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The Unbelievable with Dan Aykroyd - Season 3 Episode 5 -
Man vs. Nature
Man vs. Nature
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00:00Viewers. Viewer discretion is advised.
00:08What if I told you a man once found himself in a face-off with one of nature's most unexpected opponents?
00:17Brig sees this enormous kangaroo holding his dog hostage.
00:24This kangaroo can pretty much eviscerate him.
00:26He realizes he has to do something pretty quick to save his dog.
00:31Or there's a filthy rich serial mogul who declared war on the weather.
00:37Post makes the connection.
00:38Maybe if you agitate the atmosphere sufficiently, you can make it rain.
00:44Post hires a team of 50 men to fly dynamite kites.
00:50But they have all kinds of problems.
00:53How about being pushed to the brink of extinction?
00:56By a tiny bug?
00:58There are billions and billions of them.
01:01And they're hungry.
01:02When they descend on a farm, the scale of destruction is biblical.
01:09These are the unbelievable stories of what happens when humans and nature collide.
01:14The ocean is home to a vast array of incredible creatures.
01:30Many are peaceful.
01:31But every now and then, the deep sea reminds us who's really in charge.
01:36In 2024, off the coast of New Hampshire, two fishermen have their boat floating over schools of small bait fish, which attract the larger fish they're after.
01:47But these anglers get a much bigger bite than they bargained for.
01:52It turns out to be a humpback whale.
02:00And it capsizes this $150,000 boat.
02:04Oh, my God.
02:05Sending the two fishermen right into the drink.
02:09Humpback whales are enormous.
02:12They can grow to 60 feet and weigh 40 tons.
02:15That's over two times the size of the boat.
02:19And many times, it's mass.
02:21Close calls between humans and whales happen more often than you think.
02:26But who actually has the right of way?
02:29Legally, fishing boats are required to stay a safe distance from humpback whales and avoid the schools of bait fish where the whales are feeding.
02:39The law is intended to protect the whales, but it turns out it's good for the fishermen, too.
02:46Not all fishermen are following these guidelines because they're after their fish.
02:53And so, situations like this may occur more and more often.
02:58Is this boat bashing on purpose?
03:01A case of sea rage, perhaps?
03:03We might never know.
03:04But for one bird scientist, the question of nature's vengeful intent seems pretty clear.
03:12John Marsloff is a wildlife biologist working at the University of Washington in 2006.
03:19And his specialty is studying crows.
03:23That includes capturing them, tagging them, and tracking them to observe their behaviors and learn more about them.
03:30And he has been working consistently with this one flock of birds, a murder of crows.
03:36And he starts to notice something happening.
03:39Some of these crows seem very wary of specific researchers.
03:46More than that, the crows swoop and dive bomb the researchers who've been directly involved in the trapping.
03:54And they also scold them, cawing at them aggressively.
04:00What becomes really interesting here is that this happens even when these researchers are just going about their lives around campus.
04:09And these crows are formidable.
04:12They have really tough beaks and talons.
04:15So if a crow is mad at you, that is a serious threat.
04:19Marsloff starts to wonder, are these birds recognizing these people's faces?
04:24And are they mad at them?
04:29Marsloff decides to try a particular experiment.
04:33He asks researchers who are trapping the crows to wear a Halloween mask of a caveman.
04:41And other researchers who are not involved in trapping the crows wear a Halloween mask of Vice President Dick Cheney.
04:49As cavemen and Dick Cheneys are released into the wild on campus, Marsloff notices something extraordinary.
04:56The crows continually accost the cavemen who are trapping them and ignore or leave alone the Dick Cheneys.
05:08And this happens even when they try it with a hat on while they're wearing the mask.
05:12Or they'll put on a different kerchief or a scarf just to see if it is definitely the face that the birds are focusing on.
05:20And it is every single time.
05:22Incredibly, this hostility runs much deeper than anyone imagined.
05:28Birds that have never been part of this research project also start to attack, swooping angrily at the cavemen.
05:37These remarkable animals have been teaching each other.
05:41It goes on right into 2020.
05:43So 14 years after the initial research and after the papers published, the caveman mask is still eliciting this response.
05:50And that means that there are birds in play that are generationally separated from the original flock.
05:58In all fairness, the biologists started this spat.
