Ep. 95: Studying Bears After An Attack (feat. Amber Kornak)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:24):
Welcome to episode ninety five of Get It Alive, a
podcast about animal attacks, why they happen, and how we
can avoid them. I'm your host, Ashley, and I know
it's been a hot minute since I've uploaded a new episode.
Today's guest is someone who made me excited to get
back into podcasting and talking about this topic. And I'm

(00:47):
hoping to put out more episodes soon and get back
into the swing of things. But I've had some life
things pop up that have prevented me from putting out
episodes more regularly. And I can give a quick update
on that, and if you don't want to know anything
about my life, feel free to skip ahead like a
minute or two and I'll get into the interview. But

(01:07):
for those of you who don't follow some Patreon, because
I posted an update there about a month ago, and
if you don't follow me on social media, then you
would not know that I in February got pregnant and
I was planning to do like a Mother's Day episode
for this podcast about like mother bears protecting their cubs

(01:27):
and stuff like that as a way to be like, Haha,
I'm pregnant. And then in April, early April my husband
and I went to an appointment. It was going to
be our eleven week ultrasound. We had already had an
eight week ultrasound, seen the baby, seen the heartbeat, and
in this eleven week we were going to do all
the testing and whatever to see if it was like

(01:48):
what the baby's sex was and stuff like that. So
before the ultrasound got a PAPS mirror that will be
relevant later. I'm not just saying it to say it,
but during the ultrasound, the doctor told us there was
no or heartbeat anymore and that our baby had stopped
growing after that eight week ultrasound. So that meant for

(02:08):
about three weeks my body didn't know I was not
pregnant anymore or that the baby wasn't viable. So that
was a Monday. Scheduled the DNC for that Wednesday, which
is basically just an abortion, taking the baby out of
me and making sure everything's out of my adress. So
on that Tuesday. So the next day after we found out,

(02:29):
I uploaded a little clip to our Patreon just saying
what was going on with me and my thoughts at
the time, and I posted that and an hour later
I started to miscarry. At home. It was literally the
worst thing I've ever experienced physically. It was a nightmare.
And the reason I'm saying this story is not just
to be like, way feel bad for me. It does

(02:50):
suck and life sucks, but uh, I mostly have been
talking about it because no one. I have one good friend, Hannah,
who's been on this podcast before, who had talked openly
about miscarriage. Otherwise, no one talks about it, and I
had no idea what to expect, and the doctors when
you get pregnant don't tell you what miscarriage is going

(03:12):
to be like or what you should look out for.
And thank goodness, one of my nurses called me like
two hours into having the miscarriage and said, hey, you
know what, are you still bleeding this much and whatever?
And I said yes, and she was like, that's you
shouldn't be still bleeding this much for how much time
you've been going through this. So she said, if you
get dizzy, go to the hospital. Right after that phone call,

(03:35):
I started to get dizzy, and thank god for Margie,
who has been on this podcast before. She was scheduled
to come over my house and she pulled up right
as I was about to pass out, So long story short,
I go to the er. My blood pressure is seventy
over forty. By the time I get there, I'm in
the r for seven hours trying not to die. My

(03:57):
poor husband leaves work to come see me at the hospital.
Get stuck on the highway for four hours. It's an
hour long commute from his work to the hospital. Get
stuck for four hours because of propane truck rolled over
on the highway. So you could say that the day
was a nightmare. So anyways, I survived clearly and go
home and try to be a person again. And then

(04:20):
a week after that, the doctors, Hey, your papsmere came
back abnormal, super cool. If you don't have a cervix,
then you might not know that papsmere is to screen
for a cervical cancer. So get a biopsy of my
service done two weeks later, which is way longer than
it should have taken them to get back to me,

(04:41):
just saying, but two weeks later, I find out that
there are cells on my cervix that will become cancer.
So that means by the time that this episode is posted,
the day before this is posted, I need to get
parts of my servix removed which one ow. I'm assuming
it's gonna hurt a lot, because parts of your body

(05:03):
that are there should stay there, they should be removed.
So I'm sure it's not gonna be pleasant. I'm laughing
because if not, it's just gonna be me crying. So
have to get that done. That means if we want
to even have kids, my husband and I have to
wait longer to try. And if I do get pregnant again,
it now means that I will have a higher chance

(05:24):
of miscarriage in the second trimester, which is very scary
because as it was, I literally had to give birth,
like when you miscarry, you're giving birth, like your cervix dilates,
you're passing the baby. I cannot imagine having to do
that in the second trimester. I can't imagine ever eving
to do it again. It was the worst thing ever
and all of this has been a nightmare. But I

(05:48):
just want to take a second one to be like,
let's talk about miscarriage moore, and also get your pap smear.
Please God, if you have a cervice, get papsmere. Thank
you so much to those of you who listen to
this podcast reach out to me, especially those of you
who reached out to me because you also had to miscarriage.
I could not have gotten through this whole thing if

(06:10):
it wasn't for the people that reached out and checked
in on me and shared their stories with me. It's
a nightmare, and when I was in it, it was
very much like a pity party, as it should be.
I just feel so bad for myself that I had
to go through it. But hearing that other people went
through it and just knowing I wasn't alone, and also

(06:31):
knowing that some people did go on to have like
perfectly normal pregnancies and children after that is really comforting.
So if you were one of those people who reached
out to me in any capacity, thank you sincerely. If
you reached out to me and shared your story of
you having a miscarriage, thank you so much. I'm so
sorry that we're all in this club together, but it

(06:54):
has been so comforting. And if for some reason you're
listening and you have to experience a miscarriage, and I'm
so sorry if you do, but I'm part of that club,
you can always reach out to me and share your
story and scream into the void, because that's a lot
of what I have been doing. So that has been

(07:15):
why I have not hosted the podcast episode because it
hasn't been on my mind. Frankly, I've still had to
That was right around final season for the two classes
I was in. I still want to have to finish,
and I'm in a new class now, still trying to
finish this master's degree this year, still trying to move,
still working, so I've had a lot on my plate.

(07:36):
But it was really great talking to Amber today and
just kind of getting back into the swing of things
for the podcast. And it's one of those episodes and
she's one of those people where like it just makes
me so excited being in this field and reignites my
passion for this podcast. So I'm really hoping to put
out more episodes and find more guests and things like that.
For you guys, I can't promise any sort of consistency yet,

(07:59):
especially because is my procedure that I'm getting with getting
parts of my service taken out before this is released.
I'm sure I'm not going to be like super pumped
to just like get on a podcast to start talking
about people being attacked by animals. So you know, give
me some time, I'll get there. But it might be
a minute. So thank you all so much for listening,

(08:21):
for reaching out, just for everything, and without further ado,
this is my interview with BAAR biologist Amber Cornack.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
So my name is Amber Krnack. Currently I live in
East Teleanna, Montana. I'm originally from Michigan. I grew up
there until I was about eighteen.

Speaker 3 (08:50):
So in two thousand and.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
Eight I moved over to Montana to initially start off
college and then.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
In and out of Montana. But yeah, now I'm back.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
Nice. And so did you spend any time in Montana
like as you were younger? That's just where you went
to college.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
Yeah, So we took a trip when I was oh gosh,
twelve thirteen with some family friends to Yellowstone, of course,
of all the places, and we did the Yellowstone on
Grand Teton, and I just fell in love. And that's
what really brought me out to Montana to that's just where.

Speaker 3 (09:23):
I wanted to go.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
I loved it, the mountains, everything, it just seemed so awesome.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
Nice. So, I'm assuming you grew up recreating around black bears,
but did you grow up recreating around brown bears at all?

