Ep. 4: A cougar attack on horseback (feat. Petros Chrysafis)

This week, Ashley and Nick are joined by their pal Nick to hear the heroic and tragic story of Cynthia (Cindy) Parolin.  We also chat with carnivore biologist, Petros Chrysafis, to hear how people can avoid negative encounters with mountain lions. Or cougars. Or pumas. Whatever you'd like to call them. This episode is not sponsored by Red Dead Redemption II.

The Cindy Parolin Safe Homes program was created to assist women and children who are trying to leave an abusive environment in Princeton, British Columbia. You can contact them at 250-295-8211.

You can find Petros at @pchrysafs on Twitter, and you can check out his business at predatordeterrence.org or contact him at [e-mail], and check out their Facebook page.


Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, check out our website GetOutAlivePodcast.com and join us on Patreon (where you can now follow us for free)!

Support the show for free by leaving a 5-star review wherever you're listening, or on GoodPods or Podchaser (where we can respond to your comments).

You can find Ashley @TheAngryOlogist on Twitter and Nick still refuses to engage. 

Thanks for listening!

Disclaimer: This is not professional advice; Follow at your own risk.

Episode Transcript

(00:15):
Welcome to episode four of Gettle Alive. If it's your first time here,
I'm your host, Ashley, andtoday we have a special guest to make
it even more confusing, it's Nickand I's friend Nick, who's going on
everybody. I guess we'll just referto you as Clark if you don't care,
Yeah, it's a lot easier.Cool. So, Clark and Nick,

(00:37):
I want both of you to tellme what animal you are afraid of
the most. Oh, for me, it would probably be the human.
Okay, no, besides people.Yeah, I think about this. Cats,
big cats scare me. Monkeys,monkeys, monkeys, Monkeys scare me.
Monkeys are pretty terrified. Yeah,with monkeys. The bigger the monkey,
the more it's For me, it'slike the opposite. Like when I

(00:59):
said the little tiny ones, I'mlike, that thing is gonna murder?
Really? Oh yeah, I hatethem. I would rather fuck the gorilla
than champanzee. Oh me, quite, let's called chimpanzees. Chimpanzee scare me.
For me, i'd probably have tosay like a mountain lion. Really.
Yeah. No, insects, Imean insects count because that like the
ones that should be able to flybecause their wings are this proportion. We

(01:22):
need to discuss it. Then,yes, bees, it's it's bees.
Oh weird, Ashley, go ahead. So today we knew that you were
coming, Nick Clark, and we'regoing to talk about bees. I'm totally
kidding. We're actually gonna talk aboutmountain lions, which is ironic that you
went I thought I thought we weretalking about bees. Oh, I was

(01:42):
fully kidding when I said that wewere gonna do that. Yeah. I
just assume the worst at all times, and that feel like if you get
hurt or you know, severely hurtby bees, you're either allergic or just
in the wrong spot at the wrongtime. So anyways, today, well
we're also lucky that we have aguest at the very end. But today
we're talking about mountain lions. Areyou both ready? I'm sorry, I

(02:04):
am ready. Wait Clark, areyou actually like the most afrated mountain lions?
I feel like, yeah, Imean that I wouldn't even know what
to do. So our joke onethat we were trying to do didn't even
work, but the real what we'redoing did. Yeah, ruled that.
I feel like we're gonna traumatize itlike she was a secondary animal or like
no, you know, you knowyou did perfect? We fucked up?
What do I win? Five?Okay? So the story we have today

(02:30):
is about a woman another Cynthia.Why what's this one's last name? Caroline?
Okay, Oh guys, it's agood last name. It's not it's
good. It's no dousel Bacon.This story is about a woman named Cynthia
Louise Coral. It hyphen proline,but like in most of the sources,

(02:52):
it's just Cindy Parlin. So it'sAugust nineteenth, nineteen ninety six in British
Columbia. Cindy was their six yearsold and she was out horseback riding with
her three children, David who wasthirteen, Melissa, who was eleven,
and Stephen, who was six.They were riding in the backcountry of a
place called Simulcamine. Simulcamine that's probablywrong, but it was thirty miles northwest

(03:17):
of Princeton, British Columbia. Sothe four of them were horseback riding on
their way to join Cindy's husband andtheir other son who was at a cabin
and they were gonna have this likebig family vacation. Oh yeah, So
Cindy was like an outdoors woman.She was an avid hunter, so like
very outdoorsley family. This was nothingnew. Well, they're riding horses out
to a cabin mill. The woodis a vacation, so that's good in

(03:37):
case. They're probably yeah, outdoorsy, very The more and more they were
riding on, the more anxious theirhorses became. And it became very clear
that after a while this was becausethere was a mountain lyon around. And
they realized this when the mountain lioncame rushing out of the bushes and leaped
at the horse that Cindy's youngest son, Stephen, was on. So the

(03:59):
cab miscalculated and landed on the neckof the horse just in front of Stephen's
saddle Jesus, which like, imagineyou're just on a horse and there's a
cat right in front of you,a mountain lion, like one fifty pounds
cat. Oh boy. So wetried to get a good grip but ultimately
slipped out the horse's neck, butthen very quickly readied itself jumped up again.

(04:20):
It missed the second time as well, but it managed to pull off
Stephen's sock in one of his shoes. What the hell? Which like baller
for Steven, like your cat ATTACKSIwas just, what the fuck are these
horses doing? Get out of there? They were surprised, not aparently,
I would you too. I'm surethis all happened very very fast. Also,
yeah, what if this gave melike a real good kick and it's

(04:40):
like out Well after the second attack, when the cat ripped off Stephen's shoe,
this became too much for the horseand it bucked Stephen off to fend
for himself. Now, paws,have either of you ever played Red Dead
Redemption Too? No? I haven't, personally have not. I have not.
No, Well that's crazy. Soif you've ever played Red I don't

(05:00):
know about the first one, butat least Red Dead too. You know
that the worst animal in the entiregame to encounter is a mountain lion.
Because of this exact reason, yourhorse will only look at this mountain lion.
So as you're trying to run away, the horse just keeps looking at
it and stopping, and then eventuallyit gets so scared that it bucks you
off, and then the mountain lionkills you every goddamn time, even if

(05:20):
you shoot it with a shotgun likethree times. It kills you every time.
It's awful, No ask Margaret,Me and her team up and both
get killed every time. Anyways,So instantly, as Stephen fell to the
ground, the cat was on topof him, and Cindy, his mother,
watched in horror as the cat bitsSteven's head. And keep in mind,

(05:43):
this boy is six years old,like I said, Cindy Avid Hunter.
So normally she would have a riflewith her, but in Canada you're
actually not allowed to carry rifles offseason, or at least I'm not sure
if that's changed. I would assumenot, but nineteen ninety six that was
the case. So she didn't haveany weapons on her, so instead she
screwed, jumped off her horse,broke a limb off of a tree,

