Ep. 768: Sasquatch Calls, Exotic Pets, and English Muffins | MeatEater Radio Live!

Hosts Spencer Neuharth, Randall Williams, and Max Barta talk with taxidermy historian Brant MacDuff, throw a Hot Tip-Off, discuss the 2010 documentary Elephant in the Living Room for the MeatEater Movie Club, and dig into the 2025 Sasquatch Calling contest with organizers Cheryl Putorti and Paul Bartholomew.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Smell us now, Lady, Welcome to Meet Eater Trivia, the
Metater podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Welcome to Meet Eater Radio Live. It's eleven am Mountain Time.
That's noon o'clock for our friends in Madison, Wisconsin, on Thursday,
September twenty fifth, and we're live for Meet Eater. Hqan Boseman.
I'm your host, Spencer, joined today by Randall and Max.
On today's show, we'll interview taxidermy historian Brant McDuff. Then
we have a hot tip off, followed by a review

(00:47):
of the twenty ten documentary Elephant in the living Room,
and finally we'll interview the organizers of the twenty twenty
five Sasquatch Calling contest. First off, we have some plugs
to get to take it away.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
Well. First of all, I want to wish a very
happy vacation to our friend Mogor.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Happy vacation.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
Happy vacation, Mogor. Hope it's a good one.

Speaker 4 (01:09):
You deserve it.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
Now onto serious business, Meet Eater is headed south for
the holidays. We are thrilled to announce Meat Eater Live,
the Christmas Tour coming to you this December. We have
stops in Birmingham, Nashville, Memphis, Fayetteville, Dallas, and Austin. Come
hang with Steve Jannis Clay Randall, that's me and Brent
for a night of laughs, trivia, prizes, and stories from

(01:33):
the outdoors. Go to the medeater dot com slash tour
to sign up for pre sale access, which is happening
right now. Today is your last chance to buy tickets
before they officially go on sale to the public. That's
the medeater dot com slash tour, and I will note
if you are hoping to attend the Fayetteville, Arkansas show,

(01:56):
you need to do that immediately because those tickets are
ninety plus percent sold out.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Wow, we're only in pre sale.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
I know. I know Birmingham and Nashville, there's there's quite
a few tickets sold there as well. In Memphis, Dallas
and Austin. I was told to relate to you all
to get your business in order and buy your tickets
because there's still some quite a few seats left there.
But again, tickets are not officially on sale, so I'm

(02:25):
not worried about it.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Randall's going to be there. He's going to entertain you
all night long at the meat Eater Live Tour Holiday cheer.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
We're going to be spreading it thick in the South.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Also, our tailgate tour rolls on and this Saturday, the
twenty seventh, we will be at Penn State for their
game against Oregon. Stop by and say hi if you're
in the area, eat some food, hang out with a
meat Eater crew. We will be playing games, giving away prizes,
and showing off how Meat Eater tailgates. This week, it
is Seth and Brody who will be there. And I

(02:55):
wonder if those boys are in the loop for just
how big of a deal this game is. It's like
the biggest game.

Speaker 3 (02:59):
We're probably not so far.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yeah, or do you think they know to wear white?

Speaker 4 (03:03):
I hope so.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
I'm sure they do.

Speaker 4 (03:05):
I mean Seth, Seth's sets it.

Speaker 3 (03:07):
Well, did Brody go there as well?

Speaker 4 (03:08):
Brody was there last year?

Speaker 3 (03:10):
No, but I mean attends he can be an honorary
yeah to it if they're both they're both Pennsylvania boys. Okay,
I'm sure they know the program.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
This is their warning. We're white cheer really loud.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
We are.

Speaker 4 (03:23):
No one.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
I owe.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
It all right. Last plug, One, Last plug, our annual
week of celebrating America's most pursued game animal, the white
tail deer, is just a few days away. A white
Tail Week kicks off Monday and runs from September twenty
ninth to October fifth. A whole bunch of white tail
gear from First Light, FAHF, Phelps, and Meat Eater will

(03:47):
go on sale next week. Be on the lookout for
that starting next Monday, September twenty ninth. We'll have some
great white tail specific content that rolls out next week
as well. All Right, we have a war going on
in the office. This is the English muffin War. It's
been very contentious. This this started in a meeting a

(04:09):
few weeks ago. We're at the end of the meeting.
Max and I had declared that I had recently found
the greatest English muffins in the world. Uh. And then
Max he says, well, are they the furrow and Fly
English muffins? And I said no, they're the stone and
skillet English muffins.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
And I said what both alliterative.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
And Max said. Max said, well, they're not as good
as my English muffins, and I said yes they are,
and I know they're not. And then I said yes
they are, and it got really nasty. Max called me
some names like and we just had to like. We
we declared we would settle this as gentlemen. And so
we we decided that I would go by Max's English
muffins and try them, and Max would go buy my

(04:51):
English muffins and try them. Max, what did you think
of my English muffins?

Speaker 4 (04:55):
Spencer?

Speaker 5 (04:55):
I gave your English muffins a fair chance. I tried
them one day and I was like, Oh, these are
just so doe and just then I didn't like them,
and I was like, you know what, I'm gonna give
these another shot. Tried them the next morning, same taste,
same flavor and everything.

Speaker 4 (05:12):
And what did I say? A six out of ten?

Speaker 2 (05:15):
You you went as far as saying that your wife
did not like them and your in laws did not
like I should have so Max, Max did not like
my English muffins. I went and tried Max's English muffins.
I didn't care for his. So we now have furthered
the divide and how how we think of who makes

(05:36):
the best English muffins. So what we decided to do
was I brought in both kinds this morning for Randall
and Phil to try them themselves. And so we are
going to allow them to declare which one is, indeed
the best English muffin? My English muffin the stone In
Skillet or Max's English muffin the Furrow and fly vandal.
Go ahead, curse, give us, give us your thoughts.

Speaker 3 (05:57):
Are we doing this now or right now? Right? Just
a teaser. First of all, I'd just like to say
that I think there's no food argument that I have
less invested in than what is the best English muffin.
It's a question I've never considered.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
Until you have a really good English muffin, and then
you're like, what have I been missing?

Speaker 3 (06:14):
When I ate these English muffins? I thought to myself,
maybe I don't know what an English muffin is because
I'm I'm used to McDonald's English tom Yeah, well Thomas
English muffins with the nooks and crannies, and then an
egg McMuffin, which delicious. Both of these were formidable creations.

(06:37):
When they came out of the bag, I was surprised
by the size. To me, they looked more like biscuits.
I don't they have. They both have very different qualities.
Spencer's your English muffin is I would compare it more
to like a bagel round. It's dowe, it's chewy, dense.

(06:58):
It's dense. You don't have to tear it. I feel
like the other Max's Max's English muffin. They're both exceptional.
Max's English Muffin is closest to my understanding of what
an English muffin is.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
Yeah, we didn't make any, We just buy them.

Speaker 3 (07:14):
It has the sort of cratered the cratered surface with
I don't know if nooks and crannies is a trademark.
Turret's good, but it has those you do have to
sort of tear.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
Tender.

Speaker 3 (07:28):
No, well, I think your hair. I think yours is tender.
It's got like it's got like a crust to.

Speaker 4 (07:33):
It because it's doe.

Speaker 3 (07:34):
And so I'm gonna go wishy washy. I'm gonna say Max's.
If I was gonna eat one with butter, probably Max's.
If I was going to eat one with like as
a sandwich or with jelly, probably yours.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
Okay, I don't think you've sailed anything.

Speaker 6 (07:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (07:50):
No, Well, again, as I said, this is the question
that I have nothing invested in. In fact, the whole
time this has been going on, I've actually been shocked
that this is a thing. The world is going to
judge us. Seriously. Have you heard about the English muffin debate.

Speaker 6 (08:06):
At the Geez?

Speaker 2 (08:08):
They'll give us a hot take here which one is
a good thing?

Speaker 7 (08:10):
I'm here so someone can take a gd stance in
this room. Listen both muffins. I would be satisfied if
I made one of these at home, I'd be happy
with either. That being said, Spencer's.

Speaker 3 (08:23):
Takes the cake.

Speaker 7 (08:24):
Oh yeah, honestly, on every single level, it's what I want,
Like like the the boys have already insinuated. It's a
little bit doughier. It was thicker, but the way Spencer
cooked it had a nice crust that you bite through,
and then you got to that when we bread that
wasn't undercooked, the chee the shoe was very satisfying. And

(08:46):
on top of that, Spencer's butter was better as well.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
So that's how much better.

