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May 28, 1998 - Art Bell

02:40:13

Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Dangerous Animals - Don Zaidle

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	Do talk with Art Bell in the kingdom of Nigh from east of the
	Rocky's dialed in 1-800-825-5033.
	West of the Rockies, including Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, 1-800-618-8255.
	1-800-618-8255.
	Now again, here's Art Bell.
	The more I think about it, the more I know I'm gonna get a rocket.
	including Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico. 1-800-618-8255.
	1-800-618-8255.
	Now again, here's Art Bell.
	The more I think about it, the more I know I'm going to get a rocket. A big one, too.
	We were talking about that last hour. Earlier today, I was actually talking to Bob Crane.
	We were talking about selling rockets on the air.
	Not your little rockets.
	Big rockets.
	And I've got a catalog of big rockets, and there is one, like, it shows, I've got a picture on the studio cam right now, and it shows this rocket, and it's like three, it shows a very nice looking young lady, and it's like three, two and a half times, at least, as large as she is.
	So we're talking a serious rocket here.
	And they'd be a blast to launch.
	But of course, it'd be just as much fun to just take and put in the front yard.
	As I said to my earlier audience, it would give you respect in your neighborhood.
	Lawns would be cut.
	Trees would be trimmed.
	And to top it off, I'd put a name.
	Every rocket's got to have a name, right?
	And we'd call it Neighborhood Watch.
	All right, look.
	Coming up in a moment, Don Zadel And I'll tell you about Don.
	He is really something else.
	Actually, he looks the part.
	I mean, we're talking Mr. Outdoors here.
	I'm going to have to get a photograph of Don Zadel up.
	He really looks the part.
	It's about animal attacks, folks, and it's called American Man Killers, and it's coming up in a moment.
	Don Zadel, American Man Killers.
	animal attacks are way up all right now comes dawn zadel who was born in fort worth
	texas From the time he was knee-high to a grasshopper, his interest in wildlife was intense.
	When he wasn't being dragged off kicking and screaming to the schoolhouse, he spent every waking moment prowling the woods and creeks of his family's ranch, observing and studying wild animals.
	His earliest memories involve tents, campfires, hunting and fishing.
	So it was natural that Mr. Zadel would evolve into a hunter and fisherman.
	Despite a patchwork career that includes stints as, get this folks, a private investigator, attack dog trainer, soldier, oil field roughneck, radio talk show host, and electronics engineer, ha ha ha, his passion has always remained with the outdoors.
	His pursuits have carried him to all the wild places of North America, No, here where we live, in search of adventure.
	A decade or so ago, he parlayed his passion into a profession and became an outdoor writer.
	As a writer and naturalist, Mr. Zadel developed over the years a keen interest in what he calls, the macabre and esoteric nature of nature.
	My kind of guy.
	It came, therefore, as no surprise that his first major work of non-fiction, American Man Killers would be the result of his interest in the macabre, and would continue his years of observation in his lifelong interests, as well as two years of intensive research.
	He has been called many things, it says here on the back of his book, many of which we, well, would not be suitable for air.
	And I hope I've got his name right.
	Is it Don Zadel?
	That's close enough.
	I said Zydel.
	Zydel?
	No, that's all right.
	I answer to most things as long as it's not obscene.
	Zydel is fine by me.
	I'll just get used to it.
	Don Zydel.
	All right, Don.
	We have had a whole array of guests, like a parade of guests, who have been saying much the same thing.
	And the most recent of which was Robert Ghostwolf.
	And this is what got me interested in the whole concept of animal attacks.
	Ghost Wolf said, things are rapidly changing and animals will begin attacking people.
	And as an example, he cited recent incidences in which mountain lions, instead of being stalked by hunters, were stalking hunters.
	Yeah, that's a pretty regular thing.
	Hunters, of course, they're Well, they're kind of out in the woods being stealthy and sneaking around anyway, which in mountain lion country is a bad thing to do.
	You want to present a large, formidable looking target to a mountain lion that tends to discourage them.
	But if you're all hunkered over sneaking around, it sure makes you more attractive as a meal to a mountain lion.
	Well, I know, for example, I have house cats and one pretty wild one at that, but if you get down on the floor And you stalk a cat the way a cat would stalk another cat.
	They recognize that behavior and they go into that mode.
	Yes.
	All animals are astute observers of body language.
	And there are certain postures, certain gestures and so on and so forth that have very definite meanings to animals depending on whether that animal is a prey animal or whether that animal is a predator.
	uh... there are certain postures and body language that imply predatory intent and so therefore a prey animal is
	Really?
	going to be frightened by it there are other
	body languages that make you look like prey
	and they're going to make you attractive to a predator in other words
	you could be eaten while we think we are at the top of the food chain
	It doesn't always actually work out that way.
	Just because we're at the top of the food chain does not exempt us from active participation in the lower links.
	Listen, it says here there's been an explosive increase in animal attacks and resultant human deaths.
	Yes.
	When you say explosive increase, what do you mean I would say that that time span would be in the last 12 to 15 years.
	The increase is a proportional increase relative to prior decades, prior years.
	But I will say this, there have been more recorded predator attacks in the past 10 years, in some areas at least.
	That had been recorded in the preceding 100 years combined.
	Oh my!
	Now that would tend to validate particularly the time span.
	You're talking about the last decade.
	A lot of people think a lot of things got underway in the last decade and so this, I guess, is no different.
	What kind of attacks?
	Now, you know, there's a lot of missing people in America.
	Missing children.
	Yes.
	They're on milk cartons and all the rest of it.
	Generally, it's assumed that one parent took them, or they were kidnapped and killed, or, you know, who knows?
	Annabelle Malkartens.
	It is your view, isn't it, that some of them end up as meals?
	Yes.
	Let me give you one example.
	There was a little three-year-old boy playing in the front yard of his family's cabin in the San Bernardino Mountains, California.
	He disappeared.
	A search party followed his tennis shoe tracks on the dirt path that led away from the cabin and up to the top of this little ridge about 100 yards distant.
	At the top of that ridge, his tracks converged with the tracks of a mountain lion.
	Only the mountain lion's tracks led away.
	Now you tell me what happened to him.
	In 1994... I doubt he rode the mountain line.
	I doubt he rode the mountain line away.
	In 1994, a woman named Lucy Gomez Dunton disappeared while out, I believe, bird watching or jogging, something.
	Anyway, she was in one of the state parks.
	She disappeared and was missing for about two weeks.
	Just through happenstance, some hikers found her mutilated, mostly gone body.
	They're in the brush of the state park.
	The body was in fact found in what's called a kill bed, which is what a mountain lion does with his leftovers.
	After he makes a kill, he eats his filth, he drags the remains in some brush and scratches forest debris, leaves, twigs, and a little dirt over it to save it for a snack later.
	A snack.
	And so what was left of her were found in a mountain lion kill bed.
	The question is, had she never been found, into what statistical category would she have been placed?
	She'd still be listed as missing.
	Unsolved case, right?
	Yeah, unsolved missing persons case.
	I wonder how many of those we have in the U.S.
	that could possibly be what you're describing.
	Trying to quantify anything related to this is next to impossible.
	I'll tell you why.
	There is no centralized record keeping of any kind as it pertains to animal attacks.
	One would think the U.S.
	Fish and Wildlife Service would keep centralized records on all this stuff.
	No, they do not.
	Very, very few states do keep records on very specific animals, but most of them only began keeping those records in the past 10 to 20 years.
	Let me tell you a little story and maybe you can tell me what I saw, if what I saw was true, and I'm sure it was.
	I used to commute between Little Pahrump, Nevada, where I am now, in Las Vegas every day.
	That's like about 120 miles round trip, long commute.
	And you go up a 5,500 foot mountain between here and Las Vegas, down the other side into Las Vegas.
	And one night I was making that commute, coming down the other side, just to come off the peak, going down the other side toward Las Vegas.
	Oh man, I was doing like 70 or so, and all of a sudden, in my headlights, Here's this incredible thing.
	It's a mountain lion, of course, and it's just crossing the road, and I had to slam on my brakes to miss it, but when I tell you, this cat covered both lanes as it was crossing.
	This was the longest, biggest animal I ever saw in my whole life.
	My God, it was a giant!
	I mean, it was just gigantic!
	Do they get that big?
	They're long!
	Mountain lions tend to look bigger than what they actually are.
	They're long.
	It is an optical illusion caused by the tail.
	The tail is at least as long and perhaps on some specimens longer than the body is.
	Wow.
	And so this yields an optical illusion that, my God, that thing was 22 and a half feet
	That's what it looked like.
	Six feet tall, stood on my car slobbered on the windshield, you know.
	They look enormous, especially seen in the wild like that.
	Once you get up close to one, they kind of tend to suffer what hunters call ground shrinkage.
	I wouldn't get close to one.
	Well, I don't either unless he's dead.
	Yeah, oh yeah.
	If they're dead, that'd be alright.
	If they're dead.
	Yeah.
	But otherwise, they really are capable of eating a human being.
	Absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	I have dozens of cases here in my files of exactly that.
	Okay, here's a question for you, and this applies to mountain lions and bears and everything else we're going to talk about.
	Once they have eaten man, or a woman, Mankind, then they are likely to be man killers.
	In other words, to regard us as a future inconsistent food source.
	Well, yes.
	First of all, the reason that any of these animals might, well, there are many attack classes depending upon which type of predator we're talking about.
	In the case of a mountain lion, a mountain lion regards its prey, anything within its habitat, that it can be caught and killed with reasonable safety.
	And when I say safety, I'm talking about safety to the mountain lion, that it will not be injured in the process of killing its prey.
	When these animals become so accustomed to human presence, And suffer no harmful effect, that there is no negative encounter.
	They learn very quickly that man is nothing more than another source of protein.
	It just happens to be bipedal.
	A cougar considers anything within its habitat that can be caught and killed with a reasonable expectancy of success as just food, and whether it's upholstered in fur, feather, or polyester is not a consideration.
	That's first and foremost.
	To further illustrate your point, yes, once they have made that leap, so to speak, and made a human kill, succeeding human kills would come much easier to them.
	I thought so.
	I've thought of a lot of ways that I might go.
	We all consider our own mortality.
	And somewhere toward the very end of the list has got to be being eaten.
	Now, there's nothing particularly merciful about the way they do this, is there?
	In other words, they don't necessarily make sure to cut your juggler and that you're dead before they begin munching.
	A cougar kills, the basic way in which a cougar kills most of its prey is by crushing the back of the skull or the, breaking the neck.
	And if you're lucky and you've got a lion that's big enough and he's been around long
	enough that he knows what he's doing, chances are you may get a quick, merciful, relatively
	painless death out of the deal.
	If on the other hand, if he's having a bad day, if you happen to flinch at just the wrong
	moment as he's leaping on you from the back, and cougars always attack from behind by the
	way, and so chances are you'll never know what hit you, but if he's having a bad day,
	his aim is off a little bit, you flinch at the wrong time or you've got a young, inexperienced
	cat after you, he may not make that single crushing bite.
	And so therefore, you may get to watch yourself bleed to death.
	As he munches?
	Yeah, or while he hangs on.
	See, he's going to ride your back.
	He's going to ride you to the ground with his claws dug into your back.
	He's got this wet steel vice grip around your neck.
	And you may bleed to death or you may be suffocated.
	Or you may drown in your own blood, some combination of the above.
	But the point is, you're going to get to hang around for a while and know that something bad is happening to you.
	What about bear?
	Bears are even less astute at killing any kind of prey than the cougars are.
	Bears basically, if, you know, a bear attacks, again as I cited earlier, Bears may attack for any one of a number of reasons, but if it is a predatory attack, it can take a very, very long time to die because the bear just simply is not that accomplished a killer.
	He would be the, I guess you could call him the axe murderer.
	So it's like he kind of pulls you apart in edible chunks.
	Yeah, but basically he just starts randomly biting whatever's handy.
	Well, we tend to think that this kind of stuff doesn't happen.
	and or you stop struggling and so they're their weather of one of our politics
	describes mister brutish killers
	uh... you know you can in some cases think of it as even as being beaten to
	death well we tend to think
	this kind of stuff doesn't happen i mean i suppose in the back of some minds
	uh... it occurs to people that animals can be dangerous but for the most part
	we think we're working in the hill and when we walk around the woods
	we're safe as can be.
	That's one of the greatest myths that has been forced off by the PBS-type people, which, by the way, you know what PBS stands for, don't you?
	Public Broadcasting?
	Professional bull, something you'd rather not step in.
	Well, I understand now.
	At any rate, be that as it may, one of the greatnesses is that animals have this natural fear of man or some sort of reverence or that man has some sort of a mystical quality that makes animals respect or fear him.
	That's bull cookies.
	Really?
	In other words, our years and years of having guns and shooting animals has not taught them anything about that?
	No, no, no.
	You've got it right.
	See, during the time when we did do that, on a more or less regular basis, that's where the fear of man, the predator, developed among animals.
	But, in our don't-shoot-him-mystery-he-is-a-sheep-dog, run-bambi-it's-man world these days, that we view through these rose-colored glasses, Where, you know, keeping animal populations under control through selective culling and so on and so forth is now officially discouraged and even labeled as cruel in some quarters.
	Animals are losing that fear that we worked so hard and so long to instill in them.
	And so now they are not only encroaching into human populated areas... But surely, surely, surely Bambi is not going to attack us.
	You want to bet?
	No.
	Bambi would kill you in a heartbeat.
	Bambi would kill me?
	Hold on where you are.
	We're at the bottom of the hour.
	I think he said, Bambi would kill you in a heartbeat.
	That's what I think he said.
	That can't be true.
	Disney said it.
	So it just, it can't be true.
	Don Ziedle is my guest.
	his book american man killers will be right back the
	the the the
	you When you're up on the stage, it's so unbelievable, oh
	unforgettable I may have known you, but then your wife seemed to think
	you'd lose your sanity Oh, the vanity, with the known way out
	From the Kingdom of Nigh, this is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell
	First time callers may reach Art at area code 702-727-123 702-727-1222.
	Now, here again is Art.
	Once again, here I am.
	Don Zeidel is my guest.
	His book is American Man-Killers, and he's very, very serious about what he's saying.
