Speaker 1: But this is the me Eater podcast coming at you shirtless,
Speaker 1: severely bog bitten, and in my case, underwear listening podcast.
Speaker 1: You can't predict anything presented by on x Hunt, creators
Speaker 1: of the most comprehensive digital mapping system for hunters. Download
Speaker 1: the Hunt app from the iTunes or Google play Store.
Speaker 1: Nor where you stand with on x O Gay our
Speaker 1: guest and Amber Cornack. Right, yeah, Cornack, Um, you got
Speaker 1: mauled by a bear. So there's that. But we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about a lot of We're gonna talk about a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff first and lace some groundwork. How sick
Speaker 1: are you? Are you sick of being the person like
Speaker 1: the woman that got mauled by a grizzly? You know
Speaker 1: sometimes sometimes I get a little tired of it. Um,
Speaker 1: But I haven't heard people use mall. That's kind of
Speaker 1: not really the word. They use tragedy. They say, oh,
Speaker 1: I heard you were involved in a tragedy. Or they
Speaker 1: don't say I heard you got balled by a grizzly. No, No,
Speaker 1: they tragedy. Yeah, they called tragedy or there's another word
Speaker 1: they use for it. And I don't really call it that.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just another day, you know, and
Speaker 1: they look at me like they call it a tragedy. Yeah, tragedy, Um,
Speaker 1: you sitting here in an accident. Yeah, but they use
Speaker 1: there's like a tragedy that someone in your family died
Speaker 1: or you got messed up in a way that you'll
Speaker 1: never recover. I know, it's not the right word for it. No,
Speaker 1: you just made your attack up. No horrible mix up. Actually,
Speaker 1: the had there was a workman's completing with me yesterday,
Speaker 1: one of my appointments, and she called it interesting. She goes, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I heard you had an interesting encounter. And I said,
Speaker 1: you know, that's a great way to put it. So
Speaker 1: that's the first time I've ever heard put it. Oh, horrific,
Speaker 1: that's the word her. They call it horrific. So it's
Speaker 1: anything anything that's you know, might scare people. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, I don't know, I don't I think
Speaker 1: that's fair. Horrific. I was in that if that happened
Speaker 1: to me, I would describe it as a horrific encounter.
Speaker 1: You'd have to say, I heard you had what I
Speaker 1: would regard a horrific encounter. But if you just want
Speaker 1: to be straight up, you'd be like I heard you
Speaker 1: got mauled by a grizzly, and why yes I did.
Speaker 1: But there's more to me than just that. But you know,
Speaker 1: I know there's a natural tension here because I'm very
Speaker 1: interested in that while recognizing that you're a complex, accomplished
Speaker 1: individual who has many aspects of their lives that go
Speaker 1: beyond a terrible, horrific mix up that you had. So
Speaker 1: we'll get we'll get there. First, I want to talk
Speaker 1: about Yanni's chicken business, because Yanni is It has a
Speaker 1: new chicken business. Yeah. You should heard Jennifer last night.
Speaker 1: I there. She realized the demand. She's like, you know,
Speaker 1: we got more room in Chicken Cooper at least another
Speaker 1: half dozen, which, you know whatever, I don't think it's
Speaker 1: going to increase the workload if we added a half
Speaker 1: dozen chickens right now. So you're getting nine they're throwing
Speaker 1: nine eggs a day, yeah, I think sometimes they're throwing
Speaker 1: more than some of them will late two in a
Speaker 1: day now, and you and the Patelis crew, Uh, you're
Speaker 1: only good for how many a day? You know? If
Speaker 1: I'm home, I can't say we keep up with that,
Speaker 1: but we can get close between breakfast and some baking.
Speaker 1: You know that goes on. But if I leave for
Speaker 1: a week, then I come home and there's like two
Speaker 1: full buckets of eggs. So, yeah, I just bought twelve.
Speaker 1: How did you decided to sell them by the dozen?
Speaker 1: I'll give you one guess, you know what, split them
Speaker 1: in half at six eggs. I would probably get the
Speaker 1: same of money for six as I am, because like
Speaker 1: you sell donuts for traps and eggs by the dozen
Speaker 1: and snares. Those are the only things you can think
Speaker 1: of that come in dozens. Yeah, traps and donuts and
Speaker 1: eggs all great things, baggles as you call them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they'll sell by the dozen, I would say, because Yanni's
Speaker 1: trying to get four bucks four bucks a box, because
Speaker 1: he's trying to pay for his organ It's funny everybody
Speaker 1: that we've said four bucks too, They're like, we should
Speaker 1: be paying you five. I was so pleased with the
Speaker 1: transaction and so pleased with the quality of the eggs
Speaker 1: I had this morning that I just gave him five
Speaker 1: and paid him down on another dozen. So he's now
Speaker 1: sitting on ten of my dollars ahead. You know I
Speaker 1: had a guy a dollar, listen, I would sell him
Speaker 1: a dollar egg. I cracked like this morning, Jimmy had to,
Speaker 1: I had to. Matthew had one. I've paid five bucks
Speaker 1: for that. Sure. I mean when you have eggs in
Speaker 1: a restaurant, you're probably paying that per egg. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: like it. And being in the business where you when
Speaker 1: you're giving me money before you received the item, is
Speaker 1: supposed to give you a guy guided once you can
Speaker 1: get in trouble like that. It was in fast food,
Speaker 1: and when he was looking at business to get into,
Speaker 1: he was like, that's one of the few places where
Speaker 1: people give you the money first and then they wait
Speaker 1: to get what they paid for. Yeah, he liked that
Speaker 1: about it. But you might wind up getting underwater because
Speaker 1: you're gonna take a lot of five dollar bills and
Speaker 1: then you're gonna go home. They're all gonna be dead
Speaker 1: because you know where this is going. Oh you mean
Speaker 1: if I get hammered by a predator, Yeah, you know
Speaker 1: where this his head. We've been good so far. No,
Speaker 1: I heard from uh your wife that too mysteriously vanished. Yes,
Speaker 1: but that's they're not the only two. We also lost
Speaker 1: Lame Duck, with it being it was at our house
Speaker 1: less than a week and we lost it. We've also well,
Speaker 1: we started with like I don't know how many bantams.
Speaker 1: We had over a dozen bantams, which are just like
Speaker 1: a small version of a chicken, because they were free
Speaker 1: already laying, so we took them on much more skittish.
Speaker 1: I like the big ones much better because they're like pets.
Speaker 1: You can pick them up and hang out with them.
Speaker 1: The bantams like they're they're paying the butt. There's a
Speaker 1: wild men of chickens, for sure, and they lay a
Speaker 1: teeny tiny egg, so eating like three to four, you know,
Speaker 1: every time we eat. But anyway, any who, um, where's
Speaker 1: that going with that? Every time we've had a weak
Speaker 1: or getting old chicken or duck, they are gone within
Speaker 1: days of showing that weakness. And we have not yet
Speaker 1: figured out to who. We've never lost a healthy one,
Speaker 1: No tracks or anything. No tracks. That's why we think
Speaker 1: it's that's why we think it needs to bring up
Speaker 1: a definitely amber go up there and tell you what's
Speaker 1: going on. You should look around. You work on mortality projects, right,
Speaker 1: I do go out and look at something dead and
Speaker 1: try to figure out what killed it. Yeah, there's I
Speaker 1: actually love doing that. There's nothing even actually we had
Speaker 1: a rabbit. Some lady brought him one of her rabbits
Speaker 1: and she didn't know what had happened to it end
Speaker 1: up dying, and we definitely we need cross seated and
Speaker 1: had bruising, and you could definitely see it looked like
Speaker 1: a doghead just by the sign and where it had
Speaker 1: bit it just grabbed it and shook it to death
Speaker 1: and then just let it go because he doesn't have
Speaker 1: the carcasses though, you don't have anything, no feathers or nothing.
Speaker 1: Every now and then Jennifer will describe it as a
Speaker 1: as a puff of feathers. That's why we think it's
Speaker 1: a bird. Because there's times we have big fir trees
Speaker 1: that are near everything around our property, and uh, there's
Speaker 1: times when there's a golden eagle that's you know, three
Speaker 1: ft tall, sitting on the fir tree that's right over
Speaker 1: the chicken coope. It's not your dogs, right, don't have dogs.
Speaker 1: Oh you guys don't have any dogs? Okay? All right? Uh?
Speaker 1: Oh quick, thing I have Okay, I got one more
Speaker 1: thing than well. I want to make sure we come
Speaker 1: back to it. I want to know what goes into
Speaker 1: a knee cropsy. Something as simple as a necropsy your knee,
Speaker 1: I need cropsy. I've been told that alright a lot,
Speaker 1: But just as something as simple as cotton tail rabbit.
Speaker 1: I'd like to know what goes into that. So I
Speaker 1: don't know if we want to cover that now or
Speaker 1: come back to it. A cotton tail knee cropsy? Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: or a bear. You know we'll touch on that first. No,
Speaker 1: we'll get to it. Can you remember? I'll make a note.
Speaker 1: I gotta I got The thing I want to touch
Speaker 1: on is this is uh, I have a my fish
Speaker 1: shooting bow. I have an Aneida osprey, which is a
Speaker 1: souped up fish shooting bow that I don't want and
Speaker 1: I don't use because I use my recurve for shooting fish. Um,
Speaker 1: it's only been shot a few times. They're spensive bows.
Speaker 1: It's left handed, is the catch. If you want this bow,
Speaker 1: all you gotta do is right in and make the
Speaker 1: subject line. Go on to our website, find the contact thing.
Speaker 1: Make the subject line, uh, um, fish shooting bow. So
Speaker 1: we know what we're looking at. So let's say fish
Speaker 1: shooting bow and then you say, if you give me
Speaker 1: this bow, I will donate X dollars to the Theodore
Speaker 1: Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. We're gonna just do a quick scan.
Speaker 1: Not paying a whole lot of attention. Seems like the
Speaker 1: highest person. I'll send you the damn bow, and then
Speaker 1: on the honor system, you gotta make sure you send
Speaker 1: them the money. I was gonna ask about that. We're
Speaker 1: gonna do it on a system, on our system. I
Speaker 1: haven't sent me like them. We'll figure it out. So
Speaker 1: left handed Oneida, I'll send a send a screenshot of
Speaker 1: your payment, or left handed Oneida osprey fish shooting bow
Speaker 1: barely been shot and it's got those sweet rubber thumb grips.
Speaker 1: You don't have to walk around the thing. Um okay,
Speaker 1: your first amber, your f brush with fame was that
Speaker 1: he made it into big Buck magazine. Now that magazine.
Speaker 1: That magazine just comes right out and says right outdoor life.
Speaker 1: You're like, that could mean a lot of things. Feel
Speaker 1: the stream, that could mean a lot of things. Big
Speaker 1: Buck magazine. That's it's not a big Buck, but yeah,
Speaker 1: you made it into big Buck magazine. When you're sixteen
Speaker 1: years old. It identifies you as being from my home
Speaker 1: state of Michigan. Yes, not where you know though apparently
Speaker 1: I don't know. We don't all travel in Michigan, at
Speaker 1: least in my neck of woods is north south. You
Speaker 1: don't yer just stay in the same line of longitude
Speaker 1: and you just you stick to your longitude. Would you
Speaker 1: grow up North Thumb area? Yeah, he's over in Calamazoo.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you're from Michigan to Central Michigan or whatever
Speaker 1: you call it. So you killed a big old bear
Speaker 1: when you were young. It was a decent size bear.
Speaker 1: Grew up I did. We're kind of hunting as were
Speaker 1: you generalists or were you guys like specialists. No, we
Speaker 1: kind of did everything mostly white tail in Michigan, and
Speaker 1: we just happened to come upon the outfitters for doing
Speaker 1: black bear stuff. But yeah, we mostly did white tail,
Speaker 1: and I didn't do it. You know. I did as
Speaker 1: much as I could with going to school and I
Speaker 1: worked and everything, but bow and gun and we had
Speaker 1: tree stands and have quite a few acres and everything.
Speaker 1: So we just it was just enjoyable just to kind
Speaker 1: of sit out there and I shot a h My
Speaker 1: first one was a fawn button button buck. My dad
Speaker 1: had shot the dough and I was like, I can't
Speaker 1: leave the button, but wiped out the whole fan. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I felt really bad afterwards. I was like, oh man,
Speaker 1: you probably would have made it, but I was. I
Speaker 1: was so young, you know, so it was good just
Speaker 1: to get something under my belt and everything. So you
Speaker 1: grow up fishing, Yeah, we did some fishing. We actually
Speaker 1: had a pond. We had a huge pond, and so
Speaker 1: we always bass fished in our pond and large mouth bad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a lot of cooked those up or let
Speaker 1: them go. No, we just let them go. Let me
Speaker 1: come back and catch them again. So you made it
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. Um. At what point in your
Speaker 1: life did you realize that you were going to be
Speaker 1: Uh did you grow up being like, I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: a wild life biologist? I did not, So you know,
Speaker 1: I listened a lot of your guys podcasts and talk
Speaker 1: to other people and stuff, and they're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I knew when I was a kid and super young,
Speaker 1: And you think I would have known because I started
Speaker 1: my first job. I worked at a greenhouse and I
Speaker 1: absolutely loved it and had it until I graduated, just
Speaker 1: just miss it was local. I worked at a local greenhouse,
Speaker 1: moving those damn flats everywhere, moving them outside, moving them inside,
Speaker 1: moving flats. I got it working, you know, playing stuff
Speaker 1: quick story about that. I think I might heads takes.