06:01But sometimes the animal is the one looking for a fight.
06:07In 2016, in the Australian outback, Greg Tonkins is out with his friends hunting wild boar.
06:14When one of Greg's dogs, Max, gets a scent and runs off ahead and disappears into the brush.
06:24Greg sees something he really wasn't expecting, which is this enormous kangaroo...
06:31...holding his dog hostage on a headlock.
06:36And Greg realizes he has to do something pretty quick to save his dog.
06:40So big male kangaroos are actually quite terrifying.
06:44They've got these just huge biceps, big broad chests, and a kangaroo can punch eight times harder than a human...
06:51...and they can bite as hard as a grizzly.
06:54But the biggest threat is actually the kangaroo's kick.
06:58A kangaroo's middle toes fuse into a single sharp talon.
07:02A feature called syndactyly, not unlike the killclaw found on a velociraptor.
07:07He can kick as hard as a horse, and with that sharp nail on the end of his toe...
07:11...can pretty much open Greg completely up and eviscerate him.
07:16As it happens, Greg is a zookeeper by profession.
07:20So he moves in close enough to distract the kangaroo.
07:25And it releases the dog.
07:26You might think that the story would end there, but no, the kangaroo turns its attention to Greg.
07:34Now this kangaroo is in full-blown territory mode and puts up his dukes.
07:40Greg, to not show any weakness, leans back and he socks the kangaroo straight in the jaw.
07:49Surprisingly, the roo backs off.
07:52And actually, that probably saves Greg's life.
07:56It's unclear if this was a triumph over nature, or mercy on the part of the kangaroo.
08:06But in the end, the kangaroo learns the hard way.
08:09Don't mess with a man and his dog.
08:14The pioneers of the Great Plains fought droughts, storms, and brutal winters.
08:18But in 1874, nature threw something at them they never saw coming.
08:23It is summer of 1874 in Nebraska.
08:28It's a sparsely populated area that survives on agriculture.
08:34And the state is suffering a really crippling drought.
08:41The local farmers are hoping and praying that things turn around.
08:45When all of a sudden there is this strange and disturbing rumbling.
08:49As the rumbling continues, suddenly a haze starts to form over the sun.
08:58The skies start to darken.
09:01At first you think it might be an approaching storm or a tornado, but it disperses into billions of tiny specks.
09:11These specks are not bits of dust.
09:14They're not raindrops.
09:16They're grasshoppers.
09:18Rocky mountain grasshoppers.
09:20Billions and billions of them.
09:22And they're hungry.
09:26They will eat an entire field of crops in a matter of hours.
09:31It's like a blizzard of grasshoppers.
09:34In some areas, the insects form a carpet a foot deep.
09:41They invade homes.
09:43They eat cloth and quilts, paper, curtains, leather, tool handles.
09:50They will eat the wool right off of a live sheep.
09:55They will start eating the clothes off of your back.
09:58When they descend on a farm, the scale of destruction is biblical.
10:04Shockingly, this isn't an isolated incident.
10:07It's happening all over Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana.
10:13They call it the Great Grasshopper Plague of 1874.
10:17There have been grasshopper invasions before, but this one in 1874 is on a scale that the U.S. has never seen before.
10:30At the peak of the invasion, estimates run as high as 15 trillion grasshoppers.
10:37That's 390,000 grasshoppers for every resident of the United States at that time.
10:46Dazed citizens wonder why this particular year is especially brutal.
10:52Rocky Mountain grasshoppers originate in the Rocky Mountains.
10:54And under normal circumstances, that's where they stay.
10:56But in 1874, conditions are not normal.
10:59There's a very severe drought going on.
11:02And when it's dried, their eggs hatch more successfully.
11:05So the population of grasshoppers explodes.
11:09There are also winds that form a jet stream and carry the grasshoppers throughout the Great Plains,
11:16leading to a cycle of the grasshoppers, leading to a cycle of the grasshoppers overpopulating, decimating food, and seeking more food.
11:25The grasshoppers cause about $200 million in crop damage, which is the equivalent of $5.5 billion today.
11:38Even more dangerous, the excrement from these billions of grasshoppers, poisons, wells, and water supplies.
11:49As this mass infestation continues throughout the summer of 1874, desperate farmers go to war with the grasshoppers.
