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Can you outrun an alligator in a zig-zag? · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the two thousand twelve Toyota Camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know?
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Speaker 1: From House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
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Speaker 1: and this is Stuff you should Know Reptilian edition. That
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Speaker 1: was not funny. Yeah, I'm really sure. I didn't expect it.
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Speaker 1: I can't fake laugh. I got you yesterday, didn't I? Um,
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Speaker 1: when I did a great fake laugh. Oh that made
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Speaker 1: me really laugh. Yeah, and that's ultimately what you want. Josh,
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Speaker 1: And we're shooting TV promos and he handed up a
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Speaker 1: little at one time, but they never do sometimes do Um.
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Speaker 1: So I have a I have a question for you. Yes,
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Speaker 1: do you know the difference between a crocodile and an alligator? Chuck? Um? Yeah, sure,
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Speaker 1: all right, let's hear it's smart guy. Well, no, go ahead,
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Speaker 1: I mean I don't want to steal your thunder. Okay, Well,
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Speaker 1: I mean they don't live in the same places. No,
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Speaker 1: that's a big one. And a crocodile has a gland
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Speaker 1: and its tongue that helps get rid of excess salt,
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Speaker 1: which allows it to live in brackish water. Salt water.
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Speaker 1: Alligators don't have that, right, and that's why they are freshwater. Right.
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Speaker 1: If you see an alligator in the ocean, you're on acid. Um,
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Speaker 1: it's probably not crocodiles in the ocean now there. They
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Speaker 1: could be in the ocean if they wanted to. Is
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Speaker 1: the point. I just don't want to. But you still
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Speaker 1: have a high likelihood of being on acid. If you
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Speaker 1: see a crocodile ocean. Yeah, I would say you may
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Speaker 1: want to rethink what you're seeing. That's one thing. Another
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Speaker 1: one is, um, the crocodile has a V shaped snout,
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Speaker 1: whereas the alligator has more of a rounded you. Um,
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Speaker 1: and uh. Lastly, you can always tell a crocodile because
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Speaker 1: it's fourth front tooth on the bottom sticks up over
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Speaker 1: its top lips, so when it's mouth clothes, there's always
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Speaker 1: one tooth sticking out. Snaggle tooth. Yeah, it's a snaggle tooth.
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Speaker 1: The crocodile is interesting. I remember learning most of this
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Speaker 1: and uh back in the school in days, but I
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Speaker 1: never heard about the tooth. What is this podcast if
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Speaker 1: not a revisit to school and then something back to
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Speaker 1: school without Rodney Dangerfield. Well, you know so, Um, crocodiles
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Speaker 1: and alligators diverged. Um uh sixty five million years ago. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: they had a big falling out and Carnes or cairns.
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Speaker 1: Are you familiar with these things? I've heard of that.
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Speaker 1: What is that? C A I R N S. For
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Speaker 1: all intents of purposes, it's another either alligator crocodile. But
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Speaker 1: all three of them they went their own ways. They
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Speaker 1: broke up like the eagles, uh sixty five million years ago. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: they all went on to do their own thing. The
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Speaker 1: eagles go back, got back together. Though. Oh yeah, you
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Speaker 1: said you've never seen the h is. Oh now I
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Speaker 1: have to show that to you. I'll send you that link. Okay. Anyway, Um,
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Speaker 1: and I forgot what the point was there any years ago?
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they broke up the band, I got you.
