Weird Things that Happen at Snake Discovery (Shenanigans Ep. 10)

All right, well, it's late. We have to feed some snakes. It's Snake Discovery. Emily should already be here.

I mean, the lights are on and the door was unlocked, but I have no... Emily? Where... Wait. Why are you in there?

You're not supposed to see me in here. Oh, am I not? Okay, I go this way. I'm not in here. Oh, where is Emily? Where is she?

I can't find her anywhere. Oh, she's right here. I'm playing with Cheyenne. I don't want to work. I know.

I don't either, but... It's bedding change day. You can't hide in there. Yes, I can. Cheyenne and I can hide in here all day.

You can do all the work. All right, well, I guess welcome to Shenanigans, right, Cheyenne? Cheyenne? What do you think?

Yay, Shenanigans! She's dancing for it.

So according to the Internet, the best way to crack eggs is just to drop them. Oh, is it now?

drop them, they don't, they just smash, and then you can just pick up the shells, so.

I don't know if that actually... Well, there's a shell right there. I don't believe it. It didn't work at all. Nope.

Can't trust the internet. A miracle happened, Cheyenne. Look, there's a double yogurt in here.

Are you just gonna... Don't eat it. I have to show Ed still. Look, look, look, look what happened.

Whoa, look what you did. Yeah. All right, Emily, what's going on?

You told me to be here at a certain time tonight and nothing else. Yep. Today's a day off. Today is a day off. So I don't know why we're here.

Well, here, follow me into this room. Okay. Oh, my gosh. Hi.

Good evening. Hi. Hi, guys. Hi, Bryce. Hi, Chase. Yeah, we haven't officially met.

I'm sorry. Angel. Angel. Angel. Angel. Angel. Angel, great to know you.

Yeah, so this is Dexter. Dexter is a male golden eagle.

Yep, he's my hunting partner. So I've been flying him since 2008.

He's up here with me for work right now, so I've got about a dozen falcons in the trailer and then him. Seriously?

Yep, so I solve bird problems for a lot of corporations using trained falcons. So everything from SpaceX, LNG, oil refineries.

We're doing one in Iowa right now for egg production facilities, keeping migratory birds away to prevent the spread of high path avian influenza.

Oh, yeah. Oh, God, he's a different stuff. Yeah, he's a working bird.

So, yeah, so he doesn't go on those jobs so much for work, so the falcons do that. So he's specifically for hunting.

So basically his power talon, so his halix, his killing talon for all the hawks and eagles.

So they obviously have big feet, big talons, where falcons are more bird eaters.

So falcons, if you actually look, his beak is nice and rounded.

So if you look at a falcon up close on the inside of their beak there, they have a little notch on their beak.

And so falcons have that notch to be able to sever vertebrae.

So that's how they kill is they knock something down and then they bite on the back of the neck and actually sever the vertebrae. So that's how falcons do a lot of their killing.

I didn't realize that. Yeah, where hawks use their feet. So they'll grab with their feet, apply pressure, and a lot of times they'll actually cut off the circulation.

They can squeeze so hard they can stop the heart from beating basically just from pressure.

If you want, you are more than welcome to hold Dexter on the glove. Really? Yeah.

This has been a bucket list item forever for me. Is there any way to do it? Really? You think so?

So what I'm going to do is I'm actually going to clip him up here. So I'm just going to take this for a minute.

Just that way if he does bait and he gets away from me, he can't actually go anywhere. Or McCaw loves to fly when he's first day. A little different.

Just hang down for the ride. No problem. So most of them will step backwards. So these actually go. Yeah, where do I put that?

It goes right between these two fingers here. Interesting. So that way when you close your fist, you can basically lock that in place,

and then you can shorten or lengthen the jesses according to however you want and keep it locked in there.

He's incredible. I'm glad you get the opportunity. Yeah, he's about 7 3⁄4 pounds right now.

Okay, so our macaws are two. Yeah. There's a bit of a difference here. He's been doing this for a long time.

He's pretty used to being around people and doing this kind of thing. Like I said, I take him out and hunt him.

He's somewhere between 700 and 800 jackrabbits now that he's caught over the years. And he's almost 20 years old?

He's actually over 20 years old. So he was roughly four years old when I trapped him in Wyoming.

Basically, the Reader's Digest version is I've been flying birds since I was 15.

So you have to get a Master Falconer's Permit, which is seven years of doing it, being licensed, to be able to apply for an eagle permit.

So I was able to apply at the age of 23, get my eagle permit, and then I trapped him in the March of 2008.

So I've had him and hunted him ever since then. And obviously he talks to me. He can be a little vocal since I've had him.

What does that mean? It's just kind of a communication. It doesn't necessarily mean anything. He just does that when I'm around.

He's going to rouse. Yep, yep. Nice little rouse there, yep. A few questions. How's your arm? Oh, I'm feeling it for sure.