Bears! And the Guys Who Don’t Like Them

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Bears! And the Guys Who Don’t Like Them"

It Could Happen Here (Cool Zone Media & iHeartPodcasts)
Released: June 1, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode explores North American bears—particularly grizzly and brown bears—delving into bear ecology, human-bear interactions, the history of human attitudes toward bears, and the ongoing political discourse about bear protection and management. Hosts George Taveras and Molly Conger critically examine recent calls to reduce bear protections following rare fatal incidents, interrogating how fear, misunderstanding, and politics intersect with wildlife management. The discussion is rooted in both personal stories and broader environmental and historical perspectives, advocating for coexistence rather than retaliation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Bear Basics: Species and Misconceptions

• Species Found in North America:
  • Brown bear (includes grizzlies and Kodiaks), black bear, polar bear ([05:18–05:51]).
• Color Confusion:
  • Black bears can be brown ("cinnamon bears"), complicating common rhymes and safety advice ([06:18–06:48]).
  • Misnaming and misconceptions can muddy proper response to bear encounters.

Notable Quote:

“If a black bear can be brown and you're relying on a rhyming phrase to know what to do, you don't know what kind of bear that is.”
— Molly Conger, [06:27]

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2. Human-Bear Interactions: Personal & Historical Context

• Personal Encounters:
  • George recounts seeing grizzly sows with cubs in Alaska, noting the awe and risk ([08:13–09:19]).
  • Reports of black bears in places like San Diego, countering skeptics ([10:22–10:50]).
• Historical Attitudes:
  • European settlers’ approach: conquest over coexistence; Lewis & Clark’s journals reveal reckless bear-chasing despite indigenous warnings ([18:22–22:31]).
  • Indigenous peoples often treated bears with respect, recognizing risk and avoidance as wisdom.

Notable Quotes:

“I think there's this idea that still exists…that we don't have to live alongside nature. We have to conquer it.”
— George Taveras, [22:13]

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3. Deaths and Discourse: The Politics of Bear Attacks

• Recent Bear Attacks:
  • Rare, tragic incidents (e.g., Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, British Columbia) spark discourse about bear populations ([11:18–13:51]).
• Political Response:
  • Former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s call to delist grizzly bears from Endangered Species Act, ostensibly for safety, but underlying motives and evidence are questioned ([13:53–15:52]).

Notable Quotes:

“It’s past time for the federal government to delist them and give states some management tools.”—Ryan Zinke (paraphrased) ([13:53])
“So we should start killing them?” — Molly Conger ([13:51])

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4. The Myth of "Too Many Bears"

• Statistics and Context:
  • Millions visit bear country; few ever see a bear—attacking is statistically rare ([15:04–15:12]).
  • Most attacks occur when humans aren’t following best practices (e.g., moving alone, surprising bears, bringing dogs) ([15:52–16:26]).

Notable Quote:

“The problem is not that there’s too many bears.”
— George Taveras, [14:52]

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5. Conservation History & Bear Decline

• Population Decline Story:
  • Grizzlies once ranged widely; by 1975, only 6 of 37 U.S. populations remained ([27:53]).
  • Causes: bounties, habitat destruction, livestock conflicts—conscious eradication, not accident ([28:01–28:18]).

Notable Quote:

“They were bounties for bears by the millions. They were paying people to shoot the bears.”
— George Taveras, [28:01]

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6. Manipulating Nature & Lessons from Other Species

• Failed Ecosystem Tinkering:
  • Parallels drawn to examples like Australia’s rabbit/mongoose problems, UK rabbit disease (myxomatosis), and the removal/introduction of predators ([29:53–33:04]).
  • The message: shortsighted attempts at ‘control’ often backfire.

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7. The Endangered Species Act (ESA) and Legal Protection

• How It Works:
  • ESA makes it illegal to hunt, harm, or harass listed species unless in self-defense ([33:14–35:21]).
  • Legal interpretations lean heavily in favor of those claiming fear, even unreasonably ([35:04–35:26]).
• Delisting Efforts and Court Battles:
  • Recent attempts to delist grizzlies focus on state control but have been overturned in court for insufficient consideration of holistic impacts ([37:40–39:22]).

Notable Quote:

“If you're on the cusp like that, leave it alone. If every time you delist them, they become threatened again, like, leave them alone.”
— Molly Conger, [37:40]

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8. Hunting and Culture of Violence

• Alaska vs. Lower 48:
  • Grizzly hunting legal in Alaska (with regulation); culls are controversial and often justified with shaky ecological arguments ([41:42–43:19]).
• Violence for Its Own Sake:
  • A Wyoming case: hunters torturing a wolf for “fun” is held up as an example of how delisting can enable cruelty ([51:09–53:44]).

Notable Quotes:

“There's an idea that they can prove their strength and virility and masculinity…”
— George Taveras, [51:35]
“If this is your first instinct for how you treat a living creature…I bet he's not good to women either.”
— Molly Conger, [52:56]

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9. Safety in Bear Country—Best Practices, Not Retaliation

• Myth-Busting Bear Spray:
  • Recent "bear spray is a placebo" commentary is demolished; data show it's the safest way—much safer and more effective than guns ([58:56–66:09]).
• Bear Encounter Safety Tips:
  • Don't surprise bears; travel in groups; avoid bringing dogs; use bear bells; keep a clean camp (food, toiletries, etc. secured); use bear canisters ([66:47–68:22]).
  • Bear sprays, practice with dummy canisters, and proper knowledge are emphasized for all backcountry travelers ([74:01–76:11]).
• Guns as a Poor Solution:
  • Guns often make encounters deadlier for both bears and people; most hikers are not equipped to use them safely in high-pressure situations ([71:27–73:32]).

Notable Quotes:

“If I am getting mauled by a grizzly bear and you bear spray that bear, I will have spicy eyes and hopefully survive. If you shoot that bear, it is very possible... you will also shoot me.”—George Taveras, [72:25]

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10. The Beauty—and Risk—of Sharing Space with Bears

• To Coexist, Not Conquer:
  • Advocates for accepting some inherent risk in wilderness as the price of a living, vibrant ecosystem ([78:07–80:13]).
  • Dispels the narrative that rare attacks justify aggressive policy—much greater risks exist in everyday life (cars, healthcare access, etc.).
  • Urges skepticism of "safety" arguments used to justify eradicating large predators.

Notable Quotes:

“If we wanted to see wildlife and have no inherent risk... we'd just go to the zoo, right? And the zoo sucks compared to the outdoors.”—George Taveras, [79:04]
“People get killed by lightning but we're not just killing clouds.”—George Taveras, [80:13]

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Memorable Moments

• Bear Antlers vs. Horns: Banter about the difference, with sexual competition and rutting described in dry humor ([04:37–04:53]).
• Lewis & Clark's Bear Mishaps: The explorers’ near-death scrapes show both the bravado and ignorance of colonial attitudes ([19:47–21:32]).
• Carnivore Diet for Bears: Joking about bears on Jordan Peterson’s ‘all meat’ diet and how it leads to more deadly behavior ([50:19]).
• The Lingokids and Fat Bear Week Asides: Light moments about bear-themed products, Fat Bear Week, and the hosts plotting a bear-watching trip ([84:26–85:11]).

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Practical Takeaways

• Bear Attacks Remain Exceptionally Rare: Just 66 deaths in 50 years—fewer than cattle, dogs, or even lightning.
• Most Conflicts Are Human-Caused: Poor safety, attracting bears with food/trash, or directly seeking out bears.
• Bear Spray is Statistically Effective: More so than firearms and less likely to lead to bear or human death.
• Habitat Destruction and Delisting Lead to Population Collapse: Caution against removing protections based on sensationalized incidents.
• Coexistence is Possible and Valuable: Bears are vital, charismatic parts of the American landscape; caution and education, not violence, are the answer.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• “If a black bear can be brown and you're relying on a rhyming phrase to know what to do, you don't know what kind of bear that is.” — Molly Conger, [06:27]
• “It tells me so much about the American psyche, right, that the indigenous people were like, yo, they will kill you...and Lewis and Clark’s party was immediately after killing the first bear they saw…” — George Taveras, [21:32]
• “They were bounties for bears by the millions. Yeah, they were paying people to shoot the bears.” — George Taveras, [28:01]
• “It is possible to use bear spray and be killed by bears ... but you are far less likely.” — George Taveras, [66:02]
• “If I am getting mauled by a grizzly bear and you bear spray that bear, I will have spicy eyes and hopefully survive. If you shoot that bear, it is very possible... you will also shoot me.” — George Taveras, [72:25]
• “If we wanted to see wildlife and have no inherent risk... we'd just go to the zoo, right? And the zoo sucks compared to the outdoors.” — George Taveras, [79:04]
• “People get killed by lightning, but we're not just killing clouds.” — George Taveras, [80:13]
• “You can't just do a squirrel genocide.” — Molly Conger, [49:32]
• “He named him Mr. Horrible. That’s mean.” — Molly Conger, [41:14]

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Suggested Sections to Listen For

• [05:18–06:48]: Bear species, naming confusion, and safety advice
• [08:13–09:19]: Personal bear encounters
• [18:22–22:31]: Lewis & Clark's bear disasters; colonial mentalities
• [27:53–29:03]: Bear population collapse and conservation history
• [33:14–35:21]: Endangered Species Act—legal self-defense against bears
• [58:56–66:09]: Bear spray efficacy myth-busting and safety guidance
• [79:04–80:13]: Reflections on wildness, risk, and the value of coexistence

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Closing Thoughts

This episode is an engaging, humorous, and thought-provoking critique of reactive anti-bear sentiment and a celebration of wild ecosystems that demands education, respect, and smarter policy. From “revenge killings” to bear protection laws, the hosts champion sharing space with megafauna as part of a healthier relationship with the natural world and push for fact-based, compassionate wildlife management.

Transcript

[Molly Conger]

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[George Taveras]

Call Zone Media Foreign. Yep, it's bear time. Hi, everyone. Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast where I talk to Molly Conger about animals. Hi, Molly.

[Molly Conger]

I am so excited to learn about bears. I've been thinking about it all week.

[George Taveras]

That's fantastic. Good. I hope you've had good bear thoughts because there are people who think about bears a lot and I think it's not good for their mental well being.

[Molly Conger]

I was trying to find if I took a picture of that time a baby bear was like standing on the median strip outside my old apartment and I couldn't find it, but so I was thinking about him.

[George Taveras]

Okay. Yeah, I hope he's okay. Hope he's found a better place to be than the medium strip. I bought a show and tell item today. Molly can see it. No one else can.

[Molly Conger]

I was hoping it was going to be a live bear.

[George Taveras]

It's not a live bear. I don't. I'm not allowed because of woke. You can't have a pet grizzly bear.

[Molly Conger]

If you're about to tell me that those are bear antlers, I'm leaving.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, this is from. These are actually original jackalope antlers. From the California jackalope? No, it's a mule deer shed antler. I thought it was cool. Thought you'd like to see it.

