May 2, 2021 • 22 mins
Wildlife expert, filmmaker, and photographer Buck Wilde partners with Esther Gossweiler, wildlife photographer, to chat with Alaqua Animal Refuge Founder and "Difference Makers" Host Laurie Hood about their joint venture filming "Dark Wild Howling," a documentary highlighting rare Alaskan Sea Wolves in the remote vast Alaska wilderness while going nose-to-nose with Black Bears.
Buck Wilde, known as "The Bear Whisperer" has made over 20 documentaries about bears and his dramatic bear-fight footage is featured in National Geographic’s "Grizzly Empire." Esther had never seen a wolf in the wild before becoming the protagonist for Dark Wind Howling. Since, she has experienced over 100 close wolf encounters and could be considered an expert. From kneeling and prone positions, she is able to capture breathtaking closeups, while keeping the wolves engaged and building trust which has led to compelling subplots.
This interview shows incredible footage of Buck and Esther's documentary and the three individuals also trade tales about staying safe while surrounded by dangerous animals and rescuing abused and neglected domestic animals. While their tasks in filming and rescue are different, their mental approach and body language awareness techniques are surprisingly similar.
The episode is filled with great advice and good stories, beginning with a recording of Buck and his camera crew being charged by a 900-pound bear while working with David Attenborough. Buck joined the Podcast from State College, Pennsylvania and Esther joined from Zurich, Switzerland. Laurie was at her new state-of-the art refuge and sanctuary in Freeport, Florida.
Be on the lookout for a new episode featuring Buck and Esther in Season 2, premiering Fall 2022.
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ABOUT LAURIE HOOD'S DIFFERENCE MAKERS
Our podcast series celebrates the work of animal advocates from around the globe who have dedicated their lives to animal protection and safety. These "difference makers" are doing extraordinary things to help all types of animals protect their overall welfare. In each episode, Laurie and her guests exchange larger-than-life tales of triumphs and setbacks and discuss how they got started advocating for animals, all the while inspiring others to join their movement.
It is a must-watch for all animal lovers and a rallying cry to help create much-needed and lasting change in our society. Whether you watch or listen to the podcasts, our hope is that you will be entertained, informed, inspired, and encouraged to get involved—in your own community or across the globe.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
When he's challenging, which he is right
now, backing up is not the bestmove he's coming here.
Now, fan we're not challenging,you know, challenge event.
Okay.
You and I are down on her knees.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
It takes animal passion and a whole lot more to
spend every summer living in themidst of wild Brown bears and
Alaskan sea wolves.
Welcome to the animal passionpodcast, a program about people
who by choice or by chance havecommitted their lives to
protecting animals.
I'm Lori Hood, president andfounder of aliquot animal
refuge.
Today, I'm talking to Wolf andbear whispers, Buckwild and
(00:34):
Esther Gosse Weiler.
That was Buck's voice.
You heard in the opening clip.
Addressing van van is anapproaching 900 pound dominant
male, Alaskan Brown bear, whoisn't happy.
He thinks buck and his cameracrew have stolen his dinner in
this remarkable video excerpt,but does the opposite of what
most of us have been told to dowith bearing counters.
He and the crew speak calmly tovan.
(00:55):
And when van keeps charging,they get down on their knees.
I'll let buck and Esther explainwhat happens and what they've
learned from thousands ofinteractions with wild bears and
wolves.
After I introduced them beforebecoming an Alaskan wildlife
expert buck, CIAcounter-espionage work focused
on the expression of emotionsand humans and animals.
Esther contacted buck to helprealize her dream of working
(01:17):
with bears and wolves together.
They're making a documentaryfilm to raise awareness and
advocate for Alaskan sea wolves.
Hi guys.
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Thank you for being with me.
So happy to meet you.
I've read about you and theallow for animal refute.
I'm impressed and it's nice totalk to you really.
I'm very excited, very excitedto talk to you as well.
And I actually wanted to startwith you asked her because I
read a story and I want to knowif it's true for what I
understand.
You met buck in a bar, acceptedhis offer to travel to remote
(01:47):
Alaska, and you soon foundyourself crawling around with
the cold bars with 20 pounds ofcamera gear and surrounded by a
pack of wolves.
That really what happened.
In fact, we met in the wild.
We met in the wild and wedecided to document the Wolf's
life, which we heard howlingaround our camp at night was
buck working with bears and youwere there on another mission.
(02:08):
I was seeing great best statecount on TV.
I was always determined to cometo Alaska and photograph the
wild animals.
And there was buck wild.
And I thought this guy, I woulddare to go out there.
I spent a week with bucking thewild and with the pears.
Finally, we ended up at the barwith this arrangement of doing a
documentary about the Wolf'sother buck.
(02:30):
You had this amazing job andfacial recognitions and working
for clients like the CIA.
How does that work?
When you one day walk into youroffice and tell your boss that
you're leaving and you're goingto wild Alaska.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
They literally told me to my face that I was crazy
for leaving such a great job.
I gave it all up to go live withBrown bears.
I don't take supervision well,and I really don't like cubicles
there's no, and I needed somefresh air at that point.
My life was something I hadalways wanted to do.
(03:03):
I'd seen bears on a fewvacations to glacier national
park in Montana, and they sortof captured my imagination.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
And the experience you got from learning to read
people's body language, how isit different reading, a bear
than it is reading a human
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Almost completely different and an outward
observational level bears don'thave very much in terms of
facial expression.