(06:03):
and beat the cat off of herson. Oh that that's a big old
badass. That's a bob. That'sa bob. What a weapon of choice?
Yeah? Literally a tree? Thatis amazing? What a mom?
Yeah, I would know, Likehow big was this lamb? Wig?
Was it like like a big fuckinglimb? Or was like twigs? You
asked me if the stick that shepulled off a tree was big? Yeah,

(06:25):
I mean she ripped a lit it'sat a limb off of a Tree'd
have to assume it's big. Yeah, okay, so a knway, she
broke a limb off a tree andstart of beat the cat, and miraculously
Stephen was still alive at this point, and after being hit with a tree
limb, the mountain Lion turned onCindy and with just once wipe, split
one of her arms open. Despitethis now gaping wound in her arm,

(06:47):
Cindy jumped on the mountain Lion andwrestled it to the ground. Jesus one
armed, yeah, assuming she couldn'tuse that other arm as best as you
can, I mean, yeah,but like I mean flowing, yeah,
same socket like you are doing everybodythat is the guts. Oh yeah,
Oh it gets better. So Sydneyordered David and Melissa to take Steven to

(07:11):
get help, which was a prettytall order at this point, considering that
all of the horses were gone andshe's been like, hey, leave me
here, the rest of his cat. Yeah. Well yeah, So little
Melissa, who was just eleven yearsold, and her thirteen year old brother
David, grabbed little Steven and startedto like half carry have drag him back
over a mile down the trail towhere their car was, leaving their mom

(07:33):
behind to battle this cat by herself. Once they got to the car,
Melissa stayed inside with Stephen while thethirteen year old David ran off to find
help at a nearby campsite. AndI don't have really any information where Dad
was at this point, or likeif they were able to, like how
far away they were from him,and like how close they were to other
people. From what it sounds like, it was a kind of a remote

(07:54):
area, So I don't know howDavid knew where to go, But he
ended up finding a man named JimMannion who who drove David in his truck
back to the scene of the attack, and in hand, Jim had a
twelve gage shotgun. By the timeJim drove to the scene, it had
been over an hour since Cindy beatthe cat off of Stephen. Now at
this point, the kids are lostin the story. I have no idea

(08:16):
where the kids went if someone cameto pick them up. Nothing, they
got away. They're not near themountain Lion. So immediately on the scene,
Jim hears Cindy screaming and was ableto find her pretty quickly because of
that. So when he found her, the mountain lion had dragged her into
some undergrowth and she had been veryseverely mauled but was still alive, and

(08:37):
the cougar was just standing over herbody. So Jim tried to take a
shot in the air to scare itoff. But guess what a Jim yelp,
No way, Yes, that isunlucky. Yeah, so he started
throwing rocks to try discourage it.And this is where the story gets like
a little murky, because I wasonly able to find like four different sources

(09:01):
for this story, and they havekind of conflicting information. It's just like
little details. But one says hethrew rocks to try to scourge it,
but the other two didn't say that. And then two sources also say that
he had a dog with him,but the dog is not mentioned anywhere else.
Also, I want to know everythingabout the dog. Would do it's
name? What kind of dog?I don't know. According to two sources,

(09:22):
and these two sources I'm referring tothat have the information about the dog
were like stories written back then,so I'm going to assume that those were
more accurate if they were actually takenin nineteen ninety six. So according to
those two sources, he released hisdog to attack and try to scare away
the mountain lion, which gave himtime to fix the gun. Jam that
is a brave dog. As Jimis clearing his gun, the cougar was

(09:43):
advancing on him, and just asthe cougar leaped, he fixed his gun
but did not have any time toaim, so he had to take a
shot from his hip with a shotgunand miraculously hit the cat and it was
like kind of far back on thecat, but it was enough to cause
it to run away into the bushes. When Jim got to Cindy's side,

(10:05):
the first thing she asked him wasare my children all right? He said
yes, and as soon as hesaid that, he saw Cindy visibly relax,
and she said that she was dying. So he loaded the unconscious Cindy
into the back of his pickup truck. Once again, no idea where the
kids are? He must be there, He's gotta be freaking yeah, I
don't know. So he loaded Cindyinto the back of his pickup and drove
her to the Princeton General hospital,but she was pronounced dead upon arrival.

(10:30):
Stephen, however, fully recovered aftergetting seventy stitches to his scalp because the
cougar had Yeah, the cougar hadalmost completely ripped his scalp off. Oh
my gosh. So once. Thisis another murky detail. But one source
said that a conservation officer found thewounded cat and killed it, But all
the other sources say that the catwas already dead from its wounds, and

(10:50):
it was one hundred and fifty feetfrom the scene of the attack, so
not very far away. Oh yeah, got it all. Yeah yeah,
but like when did the dad findout? Like had the go track down
the dad? Just like imagining thatnews, Like oh my gosh, yeah,
yeah, wife and your kid gotattacked by a mountain lion and your
wife wrestled it for her, likebadass. I'm sure he's very proud.

(11:11):
But oh yeah, oh shit.Yeah yeah, that's all the sources say.
I think it's hard with these olderstories because there's not as many detailed
accounts as now six like it waseighteen forty. Well yeah, but now,
like for most of our stories,I have like a book to read
about it. Yeah, so yeah, that's true. So anyways, why
do you guys think that this mountainlion was so persistent in attacking them?

(11:33):
Maybe the mountain lion was like injuredin some way. I know that was
a thing we're talking about the champWat tiger that you know, she would
have her mouth all fucked up,So maybe this one had been injured some
way also, and you know,was just starving, desperate for food.
Yeah, yeah, you guys areactually right. Well that last guess.
According to a news clip from thetime, the cougar was starving and only
weighed sixty five pounds Jesus, whichis super small. Why I went for

(11:58):
the smallest kid then, Yeah,And I think that's another common thing too,
from like the other attacks I wasreading about, is that, I
mean, most animals go for thesmallest or the weakest animal out of the
group. So matt lions will gofor kids because they're smaller and weaker.
So kind of similar to the tigerstory in the first episode, where it
was basically women and children exclusively thatwere taken. So yeah, so he

(12:20):
was starving and he's dead now hellyeah, hey, the poor thing.
Yeah, we can feel bad foreverybody involved. Yeah, sure. God,
I'm gonna replace you with the otherNick. I'm still just trying of
It's crazy that the horses like justtook off. So did the horses get
away like scratch free? Then theymust or oh yeah, the first one

(12:43):
probably got caught up a little bit, but it must have been totally fine.
Once again, if you've ever playedRed Dead, they boot you off
and they're gone. Yeah, it'sfair. Is Red Dead or a scientific
resource? Now? Yeah, I'ma scientist and I played it. Anyways.
Cindy was awarded the Star of Courageby the Governor General of Canada to
honor her bravery that day, andover six hundred people attended her funeral,

(13:05):
including Jim Manyon. In her memory, the Cindy Perilyn Safe Home Program was
created to provide support to women andchildren experiencing domestic violence, which we will
certainly link below in case anybody wantsto look into it or donate to it.
But there is more more. Yes. Just one month before this attack,
on the same day in British Columbia, there was two Mountain Lione attacks.