Speaker 2 (09:37):
Actually, I did not grow up really recreating around black bears,
any bear for that matter. Yeah, So it was not
a we have bears in Michigan, but we did not
travel a lot in Michigan, And obviously I had no
idea there were black bears in Florida. And we traveled
to Missouri and Indiana, like, we went to a bunch
of different places, and we never saw bears.

Speaker 3 (09:58):
So it was a lot of deer and farm ag land.
Sure they were there. Again, I know that there were
bears in Florida.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
But had no idea of the amount of populations until
I started working there.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
So yeah, yeah, And did you always know that you
wanted to work with wildlife or was that a thing
that kind of just popped up for you like an opportunity.

Speaker 3 (10:17):
Yeah, I had no idea.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
So when I lived in Michigan, we did archery hunted
and we knew about we gun hunted, but it was
a lot of private areas, right, so we didn't really
know public land. So that was really new to me
coming to Montana.

Speaker 3 (10:32):
And then it.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
Was all ag where I grew up, so it was
a really small town and I knew there were game wardens.
Knew you had to get a license obviously, I got
a license, I got my hunter Safety had no idea
you could be wildlife biologists, had no idea, that's a
realm you could take. When I talked to my student council,
that was never like a thing that went on. So
when I came to Montana and started hunting elk and

(10:55):
really getting out in the woods and talking to different people,
I was like, what's the Forest Service?

Speaker 3 (10:59):
I had no idea, you know, what's Bureau of Land Management.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
So I learned all that, and so when I came out,
I initially started off college at Carol and I ended
up dropping out. It just wasn't the right fit for me.
But I started off as a teacher, and then over
four years I spent I went to the tech school
and just got an associates in accounting because I just
didn't know what I wanted to do. And after hunting
and being out in the woods and being on public
land and learning and talking to game mortens and different people,

(11:23):
I'm like, you're gonna be.

Speaker 3 (11:24):
A wild life pologist. Oh that's me.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
That is where I want to go.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
So I ended up going to Oregon State actually to
get my degree because I was like, what if I
changed my mind again, I should probably go somewhere where
they have everything and anything. So I ended up going
to Oregon State and that's actually where I get my
wildlife degree.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
That's not a bad place to get it. That sounds
so great.

Speaker 3 (11:44):
It was great.

Speaker 2 (11:44):
I loved Cornallis and a ton of black bears there,
so that's really where I got a ton of like
black beery experience.

Speaker 3 (11:51):
I was working on a project not for black bears.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
It was for Pine Martin, but we were constantly have
black bears getting into our bait and they were just
huge and they're like those coastal bears. It was really
neat experience.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
So nice. So black bears or grizzlies, like any type
of bear, it's not like you had a love for
them necessarily growing up. So did I'm assuming you just
never pictured yourself like as a bear biologist.

Speaker 3 (12:17):
Yeah, it never really crossed my mind.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
So when I was sixteen, I did go on a
bear hunt with my dad and we went up to Manitoba.
So that was kind of like my first exposure with bears,
and so we had a little bit of that and
we were up in the tree stand and it was
really crazy to watch these bears interact with each other,
the females chasing off males and protecting their cubs, and
so I really learned about bear behavior and I was like, oh, man,

(12:39):
bears are pretty cool, Like this is awesome watching them
like really use their throat and like grunts and the
noises and the hupping and the climbing of trees. Then
I moved on and was going through other stuff and
like I'm a big white tail person, like white obviously
I grew up on white tail when I initially thought,
you know, even moving to Montana, I was like, oh,
bears are really cool, but you know, I really like

(13:01):
ulits and yeah, and then I just started getting more
into the degree. And I when I started off college
at Oregon State, I was always getting a job, like
I was making sure to.

Speaker 3 (13:10):
Internship, volunteer whatever I could do.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
So I got a variety of experience, and I just
got more and more interested in bears, especially along the coast.
It was so interesting to watch him break into our
baits and then be also be frustrated by getting like
cool pictures of them, and it just I feel like
it started to grow. And I actually called, you know,
you take that class where you're like Oh, they have to.
They want to know what are you interested in, So

(13:34):
call some people they might be interested who have that career.

Speaker 3 (13:38):
And I was like, bears are pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
And I wanted to get back to a Montana eventually,
and I was I just googled.

Speaker 3 (13:44):
I was like, bear biologists in Montana? Is that a thing?

Speaker 2 (13:48):
And they pulled up the bear manager page and there
was one female on there and I clicked her name
and called her up and I was like, all right,
and she is really what kicked off my strong interest
in bear management, bear conflicts working with bears. She also
worked in Florida, worked in the same area, so we
had a lot of different connections obviously throughout the years.

(14:10):
And she's been a great mentor of mine. So she
is what really kicked it off. Oh that is so cool.

Speaker 1 (14:15):
I was going to ask you, like, what it was
like going to Montana as a woman trying to be
a biologist, because I know it's not always super friendly us.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
Yes, I've been busting my butt for twelve years whatever,
it's been so long, and not just in Montana, to
be honest, Florida, a lot.

Speaker 3 (14:32):
Of the states.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
It's still a little difficult and it depends on where
you go. You know, it's definitely getting better and it's
getting a little easier, but there's just things that I
think that we can't change, and that is what it
is like, Throw me the challenge, bring it out the hell.

Speaker 3 (14:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
All right, So speaking of let's get into how your
career started. So what were some of the jobs that
you had once you left college with your degree.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
So while I was in college, I started working for
Oregon Apertmano's Fish Wildlife, which was super awesome. So I
was doing some ungulate captures, I was monitoring, you know,
I worked on one of their management areas that are
owned by the state, so that was really cool.

Speaker 3 (15:12):
So I had a ton of exposure literally during college.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
And then when I got out of college, my first
wildlife gig, I guess first one outside of college was
with Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks and the university and
they were doing a study on elk calves and so
it was just a big neonate study and so I
got to help do a little bit of capture of
the calves and then fly and monitor it and go

(15:37):
in and look for callers and do knee cropsies, which
I love knee cropsies are so interesting because you never.

Speaker 3 (15:42):
Know where you're going in.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
And you're like, Okay, what's gonna be there? Is it
going to be a full elk? Is it going to
be a half elk? And then also making sure there's
nothing there still eating it as you go in.

Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:54):
So yeah, So I started. I was in Montana. I
was again a lot of six temporary seasonal position. I
did that for about ten years, a lot of temporary seasonal.
So I had that gig, and then I went to
Missouri and I did some white tail work there. We
were capturing white tails, which again kind of back in.

Speaker 3 (16:10):
My realm right, was super awesome.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
Then I went down to Florida to do black bear
research and then again capturing. We had cubs, we were
capturing the females, were putting little tiny collars on the cubs,
and then I was monitoring.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
Them doing neath cropsies, which was crazy.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
In Florida, Well I can't imagine.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
Oh yeah, yeah, it was so interesting the things you
had to be aware of compared to like like snakes.

Speaker 3 (16:33):
And gators everything.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
I was like, oh, gator wouldn't be here, Oh no,
there goes one right across the sand. We were like, Okay,
I don't know anything about Florida, but it was awesome.

Speaker 3 (16:44):
It was such an experience.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
And from Florida I went to Idaho and Idaho I
was doing again ungulate stuff. I was helping out a
little bit with bear stuff here and there, helped like
check in a lot of their game animals. So my
time was during the fall, helped assist with some captures, data,
just a variety of different things, a lot of in
the field which I allowed to get in, boots on
the ground, eat crapsies, checking animal and working with people, right,

(17:08):
that's a big part of it. So being able to
like hear hunter stories and talk to them about their
harvest that fall was always cool. So from Idaho, then
I went to Montana and I did my week there
after yeah, my little incident, and then I went back
to Idaho that fall, and then I went to Florida
for another year. Oh Man, and then Montana and then

(17:30):
Idaho and then Idaho.