	A lot of people who have disappeared, children particularly, may well not have Disappeared in whatever way you might imagine.
	They may now simply be part of the food chain, actually.
	It's horrible to contemplate, but it is what happens in nature, you know.
	It really is.
	So many of us have been ensconced in concrete and buildings for so long that we've kind of lost touch with nature.
	Well, in some cases, it hasn't lost touch with us.
	We'll get back to it in a moment.
	Here's Don's Idol.
	Don, did you by any chance see a movie called The Edge with Anthony Hopkins?
	Yes, I did see that.
	It was a bit what a lot of people call anthropomorphic, which is assigning human motivations and characteristics to animals.
	The bear was a little bit too calculating to be believable.
	In other words, a bear would not stalk in that Well, I mean, that's one of the things about nature, you know, never say never.
	But the likelihood is so far remote, it seems to be almost nil.
	No, if the bear wanted to come for them, he would lumber right into camp, take care of business, pick his teeth with one of your ribs and lumber off and sleep off his hangover.
	Did you pick his teeth with one of your ribs?
	Well, I'm being facetious, of course.
	Yeah, but isn't that what they use bones for, to clean their teeth?
	Well, no.
	Bears aren't terribly interested in personal hygiene, which is why most of them stink to high heavens.
	They tend to sleep on top of their food caches, which after a day or two become carry-on, if it wasn't carry-on when they found it in the first place.
	And by the way, if you happen to be hiking in bear country and you smell putrefacted meat, go the other way.
	Because chances are excellent that that's a bear cachet, whether he personally killed it or procured it by other means.
	There could be a bear lying up on it or near it.
	And if you get close to it, guess what?
	You're going to become the next entree.
	Really?
	Yes.
	The bears are very possessive about their food.
	Stay away from dead animals out in the wild, especially in bear country.
	Protective of their food, yeah, and you don't want to be the next meal, I guess, so.
	No.
	You hear about all kinds of things in the media, the popular media.
	I mean, people being eaten by alligators and all kinds of horrible things have been in the press from time to time.
	Yes.
	So that does happen, but I imagine 99.9% of it You never hear about it, right?
	You never hear about it.
	At best, you'll hear about it on a local level, but very little of it gets national attention.
	The reason for this is, number one, it is not politically correct to report on this kind of stuff.
	Unless, of course, you take great pains to say, oh, but the animal was just being true to its nature and yadda yadda yadda yadda, which is true.
	But this type of explanation is always couched in a defensive tone of the animals and saying, well, it's all man's fault, yadda, yadda, yadda.
	The second reason is officials tend to want to downplay and gloss over and obfuscate and even in some cases deny that these sort of things happen.
	There's a lot of reasons, but the two simplest ones are, one, it's difficult to attract tourists with the enticement to come vacation amongst our scenic vistas and kill our wildlife.
	And secondly, when you've got a financial axe to grind with regard to the animals in your particular state, or Bailiwick, whatever it is, it's difficult to generate support If the animal you're trying to generate the support for is known to kill and eat its supporters.
	That's true.
	Let's talk for a second about Bambi.
	We mentioned Bambi.
	Oh, Bambi!
	And you said Bambi would kill you in a flash of an eye.
	Now, there have been several times where I've seen deer along the street.
	Now, bear in mind, Don, I'm not a hunter.
	Alright?
	You're talking to a non-hunter here.
	I have a lot of guns, but I don't hunt with them.
	I'll pull the car off the side of the road and I'll get out of the car and go and start talking nice, dear, good dear, you know, trying to get him to sort of interact with me in some way.
	You know what you're courting there, Art?
	What?
	You're courting, acquiring for yourself an impressive set of new optional navels.
	Optional navels?
	Yeah.
	Artificially created ones.
	Oh, what are you talking about?
	I'll give you an example.
	In fall of 1990, police in Central Texas were dispatched to investigate the report of a pickup that had been parked beside the road for two days with the driver's side door open.
	And on arrival, the police saw a large white-tailed buck deer standing in the brush about ten yards from the vehicle, thrashing a sapling with its antlers.
	It charged the officers when they tried to approach the vehicle.
	It backed off when they did, but it would come for them again each time they moved near that truck.
	At some point in the festivities, they figured out it wasn't the pickup the buck was guarding, but the body lying in the ditch near the open driver's side door.
	What?
	They finally killed the buck after it repeatedly fought off their attempts to reach the body of 61-year-old Buddy Coleman.
	The official cause of death was a crushed skull, but he'd have probably bled to death anyway from the more than 100 puncture wounds inflicted to his back, stomach, and face by the deers, hooves, and antlers.
	What?
	Why?
	Now that's behavior that I've never heard of in a deer.
	It happens all the time.
	Oh, I never heard of that in my whole life.
	I'll tell you what, when you get a chance, read the deer chapter in American Man Killers.
	You'll read a lot of that kind of stuff.
	Well, is it... You mean to say that a deer is regarding us as prey?
	No.
	The deer is regarding you as either an interloper on its territory, And or a rival, whether it be a rival for his territory, a rival for the attentions of the ladies fair, among those during rutting season.
	Most attacks do occur during the rutting season, by the way, but by no means all of them.
	In a nearly identical case in the June of 1995, excuse me, 1994, it was four years after Buddy Coleman was killed and it was just a couple hundred miles away.
	A woman was nearly killed in her own driveway.
	She lives in a community not too far from me, around Possum Kingdom Lake.
	And a lot of deer that people have in their backyards, they come and eat handouts in the backyard and all this kind of thing.
	Anyway, she was walking down her driveway to collect her mail out of her mailbox when
	a velvet antlered deer, which is one that is still growing its antlers, they are not
	fully developed, they still have the velvet sheathing on them and all this.
	As I said, this was in June of the year, which is a long ways from rutting season.
	And anyway, this deer came boiling out of the brush and nailed her.
	A passerby saw her laying unconscious in her driveway just a few moments after the fact.
	She called the authorities.
	Now, see, this is the really strange part of this behavior.
	The attacking part is fully understandable, easy to explain.
	But this buck, too, stood guard over the victim.
	It took up station beneath a mesquite tree about 30 yards away from where the woman was laying in the driveway, unconscious.
	And it charged a Brazos River Authority ranger named Mike Cox when he arrived on the scene and tried to approach the woman.
	Well, now, what behavior would have it guarding Something it had already knocked out.
	I have absolutely no idea, and neither do any of the other dozens of wildlife biologists I've asked about it.
	It is an area of herbivore behavior that is unexplored.
	No one has a clue why a herbivore would guard a body at all, let alone two days after the fact.
	That doesn't make sense.
	No, it doesn't make sense, but it happens.
	There are a lot of things these days, Don, Don't exactly make sense.
	Animal behaviors that don't seem to make sense.
	And even our domestic animals, even our animals, you know, little fluffy and our favorite little dog, whatever it may be.
	Who will most happily eat you, by the way?
	What?
	Who will most happily eat you?
	I wasn't going there.
	But you are?
	Your own pet would eat you?
	Absolutely.
	In a heartbeat.
	No, I've never heard.
	Well, now wait a minute.
	I take it back.
	I heard of a lady who died who owned a bunch of cats.
	And now they took after her a day or so after she passed on.
	But other than that, I have never heard of any domestic animal eating its owner.
	Let me give you another example.
	Well, OK.
	Here's another example of what you just said.
	I'll just give you the headline on this one.
	Lead paragraph.
	Man dies in New York City apartment eaten by pet dogs.
	Seven dogs ate the body of their mentally ill owner who died in his apartment over the Fourth of July weekend.
	Here's another headline.
	Dead baby found in dog's mouth, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
	Now here's a real cute one.
	Dead baby?
	Yeah.
	Found in a dog's mouth.
	Yeah, the dog, dog, dog killed a baby.
	Happens all the time, by the way.
	Dog gnaws off foot of comatose woman.
	A dog slipped through a pet door and chewed off the foot of a woman who had been in a coma for several years, prompting police to search for the animal amid concern over rabies.
	Doctors amputated what was left of the woman's right foot.
	Monday, as police hunted for the large black dog, possibly a rottweiler, the woman's mother chased it away, sender moaning after seeing it gnawing on her daughter.
	She was comatose?
	Yes.
	Oh my God.
	Yeah.
	And so that's nothing more than Now, what do we have there, for example?
	Do we have an animal eating?
	Yes.
	Dogs.
	Our people have lost sight of one very simple fact.
	Dogs are predators.
	Period.
	The behavior that we see most often in our dogs is a facade.
	It is that dog's response to a yoke of domesticity.
	That we have imposed on them.
	The behavior that we generally see in dogs is not its natural behavior.
	A dog's natural behavior is to hunt, kill, and roll in the putrefying remains of its prey.
	And every once in a while the dog goes on vacation.
	He slips off his yoke, he lives true to his predatory lineage, and he kills.
	He eats, and then he comes back off vacation and he's the same A cheerful, bouncy bundle of good intentions that we profess to love.
	Now I saw Cujo, but that was rabies.
	Yeah, rabid behavior is... you can't... you can't... That's not what you're talking about here.
	What you're talking about here is normal, normal behavior.
	A normal domestic pet that suddenly goes on vacation.
	Yes.
	Dogs in the United States alone... by the way, dogs are the most dangerous large animal in the world.
	They are?
	They kill more people on an annual basis than any other animal.
	In the United States alone, in any given year, there will be anywhere from two to five million people injured by dogs.
	Two to five million?
	Of that number, anywhere from three quarters of a million to a million will be serious enough to require emergency room medical care.
	Of those, probably I don't have the exact statistics in front of me, but if I remember correctly, anywhere from 25 to 100,000 of those will be in a category that would be called a concerted attack, as opposed to just a bite.
	In other words, we're talking about a persistent, multiple bite, attempting to kill type of attack.
	What can bring this on, Don?
	What do you imagine can bring this on?
	I mean, one minute your dog is domestic.
	The next minute, it's like it's totally out of touch.
	It can be anything from the dog simply losing a grip on its normal control mechanisms.
	It may be a deliberate bid, especially in the case of a male dog.
	It may be a deliberate bid to usurp the pack leadership position from you.
	It may be if the dog attacks, particularly when the dog attacks the young children, elderly people, or people who have an unusual gait, such as walking on a cane, or they limp badly, or perhaps even locomotion in a wheelchair, or even on a bicycle or roller skates.
	Now is that because The animal somehow instinctually understands you are weaker than others and it's like culling out the herd?
	Yes, it elicits a predatory response to chase, kill, and eat.
	And now dogs are meat eaters, right?
	Yes.
	No doubt about that.
	Unless you happen to be one of these really wacky people who have the idea that their dogs and cats uh... would be better off on a vegetarian diet because they
	themselves are vegetarians
	there are people who actually do that, they attempt to feed their dogs and cats a vegetarian diet
	well... but at any rate, be that as it may, the point is yes, dogs, cats, predators are by
	very definition carnivores, they are meat eaters. What happens when you turn a dog
	into a vegetarian?
	when you force it, what happens to the dog?
	The dog is going to get into ill health.
	It's going to have a poor coat.
	It may suffer some sort of mental dysfunction.
	I've never studied them that closely, but the few dogs I have seen that were on a vegetarian diet did not look well at all.
	Well, let me tell you something.
	This gets me in all kinds of trouble, and I really just don't give a damn anymore.
	The vegetarians that I've seen, humans, Have the same problem.
	They get a poor coat.
	Their hair looks like hair.
	No, it's true.
	And then I also noticed that they look sickly.
	And they generally are skinny.
	Yes.
	And just really pathetic looking.
	Well, yeah.
	Because, see, man is also a predator carnivore.
	Actually, he is an omnivore, but in We actually eat more meat, I think, than we do vegetable matter, or at least an equal amount of it.
	At least those among us who are normal do.
	And so, therefore, I think it's pretty safe to classify men as a carnivore.
	There are those who try to make their own, but, oh, no, man's a primate, and primates are vegetarians.
	Well, that's a crock, too.
	No less an authority than Dr. Jane Goodall, who is also quite anthropomorphic, much of the time.
	Has acknowledged and documented that chimpanzees are, they engage in organized hunts for meat.
	They eat other chimpanzees.
	They eat smaller monkeys.
	They eat bush pigs.
	Small bush buck.
	And they eat human babies.
	Oh, human babies.
	Would dogs revert to that behavior?
	They're like wolves, aren't they?
	They would hunt in the wild.
	They'd hunt packs, wouldn't they?
	They hunt on city streets, in fact.
	City streets?
	Yes.
	There are a number of cases.
	Well, right now as we speak, I'm trying to remember, it seems like it was Detroit, if I remember correctly.
	That's a city.
	We have a big problem right now with roaming packs of feral dogs on the streets.
	In one case, this was not in Detroit, I don't remember the city right off hand, but a woman was killed and partially eaten by a pack of feral dogs.
	In her own front yard.
	The largest of these dogs, which was the pack leader, by the way, was a beagle.
	A beagle?
	A beagle.
	The point being, size is irrelevant in the man-killing business.
	If you have any doubts, look in the 1982 Journal of Pediatrics and read there the... A cute, fluffy little beagle?
	Read the case history of the child-killing Yorkshire Terrier.
	Yorkshire Terrier?
	Read about the 7-month-old, no, let's see, I think it was like a 13-month-old toddler killed by the family's dachshund.
	My God.
	So size is, doesn't make any difference.
	Well are these... Just on that note, you know, are you aware of how popular ferrets are as pets?
	I've heard they make great pets.
	Oh yeah, and you know what?
	They'll kill your child in its crib and eat its face off.
	What?
	Yes.
	No.
	Parents are real cute.
	They're little things.
	They're cuddly.
	And they're predators.
	And they will eat your baby in its crib, I'm telling you.
	There was a case just recently, in fact, where that happened.
	And upon investigation, authorities opted to charge the parents with reckless endangerment.
	Just for having the ferret?
	Just for leaving the child alone unsupervised.
	This happened in Cleveland, Ohio in February of this year.
	Now why don't these stories hit the press?
	I didn't hear about it.
	And let's see, a five-week-old girl in stable condition after being bitten at least 50 times by the pet ferret.
	Please charge your parents with felony child endangering.
