NatureBoost Podcast
Episode 54 July 2024
Black Bears & Bearwise With Nate Bowersock and Josh Wisdom
[Bear clacking jaws.]
>> He is clacking his jaw. That's one of the behaviors bears do to indicate that they're upset. They'll huff and clack their jaws as a way of showing aggression. The only reason we're able to get away with this, is because this bear is in the trap.
>> Right.
>> If you were out in the wild, if this bear was out doing that, that's an indication that you need to stop what you're doing and back away as quick as possible. Don't run, but slowly back up and put space between you and the bear, because it's not happy. Both males and females will do that. Females will be doing that usually if there's cubs around. Males tend to do it because they have a food source, and they don't want to move. In this case, he's in a trap, and he's not happy to be in the trap.
[Whistling noise/music.]
>> Hey there, and welcome back to Nature Boost. I'm Jill Pritchard, with the Missouri Department of Conservation. If you've been following Nature Boost, since its start, you may remember an earlier episode where I tagged along on a winter den check with Missouri's black bear researchers. During these research trips, biologists track a radio-collared female to her den, safely sedate her, and then gather data on her and her cubs. All of the information helps scientists learn more about bears, their habitat, and their growth across Missouri. This summer, I got the chance to experience the second phase of this critical field work.
[Music.]
So, Nate, what are we on our way to do right now?
>> We are currently on our way to a bear trap to potentially mark a new bear that we haven't handled before. We like to try and mark as many bears as we can in the state, so that we essentially have a mark and time when we first handled this bear, and then hopefully over time, we'll be able to either catch this bear again, several years down the road, and either assess its body condition or put a collar on it, so we can track it.
[2:11.]
Then, inevitably when this animal dies, which we hope naturally . . . but more bears are starting to be hit by cars, since they're moving around the landscape. It allows us to know who that bear is, and gives us more information about the survival and causes of mortality for our bears here in the state.
>> That's MDC's new black bear biologist Nate Bowersock. In the summer, he and his team will set up trapping areas in southern Missouri. Bears are captured in barrel, culvert, or box-style trailer traps that are baited and monitored daily. Once a bear is captured in a trap, Nate and his team will head out to the site to conduct their research.
>> When we handle a lot of our bears, we give them ear tags, and we also give them a little microchip, which we call a "pit tag." [sp?] It's similar to the tag that you put into your pets at the vet, so if your dog or cat gets lost, they can scan it and figure it out. It's the same thing . . . we do work where we occasionally go to bear dens and count how many cubs a female has each year. We'll put pit tags in those cubs. There are cases when we'll catch bears in traps, like yesterday. We caught a bear that we had put a pit tag in as a yearling cub. We hadn't seen them since we handled them in 2019, so yesterday was the first time we had ever actually handled him. So, outside of his growth. It's a great way for us to track these animals and get an idea of just what they're doing, what they're up to, and also tracking where they show up.
>> One of the traps we checked on had captured the same bear from the previous day, which Nate says is pretty common, especially with male black bears.
[Noise, thudding.]
[4:00.]
I think this where we trapped the big bear yesterday. This might be him. So, like I was saying . . . we'll catch a bear, we'll work them, and sometimes they just really like the food that they get. So, we'll work them up, they'll leave, and come right back, and get caught again. Especially the males, because they need to get so much more weight. So, this is a really high calorie, rich food, and they figure that out. Some will keep coming to the same trap. Eventually, we might have to shut down a trap because a male will spend so much time triggering the trap, that we'll never catch another bear. One male will just sit here the whole time.
>> Well, you'd think this is such a traumatic experience, you know? You put them under, they wake up with some new jewelry on their ears, they might be a little sore . . . that that would deter them from coming? But no, they don't care.
>> Yeah. Some bears, it is. We may not see them for years and years, and then they maybe just forget what the whole experience is, or take the risk, and get caught again. Then, you have others that just . . . they don't care. They're like "hey, that food was awesome. I'm gonna come back again and again."
Let's see . . . I almost saw the numbers.
>> The team uses a sugary seed mix to bait the bear traps. A mixture of corn, sunflower seeds, occasionally adding peanuts or molasses.
>> Then what we do to try and entice, to get the bears used to the traps, is before we set them, a few days before we want to trap bears, we'll open the door, put in a bunch of food, and lock the door up, so the bears will get comfortable going in and . . .
