Speaker 1: Welcome to episode ninety six of Get Out Alive, a
podcast about animal attacks, why they happen, and how we
can avoid them. We're back after a year hiatus. I'm
your host, Ashley, and I'm here with a very special
guest today, Hannah. Hi everybody, Hannah you were here. I
forget what number episode it was, but we record an
episode years ago on Asian Elephants.
Speaker 2: It's been a minute, yeah, a long time ago. I'm
very happy to be back.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you want to tell people why you're here.
Speaker 3: I'm here because Ashley and I started a new podcast.
It's called Up All Night, and it's about parenting and
pregnancy and postpartum, and it's basically just a place for
people to gather and listen to us. Gabin, I mean
we're sitting down having coffee and just talking real talk
about motherhood.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, I you know, obviously it's been a minute
since I've posted on here, almost exactly a year, and
where we last left off, I was telling you all
that I'd had the miscarriage and then I needed part
of my cervice taken out so I wouldn't get cancer,
and then I left it there like right before I
had that procedure, So some stuff has happened since then,
and I won't get into all of it because we
talk about it in the first episode of Up All Night,
which is out now wherever you get podcasts except Apple podcasts.
But we're working on it and I've set it so
many places online and I've said it on that podcast,
But now that I'm back on Getting Alive, I just
want to say, like the sincerest thank you to everyone
who reached out to me and continues a year later
to reach out to me about talking about my miscarriage
on this podcast, like it truly blew me away and was,
honestly a large reason why Hannah and I wanted to
start Up All Night is because of how many people
reached out after I had the miscarriage and said, hey,
me too, thanks for talking about it. Like literally, just
this past week, I was messaging someone who was like, Hey,
I haven't heard people talk about this openly, so thanks
for doing that. Like I haven't experienced that, but I'm
afraid of trying to get pregnant or I've had an
abnormal pap smear and it scared me, so thanks for
talking about it, like we all need to be talking
about these things more. And I know that this is
a podcast but animal tax and that's fine. So I
don't want to keep bringing this stuff up here, So
we made a new place for it. So if you're
interested in that content, even if you're not a woman
or someone with a vagina and you don't know if
you want to be a parent or if you do
want to be a parent, like it's for really everybody.
You don't have to be pregnant or whatever, but we
are pregnant. So that's where we're coming at it from.
I am thirty four weeks as of today, Miss Hannah.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, I'm eighteen weeks today. This is gonna be
my second baby.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. So because of the fact that I'm giving
birth next month, I cannot promise any sort of regularity
to Get It Alive. It takes a lot more research
than something like Up All Night, where we're mostly chatting
about just parenting topics. But I would love to get
back in to Get It Alive as much as I can.
So Hanna and I are doing this mom centered episode
of Get It Alive talking about mother animals attacking people. Also,
Mother's Day just passed, so we figured it was appropriate,
and we have another episode Hanna and I are going
to do that. We hope to put out soon, maybe
in two weeks would be great, and then after that,
who's to say, But either way you can hear me
on Up all Night with Hannah every week, which will
be nice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think one of the things we're trying
to do with Up All Night is connect more parents
with each other and connect people through these common experiences,
like Ashley was saying, that tend to go unspoken about
until it happens to you, and then people sort of
come out of the woodwork and are like, yeah, that
happened to me too, but nobody talks about it and
it's so isolating.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I said it in the first episode
of Up all Night, But the only reason I was
able to I mean, Hannah was obviously a huge part
of it, but the only reason I was able to
get through that first miscarriage was the fact that so
many of you were so kind and sent just truly
the nicest messages to someone who's essentially a stranger, like
you might listen to the podcast, but you don't really
know me. And the fact that any of you would
take a moment to reach out and say something nice
is incredible. It makes me want to cry. So I'm
gonna move on. We're gonna get into this episode. Oh boy. Okay, So,
like I said, we're doing mom centered stories here and
a joke that we have made on up all night
in an episode that is yet to be released, we
were trying to talk about having boundaries and wanting to
set boundaries but not be too harsh. And what was
the reference that we made or like the rays that
we coined.
Speaker 3: We talked about going full grizs Ah, yes, full grizz
versus half gris too there was yeah, yeah, there was
a distinction between the two.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I mean, if you're here, if this is
not your first time listening together alive, you know that
probably of all the animals that we've talked about, grizzly
bears are some of like the fiercest moms out there,
and sometimes I don't want to say they overreact, but
they like will just kill a person without questioning whether
or not you were actually gonna hurt their babies. So
obviously the first story we're going to talk about is grizzlies. Now,
a lot of the stories I'm talking about today are
actually like really recent, which is crazy. This one that
we're starting with happened on May fourth.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that was like, what last week? A
couple of weeks ago? Super recent?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think last week? Yeah, so May fourth, twenty
twenty six, and it happened in Yellowstone. So this attack
marks the first attack of the year at Yellowstone and
a pair of brothers aged fifteen and twenty eight. We
don't have names yet because it was so recent and
sometimes things need to be investigated before identities are released
and whatnot. So these brothers, these young guys, were hiking
northwest of Old Faithful on the Mystic Falls Trail in Yellowstone,
and like I said, details are still kind of being
sorted out, but what officials believe occurred was that a
sow in two to three cubs under the age of
one were involved in this attack. And by a sow
I mean like a mother grizzly, and investigators have not
indicated that they're trying to track down like any sort
of specific bears because they are just assuming that this
was like a mother being spooked and defending her cubs.
