or made poor choices and
paid consequences for doing so. So before we get into a story, and
it's going to be like a collection of smaller stories and than Margie and I
are going to bounce back and forth. I covered mostly stories in America and
she did mostly outside of America, but they're all at national parks. So
before we get into any of those, let's break down some statistics as to
what is killing people on land managed by the National Park Service in the US.
As of twenty twenty four, there are four hundred and twenty eight sites
managed by the National Park Service known as NPS. For short, each year,
there are over three hundred million visitors between all of those sites, and
out of those three hundred million, on average, two hundred and forty three
people die on NPS land each year, so your chances of dying on a
national park are less than one in a million if you are following the rules.
The National Park Service, due to a Foyer request, released seventeen years
worth of data they had on deaths in their parks, which documented nearly four
thousand deaths between twenty seven and twenty twenty three. And backpacker dot com did
some great analyzes to determine the most common causes of death, and they determine
the most dangerous park. So which one do you want to start with?
Let's go with most common, most common death? Okay, So the most
common cause of death within all national parks is drowning. There were eight hundred
and twenty nine deaths due to it in this timeframe, which accounts were twenty
percent of the overall deaths. Many of these drownings occurred because people on boats
were not wearing life jackets, and the next highest cause of death at seventeen
percent was motor vehicle crashes, which I think makes sense. Coming in at
only zero point two percent of the overall deaths in national parks from two thousand
and seven to twenty twenty three was incidents with wildlife. This was the lowest
cause of death of everything recorded. So in a national park, you are
more likely to be killed by a falling branch or by being poisoned than by
being killed by wildlife. Which I'm not sure if that it's comforting at all,
but I feel like it is because we talk a lot about animal tax
in this podcast, and it might make it seem like they happen more rough
than they do, but they don't. They don't. Yeah, So in
this timeframe, of the nearly four thousand deaths, only nine were killed by
wildlife, like only nine people. Six of those deaths were due to grizzly
bear attacks, one death was by a mountain goat, one was due to
a copperhead snake, and one was due to a great white shark. And
then we've got the most dangerous national park. There have been a few articles
circulating in recent years claiming that the Grand Canyon is the most dangerous park because
that's where the most people die. But this isn't necessarily true if you consider
the huge amounts of visitors that the Grand Canyon gets versus other national parks.
So backpacker dot Com determined that the most dangerous National Park is actually Dannali National
Park in Alaska, and it encompasses six hundred million acres of wilderness, so
on average, Denali only gets about half a million visitors a year, compared
to the Grand Canyons nearly five million per year. So in the time between
twenty seven and twenty twenty three, one hundred and thirty four people out of
that five million died at the Grand Canyons, which, like isn't really a
lot in that entire timeframe compared to in Denali only around five hundred thousand visitors
a year, they had fifty one deaths in that timeframe, so on average,
in Denali there are almost ten deaths per one million visitors. The leading
cause of death in Denali was exposure, which can kill you a year round
there due to to its Subarctic climate, and exposure was followed up by deaths
due to falling. However, overall, backpacker dot Com found that more people
in national parks in general died from heat exposure than extreme colds, which I
think makes sense given like how many warmer climate national parks there are compared to
colder ones. And because this is an animal attack podcast, only one person
has been killed by a bear in Denali National Park and it was a solo
backpacker in twenty twelve, which I think is impressive given that they have every
species of bear there, like every species of bear that is in the United
States, so polar, grizzly, slash, brown, black. And then
interestingly, the next most deadly national park is the US Virgin Islands, but
the highest cause of death was drowning, which I think makes a lot of
sense. Yeah, And as for specific locations that had the most deaths,
the award goes to Lake Mead National Recreation Area on the Nevada Arizona border,
where three hundred and four people died from twenty seven to twenty twenty three,
and just over a third of those drowned. And then overall, men made
up eighty percent of the recorded deaths when gender was recorded, which is crazy,
makes sense, and there were no significant findings of age. However,
past age fifty five, deaths were mostly caused by medical issues rather than drowning.
So speaking of, let's start with the most recent incident. So on
June first of this year, just a week ago from when we're recording this,
and eighty three year old woman from South Carolina was on Stormpoint Trail in
Yellowstone, which is near the north side of Yellowstone Lake. There were not
many details on what happened, but there was a bison on the trail,
and the Park Service said the bison was just defending its space when it charged
at her and goreed her, lifting her a foot off the ground with its
horns. The woman sustained serious injuries, but the nature of the injuries hasn't
been released. She was flown to the Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho
Falls, and the attack is still being investigated, and no other info about
this woman has been released. But I did want to start with that story
since it was the most recent and from the information that we have does seem
like she was approaching bison in a way the time she probably shouldn't have been,
because in general at Yellowstone people are required to stay twenty five yards or
twenty three meters away from large animals, which includes bison, moose, elk,
and deer, and then you also need to stay one hundred yards away
or ninety one meters from bears and wolves. And we've mentioned on this podcast
before, especially in our Bison episode, but in Yellowstone, bison injure more
people than any other animal each year, for example, because that woman's attack
was not the first to happen this year. On April twenty first, Clarence
Yoder, a forty year old man from Idaho, was having a little too
much fun drinking near the seven mile Bridge in Yellowstone and thought it would be
a good idea to approach a herd of bison. He approached one bison in
particular and kicked its leg and I couldn't find any specifics, but he sustained
minor injuries from the bison in the process. Witnesses reported this incident to rangers,
and rangers located him in a vehicle just outside of West Yellowstone, Montana,
where he was arrested along with the woman driving, who was also under
the influence while driving. Clarence was brought to a medical facility for treatment of
his minor injuries, and then he was brought to a detention center. And
then the next day Clarence and the woman driving pled not guilty in court.