And so much of human emotionsare conveyed through facial
expression.
And that was really the focusthat we had at the CIA was to
interrogate Soviet spies orChinese spies or whatever.
(03:39):
Using facial recognitiontechnology that I was working on
with the bears.
It really comes down to bodylanguage.
You have to tune into the bodylanguage of the species that
you're working with, as youwould recognize, of course,
working with a horse isdifferent than working with a
primate, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
And in my line of work, whether they're prey or
predator makes such a hugedifference in the way that we
interact with them,
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Yes, it brings another layer of consideration
safety into the work and theendeavors and the same applies.
In my opinion, to a lesserdegree to the wolves,
Speaker 3 (04:12):
We sort of had to schedule to get up, but maybe
five 30, six ish, we saw thisWolf, we just stay there and
filmed and photograph this wall.
And finally, we sort of wentback through the camp and we saw
a bear with two cops comingalong and despair.
Two cops went to the beach andwe set up our cameras and filmed
these spare model.
(04:33):
Then from the beach, he cameback to the Tundra, laid herself
down and nursed her little cups,maybe a chest there.
And you were just filming andphotographing.
And this mother bears, shedidn't care at all about us.
She was so much at ease and shewas right in front of us.
And by the time the bear trolledoff and the little ones went off
to play around, we had to glanceat the watch and it was 1230.
(04:56):
And buck was still in hispajamas.
I love that was fantastic.
We forgot everything breakfastfor soaking in the camp.
Coffee got cold.
We just got up and did our work.
It sounds like a perfect startof a morning.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
I'm tempted to tell the story of the first round
bear that really gave me a scaryencounter.
I was by myself on Kodiak Islandto photograph Brown bears.
And this was about 30 years ago.
So I, as they say, I was asgreen as grass, I was
photographing this mother and asmall stream catching salmon,
very Handly and eating them.
(05:33):
And she would eat the best part,crack the skull and eat the
brains.
And she would throw the rest ofthe salmon up onto the bank
behind her, or there were twocute little Cubs and they would
fight over the salmon and Iwould photographing all this
action.
And all of a sudden the bodylanguage of this mother bear
changed.
Her focus switched from salmonand she had been ignoring me to
(05:56):
me.
And she stood up in that waterand ran at me at a full charge.
She probably covered 50 yards intwo or three heartbeats.
She was standing over me, eightfeet tall, looking down at me.
I could reach out and touchedher if I wanted to.
And she was roaring so loud thatit shook my cavity of my body.
(06:18):
And I was just scared to death.
Then the mother bear droppeddown onto all fours right in
front of me.
And when that happened, her nosealmost hit my belly.
And I thought, for sure, thisbear is going to eat me.
And she takes one step back sothat she could give a hand
signal like this.
And unbeknownst to me, she had athird Cub that was behind me.
(06:39):
And that's what her reaction wasall about.
I was not aware that I had beenbetween a mother and a loss Cub
that she had been separatedfrom.
She reprimanded that bear byswatting it around and literally
hit it and knocked it into thewater.
And it went swimming across thestream, back to the other Cubs.
And that mother bear turned itsback to me, walk back into the
(07:02):
stream and went about fishing.
Like nothing had ever happened.
And we went, ate a lot of thingsabout, you know, what makes them
mother bear tech firm,
Speaker 4 (07:10):
You just adamantly say, and to never run when you
encounter a bear like that oryou haven't experienced like
that to never run.
Was that going through your mindthe whole time you were standing
there?
Speaker 1 (07:21):
It's a great question.
And it certainly is an Axiomthat I live by.
I make that point very strongly.
When I talk to audiences, thereare runners and there are what I
would call feeders.
You know what feening is?
Feeney is something that ananimal does when they're afraid.
They freeze.
And I tend to do that ratherthan run ideas, tend to freeze
(07:41):
up and then hopefully my witscome back to me quickly enough
that I can navigate my waythrough the encounter.
I have never been tempted to runand it has worked for me.
You would not believe Lori on atypical summer from may to
October in this wilderness area,it is easy for me as a bear
guide and photographer to have athousand close encounters a
(08:04):
year.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Would you bring people with you and it's their
first time to encounter this?
Do you ever worry that they'regoing to not listen to you and
run and cause a dangeroussituation?
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Give us safety lecture, especially the first
time.
And I reinforced the two pointsthat are very easy to remember.
Don't approach a wild animalbecause that can evoke a
defensive attack and don't runor scream or panic and lose your
mind for any reason, no matterwhat happens, because that will
(08:34):
evoke a predatory attack.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
And you gently talk to it.
You almost talk to it in a babyvoice, very calm and that's
exactly what I do, but you'redoing it with a very large fare
that's walking towards you.
I found that very fascinating.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
The soothing talking, not only in my mind calms the
animal, but it keeps me calmtoo.
And in those kinds of encounter,situations is very important.
Some of this stuff is somewhatcounterintuitive to a lot of
people.
I was very impressed when I metEsther several years ago, her
ability to handle herself andquite frankly, to trust me and
(09:11):
the guidance that I was givingshe learned.
And, and she had a good amountof respect and a little bit of
fear from the animals, which isimportant.
She was a perfect choice to workwith me on his full project
because I did not want to be puton camera with these rules as an
expert, who's been doing thisfor 30 years.
I wanted to put Esther arelative newbie, actually an
(09:33):
absolute newbie on camerabecause I wanted to make the
point to viewers that you canlearn this too.