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Speaker 1: The point of all this is you've heard that you
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Speaker 1: can outrun an alligator in a zigzag. I have heard
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Speaker 1: both alligator and crocodile. Okay, so it's maybe a shared commonality,
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Speaker 1: probably depending on where you live. The only shared commonality
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Speaker 1: is that it's not really true with either one. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I guess it is true, but it's just completely superfluous information,
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Speaker 1: that's right, the MythBusters busted this one wide open with
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Speaker 1: crocodiles and alligators. Um, with live crocodiles and alligators. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: they had their live alligator, uh with cork corks on
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Speaker 1: its teeth. Like. They stuffed pantyhose with quail like dead
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Speaker 1: quail and attached it to the uh their little dummy
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Speaker 1: guy they always use, and had a zigzag course and
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Speaker 1: then I think they used I think cary like really
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Speaker 1: got in there. But they basically they busted it because
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Speaker 1: they couldn't even tempt them to come after them, which
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Speaker 1: is sort of the point. It is the point the
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Speaker 1: out running an alley gator and his zigzag. Um. Yes,
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Speaker 1: you could outrun an alligator in his zigzag. You could
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Speaker 1: also outrun an alligator in a straight line. Um. And probably,
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Speaker 1: like you say, the point is that an alligator is
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Speaker 1: not really interested, inn't you? Like almost all animals were
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Speaker 1: way more afraid of them. I'm sorry, they're way more
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Speaker 1: afraid of us than we're afraid of them. Yeah, I mean,
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Speaker 1: I guess we're afraid of them, but you know, you
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Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. Sure they don't want human interaction. No,
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Speaker 1: we smelled of them. Yeah, a bear didn't want to
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Speaker 1: kill you. A shark doesn't want to kill you. An
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Speaker 1: alligator doesn't want to kill you. No, No, I think
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Speaker 1: a bear wants to kill you if you're wherever it
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Speaker 1: doesn't think you should be. Now, a bear wants to
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Speaker 1: get into your state cooler in the campground. You've seen,
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Speaker 1: grizzly man. You should destroy this tape alright, so you
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Speaker 1: can out run an alligator. Josh, you were right, because
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Speaker 1: they top out at about eleven miles per hour, which
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Speaker 1: is nothing. It's actually be fast, dude. Eleven miles an hour.
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Speaker 1: That's tough to keep up for a little while. Luckily,
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Speaker 1: humans can sprint it's called foot speed, from between twelve
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Speaker 1: and fifteen miles an hour, and not only can we
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Speaker 1: run faster, but we have more endurance. And alligator is
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Speaker 1: not going to chase you down the street in your
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Speaker 1: neighborhood in Pensacola. It will come up and growl at
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Speaker 1: you on the porch, which apparently is defensive posturing, not aggression. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that's true. I actually, uh did a canoeing trip down
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Speaker 1: the Okefinoke many years ago, not that many years ago,
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Speaker 1: like two years ago. It's been the last like twelve
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Speaker 1: or fourteen years. I wasn't like a little kid. I
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Speaker 1: think it was booze involved. Uh, And there were alligators
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Speaker 1: there and you know, near our canoe. And then when
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Speaker 1: you do a trip through the Okayfinoki, one of the
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Speaker 1: coolest things is is you don't, uh, there are no campgrounds.
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Speaker 1: It is just swampland, and you have to reserve these
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Speaker 1: camping decks and you're the only person that can stay
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Speaker 1: on the deck because it's like whatever, fifteen by fifteen feet,
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Speaker 1: and so you reserve these things ahead of time into
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Speaker 1: your trip, and so you were the you see no
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Speaker 1: other human being once you set off in that canoe.
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Speaker 1: It's neat and kind of creepy. But um, did you
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Speaker 1: have a gun with you? Sharp Rock? I don't own
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Speaker 1: a gun. Um did you borrow a gun? No. We
6:25
Speaker 1: had a lot of boxed wine though, and food and
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Speaker 1: it was me and my buddy Claying Big John, and
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Speaker 1: we all went and um, we got on our camping
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Speaker 1: deck and by this place right by this sort of
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Speaker 1: open lakey area, just gorgeous. Man, one of the great
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Speaker 1: trips of my life. And in the morning we woke
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Speaker 1: up surrounded by alligators like we saw eyes everywhere and
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Speaker 1: we heard them growling. It woke us up, and they
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Speaker 1: were just hanging out, letting us know they were there,
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Speaker 1: and it was it was a little unsettling, but I
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Speaker 1: wasn't I wasn't like scared the whole time, but I
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Speaker 1: was definitely aware. Like when you look in this water,
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Speaker 1: it looks like iced tea. It's you know, they call
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Speaker 1: it black water, but it's really brown. But you can't
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Speaker 1: see like three inches down underneath the water. You can't
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Speaker 1: see anything. So that's what's terrifying is if I fell
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Speaker 1: out of the canoe, I'd probably just get back in
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Speaker 1: and be no big deal. But you think if I
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Speaker 1: fall out the canoe, I'm going to get eaten alive.