[Jennie Garth]

It's beautiful.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, I think lots of people don't realize that their antlers fall off and regenerate.

[Molly Conger]

I feel like he spent a long time growing those.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, he did. And then he just left them there as a gift for me in the wilderness. So I have a few of these.

[Molly Conger]

He's not getting laid this spring.

[George Taveras]

Oh, no. He's going to grow some more and he's going to fight another dude with them in order to get laid.

[Molly Conger]

So that fell off in a fight. So he's just walking around with one eye?

[George Taveras]

No, no.

[Molly Conger]

Looking like a unicorn. Oh, he sheds. Okay. He shed them.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, they shed them and regenerate them. Okay. Like this is how, this is how they get bigger and more robust antlers each time. But they put a lot of the caloric energy into Growing these, it seems

[Molly Conger]

like that would really take a lot out of you.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Well then they get horny and fight with other male deer for quite a while.

[Molly Conger]

No, those are antlers, not horns.

[George Taveras]

That's correct. But the horny is not related to them. Yeah, they go and then. Yeah, they lose a lot of weight in that rutting time and then they have to gain it all back before the winter.

[Molly Conger]

Just so focused on fighting and fucking, they can't even eat.

[George Taveras]

Yep. It's the many such cases. Many such cases. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm not talking about mule deer today. They are cool. First time I saw one I was a Casio. They call it a mule deer. Really got the ears going on. I want to talk about another type of charismatic North American megafauna bears. So there are three species of bear in North America. Should we do quiz Molly? Do you know what they are?

[Molly Conger]

Okay. Grizzly, brown, black, polar, close.

[George Taveras]

That's four. You just gotta keep spraying pandas.

[Molly Conger]

Those aren't even bears.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, nominally they are, but I think. Yeah, you did get them all during your period of guessing. Brown, black and polar. Within brown bear we have grizzly bears, brown bears and Kodiak bears. We used to think that the California bears were a different species. They're not. They just lived here.

[Molly Conger]

They just have different politics.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like they weed have been legalized. So they just saw things differently. The brown bear is the one I want to talk about. So I'm going to use brown bear as like a blanket term for when they're on the coast. In Alaska they're called brown bears. Right. And those are generally the biggest ones. And if you've ever seen it, if you've been to Alaska, Molly.

[Molly Conger]

No, I would love to go to Alaska. I've never been.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, Alaska rips. I love Alaska.

[Molly Conger]

I found out recently that black bears can be brown. And I just think we need. I think we need to re evaluate the naming system.

[George Taveras]

It's not good. Yes.

[Molly Conger]

Because like people are. You know the advice about a brown bear versus a black bear bear is different. But if a black bear can be brown and you're relying on a rhyming phrase to know what to do, you don't know what kind of bear that is.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, it's. They call them cinnamon bears. Sometimes the, the, the brown black bears. Yeah, you can tell a grizzly bear at the bigger. They've got that more pronounced hump. They have a different shape to them.

[Molly Conger]

No, you can tell I cannot.

[George Taveras]

You'll know the grizzly bear is coming like they don't make themselves, you know, quiet. But yeah, the big hump, they've got a more pronounced hump. Grizzly bears can also really get into like a blonde coloration even.

[Molly Conger]

Well yeah, in California. Sure. Everybody's blonde out there.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. They get frosted tips when they live by the coast for too long and they listen to Sublime here. Yeah. Let's talk about bears. My bear interactions, by way of establishing some credibility, I want to point out that like interacting with bears doesn't make you an expert. I'm not an expert. And what we're going to talk about here is non experts interjecting their inexpert opinions about bears and why that's actually a problem.

[Molly Conger]

I'm probably interacting with bears is not a desirable outcome for most listeners.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, I, I love a bear like I see because I come from a place where there's very little that can kill you. Well, I mean there are things right there like cars and we have cancer in the UK as well of course. But like animal wise you're more or less in a clear right. We have adders, which is a type of snake and they are venomous. But like I can't think of the last time I ever heard of someone getting killed. But I'm sure someone has been killed by an adid. But it's very rare.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah, you don't, I mean you have a lion on like a flag or something. Somebody has one but there's no lions.

[George Taveras]

We have a few lines. We've got some flag lines. Yeah, no, the lines, the lines. In fact we, I love the lines on a flag because they're drawn by someone who's never seen a lion. Just like a game of telephone has resulted in.

[Molly Conger]

But he knows they're very majestic.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, it's majestic. Kind of like a dog, longer hair. I think there was the input before he drew the lines. I kind of like being on the landscape with animals that are bigger than me and like they are the apex predator. First time I saw a grizzly bear I had bush planed to a lake in the Wrangell St. Elias wilderness. That's in Alaska, southeastern Alaska, massive wilderness area. And we were gonna hike around a bit and then pack raft offer the end of the glacier there. It's into, goes into like a meltwater river. Right. And so the river's kind of different every year as it, as it melts and the river streams braid together. Then we were going to pack rail for a few days and then hike out and that was a fun adventure. So we landed, we Hiked a bit. We inflated our little boats and we paddled across the lake at the end of the glacier. And then we got to a place where we're camping, went on a walk and immediately saw a sour grizzly bear and her cubs, which was sick.

[Molly Conger]

That's cute as hell. I would love to see that. I would love to see some baby bears.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, it's sick. Best to stay away from them. That's when they, they can get angry.

[Molly Conger]

I would like to see them from like over here.

[George Taveras]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

And then they can be over there like maybe on the other side of a river.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, okay. Well, bears can bear not afraid of water.

[Molly Conger]

But that's true.

[George Taveras]

They do love to eat a salmon. Yeah, it was sick. That was a sick trip. Germany, we got to see the glacier carving. So like that's when a little baby glacier is born. Right? But the glacier, a section of it broke off and I'm talking a section the size of like a city block here.

[Molly Conger]

I bet it's so shiny when it breaks.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, it's shiny and it's loud. It's like an earth shattering rumble. Right. And then this thing, it was majestic, right? Like it looks like a mountain has fallen into the water and that was cool as fuck. And then you realize that like it has displaced a mountain sized amount of water.

[Molly Conger]

Okay, you better move.

[George Taveras]

And now there are like fridge sized ice blocks coming at head height towards you. So yeah, we did some fast uphill running in that moment. But it was Alaska so it was summertime, so it wasn't getting dark. Right. You have like 24 hour sunlight, so at least it wasn't dark when that happened.

[Molly Conger]

Only time to run from the glacier.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, great time to run from the glacier. Wouldn't want to do it in the wintertime. I don't think they carve in the wintertime. Maybe they still do. I think it's to do with temperature rising. So that was my. I've seen a lot of black bears. I'm a San Diego black bear truther. But it's another fun thing about me. For some reason people don't think there are black bears in San Diego and that is not true. I have seen bear footprints. People have seen bears on game cameras. Bears pop up on top of Mount Palomar all the time.

[Molly Conger]

It's like the ongoing feud about whether or not we have panthers on the east coast.

[George Taveras]

Oh yeah, you guys love to. It's like a Carolina panther or something.

[Molly Conger]

People are very sure I have no skin in this game.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, I think there's a breeding Family of mountain lions now maybe in Michigan. So they're getting closer. They're getting. They're coming your way. You soon will. I've seen a lot of bears or a good number of bears. Seen a lot of black bears. Right. We have them in California. The fact that I've seen bears does not make me a bear expert. And another non bear expert has been diving into discourse on bears after a tragedy, like genuinely a terrible thing. When a hiker lost their life in Glacier. Try and say it the American way. Glacier National Park.

[Molly Conger]

I say we're going to get messages about this. This British word.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, right. It's not like a buffalo issue. I'm just straight colonizing it. I'm sure it had an indigenous name and so. So are you. If you're saying glacier. This is really sad. Right. A hiker from Florida was mauled by a bear and died very shortly. In relation to that, serious injuries occurred in another mauling in Yellowstone national park not so long ago. A contractor at a uranium mining site was killed by a black bear in British Columbia in Canada a couple of weeks ago, maybe 13th of May. It looks like unusual to be killed by a black bear. Probably worth pointing out that very rare for black bears to kill people. And also someone at that site clearly had a firearm because they euthanased the bear. Euthanasia is a phrase they use there. They killed it. Right. Like it wasn't suffering, I don't think. But they killed the bear pretty shortly thereafter and it's undergoing a necropsy now. But that's another incident, I guess, to add to this list. And again, right there, there was a firearm present there, it seems in there that didn't prevent the person being mauled by the bear. And so former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has decided to wade into the debate. Do we remember Ryan Zinke?

[Molly Conger]

He's not the one from Real World Road Rules, right? No, that's the transportation guy.

[George Taveras]

I don't think so. If he is, I'm not aware of what Real World Road Rules is.

[Molly Conger]

I'm just having trouble remembering which members of Cabinet have been on reality tv and I don't think this is one of them.

[George Taveras]

Okay.

[Molly Conger]

Sorry.

[George Taveras]

No, not to my knowledge. Zinke, he was a Navy SEAL officer. He's now representative from Montana. He was Interior Secretary in Trump's first administration. He presided over a series of attacks on public lands that we saw in Trump 1.0. Right.

[Molly Conger]

Exactly what you want to see from your Secretary of the Interior.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, yeah. He's trying to rebrand himself as some kind of protector of public lands. Now he's kind of too late on that one in my opinion, but he's certainly not a protector of bears. Last week he tweeted, maybe he zeted, I don't know.

[Molly Conger]

We're not doing that.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, we're not doing that. We're going to keep dead naming it. Last week, two grizzly bear attacks claimed the life of a hiker in Glacier national park and seriously injured two others in Yellowstone National Park. The tragedies are a sobering reminder that grizzly bear populations have recovered well beyond sustainable levels. And it is time for.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, so we should start killing them?

[George Taveras]

Yep. It's past time for the federal government to delist them and give states some management tools.

[Molly Conger]

Kill them back.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, we're gonna kill em back. This is what we do.

[Molly Conger]

Eye for an eye for Florida, man. Yeah, fuck off.

[George Taveras]

I was speaking to a bear, a scientist who studies human bear interactions this week and he referred to these as revenge killings. Yeah. Because they won't just kill. They often, in many instances, don't know which bear. Sometimes we can know the size of the bear right. From like the size of the jaws. We can have several bears who are different sizes of jaws, things like distance between the different teeth, stuff like this. Right, right.

[Molly Conger]

Like if one bear is like, if it's like a Jaws situation, like one bear just has it out for hikers. Sure, I guess go get him.

[George Taveras]

But that's not like, that's not what's happening. Yeah. And they will end up killing a number of bears in an area when this stuff happens. Right. Which is, it's just a revenge killing. So we're taking out, taking out our anger on that species because they came after our species.

[Molly Conger]

It seems like the problem is not that there's too many bears.

[George Taveras]

That is correct, Molly. That is, that is why we're here today.