So this is like an ongoing thing now because now it's like a court case.
And this was the first incident of a park visitor being injured by bison
in twenty twenty four. So twenty twenty four has already seen more tax by
bison than twenty twenty three. There's only one last year, and we're only
halfway through the year and we're not even into the busiest season and we've already
had two which is not great. Although June to September it is the bison
breeding season, so they're likely to be a bit more on edge and aggressive
at this time. So if you're going to Yellowstone or being around bison in
general this year, be especially careful, like right now if you're listening as
this episode comes out to September. And also I think just you know,
use caution in general around bison's probably a good call. So handing the mic
to Margie for our next story outside of the US. Okay. So,
so this one, for me is an example of an ongoing series of unfortunate
tourist and animal interactions, not just specifically with this but like other parks as
well, that has to do with generations of observational learning from the animal.
This is just like not an independent instance. I'm going to take you to
the monkey forest of Ubud in Bali, Indonesia. So dating back to the
fourteenth century. The Monkey Forest of Ubad has been a pitical piece of history
in Balinese culture. Over twenty five acres, it is known as a sacred
place housing spiritual forces and guardian spirits. The monkey Forest is recognized as an
area of conservation. Strong local efforts have been made to promote preserving the area
while supporting responsible tourism and raising awareness to its cultural and environmental importance. The
forest hosts a variety of statues and active temples. The forest is also home
to over twelve hundred liontailed macaques. These monkeys are known to be sacred,
symbolizing protection and mischief. Size Wise, they can be up to twenty eight
inches in high and weigh up to almost forty pounds. So considering this has
been an active area for centuries that has hosted people year round for ceremonies,
there clearly has been an established relation between monkeys and the locals. But this
location has boomed in tourism, resulting in a cesspool of dumb people and smart
primates. The monkeys are smart, and they learned how to trick humans into
getting their belongings, food, water, and whatever else they might be interested
in, which can result in and in parentheses but not limited to damage or
stolen items, or being scratched or bitten by the monkeys. So when entering
the park, there is numerous warning signs and strict guidelines for people entering the
forest. These rules include, but are not limited to, leaving all items
of value at your accommodation. For example, a trending video currently is one
of the monkeys taking a woman's passport from her bag, and as she tries
to take it back, the monkey then proceeds to rip the pages out,
swipe at her, and then retreats from her and just like disappears. So
she lives with the monkeys now right, I mean she probably had to pay
a decent amount of money to get a passport replacement. So other common stolen
items include cameras, phones, jewelry, and sunglasses. So if you must
have a backpack on you or a bag on you, it must be zipped
and all straps, keychains and anything else is tight and streamlined to the bag.
No food of any kind, wrapped or unwrapped, should not be brought
into the forest. So like a snack for later, a snack you want
to bring to the monkeys, no, but guess what after reading travel blogs,
reviews, and incidant articles, Tourists bring bananas to feed the monkeys all
the time to get photos. Like it's just a very common thing and people
think that they read it and they're like, but I'm different. Yeah.
So granted, like when you're touring around, you're probably bringing a snack or
like a meal for eating like at a later time, but it's clearly said,
like when entering this park that no food should be on you because they
can smell it and they're gonna know. So. One traveler's blog post that
I really enjoyed shared their story of their trip into the monkey forest, sharing
how a person in their party got jumped by a monkey multiple times, once
for feeding bananas. Sorry going back, different monkeys each time, just not
the same monkey. Okay, it's not like criminal, No, it was
multiples. So once for feeding bananas to one monkey. So they they went
and bought bananas, put them in their bag and brought them in and then
they were like, great, let's take a photo and feed it to them,
only to have another monkey come out of nowhere behind them to take that
banana. So they got jumped a second time when a monkey just walked on
up to them, took their water bottle, unscrewed the cap and took a
swig of the water. Yep, and then guess what, only to have
another monkey come up take the bottle and it just threw it on the ground.
Wow. Yeah, so cool. Thirdly, they couldn't understand why the
monkeys were following them. They had no idea. So the park says asked
if they were carrying anything in their pockets, like food, because it clearly
seemed like they were carrying food, and they were like, no, we
don't have any food on us because we already expensed all the bananas to them
earlier, but we're not going to tell you that. Also, why would
you put this in your travel blog? And they were like, clearly,
we have no food on us. Oh, guess what. Someone had tic
TACs in their pocket, so they knew this person had food on them.