(13:30):
July seventh, nineteen ninety six,six year old Christine Frank was in
Litton British Columbia, and she wasjust swinging in her backyard when a cougarish
was lurking nearby, So as soonas she noticed it, she started running
towards some woman named Lorraine Leech.But Christine tripped on a rock and as
soon as she did, the cougarwas on top of her, and it
flipped her over and bit her head. But luckily, once again, their

(13:52):
dog was outside and managed to chaseit off, and she was hospitalized with
a massive scalp wound that went fromher right eyebrow to her left ear,
but she survived. Damn wow.And then, in another part of British
Columbia that same day, but adifferent time of the day, eight year
old Lance, Oh boy, I'mgonna butcher this Lance Vine Guestsner, Lance

(14:15):
Vine Guestner, Vine Guestner. SoLance, Yeah. So, eight year
old Lance was attacked while he washiking on a trail with his dad,
and the cougar dragged him by hisneck off a trail near Upper Arrow Lake
in Nacos, British Columbia. Buthe also survived when the dad was able
to scare the cat off. Mygosh, Commoner Mountain lion attacks. I

(14:35):
didn't, especially in a backyard ofmy own home. Yeah. Well yeah,
So once again we're going to talkto an expert about this. And
I'm certainly no expert mountain lions becausemount lyons, so we're all based out
of New Hampshire, and mount lionsare extirpated from New Hampshire, which means
that they are extinct here but stillexist in other places. So like they're
quote locally extinct, so we don'treally have experience with them. And also

(14:58):
this is a whole tangent we're gonnahave to get into. But just give
me one second. If you callyour state wildlife representatives in New England and
you tell them that you saw amountain lion, we're just not going to
believe you unless you can show usa picture over a track or some scat.
It's either a bobcat or a housecat. I don't want to sound

(15:20):
domeaning, but one time I hadthis guy call and he was like,
yeah, I'm from California, Iknow what they look like, and he
fully described a raccoon to me.Really yeah, nice. I feel like
that's pretty hard to mistake a mountainlion or a raccoon for a mountain lion.
That's yeah. Yeah. I mean, so we have bobcats here pretty
abundantly, and a lot of peopleassume the bobcats have no tail, but

(15:41):
they have like their tail a fewYeah, it can be a few inches
long. So some people see thatand they're like, well, that counts,
and it doesn't. So although youmay hear say from time to time
that there was a dead mountain lionon the side of the road in Connecticut,
I think that was the thing afew years ago. They don't breed
here, but they may pass throughfrom Canada as they like travel elsewhere,

(16:03):
so they're technically not here, butmaybe sometimes a little bit exactly. Yeah.
And it's this whole thing where ifwe did have breeding mountain lines in
New Hampshire, if the state agencywas going to acknowledge that, then a
bunch of money would have to betaken from other things that need it in
New Hampshire and then put on mountainlions, even though they might be like

(16:23):
coming back on the road. Soyou're telling me there's a cover up,
what are you involved in, Nashley? Nothing? Oh, good answer,
good answer. No, really,I mean, there's no evidence yeah,
No, I talked about this withthe family before and we've been talking about
it. I was like, oh, they gotta be around. They think
of all the trail cameras that arewith all the game game cameras, not

(16:44):
a single one it's taking a picture. But yeah, you're totally right,
like there's so many trail cameras outthat somebody would catch something by now,
and they just haven't. So mybrothers eight today, so exactly. Yeah,
So it just it isn't really athing. So I'm sorry to burst
anybody's bubble. But if you canfind us proof, that'd be super cool.
If you ever need anything identified,feel free to email us at get

(17:04):
Out a Live podcast at gmail dotcom. Give you two answers my guest
Ashley's answer. Yeah, how funAshley. It's pretty accurate too, So
that's pretty good, but like myanswers is better. Yeah, it's more
fun. Yeah, thank you,Nick, I got you dude, all
right. Next, so do youfeel a little less scared of Mount Lions
today? Yeah? Actually a littlebit. You know, now I'm not

(17:26):
as as terrified knowing uh, youknow, the size of them and just
different things that you know, wehad talked about earlier, and that's what
we're here for. You know,we're always trying to, you know,
make sure that whenever people do gooutside, whether it's here in New England,
we're not going to run into amountline or out west where you may
make sure that people are aware of, you know, how to not get
snatched. Yeah, absolutely, Well, thanks so much for joining us.

(17:49):
Nick. It's been fun for bothnicks. Yeah yeah, but thank you
for having me. And uh,this was fun. I enjoyed it.
Oh good. I'm only here forthe money. I never have half good
time ever. Oh yeah, Imean, at least you're honest. I
guess right, I will always willbe. I'm Petros Chrissofis. I guess

(18:12):
I'm a wildlife biologist. I'm acarnivore specialist or whatever you want to call
it. I think officially my titleis a human wildlife conflict Specialist. I
founded and run Predator Detection and Deterrence, which is a human wildlife conflict nonprofit
in the works. We're not registeredyet, but you know, I'm putting

(18:33):
in the paperwork and all that.And the idea at least is, you
know, to help people in theCentral Valley in this Sierra Nevada in California
deal with human wildlife conflicts, whetherthat is mostly most of my work is
livestock depredation, but you know,we're getting more into habituated wildlife, even
simple stuff like woodpeckers or rodents.I'm expanding into that more. So that's

(18:56):
just kind of how it is.I kind of accident landed on this.
Like I've always been interested in carnivoresobviously, and that's what my line of
work was, but my focus.But I had a friend of my wives
who says, oh, hey,you know, I got a coyote that
keeps getting into my chicken coop andkilling the chickens. I don't want to
kill the coyote. Can you helpout? And sure enough I did,

(19:18):
and we're just kind of spread throughoutmountain communities and Facebook groups and stuff,
so a lot more people contacted meneeding help, so you know, kind
of it kind of blew up.I mean it's still really really small,
like in twenty twenty, I thinkI've done maybe twenty twenty two cases total.
But you know, it's a fulltime job right now, right without

(19:38):
without any of the pay. Butit's almost a full time job, even
just answering emails or whatever, thenthat's awesome. This is something that I'm
sure many people are curious of.Are there multiple names for a mountainline?
Is it a cougar? Is apanther? Like? Really, what is
the proper way to address them?I mean the Latin name, right,

(19:59):
pumakun caller or I'm not exactly surethe prounctation, but that's like the one
that if you talk to anyone,you should be theoretically referring to the same
species mountlins. Their range goes downto South America, right, so they're
not a North America exclusive animal.So I think a lot of it changes
based on regions. I'm pretty suredifferent Native American tribes had their own word

(20:22):
for it, which kind of endedup being an amalgamation of the English into
the English rather vocabulary. The onesthat I at least in California are most
commonly used are a mountainlined and cougar, and I think catamount and panther and
all that stuff. It kind ofstems more from South America and near Mexico
Arizona borders and stuff. It's whereit gets a lot of a lot of