>> Going in and . . . mhmm.
>> And then, who knows. Then one day we'll set it, and the hope is they get so comfortable that they get caught.
>> So, you'd have to come back and check these traps daily, to make sure they have food?
>> Yeah. If we know we're not going to be trapping, then either A, we'll physically lock the door up so it can't go down, or we'll just close it down and lock it, so there's no risk of a bear getting caught without us being here.
[Music.]
[6:09.]
>> To make the [unclear] and [unclear], which is both an immobilizer, so you lose control of muscles, and a sedative to calm them down . . .
>> The history of black bears in Missouri is a great conservation success story. They were nearly eliminated by unregulated killing in the 1800s, as well as from habitat loss when Ozark forests were logged. But, their numbers bounced back over the last 50 years. Data from winter bear denning and summer trapping shows numbers are increasing each year by about 8%.
[Unclear dialog.]
>> Oh, wow! [Laughing.]
>> Keep going down . . .
>> How much do you think he weighs?
>> Maybe 70 pounds.
>> Maybe? He's a little smaller than my dog. [Laughing.]
>> Yeah. This bear probably, I wouldn't be surprised if it just got kicked by mom.
>> Oh, really. Yeah, it is pretty.
>> I'm sure mom left them here.
>> This young bear, referred to as a yearling, was caught in a nearby trap. Unlike the older male who was showing aggression signs
and clacking his jaw, this young bear was calmer in the trap, which helps speed along the process. Nate explained that if a bear is worked up, it takes longer for the sedative to take effect. Sometimes, even causing the team to give the bear another dose. But, this yearling's demeanor was less stressed, coupled with his size . . . the team didn't have to wait long for him to go to sleep.
[Unclear dialog.]
>> Slow . . . wouldn't hurt to put a little oxygen on.
>> It's slow. Probably a few seconds.
[8:01.]
>> Once we get a bear out of the trap, we do TPRs, which is temperature, respiratory, and pulse. So . . . capillary refill, how oxygenated is their blood? We take their temperature, we'll have someone count how many breaths he's taking here in a second. Then, we'll push on his gums and we can see, if you think about pushing on your arm, it goes white from pushing the blood out. When you let go, the blood refills. The quicker the blood fills back in, means the better the pressure is.
This isn't too bad. Let's keep an eye on that.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah. Body temperature, you know . . . think humans, low 100s is okay, but once we get much above 104, then we have issues. But, we have ice. Temperatures down below 97, and we need to do something to warm the bear up. Luckily in summer, it's rarely the warm up side. It's the cool down.
>> Mhmm. Yeah.
>> Someone give me a countdown.
>> [unclear.]
>> Here . . . my hands are covered in poop. [Laughing.]
>> Yeah, me too. [Laughing.]
>> Oh, check for the pit tag first, actually. Good call.
[Beeping.]
>> There we go!
>> 9324.
>> So, we probably handled this bear as a cub last year.
>> That's what I was going to say, yeah.
>> We actually have a book, so we'll look that up here in just a moment. That's cool! Again, this is where marking, capturing these bears and marking them, is great. It's a case of, "we know this bear was a cub, we physically handled it, and now it's gotten to this yearling age class and survived."
[9:56.]
The fact that it's on its own here means that it's doing well. These juvenile age classes, they still have a hard time because they now have to navigate the landscape on their own, which black bears are capable of doing, but now they have to fend for themselves. That means, if they run into a big male, they don't have the protection of mom.
>> Right.
>> So, they have to figure things out on their own. Usually, that means running or going up a tree, and hoping they don't get pursued.
>> They're trying to look for their own territory? Is that right?
>> At this age, it's just trying to find food. For males, they tend to disperse away from the area that their mothers are at. Females stick close to where their mom's home range is. Males move off, because they try to avoid mating with related kin. So, males will take off. In some cases it could be just down the road, but in other cases we see bears that travel. This bear could eventually travel all the way to the Lake of the Ozarks, or something like that. It could go a really far distance. Right now, we're so early in the spring still . . . it's likely that he's still on his own.
>> Mhmm.
>> 23 . . . okay, last year, yeah. Can I get a biopsy tool?
>> I bet I know what this is, I've seen this before. Not on bears, but I've seen it.
>> Mhmm.