Speaker 1: I might told the story. I've never heard of greenhouse
Speaker 1: story that I can remember. You know what I killed
Speaker 1: here is a bird? Oh yeah. Birds act like when
Speaker 1: you get close to them, they try to lure you
Speaker 1: away from their nest back like they got a broken
Speaker 1: wing and just sly ship right a bird. We're out
Speaker 1: moving flat beach out of the beach. But this is
Speaker 1: like we used to put all the flats when it
Speaker 1: was time to move the flats outside, and you'd be
Speaker 1: moving out in, out in, and we moved them all
Speaker 1: out there, all outside. We had to move them all inside,
Speaker 1: and in one of them a killed deer made a nest.
Speaker 1: And there's thousands of flats out in this field. You
Speaker 1: could will find this. You can find this place on
Speaker 1: Google Earth. And we're picking up the flats and realized
Speaker 1: that there's a bird nest in one of the flats,
Speaker 1: the flat of like what do you call them, it's
Speaker 1: like a flatfold of the little pockets where the plants
Speaker 1: grow up, and we leave it out there. So we
Speaker 1: pick up whatever flats and leave the one flat with
Speaker 1: a bird nest sitting there, and I report to the owner, Mike,
Speaker 1: I say, we left that one because I killed here
Speaker 1: later nesting it, so we want to disturb it. I
Speaker 1: remember he got mad and walked out that thing out,
Speaker 1: carried it inside. Did it have eggs in it? I'll
Speaker 1: tell you. Yeah, he's just like a hard man flat anyhow,
Speaker 1: So you were interested, you had you had what E. O.
Speaker 1: Wilson calls biophelia. Probably I don't actually like an innate
Speaker 1: desire to like biophilia, right, love you, but in an
Speaker 1: innate desire to connect with other life forms. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I definitely thought I would have known back then, But
Speaker 1: I just I had no idea what I wanted to do.
Speaker 1: And I mean growing up, and I don't know if
Speaker 1: you experienced the same thing where I was at. It
Speaker 1: was it was agg so there was a lot of eggs,
Speaker 1: and I knew there was game wardens or conservation officers,
Speaker 1: but I had no idea about wildlife biologists and things.
Speaker 1: You know, you learned biology kind of the general sense,
Speaker 1: but we didn't have extra classes or anything similar to
Speaker 1: that to kind of give me an idea of what
Speaker 1: I would want to do. Um, I just kind of
Speaker 1: went with it, and I was like, well, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go and be a teacher and we'll just kind of
Speaker 1: go with that and see. And then ended up not
Speaker 1: being a teacher and got my associates and accounting and
Speaker 1: then finally I realized I wanted to be. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I ended up in Montana from Michigan because that's where
Speaker 1: I wanted to go to school. I initially wanted to
Speaker 1: go to Alaska, but my dad told me no because
Speaker 1: my mom told him no because that far away. Well,
Speaker 1: if I was moving to Alaska, dad was going to
Speaker 1: move there too. So there's a lot to hunt up there,
Speaker 1: and so you could have just done that deal. Like
Speaker 1: my brother lives there, so your dad could have hunted
Speaker 1: with you for everything. I feel like we got a
Speaker 1: backtack just a little bit, because I want to know
Speaker 1: if you had siblings, because I'm interested about how I
Speaker 1: know where going with this. I did not. That's why
Speaker 1: your dad hunted with you. What does that move to me?
Speaker 1: Because I was the only one that's true? Man? He well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't I can't remember the numbers, but yeah, basically
Speaker 1: like that, if females are to get into hunting via
Speaker 1: their dad, it's usually because they don't have a brother,
Speaker 1: firstborn or no brother. Oh man, that's what we were
Speaker 1: That's what we were told by someone who spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time with hunter demographics. Yeah, Dad's like, well,
Speaker 1: I gotta take her because I don't have any other choice.
Speaker 1: Old timey dad's I don't don't. I don't put it
Speaker 1: that way when I take out my girls hunting. But
Speaker 1: it's like I got to it's a reality hunting, buddy. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's a reality of how people historically, it's how a
Speaker 1: segment of the American population has historically treated who goes hunting.
Speaker 1: You're exactly right. I just think that you're misrepresenting the
Speaker 1: thoughts that are in the dad's head when he chooses
Speaker 1: to take his daughter hunting. I'm putting a fine point
Speaker 1: on something. I don't think that that's her father's I'm
Speaker 1: not say anything bad about your dad, but you understand
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. I'll back it up. Like in my family,
Speaker 1: all men, all of the men to some extent, participated
Speaker 1: in hunting and fishing, virtually none of the women. Really, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's just a thing. It sucks. It sucks. It's there
Speaker 1: are myriad reasons, many of them unjustified. You can't untangle
Speaker 1: it all, but it's just a reality. Of the people
Speaker 1: that buy a hunting license in this country are male,
Speaker 1: but less than fifty of the people that live in
Speaker 1: this country are male. So there, that's crazy. It's crazy
Speaker 1: to think about, especially and that's still now, Like those
Speaker 1: are accurate now, right, those are current numbers. So I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't think it's I don't think it's good.
Speaker 1: Just as far as what your father's motivations, I'm just
Speaker 1: teasing you. A guy that looks at demographics was telling
Speaker 1: us he's like an and he's like and when a
Speaker 1: woman does hunt, um, it's often that she has no
Speaker 1: male siblings. So you moved out to study accounting, Well,
Speaker 1: I moved out to Montana initially to do teaching, just
Speaker 1: because I didn't know, not knowing what I wanted to do.
Speaker 1: I thought maybe being a teacher and if I want
Speaker 1: to go back to school, I could take summer classes.
Speaker 1: But then I really didn't want to do that, and
Speaker 1: I actually and I started off at Carroll College in Helena,
Speaker 1: and I ended up dropping out my last semester. I
Speaker 1: just I don't think I was ready to go to college.
Speaker 1: It just had no idea what I was doing and
Speaker 1: moved back home while my parents were in Wolf Creek
Speaker 1: at the time, So they had moved and got the
Speaker 1: place in Wolf Creek, and so I moved back home
Speaker 1: with them Montana, and then I had just ended up
Speaker 1: going to the community college in Helena, and I went
Speaker 1: for accounting because well, there's tons of jobs and it
Speaker 1: makes good money. So if I didn't know what I
Speaker 1: wanted to do, and eventually figure it out, and I
Speaker 1: spent four years doing that. And we're totally cynical. You
Speaker 1: were totally sent You weren't like a romantic yet, No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I mean I loved hunting in the outdoors, but like
Speaker 1: I said, I didn't really know what existed actually until
Speaker 1: we moved to Montana and started talking to people about
Speaker 1: for service and we learned about the BLM. And because there,
Speaker 1: you know, there's not a ton of public land in Michigan,
Speaker 1: and so we're always hunting. There's a lot, but not
Speaker 1: where you're at right now. It's a lot of private
Speaker 1: We've always over by Area North it's shiploads. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: there's time. I never stepped foot on public land until
Speaker 1: I moved out West. Yeah, it's a meat and it's amazing,
Speaker 1: and it's so much to learn too, because, like I said,
Speaker 1: BLM and the ranches and everything that you go on.
Speaker 1: So just learning about all that and learning about you know,
Speaker 1: the game wardens and that there is wildlife biology and
Speaker 1: like I said, it took me about four years. But
Speaker 1: I also got rid of some negative influences and people
Speaker 1: who had been in the field but we're like, no,
Speaker 1: you don't want to do that because you don't make
Speaker 1: a ton of money and this and this and that,
Speaker 1: and I was like, well, what if this is something
Speaker 1: I really really wanted to do? And then I don't know,
Speaker 1: I just flipped a switch and started looking at schools
Speaker 1: and found Oregon State and that's where I ended up
Speaker 1: getting my wildlife degree. So excellent, Yeah, full on, you
Speaker 1: got a bachelor's degree, I did. Yeah, have you worked
Speaker 1: on a master's yet? Uh no, I'm working on it.
Speaker 1: My grades and my g r E scores are a
Speaker 1: little lower than what they're like because I I focus
Speaker 1: hardcore on getting work and getting a job and getting
Speaker 1: anton a field experience. And I studied as hard as
Speaker 1: I could, but I just didn't I don't quite make
Speaker 1: the cut for a g p A, so working on it.
Speaker 1: What do you mean that you can't go to grad
Speaker 1: school because you're g p A. Yeah, because it's low,
Speaker 1: it's a little lower than what they want. Really yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: no it's a big bummer. Um yeah, because I was
Speaker 1: so like these No, no, no, they were better than that.
Speaker 1: Just competitive field. It is super competitive. So you know,
Speaker 1: they mostly want people with three point or higher higher,
Speaker 1: and some people are even three point five or higher,
Speaker 1: and it's sweet out and because it's so competitive and
Speaker 1: the Gerrys are hard, I mean, it's taking the miserable man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I took years. They said, well, how long ago did
Speaker 1: you take? Because they changed and they changed all the
Speaker 1: scores and everything how they score them. I took the
Speaker 1: g R S and uh okay, yeah, so now they
Speaker 1: do a short smaller or smaller not a smaller scoring,
Speaker 1: but just kind of like they changed the S A
Speaker 1: T s over from the four hundreds to the whatever
Speaker 1: it is, a three or whatever, and now they've kind
Speaker 1: of changed them over it too. So I've taken it twice,
Speaker 1: painting the butt every time. Well we'll circle back around
Speaker 1: to that. Uh, that's horrible. Though that's I mean, it
Speaker 1: is what it is. Um. So then what what what
Speaker 1: was your first paid gig when you come out of
Speaker 1: school for biology? Well, I actually had a paid gig
Speaker 1: in school. So when I started. When I was at
Speaker 1: Oregon State, I was just networking like crazy, and there
Speaker 1: was a lady there who was doing some Marble Merlette
Speaker 1: stuff and she just needs somebody to do data entry
Speaker 1: and so it was completely volunteer and so I just
Speaker 1: did it. And from that I there was a job
Speaker 1: with Handcock Forest Management internship during the summer, and she
Speaker 1: um forwarded my name. She knew the biologists there, and
Speaker 1: everything turned to my resume and they hired me right away.
Speaker 1: So that was a paid position. So that was my
Speaker 1: first paid position. We were doing Pine Martin stuff, which
Speaker 1: was pretty good. Yeah, it was Super Bowl and I
Speaker 1: was on the coast of Oregon, which is awesome because
Speaker 1: there are a ton of black bears out there, and
Speaker 1: so even though I was looking for Martin's, I kept
Speaker 1: running into black bears and kept getting picked black bear
Speaker 1: pictures and just these huge bears, and I kept saying,
Speaker 1: is there any chance we're going to do any black
Speaker 1: bear and work over here? Just because it was so awesome.
Speaker 1: Black bears were coming in on the coast and they
Speaker 1: would just tear up everything. You know, you had you
Speaker 1: had you given up your bear hunting ways by then?
Speaker 1: Are you still a black bear hunter? No? I you know,
Speaker 1: I do like hunting black bears. It's not I don't.
Speaker 1: It's not like deer out though I don't want to
Speaker 1: do it all the time. I'd love to take one
Speaker 1: with my bow. I haven't taken one. Um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it would be really nice to take I mean in
Speaker 1: Oregon bear, especially a coastal bear, because there, you know,
Speaker 1: and they're just it's the it's so hard to haunt them,
Speaker 1: so it just makes it such a good challenge here
Speaker 1: you were just running into him though, Yeah, and they
Speaker 1: would be they would tear down. So we were putting
Speaker 1: a cat food in a just like a on a
Speaker 1: tree and kind of a makeshift little fencing to get
Speaker 1: the pine martin hair. Yeah, and then we had those
Speaker 1: um kind of thin but stuff to catch hair, um
Speaker 1: gun brushes and stuff nailed onto the tree to catch hair.
Speaker 1: And so they would go there. I've seen that. We
Speaker 1: be explain it real quick, what do you mean hair trap? Oh?
Speaker 1: So well, this everyone's a little different, so I know
Speaker 1: they do. They do sticky ones. They can do those
Speaker 1: two for like tracks, we didn't have those. He was
Speaker 1: setting up a gun brush one. Oh yeah, he was
Speaker 1: trying to catch because he after fish or links. I
Speaker 1: think it was links. You have your links hair. And
Speaker 1: he's setting up a rig meat Okay, he had a
Speaker 1: beaver wired it to the tree, just a skinned out
Speaker 1: carcass wired at two tree upon a ridge to up
Speaker 1: and then he then he screwed in all the screwed
Speaker 1: in all the gun brushes, like the brass gun brushes
Speaker 1: around it, so that any criter that went up and
Speaker 1: started wrestling with that frozen carcass was gonna certainly like
Speaker 1: a dog hair brush, leave a bunch of hair on
Speaker 1: the gun brushes and he had to get it up
Speaker 1: out of the snow. You know. Oh cool, And mine
Speaker 1: wasn't ask cool? Is that? But that's kind of that's
Speaker 1: the same thing. We had one on each that you
Speaker 1: were using cat food. Well yeah, I feel like we
Speaker 1: could have used something else, but the bears loved it,
Speaker 1: so it was great. But they would also tear down
Speaker 1: my camera. So we'd set up a camera, you know,
Speaker 1: just a tree away or so in a good spot,
Speaker 1: and then we have those gun brushes, one on each
Speaker 1: side and then one on the top, and then the
Speaker 1: I guess it was just some fencing that we put
Speaker 1: together in a poke holes in the calf food so
Speaker 1: they could smell it. And the pine martins like that
Speaker 1: they do. That's what they had. Um. I think they
Speaker 1: used that. So it was on a study somebody was
Speaker 1: doing with the Oregon State and she did some work
Speaker 1: I believe in California, and that's what they were able
Speaker 1: to do. But I just was I mean, I was
Speaker 1: getting bear after bear after bear coming into that caffood.