There were countless accounts of people losing their items to the monkeys because they're smart
and they know exactly how to play people, and they aren't afraid at this
point. They aren't afraid into coaxing you in with their calm demeanor, only
to have you come in for a photo giving them the perfect opportunity to come
in and take whatever you may have that is accessible for them. Also,
I can't imagine like forty pounds of something jumping on you to take something from
you. And depending on the day, depending on the monkey, the monkey
could scratch you or bite you. I could not find any solid numbers,
but it seemed like bites and scratches from the monkeys are regular occurrences in the
forest. The monkeys are regularly vaccinated for rabies, but their bites and scratches
can carry a variety of other diseases as well. So there are first aid
stations throughout the forest as well, and it's encouraged that people seek medical attention
for any bites or scratches that breaks. Again, so the park is twenty
five acres, so the park attendants cannot be greeting every person that enters the
forest telling them all the rules and regulations on how to properly interact with the
monkeys, and there's no way for them to monitor each and every interaction that
people have with them, so like they're not going to handhold you and be
like, hey, why do you have the banana? So this situation and
one similar have sparked a lot of controversy concerning animal welfare and tourism. Quote
from Bali's Sun. These kind of negative interactions with monkeys are just part of
the reason why World Animal Protection says that there are no ethical animal tourism venues
in Bali and Lombak. Interactions with wildlife and domesticated animals at tourism facilities in
Bali and Lombok all fall short of the high welfare standards. Captive wild animals
need to be healthy. So basically, like the quote that you just said
from the Bali Sun is saying that, like there's no like the country doesn't
do a very good job of promoting like ethical wildlife tourism. Yes, okay,
cool, well not cool but not cool. But like it's kind of
like a gamble of getting the tourism money and having it as a tourism spot,
and then if they up rules and regulations, it'll probably lessen tourists coming
in. But it's also like an active area for ceremonies and practices, so
it's not only like a public space used by the locals, but it's also
a tourism space. Yeah, because yeah, you do want that tourism money.
I get that. Oof. All right, back to America for a
second. Let's do a little callback to our last episode with doctor Emily Taylor
on Rattlesnakes. So I will start with a story written by the victim,
and despite them listing that they had been backpacking in Yosemite for twenty two years,
I think it'll become very clear where they went wrong. I Also,
I want to preface that I could not find the name of this person writing
this, but this story is from their website, which is all about tourism
in Yosemite. It hasn't been updated since like twenty fourteen, so it is
not active anymore. But this incident took place on July third, two thousand,
in Little Yosemite Valley campground. We had just returned from the hike a
half Dome and were preparing for dinner when we heard murmurs of a rattlesnake curled
up quote over there. Curious, we went to look and saw a four
foot western rattlesnake curled up right in the middle of the heavy traffic area in
the campground. This snake definitely needed to be moved because there were many children
around in neophyte adults I have no idea what that means, and it was
lying in a high traffic area between the fire pits and the main body of
campsites. I proceeded to try to herd it out of the area. It
did not want to cooperate, so I made a decision to try and catch
it and move it to an unpopulated area. Now, having caught many rattlesnakes
when I lived in Texas, I had no fear, but I did not
have my normal snake hand tools, so I had to improvise. I found
a long, semi stout pine branch with a split end, and then went
and found the suspect critter there. He was, sure enough a four foot
western rattlesnake. He was not in a defensive mode, appeared not to be
aroused, so I first attempted to herd him out of the area once again.
All he wanted to do is move slightly and curl up again, apparently
wanting nothing except to be left alone. Honestly relatable and also a sign that
you should leave alone. This was not possible inasmuch as someone was definitely going
to step on the beast if I left it in the area, so I
decided to go inhead and catch him, lift him from the ground, and
carry him deeper into the adjoining forest. He was not moving quickly and actually
seemed lethargic, so I felt confident pinning his head against the ground and proceeded
to move with my left hand to grap just behind his head, gain a
secure grip, and lift the rest of his body with my free hand.
This is where the problem started, so I'm like, at least the writer's
there's a little self whar. You never approach a pit viper from either the
left or the right, as they have heat sensing pits just below into the
front of each eye that detects the warmth of a small furry mammal such as
a mouse, rat, or small rabbit. Instinctively, they will strike at
any object from which they sense body heat. As my hand was radiating just
such heat, the snake whipped around very quickly and bit me on the left
index finger with one fang. I immediately began to suck the poison from the
wound. I sucked as hard as I could for an extended period of time
as I could. In the first ten minutes, I felt as though I
got a good portion of the poison out as my mouth began to numb,
and I felt a lightheadedness that produced a tingling feeling all over my scalp.
Unfortunately, and this was the mistake, he says, as if it was
not a mistake the entire time, I proceeded to become angry and killed the
snake with a hard twist on the pinning stick, thus decapitating it. I
buried the head and it can still bite. For several minutes after death,
I did not feel any pain, except for the minor pain of the fang
prick, for about ten minutes. At about fifteen minutes, I began to
feel soreness in the finger and swelling began. I proceeded to my campsite and
informed my backpacking buddy, Bob Larson, of the accident. He thought I
should get help from the ranger, but I did not feel the bite was
that bad, and hoping I received a dry bite non venimation, I opted
for cleaning the site, continuing suction with my snake bitkit, and taking etcedron
for the pain. As luck would have it, and right about the time
I was beginning to reconsider my decision, a park ranger came by and we
told him what happened. He immediately radioed for the helicopter to take me out
of the back country, and we then met a helicopter in Yosemite Valley that
would take me to a hospital in Modesto. By the time I got to
Modesto, about eighty minutes after the bite, my hand was in severe pain
and the swelling had spread to my entire hand. The medical personnel began to
stick needles in me literally left and right. I had three ivs, one
for saline, one for antibiotics, one four snake bite venom or anti venom.