11:59They try setting them on fire.
12:03They try smoking them out.
12:05They try poisons.
12:06They even try a contraption called a hopper dozer, which is a horse-drawn metal sheet coated with coal tar,
12:16intended to get the insects stuck to the metal sheet.
12:20But there are just too many of them, and it becomes another failure.
12:24The swarms of grasshoppers return for the next four summers.
12:29But then a strange thing happens.
12:32The grasshoppers just disappear.
12:33They're not just gone from the plains.
12:38They're gone from everywhere.
12:39By the early 1900s, they're extinct.
12:42While Nebraska farmers learned that bugs can ruin your life, one ancient king discovered there's a way to use them to your advantage.
12:53It's 67 BCE in what is modern-day Turkey along the Black Sea, and the Persian king Mithridates is on the run from the Roman general Pompey the Great.
13:06Mithridates is an interesting guy.
13:11His father was murdered by poison.
13:13So he spends much of his early life out in the woods ingesting small amounts of poisons like arsenic to build up a tolerance.
13:21At the time, he's probably one of the world's leading experts on human toxins.
13:26Now, with the Roman army hot on his tail, Mithridates uses this knowledge to his benefit.
13:33He instructs his soldiers to gather large amounts of a sticky red honey and place it in jugs all along his escape route.
13:47The Romans encounter these jars, and on closer inspection, they find that it smells sweet, they sample it, and they find that it tastes sweet as well.
14:03Once they taste it, there's no stopping them.
14:07Soldier after soldier after soldier is consuming handful after handful of life-giving, nutrient-rich honey until the side effects kick in.
14:17What the soldiers don't know is that in Turkey, bees often pollinate rhododendron fields, and these flowers contain large amounts of granotoxin.
14:37The toxin ends up in the honey, which causes hallucinations, diarrhea, dizziness, and loss of consciousness.
14:50After eating tons of this honey, the Roman soldiers are on a pretty bad trip.
14:56They are not what you would call battle-ready.
14:59Imagine having to fight for your life while you're vomiting and hallucinating.
15:06This is exactly what Mithridates had in mind.
15:13Mithridates' force then doubles back on them and engages them in battle.
15:20The result? It's a slaughter with over 1,000 stone Romans killed.
15:26Mithridates took all those years studying poisons and toxins, and he essentially creates possibly the first biological weapon.
15:36In fact, today, it is one of the oldest hallucinogenic drugs, though very expensive and sometimes hard to get.
15:43In some countries, it sells for $80 a pound on the black market.
15:48Talk about sweet revenge.
15:51The weather is unpredictable, untamed, and for one man, the next great frontier to conquer.
15:59What happens when human ambition takes on Mother Nature?
16:06C.W. Post becomes a breakfast cereal baron in the late 1800s.
16:12He makes a lot of money with products like grape nuts and other Post cereals like Raisin Bran.
16:17Start your day a little bit better with Post grape nuts flakes.
16:22Eventually, Post starts to have these obsessions, and because of his success, he does not hesitate to act upon them.
16:30In 1907, Post buys up 200,000 acres of land in order to build this self-sustaining, idyllic little community.
16:38He calls it Post City.
16:42It seems that Post has thought of everything in his perfect city, except for one thing.
16:48There's not enough water, and soon enough, the region is plagued by drought.
16:54This city can't sustain itself.
16:56No one can grow enough food.
16:58He remembers that there were stories that, after big cannon battles in the Napoleonic Wars, it would start raining.
17:06So, he makes the connection.
17:09Maybe if you agitate the atmosphere sufficiently, you can make it rain.
17:15His plan is as simple as it is bizarre.
17:18He's going to blow up the clouds.
17:22Post hires a team of 50 men to fly dynamite kites.
17:26Each one of these kites is equipped with two pounds of dynamite and extremely long fuses,
17:33so that when you light it at the bottom, a few minutes later, the dynamite goes off in the sky.
17:39So, he has 50 kites, but they have all kinds of problems.
17:43The cords get tangled.
17:44The dynamite explodes too close to the ground sometimes, almost killing his men.
17:48Clearly, this kite approach is too unreliable, so Post has to come up with yet another plan.
17:57He has his men haul the explosives up the Caprock, which is a high escarpment running throughout West Texas.