Speaker 3 (17:32):
Yeah, so I did Idaho for about five years.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
So I did like five stints, right, so five with
Idaho fishing game.

Speaker 3 (17:38):
I really liked Idaho fishing game.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
I worked in the boising Ampa area and then my
last year was up in the Paniandle and they were.

Speaker 3 (17:44):
Really kicking off their bear management program.

Speaker 2 (17:47):
They had a like a bear game warden there, but
they didn't have a biologist. They had a biologist previously,
I didn't really have a management person or somebody up
in that area, so they were really trying to fill
in since grizzly bears were moving over. And yeah, yeah,
so it's really, like I said, a lot of travel.

Speaker 1 (18:03):
Yeah, I know, so before we get into your incident.
So I feel like this is like the classic career
path for a wildlife biologist that not a lot of
people know about, like the hopping from seasonal to seasonal position.
So can you just explain what that process is like,
going from one seasonal in one state to like hop
into another like temporary job in another state, Like how

(18:26):
do you manage your life like that?

Speaker 2 (18:29):
Yes, I'm really fortunate to have two really great parents,
So I will say that dogs were not a good.

Speaker 3 (18:35):
Thing to travel with.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
They're amazing, they're great to travel with, but doing that
was not always ideal because I could not always have them.

Speaker 3 (18:42):
So that was probably the toughest part.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
At a yell on a chocolate lab and when I
took them to Oregon, it was great, but then they
had to do a lot of time with Grandma and Grandpas.
I was really fortunate to that too, where I had
a place where I could store all my stuff and
didn't have to worry about it.

Speaker 3 (18:56):
Personally. I loved it.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
So twenty twenty two, I got a permanent job with
US Fishal Wildlife Service and I was there for a
year and then two year I was like, all right,
this is getting a little.

Speaker 3 (19:09):
Too permanent for me.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
Really, yeah, I got so used to temporary seasonal jobs,
and that's actually my fiance was like, cemented my fee, right,
those are on the ground.

Speaker 3 (19:18):
And I'm stuck because I'm like, what about this job.
He's like, no, we're not traveling.

Speaker 2 (19:22):
I don't want to because we did the long distance
when I went to Boise and he's like, I'm not
doing it, even if it's in Montana, I don't want
to do it.

Speaker 3 (19:29):
So yeah, but I absolutely loved it.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
Because I got to meet new people and I was
dealing with different stuff every time, or even when I
went back to Idaho Fishing Game. I would go back
and they would give me new projects and I was
like moving up in that aspect of being a wildlife biologist, right,
So I was a technician and I would get moved
up into these spots to where they were trying to
help me become a permanent wildlife biologist eventually. So I

(19:53):
was really fortunate and I believe that and this is
just me like, to be a good wildlife biologist, having.

Speaker 3 (19:58):
Variety is really key. I've done some habitat work.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
I've done, like you said, the basic data jury stuff
and the capture and the ungulates just and the predators everything.
Having that variety of experience is really important, like I said,
for me to be a good wildlife biologist and really
understand all the aspects of it and understand hunting versus
folks who don't like hunting or habitat loss and disease.

Speaker 3 (20:23):
And then working with the public is also really key.
It's very very important.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
I mean, no matter if you're a researcher or you're
just a biologist, in some.

Speaker 3 (20:31):
Way, you are working with the public. That's just what's part.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
It's part of the job, and it's important piece part
of the job because we want the public to care
about certain things so that way species and habitat stick around, So, yeah,
I absolutely loved it, and I do miss it.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
I get a little anthy.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
Yeah, no, I totally get that feeling. I also feel
like when you are in a wild life biology program,
they don't tell you that so much of your job
is dealing with people, and no one prepares you for
how to deal with people who are like really personally
mad at you about what happened. Man. All right, so
let's dive a little deeper into an incident that you

(21:11):
had with the bear. So what was the job you
were doing? Where were you set the scene?

Speaker 2 (21:18):
So I was working for US Special Wildlife Service through
the University of Montana, so they have some dollars in
research programs that go through there. I was in Libby, Montana,
so it would have been twenty eighteen, and I was
working on it, ironically, on a grizzly bear project. And
I was just out collecting hair off of barbed wire

(21:40):
and that's for DNA. We're just trying to get an
idea of population and just yeah, I get an idea
of how many bears.

Speaker 3 (21:47):
Are out there.

Speaker 2 (21:48):
So yep, literally just collect an hair off of barbedier.
I was also setting up corrals, so a corral is
basically like you have four trees and you put a string.

Speaker 3 (21:57):
Of barbed wire around it at about knee height.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
You throw out the camera and you put this basic
smoothie in there, right, So it's a blood smoothie, and
you just put some brush in there and some mult
or whatever is on the ground that you can throw together,
and some sticks and you pour this blood smoothie over there,
and it's just the scent lure. So it's just to
get them in so that way it collects their hair
and we get some photos of them.

Speaker 1 (22:21):
So not working hands on per se, just no collecting sticks.
And I'm assuming you were like in the middle of
the woods, like off the beaten path doing this kind
of work, right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
Yeah, So a lot of the trails and the areas
were not really trails. Some of them were really really
old for service road, so I'd have to do some
chain selling even to get back to my starting point.

Speaker 3 (22:43):
It's on the one area that I was in.

Speaker 2 (22:45):
You know, I was able to get pretty far back
there and then where I had my encounter was about
two miles up, So I was about two miles in
when I had this encounter, and the whole way up.

Speaker 3 (22:56):
It's again it's an old for service road. They even
use it.

Speaker 2 (22:58):
So it's like true tree tree, tree, treat, retreat, tree,
and then you have a creek and then it's some
open and some not you know. So yeah, rugged, I
guess we could call it rugged one which loved being
out there.

Speaker 3 (23:09):
It's great.

Speaker 1 (23:10):
Yeah, yeah, No, it's definitely like I feel like, why
we all get in the field to be in the
middle of the woods like that. But did you going
into this job, did they give you any sort of
like preparation on like, hey, if you encounter a grizzly,
here's what you should do.

Speaker 3 (23:24):
Yeah, So we got training.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
We had like three or four days of training, and
so it was jainsaw training, your bear ID, your bear
Spurray training and going over all that hr new employee
documents and all that. So that was definitely a part
of their the bear ID and what to do if
you encountered a bear?

Speaker 1 (23:42):
Gotcha, so you encountered a bear? To put it plainly,
what happened.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
So I was walking down this trail, so it was
May seventeenth. It was about around I don't know, nine
thirty ten in the morning, and again I was collecting
hair off of barbed wire. There was snow on the ground,
it was raining. The creek way below us was fairly.

Speaker 3 (24:06):
Loud right, it was running.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
There was water going through it, so a lot of
ambient noises all around. I came into this kind of
semi right open avalanche shoot. It was brushy and different stuff.
But I was when you're calling, you're out there, you're
making noise. Hey bear, hey beary clapping your hands.

Speaker 3 (24:21):
Making a ton of noise.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
I when I teach bear safety, I always tell folks
make sure you stop listen to see if anything's coming right,
because after you're yelling, I can't always hear everything.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
So I got into this open avalanche shoot and I stopped.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
And was looking around and listening, and all of a
sudden I heard oh, And I turned to my left
and they measured it. He was eleven or twelve feet
from me on my left hand side.