One of the crazy details about this attack, though, is
that likely the reason that the two victims were found
and saved is because of a man named Craig Lherman.
Craig was hiking the same trail as these two victims
around the same time and started recording a video on
his phone of some Grizzly tracks that he saw on
the trail, and the videos of him following the tracks
just like out of curiosity. He's like, oh, look, these
look like Grizzly tracks, and his video is like, you
can find it on TikTok. It has popped up on
my feed without me looking into this. So he followed
these tracks right to the first victim and got it
all on video. He didn't share the part of the
video where he finds a person lying in a pool
of blood for obvious reasons, and I doubt that that
will ever come to light, which is probably for the best.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I hope not, for the sake of the victims
and their families.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one hundred percent. So he came upon one of
the hikers, I don't know which brother it was lying
in a pool of blood and he was able to
radio for help to get a helicopter to MedFlight the
victims to a hospital. One of them was listed to
be in serious condition, while the other was said to
be in critical condition, and there are currently no updates
on how they are as of the day that we're
recording this, which is May fourteenth. The area around the
attack is still subject to closures, so if you're planning
a hike in that area in Yellowstone anytime soon, check
out the park's website before you book that trip or
go on that hike. The last attack in Yellowstone was
September twenty twenty five when a hiker was injured, and
then the last death in Yellowstone because of a bear
was in twenty fifteen. So obviously, like we don't know
if these boys are both still alive or whatnot. But
when you consider that there are millions of people who
visit this park each year and they're only around like
a thousand grizzlies, and then you know hundreds of thousands
of black bears. Attacks are still considered rare, especially fatal ones.
So it's been over a decade since a bear has
killed someone in Yellowstone.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm just I'm impressed by Craig. I hope that
because he was there, he got to them in time
and was able to get help in time for those guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah. You know. I when I saw his video where
he was like, oh, look grizzly tracks and followed them,
I was like, that wouldn't be me. I would see
those tracks and be like, you know what, I'm going
to pick a different trail for now, and I would
have missed it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: The fact that he found them, found the tracks, and
then had the thought to follow them and try to
record them, like obviously, I'm sure he thought he was
just recording cool grizzly bear tracks on the ground, like
I doubt he thought he was recording this evidence of
an attack, you know. But I think that's pretty brave
that he followed them and subsequently was able to find
these victims.
Speaker 1: Yeah, shout out Craig. Yeah, way to go, Craig. However,
I'd be remiss to cover this attack and not mention
a death that occurred in Glacier National Park on literally
the exact same day as the attack on these two brothers.
Thirty three year old Anthony Polio of Davy, Florida, was
reported missing on Monday May fourth, but had told family
that on Sunday May third, he'd planned to hike the
Mount Brown trail toward the mount Brownfire lookout. That Sunday,
Anthony called his father, Arthur and left a voicemail saying, Dad,
I'm hiking up a mountain. It's wild out here. I
love you, Dad, And that was the last message his
dad ever got from him, because on Monday, when investigators
went to the trail to look for him, they found
some of his belongings two point five miles from the trailhead,
so they focused their search in that surrounding area and
ended up finding Anthony's body fifty feet off the trail
in a densely wooded area. Investigators said his death was
consistent with a fatal bear attack. This death marks the
first death by a bear in Glacier National Park since
nineteen ninety eight, when someone was killed in two Medicine Valley.
Details about this attack on Anthony are still being investigated,
of course, but it's thought that he might have spooked
the bear, so this isn't like necessarily a mother bear situation,
but we don't really know yet. And then the species
of bear has also not been confirmed, and similar to Yellowstone,
the last bear related injury in the park occurred last August,
so last tourist season essentially.
Speaker 3: Wow that's first of all, really really sad, but also
kind of incredible to me that there was that life
of a gap between this fatality and the previous one.
Speaker 1: I agree, Yeah, Yellowstone, I mean, twenty fifteen feels really recent.
I mean, anytime we talk about animal killing somebody like
it is crazy every single time. But yeah, twenty fifteen
doesn't feel like that long ago for that to happen
in Yellstone. I don't remember hearing about it either.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I also don't have exact numbers on how many
tourists visit Yellowstone versus Glacier each year, but I'm assuming
that Yellowstone sees way many more taurusts. So maybe that's
why it's more frequent, or it happened more recently that
someone was killed by a bear there.
Speaker 2: I'm not really sure, but yeah, that would make sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, on to the next one. So another one that
occurred this year. This one happened in March. So on
March fourteenth, twenty twenty six, a mother black bear in
California was euthanized after two aggressive incidents. So this bear
was living in Monrovia, California, which is I had never
heard of this place before, but it is a city
in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and has
a population of over thirty seven thousand people, so not
a huge city by any means, especially by California standards.
The first incident with this bear happened in June twenty
twenty five. An elderly man was sitting on his porch
when the bear approached and swiped at him, causing minor injuries,
and a nearby caretaker of this elderly man was able
to scare the bear away, and the man fully recovered
from his injuries. I don't have any other details on
that encounter, like it just from what I've read, seems
like the bear literally just walked up, hit him, and
he was then scared way.
Speaker 3: That sounds really random, although in instances like this, I
always suspect that people are feeding bears, or if.