[Molly Conger]

He seems, he seems to be positioning this as there's just too many bears. People just can't avoid the bears because there's so many bears.

[George Taveras]

That is not the case. Millions of people every year visit the greater Yellowstone ecosystem and very few of them see a bear.

[Molly Conger]

Right. And even fewer of them touch a bear.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. If you're touching a grizzly bear, it's a bad day for you. Unless I guess it has decided it wants to be touched.

[Molly Conger]

I don't want to victim blame. Obviously these are wild animals, they're unpredictable. You're in their home. What'd this guy do? Why was he so close to the bear?

[George Taveras]

We don't know exactly what this guy did. There are a number of bear safety things which I do want to talk about and I spoke to Tom Smith last week and I'm going to turn that into another podcast. But like, this is the person who is the guy who writes the studies on human interactions with bears. Right. And specifically on how those could be like de escalated. And he said he's not aware of an incident in which someone has been killed by a bear in which they were adhering to all the best principles. Right.

[Molly Conger]

Now, I'm not blaming the victim like you, if you don't know, you don't know you're an inexperienced outdoorsman or whatever. But I feel like there's a series of just like pieces of advice that if you follow them, you're not going to get in that situation most of the time. Most of the.

[George Taveras]

Most of the time. Yeah. I think if I was going into bear country, I wouldn't take a dog. A lot of people take dogs. Dog is a great way to find a bear. If you're looking for a bear, you could go send out your dog and it'll come back to you with a bear in tow. Some, like hunting dogs can also tree bears, but that's not what I'm talking

[Molly Conger]

about here because the bear sees the dog as a delicious snack.

[George Taveras]

I think the dog sees the bear as a threat. Right. And it'll start and they'll get. And then like the bear then obviously sees a dog as a. What the fuck is this little animal? So now we're just thinking about apex predator here. Yeah. Like we're locked in and the, the dog can smell the bear. Right. So he's going to find it and the bear can smell the dog. So they're going to find each other.

[Molly Conger]

I guess I was thinking of my dog, which a bear would definitely see as a delicious snack.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, your dog I could see. Maybe it'd be sub snack size, it wouldn't be worth it.

[Molly Conger]

But like a little cocktail weenie.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. A sausage dog would try it, it wouldn't give it. Like I've seen. I've sent you a video of a sausage dog chase chasing off a mountain lion. They didn't give a fuck. Very brave.

[Molly Conger]

So, yeah, don't, don't take a dog. Don't try and pet it.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, don't take a dog. Yeah, don't try and pet it. In this instance, I think the person was moving through thick country where the bear was probably foraging for berries and they probably startled the bear. So you don't Want to startle the bear. If you're moving through thick country like that, that's when people will say, hey, bear. Or they'll use a bear bell or they'll talk loudly and converse with people in their group. It is generally preferred to be in a group when we're in grizzly country. Right. Not on our own. We don't know the details of this incident. There have been some reports that the person discharged bear spray. And I want to get onto the bear spray topic later because I have a lot to say about that. Let's go back and talk about bears in history.

[Molly Conger]

Yes. Contextualize the bear.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Ren Zenci wants to delist the bear from the Endangered Species Act. Right. Bears haven't always been protected by the Endangered Species Act. That's why California has a bear on its flag that doesn't live here anymore.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, we don't have those anymore.

[George Taveras]

No, we killed them all. We don't have brown bears here.

[Molly Conger]

So is he on the flag? Because you're sorry about it, because you're proud of it?

[George Taveras]

No, I think it's more of a pride thing. I think it's more of a.

[Molly Conger]

We got him.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Yeah. I don't actually know what. He's on the flag. I'll do some. Do some searching. I'm pretty sure it's not because we're sorry about it.

[Molly Conger]

Okay.

[George Taveras]

We have a good source, right. Of what European people did when they first encountered bears. It's not my story from Alaska.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, I bet they did not know about them.

[George Taveras]

Well, they did, because as it turns out, as Lewis and Clark were moving across the plains, right. They. They encountered indigenous people who very specifically told them not to. With bears, Let me quote from Lewis's diary.

[Molly Conger]

I feel like you would not have to tell, like if I have never. If I had no concept of bear and I see a bear, my instinct is going to be, I'm going to leave that guy alone.

[George Taveras]

See? Yeah. But maybe these guys are just built different. As it turns out, their bear poking, I don't know. Desire is extremely turns out counterproductive for them. Let's read from the Lewis and Clark diaries, a first on the podcast. Quote, the Indians give a very formidable account of the strength and ferocity of this animal, which they never dare to attack, but in parties of 6, 8, or 10 persons and are even then frequently defeated with a loss of one or more of their party. This animal is said to more frequently attack a man on meeting with him than flee from him when the Indians are about to go in Quest of the white bear. Previous to their departure, they paint themselves and perform all these superstitious rites commonly observed when they are about to make war upon a neighboring nation. I think he's talking about brown bears when he talks about white bears there.

[Molly Conger]

But I was gonna say, is he talking about polar bears? Cause you definitely don't do that. That's an even worse idea.

[George Taveras]

Do not fuck with it. But, yeah, a polar bear will end you. That was on the 15th of April.

[Molly Conger]

So he's like, yeah, it takes eight or ten guys. Usually one of them dies. They don't always succeed. I want to go check it out. I got it.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Yep. So by early May, Captain Clark and Dreyer killed the largest brown bear this evening, which we have ever yet seen. It was the most tremendous looking animal and extremely hard to kill notwithstanding, he had five balls through his lungs and five others in various parts. He swam more than half the distance across the river to a sandbar, and it was at least 20 minutes before he died. Then they go on to say they thought it weighed about 500 pounds, but they didn't have any apparatus to weigh it. So that's their first interaction with the bear. Less than a month later, quote, six good hunters of the party fired at a brown or yellow bear several times before they killed him. And indeed, he had liked to have defeated the whole party. He pursued them separately as they fired on him and was near catching several of them. He pursued two of them separately, so close that they were obliged to throw aside their guns and pouches and throw themselves into the river, although the bank was nearly 20ft perpendicular.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, my God.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. So enraged was this animal that he plunged into the river only a few feet behind the second man. He had compelled to take refuge in the water when one of those who still remained on the shore shot him through the head and finally killed him.

[Molly Conger]

That's not fair. They should have let him have that guy.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Eye for an eye. Like, it's fascinating to me, right, that, like, you do see this sometimes in, like, indigenous, like, people's records, right? There was a guy. I forget his name. I forget. I was reading about this, this one indigenous American guy who was like, every time I see a bear, I gotta go try to take it on. But, like, he recognized that was, like, not a normal response, right? Whereas apparently everyone in Lewis and Clark's party was immediately after killing the first bear they saw, despite having been told

[Molly Conger]

we found the murder monster.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. It tells me so much about the American psyche, right, that the indigenous people were like, yo, they. They will kill you.

[Molly Conger]

And, like, how much bear meat were they eating?

[George Taveras]

Yeah, I mean, maybe a bit. I don't know. Like, you can eat bear meat. It's kind of greasy, from what I understand.

[Molly Conger]

So they're just going after bears just because it's fun.

[George Taveras]

I do understand that Lewis and Clark had to collect and catalog animals, which obviously they didn't bring them back alive. Right. They brought back skulls and hides and that kind of thing. So that the western way of understanding the world could catalog and understand these animals. And there is a great deal of knowledge that that way of seeing the world gained from that expedition. But they also mixed it up with a lot of bears. You can read more examples in their diaries. There's this idea that still exists in parts of the American sort of psyche that we don't have to live alongside nature. We have to conquer it. Right. That we have to prove as our apex position. And that doesn't always go well for us.

[Molly Conger]

I don't need to prove anything to a bear.

[George Taveras]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

I'm at peace.

[George Taveras]

I'm happy to coexist with bears. I'm happy that they're there. They're happy that I'm here. I hope we can have a nice time. I don't want to fight with bears. Lewis and Clark, by the way, I find the Lewis and Clark exhibition fascinating. At the time they were crossing the plains, they were meeting with indigenous people who had been to Paris to check it out and come home.

[Molly Conger]

I have no concept of that.

[George Taveras]

Right. We see them as, like, questing into the great unknown. And these people are like, yeah, no, I went over.

[Molly Conger]

But those people have. They've been out back.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, yeah. They just didn't want it.

[Molly Conger]

Right.

[George Taveras]

They came back because they liked it. They were having. They were fine. It wasn't that they hadn't been exposed to the European world. It was just that the European world had not physically expanded to attempt to colonize the places that they lived. So, like, this idea that they're going

[Molly Conger]

that really makes what they did a lot less impressive.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, I mean, it was a long journey, sure.

[Molly Conger]

But, I mean, people hike the Appalachian Trail every. Every year. I'm not impressed.

[George Taveras]

That does go perpendicular to the.

[Molly Conger]

But I'm just saying, people walk a thousand miles all the time.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They did a lot of canoeing.

[Molly Conger]

It's a weird hobby.

[George Taveras]

Lewis and Clark. It's a fun hobby. I like walking, but. Yeah, I mean, it's an impressive journey, but, like, I think sometimes we have this idea of them, like, questing into the unknown. And that's just not it. They'd have met people who've been like, oh yeah, I've been there. Like, what do you think of Paris? Sadly, the Lewis and Clark expedition was not the low point for the grizzly bear population. But Molly, talking of low points, now is a time for us to transition to an advertisement for products and services.

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[Molly Conger]

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[George Taveras]

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[Molly Conger]

So is this largely habitat encroachment or overhunting or. I mean, obviously both, all of the above. So we were just going out there and shooting them, just.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, they're bounties. They were bounties for bears by the millions. Yeah, they were paying people to shoot the bears.

[Molly Conger]

We got a buffalo situation.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, yeah, we got a buffalo situation here.

[Molly Conger]

So this wasn't just like people doing hobby hunting and like concurrent habitat encroachment. This was like an intentional destruction of bear.

[George Taveras]

The bear doesn't coexist well with like human habitation and specifically like animal agriculture. Right.

[Molly Conger]

Like, yeah, it's not a great neighbor.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't give a fuck. And it's a big animal and it will tear shit down and people are scared of it. Bears used to live all across the plains, right. It was only a small segment of the bears that lived in the mountains. They're the ones that survived just because those are the areas that it was harder to make amenable to capitalism.

[Molly Conger]

That never occurred to me. Yeah, that never occurred to me that they have retreated from the hills to get away from us.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. I don't think it's that the plains bears went to the hills. I think it's that the plains bears are gone.

[Molly Conger]

Right. They're just the ones that survived because they were like, yeah, that's crazy. The bears just used to be roaming around down here.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, the bears would be out and about. Actually, the easternmost grizzly bear sow with cubs that I'm aware of is on the apron, like in the. The Missouri river breaks. So the American Prairie Reserve people who didn't listen to our buffalo episode.

