00:00:08 Speaker 1: But this is the me Eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bog bitten, and in my case, underwear listening podcast. You can't predict anything presented by on x Hunt, creators of the most comprehensive digital mapping system for hunters. Download the Hunt app from the iTunes or Google play Store. Nor where you stand with on x O Gay our guest and Amber Cornack. Right, yeah, Cornack, Um, you got mauled by a bear. So there's that. But we're gonna talk about a lot of We're gonna talk about a lot of stuff first and lace some groundwork. How sick are you? Are you sick of being the person like the woman that got mauled by a grizzly? You know sometimes sometimes I get a little tired of it. Um, But I haven't heard people use mall. That's kind of not really the word. They use tragedy. They say, oh, I heard you were involved in a tragedy. Or they don't say I heard you got balled by a grizzly. No, No, they tragedy. Yeah, they called tragedy or there's another word they use for it. And I don't really call it that. I mean, it was just another day, you know, and they look at me like they call it a tragedy. Yeah, tragedy, Um, you sitting here in an accident. Yeah, but they use there's like a tragedy that someone in your family died or you got messed up in a way that you'll never recover. I know, it's not the right word for it. No, you just made your attack up. No horrible mix up. Actually, the had there was a workman's completing with me yesterday, one of my appointments, and she called it interesting. She goes, oh, yeah, I heard you had an interesting encounter. And I said, you know, that's a great way to put it. So that's the first time I've ever heard put it. Oh, horrific, that's the word her. They call it horrific. So it's anything anything that's you know, might scare people. I mean, I'm just saying, I don't know, I don't I think that's fair. Horrific. I was in that if that happened to me, I would describe it as a horrific encounter. You'd have to say, I heard you had what I would regard a horrific encounter. But if you just want to be straight up, you'd be like I heard you got mauled by a grizzly, and why yes I did. But there's more to me than just that. But you know, I know there's a natural tension here because I'm very interested in that while recognizing that you're a complex, accomplished individual who has many aspects of their lives that go beyond a terrible, horrific mix up that you had. So we'll get we'll get there. First, I want to talk about Yanni's chicken business, because Yanni is It has a new chicken business. Yeah. You should heard Jennifer last night. I there. She realized the demand. She's like, you know, we got more room in Chicken Cooper at least another half dozen, which, you know whatever, I don't think it's going to increase the workload if we added a half dozen chickens right now. So you're getting nine they're throwing nine eggs a day, yeah, I think sometimes they're throwing more than some of them will late two in a day now, and you and the Patelis crew, Uh, you're only good for how many a day? You know? If I'm home, I can't say we keep up with that, but we can get close between breakfast and some baking. You know that goes on. But if I leave for a week, then I come home and there's like two full buckets of eggs. So, yeah, I just bought twelve. How did you decided to sell them by the dozen? I'll give you one guess, you know what, split them in half at six eggs. I would probably get the same of money for six as I am, because like you sell donuts for traps and eggs by the dozen and snares. Those are the only things you can think of that come in dozens. Yeah, traps and donuts and eggs all great things, baggles as you call them. Yeah, they'll sell by the dozen, I would say, because Yanni's trying to get four bucks four bucks a box, because he's trying to pay for his organ It's funny everybody that we've said four bucks too, They're like, we should be paying you five. I was so pleased with the transaction and so pleased with the quality of the eggs I had this morning that I just gave him five and paid him down on another dozen. So he's now sitting on ten of my dollars ahead. You know I had a guy a dollar, listen, I would sell him a dollar egg. I cracked like this morning, Jimmy had to, I had to. Matthew had one. I've paid five bucks for that. Sure. I mean when you have eggs in a restaurant, you're probably paying that per egg. Yeah. I like it. And being in the business where you when you're giving me money before you received the item, is supposed to give you a guy guided once you can get in trouble like that. It was in fast food, and when he was looking at business to get into, he was like, that's one of the few places where people give you the money first and then they wait to get what they paid for. Yeah, he liked that about it. But you might wind up getting underwater because you're gonna take a lot of five dollar bills and then you're gonna go home. They're all gonna be dead because you know where this is going. Oh you mean if I get hammered by a predator, Yeah, you know where this his head. We've been good so far. No, I heard from uh your wife that too mysteriously vanished. Yes, but that's they're not the only two. We also lost Lame Duck, with it being it was at our house less than a week and we lost it. We've also well, we started with like I don't know how many bantams. We had over a dozen bantams, which are just like a small version of a chicken, because they were free already laying, so we took them on much more skittish. I like the big ones much better because they're like pets. You can pick them up and hang out with them. The bantams like they're they're paying the butt. There's a wild men of chickens, for sure, and they lay a teeny tiny egg, so eating like three to four, you know, every time we eat. But anyway, any who, um, where's that going with that? Every time we've had a weak or getting old chicken or duck, they are gone within days of showing that weakness. And we have not yet figured out to who. We've never lost a healthy one, No tracks or anything. No tracks. That's why we think it's that's why we think it needs to bring up a definitely amber go up there and tell you what's going on. You should look around. You work on mortality projects, right, I do go out and look at something dead and try to figure out what killed it. Yeah, there's I actually love doing that. There's nothing even actually we had a rabbit. Some lady brought him one of her rabbits and she didn't know what had happened to it end up dying, and we definitely we need cross seated and had bruising, and you could definitely see it looked like a doghead just by the sign and where it had bit it just grabbed it and shook it to death and then just let it go because he doesn't have the carcasses though, you don't have anything, no feathers or nothing. Every now and then Jennifer will describe it as a as a puff of feathers. That's why we think it's a bird. Because there's times we have big fir trees that are near everything around our property, and uh, there's times when there's a golden eagle that's you know, three ft tall, sitting on the fir tree that's right over the chicken coope. It's not your dogs, right, don't have dogs. Oh you guys don't have any dogs? Okay? All right? Uh? Oh quick, thing I have Okay, I got one more thing than well. I want to make sure we come back to it. I want to know what goes into a knee cropsy. Something as simple as a necropsy your knee, I need cropsy. I've been told that alright a lot, But just as something as simple as cotton tail rabbit. I'd like to know what goes into that. So I don't know if we want to cover that now or come back to it. A cotton tail knee cropsy? Yeah, um, or a bear. You know we'll touch on that first. No, we'll get to it. Can you remember? I'll make a note. I gotta I got The thing I want to touch on is this is uh, I have a my fish shooting bow. I have an Aneida osprey, which is a souped up fish shooting bow that I don't want and I don't use because I use my recurve for shooting fish. Um, it's only been shot a few times. They're spensive bows. It's left handed, is the catch. If you want this bow, all you gotta do is right in and make the subject line. Go on to our website, find the contact thing. Make the subject line, uh, um, fish shooting bow. So we know what we're looking at. So let's say fish shooting bow and then you say, if you give me this bow, I will donate X dollars to the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. We're gonna just do a quick scan. Not paying a whole lot of attention. Seems like the highest person. I'll send you the damn bow, and then on the honor system, you gotta make sure you send them the money. I was gonna ask about that. We're gonna do it on a system, on our system. I haven't sent me like them. We'll figure it out. So left handed Oneida, I'll send a send a screenshot of your payment, or left handed Oneida osprey fish shooting bow barely been shot and it's got those sweet rubber thumb grips. You don't have to walk around the thing. Um okay, your first amber, your f brush with fame was that he made it into big Buck magazine. Now that magazine. That magazine just comes right out and says right outdoor life. You're like, that could mean a lot of things. Feel the stream, that could mean a lot of things. Big Buck magazine. That's it's not a big Buck, but yeah, you made it into big Buck magazine. When you're sixteen years old. It identifies you as being from my home state of Michigan. Yes, not where you know though apparently I don't know. We don't all travel in Michigan, at least in my neck of woods is north south. You don't yer just stay in the same line of longitude and you just you stick to your longitude. Would you grow up North Thumb area? Yeah, he's over in Calamazoo. Oh yeah, you're from Michigan to Central Michigan or whatever you call it. So you killed a big old bear when you were young. It was a decent size bear. Grew up I did. We're kind of hunting as were you generalists or were you guys like specialists. No, we kind of did everything mostly white tail in Michigan, and we just happened to come upon the outfitters for doing black bear stuff. But yeah, we mostly did white tail, and I didn't do it. You know. I did as much as I could with going to school and I worked and everything, but bow and gun and we had tree stands and have quite a few acres and everything. So we just it was just enjoyable just to kind of sit out there and I shot a h My first one was a fawn button button buck. My dad had shot the dough and I was like, I can't leave the button, but wiped out the whole fan. Well, yeah, I felt really bad afterwards. I was like, oh man, you probably would have made it, but I was. I was so young, you know, so it was good just to get something under my belt and everything. So you grow up fishing, Yeah, we did some fishing. We actually had a pond. We had a huge pond, and so we always bass fished in our pond and large mouth bad. Yeah, that was a lot of cooked those up or let them go. No, we just let them go. Let me come back and catch them again. So you made it a lot of fun. Um. At what point in your life did you realize that you were going to be Uh did you grow up being like, I'm gonna be a wild life biologist? I did not, So you know, I listened a lot of your guys podcasts and talk to other people and stuff, and they're like, oh, yeah, I knew when I was a kid and super young, And you think I would have known because I started my first job. I worked at a greenhouse and I absolutely loved it and had it until I graduated, just just miss it was local. I worked at a local greenhouse, moving those damn flats everywhere, moving them outside, moving them inside, moving flats. I got it working, you know, playing stuff quick story about that. I think I might heads takes. I might told the story. I've never heard of greenhouse story that I can remember. You know what I killed here is a bird? Oh yeah. Birds act like when you