Speaker 1: I could also make an assumption if it was an
elderly man and maybe he's living in some community, like
there's got to be bird feeders everywhere.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's such a good point. Bird feeders and probably
also trash, yeah, like trash cans.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So maybe that would be a reason that
the bear would just be comfortable walking up to a
human and hitting them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but we don't know trying to get to that
bird feeder.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. So the attack that literally put the nail
on the coffin for this black bear occurred in March
this year, when the bear approached a woman walking her
dog around nine to twenty am. The bear swiped at
the woman and one of its claws caught the back
of her knee, and a neighbor who witnessed the encounter
said that the bear kept charging them, let the woman
and her dog despite the woman's screaming, and then at
one point the dog ran off a little bit and
the bear followed it. One of the neighbors came out
with an airhorn and was able to successfully scare off
the bear. The woman was brought to a nearby hospital
via ambulance, but her injuries were considered minor and she
recovered fine. So Missumi was just like she literally got
a scratch on the back of her leg. In the
days following the encounter, the bear and its cubs were
trapped by California Department of Fish a Wildlife. The city
manager made a public statement saying, quote, the Monrovia City
Council requested in for the bear in her cubs to
be relocated into the Angelus National Forest, but the decision
was never the cities to make. By the time we
were able to speak with state officials involved in the
decision making, the decision to euthanize was already made. Apparently
DNA was taken from the bear to confirm that she
was responsible for both incidents. So where to assume that
the DNA that there was DNA taken from both attacks,
which I thought was interesting, and like I don't fully
believe because the first encounter where she walked up and
swiped that guy, Like, what DNA would you have gathered
from that? You know what I mean?
Speaker 3: And also yeah, and also if that if that encounter
with the elderly man was the first encounter that this
particular bear had had with a person, I mean, unless
there's some sort of policy that any bear attack or
any animal attack requires collection of DNA for some reason,
like maybe that's a part of the procedure. I don't
believe that they would have collected DNA from that particular encounter.
Speaker 1: I agree, And then like that they would have stored
it in a way that they'd be like, oh yeah,
let's look back at this one, you know what I.
Speaker 3: Mean, right, Like, would they really be assuming that the
same bear would strike again?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. It seems a little fishy to me.
Speaker 1: I know, that kind of seem like the state's way
of being like, oh, no, we did our due diligence, Like,
don't worry, we killed the right one, you know.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's definitely the same bear.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's an exact same bear. So over three
thousand people in the city signed a petition to save
this bear, with one community member saying quote, fish and
wild life is more reactive than proactive. People love these bears,
People love this community. Something needs to change between the
way that everyone communicates here. So the mother bear was
euthanized and her two cubs were sent to a California
animal welfare center where they're getting intensive care because they're
only two to three months old, and black bears aren't
wean from their mother's milk until they're six to eight
months old, and they stay with their moms for around
eighteen months to learn how to be a bear. So
they're hoping to release these cubs back into the wild
without the human approaching habits of their mother, which is
fair because she would have taught them that behavior. And
the cubs have been put into a habitat designed to
make their natural environment as much as they can, and
special efforts are being made to reduce their exposure to humans,
including that the staff will use bear masks, animal furs,
and sens to quote conceale their human identity while caring
for the cubs, and the wildlife operations manager at the
organization said, quote, we don't want them to associate with
humans in any way if they're going to have a
chance to survive in their natural habitat end quote. So
I would like to acknowledge the irony in that statement
and this situation because they took the cubs into human
care to get them to stop associated with humans.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I feel like they've now created a bigger
problem inadvertently by euthanizing the mother and then creating a
situation where two cubs now have to be raised in
captivity with ultimately the goal of releasing them. But what
if those cubs end up being unreleasable. Yeah, so now
they have two more bears that might potentially be unable
to be released and have to be captain captivity somewhere
or I don't know, I don't know what else you
do in that situation. Do you just euthanize them too?
Speaker 1: Also, not to mention the amount of money it takes
to raise two bears, especially if they still need milk, Right,
that's so like the staffing for that is so expensive. Yeah.
I struggle with this because as someone who you know,
has been a zookeeper for the past year and worked
with bears, part of me is like, why couldn't you
just take the mom also and put her there, like,
let her raise them in captivity and then at least
like you're taking care of her more than you're taking
care of the two cubs. Then she could take care
of the cubs and then she stays in the zoo,
but you release the cubs, right, because she is aggressive
towards humans. But that's not to say that she couldn't
be fine in a zoo. Like I've worked with two
mountainlins who wanted to eat me all the time, So
that's not really a barrier to being at a zoo.
Is liking people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And of course it's sort of tricky because of
course we don't want this bear to have been able
to further injure or kill a person. Like the conflict
with people is always a big concern, but when the
two incidents that have occurred are kind of somewhat minor,
I feel like it could have been handled a little
bit differently.
Speaker 2: Which, of course I don't know.
Speaker 3: It's a difficult thing because I think in some instances
it feels like the state waits too long to address
some of these problems, Like it feels like they wait
until somebody is killed or until someone is severely injured
by an animal to take action. And so I think
that's not necessarily the right way to go about it either,
because we don't want people to be getting injured and
killed by animals. There should be more being done to
mitigate human wildlife conflict in general. But I feel like
in this situation, it was definitely like an overreaction.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I also think it speaks volumes. So this bear,
you know, was hering this woman and her dog and
it did scratch her, Like I'm not going to discount
that that counts, as you know, attacking a person is
swiping at them. But a neighbor was able to scare
the bear off with an air horn so why couldn't
we start by, I don't know, going around the community
and being like, hey, here's how to be safe around bears.