>> Ear tags?
>> We put ear tags in the bears for a marker. We don't have to put in a pit tag, because he already has one. For the ear tags, we have to prepunch a hole, because you can't just put the tag straight in. We have to create some holes. We'll use a biopsy tool, which is just a razor blade in a circle shape. We'll punch a hole in this bear's ears, and then we'll put the ear tag in. So . . .
[Unclear noise.]
Then, we just put the ear tag in.
[12:01.]
We do the most painful things with the animals at the beginning, because some animals don't go under drugs as heavily as others, or even when they're fully under, we want to do the most invasive things at the beginning, when they feel the least amount of pain.
>> That makes sense.
>> Then we do more simpler things later on, such as taking body measurements.
>> So, both ears just in case one falls off?
>> Mhmm, yep. And, we have potential duplicate numbers out there, so to make sure that we have . . . we can tell the unique individual, we have multiple ear tags, so we know this one is . . .
>> [unclear.]
>> [Laughing.] This one is 327, and 329. Yeah, they can fall out, and also we'll get trail camera pictures, and sometimes you have the animal going one direction, and having them on the outside of the ear gives a better chance that we can read that tag, if it's walking past a trail camera.
[Music.]
[Unclear speech.]
>> All of the data collected helps scientists learn how bears are moving and expanding across the state. A big part of MDC's black bear management plan is increasing awareness about bears in order to minimize and address conflicts. In addition to educating Missourians about how to be "bear aware", MDC is also affiliated with the Bearwise program. MDC wildlife damage biologist Josh Wisdom shares more.
>> Bearwise is an organization or group that our state and other states pay into, actually, to use their materials, their logo, they have email blasts, all that kind of thing. What's so good about it, is that they one, have really great materials, stuff is really well written and well thought out. There are different releases throughout the year of "hey, this is what bears are doing in the spring, this is what bears are doing in the fall", that kind of thing.
[14:05.]
It's really good because that information is, for lack of a better word, we'll say "universal." If you go to the Great Smokies and see their bear materials, it'll be the same as the bear information you'd see in Missouri. So, it's all going to carry over. We're always getting a consistent, uniform message out there. It's always the same message. Bearwise is really good. Again, it's really more so about how to live with bears, living with bears in bear country.
There's some great information out there, also on their website about what we'd call a "natural history", how many babies they have, that kind of stuff, which is great. Really, it's like "I have chicken coops, and what do I do about this? What is it like to be in a place that has bears year-round, all the time?" It's not a one off. Most of Missouri is headed in that direction where it's not that uncommon to see a bear anymore. You can't really think "well, he'll never come back", because honestly there's probably 5 more just like him right behind him.
>> With your position with MDC as a wildlife damage biologist, I can imagine like we said earlier, the summer is probably a busy time of year for you. More bear sightings, which leads to more possible human interactions, and conflicts. What's the biggest thing you want people to know, who live in an area that has an established bear population?
>> There's a few different things. If I had to boil it down to one thing or two things, generally what I tell people is one, don't ever feed a bear on purpose or on accident. What I mean by that, is obviously if you have a tripod feeder out full of corn, and it's 100 feet behind your house, and you like looking at the deer . . . well, now there's a bear there. You need to stop feeding that bear. I realize that wasn't your idea. Now if you know what's going on, you're feeding that bear on purpose. Or, on accident would be "hey, I have a dumpster at the end of my driveway, and it's a communal dumpster. Every day the bags are pulled out, and we think there's bear prints on the side of the dumpster."
[16:00.]
It's like, okay, now you're feeding it on accident. So, either way, we need to figure out what we can do to address that attractant. That bear won't leave until the attractant is either removed, or secured to where he can't get into it. The other part of that is, we have a great bear reporting website at mdc.mo.gov. We'd really love if the public would use that website more. It's good citizen science, for one. The website, they can actually drop a pin for the physical location in the state where it's at. If you do have a picture of that bear whether you took it with your iPhone or a Ring doorbell camera or whatever, you can attach that picture to that website. That's really good information for us. Again, citizen science you know . . . as our bear population is expanding, we're seeing bears farther north. I'm out of the Springfield area, but it's really not even that uncommon to see them around the Jeff City area now. So, it's great when you actually have a picture to confirm that, that "hey, it wasn't a black dog, hey, it wasn't a cow, it really was a bear. Here's a picture of it in my driveway in Jefferson City", or whatever. So, that's really good information.