(20:44):
mix of the words, but Pumais the one that's widely used in South
America. So if you talk tosomeone in South America and talk about pumas,
that's that's what you're going to get. You know, everyone knows you're
referring to a mountainlon gotcha. Andinterestingly enough, that's how we refer to
them in at least from what IUnderstan and in most of Europe too,
cougar or kuma seem to be theprevailing ones. So, yeah, that's
funny because where I went to college, our mascot was the Catamount, which

(21:07):
is in Vermont. Literally, neverhave I heard anyone use that word for
them, So I don't know wherethat came from, but I have never
heard of anyone use it either.Yeah, it's really interesting. I've actually
heard painter being used real, whichI was likely what it was an old
couple. One of them was aI forgot the tribe right now, but
one of them was neative American andthe other one was Mexican slash Spanish,

(21:30):
and so they use the word painterand I was like, huh, that's
the first time I hear that.Yeah, so the names are pretty much
replaceable. There's no one specific one. They kind of everyone should know what
you're talking about. Really, Ithink mott Lyon or cougar are the ones
that if you talk to most people, they should have an idea of what
you're talking about, at least inthe Americas. It seems the most recent

(21:53):
documentaries that I watched that are fromBritish television seem to refer to them as
cougars. So I'm guessing those arethe ones that get more prevalent. I
think Painter, Catamount and all thoseones are starting to fade out unless if
you're like talking to local communities,Okay, makes sense. And then to
get right into it, how commonare mountain lion attacks that you know of,
at least either in your state orjust throughout their entire range? I

(22:18):
got stats for you, yeah,hell yeah. So it depends on what
you define as a cougar attack.Right in Wikipedia, I think there's we're
going on. There's one hundred andtwenty six attacks documented in the past hundred
years, twenty seven of which arefatal. I mean, you know,
Wikipedia is not the greatest source ofinformation, but you know, things like

(22:38):
that are generally you generally have avague idea of how little there are in
terms of how how many people spendtime in Mountlon country. So those are
attacks. They're defined that way whena Mountalon actually injures or hurts or seeks
out to actively hurt a human andthe scene goes for California. So in
California, I think we've had ballparklike twenty twenty five since eighty six,

(23:03):
Okay, and we are one ofthe states that has the highest amount of
mountain lion density in the area thatwe know of, right, Yeah,
so you know, twenty six attacks, so let's say twenty twenty five attacks
in the space of like what thirtyyears, and you're talking about millions of
people, especially in La you know, in the Angelus National Forest. They're

(23:25):
walking and hiking in Cougar Country prettymuch every time. I'm going to use
both terms, by the way,interchangeably. I'm sure we will too.
Yep, I have already done that. Yeah. Yeah, So you know,
you've got a lot of people walkingin those areas and very few people
see them. Now you get otherthings. I think was it was last
year the guy who videotaped himself likefilming the little Mountlon kittens and then the

(23:47):
mom just like went out on himand they basically chased him away. That
wouldn't think technically constitute as an attack, right, So for in terms of
documenting purposes and stuff, that's notan attack. She didn't actually hurt him,
But you know, in terms ofthe general public and the perception of
it that mountlon was out to gethim. Yeah, And no matter how
you phrase it and how you putit into the perspective of actually she didn't

(24:08):
really try to kill him. Shecould have killed him if she wanted to,
there is not a whole lot ofthat breaking through the public perception that
mounta lions are everywhere, mountains aretrying to kill you, and you get
stories about people who are being stalkedby mount lions, and the reality of
it is is you probably they probablyweren't looking at you as some sort of
meal. Either were either curious oryou probably ran into them while they were

(24:30):
peeing or something and they got stressedout. So it's just this situation of
an attack so fatally fatal or injuredattacks are very very rare. We just
have the technology to put out everywildlife and you know encounter on the internet,
and so they get put on blastsand of course, on the other
side of that, you have alot of hunters, especially who are out

(24:52):
there and they're interacting and they dosee Mountlons a lot, or they interact
with Mountlons, and again you havethis idea of like, oh, yeah,
they were they were stalking me.Not really. Sometimes the year you
know, they're just out there andthey look at you kind of funny.
And I don't know if you've everhad this happen to you, but you
you can kind of creep up onwildlife even when you don't intend to.
Right Sometimes just wildlife is doing histhing and not paying attention to the road

(25:14):
and you just kind of walking onthe road and ooh, look wildlife.
Like one of my first bear encounters, I was being loud, not on
purpose, but I was just walkingdown the trail and there was a bear
with a cub right there, andI was like, oh, okay,
I thought for sure you'd be amile away by now because I'm you know,
I'm being loud walking around and whistlingand stuff. They just didn't pay
attention. So sometimes it just happensthat animals don't pay attention and you run

(25:34):
into them, and they run intoyou and you go whoops. Yeah,
Yeah, And it's interesting I sawthat you tweeted an hour ago something about
the river fire that's escalating mountain lionpresence, So I feel like that kind
of contributes to what you were justtalking about, the fact that people see
them and label it like maybe anegative encounter as an attack too or something
of the sort. But yeah,I didn't even think of like environmental factors

(25:56):
contributing to all of that. Yeah, and drought as well here has pushed
a lot of animals. So youknow before, like especially this year is
really bad in California, but ifyou had a water feature in your backyard
and you know there was a naturalwater sources, a babble model way,
wildlife usually wouldn't disturb you. Butnow we have such a bad drought that
if those water features are actually youknow gone, which is something that you

(26:19):
know, I've responded to today inan email. I'll get to that in
a second, but yeah, youknow you have your little water feature and
that's the only water around for miles, Like, of course you're going to
get more wildlife visiting it, andnaturally if you're in your house, because
most of us, like are stillat least somewhat house locked, right,
and you're spending more two more timein your house than usual, and you're
looking outside, especially if you havea nice view, then you're more likely

(26:41):
to see these animals. And notto mention, you know the doorbell cameras
right now, which are kind ofthe bane of my existence. But the
door the doorbell cameras right now,you know, you get exposed to a
lot more wildlife. And which isa good and a bad thing. It
depends on how you perceive wildlife inyour near your property or in your area.
Yeah, I've gotten a few responsesfrom people who live relatively close to

(27:03):
the river fire. And although it'sbeen mostly contained, you know, the
habitat is still pretty bad and there'sstill pretty of activity, firefighters going in
and out and stuff like that.So there, of course the animals are
being pushed out. The deer herdstend to split more so predators will follow
just a huge year if they haveto. And so if there are people
that I know that say, I'venever seen I've never caught a mountline on

(27:25):
camera. I've never seen them outline, And there's like five of them go
by like in the past week andsay, well, you know they're running
away from the fire. Yeah,it's just I've been pretty sure it's just
one mount line going back and forth, but still, you know. So
yeah, And to get back towhat I was saying, I've had two
people who have like little wells dugin that are accessible by wildlife, and
so wildlife will come and drink fromthem. But usually I've got camera traps