18:05He uses a total of 350 pounds of explosives, spread out so that each explosive is about 50 feet apart,
18:15and they're set off every 10 minutes.
18:20Everything goes as planned, except it does not rain.
18:27Post gets this idea that you really need to replicate battle conditions.
18:32The explosions need to be violent and random.
18:37There can't be any pattern to it.
18:40Eventually, his persistence pays off when one of these rain battles actually works.
18:46Post is thrilled.
18:48But subsequent rain battles have mixed results.
18:53So, Post thinks they're not using enough dynamite,
18:57so he ups the ante from 300 pounds to 3,000 pounds.
19:02During one rain battle, Post detonates over 24,000 pounds of dynamite.
19:12That's equivalent to the most powerful conventional weapons used by the U.S. military today.
19:18By the end of 1913, after middling results, Post fires his last shot.
19:24Overall, Post spends about $50,000 in his rain battles,
19:30which is equivalent to about $1.7 million today,
19:33or half a million boxes of grape nuts.
19:39For another visionary who dared to do battle with the natural world,
19:43Mother Nature's response was much more harsh.
19:47From 1949 until 1976, Mao Zedong is the all-powerful leader of communist China,
19:58and he holds the opinion that humankind was intended to dominate nature.
20:04In 1958, Mao's Great Leap Forward program mandates a massive increase in agricultural production.
20:11If you're in charge of a massive country with a population of 600 million people,
20:16your first priority is feeding those people.
20:20Any loss in crop is an enemy to the people.
20:25According to Mao, the number one culprit in grain theft is the evil sparrow.
20:31In order to harness all of the agricultural potential of the People's Republic,
20:37he declares war on a two-ounce bird.
20:40He enlists an army of millions of citizen soldiers to kill as many of the sparrows as possible.
20:47People use whatever weapons they have, guns, slingshots.
20:53They even use long poles to poke at nests up in the trees.
20:56But the most bizarre method is to simply follow the birds around,
21:01making a loud noise with pots and pans and anything metal that they can clam together.
21:07So the sparrows, they're too scared to land, and they end up dying from exhaustion.
21:15In just a matter of weeks, the Chinese kill over one billion sparrows.
21:21For Mao, it's proof of his people's revolutionary devotion.
21:24Unfortunately for the great leader, his contempt for nature is only surpassed by his ignorance of it.
21:32Mao is convinced that it is the sparrows eating the grain,
21:37but actually it's insects that consume most of the grain.
21:41And the sparrows are the ones eating the insects.
21:45So in Nanjing, 60% of the crops are destroyed.
21:49In another region, 15% of the rice crop is consumed by locusts.
21:53And this happens again and again and again all over sparrow-less China.
22:00The result of Mao's war on sparrows is the country is driven to famine.
22:06And the estimates are that 45 million people starved to death from 1959 to 61.
22:12This gave rise in the United States to this practice of scolding children who didn't want to eat
22:21by telling them that there are starving children in China,
22:24which was set in motion by Mao's declared war on the sparrows.
22:28Chairman Mao's battle with birds is a stark reminder that when you mess with nature,
22:36beware.
22:38Nature has a brutal way of restoring balance.
22:43For all of humanity's progress, nature still holds the upper hand.
22:48And in 1908 in the remote Siberian wilderness,
22:51It delivers a blow so powerful, it defies explanation.
22:57It's June 1908 in eastern Siberia near the Tunguska River.
23:03This area is incredibly remote.
23:05You're more likely to see a reindeer than a person.
23:09A man sits on his porch when suddenly there's a massive explosion.
23:14After the flash, a violent hot wind pummels him and destroys his entire home.
23:26He manages to lift his head to look around and he sees that the forest surrounding his home
23:33has been flattened by some invisible, mysterious force.
23:39It turns out this explosion isn't right next door.
23:43It's over 40 miles away.
23:46In fact, the blast is so powerful, its impact reaches far beyond Siberia.
23:53Windows 100 miles away are shattered.
23:57Seismic readings are taken as far away as Washington, D.C.
24:02For days after this event, the night skies across Europe and Asia are glowing with this bright light.
24:10The violent detonation becomes known as the Tunguska event.
24:14And right away, the world wants to know what caused it.
24:18Speculation runs rampant.