As well as, you can also start to use that information for some of the conflict stuff. You know . . . bear reports are great, and we want to continue to get those. Just the fact that I did get one on my trail camera or, again, on my Ring doorbell camera or whatever . . . but also, a lot of the times I glean a lot of information from that. It's like "hey, we had a bear in our driveway, and by the way, it knocked over the one beehive I had behind the house." Or, "hey, you know we had a bear in the driveway. I think it got into my trashcans. That makes sense. I thought it was dogs, and now I realize it's probably a bear." Again, that becomes . . . it goes from a report, to part of an informational thing. Like, "hey, these are things you can do that will one, keep you from having to pick up your trash again, and also curb that behavior out of that bear pretty early." The faster we know something about it, the faster we can educate the public and we can respond to the conflicts that the bear is causing.
>> You really don't want bears to associate humans with food.
>> Correct. Bears are an eating machine. They're not a people-eating machine, they're not monsters, but their full-time job is just to see how fat they can get between the summer and the fall when they go in the den.
[18:03.]
That's literally all they're concerned with. That is their job, is "how much food I can eat, and how convenient can I get it inside my body." With that being the lynchpin of all of a bear's behavior, whether it's getting into a dumpster or getting into the bird feed, dog food, beehives, whatever . . . that's just going to create conflicts for the bears and for humans both. It may be something as simple as startling people when there's a bear on the front porch, to again, actual property damage of beehives being destroyed, or the chicken coop being knocked over, or whatever. Again, it helps everybody by you not having the property damage as a landowner, and that bear is staying wild, doing what bears should be doing, out foraging on the landscape, not in and around homes, not crossing roads all the time to get to those food sources around homes. It's just a recipe for disaster. Anytime that bears are really reliant on human foods or spending too much time around humans, eventually the bear will lose . . . we didn't coin the phrase, but there's a popular phrase called "a fed bear is a dead bear." When I say that, I like to expand.
Because, there's a few different options. One, if a bear is eating trash by the side of the road in a trash can or dumpster, he's spending a lot of time by the pavement. Eventually, somebody is going to hit him with a car. That's the reason why a fed bear is a dead bear. If that bear is on the front porch, maybe it doesn't bother you, it's not a conflict you're aware of, but your neighbors next door didn't know about it, and the landowner steps outside to smoke a cigarette or let his dog out, or whatever . . . and there's a bear in front of him. In some cases, that landowner may shoot that bear. They're startled and fear for their life, so that bear is going to die. Or, the worst case, is again . . . if this bear's behavior becomes so egregious where it's trying to enter homes, trying to enter vehicles, that kind of thing, then folks like myself with the state, we'll have to come in and probably have to remove that bear. Again, that bear will lose out of any of those situations.
>> So, with these bear sightings, should anybody who sees a bear at any time, should they go to the website and report it? Are you wanting all of those sightings reported?
[20:00.]
>> Yeah, that's fine. Honestly, it seems like the longer that we have bears in counties like in the bottom third of the state, a lot of those reports have gone down. It's not because the bear numbers have gone down, but because it's so commonplace that people aren't that interested anymore. Now that we have bears expanding generally towards the St. Louis area, or Lake of the Ozarks, or Jefferson City, it's amazing how many more reports you'll get, because "hey, that's new, I've never seen that before." It's on top of people's minds. But yeah, our bottom counties especially ones that touch Arkansas, people have lived with bears for 20 years in some cases, especially in some of these rural areas. So, they're not that interested in it. Certainly, these new areas, our expanding population . . . our numbers are going to double about every 10 years, and that's statewide. Again, if you've never had a bear in your county, but you're adjacent to that bottom third, bottom half of the state, you're probably going to in the near future.
Again, if you're a county that only has a couple, you know, in 10 years you'll have four, or you're going to have six. We don't really have a limiting factor right now that will keep that number down.
>> It's a cool conservation story, right? That should be an indicator that Missouri has the habitat for them, and the means to support such a cool member of the wildlife.