I received twenty vials of anti venom, thus cleaning them out of all
they had, and also received massive doses of antibiotics. At about two hours
after the bite, the pain was beginning to be unbearable. I asked for
pain medication. They gave me morphine and vicot in, with very little effect.
I slept very little that night, what with three ivs and a throbbing,
very painful hand that had to be positioned in an upright position to reduce
blood flow to the hand, thus reducing swelling pressure slightly. By midnight,
my hand was swelling to the size of a soft ball. And the pain
was very pronounced. I came close to having to have my hand debrided,
which is split open to relieve pressure and allowed blood flow to the tip of
my finger. For the next four nights, I slept no more than forty
five minutes at a stretch and experienced constant, extreme pain, with the morphine
and vicodin only taking the edge off. I spent four days in the hospital,
and after being released, I was home with a fever of one hundred
and one degrees for two weeks. After the swelling wind down, at about
six days, I experienced pain in all my joints. I could not lift
a glass of water, brush my teeth, or any other common bodily function.
This lasted about two days. All told, I was bedridden for eighteen
days straight and it was almost thirty days until I could return to work.
Not fun, you know. To preface this story with like I've been hiking
for twenty two years and then to not only try to grab a venomous snake,
but then to suck the venom out and then also like decapitate the snake
just goes to show that you had no idea what you were doing. Yep,
Like proceeding, just like, what was the point of killing what was
the point of even trying to move it at that point? Yeah, I
mean his whole point was like, ooh, it's gonna bite somebody. Then
he was like, let me touch it. So I definitely bite somebody and
then kill it, so out of anger because he was mad that it did
the thing that he was afraid it was gonna do if anyone got near it.
Yeah, so ri ip so that. Yeah, I uh, I
was speechless as well, because, yeah, talk about a toron. I
don't care if you're even like a local to the area. So the park's
info page about rattlesnakes advises people not to touch the snakes obviously, and if
you encounter a snake in a campsite, call a ranger instead of trying to
handle it yourself. I don't care what take what snakes you held in Texas,
just call somebody. And then in twenty twenty, there were two rattlesnake
bites in Yosemite National Park as well, within the span of three days,
but the more dramatic of the two was as follows. On August twenty sixth,
twenty twenty, around two thirty pm, an unnamed man in his mid
thirties and his wife were fishing barefoot in the Grand Canyon of the Too Loam.
That's probably not how you pronounce the name of that river. Anyways.
As he was fishing barefoot, this man stepped on a rock, causing the
rock to shift, and a rattlesnake that had been under the rock struck out
and bit his left foot. Yosemite is home to only one rattlesnake, the
Northern Pacific rattlesnake, which its scientific name is Crotalus oreganus, and this species
typically eats ground squirrels, which is a pretty big thing. God, yeah,
it's a big snack. It is a big snack, and they can
be found in elevations up to nine thousand feet. As is the case with
most snakes, they are most commonly found near rocks, logs, and woodpiles.
This couple had been backpacking, so after the husband was bitten, they
tried to hike out together, but very quickly they realized the man was in
no condition to hike, so his wife had to leave him to go find
help. But before she left, she pinned her husband's location on her phone
so that she would have coordinates, which is good. That's so smart.
Yeah, very smart. So at some point one of them, and I'm
assuming it's the wife, ran into another hiker who decided to go back and
stay with the husband. That's very nice. Meanwhile, his wife hiked alone,
hiking through the night and only stopping to take quick nap when she was
exhausted. She continued on in the morning. So you figure he was bitten
at two. So she just starts hiking and does not stop literally all night
to try to find help. And she continued on after like a quick nap,
on until the morning around eight fifty am on the twenty seventh, when
she finally found another hiker who had an emergency satellite device. That is over
sixteen hours of pure hiking. Yeah, after her husband was bitten. So
he was sitting there for sixteen hours after being bitten by a rattlesnake. Oh
my gosh. So the wife provided her husband's last known coordinates and a thorough
description of what had happened. The California Highway Patrol deployed a helicopter to find
the man and attached one of their crew members to a hoist to lower them
down to him. The crew member secured themselves and the injured man to a
harness and they were airlifted by the helicopter to Yosemite's HELLI Base at Crane Flat,
and then he was taken into an ambulance and stabilized, and then he
was once again airlifted to a hospital in Modesto. He received two doses of
anti venom and was released from the hospital a little over a week after the
bike, which compared to the first story, I think is like pretty decent
considering he was left for that long. Yeah. Absolutely, Now I included
the story in this theme only because last week with doctor Taylor we talked about
wearing secure and tall footwear when in rattlesnake country to aid these kinds of situations.
But I'm sure as experienced backpackers who were fishing rattlesnakes probably weren't on their
mind at the time. So it's just kind of like a carelessness thing.
But I don't necessarily fault that. I wouldn't exactly call them a toron,
but I just thought it was a good example. Yeah, like I don't
want to say, like a freak accident, but it was like they were
being very aware, but also at the same time, it can happen anywhere.