Speaker 1: Were you guys? Are there fishers in there? Were you
Speaker 1: getting fish? Your hair? No? I didn't get Like I said,
Speaker 1: all I ever got was bear hair. And my partner
Speaker 1: is the only bycatch was bear hair. Porcupine? Not a porcupine?
Speaker 1: Why was I thinking porcupine? Um? Why can't I think
Speaker 1: of it? Fine squirrel? No? What is it with the
Speaker 1: long They're cute when they're a little, but they have
Speaker 1: the long nose? Why possum? I was I thinking, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they have possums up there. It was really weird. And
Speaker 1: we got one. Yeah, he was so weird because I
Speaker 1: was like, what is that? Is that a Martin? It's
Speaker 1: got to be a Martin, and just by the size,
Speaker 1: and then it's nose and my buddy's like, no, that's
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. You take a possum fur and
Speaker 1: you get just the fur where his head's not involved,
Speaker 1: his feet aren't involved, his tail is not involved. Beautiful
Speaker 1: for really, you wouldn't believe it. The tail ruins it
Speaker 1: for people. Just a possum fur is gorgeous. What do
Speaker 1: you do do you sell it? It's yeah, they're not valuable.
Speaker 1: Look their leathers too thin. Okay, only like a really
Speaker 1: good I'll just talk with this with Seth earlier. If
Speaker 1: you can flesh a possum, you can flesh anything. Really
Speaker 1: very hard to not tear the hide on a possum.
Speaker 1: You definitely don't want to eat them, all right. People
Speaker 1: do a lot of possums because trapping fox possums by
Speaker 1: a lot of a possum by catch. But you didn't
Speaker 1: do anything with them or you just it's just hard
Speaker 1: to flesh. You can sell them in the green, but
Speaker 1: then you sell them in the green, they're like a
Speaker 1: dollar okay, because the all the work is fleshing them, right.
Speaker 1: But so you worked on that project, what else did
Speaker 1: you work on? And then I went in I worked
Speaker 1: at a hatcherty for with Oregon Department of Life. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was just a fun little intern internships three months.
Speaker 1: You know, it was fun. I don't know what they
Speaker 1: it's not. But when you pull out the eggs, I
Speaker 1: can't remember what. Yeah, when you just like pull out
Speaker 1: the you're like holding this huge fish and you're just
Speaker 1: squeezing these eggs out, I'm like, this is insane. You
Speaker 1: can feel them all and they're stelling. So that was
Speaker 1: pretty cool. And then I worked for Oregon Apartment of
Speaker 1: Fish and Wildlife. Again, I didn't another internship, but ended
Speaker 1: up with a job working on blacktail deer and that
Speaker 1: was a lot of fun. We darted them or we
Speaker 1: set up clover traps and clover traps. It's like a
Speaker 1: big walk in trap and it's crazy, but they do
Speaker 1: they wandering on. You just put a little bait pile
Speaker 1: in there and it's it's there's a string hooked to
Speaker 1: the door. So it's got a door that goes up
Speaker 1: and they when they cross, the string goes across on
Speaker 1: the bottom and when they cross like one of their
Speaker 1: legs crossed, the door drops down. They call it clover
Speaker 1: because it's clover shape. You're baiting with clover. No, we're
Speaker 1: not bating with clover. I actually don't know where the
Speaker 1: name came from. I never really asked that the trap
Speaker 1: is in shape like a cloth. No, it's just this big,
Speaker 1: and elk are bigger. They have bigger ones. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like the probably the size of this table, and
Speaker 1: then just kind of tall enough so deer can walk in.
Speaker 1: And then obviously elk are a little more bigger, and
Speaker 1: you're getting them in there with what corn? Yeah, we
Speaker 1: put down some corn. Yeah. Um. The hair trap and
Speaker 1: catching hair, did you did you wind up doing more
Speaker 1: of the hair because you had hair work when you
Speaker 1: had your mix up, you were doing grizzly bear hair. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that, aside from the pine Martin and the grizzly
Speaker 1: bear stuff, is about the only thing I've done with hair.
Speaker 1: I mean, we collect hair off of bears that I
Speaker 1: captured and um, Florida. But yeah, other than that, I
Speaker 1: haven't really done a ton of hair stare stuff. So
Speaker 1: being a wildlife biologist is tough, tough because it's like
Speaker 1: all these like temporary jobs, right it is, And they
Speaker 1: don't pay a ton of money, No, they don't. Um
Speaker 1: sometimes you get lucky, like Oregon to actually pay super
Speaker 1: well and if you can get in and network, and
Speaker 1: they're really great and they've got they're doing a ton
Speaker 1: of research. I actually just talked to my one of
Speaker 1: my old bosses there and he's got seven research projects
Speaker 1: going on, a couple of different elk projects, black Tail,
Speaker 1: white Tail, he's got a bear project, Fisher and he
Speaker 1: might have said Martin or something. I mean, he's just
Speaker 1: got so much going on. So there's a lot. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of jobs, but they're super competitive, and
Speaker 1: like you said, they don't pay as well. And some
Speaker 1: places don't even offer housing. So when I work for
Speaker 1: le Fishing Game, they don't really offer housing because they
Speaker 1: don't really have a lot of housing. But then they
Speaker 1: end up you know, in the area, and they pay
Speaker 1: a little more and I get to be a senior
Speaker 1: wildlife technician just because they don't, you know, offer housing.
Speaker 1: So I mean, some some places balance out. If you
Speaker 1: imagine all things this is gonna sound weird. I can't
Speaker 1: say all things being equal, is it harder? Is it
Speaker 1: still harder to make it in that field as a woman,
Speaker 1: that is, to make it in that field as a man.
Speaker 1: Or is it or is it it has evened out
Speaker 1: because it's so many government agencies. I say it's I
Speaker 1: say it's about even out. I I mean a lot
Speaker 1: of the a lot of my supervisors have been females. Um,
Speaker 1: but I've also worked for a lot of males. And
Speaker 1: in the department, especially in my office now it's fifty fifty,
Speaker 1: Like there's a lot of males, there's a lot of females.
Speaker 1: And um, I feel because of my work and everything
Speaker 1: that I have a lot of experience, and so they
Speaker 1: tend a I mean they base it off of experience.
Speaker 1: So I've never had an issue where it was like,
Speaker 1: like you feel like it's like in that field was
Speaker 1: like a meritocracy there. Yeah. Yeah, And then, um, it's
Speaker 1: not like a bro culture. I definitely think in some
Speaker 1: areas that there there can be you know, there's still
Speaker 1: that old time I guess bro culture if you want
Speaker 1: to say, But yeah, I still think it's it's around,
Speaker 1: and I think it's probably something we're always going to
Speaker 1: have to deal with and and work work with. And
Speaker 1: I mean some people are just setting their ways and
Speaker 1: that's okay, you know, And honestly it's just that's fine.
Speaker 1: I'll take a challenge, you know. That's a good attitude
Speaker 1: to have. How many years had you been doing field work?
Speaker 1: So four and a half now, which is crazy, okay,
Speaker 1: and all of it like no full time salary stuff,
Speaker 1: it's just piecemeal. Yeah, it's all been don't see. The
Speaker 1: hatchery was three months and that's the lowest one I've had.
Speaker 1: Other than that, they've been five six and then Idaho
Speaker 1: Fishing Game as many eight months. So who how did
Speaker 1: it come to be? Like, like, layout who you're working for?
Speaker 1: What you were doing when he got attacked? So I
Speaker 1: was working for US Fish and Wildlife Service and University
Speaker 1: of Montana, so the cooperation between the two and I
Speaker 1: was working in Libby, Montana. What was the job? The
Speaker 1: job was a grizzly so grizzly bear hair snare DNA technicians.
Speaker 1: That's kind of a long title. But so you see
Speaker 1: this job come up, where like how do you even
Speaker 1: become aware of the job? Well, I have been trying
Speaker 1: really hard, Like bears are my my goal and that's
Speaker 1: kind of my what I really want to do. And
Speaker 1: what I want to work with and somebody actually, so
Speaker 1: I knew somebody. He came to volunteer with us with
Speaker 1: Idaho Fishing Game and he happened to hear through the
Speaker 1: grapevine that there was going to be a job because
Speaker 1: he worked, so he had worked up in northern Idaho,
Speaker 1: and so he knew somebody who kind of knew somebody.
Speaker 1: He did a little bit of volunteering with my boss
Speaker 1: from US Facial modelfe Service, and so I met him
Speaker 1: doing some capture work and he's like, oh, yeah, by
Speaker 1: the way, they're going to be posting a job, and
Speaker 1: just kind of gave me a heads up, and I
Speaker 1: believe Yeah. He gave me Wayne Wayne's number, and I
Speaker 1: just contacted Wayne and was like, Hey, I heard you
Speaker 1: guys are gonna have some openings. Would love to, you know,
Speaker 1: talk with you some more. And he sent me over
Speaker 1: the the list and what they were gonna have was
Speaker 1: trapping technician and then DNA hair snarre assistant and so
Speaker 1: he sent me those over and I trapping would be
Speaker 1: like barrel trapping bears, uh, but hairson are not hair serious,
Speaker 1: but foothold that's what they use. Yeah, So I applied
Speaker 1: for both of those and did an interview and they
Speaker 1: actually didn't, so you know, Texas saying to him a
Speaker 1: lot of things and wind up on text. I don't
Speaker 1: know if he has. It's a huge job board, and
Speaker 1: if it goes on there, I mean it just goes insane.
Speaker 1: And they actually don't poste they don't post anything on there,
Speaker 1: so everything they kind of send to the university. So
Speaker 1: you have m M s U and I think you
Speaker 1: have ise. We're little send um the job descriptions and
Speaker 1: everything and so yeah, so I was super fortunate and
Speaker 1: just really wanted to be in there and then I
Speaker 1: got an interview and yeah, they told me the job.
Speaker 1: So how long did you have? How long will you
Speaker 1: work in the job before you got attacked? Three days?
Speaker 1: Are you serious? I know you did you go? Did
Speaker 1: you go into it? Try it? I'll get to that later.
Speaker 1: So you get the job and what okay, what's day
Speaker 1: one look like? So day one we get to kind
Speaker 1: of everybody is there. So it's the trapping technicians. It's
Speaker 1: there's three three biologists and then there's three trapping technicians,
Speaker 1: and then there's three hairs near and so we're all
Speaker 1: there and we're just doing safety, UM going over all
Speaker 1: the just kind of rules, protocols, things that need to
Speaker 1: get done. We didn't chainsaw safety and so that was
Speaker 1: that was three days of doing that. So the first
Speaker 1: day kind of everybody was just getting in, we're getting
Speaker 1: to know each other, and then the next two days
Speaker 1: we're just trainings. And like our last day, the three
Speaker 1: of us DNA hair snare text we went out and
Speaker 1: we just set up one just to kind of see
Speaker 1: if we had any questions or if there was anything
Speaker 1: that we need to So we set up a corral
Speaker 1: and then set up a couple of hair When you
Speaker 1: check some hair snares that were already out and where
Speaker 1: do you guys baiting grizzlies with? Um? They so the
Speaker 1: trappers bait them with road deer so anything, and then
Speaker 1: they kind of like mix them up. And that's what
Speaker 1: are you know when we do a corral in this center,
Speaker 1: is we put a lure and so it's basically blood
Speaker 1: and from road killing animals that they've had mixed up
Speaker 1: and everything and then a little road kill meat too. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: just like little chunks of it. And are you pretty
Speaker 1: precise about where you like? Are you when you place
Speaker 1: the hair snare. Are you trying to place it really good,
Speaker 1: like a really good spot or do you play some
Speaker 1: like semi randomly? Um the so the corrals are fairly
Speaker 1: random that Actually the hair snares most of them were
Speaker 1: already set out, so they've been i mean, have been
Speaker 1: doing this project for you're coming in on a free
Speaker 1: existing project. Yeah, so there's already stuff out there, but
Speaker 1: definitely I was looking for So if there was a new,
Speaker 1: fresh tree that had a ton of hair on it,
Speaker 1: I would definitely keep an eye out for new um
Speaker 1: areas to maybe move the hair snare. If nothing's acted acting,
Speaker 1: scratch and tree yourself, yeah, because it's just barbed wire
Speaker 1: that you cut. And so if I found something new
Speaker 1: that was looking better than the older one, I could
Speaker 1: move it. And um yeah some of the tree, I
Speaker 1: mean they were just this time, they were super tiny.