>> Yep, and that really is what it comes down to. Contrary to popular myth or belief, Missouri did not bring bears in. We've always had bears, before Europeans settlement, and before wagon times, that kind of thing, as people moved west. We've had a lot of bears in Missouri. Bear numbers went down because of our activities. The plow . . . people, back when they depended on corn crops and stuff like that, they didn't have electric fences back then as a way to protect their property, so a lot of the bears were removed. Anyway, in the early 60s, Arkansas brought their bears back. This has really been an offshoot of that. That's why we have the numbers that we have now, to the degree that we do.
But, you're spot on. Our bear biologists will tell you, a lot of our bears might have a home range of 30 to 60 square miles, which is huge. But, you can look at states like New Jersey, where you have bears that have a home range of a mile.
[22:00.]
And, the reason for that is that our bears right now can be really picky. Again, we have, say . . . in our Mark Twain National Forest, we have so much space where they can pick their best spots, and move to the thing they like next. As our population increases, those densities will become higher, and their home range will shrink, but right now, they can be really picky. There's not really a limiting factor. It's kind of exponential right now.
>> Bears are definitely more afraid of us than we should be of them. They don't want to be around us. On the chance that you do encounter a bear in the wild, what do you recommend you should do?
>> So, a few things on that train of thought. The likelihood of a black bear attack is very rare. It's very low. Does it happen? Sure, in the history of the world it happens, yes. But again, they're not super violent, they're not grizzly bears. I think a lot of people have pulled information about grizzly bears and applied it to black bears. Again, the big things are, they're more or less just a big raccoon, which most folks are used to seeing. They're not looking to run through the woods and jump on top of something like a lion and a gazelle. They don't really operate that way. They're way more likely to run up a tree if they see you. Most of the bears I have that are in conflict with yards, with dogs . . . usually end up up a tree, because the dog has run the bear up a tree. I mean, even small dogs . . .
>> Like, big bears are afraid of smaller dogs, even. Wow!
>> Yeah . . . again, in the history of the world, yes, bears have hurt people. But again, if you look at it, most of the time it's usually a string of bad behavior. Either that bear being conditioned to be around people, or conditioned to eat food around people, or hand fed, even in some cases. The likelihood of you just walking through the woods or hiking on one of our areas and seeing a bear and it coming after you is almost nothing. It's super unlikely.
>> Would you say the bear probably is going to notice you before . . .
>> Absolutely.
>> You even notice the bear? Yeah.
>> I talked to a bunch of kindergartners this past year. One of the things I said is, a bear's super power is their nose. It's not their eyes, it's not really even their ears. If the wind especially carries your smell to them, they'll know you're there, long beforehand.
[24:03.]
>> And they're going to go the other way.
>> They'll go the other way. They're not looking for a fight. Again, honestly, if you look at their diet and compare it, it's pretty similar to what a turkey eats. There's a lot of bugs, there's a lot of green vegetation . . . obviously there's blackberries, acorns in the fall, but you know, they're not jumping on top of deer. They're not killing stuff and eating it. It's generally whatever I can go across as I'm walking across the landscape.
>> Right, as they happen upon it.
>> Yep.
>> Do you think people need to carry bear spray?
>> Yeah, so bear spray is a good tool. There's nothing wrong with it. If you feel comfortable with it, you should have it. Again, I think there's some misinformation where people have applied pepper spray like the police would use, or like . . . real common in self-defense circles. So, that generally comes out as a liquid stream, like a hose. Bear spray actually comes out in a fog. I don't think people understand that. It's a mist. There's some great videos, again, if you're really interested in bear spray. But really, the idea of spray is that you're trying to create almost a curtain or cloud between you and the bear.
Obviously, if a bear is on top of you or within 6 feet, you can just spray it with the spray. The idea is that that bear is approaching, or if you see that bear, you spray towards the ground and let the cloud of that mace mist up. That's an area that the bear is not going to go through. Again, their nose is super strong. They're going to know that that pepper spray is out there.
>> It's like a barrier, and that gives the person a chance to get away?
>> Correct.
>> Okay.
>> Again, don't misunderstand me. Bear spray is not something you should spray on your clothes, or a boat, or a tent, like "I don't want him to eat my tent, so I'm gonna spray my tent." No, don't do that. But again, if you were to see a bear, you're creating a cloud of that stuff hanging in the air, and it's gonna give you a chance to get away from the bear. But again, where I was going with that, is bear spray is fine, if you're into that. I generally don't think you have to have it for black bears. Again, that's more of an out West, kind of a grizzly bear thing. You know, you've got places where you're required to carry bear spray, because those bears are really aggressive, the grizzly bear is. But yeah, if people want to, that's fine. Again, I'd say, probably watch a video, understand how it works.