But it also sounds like a lot of them already
kind of knew how. I'd be curious to know more
from the people in the community, because it does seem like,
generally from what I've seen online, they were pro bear
and didn't want her to be euthanized, and she was
kind of like a pillar of their community.
Speaker 3: So I don't know, And this doesn't sound like a
bear that was really habituated to people, Like, it doesn't
sound like it was a bear who was getting into
trash cans, ripping down bird feeders, like frequently in and
out of people's backyards, going up on porches. I feel
like if it was a situation like that, the community
would probably have more to say about it, and there
would be more recorded instances, even if they were anecdotal,
amongst the neighbors in the community, of that particular bear
being sighted or being interacting with other people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, from what I saw, people were saying like, yeah,
we knew this bear. She would just like hang out
and sit under the tree for hours in the heat
of the day and just hang out like people liked
seeing her generally, I think, but I don't know. It's
so tough when it's such a large animal too, and
you're in fucking California where there's billions of people. So
I'm glad I didn't have to make the decision.
Speaker 3: But yeah, well, and I feel like it's one of
those things where whatever you do is wrong because if
you don't euthanize the bear and then she goes on
to actually kill someone, now there's someone has.
Speaker 2: Died because of the bear.
Speaker 3: But if you euthanize the bear before anything that bad happens,
then people are like, but she hasn't done anything that bad.
Speaker 2: Why would you euthanize her?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: And isn't it so interesting that we just covered two
stories of well, I guess the first story of the
grizzly mother attacking the two boys, and the Montana State
whatever wildlife agency said that they weren't going to investigate
the bear because it was normal behavior. But in this circumstance,
it's like she swiped her two people dead and once
again different circumstances. But I don't know, it just feels
like there's no nu it's.
Speaker 3: Wildly different policy. It feels like yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So anyways, I wanted to shift from bears because there's
so many bear stories of like bear brothers defending cubs
or being associated with attacks on people. So we're gonna
leave bears there and we're gonna shift to Africa. So
another recent attack, this occurred April seventeenth of this year,
twenty twenty six. Seventy five year old Ernie Dosio from
California went to Gobo. Gabo spelled Gabo n I did
not realize it was pronounced Gabo Gobo got bo.
Speaker 2: This is reminding me of the infamous Belarus.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Nick and I were literally just talking
about that, and I was like, you know, I maybe
a lot of things. I've never claimed to be good
with geography, Okay, I just neither do my best.
Speaker 3: I think I would have done the exact same thing.
Just in your defense, I would have said I would
have pronounced it the same way, So.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Anyways, Gobo is one of the
most most densely forested countries in the world, and is
also considered one of the wealthiest developing countries in Africa
in terms of per capita income. Although of course, large
parts of the population are still very impoverished. Gabo also
contains a lot of very important habitat for the critically
endangered African forest elephant, with upwards of fifty thousand elephants
living there. So the Sky Ernie went to Gabo to
trophy hunt, an activity he loved and was well known
for being heavily involved in the community.
Speaker 2: I already have negative opinions about.
Speaker 1: This, yep, that I really anticipated that from everyone listening,
to be honest. So he was accompanied on this trip
by two other professional hunters who were kind of acting
as his guide, and they were hunting yellowback dikers. So
they're an antelope found in central and western Africa, and
they're relatively widespread, considered a species of Least Concern by
the IUCN, so they're not by any means like endangered
or anything like that. So Ernie and the other hunters
were walking in the forest in search of the dikers
when they accident stumbled upon a small herd of African
forest elephants consisting of females and their calves. The herd
was initially around one hundred and fifty yards away and
charged the hunting party, which the three men backed off,
but the elephants charged again, getting as close as twenty
five yards, with one elephant attacking another member of the
hunting party, which resulted in serious injuries to that man
and the man was separated from his rifle. Ernie himself
only had a shotgun intended for smaller game. The other
uninjured hunter grabbed Ernie and tried to bring him behind
a tree for safety, but one of the elephants was
faster and fatally goreed Ernie with a tusk. As you
can imagine, because he died overseas from where he lived
in California, it took some time to get his remains back,
but it also took some time to figure out what
exactly happened here, because his family has since spoken out
that apparently Ernie's lawyers were contacted before his family was contacted,
and then the lawyers weren't being very honest or clear
about what had happened to Ernie. So also for contacts,
Ernie was a millionaire. He owned like some vineyard operation
in California, so he was a very wealthy person. So
maybe that's why his lawyers were contacted first. Because there
was like a lot of money to sort out. Initially,
I'm not really sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and maybe like the liability of the circumstance of
being out on a hunt like that with supposedly with
guides who were maybe supposed to be keeping him safe
and advising him, and then the fact that he died
on that trip. Maybe the lawyers had I don't know,
problems with just how that all went down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe so. Ernie's ex wife hasn't spoken out and
said that initially they heard that a buffalo killed him,
but then they heard it was an elephant, and she
also the ex wife claimed that the other hunter that
got injured died, but then the safari company that Ernie
went through for this forty thousand dollars hunt, called Collect Africa,
said that the other hunter survived. So still kind of
unclear exactly how it all went down, but we know
for sure that the elephant killed Ernie. In the wake
of his death, as you can probably imagine, there has
been some criticism online about this millionaire going to Africa
to hunt big game, which was especially fueled by a
picture being released of his trophy room at home, which
included head mounts of elephants, rhino, lions, buffalo, crocodiles, zebra
and leopards. Ernie's son Jeff said the discourse online quote
hasn't been fun at all and he doesn't know how
this picture of the trophy room got leaked. And Ernie's
ex wife said quote, he was a big time hunter
and it shouldn't have happened. And a close friend of
Ernie also said his quote hunts were strictly licensed and
above board and were registered as conservation in culling animal numbers,
also saying that Ernie went out doing what he loved
and that he knew the risks, especially as a hunter
who had been to Africa multiple times.