get close to them, they try to lure you away from their nest back like they got a broken wing and just sly ship right a bird. We're out moving flat beach out of the beach. But this is like we used to put all the flats when it was time to move the flats outside, and you'd be moving out in, out in, and we moved them all out there, all outside. We had to move them all inside, and in one of them a killed deer made a nest. And there's thousands of flats out in this field. You could will find this. You can find this place on Google Earth. And we're picking up the flats and realized that there's a bird nest in one of the flats, the flat of like what do you call them, it's like a flatfold of the little pockets where the plants grow up, and we leave it out there. So we pick up whatever flats and leave the one flat with a bird nest sitting there, and I report to the owner, Mike, I say, we left that one because I killed here later nesting it, so we want to disturb it. I remember he got mad and walked out that thing out, carried it inside. Did it have eggs in it? I'll tell you. Yeah, he's just like a hard man flat anyhow, So you were interested, you had you had what E. O. Wilson calls biophelia. Probably I don't actually like an innate desire to like biophilia, right, love you, but in an innate desire to connect with other life forms. Yeah, No, I definitely thought I would have known back then, But I just I had no idea what I wanted to do. And I mean growing up, and I don't know if you experienced the same thing where I was at. It was it was agg so there was a lot of eggs, and I knew there was game wardens or conservation officers, but I had no idea about wildlife biologists and things. You know, you learned biology kind of the general sense, but we didn't have extra classes or anything similar to that to kind of give me an idea of what I would want to do. Um, I just kind of went with it, and I was like, well, I'm gonna go and be a teacher and we'll just kind of go with that and see. And then ended up not being a teacher and got my associates and accounting and then finally I realized I wanted to be. Yeah, so I ended up in Montana from Michigan because that's where I wanted to go to school. I initially wanted to go to Alaska, but my dad told me no because my mom told him no because that far away. Well, if I was moving to Alaska, dad was going to move there too. So there's a lot to hunt up there, and so you could have just done that deal. Like my brother lives there, so your dad could have hunted with you for everything. I feel like we got a backtack just a little bit, because I want to know if you had siblings, because I'm interested about how I know where going with this. I did not. That's why your dad hunted with you. What does that move to me? Because I was the only one that's true? Man? He well, yeah, I don't I can't remember the numbers, but yeah, basically like that, if females are to get into hunting via their dad, it's usually because they don't have a brother, firstborn or no brother. Oh man, that's what we were That's what we were told by someone who spent a lot of time with hunter demographics. Yeah, Dad's like, well, I gotta take her because I don't have any other choice. Old timey dad's I don't don't. I don't put it that way when I take out my girls hunting. But it's like I got to it's a reality hunting, buddy. Yes, it's a reality of how people historically, it's how a segment of the American population has historically treated who goes hunting. You're exactly right. I just think that you're misrepresenting the thoughts that are in the dad's head when he chooses to take his daughter hunting. I'm putting a fine point on something. I don't think that that's her father's I'm not say anything bad about your dad, but you understand what I'm saying. I'll back it up. Like in my family, all men, all of the men to some extent, participated in hunting and fishing, virtually none of the women. Really, Okay, it's just a thing. It sucks. It sucks. It's there are myriad reasons, many of them unjustified. You can't untangle it all, but it's just a reality. Of the people that buy a hunting license in this country are male, but less than fifty of the people that live in this country are male. So there, that's crazy. It's crazy to think about, especially and that's still now, Like those are accurate now, right, those are current numbers. So I don't know. I don't think it's I don't think it's good. Just as far as what your father's motivations, I'm just teasing you. A guy that looks at demographics was telling us he's like an and he's like and when a woman does hunt, um, it's often that she has no male siblings. So you moved out to study accounting, Well, I moved out to Montana initially to do teaching, just because I didn't know, not knowing what I wanted to do. I thought maybe being a teacher and if I want to go back to school, I could take summer classes. But then I really didn't want to do that, and I actually and I started off at Carroll College in Helena, and I ended up dropping out my last semester. I just I don't think I was ready to go to college. It just had no idea what I was doing and moved back home while my parents were in Wolf Creek at the time, So they had moved and got the place in Wolf Creek, and so I moved back home with them Montana, and then I had just ended up going to the community college in Helena, and I went for accounting because well, there's tons of jobs and it makes good money. So if I didn't know what I wanted to do, and eventually figure it out, and I spent four years doing that. And we're totally cynical. You were totally sent You weren't like a romantic yet, No, no, no, I mean I loved hunting in the outdoors, but like I said, I didn't really know what existed actually until we moved to Montana and started talking to people about for service and we learned about the BLM. And because there, you know, there's not a ton of public land in Michigan, and so we're always hunting. There's a lot, but not where you're at right now. It's a lot of private We've always over by Area North it's shiploads. Oh yeah, there's time. I never stepped foot on public land until I moved out West. Yeah, it's a meat and it's amazing, and it's so much to learn too, because, like I said, BLM and the ranches and everything that you go on. So just learning about all that and learning about you know, the game wardens and that there is wildlife biology and like I said, it took me about four years. But I also got rid of some negative influences and people who had been in the field but we're like, no, you don't want to do that because you don't make a ton of money and this and this and that, and I was like, well, what if this is something I really really wanted to do? And then I don't know, I just flipped a switch and started looking at schools and found Oregon State and that's where I ended up getting my wildlife degree. So excellent, Yeah, full on, you got a bachelor's degree, I did. Yeah, have you worked on a master's yet? Uh no, I'm working on it. My grades and my g r E scores are a little lower than what they're like because I I focus hardcore on getting work and getting a job and getting anton a field experience. And I studied as hard as I could, but I just didn't I don't quite make the cut for a g p A, so working on it. What do you mean that you can't go to grad school because you're g p A. Yeah, because it's low, it's a little lower than what they want. Really yeah, yeah, yeah, no it's a big bummer. Um yeah, because I was so like these No, no, no, they were better than that. Just competitive field. It is super competitive. So you know, they mostly want people with three point or higher higher, and some people are even three point five or higher, and it's sweet out and because it's so competitive and the Gerrys are hard, I mean, it's taking the miserable man. Yeah, I took years. They said, well, how long ago did you take? Because they changed and they changed all the scores and everything how they score them. I took the g R S and uh okay, yeah, so now they do a short smaller or smaller not a smaller scoring, but just kind of like they changed the S A T s over from the four hundreds to the whatever it is, a three or whatever, and now they've kind of changed them over it too. So I've taken it twice, painting the butt every time. Well we'll circle back around to that. Uh, that's horrible. Though that's I mean, it is what it is. Um. So then what what what was your first paid gig when you come out of school for biology? Well, I actually had a paid gig in school. So when I started. When I was at Oregon State, I was just networking like crazy, and there was a lady there who was doing some Marble Merlette stuff and she just needs somebody to do data entry and so it was completely volunteer and so I just did it. And from that I there was a job with Handcock Forest Management internship during the summer, and she um forwarded my name. She knew the biologists there, and everything turned to my resume and they hired me right away. So that was a paid position. So that was my first paid position. We were doing Pine Martin stuff, which was pretty good. Yeah, it was Super Bowl and I was on the coast of Oregon, which is awesome because there are a ton of black bears out there, and so even though I was looking for Martin's, I kept running into black bears and kept getting picked black bear pictures and just these huge bears, and I kept saying, is there any chance we're going to do any black bear and work over here? Just because it was so awesome. Black bears were coming in on the coast and they would just tear up everything. You know, you had you had you given up your bear hunting ways by then? Are you still a black bear hunter? No? I you know, I do like hunting black bears. It's not I don't. It's not like deer out though I don't want to do it all the time. I'd love to take one with my bow. I haven't taken one. Um, but yeah, it would be really nice to take I mean in Oregon bear, especially a coastal bear, because there, you know, and they're just it's the it's so hard to haunt them, so it just makes it such a good challenge here you were just running into him though, Yeah, and they would be they would tear down. So we were putting a cat food in a just like a on a tree and kind of a makeshift little fencing to get the pine martin hair. Yeah, and then we had those um kind of thin but stuff to catch hair, um gun brushes and stuff nailed onto the tree to catch hair. And so they would go there. I've seen that. We be explain it real quick, what do you mean hair trap? Oh? So well, this everyone's a little different, so I know they do. They do sticky ones. They can do those two for like tracks, we didn't have those. He was setting up a gun brush one. Oh yeah, he was trying to catch because he after fish or links. I think it was links. You have your links hair. And he's setting up a rig meat Okay, he had a beaver wired it to the tree, just a skinned out carcass wired at two tree upon a ridge to up and then he then he screwed in all the screwed in all the gun brushes, like the brass gun brushes around it, so that any criter that went up and started wrestling with that frozen carcass was gonna certainly like a dog hair brush, leave a bunch of hair on the gun brushes and he had to get it up out of the snow. You know. Oh cool, And mine wasn't ask cool? Is that? But that's kind of that's the same thing. We had one on each that you were using cat food. Well yeah, I feel like we could have used something else, but the bears loved it, so it was great. But they would also tear down my camera. So we'd set up a camera, you know, just a tree away or so in a good spot, and then we have those gun brushes, one on each side and then one on the top, and then the I guess it was just some fencing that we put together in a poke holes in the calf food so they could smell it. And the pine martins like that they do. That's what they had. Um. I think they used that. So it was on a study