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Okay, let's get started.
Hey mike, welcome to.
Conan o'brien needs a fan.
Hey, thanks so much.
Hey mike, how are you?
Where are you right now?
Oh my gosh.
Hey, conan.
Uh, i'm in london, ontario and canada.
Oh wow, okay.
And are you in the wilderness right now?
I mean, are you in a pretty urban area?
Yeah, I'm in the urban area today.
Okay.
Can I just pretend that you're way out on the tundra somewhere?
Yeah, let's do it.
Okay.
Can you occasionally make a sound with your mouth just so I feel like this is really authentic?
What do you want, sorry?
Forget it.
That's the perfect response.
Why don't you repeat what you asked him?
No, I'm good.
Oh, okay.
And I just wanted to get you to say a Canadian sorry.
So I'm happy.
Hey, Mike, it says that you are a conservation authority.
Is that correct?
Oh, yeah.
I work for a local conservation authority.
And in the past, you were a polar bear monitor.
What does that mean?
Uh, essentially I would be.
Uh I would go up to the Arctic uh and get dropped off um by helicopter with uh anybody who needs a uh safe escort uh across the Arctic um from polar bears.
So I would kind of track the bears, find the bears, keep my eyes on them and make sure.
Sorry I was supposed to do this reveal earlier, but uh, For those of you listening, Mike just panned to I mean a Hogwarts owl.
A beautiful owl is perched right next to you.
And apparently it was just happily hooting.
That's a perfect reveal.
That was a perfect cinematic reveal.
If you get a chance to see that, go on your computer and check it out.
That's amazing.
That was amazing.
She's gonna leave though.
I love that.
What is that bird's name?
Well, Conan, I was hoping you could name her for me.
She's fairly new to my team here.
How about Interrupto?
Interrupto?
I love it, let's do it.
Interrupto the owl.
She's also sitting on my router right now, so she might even interrupt us further.
That's okay.
That bird, Interrupto just wants to destroy, like not that guy.
Just this podcast?
Yeah, this podcast?
Why isn't it Smartless?
And he's like crushing the wire.
Where's Will Arnett?
He's Canadian.
Hey, Mike, so I just have to ask you.
So your job was to be basically a guide who would protect people from polar bears in the Arctic.
And so I have so many questions right now.
I've always heard polar bears are the most dangerous bear.
They can kill you so quickly.
Is that true?
It's true.
Yeah.
Like a black bear, a grizzly bear, Mike Knox, want anything to do with you.
Where a polar bear?
If they smell you, see you, they're coming to get you.
They're hungry.
It's cold. and they want to eat.
Right.
They're not sitting around on their backs eating a bunch of blueberries that they found.
There's nothing like that in the Arctic.
So when they see a ham steak and boots walking by, they go for it.
They go for that person.
They want it.
They want it bad.
So what can you do to protect them in that situation?
Yeah, so I care about conservation so much, so...
I want to protect the bears just as much as I want to protect the humans because I am armed.
I do use non-lethal rounds, but there are lethal rounds that need be.
Never had to, never want to.
So what are the non-lethal rounds made of?
It's like a rubber slug.
And so it hurts.
If you hit a polar bear with it, he'll say, I want to leave now.
Kind of, I did it once and the polar bear just kind of like squinted its eyes and walked away.
Sort of like Clint Eastwood, it looked annoyed and then walked away.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And can I ask you, what is the caliber of weapon, if the rubber bullet isn't working, that you would use on a polar bear?
Because I would think it just has to be a, you can't just be using a 22.
No, no, it would be a 12 gauge.
Jesus, okay.
But I'm glad, but you never had to kill a bear?
No, I haven't.
I've had some guys think that maybe I should have.
You know they might have pooped their pants a bit while they hid behind me, but I wanted to give that bear every chance to get away.
And luckily, nobody got hurt and the bear got away.
I think once they pooped their pants, the bear wanted to leave.
Yeah, yeah.
That's what saved their lives.
The bear was like, oh my God, there's poop all over my ham steak.