It's not rocket science, but youhave to abide by certain basic
principles.
And if you do, anyone can learnto navigate their way through a
wildlife encounter.
You're doing a very fine dancethat could get dangerous.
(09:56):
And your job really is to gainthe trust that animal and part
of that is not losing your coolor panicking.
And as you can see in some ofthe footage that we've got of
Esther close to these wolves,they jump around her and do
lunges and dances and it wouldbe easy to lose
Speaker 4 (10:13):
Esther.
So is that what you do for me?
It's all about the energy.
If you approach an animal andyou're all keyed up and your
energies there, if they mirrorthat, I always try to get very
calm before I go into thosesituations.
Is that what you do?
Speaker 3 (10:27):
I think because I'm keeping my head on taking
pictures, I'm completely focusedon another thing.
I'm calm.
It's absolutely true.
I talk to the animals.
I talk about boxes.
It's true because it keeps mecalm too.
And because I'm focused on myword, it's also, the energy is
led in another direction, butalways keep the head in the
(10:47):
game.
And that's what it is becauseconcentrate on what your goal
is, what you want to achieve.
Just try to be settled.
You have to understand theanimal.
You have to know how wecommunicate, but we never
approach in any manner.
We let the animals come to us.
We also move very openly in thearea.
We want them to know that we arethere.
We don't follow animals if theywant to come fine.
(11:09):
Great, fantastic.
If they don't, we are a bit sad,but we don't follow because it's
, it's their will
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Common misconception is that you're supposed to be
big.
You're supposed to be loud.
You're supposed to show themthat you're bigger than they
are.
Why is that not true?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
It depends on what the situation is.
You as the person mean to haveyour head in the game on enough
to interpret what the motive ofthat animal's approach is to
you.
If that animal's approach to youis seemingly predatory, which
you know, our world of bears andwolves is extremely rare and all
(11:44):
the thousands and thousands ofbear and Wolf encounters I've
had, maybe I've had two or threepredatory approaches.
And in those rare situations,then want to do what you're told
to do by some of the layinformation out there, stand up
scream, put your hands up, twothings wrong with that message.
If the animal is just curious,hopefully, and in most cases
(12:07):
you'll just scare it away.
It could instigate an attack.
And that's why in certainsituations I don't advocate
screaming and yelling at wildanimals.
They can get freaked.
If they think it's their bestoption to attack you, then they
will.
You might be in a situationwhere the animal did not have in
its mind to be predatory, butyou intimidate it egg on a
(12:28):
fight.
So to speak, just like with aperson you asked for the fight
and you're liable to get one, Ialways leave and taking the easy
way out and trying to talk theanimal down rather than trying
to bully it around
Speaker 2 (12:39):
A quick pause here to let you know that Alec Y's a
nonprofit no-kill animal refugein the Florida panhandle grants,
donations, dedicated volunteers,and a small terrific staff have
helped us save over 25,000animals.
Each year we placed 1200 rescuesand safe.
Second chance homes.
We work with everything fromimuz to exotic birds.
(12:59):
We have the largest activevolunteer network in the
Southeast.
We have a new state of the art,100 acre facility and a 700 acre
native species preserve Eloquaadvocates for animals on the
local state and national levelto find out how to donate and
get involved.
Visit eloqua.org, to see buckand nester in their amazing
footage.
Check out the video version onYouTube animal passion podcast
(13:23):
channel hit the like button,click subscribe and leave
comments.
All three of those simple thingswill help us keep doing the work
we do.
Now back to the interview
Speaker 4 (13:32):
In our line of work, we're rescued, we worked with
the local Sheriff's department.
We go in cruelty cases.
We go in hoarding cases.
We go in situations where weknow absolutely nothing about
these potentially very dangerousdogs, but we have to approach
them because we have to get themout of the situation with your
experience on body language ofhumans and animals.
(13:53):
Putting that into my line ofwork.
Is there anything you canrecommend that could Pelton what
we do in our rescue attempts?
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Now your job as a rescuer is you have to approach.
And so your skills as a, ananimal rescuer have to be finely
tuned.
You have to take it seriouslyfor the sake of your own safety.
You should carry some kind of adeterrent case.
Things go really bad.
You have to play all of yourcards as an expert in body
(14:20):
language to mitigate thatanimal.
And just like Esther and I, withour Wolf pack, you have to win
that's trust.
You have to gain the confidenceof that animal, or it's going to
fight my least favorite story totell Lauren, my very least
favorite story.
A man got killed by a bear, amother and two Cubs came into my
camp.
One morning.
(14:40):
I heard a bear out of my sight.
I only saw the Cubs give a vocalcommand, off like that, that
bears do.
And the Cubs just disappeared.
So I put my breakfast up in atree and a food cache was a back
country, wilderness campsite,grab my camera gear and headed
in the direction that the bearwas going at very quickly.
I've discovered a pool of bloodin the trail and a pack.
(15:04):
And then other signs that therehave been a very violent attack
just right in front of me, butout of my sight, you know, I
ended up finding the body andeventually by the end of the
day, the park service gets there.
Let's scariest part, I guess forme was the two Rangers and I, as
we were coming off of theunfortunate victims body and
thinking about where we weregoing to spend the night,
(15:25):
knowing that we were not goingto be able to get out of there.
We had a full uncharged by thatmother.
And two Cubs came at us fullsteam ranger on my left and
right shoulders each with guns.