Speaker 3 (24:45):
I turned.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
I knew immediately he was a crisly bear, and I
saw I had bear spray right here on my chest.

Speaker 3 (24:51):
So I had a pack on bear spray right on
my chest. And I just.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
Turned to the right and jogged a little and jumped
went down to the ground. So I kind of sat
in the feetal PiZZ on the ground. At that point,
he was already in my bag. He had smacked my
back and claught up my arm. His entire body was
on top of me, and I was just like sitting there,
hunched over, just slowly trying to get that bear spray out.

Speaker 1 (25:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:12):
I got the bear spray out. I took off the
cap and he reached down. He bit down on my
skull and I reached over my left arm and sprayed
him and he took off film.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
Wow. Okay, so the wa thing you just described that
you heard the noise immediately knew that it was coming
at you like that. You had no time to like assess,
You just like dropped down.

Speaker 3 (25:34):
Yeah, he was right there, So I saw him.

Speaker 1 (25:36):
Oh man.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
So yeah, I turned to the left and he was
I could literally see his whole body, like I can
remember every piece of him. Yeah, And I just turned
to the right and just dropped down the ground because
I was That was My first initial thought was like,
dug a little go just wrap your butt down to
the ground. And of course, like he made that defensive
mode right where he's like the huffing.

Speaker 3 (25:58):
He's like, oh right, what are you what are you
doing here?

Speaker 2 (26:01):
And then I moved, So his initial reaction is to
become defensive, right, and so he charges after me, you know,
he smacks me, and then he's on top of me,
and he's smelling like what is this right? And of
course I had an apple on the top part of
my pack and I have that blood smoothie in my pack,
so he's like sniffing, and luckily the bite to my
head was very I'm going to use the word light

(26:23):
because I don't know what other It was very light.
It wasn't like a bite and rip again because it
was very defensive.

Speaker 3 (26:30):
He felt like maybe my head was pulsaying like something
was moving, and so that's what they do. So when
you're still moving, the bite bite, bite, it's the.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
Defensive reaction to try and get to disengage, right, try
and get whatever they've got to stop moving. And so
he just happened to bite down on my skull and
then I sprayed over my left arm and he took off.

Speaker 1 (26:49):
Oh man, that sounds like the most ideal circumstance for
being attacked by a grizzly, Like the fact that he
like softly bit down on you. I mean, so let's
talk about what kind of bear it was. So it
was a grizzly, a male grizzly. How do you know
how big he was?

Speaker 3 (27:07):
Yeah, So the only.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
Reason that I know that he was a male grizzly
is because when they so anytime somebody gets attacked by
a bear, they do a huge investigation, right, so there's
law enforcement or police, others, f WP biologists like a
bunch of people go up they do an investigation. One.
They're looking to see if the bear is still up there,
to see if there's a carcass around, really to assess

(27:29):
the scene.

Speaker 3 (27:30):
And so they went up there and they were.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
Able to collect hair either off the ground and there
might I can't remember if there was hair on my
pack as well, but they were able to collect some
hair and they figured out who it was because he
had been previously collared. So he was an original research
bear in two thousand and I think it was two
thousand and five, which is pretty cool. And again, so
he's had no encounters with people aside from that research one.

(27:53):
And his collar I think they said maybe lasted a
year and then it fell off or yeah, he ended
up breaking it off. So that's how we knew it
was a male. I mean my rough estimate, he had
to have least been four hundred and four hundred and
fifty pounds, and.

Speaker 3 (28:07):
That was during the spring. I mean he was a
big bear.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
Oh my god. So after this happened, yespray him he leaves.
What do you do after that? Did you stay for
a while? Do you immediately book it?

Speaker 3 (28:18):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (28:18):
So I sat there for a few seconds for I
don't know how long I sat there for, but I
just was trying to listen. So when he bit down
on my skull, you know, I say lightly, he cracked
open my skull. He cracked open about three quarters of
my skull. Yeah, and I actually lost all my hearing
in my left ear. So at this point, like my
ears ringing, I'm sitting there and I'm like, did he leave?

(28:40):
Did he actually leave? I felt him like his whole
weight come off me. Yeah, which way he went?

Speaker 3 (28:45):
I had no idea, So.

Speaker 2 (28:46):
I just turned and looked at both sides, picked up
my stuff that fell out of my pack or whatever,
and I had an inReach.

Speaker 3 (28:53):
So it's a GPS satellite phone. It's on a phone.

Speaker 1 (28:58):
It's when he urgency contact.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
Yeah, yeah, and you can text off it you can
take locations like now they're so advanced now, because we
used to just have the spot ones where you could
only hit so many things. Now they're so advanced, and
so the inn reach was really handy. But I digged
out and I was like, I'm.

Speaker 3 (29:14):
Okay, and this is like my fourth day on the job.
Do I have to hit the SOS button?

Speaker 2 (29:20):
Which is just my personality right, because I'm like, I
can see I'm good.

Speaker 3 (29:26):
But I did hit the SOS button because I was like,
what if I'm not good and I pass out right?

Speaker 2 (29:30):
Because I'm pretty sure he bit down in my head,
but I wasn't one hundred percent sure. All your adrenaline,
Like I heard something crunch and I couldn't hear it
in my ears. There's just so much going on and
my goal was to get out of there. So I
hit the SOS button and then I was like, well,
I'm okay, I'm gonna start walking and I just started shrudging.
At this point, I'm yelling, I'm making a ton of noise.

(29:51):
I have the safety off my bear spray, which we
obviously we don't recommend people to do, but in this case,
I did no idea what I was going to run
into yep, but I had like a little bit left
in my can, Like I had hardly.

Speaker 3 (30:02):
Anything left in that can.

Speaker 1 (30:04):
Oh man.

Speaker 3 (30:05):
So this is again when I get baar safety talk.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
So I always encourage people, especially if you're out by yourself,
to carry two cans because if you ever have to
use that first, can you at least have another one
on if you're gonna hike yourself out.

Speaker 3 (30:16):
If you can't hike yourself out, Yeah, because I had
no idea if I was going to run into a
moose or a black bear or him. I don't know
what way he went.

Speaker 2 (30:24):
Yeah, So I was just yelling and trudging out, and
it was about two miles back to my truck, and
I hiked myself back to my truck, got in my
truck and was like, Okay, I can drive. I'm gonna
go try to find somebody. It's bear season, so I
knew there had to have been people out hunting. So
I got in my truck, get throw it in reverse
and started going and was just like hogging my horn,

(30:47):
making a ton of noise. And there's like a main
it's still way back there, but it was just like
a main dirt road that a lot of people travel
and I hit that and I was lead foot to
the ground, like trying to find the next person, any person.
And I found somebody that I was like up his button.
Finally got him to pull over and I walked up
to him and was like, excuse me, and he just turns.

Speaker 3 (31:07):
And lux says, oh, dear. I was like, I got
a tag by bear, can ta me the hospital? And
he had this big dog and his truck with him,
and he was.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
So cute and the dogs like, hey, what's going on
on town? And the guy's like, yeah, totally. So I,
you know, took my keys out of my truck or
whatever I did, locked it all up, got in his vehicle,
and the dog's like, hey, how's it going.

Speaker 3 (31:27):
And I'm a dog person, so I'm like, oh, I
want to do is touch you?

Speaker 2 (31:30):
Yeah, And luckily he was a retired veteran, so he
was so lucky.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
Obviously he knew I did not look in a mirror,
so I had no idea what my injuries were. So
he was you could tell he was talking to me
and make sure I don't pass out. When we ended
up running into the ambulance and I don't know how far.

Speaker 3 (31:48):
We'd gone a couple mile a couple of miles.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
And he like waved him down, and yeah, when they
put me in the ambulance.