Speaker 3: I feel like that last part is, at least to me,
the most relevant thing is that even if you're doing
everything legally, of course, anytime you go into the African bush,
you're at risk. And I think as long as he
knew the risk of what he was doing, then it's
not like he can blame anybody in particular. It's not
like he can blame the Safari Company or anything like. Yeah,
I think if you're a person who's going to go hunting,
especially doing big game or trophy hunting in a place
like Africa, then you know how dangerous the environment is,
and you know how quickly things can go south and
you can die.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and not even just Africa alone, but the fact
that Gabo is so densely forested and the dikers lived
in the forest, so you have to know that you
could pop up on literally anything at any point. And
I feel like, of all the things for you to
run into in the forest there, elephants, especially elephants with
their babies, would be the absolute worst case scenario.
Speaker 2: Oh one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: And I feel like elephants are generally regarded as I
don't know, maybe the most or at least some of
the most dangerous animals in Africa. Yeah, I mean maybe
also like hippos and other things like that. But I'm
sure anybody who's especially someone like that who's regularly going
on these hunts, they're going to know how dangerous elephants are.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So funny you say that, because stories of attacks
from female elephants with calves seem to pop up across
the continent of Africa multiple times a year. So we
have another one that happened back in July of twenty
twenty five. Sixty eight year old Janet Taylor Easton from
the United Kingdom and potentially her second cousin unclear, sixty
seven year old Alison Taylor from New Zealand, were up
around six am on a walking safari in the South
Luanga National Park in Zambia. The group encountered a female
African elephant with her calf, and one of the people
in the group yelled, elephant. I will say, I don't
know the protocol. I've never bet on a walking safari
in Africa. I don't know if you're supposed to be
quiet or if yelling is I don't know who.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a tough call, especially because even if you
know the protocol, I would probably also freak out and
yell something even if I knew I wasn't supposed to.
Speaker 1: Oh, one hundred percent, yeah I'm not if I'm sorry.
If I'm walking in Africa for the first time on
foot and I see a friggin elephant, I'm not gonna
be chill for sure.
Speaker 2: Right, You're gonna be like, oh my god, there's an elephant.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. So the group turned to look at the elephant,
and the mother elephant was already charging at that point,
so Alison had an existing problem with one of her
legs and was too like couldn't get away fast enough,
and she was almost immediately trampled by the elephant, with Janet,
her cousin slash best friend, being trampled very quickly after
the guides at the Safari shot at the elephant injuring her,
which ultimately led to her retreating, but unfortunately Alison and
Janet were pretty much immediately killed at the scene. I
also don't have any follow up on this elephant, which
I apologize. It's for some reason very hard for me
to get information on stories that occur in other places
in the world other than America. But I do know
that Allison's family and friends remember her for being a
pillar of their community, known for being an avid volunteer,
with one friend saying quote, I think of her as
an inspiration that we can all do more and be
more kind in this world. And Janet, lovingly known as Janis,
was a retired chemistry teacher beloved by her community, with
one person saying quote, Jannis had a profound impact on
generations of pupils and students in the local community, as
well as countless colleagues who admired her skill, tenacity, and
determination to ensure all young people had the opportunity to succeed.
The pair had been camping in Zambia for four days,
and this walking safari was them traveling to their next camp,
but this trip to Zambia was one of many trips
that the two had taken. Also recently been to Canada
to travel and you know, experience the outdoors, so they
were not like new to traveling by any means. But
it's just I think it was just like an unfortunate
run in and then they, for some reason, both of
them happened to be the victims.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's extremely sad. And what are the odds
that it was the two of them as the victims?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know one thing about get It Alive that I
forgot there's no good way to transition between stories like
you kuds just are like, well, these people died anyways.
Speaker 3: Right, Especially like when you're talking about such like heavy
topics like talking about people being trampled by elephants and
being killed. That's a tough thing to just kind of
be like well anyway.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. Yeah, yep, So anyways, next door, I'm so sorry.
I have no better transition than that, So let's go
back to twenty twenty four. Also, I'm finding like a
lot of these are happening around the same time because
this story occurred on Sunday May nineteenth and twenty twenty four,
so a lot of springtime stories.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, I feel like, Okay, maybe this
is just a hypothesis, but I feel like there must
be certain times of the year when the attacks are
more likely to happen, or maybe when the sort of
exposure to people is higher.
Speaker 1: That's so funny you say that, because I'm going to
talk about that at the end of this story.
Speaker 2: Because that is very relevant. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Sunday May nineteenth, twenty twenty four, seventy year old wildlfe
photographer Dale Corman was on his property in Homer, Alaska,
and stubled upon a moose giving birth to two calves.