And I remember the lead ranger,Charlie Logan said, beat up
safety off yell, stop, bear,stop there.
So this was a situation to tellthe bears to stop.
(15:48):
And the bears are coming likefreight train.
They're just coming straight atus.
And we're just screaming ourheads off.
And to Charlie Logan's credit,they had re-insurance.
He never gave the order to fireand the bears true to bear
nature and a charge like thatdid stop right in front of us
and skirt it into the treesaround it.
So I guess the point is, is thatthose who say that animals are
(16:10):
dangerous, have a valid point.
Animals are capable of killing aperson and you do need to live
by these very simple rules.
When you're dealing withwildlife, don't approach an
animal, especially when it's onfood.
That's what the Rangers and Iwere doing when we went in to
recover that body and don't run.
That's what we didn't do asthose bears were charging us,
(16:32):
either one of those things couldhave gotten us killed.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
It's a super sad story.
And it just reinvigorates thatyou just have to respect these
animals and respect wherethey're coming from.
I'm so glad that that didn'tdeter you from your work that
you continued on and stilladvocate for these incredible
animals.
So thank you for that.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
You can ask Esther, I reinforce how serious it is
every day when we're in thefield.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
Yeah, that being said with your current Alaskan
seawall projects.
One of the stories that reallyfascinated me was a pack of
wolves, came in with their Cubsand lay down with you in the
camp.
That's pretty fascinating to mebecause we have a program in
prison where we take dogs and wehave prisoners work with them
and they ended up becomingservice dogs or better adopted
or whatnot.
(17:14):
But we take all the dogs beforethey go into the prison and we
form a pack before they go in.
And the key thing we look for,and sometimes it takes hours is
for everybody to lay down.
So is that how you felt when thewolves came in, did you feel
like you were part of theirpack?
Speaker 1 (17:30):
And I had spent a lot of time, weeks and weeks and
weeks crude, much buildingindividual relationships with
members of the pack.
And it's not like we sought themout one at a time.
They come over.
I really think when those wolvesbrought those pups at us as a
pack for the first, it was adefinite communication us that
(17:52):
we had won their trust and theywere just totally at ease.
Eventually two of the puffs didcome over very close to the
point where they could touch us.
And the alpha male and femalewere maybe 10 or 15 yards back.
Uh, we were photographing thealpha male did get upset, but
what he did because the pups hadleft the pack and come to us, he
gave a yell and picked up astick and cats back to the
(18:15):
forest where the den site is.
And the four pups, veryobediently followed him in
single file and the rest of thepack, including the alpha female
laid there and slept as a matterof fact, that about that point,
she rolled over onto her backand laid, you know, like dogs do
with all of her four paws up inair.
(18:35):
So if that's not winning trust,I don't, I don't know how to
interpret that body language anyother way.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
I can't even imagine a greater honor what an
experience, tell our audiencehow they are different from
other wolves.
They are just fantastic huntersin, in CNTF fantastic swimmers.
They swim for miles to offshoreIsland and, and get their prey,
their sea lines, or see authorsor whatever.
But can I be you collect samplesof scalp and hair and things and
(19:02):
send them to be analyzed, tofind out how are they related to
other audibles on the other sideof the Alaskan range, are they
endangered?
And do people have
Speaker 1 (19:11):
To answer your question?
There are only small portions ofthe seawalls range on the East
coast of the peninsula facingthe Gulf of Alaska.
That's really the only place theAlaska sea wolves lives that are
protected, but like everywhereelse in Alaska, outside of
national park, these wolves areruthlessly haunted by trophy
(19:34):
hunting and game managementpractices, uh, that are
authorized by the state ofAlaska.
Some of the wolves have a toughlife, uh, because they're,
they're hunting from the airfrom machine guns and airplanes
and poisoning.
They're being really assaultedquite aggressively.
Uh, not everyone sees a Wolf theway Esther and I do put it
simply, you know, and what wehope to do with wild to see them
(19:57):
with our film.
And especially with Esther onour hands and knees, taking
those beautiful photographs,people get to see, well, if this
woman can do it, maybe all thewolves out there aren't out to
get us, uh, it's a smallcontribution, but it's a
contribution that no one else ismaking.
And that's why we're.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Yeah, I think we really hope that can evoke
sympathy for this animal andalso an understanding for the
nature.
And maybe people sort of comeeven to love this elegant
creatures.
We show on pictures and on thefilm because we really believe
that they need advocates.
Let's move on to a lightninground and I'll pass it heroes
minus buck wild.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Oh wow.
I would have to say DavidAttenborough.
I've had the pleasure of workingwith David on two BBC projects.
Of course, he's a real gentlemanand has made great contributions
to natural education around theworld.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
Favorite wild animal, wild animal wolfs.
Yeah, of course.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Uh, because they are so challenging
Speaker 4 (20:57):
The most memorable animal moment you've ever
experienced a Wolf encounterwhere it could've gone wrong
there, but didn't but it wouldbe.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
And another bear encounter that I had a mother
bear had, her Cubs were chargedby a big male bear right in
front of me that I had thecameras on and the Cubs ran to
my left off my left shoulder.
The mother came over andliterally put her head under my
tripod and between my legs andthen in my face, just frothing
(21:27):
or hot breath.
And I thought I was going todie.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
Yeah.
Sorry.
I don't know if you had a highschool yearbook.
What was the inscription?