Yeah, yuck.
I'm giving this a terrible Yelp review.
You also have worked a lot with birds.
Is that correct?
That's right.
Yeah.
Birds of prey.
Birds of prey.
And you would train the birds of prey?
Yep. train them right from the very beginning.
And I would use them anywhere that has a problem with birds not of prey.
So if there's a blueberry farm and all the songbirds are eating all the blueberries, they would hire me to bring my birds of prey.
I would fly them around and it would scare all the other birds away.
Okay.
So tell me a little bit, what kind of birds of prey are we talking about?
Yeah.
Hawks?
Jeer falcons, sacred falcons, peregrine falcons, Harris hawks, bald eagles, all kinds of different birds.
You can train a bald eagle?
They all kind of have their own job.
I had a bald eagle named Babe.
I raised her from an egg, basically.
Oh, you are so rugged.
Take it easy, Sona.
You okay?
You're married, Sona.
What's up?
Oh, right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Wow.
Okay.
Thanks, David.
Good Lord.
To be fair, I'm swooning too.
So am I. Yeah.
Wow.
Let's get it on.
I'm down.
Hey, time for some polar porn.
So anyway, moving on.
I didn't think you could train a bald eagle.
Yeah, it's possible.
They are one of the trickier to train birds because they have a natural instinct to be a bit nasty.
Oh, really?
If they can steal prey from another bird, they will, you know, to save themselves the energy of catching their own.
So, you know, I love that that's the symbol of America.
Oh, I know.
Our national symbol is the dickiest of the birds.
I'll steal that food before I get my own.
Well, yeah, Babe was her name.
She had a really good... personality, she didn't really have that nasty side, except towards women.
My girlfriend at the time.
They were near me when I had her, but you could come up and shake my hand and she'd just be like- No, many birds have thought I was a woman.
Trust me.
They're like no, but so, really so.
Sometimes a bird will or, in this case, a bald eagle.
Or, in Babe's case, specifically Babe would be cool with dudes, but if a lady showed up, would try to attack the lady.
She was super jealous.
Yeah, I wouldn't give her the chance.
I'd hold on to her pretty good.
But yeah, she'd think about it.
She'd let you know she wasn't happy.
This must have gotten in the way of your dating life.
I would think that you had a bird that attacked women instantly.
Yeah, well, it did, but that's all right.
I know what you mean.
I got polar bears to monitor.
You get to live alone, you know, yeah.
Wow, so you have all these different birds and then you would use them like oh damn, there's some seagulls that are hanging around my house by the ocean and they're real drag and they're pooping all over the place.
I'm gonna get one of these birds of prey to chase them out of here and it works?
Yeah, I'll get rid of them right away for you.
But we do something called car hawking, which is essentially the hawk will ride in the front seat of my car.
We will do a drive-by of your house.
I'll do that on my window, and the hawk will just fly out.
She might grab a seagull.
She might miss.
But either way, every seagull in the area is going to disappear pretty fast.
And how long do they stay away for?
When do people think, okay, the coast is clear now.
The guy who has a hawk in his car, what left?
Yeah, it depends.
The Domino's guy with the hawk left.
Yeah.
If it's a food source, like a landfill, they will keep coming back daily to check and see if I'm still there.
Yeah.
And I would be.
I love that.
You would ride up with a hawk in your front seat riding shotgun, and then you'd pull up to the address and go.
Here we are, 34 Crenshaw Road.
Put the window down and wha!
That's so amazing.
And then the hawk scares them all and just comes right back into your car?
If they catch a bird, they'll stay out there.
I did have a hawk train to come back right in the window and I drove a Dodge Dakota at the time and she went out the window and I was driving behind a Dodge Dakota and they had their windows down.
They didn't know that they didn't know me.
And she flew straight into their window and the car hit the gravel.
Everyone came running out of their cars.
You know what I love?
The hop being embarrassed.
I'm just thinking of the hop going, oh God, I'm sorry.
Oh God, I'm so sorry.
No, it's just, I swear to God.