Dale was a carpenter by trade, but outside of work
was an avid photographer, birdwatcher, and nature guide, so he
was no stranger at all to Alaska's woods. When he
was working on the side as a professional wildlife guide,
most of his trips were centered around grizzlies, but obviously
he loved all wildlife and sometimes taught birding by ear
courses in town, so he really knew what he was
doing and he was really a pill of the wild
life community. He snapped some pictures of the moose giving birth,
then went back to his house to call up a
friend so they could look at the moose together. The
friend got there, and then the two went out in
search of the moose in the area that Dale had
originally seen the mother giving birth, but the vegetation was
really thick, and Dale had remarked to his son earlier
in the season that the vegetation was so thick that
year that it could have been easy to accidentally spook
an animal, which is very odd foreshadowing on Dale's part,
because this is exactly what happened, because the moose saw
them first and came charging at them out of the bushes.
Both Dale and his friend turned to run, but when
the friend looked back, the moose was standing over in
unresponsive Dale. The friend ran back home to get help
and contacted Alaska State troopers around eleven fifty am. When
the troopers arrived at the scene, they immediately pronounced Dale
dead and the moose and her calves had left the
area because the attack was it witnessed, Investigators were unclear
how the moose had actually killed Dale, which to me
doesn't matter. We know that the moose killed him either way,
but Dale's family insisted that the moose not be killed because,
first of all, it's not what Dale would have wanted,
and he died doing what he loved, for sure. But second,
she was also just protecting her newborn calves, which is
completely normal moose behavior. There are around two hundred thousand
moose in Alaska, and they're the largest member of the
deer family, with females weighing upwards of eight hundred pounds.
So to your point, Hannah, spring is an especially dangerous
time to be around female moose because they're very protective
of they're young, as we just learned, and they give
birth mid May to mid June in Alaska, so primetime
to stumble upon an angry mother moose. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And like Dale had even said himself, if it was
really easy to spook them at that time of year
as well, then that's an extra danger. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Also funny that he had literally said to his son, like, yeah,
the vegetation's so thick this year, could be really easy
to spook an animal and then he did exactly that,
which obviously not his fault.
Speaker 2: But yeah, but especially I feel like, especially.
Speaker 3: That particular time of year, regardless of the year, that's
when vegetation starts to grow up and get really thick
and difficult to see through.
Speaker 1: Well, and it makes sense why they would give birth
when vegetation is coming up and being more thick, so
that way their babies don't get discovered by grizzlies or
other things that are trying to eat their babies. Right,
So very tough time. Yeah, I mean, as someone who
has I've told the story in the podcast before, but
I've encountered I've been on foot right next to a
mother moose and her baby, but it was October and
she was relatively chill about just like continuing on and
not trying to kill me, thankfully, But I did just
want to touch on if you do find yourself near
a moose, and this goes for any moose, it doesn't
have to just be a mother, but look for signs
of stress or agitation, such as raised hackles, which I
promise you will be very obvious if you see them,
ears pinned back, and if the moose is licking their
that's also a sign that they're agitated or unhappy. If
a moose does charge, you, try to get behind something
like a tree or some other solid object, similar to
what we were talking about with Ernie and the elephant.
Just like put something between you, guys, so that you
can start to get yourself away. Which also, if you're
out in the woods in a place where there are moose,
just have that in the back of your mind. Because
I don't know about you, Hannah, but anytime I'm recreating
here in New England, I'm not worried. I mean, the thing,
I'm most worried about humans, but I'm not worried about
bears or coyote or anything like that. I'm, honest to God,
more worried about running into a moose than anything else here.
So yeah, just kind of having the back of your mind, like, Okay,
if I was to encounter this animal in the habitat
that I'm currently in, what would be my game plan? Well?
Speaker 3: And is this a kind of situation where it's better
to be making noise when you're walking through the woods
so as not to startle a moose.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I've gosh been in the woods my
whole life and encountered a moose one time. It's because
we went looking for the moose, so there's that. Otherwise
I've never encountered them on foot. And I usually do
make a lot of noise as I'm walking around. I'll
play music out loud or whatever, or I'll just be
talking to somebody. So yeah, I think that's usually your
best bet, which I feel like is honestly the advice
on this podcast in ninety percent of the time is
just walk around and make noise and make yourself known
so animals have a chance to get away from you.
Speaker 3: Try not to startle anything, try not to walk up
on anything suddenly.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and if you can go out with a friend,
even better to not be alone. So all right, speaking
of New England, We're gonna end this episode in New England,
and this is going to be about a species I
don't think we've ever covered, and if we have covered
this species before, it has been this exact same type
of story. We're talking about the northern gosshawk. Ooo. Have
you ever seen one in the wild.
Speaker 2: I actually don't think I have.
Speaker 1: Wait, we saw one together in our class in college.
Speaker 2: Oh I don't remember.
Speaker 1: It was like so high up in the sky that
you could not tell it was a goshawk until our
teacher said that it was a gosshawk. Hm.
Speaker 2: That's probably why I don't remember.