Speaker 1 (31:54):
So did the ambulance come because of the SOS that
you called? Oh?

Speaker 3 (31:59):
They did, which was it's crazy.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
So when you hit that SOS button, I started getting
text messages that said are you okay?

Speaker 3 (32:04):
And I was like, no, I'm not okay. Why would
I hit the episode one?

Speaker 2 (32:08):
But so many people hit that button on accident, so
they have to like pin in. So I was like
trying to text while also hauling down the trail like
got baar attack.

Speaker 3 (32:18):
At one point I wrote quack attack.

Speaker 2 (32:20):
And I'm just trying to like send a messages Hello,
get me out of here, because I kept getting this
text message and the signal goes to like a satellite
and then it goes somewhere in Texas and then it
gets sent to our local people.

Speaker 3 (32:33):
It's so weird, or it gets sent to both places.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
When I got out of there, and it was like
a couple of weeks later, when I checked my phone,
I had a message from a gal in Texas and
I've kept it. I have two voicemails, one from the
local ambulance, the local police department, and then one from
the gal in Texas and they're like, well, you saw
that you hit the SOS button. We're just checking to
make sure you're okay. I was like, no, so, yeah,
those are great. I keep those because I think they're funny. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
Now that like, you're fine and post attack. Yeah, so
you get to the hospital. So you said that your
skull was cracked. How does that get fixed?

Speaker 3 (33:10):
Yeah? So I actually got life flighted.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
So the ambulance met a helicopter up at actually one
of the local bars that's.

Speaker 3 (33:17):
Right in between like Libby and kalus Bell. Yeah. So
luckily it was like eleven o'clock, so.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
There wasn't a lot of people there, and they threw
me in there, and I remember being so bummed. I
had to take my contact out side a really bad eyesight. Yeah,
and this was like the I hadn't been on a helicopter.
Had I been in a helicopter yet? Maybe one other time.
So it was really bummed because I could not see anything.
So I'm like laying there in this stretcher, I'm like, man,
everything is so blurry. This would be so cool to

(33:43):
see the views right now. So they get me into
the hospital, and they basically took some pieces because it's
on this side. So it starts on this side, and
it goes up here and there's like a spot here,
and then it goes around the backside of my head
and it goes up and down, so this whole left side,
and they basically just kind of like pieced whatever they
could back together and I don't know what it is

(34:05):
exactly in there. I can make it through the airport security,
so I don't go off, so that's good. But they're
like fans and some sort of like screws that are
okay up like in this part and then this part,
and then of course I have a little gap, and
then I have a big gash right up here from
where his you know, the right side of his canine
hit my top part, and they had to shave my

(34:25):
whole head. So I was sitting in the hospital and
really long hair, just like I do now, even longer,
and I'm sitting there. I was like, are you guys
gonna have to shave my head?

Speaker 3 (34:34):
And they're like, we could leave the part that he
didn't get hit. I'm like, oh, so that's gonna be
like a strip.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
Yeah, no, no, save it.

Speaker 3 (34:42):
Yeah, so they completely shaved it.

Speaker 2 (34:43):
Every now and then I'm like, I should shave it
and see what the scars look like. You know, call
until I'm like seventy, and I don't care that much.

Speaker 1 (34:51):
I can imagine, just like, as a woman, I know
what it's like to have your hair fall out or
lose your hair, especially when you have long hair, it
becomes so much a part of the that you see yourself. Yeah,
was that a big This might be a stupid question,
but was that a big part of your recovery where
you were like, God, damn it, Like I just wish
I had my hair back, Yes, especially watching it grow back,
like it was crazy to watch it grow back.

Speaker 2 (35:12):
And I honestly, I feel like I have no room
to talk now with so many folks that get cancer
and lose their hair, and they just shave mine off.
And then it grew back, but it grew back so
dark and like you said, and then it was like
really spiky, and I was wearing bantanas because I didn't
want to see, which I could barely.

Speaker 3 (35:26):
I couldn't wear hats, and.

Speaker 2 (35:28):
Bandanas had to be really light because the whole left
side of my head hurt, and even now I have
a hard time brushing my hair. Sometimes I just can't
sleep on this side. And definitely my headaches tend to
stay on this side now.

Speaker 3 (35:41):
And I was just constantly getting.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
Headaches for like two years every day, like it was
just like a constant battle of pain, and my ear
would ring on a constant basis. And so I finally
got to a point where I'm just so used to
it that it kind of I made her over it,
or it's.

Speaker 3 (35:56):
Calmed down a little bit.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
Yeah, but it still rings like every now and then
it'll just like really pick up, and so that gets
kind of hard.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
Losing my hair was tough.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
Yeah, And so did you get full hearing back in
your left ear?

Speaker 3 (36:09):
Nope, it's gone forever.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
So he actually bit the part that I can't get
a coke clear. They can't do any kind of replacement
for it. So where he bit, he literally bit the
wrong part and there's nothing that can fix it. I've
tried hearing aids and they're okay. If they don't work
at all, I can't locate. So again, I'm an elk hunter.
So when I'm out during bosies and trying to call
an elk or something, and I'm like, oh, it's over there,

(36:32):
and my fancy like it's over there?

Speaker 3 (36:35):
Are you sure? Are you sure?

Speaker 1 (36:38):
So?

Speaker 3 (36:38):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (36:39):
Well, now the hair question seems stupid. I'm sure you.
Oh no about it was so hard.

Speaker 3 (36:44):
I was like, yeah, I grew all this hair.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
You really got it. It takes so long. Yeah, man.
And also the fact that you said, oh, he just
bit down lightly on my head and years later you're
still having like he aches and you lost your hearing.
That is a crazy amount of damage for just one
quote unquote light bite to your head. That's wild.

Speaker 3 (37:10):
Oh medium should I say? Maybe I should say like
a medium bite.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
I just want to call it feel like he was like,
oh and ripping my skull off, because that's definitely not
what was going on.

Speaker 3 (37:19):
I mean, he might have eventually, but I don't think.

Speaker 1 (37:22):
I love that you were attacked by Grizzly and you
were like, I don't want to make it seem like
more than it was. It was just a light thing.
So let's get into what happened with your situation. So
you were saying it was a defensive attack. You're a
grizzly bear biologist slash bear biologist in general, what could

(37:44):
you I guess that's I don't want to say what
could you have done differently to not be attacked? Because
that sounds shitty, But like, how can people avoid this
kind of situation? Because it sounds like you were doing
everything right?

Speaker 3 (37:55):
You know, I can't say that for sure.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
I mean I did the best that I could with
what I had to work with and where my brain went.

Speaker 3 (38:02):
I tell my story almost every.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
Time I give a bear safety talk because I do
think it's very important. And so my couple of my
tips are I should have laid on my stomach if
I was gonna lay down in that kind of encounter,
how close he was to me, I should have just bam,
laid down elbows in the ground so he was biting
anything else but my head right, and really protected that
and got the bear spray out.

Speaker 3 (38:25):
That's just not what occurred to me. Right.

Speaker 2 (38:26):
Sitting in the fetal position gave him more of an
opportunity to where if he felt like smacking.

Speaker 3 (38:31):
Me around more, I would have been more.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
Loosey goosey, which would have given him more of opportunities
to bite a lot more, you know. But luckily I
was like tighten and sitting there we don't want folks
to sit there because you could also be like on
a hill and that bear smacks you, and then.

Speaker 3 (38:44):
You are rolling down the hill and it causes that
predator attack.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
Right, they automatically want to run and just chase this
thing so automatically caused them to chase.