Yeah. Also, there is no recorded death in Yosemite from rattlesnakes,
and these Northern Pacific rattlesnakes are known to be pretty docile as far as rattlesnakes
go, so they don't usually pose a major threat to hikers. Let's say
about rattlesnakes before we get into our next story. Let's take a quick ad
break, all right, So Margie, back to you, back to out
of the states. Out of the States. So this specific incident happened in
twenty eighteen. But people feeding things to animals when they absolutely shouldn't be is
something that I wish would just go away, but it probably not we will.
So that brings me to this gem of a headline. Officials warn Taurus
not to feed kangaroos fast food after attacks. Okay, here we go.
So anyone in Australia is it still happening? Please confirm? So during this
time in morrisse At, Australia, is city, a tad north of Sydney,
a number of reported incidents of kangaroo's attacking people were on the rise,
one of them being a man being attacked and needing seventeen stitches on his face,
another with a man having a very deep gash on his stomach, and
multiple people being scratched on their face as well. What was happening for these
people to get these injuries, you might ask, Well, this quote put
it perfectly for me. Despite a number of warning signs being placed throughout the
area, people still come in droves and feed the kangaroos processed foods. They're
addicted to fast food, and they're attacking tourists who offer them chips McDonald's,
KFC, and they tried to take selfies with them, so that was it
on the kangaroos, like they were just like please stop. That makes me
wonder, like do you think Americans are so aggressive because we're constantly eating fast
food? I don't know. I feel like there's a study that could be
done there of like feeding fast food to animals even were I don't know,
that's crazy. Why would you who in your right mind would be like do
you think a kangaroo with like a big mac like that would never even cross
my mind? But I guess we're not idiot Taurus, So I'm just imagining
like somebody getting like a KFC family bucket and like rolling up to them and
being like, hey, guys, like for a selfie, would you like
a KFC bucket? And that's assuming like these people obviously don't know what kangaroos
eat. Like It's like kangaroos are normally out there like killing chicken the fitch,
they eat leaves. I just this is yeah. Oh god, So
on the one hand, not only are you feeding them, but you're feeding
them incorrect things. Yeah. Anyways, so I know I shouldn't think too
hard about it because obviously the people don't have a lot of brain cells going
between them. But anyways, so sorry, here's a visual for you a
kangaroo with a KFC Family bucket in its pouch. Oh my god, the
perfect buet. It's the perfect place to store it. You just read it.
Oh my god. Oh we're not promoting this. We are not promoting
this. No, but like, wouldn't it be I think a little funny.
This is the role that Nick Playtt used to play on this podcast.
Now would somehow become the all right, anyways, Margie little more about Australia
Realia. Another Australian story on Gurry Island, also known as Fraser island.
There has been a recent uptick in dingo attacks on tourists, which is worrying
park rangers to think they are no longer scared of human interactions and that tourist
behavior is escalating their aggression. Gurray Island is the largest sand island in the
world, spanning over seventy six miles, and it is home to about two
hundred wild dingoes. It is a World Heritage Site. In the last twenty
years or so, tourism has boomed on this island and the dingoes have become
increasingly comfortable with human interaction. Visitors are told not to leave food out,
not to approach the dingoes, not to roam the island alone, not to
go for a run, and to not leave children unattended. There are strict
roles prohibiting feeding the animals and basically just staying out of their way and not
to approach them. Dingoes create an authentic Australian experience that many tour as sekh
but unfortunately a lot of people's actions have begun to tarnish the local fauna of
the island. From a long time ranger quote, in the past, they
the dingoes would never approach you. This tourist behavior includes, but not limited
to, the absolute fucking audacity that's the technical term for me to walk right
on up to them, hand feed them, leaving food out unattended, taking
selfies with them, and completely disregarding the signage and brochures that encourage dingo safety
throughout the island. These attacks include bites to a seven year old boy and
a forty two year old woman. A woman being severely attacked by four dingoes
after she went out for a jog on the beach. A ten year old
boy who was dragged under the water, so the dingo dragged him into the
water, only to be saved by his twelve year old sister. Well,
the boy was treated for puncture wounds and bruisy on his collarbone, shoulder,
and arm. The dingo that attacked the boy was euthanized. Yeah. Another
incident was of a sunbathing French tourist who was being circled by a dingo.
So granted, she was like laying on her stomach sunbathing, not paying attention
to her surroundings, so I would say, not really dumb, just she
was on the beach sunbathing and didn't think they were going to do this,
but the dingo circled her and then the dingo then bit her on the butt,
resulting in her jumping up and screaming and other beach goers chasing the dingo
away. I was a bit confused because this was caught on video, So
why didn't anybody like be like, hey, note that it was circling her
and kind of like shoe them away. But whatever. Unfortunately, that dingo
was also euthanized. So additionally, in the last year, two women were
fined two three hundred dollars for taking selfies with the dingoes, like going right
on up to them. Animal behavioralist Bradley Smith blames visitors in search of the
perfect social media shot for changes in the animal's behavior. We don't have a
dingo problem on the island. We have a people problem, he says.