24:20Some Russian scientists believe that it was a volcano that went off in eastern Siberia.
24:26While local indigenous peoples believe that maybe it was a god or a powerful shaman
24:32that had set a fireball to punish them.
24:3519 years later, in 1927, scientist Leonid Kulik is finally able to get close enough to study the scene.
24:44There's an 800 square mile circular area where the trees have been absolutely flattened.
24:5180 million trees are down.
24:53It's not hard for Kulik to find the epicenter, because all the trees are pointing away from it.
25:02He suspects that the culprit could be something that came from space and collided.
25:07He expects to find a crater in the middle.
25:10He doesn't.
25:11It's even more strange.
25:12All the trees in the center, in Ground Zero, are still standing.
25:16Of course, they're burnt to a crisp and their bark has been shorn off, but they're still upright.
25:21Every other tree is pointing outward.
25:24Over the decades, a lot of pretty wild theories crop up.
25:29One suggests that an alien spacecraft armed with nuclear weapons exploded over Siberia.
25:38The force of the explosion actually supports this idea.
25:42Scientists estimate that the blast was 185 times more powerful than the Hiroshima atomic bomb.
25:51There's also another, more natural explanation.
25:54There's one speculative hypothesis, which is that the Earth passed gas, that there was a large pocket or reservoir of methane that leaked out into the surface and then was ignited by a lightning bolt.
26:09And then that ignition detonated the entire pocket in one giant blast.
26:14Finally, in 2020, a Russian research team comes up with a very plausible idea, which is that an asteroid came through space, entered our Earth's atmosphere, kind of skimmed along, but didn't impact and ricocheted right off of our atmosphere.
26:32This would have heated up the air.
26:35It would have created these sonic shockwaves that caused all of this destruction.
26:39It's estimated that the meteor is about 130 feet across and weighs 220 million pounds.
26:50If something like that landed on a major city like London, millions would die.
26:55What's more terrifying, whatever it was, we know we can't prevent it from happening again.
27:02And due to laws of nature, chances are it will happen again.
27:08It's a stark reminder.
27:10You never know when or where nature's fury will strike, whether from above or deep below.
27:17It's a quiet night in 2013 in Sefner, a small town outside of Tampa, Florida.
27:23A gentleman named Jeremy Bush is suddenly awakened by a crash, followed by the sound of his 37-year-old brother screaming.
27:34Jeremy runs to his brother's bedroom, and much to his dismay and shock, there's no furniture.
27:41The bed, the dresser, the drawers, everything is gone.
27:46What he sees is just completely unbelievable.
27:48There's a hole in the center of the room, and he does not see his brother anywhere.
27:54In his desperation, Jeremy grabs a shovel, he jumps into the hole, and he's trying to dig his brother out.
28:01But the walls are still falling in.
28:03The soil is still moving.
28:05So the more he digs, nothing's happening.
28:09Unfortunately, Jeremy and his brother are dealing with one of nature's most unpredictable phenomena.
28:13A sinkhole.
28:16A sinkhole forms when you have a layer of soil over a layer of limestone, a porous rock, and a cavern underneath.
28:24When the rain seeps into the soil, it can go down and erode that limestone away.
28:29And when it gets sufficiently weak, it breaks.
28:32And that's when the system collapses.
28:34Because of the amount of limestone underground in the state of Florida, plus all the rain they receive on an annual basis, it's just prime territory for sinkholes.
28:44And they have over 27,000 of them there.
28:48One of these sinkholes in China is known to go down as far as 2,000 feet.
28:54In fact, entire prehistoric habitats have been found well-preserved inside of these sinkholes.
29:01On that terrible night in 2013, there's no telling how deep this sinkhole goes.
29:09When first responders arrive, they quickly tell Jeremy that the hole is too unstable to pull Jeff out.
29:16The emergency workers themselves make some attempts.
29:19They jump in, they dig down, but the walls of the hole are collapsing, and they realize it's too dangerous, and they have to abandon the effort.
29:27The ground has literally disappeared beneath him, and he has been buried alive.
29:35In the aftermath, local authorities fill the hole and condemn the entire block.
29:41In 2015, two years after Jeff's death, a strange thing happens.
29:49People notice their dogs are starting to act weird, they're a little afraid to go outside, and then they hear a massive rumble.
29:58Suddenly, their sinkhole appears right in the same spot as the first one, only this time, it's even bigger.
30:04In 2023, it opens up for a third time.
30:10Nobody's injured, but it's even bigger still.
30:16The thing is, sinkholes are known to grow, and chances are, it may come again.
30:23The earth, it seems, has a way of keeping us on our toes, just when we think we have it all figured out.
30:28It throws us a curveball, or in this case, a sinkhole.
30:32When nature calls, and you're nowhere near a bathroom, it's usually an inconvenience.
30:39But for one man, it comes in, well, unbelievably handy.
30:46A hundred years ago, the most interesting man in the world was probably Danish explorer Peter Freuchen.
30:54He stands six foot seven, he's covered in animal furs, he commands dog sleds across the tundra.
31:04According to legend, he killed a wolf with his bare hands.
31:08For all his experience in the wild, nothing could fully prepare Freuchen for what lay ahead on the icy expanse of Greenland.
31:16In 1926, Peter Freuchen and some guides are attempting an extremely difficult trek across Greenland.
31:28They encounter heavy snows and realize that their sleds are too heavy.
31:34So they unload a lot of the supplies with the intention of coming back to them when conditions clear up.
31:41Next day, Peter is convinced that he can make it back to where they left the supplies, load it up, and continue on his own.
31:49But when he makes it to the supply dump, he's trapped by a sudden blizzard.
31:55Peter has no other choice than to seek shelter.
31:58So he digs a shallow snow trench, puts the sled on top of it, and crawls in through a small hole.
32:10He is essentially burrowing into a snowbed.
32:14He stays in this shelter for 30 hours.
32:19When the storm subsides, Peter discovers that the exit hole to his shelter is now frozen shut.
32:28He is now stuck inside of an icy coffin of his own making.
32:33And all of his tools are on the sled outside.
32:38If he doesn't get out, he's either going to suffocate or freeze to death.
32:43He notes from his experience in polar exploration that when his sled dogs would go to the bathroom,
32:51their feces would freeze solid in the snow as hard as a rock.
32:55Peter now has to relieve himself.
32:58So he fashions his own fecal matter into a chisel-shaped implement,
33:07and he waits for it to freeze.
33:11Miraculously, it works.
33:14He's chipping away, chunks of ice are flying,
33:17and his tool is remaining intact.
33:20He continues fracturing the ice till he gets a hole that's almost big enough for him to squeeze through.
33:28He gets one arm out, one shoulder out, but then he realizes he's stuck,
33:35and he's dropped his poop chisel.
33:38In desperation, Peter takes an extremely long exhale, the longest of his life,
33:48and contracts his chest just enough to squeeze through the hole.
33:54His left foot is stricken with frostbite,
33:58but he is able to crawl back to the camp, and he survives.
34:04A blizzard alone is a challenge.
34:09But in 1923, four natural disasters strike at once,
34:13turning a bustling city into pure chaos.
34:19It's an ordinary day.
34:20On September 1, 1923,
34:23the city of Tokyo, going about its business,
34:26has no idea what's coming.
34:28A 60-by-60-mile tectonic plate breaks loose under the ocean
34:35and causes an earthquake registering 8.3 on the Richter scale.
34:43In Tokyo and nearby Yokohama,
34:46buildings are level, crushing thousands of victims.
34:50Moments later, a 40-foot tsunami hits,
34:52killing thousands more.
34:54And this is just the beginning of nature's merciless assault.
35:01Not only do you have ruptured gas lines,
35:03this earthquake happened at about noontime.
35:05A lot of people were inside making lunch and cooking,
35:08and so now the fires begin.
35:11It also just so happens there's a typhoon just off of the coast as well.
35:16And now you have very strong winds fueling all these fires.
35:19The fire rips through 45% of the buildings in Tokyo.
35:26Authorities direct about 44,000 people
35:30to open ground near the Sumida River,
35:34where these fleeing residents are considered safe.
35:38But nature's havoc is not over.
35:41The flames themselves form into a massive spiral.
35:49In essence, it's a tornado composed of fire.
35:53The Japanese have a word for this rare and devastating phenomenon,
35:57a dragon twist.
35:59The dragon twist grows to 650 feet tall and 1,000 feet across.
36:07And it is heading straight for the 44,000 survivors.
36:12It's an absolute massacre.
36:15Of the 44,000, only 300 survive.
36:22This unthinkable disaster, earthquake, tidal wave, fire, dragon twist,
36:30ultimately takes the life of 140,000 people.
36:36It is the worst natural disaster in Japanese history.
36:40I can't imagine how terrifying that twister looked.
36:46Of course, now that everyone has a high-tech camera in their pockets,
36:49we wouldn't have to.
36:53Humans don't always feel nature's wrath
36:56in the form of disaster, tragedy, or cranky kangaroos.
37:00Sometimes it's triggered by something as simple as a wild animal
37:04that's just sick of having its picture taken.
37:07Every year, 4 million visitors descend on Yellowstone Park
37:13to get a close look at nature and the animals.
37:17And what do people like to do?
37:19Take a selfie.
37:23Bison actually account for most human injuries at Yellowstone,
37:27and they hate getting their photograph taken.
37:30Oh, s***.
37:31But this problem isn't unique to Yellowstone.
37:39I mean, this is happening all around the world.
37:42A woman in a zoo in Arizona gets mauled by a jaguar
37:46when she attempts a photo up against its cage.
37:51Then this other guy climbs right into a zoo enclosure with a lion,
37:56which promptly kills him.
37:56But the story of one Todd Fastler may take the cake.
38:03In 2015, he's at the Baroda Speedway in San Diego,
38:08and he sees a rattlesnake.
38:10He decides, oh, this is a perfect opportunity
38:13for an up-close selfie with a rattlesnake.
38:17He doesn't get his shot, but he does get a bite.
38:20The rattlesnake injects the venom,
38:24and Todd is in a world of hurt.
38:27Todd survives, but his arm isn't the only thing hurting.
38:30There's also his wallet.
38:33Anti-venom is incredibly expensive.
38:36And guess what's not likely to be covered by insurance?
38:39Anti-venom shots.
38:41So Todd ends up with a bill of over $150,000.
38:45And he didn't even get the selfie.
38:50While some animals avoid the lens,
38:52others are more than willing to steal the spotlight and the bottle.
38:58So you're vacationing on the lovely island of St. Kitts.
39:02You're lounging poolside with a tropical cocktail,
39:05and you drift off to sleep.
39:07You may not realize, though,
39:08that someone is watching you, poised to strike.
39:11It's a vervet monkey,
39:14and he's not interested in ejecting you from his territory
39:17or begging for a bit of food.
39:20He wants your booze.
39:22For years, this island paradise has been plagued
39:25by a small army of sneaky, thieving, drunken monkeys.
39:33The vervet monkeys of St. Kitts
39:35have a long history of excessive drinking.
39:38Going back to the 1600s,
39:40when they were brought to the island by the British as pets.
39:43The monkeys start raiding sugar cane plantations,
39:46and sometimes the sugar cane can start to ferment.
39:50Then the sugar eventually turns into alcohol,
39:53and the monkeys start chewing on the sugar cane,
39:56ultimately becoming addicted to alcohol.
40:00Centuries later,
40:01sugar fields are replaced by bars and hotels.
40:04But the monkeys' tradition of boozing is still going strong.
40:07For scientists,
40:10the situation on St. Kitts
40:11actually creates a rare opportunity.
40:14Where else can you study alcohol consumption
40:18in a group of highly social, non-human primates?
40:22And the results of that research are like looking in a mirror.
40:28So some are more social drinkers who do it in moderation
40:31and only when they're with other monkeys.
40:33And then there's a small group, about 5%,
40:36who are described by researchers as seriously abusive binge drinkers.
40:41They get wasted.
40:43They get into brawls.
40:45They basically raid outdoor cocktail tables
40:48at just about anywhere they can find alcoholic beverages.
40:51Research also reveals something else surprising.
40:54Well, it turns out that the most effective and powerful leaders
40:57among these primates
40:58are the drunkest monkeys of all.
41:00Whether it's an entire population of plastered primates,
41:08a sinister 600-foot wall of fire,
41:10or the sinkhole that just won't fill,
41:13these are the tales of man's battles with nature
41:15that are so bizarre.
41:17They are truly unbelievable.
41:19They are truly unbelievable.
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