Speaker 3 (38:53):
So laying down. Definitely lay down if you can.

Speaker 2 (38:56):
Just get your as it's gonna hurt and it's gonna suck,
but just lay down so you can protect your head
and your neck and your vitals too. Right, because even
though I was in sitting in the fetal position, my
vitals were not really that protected.

Speaker 3 (39:10):
The other thing is I.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
Had no idea and again we're learning so much all
the time about bear spray and bear attacks and what
goes on. I had no idea you could spray in
your holster. So if I felt like it, or if
my mind had been I might have just been able
to like just grab and spray right there, and then
it could have I may not have or he might
have hit me as I was spraying and then taken off.

(39:31):
So I always encourage folks to if you're don't feel
like you can get it out, just take that cap
off and spray as long as you're hitting that bear
somewhere and it's building that cloud, that is what's important.

Speaker 3 (39:41):
Like I said, I had no idea. It didn't even
occur to me. Right, you always get taught take it
out of your holster and spray. Well, in this there
was no opportunity. There was no time.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
He was literally right there, so I had seconds to
really think about what I could do. And then again
carrying two cans. I cannot emphasize this enough.

Speaker 3 (39:59):
Carry to you can.

Speaker 2 (40:01):
Seems like a lot, It sometimes feels heavy, but carrying
that extra can is just so helpful because if you
ever do you or somebody else has to use their can,
or if it explodes and something happens and you need
an extra can, right, it's just so helpful to have that. Yeah,
and making sure you're making a lot of noise. And
I don't go out by myself anymore.

Speaker 3 (40:21):
It's very rare.

Speaker 2 (40:22):
Certain areas I feel comfortable enough, but other than that,
I don't. So I do encourage folks not to go
out by themselves, but I get it. Not everybody has
friends who like to go hiking and do the same stuff.
So making sure you're making a ton of noise and
taking the time to be aware of your surroundings, especially
during hunting season. If you're a hunter and you hunt
by yourself, I can't encourage it enough. Let's say you're

(40:44):
going last minute and you're in a hurry. You just
want to get out there, take the time. The elk
are either going to be there.

Speaker 3 (40:50):
Or they're not going to be there. The dey're going
to be there or they're not going to be there.

Speaker 2 (40:53):
But you being saved is a lot better than you
rushing in there and then encountering a bear right away
because they are not always paying it to time. So
he was eating glacier lily balls, like he was literally
digging up glacier lily balls, so he was not really focused.
So I could have been making a ton of noise,
but with all the ambient noise and everything else going in,
I don't even know if he heard me. They get

(41:14):
so focused on.

Speaker 3 (41:15):
Eating and what they're doing.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
That's why it's important for us to be super aware
of our surroundings and like I said, make.

Speaker 3 (41:22):
That noise and really really pay attention, because they are
not always paying attention because they don't feel that they
need to. And that goes for black bears too.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
You know, during this four days, I don't know how
many I probably saw fifteen different black bears that I
literally scared the crap out of because we were just
One of them had its head in a berry bush,
and I just I was irritating that day. I was
trying to get up a corral and it took forever,
and I was so frustrated, and like, come walking out,
I'm cursing up a storm, and all of a sudden,
I just hear, oh, and all these rocks come down

(41:52):
and this bear takes off. Well, his head was just
in this bush, just trying to eat right because he
wasn't paying attention. He was zoning out, so he didn't
even hear me. And stay away from the headphones. I
cannot tell you how many people I run into that
have headphones out in the woods. You go onto the
woods to be out into the woods, to hear the birds,
to hear the coyotes, to hear the I don't know,
the vultures whatever, whatever.

Speaker 3 (42:13):
Know ye stream, Yes, do not put headphones in you're
I just I it blows my mind.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
So in this I do want to make it clear
to people. I mean, we've talked about this in the
podcast before, but like, this bear was not trying to
eat you, or I don't want to say it wasn't
trying to kill you per se because it bit you
on the head. But this can we describe a little
bit like the different kinds of encounters that you might
have with a grizzly that you like would startle like,

(42:41):
what are some of the outcomes?

Speaker 3 (42:43):
Yeah, so this goes for any bear. So it's all
about bear behavior.

Speaker 2 (42:46):
So my encounter with him again was a defensive behavior, right,
So it was very defensive.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
I was in his area. So defensive behaviors tend to
come about when you have a.

Speaker 2 (42:56):
Female with cubs with a bear guarding of food source
or and you just really surprise a bear and I
surprised him, so that's where he became really defensive. Right.
He smacked around, then he's sniffing, and then he bites
down my skull.

Speaker 3 (43:10):
A lot of that biting.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
So those are all types of defensive encounters. Sometimes grizzly
bears will climb trees, but black bears are the same thing.
So anytime a bear climbs a tree, that's a defensive mechanism.
So that bear is going up that tree because it
is uncomfortable, it does not want to be there.

Speaker 3 (43:25):
The only way to get.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
That bear to go away is for you to go away, right,
to disengage with that bear.

Speaker 3 (43:31):
So by stepping away.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
And that bear eventually come down the tree when you're
gone and that threat is no longer there. That's where
that defensive part comes in, right. They feel like they're
being threatened. That female with the cubs, she feels as
though her cubs are being threatened, so she's going to
huff and puffs, she's gonna send them up a tree.
She's gonna do what she needs to do. She's gonna
bluff charge, or she's gonna do a full on charge.
Those are all defensive mechanisms. They don't want to kill you.

(43:56):
They just don't want you in their space. You're way
too close. You're making them.

Speaker 3 (43:59):
Really uncomfortable and they feel threatened.

Speaker 2 (44:02):
There's also and we don't like to talk about this
too much because it's pretty rare that it happens, but
it does happen, and it's the predatory side of it.
And that's where a bear is literally stalking you. So
that's like very similar to.

Speaker 3 (44:13):
A mountain lion. Right where they're following you.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
They're not giving you any of those warning signs. They're
not stomping the ground, they're not huffing, they're not chomping
their jaws, they're not doing bluff charges. They're just looking
very normal. But they're following you. That is more of
that predatory where they want to eat you while they're
we're all they'll just keep going, and that's where you
want to fight back and even have your bear spray

(44:37):
out and use your bear spray if you can.

Speaker 3 (44:39):
But sometimes they don't come close enough.

Speaker 2 (44:41):
Most encounters tend to be defensive. And again, it's all
about bear behavior. It is not about grizzly bears versus
black bears.

Speaker 3 (44:47):
You know.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
That used to be something we talked about a ton,
but now there's so much more research and there's a
lot of science and everything that's going into bear behavior,
and they both behave very similar ways.

Speaker 3 (44:58):
Yeah, most black bears and to run away, not all
the time.

Speaker 2 (45:03):
I have literally tried cubs before, and that female sat
right there.

Speaker 3 (45:08):
She never did a full on charge.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
She did a bluff charge multiple times, but until I left,
that is the only time she started to like lower
and feel a little bit better until I started to
walk away, So it's definitely possible for those to happen
with either bear and grizzly bears tend to run away too.
I am sure that I saw or heard or there
were more grizzly bears around me that I did not

(45:31):
know were actually there because I was making a lot
of noise and letting them know that I was in
the area. They really don't want to be around us either.

Speaker 1 (45:38):
Yeah, I feel like when I started this podcast, I
have this book Bear Attacks their causes and like how
to Prevent them by Steven Herrero, And I feel like
in that book it's even like, yeah, black bears are
not great moms and they'll just leave their cubs to
do whatever, but grizzlies will kill you for their cubs.
So it kind of instilled this whole like all right,
black bears are sometimes trying to eat you. Don't really

(46:00):
feel like they're ever trying.