somebody was doing with the Oregon State and she did some work I believe in California, and that's what they were able to do. But I just was I mean, I was getting bear after bear after bear coming into that caffood. Were you guys? Are there fishers in there? Were you getting fish? Your hair? No? I didn't get Like I said, all I ever got was bear hair. And my partner is the only bycatch was bear hair. Porcupine? Not a porcupine? Why was I thinking porcupine? Um? Why can't I think of it? Fine squirrel? No? What is it with the long They're cute when they're a little, but they have the long nose? Why possum? I was I thinking, Yeah, they have possums up there. It was really weird. And we got one. Yeah, he was so weird because I was like, what is that? Is that a Martin? It's got to be a Martin, and just by the size, and then it's nose and my buddy's like, no, that's I'll tell you what. You take a possum fur and you get just the fur where his head's not involved, his feet aren't involved, his tail is not involved. Beautiful for really, you wouldn't believe it. The tail ruins it for people. Just a possum fur is gorgeous. What do you do do you sell it? It's yeah, they're not valuable. Look their leathers too thin. Okay, only like a really good I'll just talk with this with Seth earlier. If you can flesh a possum, you can flesh anything. Really very hard to not tear the hide on a possum. You definitely don't want to eat them, all right. People do a lot of possums because trapping fox possums by a lot of a possum by catch. But you didn't do anything with them or you just it's just hard to flesh. You can sell them in the green, but then you sell them in the green, they're like a dollar okay, because the all the work is fleshing them, right. But so you worked on that project, what else did you work on? And then I went in I worked at a hatcherty for with Oregon Department of Life. Yeah. Yeah, it was just a fun little intern internships three months. You know, it was fun. I don't know what they it's not. But when you pull out the eggs, I can't remember what. Yeah, when you just like pull out the you're like holding this huge fish and you're just squeezing these eggs out, I'm like, this is insane. You can feel them all and they're stelling. So that was pretty cool. And then I worked for Oregon Apartment of Fish and Wildlife. Again, I didn't another internship, but ended up with a job working on blacktail deer and that was a lot of fun. We darted them or we set up clover traps and clover traps. It's like a big walk in trap and it's crazy, but they do they wandering on. You just put a little bait pile in there and it's it's there's a string hooked to the door. So it's got a door that goes up and they when they cross, the string goes across on the bottom and when they cross like one of their legs crossed, the door drops down. They call it clover because it's clover shape. You're baiting with clover. No, we're not bating with clover. I actually don't know where the name came from. I never really asked that the trap is in shape like a cloth. No, it's just this big, and elk are bigger. They have bigger ones. But yeah, it's like the probably the size of this table, and then just kind of tall enough so deer can walk in. And then obviously elk are a little more bigger, and you're getting them in there with what corn? Yeah, we put down some corn. Yeah. Um. The hair trap and catching hair, did you did you wind up doing more of the hair because you had hair work when you had your mix up, you were doing grizzly bear hair. Yeah, but that, aside from the pine Martin and the grizzly bear stuff, is about the only thing I've done with hair. I mean, we collect hair off of bears that I captured and um, Florida. But yeah, other than that, I haven't really done a ton of hair stare stuff. So being a wildlife biologist is tough, tough because it's like all these like temporary jobs, right it is, And they don't pay a ton of money, No, they don't. Um sometimes you get lucky, like Oregon to actually pay super well and if you can get in and network, and they're really great and they've got they're doing a ton of research. I actually just talked to my one of my old bosses there and he's got seven research projects going on, a couple of different elk projects, black Tail, white Tail, he's got a bear project, Fisher and he might have said Martin or something. I mean, he's just got so much going on. So there's a lot. There are a lot of jobs, but they're super competitive, and like you said, they don't pay as well. And some places don't even offer housing. So when I work for le Fishing Game, they don't really offer housing because they don't really have a lot of housing. But then they end up you know, in the area, and they pay a little more and I get to be a senior wildlife technician just because they don't, you know, offer housing. So I mean, some some places balance out. If you imagine all things this is gonna sound weird. I can't say all things being equal, is it harder? Is it still harder to make it in that field as a woman, that is, to make it in that field as a man. Or is it or is it it has evened out because it's so many government agencies. I say it's I say it's about even out. I I mean a lot of the a lot of my supervisors have been females. Um, but I've also worked for a lot of males. And in the department, especially in my office now it's fifty fifty, Like there's a lot of males, there's a lot of females. And um, I feel because of my work and everything that I have a lot of experience, and so they tend a I mean they base it off of experience. So I've never had an issue where it was like, like you feel like it's like in that field was like a meritocracy there. Yeah. Yeah, And then, um, it's not like a bro culture. I definitely think in some areas that there there can be you know, there's still that old time I guess bro culture if you want to say, But yeah, I still think it's it's around, and I think it's probably something we're always going to have to deal with and and work work with. And I mean some people are just setting their ways and that's okay, you know, And honestly it's just that's fine. I'll take a challenge, you know. That's a good attitude to have. How many years had you been doing field work? So four and a half now, which is crazy, okay, and all of it like no full time salary stuff, it's just piecemeal. Yeah, it's all been don't see. The hatchery was three months and that's the lowest one I've had. Other than that, they've been five six and then Idaho Fishing Game as many eight months. So who how did it come to be? Like, like, layout who you're working for? What you were doing when he got attacked? So I was working for US Fish and Wildlife Service and University of Montana, so the cooperation between the two and I was working in Libby, Montana. What was the job? The job was a grizzly so grizzly bear hair snare DNA technicians. That's kind of a long title. But so you see this job come up, where like how do you even become aware of the job? Well, I have been trying really hard, Like bears are my my goal and that's kind of my what I really want to do. And what I want to work with and somebody actually, so I knew somebody. He came to volunteer with us with Idaho Fishing Game and he happened to hear through the grapevine that there was going to be a job because he worked, so he had worked up in northern Idaho, and so he knew somebody who kind of knew somebody. He did a little bit of volunteering with my boss from US Facial modelfe Service, and so I met him doing some capture work and he's like, oh, yeah, by the way, they're going to be posting a job, and just kind of gave me a heads up, and I believe Yeah. He gave me Wayne Wayne's number, and I just contacted Wayne and was like, Hey, I heard you guys are gonna have some openings. Would love to, you know, talk with you some more. And he sent me over the the list and what they were gonna have was trapping technician and then DNA hair snarre assistant and so he sent me those over and I trapping would be like barrel trapping bears, uh, but hairson are not hair serious, but foothold that's what they use. Yeah, So I applied for both of those and did an interview and they actually didn't, so you know, Texas saying to him a lot of things and wind up on text. I don't know if he has. It's a huge job board, and if it goes on there, I mean it just goes insane. And they actually don't poste they don't post anything on there, so everything they kind of send to the university. So you have m M s U and I think you have ise. We're little send um the job descriptions and everything and so yeah, so I was super fortunate and just really wanted to be in there and then I got an interview and yeah, they told me the job. So how long did you have? How long will you work in the job before you got attacked? Three days? Are you serious? I know you did you go? Did you go into it? Try it? I'll get to that later. So you get the job and what okay, what's day one look like? So day one we get to kind of everybody is there. So it's the trapping technicians. It's there's three three biologists and then there's three trapping technicians, and then there's three hairs near and so we're all there and we're just doing safety, UM going over all the just kind of rules, protocols, things that need to get done. We didn't chainsaw safety and so that was that was three days of doing that. So the first day kind of everybody was just getting in, we're getting to know each other, and then the next two days we're just trainings. And like our last day, the three of us DNA hair snare text we went out and we just set up one just to kind of see if we had any questions or if there was anything that we need to So we set up a corral and then set up a couple of hair When you check some hair snares that were already out and where do you guys baiting grizzlies with? Um? They so the trappers bait them with road deer so anything, and then they kind of like mix them up. And that's what are you know when we do a corral in this center, is we put a lure and so it's basically blood and from road killing animals that they've had mixed up and everything and then a little road kill meat too. Yeah, yeah, just like little chunks of it. And are you pretty precise about where you like? Are you when you place the hair snare. Are you trying to place it really good, like a really good spot or do you play some like semi randomly? Um the so the corrals are fairly random that Actually the hair snares most of them were already set out, so they've been i mean, have been doing this project for you're coming in on a free existing project. Yeah, so there's already stuff out there, but definitely I was looking for So if there was a new, fresh tree that had a ton of hair on it, I would definitely keep an eye out for new um areas to maybe move the hair snare. If nothing's acted acting, scratch and tree yourself, yeah, because it's just barbed wire that you cut. And so if I found something new that was looking better than the older one, I could move it. And um yeah some of the tree, I mean they were just this time, they were super tiny. Just the diameter was so small and there were just yeah, they would be so tiny, but you could just see where the hair was and it would just be you would just wrap barbed wire around it and yeah, there would be some hair there and I'm like, how does it How do they not break it? You know? But they're just kind of rubbing on it find rub trees that are grizzly, like to rub on that we're an inch grizzlies a black bears too. There's black bears out there, so we collect a lot of black bear hair too, because I mean you can't, yeah, you can't sort it out. Yeah. Yeah, when you were training up, did they training? Uh? Did you shoot some training ends of bear spray? We did once, Yeah, and I have had I've done him before, so I've gone a lot of them that, you know, the be bear ware stuff and kind of shot the cans out there and they definitely gave I was like, you guys are giving