Black Bears Will Blow Your Mind! (with Benjamin Kilham)

09/07/22 • 67 min

Black bears have a very strong public image as lone roaming, dangerous and mindless eating machines - here's something that will completely change the way you look at them!
Benjamin Kilham, author of In the Company of Bears: What Black Bears Have Taught Me about Intelligence and Intuition, has been studying and living with them for many years and has a connection and insight into their society that almost no one else has. Mother bears punishing cubs, sharing with family members, language, standing up to bears in the wild and so much more!
Important Times:
00:10 Intro
02:50 Welcome Benjamin! What caused you to start studying bears?
04:20 Your first bear encounter
06:40 Rehabilitating black bears and keeping bear cubs
10:15 Bear scent: how do they use their sense of smell?
15:50 Sharing resources and being social: bears share with family members
22:10 Your friend Squirty the bear
25:40 Do the bears you raise see you as a parent? How she punishes bad behavior
29:50 They can read people, highly cognitive animals
34:55 Males vs female bears
38:45 Bear hazing - helping bears caught around people
40:20 Communicating with the bears in the way they understand
42:05 Alpha males
45:10 What do you do if you run into a bear in the wild? Deescalate the situation
50:10 Attacks on humans
52:45 Backyard chickens are drawing the bears closer to humans
54:50 Hunting black bears and population
59:40 One thing you wish people understood about bears
01:02:35 Male bears and cubs
01:05:25 There's so much more to learn, thank you for sharing your knowledge!

Previous Episode

The Grabby Aliens Hypothesis Part 2 (with Robin Hanson)

Part 2 of our conversation with Robin Hanson about his Grabby Aliens theory! We dive into the details and explore the things that might have happened and possible explanations for UFO sightings and ultimately mankind's fate. We weigh up the different options to try understand what these things could be, if they are real after all! A really interesting dive into the theoretical universe.
What do you think? Do aliens have a rule against expanding? Would you break that rule? Do you lean towards the hoax or the aliens theory? Let us know!
Important times:
00:10 Welcome to All Things Wild!
01:00 Lying can be a solution
02:20 1 in 1000 chance for Grabby Aliens to be true: here's how.
03:50 How likely is intelligent life?
05:00 The big puzzle: they didn't expand, why?
07:15 Weird things can end up being true
11:30 Why do they stay officially hidden?
13:10 Social animal hierarchy
18:20 This is my best story to explain the alien theory
20:00 Nuclear facilities and visitations
21:50 The aliens needed a simple and robust strategy
23:05 Are they reporting back to anyone?
24:15 Are they biological or artificial life?
25:25 What if they were biological?
26:20 They seem cruel to not allow expansion
28:25 What happens when they meet other aliens?
30:25 Grabby humans
31:40 Would you follow their rule?
33:25 Ecosystem of the universe
36:10 Leave this to the experts in each field
38:10 Would we be in danger of breaking the rule yet?
40:30 Problems with the hoax theories
43:20 Grabby Aliens seems possible but makes a lot of assumptions, hoax takes less
45:40 Thank you Robin! Hope to see you in the Pentagon one day!
46:45 Outro