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Speaker 1: So it's a little intimidating, yeah, Because I mean you
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Speaker 1: say that, you know, alligators don't want to kill you
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Speaker 1: or anything like that. They will eat you though, if
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Speaker 1: given the chance, if that's just how things end end up. Um,
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Speaker 1: the problem is is that you or me aren't going
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Speaker 1: to run into too many alligators that could eat us,
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Speaker 1: which means that they would have to tear us into pieces,
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Speaker 1: which an alligator tends not to like to do. Because,
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Speaker 1: as I understand from reading this article, alligators are a
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Speaker 1: little lazy. Yeah, they like to eat their meals in
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Speaker 1: one big, gulpy manner. So like a normal size alligator,
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Speaker 1: which would be about five ft or so, UM is
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Speaker 1: gonna eat crayfish and turtles and snakes and things like that,
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Speaker 1: and even a small dogs not really at a threat
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Speaker 1: by an alligator. I don't know if I throw my
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Speaker 1: Chihuahua in the Okefinoki and say go for a swim.
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Speaker 1: But you're right, at the very least, it's just dirty.
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Speaker 1: It's not dirty. It's just different water. Uh, it's nice
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Speaker 1: if you chuck all water is beautiful. It was. I mean,
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Speaker 1: it's not like it looks gross. It's just brown. So
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Speaker 1: you talk about small alligators five feet in under, um,
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Speaker 1: that's a vast majority, as I understand. Um, apparently humans
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Speaker 1: like ones that are even smaller. You've heard of having
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Speaker 1: an alligator as a pet. Yeah, Bannon specifically advises against this.
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Speaker 1: I think it's Rex Bannon from the beer bearing episode
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Speaker 1: of The Simpsons Moses a pet store all of a sudden, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: Um and that. But that's how most um alligator attacks
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Speaker 1: happen is when you try to basically adopt an alligator
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Speaker 1: as a pet, right, Because these things, even if they're small,
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Speaker 1: like a three foot alligator, it's tiny, and they make
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Speaker 1: cute noises and they're weird looking, they will still take
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Speaker 1: a bite out of you if they feel threatened. And
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Speaker 1: even if you're not going to die, you're still have
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Speaker 1: to you the hospital. Yeah, and and and a mother
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Speaker 1: alligator will certainly attack if you're trying to take one
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Speaker 1: of her little babies as a pet um. Not a
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Speaker 1: good idea. And these things we we mentioned they're not
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Speaker 1: super fast on land, but they can swim like twenty
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Speaker 1: Yeah that's the big deal. Like, yeah, you can outrun
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Speaker 1: an alligator, and you probably can't out swim an allegy. Definitely,
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Speaker 1: you definitely can't. So the ones that you and I
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Speaker 1: would need to be afraid of would be one of
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Speaker 1: a full grown one, maybe up to like eleven feet. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that's large. These are the ones that could look at
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Speaker 1: us and be like, I might be able to get
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Speaker 1: that down my gullet in one bite, so let me try,
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Speaker 1: or at least a small kid, you know. Um. The
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Speaker 1: thing is that even these big ones, like you say,
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Speaker 1: they're more scared of us than we are of them. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: maybe at the very least, they don't want to be
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Speaker 1: anywhere around us typically. Yeah, and they don't want to
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Speaker 1: be in a fight either, like any kind of prey
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Speaker 1: that's going to fight back. There's not interesting though you
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Speaker 1: said they're lazy. They want something easy that they can
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Speaker 1: just Hey, look at that turtle. Okay, I got one
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Speaker 1: for you, smart guy. How about whenever you're like paddling
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Speaker 1: down the okay finocchi, and there's an alligator on land
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Speaker 1: and all of a sudden it comes into the water
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Speaker 1: towards you. Is that not aggressive? That is not aggressive?