[Molly Conger]

Callback.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, that. That's what they call a callback in the industry. The bears used to be all around. Right. Like, I guess maybe at the plains. Right. Or an area that's especially kind of appealing. Especially when we look at, like, the period after the 1920s. Right. When people were trying to bring the planet to heal through the application of technology. Right. I think it's Aldo Leopold who talks about the way humans fuck with ecosystems as a bit like somebody who doesn't know how a watch works. Taking apart a watch, just being like, oh, no, that fucking cocktail doesn't look like it's doing much to me. Let me whip that bad boy out, make it lighter.

[Molly Conger]

I always think of, what was it? Somebody who's colonizing and farming in Hawaii brought mongoose, because they thought the mongoose would eat some. They thought the mongoose would eat something that was causing a problem for the crops. And it turns out the mongoose don't even eat that. So now it's just like feral monkeys. Sometimes, like around sunset at the beach, you'll see all these, like, mongoose just, like, coming out of the underbrush and taking over the beach.

[George Taveras]

Okay.

[Molly Conger]

That's amazing because, like, they have no natural predators there.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, right. Like, introducing animals into ecosystems and removing animals from ecosystems has all these downstream effects that, like, we never think. Like, I talked to Sophie about this today. Like, I grew up in the uk, right, where we have tons of rabbits.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, she has a rabbit in the garden today. Did she show you?

[George Taveras]

Yeah, yeah, I've seen the rabbit. Yeah. It's able to identify it. The rabbit population is high in part because we've removed many of their predators. Right. The wolves are gone in the uk, the bears are gone in the uk. We have some foxes, but not as many because they are dangerous to sheep populations. Right. We have some raptors, but not as many. So now we have tons of rabbits. What do the rabbits do? Well, they eat crops in part. Right. Then they Come in and eat your carrots. As depicted in the Peter Rabbit.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, Peter Rabbit is just tearing the garden apart.

[George Taveras]

Yep. Every day.

[Molly Conger]

Mr. McGregor was right, Molly.

[George Taveras]

That is a bold statement, Molly. Molly Conga. Childhood villain. Now, the rabbits have a disease called myxomatosis, which is this horrific disease where like, they sort of become almost like, zombified. Yeah. I think it came from Australia.

[Molly Conger]

They got a rabbit problem.

[George Taveras]

Well, they were trying to eradicate them, Right.

[Molly Conger]

So they invented a rabbit disease.

[George Taveras]

I don't know. This is what I. Now I'm wondering if they invented the rabbit disease. Let's.

[Molly Conger]

Because they did that to another invasive animal, Right?

[George Taveras]

Well, they lost a war where they gave.

[Molly Conger]

They gave them all a disease.

[George Taveras]

I'm not sure. Didn't they lose a war against emus?

[Molly Conger]

That's right.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. The Australians really have a bad record. Yeah. So basically, it is a disease that existed in American rabbits only causes mild issues with them, but it is horrific in European rabbits.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah. It looks like they did it on purpose.

[George Taveras]

Yep.

[Molly Conger]

In Australia. Great job, guys.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Myxomatosis in rabbits is a thing that genuinely, as a kid. So I used to shoot a lot of rabbits when I was a kid.

[Parent Speaker]

Right.

[George Taveras]

And you'd shoot these rabbits with myxomatosis and be like, what the fuck is this? How have we done this to a living creature? They become so incapacitated that sometimes crows will start eating them before they've died, or they wander onto the road and get hit. Right. It's really, really, really horrible.

[Molly Conger]

I'm looking this up and I regret it.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, no, yeah. Google me. Process pictures at your own risk.

[Molly Conger]

No, don't. Actually, don't.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. It almost looks like they have, like, cataracts over their. Their eyes. It's. It's really, really horrible. Right. But, like, this is what happens when we continually try and mess with an ecosystem that has existed in harmony. And, like, it changes based on inputs and changes in the climate. Right. Like, it's not like it's a fixed thing. It is. It has shifted and changed through time, but it has found a balance every time. And then we come in and just keep pressing one side of the scale.

[Molly Conger]

This'll fix it.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, this will fix it more, but we just keep chucking more on there and wondering, kill the bears back.

[Molly Conger]

I just. I can't get over. That's just like, a child's approach to things.

[George Taveras]

This is our policy. Right? Like, okay, so let's talk about Zinke. Right. Let's talk about the protections that he wants to take away these Protections were passed into law by the Endangered species Act in 1973. 3 and the Endangered Species act lists grizzly bears in the lower 48 as threatened. If you're not familiar with the ESA, it prevents you from hunting, harming or harassing listed species without a special permit.

[Molly Conger]

Maybe he thought he's supposed to threaten them.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, yeah. Like harass them. Like maybe it's going to do it.

[Molly Conger]

They're threatened. These are threatening animals, we should threaten them.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. He was going to post a mean tweet about them that he didn't want to be accused of harassing them and violating the esa. One thing the ESA does not do is prevent you from defending yourself against these bears. Which seems to be the implication in his post. Right.

[Molly Conger]

That like because you're allowed to defend yourself against a person.

[George Taveras]

So I'm sure it's likewise a bear. There was a ninth case not so long ago about someone who had killed three grizzly bears.

[Molly Conger]

So if you get arrested for killing an endangered animal, is it like a murder trial where you have to like prove self defense?

[George Taveras]

I think it would depend on where you did it. Right.

[Molly Conger]

I was standing my ground, your honor.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, sure I was. I don't even want to make jokes about stand your ground rules because horrible. The 9th Circuit opinion says we hold the good faith belief defense for a prosecution and then they give the legal code. Right. It's governed by subjective rather than objective standard and is satisfied when a defendant actually, even as unreasonably, believes his actions are necessary to protect himself or others from perceived danger from a grizzly bear.

[Molly Conger]

That's interesting that the language. Because you don't see that. So in self defense, in like if I harmed you and I actual. No, no, it doesn't have to be actual, but it has to be a reasonable assumption. Like my belief has to be reasonable.

[George Taveras]

Y.

[Molly Conger]

But in this. And they're saying it's okay if your belief was unreasonable.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. If you're just scared of bears.

[Molly Conger]

Dumb as hell.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Yeah. If you, if you have no idea what you're doing, you can still kill these bears. Right. Like it gives you a very broad remit for self defense.

[Molly Conger]

Because you could just say you felt that way because it doesn't matter if that's reasonable or not.

[George Taveras]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

So it effectively doesn't matter.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, effectively. If you, if you are willing to state in court that you were threatened by the bear.

[Molly Conger]

I felt that way.

[George Taveras]

Right. It seems like you can, you can shoot the bear. I was just scared. I'm a, I'm a scaredy Cat. Maybe it relies on toxic masculinity to like self self police itself. I ain't scared. No. It also, of course, the ESA does not include animals based on how dangerous they are. So link Zinke's argument that we should delist bears because two people got hurt, one person got killed. It doesn't line up with why the ESA exists.

[Molly Conger]

And like, I'm very sorry for those people, of course, but like, that's not like an epidemic of bear attacks.

[George Taveras]

No. Cattle kill more people by a factor of 10 than bears everywhere.

[Molly Conger]

Toddlers kill more people with guns.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Lightning kills more people than bears.

[Molly Conger]

Dog shot a lady with a gun the other day.

[George Taveras]

Oh, wow. Well, good for him. It's good to see people pushing boundaries. Bad for her, I guess. I'm sorry to hear that. But I do think there are some best practices that could have been followed there that might have prevented the dog shooting.

[Molly Conger]

The dog was certainly not certified on the range.

[George Taveras]

Right. Yeah. The dog hadn't gone taken his apple seed clinic or whatever. So the esa, right. It distinguishes between a threatened and engaged species. An endangered species is, quote, in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant part of its range. A threatened species is, quote, likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range.

[Molly Conger]

Right. Like if we start killing them.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Or keep killing them. Right, yeah.

[Molly Conger]

If Ryan Zinke just opens up on bears.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, yeah. If Zinke taking his Navy SEAL training

[Molly Conger]

and going SEAL Team 6 is going to Yellowstone.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, yeah. They're going after that bear. You know, then they look at reasons for this, right? Disease, predation, destruction of habitat, commercial take, inadequacy of regulatory mechanisms to protect them or natural or man made factors, including Brian Zinke killing them. Because grizzly bears in the lower 48 are threatened. There are defined ecosystems, there are six of them in which we're trying to recover the bear populations. And one of these is the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. The Yellowstone bears have been ping ponged around the ESA for some time. As it turns out, bears were removed in 2007 and then returned in 2009 by a court decision. Then it was removed again under Zinke in the first Trump administration.

[Molly Conger]

I feel like if you're on the cusp like that, leave it alone. Like, obviously, if every time you delist them, they become threatened again, like, leave them alone.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, that's it. Well, in this case it wasn't that. The, the reason for the delisting was challenged in court and found to be insufficient it wasn't that the population took a dive.

[Molly Conger]

We're just changing our mind about how much we care about bears.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Or like in this case, basically what the court said. I can actually read to you from the court order. It's Crow Indian tribe, et al, versus usa. The policy implications of Greater Yellowstone grizzly delisting are significant, but they cannot affect the court's disposition. Although this order may have impacts throughout grizzly country and beyond, this case is not about the ethics of hunting. It is not about solving human or livestock grizzly conflicts. As a practical or philosophical matter. These issues are not before the court, then little ellipses where I've skipped a bit by delisting the Greater Yellowstone Grizzly. Without analyzing how delisting would affect the remaining members of the Lower 48 grizzly designation, the service failed to consider how reduced protections for the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem would impact the other grizzly populations. Thus, the service entirely failed to consider an important aspect of the problem.

[Molly Conger]

So the bears got a good lawyer.

[George Taveras]

There were two different court cases, and they were combined in this Montana case that they got a good lawyer. Essentially what they're saying though, right, is that, like, this is an issue which we have to look at, like nationally, because if we have state control and Wyoming or Montana, of the three states, Right. Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, one of them says that we got too many bears killing too many cows. Let's open it up on the bears. Open season on bears. The bears don't know what state they're in.

[Molly Conger]

They simply do not respect borders.

[George Taveras]

They do not. Yeah. They refuse to.

[Molly Conger]

Jurisdictional boundary is meaningless to him.

[George Taveras]

They engage in interstate commerce. So this one, it's got to be like a federally controlled issue. Unfortunately, our federal government right now is not one that's massively amenable to conservation.

[Molly Conger]

It's run by bear murderers.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, they would love to. I mean, Donald Trump's son, right, is big into.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, he does love big game hunting, doesn't he?

[George Taveras]

He does, yeah.

[Molly Conger]

He goes on those, like, rich boy safaris.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, he's got. It's funny, someone was like, oh, you should. Someone was talking to me the other day about, like, you should pitch this outdoor publication. And then I realized it was owned by Trump Jr. So that's a no from me. Oh, just a clear no for me.