If you want to go for a run on the beach, go to the
Gold Coast, if you want to go to Africa or the Rocky Mountains,
you respect the fact that you're around wildlife that can kill you. Continuing this
quote, that might be a benign incident for you, but that's setting the
scene for the future. It's like a death sentence for the dingoes when you
start feeding them. Island rangers have noticed a bride and reckless behavior since COVID,
where before a lot of people came to visit resorts and go on like
guided tours, whereas now a lot more people are free roaming, camping and
exploring the island unmonitored. There's also four wheeling tours that allow people to drink
while there's so that's a great combination. Rangers have pointed out that rarely do
the tours disclose rules around the dingoes, so this risks feeding the dingoes and
giving more opportunities for people to interact with the dingoes in ways that could be
risky. So quote from one park ranger, I've actually booked somebody for feeding.
Once ticket in their hand. They looked at me fair in the eye
and went it was worth it, And the park ranger responded, what do
you do with that? They paid for the experience that they wanted with a
dingo at the expense of the dingo. So they've been tossing around the idea
to ban people from the island implementing a three strike system. Cheryl Rylan from
the Save Fraser Island dingos says the government should consider capping tourist numbers during peak
holiday periods to keep both dingos and tourists safe. In response to the attack,
the alarming comfortability the dingos have been displaying. They have places like fenced
off and beaches that are fenced off now and camping areas that are completely fenced
off to keep both human and dingoes separate. The government is very much not
wanting to do a cull of the animals. Last time was in two thousand
and one in response to a nine year old being killed. Twenty dingoes were
killed at random, but the recent attack resulted in two euthanizations. The government
responded with We're not in the business of destroying animals. We're in the business
of conserving wildlife and looking after their habitat well. I mean, wouldn't you
say that conserving is also protecting the dingoes from people's ignorance. Absolutely, yeah,
yeah, So we have a two part episode on dingos and the very
famous like a Dingo Ate My Baby case and we get and more into dingoes
in Australia and like their history and stuff. To put myself in the headspace
of a stupid tourist if you go there and you're not from there or have
no familiarity with dingoes, you probably would just see them as a dog.
Yes. There was also a quote of like how people wanted to feed them
because they look emaciated, and they were like, oh, they're starving,
I should feed it something. The rangers were like, no, they are
eating just fine. Well they're on the Yeah, they're on the coast.
There's likely plenty of natural food for them. And also wild animals aren't supposed
to like be full like your dog. I mean, your dog isn't supposed
to be fat either, but like it's okay to see in animal's ribs sometimes
it doesn't mean that they're dying. There's I think a bigger conversation we had
about like how much wildlife suffers. I mean, obviously wild life suffers from
people all the time, but how much wildlife suffers for the sake of social
media? You know, Yeah, sad. It is sad, especially because
dingoes are already so prosecuted in Australia, and like it seems like they're kind
of already pushed to these smaller areas and they're continually being pushed to life and
less numbers because people are so stupid. Yeah, I was also thinking that
there was two hundred on this island, and I was thinking back to like
one hundred and forty at its peak the Red Wolves. Yeah, and how
then it like dwindled down and they're really they're really trying not to do a
call of the dingoes, as they shouldn't. Yeah, that's a tough one.
That is a tough situation. But I think that probably capping the numbers
of tourists or having more rangers to monitor probably would be the solution. Yeah.
Yeah, oh boy. All right, let me and my last story
back to people legitimately being Torons for me and ending with a story not in
the US. Yeah. So, as we know in this podcast, some
of the most serious bear attacks national parks usually result from running into a mother
bear with cubs or a bear being predatory. But this one is not from
America's national parks. It's from Romania. And this is a story I posted
on our Facebook page. When it happened. Seventy two year old Moira Gallagher,
a resident of Scotland, was going on a ride through the Carpathia Mountains
in Romania with a friend. It was April of this year, so twenty
twenty four. The pair were in the car and saw a mother European brown
bear and a cub and stopped to take pictures, but they remained in their
car. So they're on a windy rode up the mountain, saw a bear,
stopped. Okay, so they took the picture. Then the bear left
the car side because the bear approached the car, so Moira realized that her
friend might have got a picture, but she didn't get a great picture,
so they went back towards the bear to get another one in their car.
Okay, this is all in the car, so I'll get them I guess
that much credit. However, I stopped giving them credit because they rolled down
the window, so the bear approached their car rolled down window. Couldn't you
also just I don't know, hot tip. Couldn't you just send that good
photo to your friend and be like, yeah, I'll send you the photo
that I took. That literally did not cross my mind. Great, Okay,
that's a great point. Yes, you're absolutely right. More brain cells
had been used. Yeah, So what happened was they rolled down the window
and the mother bear approached them. And I'm not even joking. The women
claim aimed that they thought the bear wanted to be their friend. So with
that mind, the bear climbed into the car and bit Moira on the arm.
Thankfully for her, she was wearing a thick jacket, so the bear
a bit more of the jacket than her arm. But still Moira and her
friend somehow were able to get this bear out of the car. European brown
bears, still large, managed to get her out of the car and get
away and go to a medical center where Moiro is seen by a doctor.