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Speaker 1: You know what that is? What? It's the alligator feeling
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Speaker 1: threatened and feeling way more at home in the water
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Speaker 1: where they can hide except their little eyeballs that are
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Speaker 1: on top of their head. Right. So they're not coming
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Speaker 1: after you. You've just startled the alligator and it just
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Speaker 1: so happens to be to seem like it's coming towards you.
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Speaker 1: It's just going back to its home. I get what
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Speaker 1: you are. If you're in a canoe and you see
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Speaker 1: fifteen alligators on land all of a sudden jump in
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Speaker 1: the water towards you, you think they're coming to attack
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Speaker 1: me and kill me and overturn a bote. I've seen
11:00
Speaker 1: Temple of Doom. Yeah, and that's gonna happen. Did that
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Speaker 1: happen to Temple of Doom? There was a guy who
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Speaker 1: got rolled? Oh yes, and like, you know, are you
11:09
Speaker 1: thinking of romancing the stone? I maybe? Okay, you have
11:15
Speaker 1: a good memory. But tell them about rolling, the most
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Speaker 1: terrifying thing that can no doubt happen to a human. Okay,
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Speaker 1: So we said that, you know, alligators don't want to
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Speaker 1: attack you, they don't want to eat you. They still
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Speaker 1: will attack and they still will eat you under certain circumstances,
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Speaker 1: especially if you happen to be in pieces at the time. Um.
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Speaker 1: But the way that an alligator will attack you or
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Speaker 1: it's food or whatever prey it's going after, it clamps
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Speaker 1: down with its jaws, which are substantial, and it does
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Speaker 1: what's called the death roll, where it rolls over and
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Speaker 1: over and over again, taking its prey with it on
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Speaker 1: this little ride from hell um. And typically the alligators
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Speaker 1: prey dies from drowning from being rolled. Because an alligator
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Speaker 1: can hold its breath for up to an hour, it
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Speaker 1: has no problem with death rolling for as long as
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Speaker 1: it likes um. It also has nostrils on its snout
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Speaker 1: so it can keep his jaws clamped and still breathe
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Speaker 1: while it's death rolling as well. You can't do any
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Speaker 1: of this thing. So if you an alligator get you
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Speaker 1: in a death roll, you're in big trouble. Yes, agreed,
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Speaker 1: But again we should point out the numbers bear out
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Speaker 1: the idea that alligators don't really want to have anything
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Speaker 1: to do with us, right, but they still call it
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Speaker 1: a death roll and not a severe injury roll. You know,
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Speaker 1: once you're in the death roll, it's your toast right.
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Speaker 1: So um again though, if you if you look at
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Speaker 1: the numbers, there's like four alligator attacks in the United
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Speaker 1: States a year since nineteen forty eight. The Fish and
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Speaker 1: Wildlife Service reports three hundred and fifty six alligator attacks
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Speaker 1: on humans since twenty five or fatal. Yeah, and they
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Speaker 1: think nine of those the victim was already dead. So
12:57
Speaker 1: I guess it has happened upon a dude that had
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Speaker 1: a heart attack. Insta. This guy's in four pieces too.