Speaker 1: Yep. Yeah, but uh, otherwise I have never ever seen one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that must have been the only time then, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I would say that northern goshawks are pretty well
known in the birding community for being particularly aggressive during
the nesting season. So in June twenty twenty five, a
walking trail at the Bond Brook Recreation Area in Augusta, Maine,
was closed when a pair of northern goshawks kept attacking
people that would come near their nest. So goshawks are
relatively rare because they're very sensitive to human disturbance, which
is probably why we don't see them more often. But
when they're nesting, people often know about it because they
defend their nests so fiercely and just to go over
goshawks if you don't really know what they are, they're
the largest exhibiter. And if you've listened to this podcast before,
you have already heard me talk about excipretors, but if
you forget it is a type of hawk that live
and hunt within forests, so Unlike beauty os, which is
like the family of hawks that red tailed hawks are in,
which tend to hunt more out in the open. Northern
goshawks are not endangered and actually occur on many different continents,
so we're not dealing with like an endangered nesting bird
here necessarily, just a pretty aggressive one. So that this
was the case in twenty twenty five and two trails
ended up being closed when a runner was struck in
the head by one of these hawks, to the point
that they had to go to the hospital for treatment. Ouch. Yeah,
so goshawks are only around two pounds, you'd be surprised.
And by you, I don't mean you, Hannah, but like
in general, how little birds tend to weigh for what
they look like. Yeah, redtails max out like three pounds
would be a pretty fat redtail, I would say. But
they can still do so much damage if you think
about their talons and their curved beaks, which are meant
for pulling apart flesh. So when that hits you in
the head pretty hard, it's not great. They are powerful,
and so I have seen varying reports on how fast
gosshawks can fly. It's been a range of like thirty
to sixty miles per hour. But you figure they're meant like,
their whole thing is flying really quickly through the woods.
So I can imagine if they hit you in the
head hard enough in the right spot, they could probably
knock you out.
Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely, especially if you're saying thirty to sixty miles
per hour. Yeah, even something traveling thirty miles per hour
is enough to like knock you out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean I used to volunteer at a
place that had a great horned owl, so generally considered
one of the strongest birds of prey, but not particularly
fast flying or anything like that. She would on the
regular knock people out by hitting them in the head. So,
although they're just birds, still pretty serious. Like, yeah, even
though they're only two pounds, that's still a big bird.
Like when a bird is flying at you, that's pretty big.
Speaker 3: Well, And I feel like two pounds of bird is
different than two pounds of a different animal, because exactly
like you're saying, they have these talents. They have the
curved beak, they're specifically designed for flying fast through forests,
for attacking and ripping apart their prey. Two pounds of
bird is still a lot of bird.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, can you imagine, so peregrine falcons, fastest
animal on the planet, can dive bomb at like two
hundred something miles per hour. That would kill you.
Speaker 2: If you in the head, it would Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah,
We're all.
Speaker 1: Lucky that they choose to not kill us. So this
runner was able to fully recover. And you know, luckily
for everyone involved, the goshawks only nest for a few
weeks until their baby's fledge and then they move on,
and there are plenty of other trails in this area
that people were able to recreate on, so it's not
like this ruined the recreation experience for these people for
a very long time. Northern goshawks do tend to return
to the same nesting area each year, although they may
not use the exact same nest, So this was the
second time in three years that trails at this recreation
area had to be closed down because of these goshawks
attacking people. So even though they don't use the same
nest per year, they in the same area tend to
make like two to eight different nests and they alternate
between them each year, which can help produce parasite and
disease risk, which I think is some great parenting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that really is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very smart on their part. And that's all I've
got for mother slash parent animals attacking people. Apparently dads
were involved in this too, daddy goshawk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there were also dads there.
Speaker 1: It is funny to think of all these stories that
I was able. I mean, think of all these stories
within the past like two years, I have literally never
seen a story that was a father animal attacking people, yeah,
in defensive cubs or some other thing. Like I'm thinking
lies are like the main one where like the father
is involved. But I can't think of a single story
of a male line attacking a human being to protect
a baby line.
Speaker 3: Right, Like, I feel like you hear stories of father
animals attacking or protecting their women kind of like, yeah,
protecting their mate or if they are the leader of
a herd or something. You hear about that, but you
don't hear about fathers protecting young the same way that
mothers protect their young.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know what, how often are mother animals
protecting their young against male other animals? Like? How often
are female grizzlies attacking male grizzlies? You know there's something
to be said there, and I don't know what it is,
but there's something there.
Speaker 3: Well, because okay, maybe this is wild, but aren't there
a lot of species of animals where the males will
purposefully try to kill the babies of other males. So
that yeah, yeah, like so they're purposely going after the
offspring of other animals of their same species.
Speaker 1: I feel like lions are a prime example of that.
Speaker 2: Actually, yes, right, that might be what I was thinking of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I also just want to shout out I had
no other place in the podcast to put this, but
in honor of Mother's Day, I would just like to
shout out one of the most brutal hardcore moms out there,
and that's the spotted hyena giving birth through a pseudo penis. Yeah,
like they're really doing the most.
Speaker 3: Honestly, everything about spotted hyenas is so metal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they are so badass.
Speaker 3: And honestly kind of horrifying the extremes that their bodies
go through. I don't know, They're just a really crazy
badass species.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I also should have noted, like, shout out to
elephants being pregnant for two years. I also a baby,
really hard if I was pregnant for two years. We're
pregnant for like nine to ten months, and it's tough
out here, so I can't imagine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're like, I worked on that for two years
and you're gonna try to kill it?
