Have you ever wondered what might be going on in the mind of a wild animal as it makes its way through a forest or sees another animal approach or rounds a bend in the trail and encounters a human.

That's what the next hour is all about.

Animal Psychology, how to stay safe in the wild

and our connection with wild animals.

I'm Chris Morgan, wildlife ecologist and host of the wild.

I hope you're having a great weekend so far.

This is the wild hour and we're playing archives of our

podcast. I think about this stuff all the time, our relationship with nature. I know

a lot of you do too. A little aside, when we released this podcast a couple of years ago we got an

email from a listener named Lauren. She'd just been up for a hike in California and she'd come

face to face with a mountain lion.

She said the adrenaline made my mouth taste like metal.

She also said, because of listening to your show and learning what to do if I ever come face to face with a wild predator, I acted quickly

and calmly and was able to scare the mountain lion back up the path.

Nice work Lauren. I'm impressed. We start this episode just outside Bellingham, Washington.

I'm out in the woods and in my home in Washington State and this is some pretty wild country.

I'm not so many looks for trouble, but on my travel somehow I've been peed on by orangutan's and

charged by grisly bears treed by moose bitten by squirrels stalked by polar bears and followed by wolves. I was chased by wild boar and even

had my finger sliced open by a leaf cutter ant once. These encounters always make me wonder not just what is going on

through these animals minds but why and understanding that is key to staying safe in

the wild. This episode is not about gnarly animal attacks, you know,

those hyped up shows driving me a little crazy. They always make the animal look bad when really

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