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Speaker 1: It's my lucky day, good eating. So the numbers are
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Speaker 1: on your side, and that this is not because they
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Speaker 1: are not around. Because they also point out that in
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Speaker 1: Florida alone, um, they average about twelve thousand complaints a year,
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Speaker 1: and I mentioned Pensacola. My family cousins grew up there
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Speaker 1: in Gulf Freeze, and they had you know, they would
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Speaker 1: go out for school one day and there's an alligator
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Speaker 1: in the front yard. Let's go out the side door.
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Speaker 1: And they would call and that's one of the complaints, Like, hey,
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Speaker 1: I got an alligator in the front yard and they
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Speaker 1: I guess someone come by and take care of it
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Speaker 1: by shooting it, probably back into the woods or replacing it.
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Speaker 1: I don't think they would just like shoot to kill
13:41
Speaker 1: or anything like that. Uh, you know, they usually take
13:45
Speaker 1: its head off with a shovel. They don't shoot it.
13:48
Speaker 1: That's not the or a shoe, the heel of the shoe.
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Speaker 1: What does an alligator complaints sound like? This alligator is
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Speaker 1: looking at me? Is an alligator looking at me? Can
13:57
Speaker 1: come do something about it? Yeah? That's an alligator can
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Speaker 1: plant pretty much is they're they're not where they are
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Speaker 1: where they should not be, which is in my on
14:04
Speaker 1: my property. Or again though we're maybe where we should
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Speaker 1: not be, which is in an alligator's house. It's to
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Speaker 1: heck up a point. They lived right on the bay um,
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Speaker 1: all right, So if an alligator get to you in
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Speaker 1: the mouth or gets the prey in the mouth, they
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Speaker 1: are going to let go at a certain point to
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Speaker 1: get ready to swallow you. Well, it's in its death roll. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: so they don't like, No, it's like after the death roll,
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Speaker 1: they juggle you around to get you in a good
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Speaker 1: position to eat. They don't like just start chomping down right,
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Speaker 1: because they can't move those huge jaws very easily. No,
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Speaker 1: but they're very strong, So you're not gonna get out
14:40
Speaker 1: of an alligator's jaw. But they do recommend if you
14:43
Speaker 1: are attacked, Um, this could be a very risky way
14:47
Speaker 1: to get away is to wait for like play dead
14:50
Speaker 1: and wait for them to release you to try and
14:52
Speaker 1: swallow you. Yeah, that's and it's specifically that's your last
14:56
Speaker 1: ditch effort, and it's an extremely risky one. Becau is
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Speaker 1: once you're in the death roll. Again, they don't call
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Speaker 1: it a severe injury role. Um, once you feel an
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Speaker 1: alligator clamped down on you, you want to act immediately,
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Speaker 1: and you by acting, you want to scream, you want
15:11
Speaker 1: to yell. You're gonna make as much noise is entirely possible.
15:15
Speaker 1: Because again, alligators are lazy. They go for low hanging
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Speaker 1: fruit or low hanging crawfish meat. Yeah. Um, and if
15:23
Speaker 1: you put up any resistance, they're gonna be like, attack
15:25
Speaker 1: with this, I'm gonna go after something that doesn't yell.
15:29
Speaker 1: Don't like my diving things to yell at. I mean,
15:31
Speaker 1: it's just depressing, you know. Yeah, and it's probably going
15:34
Speaker 1: to be your instinct unless you go into like shock
15:36
Speaker 1: or something. So do what comes naturally, which is flail
15:39
Speaker 1: and scream and hit them. And then if you can,
15:42
Speaker 1: just like the old shark snout, if you can actually
15:45
Speaker 1: get your wits about you, try and jam a finger
15:48
Speaker 1: in their eyeball, which is a good method for stopping
15:51
Speaker 1: any kind of attack. I think it's like the eject button. Yeah,
15:55
Speaker 1: during an attack humans, any kind of animal, the gugs
15:58
Speaker 1: their eye, they're gonna be like, dude, I only got
16:01
Speaker 1: two of those and al yeah and al all right.