Speaker 3 (46:01):
To eat you.

Speaker 1 (46:02):
So if a black bear's attacking you, definitely fight them
versus grizzly just lie down the whole like, if it's black,
fight back, if it's brown, lie down situation. So now
we know better, Yes, and it's a nuanced thing. So
basically that advice is could put, don't acknowledge the black
versus brown, acknowledge the behavior right.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
Correct and because in the heat of the moment, it
adds to that right. Their behaviors are the same, they
do the same things, but in the heat of the moment,
you cannot always tell if it's a black bear or
grizzly bear out west. Obviously they don't have grizzly bears
on the East coast, but out here sometimes you cannot tell.
Black bears can be brown, they can be cinnamon, they
can be blonde. Grizzly bears can be black, they can

(46:43):
be dark brown. They don't always have that grizzled book,
and you don't always see that grizzle book either, Right,
So there's these four features that you really got to
focus on, right. The claws, so the longer claws are
grizzly bears, the shorter ones are black bears.

Speaker 3 (46:57):
And then you have this snow right.

Speaker 2 (46:59):
Grizzly bears have that snout, they have a round head,
they have round ears, and black bears have more narrow snouts,
taller ears.

Speaker 3 (47:06):
And then kriizon bears of.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
Course had the hump, but these are all You've got
to connect all those features.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
So size and color are not ways to tell.

Speaker 2 (47:14):
Even in Tennessee, they have a different color black bears right,
color phases.

Speaker 3 (47:18):
They come in a variety of color phases.

Speaker 2 (47:20):
So it's really important to pay attention to that behavior because,
like people have been attacked by black bears before, that
was not a predator.

Speaker 3 (47:27):
It's very much a defensive mechanism.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
Mm hmm. Yeah, So how did this experience? And you
said you don't go out alone anymore, but if you
were still working outdoors, Like, how does that feel for
you now? Like do you do that kind of work
alone anymore? Not so much.

Speaker 3 (47:46):
Yeah, So when I about, let's see, I got attacked
in May.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
In that October, I went back to Idaho fishing game
because the grizzly.

Speaker 3 (47:54):
Bear project was on its end.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
So when I was able to finally go back to work,
I went back to Idaho because, like I said, that
product was no longer going on for that year. And
I did go out by myself, oh my god.

Speaker 3 (48:06):
But after that I very much stopped.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
So actually that October I went out, I was going
out by myself doing knee cropsies. Had two cans of
bear spray. Yes, had an enrage, had all the things.
I was looking for an elk calf that was colored.
And I got about one hundred yards roughly from this
elk cap and I could see it down in this
like rubene kind of creaky area. All of a sudden,

(48:31):
a mountain lion comes up from that calf, and I was,
like you would one pretator year is I'm fine, and
you hang on to that, and I just like back
to myself out in a way.

Speaker 1 (48:44):
Oh my god. So not only did you go back
in the field by yourself, you went back to the
field looking for dead things that a grizzly or like
another preedator like a mountain lion would be going after.
Oh yes, thank god.

Speaker 2 (48:54):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So I still did that. So I
will say, but I have hunting wine, and I definitely
don't do it by myself, so I always take somebody
else hiking. Definitely do that as well. And like I said,
over the years, I've definitely learned a lot more. Like
I said, it's with that job.

Speaker 3 (49:11):
It was hard.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
There wasn't always somebody available, and every time I tried
to make sure that somebody was able to go out
and move but on everybody could go out.

Speaker 3 (49:18):
And I don't. It's hard.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
You don't want again, you don't want to discourage people
from going out by themselves. And to be honest, in wildlife,
that's what happens a lot, like we do end up
going out by ourselves, and it's just I.

Speaker 3 (49:33):
Don't know, I'm so used to it. It's so part
of the game.

Speaker 2 (49:36):
But the more funding they can get to have a
second person to go, especially doing me crops e and yeah,
certain things like that, you really should have a second person,
but I'm so used. I think I'm just so used
to the wildlife work and that's how it goes. And
like I said, I don't want anybody not to go
out and not have the fun adventures just because they're
going out by themselves.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
I'd rather have them just be safe and be more
aware than having to sit at home not being able to.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
Go out, you know, yeah, like being afraid.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
Yeah yeah, yeah, I don't have a respectable fear.

Speaker 3 (50:07):
But also remember that you're in a wild area.

Speaker 1 (50:11):
Yeah. And as we wrap up, what is in all
of your experience with bears, one of the biggest misconceptions
that you found about them, Man, that's tough, whether it
be like species versus species or like bears in general.

Speaker 3 (50:29):
I think the species versus species is the big one.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
I think everybody the big message is that black bears
are different than grizzly bears, and I just don't I
just don't believe that. Like I said, even the work
I did in Florida, we see very similar behavior in
Montana when it comes to like bears getting into garbage,
or bears that are so used to people.

Speaker 3 (50:53):
That they don't care. And the same thing happens in
Montana that happens in Florida.

Speaker 2 (50:58):
All the behaviors are very simil So I worked really
hard when I do outreach and education to try and
get people away from that. You know, everybody's like, oh,
it's just a black bear. I'm like, actually, it's not
just a black bear, because they do the same things
and they can potentially harm you as well. And that's
I don't want us teaching our younger generations that it's
just a black bear will be fine again, because you

(51:20):
cannot always tell. You could be out in the woods
and you see this beautiful cinnamon bear, huge bear and
you're like chrismal bear, black beary prisoners, right, they could
have a big head. So anytime I'm doing again that
outreach and education, I really try to get photos that
are so hard to tell and try to trick people
and that helps to explain it is hard to tell

(51:41):
the difference. Focus on that behavior because then you're focusing
on their behavior will help you build and focus on
your behavior too, right, because.

Speaker 3 (51:50):
Then you're moving or do you need to fight back?

Speaker 2 (51:52):
Is it that predatory where they're not really making any
noises but they're staring you down, or are they doing
those defensive mechanisms? You know? Can you back away slowly
and just talk calmly to the bear, bear spury out.

Speaker 3 (52:04):
It's so helpful. Just behavior is.

Speaker 2 (52:06):
The way, and that goes for any animal, right, most elk,
dear every they all have those defensive type mechanisms, So
really paying attention to that animal behavior is important.

Speaker 1 (52:17):
Yeah, I feel like it lends to how out of
touch people have become with the wild world. That like
you could go out and see a bear and be like, oh, well,
it's just a black bear. Like I just saw video
of people at Yellowstone like walking up to a black
bear to take pictures and it's like it's still a bear,
Like it doesn't matter that it's not a grizzly, and

(52:37):
people still do it with grizzlies at Yellowstone. But just
because they're at a national park doesn't mean that they're
like it's a petting zoo. Like there's still wild animals.
We should still like respectfully fear them and give them space.
And like I was telling you before we start recording,
I work with a black bear who's four hundred pounds.
That's the same size as the bear that attacked you
and cracked your skull. So just because it's a black

(52:58):
bear doesn't mean that they're like tiny and not as intimidating.
So I totally agree with you. And I was gonna
ask you what the most common conflict people have with them,
but I feel like you answered it with the trash
I'm assuming would probably be the biggest thing in your experience.

Speaker 2 (53:11):
So I would say it depends on them where you're at,
So definitely trash is a big one. Bird Feeders are
a huge, huge one out here in Montana. Right, really
easy calories, really quick coming bird feeders. Those are a
big one that we have issue, especially because people put
them right on their porch right by their window. So
then the bear comes in knocks that out and then
they're like, oh, there's a bear of a porch.