Speaker 1: Just the diameter was so small and there were just yeah,
Speaker 1: they would be so tiny, but you could just see
Speaker 1: where the hair was and it would just be you
Speaker 1: would just wrap barbed wire around it and yeah, there
Speaker 1: would be some hair there and I'm like, how does
Speaker 1: it How do they not break it? You know? But
Speaker 1: they're just kind of rubbing on it find rub trees
Speaker 1: that are grizzly, like to rub on that we're an
Speaker 1: inch grizzlies a black bears too. There's black bears out there,
Speaker 1: so we collect a lot of black bear hair too,
Speaker 1: because I mean you can't, yeah, you can't sort it out. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you were training up, did they training? Uh? Did
Speaker 1: you shoot some training ends of bear spray? We did once, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I have had I've done him before, so I've
Speaker 1: gone a lot of them that, you know, the be
Speaker 1: bear ware stuff and kind of shot the cans out
Speaker 1: there and they definitely gave I was like, you guys
Speaker 1: are giving us spray, right, and they said, yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: give you. Because one of my brothers used to work
Speaker 1: for the State of Alaska through the university system, and
Speaker 1: their protocol was pump shotguns with slugs. That was like
Speaker 1: what you were supposed to have with you. And he
Speaker 1: traveled everywhere, this is a while ago. Everywhere he went
Speaker 1: he carried amp. He carried a pump shotgun. Bear at
Speaker 1: all I had like a twenty four inch barrel with slugs,
Speaker 1: and you carried a pump that's like in Alaska with
Speaker 1: that community, that was what you did then when he
Speaker 1: switched to US Fish and Wildlife Service. It's optional, Oh,
Speaker 1: any of it. Spray, shotgun, pistol really yeah, taster's choice,
Speaker 1: but you have to have one. It's not optional to
Speaker 1: have any. You gotta have one. Okay, Okay, that my understanding. Okay,
Speaker 1: you know, I take that back. I think that that's true,
Speaker 1: but I don't want I don't want to say that
Speaker 1: that's true. Right, But um, I know he started using more,
Speaker 1: carrying spray more. Yeah, even though it's a hassle of
Speaker 1: flying and stuff sprays the hassle. Oh they carried it, well,
Speaker 1: I guess they're flying into You got to put it
Speaker 1: an ammel can and strapped to the struts on helicopters,
Speaker 1: you know, because no one wants to have one of
Speaker 1: those things ripped loose in a cockpit. Yeah. No, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be idea. Um, So you guys never talked about
Speaker 1: carrying shotguns or anything. No, we didn't. And I don't
Speaker 1: even know if carrying a gun. I may have asked
Speaker 1: the question, just I mean, I don't really carry a handgun.
Speaker 1: So we've always kind of carried bear spray, and that's
Speaker 1: a standard protocol mandatory carry spray for them. Yes, it's
Speaker 1: like in the role you were doing, it's mandatory spray. Yeah. Personally,
Speaker 1: where did you carry it? Where did you keep it?
Speaker 1: I actually had it on my chest, on my like
Speaker 1: on my left and right and right where that buckle meets,
Speaker 1: you know, on your left side. You just hang it
Speaker 1: off your backpack buckle. Yeah, yeah, I just have it
Speaker 1: right there, so it's kind of right right near me.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's the right place. I mean,
Speaker 1: every place is different. I think it's a smart place.
Speaker 1: I mean, uh, you know, talking to you, you know better,
Speaker 1: But in my mind, what could be better? Put on
Speaker 1: your chest? Well, you guys heard about the most recent
Speaker 1: attacking in this right and he if it sounded like
Speaker 1: maybe he had his on his hip. I don't know
Speaker 1: for sure. I didn't read the report. Okay, but he
Speaker 1: did have bearspray, which is super awesome. But I was
Speaker 1: wondering how he was carrying his, if it was on
Speaker 1: his hip or if it was on you know what.
Speaker 1: Some people do, They carry him like right on their hip,
Speaker 1: and it's just more convenient, you know what we used
Speaker 1: to do with them put him in the bomb in
Speaker 1: your backpack. I don't know. I'm feel like so stupid
Speaker 1: you it's in the lid of my pack, you know.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, I feel like you's still see it
Speaker 1: all the time, Like on just the hike contrails around here,
Speaker 1: you'll see bear spray on like on the outside of
Speaker 1: the backpack. Sure, it's kind of reachable if you're especially
Speaker 1: if you're a yogi and you're flexibly, you can get
Speaker 1: you a little bit easier. But still, but now what
Speaker 1: I do is the FHF harness has um what do
Speaker 1: they call that, like the molly or whatever, some strips
Speaker 1: on the bottom, and you can attach his bear spray
Speaker 1: cancer right underneath your binocular harness. So it's no, it's
Speaker 1: like the Molly system right where you have like, um,
Speaker 1: what do you call that? Woven nylon webbing, webbing, and
Speaker 1: you have like tax or you know, a tax strips
Speaker 1: in a row and you can the harness or the
Speaker 1: holster has like a little belt that runs through there
Speaker 1: and then back into itself. He tolds his hand canning
Speaker 1: down there in the same place. Yeah, yeah, man, one
Speaker 1: or the other right there, and you're like you have
Speaker 1: to get it where you can cross draw figure if
Speaker 1: you're in like a ball, right, or if you're in
Speaker 1: sort of a defensive fetal position, that's where your hands
Speaker 1: are gonna be. Is are gonna be near your chest? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, like I said, everybody puts it, some we're different.
Speaker 1: So it's just I think it's the motion of being
Speaker 1: able to get it out, because what if you can't
Speaker 1: because some of the times when you get those holders,
Speaker 1: even the ones that they have, yeah, they're super taps,
Speaker 1: So what if you can't get it out? You know,
Speaker 1: that's a good point. So in the morning, I gotta
Speaker 1: before we get there. I got a question because when
Speaker 1: I was reading through what you were doing, You're you
Speaker 1: just talked about catching bears and then tattooing bears. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and I want to know how and why you tattoo
Speaker 1: a bear. So so I wasn't a part of trapping,
Speaker 1: so I only did the DNA stuff, but I did
Speaker 1: assist after my accident they had I was going up
Speaker 1: to Livy to visit people, and they happen to have
Speaker 1: an augmented bear that was coming up, so lead foot
Speaker 1: to the ground and I was right, but we so
Speaker 1: we tapped to them on either side in case they
Speaker 1: lose their So sometimes the collars break off, fall off,
Speaker 1: or we take them off. And also we do put
Speaker 1: ear tags in them. So if they ear tags come
Speaker 1: out and the bear or if they bear gets eaten
Speaker 1: and a lot of that stuff is gone but the
Speaker 1: mouth is gone, then we can just flip that up
Speaker 1: and you can see the number on there. So we're
Speaker 1: basically so the tattoos on the inside of their cheeks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you you're pulling up and we did this on
Speaker 1: black bears in Florida too, and so you're just pulling
Speaker 1: up their cheek and you feel kind of bad, but
Speaker 1: you're essentially it's this tool and it has kind of
Speaker 1: not nails. I don't want to call them that, but
Speaker 1: you're able to put ink on it and then you
Speaker 1: just stick it up under their lip and and push
Speaker 1: it and it creates holes and it's a tattoo and
Speaker 1: it's got like their number one, so like an indelible
Speaker 1: mark that someone can they'll have it forever. Of course,
Speaker 1: get their lips. So Grizzly gets hit by a car
Speaker 1: out hundred miles away, you can tell that it was
Speaker 1: yours and he went that far. Yeah, because sometimes they
Speaker 1: don't call her um or even ear tag or maybe
Speaker 1: they just captured it and they're gonna move it or something,
Speaker 1: so they just you know, a tattoo is easier, they're
Speaker 1: just going to relocate it. And the only tattoo a
Speaker 1: lot of mountain lions when they relocate them to do
Speaker 1: they Yeah, because I've heard like when people talk about
Speaker 1: when a mountain line will turn up somewhere weird, you'll
Speaker 1: often read that they'll remark that had no tag too
Speaker 1: interesting on the outside or where they're tattooed interesting because
Speaker 1: it often times you have a problem animal and you
Speaker 1: relocate a problem animal, so you can sort of like
Speaker 1: look at recidivism, meaning is this problem animal or a
Speaker 1: problem animal or is he just happened to be in
Speaker 1: a bad situation. Yeah, you mark, you can mark them,
Speaker 1: and then like the next time it destroys someone's chicken coop,
Speaker 1: next time it destroys Yoni's chicken coop, Peele, it's lipped
Speaker 1: back and be like he's been trouble for and he
Speaker 1: was in trouble here, and he was trouble here. And
Speaker 1: then you know, you got a bear that's just not
Speaker 1: gonna or a line or whatever, it's not going to
Speaker 1: stay clear, right, which makes it easy too for then
Speaker 1: you because sometimes when you ear type things, I think
Speaker 1: people get a little nervous and it kind of they're like,
Speaker 1: well those things you're tagged, is it a problem? And
Speaker 1: so then you just do a tattoo then you kind
Speaker 1: of know and if there's any issues because you don't
Speaker 1: want to eat to scare the public or make him nervous.
Speaker 1: You know, is the bear that gut you tattooed? He
Speaker 1: was he was tattooed number seven seventy seventh or seven,
Speaker 1: which how cool is that? Yeah, seven seventies he's in
Speaker 1: a ridge, an old cabinet bear. He's twenty four years old. Well,
Speaker 1: he'll be twenty five this year. So you got attacked
Speaker 1: by a twenty four year old grizzly. Yeah, so what happened?
Speaker 1: Like lay out that day for me? Did did they
Speaker 1: so you gotta go out and check the hair snares
Speaker 1: by yourself? Did they give you GPS coordinates? Like how
Speaker 1: do you know where to go? Yeah? So they give
Speaker 1: us a map, so we have a couple of different
Speaker 1: maps and then we have a GPS that we also
Speaker 1: have a tab a tablet. I guess I don't use
Speaker 1: those very happen but they gave us the like what
Speaker 1: are we going to do with this? Where is it?
Speaker 1: And they're like, just just use it. I'm kind of
Speaker 1: a little old fashioned, so but like a digital map, yeah,
Speaker 1: like a tablet and everything. And I was like, man,
Speaker 1: this is fancy because I don't really get this. Very
Speaker 1: rare you get those in my job, you know, because
Speaker 1: they're pretty expensive. But so they gave me a tablet
Speaker 1: and everything and had an in reach so all the
Speaker 1: gear that I needed. And yeah, I was just you
Speaker 1: go out of the in reach. Do you know how
Speaker 1: to use get your tablet with the maps and all
Speaker 1: the points on them, and the GPS and GPS you
Speaker 1: know how to use that? Yeah? And your pepper sprain
Speaker 1: you know how to use that? Yeah? And you strike
Speaker 1: off up the trail. Oh yeah, so how far do
Speaker 1: you walk? Two miles? About two miles to your first
Speaker 1: hair snare? No, that was I had already collected maybe
Speaker 1: at least six Yeah, so starting you've been out knocking
Speaker 1: around already. Yeah, so it's been a couple of hours.
Speaker 1: I usually started my day at seven seven thirty just
Speaker 1: because it took a while to drive. It was, you know,
Speaker 1: a little far out of outside of Libby, like ten
Speaker 1: or fifteen miles and you got to drive up all
Speaker 1: the back roads and then um, my second day, I
Speaker 1: spent most of the day chains on, just using a
Speaker 1: chainsaw because there was just trees everywhere and it was
Speaker 1: so irritated. But so yeah, the third day, I'm just
Speaker 1: walking along and like I said, I'm what's it look
Speaker 1: like a lot of trees so complete National forest area?
Speaker 1: Just trees. Yeah, yeah, just a ton of trees. And
Speaker 1: there's a huge river, it's poor Man's Creek and it
Speaker 1: was roaring just the entire time for all the sea.
Speaker 1: Are you cutting trails with your chainsaw? Open the road?
Speaker 1: Actually road? Yeah, because I mean we're there so early
Speaker 1: and no one's cleared everything yet, yeah, which I was.
Speaker 1: I was actually stocked because somebody had drove drove down
Speaker 1: at one point, but then they decided to turn around.
Speaker 1: I was like gosh, And I spent three hours on
Speaker 1: the second day the road so many and then I
Speaker 1: had I don't know, it was a sixteen mile hike
Speaker 1: in so not sixteen miles both ways, so but I
Speaker 1: so I finished doing that and then I had to
Speaker 1: go in sixteen miles and I'm setting up this corral.
Speaker 1: So this is day two, but setting up this corral,
Speaker 1: and I'm just cursing up a store because it was
Speaker 1: not functioning with me the way I wanted it to.
Speaker 1: So of course I'm yelling to just in case of
Speaker 1: because I'm literally back in this super tight area just
Speaker 1: a lot of trees, and I'm looking around and finally
Speaker 1: get done and I'm heading out. I'm making a tone noise.
Speaker 1: I'm just like, oh, this is so dumb, and just
Speaker 1: like thinking about all the things I could have done differently,
Speaker 1: to just do better. And all of a sudden, I
Speaker 1: just hear this, all these trees and just this motion,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I got down pulled on my
Speaker 1: bear sprain. It just happened to be a black bear
Speaker 1: like running across the and I just scared him. Yeah
Speaker 1: that was day two, so I had already been running
Speaker 1: into bears, you know, But yeah, I scared him because
Speaker 1: he was eating on some berries and everything, and yeah,
Speaker 1: he took off bear. He wasn't nice bear. He was small,
Speaker 1: but he was still I mean color just jet black.
Speaker 1: And then I saw a couple more that day to
Speaker 1: really yeah, you know, in that unrelated to the bait. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: not even one of them ran right in front of
Speaker 1: my truck. Yeah, that's a bear rich zone. Man. Oh man,
Speaker 1: Livy is such an amazing area. Yeah, I love that area.
Speaker 1: Day three. Yeah, so I'm walking along the trail and
Speaker 1: like I said, making a ton of noise and just
Speaker 1: check in. Like I said, I think there was six
Speaker 1: maybe eight positioned along a footpath or so. It's an
Speaker 1: old forest road, but ton of like new growth had
Speaker 1: come up. So there was, like I said, those one
Speaker 1: inch two inch small smaller trees but they're super tall.