16:05
Speaker 1: So that's how to get out. That's how to prevent
16:08
Speaker 1: the death roll. Um. If you again, though, if you
16:13
Speaker 1: are in a death roll, pretty much, try playing dead
16:17
Speaker 1: nice knowing you yeah, because either you're gonna play dead
16:20
Speaker 1: or you're gonna be dead one or the other. Uh So.
16:23
Speaker 1: Crocodiles are a little more aggressive, and that's probably why
16:26
Speaker 1: alligators get a little more of a bad rap um.
16:30
Speaker 1: Crocodiles have been known to come after folks here and
16:33
Speaker 1: there if you're if you're hanging out fishing on the
16:36
Speaker 1: shore line, especially if you're cleaning your fish on the
16:39
Speaker 1: shore line. That's a bad move. It's a very bad move.
16:42
Speaker 1: And um, they are especially aggressive where and uh Africa
16:48
Speaker 1: and um, South America or Australia. Australia. Of course they're
16:53
Speaker 1: aggressive in Australia. Oh that's where crocodile dundee phone. That's right.
16:58
Speaker 1: So um, we've coached people on how to fight back. Yeah,
17:02
Speaker 1: and Chuck, let's take a step back. We're giving detailed
17:06
Speaker 1: instructions on what to do if you're attacked by an
17:08
Speaker 1: alligator crocodile. Does it ever occur to you that we
17:12
Speaker 1: do stuff like this sometimes? Sure, it's crazy, it is crazy. Ahead,
17:17
Speaker 1: it's crazy, as my wife says. Um. All right, So
17:21
Speaker 1: the two reasons you might get attacked by an alligator
17:23
Speaker 1: or crocodile is, like we said earlier, if you're messing
17:26
Speaker 1: around with their family. Um, or you're just in their
17:29
Speaker 1: territory and it's feeding time and you're caught unaware mating season,
17:34
Speaker 1: which is early to midsummer. Yeah, that's when the adult
17:37
Speaker 1: males will come after you. Careful, Hey, I don't want
17:41
Speaker 1: you trying to hunt my lady. It's my lady. And
17:45
Speaker 1: that brings us Josh to the to me one of
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Speaker 1: the best sentences on our website, which is, many attacks occur,
17:51
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to sentences. Many attacks occur as a result
17:54
Speaker 1: of people teasing or trying to capture alligators. Throwing sticks
17:58
Speaker 1: and rocks at alligators may seem harmless, but doing so
18:02
Speaker 1: creates a dangerous situation. Wow. Yeah, it may seem harmless.
18:06
Speaker 1: I read that was like, who thinks throwing rocks and
18:08
Speaker 1: an alligators are harmless? Act? What's this gonna harm? Unless
18:11
Speaker 1: you're like Damien from the Omen. You know what kind
18:15
Speaker 1: of sick twisted kid does this? Sick twisted kid future
18:19
Speaker 1: serial killers? All right, so it's not harmless at all.
18:22
Speaker 1: It's very harmful. Yeah, don't throw rocks at any living thing,
18:26
Speaker 1: jerk um. And you said when you were on your
18:29
Speaker 1: okay Finocchi canoe trip that you know you couldn't see
18:33
Speaker 1: very far down into the water. Typically you want to
18:36
Speaker 1: avoid swimming in just that kind of water. If you
18:39
Speaker 1: want to avoid being, you know, an alligator encounter, let's
18:43
Speaker 1: call it that. That's super PC. If you want to
18:47
Speaker 1: avoid an alligator encounter, um, you want to swim in
18:50
Speaker 1: areas where the water is pretty clear and you can
18:52
Speaker 1: see pretty deep into it, and areas that are well groomed,
18:57
Speaker 1: not a lot of shrubbery and grasses and muckiness for
19:01
Speaker 1: an alligator to hide him. Yeah, and don't send little
19:03
Speaker 1: Timmy down there with his uh beach ball to play
19:07
Speaker 1: along the shoreline of the grassy shoreline. If your dad,
19:10
Speaker 1: like we said, don't clean your fish out right there
19:12
Speaker 1: by the shore line. Moms can clean fish too. Uh,
19:16
Speaker 1: that's a that's a good point. Thanks. In fact, in
19:19
Speaker 1: some families, dad catches the fish, mom cleans the fish.
