Animal Facts with Coryelle Rogers

Ever start a sentence with “Did you know that…?” Well my friend, this episode is for you. Five years in the making, set down with my dear friend Corryelle to talk about random animal facts. Nothing but a good time with lots of laughs. 

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Transcript

Speaker 2 0:07

these are stories of outdoor adventure and expert advice from folks with calloused hands. I'm james nash and this is the six ranch podcast. For those of you out there that are truck guys like me, I want to talk to you about one of our newest sponsors, dect. If you don't know DECT? They make bomb-proof drawer systems to keep your gear organized and safely locked away in the back of your truck. Clothes, rifles, packs, kill kits can all get organized and at the ready so you don't get to your hunting spot and waste time trying to find stuff. We all know that guy. Don't be that guy.

Speaker 2 0:57

They also have a line of storage cases that fit perfectly in the drawers. We use them for organizing ammunition, knives, glassing equipment, extra clothing and camping stuff. You can get a two drawer system for all dimensions of full-size truck beds or a single drawer system that fits mid-size truck beds and maybe best of all, they're all made in the USA. So get decked and get after it. Check them out at deckedcom. Shipping is always free. Welcome back to the show, coriel Rogers. Coriel, you were on the second ever Six Ranch podcast and in my infancy of this game I managed to not record your sweet voice, and I'm so sorry about that.

Speaker 3 1:48

That's okay.

Speaker 2 1:49

Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:49

We also had a windstorm come through, so now we're in this recording studio. That's quiet, not in Hell's Canyon.

Speaker 2 1:58

Windstorms have kind of been a hallmark of this podcast. I've done a lot of them in weather events.

Speaker 3 2:04

I feel like it's fitting.

Speaker 2 2:05

Yeah, it kind of is. And these, these microphones, you know they, they try hard. They try hard, but uh, yeah, I mean that's just the nature of recording these shows, kind of wherever I'm at, and a lot of times that means gnarly weather and we're just going to do it.

Speaker 3 2:23

Yeah, that's, very true.

Speaker 2 2:30

Are these the same headsets? They are Really yeah.

Speaker 3 2:31

The whole time. Yeah, that was at least five years ago. Five years ago, yeah, crazy, that is crazy. I can't believe your podcast has been going that long. That I've owed you this podcast for five years.

Speaker 2 2:39

Because that's how long we've been talking about this one that we're about to step off into. Tell me a little bit about your educational background.

Speaker 3 2:48

Yeah. So I went to Washington state and I studied animal science there, like most girls who think they want to be a veterinarian.

Speaker 2 2:57

Um, is that a good bachelor's degree to become a vet? Animal science.

Speaker 3 3:02

I think it's an okay one to become a veterinarian animal science. I think it's an okay one to become a veterinarian. Um, I think, a lot more science. You could do a lot more science focus whereas animal science is more production focused.

Speaker 3 3:16

Um, I learned how to preg check cows, I learned animal behavior, feeding and so like. A lot of that is valuable to being a veterinarian. But really when you're applying to vet school, they judge you on are you good at biochem, are you good at organic chemistry? So I think you could take that sort of focus if you actually want to become a veterinarian, which?

Speaker 2 3:42

I did not, so that was your undergrad.

Speaker 3 3:45

Yep.

Speaker 2 3:45

And then you went to grad school.

Speaker 3 3:47

Grad school for healthcare policy and administration.

Speaker 2 3:50

Yeah.

Speaker 3 3:51

Yeah.

Speaker 2 3:52

Bit of a turn. I don't know if that's a left turn or right turn, but it's a turn.

Speaker 3 3:55

It was a turn.

Speaker 2 3:56

Yeah.

Speaker 3 3:56

A good one. I'm thankful now for sure. I love my job and I'm in finance and get to be in human medicine and try to make a difference in our health care. We talked a lot about this morning. There's a lot of problems and we do a lot of good too.

Speaker 2 4:17

Yeah, a lot of good.

Speaker 3 4:18

Yeah.

Speaker 2 4:19

A lot of good and it's hard to see the good sometimes.

Speaker 3 4:23

Completely yeah.

Speaker 2 4:25

It's largely invisible, which is the idea of it right. Yep, yeah, but the theme of today's show is animal facts.

Speaker 3 4:36

And I don't know if I'm overly qualified. I think you know a ton about animals too, but we'll have some good conversations.

Speaker 2 4:43

Well, let's start it off.

Speaker 3 4:44

Okay, I got one special for you to start off. Have you ever heard of berserk llama syndrome?

Speaker 2 4:53

Berserk llama syndrome.

Speaker 3 4:54

Yeah, real thing. I know how much you love llamas and alpacas, so I just wanted to kick it off with that one, because it's a behavioral condition If you bottle feed llamas, they become very aggressive and homicidal towards their owners.

Speaker 2 5:17

Homicidal, like they want to kill them.

Speaker 3 5:20

Yes, and that's what I thought of this morning when you talked to us about the man who butchered his llama and ate it yeah. Might have been a berserk llama.

Speaker 2 5:30

Could have been. Yeah, I mean, that might have been a contest and the llama lost Interesting. So if they're bottle fed, it doesn't end up well for them.

Speaker 3 5:41

Yeah, and I think we see that in um horses sometimes too. You know orphan foals, I'm sure you know from growing up on a ranch.

Speaker 2 5:49

Sometimes they have big behavioral problems they definitely have like boundary issues exactly like they don't understand personal space and yeah, there's usually some entitlement that that comes with with those horses that get bottle fed, and it's a gargantuan task as well to bottle raise a horse.

Speaker 3 6:09

Yeah, yeah, it's like a newborn and they're young, for they nurse for a long time, so yeah, but the boundary issues, and they're big animals and they become pushy and they kind of always have, I think, what you would call homeschooler syndrome if they were bottle fed full.

Speaker 2 6:27

BLS berserk llama syndrome.

Speaker 3 6:29

Yeah, there you have. That's my only llama fact, because I wanted you to know that they maybe are evil.

Speaker 2 6:36

Okay. So what I'm gathering here is if you have an orphaned llama, you might just need to let it go. Yeah. Right, because if you try and save it, it's going to end up potentially trying to kill people.

Speaker 3 6:48

Yeah, Part of nature. I mean they're a little bit aggressive anyway.

Speaker 2 6:53

Yeah, they've got an attitude.

Speaker 3 6:54

At least from my experience, and I don't know. I have no desire to own llamas in the future, but I think people also really like their llamas sometimes.

Speaker 2 7:06

Yeah, llamas in the future, but I think people also really like their llamas sometimes. Yeah, that might be some kind of like toxoplasmosis stockholm syndrome type thing.

Speaker 3 7:12

But well, should we talk about toxoplasmosis?

Speaker 2 7:15

why don't we?

Speaker 3 7:15

that's an animal fact, yeah, yeah that's a scary one it is fascinating yeah, and you know I'm newly pregnant and one of the first things the doctors ask is do you have cats? Because toxoplasmosis is a big deal but many cats owners have it and it makes it causes them to become obsessed with their cats, from my understanding. But you can also get it from red meat, which is why you can't cook, eat undercooked red meat.

Speaker 2 7:45

Really.

Speaker 3 7:46

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 7:48

So you can't eat it when you're pregnant, when you're pregnant.