Speaker 1: But there's a path in there from people kind of
Speaker 1: hiking in and out, and you can tell it's an
Speaker 1: old forestry road. Yeah, And just walking along and just
Speaker 1: grabbing hair. And then I get to the one creek
Speaker 1: that the Loud Creek, and I was like, oh man,
Speaker 1: and they had to cross the bridge and everything, and
Speaker 1: I just kept thinking. I was thinking, I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: this is really loud. I gotta start yelling a lot
Speaker 1: louder because it was just rushing and you could run
Speaker 1: into them. And there's so many moose out there, which
Speaker 1: I was dying to find a moose ship, but that
Speaker 1: didn't really work out. So yeah, I just kept going
Speaker 1: and um got to there, I hit some snow and
Speaker 1: at one point, you know, my boss to me's like,
Speaker 1: if you hit a bunch of snow, you don't have
Speaker 1: to keep going, just we can go back to it
Speaker 1: in the next week. It will eventually be melted. But
Speaker 1: I was already walking and it was just on the trail,
Speaker 1: so it's no but I mean it was a foot
Speaker 1: high maybe from the half so but I was walking
Speaker 1: it along and it's kind of miserable in the spring
Speaker 1: and when it gets all soft and you sink down
Speaker 1: in it and with so man, Yeah, I didn't even
Speaker 1: think about snowshoes. But like I said, it was just
Speaker 1: on the trail, so I could kind of get off
Speaker 1: of it. And I actually found grizzly bear tracks on
Speaker 1: the snow and look down and I'm looking at it
Speaker 1: almost like, oh, they're a couple of days old. Wasn't
Speaker 1: super worried. Had they been fresh, I probably would have.
Speaker 1: I would have turned around, you know, just because he
Speaker 1: was walking the same way I was walking, and he
Speaker 1: or she, I should say, and got to my last
Speaker 1: hair snare and was taking some photos and then it yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a little bit, Yeah, there was some griz yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so you gotta kind of collect everything, and so there
Speaker 1: was a little bit of both. There wasn't enough to
Speaker 1: where I was like, you don't make an in field
Speaker 1: analysis about what it is, you just grab it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we just kind of I tried to. So we separated
Speaker 1: by barb that's on the literally the barbs that are
Speaker 1: on the wire, so kind of you know, there's like
Speaker 1: one O one one or two one or three. So
Speaker 1: we separated by those and we have different envelopes. And
Speaker 1: then when we come back, you go through the hair
Speaker 1: to turn remember black bear grizzly bear, and you can
Speaker 1: kind of determine out there. But sometimes, I mean, you're
Speaker 1: out there for so long it's just easier to do it.
Speaker 1: And back in the office, I'm surprised you're getting both
Speaker 1: hairs on the same tree. Why is that? What is
Speaker 1: because in the field and we've seen the both and
Speaker 1: both blacks and um brown bears on the landscape. It's
Speaker 1: like when that black bear realizes there's a grizzly in
Speaker 1: the area, they just high tail it. Well, they've got
Speaker 1: to pass at some point though, right, but they must
Speaker 1: smell that grizzly has been rubbing on that tree. And
Speaker 1: I would think that, yeah, subordinate. They'd always be like, no,
Speaker 1: I don't need to cause any look up and see
Speaker 1: him together. But yeah, a little bit like that, if
Speaker 1: he was in the zone and hanging around and scratching
Speaker 1: it up, that the black bear be a little apprehensive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess I didn't even think about that. I just
Speaker 1: figured out they're walking the same path, and maybe he
Speaker 1: smelled and he's like, well, I'm gonna rub on this
Speaker 1: tree too, and just kept walking. You really, like on
Speaker 1: the islands and Coastal Alaska, they don't overlap. Really on
Speaker 1: the islands, I didn't know that if it's suitable for
Speaker 1: brown bears, black pearers aren't there. Really, Yeah, my prayers
Speaker 1: are on an island, it's because it's not suitable habitat
Speaker 1: for grizzlies or brown bears. Wow, that's super interesting. I
Speaker 1: actually love the last I'd love to do some you know,
Speaker 1: in the interior they overlap, but they still you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, the grizzlies will kill him right right. Oh.
Speaker 1: I saw this video on Facebook that somebody posted, Yeah,
Speaker 1: to find one of the grizzly killing the black bear cubs.
Speaker 1: That sounds Oh, it is brutal. Isn't it. You'll give
Speaker 1: me nightmares. Really, it's just it's I watched it like
Speaker 1: too many times. How many times do you want? I
Speaker 1: haven't even digging out is digging out the den, fighting
Speaker 1: with the mom and she's just us here and she's
Speaker 1: like whack, she just whacks that. He's still he just
Speaker 1: like doesn't. He's like I He's like, lady, I do
Speaker 1: not care. I do not does he kill here's the
Speaker 1: grizzly killed? No? But does it killed us? Sound? He's like,
Speaker 1: I'm in here for the cubs to eat them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And she's like fighting and fighting and he just is
Speaker 1: so unbothered by it. It doesn't even affect him. No,
Speaker 1: He's like, I'm just here from one thing. Now, watch
Speaker 1: your cubs, which doesn't he doesn't care. Two of them,
Speaker 1: one of them break, one of them is nerves. One
Speaker 1: of them he loses his nerves and busts out of
Speaker 1: the den. And the sound and how long the sound
Speaker 1: goes on when that and that's a stout freaking grizzly
Speaker 1: And the hard party about is the two dudes filming
Speaker 1: it kind of right the tracks from the video they're speculating, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're no what's that dude that does all the narration
Speaker 1: for nature movies at Borrow? They're not okay? So there
Speaker 1: you are, you're out. You check a few snares. You
Speaker 1: see some grizzly tracks. Was it a whopper the track?
Speaker 1: They were pretty big. I don't know if I ever
Speaker 1: I mean, you go to Yellowstone you see big grizzly bears,
Speaker 1: but they were big to me, you know, they seemed
Speaker 1: pretty big. You're a good rule filmb is. Please tell me, well,
Speaker 1: I want you to verify it. Uh, you measure the
Speaker 1: front pad? What was it from the is it from
Speaker 1: the corner to like the just the width the front pad,
Speaker 1: just the top, and that'll tell you roughly knows the
Speaker 1: tail what the idle stretch out, not stretch out, but
Speaker 1: what it'll square out as. That's a duncan Gil Chris Trick. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you find a blackberries he's got a five inch pad.
Speaker 1: He's probably about a six foot bear. Really okay, that's
Speaker 1: good to me. I don't know if that. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that works on grizz I know that he
Speaker 1: talks about working on black bears and always used it
Speaker 1: as a rough estimate with grizzlies. Yeah, interesting might be off.
Speaker 1: They might have a proportionately larger foot Yeah, well and
Speaker 1: too got proportionately large clause, that's for sure. Are there
Speaker 1: tracks differently? How do they and depending on how they
Speaker 1: step in this stuff too, you know, like a black
Speaker 1: bear has got more of a doglike deal, where the
Speaker 1: toes don't fall in a real straight line, with the
Speaker 1: grizzlies toes falling a pretty straight line. And then obviously
Speaker 1: the claw mark will stick out at inch and a
Speaker 1: half two inches out. No, it was. It was definitely
Speaker 1: grizzly tracks. So you see him and you go like, wow,
Speaker 1: there's one back in here. Oh yeah, I thought it was.
Speaker 1: I mean I had been finding wolf tracks, blackbird tracks,
Speaker 1: moose tracks, everything. So I see him, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's super cool. There was one. Yeah, there was one
Speaker 1: back here. So I keep walking and I get to
Speaker 1: this kind of avalanche shoot area. It's pretty open and
Speaker 1: we're an avalanche shoots coming down off the hill down
Speaker 1: toward the trail. Yeah. Yeah, and it's just it's super open,
Speaker 1: not as um, not as many trees and more like
Speaker 1: bushes and things like that in there. Just walking down
Speaker 1: the trail and you know, I made some noise, I
Speaker 1: blew my whistle and just was looking to the right
Speaker 1: and looking around to another location. Yeah. So I was
Speaker 1: moving down the trail, just going to I think I
Speaker 1: had maybe four or five more snares hair snares to
Speaker 1: pick up, and I just heard this and I turned
Speaker 1: to my left and he's They ended up measuring it.
Speaker 1: He's about eleven feet for me from him. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: he's so old, he doesn't know what's going on anymore.
Speaker 1: I don't know if he didn't hear me, if he
Speaker 1: was laying down, or if he because of the I
Speaker 1: mean the ridge it dropped off and the ridge was
Speaker 1: right there. There was maybe a foot maybe two ft
Speaker 1: on the left hand side, and then it dropped off
Speaker 1: down to the creek. So I don't know if he
Speaker 1: was so I don't It wasn't like it was like
Speaker 1: a somewhat obstructed view in that direction. Yeah. Yeah, So, I,
Speaker 1: like I said, he might have been laying down or
Speaker 1: he was coming up as I was coming down and
Speaker 1: just didn't hear me, and I didn't see him, And yeah,
Speaker 1: it was just it was he already motor in your direction.
Speaker 1: He was well, he was eleven feet for me. So
Speaker 1: he really didn't have to go very far. But when
Speaker 1: you when you first registered him, he was stationary coming. No,
Speaker 1: he was standing right there like what excuse me? What
Speaker 1: are you doing here? Yes? Yeah, I know. He was
Speaker 1: right next to me on all fours, are up on
Speaker 1: his high on all fours, not looking happy. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was just I don't know if I would. He
Speaker 1: just was like I didn't know what I was. You know,
Speaker 1: he didn't have expression, um a little bit, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't even know if I a little bit, but
Speaker 1: nothing like you know what it would normally do. How
Speaker 1: many pounds was the bear? So when they first captured
Speaker 1: him in two thousand and five, I wait, and I
Speaker 1: also brought his family treaty, which was super cool. I
Speaker 1: wanted to know everything everything. So they captured him originally
Speaker 1: two thousand five, and they he was I think they
Speaker 1: put this in kilograms, two hundred fifty kilograms. I believe
Speaker 1: they put that on the whole thing. But anyway, he
Speaker 1: ended up being originally five fifty pounds. And so I mean,
Speaker 1: you figure, what thirteen years if how long has it been. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he had to have been I knew was springtime,
Speaker 1: but he had to have been at least six hundred pounds.
Speaker 1: I mean, he had to have gain some weight, you
Speaker 1: would think, so he was I would say he was
Speaker 1: probably least six hundred pounds. And how well did you
Speaker 1: register it? Like? How how? What was it just when
Speaker 1: you review in your mind? Now, was it like a blur?
Speaker 1: Was it like you just can remember every detail of
Speaker 1: the face. I can remember every detail. They showed me
Speaker 1: a picture and they sent me a picture of him
Speaker 1: when he was originally captured, and I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's him. Yeah, you could have picked him out of
Speaker 1: a police lineup with oh yeah, because he's he's a
Speaker 1: little darker. He's got kind of a darker um tone
Speaker 1: and his hair and just the face. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know what it was his just his face isn't
Speaker 1: engraved in my mind. And been in a lot of
Speaker 1: trouble in his life. No, No, he was not a
Speaker 1: trouble bear at all. He's born there. Yeah, he's an
Speaker 1: original cabinet bear. Yeah. So he's been popping out cubs
Speaker 1: and not him, but he's been siren cub yes yea.
Speaker 1: So also eleven feet away And then did you did
Speaker 1: you stay on it? Locked on it to see him
Speaker 1: start to lunge, or did you, like, did you kind
Speaker 1: of turn away and know somehow sense that it was coming.
Speaker 1: I knew I sensed that it was coming. There was
Speaker 1: I mean, I was so close to him that there
Speaker 1: was no way he wasn't going to come at me.
Speaker 1: And so my first initial reaction, which is kind of
Speaker 1: what they tell you not to do. But I mean,
Speaker 1: how often do people want of bears right there? All
Speaker 1: don't apologize all of the things about all you're supposed
Speaker 1: to do this. When you do you do this, it's
Speaker 1: like all that stuff goes out the door. Yeah, who's
Speaker 1: got that great saying? I think it's Tyson maybe saying
Speaker 1: it says that like everybody's got a plan until they
Speaker 1: get punched in the mouth. Isn't that? Oh? Is that what? Yeah?
Speaker 1: That's that is right? Yeah, always got a plan until
Speaker 1: get punched in the mouth. I think that's what it is.
Speaker 1: A friend of ours who um did the ran the
Speaker 1: one of the seal training Navy Seal training courses, Like
Speaker 1: that's the thing is we talked about this, where you
Speaker 1: can rehearse something in practice something, you can eventually get
Speaker 1: to a point where when it's real you've done it
Speaker 1: so much when it's not real and very real seeming
Speaker 1: situations that you can function when it's really but it's
Speaker 1: hard to it's hard to get there. And you being like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: if Bart comes from me, I used to joke that
Speaker 1: I was gonna grab his offer John lower John spread
Speaker 1: his mouth out so he couldn't bite a joke. But
Speaker 1: I'm saying like, there's no way. Yeah. Well, I love
Speaker 1: when all my guy friends are you know, and this
Speaker 1: was prior to everybody. All guys are like, oh, I
Speaker 1: could fight off a bear. I'm a bear fighter, and
Speaker 1: yeah I have Hello I say that to me, and
Speaker 1: you know, now this has happened and they're like, I
Speaker 1: don't think I'm as tough as you. And I was like,
Speaker 1: that is what it is. So you just but you
Speaker 1: just knew. Oh yeah, I knew. I mean just instantly.