19:23
Speaker 1: In some families, mom catches the fish and dad cleans
19:27
Speaker 1: the fish. And in some families nobody fishes. Just buy
19:31
Speaker 1: a fish at the store, you just go to you know,
19:34
Speaker 1: Arthur Treachers. Emily would never clean fish. Are you kidding me? Oh? Yeah,
19:40
Speaker 1: good lord? You mean said she loves cleaning fish? Really
19:43
Speaker 1: she where she grew up. Yeah, I could see that
19:46
Speaker 1: because you got spunk, Emily. If you'd handed a knife
19:49
Speaker 1: and to cut this fish's head off. She would she'd
19:51
Speaker 1: be like, are you kidding me? What kind of a
19:53
Speaker 1: joke is this. Let's just go to Arthur Treachers. Yeah, exactly.
19:57
Speaker 1: You got anything else? Um? Yeah, I do have something else?
20:01
Speaker 1: Um you said if you're uh, your cousins would call
20:06
Speaker 1: the Fish and Wildlife Service when they saw an alligator.
20:08
Speaker 1: If you see an alligator, no matter how small, you
20:11
Speaker 1: want to alert everybody else too that there's alligators because
20:14
Speaker 1: if you see a baby one, there might be a
20:16
Speaker 1: mom um. And also, don't feed alligators. That's a good point.
20:22
Speaker 1: The reason why is you are basically writing their death sense, right,
20:26
Speaker 1: which is a weird thing to write, but that's what
20:28
Speaker 1: you're doing. Um, because alligators who are fed sometimes lose
20:33
Speaker 1: their fear of humans and making may come close enough
20:36
Speaker 1: for a terrible alligator encounter. And any any alligator that's seen,
20:42
Speaker 1: you know, approaching a human not out of fear, is
20:46
Speaker 1: going to um, it's going to be put down. You
20:49
Speaker 1: shouldn't feed any wildlife like that, really because there especially
20:53
Speaker 1: once I can kill you though. Yeah, they're pretty good
20:55
Speaker 1: at finding their own food, right until you start feeding them.
20:58
Speaker 1: Then they become less good at that and it just
21:00
Speaker 1: hurts everybody. Basically, you upset the circle of life to
21:04
Speaker 1: turn it into an a rhombus. Yep. Uh. If you
21:09
Speaker 1: want to know more about alligators and zigzags and you
21:12
Speaker 1: want to see a photo of a person holding a
21:16
Speaker 1: detect human arm from an alligator attack and it's crazy,
21:20
Speaker 1: you can type in alligator zigzag in the search part
21:23
Speaker 1: how stufforks dot com. It will bring up this article.
21:26
Speaker 1: And I said, search bars means it's time for a
21:27
Speaker 1: listener mail. But first, chuck, it's getting to be about
21:33
Speaker 1: that time. We're like a week or so out from
21:35
Speaker 1: the premiere of our television show Stuff you Should Know
21:39
Speaker 1: on Science Channel. That's right. So it's quick plug time, yes,
21:42
Speaker 1: as we like to call it, Saturday, January Science Channel
21:46
Speaker 1: ten pm Eastern and ten thirty because we're showing two
21:49
Speaker 1: episodes on premiere night, back to back after season three
21:53
Speaker 1: premiere of Idiot Abroad, which is great, so, uh watch
21:58
Speaker 1: it and hey, you can get on an itune the
22:00
Speaker 1: day following the show. Yeah, Sunday mornings, wake up, have
22:04
Speaker 1: some brunch, a little bloody Mary, download the show. That's right,
22:07
Speaker 1: and you know what Science Channel is offering the premier
22:10
Speaker 1: show for free. That's very nice of them. It is
22:13
Speaker 1: very nice. They taken care of us like the cor Leone.