Speaker 3 7:51

Yeah, I mean, and you could get it on a normal day too, but it's important while you're pregnant.

Speaker 2 7:56

It also affects fear. Receptors right. Yes, yeah. So this is an interesting thing between, like the cat and mouse dynamic is that if mice in the area get toxoplasmosis, they'll lose their fear of the cats in the area.

Speaker 3 8:11

Oh, interesting.

Speaker 2 8:12

Yeah.

Speaker 3 8:13

I didn't actually know that. And then the cats are more likely to contract it because they'll catch those mice.

Speaker 2 8:20

Right.

Speaker 3 8:21

Interesting, yeah Right.

Speaker 2 8:22

Interesting, but then it's. It can be a good thing for the cat because it's going to decrease the fear receptors in their prey base in that area, and this also happened. This isn't just a domestic thing, this happens out in the wild too.

Speaker 3 8:36

Interesting. Yeah, yeah, parasites are crazy. Yeah. Fascinating. They can do a lot of, have a lot of effects on no-transcript.

Speaker 2 9:08

Like this collective intelligence of mushrooms. Yep. Like are we no longer going to eat? To eat mushrooms, um, and then look at community intelligence with something like ants. Yeah, yeah. Very fascinating, uh, the intelligence of something like wheat, which might be the most successful species in the world today. Yeah Right, and there's a real argument to be made about whether we domesticated wheat or whether wheat domesticated human beings. Yeah, yeah. So where, how are we going to define intelligence? And then, where are we going to draw the line?

Speaker 3 9:46

What's too smart to eat.

Speaker 2 9:48

If, ethically, it's like oh, you're not supposed to eat smart stuff, and yeah, yeah, octopuses are smart and I'm for sure going to keep hunting and eating them.

Speaker 3 9:56

Yeah, and so are swine. Swine are incredibly smart, yeah, and to me there, I've always had some beliefs about some boundaries around that right, because they are intelligent, would I rather eat a pig that's been raised by Amy and Jeremiah at Square Mile on pasture, happy lived a really good life, rather than one that's been in a huge factory and maybe trapped in a cage while it fed its piglets and I've been in those huge swine centers and they're gross. Yeah so.

Speaker 2 10:34

It's not a pleasant environment.

Speaker 3 10:35

No.

Speaker 2 10:36

But we've got a lot of folks to feed too.

Speaker 3 10:37

Yeah, yeah, we do, and so it's always there is some ethical. I see the ethical boundaries where we can have good practice, especially for intelligent animals, but really all animals should be treated well, yeah, intelligent or not.

Speaker 2 10:55

I mean, obviously I'm team square mile too, right? We had square mile bacon and sausage like 20 minutes ago.

Speaker 3 11:03

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 11:03

Yeah.

Speaker 3 11:04

And bacon. Yeah, yeah, it's lovely. We fill our freezer with their meats once for twice a year. Animal facts yeah that's the next one well, I was thinking, speaking of intelligence, I guess um did you know mice can be tickled that they discovered that at wsu and we at wsu yeah, at wsu they discovered they recorded mice giggling when they were tickled they giggle they giggle.

Speaker 2 11:31

Wow, I know, isn't that interesting huh, so they they're an interesting critter to use for experimentation because of stuff like that exactly, yeah, yeah, um, they have.

Speaker 3 11:45

And I would even go maybe say every animal is intelligent in its own way, right, and so again we go back to ethical issues with how any animal is treated, no matter their iq or no matter how smart they are. And when you think, I mean what philosopher literally defined human, the spark in humans, by being able to laugh who was that? Weston's here to fact check? But then you find out mice can giggle. And you're like, oh, like. Animals experience a lot of emotions.

Speaker 2 12:21

Yeah, and since we're talking about this, I feel like the ultimate goal of intelligence is survival of a species. Yeah, and since we're talking about this, I feel like the ultimate goal of intelligence is survival of a species. Yeah, so any species that you have today has adequate intelligence to survive in a changing environment. Yep. Which is impressive.

Speaker 3 12:37

Yes, yeah, yeah. And also something we've talked about a little bit this weekend is female dogs judging you by your competence, and I love that. I mean, we know dogs are smart. Humans are so connected with their canines I would say specifically as pets and then you find out your dog's judging you. I've been self-conscious ever since, so give me an example of that.

Speaker 3 13:07

Okay, I think it was a study in Kyoto where they found that female dogs were more likely to approach the owner if they were able to open a jar, versus the one who was not able to open the jar. And so now I'm in the kitchen cooking and Luna's sitting there watching me and I'm like opening a jar. I'm like, oh, I definitely can't ask Weston to help me with this, because if she sees that I'm incompetent, she won't love me anymore.

Speaker 2 13:36

Oh, that's so funny and and makes sense right. Like you know, this one is going to be like my teammate in the zombie apocalypse, my protector and I will not be a teammate in a zombie apocalypse.

Speaker 3 13:51

Just to be clear, I'm opting out of any apocalypse.

Speaker 2 13:56

I know this is a little bit of an aside, but can you talk about the club that you founded?

Speaker 3 14:06

club that you founded. Oh yes, this is a bit of an aside. There's probably not a ton of liberals on your podcast, but my club is called Liberals for Silencers.

Speaker 2 14:13

And what does that mean?

Speaker 3 14:14

Well, that means any human that doesn't use a silencer is probably a little bit maladapted maladapted, in my opinion. I spent um quite a few years while my husband weston was shooting competitions roing, which is range officer ing, which just means I'm trying to keep score for the guys while they shoot at these metal targets. Sometimes they're moving, sometimes they're small, sometimes they're shooting through, sometimes they're small, sometimes they're shooting through crazy things. But anyway, that's not the point. These guys would come through with their unsilenced guns and they'll blow your eardrums out.

Speaker 2 14:55

Yeah, completely unnecessary.

Speaker 3 14:57

So unnecessary.

Speaker 2 14:58

Savages.

Speaker 3 14:59

What'd I say last night? Thread your guns.

Speaker 2 15:02

Thread your barrels.

Speaker 3 15:03

Thread your barrels, boys, boys thread that thing yeah I'm not for it like please put some silencers on your guns okay, shout out to silencers and maybe, maybe the animal fact that goes with that is, I'm pretty sure luna has some hearing damage from being at those shooting competitions with me my little sidekick yeah, duck dogs and and pointing dogs, yeah, oftentimes get hearing loss from having gunshots next to them.

Speaker 2 15:36

Yeah, and I haven't seen a good solution for that yet no, I haven't.

Speaker 3 15:40

We even looked it up like some dog ear pro, because she came to these so often and sat there all day with me and the best I would do is put her in the truck. But even in the truck sometimes those guns, especially those long range, and I could never tell you what kind of guns or what ammo those people shoot, but it shakes the whole truck If they've got a muscle break on it's brutal. Yeah, those things, those are the devil. So there you have it from your non-shooting liberal, I love it.

Speaker 3 16:15

Wife of a gun owner.

Speaker 2 16:17

Okay, let's get back on track here. Sorry about that.

Speaker 3 16:19

No, that's okay. I wanted to talk about mustelids with you because I know you love them.

Speaker 2 16:24

I do love mustelids so much.

Speaker 3 16:26

And you're pretty sure they're going to take over the world.