If you had one, I had theyearbook and one teacher wrote
in it.
There is always something towonder about.
What about you, but I'm sold.
I don't have a clue.
I last question, have you everfelt, Oh, my animal passion has
gone too far, yet.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Well, it's project.
We are committing our lives andour life savings to this thing.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
You know, it's funny this an issue of how do you find
funding for something like this?
And is there anybody you want tosay, thank you too, for helping
you on this journey,
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Laurie, I'd like to thank cool clothes for
outfitting.
My Alaska projects.
It's been about 10 years now.
They make great.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
I'm smiling because I have my cool pants on right now.
They're my favorite line ofclothing.
Thank you for being with me andthank you for the incredible
work you do.
Thank you very much
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Like with your animal rehab work on there.
Laurie.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Well, passion podcast is produced by hit fire media in
association with Eloqua andfunded by grants and donations
to donate and join our supportteam.
Visit quad.org, a L a Q U a.org.
For more information about buckand Esther's Alaskan Seawolf
documentary, go to wild twoc.com.
(22:47):
That's w I L D the number two,the letter c.com.
I'm Lori Hood.
Thanks for listening.
When he's challenging, which he is right
now, backing up is not the bestmove he's coming here.
Now, fan we're not challenging,you know, challenge event.
Okay.
You and I are down on her knees.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
It takes animal passion and a whole lot more to
spend every summer living in themidst of wild Brown bears and
Alaskan sea wolves.
Welcome to the animal passionpodcast, a program about people
who by choice or by chance havecommitted their lives to
protecting animals.
I'm Lori Hood, president andfounder of aliquot animal
refuge.
Today, I'm talking to Wolf andbear whispers, Buckwild and
(00:34):
Esther Gosse Weiler.
That was Buck's voice.
You heard in the opening clip.
Addressing van van is anapproaching 900 pound dominant
male, Alaskan Brown bear, whoisn't happy.
He thinks buck and his cameracrew have stolen his dinner in
this remarkable video excerpt,but does the opposite of what
most of us have been told to dowith bearing counters.
He and the crew speak calmly tovan.
(00:55):
And when van keeps charging,they get down on their knees.
I'll let buck and Esther explainwhat happens and what they've
learned from thousands ofinteractions with wild bears and
wolves.
After I introduced them beforebecoming an Alaskan wildlife
expert buck, CIAcounter-espionage work focused
on the expression of emotionsand humans and animals.
Esther contacted buck to helprealize her dream of working
(01:17):
with bears and wolves together.
They're making a documentaryfilm to raise awareness and
advocate for Alaskan sea wolves.
Hi guys.
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Thank you for being with me.
So happy to meet you.
I've read about you and theallow for animal refute.
I'm impressed and it's nice totalk to you really.
I'm very excited, very excitedto talk to you as well.
And I actually wanted to startwith you asked her because I
read a story and I want to knowif it's true for what I
understand.
You met buck in a bar, acceptedhis offer to travel to remote
(01:47):
Alaska, and you soon foundyourself crawling around with
the cold bars with 20 pounds ofcamera gear and surrounded by a
pack of wolves.
That really what happened.
In fact, we met in the wild.
We met in the wild and wedecided to document the Wolf's
life, which we heard howlingaround our camp at night was
buck working with bears and youwere there on another mission.
(02:08):
I was seeing great best statecount on TV.
I was always determined to cometo Alaska and photograph the
wild animals.
And there was buck wild.
And I thought this guy, I woulddare to go out there.
I spent a week with bucking thewild and with the pears.
Finally, we ended up at the barwith this arrangement of doing a
documentary about the Wolf'sother buck.
(02:30):
You had this amazing job andfacial recognitions and working
for clients like the CIA.
How does that work?
When you one day walk into youroffice and tell your boss that
you're leaving and you're goingto wild Alaska.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
They literally told me to my face that I was crazy
for leaving such a great job.
I gave it all up to go live withBrown bears.
I don't take supervision well,and I really don't like cubicles
there's no, and I needed somefresh air at that point.
My life was something I hadalways wanted to do.
(03:03):
I'd seen bears on a fewvacations to glacier national
park in Montana, and they sortof captured my imagination.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
And the experience you got from learning to read
people's body language, how isit different reading, a bear
than it is reading a human
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Almost completely different and an outward
observational level bears don'thave very much in terms of
facial expression.
And so much of human emotionsare conveyed through facial
expression.
And that was really the focusthat we had at the CIA was to
interrogate Soviet spies orChinese spies or whatever.
(03:39):
Using facial recognitiontechnology that I was working on
with the bears.
It really comes down to bodylanguage.
You have to tune into the bodylanguage of the species that
you're working with, as youwould recognize, of course,
working with a horse isdifferent than working with a
primate, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
And in my line of work, whether they're prey or
predator makes such a hugedifference in the way that we
interact with them,
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Yes, it brings another layer of consideration
safety into the work and theendeavors and the same applies.
In my opinion, to a lesserdegree to the wolves,
Speaker 3 (04:12):
We sort of had to schedule to get up, but maybe
five 30, six ish, we saw thisWolf, we just stay there and
filmed and photograph this wall.
And finally, we sort of wentback through the camp and we saw
a bear with two cops comingalong and despair.
Two cops went to the beach andwe set up our cameras and filmed
these spare model.
(04:33):
Then from the beach, he cameback to the Tundra, laid herself
down and nursed her little cups,maybe a chest there.