us spray, right, and they said, yeah, oh yeah, give you. Because one of my brothers used to work for the State of Alaska through the university system, and their protocol was pump shotguns with slugs. That was like what you were supposed to have with you. And he traveled everywhere, this is a while ago. Everywhere he went he carried amp. He carried a pump shotgun. Bear at all I had like a twenty four inch barrel with slugs, and you carried a pump that's like in Alaska with that community, that was what you did then when he switched to US Fish and Wildlife Service. It's optional, Oh, any of it. Spray, shotgun, pistol really yeah, taster's choice, but you have to have one. It's not optional to have any. You gotta have one. Okay, Okay, that my understanding. Okay, you know, I take that back. I think that that's true, but I don't want I don't want to say that that's true. Right, But um, I know he started using more, carrying spray more. Yeah, even though it's a hassle of flying and stuff sprays the hassle. Oh they carried it, well, I guess they're flying into You got to put it an ammel can and strapped to the struts on helicopters, you know, because no one wants to have one of those things ripped loose in a cockpit. Yeah. No, I wouldn't be idea. Um, So you guys never talked about carrying shotguns or anything. No, we didn't. And I don't even know if carrying a gun. I may have asked the question, just I mean, I don't really carry a handgun. So we've always kind of carried bear spray, and that's a standard protocol mandatory carry spray for them. Yes, it's like in the role you were doing, it's mandatory spray. Yeah. Personally, where did you carry it? Where did you keep it? I actually had it on my chest, on my like on my left and right and right where that buckle meets, you know, on your left side. You just hang it off your backpack buckle. Yeah, yeah, I just have it right there, so it's kind of right right near me. I don't know if that's the right place. I mean, every place is different. I think it's a smart place. I mean, uh, you know, talking to you, you know better, But in my mind, what could be better? Put on your chest? Well, you guys heard about the most recent attacking in this right and he if it sounded like maybe he had his on his hip. I don't know for sure. I didn't read the report. Okay, but he did have bearspray, which is super awesome. But I was wondering how he was carrying his, if it was on his hip or if it was on you know what. Some people do, They carry him like right on their hip, and it's just more convenient, you know what we used to do with them put him in the bomb in your backpack. I don't know. I'm feel like so stupid you it's in the lid of my pack, you know. It's like, oh, I feel like you's still see it all the time, Like on just the hike contrails around here, you'll see bear spray on like on the outside of the backpack. Sure, it's kind of reachable if you're especially if you're a yogi and you're flexibly, you can get you a little bit easier. But still, but now what I do is the FHF harness has um what do they call that, like the molly or whatever, some strips on the bottom, and you can attach his bear spray cancer right underneath your binocular harness. So it's no, it's like the Molly system right where you have like, um, what do you call that? Woven nylon webbing, webbing, and you have like tax or you know, a tax strips in a row and you can the harness or the holster has like a little belt that runs through there and then back into itself. He tolds his hand canning down there in the same place. Yeah, yeah, man, one or the other right there, and you're like you have to get it where you can cross draw figure if you're in like a ball, right, or if you're in sort of a defensive fetal position, that's where your hands are gonna be. Is are gonna be near your chest? Yeah, I mean, like I said, everybody puts it, some we're different. So it's just I think it's the motion of being able to get it out, because what if you can't because some of the times when you get those holders, even the ones that they have, yeah, they're super taps, So what if you can't get it out? You know, that's a good point. So in the morning, I gotta before we get there. I got a question because when I was reading through what you were doing, You're you just talked about catching bears and then tattooing bears. Oh yeah, and I want to know how and why you tattoo a bear. So so I wasn't a part of trapping, so I only did the DNA stuff, but I did assist after my accident they had I was going up to Livy to visit people, and they happen to have an augmented bear that was coming up, so lead foot to the ground and I was right, but we so we tapped to them on either side in case they lose their So sometimes the collars break off, fall off, or we take them off. And also we do put ear tags in them. So if they ear tags come out and the bear or if they bear gets eaten and a lot of that stuff is gone but the mouth is gone, then we can just flip that up and you can see the number on there. So we're basically so the tattoos on the inside of their cheeks. Yeah, so you you're pulling up and we did this on black bears in Florida too, and so you're just pulling up their cheek and you feel kind of bad, but you're essentially it's this tool and it has kind of not nails. I don't want to call them that, but you're able to put ink on it and then you just stick it up under their lip and and push it and it creates holes and it's a tattoo and it's got like their number one, so like an indelible mark that someone can they'll have it forever. Of course, get their lips. So Grizzly gets hit by a car out hundred miles away, you can tell that it was yours and he went that far. Yeah, because sometimes they don't call her um or even ear tag or maybe they just captured it and they're gonna move it or something, so they just you know, a tattoo is easier, they're just going to relocate it. And the only tattoo a lot of mountain lions when they relocate them to do they Yeah, because I've heard like when people talk about when a mountain line will turn up somewhere weird, you'll often read that they'll remark that had no tag too interesting on the outside or where they're tattooed interesting because it often times you have a problem animal and you relocate a problem animal, so you can sort of like look at recidivism, meaning is this problem animal or a problem animal or is he just happened to be in a bad situation. Yeah, you mark, you can mark them, and then like the next time it destroys someone's chicken coop, next time it destroys Yoni's chicken coop, Peele, it's lipped back and be like he's been trouble for and he was in trouble here, and he was trouble here. And then you know, you got a bear that's just not gonna or a line or whatever, it's not going to stay clear, right, which makes it easy too for then you because sometimes when you ear type things, I think people get a little nervous and it kind of they're like, well those things you're tagged, is it a problem? And so then you just do a tattoo then you kind of know and if there's any issues because you don't want to eat to scare the public or make him nervous. You know, is the bear that gut you tattooed? He was he was tattooed number seven seventy seventh or seven, which how cool is that? Yeah, seven seventies he's in a ridge, an old cabinet bear. He's twenty four years old. Well, he'll be twenty five this year. So you got attacked by a twenty four year old grizzly. Yeah, so what happened? Like lay out that day for me? Did did they so you gotta go out and check the hair snares by yourself? Did they give you GPS coordinates? Like how do you know where to go? Yeah? So they give us a map, so we have a couple of different maps and then we have a GPS that we also have a tab a tablet. I guess I don't use those very happen but they gave us the like what are we going to do with this? Where is it? And they're like, just just use it. I'm kind of a little old fashioned, so but like a digital map, yeah, like a tablet and everything. And I was like, man, this is fancy because I don't really get this. Very rare you get those in my job, you know, because they're pretty expensive. But so they gave me a tablet and everything and had an in reach so all the gear that I needed. And yeah, I was just you go out of the in reach. Do you know how to use get your tablet with the maps and all the points on them, and the GPS and GPS you know how to use that? Yeah? And your pepper sprain you know how to use that? Yeah? And you strike off up the trail. Oh yeah, so how far do you walk? Two miles? About two miles to your first hair snare? No, that was I had already collected maybe at least six Yeah, so starting you've been out knocking around already. Yeah, so it's been a couple of hours. I usually started my day at seven seven thirty just because it took a while to drive. It was, you know, a little far out of outside of Libby, like ten or fifteen miles and you got to drive up all the back roads and then um, my second day, I spent most of the day chains on, just using a chainsaw because there was just trees everywhere and it was so irritated. But so yeah, the third day, I'm just walking along and like I said, I'm what's it look like a lot of trees so complete National forest area? Just trees. Yeah, yeah, just a ton of trees. And there's a huge river, it's poor Man's Creek and it was roaring just the entire time for all the sea. Are you cutting trails with your chainsaw? Open the road? Actually road? Yeah, because I mean we're there so early and no one's cleared everything yet, yeah, which I was. I was actually stocked because somebody had drove drove down at one point, but then they decided to turn around. I was like gosh, And I spent three hours on the second day the road so many and then I had I don't know, it was a sixteen mile hike in so not sixteen miles both ways, so but I so I finished doing that and then I had to go in sixteen miles and I'm setting up this corral. So this is day two, but setting up this corral, and I'm just cursing up a store because it was not functioning with me the way I wanted it to. So of course I'm yelling to just in case of because I'm literally back in this super tight area just a lot of trees, and I'm looking around and finally get done and I'm heading out. I'm making a tone noise. I'm just like, oh, this is so dumb, and just like thinking about all the things I could have done differently, to just do better. And all of a sudden, I just hear this, all these trees and just this motion, and I was like, I got down pulled on my bear sprain. It just happened to be a black bear like running across the and I just scared him. Yeah that was day two, so I had already been running into bears, you know, But yeah, I scared him because he was eating on some berries and everything, and yeah, he took off bear. He wasn't nice bear. He was small, but he was still I mean color just jet black. And then I saw a couple more that day to really yeah, you know, in that unrelated to the bait. Yeah, yeah, not even one of them ran right in front of my truck. Yeah, that's a bear rich zone. Man. Oh man, Livy is such an amazing area. Yeah, I love that area. Day three. Yeah, so I'm walking along the trail and like I said, making a ton of noise and just check in. Like I said, I think there was six maybe eight positioned along a footpath or so. It's an old forest road, but ton of like new growth had come up. So there was, like I said, those one inch two inch small smaller trees but they're super tall. But there's a path in there from people kind of hiking in and out, and you can tell it's an old forestry road. Yeah, And just walking along and just grabbing hair. And then I get to the one creek that the Loud Creek, and I was like, oh man, and they had to cross the bridge and everything, and I just kept thinking. I was thinking, I'm like, man, this is really loud. I gotta start yelling a lot louder because it was just rushing and you could run into them. And