(27:48):
there and usually it's coyotes and raccoonsand stuff, sometimes a bear. But
right now we're getting all sorts ofdifferent animals coming in and being more bold
because the well is relatively close tothe house. But I do you have
a video of a moutline going anddrinking from the well now, because you
know, there's no other water around, so they just got to take whatever
they can get. That makes sense. I mean they're thirsty too, exactly.
Yeah, And there's also as aconsequence of that, there's more activity

(28:12):
during all times of the day,right, So if you're thirsty, you're
not gonna wait until my time togo get a drink, So you're going
to be moving more during the day, so you're more likely gonna get exposed
or someone's going to see you becausepeople. You know, humans are out
during the day more than they areduring the night. Yeah, of course,
And coming off of what you're sayingabout the wad fars, I do
know that in the past about fiveyears, the waldfires are in California have

(28:33):
been absolutely unreal. It's been likean all time worse. Have you seen
an uptake and attacks in that time. I'm not necessarily like the one that
monitors the attacks or anything of thesorts. I've just started doing this four
years ago. I haven't really seenany a huge trend in terms of animals
being more desperate. There's a lotmore video circulating around our cameras and stuff,

(28:53):
or more animals being hungry. There'sdefinitely a lot more bears pushing into
like the small mountain hounds them beforeShaver, which is you know, the
side of the creek fire has hadmore bears coming into the town now than
there were before. And I don'tknow if any of you've been out to
Shaver, but it was as agorgeous habitat and there was plenty of stuff
for them to eat. But nowthey're obviously like they neat the food,

(29:14):
so they're coming more and more intotrash cans and stuff like that, and
mountalons, I'm not really sure theywould be that affected. I think what's
most likely to happen is that you'remost likely going to see them closer to
urban areas if there is deer around. So the general rule is if you've
got some sort of prey base stickingaround your area, then you're more likely
to get mountlons poping up, especiallyif they stick around for longer. So

(29:37):
if you put out which you shouldn'tbecause it's illegal in California, but if
you've put out deer food, thinkingoh those poor deer, right, and
the deer tend to hang out infront of your porch every day for like
two weeks, then you're probably goingto get some activity mountain lion wise and
say, oh, well, youknow, we're following the deer, what's
going on and stuff like that,and you know, bonus points if you've
got cats or dogs outside. Ohyeah, yeah, putting out a bird

(30:00):
feeder and then being surprised at ahawking's around exactly exactly that. It's a
perfect analogy. Yeah. Yeah,So I'm sure the fires eventually will we'll
influence a little bit about how thingsare you know where the Mountain Lions are,
and I'm pretty sure there's probably alot more mortalities and there the territories
get shifted around and it is youknow, Mounta Lions that had really good
habitat is now burnt, so they'reforced to go into someone else's territory.

(30:23):
So there's a lot of conflicts.So yeah, and we get a lot
more viral videos and a lot moreyou know, stories about younger allions like
fying cubs that are starving or somethinglike that, attacking hikers or runners because
they don't they're desperate and they haven'thad anything to eat. So do you
see any common or have you heardof any common factors between attacks? Like

(30:44):
is it people out running? Isit someone who's out at twilight kind of
a bad time of day. Yeah, that's usually what I do when I
read these kind of new stories,because I've had people contact me about being
stopped by Mounta Lions. No one'sbeen attacked. I think that kind of
goes immediately through like state channels.But it's definitely that there are a couple
of trends. Number one is definitelyrunners are the big one because you know,

(31:07):
most of the times, especially inCalifornia, if you're gonna run,
you're gonna run either during the morningor during you know, the afternoon as
soon as the sun's going dowas becauseotherwise it's pretty hot and the sun is
pretty strong, so you don't wantto run during that time. You're running
coincides with the time where you know, moutlines are starting to get up and
about and the deer starting to moveout and about, and also running kind

(31:30):
of triggers that prey instinct on amount lion. You know, usually runners
are more lean experience runners, ifI were to take running right now,
definitely not lean. But you know, usually runners are. They're more lean,
they're more athletic, they don't packa lot of stuff with them,
so they don't look as big,right you backpacking versus you running is a
completely different you'd look different. Soand that running tends to trigger that that

(31:53):
pray response, which in turn,like especially with younger, more inexperienced lion
says okay, well I'm gonna thisis pray. I'm going to chase it
and kill it. So runners aredefinitely one that I notice a lot.
Hunters are also one of the otherones, and usually most of the hunter
stories that I heard about, Mountlonstend to come post kill, So when

(32:13):
hunters have killed something like that deeror whatever, and they're covered in blood
or there's blood on the campsite orstuff like that, so that immediately,
you know, attracts predators to yourarea. You can take a lot of
precautions to make sure that they don'tvisit you. You know, sometimes you
just have enough blood on you orwhatever, or Mountlon is really close,
or a mountline is desperate and hungryor whatever. It is a list of

(32:36):
factors that coincide to them going I'mgoing to check where all this blood is
coming from. Those are kind ofthe recurring ones. I haven't heard of
any of any actual like hikers beingattacked. I think most people tend to
like hike in some groups, andthey tend to talk and make a lot
more noise, which deters mountlions,whereas runners usually run alone. You know,
if you're backpacking again, you knowyou have a pack on you.

(32:59):
He makes you look big, You'renot necessarily you care more about getting to
a point rather than conserving as muchenergy as possible, rather than spending all
your energy to get there. Immediately. But I think those are definitely the
two runners. And you know,hunters people, definitely, if you're out
at night, or if you're outduring twilight, then there's a higher chance
of you encountering a mountline. That'sjust just the way it is. I

(33:21):
usually try not to go check camerasor do any sort of field work at
night if it relates to mountlines,primarily because I know that that's when they're
the most active. You know,if you're unlucky and you stumble upon a
fresh kill or you know, littlebaby cougars when the mom stashed them,
then you could run into scenarios wherethe mom attacks you, or the mom
mountline attacks you try and scare youoff or whatever, and you know,

(33:44):
bad things happen, Yeah, justbad luck sometimes. Yeah. And it's
kind of funny, right because forme, if you find a half eaten
especially a freshly killed dear, whichI've never happened to come across, but
it's kind of a jackpot. Youput your camera there. If you're looking
for mountlines, we're gonna get mountlions. But then you kind of go
really want to try and get closeto that. What if a mountline is

(34:05):
up on a tree like twenty feetaway from me. So yeah, and
it sounds like throughout that you kindof gave some answers to the next question,
which is, you know, whatcan people especially it sounds like runners
do to avoid attacks or negative encounters, So it sounds like making a lot
of noise, which sounds similar towhat you would do if you're in bear
country. But what are some otherthings? So like, is it okay
to run in mountain lion country?Should you attach something to your pack to

