Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Conan O'Brien needs a fan. Want to talk to Conan? Visit teamcoco.com slash call Conan. Okay, let's get started.
Hey, Mike, welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Fan. Hey, thanks so much.
Hey, Mike, how are you? Where are you right now? Oh my gosh. Hey, Conan. I'm in London, Ontario in Canada. Oh, wow. Okay. And are you in the wilderness right now? I mean, are you in a pretty urban area? Yeah, I'm in the urban area today. Okay, can I just pretend that you're way out on the tundra somewhere? Yeah, let's do it.
Okay, can you occasionally make a sound with your mouth just so I feel like this is really authentic? What do you want, sorry?
Forget it. That's the perfect response.
Why don't you repeat what you asked him?
No, I'm good.
Oh, okay.
And I just wanted to get you to say a Canadian sorry, so I'm happy. Hey, Mike, it says that you are a conservation authority. Is that correct? Oh yeah, I work for a local conservation authority. And in the past, you were a polar bear monitor. What does that mean?
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Chapter 2: What is Mike's background in conservation?
Yeah, this podcast? Why isn't it Smartless? And he's like crushing the wire. Where's Will Arnett? He's Canadian. Hey, Mike. So I just have to ask you. So your job was to be basically a guide who would protect people from polar bears in the Arctic. And so I have so many questions right now.
Chapter 3: What does being a polar bear monitor entail?
I've always heard polar bears are the most dangerous bear. They can kill you so quickly. Is that true?
It's true. Yeah. Like a black bear, a grizzly bear might not want anything to do with you. Where a polar bear, if they smell you, see you, they're coming to get you. They're hungry. It's cold. and they want to eat.
Right. They're not sitting around on their backs eating a bunch of blueberries that they found. There's nothing like that in the Arctic. So when they see a ham steak and boots walking by, they go for it. They go for that person. They want it. They want it bad. So what can you do to protect them in that situation?
Yeah, so I care about conservation so much, so... I want to protect the bears just as much as I want to protect the humans because I am armed. I do use non-lethal rounds, but there are lethal rounds that need to be. Never had to, never want to.
So what are the non-lethal rounds made of?
It's like a rubber slug.
And so it hurts. Yeah. If you hit a polar bear with it, he'll say, I want to leave now.
Kind of. I did it once and the polar bear just kind of like, squinted its eyes and walked away. Sort of like Clint Eastwood. It looked annoyed and then walked away.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And can I ask you, what is the caliber of weapon, if the rubber bullet isn't working, that you would use on a polar bear? Because I would think it just has to be a, you can't just be using a .22. No, no, it would be a 12 gauge. Jesus. Okay. Yeah. But I'm glad, but you never had to kill a bear.
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Chapter 4: How do polar bears behave in the wild?
I know what you mean.
I got polar bears to monitor. You get to live alone, you know, yeah. Wow, so you have all these different birds and then you would use them like, oh damn, there's some seagulls that are hanging around my house by the ocean and they're real drag and they're pooping all over the place. I'm gonna get one of these birds of prey to chase them out of here and it works?
Yeah, I'll get rid of them right away for you. But we do something called car hawking, which is essentially the hawk will ride in the front seat of my car. We will do a drive-by of your house. I'll do that on my window, and the hawk will just fly out. She might grab a seagull. She might miss. But either way, every seagull in the area is going to disappear pretty fast.
And how long do they stay away for? When do people think, okay, the coast is clear now. The guy who has a hawk in his car, what left?
Yeah, it depends. The Domino's guy with the hawk left. Yeah. If it's a food source, like a landfill, they will keep coming back daily to check and see if I'm still there. Yeah.
And I would be. I love that you would ride up with a hawk in your front seat, riding shotgun, and then you'd pull up to the address and go, here we are, 34 Crenshaw Road. Put the window down and wha!
That's boss.
That's so amazing.
And then the hawk scares them all and just comes right back into your car?
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Chapter 5: What non-lethal methods are used to manage polar bear encounters?
Wow, that's so amazing. A bunch of fascinations here. I love the birds. I love, did you always, did you ever work with other bears other than polar bears, grizzlies? Because grizzlies fascinate me.
Yeah, they are incredible. I didn't work directly with them, but I was a guide on horseback in the Rocky Mountains. And I've had a few run-ins with grizzly bears, but nothing too crazy. But they're also quite incredible. Take it easy, Shona.
Yeah.
I'm sure Tack has been around.
It's just one thing after the other with this guy.
Didn't Tack, hasn't Tack worked with some lethal animals? No. Wasn't there a, no, there was a sickly hamster that he befriended.
No, he's like cuddling with our poodle at home. Like, you know. That's what I have.
Okay. Take it easy. I'm a big Tack fan.
You can have him. I'll move to Canada.
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Chapter 6: How does Mike train birds of prey?
So that's bigger than me. I'm bald. So I'm 6'4", but I'm bald. So you might... standing behind me, we'd look even bigger. So you know what, we might survive together out there.
Would you think that I'd be the kind of person to panic and run or do you think I'd be calm? I want to believe you'd be calm. Why do you want to believe that? Why can't you just believe that?
I don't know, you might try and like use comedy to get out of it.
Yes. It won't work. Hey, here's my question. Do grizzlies like bits? Do they like sort of cartoony physical shtick? A little bit. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So I'm just thinking, yeah, that's the problem. The biggest problem is I might see a comedy opportunity and start, you know, pretending to be another bear who's kind of a wise guy.
And I could see that really irritating, not just a human, but any member of the animal kingdom.
If the bear wasn't going to kill you after your bits, it would want to kill you. You would be doing yourself a disservice.
The bear might befriend me, and then I would start to show the bear stuff from the podcast and old Conan episodes, at which point the bear would reduce me to a pile of ground chuck instantly.
You're still going to be doing bits during the attack? Yeah, even during the pat.
I'd be like, oh, no, I'm being murdered by a bear. Mauled, mauled, I tell you. Mauled.
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Chapter 7: What types of birds of prey does Mike work with?
Look at me.
I have one leg. Look at me. Uh-oh. Hoppy, hoppy, hop. Got one leg and a hoppy, hoppy, hop.
Yeah, Mike, I'm going to cancel this idea right now. If you change your mind, we can go over there. I'll make sure we have a good time. We'd have a good time. I like this guy.
I do too, yeah.
And I think you and I would do well hanging out. I think we'd be good buddies. We're so mutual. I would try to... I think I could... I think I would be a little, you know, the way I, you've seen this, Sona and David, I kind of become the person I'm with if I'm with them for a while. I'm very zealig that way. I think I would become more like Mike and I would, I might calm down.
I really like being out in nature. I chill out a bit. There's way too much stimulation around me all the time. This might calm me down and maybe battling a bear of some kind would, you know, make me realize what it's all really about.
Yeah. Battle a bear? Yeah. Like you think you have a chance?
I have a very good chance.
Okay.
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