	Wow.
	Don, hold on.
	We're at the top of the hour.
	You've got a good long break here.
	Well, I was going to get a ferret.
	I wanted to get a ferret.
	Ramona didn't want a ferret.
	I wanted one.
	I thought they were cute.
	So they'd actually eat your child's face off.
	American Mankillers is the book.
	Don Zadel, the guest.
	Zadel, there you go.
	I'm Art Bell.
	We'll be right back.
	Call Art Bell in the Kingdom of Nigh on the Wildcard Line at area code 702.
	Call Art Bell in the Kingdom of Nigh on the Wildcard Line at area code 702.
	That's area code 702-727-1295.
	This is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
	It is.
	My guest is Don Ziedle.
	He's an animal expert, has been all his life.
	He just wrote a book called American Man Killers.
	And boy, he means what he's saying.
	Children missing.
	Eaten by animals.
	Adults eaten by animals.
	Even their own domestic pets.
	Somebody just sent this to me from the Electronic Telegraph.
	It's entitled, Wild Animals Get Taste for Humanity.
	How to Serve Man.
	My God, it's a cookbook.
	Seriously, from the Electronic Telegraph.
	Experts believe That mountain lions, or cougars, are shedding their old terror of the humans who were once their most dangerous predator.
	The mountain lions have been living for generations now within close proximity to people.
	And, said the head of Colorado's Division of Wildlife, they are losing their fear.
	After being pushed to the brink of extinction by years of hunting, and the destruction of their natural habitat, America's wildlife Seems to be biting back.
	Record numbers of attacks by mountain lions, alligators, coyotes, and bears are being recorded as Americans discover the dangers lurking in their own backyard.
	In Florida, where a three-year-old boy was snatched by an 11-foot alligator while playing in a lake last March, state authorities are about to launch campaign warning away visitors.
	Because of the dangers lurking beneath the surface of the popular holiday destination.
	Uh, get this.
	Florida's estimated one million alligators have been showing a much greater willingness to attack humans.
	Though there have been only nine fatal alligator attacks since 1948,
	verifying what my guest says, listen to this, five of these have been in the last ten years.
	Don's Idol Once again, Don's Idol.
	Don, I want to tell you about a call I got from a cop a couple of weeks ago.
	It was an intriguing call.
	He said, this is a true story, doesn't matter whether you believe me or not, but I was, um, it was up in Wisconsin or someplace where it snows a lot, I forget, and he said I was on patrol out in a rural area, and I came upon a car with its door open, and the owner of the car was outside, and what had happened is, this guy had hit a deer, a ten-point buck, And the guy got out to see how the deer was and somehow the deer got into his car and got into the front seat and was laying in his front seat and wouldn't get out.
	And it was warm in there, I guess.
	I don't know.
	The deer wanted to be in there anyway.
	So the cop helped the guy.
	They opened the passenger side and they both got and pushed on this deer's butt until it finally got out of the car and the guy drove off.
	And he was happy.
	And the cop thought, well, I really just helped somebody out.
	And the cop went back to his patrol car.
	And here's the deer in the front seat of the patrol car.
	And now the cop's alone, right?
	And so he went around, opened the passenger side of the door, and pushed and pushed and pushed on this thing.
	And it wouldn't budge.
	And so finally, exhausting all other possibilities, he drew his service revolver and went around to the driver's side and fired a shot.
	And oh yeah, the deer took off all right.
	It took the whole headliner of the car with it, and just totally wrecked his patrol car, and he spent like hours filing a report that nobody believed.
	Is that behavior?
	Yeah, the scenario is credible.
	It's possible that the deer, you know, here he was, he was on a white I've got one more for you and then we'll take some calls and do some other stuff but one more story for you.
	I'm a cat person.
	I have cats.
	was injured he was frightened he was looking for a place of refuge in the
	nearest place for a few people with his life dark tunnel represented by the interior of the car
	so yeah uh... i think that's i think that's a credible story
	and i have one more for you and then we'll uh... will take some calls and do
	some other stuff but we want more story for you on the campus i've kept at three kent's alright
	all it was no two years ago There was a cat suddenly under my house.
	And I can't handle that, you know, having a cat live under my house.
	So I said, I've got to have a hard trap.
	And I set the trap for the cat.
	About 3.30 in the morning, boom.
	Here's this orange little fuzzball, right?
	Yeah.
	And so we stored it in the bathroom on newspaper overnight in the cage, took it to the vet the next day, and had it declawed.
	Uh, de-testacled, uh, we had it washed, we had it, and they put it to sleep to do all this.
	They gave it anesthetic.
	This is a wild cat, feral cat, okay?
	I mean, really feral cat.
	Yeah.
	And they did all of the things they were going to do and charged me the appropriate hundreds of dollars.
	And I bring this thing home, and we put it in a fluffy little cat bed.
	It was still asleep, you know, from the anesthetic.
	And we put it in a nice little fluffy cat bed.
	I can see this one coming.
	Well, this is the truth now.
	This is the utter truth.
	And we both sort of laid down on the floor by the cat bed and watched him until he woke up.
	And he woke up and he blinked three times and looked at us.
	And I tell you, this cat went five and a half feet straight up in the air.
	I mean straight up in the air.
	Began running around the room in a crazed manner.
	This was really, and we're talking to cats, still under the influence of the anesthetic.
	It ran into walls until it bloodied itself.
	I picked it up.
	Right, huh?
	I pick it up, and sure enough, it purred.
	And it didn't get me.
	And I thought, this is cool.
	And so it's going to be okay.
	It purred.
	But then I found out later, not then, that cats purr sometimes Not because they're happy, but because they're scared.
	Anyway, I put the cat in the bathroom, and we let him sleep it off, and left him alone for a long time.
	Next day, I went back into the bathroom.
	I picked up the cat.
	By now, the anesthetic's gone, right?
	This cat turned around and nailed me.
	Bit the hell out of you.
	Bit the hell out of me, and like an idiot, I dropped the cat.
	Of course, natural reaction.
	But I picked it right back up again.
	Oh man, this time it went down to the bone.
	Alright, now this, it's been two years.
	When I say this cat was feral, I mean this cat really was feral.
	It must never have come in contact with a human being.
	And of course now, he's like halfway domesticated, and I mean halfway.
	He trusts me, and we've kind of bonded, but it's been two years.
	And this cat will never, in my opinion, be a normal cat.
	Well, by normal you mean he'll never be 100% domesticated.
	That's correct.
	And you are correct in that assessment.
	Trying to tame an animal that has gone feral, like a normally domesticated animal, or usually domesticated animal that has gone feral, is no different from trying to tame one from true wild stocks.
	You just simply cannot do it.
	It's foolish to attempt, I guess.
	Yeah, it is.
	It's foolish to attempt to do so.
	Do you have any children in your household?
	Not small children.
	Okay.
	All right.
	Well, then you're probably okay.
	Yeah, that's textbook stuff.
	Wild animals attempting to tame or make pets or whatever.
	Especially after their adult stage or even Sub-adult stage.
	It's an exercise in futility, for the most part.
	Well, so it really is, as you say then, and as this story that I read at the beginning of the hour, I mean, they're saying too, animal attacks all over the place are increasing.
	Is it?
	Are we violating their world?
	Is that why?
	No.
	See, that's the politically correct explanation.
	There are three basic reasons for these increases in animal tax.
	The first reason is, there are more animals.
	Period.
	Of all kinds.
	All across this country, there are dozens upon dozens upon dozens of urban and suburban communities having problems with white-tailed deer.
	You know, decimating yards, wandering around in playgrounds, yadda yadda yadda.
	They're overpopulated in the extreme.
	There's also a reciprocal increase in predatory species, everything from raccoons to coyotes to bears to you name it.
	I'm going to tell you a coyote story or two here in just a moment.
	I am in coyote country.
	You're pretty close to Lake Tahoe, so I've got a real good story for you.
	Actually, I'm about 20 miles from Death Valley.
	We're in the serious desert here.
	Relative to where I am, you're close to Lake Tahoe.
	I can go out to take my night vision outside at night and there are coyotes everywhere.
	You're going to love the story.
	The other reason for the increase is there are now more people afield.
	Even though we live in the glass and concrete jungles, there is a growing interest or movement It's a so-called get back to nature and people like to go
	out and hike on the nature trails and do a lot of nature's wonders which is fine and
	wonderful.
	But the point is there are more people afield.
	And then the third reason is one that we've already touched on and that is that because
	of this increasing rate of human and animal commingling, the animals are habituated to
	human presence.
	They have no reason to view them as anything other than another animal and a harmless other
	animal at that.
	And so, therefore, their willingness to approach them, attack them, and or eat them is increased.
	And so, you know, there are very sound, relatively simple explanations for these increases in animal attacks.
	As for the coyotes, the coyote numbers have exploded from one end of this country to the other.
	And the results, of course, are predictable.
	Let me tell you, by the way, before I get too much further into the coyote thing, an interesting trend that I noted in my research.
	Anytime there has been either an extremely fantastic incident which resulted in death and or consumption of a victim, or in which there was just a large number of attacks that did not necessarily result in death, almost invariably, in the preceding months and years to those incidents, there had been a very sharp increase, and after the increase, a stained level of predation on family pets.
	Oh, listen, we don't let cats out here.
	Cats are eaten by coyotes.
	Precisely.
	One nice meal.
	Let me give you a tale.
	Let's start with something very, very recent here.
	17 February 1997.
	Three-year-old Armbridges was playing outside her family's rented vacation condominium at Lake Tahoe.
	From inside the house, her father Steve heard her shouting, get away, get away, and thought she was in some sort of dispute with a sibling or something.
	Then the shouts changed to a primal scream of terror.
	What?
	Steve bolted outside, saw his daughter on the ground being, quote, shaken like a doll, end of quote, by the neck in the jaws of a coyote.
	Oh my God.
	Steve ran up, pulled the coyote off, threw it several feet, but it was up and coming again, determined not to be cheated out of its prey.
	Whoa.
	Steve continued to battle the predator while his wife called 911.
	Police arrived and shot the coyote when it charged them.
	Lauren survived with over 30 puncture wounds and cuts to her head, face, and neck.
	Two of the wounds came with a whisker of her carotid artery and eye.
	My God.
	See, now, I don't know if I wanted to hear this.
	I have so many coyotes out here, and what I've noticed, mostly, Don, honestly, is that coyotes kind of skulk around and they don't want to be anywhere near you and they generally take off when they see you but on the other hand there have been some nights I do my broadcast from home I'm sitting right here at home right now some nights there are so many of them out there Don they're going beep beep beep beep beep you know that noise they make?
	I heard them outside my window here just a short while ago.
	Then I've had to actually shut my window because the noise was getting on the air August 1995, Coyote grabbed a 16 month old boy from the front yard of his Los Alamos, New Mexico home.
	This was in a proper suburban type neighborhood.
	Started dragging him off.
	The boy's mother fortunately heard him screaming and she ran outside and drove the animal off beating it with a broom.
	In June of that same year, a 3 year old girl had the exact same thing happen to her in the exact same neighborhood.
	Now get this one.
	In July 1995, a coyote stalked and attacked 15-month-old girl named Erica Galvin while she was playing in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, California.
	Los Angeles?
	Yeah.
	The girl's mother, Dana, told the Los Angeles Daily News that her body was flip-flopping on the ground.
	He was trying to eat her.
	He was trying to kill her.
	What do they do?
	I mean, Los Angeles, come on!
	Do they come down from the mountains?
	They live in Griffith Park.
	They live there.
	There have been 13 known or acknowledged attacks in Los Angeles County since 1975.
	Six of those occurred in that park.
	In 1991, a coyote killed a two-year-old girl near Glendale, California.
	Now, here's an interesting thing.
	In the wake of that Lake Tahoe attack, all these The incidents I've been citing for you occurred, well all but a few of them occurred in California.
	There have been dozens of coyote attacks in California.
	Quoting from the official press reports about that Lake Tahoe attack in June of this year, I mean February of this year.
	Quoting from that, wildlife officials said Monday that an attack by a coyote on humans is extremely unusual and could recall no previous incidents in California.
	Now was that some sort of politically correct statement they made or what?
	I have no idea who made it.
	It just says wildlife officials and the popular press tends to call anybody from people for the ethical treatment of animals to the local dog catcher a wildlife official.
	I see.
	Who knows?
	Could have been anybody but the point is coyotes are everywhere and whenever you have them where there are a lot of people around You stand to have problems.
	What is your view of PETA?
	My view of PETA, I think they are among the most despicable people on the face of the earth, and I'll tell you why.
	Now don't mince words.
	Anybody who makes statements such as, meat is murder, are insulting every murder victim and that murder victim's family.
	They are denigrating the entire human race by equating the death of an animal with the murder of a human being, and in my opinion, are somewhere below the Nazis of World War II Germany.
	Wow.
	On a moral plane.
	To equate humans with animals in that context is reprehensible.
	Well, when PETA is presented with an animal which has killed a human being story, How do they handle that?
	They say, oh, well, we have usurped their territory, we have treated them so badly, and yada, yada, yada.
	They are, of course, defensive of it.
	They, of course, have to be, because, see, that's where their money comes from, is these cute, wonderful furry animals.
	And so they have to defend the animal, they have to uphold their poster child's reputation, else the money doesn't flow into the coffers.
	Have you ever debated anybody from PETA?
	Yes, several times.
	Live, on the air.
	Really?
	And I kick their butt.
	You do?
	Yes.
	All right.
	If anybody from PETA would like to fax me, 702-727-8499.
	We could apparently arrange that, couldn't we?
	Oh, yes, we could arrange that.
	We could, okay.
	Somebody here wants me to ask you about, we are going to take calls, ask you about these children's petting zoos.
	You know, goats, lambs, calves, pot-bellied pigs, blah, blah, blah.
	Good idea, bad idea?
	I think it's a good idea in the sense that it acclimates children to animals, gets them familiar with them.
	On the other hand, I think it's a bit of a problem in the sense that it perhaps instills in the children an unrealistic idea about the approachability and domesticity of animals.
	So the same child that walked up and, you know, stroked the Well, I certainly would.
	I would try to pet a deer.
	I have tried to pet a deer, naturally.