But and she was fine. But these women legitimately thought that what went wrong
was that when they were rolling down the window and near the bear, Moira's
friend was talking about the fact that she wanted to get food soon, and
they thought that them talking about food made the bear hungry and made the bear
want to eat them. This makes sense, so anyways, what I really
think is going on here is that these bears are probably fed by tourists through
car windows, and they're used to getting hares. But these women thought that
they could just roll down the window and like probably pet a wild bear or
get like a very close up or selfie or something with them. Romania has
the largest population of European brown bears and we do have an episode from a
death in Romania cost by one of these bears, so they are obviously as
much of a danger there as the grizzlies here in the US are. And
I know that you have a bear story that you want to touch on,
and then I'll end with a little something some O. Yeah, quite similar
to that actually, So this one takes place in Battling Wildlife Park in Beijing,
China. This is a drive through park of over six thousand acres hosting
lions, giraffes, pandas, monkeys, tigers, and bears. Hold up,
what, I'm sorry they have all of these species running around together.
Yes, Oh my god, Okay, sorry, that's insane. I'm sorry
they have pandas endangered pandas will I will elaborate a little bit more because I
just got so mad so fast. I probably should not have said yes so
quickly. I'm a people pleaser. I'm so sorry. So before I go
fully into this, I think this shines a light onto the topic of not
only for people to be aware of endangering behavior when it comes to interacting with
animals, but also the awareness to support places that treat animals well so that
they do not feel threatened or in the position where they need to attack.
There are a lot of beautiful places in the world to go and visit,
all of which host some amazing animals. Visiting these places give you, the
tourist, the opportunity and the privilege to interact with the local animals. I
implore you, if you go traveling, whether it be twenty miles down the
road or two thousand miles across the globe, please do your research for reputable
places that care for the well being of these creatures and their habitat. According
to so many reviews on trip Advisor, the park isn't great, and I
feel like you and I would just screamcry the entire time, So I am
disclaimering that. So from what I could gather, it is a hybrid of
a drive through park with free roaming animals along with animals in not so great
enclosures. Reviewers noted of animals looking malnourished, being honked at and chased at
by tourists and vehicles, people completely disregarding rules, and the overall consensus from
the reviews was everyone severely regretted going and it was awful. So quote from
the Beijing Tourist website says that the park is famous for quote raising fierce animals
in large groups and open areas, and that it has ten thousand wild animals,
including brown bears, Malayan sun bears, leopards, and wild wolves.
So I just kept finding more and more what they were hosting. In the
drive through section of the park, visitors are advised with signage and park rangers
to stay in their vehicle and not roll down windows at any point, and
not to feed the wildlife. So step by step, what I just said
to you is exactly what this guy did in twenty seventeen. So two friends
were in a car going through the park, and it is just so wrong
on so many levels. But since they saw other people doing it without incident,
they thought they too could roll down their window and feed the bear.
They said that they rolled down their windows to throw food at the bear and
record the interaction. What looks like to be an Asian black bear from a
screen grab I saw. The Asian black bears can be up to six feet
tall and up to two hundred and fifty pounds. The bear lunges through the
window after they tried to roll up the window. The weight of the bear
prevents the window from closing. The bear bit the man's shoulder, resulting in
puncture wounds. On CCTV footage, park rangers are clearly telling them to close
their window before the attack. The guy one hundred percent completely admitted to being
at fault. Yeah, this incident resulted in more gated off areas, creating
a barrier between roadway and enclosure, and an increased amount of surveillance. So,
but in the previous year, in twenty sixteen, literally a year before
or two women were visiting the park when one of them got out of the
car. This is all on video footage, by the way, claiming she
thought she was in a safe zone. I literally don't know how you would
feel safe around that many animals and that many predators. I don't know,
So so she thought she was in a safe zone. But from what I
could gather is that the safe zones are clearly labeled and like there is an
obscene amount of signage and surveillance. The woman gets out of the passenger side
and goes over to the driver's side. The driver gets out and the woman,
who had been walking over a Bengal tiger approaches from behind and grabs her
and takes her off screen. The second woman, the driver runs to aid
the situation. You do not see this. The woman who is dragged away
was injured, but unfortunately, the second woman was malt to death by the
tiger. What yeah, uh wait, I think I've seen this video and
Reddit. Someone sent this to me and I remember watching it and being like,
oh, this must be like in India or something where there are tigers.
I didn't, but I think I read through the comments and it was
like, oh no, this is like a wild life park in China,
because I remember watching and I think like they opened like the back door of
their car or something, but they were surrounded by like thick trees. And
yeah, the tigers comes out of absolutely nowhere. It is bigger than the
woman. It is so large. But I didn't realize that the second woman
got killed. That's crazy. I did not watch the video. So they
claimed they thought that they were in a safe zone of the park and that
it was okay to get out of their car. The woman who survived.
In a recent article I could find is suing the park for negligence, specifically
saying that the park did not do enough to handle the situation like this and
lack the proper signage in communication to visitors for their safety and others. Some
signs in the park read cherish your life, never get out of your car.
You know it's funny, well not funny. I just had a listener
from South Africa reach Out and it's a very similar conversation she had where she
was like, you know, here in South Africa, if you are in
one of our national parks, you're not supposed to get out of the vehicle
for exact reasons like that where a lion or a leopard or like literally anything
can come grab you. And she asked me, like, I've never been
to America, you know, I've always wanted to go, but I always
see all of you like outside of your cars, like how can you do
that? And I guess I've never realized that, Like there is a cultural
difference between all of our national parks. Like just because national parks here in
America, you know, it's land for all of us. We can hike
on it, you can camp. That is not the case in other places
in the world. So like, yeah, in South Africa, as an
American tourist, it might not. I mean, I'm sure people will tell
you and there's probably signs like don't get out of the car, but like
it might not occur to you to not get out of the car and walk
around because that's what we're used to doing. And I wasn't gonna get fully
into it, but I did find a story where there was an American woman
who was in a national park in Africa and she was in a passenger seat.