Speaker 3 (08:54):
Screwed up in shaking the butter off of Spencer's because
there was there was butter pooling.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
It doesn't have the crators in it to absorb.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
Oh the screen went black.

Speaker 7 (09:05):
Anyway, Back to what I was saying is it was
incredibly important. Spencers muffin was better and this may. I
mean the fact that you guys were using the same
butter and I had no idea could probably maybe completely
disqualifies for me from being a food judge a capacity.

Speaker 6 (09:17):
But I think that just.

Speaker 7 (09:17):
Speaks to the quality of Spencer's muffin. Yes, that's all
I'll say.

Speaker 4 (09:21):
I just will not be buying them all.

Speaker 3 (09:23):
Sorry. I liked Spencer's muffin a lot, but as I
ate it, I thought to myself, this isn't what I
think of when I think of an English muffin. It
was like a treat.

Speaker 5 (09:34):
So you know that hasn't been settled yet. Yeah, it
sounds like Randall's voting for mine and Phil's voting for you.

Speaker 2 (09:40):
I will just take a time, Max, I'd be satisfied
with that. I did enjoy your English muffin. I felt
a little hurt though, that you said the one I
liked it was a six out of ten and your
in laws didn't. As we all know, in laws have
the worst taste imaginable and they didn't even like it. Tough.

Speaker 3 (09:55):
What does the chat think? I think we're ready to
put this one to bet.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
Yes, the English muffin war wages on, all right, joining
us on the line. First is taxidermy historian and author
Brant McDuff Brandt. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 8 (10:11):
Hey, thank you for having me. Absolutely, I've never had
my work have to compete with debates about bread, but
I'm honored for it to be the first.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
Okay, Brant, what is a taxidermy historian? And how does
one become a taxidermy historian?

Speaker 9 (10:31):
You know, it's a thing if you make it a thing.

Speaker 8 (10:34):
I do work for museums, and I had always loved animals.
I'd always loved taxidermy because I felt like taxidermy were
the only animals that I could bring that many of
into my house. It's really difficult to have live elk
and rams and bears and bison in your Brooklyn apartment,

(10:54):
but I can do that with taxidermy. So I've always
just been a fan of the animals and taxidermy and
the history that surrounds it. So there, the more obsessed
I became with tax deermy and its history, the more
I became someone that people went to when they needed
to know about taxidermy history.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
Okay, that is us today. Now you give lectures on
the history of taxidermy, and you say that the story
of taxidermy is told through heroes, villains, and elephant testicles.
What does that mean?

Speaker 8 (11:26):
Mostly it's just a catchy tagline that gets people interested,
so you can see that it works. But mostly I
talk a lot about different characters who were in taxidermy,
important historical characters like Martha and Maxwell, who really sort

(11:47):
of pioneered the idea of putting animals in natural poses
and natural settings as opposed to just sort of having
a very static mount with no idea of how they
would behave in their natural habitat. William Hornaday and Carl
Aikley they continued that, but Martha and Maxwell was doing

(12:07):
that well before them.

Speaker 9 (12:09):
So there are a lot of historical characters.

Speaker 8 (12:12):
Robert Rockwell learned tax jermy from Carl Aikley, but he
was a better sculptor, and so he became a much
better taxidermist, because being a good taxdermist is really about
being a good sculptor. So there are a lot of
wild stories associated with all of those characters. So I
usually like to start with the time period, find those characters,

(12:35):
and then tell some stories about their lives, and that
kind of gets people their foot in the door for
appreciating the tax jurmy, the art itself through those people.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
Okay, so we just heard about the heroes. How about
the villains and ell fantasticals.

Speaker 8 (12:52):
So Villain's Villains gets me to talk about poaching and
how aside from poaching for bush meat or poaching for
medicine markets, there's poaching or markets for taxi journey. I

(13:13):
also try to get people not to buy certain pieces
of taxiderurney. At a lot of curio shops, you might
see a framed bat, and I encourage people not to
buy those because unlike the very healthy, regulated market that
we have for furbearers, let's say in the United States,

(13:35):
if you buy a framed bat, it probably came from
Indonesia or a place where there is not such a
regulated market for that species. So when you buy those products,
you really don't know what your money is going to support.
So that I would consider more the villain side. The

(13:56):
photos that you're going through here have more to do
with our testicles. And this would be the Field Museum
in Chicago, and these are these fighting bull elephants that
Carl Akley put together and it's a wonderful, dynamic centerpiece
of the museum and the Field Museum actually saw Jumbo,

(14:18):
the elephant that was owned by P. T. Barnum and
was hit by a train. Well, Carl Aikley made a
mount of Jumbo, and people at the Field Museum saw
that mounta and went, wow, he's pretty good. Let's have
him do some elephants for our museum. So they sent
him on safari. He brings back these elephants. He makes
this incredible mount and unveils the mount. Everyone's flabbergasted. They've

(14:41):
never seen anything like it, and they say, now, look, Carl,
we love it.

Speaker 9 (14:45):
But there's a problem. There's two big problems.

Speaker 8 (14:48):
There's four big problems, four big and it's the elephant testicles.
They're like, this is a family place. You can't just
have balls all over the all over the museum. So
they made him cast the elephants and he was bior.

Speaker 9 (15:03):
That's George Dante right there.

Speaker 8 (15:05):
He's one of the greatest museum taxidermists working today, getting
up close and personal with one of the bulls. But
so that would be the testicles and how they tie
into that story.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
Okay, are the testicles there today? Are those bulls still neutered?

Speaker 8 (15:23):
They are still neutered as far as you see when
you're walking around the museum and looking at the mount
But there's there's tale that they are somewhere in.

Speaker 9 (15:34):
The back because what were they gonna do? Just chuck
him out with.

Speaker 8 (15:37):
The bad.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
Brand. What is your favorite era of taxidermy?

Speaker 8 (15:44):
For most taxidermy nerds, the era would loosely be described
as the Victorian Era. Specifically, the Victorian Era is the
era of Queen Victoria's reign, which was like eighteen thirty
seven through nineteen oh one. I would bump those numbers

(16:04):
out a little bit and just say kind of roughly
eighteen fifty through the nineteen forties, and that was really
the heyday for taxidermy. There was a lot of taxidermy
happening before that, earlier periods of the Victorian Era, but
people were really honing in on their skills and artistic

(16:27):
displays and what people loved and were fascinated by with
animals in wherever they lived. The tax dermy was huge
in the UK. They have a much richer history of
taxidermy there, so a lot of taxidermy nerds focus specifically
on the UK during that period.

Speaker 9 (16:47):
This was a time where.

Speaker 8 (16:48):
Some towns had eighteen taxidermists in one town.

Speaker 9 (16:54):
That's how popular it was at the time.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
I imagine that today taxidermy is kind of a monoc
but at one point there were probably regional variations. What
are some of those regional taxidermy variations when it comes
to different parts of the world and different parts of
the country.

Speaker 8 (17:10):
So something I'm a big fan of that I don't
really see anymore and really haven't seen that much outside
of Colorado specifically, are these split half mounts. So if
we think of a half mount, you might think of
a mountain goat with like a shoulder mount with its
front legs coming out, maybe on a rock or something. Well,

(17:32):
a split half mount would be if you went straight
down the nose and bisected the whole animal, and so
you've got the half the animal on the wall, and
just by cocking out the neck and head you can
get the full head both antlers, or you can split
the head right down the middle and have half and

(17:53):
half next to each other, with one antler on one
side of the skull one antler on the other side
of the skull.

Speaker 9 (18:00):
I think this is a really cool.

Speaker 8 (18:01):
Style of mount. Saves a little bit of space, but
you still get the whole animal. You really don't see
it that much anywhere, and I personally haven't seen it
outside of Colorado much. It's a it's a really cool mount.
I'd like to see more studios pick it up again.

Speaker 4 (18:18):
I've never seen that.

Speaker 2 (18:19):
I not seen anything like that either. You can see photos.
There's the nice talking.

Speaker 8 (18:23):
Head that's a single head split bisected in half and
you get one half on each side.

Speaker 5 (18:29):
Is that considered a full body mount or a half
body mount?

Speaker 8 (18:35):
I would consider it a split split full body mount, so.

Speaker 3 (18:42):
Mount.

Speaker 8 (18:43):
But you can see there's all four legs and the
full neck and head. You're just kind of shape. It's
almost like if you picture at home, if you picture
a fish mount, you can put the whole side of
the fish, but the one side that's against the wall
is flat, so.

Speaker 9 (18:57):
It can be up on the wall.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
Okay, I love it. Now. You spend a lot of
time in museums looking at stuff quitters, so I asked
you today to bring us a list of your top
three museums for the best most interesting taxidermy. I'm excited
to hear what they are. Number three? What is it?

Speaker 9 (19:16):
Well?

Speaker 8 (19:16):
I kind of flipped them into two different groupings so
I could cheat and get one more. Okay, great, far
as traditional natural history museums are concerned, you're not going
to do better than the American Museum of Natural History
right here in Manhattan. The downstairs Hall of North American
Mammals was finished up and around the nineteen forties, and

(19:38):
they are excellent examples of tax dermy and habitat Dioramas
Denver incredible tax deermy dioramas. And then I'd say, really
the Wonders of Wildlife Museums Springfield at the bass Pro
unbelievable museum, unbelievable, insane museum. And if you want really

(19:58):
old school additional taxidermy, amazing mounts and beautiful museum, check
out the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium in Saint Johnsbury, Vermont.
Incredible museum, gorgeous space, really traditional, cool mounts and displays.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
Okay, bucket list places. I wrote down all four of those, Brant.
If people want to know more about your work in
the history of taxidermy, what should they do?

Speaker 8 (20:26):
My website is Immortalanimals dot com. My instagram is Stuff
in my Apartment and you can get in touch with
me there. I give all kinds of lectures. I travel
for lectures on conservation history, taxidermy, history, wildlife, conservation economics,
all sort of related topics. And I'm a mentor for

(20:49):
the Kinfolk Hunting Collective in the New York area.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
Okay, brand book, The Shotgun Conservationist is available right now. Brant,
thanks for joining.

Speaker 9 (20:58):
Us, Thanks for out any guys have a good one.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
American Museum Natural History in New York, Natural History Museum
in Denver, Wonders of Wildlife in Springfield. And I think
the last one he said was the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium.
Do you say in Georgia? In Vermont? I'm sorry? How
many of those places have you been to?

Speaker 3 (21:17):
Randall three?

Speaker 2 (21:19):
Okay, not the Vermont?

Speaker 3 (21:20):
Not Vermont?

Speaker 2 (21:21):
How about you, Max? Have you been to any?

Speaker 4 (21:23):
No? I have not.

Speaker 3 (21:25):
My favorite museum for tax dermy is as a world traveler,
the Natural History Museum in Vienna, because all of that
stuff is like one hundred plus years old and it's
not maintained at all. Oh, just animals are the wrong colors.
The elk look like whitetail deer because they're so bleached out.

(21:46):
But just like every animal you can imagine. But it's
I mean, it's just like a chuckle fest. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
I've been to the New York American Museum in Natural
History and the one in Denver, both very exciting. The
one in Denver in their planetariums or no, what's it called,
there're are dioramas and they're di ramas. The artist has
painted some little trolls into the scenes that you go
around you try to find that all the trolls, trying

(22:12):
to find the trolls.

Speaker 3 (22:13):
It's like the hot springs at White Sulfur, just like that.

Speaker 2 (22:18):
I texted Randall last night. I said, Randall, if you
could go to a great history, natural history museum or
a great zoo, which one would you pick? What was
your answer?

Speaker 3 (22:27):
A great natural.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
History museum because he said a zoo just feels like
a strip club.

Speaker 3 (22:32):
Yeah. I did say that in a private tax exchange.
I said, you just it's you walk around and just
go o whoa. You know, there's no depth of But
a natural history museum then, like either, it just has
a way of like blowing your mind and you actually
learn stuff.

Speaker 4 (22:49):
I don't.

Speaker 3 (22:49):
I don't find that I learned very many things at
the zoo. I just see cool things and I go wow.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
Yeah, sorry, it was actually Max who texted me Max
who said zoos are like strip club.

Speaker 3 (23:00):
No. No, of all the things that have blushed about
in this room, that's not one of them. I did
say that on a text exchange.

Speaker 2 (23:09):
All right, Moving on, Our next segment is Hot tip Off.
That's saltyt that's salty. Hot tip Off is where two
listeners go head to head with competing pieces of advice,

(23:31):
and after we hear each tip, we'll declare which one
is hotter. If you have a hot tip, take a
one minute video on your phone and email it to
radio at the meadeater dot com with the subject line
hot tip Off. This week, Hot tip Off is brought
to you by Mountain Ops. Mountain Oops supports your daily
journey from mountain training to overall well being, optimizing performance,

(23:52):
enhancing recovery, and bolstering health, preparing you for any challenge. Okay,
this week it is James Chapman versus Lane Are. They
are competing for a one hundred dollars meat eat your
gift card, take it away, Phil.

Speaker 9 (24:06):
Wayne Acre.

Speaker 10 (24:11):
And there's Lane Acre and I got a hot tip
for making sure your decoys don't get tangled all next season.
So you needed some para cord, PVC pipe, a couple
of carabiners. So what you do is you cut your
PVC down a little bit shorter than your lines and
your decoys, and you cut.

Speaker 11 (24:27):
Your hair qord a little bit longer than that.

Speaker 10 (24:29):
Exactly what you got finished product pain of black. The
line runs through it from the top and from there
you can hook the dcoys on. Holl you got a
bigger carabiner here, cook it on. You got a hand
decoy carrier. So I've got a few of these in

(24:50):
my boat when I carry in, I can carry a
couple of these pretty easily, about fifteen decoys per keep
them from getting tangled.

Speaker 3 (24:59):
And you know I have to worry.

Speaker 10 (25:00):
About buying those expensive decoyl on that just he's like
one hundred pound amount of fila in it.

Speaker 11 (25:03):
First grade hot tip.

Speaker 4 (25:06):
I like it, change shopping.

Speaker 12 (25:12):
I've solved the problem for hunting here and protection.

Speaker 11 (25:18):
Hoodies.

Speaker 12 (25:19):
Got these daggum things on them end of your string
ties These reusable plastic earplugs right there right there. You
just jam them on the end and they're literally right

(25:42):
on your hoodie, right in your ear all the time.

Speaker 6 (25:50):
All right.

Speaker 2 (25:50):
Two very hot tips there from James and Lane, Max,
I'm gonna have to really rely on you here for
that custom decoy carrier of a tip?

Speaker 5 (26:00):
Was that?

Speaker 2 (26:00):
And before you answer, Phil is going to put this
pole in our chat too for them to vote as well,
and our listeners are going to decide who gets that
one hundred dollars meat eater gift card. Get in there,
all right, Maxwell?

Speaker 5 (26:13):
In my experience, they get tangled either way, no matter what.
I would love to try that out and see if
they actually don't get tangled.

Speaker 4 (26:21):
But I would use it for sure and give it
a shot.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
Even if not tangling.

Speaker 3 (26:27):
Though.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
Is that not like a convenient way just to carry
them three hundred yards to the water hole?

Speaker 4 (26:31):
Oh? For sure.

Speaker 5 (26:32):
I mean it's a lot better than putting the actual
string on your shoulder and then the string or the
decoy lines are digging into your shoulder.

Speaker 4 (26:39):
But yeah, I think I would love to try it sometime.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
Okay, Randa, what do you think.

Speaker 3 (26:46):
What was the second gentleman's name?

Speaker 2 (26:48):
We have Lane who had the custom decoy carrier, and
we had James who had the hearing protection hoodie strings.

Speaker 3 (26:55):
I think Lane's tip was maybe more. I liked james delivery,
and I also would love to just bump into someone
at a gas station who's got stuck on Like I love.
My heart wants to go with that, but I think
ultimately my head tells me that it's the it's the

(27:17):
PVC pipe plus anything that you can do with PVC
pipe for a non traditional use. I'm all in rod tubes, potato.

Speaker 2 (27:25):
Cannons, both very hot tips. I liked that James is
one with the hearing protection on hoodie strings. That's like
a ten second project. Yeah, and Lanes, you're probably spending
like a Saturday morning rigging that thing up, but it's
not very cheap or excuse me, it's not very expensive

(27:46):
or very difficult to make that custom decoy carrier. You
can see the video of what he's doing there on
the Meat Eater podcast YouTube channel. We're gonna give the
chat like twenty more seconds. I think I would also
vote though with Lane, with any custom decoy care.

Speaker 3 (28:01):
It's never occurred to me to put hoodie strings ear
plugs on my hoodie strings me either. It's just fantastic.
I love this so much.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
That's that's a good.

Speaker 4 (28:11):
If you're not wearing a hoodie with strings though, because.

Speaker 3 (28:14):
They I'm wearing now.

Speaker 4 (28:15):
Yeah, you go death.

Speaker 5 (28:16):
A lot of people like taking those strings off because
they're scared they're going to get caught into something.

Speaker 3 (28:20):
Yeah if you're yeah, I mean it depends if it's
like you wear the same hoodie all the time, you know.

Speaker 4 (28:28):
Or if you have like a hunting hoodie or working hoodie.

Speaker 3 (28:31):
Yeah yeah, yeah, work yeah. I mean that's great for
the job site.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
Too, real real blue collar hot tip. All right, Phil,
what's the chat? I have to say?

Speaker 7 (28:41):
All right, Well, with about fifty nine fifty eight percent
of the vote, the winner is laying with the decoy.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
All right, we gratulations you earned that one. We're a
podcast producer is going to reach out to you about
how to get that gift card. And again, if you
want to submit a hot tip, send it to radio
the medieater dot com with the subject line hot tip off.
All right, let's take a break for some listener feedback. Phil,
what's the chat A have to say?

Speaker 7 (29:07):
Yeah, just full transparency here. There was some sort of
like I don't know if it was like a static
short that just reset something with our computer or so.
It wasn't the internet. I think I might have just
you know, rubbed my shoes on the carpet a little
too hard.

Speaker 6 (29:20):
Or something like that.

Speaker 7 (29:20):
But in when that happened, it completely borked up the
resolution of the TV I use in the TV that
the guys see in the studio, so it's a little
bit harder to read the comments. I can only read
about two at a time, so I've been scrolling through there.
But we've got we've got a few that I can
pull from. So Christopher asks Spencer who's sent in a
gas can? While he's asking the live chat who sent

(29:41):
in a gas can? For Spencer? If mine doesn't at
least get an honorable mention, I'll be disappointed.

Speaker 4 (29:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:46):
Two episodes ago, I asked for our listeners to send
in their recommendation for the world's best gas can because
I have yet to be satisfied with one in the
last decade. You guys really provided. I think I have
one hundred fifty emails as of this morning to go through.
I'm still going through them.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
There are two brands though that seemed to be ahead
of everyone else. On a future episode, we'll go through
them and tell you what the Meat Eater listeners recommended.
In Love Cool, this.

Speaker 7 (30:15):
Is another question for Spencer from Spencer crew held the
Milwaukee store opening.

Speaker 6 (30:18):
Go Spencer, I think you were the you. Mark and
Chester were there.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
And Chester it was awesome. We had I think a
thousand people show up was the number that they guessed.
The store looks awesome. When when you're inside the Milwaukee store,
you feel it, You're like I am in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
just like I think if you're in the Bozeman store. Uh,
it's it's very clear to you that you are in
a Mediator store in Bozeman. So the people we talked

(30:43):
to were awesome. I love Milwaukee, I love Wisconsin. A
lot of good people. There was a lot of fun
thanks to everyone who showed up there and the Madison
tailgate too were the next day.

Speaker 4 (30:53):
Any cheese curds we did have cheese curds.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
Ye ascot we had there. We had multiple I think
we had three people bring us a case of spotted cow.
So Wisconsin really glided. They brought their best.

Speaker 7 (31:07):
On the heels of the taxidermy conversation, Isaac's asking if
if the crew has any unique or interesting piece tax
army that you haven't talked about on the show before.

Speaker 2 (31:15):
Maxwell anything.

Speaker 4 (31:17):
My first ever duck mounts looked like crap Oka.

Speaker 5 (31:21):
And the next I asked for like a dead mount
hanging by the feet, and I got them back and
they were hanging by the neck and the neck was
about like a foot long on each duck. And so
it's like throughout college is just like a running joke.
It was like, oh, yeah, do you want to see
my shitty ducks? You know, that's the only interesting and okay,

(31:43):
really the only tax dream I've ever had done. Everything
else has just been your euromounts and beetle cleaning.

Speaker 4 (31:49):
So that's about it.

Speaker 2 (31:51):
Randal anything exciting.

Speaker 3 (31:53):
The first bear I shot, I got a shoulder mount,
and I feel like that's a little uncommon to do
a shoulder mounted black bear. It's not like weird or anything.
But it's also funny because it's not a very big bear.
That's in Chili's office one along with my old couch,
and then at your office. Actually the most recent, the

(32:15):
most recent bear I killed when I was up in
Alaska with Steve. I got that into a half. They
call it a wall pedestal, which is essentially like a
shoulder mount, but it has more of the chest coming
out of the wall. And very happy with that, but
I do sometimes chuckle to myself that my only two
and I have a bear rug. But my only like

(32:36):
tax neermy other than some fish when I was little.

Speaker 4 (32:39):
Or bears bears.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
I think the most unique taxidermy in my house is
probably Clay Nucombe gave me a couple of raccoon baculums,
which is a penis bone, and so we have those
on a nice frame on the wall.

Speaker 3 (32:53):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
And then I haven't had this one in about a decade,
but when I was in college, my buddies and I
would heavily sue the Keystillope, which was the hunting season
promotion that Keystone Light did with the gold can or
exactly Bush Bush Light did one where I think it
was a gold can, and Keystone did one where.

Speaker 4 (33:11):
It was either gold or orange orange. I think orange.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
I think it was the orange can Hunter's orange for it. Yeah.
And then if you were to get one, you have
like a box cutout where you put it on the
wall and there's like a keystallope and I think there
was a Keysta fish or a Keysta trout something like that.
So when we had we had a couple of orange cans.

Speaker 3 (33:28):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
Those used to be up in my college apartment, but
now that I'm an adult, just don't have.

Speaker 4 (33:33):
And no more keys.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
I'd like to bring it back though. I put that
in Chili's.

Speaker 3 (33:36):
Office and liquor bottle. Home decor has really gone away
for me in recent years.

Speaker 2 (33:43):
Yeah, like once you turned like thirty four. Yeah, all right,
moving on, we have the Meat Eater Movie Club this week.
We're reviewing the twenty ten documentary Elephant in the living Room.

Speaker 3 (34:09):
Thank you, Phil. Although that sound effect rings hollow in
my ears since our Bennegan's review, and I've lost all
confidence in this bit.

Speaker 2 (34:22):
Peaked then Yeah, okay.

Speaker 3 (34:24):
Exactly exactly. I'm basically a heavily concussed Brett Favre playing
for the Vikings at this point year two. It's got
a straightforward review, but I think there's the film is
right for discussion. We're reviewing The Elephant in the living Room,
so I'll begin my commentary. The order winning twenty ten

(34:44):
documentary The Elephant in the living Room plums a fundamental
mystery of the human condition, the capacity of people to
do things that are completely inexplicable to other people, and
how those inexplicable things somehow make perfect sense to the
people doing them. It's the type of film that forces
you to con in front the unsettling reality that the
mind is capable of justifying nearly anything, and that rationality

(35:05):
itself might be nothing more than a shared hallucination we've
all agreed to participate in. Your neighbors might well be
living entirely different lives that follow logic so alien it
might as well be from another planet. The film follows
Tim Harrison, a public safety officer who specializes in exotic
animal emergencies, as he responds to calls that sound like
a five year old wildlife enthusiast filled out some mad libs,

(35:27):
escaped lions and Walmart parking lots, pythons trapped in suburban basements,
bears held captive and backyard sheds, and cougar this is
my favorite, and cougar's prowling next to pretzel bakries, which
actually is a thing from the film. Mister Harrison serves,
or Officer Harrison, I should say, serves as our guide
through this parallel universe where owning a four hundred pound

(35:48):
tiger is somehow not only worth considering, it's worth fighting for.
He has the thousand yard stare of a man who's
seen too many things that shouldn't exist but absolutely do.
But the real enig star of the show is the
late Terry Brumfield, a truck driver who keeps a pen
full of African lions in his mud spattered Ohio backyard.

(36:08):
Watching Brumfield interact with these animals, you're struck by how
completely normal this seems to him. He feeds them, he
talks to them, He worries about their health, exactly like
any pet owner, except his pets could horribly maim him
in a moment. The cognitive dissonance is staggering. Terry has
decided that sharing his property with apex predators from another
continent is a rational choice, and scoffs at those who

(36:31):
have called him quote brain dead, selfish, and immature. The
documentary doesn't try to bridge this gap for the viewer.
It lets you chew on the electrifying discomfort of knowing
that human beings can arrive at completely opposite conclusions about
what constitutes reasonable behavior. This extends to everyone in the film.
There's the woman who sees some measure of irony in

(36:52):
escaping the tutalitarian regime behind the Iron Curtain, only to
find that keeping tigers in perupt Nevada is unnerving to
her names. There's the dealers who trade in poisonous snakes
that they coil up inside of empty potato salad containers.
Director Michael Weber wisely avoids trying to explain these people
to us. Instead, he lets their own words reveal the

(37:13):
vast gulf between how they see themselves and how the
rest of us see them. There's something anthropological about the film,
like studying a culture whose basic assumptions about risk, responsibility
and sanity are so different from mainstream society that meaningful
communication between the two becomes nearly impossible. So that's my take.

(37:34):
But I have a whole list of things before we
get into the discussion. I tried to check up on
some of the folks from this well. Then Terry, the
man who kept the lions, actually died died the same
year as the film's release.

Speaker 2 (37:51):
I mean, it kind of felt like it was trending
that direction.

Speaker 3 (37:54):
Yeah, the guy, the giant guy that U the wrestler,
he looks like gold birds. Yeah, he also passed away.
I looked up the Animal Finder's Guide the classify you.
It was like the Auto Trader, but for exotic pets.
That stopped publishing in twenty eighteen. I went to the website. IP.
I went to the web because I when I saw

(38:15):
that on the screen, I wrote down I should get
animal Finder. I wrote Animal Finder Guide? Can we get it?
And Sydney turned to me and said, I'm surprised you
don't have that. There are some articles still in the website,
including advice on what to do if your large animal escapes.
He says, my standing rule is if an animal of

(38:38):
danger leaves my compound, there shall be no effort to capture,
but only to destroy. Wow, because no single animal is
worth the harm it does to all the other exotic pets.
When someone is mulled, Oh okay, I thought that was insightful.
I feel like that's usually not the take these people have. Yeah, well,
it's like animal above human. I think that this person

(38:59):
has a larger review because they're part of the trade.
And then finally I tried to look up the folks
from perump Nevada who were sort of political, and so
I couldn't remember their names, and I didn't want to
go back and watch the film, so I googled exotic
Pets perump Nevada, big Cats, and I found a guy

(39:19):
who very recently claimed his seven tigers were emotional support
animals so that the government couldn't take them away. But
the government still took them away, and I thought, surely
that's got to be the same people that were in
this film. And no, Scott Shoemaker and Susannah Cookole are
not the people involved in this. That guy was named

(39:41):
like like cal something. I don't know, So I don't know.
I guess I've got a lot of thoughts here. The
final thought was the I mean, this movie is actually
darker and more disturbing than I imagine than I remembered.

Speaker 2 (39:57):
You had declared this is one of your favorite documentaries.

Speaker 3 (40:00):
I watched it a bunch. This probably is the documentary
of most I've watched, third, mostly behind Grisly Man and
Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia. But I hadn't
watched in a very long time, and it's darker than
I remember, and so I have some dark The worst
part of the movie is seeing the lion die. Uh.

(40:22):
And then second most is when they have they take
the starving elephant away from that woman. And the elephant's
name is Twiggy. And I wrote down in my notes.
If I were starving an elephant to death in my backyard,
I wouldn't name it twiggy. I wouldn't like to make
a joke about it. So I don't know what are
your thoughts, guys, your thoughts.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
Well, paw Rump, Nevada. The only thing I have any
awareness about of that place is that is where lamar
odom overdosed on. That's right at a what do they
call it, like a bunny house? Just a brothel.

Speaker 3 (40:53):
Yeah, it's like it's like forty or fifty miles outside
of Vegas, I believe.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
Yeah, so they they really like their brothel and they're
big tigers and lions.

Speaker 3 (41:03):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (41:04):
My takeaway watching this was why is this Ohio's culture?
As are token?

Speaker 4 (41:09):
It's just Ohio mainly.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
Our token Ohio in Randall? Why are your people like this?

Speaker 3 (41:14):
I see? This is one of those questions. This is
one of those questions you have about any work of art.
Is it just Ohio? Or is the film just in Ohio? Sure?
Because if you watch Chimp Crazy, I don't think any
of those chimps are in Ohio.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
Is that Connecticut?

Speaker 3 (41:32):
No, that was miss There's Yeah, it's all over the country. Oregon, Connecticut.
I think this is also one of those things where
it's like this doesn't exist until you look for it. Sure,
and then when you're this officer, you see it everywhere.
I love the officer.

Speaker 4 (41:54):
He's great, he's got a great heart.

Speaker 3 (41:56):
Yeah, and it reminds me of like the old Dare
like anti drug campaigns. But if if marijuana was like
hm as bad as it was in the nineties. Yeah,
because he's like he's like sort of he's like, I,
you know, I have this connection to it, but let
me tell you it's bad. Kids. You don't want to
get into you don't want to get into tigers, you
don't want to get into lines. And they're sort of

(42:16):
walking around on the neighborhood on this crusade like and
going and shot, like showing the cameras how bad this is.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
Yeah. The casting for this documentary was very strong, Like
the cop looked like a cop. The exotic pet owners
looked like exotic pet owners, the exotic pet rescue people
looked like exotic pet rescue people. They nailed it for
bringing us those characters. Max.

Speaker 4 (42:41):
Did you notice how Tim was wearing a live strong bracelet?

Speaker 2 (42:44):
I did not know.

Speaker 3 (42:45):
Yeah, there's a lot of massioac and real tree in this.

Speaker 5 (42:49):
But then also like at one point, like Tim had
this hat it said ambulance on it, but it was
like instead of spelled left right, it was spelled right
the left, which I thought it was extremely awkward, and
like I just thought it was like, oh, just like
looking into a mirror. But then I read his shirt
and his shirt was reading perfectly fine.

Speaker 3 (43:10):
Well, you can't see his shirt if you're looking in
your ear of your mirror, but you may be able
to see his hat.

Speaker 5 (43:13):
No, it was just like just I'll find it. I'll
send a picture to you guys later. But it was
just like it wasn't even looking in a mirror.

Speaker 3 (43:20):
Weird.

Speaker 2 (43:20):
There were also a weird government agency of first responders
where it's like the police officers were the firemen and
the firemen were the EMTs. I didn't know that it's
all across.

Speaker 4 (43:29):
Is that just because it was a small community.

Speaker 3 (43:31):
Well, he said it was very rare. He did say
it was very rare. I enjoyed my One of my
favorite moments in the film is when he's walking through
the woods. Max pointed out that it seems like it's
a little bit of a set up cheesy, but he's
walking through the woods and he describes it as a
little slice of heaven, and he's like very genuine about it. Yeah,

(43:52):
And it's just sort of like dark. There's nothing that's like,
it's Ohio, it doesn't see yeah, like there's nothing about
it on the spectacle. It's like this gray, gray woods.
But you could tell that guy was like, this is
a piece of heaven. Yeah, And I love that.

Speaker 2 (44:06):
I think he just needed some quiet in his life.
That was something he was missing. I had when I
used to think about SeaWorld. I was like, it's probably bad,
but I imagine there's like a lot of nuance with
keeping whales and dolphins in a place like that. And
then I went whale watching for the first time and
saw how like a pod of Orica is very quickly

(44:29):
could move miles like you would see them here. They
disappear for a minute or two, and then all of
a sudden they are miles away, and I was like, oh,
never mind, it's actually not nuanced. It's just pretty evil
to have those things in captivity like that. There's no
there's no reason, probably almost no reason where that should
be okay, where you can have whales and dolphins in

(44:50):
a place like SeaWorld. I think I had a similar
experience with this documentary that I was probably beforehand, Like
I imagine there's some real nuance and owning a lion
if you live in Texas is cool. You know, it's
just not for me. But then when they go to
the Exotic Pet show and you see all those critters

(45:10):
just yeah, like a nine foot snake in a rubber
or a rubber maid container with an alligator in it.
It was awful to watch.

Speaker 3 (45:17):
I wrote down this the market like there's a there's
sort of a like an Mission Impossible or James Bond.
You always see like the scene where there's an Arms
Bizarre and there's like arms traders selling weapons to terrorists. Yeah,
and that was like, that was the vibe I got
from that scene, Yes, except instead of selling weapons to

(45:38):
like fanatical murders. It's just that but for people wearing
tank tops going oh that's cool, how much? Yeah? I
like the guy that was buying the alligator for his
kid or something.

Speaker 4 (45:48):
Yeah, oh the kid was so pumped up.

Speaker 3 (45:50):
Yeah, the kid was so pumped up, and I'm just like,
it's not gonna end well.

Speaker 5 (45:53):
Like I in twenty twenty five right now, how prevalent
do you think the reptile trade is or like exotic animals?

Speaker 4 (46:02):
Do you think it's like still a thing.

Speaker 2 (46:05):
I imagine in parts of the country it very much is.

Speaker 3 (46:07):
Well, there's been a there's been a big crackdown in
recent years. I think I think, uh, you know, there's
obviously like an organized movement to bring an end to
this stuff, and tiger Kings certainly brought popular attention to it.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (46:21):
There was also the infamous Zanesville massacre where the guy
another Ohio and released all of his animals and they
ended up shooting.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
Did he kill himself too?

Speaker 3 (46:33):
Yeah, he killed himself and they ended up shooting like
all but four There's lions, tigers, bears, wolves, and that
that also brought like national attention to it, where you
know they have like you see a CNN broadcast and
they're talking to some expert and they're like, well, actually
there's no rules about this, so I don't know what
do we do? Yeah, So I bet I bet this

(46:54):
scene has changed somewhat since this, but I think it's
I think it's still thriving in certain place.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
A tough watch you see some like very beautiful animals
who are like tortured situation.

Speaker 4 (47:07):
Yeah, but in the movie.

Speaker 3 (47:08):
But the part about it is like the they talk
to someone who loves having animals, and then they talked
to like that old guy who's just sitting in the cherries,
and he's just like, I don't understand these people. Yeah,
Like there's just such a disconnect. There's something that's just
very compelling to me about that. One final note here.

(47:30):
I don't know how much time we have, but I
paused when they showed the Animal Finder Guide when he's
flipping through it. I paused it and I looked at
what was on the page, and there was an ad
that said where it says need one hundred shooter bucks
one hundred and thirty inches to two hundred and fifty
inches call Jerry.

Speaker 2 (47:51):
It's like, did you call him? No?

Speaker 3 (47:53):
But it's like a big half page classified ad in there,
just like I need a hundred for the fall? Can
you get can you get some shoe bugs for me?

Speaker 4 (48:01):
Fun?

Speaker 2 (48:01):
So Yeah, where I grew up, there was a free
newspaper you'd find in any gas station that was called
The Green Sheets, and it's basically agriculture advertisements where people
saying I'm in need of twenty hay bales, or I
have a nineteen eighty six Chevy pickup for sale. I
would like us to bring something like that to meet

(48:23):
eat a radio called the Meat Sheets where we do
advertising for people. Someone in Mississippi is looking for a
buddy to go fishing with. Someone in Iowa would like
a twenty acre deer lease near Des Moines.

Speaker 3 (48:36):
Yeah, if we can, if we can drop an ironclad
liability waiver for this, I think it's a great idea.

Speaker 2 (48:42):
Yeah, we're just like doing Tinder for some folks who
need some outdoor projects or hunting buddy or whatever. Yeah,
I like it really quick.

Speaker 6 (48:50):
Max.

Speaker 7 (48:50):
People are talking about it in the chat, but they
print ambulance backwards on the front of ambulances.

Speaker 6 (48:54):
Oh really, so that when you look at that, when
you look at mirror. Every day show show was up,
you know written.

Speaker 2 (49:01):
Thank you, chat very good. Our last segment today is
about the twenty twenty five Sasquatch Calling contest. But before
we do that interview, I want you to hear what
it sounds like to be there. Here is a thirty
second clip of the twenty eighteen competition. The final Call
You Hear is from the winner play the clip, Phil.

Speaker 4 (49:23):
I thought Randall was gonna make noises. Wow, she's got

(49:56):
some lungs on it.

Speaker 3 (49:57):
She did.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
She was the winner. Good, all right, Joe us On
the line now is Cheryl Pattorti and Paul Bartholomew from
the Sasquatch Festival and Calling Contest in Whitehall, New York.
Cheryl and Paul, welcome to the show.

Speaker 1 (50:11):
Hi, thanks for having us.

Speaker 2 (50:12):
Thanks for being here. All right, we're going to talk
to Cheryl first. She is the organizer of the Sasquatch Festival. Cheryl,
I have to get this question out of the way.
Do you believe in Bigfoot?

Speaker 11 (50:23):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (50:24):
You do? Okay? Have you ever seen or heard a bigfoot?
I have not, okay, So why then do you believe
in bigfoot?

Speaker 1 (50:32):
Well, we have all our researchers who bring us all
this information. There's castings of footprints, so I think there's
one out there somewhere, at least one, if not.

Speaker 2 (50:44):
A lot more excellent. I would be disappointed if the
person organizing this festival did not believe in bigfoot. So
I'm glad to hear that. All right, Cheryl, what is
the Sasquatch Festival.

Speaker 1 (50:54):
Well, it's just a big event in our community here
in Wyhall, New York. There has been sightings of sash
squatch a few years back in our community, so people
got together and decided this would be a great fun
festival to bring people into our community. So here we
are nine years later, bigger. It grows bigger every single year.

(51:19):
It's got attention of people all over the country. So
White Halts a very small community with only about three
thousand people, and we bring in at least three thousand
to four thousand people just for this festival.

Speaker 2 (51:35):
Amazing. And what is there for people to do there?

Speaker 1 (51:40):
Well, we have one hundred and fifty vendors that come
in all down, up and down the streets. We have
lecturers and researchers who start all day long. There's eight
of them and they come in and bring us all
kinds of information so people can listen to all their
electures all day.

Speaker 11 (52:01):
We have live.

Speaker 1 (52:02):
Entertainment, we have a beer garden, we have all kinds
of fun things, children's areas, so it's.

Speaker 9 (52:09):
A fun day.

Speaker 2 (52:11):
And the festival is best known for its Sasquatch calling contest.
It takes place this Saturday, at five pm, Cheryl, how
many competitors do you expect to have this year?

Speaker 1 (52:21):
Well, generally in the past we have two divisions, as
children's division and an adult division, So up till age
fourteen we probably get about twenty five or thirty kids
that do it, but the adult we could have sixty
to eighty or maybe one hundred this year.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
Callers great, and what are they competing for?

Speaker 1 (52:45):
Just to have the title I'm the winner of the
Sashquatch calling contest.

Speaker 2 (52:50):
Okay, that is very meaningful. I would say, who are
the judges of the competition?

Speaker 1 (52:57):
We bring some people in from out of town, people
who want to have fun, people who want to be involved.
So we have some business, a couple of business people.
We have a high school guidance counselor, we have the
chairman of the tourism division for our county. We have
a high school student. So we get a little variety

(53:18):
of everybody, and they're all very supportive of the festival.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
Have some of those folks heard a bigfoot before? Do
they know what they should be listening for.

Speaker 1 (53:29):
I don't know the answer to that question. I don't
think they've heard one. Okay, maybe they've gone online and
heard some calls.

Speaker 2 (53:40):
There we go. Okay, Now I want to talk to Paul.
Paul is a bigfoot researcher and the author of the
book Bigfoot Encounters in New York and New England. Paul,
do you believe in Bigfoot?

Speaker 13 (53:53):
Whatever this phenomenon is, it's real and it has been
cited by reputable people, and so yes, I believe that
whatever is being cited out there, there's something being cited,
and it's not the normal culprits such as bears and
things like that. This creature does different things. It crosses

(54:13):
the road and three steps and that was witnessed by
police officers outside of Whitehall back in nineteen eighty two.
There was a major incident involving various police agencies back
in nineteen seventy six out on a bear road. So
we've got a lot of respectable witnesses who have seen
this creature or some of these creatures.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
How about you. Have you seen or heard a bigfoot?

Speaker 3 (54:35):
I have not.

Speaker 2 (54:36):
Okay, but you've been studying bigfoot for over forty years
and in that time you've interviewed dozens of Sasquatch eyewitnesses.
When is the last time you investigated a sighting. Paul.

Speaker 11 (54:48):
Sightings are continual.

Speaker 13 (54:50):
They're basically broken down into three categories, which are eyewitness sightings,
track fines, and vocal reports. And it's just a continual
process of reports. And if you go to the BFRO site,
which is Matt Moneymaker's Bigfoot Field Research Organization site, you
can actually just track where you want to look to

(55:11):
see if there have been sightings. You know what counties
and what states.

Speaker 11 (55:14):
So it's a great grass roots thing to check out.

Speaker 13 (55:18):
In Washington County, which is where Whitehall is here in
upstate New York, we have hundreds of sightings on record.

Speaker 2 (55:26):
Wow. So when is the last time you investigated a sighting?

Speaker 3 (55:29):
Though?

Speaker 11 (55:30):
Last year?

Speaker 2 (55:31):
Okay? Now a Bloomberg article stated that bigfoot sightings peaked
in the early two thousands and have been on a
decline ever since.

Speaker 4 (55:39):
Have you witnessed the same trend?

Speaker 11 (55:42):
No, not at all.

Speaker 13 (55:43):
In fact, back when I started, of course, I would
be considered ancient because I can remember typing a manuscript,
you know, with carbon paper. But you know, now we
have social media and instant messaging, and so the information
flow is is really instant, And as far as I'm concerned,
what I've seen is more reports than ever and reported faster,

(56:08):
And so you have now a loose network of researchers
connected through social media that constantly put their information forward.
You know, back in my day we had to look
for news clipping services and things.

Speaker 11 (56:21):
Like that and mail things out. Now everything's instant.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
Good. Good. I'm glad to hear that the bigfoot sightings
are still strong. What percentage of the time do you
walk away from an interview and come to the conclusion
that that person saw a genuine bigfoot?

Speaker 13 (56:36):
Yeah, I don't know what the percentage would be, but
there are certain things what I call confirmation moments, and
that's like what Cliff Sparks was a family friend and
the former owner of the Skiing.

Speaker 11 (56:48):
Valley country Club in Whitehall.

Speaker 13 (56:50):
He had a sighting back in May of seventy five
out on the Greens And the only reason we got
that sighting is because we were friends with Cliff Dan
Gordon his name private for twenty years. He didn't want
to be known as the Bigfoot cop, and then finally
he came forward with his information publicly. So there's information
like that that seems to confirm that these are our

(57:13):
reputable witnesses who have everything to lose in nothing to gain.
And there was a fascinating incident back in the early
two thousands up in the Dresden area, which is just
outside of Whitehall, and a couple of Hong Kong nationals
were fishing and he saw this creature wading through the
water at chest level.

Speaker 11 (57:31):
They described it as ape like and I said to him,
I said, well, what did you do? And he says, well,
we want fishing.

Speaker 13 (57:38):
In other words, in their cultural expectation, they weren't all
that surprise.

Speaker 9 (57:42):
They just didn't know that we had.

Speaker 11 (57:43):
Primates in this area. So you get in a case
like that and you're like, wow, that's very.

Speaker 2 (57:47):
Interesting, fascinating, amazing. What are some things that those credible
eyewitnesses have in common when it comes to the details
of their story?

Speaker 11 (57:56):
Well, what's being cited here?

Speaker 13 (57:58):
If I gave out a general description and you're talking
about seven to eight feet tall, it's fairly common, dark
colored usually, But you know, you can go back into
New York Times articles and there was a case in
the eighteen hundreds on the front page of New York
Times and Paul no Vermont where the creature was red
in color and only five feet tall, but you have

(58:19):
these various descriptions, making a sound like a squealing or
a high pitched scream, being a photo sensitive, light sensitive, photophobic, having.

Speaker 11 (58:33):
A gait like a.

Speaker 13 (58:34):
Man, but looking more like a gorilla, with long swinging
arms down at knee level. So it's I guess you'd
be your traditional Harry and the Henderson's type of creature
being cited in a lot of the cases. Occasionally, like
down in Kinderhook, New York, where Bruce Hellnbeck is an expert,
these creatures were seen in groups.

Speaker 2 (58:53):
Oh okay, now we know what to look for. Paul,
you literally wrote the book on bigfoot in New England,
so I want to ask you some question, and specifically
about sasquatch in that region. Does a New England bigfoot
differ from a bigfoot that lives in Tennessee or Montana
or California.

Speaker 13 (59:10):
That's that's an excellent question because this is a global enigma.

Speaker 11 (59:17):
Whatever is going on here is going on around the world.

Speaker 13 (59:20):
If you go to the Nepal and the Himalayas, we
call these creatures of the Yeti or the Obombo snowman,
whether they're a cousin, but they're they're closely described the
same type of you know, unknown primate type creature. If
you go to Australia, where my brother was at for
many years, it's called the Yahwe or the Yahoo or
the Devil's devil.

Speaker 11 (59:37):
If you go to the former.

Speaker 13 (59:39):
You know, Soviet Union, it was the Chachuna or the Almeisti. So,
and then we talk about the States. You can go
down to Florida which racks up a lot of sightings
and it's called the skunkate down there, Momo in Missouri,
the falk Monster.

Speaker 11 (59:52):
In Arkansas, and so forth.

Speaker 13 (59:55):
Now the Honey Island swamp monster appears to be a
little more aggressive, and that may be because it's in
an environment which has you know, you know, alligators, reptiles
and things, and it just may be more aggressive in
that regards. So we do have these regional differences, but
they seem to be some sort of they seem to
be related in some way.

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
Okay, what do you think a New England bigfoot eat?

Speaker 13 (01:00:19):
Doctor Cook who I studied with at Castle in State College.
He was a Pulitzer Prize nominee and an anthropologist, and
he wrote flood Tide of Empire through Yale University, and
he had studied this with myself, and he felt that
whatever these creatures were, they were probably opportunistic and omnivorous,

(01:00:40):
meaning you know, plants and animals.

Speaker 11 (01:00:42):
They are often seen in swampy areas and things.

Speaker 13 (01:00:46):
Like, you know, maybe a down deer that would be
edible as well, and down in Kenderhook it was actually
seen going through garbage, so or at least a group
of these creatures. So yeah, it's I think actor Cook's
observation of being opportunistic would be probably.

Speaker 11 (01:01:03):
The best answer.

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
Sounds like Randal is a bigfoot dangerous?

Speaker 13 (01:01:07):
It looks like, well, I mean, any wild animal or
creature in the wild that you're not used to, you
should obviously use caution. But in my span of research,
I haven't come across very many negative encounters. One encounter
that I have heard fairly frequently is people say, well,

(01:01:29):
it started to chase me, and then they say, well,
it seemed like it could have caught me at any time,
and I'm not. I'm wondering if that might be some
sort of a bluffing display to you know, to get
rid of the danger near it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
If someone in New England wanted to see a bigfoot today,
where would you send them and what would you tell
them to do.

Speaker 11 (01:01:51):
It's like hitting the lottery.

Speaker 13 (01:01:53):
The most common sighting of a creature is driving around
at night and the creature crosses the road in front
of you.

Speaker 11 (01:02:00):
That was the Dan Gordon, a police officers sighting.

Speaker 13 (01:02:03):
He was with another officer at the time, and the
creature crossed the road in three steps.

Speaker 11 (01:02:08):
They were stunned.

Speaker 13 (01:02:09):
He gets out of the car, draws his weapon, tries
to follow, but it's long gone. And you know, Dan
took a polygraph regarding this incident, and there was no deception.
Of course we knew, we weren't. I went to school
with Dan, very honest person, brutally honest person, and so yeah,
you just have to be lucky. I mean, obviously there's

(01:02:29):
certain areas that they have had a lot of sightings,
like Kenderhook, chitten and Vermont, the Whitehall, New York region,
the Rutland Vermont region and so forth.

Speaker 11 (01:02:39):
But there's different hot spots all over the place.

Speaker 13 (01:02:41):
You know, if you look on a national level, you
go to like the ranch in Utah, which has been
studied by George Knatt, the investigative journalist, and that has
a plethora of paranormal phenomena occurring there routinely.

Speaker 2 (01:02:55):
Okay, circling back to the Sasquatch calling competition, what do
we know about foot vocalizations?

Speaker 3 (01:03:02):
Yes, you can.

Speaker 13 (01:03:04):
Actually look up online, look up Ron Moorehead and you
look up the Sierra Sounds from nineteen seventy two, and
he put them right out there, and these were sounds
he and Alan Berry and a group had gone up
into the Sierras and recorded these incredible vocal displays and
they've been studied by various institutes and scientists and they're
right open for everybody to listen to and to study.

(01:03:26):
And I think those are the real thing. I think
that's and it's a it's an assortment of sounds raging
from guttural noises to high pitched screaming to what sounds
like a wild you know, violent.

Speaker 11 (01:03:42):
Type display to more more more like.

Speaker 13 (01:03:44):
Grunting and things. So yeah, you can actually hear them
right online Ron Moorehead.

Speaker 5 (01:03:50):
Okay, yeah, I just pulled it up and it's got
one point three million.

Speaker 2 (01:03:54):
We will check that out. After the interview. You can
hear Paul speak about bigfoot in Whitehall's role in the
unexplained at the Sasquatch festival this Saturday at ten thirty am.
The Sasquatch calling competition starts at five. Cheryl and Paul,
good luck with the event and thanks for joining us.

Speaker 11 (01:04:11):
Thank you for having us. You really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
Fun guys, Randal, do you believe in Bigfoot?

Speaker 3 (01:04:19):
I don't. I don't. I like that there are people
who do.

Speaker 2 (01:04:23):
Yes. I like.

Speaker 3 (01:04:26):
I like to think, and I feel fairly certain that
we don't know everything about everything right. The size of
Bigfoot gives me pause.

Speaker 2 (01:04:40):
It's hard to hide all those skeletons, and I just
feel like, get them on trail camera.

Speaker 3 (01:04:45):
But I liked I liked it. I like that people believe.

Speaker 7 (01:04:50):
We're getting a lot of requests in the chat for
a Randall bigfoot vocalization.

Speaker 2 (01:04:54):
Oh, Max is gonna Max is gonna tell us if
he believes in bigfoot. Randall, you think about what vocalization
would sound like. We'll get that in a minute.

Speaker 3 (01:05:02):
I've got it.

Speaker 4 (01:05:04):
A minute, ponder it. I personally don't.

Speaker 5 (01:05:08):
My biggest thing is like you out in the woods
and you run into dead critters all the time.

Speaker 4 (01:05:13):
A dead deer, dead whatever, dead birds.

Speaker 5 (01:05:16):
Why haven't we ran across a dead bigfoot yet?

Speaker 4 (01:05:21):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:05:21):
I ain't never found a dead wolf. I believe in wolves.

Speaker 6 (01:05:27):
Confirmed saying.

Speaker 3 (01:05:32):
Sorry, supposed to go.

Speaker 6 (01:05:35):
That is a cat giving birth.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
That was great. I do not believe in Bigfoot. I've
never believed in Bigfoot. I think there's a zero percent
chance he's real. But I love the folks that are
dedicated to finding them, and I love the folks who
are dead catered to, you know, making this a thing
and keeping this a thing. If if I was at
the Madison, Wisconsin Tailgate tour and two people came up

(01:06:07):
to me at the same time, and one of them's like,
I have a story about the time I killed one
hundred and eighty inch white tail, and then the other
guy said, I have a story about the time I
saw Bigfoot. I would say, Bigfoot story, give me that
one first. I'm very interested in that. That that is
something that I will always be entertained by, despite not

(01:06:28):
ever going to believe in it until, like, you know,
the thing shows up as a carcass.

Speaker 3 (01:06:33):
And I think, like just being being outside, there's an
element of it that's like mysterious. You never know what
you're gonna see, you never know what's going to happen,
good or bad. And so the Bigfoot is like the
embodiment of that. It's the distillation of all of the
unknown of the outside. And I like for that reason,
I'm glad that Bigfoot exists in our culture.

Speaker 2 (01:06:55):
I like the culture aspect of it, and I like
that it gets some people outdoors who seem to be
like singularly interested in that thing that's that is their
outdoor activity. Good for them, all right. That brings us
to the end of the show, Phil. Let's get some
final feedback from the chat.

Speaker 7 (01:07:12):
People who devour all of our content on the YouTube
probably know this, But Tim Allen asks, what does Max
do it?

Speaker 6 (01:07:20):
Meat eater? Max?

Speaker 4 (01:07:21):
Well, Tim, I run around chasing people with cameras. Yes, so,
videographer photography.

Speaker 3 (01:07:28):
And you do a little waterfowl hunting content.

Speaker 5 (01:07:31):
Yeah, do a little duck hunting on the side when
I'm not working. But yeah, this is only my second
time on radio live.

Speaker 7 (01:07:38):
Right on on on that does anyone here? Is anyone
here an upland person?

Speaker 6 (01:07:42):
Max?

Speaker 4 (01:07:43):
Yeah, sort of, I mean cal would be better.

Speaker 7 (01:07:45):
Yeah, we had we had a pheasant question. I'm just
not even gonna bring it. Yeah, then will I know?
Randall and Spencer are not my advice.

Speaker 3 (01:07:53):
Is if you shoot a pheasant with Cal, you give
it to Cal and you have Cal cook dinner for Okay,
it works every time. Never been disappointed.

Speaker 4 (01:08:04):
What is the pheasant question?

Speaker 6 (01:08:06):
Oh, just just the meal, meal prep.

Speaker 4 (01:08:08):
There you go.

Speaker 6 (01:08:10):
I'm sure he respond he made a lovely pu a pheasant.

Speaker 3 (01:08:15):
He made a pheasant fa last year with some birds
we shot, and it's delightful. Sounds great.

Speaker 6 (01:08:20):
H let's see I think a Leland question. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:08:24):
Leland says I just learned Randall was a fellow Eagle scout,
makes me even more of a random all. How many
eagles are there in the meat eater crew?

Speaker 2 (01:08:32):
Probably one.

Speaker 4 (01:08:33):
I was a cub Scout scout. That's about it.

Speaker 3 (01:08:39):
Didn't even make it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:42):
I think it's just rand.

Speaker 3 (01:08:44):
A lot of Janis was in Loftfian Scouts, Scouts some
sort of fraternal organization.

Speaker 7 (01:08:53):
Red Duval says, we should do a sasquatch calling at
on the live tour, so put that together.

Speaker 2 (01:08:58):
Yeah, last live tour it was a burd owl calling contests.

Speaker 3 (01:09:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:09:02):
The problem is Steve will be there so it will
not happen.

Speaker 3 (01:09:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:09:05):
Yeah, we actually had another person say to Steve, know
what you're talking to Bigfoot people on the podcast today.

Speaker 4 (01:09:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:09:11):
I also think he still does not know we played
d n deal on his podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:09:17):
Can't wait till he finds out a few months from now, but.

Speaker 4 (01:09:20):
He doesn't know.

Speaker 7 (01:09:21):
This is a question from Nate. If hunting and fishing
was banned tomorrow, what would keep you outside? I think
we know that the answer from Spencer.

Speaker 2 (01:09:29):
Looking at the ground for rocks and mushrooms. Yeah, that's
that's what I would do. How about you boys?

Speaker 4 (01:09:35):
Walking my dog?

Speaker 3 (01:09:36):
Oh dogs is a good one.

Speaker 4 (01:09:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:09:38):
Dogs got me to the river yesterday. I like just
seeing animals and I like just being outside. Yeah, Like
it would be great this weekend to be outside at sunrise.
There you go, That's like, that's enough for me.

Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
I spent some time on the coast this summer in
southern Oregon in northern California, and I started doing tide
pooling where I'd get up right at sunrise and go
out when the tides are very low. And I had
so much fun doing that. I had it all to myself,
and I also liked that it felt like I wasn't
consuming anything. I didn't like walk away from that with

(01:10:15):
a bag full of rocks or mushrooms or sheds or meat,
and I kind of realized that it was one of
the few things I do outside where I'm not consuming something,
but I'm still thrilled to do it. It was it
was so much fun. I wish I'd lived closer to
a place where I could go tide pooling. I fail
anything else.

Speaker 7 (01:10:32):
Noah says, if someone were to harvest a bigfoot, how
would a typical state wildlife management agency treat that harvest?
An illegal harvest right? He also says he doesn't have
to say how hypothetical he's.

Speaker 2 (01:10:42):
Some states I believe have outlawed it. Where our last
two guests came from Whitehall, New York, they have a
bigfoot sanctuary where they have made it illegal to kill
a bigfoot within city limits. So some states have outlawed
straight up killing a bigfoot Oklahoma, it's on one side
of it. Either they've outlauded or they maybe they offer

(01:11:03):
a take.

Speaker 5 (01:11:04):
That's what I just someone I read someone's comment, yeah,
said that, so.

Speaker 3 (01:11:09):
And I if you see a big foot in the
wild and you shoot it, you're killing a man in
a big foot suit.

Speaker 2 (01:11:19):
You're probably going to So I'm.

Speaker 3 (01:11:20):
Just it's not it's not a wildlife management issue. You're
talking about homicide.

Speaker 7 (01:11:27):
If they have a legal bigfoot season and someone shoots
a man in a big foot suit, they.

Speaker 6 (01:11:34):
Go to prison.

Speaker 3 (01:11:34):
If I go out in my don't think they'd be
going to prison. If I go out in my black
bear costume. No one's going to say it's a good
idea during spring bear season. But if somebody takes a poke,
they're probably going to the match.

Speaker 2 (01:11:46):
Before we get out of here, can we hear the
bigfoot call that our guest Paul was referencing. This is
the official sound of the bigfoot a m.

Speaker 3 (01:12:05):
There's a lot of background noise, but there is a
lot of background noise that's just nature.

Speaker 2 (01:12:12):
Okay, Okay, now we know we know what to listen for.
Thanks for joining us this week on me Eater Radio.
We'll see you guys here next week, same time and
place by now. Thanks gang Bie