[Molly Conger]

I bet they love conservation.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, I was gonna, like, I would be down to picture hunting publication about, like, the damage that the border wall does to our landscapes and our. And our, like, I've seen a mule deer try and get through the Border wall. And it's very, very. Yeah, it's really sad because she had been habituated to going that way for, for water, genetically, like for generations. Right. And now she can't. And yeah, that's pretty fucked. I'd love to rate that for a hunting publication, not rating it for Donald Trump Jr. S one. I don't think he's commissioning it either, to be honest.

[Molly Conger]

I don't think they'd pay for it.

[George Taveras]

No. I think they're probably using, if I'd had to guess, some artificial intelligence, but I've never actually read it. I'm not going to. Don't care. If you're interested in the ESA and what it's done for grizzly bears, I'm going to link to a Center for Biological Diversity report which is pretty good. This was published when the ESA was 50, so it's a few years old now, but people will be thinking, I have seen pictures of people hunting grizzly bears. I thought that you couldn't do that. That's because those bears are in Alaska, so they are not considered to be threatened. Different bears. Different bears, yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Or like the same species of bear, but they just live somewhere else.

[George Taveras]

Arctos horribilis. Yeah, the, the same. Horribilis Horribulus. Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah, that's the bad er for him.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. They really screwed him on the name. This is part of the way the colonial mindset interacts with nature. Right. Horrible. Bad.

[Molly Conger]

They named him Mr. Horrible.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Hor. Horrible bear. That's mean the other, like I'm aware of, like Ursus Arctos Syriacus, which is the Syrian bear. Fine, except that makes sense.

[Molly Conger]

That's descriptive.

[Jennie Garth]

Yeah.

[George Taveras]

He also lives in other parts of the region, but that's okay.

[Molly Conger]

Misleading.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, yeah. We could call him Ursus Arctos al Sham, I guess, if we wanted to get with it. But there are translations of the Bible that use Syria to describe the whole region as well, so it's okay.

[Molly Conger]

But like horrible bear.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, Horrible bear. They really did him dirty on that one. Could have called it nice bear. Maybe I'll petition for that.

[Molly Conger]

He should call up those lawyers from Montana.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Get the coalition together again with the Crow tribe. The bear is not inherently horrible. Right. We've just been horrible to the bear. He's just doing what he does.

[Molly Conger]

Maybe that's why he's so mad.

[George Taveras]

Maybe.

[Molly Conger]

Right? He's like, you know, if you're, if you're gonna call me horrible, I'll be horrible.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, maybe. Maybe he's, he's playing to the stereotype. So The Alaska bears can be hunted. Right. They are hunted. Things do get a little complicated in Alaska with different rules governing sport hunting and subsistence hunting and federal land and state land. There is a cull program in Alaska right now that is understandably very controversial. The idea is that they will cull the bear to help the caribou population recover. You are looking at a thing which is multifactorial and only. But this is like taking the part out of the watch. Right. That I was talking about earlier.

[Molly Conger]

Like, there's other things going on for the caribou.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, yeah. It's not the bear who moves. Moved into the caribou's home. It is. It is people. Right. Like, it's not the bear who caused climate change.

[Molly Conger]

Right. Like, there are. There are other factors we could address, but we're taking it out on the bear.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Which will be a common theme throughout our discussion here today. But I. I understand that we want the caribou herd to survive as well. But if you're trying to manage the caribou herd for hunting by controlling bear populations to allow more caribou. I know. I. I don't think that's.

[Molly Conger]

We're modifying the wrong variable.

[George Taveras]

Yes, that's a good way of putting it. Yeah. There is Alaska legislation that I thought was interesting to make such programs go through peer review that. That appears to be going absolutely nowhere. Seems stuck in the Alaska house.

[Molly Conger]

So we had to get a bunch of scientists to determine whether or not there'll be environmental impact of buffalo going back to where buffalo live. But we can't get a scientific review of whether or not we should be killing the bears.

[George Taveras]

Yes. I know that there are other reasons for us to do environmental impact studies, like hydrology and stuff. Thank you, EIS people who reached out. We appreciate all our science listeners, but, yeah, it is pretty sad that we can't get a. Get a. I guess the argument would be peer review takes too long.

[Molly Conger]

Okay.

[George Taveras]

But, like, you could get a couple of people to be like, you know what? It takes a lot longer to get all the bears back. Get a couple of scientists. It wouldn't take that long. They need jobs right now. Get a couple of bear scientists and employ them. See how it goes. So let's talk about, I guess, like, why Zinke wants to delist them.

[Molly Conger]

A bear stole his wife.

[George Taveras]

Not like in a. Like in an eating way. They live together happily. Yeah. She's living her best life. It seems that one incident was a sow with cubs who was foraging for berries. And so the other One was a bear foraging for berries. Who was surprised? This has nothing to do with the population levels, as I said earlier. Right.

[Molly Conger]

It's just like. It's an unfortunate thing where somebody was in a bad situation.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. It's a. We live in a landscape where things can kill you. Most of those things are cars, but some of them are animals.

[Molly Conger]

Well, we should start shooting the cars.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, but we don't do a revenge attack on Ford every time someone gets in a motor accident. Right. I looked at bear vault, so. Bear vault. If you're not familiar, Molly makes bear cans. You familiar with bear cans?

[Molly Conger]

Is it like tin cans you wear around your neck so you jingle jangle?

[George Taveras]

Yes, yes. You can talk to the bear. He holds one can you hold the other one. There's a string.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, like he's in his treehouse. You're in your treehouse.

[George Taveras]

Exactly. Yeah. And you say, I'm coming through. Please don't eat me. No. A bear can is a thing that you put your food in when you're camping.

[Molly Conger]

I was picturing like a. A big necklace made out of like old tin cans.

[George Taveras]

Like an old timey, like a, like a lei, but for bear country.

[Molly Conger]

But made out of like cans of beans.

[George Taveras]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

I don't know why you wouldn't need to buy that. You could make that at home.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, you can make that for free. Bearvault keeps like an open source collection of bear maulings. Bears, according to their data, have killed 66 people since 1974.

[Molly Conger]

That's the. Not very many.

[George Taveras]

It's not a lot of people, right?

[Molly Conger]

One a year?

[George Taveras]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

A little more than that.

[George Taveras]

It's very, very hard to make a public health argument for delisting brown bears.

[Molly Conger]

More people, more people than that have measles, like in my immediate area.

[George Taveras]

Well, that's a whole other public health issue, I'm afraid. When they do ESA studies on what kills bears, it's human interactions. I noticed a lot of bears, probably guns, mostly trains. Trains kill a lot of bears.

[Molly Conger]

That's so sad.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, it's really sad. So maybe.

[Molly Conger]

Wait, so you're supposed to make noise so the bear hears you coming? Trains are loud as hell.

[George Taveras]

They come pretty fast, I think. And I think they're not like super loud if you're just like. If they're not trying to be loud, you know, like if you're in a linear direction to the train, maybe they're habituated to it because the trains come so regularly. I don't know.

[Molly Conger]

That's so sad. Never thought about a bear Getting hit by a train.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Bears get hit by cars, too, especially black bears. I mean, I'm sure brown bears do. They do. I wonder if that's part of why, you know, like, there's a sort of we can't afford to keep smashing our trains on bears situation here. I'm not sure.

[Molly Conger]

I think the train's probably fine.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. I mean, the train keeps going. Some of those bears are pretty big. I'm sure it delays their train operations.

[Molly Conger]

I mean, if there was like a massive train derailment. Yeah, that's. Maybe we need to build a bear fence or something. I don't know.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Well, we have these wildlife underpasses, right, that allow wildlife to go under or over freeways. While ago, the right was getting really mad about one in Santa Monica. This was like a. I think Benny Johnson had done, like, an investigation into this overpass. His theory here was that the overpass was allowing, I'm not joking, terrible cougars to come into neighborhoods and kill people's children. We came into the cougars neighborhood. The cougars, Benny, are already fucking there because.

[Molly Conger]

And how many. How many children have been eaten by cougars in Santa Monica?

[George Taveras]

I'm aware of one person in California being killed by a mountain lion in the last few years and a few more people have been killed. I can think of a couple more

[Molly Conger]

people, but mostly on, like, hiking trails. Right. Like, not their yards.

[George Taveras]

Yes. I'm not aware of a cougar coming into anybody's house. It's not really how the mountain lion lives its life.

[Molly Conger]

I mean, sometimes people's Chihuahuas have lost their lives to this scourge. I understand.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, yeah.

[Molly Conger]

But not their children.

[George Taveras]

Not their children. And, like, animals aren't coming to your

[Molly Conger]

house and taking your child.

[George Taveras]

And the idea that they're not there anyway, like, they. If they want to come into your neighborhood, they can come into your neighborhood. They're good at moving across country. That. That's what they do.

[Molly Conger]

This will just keep you from running into it with your Lexus.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, exactly. Like it's. And it's going to allow, like, the. The little mice and other small creatures. Right. That can't so nimbly jump over highway barriers. The obvious other argument for delisting bears is that people want to kill them.

[Molly Conger]

Get a different hobby.

[George Taveras]

You can even kill black bears in most states in the Western United States, if that's your thing. Right. It seems like a lot of people just don't want bears around. And that makes me sad because I think sharing our landscape with bears is beautiful. And I think it's special that we have this thing in this country that, like, it's one of our, like, national symbolic mammals. Right.

[Molly Conger]

I mean, he's like a gigantic guy who just wants to eat berries and hang out.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. He wants to kill stuff. He. Sure.

[Molly Conger]

But, like, just. I love the idea of just like this huge animal just like roaming around looking for a little sweet treat.

[George Taveras]

Yep. Yeah, they, they, they're.

[Molly Conger]

That's precious.

[George Taveras]

They're incredibly adaptable. Right. They can eat berries, they can eat meat, they can eat fish.

[Molly Conger]

I love when they just take one bite of a fish and throw it back. So wasteful. He's just like, me, for real.

[George Taveras]

It's too fishy. He wants it. Yeah, he wants it like a fresher one. The other argument, I guess, is a certain populations have recovered, which kind of. It shows a misunderstanding, the importance of having a population for genetic diversity. Right.

[Molly Conger]

But also, like, I just, I'm really stuck on, like, just because there's a lot of them doesn't mean you have to kill. There's a lot of squirrels in my neighborhood, but I'm not allowed to shoot them.

[George Taveras]

And you can't just do a squirrel genocide. Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, there's just a lot of these. I'm gonna do violence on them. Just.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, don't do that. There are a lot of these and it's been incoming convenient for us, like. And therefore it's interesting to look at, like, the certain populations that are doing well at the Yellowstone bears. The Yellowstone bears have a much higher meat content in their diet than they

[Molly Conger]

used to from all the tourists they're eating.

[George Taveras]

Yes, that's right. Yeah, that's mostly it. They feed them into the moor every year to drop off a bus at the bear cave as an offering. And then the bears have violated the treaty. That's why they're mad. No, it's because climate change is making it harder for them to find their berries. Right. And human pressure is pushing them further and further away from certain areas. Eating more meat is going to lead to more conflict with hunters, both in terms of them both being in the same space at the same time trying to do the same thing.