Speaker 2 16:28

Well, my concern, and let's talk about what mustelids are first of all. So this is the weasel family, which includes wolverines, badgers, otters, skunks, weasels, etc. Etc. Yep Right, otters, skunks, weasels, et cetera, et cetera. Yep.

Speaker 2 16:45

Right. We've observed honey badgers, for example, doing things like picking locks using tools. Lots of complex problem solving that has multiple steps and requires tools. We see sea otters using rocks to open shells and we think that all this stuff is really cute. My perspective on it is that they are in their stone age right now yeah right. If we look at human history and development, when humans started doing this kind of stuff and using stone tools to solve problems, we're like oh, we call that the stone age yeah if, if mustelids advance like we do, eventually they become a nuclear superpower yeah and we do not want an animal with these attributes to have that yeah, let's talk about those, okay.

Speaker 3 17:39

Yeah, what are they? Kind of psychopaths, aren't they?

Speaker 2 17:42

They are?

Speaker 3 17:42

Yeah, my favorite one is ferrets. Often revisit the site of a kill. That's like a human murderer yeah. Right, like the police are watching for the person that's like hanging around, comes back, yeah ferrets.

Speaker 2 17:57

Do we think that they're coming back because they had success hunting there, or is it like a nostalgia thing?

Speaker 3 18:07

hunting there, or is it like a nostalgia thing? I'm sure it's um, like if you, if you went to straight like, okay, why, why do animals do what they? Do probably it's because it was a successful hunting site, right, but why wouldn't other animals then? Yeah, do the same thing it's creepy, so creepy ferrets.

Speaker 2 18:22

people have those as pets too.

Speaker 3 18:23

Ew I know we talk about often the list of no's for our kids, what animals we will not have in the house. Ferrets number one. They're disgusting. Yeah, no mustelids no primates and probably no rodents, like do you need rabbits or hamsters?

Speaker 2 18:47

I guess, hamsters are kind of cute.

Speaker 3 18:52

Rabbits are poultry. Rabbits are poultry. Yeah.

Speaker 2 18:54

Really.

Speaker 3 18:55

Wow, you caught me out on that one.

Speaker 2 18:57

Yeah.

Speaker 3 18:59

Can we fact?

Speaker 2 18:59

check that People like to fight me on this one. I've won money on it multiple times.

Speaker 3 19:03

You have, but for whatever reason, rabbits are considered poultry.

Speaker 2 19:09

Wow yeah. Okay, here's another mustelid, let's get back in it.

Speaker 3 19:14

Stoats hunt for fun and live in the dens of the things they kill.

Speaker 2 19:18

And what's a stoat?

Speaker 3 19:20

I don't. Can you tell me what a stoat is?

Speaker 2 19:23

Are they like a little weasel? Yeah, they are.

Speaker 3 19:25

Yeah, they're also part of the mustelid family. I just didn't know if you had more information.

Speaker 2 19:31

They hunt for fun and they live in the dens of the things they kill.

Speaker 3 19:34

Yes.

Speaker 2 19:35

That's gnarly.

Speaker 3 19:36

So imagine these guys taking over the world.

Speaker 2 19:38

We don't want that.

Speaker 3 19:39

No.

Speaker 2 19:40

Yeah.

Speaker 3 19:41

They're scary, do you?

Speaker 2 19:48

yeah, they're scary. Do you think cavemen did that? They might have? Yeah, they might have, probably, especially as homo sapiens uh, encountered neanderthals. You know, we know that now that there's some neanderthal dna and a lot of asians and europeans, but these were two different species yep and uh, neanderthals didn't make it like you know. There's there's some interbreeding there, but homo sapiens probably killed them, yeah, and then moved into their houses, yeah, took their stuff.

Speaker 2 20:17

And neanderthals were bigger, they had bigger brains, they were stronger yeah, they were compassionate, like they took care of disabled and and elderly oh interesting I think they were probably bet like the ones that I would want to hang out with yeah right yep and then homo sapiens just come along and like rape and pillage, like that's survival of the fittest. But yeah.

Speaker 3 20:43

Do you think the homo sapiens are smarter or just less empathetic?

Speaker 2 20:48

maybe more, just more aggressive yeah I mean it. It's going to depend on how we're going to define intelligence, and if we're going to go with, you know, survival of the species, then you got to give the nod to homo sapiens yeah, yeah, no, that's yeah.

Speaker 3 21:02

I think Weston has some Neanderthal in his gene pool.

Speaker 2 21:06

I mean probably, I think, most Europeans and Asians do.

Speaker 3 21:10

Yeah, no, I think it was like on his, maybe I'm wrong about it? Maybe I thought it was on your dad's genetic testing. I always blame his flat feet. He has the flattest feet If anyone you've ever seen. I would think that's a neanderthal treat, but that's not a fact.

Speaker 2 21:27

Yeah, I don't know yeah, usda classifies rabbits as poultry, so now, I'm now I'm back on top okay okay, thank you okay, what else do we have here?

Speaker 3 21:46

did you know weasels have a weasel war dance when they hunt no way yeah, I don't. We'll have to look up youtube videos of it later. But weasel war dance yeah, some more creepy things about mustelids killing dude, they're in, they're in a phase.

Speaker 2 22:02

right now, I'm telling you.

Speaker 3 22:06

Okay, should we move on from mustelids. Anything else you want to talk about. They have well-developed anal scent glands, which is gross.

Speaker 2 22:14

Okay, that is gross. They have massive brains. Yeah. Like their brain to body ratio is absolutely incredible. So I would encourage folks to look up an image or I'll post one on Instagram of a like an otter skull and it looks like. It looks like the crystal alien skulls where the it has this wonderfully elongated like massive brain. It's like what are you doing with all that?

Speaker 3 22:43

Yeah, completely. I was amazed by that when we were looking just at the skulls here in your studio and they do like very large brain boxes.

Speaker 2 22:53

And to put it into comparison for people who can't see, I have an otter skull in here. That's from an animal that might have weighed 40 pounds, which was a really big otter 40, 45 pounds. I also have a hippo skull in here, from a hippo that might've been over 3000 pounds and the brains are almost the same size.

Speaker 3 23:12

Insane. Or you think of a horse who have walnut size brains? That's a big animal with pretty small. I think cattle are right on par with that. So yeah, probably musselids are like right up there in brain size right which I don't. There is some correlation with brain size and intelligence. Um and again, going back to the intelligence, but all of these animals have survived, for a lot of years.

Speaker 3 23:40

So, um, oh, you know I'm a horse girl, but I don't think horses are the smartest being out there yeah they, they're flighty, but they're, they're prey yeah, not predators right yeah yeah so, oh, here's one I really love because of personal experience with it goats have to have their c-section incision on the left side really yeah, if you cut open the right, all their guts spill out huh yeah and I'll never forget. Like going into a goat c-section and we're shaving and the vet just cuts down the right side and immediately knew no, there it was no issue, I mean you just shove them back in and sew it up, but guts just spilling out.

Speaker 3 24:25

because everything's when you're pregnant. All your guts are shoved whichever way they fit, and so all that pressure on them just causes them to spill out the side. So in order to access the placenta you have to go through the left.