And you were just filming andphotographing.
And this mother bears, shedidn't care at all about us.
She was so much at ease and shewas right in front of us.
And by the time the bear trolledoff and the little ones went off
to play around, we had to glanceat the watch and it was 1230.
(04:56):
And buck was still in hispajamas.
I love that was fantastic.
We forgot everything breakfastfor soaking in the camp.
Coffee got cold.
We just got up and did our work.
It sounds like a perfect startof a morning.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
I'm tempted to tell the story of the first round
bear that really gave me a scaryencounter.
I was by myself on Kodiak Islandto photograph Brown bears.
And this was about 30 years ago.
So I, as they say, I was asgreen as grass, I was
photographing this mother and asmall stream catching salmon,
very Handly and eating them.
(05:33):
And she would eat the best part,crack the skull and eat the
brains.
And she would throw the rest ofthe salmon up onto the bank
behind her, or there were twocute little Cubs and they would
fight over the salmon and Iwould photographing all this
action.
And all of a sudden the bodylanguage of this mother bear
changed.
Her focus switched from salmonand she had been ignoring me to
(05:56):
me.
And she stood up in that waterand ran at me at a full charge.
She probably covered 50 yards intwo or three heartbeats.
She was standing over me, eightfeet tall, looking down at me.
I could reach out and touchedher if I wanted to.
And she was roaring so loud thatit shook my cavity of my body.
(06:18):
And I was just scared to death.
Then the mother bear droppeddown onto all fours right in
front of me.
And when that happened, her nosealmost hit my belly.
And I thought, for sure, thisbear is going to eat me.
And she takes one step back sothat she could give a hand
signal like this.
And unbeknownst to me, she had athird Cub that was behind me.
(06:39):
And that's what her reaction wasall about.
I was not aware that I had beenbetween a mother and a loss Cub
that she had been separatedfrom.
She reprimanded that bear byswatting it around and literally
hit it and knocked it into thewater.
And it went swimming across thestream, back to the other Cubs.
And that mother bear turned itsback to me, walk back into the
(07:02):
stream and went about fishing.
Like nothing had ever happened.
And we went, ate a lot of thingsabout, you know, what makes them
mother bear tech firm,
Speaker 4 (07:10):
You just adamantly say, and to never run when you
encounter a bear like that oryou haven't experienced like
that to never run.
Was that going through your mindthe whole time you were standing
there?
Speaker 1 (07:21):
It's a great question.
And it certainly is an Axiomthat I live by.
I make that point very strongly.
When I talk to audiences, thereare runners and there are what I
would call feeders.
You know what feening is?
Feeney is something that ananimal does when they're afraid.
They freeze.
And I tend to do that ratherthan run ideas, tend to freeze
(07:41):
up and then hopefully my witscome back to me quickly enough
that I can navigate my waythrough the encounter.
I have never been tempted to runand it has worked for me.
You would not believe Lori on atypical summer from may to
October in this wilderness area,it is easy for me as a bear
guide and photographer to have athousand close encounters a
(08:04):
year.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Would you bring people with you and it's their
first time to encounter this?
Do you ever worry that they'regoing to not listen to you and
run and cause a dangeroussituation?
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Give us safety lecture, especially the first
time.
And I reinforced the two pointsthat are very easy to remember.
Don't approach a wild animalbecause that can evoke a
defensive attack and don't runor scream or panic and lose your
mind for any reason, no matterwhat happens, because that will
(08:34):
evoke a predatory attack.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
And you gently talk to it.
You almost talk to it in a babyvoice, very calm and that's
exactly what I do, but you'redoing it with a very large fare
that's walking towards you.
I found that very fascinating.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
The soothing talking, not only in my mind calms the
animal, but it keeps me calmtoo.
And in those kinds of encounter,situations is very important.
Some of this stuff is somewhatcounterintuitive to a lot of
people.
I was very impressed when I metEsther several years ago, her
ability to handle herself andquite frankly, to trust me and
(09:11):
the guidance that I was givingshe learned.
And, and she had a good amountof respect and a little bit of
fear from the animals, which isimportant.
She was a perfect choice to workwith me on his full project
because I did not want to be puton camera with these rules as an
expert, who's been doing thisfor 30 years.
I wanted to put Esther arelative newbie, actually an
(09:33):
absolute newbie on camerabecause I wanted to make the
point to viewers that you canlearn this too.
It's not rocket science, but youhave to abide by certain basic
principles.
And if you do, anyone can learnto navigate their way through a
wildlife encounter.
You're doing a very fine dancethat could get dangerous.
(09:56):
And your job really is to gainthe trust that animal and part
of that is not losing your coolor panicking.
And as you can see in some ofthe footage that we've got of
Esther close to these wolves,they jump around her and do
lunges and dances and it wouldbe easy to lose
Speaker 4 (10:13):
Esther.
So is that what you do for me?
It's all about the energy.
If you approach an animal andyou're all keyed up and your
energies there, if they mirrorthat, I always try to get very
calm before I go into thosesituations.
Is that what you do?
Speaker 3 (10:27):
I think because I'm keeping my head on taking
pictures, I'm completely focusedon another thing.
I'm calm.
It's absolutely true.
I talk to the animals.
I talk about boxes.
It's true because it keeps mecalm too.
And because I'm focused on myword, it's also, the energy is
led in another direction, butalways keep the head in the
(10:47):
game.
And that's what it is becauseconcentrate on what your goal
is, what you want to achieve.