Speaker 1: I just had a feeling. And what was the feeling? Um,
Speaker 1: why I don't I just knew he was coming to me. No,
Speaker 1: I didn't. There was no time for fear, there was
Speaker 1: no time to realization. Yeah, and I was like, this, okay,
Speaker 1: this is it. We're I'm gonna I'm gonna figure this
Speaker 1: out and I'm gonna survive. Like, my thought process was,
Speaker 1: I'm getting out of here, and I did everything that
Speaker 1: I could, so I ended up you know, when I
Speaker 1: heard him saw him. I mean, this is second. So
Speaker 1: I took so much time. I turned to the right
Speaker 1: and like got by a bush and just dropped down
Speaker 1: to the ground. And before I was even down all
Speaker 1: the way, I mean, he was already at my back
Speaker 1: and I had a pack on. He had smacked my back,
Speaker 1: clowed up my arm, and I you know, I had
Speaker 1: my bear spray here. But my thought process was he's
Speaker 1: not going to tear up my guts, Like I'm walking
Speaker 1: out of here, and so that's why I turned and
Speaker 1: just dropped like as much as I could. And I'm
Speaker 1: just on around and just trying not to move any
Speaker 1: muscle in my body getting this bear spray out. And
Speaker 1: I finally got it out and had the cap off,
Speaker 1: and I'm literally like over how over what period of time?
Speaker 1: A split second? Oh, this is like three seconds between
Speaker 1: just between him coming there. It might have even been
Speaker 1: a second. I mean the first physical contact felt like
Speaker 1: him blowing you with his arm. Oh he did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought I broke a rib when I was walking out,
Speaker 1: like I thought he essentially broken. Oh yeah, because he
Speaker 1: just came up and just whacked me and just like
Speaker 1: clawed up my arm and I was like, I'm just
Speaker 1: working on my right arm. So on the back didn't
Speaker 1: make it three your clothes it, did? You know? I
Speaker 1: had three layers? Uh? Yeah, I had three layers on,
Speaker 1: I believe three long sleeve layers on, and I got
Speaker 1: a rain jacket, and then I had this Columbia long
Speaker 1: sleeve shirt on, and then I had another just kind
Speaker 1: of like a thinner must have been a short sleeve
Speaker 1: shirt on, but still they were all fairly long. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it made it through. And there's actually tears in my
Speaker 1: rain jacket and then on my right side of my back,
Speaker 1: so right below like my shoulder blade kind of area,
Speaker 1: there's still scar and everything. So he made it through that.
Speaker 1: And I had a pack on. I had a huge
Speaker 1: osprey pack on, and he still somehow was I mean
Speaker 1: that stuff. Yeah, the bruise was huge. I mean how
Speaker 1: he made it through And there's even a there's even
Speaker 1: a gash on my pack on the top part of that,
Speaker 1: you know, that top part, there was a gash on that.
Speaker 1: I was like, how did he even do? That like
Speaker 1: about they could like they can run behind the elk
Speaker 1: and swap the elks rump and topple the elk. Dude,
Speaker 1: you could cock back as hard as you could ever
Speaker 1: hope to cockback and punch your elk in the rump
Speaker 1: and it will not register the blow. Its legs out
Speaker 1: from underneath it with a blow of that arm. Insane.
Speaker 1: So you feel that, and did you? Were you like, oh,
Speaker 1: I just got whapped or cut or clawed. It was
Speaker 1: just to just feel like this overwhelming kind of blow. Oh,
Speaker 1: I mean I knew he hit me when he hit me.
Speaker 1: He hit me, I was like, all right, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: keep going, like I'm gonna pull this bear spray out
Speaker 1: and you already got in your head to get your spray.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean I was working like focused. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was working on it, and I just was trying
Speaker 1: not to move these arms at all because because of
Speaker 1: what reason, Because he was I mean he was on top,
Speaker 1: so he was right there, and so any move, I mean,
Speaker 1: any movement and they see that, I just want to yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just trying not to move. And that, I mean
Speaker 1: that part was where I was like, just just pull
Speaker 1: it out. Just do it. And then I took that
Speaker 1: you know, that clear cap off, and that's when, yeah,
Speaker 1: the safety and that's when he had reached over and
Speaker 1: bit down on my head and I just reached over
Speaker 1: my left arm sprayed him and he took off, sprayed
Speaker 1: him over your shoulder while he's biting your over my shoulder. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you got yourself, I did. Yeah, So it actually
Speaker 1: I mean because he was I don't he had to.
Speaker 1: He was on my pack. Were you on your knees? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I was sitting on my butt and just kind
Speaker 1: of had my legs out to the side and your
Speaker 1: butt like with your legs out, I did, Yeah, how
Speaker 1: I don't. I mean I just ended up down there.
Speaker 1: But yeah, and he goes he bites your head. Does
Speaker 1: Is that the first bite? Yeah? That was and the
Speaker 1: only bite, which is crazy because I had fruit snacks
Speaker 1: and all kinds of stuff in the top part. You
Speaker 1: think he would have gotten into the top part of
Speaker 1: the bag and or like pulled the but he was
Speaker 1: just I don't know what, I'm neutralizing a threat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he just kind of went over and it wasn't
Speaker 1: because I've had people ask me what was the bite
Speaker 1: and I was like he just bit down on my head,
Speaker 1: and I mean I didn't feel any I literally didn't
Speaker 1: feel anything. I heard stuff crunch, and then the hearing
Speaker 1: went out on my left ear. But I was so
Speaker 1: like I said, I was going to get out, So
Speaker 1: I just literally reached over sprayed him and he just
Speaker 1: shot blind. Nope, just shot blind. Closed my eyes sprayed,
Speaker 1: and I felt him come off of me and he
Speaker 1: he went, he went away. That was it. It's so
Speaker 1: what was the You're hearing went out right away instantaneous
Speaker 1: and it was replaced by like a yeah, like static noise. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So what was the wound? Did he did he make
Speaker 1: it through your skull? He did so. Um, one of
Speaker 1: his canines actually punctured my brain. So I went into
Speaker 1: my brain. Um, by the way the doctor and she's
Speaker 1: pretty sure, she goes ahead to have been by the
Speaker 1: way it was shaped. Everything ended up going into my brain.
Speaker 1: And so from kind of just below my eye on
Speaker 1: my left side, and then it wraps around and there's
Speaker 1: a there was a decent hole on this side and
Speaker 1: then it goes all the way to the back and
Speaker 1: I had staples all the way just right before my
Speaker 1: right ear on the back side. So this whole you know,
Speaker 1: your back, your head, that whole lower part where all
Speaker 1: that muscle, all that muscle attendants were all shredded, like
Speaker 1: all that stuff was Sure did he buy it? Like
Speaker 1: cross wise or like? That? Was my next question? You know,
Speaker 1: I honestly don't know. So I also got I had
Speaker 1: about six staples on the top of my head, so
Speaker 1: there was some kind of scrape. So I think maybe
Speaker 1: the top part might have been like his upper right canine,
Speaker 1: and then the rent this side was the left side
Speaker 1: of his mouth, and then probably the backside was his
Speaker 1: bottom jaw and he was literally just like so I
Speaker 1: think he was kind of on his side, just like
Speaker 1: a forty five degree sort of angle. Yeah, wrapped around
Speaker 1: you like fit your head in his mouth? Oh yeah essentially. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Um you heard crunch, crunch, Yeah, I did, like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's my skull. You know, honestly I didn't know. I wasn't.
Speaker 1: I was so focused on getting him off of me,
Speaker 1: I thought, but I wasn't for sure, Like I assumed
Speaker 1: it was my skull because I was like, what else
Speaker 1: would it have been? But I didn't know that it
Speaker 1: had correct open all the way. I mean, you hear it,
Speaker 1: and then like I said, it was white noise in
Speaker 1: my ear and all this static and so after that,
Speaker 1: I didn't really think about it, like I just with
Speaker 1: all those tendons gone, did you was it? Like? Did
Speaker 1: you notice that your head was hard to hold or
Speaker 1: move or I didn't. I tried not to move my
Speaker 1: head too much, just because I, like I said, I
Speaker 1: wasn't sure that what he correcked open and he but
Speaker 1: I knew that he had touched my head. So I
Speaker 1: just tried not to move my head. And but it
Speaker 1: was hard walking out because I want to put your
Speaker 1: hand back there to see how much blood there was
Speaker 1: at one point. So I had a hat on to
Speaker 1: mind you, and I had super long hair, so my
Speaker 1: hair was super long all the way down to my
Speaker 1: lower back, and I had a ponytail in and had
Speaker 1: a hat on, and I hadn't even found I was
Speaker 1: walking out and my hat happened to fall out of
Speaker 1: my hair, and I was like, oh, that's my head,
Speaker 1: that's really weird. I picked it up and put it on,
Speaker 1: and then I was just walking out, like I just
Speaker 1: why did you not check to see you if it
Speaker 1: was all super bloody? I didn't want to know, you
Speaker 1: know what's funny this? This is like, no, I shouldn't
Speaker 1: even be telling this story because your story is coolness, isn't.
Speaker 1: I was in a car roll over one time and
Speaker 1: I had just bought a coffee and when the car
Speaker 1: got done rolling over, my head was all hot from
Speaker 1: the coffee and I was like, oh, my head cracked
Speaker 1: open and that's all my blood. And then I touched
Speaker 1: it and looked and there's no blood and I was like,
Speaker 1: that's weird. And I touched it. I'm like, oh, it's
Speaker 1: that coffee. And I was like totally fine. For a minute,
Speaker 1: I had like the feeling of my life blood. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: all the blood. I was like, oh, there's actually nothing
Speaker 1: wrong with me. Well, at least you didn't get any
Speaker 1: burns from the coffee, and that's what you are. You
Speaker 1: don't put your hand back there. But it hadn't been
Speaker 1: bleeding bad, right, probably? I mean, are you later shocked
Speaker 1: as your whole jacket and everything just soaked through? You know, honestly,
Speaker 1: I really don't know. So when lost all your gear, No,
Speaker 1: it was all with me. So I still had my pack,
Speaker 1: I still had everything. I literally, Oh yeah, so they
Speaker 1: they cut yeah, they cut so they were able to
Speaker 1: well that's not true. They were able to take my
Speaker 1: rain jack off, and they just kind of took everything
Speaker 1: for me, like the rest of my clothes they had
Speaker 1: essentially had to cut off of me. So how many
Speaker 1: stitches and staples I had I used to meet on
Speaker 1: the number. We're getting too far ahead. I don't know
Speaker 1: how far The walkout was two, So I know you
Speaker 1: you're in shock. I don't know what that. I mean.
Speaker 1: I almost I almost didn't hit the entry because I
Speaker 1: was fine and I could see. And so I'm literally
Speaker 1: sitting there and I sat there for pepper spraying your face? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't really tell right away, but I could
Speaker 1: definitely feel it, and I didn't know for sure, um,
Speaker 1: but I just sat there for a couple of seconds,
Speaker 1: just waiting, and then I was like, okay, like wait
Speaker 1: for him to come back, yeah, to see if he
Speaker 1: was going to come back. And he wasn't coming back.
Speaker 1: So I just looked around and I pulled on my
Speaker 1: ranch and I'm like, God, this is my third day.
Speaker 1: Do I really hit the SS button on your third day?
Speaker 1: You know? And I was like, well, what if I
Speaker 1: end up not being able to make it out and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I guess I'll hit it. But
Speaker 1: I literally debated it for at least probably five to
Speaker 1: ten seconds. I'm talking about it. You debated it like now,
Speaker 1: it seems funny that you debated it because you weren't
Speaker 1: in your right mind or you debated it like a
Speaker 1: rational person. It's definitely rational, just because it was my
Speaker 1: third day and who wants to call the s O
Speaker 1: and Greening like this was probably I shouldn't say probably,
Speaker 1: this was a decent size injury, but who wants to
Speaker 1: It's your third day and you're already hitting this a
Speaker 1: West button and you're like, man, So you didn't register
Speaker 1: it as something that kind of life changing. I mean
Speaker 1: when I walked out of there, I was like, I'll
Speaker 1: be I'll be back to work in a month. I
Speaker 1: didn't really think I was going to not be able
Speaker 1: to go back to work for four or five months,
Speaker 1: which isn't long. I mean, people have That's what I mean,
Speaker 1: This isn't. It was pretty bad what happened, but I'm
Speaker 1: super fortunate to have healed up as much as I
Speaker 1: have and everything. Yeah, get him in a lot worse
Speaker 1: because he could have added probably twenty pounds or who
Speaker 1: knows how many pounds of pressure would have taken and
Speaker 1: crushed your skull altogether. And yeah, which was very and
Speaker 1: it was like or you could have had your pepper
Speaker 1: sprain is stupid place. Yeah, well that's and that's why
Speaker 1: I said, I don't know if I had it in
Speaker 1: the right Maybe I didn't. Maybe, I mean, yeah, how
Speaker 1: do you Everybody puts it in a different place, And
Speaker 1: like you said, you practice and everything, but until you're
Speaker 1: actually in this situation. And I always knew I was
Speaker 1: going to run in because I run into black bears,
Speaker 1: so I always figured I would see a grizzly. Even
Speaker 1: though there's not a ton up in the cabinet yack area,
Speaker 1: there's still quite a few bears, so I always knew
Speaker 1: I would run into them. Never once did I think
Speaker 1: that one would be a loving fee for me, Like
Speaker 1: what what was the walk out? Like? Um? So it
Speaker 1: was mainly just me just trying to focus and I
Speaker 1: you know they say that you can use we need
Speaker 1: service because in Libby, Yeah, and it wasn't working. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's because I had a ton
Speaker 1: of trees and everything, but I had hit the end reach,
Speaker 1: and I was just I was literally just messaging anybody
Speaker 1: I could, just trying to remember, and I was looking
Speaker 1: around and I yelled pretty much the entire time, and
Speaker 1: I only had oh it was just cussing and yelling
Speaker 1: and screaming bear, I don't. I was literally yelling anything
Speaker 1: to try to keep the bear away or try to
Speaker 1: alert help, you know, to keep any more bears or
Speaker 1: moose from coming my way. The other thing done, You're
Speaker 1: done for the day. Yes, yeah. I turned around. I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, I'm gonna step out the case, you know.