Speaker 2 24:40

Interesting. Yeah, I was getting like body work massage done uh last year. Yeah. And there's, you know, some, some symmetry issues and like muscles and like injuries that are causing, you know stuff to be different from one side to the other. And, uh, this, this incredible gal, uh named, uh named, kat Kurtz, that works on me. She's, like you know, I never know quite when to stop working on symmetry, because inside the body we're not symmetrical at all yeah.

Speaker 2 25:17

The exterior gives the illusion of it, but once we get to the inside it's like oh, the liver's got to go over here and the small intestine goes over here, and your heart's over here. It becomes pretty chaotic, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 25:27

Completely. Yeah, it's interesting. Organs are very interesting.

Speaker 2 25:32

Okay, good to know for everybody who might have to give a C-section to a goat. If you ever have to cut a goat open.

Speaker 3 25:37

Yeah yeah, I've witnessed many animal C-sections Go animal c-sections Goats are some of my favorite. They have multiples Goats are just, I think cool animals.

Speaker 2 25:52

We would love to own some goats. I mean. Yeah, they're. I mean they're very popular right now. Yeah, they will get on top of your vehicle. Yeah, they will eat stuff that you think is precious.

Speaker 3 25:58

Okay, we had. We had a barn out at Spokane Polo Club for many years and our neighbors owned mini goats our barn neighbors and they would Just. The best story of goat destruction is we're vaccinating all the horses. Weston's dad's a vet, so we have racks of vaccines set out on a picnic table and we're doing it ourselves and someone releases the goat herd. I don't know who thought that was a good idea and they all come charging through and all over the picnic table. Vaccines everywhere. I mean they're destructive, they'll jump on anything, mess with anything, and they're so funny.

Speaker 2 26:45

Yeah, they're hard to predict what their next move is going to be.

Speaker 3 26:50

Yeah, we got married out there at the polo club and it was one of my biggest fears for a wedding. I was like what if someone releases these? Goats onto our wedding. Like cake everywhere guest tables. It would have been funny. It would have been a story. I don't know if I would have thought it was funny that day.

Speaker 2 27:10

I distinctively remember the first animal C-section that I saw, which was a cow in Montana. Yeah. And I was so impressed because she stood up through the whole thing.

Speaker 3 27:20

Oh yeah, they do.

Speaker 2 27:21

Yeah, and I was. You know, obviously you've got some local anesthesia and things like that going on there, but I was imagining what it would take for me to be able to go through something like that. Yeah. Like no way.

Speaker 3 27:35

Yeah.

Speaker 2 27:35

No way.

Speaker 3 27:36

Yeah, and for your listeners, when many farm animals get C-sections, we cut through the flank. It's not like a human where you're laying on your back and cut straight down the middle. We're cutting kind of between the ribs and the hip bone and pulling them from there, so that's why they remain standing.

Speaker 3 27:58

Cattle are tough, tough they're wicked tough I mean you can't do a ton of medication if they're beef animals. I mean local anesthetic, um. But generally you're pretty careful, you want to be careful about what you're consuming, right, so we make them comfortable, but they tolerate a lot, and a lot of what? Injuries or C-sections, or even delivery. Yeah. They, they're pretty tough.

Speaker 2 28:28

I think fistulated cows are also.

Speaker 3 28:30

Oh, that is a wild thing, huh.

Speaker 2 28:32

Crazy.

Speaker 3 28:33

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 28:35

Talk about that real quick. I know it's not part of your list, but no, that's totally fine.

Speaker 3 28:39

I love talking farm animals. Um, they are fistulated in order to kind of see. Cows have four chambers in their stomach, right? Um, I couldn't list them all.

Speaker 3 28:50

Doodad, doodadium, I don't know, yeah, have a mason yeah, but um, it's three different or four different processes food go through. So when you put a chamber, essentially into them, you're able to see that digestion process and do some research. So if you're feeding them, I don't know I would have known so much more about this 10 years ago but if you feed them different kinds of feeds, how it's digesting?

Speaker 2 29:20

And if they're on the range, you can see what they've been eating Exactly.

Speaker 3 29:23

Like what they've been selecting for.

Speaker 2 29:25

So to bring this into focus for you guys a little bit, this is a tube that goes from the outside of the animal, like there's a tube sticking out the side of the animal that goes through the ribs down into their stomach, and it has like a plexiglass window and you can reach in there and grab out with your hand what they their stomach contents?

Speaker 2 29:48

yeah, yeah, um, I learned a little bit more about like how these, these different chambers of the stomach work and recently kind of put it together with elk that they're getting their protein from the bacteria and protozoa and fungi that are living in their stomach. So they're eating these grasses and and really fibrous materials that don't necessarily have very much protein in it and they're not actually even getting much in the way of nutrition out of that. But all of this microbiome stuff gets to replicate so much in the consumption of that and when they, you know, regurgitate their food and chew it up again, that is increasing the surface area of that fibrous matter so that the bacteria can get out after it even more, and then all these excess bacteria go down into the rest of their digestive tract and that's what they're getting their freaking protein from.

Speaker 3 30:54

Yeah, fermentation, it's basically fermentation. So wild, yeah, so fermentation.

Speaker 2 30:58

It's basically fermentation. So wild, yeah, so wild, like they're just feeding bacteria so that they can eat the bacteria and that's why they're eating the grass. They're not doing it for.

Animal Ethics and Resource Utilization

Speaker 3 31:07

Oh, I know, yeah, crazy, I think. I think cattle are so cool and um, maybe overlooked sometimes, but they're interesting animals.

Speaker 2 31:17

They're performing a miracle for us.

Speaker 3 31:19

They are.

Speaker 2 31:19

By taking grass that we cannot digest. Yep. And they're turning it into protein that we can eat.

Speaker 3 31:27

Yep, and actually one of my favorite conversations is, for example, when someone proposes maybe we should all eat vegetarian or vegan. Um, sometimes you drive through cattle ranges and those.

Speaker 3 31:45

Those are not places that we could make into crops right like it's rocky it's terrible landscape and too steep for equipment too steep down here too steep lewiston, like those. Grades are huge and you can put cattle out on them and they make us protein. Yeah, and that's pretty amazing, um, so do I think there's a balance? Do I think probably we over consume and throw out too much in this country? Absolutely, um, but also there's such a balance between what can actually be made into farmland versus what cattle can do with land.

Speaker 2 32:28

That is uninhabitable, sure, and I think that's a really cool part of what they do for us and providing for us, and a lot of our farmland is just raising corn and soybeans that we can't eat anyways. Yeah, yeah, exactly what are we doing here?

Speaker 3 32:43

all right, animal facts okay, um, speaking of giving birth, um, maybe people know, but giraffes give birth standing up as well that's a long drop it's a long drop, so their calves drop and kind of drop on their heads and wakes them up and then they can stand and start moving pretty quickly to get away from predators. Yeah.

Speaker 2 33:07

Do giraffes have a hard time going from like laying down to standing up? Because aren't they like missing a joint or like there's something gangly about them?

Speaker 3 33:17

They are so gangly? I'm not sure about that. I do know a lot of animals that are prey animals like giraffes like cattle, those babies get up and they're walking quick.

Speaker 2 33:30

Yeah, very quick.

Speaker 3 33:31

They're up nursing and moving.

Speaker 2 33:35

Do you know about the difference between animals that eat their placenta versus not?

Speaker 3 33:39

No, do you.

Speaker 2 33:40

Yeah.