22:17
Speaker 1: But I hope not. You didn't do dead. Not if
22:21
Speaker 1: we stand there good I think? Okay, okay, so listener me.
22:23
Speaker 1: All right, guys, I'm gonna call this meth another one
22:27
Speaker 1: about math meth mania. How about that? Uh just finished
22:31
Speaker 1: listening to the podcast, and I thought I would share
22:33
Speaker 1: my experience. I've never used meth um, but I do
22:36
Speaker 1: have bipolar disorder, and the manias I experience have some
22:40
Speaker 1: remarkable core llaries with being high on met. I know
22:43
Speaker 1: about these similarities from reading about people's experiences tweaking shows
22:48
Speaker 1: like yours, and friends who have actually used meth and
22:51
Speaker 1: some who still do. During manias, I will stay up
22:54
Speaker 1: for long periods of time. I think sixty hours straight
22:57
Speaker 1: was the longest I've ever been without sleep. I cannot eat.
23:00
Speaker 1: I cannot even think about eating. UH talk a mile
23:03
Speaker 1: a minute, talk so fast in my head that I
23:05
Speaker 1: don't even realize I am skipping sentences so people can't
23:09
Speaker 1: follow what I'm saying. I can focus on a little
23:12
Speaker 1: weird task like you mentioned. I want to UH decided
23:15
Speaker 1: to transcribe r M s it's the end of the
23:17
Speaker 1: world as we know it of a CD player stopping
23:20
Speaker 1: it and starting it. Mania. This is the only time
23:22
Speaker 1: I drink, which is a bad thing because of my medications.
23:25
Speaker 1: I will walk for hours listening to my iPod because
23:28
Speaker 1: music is so amazingly rich and meaningful. Um. During about
23:32
Speaker 1: the mania once I was pacing the halls of the hospital,
23:36
Speaker 1: and I could feel every nerve firing, every muscle cell
23:39
Speaker 1: tightening and releasing to make me walk. Yeah. Because of
23:43
Speaker 1: these feelings that happened during mania, there are many people
23:46
Speaker 1: with bipolar who will use meth to recapture that feeling,
23:49
Speaker 1: especially in the throws uh in the opposite pole of
23:53
Speaker 1: soul sucking depression. Once my psychiatrist and I decided to
23:56
Speaker 1: take a very brief course of methyl finidate riddling. I
24:02
Speaker 1: think it's it's a certain type of riddle. UM. I
24:04
Speaker 1: had a paradoxical reaction by that time. By the time
24:07
Speaker 1: I had taken two doses, I slept for twenty hours.
24:10
Speaker 1: When I was awake, I was acutely intensely suicidal. So
24:14
Speaker 1: no Infanta means for me, that's probably a good idea.
24:17
Speaker 1: I wanted to emphasize that meth does play on the
24:19
Speaker 1: brain's existing systems, that the brain itself can even use
24:23
Speaker 1: itself under unusual circumstances. I'm sure what that means. I
24:29
Speaker 1: think you just explained. Okay, manias can be very destructive
24:32
Speaker 1: though guys, it doesn't. Uh, but it does not affect
24:35
Speaker 1: your dentist bills excusing math. And that is from Serena
24:40
Speaker 1: Bodine Clark, and she said, go ahead and read my name.
24:43
Speaker 1: I think this is cool. That's awesome a lot. Serena
24:46
Speaker 1: appreciate that, agreed. Um, let's see alligat your story crackadox. Yeah,
24:53
Speaker 1: I why not? Have you got one a good one?
24:56
Speaker 1: Not like you came up on my yard and yelled
24:57
Speaker 1: at me right now, I complained bloodshed only please um uh.
25:03
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25:06
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25:09
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25:13
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25:16
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25:26
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