[Molly Conger]

And honestly, it's so harmful for the bears that they've all been listening to Jordan Peterson. The carnivore diet is not for everybody. Just imagining a bear, it's not good advice, you guys.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, yeah. They've become like terrible transphobes. That's really why we want to delist them. I think we can look at what happens when animals lose their protections. We can see the way that Wyoming, for instance, dealt with wolves. Are you familiar with this incident last year of that wolf that was horrifically mistreated in Wyoming? No. It was really fucking gross.

[Molly Conger]

Did they torture it?

[George Taveras]

Yes.

[Molly Conger]

Why?

[George Taveras]

Because I guess it made them feel big and strong.

[Molly Conger]

Right. So again, this isn't about managing conflict with livestock. It's not about, you know, ecological management. It's not. This is about people who just want to hurt animals.

[George Taveras]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Because they didn't just kill this wolf because they didn't want it around. They did something horrible to it.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. I mean, this guy. There were videos of this. Right. But this guy.

[Molly Conger]

So they tormented an animal and then they made a video of it. They made, like, an animal snuff film. This is just about torture.

[George Taveras]

I'm not saying everyone who wants to delist grizzly bears wants to torture them in this way, but, like. But it is.

[Molly Conger]

It's this, like, this desire to engage in this violence.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Like, for certain people. Right. There's an idea somehow that they can prove their, like, strength and virility and masculinity.

[Molly Conger]

Get into powerlifting.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. So what this guy did to. People aren't familiar. His name is Cody Roberts.

[Molly Conger]

Never met a good Cody.

[George Taveras]

I've met some nice codies.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, no, there's. Okay, we know one.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, he hit the wolf on his. He ran down the wolf on his snowmobile.

[Molly Conger]

So it wasn't bothering you? You pursued it?

[George Taveras]

Yeah, he chased. On his snowmobile. He taped its mouth shut and took it to a bar.

[Molly Conger]

Does this man have a wife? And is she okay?

[George Taveras]

That's a good question. I'm trying to work out if he went to jail. 18 months probation. Probation and he gets a prison term if he fails. He filed a guilty plea to felony animal cruelty. I understand that there are people within the hunting, ranching, outdoor space who think this guy's a piece of shit. There are many of them. I know many of them because that's

[Molly Conger]

a very weird thing to do.

[George Taveras]

Like, yeah, it's psycho.

[Molly Conger]

It's like a thought process here. Like, what is shooting it I don't agree with, but I. I understand that you would do that. That's the thing people do. But why did you, like, chase it down and abduct it?

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Why did you choose to make this animal suffer? Like. Like, did you just show no respect for life? Right. Like, we joke like, oh, does he have a wife? She's okay. But genuinely, this is a person who is like, a psycho.

[Molly Conger]

Like, yeah, no, I'm not joking. I'm not joking, actually. Like, if you. If this is your first instinct for how you treat a living creature. Like, I. I bet he's not good to women either.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Like, this doesn't seem like a person who people should feel safe around.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, it was a young female wolf, too.

[George Taveras]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, no.

[George Taveras]

What have you found?

[Molly Conger]

Sorry, I just was. I found a picture of her.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. No, it's really sad. The whole thing is really sad. Like, to injure this animal, right. To the. To the extent that it can't get away or defend itself, and then tape up its mouth and then drag it to a place where it's going to be in fear for the rest of its life before you kill it. It's. It's unconscionable. It's. It's horrific. I'm not saying that that will happen to bears, but I'm saying that, like,

[Molly Conger]

a bear would be a lot harder to do that too.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, it would be.

[Molly Conger]

You know, I think. I think as his punishment, this guy should try to do this to a bear.

[George Taveras]

But what I am saying is that even if we, like, go ahead and delist bears without serious controls, if we start to manage them just as, like vermin. Right. Like, as a pest, like this opens up all kinds of avenues.

[Molly Conger]

And I think a lot of people will find themselves in a situation that is beyond their grasp.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, right.

[Molly Conger]

Like, if. If suddenly you are. If you're a guy who's like, yeah, I'd love to shoot a bear. Now you're allowed to. I think people are going to find themselves in situations they didn't anticipate.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. I know. In Alaska, for instance, if you want to hunt a brown bear and you're not an Alaska resident, you have to go with a guide. That's probably a good thing.

[Molly Conger]

Right. Like, I think if we start killing the bears back. More people will get killed by bears. A lot of these guys are gonna die.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The bad deaths will go up, without a doubt. Yeah, yeah. Already your. Your best chance of getting into an encounter with a bear is probably hunting. Right. Like, if you're not. I'm not hunting bears necessarily. But let's say. Yeah. Because you're moving around the woods. Qu. You could start one. Right.

[Molly Conger]

So that's already against the advice for not encountering a bear.

[George Taveras]

And then if you. Then you're able to shoot something and then you. Let's say you're in a. You're backcountry hunting. Right. You have to pack, backpack the.

[Molly Conger]

Now you have meat out.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. So. But then now you're coming back to the carcass for your second load of meat. A bear may have found that carcass. Right.

[Molly Conger]

Somebody might already be there.

[George Taveras]

He might not want to give that up.

[Molly Conger]

It's his now.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, that you. Yeah, you're then find yourself in a difficult situation. Talking of difficult situations, Molly, I have to pivot to advertisements again. Yeah, hopefully this one's not for wolf tape.

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[Molly Conger]

Mom, can I have Lingokids?

[George Taveras]

Dad, Lingokids, please. When did we become the Lingokids house? No idea.

[Molly Conger]

Last week it was dinosaurs. This week it's Lingokids.

[George Taveras]

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[George Taveras]

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[George Taveras]

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[Molly Conger]

Well, I think if you think it's a placebo, you should taste it.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Shows a fundamental misunderstanding of not only how bear spray works, but also what a placebo is. Right. Like you three of the words in your title, all of the nouns you don't understand.

[Molly Conger]

The bear doesn't know what it is. The placebo effect will not work on bears.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, the placebo effect actually does work on bears. You can spray things that are not bear spray and they still don't bear spray before. Yeah, it's just the. I guess not maybe the placebo effect. Yeah, it's a noise. It's the cloud. Like, I guess it's not really a placebo because you're not a bewildering.

[Jennie Garth]

Because it's.

[Molly Conger]

It's startling to.

[George Taveras]

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. But you're not saying it's bear spray will not work. Not actually.

[Molly Conger]

The bear will not have its sort of imaginary symptoms of bear spray exposure

[George Taveras]

due to their belief. Yeah, yeah. That they have been bear sprayed. I should note that most of the articles are written by the same person.

[Molly Conger]

So what's his motivation here? Why is it he's like, does he own a company that sells something that like rivals big bear spray?

[George Taveras]

No, it's the person who. It's got a guy called Wes Seiler who used to write for Outside magazine and no longer does. There's a escalating trend in the severity of his claims about the lack of efficacy of bear spray that correlates with him making income. That is directly related to the number of views on the articles making those

[Molly Conger]

claims that is really destroying the information landscape. Yeah.

[George Taveras]

I mean, I think also people not knowing what the fuck they're talking about. And being given a platform is also destroying the information landscape. Right. But like, both of those are at play here, really.

[Molly Conger]

See this sort of escalating way people write because their income is dependent. Dependent on clickbait.

[George Taveras]

Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The clicks to cash pipeline is not helping us.

[Molly Conger]

I make the same amount of money even if none of you listen to my podcast.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, you guys, you could all turn this off right now. I'd still be poor. This is not true. Right. I take really strong offense at this. I don't know quite a way to say this is right.

[Molly Conger]

Like, if Bear Spade never worked and couldn't work, he wouldn't be the only one saying it.

[George Taveras]

Correct.

[Molly Conger]

There will be. There would be scores of people saying, I tried this and nothing happened.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Also, like, we have data on this. Right. This is not a thing that we need to. To pull out of our ass. This is not a thing that we need to rely on individual anecdotes for. This is not a thing that will be determined by the outcome of a single incident in Glacier National Park. This is a thing that we have masses of data on.

[Molly Conger]

There's bear scientists.

[George Taveras]

I spoke to one, Molly.

[Molly Conger]

I can't wait to hear that.

[George Taveras]

And I had a very lovely conversation. He has the two studies. And to be clear, Wes cite sees. And I don't know if it's just that he didn't read them or he didn't read them well or that he read them to the best of his ability. And this is what we're getting.

[Molly Conger]

I mean, scientific literacy is pretty poor.

[George Taveras]

Sure. It's always okay not to write an article making claims about something that impacts people's safety if you don't know what you're talking about. It's always okay to be quiet when we're discussing other people's well being. That's fine.

[Molly Conger]

Adults talk about bearings. Yeah.

[George Taveras]

It doesn't impact your substack in some in the same way, but.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, it's a substack situation.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, it's a substack situation. I would suggest that writing that bear spray is dangerous or useless is akin to saying that seatbelts are dangerous or useless in that we can, if we, if we look hard enough, find one person who was killed by their seatbelt. No one's ever been killed by bear spray to my knowledge. I have been bear sprayed more than once. Didn't kill me.

[Molly Conger]

And when we were talking about this earlier, this the most shocking fact of all to me so far. Bear spray is less potent than police pepper Spray.

[George Taveras]

I believe there's less OC in bear spray.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah, I would have assumed it's more, but it's less.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. I think the idea.

[Molly Conger]

Because bears have such sensitive noses.

[George Taveras]

Very sensitive noses. To be clear, it's still very unpleasant for humans. Like, I consider myself to have a nose of average sensitivity. And having been a recipient of bear spray, it's highly unpleasant. Right.

[Molly Conger]

But I just, I, I thought, you know, I would have assumed you said, oh, I've been bear sprayed. Like. Oh, that's like way more hardcore.

[George Taveras]

Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the bear spray, part of the reason I think that it has less of the OC oil in it is that has to be propelled out at a velocity that allows it to be used even if the bear is coming at you and the wind is blowing towards you. Right. So the bear is coming with the wind, so you're spraying the pain. And then the spray would be. You don't want the spray to all be blown back to you. Right. You want it to be able to get out, to create that barrier between you and the bear. And it does. Again, Dr. Smith, studies have shown that Bear Spade does work even with an unfavorable wind. Right. I will link to both these studies everything he's done, which I think is really cool because this stuff impacts, like, your safety in Grizz Country. Everything he's done is available publicly for free.

[Molly Conger]

Hell, yeah.

[George Taveras]

Very unusual in the, in the academic research space. Right. But I think it's great because it allows you to look at this Bears Players of Placebo article and then you can go find the study. I will link it right here and you can say, huh, sure. Seems like this guy can't read a study.

[Molly Conger]

And does he? Has he read those studies?

[George Taveras]

He claims to. Yeah. He. He quotes them.