there's so many moose out there, which I was dying to find a moose ship, but that didn't really work out. So yeah, I just kept going and um got to there, I hit some snow and at one point, you know, my boss to me's like, if you hit a bunch of snow, you don't have to keep going, just we can go back to it in the next week. It will eventually be melted. But I was already walking and it was just on the trail, so it's no but I mean it was a foot high maybe from the half so but I was walking it along and it's kind of miserable in the spring and when it gets all soft and you sink down in it and with so man, Yeah, I didn't even think about snowshoes. But like I said, it was just on the trail, so I could kind of get off of it. And I actually found grizzly bear tracks on the snow and look down and I'm looking at it almost like, oh, they're a couple of days old. Wasn't super worried. Had they been fresh, I probably would have. I would have turned around, you know, just because he was walking the same way I was walking, and he or she, I should say, and got to my last hair snare and was taking some photos and then it yeah, there was a little bit, Yeah, there was some griz yeah, yeah, so you gotta kind of collect everything, and so there was a little bit of both. There wasn't enough to where I was like, you don't make an in field analysis about what it is, you just grab it. Yeah, we just kind of I tried to. So we separated by barb that's on the literally the barbs that are on the wire, so kind of you know, there's like one O one one or two one or three. So we separated by those and we have different envelopes. And then when we come back, you go through the hair to turn remember black bear grizzly bear, and you can kind of determine out there. But sometimes, I mean, you're out there for so long it's just easier to do it. And back in the office, I'm surprised you're getting both hairs on the same tree. Why is that? What is because in the field and we've seen the both and both blacks and um brown bears on the landscape. It's like when that black bear realizes there's a grizzly in the area, they just high tail it. Well, they've got to pass at some point though, right, but they must smell that grizzly has been rubbing on that tree. And I would think that, yeah, subordinate. They'd always be like, no, I don't need to cause any look up and see him together. But yeah, a little bit like that, if he was in the zone and hanging around and scratching it up, that the black bear be a little apprehensive. Yeah, I guess I didn't even think about that. I just figured out they're walking the same path, and maybe he smelled and he's like, well, I'm gonna rub on this tree too, and just kept walking. You really, like on the islands and Coastal Alaska, they don't overlap. Really on the islands, I didn't know that if it's suitable for brown bears, black pearers aren't there. Really, Yeah, my prayers are on an island, it's because it's not suitable habitat for grizzlies or brown bears. Wow, that's super interesting. I actually love the last I'd love to do some you know, in the interior they overlap, but they still you know, I mean, the grizzlies will kill him right right. Oh. I saw this video on Facebook that somebody posted, Yeah, to find one of the grizzly killing the black bear cubs. That sounds Oh, it is brutal. Isn't it. You'll give me nightmares. Really, it's just it's I watched it like too many times. How many times do you want? I haven't even digging out is digging out the den, fighting with the mom and she's just us here and she's like whack, she just whacks that. He's still he just like doesn't. He's like I He's like, lady, I do not care. I do not does he kill here's the grizzly killed? No? But does it killed us? Sound? He's like, I'm in here for the cubs to eat them. Yeah, And she's like fighting and fighting and he just is so unbothered by it. It doesn't even affect him. No, He's like, I'm just here from one thing. Now, watch your cubs, which doesn't he doesn't care. Two of them, one of them break, one of them is nerves. One of them he loses his nerves and busts out of the den. And the sound and how long the sound goes on when that and that's a stout freaking grizzly And the hard party about is the two dudes filming it kind of right the tracks from the video they're speculating, Yeah, they're no what's that dude that does all the narration for nature movies at Borrow? They're not okay? So there you are, you're out. You check a few snares. You see some grizzly tracks. Was it a whopper the track? They were pretty big. I don't know if I ever I mean, you go to Yellowstone you see big grizzly bears, but they were big to me, you know, they seemed pretty big. You're a good rule filmb is. Please tell me, well, I want you to verify it. Uh, you measure the front pad? What was it from the is it from the corner to like the just the width the front pad, just the top, and that'll tell you roughly knows the tail what the idle stretch out, not stretch out, but what it'll square out as. That's a duncan Gil Chris Trick. Okay, so you find a blackberries he's got a five inch pad. He's probably about a six foot bear. Really okay, that's good to me. I don't know if that. I don't know if that works on grizz I know that he talks about working on black bears and always used it as a rough estimate with grizzlies. Yeah, interesting might be off. They might have a proportionately larger foot Yeah, well and too got proportionately large clause, that's for sure. Are there tracks differently? How do they and depending on how they step in this stuff too, you know, like a black bear has got more of a doglike deal, where the toes don't fall in a real straight line, with the grizzlies toes falling a pretty straight line. And then obviously the claw mark will stick out at inch and a half two inches out. No, it was. It was definitely grizzly tracks. So you see him and you go like, wow, there's one back in here. Oh yeah, I thought it was. I mean I had been finding wolf tracks, blackbird tracks, moose tracks, everything. So I see him, I was like, oh, that's super cool. There was one. Yeah, there was one back here. So I keep walking and I get to this kind of avalanche shoot area. It's pretty open and we're an avalanche shoots coming down off the hill down toward the trail. Yeah. Yeah, and it's just it's super open, not as um, not as many trees and more like bushes and things like that in there. Just walking down the trail and you know, I made some noise, I blew my whistle and just was looking to the right and looking around to another location. Yeah. So I was moving down the trail, just going to I think I had maybe four or five more snares hair snares to pick up, and I just heard this and I turned to my left and he's They ended up measuring it. He's about eleven feet for me from him. Yeah, because he's so old, he doesn't know what's going on anymore. I don't know if he didn't hear me, if he was laying down, or if he because of the I mean the ridge it dropped off and the ridge was right there. There was maybe a foot maybe two ft on the left hand side, and then it dropped off down to the creek. So I don't know if he was so I don't It wasn't like it was like a somewhat obstructed view in that direction. Yeah. Yeah, So, I, like I said, he might have been laying down or he was coming up as I was coming down and just didn't hear me, and I didn't see him, And yeah, it was just it was he already motor in your direction. He was well, he was eleven feet for me. So he really didn't have to go very far. But when you when you first registered him, he was stationary coming. No, he was standing right there like what excuse me? What are you doing here? Yes? Yeah, I know. He was right next to me on all fours, are up on his high on all fours, not looking happy. I mean, he was just I don't know if I would. He just was like I didn't know what I was. You know, he didn't have expression, um a little bit, you know, I don't even know if I a little bit, but nothing like you know what it would normally do. How many pounds was the bear? So when they first captured him in two thousand and five, I wait, and I also brought his family treaty, which was super cool. I wanted to know everything everything. So they captured him originally two thousand five, and they he was I think they put this in kilograms, two hundred fifty kilograms. I believe they put that on the whole thing. But anyway, he ended up being originally five fifty pounds. And so I mean, you figure, what thirteen years if how long has it been. Yeah, so he had to have been I knew was springtime, but he had to have been at least six hundred pounds. I mean, he had to have gain some weight, you would think, so he was I would say he was probably least six hundred pounds. And how well did you register it? Like? How how? What was it just when you review in your mind? Now, was it like a blur? Was it like you just can remember every detail of the face. I can remember every detail. They showed me a picture and they sent me a picture of him when he was originally captured, and I was like, oh, yeah, that's him. Yeah, you could have picked him out of a police lineup with oh yeah, because he's he's a little darker. He's got kind of a darker um tone and his hair and just the face. I mean, I don't know what it was his just his face isn't engraved in my mind. And been in a lot of trouble in his life. No, No, he was not a trouble bear at all. He's born there. Yeah, he's an original cabinet bear. Yeah. So he's been popping out cubs and not him, but he's been siren cub yes yea. So also eleven feet away And then did you did you stay on it? Locked on it to see him start to lunge, or did you, like, did you kind of turn away and know somehow sense that it was coming. I knew I sensed that it was coming. There was I mean, I was so close to him that there was no way he wasn't going to come at me. And so my first initial reaction, which is kind of what they tell you not to do. But I mean, how often do people want of bears right there? All don't apologize all of the things about all you're supposed to do this. When you do you do this, it's like all that stuff goes out the door. Yeah, who's got that great saying? I think it's Tyson maybe saying it says that like everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Isn't that? Oh? Is that what? Yeah? That's that is right? Yeah, always got a plan until get punched in the mouth. I think that's what it is. A friend of ours who um did the ran the one of the seal training Navy Seal training courses, Like that's the thing is we talked about this, where you can rehearse something in practice something, you can eventually get to a point where when it's real you've done it so much when it's not real and very real seeming situations that you can function when it's really but it's hard to it's hard to get there. And you being like, oh, yeah, if Bart comes from me, I used to joke that I was gonna grab his offer John lower John spread his mouth out so he couldn't bite a joke. But I'm saying like, there's no way. Yeah. Well, I love when all my guy friends are you know, and this was prior to everybody. All guys are like, oh, I could fight off a bear. I'm a bear fighter, and yeah I have Hello I say that to me, and you know, now this has happened and they're like, I don't think I'm as tough as you. And I was like, that is what it is. So you just but you just knew. Oh yeah, I knew. I mean just instantly. I just had a feeling. And what was the feeling? Um, why I don't I just knew he was coming to me. No, I didn't. There was no time for fear, there was no time to realization. Yeah, and I was like, this, okay, this is it. We're I'm gonna I'm gonna figure this out and I'm gonna survive. Like, my thought process was, I'm getting out of here, and I did everything that I could, so I ended up you know, when I heard him saw him. I mean, this is second. So I took so much time. I turned to the right and like got by a bush and just dropped down to the ground. And before I was even down all the way, I mean, he was already at my back and I had a pack on. He had smacked my back, clowed up my arm, and I you know, I had my bear spray here. But my thought process was he's not going to tear up my guts, Like I'm walking out of here, and so that's why I turned and just dropped like as much as I could. And I'm just on around and just trying not to move any muscle in my body getting this bear spray out. And I finally got it out and had the cap off, and I'm literally like over how over what period of time? A split second? Oh, this is like three seconds between just between him coming there. It might have even been a second. I mean the first physical contact felt like him blowing you with his arm. Oh he did. Yeah, I thought I broke a rib when I was walking out, like I thought he essentially broken. Oh yeah, because he just came up and just whacked me and just like clawed up my arm and I was like, I'm just working on my right arm. So on the back didn't make it three your clothes it, did? You know? I had three layers? Uh? Yeah, I had three layers on, I believe three long sleeve layers on, and I got a rain jacket, and then I had this Columbia long sleeve shirt on, and then I had another just kind of like a thinner must have been a short sleeve shirt on, but still they were all fairly long. But yeah, it made it through. And there's actually tears in my rain jacket and then on my right side of my back, so right below like my shoulder blade kind of area, there's still scar and everything. So he made it through that. And I had a pack on. I had a huge osprey pack on, and he still somehow was I mean that stuff. Yeah, the bruise was huge. I mean how he made it through And there's even a there's even a gash on my pack on the top part of that, you know, that top part, there was a gash on that. I was like, how did he even do? That like about they could like they can run behind the elk and swap the elks rump and topple the elk. Dude, you could cock back as hard as you could ever hope to cockback and punch your elk in the rump and it will not register the blow. Its legs out from underneath it with a blow of that arm. Insane. So you feel that, and did you? Were you like, oh, I just got whapped or cut or clawed. It was just to just feel like this overwhelming kind of blow. Oh, I mean I knew he hit me when he hit me. He hit me, I was like, all right, I'm gonna keep going, like I'm gonna pull this bear spray out and you already got in your head to get your spray. Oh yeah, I mean I was working like focused. Yeah, I was working on it, and I just was trying not to move these arms at all because because of what reason, Because he was I mean he was on top, so he was right there, and so any move, I mean, any movement and they see that, I just want to yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm just trying not to move. And that, I mean that part was where I was like, just just pull it out. Just do it. And then I took that you know, that clear cap off, and that's when, yeah, the safety and that's when he had reached over and bit down on my head and I just reached over my left arm sprayed him and he took off, sprayed him over your shoulder while he's biting your over my shoulder. Yeah, and you got yourself, I did. Yeah, So it actually I mean because he was I don't he had to. He was on my pack. Were you on your knees? Yeah, so I was sitting on my butt and just kind of had my legs out to the side and your butt like with your legs out, I did, Yeah, how I don't. I mean I just ended up down there. But yeah, and he goes he bites your head. Does Is that the first bite? Yeah? That was and the only bite, which is crazy because I had fruit snacks and all kinds of stuff in the top part. You think he would have gotten into the top part of the bag and or like pulled the but he was just I don't know what, I'm neutralizing a threat. Yeah, and he just kind of went over and it wasn't because I've had people ask me what was the bite and I was like he just bit down on my head, and I mean I didn't feel any I literally didn't feel anything. I heard stuff crunch, and then the hearing went out on my left ear. But I was so like I said, I was going to get out, So I just literally reached over sprayed him and he just shot blind. Nope, just shot blind. Closed my eyes sprayed, and I felt him come off of me and he he went, he went away. That was it. It's so what was the You're hearing went out right away instantaneous and it was replaced by like a yeah, like static noise. Yeah, So what was the wound? Did he did he make it through your skull? He did so. Um, one of his canines actually punctured my brain. So I went into my brain. Um, by the way the doctor and she's pretty sure, she goes ahead to have been by the way it was shaped. Everything ended up going into my brain. And so from kind of just below my eye on my left side, and then it wraps around and there's a there was a decent hole on this side and then it goes all the way to the back and I had staples all the way just right before my right ear on the back side. So this whole you know, your back, your head, that whole lower part where all that muscle, all that muscle attendants were all shredded, like all that stuff was Sure did he buy it? Like cross wise or like? That? Was my next question? You know, I honestly don't know. So I also got I had about six staples on the top of my head, so there was some kind of scrape. So I think maybe the top part might have been like his upper right canine, and then the rent this side was the left side of his mouth, and then probably the backside was his bottom jaw and he was literally just like so I think he was kind of on his side, just like a forty five degree sort of angle. Yeah, wrapped around you like fit your head in his mouth? Oh yeah essentially. Yeah. Um you heard crunch, crunch, Yeah, I did, like, oh, there's my skull. You know, honestly I didn't know. I wasn't. I was so focused on getting him off of me, I thought, but I wasn't for sure, Like I assumed it was my skull because I was like, what else would it have been? But I didn't know that it had correct open all the way. I mean, you hear it, and then like I said, it was white noise in my ear and all this static and so after that, I didn't really think about it, like I just with all those tendons gone, did you was it? Like? Did you notice that your head was hard to hold or move or I didn't. I tried not to move my head too much, just because I, like I said, I wasn't sure that what he correcked open and he but I knew that he had touched my head. So I just tried not to move my head. And but it was hard walking out because I want to put your hand back there to see how much blood there was at one point. So I had a hat on to mind you, and I had super long hair, so my hair was super long all the way down to my lower back, and I had a ponytail in and had a hat on, and I hadn't even found I was walking out and my hat happened to fall out of my hair, and I was like, oh, that's my head, that's really weird. I picked it up and put it on, and then I was just walking out, like I just why did you not check to see you if it was all super bloody? I didn't want to know, you know what's funny this? This is like, no, I shouldn't even be telling this story because your story is coolness, isn't. I was in a car roll over one time and I had just bought a coffee and when the car got done rolling over, my head was all hot from the coffee and I was like, oh, my head cracked open and that's all my blood. And then I touched it and looked and there's no blood and I was like, that's weird. And I touched it. I'm like, oh, it's that coffee. And I was like totally fine. For a minute, I had like the feeling of my life blood. Oh yeah, all the blood. I was like, oh, there's actually nothing wrong with me. Well, at least you didn't get any burns from the coffee, and that's what you are. You don't put your hand back there. But it hadn't been bleeding bad, right, probably? I mean, are you later shocked as your whole jacket and everything just soaked through? You know, honestly, I really don't know. So when lost all your gear, No, it was all with me. So I still had my pack, I still had everything. I literally, Oh yeah, so they they cut yeah, they cut so they were able to well that's not true. They were able to take my rain jack off, and they just kind of took everything for me, like the rest of my clothes they had essentially had to cut off of me. So how many stitches and staples I had I used to meet on the number. We're getting too far ahead. I don't know how far The walkout was two, So I know you you're in shock. I don't know what that. I mean. I almost I almost didn't hit the entry because I was fine and I could see. And so I'm literally sitting there and I sat there for pepper spraying your face? Yeah, well, and I couldn't really tell right away, but I could definitely feel it, and I didn't know for sure, um, but I just sat there for a couple of seconds, just waiting, and then I was like, okay, like wait for him to come back, yeah, to see if he was going to come back. And he wasn't coming back. So I just looked around and I pulled on my ranch and I'm like, God, this is my third day. Do I really hit the SS button on your third day? You know? And I was like, well, what if I end up not being able to make it out and I was like, oh, I guess I'll hit it. But I literally debated it for at least probably five to ten seconds. I'm talking about it. You debated it like now, it seems funny that you debated it because you weren't in your right mind or you debated it like a rational person. It's definitely rational, just because it was my third day and who wants to call the s O and Greening like this was probably I shouldn't say probably, this was a decent size injury, but who wants to It's your third day and you're already hitting this a West button and you're like, man, So you didn't register it as something that kind of life changing. I mean when I walked out of there, I was like, I'll be I'll be back to work in a month. I didn't really think I was going to not be able to go back to work for four or five months, which isn't long. I mean, people have That's what I mean, This isn't. It was pretty bad what happened, but I'm super fortunate to have healed up as much as I have and everything. Yeah, get him in a lot worse because he could have added probably twenty pounds or who knows how many pounds of pressure would have taken and crushed your skull altogether. And yeah, which was very and it was like or you could have had your pepper sprain is stupid place. Yeah, well that's and that's why I said, I don't know if I had it in the right Maybe I didn't. Maybe, I mean, yeah, how do you Everybody puts it in a different place, And like you said, you practice and everything, but until you're actually in this situation. And I always knew I was going to run in because I run into black bears, so I always figured I would see a grizzly. Even though there's not a ton up in the cabinet yack area, there's still quite a few bears, so I always knew I would run into them. Never once did I think that one would be a loving fee for me, Like what what was the walk out? Like? Um? So it was mainly just me just trying to focus and I you know they say that you can use we need service because in Libby, Yeah, and it wasn't working. And I don't know if that's because I had a ton of trees and everything, but I had hit the end reach, and I was just I was literally just messaging anybody I could, just trying to remember, and I was looking around and I yelled pretty much the entire time, and I only had oh it was just cussing and yelling and screaming bear, I don't. I was literally yelling anything to try to keep the bear away or try to alert help, you know, to keep any more bears or moose from coming my way. The other thing done, You're done for the day. Yes, yeah. I turned around. I was like, yeah, I'm gonna step out the case, you know. So it was just me just I was like, I'm gonna make it out. And I just kept walking and just yelled and made as much noise as possible. And I mean I just screened my lungs off, which at the time I didn't really feel anything, but towards you know, the end, once I got to surgery and everything, my head was just throbbing. But when I was getting down to that bridge, because it's so loud down there, I just kept thinking, please, don't let another bear be down here. Just let me get out because I didn't I didn't have a second can of bear spray. It's only hand maybe half an inch if that. I barely had any bear spray lat But I've got that in my hand, and I've got my in reach in my hand, and I'm just yelling and screaming and if I can wacken trees with whatever, and cursing up a storm like this is my third day. And I thought I was literally like I would have find a moose shut out here right now, you know, just doing anything I can to just give myself. No. I was walking pretty fast, as fast as I could, so my balance was thrown off a little bit. I could see and I could hear for the most part out of my want my right ear, my good ear, um, but my balance was kind of thrown off some. So I was like, because he bit me on the side, I guess where your balance is and everything, and so they've been super worried about that, and and so I was off balance and could tell like I was a little off, so I kind of like spread my legs a little bit and walk in a different way. But I was walking as fast as I could just to get I needed to get out of there, and you got to your truck or car. I got to my truck. So we would work trucks that they gave us, and I took off my pack and put everything in there, and I actually took out a snack and I was like, well, they're probably not gonna let me eat at the hospital, so I better eat. Something got in my truck and I looked in the rear view and I was like, I don't need to see that started it up in the mirror my eyes. Oh you did, like examine. So when I was walking out, you know, you're talking about blood and everything, my nose was running like crazy and that that's about the only thing that I could tell running blood or No, it's just draining because you know, my ear had been and everything and where he had bit me, so it was just draining. And I was like, that's super weird. So I didn't know why, and then yeah, it was really and that's about the only thing. And attempted to look but just didn't want to look. Yeah, no, because I was like, well, I mean animal blood. I'm good with people blood. I'm fine, like I give blood and everything, but I'm like, you know, just in case, I don't need to pass out or anything, So I'll just started the truck up, put in reverse and got out. I just started driving out there, and like I said, I'm gonna like you're able to drive normal? Yeah, yeah, for the most part. I it was a little tough. Like I was sitting a little higher, sitting a little closer, just trying to make sure, rolled down my windows and just started honking my horn because I was like, there's gonna be somebody here. And I literally just laid on my horn. And then when I finally got to because I was on an old forestry road there too, I had kind of stopped, and once I finally got into the main road, which was all dirt, I was literally gunn did a little more and I was just honking, honking like crazy, looking for anybody because I figured there would be a bear hunter or somebody out there and end up, you know, I probably drove for three or four miles and ended up running into somebody. And he was way ahead of me, and he's got this huge dog in his truck and I'm pretty sure it was a bowl massive and the dog is hanging out of the passengers. He's like, hey, we should probably pull over, dad, Hey what are you doing? You know? And he's just hanging on the sea and I'm a honking my horn, honk my heart, trying get them pull over. Finally he pulls over. I pull over and I get out and put the truck and park, get out, and I just walked up to him and like, excuse me, and he looks at he goes, oh, dear, are you okay? I said, I got a text bikers lay beer. Could you maybe take me in the local hospital? And he goes, of course. And I went and turned off the truck, roll off on the windows, lock the truck, and put my keys in my pocket and I went and got in the vaca. He goes, I'm sorry, my dog is probably just gonna love on you. And he's like trying to hold him back. And he was a retired veteran and everything, so he'd been to the military, super nice, and um, he's just talking to me and just trying to keep me you know, he's talking about stuff. But I could try to administer any first aid. No, He's like, no, I'll get you there, he's like, And I was like, I hit my in reach, but I'm not sure if they're coming, Like I had no idea if anybody was coming. You hit that SLS button and they kept sending me text like are you okay? And and I'm like, no, I'm not okay, Like you hear that, How am I going to text you? I don't even have certain you know. And so I was super frustrated with that, and so he kind of knew what was going on, and he was just trying to get me there, and just you could tell him that doesn't inspect, you know, because you were talking it up. He was, yeah, because I think that enough, And like I said, I hit the end reach. I think he thought that the abudence was probably coming, you know. So, but minutes had gone by now gosh. So it took me an hour and a half, maybe hour and forty five minutes to get back down to my truck. So it'd probably been to almost two and a half hours at the time. We went for about a mile mile and a half, and ambulance we were like running into me and he's waving them down, waving them down, and then he finally pulled over and he's like, I got her. I got her, and they pulled over and everything, and I out out and what was their take on what they do? Oh? What, I guess what they're supposed to do. They're just like, okay, you gotta take off your jacket, okay, cutting off your shirt, and they just started, okay, we're gonna have to take off your you know, all your clothes, like let's kitchen and and they're just looking at me over and everything. And then they finally like they're asking me what happened and everything, and I was like, well, I was out there. Are you sure it was a gris of bear. Yes, it was a Crisso bear. I know it was, you know, And I was like, I know my bears. And they got me in there, and then I believe the sheriff and two other guys showed up while I was in the ambulance and they were asking me questions and about kind of what happened and everything, and I just told them and told him where it was, and they actually, if they believe us, that day, they ended up sending I don't know, at least eleven people up there to just kind of do a search to see if the bear had come back. And they have this whole protocol that they go through and they ended up collecting hair and that's how they were able to determine which bear it was. How was the decision made they were, how was the decision made to not kill the bear? Well, because if you didn't press charges, no, no, because it wasn't you know what I mean, usually want to bear get someone it's a dead bear. Uh, you know, I don't know, and I don't know all of the stories, and I don't know the whole protocol, but I do know. I mean, they did ask me, and I was like, well, it wasn't predatorial, I wasn't it. We just happened to run into each other, and and he was yeah, because I mean that's so I would. I don't want him to die. I mean it was so random and so rare, and the bear spray worked, so I think that has a whole play in it too. So he attacked me and something happened, but I survived and the bear spray worked, which mean and he's not a troubled bear, so they don't. They rarely see him except for the DNA stuff, and so there's no there's no other issues with him. I mean, there's no really reason to kill him, you know. So he's the first, I guess, the first offense kind of bear, which sounds I guess it doesn't sound terrible, but at the same time. It's like, who's to say that it's going to happen again. I mean, it was just such a rare occurrence. You know so well. Were you were involved in the discussion? Um? I did. They did ask me, and I told them. I told I don't know if I was involved, but I didnt tell them. I didn't want them to kill it, like I was the question to you, Oh gosh, well I was. I wasn't even in surgery. And they just kind of asked me. They asked me what happened, and they said, do you think it was predatorial? And I said no, I said, we just ran into each other. It was just wrong place, wrong time. Yeah, And then they kind of make the final decision. Like I said, the fact that he didn't come back to the site, wasn't searching, or wasn't still there trying to find me. I think puts it plays a big role in it. You know, what was his name? Seven seventy But I call him rat bastard? Am I allowed to say that. I mean, I didn't want him to die, but he's still you know, he still made me a little set right. You weren't exactly running at him. He could have just turned and walked away half him right. Yeah, I wasn't asking for his food whatever he was digging for. You know, what was the what was the surgery? They had to put your skin back together, um skin, skull, bones, kind of everything, a little plate in there they actually put So there's a bunch of screws and kind of they call them dog bones, but their bands or plates, and it's there's just a bunch in my left side, and then there's a bunch in the back on my left behind my ear, and yeah, they just that they had to do. So there's a bunch of broken pieces of my skull because you know, he had punctured my brain everything. And then they had to cut kind of like a moon shape on the left side of my skull just so that they could put the other pieces back together and then kind of put it all back together. So there's no there's like plates. They call them bones, but they look like bands. So it's just like screw band screw, screw band screw and it's just keeping all the pieces and everything together. How much time do you spend in the hospital. Only a week? Yeah, so that wasn't too bad. Now, what have you noticed from like because you punched into your brain. Do you notice differences now? I don't. I actually I was super fortunate that. I mean I didn't. I was a little nervous I was going to lose something. When someone tells you that, you started looking at yourself in a new way, like expecting some or hoping you don't find some. Like remember buddy of mine, you know, he'd crashed his bike real heart and had amnesia and was hospitalized, and he would later I'm totally fine, but now and then I'll be tying and not efficient not or something like that. I know that I know this, not you just can't. Did I normally forget it? Or is it related? Because I knew this, I've tied this a hundred times. Why can't I remember? And he was always like trying to find out what was just normal and what you know? Like what's normal and what's that you know? Well, I hate to sit around and think like that, but I I have lost a few things out in the woods, and I was wondering the other day. I was like, did I lose my and I don't even know what that would be. You're lost? And found common sense out the ones because I lost a couple of knives where one I just I had it in my range jacket pocket and I just walked a couple of steps and I was out in the snow and it fell out, and so I was and I couldn't find it. It just like gone deep in the snow. And then one point I lost the water bottle and a flannel and another knife, and I was like, what the heck is going on with me? Has not been bitten in the head by a bear and that dude he's got to bring out like four stats of clothing when he goes out for a week long elcohant. So you don't feel like, um, everything moves normal. Yeah, I am still So I'm still in recovery. I mean it has a spirit. There'll be a year in May and I'm still in recovery. And definitely hiking is it's definitely a lot. And I don't know if that's mainly because like I can't here out of my ear soul