It's the same.
It's maroon.
It's the same color.
It's okay.
It's okay.
No, no.
Oh, God.
Oh, God.
Did the hawk just cover its face when it got back to your car?
With its two wings?
Oh, yeah, she walked back to me.
Yeah.
Just get me home.
Just get me home.
Just get me home.
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
The walk of shame.
Yeah, the walk of shame for a hawk.
Bird of prey walk of shame.
Oh, my God.
Wow, that's so amazing.
A bunch of fascinations here.
I love the birds.
I love, did you always, did you ever work with other bears other than polar bears, grizzlies?
Because grizzlies fascinate me.
Yeah, they are incredible.
I didn't work directly with them, but I was a guide on horseback in the Rocky Mountains.
Yeah.
And I've had a few run-ins with grizzly bears, but nothing too crazy.
Yeah.
My God.
But they are also quite incredible.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, take it easy, Shona.
I'm sure Tack has been around.
It's just one thing after the other with this guy.
Didn't Tack, hasn't Tack worked with some lethal animals?
No.
Wasn't there a, no, there was a sickly hamster that he befriended.
No, he's like cuddling with our poodle at home.
Like, you know.
That's what I have.
Okay.
Take it easy.
I'm a big Tack fan.
You can have him.
I'll move to Canada.
Yeah. and be attacked immediately by one of his birds.
No, no, no, I won't allow it.
I'll cut a bitch!
I'll cut a bitch!
I'll die immediately.
I forgot I'm not a very outdoorsy person.
Take it easy, interrupto.
Wow, i know i'm fascinated by grizzlies and it's this crazy fascination where i find it terrifying the idea of being mauled and eaten by a grizzly.
But i'm also i, i i just find them so fascinating that part of me wants to have a grizzly encounter just as much as i don't want to have a grizzly encounter.
Does that make sense to you?
I totally get it.
I, i totally get it.
Um, i tried to tell my mom and family things because it's it's a bit of a dangerous job, so they worry about me.
But um, it's not to be morbid, but like i don't want to, you know, die of old age, working in an office my whole life.
If, if i had a, you know, a bear encounter and that's what happened, like i don't want it, it would be awful.
But like you know yeah Yeah, that is a closed casket funeral.
I'm telling you right now.
I don't even know what's left at that point.
They have to follow the bear for three weeks.
Keep tricking it to use a toilet.
And then put your wool cap on whatever's left.
I'm sorry, but that's exactly what would happen.
Still sound romantic to you, dude?
Just leave me out there, it's okay.
Okay.
Leave you out there.
Got it.
Okay.
I think this is very cool.
Now be honest with me, Mike.
If you've been listening to me at all, or familiar with my work and know me as a person, what you see is pretty much what you get.
How would I do in these situations?
You think, if you were with me, whether it's in the Arctic and we're approaching a polar bear or in a grizzly encounter.
I want to know.
I want to know.
I'm constantly wondering how I would measure up.
I think you know.
I don't know.
We all know.
No, I don't.
Go ahead.
Let's see.
How big can you get?
How big can I get?
I'm 6'4", without doing anything.
And when frightened, my hair gets much taller.
So I could be 6'6", maybe.
Okay.
So that's bigger than me.
I'm bald.
So I'm 6'4", but I'm bald.
So you might... standing behind me, we'd look even bigger.
So you know what?
We might survive together out there.
Would you think that I'd be the kind of person to panic and run or do you think I'd be calm?
I want to believe you'd be calm.
Why do you want to believe that?
Why can't you just believe that?
I don't know.
You might try and like use comedy to get out of it.
Yes.
Hey, here's my question.
Do grizzlies like bits?
Do they like sort of cartoony physical schtick?
A little bit.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
So I'm just thinking, yeah, that's the problem.
The biggest problem is I might see a comedy opportunity and start, you know, pretending to be another bear who's kind of a wise guy.
And I could see that really irritating, not just a human, but any member of the animal kingdom.
If the bear wasn't going to kill you after your bits, it would want to kill you.