	Well, I haven't.
	No, you're going to wind up in one of my books.
	If you keep us to stuff up, you know.
	Art Bell gets rung by deer.
	That's possible.
	Well, it's true.
	We're stupid about...not you.
	The majority of us are stupid about that sort of thing.
	I mean, we have been raised with Disney, of which I'm part of, I might add, to think of deer as extremely gentle, frail, beautiful creatures, unless you want to assume.
	It's hard to know where to start addressing something like that.
	The point is simply this.
	Well, there's several points.
	One, Mother Nature, contrary to what you saw last week on the Discovery Channel, is a cruel, calculating old bitch who will kill you given half the chance.
	The nature we all love is a mistress of the finest black widow tradition.
	She'll draw you close with her charms, then kill you if she can.
	And if she can't suffocate you under Mount St.
	Helens ash, crush you in an earthquake, drown, burn, poison, infect, or electrocute you with other weapons of mass destruction, she may just send one of her minions to quietly eat you.
	Well, I would much rather go in one of the aforementioned ways than to be eaten.
	To be eaten, believe me, it is nearly last on my list of ways that I would want to go.
	I don't want to be eaten.
	Are you familiar with the There was an incident that happened a number of years ago in Glacier Park, Montana.
	Let's hold that one until after we're at a break, alright?
	Okay, Parker.
	Right, take care.
	I don't want to be eaten.
	If you were to make a list of ways that you could go, some of which would be quick and satisfactory, being eaten would be way, way, way down at the bottom of the list.
	On my list, anyway.
	Don Ziedel is my guest.
	American Man Killers.
	Oh, I'll have to tell you how to get that book.
	American Man Killers is his book.
	We'll be right back.
	This, of course, is Coast to Coast AM.
	Hey Peta, are you out there?
	I'm out here!
	Ay ay ay ya ho Ay ay ay ya ho
	Ay ay ay ya ho Ay ay ay ya ho
	From the Kingdom of Nye, this is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
	From east of the Rockies, call Art at 1-800-825-5033.
	West of the Rockies, including Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, at 1-800-618-8255.
	First time callers may reach Art at area code 702-727-1222.
	First time callers may reach Art at area code 702-727-1222 and you may fax Art at area code
	702-727-8499.
	Please limit your faxes to one or two pages.
	This is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
	Now again, here's Art.
	And especially, especially, if you're from PETA, should you fax me?
	You want a debate?
	Oh, we've obviously got one here for you.
	Anybody have the cojones?
	My fax number is area code 702-727-8499.
	The guest is Don Zytel.
	One two seven eight four nine nine the guest is Don Zytel.
	The book is American Man Killers.
	Back now to Don Zytel who tends not to mince words about anything.
	Don, welcome back.
	Thank you, Art.
	You mentioned the horror of being eaten.
	Yeah, it's a horror, and we'll get right back to that.
	Just before we do, though, I want to tell people how to get your book.
	Oh, very well.
	There's any number of ways you can get it.
	The way that I would like for you to get it is from me.
	And if you get it directly from me, I'll even autograph it for you.
	You will?
	You betcha.
	Wait a minute, I don't have an autographed copy.
	Well, yeah, but, Art, you know, autographs are for really special people.
	All right, so they can get an autograph.
	Depending on how well you treat me, I'll think about it.
	All right.
	How do they get an autographed copy?
	Credit card auditors can telephone.
	Area code 940-748-2048.
	Where are you, by the way?
	I am in a log house in the woods of Texas.
	Texas?
	Yes.
	All right.
	Do I have this right?
	Area code 940-748-2048?
	code nine four zero seven four eight
	Yes.
	two zero four eight yes and you know what
	that's is that your number You answer that?
	Well, somebody will answer it.
	I may answer it if everybody else is busy.
	But I may answer it, yes.
	Is that a 24-hour number?
	Well, it is tonight.
	Let's put it that way.
	Alright, it is now.
	That's all I need to know.
	So they can call that number now?
	Well, I would rather wait till after the show.
	Because I'm the only one in the office now.
	I see.
	You have to remember it's about 2 a.m.
	here.
	Is that phone going to ring, make a ringing sound?
	Yeah, probably.
	I see.
	Okay, well you may have to disable the ringer, because now that we've got that number up, people are going to start calling.
	940-748-2048 is the number, and you can get an autographed copy.
	It's a pretty good-sized book, actually, isn't it?
	Yeah, it's about 240 pages.
	Hardback.
	It is the first book of its kind, by the way, and it is the most complete, even though it is far from complete.
	I mean, you know, it would have to be a 12-volume set to be anywhere near complete.
	Dad, can you stand by just a second?
	I knew we were going for that.
	Alright, yes, we'll stand by.
	It is a beautiful book, and in a while here I will hold it up so that you can see it on the Studio Cam, folks.
	While he's getting rid of the ringer on that thing.
	You may have to actually unplug it from the wall, Don.
	Are you there?
	Oh, yeah.
	I just got a call from some kind of nutcase telling me I need to be on Prozac, that I'm insane.
	At any rate.
	I get faxes like that.
	How lucky were you?
	You know, it's great being a person people love to hate.
	God, I hope someone from PETA calls.
	Yeah, really.
	Alright, let's go to the phones.
	First time caller on the line, you're on the air with Don Zeidel.
	Hi.
	Hey, how are ya?
	I'm okay.
	Good, I enjoy your show.
	Thank you.
	And don't have any real problems with anything the author has said, except one thing about vegetarians.
	I've been a vegetarian since 1973.
	I'm not real skinny, I'm about 250, 6 foot tall.
	I'm very athletic.
	You weigh 250 pounds?
	Sure do.
	How do you get to weigh 250 eating vegetables?
	Well, I do eat dairy products and occasionally have eggs, but I eat no meat or fish.
	You mean you eat those unborn chickens?
	Yes, I do.
	I don't have a problem with it.
	Oh, God, that's abortion.
	They didn't have any faces and they didn't walk around, so that kind of meets my criteria.
	I do agree with most everything.
	I don't hunt.
	My father was a hunter.
	I do.
	I am an NRA member.
	I just wanted to say there are stereotypes about vegetarians that aren't necessarily true.
	We're not all nutcases that think animals are equal to humans.
	Let me ask you a question real quick.
	Are you a vegetarian because you feel like it's a healthier diet?
	Or are you a vegetarian because you just don't want to eat animals?
	It started out as an idealistic college student who didn't want to eat animals, and it's grown into a health consideration with still some of that same feeling existing.
	I don't sell it.
	I'm not a member of any group.
	I raised two teenage boys about to graduate high school.
	They've never had meat or fish their entire life.
	They both work out in gyms, and they're not like scrawny, pale-faced people like you described earlier.
	I'm the one who said that.
	Okay.
	So you are content to follow vegetarianism as a personal conviction and not try to force it off on the rest of us?
	Right.
	In fact, I don't even bring it up unless I'm really in an awkward situation.
	You know, someone's taking me to the steak restaurant and they're wondering why I'm ordering a salad.
	Okay.
	Well, in that case, partner, you're a vegetarian.
	You're a fine fellow in that respect.
	I feel for each his own.
	I'm sure I could ascribe to some philosophies that may, from a social point of view, there's some advantages if we ate a little less meat for health and cholesterol and medical reasons and all sorts of things, but it's not an issue for me.
	It's more of a personal choice.
	Well, we can respect that.
	And you're a cop too, huh?
	Yeah, I am.
	Thank you very much.
	I don't have any problem with that.
	What I have a problem with is people who don't eat meat because they don't want to eat animals.
	I mean, that's... What I have a problem with is people who don't eat meat and they want to force the rest of us to not eat meat.
	I know.
	They're very, very, very activist about it.
	I don't know why that is.
	They're like anti-smokers.
	Wild Card Line, you're on the air with Don Seidel.
	Hi.
	Hi, Art.
	Hi, where are you?
	I'm in Montana.
	All right.
	Well, welcome.
	I'm done.
	You seem to have a real bad attitude towards animals.
	You say that they're just nothing but blind, raging instinct.
	I have an elk hunting story for you.
	I'm not a hunter myself, but I like to go on the trips.
	There was just a huge bull elk, and I don't know if it was a 30-30 or a 30-odd-6.
	It was a big gun, but right in the head.
	Took two steps back and shook its head, and her husband jumped up and shot it through the neck.
	This thing was just bleeding all over the place.
	And it ran up over this little hill here, and there's a little bit of snow on the ground yet, and there's some bushes in there, and we tracked it, and all of a sudden the tracks just stopped.
	And I thought, oh, where's Art Bell?
	An alien got him.
	But, uh... Well, what's the end of this story?
	I mean, where the hell was it?
	Okay, well, it turns out that this elk had backtracked.
	It actually stepped one foot at a time in its backtracking and went around this little embankment and was laying there.
	Is that believable, Don?
	Well, I don't want to cast any disparagement on anybody, but I had a little bit of a hard time with that one.
	I have a little bit of a hard time with the idea of a thing being shot both in the head and in the neck with a large caliber rifle with properly constructed bullets and then walking off like that.
	Are you sure it wasn't a small rifle like maybe a 270 or a 243?
	No, it was either a 30-30 or a 30-odd-6 and his whole head was nothing but it just crunched.
	All the bones were broken up in the head and that thing went quite a ways.
	There's a lot of real odd things about this that don't make any sense.
	I'm not saying you're lying.
	That's not what I'm saying.
	I'm just saying there's some really odd twists here.
	Because that implies reasoning intelligence to backtrack precisely.
	That's what I'm talking about.
	Animals, contrary to what You know, when people tend to project their own emotions or their own ideas or whatever onto animals, when you look at them objectively, what you find is that animals are nothing more than biological machines operating under a program that we call instinct.
	What about a black bear shot in the shoulder that rolls in the mud and patches its own wound?
	The bear rolled in the mud because the mud was soothing to it.
	It wasn't because it said, OK, I'm going to go roll in the mud and this will pack my wound and I'll get healed.
	No.
	The animal was reacting.
	It was responding reflexively, instinctively, if you will, and doing something that basically felt good.
	Or maybe there is more to it than instinct.
	Maybe it has the ability to learn and just want to survive.
	No.
	Instinct can adapt.
	And over time, if enough animals of a given species encounter the same set of circumstances enough times, their response to that set of circumstances becomes imprinted on the species.
	It's called a genetic drift.
	In other words, a new element is added to the instinctive program.
	Of course, you do get The same type of thing in individual animals.
	We have a name for it.
	It's called habituation.
	The fox becomes habituated to eating the chickens out of the chicken house.
	The bear becomes habituated to eating weenies out of a camper's ice chest or whatever.
	And they will repeat that behavior.
	But as far as them logically Reasoning that out.
	Oh, those are nice.
	I bet there's food in it, because that's where you keep food.
	No, that doesn't happen.
	Tell it to that elk.
	He sure was good eating elk.
	I bet he was.
	I love elk steak.
	You've got a great website, Art, and usually I'm listening to you on the internet, but I'm out of time, so I'm out in my car tonight.
	All right, thank you.
	That's real devotion to watching.
	Thanks for the story.
	East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Don's Idol.
	Hi.
	Hey there.
	Hey there.
	I've got a question for Don concerning wolf hybrids.
	Alright, where are you?
	Oh my god.
	I'm in Nashville.
	Nashville.
	Wolf hybrids.
	Yeah, that's really an interesting topic.
	Go ahead.
	Well, from what I understand, I don't know where I read it, but I've heard it several places, that basically all house pet dogs are direct descendants from wolves.
	You know, I'm sure that there's some genetic variation in behavior and stuff, but I've heard of people having wolf hybrids as pets, and some of them, you know, acting virtually like a regular house pet, and others I've heard of getting extremely aggressive.
	I was just going to ask Don if he, what he knew about wolf hybrids and, you know, if there's any myths or I wish I didn't know as much about wolf hybrids as I do because one of the things I know is how easily they can take your arm off because I very nearly lost mine to a wolf hybrid.
	Wolf hybrids are, in my experience with them, one of the most adaptable predators I've ever had an experience with.
	Adaptable?
	What do you mean adaptable?
	Adaptable in the sense that they can They can quickly adapt their behavior to different and changing circumstances.
	Very quickly and very effectively adapt their behavior.
	People might want to characterize it as intellect or learning ability or whatever, but professionals don't like to use those terms.
	At any rate, the point is they are very adaptable animals.
	They are also the most unpredictable.
	It's very unpredictable.
	They have a very, very high propensity to act what is actually normal for them, and that is to be predators.
	And what that means in many cases is usurping the pack leadership position from their owners by killing them, by preying on the neighbor's children, etc., so on, ad nauseam.
	So they're trying to be top dog all the time?
	Well, yeah.
	That is normal, natural pack predator behavior.
	Everybody wants to be the leader.
	And the only reason that they are not the leader is because some Stronger animal dominates them.
	In the pack hierarchy, in the wild of course, that's going to be the alpha male, he's the biggest, the baddest, the strongest, or whatever he is capable of keeping that leadership position.
	In the case of a domesticated animal, or a tempted domesticated animal, the pack leader is you.
	And so when he decides to make a bid for the pack leadership position... You're in the way.
	Yeah, you are the pack leader.
	And so guess who he's going to challenge?
	Yeah.
	Interesting.
	Interesting.
	I once had... I tend to have big cats.
	I tend to have cats that go over 20 pounds.
	And I once had a cat whose name was Yesu.
	And this is a true story, Don.
	Yesu and I got into a fight.
	You know, we would roughhouse a lot.
	I can believe that.
	We got into a fight.
	But when I tell you that I got into a fight with this cat, I mean this cat was going for me.
	Big time.
	It was going to harm me the best way it could.
	It was attacking and jumping at me.
	I took a coat and I wrapped it around my arm because I was going to get chewed to bits otherwise.
	And I ended up giving Yesu a boot in the can finally and booted him out the door.
	And this was an inside cat normally.
	And this cat went away for like several hours.
	And when he came back, he was all of a sudden himself again.
	And it was like he was sorry about what he did.
	He was cuddling up to me, he was purring, he was back to Mr. I love you, I love you, I'm sorry for what I did.
	It was almost like that.
	Now, it may have been some kind of challenge.