everything that you guys feel like when you're out hiking you feel in your chest, and everything I feel in my head. I used to feel a lot more in the beginning, like the pulse and everything I could just feel in my head. It was like just pounding in my head and in my chest from hiking and walking around. I don't feel it as much, but I do still feel it. So I'm on a strenuous hike and I do. I have to take kind of more breaks than I would normally have to take, So there's things like that. But I hope with time it'll just eventually like I'll be at a maintenance level where either I have to do that or I won't have to do it anymore, or I'll still have to kind of in the middle, you know. But than that, I mean, in the hearing that was a huge, um new thing to learn. And you're hearing is back now. No, it's gone forever. No more hearing in my left ear just dead. YEA. To throw off your equilibrium, um a little bit throw it definitely throws off like location, so I can't try to locate stuff. Blue grouse hunting to be out for you, like you don't know where a gobble. Yeah, I mean, I was fortunate, So I actually did do some hunting last September, and I was fortunate enough, and it was good because I didn't have any hearing aids at the time and so just trying to locate and everything. My dad would be like, it's over there, like he's calling. I was like, no, I'm pretty sure it's over there, And so was a whole It was stressful, but just having to I mean you basically just got to re teach yourself. And the hearing aids help some. And there's another hearing aid that I could get, but I probably won't because I have to get another surgery and everything. Um, but I mean it's just learning how to relocate stuff with just one. I mean people do it all the time, right, and you figure it out. You trust what was the injury that took your hearing in your left ear? So it was my and they don't know for sure how it happened, but my inner ear. And they can't fix your inner ear, so that's the only part of the year that they can't do surgery or fix or anything. And that's what got broken. So basically all the hairs and folecules and everything that's in there are just dead and their never going to come back. So there's no yeah, there's no nothing, which is crazy because you think about where your inner ear was. I mean, his teeth really had to have been far in there and I just I mean, but didn't shred your ear. No, it's so weird. I mean, the whole thing is, how many crazy media requests did you get? Media media like interview requests? Um, I don't even know. At least probably at least ten. The first couple of weeks, I got one from one of those big talk shows over in New York morning talk shows or something, and they were like, we want to talk to you tomorrow tomorrow morning, and we're gonna put you on the set. And I was like, no, No, this isn't happening. Like I'm still I still staple in my head. No. And that's nobody's ever offered me any which I don't, you know, I don't really need that. I was curious, not so much like I'm just curious if that's how they operate or not. Um, you know, I don't know. I also I don't really ask for money either, because I'm like, well, I'll do it, you know, but it's got to be under the right circumstances. I'm really picky on the interviews and things that I do because I don't want anybody to turn my story into something. She loved bears and then she got attacked by bears and now she wants to still work for bears and that's just not me. You can spend a thousand yards on it, man, or you feel like she had done some bear hunting in the past. Yeah, well people hate that. This is Carl. Yeah, so yeah, there was quite a few. Like I said, I even get hit now on that. What did I say? It was? Oh? I was prey. I wasn't prey. He like a TV show? Yeah, he didn't hunt me? Because what channel was it? It was? I think it was a Discovery channel. I am pray, yeah, or I was prayer? Yeah, I was like, now, yeah, well I'm not I wasn't pray. I think their definition of prey is very different though my definition. So you're not like, um, you really uh, you're not really interested in the limelight. No, why did you come talk to us. I'm surprised he did well because I don't know, you guys are super well known and I love listening to your podcast, and you guys are really educational and you bring in educational people and so it's it's a different interview. I mean, you're not asking me to cry and tear up and talk. You know, you just want to hear my story, and you're asking questions and you're insightful, and so it's not like you don't want to make it a big emotional mess. You don't feel the urge to cry right now? Really, okay, if okay, if you could go back to that day, you know this, you know what I'm gonna ask you now, But if you go back to that day, would you still get out of the truck and go off the trail? Yeah? Really? Really well, because I mean if I'm going back, So if I'm going back to this day, right, am I going back to this day and knowing what you now know, knowing that I was gonna get So I'm going back knowing that I'm gonna get attacked. Yeah, oh that's tough, But no, I'd probably still feel because what if it didn't Actually, what if you found something in it? I mean, you have to be a hell of a lot more confident. Not that you weren't confident. Then it sounds like you really were confident and competent, but you're foraged by fire. Now, well that's true. I don't know because even though if I'm going out there knowing that I'm going to get attacked. I could say that, but you could. That's like driving your car knowing that you're going to get in a car accident. I wouldn't drive it. Ever. What I mean is this, um was it so was? Was the life lesson or whatever? The experience so exhilarating, the life lesson so valuable, the things you learned about yourself so important that you would take the getting bit and the surgery and the loss of your ear as payment or the experience or was it not worth it? No, it was worth it. I mean I learned, you learned a ton about yourself. How often do people get attacked or you know, they get into something, And so many people have told me, they're like, I wouldn't have been able to make it out, And I said, you probably would have. You just you don't know at the time. And I mean I survived. I was bound and determined to get out. I was going to get out, and I've learned a lot, Like I thought. I definitely thought I was gonna be back to work in a month. Well after being in that hospital. I could barely walk around the hospital just because I was so weak from all the meds and not eating and everything they give you and you're in there for so long and just walking up my parents driveway. Of course they have a you know, a slated driveway, and every was tough for me, and but I figured out what I can do and what I can't do. And granted, the hearing loss is it sucks. It's really hard, but I am learning so much about myself and learning things about my friends and about people and how people really interact together. And I think it's done nothing. But but I mean, I want to still want to be a bear manager. I still want to work with bears. I want I have more education now from this bear biting me on the head than I probably did before. And I feel like I can help people out more and teach them and and do something with my experience to help them survive and know that they can. I mean, you can. It's and know that it will happen. You know. We just sometimes we get complacent and we're out there and we're not always thinking because we just get so involved in the woods. But you do, you have to remember that there's other things out there that Yeah, I bet you won't have a problem with vigilance for a long time. I hope. Uh. The happy part of the story. Not not that any of this is particularly sad. Um. I don't like it that you lost the hearing in your ear and that you had to have surgery and had such a disruption in your life. But it's like uplifting because because you're who you are, right and you have the attitude you have yea, which for me, from sitting to my seat, I'm like, Wow, this is like it's phenomenal that that's your approach and that you don't harbor animosity toward bears is pretty remarkable. Um. And then you wound up. We talked about this earlier. You got a job. I did a regular job, yea, a real adult job with bears. Yeah. So I got the East pan Handle bearer biologist position. And so it's bearing management yep, in Florida, and it's doing bearer management. Really what I want to do educating the public and um, managing you know, bears. And they have they have a ton of issues. They've got four thousand black bears throughout the entire state, roughly throughout the entire state of Florida. So there's a lot of bears and there's a lot of people. And so they lost their bear season yeah, or kind of comes ebbs and flows, but yeah, which you know isn't always I mean, hunting. I love hunting, and I'm a huge promoter for it, but it's not always the answer when it comes to conflict and issues. I mean, there's there's a lot of other stuff and fencing and just educating the public and letting them know, you know, hey, your garbage can isn't right. Let's let's get this fix. Are you dealing with on the ground reality, Like whatever is happening politically or ever around the bear hunts, you still got bears, You still got people, right, Yeah, so it'll be a good job. I'm excited. Are you gonna be doing some Harrisnaring counting genetic work? No? Probably not so. Our research in Florida normally does some of that, but I did so when I was there previously a couple of years ago. So I'm actually moving back to the place where I did capture in telemetry work and monitored all of our salves with cubs and everything. So I'm super excited about that. And we didn't you know, we collected hair for DNA and we tattooed um and put collars on and then all the cubs had collars, which was really awesome monitoring all these cubs running around. And so I know a lot about the area. So I'm super excited, and I know some of the bears. I'm sure there's some of them are still around. You know, it a state position, it is, yeah, health care, Yeah, so they do. They provide benefits, but the kind of the way their system works is, I don't I don't give a Asian days. But once I'm there for a year, then I'll get vacation, which is kind of actually normal, I guess for some agencies. You know, you don't get vacation until you've been there for a while. So but yeah, good for you, thank you, you made it. You're a full fledged wildlife person. You're not an account I'm not a tech. You still got hearing in your right here. Yeah, thanks for calling on. Thank you, thank you for having me. Do you any final things you want to wedge in there? Concluders Only concluder is I'm a huge supporter of the Western Bear Foundation, so everybody should kind of look into that. Dude. We're doing an event in Boise I'm pretty excited about. And they have a bear Relief Fund which is awesome, and it's for anybody who gets attacked by a bear, has any conflicts, and we're definitely gonna try to help him out as much as we can. Just super awesome because there was a ton of attacks last year, so hopefully we don't have that again, but we definitely wanta able to help help people out. So it's good. Yeah, that's your plug, that's my plan. Calls again. Western Bear Foundation. They got a website. Yeah you do and barely fun, very really fun to help offset costs associated with with bears. Yeah, any hospital bills or anything. We would definitely love to help out and be able to donate some some funds for people who get attacked or have issues and in your case, expertise funds and expertise. I don't know about experty, but we'll see you got anything. No, I'm good. Thanks for coming. That was that was a great. Yeah, I'm so glad you came to talk to us. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Yeah, don't go doing in stupid TV show. Okay, Well be more careful, I'll try, all right. Thank you. S