You would be doing yourself a disservice.
The bear might befriend me, and then I would start to show the bear stuff from the podcast and old Conan episodes, at which point the bear would reduce me to a pile of ground chuck instantly.
You're still gonna be doing bits during the attack?
Yeah, even during the pat, I'd be like, oh no, I'm being murdered by a bear.
Mauled, mauled, I tell you, mauled.
Look at me, I have one leg.
Look at me, uh-oh, hoppy, hoppy, hop.
Got one leg and a hoppy, hoppy, hop.
Yeah, Mike, I'm going to cancel this idea right now.
Okay.
If you change your mind, we can go over there.
I'll make sure we have a good time.
We'd have a good time.
I like this guy.
I do too, yeah.
And I think you and I would do well hanging out.
I think we'd be good buddies.
We're so mutual.
I would try to... I think I could...
I think I would be a little.
You know the way I you've seen this, Sona and David I kind of become the person I'm with if I'm with them for a while.
I'm very zealig that way.
I think I would become more like Mike and I would, I might calm down.
I really like being out in nature.
I chill out a bit.
There's way too much stimulation around me all the time.
This might calm me down, and maybe battling a bear of some kind would, you know, make me realize what it's all really about.
Yeah.
Battle a bear?
Yeah.
Like you think you have a chance?
I have a very good chance.
Okay.
Maybe Mike is there.
Yeah.
Only if Mike is there.
That's true.
Yeah.
I will be in the car.
The car will be locked.
I'll be in there with your hawk. the hog there's there's no cars out in the arctic yeah dropped off so oh we get dropped off okay yeah so there's there's no uh obviously no wi-fi no reception you're in the middle of nowhere i love it and that's uh it can get quite boring i'd go out for 30 to 60 days at a time so i basically downloaded a gajillion hours of your podcast uh and trailer park boys That's a big compliment.
Thank you.
Look at that.
That is very cool.
That's really cool.
Well, I've been watching you forever, Conan.
I just have so much respect for you and your team.
Thank you so much.
You're bringing comedy and kindness.
And we just need so much more of that.
And you're bringing it in a way.
It just reaches everyone.
That's so nice of you.
Me getting to tell you this is changing my life.
Oh, wow.
I want you to know how incredible.
You're changing people's lives, whether you know it or not, in such a good way.
Well, all I know is we keep our head down and we do this stuff.
And we do it because I can't not do it.
Does that make sense?
I'm not trying to do a public service.
I do this because it just has to happen.
It's like you guys have been around me when I haven't been able to do this for 10 minutes and it's not pretty.
But Mike, getting to talk to you is a real, it's a real pleasure.
You seem like a great person and what you're doing is really cool, and I love that you have found this life for yourself.
I say this all the time when we talk to fans, people that have found what they love and what they're passionate about, and then they manage to will that to be their career, their life.
I think that is the best way to go through our time here.
I really do.
I managed to do it.
You're doing it.
It's a beautiful thing.
So I hope our paths cross in person because I'd love to shake your hand.
I really would.
Incredible, Conan, incredible.
Did you have a question for Conan?
A question for him?
Well, I got him to name Interrupto over there.
She sat beside me perfectly through all the tech checks.
As soon as we got out, she flew away.
Yeah, I know.
She saw which way this was going.
Really standoffish now.
Just get back to our net.
I brought her to a staff meeting earlier today and she was interrupting everyone.
So they're going to love that name you gave her.
Well, say hi to everybody.
And Mike, a real pleasure.
And I mean it.
I hope we cross paths.
That'd be fun.
That would be incredible.
I'm hard to miss.
So keep your eyes peeled.
Okay.
Well, thank you so much.
This was incredible, guys.
Thanks for everything you do.
Take care.
We'll see you soon.
Bye.
Thank you.
Bye.
Conan O'Brien needs a fan.
With Conan O'Brien, Sonam Ovsessian, and Matt Gourley.
Produced by me, Matt Gourley.
Executive produced by Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and Nick Liao.
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