[Molly Conger]

So it's not that he just isn't aware of them. He just doesn't believe the expert because of a personal experience.

[George Taveras]

I think he either didn't grasp the table or didn't grasp. So they. So I, again, like, the person who wrote these studies is extremely easy to contact and anyone doing reasonable journalism would do so. Right.

[Molly Conger]

So I guess, is he saying, I read this study and it's wrong, or is he saying, I read the study and it agrees with me?

[George Taveras]

He's saying, I read the study and it says, best Bray doesn't work. It agrees with me. Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, no.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, yeah.

[Molly Conger]

He could have just emailed the author.

[George Taveras]

Could have just asked. Could have just asked. Yeah. So, like, there are incidents in the study which are considered successful and non successful uses. Some of the non successful uses are with a black bear. When you spray it and it comes back later, that is still the brown bear is not killing you in that situation. Right, sorry. A black bear, it still worked.

[Molly Conger]

Like, efficacy doesn't mean permanent.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. And at some point when you're making a study like this, you have to decide like what a. You're trying to create a binary relationship about his theories of things. Right. The other study he wrote was efficacy of firearms for bear defense in Alaska. It's worth noting that in the efficacy of firearm study, more than 120 bears died. Out of a data set of something like 250, none of the bear spray bears died.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, that's a lot, right?

[George Taveras]

Yeah, yeah, it's a lot.

[Molly Conger]

And I feel like it's better if everybody survives the encounter.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. It's better for all of us if we it used this extremely well researched tool. Right.

[Molly Conger]

And Again, having read zero studies, I read zero studies.

[George Taveras]

Yep.

[Molly Conger]

But I know only 1.1 persons a year are killed by bears.

[George Taveras]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

So if this never worked and couldn't work, more people would have been killed by bears.

[George Taveras]

Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Certainly a lot of people who use the bear spray didn't get killed by bears. Right.

[Molly Conger]

Like none of them did.

[George Taveras]

It is possible to use best brain be killed by bears. Like especially it's happened to.

[Molly Conger]

It's happened to maybe 50 people.

[George Taveras]

Residues of bear spray will attract bears in the like.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, that's unfair.

[George Taveras]

Well, it's an interesting smell. Right. And they have an amazing nose. So I'm guessing like they will come check it out. And I know that like there are instances where people have, for instance, used bear spray in the way that one might use bug spray, I. E. Spraying their tent.

[Molly Conger]

That's not gonna work.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, yeah. Well, you gotta bring them in.

[Molly Conger]

That's like saying, I'm gonna use this gun to protect myself by making a circle around me with bullets.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Smearing myself with the bullets in a

[Molly Conger]

circle around my tent.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. It's not quite cargo cult thinking, but like it's. I know, it's like magical thought process, I guess. Like that's not how bear spray works. You spray it at the bear.

[Molly Conger]

A homeopathic gun is where you just lick the bullets.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about the things that you can do. Right? Like you can keep a clean camp. This is really big.

[Molly Conger]

Don't attract them.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. So if we look at like Yosemite. Right. Yosemite. And that, that like Yosemite, Kings Canyon, Sequoia Park System. You can't bring bear spray in there, Right. Oh, but you have to have a bear can. Like, so I backpacked in that, that area. Like, they have done surveys that showed that, like, most people were acquainted with best bear practices, but we're not following them on the trail.

[Molly Conger]

So it's not that they didn't know better, it's the. That don't care.

[George Taveras]

I think people, it's hard to like fathom a giant several hundred pound half ton creature is going to come in and steal my Clif bars. Right. But it will. And like, it's hard to fathom how good their smell is because they love a delicious snack.

[Molly Conger]

Like they're berry boys. They're berry boys. They're going to come get your little treats.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, they love, they love a high carbohydrate, like, energy snack. They're endurance athletes. They want to eat your Clif bar. If you're keto, you're fine.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, I bet they would like candy.

[George Taveras]

Bet they'd love candy. Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

I know it'd be unethical to give a bear Skittles.

[George Taveras]

So we want to keep a clean camp when we're in bear country. Right. That means stuff with odors. It's not just our food, but also like the, maybe the clothes we cooked in. If we have a scented toothpaste, stuff like that.

[Camper Speaker]

Wow.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Like if I had. If I was in the habit of using a shampoo that smelled like. I think I spoke to Dr. Smith about this. Like, he said if I used apricot shampoo, probably wouldn't bring it with me.

[Molly Conger]

Wow. Because they just want to come check out that sweet treat.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Like it's a. If it's kind of. If you think that they eat berries. Right. You make yourself smell like a fruit. Like it's kind of on you. Like I get.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah, it makes sense. Like Winnie the Pooh, he's just like following his nose.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Find a sweet treat.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. I don't want to blame anyone for not knowing things because we're not all. None of us are born knowing anything. And, and it's not like they issue PSAs about bears every day.

[Molly Conger]

I bet there's a pamphlet at the trailhead.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, there's definitely. Well, when you go to Yosemite, you have to sign in with a ranger for a wilderness permit and then they'll give you the once over. But there are other things we would not do. Right. I would not sleep alone in a tent in bear country. And if there were two of us, I'D probably two tents. Right. Like, just gives one of us a chance to deploy the bear spray. If the bear does come in, we can get bear fences. We can try very hard not to surprise bears. Right. So I was trail running in Alaska last year in some pretty thick brush. Right. I used a little bear bell. Yeah. It's dorky, but, like.

[Molly Conger]

No, it sounds cute as hell. I'm gonna look it up.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Well, there's an unfortunate video that you'll probably see when you Google bear bell of a hiker who thought the bail bell with a repellent. And so the black bear is charging him and he's waving his bell, just

[Molly Conger]

ringing the bell on it.

[George Taveras]

No. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Molly Conger]

So it sounds like people are purchasing these solutions but not understanding the functions of them.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. And, like, I don't want to, like, blame people for that, because part of the way we get to a place where we could destroy so much of our megafauna is that so few people care about or understand it. Right. That's an education issue that we can't solve quickly or, like, on a podcast. I think that it would behoove anyone who's going camping in especially, like, Greece country. Right. So in Alaska, Wyoming. Not all of Wyoming, Montana, Idaho. And like, I've camped in those places. I've camped in all those places to learn about these things. Right. Because it's not just a negative incident for you. Like, it's also a negative incident for the bear, even if you have to bear spray a bear. Right. That fucking sucks for the bear.

[Molly Conger]

I mean, I've been pepper sprayed and the bear can't even go, like, wash his hair with dawn.

[George Taveras]

Right? Yeah. He can't stand in the shower, like, looking down, like.

[Jennie Garth]

I don't know.

[George Taveras]

There's this. I guess the positive outcome of that is that the bear will be, like, likely to not want to come around people so much. Right. Because they'll associate this negative attraction with the bear spray.

[Molly Conger]

Right. So this seems like, like, it's. That it does work. And then also, if we're all doing it, you'll have. You won't have to do it as much.

[George Taveras]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Because the bears will leave us alone.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. We have the solution for being in bear country. Right. Like, it is to carry our bear repellent.

[Molly Conger]

Unless the bears are like me, you know, I've been peppers by all kinds of cops, and I'm still gonna go look and see what they're up to.

[George Taveras]

Just keep on, keep on tanking. Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

I'm a very stupid bear.

[George Taveras]

He's like the. The Yosemite. I guess they just keep spraying me. These people.

[Sponsor Voice]

Why are this.

[George Taveras]

There were some incidents where I guess brown bears got sprayed, charged a person, but like, as they were charging, the person sprayed them and they came through to spray. But then as the spray got more condensed, I don't know, they knocked the person over and kept on charging. They were like, okay, I don't want anything. Yeah. Which is obviously not a great outcome. But it's a better outcome than. Than you getting mauled by the bear. Right.

[Molly Conger]

Better than getting eaten by bear.

[George Taveras]

But like, I really want to push back on this narrative that we should be all carrying firearms.

[Molly Conger]

First of all, most people don't need a gun.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. I mean, there are reasons to wearing guns. I own lots of them. But defending yourself from bears probably isn't one. Unless you're already very proficient with firearms. And even then, I don't want to kill a bear.

[Molly Conger]

But I just think if you're telling every casual hiker who goes to where bears might be that they need to own a gun, a lot of those people would not have otherwise owned a gun.

[George Taveras]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Are not good at handling a gun in a situation where they need to use the gun against the bear. It's going to go badly. But also 100% now there's a gun in their home that they would not otherwise have had in their home.

[George Taveras]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

And the odds of a firearm accident in the home are now higher.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Well, yeah. Infinitely higher than it didn't have one. Right.

[Molly Conger]

Like, so, like, it's not going to work out for you in this limited instance that you think you need it for.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. And then you've introduced a dangerous.

[Molly Conger]

Now you have a gun you didn't need.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Like it is impossible. Molly. If you are getting. If I am getting mauled by a grizzly bear and you bear spray that bear, I will have spicy eyes and hopefully survive. If you shoot that bear, it is very possible and it has happened that you will also shoot me.

[Molly Conger]

Because the average person not a good shot under controlled circumstances. Bear attack, not a controlled circumstance.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Like everyone. Like this is especially a thing with men. Right. They will tend to overestimate their ability with firearms dramatically. Thematically, in my experience, this is not a around and find out situation. You don't want to find out that you're not very good at shooting as a grizzly bear is charging you.

[Molly Conger]

And even if you are very good at shooting at the range, you're not in this situation. You're not.

[George Taveras]

You have to deploy the firearm Right. Then we have to like, your hands

[Molly Conger]

are shaking, there's piss running down your leg.

[George Taveras]

We're scared. Yeah. You have to incapacitate the bear. Like I've been in up close situations with big animals to, it's scary like thinking I'm going to die now. It has a profound effect on the human body and it's, it's not one that. And it doesn't improve your, it doesn't actually enhance your John Wick characteristics. Yeah. So I would highly recommend if you're going into bear country, you, you get some bear spray. Don't fly. What? You can't fly with bear spray. So you're gonna have to buy it

[Molly Conger]

when you get there.

[George Taveras]

Buy it when you get there. This is not like big bear spray. This is also an accusation that like, like big bear spray sort of funded these studies or that. Oh my God, this is silly. Right. The desperate industry is not that big, guys. It works. It is statistically more effective than using firearms. It works.

[Molly Conger]

What does it cost, like 40 bucks?

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Not even that.

[Molly Conger]

And how much does a gun cost? A lot more than that.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, a lot more than that. Especially if you're going to actually practice with it. Right. If you're going to get bear spray, I would suggest you get a, you can get a dummy. It's just got water in it and you can practice. Right. There are a couple of safeties on a bear spray. I don't know if I've got one. I do have one here with like within arm's reach.