	Well, with cats, it's not going to be a pack leadership type of move there.
	Cats ordinarily are solitary in a natural environment.
	They're going to be solitary.
	They do, however, have territories.
	Which they are highly defensive of.
	And so it may be that your cat's instinct to possess and protect a territory was elicited by the roughhouse playing.
	There was a breaking point.
	At one point it was play, and then it pinched a certain point and it got real serious, yeah.
	Yeah, exactly.
	You know, the roughhouse play basically simulates a real fight.
	Whether it be a fight over a female, or a fight over a territory, whatever the case may be.
	And it simulates that.
	Well, it's not that great a leap to go from simulation or play, as we want to call it, to the real thing.
	thing and uh... so you know it's kinda like uh... you know i mean i was a kid
	that we would kill russell rasslin tussle and is that what house but
	by golly sometimes you'd reach a point where that's frame instinct
	that humans possess it would kick in and by golly
	you know i was trying to reduce the other guy to nothing but hair eyes and
	teeth I did say earlier, and then I stopped you, way at the bottom of my list in ways to go is to be eaten.
	I wouldn't want to be eaten.
	And you were starting to make some sort of response to that, and I stopped you.
	One of the most infamous cases of grizzly predation against humans has spawned, it spawned a couple of, a book by the title of Night of the Grizzlies.
	I think there was also a movie of the same title based on the same two incidents.
	They both occurred on the same night, 13 August 1967.
	One of them involved a group of friends and coworkers who were seasonal employees of Glacier Park Incorporated, a contract concessionaire.
	These people were camped out at Trout Lake in Montana's Glacier National Park.
	Earlier callers from Montana.
	Around 2 a.m.
	the group was awakened by something sniffing around their sleeping bags.
	It was a monster grizzly.
	It looked like a brahma bull in a fur coat looking for a late night snack.
	The bear took a tentative bite out of Paul Dunn's bedroll, tore the back off of his sweatshirt in the process.
	Now Dunn had been trying to follow procedure and play dead, but that was just a bit much.
	He exploded out of the nylon shroud and scurried up a tree and got about 500 milliseconds flat.
	He swallowed the shoulder by the rest of the campers, scattering into the blackness of the trees.
	All but one of them, that is.
	Whether 19-year-old Michelle Coombs was too frightened to get out of her sleeping bag or unable because of a stuck zipper remains a point of disagreement to this day.
	One report said that Dunn yelled for her to unzip her bag and get out, and she yelled back that she couldn't because the bear had the zipper in its mouth.
	But whether this was the cause or an effect of her inability to escape is pretty academic.
	In a scene right out of a cheap horror movie, The bear picked the woman up in its jaws, sleeping bag and all, and carried her screaming into the dark woods.
	The flickering orange illumination of the campfire lending a surreal stop-motion effect to the proceedings.
	Then it started eating her.
	It started eating her?
	Alive.
	Alive?
	Yes.
	Uh, this is not a myth, is it?
	It's not a real story?
	This is real?
	This is the real deal.
	God and the others listened, terrified, as she screamed out the details of her own death.
	Oh my god.
	punctuated by the soggy sounds of cracking bones and ripping flesh as the grizzly literally tore her apart.
	Hmm.
	And most of her agonized wails were unintelligible, but, my arm is gone, was one utterance all agreed on.
	Everyone was relieved when her suffering ended and her final sobbed words were,
	oh god, I'm dead, echoing faintly off the granite bluffs.
	Okay, Don.
	Hold it right there.
	We're headed toward the top of the hour.
	I'm dead.
	Well, that's it for this hour.
	We'll be back.
	This is Coast to Coast AM.
	I'm watching every motion in my foolish lover's game.
	On this endless ocean, finally lovers know no shame.
	Turning every time to some secret place inside.
	Watching in slow motion as you turn around and say, take my friend away.
	To talk with Art Bell in the Kingdom of Nigh, from east of the Rockies, Dial 1.
	West of the Rockies, including Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, 1-800-618-8255.
	including Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico.
	1-800-618-8255.
	First time callers may reach out at area code 702-727-1222.
	And you may call Art on the wildcard line at area code 702-727-1295.
	To reach Art from outside the U.S., first dial your access number to the USA, then 800-893-0903.
	This is Coast to Coast AM, from the Kingdom of Nye, with Art Bell.
	Alright, my guest's book is American Man Killers.
	It's Don's Idol.
	You can get an autographed copy.
	I don't have one.
	By calling area code 940-748-2048.
	Now, don't call.
	Don't call now, because he's on the air.
	940-748-2048.
	Later.
	four eight now don't call don't call now because he's on the air
	nine four oh seven four eight two zero four eight
	uh... i've got a fax here uh... don i'll read to you it's from uh... joe in las vegas because calls himself the
	birdman of las vegas who says i'm not a peter representative
	but i am a professional animal trainer in las vegas who's worked with my birds
	condors eagles falcons and such Also has trained many animals, including big cats.
	I'm the bird trainer for Siegfried and Roy.
	Lance Bird and Spellbound have appeared on Letterman, Leno, Discovery Channel, and much more.
	I performed the bird shows at the Tropicana and Excalibur hotels over the last nine years.
	I work to breed and release condors and hunt falcons and other prey.
	I find both your guest's point of view and Peter's point of view to be extreme at best.
	His opinions are exaggerated and miss the point.
	The point is?
	Well, I don't know.
	If I can get Joe on the phone, and I can't get an outgoing line because all my incoming lines are jammed, but if I can get Joe on the phone, we'll bring Joe up sometime here in this hour and let you talk to him.
	All right.
	West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Don Zeidel.
	Hi.
	Hi, Art.
	This is Robert in Springfield, Oregon.
	Yes, Robert.
	And your guest is obviously a very well-researched individual, although I don't agree with him on all points.
	I found from my experience that most animal attacks by domesticated animals are due to neglect and abuse.
	You want to take that one on, Don?
	That is, the only thing that I hear more often than something like that is something along the lines of, but my dog's never bitten anybody before.
	Let me ask you this, do you work with one of the animal welfare groups such as the Humane Society or something like that?
	Oh, absolutely not, no.
	Okay, well you said in your experience, I was wondering what you base the experience on?
	Just observation, things I've seen.
	I know a lot of police officers.
	I've known a couple people in animal control, things like that.
	Well, I have thousands of case histories here in my files, and I've never gone through and tabulated them, but just off the top of my head, having read them and examined them and talked to people involved in some of these cases and so on and so forth, I would have to say that 10% or less involve the circumstances you describe.
	People aren't going to admit to abusing their animals.
	What do you call abuse?
	Slapping them around, pulling their tails, pulling their ears, doing things like that.
	An animal demands respect, just like a human being.
	That right there tells me that your view of animals is anthropomorphic, therefore it is unrealistic.
	Yes, the fact of the matter is, anything will fight back when you attack it.
	I mean, hell, even a grapefruit will squirt you in the eye for all it's worth when you attack it with a spoon.
	But to say that the majority of domestic animal attacks are a defensive response to some sort of attack on the part of the owner, I'm sorry, that is just simply not the case.
	It's not anybody's fault per se, except in the sense that people have an unrealistic, rose-colored view of animals as they have been indoctrinated with it.
	Like me.
	People have been indoctrinated with the idea that, you know, animals, you know, talk to each other and, you know, and say, hey, man, what's shaking?
	Yeah, boy, you know, I mean... Well, not like that, but... No, I mean, come on.
	People go watch The Lion King, people go watch Bambi or any of the other Disney pap, and that stuff becomes imprinted in their mind, even if at a subconscious level.
	And so that...
	That has an impact in their view, in their thinking, when they interact with animals.
	And they, like I said, even if subconsciously, they expect animals to react and respond in the same way that they have been imprinted with.
	All right.
	From watching this.
	Okay.
	Well, all right.
	Here is... I got it.
	Here is the fellow who trained for Siegfried and Roy, I think most people know of them, from Las Vegas.
	He's called the Birdman of Las Vegas.
	Joe, welcome to the program.
	You're on there with Don's Idol.
	Thank you.
	You say I'm missing the point.
	What is the point?
	The point you were just making, talking about people being indoctrinated with an opinion of animals from shows like Bambi or Discovery Channel, where animals are all cute and kind and innocent.
	But there's a whole other set of people out there, and I honestly believe that you are part of this group.
	That is, creating specials, like was recently a few network specials called, When Animals Attack, or When Animals Are Loose, or When Pets Turn On You, or a number of different titles, where now imprinted in people's mind is not the million coyotes in the United States who walk past you in the middle of the night and never even make a noise.
	You don't even know that they're there.
	Like in your own words, the dozens or so that do come in contact with people and somebody can catch it on film and next thing you know it's right there on 8 o'clock prime time and now you have people who may have never had an opinion about a coyote before or a cougar or a bear or what have you.
	And now suddenly, it's, oh my god, this big, vicious, attacking monster, and I saw it on TV, and I heard this guy talk about it on the radio late at night, and if this bear comes near me, it's gonna kill me.
	Not that incident where it killed the girl at the campsite, which was probably in the peak of tourist season, when everybody's fishing the streams and camping all over the place, and the frustrated bear probably finally got pissed off, Figured it's his survival or nothing, and picked the first thing that was warm meat.
	And yes, it's unfortunate it was a girl.
	And I'm sure everybody is sorry about that.
	But like you said, the bear is programmed for survival.
	That's what it figured was its chance at survival that night.
	Fine, I'm sure that bear got blown away.
	But that doesn't account for the other 100,000 bears that were in Yellowstone or whatever that park was.
	And now, suddenly, these people, who had no opinion about bears before, who could watch a film, and listen to descriptions, and your own words!
	Flesh-eating, bone-crunching monsters!
	Now, the person who had no opinion, is gonna be a shotgun-wielding bear killer, when they really had no reason to probably be concerned in the first place, because the number of incidences, and the number of attacks, and the number of deaths, Compared to what they could be, for how many bears and how many people there are walking through the parks of our world, is actually very, very in proportion, is probably all I could really say.
	Joe, let me ask you this.
	If two parents had lived in a neighborhood all their lives, And tens of thousands of cars had passed on the street without one of them ever hitting their child and injuring them.
	Would it be safe for them then to neglect, to teach their child that look, cars are dangerous, there are certain things that you don't do, and one of the things you don't do is step out in front of a moving car in the street or chase a ball in the street.
	Wouldn't that be highly irresponsible of them?
	By the same token, those same 100,000... Hold on Joe.
	That cars are going to come off the street and come careening through the front window and into that child's bed at night.
	And yet, you could find that in Princeton where that has happened.
	Yes, that has happened, but it has also happened that children walk out in front of cars.
	And the point is, people in the past 50 to 60 years have been indoctrinated with the idea that animals are just slightly demented people in fur coats who just need a big warm hug.
	I am trying to re-instill the realities that animals are animals.
	They are biological machines operating under a program called instinct.
	Sometimes that instinct leads them to do very unsociable things to people.
	Therefore, you don't try to walk up and pet the animals.
	You don't feed the animals.
	You don't assume the animal is going to act like the animals do on TV.
	You must assume that that animal can and will hurt you if you violate its space, if you
	invade its territory without taking the appropriate precautions, etc., etc., etc.
	I'm trying to introduce a dose of reality, and the hell of it is, Joe, like in most things, reality sucks.
	We want to have these warm, fuzzy, feel-good things about animals, but the sad fact of the matter is, whenever we do that, And develop those attitudes, that's when these tragedies occur.
	So, you can eliminate much of the shotgun-toting, bear-killing maniacs that you alluded to by the simple act of education.
	Educate people about what can happen if they have the wrong idea about animal behavior and they will be less likely to insert themselves in the situation where the tragedy can occur, the tragedies will not occur, Therefore, the desire to go out and start killing the animals will diminish.
	Well, I can agree with you on that point.
	I simply think that most of these people, and I will hang myself by using my own quotes, are, you know, apartment bred, Discovery Channel watching people who don't have a connection to wildlife or nature.
	And as a society, I believe we have lost this.
	You know, we too At one point was an animal on this planet that I'm sure had our own specific place and our own specific balance.
	You know, we didn't farm more than we needed, we didn't drink more than we needed, and we didn't dump garbage where we didn't need to.
	And as that, I'm trying to think what you called it.
	Joe, may I ask you a question?
	You trained big cats?
	I have owned big cats in the past.
	Yes, I don't, not currently.
	And you trained birds for Siegfried and Roy and stuff?
	Uh-huh, and myself.
	I have condors here and eagles.
	I have 200 plus birds here.
	Is there any way that you ascribe to animals anything more than instinctual intelligence?
	Joe?
	Anything more than instinctual?
	Anything beyond pure instinctual reaction?
	See, I have become such a behaviorist in 22 years of animal training that when I see An animal react to a given whatever it is.
	I see it as a summation of the entire history of that animal.
	This includes history of exposure to what it's reacting to.
	Whether it be a signal, or a human being, or another animal, it doesn't matter.
	It's going to react according to its history, it's going to react according to its perception of the event, and it's going to react according to its amount of fear of that event.
	I just think a lot of animals are picking on people.
	A human is a six foot tall animal.
	And no other animal with the instinct for survival is going to take on a bigger beast that's going to kick its butt in battle.
	I mean, no animal, and I say no one, and I'm sorry, and I mean living creatures, no animal with this survival instinct is going to go into a suicidal fight.
	And that's why, you know, 99.9% of the time, That coyote that's no bigger than a cocker spaniel is going to trot off into the distance.
	He might hoop and holler and put on a good display, but I even find it hard to believe that a coyote has picked up a 25 or 30 pound child and shook it like a doll.
	I mean, I have a hard time with that story.
	I think somebody's exaggerating something there.
	You know, nobody's exaggerating anything.
	I have talked with the father of the child.
	I've talked with the people who investigated it.
	I've talked to other witnesses.
	I've also talked to the witnesses and read the reports from dozens and dozens of other incidents.
	And as someone who has observed coyotes first hand all of my life, I can tell you they are
	quite capable of doing that.
	Of shaking something that's almost the same size as itself?
	Yes.
	I find that strictly hard to believe.
	I have here, not within reach, but fairly close, was one of the tabloids had a big two
	page spread of an eagle that carried off a child and it made the headlines and it was
	on the front page and then it was in the middle of the spread.
	It must have been in the World Weekly Globe or something.
	Yeah, it was one of those.
	And I studied these pictures, and I looked at these pictures, and I read the story, and I called down there.
	It was actually a story from southern Mexico, and I called down there, I spoke Spanish, I spoke to the father of this child, and from my personal investigation, the entire thing was The only thing that was real was the picture of the eagle
	sitting on the back of this guy's child.
	If he was willing to scratch up this kid's back for a photo to make $1,500 for a news
	story, then he has a sicker instinct of survival than that bird ever had.
	First of all, Joe, I do not rely on the tabloids as the sources for my information.
	that's that's first and foremost closed.
	Secondly, as far as the eagle attacking the child, are you familiar with one of the early archaeological finds that's been labeled the Tongue Baby?
	Joe, I'll tell you what.
	Joe, I really thank you for coming on the program.
	We're going to have to break it off.
	We're here at the bottom of the hour and we'll continue with that story after the break.
	Joe, thank you very much.
	Thank you, Joe.
	All right, thank you.
	Take care.
	We're going to break here at the bottom of the hour.
	My guest is Don Ziedle.
	His book is American Man Killers.
	Now, I have on my studio cam put up a picture of his book.
	I'm holding his book up.
	You can see it there, if you would like.
	He will provide you with an autographed copy of his book, if you want one.
	You can get it by calling area code 940-748-2048.
	So 940-748-2048.
	Back in a moment, this is Coast to Coast Air.
	Don Zidle is my guest.
	I stopped you in mid-sentence with the bottom of the hour, Don.
	You want to finish up what you were saying?
	Sure, but real quickly, for the benefit of listeners who might want to copy the book but aren't necessarily interested in having my scrawl on a page, I'd like to give an 800 number as an alternative for them.
	Oh, sure.
	1-800-451-4788.
	How much is your book, by the way?
	$24.95 plus shipping.
	$24.95 plus shipping.
	All right.
	And that applies same price if they buy it from you?
	Yes.
	So they can get it one of two ways.
	But if they call your number, they get an autographed copy.
	Yes, exactly.
	Calling the other number, they get just the book without a chicken scratch in it.
	Not likely.
	Most of them are going to want an autographed copy.
	940 is the area code.
	940-748-2048.
	All right.
	This is a tough question.
	You can choose not to answer this if you like.
	It comes from Greg in British Columbia.
	And he says, Art asked Don if he believes Animals have souls?
	No.
	And if he is for the Darwinian way of evolution?
	I do believe in evolution.
	I do not necessarily subscribe to all of the elements as portrayed by some researchers.
	Really?
	Yes.
	Isn't that like being a little pregnant?
	Well, no.
	I mean, either we came from the animal world or we didn't.
	Well, no, hang on.
	I don't think there is any denying that man, at one time, did live in a primal state.
	There is no denying that.
	There is a prehistory of human habitation on the earth.
	Man, as well as any other animal, and man is, for all imbalances purpose, he is a mammal.
	Man has adapted.
	He has changed over the years.
	He's changed his behavior.
	He's changed his appearance in various degrees and so on and so forth.
	All of these as functions of his environment.
	What is called evolution is in many cases nothing more than adaptation.
	And of course, there are some who would argue, well, adaptation is evolution.
	And so, you know, that switch came first, the chicken or the egg kind of question there.
	The point is, we, as well as any other animal, we adapt to changes in our environment.
	And if that adaptation is sustained and long term, you wind up with a genetic drift and therefore a permanent change.
	Were we once hairy apes?
	I do not... I'm ambivalent on that question at this point.
	Okay.
	All right.
	West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Don Zytel.
	Hi.
	Hello.
	Hello.
	You can hear me all right?
	I hear you fine.
	Where are you?
	I'm Ben, and I'm in Sacramento, California.
	All right.
	I love your show, and the lady who couldn't reach you for two years wasn't trying hard enough because I got you tonight.
	There you are.
	Okay.
	I love your guest, Don.
	Don is his name?
	Yes, sir.
	Don is your name?
	I think you're great.
	If anybody has any controversy about you I think they better read the book first because listening to what you have to say probably isn't enough to get all angry about and I'll tell that to everybody listening.
	Okay, I've got a little story and you tell me how it ends.
	We've got these little whitetails up here on the coast and it was a little two-pointer so they couldn't shoot it so a couple guys said they had it trapped in a little ravine area and they wanted to see if they could wrestle it.
	You tell me how it ended.
	I have a feeling like you wound up with a couple of bloody hunters and a little white tail exiting frolic in your heels over the ridge.
	Oh yeah.
	Really?
	Yeah.
	They just thought they could wrestle it down to the ground and have some fun with it.
	I've seen those hooks and they are razor sharp.
	They are round the rocks and stuff like that that doesn't leave blunt edges on your feet.
	That thing just tore them to shreds quicker than they could.
	All of his friends were laughing and everything.
	He had about 16 stitches.
	I see in the book that a white tail doe is capable of a most convincing Lizzie Borden
	impersonation giving you a lot more than 40 whacks with those axe edge tools.
	That's only with the front two.
	He didn't even use his horns or anything.
	That was just his feet.
	I wonder if you ever heard, this is kind of on a different edge in the sense that they
	aren't predators, but because we feed them they get too used to it.
	Over in San Francisco, I think it was about five years ago, at the zoo, of course, which
	I don't really like the idea of zoos.
	When that same subject, the last caller, the animal trainer, he seems to have some kind
	of problem with what you're saying and everything.
	It sounds like you're just making factual accounts of things that are happening.
	I don't make this stuff up.
	You know, to say that, well, yeah, you're more likely to get struck by lightning, yadda, yadda, yadda.
	That's not an accurate comparison, and I'll tell you why.
	Everybody in the United States will at some time in his life be exposed to a potential lightning strike.
	All that's 250 million chances out of every year.
	of every year.
	However, the at-risk group for a wild animal attack is much, much smaller, because it's
	only the people who are exposed to it.
	It's sort of like comparing the difference between the chances of an NFL quarterback
	and a CPA getting their neck broken on Super Bowl Sunday.
	And as I said to Joe earlier, one of the reasons that many of these attacks occur is just because
	of ignorance on the victim's part.
	Do away with the ignorance and you will certainly curtail, I don't know that you'd ever eliminate, because there are some of these things that happen that there's absolutely nothing you could have done about it.
	But you will certainly curtail the number of instances of this type by simple education.
	By the way, did you know in Las Vegas you can make bets on stuff like that?
	That the quarterback will get his neck broken on Super Bowl Sunday of a certain team?
	In a certain quarter, in fact.
	In a given quarter.
	First time caller on the line, you're on there with Don Zydal.
	Hi.
	Hi, gentlemen.
	How are you doing tonight?
	Alright.
	How's your back, Art?
	It's all right.
	We're picking you up here on Oklahoma City's talk radio, 930 AM WKYT.
	Now, that is the way you do a promo.
	Yes, sir.
	Yes, sir.
	Say, Don, it's a pleasure to hear a guy of your caliber on radio.
	Say, I had something I needed to let you in on.
	Back when I was a teenager, when I was living with my dad, We were briefly over in the country of Iran between 1974 and 1977.
	During my brief stay there, during that time frame, I became familiar with what the local people of Iranians called their desert wild dogs.
	And these were canines that were there as a result of foreigners who would briefly live in their country and they would bring their dogs with them.
	Sometimes these dogs would run off into the desert.
	And as a result, the Iranians said that these dogs became I'm telling you gentlemen it scared the hell out of me and I'll never look at a dog the same again was back in 1975 we lived in a three-story apartment complex over there and roughly about 800 yards from us there was a 10 acre compound which was kind of like a summer camp for privileged people of the area
	They would send their kids off to and it was like maybe a two month time frame that they would be there and this compound was walled in by a brick wall that was roughly three feet thick and about 12 feet tall and they had street lamps all around this area and one night I heard a lot of barking and it woke me up and I looked out the balcony and I actually counted roughly 36 wild dogs and they were actually attempting a siege on this compound and one thing that I noticed is that there were a lot of the bigger dogs were the ones that would try to jump on the gate and the camp manager inside he had roughly about 20 adult males and they weren't allowed to use firearms within the compound out of fear of ricocheting off the walls maybe hitting one of the kids and so they were reduced to having using weapons like spears
	And, uh, basically big sticks and rocks.
	And, uh, it lasted for about, like, I'd say about an hour and a half until the dogs finally just gave up and ran off.
	You're talking about a whole assault?
	Yes, sir.
	And believe me, uh, when I first saw it, I ran into my dad's room and I said, Dad, you've got to get up.
	You've got to see this.
	And, uh, what he did is he looked out and he said, Oh my God, he said, get on the roof, get on the roof.
	And we both ran up there on the roof.
	And we looked down, and you could get a clear view from the street lamps that were up at night, because this siege was like about 2.30 in the morning.
	And the thing that my dad noticed, he says, they are attempting a siege.
	He says they got two iron gates, and the front iron gate, which was the main one, was only eight feet tall.
	And we noticed four dogs that were, they looked like, they were about the size of Great Danes, but most of them were like short-haired dogs.
	And these four dogs that were at the main gate would attempt to jump and leap up and get their hooves hooked on to the gate.
	And you could hear the scratching of their back paws as they were trying to get up there.
	That is freaky.
	From that experience, I needed to ask Don, hypothetically speaking, what conditions do you think In this country would have to be met before a situation like this that I witnessed in Iran would happen here, where we would see unwanted dogs going out into remote areas, forming packs, a social life.
	And going after people.
	Yes sir.
	I've said news for you, that's happening right now.
	That is happening right now.
	Record nor have I observed an incident of the magnitude that you have described.
	But in the book, I described one particular case of a boy who was, it seemed like he was about 11 or 12 years old, something like that, and he was fishing in a creek at some relative's farm that they were visiting.
	And a pack of, I think consisting of five feral dogs, attacked him.
	And he, in a maneuver that he had learned in a hunter safety course that he had taken the year prior, knew he couldn't fight, he knew he couldn't run, so he just rolled up in a fetal position, wrapped his arms around his head and neck, and pulled his knees up to protect his stomach and chest, and just kind of toughed it out, and started screaming for help.
	Fortunately, someone from the house heard it, came running down with a gun, shot a couple of dogs, ran the others off, and he survived with medical treatment.
	But that scenario has played out time and time again, not only in rural settings as this one was, but even in urban settings.
	Alright, well that brings me back to his question, and really it was a good one.
	Can you imagine Conditions?
	I mean, frequently we talk of scenarios, Mad Max-like scenarios, where society deteriorates, something goes tragically wrong.
	There's a Mad Max kind of thing going on.
	Animals are left on their own.
	Animals that were fed by humans suddenly aren't.
	They get together.
	Would there be any conditions under which you would imagine that a mass attack like that could occur?
	Certainly.
	A large-scale natural disaster, such as an earthquake, for example.
	Yeah, there you go.
	Whatever.
	Civil insurrection, etc., etc.
	Alright, I can't not ask you about this.
	It may be myth, but for some time now, and believe me, you will not get laughs in Mexico when you talk about this, there is some creature called the chupacabra.
	Which translates, apparently, to goat sucker.
	And I'll tell you something.
	I've got Linda Moulton Howe, who's a very careful investigator, who's made a lot of trips to Puerto Rico and Central and South America and Mexico.
	And there have been hundreds of animals that have been killed by this possibly mythical creature.
	Anyway, their bodies have been found without blood in them.
	Obviously, you said Chupacabra, so you're familiar with the myth, or the reality, or whatever it is.
	Any comments?
	I suspect a combination of things are at work there.
	One, I do believe that some of the victims may have, in fact, fallen under the fangs and claws of some form of natural predator.
	Down in Mexico, you have jaguars that come up from Central America, they're native to Mexico, you have Jaguars, which they're not real prolific man killers, although they're certainly capable.
	You also have the Puma or Cougar down in that region, which could be responsible in some cases.
	There's even the Mexican Black Bear, which could be responsible in some cases.
	Feral dogs, any number of predators.
	That could be responsible for some of them, but what I think may be happening in many of these cases, especially the ones where there's no obvious trauma, physical trauma to the body other than just the loss of the blood.
	Neck bites.
	What I think you're seeing there is the very same thing that you see very, very frequently in Africa, and it is a occult ritual slaying That is carried out either as a means of extortion or at least in the mind of the practitioner to impart some kind of power to themselves.
	Do you remember the case a few years ago in Matamoros, Mexico where these college students that would go over across the border, they were being lured away with promises of sex and then they were being I think that what you may be seeing is something like that.
	It's black magic so to speak.
	uh... shamans that worked for these drug lords and uh... the purpose of this was to was to bring uh...
	uh... protection on these drug lords from the the police and what have you
	so i think that what you may be seeing is something like that it's black magic
	so to speak uh... it the the blood drainage been carried out by human actors
	for and occult purpose But I think that the legend of the Chupacabra may be born from a combination of the two things.
	You've got, you know, some wild predator victims here.
	Sure.
	And then you've also got some human victims, and it all kind of melds together to create the Chupacabra legend.
	All right.
	Wild Card, no, West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Don Zytel.
	Hi.
	Good morning, Mark.
	Good morning, Don.
	Morning.
	Where are you, sir?
	I'm calling from Como Country up in Seattle.
	All right.
	I'd like to relate a quick story that I experienced down in San Francisco.
	I was in Golden Gate Park one day at the Arboretum, which is a nice place with flowers and everything.
	Nice springtime.
	And there was a lady with about a three-year-old by the pond.
	A couple geese there.
	And granted, their wings were clipped and everything, but she says to her little son, we'll go up and pet the nice bird.
	Well, this bird just lowered its head and charged at this person, at this little kid.
	Luckily, it didn't bite the kid in the face.
	It bit him in the rear end.
	Now, it's basically that dandy factor where the people think that they see this thing on TV or whatever, and they're wild.
	Granted, it was in an urban area, but people just do not realize that animals are animals.
	Exactly.
	That is my basic point.
	Animals are animals.
	Now, we have a civilization.
	If our civilization broke down, would the animal civilization break down at the same time?
	No.
	Not at all.
	In fact, I think you'd probably see a proliferation in the sense that if our civilization broke down, the care that is being given to domestic animals would cease.
	Uh, therefore, these domestic animals would be left to their own devices.
	They would, therefore, revert to their instinctual behaviors.
	And, uh, yeah, we'd end up having animals running all over the place, eating everything in sight, eating each other, eating us.
	So, so, so from, so you wouldn't say that their civilization broke down.
	Ours did.
	And because we're not giving them what they need anymore, they would take what they need.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Simple as that.
	Simple survival.
	All right, listen.
	Here's the story.
	I've got one more hour of my program.
	You're welcome to it if you want to stick around, or you can go to sleep.
	Your choice.
	All right.
	That's entirely up to you.
	You're skinning this kid.
	I'm just tolling the tale.
	I don't skin cats.
	But I will certainly keep you on for another hour, Don.
	So stay right where you are, all right?
	Don's idol is my guest.
	His book is American Man Killers.
	And if you want to check out my studio cam, you'll see a copy of it there.
	You can get an autographed copy by calling 940-748-2048.
	by calling 940-748-2048.
	We'll be right back.
	Thank you for watching.
	heart anymore. If you love her then you must send her somewhere where she's never been
	before. From the Kingdom of Nye, this is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell. From east of the
	Rockies, call Art at 1-800-825-5033. West of the Rockies, including Montana, Wyoming,
	Colorado and New Mexico.
	First-time callers may reach Art at area code 702-727-1222.
	And you may fax Art at area code 702-727-8499.
	Callers may reach Art at area code 702-727-1222 and you may fax Art at area code 702-727-8499.
	Please limit your faxes to one or two pages.
	This is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
	Now again, here's Art.
	Once again, words of love.
	With animals, soft words of love seem to work.
	I have a feeling Don may argue with that.
	We'll talk about it.
	Good morning, everybody.
	Don's Idol is my guest.
	American Mankiller is his book.
	I will get back to him in a moment.
	From time to time I have Native Americans on the program and they have a different attitude about animals.
	And Don, here's what somebody writes.
	Elizabeth writes the following.
	Art, under what rock did you find this guy?
	Did your talk with the ghost children, representatives of the great elders, fall on deaf ears?
	Aren't you just a bit too polite?
	Mother Earth will be served well when some beautiful creature Who has every right to be here, finally sinks its teeth into this poor soul's red neck.
	Otherwise, it was a favorable fax.
	Elizabeth, you're a very nice lady.
	First of all, when she says rights, animals do not have rights, period.
	Well, they have what we give to them.
	That's true.
	But what people fail to understand is they talk about wanting to give animals rights.
	You cannot have rights without responsibility.
	And animals have no sense of responsibility.
	Therefore, you cannot give them rights.
	Well, I mean, you can do anything you want to do.
	You can give them rights if you want to.
	Well, it depends on who you are.
	Let's put it this way.
	Animals are not afforded rights.
	either by fiat or by god is to the rockies you're on the air with don's i don't know
	i don't uh... called from uh...
	high school maryland now and how you doing partner
	alright uh... question
	uh... pack of dogs it does not constitute
	more than five actually i was attacked by two and
	i was able to send them off Well, you were fortunate.
	I know I was.
	Well, I had options, too.
	I had a tree, but I also had an umbrella, and they were about 100 yards off.
	Trees and umbrellas are good.
	Well, I was shaking the umbrella and just scared the hell out of the dog.
	Oh.
	Dogs.
	It was, well, they weren't feral, either.
	It was a Labrador and a German Shepherd.
	They just decided they didn't like your face.
	Yes, I guess.
	By the way, just for what it's worth, I have been bitten by dogs over my lifetime, more times than I can remember.
	And one of the most aggressive breeds that are not traditionally viewed as aggressive have been Labradors.
	Well, I was only bitten once in my whole life by a dog, and it was a stupid little ankle biter.
	But that was the only time.
	Why have you been bitten so many times?
	Now, maybe they sense That, um, maybe they sounds like Elizabeth here.
	Well, now people, people ask me, you must be really mean and rotten to dogs.
	No, it's not bad at all.
	No?
	Because of the way I have lived all of my life, I've had more exposure to more types of dogs in more varied circumstances than most people ever encounter.
	Therefore, the Circumstances under which a person might be bitten, I have found myself in them far more often than the average person does.
	Oh, that's a good answer.
	West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Don's Idol.
	Hi.
	Hi.
	This is Judy and Merced.
	Okay, Judy, you're going to have to kind of yell at us a little bit.
	Go ahead.
	Oh, I'm going to have to yell?
	A little bit, yeah.
	Outside then.
	Wanting to ask him is I'll give you a real kind of brief synopsis of what happened and then maybe you can kind of tell me whether I was like hallucinating We lived in Missouri And I had a horse and it was a nice You know spring day the birds were out flowers were to the you know, everything was going and good and me and my horse felt like running so we just took off down this dirt road and and having a good old time nobody around didn't hear nothing and Come flying around this corner she slams on the brakes and the next thing I know there's a heifer down and I'm not talking like a little 200 pound heifer I'm talking like a 600 pound heifer here and she's still steaming the blood is you know just gushing out of her neck and there's like eight dogs around her and the leader dog you know the head of the pack or whatever you want to call him there was standing right there at her head and me and my horse is about maybe eight ten feet from him
	And from what I had been told as a child, I knew better than to turn around and run, even though they had just brought down a kill because they were all on guard.
	So we kind of sidestepped by him.
	But I swear to God, and you can think I'm crazy if you want, this dog, he had gold eyes and he had the most intelligent look.
	It's like he was weighing the situation out.
	And he was, I swear, he was taking a, you know, sizing me up, figuring out whether it was worth the effort or not.
	They already had a kill, I didn't appear to be a threat, and he basically turned around and let me go.
	Is that normal?
	Yeah, that's pretty much standard pack predator behavior.
	If you're not getting too close to their kill, or if there's no kill around, if you're not presenting a plausible predation opportunity, then yeah, that sounds like pretty well normal.
	I've got something I want you to listen to.
	I'm not going to make comment on it beyond that.
	I'm just going to have you listen and see if you can tell me what this is, alright?
	Alright.
	See if you recognize this.
	Any idea what that might be?
	me.
	Well, there's some sounds in there that sound a little bit like a swine.
	Yeah?
	And then there's other sounds in there that make me want to think it's a chacma baboon.
	Uh-huh.
	Whatever it is, I don't want to meet it.
	All right.
	First time caller... By the way, it's supposed to be Bigfoot.
	First time caller line, you're on there with Don Zadel.
	Hi, this is Chris in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
	Hey, Chris.
	Two things.
	The first one is just a weird story.
	We used to have this cat.
	He wasn't a very big cat.
	He probably weighed about 15 pounds or so.
	Medium?
	I wouldn't say he was even a year old yet.
	He started bringing rattlesnakes up onto the front porch.
	Yeah, cats will prey on snakes.
	Some of them are more deft at it than others are, but yeah, cats will prey on snakes.
	But I saw this cat kill snakes that had a hard time dragging.
	It was really weird.
	The main thing I want to talk to you about is I've been working in dog training for a long time.
	It's strange to me how over time I keep having weird experiences with wild animals.
	I don't know if it's a matter of learning body language.
	Or learning how to position myself.
	People like to go to the zoo with me because I can make the lion roar every time I go.
	By looking at him right.
	I experience the same thing.
	Because I have observed animals and striven to learn, not necessarily how to communicate with them, but how they communicate with each other.
	I have learned to pick up on their body language and to understand what their next move is probably going to be based on their body language.
	And by the same token, I've also learned how to... Well, then how come you've been bitten so many times?
	Well, because most of the times that I've been bitten, it was either A, when I wasn't paying attention and wasn't expecting to be bitten, didn't know there was a dog around, for example, or B, it was in a situation where It was a matter of either get bitten or try to outrun the dog.
	I've been bitten six times and it was usually a result of ignorance while learning.
	In the early stages, yes.
	I trained dogs, by the way, for a while.
	I was a pack dog trainer.
	I trained in Schutzen.
	There's some of that.
	Well, at any rate, as far as the, yeah, you're right, you know, I swear, at the local zoo here, there is this one orangutan that would marry me in a heartbeat.
	She comes up to that, every time I walk in, she comes up to that glass enclosure and she makes little kissy faces at me and she tries to reach out and caress me and all this other stuff.
	She's either in love with me or she thinks that I'm her long lost uncle.
	But the point is, I can, through my body language, I can signal a predatory intent, I can signal a challenge, I can signal submissiveness, I can signal benign behavior, or whatever.
	And the animals pick up on that.
	And they respond to it.
	Well, it's true.
	I mean, like with a dog, for example, you can get down on all fours, put your butt up in the air, and start wiggling, and they will, that's playtime.
	Well, yeah.
	But by the same token, I don't know if you've ever tried this experiment or not, and I do not recommend you do it unless you, A, know what you're doing, and B, have a relatively small dog involved.
	Just stare the dog in the eye.
	Oh, I know.
	You know, you'll get one of three responses.
	Same with a cat.
	You know what a cat will do?
	The cat will spit at you.
	Yeah.
	The dog will either, he'll either cower and try to go away and hide.
	He will come cringing to your feet in a submission display.
	Or he will adopt an openly aggressive posture in response to your challenge.
	I don't recommend that, folks.
	Don't try that at home.
	Don't try that at home.
	But the point is, that is just one of the more simple and obvious elements of non-verbal communication, if you want to characterize it as that, that you can elicit a response in an animal.
	But see, some people, they have learned unconsciously To use this body language, and to even read body language without even realizing they're doing it, and they can interpret this as an exchange of emotion between themselves and the animal.
	Now here's one.
	Tell me if this is true.
	Again, I'm a cat person, so I can, with my feral cat, when I'm in his presence, I can look at him right in the eye and blink my eyes, and he relaxes.
	That relaxes him.
	When I start blinking my eyes, that relaxes him.
	It's sending some kind of signal to him that, you know, it's not a stare down or something.
	It's not a stained eye contact.
	No, I guess that's it.
	Wild Card Line, you're on the air with Don Zadel.
	Hi.
	Zadel.
	Hello.
	Am I on?
	Yes, you are.
	You're on.
	Oh.
	Yes, Don.
	Yes.
	You're telling a tale that really needs to be told.
	Well, thank you, partner.
	It's unfortunate that most of the people that ought to be hearing it are not listening.
	Yeah, they're asleep.
	Either literally or figuratively.
	Right.
	Where did the echo come from?
	Oh, the reason I called was to, early in the program you had talked about the nature of the human animal.
	Yes.
	The human, we as human animals, we are naturally frugivores.
	We're not, and this explains why Art was stating that vegetarians that he had met look so sickly and anemic or whatever.
	Because we're not herbivores.
	Somebody who is on simply vegetables, you know, green leafy or whatever.
	Simply are not getting their nutritional needs met.
	We like the higher apes.
	And chimpanzees are a poor example of this.
	They are not one of the higher apes.
	We can talk about gorillas and orangutans.
	Who are fruit eaters.
	Just like we naturally are.
	And we are in no respect to whatsoever carnivores.
	As a matter of fact, the eating of meat is uh...
	is the cause of a great deal of the uh...
	uh...
	problems and diseases all of the human of humans
	overnight a strongly dis disagree with you on that point because
	if we were not supposed to be eating meat our digestive system could not
	and would not process well i guess this is the news do not process it very well
	Well mine sure does.
	I can eat a nice big half raw steak and I feel like Godzilla.
	I eat a salad and I feel like Bambi.
	Every scientific study that's been made, anthropologically or physiologically of the human animal, Well, I'll give you the reasons for this.
	If you look at a carnivore, a carnivore has a very short digestive track.
	Maybe you are.
	There have been a few and I question the methods that they used in some of them.
	Well, I'll give you the reasons for this.
	If you look at a carnivore, a carnivore has a very short digestive track.
	A carnivore produces a highly potent hydrochloric acid in order to digest the meat, to break
	it down.
	We, being frugivores, we produce a very weak hydrochloric acid.
	Our digestive system is long convoluted.
	I am not a frugivore.
	You are naturally a frugivore.
	I am not.
	Now, you may not be a fruit eater.
	But we are naturally frugivores.
	I am a fruit eater.
	Fruit's fine.
	And it's great right after your hamburger.
	We are, in fact, omnivores.
	We're not omnivores.
	Well, I am.
	You may eat a wide variety of things, but that doesn't make you anything different than what you naturally are, which is a frugivore.
	I am not, David.
	We're not carnivores.
	Look, if you take a true carnivore, probably one of the closest things to a true carnivore on the planet, other than some of the ocean-going mammals, and fish of course, is the polar bear.
	A polar bear would starve to death, chained to a salad bar, for the simple reason that his metabolism You cannot turn vegetable matter into the resources his body needs, period.
	Biology precludes eating outside of your food service classification that your body needs.
	It's just that simple.
	You can turn a cow loose in a meat market and it will starve to death.
	uh... it even if it shows to eat the meat it it's digestive system is not set
	up to process it our digestive system whether by design or accident
	is set up to process damn near anything well you know they'll tell little horror stories about
	people uh... when they're uh... cut open in uh...
	after death you know they'll find five pounds of undigested something or
	Oh, God.
	But, you know, look, he's just on no fruit of war.
	Fruit's fine.
	Let's have a little piece of it after we've had our steak.
	East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Don's Idol.
	Hi.
	Hi.
	Thanks for having me on.
	Sure.
	My name's Anna.
	Hi, Anna.
	I'm in Texas.
	Don't have a lot of time, Anna.
	Okay.
	I would like to submit that animals, while they're Well, their value systems aren't the same as ours.
	They do feel a sense of responsibility.
	Case in point being my cats bringing me their kills, MP and police dogs that have continuously thrown themselves into the line of fire, bomb-sniffing dogs who could just as easily be out in a field of grass playing, but they're... Alright, I can see this is going to take some dialogue, so hold on during the break, okay?
	Okay.
	I mean, we're talking about training here, we're talking about I don't think that's a sign of intelligence.