Speaker 3 (53:33):
We're like, well, the bird seed is there, so that's
a big one.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
And a lot of folks don't really think about the
birds and how they're eating it, right, So the bird
comes in, is really picky, picks through all of it,
dumps it.

Speaker 3 (53:45):
All on the ground.

Speaker 2 (53:46):
So you can hang that bird feeder ten feet but
that bird is still being picky. So that bird feeder
is still technically drawing a bear in and that bear
is still getting that food, so it's still getting that
reward because as the birds knock it on the ground
all the time, and the same thing with the hummingbird feeders, right,
all that sugary water is so easy for them to get. So, yeah,

(54:09):
bird feeders and chickens, we see a lot of chicken feed.
It always starts off with the chicken feed and then
the chickens don't move and they're.

Speaker 3 (54:17):
Like, hmm, this must be dead. I'm gonna eat it,
and then they just kill it. Yeah, so couple the
big ones for sure.

Speaker 1 (54:25):
Yeah. I also feel like that's such topical messaging right
now in spring because everyone's like the birds are back,
so like putting back up my bird feeders. And another
thing that always killed me was, oh, well, like I
bring my bird feeders in at nights, the bears don't
get them. But it's like they also will come out
during the day. They are not strictly nocturnal. Also, I've
found that like even if you bring them in during

(54:47):
the night, they might realize and like watch that it's
out during the day and just be like, oh, well,
then I'll just make sure I hit that in the
afternoon and go to bed at night or whatever, you know,
like they can change their schedules for your bird.

Speaker 3 (54:58):
Feeder bring up.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
A great point is mixed messaging is like bears only
travel at night. Bears travel all day long. They travel
whenever they want, they sleep whenever they want, they eat.

Speaker 3 (55:08):
Whenever they want. It does not matter.

Speaker 2 (55:10):
And I think that's a big misconception too, is that
people think that bears only travel at night and they
don't and it's not doesn't mean there's something wrong with
a bear. We get some calls where people are like, oh,
there's a bear in my yard.

Speaker 3 (55:20):
It's noon, yep, okay, yeah, the bears walking through they
don't have a clock.

Speaker 2 (55:27):
They don't know stay boundaries, right, they don't understand they're
just traveling and looking for food. So it's not uncommon
to see a bear in the middle of the day
just mosey about.

Speaker 3 (55:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:37):
I feel like that applies to so many animals, like raccoons,
Like there's very few animals that are strictly nocturnal, like
that's for sure, and that if you see during the
day weird. But last even a fox, it's like, yeah,
of course they're out during the day. So yeah, I
used to have people call me in same thing, like
I saw a bear this afternoon. I'm like that's awesome, Like, yeah,

(55:57):
lucky you.

Speaker 3 (55:58):
Yeah, all right.

Speaker 1 (56:02):
We touched on so many things, but just as a
final question, because we're coming up on like a busy
National Park season and because they are extremely likely to
be understaffed and already struggling, and it's already an issue
every other year with bears getting into campers things, So like,
what is like the number one piece of advice that

(56:22):
you could give people on how to stay safe if
they're recreating around bears this season?

Speaker 3 (56:27):
Oh gosh, the number one.

Speaker 1 (56:29):
I know, that's a hard question.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
Yeah, my Number one would always be bear spray. Right,
and if you're going out west, especially if you're going
out west, take your bear spray.

Speaker 3 (56:37):
I mean I used to carry bear spray in Florida
and stuff too.

Speaker 2 (56:39):
So really, maybe you're going a place where there's bears,
Carrie bear spray, have it with you, have it accessible,
have it ready to go. My second thing would be
just please please please secure your attract ins. Keep those
coolers in your truck. They have bear boxes. Sometimes they
have bear boxes you can rent, sometimes they.

Speaker 3 (56:56):
Have locks you can rent. Contact right, do your research ahead.

Speaker 2 (57:00):
Of time is another big one. During your research ahead
of time and nowhere coming into you could think that
you're in the middle of town and that you will
not see a bear well and guard here. That's not true.
You a sal stone, that's not true either. Sometimes they're
just walking through town. Again at eight o'clock at night,
if all is quiet and they know where the trash is,
they're gonna go there, or they're just gonna be walking

(57:21):
through town.

Speaker 3 (57:21):
Sometimes bears get lost and they have no idea how
they ended up where they did, and then that's how
they end.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
Up in somebody's tree in a yard. Right, Because they're
so scared. They're like, how did I end up here?
I took the wrong way. Yeah, so just bear spray
and do your research. Make sure you know how to
secure your attractants and where to put them.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
Yeah. Also, this is coming after May fifteenth, so what
two weeks ago from recording this, sure Yellowstone posted that
they have already killed an eleven year old grizzly because
it was getting into trash at the park. We're not
even in the full swing of the season yet and already,
like a bear has been killed for getting into trash.
I think that's another thing a lot of people don't

(58:03):
think of is Yeah, maybe you're like, oh man, this
bear like gone my trash. That's annoying, but it's like
it also could lead to the bear being killed, which
sucks because that's the reason you're going there is to
see the wildlife, so you don't want to contribute to
them being great.

Speaker 2 (58:17):
And bears have a learned behavior, right, so it takes
one time, one time for them to eat bird seed,
one time for them to get a nice good bag
of garbage, and then they'll keep going and they'll keep going,
and then if there's nothing negative happening, when they're getting
into that garbage or the bird feeders or the coolers
or in.

Speaker 3 (58:33):
The campground or in your tents, then they'll keep going.

Speaker 2 (58:36):
So it's all about having that negative association or where
they have to burn off.

Speaker 3 (58:40):
A lot of energy.

Speaker 2 (58:41):
That's why you walk your coolers and they're having a
flip it and roll it around, and then they get
frustrated and they're like, Okay, I can't keep burning off energy.
I need to survive, and then they'll move on. So
bear is the stem of materials is extremely important.

Speaker 1 (58:54):
Yeah, I'm going back to the chickens. Like electric fencing
also super important, even if you just have like fun
backyard chickens as a hobby. Yeah, there's so many things
we can get into. But Amber, thank you so much
for sharing her story with us and talking about bear
safety tips as the season gets going. So it's been
a pleasure having you.

Speaker 3 (59:13):
Thank you so much for having me, and I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (59:25):
And that was my interview with Amber Kornack, bear biologist
and bear attack survivor. We talked for like thirty to
forty five minutes after the episode recording, and I just
was like, I cannot believe that you got attacked in May,
and by October you were out doing it all again
on your own night. Couldn't be me. She's built different.

(59:45):
I could not do that. So please heed the advice
that she shared if you are going out to recreate
in bear country this summer in the US or I
guess anywhere that you havee bears, and just be prepared,
know what animals are around you, keep your headphones out.
So with that, I'll wrap it up. I'll keep this
outro short. Like I said in the intro, I'm not

(01:00:06):
sure when I'm going to have another episode out, so
just click that subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening,
and whenever a new episode comes out, you'll see it
or follow us on social media. You can see our
episode description for links to our Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, things
like that, and our website. Otherwise, I will see you

(01:00:28):
when I see you. Thank you so much Jesse Walsh
for editing this and being so kind, and Josh Walsh
for also being kind and making our intro music. Love
you both, and thank you all for listening. Once again,
Thank you so much to all of you who reached
out to me in this past month. It's been tough,
but everyone making me remember I'm not alone has made

(01:00:50):
it easier, so thank you. And if you were listening
to this, you're also not alone. We can reach out
to me anytime if you need it, so thank you guys,
and I'll see you next time.

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Ep. 95: Studying Bears After An Attack (feat. Amber Kornak)

NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal