Original subtitles

What's going on, Coyote Pack?

And welcome back to Base Camp, the show

where we analyze old videos on the Brave Wilderness Channel,

and tell you how we made them.

Now, as you know, I'm always in front of the camera.

But then we've got Mario, over there,

as our wildlife biologist and camera operator,

and, of course, Mark, here, as the director

and our main cinematographer.

That's a mouthful right there, isn't it?

It's a lot, thank you for the introduction

though, I appreciate that.

You're welcome, I've actually been

practicing that introduction for quite a few days now.

What are you wearing today, Mario?

That looks very festive.

Oh, thank you.

This is one of my favorite shirts,

from one of my favorite cartoons, Adventure Time.

Adventure Time.

Why does he have a sword?

Because he's just cool, he goes around

and he does adventures with a sword.

Is that a big yellow hot dog?

No, that's Jake the Dog.

Oh.

What about your shirt?

That's interesting.

Yeah, this is actually--

I picked this one up at Target in the kid's clearance bin.

It was on sale, it is a youth size large,

but I love it because it has this little coyote patch on it.

So you can wear kids clothes?

I guess so.

That must save you a lot of money.

Well, when it's in the clearance bin,

it definitely does.

How about you, what you got on today?

Since we're all wearing fun shirts,

I thought I'd support my buddies over at Choonimals.

This is the state of Ohio, although it also

has eyes, and a mouth, and legs, and little--

little T-Rex arms.

But yeah, it's kind of hangry, but in a fun way.

Yeah, and speaking of chomping-looking teeth,

now last week we gave you guys an episode about stings,

and we promised we would do a bite episode.

So, today we've got a really exciting one lined up.

In fact, the first intentional bite I ever took,

you guys remember what that was?

Oh yeah, I remember what it was, I think it was a reptile.

Oh, yes.

Deep in the bayous.

The one and only alligator snapping turtle chomp.

So if you guys are ready, and I know you guys are ready, right?

Oh yeah.

Let's dive into this video.

Here we go guys.

I'm Coyote Petersen and today I'm going

to get bitten by an enormous--

Look at the size

that turtle's head, what was I thinking?

Alligator snapping turtle.

Ready, here we go.

One, two, three.

Oh man.

And then there's the suspenseful black screen,

right?

Right, right.

Because, I think, when you first cut this,

you actually showed the bite, and I was like, man

we can't give it away too soon.

But you know the momentum of my arm

is going into that turtle's mouth so you're like,

OK, I'm hooked, I got to keep watching.

And of course, we hear what happens as well.

Let's listen to that one more time.

Two, three.

What sort of noise

is Coyote going to make on this episode, you know?

Oh, and here's a nice animation coming up.

Oh yeah, Dragon Tales.

I love that, how you incorporated

dragon into the shell and tails into the tail.

I think that still needs to be a t-shirt.

Yes.

What do you guys think, do you want

to see a Dragon Tails t-shirt?

Could be on the Brave Wilderness store right now.

Well, maybe not yet, but that's actually something

that I can talk about that will be on the store,

the Dragon Tails official logo shirt

will be there soon, and probably a couple

of other Dragon Tails things.

How about that shirt?

No, I think Target has the rights to these, unfortunately.

All right, here we go.

All right, guys, so right now I'm sitting here--

Oh geez, I totally

forgot that that happened.

A couple of months back, I posted a poll on Instagram

and Facebook asking a question-- pretty

good size Napster that's a 40-pounder

should I be bitten by now

Let's talk about this.

Yeah.

So the whole reason for why this happened at all

was because you had the funny idea

of posting this on Instagram.

I blame social media.

It's a big problem for the reason I do a lot of the things

that I do.

No, actually, the way that this happened is--

and that's you holding that turtle, isn't it?

Yeah.

This was a snapping turtle we caught earlier in the day.

He was a small guy, he was only about 20 pounds,

and we got this picture.

Look how wide the mouth of that turtle can open.

And I posted this picture on Instagram

and was like, you know what, let's just, as a joke,

ask people if I should be bit by an alligator snapping turtle,

right?

Good idea, bad idea?

Yeah, and what did they say?

Well, unfortunately for me, everybody was like,

yes, Coyote, get bitten by the turtle.

I mean, this was the largest Instagram post

we had ever made, hundreds of comments of people wanting

to see what would happen if a human was

bitten by an alligator snapping turtle.

Now, you put a question like that out there

in the world, of social media of all places, what

do you really think people were going to say, no, don't do it?

Yes, I thought people would go, that's crazy,

Coyote, preserve your body, we don't want you to get injured.

I remember when you did this, and I was talking to Mario,

I was like, I'm pretty sure everybody's going

to want to see him get bit.

Yeah it kind of backfired on you, buddy.

A little bit and we definitely had

to deliver for the audience, so we came up with a pretty

good scheme on how to do this.

But let's keep watching before we get into that.

I was expecting you guys to say,

no way, Coyote, don't do it.

Yeah, right, guys, come on.

- more than 95% of you say yes,

we want to see what it looks like if an alligator

snapping turtle bites you.

Look at that turtle,

look at how big his head is, and he's

getting pretty close to my face, but that's as far as they

can reach out with their necks.

I've been batted around by a grizzly bear

but nothing, I don't think, makes me more

nervous than to get my arm--

Now let's talk about the size of this turtle, because--

Why is he so close to my face?

Look at that.

Well you're holding him.

I know, like I'm looking at that now,

like, his face, his beak, is inches from my nose.

Suspense, right?

Yeah.

So when you made the Instagram post we had a small turtle.

Yes.

We had a small turtle, and when everybody sort of piled on

and said, Yeah, do it, do it, do it,

we're like great, let's catch another small turtle, because I

mean, worst case scenario, it's going to hurt really bad,

maybe you get a little puncture.

And some stitches.

And quickly we determine that maybe

this is not such a good idea, but you

wanted to try it anyway.

Mario said, I don't think so, guys.

I was very skeptical from the beginning.

I was like, guys, this is not a good idea,

and well, you know, I followed your lead,

because you were just very adamant to get bit.

Well-- yeah.

I guess in all fairness, I was.

I thought I had a better excuse, but I don't.

What are you doing with your hand?

I know, I look back at this now

like, this is me in my heyday.

I was so young and I didn't know what I was doing back then.

This is like what three years ago, right?

Look how fast you were.

Now, now you're so slow.

Oh yeah, I get a little bit

of white in my beard, like--

just to see what kind of damage

this turtle's jaws are capable of doing.

That's a good looking

alligator snapping turtle.

I mean look at the size of his head, that

is a dominant male right there.

Sure is.

He's got a weird, crooked nose too,

look at his little piggy nose.

I think this is pretty crazy.

If you guys had all said, no, no, no,

definitely don't do this--

See, if you guys had all just

said, no, no, no, don't do this, I wouldn't have done it,

but you were all like, DO IT!

Of course they did.

I would have to.

There's Adam.

There's our buddy, Adam.

Adam thought this was just crazy, just so you guys know.

Adam's the guy that we were working with in Louisiana, who

had access to all this property in the bayou where we could go

out and catch snapping turtles.

So were you at a barbecue or something?

Yeah, let's talk about the turkey leg.

Yeah, I like turkey.

I think turkey leg, it really worked well for the video,

created some cool dynamics to kind of look

at before we went through it the bite, but in all actuality,

we did this as a real test.

Like we really wanted to see what the damage was going

to look like, just in case.

Because it was really bad then you weren't going to do it.

Yeah I mean, at first I was like, well is the turtle just

going to kind of bite and hold on to this,

is it actually going to poke a hole in it,

is it going to break the bone.

The turkey drumstick was about as big as my forearm,

we got some big--

I got some massive--

I got some--

Look at them turkeys right there.

Yeah, those are like turkey drumsticks,

you know, or Popeye arms, it depends how you look at it.

But yeah, like as big as a turkey drumstick,

so let's see how that would react to a turtle bite.

Yeah, and filming this with the turkey leg,

this was like our first time seeing

the damage from an alligator snapping turtle.

And that's all muscle, you know,

the turkey leg, that's a big chunk of meat right there,

so give us a good idea.

So what we're going to do is attach

this turkey leg to the back of a piece of bamboo.

That was a good idea, whoever's idea

it was to put it on the bamboo.

That was my idea,

it was definitely my idea.

That was a good idea, it was good.

Just keeps my fingers out of the bite zone,

because the turtle can turn its head,

so you're holding on to a turkey leg,

you don't want to get your finger stuck in those jaws.

I don't know, guys, I don't want to get injured so bad

that I'm sent to the hospital.

He gets through this turkey leg, he's

going to get through my arm.

Maybe don't let yourself

get bit by an alligator snapping turtle.

Yeah, I mean what

were you even thinking in that moment,

let's get bitten by a turtle.

But I loved it-- this is where we first started getting

creative with the GoPros, too, where you've got, like,

the GoPros on different things.

We had the GoPro on the bamboo, eventually

I put a GoPro on my arm.

So here comes the initial test.

Oh my goodness.

Oh my gosh.

Holy cow, did you see how deep his beak

just went into that flesh? You hear that that?

That is not a sound effect, folks.

Like that is actually what it sounds

like when an alligator snapping turtle chops a turkey leg.

And I think the one thing I was really concerned about,

and Mario and I were talking about beforehand,

was could this potentially break your arm.

We knew it had the potential to like,

you know, lacerate your arm, but like,

could it actually break bone.

Right, like crush the bone itself,

which is what was happening there.

That sound that you heard was actually

the turkey bone cracking.

And we get to that point here, when

I take it out of its mouth.

Yeah, guys, I don't know about that.

Oh, yikes, that could have been my arm.

It was about to be your arm.

Yeah, like you just--

chomp.

Look at that hunk of meat hanging off the side there.

Not much of a turkey leg anymore at this point.

Look at the-- the meat is just falling off,

that was a solid turkey.

That is his lower beak, that's the hole

that the lower beak made.

Oh, there's my cool dragon

sound that I put in there.

I started using that dragon Godzilla sound

in these Dragon Tails episodes.

Yeah, you were still editing back then.

Oh, yeah. - Let's rethink this.

Yeah, you could actually see in my face

there I was like, I didn't know what to do.

I was like, cut the cameras at this point,

and then we have this nice transition

into like, let's talk about alligator

snapping turtles and their bite.

There was no way I was putting my arm

in its mouth unprotected.

Sorry, guys.

I mean, putting your arm in the alligator snapping turtle's

mouth unprotected, you would've ended

up just like that turkey leg.

Oh yeah.

Well the thing was like, Adam, he had been bitten

by snapping turtles before.

He actually was bitten by a large alligator

snapping turtle, almost took off part of his thumb.

I love that line that he says like, you only

get one set of fingers they don't, grow back,

or whatever it was, it was awesome.

But you know, he's somebody who had been catching alligator

snapping turtles his entire life,

so he looked at this as just being completely crazy.

But yeah, once we saw what the jaws did to that turkey meat,

it was like, oh, we need to rethink this.

Right, which luckily we had devised a plan

because we sort of--

there's the beginning of it.

So I remember the night before this day, we were all sitting

around base camp and we were thinking,

how are we actually going to do this without you

going to the hospital.

Yeah, because we made the decision that night, once all

the Instagram posts had come in like, Coyote,

you have to do this, we didn't want to really back out.

I was like, well, this can be a really cool episode,

we can teach people what happens if you get

bitten by a snapping turtle.

So you had the idea for, let's test it on a turkey leg

and, I think the brace was my idea, being like,

worst case scenario it demolishes a turkey leg, which

it did, and then we built some kind of brace on your arm

as protection, so you can at least feel some

of the pressure of the bite.

Because, obviously, we're not here to get Coyote maimed,

we're here to learn about things,

we wanted to learn just how bad the pressure from the bite

was first, hand or arm.

And how powerful is that bite, Mr. Wildlife Biologist,

like the bite of an alligator snapping turtle,

is it as bad as people think?

Well, we did learn a little bit,

after the fact that you got bit, right, but contrary to what

most people think, their jaw pressure

isn't as intense as other animals, right.

Like an alligator or a crocodile.

Yeah alligators and crocodiles have tons of jaw pressure,

3,000 pounds per square inch.

But there's different aspects, right.

Alligator snapping turtle has the beak, right, and those two

little points, that is going to be where most pressure is

at when that touches whatever it is it's biting,

as well as we know too, they've got serrations, right,

so their beak overlaps and you got kind of

like a scissor effect, right.

So you're going to get a lot of different factors

when you get bit.

You got the jaw pressure.

Let's dispel a rumor real quick, actually

because one of the big rumors--

Who wants to dispel a rumor?

Rumor.

One of the big rumors going into this, that

we had heard about, was, oh my gosh,

an alligator snapping turtle can actually snap a broomstick

in half, is that true?

Absolutely not.

I don't care who has told you what,

or what you think you've seen, maybe if it was an old rotted

broomstick, an alligator snapping

turtle or a common snapping turtle cannot

bite a broomstick in half.

It is not possible, not possible.

Yeah, I mean the size of the animal

is going to have a factor in how much jaw pressure it has

and so on.

You know, alligator snapping turtles are ambush predators,

right, they just lie in wait with their mouths open, they've

got the little lure, right.

So cool.

And that comes--

fish comes in, gets chomped.

So the jaw pressure isn't as intense.

However, there's a lot of factors involved.

Right.

And I do want to take this moment to note.

First of all, I don't think we said this at the beginning

of the episode, never, ever, ever, try to do this at home,

right, never get bitten by a snapping turtle.

But if you see a snapping turtle in your backyard,

also don't put a broomstick or a piece of wood in its mouth.

It's actually really bad for turtles' beak

to chomp down on something that's that hard.

Now, the beak is constantly growing

throughout the course of the turtle's life,

but you can chip it, you can injure it.

So I know a lot of people think, oh cool, snapping turtle,

let me put a broomstick in its mouth, please do not do that.

All right, let's get back into me being bitten by the turtle.

ACE bandage, four splints, and some sports wrap.

It's funny, sports this takes me back

to that night, we got all the supplies,

we literally made a midnight run to Walmart,

to get all this stuff.

We kind of MacGyvered this brace together on the fly,

so I'm glad it ended up ultimately

working out because you still have your arm.

Right, and well here's

one of those first instances of putting

the GoPro in like this good position

to get a neat bite shot.

I'm constantly keeping the turtle hydrated.

Which is important.

Of course, as we know--

oh, then he bit the water bottle.

I was like, oh buddy, give me that back.

See but the water bottle is squishy,

so a turtle biting a water bottle--

don't ever try to put a water bottle in the turtle's mouth,

but that was not going to hurt its beak in any way whatsoever.

There's the lure.

Yeah, go, go back,

back that up just a touch.

Let's look at that.

Yeah, there is the worm-like appendage, and that's actually

a great shot of the jaws, where you

can see how that upper jaw layers over the bottom jaw

and causes that scissor effect.

And you can actually see the points,

too, because that's what we're really worried about.

Right.

Those points puncturing your arm,

to where like it is sharp, right,

the jaws are sharp but like not as

sharp as like a common snapping turtle.

No, no, no.

The common snapping turtle actually

has a more dangerous bite, in my opinion, than the alligator

snapping turtle, even though alligator snapping turtles

can grow significantly bigger.

All right, let's see this bite.

Here we go.

This is great, we're four minutes in,

and we're just about to meet the bite.

Like with a sting episode nowadays,

you got to wait until 20 minutes into the video.

Oh, look at that beastie.

I was so nervous right here.

Yeah, right there.

This is a good point to ask you this question, what is going

through a person's mind when they're

about to shove their arm into the jaws of an alligator

snapping turtle?

You know, it really took a lot for this one.

It takes a lot for me to be bitten and stung

by any of these things, but this one specifically,

being my first intentional bite, was incredibly nerve-wracking.

Sure, I had the brace, but after you see a turtle mangle

a turkey leg and you're like, well

is it just going to just crush my arm through this brace?

I had no idea what was going to happen

and I was just like, go for it, just

had to do it at this point.

I remember you asked me off camera like, Mark,

you sure it's going to hold?

And I was like, oh yeah, yeah, it should hold, it should hold.

In theory.

Mario and I were talking, we were giving it 50-50.

I was skeptical, but you probably regret

that Instagram post, right?

Well, it did start this great experimentation

into seeing how--

At least at that moment.

At this moment, I definitely--

I definitely was.

All right, let's get ready for the bite, here we go.

You just have to-- have to just commit.

Oh, I can hear it cracking the bamboo.

Oh, that was the moment, pause it, go back right there.

Right there, you can see it going through.

Well, there was two.

It's this one, that shot, back up just a touch, right there,

where the beak, and this was to your point of the most pressure

being the tips of the beak, the beak, for all of that time,

it was the jaws coming down on my forearm,

so the weight was evenly distributed.

Now, don't get me wrong, it hurt,

it was like getting hit with a sledgehammer,

but, at this point, the beak went through the brace,

in between the bamboo, and I still have the scars today

from the snapping turtle bite.

No, that's a centipede.

No, the centipede's this arm.

Oh, sorry.

Well, you know with this bite, in particular,

I'll give away a little bit of the movie magic here.

You actually had to get bit twice.

There were actually two rounds of bites,

we cut it together to make it look like one round,

but we kind of expected the turtle to bite and hold on

but it did not do that, why do you think that was?

Well, I'll go ahead and defer to you on that one.

Yeah, simple.

So the turtle is not hanging on because he doesn't

think your arm's prey, right.

It's not trying to eat your arm, that's a defensive bite.

That's him saying, leave me alone, right,

so they're going to be quick bite and releases.

If your arm maybe tasted like chicken or fish, maybe

it would have hung on, right.

But certainly yeah, it was just bite and release because he

was trying to scare you away.

I think part of it, too, is also the fact that my arm was

a pretty big object to go inside of the turtle's mouth,

so originally this was get a snapping turtle

to bite and hold on, which, as we know

happened with the common snapping turtle bite,

but in this instance, like you said, he was simply trying to,

almost like a warning bite be like, what are you doing,

I'm not going to eat you.

Until, of course, he turned his head and got to this point.

You can see on my face right there, that's real pain guys.

You can just see it in your face like, yep, oh.

Hold on a second.

Oh yeah, that was rough.

Like your adrenaline gets rushing like that.

Definitely a lot of adrenaline,

you can see my hand shaking, it's actually shaking

the camera at that point.

I don't know if he might have busted blood vessels in my arm.

This is the first time

you really started playing with that perspective

from the GoPro.

Yeah, yeah, I get that with those cool GoPro

perspectives.

So there you can see, there you see the blood seeping through.

Those are the-- urgh.

Almost looks like a vampire bite.

Yeah, well and that was because there were--

you can see all the other indentations, that unless you

actually stop the video like this,

so you can see the two that pop through,

but you have all these other marks where the beak was

like-- oh, almost like, you know,

when we did the dog episode, the attack by dog,

and all those pressure point marks.

I was about to say, actually, compared to the dog,

now that you did the dog, how was the pressure?

The pressure is definitely worse.

Alligator snapping turtle is definitely more pressure

than my other [inaudible].

I'll take your word for it.

So how deep were these?

I mean, I don't know, like--

Like I didn't need to get stitches or anything like that,

but we did put antiseptic on them, wash out really good,

I mean, to the point where today I definitely still

have the scars on my arm here somewhere from those bites,

so it was a pretty, pretty good bite.

Woo, that was a crazy experience.

You guys asked for it and I got chomped by a 50-pound alligator

snapping turtle.

Oh, actually, pause it.

So real quick, before we released the turtle,

throughout the whole filming that turtle

was very comfortable, right.

We made sure it was in the shade,

we kept pouring water on it and, in my opinion,

I think it was having a good time biting you,

it had a big smile on its face.

Well, and it's important to note,

too, you said pouring water on it because with an amphibian

you need to keep it hydrated at all points of time.

As we know, an alligator snapping turtle is a reptile.

This turtle could stay out of water for days

and be completely fine.

So I just didn't want people to get confused with that.

Yeah, I would say, compared to most turtles

you catch, this one got a little bit more revenge.

Yeah, it did.

When they actually managed to chomp me, or in this instance

I let it intentionally chomp me, I

think the turtles get some sort of like, I got you, buddy.

Tortoise, tortoise.

Tortoise.

Go back, turn around.

Did you really see a tortoise?

Side of the road, yeah.

I was just randomly filming a driving B-roll shot.

You saw a tortoise?

What kind?

I think it might be a little leopard tortoise.

Right there, see it?

Oh yeah, sweet.

OK, well how about that for getting a B-roll shot and we

have seen a little tiny leopard tortoise.

Look at you.

Watch out.

Look at you, look at you, buddy.

This little guy's way too close to the road.

It's a leopard tortoise, either just crossed

or is attempting to cross.

Let me set this camera right down there for you.

I see you.

I see you.

I want to be very, very gentle picking him up

because I do not want him to pee,

which is a defensive mechanism of these tortoises.

There we go, look at you.

Oh, he's very warm, out here soaking up heat from the side

of the road and also the sun.

See there's cars zinging by, it's a very

dangerous place for a tortoise.

Where do they get the name leopard tortoise?

Just look at the design of the carapace,

looks just like the fur of a leopard.

This is actually, believe it or not,

the largest tortoise species here in South Africa.

This one is considered tiny.

They can weigh as much as 80 pounds.

These are giants.

Look at that domed carapace.

I know, you're scared, buddy.

Little stumpy legs, and a very cute face,

if it decides to show us its face.

That's so cool, our first official tortoise of the trip.

Wow.

Actually pretty heavy, it's a very, very dense animal.

They get all of their moisture from the food that they eat,

and they're out here feasting on--

Oh, you gonna come out for us?

He's thinking about it.

They eat grasses, leaves, succulents, and occasionally

will even take insects and other small little animals,

if the opportunity presents itself.

And actually, leopard tortoises love to eat hyena poop.

That hyena poop is high in calcium which helps

keeps these tortoises' shells and their platelets strong.

You notice when it tucks into its shell,

it has armored front legs, you see that, all of these legs

are covered with very dense scales,

and that keeps it protected.

Now, they don't have many predators,

but a tortoise of this size could be eaten by something

like a hyena, their jaws are strong enough

to crush through the shell.

But once this turtle reaches its adult stage,

the only threat that it has is humans,

and this roadway is a perfect example.

Many tortoises are, unfortunately, struck by cars,

and while they are rather speedy for a species,

not faster than a car.

So what we're going to do is just safely

move this little tortoise off into the underbrush here,

in the exact same direction that it was traveling,

and, hopefully, in the future it will avoid crossing roadways.

There you go, now you're coming out of your shell for us,

how cute are you.

That is so cool.

Here's one thing I love about the leopard tortoise.

Look at these sharp keels at the back,

and you'll notice how it branches down

over those hind legs, just another defense mechanism

against any potential predator.

And they have an unhinged shell.

You may be thinking to yourself, well it kind of

looks like a box turtle.

Let me tip it up for you there, you see the plastron, not

hinged at all, but slightly curves up,

which allows for the legs to perfectly tuck in,

covered in dense scales, and they

pull those legs in to block the face,

just like that, you see that?

Now, nothing can get to it, even me sticking my hand in there.

What he doesn't want to do is try to bite.

If you bite something then your head gets extended out,

and you stand the chance of being eaten,

so it's all about tucking into your shell.

As we know turtles and tortoises,

throughout the course of their life, grow with the shell.

Sometimes people think, well do turtles hop from shell

to shell, no, they do not.

Other than the gopher tortoise and the Galapagos tortoise,

this is only the third tortoise species

that we have featured on the Brave Wilderness Channel.