Speaker 1: No way?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Yeah, that's a long time to be pregnant. Also,
aren't baby elephants like hundreds of pounds when they're born.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that'll tear you up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's props to mother elephants everywhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you know, next Mother's Day, just think of
all the animal moms out there that are really just
going through horrific bodily things to just try to bring
more little baby animals out into the world than the
shit that they have to put up with when the
babies are here. I love watching videos of like bears,
for example. I see a lot of black bear ones
where like their babies are trying to cross the road
and they're just trying to grab like each individual baby
and bring them back, and I'm like, I I can't
do it, you know. So Gus my cat who was
laying on my lap, who I found in your yard, Hannah,
he was one of three and having to take care
of three three week old kittens. I was like, I
literally I can't. I don't know how mom cats do this.
Oh my, I don't know how any animal mother does
like manages any of their babies. I have so much
respect for them. I couldn't do it, honestly.
Speaker 3: Watching mother cats or dogs, or honestly any any species
that has like litters of babies, watching them feed their babies,
like watching all of them babies nursing at once, fills
me with like just I don't know, dread pain. Yeah,
I'm like, yeah, you poor thing, that is so tough, Like.
Speaker 2: I could never. I could never.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I feel like, and I've been guilty of
it on this podcast, calling black bears like lazy moms
and compared to you know, grizzly bears. I just feel
like we should give animal moms more grace. They're going
through a lot out there. They don't, they really are.
They're really struggling. And I can't imagine having once, like
you said, a litter, even having twins. That's a litter.
To me, I'm having one baby and I'm already stressed
the fuck out about it, So I can't imagine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like imagine being a cat mom and having to
nurse like five babies at once all the time.
Speaker 1: Hannah. There was one time with Gus and his siblings
where I woke up and I had slept for three hours,
and that was one extra hour then I should have
slept because they needed to eat every two hours, which
is insane. There was three of them, and I woke
up to like the craziest scene. I was keeping them
in like this big tupperware containers. Like tupperware makes it
sound tiny, but it was like this big plastic bin
that had blankets and stuff. Gus had escaped somehow, which
I literally don't know how is physically possible. One of
his siblings was like stuck on top of a blanket
that was on top of the container, and the other
one was like still inside but covered in poop. There
was poop everywhere. I was like, you're like, what happened here?
It was like a.
Speaker 2: Blowout, but like all over their Boh my god.
Speaker 1: And I was like I can't. I don't know how
cats and they do it on their own mm hmm.
And I needed like a whole house full of people
to be like, we need to bathe and feed these
babies and put them back to sleep, and by the
time that we were done, they're gonna be up again
to do it all over again.
Speaker 2: Yep, so so much work, Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Shout out moms.
Speaker 3: Yeah, shout out to moms everywhere for doing so much
work all the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And if you want more of that, not the
animal type part, the mom part, check us out on
Up All Night. And I apologize if that was rusty.
It's been a year since I've had to do this
kind of podcast, so maybe the next one I'll have
my shit together more and not transition by going well anyways,
Oh my.
Speaker 3: God, I think you did great, especially like a whole
year off and you're getting back into it.
Speaker 1: You did great trying. Thank you so much. You know,
people say like, oh, it's just a podcus so amateur.
You're just talking talking to a third person that is
like not present, but is also like a crowd of people.
It's not easy all the time. It's public speaker.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's actually way harder than people think. And you
are really good at it and really practiced and polished.
And I am so painfully aware of like how much
I have to learn and how inexperienced I am like people,
This is not easy, and Ashley's really good at it.
Speaker 1: Thanks. I will say, you know, for anyone out there
who wants to start a podcast, just do it. It
actually makes you better at public speaking. Like a few
months ago when I spoke in front of our Senate
on a bill about wildlife, I was so comfortable, just
like riffing off the cuff. And I think it's because
I've done this podcast for years and it just felt
even though it was like a crowd, for sure, physical
people in front of me instead of just an audience
that is omnipresent as you podcast. I don't know, it's
a good skill to have.
Speaker 3: Definitely, I feel like since we've been doing Up all Night,
it's helped me, even just in my everyday life, be
more aware of what I sound like when I'm speaking
and how I'm articulating my thoughts.
Speaker 1: The filler words are so real.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, I know, oh man, realize it. I'm so
sorry to everyone who has to listen to me say
and like a million times, both on this podcast and
Up all Night.
Speaker 1: Yeah yep, And you're gonna get more of that in
two weeks when Hann and I are back for another episode.
Not about moms, but about another thing that we both
have experience in. And I'll leave it at that.
Speaker 2: Ooh, leave them wanting more. I love it. Little tease, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Just a little tea so the people after a year
worth of me being like her, I'll be back eventually.
Added away t Thank you all so much for listening
to episode ninety six of Get Out Alive. I promise you,
no matter what happens to me, I'm gonna get to
episode one hundred of this thing. I'm not leaving it
under one hundred because that will kill me. So whenever
that happens, it'll happen. But I'll keep you updated. So
follow me on Instagram I get Out Alive pod. Oh
my god, it's been so long since I've done this.
TikTok get Out Alive. You know what, Just look at
that subscription you know where to find me. Check out
our website. Rate five stars wherever you're listening. If you
like this, and if you didn't like it, don't then
you can't rate it. Don't even worry about it any Subscribe, Yeah,
don't be mean. It's been tough. Subscribe wherever you're listening.
Speaker 2: It's been a tough year.
Speaker 1: It's been a tough year'd be nice to me. Please
subscribe to you Listening so you know when new episodes
drop and otherwise check out up on the if you're interested.
And yeah, we'll be back in two weeks. Thanks Hannah.
Speaker 2: Yeah woo boo.