[26:03.]
Know how much you're going to have in that can. Because again, with a human attacker, they always talk about spraying across the eyes and all of that. This isn't going to work that way at all. I can also tell you, from doing demonstration videos for our own department, that if that spray comes back and the breeze is just right, it'll burn you very bad.
>> Yeah.
>> Math [sp?] had it just literally kiss the side of my face, and it burned for quite a while.
>> Oh, wow.
You know, I didn't know we had bears, until I started working for MDC.
>> My wife, she was like "I had no idea we had bears here." I was like, now, it's commonplace. Like, "I just brought another bear home, it's not a big deal."
>> [Laughing.] Right.
>> But it's like . . . [unclear.] No idea.
>> Yeah. But, you don't know what you don't know. So, I think that's a huge message, is that yeah, Missouri has bears, and to be bear wise.
>> Yep.
>> And, be proactive.
>> Yeah, be proactive. The biggest thing, is I just hate when people are fearful. I get that a lot, like "oh, I can't go outside anymore, because bears are going to eat my grandchildren", or whatever. It's like, I understand the sentiment. Generally what I'd say in a nice, polite way, is "well, would you typically leave your children unattended outside? Probably not." There are more people hurt by feral dogs, stray dogs, criminal elements, whatever. There's a lot of stuff out there, and bears are not at the top of the list. Again, look at places like California . . . another interesting thing about bears is they're literally in every ecosystem.
Florida, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Asheville, North Carolina, Missouri . . . all these places have bears, they all have people that live in residential areas. People aren't getting eaten by black bears every day. If this was a thing, we would know about it, right? Asheville, North Carolina has what's called an "urban bear study." They literally are trapping bears in people's back and front yards, they've got bears that are denning underneath people's decks . . . and under their crawl spaces of their house. Again, this is not a thing where people are getting eaten by bears every day.
>> Wow.
>> It's a big animal, should you respect it, should you understand what's going on? Yes. But, they're not out there to eat everybody.
>> Right.
>> It just doesn't work that way.
>> They just wanted to move in with you. [Laughing.]
[28:00.]
>> Exactly. Generally they like the food, and they like the cover.
>> Yeah.
>> That's the biggest thing I get concerned with. People are so scared of what they don't understand, and rightfully so, if you don't understand anything about it. But yeah, you know, bears climb trees, they really do a lot . . . they're true omnivores, so they will eat whatever. If it has calories, they'll be interested in it.
>> Mhmm.
>> That's my biggest, I hate to say gripe, but yeah. People that are just so worried about them, and they just don't need to be. That's my thing.
>> Yeah. It should not be a barrier to you getting outside and recreating outdoors or going in your local park or conservation area . . .
>> Yeah, or picking blackberries, or whatever. Because, even bears love blackberries. I've had people . . . "well, you know I saw a bear leave." Well, right there. He left when you showed up. "Yeah, he did." It's like, that's what he's supposed to do. "Well, I don't want to go out there now, because I know there's bears there." It's like, well I've been telling you there's bears there for years now. We have a hunting season, we've had a hunting season for a handful of years. And so . . . they're out there, but again, should you change all of your behavior and outdoor activities? No. You really don't need to worry about it that way.
>> At the time of editing this episode in late June, there were sightings of a young adult black bear in Eureka and Ballwin in St. Louis county. Though most of our bears live in the southern part of Missouri, it is common for them to be spotted in more populated areas like St. Louis and St. Charles counties. With a few sensible measures, it is possible to welcome back Missouri's black bears as our neighbors in the wild, without inviting them to the dinner table. Learn more about black bears and their history at missouriconservation.org, and find other resources on living responsibly with bears at bearwise.org.
I want to thank MDC black bear biologist Nate Bowersock, and wildlife damage biologist Josh Wisdom for appearing on this episode. Thanks to MDC digital media producer Peg Craft for editing. And, thank you to listening to another episode of Nature Boost. I'm Jill Pritchard with the Missouri Department of Conservation, encouraging you to get your daily dose of the outdoors.
[30:03.]
[Music.]
[End of podcast.]