Just try to be settled.
You have to understand theanimal.
You have to know how wecommunicate, but we never
approach in any manner.
We let the animals come to us.
We also move very openly in thearea.
We want them to know that we arethere.
We don't follow animals if theywant to come fine.
(11:09):
Great, fantastic.
If they don't, we are a bit sad,but we don't follow because it's
, it's their will
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Common misconception is that you're supposed to be
big.
You're supposed to be loud.
You're supposed to show themthat you're bigger than they
are.
Why is that not true?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
It depends on what the situation is.
You as the person mean to haveyour head in the game on enough
to interpret what the motive ofthat animal's approach is to
you.
If that animal's approach to youis seemingly predatory, which
you know, our world of bears andwolves is extremely rare and all
(11:44):
the thousands and thousands ofbear and Wolf encounters I've
had, maybe I've had two or threepredatory approaches.
And in those rare situations,then want to do what you're told
to do by some of the layinformation out there, stand up
scream, put your hands up, twothings wrong with that message.
If the animal is just curious,hopefully, and in most cases
(12:07):
you'll just scare it away.
It could instigate an attack.
And that's why in certainsituations I don't advocate
screaming and yelling at wildanimals.
They can get freaked.
If they think it's their bestoption to attack you, then they
will.
You might be in a situationwhere the animal did not have in
its mind to be predatory, butyou intimidate it egg on a
(12:28):
fight.
So to speak, just like with aperson you asked for the fight
and you're liable to get one, Ialways leave and taking the easy
way out and trying to talk theanimal down rather than trying
to bully it around
Speaker 2 (12:39):
A quick pause here to let you know that Alec Y's a
nonprofit no-kill animal refugein the Florida panhandle grants,
donations, dedicated volunteers,and a small terrific staff have
helped us save over 25,000animals.
Each year we placed 1200 rescuesand safe.
Second chance homes.
We work with everything fromimuz to exotic birds.
(12:59):
We have the largest activevolunteer network in the
Southeast.
We have a new state of the art,100 acre facility and a 700 acre
native species preserve Eloquaadvocates for animals on the
local state and national levelto find out how to donate and
get involved.
Visit eloqua.org, to see buckand nester in their amazing
footage.
Check out the video version onYouTube animal passion podcast
(13:23):
channel hit the like button,click subscribe and leave
comments.
All three of those simple thingswill help us keep doing the work
we do.
Now back to the interview
Speaker 4 (13:32):
In our line of work, we're rescued, we worked with
the local Sheriff's department.
We go in cruelty cases.
We go in hoarding cases.
We go in situations where weknow absolutely nothing about
these potentially very dangerousdogs, but we have to approach
them because we have to get themout of the situation with your
experience on body language ofhumans and animals.
(13:53):
Putting that into my line ofwork.
Is there anything you canrecommend that could Pelton what
we do in our rescue attempts?
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Now your job as a rescuer is you have to approach.
And so your skills as a, ananimal rescuer have to be finely
tuned.
You have to take it seriouslyfor the sake of your own safety.
You should carry some kind of adeterrent case.
Things go really bad.
You have to play all of yourcards as an expert in body
(14:20):
language to mitigate thatanimal.
And just like Esther and I, withour Wolf pack, you have to win
that's trust.
You have to gain the confidenceof that animal, or it's going to
fight my least favorite story totell Lauren, my very least
favorite story.
A man got killed by a bear, amother and two Cubs came into my
camp.
One morning.
(14:40):
I heard a bear out of my sight.
I only saw the Cubs give a vocalcommand, off like that, that
bears do.
And the Cubs just disappeared.
So I put my breakfast up in atree and a food cache was a back
country, wilderness campsite,grab my camera gear and headed
in the direction that the bearwas going at very quickly.
I've discovered a pool of bloodin the trail and a pack.
(15:04):
And then other signs that therehave been a very violent attack
just right in front of me, butout of my sight, you know, I
ended up finding the body andeventually by the end of the
day, the park service gets there.
Let's scariest part, I guess forme was the two Rangers and I, as
we were coming off of theunfortunate victims body and
thinking about where we weregoing to spend the night,
(15:25):
knowing that we were not goingto be able to get out of there.
We had a full uncharged by thatmother.
And two Cubs came at us fullsteam ranger on my left and
right shoulders each with guns.
And I remember the lead ranger,Charlie Logan said, beat up
safety off yell, stop, bear,stop there.
So this was a situation to tellthe bears to stop.
(15:48):
And the bears are coming likefreight train.
They're just coming straight atus.
And we're just screaming ourheads off.
And to Charlie Logan's credit,they had re-insurance.
He never gave the order to fireand the bears true to bear
nature and a charge like thatdid stop right in front of us
and skirt it into the treesaround it.
So I guess the point is, is thatthose who say that animals are
(16:10):
dangerous, have a valid point.
Animals are capable of killing aperson and you do need to live
by these very simple rules.
When you're dealing withwildlife, don't approach an
animal, especially when it's onfood.
That's what the Rangers and Iwere doing when we went in to
recover that body and don't run.
That's what we didn't do asthose bears were charging us,
(16:32):
either one of those things couldhave gotten us killed.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
It's a super sad story.
And it just reinvigorates thatyou just have to respect these
animals and respect wherethey're coming from.
I'm so glad that that didn'tdeter you from your work that
you continued on and stilladvocate for these incredible
animals.