Speaker 1: So it was just me just I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make it out. And I just kept walking and
Speaker 1: just yelled and made as much noise as possible. And
Speaker 1: I mean I just screened my lungs off, which at
Speaker 1: the time I didn't really feel anything, but towards you know,
Speaker 1: the end, once I got to surgery and everything, my
Speaker 1: head was just throbbing. But when I was getting down
Speaker 1: to that bridge, because it's so loud down there, I
Speaker 1: just kept thinking, please, don't let another bear be down here.
Speaker 1: Just let me get out because I didn't I didn't
Speaker 1: have a second can of bear spray. It's only hand
Speaker 1: maybe half an inch if that. I barely had any
Speaker 1: bear spray lat But I've got that in my hand,
Speaker 1: and I've got my in reach in my hand, and
Speaker 1: I'm just yelling and screaming and if I can wacken
Speaker 1: trees with whatever, and cursing up a storm like this
Speaker 1: is my third day. And I thought I was literally
Speaker 1: like I would have find a moose shut out here
Speaker 1: right now, you know, just doing anything I can to
Speaker 1: just give myself. No. I was walking pretty fast, as
Speaker 1: fast as I could, so my balance was thrown off
Speaker 1: a little bit. I could see and I could hear
Speaker 1: for the most part out of my want my right ear,
Speaker 1: my good ear, um, but my balance was kind of
Speaker 1: thrown off some. So I was like, because he bit
Speaker 1: me on the side, I guess where your balance is
Speaker 1: and everything, and so they've been super worried about that,
Speaker 1: and and so I was off balance and could tell
Speaker 1: like I was a little off, so I kind of
Speaker 1: like spread my legs a little bit and walk in
Speaker 1: a different way. But I was walking as fast as
Speaker 1: I could just to get I needed to get out
Speaker 1: of there, and you got to your truck or car.
Speaker 1: I got to my truck. So we would work trucks
Speaker 1: that they gave us, and I took off my pack
Speaker 1: and put everything in there, and I actually took out
Speaker 1: a snack and I was like, well, they're probably not
Speaker 1: gonna let me eat at the hospital, so I better eat.
Speaker 1: Something got in my truck and I looked in the
Speaker 1: rear view and I was like, I don't need to
Speaker 1: see that started it up in the mirror my eyes.
Speaker 1: Oh you did, like examine. So when I was walking out,
Speaker 1: you know, you're talking about blood and everything, my nose
Speaker 1: was running like crazy and that that's about the only
Speaker 1: thing that I could tell running blood or No, it's
Speaker 1: just draining because you know, my ear had been and
Speaker 1: everything and where he had bit me, so it was
Speaker 1: just draining. And I was like, that's super weird. So
Speaker 1: I didn't know why, and then yeah, it was really
Speaker 1: and that's about the only thing. And attempted to look
Speaker 1: but just didn't want to look. Yeah, no, because I
Speaker 1: was like, well, I mean animal blood. I'm good with
Speaker 1: people blood. I'm fine, like I give blood and everything,
Speaker 1: but I'm like, you know, just in case, I don't
Speaker 1: need to pass out or anything, So I'll just started
Speaker 1: the truck up, put in reverse and got out. I
Speaker 1: just started driving out there, and like I said, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna like you're able to drive normal? Yeah, yeah, for
Speaker 1: the most part. I it was a little tough. Like
Speaker 1: I was sitting a little higher, sitting a little closer,
Speaker 1: just trying to make sure, rolled down my windows and
Speaker 1: just started honking my horn because I was like, there's
Speaker 1: gonna be somebody here. And I literally just laid on
Speaker 1: my horn. And then when I finally got to because
Speaker 1: I was on an old forestry road there too, I
Speaker 1: had kind of stopped, and once I finally got into
Speaker 1: the main road, which was all dirt, I was literally
Speaker 1: gunn did a little more and I was just honking,
Speaker 1: honking like crazy, looking for anybody because I figured there
Speaker 1: would be a bear hunter or somebody out there and
Speaker 1: end up, you know, I probably drove for three or
Speaker 1: four miles and ended up running into somebody. And he
Speaker 1: was way ahead of me, and he's got this huge
Speaker 1: dog in his truck and I'm pretty sure it was
Speaker 1: a bowl massive and the dog is hanging out of
Speaker 1: the passengers. He's like, hey, we should probably pull over, dad,
Speaker 1: Hey what are you doing? You know? And he's just
Speaker 1: hanging on the sea and I'm a honking my horn,
Speaker 1: honk my heart, trying get them pull over. Finally he
Speaker 1: pulls over. I pull over and I get out and
Speaker 1: put the truck and park, get out, and I just
Speaker 1: walked up to him and like, excuse me, and he
Speaker 1: looks at he goes, oh, dear, are you okay? I said,
Speaker 1: I got a text bikers lay beer. Could you maybe
Speaker 1: take me in the local hospital? And he goes, of course.
Speaker 1: And I went and turned off the truck, roll off
Speaker 1: on the windows, lock the truck, and put my keys
Speaker 1: in my pocket and I went and got in the vaca.
Speaker 1: He goes, I'm sorry, my dog is probably just gonna
Speaker 1: love on you. And he's like trying to hold him back.
Speaker 1: And he was a retired veteran and everything, so he'd
Speaker 1: been to the military, super nice, and um, he's just
Speaker 1: talking to me and just trying to keep me you know,
Speaker 1: he's talking about stuff. But I could try to administer
Speaker 1: any first aid. No, He's like, no, I'll get you there,
Speaker 1: he's like, And I was like, I hit my in reach,
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure if they're coming, Like I had
Speaker 1: no idea if anybody was coming. You hit that SLS
Speaker 1: button and they kept sending me text like are you okay?
Speaker 1: And and I'm like, no, I'm not okay, Like you
Speaker 1: hear that, How am I going to text you? I
Speaker 1: don't even have certain you know. And so I was
Speaker 1: super frustrated with that, and so he kind of knew
Speaker 1: what was going on, and he was just trying to
Speaker 1: get me there, and just you could tell him that
Speaker 1: doesn't inspect, you know, because you were talking it up.
Speaker 1: He was, yeah, because I think that enough, And like
Speaker 1: I said, I hit the end reach. I think he
Speaker 1: thought that the abudence was probably coming, you know. So,
Speaker 1: but minutes had gone by now gosh. So it took
Speaker 1: me an hour and a half, maybe hour and forty
Speaker 1: five minutes to get back down to my truck. So
Speaker 1: it'd probably been to almost two and a half hours
Speaker 1: at the time. We went for about a mile mile
Speaker 1: and a half, and ambulance we were like running into
Speaker 1: me and he's waving them down, waving them down, and
Speaker 1: then he finally pulled over and he's like, I got her.
Speaker 1: I got her, and they pulled over and everything, and
Speaker 1: I out out and what was their take on what
Speaker 1: they do? Oh? What, I guess what they're supposed to do.
Speaker 1: They're just like, okay, you gotta take off your jacket, okay,
Speaker 1: cutting off your shirt, and they just started, okay, we're
Speaker 1: gonna have to take off your you know, all your clothes,
Speaker 1: like let's kitchen and and they're just looking at me
Speaker 1: over and everything. And then they finally like they're asking
Speaker 1: me what happened and everything, and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I was out there. Are you sure it was a
Speaker 1: gris of bear. Yes, it was a Crisso bear. I
Speaker 1: know it was, you know, And I was like, I
Speaker 1: know my bears. And they got me in there, and
Speaker 1: then I believe the sheriff and two other guys showed
Speaker 1: up while I was in the ambulance and they were
Speaker 1: asking me questions and about kind of what happened and everything,
Speaker 1: and I just told them and told him where it was,
Speaker 1: and they actually, if they believe us, that day, they
Speaker 1: ended up sending I don't know, at least eleven people
Speaker 1: up there to just kind of do a search to
Speaker 1: see if the bear had come back. And they have
Speaker 1: this whole protocol that they go through and they ended
Speaker 1: up collecting hair and that's how they were able to
Speaker 1: determine which bear it was. How was the decision made
Speaker 1: they were, how was the decision made to not kill
Speaker 1: the bear? Well, because if you didn't press charges, no, no,
Speaker 1: because it wasn't you know what I mean, usually want
Speaker 1: to bear get someone it's a dead bear. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, and I don't know all of the stories,
Speaker 1: and I don't know the whole protocol, but I do know.
Speaker 1: I mean, they did ask me, and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: it wasn't predatorial, I wasn't it. We just happened to
Speaker 1: run into each other, and and he was yeah, because
Speaker 1: I mean that's so I would. I don't want him
Speaker 1: to die. I mean it was so random and so rare,
Speaker 1: and the bear spray worked, so I think that has
Speaker 1: a whole play in it too. So he attacked me
Speaker 1: and something happened, but I survived and the bear spray worked,
Speaker 1: which mean and he's not a troubled bear, so they don't.
Speaker 1: They rarely see him except for the DNA stuff, and
Speaker 1: so there's no there's no other issues with him. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's no really reason to kill him, you know. So
Speaker 1: he's the first, I guess, the first offense kind of bear,
Speaker 1: which sounds I guess it doesn't sound terrible, but at
Speaker 1: the same time. It's like, who's to say that it's
Speaker 1: going to happen again. I mean, it was just such
Speaker 1: a rare occurrence. You know so well. Were you were
Speaker 1: involved in the discussion? Um? I did. They did ask me,
Speaker 1: and I told them. I told I don't know if
Speaker 1: I was involved, but I didnt tell them. I didn't
Speaker 1: want them to kill it, like I was the question
Speaker 1: to you, Oh gosh, well I was. I wasn't even
Speaker 1: in surgery. And they just kind of asked me. They
Speaker 1: asked me what happened, and they said, do you think
Speaker 1: it was predatorial? And I said no, I said, we
Speaker 1: just ran into each other. It was just wrong place,
Speaker 1: wrong time. Yeah, And then they kind of make the
Speaker 1: final decision. Like I said, the fact that he didn't
Speaker 1: come back to the site, wasn't searching, or wasn't still
Speaker 1: there trying to find me. I think puts it plays
Speaker 1: a big role in it. You know, what was his name?
Speaker 1: Seven seventy But I call him rat bastard? Am I
Speaker 1: allowed to say that. I mean, I didn't want him
Speaker 1: to die, but he's still you know, he still made
Speaker 1: me a little set right. You weren't exactly running at him.
Speaker 1: He could have just turned and walked away half him right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wasn't asking for his food whatever he was digging for.
Speaker 1: You know, what was the what was the surgery? They
Speaker 1: had to put your skin back together, um skin, skull, bones,
Speaker 1: kind of everything, a little plate in there they actually
Speaker 1: put So there's a bunch of screws and kind of
Speaker 1: they call them dog bones, but their bands or plates,
Speaker 1: and it's there's just a bunch in my left side,
Speaker 1: and then there's a bunch in the back on my
Speaker 1: left behind my ear, and yeah, they just that they
Speaker 1: had to do. So there's a bunch of broken pieces
Speaker 1: of my skull because you know, he had punctured my
Speaker 1: brain everything. And then they had to cut kind of
Speaker 1: like a moon shape on the left side of my
Speaker 1: skull just so that they could put the other pieces
Speaker 1: back together and then kind of put it all back together.
Speaker 1: So there's no there's like plates. They call them bones,
Speaker 1: but they look like bands. So it's just like screw
Speaker 1: band screw, screw band screw and it's just keeping all
Speaker 1: the pieces and everything together. How much time do you
Speaker 1: spend in the hospital. Only a week? Yeah, so that
Speaker 1: wasn't too bad. Now, what have you noticed from like
Speaker 1: because you punched into your brain. Do you notice differences now?
Speaker 1: I don't. I actually I was super fortunate that. I
Speaker 1: mean I didn't. I was a little nervous I was
Speaker 1: going to lose something. When someone tells you that, you
Speaker 1: started looking at yourself in a new way, like expecting
Speaker 1: some or hoping you don't find some. Like remember buddy
Speaker 1: of mine, you know, he'd crashed his bike real heart
Speaker 1: and had amnesia and was hospitalized, and he would later
Speaker 1: I'm totally fine, but now and then I'll be tying
Speaker 1: and not efficient not or something like that. I know
Speaker 1: that I know this, not you just can't. Did I
Speaker 1: normally forget it? Or is it related? Because I knew this,
Speaker 1: I've tied this a hundred times. Why can't I remember?
Speaker 1: And he was always like trying to find out what
Speaker 1: was just normal and what you know? Like what's normal
Speaker 1: and what's that you know? Well, I hate to sit
Speaker 1: around and think like that, but I I have lost
Speaker 1: a few things out in the woods, and I was
Speaker 1: wondering the other day. I was like, did I lose
Speaker 1: my and I don't even know what that would be.
Speaker 1: You're lost? And found common sense out the ones because
Speaker 1: I lost a couple of knives where one I just
Speaker 1: I had it in my range jacket pocket and I
Speaker 1: just walked a couple of steps and I was out
Speaker 1: in the snow and it fell out, and so I
Speaker 1: was and I couldn't find it. It just like gone
Speaker 1: deep in the snow. And then one point I lost
Speaker 1: the water bottle and a flannel and another knife, and
Speaker 1: I was like, what the heck is going on with me?
Speaker 1: Has not been bitten in the head by a bear
Speaker 1: and that dude he's got to bring out like four
Speaker 1: stats of clothing when he goes out for a week
Speaker 1: long elcohant. So you don't feel like, um, everything moves normal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I am still So I'm still in recovery. I mean
Speaker 1: it has a spirit. There'll be a year in May
Speaker 1: and I'm still in recovery. And definitely hiking is it's
Speaker 1: definitely a lot. And I don't know if that's mainly
Speaker 1: because like I can't here out of my ear soul
Speaker 1: everything that you guys feel like when you're out hiking
Speaker 1: you feel in your chest, and everything I feel in
Speaker 1: my head. I used to feel a lot more in
Speaker 1: the beginning, like the pulse and everything I could just
Speaker 1: feel in my head. It was like just pounding in
Speaker 1: my head and in my chest from hiking and walking around.
Speaker 1: I don't feel it as much, but I do still
Speaker 1: feel it. So I'm on a strenuous hike and I do.
Speaker 1: I have to take kind of more breaks than I
Speaker 1: would normally have to take, So there's things like that.
Speaker 1: But I hope with time it'll just eventually like I'll
Speaker 1: be at a maintenance level where either I have to
Speaker 1: do that or I won't have to do it anymore,
Speaker 1: or I'll still have to kind of in the middle,
Speaker 1: you know. But than that, I mean, in the hearing
Speaker 1: that was a huge, um new thing to learn. And
Speaker 1: you're hearing is back now. No, it's gone forever. No
Speaker 1: more hearing in my left ear just dead. YEA. To
Speaker 1: throw off your equilibrium, um a little bit throw it
Speaker 1: definitely throws off like location, so I can't try to
Speaker 1: locate stuff. Blue grouse hunting to be out for you,
Speaker 1: like you don't know where a gobble. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I was fortunate, So I actually did do some hunting
Speaker 1: last September, and I was fortunate enough, and it was
Speaker 1: good because I didn't have any hearing aids at the
Speaker 1: time and so just trying to locate and everything. My
Speaker 1: dad would be like, it's over there, like he's calling.
Speaker 1: I was like, no, I'm pretty sure it's over there,
Speaker 1: And so was a whole It was stressful, but just
Speaker 1: having to I mean you basically just got to re
Speaker 1: teach yourself. And the hearing aids help some. And there's
Speaker 1: another hearing aid that I could get, but I probably
Speaker 1: won't because I have to get another surgery and everything. Um,
Speaker 1: but I mean it's just learning how to relocate stuff
Speaker 1: with just one. I mean people do it all the time, right,
Speaker 1: and you figure it out. You trust what was the
Speaker 1: injury that took your hearing in your left ear? So
Speaker 1: it was my and they don't know for sure how
Speaker 1: it happened, but my inner ear. And they can't fix
Speaker 1: your inner ear, so that's the only part of the
Speaker 1: year that they can't do surgery or fix or anything.
Speaker 1: And that's what got broken. So basically all the hairs
Speaker 1: and folecules and everything that's in there are just dead
Speaker 1: and their never going to come back. So there's no yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no nothing, which is crazy because you think about
Speaker 1: where your inner ear was. I mean, his teeth really
Speaker 1: had to have been far in there and I just
Speaker 1: I mean, but didn't shred your ear. No, it's so weird.
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole thing is, how many crazy media
Speaker 1: requests did you get? Media media like interview requests? Um,
Speaker 1: I don't even know. At least probably at least ten.
Speaker 1: The first couple of weeks, I got one from one
Speaker 1: of those big talk shows over in New York morning
Speaker 1: talk shows or something, and they were like, we want
Speaker 1: to talk to you tomorrow tomorrow morning, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: put you on the set. And I was like, no, No,
Speaker 1: this isn't happening. Like I'm still I still staple in
Speaker 1: my head. No. And that's nobody's ever offered me any
Speaker 1: which I don't, you know, I don't really need that.
Speaker 1: I was curious, not so much like I'm just curious
Speaker 1: if that's how they operate or not. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I also I don't really ask for
Speaker 1: money either, because I'm like, well, I'll do it, you know,
Speaker 1: but it's got to be under the right circumstances. I'm
Speaker 1: really picky on the interviews and things that I do
Speaker 1: because I don't want anybody to turn my story into something.
Speaker 1: She loved bears and then she got attacked by bears
Speaker 1: and now she wants to still work for bears and
Speaker 1: that's just not me. You can spend a thousand yards
Speaker 1: on it, man, or you feel like she had done
Speaker 1: some bear hunting in the past. Yeah, well people hate that.
Speaker 1: This is Carl. Yeah, so yeah, there was quite a few.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I even get hit now on that.
Speaker 1: What did I say? It was? Oh? I was prey.
Speaker 1: I wasn't prey. He like a TV show? Yeah, he
Speaker 1: didn't hunt me? Because what channel was it? It was?
Speaker 1: I think it was a Discovery channel. I am pray, yeah,
Speaker 1: or I was prayer? Yeah, I was like, now, yeah,
Speaker 1: well I'm not I wasn't pray. I think their definition
Speaker 1: of prey is very different though my definition. So you're
Speaker 1: not like, um, you really uh, you're not really interested
Speaker 1: in the limelight. No, why did you come talk to us.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised he did well because I don't know, you
Speaker 1: guys are super well known and I love listening to
Speaker 1: your podcast, and you guys are really educational and you
Speaker 1: bring in educational people and so it's it's a different interview.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're not asking me to cry and tear
Speaker 1: up and talk. You know, you just want to hear
Speaker 1: my story, and you're asking questions and you're insightful, and
Speaker 1: so it's not like you don't want to make it
Speaker 1: a big emotional mess. You don't feel the urge to
Speaker 1: cry right now? Really, okay, if okay, if you could
Speaker 1: go back to that day, you know this, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna ask you now, But if you go
Speaker 1: back to that day, would you still get out of
Speaker 1: the truck and go off the trail? Yeah? Really? Really well,
Speaker 1: because I mean if I'm going back, So if I'm
Speaker 1: going back to this day, right, am I going back
Speaker 1: to this day and knowing what you now know, knowing
Speaker 1: that I was gonna get So I'm going back knowing
Speaker 1: that I'm gonna get attacked. Yeah, oh that's tough, But no,
Speaker 1: I'd probably still feel because what if it didn't Actually,
Speaker 1: what if you found something in it? I mean, you
Speaker 1: have to be a hell of a lot more confident.
Speaker 1: Not that you weren't confident. Then it sounds like you
Speaker 1: really were confident and competent, but you're foraged by fire. Now,
Speaker 1: well that's true. I don't know because even though if
Speaker 1: I'm going out there knowing that I'm going to get attacked.
Speaker 1: I could say that, but you could. That's like driving
Speaker 1: your car knowing that you're going to get in a
Speaker 1: car accident. I wouldn't drive it. Ever. What I mean
Speaker 1: is this, um was it so was? Was the life
Speaker 1: lesson or whatever? The experience so exhilarating, the life lesson
Speaker 1: so valuable, the things you learned about yourself so important
Speaker 1: that you would take the getting bit and the surgery
Speaker 1: and the loss of your ear as payment or the
Speaker 1: experience or was it not worth it? No, it was
Speaker 1: worth it. I mean I learned, you learned a ton
Speaker 1: about yourself. How often do people get attacked or you know,
Speaker 1: they get into something, And so many people have told me,
Speaker 1: they're like, I wouldn't have been able to make it out,
Speaker 1: And I said, you probably would have. You just you
Speaker 1: don't know at the time. And I mean I survived.
Speaker 1: I was bound and determined to get out. I was
Speaker 1: going to get out, and I've learned a lot, Like
Speaker 1: I thought. I definitely thought I was gonna be back
Speaker 1: to work in a month. Well after being in that hospital.
Speaker 1: I could barely walk around the hospital just because I
Speaker 1: was so weak from all the meds and not eating
Speaker 1: and everything they give you and you're in there for
Speaker 1: so long and just walking up my parents driveway. Of
Speaker 1: course they have a you know, a slated driveway, and
Speaker 1: every was tough for me, and but I figured out
Speaker 1: what I can do and what I can't do. And granted,
Speaker 1: the hearing loss is it sucks. It's really hard, but
Speaker 1: I am learning so much about myself and learning things
Speaker 1: about my friends and about people and how people really
Speaker 1: interact together. And I think it's done nothing. But but
Speaker 1: I mean, I want to still want to be a
Speaker 1: bear manager. I still want to work with bears. I
Speaker 1: want I have more education now from this bear biting
Speaker 1: me on the head than I probably did before. And
Speaker 1: I feel like I can help people out more and
Speaker 1: teach them and and do something with my experience to
Speaker 1: help them survive and know that they can. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can. It's and know that it will happen. You know.
Speaker 1: We just sometimes we get complacent and we're out there
Speaker 1: and we're not always thinking because we just get so
Speaker 1: involved in the woods. But you do, you have to
Speaker 1: remember that there's other things out there that Yeah, I
Speaker 1: bet you won't have a problem with vigilance for a
Speaker 1: long time. I hope. Uh. The happy part of the story.
Speaker 1: Not not that any of this is particularly sad. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't like it that you lost the hearing in
Speaker 1: your ear and that you had to have surgery and
Speaker 1: had such a disruption in your life. But it's like
Speaker 1: uplifting because because you're who you are, right and you
Speaker 1: have the attitude you have yea, which for me, from
Speaker 1: sitting to my seat, I'm like, Wow, this is like
Speaker 1: it's phenomenal that that's your approach and that you don't
Speaker 1: harbor animosity toward bears is pretty remarkable. Um. And then
Speaker 1: you wound up. We talked about this earlier. You got
Speaker 1: a job. I did a regular job, yea, a real
Speaker 1: adult job with bears. Yeah. So I got the East
Speaker 1: pan Handle bearer biologist position. And so it's bearing management yep,
Speaker 1: in Florida, and it's doing bearer management. Really what I
Speaker 1: want to do educating the public and um, managing you know, bears.
Speaker 1: And they have they have a ton of issues. They've
Speaker 1: got four thousand black bears throughout the entire state, roughly
Speaker 1: throughout the entire state of Florida. So there's a lot
Speaker 1: of bears and there's a lot of people. And so
Speaker 1: they lost their bear season yeah, or kind of comes
Speaker 1: ebbs and flows, but yeah, which you know isn't always
Speaker 1: I mean, hunting. I love hunting, and I'm a huge
Speaker 1: promoter for it, but it's not always the answer when
Speaker 1: it comes to conflict and issues. I mean, there's there's
Speaker 1: a lot of other stuff and fencing and just educating
Speaker 1: the public and letting them know, you know, hey, your
Speaker 1: garbage can isn't right. Let's let's get this fix. Are
Speaker 1: you dealing with on the ground reality, Like whatever is
Speaker 1: happening politically or ever around the bear hunts, you still
Speaker 1: got bears, You still got people, right, Yeah, so it'll
Speaker 1: be a good job. I'm excited. Are you gonna be
Speaker 1: doing some Harrisnaring counting genetic work? No? Probably not so.
Speaker 1: Our research in Florida normally does some of that, but
Speaker 1: I did so when I was there previously a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago. So I'm actually moving back to the
Speaker 1: place where I did capture in telemetry work and monitored
Speaker 1: all of our salves with cubs and everything. So I'm
Speaker 1: super excited about that. And we didn't you know, we
Speaker 1: collected hair for DNA and we tattooed um and put
Speaker 1: collars on and then all the cubs had collars, which
Speaker 1: was really awesome monitoring all these cubs running around. And
Speaker 1: so I know a lot about the area. So I'm
Speaker 1: super excited, and I know some of the bears. I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's some of them are still around. You know,
Speaker 1: it a state position, it is, yeah, health care, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they do. They provide benefits, but the kind of
Speaker 1: the way their system works is, I don't I don't
Speaker 1: give a Asian days. But once I'm there for a year,
Speaker 1: then I'll get vacation, which is kind of actually normal,
Speaker 1: I guess for some agencies. You know, you don't get
Speaker 1: vacation until you've been there for a while. So but yeah,
Speaker 1: good for you, thank you, you made it. You're a
Speaker 1: full fledged wildlife person. You're not an account I'm not
Speaker 1: a tech. You still got hearing in your right here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for calling on. Thank you, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Do you any final things you want to wedge in there?
Speaker 1: Concluders Only concluder is I'm a huge supporter of the
Speaker 1: Western Bear Foundation, so everybody should kind of look into that. Dude.
Speaker 1: We're doing an event in Boise I'm pretty excited about.
Speaker 1: And they have a bear Relief Fund which is awesome,
Speaker 1: and it's for anybody who gets attacked by a bear,
Speaker 1: has any conflicts, and we're definitely gonna try to help
Speaker 1: him out as much as we can. Just super awesome
Speaker 1: because there was a ton of attacks last year, so
Speaker 1: hopefully we don't have that again, but we definitely wanta
Speaker 1: able to help help people out. So it's good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's your plug, that's my plan. Calls again. Western Bear Foundation.
Speaker 1: They got a website. Yeah you do and barely fun,
Speaker 1: very really fun to help offset costs associated with with bears. Yeah,
Speaker 1: any hospital bills or anything. We would definitely love to
Speaker 1: help out and be able to donate some some funds
Speaker 1: for people who get attacked or have issues and in
Speaker 1: your case, expertise funds and expertise. I don't know about experty,
Speaker 1: but we'll see you got anything. No, I'm good. Thanks
Speaker 1: for coming. That was that was a great. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: so glad you came to talk to us. Thank you
Speaker 1: for having me. I really appreciate it. Yeah, don't go
Speaker 1: doing in stupid TV show. Okay, Well be more careful,
Speaker 1: I'll try, all right. Thank you. S