Speaker 3 33:41

Okay, tell me about it.

Speaker 2 33:42

Okay, so if the mother has to remain in the birth site area for a period of time after giving birth, then they're likely to eat the placenta.

Speaker 3 33:53

Oh, so to get rid of the smells, yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 33:56

Because a lot of these newborns don't produce a smell that predators can pick up on Interesting. So, like fawns, deer fawns don't produce a scent that coyotes can smell for a while. Okay. Which is totally fascinating. Yep. They've kind of stayed ahead of that evolutionary curve.

Speaker 3 34:14

So do, does eat their placenta.

Speaker 2 34:16

They do Okay, yep.

Speaker 3 34:18

I didn't actually know that.

Speaker 2 34:19

Yeah, so it's. It's really common with a lot of the cloven, cloven hoved animals that, even though they're they're not meat eaters at all they're going to consume their own placenta, which which does have a nutritional benefit as well. Um, but yeah, and then if they can get up and just move off and either bring their offspring with them or if it's the type of offspring that doesn't require rearing, then they're not going to consume that placenta.

Speaker 3 34:50

Interesting Cattle don't consume their placentas. Some do, some do, many do Really.

Speaker 2 34:56

Yeah, and I don't think that they'll eat the whole thing, but I've seen a lot of cattle chewing on them. Really.

Speaker 3 35:01

Yeah, part of what we did. I lived at the WSU Beef Center for a year during college and often we'd go find the placentas to check that everything was normal and healthy. So that's interesting. I wonder if it's also pressure-based, like those, wsu beef cattle have almost zero pressure. I mean you can many cattle on the ranches of America you could not just go up to and touch. These cattle are pretty close to pets.

Speaker 2 35:34

And domestic livestock isn't necessarily a good case study on what critters are going to do in the wild Completely. Yeah, yeah, no, isn't necessarily a good case study on what critters are going to do in the wild Completely.

Speaker 3 35:40

Yeah, yeah. No, that's a good point. That is a super interesting fact. I didn't know.

Speaker 2 35:45

Animal fact.

Speaker 3 35:46

Animal fact.

Speaker 2 35:46

What's the next one?

Speaker 3 35:48

Let's look. Oh, the American bison is the only animal in which both lungs share a common cavity. I thought that was an interesting fact. I came across.

Speaker 2 36:04

Okay, so they don't have mediastinum.

Speaker 3 36:06

Yeah, wow. And so if you get a lung shot on them, they're pretty easy to kill. They'll go down really quickly because both lungs will collapse.

Speaker 2 36:15

Interesting. Yeah will collapse. Interesting, yeah, that makes sense why the Plains Indians were able to be so effective on them with these little tiny arrows, didn't you always wonder about that In short, horse, bows and stuff like that. Yeah.

Speaker 3 36:30

Pretty interesting.

Speaker 2 36:32

And I've heard about lots of archery shots on bison, where they just collapse and people are mystified by it. Yeah, but if they don't have a mediastinum and you can create tension, pneumothorax immediately by introducing an arrow and air into that pleural space fascinating yeah, I thought you'd like.

Speaker 3 36:51

Have you been on a bison hunt?

Speaker 2 36:52

I have not, yeah, I don't?

Speaker 3 36:55

I think I know it's on my husband's list. We would love to have freezer of bison meat, but I think they're pretty rare to get to go on.

Speaker 2 37:02

I love to eat bison meat and I want a coat. You want a bison coat? I want a bison coat.

Speaker 3 37:09

Like a big fur coat.

Speaker 2 37:11

Yeah, oh, my gosh yeah.

Speaker 3 37:13

You could sport that around town.

Speaker 2 37:15

Some ridiculously heavy warm.

Speaker 3 37:20

Just a big jeremiah johnson jacket yeah, not a mustelid coat no, that's for the ladies for the ladies, yeah, softer, they can kill their 172 ermines oh my gosh, wear a fur jacket oh, weston's um. This is kind of an offshoot, but has so many fur coats from like her grandmother's era and they really hold up. I mean, they're beautiful.

Speaker 2 37:46

It's infinitely sustainable, like all these species are still around, and a lot of the people that will criticize fur will wear a synthetic that's made out of plastic that's a petroleum derivative.

Speaker 3 38:02

Yeah, it's like well way harder on our environment what are we talking about?

Speaker 2 38:05

when this thing's done?

Speaker 3 38:06

after it lasts for many, many generations, it's just gonna dissolve back into the soil yeah, yeah, yeah, completely, um, and I am a believer in in good stewardship and harvesting animals appropriately, and I think there's a lot of really good ways to harvest animals and do it appropriately and maintain populations better that way.

Speaker 2 38:32

Yeah, yeah, if somebody can name an animal that's been trapped to extinction in North America, say, in the last 130 years, I'd be fascinated to know about it.

Speaker 3 38:48

Yeah, that is true. Trapping is an interesting one for me. There's a lot of value to it and also I have a hard time imagining an animal sitting in a trap stuck for a period of time. Before you come back to yeah, um, and I think all animals, humans included, suffer they suffered towards the end.

Speaker 3 39:10

Um, or many times, yeah, um. And so there's a little bit in my mind, right, I'm like, hey, when we harvest animals, we want them to suffer the least amount possible. And it goes back to we should treat animals well. And then also, suffering is innate to all living beings, and so how do you balance that appropriately? And I think trapping catches me on that a little bit.

Speaker 2 39:41

Yeah, I never saw a wild thing, sorry for itself.

Speaker 3 39:46

Yeah, and that's very true, yeah.

Delayed Implantation in Bears and Wildlife

Speaker 2 39:50

Yeah, A lot of people who and I'm not I'm saying that, this is you, but a lot of people who are critical of trapping fur bearers have no problem trapping mice or trapping rats. Yep. Because that's something that can affect them personally. Yeah, right, yep. But if it's not something that affects them personally, say it's trapping coyotes or something along those lines, you're like. No, I don't like that. Yeah. Well, what if the coyotes were affecting you? And that was the best method to control that population. Yeah. Like you would probably feel differently. Yeah.

Speaker 2 40:25

Yeah, washington State kind of got themselves in a pickle with trapping regulations a couple years back because they wrote the regulations so strictly that they weren't able to use squeeze shoots on cattle.

Speaker 3 40:41

Oh that's wild. That was a metal device.

Speaker 2 40:44

It was restraining an animal.

Speaker 3 40:46

Interesting.

Speaker 2 40:47

And then they're like oh crap, I guess we need traps.

Speaker 3 40:50

Yeah, I guess we need to do that sometimes. That's pretty funny yeah. Yeah that's pretty funny. Yeah, yeah, and I think maybe broadly in the world, in all things it comes to like what's the best balance, and I think politically I don't know socially everything has to do with just a balance I think too far. Any direction is never the right answer and balance is a verb.

Speaker 2 41:19

Yeah, yeah Something that we're always striving for but never achieve.

Speaker 3 41:22

Exactly yeah, but you know you should silence your guns, yeah. No way around that. Yeah, okay, speaking of bears, I love bears. I think bear is my spirit animal. I think they're great.

Speaker 2 41:37

Fantastic animal.

Speaker 3 41:38

They're fantastic. I could go in to a long sleep every winter.

Speaker 2 41:44

I wish that I could.

Speaker 3 41:46

It sounds so nice I love packing on some winter pounds and then in the summer, you know, going back to normal. Yeah. Better balance, eating lighter meals. I love bears that they're omnivorous. I think I could live off huckleberries and salmon from a stream and sometimes trash, but I think this is maybe a fact a lot of people know, but maybe a lot of people don't, as bears don't actually hibernate.

Speaker 2 42:20

Let's talk about torpor.

Speaker 3 42:21

Yeah, and I really like that fact. They go into torpor, which is just their bodies going into a deeply relaxed state. Right, they become immobile, they're essentially sleeping, but they have some awareness and they give birth while they're in torpor over the winter and, like muscly lids also have delayed implantation, but bears delayed implantation.

Speaker 2 42:49

I can't talk about it enough because I only learned about it about this time last year. Really About 11 months ago I learned about delayed implantation. So let me take a stab at it and you can correct me. For the months ago I learned about delayed implantation, so let me take a stab at it and you can correct me for the ways that I get it wrong. Yeah.

Speaker 2 43:03

In the case of bears, bears rut in May and June and most of the breeding is going to occur in June, and it's always confused me why, for such a big animal and this long gestation period that the bear cubs were so small yeah this didn't make any sense to me. So the bear cubs are going to be born in february, right, and they're going to be about the size of a pop can yeah, they're pretty small eight to 12 ounces. Little little, tiny, naked little guys. Cubs.

Speaker 2 43:36

Yeah, and I was like how could this be? How could it take so long for a bear to produce something the size of a rat? Like how is this happening? Well, here's how it's happening. They get bred in the spring, probably by multiple boars. Yep.

Speaker 2 43:56

And then if that sow is getting enough calories in October and she's like yeah, I'm in good physical condition, I'm living right, like spiritually, financially, emotionally, Ready to have kids. Ready to go. Then she allows that blastocyst to contact the uterine lining and then the gestation begins, and then she has this little tiny offspring inside the den while she's in torpor, so that she can.

Speaker 3 44:27

She eats them that entire time.

Speaker 2 44:28

Yeah.

Speaker 3 44:29

Like off this body fat.

Speaker 2 44:30

She's Right, so she's not eating, she's not drinking, she's not urinating or defecating, but she's producing milk off of her own body fat to nurse these cubs in a protected environment. Yeah. It's so smart.

Speaker 3 44:44

It's so cool.

Speaker 2 44:45

I think bears are so cool, and then you compare that with elk who are rutting. In September and October, a bull elk will lose a couple hundred pounds sometimes, which might be 30 or more percent of his body weight. The cows get run down, they fight, they get injured. So they go from like being at the worst physical condition that they could possibly be in to the time of year where they can't get any food to recover. And then that's when the cows are going to try to, you know, grow this calf inside of her without any type of real nutrition to do so, other than what she was able to store throughout the summer. It's dumber, it's way dumber. Bears are way smarter. Delayed implantation is freaking crazy.

Speaker 3 45:34

It is so cool.

Speaker 2 45:35

And the fact that that's not like a staple thing that is taught in biology, like hey, like, because I think there should be stuff like that, like look how cool animals are. Like delayed implantation should be at the top of that list.

Speaker 3 45:49

And actually I'm interested in and need to look up like what sort of hormonal mechanisms make that happen right. Like how this fertilized egg gets stored and is just sitting there, I don't even know where it's sitting in the uterus and the fallopian tubes.

Speaker 3 46:05

It's hanging out there until the body signals to implant it. So some sort of hormonal mechanism is happening there and, like you said, these bears have to be healthy and in good shape and ready to like go into this period of their lives where there'll be gestating. And it's an amazing thing, like their hormones, the body signaling that sort of mechanism. Yeah.

Speaker 2 46:36

My understanding is that it's something around the line of 25,000 calories per day sustained.

Speaker 3 46:42

Really, that's a lot of calories.

Speaker 2 46:44

That's a lot of calories 10 times what humans are eating at least. So that's what they're needing to consume on a sustained daily basis during that time period, and that is the trigger for.

Speaker 3 47:00

Implantation.

Speaker 2 47:01

Yes.

Speaker 3 47:02

Wow.

Speaker 2 47:03

Good grief.

Speaker 3 47:04

Do you love following the fat bears in the fall?

Speaker 2 47:08

No, not really.

Speaker 3 47:09

Oh.

Speaker 2 47:10

Yeah.

Speaker 3 47:11

Why not?

Speaker 2 47:12

Like the social media, fat bears.

Speaker 3 47:15

Yeah, yeah, isn't it the National forest service that does it?

Speaker 2 47:19

Uh yeah, I think it's actually uh us fish and wildlife, or national parks or something like that Fat bear week. Yeah. Um, a lot of those are trash bears and it actually it really saddens me. You know we did uh, we did the show last year about the Tahoe bears and how they've become dependent upon people in the Lake Tahoe area for food and for habitat right. They're denning under homes. They're exclusively eating trash dog food, things like that. The bears that they've transplanted have starved to death, have starved to death.

Speaker 2 47:55

Some of them have died from hardware disease, basically just having too much like plastic and junk inside their stomachs, and I think that that type of dependency is one Like the last stage between like wild and domestic.

Speaker 3 48:14

Yeah, we were talking about that with sheep, right, yeah.

Speaker 2 48:17

So I'm looking at these bears and saying all right, if they're dependent upon people, then the next step is them becoming a domestic animal. Yeah. And I said but it's still a bear, so there's going to be conflict and it's. They're probably going to kill somebody at some point.

Speaker 3 48:32

Yeah, because they're too close, too comfortable, right and it hadn't happened yet.

Speaker 2 48:37

Well, like two months after we recorded that show. Yeah. Bear broke into a woman's house and killed her.

Speaker 3 48:42

It's wild. Are these grizzlies. Black bears, black bears, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I can get behind that, even though I do love to laugh at those.

Speaker 2 48:51

A fat bear looks ridiculous. I love to see a bear scratches back on a tree. Yeah, all the things that bears do, I think are great.

Speaker 3 48:59

They're just fun to watch. I mean, they're super goofy. I would love to go up to Alaska sometime and just watch the bears.

Speaker 2 49:12

They're also another very intelligent animal. Yeah, even besides this type of intelligence that we're talking about, with like delayed implantation as far as problem solving and things like that. Yep. One of my favorite favorite lines is about bear proof trash containers.

Speaker 3 49:24

Yeah, Did I share that with you, or did you share that with me first, because that is my favorite quote.

Speaker 2 49:29

I don't know, but I yeah, it's so good. So somebody was asking a park ranger why they couldn't come up with a bear-proof trash can Like it seems doable, and the answer this elegant answer was that there's significant overlap between the most intelligent bears and the dumbest humans.

Speaker 3 49:48

And I think about that all the time.

Speaker 2 49:52

So if you can make it bear-proof, it be people proof for far too many, for a lot of people.

Speaker 3 49:58

Well, and the prime example of that is, I think I mean videos come out all the time of people going through the parks and feeding, taking pictures next to bears I don't know, yeah, and bison, and I'm like what are you doing? Are you trying to die? Yeah, well, they don't understand. Yeah, they don't know.

Speaker 2 50:15

Yeah, and bison, and I'm like what are you doing? Are you trying to die? Yeah, well, they don't understand. Yeah, they don't understand yep uh, that this is, uh, that this is a wild animal, and and it's in this impossibly crazy situation that that animal has no chance to adapt to, which is a highway running through its habitat, with people hanging out the window completely yeah yeah, and I think it's just maybe lack of respect for the animals, maybe just due to exposure, like having not being exposed.

Speaker 3 50:46

anyone who grew up on a ranch or has been on a ranch knows how quickly things can turn on you. Yeah, and it hurts.

Speaker 2 50:56

Another good example of animals not adapting to modern stuff is deer strikes with vehicles. Yep. Deer didn't evolve with any type of predator that can move that fast. Yep. So it doesn't enter into their cognitive process that this type of thing could even be occurring.

Speaker 3 51:14

Yeah, yeah, quickly enough occurring. Yeah, yeah, quickly enough. Yeah, yeah yeah. It'll continue to be interesting as humans continue to expand and put pressure on wildlife right and, like you're saying, as wildlife essentially becomes, domesticated is relying on humans, then, and where does that leave us especially?

Speaker 2 51:37

if they're dangerous. Yeah, I've been told that every fifth mammal on the planet is a bat really that there are so many bats so many species well, and individuals, yeah, yeah interesting.

Speaker 3 51:54

I thought, yeah, because we, when you're in the Virgin Islands now, there's obviously birds, not a ton of birds, but wild donkeys which I thought feral donkeys feral donkeys. Yeah, I guess they're not really wild, they are feral. They're kind of cool, though they hang out on the side of the road, but obviously just brought over by people. There's some little tiny deer there. Are there. Very, yeah, almost like when we passed one on a road, like it was almost like that's a deer.

Speaker 2 52:28

They're so small, are they whitetail? Did you see any bats we?

Speaker 3 52:34

did. We saw one bat kind of flying over us when we were on a night kayak trip where you get to see the fish. They love the lights, you know, so you're in these kayaks with lights below them.

Speaker 2 52:48

They are a white tail. They were brought to the Virgin Islands in 1792. That's a long time ago.

Speaker 3 52:53

Yeah, they're tiny.

Speaker 2 52:54

Huh.

Speaker 3 52:55

Yeah.

Speaker 2 52:56

I saw the giant bats when I was in Australia. The flying foxes, oh, and they make a racket. Lots and lots of vocalizations. Yeah. Man, they're huge.

Speaker 3 53:07

Yeah, I've always kind of liked bats.

Speaker 2 53:11

They're a critical species.

Speaker 3 53:13

Yeah.

Speaker 2 53:13

Yeah.

Speaker 3 53:14

And I mean you think of the bugs they eat and places they live.

Speaker 2 53:19

I don't know, they're just I shouldn't say species, but bats are critical yeah, lots of species.

Speaker 3 53:25

Um also found out coral is an animal related to jellyfish. That was new to me corals wild, yeah, coral. Coral being underwater, and I know you've been doing a lot of spearfishing, we did a lot of snorkeling while we were in the Virgin Islands and looking underwater, just surfing over the turtles, we saw an octopus that was really big and he blended in so well to his environment you could hardly see him.

Speaker 3 54:00

Yeah, like I brought weston over to see him and it took me like diving down and pointing at where it was for him to like catch, because they, they blend so well they can change their shape, their color and yeah.

Speaker 3 54:14

Yeah, and a guy kind of tipped us off on the beach that you can find them because they have empty shells surrounding wherever they are. So I'd been snorkeling and beautiful coral, so many beautiful fish, I mean it's just really cool. And then I saw just a huge grouping of empty shells. I was like, oh, and then I saw just a huge grouping of empty shells. I was like, oh, it must be somewhere. And I just sat there. It took me maybe 10 minutes to spot it. Wow.

Speaker 3 54:40

And it was just right there in front of me. The whole time I was like it must be here. It must be here, yeah. Way to stick it out.

Speaker 2 54:48

It was cool, I mean yeah, when I was diving with Kylie one time she found one because this goatfish was swimming around and she said this goatfish looks pissed. She said I think there's an octopus right there. You can tell that a fish looks angry just by how it's swimming around, but that's just like being clicked into an environment.

Speaker 3 55:11

Yeah, completely. An environment yeah, completely. And I think if you spent enough time even you know snorkeling every day, you'd get really used to what was normal and then what would be out of the norm? But so many cool things, huge starfish. I love turtles. I don't even I should have gotten some fun facts about them. I just think they're so cool.

Speaker 2 55:32

Yeah, about turtles.

Speaker 3 55:35

I'm I'm not the turtle guy, so I don't have any of those in my hip pocket the only fun fact I heard recently was not that fun when weston said on the old whale ships they used to take the turtles. They don't have to eat or drink for a year so they'd catch them and put them on the boat and just kind of store them until they ate them. Yeah, yeah, that's. That wasn't my favorite.

Speaker 2 55:59

There were desert tortoises in the 29 Palms training area occasionally and if you saw one it shut down training. Yeah. If one was in the road, you had to wait for it to cross. To cross the road Because if you pick them up they would evacuate their bowels and that little bit of moisture might be enough to kill them before they can get back to water. Wow. Yeah. Wow. And 29 Palms is a hot place right. Yeah.

Speaker 2 56:27

It's so hot that it was originally an army base and they tried to just give it back to the US government because they said it was inhospitable for humans. Like humans can't live here. Yeah. And the Marines are like, so it's a good deal. We'll take it.

Speaker 3 56:45

And to think there's turtles just crawling across that environment.

Speaker 2 56:49

Yeah, so we can afford this yeah.

Speaker 3 56:51

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 56:52

Yeah, and there's the Mojave green rattlesnake there, which I believe is the only rattlesnake that has neurotoxin and hemotoxin. Oh. And they're also insanely aggressive. Yeah. Just a fantastic combination to have around Marines.

Speaker 3 57:11

You know, I think snakes are the one thing. One animal, not one animal. But I do fear snakes. I think I just, I definitely don't want to see them in the water. I love swimming, I love being in the water and I cannot imagine some like water moccasin slithering towards me while I'm swimming. Yeah. I just I think they're creepy.

Speaker 2 57:33

Yeah, lonesome dove affected all of us in one way or another.

Speaker 3 57:36

about water monsters yeah oh, is that what it is? It's lonesome dove. I think that's probably I didn't even know. That's why that's why you picked that yeah that, and um, I'm a big hiker. Um, I hike a ton and cats are the other thing. I don't want to be stalked by a big cat.

Speaker 2 57:55

I have a phobic response to snakes. Yeah. Yeah, which was great fun for the Australians.

Speaker 3 58:01

Oh, the Australians think it's like funny. Yeah. We were down in Australia going to Weston's cousin's beach house and they're like oh no, worries, there's a python that lives in the rafters in the beach house.

Speaker 2 58:14

Very common.

Speaker 3 58:14

Yeah, he's cool though.

Speaker 2 58:16

Keeps the rats away.

Speaker 3 58:17

Yeah, his name's Monty.

Speaker 2 58:19

Helps with the rodents yeah.

Heartbeat Speed and Animal Facts

Speaker 3 58:21

And yeah, just normal day-to-day living for them.

Speaker 2 58:24

Yeah, I talked to somebody who had, and it is very common for people to have a python in their attic. Yep. And I talked to somebody who had like a you know five meter you know 16 foot long Python that had gotten so big that it broke the ceiling and it fell into their house. Like I would move to Bulgaria, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 58:55

Nothing could could keep me there well, and you think they must snatch babies every once in a while I don't know.

Speaker 2 59:01

I think that's mostly dingoes right oh yeah yeah I don't know if I'm half of a joke here, but I loved australia.

Speaker 3 59:11

We had so much fun. I don't know if I'm down for the creepy crawlies there.

Speaker 2 59:21

Yeah, I mean it, it didn't seem like much of a drama, like it didn't affect the daily lives of the people that I was around at all. You know everybody's still going to walk, walk and hunt barefoot and it's no big deal. Yeah.

Speaker 2 59:28

Um, you know, like Brad Smith was doing this, this demonstration of shot placement on an archery target, that was a pig and there's this like gray looking tarantula, looking spider that looked like a huntsman to me, I didn't know. And he's like poking around all over this target and everybody's just sitting in this living room watching and finally I was like hey, man, like big spider right there and he looks at it and he goes. I don't worry about that. And like flops it with his fingers. Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:00:02

No worries.

Speaker 2 1:00:02

Well, that's cool, that's fine, but you know, I just thought I should bring it up in case it was one of those like it's going to kill you instantly kind of spiders.

Speaker 3 1:00:10

Yeah, yeah, but not a big deal for them.

Speaker 2 1:00:12

But they're afraid to come here because of bears.

Speaker 3 1:00:15

Yeah, so I guess everyone has their own enemy. Yeah. But I mean, bears are scary. Getting mauled by a bear is scary, but they're also so cool. Also, like me on an angry day. You don't want to get mauled by me on an angry day either? No, not on a good day, not on a good day. Well, do you want more animal facts? What do you think? I want one more.

Speaker 3 1:00:45

One more. Okay, oh, this is a good one to end on. So there's an inverse relationship between heartbeat speed to life length for animals. Say that one more time observed like you try to take a heart rate on a ferret that comes into a vet clinic and it's beating so fast or rabbit that you can hardly catch it Right, and then compared to a horse heartbeat which is very slow. Um, but then there's an inverse relationship between heartbeat speed to life length.

Speaker 2 1:01:29

Okay, so the faster their heart beats, the less time they're going to live.

Speaker 3 1:01:34

Exactly yeah, so generally we know smaller rodents animals live a shorter amount of time than generally larger animals.

Speaker 2 1:01:43

Humminbird versus blue whale.

Speaker 3 1:01:45

Exactly. Wow, yeah, but kind of interesting that heartbeat speed and, as humans were kind of in the middle, resting heart rates around 60, 70, yeah, beats per minute and, um, you can imagine a tiny rodent, I think. They're up in the 200s, like just crazy fast, can hardly hear them and what made me think about it is you're getting your first ultrasounds and you're pregnant and they're like, yeah, baby's heartbeat is heartbeat is like 170. And that's insane. That's higher than your heart rate ever is as a adult human. Maybe not ever, but definitely more than resting.

Speaker 2 1:02:25

After the last year of a lot of focus on diving, my resting heart rate went from the seventies to the forties. Really yeah, I think average is right around 60 I've had, I've had, I've had nights where I've hit 42 beats per minute really which is crazy low for me is that normal, healthy, fine? Yeah yeah, I know, variability is really good yeah so like if you're my heart rate variability has gotten better too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, which is a fantastic feature on Garmin watches.

Speaker 3 1:02:58

Yeah, yeah, and a really great indicator of cardiac health, right, so that's good. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, pretty awesome. I guess I just wanted to end my favorite animal fact, which is Colonel Mustard is the best boy. Is the goodest boy. He's the goodest boy I got to spend all weekend with him and, wow, what a good boy he is a very good boy that big lab head. Yeah, oh, I'm obsessed with it yeah you neutered him late, right at a year those big male futures. Oh, he's so cool. Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:03:32

Big paws yeah, he's a good boy.

Speaker 2 1:03:36

Yeah, three big paws.

Speaker 3 1:03:38

Three big paws. Always talking to you. Yeah, and that big, I just I love a big blocky head. I think male animals and you'll see it in most male animals, If you, if you wait to castrate a horse a little longer, they'll get the big jaw, big heads. And. I love that feature. Yeah. Big male animal.

Speaker 2 1:03:58

Yeah, yeah, I mean, that was advice that I got from a local veterinarian. Look, you know, any dog in your life is going to have a rough and tumble life and if you just wait until a year before you neuter them, then they're going to really be able to develop a lot of skeletal and muscular features that they'll carry their whole lives. It'll be very healthy for that animal.

Speaker 3 1:04:21

Yeah, yeah, and I think more and more vets are recommending that, which I'm supportive of. I think it's a good idea and I mean we used to neuter in space so young. But yeah, a lot of good things can happen if you let them develop a little bit more, but still get your dog spayed and neutered.

Speaker 2 1:04:39

I mean, yeah, also important yeah and, but very good to get some of those features too a piece of feedback that I commonly hear from from fans of the show is that they're always learning stuff yeah from it, and I think just about everybody is going to learn something from this one.

Speaker 3 1:04:59

You do. Yeah, that's good For those listeners. I was nervous. I didn't know if I was the most qualified for this.

Speaker 2 1:05:05

You did great, you did so good and it's such a pleasure to have you back on the show. And so fun to get to spend a weekend with you and Weston and have some snow days and eat some food.

Speaker 3 1:05:14

Such a good weekend, thank, you. James, thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 1:05:17

Thank you very much. Bye, everybody. The Six Ranch Podcast is brought to you by Nick's Handmade Boots, a family-owned company in Spokane, washington. For many of my listeners, you've waited and prepared all year for this year for this. Whether your pursuit is with a rifle or a bow, early or late season, big game or birds, another hunting season is finally upon us. Nick's Boots and the Six Ranch want to wish you luck as you head out into the field. This season I'm wearing the Nick's Boots Game Breakers beginning with the archery elk season.

Six Ranch Podcast Appreciation and Updates

Speaker 2 1:05:50

Having worn this boot throughout the summer around the Six Ranch, I continue to be impressed with how quiet the boot is. The rough-out leather, leather laces and 365 stitch-down construction create a simple boot that is supportive, durable, comfortable and, most importantly, quieter than most synthetic hunting boots than most synthetic hunting boots. For 60 years, nix has been building work boots for wildland firefighters, tradespeople, hunters and ranchers, as well as heritage styles for anyone who values quality footwear made in America. Visit nixbootscom today to find your next pair of high quality American made work boots. Add a pair of boots and a work belt to your cart and use the code 6RANCH that's the number 6 and the word RANCH to receive the belt for free.

Speaker 2 1:06:42

I just want to take a second and thank everyone who's written a review, who has sent mail, who's sent emails, who's sent messages. Your support is incredible and I also love running into you at trade shows and events and just out on the hillside when we're hunting. I think that that's fantastic. I hope you guys keep adventuring as hard and as often as you can. Art for the Six Ranch Podcast was created by John Chatelain and was digitized by Celia Harlander. By Celia Harlander, original music was written and performed by Justin Hay, and the Six Ranch Podcast is now produced by Six Ranch Media. Thank you all so much for your continued support of the show and I look forward to next week when we can bring you a brand new episode.