So thank you for that.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
You can ask Esther, I reinforce how serious it is
every day when we're in thefield.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
Yeah, that being said with your current Alaskan
seawall projects.
One of the stories that reallyfascinated me was a pack of
wolves, came in with their Cubsand lay down with you in the
camp.
That's pretty fascinating to mebecause we have a program in
prison where we take dogs and wehave prisoners work with them
and they ended up becomingservice dogs or better adopted
or whatnot.
(17:14):
But we take all the dogs beforethey go into the prison and we
form a pack before they go in.
And the key thing we look for,and sometimes it takes hours is
for everybody to lay down.
So is that how you felt when thewolves came in, did you feel
like you were part of theirpack?
Speaker 1 (17:30):
And I had spent a lot of time, weeks and weeks and
weeks crude, much buildingindividual relationships with
members of the pack.
And it's not like we sought themout one at a time.
They come over.
I really think when those wolvesbrought those pups at us as a
pack for the first, it was adefinite communication us that
(17:52):
we had won their trust and theywere just totally at ease.
Eventually two of the puffs didcome over very close to the
point where they could touch us.
And the alpha male and femalewere maybe 10 or 15 yards back.
Uh, we were photographing thealpha male did get upset, but
what he did because the pups hadleft the pack and come to us, he
gave a yell and picked up astick and cats back to the
(18:15):
forest where the den site is.
And the four pups, veryobediently followed him in
single file and the rest of thepack, including the alpha female
laid there and slept as a matterof fact, that about that point,
she rolled over onto her backand laid, you know, like dogs do
with all of her four paws up inair.
(18:35):
So if that's not winning trust,I don't, I don't know how to
interpret that body language anyother way.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
I can't even imagine a greater honor what an
experience, tell our audiencehow they are different from
other wolves.
They are just fantastic huntersin, in CNTF fantastic swimmers.
They swim for miles to offshoreIsland and, and get their prey,
their sea lines, or see authorsor whatever.
But can I be you collect samplesof scalp and hair and things and
(19:02):
send them to be analyzed, tofind out how are they related to
other audibles on the other sideof the Alaskan range, are they
endangered?
And do people have
Speaker 1 (19:11):
To answer your question?
There are only small portions ofthe seawalls range on the East
coast of the peninsula facingthe Gulf of Alaska.
That's really the only place theAlaska sea wolves lives that are
protected, but like everywhereelse in Alaska, outside of
national park, these wolves areruthlessly haunted by trophy
(19:34):
hunting and game managementpractices, uh, that are
authorized by the state ofAlaska.
Some of the wolves have a toughlife, uh, because they're,
they're hunting from the airfrom machine guns and airplanes
and poisoning.
They're being really assaultedquite aggressively.
Uh, not everyone sees a Wolf theway Esther and I do put it
simply, you know, and what wehope to do with wild to see them
(19:57):
with our film.
And especially with Esther onour hands and knees, taking
those beautiful photographs,people get to see, well, if this
woman can do it, maybe all thewolves out there aren't out to
get us, uh, it's a smallcontribution, but it's a
contribution that no one else ismaking.
And that's why we're.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Yeah, I think we really hope that can evoke
sympathy for this animal andalso an understanding for the
nature.
And maybe people sort of comeeven to love this elegant
creatures.
We show on pictures and on thefilm because we really believe
that they need advocates.
Let's move on to a lightninground and I'll pass it heroes
minus buck wild.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Oh wow.
I would have to say DavidAttenborough.
I've had the pleasure of workingwith David on two BBC projects.
Of course, he's a real gentlemanand has made great contributions
to natural education around theworld.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
Favorite wild animal, wild animal wolfs.
Yeah, of course.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Uh, because they are so challenging
Speaker 4 (20:57):
The most memorable animal moment you've ever
experienced a Wolf encounterwhere it could've gone wrong
there, but didn't but it wouldbe.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
And another bear encounter that I had a mother
bear had, her Cubs were chargedby a big male bear right in
front of me that I had thecameras on and the Cubs ran to
my left off my left shoulder.
The mother came over andliterally put her head under my
tripod and between my legs andthen in my face, just frothing
(21:27):
or hot breath.
And I thought I was going todie.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
Yeah.
Sorry.
I don't know if you had a highschool yearbook.
What was the inscription?
If you had one, I had theyearbook and one teacher wrote
in it.
There is always something towonder about.
What about you, but I'm sold.
I don't have a clue.
I last question, have you everfelt, Oh, my animal passion has
gone too far, yet.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Well, it's project.
We are committing our lives andour life savings to this thing.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
You know, it's funny this an issue of how do you find
funding for something like this?
And is there anybody you want tosay, thank you too, for helping
you on this journey,
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Laurie, I'd like to thank cool clothes for
outfitting.
My Alaska projects.
It's been about 10 years now.
They make great.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
I'm smiling because I have my cool pants on right now.
They're my favorite line ofclothing.
Thank you for being with me andthank you for the incredible
work you do.
Thank you very much
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Like with your animal rehab work on there.
Laurie.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Well, passion podcast is produced by hit fire media in
association with Eloqua andfunded by grants and donations
to donate and join our supportteam.
Visit quad.org, a L a Q U a.org.
For more information about buckand Esther's Alaskan Seawolf
documentary, go to wild twoc.com.
(22:47):
That's w I L D the number two,the letter c.com.
I'm Lori Hood.
Thanks for listening.
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