(34:27):
make you louder, or like somethingto your waistband? What could people do?
That's a good, good question.I mean, it's definitely okay to
run in mountline country, you know, even even we have thousands of people
running and we don't usually get awhole lot of encounters, so or most
of the encounters and in non lethalways. So I would say, go
for it. You just have tobe a little more aware. Like this

(34:50):
sounds horrible because it is really like, in a way, kind of like
victim blaming. But you know,I don't really agree with people wearing headphones
while they're running. Yeah, obviouslyyou kind of need music and stuff,
but you know, I don't knowhow close you've ever been to mountlines before,
but there's definitely a difference in theway the environment reacts. When there's
a mountalyon around. Things get quieter. It's totally like one of those things

(35:13):
or the horror game when you're likewalking in all of a sudden, the
whole forest goes quiet and you're like, what's going on here? Yeah?
Or either that or it goes fullblown loud right the scrubgy's yelling everywhere and
stuff because they see them mount lyingand everyone's like full alert. So having
some environmental like situational awareness can definitelyhelp you out. Other than that,
I definitely am a huge proponent tolike wearying things you know on you know

(35:37):
that make noise jiggle or some sortof that if you want to listen to
a podcast or something while you're running. As much as I don't like those
people that blast music when when they'rewhere they're in nature, no like offense
to anyone, I just I'm notone of those people. Yeah, you
could do that. That will helpkeeping up to date with whatever your local
state agency says. You know,sometimes there's muntline sighting, so some trails

(36:00):
post warnings either online or on theactual side itself, so keep an eye
out for that, you know,like the whole Runner in Colorado case that
happened where this guy was attacked bya subadult mountlon. It's just you know,
a very desperate mountlon trying to geta meal because it was starving.
So I don't think anything that youcould have done will probably prevent that.

(36:21):
Yeah, And the story we toldat the beginning of this podcast, we're
talking about a woman who is horsebackriding with three of her children and the
mountain lion jumped on the horse toget her youngest kid and then come to
find out it's a male, likean adult male who's only sixty pounds.
So that makes a lot of sense, you know, if they're a desperate
cat, which is like pretty hardto avoid desperate animals if you don't know
that they're there. So that's justnature, right. You take that risk

(36:45):
every time you go out there,and most of the times you're not going
to run into anything like that.But we are facing an environmental crisis in
some way, shape or form.You know, some states are facing different
prices than others. We have thatsituation where a lot of pressure is put
on wildlife so you just got tobe aware of the fact that it could

(37:05):
happen and then just take the precautionsneeded to make sure that you minimize that
risk. With what I tell people, just make yourself be the prey that's
not worth it, right, Yeah, so that's a good saying. Ye,
be hard to kill exactly, Bescary, be intimidating, be you
know, make someone look at youand be like, I'm not worth it.
I do it every day in mylife. So in a more common

(37:27):
way that I bet people interact withmount lions, what can we do to
keep mondlines away from livestock or pets, because I'm sure way more you know,
cows or dogs or cats are beingtaken by mountain lions than any people.
Yeah, So that's that's kind ofmy bread and butter. So there's
a lot of different variables as towhat you can and can't do. The
first thing that I usually try andemphasize to people is just because there's a

(37:49):
mounta lying around doesn't mean that yourespecially your pets, are in an inherent
danger. If you take your dogout to go potty, or you have
supervised plate time outside that necessary likethat mitigates the attack. A lot.
An unsupervised dog outside versus a superviseddog outside or a very limited amount of
time outside makes a huge difference.And you know, people again see them

(38:15):
on the on the doorbell cameras andfreak out and they go, oh my
god, there was a mountline thatcame like three days ago past my property
is going to kill my dog.And you know, I usually just say,
well, has it gone by then, because if it was three days
ago, you're probably okay. Sounderstanding some of the biology of the animal
will definitely relax a lot of people. But if you do have any sort
of you know, if you havea mountline that frequents around, or you

(38:37):
know your neighbor's dog got attacked orwhatever, then the safest bet is what
I usually tell people, is goget a podcast that has a lot of
people talking. Go load it upon a waterproof or a weather proof little
stereo and put it outside. Humanvoices will will keep them at bay.
If you're going to take your dogout at night or your cat out at
night to go to the bathroom,then just you know, take a flashlight,

(38:59):
do a little bit of a scanaround the area to make sure you
know, especially you know glowing eyes, because that's kind of the giveaway to
just do a little scan around andthat's it. Like the predators aren't necessarily
outside your yard ready to pounce allthe time. Now. Livestock are a
little bit of a different situation,you know, depends on how what kind
of practices you have in place.Already, cats don't like their routine being

(39:22):
disturbed a lot. So if you'reable to monitor and figure out where a
mountaline goes every every day or whichpaths it uses, and kind of disturb
that using non lethal tools, thenyou have the you have an idea of
upsetting this amountline and kind of pushinghim further away from where your livestock are.
Fences are usually the great way,Like pens are a great way to

(39:43):
deal with it, because that's kindof like a permanent structure. If you
make sure that there are no holesthat the mountainline can get into, then
you just put your livestock in thereat night, Boom done, no worries.
There's a couple of tricks to that. People often underestimate what kind of
hole a cat can get through.You know, you need to have something
that is like probably less than teninches in diameter basically the size of a

(40:07):
mountalon's head, right, So justmake sure you have you don't have any
gaps bigger than that, and asa general rule, that's a great way
to just deter them. If youcan't have pens, then you know,
livestock guardian dogs, especially for cats, work great. You know, you
get yourself a couple of livestock guardiandogs and they bark up a storm.
Usually most of the times, mountlinesdon't want to deal with them, especially

(40:29):
if you have a pack of themcan't afford dogs for whatever reason. I
often advise there's this fox lights thatbasically emulate what it would look like with
a human walking around with a flashlightat night. That's cool, and so
you kind of set them up strategicallyacross your grazing area to make it look
like there's a couple of people justwalking around at night. If you throw
in a speaker that plays back humanvoices, then perfect. You give the

(40:54):
idea to the mountline that there's humanshere, and so the mountlin would probably
steer away from that area. There'sa lot of research being done on how
scared mountain lions can be of humans, and there's some really great videos of
them, you know, going thereand finding a kill and keep to your
kill, and then there's radio playingand they just immediately bolt and run away
the sound of human voices. SoI found a theory that hunting mountain lions

(41:16):
is actually correlated with like recent fatalattacks, because allegedly hunters go after larger
males who are more experienced and mightfear people, and then leave behind younger
sub adult males who might have grownup in a more urbanized area and just
aren't as experienced, so they mightgo after people more. Is there any
truth to that that you found.That's a really good question. One of

(41:37):
the things that I pitched to alot of the ranchers especially is the idea
of the devil you know, right, yeah, well, yeah, the
more experienced wildlife, especially with territorialanimals. If you know what scares the
animal that you have on your propertyor around you, if you know what
keeps him at bay from your livestop, that animal will ideally keep the rest

(41:59):
of them out lions away. Right. So if you have a mountline patrolling
your territory and you know, oh, he's scared of human voices, and
your lifestock is safe. If youdon't shoot him, he should theoretically defend
his territory. So there is somemerit to like, you know, removing
and experienced adult and you know,having him being displaced by sub adults,
and those of adults usually grow andmore subpower habitat or near jogging trails or

(42:24):
stuff like that, so humans aren'tas much of a tearing to them as
they are to a mountlon has grownup in wild country. I mean in
California, which you know is thestate that has a lot of I think
the most but probably a lot ofmuttlin attacks. We don't allow mountlon hunting,
so take that with a kind ofgreen assault. But there are you
know, depredation permits that you canissue, so there is still like lethal

(42:46):
control of mount lions, it's justnot a regulated hunt. I think hunting
mount lions is one of those thingswhere you know it probably does at least
somewhat contribute to human wildlife conflicts,especially because you are removing a dynamic that
you you're it's invisible to you,right, you don't know where the territory
of this animal stops. You don'tknow the territory where this animal star stops.

(43:07):
And what their habits are. Soyou remove this animal out of the
equation, you're leaving a vacuum thatis you know, going to be filled
in by another mount line eventually.So what are some common misconceptions that you've
heard about mountainlines? Where are thethings that you would like to clear about
them and really get out that youknow, maybe they're not all that bad.
When I'm on social media, Itry very hard to not get into

(43:30):
internet debates, but there are acouple of things that you know, for
me, are like, oh,definitely debate this. I think the first
one is that, you know,especially in California, you have this idea
that they're everywhere and that their populationis like exploded out of control and they're
destroying all the year and all theelk. It may be somewhat true,
but you know, also as predators, they do a fairly good job of
regulating themselves. If they don't havea good prey base, they're going to

(43:52):
starve, right And you know,whilst some mount mountlines will switch to livestock,
not all the mountlines have that luxury, so they're not really decimating their
herds as much as people think theyare. Of course, you know I
say that now I'm watching there bea paper published tomorrow or something that says
otherwise. But yeah, there's thatidea. There's the idea of you know,

(44:14):
they hunt for sport. You know, they're cats, so they can
do that. They don't really necessarilygo to waste, you know, something
that they if they come upon agood opportunity to hunt, they'll take it.
But they don't necessarily just go,oh hooray, I killed something and
then just leave. They'll stash thekill, or they'll consume as much of
it as possible on the spot andthen stash it or whatever. But that

(44:36):
that kill is not going to goto waste. So that that's the idea
at least. You know, ifyou see a moutline that's fairly full,
but you know, runs into adeer with like two broken legs, of
course they're going to kill it.Right. So if we have this idea
of predators being able to self regulate, you know, oh, I'm not
hungry, so I don't need toeat, so I'm not going to eat.
But that's because we have access tofood all the time. Put yourself

(44:57):
in a situation where you might beable to go to an oh, you
can eat buffet once a week,but then you're not going to be able
to eat anything else ever again forlike the whole week. If three days
after you're all you can you buffet, someone hands your croissant, of course
you're gonna eat it. Yeah,there's a huge starve or I think it's
called feasts or famine, that's theright way about it. But you know,

(45:20):
that's how predators work for the mostpart. It's either they have really
good food or they don't have anyfood, and they spend a lot of
time looking for food. So someonewho has the energy and the ability to
hunt, even if they're full,they're gonna hunt and they're gonna eat it
later. You see these videos alot of the times where there's mountlons trying
to quote unquote get in the cabinlike I don't know if you've ever seen
videos of like the cats in acabin like interacting with the mountline outside.

(45:43):
Yeah. Yeah, people and likeremote cabins going like, oh my gosh,
there's a mountline out here and steeringit as it it's been steering in
us for an hour. I mean, the cat one might be true,
but I think a lot of thetimes people attribute curiosity of these animals to
something a lot more sinister. Yeah, if you have a cabin that you're
airbnbing or whatever in the middle ofnowhere, and that cabin has only rented

(46:04):
out like three times in a year, of course wildlife is going to get
used to that cabin being empty.So the moment you move in there,
you make a lot of noise.You I don't know, cook something that
smells good or whatever. Of courseyou're going to draw some curiosity, right.
It's it's not unhealthy for an animalto want to check out what's going
on and they're surrounding when what's changed. I think that's just one of those
things where I often kind of golike, hey, I mean, maybe

(46:27):
the animal was just interested to seewhat's going on, right, especially if
you have kids. I don't knowif any of you do, but like
my new board makes a lot ofnoises that image pray. You know,
if you're an animal, you know, if you have a baby that's crying,
of course it sounds like something isin distressed or something's been left alone.
So if you're hungry, you're goingto go check it out. But
my line will show up in thatcabin and go, oh, well I

(46:49):
can't get in there or whatever,or I'm just going to look through the
cabin and see what's making that noise. It's just curiosity. Oh. The
other one is the whole idea thatmy line's stashed their their prey on entree
east. That doesn't really happen.It's like one of those things that I
don't know. I think it's peoplehave made the association between leopards in Africa
versus you know, the mountlines.So they're like, oh, they're both

(47:09):
cats, they're both rough for thesame size, so that means the leopards.
The leopards pull up their prey ontrees. That means mountain lions do
it too. It doesn't really happen. And I looked into this because I've
had a deer fall off, likea did deer fall off a tree?
And I thought, well, there'sa mountainin here, and I just kind
of, you know, looked intoit a lot more. And they're not.
There's not really a whole lot ofevidence to find that suggests that like

(47:30):
mountlines actually put them high up ontrees. They usually just stash them and
try and bury them as much aspossible, and in fact, a lot
of the kills usually get consumed byeither bears or coyotes or some sort of
other scavenger when the mountain's away.But they don't really hide their their kills
on trees. They will attack fromtrees, it's just not very common.
There's a specific attack pattern the mountainsdo, and that's usually how at least

(47:52):
I can tell that a livestock hasbeen killed by a mountalin right, there's
claw marks. Usually it's either theyeither try and break them, or they
try and grab onto the rump ofthe animal and pull themselves up and you
know, attack the spinal cord becausethey're a cat and they love killing things
using the spinal cord. They're notgoing to attack from a higher vantage point
because then you have a higher chanceof like missing landing or you know,

(48:15):
tripping or falling on the animal orsomething that doesn't necessarily get you a good
attack. So I'm sure some millionshave attacked from trees most of the times,
especially the videos that you see ofthem attacking, they usually just do
it at the ground level. They'rejust very good at hiding themselves and standing
very still. Is there a catuntil the opportunity comes to strike. Yeah,

(48:36):
that makes sense. Thank you somuch for talking with us. This
is very eye opening as someone whodoesn't live around mountain lions. Trust me,
I've never seen one, and Ibeg to see one every time I
go out there. Yeah, I'veheard them a couple of times. I
don't know if you've ever ever toldyou the story where I heard I think
it was a male and a femalecalling out of each other from a different

(48:58):
kind of the ridge, and theywere starting to get closer and closer,
so they were trying to meet inthe middle of the ridge, like in
the middle of the valley, rightright between the two ridges, and that's
where I was heading to one ofmy cameras, and I was like,
well, this is not good.Yeah, so I kind of I kind
of hastily walked towards my camera.I checked it, and then got out
and camped somewhere. And I waslike kind of nervous about it because I
heard them a couple more times thanthey got quiet. And then you know,

(49:21):
of course, as you do whenyou're really nervous, every sound in
the forest is like them online comingto get you mm hmm. And I
think they raccoon crashed on my tent. It's like folk front by darning and
scared to Like it scared me sobad. And I don't think they raccoon
thought you my tent was there.I don't know what it was doing,
but it was just like full mytent. I was like, oh,
oh, I'm gonna die. AndI got out and I saw the little

(49:43):
you know, a little footprints andstuff. I was like, a god,
damn it so funny. Yeah,this is random, I'm assuming,
yes, But mountain lions can getrabies, right, Like, is that
a thing that happens at all inCalifornia that you've heard? Oh, that's
a really good question. I reallydon't. Like, I know they can.
Yeah, I've got a pretty goodjob of like keeping rabies at bay.

(50:04):
That's awesome. And there was oneattack in California which was a suspected
rabies attack. It was a littlekid in like a park in broad daylight,
right, and the mountain lion attackedthis kid and basically they managed to
get the kid away because mountline washolding onto the kid's backpack, so they
just got rid of the backpacker runaway, and they suspected that was raybies,

(50:25):
but I don't know. Okay,yeah, because I know with wolf
attacks, especially like almost half ofthem are from rabid wolves. I'm just
curious because that's that'd be horrifying.I heard raccoon and just immediately the thought
of rabies. Yeah. Say,if you've ever played Red Dead Redemption two,
yeah, yeah, I hold ita little bit against them because I'm
like, you went through so muchpainta steaking detail to do pretty much a

(50:49):
lot of things very well, butyou couldn't have done the predator interactions a
little bit better. I talked aboutRed Dead two so much in the beginning
of this episode because it's so true. Anytime thing is that's coming full circle
right now. Yeah, it's crazy. Your horse just only looks at it
and then it kills you every time. Oh my god, I feel so

(51:12):
validated. Nick. You must feellike you're in the Twilight Zone. You
have no idea. Oh that's sofunny. Thank you so much, Petros.
I don't want to keep you toolong because I know that you have
a child and a bunch of otherimportant things to do, but we appreciate
it so much you coming to talkto us. Thank you so much for
inviting me. All right, episodefour, Nick, what are your thoughts

(51:34):
after talking to petros Well, first, I'd like to say, one of
these days, we're going to makeit an episode without some kind of hiccup.
Currently, we're both very sick,not doing great, but we powered
through it because we're some beasts.Well, unfortunately, the only like symptom
we both have right now is ourvoices, which is really inconvenient. But
I think we sound kind of hot, so I did. I think the
voices sound good. I think Ithink we need to keep it this way.

(51:57):
Yeah, we should just stay sickforever. Oh yeah, yeah,
Okay, that's just that's not goingto go bad at all. You know,
we've got a pandemic but whatever.But yeah, I have no negative
side effects in my future, I'msure. Oh never, It was awesome.
I love that interview. It wasa lot of fun. We ab
to bring Nick into the episode.Other Nick are good pal from high school.
I mean, I guess I didn'treally introduce him or you and I,

(52:17):
but we've all been friends since likeearly on in high school, and
that's it. Yeah. I thinkI met him in middle school or maybe
even elementary school. I've known himforever. Oh, how precious. So
it's really cool to have him onhere with us. But some of the
stuff went, you know, hitoff from the interview. I didn't even
think about how the wildfires out thereaffecting predators. You always think about you

(52:37):
see like the deer being pulled outcovered in burns and everything, but you
don't really think about the predators likethey're trying to get away. They're following
the prey. So that's a hugereason why there might be more interactions with
them. So yeah, and youknow, it always goes a long way
when somebody calls me and they say, hey, you know, I'm having
an issue with X animal, andI know that we're in their habitat and

(52:58):
recent developments in the area are probablyput shoo them into my yard. I
just want to know how to livewith them, because it's true, like
have some good passion for them.We're destroying a lot of their habitat and
their food sources and they have nochoice but to get closer to you.
And I'm sure they don't like iteither. So it's just, yeah,
I'm there. You of all peoplecan feel where he's coming from because it
sounds like what he's doing over inCalifornia is very similar to what you're doing
over here. Different animals, ofcourse, and different, but you guys

(53:21):
are really doing a similar job.Yeah, one hundred percent. He's definitely
more like hands on, whereas Ido a lot of like people call me
and I give them advice over thephone. I would love to do in
person stuff, but you are anadvisor at the moment. But we're gon,
We're going to get a business goingseeing go out and you know,
start beating up people that don't haveelectric chicken fences. Yeah, I'm sure
the government will love that. Imean, they don't ed to know about

(53:44):
everything, okay, but but youknow, getting on back to you guys
being similar, the fact that youboth play Red Dead is super annoying for
me. I think it goes toshow that everyone should play it. It's
a great game. I have alot of fun. It's like GTA great
theftat off for those who don't know. But you're a cowboy and you ride
horses, and honestly, you don'teven have to kill people like yeah,

(54:05):
shooting No, I'm not going tosay that. I was just gonna say
shooting up towns is a lot offun, but you know, a lot
of the fun is just kind oflike going around your horse and like seeing
what's out there and being killed bymountain lions. Apparently, yeap being killed
by mountain lions. But yeah,I felt so validated in that moment.
I'm really happy for you. Ireally am. Thank you so much.
Oh my god, I'll ask himto join my gang in Red Dead.

(54:28):
Oh my god, what's the nameof your gang? I need to know
our gang. It's me and mybest friend from college, Margaret. We
are the Deadly Dames, the DeadlyDanes, damn and Dames. And you
have to talk in a really badcowboy accent the entire time. That's why
your voice is messed up. Yeno, I can't even can but all

(54:49):
right, Well, thank you somuch for listening to episode four of Get
Out Alive. See more information andlinks for this episode. Check out the
episode description below, or check outour website, get Out a Live Podcast
dot com, and you can checkout Petros's website predatordeterrence dot org, or
you can email him at Predator Deeterrenceat gmail dot com, which of course
will be in the description as well. Please please please rate us on Apple

(55:14):
Podcasts and subscribe wherever you're listening.We are now on Google podcasts. What's
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The more people that join, themore we can do, like give you
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out from this beautiful man. Yeah, shout out from Nick. You get

(55:35):
our undying love and affection. There'sa lot of good stuff, and you
can subscribe for as little as twentyfive cents an episode, which is like
who even uses quarters anymore? Youknow? Fact. You can follow us
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Twitter at the Angryologist Nick No noway. All right. Thank you to
my good friend and second great husbandJosh Walsh for making our intro music.

(55:57):
And we will be back with anew animal Attack story next Wednesday.