Her tourist guide had the windows down, and in that park there were
strict rules against not having the windows down, and a lion jumped through the
window and killed her. So like, follow the rules, And I wanted
to end on a story where there is I guess, like a little bit
of justice, because it feels like in a lot of these stories, people
do stupid things, and I mean they might pay with their lives, but
it feels like a lot of times the animals are the ones suffering. And
I mean the animal in this one didn't suffer like a lot, but still
was very stressed out. But the woman got her come up. And some
of you may remember the video and pictures that came out in the spring of
twenty twenty one of a woman approaching a mother grizzly and her cubs and Yellowstone
to take some pictures. It was May tenth by the Roaring Mountain parking lot
and a group of tourists spotted a bear and her cubs and everyone backed off,
all except for twenty five year old Samantha Daring from Illinois. Instead,
she stood her ground to take more pictures. As I mentioned up top,
in Yellowstone you need to stay one hundred yards from grizzlies and wolves. This
girl was so clear that the mother grizzly bluff charged her like got within feet
of her, and that was the only thing that got Samantha to walk away,
and she just walked away. Samantha Samantha, but thankfully because other tourists
were watching and were shocked by her behavior. They took pictures and videos and
shared with park staff, who shared on social media and hopes that someone could
identify her, and of course they did so. As of October twenty twenty
one, she was actually sent to jail for approaching wildlife and she pled guilty,
so it was pretty quick and done. She's banned from the park for
a year, so I guess in theory that was twenty twenty one, so
she can go back now. But we'll see, and she had to pay
a one thousand dollar fine and one thousand dollars to a wildlife protection fund,
which I thought was a cool thing for the judge to throw in. I
like that. Yeah. The acting Wyoming US Attorney Bob Murray said her actions
were quote absolutely foolish, and said, quote the park is not a zoo
where animals can be viewed within the safety of a fenced enclosure. They roamed
freely in their natural house and when threatened will react accordingly, he said,
adding that quote pure luck is why Daring is a criminal defendant and not a
maled tourist. End quote. And I thought that was a good place for
us to end in, a good sentiment to end on that if you follow
the rules and don't approach wildlife, you'll probably you'll probably be okay. Yeah,
be safe. Yeah. Also, if you're going to a national park,
kind of like Margy was saying, like, if you have the privilege
to go travel somewhere, look it up. Look up the safety regulations,
look up the guidelines, look up how to contact help if you need it.
My god, Yeah, tell people where you're going. If you're going
alone, what are their hot tips? Bring proper food and water, Bring
proper clothing, bring oh my god, please bring proper footwear. Yeah,
that's a good A friend of the pod another pod off the Trails podcast recently
and they're local to us. They're New Hampshire Masters That's what's up, ladies.
So they recently posted thing on Instagram asking like, longtime hikers, what's
your best piece of advice? And my thing was, like, know the
wildlife that's around to because I think in some of the stories we talked about,
especially the one with the rattlesnak, but the guy's foot, that's a
concern and that might mean that you just can't go barefoot there, and that's
just a risk you're taking. Yeah, So if you're about to travel this
summer and you're about to go somewhere, I first of all hope you have
so much fun, but also please please look up the wildlife around you,
be sure of safety regulations, know who to contact, and have emergency numbers
just in case something goes wrong or you see something that is wrong I don't
know. Also to like know the environment that you're going into and like know
the terrain that you're going to be walking on. Know the temperatures that you're
going to be going through. Have water. Have so much water, God,
please have so much water so you can cut this out. But like
there's some type of like White Mountain National Forest. I'm not gonna say shit
posting, but it's like alerts on like tourists that have to be like helped
by fishing game. And it's always like somebody not wearing good footwear, somebody
not knowing when sundown is, or not bringing enough food or water, or
deciding to go hiking at like eight pm at night. It's just it's putting
you and so many other people at risk. That's a really good point.
Yeah, when you go into these situations unprepared, you are like putting the
live. So I think we've talked about this in last week's episode two with
Rattlesnakes or something or No Bears, I can't remember. We talk a lot.
But you doing stupid things puts the people helping you at risk. So
like, just because you're being an idiot doesn't mean that other people should suffer
because of it. On that note, thank you all so much for listening
to episode eighty of this podcast. For relevant links and where to find certain
things, check out the episode description. That's where you can also find Margie
on social media and where to find all of our social media as at our
website where we're gonna have update and merch so soon. Thanks to Margie specifically
for helping Yay and all our expert Survival AST patrons. Keep an eye out
for your gift for this month. It's logo related. It's gonna be so
good. It's gonna be good, and yeah, thank you all so much
for listening, and we'll be back in two weeks with the Oh my god,
no, I forgot my thank you. Thank you so much to my
good friend and second grade husband and also at this point, life coach Josh
Walsh for making our intro music I love you, and thank you so much
to his brother Jesse for all the other heavy lifting in the audio department.
We'll be back in two weeks with a new animal attack story. Peace