	I don't think that's exactly, here daddy, look what I killed, take a look at this, do
	you want to play with it? I don't think that's a sign of intelligence. We'll be right back.
	We'll be right back.
	If you have a fax for Art Bell in the Kingdom of Nigh, send it to him at area code 702.
	702.727.8499. 702.727.8499.
	If you have a fax for Art Bell in the Kingdom of Nigh, send it to him at area code 702.
	702.727.8499. 702.727.8499.
	727-8499, 702-8888.
	702-727-8499.
	Please limit your faxes to one or two pages.
	This is Coast to Coast AM, with Art Bell.
	Good morning, everybody.
	My guest is Don Ziedle.
	His book is American Man-Killers, and he will be right back.
	Bombs in the desert.
	Prophetic music, huh?
	First India, now Pakistan.
	I'm writing about it, I won't cry The bombs in the desert, the bombs that keep coming
	The wind is easing, the time to be young Bombs in the desert
	Prophetic music, huh?
	First India, now Pakistan Alright, well we'll get back to our...
	The wonderful, wacky world of animals that attack and kill people in a moment
	The End All right, here we go.
	Don Seidel, back on the air again.
	Don, welcome back.
	Thank you, partner.
	You bet.
	To say that animals engaging in the activities that the earlier caller before the break was describing is Don, you know what?
	representative of a value system is like saying that birds cream their feathers because they
	want to look nice.
	First of all.
	Secondly, to illustrate that animal behavior is a genetic imprint, wouldn't most people
	who view animals with the anthropomorphic view say that their care and nurturing of
	their young is a value?
	Don, you know what?
	I forgot where I put this listener.
	It might be this line.
	Were you on earlier?
	Hello?
	Well, hi.
	Were you on before the break?
	That was me.
	That was you?
	Okay, good.
	Would you say that mothering and nurturing behavior in animals is evidence of a value system?
	Not particularly.
	I've seen human beings who don't take very good care of their young.
	I'm saying if they do take good care, that they nurture and care for and so on and so forth, is that indicative of a value system?
	No, that's a survival instinct.
	You think it's survival instinct?
	Well, you are right, but animals do not have a value system.
	Period.
	They have survival instincts.
	Period.
	And that's it.
	They are biological machines.
	So you're saying the NP dog that gets itself blown away for its handler is just following training?
	Yeah, that's it.
	It's a Pavlovian response to a stimulus.
	I started to have a hard time with that one.
	I can't see it.
	There are dogs that have done things that are completely indecipherable.
	They can only be a conscious decision to help out.
	You can see that same behavior in any wild canine predator when it comes to defending pack territory, pack possessions, or the pack itself.
	A hyena, the matriarch of a hyena troop, will attempt to face down a 400 pound African lion that is attacking the hyena pack.
	But she's not doing it out of any sense of loyalty or anything like that.
	It is an instinctive protection.
	All right, young lady, you said explain what now?
	Explain why cats have been known to defend their masters.
	No, I haven't heard about that one.
	Well, let me explain something to you.
	Well, my mother related this to me.
	She said when I was a baby, she was shaving her legs with an electric razor, and I was on the floor on a blanket near her.
	And the cat that we owned at the time actually launched herself at that electric razor.
	And she was afraid of it.
	Well, they don't like noises like that, though.
	Yeah, that's a... I mean, that cat would have launched itself at a squeaking ball or anything else making a buzzing noise like that.
	Vacuum cleaners, too.
	That's just instinctive.
	Yeah, vacuum cleaners, too.
	But there really are stories of particularly dogs that have done things that go far beyond or seem to go far beyond instinctual.
	To protect their owners, to save their owners, that kind of thing.
	Well, without observing the incident, it's difficult to pigeonhole it into a specific behavior category, but you can generalize it very safely by saying that when dogs do things that we call courageous or noble or whatever, they are following an instinctive urge.
	And when we do them?
	When we do them, because we have the ability to rationalize and to reason, Not always, but in most cases, we are following some sort of a value system.
	Not always, but most of the time we are.
	A lot of mothers, unless they're held back, will rush into a flaming house to save their child.
	Certainly.
	Instinctually.
	You agree that's instinct in many cases?
	I think that in many cases it is instinctive, yes.
	But in other cases, I think it's a case of a conscious decision and a willingness to sacrifice self-knowing.
	Not knowing that it's possible, but knowing absolutely that their own life or limb will be lost in the endeavor, they still make a conscious decision to do it.
	We're beginning to get to a very fine line, though.
	A very fine line.
	I mean, if you look at what a mother does, unless five firemen hold her back, she's going back in there whether she'll burn up or not.
	It's very difficult.
	First of all, firemen hold it back.
	People can do amazing things under the influence of adrenaline.
	Amazing things.
	There was a little cat recently that went into a burning house and brought out five kittens.
	This cat was just totally burned up.
	They saved its life somehow, but it went in and got those five kittens and brought them out, one at a time.
	Again, I would cite instinctive behavior.
	Well, how would you delineate the difference between what that cat did and what a mother would do for a child?
	Well, without the ability to be inside the head of the human mother and knowing what her thought processes were, I cannot say that.
	Of course, I'm not a psychologist either.
	We're getting into an area that another... We are, but I guess I'm trying to say both seem very instinctual, basic and instinctual.
	Well, yeah.
	Mothering behavior is instinctive to a very great degree.
	What form it takes is consistent and constant throughout the rest of the animal kingdom, but that is not true among humans.
	All right.
	West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Don's Idol.
	Hi.
	Hi.
	This is Catherine, Portland, Oregon.
	Hello, Catherine.
	Hi.
	Oh, Don, you're the man!
	I don't agree with everything you've said, but I like your stories.
	Well, I have two quick domestic animal attack stories.
	One just happened last week.
	I was walking down, late in the evening, a neighborhood street.
	I was walking down the middle in the case of human predators, and all I heard behind me was a guttural grunt and the clicking of this dog's nails on the concrete.
	I was being rushed from behind when my instincts kicked in and I turned sideways in my backpack.
	I dropped it down to hold it between me and the dog and dropped my head and my eyes and
	just stood sideways to the dog and he reached for a halt and turned and walked away.
	Yeah, non-threatening but not running either.
	Luckily for him because I also pulled out my 120,000 volt stun gun.
	I like the way you think.
	Thank you.
	I had a cat attack.
	We have seven feral cats here.
	When we first started bringing them in from the field behind our house, I had a domestic male cat who thought he was the king of the house and I brought in a female with her kittens and he sat in the house staring at me the whole day.
	I went out to the garden and he followed me out to the garden and sat there staring at me.
	He thought about this before he did it.
	He just attacked my leg.
	I had to kick him to get him off and he ran away from home.
	He was very angry.
	He was sizing you up.
	Predatory animals are very astute at sizing up rivals to decide if they can take them.
	He was sizing you up, and he made the decision.
	He decided to do it.
	And, by the way, for whatever reason, animals so disposed seem to just automatically recognize the females of our species as being more susceptible to attack than the males.
	I had the sense that he thought I was his female, that he was in charge around here.
	Can I ask you a very personal question without offending you?
	No, I wouldn't be offended.
	Go ahead.
	Was it that time of the month being a chance?
	Yes, actually.
	I had thought of that.
	That's right.
	That's probably what precipitated that.
	The attack, really.
	It was awfully close to having brought in another female cat.
	And he left.
	He never came back.
	He just was not happy with me.
	All right.
	Well, we appreciate the call.
	Thank you.
	And I understand exactly what you're saying.
	I'm sure that's basic and instinctual as well.
	First time caller on the line, you're on the air with Don Seidel.
	Hi.
	Hi.
	Morning.
	Good morning.
	Where are you?
	I'm in Helena, Montana.
	OK.
	Great show art.
	Don, I don't know if you heard about the incident up here last spring, but I've never... I'm 40 and I've never heard of it in my whole life.
	I've been hunting and fishing forever.
	My great-uncle's never heard of it, but a grizzly bear I just never heard of that type of behavior between bears before, and nobody up here ever heard of it before.
	Grizzlies will predate on black bears given the opportunity to do so.
	They generally can't do it very successfully because the blacks are so astute at climbing trees, whereas grizzlies are not.
	And so they don't prey on them that often, but grizzlies being the opportunists that they are, any kind of carry-on, that's top-flat stuff as far as they're concerned.
	Oh yeah, that gives them a lot of flat content.
	Just to give you another perspective on that same thing.
	I don't even remember how many cases on file here of black bears digging up murder victims that had their bodies taken out and buried in a shallow grave, the kind of thing you hear on the news all the time.
	Black bears digging them up and eating them.
	Another thing, after hunting bears and learning about their behavior, I disagree with the analogy that you just lay down and cover up when it comes to a black bear.
	No, you never want to play dead if we get a black bear attack.
	No, because you'll be lunch.
	Oh yeah, absolutely.
	Black bears are far less inclined to attack for any reason other than predation than grizzlies are.
	Grizzlies may attack just because they don't like the way you part your hair.
	Whereas if a black bear attacks in a concerted, determined attack, It is with one purpose in mind.
	He wants to eat you.
	So your best defense against a black bear attack is to fight that son of a biscuit eater like there's no tomorrow.
	Because if you don't, there won't be.
	You bet, and I agree with that.
	I've heard a lot of people say, Lay down, cover up, curl up in a ball, black bear, you don't want to do that.
	Playing dead in a black bear attack will get you that way for real.
	Right.
	You know what my problem would be?
	I wouldn't be able to recognize the difference between the two bears and of course I'd die.
	I'm curious.
	Let's see what this does to you, Don.
	There's a hunter out in the woods.
	He's tracking a ten point buck or something.
	And there's a animal rights kind of person Yelling, Run Bambi!
	Run!
	You ever run into those people?
	Oh, yes.
	Yeah?
	I... I try to suppress my instincts and let my reason rule in those circumstances.
	Uh-huh.
	And I don't do what my instincts tell me to do.
	Okay.
	Well, that's good.
	Uh, Wild Card Line, you're on the show with Don Sidle.
	Hello.
	Hi, this is Dagny calling from Chicago at WLS, which is the ABC radio station.
	Now, that's how to do it.
	That's the way to do a promo.
	Good.
	As good as WLS is.
	I just noticed you kind of get happy about that.
	Well, good morning, Mr. Bell and guests.
	I want to hold you co-responsible for keeping me up way past my bedtime for about a year now.
	Thank you.
	All right, would you turn your radio off for us?
	That's important.
	Turn your radio off.
	The radio is off.
	Oh, it is?
	See what that is?
	It's the television, and it's way too loud.
	I see.
	I'll yell louder.
	I have two cases where I would like for you to cast an opinion on how nuts the media is, or how nuts I am.
	We had a case in Chicago, heavily reported, about a year ago.
	A child and dog in the alley at their home.
	Child is four-ish, no more than five.
	A speeding car comes down the alley.
	The kid is right in the path.
	The dog is reported to have jumped up, taken its front two paws, pushed the child out of the way, then got hit himself, the dog, by the car and killed.
	When all local media went, the child said, he pushed me away, the parents said, that dog saved my child's life.
	Here's a scenario as I envision it.
	The child is in the path of the car.
	He sees the car.
	He screams or makes some other sort of vocalization.
	The dog hears this and either thinking, you know, one of my other pack members is in trouble, or thinking, okay, the other pack member wants me to come over and play, whichever the case may be.
	The dog runs over, he jumps up and puts his paws on the child, as dogs do.
	Dogs jump up and put their feet on you.
	And the child, being small, he goes off balance, falls out of the way.
	The dog has no idea the car's coming.
	And then a car hits him.
	Now that's how I envision that scenario.
	Of course, not being there, that's strictly a hypothetical.
	But based on what I know, that's one possible scenario as to what could have happened.
	All right.
	Don, we are out of time.
	I've enjoyed it tremendously.
	Thank you.
	It's been a real pleasure.
	Again, I want to give out the number where people can get American Mankillers, the book.
	Okay.
	Let's give out the one, most people are going to go for the autographed version, same cost.
	So let's give out that number.
	Autographed version you can order from area code 940-748-2048.
	code 940-748-2048. Preferably call 9-5. For non-autographed versions, you can call 1-866-948-2048.
	For non-autographed versions, you can call 1-866-948-2048.
	Got it.
	What a pleasure, Don.
	We'll have you back.
	All right.
	Thank you so much.
	You take care.
	All right, folks.
	That's Don Zietl, and it was indeed a pleasure and a different path to go down this morning.
	As you well know, I don't agree with all he had to say, but as always, I allow my guests to say what they would like to say, and he was a doggone interesting guy, and a lot of what he said was certainly right on the money.
	Now, a couple of things I want to get in.
	Tomorrow night, Whitley Streber will be here, along with Jaime Mason from Mexico, and a Mexican volcanologist.
	This is a program you're not going to want to miss.
	Another item I wanted to get on before we close out.
	Art, the space weather outlook.
	We expect periods of active to minor storm conditions on 30 and 31 May in response to the long-duration C7 X-ray event on the 27th at 1335 Zulu.
	on the 27th at 1335 Zulu a CME occurred that's coronal mass ejection CME
	occurred with this event and the ejecta appears earthbound So I wanted to get that one in.
	In addition, I want to say again, we are looking into... I think this is so cool.
	We're going to carry rockets, maybe, on the show.
	How many of you think that would be a good idea?
	I had somebody sent me really neat facts about that, and I have no idea what I've done with it.
	I'll find it.
	And I'll read it to you tomorrow morning, but it really was funny.
	And one last item, and that is last night.
	I wonder how many of you recall that last night, in the first hour of the program, I believe it was, we were speculating about the Antichrist.
	Remember, somebody said, actually a number of somebodies have said, the Antichrist is alive now.
	To which I responded, Well, what do you think the Antichrist is doing right now?
	And I've had many answers to that.
	And now, tonight, with a fax from Seattle, how can I not do it?
	Sometime next week, we will be opening the Antichrist line.
	That's right, the Antichrist line.
	It's a natural.
	That's it for tonight, folks.
	Heh heh heh heh.
	Ah, the Antichrist line.
	He's out there somewhere.
	Do you suppose he would call?
	Maybe it's not even a he.
	In which case, I don't know what we'd call the line.

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