[Molly Conger]

In your office.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, I got one over here. Yeah, I got my racket. But like it's, there's a safety on it and there's actually a zip tie when you get it to stop the safety coming off. Just to stop it like blow up in your bag. Going off in the shipping container. Yeah. Or in the, in the Walmart or whatever. So you kind of want to remove that. Right. And then if they, they sell packs which has the water one and the spicy one and you're going to practice deploying the water one. Right. And like that's smart. Yeah. When you're carrying your bear spray, if it's in the bottom of your backpack. Oh, the bear doesn't give you that much advanced notice. Yeah. So the bear spray is like when I was, when I'm running in places where there are grizzly bears, I wear a little running vest. I put, put it in the front here. If I have binoculars and have a little binocular pack, I put it on the side. There's I've done it on my belt before.

[Molly Conger]

I googled bear spray and the pictures, the pictures that are used to advertise this product.

[George Taveras]

I gotta see this. What's. What. Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

How do I send you. How do I send you this picture?

[George Taveras]

You can just put it in the chat.

[Molly Conger]

This is not a real picture. Is this a real picture of a man spraying a bear? Because the bear is sort of enveloped in this cloud of spray. So it just looks like one of those soft effect paintings of the bear silhouette in, like, a cloud.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, it looks like. It looks like, like a. I'm a big fan of T shirts of wolves howling at the moon.

[Molly Conger]

It's a bear, an old man spraying it.

[George Taveras]

I don't know why. If you're staging it. This is bizarre.

[Molly Conger]

Because that's not a real picture of some of that happening.

[George Taveras]

I don't know. I don't think so. Because there's no bare body and you can see this, you can see the bush. Right. Like, it's just its head. They haven't bothered.

[Molly Conger]

It's very close.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Also. Yeah. And the bear doesn't look too upset. It's kind of. Yeah. That is a fascinating. So if we scroll down, there are. There are better images of people using bear spray.

[Molly Conger]

Just incredible, incredible product photos.

[George Taveras]

That. Yeah. That is really quite remarkable. I would suggest everybody who is going into bear country buy bear spray and practice using it. Like it's better for you. It's better for bears. It's cheaper than a gun. You can, if you want, buy a bare fence through the electric fence that goes around your camp. If you're camping in the backcountry, I think that's a good idea. If you're in an area with lots of bears. They weigh very little now. I might buy myself one, actually, after talking to Dr. Smith. Well, I won't because I haven't got enough money, but I'd like to. Maybe I'll hear from the bare fence people. You can follow all the best practices. Right. And you're not just going to learn them from a podcast. You're going to, like, look up the park system. You're going to look at Dr. Smith's research.

[Molly Conger]

Ask a park ranger. He'll tell you. Yeah, yeah, that's his job.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Some of their jobs. Depends what. Depends what kind of rangers they are. Some of them are cops. The overwhelming bulk of evidence suggests that the way to go with bears is bear spray. Until a bear kills an oil rig, we will have. We will continue to have bears on our landscape. But this Is something that we should, like, genuinely care about. Like the, the trophic cascade is not as much of a. Of a thing as it was once made out to be. Like, I'm sure you've seen that thing about how wolves change rivers.

[Molly Conger]

No, you have to tell me about wolves, too.

[George Taveras]

A whole other episode. Yeah, well, fucking wolf management is a whole other thing. The bears have entered the discourse this week because a bear killed someone. We don't talk about it when someone kills a bear. Right. Like in Alaska, they're culling bears from aircrafts right now. And I'm not saying that, like, a human life is equal to a bear life, But I'm saying that hunting from

[Molly Conger]

an aircraft is such bitch behavior.

[George Taveras]

I know. If you want to take a bear, do it with a knife, like a hero or a bow, or, you know,

[Molly Conger]

do it Lewis and Clark style. Use a musket.

[George Taveras]

That's fine. Yeah, yeah, try it. Eight of your friends and a musket at the edge of the river, and you don't have bear spray, so your only option is to jump into the river 20ft off a cliff with a bear that you could have left alone. So, yeah, I want to, I guess, end by saying that the outdoors isn't entirely safe. And that's part of what makes it beautiful. There have been times when I have been in the wilderness where I thought I was going to die. And I keep going back to the wilderness because it's also one of the things that makes me feel so grateful to be alive. And it's okay if it isn't entirely safe. We know that when we enter the wilderness and we do our best to, to mitigate that risk, right? We, we, we plan, we. We take safety precautions. We bring our first aid kit and our bear spray and we tell someone where we're going and when we're coming back and we do all this stuff. But we understand that there is some inherent risk, and that's all right. Like, if we wanted to see wildlife and have no inherent risk and have it be comfortable, we would just go to the zoo, right? And the zoo sucks compared to the outdoors, right? Like, I want to see a bear in a cage. It's undignified for the bear.

[Molly Conger]

It's so sad for them in there.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Like, it's demeaning to me to see something demeaned for my entertainment in that fashion. Like I, I what? I. And we can't comprehend animals outside of their habitat, I think, like seeing a grizzly bear in Alaska trying to eat salmon or seeing a Black bear in California doing its thing, having some berries. Like that's cool. That. And I want you all to have that. I want your children and grandchildren to have that. That. And so like, I think we should be very skeptical about people making safety based arguments for destroying our, our megafauna here. Like you'll hear it with wolves, right. You're hearing people doing it with cougars, which is absolutely ridiculous.

[Molly Conger]

Like most of these animals will not bother you if you leave them alone.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. And like if very, very occasionally people have been killed by cougars who are not bothering the cougar. Right.

[Molly Conger]

Like very occasionally, you know, a freak accident.

[George Taveras]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Doesn't justify destruction of an ecosystem.

[George Taveras]

People get killed by lightning, but we're not just killing clouds. People get killed by cars. We don't go bombing the Ford factory. I understand the desire to be safe, but like, we will take away a lot of things that are really beautiful if we just want to be safe.

[Molly Conger]

But again, we're controlling the wrong variables. If you're worried about people dying in unfair and, you know, terrible accidents, there are things we could talk about.

[George Taveras]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

There are policy decisions that could be made that would save thousands and thousands of lives.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. If you want people to be safe, then be concerned about free health care.

[Molly Conger]

Bears have killed 66 people. I bet that many people died today from not being able to get their insulin.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, yeah, right? Yeah. There's a perfect example. Right. Like if you want to keep people safe and then think about things that will keep them safe. And I think we can, we can very easily keep people bears safe. But the threat to the bears is usually that's it. The only other thing that kills bears really is other bears. And so it's on us therefore to advocate. Right. Like the bears can't advocate for themselves. Luckily they had people who brought that court case in 2019. But like, if we want to continue to enjoy the outdoors in the way that they are, we need to stop randomly removing shit. And bears are one of those things, especially brown bears, that it's very easy to whip up fear about. But I think we should just leave them alone. I think we should be weary also of sort of anthropomorphizing them. Like I see this sometimes with people and animals, like they don't exist for entertainment. They don't see the world in the way we do. And that's okay that they're animals. They have their own logic. We coexist with them. But like, it's not like a Disney animal, it's an animal which goes about the World using its own logic, using its own understanding, trying to pursue its own ends through its own means. Right. But nonetheless, it is a majestic thing to see on the landscape and something that we should take care that, you know, we don't let corporate interests and people who find it entertaining destroy.

[Molly Conger]

I would love to see a bear.

[George Taveras]

Okay, we'll do that. We'll add that to our list. Okay.

[Molly Conger]

Take me to see a bear.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, I am going to take Molly camping. We will go. Maybe we'll go to. We go Yellowstone area. Like, I've never been to Yellowstone. Have you not been to Yellowstone?

[Molly Conger]

I've never been out west.

[George Taveras]

Wow. Okay. I've got some friends, got a cabin outside the park. Maybe we could have a little cabin trip.

[Molly Conger]

Sophie, send me to Yellowstone.

[George Taveras]

We can go in there and like look at the guys. Enjoy the Yellowstone ecosystem. No disrespect to my like Yellowstone friends, but that's a lot of tourists. Like I ain't going outside to be around that many people.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah, like there's, there's Yellowstone style nature outside the bounds of the park. You go there.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. I mean even if you're just, if you're getting away from, you can get it just get away from Old Faithful and that. Let that park road and you can get away from, from people just fine. But yeah, we, we can go. We could go to Yellowstone, see a bear, maybe see an elk. Pretty cool. Elk make a pretty cool.

[Molly Conger]

I bet that, I bet that's big as hell.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, elks are big as like, like a cow with horns. Well, not the cows. Cats have horns. Elk have antlers. Sorry. But yeah, we, we could go to or like that. Like the greater. Yeah, like outside of the park. Like that Wyoming area just outside of Yellowstone. It's really beautiful. Be a fun place to go camping. Maybe see a bear, have a clean camp. Maybe we can find out a way to find a way to expense that bare fence.

[Molly Conger]

That's what I'm saying. We'll podcast from out there.

[George Taveras]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

It becomes business.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Yeah, we will podcast from bear country proving that we can happily coexist with bears. Thank you to all the ferret people, by the way.

[Molly Conger]

I can't believe how many people contacted you.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, massive outreach from the ferret people. So yeah, if you are someone who can help me get on one of the ferret counting surveys, I will count ferrets with you. We will make a ferret podcast and we will change America's perception of the black footed ferret on your behalf.

[Molly Conger]

It's already working. You got me I love them now.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Molly's team Ferret. Yeah, you can't see this because it's a podcast, but she has a massive tattoo. It's one of the biggest.

[Molly Conger]

Around the neck.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, around the neck. Yeah. There's a further one in the lip, but it says Team Ferret. Oh, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, Molly's become a ferret advocate. I hope you have all become ferret and black bear advocates. Send me pictures of your bears. Molly, do you know what Fat Bear week is before we go?

[Molly Conger]

That is my favorite thing about bears is fat bear.

[George Taveras]

Okay. Sick. Good. Yeah. Bears getting plump in the. In the autumn before they hibernate is.

[Molly Conger]

I mean, how could you hate them? How could you hate them? They're just roly poly little guys hunting for a little sweet treat.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Their bulking cycle is incredible to me. Like the way a bear just adds thickness in a relatively short period of time. It's remarkable.

[Molly Conger]

Powerful.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, it's powerful. That lives in power of salmon. Maybe if we didn't have trawlers, we'd all eat more fish, but yeah, check out Fat Bear Week. If you haven't. If you're not from the U.S. i hope this has been fun. Little diversion into animals that live here. They used to live all the way down into Mexico, actually, but now, sadly, Mexican bears. Yeah, well, there are still Mexican black bears.

[Molly Conger]

They have bears too.

[George Taveras]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

I gotta look up where bears live.

[George Taveras]

Yeah, they live. Yeah. God, we could do a whole other one on the jaguars that they're being fucked by the border wall right now pretty badly. But that'll be a fun episode up in over in Arizona there. Yeah, bears, pretty cool animals. Our friends don't kill them.

[Molly Conger]

It could Happen.

[George Taveras]

Here is a production of Cool Zone Media.

[Molly Conger]

For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts you can now find sources for it could Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.

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